Name: Derek Wolfe Was Temporarily Paralyzed After Spinal Bruise; Played 2 Weeks Later
Uploaded: 2023-03-03T18:14:26.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Derek Wolfe Was Temporarily Paralyzed After Spinal Bruise; Played 2 Weeks Later' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-03. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Derek Wolfe Was Temporarily Paralyzed After Spinal Bruise; Played 2 Weeks Later' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-03. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan Experience.
I know you retired from football, and you're still in the prime of your life.
Did you retire because of injuries?
Did you decide that you had enough?
Yeah, it was a combination of all that.
So I had double hip surgeries.
I tore the labrums off the bone.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
My NFL, like the injuries I had while I was in the NFL were just out of control,
man.
In 2013, I bruised my spinal cord.
I was paralyzed for three hours, and then I played two weeks later.
Oh, my God.
How?
And I played for 12.
How?
It was miserable.
Every time I got touched, my arms would go numb.
And I'm a defensive lineman, so my head's getting hit every play.
Holy shit.
What was the play that made your spine get bruised?
So I was playing on the end of the line on the right side, and I was playing a
cut block.
Somebody tried to cut my legs out, so I'm playing sprawled out to play the cut
block,
and then the fullback hit me on top of the head.
Oh.
And I was awake.
It didn't knock me out.
It felt like, you know when you're sitting on a shitter for too long?
Get up?
Yes.
Exactly how my whole body felt, from the nose down.
Oh, my God.
You must have been terrified.
I was scared.
But then when I could feel them touching my toes, like a couple hours after it
happened,
I was in the hospital.
That's when I just started making jokes and stuff, because I knew something in
my head
just said, you're going to be fine.
I just had a feeling.
I had no choice.
I was a young kid, 22 years old, 23 years old.
Wow.
And then 12 weeks later, I was playing good football still somehow.
12 weeks later, I had a seizure.
Like a bad seizure.
It almost killed me.
I was in a coma for 36 hours.
Oh, sorry.
So, did the seizure come out of a play, or did it...
No, it was because I wasn't getting fresh blood to my brain, because there was
a bruise on
that spinal right at the base of my brain stem, and it never healed.
I didn't let it heal.
Two weeks isn't going to heal a bruise, you know?
Holy shit.
It never healed, so I wasn't getting fresh blood to my brain, so I was running
on just
pure adrenaline.
How did they clear you to play two weeks later?
They told me it was a stinger.
Oh, God.
They said, "It's just a stinger.
You're fine."
Well, they said, "Well, you know when you have a big warehouse, and you flip
the lights
off, they come right off.
But when you turn them on, it takes a while for them to come back on."
That's what they told me happened.
They're comparing you to a warehouse.
Yeah.
You're like, "Hey, motherfucker.
I'm a human."
That's when I realized, man.
You don't care about us.
No.
No.
There's another guy waiting to take your spot.
That's what's so crazy.
And that's why you have to play.
Yeah.
That's why guys play hurt and play banged up.
So how much time did you get to train before you went and played two weeks
later?
I just went straight into practice the next week.
Wow.
The next week.
Yeah.
So one week after you're paralyzed, you're in practice.
Yeah.
So they tried to keep me in the hospital after the game.
And I was like, "When's the plane leaving?"
And they were like, "They're getting ready to go to the plane right now.
It's a preseason game."
And I was like, "Okay, well, I'm getting on that plane then."
So I had them take me from the hospital to the plane.
I had a big neck brace on.
So the doctors wanted to keep you in the hospital.
Yeah.
Doctors wanted me to stay, but the team doctors were like, "You're good.
We can go."
Team doctors are savages.
The savages.
Oh, my God.
Well, they did the x-rays and the MRIs right away, you know?
Right.
So we went straight to the ER.
I was on a stretcher, you know, into an ambulance.
They had to bring the ambulance on the field.
I couldn't move.
I was just stuck in the ground.
It was like I was melted, you know?
I couldn't move at all.
All my muscles were just -- it was the weirdest feeling, man.
But like I said, I was feeling better, but I think I just tricked my brain into
thinking, like, I was in survival mode.
I've been in survival mode since the day I came out of the womb, man.
I just -- like, always surviving, you know, just trying to survive through
whatever it is that's going on.
It's like I disassociate from it and just make it through.
Great skill to have if you want to play professional football, right?
Well, I don't know if you saw what Deion Sanders just said about what he's
looking for in a quarterback.
He wants a two-parent home, a 3.5 GPA, and he wants the complete opposite for a
defensive lineman.
Really?
Yeah, he's like, I want -- it's either football or prison pretty much type of
motherfucker is what he wants.
But if you think about the position and you think about what you guys have to
do, it kind of makes sense.
You have to be fucking barbaric.
Yeah, it is a fucking war in there.
You got two -- I mean, the size of these offensive linemen now, I mean, they're
fucking 350 pounds, and there's two of them.
And they're trying to move you every fucking play.
Oh, my God.
And you better -- if you play pussy, you're going to get fucked.
That's what I would say.
You go out there playing pussy, you're going to get fucked.
That's just the way it goes.
What is the average lifetime of a career in the NFL?
Two and a half years.
Wow.
Because at that third year, you get vested.
So vested means you get pension and all the benefits that come with that.
And most guys don't get there.
And most guys don't get there.
You know, we talk about it with fighting all the time that a real elite athlete
in his prime has like nine years.
You got like -- that's the consensus is there's like nine years at peak
performance.
Yeah.
And then it's just too much.
The wheels fall off, the injuries stack up, you know, the time and training.
And then sometimes it's enthusiasm too.
Guys lose that fire that made them a savage in the beginning.
But football's even worse.
I mean, it's even shorter time.
Well, it's shorter, but your earnings, right?
Your earnings -- you don't get to that -- you're on a rookie contract for your
first four years.
So you get drafted and you're on that rookie contract.
You make -- pretty much slotted out the money.
You don't -- if you're not a top 10 pick in the draft, then you're not really
making life-changing money, you know?
I had $7 when I got drafted, though.
I didn't even have a bank account.
I didn't have shit.
I was just a fucking poor-ass kid from Ohio.
I went to Cincinnati and I lived with Travis and Jason Kelsey.
We all lived in the same house.
I don't know if you know who those guys are, but Travis is the best tight end
in the history of the NFL now.
Jason's going to be the best center, both Hall of Famers.
Just played against each other in the Super Bowl.
And then our quarterback went up to Canada and won two Grey Cups.
So we got four Super Bowls and two Grey Cups in that house.
And we were fuck-ups.
We were fucking idiots.
But again, don't you kind of want that from -- I want football players to be a
little reckless.
You have to be.
Yeah.
Same with fighters.
I don't want a fucking Boy Scout.
Exactly.
When John Jones kept getting into trouble and people were like, "Can you
believe what John Jones did?"
I'm like, "John Jones is a wild motherfucker.
That's why he's the greatest of all time."
Like, you need an element of psycho in there.
You have to be fucked up.
You have to be fucked up.
You do.
It's just the way it goes.
I think he's fucked up to do it.
Is that true with all of them?
Is that true?
Like, you've been around the greats.
You've been around some amazing players.
Like, is that true with all of them?
No.
No.
It's all -- most D linemen, interior defensive linemen though, they're fucked
up.
They are.
They're just fucking different.
Like, Aaron Donald is a different motherfucker.
He was -- I mean, he's going to go down as the best defense tackle to ever do
it.
But he's fucking wild.
Like, he's crazy.
Do you think --
He tries to kill people out there.
He came in with that?
Or do you think that also developed over the course of his career?
I think it develops over your life, right?
I don't know his life story or anything, but most of us have been through some
shit.
Right.
You know, and it's just -- you can kind of see it when you meet a guy.
He's just fucking different, right?
Yeah.
And when you meet -- then you meet guy -- I have like Peyton Manning, good
friend of mine now.
And, you know, we were teammates for four years, won a Super Bowl together.
And he still lives in Denver, so we see each other all the time.
But, like, Peyton was, like, complete opposite.
Like, he'd fucking -- he, like, controlled the room.
Everything he did was, like, dialed in.
It was so dialed and so professional.
Like, he came to work, like, dressed professionally, right?
Defense linemen, we're coming in fucking slides and fucking shorts and t-shirts
and shit, right?
He would show up fucking buttoned up with a suitcase or with a briefcase, you
know?
We're going right to the film room.
We're going fucking to the weight room.
Right.
That's where we're going.
So, it was just a different vibe, man.
And then, like, DeMarcus Ware, fucking ultimate -- like, such a professional.
Everything about him was professional.
But the great D-linemen that are interior guys, they're usually fucked up.
John Randall?
You've heard of him?
Yes.
This guy fucking slept on a fucking dirt floor growing up.
Jesus.
You think he's not a little fucked up?
Yeah.
And then there's the sport itself, which, I mean, just the amount of impacts
you guys are taking on a regular basis.
Every day.
Yeah.
It was time to be stopping with the NFL.
Like, when I was like, I'm done.
I played eight years in Denver, which was awesome.
But then I dislocated my elbow bad going into a contract year in 2019.
I was having my best season of my career.
Year eight, balling out, about to get another payday.
And it was like a dead play.
So, the whistle didn't get blown.
A couple guys jumped off sides.
And the whistle gets blown halfway through the play.
So, half the fucking field is moving at full speed and half the field's not.
And it's like a fourth and inches play.
So, I try to make the fucking tackle.
And I, like, slow up and I end up slipping and falling.
And I'm going to get up and our 330-pound nose tackle goes to, like --
He's, like, running straight at me and his fucking shin hits me right in the
elbow.
And it goes to the ground.
Oh!
Dislocated all the way to the fucking ground.
I fucking -- Dude, I was -- I'd never been in so much pain.
It hurt so fucking -- it made me want to throw up.
I was throwing up in my mouth.
Because I was grabbing at it and trying to put it back in.
Oh!
Because I -- in 2016, I did that with my right elbow.
It came out and I put it right back in.
It just kept going.
I mean, that's the fucking -- the shit -- your fingers get popped out all the
time.
You just put them in and go.
Wow.
Like, there's no time to fuck around.
And I was trying to get it to go in.
And I could just feel it grinding on the bone, grinding against each other.
And it was, like, making me fucking ill.
Oh!
And then they took me in -- they took me in the locker room and I was fucking
pissed.
Because I knew it was going to cost me a bunch of money.
That elbow deal was going to cost me -- I knew it.
It probably cost me $20 million.
Oh!
Fucking pissed.
My own teammate -- he didn't mean to.
It's not his fault.
Yeah.
I was going to fucking play.
I was losing my shit.
I fucking slammed my helmet.
I was like, these motherfuckers.
Like, I was blaming the refs.
I was blaming everybody.
Fucking, fucking refs.
I'm going to sue the fucking refs.
Like, what's -- my turn -- all right, you know, you got to think.
And here's the other thing.
Before games, I was taking microdoses.
So, I'm microdosed and I'm at, like, full --
You're taking mushrooms?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Before games.
So, I'm taking mushrooms --
That's the Viking in you.
Yeah.
I'm fucking taking mushrooms and fucking Adderall.
Wow.
Oh, my God.
What a combination.
What is that like?
Mushrooms and Adderall.
Dude, the fucking focus is out of control.
And I would just, like -- before games, I would, like -- I would, like, get
myself pissed off.
So, I just would start thinking about my childhood.
Like, the shit that I went through as a kid.
Whoa.
And they would fucking get me into this rage mode.
And it was, like, this crazy controlled rage.
So, Adderall, mushrooms, and childhood rage.
Yeah.
All together in a 280-pound savage.
Dude.
Well, I was, like, 300 pounds then, you know?
Oh, my God.
I was, like, 20 pounds heavier than I am now when I was playing.
Whew.
Oh, my God.
Just fucking -- such a meathead.
How?
Saying wild, crazy shit to quarterbacks.
I told a guy I was going to fucking eat his kids.
Oh, my God.
It was crazy.
What did he say?
He didn't say shit.
He never talked -- I played against this guy twice a year for eight years, and
that was in year four that that happened.
So, four years straight, he never said another word to me.
Oh, my God.
He was, like, this guy's a fucking sicko.
Once I got married and had kids and stuff, though, I, like, I was, like, colded
on saying shit like that.
But I just -- that's what you do, man.
It's a fucking head game.
It's a head game.
I'm trying to get in his head.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
I always try to explain that to people.
People, "Conor McGregor's a fucking asshole.
The things he says."
I'm, like, it's part of the game.
I mean, it's -- yeah, I get it.
You don't want to hear those things.
I get it.
I get it.
But that's legal.
And that works.
It works.
It's strategy.
It's Sun Tzu Art of War.

Derek Wolfe Was Temporarily Paralyzed After Spinal Bruise; Played 2 Weeks Later

The Joe Rogan Experience.
I know you retired from football, and you're still in the prime of your life.
Did you retire because of injuries?
Did you decide that you had enough?
Yeah, it was a combination of all that.
So I had double hip surgeries.
I tore the labrums off the bone.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
My NFL, like the injuries I had while I was in the NFL were just out of control,
man.
In 2013, I bruised my spinal cord.
I was paralyzed for three hours, and then I played two weeks later.
Oh, my God.
How?
And I played for 12.
How?
It was miserable.
Every time I got touched, my arms would go numb.
And I'm a defensive lineman, so my head's getting hit every play.
Holy shit.
What was the play that made your spine get bruised?
So I was playing on the end of the line on the right side, and I was playing a
cut block.
Somebody tried to cut my legs out, so I'm playing sprawled out to play the cut
block,
and then the fullback hit me on top of the head.
Oh.
And I was awake.
It didn't knock me out.
It felt like, you know when you're sitting on a shitter for too long?
Get up?
Yes.
Exactly how my whole body felt, from the nose down.
Oh, my God.
You must have been terrified.
I was scared.
But then when I could feel them touching my toes, like a couple hours after it
happened,
I was in the hospital.
That's when I just started making jokes and stuff, because I knew something in
my head
just said, you're going to be fine.
I just had a feeling.
I had no choice.
I was a young kid, 22 years old, 23 years old.
Wow.
And then 12 weeks later, I was playing good football still somehow.
12 weeks later, I had a seizure.
Like a bad seizure.
It almost killed me.
I was in a coma for 36 hours.
Oh, sorry.
So, did the seizure come out of a play, or did it...
No, it was because I wasn't getting fresh blood to my brain, because there was
a bruise on
that spinal right at the base of my brain stem, and it never healed.
I didn't let it heal.
Two weeks isn't going to heal a bruise, you know?
Holy shit.
It never healed, so I wasn't getting fresh blood to my brain, so I was running
on just
pure adrenaline.
How did they clear you to play two weeks later?
They told me it was a stinger.
Oh, God.
They said, "It's just a stinger.
You're fine."
Well, they said, "Well, you know when you have a big warehouse, and you flip
the lights
off, they come right off.
But when you turn them on, it takes a while for them to come back on."
That's what they told me happened.
They're comparing you to a warehouse.
Yeah.
You're like, "Hey, motherfucker.
I'm a human."
That's when I realized, man.
You don't care about us.
No.
No.
There's another guy waiting to take your spot.
That's what's so crazy.
And that's why you have to play.
Yeah.
That's why guys play hurt and play banged up.
So how much time did you get to train before you went and played two weeks
later?
I just went straight into practice the next week.
Wow.
The next week.
Yeah.
So one week after you're paralyzed, you're in practice.
Yeah.
So they tried to keep me in the hospital after the game.
And I was like, "When's the plane leaving?"
And they were like, "They're getting ready to go to the plane right now.
It's a preseason game."
And I was like, "Okay, well, I'm getting on that plane then."
So I had them take me from the hospital to the plane.
I had a big neck brace on.
So the doctors wanted to keep you in the hospital.
Yeah.
Doctors wanted me to stay, but the team doctors were like, "You're good.
We can go."
Team doctors are savages.
The savages.
Oh, my God.
Well, they did the x-rays and the MRIs right away, you know?
Right.
So we went straight to the ER.
I was on a stretcher, you know, into an ambulance.
They had to bring the ambulance on the field.
I couldn't move.
I was just stuck in the ground.
It was like I was melted, you know?
I couldn't move at all.
All my muscles were just -- it was the weirdest feeling, man.
But like I said, I was feeling better, but I think I just tricked my brain into
thinking, like, I was in survival mode.
I've been in survival mode since the day I came out of the womb, man.
I just -- like, always surviving, you know, just trying to survive through
whatever it is that's going on.
It's like I disassociate from it and just make it through.
Great skill to have if you want to play professional football, right?
Well, I don't know if you saw what Deion Sanders just said about what he's
looking for in a quarterback.
He wants a two-parent home, a 3.5 GPA, and he wants the complete opposite for a
defensive lineman.
Really?
Yeah, he's like, I want -- it's either football or prison pretty much type of
motherfucker is what he wants.
But if you think about the position and you think about what you guys have to
do, it kind of makes sense.
You have to be fucking barbaric.
Yeah, it is a fucking war in there.
You got two -- I mean, the size of these offensive linemen now, I mean, they're
fucking 350 pounds, and there's two of them.
And they're trying to move you every fucking play.
Oh, my God.
And you better -- if you play pussy, you're going to get fucked.
That's what I would say.
You go out there playing pussy, you're going to get fucked.
That's just the way it goes.
What is the average lifetime of a career in the NFL?
Two and a half years.
Wow.
Because at that third year, you get vested.
So vested means you get pension and all the benefits that come with that.
And most guys don't get there.
And most guys don't get there.
You know, we talk about it with fighting all the time that a real elite athlete
in his prime has like nine years.
You got like -- that's the consensus is there's like nine years at peak
performance.
Yeah.
And then it's just too much.
The wheels fall off, the injuries stack up, you know, the time and training.
And then sometimes it's enthusiasm too.
Guys lose that fire that made them a savage in the beginning.
But football's even worse.
I mean, it's even shorter time.
Well, it's shorter, but your earnings, right?
Your earnings -- you don't get to that -- you're on a rookie contract for your
first four years.
So you get drafted and you're on that rookie contract.
You make -- pretty much slotted out the money.
You don't -- if you're not a top 10 pick in the draft, then you're not really
making life-changing money, you know?
I had $7 when I got drafted, though.
I didn't even have a bank account.
I didn't have shit.
I was just a fucking poor-ass kid from Ohio.
I went to Cincinnati and I lived with Travis and Jason Kelsey.
We all lived in the same house.
I don't know if you know who those guys are, but Travis is the best tight end
in the history of the NFL now.
Jason's going to be the best center, both Hall of Famers.
Just played against each other in the Super Bowl.
And then our quarterback went up to Canada and won two Grey Cups.
So we got four Super Bowls and two Grey Cups in that house.
And we were fuck-ups.
We were fucking idiots.
But again, don't you kind of want that from -- I want football players to be a
little reckless.
You have to be.
Yeah.
Same with fighters.
I don't want a fucking Boy Scout.
Exactly.
When John Jones kept getting into trouble and people were like, "Can you
believe what John Jones did?"
I'm like, "John Jones is a wild motherfucker.
That's why he's the greatest of all time."
Like, you need an element of psycho in there.
You have to be fucked up.
You have to be fucked up.
You do.
It's just the way it goes.
I think he's fucked up to do it.
Is that true with all of them?
Is that true?
Like, you've been around the greats.
You've been around some amazing players.
Like, is that true with all of them?
No.
No.
It's all -- most D linemen, interior defensive linemen though, they're fucked
up.
They are.
They're just fucking different.
Like, Aaron Donald is a different motherfucker.
He was -- I mean, he's going to go down as the best defense tackle to ever do
it.
But he's fucking wild.
Like, he's crazy.
Do you think --
He tries to kill people out there.
He came in with that?
Or do you think that also developed over the course of his career?
I think it develops over your life, right?
I don't know his life story or anything, but most of us have been through some
shit.
Right.
You know, and it's just -- you can kind of see it when you meet a guy.
He's just fucking different, right?
Yeah.
And when you meet -- then you meet guy -- I have like Peyton Manning, good
friend of mine now.
And, you know, we were teammates for four years, won a Super Bowl together.
And he still lives in Denver, so we see each other all the time.
But, like, Peyton was, like, complete opposite.
Like, he'd fucking -- he, like, controlled the room.
Everything he did was, like, dialed in.
It was so dialed and so professional.
Like, he came to work, like, dressed professionally, right?
Defense linemen, we're coming in fucking slides and fucking shorts and t-shirts
and shit, right?
He would show up fucking buttoned up with a suitcase or with a briefcase, you
know?
We're going right to the film room.
We're going fucking to the weight room.
Right.
That's where we're going.
So, it was just a different vibe, man.
And then, like, DeMarcus Ware, fucking ultimate -- like, such a professional.
Everything about him was professional.
But the great D-linemen that are interior guys, they're usually fucked up.
John Randall?
You've heard of him?
Yes.
This guy fucking slept on a fucking dirt floor growing up.
Jesus.
You think he's not a little fucked up?
Yeah.
And then there's the sport itself, which, I mean, just the amount of impacts
you guys are taking on a regular basis.
Every day.
Yeah.
It was time to be stopping with the NFL.
Like, when I was like, I'm done.
I played eight years in Denver, which was awesome.
But then I dislocated my elbow bad going into a contract year in 2019.
I was having my best season of my career.
Year eight, balling out, about to get another payday.
And it was like a dead play.
So, the whistle didn't get blown.
A couple guys jumped off sides.
And the whistle gets blown halfway through the play.
So, half the fucking field is moving at full speed and half the field's not.
And it's like a fourth and inches play.
So, I try to make the fucking tackle.
And I, like, slow up and I end up slipping and falling.
And I'm going to get up and our 330-pound nose tackle goes to, like --
He's, like, running straight at me and his fucking shin hits me right in the
elbow.
And it goes to the ground.
Oh!
Dislocated all the way to the fucking ground.
I fucking -- Dude, I was -- I'd never been in so much pain.
It hurt so fucking -- it made me want to throw up.
I was throwing up in my mouth.
Because I was grabbing at it and trying to put it back in.
Oh!
Because I -- in 2016, I did that with my right elbow.
It came out and I put it right back in.
It just kept going.
I mean, that's the fucking -- the shit -- your fingers get popped out all the
time.
You just put them in and go.
Wow.
Like, there's no time to fuck around.
And I was trying to get it to go in.
And I could just feel it grinding on the bone, grinding against each other.
And it was, like, making me fucking ill.
Oh!
And then they took me in -- they took me in the locker room and I was fucking
pissed.
Because I knew it was going to cost me a bunch of money.
That elbow deal was going to cost me -- I knew it.
It probably cost me $20 million.
Oh!
Fucking pissed.
My own teammate -- he didn't mean to.
It's not his fault.
Yeah.
I was going to fucking play.
I was losing my shit.
I fucking slammed my helmet.
I was like, these motherfuckers.
Like, I was blaming the refs.
I was blaming everybody.
Fucking, fucking refs.
I'm going to sue the fucking refs.
Like, what's -- my turn -- all right, you know, you got to think.
And here's the other thing.
Before games, I was taking microdoses.
So, I'm microdosed and I'm at, like, full --
You're taking mushrooms?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Before games.
So, I'm taking mushrooms --
That's the Viking in you.
Yeah.
I'm fucking taking mushrooms and fucking Adderall.
Wow.
Oh, my God.
What a combination.
What is th