Former Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle Mike Adams joined the All For Nothing podcast Monday to discuss his life and career. These days, yoga is his calling card. A decade ago, it was football. A former second-round pick, Adams played in Pittsburgh from 2012 to 2014. He had an underwhelming career, starting just 20 games, and was quickly bounced from the league.
Adams is remembered for an off-field incident that occurred in June 2013. In the early morning hours of June 1, Adams was stabbed and held at gunpoint in a carjacking. He recovered and was cleared to start the 2013 season but struggled mightily, effectively the beginning of the end of his career.
Speaking on the podcast with host Tyler Bossetti, Adams revealed how traumatic his experience was and how it impacted the rest of his career. And his life.
“So that was pretty much like the big pivot, the big turning point for me,” he said. “It was the first time in my life where, well, I wasn’t sure if I was gonna make it. And then wasn’t sure if I was gonna be able to play football again.”
Adams told the show had the wound been just a little bit deeper or had help not arrived for another ten minutes, he would’ve died. Recovery was difficult, ten days in the hospital, and he pushed himself to get ready for training camp.
“I did that thing that we all do, that Superman complex where it’s like, ‘I gotta do this. I gotta rush back, I gotta be there for the team…’rushed that, developed a hernia in my stomach, could barely play, ended up getting benched for the first time in my life.”
Adams started the first four games of the 2013 season but had a horrendous game in a loss to the Minnesota Vikings that dropped Pittsburgh to 0-4. Following the team’s bye week, he was inactive for its Week 6 game, and a backup for Week 7, serving as a tackle-eligible. He would spend most of the rest of that season in that role though he started again in a Week 14 loss to the Miami Dolphins (the Antonio Brown stepped out of bounds game).
It wasn’t until 2015 that Adams underwent surgery for a back injury that was may have been related to the hernia issue. After the 2013 season, he would start just four more games as a Steeler. The 2015 season saw him miss the year with his back injury, one that occurred randomly before practice and left him unable to move later in the day, a “massive herniation” of his L5-S1 disk in his back. That led to “dropfoot,” a condition former Steelers’ OT Tony Hills once had, and led to Adams needing surgery. He played another 12 games with Chicago in 2016 before another back injury ended his career for good.
Adams went on to talk about the difficulty of the stabbing incident and how much it impacted him mentally, which no doubt contributed to his on-field struggles.
“Coupled on top of that PTSD and night terrors where I was sleeping for maybe an hour-plus a night. On average,” he said. “So some nights I didn’t sleep. Some nights I might’ve slept three or four hours. It was the craziest time in life. Suicidal ideations, left and right.”
After his NFL days were done, Adams dropped a massive amount of weight and transformed his body. He got into yoga after a teammate told him it’d be good for his core. From there, he loved the exercise and has pursued it ever since. Though his football career didn’t pan out, it sounds like his life is in a far better place.
Check out the whole episode below.
