Cut, deceived and told he wasn't good enough, look at Brandon Marshall now

Imagine you’re living your dream.

After a stellar career in college, you’re selected in the NFL Draft, everything you’ve worked for is coming to fruition. You’re a young player with a lot of upside, looking to capitalize on the opportunity to learn the ins-and-outs of the big leagues and develop your game.

Imagine just six months in, before you’ve had a chance to do any of that, that dream begins to come crashing down.

You’re released one day, re-signed three days later, and re-released two days after that.

“After the second time I got cut, I just took a drive down I-95 South in Jacksonville,” Denver Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall remembered of his time with the Jaguars. “I got to St. Augustine and the whole drive I was just thinking, ‘What am I going to do now? What am I going to do next? This is my second time being cut, it might be over for me’. As I’m taking this drive, I’m just thinking and feeling bad for myself and feeling sorry for myself. But then I turned around, and I said, ‘You know what? I’m just going to keep working.’ That’s what I told myself. I’m going to keep working. If I’m going to go out, I’m going to go out on my terms because I felt like I almost tried to switch my game up and how I played to fit what they liked.”

So instead of going all the way to Miami, Marshall headed back to Jacksonville where a few days later he was signed to the Jags practice squad.

This is where the story—like that car—begins to turn around, right? Wrong.

After spending a short time on the active roster towards the end of the team’s 2-14 season, the rookie-no-longer went into his position coach’s office for his end-of-season meeting.

“[He told me] that he didn’t know if I was cut out for the NFL,” Marshall recalled.

“Honestly, when he told me that, I was looking dead into his eyes, and I wanted to cuss him out. I had that in my mind, and I was like, you know what ‘B,’ just prove them wrong. Don’t even do that. . . After that, I almost wanted the meeting to be over with. I almost got up and was ready to leave and just prove him wrong. That was just my mindset. I thought about that every day. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him telling me that. . . It ran through my mind each and every day as I was working. I was out there practicing; I was lifting weights—that’s my chip. That’s the biggest chip I have because people doubted me.”

So, again, Marshall went back to work. He worked, and he worked… and he worked… and he worked… and when an opportunity came up to get a fresh start with the Denver Broncos, he pounced on it like a starved jaguar.

The young ‘backer was signed to the Broncos practice squad in September of 2013. He found himself on a team that appreciated him for the player he was, a team that had actually inquired about him after the first time he was cut, something his agent—later fired—didn’t tell him about. A team where he could play his style of football.

But it still wasn’t easy, when a coach resting on nearly 40 years of experience says you aren’t good enough, it’s a hard message to shake.

“There was a time where I was really struggling and questioning myself about whether I could play,” Marshall remembered. “After he told me that, it kind of got in my head. I was wondering if can I play in this league, even when I first got to Denver.

“It was funny because I was working my tail off on the practice squad,” he added. “And then the next summer I remember driving to the stadium—John Fox used to put on an annual scrimmage—I was on the bus thinking, am I cut out for this? Just in my own head. But I quickly went, ‘No, no, I can play. I’m a good player.’ I think I just had to fight those demons that kept coming into my mind, telling me ‘You’re not good enough.'”

Just weeks into the season that scrimmage previewed, the once doubted, twice practice-squaded and thrice cut linebacker was thrust into the starting lineup and, well, he shined, playing his style of football all the way to leading the team in tackles (113) by nearly 40. His 91 solo stops were 31 more than the nearest Bronco.

Brandon Mashall was cut out for the NFL.

In 2015, Marshall once again led the team in solo stops and once again notched a 100-tackle season, a featured cog in one of the NFL’s greatest defenses of all time. He also became a Super Bowl champion.

On Tuesday, just eight days after visiting the White House, five days after speaking at his high school’s graduation, four days after “Brandon Marshall Day” was born in his hometown, and two days after receiving his Super Bowl ring, all of Marshalls pain, struggle and hard work was rewarded.

The center of the Broncos ‘D’ agreed to terms on a four-year, $32 million extension with the team, $20 million of that guaranteed.

So he stood up in front of the media with a $10 million signing bonus check in his pocket and a billion dollar smile on his face, and he told the stories you read above.

“For me to be sitting here, to be cut multiple times and having someone say you’re not good enough, it’s amazing,” he told.

Honored with the 2015 Darrent Williams Good Guy Award for his graciousness in dealing with the media, the smiley linebacker is a straight-shooter.

He admits he still follows the Jaguars on Twitter and Instagram, “Just to see what they’re up to.” We all like to see that we’re better off than our exes. He admits he gets urges to contact the coach who told him he wasn’t good enough, but he doesn’t have his number, “I might talk to him, see if he’s on facebook or something.” Wouldn’t you?

So when “B-Marsh” tells you it’s not about the money for him, you believe it, especially considering he risked costly injury when he opted to spend the offseason working with the Broncos, despite not yet being under contract.

“I think what has always driven me is not necessarily the cash, not necessarily the money,” he explained. “Even when I was a kid, I just wanted to be the best. I just loved the game of football. Now each and every day what drives me is, ‘Okay, how can I be considered the best ‘backer in the league?'”

It was a long road to get here, but Brandon Marshall is just getting started.

“That’s still a chip on my shoulder. It won’t leave me; I can promise you that,” he said. “I will earn every penny.”