Advertisement

I Could Listen to Aqib Talib Talk About Practicing on Adderall All Day Long

(Cued up to the 1:34 mark)

Sometimes I think the perfect cure for a troubled world is for us to all take some time out of our accursed lives and listen to Aqib Talib tell football stories. I'm being semi-serious here. He's candid. He's frank. He has little to no filter. In a media market saturated to overflowing with pre-programmed, uber-cautious broadcast school graduates and former athletes who majored in communications carefully parsing every word that passes their lips, and in doing so keeping us from really understanding what goes behind the scenes of the games we care about, he's a breath of pure mountain air. 

In this podcast, Talib is talking about Will Fuller and Bradley Roby getting suspended for running afoul of the NFL's substance abuse policy. And he brings the subject around to his own violation, when he was with Tampa back in 2012. Here's how it's transcribed by Radio.com, but it's a million times better the way he tells it than it reads. After he and his fellow corner Eric Wright took and passed their drug tests in training camp:

"We're hearing all of the Adderall stories... Adderall this, Adderall that, so we're like, let's see, let's see what the hell everybody [is] taking Adderall for while they play football, right?" Talib said, adding that they decided to take it before a practice that would put them in a game setting. "We're going against Mike Williams and Vincent Jackson — that's the two receivers on the Bucs.

"... I tell you, Harrison — Adderall is a performance enhancing drug. I was locked in. I was faster. I was thinking about the route... it was like a video game, Harrison. Real sh--. I was like a machine. I was like Mega Man. ...

"We had the best practices we've ever had, so we're like, 'oh hell yea, we're taking these for the game,' " Talib said. "[It] just so happened we had a PED test like two days later. Next thing you know, me and E-Wright failed, boom, PEDs. So we're like, 'what the f---, bro? We ain't take no steroids.' "

I'm assuming this is the Mega Man Talib felt like:

But don't quote me on that. No matter who it is, I have got to take some Adderall. Or better yet, take some and hang out with Aqib Talib because he is flat out one my favorite personalities to come through New England pro sports in the Championship Era. Funny, engaging and genuine. I mean, how many other guys would tell a story like this and just embrace it, instead of just making up nonsense about a supplement he bought off the shelf or something. The PED version of "My account was hacked." 

The man is a national treasure. For the love of God, some network, give this man a broadcasting job.