R. Jay Soward
| No. 81, 18 | |||||||
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| Position: | Wide Receiver | ||||||
| Personal information | |||||||
| Date of birth: | January 16, 1978 | ||||||
| Place of birth: | Rialto, California | ||||||
| Height: | 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) | ||||||
| Weight: | 184 lb (83 kg) | ||||||
| Career information | |||||||
| High school: | Fontana (CA) | ||||||
| College: | USC | ||||||
| NFL Draft: | 2000 / Round: 1 / Pick: 29 | ||||||
| Career history | |||||||
| Career NFL statistics | |||||||
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| Receptions: | 14 |
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| Receiving yards: | 154 |
| Touchdowns: | 1 |
Rodney Jay Soward (born January 16, 1978) is a former gridiron football wide receiver.
He burst onto the college football scene with a 4-touchdown game vs. UCLA in his freshman season with USC. Despite Soward's superior skills, he never reached his potential in his USC career, ending his tenure with 32 touchdowns in four seasons.
The Jacksonville Jaguars took him with their first-round selection (29th overall) in the 2000 NFL Draft. Soward did not take the pressure of being a first-round selection very well. "I think the hardest part for me was dealing with all the pressure after getting drafted," he recalls. "I didn’t play well my first year so people were on me a lot. I wish I would have went to New Orleans in the second round. I wish I hadn’t ever been a first round draft pick. I felt that New Orleans had a better staff to suit me at that time. I think being with those guys would have changed my future in the NFL."
After wearing out his welcome with the Jags in training camp, before playing in his first game under head coach Tom Coughlin (who had gone so far as to send a limousine, at the team's expense, to pick up Soward every day for practice, just to make sure he would come), he was suspended several times by the NFL for violating the league's substance abuse policy. He has not filed for re-instatement since his last suspension. Though many media outlets attributed the suspension to marijuana, his suspension came as a result of alcohol abuse. "I can honestly say I was an alcoholic at that time in my life," Soward recollects. "That’s why I’m not playing in the NFL, because I was an alcoholic at that time."
After entering the NFL's substance abuse program, Soward was critical about its effectiveness. "It was horrible counseling. I’ve been in every rehab centre known to man," said Soward. "They even had the nerve to put me in rehab in Miami, the drug capital of the world. I don’t really think the rehabilitation process is very good for players down there. I think it is more of a disciplinary kind of rehabilitation which doesn’t teach anybody anything. For me, the more they took away from me the more it made me want to drink, the more it made me want to feel depressed, the more it made me want to feel bad about me."
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