Outrunning the Past: A Conversation With Former Jaguars Receiver R. Jay Soward

R. Jay Soward was projected to be a star for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Instead, he played only 13 games and became an example of what not to do. For the first time in 20 years, he sits down to tell the story of what went wrong.

R. Jay Soward fumed on the sidelines. He was angry, he was hurt and he was drunk. 

Or to put more aptly, as he recalls it, he “was a belligerent drunk.”

Soward had always been one of the best athletes on the field, so much so, the Jacksonville Jaguars had taken him No. 29 overall in the first round of the 2000 NFL Draft. Just a little over a year and a half later, he slumped on the sideline, forced to watch but not play as his team took on Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers on "Monday Night Football."

With just under two minutes to play, the teams were tied at 21. After Favre ran in a touchdown to go up 28-21 and with less than a minute to go, the Jaguars were driving to tie or possibly take the lead.

Soward thought he’d be playing in the primetime clash. Instead he stood stoic on the sideline next to actor Samuel L. Jackson—on the field as a fan—as Jackson lectured him.

“You need to concentrate on football now," the actor told Soward. "Whatever you want to do with extracurricular activities, or smoke or whatever you want to do, do it after football.” 

It was advice Soward had ignored thus far. He’d just spent 10 weeks at a NFL rehab center and returned to Jacksonville in time to practice for the big night.

“I come back, [former head coach] Coach [Tom] Coughlin says, ‘We're going to see how you practice, and see if you practice well, we'll let you play Monday night.’ Because it’s against Brett Favre. So of course, first day of practice, I caught one ball, he said, ‘You're playing.’”

Then on Monday night, as Soward was prepping for his triumphant return, receivers coach John McNulty approached him. Soward wasn’t going to be facing the Packers that night. The reasoning was the need for an extra defensive player on the active roster.

“I was crushed. I did everything [those] guys asked me to do. I didn't do it all the way and maybe that's why it didn't turn out the way it did because I cut corners. And if you don't do things right, you're not going to get the right results,” Soward tells Jaguar Report, 20 years of reflection helping him to understand but doing little to ease the pain of the memory.

The Packers game was supposed to be a fresh start for the embattled receiver. He had pinned all of his future hopes on getting back on the field that Monday night. Instead, he watched as a dropped pass on third-and-long pushed the Jags against a long fourth-down try. 

“I remember like it was yesterday," Soward says. "I was supposed to be in there and Alvis Whitted dropped the ball.”

Quarterback Mark Brunell was sacked. Jacksonville turned the ball over on downs, effectively losing the game.

Angry, hurt and drunk, Soward stumbled out of the stadium.

It was the last time he would ever step foot on an NFL football field. 

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This isn’t a redemption story.

This isn’t a comeback, a revival or an inspiring tale of vindication and absolution.

If anything, this is a cautionary tale. A desperate plea from one man to learn from his mistakes.

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Soward is a California native and current resident. It’s where he went to school, a receiver with the local USC Trojans, and quickly made a name for himself with a four-touchdown game as a freshman versus rival UCLA.

The Jaguars drafted him 29th overall—the highest they’d ever drafted a receiver at the time—and signed him to a five-year contract worth $5.5 million. He was supposed to be a star; a dynamic receiver with God-given talent that could become a go-to guy for Brunell. The playmaker to help Coughlin’s team return to the AFC Championship for the third time … and maybe win it that time.

“Tom Coughlin was so determined to prove that this is the guy that's gonna help get us over the hump and get us there. I don't think he anticipated R. Jay having to struggle, living on his own in a city where he knows nobody, as a West Coast guy,” recalls Jaguars receiver Jimmy Smith.

There are no pictures in this story; even fewer highlights and tangible proof of Soward’s time with the Jaguars. He threw it all away. All of his NFL memorabilia, the championship wares from when he won a trophy in the Canadian League years later. All gone. Some are possibly in a closet at his mother's house, he says. But he’s not sure and he doesn’t want to see it. It’s not because he doesn’t care; more like he cares too much.

There’s a visceral reaction in Soward whenever confronted with items from his past. There’s an even stronger one when he tries to watch a game. He doesn’t acknowledge the NFL during the regular season. He’ll watch the Jaguars if they’re in the playoffs, and he’ll allow the Super Bowl to stay on the TV for the entire 60-minute clock. But he’s in and out of the room the whole time. He hasn’t watched a full game in 20 years.

“It just makes me sick, because I love it so much and I took it away from myself," Soward said. "So it's like—whenever I watch it, I just, I feel like I'm gonna vomit, so I can’t.”

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To better understand what happens next requires hindsight Soward didn’t have 21 years ago. Asked the biggest lesson he learned through his two tumultuous years in the NFL, Soward answers without hesitation.

“That I can’t drink alcohol.”

Addiction can cause a person to live outside themselves. It encourages acts and flashes of a personality that aren’t indicative of the vessel but rather the substance that has taken over. Everything that follows below is a result of the disease working in Soward. He wants to make it clear they were still choices he made; metaphorical knife wounds he self-inflicted. But these decisions were not necessarily those of Soward, but more so Soward under the influence.

When Soward first arrived at Jaguars camp during that 2000 NFL offseason, he was carrying a weighty bitterness.

“I really wanted to go to New Orleans," he said. "It's just I felt I fit in better there.”

Soward was worried he wouldn’t get along with Coughlin, someone he calls an excellent on-field coach, but not necessarily the hands-on player's coach he wanted. Instead he’d been praying for a skipper like John Robinson, who’d been his coach at USC as a freshman and sophomore, or James Haslett, who was the head of the New Orleans Saints at the time. Still, it was Jacksonville who nabbed the young receiver, so he made the cross-country trip.

Once in Jacksonville, Soward looked around at his peers and knew without a doubt, he had the talent to succeed. His mistake was thinking that’s all he’d need. His father though was rightly concerned it wouldn’t be enough.

After Soward arrived in Jacksonville, his father in tow, the elder Soward pulled aside receivers Keenan McCardell and Jimmy Smith.

“His father was the happiest man I’d seen in a long time,” Smith says through a sad smile. “He came up to me and Keenan just like, ‘Man I’m so glad my son got drafted to the Jaguars. That [you and Keenan] can mentor him and help him throughout his career.”

But all of Smith’s and McCarrdell’s efforts were in vain.

Rumors have floated for years, unbounded and fueled by speculation, about all the Jaguars had to do to keep Soward in line during that first camp. For Soward, that time all boils down to something Coughlin told him one day.

“He said, ‘You're my best player on the field but I'm so afraid when you go home.' I didn't understand what he meant at the time. But now I do.”

When Soward would go home, there was no supervision, no accountability, no voice other than his own, and it was telling him to grab a beer. Then another. Then another.

“Whenever I had like a taste of beer, then it would just [be] beer from 6 a.m. to 6 a.m.,” Soward recalls, voice shaking with the shame the memory drudges.

Soward played in 13 games his rookie season, starting two. He was a backup to Pro Bowler’s Smith and McCardell. He caught 14 passes for 154 yards and one touchdown. The one touchdown is his favorite memory in his, albeit short, NFL career.

“My only touchdown [was] when I beat Deion Sanders on that deep post,” he chuckles. “I only scored one touchdown in the league and it was against Deion, it was against the best corner ever to play the game so that, that says a lot to me.

“It was backside post. [Offensive coordinator Bobby] Petrino was so worried … I remember [quarterback] Mark [Brunell] said, ‘I’m coming to you’ so I was like, alright and I seen Deion out there, I said ‘alright, I gotta run as fast as possible.’” 

It was the second time that day Soward beat Sanders on the post route, a feat so rare, the Jaguars 2001 media guide mentions both plays, despite the first one being a drop. Even Sanders was impressed.

“After the game Deion came and said, he said, ‘Hey boy, you made me look like a rookie out there,’ and he gave me a hug and I said, ‘Thank you, Mr. Sanders.’ That was like the highlight moment, to beat Deion Sanders for a touchdown—and like I beat him bad too.”

The cackle as Soward describes his shining moment fades as he remembers what happened next.

“I always get so sentimental every time I talk about this situation, because like it brings up so many different emotions. Good ones, bad ones. Like I remember Fred Taylor, like all my friends, [corner] Fernando [Bryant], going up against, Aaron [Beasley] every day like, man," Soward says. "So, I’m just—it’s just hard. But I like the opportunity because I need to say it because it helps me every day.”

So, he begins to “say it,” telling a story that few knew about at the time and none have heard since.

Before the 2001 season, the former first-round pick was fighting to be third on the depth chart and an adult on his own. It didn’t go well. He was sent to an NFL rehab center in Miami for 10 weeks, banished for the first three quarters of the Jaguars' 2001 season. Nothing good ever happens in Miami.

“It was a halfway house in Miami; I'm like, why are you guys sending me to Miami…it's like going to Vegas.

“That was the first time I ever took ecstasy, in an NFL rehab center,” Soward reveals, taking a long pause as he stares off, almost shocked at the words himself.

"I've never told nobody about that.”

He didn’t train the entire time he was in South Florida, knowing he’d physically be able to return to the game with ease. It was the mental part that was holding him back. The ecstasy and addiction didn’t help.

When he returned from the 10 weeks in Miami—which did more harm than good—and was benched for the Packers game, Soward began to spiral. He cursed out his parents after the Green Bay loss, put them on a plane back to California, and splinted a fracture in the relationship that is only just recently healing.

“Me and my dad are in a better place today but it really caused a lot of strain on everything, all the relationships and all the people I loved.”

He went to Canada and won a Grey Cup Championship. He applied to be allowed back in the NFL and was told by the league he needed to finish six more months of drug testing. During that time, he heard another former NFL player—one who’d been kicked out for drugs as well and was applying to be reinstated after playing in Canada—admit in a radio interview that he’d continued to do marijuana while in Canada. 

In the most recent (2020) agreed-upon standards and protocol between the NFL and NFL Players Association for players found to be using recreational drugs and/or abusing alcohol, reinstatement criteria is set forth as such:

“After the completion of the one-year banishment period, the Commissioner, in his sole discretion, will determine if and when the Player will be allowed to return to the NFL. A Player’s failure to adhere to his Treatment Plan during his banishment will be a significant consideration in the Commissioner’s decision. A Player seeking reinstatement also must meet certain clinical requirements as determined by the Medical Director and other requirements as set forth [in an appendix.]”

Soward finished his six months of testing, returning a clean bill. He was denied reinstatement. The player he’d heard on the radio was granted permission to return.

“I knew at that point that it was done for me.”

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Soward is very careful to hold no one but himself responsible. It’s hard to stay bitter at the league for Soward because, “I did so much that they didn't trust me. I didn't give them any reason to trust me. I’m not gonna blame anyone in this interview for anything that happened to me because it was all self-induced.”

That admission unloads a burden off Soward but also takes a weight off others that have been carrying around misguided guilt.

Smith asks with skepticism, “[R. Jay] didn’t say it was me and Keenan’s fault? Because we feel like we let him down … I felt obligated after we met his father. At the end of the day when things didn't work out, I felt like I let his father down. I'm sure Keenan felt the same way.”

Soward’s decision to open and eventually heal this wound is repairing decades of pain for himself and also his teammates. Smith recalls Coughlin’s willingness to give Soward chances—so far as to send a car to pick him up for practice—rubbed the locker room the wrong way. Still, one can’t help but wonder; what would life have looked like not only for a young Soward, but for other young stars as well, if the league provided supportive accountability as opposed to outright punishment?

Based on the same aforementioned NFL and NFLPA agreement, players found to be using recreational drugs and/or abusing alcohol are punished in three stages. The first instance requires a fine, typically a small percentage of their paycheck. The second requires a fine (of a greater percentage) and possible suspension. The third offense levies a one-year suspension.

Over the years, the league has added treatment and counseling to its protocols. But Soward—for so many years, the poster boy for what not to do—wants to see more interaction with the teams as opposed to headquarters. The NFL and NFLPA agreement states, “the Treating Clinician (or Treatment Facility) shall be solely responsible for the care of the Player.”

That can mean 10 weeks in a treatment center in Miami.

“For whatever reason, a lot of us NFL players struggle with depression or anxiety,” admits Smith. “It seems like it's come around now and the NFL is getting more educated about what the players need, in order to go out performing football, and that includes the mental stability of a player.”

That wasn’t always the case 20 years ago.

It’s important to point out this is not an indictment on the treatment centers and practices. They can be incredibly helpful and should be utilized by anyone suffering from addiction. This is also not to state football players should receive special treatment. Football, for many, is a privilege, a reward, so logically it makes sense to remove the thing a person loves in order to get their attention. And Soward acknowledges if he’d stayed in the millionaire lifestyle that accompanies the sport, it would have been detrimental.

“I think if I had gotten a second contract, I would be dead right now, because I was just, I was too arrogant.”

But what if there was another way? For fans, football encompasses the game, the pageantry, the fame; but for athletes, at the end of the day, football boils down to the field, the locker room, the grind amongst strangers that become brothers. So there is something to be said for removing the only stability and certainty a person has ever known during the most uncertain time of their life.

“Don't take practice away from the kid,” Soward offers.

“Even if he has a substance abuse problem, let him continue to play football because that's what he's there to do. And you take football away from a kid and you try to put him in AA or a rehab center, it’s going to be difficult for him because all he knows is football; he’s been playing football forever. And you take it away from him and then he's sitting at home, what do you think he's doing?”

Adds Smith of his life away from the game, “I got arrested. Because I didn't have that same support system that I had when I was playing. So I was really a loose cannon. So I understand, because I've been on that side. And fortunately, I've made it through.”

“That's why you see so many repeat offenders,” continues Soward (and a statement with which Smith adamantly agrees). “I just think that the league should maybe, you know, let the guys practice, but they have to follow really, really, really strict guidelines in order to keep practicing. I think that's what hurt me the most is that I couldn't practice and I couldn't play.

“I got football taken away from me so now I'm drinking more because I have more time on my hands, and then I started doing drugs and then, you know, then it's a snowball effect and then it's really hard to get yourself out of it. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.”

Soward did eventually get himself out though. It’s why he’s ready to finally talk about that time in Jacksonville and all that happened as a result. And when you ask Soward what finally got his attention, he’ll tell you; it wasn’t football.

Losing his passion sent Soward farther down a dark spiral. Losing his family forced him to find a way out. That was when Soward finally hit the bottom of the pit. The crash landing caused his eyes to fly open and see every choice he’d made to arrive there in that spot.

Here, Soward begins to tell a story that requires a nuance that can’t properly be conveyed in this forum. When someone opens a wound, the pain release can become almost euphoric. What had been held in for so long, choking them, is finally allowed a respite. It creates a rush to just start opening every old wound, hoping and praying for relief. Which is why Soward began to pour out a tale he wouldn’t normally share. But it is a story between the Soward family and as such we will leave it only to be told by them.

Suffice to say, there was an altercation. It led to his wife and kids moving several states away. 

Head down in shame, Soward quiveringly admits what others have been waiting years for him to realize.

“I had to keep going, falling on my face, falling on my face, falling on my face until I just finally said, 'You know what, I don't want to drink anymore,'" Soward said. "And I stopped drinking and once I stopped drinking, I see how my life changed.”

If one wanted to call this a redemption story, this would be where the character arc began to turn.

He started by forgiving his father, who had acted as his financial advisor when Soward was playing football.

“I just had to be honest with him and tell him that it wasn't his fault. It was mine. You know, I blamed him for years.”

Instead, he recognized what was really a simple truth. The money ran out because the money stopped coming in.

“When you're inebriated and you're not in your right mind, then, you know, you're going to blame everybody else until you're in that right state again and then you’ll say, 'You know what I was effed up for that. I was rude for saying that to my dad. I was rude for treating my friends like this or treating my kids mother like this or you know just all the ignorant, ignorant stuff I did that was just selfish.”

He found a new passion, producing music, one he hopes his four sons follow, even if they’re all currently in love with football. He started to accept his own responsibility in his shortcomings and forgave himself for letting it get that far. He shot a documentary in 2020 with Director Michael Wright, called “American Fumble: The R. Jay Soward Story” that examines his rise and fall.

And he let go of football.

“I had to learn how to love something else. I had to learn how to love me first. So, now that I love me, I'm like football wasn’t all that. I used to always think that I was a football player first, and then a person second, because that's why people loved me because I played football, and they praised me and I'm like, ‘Why do you want somebody to praise you, like dude you're just a regular person like everybody else.'

“I'm not as arrogant as I used to be. I don't walk around—like I used to walk around Jacksonville and say, ‘Don't touch me I'm a million-dollar man.' And that's so disgusting for me to do that because I'm just R. Jay.”

Soward still coaches some high school football, unable to completely remove that part of his life since it would akin to cutting out his own heart. But there’s also some ulterior motive; he wants others to see all he did wrong and beg them to learn from his mistakes. If there are any current NFL players reading, he wants to pass the same lesson along to them.

“I wasn't the best businessman, you know, and so that's the part of it, that the young guys don't really get, that it's a business...I would say first and foremost to Trevor Lawrence [and others drafted], embrace the moment. And once you embrace that moment, then it's all business. You know, don’t, don't try to figure the game out. Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, and understand what a professional is.

“I think [former Jaguars receiver] Keenan McCardell told me one day—and really the light bulb went off when he told me one day at practice—he said a professional is someone who knows what to do in every situation of the game, and he doesn't panic, and he's able to do it in a cool, calm, collected way. So, if I had to say anything I would say, treat one of your veterans like a sponsor, and find the niche that works for you in the NFL so you'd have a prosperous career.”

Soward reentering the conversation around his reputation and legacy also brings peace to others who have wondered for 20 years whatever happened to their teammate.

“It was tough for us to be around him and get him in a place to where we could mentor him, right, because he just kept running away,” ponders Smith. “So it's good to hear that you're doing this interview with R. Jay because I've always been worried about whether he was homeless or whatever the case is. Good that he's taken ownership.” 

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Soward has stored up two decades worth of anger, pain, regret and healing. He’s made peace with the role he played in his life, and although he can’t bring himself to watch the NFL, much less the Jacksonville Jaguars, for long, the bitterness is gone, replaced by an understanding.

The road ahead is still treacherous, but he’s no longer tripping over himself to trod it; but there is one more roadblock to remove.

As the interview winds down, Soward is asked, ‘Is there anything else you’d like to add?'

He takes a deep breath and steadies himself. This is the question he’s been waiting on, not just for the past 20 minutes in an interview; but the past 20 years in exile.

“One thing I will do, I do want to apologize to the City of Jacksonville, because, as a first-round draft pick, I should have held myself to a higher standard. And I didn't represent the city right, and you guys picked me. I didn't pick you guys, and I let you guys down. And I apologize for that, Jacksonville.”