Ex-NFL sack master John Abraham paid a steep price for success. He’s still recovering Dan Pompei Sept. 25, 2025 TIMMONSVILLE, S.C. — It all began here for John Abraham, in a modest house built by his grandfather, surrounded by dirt roads and tobacco fields, not far from a gas station with no sign in a town where gnats swarm. Abraham began working in those fields when he was 5. He helped his grandfather nail shingles on roofs, change the oil in farmers’ pickup trucks, unclog drains and scrub toilets in the local schools. As he grew, he cleaned dishes in a restaurant kitchen and made it your way at a fast-food burger joint, anything to help his mother pay the bills. When he discovered football in his senior year at Lamar High School, it was an escape from work. Abraham felt such joy from the game that he was OK with getting home from practice at 10 p.m. after waiting hours for a friend, cousin, neighbor — anyone — to pick him up and drive him nine miles back to Timmonsville. He played so hard and well that they eventually displayed his jersey number on the stadium press box. It’s still there, next to Levon Kirkland’s. Then came the losses. His last two years at South Carolina, the team lost 21 of 22 games. When the Jets were losing his first NFL preseason game, he shed tears on the sideline. He couldn’t take it anymore. Abraham learned to lose. And then he learned to win. He played 15 NFL seasons, became known as one of the most feared pass rushers in the game and finished with 133.5 sacks — 13th most since the statistic became official 43 years ago. But there was a steep price, beyond the millions of dollars squandered on bad investments, family and friends with hands out, dozens of fines for ignoring rules and a life in the fast lane. He also paid with a brain that bled on both sides, stolen memories, the indignity of seeing his mug shot on the local news, the treadmill that was thrown in his pool, credit cards and phones he kept losing, punched-out car windows and the attempt to get himself shot and killed. For a long time, Abraham didn’t want to return home. He liked big-city action. Now? A small town doesn’t seem so bad. “With the 13th pick of the 2000 draft, the New York Jets select outside linebacker John Abraham, South Carolina,” NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue announced at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. Angry Jets fans filled the arena with boos. Tagliabue’s pronouncement didn’t sound so good to Abraham, either. John Abraham. He hated being called that. Still does. For much of his youth, he was Tony. His full name is John Antonio Nettles-Abraham, and he didn’t know he was John until a high school teacher started calling him that so he wouldn’t be confused with another Tony. His father’s name was Curly John Nettles, and they called him “Man” even though he didn’t act much like one. Abraham estimates he saw Man once a year during his childhood. “I don’t remember hugs, him being cool or saying, ‘Tony, I love you.’” Abraham says. “The only thing I remember is him being drunk and abusive.” Man walked down Abraham’s block occasionally. When Abraham was about 7, his mother yelled at him about picking up after his newly adopted puppy in the yard. Man heard the commotion and rushed over. For the 30 years that followed, Abraham couldn’t be around dogs. He thought he was afraid of them. Eventually, he realized his fear emanated from seeing Man stomp his puppy to death. Man lived with his mother his whole life, unable to make it on his own. Abraham’s mother, Maggie Lee Abraham, didn’t want her son to be a “mama’s boy” like Man, so she was intentionally cold to her son. Abraham believes he never learned about love, how to receive or give it. He has jumped from relationship to relationship in his adult life without ever committing. “I should have been a married man, a happy man,” he says. “But I think I run away from love.” John Abraham’s mother, Maggie Lee, was intentionally cold to him as a child. At 47, he still needs her love and approval. (Dan Pompei / The Athletic) When Abraham went to high school, Maggie Lee didn’t want him to play football, so he played basketball and ran track, setting a South Carolina high school record with a time of 22.6 seconds in the 200-meter dash. She relented his senior year, and then, with just 22 boys on the team, Abraham played defensive end, wide receiver and kicker, and even ran some plays at quarterback. At 6-foot-4 and 195 pounds, his instinct was to rush the passer the way he drove the hoop — slithering around obstacles with smooth, graceful movements and unexpected bursts. “People think because you’re big, you have to be this predator type person, very aggressive,” he says. “In my mind, I wasn’t that.” His way worked. Clemson wanted him, and he wanted to go there. But then a coach from South Carolina came to his mother’s living room with the Holy Bible on the coffee table and sprinkled his recruiting pitch to her with “amens” and “hallelujahs.” Maggie Lee told her son that if he went to Clemson, she would not visit him there, but she would be happy to make the drive to Columbia if he attended South Carolina. So he became a Gamecock.
“In college, he was a shy, quiet, country boy, and Columbia was like a big city to him,” says Tarica Worthy, who met Abraham at the start of their freshman year at South Carolina. Three decades later, Abraham calls Worthy his sister. She also could be called a business associate, unofficial therapist and guardian angel. Abraham never drank in college. Then came the night he was drafted. He was at a party in a Columbia hotel with Shaun Ellis, whom the Jets drafted one pick ahead of Abraham, and other friends. “I just remember a lot of champagne,” Abraham says. “I don’t remember anything else.” One of his Jets coaches instructed him to rush the passer by slamming the crown of his helmet into the upper chest of blockers. His NFL playing weight was between 240 and 250 pounds and Abraham still thought of himself as a basketball player in pads, but he did as he was told, banging his helmet into massive opposing linemen thousands of times for years, ignoring the stars that swirled around his head after every collision. The man who drafted Abraham, Bill Parcells, was known for bringing out the best in Lawrence Taylor, arguably the greatest edge rusher in history. Parcells, who was the Jets’ general manager at the time, goaded Abraham to push himself as he had done with Taylor. “Can you lift your grandma’s skirt yet?” Parcells asked him. Abraham wasn’t motivated by sarcasm. Concerned that others thought he wasn’t strong enough, he stopped lifting weights in front of the team and instead worked on his own, away from the facility. He was a handful for opponents from the start. In Abraham’s second game, the Jets had a one-point lead over the Patriots with 1:28 left. On fourth down, Abraham sacked Drew Bledsoe to effectively end the game. Two weeks later, against the Bucs, he sacked and stripped Shaun King to preserve a four-point lead with 52 seconds left. That was his first of 47 forced fumbles, which is the third most all time. Abraham had 4.5 sacks by the sixth game when he tore a groin muscle. It meant the end of his rookie season and the beginning of a new lifestyle. He was stunned by the culture of the Jets. So many players were drinkers, hard-core partiers. Everything that could derail him was easily available. He was encouraged to act like a big-city big shot. After surgery to repair his muscle tear, the painkillers weren’t doing it. He tried drinking instead, and alcohol made him feel better than the meds. Abraham developed a taste for an imported cognac aged in French oak barrels. Eventually, he had the word “Hennessy” tattooed on the inside of his left arm. As he recovered, he had a lot of time — too much. Teammates invited him to party with them. Abraham had social anxiety, but he liked strip clubs because the attention was on women in G-strings, not him, and the Hennessy he sipped helped him loosen up. Worthy says she never thought Abraham had a dependency problem, but drinking resulted in him “putting on a mask and becoming a different person.” “I thought drinking would make me seem manly,” he says. “So it was a lot of drinking, a lot of sex with different women, smoking cigars. I did this because I didn’t have a definition of a man.” During his rookie season, Abraham read a story about Deion Sanders trying to improve his relationship with his father and wanted to do the same. He and Man had a common bond now — alcohol. So he picked up Man and they drank together until impulsivity overcame inhibition and Man asked him for money. Abraham didn’t want Man in his life after all, he thought. Man was one of many family members who wanted something from Abraham. He gave to many. “Instead of having my mind totally set on being great, I wanted to save everyone,” he says. “It took a lot out of me.” When he was drafted, Abraham received a $2 million signing bonus. In his second season, he had 13 sacks and six forced fumbles, making the first of five Pro Bowls and three All-Pro teams. By his third season, he was broke, mostly, he says, because of advisers who took advantage of him and made suspect investments. On his way home from Gentlemen’s Quarters in Long Island in 2003, Abraham drove his new silver Hummer into a fire hydrant and a light pole and was charged with driving while intoxicated. He was playing well that year, with six sacks in six games, when another groin injury ended his season. Two years later, Abraham wanted a change, and the Jets were happy to facilitate a trade. The Seahawks flew him to Seattle in a private jet. Then the Falcons had another meet him in Seattle to take him to Atlanta. Abraham wanted to play in Atlanta because it was a few hours from home. The Falcons agreed to give the Jets a first-round pick and pay Abraham $45 million over six years.
The Falcons seemed perfect for him. Shortly before the trade, Atlanta hired Kevin Winston as its director of player affairs — Winston had a similar role with the Jets and was familiar with Abraham’s personality and tendencies. Two years later, Mike Smith became the Falcons’ head coach, and his avuncular sensitivity was just what Abraham needed. He was also reunited with defensive line coach Ray “Sugar Bear” Hamilton, who had coached him and bonded with him early in his days with the Jets. John Abraham takes down Saints quarterback Drew Brees for one of his 133.5 career sacks. (Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images) In Abraham’s first game as a Falcon, he had two sacks against the Panthers. Then groin issues flared again, and he broke his thumb. He played only eight games that season. After he was arrested for driving while intoxicated back in his Jets days, Abraham was subject to random testing by the NFL, so he curtailed his drinking. During his first season with the Falcons, he went back to the bottle. In Atlanta, Abraham felt safe doing things he shouldn’t have been doing because the shadowy characters at the clubs had his back. “You weren’t going to hear about whatever happened,” Worthy says. “And that can make a person feel invincible.” He was late for team functions, fell asleep in meetings and skipped substance tests (he says he did not take illegal drugs). Over his career, Abraham, in the estimate of one source, was fined more than $1 million. “The drinking didn’t impact his ability to practice and perform, but it did impact his life,” says Rich McKay, who was the team’s general manager at the time and now is its CEO. “I would get nervous when I was told he went to South Carolina because a lot of times when he came back, he didn’t look so good.” Abraham felt a pull to Man again. It had been about 10 years since he last tried to reconcile, and his father had never seen him play a football game. He brought Man to one of his games, and they drank together after. Man, who was in a wheelchair after having his legs amputated because of diabetes, stayed with his son and, in the middle of the night, caused a disturbance, demanding that Abraham wait on him. Abraham had had enough. He sent his father away and never reconnected. Man died in 2014. In early 2013, Abraham was coming off a 10-sack season and had more career sacks for the Falcons, 68.5, than any player in their history. But he was soon to be 35 years old, and the team had had enough. “I know it had a lot to do with my off-the-field issues,” he says of being cut. As a free agent, Abraham drew interest from multiple teams, including the Dolphins and Patriots, for whom he badly wanted to play. However, he said he “self-sabotaged” by not showing up for meetings and having a bad attitude. He got an audience with Patriots coach Bill Belichick in New England, stepped on a scale weighing 220 pounds and never received an offer. When he was visiting the Cardinals, he received a text. Abraham had taken in one of his troubled nephews, and the nephew had thrown a party at Abraham’s in Flowery Branch, Ga. — a “Project X” party, Abraham called it, referring to the motion picture. They threw a treadmill and television sets into the indoor pool, scattered his clothes and stole his memorabilia — including Pro Bowl mementos, game balls, signed jerseys and footballs from teammates, as well as his high school and college jerseys. “My house was so lovely, right off Lake Lanier,” he says. “Loved that house. I had a nice little pond in the front. They destroyed it.” Abraham had the house locked down and sold it. The Cardinals took a chance on him and were rewarded with 11.5 sacks and Abraham made the Pro Bowl. But Abraham was partying more and feeling unstable emotionally. And if Atlanta was a city of eye-winking enablers, Phoenix had a bead on him wherever he went. He was warned by upper management that he was being watched. Abraham loved Atlanta and never stopped calling it home. “When he was cut by the Falcons, that broke his heart,” Worthy says. “Even though Arizona embraced him, he couldn’t get over his ex.” In the summer of 2014, he was arrested in Georgia and charged with drunken driving after being found sleeping behind the wheel at an intersection. He missed nearly three weeks of training camp with the Cardinals while in rehab. In the Cardinals’ first game of the 2014 season, Abraham’s head hit the hip of Chargers offensive tackle D.J. Fluker. The collision didn’t appear particularly violent, but Abraham lay on the ground face up for a time. It was a concussion and he eventually was told his brain was bleeding on both sides. Abraham didn’t want to admit what he was feeling. He had been conditioned to play through concussion symptoms — if someone complained, he was being a “punk.” He says when he was with the Jets and told a coach his vision was blurred after a blow to the head, the coach accused him of faking. He never played again after the first game of 2014, and he walked off the NFL stage without so much as a bow. Abraham wishes the end hadn’t come so abruptly. Already struggling with depression, he spiraled.
Abraham went into a nine-year fog, unable to see or think clearly. “It literally felt I was always like this,” he says, closing his eyelids almost entirely. He has scars on his fingers, knuckles and wrist. He isn’t sure how they got there. Some undoubtedly were from punching out car windows, which he did repeatedly when feeling claustrophobic. Differentiating between dreams and reality was a challenge, and for many years, he continued to be a football player in his mind, uncontrollably. He would play an entire game in a dream, wake up and think he had to go to practice. He woke once to find nine slash marks in his mattress. Probably a bad dream, he figured. Some of his dreams were so vile. A bullet piercing his flesh. Falling from a rooftop. Death. Abraham had a magnificent collection of blades — pocket knives, multi-tool knives, switchblades, hunting knives and even Samurai swords — more than 100 in total. They had to go. In 2018, Abraham began contemplating ending it. He gave away many of his valuable possessions — watches, chains, clothes, cars — as if preparing to die. His condominium was on the 23rd floor, and he thought about jumping. “My heart would pump so hard,” he says. If he became too agitated, he would crawl under his bed, lock himself in his closet, sit in the lobby downstairs, or call 911 to have someone talk to him. Doctors warned Abraham that more head trauma could kill him. So he banged his head on walls or tables. In Georgia, the 1013 law enables someone who fears they are a danger to themselves to initiate an involuntary mental health assessment. Worthy’s intention was to get 1013 help for the second time on July 31, 2020. She drove from Columbia to Atlanta and took him to Piedmont Hospital, where she dropped him off (she couldn’t accompany him because it was during the COVID-19 pandemic) and he told the staff he needed help. He says they weren’t very responsive. Anxious and frustrated, he walked out. “I couldn’t see tomorrow,” he says. “It was pretty much over for me.” In the drop-off area in front of the emergency room, a policeman stood with his back to him. Abraham approached the cop and reached for his gun, thinking the cop would beat him to it and kill him. “He swung on me,” Abraham says. “I just fell back thinking he was going to shoot me, waiting for him to shoot. He didn’t shoot.” Instead, the officer brought Abraham back into the hospital. As he lay in the bed, he made a vow — “Please, God,” he said, “help me with my mental health and I will not drink again.” He was sent to Black Bear Lodge, an addiction treatment center in the foothills of northern Georgia. He stayed there for a month, thinking about wanting to kill himself. After being released, he wasn’t drinking, but he wasn’t in a good place. He isolated himself, didn’t shower and ate erratically. Abraham agreed to spend a month in Colorado’s ski country at All Points North, a facility that focuses on treatment for mental health, addiction and trauma. It took two more month-long stays for him to connect with his therapist and embrace what was offered. Abraham learned to use dialectical behavior therapy to help regulate his emotions and cognitive behavioral therapy to identify and redirect negative thinking patterns. His depression and emotional swings were addressed with deep transcranial magnetic stimulation, which uses electrical impulses. “That pretty much saved my life,” he says. John Abraham, outside his childhood home in Timmonsville, S.C., says, “I want people to know I’m better, but not my best yet.” (Dan Pompei / The Athletic) Socializing with old teammates can be awkward. They tell stories from their shared time, and Abraham usually doesn’t have much to contribute. During his career, he studied the plays when he was blocked and beaten, and glossed over the ones that made fans leap from their seats and high-five strangers. Now, Abraham watches YouTube videos of his career to help him recall the kind of player he was. “I had a lot of good days,” Abraham says. “I just can’t remember them.” Others can. “I thought he was an awesome player,” Hall of Fame offensive tackle Joe Thomas says. “He reminded me of DeMarcus Ware with his get-off and his short-area quickness.” Sugar Bear Hamilton, who spent 36 years in the NFL as a player and coach, says Abraham was the quickest player he ever saw out of a two-point stance, and one of the best finishers on the quarterback. “As a natural pass rusher, he was no doubt the best I was around,” Hamilton says. “He was right there with all those guys from that era, Bruce Smith, Chris Doleman, Jared Allen.” Between the start of his career and the end, the only player with more sacks was Allen, who had one-half more. Abraham finished with one more sack than Lawrence Taylor. “He was a fantastic player,” McKay says. “He had speed as well as power. He loved the game and was able to raise his performance in the fourth quarter. He played at the highest level on the biggest stage for a lot of years. It’s a credit to him despite all he faced.” Panthers offensive tackle Jordan Gross says Abraham was as difficult to block as anyone he faced, while putting Julius Peppers in a separate category because he was bigger than the others. Gross says other offensive tackles in the NFL often asked his advice before facing Abraham. They had a nickname for his hellacious bullrush — the “teleport,” they called it. “You had to get out of your stance quickly because he had so much length and speed, so he would be two yards away from you running straight upfield, and then instantly he would teleport into a down-the-middle-of-your-chest bullrush,” Gross says. “It was one of the best bullrushes of anybody. I saw many offensive tackles end up on their backs because of that move.” Thomas, Hamilton, McKay and Gross believe Abraham is worthy of induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He has never been a semifinalist. Abraham has lofty desires — he wants to wear a gold jacket. And he has humble aspirations — he hopes his four daughters, Andrea, 24, Ayumi, 16, Jole, 9, and McKenzie, 1 1/2, are not embarrassed by him. And if by some grace they could be proud of him, his suffering would have been worthwhile. “You know, it’s hard for me to be open about some things in my life,” he says. “I’m not the most comfortable with myself. But I’m talking about myself more for my kids. It’s not about me. I don’t want them to think they can’t overcome something.” A while back, Abraham misplaced his wallet. He wept. And wept and wept. During the worst times, he lost phones almost weekly. He has a drawer full of credit cards, maybe 40 of them, that he left somewhere and had to cancel. When his wallet went missing, he had not lost anything in more than a year. It hurt to lose something again. But the episode was also a reminder of his progress. His prayer is that the crashing waves of his life are doing to him what the sea does to a jagged rock, making a polished stone. Abraham still has moments. But he has the tools to fight through. He still sees his therapist from All Points North and uses dialectical and cognitive behavioral therapy. He practices mindfulness, which helps him focus. Abraham believes he never had a problem with addiction, but he knows he shouldn’t drink. He says he has not been to a strip club in more than five years, and alcohol has not touched his lips since he reached for that cop’s gun and made that oath. Abraham has seen videos of drunk drivers, and he has been aghast. He thinks about how fortunate he was to have never injured anyone while driving after drinking. His relationship with his mother is better, he says. Now they have open conversations about why she raised him the way she did. At 47, he still needs her love and approval. “He has been a real upgoing man,” says Maggie Lee, who lives in a Timmonsville house he bought for her. “I can say he’s a true man. I’m proud for what he’s doing.” He could point a finger at Maggie Lee. Or at Man. Or at that small town. Or at anyone who ever handed him a shot. Or at the concussion culture of his era. Or at the NFL’s meat grinder. Or at those leeches who took, took, took. He won’t. “I’ll take the responsibility,” he says. Abraham is serving 120 hours of community service at the Atlanta Community Food Bank because of a 2018 obstruction charge for refusing to leave a taped-off area beneath where a person was threatening to jump. He packs and stacks boxes of food, cleans and tidies, and takes out the trash. “You can tell he lives with a lot of regret,” Worthy says. “It’s hard for him to move forward, but he’s making progress.” After he retired, Abraham withdrew from football — he couldn’t watch a game without breaking out in a sweat and feeling triggered. He’s finally comfortable being around the sport again. He has dabbled in broadcasting, made appearances for the Falcons and Jets and coached and mentored prospects in the NFL’s International Pathway Program. In May, he wore a cap with a tassel, walked across a stage and extended a hand. He now holds a degree from the University of South Carolina in Liberal Studies, with an emphasis on psychology and sociology. His capstone project was on cognitive behavioral therapy. Abraham is stretching himself — learning piano, juggling and sign language. He does car karaoke with his daughters — they sing Adele songs. He recently competed on two TV game shows, “Pictionary” and “Scrambled Up.” “I want people to know I’m better, but not my best yet,” he says. He is trying to envision his best. Perhaps it can happen in a place with less noise, congestion and danger. He talks about trying to find that place. If he does, everything could begin again for Abraham in a small town.
Haha, should owe me for tickets too. My company did work for his condo here twice. Was set up by his manager , or whoever the guy was. Paid the first time, ghosted the 2nd.
