From Bottom to Bills: The Shane Ray Saga
Shane Ray has a Super Bowl ring, a spectacular comeback story and - after a journey that led him out of football and through Canada - a chance to play for the Buffalo Bills.
A fierce pass-rusher in college at Missouri, Ray was drafted 23rd overall by the Denver Broncos in 2015. He was on the team that won Super Bowl 50 and had eight sacks the following season before a severe wrist injury that required four surgeries derailed his career. Since then he has been jobless, suffered through the COVID pandemic and humbled himself by playing in the Canadian Football League.
At 30, he accepted an invitation to Bills' rookie minicamp and earned a contract that will give him a shot to make the team at training camp.
“Words can’t describe the emotions I’m feeling right now,” Ray wrote on his Instagram. “So many tears, sleepless nights, depression, everything that comes with losing the game. So many days of having nothing but hope while fighting a uphill battle. There where times that I thought maybe I should give up, but I wouldn’t be me if I folded. Even in my darkest moments I believed in myself. I believed in my preparation. I believed that I would have another opportunity even if the world didn’t believe.”
He signed with the Baltimore Ravens in 2019 but was cut before training camp. Afterward, he suffered bouts of depression, anger and nervous breakdowns.
“Mentally, physically not feeling like me. Feeling beaten up, feeling torn down by media, feeling, you know, just everything,” Ray told ESPN. “I felt like I wasn't me anymore, and I had no value ... and people that I thought were gonna help me through the process ended up fading away, and now it's only me and my mom, and the other close people to me, believing in me."
After 10 more NFL tryouts but no contract offers, he re-focused his life and career with the Toronto Argonauts.
“I had to humble myself -- more humbled than I could ever been before," he said. "From going to Canada and buying in, you know -- I can’t act like there was days that I didn’t walk in and I was like, ‘Bro, this is where I am? Like, I’m not supposed to be here’.” But that’s where I was, and I had to grind through it.”
Last season he had six sacks and helped Toronto win the Grey Cup. Now, after impressive showings at Missouri's Pro Day and Buffalo's minicamp, he's back in the NFL, and back alongside friend and former Broncos teammate Von Miller.
"I always tell [Ray], ‘The universe rewards grace," Miller said to ESPN. "You know, whatever cards you dealt, you just play them to the best of your ability.”
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