AFC Notes: Braden Smith, Brenton Strange, Colts, Jaguars, Texans

Colts

Colts OT Braden Smith missed the final five games of the season due to personal reasons. The reasons turned out to be mental health issues, in which Smith dealt with obsessive-compulsive disorder and suicidal thoughts.

“I was physically present, but I was nowhere to be found,” Smith told the IndyStar. “I did not care about playing football. I didn’t care about hanging out with my family, with my wife, with my newborn son. … I (felt like) was a month away from putting a bullet through my brain.”

Smith says he developed an obsession with faith, god, and religion that he was unable to shake, including feelings that he was unable to live up to being perfect.

“There’s the actual, real, true, living God,” Smith said. “And then there’s my OCD god, and the OCD god is this condemning (deity). It’s like every wrong move you make, it’s like smacking the ruler against his hand. ‘Another bad move like that and you’re out of here.’ There was only one ever-perfect person, and that was Jesus. When you’re trying to live up to that standard, actually live that out, it’ll drive you nuts.”

Smith felt he had to repent perfectly for every single sin he committed, and then began questioning his motivations for doing so.

“I’ll latch onto certain pieces of the Bible, certain Scriptures, talking about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit,” Smith added. “I’d be like, ‘Oh, if I think something bad about God, I’m going to hell.’ Selling my soul to the devil-type stuff that was a prominent theme. My OCD latches onto critical moments. If I had these thoughts, like, during a game, like, I’m not going to be able to do my compulsions, and it’s going to feel really real. That stress continually built up.”

Smith was having troubles on team road trips, being present during film study, and noted that he began to go to dark places in his mind after the first win of the season.

“He told me he was going to retire,” his wife, Courtney, said. “We sat on the couch, we were across from each other, and he looked at me and he said, ‘If this doesn’t get better, I’m retiring after this year.’ And I was like, ‘This is not good,’ because I know that he loves to play football. … It was kind of that night that I started to freak out. There were offseasons in the past, but there was no compromising his routine. It wasn’t, ‘Oh, I have a scheduling issue and I have to get this done at this time or else it’s not gonna work.’ It was not that. It was an unwillingness to compromise at all, and I think it was, ‘I have to do this, otherwise I’m not going to be successful,’ which is going back to the perfectionistic part of the OCD that he was living with — we just didn’t realize that’s what it was.”

First, Smith attended ketamine therapy sessions before seeking ibogaine treatment in Tijuana for a five-day stay, something his wife’s father had heard about on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. He spent time in a sweat lodge on his first day before taking four doses of ibogaine.

“For me, it wasn’t very intense,” Smith recalls. “I had two hours of, like, you know, visuals, hallucinations, and nothing I can remember. … They say that ibogaine gives you what you need. You just don’t, we just don’t know what it is at the moment. Ibogaine legitimately resets your brain. Imagine your brain as a ski slope, and you create all these grooves, from all these trails that you’re going on, and they keep getting deeper and deeper and deeper. Those are the habits that we create, and over time, like, it’s not going to be possible to create a new trail, because that one is so deep. Ibogaine literally will clear off those, like, the receptors in your brain.”

On his final day in Tijuana, Smith took a synthetic version of 5-MeO-DMT, a naturally occurring psychedelic that is produced in plants and the venom of certain toads. This caused Smith to enter “a beautiful place with light surrounding him where he experienced a feeling of love coursing through his body and a desire to call out to god.”

“I can’t explain it, except for me and God were intimately just one,” Smith told the IndyStar. “When I started calling on Jesus’s name, I was like, ‘I need you to heal me, please forgive me for everything.’ I shot up, and it seemed like I was being exorcised of demons out of me, or bad energy, or whatever it was. … It didn’t take much. It just took me surrendering to God, calling on His name.”

“You don’t want to do ibogaine recreationally because you feel miserable on that gray day, you feel so vulnerable on that gray day. When I say it detoxes your heart, mind, body and soul, you don’t feel good,” Smith continued. “And the 5-MeO, that would be nothing I’d ever want to do on my own. I’m definitely not advocating someone do this unless it’s in a setting of healing, and unless it’s in the right hands, because this is not something to be messed around with.”

For now, it seems as though Smith plans to resume his career with the Colts.

“I don’t do compulsive prayers at all anymore,” Smith said. “I don’t do the replacing the good with the bad. If I have a bad thought, it’s just like OK, that’s one of many thoughts. I’ll just move on with my day and don’t let it affect me. I used to spend like 3 to 5 hours a day in my head, doing compulsions. It was so exhausting. I would be just wiped out from that, taking naps a bunch during the day. You could see it all in my face, with my posture and my body, it was all there. … I don’t even know if I do compulsions anymore. I still have OCD, but it doesn’t have a hold over me. It doesn’t dictate my life…Getting help is the least burdensome thing, because it’s the short-term. You gotta look at the long term. People want their wife, their husband, their child, for the long term. If they don’t have it for a short term, that’s OK, because they know that ultimately there’s gonna be healing.”

Jaguars

Jaguars HC Liam Coen said TE Brenton Strange offers a ton of value to the team and said that his willingness to block is something that can keep him on the field constantly.

“Brenton plays the game the right way. I’ll say that for sure,” Coen said, via Sports Illustrated. “I love the way he competes through the whistle. He does it through the whistle, plays with an edge, he’s got some twitch, he’s strong, he’ll get his hands on you in the blocking. I really appreciate it.”

Texans

Rams HC Sean McVay believes that Nick Caley will be a great fit with the Texans as their new offensive coordinator.

“I think the great thing for Nick is he was always preparing to take those next steps while still being totally present in his role,” McVay told KPRC’s Aaron Wilson. “I go back to his foundation starting with coach [Bill] Belichick, the amount of ball you’re exposed to, doing ball the right way, he was ready. He sees the game through an All-22 lens. I think he’s going to do an excellent job. He’s been preparing himself based on the way he approaches every single day. I think their background, these guys see the game from a big-picture lens.”

“Nick has an infectious energy and enthusiasm,” McVay added. “He’s going to bring it every single day. Jerry has got a great demeanor. I think they’ll balance each other out. He’ll be a great addition to be in that quarterback room with C.J. and some of the other great coaches they have. I think he and DeMeco are really great personality fits. I’m fired up for my guy, Nick.”