Ex-Eagle Rayburn coming back from addiction

"You're not thinking straight," Rayburn said of his mind-set. "Looking back on it ... you can't believe you'd do something that stupid to jeopardize other people's well-being."

A quiet country boy

As an Eagle, Rayburn mostly got publicity for being a quiet country boy who had occasionally chased pigs on his grandfather's farm here and caught catfish bare-handed.

Chickasha (pronounced chick-a-shay), population 16,840, is 35 miles southwest of Oklahoma City. The once-famous Chisholm Trail, where cattle were herded from Texas to Kansas, used to pass along the rolling prairie just outside town.

Chickasha is a little too big of a town for everybody to know everybody. But everybody knows about everybody, and knows Rayburn played for the Eagles.

Rayburn's real interest, he said, was football. He understood from the start that professional football is a business, that an undrafted free agent from Tulsa couldn't afford time on the sidelines.

"The window is tiny," Rayburn said. "It's like reentering the earth's atmosphere, like the space shuttle. They've got to hit a paper-thin window. It's the same thing with the NFL. If you miss, very few guys get second chances."

During his four seasons with the Eagles, Rayburn said, he never had a catastrophic injury.

"But you don't always disclose everything that's hurting," Rayburn said. "You don't want to tell them everything that's going on because there are always young, fresh guys waiting to take your spot. ... You can get by without telling them the whole enchilada."

Rayburn said fans naturally just see "a finished product on Sunday - shiny helmets and clean jerseys." But the body damage accumulates each year.

"I started playing when I was 6," Rayburn said. "When I was done, I had been playing 21 years."

Sam's pain kept Ashley awake some nights in their South Jersey home during his time with the Eagles.

"He would have full-body cramps in the middle of the night after every single game, to where he couldn't move," Ashley said. "I'd have to massage him to make his shoulder work again or his knee work again."

Players endure the pain for the money.

Midway through that 2004 season, Rayburn signed a five-year contract extension that included a $1.3 million signing bonus.

"I had my base, but mostly it was incentive-based," Rayburn said of the contract. "I wanted to make sure I got every snap I could possibly get."

Players endure the pain for the glory, especially a chance to play in the Super Bowl.

"The whole experience by itself was overwhelming," Rayburn said of the title game in Jacksonville early in 2005. "It blocks everything else out."