The sad news hit the wires Friday afternoon. Former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf had surrendered to authorities in Texas over burglary and drug-related charges.

Once the No. 2 pick in the 1998 NFL draft behind Peyton Manning, Leaf lasted less than four years in the NFL, his career stats framed by 14 touchdowns and 36 interceptions.

Having struggled for years with all matter of problems, Leaf appeared to have turned his life around when he took a job coaching golf at West Texas A&M.

Instead, he resigned from that post last November after being linked to an apartment robbery involving the theft of the prescription drug Hydrocodone. Indicted in May for that crime, he turned himself in on Friday, posted $15,000 bond and returned to the state of Washington, where he was a college football hero for the Washington State Cougars.

In an unrelated development except that it involved another former NFL quarterback, Bernie Kosar filed for bankruptcy protection Friday, citing as much as $50 million in debt.

If former University of Tennessee wide receiver Donte Stallworth needed any further proof of how quickly and permanently life can turn, he need only look to Leaf and Kosar.

Stallworth's life took a dramatic and downward swing Thursday when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell indefinitely suspended the Cleveland Browns wideout after he was sentenced to 30 days in jail following his plea agreement on a DUI that killed a man.

Goodell isn't hinting at how long that indefinite suspension will last, but it could easily continue through this season and beyond.

"I accept full responsibility for this tragedy," Stallworth said before heading to jail. "I will bear this burden for the rest of my life."

The life of 59-year-old Mario Reyes came to rest for good on March 14 when the 28-year-old Stallworth struck the construction worker with his 2005 Bentley. A husband and father, Reyes was rushing to catch a bus for home around 7:15 in the morning. Stallworth had been partying all night in Miami after earning a $4.5 million bonus from the Browns.

To his credit, Stallworth immediately called 911, then stayed at the scene of the accident. He has since reached a financial settlement with the family and promised to counsel anyone who asks about the dangers of alcohol.

And though he avoided the 15 years in prison he could have served for the DUI, Stallworth will be under house arrest for two years after his 30 days in jail and will have his driver's license suspended for life. He'll also be on probation for eight years.

Yet none of that may hit him as hard as Goodell, who is sure to penalize Stallworth much more severely than former Vol Leonard Little was when then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue suspended him from the St. Louis Rams for eight games in the late 1990s following a similar incident.

"There is no reasonable dispute that your continued eligibility for participation at this time would undermine the integrity of and public confidence in our league," Goodell said.

In other words, don't call us, we'll call you.

And Stallworth clearly deserves whatever fate befalls him from this point forward. He killed a husband and father because he couldn't be bothered with calling a cab.

This doesn't make him a bad person. He is instead a person who made a bad, bad mistake, a mistake that can never be erased.

But in the case of Stallworth, it is one mistake only. Whether or not he has destroyed his pro football career, he can still live a meaningful life, one given to preventing the kind of awful error in judgment he committed.

In the June 15 issue of Sports Illustrated, the rise and fall of former NFL backup quarterback Jeff Komlo is profiled. Having escaped to Greece to avoid possible jail time for failing to pay child support for his four daughters, Komlo was killed last fall in an auto accident.

Yet asked what made Komlo special on the field during his college days at Delaware, former Blue Hens coach Tubby Raymond said, "You know what (Jeff) had? An athlete's mentality."

As Kosar, Leaf and Stallworth painfully reminded us this week, that may not always be a good quality.