Sometimes you have to be patient before you see the hole in your life and can run to daylight.
Ty Montgomery has recovered the fumble that rocked his world, changed his life, changed his NFL destiny and his destination.
Because the victory over yourself can be the greatest victory of all.
And now it is a liberated Ty Montgomery — an RB with WR skills — who is certain that the best is yet to come for him as Adam Gase’s X-Factor.
Heaven as a New York Jet, following the hell that was his final, fateful days as a Green Bay Packer.
With the help of a Jets team psychologist, Montgomery has trained his mind to be in a better place.
“There’s power in feeling free, to no longer being bound by pressures of negativity, and how to stay away from negativity, and how to stay away from darkness and things like that,” Montgomery told The Post. “Negative is normal, that’s just the reality. But how do you view with it, how do you deal with it? Instead of trying to run from it, instead of trying to avoid the mistakes, how do you deal with the mistakes?”
Montgomery fumbled a kickoff return late last October that prevented Aaron Rodgers (A-Rod) from a comeback victory over the Rams, and then came the death threats and the social media harassment and anonymous criticism from teammates and a trade two days later to the Ravens.
Montgomery had to ask himself how one play, one play that he and only he knew was a split-second decision and not an uncharacteristic act of selfishness or disobedience, could undo all the good he had done as a man of character in the community.
“I knew how good I was, I knew what kind of person I was, I knew what kind of man I was,” Montgomery said.
“I didn’t know if anyone else knew. That’s what it felt like.”
Less than a year later, he looks back at it all as a transformative moment.
“If that wouldn’t have happened, I wouldn’t have been forced to learn this, I wouldn’t have been forced to deal with it and it just made me that much better and I’m grateful for that situation and everything that’s happened,” Montgomery said.
“It’s not the end of the world. I’m still alive to talk about it, everyone in Green Bay’s still alive to talk about it. We’re all still here to be able to talk about it, but it’s because of that we’re able to grow and learn the lessons that we learn.”
He is no longer a perfectionist, recognizing he will never be perfect.
“I’m my own biggest enemy,” Montgomery said. “I’m my own worst critic. There’s nothing somebody can say to me that I probably haven’t already said to myself. Instead of focusing on the criticisms, even if it is constructive, I’m starting to focus on, ‘What am I good at and how can I make other things better?’ I’m even saying that differently now.
“For the longest time, I couldn’t even take a compliment. Somebody could tell me, ‘You’re fast, you’re strong, you have quick feet, but you struggle in an area.’ I would completely negate everything they said that was positive about me and be like, ‘Why am I struggling in this area? I need to fix this.’ … Just not doing that anymore.”
Ask him which player in the league reminds him of himself, Montgomery says: “I’m gonna be honest — Le’Veon Bell. It’s funny ’cause when I was in Green Bay I used to get reprimanded for being too patient on my runs, I need to just hit the hole. … It’s like crazy to be here playing with Le’Veon and I can just be who I am here.”
Sam Darnold?
“One thing that Sam has — I’ve seen him do it a couple of times and I’m like, ‘Wooo, was that little baby A-Rod in his arm right there?’ Sam has this flick that he does, it’s like really quick that I would notice A-Rod doing,” Montgomery said.
So what would Ty Montgomery tell those who turned on him?
“I would definitely say thank you for watering the soil,” he said. “Allowing me to grow. Giving me the opportunity to learn from such a situation, learn how to deal with such things, and I’m a better person because of what was said, because of what happened, because of everything that was happening.”
Touchdown, Ty Montgomery.