What happened to Todd Marinovich? Exploring life of former Raiders QB

Todd Marinovich's story is a sad one.

The same intense and work-focused environment built by his father caused fear and anxiety to dominate Marinovich's mind. This prevented him from maturing and, later, made him turn to drugs, resulting in the failure of his professional career.

With Baby Gronk's history becoming sort of a Marinovich 2.0, we take a look to remember what happened to the former Raiders quarterback who was trained to be a star from the very start of his life - and why it resulted in a major failure.

The Marinovich Project: Roboquarterback

Imagine a child who couldn't eat a Big Mac, drink Coke, eat cookies and who had to bring their own food to parties to avoid excess sugar. This was the environment that permeated the quarterback's life, who only consumed these foods in secret to escape the fury of Marv, his father. From the first month of life, he was already forced to stretch his thigh; when he was four, he could already run miles in just half an hour.

The diet was entirely based on fruits, fresh vegetables and milk.

The problem is that Marv was so intense, and the mental effect on his son was so big, that Todd was afraid to do anything out of the ordinary to avoid any problems with his father. On the field, he had a fantastic career during high school, but since then he used marijuana to escape the anxiety he felt about his father.

As his son's career took off at USC, where he won 9 games as a freshman and created a huge hype at one of the most media-heavy universities in the country, his case began to receive national attention. A California magazine ran a cover headlined "Roboquarterback: The Making of a Perfect Athlete," and he later appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in an article titled "Born to be a star"

All this pressure began to weigh more and more on the player who, freed from his father's bonds, sank more and more into drinks and drugs. He became addicted to cocaine, his performance on the field began to decline, he had fights with coach Larry Smith and was arrested.

How many years did Todd Maranovich play in the NFL?

Marinovich did make it to the NFL. He was a first-round pick from the Oakland Raiders and played there for two seasons, but the damage was already done. He was a backup to Jay Schroeder in 1991, failed to produce in 1992 and was cut by the franchise in 1993 following another drug test failure.

He never returned to the league after his two seasons in Oakland.

What is Todd Marinovich up to?

After his NFL career ended, he continued to have serious problems with his drug addiction, being arrested several times and failing to get his life together. Regular adult responsibilities were problematic for him, but it seems that he made some steps forward in recent years.

He has been sober for about six years and has an online art gallery.

His father, Marv, passed away in December 2020 at the age of 81 from Alzheimer's disease.