It’s not easy to forget the highlights produced by the former Chicago Bears wide receiver Brandon Marshall. But in his 13-year career, one that keeps repeating itself is one of his two three-touchdown games. However, his memory remains hazy as he recalled the reason a week ago on The Dan Le Batard Show.

“I played high one game and I had three touchdowns. I was actually high off of pain pills. I asked the team, just give me until pregame to prove to them that I could be good enough to go out there. After a long week of just healing and recovery, flying doctors into Chicago to help me out, I may have popped like six pills,” Marshall confessed to the host.

“At the time, they stopped giving us the Toradol shot. So what I ended up doing is going on the black market and getting Toradol pills. So I took two Toradol, maybe four or so Hydrocodone, and I went out there, and I felt nothing. And I scored three touchdowns.”

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The game he’s talking about came in Week 2 of the 2014 season. The Bears traveled west to face the San Francisco 49ers with Marshall already on the injury list as questionable due to a high ankle sprain supposed to sideline him for four to six weeks.

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But when the game kicked off, there he was, just ten days later, helping the Bears in a 28-20 win. And we’re not just saying it, he may be the only reason for Chicago’s comeback that day.

Marshall put the team on the board for the first time that night with just 13 seconds left in the halftime. Before that point, San Francisco was leading by as much as 17 points. His next two catches were even more crucial. With 13:35 on the clock, Marshall caught a 5-yard pass from Jay Cutler to bring the next set of points, bringing the score to 14-20. Then again, with only 6:55 left in the regulation, he caught another 3-yard pass from Cutler before the defense did its work to seal the game.

Turns out, he masked the pain with the use of prescription medications. Ironically, that game is etched in everyone’s memories, except for him.

Marshall finished with five catches for 48 yards in a 28–20 Bears win, accounting for three of the team’s four touchdowns. He ended that season with 721 yards and eight touchdowns in just 13 games because reality caught up with him ultimately. The Bears placed Marshall on injured reserve with three games left after he suffered two broken ribs and a lung injury. These injury concerns have always been there.

In Denver, it was a bone bruise that cost him five games. With the Raiders, another bone bruise in his knee, compounded by cartilage wear, dragged out his rehab. For long stretches, he lived on pills and anti-inflammatory shots just to get through Sundays.

Those experiences stayed with him. They’re why Marshall later became so vocal about mental health and painkiller abuse.

Brandon Marshall’s advocacy for mental health and painkiller abuse

Brandon Marshall has spent the better part of more than the last decade speaking up about mental health, a path that began when he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in 2011 while playing for the Miami Dolphins. It changed how he saw the game, and eventually, how he saw himself.

Over time, both the NFL and NFLPA began rolling out policies aimed at improving pain management and mental health treatment for active players across the league. A lot of that momentum came from voices like Marshall’s, who had lived through the reality behind the curtain.

He’d seen it up close for years. Marshall once recalled a moment during his time in Denver when nearly the entire locker room lined up with their pants lowered, waiting for Toradol shots in the team’s hotel. It almost became a routine. And Marshall wasn’t alone in calling it out.

Former Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson spoke openly about the same thing after he retired, saying painkillers were handed out like “candy” in NFL locker rooms. Marshall understood early that none of it was sustainable.

That’s why he kept pushing for change and eventually founded House of Athlete, a wellness and lifestyle brand focused on helping athletes take care of their minds as much as their bodies. It wasn’t about being anti-football; it was about survival beyond it.

Marshall once talked about how years of work through his nonprofit, Project 375, were meant to push mental health out of the shadows and into everyday life. Seeing athletes like Naomi Osaka, Dak Prescott, and Simone Biles speak openly about their struggles is proof that the message has finally landed.

His next goal is to help athletes move from simply acknowledging mental health to learning how to handle it, get support, and keep going without feeling like stopping is the only option. From his own experience, more than a decade ago, Marshall stopped seeing himself as just a player. But he never forgot what players go through.

He lived it as he played at a high level while managing borderline personality disorder in a league that, for a long time, didn’t really make space for conversations like that. And that perspective is exactly why his voice still carries weight today. Additionally, his courage to play through and put up elite numbers like 12,351 yards with 83 touchdowns in his 13-year career listed him among Pro Football Hall of Fame nominees for 2024.