Cowboys Ex Rolando McClain EXCLUSIVE: 'I'm Ready for the NFL Now!'

The 6-4 McClain was a towering, dominant, intelligent ("Off the charts,'' Dallas coach Jason Garrett once said) but enigmatic figure to start his career during his three seasons with the Raiders (before he was cut due to a series of off-field issues) and was the same when it ended as a member of the Cowboys (due to multiple suspensions for substance abuse violations starting in 2016).

"I never planned to not return to football,'' says McClain, who is eight pounds under his playing weight of 260 and offers a quick answer to my wondering about a 34-year-old making an NFL comeback after a seven-year hiatus. 

"I'm still 'me' in every way; I laugh (at the skepticism),'' McClain says pleasantly, also addressing what I think is a natural "Why bother?'' query by saying, "I'm ready for the NFL now. Like riding a bike! Football is life. I love the game.''

A typical day of "love'' for McClain includes:

*From 3:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m., weights and cardio.

*Starting at 6 a.m., readying and then shuffling those boys - Ma'kai (12), Jordyn (11) and Maximus (8) - off to school.

*Next up, his "day job'': McClain, who has a finance degree from Alabama, works as a family financial planner, but gets free from 11 a.m. to noon for field drills, and then by 3 p.m. ...

*He's off to pick up the boys from school, which leads to the "night workout'' from 6:30 to 7:30.

"Rolando is a Samurai warrior, and he has the battle scars,'' says attorney Daniel Moskowitz, who has championed McClain's reinstatement. "He wants to leave a positive legacy for those boys. And he doesn't want the easy road.''

"The easy road,'' it has not been, from a tragically abusive childhood to legal entanglements to drug use.

McClain explains to me how he stumbled into a gateway of substance abuse issues after a teammate "secretly gave me synthetic marijuana. I wigged out. For the longest time, I had to smoke real weed just to have somewhat of a normal brain. ...

"The hardest part for me has been about getting over the mental fog that the synthetic left me in.''

Also foundational in his struggle: That awful childhood in the projects of Decatur, Alabama, featuring a criminally violent and mentally ill mother and a largely absentee father.

"My upbringing is what it is,'' McClain says matter-of-factly. "Three kids raised by a single manic bipolar mom. I left home at 15 and I haven't slept under my mom's roof since that day.''

Says Moskowitz: "Rolando doesn't hide from anything. It all empowers him to know he can achieve anything.''

What McClain has achieved regarding his reinstatement: Cooperation with the NFL, which he says meant a series of interviews with doctors and psychologists who eventually took their findings to the commissioner.

"Mr. Goodell has been a big supporter of mine from the beginning,'' McClain says. "He's always been fair.''

Also long in McClain's corner has been Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban (their film studies together are legendary in Tuscaloosa) and Ellis Ponder, the Alabama football COO.

As Saban said in 2014 when McClain joined the Cowboys: "Rolando is one of my favorite people in the whole world. He's one of my favorite players in the whole world.''

While McClain finishes up his game of hoops with the kids, and waits for the NFL tryout invites he dreams of, our talk turns to high finance and his counseling of families. I ask him to summarize his philosophy in a quote.

"Always know the risk and reward before making any choice,'' Rolando McClain replies, as always, given his history intelligent enough to grasp the striking irony.