Quinn Pitcock of the Seahawks Is a Recovering Video Game Addict

​Quinn Pitcock was an NFL washout. That, in of itself, isn't strange. After all, the average player only lasts somewhere around three years in the league What is strange is why he left the game after only one season. He wasn't hurt (physically) and he wasn't lacking in talent (Pitcock was an All-American defensive lineman at Ohio State and had a good rookie year with the Indianapolis Colts). Rather, Pitcock was an addict. His vice of choice: video games.

From The Dayton Daily-News:

At the height of his compulsion -- playing the Call of Duty series under the alias Randy the Random 1 -- Pitcock said he'd wake up on a typical day at 3 p.m. and play until 6 or 7 a.m. the following morning.

After years in the spotlight as a high-profile athlete, he couldn't face the real world. Video games enabled him to retreat from society, and that anonymous moniker meant he didn't have to feel the pressure of living up to the Pitcock name.

Pitcock's recovery was slow going. He tried rehab but relapsed. He tried breaking his game discs into tiny little pieces but, inevitably, he'd run to Best Buy the next day to get another.

Its been three months since Pitcock sold his XBox and quit playing video games. He says he's finally gotten control of the anxiety and depression that caused him to hide away into an imaginary world under his control. Now he's trying to make another NFL team that practices just miles from the Microsoft campus.

The Seahawks make their final cuts tomorrow. Here's hoping Pitcock isn't among the last to go, if only because he's automatically more interesting than 99 percent of other football players.