Where are they now: Dexter Manley
June 15, 2026
by Steve Thomas
While I was thinking about what to write for this week’s column a few days ago, an old Redskins legend, Dexter Manley, somehow randomly popped into my head. We haven’t heard from Dexter in awhile, at least in the media, and that led me to an idea for another series of columns: Where are they now? The concept here is that every so often, I’ll do a deep dive into a particular Redskins player’s playing time as well as his post-NFL career in an effort to see how things have been going for him since his playing career ended. I probably won’t do this every week – this is most likely just going to be a fun way to fill some space during the slow times in Washington’s football calendar. Since my random Dexter Manley thought was the genesis of this idea, we’ll start with him. Frankly, he has a heck of a story, so let’s get into it.
Manley’s story is incredible and worthy of a Hollywood movie script. It isn’t one that I would wish on loved ones, but many lessons can be taken from what Manley has been through in his life. He was born in Houston, Texas, and attended Yates High School located in Houston’s Third Ward, known at the time for poverty and other problems in the local area. Yates is known as having below average academic results but has a long list of athletes and celebrities in addition to Manley who attended, including Phylicia Rashad, Debbie Allen, blues guitarist Albert Collins, Johnny Bailey, Santana Dotson, former NBA player Michael Young, as well as, infamously, George Floyd. Manley a very successful football career at Yates and was recruited to Oklahoma St. University on a football scholarship in 1977.
Manley played for Oklahoma St. for 4 seasons, through 1980. Collegiate stats in that era weren’t officially tracked in the same way that they are in modern times. I could find no official record of his stats, but according to Google AI, Manley reportedly had 183 tackles, including 19 for loss, and 22 sacks for the Cowboys. Manley was drafted by the Redskins in the fifth round, 119th overall, in the 1981 draft, which was Joe Gibbs’ first season as head coach.
Manley stayed in the NFL for 11 seasons, including nine for the Redskins, and played in a total of 143 games, including 120 starts, and made 103.5 sacks, which is ranked 57th in NFL history.[1] Tackle numbers were not tracked during this era and are thus not available. He was with the Redskins from 1981 to 1989, and in that time, he played 125 games, including 113 starts, and had 97 sacks, which is still ranked 1st in franchise history. Manley’s best season was 1986, during which he had 18.5 sacks in 16 games, and was selected to the Pro Bowl, as a First-Team All-Pro, and came in second place for the Defensive Player of the Year Award. He was with the Redskins for the team’s Super Bowl wins in the 1982 and 1987 seasons, as well as the loss after the 1983 season.
Manley had a well-publicized, serious drug and alcohol problem during his playing days. His first failed drug test came in July, 1988, for which he received a 30 day suspension from the league.[2] His second failure was immediately before the 1987 season Super Bowl in January, 1988; however, the Redskins reportedly waited to report the failure to the league until after the game.
His third failure, the final one as a Redskin, occurred in October, 1989, for which he was suspended by the NFL, resulting in a permanent ban but with a right to apply for reinstatement after one year. This essentially forced Washington to release him in order to allow Manley to address his drug addiction. Manley was reinstated by the NFL in 1990 and signed with the Phoenix Cardinals, for which he played 4 games, with no sacks. The Cardinals then traded Manley to Tampa Bay for the 1991 season. He played in 14 games for the Buccaneers, including 7 starts, and had 6.5 sacks, but failed two more drugs tests and retired from the NFL on December 12, 1991, in lieu of a mandatory lifetime ban from the NFL. He later played two years in the CFL for the Ottawa Rough Riders in 1992 – 1993 and the Shreveport Pirates in 1994, at which point his professional football career ended.
Manley had a number of arrests involving his drug addiction.[3] He was arrested four times between November 1994 and July 1995 in Harris County, Texas, which his hometown of Houston, all for possession of a controlled substance. He was convicted of two separate felony charges and sentenced to four years in prison in August, 1995, for which he ultimately served approximately 16 months before being paroled in November, 1996.
Manley was indicted and convicted once again for possession of a controlled substance in Harris County in 2001. The case involved tampering with evidence when attempted to swallow cocaine in his possession. He was sentenced to two more years in prison.
He was also convicted of a misdemeanor assault charge in Montgomery County, Maryland, in 2016, and sentenced to two years of supervised probation.
Manley attempted rehab many times in a variety of facilities over the years, but finally achieved sobriety in 2006 in wake of a 15-hour brain surgery to remove a colloid cyst for which he had originally be diagnosed in 1986.[4]
Manley was also known to have been functionally illiterate despite having attended Oklahoma St. for four years. He finally conquered his illiteracy by enrolling in classes at The Washington Lab School throughout his career with the Redskins, and by 1991, he was reading at a high school level.[5]
Today, Manley and his wife, Lydia, have the Lydia & Dexter Manley Foundation, which is dedicated to ensuring children in the Washington DC area “have access to literary resources and opportunities to read.”[6] Manley has also been employed in the private sector in marketing for multiple companies and industries, and is also currently a motivational speaker.[7]
Manley’s story is truly incredible – he rose from a challenging situation in inner City Houston to become a legendary NFL player with two Super Bowl and a fanbase that reveres him to this day, overcame addiction and related criminal problems, and illiteracy to arrive today in a seemingly grounded place, with a spouse and a non-profit. It is a story for which he should be proud.
Let me know of your thoughts and memories of Manley in the comment section below.
[1] All NFL stats are courtesy of www.pro-football-reference.com.
[2] Research into Manley’s first third drug test failures is courtesy of https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-11-17-sp-1914-story.html.
[3] I researched all of Manley’s criminal cases myself in the respective county records.
[4] https://www.resilientworker.net/dexter-manley-unshakeable-resilience/
[5] https://www.resilientworker.net/dexter-manley-unshakeable-resilience/
[6] https://dextermanleyfoundation.org/; https://www.fox5dc.com/video/1559180
[7] https://www.linkedin.com/in/dexter-manley-a971303/; https://mn2s.com/booking-agency/talent-roster/dexter-manley/; https://www.bisnow.com/washington-dc/news/commercial-real-estate/7-former-star-athletes-in-dc-commercial-real-estate-73792