TAMPA -- Ryan Jensen is known for his nastiness on the field. After all, he’s one of the most destructive offensive linemen in the NFL.

But four years ago, his career was in jeopardy.

“I went downhill pretty quick -- that year when I reported to training camp, I was about 315 pounds, about 20 percent body fat. In three weeks or less, I was 290 pounds and about 30 percent body fat.” Jensen explained.

Even though he was getting 8 hours of sleep or more a night, he was losing strength and felt exhausted.

“I ended up getting cut at the end of that training camp in Baltimore and I was on the practice squad,” Jensen said.

The breaking point was when he received a phone call from his dad telling him, he just wasn’t acting like himself.

“On the field, I’m a nasty guy, but off the field I’m usually just a big teddy bear,” Jensen said. “They had noticed I was kind of irritable and being kind of nasty.

“He called me and he said, ‘what’s going on with you? You’re acting different, you’re acting mean, you know, you were really rude to your mom.’ And he goes, ‘you’ve never been that way. Your mom was in tears she was so upset.’“

That was the wake-up call Jensen needed.

He didn’t know what was wrong, but his dad thought it could be sleep apnea – a sleep disorder that causes you to stop breathing repeatedly during sleep -- sometimes, hundreds of times within one night.

After doing an at-home sleep study, Jensen’s doctors told him he was only sleeping 90 minutes a night.

“There’s a couple different symptoms -- one is snoring and what happens is, your throat closes off when your muscles in your neck relax and sometimes that’s what snoring is,” Jensen said.

His wife noticed he was not only snoring, but would actually stop breathing. The results of his sleep study proved just how often that was happening.

“I think the most I woke up was 56 times in an hour, Jensen said. “And obviously you’re not getting any REM sleep or any good sleep when that’s happening. “

Sleep apnea affects an estimated 22 million Americans. The larger you are, the more at-risk you become, which means, NFL linemen like Jensen are more likely to suffer from it. A recent study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that one in seven NFL players has sleep apnea.

“We’re bigger guys and a lot of that comes with the anatomy of our necks and how muscular our necks are,” Jensen said. “Well, when you’re in sleep all of your muscles are relaxing and all of that weight on your neck can cause you to have those apnea fits. “

To control those apnea fits, Jensen now uses a CPAP machine when sleeping – a mask that delivers steady air pressure.

“It’s completely night and day,” Jensen said. “The third night of using it, I felt an instant difference.”

And he soon saw the results on the field. Jensen got his job back on Baltimore’s active roster and became the starting center in 2017, which is the role he has now with the Bucs.

“If I hadn’t gotten diagnosed and been stubborn, I feel like that’s what a lot of people do, they’re too stubborn — especially men. “ Jensen said. “It’s alright to go get checked out…I was kind of reluctant at first to go. I’m like, ‘I’m fine, there’s nothing wrong with me’ and then I go to find out there’s something that, you know, potentially saved my career and potentially my life.”