Greenlaw took some time on Tuesday, ahead of his second Super Bowl participation in five seasons, to shout out his adopted parents, Brian and Nanci Early, to make sure everyone understands exactly how he got there.
“I wouldn’t be here without them,” Greenlaw said to the assembled media during Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas. “I probably wouldn’t have been able to play football without them, just being in a group home at the time, and them just stopping their lives and being able to come into it, it’s been huge.”
When Greenlaw was barely 8 years old, he was placed in foster care and lived from place to place without a permanent home until he met Brian, the football coach at Fayetteville High School. Greenlaw was taken by the Early family.