The Player: NFL super agent Drew Rosenhaus

The following script is from "The Player" which aired on Oct. 9, 2011. Scott Pelley is the correspondent. Robert Anderson and Nicole Young, producers.

(CBS News) While NFL players have to be ferocious on the field, off the field, their agents have to be just as tough. Agents go toe-to-toe with the teams, negotiating their players' contracts. The most memorable agent of all time was a movie character, Jerry Maguire. But the stuff that that character was made of was largely based on the super-agent Drew Rosenhaus.

There are almost a thousand agents in the NFL, but no one represents more players than Rosenhaus. An agent who is at the same time revered, feared and hated. And as we first reported last fall, to hear him tell it, he just may be the most important player in all of pro-football.

Drew Rosenhaus: I really believe that the NFL would fall apart without me. That may sound cocky, that may sound arrogant, but I'm telling you the truth.

Scott Pelley: Cocky and arrogant, you?

So why would the NFL fall apart without Drew Rosenhaus?

Rosenhaus: In the NFL we keep things moving smoothly. When it breaks down between the team and the player, the agent is there to pick up those pieces. If a guy says, 'I wanna be traded; I hate this team, I hate this coach.' I say to the player, 'Tell me, don't tell the coach. I don't want you to ruin your relationship with the team. Come to me."

Pelley: Let me let the audience in on something here. People watching this interview right now are thinking, 'Rosenhaus is turning this on for the camera. He's leaning forward and raising his voice and shouting because he knows he's on TV.' You and I earlier today were in your office and you were shouting at me just this way before the cameras were rolling.

Rosenhaus: Scott, I don't see the shouting.

Pelley: This is the real deal.

Rosenhaus:You know, this is just enthusiasm.

Pelley: This isn't shouting?

Rosenhaus: No, I think I'm just talking to you. I didn't--am I loud?

Pelley: No, I --

Rosenhaus: Sorry guys. Let's turn down the mic.

He doesn't drink coffee. Imagine what he'd be like on caffeine.

[Rosenhaus: "Come on!"]

No alcohol either, but he is a work-aholic.

[Rosenhaus on phone: Real good job today buddy. I guess you're not going to fire me. We'll be able to get you even more money. Try and be available tomorrow. Trust me!]

Rosenhaus: I live it, eat it, sleep it, every single minute of the day I think about my work. I love it. It's my passion. I enjoy it. So it's not like it's a job. It's just--it's fun.

His clients include ferocious defender Jason Pierre-Paul; star running back Frank Gore...

[Rosenhaus: Way to go stud, I'm really proud of you.]

And two of the leagues fastest rising future superstars: tight end Rob Gronkowski; and explosive running back Lesean McCoy.

He works out with his players during the day, parties with them at night. And he is always, always on call.

Rosenhaus: If I get a call in the middle of the night, I have to take it. If I'm with a girl I have to take it. If I'm in the shower, I have to take it.

Rosenhaus: My clients are like my family, like my brothers literally. So when they hurt I hurt and there's a lot of emotion involved. You know you enjoy the ups and man do you feel the downs.

Pelley: But come on, you've got how many clients now?

Rosenhaus: Approximately 170 active clients.

Pelley: You can't have a personal relationship with 170 guys.

Rosenhaus: Scott, I do. I want each one of my clients to feel that they are my only client, that they are my most important client, that I love them.

Pelley: A few people watching this might look at you and say, 'That poor man.' Seriously, no family, no wife. He's 44. He has no life.

Rosenhaus: Well, I love the NFL. I've given my life to it. My girlfriend of two years, we broke up, she said I work too hard. I cared more about my business than I did her.

Pelley: She was right.

Rosenhaus: She was. She was.

At least now she doesn't have to drive with him.

Rosenhaus: I'll drive, text and be on the Internet at the same time. And (phone rings) it's, it's, it's dangerous.

Pelley: Now I assume what you're doing here isn't strictly legal?

Rosenhaus: It's totally illegal, what I'm doing. I always use two phones. This phone is for phone calls and texts. This is for emails, the Internet.

Pelley: There it is again.

Rosenhaus picks up phone: Yeah, hey, I'm I'm with someone. Try me again. Buh bye.

Pelley: How many calls in a day?

Rosenhaus: A few hundred.

The calls started when he signed his first client while still a student at Duke University Law School. At age 22, he became the youngest agent ever in the NFL.

Pelley: How did you know that you wanted to do this work?

Rosenhaus: I had to be maybe eight, nine years old and I said, 'Whoa it would be cool.' You know, I think I saw a couple clips of agents on TV and it was like, 'Man! Wooh!'

Pelley: Wait a minute. You wanted to be a sports agent at the age of eight?

Rosenhaus: Very early on I was just a real football--I'm gonna use the term geek. When the Dolphins won, Scott, I was the happiest guy on the planet. I was a huge Dolphins fan growing up here in Miami. When they lost, I literally was in tears.

He was also in tears because he got bullied in school, so his father enrolled 12-year-old Rosenhaus, and his younger brother Jason - who's now his business partner - in a karate school run by a master named Young Soo Do. Do transformed Rosenhaus.

Rosenhaus: I went from a guy that was a mama's boy, who was soft, who was maybe a bit of a baby to hard-nosed, to tough to exactly the opposite. He taught me about discipline, conquering your fears, battling adversity, to push yourself to become the best. Young Soo Do turned me into a man.

A man who has now built a family business into the biggest agency in all of football.

[Rosenhaus: Marcus. Say hello to Donte Stallworth, one of my clients.]

We were with Rosenhaus on the NFL's draft night last year. He was in Los Angeles with his top draft prospect, cornerback Jimmy Smith. Smith was, surrounded by family, friends and ferocious tension.

[Rosenhaus: Thirty seconds, hang in there]

His financial future was on the line. The earlier he was picked, the more money he would make--but Smith was not an easy sell. He'd tested positive for marijuana. So Rosenhaus had to take him on a tour to visit coaches to convince them that Smith had matured.

[Rosenhaus: Keep an eye on your phone.]

On this night they expected the Baltimore Ravens to pick Smith in the first round. But when the Ravens turn came, they didn't pick anybody.

[ESPN: This is unusual. They passed. In other words, somebody jumps into your slot.

Rosenhaus: We're working on the trade.]

Look at Rosenhaus. If he has doubts, he will never show them.

[Rosenhaus: They're going to take you. Just stay positive, all right buddy.

Smith: Uh huh.

Rosenhaus: Look like you're happy. Smile and something good's gonna happen.

ESPN: What the hell's going on out there?

Rosenhaus: I'm trying to get a hold of the Ravens. They're not answering the phone. Hang on guys.]

After eight agonizing minutes, Smith got a call.

[Rosenhaus: That's gonna be us. Shhhh...

ESPN: The Baltimore Ravens select --- Jimmy Smith.]

He'll make about 8 million dollars over four years, plenty to celebrate.

[ESPN: And there's Drew, the omnipresent Drew.]

Rosenhaus signed 17 clients in last year's draft -- of course, more than any other agent.

Pelley: You know who doesn't like you so much?

Rosenhaus: The other agents.

Pelley: The other agents.

Rosenhaus: That's great.

Pelley: You've been called a sleazeball.

Rosenhaus: I have.

Pelley: You've been called a thief.

Rosenhaus: Keep it comin' man. I love when agents talk badly about me.

Pelley: The wrap on you is that you steal other guy's clients.

Rosenhaus: I've heard it. Yeah. And it's so false.

Pelley: But 80 percent of your clients had other agents first?

Rosenhaus: I think that's right. I think that's correct.

Other agents have filed almost 50 grievances against Rosenhaus with the players' union. His competitors claim that he has stolen the clients that they have under contract. But so far, Rosenhaus says he has won every case.

Rosenhaus: It's kill or be killed in this business. And I intend to do the killing.

Rosenhaus: When I was on the cover of "Sports Illustrated" they said, "The Most Hated Man in Pro Football." BS. I wasn't the most hated man. The players like me. I think the owners, the teams like me. The agents don't like me. That still stands today. And it always will.

Part of that is resentment of Rosenhaus success. When the NFL lockout ended last summer, Rosenhaus says he negotiated more than 90 contracts in just over one month.

Contracts worth about $600 million dollars. Rosenhaus' take is $18 million. That's three percent the maximum that the Players Union allows. How do you earn that kind of cash just by talking? Well watch what we saw in a hotel room when Rosenhaus called a series of general managers.

[Rosenhaus: What you're offering is just a joke. The price is just going to go up. You're blowing it. I'm bringing you a player. You're going to look like a genius. A one year contract for 5 million is a steal for him. He's worth at least twice that. What do you mean: he's been hurt a lot? The concussions are a thing of the past --- on top of that he's got a new helmet. That's not even close. What do you mean: we're too far apart? C'mon. You're killing me here. You're taking a huge risk by letting me get off the phone 'cause when I get off the phone I'm calling another team. Yes! Good man!]

If all that looks familiar, well it should. When Tom Cruise played super agent Jerry Maguire, Maguire's persona was based largely on Rosenhaus.

[Jerry Maguire: He said I don't know what it's like to be a black person! I'm Mr. Black People.

Jerry Maguire: Show me the money!!!!!!

Cuba Gooding Jr.: Congratulations you're still my agent.]

Pelley: Do you have to keep these guys out of trouble?

Rosenhaus: Sometimes, yeah.

Pelley: You put clients in rehab?

Rosenhaus: I have.

Pelley: Bailed clients out of jail?

Rosenhaus: Of course. I've gone in the middle of the night to do that. I've visited clients in prison. I mean, that's brutal. There's nothing, nothing tougher than that.

His most famous prison client is star receiver Plaxico Burress. Burress served more than twenty months for shooting himself - in a nightclub - with an unlicensed handgun. When Burress was released, Rosenhaus was there with his typically understated welcome.

[Rosenhaus: Ahhhhhhh!!!!]

Pelley: Good thing he's not a 300-pound lineman. He hit you pretty hard.

Plaxico Burress: I'd have been running the other way.

Pelley: You're in prison.

Burress: Right.

Pelley: You shot yourself in the leg.

Burress: Right.

Pelley: What kind of things was Rosenhaus telling you?

Burress: Stay strong. You know, stay strong. He was like, you know, "Our day to shine is comin' again."

Burress had missed two seasons. But Rosenhaus talked the New York Jets into a one year, three-million dollar contract.

Burress: Drew's a salesman, I mean, that's what he does.

Pelley: When he called you and said, 'I've got a deal with the Jets.' You thought what?

Burress: Championship. Championship.

One thing is certain, a Rosenhaus client will play in this year's Super Bowl, because he has clients on every team - but Atlanta.

That's the result of his obsessive single-minded discipline he traces back to his Tae Kwon Do training as a boy.

Whether to impress his clients or his competitors, Rosenhaus didn't want us to get away without seeing a concrete example of his force of will.

Rosenhaus: Nine bricks. It's the most I've ever done with the fire technique. It's gotta be very quick, very explosive, very powerful, very fast, otherwise I'm gonna get burnt very badly. I've broken my hand. I've gotten stitches. You have to hit it though, as if it's not bricks. As if it's a pillow. You have to hit it with all your heart, with all your might.

And, consider, that's his texting hand.

Rosenhaus: Hiyaaa! Ahh!

Pelley: Does that hand still work?

Rosenhaus: Yeah. Everything's great. I'm perfect.

Pelley: A Miami columnist once wrote about you. His words, not mine, 'Only a few things will survive a nuclear holocaust, and they are?'

Rosenhaus: Cockroaches and Drew Rosenhaus.

Pelley: And Twinkies.

Rosenhaus: Twinkies.

Pelley: Are you more the cockroach or the Twinkie?

Rosenhaus: If a cockroach is strong and a survivor, then that's okay. Every day I get a client that's injured, that's hurt, that gets cut, that gets traded.

Pelley: Gets arrested?

Rosenhaus: Arrested. Tragic, stress, panic, paranoia. But I embrace that calamity. I'm comfortable in that chaos.