Bill Maas opens the door of his five-bedroom home and extends a giant hand to shake. He invites you in, offers water or iced tea but says he isn’t sure he wants to talk.

His name is toxic after a nightmare 2007 that included losing his job as a football analyst for Fox Sports, an arrest on gun and drug charges and a detainment at the airport when security found a gun in his carry-on bag.

So the former Chiefs All-Pro isn’t sure he wants to go through all of this again. He thinks you will read the first two words of this story — Bill Maas — and make up your mind. He says he doesn’t care, that he’s done with it.

That’s a lie. The truth is, he cares a lot.

“This thing is so above my head in so many different ways,” he says. “People are going to think what they want. It all matches up.”

One year ago today, Maas’ personal problems went public when his Hummer was stopped at a roadside safety check in Illinois. Police say they found a loaded .22, 6 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of marijuana and 28 ecstasy pills.

Maas says the drugs weren’t his, and that the pills were actually prescription weight-loss medication. According to the Illinois State Police, the drug charges were dropped and Maas pleaded guilty to a gun charge, paid a fine and agreed to a year’s worth of court supervision.

Two months later, security at Kansas City International Airport found a 9 mm Glock in his carry-on bag. A loophole in the law saved him from being charged. He paid a fine, the check wrapping up a year in which he fell from TV star to a sad cautionary tale.

Things are better now, more normal. His first public comments since these troubles began covered his past use of recreational and prescription drugs, a lost broadcasting career and where he goes from here.

Maas is fighting at least two serious health conditions: depression and loss of short-term memory. There are days he grunts curse words first thing in the morning, 10 NFL seasons’ worth of pain in his knees and the rest of his body screaming him awake.

Those are the days he wishes he had a fistful of hydrocodone, like old times, but Maas says he’s done self-medicating now.

He has a lot to say. In the beginning, he wanted to do this so he could resurrect his broadcasting career. That’s no longer part of this.

“To be honest,” he says, “I don’t think it’s resurrectable.”

But he wants people to know his side of this, so his kids don’t have to answer questions, so maybe their school counselors will stop calling, asking “Mr. Maas, are you OK?”

Yeah, he probably can’t salvage his broadcasting career. He’s 46 years old and hoping it’s not too late for the rest of his life.

His best friend is worried.

* * *

The white work van pulls up to the small barbecue joint. The driver’s door opens and out comes a huge man, 6 feet 5 and maybe 300 pounds, wearing shorts, a T-shirt and work boots. Bill Maas picked this place.

On this day, he was up before dawn to reinforce beams in a barn on a farm he owns, and after lunch he’s putting in a floor at another property.

Yesterday, he was mowing grass and pulling weeds. He has never been afraid of work.

Maas isn’t sure exactly how many properties he owns — “Have to check with my bookkeeper on that,” he says — only that it’s more than 10. Some are rentals, some flip-and-sell, some commercial, and a few developmental.

These days he’s more project manager than celebrity. His income comes from working with his hands, but now he’s building fences instead of sacking quarterbacks. That old life is never far from his mind.

The frontal lobe of his brain is damaged. Doctors say it’s a direct result of his NFL career and has caused him depression, minor speech problems and extreme loss of short-term memory.

It’s one of the conditions that drove him online, buying hydrocodone and other painkillers from pharmacies he knew probably weren’t legitimate. He says his drug use began when his broadcasting career went downhill; a source says it was the other way around.

Probably doesn’t matter either way. One study found two of three NFL players with emotional problems within six months of leaving football. Twenty percent of those who sought help were treated for depression. In some ways, Maas’ story is a sad cliche of former NFL players.

“These guys are put on pedestals for so long,” says Andrew Jacobs, a sports psychologist. “People don’t say no to them, and they don’t say no back sometimes. And they’ve got to learn these things or sometimes they don’t survive.”

Maas says his prescription drug abuse is over, but the conditions he self-medicated remain, providing a real and daily reminder of what he’s up against. He loses his phone, misses appointments, drives across town for something and then can’t remember why he’s there.

“It’s not just something that happens every six months,” says Dick Matthews, a business partner who raves about Maas’ commitment and work ethic. “It could happen two or three times a week. Last week, we were supposed to meet and he forgot. I hung around, finally called, and he was like, “Oh, I’m on my way, I’m on my way.’”

* * *

Bill Maas loves telling old football stories. His body perks up. His eyes sparkle. His hands move.

Sometimes his stories reveal a little about himself, too. Like the time in college when the coach called his name every day for the bull-in-the-ring drill, where guys went one-on-one to see who could get pushed out of the circle.

Maas always got trounced in that drill, right up until the day Mark May drove him 20 yards back and into the ground. That’s when it flipped.

“I just (freaking) lost it,” he says. “Something went off, boom. And this was Mark May, Outland Trophy winner. I took the son of a bitch through, ripped his helmet off and I teed off, wouldn’t stop. Boom, boom. I never lost one of those (expletives) again.”

That productive rage, the willing loss of control, helped Maas to an All-Pro career. Maas and fame always formed a dangerous match. He handled his celebrity with mixed success, his playing days including the occasional bar fight.

For the incident at the airport, he says he was on his way to the Arctic to hunt caribou. His hunting rifle was unloaded and locked legally in his checked luggage. He grabbed the wrong bag for his carry-on, either because he was in a hurry or maybe because of “the head thing” — or both.

“That was a period I didn’t see him much,” says Paul Coffman, an ex-teammate and longtime friend. “I would talk to him occasionally but didn’t spend any time with him. Maybe he was burning the candle at both ends and it caught up to him. But he seems happy now.”

Maas tried recreational drugs, including cocaine. He admits this but is adamant that the drugs police found in his truck that night in Illinois were not his. The last time he used cocaine was “well more than a year ago,” he says.

* * *

Matthews says Maas is calmer now than a year ago. Coffman says his friend is happier.

“He’s not going to listen to people,” Coffman says. “You’ve gotta love him and pray for him and hope things turn out the best for him. Sometimes life’s slaps in the face wake people up.”

Neither man knows Maas as well as Dino Hackett, the former Chiefs linebacker. Maas and Hackett roomed together

Hackett knows his friend is on a better path but also knows how quickly that can change. Maas always has lived on the edge, lived large, according to his friends, and Hackett was by Maas’ side for a lot of it.

The difference is Hackett always was able to stay out of major trouble, the kind of trouble Maas found himself in last year.

Hackett would rather not have this conversation. He’d rather his friend’s problems stay private but knows that’s no longer possible. Before he gets off the phone, Hackett says he’s worried about Maas.

“I think he’s probably worried, too,” Hackett says. “I think he’s worried about a lot of things.”