Speaker 1: What's up, everybody.
Speaker 2: I'm Peanut Tillman and this is the NFL Players Sagan
Speaker 2: Acts Podcast and with me, as always my church's co host,
Speaker 2: mister Roman Harper.
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 4: What man? How you doing?
Speaker 3: Peanut? Uh?
Speaker 5: Really excited about the guests that we have today. And
Speaker 5: then also just this uh, this taj mahall that we're
Speaker 5: in right now in the middle of Frisco, Texas. Uh,
Speaker 5: the Star Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys allowing us
Speaker 5: to be here to interview some of their greatest and
Speaker 5: finest people around the area. And it's uh, I gotta,
Speaker 5: I gottamit. I'm very very impressed with what we see today. Yeah,
Speaker 5: let's get right into it.
Speaker 2: Our guest right now played nine seasons with the Chiefs,
Speaker 2: won a Super Bowl. He and his wife Marissa now
Speaker 2: have a cookie empire called the Cookie Society. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 2: please welcome to the pod. Mister Jeff Outen, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Lean not Tillman, the Chicago legend. Now
Speaker 3: as a as a kid growing up in Chicago, man,
Speaker 3: I want to give you flowers. Appreciate what you did
Speaker 3: for the city. A kid that grew up on the
Speaker 3: South side. You gave me hope. So appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Oh Man, I received it.
Speaker 3: Rum. I watched you too, man, the connection one there
Speaker 3: where you've had great here in my whole life, So
Speaker 3: that you know you're awesome guy. Man, You guys are
Speaker 3: your great. You guys are unbelievable polish at this media things.
Speaker 3: So appreciate y'all having me.
Speaker 4: Oh Man, Jeff Man. Appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: I knew you were a big fan of Pein. I
Speaker 4: mean the moment you met him.
Speaker 5: That's the first thing you said when you walked in
Speaker 5: was like, dude, big fami of yours shock Chicago. So
Speaker 5: shout out to you guys, man, and what you're doing
Speaker 5: off the field has been amazing. So I want to
Speaker 5: jump into that. Before we get into all that, though,
Speaker 5: I want to talk about your newest.
Speaker 4: Adventure in your life.
Speaker 5: I heard you have a baby girl on what was
Speaker 5: the date, February seventeenth. Around that January seventeenth, okay, January seventeen,
Speaker 5: you post.
Speaker 3: The picture February Sebruary. We waited a little bit of
Speaker 3: time before we let everybody know, but amazing child number
Speaker 3: three we took over the time. I have a ten
Speaker 3: year old just turned ten yesterday and I have an
Speaker 3: eight year old son. So two girls, one boy, man three?
Speaker 3: How is it?
Speaker 4: How is it being back in the diaper phase?
Speaker 3: We didn't realize how hard it was. Yeah, we forgot.
Speaker 1: You did that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was out. Then you go back. It's rough.
Speaker 3: It's rough. You forget, and then you forget those sleepless nights.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, y'all know, it's
Speaker 3: all worth it. It's the greatest gift on earth, it
Speaker 3: is having children, and just to see that. Honestly, it's
Speaker 3: a different phase in my life. I'm retiring now, so
Speaker 3: I'm spending more time with the baby, and I'm doing
Speaker 3: some of those diaper changes. I can't make the excuse
Speaker 3: that I got I got practice in the morning. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so so I'm doing that. But it's an unbelievable experience
Speaker 3: being able to be here and see the child developed
Speaker 3: at these early stages.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's you.
Speaker 3: You got four. I got four four.
Speaker 1: As a lucky number, so I got to go one
Speaker 1: more then you got to you know.
Speaker 5: It's personal, that's personal preference. Me I wasn't trying, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean, So you know, but me neither.
Speaker 4: I mean, if you.
Speaker 5: Swing the back, you may you may make contact every
Speaker 5: now and then, so that's just what it is. But yes,
Speaker 5: you enjoy yourself. I'm not trying to go back to
Speaker 5: any kind of diaper phase. All My kids are now
Speaker 5: using the bathroom by themselves, So I think once you
Speaker 5: get to that phase, you know, it's really hard to
Speaker 5: go back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I.
Speaker 1: Want to talk about high school. So you went to
Speaker 1: was it King?
Speaker 2: Yeah, College preparatory, King College Prep, King College Prep south Side,
Speaker 2: east Side, south Side. But what was that experience like
Speaker 2: for you? And how was football at at that specific school?
Speaker 3: It was amazing. I grew up on the East side
Speaker 3: of Chicago, which is a little bit of a distance
Speaker 3: from King, but at the time, my uncle he was
Speaker 3: coaching at King, so he convinced me to come there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they had just transitioned from a normal school. Chicago went
Speaker 3: through an educational change at that time where they're getting
Speaker 3: rid of some vocational schools and opening college preparatory schools.
Speaker 3: So King became one of those schools and I ended
Speaker 3: up going there. You know, playing football started at varsity
Speaker 3: all four years. Got that tough love for my uncle,
Speaker 3: you know, he played the University of Miami back and
Speaker 3: he hey day from those good days. I mean his
Speaker 3: roommate was Russell Maryland, yeah, mic wherever he was there
Speaker 3: those days, and he was hard on me.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: He made a lot of mistakes and he wanted to
Speaker 3: make sure I didn't make those mistakes. And honestly, it
Speaker 3: was one of the big reasons why I was able
Speaker 3: to have that that gritting, that toughness and be able
Speaker 3: to persevere through some things as I got throughout my career.
Speaker 1: Now, who was the big Who was the big rival?
Speaker 3: I used to play our biggest rival, and I would
Speaker 3: probably say Crane High School. It was out West. We
Speaker 3: always had some tough battles against them, basketball and football.
Speaker 3: Also semeon same thing. Yeah, that's the ones.
Speaker 5: That's Deck Rose, yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And they also
Speaker 5: the other guy that passed away.
Speaker 3: There, guy Benji Wilson. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 5: So Now this is for people like me, college ignorant, whatever,
Speaker 5: or you can just call it from the South.
Speaker 4: But a lot of people from the South.
Speaker 5: We look at the you know, U city guys, Chicago,
Speaker 5: New York, other big city like they ain't really playing
Speaker 5: the ball up there. Tell me what football is like
Speaker 5: in the of Chicago.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's kind of true. I mean that was
Speaker 3: what was it like, It's kind of it's kind of true.
Speaker 3: I mean I'm here in Texas and i've been so
Speaker 3: you were I've been here for ten years. I was
Speaker 3: in Houston before and now I'm here in Dallas. School
Speaker 3: football football is life here, yes, And in Chicago up
Speaker 3: north as basketball yes. So we don't get those same resources,
Speaker 3: we don't get the same crowds. It's not the same energy.
Speaker 3: And honestly, when I first started, we'd have a weight room,
Speaker 3: we'd have a field. Wow, I was really wrong. So
Speaker 3: when I got to college, that was one of the
Speaker 3: first times I had a weight program. Now I could
Speaker 3: barely bench to twenty five. I couldn't make a run.
Speaker 3: That was just pure athleticism and talent. I had a
Speaker 3: lot of a lot of growing up to do, and
Speaker 3: those coaches got me, you know, in the right position.
Speaker 3: But early on it it was like, I don't know
Speaker 3: if this is for me.
Speaker 2: So the thing that I think, I don't think a
Speaker 2: lot of people know about the city of Chicago, like CPS.
Speaker 2: If you do it for one school, you got to
Speaker 2: do it, and it's way too many schools and it's
Speaker 2: just too many schools, you know what I'm saying. Like
Speaker 2: at my daughter school, she goes to Kingwood. She went
Speaker 2: to Kingwood, Like they didn't when it was cold. They
Speaker 2: ran in the building and it like they just ran
Speaker 2: in a big square in their building between lockers and classrooms,
Speaker 2: like they was just they run in sprints in the
Speaker 2: school in the middle of the hallway. Like that's just
Speaker 2: that's just kind of what you had to do. What
Speaker 2: was I got another side question? What was the first
Speaker 2: thing that I ran through your mind when you saw
Speaker 2: Friday night lights in the state of Texas and like
Speaker 2: a high school game, like the crowd everything.
Speaker 3: First time when I saw the stadium, I'm like, who's
Speaker 3: paying for this? This is crazy, man. This looks like
Speaker 3: the Vision one football And just to see the fandom,
Speaker 3: like these local businesses are shutting down. You see all
Speaker 3: everyone's invested in these kids. I mean that's superstars. I
Speaker 3: mean early on, they're getting that treatment early on. So
Speaker 3: to see it, you can only experience it by seeing it.
Speaker 3: It's not something you can really explain. And the energy
Speaker 3: that you see in these stadiums is unbelievable.
Speaker 5: So you you talked about it earlier about you know,
Speaker 5: how raw you were and by the time you got
Speaker 5: to college that you know, you didn't have a lot
Speaker 5: of the resources that you lack going to high school,
Speaker 5: and you know, believing having your uncle to kind of
Speaker 5: believe in you important to you. Did you ever think
Speaker 5: that you could make it to the NFL kind of
Speaker 5: growing up the way that Because you put a tweet
Speaker 5: out one time, and it was a really really good tweet.
Speaker 5: It talked about I wasn't a high school all star player,
Speaker 5: and I think a lot of people need to hear
Speaker 5: that a lot of guys that make it to the
Speaker 5: NFL or exactly exactly what you're what you were saying,
Speaker 5: And so you said I wasn't a high school all
Speaker 5: star as zero stars, I wasn't on anybody's radar. But
Speaker 5: one camp, just one opportunity, changed everything.
Speaker 4: I went to a.
Speaker 5: Camp in Illinois one day campaign into my senior season,
Speaker 5: I got an offer and from there I became a
Speaker 5: two star recruit.
Speaker 4: That was all I needed.
Speaker 5: And So because you maybe just kind of talk about
Speaker 5: that what your experience was, because we all have them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but that sounds very personal. Man. Ever since
Speaker 3: I was a kid all I wanted to do was
Speaker 3: play in the NFL, Like I immediately fell in love
Speaker 3: with football, Like I still love football the same way.
Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of it. Now I don't play
Speaker 3: it anymore. But my first time playing football, I snuck
Speaker 3: out of the house I was I wasn't even old
Speaker 3: enough to sign up for the team. I went to
Speaker 3: a local park. It was right now with Jackson Park,
Speaker 3: and I saw kids with pads. I'm like, where'd y'all
Speaker 3: get those from? They told me following them one day,
Speaker 3: went up there, lied to the coach. The first thing
Speaker 3: we did was run a lap around the whole field.
Speaker 3: I'm like, why are we doing this? I just want pads.
Speaker 3: But I ended up signing up for the team, and
Speaker 3: after the first hit, it was boom, this is for me.
Speaker 3: And I remember watching Bears Packers and all I wanted
Speaker 3: to do is be Reggie White. Yea in the first
Speaker 3: jersey I got was Reggie White. Even though I was
Speaker 3: a Bears fan. I had that because I wanted to
Speaker 3: be like him. And from that moment it was just
Speaker 3: constant work, constant belief, despite the circumstance. Is growing up
Speaker 3: where I grew up a lot of people don't make
Speaker 3: it out. It's a tough situation, but I had belief.
Speaker 3: I had a strong support since with my mother, my uncle,
Speaker 3: and I was able to do it. And it was
Speaker 3: one step at a time. I remember I ended up
Speaker 3: telling Jason Nevanta's story. Shout out to Jason nevant Jason
Speaker 3: up becoming with my teammates in Kansas City, but before
Speaker 3: he was my teammate, he came to talk to our
Speaker 3: youth team. He came to talk to us and he
Speaker 3: was telling us about the process. And at the time
Speaker 3: he was in the NFL, he was at Michigan and
Speaker 3: he was telling us the process of college and what
Speaker 3: it took to get there and what you had to do.
Speaker 3: And he wasn't talking directly to me, but I was
Speaker 3: in that crowd, and that gave me so much excitement
Speaker 3: and energy. And although I had my uncle in my life,
Speaker 3: he was my uncle, hearing it from someone else, coming
Speaker 3: from my neighborhood from where I was from, that gave
Speaker 3: me a different spark of energy. And that's one of
Speaker 3: the main reasons why I do what I do now.
Speaker 3: And I get the opportunity to talk to kids, I
Speaker 3: give it my all because you never know who's going
Speaker 3: to be in that crowd, so shout out to you, Jason.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you.
Speaker 5: But and the crazy thing is that a lot like
Speaker 5: you go talk to this group and you're not everybody's
Speaker 5: gonna hear it, but you never know the one who
Speaker 5: you changed their life, or that here's something that really,
Speaker 5: like you said, sparks this light in them. It's like, man,
Speaker 5: I want to do that. That's awesome, that's a great story.
Speaker 2: Thanks for So I got my thirteen years.
Speaker 1: You played twelve eleven, but thank you.
Speaker 4: Oh I give you one.
Speaker 1: I'll give you twelve.
Speaker 2: So I got my thirteen, he got his eleven. Thousands
Speaker 2: of football players that we've played amongst the two of us,
Speaker 2: and we can always go back to that. One player
Speaker 2: was like, dang, that's that welcome to the NFL moment.
Speaker 2: Now I'm now I know I'm in the league. When
Speaker 2: you got drafted, what was your welcome to the NFL moment?
Speaker 3: Man? Tommy Kelly and Richard Seymour they were older at
Speaker 3: the time, but they're in Oakland and they looked like avatars.
Speaker 3: And I can remember it was an outside on play
Speaker 3: and I crossed my feet and I was airborne, and
Speaker 3: all I saw is Richard Seymour standing over me and
Speaker 3: Tommy Kelly just talking straight cash. Oh my god, what
Speaker 3: am I? It's my rookie year in the game before
Speaker 3: that had a great game a regular I felt great,
Speaker 3: So it all counts. I'm like, yeah, all counts. I
Speaker 3: start feeling myself and I could play in this league.
Speaker 3: These guys, I mean they're old. Now boom them me
Speaker 3: real quick. So that taught me a lesson, man, for sure.
Speaker 5: Now you said that, you know, you kind of came
Speaker 5: out of nothing, but I mean you did start every
Speaker 5: game in college, yeah right, and left tackle. So how
Speaker 5: did like you go from like I don't know, tam
Speaker 5: a sudden Listen, It's okay.
Speaker 3: A lot of hard work, God and a little bit
Speaker 3: of luck. We all have those same stories. So I
Speaker 3: left high school. I was able to graduate mid year. Okay,
Speaker 3: So when I win the spring my struggle, all of
Speaker 3: my struggle happened while all the other freshmen at home.
Speaker 3: So I'm with the with the upper classmen. They give
Speaker 3: me a hard time. I'm not making any runs. I'm
Speaker 3: doing six a ms and I knew what I was
Speaker 3: in for before fall camp came. So I didn't go
Speaker 3: back home after the spring. I stayed there, stayed the
Speaker 3: whole summer. Once all the other freshmen came in, I
Speaker 3: was ahead of the curve.
Speaker 4: You're eight months in already, I.
Speaker 3: Was already in, So I was in for it. I
Speaker 3: had a decent spring valls with the twos and threes.
Speaker 3: Then I went into fall camp. We had a couple
Speaker 3: of injuries. I was playing guard at the time, but
Speaker 3: because of injury, I got some reps a tackle in practice,
Speaker 3: did some one on ones, went against our best defensive
Speaker 3: end at the time, had a great rep against and
Speaker 3: the coaches like, do it again, did it again, shut
Speaker 3: them down, do it again three times in the rows. Okay,
Speaker 3: you may be a tackle. So I slowly started getting
Speaker 3: reps of tackle. Had another guy go go down Game one.
Speaker 3: I didn't start my first game. He went down broke
Speaker 3: his foot like halfway through the game, and then I
Speaker 3: was starting after that. My first start was at Penn
Speaker 3: State doing a white out against Aaron Mabon, who ended
Speaker 3: up being a top pick. At the time I'm watching
Speaker 3: it was the morning of the game. It was the
Speaker 3: night game. I'm watching the ESPN. They're talking about our
Speaker 3: matchup and that like Aaron's gonna kill his kids. True freshman,
Speaker 3: it's his first start. I think Aaron had five sacks
Speaker 3: at the time, and I was the I was the
Speaker 3: weakest link in their eyes, and I remember leaving it.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh man, I'm gonna be the one
Speaker 3: that that messed this thing up. But I went out there.
Speaker 3: I shook off the nerves. First play, it was a
Speaker 3: pass play. I slipped, recovered, ended up blocking him. I
Speaker 3: was okay, I might be all right. And then it
Speaker 3: was a third and long. For the first time, he
Speaker 3: knows this past. I blocked him, and that gave me
Speaker 3: the utmost confidence had a great game to give him
Speaker 3: any sacks, any pressures. And from that moment, I had
Speaker 3: the mindset, you got to show me, like I don't
Speaker 3: care what nobody's saying on TV. I don't care what
Speaker 3: the rankings say. You haven't played me yet.
Speaker 2: Our coach used to always say, you got to guard
Speaker 2: the man, not the reputation, and that that that I
Speaker 2: think that that holds true.
Speaker 1: That kind of sounds like the was Wally Pip.
Speaker 3: Yeah when he got hurt in Babe Ruth game.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's yeah, No, No, that's what I'm saying, like
Speaker 2: someone got hurt, you got.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what it is. I guess that my version
Speaker 3: of it. I appreciate it. Come on, we're gonna take
Speaker 3: a short break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 5: So what was it like You talked about reputation? What
Speaker 5: was it like playing for Andy Reid? We mentioned a
Speaker 5: little bit earlier, but I want you to share with
Speaker 5: everybody else I've heard. I won't say horror stories, but
Speaker 5: I mean it's pretty old school.
Speaker 3: No, he definitely has the worst camp in the NFL.
Speaker 3: It's one of those things that make you want to
Speaker 3: retire early. But Andy Reid is the greatest leader I've
Speaker 3: ever ever been around. Yeah, he's old school, but he's
Speaker 3: also a players coach, and he cares about the human being. Obviously,
Speaker 3: noticed a business that we're in. Anything happy, you got
Speaker 3: to make decisions. But he's always gonna care about the person,
Speaker 3: and he's always gonna be honest with you. He's not
Speaker 3: gonna be one of the people that smile on your
Speaker 3: face and tell you and do something otherwise. He's going
Speaker 3: to tell you the truth. You got you gotta trust
Speaker 3: that and you gotta believe it. He also got to
Speaker 3: go out there and perform, So I was very appreciative
Speaker 3: of that in his mindset.
Speaker 5: So where would you rank him as on your list
Speaker 5: of all time coaches if you had to have one.
Speaker 3: I always have this debate with people. I would say
Speaker 3: he's the greatest ever. Honestly, I think I think Belichick, obviously,
Speaker 3: in what he did with New England, speaks volumes and
Speaker 3: everyone puts him on that at the top. But Andy's
Speaker 3: done it in many different ways, in many different areas,
Speaker 3: several teams, and a lot of different quarterbacks. That's hard
Speaker 3: to do. I don't think Bill ever had the opportunity
Speaker 3: to do that. He has so long with Tom Brady,
Speaker 3: he never really had the opportunity to do it with
Speaker 3: a lot of quarterbacks, so he had such a great
Speaker 3: one for so long. But Andy's done it a lot
Speaker 3: of different ways. And being in the building with him
Speaker 3: and seeing how he operates, He's open to feedback from coaches,
Speaker 3: from players. He's always evolving and getting better. And I
Speaker 3: don't know if that's really the New New England way
Speaker 3: from what I hear.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, look, they're not trying to kick Bill
Speaker 5: Belichick while he's down, But yeah, I know he was
Speaker 5: below five hundred at Cleveland as a head coach, and
Speaker 5: then once Tom left they kind.
Speaker 3: Of struggled as well.
Speaker 5: But back to Andy Reid, what's up with the Hawaiian shirts? Like,
Speaker 5: has he ever explained to you guys like his whole swag?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean they're comfortable. He's all about He's all
Speaker 3: about comfort and cheeseburds. Comfort in cheeseburgers. He says that
Speaker 3: every meeting, I'm gonna treat you to a burger after
Speaker 3: every every meeting before again, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: He says cheeseburger and everything. I saw in one of
Speaker 2: the meetings he said, you know we're gonna do this
Speaker 2: this all right, come on, let's go get some cheese burds.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Everything. He loves some cheese burgs. Okay. He loves food,
Speaker 3: not just I mean, honestly, I think I talked to
Speaker 3: him more about food than out there football does. Cookies,
Speaker 3: he loves cookie society's favorites. Sweep potato pot that's his
Speaker 3: favorite cookie. He's definitely an offensive line guy. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: he still loves the old line. He loves foods just
Speaker 3: like we did.
Speaker 2: So I would love to know what Andy Reid and
Speaker 2: the entire team what their mood was on Go back
Speaker 2: to twenty thirteen, the wild card game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: At the start of the third quarter, it was thirty
Speaker 2: eight ten Chiefs, thirty eight Colts ten. By the end
Speaker 2: of the third quarter it was forty one thirty one Chiefs,
Speaker 2: and ultimately the Chiefs or excuse me, the Colts st
Speaker 2: ended up winning forty five to forty four. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: gave up, They gave up the lead. So what was
Speaker 2: what was how was that afterward? Like in the locker room?
Speaker 2: Was what was the message?
Speaker 3: Man? That wasn't really a message. That was a series
Speaker 3: of unfortunate events. I mean, everything that could go wrong,
Speaker 3: and that second half went wrong, and it wasn't. It
Speaker 3: wasn't like we came out and I mean, obviously we
Speaker 3: did something wrong, but it wasn't like mentally we went
Speaker 3: out and said we're gonna take our foot off the gas.
Speaker 3: It just was a lot of crazy stuff that happened,
Speaker 3: and it has to in order for a team to
Speaker 3: come back like that. And after the game, it was
Speaker 3: just one of those moments where it was a lot
Speaker 3: of silence. We all were in disbelief. I really try
Speaker 3: to forget about it, but thank you for bringing it
Speaker 3: back up.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's.
Speaker 3: I really think about that game a lot. Honestly. That
Speaker 3: was a really tough loss for me. And one of
Speaker 3: my college roommates was on the other side, so he still.
Speaker 2: I just remember, I figured, y'all, we're going to lose
Speaker 2: a game when I think the running back Donald he
Speaker 2: fumbled on the goal line and then Andrew Look picked
Speaker 2: it up and it's kind of bounced right in his
Speaker 2: hands and then he dove in for a touchdowns Like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, the football guys are on the coatses team.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, they're looking out for you.
Speaker 4: So when you're on the sideline, all right, So when
Speaker 4: you're up, you're up. You're cool. Like, at what point
Speaker 4: do we like, man, we trip it? Like, at what
Speaker 4: point did that happen?
Speaker 2: DJ said it a little bit like DJ was miked
Speaker 2: up that game and he was just like, come on, now,
Speaker 2: we're not losing this game, like he is. You can
Speaker 2: see DJ tr ting to like stay positive and keep
Speaker 2: the mental sharpness.
Speaker 1: Of the team, like, no, we're gonna win. We can't
Speaker 1: lose this game.
Speaker 3: We gave up like seventeen points in like four minutes.
Speaker 3: I was like, this is crazy. But I remember going
Speaker 3: on the sideline after after a series and then running
Speaker 3: our running back FuMB with the ball. We turned it
Speaker 3: over there, getting a little bit momentum, and I just
Speaker 3: remember our coach offensive line coach telling us like, hey,
Speaker 3: pick it up, pick it up, don't let it. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say I want to say, but stuff
Speaker 3: rose downhill, and that's sure what happened. Everything just kept
Speaker 3: piling up, and mistake after mistake happened, and you know,
Speaker 3: the coach had some good luck there, but ultimately I
Speaker 3: think we gave that game away.
Speaker 5: So did Andy Reid call you in twenty eighteen until
Speaker 5: you not to retire?
Speaker 3: Yes, he did tell me about this. So I had
Speaker 3: a back and cussion my last year in Houston, and
Speaker 3: I was I was in Pittsburgh. Rehappen, ended up getting
Speaker 3: back healthy. But after I got healthy, I was reluctant
Speaker 3: to play again. I was like, I don't want to
Speaker 3: play anymore. I'm done. But I was still was training
Speaker 3: my trainer down here, Duke Manning. Whether I still was
Speaker 3: working out, that's all I knew was to work out
Speaker 3: that way, and he was down in training camp and
Speaker 3: I guess my name came up and he said, Jeff
Speaker 3: still working out And I ended up getting a call
Speaker 3: from Andy Reid and he convinced me not to retire, And.
Speaker 4: How do you convince somebody not to retire?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 4: What is that?
Speaker 3: The conversation was like, are you truly done? Like? Are
Speaker 3: you truly done? If you are truly done, I'm going
Speaker 3: to respect that. I just want to know, you know,
Speaker 3: from you personally, you know, are you done? And before
Speaker 3: I had that call with him, I felt like I
Speaker 3: wasn't done, and I had calls from other teams. I
Speaker 3: was like, no, I'm done. And then when I got
Speaker 3: that call. Leading up to that, I just had this
Speaker 3: feeling that I was leaving something on the table. I
Speaker 3: really felt like I wanted to go back, and it
Speaker 3: had to be the right situation. Obviously Kansas City, knowing
Speaker 3: Andy Reid and being comfortable Anti Hecked office line coach there,
Speaker 3: that would be a good fit for me. It was
Speaker 3: an easy decision. You come back.
Speaker 1: How gratifying was it to win a Super Bowl though?
Speaker 3: With him and Patrick Mahms because you out there. I
Speaker 3: didn't get the opportunity to play in that Super Bowl,
Speaker 3: but to see you know everything leading up to that
Speaker 3: that was that was definitely amazing.
Speaker 5: What does it tell you about the organization because on
Speaker 5: the big chart, right, the Chiefs have had a whole.
Speaker 3: Bunch of success.
Speaker 5: But now all of a sudden, the NFL comes out
Speaker 5: with this chart every year where they rank the organizations. Yeah,
Speaker 5: the Chiefs. Yeah, for the food, the facility, all this other.
Speaker 5: And you would think the Chiefs would be at the top.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, but they weren't. But you and your experience
Speaker 5: has been great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I definitely had a great experience, That's what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. But some of those grades I could see
Speaker 3: like that some of the facilities could be upgraded.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but what's your No, there's nobody like this.
Speaker 4: But what's your opinion that they made sure they give
Speaker 4: you a ring?
Speaker 3: Though?
Speaker 4: You said what that you got a ring from the
Speaker 4: Super Bowl?
Speaker 3: No, No, it's a great organization. Yeah, I would say,
Speaker 3: from top to bottom, the way they treat people. Yes, straight,
Speaker 3: I think a lot of this first class. I think
Speaker 3: a lot of people's opinions were based upon aesthetics. Right.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't even think that even comes from the
Speaker 5: people in the building.
Speaker 3: What that comes from outside? That has for us. That
Speaker 3: doesn't That doesn't matter to me. I don't care what
Speaker 3: the weight room looks like. I don't care what the
Speaker 3: training room looks like. I care about winning, yes, at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, and I care about do
Speaker 3: we have a good coaching staff and how they treating
Speaker 3: us like men and we respect And that's all I
Speaker 3: ever got from there.
Speaker 2: I think one of the best things that the organization
Speaker 2: does is if you're an ambassador for the team, Like
Speaker 2: if you're a retired player and they ask you to
Speaker 2: become an ambassador and you say yes, and you go
Speaker 2: out and you speak on behalf of the team and
Speaker 2: talk about all the good and whatever whatever that they're
Speaker 2: asking you to do, and the team actually goes out
Speaker 2: and they win a super Bowl, you get a ring.
Speaker 3: Yeah No, that's no, that's awesome. Because I got released
Speaker 3: week four, head into that sea.
Speaker 4: This is the story I wanted to hear.
Speaker 3: So I got released. I got released week four that year,
Speaker 3: and going into that preseason, I thought about retiring again.
Speaker 3: We just we lost the FC title the year before.
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm done. I told him. I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm done. I'm done. I'm done for real this time.
Speaker 3: Then I got that same call from Andy. He's like, Jeff,
Speaker 3: you just don't want to training camp. I was like,
Speaker 3: kind of, but Noah, I really was thinking about being done,
Speaker 3: but still the same feeling. I was like, you know what,
Speaker 3: I think this might video. We went the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: A lot of stuff went on movement wise in the
Speaker 3: old line room that didn't they didn't expect. A lot
Speaker 3: of young guys went on waivers. They ended up picking
Speaker 3: them up getting the week four, we had a guy
Speaker 3: come from come back from suspension. We had a good relationship.
Speaker 3: We're gonna release it, but we're gonna bring it back.
Speaker 3: But at that time, when I got released, I went
Speaker 3: to Chicago, went talked to some family, messed with some friends,
Speaker 3: and ultimately after those conversations, I felt like I did
Speaker 3: everything that I could do and no matter what I
Speaker 3: was it coming back. Got released on a Thursday. On Monday,
Speaker 3: they call like, hey, we need you back. God got
Speaker 3: hurt a Sunday night against it. I think they're playing
Speaker 3: the Coats that Monday. They caused ours time. He thought
Speaker 3: it was gonna be a few weeks later. But at
Speaker 3: the time, I was like, you know what, I'm done,
Speaker 3: It's time for me to be done. I listened to
Speaker 3: my family, my friends, and god, my wife talked to
Speaker 3: my mom about it, and it was ultimately time to
Speaker 3: be done, and I transitioned to selling cookies.
Speaker 4: But at the end, you got the call and they
Speaker 4: were like, you're going to get a ring?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I got it.
Speaker 4: So did you know that you were going to get
Speaker 4: a ring?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I knew, I knew. I knew I was going
Speaker 3: to get a ring. It was one of those things
Speaker 3: where I really have a good relationship with the staff there.
Speaker 3: Brett Veach. Yeah, it was one of those things where
Speaker 3: I felt like it was the right thing to do,
Speaker 3: given the time that I spent there and given away
Speaker 3: that you know, we decided to move on. It wasn't
Speaker 3: like one of those things where it was a burned bridge.
Speaker 3: It just was a decision that was best for me
Speaker 3: at the time. So you were rooting hard, Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I was a big fan. Yeah, yeah, that's all. I
Speaker 3: want to still a big fan.
Speaker 4: All.
Speaker 3: I wanted to see that and just just to see
Speaker 3: all the flact that Andy Ree was getting up until that.
Speaker 3: It's very true like he had to win it. It was
Speaker 3: always he always came up short. So to know the
Speaker 3: man and to see everything that he put into it.
Speaker 3: That's all I wanted to see. Like I wanted to
Speaker 3: see the guys win it, but I wanted to see
Speaker 3: Andy Reef for his legacy win it more than anything. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So now let's transition to your second act. Right you retire,
Speaker 2: you and your wife get into the cookie the cookie business.
Speaker 2: I really want to know, like I really want to
Speaker 2: dive into, like how did this even start?
Speaker 3: Are you a baker? The baker? So I'll tell you.
Speaker 3: So she's the baker. I'm a big foodie and so
Speaker 3: is my wife. So every off season we travel, our
Speaker 3: tenerary would be based upon where are the places to
Speaker 3: go eat with whatever city or country wherever we are
Speaker 3: that off season, we took a quick trip to New
Speaker 3: York and there was a famous bakery there and I
Speaker 3: thought it was a bakery. I thought it was going
Speaker 3: full spread, croissants, all type of pastries. Waiting in line
Speaker 3: almost an hour, get to the front. They had four
Speaker 3: cookies and one croissant. I asked the associate, I'm like, hey,
Speaker 3: it's all y'all have. She's like, yeah, this is all
Speaker 3: that we sell. And I'm like, this is crazy. I
Speaker 3: waited in line just for cookies. So we went across
Speaker 3: the streets to Central Park. We sat on the bench
Speaker 3: and I ate the cookie and it was out of
Speaker 3: this world amazing. And I turned toward my wife. She
Speaker 3: was a former college soccer player, so she's competitive. Hit
Speaker 3: it with some reverse psychology and said, you can't do
Speaker 3: anything like this because I wanted it at home. That's it.
Speaker 3: It wasn't the start of business. We got back to Houston.
Speaker 3: She started playing around the kitchen trying to recreate their recipe.
Speaker 3: She couldn't figure it out, so she's like, you know what,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna make a cookie the way I think you
Speaker 3: should make it. Made a chocolate chip. Then it went
Speaker 3: on to banana pudding and so forth, and then all
Speaker 3: the flavors started coming. Started taking them in the locker room,
Speaker 3: give them the coaches, players, everybody said the same thing.
Speaker 3: These the best cookies you've ever had. And that's how
Speaker 3: we got the idea.
Speaker 1: So what year was that was?
Speaker 3: That was in twenty eighteen, So.
Speaker 2: That was in twenty eighteen. So twenty eighteen, you go
Speaker 2: to New York, you eat the cookie, you reverse psychology, Yeah,
Speaker 2: asked the wifey to make you some.
Speaker 1: She's making them.
Speaker 2: The team eats them, they love them. When did you
Speaker 2: When did you know that? Yo, we can turn this
Speaker 2: into a business.
Speaker 3: When someone asked to buy some, When someone asked to
Speaker 3: buy some, one of my teammates shout out to Chris Clark.
Speaker 3: He asked to buy some during the holidays. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: we're like. She was like, I don't sell cookies. That's
Speaker 3: not what I really want to do. I like baking them,
Speaker 3: but just give it to him. I was like, I
Speaker 3: grew up an entrepreneur man. Yeah, I grew up hustling.
Speaker 3: I was the one knocking on doors, shoveling snow, raking leaves,
Speaker 3: selling candy in the hall. That was me. So I
Speaker 3: was like, now you're going to sell it to him.
Speaker 3: He got the money, he gonna sell it to Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we end up selling the cookies and then after
Speaker 3: that we're like, you know, I was like, I don't
Speaker 3: know how much longer I'm going to play. We talked
Speaker 3: about franchises and things. I was like, how about we
Speaker 3: just build our own thing like that? And we decided
Speaker 3: We sat down at a table around table and we
Speaker 3: threw some things back and forth and we tried to
Speaker 3: figure out what it was going to be and we
Speaker 3: came across Cookie Society, looked it up, did some research,
Speaker 3: was able to trade market. The u r L was
Speaker 3: available all the social media tags and we just took
Speaker 3: it as a sign. I was like, this is this
Speaker 3: is this is something that that's new. And at the
Speaker 3: time there wasn't a lot of gourmet cookie companies, so
Speaker 3: we felt like we were bringing we were bringing something
Speaker 3: new to the market. But now they're everywhere.
Speaker 2: So how many do you I think you just opened
Speaker 2: up a third one in man Man?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got we have first. So we have Frisco Texas,
Speaker 3: South Lake Texas, Addison Texas, prosper Texas, and now Mansfield, Texas.
Speaker 3: Those are the five we have. Now we're going to
Speaker 3: continue to open more. We're going to focus on the
Speaker 3: DFW for now. Yeah, then eventually outside of the DFW,
Speaker 3: but only in Texas until we become the Cookie of
Speaker 3: Texas that we won't feel comfortable leave in Texas. We
Speaker 3: wanted to be like what a yeah, yeah, you know
Speaker 3: when you think Texas burgers, what do you say, what
Speaker 3: a burger?
Speaker 2: Yes, we want to do a cookie now, do y'all
Speaker 2: sew more than four cookies and a croissant, Like, how
Speaker 2: many do you we have?
Speaker 3: We sell ten cookie flavors at a time. We rotate monthly,
Speaker 3: six classics they stay all year, and then we have
Speaker 3: four that rotate monthly. We also sell brownies and other
Speaker 3: treats depending on the season. We're gonna take a short
Speaker 3: break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 5: Your wife has whoever does the social media for a
Speaker 5: Cookie Society does outstanding jobs.
Speaker 3: The music is your wife is nice.
Speaker 5: The way you guys mix everything in you guys, go
Speaker 5: check it out Cookie Society.
Speaker 1: She got she got a marketing degree too, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, she has a market She does a great job.
Speaker 5: I was on your Instagram page for like fifteen minutes
Speaker 5: the other day, just going through. I saw the browning
Speaker 5: the brownie cookies.
Speaker 3: So did it make you want a cookie?
Speaker 4: I totally wanted cookie, That's what I'm talking Immediately we.
Speaker 5: Got right up there, look at that that up I'm
Speaker 5: telling you so what we got.
Speaker 3: We got banana putting up top left, right, in the
Speaker 3: middle of chocolate chip to the right, we got snickerdoodle
Speaker 3: bottom left, salta Karma to the bottom left yet middle
Speaker 3: frosted o mill. Then we have a strawberry toast. You
Speaker 3: treat kind of like, we can't say that though for
Speaker 3: legal reasons, you know, you can say you can say it,
Speaker 3: I can't say it. That's why you said that.
Speaker 5: We already no, I was. I was really thrilled. I
Speaker 5: was hoping you were gonna bring something here for you.
Speaker 3: I'm happy to Uh, this is really cool.
Speaker 5: And so you guys are doing the cookie thing. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I've seen a couple of interviews. You and your wife
Speaker 5: do it, Marissa, the great job of promoting yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like that, like that? Which one was that that's
Speaker 3: the banana pudding.
Speaker 5: That's banana putting one. Yeah, I don't really like banana putting,
Speaker 5: but it's fine. So you and your wife, you guys
Speaker 5: are constantly promoting it. You do a great job on
Speaker 5: social media, and so all of a sudden, you guys
Speaker 5: are going along. And what's it like when all of
Speaker 5: a sudden when Oprah's people reach out to your people.
Speaker 3: Because that's that's crazy.
Speaker 4: So for those that don't know, he was on open.
Speaker 3: Yes. So when we did our business plan, one of
Speaker 3: the things that one of our goals was to be
Speaker 3: from a from a I guess the accolade standpoint was
Speaker 3: to be on that list.
Speaker 4: Oh really, that was a goal.
Speaker 3: That was number one, like and number two was like,
Speaker 3: get Beyonce the cookies. My wife is Beyonce f But
Speaker 3: like when we got that, we thought it was a prank.
Speaker 3: We got an email from the not the publisher, the
Speaker 3: editor from Old Magazine, and the email was very short
Speaker 3: and brief.
Speaker 4: Like who had been there? How did you guys get
Speaker 4: secretly scotted? Do you know any of this?
Speaker 3: We still don't know to this day. We get the email, Hey,
Speaker 3: this is such and such from Old Magazine. Can you
Speaker 3: get us in touch with your PR. I'm great, I
Speaker 3: am the PR. So I created another email. PR so
Speaker 3: I created the email, reached back out. We checked it
Speaker 3: out because we thought it was faked first, end up
Speaker 3: finding the ladies LinkedIn and it was legit. From that point,
Speaker 3: I think it reached out in August. We sent cookies
Speaker 3: for months to so many different people before it ever
Speaker 3: touched Oprah in Gil's hands. We finally get to the end.
Speaker 3: They're like, Okay, can you do this, can you do that?
Speaker 3: Can you do this price point? Can you get special
Speaker 3: packaging for the holidays? And then we finally get to
Speaker 3: the end as Okay, y'all pretty much made it. We
Speaker 3: love everything, but now it's up to you know, Oprah herself,
Speaker 3: and she likes it send it to her, so we
Speaker 3: sent it to her. Which flavors did you guys send her?
Speaker 3: We sent her red velvet banana pudding, which is one
Speaker 3: of her favorites. Turtle, It's turtle, Turtle. It's like a
Speaker 3: like caramel pecans, chocolate chips, and like a brown butter cookie.
Speaker 3: And then we sent her like a hot cocoa cookie.
Speaker 3: They're all Holidays cookies, p com pie. I think we
Speaker 3: sent their soup potato pie. We did twelve different flavors
Speaker 3: for the box, which is crazy, like from a production standpoint,
Speaker 3: doing twelve different flavors, it's tough to execute, but we
Speaker 3: ended up doing it. And at the time, I think
Speaker 3: the most cookies we've ever sent in a month was
Speaker 3: like packages was probably like maybe four hundred. We were
Speaker 3: getting at an hour when that list released, like an hour,
Speaker 3: so we had to turn our website off. We had
Speaker 3: to turn off the Amazon store. Oh wow, Like we're
Speaker 3: getting calls from you know, their team like hey, like
Speaker 3: I got to turn that back on. We're like we
Speaker 3: have we had fifteen hundred square feet at the time
Speaker 3: where we're doing this all out of and we have
Speaker 3: people lined up line yeah, line yeah. So it was
Speaker 3: tough to keep up production. We ended up figuring it out.
Speaker 3: We were around o'clock twenty four to seven for basically
Speaker 3: two months, and then we tried to figure out how
Speaker 3: do we increase production, and then we got into manufacturing,
Speaker 3: so we manufacture our own product now and that's how
Speaker 3: we've been able to scale.
Speaker 2: Shout out the Oprah Man, that's dope, and your wife too.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, no, it's a great feeling. It's one of those
Speaker 3: things that's surreal and for me me personally, I I mean,
Speaker 3: we do we did what you did, what you did
Speaker 3: for a living, you too. It was for us. We
Speaker 3: loved what we did, but we never saw or felt
Speaker 3: what others felt. Right, we just were doing our thing
Speaker 3: that we was doing our job. We loved it, but
Speaker 3: we didn't really feel that that proudness that they felt.
Speaker 3: Seeing this and seeing it grow and watching my wife
Speaker 3: build something it's been like one of the greatest things
Speaker 3: to witness for me. And being able to be a
Speaker 3: part of it and help her along the way. It
Speaker 3: has been even greater. So shout out to my wife.
Speaker 3: Find you a good woman and your your life will
Speaker 3: be good.
Speaker 4: And I've heard you talk.
Speaker 5: If she was naturally how she felt lost at times
Speaker 5: when she was just like she knew she was there
Speaker 5: to support you. Yeah, she wanted to do that, but
Speaker 5: it was also like, I mean, I am used to
Speaker 5: be in my own as well. And for you guys
Speaker 5: to now have this and she's the lead dog and
Speaker 5: you're being more of the support role, how's that been.
Speaker 5: Has it been healthy for you guys? How's it been
Speaker 5: firing those roles as well?
Speaker 3: No, it's definitely been healthy for us, I think. I mean,
Speaker 3: we both are athletes, so we obtained players. And one
Speaker 3: of the things that we always talk about is, you know,
Speaker 3: basically do your job. It sounds like New England, but
Speaker 3: do your job, but knowing your roles. Yeah, like we
Speaker 3: are very sure in what we do. Yeah, I know
Speaker 3: what I do, she knows what she does. We're going
Speaker 3: to defer to each other in our expert fields. If
Speaker 3: it's something that she's leading, I'm gonna say, hey, what
Speaker 3: do you think about this? Or vice versa, and at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, I'm gonna trust in her
Speaker 3: and she's gonna trust in me, and I think that's
Speaker 3: made our marriage better. Yeah, honestly, because I don't want
Speaker 3: to equate it to business. But when you have the
Speaker 3: structure and everything's in place and you can communicate, you're
Speaker 3: gonna be better partners, both in your relationship personally and
Speaker 3: also business.
Speaker 2: So the transition, you know, from the game to let's
Speaker 2: just say life, some people do well, some people don't. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, I went right into working. I tried to
Speaker 2: have something to take my mind off of football. Mister
Speaker 2: Harper over here, he didn't do nothing for a year.
Speaker 2: So everyone's different. Everyone's different. Right, Was having a business
Speaker 2: easier for you during that transition from leaving the game
Speaker 2: to going right into business or the less?
Speaker 3: I would say so, because I mean, even with having that,
Speaker 3: the transition is always gonna be tough. But having another
Speaker 3: challenge and keeping myself busy and being able to recreate
Speaker 3: myself in real time as opposed to being idle and
Speaker 3: sitting there and wondering what I'm gonna do or trying
Speaker 3: to figure it out. I just threw myself into the fire. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I made myself really uncomfortable. I wouldn't say this is
Speaker 3: something that I expected to do. But anything that I do,
Speaker 3: care what it is, I'm gonna give it my all.
Speaker 3: And it just so happened to be. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: been a huge passion of mine. I've always had this
Speaker 3: bug of being an entrepreneur. Everything you do as an athlete,
Speaker 3: you make it to the level we made it to,
Speaker 3: You're gonna have the characteristics to be able to be
Speaker 3: a good entrepreneur. You're going to be a good leader,
Speaker 3: even if you didn't have that seat on your chest.
Speaker 3: You're gonna know how to lead people, put teams together,
Speaker 3: You're gonna know how to you know, work through hard stuff.
Speaker 3: And then that's the entrepreneurship. I heard somebody say it's
Speaker 3: like jumping out a plane with no parachute and building
Speaker 3: another plane before you hit the ground and making people
Speaker 3: buy tickets to that plane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it sounds pretty uhretty scary for me.
Speaker 3: But that's definitely what entrepreneurship is. It's just a leap
Speaker 3: of faith believing. Obviously, you gotta have structure, you got
Speaker 3: to you gotta have some type of education and research
Speaker 3: to back it, but you're gonna learn a lot on
Speaker 3: the fly.
Speaker 2: So what's been as an entrepreneur or what's been the
Speaker 2: toughest obstacle with the cookie society?
Speaker 3: The toughest obstacle, I would say managing expectations. And any
Speaker 3: business that you're going to be in, it doesn't matter
Speaker 3: if it's a product or service, it's a people with business.
Speaker 3: You're dealing with a consumer or you're dealing with your team. Right,
Speaker 3: if you can't manage the expectations of both, you're not
Speaker 3: going to go anywhere.
Speaker 5: So what's something that you've had to midstream adjust? You know,
Speaker 5: you jumped out the plane, all right, you built the plane?
Speaker 3: Yeah, how'd you sell the tickets? How did I sell
Speaker 3: the tickets? I would say for us it was building
Speaker 3: a strong brand. And we say it all the time.
Speaker 3: We say we're a big business in a small building.
Speaker 3: We're knowing we're near being a big player in this,
Speaker 3: but we're going to present ourselves like that. But we're
Speaker 3: going to also operate like that. And that's the most
Speaker 3: important part, especially early on. You gotta and this is
Speaker 3: about managing expectations. Like I said, you got to set
Speaker 3: the standard. Those processes have to be in place, and
Speaker 3: that way you're in a place to scale. You don't
Speaker 3: want to get to the fifth floor and realize that
Speaker 3: the foundation isn't built correctly. Yeah, so we want to
Speaker 3: make sure we're doing the right things before we take off.
Speaker 3: And that's what we've been doing for the past two years.
Speaker 3: And now we're scaling. We've opened three stores in the
Speaker 3: last nine months and we're going to continue to grow stores.
Speaker 3: But we had to wait for the right time to
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, So what is Yeah, no, I was going to say,
Speaker 5: so what is next? Like, I know you guys want
Speaker 5: to stay building in Texas. You want to become being
Speaker 5: the cookie of Texas.
Speaker 3: It's a big state.
Speaker 4: That it's a big it's a big it's a big state.
Speaker 3: Well, it goes to open at least three to five
Speaker 3: more here in the DFW and different areas to reach
Speaker 3: different demos, and then we're gonna start looking at Houston.
Speaker 3: We're actually going to Houston next week to look Austin,
Speaker 3: San Antonio, all the big cities in Texas. You got
Speaker 3: to get to Austin.
Speaker 4: Then you end up in the stadium over there.
Speaker 3: DKR definitely. Definitely, we're in an American air Line Center.
Speaker 3: We got that this year. Yeah, Congress, and continue to
Speaker 3: get stadiums and things like that, and just diversify what
Speaker 3: we do with cookies, not just in the retail space,
Speaker 3: in the hotel space, all those different things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just got an entrepreneur idea.
Speaker 3: I talked to a guy.
Speaker 2: He's got a store in the airport, and I had
Speaker 2: a simple course and it's like, why is your product
Speaker 2: more expensive in an airport? And he said, because you
Speaker 2: need it. If you need two paste, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to sell it at the grocery store at the grocer
Speaker 2: store price. You need it, So supplying the man, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna jack up the price two three dollars.
Speaker 1: So are y'all in? Are you not in the airports right?
Speaker 3: We're working on that. We're working on that. We actually
Speaker 3: we're really close to getting that done.
Speaker 2: So come on, I'm over here you I'm inspired. I'm thinking, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 4: Know if that was an entrepreneur idea or if you
Speaker 4: just talked to an entrepreneur.
Speaker 3: Why are you ideas all the time?
Speaker 1: See what like this dude?
Speaker 3: He shoots me down all the time. Every time I
Speaker 3: have a good idea.
Speaker 1: It's like that, ain't what that is?
Speaker 3: You just stopped. If it was an idea, you heard.
Speaker 1: Terrible let me ask you.
Speaker 2: Get you some good friends that always encourage you. Man,
Speaker 2: don't don't do this, he shoots me.
Speaker 3: Listen, man, there's studies that say friends that give you
Speaker 3: a hard time love you more than any friends. So
Speaker 3: I think you're a good friend. You think now why
Speaker 3: you take? It? Just got bigger and greater.
Speaker 4: I mean, Jeff said, I've been great as long as
Speaker 4: I know. He know me, dog, So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the worse all right?
Speaker 5: Well, Jeff, we always like to ask this about everybody,
Speaker 5: and Peanut usually does a better job of asking this
Speaker 5: question than me. But uh, Mount Rushmore, the greatest and
Speaker 5: brightest that we say is who they are? How about
Speaker 5: on your Mount Rushmore of influence on you to make
Speaker 5: you and help you become who you are?
Speaker 4: Right now? Who would those four people be?
Speaker 3: I would say my mom first and foremost, seeing everything
Speaker 3: that she was able to persevere in the heart that
Speaker 3: she had while going through it and now being a parent,
Speaker 3: like you don't appreciate your parents and tea you become
Speaker 3: one like you appreciate them, but you don't understand. You
Speaker 3: lack the perspective. Right now that I have kids, Now
Speaker 3: that I have kids and I'm raising my children, I
Speaker 3: have every resource in the world, and it's still hard.
Speaker 3: My mom was a single mom, worked two three jobs,
Speaker 3: and she showed up to every practice, every game. I
Speaker 3: didn't want for anything. I wasn't rich by any men,
Speaker 3: but I was rich in love like she showed up
Speaker 3: for me all the time, and knowing what I know
Speaker 3: now looking back at them, how does she do that?
Speaker 3: So she's an amazing woman. Then after that, I would
Speaker 3: say my uncle was the biggest football influence in my life.
Speaker 3: He was the one that you gave me that toughness.
Speaker 3: I think I hung my head on being tough and
Speaker 3: playing football. Like. I wasn't the most athletic guy. I
Speaker 3: wasn't the guy that was on the all look team.
Speaker 3: He used to always say, you got to b m
Speaker 3: W boy. Body made wrong. Yeah, but look, but look,
Speaker 3: I was gonna go out there and I was gonna
Speaker 3: prove otherwise. And I went out there and I did
Speaker 3: everything I was supposed to do. And he played a
Speaker 3: big part in instilling that mentality in me and believing
Speaker 3: in myself. I would say my wife, I would say
Speaker 3: before I met her, I just I was. I wasn't
Speaker 3: as focused as I am now being with her, Seeing
Speaker 3: how meticulous she is and how hard she works made
Speaker 3: me work even harder. And then I started the family
Speaker 3: and our children and all that and the legacy of that.
Speaker 3: That's that's beyond anything like, that's beyond me. That's bigger
Speaker 3: than me. So I appreciate her for that. And then
Speaker 3: let me see, I would say, I would say, man,
Speaker 3: there's so many people. I feel like I'm gonna leave
Speaker 3: so many people. That's the purpose. That's question. That's a
Speaker 3: very tough one. Man. I would say, I'm gonna go
Speaker 3: back to football, and I'm gonna say my high school
Speaker 3: coach Lonnie Williams, and I could say a bunch of
Speaker 3: other people, but he, he, he. He was the person
Speaker 3: that showed me that love that I needed in the
Speaker 3: time while I was getting that tough love for my uncle.
Speaker 3: Like one I always came over the bouce that reassured
Speaker 3: me during those times where I was like, man, like
Speaker 3: why is he so hard on me? And he would
Speaker 3: be the one to give me the reason why right,
Speaker 3: because my uncle wasn't gonna be the one to tell
Speaker 3: me like, no, like I'm telling you this because I'm
Speaker 3: treating you like this. Because he would come because he
Speaker 3: don't want you to make mistakes he made. Yeah, he
Speaker 3: sees something in you that you don't see him yourself.
Speaker 3: Or are you a lot better than he was at
Speaker 3: this age? You know, I'm just telling you. He wants
Speaker 3: you to rest of Miami. He's all American. Although you're
Speaker 3: not getting the same looks he's gotten, you're probably better
Speaker 3: than him right now. So that gave me a lot
Speaker 3: of confidence. So I appreciate him for that.
Speaker 2: So does uncle like the cookies? Does he give you
Speaker 2: a hard time about the cookies society?
Speaker 3: No, Man, I actually lost my uncle. I don't want
Speaker 3: to make a guy sad. I actually lost him before
Speaker 3: my first well before my first start in Houston. I
Speaker 3: lost him right before the first game. So yeah, so
Speaker 3: that was a tough loss for me. That was one
Speaker 3: of those things where you know, it happened fast. Pancreatic
Speaker 3: cancer stage four. Passed away within two weeks after get diagnosed,
Speaker 3: and I was happy he was able to see me
Speaker 3: make it and that he didn't suffer for too long.
Speaker 3: But it definitely was. It was rough for me and
Speaker 3: a lot of the things that people don't see, like
Speaker 3: when you play football, you deal with stuff like that.
Speaker 3: I went into that season cloudy for the first few
Speaker 3: weeks because that was a big loss for me. But
Speaker 3: I still had to pull myself together, be professional, go
Speaker 3: out there and perform. But I was dealing with that
Speaker 3: on the background.
Speaker 5: Jeff Man, before we get you about of here, first
Speaker 5: and foremost, thanks for that last story. And I want
Speaker 5: to it seems like you had things and points in
Speaker 5: your life almost very similar to my situation where sometimes
Speaker 5: you're not always just naturally this confident kid that just
Speaker 5: steps out here on the field and just dominates because
Speaker 5: I'm bigger and I got this mentality. But it was
Speaker 5: like little points in your life, little things happen for you, Yeah,
Speaker 5: that gave you the confidence is.
Speaker 4: Like no, actually I'm gonna be okay.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it seems like you've done this with this
Speaker 5: the cookie society. It wasn't always right, but something happened.
Speaker 5: It was like h Clark wanted to buy the cookies
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, Like these little confident moments in
Speaker 5: your life, could you maybe talk to some of our
Speaker 5: viewers and listeners that are that are sitting out there
Speaker 5: and like, you know, how to believe in yourself and
Speaker 5: when things give you that light or that glimmer of
Speaker 5: confidence what to do and how to handle it.
Speaker 3: I would I would say one of my biggest attributes
Speaker 3: and one of the things that I developed over time,
Speaker 3: is just a grid and toughness in the callus. And
Speaker 3: that's something that you just develop throughout life. But it's
Speaker 3: also something that you can lean yourself on. You you
Speaker 3: can hang your head on it. You and you get
Speaker 3: used to just doing hard things. It's not that becomes easier.
Speaker 3: Nothing becomes easier. You just get used to doing it.
Speaker 3: And there's no point in doing anything if it's not
Speaker 3: going to be hard like it's just no way around it.
Speaker 3: I know it sounds cliche, but there's no shortcut to
Speaker 3: success and you're going to fail right but fall forward.
Speaker 3: And that mistake is never a mistake. If it happens once,
Speaker 3: it's a lesson. You got to take it, learn from it,
Speaker 3: and propel yourself. And for me, I didn't go to
Speaker 3: business school, right, so for me, my master's degree in
Speaker 3: business has been in real time and making mistakes for
Speaker 3: the first time. And when I make those mistakes, they
Speaker 3: turn into lessons because I don't let it happen again.
Speaker 3: So believe in yourself, don't be afraid to fail and
Speaker 3: have this uncompromising belief in yourself because stuff's gonna happen
Speaker 3: that makes you want to quit, But anybody will tell
Speaker 3: you that's made in anywhere. To the top of a mountain.
Speaker 3: The kid of getting there is not quitting.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate you coming on the pot. I'm probably
Speaker 2: gonna eat the rest of these cookies. I'm gonna caugh
Speaker 2: on them. I'm calling on all these cookies. They're all mine,
Speaker 2: so you don't have to do that. I saw you
Speaker 2: brought two boxes, but I'm keeping this one from me
Speaker 2: and then y'all get sure to other ones.
Speaker 4: It's been a blessing man.
Speaker 5: Thank you, man, and appreciate you coming in man, young
Speaker 5: man from Chicago coming here, showing peanuts and love.
Speaker 2: He gave both of our flowers, like that's that's a first.
Speaker 2: We ain't never both got flowers.
Speaker 1: It's always one, but you're the first person to give
Speaker 1: both of us are flowers.
Speaker 3: I have to man. I appreciate you guys, thank you
Speaker 3: very much.
Speaker 4: Appreciate them with the cookies.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and for all of our viewers out there and listeners, man,
Speaker 5: make sure you give us a five star rating wherever
Speaker 5: you pick up your podcast at with his iHeartRadio app
Speaker 5: Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 4: You heard it exactly where that uh? And uh?
Speaker 3: What is it? Click?
Speaker 2: Give us a like, Share, subscribe, subscribe, follow, follow, check
Speaker 2: us out on our NFL.
Speaker 3: YouTube channel, Peanut We're at. I'm peanut.
Speaker 2: That's wrong, that's Jeff We out And this is the
Speaker 2: NFL Player's Second Act podcast