Speaker 1: This is cut to It with Steve Smith Senior at
Speaker 1: production of The Black Effect and I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: Steve Smith Senior and I'm a little John and this
Speaker 1: is cut to it. Good do it, Good do good.
Speaker 1: They's getting down to do it. Good do it. We
Speaker 1: asked the questions you always want to know, but no
Speaker 1: one ever asked. Let's cut to it. You ain't heard
Speaker 1: am about it, then we're about to let you know.
Speaker 1: It's all. Yeah, it's gonna be hard for you to
Speaker 1: talk with Mike all the way over on out the
Speaker 1: side of the table. What's going on, man, How are
Speaker 1: you feeling? How are you feeling? I'm good, good, good
Speaker 1: good man. Back to it, cut to a podcast Agent
Speaker 1: eighty nine. Smithy, my brother, you're feeling good. I think so,
Speaker 1: think so. Yeah, I got I gotta checked my box.
Speaker 1: I checked once a year. And I'll let you know.
Speaker 1: What's that box? My care box. However you gotta check it.
Speaker 1: However you got to get that off your list. Let's
Speaker 1: do it, man, But man, let's dive right into it.
Speaker 1: Um Man, I'm excited. There's a lot of reasons I
Speaker 1: know that you want to start this podcast. And we
Speaker 1: started this podcast together and one of them that I
Speaker 1: think is really cool is that you've always had this
Speaker 1: passion and when you and when you talk to me
Speaker 1: and when you gave me your vision, the vision was
Speaker 1: you wanted to let athletes and entertainers tell their own
Speaker 1: narratives and tell their own troops. So, man, I'm why
Speaker 1: is that important to you? Why is that important to you?
Speaker 1: When you look at it? When you look at an article, UM, say,
Speaker 1: let's just say a beat writer and I think it's
Speaker 1: I think it's fifty fifty. When you look at the
Speaker 1: beat writer, you'll say that be right, represents um, you know,
Speaker 1: he's the middleman and or middle woman from that player
Speaker 1: or that team that they have been assigned to and
Speaker 1: the fans to the public, to the public or folk.
Speaker 1: You know, not all fans. You know that there's some
Speaker 1: people that like a team but don't like an individual
Speaker 1: where and there be times where the person who's writing
Speaker 1: an article they only really see that individual from open
Speaker 1: locker room, and in that open locker room, you see
Speaker 1: that individual and you get whatever that individual is that day.
Speaker 1: And so they report that not all in every beat
Speaker 1: writer's friends, and they also the athlete only gives that
Speaker 1: beat writer what they want to be writer to see.
Speaker 1: So sometimes the beat writer or the person who writes
Speaker 1: the article, I don't want to say misrepresents, but I
Speaker 1: don't think it is as clear the relationship that the
Speaker 1: athlete and the and and the journalists have. That's some journalists, man,
Speaker 1: I have great relationships or like thereof. And it's not
Speaker 1: because I disliked them. It's just you don't I met him,
Speaker 1: they wrote an article, they asked me a question about somebody,
Speaker 1: and then they move on or we move on and
Speaker 1: go our several ways. But yet that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: I have a good sense of that individual, just like
Speaker 1: I don't believe they have a good sense of me.
Speaker 1: And the reason I say that is I'm a people
Speaker 1: watcher and I and I watch people, and I can
Speaker 1: I watch body language, and I cannot get a sense
Speaker 1: of an individual. I don't think it's fair for me
Speaker 1: to say, well, I got a sense of an individual.
Speaker 1: I asked them ten questions and I got ten short answers,
Speaker 1: and I I know that person's I know what they're thinking,
Speaker 1: I know who they are as a as a man
Speaker 1: or a woman. I know their makeup. I don't believe
Speaker 1: that's accurate, and so sometimes people are writing articles or
Speaker 1: journalist are writing articles with a little bit of with
Speaker 1: a little bit of uh of authenticity or credibility that well,
Speaker 1: I'm writing this article about Exhibit A, and I've been
Speaker 1: around him well enough I know exactly what he's thinking.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a fair statement. I don't think
Speaker 1: that's even accurate. But they they don't present it that way,
Speaker 1: but they shure write articles as if they know exactly
Speaker 1: what's going on in that person. Hell, sometimes I don't
Speaker 1: even know what's going on in myself, so I don't
Speaker 1: know how an individual knows exactly. I mean, I I
Speaker 1: just think it's I think it's unfair, um unfair stigma
Speaker 1: that some journalists have. As as an athlete, Yeah, how
Speaker 1: does how does that make you feel? Yeah, sometimes it's
Speaker 1: sometimes I just kind of like out to be misrepresented.
Speaker 1: I think it. I think when you first do it,
Speaker 1: you get irritated. I think over time, you just it's
Speaker 1: just kind of part of it. And I and I
Speaker 1: I think that's sad that someone can write an article
Speaker 1: without you know, not knowing the person or having that
Speaker 1: much understanding of that individual, but yet writing in depth
Speaker 1: article about someone and somebody somebody's listening to say, well,
Speaker 1: that's not fair. Listen, I'm not saying it's fair. I
Speaker 1: just think it's interesting that a person can write an
Speaker 1: article in depth article about someone and they met them
Speaker 1: for five minutes or ten minutes out the day, and
Speaker 1: then they watch film with a lot of times no audio,
Speaker 1: and they go, you know what, this is how this
Speaker 1: person is. It's just is their favorite color, this is
Speaker 1: what they like. Blah blah blah blah. I just I
Speaker 1: don't I don't think it's I just I just think
Speaker 1: it's interesting, unique, misleading. Yeah, and and I know that's
Speaker 1: also a reason why you decided creating this platform, us
Speaker 1: having this this this podcast to not ask those kind
Speaker 1: of got your questions to get an athlete in that
Speaker 1: kind of situation to clickbait. For sure. One thing I
Speaker 1: love is that we get behind or inside of the
Speaker 1: jersey of an individual. And for you, I want to
Speaker 1: take a little time. I know you well beyond your jersey,
Speaker 1: well beyond you know ah and eighty nine and who
Speaker 1: you were on the field. I want to make sure
Speaker 1: our listeners get the same thing. Just in this short
Speaker 1: time of podcasts, and we were literally just talking about it.
Speaker 1: You know, we're fancy now, so we have pre production
Speaker 1: meetings and and we get a chance to you know,
Speaker 1: we got this. We gotta deal with our hearts, so
Speaker 1: we have things structured in a way. We were just
Speaker 1: talking about how social media this day is quick to
Speaker 1: hyper sensationalize a lot of stuff anything. You know, you
Speaker 1: can realize how narratives flip, they changed, they're stretched. It's
Speaker 1: very hard to write an article characters, but yet they
Speaker 1: do it all the time. They get crashed shorten to
Speaker 1: that whatever you say gets shortened to just a hunter
Speaker 1: forty character. You wonder why the context gets missed, or
Speaker 1: you wonder why that athlete doesn't want to talk to
Speaker 1: those individuals. Because now we're breaking news on social media, right, Well,
Speaker 1: my cousin Pookie heard that Leroy told James and such
Speaker 1: and such as on the team anymore, and we break
Speaker 1: that news, right and that now that person is called
Speaker 1: an insider and they have a source, even though their
Speaker 1: source is a cousin who knows someone who worked at
Speaker 1: the stadium, who does who works at the parking lot daily? Right,
Speaker 1: So because of those you know, different narratives, you know,
Speaker 1: different just have have lately come up a lot of
Speaker 1: stories from your time playing in Carolina with Cam Newton.
Speaker 1: Things have resurfaced. What would you like to clear up
Speaker 1: on the relationship with with Cam. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: anything to clear up because I don't really believe there's
Speaker 1: a negative relationship. I just think that the relationship is
Speaker 1: what it is, which I mean it's it's it's not
Speaker 1: a deep relationship. I think it's a very shallow relationship
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with necessarily Kim did something
Speaker 1: wrong or right, or me did something wrong. I think
Speaker 1: it's just kind of Both of our makeups were both tours,
Speaker 1: so we're very stubborn. Um. And the makeup of my
Speaker 1: horoscope right right, and then the other part is um right.
Speaker 1: I just I guess the pros and cons of being
Speaker 1: a teammate to Steve Smith is this. Um. The pros
Speaker 1: is I'm gonna work my butt off every single day.
Speaker 1: The con is, man, I wear my emotion on my
Speaker 1: sleeve and on the practice field. So if we had
Speaker 1: a bad week that week and we didn't perform, well,
Speaker 1: I'm on everybody. I'm expecting everybody to practice as hard
Speaker 1: as men. If we don't, it's gonna be a problem, right,
Speaker 1: That isn't that? And I said that's a negative? Is
Speaker 1: it's not that? Well? I think it's a negative because
Speaker 1: not everybody, I mean, I got four kids, and not
Speaker 1: not all my four kids have the same work ethic
Speaker 1: as each other. They all vary and it all depends
Speaker 1: on how are they motivated. So at times I rubbed,
Speaker 1: I brushed up against teammates the wrong way, and and
Speaker 1: there are some teammates brushed up against me the wrong way.
Speaker 1: That that's just that's called a that's called a job. Right.
Speaker 1: Do you do you think that that wears on players orgy? Oh? Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: because it's not every Not everybody wants to be on
Speaker 1: Steve's page. Steve don't want to be on everybody's page either.
Speaker 1: It all varies. Mm hmm. What what do you What
Speaker 1: do you think are the pros and cons of being
Speaker 1: a teammate of Steve Smith? Um? I always I've always
Speaker 1: been un Let's do the bad news first, Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: so the bad news is um man, I'm you know, oh,
Speaker 1: I think the biggest I'm not I look forward. I
Speaker 1: look ahead way too much. I don't live in a present.
Speaker 1: I don't work in the present um And what I
Speaker 1: mean by that is great example, i can catch ten passes,
Speaker 1: have X amount of yards, and I'll be stuck on
Speaker 1: the two passes I dropped, Like I mean, just just
Speaker 1: upset of myself for those Is that a way to
Speaker 1: trick your mind into not setting on what you achieved,
Speaker 1: is always thinking of what you can improve Because I'm
Speaker 1: of course I did not play. I'm not a Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame receiver like you are, but I know that
Speaker 1: I do the same exact thing in my day to
Speaker 1: day life. Like I can't settle on what I've accomplished.
Speaker 1: I'm always thinking of what's next, what do I need
Speaker 1: to It's my way of staying humble. I go even deeper.
Speaker 1: I'm never satisfied and always always piste off. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: every single day when I used to come to work,
Speaker 1: always thinking ahead, all thinking ahead to the point of where, bro,
Speaker 1: we just won a game, so we could have played better.
Speaker 1: That's how I've always been, and even you know, even
Speaker 1: when I was a little kid, you know, and I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know why, but that's just that's just kind
Speaker 1: of always better. Yeah, what's your relationship with formal guys teammates? Teammates. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm probably wanted to. It's I'm probably one of the
Speaker 1: one of the guys. I mean, you got to think
Speaker 1: about over sixteen years, fifty three teammates, right, I don't
Speaker 1: even know that number. But that's a lot of health teammates.
Speaker 1: I don't have all those people on my phone. You
Speaker 1: don't agree with everyone. You know, some people like rant,
Speaker 1: some people like blue cheese. Right there. There's there's things
Speaker 1: about teammates that I didn't like. And I know there's
Speaker 1: things about myself towards my former teammates that that didn't
Speaker 1: they didn't like. So, you know, there's guys I've talked
Speaker 1: to that neither. You know, various times we've changed numbers.
Speaker 1: I've changed numbers. Whereas it's reasons why, and it isn't
Speaker 1: I dislike someone and someone dislikes me someone. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: just the lack of connection, you know. I'm I'm bad
Speaker 1: at following through and follow up. I mean, I'll text
Speaker 1: a guy great example I had. I had um. I
Speaker 1: played with a guy named Wallace right for for two years.
Speaker 1: I had a buddy over at the house who was
Speaker 1: roommates with Wallace in college. I haven't talked to Wallace
Speaker 1: and seven and a half eight years Bro just connected, uh,
Speaker 1: probably two weeks ago, just by accident because he want
Speaker 1: his boy Mike, who's a friend of mine and our
Speaker 1: wives are friends and that's how we connected. Like so
Speaker 1: you know, I'm bad at Then there's guys that you know,
Speaker 1: I play in the Baltimore with I still talk to
Speaker 1: but then I don't really talk to him. Got their
Speaker 1: number on my phone, I don't literally talk to them
Speaker 1: until I travel and see him. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: not flower relationships, right, Like, it's it's people that you.
Speaker 1: I think that's with anybody, right, Like there's people who
Speaker 1: you are, who's in your circle, right even if your
Speaker 1: circle is a dot. But because that's why I'm I'm
Speaker 1: on it right now, like man a dot right now?
Speaker 1: You you and you and my dot brother. But appreciate that,
Speaker 1: but I'm glad I get your comfort. But um, but
Speaker 1: definitely think that's just the EBB and Flower relationship, right,
Speaker 1: is that you've got people that you're close with, and
Speaker 1: then you've got people who maybe you don't have but
Speaker 1: say to day contact, but when you catch up, it's
Speaker 1: like yesterday. Yeah. But the other thing too is um
Speaker 1: and I've always been a loner though, so it's not
Speaker 1: all It's not even one of those like even guys
Speaker 1: that I text, man like, I'm really cool with Stewart.
Speaker 1: Me and Stewart actually have gone Stewart Jonathan Stewart. Me
Speaker 1: and Jon Stewart actually have the same financial guy, bro
Speaker 1: men Stewy have the same financial guy in this whole pandemic.
Speaker 1: We've text probably five times. Really, yes, and we have
Speaker 1: the same final We're in the same investments. And the
Speaker 1: only reason I think I text on one time it's
Speaker 1: like Dann, I reached out the Stewart, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: real talk, it is how crazy it is. I'm a
Speaker 1: landlord of a Starbucks. Men Stewart are the landlords of
Speaker 1: this Starbucks. We rarely talk as the as the two landlords,
Speaker 1: as the two landlords own we rarely talk. I'll texting, Hey,
Speaker 1: we gotta do the taxes. He like, cool, that's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds crazy me and you know, but that's just
Speaker 1: kind of that's the basis. But I don't sit there
Speaker 1: and go and talk to me. But then we'll go
Speaker 1: play golf with each other, like last summer. Man, we
Speaker 1: need to do this more often. We're going to Angola. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: we need to do this again. Don't do it right
Speaker 1: right right? So so switching gears a little bit. You know,
Speaker 1: we we talked about really utilizing this time for your
Speaker 1: truth and to really allow you, like like alluded to before,
Speaker 1: now's your turn. It's getting inside the jersey being able
Speaker 1: to really for our listeners to clean a better understanding you.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna cut straight to it with this question. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: why were you released from the Panthers and would you
Speaker 1: give me the truth that since a lot of these
Speaker 1: narratives to start to come back, I mean, the narratives
Speaker 1: come back up. Here's what happened. I went on the
Speaker 1: co workers UM podcast and he asked me some questions
Speaker 1: and I basically, um, I really tried not to as
Speaker 1: an analyst talk about former teammates just because, man, I
Speaker 1: just when I watched ball, when I was when I
Speaker 1: was in the cafeteri and I was in the locker room,
Speaker 1: I hated watching guys throwing the other guy, especially former teammates. Man,
Speaker 1: if you, if you, if you're a quarterback making whatever
Speaker 1: you're doing, especially as a wide receiver, man, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just gonna tell the truth, Like if you
Speaker 1: ain't a very good quarterback, you make an X amount
Speaker 1: of dollars because the quarterbacks get all the glory and
Speaker 1: they get to place all the blame, right, And so
Speaker 1: I've always though, I've always seen that, like you know,
Speaker 1: watching a guy throwing throwing, watching a receiver get thrown
Speaker 1: into a slant for a heada he dropped the ball,
Speaker 1: and say, oh, he gotta he gotta catch that man
Speaker 1: that quarterbacks defense and no he should, yeah, instead of
Speaker 1: putting him in concussion protocol. But um, so I was
Speaker 1: on the you know, on this podcast, and he asked
Speaker 1: me some questions about Cam and say, you know Cam
Speaker 1: the best I'm trying to figure out Cam was here.
Speaker 1: I was, I was. I played with Cam three years.
Speaker 1: Um what I was three years? So Cam has been here,
Speaker 1: was with the Carolina Panthers eight to nine years. However,
Speaker 1: when something comes up, everybody comes to Steve as if
Speaker 1: like I'm the Cam whisper right there. Oh, let's ask Steve.
Speaker 1: Like I got a request through the Toronto radio station. Hey,
Speaker 1: we want to ask you about Canon going to New
Speaker 1: England Patriots, or we want to ask you Cam Newton
Speaker 1: about being released from the Panthers. I wasn't in that
Speaker 1: locker room. I don't know, and if I do know,
Speaker 1: I'm not telling because here's what I don't do. I
Speaker 1: don't believe when I've been around teammates over sixteen years,
Speaker 1: fifty three men. Every year, you see and know things
Speaker 1: about guys. There there attributes and then also some things
Speaker 1: they do that you go, I don't agree with that.
Speaker 1: I don't talk about that, and I also expect them
Speaker 1: not to talk about my stuff. So I tried very
Speaker 1: I'm very diligent in making sure. Here's the fact. One
Speaker 1: time I had to talk about Luke kicklely Um because
Speaker 1: he did something for the network. I texted Luke Keicklely
Speaker 1: and asked him was it cool that I talk about
Speaker 1: him in this manner? And I told my producers, Hey,
Speaker 1: let me check with Luke first, And when Luke got
Speaker 1: back to me, he said, man, yeah, you cool with that.
Speaker 1: I'm cool with that, And that's when I said or something.
Speaker 1: I tried not to talk about anybody, especially former teammates,
Speaker 1: good bad, without talking about talking to them directly, and
Speaker 1: so I don't. I didn't text Cam, so I tried
Speaker 1: not to really same thing other than letting his play
Speaker 1: speak for himself, which is to do this baller right.
Speaker 1: But people have believed that I disliked him, that I
Speaker 1: hate Cam. I don't hate Cam. He's probably he is
Speaker 1: one of the most athletic quarterbacks I have ever played with.
Speaker 1: He's a quarterback that we had some good times. If
Speaker 1: we had some bad times, meaning when you're losing, that's
Speaker 1: bad times, right. I've never seen heard somebody say, man,
Speaker 1: that was the best Ask what when we ever received?
Speaker 1: That just doesn't happen. So you know, I had a
Speaker 1: great our RelA. My relationship with Cam could be a
Speaker 1: lot at her. But I just don't really reach out.
Speaker 1: And maybe because I'm just a weirdo like that, but
Speaker 1: I don't reach out to the Angelo Williams. I don't
Speaker 1: reach out. I mean, there's a number of guys that
Speaker 1: I play with. The teammate that I talked to the
Speaker 1: most out of all my years are playing in the
Speaker 1: National Football League. There's one guy, Jordan Gross. I played
Speaker 1: in college with Jordan Gross, and even in that we
Speaker 1: made text once a month. So you're you're you're saying
Speaker 1: you're just not always the guy who is just always
Speaker 1: let me check in, Let me check in now that
Speaker 1: that's a bad and I get that, right, And I
Speaker 1: think probably all of us can can say that that
Speaker 1: we probably do that to a point where it's like, man,
Speaker 1: I should have should call my mom, right could I
Speaker 1: could have talked to my dad like, And I'm telling
Speaker 1: you right, like, I'm guilty of charge. We have to
Speaker 1: take a break. And more than anything, we got some bills.
Speaker 1: I mean for some reason, why do you think that
Speaker 1: your name always gets attached to two? Because I think
Speaker 1: because of you know, obviously I'm chilling TV. I think
Speaker 1: people try to utilize my bluntness as a weapon against me.
Speaker 1: And then also too, it's called a uh self inflicted wound, right,
Speaker 1: And so you want to go down to chronological order.
Speaker 1: Here's what happened, I really believe on my exit. So
Speaker 1: let's just start all over. Let's start from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Give me the truth, give me your truth, my truth,
Speaker 1: your truth. We started owing to well, actually we started
Speaker 1: on one, then on two just the thirteen season. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: so you're what y'all played the Food and Honors in
Speaker 1: the playoffs, yeah, uh, and I had a busted up
Speaker 1: knee at that, so we start owing four. We start
Speaker 1: owing four, and we're leading up to it into that season. Um,
Speaker 1: Dave Gentleman as the general manager. I get a text
Speaker 1: on a on a on a husband and wife trip.
Speaker 1: Me and my wife were in New York and Dave
Speaker 1: Gentleman is hired as a new general manager at texts
Speaker 1: from him from a I get a call from a
Speaker 1: New York number. I don't answer. I don't answer no
Speaker 1: numbers that I don't know. So then he and then
Speaker 1: he texts me, Hey this Dave Getleman. You know, love
Speaker 1: to meet you. I said, well, I'm on vacation with
Speaker 1: with my with my wife in New York. So, um,
Speaker 1: I hit you back when I get back in town.
Speaker 1: Several players have went up and introduced himself. I probably
Speaker 1: went up there. I was back probably four or four
Speaker 1: days later. I probably don't go up there toil probably
Speaker 1: like two weeks later. I know that probably didn't vote
Speaker 1: well with him, didn't He didn't like that. But I'm
Speaker 1: just being myself. That was being I'm not gonna go
Speaker 1: up there, brown nose, and I'm not gonna go up there. Hey,
Speaker 1: you're not going up the tap dance. I went up there.
Speaker 1: Um like the little cocky, uh midget, I am. I
Speaker 1: went up there and was like hit him with the head, bob,
Speaker 1: what up, hey, let's talk. So we talked and he
Speaker 1: he he basically gave me some things that he expected
Speaker 1: out of me. I said, all right, cool, And he
Speaker 1: gave me a book and I actually read the book.
Speaker 1: He told me, I want you to read this book
Speaker 1: is called half Time, Okay, and so it's basically the
Speaker 1: guy who wrote Halftime actually lives here in Charlotte. So
Speaker 1: it was really cool. Um. So he told me to
Speaker 1: read this book, and so I kind of I caught
Speaker 1: what he was what was the book about? The book
Speaker 1: was about how do you want the end of your
Speaker 1: basically the end of your career to be? So he
Speaker 1: was I called what. I caught what he was putting
Speaker 1: down basically saying, look tightened up right, And so I like,
Speaker 1: all right. So I read the book and it was
Speaker 1: actually a really really good book. And the book started
Speaker 1: off basically saying this guy who was I believe it
Speaker 1: was in Texas. He was a really financially well off guy.
Speaker 1: His son fell off I think it off in the
Speaker 1: boat or a wave runner or something. And this guy
Speaker 1: used all his money and his resources to save his son,
Speaker 1: but it didn't save him, and so he utilized the
Speaker 1: last the back half of his life really too kind
Speaker 1: of make a difference. And so it was a really
Speaker 1: good book. And I only read half of it because
Speaker 1: I'm a guy who reads a book and I'll take
Speaker 1: notes to the point of where I get it, and
Speaker 1: then I'll come back to it. So when he gave
Speaker 1: me that book, I I was he laid down some stuff.
Speaker 1: I picked it up and was like, oh, I see
Speaker 1: what he's trying to do. So I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: you know, passive aggressive, I take it. You know, no,
Speaker 1: I just took it for what it was. He was
Speaker 1: basically trying to tell me something. So and he said
Speaker 1: some other things that I'm not gonna say, and I
Speaker 1: was like cool. So we go through this season and
Speaker 1: he tells me some things out he wanted me to
Speaker 1: work on. So I was like, all right, I'll see
Speaker 1: what I can do. So we go through the season.
Speaker 1: We start owing four. We start Onwing four. I'm thirty.
Speaker 1: Whatever went three? You want to get the Giants? I
Speaker 1: just looked it up. So we beat the giants, but
Speaker 1: we were you beat the giants, that's that's your one.
Speaker 1: So I went to Then you lost to the Giants,
Speaker 1: then you lost at the Cordiners, so we weren't looking
Speaker 1: good and show what happened. So I tell my agent.
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I'm done with this dog. I want out.
Speaker 1: So my agent, actually, our team on the East Coast
Speaker 1: talked to several teams, but there was a team of
Speaker 1: a specific team and I'm not gonna name that was
Speaker 1: right there in the midst and said, look, if Steve
Speaker 1: want out, we love the how So I was with
Speaker 1: under arm Or at the time, and I go to
Speaker 1: on arm and I tell him, and this is a
Speaker 1: team I'm going with. Flip my flip, my color scheme
Speaker 1: for my shoes. Get ready, We're out now? Is this
Speaker 1: this during the season, just doing the cities? This is
Speaker 1: the one. Make sure we give context the season. I said,
Speaker 1: I'm out. So Dave goes to Mr Richardson says Steve
Speaker 1: wants out. Blah blah blah. They said, man, let him out.
Speaker 1: I'm tired of this. Let him go. So I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm good. Well they go and talk to
Speaker 1: a team, not the team that we already had work
Speaker 1: to deal with behind closed doors. They give me permission
Speaker 1: to talk to the same ships four Nins. So I
Speaker 1: talked to the GM the four Niners at the time
Speaker 1: was Trent Balky or Balky, and so David Gelliman says, hey,
Speaker 1: we we got your trade. We give you permission to
Speaker 1: talk to the forty niners. And when we talked to
Speaker 1: the forty niners, um, you know, here's what you want now.
Speaker 1: The other team that we were that I want his
Speaker 1: name didn't really go into it because that team was
Speaker 1: only offering so much. In the four nine is offered more.
Speaker 1: When I talked to Trent, Trent said, so I hear, um.
Speaker 1: You know, he was like, hey, we want you to
Speaker 1: we you are missing peace to win the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: At the time, my my wife was pregnant with Deuce.
Speaker 1: This is our this is like early early October end
Speaker 1: up September. Only had a couple of weeks to make
Speaker 1: the decision. My wife's pregnant, and I didn't feel like
Speaker 1: going all the way to San Francisco. And then, if
Speaker 1: I'm be honest, I didn't want to go to San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I did because San Francisco wanted me to avoid out
Speaker 1: my contract and there was a specific number I had
Speaker 1: built my basically, I built my whole portfolio um on
Speaker 1: my guaranteed money. And I was guaranteed like five point
Speaker 1: five million dollars or so, and so I wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: So they said, hey, he goes, we want you to
Speaker 1: avoid out your contract. I said, I'm not avoiding that out.
Speaker 1: They said, well, you you're happy to be So you
Speaker 1: telling me that you want to stay a Carolina Panther.
Speaker 1: I said, no, I'm not voiding out my contract. He goes,
Speaker 1: So you're telling me and this is how I way.
Speaker 1: He said, So you're telling me you're happy to remain
Speaker 1: the Carolina Panther. I said, I'm not voiding on my Concha.
Speaker 1: I'm sticking to my guns on this. I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not giving up because when I signed that that I
Speaker 1: signed that deal that was I felt that was my
Speaker 1: last deal. And that's how you see your family, Like
Speaker 1: you based you had based your finances around what you
Speaker 1: were old. Yes, I Hey, it's like, look, I knew
Speaker 1: I was getting five million dollars for my tax return,
Speaker 1: so I started shopping based on my tax returns. Right,
Speaker 1: we all do it. And so I didn't go. And
Speaker 1: so Dave said don't tell anybody trying to tell anybody.
Speaker 1: I didn't tell us, so I mean, obviously I told
Speaker 1: my wife and so it didn't go through. So I stayed.
Speaker 1: So you're playing through. So I'm playing through the twenty
Speaker 1: thirteen season. My agent goes to Actually I was going
Speaker 1: my normal President Day weekend. I'll go to Utah to ski,
Speaker 1: and so I'm on the slopes like I'm usually on
Speaker 1: the slopes, and guess what happened. Dave Yelman talks about me,
Speaker 1: Steve Smith Senior and Jordan Gross in the past at
Speaker 1: the combine. So going into fourteen, he's at the combine
Speaker 1: and then makes comments about you know, he says that
Speaker 1: Steven's and you know, he talks and the media picks
Speaker 1: it up and people calling me, and I'm on the slope,
Speaker 1: so I don't have no idea. So I get off
Speaker 1: and I'm like what. Well, immediately some teams are calling like, yo,
Speaker 1: we'll take you. And there's another team on the west
Speaker 1: coast um that used to be that's now in l
Speaker 1: A but ain't in l A no more. But they
Speaker 1: were about two and a half hour drive from Yeah, helmet,
Speaker 1: and again I didn't want to go to san Diego.
Speaker 1: I just said San Diego. Then I don't want to
Speaker 1: go to San Diego because, um, all my families from there,
Speaker 1: and I just I just felt like it would be
Speaker 1: hard to concentrate close to home. You And also too,
Speaker 1: I didn't believe that they can beat Denver Broncos who
Speaker 1: had Peyton Man. So I'm like not and you're in
Speaker 1: that division, yeah right, and so I'm like no, I'm straight.
Speaker 1: And so now I'm going through that whole process. So
Speaker 1: when I go through this whole process, David is like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm texting and like, what's up. So I
Speaker 1: text a few people on the team that you know,
Speaker 1: we're talking to me about, like, bro, I don't know
Speaker 1: what happened, what's going on in management? And they're like,
Speaker 1: this is a shock to us as well. So when
Speaker 1: I get on the phone with Dave, he comes back
Speaker 1: from the combine and this is what Dave says, and
Speaker 1: this is how new it was personal. He goes, well,
Speaker 1: I want you to think about your legacy. I said,
Speaker 1: alrighty half. He said, We're good. I'm gonna go home.
Speaker 1: When I get back, let's talk. So several days still,
Speaker 1: about three days go by and I and I call him.
Speaker 1: It's like yo, or we're gonna meet. He's busy. I
Speaker 1: go to the facility and he says I call up there,
Speaker 1: and I say, hey, you know um his secretary. I said,
Speaker 1: can I speak? Can you tell Dave I'm in a building.
Speaker 1: His reply was, I'm in a meeting. I can't talk
Speaker 1: right now. I'm preparing for the draft. I said, all right, cool.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, all right, mhm right now on the wall.
Speaker 1: So I text Ricky Prole, you'll tell David quit dodging.
Speaker 1: So then I so the next day, two days ago,
Speaker 1: two days after that, I got to the Facity and
Speaker 1: I get to work out in Okay. When I do
Speaker 1: the roker out, they know I'm in a building. Generally
Speaker 1: we are walking the building. People knowing that, they tell them. So, Uh,
Speaker 1: Ricky comes down. There s a smith. So I text
Speaker 1: Ricky and Ricky like, and Ricky's like, what's up? Man?
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, man, tell Davey over there. Um
Speaker 1: bull ship man. He dodging me up and so um.
Speaker 1: Then Nate. Then somebody else comes down, Uh Porter, Brian
Speaker 1: Porter Um. And I've known Porter for a long time,
Speaker 1: worked this way through the organization. Great dude. Um he
Speaker 1: goes man Day said, you know when you finished, go
Speaker 1: talk to go talk to talk to me. I said,
Speaker 1: all right, so just let you know how my mind was. Um,
Speaker 1: just kind of how I was where I went and
Speaker 1: I basically I didn't even finish. I didn't even shower.
Speaker 1: I went up there, stank booty and all. I don't
Speaker 1: know if there was like want that action, boss man.
Speaker 1: I had on my I had my hood on and
Speaker 1: a hat. I walked in there and I sat right
Speaker 1: on his leather chair with a sweat and everything. Sweat
Speaker 1: just dirty dirty ass ye just just straight disrespectful when
Speaker 1: I sat there and I was hunched up in the
Speaker 1: chair like whatever, you know. So we finally talked and
Speaker 1: he starts to talk and he's like, yo, this is
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do. All right, He said, listen, I
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on, but and this is his worst.
Speaker 1: He said, man, you're a shadow of what you used
Speaker 1: to be. He said that to you, he said, And
Speaker 1: I said all right, And he said, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on. Uh if you jealous of
Speaker 1: Cam or Cam jealous of you, but um man, we
Speaker 1: just this ain't gonna work. He said, I gave you
Speaker 1: some things to work on. And this is when the
Speaker 1: conversation turned. This is why I knew things were different.
Speaker 1: He goes, Um, I knew. He goes, you know, I
Speaker 1: gave you some things to work on, and you didn't.
Speaker 1: You didn't do any of them. I said, well, what
Speaker 1: things did I What things didn't I work on? His
Speaker 1: reply was I'm not getting into that right now, and
Speaker 1: how do you know that you didn't do it? Do it?
Speaker 1: So I said, you're not getting into it right now.
Speaker 1: In my mind said you're not getting into her, so
Speaker 1: you already made your mind. Okay. So after that he asked,
Speaker 1: we talked. He asked me a few more questions and
Speaker 1: I said, so you know my wife is pregnant. Um.
Speaker 1: He said, we're gonna trade you. I'm sorry. Cool. So
Speaker 1: my son paid my oldest who's really good soccer player.
Speaker 1: We were on soccer trips. Uh. He was still playing
Speaker 1: a a U. If you any parents out there to
Speaker 1: know man Au soccer travel soccer is a beast. And
Speaker 1: so we're and I remember we were in but that's
Speaker 1: the Maryland. Um. And we was out there and I
Speaker 1: was talking to my agent, Derek Fox, and um, there
Speaker 1: was a few teams out there that were interested. But
Speaker 1: what they want me to do avoid on my contracts
Speaker 1: the same thing that what has happened in the season
Speaker 1: when you were saying that, because I was a thirties something,
Speaker 1: your thirties thirty four, thirty five year old man with
Speaker 1: a five and a half million dollar guaranteed on track,
Speaker 1: and everybody wants me to avoid it out. Nope, I'm
Speaker 1: not avoiding out. I know, I know finances, I know
Speaker 1: how it works. Somebody gonna take this money. I don't
Speaker 1: know who, but somebody gonna, you know. So I was
Speaker 1: basically I was probably one of the last players to
Speaker 1: do it. I doubled Depps, so Carolina still owe me
Speaker 1: money and who my new team was gonna So I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I was double dipping. That's how I kind
Speaker 1: of said it. So I was just kind of sitting back, like, nah,
Speaker 1: so y'all trade all you want. Somebody's gonna pay this money,
Speaker 1: so you know, and then so what here's where it
Speaker 1: all started went downhill. Where it went downhill is basically
Speaker 1: free agency starts. Reevers goes to New England, Golden Take
Speaker 1: goes leaves Seattle, and he goes to Detroit and I'm
Speaker 1: like one of the last guys air quotes, lingering in
Speaker 1: is he gonna be released? They tell me they're not
Speaker 1: releasing me till June one. So basically that this is
Speaker 1: roughly this was bro March. Free agency started and I'm
Speaker 1: a week and a half in free agency. They're trying
Speaker 1: to trade me, but no team is willing to trade
Speaker 1: because of my responsibility, because of the financial responsibility. And
Speaker 1: he says we're gonna designated June one. So basically my
Speaker 1: agent goes ballistic because now you're holding me hostage. You
Speaker 1: are now saying these other teams are negotiating, but we're not.
Speaker 1: We basically you undermine. Now if I stopped right there,
Speaker 1: they say, oh, Steve, how is this possible? He did
Speaker 1: the same thing to Josh right right, and and so
Speaker 1: it became this thing where it was basically it was
Speaker 1: a piston contest between me and Dave. And here's an
Speaker 1: unfortunate part. Cam was called the middle. And the part
Speaker 1: of why Cam was called the middle is because Cam
Speaker 1: didn't do anything. I don't I don't hate Cam. I
Speaker 1: love the dude. He's a fantastic player. Now I probably
Speaker 1: I'll say now I probably need to apologize that I
Speaker 1: was probably a dick, but I mean that's just that's
Speaker 1: who I was. You know. I expected excellence and I
Speaker 1: wanted to practice hard. And when we were, we were,
Speaker 1: and where you were in your career, yeah, where we were,
Speaker 1: I was you go back and listen my stuff. I
Speaker 1: felt like I was a I was not just sound sexist,
Speaker 1: but I was a thirty thirty three year old woman
Speaker 1: who wanted the pregnancy in the ring now right, I
Speaker 1: want super Bowl now, well, Steve, it's just championship, so
Speaker 1: it's just preseason, so what right? And so I was
Speaker 1: always taught. I was always um, you you knew where
Speaker 1: you were in your walk in your career, and I
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of time. You didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of time, and I and personally, I didn't want
Speaker 1: to continue to keep playing. Actually, what's funny. What it
Speaker 1: is interesting, if I would have stayed in Carolina, I
Speaker 1: would have probably retired after that year. I was no
Speaker 1: matter what, I would retire. Even when I was going
Speaker 1: through that process for the trade, I looked at my
Speaker 1: contract to see, so retirement crossed your mind in that
Speaker 1: in that whole process. So yeah, and so from there are.
Speaker 1: It was just like, so when I say when, I say,
Speaker 1: when I walked out of there, So when when I
Speaker 1: left get Dave's office from that meeting, when he said
Speaker 1: he said, you know, we're gonna try to trade you,
Speaker 1: he was like, and I said, so what happens if
Speaker 1: you can't trade me? He goes, well, we'll cross that
Speaker 1: bridge when we get there. I turned behind myself. When
Speaker 1: I looked, he said, what you're looking at? I said, well,
Speaker 1: I said, that bridge is already crossed. I said, I'm
Speaker 1: on the other side of the road. And what are
Speaker 1: the options are out here right now? And so he,
Speaker 1: I think a little bit of he thought. I said,
Speaker 1: out of respect, I just want to know sooner or
Speaker 1: later because my wife is pregnant. We want to be
Speaker 1: able to deal with the doctors and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: He was like, yeah, I understand. He didn't care. And
Speaker 1: guess what, I didn't carre you. So now, for me,
Speaker 1: it was personal. It was it was bull versus bull,
Speaker 1: or mule versus mule, right, and so I just that's
Speaker 1: how it was. And so you know, to the point
Speaker 1: of where should when Jordan retired and we went to
Speaker 1: his uh, I went to his retirement thing. Um, I
Speaker 1: didn't even speak to him. I just I didn't speak
Speaker 1: to day. They even speak to me. I speak to
Speaker 1: Ron round and speak to me. And then you know,
Speaker 1: so I had some conversations with some folks and this
Speaker 1: is discovery. A couple of years when I first got
Speaker 1: into TV, I thought I met with some folks in
Speaker 1: uh in the management up at Caroline. I said, listen,
Speaker 1: I gotta do my job. I want to be professional,
Speaker 1: but man, we're gonna have to work some stuff out.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say who the individuals I talked to,
Speaker 1: but basically, this is what those individuals told me. And
Speaker 1: this is how I know. It's personal and people can
Speaker 1: believe it or what they what they want, but I
Speaker 1: like to look. I like to talk to people face
Speaker 1: to face. And this individual that I spoke to said, look,
Speaker 1: I was told stay out of the way. I was
Speaker 1: told by Dave to stay out of the way, and
Speaker 1: it's it was you and him. I said, cool, I
Speaker 1: appreciate your honesty. For the first time, he said, well
Speaker 1: that interval said, well, listen, you know, we all got
Speaker 1: a job, we all got feed our families. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, that's what it was. I
Speaker 1: was all right, I respect that, and we left it
Speaker 1: at that, bro. And so I'm not speaking like people
Speaker 1: are like, well, why are you come out now. The
Speaker 1: reason I'm talking about it now is one, I don't
Speaker 1: like the fact that everybody is saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: says that I was let go to let Cam grow.
Speaker 1: I was let go because I didn't really care about
Speaker 1: what the rules of the Carolina Panthers were because the
Speaker 1: person who was setting the rules was Dave Gentleman. I
Speaker 1: respect him as a man because guy calls me to
Speaker 1: because he's my elder, but I didn't respect how he
Speaker 1: went about his business. Yeah, that was it. The series
Speaker 1: of events. It was a series of events that he tried.
Speaker 1: He he tried to bully a bullet and they're gonna work. Well,
Speaker 1: that ain't gonna work. Well, I understand you the you
Speaker 1: the biggest mule, or you the biggest you know, the
Speaker 1: the biggest bull in the in the rain. I ain't
Speaker 1: the biggest bull, but I I believe I can I
Speaker 1: can uh, I can go with yeah, And so it
Speaker 1: just was, it wasn't a it wasn't a very good relationship.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, man, I'm done I want
Speaker 1: to be out. I've always wanted to know what it
Speaker 1: was like on other teams, because when you look at
Speaker 1: our game, man, there's some cool teams out there every there,
Speaker 1: there's all some teams that there's also some teams that suck, right,
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to be I was just done.
Speaker 1: I wasn't done with cam. I was just done with
Speaker 1: the process of the individual that was running the team.
Speaker 1: And eventually everybody is saying, now, that individual it was
Speaker 1: a consistent, It was a consistent how he handled Grey Golds,
Speaker 1: and how we handled Thomas Davis, how he handled D'Angel,
Speaker 1: how he handled Josh Norman. So for me, I was
Speaker 1: just like, man, I've always been like for me, people
Speaker 1: can people gonna sit here and say more thanks Steve?
Speaker 1: How can you just abandon our team like that? How
Speaker 1: can you just turn our back? I love Carolina, But
Speaker 1: I also knew that the individual wool who was running
Speaker 1: the team general manager, I didn't see eu the eye
Speaker 1: with him. I didn't see with my supervisor. So I
Speaker 1: did like most folks who in position that they're like, man,
Speaker 1: I don't need this man. You you fired. You can't
Speaker 1: fire me, right, And so that that's just really what happened,
Speaker 1: and and because of my makeup, bro I just was
Speaker 1: kind of like, man, you know, not even bought the
Speaker 1: Carolina panels. It was just they were in a review mirror,
Speaker 1: and I just did not want to be associated with
Speaker 1: that individual who was still there. So a lot. If
Speaker 1: you notice when I was in Baltimore raven when and
Speaker 1: I was some of the things that just to let
Speaker 1: you know how it went down, when I was on
Speaker 1: the airplane coming to Baltimore, because the staff told me
Speaker 1: Dave Gentleman had someone on the staff called the Baltimore
Speaker 1: Ravens who told me that someone in the staff called
Speaker 1: them and told them, man, Steve's a rotten teammate. He's
Speaker 1: not this, he's not that. So they tried to me
Speaker 1: what I felt that the way I was raised, So
Speaker 1: you're trying to you're trying to undermine my ability to
Speaker 1: earn money, and you're trying to shape a narrative that
Speaker 1: I'll simplify. You basically are telling me that you're gonna
Speaker 1: come out, you're gonna try to limit how I make money.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, who you affected my family? So if you're
Speaker 1: coming after my family, I'm a different dude. So that's
Speaker 1: where it became personal. So it was bumped the entity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: bumped the entity because he was represented. Right, What did
Speaker 1: they say? When you work for a company, you represent
Speaker 1: what that company. So even going backwards before I was released,
Speaker 1: first of all, in February, I knew I was released.
Speaker 1: I already knew I was. It was just a matter
Speaker 1: of time before I was released. Two days before I
Speaker 1: was released, I put on the collar shirt, put on
Speaker 1: some slacks, and I went to Mr Richardson's house and
Speaker 1: I talked to Mr Richard. You know what I told him,
Speaker 1: I thanked them for what he's done for my family financially.
Speaker 1: Mr Richard did a lot of things for me. He
Speaker 1: introduced me some other financial people. UM. Mr Richard treated
Speaker 1: me like family and just kind of like um when
Speaker 1: my grandfather died. He really was kind of that influence
Speaker 1: of like get your get your finances. And Mr Richard
Speaker 1: was always on me about how I conduct myself, um
Speaker 1: at the house and making sure that I take care
Speaker 1: of my family financially. Don't be one of these dumb
Speaker 1: athletes that has all this opportunity and just wastes wastes
Speaker 1: on jury or this or that. And I respect him
Speaker 1: for so I went in there and I thanked them
Speaker 1: for the opportunity, thank him for allowing me to be
Speaker 1: able to save money, to be able to allow my
Speaker 1: kids to play, uh to not to go to college
Speaker 1: if they decided to use sports as an opportunity, but
Speaker 1: they were able to go to any college they wanted
Speaker 1: to because their dad would save up money. And when
Speaker 1: I left Mr Richardson's house, he was crying and I
Speaker 1: was teary eyed as well, and he actually kissed me
Speaker 1: on the forehead and he said, uh. He says, hey, um,
Speaker 1: make sure you don't be a stranger. And I looked
Speaker 1: at him. I myself, when I do gone, I'll come
Speaker 1: back right And I was the and that was the
Speaker 1: and I got in the car. And a couple of
Speaker 1: days later, yeah, um, I was released. I think it's
Speaker 1: about that time. Just so to take a little breatherd's
Speaker 1: getting down to do it. You mentioned a bunch of things.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Cam you You've mentioned your contract and just
Speaker 1: speaking your truth. What do you feel is the biggest
Speaker 1: misconception about the end of the time. I think the
Speaker 1: misconception is everybody thinks that I, uh, that I have
Speaker 1: something personally against Cam. What's crazy is Cam was not
Speaker 1: a part of my release. He never was. Actually, I
Speaker 1: believe Cam was on vacation and just to show you
Speaker 1: how cool of a dude he is, he wrote me
Speaker 1: a letter that I received. He texted me. It was like, bro,
Speaker 1: I just I just got back in the country. I
Speaker 1: think he was in a Caribbean. This is when. This
Speaker 1: is when I was released. You're released. And he texted me.
Speaker 1: He was like, bro, I just got back. What the
Speaker 1: hell happened? I was like, you know that he was
Speaker 1: out of pocket. He was straight out of pocket. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he was like, I need your home address. I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, so he uh, I know you were you
Speaker 1: in checkout molde. You were just like when when you
Speaker 1: received that? Oh, I was definitely a check out mode.
Speaker 1: I sent him my address. I sent him my address
Speaker 1: like everybody else sent me some stuff and it was
Speaker 1: like man, sorry, I was like, yeah, okay, you just
Speaker 1: moved on. I just moved on. So he sent me
Speaker 1: an address. I sent him addressing about three days later.
Speaker 1: So within that week I got a handwritten letter for Cam.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I did with it. What do
Speaker 1: you think I did with it. Just what is the
Speaker 1: media believe I did with it? Um, you ripped it up? Okay,
Speaker 1: do the trash. That's what they believe. Well, I was
Speaker 1: not in a place to even read it because I
Speaker 1: was moving on to my new team. Just in a
Speaker 1: different headspace. I was in a different headspace. I was
Speaker 1: trying to figure out I got a pregnant wife, but
Speaker 1: I bring my kids. My son is in it's going
Speaker 1: into a senior year. He's anybody's getting uh, he's getting recruited.
Speaker 1: Where are we gonna go? What is this? Me? That's
Speaker 1: enough for any family? On top of everything that's going
Speaker 1: on in your professional What teams want me? What teams? Actually?
Speaker 1: All of this stuff? And so I put it. I
Speaker 1: put Cam's letter in a drawer, and wasn't that drawer
Speaker 1: And that drawer is keepsakes And that drawer is my
Speaker 1: grandmother's obituary, my grandfather's obituary, one of my coaches, that
Speaker 1: of Robert Taylor, who gave me an opportunity to junior college.
Speaker 1: His obituary. UM letters that, uh, people of significance in
Speaker 1: my life have written me, or cards that my kids.
Speaker 1: These are things that need something to ues. So I
Speaker 1: put in that keepsake was twenty nineteen. I'm in my
Speaker 1: drawer and I see the letter. I opened up and
Speaker 1: read the letter for the first for the first time,
Speaker 1: for the first time, and then I text him and
Speaker 1: I screened and I actually a good picture, and I said, Bro,
Speaker 1: I'm just reading your letter. I said, Man, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And it was Actually, it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: He wrote some really cool things, um, that I'm very
Speaker 1: appreciative of, and I think it was shocked him. Now
Speaker 1: I read it two thousand thirteen fourteen. Why didn't you
Speaker 1: Why didn't you read it all those years ago? Because
Speaker 1: I'm one of those guys when I move on, I'm done,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't. But I wasn't done like man Bump Cam.
Speaker 1: It was Man, I got to move on to my
Speaker 1: new team. And so that's how it was. So you
Speaker 1: read that letter. It was a really good letter. I
Speaker 1: still have it. You read the letter in the twin nineteen.
Speaker 1: What did that reveal to you about Cam at that
Speaker 1: point and then at that point in his career and
Speaker 1: then to yourself. Now what it did is, um, people
Speaker 1: say that I was I'll read I got to read
Speaker 1: a screenshot. Somebody said, um, They said, there's been some
Speaker 1: nice moments for the duo, but it seems the problem
Speaker 1: standing from Smith becoming a little longer in the tooth
Speaker 1: and watching the emerging superstars. Newton take his linlight. It
Speaker 1: was probably hard to take. Actually, the day we drafted
Speaker 1: Cam Newton, we were coming out of a lockout. I
Speaker 1: was actually pretty happy we drafted a quarterback because I
Speaker 1: played with some folks that year before that was a
Speaker 1: rough stretch. I wasn't changing. He wasn't taking my line
Speaker 1: like Kim already had his line like to do one
Speaker 1: a National Championship, Heisman Trophy winner. I don't know a
Speaker 1: limelight he was taking. He was right. I've always been
Speaker 1: a receiver. All I like to do is play football
Speaker 1: and be a receiver and blocking all that stuff. So
Speaker 1: it had nothing to do it he was taking my limelight.
Speaker 1: It was the fact that I wasn't on a very
Speaker 1: good team, and I was getting older, and my time
Speaker 1: was coming up, and I wanted to win. I didn't
Speaker 1: have time to win later, and so that's why I
Speaker 1: went to Baltimore. Because one of the reasons I went
Speaker 1: to Baltimore because when I sat with the Wizard, as
Speaker 1: he knew so he told me, listen, if you can't
Speaker 1: be yourself, we don't want you here. And basically I
Speaker 1: got let go from a team that being yourself wasn't
Speaker 1: good enough. So he said exactly what I wanted to hear,
Speaker 1: and that's where I went there and I had a
Speaker 1: great time. And now I'm still and it was funny
Speaker 1: is I stayed my family and I still have a
Speaker 1: house here. We call this home. And people still when
Speaker 1: they still see me, they go, oh, you still here
Speaker 1: because I'm I'm a homebody man. I don't really give out.
Speaker 1: I said in my I sit in my house, my
Speaker 1: my business man, and just I'm a loner at the
Speaker 1: end of the day. That's what I am always been,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to get better about it. And you
Speaker 1: definitely are. You know, I gotta give you, I gotta
Speaker 1: give you your problems. Why was this import of you
Speaker 1: to get this all out, man, for you to have
Speaker 1: an opportunity to speak your truth? Well, I think because
Speaker 1: more of anything, I dislike the fact that people are
Speaker 1: trying to pin pin me against I mean personally, at
Speaker 1: the end of it, man, I hate the black on
Speaker 1: black athlete crime, or this guy is jealous of this guy,
Speaker 1: he hates him because he's taking a sean. I don't
Speaker 1: know if y'all know, but we all shine together. We
Speaker 1: all ball like. I don't see Patrick Mahone going over
Speaker 1: there tripping Lamar Jackson. Like at the end of it together, Bro,
Speaker 1: we were we When Cam was on, he was on.
Speaker 1: If I was off, we was off. If he was off,
Speaker 1: he was off. So it's a collective. So for me, man,
Speaker 1: it's just like at the end of it, because of
Speaker 1: how I operated, whatever narrative that the media had, I
Speaker 1: gave them that opportunity because of how I acted. But ultimately, man,
Speaker 1: more anything of anything, oh caim more of an apology
Speaker 1: publicly of like, Bro, I don't hate you. I ain't
Speaker 1: never really. I don't look down on him. Hell actually
Speaker 1: I look up right the dude, the he's balling. A
Speaker 1: lot of people thought he wasn't gonna be this. I'm
Speaker 1: shocked how well he's playing so early in the new system, right,
Speaker 1: and the people that all that's a shot, Bro, that's
Speaker 1: not a shot. Not everybody has success Game one of
Speaker 1: your new team, right, it just so happens to be
Speaker 1: the new England Patriots. Yes, and I've said it. You
Speaker 1: never bet against Bill Belichick, and also to a motivated
Speaker 1: Cam because I was his teammate. A motivated Cam is
Speaker 1: a dangerous kim, but a complacent athlete is not a
Speaker 1: dangerous athlete, and across across the across the board, not sport. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So for me, it was just, you know, if I didn't,
Speaker 1: I wanted to give opportunity to really speak my truth
Speaker 1: on what really happened and not allow people to write
Speaker 1: articles based on stuff that one some of these articles
Speaker 1: that's being written about me in camp, So of these
Speaker 1: people have never even been in a locker on even
Speaker 1: in the same state and writing articles and so it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna give you. I'm I haven't said anything.
Speaker 1: So it allows them to really give them like it
Speaker 1: must be true. The fact the matter is I no
Speaker 1: longer was a Carolina Panther because me and Dave Gelderman
Speaker 1: didn't get along. I didn't like Dave, Dave didn't like me.
Speaker 1: Dave had the power I got to check. That's how
Speaker 1: it went. I understand the game, I get it, and
Speaker 1: that's why I went on the Baltimore and that's it.
Speaker 1: That's that's the truth. Did this give you closure or
Speaker 1: is there anything anything else that you wanted to get out?
Speaker 1: You want to know the closure. The closure for me
Speaker 1: is when that when when I was inducted into the
Speaker 1: Hall of Hall of Hona for the Carolina Panthers, that
Speaker 1: was closure for me because even with Mr Tepper and
Speaker 1: how that went, it was a long process. Mr Tepper
Speaker 1: was talking to me, Marty Hernie talking to me when
Speaker 1: Marty came back, when temper, when Dave Gentleman got fired.
Speaker 1: One of the first calls I got when I was
Speaker 1: sitting on the beach in Hawaii when I retired, Marty
Speaker 1: Herny Carman, how you feeling. You know, I'm gonna bring
Speaker 1: you back. I like, well, give me some time, so
Speaker 1: you know, still I even talked to TV. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a few guys I talked to, but I just
Speaker 1: kind of stand my little, my little weirdo zone. So well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's not about closure, man, just more
Speaker 1: of knowing what's going on, and really what's the truth
Speaker 1: of the truth, not what some dude that's that says
Speaker 1: he knows rick that told John and told Ricky that
Speaker 1: told Dave that took man. I was all the flies.
Speaker 1: I want to be on the wall. There was no
Speaker 1: flies in there. It was two dudes in there. And
Speaker 1: we know the truth. And that's the truth now, so
Speaker 1: you know you got your truth out there, man, So man,
Speaker 1: much respect and and it's it's just so refreshing. We
Speaker 1: we we've always said this amongst all these interviews that
Speaker 1: we've had on Cut to It. It's it's utilizing the
Speaker 1: platform and putting out your own narrative. And you're controlling
Speaker 1: that narrative. And I'm just proud for you and of
Speaker 1: you of speaking your truth. Man. Hey, I'd be a
Speaker 1: hypocrite if I didn't be honest and open on my
Speaker 1: own podcast. So that's my opportunity. So I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. Um to be interesting to see how many
Speaker 1: people write articles on this one. Um, but hey, that's
Speaker 1: where we're at. We well listen to a podcast, we
Speaker 1: write an article. The only fact is now the facts
Speaker 1: that you've been missing because you got my facts straight
Speaker 1: from the horse's mouth. Mr Ed himself, Wilbur cut to It,
Speaker 1: We out cut to It with Steve Smith Senior. That
Speaker 1: is Me is a production of Cut to It, LLC,
Speaker 1: Balto Creative Media, The Black Effect and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcast from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite show. From Cut to It, Executive producer Steve Smith,
Speaker 1: senior co host Gerard little John, talent in booking manager
Speaker 1: Joe Fusci, Social media manager Peyton Smith from Balto Creative Media.
Speaker 1: Cut to It is produced by Brian Balta Chevitch and
Speaker 1: Meredith Carter, with production assistance by Alex Lebrec, Production manager
Speaker 1: Sarah Pollock, Theme music by Alex Johnson, lyrics and vocals
Speaker 1: by Anthony Hamilton. If you ain't heard about it, then
Speaker 1: we're about to let you know. It's all