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Speaker 1: Welcome to NFL Explain. We are putting in a ton
Speaker 1: of effort, not only in today's show, but every single show.
Speaker 1: We are going to try to explain to the best
Speaker 1: of our abilities, what a player's work week is actually like.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, she is a deed king Kawala, Hello,
Speaker 1: how are you well? I'm great? Didn't that sounds like
Speaker 1: a good hello? Yeah? I could feel the energy and
Speaker 1: feel the vibe. And I think part of the reason
Speaker 1: is probably because you got your workout in today. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming I did. I didn't get to play tennis today,
Speaker 1: though I will say that just my run, and that's
Speaker 1: certainly part of it. It's also because we're, you know,
Speaker 1: midway through the work week and we're heading towards a
Speaker 1: game day, which we absolutely love. By the way, because
Speaker 1: today's episode is all about what a player's week is
Speaker 1: actually like and La Kurt Warner is going to be
Speaker 1: our guest today and he's going to lay it out
Speaker 1: all for us. Can I I do think it's important.
Speaker 1: I just can I say some quick thank you? Of course,
Speaker 1: it's really just one thank you. You know, look, this
Speaker 1: is a brand new podcast and it takes a village.
Speaker 1: It's been awesome working with you. Add The one thing
Speaker 1: that has struck me on social media the amount of
Speaker 1: people who have hit us up with questions any engagement
Speaker 1: around the show. I am absolutely just floored by the
Speaker 1: reception that we have gotten at Mike underscore m at
Speaker 1: a Kinkabala. It looks bring on the questions, add I
Speaker 1: know your your at mentions is more significant than mind
Speaker 1: so I don't know if you're going through all these questions,
Speaker 1: but we've already gotten a ton of questions that I
Speaker 1: think are going to set up great for future episodes. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's the whole point, right We're talking about things
Speaker 1: that we're curious about, and certainly what fans are curious about,
Speaker 1: and if we're going to be honest Mike. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is in some ways prompted by things that I read
Speaker 1: on social media, things like when t J. Watt earlier
Speaker 1: this year during training camp was in the midst of
Speaker 1: a contract negotiation with the Steelers. I had quite a
Speaker 1: few people tweeting at me saying, come on now, the
Speaker 1: guy pays a game, Come on now, really, Like, shouldn't
Speaker 1: he just be grateful that he's playing a game? And Mike,
Speaker 1: I think the average fan doesn't necessarily know how much
Speaker 1: actually goes into this profession, because this is indeed a profession.
Speaker 1: This isn't just showing up to some facility, playing on
Speaker 1: the grass for two hours and then showing up on
Speaker 1: the weekend and playing a game that we all dreamed
Speaker 1: about playing at some point. I mean I dreamed about
Speaker 1: playing it? Did you dream about playing it? I did?
Speaker 1: And then as I got a little bit older, I
Speaker 1: realized that physically I was not going to be as
Speaker 1: gifted as some of the other people like t J.
Speaker 1: Watt or Kurt Werner. Is that what you mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I did get my work out in as well. Um,
Speaker 1: but I just look, I just don't look like those dudes,
Speaker 1: as simple as that. And there's a reason why there's
Speaker 1: a mic in front of me, and I'm actually not
Speaker 1: the one at the practice facility actually playing and preparing
Speaker 1: for the upcoming week. So I'm with you, And just
Speaker 1: once again, I really appreciate everyone who's been following the show.
Speaker 1: If you're writing it, that's awesome. If you're going to
Speaker 1: write a review, that's awesome too. We love just kind
Speaker 1: of hearing some of that feedback. So totally encourage everyone
Speaker 1: to check in with us on social media. So Kurt
Speaker 1: Warner is going to be with us. He's gonna lay
Speaker 1: out what his week look like, which I think is
Speaker 1: really unique from a quarterbacks perspective, and anytime you can
Speaker 1: hear a Hall of Famer, that's a win for sure.
Speaker 1: Mike and Kurt played a long time, and I think
Speaker 1: he can definitely give us an idea of just how
Speaker 1: demanding it is to not only be on an NFL roster,
Speaker 1: but to stay on an NFL roster. Kurt Warner the
Speaker 1: backup quarterback, number three quarterback last year, Kurt Warner steps
Speaker 1: in after the Green injury. He's the NFL m v P.
Speaker 1: Now he's the super Bowl MVP, super Bowl Champion. Kurt
Speaker 1: Warner is with us here on NFL. Explain Kurt. I
Speaker 1: would imagine, and I want to focus in with you
Speaker 1: on your work week, but I would imagine this is
Speaker 1: no different than how it was for you as a
Speaker 1: player that on your off day, or maybe even not
Speaker 1: on an off day, you would sit with two friends
Speaker 1: and record a podcast during the season. Fairly accurate in
Speaker 1: this day and age, that is fairly accurate. But the
Speaker 1: good thing is is that it's it's about past, right,
Speaker 1: And most of the podcasts I do, I get to
Speaker 1: talk about things that I'm passionate about, and you get
Speaker 1: me talking about something I'm passionate about and I can
Speaker 1: talk a long time about it, so it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: all good. I love talking ball and I love getting
Speaker 1: into the nuances of different things, so it's gonna be
Speaker 1: fun today. Well, I think that before we get into
Speaker 1: all of the offshoots and all the fun that you're
Speaker 1: talking about, one of the biggest misnomers that I hear
Speaker 1: from football fans is these guys get paid so much
Speaker 1: to play a game. Oh, come on, these guys should
Speaker 1: be so grateful. And the point I always try to
Speaker 1: make is you don't realize that there's not actually really
Speaker 1: an off day. You don't realize that these are professionals
Speaker 1: putting in time. I think that people think players show
Speaker 1: up for two hours of practice, they get an hour massage,
Speaker 1: and they go home and they play with their kids.
Speaker 1: So can you just set us straight and Sunday night,
Speaker 1: your home, you finished your game. What happens. Well, let's
Speaker 1: first say we do make a lot of money, and
Speaker 1: we are all grateful, and you're right, it's not just
Speaker 1: as easy as grabbing a football and running out there
Speaker 1: and just throwing it around for a couple of hours
Speaker 1: and then going home. There is a lot more to it.
Speaker 1: And the crazy thing is, as a professional and as
Speaker 1: someone that it's important to, there's times that it can
Speaker 1: start as soon as the game is over. I know
Speaker 1: now a little different than when I played, but now
Speaker 1: they have things loaded up on their iPad when they're
Speaker 1: traveling back on the team plane, and so you can
Speaker 1: either watch the game film of the game you just played,
Speaker 1: or you can get into next week's opponent. And so
Speaker 1: one of the biggest things for me is it was
Speaker 1: always hard to move on and move past the game
Speaker 1: I just played until I watched it, and so that
Speaker 1: was the first thing that I did Monday morning. I
Speaker 1: didn't sleep very well on Sunday because you're going through
Speaker 1: the game and what could I have done better? What
Speaker 1: did I miss? So Monday morning, as soon as I
Speaker 1: got up, I was going into the facility and I
Speaker 1: was watching the game field. So I could put that
Speaker 1: behind me. I could learn from it, because we would
Speaker 1: always say the game is never as good as you
Speaker 1: think it is, and it's never as bad as you
Speaker 1: think it is. And a lot of teams now have
Speaker 1: adopted this Monday's off. When you win a game, right,
Speaker 1: victory Monday is what we call it. And so with
Speaker 1: victory Monday, you know, you don't have any responsibilities. And then,
Speaker 1: as you guys know, Tuesday is the NFL day off
Speaker 1: in most cases, so that would say to you, oh,
Speaker 1: I got Monday and Tuesday off, I don't do anything
Speaker 1: until Wednesday. Again, first thing, Monday morning, I was in
Speaker 1: watching the film. What time are you going into the facility?
Speaker 1: That very let me just say, I didn't sleep in
Speaker 1: very often, and that was every stop St. Louis, New York, Arizona.
Speaker 1: Even as you got more established in your career. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it didn't matter because again that's what I'm talking about
Speaker 1: is when you're passionate and it's important to you, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter that you've played well in the past. All
Speaker 1: that mattered was that game. And so I expect myself
Speaker 1: to be perfect. I expect myself to make the right
Speaker 1: read every time, and when you don't, that's what hangs
Speaker 1: with you. And so that was the first thing I did,
Speaker 1: is I got in and I watched the film first thing,
Speaker 1: and then after that it was always getting to work
Speaker 1: out in to make sure you're working out everything that
Speaker 1: happened in the game, or you know, getting beat up
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, even on a Monday, if
Speaker 1: you had a victory Monday, I was probably in the
Speaker 1: facility from let's just say six am until at least noon,
Speaker 1: if not a little bit later. And then from there
Speaker 1: it kind of varied. Earlier in my career, when I
Speaker 1: was with the Rams, I didn't really have a responsibility
Speaker 1: in terms of building our game plan for the next week.
Speaker 1: But after I was getting done all those things that
Speaker 1: I said, work out and all of that, I would
Speaker 1: go in and watch tape of our next week's opponent.
Speaker 1: That was early in my career. Later in my career,
Speaker 1: I was much more heavily involved in game planning, and
Speaker 1: so basically all of my Mondays was watching film, watching
Speaker 1: cut ups, and then drawing up plays. I would draw
Speaker 1: fifty or sixty plays when I was in Arizona and
Speaker 1: would send him off to Todd Haley as who you
Speaker 1: know well, and and we would go through that and
Speaker 1: we would start building the game plan on Monday nights
Speaker 1: and things that I like, things that I saw, things
Speaker 1: that he liked. How do we mess those things together?
Speaker 1: So that was Monday, and you know, Monday was a
Speaker 1: full day. And the other thing that you know, people
Speaker 1: don't understand for were Again I don't know if this
Speaker 1: is for every player, but for me, I never shut
Speaker 1: it off so constantly. You know, there would be times
Speaker 1: that I would wake up at two in the morning
Speaker 1: and there was a play on my mind, and I
Speaker 1: get out of bed and I go dropped the plays
Speaker 1: and then try to get back to sleep. And so
Speaker 1: Monday's were really really busy. Tuesday technically is you know,
Speaker 1: the NFL day off, and I would say that is
Speaker 1: the one day at least for me, that I took
Speaker 1: more time off than any other days. Now, again, if
Speaker 1: I was game planning, that was still intermixed throughout the day,
Speaker 1: still getting my workout in and doing that. But you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of teams have kind of developed getting out
Speaker 1: in the community and doing your community work on Tuesdays,
Speaker 1: and that was something that my wife and I tried
Speaker 1: to adopt to set up a lot of things on
Speaker 1: Tuesday's or for me and my wife, especially as the
Speaker 1: kids got older, that would be our date day. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that was kind of our one day off a week,
Speaker 1: and then from there we we kind of rolled into
Speaker 1: the rest of the week. But it's the time that
Speaker 1: you have to put in and that you've you know
Speaker 1: you've committed to in the past. That really is what
Speaker 1: weighs you down, and I think forces most guys to retire.
Speaker 1: My Kurts only on Tuesday, and he's talking about how
Speaker 1: the grind can lead to thoughts of retirement. And I
Speaker 1: need to say, it's not only the grind on the
Speaker 1: players themselves, but it's a really tough ask for families also, Mike.
Speaker 1: And it's this is making me think of the Steelers
Speaker 1: former great tight end Heath Miller. You know, he retired
Speaker 1: when he was in his early thirties, long before he
Speaker 1: really needed to. His body still worked. He was still
Speaker 1: Ben Roethlisberger's favorite target, but at the time he had
Speaker 1: three kids. Now he and his wife have four, and
Speaker 1: he very openly said that he needed to help raise
Speaker 1: his family. Being a part of helping to raise his
Speaker 1: children was very, very obviously important to him. And it's
Speaker 1: not just about what the players themselves are having to
Speaker 1: put in, but their families too. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of sacrifices involved, and not even just from a player's perspective,
Speaker 1: I would also include the coaches. In fact, one of
Speaker 1: my good buddies who used to be the offensive coordinator
Speaker 1: with the Ravens is Rick new heisl and Rick would
Speaker 1: always tell me from his college coaching days, there's two
Speaker 1: type of coaches wives, great ones and x ones. Um.
Speaker 1: So you're right, there is a lot of sacrifice involved
Speaker 1: from a family perspective, But there is so much more
Speaker 1: to get to with Kurt Warner, including some of that sacrifice.
Speaker 1: In some bedrooms, this might be considered romantic and others
Speaker 1: not so much. You want to hear what Kurt had
Speaker 1: to say about his wife and his playbook. If you're
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Speaker 1: C band and not specific to five G networks. Your
Speaker 1: results may vary. Not an endorsement speed comparison to Media
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Speaker 1: Up Work the world's work marketplace. Learn more at www
Speaker 1: dot up work dot com. Warner, thanks to Marshall Fall
Speaker 1: now flows the middle of that as a touchdown pass
Speaker 1: Summer forty for Kurt Warner. Now in the forty Touchdown
Speaker 1: Pass Club, There's Dan Marino and there's Kurt Warner. Unbelievable. Kurt,
Speaker 1: I want to reset here as you take us through
Speaker 1: your week. So game day on Sunday, Monday, six am,
Speaker 1: film film film, probably some treatment as well, because you
Speaker 1: did take some hits on Sunday. Not to mention that workout,
Speaker 1: game planning a little bit more later in your career.
Speaker 1: Sort of the same routine on a Tuesday, although a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a social life because the real
Speaker 1: off day, so you do get to have a little
Speaker 1: bit of family life balance. Wednesday morning hits. Now what
Speaker 1: so Wednesday, you know, this is really when our work
Speaker 1: week starts and in our long days start and kind
Speaker 1: of the same idea you know, for me as a quarterback,
Speaker 1: you know, we all know is that you know, we
Speaker 1: don't really do a whole lot when it comes to
Speaker 1: practice in terms of conditioning and stuff. And so my
Speaker 1: work week would always start, um, you know on Wednesday's,
Speaker 1: Thursdays and Fridays. I would get up in the morning,
Speaker 1: usually around five am, and I would get my own
Speaker 1: cardio workout in either before I went to the facility,
Speaker 1: or I would go to the facility and get it
Speaker 1: in first and foremost, just because I knew I wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna get a lot of cardio and I wanted to
Speaker 1: stay in shape all season long, so it would be
Speaker 1: forty five minutes to an hour there. Treatment again if
Speaker 1: you needed treatment, if you needed to be in the
Speaker 1: training room for anything you're doing that time, and again
Speaker 1: that can be maintenance, cold tubs, hot tubs, all of
Speaker 1: that stuff. And then usually as quarterbacks, would start our
Speaker 1: days earlier than everyone else, so we would have an
Speaker 1: initial meeting let's just say about seven fifteen if everybody
Speaker 1: else was starting their meetings at eight seven fifteen, where
Speaker 1: we would start installing the game planned quarterback wise before
Speaker 1: everybody else, so we got one shot at it beforehand
Speaker 1: to really go through the details of what we needed
Speaker 1: to know what our reeds were going to be the
Speaker 1: plays to a degree. Then from their short team meeting
Speaker 1: usually every day with your head coach, and then we
Speaker 1: would go into offensive meetings. And those offensive meetings, I
Speaker 1: mean they could last, you know, hours, depending on when
Speaker 1: you practice, because again some teams practice in the morning,
Speaker 1: some teams practice in the afternoon. But basically from whatever
Speaker 1: that time was eight fifteen until lunch or eight fifteen
Speaker 1: until practice, you were in meetings and you were putting
Speaker 1: together whatever you had to put together game plan wise,
Speaker 1: and so that could be four to five hours a
Speaker 1: day in meetings. So Wednesdays for us was usually first
Speaker 1: and second down game planning. So whatever we would do,
Speaker 1: whatever the situational football was for first and second down,
Speaker 1: how teams like to play on first and second down,
Speaker 1: that would be everything that we installed, you know, on
Speaker 1: that Wednesday. And so let's just say we go through
Speaker 1: the day and however we do it, usually getting home
Speaker 1: around five o'clock. I would say, depending on what your
Speaker 1: routine was at the end of the day or after
Speaker 1: practice or treatment wise, then from there it was best
Speaker 1: we could a family dinner for me and the family,
Speaker 1: because it was the one window I had to you know,
Speaker 1: to be with with all my you know, I got
Speaker 1: seven kids, so with all my kids and my wife,
Speaker 1: the one window that I would have with them, you know,
Speaker 1: talk about the day. And then for me, one of
Speaker 1: my routines that I developed when I was playing is
Speaker 1: that every single night I would take the game plan
Speaker 1: or not even take it, but I would have my
Speaker 1: my coaches. Um. So, if you guys have ever seen
Speaker 1: a playbook, playbooks usually have like a page of eight
Speaker 1: boxes and in each box there's a play you know,
Speaker 1: the formation and how it's run, the motions and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, and so we would you know, jot on
Speaker 1: those all day long. So then I would come home
Speaker 1: at night and I would have my coaches makeup just
Speaker 1: plain boxes. So every night I would go back and
Speaker 1: I would draw up every single play that we installed
Speaker 1: that day, you know, formations, what we were doing, movements,
Speaker 1: and then I would usually right in there, Okay, if
Speaker 1: we get cover one, this is my read. If I
Speaker 1: get covered two, this is my read, Cover three, cover four,
Speaker 1: and kind of break it down. This guy is my hot,
Speaker 1: this guy's my side at just so you know, I
Speaker 1: would draw those up every single night. So usually I
Speaker 1: would say an hour and a half to two hours
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit more of drawing out those plays,
Speaker 1: and then again a little bit more downtime, maybe hang
Speaker 1: with the wife a little bit. And then one of
Speaker 1: the things that uh that my wife didn't appreciate, but
Speaker 1: as you say, you never turned it off. I would
Speaker 1: bring my game plan to bed with me. So one
Speaker 1: of our routines when I was in St. Louis, because
Speaker 1: we had so many plays, was I would bring my
Speaker 1: game plan to bed and I would give it to
Speaker 1: my wife and my wife would read the play call.
Speaker 1: Let's just say it was five post swing. So she
Speaker 1: would read the end of the play and I would
Speaker 1: have to tell her in a way I studied my
Speaker 1: game plan. I would have to tell her what formation
Speaker 1: we were running out of this week, three or right,
Speaker 1: whatever motion we're running that a scat right post swing.
Speaker 1: And so she would help me study for another hour
Speaker 1: or so every night, so I would try to get
Speaker 1: that game plan down. So again, in the game, you know,
Speaker 1: you got the microphones in your ears, and you expect
Speaker 1: to get the whole play, but you know sometimes they
Speaker 1: those go out, so you signal five. And my job
Speaker 1: was to know, okay, this week we're running it out
Speaker 1: of trips right motion, you know, scot right. And so
Speaker 1: she helped me with that, and so that was another hour.
Speaker 1: So here we are nine o'clock at night, nine ten
Speaker 1: o'clock at night, studying my game plan in bed. Very romantic, Kirk,
Speaker 1: that is amazing, But you have to tell us the truth.
Speaker 1: That would Brenda ever read a play and say, Kirk, Kirk, Kurd,
Speaker 1: I don't like this play. This is a crap play. No,
Speaker 1: not crap play in terms of what the play was,
Speaker 1: because She usually didn't know the play, but she would
Speaker 1: say I don't like this name, or why do you
Speaker 1: call it that? Or she would give me some of those,
Speaker 1: like this is stupid, what does that mean? Or and
Speaker 1: I would tell her, you know, because we would have
Speaker 1: different names for different things. So like we get a
Speaker 1: call called just horn, you know, like like honker horn
Speaker 1: when and it stands for a hitch in a corner,
Speaker 1: and you know, so I would we would say that.
Speaker 1: She goes, why is it called horn? What does that mean?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, this is what it stands for. She goes,
Speaker 1: that's stupid. So she would give me some of those.
Speaker 1: But it's still funny that if you come by my
Speaker 1: wife to this day and just say, hey, give me
Speaker 1: a play call from St. Louis, she'll give you some
Speaker 1: terms that we used to use. So she always jokes
Speaker 1: with me. She's like, how do you guys remember what
Speaker 1: you remember? Like twenty years ago, you can still remember
Speaker 1: what yard line you were on or what play you called,
Speaker 1: you know, at this point in the game. And she's like,
Speaker 1: but you never remember what my wedding dress looked like.
Speaker 1: And so it's funny that I could say that to
Speaker 1: her now. Like, give me a play call from St. Louis,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure she could do it too. So yes,
Speaker 1: that became you know, the romantic part of our relationship
Speaker 1: was we got to spend time together going through my
Speaker 1: game plans at night, and so that was really the
Speaker 1: routine for both Wednesdays and Thursdays. Does she have a
Speaker 1: favorite coordinator? Though all the coordinators you had, all those
Speaker 1: a favorite one, I don't think she liked any of Uh.
Speaker 1: So she would always joke that, uh, you know that
Speaker 1: I was having an affair with Todd Hayley because when
Speaker 1: we were game planning together, I mean it was constant.
Speaker 1: You know, We'd be in bed or again, she'd feel
Speaker 1: me wake up at three in the morning and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I'm grabbing my phone and I'm texting
Speaker 1: something and she's like, oh my gosh, is that your mistress?
Speaker 1: Is that mistress Haley? You know she would joke about
Speaker 1: that because we did, you know, we were talking. We
Speaker 1: were on our phones more than I probably spent time
Speaker 1: with with my wife, especially during the season, and so
Speaker 1: Wednesdays and Thursdays were primarily made up of that. Thursday's
Speaker 1: was our our third down packages and so instead of
Speaker 1: first and second down, but basically the same routine all
Speaker 1: of Thursday, and so those were are really really long days,
Speaker 1: you know, as I said, whatever five in the morning
Speaker 1: till ten o'clock at night and then waking up and
Speaker 1: doing the exact same thing on Thursday. Mike, I would
Speaker 1: love Brendan Werner talked through some QB terminology with me.
Speaker 1: There is no doubt in my mind to d D
Speaker 1: that she could handle business and probably educate a We
Speaker 1: should do a whole episode just with Brenda. She just
Speaker 1: breaking down everything the version two point oh of this one.
Speaker 1: She's awesome. She I have to say from personal experience,
Speaker 1: she really is awesome. It's patience of a saint too.
Speaker 1: If she's kind of laying in bed and hanging out
Speaker 1: with Curtain explaining and quizzing him on the playbook, that
Speaker 1: really is just kind of an awesome story to hear.
Speaker 1: But coming up, there's more with our Hall of Famer
Speaker 1: Kurt Warner and a couple of stories of our own.
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Speaker 1: the world. Kendrell The Heart of Progress. Warner Tank scans
Speaker 1: the secondary thing. It is the near sidelines to the
Speaker 1: twenty of the fifty to the five touchdown rams. What
Speaker 1: a pass by Kurt Warner left by the perfect health
Speaker 1: touchdown ram. So then you're basically installed by Thursday, even
Speaker 1: well Friday right the red zone Friday yep so um,
Speaker 1: same idea. So it was a brisker tempo on Friday's
Speaker 1: and usually you were out of the facility on Friday's
Speaker 1: probably one thirty two o'clock in most situations, so that
Speaker 1: was the night to get home and get some rest
Speaker 1: and really start preparing for the game. So Friday's were
Speaker 1: day that you could get home and spend a little
Speaker 1: bit more time with your family, and so we would
Speaker 1: go home earlier. But my routine in the evenings would
Speaker 1: be primarily the same, still going through all those details,
Speaker 1: drawing them up, and then Saturday just vary depending on
Speaker 1: whether you were traveling or not, but coming in the morning,
Speaker 1: do your work and a short walk through practice to
Speaker 1: clean up everything that you had done throughout the week.
Speaker 1: And then depending on which team I was with, some
Speaker 1: teams you were clear to go for the rest of
Speaker 1: the day you stayed at home. Other teams we would
Speaker 1: stay in hotels, so we would get to go home
Speaker 1: for a few hours, do whatever, watch your kids play
Speaker 1: a Saturday game, or hang out watching college football, or
Speaker 1: hang out with your family, and then early evening you
Speaker 1: would have to go back to the hotel, and it
Speaker 1: would kind of simulate what you would do on the road.
Speaker 1: So on the road, you know, you get to your hotel,
Speaker 1: have a little time to relax, and then once again
Speaker 1: it's final meetings, going through all the details. Make sure
Speaker 1: you're you know, you've got all those details ironed out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this collaboration that you're describing with the people that
Speaker 1: you're working with. Your preparation is so meticulous. Just even
Speaker 1: hearing some of the stories that you're telling, and I
Speaker 1: would imagine it's it's not the same for everyone. But
Speaker 1: because you did so much of that work, did you
Speaker 1: always feel ready for every game? Yeah? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: being ready was not an issue. And you know, to
Speaker 1: come to your point is that I told you my routine.
Speaker 1: But lots of guys are different. Like I always say
Speaker 1: to people, you know, when I talk to quarterbacks a lot,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you can listen to me and listen Tom
Speaker 1: Brady and Peyton Manning and all these great quarterbacks, but
Speaker 1: you've got to figure out who you are and how
Speaker 1: you need to prepare and how you need to play
Speaker 1: the game, because for all of us it's different. And
Speaker 1: so you know, people ask me all the time, how
Speaker 1: much film do you watch? You know, and I would
Speaker 1: tell them I wasn't a big film watcher. And now
Speaker 1: it's a relative term, you know, not a big film watcher.
Speaker 1: I watched hours and hours of film every week. I
Speaker 1: just watched it differently than other people. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: the end all be all for me. For me, as
Speaker 1: I've told you guys, you know, studying my game plan
Speaker 1: with my wife in bed or drawing up the pictures
Speaker 1: every day, the way I played the game was I
Speaker 1: was great at reacting. I was great at seeing defenses
Speaker 1: and understanding what they're doing and reacting and get the
Speaker 1: ball out of my hands. So my goal every week,
Speaker 1: to your point, Mike, about being prepared was being prepared
Speaker 1: for me was not knowing what the defense was going
Speaker 1: to do, although I always felt like I had a
Speaker 1: good idea. Being prepared for me was knowing what I
Speaker 1: was supposed to do in every situation, every blitz, every protection,
Speaker 1: every route, what why read is on every single coverage?
Speaker 1: That was my prep. And so a lot of the
Speaker 1: stuff that we talked about has been that's about film
Speaker 1: study and more about me learning our offense to the
Speaker 1: point where I knew it like the back of my hand.
Speaker 1: So now I could play to my strengths, like, all right,
Speaker 1: what you guys gonna do? I knew what I was
Speaker 1: looking at. Oh, you're gonna do that bang. This is
Speaker 1: how I react to it. A guy like Peyton Manning,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say again like I'm not gonna say
Speaker 1: he didn't prepare and know what he was supposed to do.
Speaker 1: But if you watched a lot of Peyton Manning's offenses,
Speaker 1: they were more simple offenses. You know, they didn't have
Speaker 1: a million different combinations. He ran the same kind of
Speaker 1: combinations things he was very comfortable with. But his goal was,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna watch a bunch of tape and so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna know when ray Lewis does this, they're gonna bring
Speaker 1: this blitz. So I'm gonna make one of my funky
Speaker 1: signals and I'm gonna call the right play in the
Speaker 1: right situation every time. And that's how I'm going to
Speaker 1: have success. Best I've ever seen it. Playing the game
Speaker 1: before the snap. I played the game after the snap.
Speaker 1: So the way I prepared was different than the way
Speaker 1: he prepared, because he wanted to answer all the questions,
Speaker 1: you know, before the snap of the ball, before they
Speaker 1: gave him to him. He wanted to have every answer
Speaker 1: to the question for me. I wanted to do it afterwards.
Speaker 1: Show me what you're gonna roll out here and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna outthink you, and I'm gonna be able to think
Speaker 1: faster than you can, and that's how I was going
Speaker 1: to win. So preparation for me throughout the week became
Speaker 1: different than it was for other people. But I had
Speaker 1: to know what made me me and what made me
Speaker 1: special and how I could separate myself, and so my
Speaker 1: preparation throughout the week curtailed around this is what I do,
Speaker 1: this is how I play, And so I think it's
Speaker 1: always important for whoever is listening to this is that
Speaker 1: my way is not everybody's way. Peyton Manning's way is
Speaker 1: not everybody's way. I work with some quarterbacks that were
Speaker 1: with Peyton, and I would work with them and I
Speaker 1: put them up on a board and asked them to
Speaker 1: talk me through something, and they take twenty minutes to
Speaker 1: go through what protection they were gonna call. And I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: you got twenty minutes, you got you got four seconds,
Speaker 1: you got fifteen seconds. We don't have time for all this.
Speaker 1: The problem is other guys would overthink that. Peyton didn't
Speaker 1: overthink it. Peyton saw it, understood it, knew the nuances
Speaker 1: could make the check, and he wasn't given me well
Speaker 1: if they do, no, this is what they're doing. Boom,
Speaker 1: I'm checking, I'm out. I'm going Not everybody could do that.
Speaker 1: So I saw people get handcuffed and not being able
Speaker 1: to play their game because they were trying to prepare
Speaker 1: like somebody that didn't play the game like they did.
Speaker 1: And so that becomes so important to me. And in
Speaker 1: preparation of anything is knowing your skill set, knowing what
Speaker 1: you need to do to succeed, and then developing your
Speaker 1: game plan or your preparation plan around that. Before we
Speaker 1: wrap everything up, take us through Sunday morning, because again
Speaker 1: I'm going to use the fans. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people see whoever it is roll In and his
Speaker 1: fancy suit and his fedora and wave at the NFL
Speaker 1: Network camera and think, okay, puts on his uniform and
Speaker 1: he runs out there. When did you wake up on Sunday?
Speaker 1: And what was everything until let's call it one pm.
Speaker 1: Let's pretend it's a one pm kickoff. So let me
Speaker 1: take you back to the Saturday afternoon. So Saturday is
Speaker 1: done with practice, go home, and that was kind of
Speaker 1: my time to lounge around, be with the family and
Speaker 1: whatever before whatever happened Saturday evening, And so Saturday evening
Speaker 1: or late afternoon was when my wife calls at the zone.
Speaker 1: She could just tell it became three four in the
Speaker 1: afternoon and she's like, all right, Kurt, time to go,
Speaker 1: get out, go to the hotel. That's when I got
Speaker 1: locked in with Saturday afternoon. From that point in time
Speaker 1: until I went to bed at night, it was all football,
Speaker 1: playing plays in my mind, talking myself through different things,
Speaker 1: situational football, what was I going to see? And so
Speaker 1: that was one of my gifts, was the ability to
Speaker 1: get focused. Obviously wasn't a gift for my family, but
Speaker 1: it paid dividends in the long run. So that was
Speaker 1: really where it started for me, was that afternoon. And
Speaker 1: you didn't put a clock on it. It was just
Speaker 1: as you got closer and closer, it just started to
Speaker 1: take over my brain. So Saturday night was all football.
Speaker 1: It was everything that had to do with Sunday. Sunday
Speaker 1: was no football until game time. And what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is I didn't look at my game plan.
Speaker 1: I didn't go over plays. I didn't I mean again,
Speaker 1: obviously things were ruminating in my head and different, but
Speaker 1: I didn't look at a single thing that had to
Speaker 1: do with football. I said to myself, by the time
Speaker 1: I go to bed on Saturday night, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: ready to go, so I can wake up Sunday and
Speaker 1: let's go play ball. And so the hardest thing for
Speaker 1: me was night games. I wanted to wake up, go
Speaker 1: eat breakfast, go to the stadium and play. So it
Speaker 1: was beautiful my first year in St. Louis because every
Speaker 1: game we played was at noon Central time. We weren't
Speaker 1: a good team. The year before we had no prime
Speaker 1: time games. Every game was at noon, So it was
Speaker 1: get up in the morning, go to the facility. We
Speaker 1: have chapel or church service if that was something that
Speaker 1: you did. Then they had breakfast for us, and then
Speaker 1: they had a time where you had to be at
Speaker 1: the stadium. For me, if I was on the road,
Speaker 1: I was on the last bus. I did not want
Speaker 1: to be sitting in my locker room thinking about the games.
Speaker 1: I wanted to show up, I wanted to get dressed,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to go play. But it was more
Speaker 1: of a general focus on Sundays where I wasn't touching
Speaker 1: base with anything specific because I knew that I was
Speaker 1: already ready it was just I'm buying my time, trying
Speaker 1: to manage my anxiety and my nerves just to get
Speaker 1: to kick off. But I didn't want anybody talking ball
Speaker 1: with me. I didn't want to have any meetings. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes we see it on game day morning and see
Speaker 1: these quarterbacks and ovid's coordinators walking around the field, and no,
Speaker 1: don't you know, don't talk to me, just get me
Speaker 1: to kick off. I got this at this point, So
Speaker 1: Sunday to me was really just managing things till you
Speaker 1: could go play ball. I love it. I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: current first time I've had actually had an opportunity to
Speaker 1: talk with you. Can't thank you enough for giving us
Speaker 1: as much time on the podcast. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for putting into context what the schedule looks like for
Speaker 1: an NFL player. Oh you got my pleasure being on.
Speaker 1: And I'm always willing to talk to anybody that wants
Speaker 1: to talk ball and wants to learn ball. And so
Speaker 1: that's the thing about a d D is that we
Speaker 1: always get to talk ball. And you know, I don't
Speaker 1: need all the fluff when it's game time, where it's
Speaker 1: season time, or but we're getting ready, I just want
Speaker 1: to talk with people that want to learn the game
Speaker 1: and want to talk about it, and so I always
Speaker 1: enjoy my conversations with the d D when we get
Speaker 1: a chance to catch up. Well, Kurt, you are the best.
Speaker 1: You of course prompted now eighteen questions about who had
Speaker 1: what sort of notebooks, And I am definitely texting Todd
Speaker 1: Haley to say, how come I don't know about this
Speaker 1: affair with Kurt Warner of all people. Yes, you will
Speaker 1: have to do that and he'll know exactly. Christie would
Speaker 1: say the same things. Her and Brenda would talk saying
Speaker 1: like can you get your husband off the phone? I
Speaker 1: gotta get my husband off the phone. It's time for
Speaker 1: day night. So they had plenty of those conversations. Well,
Speaker 1: it's great, Kurt, thank you, Thank you so much. Just
Speaker 1: so awesome to hear Kurt Warner's dedication that he has
Speaker 1: to his craft and had to his craft and actually
Speaker 1: think he still has it to a certain degree when
Speaker 1: you think of him as a broadcaster on NFL Network,
Speaker 1: he really is tremendous and just hearing some of the
Speaker 1: stories really remarkable and add there's at one point in
Speaker 1: our interview with Kurt where you would ask him about
Speaker 1: other people being involved with him, watching film and being
Speaker 1: in a facility. There's a reason why he's a Hall
Speaker 1: of Famer. There's a different type of work ethic associated
Speaker 1: with a guy that was able to perform at that level.
Speaker 1: For sure, Mike, and not always, but in general, the
Speaker 1: quarterback is the player that has to put in the
Speaker 1: most time because of the nature of his position and
Speaker 1: what is expected of him. But it's not only the
Speaker 1: quarterback that works this way. And in fact, when Kurt
Speaker 1: Werner was talking about his notebooks, it made me think
Speaker 1: of Antonio Brown. You remember those magical years when he
Speaker 1: and Ben Roethlisberger were arguably the best quarterback wide receiver
Speaker 1: duo in the NFL. The truth is, Antonio Brown was
Speaker 1: never the best route runner, the fastest guy, the number
Speaker 1: one hands in the NFL. Antonio Brown was really and
Speaker 1: truly one of the hardest working players that I've ever
Speaker 1: covered in my life. He would stay after practice and
Speaker 1: catch hundreds of balls on the jugs machine every single day.
Speaker 1: He'd go to l a fitness to get in an
Speaker 1: extra workout in the evenings, and he kept notebooks. Mike,
Speaker 1: you know how Kurt was talking about studying his playbook
Speaker 1: at night with Brenda Well. Antonio once showed me the
Speaker 1: stack of notebooks he had, one for every single season
Speaker 1: he'd been in the NFL, and every single day he'd
Speaker 1: take notes on meetings on what happened, and then he'd
Speaker 1: go home at night and he'd reread those notes and
Speaker 1: he'd highlight things. And Todd Haley, who was the offensive
Speaker 1: coordinator of the Steelers for six years, told me once
Speaker 1: that Antonio would bring up these obscure things that Haley
Speaker 1: said five six, seven weeks ago because he was constantly
Speaker 1: studying those notebooks where he had written down whatever it
Speaker 1: was that Haley said that Haley had forgotten. He said,
Speaker 1: And this all takes me back to Mike too, when
Speaker 1: we talked to Justin Tucker a few weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: he said it's the job of a professional to make
Speaker 1: difficult things look easy, and that perhaps fans don't realize
Speaker 1: how much goes into actually making those things look easy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why I loved hearing what Kurt was saying about
Speaker 1: what his regiment was. During the course of the week.
Speaker 1: We could have gone on forever with Kurt, and I
Speaker 1: think we need to do another episode of d D,
Speaker 1: not just on what the off season looks like, because
Speaker 1: I think that's really important. Kurt took us through what
Speaker 1: the in season week looks like. But there's so much involved,
Speaker 1: you know. I'm sure Aby was sitting in the off
Speaker 1: season look at some of those notes that he took.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe not every single day, but there's other
Speaker 1: things that are involved in the off season. But I
Speaker 1: would love to hear what it's like for a non quarterback,
Speaker 1: what it's like for a coach, and what they're doing
Speaker 1: during the course of the week. But I can't thank
Speaker 1: Kurt enough. I know I speak for you when I
Speaker 1: say that he was absolutely tremendous in laying out the
Speaker 1: entire week from his perspective when he was a player.
Speaker 1: And I will say this, Mike, no matter what position
Speaker 1: you play, you are working seven days a week during
Speaker 1: the NFL season. Heck, I'll give one little, one little
Speaker 1: more nugget when Kurt Warner said that Friday nights were
Speaker 1: usually kind of a quieter night. When I covered the
Speaker 1: New York Giants offensive line code with Pat Flaherty, Pat
Speaker 1: Flaherty used to send home a take home quiz for
Speaker 1: his offensive lineman on Friday, So that's what they were
Speaker 1: doing on Friday nights. In any case, we have to
Speaker 1: thank Ourage just as you said, he is the best
Speaker 1: and that everybody is a player's work. Leak explained brought
Speaker 1: to you by up work, where you can build the
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