Speaker 1: Lots to Say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle is
Speaker 1: a production of the NFL and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: We Got Lots to save, We got lots to save?
Speaker 3: What the backer here? And we hope you say because
Speaker 3: we got lost?
Speaker 1: Just say, yeah, we got lots to say.
Speaker 2: Here's Bobby and that.
Speaker 1: Everybody welcome. We are getting an episode before Thanksgiving, which
Speaker 1: feels good. Well, this show comes out on a Wednesday.
Speaker 1: So what are you doing for Thanksgiving? I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: out in California with the family. You guys have Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: over there? We do.
Speaker 4: It's shockingly even with the weather still being like seventy degrees,
Speaker 4: it doesn't feel like.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like the Holidays. I'd like to say,
Speaker 1: no place that gets that doesn't get below fifty, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't have Thanksgiving. I would that's your rule. That's my rule.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't get below it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: below fifty on Thanksgiving. But if your city never gets
Speaker 1: below fifty, you should not get to celebrate things getting Well,
Speaker 1: they got the.
Speaker 4: La Nina out there right now, so maybe they do
Speaker 4: drop temperatures and it'll get to like forty nine.
Speaker 1: In the morning. Acceptable, But until then, it's going to
Speaker 1: go back up. Yeah, what do you guys do? Like,
Speaker 1: what's the what's the tradition? You know what?
Speaker 4: The last few years, my wife's been taking the kids
Speaker 4: out there because I'm normally traveling for season, but I
Speaker 4: happen to have a game out there. We've got UCLA
Speaker 4: Washington at UCLA this weekend prior to Thanksgiving, so I'm
Speaker 4: just going to stay out there, and my whole family's
Speaker 4: coming out on Friday, so we get together, we see
Speaker 4: both sides of the family, will probably do a Thanksgiving
Speaker 4: on Wednesday, and then my wife staying for Thursday. I've
Speaker 4: got to go actually back to New York to go
Speaker 4: do studio Friday, Yes, and then guess what, I'm coming
Speaker 4: right back for US UCLA. Oh do they at least
Speaker 4: give you a lay down bed? No, No, it's just
Speaker 4: Southwest probably. I don't know LA New York. No, I
Speaker 4: have no idea what they're flying me out on. Oh
Speaker 4: my god, I haven't got that far ahead yet. So
Speaker 4: it's going to be a lot of travel. But yeah,
Speaker 4: it is what it is. What are you doing? We're
Speaker 4: gonna go to Oklahoma?
Speaker 1: Okay, Joe with me? I don't even sing it right,
Speaker 1: stupid song plays all the time because Oklahoma's actually good
Speaker 1: at football. It sucks. They are good, Yeah suck, It
Speaker 1: doesn't suck. I root for them because of my father
Speaker 1: in law, not because of my wife. I want everybody
Speaker 1: to know this. I root for them because of my
Speaker 1: father in law because I am happy when he is happy.
Speaker 1: My wife like rubs it in. Oh, she talks a
Speaker 1: little smack. Well, we're not good, not good. It's really
Speaker 1: just an easy target at that point. And she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wonder what it's like to have to wait for
Speaker 1: a game that's at six but you already know you're
Speaker 1: out of it. Kind of stuff that burns deep too.
Speaker 1: So it just like it's a I'm my guts are
Speaker 1: all confused on who to root for and not. But
Speaker 1: I do root for them because I want my father
Speaker 1: in law to feel good. So but they play that
Speaker 1: song all the time. Okay, h I don't know how
Speaker 1: it goes. But we'll go to Oklahoma and we'll go
Speaker 1: to Fatteville. We'll do both. Yeah, and luckily they're close,
Speaker 1: so we'll do that and you know, eat food and
Speaker 1: come back home. But it won't be anything crazy. My
Speaker 1: wife's very pregnant, So it's not like you can do lot.
Speaker 4: You're not gonna do much, but you're gonna eat some
Speaker 4: food and hang out and.
Speaker 1: Be merry and watch football, watch football one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: We have Scott Porter coming up in a second. So
Speaker 1: Scott Porter was in Friday Night Lights, and I got
Speaker 1: to admit this now, I've never seen an episode. Really,
Speaker 1: don't tell him that I won't. And when he comes on,
Speaker 1: we just finished the interview when they were there. I
Speaker 1: remember them being there and I'd probably interviewed them a
Speaker 1: time or two. But I've never seen an episode of
Speaker 1: Friday Night Lights. And I'm not anti Friday Night Lights.
Speaker 1: I never watched it new then when I got old
Speaker 1: at other shows I wanted to watch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a good beinge watch to be honest. They
Speaker 4: do a good job with the characters and all that stuff.
Speaker 4: It's entertaining a lot of drama mixed in with some football.
Speaker 4: So I mean, I I've watched some episodes.
Speaker 1: My wife. Have you not seen every episod?
Speaker 4: No, not at all. I figured my wife, I think
Speaker 4: seen every season. She used to binge watch. So like
Speaker 4: if you come in and see the treadmill rolling the
Speaker 4: peloton over there and she's walking it out. She was
Speaker 4: for months on end was watching Friday Night Lights.
Speaker 1: Kevin, you watch it. I didn't watch all of it,
Speaker 1: but I watched some of it. But the movie is
Speaker 1: my top three. Movie was awesome. Yeah, but the show
Speaker 1: I've watched like I think maybe one season. My like
Speaker 1: my morning show. People they think it's their favorite show,
Speaker 1: all of them and they're like usual, it's still so
Speaker 1: great and so uh. He played Jason Street. He was
Speaker 1: the quarterback that was in the wheelchair. Yes, he was
Speaker 1: basically Drake under grassy. Dang, dang, you went there? What?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: I was like, dang, that's a that's deep, that's that's
Speaker 1: a good one. Yeah, that's either. I just know that
Speaker 1: Drake was in a wheelchair on the grass and he
Speaker 1: said dang.
Speaker 4: I was like, I don't even know he's referencing, so
Speaker 4: you went there, Maybe that'll spark something.
Speaker 1: He didn't like, what do you mean? I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't really know. I also, he's not gonna remember this.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: I justad we just talk to him, so I kind
Speaker 1: of acting like we haven't talked to him yet. But
Speaker 1: I did a movie called Band Slam where I had
Speaker 1: nine lines. Was he in any of the scenes, Yes,
Speaker 1: briefly in one, but we were to I had my
Speaker 1: own trailer, like I was Fringe principal. Okay, so I
Speaker 1: was considered a principle. I was on the sheet and
Speaker 1: they gave me a trailer because I had to work
Speaker 1: like three days on saying I'm not an actor. I've
Speaker 1: never claimed to be an actor. I never really wanted
Speaker 1: to be an actor, and I've ended up acting a bit,
Speaker 1: like I've done like three episodes of Nashville, but I've
Speaker 1: played different people on that show if you look, because
Speaker 1: that shows on Netflix now, Nashville. Okay, at first, I'm
Speaker 1: like a random reporter who's like, hey, the parallel is
Speaker 1: Connie Brittens in both shows. Okay, she plays Randon James
Speaker 1: and Nashville and she's the mom and Friday Night Lights,
Speaker 1: I believe, right, Yes, So I played reporter in the
Speaker 1: first one episode and then in another episode, I'm like
Speaker 1: somebody else. But then at the end that's different character.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's but at the end of I'm playing myself
Speaker 1: really and I have real lines with Rana James. Oh
Speaker 1: that's cool. At least you get to play yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It wasn't any easier. It wasn't no, because it was weird.
Speaker 1: That's not what I do, right, And so all the
Speaker 1: cameras and you're working with real actors and they're doing
Speaker 1: their thing, and all you don't want to do is
Speaker 1: you just don't want to mess it up. Did you
Speaker 1: ever mess up your line? And you're like, I don't
Speaker 1: know going to mess it up? But I don't know
Speaker 1: that I was good at it. But this movie Band
Speaker 1: Slam that we did with Vanessa Hudgens and Phoebe from
Speaker 1: Friends like Sekudro, Yeah, I had nine lines. I think
Speaker 1: I had like fourteen, but they cut five five of them. Okay,
Speaker 1: so basically you crushed. It was fine. I didn't have
Speaker 1: I didn't want my glasses and I had like a white,
Speaker 1: like curly haired afro. That was my normal hair back then.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, I get curly. So that's what I know.
Speaker 1: Scott from Scott's Big Broncos Fan, So uh yeah, let's
Speaker 1: go all right, Hey Scott, good to see about it.
Speaker 5: Hey, good to see it. A long time?
Speaker 1: Why do you say long We were just talking about this.
Speaker 1: Why do you say long time?
Speaker 5: Because Austin, Texas, we talked way back when Friday Night
Speaker 5: Lights was first coming out.
Speaker 1: Okay, I had a Yes, Austin, Texas is correct. I
Speaker 1: have a slightly different version of that story, but that's
Speaker 1: absolutely true because they filmed that in Austin when I
Speaker 1: was living there. I forgot all about that. That's right.
Speaker 1: Did you go off to the set? No, I never
Speaker 1: went to the set, but I thought they would use
Speaker 1: your athletics. You thought that, Yeah, it would be one
Speaker 1: of the guys that you know had I had nine
Speaker 1: lines in a movie called Band Slam, which, ye, you
Speaker 1: were like the star of the movie. You and Vanessa
Speaker 1: Hudgens were like the stars of the movie. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: we all my scenes were like a theater on campus.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't know if Scott's gonna
Speaker 1: remember me, but hey, here we are, and he obviously didn't.
Speaker 5: Remember. I was just going back any further because we
Speaker 5: had chatted a couple of times prior to that. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you were. You were an Austin legend.
Speaker 1: So good to see you, buddy, I see I see
Speaker 1: Longhorn stuff behind you. And now I'm I lived in
Speaker 1: Austin for thirteen years and it's my favorite city, Like
Speaker 1: it is my favorite City. But I'm from Arkansas, so
Speaker 1: we hate the Longhorns, So why do you have long
Speaker 1: horn stuff behind you?
Speaker 5: My wife was actually a cheerleader at the University of Texas.
Speaker 5: She was there the years that why was there, and
Speaker 5: she actually cheered in the National Championship.
Speaker 1: Game Vince Young at USC. I wasn't there. I was
Speaker 1: a year after.
Speaker 4: I thought I was gonna make a lot of money
Speaker 4: in that locker room, and I sure didn't that.
Speaker 1: That was brutal. I also see you're looking like you're
Speaker 1: looking like a coach here.
Speaker 4: I mean, you've got the Broncos swag on your radiar roll,
Speaker 4: so obviously your Broncos fan. Big big win this last
Speaker 4: week and probably the biggest sense what Peyton Manning.
Speaker 5: Air, Yeah, I would say, man, I mean getting that
Speaker 5: big of a lead in the A West against that
Speaker 5: good of a team. Even still, you know the Chiefs,
Speaker 5: I know they haven't been putting it together. You know,
Speaker 5: in all three phases this season. That defense is still
Speaker 5: very good. When Chris Jones is motivated, they're still very dangerous.
Speaker 5: And Pat Mahomes is still the best in the game.
Speaker 5: So to get that win, get a cushion in the
Speaker 5: AFC West, angling for some home field advantage where you
Speaker 5: can actually play a game or two in Mile High
Speaker 5: It was huge. But yeah, massive Broncos fan have been
Speaker 5: all my life from Nebraska originally, and when you live
Speaker 5: in Omaha, Nebraska, you're a free agent. You know, Proximity Chiefs, Broncos, Bears,
Speaker 5: Ish and those Cowboys fans everywhere. So but I grew
Speaker 5: up watching Lway play in the eighties. Lose a lot
Speaker 5: of games, but just play with Moxie that I had
Speaker 5: never seen before. So yeah, Broncos fan my whole life.
Speaker 1: Evaluate Bo Nicks this performance this year as a fan, well.
Speaker 5: I don't want to be Dragonslayer sixty nine hiding in
Speaker 5: the basement of this moss house to drink it out,
Speaker 5: you know, drinking his mountain dew like the drop and said.
Speaker 5: But you know, at the end of the day, I
Speaker 5: think everything that Bo has said is what a lot
Speaker 5: of people are seeing. You know, feet are moving a lot,
Speaker 5: He's you know, running out and back from danger, throwing
Speaker 5: off his back foot a lot. And in Sean Payton's office,
Speaker 5: you really, you really need to be able to hit
Speaker 5: these these middle deep ends, these you know, outbreaking routes,
Speaker 5: these corners, you know, to get past that press cover
Speaker 5: two coverage that a lot of people would like to
Speaker 5: run on him because you know, he likes to get
Speaker 5: the ball out to the flats and likes to run
Speaker 5: a lot of screen game. So you've got to be
Speaker 5: able to hit that mid level throw. And Bo has
Speaker 5: missed it a lot this year, but he hit it
Speaker 5: in the big moment in this last game, uh, dropping
Speaker 5: one into Troy Franklin, you know, over the corner under
Speaker 5: the safety, setting up the final field goals. So for me,
Speaker 5: it's just, for some reason, it seems like there's a
Speaker 5: clarity for Bow in the fourth quarter of games. And
Speaker 5: I just as a Broncos fan, I think I speak
Speaker 5: for all of Broncos country. We'd love to just see
Speaker 5: that clarity for four quarters, you know. But hopefully we
Speaker 5: can keep pulling it out. Hopefully he keeps on taking
Speaker 5: a step forward. But you know, he said this last week,
Speaker 5: I got to settle my feet down. I got to
Speaker 5: make sure that I'm planting and then I'm giving what
Speaker 5: the defense gives me. And he played a heck of
Speaker 5: a game this last week against the Chiefs that that
Speaker 5: defense is no slouch. So you know, Bo is what
Speaker 5: I do love about Bo, and what I see from
Speaker 5: the players is that they believe in him, that he
Speaker 5: is their quarterback and they know they will go to
Speaker 5: war and win with him. They don't feel like they're
Speaker 5: dragging him anywhere. They just feel like this is a
Speaker 5: complete team game and defense is stepping up and doing
Speaker 5: its job. And you know, if Bo keeps that locker
Speaker 5: room in that way, I think this team's got a chance.
Speaker 4: So you basically hate bow Knicks until the fourth quarter,
Speaker 4: is what you're telling you.
Speaker 5: I don't hate Box.
Speaker 1: We Bo leave baby.
Speaker 5: But at the end of the day, it's you know,
Speaker 5: the week before ten to seven against the Raiders team
Speaker 5: that you see Dallas just tear apart on Monday Night
Speaker 5: football this week, and the games have been like that consistently,
Speaker 5: you know, I mean seven to three and outs against
Speaker 5: that Raiders defense, a turnover against that Raiders defense. You know,
Speaker 5: you only get thirteen drives in the game, and you've
Speaker 5: only got five what to go get some points and
Speaker 5: you only get ten against the Raiders. I mean, it's tricky,
Speaker 5: it's really tough. And that game was in the balance
Speaker 5: until the fourth quarter, and you can look at the
Speaker 5: way that we've been winning this year. It's all one
Speaker 5: score games, and a lot of that is just because
Speaker 5: the offense just does not want to move the ball
Speaker 5: in the first half of the game. And I don't
Speaker 5: know who that falls on. I just know what I'm seeing,
Speaker 5: you know, and I watch every single moment of every
Speaker 5: single one of these games. You can go back and
Speaker 5: look back against the Texans. I mean, it's the same
Speaker 5: story over and over again. Hopefully we can just start
Speaker 5: fast here after we get this bye week coming up,
Speaker 5: and just be a quick starting team the rest of
Speaker 5: the year. But no, man, we love bo. I think
Speaker 5: he's a really you know, as long as he sat
Speaker 5: his accuracy down, he's a great fit for what Peyton
Speaker 5: wants to do, and the rest of the offense believes
Speaker 5: in him.
Speaker 1: So I think this is the part of the interview
Speaker 1: where we actually declared that Scott knows ball because we
Speaker 1: don't always know.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I am thoroughly impressed with his knowledge.
Speaker 1: With actors and musicians, Scott, we kind of weighed in
Speaker 1: with them to see, we never want to go over
Speaker 1: their head, or Scott knows ball. So I feel like
Speaker 1: we could talk about anything. Yeah, man, let's do it now.
Speaker 1: We go though, to the questions about movies and exactly
Speaker 1: do you find that people young kids are recognizing you
Speaker 1: from Friday Night Lights and even now because maybe they're
Speaker 1: just starting to watch it streaming.
Speaker 5: It is. Streaming extended the life of Friday Night Lights
Speaker 5: in a big way, and I don't think any of
Speaker 5: us expected it to be handed down generationally the way
Speaker 5: that it is currently. And when I was growing up,
Speaker 5: I don't know that there was a lot of shows
Speaker 5: that my folks were able to hand down to me,
Speaker 5: just because it was harder to ever find those unless
Speaker 5: somebody decided to put you know whatever, Cheers on VHS
Speaker 5: or some late eighties early nineties show like Coach on DVD.
Speaker 5: Like I would never have seen these shows, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. And there's a lot of really impactful
Speaker 5: television back from back in the day that you can
Speaker 5: start to finally watch now, and I think that's really
Speaker 5: really cool. Friday Night Lights was kind of right on
Speaker 5: the cusp of that. I remember we were one of
Speaker 5: the first shows that NBC actually put up on their
Speaker 5: website and you could stream it on the website, which was,
Speaker 5: you know, that was crazy for us. In two thousand
Speaker 5: and six, and seeing where it's at now, where it's
Speaker 5: on like four different streaming services, it's just so easy
Speaker 5: to say, hey, this show that allowed these people loved
Speaker 5: twenty years ago, and you know, maybe their kids were
Speaker 5: too young to watch at the time, and now they're watching,
Speaker 5: you know, with their kids. It's awesome, man, It's really
Speaker 5: really a cool thing to see. And so yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: I would expect that Jason's read eventually would not be
Speaker 5: a character that as many young kids recognize, but I
Speaker 5: have a lot of and and and the fan base
Speaker 5: is really cool because when they come up, they always
Speaker 5: come up with like a measure of respect and they're
Speaker 5: really heartfelt. And the way they speak about the show,
Speaker 5: which is not the same way that all fan bases
Speaker 5: are with other shows, but they're really respectful fan base,
Speaker 5: even the the younger kids. And you know, we have
Speaker 5: really cool conversations about a show that you know, was
Speaker 5: canceled twice and almost didn't make it past season one
Speaker 5: or season two, and now it's had this lasting effect.
Speaker 5: So we have streaming to think for that, and it's
Speaker 5: really cool.
Speaker 4: Well, my wife's a big fan. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 4: She watches that show religiously. Still, if there's if there's
Speaker 4: a moment where we get into the bed and we
Speaker 4: finally get to watch something late at night, she wants
Speaker 4: to watch that.
Speaker 1: It's comfort, that's her comfort, that's.
Speaker 4: Her comfort show. I don't know if it was because
Speaker 4: she's an athlete or anything like that, but she loves
Speaker 4: the show and I love the show, So congratulations on that.
Speaker 4: But I want to talk about acting in general, just
Speaker 4: because I'm always fascinated by people that go into that
Speaker 4: profession because it's so competitive and there's a lot of
Speaker 4: parallels in terms of playing in the NFL or what
Speaker 4: Bobby does that it's super competitive and you got to
Speaker 4: go in, you got to nail something when you're going
Speaker 4: out for a specific role. But talk about what that's
Speaker 4: like for you to go in for a specific role
Speaker 4: and what that breakthrough moment was when you were younger.
Speaker 5: You know, for me, I was never in the line
Speaker 5: of thought that I would be an actor. I played
Speaker 5: football in high school and was an invited walk on
Speaker 5: to University of Socral, Florida. I played receiver, and I
Speaker 5: thought I would use athletics to help my academic you know,
Speaker 5: cost come down a little bit I knew I was
Speaker 5: never going to be a pro, but I did. I
Speaker 5: ran a four five, a good hands. I was all right.
Speaker 5: But you know, at the end of the day, I
Speaker 5: went to school to be a structural engineer. My grandfather
Speaker 5: was an Air Force colonel, very much wanted me to
Speaker 5: be in the realm of academia. Parents were very artistic.
Speaker 5: They had a rock band back in the eighties. I'd
Speaker 5: go and help my dad set up his drums and
Speaker 5: then spend the night like chilling with the bouncer playing foosball,
Speaker 5: or like falling asleep in the office manager's you know
Speaker 5: office in some saloon in the middle of Nebraska when
Speaker 5: I was growing up, and you know, I had a
Speaker 5: little bit of the bug from them, but I always
Speaker 5: thought it'd be something that I do in my spare time,
Speaker 5: make a little cash here and there. That's what my
Speaker 5: parents did. That was their goal. And then things started
Speaker 5: to kind of break the right way for me, and
Speaker 5: I just kept saying yes. And for me, having the
Speaker 5: athletic background actually played huge into, you know, moving into
Speaker 5: the world of acting, because every audition is a game
Speaker 5: in itself, right, and you don't stack yourself up against
Speaker 5: the other team but you got to stack yourself up
Speaker 5: against yourself. You got to answer for every loss that
Speaker 5: you have. You have way more of them in this business.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: I think I've gone out for I don't know, two
Speaker 5: hundred television pilots and I've booked five of them, and
Speaker 5: I'm a success. So it's even worse than base ball.
Speaker 5: You know, the hitting percentages are kind of low, but
Speaker 5: you just got to keep on competing. And my first
Speaker 5: pilot season, I was told by somebody that I should
Speaker 5: just stay in the world of theater because I was
Speaker 5: up in New York. I was doing an off Broadway show.
Speaker 5: It was it was a bit of a hit, you know.
Speaker 5: I got a singing voice from my mom and a
Speaker 5: sense of rhythm from my dad, so he's a drummer,
Speaker 5: and I was I was doing the live music thing.
Speaker 5: You know, i'd have been having success. And somebody from
Speaker 5: Disney Theatricals told me when I said I wanted to
Speaker 5: try to, you know, see if I could book a
Speaker 5: TV show, that I wouldn't amount to anything, that I'd
Speaker 5: just be the fourth guy on the left on some
Speaker 5: WB show and be quickly forgotten, and I should keep
Speaker 5: doing theater. And I took that as a big old okay,
Speaker 5: just watch yeah, watch this, and I started really digging in,
Speaker 5: you know, watching film, you know, watching as many shows
Speaker 5: as I could, studying other actors, you know, so there's
Speaker 5: that kind of element of you know, when when you're
Speaker 5: breaking down a game versus what you're trying to do
Speaker 5: to prepare for an audition. And just got myself in
Speaker 5: the right mindset and went out and competed. And Friday
Speaker 5: Night Lights was the fifth pilot I ever went out for,
Speaker 5: and I knew that that show was going to be special,
Speaker 5: and I just did my research. Man, I went and
Speaker 5: watched that film over and over again. I've probably seen
Speaker 5: the film of Friday Night Lights, you know, fifty times,
Speaker 5: and I just kind of knew what the film style was,
Speaker 5: I knew what they were aiming for. I knew what
Speaker 5: the performance level they were looking for was. And I
Speaker 5: just tried to deliver that set of plays when I
Speaker 5: walked into the room and it worked out. And you know,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of like you said, there's a lot
Speaker 5: of parallels between the world of athletics and the world
Speaker 5: of you know, artistry, especially in cinema, because you don't
Speaker 5: always find a coach or the right offensive fit for you.
Speaker 5: And it's the same thing in film. You don't always
Speaker 5: find the director or the right writer for you, but
Speaker 5: if you keep at it, maybe you're end up in
Speaker 5: the right system. And luckily I've been able to find
Speaker 5: the right systems.
Speaker 1: I have some buddies here in town because we live
Speaker 1: in Nashville. Somebodies in town that are artists, like Sam
Speaker 1: Hunt who played college ball, played you know, a little
Speaker 1: in the NFL. Riley Green played college ball, but a
Speaker 1: lot of male artists. There's a lot of former athletes,
Speaker 1: and you look at your career the juxtaposition of being
Speaker 1: able to sing, being able to do theater and act,
Speaker 1: also being a great athlete, and again it seems like
Speaker 1: that juxtaposition, it feels odd because both usually don't happen
Speaker 1: at the same time. But what I've noticed with them
Speaker 1: is as well, and I've talked about this with them,
Speaker 1: is that a lot of what they learned in sports,
Speaker 1: like the dealing with adversity. It's what you just talked
Speaker 1: about is actually what makes them a great artist because
Speaker 1: they can take a lot of the nose when they
Speaker 1: come to town. Work ethic is a massive part of it.
Speaker 1: So it's dealing with diversity. It's listening back watching bag
Speaker 1: tape and then just continuing to go and grow. And
Speaker 1: I feel like that's kind of what you just said.
Speaker 1: But were you an athlete or a creative first?
Speaker 5: I was an athlete first. I mean I grew up,
Speaker 5: like I said, in Nebraska, where you know, Husker football
Speaker 5: is your religion. The College World Series happened in Omaha
Speaker 5: where I was growing up. We went every single year.
Speaker 5: And you know, there is a drive that you learn
Speaker 5: through athletics that you can apply almost everywhere. There is
Speaker 5: a stick toitiveness that you have to learn, you know,
Speaker 5: get knocked down, get back up, get knocked down, get
Speaker 5: back up. And I think a lot of people don't
Speaker 5: understand in the world of music or television film, you
Speaker 5: get knocked down so much and you just have to
Speaker 5: be able to keep getting back up. And yeah, those
Speaker 5: parallels are are all there. But I was athletic first,
Speaker 5: and I was also academic first. You know. I took
Speaker 5: AP courses in high school and college j ap CAALC
Speaker 5: and AP physics and set myself up, like I said,
Speaker 5: to be a structural engineer. And music to me is
Speaker 5: all math and really filmmaking kind of has their own
Speaker 5: formulas as well. So I think I come at this
Speaker 5: business a little bit different than most people. I come
Speaker 5: at it from a number standpoint to inform the artistry
Speaker 5: and then allow the artistry to kind of come in
Speaker 5: at the end. But I look at the numbers and
Speaker 5: the formulas and you know, the rhythms and see how
Speaker 5: to get everything lined up and then make you know,
Speaker 5: like the last decisions. And that's kind of what like
Speaker 5: a quarterback has to do. Right. You get up to
Speaker 5: the line, you've got to play. Everything's all set, You've
Speaker 5: completely prepared. You've done this thing over and over and
Speaker 5: over again hundreds of times in practice. You walk up
Speaker 5: and you see that the defense is doing something you've
Speaker 5: never seen before, and you get the freestyle. And that's
Speaker 5: like how I look at what I do. Kind of
Speaker 5: you know, we prep, we prep, we prep, We get
Speaker 5: to set, and then the actor on the other side
Speaker 5: of you know, scene from me says something in a
Speaker 5: way I'd never heard before, and then we get to
Speaker 5: play and that's you know, that's that's set.
Speaker 3: Hut.
Speaker 5: Now we're we're moving and free freestyling, and that's kind
Speaker 5: of cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Bobby I don't know if you saw last week
Speaker 4: he's done with reality television, but you also were on
Speaker 4: Reality Tells. You're on the Mass Singer. I don't know
Speaker 4: if you saw that he went off, but you gotta
Speaker 4: look it up. And that was awesome, by the way,
Speaker 4: But do you have a beef with reality television? But
Speaker 4: more importantly, talk to me about why you did Mass Singer.
Speaker 1: You finished second, right, you were incredible on it.
Speaker 5: I did finish second to somebody that Bobby mentioned earlier
Speaker 5: in this interview, Vanessa Hudgens. We were we were competing
Speaker 5: in the same season together, and I should have known
Speaker 5: from the start that I wasn't gonna get it. But
Speaker 5: at the end of the day, again like I did
Speaker 5: it because for a long time Hollywood had rules and
Speaker 5: boundaries set up that if you wanted to be a
Speaker 5: film actor, you could be nothing but a film actor.
Speaker 5: If you were a film actor and then you went
Speaker 5: and did something on television, oh my god, you're not
Speaker 5: allowed to be in film anymore. If you were a
Speaker 5: you know, a television actor, and you went and did
Speaker 5: like a run and a musical, oh my god, now
Speaker 5: you can't be a television actor anymore. And it was
Speaker 5: such an odd thing. So I came from a very
Speaker 5: musical background and I came out to Hollywood and I
Speaker 5: still wanted to sing, and a lot of people were
Speaker 5: telling me, oh, that's cute. You did you know musicals
Speaker 5: in New York. But now you're a television actor. Now
Speaker 5: you got to be a television actor. And I had
Speaker 5: to kind of put that part away for a while.
Speaker 5: And it was such a big part of my life
Speaker 5: growing up. And when they showed up and asked, I mean,
Speaker 5: at first, I was definitely like, I don't know if
Speaker 5: I can do this, And then I was like, but wait,
Speaker 5: Meryl Streep's on a half hour on Hulu, and you know,
Speaker 5: people you never knew could sing are on Broadway doing
Speaker 5: It's like, it's such a cool world now where everybody's
Speaker 5: really allowed to do all of the things that they're
Speaker 5: good at, and it's applauded now, whereas it used to
Speaker 5: be kind of poo pooed back in the day. As
Speaker 5: far as reality television, you know, I'm a Survivor fan,
Speaker 5: have been ever since it came on, Like to the
Speaker 5: point that I lived in Tokyo for a year singing
Speaker 5: and beatboxing, and my mom recorded Survivor Amazon on VHS
Speaker 5: and sent it to me so I could watch it
Speaker 5: when I was living in Japan. So massive fan of
Speaker 5: the kind of competition reality stuff, not all of it,
Speaker 5: but the stuff that has like real competitive elements. I
Speaker 5: am a fan of because I look at them as
Speaker 5: kind of like the world's greatest game shows, Like it's
Speaker 5: a million dollar prize at the end of Survivor. That's
Speaker 5: a game show. So I kind of, you know, I
Speaker 5: lay out on most of the other stuff, the housewives
Speaker 5: stuff all that. The only show I do watch with
Speaker 5: my wife every week is Below Deck on Bravo, So
Speaker 5: got to give that one a shout out. But I'm
Speaker 5: not a huge fan of reality, but the experience of
Speaker 5: Mass Singer was really pretty freeing for me. And everybody
Speaker 5: does a show like that for different reasons, but that
Speaker 5: was really for me, and it's rare in this business
Speaker 5: you get to do something for you and and that
Speaker 5: was my one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did Dance with the Stars because the network
Speaker 1: made me do it still and then and then I won,
Speaker 1: and then people still kill me for it. That's what
Speaker 1: he's referring to. Ad A. I have a heart, I
Speaker 1: can see my foot, but I tore my ankle recently,
Speaker 1: and I was on pain pills last week and I
Speaker 1: was just melted down about Dancing with the Stars. So
Speaker 1: is a whole issue, Scott, Hey give me.
Speaker 5: But yeah, wow, you got You've got the Golden Crystal
Speaker 5: Ball or whatever it's called.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the mirror Ball. I mailed it back because I
Speaker 1: was pissed. I mailed it back. But I did win.
Speaker 1: I did win the show. But hey, give me your
Speaker 1: Mount Rushmore of I'm gonna do this double Mount Rushmore
Speaker 1: of Denver Broncos all time your favorite, and then I
Speaker 1: want non Bronco Mount Rushmore as well. So it's two
Speaker 1: different sets of four.
Speaker 5: Oh man, you are really catching me here, All time
Speaker 5: Mount Rushmore, Denver Broncos players, D Marius, John Elway, T
Speaker 5: D Steve Atwater, M.
Speaker 1: That's a great list. Wow. No no, uh no McCaffrey.
Speaker 1: No McCaffrey, but I mean Atwater unbelievable. But no Peyton,
Speaker 1: No Peyton, but Peyton was only there for a few years.
Speaker 1: But Peyton did win the Super Bowl. I'm not judging
Speaker 1: his lest.
Speaker 5: Here's what you guys got to understand as an eighties
Speaker 5: kid who is a Broncos fan, I don't think there's
Speaker 5: many of me around. I came up. I watched Elway's
Speaker 5: magic against the Browns, you know, a couple of times,
Speaker 5: and I watched him take teams that were lower in
Speaker 5: talent level and go up against these NFC Juggernauts, uh,
Speaker 5: you know, losing against the former Redskins you know now commanders,
Speaker 5: but Doug Williams watching them get you know, crushed by
Speaker 5: the Giants and they get blown out fifty five to
Speaker 5: ten by the Niners in nineteen ninety and Elway dragged
Speaker 5: those teams to Super Bowls and then finally got to
Speaker 5: in the late nineties. So anybody who's my age that's
Speaker 5: been around for this long, I don't. I think a
Speaker 5: lot of young fans are like, oh, Peyton's one of
Speaker 5: the greatest of all time. But when Elway retired, he
Speaker 5: led the league and wins. The one stat that matters
Speaker 5: more than anything else. He also led the league in
Speaker 5: fourth quarter or overtime comebacks when he retired, and that
Speaker 5: is just a will to win, man. And that's where
Speaker 5: like Bo gets little shades, you know, little shades of that.
Speaker 5: A lot of fourth quarter comes back for this little kid,
Speaker 5: you know, for this younger guy. You know, he's he's
Speaker 5: a long way off. But Elway, I don't think people
Speaker 5: understand how great Elway was and his arm oh god,
Speaker 5: and the guy that I really struggle not putting up there.
Speaker 5: And if DT's not on, there is Shannon Shark. Shannon
Speaker 5: Sharps also on that Mount rushmore uh for me. So
Speaker 5: if it's not DT, it's Shannon Sharp. And that's the
Speaker 5: biggest decision point. That's why I took the pause in
Speaker 5: the beginning. But but Atwater was just he was the
Speaker 5: hardest hitty you've ever seen. TD came in and is
Speaker 5: in the Hall of Fame with a shortened career because
Speaker 5: they tours me up and in ol Way, I just don't.
Speaker 5: I don't think there's an argument there.
Speaker 1: Do the other do the non Bronco for non Bronco
Speaker 1: for non Bronco fur.
Speaker 4: He's like, I don't know anybody else that plays in
Speaker 4: the league, Bronco, Broncos.
Speaker 5: Non Bronco four. I mean, it's got to be it's
Speaker 5: got to be Brady, it's got to be Rice and
Speaker 5: oh man, this is man. This the league is so deep,
Speaker 5: it's been around for so long. Barry Sanders, I gotta
Speaker 5: find somebody defensively, man, and it's it's really tough. You've
Speaker 5: you know, you've got Dion, You've got Lawrence Taylor. LT
Speaker 5: changed the league completely. The reason left tackles get paid
Speaker 5: the day is because of what Lawrence Taylor did. So
Speaker 5: I'm going to put LT on there. Lawrence Taylor, Barry Sanders,
Speaker 5: Jerry Rice, Tom Brady.
Speaker 1: That's a solid that is to put Mac Castle on there.
Speaker 1: My favorite quarterback of all time. But you know what,
Speaker 1: that's you, it's yoursmore.
Speaker 4: Do you actually get to get out to any games
Speaker 4: because that that environment, the Broncos Stadium mile at mile High,
Speaker 4: There's not many places that you go and you're a
Speaker 4: little bit intimidated by. But they yes played there multiple
Speaker 4: times because I used to play for the Chiefs and
Speaker 4: every time we went there. I mean that crowd gets
Speaker 4: after it. Great cheerleaders too, We.
Speaker 5: Love it, man. I mean I get to go to games. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I get to go even more now that the Chargers
Speaker 5: are in LA as well, and I get to go,
Speaker 5: you know, one game a year where I live, which
Speaker 5: is kind of cool. But I go to Denver and
Speaker 5: I still call it mile High. I know it's got
Speaker 5: a bunch of other names, you know, but it's still
Speaker 5: it's still to me mile high. But the coolest thing
Speaker 5: was two thanksgivings, a go great game Broncos Vikings Thanksgiving weekend,
Speaker 5: and I got to take my kids. My son is
Speaker 5: a Rams fan. He's come by it naturally through the pandemic.
Speaker 5: His favorite color was green. When he was four, he
Speaker 5: thought he was an Eagles fan. Then he came to
Speaker 5: his senses when he was five, Aaron Donald was his
Speaker 5: favorite player. He's seen the Rams won a Super Bowl, so,
Speaker 5: you know, and my daughter is kind of split. And
Speaker 5: I asked him if they wanted to go, and they said, yeah,
Speaker 5: we went. We got to go down on the field.
Speaker 5: They got to meet Thunder, which is the horse's name.
Speaker 5: We got to see the flyover. We got to see
Speaker 5: guys parachute in. But the coolest thing about it is,
Speaker 5: and even you can even hear it on radio calls.
Speaker 5: Every time a quarterback throws an incomplete pass, the stadium
Speaker 5: announcer comes on and says, and the opposing quarterbacks pass
Speaker 5: is in. The entire crowd yells complete at the quarterback,
Speaker 5: which is so good. They have little metal stanchions down
Speaker 5: the on you know, over the cement. So when you
Speaker 5: when you stomp that medal is hitting that concrete, it
Speaker 5: gets so loud, it gets so great. I mean, you
Speaker 5: played in one of the loudest stadiums that this world
Speaker 5: has ever seen in Arrowhead. But I like to think
Speaker 5: Mile High gives it a run for its money. And
Speaker 5: we we love our franchise, especially the fans that came
Speaker 5: up with Pat bowl and who's maybe you know what
Speaker 5: he should be on Mount Rushmore. Pat Bowlan is the
Speaker 5: greatest Bronco of all time because what he did as
Speaker 5: an owner for so long, I mean set the record
Speaker 5: for you know, consecutive playoff appearances by a franchise, made
Speaker 5: all the right moves, made great coaching hires, really loved
Speaker 5: and knew the sport of football. So you know, I
Speaker 5: think we respect him so much and we were just
Speaker 5: you know, I think we have a really solid fan
Speaker 5: base because we had owners who cared and we had
Speaker 5: players who would fight for them. And it's pretty cool
Speaker 5: club to be a part of.
Speaker 1: Final question, greatest in person game you've ever been to?
Speaker 5: Oh man, you know, my wife would tell you it
Speaker 5: was the Big Twelve Championship where Sue and Dominic and
Speaker 5: Sue almost single handedly destroyed Texas, and Colt McCoy threw
Speaker 5: a ball out of bounds and somehow there was still
Speaker 5: one second left on the clock and then they kick
Speaker 5: a field goal to beat us. That was one of
Speaker 5: the greatest games I've ever been to, even though the
Speaker 5: Huskers came out on the wrong side of it. But man,
Speaker 5: let's see probably and it doesn't evolve my team. I mean,
Speaker 5: I should say super Bowl fifty, you know, defensive battle.
Speaker 5: I was there in Santa Clara. I watched a very
Speaker 5: similar perform rmans by the Broncos defense shut Cam Newton
Speaker 5: down and actually get the win. That was That was
Speaker 5: I should say that. But I was in the end
Speaker 5: zone as Plexico Buris caught a touchdown to beat the
Speaker 5: undefeated Patriots in the Super Bowl in Arizona.
Speaker 1: And Day I was there too.
Speaker 5: He was there too, I mean, even as a even
Speaker 5: as a guy, like as a Broncos fan at Super
Speaker 5: Bowl fifty, but as just a fan overall. Like the
Speaker 5: magnitude of that game and the plays that happened in it,
Speaker 5: the Tyree catch, and I mean just so much happened
Speaker 5: in that game.
Speaker 1: It was insane, so funny to hear two different perspectives
Speaker 1: on that game. Yeah, that one hurt. That one hurt
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 4: I was right there witnessing the same thing going. It's
Speaker 4: from such a different perspective point. Scott Porter knows ball.
Speaker 4: That's awesome. Hey Scott, congratulations man.
Speaker 1: I know you're in the middle of filming Jenny and
Speaker 1: Georgian now, but congratulations on it, and uh, just just everything.
Speaker 1: It's really cool and it was fun to talk to
Speaker 1: you because again, we we we tiptoe when we have
Speaker 1: actors on because we don't know if they actually know
Speaker 1: anything about ball. So thanks for coming on. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And what are your for the Broncos man?
Speaker 1: I hope for your sake, I hope they continue to perform.
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, man, I do too. You know, Broncos country
Speaker 5: stand up. You know we're gonna We're gonna stick by
Speaker 5: our team. But let's do this again. Sometime we'll actually
Speaker 5: jump in and talk a little bit, a bit of
Speaker 5: deeper football or or whatever sport you know. But I
Speaker 5: appreciate you guys having me on. You know, we finish
Speaker 5: up season four here soon, so the fans will hopefully
Speaker 5: settle down. Jenny and Georgia season four.
Speaker 1: Well, they told us not to ask them. They told
Speaker 1: us not to ask about it at all. So they said,
Speaker 1: don't ask about he's not saying anything. Yeah, So we
Speaker 1: just said, hey, we know you're shooting it. So when
Speaker 1: it's done, come back and we'll talk that way. That
Speaker 1: we've cleared all the like life questions, we'll just talk ball. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's into that way, all right, Scott, good to see
Speaker 1: about it, Thanks, Scott.
Speaker 3: Take it easy, all right.
Speaker 1: It is time for the weekend preview, presented by DraftKings.
Speaker 1: From first touchdown scores to anytime touchdown props or the
Speaker 1: thrill of live in game betting, every snap is loaded
Speaker 1: with opportunity. Let's look at the three biggest matchups coming
Speaker 1: up this week. I think it's super fun because two
Speaker 1: of these are on Thanksgiving and one's the Black Friday game.
Speaker 1: And we'll start with Chiefs at Cowboys, both teams coming
Speaker 1: off a massive win, both teams needing another win. I
Speaker 1: think they both could probably lose a game. The Cowboys
Speaker 1: really can't afford to lose a game. The Chiefs can
Speaker 1: probably lose one more and be fine to go to
Speaker 1: the playoffs. But I think the loser of this game
Speaker 1: is kind of eliminated from can they make the playoff talk.
Speaker 1: I think the Chiefs win that game, but I thought
Speaker 1: the Chiefs were gonna win every single game for the
Speaker 1: past season. Packers at Lions. We're gonna go with the
Speaker 1: Packers going to the Lions. I think the Packers started
Speaker 1: to come into form a little bit. They had a
Speaker 1: bit of you know, it just kind of depends on
Speaker 1: with every season. There's always two or three weeks for
Speaker 1: pretty much every team where they kind of suck. I
Speaker 1: think right now the Bucks are going through that, and
Speaker 1: who knows what's gonna happen with Baker, but I think
Speaker 1: the Packers already had theirs. I'm going with the Packers
Speaker 1: over the Lions. And Bears at Eagles. That's so interesting
Speaker 1: because the Eagles need to win. That's Black Friday. The
Speaker 1: Bears they can actually afford to lose. If I'm the Bears,
Speaker 1: I don't want to play the Eagles this week coming
Speaker 1: off a loss, because the Bears have been getting by
Speaker 1: the hair of their chinny chin chin every single week.
Speaker 1: They are what eight and two, eight and three, eight
Speaker 1: and three? They are eight and three, but they're an
Speaker 1: eight and three again, they've been barely squirting by and
Speaker 1: the Eagles are coming in probably angry. So I'm taking
Speaker 1: the Eagles and they are in Philly on Black Friday.
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Speaker 1: Now we're gonna go over and talk with John Madden's
Speaker 1: longtime agent, Sandy Montag. Sandy has represented some of the
Speaker 1: biggest names in sports over the years, like Bob Costas,
Speaker 1: Jim Nants, Mike Arco, Scott Van Pelt, and many more.
Speaker 1: Big thanks to Sandy for joining us as the NFL
Speaker 1: continues to celebrate and honor the late John Madden with
Speaker 1: their fourth annual John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration tomorrow. And with
Speaker 1: that being said, here he is Sandy Montag. Hey, Sandy
Speaker 1: is Bobby here? How are you, hey, Bobby? How you
Speaker 1: doing pretty good? Where are you right now? You look
Speaker 1: like you're up tall in the building.
Speaker 6: I am in New York City at our offices near
Speaker 6: the World Trade Center site.
Speaker 1: Man, I love New York except for well, starting about December,
Speaker 1: because I don't like the cold. Do you get out
Speaker 1: of there when it gets cold? Sandy? Do you stay in?
Speaker 3: Is?
Speaker 1: Eat it?
Speaker 6: Both?
Speaker 1: You have to.
Speaker 6: I mean we're based here, so you got to eat
Speaker 6: a little bit of it. I do have a place
Speaker 6: in Miami that I like. I like Miami better in
Speaker 6: the in the winter. But uh yeah, I born and
Speaker 6: raised in New York, went to school in Syracuse, so
Speaker 6: you just you just figure it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your blood's probably used to a little more than mine.
Speaker 1: And you know, I was reading a lot about your
Speaker 1: life and your history as we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: John Madden a little bit. But when you leave Syracuse,
Speaker 1: how long until you actually meet John.
Speaker 6: I was on the Madden Summer Role crew. I was
Speaker 6: a stats guy at Syracuse besides going to school once
Speaker 6: in a while, so I did, like when ESPN came
Speaker 6: up to do like the biggest game of the week,
Speaker 6: I did stats for the talent, and then when I
Speaker 6: got out, I got on the Madden Summer Ole crew,
Speaker 6: like doing stats in the truck. And then maybe two
Speaker 6: months into that, someone says, hey, Madden needs someone to
Speaker 6: travel with my train. You should talk to him, And
Speaker 6: I said, all right, you know, so I met with
Speaker 6: him and told him I love trains. I'd never been on.
Speaker 1: A train in my life and got the job. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, we've heard the story forever about how he
Speaker 1: did not like to fly. Can you lend to that
Speaker 1: a little because it sounds like it was true, But
Speaker 1: he just would not want to fly for any reason. Whatsoever.
Speaker 6: Well, he flew when he coached the Raiders, he they
Speaker 6: charted and they chartered. I think DC ten is pretty
Speaker 6: big airplane. He was never a great flyer, just.
Speaker 5: He but he did it.
Speaker 6: You know, when you fly private and you fly and charters,
Speaker 6: you can move around. He sat with the pilots. Then
Speaker 6: when he started doing broadcasting, you know, you sit in
Speaker 6: even if it's first class, you're in Sea four B
Speaker 6: and you're locked in. And he just started having panic
Speaker 6: attacks and he didn't know. He didn't He went to
Speaker 6: a doctor, like, is there something wrong with me? And
Speaker 6: so he had claustrophobia, you know, And he didn't like
Speaker 6: when he would stay at hotels. He wouldn't like going
Speaker 6: you know, one of the twentieth floor here would not
Speaker 6: come up to this office. He would always want to
Speaker 6: be like only the only person in an elevator. So
Speaker 6: he was not didn't have a fear of flying. He
Speaker 6: had he had claust your phobia.
Speaker 1: And the relationship developed between you guys. What do you
Speaker 1: think it was about your personalities that matched?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 6: I was, you know, I was pretty street smart and
Speaker 6: he was the smartest person that I ever met in
Speaker 6: any subject, not just football. And I think that, you know,
Speaker 6: we we just hit it off. Like I like traveling,
Speaker 6: I liked seeing the country on trains. I like talking
Speaker 6: to people. He would talk to strangers for hours. You know,
Speaker 6: we just we just had a little just a fascination
Speaker 6: over different things really and you know, a deal making
Speaker 6: was kind of like growing up, I always had a
Speaker 6: newspaper route or bagels or selling T shirts or I
Speaker 6: just always selling stuff. And I think he liked the
Speaker 6: this this act. Amen. We just kind of bonded over
Speaker 6: certain things early on, you know, just as guys.
Speaker 1: You mentioned how smart he was. And for me, in
Speaker 1: my mind, I can picture a few different things, but
Speaker 1: they're all larger than life, so they don't seem like
Speaker 1: a real person. Meaning I can see the videos. I
Speaker 1: wasn't obviously alive when he was coaching the Raiders, but
Speaker 1: I can see the videos of that. I can remember
Speaker 1: him in the booth and some are all as an
Speaker 1: Arkansas I gu I'm from Arkansas, so we were always
Speaker 1: like super proud that that happened. And then I can
Speaker 1: see him, you know, as part of the video game,
Speaker 1: which I've had every single year since it has been out,
Speaker 1: Like that has been a massive part of my life.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. You say he was really smart.
Speaker 1: Was he extremely studious?
Speaker 6: No, but he knew well, he read a lot. He
Speaker 6: was a student of history. He all types of history,
Speaker 6: you know, whether it's football history, whether it's American history.
Speaker 6: You know, he loved John Steinbeck travels with Charlie. You know,
Speaker 6: when we would travel the country, he would like to
Speaker 6: go into small towns. He wouldn't want to go to
Speaker 6: you know, a chain up on the Highway eighty. It's
Speaker 6: always just like very inquisitive, you know, and just and
Speaker 6: he just there were a lot of times like you know,
Speaker 6: when I started traveling with him, I was twenty two,
Speaker 6: you know, and then I was meeting people, maybe dating,
Speaker 6: and he would, you know, he would tell me, these
Speaker 6: are the type of people you should be dating. And
Speaker 6: we just have an opinion about everything, you know, he
Speaker 6: he uh, you know, it's like a master psychologist in
Speaker 6: a way. And that that's really you know, he studied
Speaker 6: that too.
Speaker 1: So he just.
Speaker 6: And throughout my life, you know, when I had a
Speaker 6: problem or a question, or you come to a fork
Speaker 6: in the road, I would ask him something and like
Speaker 6: I hang up the phone, I'm like, why did I
Speaker 6: think of that. He just he just knew a little
Speaker 6: bit about everything.
Speaker 1: How would you prepare on the train for the games
Speaker 1: that you were going to cover.
Speaker 6: Well, back in the day, he was a the first
Speaker 6: broadcaster to go to practice number one. So when he
Speaker 6: became a broadcaster nineteen eighty broadcasters basically what you did,
Speaker 6: you get in the night before, you meet with the
Speaker 6: pr director for the NFL teams, and you do the game.
Speaker 6: And he was like, well, when are we going to practice? Well, like,
Speaker 6: we don't go to practice, They're not going to let
Speaker 6: us in. He goes, I'm going to prow I'm going
Speaker 6: to get in a day early. I'm going to practice.
Speaker 6: All right, go to practice. So now it's every broadcaster
Speaker 6: and every sport goes to practice. You also get game tape.
Speaker 6: Now it's sent on a you know, on the internet
Speaker 6: or back then I carried a sixty pound bill and
Speaker 6: hell projector where we would have teams would send us
Speaker 6: the game tape and we would watch that, whether it's
Speaker 6: on the train or whether it's when we got to
Speaker 6: the city we're going to. And and you know, John
Speaker 6: was a student of you know, of watching film and
Speaker 6: even like on the Saturday before the game and the
Speaker 6: production meeting myself, Pat summer Ale, producer director John. We
Speaker 6: would watch hours of game tape and you know, summer
Speaker 6: All probably was good for the first forty five minutes
Speaker 6: to an hour, and then he a lot of times
Speaker 6: he'd say I think we we have this, and John
Speaker 6: would got to look at him. We're only halfway. So
Speaker 6: it's it's John was over prepared, like he wanted to
Speaker 6: feel when he was doing a game. In his mind,
Speaker 6: he knew more about those two teams than any two
Speaker 6: people besides the coaches, you know, and that's and he
Speaker 6: wanted to feel.
Speaker 1: That when was the graduation from the train to the
Speaker 1: bus that I think about when I think about the traveling.
Speaker 6: So we did a couple of years. I did a
Speaker 6: couple of years on the train and then he had
Speaker 6: to be somewhere fast, so CBS chartered him a bus.
Speaker 6: It was Dolly Parton's bus, and he took it and
Speaker 6: basically got off that thing and said we need to
Speaker 6: get a bus. So he did an interview actually on
Speaker 6: PBS saying y'all, we're gonna look at and the president
Speaker 6: of Greyhound Lines in eighty seven contacted us and said
Speaker 6: herd John's looking for a bus. We want to give
Speaker 6: him a bus. And that really started the first Madden
Speaker 6: Cruiser and really one of the first when I transitioned
Speaker 6: from Gopher to quote unquote agent, that was really one
Speaker 6: of the first deals I did. You know, Number one,
Speaker 6: we lucked into a computer game which we had no
Speaker 6: idea what it was or where it was going. And
Speaker 6: then the bus and then that changed his life. Really,
Speaker 6: you know, coast to coast Amtrak is seventy two hours.
Speaker 6: You have to change trains in Chicago. He can now
Speaker 6: go coast to coast in fifty hours, NonStop sleep, satellite television,
Speaker 6: the whole Well, it just it's like having a private
Speaker 6: plane that went seventy miles an hour.
Speaker 1: You talk about the Madden game, that to me is
Speaker 1: the game I've by far played more than any game
Speaker 1: of my entire life. I've had every year of it
Speaker 1: since its existence. You say, you guys didn't know what
Speaker 1: you were getting into. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 6: Well, EA, which was Electronic Arts, was founded by the
Speaker 6: guy the name of Trip Hawkins. He went to Harvard,
Speaker 6: designed his own major applied game theory. He had like
Speaker 6: he had a basketball game. He had Larry bird doctor
Speaker 6: J basketball. He had an Earl Weaver baseball, and he
Speaker 6: approached us and said, hey, we want to do a
Speaker 6: football game and put you know, call it John Madden Football.
Speaker 6: And John was like, I have no idea what you're
Speaker 6: talking about. So he came on for a train ride,
Speaker 6: kind of explained what it is and how they're doing it,
Speaker 6: and it came out on computers, on Apple computers, and
Speaker 6: you know, the problem back then with computer memory, you
Speaker 6: could only have eight on eight, so they didn't have
Speaker 6: enough computer memory to have twenty two players. And John said,
Speaker 6: I'm not putting my name on a game unless it's authentic,
Speaker 6: and so we thought, you know, this guy will go away.
Speaker 6: It took two years really for them to figure the
Speaker 6: technology part of it out, but we never really had
Speaker 6: the confidence that this was going anywhere.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: I mean we're talking late eighties, so there was no
Speaker 6: video games as we know it now, and we both
Speaker 6: you know, they wanted to give him money and put
Speaker 6: his name on it, and we just wanted to be
Speaker 6: more involved in it really, and you know, I remember
Speaker 6: us talking saying we should really ask for like a
Speaker 6: buck or two a game, and he's he's like it
Speaker 6: doesn't make a difference. They're never going to sell one.
Speaker 6: And you know, one hundred and fifty million units later,
Speaker 6: it's kind of worked. But you know, at the time,
Speaker 6: we just didn't think it would ever come out.
Speaker 1: There are just so many elements of popular culture that
Speaker 1: reflect John Madden's influence. If it's SNL when they would
Speaker 1: do sketches, and if it's drawing on the screen, even
Speaker 1: outside of SNL, if it's the video game. When for
Speaker 1: you guys, did you start to realize that he was
Speaker 1: being known as just more than a broadcaster.
Speaker 6: W you know, he did a Miller like commercial in
Speaker 6: the early age that was number one, The Bus. You know,
Speaker 6: he teamed with tat summerle The bus kind of became
Speaker 6: a thing. And I think the video game came out
Speaker 6: in nineteen eighty nine, and I think it was wildly
Speaker 6: successful early on, and I think, you know, right around
Speaker 6: the early nineties. To me, it used to it just
Speaker 6: became like during that time, John and Michael Jordan were
Speaker 6: the two biggest things in advertising. We were getting offers,
Speaker 6: ace hardware, can act in you know, diet coke. It
Speaker 6: just at that time we started, like, you know, I
Speaker 6: was busy the phone was ringing, something's going on here,
Speaker 6: you know. And and the thing about him though, like
Speaker 6: he he never took himself seriously, like when we there
Speaker 6: may have been articles on like the branding of John Madden,
Speaker 6: and He's like, what are they talking about? I'm a
Speaker 6: football coach, you know. And I think he was so authentic.
Speaker 6: But I think in the in our world, he was
Speaker 6: larger than life. And I think the video game and
Speaker 6: I think the popularity of football on television really changed that.
Speaker 6: And then you have Rupert Murdoch getting into, you know,
Speaker 6: taking the NFL from from CBS, John moving over to
Speaker 6: Fox in nineteen ninety four, that was big too, you know,
Speaker 6: that was huge Fox getting in to the business. So
Speaker 6: I think early nineties was a time where I think
Speaker 6: he became larger, started to become larger than life.
Speaker 1: Was it a hard decision for you guys to switch networks?
Speaker 6: No, there's about eight million reasons why we wanted to
Speaker 6: go there. But it was just one of those things
Speaker 6: where look, CBS loses it, right, so we we have
Speaker 6: to go somewhere, you know, And there was ABC was
Speaker 6: interested in going you know, Monday night football. And you know,
Speaker 6: I've told the story before, but basically Rupert Murdoch calls
Speaker 6: me and Barry Frank, who is my boss at IMG,
Speaker 6: and says, give me a number for John Madden. I'll
Speaker 6: call you back in five minutes. And we gave him
Speaker 6: a number. He didn't call back. A CFO called back
Speaker 6: within five minutes and said, what's the address for the contract?
Speaker 6: So it was just like Rupert Murdoch, it was It's
Speaker 6: not like you know, it's playing poker at a different level. Really,
Speaker 6: But I remember him telling me before John did the
Speaker 6: first preseason game in the summer of ninety four for Fox,
Speaker 6: Rupert said they earned back his entire four year contract
Speaker 6: already in the amount of advertising they sold.
Speaker 1: Wow was it or how comfortable or uncomfortable was it?
Speaker 1: Because you come on with John and you are so
Speaker 1: much of an underlaying and now you're representing him and
Speaker 1: you are eros tentacles outside talking to everyone. How did
Speaker 1: that relationship mature? And was it so much easier for
Speaker 1: you guys to trust each other because of all those
Speaker 1: years you had invested each other in each other on
Speaker 1: the training on the bus, Well.
Speaker 6: He didn't want me to leave the road, you know,
Speaker 6: I did. I think two years on the bus. I
Speaker 6: think I traveled with him with three or four years
Speaker 6: and then Super Bowl maybe it was a Super Bowl
Speaker 6: in eighty nine. You know, I said, hey, you know
Speaker 6: I had met someone number one, and you know, I
Speaker 6: was starting to represent you know, one or two other
Speaker 6: people really and I said, look, I I want to
Speaker 6: get someone else to go on the bus with you.
Speaker 6: I want to stay in our offices. And i'mg in
Speaker 6: New York and we and so we had an argument
Speaker 6: about it, but we had a real emotional conversation about
Speaker 6: it that you know, he said, you're never going to
Speaker 6: amount to anything having your feet up on a desk
Speaker 6: in New York eating a bagel that you got. If
Speaker 6: you're going to be successful, you got to got out
Speaker 6: there on the road. You have to meet people, you
Speaker 6: have to you know. And even to this day, I
Speaker 6: go to a lot of games and I see clients
Speaker 6: who are broadcasters or gms or executives, coaches, and you know,
Speaker 6: it's I think he instilled in me, like, to be
Speaker 6: successful in this business, you can't just do it in
Speaker 6: an office. So it was a hard thing. It worked,
Speaker 6: you know, we found someone else to do the road job.
Speaker 6: But you know, our relationship was deepen up where he
Speaker 6: trusted me, and I made a point of I still
Speaker 6: probably went to a half a dozen games of his
Speaker 6: h each year, so you know, it worked, but I
Speaker 6: couldn't really you know, Mark McCormack founded I AMG and
Speaker 6: I really had something going at IMG, and I really
Speaker 6: couldn't further that career, always being in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Speaker 1: How much did it matter to you that John made
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame?
Speaker 6: I he you know, he said to me, besides his
Speaker 6: kids being born, it was the happiest day of his life.
Speaker 6: You know, I was. We were there in Detroit when
Speaker 6: you know, they announced it on the Saturday before and
Speaker 6: it was on NFL network, and you know they announced
Speaker 6: the names. There were six people that year, five it's
Speaker 6: just his name and I, you know, it was just
Speaker 6: like euphoria in that room. There were maybe half a
Speaker 6: dozen of us, Fred Goadelli, john Son, Mike al Michaels
Speaker 6: and you know, a lot of tears. It was he
Speaker 6: he wanted to go in as a coach, not as
Speaker 6: a contributor or as a broadcaster. You know, he was
Speaker 6: one hundred and eight and thirty two. That's the highest
Speaker 6: winning percentage of any coach who's coached one hundred games,
Speaker 6: and you know, it was a long time coming, and
Speaker 6: that was two thousand and six. He coached his last
Speaker 6: game in nineteen seventy nine, thirty two losses in ten years.
Speaker 6: I mean, he should have been in the Hall of
Speaker 6: Fame earlier, but it was for him, it was just
Speaker 6: it made it all worthwhile. And he went back every
Speaker 6: year after that just to be part of the ceremony.
Speaker 6: We donated the original Madden Cruiser to the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 6: So underprivileged kids in the Midwest, can you know, come
Speaker 6: to the Hall of Fame and learn about football history.
Speaker 6: There's a broadcasting wing there name for him.
Speaker 5: It's just.
Speaker 6: You know that in the Super Bowl win super Bowl
Speaker 6: eleven or the two biggest professional accomplishments for him sixteen Emmys,
Speaker 6: he could care about.
Speaker 1: You know, we were actually worked for the ni This
Speaker 1: is an NFL podcast. It's a property of NFL. And
Speaker 1: so you know with the NFL and Mad and Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: in that relationship and that celebration, how did that get started?
Speaker 1: Like what were the strings and like what was the
Speaker 1: what's the goal of it?
Speaker 6: Well, first, when when John retired in o eight oh nine,
Speaker 6: and I got the sense he was just not enjoying
Speaker 6: traveling as much. He missed his grandkids and all that.
Speaker 6: And you know, his wife called me and said, look,
Speaker 6: I don't know what you have planned, but I didn't
Speaker 6: sign up for this retirement thing, so you got to
Speaker 6: keep him find something to do. I had a conversation
Speaker 6: with Commissioner Goodell about and then they have become friends,
Speaker 6: and I said, you know, let's find a role for
Speaker 6: John within the NFL where he can be have a meaningful,
Speaker 6: you know, relationship and also do some meaningful work. So
Speaker 6: he became a special advisor to Roger and also co
Speaker 6: chaired the Player Safety Committee, which reported to the Competition Committee.
Speaker 6: So he was engaged for a decade and then look,
Speaker 6: he passed. It will be four years next month. And
Speaker 6: you know, Roger is one of the first people I called.
Speaker 6: I thought the NFL should announce this really, and you
Speaker 6: know then we we kind of Roger wanted if he
Speaker 6: formed a small committee. He said, all right, we want
Speaker 6: to honor John in some way. What should we do?
Speaker 1: And you know the.
Speaker 6: Committee all agreed. John loved Thanksgiving. It was his favate holiday.
Speaker 6: It's yeah, there are six legged turkeys and Turduckan and
Speaker 6: he loved Thanksgiving. He loved being at a game, whether
Speaker 6: it's Detroit or Dallas, he loved it. And I think
Speaker 6: he became part of America on that day. And we
Speaker 6: all agreed that, you know, we need to honor him
Speaker 6: on Thanksgiving, and you know, the commissioner and the teams
Speaker 6: that are playing, you know, basically agreed that with that.
Speaker 6: And there will be you know, his name will be
Speaker 6: on all on all three fields that are playing that day.
Speaker 6: There'll be a special coin which I could probably show you.
Speaker 6: I just got a copy of it, which will be
Speaker 6: you know, flipped with his head and a production on
Speaker 6: the tail, and they'll be a player of the game.
Speaker 6: And you know it's I think he's probably looking down saying,
Speaker 6: you guys got it right. If you're gonna honor me,
Speaker 6: this is the way I want to be honored on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 6: And I think, you know, I think we did get
Speaker 6: it right. And it feels it just feels like Madden.
Speaker 1: Sandy. I really appreciate the generosity coming on with me
Speaker 1: giving me twenty twenty five minutes to talk about John.
Speaker 1: And I'm a massive fan of just all that you've
Speaker 1: done in many capacities. But to be able to spend
Speaker 1: this time and just talk about John means a lot.
Speaker 1: So thank you for your time. I hope you have
Speaker 1: a I.
Speaker 6: Just want to show you. I just want to show
Speaker 6: you the coin.
Speaker 1: Oh, let me see. I didn't want to make you
Speaker 1: get up.
Speaker 6: Oh it's okay. So they these are the coins.
Speaker 1: That will be uh oh, that's cool.
Speaker 6: Flip banks on Thanksgiving Day. All three those are three
Speaker 6: different ones with the teams that are playing. So it's
Speaker 6: gonna be uh real cool. And it was great being
Speaker 6: with you and a happy Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: Yeah you too, Sandy. Have a great day, man, Thank
Speaker 1: you very much.
Speaker 6: Take care.
Speaker 1: All right, before we go, I've adjusted my power rankings
Speaker 1: for the week. We are still sitting with the Rams
Speaker 1: at number one. The Eagles fell from their loss with
Speaker 1: the Cowboys. We'll hear more from them in a second.
Speaker 1: I do have the Broncos at number two, even though
Speaker 1: again they've been winning barely, barely barely. And I got
Speaker 1: the chiefs Now number three at six and five. That's right,
Speaker 1: they were number four last week. But I've got the
Speaker 1: chiefs Now sitting right in that third spot with a
Speaker 1: record of six and five. I got the Eagles at
Speaker 1: fourth with eight and three and you know your past.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm leaving them. They're not there for what are
Speaker 1: they tended to? Yep, their fifth. I'm not letting them
Speaker 1: jump over the Eagles quite yet. The Eagles did lose.
Speaker 1: What the Pats do beat the Bengals. Yeah, but that count.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't have been a tough, gritty win. You know,
Speaker 1: Drake May's never thrown for three hundred yards. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: they said that on the broadcast, that actually surprised me.
Speaker 1: It surprised me too. The Colts were on deck last week.
Speaker 1: They're still on deck. So I did think it was
Speaker 1: a pretty good look for the Colts in a loss.
Speaker 1: Meaning they did go to to Kansas City and lose
Speaker 1: a close game. They played their faces off. So not
Speaker 1: a lot has changed except the Chiefs are exactly who
Speaker 1: I said they were. Everybody giving up on them. I'm
Speaker 1: not even a Chiefs fan. I don't know why to
Speaker 1: fit them so much. Okay, that's what's up. Thank you
Speaker 1: guys for being here. I hope you have awesome holiday,
Speaker 1: and thanks to our guests. And that's Matt Castle. That's Kickoff, Kevin,
Speaker 1: that's Brandon. I'm Bobby Bones, We've had lots to say goodbye,
Speaker 1: Everybody lots to say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle
Speaker 1: is a production of the NFL and iHeart Podcasts. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.