Speaker 1: But I can remember being at halftime, being down twenty
Speaker 1: eight three to that team and thinking I made the
Speaker 1: wrong choice.
Speaker 2: Like every other turn in my life, I screwed it up.
Speaker 2: You know. Hi. My name is Chris Long, and I
Speaker 2: have a football podcast. I used to play football for
Speaker 2: a living.
Speaker 3: Happy New Year. Everybody New Year knew me?
Speaker 2: No, not really.
Speaker 3: It's still off the beat and I'm still your same
Speaker 3: old boring host Ryan Bomgartner. My guest today, Well is
Speaker 3: true NFL royalty Chris Long. He is, of course, former
Speaker 3: professional defensive end with eleven years in the NFL on
Speaker 3: the Rams, the Patriots, and the Eagles. He has two
Speaker 3: Super Bowl rings and the prestigious Man of the Year
Speaker 3: Award to show for it. But when I say royalty,
Speaker 3: I mean football. Well it runs in his blood. He
Speaker 3: comes from a long line of NFL greats Long get
Speaker 3: it nailed it. His dad, Howie Long, also has a
Speaker 3: super Bowl ring with the former La Raiders. His brother
Speaker 3: Kyle Long, Chicago Bear longtime offensive lineman, and his other brother,
Speaker 3: Howie Long Junior, works for the current Raiders organization in
Speaker 3: Las Vegas. The NFL is full of Longs. Well, guess
Speaker 3: what Chris He's the first and only Long to ever
Speaker 3: be on this podcast, so that is very special for him.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 3: He also hosts his own podcast, green Light, where he
Speaker 3: talks about sports and culture and all kinds of fun
Speaker 3: stuff with really great guests. Not me yet. But in addition,
Speaker 3: he's currently a host on the long running Inside the NFL.
Speaker 3: But first, he's going to be my really fun guest
Speaker 3: on my podcast. I know he is honored here. He
Speaker 3: is the hard hitting and very funny Chris Long.
Speaker 4: Bubble and Squeak. I love it Bubble and Squeak. I know,
Speaker 4: Bubble and Squeak. I cook it every mole over from
Speaker 4: the ninety before.
Speaker 2: What's up, Chris Brian? How you doing?
Speaker 3: I'm great? How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm great. It's good to meet you. I'm a big fan.
Speaker 2: I've enjoyed watching Talk Football too.
Speaker 3: So oh really do I hold up? Okay?
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, you know what you're talking about. You're in
Speaker 1: your team, and I know you know Rich a little bit.
Speaker 3: So yeah.
Speaker 2: I go on his show every Monday. It's been He's
Speaker 2: treated me really well in this space.
Speaker 3: So great guy, You've made it work for you, that's
Speaker 3: for sure. Yeah. I think he's a great guy Dan
Speaker 3: Patrick as well, and he's awesome, you know. I'll tell
Speaker 3: you this. They've had me on to host some on
Speaker 3: the the Good Morning Football there on the NFL network. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I'm serious. If it wasn't for that lifestyle change,
Speaker 3: Like I love where I live now here in southern California,
Speaker 3: If it wasn't for the New York and the like
Speaker 3: four thirty am wake up calls on the East Coast time,
Speaker 3: I would love to do. I have so much fun
Speaker 3: doing that. Yeah, I don't know if I know what
Speaker 3: I'm talking about, but I have a great time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't know if I know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about week to week, and I'm watching a
Speaker 1: million games, so it's like the great equalizer you're watching football.
Speaker 2: It's hard to figure out. And I'm with you, dude.
Speaker 1: That's the reason I do my operation out of my
Speaker 1: hometown so I don't have to be on one of
Speaker 1: these shows that my alarm clock goes off at five
Speaker 1: in the morning.
Speaker 2: Not for me. Yeah, Like I couldn't live in New York.
Speaker 2: It'd be hard.
Speaker 1: It's where So where are you I'm in I'm in Virginia.
Speaker 1: I'm right outside Charlottesville. I don't know if you've ever
Speaker 1: been to UVA. I have, Yeah, it's it's I've grew
Speaker 1: up here mostly so.
Speaker 3: Well, I know that we're going to talk about that,
Speaker 3: but I will tell you I'm just slightly older than you.
Speaker 3: My best friend from high school went to uh UVA
Speaker 3: and I saw Dave Matthews there.
Speaker 2: Did you really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well he's still I saw Dave Matthews two weeks
Speaker 1: ago running through the friggin' park like he just like,
Speaker 1: he's like actually one of my producers. His sister works
Speaker 1: with Red Light, their management company. Okay, and you know
Speaker 1: he's like, he's still around. He kind of does regular
Speaker 1: guys shit, which I love, and they show their shows.
Speaker 2: Their live shows are great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's he's awesome. Well, look, I want to talk
Speaker 3: about your new found job and success, but I do
Speaker 3: want to start back a little bit to your beginning
Speaker 3: there where you still are Charlottesville, Virginia. Now, when you
Speaker 3: were growing up, your dad spoiler alert, that's how we
Speaker 3: long was playing in the NFL for the Raiders. Were
Speaker 3: you traveling a lot with him or not so much so?
Speaker 1: Really, we moved to Virginia as soon as he retired,
Speaker 1: and I spent the first seven almost eight years of
Speaker 1: my life living in southern California. I lived, we lived
Speaker 1: in Redondo, and then we moved up in the world
Speaker 1: as dad got bigger paychecks and we moved to PV
Speaker 1: and we moved out of that haunted house in Redondo
Speaker 1: legit haunted house.
Speaker 2: Haunted house. Yeah, it was crazy.
Speaker 1: I had like an imaginary friend that my mom claims
Speaker 1: is actually a ghost. Name of the ghost was Nicy.
Speaker 1: So Dad couldn't wait to get out of that house.
Speaker 1: We had the paycheck got bigger, we moved to PV
Speaker 1: and then he retired and we moved across the country.
Speaker 1: Because my dad's from South Boston, Like you've seen the town,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of like what he grew up in Charlestown.
Speaker 1: So he didn't have like a super easy upbringing. He
Speaker 1: didn't have a place to like just go back to.
Speaker 1: So we looked at a couple places, and I guess
Speaker 1: he played golf in Virginia and kind of fell in
Speaker 1: love with it, and yeah, that's where we moved. So,
Speaker 1: but when he was in Oakland, because he was like
Speaker 1: the last Oakland Raider right in that first installment of
Speaker 1: the Raiders in Oakland. You know, like it was interesting
Speaker 1: growing up going to those games because you had to
Speaker 1: be careful taking your little kid to a Raiders game,
Speaker 1: even if he had like Raiders' clothes on, it was
Speaker 1: just is a rough scene. And so, you know, just
Speaker 1: growing up in that was really cool. But also getting
Speaker 1: to meet some of the people that my dad played with.
Speaker 1: Like my parents never made it like a big deal.
Speaker 1: My dad just kind of tried to make it seem like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm normal, I have this job.
Speaker 2: Here are my co workers. Yeah, they're my co workers.
Speaker 2: Bo Jackson is in the kitchen. It's just Bo Jackson.
Speaker 2: And like he never really overemphasized it.
Speaker 1: So I had a lot of cool experiences while my
Speaker 1: dad played that. Not only it was cool as a kid,
Speaker 1: but it shaped the way I thought about having kids
Speaker 1: during my career and when I wanted to do that,
Speaker 1: you know, seeing him come home beat up, stressed. And
Speaker 1: now I'm sitting there in my eighth year in the league,
Speaker 1: and I'm saying I'm glad I waited, because it is hard.
Speaker 1: We waited to have our first first son, Whale, until
Speaker 1: I was like thirty one years old, right, And I
Speaker 1: think part of that would shape that as being a
Speaker 1: kid whose dad plays in the NFL. It's great, but
Speaker 1: he'd be the first to tell you, man, hey, sorry,
Speaker 1: it was it was hard. It was hard to do
Speaker 1: both jobs, be a dad and be present as a dad,
Speaker 1: and when I get home kind of put work on
Speaker 1: the back burner. So yeah, I spent eight years as
Speaker 1: an NFL kid, and then we moved to Virginia.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I have to ask the obvious question,
Speaker 3: did you ever try to introduce Nicey to bo Jackson?
Speaker 3: I mean, did you ever did you try? Did you
Speaker 3: try to, you know, introduce nicy around or No? I
Speaker 3: just want a private thing. This is a private thing.
Speaker 3: It was made.
Speaker 1: It's spent a lot of time in the house with me,
Speaker 1: my mom, you know, Mama's boy that my mom was
Speaker 1: practicing corporate law until the third kid came along. And
Speaker 1: you know, back in the day, it was me mom
Speaker 1: and dad was at work twelve hours a day plus.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think I think I needed a friend,
Speaker 1: and I found one in this house. Now I know
Speaker 1: where the house is, I kind of feel like going
Speaker 1: back with one of these.
Speaker 2: I want to ghost you, I know.
Speaker 3: I want to go with you and find.
Speaker 2: Out she swears it was a ghost. Dude.
Speaker 1: She was like, it wasn't an imaginary friend. Man, I
Speaker 1: was pointing to people in the room. It's bad.
Speaker 3: Do you think it was a ghost?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, I believed in that stuff. Do you believe
Speaker 2: in that stuff?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I suppose so why not? I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: A lot of people certainly believe it, so they're likely
Speaker 3: not wrong. I mean, look, no one who has seen
Speaker 3: it doesn't believe it exactly, imactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. You need a friend that you
Speaker 1: trust to see it to believe it, you know, Like
Speaker 1: I'll hear some celebrity that's like I got pinned down
Speaker 1: in my bed. I'm like, yeah, well, do you have
Speaker 1: book tour coming up or what's going on? Like, if
Speaker 1: it's a friend, I'm more apt to believe that friend.
Speaker 1: And I think my parents to be honest, we moved
Speaker 1: to Virginia. We moved to this house. It was from
Speaker 1: the eighteen sixties. You know, there's a lot of these
Speaker 1: old brick houses that one's haunted too. Man, I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is. I don't think my dad has
Speaker 1: the antenna for this, but I do so.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. I'm gonna say so, and I'm not
Speaker 3: going to mention any show names because I don't want
Speaker 3: to get in trouble. God am I going to get
Speaker 3: in trouble? I needed the nicy story. So I got asked,
Speaker 3: I have never told this, this is probably not good
Speaker 3: tell it. I was asked to be one on one
Speaker 3: of those shows, like a haunted experience show. That's all
Speaker 3: I'll say. And I was like, has anything weird ever happened?
Speaker 3: So I told a story that it wasn't. There was
Speaker 3: no definitiveness for me, like, am I sure what this
Speaker 3: was or whatever? I told this story. It's long and boring, apparently,
Speaker 3: and I was told by the producers, you know, can
Speaker 3: we make it a little more, a little more.
Speaker 2: Ghost Can we make a little bit Can there be
Speaker 2: a ghost pussy?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Can we make a little more Yeah, a little
Speaker 3: more ghosty or a little more hauntedy. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know what, just like I'm out. I wasn't sure
Speaker 3: I wanted to do this to begin with, but I'm
Speaker 3: I can't.
Speaker 1: I know, I feel like you're exposing an entire industry.
Speaker 1: Well that's why I'm vacation here.
Speaker 3: I know, That's that's why I'm dreading very lightly because
Speaker 3: I don't want to get in trouble or get on
Speaker 3: someone's naughty list this time of year. But that did happen.
Speaker 1: Well, Honestly, we're talking about doing some content around here
Speaker 1: where I take like some of my old teammates places
Speaker 1: and we do some crazy stuff. And you know, like
Speaker 1: one of the ideas we were kicking around was like
Speaker 1: spending a night in various of the most haunted places
Speaker 1: in the United States and seeing if these big tough
Speaker 1: guys we turn the lights off at night, who's gonna
Speaker 1: leave the house first. So if we if we do
Speaker 1: one of those, you know, this is a no frills,
Speaker 1: no bs ghost show.
Speaker 2: We'll have you on you if you ever want to
Speaker 2: take me.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm in. I will say this the New
Speaker 3: Orleans thing. You can feel it, you can yeah. And
Speaker 3: you hear the stories and you're like, whether they were embellished,
Speaker 3: whether they're embellished or not, whether there was a producer
Speaker 3: many many years ago that told them to beef it
Speaker 3: up a little bit. But when you you're like, well,
Speaker 3: if twenty five percent of this is true, like there
Speaker 3: are things walking.
Speaker 1: If ten percent is true, all it takes is one
Speaker 1: ghost for me to believe. So if it's one percent,
Speaker 1: I thick I've got there.
Speaker 3: I wonder about that now too, you know with kids,
Speaker 3: like you know, at what point you know, you're young
Speaker 3: at this point, but like you're talking about like, oh,
Speaker 3: there's Bo Jackson in the kitchen and it's like, let's
Speaker 3: go visit dad on set and there's Robin Williams or whatever,
Speaker 3: and you're like, yeah, you know how that shapes a person,
Speaker 3: shapes you for you and you know, we'll talk about
Speaker 3: your career. But like, is it early on that you're like,
Speaker 3: I'm going to do what dad does.
Speaker 1: It's it's an interesting question because I think it does
Speaker 1: shape who you are. I think in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: especially if you go into this vocation like I have,
Speaker 1: because immediately, whether you know it or not, you're being
Speaker 1: served humble pie. I mean, yeah, your dad, My dad's
Speaker 1: got a gold jacket. You know, Like I go to league.
Speaker 1: You know, I have a really good career, one that
Speaker 1: I'm proud of. But you're never gonna you know, the
Speaker 1: chances of you doing that are pretty low. So in
Speaker 1: my house, you know, I come home for Christmas break
Speaker 1: or for you know, whatever it is, and come back
Speaker 1: to my hometown. I'm at the dinner table with Hall
Speaker 1: of Famer, you know, Pro Bowl guard Kyle, my brother
Speaker 1: for the Bears. You probably watched him play once or twice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're on the right side of those games. And then
Speaker 1: it's me and you know, like the point is, we
Speaker 1: all had good runs in our own right. But I
Speaker 1: never walk around like my shit doesn't stink, because I
Speaker 1: have evidence everywhere that it doesn't. And you know, like
Speaker 1: from a very early age, like it's just reinforced how
Speaker 1: normal it is. So the NFL was thrilling to me.
Speaker 1: I wasn't motivated by the experience. I was motivated by
Speaker 1: trying to succeed at something like the lifestyle. You know,
Speaker 1: some of the highs they never got to me, maybe
Speaker 1: like they could for somebody else. And I think it
Speaker 1: keeps you humble, but it also keeps you from enjoying
Speaker 1: some of the big moments at times because you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the guys I play with,
Speaker 1: you go back to your hometown, you're like the one
Speaker 1: of one of one, right, and everything you do in
Speaker 1: your career is framed in the context of your dad's
Speaker 1: a Hall of Famer.
Speaker 2: Are you going to live up to that? Are you
Speaker 2: going to be that? Are you gonna you know?
Speaker 1: And then being drafted high it's the same thing. And
Speaker 1: so I think it's always been a challenge. But for
Speaker 1: some kid that grew up with no resources and didn't
Speaker 1: get looks coming out or whatever, like, I'm sure he's not.
Speaker 1: I'm sure although they could empathize with my plight, they
Speaker 1: have their own plight which is way different. And so
Speaker 1: I think no matter how you get to the NFL,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a miracle. I mean, there's so many
Speaker 1: kids with that dream. It was never a dream for
Speaker 1: me early on because I was just into other stuff
Speaker 1: and my parents didn't steer me that way. And I
Speaker 1: think my dad did a really good job of you know, hey,
Speaker 1: you can be whatever you want to be. But his
Speaker 1: whole thing was like, you better bust your ass. So
Speaker 1: if you're going to be an engineer, like I better
Speaker 1: see you building some bridges, buddy, and like, you know,
Speaker 1: like whatever it is. And so I think it shaped
Speaker 1: me for the better. It also took some of the
Speaker 1: enjoyment maybe out of my career. Being honest, I loved
Speaker 1: every minute of it. But in a twisted kind of way,
Speaker 1: like I love the challenge, you know, I like to
Speaker 1: know what I'm made of, and and I got more
Speaker 1: out of that in the NFL than I did probably
Speaker 1: just be like, man, I'm living the dream because I've
Speaker 1: seen what that's like.
Speaker 2: I grew up in it, and it's more normalized for me.
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting. You know you have three brothers and Kyles, yeah,
Speaker 3: two brothers or two brothers, three of yeah, yeah, three total.
Speaker 3: And you know Kyle playing on the offensive line guard
Speaker 3: for so long, you are playing essentially the same position
Speaker 3: that your dad played, who's a Hall of Famer. But
Speaker 3: there's something else interesting about your dad, which I mean,
Speaker 3: maybe this is obvious, Maybe this is so dumb, maybe
Speaker 3: it's obvious. Well, it doesn't take anything away from his
Speaker 3: playing career. So let me be very clear. I don't
Speaker 3: want to piss off any lungs.
Speaker 2: But no, he's not the one that's gonna get pissed out.
Speaker 1: He's pretty secure, and I mean, you get that mustard
Speaker 1: jacket your no.
Speaker 3: But what I'm saying is is that he now is
Speaker 3: elevated because he's also still every Sunday on television.
Speaker 1: And because he looks like he's thirty one, Well what's
Speaker 1: going on with that?
Speaker 3: But you see him, you see him every week, and
Speaker 3: you're like, yeah, he could still play. Yeah, it's weird
Speaker 3: in that. I mean, he's an amazing player, he's got
Speaker 3: the mustard coat, Hall of Famer. But also he's just
Speaker 3: still in our consciousness. And it's like, even though you know,
Speaker 3: I was very young when he was playing and I
Speaker 3: don't have specific memories of his dominance, I also grew
Speaker 3: up with him. Yes, and even kids who are twelve
Speaker 3: today or whatever, like they still is aware of him
Speaker 3: and his you know, the shadow which you're having to
Speaker 3: live in, you know, to this day.
Speaker 2: It's funny, funny story, like the order I got in
Speaker 2: the league.
Speaker 1: When I got in, it's like, yeah, you're how He
Speaker 1: Longs And when you know, when I played high school football,
Speaker 1: is how He long Son. If I had an accolade
Speaker 1: that I accomplished, it was, Hey, it's because you're how
Speaker 1: He long Son, or you had a scholarship, It's because
Speaker 1: you're how He long Son or whatever it is. When
Speaker 1: I got in the league, I could feel that pressure
Speaker 1: and it followed me intrinsically, like that's just who I
Speaker 1: am I feel pressure. I tried to convert it into output.
Speaker 1: You know, that's just the way I operate. It's not
Speaker 1: the healthiest way to operate, you know. I said to
Speaker 1: my dad last week because we were in the hallway.
Speaker 1: First he congratulated me because he saw my podcast was
Speaker 1: the number one podcast in the country. It's not true.
Speaker 1: He just saw somebody Spotify rapped, so he didn't really
Speaker 1: understand the Spotify rap thing, and he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you beat out Joe Rogan, good job, like and I'm like, nah, Dad,
Speaker 1: you know, but the whole thing is, you know, I've realized,
Speaker 1: and part of it is just being his son. And
Speaker 1: you know, nothing you ever accomplished is good enough for
Speaker 1: other people, so eventually it's not good enough for you.
Speaker 1: I kind of came to gross with the fact that
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not a miserable but I'll never be satisfied
Speaker 1: that and I think that's been a tool that's helped me.
Speaker 1: It hasn't helped my quality of life, but it's helped
Speaker 1: me and the guys in here laughing because they're my
Speaker 1: producers and they know I'm never satisfied and that's a
Speaker 1: gift and a curse and you get it from that
Speaker 1: that situation. But my dad did such a good job
Speaker 1: transitioning into the next act. And for a guy from
Speaker 1: South Boston who had, you know, an accent, grew up
Speaker 1: in a messed up situation, really brilliant cat, but not
Speaker 1: like as he went to Oxford to sit in that
Speaker 1: chair for now twenty five years and maybe it's longer
Speaker 1: that group for him to be the constant through Ronnie
Speaker 1: Lott and you know like James Brown and a bunch
Speaker 1: of guy Chris Collinsworth. You see where he's he's been
Speaker 1: and Dad's just been steady and that's the kind of
Speaker 1: guy he is. That's why I respect him so much
Speaker 1: because you know what you're gonna get. He is who
Speaker 1: he is and he's not going to be trying to
Speaker 1: try to be something he's not. And I think in
Speaker 1: football he he helped me a lot because he's the
Speaker 1: same way as me. I'm thinking about the Super Bowl
Speaker 1: I played in a couple of years ago that we
Speaker 1: won with the Eagles, and instead of it being one
Speaker 1: hundred percent joy in my head, there's a big twenty
Speaker 1: five percent of me that wanted to get the ball
Speaker 1: off Tom Brady. You know that and I can't get
Speaker 1: over that twenty five percent and it's a real thing.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And you know, that's the way my dad was.
Speaker 1: He's looking over his shoulder at somebody trying to take
Speaker 1: his job or you know, he was that poor kid
Speaker 1: from South Boston and I didn't.
Speaker 2: Grow up that way. But he passed.
Speaker 3: He passed that.
Speaker 1: He passed that paranoi on to me and I'm the
Speaker 1: oldest son and that sort of thing. So he's helped
Speaker 1: me a lot after football too, because he's stuck the
Speaker 1: landing on that thing, which is hard. And I think
Speaker 1: retirement's hard for athletes in general. I mean we've seen
Speaker 1: evidence of that at every turn. But for him to
Speaker 1: make that transition and get in on it before the
Speaker 1: space was too crowded, and he's a fixture, and as
Speaker 1: these guys age, I mean, at some point there'll be
Speaker 1: other guys at that desk and same thing with CBS
Speaker 1: or whatever. But when I watch him the rare times
Speaker 1: I turn on the TV on Sunday to watch the
Speaker 1: pregame show because Kyle's on TV too. I don't want
Speaker 1: to pick a favorite like Dad does not. He doesn't
Speaker 1: fall off. I mean he because he never overextends himself
Speaker 1: or tries to be something he's not, And I think
Speaker 1: people appreciate that about him. When I'd walk out of
Speaker 1: a game in the tunnel, he knew exactly what I
Speaker 1: was thinking. Everybody else patting you on the back, but
Speaker 1: he knows that one play, or on a day where
Speaker 1: maybe you had a great game but you didn't get
Speaker 1: a sack or whatever, he knows you played.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: We might get yelled at on Monday, but that guy
Speaker 1: knows everything about how I'm evaluating my situation and give
Speaker 1: me that one piece of advice, encouragement, or that hey
Speaker 1: swift kick in the ass. So like, dude, you need
Speaker 1: to be better set in the edge this week. I
Speaker 1: know people are patting your on the back about this,
Speaker 1: but I see it, and so I appreciated that at
Speaker 1: every turn, that's where it really helps. Where it hurts,
Speaker 1: is going to make you feel the pressure, and for
Speaker 1: some people it crushes him right, you know, And it
Speaker 1: almost did it a couple points in my career, in
Speaker 1: my life. But I'm better for it.
Speaker 3: He obviously was, as you just mentioned, giving you some
Speaker 3: specific advice. Yeah, talk to me a little bit though,
Speaker 3: you know you mentioned the diverse activities that you were doing.
Speaker 3: I mean baseball, basketball, lacrosse, obviously football. Talk to me
Speaker 3: a little bit about the influence and impact your high
Speaker 3: school coach, John Blake, Oh yeah, had on you.
Speaker 1: He's the man. I just texted him the other day
Speaker 1: and I said something similar. I mean, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I got an honor for something here and he was congratulating,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, helps, I had a pretty
Speaker 1: good high school coach. And you know, in typical John
Speaker 1: Blake fashion, he's like, well, when you have good players,
Speaker 1: you know, He's just not the type you know, when
Speaker 1: you think about like the prototypical, you know, the dramatized
Speaker 1: version of a high school coaches. He's the legend in
Speaker 1: his own mind. It's like Bud Kilmer from Varsity Blues.
Speaker 1: But this guy is totally different, soft spoken, somebody that
Speaker 1: for me, and it's not just John Blake, it's also
Speaker 1: Al grow at Virginia and for a young person, even
Speaker 1: with a lot of positive male role models in my
Speaker 1: life like my dad or his friends or you know,
Speaker 1: some other folks, these coaches are so important. And John,
Speaker 1: for me, he used to read us a poem called
Speaker 1: Man in the Glass and I can almost recite the
Speaker 1: whole thing. I mean I can, and I used to.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you ever heard it, but it's
Speaker 1: about looking in the mirror and satisfying that person in
Speaker 1: the mirror. And of course I've still haven't found a
Speaker 1: way to do that, but if you get pretty close,
Speaker 1: you'll be okay. And if a high school coach leaves
Speaker 1: you with one thing that you take with you throughout
Speaker 1: your life, I think that person did their job. And
Speaker 1: I just have the utmost respect for that vocation and teachers, right,
Speaker 1: you know, because young men especially, we need the extra help.
Speaker 1: And I was one of those guys that I wasn't
Speaker 1: a great student. I knew I was smart, I guess,
Speaker 1: but you know, I struggled to make the grade. I
Speaker 1: struggled to stay focused. I've had ADHD my whole life.
Speaker 1: I've talked about it on my podcast recently, finally doing
Speaker 1: something about it, taking some medication for that. But like
Speaker 1: that was really hard for me growing up, and so
Speaker 1: for a person like John who just was like the
Speaker 1: ADHD whisper. And I always say in D line rooms
Speaker 1: in the NFL, it's like a daycare center. The biggest,
Speaker 1: baddest dudes. But we're all children, you know, It's just
Speaker 1: it's a zoo in there. You have to have a
Speaker 1: certain kind of teacher that can manage young men.
Speaker 2: And you know, John.
Speaker 1: Was amazing and I'm still friends with him and Mary
Speaker 1: and his kids, and it's pretty awesome. I mean, having
Speaker 1: guys like that in your corner.
Speaker 3: Well, he was obviously doing a lot right. This, of course,
Speaker 3: was at Saint Anne's Bellfield School there in Charlottesville, two
Speaker 3: thousand and three. Your senior year squad goes undefeated, you
Speaker 3: play your last high school game in the state championship,
Speaker 3: you win the state championship. You walk off the field.
Speaker 3: No better feeling as a young athlete than that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: no better feeling.
Speaker 1: And Brian like I I've always been somebody that tries
Speaker 1: to overappreciate the moment because I just see it kind
Speaker 1: of slipping. I just do it like I'm times precious
Speaker 1: and being where you are is precious, and no matter
Speaker 1: how much you try to slow it down, it's not stopping.
Speaker 1: And I think that's where you just stop and smell
Speaker 1: the roses. But I remember sitting on the stairs and being.
Speaker 2: Like, this is really it.
Speaker 1: I can remember a couple of those those things throughout
Speaker 1: my football career where you're like, I cannot believe whether
Speaker 1: it's walking out of the Superdome a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and I hadn't decided that I was going to retire yet,
Speaker 1: but I had a feeling when I took my helmet off,
Speaker 1: this could be the last time I put on a helmet.
Speaker 2: I haven't had a football.
Speaker 1: Helmet on, something I did every day my whole life
Speaker 1: since I was fourteen, like most kids.
Speaker 2: But then I get to play.
Speaker 1: To thirty three, thirty four years old, right, like that's
Speaker 1: your life, and you know, every chapter, as the page turns,
Speaker 1: you got to stop and think, you know, and I
Speaker 1: think for me, all I remember was the bittersweet feeling of, man,
Speaker 1: this was like stuck the landing on this thing, and
Speaker 1: I'm committed to Virginia. I get to go down the
Speaker 1: street to school and all this stuff, and man, what
Speaker 1: a cool run it was. But there was a guy
Speaker 1: with Shaan Jennings. He played ten years in the league.
Speaker 1: He was a two hundred fifty pound running back. I
Speaker 1: swear he's like a AJ Dillon kind of guy. You know,
Speaker 1: he was playing running back in high school and he
Speaker 1: hit me harder than I've been hit my entire career.
Speaker 1: On the sideline there in the state championship game, the
Speaker 1: first time I ever stayed down in my entire career.
Speaker 1: I stayed down probably ten to fifteen seconds. And again
Speaker 1: I'm walking out of the stadium and we're state champions
Speaker 1: and all I can think about was getting knocked on
Speaker 1: my ass in front of two hundred people or every
Speaker 1: may were at the game right right, so you know
Speaker 1: at every turn, whether it was like Saint Louis the
Speaker 1: last game that was weird, man, you know, like we
Speaker 1: were kind of I'm sure we'll get to it, but
Speaker 1: we were kind of we were moving, we were moving.
Speaker 1: I knew I was getting cut and playing on like
Speaker 1: a broken leg, like trying to come back. Look terrible.
Speaker 1: We're playing the Bucks. It's a color rush game, so
Speaker 1: it looks like Ketchup and mustard. It's disgusting. It's the
Speaker 1: last game at the ever Jones Thome.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Now they're doing Monster Truck rallies there, and I just
Speaker 1: remember thinking like this is it, you know, And sometimes
Speaker 1: it's ceremonious, like your high school state championship, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it's like unceremoniy in a big way, and you don't
Speaker 1: know how to feel about it. And I just think
Speaker 1: as a football player, you have a bunch of those
Speaker 1: moments and you just try to soak in the moment,
Speaker 1: be present.
Speaker 3: Why did you go to Charlottesville? I mean, look, you
Speaker 3: end up playing in the US Army All American bull
Speaker 3: out of high school. You're you know, kicking ass, your
Speaker 3: team is great. You likely, whether you'd say it or not,
Speaker 3: you could have gone anywhere you wanted to go. Not
Speaker 3: only do you decide to go to Virginia and be
Speaker 3: called a wahoo, which is still.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can try to.
Speaker 3: Explain, but yeah, it's fine.
Speaker 1: Supposedly a fish that can drink its weight and water
Speaker 1: some multiple like three three tons waiting water or something.
Speaker 1: We took a lot of pride in being huge drunks.
Speaker 1: I guess, so I don't know.
Speaker 3: So not only do you go there, but you decide
Speaker 3: your junior year was it just a hometown thing?
Speaker 1: Honestly, this is cathartic because it kind of feels like
Speaker 1: there's a theme here. But it was because of my
Speaker 1: lack of confidence. I just thought I took my first offer.
Speaker 1: I went down to Virginia and al grow had a
Speaker 1: big Super Bowl trophy on his desk from when I
Speaker 1: was with the Giants. And you know, this is this
Speaker 1: guy that my dad speaks highly of, and my high
Speaker 1: school coach speaks highly of. He's a pro coach. And
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I wanted at that point. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I want to play pro ball. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to do the thing. I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: the thing in front of me, Like I just I
Speaker 1: wanted to do the best I could at whatever I
Speaker 1: was doing. I wanted to play baseball for a while,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't hit the curveball, so that's.
Speaker 2: Going to be a problem. And uh, I think that.
Speaker 1: I think the weights ended up being a problem there,
Speaker 1: and so I ended up I ended up just committing
Speaker 1: to Virginia.
Speaker 2: It was the first offer I got.
Speaker 1: I remember watching Florida State play at night and thinking like, oh,
Speaker 1: that'd be cool. This is back when they had so
Speaker 1: many great players and they do again now. But I thought, honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I could play there. And when
Speaker 1: you have a dad who's so honest with you, I'll
Speaker 1: never forget this story and he and he always says,
Speaker 1: I never said that, or you're misrepresenting it. So sorry, dad.
Speaker 1: But when I was a junior, I got a letter
Speaker 1: from like all these schools, and I got a couple
Speaker 1: IVY League letters, and he was like, hey, now we're talking.
Speaker 1: He goes, I don't know that you're athletic enough to
Speaker 1: play and at the D one A level, like I
Speaker 1: think you could be a killer guard. And that strategy
Speaker 1: eventually worked on my brother. But I just, uh, I
Speaker 1: think I think the humility of the whole thing and
Speaker 1: the doubters and people, you know, I listened to it
Speaker 1: when I was younger. I was like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to take this chance and go far
Speaker 1: away from home to some program where I might not
Speaker 1: be good good enough, and and I think al and laundry,
Speaker 1: home cook meals, like the security of it.
Speaker 2: I'm a safe back guy.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, in case you see Nicey again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, nice he's in Cali. That's why I
Speaker 1: didn't go to USC.
Speaker 3: Well, no, rules the case mom's there, she'll she'll help
Speaker 3: you out. Yeah. I saw an interview with you when
Speaker 3: you're in college. You mentioned going up against not just
Speaker 3: a man, the man the brickshaw Ferguson there in practice
Speaker 3: he make you better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but sometimes you go against somebody that good, you
Speaker 1: can't work your stuff like you got to just you
Speaker 1: got to survive, right, Like his arms were so long
Speaker 1: you reach out and touch me from five feet away,
Speaker 1: and you know, we ran like a three four, which means,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm an inside shade of the tackle, as
Speaker 1: you know, and in a four eye and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get a pass rush from that position. It was
Speaker 1: just like having a dance partner for six seconds of
Speaker 1: play and he wasn't letting me go. It was like,
Speaker 1: and not just him, but Eugene Monroe and Brandon Albert,
Speaker 1: like that entire group because al was so pro style like,
Speaker 1: so we recruited big guys. We had big front seven,
Speaker 1: big linemen. We weren't as good on the back end.
Speaker 1: The parallel would be Lane Johnson in Philly. I really
Speaker 1: do think Lane and Trent Williams gets a lot of
Speaker 1: credit if you like Trent or Lane, Like, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna argue either way, but as a pass blocking tackle
Speaker 1: over the last ten years, I'm not putting anybody above
Speaker 1: Lane Johnson. And when I got there at thirty two,
Speaker 1: thirty three years old, and I had to practice against
Speaker 1: him every day. It felt like du Brickishaw again, where
Speaker 1: you're like, this is great, but I can't actually try stuff.
Speaker 2: You need to rep different movies to practice. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: get practice. You're too good. So yeah, it was tough sometimes.
Speaker 3: I mean you bring that up. Defensive linement get a lot,
Speaker 3: they get a lot of money, they get a lot
Speaker 3: of talk. Secondary guys corners the same. Obviously you got quarterback,
Speaker 3: wide receiver. But you look at you know what happened
Speaker 3: in San Francisco when Trenton was down. Yeah, and when
Speaker 3: Lane is maybe not quite healthy or whatever, like the
Speaker 3: impact that those guys have.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: Obviously Bactiari for a long time at Green Bay player,
Speaker 3: same deal. And as much as they talk about them,
Speaker 3: people like your dad on on television, it's still no
Speaker 3: one thinks about. No one goes there. And you're right,
Speaker 3: and you're right with the Jets this year or two
Speaker 3: and it's like, well they're not scoring because of this
Speaker 3: or that, but also like they got to.
Speaker 2: Protect no question. You know, like when San Francisco had
Speaker 2: that dip, people were looking at, Hey, Debo's not out here.
Speaker 2: You know, you're missing I forget who else that we're missing.
Speaker 1: But the most important thing I think, I think ayuk ayuk,
Speaker 1: But the most important thing in that whole offense, because
Speaker 1: of the way that offense runs, is the tackle that
Speaker 1: can allow you to do so many things in the
Speaker 1: run game.
Speaker 2: Not just he can cave a three technique on a
Speaker 2: double team.
Speaker 1: He can get out in space and you can watch
Speaker 1: a ten minute highlight tape of him running a DBS
Speaker 1: like cones in a parking lot, like like just it,
Speaker 1: bounce it, I mean, and then these guys can't even
Speaker 1: cut these guys anymore. And so it's like, how do
Speaker 1: you want me to play Trent Williams In's base, I'm
Speaker 1: giving up one hundred and fifty pounds. And it's we
Speaker 1: make a big deal about the pass pro right, because
Speaker 1: when a guy's missing, you can see, hey, the Eagles
Speaker 1: don't feel as good Jalen Immediately in that.
Speaker 2: Bills game, Lane's down with a groin.
Speaker 1: Immediately, I'm seeing Jalen check that side a lot, which
Speaker 1: is taking his eyes off his progression. You know, like
Speaker 1: you might not be getting pressure, but it is affecting
Speaker 1: the ebb and flow of that quarterback's process, right. And
Speaker 1: I think the same way in the run game. On
Speaker 1: a team like San Francisco, they're so dynamic because they
Speaker 1: stress every level of defense.
Speaker 2: You have to respect every key.
Speaker 1: Not only that, but they have personnel groupings that all
Speaker 1: look the same, you know, like you can run little
Speaker 1: guy sets with big guys, and you can run big
Speaker 1: guy sets with little guys because you have interchangeable pieces.
Speaker 1: And the whole thing really, when you think about it's
Speaker 1: from that hard run action to the perimeter and the
Speaker 1: way that they live there is because they got that
Speaker 1: big sob out there who might be the best at
Speaker 1: his position of our generation in every phase. Now, having
Speaker 1: said that, I think Lane should be in that conversation too, sure,
Speaker 1: but when these guys are missing, it's not just the
Speaker 1: simple oh he got sacked a lot, or they couldn't
Speaker 1: run the ball. It's the entire offense, which is predicated
Speaker 1: on both things working. And I think San Francisco, you
Speaker 1: bring up a great point, is a perfect example.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at what point when you're at Virginia do you go,
Speaker 3: I'm going to the next level? When do you know?
Speaker 1: Honestly, I think it was a spring game. Maybe my
Speaker 1: second year, like my first year, I struggled, you know,
Speaker 1: being so far away from home ten minutes. That was
Speaker 1: hard for me.
Speaker 2: And then on top of that, I think it was
Speaker 2: just the scheme.
Speaker 1: I was in a three to four, you know, like
Speaker 1: when I was eighteen, I wasn't thinking about that stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, I think kids now are so much more
Speaker 1: educated because of these camps and because of the process.
Speaker 1: I just kind of took things as they came, and
Speaker 1: you know, the scheme wasn't perfect for me, but and
Speaker 1: coach grow was tough, like it was like a shock,
Speaker 1: but I liked him, and I came close to transferring
Speaker 1: my freshman year. I looked at cal and Ohio State
Speaker 1: and I got right to the cusp of like doing it,
Speaker 1: and I just was like, now I'm not a quitter.
Speaker 2: I'm going to stick it out.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't want to be that guy
Speaker 1: now in today's day and age, maybe out of bounce
Speaker 1: because it's just so much more normalized. But I stuck around.
Speaker 1: And then my second spring game, we come out there
Speaker 1: and I think I had like three sacks and I
Speaker 1: just felt like things were coming together for me and
Speaker 1: I said I might be able to play. And then
Speaker 1: my junior year, I had a really nice year. I
Speaker 1: can remember distinctly huddling around the kitchen table with my
Speaker 1: dad and his like business advisor who was kind of
Speaker 1: going to help me a little bit. And that's where
Speaker 1: this stuff really helps. To have a dad, you know
Speaker 1: that been through it, the business acumen, the contracts, the process,
Speaker 1: and we're sitting there discussing it. In the NFL, if
Speaker 1: you're a junior and you send in your draft grade,
Speaker 1: I don't know how much has changed, but we looked
Speaker 1: at the draft grade, which was the bottom of the
Speaker 1: first draft grade. So I was if they said, if
Speaker 1: I came out as a junior, I probably get picked
Speaker 1: thirtieth or you know, twenty eighth.
Speaker 2: My dad was like, take the money, man.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I had Anthony Poindexter on my staff, who was one
Speaker 1: of the greatest football players I had ever seen and
Speaker 1: would have been like Ed Reid had he not torn
Speaker 1: his knee to pieces. And he's actually the DC at
Speaker 1: Penn State now doing a great job. But he was
Speaker 1: one of the best football players in Virginia history. He
Speaker 1: came back his senior year and I can remember being
Speaker 1: a little kid on the hill, which is the hill
Speaker 1: up there where you get kind of GA tickets, and
Speaker 1: I remember going not a little kid, because I was
Speaker 1: sneaking across the street to drink like vodka out of
Speaker 1: a Deer Park bottle. But when I got back in
Speaker 1: the stadium, I was like, where's Anthony Poindexter. He was
Speaker 1: like a god and they carted him off because he
Speaker 1: was back. And I think they played NC State and
Speaker 1: he took a chance and it backfired and he lost
Speaker 1: generational wealth because of that. He was like, you know,
Speaker 1: look what happened to Dex. You know, like, hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: you can't take chances here. And the same thing went
Speaker 1: for his buddy Steve, who said the same thing. And
Speaker 1: I said, guys, like, I got a bet on myself here.
Speaker 1: I think I can do more this senior year. And
Speaker 1: I just remember coming out that senior year as a
Speaker 1: team and as an individual and being like this is
Speaker 1: an all or nothing year. And I put it together,
Speaker 1: had like a really good year, led the country and
Speaker 1: some stuff and went to some award banquets and it
Speaker 1: was like a dream. And our team we won like
Speaker 1: five seven close games. They called us like the cardiac Cavs.
Speaker 1: So whether it was Yukon or Middle Tennessee State, surviving
Speaker 1: on like a block field but we almost got stranded
Speaker 1: in Murphysboro after that game. If we had lost that
Speaker 1: game to be terrible, we're sitting on the tarmac for
Speaker 1: two hours. It was just a magical year. And I'm
Speaker 1: so glad I did it. I'm so glad I take
Speaker 1: the chance. But I also had the safety net to
Speaker 1: do it. And anytime I've talked to younger people about
Speaker 1: like big decisions, like hey, when I go talk to
Speaker 1: my kids private school, you guys have huge safety nets,
Speaker 1: So take chances and do them. Balls out. That's a
Speaker 1: really good point. You know, it's not it's not it's
Speaker 1: not the same. I wouldn't walk into an inner city
Speaker 1: school where kids are first generation college kids, or walk
Speaker 1: into a school where a kid kind of grew up
Speaker 1: that way and say, hey, you got to go. You
Speaker 1: got to stay here and be loyal to your family.
Speaker 1: So it's easy for me to say, hey, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty,
Speaker 1: take a risk. That was just what worked for me,
Speaker 1: and it paid off, and it paid off a lot
Speaker 1: because I got picked in top five and made a
Speaker 1: lot of money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's a really mature and astute observation there.
Speaker 3: You know, it's tough. You have to look at the
Speaker 3: at the totality of the situation, and if you don't
Speaker 3: have a safety net and you're in exactly the same position,
Speaker 3: you're like, I could be drafted thirtieth, Like that's incredible,
Speaker 3: Like that's incredible.
Speaker 2: Better team too, could have been a packer or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: Eight years in Saint Louis.
Speaker 3: I would have liked that. It worked out well for you.
Speaker 3: Dudley Award winner Near to the top NCAA football player
Speaker 3: in the Commonwealth of Virginia two thousand and seven, ACC
Speaker 3: Defensive Player in the Year won the Hendricks Award, which
Speaker 3: is the top award given to a DEE and the
Speaker 3: nation unanimous All American. You received a first place vote.
Speaker 3: Here's a question your for the Heisman. Does your dad
Speaker 3: have a hes vote?
Speaker 1: Now, there's a couple of things he doesn't have. Now
Speaker 1: he might have he doesn't have that. He might have
Speaker 1: a gold jacket. He might be getting royalties for Firestorm
Speaker 1: in three thousand Miles to Graceland. Or he might have
Speaker 1: been in a movie with Tom Hanks, which I forget
Speaker 1: the name of that one, but it's pretty funny. Actually,
Speaker 1: in one of the deleted scenes. He's supposed to be
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks's boyfriend. And that's a possible movie. What's it
Speaker 1: that thing you do? It's a movie?
Speaker 2: Exactly what movie is this? No, he might have he
Speaker 2: might have all these things, but he doesn't have a
Speaker 2: first place Heisman vote.
Speaker 3: Yeah, have you been told who voted for you first? No?
Speaker 2: But I like to drug test that person.
Speaker 1: I really would you like to go back and see
Speaker 1: how much drugs that writer was on because I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, And it was cool because we had
Speaker 1: a lot of story dudes that I went to all
Speaker 1: those banquets with Glenn Dorsey and Matt Ryan and and
Speaker 1: you know Vernon Goldston if you remember him, Like, there
Speaker 1: were some some really good players.
Speaker 3: You get drafted second overall, and weirdly, the second long
Speaker 3: to be drafted, you go to Saint Louis. Do you
Speaker 3: think you're gonna be in Saint Louis forever? Like? Is
Speaker 3: that your mindset? Just like Charlotte's filt? Like are you
Speaker 3: like here I am, I'm a lifer. I'm gonna Derek
Speaker 3: Jeter this or whatever?
Speaker 2: Like I think I think I really did take things.
Speaker 1: And it sounds cliche, but when you're a kid and
Speaker 1: you get dropped into a situation like that with all
Speaker 1: that pressure, and you know, if you get picked that high,
Speaker 1: your team's gonna suck.
Speaker 2: You just know that.
Speaker 1: I mean like, yeah, I remember, yeah, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1: I just thought of things as like what everybody's like,
Speaker 1: what an accomplishment? And I just knew as soon as
Speaker 1: I walked onto that podium, like I got my work
Speaker 1: cut out for me, because for you to justify being
Speaker 1: picked out high as hard, and then to do it
Speaker 1: on a team where things aren't good, it's even harder,
Speaker 1: Like it's just not going to be an easy road.
Speaker 1: And I remember getting on the elevator in New York
Speaker 1: after the draft, like during the draft, and I got
Speaker 1: on with these two big dudes, and they obviously were
Speaker 1: like rams.
Speaker 2: I think one was like Leroy Glover.
Speaker 1: And these guys ended up being my best buddies because
Speaker 1: they were like my big brothers. But at the time,
Speaker 1: they just glared at me and they were like, get
Speaker 1: ready to get to work, and you know, like I'll
Speaker 1: never forget that elevator ride because I already knew I
Speaker 1: had to get to work, but seeing the grown men
Speaker 1: that I was going to be either cutting into their
Speaker 1: snaps rightfully or wrongfully, or being depended upon. Like it
Speaker 1: became a whole nother level of accountability. And I learned
Speaker 1: a lot because in the old NFL, the CBA was different,
Speaker 1: so we actually had two a days, we had training
Speaker 1: camp properly.
Speaker 2: Guys today I hate selling an old guy. They don't
Speaker 2: deal with that.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of older guys in the league because now in today's game,
Speaker 1: they're too expensive, you know. And I thought this was
Speaker 1: just the way it was always going to be. But
Speaker 1: I learned so much even through the one in fifteen,
Speaker 1: two and fourteen seasons, and I saw so many people
Speaker 1: come and go. So I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: the fact that, like at times, it felt like I
Speaker 1: was there one hundred years because nobody else was there
Speaker 1: as long as me. I can remember my equipment manager,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Lake, joking like five years in Like I think
Speaker 1: a coach yelled at me once, like in front of
Speaker 1: the team, and Jimmy was my guy, and he's like,
Speaker 1: you'd be here longer than all these motherfuckers, And I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know if it's a good thing, but.
Speaker 2: It turned out to be true, because you know, like
Speaker 2: we were so bad and we cycled through so many people,
Speaker 2: and then Jeff Fisher came and we were close. But
Speaker 2: by my eighth year in Saint Louis, my seventh year
Speaker 2: I had the closest parking spot to the building, which
Speaker 2: means that like I'm the oldest guy. I'm twenty nine,
Speaker 2: twenty eight, thirty years old. And so the NFL changed
Speaker 2: a lot, and I did love Saint Louis. In fact,
Speaker 2: my wife coach did John Burrows, where Jenna Fisher from
Speaker 2: the office went. Yeah, so I met her and I
Speaker 2: met John Ham because he went there too. It's like
Speaker 2: the who's who Ezekiel Elliott went there to the school.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, my wife coached there, so we really made
Speaker 2: a lot of inroads.
Speaker 3: Man, do you know John Ham taught there too, I.
Speaker 2: Guess, so, I guess I found out afterwards.
Speaker 1: But I've seen him at Bonnorou and then like in
Speaker 1: Vegas just randomly at the wind like checking in, and
Speaker 1: every time he's super cool and he remembers me, and
Speaker 1: he's a great guy. It's unfair for be that good
Speaker 1: looking and be a nice guy. Why can't you be
Speaker 1: an asshole. Yeah, but like we really made roots there,
Speaker 1: Like I love the Blues, Like we went to the
Speaker 1: sporting events.
Speaker 2: I had my favorite bars. I'd go to the same places.
Speaker 1: I'd kill to go back to to one of these
Speaker 1: places in University City or a bar in the Loop.
Speaker 1: Like I love Brad Hall. I used to drink with
Speaker 1: him at the cigar bar at the Ritz. Have you
Speaker 1: hung out with him?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he's a good punny of mine. He's awesome.
Speaker 3: He's a good penny of mine. He's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean it was great. I loved everything about it, but
Speaker 2: we just couldn't win.
Speaker 1: And I hated it for those fans because I lived
Speaker 1: in a hotel.
Speaker 2: My eighth year, I knew, I you know, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Was captain of the team my sixth, you know year,
Speaker 1: my seventh year, I think, and you know, like I
Speaker 1: was one of the guys, like I was. I was
Speaker 1: playing really well, and my career was doing this and
Speaker 1: and I got hurt two years in a row, and
Speaker 1: you know, tried to play hurt and that never ends well.
Speaker 1: And and my eighth year, by the time I came
Speaker 1: back from the second injury, we checked into a hotel
Speaker 1: because I knew I'm getting cut or the team's moving,
Speaker 1: and it was a super weird year. And that was
Speaker 1: the year of Tampa Bay game that last came at
Speaker 1: the Edward Jones Dome.
Speaker 2: It was eerie.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like I did feel like I'd been
Speaker 1: there for a lifetime, and it feels like a lifetime
Speaker 1: ago now.
Speaker 3: It's interesting. There's a show I don't know if you
Speaker 3: ever went and watched it, All or Nothing, where they
Speaker 3: do this series, and there was an all or Nothing
Speaker 3: about the Rams their first year in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 3: Fisher ends up getting fired and things are not going
Speaker 3: well there at all, and I ended up working on it.
Speaker 3: That's a long story for another day. But you know,
Speaker 3: one of the things that was very clear was how
Speaker 3: difficult it was just the move, just operationally, and everything
Speaker 3: is temporary. Here's a temporary practice facility and a temporary stadium,
Speaker 3: and where am I going to live? And where are
Speaker 3: my kids going to school? And what's the traffic pattern
Speaker 3: when we have to go to practice and all of
Speaker 3: those things. They were just really difficult.
Speaker 1: It was tough, and I think part of the reason
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists will tell you that part of the reason
Speaker 1: Jeff was hired was to orchestrate a move because he
Speaker 1: had gone through that with Houston, Tennessee and Saint Louis
Speaker 1: fans to tell you that that team was kind of
Speaker 1: stolen from out from under them, And I would agree,
Speaker 1: like I would agree in a lot of ways, but
Speaker 1: I don't think Jeff was necessarily complicit. I think Jeff
Speaker 1: was just doing his job as a coach, and Stan wanted,
Speaker 1: you know, he wanted the Olympics in LA. He wanted
Speaker 1: like and sometimes that's just you got to realize what
Speaker 1: these guys, they're not thinking like us. They're business people.
Speaker 1: The more money they can make, no questions asked, that's
Speaker 1: what they're doing.
Speaker 2: You know. It's a chart that tells you decision A
Speaker 2: or B.
Speaker 1: It's like follow the money for these guys, and so
Speaker 1: Saint Louis never really had a shot and now they
Speaker 1: actually have Super Bowl parties in Saint Louis without the
Speaker 1: game on, which I think is that's how spiteful they are.
Speaker 1: And I totally appreciate that. And it's also put me
Speaker 1: in a weird spot, Brian, because I played two years
Speaker 1: in Philly.
Speaker 2: I loved everything about it.
Speaker 1: I really clicked in that city and we won, and
Speaker 1: so of course I'm passionate about the Eagles. My kids
Speaker 1: love the Eagles like it's a family thing. My wife's
Speaker 1: from South Jersey. My parents went to Villanova. But when
Speaker 1: I don't give that same love to the la Rams,
Speaker 1: people get kind of.
Speaker 2: Butt hurt about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it has nothing to do with anything other
Speaker 1: than the fact that, like, hey, I played for eight
Speaker 1: years in Saint Louis, it is a fundamentally different thing.
Speaker 1: As much as I'd love to follow the team, and
Speaker 1: I still have some friends. I talked to Aaron Donald
Speaker 1: this morning. Actually, I love some of those people, the Trainers,
Speaker 1: the less Snead, the guy cut me. I had him
Speaker 1: over for dinner. Less Sneed the next summer. I have
Speaker 1: no ill Will. But it is a different thing. You know,
Speaker 1: when the franchise moves, it doesn't feel like the same franchise.
Speaker 1: And so that was tough actually on that show. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember the guy that loves Mermaids,
Speaker 1: William Hayes. He doesn't believe in dinosaurs. He's like my
Speaker 1: best friend. He was just he visited me like two
Speaker 1: months ago.
Speaker 3: He talks to Nicey.
Speaker 2: He definitely talks to Nicy, but still he still figure
Speaker 2: out of it. He's still talking to us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, before we talk about Philly.
Speaker 3: You go to the Patriots for one year. Shocker, you
Speaker 3: win the whole thing after years of losing. Now it's
Speaker 3: got to be fun to be on the other side
Speaker 3: of it. Not only that you went in overtime, the
Speaker 3: biggest comeback in the game's history. By the way, I'm
Speaker 3: from Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that. Do you care? Are you like
Speaker 2: a Falcons fan? I thought you're a Packers fan. Well,
Speaker 2: I complicated.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing, it's got to be kind of like
Speaker 3: for you too, maybe in a way, not exactly. I'm
Speaker 3: not comparing myself to you. I do root for my friends,
Speaker 3: so I mean, I start as a kid, I was
Speaker 3: a Falcons fan, of course, and I have gotten to
Speaker 3: know oh, you know Matt Ryan quite a bit. Great
Speaker 3: guy and great guy, I really And it's weird because
Speaker 3: I think for like, I wasn't going to every Packers
Speaker 3: you know, I would go once or twice a year
Speaker 3: and hopefully the playoffs or whatever. But it was weird,
Speaker 3: like there was a stretch there when Atlanta was also good. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that two years in a row, and I always liked
Speaker 3: going to Lambeau when it's cold, like I like, I
Speaker 3: like that, And two years in a row they're playing
Speaker 3: the Falcons just like, however the schedule like kind of
Speaker 3: and so I would be there, you know, before the
Speaker 3: game or whatever on the field saying and there would
Speaker 3: be Matt always so nice coming over and saying hi,
Speaker 3: or as I'm wearing like the green beanie, and I
Speaker 3: was like, god, like it was a difficult thing for me.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, I was not rooting for you in
Speaker 3: that Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: No, And that's okay.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I was not you won, So course
Speaker 1: I totally understand because like I wouldn't have been rooting
Speaker 1: for me my like I can remember being a I've
Speaker 1: been a big Patriots defender at times because I think,
Speaker 1: like their franchise is amazing.
Speaker 2: I think Tom's amazing.
Speaker 1: But I also used to hate him because in college
Speaker 1: coach grow he's like from the Belichick tree. He used
Speaker 1: to make us where the stupid striped socks and we
Speaker 1: had all the same sayings on the wall and shit.
Speaker 1: So I remember being at the bar like boo, like
Speaker 1: when David Tyree caught that ball and then it's yes, boo,
Speaker 1: and then and then we get to the super Bowl,
Speaker 1: and it came down to for me in free agency,
Speaker 1: and I almost retired before I went up there, but
Speaker 1: I gave it some time.
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, I want to keep playing.
Speaker 1: I've never gotten to win, you know, I've never been
Speaker 1: to the playoffs, never sniffed it. I got to feel
Speaker 1: like cash in on some of his individual's success, enjoy
Speaker 1: what it's like to.
Speaker 2: Be on a team. And it came down to Atlanta
Speaker 2: in New England, and my dad used to say, well,
Speaker 2: I steered him away from Atlanta, but it was a
Speaker 2: traffic in Atlanta. Honestly for me, it's terrible traffic in
Speaker 2: that city. I mean Flowery Branch to Atlanta's like it's
Speaker 2: it's a nightmare.
Speaker 1: Before I got to the meeting with Dan Quinn, I
Speaker 1: was like, dude, I can't sit in the car like this.
Speaker 1: But and he wanted to play me inside, So I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know if I want to play inside.
Speaker 1: Because he wanted me to be as Michael Bennett from Seattle,
Speaker 1: like he wanted me to be the inside, outside guy.
Speaker 1: And ironically, when I got up to New England, that's
Speaker 1: what I ended up doing. In New England is playing
Speaker 1: out like not in where I wanted to play anything
Speaker 1: like that, rushing on the right side, rushing inside. But
Speaker 1: it was an individually trying year because I was trying
Speaker 1: to find my way in that scheme, but also the
Speaker 1: best year of football I can remember, because the guys
Speaker 1: on that team, as much as you hate the Patriots
Speaker 1: people in general, Devin mcforty, Jules Dany Amadola and Ninko
Speaker 1: Tom would treat everybody with respect in that building, and
Speaker 1: I just love the guys man and I love Bill.
Speaker 1: Like when it came down to the you know, the
Speaker 1: end of it, and we finished our parade and I'm
Speaker 1: walking back in the building, all shit faced off the
Speaker 1: duck boats and I'm like, I'm going in, I'm saying,
Speaker 1: and there's no hard feelings, but like I know, I
Speaker 1: can't keep playing here because of the scheme.
Speaker 2: People were like, yo, you're crazy, Like why would you
Speaker 2: leave New England? You were a loser your whole career
Speaker 2: and now you want to be a loser again.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to finish my career playing in a
Speaker 1: scheme that was more suited for what I do. And
Speaker 1: I can remember being in the prepping for the Super Bowl,
Speaker 1: watching tape late at night in the hotel, and I
Speaker 1: vividly remember this. I'm watching Atlanta because we watched that
Speaker 1: team and everybody was played, and watching Atlanta play Philly
Speaker 1: in a game at Philly earlier in the season, and
Speaker 1: I looked at that d line and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: that looks like what I used to do. And at
Speaker 1: that point I wasn't even thinking about anything. But when
Speaker 1: it came time for free agency. I had a buddy,
Speaker 1: Ian Yates Cunningham, who's actually the assistant guy in Chicago
Speaker 1: behind Poles, and I played with him in college and
Speaker 1: he was in Philly with Joe Douglass and I just
Speaker 1: called him. I was like, because nobody was calling me.
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, do you think you use like
Speaker 1: somebody like me? And they like, let me run up
Speaker 1: the flagpole and it just all worked out. And so
Speaker 1: like most people when they leave New England under their
Speaker 1: own power, people are like, there's something wrong, but there
Speaker 1: was nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: I love that place. I love the guys.
Speaker 1: I wasn't crazy about the sun going down at four
Speaker 1: o'clock in the afternoon, but you know, as a southern
Speaker 1: Cali guy, now you know what I'm saying, but I do.
Speaker 2: But I just needed to make the move.
Speaker 1: But I can remember being at halftime, being down twenty
Speaker 1: eight three to that team and thinking I made the
Speaker 1: wrong choice.
Speaker 2: Like every other turn in my life, I screwed it up.
Speaker 3: You know, why did you come back?
Speaker 2: Come back to where?
Speaker 3: Why did you win that game?
Speaker 2: Oh? Why do we come back? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh just tell me, just give me the right ants,
Speaker 3: Just tell me.
Speaker 1: No, I'll tell you why, because I think that sometimes
Speaker 1: when teams get up on a team and they know
Speaker 1: the other teams better, and you start like that protection
Speaker 1: mess up they had with Davante. I can't remember the
Speaker 1: running backs Freeman, but Freeman, nice Devonte Freeman, and he
Speaker 1: let high run free. When they made mistakes like that,
Speaker 1: they gave us an inch. And when you play a
Speaker 1: team like Tom Brady and the Patriots in that era,
Speaker 1: if you give that team an inch, they're going to
Speaker 1: take a mile and then the game changes to where
Speaker 1: the pressure is all on you. And I thought the
Speaker 1: pressure was too much for that team, that Atlanta team.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes you can feel on a team that
Speaker 1: has a history or a franchise that has a history
Speaker 1: of like this thing happening, or this thing happening. You
Speaker 1: can feel those things happening as they're happening, and I
Speaker 1: think it's just snowball. And then finally, and I think
Speaker 1: Shanahan should be talked about what we were talking about
Speaker 1: this this week as one of the greatest coaches of
Speaker 1: our generation, Kyle Shanahan, because look what he's done with
Speaker 1: different quarterbacks. You know, you see Andy struggling a little
Speaker 1: bit right now schematically with the problem they have in
Speaker 1: Kansas City.
Speaker 2: Bill, you know, could be just a guy. I don't
Speaker 2: think so, but without Tom Brady and Shanahan as great
Speaker 2: as a coach as he is, not running the football
Speaker 2: up eight in that football game and kicking a field goal.
Speaker 2: We knocked him out of field goal range twice with
Speaker 2: a sack and a holding call. That's the game, you know.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's a combination of not doing
Speaker 1: the right things in the right situations, but also just
Speaker 1: the feeling like once that game turned, you could tell
Speaker 1: they knew and we knew. When we won the toss
Speaker 1: in overtime, me Dante high Tower, Alan Branch and Rob Nikovich,
Speaker 1: I said, we taking our helmets off, and they're like, yep,
Speaker 1: take them off. Let's go sit and watch the show
Speaker 1: because we're not going back on the field.
Speaker 2: And we knew it. And that's how it ended with
Speaker 2: James White in the end zone.
Speaker 3: Incredible, It was wild.
Speaker 1: I didn't believe it, but I'm not gonna act like
Speaker 1: I believe we were gonna win. Brian, Right, I'm in
Speaker 1: the fucking locker room at the half, and why did
Speaker 1: I make this call? I'm first off, I'm in Rob
Speaker 1: Ninko because Nikovitch before the game, he is like my
Speaker 1: best buddy there. He's like, just trust me, bro, you
Speaker 1: were not going to want to lose a Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: You're gonna wish you went one in fifteen. You're gonna
Speaker 2: wish you were in Saint Louis.
Speaker 1: We lose this game, and it was just echoing in
Speaker 1: my head and we go in to the locker room
Speaker 1: and guys are yelling, and I remember Julian being like, we're.
Speaker 2: Gonna win this game, and I'm like, can we get
Speaker 2: a stop? Like what do you know that? I don't know?
Speaker 1: And maybe it's the loser mentality of being in St.
Speaker 1: Louis for eight years, but those guys knew. You talked
Speaker 1: about it already. You go to Philly, you win back
Speaker 1: to back with two different teams. That hasn't happened a lot,
Speaker 1: and now you beat.
Speaker 3: The team that you just won with. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: all weird, right, weird, Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 1: It was like, I don't believe in karma in the
Speaker 1: NFL because I've seen too many guys that I loved
Speaker 1: and respected that didn't get the you know, the happy
Speaker 1: ending at the end of their career, Like where James Laronidis,
Speaker 1: he was right there with me on that turf, wasting
Speaker 1: his prime. He ends up in New Orleans, his legs
Speaker 1: fall out from under him, you know, in camp he
Speaker 1: just never was the same. And for me to be
Speaker 1: able to catch those two rides, it felt like a
Speaker 1: movie and I was like, I don't know what I
Speaker 1: did deserve this, but hopefully it's just my life, my
Speaker 1: career kind of balancing out and Philly was so magic
Speaker 1: because in New England you were part of a machine
Speaker 1: and I got to feel what that felt like, and
Speaker 1: that is a powerful thing. It's like walking into a
Speaker 1: bulls locker room in the nineties, you know, like this
Speaker 1: is sports history, Like these guys do this and it's
Speaker 1: a different kind of feeling and the leaders man Dante
Speaker 1: hiew are one of the best leaders period I've ever
Speaker 1: been around, and like guys like that who are the
Speaker 1: only way you have people like that is having done it.
Speaker 1: And so that was a great experience. But going down
Speaker 1: to Philly getting picked in the bottom third of league
Speaker 1: total afterthought, I thought we could be good, but I
Speaker 1: had no idea and losing your starting quarterback, it was
Speaker 1: like a movie, man, and for us, for the Vets,
Speaker 1: the way it like we kind of converged on Philly.
Speaker 1: It was like Legarrett Blunt I signed, I start bothering him.
Speaker 1: I'm like, because he was a guy liked in New England,
Speaker 1: I'm like, let's go, dude. And Tory Smith, the guy
Speaker 1: that played in the ACC with me, I knew to
Speaker 1: a little bit him calling me, you know, Joe's bringing
Speaker 1: me to Philly. We should all link up. And then
Speaker 1: Patrick Robinson and it was the perfect emergence of veterans
Speaker 1: and young players and leaders and guys that had been
Speaker 1: there and guys that had won and guys that hadn't,
Speaker 1: and we just had some special in that building. I mean,
Speaker 1: for that year, it was like nobody could stop us.
Speaker 1: There were better teams. But it's like that day we
Speaker 1: beat the Vikings at the Link in the NFC Championship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said at some point anybody could have gotten it
Speaker 1: that night, and Philly people love hearing that, but I
Speaker 1: really mean it.
Speaker 2: There are better teams than us.
Speaker 1: But I don't know on that night who was beating
Speaker 1: us because we just had this this thing, and you
Speaker 1: can't manufacture a thing. It either exists or it doesn't.
Speaker 1: And it was the perfect storm. So you're an Eagle
Speaker 1: yeah in my mind, Yeah, or a Saint Louis Ram.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't exist. They don't exist.
Speaker 3: So how often do you say to Kyle three and zero?
Speaker 2: I like to rhy him a little bit.
Speaker 1: We just broke down the double Joint game the other
Speaker 1: day on the pod, which he's become increasingly more level
Speaker 1: headed about. Okay, but you know, for a guy that
Speaker 1: I had to pull out of a fight with my
Speaker 1: best friend William, like he was beating my friend up.
Speaker 1: The only time he came to Saint Louis, he almost
Speaker 1: got ejected after that game. I kind of didn't want
Speaker 1: to see him in the tunnel because I thought he'd
Speaker 1: be just dejected.
Speaker 3: I felt for him but three and oh, do you
Speaker 3: just walk up to him and say three and oh?
Speaker 3: That's what me and my buddy like. I I you know,
Speaker 3: it's just played golf with a friend of mine. I
Speaker 3: mean if I I just pounded him. We were playing
Speaker 3: this little tournament and I pounded him six and five.
Speaker 3: I beat him six and five, which means I beat
Speaker 3: him up six with five holes left. I said to
Speaker 3: him the rest of the day, probably eight hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy three times six and five.
Speaker 2: Ye you know it's funny because I would rib him,
Speaker 2: but I'll so no. He's a little sensitive. He doesn't
Speaker 2: like that shit.
Speaker 1: And he's also six six, three hundred pounds and he
Speaker 1: could crush me. So Like sometimes we're sitting here doing
Speaker 1: the podcast and I touch a little button, I'm like,
Speaker 1: let me, let me take my hand off the button.
Speaker 1: But I also know which buttons to push. And when
Speaker 1: we were on the field, I was trying to drive
Speaker 1: him crazy. He was talking about this the other day, like,
Speaker 1: I'm a really nice guy, but when I get on
Speaker 1: the field, I'm going to try to drive you nuts.
Speaker 1: And especially if I think you're you're a little bit
Speaker 1: you know, like you don't have it wound too tight,
Speaker 1: which Kyle when he played, I feel like he was
Speaker 1: a loose cannon.
Speaker 2: So we just we target him.
Speaker 1: We just I chirp him and chirp him, and then
Speaker 1: he beat up my friend and almost get ejected or
Speaker 1: but then when you get into tunnel, you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: there's no referees here to stop him from mauling me.
Speaker 3: From killing somebody. I gotta relax. Yeah, I know, I
Speaker 3: don't have much more time. I gotta mention. You're just
Speaker 3: I mean, one, you really make me laugh, but two,
Speaker 3: you're a generous as hell guy. You win and what
Speaker 3: many on the inside consider the most prestigious award that
Speaker 3: you can win in the NFL, including MVP, the Walter
Speaker 3: Payton Man of the Year Award, you win it following
Speaker 3: the twenty eighteen season. In the twenty seventeen season, you
Speaker 3: played for free.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wasn't making that much now, Brian, But yeah, oh
Speaker 1: I never thought about that. Yeah, think about it. You know,
Speaker 1: at this point in my career, they're not paying me
Speaker 1: as much. But yeah, I played for free. You know,
Speaker 1: honestly it started for me. I remember being so on
Speaker 1: the fence about playing, like every year as you get
Speaker 1: older the more bs, especially if you win a Super Bowl,
Speaker 1: You're like, you ask yourself because I got kids and
Speaker 1: I'm at that point in my life, like why am
Speaker 1: I here? Why do I continue to beat myself up?
Speaker 1: Twenty eighteen, I was in line. This is before we
Speaker 1: started four and six off the Super Bowl, and maybe
Speaker 1: I wish I'd gotten out of line, but I remember
Speaker 1: getting in line for physicals and I was like, just
Speaker 1: fucking walk out. You don't want to be here, be
Speaker 1: a man about it and walk out, you know, like,
Speaker 1: don't do this thing that you're half in on. But
Speaker 1: once I'm in, I'm in. And so I got to
Speaker 1: the end of the line and I kept playing, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad I did. But in twenty seventeen, I was
Speaker 1: kind of like every year was like ah maybe, and
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, I want to do something special.
Speaker 1: I want to do something that's a lot bigger than
Speaker 1: me and something to ensure that I'm dead serious about
Speaker 1: coming to work every day because I didn't know where
Speaker 1: my head was at. You know, when you're answering for
Speaker 1: yourself at a certain point in life, you're just going
Speaker 1: through the motions.
Speaker 2: You know, you're on a treadmill. That never ends.
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing with being a father or
Speaker 1: you know, heading an organization or being responsible for the
Speaker 1: people that work here at Greenlight, like you should do
Speaker 1: something that's bigger than you. And for me, at that point,
Speaker 1: I wanted to make the world a better place and
Speaker 1: I still do. But I had a really big platform,
Speaker 1: and I thought really hard about just not saying anything
Speaker 1: about it and just give the money, because there's plenty
Speaker 1: of people that had given that amount of money before
Speaker 1: and didn't get a damn parade about it. But for me,
Speaker 1: I just looked at it like my pride's going to
Speaker 1: get in the way of maybe doubling this investment in
Speaker 1: what I care about. I need to come out and
Speaker 1: see if these fans will meet me halfway.
Speaker 2: And they did.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: They they doubled my investment in at equity and in
Speaker 1: the scholarships we were doing, and it was like a
Speaker 1: springboard for everything we've continued to do. So I mean,
Speaker 1: like those two years, we raised a lot of money,
Speaker 1: the whole thing. We gave a lot of effort in
Speaker 1: that city and I fell in love with the city.
Speaker 1: But getting the Man of the Year, I was almost
Speaker 1: I'm not even lying to you, and these guys keep
Speaker 1: referencing them, but they tell you it's not my most
Speaker 1: proud thing, because I really don't think that's why you
Speaker 1: do it. You know, Like I said this to Lane
Speaker 1: Johnson the other day, who's like a little brother to me,
Speaker 1: and I love the guy. He's just he's awesome, and
Speaker 1: he got nominated for a Man of the Year, which
Speaker 1: means he is one of the guys that's gonna be
Speaker 1: up on that stage.
Speaker 2: You already won. You know, you did the work. You know,
Speaker 2: the work is why you do it, and then you're.
Speaker 3: Getting attention for the charity that you're trying to help
Speaker 3: us well, which is is that's the reason that's it.
Speaker 1: If it's pragmatically going to help us awesome. You try
Speaker 1: to do things for altruistic reasons, you know, you're not
Speaker 1: trying to do it to get And that was the
Speaker 1: one thing that made me kind of uncomfortable was, you know,
Speaker 1: people looking at it and then also stand up on
Speaker 1: stage with a bunch of guys who aren't gonna win.
Speaker 2: Why am I better than Kyle Rudolph, Why am I
Speaker 2: better in this guy? Why?
Speaker 1: So the way I look at it, everybody that gets nominated.
Speaker 1: Every year wins, you know, you do win because people
Speaker 1: care about your stuff more. But the reason I really
Speaker 1: won was getting a relationship that started with the Walter
Speaker 1: Payton family. Like super cool to me to get to
Speaker 1: know his family and his family's evidence of his greatness,
Speaker 1: everything they've done to continue his legacy. And Jarrett, like
Speaker 1: his son, been through the same things I've been through
Speaker 1: with having great expectations. And he played in the league
Speaker 1: for a while and we've got a cool friendship.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: This summer, he came to visit me in Montana because
Speaker 1: I spend summer in Montana, up there near Clay and
Speaker 1: he was like, we got to get together. I'm doing
Speaker 1: this thing for Walter Payton Man of the Year. We'll
Speaker 1: do some footage. What do you like to do outside.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I like to hike, So we're going
Speaker 1: to go on a hike. I forgot to tell him
Speaker 1: how the altitude was there, but he made it halfway
Speaker 1: up the mountain, but he came all the way up
Speaker 1: to see me. And it's just I got a lifelong friend,
Speaker 1: and I think I won for that, like having, you know,
Speaker 1: having been on that stage with those guys.
Speaker 2: No matter if you want or loss. You're a winner,
Speaker 2: and so for Lane, for any of these guys, it's
Speaker 2: just great to be discussed. One, You're an incredible guy
Speaker 2: and I really admire you. I've always admired you as
Speaker 2: a football player.
Speaker 3: Now I can add making me laugh to the list,
Speaker 3: which is I don't know, and you know to me
Speaker 3: that it doesn't get much better than that as well.
Speaker 3: And you're a good dude. You're crushing it in the
Speaker 3: media that you're doing now, the iconic television show Inside
Speaker 3: the NFL, you're now a part of that. You've got
Speaker 3: the green Light podcast. Is it hard for you to
Speaker 3: talk about you know, you're you're not you haven't been
Speaker 3: gone that long, so you still have friends that are
Speaker 3: in the league. Is hard? Is it hard for you
Speaker 3: to talk about them or coaches?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Totally.
Speaker 1: Every time I get on the mic, I imagine I'm
Speaker 1: pissing somebody off, and that's the reality of it. And
Speaker 1: I've gotten better at just be you know, okay with it.
Speaker 1: You know, I care what people think. So does anybody
Speaker 1: that has one of these, right Like, it's so easy
Speaker 1: to be like, I don't care what anybody thinks, right Like,
Speaker 1: that's the pursuit, but like you have to have some
Speaker 1: you know, otherwise you wouldn't be doing it. Otherwise I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be trying to do the best I very can
Speaker 1: at it. For me, I just a responsibility that I
Speaker 1: take seriously to get people the right information, you know.
Speaker 1: And so whether it's today watching film for four hours
Speaker 1: and sitting here getting ready for the previews, or Sunday
Speaker 1: night I'm up till two in the morning, make sure
Speaker 1: I've seen every game like I could mail it in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I really do care what these people think. And
Speaker 1: if somebody, by the off hand chance, here's what I
Speaker 1: say about them, I better be right or fair or
Speaker 1: frame it correctly. And I think my dad helped me
Speaker 1: with that because growing up, his thing was like, I
Speaker 1: don't I want to be fair. I don't question people's injuries.
Speaker 1: I'm careful about questioning people's efforts. You don't attack people personally.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I've fallen short at times because of the
Speaker 1: casual nature of what we do. It's supposed to be
Speaker 1: like guys just bullshitting on a couch, and I can
Speaker 1: fall into that, but I try to be respectful because
Speaker 1: I have been in that seat and there are guys
Speaker 1: that made me feel a certain way when I heard
Speaker 1: what they had to say about me.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, you're doing a fantastic job.
Speaker 2: Thanks truly.
Speaker 3: On the podcast integrating sports and culture and entertainment, it's
Speaker 3: a lot of fun to listen to, Truly, I wish
Speaker 3: you all the best in that.
Speaker 2: Thanks Brian.
Speaker 3: And on inside the NFL. And I know you've got
Speaker 3: yate House Media that you've started new production company and studio.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to see what's coming out for you.
Speaker 2: See, we've got some stuff cooking. But we'll see. Man.
Speaker 2: I was trying to just trying to trying to make
Speaker 2: sure the show's fun and I'm enjoying it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, well listen, what I hope is our paths
Speaker 3: crossed here very soon. You'll be in Vegas here in February.
Speaker 2: You're gonna go to the game.
Speaker 3: I will be there. All right, let's get together, Yeah,
Speaker 3: let's do. Maybe the Packers are in it. We'll find
Speaker 3: a time. You think you think the way they look
Speaker 3: the other night, but look that's all they did look really,
Speaker 3: especially with the injuries they've had. Look, I know, I
Speaker 3: we could do, we could talk forever.
Speaker 2: You gotta come up I'm gonna get you online one
Speaker 2: of these days. I'll give you plenty of notice.
Speaker 3: Well, now that you talked about how I know what
Speaker 3: I'm talking about, that's exactly that's gonna be on my
Speaker 3: bio from here on out. Thanks Chris, Chris, thank you
Speaker 3: so much for being here. I will see you in
Speaker 3: Las Vegas in just a few weeks for the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: Great to have you on here. Guess what He'll always
Speaker 3: be my first long listeners check out green Light on
Speaker 3: the podcast app of your choice. Also, be sure to
Speaker 3: watch Inside the NFL on the CW. I'm going to
Speaker 3: be back next time with a wish, a real wish
Speaker 3: that you have a great week off. The Beat is
Speaker 3: hosted and executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our
Speaker 3: executive producer Linglee. Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our
Speaker 3: producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris, and Emily Carr. Our
Speaker 3: talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary, and our intern is
Speaker 3: Ali Amir Sahed. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak perform
Speaker 3: by the one and Only creep Bread