Speaker 1: Practice, Rolfics, Patrick Throwing, Hi Parker Tuxtown. What a win
Speaker 1: for this Miami Dolphin team? Wow? What is up? Dolphins?
Speaker 1: And welcome to the Drive Time Podcast, part of the
Speaker 1: Miami Dolphins official podcast network covering your Miami Dolphins. I
Speaker 1: am your host, Travis Wingfield, and as always, I am
Speaker 1: here to bring you your daily dose of Miami Dolphins football.
Speaker 1: And on today's show, I'm joined by a very special
Speaker 1: guest to discuss a variety of topics from his time
Speaker 1: as a Dolphin and also his opinions on the current team.
Speaker 1: All of that and much much more with Channing Crowder.
Speaker 1: All of that and much much more. On This Monday
Speaker 1: marks the sixteenth edition of the Drive Time Podcast. Going
Speaker 1: After and Cat, I'm got the football, but you get
Speaker 1: Channing Crowder with an interception at the thirty yard line
Speaker 1: and this football game is over the Miami Dolphins. You're
Speaker 1: gonna win this game. And I am so excited to
Speaker 1: welcome in the Dolphins third round draft pick in two
Speaker 1: thousand five. He spent his entire six year career in Miami,
Speaker 1: racking up four hundred and seventy tackles. He's the co
Speaker 1: host of The Hawkman and Crowder Show on five sixty
Speaker 1: w q A. M Channing, Crowder Channing. What's going on? Man?
Speaker 1: What's up big? It's good to see you two. Got
Speaker 1: this gype going on the other end of the other
Speaker 1: end of the country over there, And I think that's
Speaker 1: a good place to start here on the podcast because
Speaker 1: it's a crazy time right now. Channing and sports have
Speaker 1: largely been put on hold. You mentioned you've got the
Speaker 1: day off today from the radio station. That never happens.
Speaker 1: Can you give us a player's perspective on events that
Speaker 1: get like canceled like this, or something that has transpired
Speaker 1: in the same vein as the coronavirus, the Corona pandemic,
Speaker 1: and how you have to respond to that as a player. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't. I wasn't part of this obviously. I don't
Speaker 1: think you know in my time time. I'm thirty six
Speaker 1: years old and never been a part of a pandemic.
Speaker 1: But athletes are so scheduled, bro Like, they tell you
Speaker 1: every day of your entire life, what you need to do,
Speaker 1: way you need to be, what time you have to be,
Speaker 1: or what time you have to be there. And for
Speaker 1: something like this to get thrown in NFL, right now
Speaker 1: not so much. I know that they might push back
Speaker 1: free agency because they can't visit, they might push stuff back.
Speaker 1: But for like the NBA guys, they had seventeen to
Speaker 1: twenty games left and all their seasons and now they're
Speaker 1: just stopping. So like, this is for an athlete and
Speaker 1: for you know, continuity with the team, you know, getting
Speaker 1: to know your teammates and understanding that you're suppsed to
Speaker 1: be playing your best heading into the playoffs. The NBA
Speaker 1: rights now is about to just start and jump in
Speaker 1: the playoffs. So yes, this is something none of us
Speaker 1: you covering sports your whole life, meet playing in our
Speaker 1: covering sports man. This is nothing that I've ever seen,
Speaker 1: I've never been a part of. But I would say
Speaker 1: from an athlete's perspective, being scheduled, having everything scheduled for
Speaker 1: you kind of like the reason why a lot of
Speaker 1: guys struggled to retire is where they don't have that schedule.
Speaker 1: So to have this just stopped. And I've talked to
Speaker 1: some guys where NBA guys are saying, I was like,
Speaker 1: are they practicing, are they going back to camp? Like
Speaker 1: what are they doing? And nobody knows because no one's
Speaker 1: dealt with this. Pat Ridy and Erik Spolster down with
Speaker 1: the Miami there are two of the greatest of all time.
Speaker 1: But how do you deal with a pandemic? I think
Speaker 1: all sports league, you see MLS, you see n C
Speaker 1: double A canceled their tournament. Just no one really knows
Speaker 1: how to deal with this, because, to be honest, no
Speaker 1: one has ever dealt with this. So hopefully after the
Speaker 1: thirty day hiatus that the NBA has taken, I think
Speaker 1: Adam Silver doing a great job. He's kind of setting
Speaker 1: the president athletical league for what leagues and and and
Speaker 1: and associations are supposed to do. So after this third
Speaker 1: day hiatus will have a lot more information. And be honest,
Speaker 1: guy's a lot smarter than me. And you need to
Speaker 1: figure out what to do with these leagues because yeah,
Speaker 1: and if they called asked me, I like my phone
Speaker 1: was about to die, I wouldn't know what to do.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. And I keep seeing all these hot
Speaker 1: takes on Twitter and whatnot. It's like, why don't we
Speaker 1: just have the people that are in charge make these decisions.
Speaker 1: I'm right there with you all the way. And you
Speaker 1: mentioned the regimented idea of an athlete, and that was
Speaker 1: kind of my next question was how big of a
Speaker 1: challenge is it to get off of that everyday routine,
Speaker 1: because even for me in this position, it's I mean
Speaker 1: eight to five, I have every fifteen minutes or so
Speaker 1: blocked out. I have to imagine when it comes to
Speaker 1: an athlete and getting your body right and taking you know, naps,
Speaker 1: are getting the proper nutrition into your body. It's just
Speaker 1: got to be such a change to all of a
Speaker 1: sudden stop operations completely and get to this point to where,
Speaker 1: like you said, we don't know what we're gonna do,
Speaker 1: and I mentioned, what's something that you've been through that
Speaker 1: was a bit of a curve ball, and I came
Speaker 1: up with a game from I think it was two
Speaker 1: thousand five, might have been your rookie year when the
Speaker 1: Saints were going through Hurricane Katrina. Yeah, that's when. That's
Speaker 1: when Katrina was So it was two thousand and five
Speaker 1: and you guys had to play at baton rouge. Was
Speaker 1: that was that any different for you as a player
Speaker 1: or just the same Because it was a road game,
Speaker 1: it was a lot easier for us because it was
Speaker 1: a road game. You hit it on the head where
Speaker 1: instead of going to the you know what as a superdome,
Speaker 1: we just went up to bat room. So we got
Speaker 1: off the plane just like we do when we played
Speaker 1: the Giants, the Jets, the Charge. It was the same
Speaker 1: for us, you know, the Patriots, but we just went
Speaker 1: to another stadium. But I remember just being and I've
Speaker 1: actually played l s U in college, so I remember
Speaker 1: walking in and the little Eddie bittie college locker room,
Speaker 1: and you know, just the different atmosphere used to these
Speaker 1: elite stadiums. Well, the old San Diego was a college stadium,
Speaker 1: but most of them are real nice. So even that,
Speaker 1: I'm sure for the same too, it was a lot harder.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know, with with all the you know,
Speaker 1: natural disasses that going, it is tough. But I'll give
Speaker 1: example like that. Thomas, no exaggeration. He had every second
Speaker 1: of his day plans. He had his he had his
Speaker 1: his four four hundred grams of protein, his sixteen hundred
Speaker 1: grams of cards, He had his vitamins in like a
Speaker 1: little lunch box. He took a four four or fourteen
Speaker 1: in the morning, eight sixteen. He had everything regimented. A
Speaker 1: beside guy, he had a stretching guy come to his
Speaker 1: house at night. I used to go over his house
Speaker 1: after practice and he would watch film until he fell
Speaker 1: asleep in his in his theater. Like he was so
Speaker 1: regiment on what he did. And I know that going
Speaker 1: to and the win to New Orleans, I know that
Speaker 1: affected him because I would talk to him and Bro,
Speaker 1: this ain't right. Bro is how it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1: It's a how it's supposed to be. And it was
Speaker 1: a longer drive from New Orleans down the Baton Rougen. Also,
Speaker 1: like I know those elite athletes, those guys that really
Speaker 1: treat their body like a high woman's race car. You
Speaker 1: change that, You change them, you change their approach it.
Speaker 1: It might be a lot of psychological, it might be
Speaker 1: a lot more psychological and actually, you know, affecting the
Speaker 1: guy's play. But once you're used to something like that.
Speaker 1: When I got in the league, exactly in the league
Speaker 1: for oh five, he was a ten year vat, he
Speaker 1: was a multi was six time profile. By the time
Speaker 1: I got there, he losed what he knew what it
Speaker 1: takes to be great. So now you're changing his greatness.
Speaker 1: A lot of mental stuff, A lot of guys second
Speaker 1: guessing theirselves, second guessing the decisions people make. We had
Speaker 1: I played of the Chiefs down here, I want to
Speaker 1: say six or seven sometime, and there was a storm coming.
Speaker 1: They moved the game to Friday night, and that messed
Speaker 1: up everybody because now you couldn't get your Friday massage.
Speaker 1: You had to move your Friday inside the Wednesday. You
Speaker 1: had to move everything back, and that Ferrari that that
Speaker 1: race car couldn't get ready like it was used to
Speaker 1: getting ready. So for an athlete, it's gonna be tough.
Speaker 1: I think the I think the the the style of
Speaker 1: play and the quality of play in the NBA. If
Speaker 1: they do I heard I was reading day they said
Speaker 1: n C Double A might do like a six team
Speaker 1: team mini tournament over a weekend. The quality of play
Speaker 1: is gonna go down. The style of play has to
Speaker 1: be a just it's not gonna look like playoff and
Speaker 1: tournament basketball because of the fact that that regiment changed,
Speaker 1: that that that greatness push that everybody has at all
Speaker 1: levels has changed now. So I'm hoping that they figured
Speaker 1: out and give us high quality sports. But right now, man,
Speaker 1: I'm waiting to watch a UFC fight in Brazil this weekend.
Speaker 1: Bro I I can't do that every weekend XFL. I
Speaker 1: thought I had the xfilm. Man, they're not even giving
Speaker 1: me that. Man. But it's it's it's gonna be tough
Speaker 1: on the athletes and be honest now and outside hell,
Speaker 1: it's tough on the spectator. It's tough on the analysts.
Speaker 1: We were talking, we were talking about you know, the
Speaker 1: best salty snack today and Mount Rushmore Viney's in the
Speaker 1: history of sports were you know, we're reaching out to
Speaker 1: do stuff. But it you take sports out of this world,
Speaker 1: you take a lot of be honest, a lot of passion,
Speaker 1: a lot of love, and a lot of money and
Speaker 1: a lot of jobs. I think the NBA salary cap
Speaker 1: goes down next year for the you know, for the
Speaker 1: first time, I want to say, and seven eight years
Speaker 1: goes down because of the fact that the coronavirus is
Speaker 1: messing up the TV money at all, and the stuff
Speaker 1: that happened with China and the owner of the Rockets
Speaker 1: earlier this year. I think that can bind. That's gonna
Speaker 1: take the money down. So a financial aspect of this
Speaker 1: as well, I think you're gonna be left with just
Speaker 1: darts and bowling by the time this is all over
Speaker 1: with in terms of what's on your television. Maybe NASCAR,
Speaker 1: but I don't know how far you venture into that
Speaker 1: type of stuff. But you mentioned that that Dolphins Chiefs
Speaker 1: game back from the mid two thousands, and I remember
Speaker 1: that as a fan because you talked about the impact
Speaker 1: it has on players, on analysts, on fans, you know,
Speaker 1: as I was back in that time and it wasn't
Speaker 1: on direct TV, and so I didn't get a chance
Speaker 1: to watch that game. I had to fall along along
Speaker 1: with the old like game the NFL game center, like
Speaker 1: a little dots and the Dolphins helmet, like here's a
Speaker 1: tackle for lost channion cry, I'm like, yeah, celebrating my computer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you see I go. You see it move a
Speaker 1: couple of inches? Like no, no, I get a stop.
Speaker 1: It's it's, you know, a tough way to watch a game.
Speaker 1: But those with the old times were in modern times
Speaker 1: and things have certainly changed. But I want to transition
Speaker 1: now chanting back into what it looks like for a
Speaker 1: normal year because one of the things that always fascinates
Speaker 1: me as a lifelong football fan and now journalist is
Speaker 1: the expectation of rookies coming into the NFL I asked
Speaker 1: Christian Wilkins about this on the podcast last week. And
Speaker 1: the off season for a rookie coming into the league,
Speaker 1: you go right from your season ends to Combine preparation,
Speaker 1: to the Combine to Pro Days, then the draft, then
Speaker 1: you got rookie mini camps for your experience from the
Speaker 1: last day of Florida up until the day the Dolphins
Speaker 1: drafted you. How are juist or just how I guess
Speaker 1: would you describe that experience in that three or four
Speaker 1: month period. Most stressful time in my life. Being in
Speaker 1: the league is not as stressful being in college, even
Speaker 1: getting recruited because they love you, Like when when you're
Speaker 1: coming from high school of college that they love you.
Speaker 1: They tell you you're the greatest of all time. You're
Speaker 1: gonna be the next Ray Lewis, You're gonna be. You know,
Speaker 1: they love you because they want to come there school.
Speaker 1: In the NFL, you're you're they're hiring you. So it's different.
Speaker 1: And then these guys come and I remember sitting down
Speaker 1: with Mike type, sitting down with Belichech, sitting down with
Speaker 1: it was um uh green Bay Jim Jim Bates. He
Speaker 1: was very interested. He was a Green Bay at the time.
Speaker 1: It was right after he left as the interim head
Speaker 1: coach with the Dolphins. I just remember sitting down with
Speaker 1: all these prestigious guys, all Ron Rivera's and those guys,
Speaker 1: and they're not loving on you. They're trying to weed
Speaker 1: out the trash. And that's what that that draft process,
Speaker 1: and that's the thing I tell everybody. The combine drills,
Speaker 1: they're stressful. The goal. I didn't do anything at the
Speaker 1: combine because I was Mail Kuiper lied to me I
Speaker 1: was real first round guaranteed. So I can't stay on
Speaker 1: mal Kaiper to this day, but I was I was
Speaker 1: gonna be one of the top three linebackers taken, so
Speaker 1: I on even do nothing. I'll work out of my
Speaker 1: pro day at all. But even that the stress of
Speaker 1: looking at They give you a note card when you
Speaker 1: get to Indianapolis and it says ten fifteen AM Colts,
Speaker 1: ten thirty AM Jaguars, eleven fifteen Falcons, and you just
Speaker 1: have this list of all these teams and you're walking
Speaker 1: in with owners, head coaches, deep deep coordinators, linebacker coaches,
Speaker 1: and now you have to put on your best like
Speaker 1: it's like almost like speed dating. I have to sell
Speaker 1: you the best of me in fifteen minutes, real fast.
Speaker 1: And then after you go through that entire process of
Speaker 1: the of the combine and all. Now you get a
Speaker 1: couple of men, a couple of weeks off, and now
Speaker 1: every coach in NFL is coming to your college. So
Speaker 1: now I gotta perform. Now I gotta go out here. Well, now,
Speaker 1: at the time Florida they let people. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of spectators that pro day. So now your
Speaker 1: buddies are out there. Now all your teammates are out there,
Speaker 1: the same coaches that are putting pressure on you. Bill
Speaker 1: Belichick actually worked me out personally when it was linebacker
Speaker 1: real time. He went and grabbed the ball and started
Speaker 1: doing it, pointing each way and getting to see one
Speaker 1: of my hips moving all. So now that's stress. So
Speaker 1: now okay, I'm done with the physical side of doing
Speaker 1: the interviews. Where am I gonna get drafted? Am I going?
Speaker 1: Am I going? You know? Top twenty? Like Mel Kraiper
Speaker 1: told me, is my multiple multiple, multiple multiple arrest is
Speaker 1: gonna affect me. My knee surgeons gonna affect me. So
Speaker 1: just the stress of that. So now actually then you
Speaker 1: go through the draft, my drafting I thought I was
Speaker 1: going first round and go to third round. It was
Speaker 1: still on the first day. Back in O five it
Speaker 1: was the first and third round and oh five, so
Speaker 1: dredraft started at twelve. I went fishing with my buddies.
Speaker 1: Had a big cooler for the bill when he got
Speaker 1: a bunch of wings. You know, hey, I'm going first round.
Speaker 1: We'll be out here on the lake fishing. You know,
Speaker 1: the Green Bay packers will call me, and you know,
Speaker 1: and and give me this big contract couple eight ten
Speaker 1: million dollars guaranteed I'm good to go at Tory and pick.
Speaker 1: And then they don't call me. And then the Patriots
Speaker 1: actually promised me if I'm available at thirty two, they
Speaker 1: were gonna take me. They might have done some more
Speaker 1: research on my off the field activities will call them
Speaker 1: and they end up passing on me. I didn't get
Speaker 1: drafted Hill eight fifteen that night. So the first rounds
Speaker 1: around about ended about two to thirty. For the next
Speaker 1: five and a half six hours, I didn't know where
Speaker 1: I was going, how far am I gonna slip, What's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. That's just a lot of stress. I was
Speaker 1: twenty years old. I came out of the sophomore. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of stress on, you know, with a lot
Speaker 1: of people. My mom's there, my sisters, my mom's hope,
Speaker 1: everybody's in games Bill because I'm about to go and
Speaker 1: change the family's outcome. I'm about to go and get
Speaker 1: this generational wealth of all this money. And the money
Speaker 1: doesn't come. I still get drafted in the first day.
Speaker 1: But that's stressed there. That's not even the hardest part. Bro.
Speaker 1: Now you get to a team and I walk into
Speaker 1: a linebacker room. These are the starters when I walked
Speaker 1: in that room, So I'm they drafted me third round
Speaker 1: to come in and you know, play the run. I
Speaker 1: was a run stopping guy. I was two fifty. I
Speaker 1: was a big old boy. The starting linebackers were junior Sayale,
Speaker 1: Jason Taylor, Zach Thomas, and me. I was the weakest link.
Speaker 1: I went from All American in high school to All
Speaker 1: American in college two time. All that sec to the
Speaker 1: weakest link. Like and it's not even it's not it's
Speaker 1: not it's not an art. It's not art. You can't
Speaker 1: argue it. I was the weakest link. Sam Madison was
Speaker 1: still there past thirteen, just got traded when I got there,
Speaker 1: Keith Trailer, Vanni Holiday, Kevin Carter. I'm looking around like
Speaker 1: these are the guys I played with on video games,
Speaker 1: and now I have to go out here and perform
Speaker 1: for them. The hell with Nick Saban. I want to
Speaker 1: form Nick Saban when I walked and so I'll have
Speaker 1: j T and Zach to look at you if you
Speaker 1: mess up. I had to perform for them. I don't.
Speaker 1: And let's that down. I said all the time that
Speaker 1: the three people I get credit for from for me
Speaker 1: making an NFL, not getting there, but making it. God
Speaker 1: number one, my mom number two, Zach Thomas three four.
Speaker 1: He taught me how to be a pro. He taught
Speaker 1: me how to train, he taught me how to work,
Speaker 1: he taught me how to watch film. And now you're
Speaker 1: going out there with the best of the best in
Speaker 1: the world, as you respect so much, and you have
Speaker 1: to perform on that level with guys that have four
Speaker 1: or five mortgages, have three or four baby mamas, have
Speaker 1: child's import to pay. They're not coming out like college like, hey, bro,
Speaker 1: let's go out and have a fun time. At that point,
Speaker 1: I hear the grind and get paid and get these
Speaker 1: contracts and it just keeps building up and building up.
Speaker 1: I would say that starts that pressure and that that
Speaker 1: that demand of yourself that you put in your body,
Speaker 1: your whole life. That doesn't subside until probably the regular
Speaker 1: season starts and you're locked into your position. You're locked
Speaker 1: into your job, you're locked into the defense. You know
Speaker 1: what to do. But man, from my last game, which
Speaker 1: was the Peach Bowl against Miami, we got whooped, until
Speaker 1: my first game in the league, which was the Denver
Speaker 1: Broncos at home the year they went we end up
Speaker 1: beating him. Were one of the four teams that beat him.
Speaker 1: It was a hundred and twenty degrees on the field.
Speaker 1: They called it the twelfth man. Champ Bailey will steal
Speaker 1: their ball like they had a team, and they end
Speaker 1: up they want to playoffs one, two o four. But
Speaker 1: from Miami in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta to that
Speaker 1: first game in Miami against the Broncos, that stress was
Speaker 1: the most stressful, mentally demanding and physically demanding time in
Speaker 1: my life. That's a tough stress for all these young
Speaker 1: guys that are going through it right now. It kind
Speaker 1: of reminds me of the old saying, Like they say
Speaker 1: that the hard part is supposed to be practice, and
Speaker 1: you gotta go out on game days and have the
Speaker 1: fund all the poking and prodding, that's just the stuff
Speaker 1: that an athlete like yourself definitely not gonna enjoy. You
Speaker 1: made a couple of comments and that I want to
Speaker 1: get back to you real quick. I do want to
Speaker 1: talk more about Zach Thomas, because I knew he had
Speaker 1: a great influence on your career and you personally. But
Speaker 1: you mentioned going to the draft and possibly to go
Speaker 1: into Green Bay. Now I want to circle back to
Speaker 1: a story Utah on the Fish Tank about your recruiting
Speaker 1: trip to Penn State when you got out and you said,
Speaker 1: you know, you went into a dorm room and it
Speaker 1: was fine, and then you look outside and there's six
Speaker 1: inches of snow on the ground. So maybe going to
Speaker 1: Miami over Green Bay not the worst thing in the world. Right,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, I look at it. I'm a I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not going to church every Sunday, but
Speaker 1: I ain't a lot to it. But I am a
Speaker 1: spiritual guy. If I got drafted a Green Bay or
Speaker 1: New England or the teams that were interested in me,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have came down here, I wouldn't have, you know,
Speaker 1: met my wife. I wouldn't have got around these great coaches.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have got an opportunity to be in the
Speaker 1: media like I am. I might have, but I don't
Speaker 1: know for sure. I wouldn't have met Zach Thomas. I
Speaker 1: don't know if there was a guy in Green Bay
Speaker 1: or New England or who else was it um Atlanta
Speaker 1: that would have took me under their wing that would
Speaker 1: know how to not just play ball, but how to teach.
Speaker 1: And Zach knew how to teach ball and play ball.
Speaker 1: So everything happens for a reason. Did my four A
Speaker 1: c L reconstructions, then my multiple arrest? Did all that
Speaker 1: stuff come back to bite me financially? Early on? It did,
Speaker 1: but wasn't a blessing in the skuise. As I look
Speaker 1: back as a thirty six year old, now I was.
Speaker 1: I was pissed on Draft night. Now I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: I was pissed us now going from ten million dollars
Speaker 1: guaranteed to third round. Man, I'm not making a million dollars.
Speaker 1: If I'm making a hundred tackles this ship, you know,
Speaker 1: it was a big difference financially, But it was a
Speaker 1: blessing in the skies. End up getting to my second contract,
Speaker 1: end up having just the most amazing coach, George Edwards,
Speaker 1: who was now the d C of the Vikings. Just
Speaker 1: all the people I met, all the people I were around.
Speaker 1: I think that was a blessing in the skies. But
Speaker 1: I'm with you in that cold. I can't deal with cold. Now,
Speaker 1: my kids love the ski. I don't leave the lodge,
Speaker 1: the shellette, whatever they call it. I sit there and
Speaker 1: I drank beer and whiskey with all the old, rich,
Speaker 1: fat guys the entire ski week. My kids going, I'm
Speaker 1: not going out in the snow. We got off the
Speaker 1: plane from Pittsburgh, and now the paternal name is is ruined.
Speaker 1: Ja Pa turned Joe Pa turn On. That's ruined. But
Speaker 1: jay Pa Turno flew to Pittsburgh to pick me and
Speaker 1: my mom up and brought us back on the little plane.
Speaker 1: It was. It was when we when we were flying
Speaker 1: and I'm looking down and seeing the snow. I said, Coach,
Speaker 1: I can't play here. He said, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: I was looking at that. And then Courtney Brown end
Speaker 1: up being my host, the guy that got drafted. The
Speaker 1: Browns end up being my host. Were in their apartment
Speaker 1: and he's like, hey, we're going out, going leaving this
Speaker 1: place for what it wasn't six and it was about
Speaker 1: the foot of snow. I said, I said, how do
Speaker 1: you party in this? They go to the party. Everybody's
Speaker 1: wrapped up in jackets. I'm like, man, I'm used to
Speaker 1: Atlanta in Miami and I was in Gamesville. Everybody with
Speaker 1: girls were basis, Yeah, I was a shirt off guy.
Speaker 1: I had a six pack, but I was a shirt off.
Speaker 1: I would get naked in the club. But yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I I saw that snow and that's the new Pine.
Speaker 1: State was the only Northern team that that I showed
Speaker 1: any interesting because my dad was a multiple time All American. Damn.
Speaker 1: My dad played for the Dolphins as well. But they
Speaker 1: brought me to two summer camps, which made me love
Speaker 1: it because State College is a great, beautiful, beautiful place.
Speaker 1: They brought me on my visit January eleven, and that
Speaker 1: was that was the reason why I did not be
Speaker 1: a coming ninny lion. I didn't follow my dad's footsteps
Speaker 1: and liniens and all that stuff because I am not
Speaker 1: going to live in two ft of snow. I've never
Speaker 1: to do it. And if somebody put off me a
Speaker 1: lot of damn money to move north of the Bible
Speaker 1: Belt somewhere because I don't like this, you know, well,
Speaker 1: that's a good part to the kind of segue into
Speaker 1: the part after your rookie year. In the first four
Speaker 1: years of your contract you mentioned kind of that financial
Speaker 1: hit you took. But then eventually you did get the
Speaker 1: extension with the Miami Dolphins, and that happened. I want
Speaker 1: to say, was it a week or two before free agency?
Speaker 1: Was it really close to when the market opened up? Yes?
Speaker 1: They It's funny because when they when the Dolphins called
Speaker 1: me and Joel Siegel, he he was my age of
Speaker 1: big time agent. Now he's still he's still you know,
Speaker 1: represents a bunch of guys. And when they asked me,
Speaker 1: what contract do you want after my fourth year? What
Speaker 1: contract do you want? Brian Urlacher just signed his big deal.
Speaker 1: So we got Brian url his contract. We we literally
Speaker 1: just put white out over his name and put my
Speaker 1: name on top and sent it to him. Because if
Speaker 1: you asked me to do it. Now a car dealership
Speaker 1: they say, hey, Mr crowd, and how much you want
Speaker 1: to spend. I say five bucks, like you want to
Speaker 1: buy a car from five dollars. I said, you're asking
Speaker 1: me what I want. I want to buy a car
Speaker 1: for five dollars. Well, and we're going to it. So
Speaker 1: I approach free agency the same way. How much are
Speaker 1: you asking me do I want? I want Brian law
Speaker 1: Lacker his money. I want the forty million dollars guaranteed.
Speaker 1: Whatever you had at the time. And we went back
Speaker 1: and forth with my injury history. They didn't want to
Speaker 1: sign me to a long term deal five six years
Speaker 1: because I had, you know, a bunch of these surgeries, microfractutions.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm at seventeen knee surgeries now, you know throughout
Speaker 1: my life starting in the grade. Now, so I you know,
Speaker 1: I knew I was damaged good. So then we got
Speaker 1: to three years. So we sent him a three year deal.
Speaker 1: I want to say the first second week of the season,
Speaker 1: early in the season. They went back and forth all
Speaker 1: the way through the season, all the way through the
Speaker 1: off season, all the way up to life this time,
Speaker 1: right before free agency started. I think I would have
Speaker 1: been I wouldn't have been I would have been out
Speaker 1: of contract. I wouldn't have had I'd had a little
Speaker 1: a little NFL symbol next to my face on TV
Speaker 1: at like eight midnight that night or the next morning whatever,
Speaker 1: And they called Joe Siegel at about four or thirty
Speaker 1: and told them the first deal of the first three
Speaker 1: year did you you you know, three for fifteen whenever
Speaker 1: we gave him, we'll sign the first deal. So they
Speaker 1: were back and forth to agree on the first deal
Speaker 1: we ever sent them for three years, but that was
Speaker 1: the game and that's how that's how negotiations happened. So
Speaker 1: I locked in them between four and twelve hours before
Speaker 1: I would be a total free agent. I guess it's
Speaker 1: nice to know that you never really had that lag,
Speaker 1: that gap, like you mentioned, to get the NFL logo
Speaker 1: next to your name on Sports Center or whatever it
Speaker 1: might be. We're here with Channing Crowd on the Drivetime
Speaker 1: podcast with Travis Wingfield on the official Miami Dolphins podcast network,
Speaker 1: and you mentioned at Channing, we do have the legal
Speaker 1: tampering period coming up on Monday at noon today actually
Speaker 1: on this podcast, and I'm curious to get your take
Speaker 1: because we just put out a film on the Miami
Speaker 1: Dolphins socials in the Miami Dolphins website everywhere about Brian
Speaker 1: flores background and growing up in Brownsville, a tough neighborhood
Speaker 1: up in Brooklyn, New York, and just a really fantastic
Speaker 1: job by our video team, And I wanted to get
Speaker 1: your feeling about You mentioned the impact that Zach can
Speaker 1: have on a guy, because that we we talked so
Speaker 1: much about the environment a guy goes into is everything
Speaker 1: in terms of what his career means. Sure, there's talented
Speaker 1: players that are more talented than others, but the surrounding
Speaker 1: cast and the support that player has to make the
Speaker 1: best of his development and his career can have such
Speaker 1: a big impact. But I'm curious to get your take
Speaker 1: on what it's like to have a well respected coach
Speaker 1: like Brian flora Is. Like you see that video, you
Speaker 1: see his his previous players talking about him so glowingly.
Speaker 1: What is having a guy like that in the building
Speaker 1: do for not just recruiting outside players, but also the
Speaker 1: program as a whole and the guys that are already there.
Speaker 1: Communication is one of the biggest things in the NFL
Speaker 1: that UM I love. UM quick Mike Nolan story. Mike Nolan,
Speaker 1: you know well in respected guy San Francisco head coach.
Speaker 1: You know he went to Atlanta. He actually wanted to
Speaker 1: bring me to Atlanta before I retired when the Dolphins
Speaker 1: released me. But Mike Nolan came to me and I
Speaker 1: used to cuss all that. I used to just cus cuss,
Speaker 1: cussin practice if somebody missing assignment, m f is that
Speaker 1: that that? And I would just go crazy because I
Speaker 1: was middle linebacker. I thought, that's what you need to do,
Speaker 1: get to be a look look different, big dudes in
Speaker 1: a damn face. So Mike Nolan came to me when
Speaker 1: he finally got to Miami and Nolan Carroll he I
Speaker 1: think he just retired. Nolan Carroll just out the league,
Speaker 1: and Nolan Carre was a rookie. We tried to ind
Speaker 1: and out the tighten in and slot receiver and Nolan
Speaker 1: messed it up and I cussed. I dog custom Mike
Speaker 1: Knowling for me to the side and said, Channing, I'm
Speaker 1: a teacher. This field is my is my classroom. I
Speaker 1: can't teach while you're yelling and cussing. I need to
Speaker 1: teach these guys what to do. I don't need to
Speaker 1: scare him into what I need to do. And it's
Speaker 1: just it put a light ball before me, I stopped
Speaker 1: cussing and I stopped. I just stopped cussing. I stopped screaming,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I stopped going crazy. And teach periods, you know,
Speaker 1: eleven or eleven playing ball, I was still custing out everybody,
Speaker 1: but on like a teach period, it made sense to
Speaker 1: me whether this is a teach period. They call it
Speaker 1: a teach period because these coaches slash teachers are trying
Speaker 1: to explain what we need to do. And that's the
Speaker 1: main thing with a coach and communication. Now, going back
Speaker 1: to Flora's where he comes, where he came from, and
Speaker 1: what's it called humble and hungry? Where he comes from? Um,
Speaker 1: you know, living the project, didn't have a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Football got him out of their Football got him to
Speaker 1: that private school. Football got him to Boston College. Football
Speaker 1: got him what he has today. Just like I would say,
Speaker 1: I don't know exact numbers, but bro I would say,
Speaker 1: seventy to ninety percent of the guys are were Brian
Speaker 1: Floryes at some time in their life. He can relate
Speaker 1: to him, he can I remember, like telling coach Saban,
Speaker 1: now I get I would fight a practicing what's wrong
Speaker 1: with you? I'm be like broke coach, the dude tried me?
Speaker 1: What What does that mean? What does tried me? Flores
Speaker 1: knows what to dude trick like you know What'm saying.
Speaker 1: He knows the link the language of what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: He knows what I'm saying. He knows how to approach
Speaker 1: a guy. He he he. He thought Cube Steak was
Speaker 1: good at me like I did when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I thought can corn and green beans were great vegetables
Speaker 1: until I got a little money and decided they work.
Speaker 1: I'm not even no more, damn can cor him. The
Speaker 1: relatability of a coach is so big, and the understanding
Speaker 1: of where these guys come from, the understanding of okay,
Speaker 1: he has money. Now people saying when you get money, oh,
Speaker 1: now you're a different person. You're actually more of the
Speaker 1: person you were before you had money. You just have
Speaker 1: resources to become more of what you want to be
Speaker 1: or what you have been. His relatability and guys knowing,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of genius to put it out because
Speaker 1: on social media now number of free agents are gonna
Speaker 1: see that film and gonna say this isn't this is
Speaker 1: to be honest, this isn't like Belichick. This isn't you
Speaker 1: know and never a coach. I love Andy Reid. This
Speaker 1: isn't Andy Reid. This is a guy that grew up
Speaker 1: like I grew up. This is a guy that knows
Speaker 1: the grind I went through and passed all that. This
Speaker 1: guy can communicate to me. This guy can sit down
Speaker 1: with me and not talk down to me, but talk
Speaker 1: to me like a man, because he understands if you're
Speaker 1: talking down to me. A lot of guys going to
Speaker 1: the tank that grew up in those situations. You're yelling
Speaker 1: at me. You're a you're you're uh, you know, a figure,
Speaker 1: You're a higher figure. You have some power. Now I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the ground. I'm kind of scared. You remind
Speaker 1: me of a police officers. Remind me of a principle.
Speaker 1: You remind me of that. Florence says, me and him
Speaker 1: were in college together. He played Frank Gore on his
Speaker 1: highlight reel. I played Frank Gore on my last Like
Speaker 1: me and Floren's at the same age. So he can
Speaker 1: sit and talk to guys and communicate with guys. And
Speaker 1: like I said, going to the story I was telling
Speaker 1: about Mike Nolan to teach guys at a communication level
Speaker 1: and at a relatability level that I think he can
Speaker 1: be very successful. And that's all all on top of
Speaker 1: his lineage from New England singing how Greatness was done.
Speaker 1: I don't like Tom Brady and Bill Belicheck. I respect
Speaker 1: Tom Brady and Bill Belicheck. And it's a big difference.
Speaker 1: You can like somebody like somebody. I like going to
Speaker 1: strip club. I don't respect the strip club. I like
Speaker 1: going there. It's a big difference. Respect is what people want,
Speaker 1: and that's that's why I think Flores learned that New
Speaker 1: England learned how to learn how to game play and
Speaker 1: learn how to do all the football side stuff. But
Speaker 1: his past and what he became and where he went
Speaker 1: and all that part on top of each other. I
Speaker 1: am excited about Brian Flores. I knew they I knew
Speaker 1: maybe they wanted to Cam Cameron wasn't that guy. I
Speaker 1: knew Tony Sperano was in over his head and about
Speaker 1: a couple even during the good year, the O eight
Speaker 1: year Tony Sprowno just wasn't that lead eater of men,
Speaker 1: you know, God rest his soul, great human. I still
Speaker 1: talk to Jeanette his wife. We still text on how
Speaker 1: today a great person. But there's great people and then
Speaker 1: there's great coaches. And you could know when I met Flores,
Speaker 1: when I talked to Flores and I saw his approach,
Speaker 1: When I saw him getting guys like Nick need Hum
Speaker 1: and getting heart edge and these guys out on the
Speaker 1: field and playing at a high level. You just saw
Speaker 1: a coach that knows how to teach, knows how to
Speaker 1: get the best out of his guys. And I think
Speaker 1: we'll have I think we actually have a real coach
Speaker 1: now for the first time since if you want to
Speaker 1: say one Stead, if Wanni a little love maybe since
Speaker 1: je Stead the first real NFL head coach. You mentioned
Speaker 1: Nick Needham. He played a U tep in college. And
Speaker 1: so that jump in competition for the first year to
Speaker 1: get out there and produce like that, that's just it's
Speaker 1: so rare for I got to make that jump in
Speaker 1: terms of the of the competition and have production like that.
Speaker 1: Montreal Hardest change his position. So I'm with you, a
Speaker 1: Hunters that changing and let's go ahead and stay in
Speaker 1: that lane. Because you talk about Brian Flores not just
Speaker 1: the football savant, the leader and the and the great
Speaker 1: character and the great man that he is clearly, but
Speaker 1: you mentioned the lineage he has from New England, he
Speaker 1: was the play caller and a Super Bowl where they
Speaker 1: hold the NFL's highest scoring offense to three points of
Speaker 1: field ball. They don't let him get the ends on
Speaker 1: that entire game. And so, from your experience as a
Speaker 1: classic stack linebacker a scheme standpoint, what are some of
Speaker 1: the things that you like about Flores defense and what
Speaker 1: you saw on tape this year in your number one
Speaker 1: winning winning before the snap and the scheme of what
Speaker 1: of what them knowing to take away the best the
Speaker 1: best option the other team has, and that's all Belitte
Speaker 1: talks about. And that's all he did. They can go
Speaker 1: to a three four and go to a four three.
Speaker 1: They were in a it's kind of like a five one.
Speaker 1: They would walk um walk a linebacker down on the
Speaker 1: center and go with through two three techniques and two
Speaker 1: ends and now you have a man the man across
Speaker 1: the board. He would he didn't have much talent, but
Speaker 1: he was doing everything with those guys to try to
Speaker 1: make him play. He he put Jerome Baker in the
Speaker 1: middle of everything and try to keep him unblocked to
Speaker 1: let the rome run because the roan fast, he slide
Speaker 1: him to the tight end. All guys down in the box.
Speaker 1: He knows the X and so well that when he
Speaker 1: starts getting pieces on the board, not playing with pawns,
Speaker 1: when he starts getting some damn some some look I
Speaker 1: don't even know the name, what it looked, the the castles,
Speaker 1: and the damn stage and and those good pieces, the
Speaker 1: ones in the back. When he starts getting some of
Speaker 1: those good back pieces of chest, he's gonna do it.
Speaker 1: But his multiple defense. And I talked to Patrick Graham
Speaker 1: last year and a couple events and things. I ask him, Hey, man,
Speaker 1: what defense do y'all run? Because Belichick is a legit
Speaker 1: three four guy. He's the winds will four big three
Speaker 1: pound three and fifty sixty pound. No, he's a three
Speaker 1: or four guy because of the even set and the
Speaker 1: nose and the mic have to move back and forth
Speaker 1: to get that six man lean with eleven guys on
Speaker 1: the field. I know that's where he comes from. I
Speaker 1: know that's what he loves. But to watch him not
Speaker 1: have the personnel to watch him, have Divon Gottschow and
Speaker 1: and and and Christian Wilkins, who are all single gap,
Speaker 1: guys shoot up the field. You know that old school
Speaker 1: colts played the run on the way to the past
Speaker 1: type guys. To see him adjust with what he had,
Speaker 1: but to watch, to watch how Flores schemed it up.
Speaker 1: I saw what happened in those first four or five
Speaker 1: games when they're getting their mouth bashed in adjusted out start,
Speaker 1: you know, running his shells and running different things, making
Speaker 1: guys trust each other, teaching guys the system, his multiples,
Speaker 1: the defense. Everybody thinks, uh players one after the ball snapped,
Speaker 1: bro I was more than half the players on one
Speaker 1: before the ball snapped. We know where you're going, we
Speaker 1: know what you're doing. In New England this year, if
Speaker 1: you double teams Edelman, they play was over. That's why
Speaker 1: they couldn't score. And people figure out double team Edelman
Speaker 1: plays over those defensive want snapped before the ball was
Speaker 1: even in Brady's hands. And Brady's a goat grags of
Speaker 1: ball time. I really feel that way. He's winning plays
Speaker 1: before the ball snapped. And as I look at when
Speaker 1: I sit back and really look at football, that's what
Speaker 1: I look at. I don't need commentators. I'll listen to Romo.
Speaker 1: Romo pretty good. I don't need a book McFarlan, little
Speaker 1: crooked fingers telling me what's going on. I know, football man,
Speaker 1: But when I watched the game and before the snap,
Speaker 1: I'll say, oh, they got him, And my buddies knowing,
Speaker 1: they laughed when I said, what, you're watching football and
Speaker 1: it's just be randomly in the second quarter and I'll
Speaker 1: see it and I'll be like, oh, they got him,
Speaker 1: they got him out, just see the safety role, just
Speaker 1: certain things they got him. I said that a number
Speaker 1: of times about what what Flores and Graham were doing
Speaker 1: last year. And now the Graham's gone. I think Florida's
Speaker 1: gonna take more if he's gonna really step up more
Speaker 1: now he's comfortable in the head coach role like Belichick did.
Speaker 1: If it's it's very similar now, I'm sir. Belichick helped
Speaker 1: out Floors with his play calling. When Flores was calling
Speaker 1: those shutouts in the foot ball against the Rams, the
Speaker 1: Belicheck would help him and also go and manage his team.
Speaker 1: Flores is the first time head coach. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was comfortable doing that being you know, people
Speaker 1: give Adam Gates hard time because all he talked about
Speaker 1: his offense only thinks about his office. When his defense
Speaker 1: on the field, he plays Damn Sadoku or Candy crushed
Speaker 1: on his iPad. And now Brian Flores in his second
Speaker 1: year to now see the see the lamb scape be
Speaker 1: on the field. I understand what his players are doing,
Speaker 1: understand the sideline demeanor and uh and the moving around
Speaker 1: and when he needs to be places when he has
Speaker 1: to make decisions and bring to his guys to help.
Speaker 1: Last year that was the first time in the head coach.
Speaker 1: It seemed like he posted a lot of New England guys.
Speaker 1: And now he's in it. Now he can really bring
Speaker 1: in guys he agrees with. He brought him chan Gaily
Speaker 1: to replace Chaddosha. He's making a lot of moves which
Speaker 1: I loved. He came in as a first time head
Speaker 1: coach and nobody knew of Brian Flora, to be honest,
Speaker 1: and he gave my respect very fast. But with Flora's
Speaker 1: now being at head coach, being understanding what he was
Speaker 1: doing last year and now like I was talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, how I led into this was him now
Speaker 1: being comfortable being a bigger part of defense and for
Speaker 1: me to be impressed with their priest snap pre snap,
Speaker 1: a look, pre snap adjustment, understanding what the other team
Speaker 1: is trying to do and take away the other team
Speaker 1: best best guy you play Tennessee Titans. Stop Derrick Henry,
Speaker 1: make Tannehill beat you. It's easier said to done. And
Speaker 1: now seeing that Flores can do it, seeing what he did,
Speaker 1: you know, five and eleven, they should have never won
Speaker 1: those five games. There was no chance they should have
Speaker 1: won five games. But seeing that, I have a lot
Speaker 1: of respect for Florenes, his communication at tactics, his style
Speaker 1: talking with them, saying how he he'll joke a little
Speaker 1: bit with you, but he's not a he's not a
Speaker 1: player's coach. Now. He's not gonna sit and you know
Speaker 1: bs all in the locker room and sit around and
Speaker 1: talk about girls. He's gonna keep his his pedestal as
Speaker 1: a head coach. But he can also be relatable and
Speaker 1: everybody on that team. And I've talked to the number
Speaker 1: of guys from Rashad Jones who they just released, Christian Wilkins.
Speaker 1: We did a bunch of mes together during the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl down here. I talked to enough guys about Flores
Speaker 1: and about his approach. He fully they fully gained respect
Speaker 1: from him. He gave everyone's respecting that first year. Now
Speaker 1: the second year, now they take off what they get,
Speaker 1: what they having to pick the now six teams. Something
Speaker 1: with those compensatories, like getting weapons to now implemented to
Speaker 1: that defense and implementing what he's trying to do. I
Speaker 1: think moving forward, I think we might have found that. Dude.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, absolutely, I'm on the same page, and
Speaker 1: I think that one of the big things you look
Speaker 1: at there is you talk about establishing the culture of
Speaker 1: the you know, the locker room, and that might be
Speaker 1: a cliche thing to say, but like you mentioned it
Speaker 1: as an impact, and also the fact that these guys
Speaker 1: are everyone they developed this year just gives them further
Speaker 1: depth on top of those draft picks, on top of
Speaker 1: the free agent capital they have to spend this offseason.
Speaker 1: So you really do establish this kind of next man
Speaker 1: up mentality because you can get to forty five fifty
Speaker 1: three players deep on the roster to where everybody can
Speaker 1: come off the bench and contribute. I think it's a
Speaker 1: big part of what they accomplished this year. You also
Speaker 1: talked about taking away the best option or just having
Speaker 1: the right pre snap look. The biggest difference to me
Speaker 1: Channing was you look at third down defense like third long.
Speaker 1: I recall Dolphins teams in the past. You'd keep the
Speaker 1: base defense on the field, or maybe your nickel defense,
Speaker 1: and you've got four receivers out there, and you've got
Speaker 1: linebackers running on receivers and it's a third and thirteen conversion,
Speaker 1: whereas last year team's gotten the third long and they
Speaker 1: struggled against this Dolphins defense. So knowing the situation, knowing
Speaker 1: that down a distance, that was a lot of fun
Speaker 1: to see. And one thing that we I want to
Speaker 1: talk about law on this particular podcast now and in
Speaker 1: the future. Channing is just the exs and nose of
Speaker 1: the game, and you kind of mentioned it was Zach
Speaker 1: Thomas there. I want to get back and kind of
Speaker 1: dovetail back into that conversation. And I know a lot
Speaker 1: of folks love you're off the field stories, and they're great,
Speaker 1: they're they're absolutely hilarious. But I really enjoy picking your
Speaker 1: football brain man. And on top of the linebackers, the
Speaker 1: topic of linebackers, can you kind of walk our audience
Speaker 1: through some of your basic keys as a linebacker, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's reading the pulling guard or recognizing formational or
Speaker 1: personnel tendencies. Just how much goes into the cerebral aspect
Speaker 1: of playing the linebacker position. Well, first, the simple part
Speaker 1: of it is alignment. Assignment. Nowhere you're supposed to be
Speaker 1: and know what you have. On run plays and past plays,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a gap and everybody a gap, b gap,
Speaker 1: whatever you name it. Center guard, gap, guard tackle gap
Speaker 1: tackle tied in, you're gonna have one of those gaps
Speaker 1: or in the three four you have to go and
Speaker 1: take the guard off. It's people say two gaping. A
Speaker 1: lot of people. People say two gaping. People don't know
Speaker 1: what two gaping means. It means that everybody has a
Speaker 1: man that hit in their face. If the guy runs
Speaker 1: to your left, you make the tackle on your left side,
Speaker 1: and guy run to the right, you have to make
Speaker 1: that tackle, but there's a guy next to you also
Speaker 1: having a half of body at the gap. People. It
Speaker 1: kills me when people talk about two gaping, I don't
Speaker 1: know what the hell is going on. When I got
Speaker 1: in the league, I went to nixty three four. That's
Speaker 1: all he likes to do. He'll get the nickel and
Speaker 1: dime on those third downs, but he's he's three four guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so saving being a three four guy and you know
Speaker 1: Zach Thomas driving in that. And so you line up
Speaker 1: a linebacker, you gotta know what your gap is or
Speaker 1: what's your run responsibility if it's two gall people over
Speaker 1: a single gap, and where your responsibility is as a
Speaker 1: as a pass guy. If you have a tight end
Speaker 1: underneath for the safety high, if you have to tighten man,
Speaker 1: if you have the running back anywhere on the field,
Speaker 1: if you're in the other linebacker anying out in the
Speaker 1: running back and tidy if they crossed low there there,
Speaker 1: there's the assignment side of it. And that's what you
Speaker 1: could teach. That's why I can teach my high school players.
Speaker 1: I can line them up and get through camp and
Speaker 1: let them know if we're running this, you have the
Speaker 1: a gap and you have the running back man. And
Speaker 1: that's what a lot of guys in college go off
Speaker 1: of them. I got with Charlie Strong. He was he
Speaker 1: was my decordinator of college and that's who really taught
Speaker 1: me football. In high school. I just ran around. I
Speaker 1: was six six to ten pound of running the four six.
Speaker 1: I would just fly around and hit and hit people.
Speaker 1: I was bigger and faster than everybody. Then when I
Speaker 1: got to the SEC, I had to learn football, and
Speaker 1: that's what he taught me, was just the alignment and
Speaker 1: assignment of what I had to do. And I was
Speaker 1: a better athlete stell the most guys when I got
Speaker 1: to the league. And this is where it gets interesting.
Speaker 1: You have to read the guards pre snap alignment. How
Speaker 1: far he is away from the tackle. If he's tied
Speaker 1: to the center, that might mean he's trying to reach
Speaker 1: a guy on the other side of the ball or
Speaker 1: pull around. So now you can kind of lean inside.
Speaker 1: If he's leaning inside. If if him and the tackler down,
Speaker 1: you know they're running his own because why would they
Speaker 1: condense the line? Why would they get one foot splits
Speaker 1: between them where you're trying to run. You're not trying
Speaker 1: to create space right there on the right side of
Speaker 1: line if y'all would foot to foot. So what you're
Speaker 1: trying to do now is you're trying to let us
Speaker 1: spread out, you get tight and run away from us.
Speaker 1: It's so many little nuances to the pre snap stuff
Speaker 1: we were just talking about with Florenz. Before the ball
Speaker 1: even snap, before you have to get off of blocks,
Speaker 1: before you have to know your leverage on blockers, before
Speaker 1: you have to know your leverage on receiver, before you
Speaker 1: have to know all these small nuances to your assignment.
Speaker 1: You you can look at so much stuff pre snap,
Speaker 1: and that's where Zach Thomas or Ray Lewis or Brian
Speaker 1: or Lacker Mike sing that's where they win. And that's
Speaker 1: what I try to play people football. They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: I play Madden's like a maddened You can't see if
Speaker 1: the guard is leaning, or if his shoulders are turned,
Speaker 1: or to the simplest one bro a fullback has to
Speaker 1: look at who he's gonna block. Like if you line
Speaker 1: up in the fullbacks in the game, he can't look
Speaker 1: at the sideline, snap the ball and running block a
Speaker 1: defensement or a linebacker. At some moment that lines, that
Speaker 1: fullback is gonna peak at who he needs to block
Speaker 1: because he has to see where you're at. So after
Speaker 1: you see your guards, after you get your line, but
Speaker 1: after you know you're in your thirty technique, you're off
Speaker 1: the guard, you're stacking your de tackle, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: look at the fullback. A lot of the bad fullback
Speaker 1: Lorenzo Nia wouldn't do it. Mike all stop. Wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1: They were, they were Hall of famers. But a slashy,
Speaker 1: big doogle fullback, he's gonna stare, stare exactly at where
Speaker 1: he's going. That's the simplest one. Just those small keys
Speaker 1: you can get where Zach would still tapping from me
Speaker 1: all the time because he would have those keys. So
Speaker 1: I'm in the B gap, I'm in my gap. They're
Speaker 1: running at me. Zach would see the keys to know
Speaker 1: they're running at me. So when the ball snap, Zach
Speaker 1: would move before I moved. So I'm running up, I
Speaker 1: break down and make the tackle. Next thing I know,
Speaker 1: I hear from and then Zach's laying there shaking. The
Speaker 1: running back laying there shaking. He does not to do. Now,
Speaker 1: that's that's where you become great. You can be good
Speaker 1: by just reading post snap. You get great by getting
Speaker 1: so much information pre snap. It's it's almost like a computer.
Speaker 1: It's almost I don't know if people watch West World
Speaker 1: or something, it's almost just it's like a computer where
Speaker 1: you can get so much information pre snap that wants
Speaker 1: the ball snapped. It's like it's like playing a video game.
Speaker 1: Oh you're running, you're running his own left you can
Speaker 1: only run here. I know the d NZ here, I
Speaker 1: know the safety is coming down strong. You're gonna cut
Speaker 1: back to my gap. I'm gonna shoot my gap. Zach
Speaker 1: used to yell at me shooting my gap. He would
Speaker 1: see something at the tighten and stepped off the ball.
Speaker 1: CC shoot, CC shoot. Never when he called me CC,
Speaker 1: he would say c C shoot, and he was telling
Speaker 1: me he figured it out. Just run through your gap.
Speaker 1: I would say most of my tapnics for loss. Who
Speaker 1: comes back telling me CC shoot because he saw so much.
Speaker 1: He processed so much receivers where their feet are lined up.
Speaker 1: I saw a video of Oto Sinko and Dion Sanders recently.
Speaker 1: It was on Twitter where Oto Sinko line the bar
Speaker 1: receiver and Dion got in front of him and Alto
Speaker 1: Sinko turned his foot inside and Dion looked and said,
Speaker 1: I know you're running inside route, look at your foot,
Speaker 1: and then Otoo kind of laughed and walked away. He
Speaker 1: saw too much pre snap, Oto Sinko, before the ball
Speaker 1: was snap. He knew what Ratty is running, how his hand,
Speaker 1: where he's lined up, how deep he is off the line.
Speaker 1: That small stuff pre snappers big and then post now
Speaker 1: there's a triangle, especially for inside off the ball backers,
Speaker 1: both guards and the and the near back. So if
Speaker 1: the full backer, line or running back, if you can see,
Speaker 1: if you could open your vision up enough during or
Speaker 1: when the ball snap to see front side guard and
Speaker 1: he's right in front of you. The front side guards
Speaker 1: right there. You If you can't see him, hell, you're
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder. You should be played football anyway. If you
Speaker 1: can see that guard right in front of you, but
Speaker 1: open up to see the backside guard if he pulls,
Speaker 1: and also see the tailback or fullback whoever the cloes
Speaker 1: back to the line. Every run play goes through them.
Speaker 1: The two guards in the fullback take you to every
Speaker 1: single run play on the field. If that guards stepped
Speaker 1: down in this one pulls, go hit the guard, they're
Speaker 1: run the ball behind him. If both of them step
Speaker 1: left and the fullback comes right, it's either it's either
Speaker 1: zone cut or it's some kind of league back side.
Speaker 1: If they would have a tight end the wider league.
Speaker 1: The guards and the near back show you everything in
Speaker 1: the run game and pass past plays two. If you
Speaker 1: can see those guards, the rules are they can't step
Speaker 1: out if it's a pass play. They can't come at you,
Speaker 1: so the ball snapped, they back up, go to your responsibility,
Speaker 1: and then you have to play ball. That's the funny thing.
Speaker 1: This is all before you have to tackle Sean Lynch.
Speaker 1: You have to cover West Welker. You have to cover
Speaker 1: Reggie Bush who was held Jared. Reggie was a monster
Speaker 1: in the open field. This this is what we talked
Speaker 1: about here last two or three minutes. This is before
Speaker 1: you played football. This is before you have to go
Speaker 1: against guys running four two four three, stay inside out.
Speaker 1: You know where your leverage is. You know if I
Speaker 1: spill this guard to a linebacker, or I boxed this
Speaker 1: guard out to another you know, to a safety, all
Speaker 1: that other stuff you need to know before you physically
Speaker 1: have to do it. And that's where you see these
Speaker 1: guys that are just built like gods in college, fast, strong, big,
Speaker 1: big arms, you know, just just monsters running four threes.
Speaker 1: And it goes to the NFL the flame out. They
Speaker 1: couldn't do it here. This this wasn't where they up
Speaker 1: and up in there. They could not process this much
Speaker 1: information as fast as does a accidum do it. If
Speaker 1: Zach is an A plus processor, I was a B minus,
Speaker 1: maybe C plus on if I drank too much, But
Speaker 1: I could still get in there and make a player too.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Just the processing of what's
Speaker 1: going on and me. When people see me and Zach
Speaker 1: standing next to each other, you would never say Zach
Speaker 1: was the All Pro and honestly should be a Hall
Speaker 1: of Famer. I'm six three, I was too fifty, I
Speaker 1: was you know. My next started under my ears, like
Speaker 1: I said to fifteen, didn't wasn't really much. Feler has
Speaker 1: so many shoulder surgeries. The shoulder was cut up the
Speaker 1: like Swiss cheese. Once. Once you walked down and put
Speaker 1: a jersey on and put a helmet on, you would
Speaker 1: automatically say, oh, fifty four, that's the dude because of
Speaker 1: his mental side of the game, and all those guys,
Speaker 1: even the bigger guess why ray is ray Lewis is
Speaker 1: what it was, and all those got Pastrick Withers was
Speaker 1: the same when he processed past, like, I really respect
Speaker 1: linebacker play. And that's that's a quick little gist of
Speaker 1: just what you need to know before you have to
Speaker 1: go out there and physically do it. With the greatest
Speaker 1: athletes in the world. The mental side of it where
Speaker 1: a lot of guys fall short and that, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the part that makes the game so fascinating to me
Speaker 1: as a fan and a person that just loves to
Speaker 1: try to digest as much as I can, especially you know,
Speaker 1: I've been I've been watching film for only you know,
Speaker 1: a short amount of time compared to someone like yourself.
Speaker 1: But when I go through a play I'll watch it,
Speaker 1: I'll bring it back, I'll slow it down, I'll watch
Speaker 1: it again, and it takes me two or three times
Speaker 1: to you know, really get the gist of what's happening.
Speaker 1: So when you consider these guys out there making plays
Speaker 1: at the snap of a finger like that, it's so remarkable.
Speaker 1: And I want to ask you as a two parts here,
Speaker 1: as a pro, is there anything that you can do
Speaker 1: besides just getting in the playbook to really make that
Speaker 1: instinct kind of improve and get better because it seems
Speaker 1: like me inherent and you wouldn't be able to work
Speaker 1: on it. And number two, when you go to the
Speaker 1: combine and you meet all these players, and you meet
Speaker 1: potential free agents that you've never you've never been around
Speaker 1: how they work before, how do you in a half
Speaker 1: hour meeting or an hour long meeting. How do you
Speaker 1: figure out which these guys has that and who you
Speaker 1: know might be short in that area. I'll go the first,
Speaker 1: the first, the second, plans of first. I don't think
Speaker 1: in that fifteen thirty our meeting. You know what a
Speaker 1: guy can do and how much of God can retain.
Speaker 1: You can watch what he did in college, but college
Speaker 1: playbooks are minuscule compared to the NFL playbook and what
Speaker 1: you have to know and to know that there's an
Speaker 1: Amy Reid or there's a there's a uh mcfaith or
Speaker 1: there's a guy like that and he's watching you. Andy
Speaker 1: Reid used to stare at me on film and find
Speaker 1: every one of my weaknesses and you can't. You can't
Speaker 1: figure it out a guy and that we used to
Speaker 1: call it the bitch. You find out that the team
Speaker 1: has has they have put a target on your back.
Speaker 1: Either you can't cover or you can't tackle or something.
Speaker 1: But you're the target. They would say there's some brailroads
Speaker 1: on you. Wild cut too much. They say there's some
Speaker 1: brailroads on you where it sounds like it's prestigious. Oh,
Speaker 1: you have the some breirerows on you. Hey, no, that
Speaker 1: means you're the weakest link and they're coming after you
Speaker 1: because they've assessed you as the weakest link. And so
Speaker 1: I think, guys, you can't know what power guy is
Speaker 1: gonna respond when he becomes the weakest lake. When he
Speaker 1: is that guy they're attacking. It might not bro it
Speaker 1: might not be every place. They wouldn't run at me.
Speaker 1: But when it was in the past, cover they're going
Speaker 1: to empty, they would look at me. And I got
Speaker 1: said in the Saints game when they had um who
Speaker 1: was it, uh, the big white tight end? What was
Speaker 1: his name? He was hell out of Miami, Um, Jeremy
Speaker 1: Shocky Shocky. They had Shocky and they put him in
Speaker 1: tight end and they would have Reggie Bush and put
Speaker 1: him at number two weeks So the quarters on one,
Speaker 1: corners on one, niggles on two, Me and Yarra Mia
Speaker 1: Bell had to decide and might have covered Reggie or Shocky.
Speaker 1: And they would sit and they said it was I
Speaker 1: want to say, and my probably was I think it
Speaker 1: was a Monday night game down in Miami, and they
Speaker 1: would sit and wait for us to decide if I'm
Speaker 1: covering Shocking or if I'm covering Reggie and whoever I covered,
Speaker 1: they would throwing the ball. This guy's a safety, he's
Speaker 1: a better coverage guy than you. So if you go
Speaker 1: on Shock, we're gonna throw Shot the ball. If you
Speaker 1: go on Reggie, we're gonna throw Reggie the ball. And
Speaker 1: they would decide that. So it wasn't like they were
Speaker 1: picking on me. It was that that was the most
Speaker 1: intelligent approach to the game. When they've got an empty
Speaker 1: and that's what you know, how guy's gonna respond in
Speaker 1: that situation. I would say I was the guy who
Speaker 1: wanted to step up. I would cheat, like hell, I
Speaker 1: grab him, I go choke him. I would try to
Speaker 1: hit him and hit him in the private parts, and
Speaker 1: all the little tricks you could you can play in
Speaker 1: the game, but you don't know if a goot, how
Speaker 1: a guy's gonna respond with a fifteen in a meeting
Speaker 1: at the combine? Now, can you can you progress? Can
Speaker 1: you learn? Can you get better at that? It's all
Speaker 1: grinding film, study and implementing it on the field at practice,
Speaker 1: like the whole practice makes perfect thing. It's an old
Speaker 1: cliche and people say it all the time, and coaches
Speaker 1: say it all the time. They pound in your head
Speaker 1: if you can't do it in practice, You're not gonna
Speaker 1: wake up Sunday and be an amazing coverage guy if
Speaker 1: you're out there, like if I'm out there getting beat
Speaker 1: by Anthony Fasano and and Randy Nick Michael and the
Speaker 1: Titans I played with, there's no way I'm gonna cover Shock.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cover Tony Gonzalez who killed me in Atlanta
Speaker 1: one time. He really made me the bit he royed
Speaker 1: me and then land on the back side of slot
Speaker 1: one time. But if you can't, if you can't do
Speaker 1: if I couldn't do it against Eddie Pisano, there's no
Speaker 1: chance I'm doing it against Gonzalez or an Tonio Gate
Speaker 1: who ate me up and say there goo like those.
Speaker 1: It stays in my mind when I prepared for a
Speaker 1: guy well enough in my mind, but then I walked
Speaker 1: out in that second play, I would say to myself, Yeah, bro,
Speaker 1: this is this is Genette, this is the d n A. God.
Speaker 1: God did not make me the cover Tony. People to
Speaker 1: cover Tony come Salles and and like that's the part
Speaker 1: that you just have to grind and work and work
Speaker 1: and work, and you're gonna get beat. That's short. You
Speaker 1: have to have a short memory. That's big time too.
Speaker 1: And Sam Madison had the best same Madazine could get
Speaker 1: destroyed on the play. He's still come back talking trash
Speaker 1: because he's the best in the world. Short. Let it go,
Speaker 1: Let it go, Short, let it go, Let everything go.
Speaker 1: But get to progress and get better. It's just overall
Speaker 1: working and working, watching film, grinding and the last thing
Speaker 1: about you know, making those plays and psychologically or mentally
Speaker 1: getting to another level. You can't prepare for every playoff
Speaker 1: team has. You can't prepare in high school. I I
Speaker 1: coach high school. Bro. They have six runs. Every team
Speaker 1: has six runs. That's all I do is just run
Speaker 1: six runs at my team the whole time, and then
Speaker 1: my kids would be like head coaches the same run bro. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what they do. They have six runs. In the NFL,
Speaker 1: they do so much window dressing, moving, slop turning. Quipped
Speaker 1: the Titans going. Titans being fullbacks receivers now go to
Speaker 1: running back and they put the tight You can't really
Speaker 1: just lock it in NFL on what to do, but
Speaker 1: you can get between five and ten plays of runs
Speaker 1: and passes that you know they're gonna do. It's the
Speaker 1: bread and butter and whoop their ass on those plays,
Speaker 1: like Andy um, Andy Reid did it, Bill Belichick does it.
Speaker 1: There's a number of coaches I played throughout my career
Speaker 1: where when they come out in the third or fourth
Speaker 1: series of offense, they would throw a formation at you
Speaker 1: and a would like zactly sometimes looking at me a smile,
Speaker 1: or he's like, this is gonna happen when you play
Speaker 1: the good coaches, just understand it's gonna be something they
Speaker 1: throw out here. If you have not seen I don't
Speaker 1: care if you watch film for sixteen years of him coaching,
Speaker 1: He's always gonna have something new. They called everybody calls
Speaker 1: to the wrinkle, a new wrinkle. They always have that
Speaker 1: new wrinkle. You're not gonna make a big play on
Speaker 1: the new wrinkle. But if a team gets in near
Speaker 1: I and run the power, and you know they run
Speaker 1: the power. Um Ladai and Tomlinson when he had there
Speaker 1: was a twenty six touchdowns and oh six or seven
Speaker 1: they ran power fifteen times a game. They had Nick
Speaker 1: hart Heartwick. Hardwick was the center. He could get up
Speaker 1: to the backside wheel. They had guards that can move,
Speaker 1: they had they had a hell of a tackle and
Speaker 1: they would run the power to the defensive left side
Speaker 1: over and over and over again, and you had to
Speaker 1: stop there. And we went up there and beat him
Speaker 1: because we stopped the power. And I made a bunch
Speaker 1: of plays stopping the power at the mic linebacker. But
Speaker 1: that was I said, and myself and Zach and all
Speaker 1: we locked it in and we stopped this power. Let
Speaker 1: him run the league. They get six on the league,
Speaker 1: they get six on the league. Let's choke him out
Speaker 1: running this power the same. They have to come down
Speaker 1: and just destroy everything, and Mike has to roll over
Speaker 1: top the wheel, gotta get off the center, and we
Speaker 1: just we pound that in our head and that's how
Speaker 1: that's how we beat them. But that's what you have
Speaker 1: to do. You have to get those five to tim
Speaker 1: run plays and those five to tim pass plays that
Speaker 1: you know they're gonna do. They do every game. They
Speaker 1: might do it in the first series, they might win
Speaker 1: to the second half. To do it well. Once you
Speaker 1: recognize it, that's when you make your big place. And
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier said than I can definitely understand
Speaker 1: that going against the best in the world, the best
Speaker 1: in the profession. And you mentioned, you know, you talk
Speaker 1: about having those wrinkles that can get you. You guys
Speaker 1: got an entire team throughout the course of entire game.
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand and eight, you mentioned the Division championship.
Speaker 1: You're the Wildcat game, the first game y'all broke it
Speaker 1: out and went rough shot on the Patriots. Now, that
Speaker 1: was a successful season, and one of the reasons you
Speaker 1: guys went into twenties two thousand six with high expectations
Speaker 1: was because of the close to that two thousand five season,
Speaker 1: And one of those games was that Chargers game. I
Speaker 1: believe Chambers had a couple of big touchdowns. You guys
Speaker 1: played really good on defense, and so that six game
Speaker 1: winning streak at the end of OH five brought about really,
Speaker 1: really strong expectations. The Dolphins were Sports illustrators pick to
Speaker 1: represent the a f C in the Super Bowl that year.
Speaker 1: How much different is it in a locker room when
Speaker 1: there's expectations that are that high compared to maybe a
Speaker 1: more runner the mill season where maybe you have playoff
Speaker 1: aspirations or Division championship aspirations. Like does having Super Bowl
Speaker 1: expectations like that really changed the game for you guys?
Speaker 1: It does, and especially what happened that year you're speaking
Speaker 1: of when we added Dante cold Pepper and you saw
Speaker 1: what he deal with christ Christi Carter and Randy Moss
Speaker 1: in Minnesota. You just knew he wasn't that you know,
Speaker 1: he wasn't anybody to play. He was one of the
Speaker 1: top guys. We know history, everybody knows. He ended up,
Speaker 1: you know, his knee wasn't healthy, end up retiring a
Speaker 1: couple of years later, playing for the Raiders, I think
Speaker 1: for a year or two. But when when we knew
Speaker 1: that we brought in Cold Pepper, we knew how defense
Speaker 1: could play. We knew we could play I think, oh
Speaker 1: oh five, we were top I think top five and
Speaker 1: a bunch of categories and top ten and most categories. Indeed,
Speaker 1: we knew our defense was say, let's get a quarterback
Speaker 1: to get his ball to run, and Ricky and all
Speaker 1: these damn players we had, and let's just show out.
Speaker 1: Let's go out here. We knew West West an Centian team,
Speaker 1: West Welfare. We knew we had Randomy Michael was a
Speaker 1: hell of a titan. Like. We were like, hey, we
Speaker 1: if we lock it at quarterback, this is the run.
Speaker 1: And that's what Sports Illustrated talk. Hell the defensive top
Speaker 1: ten's we we bringing cold Pepper. If he plays like
Speaker 1: he did in Minnesota, this team can make a run.
Speaker 1: The approach to the to the season saving what lets
Speaker 1: you really bs. But it was just something different when
Speaker 1: you really thought you had something, Guys would compete, Guys
Speaker 1: would go out there and talk about it and and
Speaker 1: and if you want to you know, it's it's no
Speaker 1: secrets in the NFL. If you want to be great,
Speaker 1: top grade, work great at great. You know, just greatness
Speaker 1: should be all over you. And we really felt that way.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. After the first couple of games
Speaker 1: with Pelp, we were like, I don't see Minnesota Pelp.
Speaker 1: I see it do it with a bad need Pep.
Speaker 1: But the camp and leading up to it and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, it was a different field. And it was
Speaker 1: only my second year, so it was a different different
Speaker 1: field going in. And that's one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: think Nick Saban left, which he couldn't find that quarterback
Speaker 1: and in college you can get safe. Does it now?
Speaker 1: He could get any quarterback and run this big these
Speaker 1: big as dudes on defense and get a good running
Speaker 1: game and go to NAS championship NFL. I hate his
Speaker 1: going this way. I love the I'm a Bucaneers fan.
Speaker 1: The Trent dilferd. I mean Brad Johnson left Buckaneers with
Speaker 1: Sap and Lynch and Derrick Brooks and those guys uh
Speaker 1: Barbrown outside like I love defense. The Ravens two thousand Ray,
Speaker 1: that's the trip Dealver Ravens. When Brian Pillicking, if I
Speaker 1: love bro you give me a seven team game thirty
Speaker 1: to thirty to thirty to thirty to thirty thirty, I
Speaker 1: can't argue with that. That's football to me. Nowadays football
Speaker 1: is changing. You gotta throw up at least twenty four,
Speaker 1: twenty eight points. You have to be able to get
Speaker 1: into mid twenties to really make a run in this
Speaker 1: day and agent NFL, because you just can't choke people
Speaker 1: out anymore. It's tough to choke people out if you
Speaker 1: look at those top defense forty niners wrote every level.
Speaker 1: Four first rounders up front this year, great linebackers, pretty
Speaker 1: good secondary. Kansas City. It was a matter of time
Speaker 1: until Kansas City figured out how to get them. That's
Speaker 1: all it is. It's a matter of time. Give me
Speaker 1: ten plays, Oh, we're gonna do it. Thirty plays. Okay,
Speaker 1: they got told about forty plays, Patrick Mahomes and Andy
Speaker 1: Reid said, we got you. They started running Travis Kelsey
Speaker 1: on the deep overs. They just they figured out what
Speaker 1: they were doing so that that this damage. In the NFL,
Speaker 1: you have to score and that's where the game's going in.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I'm not a huge fan of but
Speaker 1: I'm adjusting to it. I'm getting used to it. But
Speaker 1: the team that we went into the O six year with,
Speaker 1: we thought we were gonna do something until we saw
Speaker 1: that Pepper wasn't that guy. And that's what that's what
Speaker 1: that's what it became. I think that's why Savan left
Speaker 1: because he couldn't find a quarterback. But Dante Colepepper was
Speaker 1: the epicenter of that of the excitement and once we
Speaker 1: saw that wasn't there. I don't give a damn how
Speaker 1: many points We're here on the other team too, they
Speaker 1: were gonna score enough to beat us, and it was
Speaker 1: what was as a fan, I was so excited for
Speaker 1: that season. The season opening game on Thursday night against Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: You know, that was that was new to the Dolphins
Speaker 1: at the time, so there was a lot of expectations,
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, so we it happened pretty quickly, because
Speaker 1: I think he got injured after three or four games
Speaker 1: and didn't play the rest of the year. You mentioned
Speaker 1: the high flying offenses like Kansas City and Patrick Mahomes.
Speaker 1: It's like a shooter in basketball. It takes one quarter
Speaker 1: to wipe you out, like a thirty five point quarter
Speaker 1: for in basketball, or maybe like a four touchdown quarter
Speaker 1: like Mahomes has had so many times. It's it's crazy.
Speaker 1: And you talked about your era with the Dolphins, and
Speaker 1: and I grew up in that era as a as
Speaker 1: a fan of my childhood. Was the third teen to
Speaker 1: ten win, you know. And you guys had so many
Speaker 1: of those thirteen to ten games or sixteen to thirteen,
Speaker 1: just tight affairs that were back and forth, maybe a
Speaker 1: couple of field goals here and there. And one of
Speaker 1: those games, I think it was more of the twenties,
Speaker 1: but it was a two thousand nine game against the Patriots.
Speaker 1: And I played the sound at the top of the
Speaker 1: show of your interception when Cam Waite got in there,
Speaker 1: blast and Brady you pick it off game over. That
Speaker 1: was the clip to open the show. Is that your
Speaker 1: favorite moment as a Miami Dolphin? Yes, it was it's
Speaker 1: the moment everybody talks about. It's stuff. I'm sitting at
Speaker 1: the bar drinking beer with the buddies and uh, the
Speaker 1: seven year old guy walks in with his wife and
Speaker 1: he walks up and bumps my back and he Brady
Speaker 1: interception and gives up that. That's that's what people still
Speaker 1: talk about. Football was now the media stuff I do
Speaker 1: dolphin post game, you know, on on the fifth quarter CBS,
Speaker 1: so you know, people see me more now, But when
Speaker 1: it's football and bro, I'm my last year was eleven ten.
Speaker 1: I retired. They cut me eleven and the retirement so
Speaker 1: I've been out for you know, going on going on
Speaker 1: ten years, and they still come up out the Brady
Speaker 1: even that talking about like the mental side of football,
Speaker 1: and this is this is a Tom Brady type. This
Speaker 1: is where the this is the next level of football
Speaker 1: where there's a guy called the rat. People that don't
Speaker 1: know where the rat is. He's a free player. He
Speaker 1: just reached the quarterback size. So everybody's covering somebody you
Speaker 1: can run as call people call it lurking. If a
Speaker 1: safety is the rat and he's just a free player,
Speaker 1: he lurks. If a linebacker the player he's a rat.
Speaker 1: So we end up ratting, and we had we had
Speaker 1: a beat on their place. West Worker was there and
Speaker 1: they would always run him on these crossers. Brady could
Speaker 1: read the wrecked he could. He would. He would identify
Speaker 1: who the rat was by where the linebacker to the
Speaker 1: the running back to his right. The linebacker that way
Speaker 1: is covering him, so the other linebackers the rat. It
Speaker 1: was simple. If the other linebacker was removed, the safeties
Speaker 1: coming to rat. He could read all that. So to
Speaker 1: trick him wherever you wanted to rap to, you would
Speaker 1: have to turn your back that way for a second
Speaker 1: to let him, to show him your eyes aims left
Speaker 1: to come back to rat where you wanted to rac.
Speaker 1: So we had the game plan. If it was between
Speaker 1: me and Zach, you know, wherever the wherever the or
Speaker 1: me was, Zach still there, Me and the other back
Speaker 1: I think Zach might have been gone, whoever the rat was.
Speaker 1: If west Workers on that side when the ball snapped,
Speaker 1: look away from west Walker and you're still peaking at Brady.
Speaker 1: When Brady looks at you, and then he looks away.
Speaker 1: Now you can turn back and rap. If you go
Speaker 1: back and watch a game, I missed an interception on
Speaker 1: the same exact play in like the second quarter, almost
Speaker 1: at the same point in the field. He was west,
Speaker 1: was to the boundary and they were running across it
Speaker 1: to the field and I turned, I turned back. When
Speaker 1: I turned back, I didn't get that back far enough
Speaker 1: and it just hit my finger fingertips hit in the
Speaker 1: ground because he threw it to west and west west
Speaker 1: four ft two, so he was a tidy looked baster.
Speaker 1: So earlier in the game, the same exact play, you
Speaker 1: had the trick Brady to rap away and then come back,
Speaker 1: and in that play I tripped. I looked away to
Speaker 1: when I came back, I saw Cam beat the tackle
Speaker 1: and then he affected the ball and I looked right
Speaker 1: back and turning my back. Now he was throwing it
Speaker 1: to the crosser and it literally it came right to me.
Speaker 1: I was standing there. I was about to go down,
Speaker 1: and actually I was a bank I will trying to
Speaker 1: knock west west to sleep and the ball came right
Speaker 1: at me because Cam affected the throw. But that's just
Speaker 1: the mental side of football I'm talking about. Even in
Speaker 1: that play, and it was my biggest player as a
Speaker 1: Dolphin was the psychological part. The mental part. Oh. Even
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter, we were up by four. There
Speaker 1: was a minute twenty four left. Brady's known for doing that.
Speaker 1: You're up by four, a minute twenty left, Brady's gonna
Speaker 1: go get the mad yards for a touchdown. Like everybody
Speaker 1: knew that the whole You can fill it in the crowd,
Speaker 1: everybody playing, oh this is Brady. We gave you too
Speaker 1: much time and to seal that win with film study,
Speaker 1: with a great game plan. We planned to do that.
Speaker 1: We had the rack there for the crossers. I end
Speaker 1: up being a rat. I end up doing it, you know,
Speaker 1: doing it correctly. Cam got his pressure and can't wave
Speaker 1: the free agent. Now. I don't know if we want
Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind bringing them back, but it is what
Speaker 1: it is. He's little older, but Cam got his pressure
Speaker 1: and me being in the right position to make that play.
Speaker 1: That was kind of It was a big play when
Speaker 1: the game people know before. But the bigger part of
Speaker 1: football we're talking about earlier, the psychological, the adjustments, working
Speaker 1: through that on Monday, talking about that Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Speaker 1: and then seeing it work game day, Like that's the
Speaker 1: part of football that I love is the X and
Speaker 1: of it the lining up eleven against eleven, and where
Speaker 1: everybody has somebody to to cover, everybody has something to do.
Speaker 1: Who's gonna win, Who's gonna be better on that play
Speaker 1: that snap? And I'd have to say, can't wait helped
Speaker 1: a little bit, and he helped me a little bit,
Speaker 1: But I would have to say I made that play.
Speaker 1: I was the best. I was a better guy on
Speaker 1: that snap to win the game against the Well, the
Speaker 1: way you break it down, it's hard to argue with you.
Speaker 1: So and and like you mentioned, you you put whatever
Speaker 1: a player puts in for a week, sixty hours of
Speaker 1: getting your body right, getting the mind right, getting the
Speaker 1: practice reps in, to have it all kind of come
Speaker 1: to uh to its conclusion on a three hour clip
Speaker 1: on Sunday. I can understand how that jubilation kind of
Speaker 1: comes out the entire week of work. I can't even
Speaker 1: imagine what that feels like as an athlete. Now, everybody
Speaker 1: knows you for that pick like you mentioned against the Patriots,
Speaker 1: and I want to ask you changing this is entirely
Speaker 1: for me only. I was at a game back in
Speaker 1: two thousand eight. It was the Matt Light game. I
Speaker 1: won't ask you to go into that that part of
Speaker 1: the detail I want to ask you that I know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't gotta put that on air. The part we
Speaker 1: can put on air that I want to ask you about.
Speaker 1: So two thousand eight, I must have been twenty one
Speaker 1: years old. I was very very young. Still am young, obviously,
Speaker 1: but I went to the players parking lot after the
Speaker 1: game because I wanted to get some autographs or some photos,
Speaker 1: and I was told that was the best place to go.
Speaker 1: And you you exited the game early, but you left
Speaker 1: in your car at the same time as the other players,
Speaker 1: and you rolled out in this particular car that I'll
Speaker 1: never forget. I have a picture on my Facebook still.
Speaker 1: I snapped it because I was like, why is this
Speaker 1: dude driving that car? He's a professional football player. And
Speaker 1: for those that don't know, forgive my ignorance. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it was because I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: the automotive industry whatsoever. I don't know the maker model
Speaker 1: of the car, but I know it looked old and
Speaker 1: I know it was distinctly very brown. What was going
Speaker 1: on with that man? Like? What was that car? And
Speaker 1: why were you the one driving it? Um? I needed
Speaker 1: to hang out sketchy neighborhoods. I need to hang out
Speaker 1: sketching neighbood I'm not a flash to do. I have
Speaker 1: no too around where shots still people make fun of me.
Speaker 1: I have like shots. They calls. I changed a little
Speaker 1: faces every now and again. I don't spend money. Save
Speaker 1: all my money. Yeah, I'm not gonna be on broke.
Speaker 1: If Billy Corbyan does another another one, I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna be that guy. But I was in a
Speaker 1: I was in I was in the hood and there
Speaker 1: was a dude and he said he's setting a car
Speaker 1: for four hundred dollars. And it was an old Oldsmobile,
Speaker 1: like a nineteen seventies seven olds mobile, something big boxing car,
Speaker 1: everything torn up in it. I said, four hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: I had that car. I'm messing with me. He was
Speaker 1: a crackhead. Let's be honest. He was a crackhead. So
Speaker 1: I'm like four hundred bucks. He said four hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: I said, where's the title? I will get it. I said, okay.
Speaker 1: I would say I thought I was in the conversation.
Speaker 1: I was just messing around. I think I was waiting
Speaker 1: for my buddy and he was at some girl's house
Speaker 1: and I'm just sitting there and I was like, give
Speaker 1: me the title. He said, uh, okay. He comes back
Speaker 1: with the title with the sign with the title signs.
Speaker 1: I kind of look at it. I'm like, so, I
Speaker 1: give you four hundred dollars, you give me this title,
Speaker 1: and this is my car. He said, yeah, man, I said, okay,
Speaker 1: put four bucks out game before hundred. He gave me
Speaker 1: the kids. I went in and cranked it up. I
Speaker 1: drove around the block, came back. He was still there.
Speaker 1: I thought he was gonna run. He was still sitting there.
Speaker 1: I said, cool. I left. I wouldn't got to registers.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't got this shirt. It was like sixteen dollars
Speaker 1: a year to ensure that car. It was. It was nothing,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, I drove it to the game.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I drove it to the game. I think
Speaker 1: that I only got to drive the four games because
Speaker 1: it broke down the side of the turnpike. But even
Speaker 1: when it broke down and broke down the side of the
Speaker 1: the turnpike, my family was driving my um My, what
Speaker 1: I happened? I think I had in affinity. Then they
Speaker 1: were behind me. I pulled to the side of the turnpike.
Speaker 1: I took the license plate off, I took my stuff
Speaker 1: out and I left it there and they I don't
Speaker 1: know what happened to it where it got rid of it,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I paid four hundred dollars for a car.
Speaker 1: I drove it for about about a month a month
Speaker 1: and a half. It broke down and I let him happen.
Speaker 1: It's just a sound investment. You gotta take advantage of
Speaker 1: your opportunities when you get him. That's what about Think
Speaker 1: about that six weeks, four hundred dollars. That's if you
Speaker 1: can't run a car for that in a car for
Speaker 1: a month and a half, or four hundred dollars, the opportunity, dude,
Speaker 1: I love it, man, That's what makes you the best
Speaker 1: Channing And I want to get to this before we
Speaker 1: get out of here where we've run four times as
Speaker 1: long as my normal shows. But people are gonna love it,
Speaker 1: so I'm more than happy to do it. But you've
Speaker 1: transitioned so well, and this podcast is proof of it
Speaker 1: from a player into the radio personality role. Like, how
Speaker 1: are you enjoying the second career and how did you
Speaker 1: like How did you get to the point to where
Speaker 1: you're so comfortable and just so like admirable to listen
Speaker 1: to on the airwaves. Um it was. I was always
Speaker 1: a talker. I was always in a like more of
Speaker 1: an entertainment. But I was from like the country, Like
Speaker 1: I didn't. I wasn't in a big city. I was
Speaker 1: out on the outskirts of Atlanta, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: My mom got she got a better job. And then
Speaker 1: I went to games the middle of the country. So
Speaker 1: I grew up kind of nowed skirts and I'm with
Speaker 1: the games when that's the day and that's cornfields out there.
Speaker 1: So like I was just I always enjoyed the country.
Speaker 1: And back then, bro, I didn't have Twitter and Facebook
Speaker 1: and my Space is the guy that got blah blah
Speaker 1: blah this crap. You had to talk to humans. You
Speaker 1: had to talk when you're sitting around drinking beer or
Speaker 1: you're it on the porch, like you're just sitting and
Speaker 1: make fun of people. You're sitting your dorm room and
Speaker 1: and tease guys and just joke and tell stories and
Speaker 1: tell a story about the girl back in high school
Speaker 1: then and my uncle this and that. You had to
Speaker 1: do it. And then as I got in the in
Speaker 1: the league. My opportunity actually was with one of the
Speaker 1: news stations and during the during the media sessions when
Speaker 1: the Dolphins locker room, and they put me way in
Speaker 1: the corner and they put me next to these damn
Speaker 1: Polynesians because they didn't speak with English. They put me
Speaker 1: next like Paul Soliai and Reagan Mauai and Samson's a Telly.
Speaker 1: They put me next to all these guys because they
Speaker 1: didn't speak in English, so they didn't think I could
Speaker 1: influence them badly, so they put me over in his
Speaker 1: corner and just leave me there to my own devices.
Speaker 1: And this crazy little A D D mind would be going.
Speaker 1: So in the media sessions, I would just start making
Speaker 1: fun of everybody, teammates, media members, Um, David j Neo,
Speaker 1: he's a he comes to dolfers, he wears the keys
Speaker 1: I used to kill him with coming to America jokes,
Speaker 1: all the Barry Jackson's and all the how Habib's and
Speaker 1: O Mark Kelly. I just kill these guys just choking around.
Speaker 1: They knew I was joking. So the TV station came
Speaker 1: up to me and they were like, hey, do you
Speaker 1: mind have a cameraman? Just put your camera on you
Speaker 1: and record you here, like what edited it? You know,
Speaker 1: take the cuss words. I won't make you look bad.
Speaker 1: But there's like fifteen seconds when the credit runs after
Speaker 1: the news. They were like, and we'd rather set up
Speaker 1: paying something doom dum dum dune some song. We'll just
Speaker 1: playing fifteen seconds that you're messing around and call the
Speaker 1: crowder's corner. And it was like on Friday nights. I
Speaker 1: was like cool when the Dolphins a proved it and
Speaker 1: that was mine end to five six at the time,
Speaker 1: and it was Beasley at the time. So when I
Speaker 1: in two times level when the Dolphins released me and
Speaker 1: I was still getting some I was still getting you know,
Speaker 1: percentage of my my salary because I was after the lockout,
Speaker 1: so I was gonna take the year off. And they
Speaker 1: came up to me and Steve Goldstein end up choosing
Speaker 1: TV over radio and it was a big ordeal. They
Speaker 1: had a slot open and they were like, hey, you
Speaker 1: know you like to talk, You're funny, you like to
Speaker 1: mess around when you want to fill in on radio.
Speaker 1: So I filled it on next show midday. I went
Speaker 1: on Joe Rose and said Rosenberg Show and just messed around,
Speaker 1: just wonderingful hour here out there just just just messed
Speaker 1: around kind of saw like you get paid. And I
Speaker 1: was watching them, and I'm like, you have paid. You
Speaker 1: get paid to have an opinion. It's the easiest thing
Speaker 1: in the world to get as an opinion you have
Speaker 1: to work for. Like think about what you have to
Speaker 1: work for to get you have to work for an
Speaker 1: opinion that yours. Like, it's easy to have ton opinion.
Speaker 1: You need to do no research, you need to look
Speaker 1: into nothing, You just have to just talk. When they
Speaker 1: stopped and I saw it, I'm like, bro, I don't
Speaker 1: need to go to communications class to give an opinion.
Speaker 1: And I worked on. I did doing some work. I
Speaker 1: went to some seminars and things, and I went to
Speaker 1: the in the NFL comed by some of these little
Speaker 1: combines that do the weekend thing. Just kind of understand
Speaker 1: the business. And now, like I said, I'm on on
Speaker 1: ten years of doing it. But I always knew there
Speaker 1: was more than football. I always knew like I was,
Speaker 1: I wasn't the you know, the caveman, the near and
Speaker 1: the thought people want to thank football players are the
Speaker 1: sea ball, hit ball or to run this way? This
Speaker 1: is my gap. Paul that I was never that guy.
Speaker 1: Like I could really think about stuff and I would
Speaker 1: joke around on the lot. I messed around a lot.
Speaker 1: So it was a natural transition to be able to
Speaker 1: talk give an opinion that people have trouble coming up
Speaker 1: with their sales, which is still amazing to me, but
Speaker 1: have an opinion, and to be able to articulate it correctly,
Speaker 1: you know, I could alway. I could always, I could
Speaker 1: always articulate myself. I could always talk, and like, it's
Speaker 1: it's funny that when people tell me, like when I'm
Speaker 1: sitting around my boys, they're like, you can talk, and
Speaker 1: then you can entertain, and like there's a there's a
Speaker 1: there's a level where you can you can tell a story,
Speaker 1: and then you can really tell a story and make
Speaker 1: it good, line it up and give people the visual
Speaker 1: of what's going on, and you know, explaining the small
Speaker 1: details so that people really feel what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: And once I figured out that was a guy giving gifts,
Speaker 1: I just kept doing it, kept grinding at it, you know,
Speaker 1: work my way and wasn't making when I started, I
Speaker 1: wasn't making. I was making peanuts. I wouldn't get paying
Speaker 1: for like a couple of years, but just to learn
Speaker 1: it and get used to it. And a lot of
Speaker 1: guys aren't. They're not ready for that to come me
Speaker 1: to the league minimums now what five hundred thousand something
Speaker 1: like that. So the guy going to make a half
Speaker 1: a million and plus every single year of his life
Speaker 1: to hey, you're gonna come in every day and make
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a month, well grand like So a lot
Speaker 1: of guys aren't used to that. And trying to get
Speaker 1: sponsors and going to meetings and also once I figured
Speaker 1: out how it's how it's done, and really media's money
Speaker 1: if you can sell, if you can get sponsorships and all,
Speaker 1: I figured out the process, and I was just I
Speaker 1: stayed with it long. I didn't do diligence enough to
Speaker 1: really make a career out of it. So I can
Speaker 1: say I'm ten years in, thirty six years old. I
Speaker 1: do it for another ten fifteen years and then hello,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm trying to coach or something, going college,
Speaker 1: go to the NFL, Go coach after my kids grow up.
Speaker 1: But it's a buch of fun job now, and it's
Speaker 1: something I'm noticing now guys have trouble transitioning and I didn't,
Speaker 1: So I didn't realize until a lot of my other
Speaker 1: friends started retiring and guys started retiring, and guys that
Speaker 1: made way more money than me that I respect, that
Speaker 1: were better than me, And then I see that a
Speaker 1: lot of people who have trouble with that second career.
Speaker 1: I do hope we get ten fifteen more years you because,
Speaker 1: like I said, you're just fantastic on the radio. Love
Speaker 1: having you on these podcasts and speaking of kind of
Speaker 1: pay your dues in the media aspects. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be moving down your way sometime this summer. We're not
Speaker 1: quite sure yet. The wife is pregnant. She's doing may
Speaker 1: so when she has our firstborn, our daughter, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be moving down there sometimes shortly there after. So we'll
Speaker 1: have to catch up at Twin Peaks or somewhere and
Speaker 1: get a beer together. Man, sound good, yea, sir, I
Speaker 1: got one dude, June Tip Man, you coming, June Tip
Speaker 1: I got a little boy companies my third. You said
Speaker 1: it's your first, So yeah, that'll be they'll be in
Speaker 1: school together coming up and oh yeah, hopefully. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: gonna be friends coming up in jail. Then you come now,
Speaker 1: I can show you all in South Florida. Channing, thanks
Speaker 1: a bunch with you this man. We'll do it again
Speaker 1: real soon here. Okay, no problem, man, I really respect
Speaker 1: what you do. I'm glad you're coming down to the
Speaker 1: market because I I follow everybody that loved the Dolphin
Speaker 1: and follow Dolphins, and you you do the film breakdown,
Speaker 1: you do the Twitter like you really, you really do
Speaker 1: the X and old football side stuff. So we've talked
Speaker 1: in the past. I don't know people know, we've talked
Speaker 1: to games and thinks. I really enjoy following you. Man.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you're coming down to really be a
Speaker 1: big part of Dolphins because you're gonna adk so much
Speaker 1: to this organization, to be honest, means that means everything. Channing.
Speaker 1: I can't wait for it personally. It's it's only a
Speaker 1: couple of months away and I'm already counting the days down.
Speaker 1: So there he is, ladies and gentlemen, your Dolphins linebacker
Speaker 1: number fifty two, Channing Crowder again. Man, fantastic stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: going Man, how good is he? Off? He goes, And
Speaker 1: let's just go ahead and cut the podcast off right
Speaker 1: there because we're not going to improve upon that. So
Speaker 1: all you, please be sure subscribe, rate, and review the
Speaker 1: Drive Time podcast on Apple podcast or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcast from. Go ahead and follow me on Twitter
Speaker 1: at linkol NFL, follow Channing at official Crowder, and of course,
Speaker 1: the dolphins at Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank podcast.
Speaker 1: Channing did two episodes of that think about a year ago.
Speaker 1: Check those out. Check out the audible podcast Miami Dolphins
Speaker 1: dot com. Until next time, fins up.