Speaker 1: Hey everybody, this is Benjamin Watson, sixteen year NFL VET.
Speaker 1: I'm an author, a broadcaster, a father, most importantly a
Speaker 1: husband of twenty years, looking forward to this podcast. Make
Speaker 1: sure you tune in. This is the NFL Players Second
Speaker 1: Act Podcast.
Speaker 2: Thank you for tuning in to the NFL Player Second
Speaker 2: Act Podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm Pena Tillman and this is Roman Man Harper.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that was your first introduction. Anyways, I want
Speaker 4: first of all, thank iHeartRadio for letting them for allowing
Speaker 4: us to have their studios.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Right here in the northwest side of Atlanta.
Speaker 3: I call it midtown, but it's all good. We'll be
Speaker 3: bougie today.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I can't wait to talk to our next guest because
Speaker 4: he's a former teammate of mine, a great person, and
Speaker 4: I call him a teammate now on what I'm doing
Speaker 4: on my side hustle, So Pina introduce him.
Speaker 2: A sixteen year NFL VET, Super Bowl champion, broadcaster, author
Speaker 2: and probably is known as probably the best teammate around
Speaker 2: the NFL.
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ben watching to show.
Speaker 1: Mister appreciate you guys. Thanks, thanks for coming to our
Speaker 1: knock of the woods and this is not I know,
Speaker 1: I'm still like fifty minutes away and it was raining
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, so that traffic is you know.
Speaker 2: I hear when the traffic is like really bad. I
Speaker 2: don't know, I heard. I've never really experienced.
Speaker 1: Like outside we're in the in the country. I see
Speaker 1: I see cows and turkey. I saw some turkeys this
Speaker 1: morning in all the traffic. But yeah, Atlanta, if you're
Speaker 1: if you're like.
Speaker 4: LA bad, what I've did, it's like sometimes worse than
Speaker 4: l a bad. Like La is bad, but like Atlanta's
Speaker 4: just like and it's really because it just stretches for
Speaker 4: so long. Yeah that from the moment you really started
Speaker 4: to cross over from Alabama.
Speaker 1: Alabama, it's like Alabama all the way like Htol which
Speaker 1: is almost with the darn the South.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know forever.
Speaker 4: I think that's the most frustrating thing about the the
Speaker 4: traffic here in Atlanta for Ben specifically, Bro, you know
Speaker 4: how much you mean to me. Uh, I want to
Speaker 4: tell everybody you know Ben Watson. Uh he goes by
Speaker 4: Benjamin Watson. I call him Ben. So that's how I'm
Speaker 4: not offended. Yeah, yeah, I'm not a fan. We can
Speaker 4: talk about it later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we go.
Speaker 4: So Ben became came to New Orleans in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 4: he'd already been around an NFL VET, and you know
Speaker 4: what he meant to that locker room, being a veteran
Speaker 4: presence in there. And some of the funniest stories I
Speaker 4: remember was because you know, Jimmy Graham was still on
Speaker 4: this team at this point.
Speaker 3: Jim was the quote unquote older tight end was og.
Speaker 1: I was in I was the year ten plus at
Speaker 1: up point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it was just so funny because I'm like Ben, like,
Speaker 4: all right, man, they you you're having to block now,
Speaker 4: and like He's like, look, bro, because I'm like, Jimmy
Speaker 4: Graham ain't blocked.
Speaker 1: You told me to, and they showed them made me
Speaker 1: block all the time. I was like, dude, I'm not
Speaker 1: even gonna cover your practice. I know you're not going
Speaker 1: out for a pass.
Speaker 3: I already knew it was this.
Speaker 4: Guy for two teams already comes in the D's like, dude,
Speaker 4: I'm like the blocking tight end. And I was like,
Speaker 4: so when does that kind of happen in your career?
Speaker 4: He's like, dude, first of all, no tight ends, Like, bro,
Speaker 4: I want to be a blocking tight end enough to
Speaker 4: where like, Okay, now you're going to be a blocker
Speaker 4: and you either get better at it or you have.
Speaker 3: Did you lose the stuff or anything.
Speaker 1: No, it was it was the position. Look, Jimmy Graham
Speaker 1: deserved to be the number. I mean this dude, Honestly,
Speaker 1: if you would have told me this guy what's going
Speaker 1: to break all the records, I wouldn't believe it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he because he was on a tear. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the last few years there in New Orleans. Probably
Speaker 1: the best play with a lot of good athletes, probably
Speaker 1: the best complete athlete I've ever seen, run, jumped, fast, smart,
Speaker 1: all that time of stuff. And so, yeah, Sean Paynon's offense,
Speaker 1: but with Sean it was always everybody had a role. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you had the one guy who was really fast,
Speaker 1: take the top off. We're not throwing you the ball,
Speaker 1: no doubt. Jill Morgan, yep, or meach you're really fast,
Speaker 1: We're probably not gonna throw you the ball, especially as
Speaker 1: you get older. Had another guy that was intermediate, had
Speaker 1: Jimmy where everything flew through went through him. And then
Speaker 1: you had another guy me who you're gonna be on
Speaker 1: the backside, You're gonna block. We might throw you a
Speaker 1: little check down every now and then and do your job.
Speaker 1: The good thing, however, was because of the muscle memory
Speaker 1: that Drew Brees had with Jimmy Graham when they traded Jimmy.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, I'm in year thirteen having a
Speaker 1: career year, in year twelve having a career year because
Speaker 1: I getting all the passes now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so in that year, statistically, you had one hundred
Speaker 4: and ten targets, seventy four catches, eight hundred and twenty
Speaker 4: five yards, and I for your career lead in six touchdowns.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And year twelve or thirteen, Yeah, I was thirty
Speaker 1: five years old. My wife's looking at My wife's looking
Speaker 1: at me like I thought you were gonna retire. I
Speaker 1: was like, uh.
Speaker 3: For the timing kick in, Ben, What was your first
Speaker 3: welcome to the NFL moment?
Speaker 1: Well, had a couple first. And one was the first
Speaker 1: time I saw Michael Strahan in person. He's a get.
Speaker 3: Together large and you're well life together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but this dude and like his arms were by
Speaker 1: his knees and he could scratch his knee caps and
Speaker 1: we were playing in preseason and I was thinking he's
Speaker 1: a d N I called my daddy. I don't think
Speaker 1: I can. I don't think it's gonna work out for me.
Speaker 1: I can't bock these guys, you know. So I saw
Speaker 1: him in person. The other Welcome to the NFL moment.
Speaker 3: Was did you even have to block him? Or you
Speaker 3: just saw me?
Speaker 1: I just saw him facing our sideline like Goliath taunting
Speaker 1: the Israelites, and he was like facing our sideline looking
Speaker 1: at us. And it was the preseason, like the fourth
Speaker 1: preseason game. He won't even gonna play. And that was enough.
Speaker 1: I need, I need to have to mess with him,
Speaker 1: Praise God. The other one was where I'm practice in
Speaker 1: New England, and uh, you know, you're a rookie. You're
Speaker 1: trying to figure everything out. You're just learning the place.
Speaker 1: You're learning what you have to do, not necessarily what
Speaker 1: everybody else has to do, and not necessarily about reading
Speaker 1: the coverages. I just want to know my route. Get
Speaker 1: that first, so we uh we run a play. I'm
Speaker 1: out wide, so a while I've got to go route
Speaker 1: the safety blitzes. I need to run a side adjust
Speaker 1: I don't run it. And then I hear this thing.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a torpedo come past my helmet. Tom
Speaker 1: Brady threw the ball at me and I heard the
Speaker 1: ball coming, but I wasn't looking for it. It almost
Speaker 1: knocked me out. And the welcome moment was the fact that, look,
Speaker 1: it's not just about knowing your route. You got to
Speaker 1: know three or four things after your route. It ain't
Speaker 1: enough just to know check the box. I gotta go route.
Speaker 1: You better read coverage, you know everything else, because he's
Speaker 1: going to throw you the ball, and then after that
Speaker 1: you're not going to play anymore because he would he
Speaker 1: doesn't trust you. Yeah, luckily I got a second chance.
Speaker 1: But that was just because I was a first round pick.
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean that does help.
Speaker 1: That that's help.
Speaker 3: How about that's all they learned that in the game.
Speaker 4: Did you have anything specifically in a game your first
Speaker 4: like what was like, oh man, this is the league, like.
Speaker 1: Ray Lewis hits you or some way like No, I
Speaker 1: avoided Ray hitting him. I used to get him in
Speaker 1: coverage a lot, and that was no problem. I wrote
Speaker 1: Ray up coverage. Yeah, didn't have to block him, Praise God.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you one thing, EMMITTT. Smith we played
Speaker 1: in Arizona.
Speaker 3: Damn that Emmitt Smith.
Speaker 1: That this is two thousand and four. So this isn't
Speaker 1: like a welcome to NFL moment where you get hit
Speaker 1: or anything like that. But this is two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: He's playing for the Cardinals. We're playing in Sun Devil
Speaker 1: Stadium in like September, so it was like one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty degrees. So we go out there and we're
Speaker 1: warming up, and then the game starts and then I'm
Speaker 1: on the sideline and I look out there and the
Speaker 1: Smith is in the backfield, and I'm like, I'm on
Speaker 1: the same field as Mma Smith right now. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it was, but it just like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: that was it. That was it. That was it. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget that. And then also buying, you know, twelve
Speaker 1: dozen donuts for Willie McGinnis, what's a big one too,
Speaker 1: and spending our rookie dinner that year was I think
Speaker 1: the bill came to forty nine thousand dollars our rookie dinner.
Speaker 1: Oh so, y'all, SA got the whole team, the whole team,
Speaker 1: and we all to split it up. Yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: writing a check for nine grand rookie dinner. Welcome, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the NFL.
Speaker 4: My friend, I had to do just the defense, and
Speaker 4: my Bill was like fifteen eighteen licked me. And it
Speaker 4: was really because if you know everybody, you know Charles Grant,
Speaker 4: so of course of course, CG. You'll take the whole
Speaker 4: team out. No, no, just the defense, just the defense.
Speaker 4: They kind of protected me. But then yeah, they also didn't. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I remember like one one other rookie, he was
Speaker 4: like a he was a free agent guy. He ordered
Speaker 4: a state and then it was like, oh, I didn't.
Speaker 4: I don't think I wanted that. When I wanted this guy,
Speaker 4: I said, you're gonna eat that.
Speaker 2: They fact, yeah, some choice. I'm sure there was something
Speaker 2: else that followed you. You said something else, like with
Speaker 2: your chest.
Speaker 1: I thought this will for was gonna go shoot somebody.
Speaker 1: He was so mad. Dude's walking out of Smith and
Speaker 1: Willinsky in Boston with bottles of Chris who was walking
Speaker 1: out putting it in the refrigerator for later on us.
Speaker 3: This was about the fight.
Speaker 1: Glad they don't do that no more so.
Speaker 2: I don't know what year it was, but you're probably
Speaker 2: Bill Belichick's one of his favorite players, and it was
Speaker 2: it was voted as it was voted, let me here,
Speaker 2: let me, let me finish it.
Speaker 3: On the set.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't know that from you said.
Speaker 2: It was voted like probably the eighty fifth best play
Speaker 2: of there's.
Speaker 3: No there's no eighty there's no probably. It was voted
Speaker 3: eighty fifth. Can you not do that? Just like a terrible,
Speaker 3: terrible man? Anybody ever told you that you're.
Speaker 2: A terrible work wife. I want a divorce, you bad,
Speaker 2: Come give me somebody else. It was voted the eighty
Speaker 2: fifth excuse me I received, let me, let me try back.
Speaker 3: Let me.
Speaker 2: It was voted the eighty fifth best play, the chant
Speaker 2: Bayley play where you ran him down?
Speaker 3: How tired were you?
Speaker 1: My high exhausted, But I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: as tired as he was a boat gas both guys.
Speaker 1: That was you know, I was just mad, honestly because
Speaker 1: I hadn't called it past that game. I was pissed off,
Speaker 1: and so that probably fueled all that, you know, chase
Speaker 1: something down. I'm just mad that back then there were
Speaker 1: no pile on cameras and so they got they got
Speaker 1: it wrong, like it should have been a touchback the
Speaker 1: ball the zone. Yeah, we should have got the ball.
Speaker 1: Instead they got the ball scored on next player on
Speaker 1: the one yard line. But it should have been. I
Speaker 1: know for a fact the ball went out of the
Speaker 1: end zone. I get back to Boston and literally for
Speaker 1: years after that, I got people from Harvard m I. T.
Speaker 1: Talking about They've done case studies on the play, the speed,
Speaker 1: my speed, his speed, the way we hit collided, the
Speaker 1: projection of the ball, the elevation, the ball went out
Speaker 1: of the back of the end zone. Referees got it wrong.
Speaker 1: I believe it.
Speaker 2: I just remember looking at you on the sideline and
Speaker 2: you just you just like laid there. It bounces off
Speaker 2: the back of him, his head bounces off the ground.
Speaker 3: Man, just he just laid there. He just was I'm
Speaker 3: sure you just like.
Speaker 1: Was like, man, that was pretty impressive. Bro.
Speaker 3: He look if I'm champ, I'm low key mad, Like
Speaker 3: why dobody tell me?
Speaker 1: Boys was tired? Yeah, were done?
Speaker 3: And the best is.
Speaker 2: Like they had they had They had one of the
Speaker 2: mics over was one of the boom mics. They had
Speaker 2: a mic over on the Broncos sideline. It was like,
Speaker 2: who was that?
Speaker 1: Who was that?
Speaker 2: The tight end like you heard it in their was
Speaker 2: like the tight end.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sleep, I could run back then? Who threw a
Speaker 4: better football? Drew Brees and Tom Brady?
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 4: Who if Ben Watson had to have a catch from
Speaker 4: one person, that is life depended on it, And I
Speaker 4: need the I just needed Who's Who's whose one?
Speaker 1: You take it? My life depended on it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, who's throwing the rock to? Been watching Tom Brady
Speaker 3: or Drew Brees?
Speaker 1: Where are we playing?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, all these hypothetic You're asking the question
Speaker 4: I'm asking and then getting mad that you're asking hypothetica.
Speaker 1: Where are we playing? What's tom of year? What's the situation?
Speaker 1: Situational football man? All right?
Speaker 3: In the fourth quarter of an indoor game? Who threw
Speaker 3: a better ball? Shoot Drew Brees and the dome? Baby,
Speaker 3: it ain't no wind, ain't no sun.
Speaker 1: Now if we take that same game, yeah, and we
Speaker 1: go to Buffalo the fourth quarter and the winner is
Speaker 1: blowing the gold post sideways. Give me Thomas with Patrick Brady.
Speaker 1: That's what he does, Jr. Forgot the junior, That's what
Speaker 1: he does.
Speaker 2: Give me, Give me a situation, the environment in or
Speaker 2: outdoor year, Drew Brady, give to me all.
Speaker 3: I like that. What was it like playing for two
Speaker 3: Hall of Fame quarterbacks like that?
Speaker 1: Though?
Speaker 3: Like as far as like in and out of the huddle,
Speaker 3: the way they operate.
Speaker 4: Because I practiced against Tom, like we would come up
Speaker 4: there in scrimmage against them, and so so I've seen
Speaker 4: him operate and I just love.
Speaker 3: His humility, his humility.
Speaker 4: I know Drew very personally, but can not be a
Speaker 4: teammate of Tom and to see his humility, but then
Speaker 4: also getting guy's face. Make guys do laps when they
Speaker 4: jump offside. Dude, it's a little different up there. Competitors.
Speaker 4: They're both competitors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's no cookie cutter for a leader, Like
Speaker 1: there are certain traits that leaders have. They serve, they
Speaker 1: lead by example, they're vocal, but they're all different in
Speaker 1: their own way because of their personalities and two totally
Speaker 1: different personalities. Tom is, as you mentioned, he's boisterous. He'll
Speaker 1: yelling the scream practice, he's yelling at the defense like
Speaker 1: that's how he is. Drew is a little more reserved,
Speaker 1: although he loses it sometimes too, as we all do.
Speaker 1: But he's not yelling on the sideline. He's more the side,
Speaker 1: you know, leader that gets things done on the sideline.
Speaker 1: But they both prepare very well. I remember coming to
Speaker 1: New Orleans and my first year there. And I walk
Speaker 1: in there on like a maybe a Friday or Saturday,
Speaker 1: might have been a Saturday. And I walk into the
Speaker 1: weight room. You know, we had the fieldhouse right next
Speaker 1: to the weight room, they know facility, And it was
Speaker 1: dark in their nor facility except for some shadows. And
Speaker 1: I look out there and I see this shadow figure
Speaker 1: out on the field by himself. He was out there
Speaker 1: for probably twenty thirty forty minutes. And I was talking
Speaker 1: to the strength coach, ask what Drew was doing out there. Oh,
Speaker 1: he's going through He's going through his checks in the
Speaker 1: game plan. This dude was out there in the dark
Speaker 1: by himself, going through every single play on offense, going
Speaker 1: through every you see her, every single read, every single read.
Speaker 1: He's going through by himself, visualizing the game, the preparation
Speaker 1: of things that these guys do in the dark. I
Speaker 1: remember coming home, I had an ACL and I was
Speaker 1: out my rookie year in New England. The team had
Speaker 1: a game in like San Diego. You know, when you're
Speaker 1: playing San Diego you're from Boston. That's like a six
Speaker 1: hour flight, Like you're not getting back to a rush
Speaker 1: till morning rush hour. The next day if you're playing
Speaker 1: on a Sunday night. So I come in for rehab
Speaker 1: early in the morning. The team that played a night
Speaker 1: game out there in San Diego. Walking there to the
Speaker 1: locker room, nobody's there. I hear somebody in the weight room.
Speaker 1: I go into the weight room because I had to
Speaker 1: do my rehab. Tom's in there working out. Got off
Speaker 1: the plane set instead of going home, decided to go
Speaker 1: in there and get his work out in. And so
Speaker 1: those are the things I think that when you hear
Speaker 1: guys talk about those two quarterbacks specifically, it's leadership. It's commitment,
Speaker 1: it's preparation, it's challenging other players, it's lifting guys you
Speaker 1: know the way they play. It is trust, it's being
Speaker 1: it's being in the It's being in the in the
Speaker 1: in the huddle and looking at those guys and saying,
Speaker 1: which all here, I know, we got a chance to win.
Speaker 3: So you're known around the league.
Speaker 2: Your reputation around the league is being known as probably
Speaker 2: a great teammate for one and then two, just like leadership,
Speaker 2: do you view yourself as being like one of the
Speaker 2: best leaders or great leaders around the league.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that leadership is is is something
Speaker 1: that that's earned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, over time.
Speaker 1: I do think that there are certain innate qualities that
Speaker 1: we all have that can lend themselves to being leaders
Speaker 1: at a larger scale when we have the right opportunity, right,
Speaker 1: And so for me, you know, when you're a rookie
Speaker 1: in the league, your first second, third year, be quiet,
Speaker 1: learn what to do, especially in New England, you know,
Speaker 1: be seen not heard, and that was how you operate.
Speaker 1: Then as you get older, you're automatically a leader once
Speaker 1: you've been in for a while, you know how it is.
Speaker 1: Once you get plast eight ten years, you tog you
Speaker 1: og dude looking at you as a leader, whether you
Speaker 1: feel like you're a leader or not. And then what's
Speaker 1: interesting is God God elevates your or your platform from
Speaker 1: a leadership perspective sometimes when you least expect it. And
Speaker 1: so for me, really the last five years of my
Speaker 1: career in twenty fourteen, you remember when I'm in Saint Louis, Missouri,
Speaker 1: where the officer killed the young black kid and there
Speaker 1: were riots and people were crying, some people were upset,
Speaker 1: and then they decided not to indet the officer. I'm
Speaker 1: a backup, blocking tight end. I'm pissed because look, I
Speaker 1: love this team, but inside I want to start. I
Speaker 1: want to play, you know, I want to I want
Speaker 1: my name to be in lights. But I wasn't on
Speaker 1: the field. And it was at that moment, really that
Speaker 1: things transition from a leadership perspective, even outside of the
Speaker 1: locker room. Because I write this Facebook post about what
Speaker 1: happened about my feelings, and you know, people see it.
Speaker 1: I get an opportunity to speak about race and faith
Speaker 1: in this country and all these sorts of things, and
Speaker 1: I'm looked at as a as a leader in a
Speaker 1: different line. But really it's simply because I was just
Speaker 1: doing what I was supposed to do in the dark,
Speaker 1: and God decided at that point in time, I'm going
Speaker 1: to elevate you and give you an opportunity. And I
Speaker 1: think the lesson there is for leaders that we learn
Speaker 1: how to be leaders in the mundane, like we learn
Speaker 1: how to be leaders in the common practices of life.
Speaker 1: Many times we think of leadership is something that has
Speaker 1: to be seen in the big lights on television. You
Speaker 1: gotta have thousands of people following, you know, leaders are
Speaker 1: forged in the crucible of being responsible, with the responsibilities
Speaker 1: that you have as a husband, as a father, as
Speaker 1: a teammate, and then a if you get an opportunity
Speaker 1: to shine on a larger scale, man, if you're responsible
Speaker 1: with little, you can be responsible with much.
Speaker 3: I mean, like that, that's beautifully said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 3: I mean, this guy does write books, So that's trying
Speaker 3: to worry it down. You kind of did you kind
Speaker 3: of did use you just let that.
Speaker 1: Was briefully said.
Speaker 3: But I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1: I mean, like you just.
Speaker 3: So good, don't do that. But I will say this though,
Speaker 3: because I how did that?
Speaker 4: Because you went from being an angry, disgruntled, you know,
Speaker 4: second string tight end at the time. That's happened to
Speaker 4: block you guys were not you didn't have a great
Speaker 4: year that year. The Saints did not in twenty fourteen
Speaker 4: when you started hard. Then you got back because you
Speaker 4: let us get in the playoffs that year. I'm not
Speaker 4: saying I'm bragging or anything. But then all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: I see you on like CNN, and you're not just
Speaker 4: on TV like talking football.
Speaker 3: You're talking everything else but.
Speaker 4: That Andry Evince, yeah current Evince politics, and people are
Speaker 4: looking at you. It is like this guy is in
Speaker 4: a sport that everybody looks at it is like they're
Speaker 4: not smart, they're dumb, they're just yeah, yeah, the basketball,
Speaker 4: play football. They're looking at you like, no, he has
Speaker 4: the spoken word of a real man. He's got yeah,
Speaker 4: he's got great ideas, he's got opinions.
Speaker 1: What was that like?
Speaker 4: How was that I don't even want to call it
Speaker 4: a transition, but what was that little though, that week,
Speaker 4: in that time in your life?
Speaker 3: What was that like?
Speaker 1: Well, you know how it is in the locker room. Look,
Speaker 1: there's a perception about professional athletes, especially football players. I
Speaker 1: like to say we're the most educated professional sport, honestly
Speaker 1: because all our guys, most of them go to college.
Speaker 1: You know, you got to go Yeah, you go from
Speaker 1: high school, and so we're educated. We got guys in
Speaker 1: these locker rooms that are smart, that understand the world,
Speaker 1: that care about different things, and so like, for me,
Speaker 1: the the awesome thing was having an ability to express
Speaker 1: yourself in ways that you hadn't quite before and having
Speaker 1: an opportunity to speak about things that impact all of us.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're fathers, right, we're husbands, we were citizens
Speaker 1: of this country. We care about what happened we come
Speaker 1: from communities, we live in communities like we have aspirations
Speaker 1: outside of the game. We want our voices to be
Speaker 1: heard and understood as much as anybody else, and we
Speaker 1: deserve that we have dignity as humans that are outside
Speaker 1: of our ability to play football. And so when you
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to go on cable news or go
Speaker 1: speak somewhere and it has nothing to do with football,
Speaker 1: it's a good feeling at the same time. At the
Speaker 1: same time, one of the first things that people tell
Speaker 1: you when you get in the league is use football.
Speaker 1: Don't let football you just use you right, use football,
Speaker 1: don't let football use you. And it's because of football
Speaker 1: that I had an opportunity to do those things. It's
Speaker 1: because of football that we all have different opportunities because
Speaker 1: there is a certain platform and gravitize that comes with
Speaker 1: playing this game. But when it's shifted and you can
Speaker 1: opportunity to speak about other things, it's also of validating
Speaker 1: to say I'm not that I'm more than an athlete,
Speaker 1: but that the totality of who I am is is
Speaker 1: much greater than the sport.
Speaker 2: Did you get a lot of I don't want to
Speaker 2: say hate, but like negativity towards speaking on some of
Speaker 2: the current events.
Speaker 3: Was there a lot of smoke that came with that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't even think we called a smoke
Speaker 1: back then, but yeah, but you know that there's what's
Speaker 1: what what's cool is they always say, don't talk about
Speaker 1: politics and religion, you know, but but in football we
Speaker 1: used to. We talk about all this stuff. Such a
Speaker 1: different space, exactly.
Speaker 3: The safest space you've ever been.
Speaker 1: It is just crazy. In corporate incorporate, you can't say
Speaker 1: nothing like needles, like guys, it's okay like this, these
Speaker 1: are things we're all thinking about. Let's just talk about it.
Speaker 1: And so it was cool to see even coaches coming
Speaker 1: aside and I heard what you said. I agree with it.
Speaker 1: Although I can't, you know, really talk about it. I
Speaker 1: will get messages from people that agree with me one
Speaker 1: hundred percent, people that thought I was a complete idiot
Speaker 1: in a buffoon, and everywhere in between. People are looking
Speaker 1: for authenticity. And what I mean by that is, even
Speaker 1: if we just got out a political election, whenever you
Speaker 1: see this podcast, it might be a few months ago,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, but we all still know what happened.
Speaker 1: We just got out of that. What we yearn for,
Speaker 1: even in people that we don't agree with, is authenticity,
Speaker 1: Like we want them to be convicted with their convictions
Speaker 1: and be true and truth like live with integrity. And
Speaker 1: even the people that didn't agree with me, they say,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't agree with you. I don't know
Speaker 1: about this God's stuff. I'm not a person of faith,
Speaker 1: or I think that race is fine in America, whatever.
Speaker 1: But I trust you because I think you really mean
Speaker 1: the best for Peaple and so to me, that's that's
Speaker 1: what it's about. So if you're getting the smoke, if
Speaker 1: you're getting the hate, you know what, that's fine to
Speaker 1: be challenged. Everybody doesn't have to agree, but we should
Speaker 1: be able to trust that we have each other's best
Speaker 1: interest in our heart. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I have this quote from the Cost of
Speaker 3: good Leadership, and I want to know how you tried
Speaker 3: to model yourself as a player and in your everyday life.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna read the quote through you first.
Speaker 4: Okay, good leadership is about managing your burdens well while
Speaker 4: being willing to sacrifice for others. Understanding the cost of
Speaker 4: leadership will help you become someone worth following.
Speaker 1: How does that?
Speaker 4: How do you think you try to portray those characteristics
Speaker 4: in your everyday life and then specifically even more in
Speaker 4: a locker room, especially as you became who you have become.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I started off a New Ingland with the Patriots,
Speaker 1: and uh, we want a lot, but a really tough
Speaker 1: place to play for one of them places where there's
Speaker 1: high expectations, a lot of accountability. But one of the
Speaker 1: things when we used to come into the into the
Speaker 1: building in New engl on the door you had all
Speaker 1: these things you saw, you saw a version of them
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. Yeah, because they all come from the
Speaker 1: same coaching tree. Everybody copies everybody else. But one of
Speaker 1: the things is put the team first. And leadership is
Speaker 1: about being a servant. That's anesthetical to how we many
Speaker 1: times think about leadership. Who's always in the front automatically
Speaker 1: a quarterbacks, a leader automatically, a spokesperson as a leader
Speaker 1: automatically the person that's making the most in NIL now
Speaker 1: if you're in college, is a leader. But true leadership
Speaker 1: is serving us, agree, and we do that in different ways.
Speaker 1: One of the ways we do that is if it's
Speaker 1: if it's your role run down on special teams and
Speaker 1: you're the starting safety ben the Pro Bowls, and you
Speaker 1: do it to the best of your ability. You're a leader,
Speaker 1: but you're a leader. People are watching that when you
Speaker 1: respond a certain way to disappointment or losing, you're a leader.
Speaker 1: People are watching you when they ask you to do
Speaker 1: something for someone else on the field, or let's let's
Speaker 1: let's translate it. Let's move it to home. When you
Speaker 1: come home and your wife has been home all day
Speaker 1: and you're tired, and you know she's tired, but you
Speaker 1: put her knees first and allow her to have a
Speaker 1: reprieve when you want one, you're being a leader. And
Speaker 1: so for me, what I've what I saw and what
Speaker 1: I tried to do in the locker room was man,
Speaker 1: be a trusted voice, be authentic voice. Be someone who is, yes,
Speaker 1: a leader in my performance and my consist see on
Speaker 1: the field, but also somebody who understands that man leadership
Speaker 1: really is about servant. Like you know, you're a leader
Speaker 1: when when people are in crisis and having trouble in
Speaker 1: their personal life, they seek you out. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of times they don't seek out the guy who's the
Speaker 1: most popular, who seems to have the fastest car and
Speaker 1: all the girls. They may not seek him out when
Speaker 1: they're having problems, when they're struggling internally with something with
Speaker 1: fear of failure, spiritually, someone passing their family, they're facing
Speaker 1: a scary situation, they're on the bubble, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: Years later, somebody may call you up. Man, I was
Speaker 1: with you in the locker room. I was doing my thing. Man,
Speaker 1: can you help me out in this situation. That's that's leadership,
Speaker 1: and that's where I'll strive to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that. You said the leaders
Speaker 3: they run down on special teams.
Speaker 2: I'm on this dude never played. He just refused to
Speaker 2: place for the teams. Like, I will not let that wright,
Speaker 2: I will not.
Speaker 1: I've just seen him, Yeah on kick Off. I've seen
Speaker 1: him in Kickoff. That's what I'm talking about. I don't
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 3: Don't on this food.
Speaker 4: He's just mad because like, I'm not a special teams guy.
Speaker 3: Like I'm I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I wasn't.
Speaker 3: If you had to, yeah, as you to. He never
Speaker 3: asked me to. I did pustle a personal protector a
Speaker 3: couple of times. Yeah, I s before I got to
Speaker 3: watch the film.
Speaker 1: I don't believe I wasn't a sweet located. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: make it sweet though, he had to make it different
Speaker 1: than everybody else, Like, you know, he had to put
Speaker 1: his own sauce on it.
Speaker 3: We're gonna take a short break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 2: You're a writer, speaker, author, uh, correspondent, film TV.
Speaker 3: You got seven kids? Damn he was only going for six.
Speaker 2: My husband, I'll call that one of the most important
Speaker 2: Jesus was your husband. Like, where do you find a
Speaker 2: time to one speak about the things you want to
Speaker 2: speak about? Again, as I alluded to earlier, you you
Speaker 2: you speak about current events, Like where do you have
Speaker 2: the time to do any of this? Because that's that's
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't do good with my time. I don't.
Speaker 1: One thing I'm trying to do better with is my
Speaker 1: replenishment cycles and taking time for myself for things that
Speaker 1: are important to me to have that cycle so that
Speaker 1: I have enough to give out. I've experienced burnout in
Speaker 1: some you know, some regards. I think that one of
Speaker 1: the toughest things in retiring, I guess almost five years
Speaker 1: ago now was like a lack of schedule. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lack of a schedule and a lack of a cadence.
Speaker 1: Like everything in life, date night is predicated on Tuesday
Speaker 1: being your day off or Thursday, whenever you want to
Speaker 1: do it. Like your vacations, you know what you got
Speaker 1: to do here, you have a sense of accomplishment. And
Speaker 1: then when I retired, it was like, you get all
Speaker 1: these opportunities, what do you say no to? What do
Speaker 1: you say yes to? And next thing you know you're
Speaker 1: spent seven in the morning is whatever at night. My
Speaker 1: dog gets done with ballet at nine thirty at night.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to figure out when I had time
Speaker 1: to really do anything and take a breath. And so
Speaker 1: when do I have time? It comes in spurts. One
Speaker 1: thing I'm learning is when I'm home to be present.
Speaker 1: I've known that that's nothing new, but as busy as
Speaker 1: we are as fathers, as businessmen, whatever we're doing, when
Speaker 1: you're home, you got to be present. Like your kids
Speaker 1: don't care how much money you make, they don't care
Speaker 1: how much you're on TV. I had a time I
Speaker 1: came home from SEC Network from the weekend and my daughter,
Speaker 1: she was seven years older at the time, and she said, Daddy,
Speaker 1: I saw you on TV this weekend. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: how she said, man, you look you look really really happy.
Speaker 1: You were smiling. Why don't you smile when you're at home?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: But but what she was saying was, man, you go
Speaker 1: out here and you work and you you you perform
Speaker 1: and you put out there, and then when you get
Speaker 1: home when we need the best of you, you're drained
Speaker 1: and you're moping around and you're in a a in
Speaker 1: a sense of duty here at home.
Speaker 3: How was I received?
Speaker 1: I received it like, man, Yeah, I needed that. I
Speaker 1: need that correction, and it was better coming from your
Speaker 1: daughter than the way. But when that happens, you thank
Speaker 1: them for telling you. You that, man, Thank you that.
Speaker 1: Thank you for telling Daddy that I can make changes here.
Speaker 1: And So getting back to your question about when when
Speaker 1: I have time to do things, I blocked time during
Speaker 1: certain times of the year for certain things. You know,
Speaker 1: this is SEC time, this is this is SEC network time.
Speaker 1: The majority of my time is preparing for the weekends
Speaker 1: for broadcasting and watching him, you know, do his thing
Speaker 1: and talk about the football games. You know, in the
Speaker 1: off season. There's the other things that I'm doing. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that I'm always doing is being
Speaker 1: with the kids as much as I can. We had
Speaker 1: a wrestling match last night, my son's first wrestling match.
Speaker 1: Did he win? Both? The matches went very quickly. He
Speaker 1: did not win either. They just want you to thirty seconds.
Speaker 3: Hey, how are you enjoying doing the s TV on
Speaker 3: the SEC networ I don't think I've ever asked you that. Yeah, man,
Speaker 3: I'm in I'm enjoying like seeing the storylines. I'm enjoying
Speaker 3: this time of year when I know the teams. I
Speaker 3: don't enjoy getting to know the teams like I don't
Speaker 3: enjoy the first six weeks of the city season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the talking where everybody's like playing these outer conference games.
Speaker 1: They're gonna win by seventy points. You don't know who's
Speaker 1: good and who's not. All you know is some statistics,
Speaker 1: Like I don't enjoy that. I do enjoy like understanding, man,
Speaker 1: this team is really good at this and they're gonna
Speaker 1: match up like this against this team and seeing how
Speaker 1: that goes. You know, That's that's that's intrigued. That's intriguing
Speaker 1: to me. I enjoy being in studio with the guys,
Speaker 1: you know, I enjoy the camaraderie. I don't enjoy the
Speaker 1: fact that we don't leave the studio till one in
Speaker 1: the morning. I suffer for three days trying to catch
Speaker 1: up with sleep off that where's the sec Charlotte, Arlotte? Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah there in Valentine. Yeah, we're in Arlotte.
Speaker 3: But so the nightly show that he's on was the
Speaker 3: one I first started on.
Speaker 4: And so when I went back on the road because
Speaker 4: COVID lifted, I went back on the road. That's when
Speaker 4: Ben came in right behind me and he did the
Speaker 4: night show. And the night show is great, Like the
Speaker 4: guys there are awesome, a whole bunch of laughs, be
Speaker 4: funny a lot, But then it's also like, well, you
Speaker 4: don't know what time that thing gonna end. Like whenever
Speaker 4: that last game rolls through, that's when you get started.
Speaker 5: But before that, there all day long, all day long,
Speaker 5: halftimes and post games and fills when you know when
Speaker 5: there's lightning delays, all.
Speaker 1: That good stuff.
Speaker 4: Yes, So, where so you talked about the priorities and
Speaker 4: where you know you more of a season, No, guy,
Speaker 4: when this season happened, This is where I'm at when
Speaker 4: this season happens, where it's this, How long is it
Speaker 4: taking you to kind of figure out a good schedule?
Speaker 4: Because like it's taking me years where I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: I kind of like where I'm at. All this day
Speaker 4: is focused on this, this day, is this this day,
Speaker 4: I'm taking the kids to school because my wife's grinding
Speaker 4: on it and I want to just let her sleep
Speaker 4: even though she's not going to.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's been a work in progress and I
Speaker 1: still don't have it all. And I think also it
Speaker 1: was about giving myself some grace through my football career.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you guys, but man, every day
Speaker 1: had a focus and a checklist every day, down to
Speaker 1: your car practicor your massage, your meals. Obviously the practice schedule,
Speaker 1: all that type of stuff, but every day was really
Speaker 1: set during the season and now, man, things change a bit,
Speaker 1: and what was frustrating was that I didn't have this
Speaker 1: set schedule. But now I'm understanding, Look, there are certain priorities,
Speaker 1: but also give yourself some grace. Give yourself some grace,
Speaker 1: Like if you don't if you don't hit something today
Speaker 1: that you needed to hit today, it's okay. Yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 1: That's big. Like the world is going to keep going.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be fine, you know, And as a as
Speaker 1: an athlete, I struggled with that, like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be prepared if I don't get this
Speaker 1: done right now because I had to go pick up
Speaker 1: the kids from here or and I want to pick
Speaker 1: them up because I'm available now. It's not like I
Speaker 1: have to be anywhere, And so giving myselfself some grace
Speaker 1: has been big. I went and did a thing called
Speaker 1: life playing a little while ago, and it's an intensive
Speaker 1: two day process where you kind of map your life
Speaker 1: and kind of find find uh, you know, your calling,
Speaker 1: your mission, the things that you're good at, how you're designed,
Speaker 1: what you need to replenish and to be at your best,
Speaker 1: how to filter out no's and yes's for different opportunities. Man,
Speaker 1: should I pursue this business? Should I not do this?
Speaker 6: This?
Speaker 1: This isn't gonna be fulfilling for me. And it really
Speaker 1: gave me kind of a sense of of clarity as
Speaker 1: far as look, these are the things that are priorities
Speaker 1: in your life, like these you don't give up. You know, family,
Speaker 1: you know your mission, your faith, whatever it is. These
Speaker 1: are things that can kind of rotate a bit. These
Speaker 1: are things that are going to drain you. You might
Speaker 1: be good at them. You might have an opportunity to
Speaker 1: do them, but man, you're not wired to do that.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's kind of the work in progress
Speaker 1: I mentioned where you know, it's it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: discovery time, I think. I think Roman like right now
Speaker 1: I'm at the first four years out of the league
Speaker 1: or a lot of ups and downs, even emotionally, like
Speaker 1: I mean, there are times where I go see a psychiatrist,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, and I just feel like, dude,
Speaker 1: I don't know what what am I accomplishing, what am
Speaker 1: I doing? And those are really real feelings, all feelings
Speaker 1: of like depths. And so now I feel like four
Speaker 1: years out, five years out, almost starting to see like
Speaker 1: this next life and all that has to offer and
Speaker 1: it's and it's okay.
Speaker 3: Was it hard to make that decision to go talk
Speaker 3: to somebody?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I remember the first time I wanted to
Speaker 1: go see a psychiatrist. I was in year six in
Speaker 1: New England, my last year there actually year five in
Speaker 1: New England, and I was just having stress, headaches, I
Speaker 1: was I was just overwhelmed and we didn't have kids
Speaker 1: at the time, and my wife told me, you need
Speaker 1: to go see somebody, I want to go see somebody.
Speaker 1: That was my first entry into what now is like
Speaker 1: mental health. I mean this was this was two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. Yeah, yeah, like won't nobody going to see
Speaker 1: that type of help. But that was my first experience
Speaker 1: there and it helped me finish out my years there
Speaker 1: and kind of a different outlook. But then fast forward
Speaker 1: to now, it still was difficult to admit that you
Speaker 1: that you that the walls are closing in. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know that that you're that you're in a place that
Speaker 1: you can't get yourself out of. You can't work yourself
Speaker 1: out of this. You need help. But what's crazy is
Speaker 1: as soon as you take that first step, you have
Speaker 1: that first consultation, like, man, why haven't I done this before? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What is the shame? There ain't no shame in it.
Speaker 1: We don't have shame when we go get our car fixed.
Speaker 1: We don't have shame when we go get a massage
Speaker 1: because we've got a bad hamstring. Like why should we
Speaker 1: be ashamed to go have somebody help you with your life? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and with some of the some of the
Speaker 1: with some of the chemical struggles that you're dealing with.
Speaker 1: We repair everything else it's the same thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a I think that's a great way
Speaker 3: to say. We talked about that earlier. One about showing
Speaker 3: each other a little bit more grace.
Speaker 2: But two part of the hardest thing for us as athletes,
Speaker 2: but help black athletes, Like it's just kind of a
Speaker 2: it's kind of a stigma, like it's taboo growing up
Speaker 2: in a black home or household to go and talk
Speaker 2: to someone about like what's going on up here. It's
Speaker 2: kind of look kind of look down upon, you know,
Speaker 2: within within the community.
Speaker 3: I would say, yeah, for sure, I think everybody has to.
Speaker 4: You have to figure out a way to where Ben
Speaker 4: saying like you at some point you get comfortable enough
Speaker 4: or you get scared and you're like I got to
Speaker 4: do something, Yeah, because you know something is just not right.
Speaker 1: I want to know.
Speaker 3: I want to tell you something else. That's that.
Speaker 4: I would look on the outside and say, I don't
Speaker 4: know if it was right either, Ben, that was you
Speaker 4: playing football to you or thirty nine years old.
Speaker 1: Even though I don't know.
Speaker 7: If Kirston was here, she'd be like, I know it
Speaker 7: wasn't right, especially because like you know, you'd had a
Speaker 7: couple of injuries.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you tore, you tore achilles, You rupture your achilles
Speaker 4: out over you. I was I was thirty six, Yeah,
Speaker 4: thirty six with the Yeah, okay, which is it?
Speaker 3: Sit down stage? You shut it down six months? Yeah,
Speaker 3: ain't doing nothing.
Speaker 1: Change my whole change my whole life.
Speaker 4: Oka really all right? And you still had all these
Speaker 4: other things going on. I think you're being an author
Speaker 4: at this time. You've written a book. Yeah, you, like
Speaker 4: I said, you've been on CNN like doing all these things.
Speaker 4: You You've been pulled in many, many different directions, Yet
Speaker 4: you chose to still try and roll back out there.
Speaker 6: Why?
Speaker 1: Man? Why? Why? I'm a personally has a strong sense
Speaker 1: of commitment to a fault. I feel like once I
Speaker 1: start something, I can't walk away from it, even if
Speaker 1: it's beating the crap out of me. Yeah. I also
Speaker 1: felt like, man, there were things in this game that
Speaker 1: I wanted that I hadn't accomplished yet, Like what going
Speaker 1: to the Pro Bowl? You never been able, no real
Speaker 1: going to the Pro Bowl. As stupid as that sounds
Speaker 1: right now, it's forty three, almost forty four right now.
Speaker 1: As stupid as that sounds right now, there were things
Speaker 1: that I thought I could maybe do at thirty six
Speaker 1: years old. You ain't going over. You ain't been, you
Speaker 1: ain't going you know what I'm saying. But then I
Speaker 1: was thinking, Man, I'm gonna come back from this. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make it to the Pro Bowl. I've deserved it
Speaker 1: in the past. I'm gonna earn this accolade. You mentioned
Speaker 1: being a super Bowl champ, right, the Super Bowl that
Speaker 1: I played and we lost, the Super Bowl that we won,
Speaker 1: I had an acl I want to be back on
Speaker 1: the field for Super Bowl, right. I want to make
Speaker 1: a little bit more money, no doubt. There's never enough.
Speaker 1: Billionaires say the same thing. It's never enough. When is
Speaker 1: it really enough? You know, a whole litany pride, you know, identity. Yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: I've been I put a lot into this, Like I
Speaker 1: put a lot of blood, sweat, tears, as they say,
Speaker 1: like emotional scars. I fought through a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: I came back from a lot of stuff, moved my
Speaker 1: family around like this. This is not who I am,
Speaker 1: But man, this is a big part of who I am, right,
Speaker 1: you know, Like if I don't do this, who am I? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, that's it's tough to say, but that's those
Speaker 1: are the things that kept me going. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people say, man, you know you got this beautiful family.
Speaker 1: Yes I do. You got his wonderful wife, Yes I do.
Speaker 1: We'll be married. We've been married twenty years. Next year
Speaker 1: it'll be twenty years. You've got all these things going
Speaker 1: for you. Yes I do. Man, you've had seven cushions, yep,
Speaker 1: you had a cl You've had achilles, You've had I
Speaker 1: had everything. Yeah, why why are you still playing well?
Speaker 1: Because those things I still feel like I want to do,
Speaker 1: And so that's why I kept going. But and then
Speaker 1: there was this other part of it as well, that, man,
Speaker 1: my last I would say, my last five years in
Speaker 1: the league or probably the sweetest as far as impact goes,
Speaker 1: because there's this other side that says, Okay, if I'm
Speaker 1: going to be in this locker room, I have a
Speaker 1: chance to impact young men's lives, which impacts generations like
Speaker 1: I may be the only guy that has to the
Speaker 1: status to look at them and say, man, what are
Speaker 1: you doing with that girl? What are you doing with
Speaker 1: these kids? You haven't seen your kid? And how long
Speaker 1: you can? You know what, you can be a dad
Speaker 1: even if you didn't have one. Right, what I'm saying
Speaker 1: like you can change the course of your entire family
Speaker 1: treat I believe that about you. I can talk to
Speaker 1: another guy and say, hey, man, you're struggling with this man.
Speaker 1: This is what scripture says about your situation. And so
Speaker 1: there was this desire to achieve and attain. For sure,
Speaker 1: there was also this, man, I don't know how much
Speaker 1: longer I'm have this opportunity to be in this locker
Speaker 1: room and impact these young men outside of the game
Speaker 1: for eternity. I don't want to I don't want to
Speaker 1: take that for granted. So I wanted to be on mission,
Speaker 1: you know, in that respect, Like, Okay, if I'm going
Speaker 1: to be in this locker room and keep playing, it's
Speaker 1: gonna suck in a lot of ways. I can't wait
Speaker 1: till game day because i'ma have some good medicine and
Speaker 1: my body's gonna feel good. Practice is gonna be terrible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But I can also impact these young men like that.
Speaker 1: That was my goal.
Speaker 4: And at that point the NFL locker room hat completely
Speaker 4: flipped upside doubt, where like it wasn't older vets anymore.
Speaker 4: It was like one or two maybe, and then it
Speaker 4: was a whole bunch of young guys. So what you
Speaker 4: were saying is true value and impact. That's something I
Speaker 4: served at least, I just was not even thinking, but
Speaker 4: really truly serving.
Speaker 2: I really felt that when you was talking to me,
Speaker 2: like I need to be a better dad, and I
Speaker 2: know you was used to me as an example, but
Speaker 2: like the way you looked at me, it was very intentional.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, I do need to be a
Speaker 2: better dad. I don't know my dad, but I know
Speaker 2: my dad. But it made me feel like I was like, damn,
Speaker 2: I feel that.
Speaker 3: Okay, that was yeah, that was good. Have you gotten
Speaker 3: over not accomplishing all those goals?
Speaker 1: That's that's part of my journey, even with my psychologists,
Speaker 1: it's part of it. It's part of like, it's part
Speaker 1: of the part of the process of moving on in
Speaker 1: total contentment and being totally I guess forward facing. It's
Speaker 1: part of it. It is getting over some of those things,
Speaker 1: and no, I haven't gotten over some of those things.
Speaker 4: That is that a good thing for you to be
Speaker 4: able to say no, I haven't. It's it's a true thing, yeah,
Speaker 4: because you always do that though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for the most part, I could say that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's almost embarrassing to say a bit. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's embarrassing a bit to say it could be,
Speaker 1: but I'm confident in that. Yeah, you know, there are
Speaker 1: some things that that I haven't gotten over. And and
Speaker 1: it's certain times a year. Hm, there's certain times a
Speaker 1: year when certain things are announced. There's certain teams make.
Speaker 3: This you know, Yeah, triggers.
Speaker 1: What would have been? You play it out in your
Speaker 1: mind a different way, But that's that's part of the process.
Speaker 3: So I think my trigger is super Bowl. Oh, there's
Speaker 3: no I never I never won a super Bowl.
Speaker 2: He always throws it in my face and I'm and
Speaker 2: I'm your friends, Yeah we are, right, the biggest jerk,
Speaker 2: the biggest jerk.
Speaker 1: But Ben like he's like, I'm gonna put off my
Speaker 1: ring right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he does like that all the time.
Speaker 4: But then then like it's also where I get very
Speaker 4: triggered when we bring up super Bowl fifty because like
Speaker 4: I have this this secret vendetta that what happened, and
Speaker 4: I'm just like it was really good, but like it
Speaker 4: ended terrible in my opinion, and it's because of this
Speaker 4: this that so.
Speaker 3: I was that or is that a thing?
Speaker 5: Though?
Speaker 3: Like I know, I know our Super Bowl. So that
Speaker 3: was the twenty eighteen Saints Rams.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's that's definitely true.
Speaker 3: That made me another year.
Speaker 1: I gotta get this ye this way, I was done.
Speaker 1: I was retired. I was I was done. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not playing more. Even after that game,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm done. It got to be like
Speaker 1: May and June and I started thinking I can't. I can't. No, no,
Speaker 1: it can't in that way, go back, run back out
Speaker 1: there like an idiot.
Speaker 3: It's so I'm real big on like education, right. I
Speaker 3: went back to school in twenty fifteen. I got a degree.
Speaker 2: I wanted my kids to see that I graduated. Now,
Speaker 2: I know you're in school right now. Where are you
Speaker 2: going and what are you studying?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm actually on a break because of the football season.
Speaker 1: I realized I can't do it. At the same time, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I have completed a full year at American University
Speaker 1: fully online. American University is a probably university in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And I'm studying getting a masters in Public
Speaker 1: administration and public Policy. I mean, I was a finance
Speaker 1: major at Georgia. I was you know, never never thought
Speaker 1: I'd do anything like this, But just because of conversations
Speaker 1: and places spaces that I've been in. Want to have
Speaker 1: a better understanding of policy, how it impacts communities and
Speaker 1: people administration. So it's been it's been fun. My intro
Speaker 1: class was I was like, Okay, I'm gonna be cool
Speaker 1: with this, and then they pulled out like, you know,
Speaker 1: the legal aspect in all these court cases, which was
Speaker 1: interesting but difficult. And then it got to budgeting and
Speaker 1: you know, corporate budgeting, not corporate budd like cities and
Speaker 1: managing all this stuff. So it's been challenging, but it's
Speaker 1: been it's been good to think, to think in a
Speaker 1: different way, to do something different. Part of it was
Speaker 1: I want to challenge myself to think. So I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm to do with it, I want to
Speaker 1: challenge myself in a different way.
Speaker 3: I like the fact that you're going back to school.
Speaker 2: I got my I think I grabbed my degree in
Speaker 2: like twenty fifteen during the season and U or I know,
Speaker 2: I graduate the summer of twenty fifteen when I was
Speaker 2: in Charlotte. And We've had all types of guests come
Speaker 2: on this podcast, and I'm I'm real big on like
Speaker 2: staying green and you're either green and growing or ripe
Speaker 2: and rotten.
Speaker 3: And I always want to stay green and just keep
Speaker 3: growing and keep learning, learn something new.
Speaker 2: I proposed that me and this guy go back and
Speaker 2: we get an NBA, Like I'm down to get a
Speaker 2: second master's, so I'm trying to get him.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm like, come on, let's let's do it. Let's
Speaker 3: go get our nbas.
Speaker 2: Like the legal pay for it, exactly right, Yeah, leg
Speaker 2: pay for it, so you we're gonna get reimbursed. Like
Speaker 2: let's let's go get this. Let's go get this bread,
Speaker 2: let's go get it. Come on, all right, you know
Speaker 2: what because Ben's here, Let be real, honest, all right.
Speaker 2: Number one, neither of you guys saw me as a student.
Speaker 2: Number shoot, I did, And I ain't trying to go back.
Speaker 2: I don't want to have nothing to do with none
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 3: None of that.
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna lie. Like like the prospect of going
Speaker 1: back to school, it sounds good, and then like you
Speaker 1: realize you're forty something years old, and it's just like
Speaker 1: I'm on the zoom calls with these kids getting these
Speaker 1: kids getting their masters, and I feel like I'm an
Speaker 1: old person on this call. These folks are fresh out
Speaker 1: of college and they know how to use to calculator
Speaker 1: and do everything. I don't know. I had that. My
Speaker 1: daughter showed me about Canva, how to do a presentation
Speaker 1: on Canva. Canva. It's like this the site where you
Speaker 1: can make slide shows and presentations. I'm up here talking
Speaker 1: about like powerpoints.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's not a thing.
Speaker 3: See, this is what you want to send me out
Speaker 3: like that. You know you got to Google docs.
Speaker 1: And all that stuff.
Speaker 3: You can send me out there like that. I'm straight.
Speaker 2: We've all had some success in our lives, and we've
Speaker 2: all had people to kind of shape and mold us
Speaker 2: and kind of who we are today. If you had
Speaker 2: to put four people on your mount rushmore of influence.
Speaker 2: Who with those four people?
Speaker 1: Just people in general who have influenced me? Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: First one will be my father. Yep, first one be
Speaker 1: my dad, Ken Watson. Daddy is sixty eight years old
Speaker 1: now living in Rocky Hill, South Carolina, still pastoring the
Speaker 1: church there that you planet. I'm the oldest of six kids.
Speaker 1: He was the disciplinarian, but also the one who nurtured us.
Speaker 1: He and my mom. This leaders in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways was best man of my wedding. So the first
Speaker 1: one would be my dad because he's my hero, Like
Speaker 1: he's the one I always wanted to be like. I
Speaker 1: still want to be like my dad. So he's the
Speaker 1: first one. Second person I would say, man, David Patton, DP. Yeah, DP.
Speaker 1: And I've never had anybody ask me this question before.
Speaker 1: But the reason why I say him, especially in this
Speaker 1: context is when I was a rookie, I was engaged.
Speaker 1: We got engaged right before my rookie year, got married
Speaker 1: after my rookie year. And in that locker room, my
Speaker 1: locker room right next to David Patton, and he would
Speaker 1: always talk about his wife, like all the time, like
Speaker 1: he sent her flowers, He sent him flowers. His family
Speaker 1: was in South Carolina, so we had that connection. And
Speaker 1: he was the one person in the entire locker room
Speaker 1: that said, man, this is a good thing. You can
Speaker 1: do it, like you can be married in this league,
Speaker 1: you can have you can have a you know, a relationship. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm proud of you for doing this. And again, he
Speaker 1: was one of those veteran players, one of one of
Speaker 1: those veteran voices. You know, I miss him. He's passed away,
Speaker 1: but you know, he was a guy that when I
Speaker 1: think about leadership, man, he's he's there. Man. This person, No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have a face. He walked this earth two
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, and I probably shouldn't name him first,
Speaker 1: but it's Jesus Christ. Fully man Fully, God died for
Speaker 1: our sins, made it so that we could be made
Speaker 1: right with him. The entire scripture is about that one person.
Speaker 1: And the one thing I do every day. I try
Speaker 1: to do every day is read my Bible because there
Speaker 1: is truth in God's work. And when I look at
Speaker 1: my life, I look at my perspective on life. It
Speaker 1: all comes because of my relationship with Jesus Christ. So
Speaker 1: he's on there, even though we don't know what he
Speaker 1: looks like. His face is on there. And then lastly
Speaker 1: will be my wife. You know, we'll be Kirsten. We've
Speaker 1: been married for going on twenty years. She's my best friend.
Speaker 1: She challenges me, she sharpens me. She's my help meet.
Speaker 1: As Scripture talks about it, you know, when the two
Speaker 1: become more flesh. She's the one I trust the most.
Speaker 1: She's the one whose opinion matters the most. You know,
Speaker 1: from anything from what I'm worrying to how I'm speaking
Speaker 1: to things that I would do. She's she's the why not.
Speaker 1: She's the one that tells me who's more reserved? Man,
Speaker 1: go try this? Go do this, yes, go try to
Speaker 1: do TV. See if it works. Yes, go do these
Speaker 1: sorts of things. She's she's my best friend. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a good question, dude, and I never thought
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, the first time.
Speaker 3: We ever did it.
Speaker 6: I like it.
Speaker 3: Kirsten is the happiest pregnant woman I've ever seen.
Speaker 6: That.
Speaker 3: Did you tell her?
Speaker 4: I said that pregnant the happiest I've never seen. The
Speaker 4: pregnant woman is happiest, just.
Speaker 1: Like she won't happy with her last two. We never
Speaker 1: finished the story, but you were right. You slid that
Speaker 1: in her talking. We really wanted six. So basically we
Speaker 1: had five. Yeah, we talked about having four. Let me
Speaker 1: so this started even way before this.
Speaker 4: So Ben Watson is the first person because I had
Speaker 4: two girls and I was like, I don't think I
Speaker 4: can have boys.
Speaker 3: Then watch is the only person that I was like, dude,
Speaker 3: you can do it. You can do this, bro. Man.
Speaker 3: I had two girls first, and look at me, I
Speaker 3: got like four two boys. Now, like through though, the
Speaker 3: first thing it's like, bro, you can do it. You
Speaker 3: can do this. You gotta you can control this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get nervous.
Speaker 3: He's like, well you can't.
Speaker 1: But I tell you what, like, I'm so glad I
Speaker 1: had those girls first. Me too, dude, my girls. My
Speaker 1: boys are boys are idiots. I'm just gonna say it
Speaker 1: like like they are. So we had two girls, and
Speaker 1: we had two boys, and we had another girl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was fine, and.
Speaker 3: He's like, we gotta go even number.
Speaker 1: She said, I was good. I'm good at fine, Like
Speaker 1: even number I can five is good, Bob is good.
Speaker 1: She wants everybody to have, you know, a friend on
Speaker 1: the roller coaster and even numbers a partner and everything.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, we tried for number six sadly after
Speaker 1: we had if you knew we had two miscarriages, number six. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and find out at that point, man, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people that struggle with that. We didn't know. It's
Speaker 1: a very it's a very common occurrence, but one that
Speaker 1: we as a community like just don't do well. We
Speaker 1: don't comfort people.
Speaker 3: Nobody wants to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 1: It impacts women, but impacts impacts fathers as well, like
Speaker 1: losing a child is a big deal. And so we
Speaker 1: went through that twice living in Baltimore by ourselves, had
Speaker 1: the Achilles like. It was a really really low time
Speaker 1: for us as the family. And then we said we'll
Speaker 1: try one more time. We moved to New Orleans. I
Speaker 1: go in there to look at the ultrasound picture. At
Speaker 1: this point, I already know like what everything is, and
Speaker 1: we're scared because of the miscarriages. She said, they're a
Speaker 1: baby in there, and the lady goes, well, I don't
Speaker 1: see one, I see two. So we go from five
Speaker 1: to seven. So we still uneven. But seven is a
Speaker 1: number of completion and we are complete and perfect.
Speaker 6: We ain't gonna have a complete I'm out another game
Speaker 6: about I'm out bro No, But I I thought it
Speaker 6: was hilarious because going to six and they got seven,
Speaker 6: nobody we ain't.
Speaker 3: Nobody got twins.
Speaker 1: So she won't happy in that pregnice dog she was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was not happy.
Speaker 4: She was happy without she's you know, I've seen her
Speaker 4: through three pregnants and she was the happiest.
Speaker 1: Them twins are different, dude, They got it, Dude. Them
Speaker 1: twins try the man. They tried to They tried to
Speaker 1: kill her. The twins identical boys. They literally try to
Speaker 1: like take everything from her. They're five years old now.
Speaker 1: Whenever they disrespect their mama. God, dude, I will smack
Speaker 1: your face off, like if you know, you know right,
Speaker 1: she ain't going through that having other ones, but you
Speaker 1: you better never say anything better.
Speaker 4: It's well funny, hey, well, thank you give me that
Speaker 4: confidence too, dog. I forgot to mention that the first one.
Speaker 1: Dude, just make sure went a little wrong in them,
Speaker 1: you know, when they go do great things of life.
Speaker 1: Just make sure I get a ticket.
Speaker 3: I got you, dog, I got the same that. Uh well, anyways, man,
Speaker 3: thank you as always been man.
Speaker 4: Appreciate it. Bro, You're a blessing everywhere you go, into
Speaker 4: every room you're into. So continue on your happiness, on
Speaker 4: your journey. I love calling you a teammate now again
Speaker 4: being with the network, we still text and talk about
Speaker 4: all those things, and we get to talk college football,
Speaker 4: which we both love. So and everybody. He also went
Speaker 4: to Duke as well. He's not just a Georgia guy,
Speaker 4: So I'm a double dog.
Speaker 3: I don't think I knew that. Nobody knows that. But
Speaker 3: he started out at Duke and he went to Georgia stuff.
Speaker 1: Before the transfer report.
Speaker 3: Yeah he was like the original past that.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah that was weird. Yeah but uh anyways, thank you man.
Speaker 4: To all of our listeners and viewers out there wherever
Speaker 4: you pick up your podcast, whether it's iHeartRadio, app or
Speaker 4: Apple podcasts, thank you always for tuning in. Give us
Speaker 4: a five star rating, like comment, subscribe, give us a review.
Speaker 4: You can also see us check us out now on
Speaker 4: the new NFL YouTube channel. I appreciate that, peanut.
Speaker 1: Thank you man.
Speaker 4: Anyways, I always say, man, tell a friend to tell
Speaker 4: a friend to do what PU tell a friend.
Speaker 3: We go, Man, come see us, man, come check us out.
Speaker 4: We're doing big things, letting all these NFL guys tell
Speaker 4: their story and pour out to everybody else so then
Speaker 4: they can be back forward back.
Speaker 3: Into I'm peanut, that's wrong, that's been.
Speaker 2: This is the NFL Player's second AXT podcast, and we
Speaker 2: out appreciate y'all