Speaker 1: Alright, Uh, Peter, you can get us going and a
Speaker 1: minute once I get out of here. No music, so
Speaker 1: you can just um just start the top. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: that music intro was a disaster for me last time.
Speaker 1: I was like, I had no rhythm. No, I have
Speaker 1: no flub. I got rhythm. It just I didn't hear
Speaker 1: him right when it beat drop, I was like, all right, whatever, alright,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hit it in five four, three to one.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the NFL Players Second Acts Podcast. I'm Peena
Speaker 1: Tillman and I got my guy Roman Harper with me.
Speaker 1: What's going on wrong? Oh? Man, I'm living my dream
Speaker 1: up here in Chicago. My wife has a marathon coming up,
Speaker 1: our first as a family, so we're not seven inches
Speaker 1: doing all of it by herself. So I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to cheering her own brother. It's gonna be a great time.
Speaker 1: And I got working between. It's good though, all right,
Speaker 1: it's cool. Yeah. So this show was about players and
Speaker 1: their poll NFL careers and what they're doing right now.
Speaker 1: And today we have a very special guest. Uh. This
Speaker 1: guy played thirteen years in NFL, played in two Super Bowls.
Speaker 1: He's a former All Pro left tackle and in one,
Speaker 1: he was inducted to the Philadelphia Eagles Ring of Honor.
Speaker 1: Y'all show some love for John run yet ye another
Speaker 1: day in the ground, you know what I mean, another
Speaker 1: day in the grind. So you're an interesting player because
Speaker 1: you retired back in two thousand nine, and unlike Roman
Speaker 1: and myself, you kind of got into something like really really,
Speaker 1: really cool. So when did you know you wanted to
Speaker 1: get into politics. It literally fell into my lap. You know.
Speaker 1: It was one of those things where at the end
Speaker 1: of the other eight season, my knee kind of fell apart,
Speaker 1: if you will, and it was it was a progressive thing,
Speaker 1: and you know, it went from you know, B sides
Speaker 1: to an mc l and then meniscus issues, and it
Speaker 1: was coming up on the end of my contract. Actually
Speaker 1: in O eight playing in Philly, we lost to the
Speaker 1: Cardinals in the NFC Championship game and contract expired and
Speaker 1: I had a knee injury, and I was in my
Speaker 1: mid thirties, and I'm like, it's over, you know, And
Speaker 1: you know, being the competitor that I am, people told me,
Speaker 1: being in your mid thirties, you can't recover from a
Speaker 1: microfracture surgery in your knee. And I'm like, oh, really,
Speaker 1: I watched this and it was it was really that.
Speaker 1: So I went through I had surgery probably into January,
Speaker 1: so January two thousand nine, and started started chipping away
Speaker 1: at that and you know about I tried to get
Speaker 1: back on a couple of clubs early that the two
Speaker 1: thousand nine season didn't really pan out. And late September
Speaker 1: I got approached by of mine that were actually in
Speaker 1: state government that I've known, you know, our kids went
Speaker 1: to school together and all that kind of stuff, and
Speaker 1: they actually have asked if you have ever considered about
Speaker 1: running for office, and I'm like, you know what, I've
Speaker 1: never taking a political science course of my life, don't
Speaker 1: you know. You guys know you don't talk politics in
Speaker 1: the locker room because it just people, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was just that just didn't really have you know,
Speaker 1: a political Frankly, at the time, I wasn't even registered.
Speaker 1: You know. I ran as a Republican, but I was
Speaker 1: I was an independent, you know, and never affiliated with
Speaker 1: a party or anything. So obviously if I went on
Speaker 1: the Republican ticket, and you know, I had to go
Speaker 1: over there and register with them and do that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. The odd thing was, you know, So that
Speaker 1: was in October. I wasn't picked up by a team,
Speaker 1: and probably right right around election day, so probably right
Speaker 1: around this time of year. It was probably three or
Speaker 1: four days after election Day, so basically next week. From
Speaker 1: the point we're talking right now, I committed to it,
Speaker 1: but I told them I goes if I had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to get on a club and get my four
Speaker 1: games in and get another accredited season. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: happened to be lucky enough to go to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: I go, I'll be back from February. I did the
Speaker 1: same thing. So that's really what happened. So it was
Speaker 1: like there was, uh, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, someone went
Speaker 1: down with the San Diego Chargers and I got called
Speaker 1: and two days later I fly from New Jersey all
Speaker 1: the way out to California and I'm out there for
Speaker 1: two months, you know, helping the Chargers do a playoff run.
Speaker 1: Ultimately ended up losing in the second round of the
Speaker 1: playoffs that year. But you know, I got those four
Speaker 1: games in. Hold on, John, so I can hold on
Speaker 1: hold on because I didn't I don't think I knew
Speaker 1: all of this. This is amazing. So first of all,
Speaker 1: I had the same story where, you know, micro fracture
Speaker 1: mid thirties. Everybody said you can't do it. I didn't
Speaker 1: do the surgery. Hats off to you for doing the
Speaker 1: surgery and being able to battle back for that. People
Speaker 1: don't understand, Michael, fracture is literally the worst knee surgery
Speaker 1: to recover from. Um, so, hats off to you for that.
Speaker 1: But the fact is, what was your campaign like the
Speaker 1: whole time? I gotta know this campaign to hey, I'm
Speaker 1: all in for you guys, Hey, New Jersey all the way,
Speaker 1: but if I get the call, I'm out of here,
Speaker 1: just letting you guys know. How did that conversation kind
Speaker 1: of go over? Were they all in with you or
Speaker 1: were they kind of like, come on, John, you gotta
Speaker 1: be here with us. And were you the candidate for them?
Speaker 1: Because you've got to be the biggest man in the room.
Speaker 1: In every room, you step into intimidation all day long
Speaker 1: if you don't vote for me. Oh so, Unfortunately, politics
Speaker 1: is a dirty, dirty game, right and you know, like
Speaker 1: life life in business in general, it's all based on relationships.
Speaker 1: So when I decided to run for office, I have
Speaker 1: zero relationships because I have never run for you know,
Speaker 1: school board. I've never run for you know, local township committee.
Speaker 1: I've never done anything like that. So I had the
Speaker 1: only people I knew in the business. It's because of
Speaker 1: our kids went to school together. And it was just
Speaker 1: very strange. So you had to build all those allegiances
Speaker 1: and jump through all those hoops and do all of
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But I think, you know, even
Speaker 1: today somewhat the climate kind of pushes like we need
Speaker 1: more outsiders, you know, we need people that didn't grow
Speaker 1: up in the system, that are independent thinkers that frankly,
Speaker 1: a lot of times just wanna you want to shake
Speaker 1: the tree. You know, you're not just there on cruise
Speaker 1: control doing the fundraising that kind of stuff, and you know,
Speaker 1: you know you're not. You don't have any loyalty to
Speaker 1: anyone else that's helped you along the way. And it was,
Speaker 1: it was, it was a struggle. I was fortunate enough
Speaker 1: at the time when I went through the process, somehow
Speaker 1: I garnered favor of Governor Christie at the time, and
Speaker 1: he was a huge help in the whole process because
Speaker 1: he put a bunch of people in their places and
Speaker 1: said this is my guy. If you don't like him,
Speaker 1: I have a problem with you, so that that's really
Speaker 1: what it came down to. And he he kind of
Speaker 1: got to going, but then again he can do that,
Speaker 1: so he's believing in you. You still got to go out.
Speaker 1: You still gotta and it's no different than football. You
Speaker 1: gotta go out and put the time in. You gotta
Speaker 1: put the prep work in. You gotta get up in
Speaker 1: front of people and speak. You gotta go shake all
Speaker 1: the hands and kiss all the babies. And it's a
Speaker 1: it's a grind, and it's I'll tell you, it's probably
Speaker 1: twice as much time is actually preparing to play a
Speaker 1: football game. What was it? What was it like one
Speaker 1: of the toughest things that you didn't know going into Polly,
Speaker 1: Like you're finally in politics and you go to d
Speaker 1: C and everything, Like what was one of the things
Speaker 1: that just shots you most when you when you were there,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of it was new. It really
Speaker 1: took I mean it took me like one so I
Speaker 1: got elected and in the office, it took me like
Speaker 1: nine months to get my bearings. Like what is the
Speaker 1: You know, it's no different than being a rookie anywhere else,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? But you think about the
Speaker 1: you know, the totality of you know, you know, constitutional law,
Speaker 1: public policy and all this kind of stuff, something I've
Speaker 1: never studied in my life. Right, So again, what happens.
Speaker 1: You're only as good as the people you surround yourself with.
Speaker 1: You gotta put it, you gotta put a team together
Speaker 1: that has the experience that you know isn't bowing down
Speaker 1: to the powers that be if you will, and you
Speaker 1: know that, and they're free thinkers. And I was fortunate
Speaker 1: enough that I found those people. Believe it or not.
Speaker 1: My chief of staff I actually found through a connection
Speaker 1: I had at w y P sports talk radio in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: He used to be the press secretary in an office
Speaker 1: where she was the chief of staff, and I ended
Speaker 1: up hiring her. It was the best thing ever. I mean,
Speaker 1: talk about an oddity a relationship I had through planning
Speaker 1: for the Eagles and doing the players show on the radio.
Speaker 1: The guy introduced me to my future chief of staff.
Speaker 1: So it was just like one of those one of
Speaker 1: those amazing things, and it was it was a challenge.
Speaker 1: But the big thing I think is, you know, you
Speaker 1: sit there and you know people that are successful are
Speaker 1: frankly um, you know, very they look inward, very self reflective,
Speaker 1: very honest about who they are, what they are, and
Speaker 1: you go through the whole process and you're like, man,
Speaker 1: how the hell did I get elected? I want to
Speaker 1: know that. That's what I really wanted to know that.
Speaker 1: I want to know was there any was there any hazing?
Speaker 1: Do do do politicians haze the freshman politicians do y'all?
Speaker 1: Like make them write extra speeches for y'all, or like
Speaker 1: what make them take you out to dinner dinner? Run them.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a lot of hazing at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's no different than being on a
Speaker 1: team to like you'll have click. So all of us
Speaker 1: rookies kind of hung out together, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: and you know the veterans and old heads did their
Speaker 1: own thing, and it was just it was just different.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you, you you know, go back to that comment,
Speaker 1: is like, how the you know, how the heck did
Speaker 1: I get elected? And then you start watching people around
Speaker 1: you and I'm like, oh my god, like how did
Speaker 1: that guy get elected? And he's been here twenty years,
Speaker 1: he's just like So it's just one of those things,
Speaker 1: is like, And it's no different. I mean when you
Speaker 1: look at the the broad stroke of stuff that you
Speaker 1: can accomplish, you know, at the federal level, and all
Speaker 1: the different things you touch you can't touch at all.
Speaker 1: You gotta pick a couple of niches, you know. I
Speaker 1: was fortunate enough, um I got a sign to the
Speaker 1: Armed Services Committee, so our military base here in New
Speaker 1: Jersey is the second largest employer in the state. UM
Speaker 1: I was chairman of the subcommittee and the Veterans Administration,
Speaker 1: and I was also on the Natural Resources Committee, which
Speaker 1: we have one of the one of the top fisheries
Speaker 1: in the whole in the whole country here off the
Speaker 1: coast of New Jersey. So it was just it was
Speaker 1: things that were very very relevant to my to my constituency,
Speaker 1: and it was something that was passionate about. You know,
Speaker 1: you guys know this when you when you're dealing with
Speaker 1: veterans and active military, we have a lot more in
Speaker 1: common than many people think. You know, they did it
Speaker 1: and all of that kind of stuff. So it was
Speaker 1: it was a really natural fit for me, not only
Speaker 1: from a constituent standpoint, but from a you know, a
Speaker 1: teamwork and motivational standpoint to be around all those types
Speaker 1: of people. What's your time in Congress. What's the one
Speaker 1: thing that you're most proud of? Like your your greatest
Speaker 1: accomplishment in Congress? Like, what's what's that one thing? I
Speaker 1: would say this, and I still get it to this day. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you'll be you know, on a on a
Speaker 1: Saturday or Sunday morning walk you're walking down the street.
Speaker 1: I still get people to pull over and say, you
Speaker 1: know you have my brother out with all this Veterans
Speaker 1: Administration red tape, thank you so much. He was in
Speaker 1: a really bad place. He's doing so well. That kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. I mean, just saying that makes the hair
Speaker 1: on the back of my next stand up, And that's
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff because that was the approach I
Speaker 1: took to the whole process. It was. It was constituent services.
Speaker 1: You know, it's what a lot of companies lack a
Speaker 1: lot of time, the customer service aspect of it. A
Speaker 1: lot of people go into it because they have a
Speaker 1: desire to be political and drive those agendas and all that.
Speaker 1: I was there to serve and that's what it was.
Speaker 1: That's what it was about for me, and frankly, that's
Speaker 1: what it should be. And I always say that's why
Speaker 1: it's broken because it is more about politics and in
Speaker 1: its service. All right, John, I got a question though,
Speaker 1: because we all here now, like you just mentioned how
Speaker 1: politics is so you know, vindictive, it's so this and that.
Speaker 1: Were you ever in there saw somebody get up say
Speaker 1: this like crazy speech, all these you know, very very
Speaker 1: uh even being the biggest character, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden they come back and like, oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: was just putting on for the camera. They were just
Speaker 1: putting on. Did you ever seeing that sense of man,
Speaker 1: where'd they get all this energy from there? Not? That
Speaker 1: person is not normally like that either on eat on
Speaker 1: both sides the energy. I don't think it's fake. I
Speaker 1: think part of the frustrating problem is when you when
Speaker 1: you think about, you know, when our when our forefathers
Speaker 1: founded this country, where that was true academic debate, where
Speaker 1: they were off the top of their head, it was
Speaker 1: deep felt knowledge and passion and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: When you look at what we're going through now, it's
Speaker 1: a script, it's planned, it's red it's all of that.
Speaker 1: It's not a lot of like debate and theory and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. That's an annoying part of
Speaker 1: it because you're sitting through it. It's like going to
Speaker 1: It's like going to a presentation and someone say, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to read this to you, and what
Speaker 1: happens They ended up reading the slides too, And that's
Speaker 1: what it was like, Okay, all right and tell me this.
Speaker 1: So if you want to if anybody has never heard
Speaker 1: this before, you maybe have a passion or wants to
Speaker 1: get into politics. You're saying that you need to get
Speaker 1: on you need to run for school board. At first,
Speaker 1: that's like the beginner steps of politics. He's like school boy,
Speaker 1: very local level stuff. Then jumping into into the big
Speaker 1: waters or you don't to I mean even um, you know,
Speaker 1: even when I stepped down. The guy replaced the guy
Speaker 1: that replaced me, he had never been in politics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a business owner and he brought that acumen
Speaker 1: to the job. But it was just that it was
Speaker 1: like you gotta have somewhat of a passion for it,
Speaker 1: and you know whether it is you know, unfortunately a
Speaker 1: lot of them are driving with you know, political passion.
Speaker 1: But you know, you guys have many and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you guys done it. All of our teammates know. You're
Speaker 1: helping everybody out with their foundation, helping people in the
Speaker 1: community and all that. When you take that aspect of it,
Speaker 1: that's how it works. You don't need the experience. I
Speaker 1: can tell you when you look at Capitol Hill, what
Speaker 1: do you have? What do you have there? You have
Speaker 1: a bunch of attorneys and I and I have I
Speaker 1: have joggingly but half seriously say, there are a bunch
Speaker 1: of attorneys that won't make partner a law firms, so
Speaker 1: they had to find something else to do. And what
Speaker 1: all these attorneys got us to where we're at. We
Speaker 1: need new visions in there. And that's really that was
Speaker 1: my approach, and I encourage people to do it. But
Speaker 1: I also say, as be careful because it is a dirty,
Speaker 1: dirty game and it'll it'll wear on you, which is
Speaker 1: part of the reason why I got out of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you guys go and look. I had
Speaker 1: an op ed in Politico when I actually stepped down,
Speaker 1: and I had a football reference in it, and I
Speaker 1: literally said, because there's too many people in this game
Speaker 1: to get elected to a Pro Bowl, then rather win
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl, the individual accolade versus a team accolade.
Speaker 1: That was really the problem with it, because I've been
Speaker 1: in front of many groups of my colleagues, and I
Speaker 1: literally said, I don't care what my political affiliation is.
Speaker 1: I can vote anyway I want to on any piece
Speaker 1: of legislation, as long as I'm willing to invest the
Speaker 1: time to go home and explain it to my constituency
Speaker 1: why I voted that way. And I said, most of
Speaker 1: you people in this room default to principle. If you
Speaker 1: will that you won't vote for certain things. I goes, no,
Speaker 1: this whole thing is a negotiation, and if you reverse
Speaker 1: engineer the math that goes into actually passing legislation, it's
Speaker 1: going to tell you where that policy has to be.
Speaker 1: And they always default the principle of principle. I goes no,
Speaker 1: it's not about principle. It's about doing your job and
Speaker 1: then go home and explaining it to people. Okay, yeah, interesting. Interesting.
Speaker 1: So the NFL veteran congressman and now doing what you
Speaker 1: do for the NFL, how in the hill did you
Speaker 1: become an uba driver? That? That's pretty that's pretty interesting though, right,
Speaker 1: he's clearly a service person. Clearly disclaimer. The NFL HR
Speaker 1: Department didn't like that I was doing that, so I
Speaker 1: had to step now, but you know it was really
Speaker 1: it was really based out of boredom, if you will.
Speaker 1: So at the time, my um my two oldest were
Speaker 1: in college, and my youngest one was still in high school,
Speaker 1: but she was She actually plays basketball at Villanova now,
Speaker 1: but at the time we went in high school. So
Speaker 1: you're talking about those, you know, those spring and summer months.
Speaker 1: So they'd be traveling all over the country, would be
Speaker 1: her and my wife, And I'm like, I can't pick
Speaker 1: up and leave office on a Thursday to drive down
Speaker 1: to Newport News and hang out there until Tuesday, you know,
Speaker 1: to watch five basketball games. So I was staying home
Speaker 1: on the weekends by myself, and I'm just sitting there.
Speaker 1: It's like, so, you know, I'm either gonna go hang
Speaker 1: out with the boys or I'm gonna sit here and
Speaker 1: feed my face, which neither of them are probably good
Speaker 1: for you on a regular basis. Like, let's try this
Speaker 1: uber thing. And I just set it up and I
Speaker 1: would literally sit there on the sit there on like
Speaker 1: a Saturday morning, watching TV. I turn it on and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden some would pay me for a
Speaker 1: ride and I started driving around and next thing you knew,
Speaker 1: it was one o'clock in the morning you think about.
Speaker 1: There used to be this show called Taxi Cab Confessions
Speaker 1: and they were in New York and it would be
Speaker 1: a taxi It was basically like uberwin a camera, but
Speaker 1: they would have these uh, uber excuse me, taxicab drivers
Speaker 1: driving around New York and just pick up, you know,
Speaker 1: passengers along the way and they would have the most
Speaker 1: amazing conversations somewhere like you could see coming. Some were
Speaker 1: just completely blow your mind. What was like one of
Speaker 1: the greatest conversations you ever had with it with a passenger.
Speaker 1: There were there were a handful of them most most
Speaker 1: of my time, believe it's not. I was nervous energy
Speaker 1: on my part, trying to slouch in my chairs, and
Speaker 1: then we try to figure out who I was, you know.
Speaker 1: But you know, once people figured it out, because obviously
Speaker 1: my picture was on was on the app, and I
Speaker 1: was using my first name and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and that they would figure it out. You know. I
Speaker 1: would always bust on, you know, living in the Philly area,
Speaker 1: and it was more locker room banter with a lot
Speaker 1: of people than it was anything else. Just poking fun
Speaker 1: at him all the time. There there wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: and they would ask a million questions, but it was
Speaker 1: a lot of it was football related. Unfortunately, though, you know,
Speaker 1: after getting out of politics, I kind of had to
Speaker 1: stay up on both sports and politics because I would
Speaker 1: get the questions just to have the conversation. So trying
Speaker 1: to would politics because you never know where somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: come from with all of that stuff. But you know,
Speaker 1: it was it was a lot of funny. You got
Speaker 1: to meet some people, and you know, to that point though,
Speaker 1: I tried to Uh, I tried to get off the
Speaker 1: road by two eleven thirty and night twelve o'clock so
Speaker 1: you didn't have to deal with all the people leaving
Speaker 1: the clubs after after he goes that's a nightmare. Another
Speaker 1: good comes after midnight. That's what the coaches used to say. John.
Speaker 1: I gotta know, though, sorry, Peanut, were you at Uber
Speaker 1: X driver Uber XL Uber black? Like what kind of
Speaker 1: car were you picking up? But I gotta know, John
Speaker 1: Runnings picking me up in the Uber? You don't look
Speaker 1: like he was in a prius. Yeah, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: think he's in the regular umber X. I just don't
Speaker 1: think he picked this to another level And it wasn't
Speaker 1: the most efficient thing. I was driving a gmc uh
Speaker 1: Sierra Durhmax crew cab, so a decent crew cab pick up. Yes,
Speaker 1: I like it. Yes, do that comment all the times,
Speaker 1: like I've never been picked up in a pickup truck
Speaker 1: with right, That's exactly what I would say. Those things
Speaker 1: are massive. So how did you uh so NFL whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, they told you they didn't want you to
Speaker 1: do that anymore? How did you get into the position
Speaker 1: that you're in right now with the NFL? You know,
Speaker 1: it was just one of those scenarios. So, you know,
Speaker 1: many many and I know you guys know about Troy
Speaker 1: Vincent is Executive vice President of Football Operations, and I
Speaker 1: was I was looking at some other jobs, player engagement
Speaker 1: jobs around the league at the club level, and Troy
Speaker 1: actually used to run that department at the NFL before
Speaker 1: he became e v P. So there was one club
Speaker 1: asked me to write the job description because they didn't
Speaker 1: have a job description. And I turned it around and
Speaker 1: about you know, thirty hours, but I sent it to
Speaker 1: Detroit to look over to say does this kind of
Speaker 1: fit what you were? You know, how you set that
Speaker 1: department up before you you know, moved on and he
Speaker 1: didn't really move on. He's actually above it and overseas
Speaker 1: it now, but he was running it before and he
Speaker 1: only changed a couple of words in it. He goes
Speaker 1: by the way, he goes, I might have a position
Speaker 1: up here for you, and he goes, when's this interview
Speaker 1: going to happen? I goes next week, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: He's like, it's gonna take me some time. So, needless
Speaker 1: to say, nine months went by before Troy I actually
Speaker 1: said I think I I really think I have a
Speaker 1: position for you. So again, to go back to the
Speaker 1: relationship thing, Troy and I played in Philly for quite
Speaker 1: a few years in the early two appends, but it
Speaker 1: was it was something where we knew each other and actually,
Speaker 1: Troy a couple of times I actually came down when
Speaker 1: I was in office and talked about team building and
Speaker 1: leadership skills and all that and kind of how they
Speaker 1: transferred over into into government and all that stuff. So
Speaker 1: you know, we had we had always kind of been
Speaker 1: in touch, so it wasn't it wasn't a big stress,
Speaker 1: and he knew how I was wired, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: anything new, and it was just an opportunity. The guy
Speaker 1: I had to jump at you because I'm still in
Speaker 1: the game and I'm still Shepherd in the game for
Speaker 1: the next generation. That's a lot of fun. But like
Speaker 1: anything else, yeah, there's a lot of long hours involved
Speaker 1: in it, but you know what, it's worth doing because
Speaker 1: it's something I'm passionate about and I want to see,
Speaker 1: you know, my son place for the Packers now, So
Speaker 1: boom boom, No, No, we'll be able to, you know,
Speaker 1: create this game, make this game better, and you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully at some point maybe my grandson is around and
Speaker 1: has an opportunity to play in the league. John, that's
Speaker 1: that's a terrible team. Your son place where you know that, right,
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a I'm a long time Bears guy.
Speaker 1: That's like, that's like the Cowboys, like that is. We
Speaker 1: don't even say Packers on this show. We say that
Speaker 1: green team. That's all right, I say Packers. I don't
Speaker 1: hate the Packers. I think it's a beautiful place to play,
Speaker 1: love the Lambeau Field, the whole nostalgia behind it all.
Speaker 1: I'm a big Packers guy because you went to the
Speaker 1: Lands and y'all don't really have a rival. We don't.
Speaker 1: It's okay, like I like the pack. The odd thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, going to the University of Michigan, we actually
Speaker 1: used to get We had a tally in the weight room.
Speaker 1: Anytime you walked into the facility with green on. Obviously
Speaker 1: Michigan State, right, they put a tally mark on the
Speaker 1: board and that that was a that was a sixty
Speaker 1: yard sprint on the last day of conditioning in an
Speaker 1: off season every time I walked into the facility with green,
Speaker 1: so green was not allowed in the facility, you know.
Speaker 1: And then in two thousand I signed with the Eagles.
Speaker 1: Now I'm wearing green now much son's wearing green. So
Speaker 1: it was something. And he went to Michigan to where
Speaker 1: green wasn't allowed. So it's just like we'll all end
Speaker 1: up in green at the end of the day. That's
Speaker 1: kind of full circle. That's pretty cool. All right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break and we'll come back with
Speaker 1: some quick questions for John. Y'all stay tuned. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to like John, like, you never took a break, bro.
Speaker 1: You retired, you went straight into this. You've never taken
Speaker 1: a break. There was um. So I got a I
Speaker 1: got an office in January fifteen, I started a little
Speaker 1: business development firm I was doing. You know, I was
Speaker 1: making three or four thousand dollars a month doing it
Speaker 1: on my own. Yeah, and I'm like just like do
Speaker 1: I want to grow this or do I want to
Speaker 1: do something else? And there was a couple there was
Speaker 1: actually a couple of openings on on w I P
Speaker 1: on the radio, and I actually went back to that
Speaker 1: guy and said, Hey, I think I want to get
Speaker 1: back into radio, and he said, okay, he goes. So
Speaker 1: he put me on the morning team on Monday and Friday.
Speaker 1: I did the Players show, the two Players shows on
Speaker 1: Monday night, and the Eagles pregame show on the radio,
Speaker 1: and I did television on Sunday night after the game.
Speaker 1: But I did that for you know, that nine to
Speaker 1: ten month period where Troy was kind of dragging his feet.
Speaker 1: So but you know, I got back into that so
Speaker 1: that that was really the only and that was my
Speaker 1: thing to your point some time off to like just
Speaker 1: not do anything, to be running around. So John, you
Speaker 1: were drafted in, right, correct? Yeah? Alright, the first thing
Speaker 1: you purchase, what's the first thing? He splurs it on
Speaker 1: a pickup truck. Think I'm truck alright? Uh? Favorite favorite
Speaker 1: moment playing in the NFL. Favorite moment playing in the NFL. Uh.
Speaker 1: The unfortunate part is a lot of the bad ones
Speaker 1: stick out to you, you know, and unfortunately again, I
Speaker 1: think I lost two Super Bowls. I think I was more.
Speaker 1: I was more. I was more excited, you know when
Speaker 1: we you know, the the weird one. Um. So I
Speaker 1: was playing for the Titans, and we actually beat Jacksonville
Speaker 1: in the a f C championship game down there that
Speaker 1: and they were in the division. So that was the
Speaker 1: third time we beat him that year. That was probably
Speaker 1: the best, the best feeling because the next time we
Speaker 1: won the NFC Championship in Philly, I just kind of
Speaker 1: walked off the field like, hey, we got one more
Speaker 1: game to win. Let's not let's not get caught up
Speaker 1: in all this stuff, and let's go do this. So
Speaker 1: it was it was probably that first ANFC championship, wint.
Speaker 1: So your personal mount rushmore of people that have been
Speaker 1: successful in helping you get to where you are right now?
Speaker 1: Who are those four people? My parents? Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I just spoke to my mother last night, so that's
Speaker 1: two of them, Um, both of them. UM, My wife,
Speaker 1: the stuff she has helped me with I mean talk
Speaker 1: about you know that that was a big part of
Speaker 1: going into politics. Hey, I'm not gonna be around you
Speaker 1: gotta be okay with this, you know. And we had
Speaker 1: three kids, and you know, one in high school and
Speaker 1: two in junior high and you know, junior high, elementary. Ah,
Speaker 1: so that that was another big one. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: people you know, coach Read one of the most supporting, humble,
Speaker 1: honest people. You'll every me. You can bounce anything off
Speaker 1: of him to this day. If I called him right now,
Speaker 1: he picked up on the second ring, you know, and
Speaker 1: that that that's a huge part of it. Um. And
Speaker 1: and as far as people that I look up to,
Speaker 1: and I know he's gonna hate this, but Troy Vincent, man,
Speaker 1: I mean you watch that guy leads by example and
Speaker 1: argue with it. And he probably he doesn't I don't.
Speaker 1: I probably don't tell him enough how much I appreciate
Speaker 1: him and how much I respect what he does and
Speaker 1: how he carries himself. It's just something awesome. Fill in
Speaker 1: the blank. My life right now is My life right
Speaker 1: now is awesome? You know My kids are My kids
Speaker 1: are killing it. I think that's the number one goal
Speaker 1: I have jokingly messed with my kids all the time.
Speaker 1: I said, my goal is to get you off daddy's payroll,
Speaker 1: no doubt, you know, and giving him every opportunity to
Speaker 1: make themselves successful to get it get them off of it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, obviously you know my son playing there, playing
Speaker 1: in Green Bay. I got my oldest daughters in grad
Speaker 1: school and my youngest daughter is playing basketball Villanova and
Speaker 1: she's in the nursing school. I mean, it's all in
Speaker 1: front of him. We did a lot for the last
Speaker 1: twenty years. You did them all there. Now it's really
Speaker 1: on them and it's it's exciting to watch and I
Speaker 1: feel like we can do a whole other podcasts on
Speaker 1: just how to get your kids off the payroll like
Speaker 1: that is a goal of most parents, especially fathers. How
Speaker 1: do I get these kids off the payroll eventually? UM,
Speaker 1: you're a great example of that, UM and a pleasure
Speaker 1: to have you on today too. Man, just hearing everything
Speaker 1: your angles, the way you talk about life. UM, your
Speaker 1: knowledge and experience of all these different things that you've
Speaker 1: been able to do an accomplishment, it's really cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: Nobody really has the experience that you've had that I
Speaker 1: know of through that's played NFL to be able to
Speaker 1: do this journey and path. Man, you're just a true serviceman.
Speaker 1: I grew up watching you with the Eagles all those years,
Speaker 1: and I just did not know the personality behind the helmet.
Speaker 1: And this is probably one of the best things that
Speaker 1: we get when we get to sit down and talk
Speaker 1: to you guys and just really see who you are
Speaker 1: genuinely as a person outside the helmet, who you have
Speaker 1: grown up to be as a man. I give a
Speaker 1: credit a lot of credit to your parents. I can
Speaker 1: tell you are raised right, and all you've done is
Speaker 1: just passed the torch on to the next generation. So
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Brother, Thank you. I appreciate you know.
Speaker 1: And it's really you know many people I used to say,
Speaker 1: that's on the on the campaign trail all the time
Speaker 1: I goes. When you talk about work ethic, people ask
Speaker 1: where you got it from. My dad was a U
Speaker 1: A W auto worker, man Blue Golar Flynn, Michigan. You know,
Speaker 1: that's where I grew up. And you're talking about a
Speaker 1: guy working six seven days a week, fourteen to sixteen
Speaker 1: hours a day. You didn't see him a lot. And
Speaker 1: when you spend time with them, guess where you're at.
Speaker 1: You're under the tree in the back working on cars
Speaker 1: because you guyn't want to say that somebody else fix it,
Speaker 1: you know, to be able to have those you know,
Speaker 1: be able to work with these things and all of
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But understand what it took to
Speaker 1: actually support a family and get everybody heading in the
Speaker 1: right direction. And one of the most awesome things that
Speaker 1: I continually instill in my children and try to share
Speaker 1: with other people. Yeah, that's that's dope, John, I got
Speaker 1: I got one more question for you. How important was
Speaker 1: it for you when you left the game to put
Speaker 1: that energy into something positive? You know what, I think
Speaker 1: your your your positive outlook on life is really controlled
Speaker 1: by you all. A lot of the influences we have
Speaker 1: day in and day out, it's all negative. It's all negative,
Speaker 1: and you got to be able to shut it out.
Speaker 1: I actually I take a kind of a sick, demented
Speaker 1: twist on humor, you know, um with everything online and
Speaker 1: try to spin in the positive of a both funded
Speaker 1: people and that kind of stuff. It is really, really,
Speaker 1: really hard, but you really have to take a conscious
Speaker 1: effort to actually day in and day out when you're
Speaker 1: having that bad day. There are affirmations you can put
Speaker 1: in your head that will change your view of that
Speaker 1: day in a second. But you have to train yourself
Speaker 1: to be able to do that and open that book
Speaker 1: up and read those affirmations. And now that is one
Speaker 1: of the biggest things that I've learned, specifically going through
Speaker 1: you know, the agony of the political arena and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, is to be able to no,
Speaker 1: I'm on this downward trend. I have to step away,
Speaker 1: open up, look at those affirmations and goes, this is
Speaker 1: why I'm doing this, this is who I am, and
Speaker 1: these are the people that I care and care about love,
Speaker 1: and I've got to change my view in this moment,
Speaker 1: otherwise it's going to affect everyone else I care about. Hey, John,
Speaker 1: you said something right Now, I gotta have I gotta
Speaker 1: follow up questions. So, when you're in that arena of
Speaker 1: politics for so long that at the times that you were,
Speaker 1: what was something that you felt that you just knew
Speaker 1: you had but was found out it was really your
Speaker 1: biggest disappointment while you were up there, something that really
Speaker 1: almost took you to that dark place. Could you maybe
Speaker 1: share with this one of your experiences at that moment.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to say the one thing that
Speaker 1: I regret about it, and I did it a few times,
Speaker 1: but it was forced on me a little bit. And
Speaker 1: it's the psychology of humans and dealing with people, in
Speaker 1: communicating with people, and I knew it, but I didn't
Speaker 1: use it to the best of my ability because of
Speaker 1: my stature, you know, you know, six seven at that time,
Speaker 1: I was probably pounds still I'm in the two nineties now.
Speaker 1: But of using that that presence to actually influence people,
Speaker 1: I didn't do enough. I did it on occasion, but
Speaker 1: it was something that just aside in and it's not
Speaker 1: overt you know, psychology, it's covert psychology, just your presence
Speaker 1: of growing up and talking to people and trying to
Speaker 1: get him to come on board with all of that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. To the speech I was talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: it was like people are lazy. You don't communicate with
Speaker 1: your constituents, and that's what it was really about. And
Speaker 1: a lot of people bought into that. That actually got
Speaker 1: a standing ovation by a lot of people that understood
Speaker 1: what I was saying, I believe it or not. And
Speaker 1: I didn't do that enough. I had to know you
Speaker 1: so you shared so much to us. And you know
Speaker 1: you're talking about those at positive affirmations. You know, we
Speaker 1: learned a lot from you today. Peanut can probably hit
Speaker 1: you with a quote right now. He has all kinds
Speaker 1: of affirmations and quotes that he just spits out. You
Speaker 1: can tell you in and from who all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had my had my quarter of the day today.
Speaker 1: What was it? Um? Never ruined a good day by
Speaker 1: thinking about a bad yesterday. I like it. I like it.
Speaker 1: Rome here, that's what a quote? Uh and it can't
Speaker 1: be from tupac um if you ain't first your last. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's what Ricky boy. Come on, this is easy.
Speaker 1: I gotta know what the people got you have. I
Speaker 1: gotta go with what the people know. I want to
Speaker 1: go fast. Oh my god, I just said that. Look, John,
Speaker 1: we appreciate you coming on the show man. I found
Speaker 1: out more about you than than what I thought I
Speaker 1: didn't know, and I appreciate you. Thank you for your time,
Speaker 1: thank you for your service. And yes, I myself have
Speaker 1: lost two Super Bowls as well, and it still hurts
Speaker 1: every single day. Those those championship rings never come out
Speaker 1: of the safe. I can tell you that I know
Speaker 1: people ask you all the time, like don't you ever,
Speaker 1: why don't you wearing on like they're the second place
Speaker 1: for me. I don't want to. Wait, I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. It's just not if and I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not saying this to talk bad about anyone who got
Speaker 1: a silver medal in the Olympics. I just it's not
Speaker 1: it's not gold. I'm sorry. That's just me, that's just
Speaker 1: that's just me. That's how I think. I'm super hyper competitive.
Speaker 1: Don't disrespect to anyone with a silver medal. I respected.
Speaker 1: I appreciate y'all, thank you all, but uh it just
Speaker 1: it sucks. It definitely sucks. All right. Well, as the
Speaker 1: one guy that has a Super Bowl ring on this
Speaker 1: podcast right now, I'm gonna close it out, all right,
Speaker 1: So I appreciate you, John, Thanks Peanut. As always, don't
Speaker 1: forget to tell your people about the show and give
Speaker 1: a rating, a review, and a follow on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: I Heart, or wherever else you get your podcasts at.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening.