Speaker 1: Comeback Stories is a production of Inflection Network and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everyone to another episode of Comeback Stories. My
Speaker 2: name is Darren Waller. May know me as a tight
Speaker 2: end for the New York Giants. I'm joined here by
Speaker 2: my co host, my friend, my brother, Donnie. Donnie, how
Speaker 2: you doing today.
Speaker 3: Man, I'm doing well.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: It's always a great day when we get to drop
Speaker 3: in and have some deep, meaningful conversations.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, I'm so excited about this guest that we
Speaker 2: have here today. This is my running mate. This was
Speaker 2: my fellow tight end and teammate with the Raiders for
Speaker 2: the better part of four years, a guy that I
Speaker 2: love and enjoy and respect so much on so many
Speaker 2: different levels. We got my guy, my friend New York
Speaker 2: Saints tight end, mister Foster Moreau Foster. Welcome to the show, brother.
Speaker 4: Darren, Donnie, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to
Speaker 4: be here. I'll look forward to this tremendously certainly.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this is been a while in the making.
Speaker 2: I've been trying to poke this bear a long time,
Speaker 2: trying to get him on the show. And for some
Speaker 2: context for anybody that's listening, this is this man me
Speaker 2: and him in meetings, countless meetings, just cutting up in
Speaker 2: meetings like I'm somebody, I'm that kid that I had
Speaker 2: all a's in school growing up, but my conduct in
Speaker 2: my grade, in grades in class I was a lot
Speaker 2: of unsatisfactory, a lot of like calls home from the
Speaker 2: parents and the principle. So I get distracted very easily.
Speaker 2: But just be just engaging with this guy, like jokes, laughing,
Speaker 2: but also being serious and being detailed in our craft.
Speaker 2: Just a lot of fun on the day to day
Speaker 2: and made showing up to work a lot of fun
Speaker 2: and just real goofy. But today we're going to dive
Speaker 2: into a lot of this man's story, and I want
Speaker 2: to start Foster. What was Could you describe what life
Speaker 2: was like growing up for you, whether it be just
Speaker 2: a physical environment, what it was like going on inside
Speaker 2: your head, inside your heart, like, describe what your childhood
Speaker 2: was like.
Speaker 4: Sure, my childhood, I'd say was was fairly standard. I
Speaker 4: had both of my parents in my life for for
Speaker 4: quite some time, and I was I was lucky to
Speaker 4: be to be able to say, like say something like that,
Speaker 4: you know, I was. I always just loved growing up
Speaker 4: around sports. I was I was blessed to be fairly
Speaker 4: gifted playing most of the things that I like to engage.
Speaker 4: But that's that's more or less where I kind of
Speaker 4: found my purpose and my passion and most of my vision.
Speaker 4: I'd enjoyed football, basketball, track and field from time to time, but.
Speaker 5: This swimming was swimming was awful.
Speaker 4: But that's where I started to build discipline and I
Speaker 4: started to learn most of my my life lessons that
Speaker 4: I still carry today, probably through you know, elementary school
Speaker 4: sports or on the on the playground or whatever that was.
Speaker 5: But for me.
Speaker 4: I I grew up mostly with most of those lessons
Speaker 4: being taught from my mom. From an athletics background. I
Speaker 4: learned a lot from her, just in terms of you know,
Speaker 4: time management and taking things serious, being true to your
Speaker 4: word in a way. And my dad more taught me
Speaker 4: kind of how to live life outside of the lines
Speaker 4: in a certain way, if that makes sense, just the
Speaker 4: dos and don'ts of manhood.
Speaker 5: And how to be the right man when.
Speaker 4: No one's watching, and to live my life for the
Speaker 4: greater glory of God at my arm day. Glory is
Speaker 4: the Latin translation for that, But that was that was
Speaker 4: most of my childhood was shared through those two and
Speaker 4: my three sisters.
Speaker 5: It was a it was a special time growing up
Speaker 5: for me. Certainly.
Speaker 2: I've gotten the chance to meet all the extended members
Speaker 2: of your family just by being your teammate and your friend,
Speaker 2: and it's so many good people, so many different personalities.
Speaker 2: I've wondered, was with your your parents separating, was that
Speaker 2: like a painful experience for you? Like what how did
Speaker 2: that maybe affect you internally in ways and maybe force
Speaker 2: you to look at life or the world differently.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's a great question, Darren. For me, like
Speaker 4: many people, I thought that I could harbor some level
Speaker 4: of control over it, and I thought I could help
Speaker 4: right when in reality it wasn't my battle. I just
Speaker 4: I remember going back and forth. We're sitting at the
Speaker 4: kitchen table with my mom, dad, three sisters, and we're trying.
Speaker 5: To we're fighting through it.
Speaker 4: I'm like, guys, hand like you could come together through
Speaker 4: Christ who strengthens you.
Speaker 5: You could, you could do it. But obviously it was
Speaker 5: it was a bit of a.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't call it childish, but it was definitely I
Speaker 4: was a little naive to believe that I could bring
Speaker 4: them back together. As much as I truly believed, And
Speaker 4: from there I started to learn my parents more as
Speaker 4: people than as mom and Dad, which I thought gave
Speaker 4: me an interesting perspective into growing and learning a little
Speaker 4: bit more about the real world than maybe I would
Speaker 4: have liked. But it definitely set me with a different perspective,
Speaker 4: getting to know them as Tricia and Lyle more than
Speaker 4: mom and Dad. I'm I am grateful for that experience,
Speaker 4: regardless of what anyone says, and of course I'd still
Speaker 4: love for them to be together, but now I have
Speaker 4: extended family, and you know, the more the merrier in
Speaker 4: certain ways, I'm.
Speaker 3: Really fascinated by that, because, well, how old were you
Speaker 3: when your parents got divorced.
Speaker 5: I believe I was fourteen years old.
Speaker 3: I think, okay, I was seven, And I always said
Speaker 3: and I think it was just a way of really
Speaker 3: never processing it. But I always would tell people like
Speaker 3: they always made the best out of a bad what
Speaker 3: could have been a bad situation, because my parents did
Speaker 3: always make it about the kids. And I've coached and
Speaker 3: worked through divorce and change with a lot of people,
Speaker 3: and oftentimes when they make it about themselves, it's when
Speaker 3: the kids actually suffer. But later on in life, after
Speaker 3: doing a lot more therapy and healing, I think I
Speaker 3: really downplayed the significance of the divorce, and even though
Speaker 3: they're cordial and they really did make the best out
Speaker 3: of it, just the separation from my mom. I lived
Speaker 3: with my dad. I mean I would see my mom
Speaker 3: a couple times a week, but just that alone, especially
Speaker 3: be the young being the youngest of four and kind
Speaker 3: of being a mama's boy, that that that probably had
Speaker 3: way bigger of an effect than I had realized at.
Speaker 4: The time, and for years later, Yeah, certainly, I think
Speaker 4: I had kind of start to I started to come
Speaker 4: into into knowing both of those people and and kind
Speaker 4: of developing my own personality and identity, even though you know,
Speaker 4: it was far off from where I am today. I
Speaker 4: was starting to get to that age that those those
Speaker 4: close to teenage years where you start to believe that
Speaker 4: you know, you know everything, you're smarter than just about everyone, uh,
Speaker 4: and you have you have the rest of your life
Speaker 4: ahead of you, when in actuality, those are just the
Speaker 4: most important building blocks for your development into a person
Speaker 4: with character whose trust and faith carry them through life. Yeah,
Speaker 4: for me, I kind of thought better of it, and
Speaker 4: for years I came to learn. Like I said, I
Speaker 4: came to learn those people probably in a similar way
Speaker 4: that you did.
Speaker 2: Man, we're all just doing the best we can with
Speaker 2: what we have. And you talked about being maybe too
Speaker 2: smart for your own good. Something people may not know
Speaker 2: is I called Foster coach Foster a lot in meetings
Speaker 2: and practice situations because it was really from this place
Speaker 2: of Honestly, I never probably vocalized as much, but it
Speaker 2: was a place of respect from the way that your
Speaker 2: mind approached the game and the way that you tried
Speaker 2: to inspire other people to like a standard of excellence.
Speaker 2: And I want to like, where did that come from?
Speaker 2: Was that always something that just kind of came naturally
Speaker 2: to you as a kid, Like how did that passion?
Speaker 2: And just like the different type of football mind that
Speaker 2: you have developed as a kid.
Speaker 4: Let me ask you this, Darren and you Donnie as well.
Speaker 4: Are there ever any times where you were a kid
Speaker 4: and you remember sitting in class and your teacher would
Speaker 4: roll would roll like a TV screen in and would
Speaker 4: put on a movie for you right before Christmas break
Speaker 4: or summer vacation, Like, was there ever a time where,
Speaker 4: and specifically during one of those times where she'd roll
Speaker 4: it in and it was kind of a niche movie
Speaker 4: that you were sure twenty nine of your other thirty
Speaker 4: classmates hadn't seen, but you were the one kid who
Speaker 4: had seen it. I remember feeling like that sometimes when
Speaker 4: I was younger, and I was like, oh, wait a minute,
Speaker 4: what what is this? This is Oh, I know this movie,
Speaker 4: and then all of a sudden, it would fill me
Speaker 4: with a rush of like, oh, there's a really good part,
Speaker 4: there's really good parts coming up. I've already seen it.
Speaker 4: I don't, And I don't know what that was when
Speaker 4: I was young. Maybe I just I felt like I
Speaker 4: maybe wanted some type of attention or wanted to be
Speaker 4: acknowledged as someone who had already seen it. I don't
Speaker 4: know what filled me with doing that, but it sort
Speaker 4: of started to creep its way into other parts of
Speaker 4: my life. But from there someone had identified that in me.
Speaker 4: One of my strength coaches back at LSU, SAME's Ben Anakione,
Speaker 4: and he identified that that was something that I always did,
Speaker 4: was I would help in coaching where I could, and
Speaker 4: I'd always take a step back where I didn't know,
Speaker 4: and he always he said he really appreciated that, and
Speaker 4: I to me. I was flabbergasted. I had no idea
Speaker 4: I would do it, but it kind of became a
Speaker 4: main stay. And so when it became you and I
Speaker 4: that year in twenty nineteen, the mission and the goal
Speaker 4: was always to have the best room that we could.
Speaker 4: So it became an ownership of making sure that everyone
Speaker 4: was on the same page right, And so it always
Speaker 4: helped me too, knowing that if you're if you're, if
Speaker 4: I know what you're doing, then I know that you're
Speaker 4: going to know what I'm doing. And if I could
Speaker 4: okay with you at the line, like hey, you got
Speaker 4: the shallow here and I'm going to try to get
Speaker 4: Zay Jones open on the on the quick whip out route,
Speaker 4: Like if I could say that and I could walk
Speaker 4: up to the line, I know we're going to be
Speaker 4: successful on the play regardless. And that was what was
Speaker 4: going to make us the best room. It wasn't about
Speaker 4: you know, you guys all as it was necessarily me
Speaker 4: being in the right place too.
Speaker 3: So when you guys, when you guys both jumped on
Speaker 3: screen when we started the podcast, the smile on each
Speaker 3: of your faces when you just saw each other's faces,
Speaker 3: I mean, it was hopefully you're watching this on video.
Speaker 2: And caught that.
Speaker 3: But could you guys just talk about your bond and
Speaker 3: what makes it so special? I mean, there's an undeniable connection.
Speaker 3: I've seen you guys together in the flesh, but just
Speaker 3: you know, even in those first few moments when we
Speaker 3: started this podcast, you could you could feel it. Where
Speaker 3: does that come from? And what's it rooted in?
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me give some context. I remember twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: Frank Smith was our tight end coach who was also
Speaker 2: a groomsman in my wedding. As you know, Donnie, he's
Speaker 2: the offensive coordinator for the Miami Dolphins now, but he
Speaker 2: was our guy. And this was when Fosterer was in
Speaker 2: the draft. He's going to be a rookie. And Frank
Speaker 2: comes to me in and he's like, man, like, I'm
Speaker 2: trying to like build this room. They want to go
Speaker 2: in a younger direction, and I'm thinking of a guy
Speaker 2: that will like compliment you greatly. I have two guys
Speaker 2: in mind, but I think there's one that you know.
Speaker 2: I don't even know if they're really sold on him upstairs,
Speaker 2: but I just know that he's a guy that would
Speaker 2: bring him to this room and it's just going to
Speaker 2: be pert and uh and it's and it's Foster. And
Speaker 2: we bring Foster in and it's just like we're kind
Speaker 2: of like if you look at us, like on paper,
Speaker 2: maybe we're like two very different people, you know. Like
Speaker 2: he's walking in the room like he's commanding the room.
Speaker 2: Like like like I said, I call you coach Foster
Speaker 2: because he's vocal. He's not afraid. When he knows something,
Speaker 2: he's he's gonna speak on it. And some people will
Speaker 2: maybe like, oh, this guy is like a little loud
Speaker 2: for a rookie. Don't you think like he's a little
Speaker 2: over the top. But but I never really viewed I
Speaker 2: was never really on board with like the making rookies
Speaker 2: feel like they're just like the little the little guy,
Speaker 2: you know. I'm more so like let them be, let
Speaker 2: them know. And I feel like if you kind of
Speaker 2: let them, I think feel like they're a part of
Speaker 2: it'll help them with their growth and their development. More so,
Speaker 2: I'm like, let me, let let this guy be. And
Speaker 2: it's like he's the vocal. I'm more of like a
Speaker 2: reserved guy until I'm around people that I feel safe
Speaker 2: around them. I'm just like a complete goofball. But I
Speaker 2: feel like, just like maybe as a case of opposite
Speaker 2: to tract, but I mean we ended up like finding
Speaker 2: light ways to make We made music together. We've made
Speaker 2: multiple tracks together. He came to record at my house,
Speaker 2: like we're just we find out we're just into a
Speaker 2: lot of the similar things. But I feel like it
Speaker 2: was coming in mentally with not a lot of ego.
Speaker 2: I feel like we can daggle bit more into Foster's journey,
Speaker 2: but his journey in mind, I think coming through college
Speaker 2: were a little bit similar, whereas we weren't guys that
Speaker 2: were just like completely glamorized or these megastars. So there
Speaker 2: was like a humility built in kind of through our
Speaker 2: journey where people were kind of like, we don't know
Speaker 2: about They definitely didn't know about me, like and I
Speaker 2: kind of earned that at that point in my career,
Speaker 2: and people were kind of like Foster like he's okay,
Speaker 2: Like he's physical, Like we know we'll get from him
Speaker 2: in the in the in the run game. And it's
Speaker 2: like we we knew that we were more than what
Speaker 2: we were kind of being sold as, but we knew
Speaker 2: that it was going to take work to get there,
Speaker 2: and just being on honest and going about the craft
Speaker 2: the right way. And I feel like there was mutual
Speaker 2: respect from the beginning, wanting to enjoy each and every day,
Speaker 2: each and every moment together and then just going out
Speaker 2: and like Foster said, like trying to be the best
Speaker 2: group we could possibly be. And that started happening quickly.
Speaker 2: Like we were in running plays at three tied end
Speaker 2: sets that a lot of teams ain't ain't ain't doing
Speaker 2: and uh, and Foster was carving out a big time
Speaker 2: role for himself and was like our red zone threat
Speaker 2: and like like basically our guy that was like putting
Speaker 2: the ball in the end zone like and it was
Speaker 2: just really cool to see. And I'm glad that I
Speaker 2: was able to do some work in my heart to
Speaker 2: that point to actually be genuinely happy to see him
Speaker 2: succeed and not have like any type of envy and
Speaker 2: we could just succeed alongside each other and see the
Speaker 2: greatness in him develop and not be bothered by it.
Speaker 2: That's what I think made it more fun. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if I went too far on that and
Speaker 2: didn't allow the room for him to share.
Speaker 4: It all kind of comes back to Frank for me
Speaker 4: as I came in. He kind of laid it out
Speaker 4: for me in black and white, and I'll give him credit,
Speaker 4: he didn't pull any punches. He said, look, the guy
Speaker 4: that you're coming in to replace or kind of make
Speaker 4: the room younger. The guy's name was Lee Smith. He's
Speaker 4: a career exceptional in line, in line tight end, excelled
Speaker 4: in pass blocking and run game schematics. He was a
Speaker 4: really good player. And so when I got there, basically
Speaker 4: what I was told was I'm here in I'm here
Speaker 4: to further my career and you know, find development and
Speaker 4: definitely grow from the player I was at LSU. But
Speaker 4: really it was I was there to protect Darren and
Speaker 4: do you know a lot of the jobs that he
Speaker 4: could do, But if I did those jobs well, then.
Speaker 5: He could exceed in other fields.
Speaker 4: And it showed from I think it might have been
Speaker 4: the first play of the season, or maybe the second play.
Speaker 4: Darren had had a thunder route on the outside on
Speaker 4: the left and he just converted it because it was
Speaker 4: press and went up and lost a guy. And I'm
Speaker 4: over there trying my my absolute best not to get
Speaker 4: baptized in.
Speaker 5: Fire by von Miller and Bradley Jebb.
Speaker 4: And for me, I said, that's this is it. This
Speaker 4: is exactly what it was supposed to be. And the
Speaker 4: more I get on the field, the more opportunities I'll
Speaker 4: find myself getting into. So being a being a protector
Speaker 4: for Darren was not all it's cracked up to be.
Speaker 4: Most of the time, I would just try to have
Speaker 4: a conversation with him as we were walking in so
Speaker 4: he didn't have to sign as many autographs because he
Speaker 4: was really starting to become a household name, especially in
Speaker 4: the Bay Area, and it gave me a sense of purpose,
Speaker 4: especially for a guy who was so well well thought
Speaker 4: out and well organized, and he knew who he was.
Speaker 4: But I didn't know Darren at all, really, I just
Speaker 4: I knew about his story, I knew about his addiction,
Speaker 4: and I knew he was working his way into becoming
Speaker 4: the man he is today, the man that he always
Speaker 4: wanted to be. So for me, I was trying to
Speaker 4: help him get there in any way I could. And
Speaker 4: you know, I found I found my flock tending to
Speaker 4: someone else's field in a way that was that was
Speaker 4: what I was trying to do, and with Darren, he
Speaker 4: made it.
Speaker 5: He made it so easy and he was.
Speaker 4: He had a quiet leadership role that I could be
Speaker 4: as loud as I want, but I'll never command as
Speaker 4: much rep acts as he does.
Speaker 5: Especially for me.
Speaker 3: Wow, what was it like having Darren in a as
Speaker 3: a leader, following his lead, but also just doing things
Speaker 3: so different than the majority of the NFL in so
Speaker 3: many different areas of life on and off the field.
Speaker 3: What was that like? Just kind of having that that
Speaker 3: mirror and model.
Speaker 4: I have always said and will always say, and Darren
Speaker 4: will deny it till he till the day he dies.
Speaker 4: But the the listeners on this on this podcast know
Speaker 4: better than me or better than most, that he's commanded
Speaker 4: with a gift of When he speaks, it needs to
Speaker 4: be addressed. He speaks almost with a with a tongue
Speaker 4: of fire. He speaks with the Holy Spirit. I've said
Speaker 4: that for a long time. I don't ever. I don't
Speaker 4: see a day where I won't. He's he's got a gift,
Speaker 4: and he's got a command, and he's got a conviction
Speaker 4: to tell his story and change lives. Telling that story
Speaker 4: personally through my recent diagnosis. I didn't really want to
Speaker 4: make it public. I don't want to make it known.
Speaker 4: I kind of just wanted to go deal with it
Speaker 4: and then come back and be who I was. But
Speaker 4: my mom, my girl, a couple and a couple of
Speaker 4: my close friends told me, no, this is a story
Speaker 4: that you need to take command of and try to
Speaker 4: affect other people's lives through your dealing of it. And
Speaker 4: most most everyone would think woe is me to think
Speaker 4: I could change someone else's life just through my story.
Speaker 4: But we're on the way there, and anyone who I
Speaker 4: could positively affect I would be remiss if I didn't.
Speaker 4: The first person, then the first face that pops in
Speaker 4: my head would be mister Big drink himself, Darren Wallers.
Speaker 3: So for the listeners that aren't familiar, what have the
Speaker 3: last six months looked like for you leading up to
Speaker 3: today and what exactly are you referring to?
Speaker 4: Back in March March, I believe it was March twenty
Speaker 4: third I was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma. I was going
Speaker 4: on a free agency visit down in my hometown of
Speaker 4: New Orleans, and I found a doctor that was giving
Speaker 4: my physical names, Doctor John Amos. He's the team doctor
Speaker 4: for the Saints. He goes and he's going to give
Speaker 4: me a basically just a routine physical checkup, one that
Speaker 4: you would get at any any doctor's appointment. The first
Speaker 4: thing he touches right here is my my left my
Speaker 4: left claviical and my left lymph node right here.
Speaker 5: To where basically he feels he feels a mass. And
Speaker 5: we go.
Speaker 4: Through the tests, the hoops and the bounds. We do
Speaker 4: two different biopsies trying to determine what all it is.
Speaker 4: But it's certainly it's certainly not just some run of
Speaker 4: the milk growth. It's I'm definitely not just coming down
Speaker 4: with a little bit of a cold and I have
Speaker 4: an I have an inflamed lymph Note I wound up
Speaker 4: having Hodgkins lymphoma with the specific cell type of nodular
Speaker 4: lymphatic predominant Hodgkins lymphoma, which basically meant that my journey
Speaker 4: was going to be different than anyone else's because it's
Speaker 4: a more rare form of It's a rare, more rare
Speaker 4: form of Hodgkins. From there, we ran more tests and
Speaker 4: we wanted to make sure it was this rare form
Speaker 4: because ultimately the treatment methods are completely different from what
Speaker 4: you would find in a normal Hodgkins patient. So after
Speaker 4: we did that secondary biopsy, we found out it was
Speaker 4: the NLPHL form of Hodgkins, that that rare strand of
Speaker 4: cell type.
Speaker 5: And I was set up to do.
Speaker 4: About a month and month and a half of treatments
Speaker 4: that I completed down here in New Orleans, surrounded by
Speaker 4: family in the the cancer center of the of the
Speaker 4: Benson Cancer Institute on the fifth floor over right here
Speaker 4: in my hometown, which was you know, it was pretty
Speaker 4: special for me just being about twelve minutes away from
Speaker 4: a place that was literally saving my life, and in
Speaker 4: twelve minutes the other direction was the doctor who had
Speaker 4: who had saved it because unbeknownst to me and unbeknownst
Speaker 4: to the doctor from the visit that I was on
Speaker 4: the day before I had a I had another physical
Speaker 4: less than sixteen hours before that, and that doctor found nothing,
Speaker 4: no no impurities, no gross and I was just I
Speaker 4: was grateful that my agent set me down here and
Speaker 4: he said it'd be good, it's what you want to do,
Speaker 4: and he I guess we'll never know how right he
Speaker 4: really was, because I'm pretty blessed.
Speaker 2: There's so many layers to this. I remember when you
Speaker 2: first called me, and I'm listening and taking it all
Speaker 2: in and I'm just like I don't know how to
Speaker 2: react to this right now, and and I'm going to
Speaker 2: get back to you and how you were on that
Speaker 2: call in a second. But when I got off the phone,
Speaker 2: I was like, man, for years, I've seen this man
Speaker 2: do things on a daily basis to where I'm like,
Speaker 2: I know this man is not only like a starting
Speaker 2: tied end in the NFL, but a man that could
Speaker 2: like be that that piece, that guy on on a
Speaker 2: team for years to come, somebody that can be like
Speaker 2: this is this is the this is our guy. I've
Speaker 2: seen that from you on a daily basis, and the
Speaker 2: opportunities that you've been given didn't always match what I
Speaker 2: knew as truth. And for you to have an opportunity
Speaker 2: and free agency to go somewhere and to have a
Speaker 2: new start and a new opportunity to be able to
Speaker 2: showcase your skills in a better in a different way,
Speaker 2: to have this happen, I was like, man, like, this
Speaker 2: is just like not only a lot, but it's just
Speaker 2: like it's a whole like spiritual experience in a way.
Speaker 2: It's like nothing is guaranteed, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: Like this is something that you've put in the work for.
Speaker 2: You've and not only been like I can't wait to
Speaker 2: get my shot, but you've served teammates, served coaches, served
Speaker 2: the Raiders organization, the whole way in a just in
Speaker 2: the highest class and to get to this opportunity and
Speaker 2: in an instant, in a flash, it's like, oh, this
Speaker 2: is like taking away, this is no longer, this may
Speaker 2: no longer be a thing. But the calmness of your
Speaker 2: voice on that phone call is something that I will
Speaker 2: never forget. And I'm just like, how can somebody be
Speaker 2: this calm with all this Like, because I know you
Speaker 2: were waiting for this moment, waiting for this opportunity, but
Speaker 2: you were calm, Like what does that? Can you explain
Speaker 2: to the people that are listening, because a lot of
Speaker 2: people may just be overflown with anger, overtaken with resentment,
Speaker 2: or so many different kinds of emotions, Like one, what
Speaker 2: were you what were you feeling at that time? What
Speaker 2: were the emotions you were battling with? But can you
Speaker 2: speak to that calm because it's something that hit me
Speaker 2: as your friend, and it's something that I'll never forget.
Speaker 4: Sure, And not to take away from the seriousness with
Speaker 4: a little bit of levity, but that's kind of my thing.
Speaker 5: I was already.
Speaker 4: I was already mad as hell that the entire, the
Speaker 4: entire tight end class of free agents, we were not
Speaker 4: going to get the numbers we wanted. It wasn't even
Speaker 4: going to be close. That was the reasons I was
Speaker 4: taking these visits. That was that was the intention. Was like, Hey,
Speaker 4: get in front of these guys. They're going to love you,
Speaker 4: and then they might give us an extra they might
Speaker 4: give us some change on the back end because they
Speaker 4: like you that much and now that they've seen you,
Speaker 4: they want you. I thought that was a smart strategy,
Speaker 4: and I said, okay, let's go with that. And when
Speaker 4: I just I saw all the rest of the guys
Speaker 4: and their numbers were so low, and I'm like, ah,
Speaker 4: this isn't what This isn't what you know, Hayden Hurst,
Speaker 4: this isn't what he's worth, you know, Dalton Schultz, this
Speaker 4: isn't what he's worth. Right, But these guys are taking
Speaker 4: one year deals because the tight end class in the
Speaker 4: draft was pretty astounding, a bunch of really high grades
Speaker 4: and a bunch of really good players. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm getting on these flights. I'm tired, I'm anxious,
Speaker 4: this is this sucks, but whatever, this is what we're
Speaker 4: doing and this is this is what this life is.
Speaker 4: And in a second, when that doctor said Hodgkins lymphoma,
Speaker 4: every bit of anxiety that I had about free agency,
Speaker 4: that I had about ball, that I had about my
Speaker 4: public image, of what people thought that I was worth,
Speaker 4: or however much my dad sent me that this guy
Speaker 4: got or this guy got, all that disappeared and it
Speaker 4: was it just melted off of me and none of
Speaker 4: it mattered anymore. And I know that's a weird thing
Speaker 4: to say, but to me, it didn't. I could only
Speaker 4: think about getting this this, this this cancerous lymph node
Speaker 4: out of my body, get it healed, get fixed. Obviously
Speaker 4: I went through denial initially, but the doctor seemed sincere,
Speaker 4: and he seemed knowledgeable, and he knows what he's talking about.
Speaker 4: And if you know me, I might think I have
Speaker 4: a medical degree, but in truth, I never do, and
Speaker 4: I might I probably never will. But we we went
Speaker 4: and we talked to the radiologist. I was scared, I
Speaker 4: was nervous, and at that point I just didn't want
Speaker 4: the information getting leaked out.
Speaker 5: To anyone.
Speaker 4: I didn't want anyone that I know and love to
Speaker 4: get this information from a way that wasn't my words
Speaker 4: to them. So I made sure I cut down a
Speaker 4: list of people I wanted to tell how I wanted
Speaker 4: to tell them, and I didn't want anyone to freak
Speaker 4: out because I didn't know any of the information yet.
Speaker 4: The doctor said, hey, it's probably high nineties percent that
Speaker 4: it is that it is some form of cancer, probably Hodgkins,
Speaker 4: And at that point I just wanted to make sure
Speaker 4: the people that I knew kind of got to find
Speaker 4: out before it would hit you know, a tweet by
Speaker 4: Adam Schefter or by anyone, right.
Speaker 5: And I think we handled that well.
Speaker 4: I got to tell my parents, my girl, my best
Speaker 4: friends in the world, and at that point I was
Speaker 4: okay with starting treatment from that Sunday if I wanted to,
Speaker 4: and I didn't have to tell anyone else, but that
Speaker 4: point it was it was time for me to share
Speaker 4: my story.
Speaker 3: Who was helping you, guiding you through that process and
Speaker 3: kind of the decision making process of who to tell
Speaker 3: did you have a was it the doctor or was
Speaker 3: there somebody else in your life or in your corner
Speaker 3: at the time.
Speaker 4: I would run everything by my mom. Every decision I
Speaker 4: would make, I would say, oh, you know, I had
Speaker 4: my mom my dad. They were in the same house
Speaker 4: for the first for the first time in a long time,
Speaker 4: and I had said, Hey, what do you think about
Speaker 4: telling Yeah, telling so and so, Like I mean, do
Speaker 4: you think they need to know? And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I think so. I think I think that would And honestly,
Speaker 4: it was almost it was therapeutic for me in a
Speaker 4: way that I would that I got to talk to
Speaker 4: people that I wanted to talk to.
Speaker 5: You know, It's it's such a hard it's such a
Speaker 5: hard thing.
Speaker 4: Because one of my best friends in the world, Danny Etlink,
Speaker 4: he was on his bachelor trip and I was supposed
Speaker 4: to be on it, but he's like, hey, handle your
Speaker 4: free agency stuff, Like I get it. It's not a
Speaker 4: big deal, Like I'm going to see you before then,
Speaker 4: I'm going to see you at the wedding. Don't worry
Speaker 4: about it. But to call him as he's on his
Speaker 4: bachelor trip like just one of the one of the
Speaker 4: times that you always remember. And I didn't want to
Speaker 4: tell him, but I put myself in his shoes and
Speaker 4: I would definitely want to know, same with you, same
Speaker 4: with Alec and Gold, same with Hunter, Renfro, Max Crosby,
Speaker 4: A couple of guys, old teammates, old great friends, and
Speaker 4: from there I just kind of like put a cap
Speaker 4: on it. I didn't tell most of my family members.
Speaker 4: I told my mom and my dad obviously, and my
Speaker 4: sisters had no idea. But I got him on a
Speaker 4: group FaceTime call and they sobbed and we laughed, and
Speaker 4: you know, I would make jokes about it to try
Speaker 4: to to try to alleviate some of the stress that
Speaker 4: they were probably feeling. But from from there it was
Speaker 4: I knew it was going to be a battle. It
Speaker 4: was just it was important for me to get it
Speaker 4: out on my own terms.
Speaker 2: Can you take us through like some of the what
Speaker 2: the anything that the cancer may have caused? Was it
Speaker 2: did you feel like a lack of energy? Was it fatigue?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: Can you take us through like some of this the
Speaker 2: physical effects of.
Speaker 5: It, Darren?
Speaker 4: Mostly, the only physical effects I felt were from the
Speaker 4: benadrill that they that they gave us, And that's and
Speaker 4: that's God's honest truth. It was a completely different My
Speaker 4: cancer was rare because it doesn't require chemotherapy or radiation.
Speaker 4: I got extremely lucky. I felt the way of the
Speaker 4: world bearing down on me. You know, after I got
Speaker 4: it out, I was getting texts and calls and you know,
Speaker 4: a lot of a lot of love and a lot
Speaker 4: of heart and a lot of prayer was being sent
Speaker 4: my way. And I felt probably about ten days after
Speaker 4: the initial diagnosis, I really started to kind of settle
Speaker 4: into a Oh man, this is really going to suck.
Speaker 4: This is going to be bad. I'm going to be trained.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to be myself. And from there I
Speaker 4: got a call from my my oncologist. His name is
Speaker 4: doctor Carter Davis. He works over there at the Benson
Speaker 4: Cancer Center with Ashner, and he told me, he said,
Speaker 4: look like it appears that you might have a rare
Speaker 4: cell type. And so of course when you hear rare cancer,
Speaker 4: your brain doesn't go to oh nice, that's great.
Speaker 5: Cool.
Speaker 4: No, but he said, you know, it actually might work
Speaker 4: out in your favor and you might not miss as
Speaker 4: much time from the from the football as you might think.
Speaker 4: And I said, okay, well, the football field is that's
Speaker 4: a bit on the back. That's on the back is
Speaker 4: to burners talk to me about my health. And he's like, okay, Well,
Speaker 4: so this form of this form of Hotchin's lymphoma is
Speaker 4: not nearly as aggressive, it doesn't grow nearly as fast,
Speaker 4: and you might have had it for a lot longer
Speaker 4: than you think. Like, okay, that's different, he goes. The
Speaker 4: reason that you didn't have any side effects is most
Speaker 4: most cancers leave side effects because it's your body's natural
Speaker 4: response to what the cancer is doing. Right, Like it's
Speaker 4: you're sweating in your sleep. It's it's basically taking all
Speaker 4: the sugar that you put into your body, and it's
Speaker 4: basically accepting it as its own and growing off of that.
Speaker 4: So you might feel like you'll feel tired, you'll go
Speaker 4: and you'll you'll lose weight rapidly because your body's not
Speaker 4: able to process things the right way. But in my case,
Speaker 4: I had just been dealing with it for a long
Speaker 4: time without really knowing and kind of just putting natural
Speaker 4: defenses up against it.
Speaker 5: But when he told me.
Speaker 4: That, he said, we'd like to do a second we'd
Speaker 4: like to get the tissues from the initial biopsy.
Speaker 5: Mind you, they did a biopsy on site that day.
Speaker 4: Within an hour, within thirty minutes of them telling me
Speaker 4: I probably had Hodgkins. We were taking tissue samples at
Speaker 4: the hospital, like at six forty five in the morning,
Speaker 4: and it was not a licensed it was not a
Speaker 4: licensed surgeon. It was a radiologist who had cut me
Speaker 4: open and took tissue samples out of my shoulder. It
Speaker 4: was I mean, I was and I'm just I'm just
Speaker 4: I'm shocked in a way that I just I couldn't
Speaker 4: I couldn't really do anything other than just take what
Speaker 4: they're giving me. And I'm like, oh boy, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: have to call Zach Taylor up with Cincinnati and say, hey, man,
Speaker 4: like it's not going to work out. It's not gonna uh.
Speaker 4: But you know, it was the what I feel from it, right,
Speaker 4: what I felt through the entire process. To get back
Speaker 4: onto onto the topic, was I felt I felt a
Speaker 4: lot of mental stress, angst, a lot of things that
Speaker 4: were within my control, but the stress that I felt
Speaker 4: were from the things that I couldn't control, to where
Speaker 4: I had no idea whether this retusamad medicine wasn't going
Speaker 4: to work as well as a chemotherapy might or radiation could.
Speaker 4: I also downplayed my diagnosis a lot because I knew
Speaker 4: that I wasn't going to have to go through a
Speaker 4: lot of the hard things that most other cancer patients
Speaker 4: do because for some reason, you know, no pain, no
Speaker 4: gain in my brain. But it's just I talked to
Speaker 4: I talked to a few different survivors from different cancers.
Speaker 5: And that was always.
Speaker 4: That was always the message that they would leave me
Speaker 4: with is, Hey, everyone has a different path, Everyone has
Speaker 4: a different journey. Just because yours didn't hurt as bad
Speaker 4: makes it doesn't make it any less impactful. It doesn't
Speaker 4: make it any less difficult. It's just your story, and
Speaker 4: it's it's different. And that I could still see the
Speaker 4: face of the woman. Her name was Sarah. I could
Speaker 4: still see she was a breast cancer survivor. I could
Speaker 4: still see her face. I know exactly how she said it,
Speaker 4: and it meant It meant a lot to me. It
Speaker 4: gave me more purpose than what I realized I had
Speaker 4: already had.
Speaker 3: I'm starting to hear the turnaround, but I'm curious before
Speaker 3: you start to tell more of the comeback part of
Speaker 3: this story. Was there like a lowest point or like
Speaker 3: the darkest place that your mind went, or emotion went
Speaker 3: like that kind of rock bottom emotionally, whether it was
Speaker 3: around victim is ation or just stories you were telling yourselves.
Speaker 3: So what was the darkest point and then what was
Speaker 3: the turnaround? What shifted everything for you?
Speaker 4: There's a couple of different low points, but the I
Speaker 4: felt fairly helpless after I had gotten after I had
Speaker 4: gotten the first scan back, they kind of they kind
Speaker 4: of they gave me the information, and I was I
Speaker 4: was waiting to do I was waiting to do a
Speaker 4: pet scan where they shoot you up with radioactive sugar tracers. Basically,
Speaker 4: they go in and they see where the cancer is.
Speaker 4: And you're sitting by yourself in a dark trailer. You're
Speaker 4: isolated behind a really heavy door because you got you
Speaker 4: got radiation literally flowing through your body, radioactive material. And
Speaker 4: you know, I I'm blessed to play a game for
Speaker 4: a living that pays me handsomely for something I would
Speaker 4: gladly do for free with my buddies in a backyard
Speaker 4: at any point in time for the rest of my life.
Speaker 4: I love playing this game. I love football, and they
Speaker 4: pay me way too much money to do it, and
Speaker 4: that's a small little spield, but for me, I got
Speaker 4: to the desk and they're like, Okay, here's what this
Speaker 4: pet scan costs, would you like to pay it an
Speaker 4: hour or later? And I'm like, oh my gosh, what
Speaker 4: are you talking about. Insurance doesn't cover that. And it's
Speaker 4: like they're talking about the premiums and they're talking about, well, no,
Speaker 4: you know, you haven't anything on your rent and I'm like,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, So this is so I'm gonna have
Speaker 4: to I have to try to beat cancer.
Speaker 5: I got to pay to beat it.
Speaker 4: All.
Speaker 5: You guys wanted me to do the scan.
Speaker 4: I got to pay for the scan, and then I
Speaker 4: got to pay for that biopsy, this second biopsy. And
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm just I had been leading this, you know,
Speaker 4: this ignorant lifestyle of not I just had no idea
Speaker 4: what all was going on. I was stressed out, I
Speaker 4: was worried. I was swiping my card for things. I
Speaker 4: didn't even know what was going on. And I'm like,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm thankful that I know, I knew that
Speaker 4: I could afford it regardless of what it cost. But
Speaker 4: it just put me in such a low point of saying,
Speaker 4: what would happen if you if you weren't necessarily as
Speaker 4: skilled at football? What if you were doing something God
Speaker 4: knows what what if? What if you went left instead
Speaker 4: of right that one time? And I'm just sitting I'm
Speaker 4: sitting there waiting for my turn on the on the
Speaker 4: pet scan and I'm just I'm praying, I'm I'm thankful,
Speaker 4: but also I'm I'm tearful and I'm worried that, you know,
Speaker 4: because at that point I knew I had Hodgkins, I
Speaker 4: didn't know how bad it was. I didn't know what
Speaker 4: my cell type was, and at this point the machine,
Speaker 4: this was a test that I was unfamiliar with.
Speaker 5: I was scared.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 4: That was probably my lowest point. I think what I
Speaker 4: had alluded to earlier when Carter Davis called me and said, hey,
Speaker 4: this thing might work out in your favor and you
Speaker 4: might have a chance of a much easier treatment process
Speaker 4: than what I'm sure you've.
Speaker 5: Been preparing for.
Speaker 4: That really, honestly mentally from a place of a place
Speaker 4: of where I started to feel the way of the
Speaker 4: world on me. And I'd been talking to people about
Speaker 4: their treatment process and about how tough it was, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, you know, like it probably depends on
Speaker 4: the person. They're like, no, it sucks for everyone. I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 4: that's that's okay. Thanks, thank you for your help and
Speaker 4: your sincerity.
Speaker 5: But when that happened, I definitely felt a shift and
Speaker 5: a bit of a.
Speaker 4: Momentum, and I felt God's hand actively waving over my
Speaker 4: life in ways that I really couldn't comprehend. And looking
Speaker 4: back on it now, that was that was definitely the
Speaker 4: point of transmission.
Speaker 2: This would be a crazy question to ask, but do
Speaker 2: you feel grateful in a way for your diagnosis?
Speaker 4: In different ways? Absolutely, Obviously, I'm always going to say
Speaker 4: a much happier that it was found when it was,
Speaker 4: so for that I am grateful, and you know, I'll
Speaker 4: give a small example the guy who found it, John Amos, doctor,
Speaker 4: doctor Amos. He was so apologetic through the process of
Speaker 4: us walking through the hospital and doing the biopsy, talking
Speaker 4: to the radiologist, but he was doing something for the saints.
Speaker 4: I was on a free agency visit, last minute thing.
Speaker 4: So he rolled out of bed, got into the office,
Speaker 4: came to give me a physical. Had it been someone
Speaker 4: who was, you know, a little less hands on or
Speaker 4: I don't know, maybe someone who might have just might
Speaker 4: have just forgot to check that box, I could be
Speaker 4: sitting here or anywhere with a camphor like a cancerous
Speaker 4: lump still growing in my neck. And I mean, you
Speaker 4: know athletes, you know, you know football players. You know
Speaker 4: a lot of people, even if they think something might
Speaker 4: be wrong, a lot of the times, you know, we'll
Speaker 4: just ignore it instead of addressing it, just because it's
Speaker 4: easier to just live in ignorance.
Speaker 5: I'm glad he was there that day.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I am grateful that it was found, and I think
Speaker 4: I'll be a better man for it, certainly.
Speaker 3: I'm just grateful the way that you are. You've walked
Speaker 3: us through these last six months. It's probably less than
Speaker 3: six months, but the way that you tell your story,
Speaker 3: and it's just captivating, and I have no doubt that
Speaker 3: you're going to help so many other people, just like
Speaker 3: that doctor who gave you a more optimistic diagnosis, gave
Speaker 3: you kind of that glimmer of hope. That was the turnaround.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's why Darren and I do this podcast. It's,
Speaker 3: you know, for that person that's listening right now that
Speaker 3: thinks they're all alone, that nobody understands, whether it's a diagnosis,
Speaker 3: if it's an addiction, if it's mental health, and they
Speaker 3: can actually hear that somebody else has gone through this,
Speaker 3: even though my pain might look a little different than
Speaker 3: your pain. You know, this is what connects us all.
Speaker 3: But I'm just I'm blown away by how fresh this
Speaker 3: still is for you. And one what your perspective is,
Speaker 3: but how you tell your story. And I mean, I
Speaker 3: think you're going to have some some good options whenever
Speaker 3: football is over, for you to have a stage whatever
Speaker 3: you want that to look like, to help a shit
Speaker 3: ton of people.
Speaker 4: Thank you. You know, I joke with Darren when he
Speaker 4: was as he as he so eloquently put it, poke
Speaker 4: the bear when you try to get me on the podcast,
Speaker 4: I I joke back with him. I say, you know,
Speaker 4: like I don't really have anything that I've ever came
Speaker 4: back from. You know, I've been I've lived a fairly
Speaker 4: I've lived a fairly easy life. I've definitely had some
Speaker 4: hiccups along the way, and I've dodged a couple of
Speaker 4: bullets here and there.
Speaker 5: I've gotten lucky once or twice, but.
Speaker 4: No real experience that I've had to, you know, stop
Speaker 4: my life and start a new path.
Speaker 5: Funny enough, I.
Speaker 4: Was just speaking cancer into my lymph notes, but from
Speaker 4: there it was, you know, it's a different it's a
Speaker 4: different mentality. Certainly, I'm lucky every day and I'm blessed
Speaker 4: that I that I know people like like Darren, like you, Donnie,
Speaker 4: like people who I know that. It is fresh in
Speaker 4: my mind. But from the moment the diagnosis hit, there
Speaker 4: was no option other than victory. There was nothing. There
Speaker 4: was nothing else to do. It was just a matter
Speaker 4: of time. I go back to my head strength coach
Speaker 4: in college. His name's Tommy Moffatt. He's a two time
Speaker 4: cancer survivor. I don't remember all that much from college.
Speaker 4: I remember plenty of plays, plenty of circumstances, plenty of
Speaker 4: fun nights out of the bar. But one thing that
Speaker 4: has always and will always stick with me is that
Speaker 4: strength coach, Tommy Moffatt, who I respected dearly. He told me,
Speaker 4: you don't know how strong you are until strong is
Speaker 4: the only option you have.
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't think anyone really understood the magnitude of what
Speaker 4: he was saying. But coming from someone who would give
Speaker 4: us our workouts every day and take ten minutes to
Speaker 4: individualize and personalize things for different groups, that he knows
Speaker 4: that we're going to have to work on this week,
Speaker 4: for him to say something like that. To us, it
Speaker 4: just it meant the world. And we might have just
Speaker 4: done fifty updowns because three of our guys were late
Speaker 4: or missed class, or we just we had to do
Speaker 4: punishment runs or whatever that looked like. But you never
Speaker 4: know how strong you are until strong is the only
Speaker 4: option you have.
Speaker 5: I ted.
Speaker 4: I texted that to him. He texted me back some words.
Speaker 4: And certainly experiences like that and people who have been
Speaker 4: through it and can give me a little bit of
Speaker 4: light in the darkness.
Speaker 5: That's that's what it's all about.
Speaker 2: Man. I can't let you go without asking you in
Speaker 2: knowing like the emotions and the joy and what your
Speaker 2: heart felt like when you were able to not only
Speaker 2: return to practice and return being able to play the
Speaker 2: game that you love, but to do it putting on
Speaker 2: a helmet of the town, of the streets that you
Speaker 2: grew up in, you know, the restaurants and the Marty
Speaker 2: Grass and all the crazy things that you crazy folks
Speaker 2: do down there. What like, what does that feel like?
Speaker 2: Because those kinds of things just don't happen, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, Like, like, what does like take us
Speaker 2: through that? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean in a similar vein how did I get
Speaker 4: diagnosed in the same town that my mom is ten
Speaker 4: minutes away from the hospital, and I could get my
Speaker 4: I can get my initial diagnosis, and I could drive home.
Speaker 4: I could drive ten minutes to my house that I've
Speaker 4: lived for what feels like my whole life, and hug
Speaker 4: my mom, who's probably one of the most important people
Speaker 4: in my life, if not the most important, and just
Speaker 4: be surrounded by family during in the darkest time that
Speaker 4: I had ever experienced. In a similar way, I do
Speaker 4: my last treatment on March ninth. I finish it up
Speaker 4: three days after my twenty sixth birthday. And I remember
Speaker 4: seeing that last that last drop go through the syringe
Speaker 4: and I said, Okay, all right, I think I think
Speaker 4: that's I think that's all.
Speaker 5: She wrote. I went home.
Speaker 4: I woke up the next morning. I uh, I was
Speaker 4: getting a haircut from as Darren knows good and well.
Speaker 5: My haircut.
Speaker 4: My hairstylist is the same woman who gave who gave
Speaker 4: gave me life is my mom is Trisha Morrow.
Speaker 5: She's given me a haircut.
Speaker 4: And my my agent calls and he's like, hey, the
Speaker 4: Saints offer came through. It's exactly what we thought it was.
Speaker 4: How how soon can you be over there to sign it?
Speaker 5: Like I could.
Speaker 4: I just got to get a haircut. It's like, all right,
Speaker 4: they'll expect you within the hour, two hours, or whatever
Speaker 4: it is. It was a funny day though, because my
Speaker 4: little step brother's names William. He was signing his letter
Speaker 4: of intent to go play college baseball.
Speaker 5: They just won.
Speaker 4: They just won a state championship with with their baseball team,
Speaker 4: and that's where they were going, and so he went
Speaker 4: and I had to interrupt my entire signing process so
Speaker 4: I can go watch my little step brother on one
Speaker 4: of the one of the one of the biggest days
Speaker 4: of his life. May teenth was not supposed to be
Speaker 4: about me, but you know, he took it on the
Speaker 4: chin and we share the day now, which is pretty funny.
Speaker 4: Getting back to practice though, was pretty special. And I'd
Speaker 4: be lying if I said that there wasn't part of
Speaker 4: me that didn't want to be here and deal with
Speaker 4: You know, of all the five hundred people that I
Speaker 4: probably know in this world, really well, four hundred and
Speaker 4: ninety eight of them might be in the stadium every
Speaker 4: Sunday when I dress up in the in the black
Speaker 4: and gold. I don't know if I really wanted that
Speaker 4: pressure or that anxiety. But at the same time, I
Speaker 4: thought back to the times of me watching Jeremy Shockey
Speaker 4: and Jimmy Graham and Josh Hill and a bunch of
Speaker 4: different guys, and I'm like, man, like, oh, I'd kill
Speaker 4: for that opportunity, you know, and going to games in
Speaker 4: the Dome from when I was very very young. I
Speaker 4: had always loved the Saints, and.
Speaker 5: To be here.
Speaker 4: Surrounded by friends and family, and you know, obviously having
Speaker 4: Derek here throwing me balls, it's very familiar. I'm very lucky,
Speaker 4: I'm very blessed. It's an interesting experience. Certainly, this has
Speaker 4: been an honor man.
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like we could go on and
Speaker 3: on and on, and there's so much more of your
Speaker 3: comeback still to be written. A couple of things I
Speaker 3: want to go back to. You mentioned the word protector,
Speaker 3: like you were a Darren's protector, and that really struck
Speaker 3: a chord with me because I have felt in other
Speaker 3: areas of life that in a sense, I, in my
Speaker 3: world have been Darren's protector. And now, mind you, he's
Speaker 3: six ' six, full of twisted steel and sex appeals,
Speaker 3: so he doesn't necessarily need me like protecting him, protecting
Speaker 3: him on the streets, right, but like in other areas
Speaker 3: from everything else, the chaos and everything else, trying to
Speaker 3: pull him from his center. So, as you said that,
Speaker 3: it really it really hit home for me, and I
Speaker 3: thank you for taking on that role and seeing that
Speaker 3: as a way of being of service and being a
Speaker 3: good friend and a teammate and a leader. And then
Speaker 3: I just go back to the way that you just
Speaker 3: captivated us through a very very fresh story of yours
Speaker 3: that happened. I just I'm excited for you and what's possible.
Speaker 3: I'm excited for this year. I'm really excited for you
Speaker 3: guys to be teammates again playing in the Pro Bowl
Speaker 3: at the end of this year. And yeah, it's just yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just a it's a gift to have you here, man.
Speaker 3: It's been honored to sit back and listen to you.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 4: It's it's honestly been a blast being here. It shouldn't
Speaker 4: have taken us this long, but I'm glad we finally
Speaker 4: got it going.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and.
Speaker 4: Darren, plenty of plenty, a lot of twisted steel, but
Speaker 4: plenty of sex appeal. Yeah, he's a friend for life.
Speaker 4: He's a friend for life, certainly. I'm just I'm happy
Speaker 4: that that we're just starting to kind of get to
Speaker 4: know each other a little bit a little bit better.
Speaker 4: The role, yeah, that that role of protector. I didn't
Speaker 4: ever think that that was really something that I could do.
Speaker 4: But just being there with him and for him, being
Speaker 4: where our feet were every day, that was how I
Speaker 4: found my best center certainly. So just you know, being
Speaker 4: being a part of him, as you know, he's a
Speaker 4: special cat man.
Speaker 2: Thank you, bro, I I was thinking earlier. I was
Speaker 2: people always ask me how my off season went, you know,
Speaker 2: being with a new team and everything, and like, you know,
Speaker 2: everything's great. I'm with a top flight organization. People top
Speaker 2: to bottom are just amazing to be with, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. But I remember the first time we
Speaker 2: came and had meetings and Frank wasn't there, and I
Speaker 2: was like, there's gonna be good men that I have
Speaker 2: the privilege to be learning from and being around. But
Speaker 2: there won't be another Hymn. And I'm going to have
Speaker 2: to accept that and and and cherish the memories that
Speaker 2: we have and getting back to the Giants, Like, I
Speaker 2: love everything about my experience, but there won't be another you, man,
Speaker 2: like in the in the room, like just in the
Speaker 2: locker room, hanging out, just being a friend, being a guy,
Speaker 2: laughing like the things that we laugh about, like and
Speaker 2: just you know the way that we went about business, bro,
Speaker 2: like there won't there won't be another you. And uh
Speaker 2: miss you dearly already. Bro. And I'm grateful that we
Speaker 2: got to have this opportunity to talk. Man. I'm so
Speaker 2: proud of you, bro. Uh just your strength, your your
Speaker 2: your courage, uh and just your overall perspective bro, like
Speaker 2: you know you you him. Bro, Just know that thank
Speaker 2: my ship. My ship broke off, my shap broke off
Speaker 2: my risk.
Speaker 5: I was there. I remember what it did. Yeah, I
Speaker 5: remember it was us in the Atlas gym. You know
Speaker 5: it was good. Thank you man. That means the word.
Speaker 2: Let me know that for sure.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 2: So man, Thank you everybody that's tuned in and listened today.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you guys. Keep coming back listening to us here
Speaker 2: on Comeback Stories. We'll keep coming back for you. You
Speaker 2: keep telling people that we keep coming back, and check
Speaker 2: us out wherever you get your podcast, check us out
Speaker 2: on the Inflection Point YouTube as well, and we will
Speaker 2: catch you guys next week.
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