Keyshawn Johnson | Ep 218 | ALL THE SMOKE Full Episode

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They called and said, would you come on, Man stop? Why would you even ask me that question?

Because they're gonna do because they know you don't like light skinned people from u c l A, which you just clearly made.

But it's not.

It's not that I don't like light skinned people from U c l A. I done had a number of friends that with UCLA. It happened to be fair skinned.

I'm just saying skin.

You know, it's certain sport over there. That just seemed like they always integrate the lighter guys into the equation that U s la.

With the curly talk with the curly top.

I don't care if it was Matt Barnes, Jelani Christ, John Chris just. I can go on and on and on. They always seem to get them one they got they had. The last one was Ball, right, that was the last light really light.

One was Ball.

Yeah, he said, really like, you know, I got dark ever since college though, you know, because when you.

See back.

Ship college, you done got dark. Obviously ESPN for a number of years you transitioned over to Fox. Uh, we're doing Undisputed, but also congratulations you're doing your podcast as well. And I like how you said again this is this is about business and capitalizing on your I P. So your your Undisputed deal was every uh separate and then everything else that comes with you was all a card.

It gotta be right, I mean when you look at it.

When I when I first sat down and was coming from.

ESPN, I was in d C with my family. We was the kids. We went to d C. Right was on the way to Turks and Kkos, but I wanted we stopped in d C. We're in New York first. And then when I.

Got the call that they was gonna terminate me and still pay me, I'm like, oh, cool, I will figure it. I don't even trip. I'm getting my money, I'm getting my bread. That's the number one thing. Right, I'm gonna land on my feet cause I'm good at what I do. And we go to we in d C and we go to Turks. The Fox people, they they like, we come to see you.

It's oh, in twenty four hours. We try to figure this out.

So I'm like, okay, cool. So we try to figure it out or whatever. But along the way, I tell my agent, I say, look, man, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do this deal this way. This time, we're not gonna do it the traditional way. We're gonna We're gonna break this shit down into pieces. You see, like you said, this is not this is not a happy meal. We're not getting ready to get a drink, fries and

They allowed me to.

Retain my audio and digital rights. So when I went to shop, you know, I talked to pretty much everybody in the space, and I just came back and I said, you know what, since I'm over here with these folks, I might as well stay over here with them instead of.

Trying to go somewhere else.

You know that don't really know me as well as they gonna know because they don't have an opportunity to see me every day in the building work with me. Now, they're gonna know my personality, know who I am, all that. So we strategically just planned it that way and said, you know, and then probably about I think about two months in, I said, you know what I'm ready to do to Pod Let's let's pick up the phone, let's call him, and let's figure it out.

So uh misunderstood by some uh respected in this space, for for for his longevity in this space, what do you think is something getting a chance to work on them now That is a misconception or or or people may not get about Skip Bayless man.

You know, I when I first took the job, Matt and Jack. People was like, Keisha, gonna kill a dude because they don't know me. You see what I'm saying. I can work with anybody. I walk in and work with anybody any given day at all.

I said that I was one of them. Yeah, you see what I'm saying because he because Jack know me differently.

You know what I'm saying. But I also understand my paper. You see what I'm saying.

I'm not faiting less somebody fuck my money off with no stupid silly shit. This shit is entertainment. It's fun, that's all of it.

Ain't personal, ain't nothing personal. So to answer your question, you know, it's fun working with him. The man is a wealth of knowledge. He's been around for a long time. But I think what people seeing him is is a seventy plus year old white man with blond hair, and in the world that we live in, that's what we see, especially as black folk, we see that and we go, Okay, it's a white dude who's talking reckless about athletes all the time. But that's not true. You see what I'm saying.

Man, I'm gonna ask what happened, Tell the truth, you see what I'm saying, because I gotta work with you. I need to know the truth.

I need to know what's happening at all points and times. Like I told him when I first sat down with him, I said, look, man, check this out. We sat in the backyard, nice out here in California, out at the beach.

It was beautiful. You can't be it ain't Atlanta. You know, it ain't airport ain't closing.

I'm come to think of it. I don't know the last time Lax closed down that I know of. Yeah, but Atlanta. Every time I start, can't get out of Atlanta. But anyway, when I sat down with him, I said, Man, for me, there's only a couple of things in my criteria working with anybody is I don't need no race, no racial bullshit at all, no homophobia, none at all, none. I don't need nothing slipping out nobody's miles and nothing.

Then were good if you because.

I don't care about my career. I don't care that you you poke fun in my career. Whatever you may. You may say that Terrell Owns was better, that's cool.

Good.

It got better enough because he played longer. I could combat all that. You see what I'm saying. As long as you donna say nothing out of pocket, we ain't got no problems, we ain't got none at all.

We gonna work.

We're gonna be in this business. As long as he want to be in there with me, I'm gonna be in it with him, and we're gonna rock.

That's the way I look at You know.

He recently said you were the first person he text after the Cowboy law, or the first person you're the first person to text him after the Cowboy loss.

Always you just text me. You text me about fifteen texts.

So I'm always with Mike, Me and Michael Irving. We watched the games on Sundays, you know, at the Little Sports boar or whatever. So I'm always with him, you know, I'm always catching him in awkward moments to take a picture and put it on social media.

He's sitting there sweating and biting his nails, looking crazy. Right, Oh man.

One time I was trying to think what game was it.

It was a game they got they ass ran out of the building. No, I wasn't saying it was Buffalo. It was a Buffalo bill game, Mike.

So I'm talking to somebody like I'm talking to y'all Mike here in our turn, and I told might go and man, he just went out. So he thought he was being slick and tried to creep past the thing. So the way the sports bar set up, I can go to the window because it's open, and I took a picture of me trying to creep out.

He saw me. It was like, say check this, dude, I'll try to run.

Then last week in the Green Bay Joint, he came straight from NFL Network because the game started early. Soon the show was over, the game started, so I texted him, I'm going, y'all already down to nothing. The game hadn't even started. Oh man, you shut up, man, start playing. So we get there like the middle of the second quarter. He got a shoot on. He fresh, he look fresh out the cleaners, right, twenty seven nothing, he didn't win. I'm looking for him at halftime. It's joking, and went

He's sitting there. He wasn't at our booth. Right. He got up and went to the bar and I had my little partner with me and I sat over there and zoomed. Then on he said another one while they get worked by answer my phone me.

Because he's such a passionate cowboy, dude, it's an easy target. Oh yeah, it's a layup. That's a bunny, very easy layup. What you think the state of the NFL is today, I mean the state of it is. First of all, it's good football. You know, Patrick Mahomes is in it. Now Lamar's in it. You know, you got both of them, you know, Rock Purty situation.

Is what it is. But being able to see the league starting to a degree starting them, I think changed their thought process when they're hiring people. You know, because you look at my man Antonio Pearce. He like us.

When the last time you've seen a coach and anything other than the high school with a tattoo on his neck and earrings other.

Than a high school coach.

So now as a professional coaches got to go to league meetings and everything too.

So he gonna be walking in with his ear ring, he gets tattled his deck. The people gonna go crazy.

But you can see that Dan Campbell, the ex player, you know, they interview on my man Aaron Glenn. You see that my man in Houston, Jamiico Ryans. So now in the league is starting to take a look at the ex players and that dry mail where they starting to say before that was the case.

I like the NBA.

The NBA hall take Matt Barnes and Stevie Jack two years after they retire, make them head coaches in the NFL.

Oh man, you're gonna have to carry water for him and all that. That shit is crazy how they treat us.

Even though we work so hard for them, and y'all the experts it's some of the crazy people say. I come to you because I'm not getting ready to be nobody slappy. That's why ain't in the business. I'd rather do TV. You see what I'm saying, Because I'm not gonna climb up the ladder.

I'm spoiled. You're gonna make me the top choice if I'm gonna do it. I'm not working for nobody, you see what I'm saying, other than the owner. So for me, when I retired, I'm like, man, man, it's economic suicide for one. You see them saying compared to what I'm getting the TV. And I got to deal with the stress and move my family from LA to Florida Atlanta. Some I ain't doing that. I'm a CALLI kid.

Thoughts real quick on the rule changes over the years. You were someone that played in the very physical era. Thought on the rule changes, trying to obviously protect well, now, the rules.

Have always evolved over the years, right, They always change them and tweak them.

It's a passing game.

They want to protect the quarterbacks, but they also want to see high scoring games, so they just allow people to run up and down the field without being touched. Like you said, when I play, you know, which seems like a long time ago, but it really wasn't long ago, you know what I'm saying.

My last year was O seven.

But there are players that just recently retired that I wounded up playing with, so they were still part of those rules. These dudes nowadays, I've been telling them all the time. Man, y'all running, y'all, running, button necking across the field. Anybody touching y'all? You know, y'all catching balls. They throwing the ball at alarming rates. These dudes catching one hundred plus balls every year.

You know. But that's the league.

They want to see the excitement, They want to see that sort of stuff, So they trying to protect the quarterbacks, and they change the rules. The dudes go across the miner and get touched. They just run right across the me. I wish, I wish like hell. And they getting like thirty five.

Forty million to run across the middle when we was probably getting nigga.

My biggest salary, well, my biggest salary base salary was probably like six and a half, you know what I'm saying, nothing counting signing bonuses and all that stuff.

These dudes touching like thirty and thirty five.

Man, they're not getting touched and I get touched.

But the rule they need to put in is when the receivers do catch, how to they be getting hit low like the sivers come across the middle, or like the tar receivers running and the DB's always come.

Low on the catches. That that's the rule.

But they do, to some degree emphasize that rule a little bit. They don't want you to be exposed, so they.

Try to protect you. That's how most receivers get hurt. Yeah, but I don't.

Yeah.

I tell them all the time, hit me anywhere with my legs. Yeah, because they say the head injuries and start. I'm like, man, I rather get hit the head exactly, you know, because I need my legs to be able to get my check.

Well you seen two hits like that in the recent playoff games with the tight ends. It needs damn to got took out because of that same ship.

Yeah, that's what happens. Who is the face of the NFL right now to you? The face of the NFL?

Yeah, just patch you moms by far. Yeah, see that does he Here's the thing, Lamar Jackson should get the opportunities. But we live in a corporate world and I.

Don't necessarily know when they look at Lamar if they look at him and say he could be the face for a number of reasons. Okay, he deep.

South, so they already you know how they flowided it. That's how they are because in twenty nineteen he won the MVP. Have you seen him on any commercial? And he gonna win it again. That's the messed up part about it, you know what I'm saying. But when you bring it to the attention, people get they get all they don't want to talk about it. It's like, well wait a minute, may hold on this dude, two time MVP is six years he getting ready to probably go

Penny didn't like to talk. But Nike got so creative that they.

Figured out that's a great car. I love that idea.

Yeah, think about it.

They figured out because when you think about a little penny, and obviously this is when we all first started playing and becoming professionals and making money or whatnot. We looked at that. They brought the entire banks and Chris Rock, so they bought a beauty end. Then they bought a funny man in and Penny didn't really have to do

I promise you. I can put the shit together from a marketer if you.

Really want to do it, if you really want to you really wanted to do, if you really wanted to do it, I can put him in all the little state farm commercials and.

Everything else if you really wanted to do Because think about it, what m.

VP is in any league not doing that?

Not doing commercials and stuff and any league. Some dudes ain't even in the MVP conversation. That's you know that those two dudes to me or the face of.

The league you know to me. But I could be wrong. They may tell me it's t J Watter something I don't know. Those two dudes to me are.

In your opinion? Yeah, real quick, let's take a cheers break. What were sitting on right now?

Key, tell man, this is manhinta man. It is the manhinta tequila. Where can they get it? That at get it everywhere all over the place.

He said, We're giving you just a store it everywhere you.

Can google it.

And the fine locations you got it at the all them stores, man, them total wines and bivmo's and restaurants.

And when you drinking, you ain't got even though even though you did it not. But the thing is, he was trying his best to figure out how to burn his chest and he's like, damn, something ain't right. The smooth then, motherfucker.

South Central LA. In the seventies, it was a seventies baby. What was it like in South Central in the seventies the seventies been, I was a kid, I'm an eighties baby.

No, So it's South so growing up in South central LA at the time. In South La.

Now, we changed the name, uh quite some time ago because after the riots then when I went to build all the shopping centers and stuff like that, we just changed the name called it South Lads, the South Central because it had a stigma, kind of like a stigma to it meant growing up, you know, in the seventies, so to speak, and then into the eighties, growing up in that area.

It's just the same shit. Gun violence, drugs, you know, that was the height of it.

You don't even know, you you don't even know. But having a having a I always like to say it this way, a family of crime, you know.

That's how I grew up. I grew up in a family of crime, you know.

And I was so crazy because I took my homie, my partner at home the other day that he's still on the East Side, and I just was driving down Batchester looking.

Type of shit is this This shit looked, man, this shit looked way different.

And I haven't been that far east in a couple of years, several years, and been shit probably fifteen years. So I'm looking and I'm telling him, I'm like, man, it's here. Oh no, I'd be scared to go get the hamburger over here because it just looks so crazy, you know what I'm saying. It looked wow, man, And and just remembering growing up and having you know, dealing with drugs and dealing with gang violence and guns and

You know what I'm saying.

I'd have been dumped on, I'd have been shot, my sister, I'm been shot. So it's like for me, I look at it and I'm just like, man, I'm so glad. Ooh got smart real quick, you know, because it's it was tough then, it's still tough now.

You know.

It's just one of them things where it's like, man, I don't want to have to deal with this. I'm so glad, you know. And I take my kids. I take my kids over all the time. They got to see it. They growing up rich. That's who made Juliu ado. Man. They growing up rich though. They I tell my son all day long.

He go to the private schools, and I tell him all day long, man, you gotta because he out on the court and he played. It's so funny because he played uh when we were living in New York in the pandemic.

He played at at uh Uh in the Bronx at shoot man, what the hell is the name Gacho? He was with the gatchos. What's the name basketball coach? They do under the under the rug in Arizona. I was just talking about.

Yeah, they So he played with book. So the little dudes, you know, because he on eed leven. Them dudes was like at the time. They was like eight years old man waking up at five o'clock in the morning going to play basketball. So I had to tell him, Man, all that light skin shit with their curly hair and shit, man, you got you see them dudes. Them little dudes got no teeth. They're gonna have tattoos on the men. They're gonna be dunking on you because you out here pretty.

But you know what I'm saying.

I had to tell him, and I told another night when he was at at out of the Sports Academy there he living.

I had to tell him because he got a lot of stuff.

He got, he got some stuff, and I said, man, you got to be a little more aggressive. You gotta become a dog like you starve and to death, like you ain't got nothing, Like you can't go home and eat. You can't be thinking, oh, I got lobster in the refrigerator when I go home. Now you gotta think refrigerator empty. You gotta think the same way I thought, if you really want to take it to the next level.

Same thing. So I told my nephew.

My nephew grew up in my household with me and my whole family, and he went on and he was a dog in the league. He keeps getting hurt, but when he healthy, he redicted. I tell them the same things. Man, you cannot think about Lamborghini's and shit being parked in the driveway.

They ain't choice right. In order for you to get that, you're gonna have to approach it a different way.

For well, I mean, that's a tough I mean, because I mean, you live in the valley where I live at there's a there's a ton of us that did it and so our kids don't have to do it. But what's that fine line of letting them knows everybody don't live behind gates and go to private school but still have that dog and then still have that appreciation for the other side.

So what we try to do is we try to show them right by taking them doing thanksgiving out to places to help the homeless or whatever. Christmas time. I want you to see, once upon a time, as eleven year old kid, that was your father. Okay, I was, I slapped in the car for a year. So I want you to have a real perspective on life. All this glitz and glamour, like Matt said, behind uh you know gates and all the private school and all that. Man that ain't that's not real. What's real is when

So I want them to be able to.

See you, like, damn, you used to live in this type of man that house. Look, I guess about the size of our garage. Yes, it is in all of us, all.

Ten of us in a two bedroom lived today and was happy at pies about what we eating tonight? Right?

In fact, what was how were you able as a youngster to be able to navigate like you said, growing up in a life of crime and then having a goal of I need to get out. What was how were you able to stay focused?

You know? So, so when you're young like I was at the time, I was doing ship from a criminal standpoint. That was ridiculous that you sit back and you go, there's no way this dude ain't no where in the world, you know what I'm saying. But I grew up that way. It's Keyshining. It was key Shining. No, wasn't no nicknames or nothing. It was just key Shine. But we as a group.

It makes me laugh and chuckle because I kind of know, you know what I'm saying. I like know how we work, and a lot of my friends, you know, at the end of the day, they just, like you know, everybody start getting shot, dying, going to jail, all.

That sort of stuff.

You said, Well, what made me turn? So what made me turn is I got older and as I got older, you start getting a little bit older. You start saying, man, they gonna throw They're gonna throw their key away if I get in trouble, you know. So now it's like, Okay, whatever it is that I need to do to get myself through for these next couple of years, I need to I need to do it and be done.

With it and try to work on football.

Basketball. So you know, cause I played hoops too, but I just couldn't grow. I didn't, you know, y'all.

When I saw y'all, I walked in.

Like, because you know, when you play like I played it, I played against like stage bowls.

Jake kidd all.

Them wasn't tall, and but they wasn't tall. You know what I'm saying. They was normal, y'all. For your job, I'm a huge job. Niggas all the Jey John y'all seven feet tall like, so when you start to look at it, I was small. I didn't have no handles, you know what I'm saying. That I couldn't shoot. I could do everything else.

I could defeend because I'm long, I could jump out the gym, but I couldn't do that. Guy. So I said, you know what, man, I'm gonna just play football because I know, at the end of the day, it's getting ready to be a real check.

And so I said, you know, I'm gonna stop all the silliness, and this seis I'm a sinkle swim and that's how that's the true story. I said, I'm a sinkle swim and if I swim, it's gonna go down to a whole nother level, you know what I'm saying. Then, once it started hitting, I used.

To day a chick from U c L A light skin, pretty too, pretty, diculous hair, the whole.

Thing, everything bla blah blah. But she was from the Bay.

Think about a whole different world, different minu talent.

You know.

She told me Jack, I shouldn't play football. It's a modern day slavery, right, I looked at I can't. She's not doing what she's because.

She the Bay here. You know, they independents and everything is an incense and all that I'm like, come on now, all that Stevie wonder every day in my house.

Could be ridiculous, ridiculous. Everybody wanted her. I went, I went and got her, but everybody wanted it.

Right.

So at the end she tried to tell me I shouldn't play football because it's a modern day slavery.

You have to give her back.

I'm like, I can't. I ain't gonna be able to walk down out with this now because you you're tripping. You're telling me you want me to go do something different. This is my calling, you know, football is my calling, not nothing else. You're telling me go do something different. I'm get fifty years because that's all I know. What you want me to do. What you want me to do.

What you want.

She's not knowing other option. No, she don't know the other options. She's going to use to be a doctor and all that.

I'm like, that's cool and everything, but I'm getting ready to hit pay her real soon.

Believe it or that you know.

Dorset High School, West LA College sc are true with all due respect, true true true LA legend. Who are some of the guys and we can get it. We can grab his bottle, just bring it in here, put it right on the table.

Who are some other.

Legends and guys you grew up with, the people may not know just straight La dudes that they really did a big at Dorsy is just in l A, just LA and like your era.

Basketball I'll start with tremain folks. Chris Johnson, My man.

I'm throwing a blank. Uh, I'm throwing the blank. Now, how the hell do I throw?

Just now?

No? No, my man, what's the name? You're gonna help me with him?

No?

Not not the Bannies. What's his face?

The basketball coach from Yukon, Kevin Kevin a league, So that was that was part of the basketball world. Then they had dudes like Ford, and there was some other cats. But then growing up along the way.

Dry Strawberry, all them was was I was a puppy. But those were my big boys, Eric Davis and Daryl Strawberry and Chris Brown. Then those were the baseball cats that I grew up watching because I played baseball too, so I idolized them. Then in terms of football, you had, uh the late Chris Mills.

Uh, Chris Mims that played for the Chargers, went to Dorsey, first round pick, played for a long time.

Played in San Diego.

Who else my teammates Lamont Warren played for the Indianapolis coach for a long time, and we had so many we had off my high school football team, we had twelve Seaman Shaw your boy was my college roommate. We stayed together in college and we went to high school together. But he went to U Seller I went to SC. But we were roomies. We had Man, it was a ton of it was It's so many. It's so many great athletes that came out of South Central LA. That's like, it's just crazy.

It's just a ton of dudes. You know, I can't think of all the names off the top of my head. But it was a bunch.

Not only that those dudes out in the valley that that was part of l A unified. The valley is watered down now like for public schools. It's just like I think the last I think, the last real go get her out of a public school might be guilt. Might be Gilbert right out of public school. Everybody else is kind of like private school suckers.

For the most part, Boys in the hood predict a good picture of what a kid, Our kid grows up that wanted to go to SC, that living.

Kelly's it's absolutely predicted. So you remember the highlight of Kevin Hicks. That was a real So it's Kevin Hicks.

That was a real dude. It was nice. So what Jack, you know, how good our high school team. Was he checked out because he couldn't get on the field. Con't it on the field? We was that deep though, We was so Lamont want well.

First off it was Bean O'Briant, then it was Lamont, then it was Kareem, which is with Charmanshaw at the time.

Those are our backs, are running backs. Kevin had to leave and go to Crenshaw because he wasn't gonna get on the field at all, just wasn't.

And he was legit, legit, and he wound up going to college and and and theny so much did he wind up get in trouble with spent the little pokey time. You know, he got a little got about twenty five years, not a little bit.

A little bit a little bit, yeah, because it just you know, if it's sportsman, and if you're not in sports and entertainment and growing up in South LA, you either gonna you know, go to jail kill something because it's just crash of burn. You gotta figure it out. But we had we had some cats.

Yeah, that's some dudes. Favorite memory of that, see or just the time he was there outside of women.

My wife would be watching this shoot you know, the big, even though you ain't got nothing to do. I didn't even know you.

You were still in diapers thirty years ago, thirty years ago, still worried about what I'm doing. Then winning the road, really winning the Rose Boy graduating so well, it's it's an effect, right, It's like a It's like a trickle down effect. So I win the Rose Bowl, I get drafted number one. Overall, I have a crazy party at uh House of Blues.

He was too young.

You wasn't even in college yet. I don't think you went through. I think, Johnny, yeah, I think you did go on my draft board.

I feel like you did.

And then you graduate from school, something that most dudes and my position they not even gonna do.

They're not even gonna think about it.

So I had a draft party Jack at this spot I called Hossele Blues on Sunset. I don't even know if you was in LA at the time. The House Blues was still cracking, but it was like the spot. So I had about two thousand people at my draft party. I had anywhere from Dion Sanders to Tupac to you, just any and everybody.

It was crazy. It was on a whole other level. No, it was. It was, man, it was, it was.

It was so crazy that it was another So if you know La and you know Lociana, go let's call it Crescent Heights right there, if you know that stretch, they had to shut the whole stretch down because there was another three thousand people in the streets trying to.

Get into the motherfucker. They couldn't get in because it was it was crazy. It was. It was like a whole other level, right. So that and then why I bring it up is because.

At this time, it wasn't about tequila. It was the Voka craves, it was the Belve's and the Great Goose. I probably had a bottle of Great Goose of belvy. To myself, I think it was a goose.

That was it.

That was it. That was it. That was it was it. And I had a mid term the next day. So guess what I did.

I left the hotel across the street. Nobody ever thought that I would go do in the midterm. I went and took the mid term. I swear to God on my daughter's grave, I didn't cheating nothing.

B plus and the story still lives this day at the university because I didn't need to.

I just hit PEINTERRM about thirty million from I could chill when I jumped in my Porsche went to school.

Yeah I heard. Yeah, this was before of course, top down.

Me.

That's probably that's Lawrence Phillips. Coolio, you know that's Jim here. Cut everything right, ain't nothing changed? Wait hold on, let me see this. So now you just want to see pop.

Man. Now what I'm gonna get there the boy you got problem, I'm gonna find I'm gonna find my part picture. Hold on the way. Man, I didn't even invite him. I didn't even invite him, Pride King.

And so they summons me to the Foundation room because I'm running around hosting and you know everybody, they watching everybody perform and all that. They say, Man, d, I don't want to talk to you who you know what I'm saying this man, Prime? He here, keep doing it. I ain't right, So okay, cool, So.

I go up.

Prime sitting in here in the found see sad Pride though, Pride got jewels on everything. Now that's like y'all meet Michael Jordan for the first time.

Right. So I'm sitting there and I'm going dam that's Prime. I'm getting ready to go up against what year is this? This is in ninety six and so Prime, you know he he that dude. So I'm like, damn Prime.

So I'm sitting there talking to But what he wanted to do was talk to me, educate me on the pitfalls and NFL what to look for, you know, just wanted.

To be a bit. I'm like, man, this came. I didn't even write him, but he wanted to be there. He wanted to see.

Yeah, and that's why him and I we like thick as thieves right now, you know, just because I appreciate that that that's that's something real.

He didn't have to do that. No, not at all.

Most dudes have been hating facts. They've been sitting the man, I'm trying to find this picture.

I'm gonna find this picture for you. I know I got it in here somewhere. Man. You know, man, we was, we was, we was man, it was turned up. I can just tell you that it was here.

Gright, oh, Sugar too, mc hamm and snoog, all of them, they all came through.

They all came through because because but you gotta think think about it though. It's like you from sack, right, if you get drafted all sacked, that's how it was.

I got drafted in l as a little different man.

I'm you know what I'm saying.

It's like he wanted us, and he got all yeah, for sure, we get ready to we can ready turn it up and do our thing. And so for me, it was just like being able to see everybody there man, and and graduate from school and celebrate the thing.

And that that's the yeah, the graduation you don't go to because like you said, he didn't have to do it.

No, I didn't have to do need it. And then I fucked him up though completely though, you know, because USC, you know, you know people at USC, you know what. But that's how I came. You see, I got the kid take claw on at the graduation, so you know they really was like, what is this, HBC? What do you know? But that was just me. I just I moved to my own beat. I don't move to other people's beats.

The damage you could have did in the n I I'm sure you did very well at us.

See, to be honest with you, I didn't. People all say that, they all say the battle soon they as soon, man. I swear to God on my I put this on my daughter's Like, man, I probably at the most money I ever got out of the USC from from coaches or something total, probably two g's.

That was it.

They can give me nothing, nothing at all. I didn't I didn't have a fake job. I didn't do nothing.

I didn't do none of that. Some dudes had the fake jobs. You know back then you can get the fake job. But they didn't give me nothing. And I made tons of money for the.

University and the bigger the type of as big as a player you was. That's what everybody thought that they keep him home.

I really, to be honest with you, I really didn't need nothing because my family, you know, they had a life for crime in the streets.

So I was cool. I was good. I wasn't really tripping. You know. I didn't need nothing. I was right at the house.

I get in my Honda court bound right down the street to Aunties, get some food if I needed to.

I had my apartment whatever my mom was living in. So I was good.

I wasn't really tripp So what could you have done in the nil world?

They had to put me on le way.

They couldn't afford them.

They would have to put me on.

Couldn't afford them that now they had to put me on.

Real talk, I couldn't afford me so expensive. Can you could number one pick out of sc them dudes, Them dudes making like, you know, six million right now, they'd have been triple easy. Ought to have been so triple so easy. You know it was because back then.

The shoe game wasn't what it is now, right, so they could actually sign with shoe companies in college.

We couldn't do that back then.

You know, I'm the first dude in the last dude in the NFL that played professional football. They have a lifetime deal with a didas most people get lifetime deals to play basketball, you know, you know Lebron and the type of dudes.

I mean, I've been. I've been with Adidas since ninety six, you know what I'm saying. And I don't even play no more.

But imagine if I could have struck a deal when I was in college. Oh if I was right now, Oh man, it'd be crazy.

Oh be crazy.

But my lifestyle was My lifestyle was good though, so I you know, I lived in Westwood, better fact, I lived in the Wilsher Manning on Wilshion Boulevard. Yeah, in between. It was crazy because I just my senior year in the whole OJ situation was crazy. I lived at the high rise in between this Barbieri chick that he was dating in ken Norton Junior.

So I lived.

I lived on like they were one one was above me, one was belobe. So I came out by apartment gooding one day on Wilshon. I don't know Wilshire, how crazy it is.

I came home with apartment moving and I saw all these TV cameras and ship man my heart and drop. I thought they was there for me, but they was there trying to get to the girl because she had the relationship with OJ, and I didn't know. I was like, oh man man, probasic blew me up. The dude the doorman was like, noah, no, they here for old girl.

They waiting on to try to catch her. I was like, oh, thank god, thank god. But no, they didn't pay me no money at all.

I ain't getting nothing. I got a lot of perks, but I don't get the money.

You know.

I got to the apartments and you know, opportunity to drive a car stuff like that.

Yeah, all day long, all yeah, all day long. Yeah, because that's that's you know, that's Hollywood, this s C.

You know, even U s l A. Dudes was coming to s C to hang out because U c l A was so weak and doing ship and you dude, hang out with us. They want to hang out with us. It was popping. Yeah, we was popping crack it. We was popping too.

We just playing a different sport.

Jelani McCord and they over there want a party in our campus. You said, like I tried to go to a party and you sell that.

So weak us in the middle of the hood, USC, right in the middle of the hood, ain't it. Yeah right.

I grew up across the street. I used to sit on top of our apartment and watch the baseball games. We used to sit on top of the buildings and watch the baseball game right across street.

You know, yeah, know's it was. It was cool being able to, you know, stay home and do that whatnot.

As someone that.

Jay rob he cool. Yeah, that's my man. Yeah, that's my man.

I can't wait to see Him'm gonna see him here soon, you know older now Jay Robb, John Robinson is a little bit older now, so you know you ain't got many days left.

I want to se him before you check.

Out, you know, as someone who's been through it and have children and hope they were able to go through it.

Players are just.

Awarded their ninth year of eligibility in college football. Thoughts on that, and on top of that, who got a war to nine? There's two players just gotta word their ninth year of eligibility in college Football's gonna go play for prime. He's gonna go get his years at Colorado.

He's gonna be seriously the red zone receiver.

But redone is twenty yards and he's only going to.

He's gonna get me off. They're gonna throw it up one two downs. If I don't catch him going back to the sideline.

Stop it, he'll be playing.

No, we're serious, man, I think kill game, these dud These dudes playing nine years, bro, year No.

Nine, nine is long. I've seen six. That's I've seen six. Six. I get no, you get five. But then it's so people you get you got hurt.

Yeah, so you get the fifth year, but you got the COVID year two, the COVID years with everybody banking on and so they do their petitions to get that COVID year. I mean, at some point, but at some point, man, you ain't good.

Sorry, dog, Okay, at some point you got go home. You didn't even catch COVID bro catch. At some point you just gotta go home. Yeah, you're just sorry, but you ain't got it. That's not your talented Somewhere else outside of sports, that's all not as well. Talk some some some dudes. You know, it's like the basketball.

I hear it all times, you know, I follow hoops and whatnot, and and my guy some played basketball, and so I hear it all times.

Oh my hold my son back, don't matter how many damn here, It don't matter. If he ain't good, he ain't good a good Oh they held him back two years. Man, he's not that dude ain't good. You held him back ten years. You see it, y'all, y'all know what I'm talking about. Hell, yeah, it's like, dud's not good. I'm blind to your boy. Yeah, you're shitting up talking about. I think I'm holding back so he can play fourteen.

At some point, you just gotta go home. Just gotta go take your ball and go home.

Go take your ball and go. Imagine that, y'all. Don't play with the dudes. Dudes be so much older than it.

But you gotta think, well, we were coming up, we played up. We would never go down ever, no matter whatever.

No you go up.

Yeah, I'm eighth grade playing going across to play varsity. So it's just like you would never think to go down.

Yeah, but they try to go down thinking that that's gonna allow them to chase Lebron. Stop Lebron James is different man. He was made in a factory. You know, they stop thinking that.

Katy Williams is the real deal. And should the Bears take him at one?

Man, to be honest with you mean, I think he is a good quarterback. I don't know that the bast should take him at one. You know, you want a dude to get as much money as he can get. But at the end of the day, there's a lot of factors that fall into place. You go him going to Chicago replacing Justin Fields.

Why you think that they got to replace Justin Fields because the ain't got got them coaches that know what they're doing.

Yeah, this man, this man his third year, that had three office coordinators. How you two head coaches? How do you expect for him to ever with no help, no receivers? He just got DJ Moore, just got him. Y'all allowed roe Qwan Smith to go. Who played for Baltimore. Now y'all didn't resign him and give him his money Baltimore and said we'll take you traded for him, gave him his money. He getting ready to playing THENFC Championship game. But you want to act as though Justin Fields can't play.

Just doesn't.

The only team that we don't know who they coach is like you know the names of other coaches. Who is the fuckers they coach?

Ib F but nobody. Look, nobody know that he was. He was a defensive coordinator for Indianapolis two years ago. Yeah, nobody don't know that. Yeah he.

No.

A lot goes in and people don't understand on the outside looking at his fans. A lot goes into where you're going as a star player.

Let me tell you something, man, I was drafted the number one overall pick. I was the first. I was the queen of the ball right on fifteen. And I still balled out.

You know, I balled out, But it was it was painful balling because I ain't never experienced that. I died with the heaven when I got Bill Parcells. You see what I'm saying.

It changed my life. Man. Oh, man, ooh, I get to work here, I get to do this. Now.

Imagine if imagine if I didn't excel in football, Man, I'll be working at fucking ups or something.

You know what I'm saying. That's just the reality of it.

Once you die, you go to heaven and you blessed by him who's the godfathering many people's eyes about how he conducts things. He puts you in the right position to make plays right. I mean, if you can knock down a three and they not letting you shoot it. What's the point if you can knock down threes and they lie, we don't want you. We just want you to pass the ball when you get across half court, Well, what the fuck am I doing here?

As a cardboard cutout.

That's what happens the players in the NFL is when they get to the wrong systems.

Because when you're a high.

Pick, that's sports in general, yo, any level sports of general.

You get the wrong system, you're like, come on, man, that ain't I can't flourishing this system and to operate under these conditions, you know. So if they move on from him, I hope Pittsburgh gets him, Atlanta gets him. I hope he goes to one of them type of teams where all of us. I really hope Mike tom to get him out of anybody if they gonna move

I don't know that Caleb got that. I don't know that.

And then on top of that, you're setting the franchise back. And what they like to say is we are changing the room for money to quarterback room because Justin Fields will be up in another year on it or or up for an extension. So you got to make a decision on whether or not you want to give him two hundred plus million dollars or whatever that number is gonna be. But if you move on from him, you get Caleb Williams. That now lessens the money that you

Still could be a piece, you get another piece you could be adding from the draft.

You keep just one hundred percent, man, You go get Marvin Harrison Junior. You can, if you can move down out of the one spot. It stayed within the top five and somehow figure out how to get Marvin Harrison Juniorston.

Yeah, I'd rather have Marvin. I've just rather I've rather Marven. But but yes, another receiver. You can get that, plus office in line. You can build, you know, and you can build. But I don't know. Man, if I'm Caleb, I'm want to go Chicago anyway. It's a mess. You know.

He need to go somewhere with a stable organization where the owner is good, the general managers good, and there's no uncertainty because it's uncertainty in Chicago.

What was your combine experience? Like I I was, I was fresh, that's all.

I remember.

I had the gold chain on the big old three en diamonds. Now, I do I remember that, like me and my man Meek was talking about that the other day. We just it was a good experience. I mean, I didn't do much.

You knew who else who else was in your draft that it was back and forth between you and somewhere. You were the clear cut number one the whole time I was.

I was, I was.

It was back and forward with me and Lawrence Phillips from nebrass could have running back. But just like anything, once you do to do diligence. Once they did, they do diligence. Shaq Harrison was like and Leon Hester owner, They was like, no, we can't. This is the guy, you know, period because when I went so when I went to the combine, you know, I did all the little drills and stuff. I wasn't I wasn't afraid to do nothing. And before they didn't even let you do

For linebackers in line. So I just did the shit, just on some freak shit, just let you see what I can do.

So I slid up under the two twenty five and bounced them off my chest like eighteen nineteen times and laughed at it, you know, and so they like, big, oh, we need this dude. And so in the interviews I did well. Obviously in the interviews and everything. It was good experience. Then they it was two the Wonderlick tests. I completely batched it because I just went in and

And they knew it too.

The New York Giants has a psychological evaluation test that they do. It's like, I want to say, man, it might be five hundred words or whatever you gotta you know, I told them take me off their board, said man, I'm not even gonna be there at the fifth pick. I said, I'm not taking y'all. They said, well, we're gonna Jeremiah. Jeremiah, the scout that had our area. He told me, says, if you don't tell my agent and me, he said, if he does not take the psychological evaluation tests,

Miss me. Man. I'm good, I'm straight, So I'll go and do everything I was supposed to do.

I bench I run fast, you know, I was at the time, I was about two twenty and I went like four four five and four four three. Uh yea four four five four fourth three. The first one I went four fourth three. The second when I went four four five and I broad jump was whatever. Eleven. It was like crazy numbers and shit vertical was in the thirty nine forty. It was like everything that you look at,

So my style rubbed off on them. Dudes.

Oh it set the standard and my aggressive nature. That's just how I played football and how I approached it. I was all business, serious business with everything. That's how you become the number one pick.

Like.

I didn't settle for mediocrity. It just wasn't.

Man, We're not doing that. And so everybody look at that, they go, man crazy, like no, No, I'm not. It's just that I'm not accepting this as a standard in behavior.

And then a year later.

Winn the AFC Championship Game quarterback and my rookie year, I had a dude named Neil o'donald, Nil o'donald.

He was in Pittsburgh. First right, keep him, but yeah, you could have kept you.

Then I had Glynn Man. I played eleven seasons. I played with eighteen different quarterbacks. I ain't never had the same quarterback. See, these are the type of arguments you get into people or barbershop conversation with my dudes. I ain't never had the same quarterback two years in a row. In eleven season, I left the game because I didn't want to play anymore. I had accomplished so much, so fat I had Pro Bowls. You know, I ate Pineapper early in my career. Some of these dudes, they don't

I got bored. I'm like, because I'm not. I wasn't never chasing greatness.

My greatness was getting my mama up out them projects in an apartment building.

You see what I'm saying.

When we got to walk up them stairs and it go in and it's only one room and it's nine to ten people laying around.

That was my goal.

My goal wasn't the Hall of Fame jacket was none of that. Was about getting the bread to get my mommy what she needed. That's all I cared about.

So a lot of people when they look at numbers and they look they the longer you played, the bigger your numbers gonna be. Everybody know that. You know what I'm saying, Just look at the time spend that I spent.

But more importantly, a consistent quarterback, especially for receiver.

Think about it. If you had.

A point guard passing you the ball with a I get to go on the clock and you're trying to shoot, how did you you all off?

That's how it was for me were quarterback.

Maybe you know the best one I ever had was Vinnie Testaverdy by far, and when I got Vinnie, Vinnie was a thousand years old when I got him, Vinnie might have been Vinnie might have been.

Thirty seven at the time that I got and then I got him a second time in Dallas. You see what I'm saying.

So I never started a season with the same quarterback and ended with that dude except one year. That was it because every year, even when I had Brad those two years, Brad wasn't there consistent.

He was in and out, in and out, in and out. But I don't complain.

You know, I tell people all the time, it's only two people, two people that I would trade my career for. Two That's it, Jerry Rice and Michael Ervin. I'm the only two dudes that I would trade my career for.

Yeah, Brad Johnson, Sean King.

And I had Sean King and Brad Johnson, Rob Johnson and Brad Johnson. Then I got Quincy Carter with Dallas, and then I got but it was Brad and Sean for the Super Bowl team, right it was now it was I don't even know Sean was on the team. Sean was on the team but didn't play. Rob Johnson was the number two, and I think I think I'm trying to think. I think Sean was the three. Yeah, he was the three. Yeah, So you know I had them basically in Tampa them three quarterbacks. Then I got

You know, he looked like you. He got great beers and shit so old as hell.

So but he was still good. He was still serviceable. Then I got Blacksoe. No, then I had Drew Henson.

M I should have went to baseball.

He did, got a baseball. I couldn't hit the curved ball. And then he had to come back to football. Then I had Drew Blatsoe.

Then I leave there.

I go to Carolina. In one year, I played with four different quarterbacks in Carolina. In one year, I had Jake DeLong, Chris Winky, some other dude than some other dude. So I couldn't catch a break, you know, But I ain't no complaining. I can't complain at the end of the day because guess what, as long as the check's clear.

Men at the end of the day. Oh man.

I tell people all time saying, man, the only two dudes I trade my career for the only reason why, because Jerry's the greatest ever do it to. Michael Verman was as cold blood as they come. That's why he got the nickname the Playmaker, and he got three Super Bowl rings. Other than that, I don't other dudes, I don't care about nobody else in the statistics and all that means nothing to me zero, But I bet you a lot of them would love to have my post career talk.

So I'm just saying, what.

Was your welcome to the NFL moment he wise or what like period? What was your when you when you got to the NFL? What was the moment like, damn, I'm here.

I mean, I feel like you came on you. You was good on the life side. What was your field NFL Welcome to the NFL.

Move AFC AFC Divisional game. AFC Divisional game against Jacksonville was my first playoff game. That's when I knew this shit getting maybe be easy, because when you look at it, I dominated the game to a whole another level, like something you ain't never seen before. I scored a touchdown there, I ran one on the ground, I caused it for a recovery fum and got an interception, and in a playoff game of a team that hadn't been in the playoffs.

For like a hundred years.

You see what I'm saying. They hadn't been to the playoffs forever.

So to me, it was like that moment against Jacksonville because I from the start to finish I just dominated. Now, all year long, I was dominated, but that particular game, the world got to see what the talent really was about.

So to me, that was like, like, yeah, I'm here to stay. They ain't gonna they can't. They can't, they ain't gonna be able to do.

That would be you know, if I had a quarterback, Man, if I had it, if I had a QB five years in a row, just give me one for five years.

In a row.

All these other dudes running around with these quarterbacks on a consistent basis, give me one for five years in a row and see what I can do. Because I in my numbers in terms of like when I retired numbers wise, there was only like one or two people in the Hall of Fame with better numbers than me when I retire.

Now everybody in.

Pass me now because that's just the way it goes. But if I had one quarterback for four or five years in a row and these dudes be out there complaining about getting the ball, I'm like, man, come on, man, stop it.

They paying you a lot. Give me Patrick Mahomes, Just give me. Give me Patrick mahoonmes for a couple of years. I'm show you I can do.

I'll show you what I can do. But you know you can't control that. You just got to do what the best you could do and how you do it. But that was my moment right there was that that playoff game.

Did you have any rookie duties coming in at the number one pick? Missed me with all that?

You really want to know the truth, Matt?

I mean I feel like, but yeah, I want to know it.

Couldn't tell me shit. Yeah, So so check this out though.

So when I get there, the Jets and the rookie they want you to sing and do all that. You know, the first thing I told them I didn't get drafted to sing. I got drafted to play football. And if any of you motherfuckers touched me, we're gonna have some real issues because you know, he's gonna tie you up and they gonna just say, man, you can ask any of my teammates that was with me. They'll tell you to say bullshit because I wasn't playing, you know, I wasn't.

You see what I'm saying. I went from one to fifteen to AFC Championship.

Game a year later. So you sit there and you go, this is this is why I'm here. I'm here to play football and win at a certain level, not to play around and be dancing and going and get donuts and ship.

Man ain't got time for all that. And some people were rubbing the wrong way. He ain't following it. Okay, keep it moving, y'all. Get over it, Go get done, Go get popeyees chicken. Like what, I'm the wrong I can the wrong one. I'm the wrong one, you know. But all my teammates though except Sap fat ass hate now. He the only one. Everybody else loved me. He the only one.

That's some jealousy though, that's all that. That's just that's the pure jealousy. That's the only thing that is. You know, Just stay in your lane, that's all.

You gotta do. Mind your business, leave me alone, keep my name out of your mouth for we good. How long your home? How long, your sap, I've been beefing, bro, how long has he been beefing with you? Why would I what's the issue? What's the issue? Thing I could point to is my looks. That's the only thing I realpoint to.

That's the only I could just point to my looks and how I get down. You see what I'm saying, That's the only thing I can think of, because I ain't never, I ain't never had no problem with him. See the type of thing I like man, I like him, I greet him, I hugg him, I do all that when I sing, and a problem with you, he got a problem with me. You see what I'm saying, Like, I don't have no none. I saw him at the

You know I had to do. I had to gut him a different way. I had to gut him a different way.

Very I would particulate, very articularly, very stute of me to you know, I just hit him real quick with a because he it was no need too.

But I don't know, to be honest with you, jack Man, I don't even know. I have no I like, why you don't like me? What did I do? That's why I asked both of y'all.

But but but you know how it is when you move a certain way. You see what I'm saying. When you move a certain way, people got a problem.

With how you move. I get that too. You get that. You know what I'm saying. I move a certain way when I walk in the room. The room moves a certain way. So some people have a problem. So when I first got there, they gave me I don't know what it was.

It's sixty something million whatever, about sixteen of it upfront, the whole deal. So that immediately, well him, you see what I'm saying, him, not people him, because the room moves different.

You know how I go.

It's like, I don't know, I'm trying to think with certain people walk in the room. No matter who you with, Tiger Woods walks in the room, no matter what you think about it, the room gonna feel different. And so when I walk in the locker room, you know our locker room's offense on one side, defenses on another. That's just how the locker rooms are. But the defense all of a sudden starting to hang out on the offensive side because it's a certain person is in the room.

So now you take an issue with me for no reason at all. You see what I'm saying, because you can't move like me, So you creating a fictitious negativity in your mind to hate on me for no reason at all.

He was he was treating He was treating like he was like skinned. Now you said, welcome to the club.

Now you see.

My best friend, one of my best friends, my lawyer, one of my lawyers, he like, you know what I'm saying. We get hated on a lite for no reason. That's why I'm saying, you guys, get look at it.

He don't want to admit it. He don't want to admit it.

He yellow for sure. My kids is like my kids they call me they they did that, uh twenty three and me and all that they know. I just want to do it. I don't care, but they all did it. They got all this different stuff.

So my daughter comes back with a trace of Nigeria in her right, so they at wanna say I'm from Nigeria.

Now that's just like crazy though, you know, it's like I mixed kids and they just crazy as all out door.

But yeah, SAT don't eat you man, I bless ing man. I just I hope things work out for him. That's all I can say. I can't, you know, That's about all.

I think he's opposed to. But I think they might have ran into a little bit of a snag. You know, hopefully hopefully that worked out. Hopefully hopefully that worked, hopefully worked out.

But I think they ran into a little I read something yesterday that there's there is a little bit of a snag possibly holding holding the whole thing up with prime.

But I think they'll get through it because I like Look man, I genuinely like him. Helped me win the Super Bowl.

I tell I tell people all time, it's one of the best fucking defensive tackles I've ever seen. Flight I watched him, But the mother fucker crazy, that's all. He's just like, there's no need to always have this this, this, this, this stain from me. I ain't done nothing. Ain't you sleep with your wife or nothing?

Man? What you what? You mad at me for it? Leave me alone? I didn't break up your family, Like leave me alone. But he just you know, that's all I say. I I don't know what else to say, you know. And then when we get into it, all the other Brooks and them, they texted me, They're like, man, leave that. Dude. Ain't done nothing. Yeah, you ain't done thath what you made? Be the bigger man kid.

I'm like, man, I just had enough of him when I had to get at him though, because I know you let shit go for a long time.

You don't say nothing, just.

Like I don't even but it's been going on for so long, so long. Then he went to Jason Woodlock and that and that whole thing, and I saw it. Somebody sent it to me. That's dude, I said, I got it on your trip.

You know.

I just had to just real quick, you know, real, just real quick, just nice and easy. He felt it, definitely felt it. Uh. You matched up with Dion early on early early was he was he still prime or you was just like that at the time. No, I was like that, but he was Prime. He still was Prime.

I caught a ball on him and I spent to the outside and I thought I was gone. Most people nine ten out, it's over. And I looked up and the dude when I spent on him outside, I think I stiffed. I kind of like pushed off on him and I hit the side. I hit the scene I do. It was like the work come here because he soaked damn fast.

You know, he just and he big too. He's not small. People don't realize how big Prime is. Prime is.

It was crazy. And then I played against him in Washington. When he went to Washington. I saw him with the Cowboys and I saw him with Washington.

Uh.

I had just signed with Tampa Bay, just signed. We played Washington the first preseason game.

Was it him and dal Green? Still yeah Green? Yeah yeah, he uh. He grabbed They threw a ball to me.

Shine threw a ball, climbed the ladder to go get it, and he snapped and when he grabbed me, he pulled me down, twisted up my whole knee and everything. I thought I tore my acl everything, but I did. I just twisted up and I didn't play rest of the game, but he was like he was all panicked.

I'm like, I'm good, but he Prime was Prime was agit. I mean what you're gonna say. He was a coach. Dorug Gring was good too. Gr Gring was just too small for me.

Fast, super fast.

I had to blocking one time. Well I caught balls on him, but I had to blocking.

I felt so bad because he was smaller than me that I didn't even I respected him like I could have.

Like if it would have been any of these other dudes, if you, oh man, i'd have ran him to the water. But but him, I did. I just kind of like, God, I ain't even gonna do you like this. You're older, and.

This was you about six four league. Yeah, yeah as a receiver.

Yeah, but I wasn't a fat two twenty. I was ripped up, like because they like to say, monkey man looking crazy. He didn't even look right. Yeah, ripped up because you're working hard. You know, we ain't sitting up here drinking with y'all and doing all that. I'm I didn't even really start drinking probably the middle to the end of my career. I never used to drink go to the go to the clubs and hang out and

Uh, you stepped in the league with your own shoe. What do you remember vividly about the Adidas process?

So this is crazy, man, this is this is this is a little crazy, right, bottle gun. Yeah, I told you I was gonna finish it. The crazy, the crazy thing about it. So check this out.

So in nineteen ninety six, the shoe darling of the world, Sonny vic Carol, Yes, right, yes.

So I go to sc We're Nike school. So what I do for the Rose Bowl National audience and everything is I covered my Nike shoes with these black sleeves that equipment manager made for me because I knew that I was gonna sign with Adidas right after the game. So I didn't give them. I'm the MVP two twenty whatever, rosebull Holder. They get nothing out of me, Nike, so you know, they pissed. So me and Sonny we signed.

Everybody said we signed up a date they do the deal with So now I think about a week later, we're going to Portland, but guess who with me going to Portland?

Kobe Bryant. So me and Kobe are on the flight together on a private jet going up to Oregon.

So you know how you always do something. They every time you do something, somebody got something for you to sign. When you're doing it, it's like, oh, you know, just a couple of our sponsors we want you to sign.

So it's like a stack of U pictures and stuff. It's probably like about thirty of them he had to sign. He is, I had to sign hot. So I'm over there.

You know, I'm like high school you know, I'm like, it's Kobe Bryant though right now that you think about it, but I'm like high school kid act.

So now I'm over there signing. He done. He looked at me, go whatch doing? Man?

I said, I'm still signing my savings. She says, you signed, let me see it. So I'm writing key Shan Johnson number three. So that's all day, right, He go bed.

He said to me, said, there's only one Keyshan, just like there's only one Kobe. He goes, Kobe eight. That's how I.

Changed my signature to just Keishin because of that moment, so we go up to Portland when we do the whole thing, and they roll out the presentation and here's what we're gonna do signature shoe, and here's the clothes and here's the gear and all that what you like, and so we meet with the team of people and they put everything together and then you just sign off on it.

He the only one went that way to Nike.

Because remember, like you said, you mean to a, DDA said didas Yeah, I mean because Sony mc carroll had him, Tim Thomas and Jamaine on this.

Yeah, all supposed to come out of high school that year. Yeah. Yeah.

And so that's how I learned to sill my signature because the first of it was all Keishan Johnson and Keshan john Yeah. It was all day because I'm like, you know, he finished so fast, but this was just Kobe Hey and then I was like showing me.

I was like, okay, cool, I'm changing mind up too. I was crazy, right is. I shot my first commercial with him ever, the whole thing shot my first commercial.

Huh talked to us about that commercial.

Man. It was the it was the ESPN. It was an ESPN commercial. They called it, uh school. It was like school, but so it was. It was it was Stu Scott, me, him and Kenny Main I think it was.

I think that's who it was.

And so we did it in Bristol and they was teaching us, basically media school, how to talk to the media, because we were supposed to come in and just be like we were soft kids basically at the end of the day, and they wanted us to be out, you know, like fuck that they blew the call, you know, at the press conference, and we was just like, you know, sitting there like it was a nice call, you know, and they wanted us to be more aggressive with it.

It's so skinny. It's just all young as hell. It was.

So it was and uh, they came to play the Knicks his rookie year, and this was at a time in the NBA y'all experience, because y'all played where the teams would have two and three and four Knights in that town to stay, and he was eighteen years old.

He wanted to go to the Chinae Club with me, so I'm like, okay, we'll go out. Dude came with the high school I d they weren't gonna let y me in. You know, I'm like, come on, Cole. I was trying to work by magic, but they just was like, yeah, let happened. He came with his high school ID.

In New York.

After you left the Jets, signed with the Bucks, become the highest paid, receiving the league eight years, fifty six million.

How was that feeling? It was cool?

It was it was to be honest with you, I really didn't trip on the money because I had already gotten money from my rookie deal on.

The league though. Yeah if that lasted the fucking year. Moss came right behind. Yeah, yeah, but no, it was cool. That's what I'm saying to you about you're gonna get that right.

Yeah, that Hey factored in there. You know, you the highest paid at your position. So typically when you the highest paid, that means you the guy. They not paying you the most money unless you the god. So when they traded it for me. I probably could have got more out of them, but I got tired of negotiating. I could have probably I bet you we could have gotten the five million out of them. But I told my agent, I told you m I said, man, let me done.

Man, I'm I'm happy this is. You know, I don't need to set the set it so high because somebody gonna pass me anyway.

You know.

It was one of the negotiations where you know, parcels when they first said they was gonna trade me because I because originally I wanted the Jets to redo my deal, but I had two years left on my contract.

They wasn't gonna do it. So I just told my agent, I said, just telling I'm gona stay home, man, I'm done. Ain't gonna pay fotball and mom, I'm just gonna go back to school and just finish up master's degree or whatever. And he delivered the message to him and told her he said he just ain't gona play football. He good, you know. And then I came back.

I said, you know what, I'm gonna get my credited season. I'm gonna come in six games left in the year. I'm be three hundred and fiftyounds. Y'all gonna give you my credit season. I'mna hit free agency anyway, So y'all make the decision.

So Bill, Bill like, I'm.

Not coaching right now. Because he stepped down. Bill said, I'm gonna trade. You said, okay, Well what's happening?

He said, well, I got I got Green Bay. Baby, man, I'd go play with far him. I'm like, I don't want to live in Green Bay.

You know how much the ticket prices will be coming in and out of there for people to visit with me. I gotta import export the import. They go crazy in Green Bay. So I said, no, I ain't doing it. So then it was Baltimore. They had the fourth pick. He said, you want to go to Baltimore. I said, I don't want to go to Baltimore. They don't pass the ball. So he said, here's what I'm gonna do. I got two number ones in Tampa Bay.

So I said, damn. They did just lose to the Rams. My man BK is down there, my teammate. You know what. Let me get on the phone. So I called b K.

I'm like, okay, So I started asking him questions about the team and the city and stuff. He's like, yeah, So I went back to my agent told him, say, I'll go to Tampa. So then we meet with the general manager here in la at four Seasons. It's so crazy because Rich McKay was sitting with us at at lunch. The owner of the Giants was in the corner, but he didn't know what we was there for.

You know, he was like, damn. We walked in.

He was like, damn, the Giants on the here Steve Tish, but he didn't know what he was doing. And then you know, it was negotiating. And so my agent said, hey, let's just fly to Orlando and go hang out with B Shaw and them down in Orlando, because he was repping b at the time. And he said, let's go hang out with be in Orlando, and I'll go and drive into Tampa and negotiate with them and let them know you around the corner.

They don't want you to get out of here because if you that close and they smell you, they gonna want to taste you. So get it done. So we did it. Got it done.

I brought suit, you know, tie and shit, phone ain't stopped bringing sense. I mean, what you know, you say, well, what was it like? It was like the lottery.

I guess.

I mean, I don't know the feelings. I ain't never won the lottery, but it's like hitting the lottery.

I went and bought me a rag bought.

By Benley a Zoor ben Zor.

Yeah, because it was only at the time it was a notch Tea's and ben Leys I had the I.

Had to white with the tan in tier.

Uh.

But what happened was Mike Tyson, John Horn and Roy Holloway had Chris.

Mills. They all had ragazoos. He were the only ones in La right, and it was all you know. They had the rims under the whole thing, and three one oh was popping there, popping. So I uh, I said, man, they gave me a fourteen boy, I don't know, fourteen fifteen million dollars check whatever it was. I'm giving me a damn biley because that's how I am. I'm spontaneous when i want something. I don't treat myself. I'm like a bum. As you can tell. I got a little

Oh.

I said, Man, I need to give me a belly. Dog said you want to give Biley said yeah, give me a Bentley, give me a Porsche, and get me a RAG sixty three.

And I'm good. And so then they got it for me. I drove that thing for in Tampa. Man, I never used to drive it.

When I sold it, it had like a thousand miles on it because I never used to drive it. I just felt like I wanted to treat myself. But that's how it was, you know, I just wanted to treat myself. Give me all three, I said, give me all three.

What changed when Gruden showed up? Man, you know, John, it's interesting that you asked me that. Jack. So I went to the touch game when they so we played Philly. They fired Dungee.

After I get back to Tampa, I jump on the jet and go to to New England because I'm friends with Belichick. Belichick coached me in in New York. Like that's like, I'm good friends with him. So I go, I sit in Belichick's box whatnot. And I wanted to see because it was the noise. Because Parcelles was supposed to come. Bill was actually supposed to come to Tampa, but he decided not to at the eleventh hour.

So now.

The Gruden noise is starting to come. So I flew my ass to New England in the snow to watch. I just wanted to see what his you know, peep him.

And check him out. So I checked it. My friend said, okay, I can. I think I could. I could work with him. You know, I'm sitting up in the box. I'm just checking it out. Like so then when we hire him, I'm meeting whatever.

But I instantly peeped him, you see what I'm saying, Like, I peeped him way before everybody else. And when you're the first at doing something and you check somebody out, people tend to be.

Like, yeah, the coach is right, the player ain't right. You're right because you're challenging authority in most people's eyes that don't understand the story.

And I used to just you know, check you out the bullshit. You know, over and all, we're gonna get you off. We're gonna make sure you get these rocks. You're gonna get the touches.

Practice you like a dog to your tongue, can't hang out your mouth for come game time, he call him bullshit. So now you like here.

So then you got dudes on the team that's cool with him that he go to with me to talk to me because he can't talk to me.

He gotta go through them, so they ain't telling me. You know what I'm saying, like, oh, say, gonna get you off this week? Da da da dah. So we played Minnesota. K Mack is hurt.

JoJo's hurt. Everybody heard. I'm in a long ranger out there. So now he got to feed me.

So they fed me.

They fed me, I don't know, a couple touchdowns whatever they fed me. So I'm sitting there, I'm saying to myself, you feed me because you have to. You can do this all the time if you wanted to, only because you have to. So he was always slick with his tongue, but I never would say anything. I just wouldn't even.

Pay me no attention. So what day y'all a laugh at y'all gonna think I'm certified crazy.

So I'm standing right here. Coach man is standing here, My man, Reggie Barlow is standing here. So he walks over to me. Know our coaches do they come over to you. They want to show you something, We should do it this.

Way that, blah blah blah. So he's trying to talk to me. I'm telling him. I say, man, do me a favor. Why don't you tell him what you want to tell me? And if he could tell me, because.

I don't want to talk to you, and I walked away from it, and everybody was like, right, like whatever man. And so while we really got into it, Jack is, we playing on a Monday night against the Rams, and this is the same year we won the Super Bowl.

We won the Super Bowl. This year.

He calls a play, He'll say he called it a certain way. I heard it a certain way, so I line up the way I heard it. So now we call a time out. We go to the sideline and I'm having a conversation with my coach and him and we're all there and he's saying, well, I call this. I'm like, that's not what you call. Everybody lined up and what you call this is what you call. So now it was a running play any fucking way, it wasn't.

But what that does is signal to people, I fucked up.

When you the motherfucker that fucked up, but you're gonna make people think I'm the one that fucked up.

Type cap. That's just that's some cap. So now I'm like, so I'll get ready to walk away. And while he's doing this, we're having a heated conversation amongst all of us. So I get ready to walk away and he mumbles something like motherfucker or something very you know, disrespectful. So I turn around Jack, I turned and went right at him and told him, I'll beat your motherfucking ass right here on Monday night football for the world to see. You got me fucked.

And so now I walk away. He say something else. So at this point I go back at him now and telling him, put my finger in this face and say, you said another motherfucking word is going down. And at that point it was like, oh my god, we ain't gonna give him a third one. No, I gave him a third one in the locker room after the game. I told him, you know, our coaches going to their little coaches offices in the stadium.

Oh.

I made all assistant coaches get out, said, man, y'all get out of here. I'm just talk to him. You getting redly listen to me right now because that's a bullshit you did. Then me and him we ain't never like that was it, and I played the rest of the season. We went on, won the Super Bowl. I came back the next year and the next year. So my ex wife is from the Bay Area, so we played Frisco the next year in San Francisco. My kids, now, mind you, my kids are living in the Bay Area.

During the week, I said, man, I'm gonna stay in the Bay Area after San Francisco because I got to teacher parents.

I'm not going to Florida coming all the way back to the Bay. I'm not doing that shit. So we lose the Suthchio let's go.

So now.

They looking for me at the airport, They're like, what the fuck kid, I hadn't already told him what I'm doing, but he made it seem like he never got that information, like I just partlayed on him and rolled out.

He go tell the people that knowing that ain't my behavior, That's not who I am.

So now I'm a problem. You see what I'm saying. And so I stay home with my kids from the teacher parents thing. I go back to California. I mean, I go back to Florida. They deactivate me for the rest of the year. I'm like, cool, I ain't tripping. You're gonna have to.

Pay me because I ain't done nothing wrong, So you're gonna have to pay me anyway. You have to pay me anyway. So that was it. Did The motherfucker had nerve enough to come back and try to get me after I whooped his.

Ass when I was in Carolina, went off on him. I went nuts on him in Carolina game. Then they tried to come back get me. The year I retired, they wanted to resign me, him and Bruce Allen. It's public knowledge. Everybody know because the story was out there. They reached out to me to sign because guess again, I don't have problem. Nobody I'm good if I you know, if you to make the money right play for you ain't no problem at all, non.

H two thousand and three, Man watch y'at man we win. I won this championship with the Spurs. You want the NFL Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Do you remember the sp Awards and the playoffs and the Playboy?

Yeah, spar was of course.

What's up?

What what do you remember about that? Which part the Playboy Mansion? Because remember they had they had the boxing that night at the point I was.

At the Playboy specifically, remember uh, we're having a conversation with what's the name, my man?

It was in the back room with Oja uh Kate Okay, he definitely there. I remember that specific because I asked him and many did he do it?

Did he do it? I'm gonna ask you the question.

No. I asked him literally, you know, and he gave me the he thinks so he gave me I think.

So.

We was in the backyard of the Playboy Mansion.

This is the this is when the first the world got a chance to first time see Jeff left left hook Lacy. He boxed in the in the backyard. It was Friday Night fights to the ESPN, but it was it was sp weekend and everybody will to everybody was there. Cherokee Parks is the is the goat. If you don't know cheroch Key Parks, if you ever party with him, he was. He basically ran the Playboy Mansion.

Yeah, he was tatted more than you, Matt. We had a great time. And that was two thousand three I seen in my jersey. But that team? How special was that team? Was our Bucks team? Yes? Special?

It's probably one of the best teams in the history of the NFL. I would say we probably got I think we got five Hall of Famers off the team and possibly another two coming. Yeah, yeah, we got I think it's five Hall of Famers with another two. So we got about seven Hall of Famers and then arguably you could argue, if you want to, a couple more that could potentially be in the running. D Brooks you no, you got Sap, No, Sap Brooks, Ron Day, John Lynch,

Yeah?

Six six dudes off the team. I ain't gonna make it because I didn't play long enough. If I would have played fifteen years or something like that, I beat. But I didn't play long enough, which, like I said before, I didn't play to get into the Hall. I played to get chicks, you know, to help my mom and my sisters and brothers. I fuck about, no damn Hall of Fame. It's cools respect for him, but everybody don't do nothing for me. You got respect from everybody in

Right, give me the damn body.

And so everybody was telling Bill to get rid of me, trade me, get rid of me. I'm a problem this, that and the other.

You know how that goes.

Yeah, I don't even know what you're talking about. So when I sit down with him, he goes to me, He goes, how much did you play at this year? I said, I was about shit, I don't know, two twenty.

Five or something. He says, yeah, you look too too, if I look like you got the fucking mumps, Like, man, please whatever. He says, what about that guy that was a usc What did you play? Then?

I said I was probably two o eight two ten. He goes, that's the dude I want. So what I did is I came back to training camp at two o five. So I came back at two o five. Him and our relationship from that point on. I couldn't do no wrong. I couldn't do I could have if they came to my house and found bodies in the basement, they were like they planning them.

He didn't do that. But that's how our relationship because I did everything he asked me to do.

When he said do this, it got none. When he gave me an assignment to go dig that dude out, no problem. So our relationship was always I became a part sales guy. And at that point when the big Tuna speak, everybody listen. He the grand poop, all right, he's the big inchulada.

When he says like Pat Rodney, but Pat say he good, he good.

And that's how Bill, you know, because everybody was trying to act as though West Coast kid and La da dah.

He was like, no, that's my guy.

So something obviously went wrong with him in Tampa with that dude. Then come there, I need to get this dude back on my team so I could set a standard on how we win. So when they when the Cowboys let me go and they brought in Too, you know, Bill left for like two months.

He left.

He left because they took the authority away from him. He didn't want too. He was like, man, I don't need that. But Jerry made the decision to go get too and let me go to Carolina, and Bill disappeared on him for like two months. They didn't even have a coach. Many people don't know that he disappeared on wouldn't return the calls, nothing. He was mad as hell because that's not what he wanted. Then he coached that year and he left member.

He retired. It's like, I'm done, I don't want to coach appearing no more. And that's Jerry getting away.

Fast forward present time. Is Jerry still in the way. What's frong with the Cowboys right now?

I think they're missing something. Man, miss leaders leadership, Yeah, I.

Think they missing I think they missing the locker room leadership. In the locker room, Jerry does a tremendous job in terms of management. He doesn't get see people think that Jerry is calling plays. He ain't any way like that. He does a tremendous ya with Will Clay and Steven

You gotta have leadership on teams. Championship teams all got leadership. Everybody that's ever won the champh you could point to that dude that's a leader on your team.

And sometimes they ain't even the superstar.

And sometimes it ain't even a superstar.

When we won in Tampa, Derek Brooks was essentially our leader, you know what I'm saying. But I held mine on the office side, but he held everybody account. He would come up to me, and Brooks, though he's not a cuss or nothing, he come up me and just say, nineteen, what the fuck are they doing?

He just simply tell me that, man, you're got to go tell them people to get you the ball.

Yeah, okay, Cool, I'm all years right, I'm ready right, eleven seasons, three Po Bowl, Super Bowl champ You walked away before you know, your body didn't give up or nothing.

Where were you at?

Was it just mentally retired with I was?

I was? I had mentally checked out, you know, I just.

Coming back from that neither. That's a professional augh.

What they'll see because I accomplished so much so early though, Matt, you gotta think my goal was only to play ten years. My goal was never to play let I did that extra year as a favor for my officsive coordinator that was in Carolina, that will coach me in h if the Jets. Who's my office cordinator with the Jets and he went to Carolina. I did him a favor because Carolina had just lost the Seattle in the NFC Championship game. And in Smitty Steve Smith, they had him bottled up.

So when I started calculating the economics, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I didn't do the math.

You know what I'm saying. I'm sitting there, I'm like, well, if I play, I'm gonna make this. But I ain't got to get hit. I do this, I'm gonna make that in this second career. I can start now. I don't already accomplished. Think about it, man, I went to Pro Bowls? Okay, so well, how many fucking All Star games I need to go to? Right? What a championship? I didn't put out of set records and done different things. So it's like, do I want to still beat my body up?

No?

I don't want to do that. No more. No, I'm good. So that was my decision. I woke up and called Jerome, my agent. I called you Rossiter Derome on re tire. Man, I'm done? Are you crazy? After blue? After blue?

Because what happened when I left Carolina, Jeff Fisher, Seattle, all of them was trying to get me. So I went and visiting, right, and I went visited Tennessee because I still was kind of like I was thirty three.

I think I was.

So I was like, man, do I want to play football?

So I go to Tennessee. Jeff I've been doing Jeff for a long time. He wanted me, YadA, YadA, YadA. So I'm like new norm child from sc knew the receiver coach. He recruited me in college. So I'm like, I'm gonna go to Tennessee. I think I knew Mike Holmes Seattle. I'm like, I think I'm so.

Then I like decided I can't fuck with Vince Young. I ain't playing football. I've been too many quarterbacks and Dell May y'all. Andy'll eating Britos and shit y'all. Now I'm the old dude. I'm gonna deal with this young stuff. So I'm like, So I get home, I go to sleep, I wake up, and probably like six am. I called my agent. I said, man, I think I'm gonna retire, and as he's like, Sam, what are you talking about? Saimon, I'm done, don't want play for both of them. Told

Even what was that transition like, I mean, obviously it's the wave now for athletes to transition. Although you weren't the first, you you know, you were there early, it was it was you know, you've been in the space eighteen years. What was it like that first transition over to a machine like ESPN?

Man?

You know, so because I had did the draft and I had done some stuff early career, so I got my feet wet. But the grace of God put me in a position to work alongside Tom Jackson and Chris Burman.

So that's just like all of a sudden, they stick you with yeah, yeah, they stick you with Charles right off the rip. But they stick you with Chick Hearns or some ship right off the rip. That's what it was like, like, you know, I remember what time though, Uh you know, when I first was dealing with the cameras and trying to understand the cameras and the production and all that.

I'm near talking and I'm you know, I'm going on and on and on, and all of a sudden I got these these these voices in my ear. So I stopped National TV Monday night and I done stopped coll for like a minute. It felt like Tom Jackson, Tom like, ma, what do you do it? I said, Man, they talking to me, but they wasn't talking to me. They had opened up my mic on my earphones of my ear set by my state. The director was telling somebody else to go to this camera.

I was like, sounding like, what's wrong?

Somebody talking to me? Somebody ain't talking to you? For they talking to me every senstead. I never made that mistake again. But when you have guys like that, yeah, you just learn, man.

But it was cool. It was a smooth transition. And hell I was there seventeen years.

What's the next five to ten look like for you?

With some goals? I mean, and I'm gonna keep stealing. I'm gonna keep stealing money from fire as long as as long as they keep paying me, I'm gonna keep stealing. That's what I'm looking at.

I'm looking at staying there and just continue to keep building.

And you know, obviously I love doing it. I love waking up in.

The morning, I love going in, I love talking sports. You know, if you want to call it debating, I don't call it debating. And I call it communicating, just you know, because I ain't got time to be doing arguing and screaming.

And if your point is your point, that's your opinion. It is what it is.

Mine is mine and we could It ain't personal, No, it.

Ain't never gonna be personal.

Why would I?

Why would I make anybody? Making personal is a damn food Because, as I said at they all to beginning, I'm not fucking my money off. You know how hard it is to get money. Why would I do that making something personal?

Man? Because these seats they don't come up too often.

And I understand everybody got platforms now it's a little different, but then big boy seats they do not dudes.

Man them dudes. You see they be rolling dudes out in wheelchairs for years. How long you've been here? Our sixty years?

It's like really, I mean, like you know, they're still good at it, but them seats don't come up every other year. No, not at all.

Fatherhood Unfortunately lost the child. Condolences again, probably the worst thing ever going through. But what is fatherhood for you? And what does it mean to you?

Man?

It is extremely stressful, as you know, having kids in your own. It's just one of those things. My little babies obviously is just beautiful and fun and I love dealing with them and having some distressful because, like you said, losing my daughter it obviously it sheds a different light on the responsibility of fatherhood.

It's just it's just different.

You know.

Even my son now, who's older, who works with me, you know, nepotism. I got to have him with me. I use that word a lot and let him know they do it, I can do it too, because he's good at it.

He's actually good at his job, where some people kids aren't good at their job, but they still got jobs.

But you know, it's it's that stress. You know, he's older.

You know he likes smoking weed whatever you grown here, A dolt ain't not wrong, a dolt he is smoking weed whatever.

I'm sure he got a lot already.

It's one of those deals from stress standpoint, because you're always thinking where is he at, what he's doing text He may take thirty minutes to respond back.

What you're doing?

Why you ain't respired back? You know, And then having to watch my daughter, who is fourteen years old, continue to grow. You know, she's beautiful and just growing, and you know it's gonna have to I having to probably figure out how to I told she wants to go to New York and go to school.

I told her, you, you do understand, You're gonna have security of chopper rooms.

When you go to school.

That's just what it's gonna be. They gonna be right there with you. Oh, you're weird, you're this year that because they don't you know I'm weird. You know I'm weird to them. But it's it's good.

Man's a healthy you got a good, healthy relationship. Yeah.

I just like watching them grow too. They think I'm lame though, because especially my young ones. My young ones think I'm lame because.

They see they see.

Everything that I used to do with my older ones, like all the fancy cars and all the different stuff, and the motherfuckers.

Made me go buy a Porsche.

Now I don't want bought a nine eleven because my youngest son, the eleven years old, he think I'm weak because I drive Pree.

It's in a Tesla three. He telling me my Tesla three is a starter Tesla. You have to go get the No, I ain't got nothing left his career, career, Yeah, got damn yeah the weather jack. Yeah, that's what I tell you. But but the crazy thing is he applied that pressure because he said it ain't nothing like man Barnes. He got so and so got the I come, you know, so I bought it. I got it like on Thursday, and I picked him up for school on Friday, so

Trying to show it off quick man.

That's what it's fun, man, It's it's you know, it's a bond. Yeah, it's a fun, a fun experience for him, you know. He he he likes all that sort of stuff. And he's in the cars and shoes shoe game. It's probably better than any of ours. He got a cold shoe game. He got a coold shoe his daddy got. I never grew out of that ship. I never grew out of it.

The shoes, clothes, looking nice shoes, fashion, I never grow out of it, jewelry, none of that.

I never grot it.

But we different in California. He'd be the ones all the time always. Really, I only wore this ship because we was. I was being cheating Chung earlier, so I had my whole little outfit. But California, we just flips yeah man all the time and can go anywhere with it.

Jack. They think got, they think I out there surfing the way I look. You know what, I call it non threatening, toes off, non threatening. I'm toes out, non threatened. When they see me, they're gonna go you doing it. They ain't gonna be like he's safe. No, no, because that's how I dress. I'm t shirts, flip flops, shorts.

Insta California sweats. You know all the time, James Pearce, it ain't you know, reless.

But when you swipe the card one of them new heavy credit cards to get that make yeah, that's you know, but that's how it is. That's how I love my kids, though, man of it. If I you know, I'm fixed up, so I'm good. But if I could, I would.

Yeah, I got six. I'm thinking about doing one more better, better than Yeah, we're thinking about it.

My kids is expensive, very man, kids are very expensive, especially my three year old.

She keeps growing. So every time I look.

Up baby baby, Yeah, yeah, what's the younger ages?

The young with fourteen, eleven and three, every time I look up, it's a damn box at the front door.

Because she needs something. Because she keeps growing, she keeps growing, she keeps growing. I'm gonna knock this, finish it off.

Someone who is, you know, very outspoken over your life, over your career, but you've silently been helping rebuild South l A. Can you tell us a little bit about that.

Well, Originally, like when I was playing, I got involved in redevelopment and stuff like that, and you know, we we uh So, my first project was on slaughtering in western We brought in like depot.

Ah Man, what year was that? That was true? Ninety nine? Damn ninety nine, Yeah, ninety nine. We started, I think we started like in ninety eight, ninety nine.

And so we brought in the first home depot in east of the Mississippi, I'm sorry, west of the Mississippi in an urban area. Everything else was all in the suburbs, the whole deal.

So we brought it in the hood. Starbucks Magic Magic when he owned the Starbucks brought him in. I was his landlord for a while that shit. Oh yeah, he he let you do all day. Yeah, that was his landlord.

And so we just started bringing in all the different different stores and stuff like that. And it was just like it needed it because South So doing the riots, nothing was rebuilt at all in South La.

Nothing. It was just like burnt down buildings and it was just it was crazy looking. And so we just made a commitment to purchase the land and rebuild starting there, and then we just started building other projects all over the city.

You know.

But but it also it ain't just about making the money. It's also being able to create jobs. It was creating jobs opportunities, you know what I'm saying. Because it wasn't like you was gonna put a million in and make fifty million.

It's not like that. You know, people think that things are like that. You know, there's numbers you gotta pay for stuff. Man, it's like a martgage, right, you got debt. You know, it's a debt servicing business, and.

We just built and it felt good to be able to do that and say I reached back down to my community and gave them something that they never thought they would have.

Man, quick hitters, we almost done. First thing to come to mind, your top five current young receivers in the game, top five or three these negroes be get mad when you do this, or you can get me all time. Then if you don't want to.

Know, I'll current Tyreek Hill, uh Davontae Adams, Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, uh A J.

Brown. That's pretty, that's probably let's I'm missing somebody, but see I like T Higgins, but that's me. That's that's me. Some people don't like that. I like Tyler Lockett. Some people don't like Tyler. They look Tyler Lockett cool man, he solid as hell, solid, but they looking for somebody catch for eighteen hundred and all that.

I'm like, no, man, Tyler Lockett gonna give you that stuff. He's gonna get that work. Oh ceddie lamb. Yeah, I told you I was gonna see somebody gonna get mad.

He always gets lamb.

See you you should get on Richard Richards was gonna call him a friend.

No, I ain't not No, I saw I saw, I say cool I already said, but I said, man, this man that a HELLI but yeah, this year, how can you hate on him?

That's he sucked, but he had Yeah, ceedie lamb, yeah, ceey lamb legit. You know I I I wanted to see more out of him this year. They gave me more after the first four or five games doing much. Then they start moving him around and putt him in a position.

To make plays. Because before he just was a guy average. Yeah, but then they start moving him around and he developed into something different.

But you know, you got those type of dudes. Then you got the older heads of DeAndre Hopkins. If my nephew could ever stay healthy, you got.

Cooper cup Cooper Good.

Who's your nephew, Michael Thomas.

Yeah, he the truth. Yeah, they you know he gotta stay healthy though, that's his deal. His health. Health is his issue getting asked about of New Orleans now hopefully, well, he ain't got it.

You know.

That's my brother's son. Yeah, brother son, he's crazy. He's crazy to uncle. Yeah that that that probably has something to do with it. Yeah, that probably got something to do with it. I'm sure who was your first celebrity crush?

This should be man, Yeah, come on, finish it.

It was your first celebrity president back in the day, back in the day. Yeah, he crushed.

He was in LA when it was popping in the nineties.

He was in the USC. See, I ain't really no, I ain't really no. Tell all guy, though.

Who you got the credit? We ain't gonna ask you if you did nothing with it? Who was I'm saying something that came mine like earlier, Like damn.

You basically telling you basically tested. I can't talk about nobody because I didn't got them all. Basically, just tell somebody that you dreamed about that you never had, especially when you was in college. You know you're coming up, you know you're finna go to the league.

I'm saying I wouldn't even see it in college. I wasn't really tripping like that on the celebrity tip because it was all around you already in l A. That's what I mean. You don't need no celebrity girl in LA.

The girls and everybody better than come on, man, I can put there wasn't no singer or nothing. Early on he was let me think, man, because I'm sure I couldn't you want the spot?

I'm sure. I'm sure too. I don't care if you. Oh no, you want to know. Freeze moment, freeze moment. So thank you Now, I got you, I got you. So this is freeze moment. Freeze up.

Write that down.

So if you know Sunset, I'm going west on Sunset through Beverly Hills, like you said, like going west on Sunset.

Before you get the Dohini. On the right hand side, there's a fed X. It's a fed Ex, a small little fed X spot. So I'm with the homies. I'm in my big old black truck. I just bought a big old black I don't remember. It's like a expedition blacked all the way out. This is this is a ninety No, it was ninety seven, ninety ninety seven, ninety seven. I'm going down Sunset so the you know, you know how you got your own, they're gonna gash you.

And I was.

I got to the signal light and the fed Ex was there, and I saw this light skin chick. She had a sun dress on. M m hmm.

Paint the picture. Damn.

She find as a motherfucker. They're like, man, you a sucker. You you need to go get her, you need to go get her. I'm like, man, I'm trying to dry. They gassed me.

I bust a roll on. Dohaney turned back around on sunset. I pop out the car. Wait though, she check this out, freeze Bobby. So now I go into the fed X. I open up, put my hands on park right. I open up the fed X. I opened it up, and she's standing right there. It's Holly Berry. I swear to God, Man, I swear to God.

I ain't lying. Man, God be my witness from blind of diet. Man, I got spooked. You froze up. I froze up. Didn't even I just kept it. I just fake like I wanted something and walked away. Basically no, basically because I would to no. But no, this is I know, this is. This is after David Justice. So this is theak Oh yeah, she cracking like man, I'm

I mean I froze up. I completely froze up immediately when I opened up the door. I didn't know what to say.

What they say when you go back in the car.

I think they were just like, man, what you're doing? I said, Man, come on, man, I can't n She ain't think said she ain't with be something like that with me anyway. Now. But the celebrity, the celebrity crushes you know my lifestyle.

You know, Yeah, I've been here for a long time too, youtubega.

Man, if I was a kiss and tail dude, don't ever do that. Ain't gonna never be that dude. But if I was Jack, I'll just be laughing at y'all. Even man, y'all y'all don't know.

Jack is my witness of that too, That young slim je oh man, that dude here ring in his ears always that boy kept a fresh line that fade.

Yeah, Oh, gift the gap, please, gift the gas, the gift the gap, taking.

A long away you over. You know, I know, I don't even want to. I don't want to tease him like that because because you know, I know, they everybody be getting.

Talking about what I don't do that. I ain't gonna need to do that. But if I did, it would be like there's no way. Yeah, but the real people, yeah, of course, but people just be like, there's no way. That's a lie. Notin't gonna lie on my dick. That's for damn show that. Yeah.

Yeah, okay, but that's you know, let you tell me.

That's how. That's how, you know, when you're a single man and you're an athlete and you just living your life in l A, in LA, in New York, in l A. You go, it's a lot of cross Yeah.

In New York too.

Yeah, K once upon a time, My first four you know, the first four years, it was Jeter, myself, Stray. We was probably the three in Patrick Ewing, probably the four big sports dudes in the city.

In the town. Come on, man, New York in the prime time, to.

Give me a troubles iminiscing my damn.

Favorite route.

Favor route, your favorite route, Yeah, that you're gonna work with me, work with me on before I go to Colorado for a couple of weeks.

My favorite route that they just could not defend probably slat quick, yeah, quick, slant three step drop six yards six.

I'm gonna pick up twelve every time I touch it.

Could could you six four too?

Yeah? I'm leaning the forward and then if you miss, I'm going Yeah, I would say the slant. And then when we get into the red zone, fade in the red zone, posting the red zone.

Nothing you can do nothing. Yeah, it was it wasn't and people so just like in the in basketball, there's something that coach has always said you couldn't do, which was a lie.

It was just lie. Right, Well, Matt, if you if you go, if you push him to his left, he can't go to this.

Let's a lie.

I decided I'm not going to my left. I'm gonna go to my right all the time because it's easier for me. That was the mistake that coaches made with me. He's not a burner, Okay, well I'm not a burner. You don't become the number one overall pick if you cannot run at the skilled position. But that becomes a narrative. And what happens is they coach you bad as a defender to make you believe.

Such a thing.

I'm gonna cook you.

Get your ass, get your ass fried, because that's what would happen. They come up and try to challenge me, and they miss, I ain't Tyreek Hill. But once you miss, you're a You're a dead duck. I'm gonna shoot you completely downride. Yeah, so that happens. Y'all push Stevie Jack is right, he can't go right. It's like, well, no, that's not true, man, That's just what y'all selling to your dudes.

Meanwhy I would give it to you by one song to play over your career highlights? What would that be?

All's eye on me, All eyes on me, for sure, all eyes on me?

One quarterback during your time you wish you could have played.

With wit and during my time? Is just in general in general, probably Brady. I would guess Montana Brady. The reason I would play with because I play all different positions, so mostly Brady's targets is the tidy in the slot.

Dude.

But I played in the slide that played outside of the play, so I can eat anywhere with him, you know what I'm saying.

And having a dude like that, if I could have played with him, we wouldn't even a little been over.

We won, so many might have got this interview ship.

No never, there's certain dudes I would never talk to. But's come on, man, you tripping call me in the middle of the night, say come sit down with no problem at all.

Good man, man, We thank you for your time. Big fans. Are you as and what you've been able to do post sports showing us and we're not just fatherhood business media cheers to get the quila one more time? What's that how you say?

Him?

Man?

Him, I get that ship anywhere, just that locals. Really, this wasn't really supposed to be a plug. I was just giving it to y'all as my people.

We're gonna plug you, you know, y'all man Kee Johnson, all the slow productions in the Draft Kings Network. We'll see y'all next week.