Right, justin middle to field forty five fifteen. Bring Russ in front of a leading Lions in this way, I am Jeff Jonian. Wlitz is not dog.
What was like playing for coach boddom Ah. I don't want to answer any questions like that.
Sixty one yards? What's Sunday stroll for? Justin Field?
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Bears et Cetera with the voices of the Chicago Bears Jeff.
Joniac Welcome back this week too.
Bears et Cetera, Episode number thirty eight with Super Bowl winning Bears guard Tom Thayer.
I'm Jeff Jonia. Coming up on the show.
We got an extended conversation with former Bears quarterback and the franchise record holder in season passing, yardage and touchdowns in a single season.
Eric Kramer, a good friend of ours.
He's written a book called The Ultimate Comeback, Surviving a suicide attempt, Conquering Depression, Living with a Purpose. It's a riveting conversation, not an easy conversation. As long as we've known Eric, Tom, he has been an easy going guy and he's not afraid to give his thoughts on all things football, life and whatever. The pursuit of happiness. It seems like he's found his wheelhouse right now. He's doing
a lot of good. This book is therapeutic for him for his personal struggles, not only with his own life, with his son losing his life.
He's been through a ton.
But the fact is there's some good stuff in here that you're going to take with you, no question about it.
Yeah, Listen.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for Eric Kramer, the football player that I knew when he played for the Bears in his perseverance to become an NFL player. But now after having a conversation about some of the struggles that he faced, I have more respect for him. I can't wait to read his book, and I think it should be recommended reading for a lot of people because to not only possibly help themselves, but maybe it'll help that person help other people.
For all your journeys ahead, go with a partner who's been on your team from the beginning, the one members and communities have trusted for over eighty five years, and Blue Shield of Illinois always standing by you, with you through it all. Jeff and Tom here the Bears around
the bye week. So one of the interesting things that Matt Eberflu said at the podium on Tuesday after the Bears win in Minnesota, was that all the players had to meet with the physical training department, all that sports science before they left.
You had to do it.
So they want them to stay healthy during this time away. It is one week, but things can unravel in a hurry. You can gain weight, you can get out of shape in a moment's notice. I thought that was a pretty cool thing. But players are smart these days. They know what they have to do. But do you see benefits in that?
Listen, there's a guy that I refer to a lot about health when I have a question, that's always Clyde Emeric and Clyde Emrick always used to have a saying, it takes you two days to get out of shape, in two weeks to get in shape. So when you think about a period of time that you have off, and there's a lot of these guys that they don't, you know, get on a treadmill, get on a stationary bike, do something to keep on their feet a little bit. I'm not asking to go out and run miles and
that type of stuff. However, you can't let the sport get away from you. In that period of time, and unfortunately sometimes it can mentally and physically.
So the Bears have hit the by a week here after twelve games. We were going to do this exercise of you know, who's looked good offense, defense, special teams, and kind of do a player of the year type of things. So far, even though there's five games left and the team has rally to win for their last eight, they are four and eight. It's not the record they certainly wanted, nor what maybe some people expected, even inside and outside of the building, but that's the status that's
where there are. They've overcome a bunch of injuries, nothing really seasoned ending across the board, but the offensive line has been a real you know, musical chairs even within games, and that has been something that I really impressed. I saw Chris Morgan the in the cafeteria this week before the bye week kicked in, and I said, man, I mean, you've wonders here trying to get these guys to all
play together. When you want to have the same five start every snap and play every snap, it just doesn't happen anymore in the NFL. He goes, we got a lot more work to do, I mean, and that's always the case with offensive line. But are you impressed with what that unit has done despite some bumps along the way and managed to cobble what has become a pretty impressive line at key areas up front?
Oh?
I am.
You know.
I'm impressed with Chris Morgan with being able to move guys and shuffle guys in and out of the lineup in different positions and still have a solid, performing offensive line that started out pretty slowly.
You know.
To me, I think I'm one of the guys that needed to impress me the most throughout the season was going to be Tevin Jenkins, even though they just have newly drafted Darnell What Darnell right? Because Tevin He's played a couple different positions.
He had the.
Injury issue at the end of training camp, but Tevin had to come in and play like a high profile offensive lineman no matter where they were going to finally settle on what position he's going to play. Now it looks like he could have a career at offensive guard and he could be one of the better offensive guards in the division and have a really bright feature ahead of him. I'm not dismissing Nate Davis It's just that Nate Davis was an established veteran at the position, so
you knew a little bit more about him. So Tevin has continued to impress me, and I hope he's the type of guy that can stay in that role for the next ten years.
Darnell Right, we touched on in our last podcast, talked about we don't talk about him enough this season. You can look at the fact that, Okay, he's had some penalties, which rookies do, giving up according to the stats, sink
seven and a half sacks this season. But we see a lot of bright spots with Darnell Wright against some really impressive defensive edge rushers that the Bears have had a face, not the least of which is Daniel Hunter twice, Carl Granderson from New Orleans, Cam Jordan had a deal with the folks up in Detroit, and Aiden Hudginson. He will see him again coming out of the bye week.
Really good pass rushers over Max Crosby over the course of the season, I think, and we can't discount the run blocking as well, because he's super physical and big and nasty. He's a finisher. I think it's been a really good season for Darnell right.
Well, you know the best thing about Darnell right there are no limitations to the future of his game. You can't sit there and say, Okay, we can only run behind him if he has a double team opportunity, or if he's got a one on one matchup against the difficult pass rusher, we have to have a guy lined.
Up next to him.
No, if you run to run an outside sleep and feature him as the pulling tackle, you can do that. If you want to run a lateral screen that he has to get twelve to fifteen yards into position.
To make the block, you can do that.
If you want to put him one on one in a difficult environment like Detroit to face a premier pass rushers like Hutchinson, you can do that. So it's about building upon everything that he offers you and you're not limiting your offense because he has a deficiency, which he really doesn't.
Bears fans, you can be there for live NFL action all season long. Is the official ticket marketplace with the Bears in the NFL. Ticketmaster has a wide selection of tickets available for every game. Find tickets today at ticketmaster dot com. Slash Bears, Who would be your offensive player of the year so far through twelve.
You know, DJ Moore guy, you know, it's hard to ignore him. I think he's done a lot for the quarterback position. He's done a lot from the offense. He's had nationally televised games that were as as impressive as anybody else in the league. He's a super difficult tackle. He's another guy that you can throw them the ball downfield and he can make difficult catches. You can throw them the ball at the line of scrimmage, and he
can break tackles. I think he's a super positive influence in the locker room, which is sometimes as equally as important as the way you perform on the field.
He's an outstanding teammate, first and foremost. Everything they said about him is true. He's absolutely been the star player and certainly deserving of all the accolades he's going to get. He's going to have a great He's already over a thousand yards. He has a chance to put up some really significant numbers here offensively in Bear's history for a single season.
This was a note from Chase Daniel. He's doing a lot of quarterback analysis.
I got to touch on Justin because his last seventeen games, of which you know the offensive line has had a lot of changes. DJ Moore was only available. This is dating back to last season, of course, or just twelve of those games. In that stretch, he's thrown and rushed for almost four thousand yards, eight rushing touchdowns, twenty five passing touchdowns, twelve interceptions, so combined thirty three touchdowns. So you put it in that context, he's put together some
impressive numbers. Obviously the wins haven't been there collectively as a team. But how do you analyze that? Because we know his threat of run is one of his biggest superpowers, but we also know his deep ball also is a super power. Or if given the time and if you can see the field to make the play, what is your overall analysis of this?
So to me, a quarterback position, no matter if you have the dynamic athleticism of Justin or you have the arm talent of Patrick Mahomes and some of the other guys around league. Josh Allen, it's more to me evaluating when you call a play and you get to your final drop step, what.
Do you do?
Are you locating the target according to the play called in the huddle and the coverage you're seeing, or are you pulling the ball down and trying to buy extra time to create that big play.
So I still think Justin is a young, developing quarterback.
So to me, it's always going to be what do you do when you call a pass that has a certain drop to it, and what do you do in the timing of the ball of the pass, And so you know that that will be the way I kind of see the development of Justin. But it's hard to deny that he has all the traits that any offensive court Nator would love to have in their quarterback.
Miller Lite, the official beer of the Chicago Bears, tastes like Miller Time Chicago coming up in moments. Eric Kramer, the author of a new book, The Ultimate Comeback. Defensively, who's your player of the Year.
It's hard to deny what TJ. Edwards has been.
He's done so the Bears have played twelve games, He's been in number one or number two in tackles and ten out of those twelve games. When you look at the numbers and what he's been able to put together, TJ is But you know, when you look at where Tremaine Edmonds is. I think the linebacker position as a whole is really developing into one.
Of the strengths of this whole team overall.
Right, I can't go anywhere else either. I mean, I'm going to give I'm going to give Jalen Johnson. He's having his best year as a Bear. He is limiting the amount of catch rate as high as any in the league. Now, starting to take the ball away, getting near the ball, and just got to keep making those interceptions and I know those are haunting him as well. How about special teams got to go Kai, right, I.
Mean, of course, I mean the guy is money and he kicks in some difficult situations. Again, we talked about it the other day that as the weather deteriorates in this last half of the season, I still think that with the premier field conditions they now have at Soldier Field, I think he's going to have an opportunity to.
Have an incredible successful season.
Steinhoffels is an employee owned furniture and mattress store If is it any of their for Chicago land locations in Vernon Hills, Crystal Lake, Downers Grove, and Harwood Heights, or shop online at Steinhoffels dot Com when we come back after the buy five games left all outdoors, three at Soldier.
Field, two on the road.
One you're going to have to go over to Cleveland to take on Miles Garrett and that number one rank defense in the NFL, and then finish off against Green Bay, which I think will be an emotional game on mid January at Lambeau in cold temperatures. I'm sure who knows you might have some weather for that one. You never know what's going to happen. Right there's five games to go.
If you shorten it all up and give these guys some sort of carrot that beyond your own professionalism of showing up and giving full effort every single day for the rest of the season and playing those games and don't have your car running and the golf clubs in the back ready to go, you could make some magic.
It could happen. There's nothing saying it can't. How do you look at this, because I'm choosing that approach for the final five games after you've split the last eight and weathered some serious storms injury wise, the loss of your starting quarterback and just the inability to finish games for the most part, until you did it against Minnesota by way of a thirty yard field goal by Cairo Santos.
Well, we're in the midst of an El Nino winter, so there's no guarantee the outside environment is going to be as hostile as we've seen it in the past.
So maybe we'll get a stretch of some nice weather.
But when you look at how young some of the key components of this team are, you don't have a chance to finish on a with your arrow pointed down. And it's like Coach Stanfeld, my offensive line coach, says, look, as long as your arrows pointed up, you're going to get coached. If your arrow starts pointing down, you got
to look to be replaced. So I think that should be incredible incentive for all of these young guys on this football team, because there's not a player in my mind right now that I said, oh my god, this guy needs to be replaced immediately. So I think that needs to be the attitude that's inside that locker room about finish this finishing the season on a high note.
Yep, Maddy Bruflus giving everybody painted footballs with the word finish on it because that was their go all week. They finally made that goal a reality against Minnesota and it should be a theme for the rest of the season. Take a chance download the Bette Rivers app today, as promised, our lengthy interview with former Bears quarterback Eric Kramer The Ultimate Comeback, his book It's Riveting Eric Kramer, our guest
here on Bears. He's got a book out called The Ultimate Comeback, Surviving a suicide Attempt, Conquering Depression, Living with a Purpose. There's so much there and without having read the book just yet, but talking to people who have scanned it, it could be the precursor to a movie. Your life has been an unbelievable roller coaster ride, thank God, and for us who love you, it is way up
on the high tracks right now. So I don't even know where to begin, but let's begin the fact that you were a football player, come out of California looking for an opportunity, and you had to go the long way.
You got to you had to go the hard way, didn't.
You more than once? But yeah, yeah, and so but you know, like like it's often mentioned, you know, through adversity you can't really achieve and become who is a person? You want to become as you look backwards, you have
to go through adversity. Like the people that are born into perfectness, which there isn't any but the people that are born in the front of the line and don't encounter adversity early will encounter it later and then won't know how to handle it purple like people like me, who's every guy in the world encounters it all the time, and so it becomes part of life, really, and which is fine because that kind of helps tone who you are, not only in what you do, but as a person.
Pierce College, I never even heard of it JC then the NC State because they looked good in basketball. You just, hey, I'm gonna throw my head into that ring. Then as a senior, the ACC player of the year a hail married to beat South Carolina and you're now ranked fifteenth in the nation and you go undrafted.
Did you think you were gonna get drafted?
The Saints signed you, then you wound up with the Falcons and then off to the CFL before you even got to the NFL.
Right, So no, I did not think I would get drafted. It was funny though, that because the draft back then wasn't what it is today. It was not on the ESPN, and so I basically and it was all done, I believe in one day. I remember late that day or
whenever it ended, and so they had twelve rounds. Back then, I got a call from Ray Perkins saying, we're thinking a draft and you or the quarterback that just played for him at Alabama, Mike Schulett, And so they took Mike and and so you know, I ended up getting a free agent try out with New Orleans, which the day I got there, I knew I was going to get cut because back then there were no such thing as a practice squad, and they had two guys, so By Bavier and Dave Wilson. So any event, Uh yeah.
So I was back in school and probably you know, I was gonna graduate, and I was helping out with the football team, and I get a couple of calls to go playing a strike, and so I did, and end up going to Atlanta. Played in three games, didn't play all that well in the first couple, played well in the second one, with third one, I mean, and they ended up keeping me. And then you're right, the next year I got cut, ended up going to Calgary because back then that was the only team when I
see a team. One guy. The head coach there, Larry Carherrett, was the brother of bil KERR Herrick, Northern Saints personnel director. So anyway, yeah, I went up there and played in their last six games. I remember getting there on like a I don't know Wednesday or something. Met with Larry and he hands me a playbook and he says, all right, if you have any questions, come back tomorrow. So I go back to the hotel with a you know, six inch playbook. I was very average to below average up there.
The end of that first year along with the second year, was only contract I had prior to that season. In nineteen what would have been nineteen eighty eight nineteen eighty nine, we have an inner squad scrimmage and that same head coach decided to make it a live on the quarterback scrimmage. So up there in Canada and the CFL, you get to have X amount of American players, which I want to say is six or seven. But if you have, it could be an American guy that has a parent
who was born in Canada. So we had our left tackle had never played left never played offensive line before in his life he would. I don't remember his name. He was a tight end that played at Oklahoma State. I want to say, the third play or fourth play, I'm dropping back and I throw a pass and Stu Lair, who's Canadian, great guy. There's no way Stu would have
tackled me. No way, because the ball is gone as he's going by this guy, this left tackle, he clips him from behind, had a paulting stew into my left knee, torn PCL. Done for the year. Yeah, it took me basically calling all the NFL teams, Detroit is the only one gave me a callback.
When you look at your life and you think about going to New Orleans and thinking, Okay, I'm not going to make this team. When you look at all the events that have taken place in your life, both good and bad, do you see a lot of things in your life in hindsight now that maybe you avoided or you didn't consider reality even you know, something like the trying out for a quarterback in New Orleans. Do you have hindsight that you see a lot of the events that have taken place.
Yeah, in a good way, you know, kind of like a lot of people will look back on their lives and say, you know what, despite this, despite that, I wouldn't change the thing. Well that guy's met. Yeah, I think a lot of that goes into helping you. It helps. It helped me to spur me on to study and be prepared. And I wasn't born. I didn't fall out of the bed being Barry Standers. I fell out of the bed being me as you look at me physically.
That's just I'm not a guy that you're gonna choose to go, Oh, yeah, that's the guy we're gonna lead our team. And so he kind of takes a little you know, battle through adversity, which is what pretty much life is, battle through a football season to get better, which is what life is. Yeah, I think in hindsight now I'm very grateful for the path that I end up going down.
Okay, question about depression then, because I think it's super helpful the story that you're telling, because it's a story that needs to be told to so many people out there. When you face a thing like depression, do you avoid early signs of depression and think I'll get over these or do you kind of think I have signs of it, but I'm ignoring them.
There's no way to ignore it. So it's kind of like it envelops you, kind of like maybe quicksand wood or sort of cloud would there's nothing to fight against, kind of enveloped your spirit and your thoughts and your perspective all at the same time. And I remember in the first time it happened ever, was in nineteen ninety four when I was in Chicago, and I went from Wow, somebody wants me to play for them to getting injured.
I think I came back and played one game after that and then wasn't And so now that train just left and I'm still on the platform. I remember not wanting to get out of bed in the morning and couldn't, but yet had to. I didn't want to make eye contact with people because that would invite a conversation. There's just no light wherever you are. It travels wherever you travel in a case like that. That was the first time I but I had ever anyone had even suggested
to me. There's these things called anti depression medication. I can't remember what it was, but I tried it. Like antidepressant medication doesn't work like an aspen it works thirty forty five days from the time you start taking it, and so it takes a while, and when it does, it's great because now it's kind of like an elevator that goes below the below ground, right, So depression is your below ground. Anti depression medication and therapy gets you
up to where you're back on ground level. What I noticed over time is that it kind of caps you off, like say you're building your normal building, there's thirty floors on it. Anti depression medication taps you out at about the fifth floor, and so it's not to me something that you want to live on for the rest of
your life. Therapy a close knit group of a couple, two, three, four friends that might have a little perspective, maybe a little bit older than you, and are good, you know, kind of what would you say, empathetic and curious listeners. And you know, just that to me is the mode for once you have it, that's what you do with it.
All right, let me fill in the blanks for our listeners. Eric Kramer, our guests, the former Bears quarterback who started with the Detroit Lions as well. We left off at the Calgary Stampeders, but in Detroit in ninety one, a spot starter through ninety three, the last playoff win for the Detroit Lions on the arm of Eric Kramer and the feet of Barry Sanders and the protection of A.
Lomas Brown and all those guys. Unbelievable story.
They're that team twelve and four and you beat the Dallas Cowboys before losing in the NFC title game to Washington. Rodney Pete, the man you mentioned earlier, was the starter. He went down in week nine. You beat out Andrey Ware for the backup job. That's also the season Mike Utley, as we all remember, the thumbs up, paralyzed from the chest down in a spinal injury against the Rams. Your nickname in Detroit was brass. We got to keep it clean on here, but brass. You can add the next.
Word to that. But he called it an audible Tommy on his.
First series as Allions quarterback after replacing Pete, and he was Cosmo because of the character Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld and then the Bear signed you in ninety four.
You mentioned the ninety four so you have five starts.
In Dave Wantstat's second year as head coach, they also had Steve Walsher on the roster added from the Saints that year. Andy Heck was your left tackle, Marv Cook came aboard, Jim Harbaugh left for the Colts, Denton McMichael moved on depression hit in ninety four, you couldn't get out of bed.
You're a Chicago Bear. And then in ninety five you tear it up.
First full season as a starter, sixteen games, thirty eight hundred thirty eight yards, twenty nine touchdowns, both remain Bears records, believe it or not. At the quarterback position, then, how the hell did you do it?
Kind of like what I was talking about before, is it?
You know?
I came from an offense in Detroit. When I first got there, it was Miles Davis was the offensive coordinator, and we'd run on the run and shoot. By the time I left, we had we would play with a tight end most times and occasionally trying of think, yeah, a tight end occasionally, but not a full back. The pass protections were vastly different, and I think it just took some time to figure out because there's a lot
to think about. I think one of the things that helped I went back and there was a guy named Kevin Wildenhouse, who was a family a Marriaga family therapist in Detroit. I had in touch with him. We eventually started working on ways I could. This is in nineteen ninety when I wouldn't even I was practice. I was on into reserve, and back then, if you go on into reserve, you're there for the year. I'm talking about practice. I was having a hard time slowing my brain down
to do what I was wanting to do. So we started working together and he got me through a way of like mindfulness training, which would be like you know, breathing and like where you're painting, he is painting a work picture of where I'm at, you know, like a calm setting, and then you can start to see things in a slow down fashion before they ever happened. And that's what I went back to. And this is back
in the cassette days. So if I didn't fly Kevin out, he would, you know, make these cassettes and talk into them in the night before the game in my hotel room. I'd be to that. You know. I always worked out a lot and watched film a lot, but this had a way of kind of I guess you would call it like the glove that all the fingers now fit into that pulled it all together.
Did the Bears did the coaching staff? Did they know you were suffering from depression?
No, I would, I would guess not because it wasn't something that I would. You know, there was no team psychologists, so to speak, right back then, and that's not something I would have felt at that time comfortable going in really to anybody on earth and other than I'm trying to think. Yeah, so I was married at the time, and Marshawn knew I was depressed, but that was it.
Did you ever have a game in that ninety five season, for example, you didn't think you were going to make it to the ballpark?
No, No, in the ninety five season, I wasn't depressed at all. I did during the season. Also, it was every day there for a while. I didn't want to go okay, okay, out of bed meant getting somewhere, and I don't want to go wherever it was. And so whether that was practice, game, whatever, it was that feeling that I had come to the Bears for the first time, and prior to the season, they said, you know, we want you to be the guy. So when I came
out of Pierce College. That was I only went there because it was the junior college down the street, and we ended up being ranked No. More in the country at that time. Ron Turner was the quarterback coach at Pitt, so he recruited me then. But they had a guy named coming back named John and Jimmy who had started and played as a junior, well, he still had one
more to year go. And so here we are ten years later, and you know, Ron's part of the staff that's getting me to Chicago, and I with anybody, I don't think I would have felt comfortable sitting down in a chair other than you know, a therapist or at that time, my wife. But you can't hide it from the people you live with, right So, but outside the door, it just wasn't something I was very comfortable with at all.
You know.
It wasn't like today where it's sort of like mental health. The word mental and health kind of never did go together back then. And I mean I knew it was what was going on, but it didn't mean I had the perspective of knowing what to do to get rid of it.
Eric, when you talk about you don't get drafted, you go to junior college, you go to the Canadian League, you go to the strike season, on all these seas, What was your ignition switch for Eric Kramer to make Eric Kramer believe that he could play and succeed as a quarterback in the highest level of the sport that's offered.
Well, I think going back as a kid dad, despite all signs from anyone else, despite what everyone what else didn't think, he believed in me. And I'm not saying he did that in the best positive way. So I just you know, I did have success, it just wasn't sustained. I felt like, if you work hard enough and I love doing it, I loved working hard anyway, that eventually something's gonna click. And honestly, in when I was after NC State and after getting cut by New Orleans, that
was it for me. There was no USFL or World League or NFL Europe or anything like that, and so yeah, I was done. And it was only because of the strike that I continued. And then but eventually that ended, and so it was only the CFL that was available. And then what happened. The only thing that happen and there was that, you know, as one last ditch effort. I called all the NFL teams and that was it. So had no one called me back, there's nothing else
to do. So I thought I was in to go coach high school.
Well with Eric Kramer here on Bears, et cetera. He's written a book, The Ultimate Comeback, Surviving a Suicide Attempt, Conquering Depression, Living with a Purpose. All right, so there's a lot there. Clearly you held it in for a long time and now you've laid out your life in two hundred and thirty three pages for the public to consume, and the overreaching message about those who are dealing with
gripping depression. But along the way, all these tragedies and an attempt on your own life, how do you put it on to context? And how therapeutic and or difficult was it to allow to be put out there in print after you did it and then looked at it with the help of an off there as well, William Croyle.
Interestingly Bill Keynest, who when I was with the Lions, he was their media relationshiprect great guy and Bill just retired last year. So I kept in contact with Bill over the years, kind of kept him informed of what was going on. He contacted a friend of his name, Dan Wetzel, who writes for the Yahoo Sports Daniel Wussell writes a nice article where actually, at the time a friend of mine, Ana, who is now my girlfriend, we
went to high school together. He contacted her somehow saying, hey, would Eric be interested in collaborating on our butt together. You know, I've never heard of William Croyle and he goes by Bill and so we started talking a little bit. And what he'd done is he took that article and
researched me backward. Then I said, you know, I said, hey, is there a book you've written that I think Bill's written maybe eleven or twelve books or something, And he says, well, here he wrote one on It's called Angel the Rubble and it's a it's about the last survivor of the nine to eleven attacks. So I mean it didn't take long to figure out he knew what he was doing. Anyway. Yeah, we started collaborating on this and over the course of maybe a couple of years. Yeah, now you see what
you get. And I think it's a very well spelled out book on It's got a little something in there for everybody. As I mentioned, my parents, both of them I had kind of difficult relationships with through most of life for different reasons. But I also came to later in life except them not only for who they are, but because everybody's childhood plays some significant role in who
they become later. Not either not that you Well, my dad had a childhood nobody would want, and my mom came from from a little different background in any event, So there's some of that in there. There's the relationships that I have and had with my kids, and there's some football sprinkled in there too. And as you mentioned, depression and how to you know, not only deal with
it and get through it, but give it. Gives perspective to people who have it, because typically those who have it battle with it by themselves, and people that watch it happen to others don't have their perspective. And so I think it's both for the people that have it and the people that are near someone who has it, which is a vast majority of the population. And at whatever age it comes, someone's going to get it and someone close to them is going to have it. Anyway,
that's not the whole book, is not that. Uh, there's there's some you know lightheartedness to it as well. That book there's a lot in there in those whatever you mentioned two hundred and thirty few pages, there's a lot in there. And I've gotten calls from friends of mine who I've known for a long long time, literally yesterday morning.
And they're festing up a little bit.
Not festing up, but people that have said, you know, Eric, you and I have kind of counseled each other through the years. I had no idea this also was going on. I mean that in a good way. And so yeah, I just think it's a powerful book in not too many pages, and that's my hope that it'd be impactful.
Eric, until we get a chance to have enough time to sit down and read the whole book. Is there one chapter that you would say, look, this is a must chapter that if you only have a little bit of time, read this chapter and then when you get time read the book.
That's a good question, and I wish I had one right at the top of my head. There was a woman who wrote it that's a friend of Bill Croyle's, and she was like the master. She was like the Ciskel and Ebert of book reviewers, even though she's not paid for as one. She's done a lot of reading
in her life. She mentioned several chapters, but I think chapter thirteen in particular, and I don't even know what it's about, but I just know that it was impactful to her in a way that you know, she mentioned that nobody's really the good part to her was that nobody is singled out in terms of I have no vendetta against anybody I have. I think for her, she knows nothing about football, not zero, and yet it was impactful to her in ways that you know, we're just
sort of more about life. And I wish I could answer your question Tom more specifically with like, here's the chapter, but I can't.
Well, I mean, as soon as I opened the index, I would read the list of chapters, and if there was a title of a chapter that kind of captures my attention in a few words, you know, maybe that would happen. But I was just thinking, you know, if there was a must you know, a go to chapter.
You know why Eric, he's got a short attention span.
So I'll just say this, so I I when my suicide attempt happened on August eighteen, twenty fifteen, I had taken some time leading up to that day of kind of choreographing or planning this out. One of the things I did was I wrote seven or eight letters to people in my life, one of which was my son Dylan, who at the time was about to be a junior in high school. The first chapter that letter is not in full, but in parts laid out. The last chapter is also a letter I wrote to Dylan years later.
So this book, in my opinion, is a long letter to Dylan, meaning that when Griffin passed away at age eighteen, Dylan was thirteen in eighth grade. I remember the chair he was sitting in when I told him it was like watching a glass vase crept, you know, explode into a thousand pieces. And over time he's lost now both sets of grandparents he has. His dad on purpose tried to leave this earth and eventually didn't go to school right away out of high school, he didn't go to college.
Eventually he did so his dream was to play baseball, and that's what got him going to college here. Just recently he graduated from college, but his baseball world came to a halt, and his girlfriend, who he'd been with since he was a junior in high school broke up with him. So he's had a tough road man, and so I felt like this was a way to honor not only Griffin, but Dylan too, And that's why I did this. At the end of the day, I think
helps not only people, but Dylan in particular. You know, I think as he gets older, he's twenty five now, this is something he can go back and refer to as he gets older in life. If you if you boil it down to one reason, that's why. That's the reason I wrote this.
Eric final final moments here as such difficult conversation. But I don't know how you do it with a smile on your face, which we are blessed to see. Is it also heighten your awareness then of others that are dealing with stuff that you come privy to or you even wonder about because you know your own son, Dylan here at our guardrails, so to speak.
For sure. And so there's a you know, it wasn't that long ago, maybe two weeks ago at the most, where I was in Chicago, someone had asked me to come speak at their company. It's called Lack Talents. Is it's a nation's largest dairy company and the guy who asked me to come, I've I've been on his bared podcast called Just Another Year, and Nick asked me to come out there. And so, in addition to the hundred people or so in the room, I was talking to
everybody that worked for Lactouse across the country. They ordered I guess a lot more books after that, and one woman in particular who came up to me afterwards, she said, you know, my mother passed away a few years ago and my sister committed suicide about ten months later. And I said, yeah, I said, what people like your sister and me at the time, you lose perspective on what this is going to do to other people, because for you, those that commit suicide, it is over those around you.
That is day one for them to deal with what just happened. Yes, I do have a good sense for this is a growing issue. It's not like it's never been there before, but it's a growing awareness right now. And so that's in addition, there's a program that I've helped put together. It's not off the ground just yet, but it's called Mental Health Touchdown and it's going to start out as a couple of after after school programs, one for one for fourth and fifth graders, one for
sixth graders. So in the area I live, which is Thousand Oaks, it's where the rams practice and so on. Uh two middle school campuses there are a boys and girls club on each and in the elementary part they're
tied into the county as well. And there's a woman there, the woman I've gotten to know over the years, name's Katherine Kashmir, and she deals with her nonprofit as bright Brite, and I never remember what it stands for, but she and her the people that work in her nonprofit worked within the school systems within Venturer County and actually go into schools and work with kids on acting out different scenarios that typically right now, their funding comes from the
county venture County typically around drug awareness and drug prevention, alcohola prevention. I partnered up with her. And then there's another gentleman named Tim Thane who back when Griffin was about I say, about thirteen years old, he was kind of in between his eighth grade, which is last year of middle school and ninth grade's first year of high school. We had Griffin go and I actually flew him there to a place called Second Nature was out in Utah.
It's one of these therapeutic wilderness camps for kids. And so he was out there not long enough and when he came home, Tim Say at that time was the founder of and ran a company called Homeward Bound. Homeward Bound was the transition home from where you just came from.
And so anyway, so that's it was a three day in home workshop centered around this thing called solution talk, meaning so, Jeff, if you're my son and there's you know, ninety nine things that I feel you should be doing but aren't, I'm going to focus on the one thing you are doing and make that the star. Because the relationship that you and I have is founded on what's good, not what's not good. And so we're going to build
it up from there. And so and at the end of those three days, Tim said, Okay, now, want you to call around to your friends, neighbors, family, you know, doesn't have to be all of them, but enough, And so he did that and when they all showed up, sat in the living room, Tim gets up, introduces himself and then kind of what he's tried to help mold here. And then Griffin at that time got up and said, hey, this is what this experience has been like for me,
and I would like to keep this going. And can you you, you know, the group from time to time check in on me in terms of like again, he's thirteen at the time, so you know, take me to lunch or just a phone call, come over whatever. So that's the idea of the home team, and this program is going to get kids and families, kids, especially learning
and acting out. First of all, how to identify some of the characteristics that you find as an individual you want to aspire you want to have in your arsenal too, you want to aspire to be that you get enough of those scenarios acted out, and then now you start to deal with okay, how do you approach somebody like that to say, hey, I've noticed that when people talk to you, you listen in a way that is attractive
to me or whatever. And you start to build this little home team that could be a coach, a parent, a student, a friend of yours that might be a couple years older. They can kind of serve this little mentorship role. And now you start to at a young age, which will include your parents, start to develop this home team.
So now, well, this kind of carries you up through high school eventually, and you're going to have now once you get to high school, you're going to have spent the better part of your life cultivating Over time that home team, hopefully you'll be on someone else's you earn your way on there too. And so that's the idea is that before it ever gets started, you kind of take this proactive approach to.
Cutting it off at the past, have people.
To talk to where you know, typically this happens in an isolated incident or an isolated fashion. You somehow become isolated, either do it to yourself or somebody else does it to you. And like we've talked about in the early going, challenges are coming like it or not, and so good things are going to happen, some not so good things are going to happen. And so the more you can mold this little home team around you, and your challenges
are going to change over time. The people on your home team are going to change over time, and you're going to become aware of yourself, your own needs. And just as the nature of life unfolds, that's what happens. It kind of evolves, and so that's that's what's going to happen on that level.
Well as a football player, grit and perseverance and part of the part of the way you make it and you need that in life too, and you got all of that and then some. And the crazy thing about it me covering the team back then, I always remembered you just as a smart, witty, funny, easy going dude with not a care in the world. And it couldn't
be further from the truth. But hey, man, glad you're here and you're doing great work, and hope things continue to head in the right direction for you and your family. Check it out, The Ultimate Comeback. You can find the book great on Amazon and paperback or an e book and where else could you find it?
Or you have any other thoughts on it?
Before we go, Yeah, that's pretty much it. Amazon is a way to go, and yeah, hopefully you'll find it there. But I really just want to thank you and Tom for taking the time today and exploring this with me talking a little Bears football. And as I said, I think that the light at that tunnel, there's light in that tunnel, it's just not there. The train hasn't hit it just yet. But I don't think it's far away.
And I appreciate your time talking about this book and some of the some of my story that I think is going to be helpful to some folks.
Yep, therapeutic in many ways. Thank you for sharing big time.
Final thought, I can't wait to read it.
I know it's a problem, maybe a difficult book to read because how much respect and love that we have for you, Eric, But I think it's going to introduce us to a portion of your life that we should have known that we didn't know. But I appreciate where you're going.
Well, thank you guys, both. That means a lot. And like I said, I think this book is going to help some folks and and that's really why I did it.
Appreciate it brother, all right, tom as promised right. I mean we could have talked to him for several hours just about mental health, just about his journey. But what a strong human being that he is to somehow survive all of that.
Well, you know, you know, you can listen to a podcast multiple times and if someone out there listened to Eric Kramer and they feel that they know someone that could listen to it and benefit from it, or in any way, shape or form. I think it's a podcast that you would like to pass along as well, because you know, it's hard not to deny that you get emotional listen to Eric because the way that we've known him throughout his life and his career.
When you think about a.
Man that attempted suicide that's been able to survive and be stronger after the attempt than the difficulty he was going through before it, I think that it's an inspirational story that could could help young kids to adults out there equally as much.
That's everything that's happened after that incident in twenty eighteen. He remembers the date certainly, or excuse me, twenty fifteen. You're never going to forget that. But as a player ten seasons, eighty three NFL games, ninety two touchdowns and over fifteen thousand yards, and he had a great year with the Bears in nineteen ninety five through for three thousand plus again in nineteen ninety seven, something we didn't get to ask him about.
We laughed about it afterwards.
He was a youth football player with Adam Carolla, the comedian and one of the funniest guys around back in California. But did you know he was in an episode of Married with Children? I did not notice. Yes, did you see the episode of Al Bundy sells his soul in order to lead the Bears to the Super Bowl? I don't think I saw that episode, and now I want to find it.
I mean, one of the topics they talk about most of mar sure a little is Al Bundy. I think it was scoring five touchdowns in a high school game. So you get you attract those guys like Kramer.
Oh my gosh, good new Chicago.
United Airlines is getting brand new planes with all the bells and whistles, like Bluetooth connectivity screens at every seat in a room for everyone's rollerbag. United proud to fly the Chicago Bears and you too, Tom. Enjoy the rest of your time. We'll talk to you next week as we get to preview a second go around with the Detroit Lions, the leaders of the NFC North. I hope you'll join us.
Then. This has been another.
Bears, Etc. Podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts, be sure to check us out. We'll talk to you next week.
Bear down, everybody,