What's Good Command is Family. Brian Cople Junior here and this is the Next Man Up Podcast. Our Next Man Up is Jeremy Reeves, a guy with an amazing story. We talk about perseverance, we talk about family, talk about faith, and we talk about overcoming insurmountable odds. You do not want to miss this one. It's definitely a tear jerker. Make sure you have your tissues ready, Ladies and gentlemen. This is the Next Man Up Podcast. What's Good Command
This Family? This is another episode of Next Man Up. I'm Brian Coper Junr. With a very very special guess. It's only episode two, man, so you get to be my second guest. It's pretty cool, man, it's cold in here. Man comfortable, it's my god safety ex pro bowler Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy, how you doing to day?
Brother?
Oh man, I'm blessed man, I'm so glad you are here. Preparing for this interview, I realized, like man, me and his brother have like a lot in common, a lot of things to talk about. And you know, Next Man Up. For those of y'all that don't know, this is only our second episode. Next Man Up is a chance for us to see the man behind ain't the helmet, get to know you more as a person, not so much exit, and knows more about what makes you the man that you are. But before we get into all of that
background stuff, we do got to talk about it. Maybe we two and one, you know what I'm saying.
We three didn't go the.
Way we planned, however, still a winning team. How are you feeling right now at this point of season going in the week four?
Uh, you know, optimistic, but at the same time, you know you're you're kind of frustrated at how last week went. You know, the competitor and me never wants games to go like that. You know, that's frustrating as an athlete somebody that wants to win. You know, I hate losing, you know, I hate the feeling of what losing is like. And I hate going through that week off of a loss.
It sucks and like, you know, you think about all the plays throughout the throughout the game that could have went differently, or that you could have made, or you know that should have been better, and so just trying to work through that. That's like the worst part of like the loss, because you know, you left some food out there on the table. So but then at the same time, you gotta have a short memory. You know,
we're going into a new week. You know, God bless us with another day, hopefully blesses with another one, and you know that leads up to Sundays. So you gotta have that short mindset mentality and you know, work till the next week, and you.
Talk about that mentality knowing that, hey man, there's another game. You had that because you're a veteran man, you've been here and done this before. But this is a team, especially the secondary, of a lot of young guys. So what is that conversation after the first loss of this season to those young guys and saying, hey, all right, we got to move forward. Like what as a veteran have you been able to do to help them kind of move past this?
Laws just kind of, you know, teach them the game
how I kind of how I know it. You know, I've played a lot of football here, you know, whether it was special teams or on defense, and so I've kind of seen my mix of everything, and so just kind of teach them, you know, like, all right, this is something you can learn from, but you can't harp on it and dwell on it, because at the end of the day, teams scout and they self scout, so you know, we're gonna get the same things that they think are the weakness of certain defenses, and they're going
to try to exploit that. And on special teams, you know, if they see a weakness and rush or if they can set up a return, look, they're going to set up certain things to do that. If they saw that it was, you know, a weakness for us. So those are things that you just gotta harp on. But at the same time, like you got to be getting ready for the next opponent, So you don't dwell on the past. It's over. He can't do nothing about it. You fix what needs to be fixing, you move forward.
And as a better answer your sixty year right, six six years, I mean you've kind of seen it all at this point, right, How it's going into this season different than every other season you've gone into Personally, Yeah, personally.
Yes, sir man, I just you know, I I'm not on edge, you know, for me personally in my career, it's always been like, all right, I'm fighting for like a chance to be on a roster, right, I've been a practice squad guy for I don't know how many years. It's felt like it was forever, So like I just kind of went through that mental gymnastics of like I have to be perfect because I have to do everything to stay here. Right, But now last year, after the year I did last year, now it's just about letting
it loosen, having fun. Man. There's no uptightness or tense about me. You know, I'm just to play football and I'm here to do it at a high level. You know, last year was a glimpse of what I can be, and this year is just really letting it go.
And we're excited to see you let it go. Man, We're excited to see what you're gonna bring this season. But like I said before, this isn't much about the X and o's. It's about talking about the man behind the helmet, right. So I want to take it back to your hometown.
Right it's coll of Florida. Yeah.
What does Pencacola, Florida mean to you?
In your own words? Love? You know what I mean. That's the best way I can describe it. Man. That's a place that you know, it surrounds you with love when you need it, you know. And my trials and tribulations and when I've went through in my life of you know, the football aspect of it and the personal side of life. You know, the city's embraced me and they've loved me, and they continue to give me that love even when things weren't going the way I wanted
it to. And when things did, you know, it was the same love. So it's you're gonna get the same consistency no matter what you know, good or bad. They're gonna be there for you. They're gonna rock with you, and they're gonna have you back regardless. So man, it's a it's a blessing to be from a it's like that where it's just just tight knit and and everybody's really pulling for the for the guys to win. Everybody wants to see each other win. Man, it's a lot
of guys from Pensacola. They're in the league. You know, you got Martin Emerson in Cleveland, you got Alex Otherwood in Chicago. It's it's about Michael Carter and the Jets, you know. So it's it's a it's a ton of guys. Now, Witherspoon just got drafted to Seattle. So it's a lot of guys. You know that the city's pulling forward and you know they want you to win. You know that's because it's a sense of pride behind that for that place. And so I mean, it's beautiful, man, It's it's a lot of love.
You talk about that love. But the guys you just named, you nameing some real dogs like you're named some guys that got a chip on their shoulder come into the league improving a point? What about Pensacola makes y'all like that and breeze these dogs that is coming into the NFL.
Man, it's only the mentality there is, and I mean it's it's it's crazy, but it's true. It's like, I mean, I grew up in the military home and then my parents. I was blessed to have both parents and my life. But the reality was my parents couldn't afford to go to college for me, to put me into college, you know. So the mentality was, if I don't make it in football, I don't know how to get school. I don't know how I'm going to get another chance out of second education.
And so the mentality was that I have to make it like this because if I don't, I don't know what's next. So there was no for most of those. Actually, I'm gonna say every one of those guys that I just named, there was no plan bow. You know, every you know, you hear it from a young age. You hear teachers, you hear from coaches. You know you gotta have a plan, but you gotta have something to fall back on. That was there was no plan B. This
is a play A that was playing. Gotta work because if it don't work, then I don't know what's next. You know, you get to that when you get there. But right now that's the focus, is just that, And I can say that for all of those guys out are there, they just they understood, you know that if I don't do this this way, then I don't know how it's gonna happen.
And having that understanding and mentioning that you grew up in the military family, first, all shout out to your parents, thank them for the service. And a man, I also grew up military.
That's what I'm talking about.
The things we have, the comments, and it's funny because like almost all my friends other than the ones I grew up with in military homes don't really get what that means when you say I grew up in a military family.
They know about, you know, the service.
They know about the accolades and you know what I'm saying, the uniforms and things like that. They don't really know what goes into growing up in a military household with two parents that have military mindsets, right, speak on that a little bit, and also like how that played a part in who you are today.
You know, it was so my parents when they were out of the military, well when I was born, my parents were out, but my father went from the military. He went from the army straight into law enforcement, so he became a police officer. So it was very structured, you know, like day to day life was very regimented. It was you know, you wake up, I woke up. I woke up at the same time every day. You know. I had school start at seven forty five. I had
to be up. We lived. I lived in Cantonment, which is right outside pens Cola, so it was probably like a thirty minute drive of school, so you got to get up at least at six thirty.
At least that was like the latest you can push it.
Yeah, so six am. I'm going from from there, I wake up, I make my bed, I go into the bathroom, brush my teeth, wash my face. From there, I go into the kitchen, I make my lunch. And my dad used to have these two coins. We used to do these, uh, these little breakfast sandwiches. My dad before he went to work or if he was working late at night, he would put the sandwich from the freezer in the fridge with a thaw. That way, in the morning time I could just put it in the microwave and it would
be ready to go. So I go in there, I put that in the microwave and make the lunch. Then I'd come back, I get dressed, I'd eat, and then I'd grab my lunch and I was out the door, like and it was like that every day, right, and so like when my dad came back home from work and my mom, did you know, the first thing they did was check to see the bed was made. So my dad would get off at different times depending on
what shift he worked. My mom she worked, you know, a regular nine to five, So like they would usually get home before I did because I had practice or a baseball practice or football practice. After school. So I was getting home at like six, so like they are already home, they've already seen it, so I wouldn't. I would get a text if something was right, right, like the bad gotta be like no wrinkles, it got to
be tight, right, like the sheets can't have any Like. Yeah, it was very old, right, It's very It was very regimented. But at the same time, like as a twenty seven year old man, now like that shaped how I am now as far as like how I go about my business personally and professionally, you know, So like it made me regimented, and you know, what I do on my off days. And then it made me bled into like what I do when I'm at the facility, what time I'm waking up, How am I taking care of my body?
What am I doing? What's my routine? So but I'm thankful for it. I hated it then. It sucks. It was terrible then, but like it paid off when I got older.
And you talk about the things it did for you, the way it benefited you as a man as a football player. But there's got to be those moments where you're like talking to your kids, right, they didn't grow up like that they didn't have military backgrounds. It just grew up as just normal everyday civilians. Is there anything you hear where you're like, dang, that sounds good or man, I wish I would have had that as a child, because you know, I was in such a strict household.
I mean I would say yes and no. As much as strict as my parents were, there was a level of trust, right So like as I became a young adult, my parents the least became looser. And so as I grew up, you know, they allowed me the freedom to do things and be a young kid, you know, make mistakes and fall and learn how to get back up because at the end of the day, you know, my parents, our parents aren't going to be here forever. One day.
You gotta learn how to walk on you on two feet, and so just as much as they had that tight at least they also let me learn how to become my own man. And it taught me something that you know, some people didn't get out of early age. You know,
some people learn it later in life. You know, I was able to, you know, learn self discipline, you know, and mature at a much sooner rate than a lot of sometimes my parents because just of that growing up in that structure that I had, it taught me things about myself that I you know, learned that I could play in my day to day.
And it's evident hearing you speak how big your parents were in your life, how much of a role they played, and especially your mother. I know that you guys have a very very close relationship. November twenty twenty one, you know, things kind of took a turn. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? What happened and what you speak on it, and you know how it affected you.
You know, it's I can tell you exactly how that day is. It's like sometimes people go through traumatic experiences and they have like a mental block of that experience, but like mine is vivid. Like I can remember I was we had just got off of practice. We were going out to play Vegas that week, and I remember my sister called me in Call of Duty. I had a monitor I have. It's kind of wild, the traumatic
It's wild what trauma does. So like I was playing Call of Duty and I remember my sister called and I was sitting in the stool and she told me, you know, Mom's unresponsive, and uh, you know, my first reaction was, like my mom's okay, she could be okay, Like I see my mother battle everything, you know, as like a child, Like there's just mentality in this thought process of like our parents are like super superhumans, right, they suffer in silence, and you know, and as a child,
you never know everything that your parents go through. Right, That's the part of being a parent is like you deal with things on your own, and you don't you don't want to bring that on your child, put that on your child. So my mother was very strong woman, and so you know, it turned out that she wasn't okay, you know, and I just remember, you know, briefly, you know,
I kind of just lost it in the moment. You know, that's I'm not hundred miles away from home, you know, and I just wanted to be there, Like in that moment, I wanted to be with my family, with you know, my mother. You know, A part of me thought there was something I could do to stop that, you know, there's something I could prevent, some way I could prevent that from happening, you know, And I think at the end of the day, it was just that was just
her time, you know. I think God had told her that she served the purpose and it was time to come home, and there was comfort in that, you know. But you know, in that moment, you don't think of that. You know, it's kind of blotchy. I remembered in spurts like what I did and what happened, you know. But you know, I never played that PlayStation again. I sold it and I sold that monitor. I don't touch it anymore,
you know. It's just that I don't know what it was about it, but I just wouldn't touch it, you know. And so that was part of that trauma, that kind of I just I didn't want to relive. I didn't want to go through it. And I remember flying home, and that was probably the hardest part of that whole thing, was going home. I remember being on the plane and I remember being so close, feeling like I was so close up in the air, but being like so far away at the same time because I knew what I
was going home too. And that was hard. That was tough because at that time in my life it seemed like nothing was going right for me, right like the year before in twenty twenty, like it was COVID and I ended up coming in and playing defensively on football side of it, and I was playing well, and like I got to start against Dallas, and I balled out against Dallas and I had a great game and ended up starting the rest of the year and play well
and played in the playoffs against Tom Brady. And so from the football side of it, I felt like I had got over that hump that I had been facing for four years, you know, like that man, he's just a guy we could plug in here and there. I'm like, nah, like I finally showed that, like I'm more than and what I got labeled as, you know, maybe to the public. And so from that point forward, when I get to twenty twenty one and I'm cut again and I'm right back to square one. After I finished on such a
hot note, I'm like, what more can I do? Like what more do I have to do to show that, like I belong here? I know I belong here, But what more do I have to prove? I'm not proving anything to me? I notice, right, last year wasn't a shock to me, Like I knew to who. I knew who who I was, Like I knew I said it. You give me a full seventeen, I'm gonna show you what I can do, you know, and like I got that, and so it was just going through that right back
over again where I'm cutting. I'm just fighting for my life again, and it's just like I don't know what tomorrow is gonna bring, and then you get that on top of it. It was it was hard, man, It was a lot of you know, that was really the first time in my life where like not emotional person. I'm very introverted, Like I don't express my feelings a lot.
I think that just comes with being a man, right, you know, there's that stigma of like men, you're not supposed to be you're supposed to be tough and you're not supposed to be vulnerable. And like I grew up like that because my dad's like that, you know, militant, you know. So it's very like you deal with it internally. And that was the first time I didn't internalize things, you know, I just kind of let my feelings out there, how I was feeling and what I was going through
mentally and emotionally. And you know, I can just say like I had a village. It took a village, you know, and I had a village that really just helped me. There was a lot of days where I cried, a lot of days where I was sad, and I was angry and I was frustrated. You know, you can even throw it in depressed in there, but you know I had a village of people that you know, really got me out of that tough time.
You talk about that moment where you let you release, right, you let your emotions go. And it's something admittedly, like you said, it's not something you really doing. Like you said, it's a man thing. It's only a man thing. It's a black man thing where our dad's teachers. Hey listen, nobody gonna cry for you, nobody gonna feel bad for you. This life is tough. Suck it up and shake it off. Right. So when you have that moment where you say, okay, I'm gonna let loose like this is too much?
Yeah, what did that do for you?
Man? Did that teach you okay, it's okay to release this emotion? Did it just feel good or did it just add to everything that you were already going through?
Nah? Man it it honestly was the best reliever I've ever had. And I say that because I don't even think in the moment I was really crying or or emotional about just that. I think all the emotion that was let go was everything that I felt that I just never said or handled or addressed. You know, it took me to become twenty five years old to really realize, like all the things that I was going through and
I just never addressed. You know, it goes back to the story you hear where you hear you have a boy and a girl, right and as a girl when she's a child, and a boy when they're a child, when the girl falls off the bike, you know, the parents say, you know, it's okay to cry, you know, it's all right, let it out. And then as a boy, you know, when you fall off that bike, you know, big boys on cross suck it up, you know, get right back to it. And so that's the mentality that
I had and I carried that my entire life. So like going undrafted, you know, breaking my back in high school, you know, losing friends that I've lost, you know that I've seen, you know, whether that was going to jail or being killed, losing family members. That was something that when that happened, all of that came out at one time, every bit of it. Like it wasn't just my mother,
like that was the root of it. But I think all the pain that I kind of felt and internalized all came out, man, And it was just was like a weight off my shoulder, man. And I just remember. One of the greatest things I remember is like my mother used to always tell me, you know, you never questioned God and what He's doing. And I remember when she when I got to know she passed, like I was like like why, you know, you know, I think the human side of us always asks why why does
this happened? You know. I try to be a good man. I try to do things right away. I try to treat people well, you know. And it's just like you keep knocking me down when I'm getting back up and I'm fighting, but it's like, I don't like what am I fighting for? If you're just gonna knock me down again, you know, you're gonna take something that was so dear
to me. And you know, I questioned that and that was where my flesh was weak, you know, and I had to you know, get that strength from my back in my spirit, and that came from other people you know, came from teammates, It came from you know, coaches, It came from teachers that I've had, It came from family members, friends, you know. Like, man like, I didn't get through that by myself, and I didn't have the year I had
last year by myself. You know, it was it was a collective, man was It was a collective.
And you know, you talk about not being able to really express yourself, and in that moment, you felt good, You felt released everything that you have been holding up and dealing with. You were able to let go. You know, not a lot of times, especially as a man, as an NFL player, right you this big tough dude, do people go about asking you like, hey you okay today?
Man?
Are you doing good? So like, not only do I want to ask you how are you right now? But what have you done to find ways to be able to now express yourself? Have you been able to get more comfortable after that?
Yeah? I mean one thing, so like the biggest thing that I did post my mother passing, it was like I went to therapy. Yeah, and I started talking to a therapist and I got over that stigma of like, you know, you don't need to go talk to a therapist, Like therapyst is associated with crazy people, right, like people that have mental illness. That's the stigma, Right, that's the stigma. Like, that's the stigma, and it's far from that. You know,
people that need an outlet. Right. It's hard to go to people where you think it's a bias to talk about things, and you know, especially in this industry that we're in, Like it's hard as a man to go to another man in his business and be like, yo, like I'm hurting, right, I'm hurting. I can't tell you exactly why I'm hurting, but I'm hurting because you have days like that. And the best thing that I did
was go talk to somebody that had no bias. They didn't know me, they didn't know me from Adam, right, and they just listen. You know, a lot of times we get caught up and wanted to respond to people, and a lot of people just want you to listen, like they just need a ear, right. And so I got that and I was able to just let my heart go on things that you know, were on me, you know, and that changed like the trajectory of how I go about expressing now, Like me and my girlfriend.
Now we're very transparent about how we communicate with each other, and like, if something's bothered me five years ago, I would have never said anything about it. I would have dealt with it internally and then kind of just moved on from it. But in reality, I was never getting over it. It was just kind of compartmentalized. And then it gets to a point where now it's just like
it's too big of an issue. So I got to point out things will bother me, you know, you talk about them, you know, and you express that if I'm sad, like I'm sad, you know, and I don't really want to talk. If I need some time, I say that. But like that's where I've gotten to the point now where it's just helped me just basic human communication, you know, because at the end of the day, you know, men or women, you're not supposed to go through things alone,
right like you weren't created to be alone. That's why you know, he was created from Adam, you know, you know, you built for relationship. Nobody was meant to be alone. And so when I really realized that, you know, I started you know, leaning on people, and that's okay, you know, that's what we're here for. Because the day we all brothers and sisters, you know, under the one true person. So amen, at the end of the day, that's what we That's what I did, and you know it's helped
me tremendously, you know. And so now you know, I have my days. Any human does. Anybody that goes through things, they have their days. And so but I know what those days. I don't go through them by myself, and I don't have to go through them by myself. You know, I got people that you know are there, and.
That support system is everything. You talk about your family, you know, all the people that were there for you, your faith, but also you have a team behind you, right, you have coaches, we have this team, we have Washington here, this fan base. What was that like having your teammates just rally behind you, having coach rivera be you know, almost like another father figure to you within all of that.
Talk about that a little bit and with having that team aspect of the support, how that helped you get through?
Oh man, it was it was beautiful. Man. I remember you know, the first two people I saw, you know, because this is this is how crazy I'm wired. I found out the next day. I found out that night that my mother had passed the way I'm wired. I woke up the next day and tried to go to work. I try to go to I try to go to work, and I just remember I couldn't do it. And I remember the first two people I saw outside of that were Kendall and Danny. They came to my house, you know,
and they just sat with me. They ain't talk much, they just sat with me because I ain't have much to say, and they just sat with me. And you know, that was just that presence of like them being there, and you know, that family environment of them just you know,
embracing me. And even the fans man, like, dude, man, it's been They don't get enough credit for like what's happened with me, but like I will tell you personally, like man, like I paid attention a lot to what's been said by those fans, and well they have a lot of days where I didn't know if I was really good enough to do what I'm doing, Like they kept me going. So like it's been loved. Man, it's
been beautiful, and I'm super grateful. I'm blessed, you know, just to have been blessed with, you know, the people that have been put in my life. Man, that's awesome to hear.
Man, And I mean your story. You know, practice squad, on a team, practice squad, on the team, practice quad, on the team, dealing with all of that, right while still going through life things that you had mentioned, right, losing your mother and all that, and then to get to a moment like last year where you get named to the Pro Bowl. You have that moment, very very emotional video where you know, coach Ron tells.
You, hey, man, you did it.
You made it. Now only did you make it, but you deserved it. Tell us about that moment because you overcome an emotion. Just talk to us about that. Walkers through that.
That was like you said, it was emotional, man, Like that was the said. There's a video on my Instagram. I said in twenty nineteen in an interview that I was going to go to Pro Bowl. Wow. Until that nineteen I was on prize squad that year. I didn't even play like that. And then you fast forward a few years ago or to last year, and here I
am in the Pro Bowl. So it just goes to show man that like I knew who I was going to be before anybody else did, right, you know, like when God says you got to walk the path that's narrow, like you gotta walk it, and whatever path that might be, that's that's your path. You gotta walk it. I did, you know, And sometimes I might have waivered it. I might have stumbled and even fel but like I got back up and kept walking it. And it just goes to show man that like it starts with you first.
And so just having all that and then in that moment him telling me that it was just it was emotional, man, because it was like I've been told know so many times, right, I failed so many times, and like in failure, I found like good and I found something to like keep me going and that was it, you know, And that was That's that moment that like the most gratifying thing
that I've experienced in football. Was like, yeah, man, like you overcame like God looking at like I told you, I told you just keep walking, you know what I'm saying, Like that's what it was for me. And just thinking to my mother in that moment as well, and just you know everything that she used to say, you know, she used to text me even when I was on the mother is just thing. They know when they don't,
they know it's something wrong. Even when you don't say nothing that she did and she takes She used to text me all the time, just you know what God has for you, no man can stop. And that's all she would say. And it was true, you know, And so I just the emotion of that and you know everything that I've been through, it just you let it go. Man, It's okay to feel I was feeling in that moment.
And as we rap, you mentioned your mom and you know she wasn't around for to share that moment with you. But what do you think she would have told you in that moment if you could have called her right after that, what do you think she would have said to you?
Uh, that's kind of crazy. I ain't never I've never been asked that before.
Uh.
I think she would have just said, you know, I'm proud of you and that I always knew this was going to be you know what you would do, you know, and that God's been with you the whole time, and uh yeah, yeah, yeah, I think she would definitely just say she was proud of me and that she loved me. You know that's so she was.
We have no doubt about that. Man. Well let me tell you, man, your command is family. We're proud of you. Man, We're happy to see what you got going. We got Philly week four. Baby, it's coming up, right, you got ties to Philly because that was your first team. Really, right, what do you feel about this matchup? It's a divisional match? What makes this kind of game? It's a little more important than all the other games. I know, it means a little something more to you.
Yeah, that was the first one that I got cut. So it's always personal, man, I mean every game that I play is personally. I went and drafted, so thirty two teams didn't think I was good enough to you know, be drafted. So in the in the back of my mind, like it's personal with everybody, but this is where I started. This is where I started at. So there's always that chip on my shoulder. There's always that feeling of like
it should have kept me. Yeah, should you know? And so I always going to this mentality in this game. With that mentality, you know, I'm pissed off, and I think everybody, especially after last week, it's pissed off, bad tasting their mouth. I know, I got one, you know, and so you just got to use that and funnel
that energy in the right direction, you know. And that's just going out there and doing our job at a high level of every play, you know, not trying to do too much, and just being who you are, being a player you.
Are, Jeremy. Man, we can't wait to see what you do weekfore, we can't wait to see what you do for the rest of your career. Man, what a great story. Thank you so much for being candid with us, man, being open with us, talking to us about things that I know aren't always hard to talk about. But that's the beauty of this podcast, right Next Man Up is being able to hear those stories. And I think that we all know you a little better now, and I hope you feel good being able to talk about that.
Ladies and gentlemen of Brian Coble Junr here with Jeremy Reeves, our guy, my brother Man. This is Next Man Up Podcast and until next time, we'll be back with more of your favorite commanded players. Jeremy, thank you so much for your time, Brother, appreciate it.
You guys.
Command this family. If you love this we have way more for you. Not only do we have a ton of podcasts for you to check out on our YouTube page, but this Sunday we will be behind Enemy Lives. We will be out in Philly for Command Center Game Day Lives, so make sure you tune in what we will be on the field in Philly giving you everything you need to know about your Week four matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles. Beat us there, don't meet us there