2x First Team All-Pro LB From The Colts Darius Leonard Joins Shawne Merriman

This dude can get after it, man, and he's had a lot of success early on. But more importantly, he's his personality is is infectious and we talk about it. We're gonna get into it and how he motivates other people and just people want to be around him. I'm also going to hit him with some Philip Rivers questions too, you know, I gotta do that. Uh. So here we go, Darius Lenard, what's up? Man? Are you what? Bro? What's

going on? No? I'm chilling man. So I seen you was No, No, you was in uh South Carolina at first. Right now you're in Tampa. Yeah, man, I trained the Tampa for the all season. Were you training that um at your Murphy your Murphy performance down here in Tampa, like in the Windshore area? How far is that from? Is that? Is that? How farther from like the im G capdel the IROG Academies in Sarasota right now, it's just a little bit out Yeah, that's a little bit

out there. But you're from You're from Southwood, South Carolina. We've yeah, South Carolina. So you know it's funny. Oh my, I got a lot of family down there in Charleston. So if you see some Merriman's out there, I'm not a ten. That's all family. That's what's up, man. So what's what's going on? Man? How you how are you feeling? You know, after after the season, did you have h you have anything done? Show? Shoulder's knees. Everything came out good.

Everything came out good, Thank god. Man. So I'll just just and chilling, trying to realize and get the body right before I started again. When uh you know, so, so I just seen probably I think no, wasn't it wasn't this morning. It was last night that you were talking about Cam. So because the reas. I brought that up because the whole surgery deal. And I try to explain to people that, um, when you have a surgery, it takes a minute to come back from. Like I

don't care what you have. You got a knee, a shoulder, like what when? And I had for my case, I had achilles. So that took a whole twelve fourteen month before I even was back to normal. So what do you what do you mean by that? You think Cam on ball lot this year? Oh? Man, yeah, man, I just you know, I see Cam. You know, he's better. He's the balls and he came to to the league. Man, all the hate that he gets, and you know he's out playing a lot of quarterbacks that get get a

lot of praises. And you know it's crazy that you know, they said he had a down year last year. But that was the reason why Tom Brady wanted to lead the Patriots. Now you look at the Patriots offense. Now, they didn't have too many weapons that Camp could throw too. CAMRA's running the ball morning, he was throwing the ball. And now that you know, you see pregnancy yesterday getting all these weapons. Man, So I'm you know, I know

what cam capable. You know, I've seen it. You know, I mean I grew up you know, I grew up in South Carolina, so you know the Panthers right there. So I mean, I've seen him on TV all the time, and he's a monster. Man. I just had I just got mad respect for him. And he's back against the wall right now. And you know when people back against the wall, they gotta come out swinging. And I just I mean, I see the way he works, and I just know you got confidence in him. That's that's dope. Man.

And speaking of quarterbacks, you played with my boy man Phil, uncle Phil Phil. So you know, people people always asked asked me about playing with Philip right, and you know I played with him from all those years. But you got a chance to play with him, and I say, man, this is one of the best dudes to be around, Like you just want to be a Runners dude. He's gonna fight, he's gonna talk back to you. And even on the defense side of the ball, that just that

always gave energy. And I'm like, you know, we're bawling out. We had all those winning years. You look on the offenside of the ball, man, and Philip over there yapping with you. He's over there and the dogs fight with you. What was it like, man when he came in the

locker room, And how was that experience? Man? For one, you know, he's just that ultimate competitive you know, no matter what we did for his cornhole boards or you know, just in pregnant, just you know, just competing and shooting basketball, everything he did he wanted to win. So when he came out to the field, I mean that was easy because I'm gonna trash talking here, trash talking. So I know that if he's talking trash, I gotta talk trash

and we gotta step up defensively to stop him. So I mean we we kind of work hand in hand. And then you know he's like he's smartness, Like he's so smart man, just like trying to learn the game from you know, and you know, for a young linebacker like me his seventeam season, you know, just trying to you know, ask him a lot of questions, see what's up. And you know, not too many quarterbacks are willing to sit down, you know, talk to a deep as a guy to teach them really the game. You know, on

the field, that guy like Man with any question. You got a guy cute. You know, if we out there on the field, we're playing, I mean we're playing in the game. Man, we out there, if somebody comes to the sideline, you know he's trained them right there on the sideline. Man. And it's it's crazy because not a lot of quarterbacks going to sit there and have the defense back as much as um Philip did. And that's that's what makes you want to go out and you

know you want to go out and play. You want to go out and sid you gotta get you got the Baltimore because if you get in the ball, you know he's gonna find a way to score. And you know you just just love being his teammate and just love him as a person as well. You got any cool stories because me like Phil notice everything. I don't know if if this happened with you guys, but we just have freestyle Fridays um in the locker room. And so Phil like he could sit he could sit down

with anybody, right. He'll come over there the offensive lineman, he'll come over the d line, he'll come over the dbs like he's around everybody. But one thing that the Phil did was he could pick up on anything. So we'll have a freestyle Fridays, whatever the latest uh rap song or whatever that was hot on the radio at the time. Feel it would kind of pick it up.

And so I remember a time we were sitting there in the meeting room and we were just kind of watching film and we hear somebody coming down the hallway rapping. So I'm like, it was Phil Philip Rivers. He did the same thing with us, because you know, he did it all the time. And you know the song, h I put a new budge that's all here, Like he walked down the hall and thinking that the whole time.

You like, I can't get it out of my my head. See, I'm glad somebody else see it, because nobody believe me. Nobody believe me when I told him, I said, feels like that man likes It's just something about him always make you want to be around. Like you said before, I want to play for him. And so I'm glad. You know, he came there four years. You know, everybody

got a chance of experience that. But no, now y'all got a new a new quarterback in there, you know, And what was what was the reception when when he got there when it was when it was kind of put out there in the media. Uh, you're talking as in the Carson of Phillips. That's in Carson. Sorry, Carson man. You know we're where the coach, coach frant you know, he called he called me the day before or something like that, and you know, he said, that's what we're

gonna do. And you know, I believe in everything the front office doing. You know, if they're gonna bring the guys, and I know they're gonna bring in the right guys in the locker room. And I played against Carson in two thousand and eight team a Rikie season and that was his first game back from his A C l Andree and he came in and he played. He played well. And you know he's been every ever since I saw him. You know, he's been playing great. And then you see him,

um that Super Bowl run. I mean, he was an m VP candidate before he before he towards me in Now he's coming back home with Frank Wright, you know, his offensive minding coordinator. So I'm definitely looking forward to you know, everybody just working on in you know everybody. Sometimes you know, you need that new beginning and hopefully you know, when he comes in, you know we're gonna

I mean, nothing gonna be easy. We gotta come in, we gotta work hard, and you know, hopefully you know he lead his offensive to the right direction, that's um, to the playoffs and win the Super Bowl. Did you did you get a chance to write to him yet? Did you you guys get a chance to speak on the phone or meet up yet or anything yet? Um? You know, once, I mean once everything got a fistal.

You know I shot him at tenism, but you know, I just welcome then tell him that, you know, if you ever do anything, you know, I'm here and just looking forward to you know the process. You know what it's dope, man is um So when you told me that, uh, I think we met right. Uh tell me that tell me that story, man, because I need to hear it. That's that's kind of crazy to me. Well, when I when I grew up, you know, my brother got drafted

in a No. Seven to sen Diego, So you know, I grew up South Merriman fan, So you know I wanted to you know, I wanted to meet you. I remember y'all played against Jacksonville and Jacksonville maybe oh seven or maybe oh eight, and you know, just coming out of locker room and after the game, you know, you came out to the family station and like you walked right up to me, gave me an autograph. You know, it was every since then. It was like damn you know, big Sean Merriman fan. It was just it was just

pretty dope. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app search f s R to listen live. You know, when I when I hear stuff like that, man, it's cool for me. But at the same time, I'm like, man, I'm old as hell, you know what I'm saying, Like like it would be clicking into me because I don't feel old. But you know, I had a d k on a few weeks ago, and you know he told

me something similar to that. I'm like, man, because we all we all got our guys. We watched me growing up, right, I remember, um, you know, like LaVar Arrington was with my with my favorite one of my favorite players, and so you get these dudes around and and from where I come from, we don't have. We didn't. We didn't have the opportunity to meet pros and meet other guys stuff like that. You you you know, your bro played, so you came across guys all the time. So me, that

was that was super dope. And then too one of my one of my favorite things about you manage your nickname. I always I wanted to because I think they were doing uh it was NFL Network because somebody did something when they had a whole piece on it and I heard about it, but they didn't explain everything. Um, but how how did you initially come up with that? Because I love nickname me having lights out? How did you

come up with that nickname? Oh man? It was actually in two thousand and two thousand and seventeen, I was playing against Clemson and I ended the game with like nineteen tagos to TFLs and the block field goal. And I came back on camp and somebody said you played

like a screen maniac. And you know, once they said it, you know, I stuck with it, and it was kind of my persona now because you know, I'm I'm like the most polite person you ever mean, you know, I've never always been humble whenever we like talk down to anybody, But then between the white lines, it's just a switch. You Now, I'm I'm that competitor. I want to I want to make every player, I want to make every talking. But that's when that maniac mindset come in. You gotta

you gotta put out your hair on Friday. You know, that's when you when you watch the game. Now, that's so many players who to play on the other side of the field. You know, they don't want no parts of it. And for me, you know, my mindset is every picture that's taken with a ball carrier got the ball in their hand, five three need to be in that picture. So that's that's that's just my mindset. I think that's what that that many minds say that that

persona and that's where it came from. That's you know what's uh the really the good thing about that, For one, you can live up to it because a lot of these cats get nicknames. And the same thing happened to

my sophomore in high school. I knocked out for four dudes in the game and I had twenty students come run up to me like, oh, you knocked those guys lights out, And I was like yeah, call me lights out and it kind of just stuff, but also too, man, I think that you know, your energy is infectious to the type, to the rest of the defense. You know

what I'm saying. Like when whenever I see you, you always around guys and you always either motivating them or getting on them or just sometimes meet that pick up in practice because you know how to get man like, especially on training camp, you look him like, Man, I ain't trying to anybody, anybody to say that they're trying to go out to practice and they feel good every day. It's a damn lie like, but yeah, I got to man, because for one, you know, it's a it's an honor

to it to be there. You know, I know it's tough, but you know you gotta enjoy what you do. I mean, you can have a nine in five center the desk all day every day. So if I can come out there with that great attitude, that great energy, you know, it rubs all because I mean, you know how it's pressed. Sorry, everything sluggage. If I go out there and streaming from the time I walk out of the locker room and to the to the last horn blows, and I'm just

full of energy. There's no way that somebody else is not gonna pick up that same energy, especially if I'm out here talking trash, compete and with the offices of guys. Now my deep is guy gotta step up because of the office guy is gonna step up and say, Okay, we gotta shut this guy up. So it's just, you know, for one, it's the competitive nature in me. You know, they just talk. Then for me, I'm just I'm blessed in so many ways that you know, I gotta have fun.

You know, not too many people can say, you know, I play an NFL. You know, I'm I'm gonna starting guy on the NFL. So I just enjoy what I do. Man. What's next though? Man? Because one thing I learned, like my early on in my career is when you have a lot of success earlier, you get on people rid off like at first, you know, they probably know you know, they probably know about you. They watch the film like,

oh this this dude can go. But when you had the type of success all pro program and when you have all this stuff happening to you early, you start to get on people radar. What do you what do you see teams gonna end up doing now because everything changed my first year, in my second and my second and my third. You get on the maps, many're like, okay, yeah, we need to do this. What do you see teams doing now that they didn't do before? Man, you know

it started. It started about mid way my second season, and you see a lot of teams on the first beginning of the game, they're going to sideline and sideline. They want to see me sprint sideline and sideline. And then towards the end of the game or the end of the quarter, the end of the half, you know, they said, we're gonna run right at them. We're gonna make sure there's two or three bloggings in front of

him so he can't make a play. So I mean, you just make sure that you know I stayed patient, you know, because a lot of cats and I gotta make a play. I gotta make a play, But you gotta believe in the other team guys on the field, so you didn't. I gotta make sure that I can tell you to just do my job and don't try to make a play, and just sit there and wait till it's my opportunity to make a play. So just making sure that you know when teams go side on

the sideline, don't get don't get fed up. Don't get fed up. Said, Okay, this is all I'm doing, you know, just I'm just out here running the round. But if you're doing your job, that's that's all that matters. Who who's one of the favorite you guys you love watching up growing up? Like who if? You if you can mock because I you know, I hate when somebody said, oh yeah, he played like this player all you know, because nobody don't. I don't want to be compared to anybody.

I'm sure you don't either. But who who was one of your guys many you watched growing up? Man of your game? After I don't believe it or not, man um I started. I started on the offensive side of the ball, so I was a big Reggie Bush fan. Like when I got you played offense, win I played. I played offense all the way through high school. I

got recruited to play receiver and linebacker. And when I went to South Carolina State, I actually started off as a receiver and then you know, um that because I went in probably like one eighty at the time, so they were like, you know, in uh in the spring, we gonna try your linebacker. So I went to linebacker and started making plays, and I never seen an office again until my my junior year. They gave me one rep. Um,

you're begging for that rep though, was you asking? Of course, listen, this is what I did every so every day my junior year, I seen my head coach, Jabrill Pepper's highlights every day they said, okay, you know, I'm gonna give you opportunity. And then he gave me the opportunity. You know, I ran the post route, you got past the safety touchdown, hold on, you scored on when that one opportunity you had that? Yes, sir, yes, sir, against Savannah State two

thousands and seventeen. That's so man. So are you are you lobbying now for them to give you any office of time? Of course, of course you know what you've been doing. I joke. I joke with him all the time, you know, just saying, you know, just throw me and throw the ball up to me. And I said, you know, I'm a big guy, big target. You know, you put me in the ren zone, put me the rens on, let me go up and get because you know I played basketball I was jumping about forty one for two

wins vertical. I have long arms on physical so I mean, I mean, you see my Instagram handle, it's missed the hop flight. I mean I was going around. I was dugging first. Come on, man, come on now a little. I'm not I'm not talking about the football players because when people ask me about playing basketball, I'm like, Okay, I was Ben Wallace. I was gonna give you ten and twelve boards and blocks. Becauld you who I was like.

I was like I was like a baby Brown. When Broun came in the league when he first really couldn't shoot, but he was bigger, and he was just you know, driving to the whole dugging on everybody, going to post, doing work in the post and after the great mid range. And that's what I can say to myself was because I was I was, I was like a I was like a four. But when I went to one a high school, but you know, they put me at a five. But so every big man they that was quick, they

couldn't they couldn't guard me down there. Hey man, I gotta see those highlights, you know, I gotta see something because you know, a lot of cash but like even man, I played basketball in high school and I did this, and now I'm looking for those highlights somewhere on YouTube, you young off. So I know they got my legs out there. They really don't, man, only only highlights. I got a basketball because I mean we we was in my high school, it was football and baseball that got

the most love, you know what I'm saying. So when it came to basketball, man, it was to a point where one year we put stats in, the next year we don't put stats in. So I mean they really didn't really care about basketball. Man. We we just started now and really saying, Okay, we gotta show basketball more love. And now you know we're we're making basketball bigger and

late view. But they don't have too many hot I don't have one highlight, and it does mean my maybe my probably my tener called I looked like I was real small, so it's probably in my tent gree year. UM, but I think it stats up in the and UM and the Sports Report somewhere with last thing, man, UM tell me about because I've reposted the day about your maniac foundation, UM, and when you posted on Twitter, I've retweeted it that day, but I didn't get I was

looking forward. It's I can get some more information on it. But tell me, tell me a little bit about that, you know, and you know, just coming come in front of hood man and you know, not really having too much growing up and seeing both sides. You know, I got two brothers in cars rain and one brother dead, and my mom had you got kids, got a lot of you got a lot of brothers and sisters, right, Oh yeah, my mom. My mom had nine kids. So I mean just seeing her work day in the day out.

You know, sometimes I didn't have a lot of stuff on, you know, for food and stuff like that. So you know, with my foundation right now, we want to start. We want to touch three through pillars right now. You know, the first pillar is having family put food on the table. The second pillar is you know, um math manias getting people. We're getting kids now todays man, just to fall in love. We're doing school work, you know, especially in the pandemic,

people sitting at the computer all day. I know, me, that's something that I don't want to do. So I can understand what the kids are going through. And you see it in South Carolina, mean Graves or you know they're going down the hill right now because you know, people don't want to sit still at the computer. And then the third one is getting kids more active, you know, getting them over their fitness and their health. And that

comes from the video games. A lot of people, a lot of kids nowadays, you know, they want to sit down and see it, um play video games. So we want to touch them three of aspects, and just trying to find a way to give back, man, especially to the communities that you know gave me absolutely everything, which is the Latest community and Indianapolis community that's dope, man, because of me, I come from kind of the same background. Man.

We gott grow up in pag County, Maryland and the Washington d C. And I grew up in the eighties and nineties. Then, Man, when that when that place was just terrible. And you know, one thing that always realizes that people always respect the guys to come back, Like you got some people to come out from out of town. They do some great stuff and whatever, but it's nothing like you know, dudes going back to where they come from.

Because what happens is what happened to me. And I don't and I don't know if it's if you're seeing the same thing too. But when I go back or went back, people start looking at you like, damn, man, he made it. You know he made it. I could do it because you didn't see these out of town on these foreigners to you that are going back and doing this work. And so you know, how how was that reception when you go back and do that. Man, you're getting you know a lot of support back from

when you come from. Yeah. Man, it's it's a lot of it. It's nothing but love. And I go back, you know, every I mean everybody loves seeing me. Then just you know, when I go back, you know, I'm at the high school every day. You know, I don't have nothing to do at high school, but I'm there, you know, just showing my face given because I sat in the same ceas the kids there, and I mean no teachers told me the same you know, say the

same thing. I had my eight name teacher. You know, we had to write a paper say what you want to be in life? And I said, you know me, I wrote, I want to be a professional football player. And he told me to write a realistic goals. So I mean he's still there. So if he told me that. Imagine you know, he's telling the kids the same thing. And it's crazy when you say people coming back and

they give their kids that at the motivation. I remember my brother first year in the NFL and he came back and did his first annual football camp and he brought Antoine. But they from you know, antwining for later you too. So when he came back, Antoine had on his Super Bowl rings and he came back and just you know, that talk was you know, if you want to make it, this is what you gotta do. And just seeing my brother and Antoine and I mean antny other thing to come through late view and say okay,

if I can do it, you can do it. That gave me that mortivating say okay, I want to be one of them. And I feel like you know a lot of professional or professional athletes or you know, any famous people, if they go back into their hometown more, I feel like there's so many other more people or more kids would stay out of trouble, because if you're going back, you're preaching, hey man, stay out of troublest, out of trouble. You can do this. You don't have to do that. If they can say, Okay, my role

model is telling me to stay out of trouble. Boom, I'm gonna stay out of trouble. And I feel like, man, people think they're too good to go back. Don't never let the moment be too big for you or thinking that you're too big to go back to your hometown. Use the ones that kid. And that's my whole mindset that I would never be too big for this small time. I would never be too big to talk to a kid.

And I just have that that giving they given the heart and I think that's one thing that that makes me so great because I have a have a great personality and I I just love to put a smile on other people's faces. My dude, man, I'm sure they appreciate it. And I appreciate you for taking a couple of minutes. Man, and I gotta get out there, so I'm gonna look at your schedule, got coming up, but I'll be at them games man to come up, come let you and then uh so you go to work. Man.

I can't wait to watch. Oh yeah, man, I'll be waiting for you. Man. I appreciate the opportunity to touch to you. Bro. Guys. Thanks for listening and twee another lights Out podcast with me Sean Maryland. Uh, that was sweet, that was awesome. And then I was I was trying to figure out I've seen a few specials on some networks about his nickname in Maniac and how he got it. But now that was cool. And also how funny was

that about Philip Rivers and then rapping. I tried to explain to people over and over and over for years that Philip does this, and they said, no, no, Philip River, don't wrap. I'm telling you Philip. I heard Philip rapping probably more than ten a fifteen times and ten or fifteen different songs. Uh. So that was cool. Also, good luck on his Maniac foundation and getting back to the criaive man, because at the end of the day, that's

what it's all about. So thank you guys for listening to another lights Out podcast with me saw Merriman, and uh, we'll keep it high. We'll keep another one coming in next week.