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Welcome to School Stories, presented by three M, the official science partner of the Minnesota Vikings. Tonight we're joined by Vikings legendary offensive tackle Brian McKinney.
Thanks again for tuning into another episode of Skull Stories. Our special guest was the much larger than life offensive tackle for some of the most historic teams for both your Minnesota Vikings and the Miami Hurricanes. Nowadays, he's an entrepreneur and advocate for players to get access to the post playing career services that they need. I think you're really going to enjoy tonight's conversation with old number seventy four Brian McKinney. Well, I'm absolutely thrilled to be able
to sit out on Brian McKinney. Brian, what are you doing nowadays? Just kind of give us a bit of a refresher on what your life is like and what are you up to right now?
I have a company called Let's Chat, so we do language translation in real time based off your device setting, so we can translate in person, presentation, websites, subtitling, I mean, you name it, we can do it. And we're about ninety between ninety seven nine nine percent accuracy. We do one hundred and four languages with one hundred different dialects. So we've done things for the NFL, translated different seasons for their game pass and things like that, Major League Soccer.
We're in food and beverage Bojangle's, Coca Cola, McDonald's, so I heard doing that. And besides that, also my foundation be major foundation where we especially where mission statement is healthy kids, healthy living, single parent homes, and mental health awareness. So I've done two events geared towards mental health, and the vicers have been you know, supporters of that as well, so I always thank them for that.
Now, is that part of it still in Florida? Is that? Is that where you're still living down in Florida? I still live in South Florida.
Yep.
And then like now with some of my charity events and especially the mens health part, I want to start branching off the different cities. So I've had talks with Jasper and let's Pico of putting together something and coming up here and doing it either for the players or just different people in the community, and then move it over maybe to Baltimore's I played there and something new Jersey, so I want to start moving that.
Around, all right. And Jasper Brinkley's new here, he's taking over a role of you know, players, this players support program unless Pico has been here forever. So it's great that you're still is you still enjoy like being involved Attle least in that way with with the NFL and being.
I do just because after retiring you realize it's needed. Because the guys have a tough time sometimes transitioning from life after and not fully knowing who their identity is once they're finished playing football, So that you know that aspect definitely helps.
It's a shock, isn't it. I Mean it's your whole life, everything you do, it's all based on that, and then that one day you wake up and yeah, it's over.
And like a lot of guys have started at you know, five or six years old, you know, and so that's been their identity for a long time, especially if they made it to the league, so six years old to you know, however long you played in the league as big chunk of your life and then figuring out life afterwards can be challenging for a lot of people. So
that's where the mental health part comes in. And a lot of people only want to talk to somebody who they feel like has been in their shoes, especially when they'd have been the bread winner. Like a lot of their family comes in with their problems, so it's like they don't feel comfortable going back to their family speaking, you know, having those conversations, so they'd like to talk to, you know, former teammates and guys around the league that they played with. So I was able to kind of
form like a group and actually did a panel. It was myself, Tommy Harris, and Ray Rice and then we had a mediator and we did it for the NFLPA and we had like a bunch of guys to tune in.
It was over zoom.
We had a conversation where guys were able to do that back and that was back in May because I was mental health for wear in this month. So we did that with the NFLPA and they're looking to kind of do you know more of those? And I felt like those conversations that need it.
Yeah, it's that stuff wasn't around back back when you were playing. So let's go back and you know, you there aren't many offensive line coaches or have offensive line backgrounds that are the head coach. Right, so you had not only Steve Loney as a position coach, Mike Tyson as a head coach. What was what was his impact on you as far as as far as becoming the tackle to.
UH coach Ty's definitely, especially around like two thousand and five. He would have like film sessions with me, just me and him, and say, hey, come here and do this, and I don't care about certain techniques, like I'm showing you an easy way to get this job done or blocked. And if you hit, oh line coach jails that you just you know, just blame and put it on me. But I'm telling you to do this, you know. And he taught me things that made some things easier and
my job easier. And in a certain sense, I was like, I wish I could have had him a little longer because he was teaching me things that I was able to use and and put on the field. But then you know, when you get a new coach, they come in and they kind of felt like they want to teach you things. So after he left, a new group came in and now they want to kind of almost make you unlearn what you have been taught right to do it their way, and you know, some things I
was still trying to hold onto. I was able to still get the job done, but it might not have been technically sound, but it was still getting a job done. But I feel like he did a great job with me. And his passion was offensive line, so he knew some things.
Yeah, in the group that you were part of, a pretty legendary group. I mean guys like Matt Burke. You know, I look at Corbyn Losina and you know, guys like him who were Dave Dave Dixon were veterans when you showed up that were there, but then later on being able, you know, to play with like Steve Hutchinson and who are who are?
So?
Who are the guys that you remember most that were in that room with you?
I remembers and of course you know, of course Hutchison and Dave Dixon and Matt Burke, And you said with Row, I actually ran in a with Row recently at an entrepreneur that Corbin Lesina like Lewinsky.
Remember, it doesn't surprise me because it's kind of that's your group. That's the offensive line, right, You guys are more like a family. But you enjoy those guys and I did, And.
You know, it's funny. One player who I wish I would have been able to play next to more but we only got one game out of him was Tone you FINDI. Yeah, he was like a big guy and people were kind of like intimidated scared of him. So it was like, good, I have another big guy, you know what I mean next to me. And they, you know, did so much to work him out and slim him down. And then he was able to play one game. I think it was Green Bay, and I think he might
have got injured or something in that game. I'm like, oh gosh, Like I finally got a chance to play next to this guy. You know, we both came out the same year and he went to Nebraska. I played against him in college, so he was a guy who I looked forward to playing next to, Like a big, strong guy. I didn't have to worry anything about worry about him, you know, giving up any ground or anything. And you know got like one game with.
Him, right and one and one guy that you were able to not all the time be hitched up next to his jim clein saucer. Oh yeah, and then you know in this day and age of the league, you don't see he just locked in times like blocking like that. So having Jimmy next year that had to that had to make you feel good.
Oh it did, because I knew he knew his assignment and then I knew he didn't mind blocking. Where you had other tight ends who was like make sure you helped me, Like you know that's like I got the hindle my job first. If I can, I'll come out and give you some assistance. Where Jimmy didn't have to worry about that, but the other Titans that just keep in mind you like make sure you come out of give me some help. Like you have the opportunity.
Nothing far you know, you have you have what goes on and then you have far walk in the building. And what was it like having him as as the quarterback, as a guy called the plays.
I mean it was it was funny. Well it all started, I'm gonna say back when we were in uh lunch and we were watching the news and when you watch the helicopter like followed the car he was in coming to the facility. It was like, this is really happening. And then so I went downstairs, you know, to change you're ready for practice. I can't remember who the quarterback was at the time, and we looked at his locker because he were number four, and we looked at his locker his number was different.
I said, it happened.
Yeah, you get out there, and I remember him, like us being out there and he was like one of the last ones to come and he comes right in the huddle. My mind like how does he even know
the players? But he comes right in a huddle, and I kind of was looking like this is the person that we were trained like not to like all this song, and like now he's in the huddle with us, and I remember him like looking at him and he was looking at me like it'll be okay, it'll be okay, and I'm like, oh yeah, like snap out of it.
And I just want to say he's like one of those people who I feel like there's players on certain teams that everybody raises their level play up for and as you can tell, for that season, everyone raised their level of play up, and so he is. He falls in the lines of a Ray Lewis because people can get around him raise up. If you can look at Tom Brady leave New England and go to Tampa, everybody
raises their level of play up. So he's in that era of guys who can come into a locker room and everybody raised their game up because they don't want to feel like they want to let him down. I feel like that was the closest the team has been because everybody was on board and everybody wanted to play well and not let him down because he was such a legend.
You think that's what that? I mean that that was gonna be my next question. What is it about those guys?
You've seen them displayed like greatness for so long that you kind of want to show that you're good too, and you don't want to let them down. So you want to, you know, make sure you're accountable and there to protect and make plays, and you know, you get you know, get a win. And that was my best record as a king as being twelve and four, and that's the furtherest I had went too at the time, was you know, to the NFC Championship.
Right, and then another guy back there, you know, maybe a little bit before far, but still is the you know, the best running back that I've seen more purple Adrian Peters. Yeah, and so blocking for him, I mean when.
You had I mean, if you had Adrian Peterson, you had Percy Harven, you had Sydney Race, you had like a lot of great guys, right, And with Adrian, what I learned with him early is, uh, it gave me incentive to get out the way because he was just running to your back. So it's like, Okay, let me get my guy out this hole and out the way so I don't have to worry about this man slamming in the back of me.
So you're just going to run into something.
Yeah, he didn't mind if you were here, not like he was going to make a hole. So it's like it just gave you an incentive to really like keep your feet moving and really just the drive your guy at the hole so you can make a way for him.
What was did you have a moment in two thousand and seven his first year where you were just looking you know, you're just yeah, are you definitely. I mean, like hold like the holy Cow moment when you knew that this I've seen it coming.
I've seen it, you can see it coming. Uh, the way he ran the ball, I just said, Okay, once he gets down the pass protection, once he knows that and knows who he may have the block of they blitz, then he I could see him becoming the starter because he was running the ball way better. But now it's like, okay, outside of running ball, because we can't just put you in there on run plays because then everybody know, oh it's a run play. So we need you know both aspects.
And once he got that pass blocking part down, damn, there's no stopping on it.
But it's it is it not a mentality when you you're able to step on the field knowing that you have him where you're like, Okay, you may win, you may win it down here or two year, but we're gonna wear We're gonna wear you out.
Ye.
Having a running back like that who doesn't mind running people over and and all types of things like that, that's just going to wear anybody down. And and me personally, I didn't mind running the ball and wearing my opponent down to you know, slow them down in the past rush you know. So I was okay with that, especially if I had a good day of you know, run blocking. It's like run to the left. Let's you know, let's get some yards on the ground.
Stick around for more school Stories presented by three M. From the field to the roof and everywhere in between. Threem, the official science partner of the Minnesota Vikings, is here. Visit Vikings dot com slash school Science to learn more. We'll be back with more from Brian McKitty, but first, Unreal is back with their limited edition Vikings Drop head to nurl dot com for more details.
Ready to have your spirits lifted and the laugh out loud comedy Ghosts is for you. Ghosts is all new every Thursday night at seven thirty Central over on CBS. Welcome back to tonight's edition of school Stories presented by three M. Let's get back into our conversation with Vikings legend Brian McKinney. You remember any guys, uh defensive ends of d Lineman that you want up against with that you respect the most throughout your time a league.
When I first got to Minnesota, you know KGB with somebody who I respected a lot because it was very slippery. He lows to the ground in the past past protection wise.
And even by that you meant can be gabajja be and meal yep.
Okay, So he was he was somebody who I respected that lat because I had played two times a year and I had to get adjusted to his style of play. And other than that, I feel like everybody else, I kind of felt good about it. Good against Yeah, I feel like to me, honestly, the better which isn't good, but the better the player was, the better I play. So it's just because I just I don't know, I should have prepared everybody saying, but it.
And and that's where I think, Brian you stand out. I mean, I've been around this place for almost thirty years, and that was the one thing about you was it's just you could raise. You had the you had the physical ability and capacity to no matter who you were going against, raise your level of you know, raise your level of play. And and so in that respect, you're you're unique in the history of this team as a
left tackle. You eventually once once your tenure here at the Vikings, you ended up with the Baltimore Ravens were able to participate in the Super Bowl. Year you know you missed, So you missed the NFC Championship? Was it everything? Being able to do that? Was it? And this is your chance to rub it in with all the Viking fans because we never obviously won one. But to be able to walk away hawk off the field winner, what was that like? And it was year eleven.
So and then you remember the year before we had went to the AFC Championship side my mom, I'm like, this is my that's twice. Now. Yeah, I've gotten at the door but just couldn't get in. So the third year I finally made it, and it was like, now that I'm here, it's like it's a year eleven, Like you gotta at least win, Like I got here all this time, so now it's like, I gotta win this because it took me this long to get here, just
to get here. So and it was also myself and Edrey we won a national championship together, and then now we were both in the situation. I was like, listen, it's both year eleven for us. This is the only opportunity really, you know what I'm saying. So we had to really just focus in and try to like do our best to just kind of come out with a victory.
That was I think that's another thing about your career. Your teammates, even mark you played, ed Reed is as good of a safety as y ever played the game. He was unbelievable. I mean, you know, the linebacker crews and everybody you know, you talk about ray Lewis. I mean, those guys make you better, don't they know?
Absolutely?
Yeah.
I feel like throughout my career between the Vikings and the Ravens, I played with some great guys.
We just talked.
I talked about that on an interview recently with Edrid James, like the amount of players that I played with between here and the Ravens who were definitely like great talents. And then what's funny is in the Super Bowl actually played against Randy Moss.
So you had the opportunity to go and play with Harbaugh in Baltimore. What was it like, What was it like playing for him? And what do you remember? What do you remember about him as a head coach.
He was a tough for coach back then, because you know, I've seen him two years ago and I said, I know that you're not the same coach. It's no way you're the same coach now that you were with us. And he's like, no, actually I had to change that. I could tell you. I could tell his interaction with the players and everything. I could tell he's changed, and
like lightened up. He said, yeah, because he can't do all the yelling and everything now because guys were shutting down and he can't afford his top players to be shutting down based off of his so he had to, you know, figure things out. So me and him were okay. I thought we would get along great because we had the same exact birthday.
But we were cool.
Yeah, but yeah, he was just a different type of coach at the time because mental health.
Yeah, you've seen you've participated in a pretty in a very interesting transition. Yeah, transition like I mean when you first got in the league, when and when we were coaching, when Mike Tys was here. Yeah, you had two days, you had eighty plays in nine on seven and you know, I mean physically and then that I think started changing. And then again, like you said, the mental health side and just the.
Concussion, mental health, a lot of things started becoming in play and you started backing off on things, So I was there, I guess, for the transition, and then you had social media that came into play and all that
stuff too, which wasn't there the beginning neither. So I kind of was there at the beginning where it was very old school and just hard nose, and then where things kind of pulled back a little bit where you only started having one practice, one pad of practice to day and things like that, so I started to be able to see the change.
Do you think seeing that change is kind of what's propelling you into in the mental health work that you're doing now?
Oh yeah, yeah, well no, really with propelled me in that direction was when I retired. There was a couple of other guys retired around the same time as me, and they were having a tough time, I guess, transitioning and then having conversations with me because they didn't feel comfortable, you know, talking to their family things like that, because they were to go to a person for their family, so they wanted to talk to other people who've been through,
you know, what they've been through. And I sort of realized like, oh, this is the thing, like you know, you would hear people talk about it, but then I started seeing it and then like I see, like you know, a player had got a bigger act before and had to go to a psych war and I went down
there to visit. So I was like, oh, this is real, So let me try to figure out how I can kind of put this out there more and where people can go to for some type of help or assistance when they're dealing with somebody going through.
So thank you, you know, Brian, for your time. Let everybody know again kind of what your what your ventures are, and what you're doing and what you're up to.
Let's chat which is a language translation based a vice the vice setting in real time, so l e t z chat dot com. They can go there and they can give you like a little video basically of what it is the company does and CANSO my be major foundation, which is mental health, healthy kids, healthy living, and singing parent homes.
All right, man, well, great to see. Thanks for your time, and you know, hopefully we'll be able to Siana sideline in one of the games, so we can't miss you, right, all right, thank you, thank you.
Well, thanks again to Brian McKinney for joining the show. It's always great to hear him doing well and giving back to the game of football, all right, Pete Bursus. After the so called mini by we jump right back into the heart of the schedule with another primetime game. The game's been flexed. Week nine. After the thirty twenty loss disappointing loss in Los Angeles against the Rams, the Vikings are back home to take on the Indianapolis Colts
Sunday night at US Bank Stadium. The Cults are coming off of twenty three to twenty loss to the Texans in which Anthony Richardson was sacked five times. Just really never look comfortable. Now, what do you want to see from this Vikings defense. It's got a lot of room for improvement right now this Sunday night. And what do you think will be the key to containing Indianapolis?
Well, I very rarely in life or in football especially do you get the opportunity to lose a game on national TV was watched by millions of people and then get the opportunity just ten days later to go back and kind of reset it. Right, You have an opportunity to get back out there and show another face, just like with the Rams and how they improve from a Sunday to a Thursday. The Viks need to do that
from a Thursday to the following Sunday. Now you're gonna be doing it, you know, without Christian darrisaw So you have a few extra days to get the rest of those guys ready, all that out, the remaining offensive line, they all have to pick up their game if this offense wants to continue on its way. But defensively, that's
I think the big question mark. It's been a couple of weeks now in a row of just mental errors, not being able to make adjustments, and then the pressure on the quarterback has you know, you go into the Rams game twenty three sacks and then boom, you have none, right,
so that that turn there has to be changed. I think having Cashman will help, but just getting everybody back on the same page and getting that intensity back and that attitude back, and it just seemed it just seemed as if the Rams hit us with shifts and motions in every play and there was indecisiveness, and that just you can't be indecisive in this game.
Yeah, it's always a game of adjustments. So I'm sure the culture looking at that game tape obviously and what the Rams did well with the Lions did well, but you have to have the personnel to pull it off.
But on more importantly, what is Brian Flory is doing, as you mentioned, to kind of make those adjustments because we've watched both for the most part, Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford two quarterbacks with big connections in their career, they're kind of sitting back in the old rock and share of the last couple of weeks.
Yeah, And you know for Stafford, he early in the first half of the game, he didn't sit in the pocket. It was quick screen, quick throw, run the football. They had eighty seven yards rushing in the first half, so
that's how they kept pressure off Stafford. And then once the game wore on and our defense had twenty twenty five minutes a game, it was it was really the about six minutes left to go, because I you know, went back and looked about six minutes to go in the third quarter is when they really started to allow Stafford to sit in the pocket. And by that time, our our rush head you know, pretty much evaporated, at least especially a four man rush. That's kind of the thing.
Grenard is still our most consistent pass rusher. It's it's everybody else that's out there in those situations. And I'm talking bass downs. I'm talking first and second down, third down. We can sub some guys in and create some things, but those base down passing plays uh uh late in the game, that's that's that's where we need someone more than just Grenard to get after the quarterback.
We really expect to see the return of TJ. Hockinson. We've been talking about it for a long time and what can he do to help kind of diversify this likings offense on Sunday Night.
Well, I think he can help bring a shorter passing game right and we saw what the We saw what the Rams did to us, and the quick slants and some of those things. Our style of passing game is Darnold in the pocket for a while right down the field. Those kinds of things. Those may have to come off of play actions now, but a quick passing game on base downs is going to have to center around I think around the tight end.
Reminded, the vikings of the Colts game has been flexed. Check those tickets to Sunday Night Football over on NBC.
It's a seven to.
Twenty pm kickoff right here in the Twin Cities, so be sure to check your local listings for details. Of course, you can also catch Paul Allen, Ben Leber, and yes, Pete Bursich with the call right here all across the Vikings Radio network. The Vikings Football Sunday pregame show starts at five pm and kfan, so be sure to tune in with host Mike Mussman and the rest of the crew leading.
Up to kickoff.
Pete's aways a pleasure, and thanks again to Bryan McKinney for joining the show, and thank you fans for tuning into another edition of Skull Stories presented by three M the official science partner of the Minnesota Vikings. We'll see you all again next week.