Pats from the Past: Episode 24, Deion Branch

It's time for another episode of Pats from the Past podcast. Matt Smith, alongside Brian Wore please to be joined today by Foreign Patriot wide receiver Super Bowl MVP Dion Brinch deon. How you doing doing pretty good? Man?

Thank you all for having me.

Yeah, thanks for joining us. Well, let's before we get into a lot of in and out football stuff, let's try to I think the Fians would want to know, what are you up to these days?

Oh?

Man, just daddy daycare, you know, just taking care of the house, you know, assuming all the duties that my wife were taking care of while I was playing ball, you know, spending my time running around having fun.

Basically, that's what they think it is. We're just having a lot of fun and it's not work.

But mainly that's it, man, daddy dad care here and there, helping out on the high school football team. You know, I'm just not getting myself involved with that. But early on was in I'm heavily involved in a lot of real estate.

So that's mainly.

That's basically, you know, you know, life. Oh, I'm loving life. I'm loving life. My family's amazing, everybody's healthy. My mom and dad's sisters my wife, my kids. That's the most important thing in my life. You know, they're healthy, so I'm happy.

Is real estate blowing up out in the Midwest the way it is here in New England.

It's blowing up everywhere, and you know right now it is either you one of the ones who are selling and you're extra happy and sort of piss if you're a buyer because you're going to overspend for the property, so you know, and if you're an investor like myself, it's more of a I'm a little pissed now because cribs that we were buying for eighty ninety thousand and put like fifty sixty in it, we got to spend now one hundred and fifty for the home. It's almost double,

So should we be reintroducing you as Dion Branch real estate mogul.

Wait, do you want any crypto currency?

Yeah?

I do crypt.

Yes, I'm investing. I'm heavily in that as well, you know myself. And like, I just got a phone call with one of my business partners. Uh, here's one of my partners. So I like to bring in all my friends, all my childhood friends. I try to put a group together and all just put like, hey, let's bring.

Five hundred to the table. That I it's ten guys in the group.

So that's a great investment to start off at, to start off with it, and we just continue to invest in it.

So as a now that dojie thing is looking real good for us. And I didn't get involved with the bigcoin, did you guys make it?

I have.

I have a very small amount in bitcoin, so I'm up about a thousand bice.

Okay, all right, you're good.

That's all good. I didn't I didn't do with a dog coin?

When did you invest in it? Though?

Well around So I had light coin initially a couple of those, and I transferred that into bitcoin probably when it was about twelve thousand wow, and then I bought again at like twenty and again at forty, but like one hundred dollars at a time, like okay, So I'm not like, you know, I don't have the kind of dough that if I had that amount of dough, I would have bought it a lot a long time ago.

Exactly.

Well, you know, doge coin's up like twelve thousand percent. I don't have any of that.

Oh you don't.

I mean it's still good right now, it's under dollars, so it's still probably good to jump in.

Yeah, I gotta I gotta do some more hotwork on that, right right.

Just do it, trust me.

I mean, I think it's the same thing advice what people were saying about bitcoin. Everybody's like nah, you know, and clearly I'm gonna be honest. I don't know why my investor never wants CPA. Your financial advisors, they just don't advise these things.

I'll hit a miss my body, my buddy, who I do not have money invested without I should say he's he's all into bitcoin. He says, when it gets to one hundred thousand, I'm retiring.

He's done.

Huh, And he's got he puts his clients in it, like not not heavily. That's part of that portfolio.

Interesting exactly.

Yeah, I don't know, man, I'm you know, me and the guys, we're gonna go pretty heavy.

We're just gonna continue going into this dogie thing pretty deep. Uh.

You know you're talking about your guys talking about one hundred thousand. We just wanted to get up to ten thousand and then we'll be yeah, yes, we bought in ad.

What four cents three?

You've already made a body.

You get what I'm saying. So it's pretty good. It's okay, good for you, Good for you.

Yes, So let's turn our attention out back to football here a little bit, and Benet, you know, pro style offense. When you got to Louisville after the two years of JC, when did you think the NFL was a realistic option for you?

You know, real talk. I wasn't thinking. I wasn't saying like, yeah, I'm going to make it. I mean, we all have the same dreams every kid that's playing high school ball, and you got to go to college.

So when I got to junior college, it was more starting.

I was starting to really truly believe and start training myself, preparing myself for that next level.

Outside of just preparing myself for college.

You know, when I got to u of L, that's when I actually saw the life when I was there, because I red shirt my first year there. When I noticed some of the players that were on the team that were getting drafted, that's when it done on me. I'm like, Okay, I'm not judging these guys, but I know the type of work that I put in and what they were putting in at that particular time, and they made it.

You know.

It's a lot of luck involved with it as well. So real talk, that red shirt year was probably my That's when the light bulb went off, you know, and I really just continually just honed in on everything as far as with my training, my thought process, and trying to start doing things though a correct way to kind of mold myself for the NFL draft. So I would say probably in nineteen ninety nine. Yeah, I know, that's crazy.

Right, It's crazy.

It's unbelievable.

I'll say in ninety nine that's when it really sunk in and I was like, I really have a chance.

I probably can do this.

So that offense you played in though, was, as that mentioned, a pro style offense. You came into the league as short of a polished route runner. Did your time at Louisville do you think really help you prepare for quick success in the NFL.

Yes, And I you know, give a lot of credit to you know, John L.

Smith, my head coach, Scott Lenihan, who's a brilliant guy.

I mean, which we already know. He was in the NFL for many years and I think he's still there. Uh.

He was a guy that kind of helped mold myself and along with all the other receivers that were drafts that were drafted within that time frame.

Uh, he did a real good job. The only thing that I would say that that was so crazy for me.

Was to start picking up all the sight adjustments and the hots and all these things. In college, they already have these things built in, you know, and you don't have to worry about that, you know, in the NFL, especially in New England's offense, Uh, the quarterback and the receivers have to be on the same page, you know, and that's at all times built based on certain play calls and and if you're not. But so my first year, my rookie season, it couldn't have been the worst year.

Did you see it? Yes, sir?

What did you notice about all the defenders? It was like he was I was just understudy and he did a great job with me. I really give that guy a lot of credit my rookie season training camp. Training camp was the hardest two months for me. It was every day, all day preparing me for that Pittsburgh game and all these different things these guys are gonna do. And by the time we got to the game, everything was so easy for myself because of the things that

So when you say that in college that was built in, how is it built in when you get to the line of scrimmage and there's a blitz that's coming that maybe you guys didn't expect, how is it built into the offense?

Right?

So, and within that offense with coach Lennon had we'll have if we end up two y two said, you have maybe two deeps and you got one intermediate.

Route and an actual a short route.

That is the built in That is the hot If Dave or Chris Redman wants to throw that guy the ball, if he has a blitz coming, he automatically goes to that actual short route.

You get what I'm saying.

Yes, So on every pass play, we had that built in, built in the actual play, so we didn't have to worry about it. So that's what I'm saying. Like, we never did any side adjustments, any hot adjustments in college at all.

It was already built in.

We didn't have to hate Christy, I mean, Dave were gone, didn't have to come to the line of scream as you see Tom pulling out the mic, and then from there you start counting the guys, the defenders that you know you're hot off or you a jest off of.

We didn't have to worry about that.

You mentioned, Dion. You know, well, I think the fans might say it looked good in two thousand and two, but the year was and everything like that. I think one of the things that you know, you were laughing about nineteen ninety nine, Boy, is that crazy? So I bring up two thousand and two and isn't this crazy because it's so crazy. There hasn't been another Don Bridge since two thousand and two, Dion, And it's not your job to say why, but but they there doesn't seem

It's sir, Well, I attribute to a lot of the stuff. Like I said to coach and Lindenhead, I'm gonna be honest with you. Nowadays, if you go to some of these colleges, you really get to see some of these guys and the way they're being coached now versus how we were coaching back in the days.

It's totally different. You know. Like I said, I'm not talking about none of these kids.

I'm not ragging on them, but they're just not being properly taught the right way. Whether they come in and everybody's a star. Now you get what I'm saying. So they feel like everything has to be done their way, and a lot of these programs are catering to these kids instead of actually teaching them. They're allowing these kids to run the programs. Now, you got kids that are trying to leave school after two three years. Like I mean, listen,

You follow me.

So, and I'm not saying that to everybody, but you like you're saying, you point out the DK's and the Jeffersons, there's going to be a kid here is going to stick out, and he's going to stick out here. You know, you look at AJ Brown. These guys have been taught the right way at Ole Miss you know, DK and the guys at LSU. And then you look at it like some of the guys that come from at that particular time.

Louisville was a conference to USA that was.

Our you know, our conference, but we stood out within our conference.

And that's all the credit goes.

To the coaching and they actually instilled certain things and the players and they did a great job.

So if you're asking me.

Really, Troy and I talk about this all the time, like, how is it that these kids are at these so called big programs but they get to the NFL and they can't convert things. Well, that's because they are not being taught the right way. Still, you know, a lot of these programs are letting these kids just get away with anything, and it's setting them up for failure though, so it's truth, is setting them.

Up so when they get here, the investment to try to get them up to speed is so hard to do that by the time a kid is a year two years in, he's still swimming to try to get uphill to try to catch up. And by that point in time, you know, let's let's take a flyer here and a veteran who's been in the league for three or four years, and this guy actually knows how to block downfield and knows root trees and everything like that.

Right, And that's the problem.

You know, So just even I can piggyback off that what you were just saying, by the time they get to the NFL. They are who they are. The player is who he is. That's just the bottom line. You can't really change somebody who's in their twenties. I'm gonna make this guy, I'm gonna take a slide guy and make him an outside receiver, not nowadays.

You get what I'm saying. He is who he is.

These are the attributes and this what he brings to the table. We can't add nothing else to it. I feel bad, I'm so sorry to say that, but that's just what it is. And it's unfortunate, you know, like you're saying, these program these organizations invests so much into these individuals, but they're not getting it back. They're not getting the return on it. And yeah, you know, if you got twenty five receivers getting selected and this year's draft, maybe four or five of these guys.

May stick out. And it's sad, but that's just the nature of it.

And I know it's more than twenty five guys that's getting drafted, but I'm just giving you that number. Even if it's sixty guys, it's probably still gonna be about four or five guys that's gonna stick out.

And you can see.

Okay, and I'm talking including first round picks now as well, they may not be included in that four guys, you follow me, so that makes it even worse, right.

But but yeah, I just I.

Give all the credit to our coaches and you know, look at things how things were done in the past.

That's just the difference.

So when a guy comes in here though, and you know, I'm kind of referring to the Kiel but not specifically to the Kiel, I agree. But you come in and you missed training camp nine games of your rookie season. Then you go into your second season and COVID hits and you have no training camp, and now he's in that next offseason where it's still a bit of a shell of what is normal.

How difficult is it for that kid to develop?

Yes, that's gonna be difficult, especially with all the things he was stacked up against, you know, from his rookie season to the COVID year till last season and then

And then we have a.

Whole season of nonsense, but not making any excuses for anyone else because it's being done elsewhere. Why is it that these guys over here can do it well? This offense expects certain things out of the receiver position and the guys that we bring in, and we trust that these guys are going to go out on the field and do X y Z what we're teaching them.

Well, who knows.

I mean he was at where Arizona State is totally different, totally different.

The offense is completely different.

And listen, listen Pellas I know you guys know that offense is very complex, you know, and you can see it where I mean, I'm still watching the guys. I watch the team every week. You can see it where Josh try to dumb it down for some of the guys and it's still just not there. And you know, Josh want to open up the entire playbook, especially when

Yeah, you mentioned Dion, you know how challenging training camp was your rookie year. Yeah, the team is coming off their first Super Bowl championship. You know, so your wide eyed kid, you know, you don't nothing. You're trying to keep your head above water. Did you get any sense in that camp like, wow, these are the defending champs, or any sort of vibe vibe that wow, these are defending champs, or did you just think this is a pro football team. I got to try to keep my

Well, I was super excited, that's the first thing, you know, just to even be drafted by the Patriots. Me personal the player I am, the type of individual I am. I'm just trying to be a sponge. I'm coming in. I got Troy and David pat ahead of me. I couldn't have had a better receiver leaders. You know, these guys still my brothers to this day. I'm very thankful to be a part of that group with those guys.

You know, he was really on me. He really didn't say too much.

To David and Troy because you know, these guys got it.

They know exactly what they're doing.

My thing was okay to take everything from Brian and but I need to get all the information on the field with Troy and David.

You know, Brian can't give that to me.

There's a lot of things we can talk about in the meetings, but as a player, that part had to happen on It has to happen on the football field.

You know.

I got to be able to Okay, I know we said we're gonna run a curl if this happened, but that's if the defenders off me. I can't get all twelve yards, you know, me talking to Troy like, hey, look here, do what you gotta do.

Get up the field. If it's ten yards, it's ten Thomas sil gets you.

You know, these type things happen when you have this type of leadership in your actual meeting room. You know, and you fast forward to now it's the leadership is still there, but you're looking at all these stars that's coming from college thinking they're the man, and you got some leaders just like, look, I don't have this type of time to be wasting with this guy.

If he think he hasn't you follow me?

So you have a lot of that going on now With myself, I was just trying to be a sponge. I'm trying to get on the football field. I'm trying to do everything I can to help the team.

That is it.

I'm probably your best team player you ever meet, because I'm all for as long as we're winning, and if we're losing, I feel like I need to do more.

And that's just who I am. Hey, just do your job, all right? Hey, look at just do your job.

When you walk into a defending Super Bowl championship team and then miss the playoffs your rookie year, could you describe what the prevailing feeling in that locker room was in terms of that disappointment.

We're clearly, you know, with the guys on the team, you know that were there, the veterans, all the older guys, the Willies, the Teddy Bruce Kis, Ted Johnson, all the guys, all my receivers in the room.

Tom.

I mean, you can really see it because guys knew that we left a lot on the football field, but it was.

A reason behind it.

You get what I'm saying clearly that next year, I can just say this right now. I wasn't there during the off season with those guys the year before, so my rookids season, I wasn't there during that time. I'm assuming they only had about sixty or so percent. That next season we had one hundred percent, and it all just kind of carried over into mini camp, training camp, regularly, preseason, regular season, and it was just so much momentum going into that year.

You know, but we pay all the credit to what we did.

Guys invested, you know, they trusted the exactly the plan.

Here's the game plan.

And like Bill said, at the end of the year, we had our post meeting, and the first thing he went to was that off season. You know, we can sit in here and put all day, but we know why we're here having our meeting now and the rest of these morons are actually going to the playoffs.

It's a reason. And you know, seriously, that's Bill, And here's the reason.

Here's the game plan starting Mars Mars whatever that date. We started, like March twelve, March thirteen, that offseason program.

Every guy on the team was here e every guy on the.

Team, right, every guy plus one Dan And I don't want to give him too much credit, but I we got to talk about him. And that's you know, the one hundred percent that you mentioned is critical, get it. But when Rodney came in, especially when training camp started, you know, you know, describe that because that had to be different than what I mean. I know, your first training camp, it's your rookie year, so again you're completely underwater at that point time. But how did Rodney change

He just brought a different energy. And then here's a guy you know, you know RDN is my big brother. Here's another guy who we added, another veteran, another Hall of famer. You know that you bring and thrust him within this program, this organization, Uh, it can only propel everything. And you know, like you said, leading it to that training camp, he was just more of a worker, Hally, you know, Rddy knows it.

He knows exactly the His energy is very infectious. You know.

It was some things that he was seeing that the defense wasn't doing that he knew he can bring this to the table. He brought a lot of energy, a lot way more aggressiveness within the guys on the They were already aggressive, they were already good.

He took them to that great standard, you know.

He pushed them and made him go to that point at the end of our practices, you know.

So we have all these different periods.

No, this was the thing when you start noticing like, okay, something's not right right.

Ridney would do Scout team defense stuff.

Then he would go and do the regular defense stuff when the defense is starting out, and then the Scout team offense is out there.

Okay, cool, he's out there. That's when he's supposed to be there.

He tells the young guys, hey, I got this right here, and guys are sitting over there looking like, okay, you're supposed to be let the scout guys do their job. No, Ridney's doing the scout team, he's doing the defense stuff. When special teams is going, he's running crossfields. And it started with one guy doing it, and next thing, you know, it became a norm for everybody. This is without being said.

Did you have to ask? You know, was your head on a swivel during camp?

Especially when he hit Troy? I mean, you know that's what really kind of kicked it off.

Like and like I said, the Scout team guys were supposed to be on the field. He hit Troy during ace, you know, because the Scout team guys would never touch Troy.

And the first thing.

He said was when he hit him, it was like a fight erupted on the field.

Bill got pissed.

He knew it was going to happen, and it was really no reason for him to do it, but actually he felt the reason to do it. And guess what, we all started practicing hard. And I know him and Bill laughed about that. I guarantee you behind closed doors, they were laughing about that because he knew it did something for our offense and they already knew it was what we were going to do for the defense. And next thing, you know, we started actually having more competitive practices and

So fast forward. Then you guys are in the Super Bowl that year, right, super Bowl thirty eight, And I remember being down in Houston and passing Brian day ball in the hallway, and I had just written a story for Patriots dot Com about how physical the Carolina Panthers corners were and how they had man handled the Eagles receivers. So I'm walking through the hotel and Dave Ball stops me and he says, hey, keep writing that stuff. I

The celebration is muscle flexes.

Was that because Brian da Ball was on you that week about how physical those guys were.

Oh my god, day Ball went.

You know, now that was my second year, so that was his second year's receiver coach.

You know, he used to get up on the David the Gibbs scan as well.

You know, he had not came in together, so Davy just like this guy, get on one nerves. But that week of in Houston, I think Bill made sure all the coaches stayed on top of everybody, every group. I need you all to give them per help, and they didn't. And Brian was very young, Trial was pissed off the entire time. So I think we had so much frustration going at our coaches and we took it out on the Eagles, you know, I mean out of Carolina. I'm sorry, I already went to the next Super Bowl, but out

Because practice really wasn't practice.

He literally had guys holding us at the line of scrimmage, like, how are we going to run a route and practice? Tom was frustrated the whole week, you know, because we couldn't get off the line of scrimmage if he.

Didn't have two guys in front of me.

He had a guy holding my jersey as I'm trying to run a route. Den, this is what it's going to be, like, like, you could get mad and he's toiling that them, Wilson, you can get mad all you want, like, look, this is what it is.

And you look at Dave all your position coach supposed to be like on your side, and he's just like, I don't know what to tell you. That's just what it is. Well, so you know they've all me walked the other way. But I understand it now.

I get the mindset behind it because we kind of over prepared for it, and you know, we get in the game and like, yeah, Manning tried that mess probably one time after.

He realized, all right, I can't really fool with DN like this.

You know, Ricky was the only one with trying to do that little quick jam stuff, you know, I mean, you got to think about it. We played one of the greatest quick jammer on the team was ty Toy was already doing that.

You know.

The only difference is just Ricky was a lot stronger than time, you know. So, but we were well prepared for it, and trust me, we appreciate the coaches for doing what they did.

You talked about Tom being frustrated, So did he take his frustration out? And would did you get hit harder from Tom after the touchdown when then you got hit her in the rest of the game.

I know, man, you know what I understand. I don't even think I felt. I didn't feel it at all. I mean, other than him grab that's Tom though, he's like that still till today. I mean he's a little he's pulled off a little bit. Now he's just going up patting on the guy's helmet, you know. But Tom was that very passionate. I mean, we all we all are and and it was just something It's the super Bowl, you know, just you just let it all out, man, And you know, it was a perfect timing.

We worked on that certain play all week and we.

Hit the give on the same exact play on the other side. You get what I'm saying. Because we knew that these guys want to be so aggressive. This is going to be wide open. Even though we didn't get a good look in practice because Bill got guys older than us.

It will be there in the game. And it was, and you know we hit it.

I mean pretty much every touchdown that we did score in the game was one of those ones, even the one to Rabel the same thing. And practice we knew it would be there. We just got to make sure we hit it. And like Charlie said, we're not gonna get an f and look because of this ish Bill doing. But uh, but let's make sure we hit these plays. But yeah, that that that slam dunk that Tom did on me. Man, you know, it's one of one of my big ports that I do have in the house.

What it looked like?

So Den, I have my opinion on this, but mine is really irrelevant. So I'll ask you three or four which team was better?

Oh man, you know what I mean, I'm gonna just say, I'm gonna say the O four team.

If I gotta say one, I really like to say both.

I think it was equal, but I think to do what we did to follow up what we had just did. It's the toughest thing ever, because you know, everybody's gunning for you.

The NFL is gonna try to shape this out, shape this up where you don't make it back. II what they're gonna try to do to the Bucks, They're gonna try to shape this where you don't make it back.

And and it was just a lot tougher. I mean, you know, we had our bumps and bruises throughout, but the greatest thing about it is that everybody stuck to the stuck to the game plan. We had a plan going into that year, and everybody stuck through it, even though it was a lot harder. You know, we started sustaining a bunch of injuries here and there, and myself, I had a couple had an injury in myself that year, missed a couple of games, and the guys still came through.

And I think that's the reason.

Why I just say it was because it was a little bit tougher to kind of go back to back. That's the only reason. Because of that one year, it makes it's so much harder to go back to back because everybody, Yeah, I mean you see it now, it's just not a common thing for the team to go back to back and win the Super Bowl. Kansas City thought they were going to do it. It's just not shaped out that way.

You know.

It's always something and can you be mentally strong enough and prepared for all the adversities that's gonna come with it and sustain it and get through it.

And I think that we did a great job with that, you know.

Uh, And there was a lot of other internal things that were going on, you know, during that time, and we kind of we overcame that as well.

So Carson, I would just say, huh, Corey yelling going for sixteen hundred didn't hurt.

It didn't hurt at all. It didn't hurt at all for sure. I mean, you know, especially like you're saying, we lost that Toine, but we brought Corey in, you know, so it's like, yeah, we're adding, we're adding the pieces of not getting better you know at that certain position.

So that was a great thing.

I'm gonna be honest with you too as well. Even the following year. I mean, we all like, you know, what, we can really do this we can go, we can do, we can three p you know, and that just goes to show you it was even harder to do that.

You couldn't overcomes, couldn't overcome the mistakes in Denver, and even I know even then you were the better team than Denver and they some lousy calls. I'm with you five percent of that one. But I wanted to get back to you talk about bumps and bruises. You know, forty when you missed the decent chunk of time, do you think that that was a blessing in disguise for you based on the postseason that you had, You know, like, look,

H No?

And the reason yeah, but I do, and I really yeah, I'm very thankful for the things, you know. I don't want to look at it as if I you know, the injury helped me rest and my guys were at war.

I would have preferred to be out there with the guys. You get what I'm saying.

But those seven weeks man, they were brutal, you know, because it was a pretty bad MCL.

You know, it was a real bad one.

I mean that was really like my very first serious injury that I've ever had.

I mean, you two week a hamstring, you're looking at two three weeks.

That's nothing, you know, but to have that on my knee, you know, the rehab was brutal. So that's why I would say I wasn't as fresh as you think, trust me. In the NFL, I would just say in New England, we had off practice and then going through the rehab because see the main objective is we're gonna get you right, but we're gonna actually overtrain you so that we know what you're about to go back on the football field.

And do you know, to make sure that you're don't go back down this alley again.

I know it was a freak accident what happened, but our job is to make sure that you feel confident enough in your whatever entry you have.

So we point to myself that Kansas City game.

I was so excited to be back on the football field, but I wasn't fresh because honestly, I'm gonna be real with you. We some weird guys. All players are just weird guys internally. Mentally, I probably was about eighty five percent, and that's really only because I'm gonna put this on. Coach Belichick. He said, you're not playing if you don't put that knee brace on. And I was like, I've been training the past two three weeks. I'm cool, I don't need this. He said, you're not playing, you know.

He did is and I just.

Follot him and follo hi follow him, and I realized, okay, this, this brother is on state to this.

I am not going on the football feeling less. I put that knee brace on. That knee brace took me all the way down.

Real talk, it was bad, but you know, it was a decent game. I was glad to be back on the field, but real talk, I wasn't fresh.

Well. But I here's where I see fresh. I see somebody in the AC Championship game waving goodbye to Steeler defenders that looked pretty fresh to me. So I'm and I think that was his second touchdown of the game. I'm jumping ahead a little bit. I understand that'sbout the regular season, but I saw somebody fresh who's literally waving goodbye to the Steelers defenders. That looked pretty fresh to me.

Hey, real talk, that was for my dad, even though I was doing it at my guy.

Who was that Chris Hope?

Yes, Chris, Chris and.

I are real close friends. You know, we came out of the draft together. But that was really for my father. He's a major Stelller fan. Oh, my uncles are Stiller fans. And my dad was at the game. He was up in the stands and it was always this ray. Now, no fault him because I understand he loved Stealers and my uncles. We want you to have a good game, but we want you guys to lose.

I'm like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding? He was like my dad. I said, yo, bro, I can we're going to the super Bowl? You going listen?

I wouldn't super Bowl.

And guess what he said, we are No, I'm cool, Nah. I would rather just you have a good game, but y'all need to lose. I need my Steelers in the super Bowl. I said this guy, it's crazy you think you make do a meal favorites just to tell me. I hope you have a good game because I'm your son, But you want me to lose? He said, no, I want your team to lose. I'm not talking about you. Well, I'm with the team Dad. He said, look, son, I want my Steelers to win. I love my Steelers. I

Wow, And his son goes out and catches a sixty yard touchdown pass and then scores on an end of round.

I know, I know, I can't imagine if he was cheering or what. I didn't ask my uncle was he cheering? He said, no, none of us were cheering. We were clapping, but.

We wasn't as excited as the fans that we were sitting with. That's crazy.

I remember. So, if my memory is right, we flew down because there was a storm coming in early and had to get down to Pittsburgh early, so you didn't go Saturday. We left Friday, and I remember being outside the ballroom. They allowed us to tape a little bit of one of the ballroom practices. How how sick was Tom that Saturday? Dion? Did you didn't have any doubts, did you? But I mean was he?

Was? He?

Legit sick before that game.

He was down.

Yeah he was down, but we we were you know, he assured us that he'll be that he'll be there. So our biggest thing is just to make sure he yo get all the rest of them to get We know that you know exactly what you're doing, so we're not even tripping off that part. The only part that I will say is it's more so worried about his health. You know, I think the game itself was going to

You know.

We always felt very confident playing those guys. You know, it's always and still to today, it's certain teams that you feel like we have their number, but this team over here has our number for whatever odd reason. When we play these guys, it's always like a weird thing, even though on paper we may be better, but for some reason, you know, and then we go out and execute the entire game plan. These guys have our number,

Diana being named Super Bowl MVP chan your life or your legacy.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. And it was the craziest thing ever. You know, like you said, just to go to that game itself. As players, we already know, I mean, you know, even as announcers commentators, you know, whatever team wins the Super Bowl, who's going to get their war So that was never a play that you know going into the game. You know a lot of guys have dreams going to the Super Bowl, winning the

I mean, even talking.

About it now, I still feel like I'm sitting on that bleacher me and Troy and David just sitting there talking. We're just hoping the defense hold up so we can win the game. Nobody's thinking about being the MVP at all. And it was about eight guys standing behind us. And then one of the guys like, hey, get the honey tap him, and Trouble was like, yo, they want you to turn around.

And the guy was like, hey, if you guys.

Pulled off the next minute in twenty some seconds, you're the MVP. And it was just like a whole I don't know what it was. It's the craziest feeling ever. And like what made it even special is like all the offensive guys just came down. Everybody. Look now listen the defense on the field, Philly is still driving.

We don't know what may happen.

We're over here celebrating already before the game is even over. You know, all the offensive guys and none of the coaches know what's going on. You know, the receiver coach Brian is just like, hey, calm down. Everybody calmed down. Like he's sticking to the core, like the game, the game isn't over. Next thing, you know, Ridney intercept the past and now it's like whoa, it's a whole It's pandemonia over here. Man.

It was so crazy.

But just for that to happen at one particular moment, just to shat out with my teammates, just to get the sudden news, that was it.

I mean, you can't replace that with nothing. That was crazy.

It's a pretty exclusive club, deonn I mean, there's been fifty five of these games. I know Tom's probably won one hundred of them.

Super Bowl Yeah, no, for sure, right, So it's not like there's.

Just fifty five. It's a pretty exclusive club. And I wonder, you know, as you're talking about you know, we were joking earlier, you know, real estate mogul deon Brnch, does that help open any doors for you? Like, yes, is there somebody that recognizes, hey, wait a minute, super Bowl MVP Don Brinch, let's do business with this guy?

You know?

Does that help you?

Oh yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be honest with you, that would be a credit. But just winning the Super Bowl, I think just being a part of that class, I'll probably say have opened up way more doors. And then you know, you get that's the that's the extra icing on top.

Of it, like oh yeah, this is the MVP dot or whatever. But it was.

Naturally just like oh super Bowl guy, like because everybody, I mean, they're pissed around here still to this day, like look, I'm done, Like we can't even believe what are you doing here? It's like my wife chose to say, why we can't live here? It's like the entire city. It's like a frown. I go to the Pacers games and.

It's like so many people just money me, Like, what is the deal. I've been retired six seven years now, what's the deal?

Rings on both fingers, Yeah, I feel bad.

I don't even wear them me because they may end up trying to jack me for him.

So I'm telling you.

Man, I don't even put those rings on. But I think overall the doors because I think naturally everybody just want to associate with the you know, winning program, and I'm all for it.

Hey, I take full advantage of it. Thank you, Thank you all my teammates. I love all my teammates.

Thank you guys for this door that open, you know, and you know, yeah, we get a lot of perks with it. Not only myself, some of the guys that you know didn't even touch the field, get perks, you know, beautiful thing, Yes, sir, will deserve.

My last question for you is just about, you know, the difference between playing here and when you went to Seattle to play. You obviously came back, but yeah, could you just maybe talk about the difference in how other programs and in your case, the Seattle program differs from the New England program.

M h Yeah, And I honestly I go right to it, you know, and Bill harp on it and talk about is all the time.

You know. Just being accountable.

That's the most important thing that we see every day walking in that building. Be accountable to yourself and to your teammates, you know, And it starts with it starts at the top, mister Grabb, Coach Belichick, to the coaches, to the players, you know, being respectful and.

All this stuff and be a high character guy.

I'm gonna be honest with you. I was blessed to play with two first class organizations. That part we do know, we understand well. Mster Paul Allen and those guys created over there, and God bless him.

Coach Holme was a great, great coach. I don't think.

And I'm not talking about it I don't just don't think some of that coaches that were under him were trying to match him. Unlike the coaches that say New England Bill challenged these guys all the time. I don't think Coach Holkan really was challenging the coaches. I think that real talk. Honestly, I think a lot of the guys were just contenting and with the situation there was, Hey,

Much in my brain. I've been taught so much about this guy.

I can actually help coach this team here myself as a player by all the things that Coach Belichick and his staff and everything has taught me. Uh And that's just a credit to the things that Coach Belichick does.

That's pretty much what it is.

And on paper, I'm gonna be honest with you, on paper, that Seattle team, especially in O six and O seven, was better.

They were better. And here's the difference.

We were better on the on the I gotta say on paper, but when we touched the field, it's a little different.

Now.

Is that because it ain't that these guys are not good athletes and all this stuff. It's just that what we're being taught by the overseers is not being to that level. You're not just getting the best out of these guys. In New England, they're gonna get the best out of every opportunity for the ones that want to do it. And I can say, I can say the guys and see out of these guys wanted to do it. They wanted to be a part of that championship. They want to see what that feel like a lot of

There, and I'm glad they got there at some point they made.

I think if you're writing the Dion Branch story, I think you would be surprised when you're writing the script and you go, wait a minute, he's New England goes to Seattle. You're kidding me. He comes back and finish his career in New England. I mean, like you must pinch yourself, or I guess you should ask do you pinch yourself? I know it didn't look at you lost in Indy, of course, but could you have written a better script? Like you had to go away and that hurt.

It couldn't have ended any better, you know.

The only ending I think would have been even better was the Super Bowl that we lost to the to the clowns.

Yep, you know, yeah, that's.

The only thing I would say, because in my head, I was just sitting there saying, like, you know what if when we win this game, I'm gonna retire. I'm gonna just end this story right here. And then Bile's not winning, I was like, oh, I got to come back. I need to come back for another year. And you know, we tried to make another run daaa, it didn't happened. But like you were saying, it couldn't have been any better, you know, especially when when Bill called me like, hey,

My kids just threw up and they were just they were so sick. Uh that we were leaving.

The limo ride to the sayma, but the ride I'm not flexing, so we ever hear now.

The ride to the.

Ride to the airport, the dog on driver was crying. My kids were throwing up in the car, you know.

And we left Seattle, uh Wednesday night, Tuesday or Wednesday night, and we landed landed back in New England in Boston. What that morning, went straight to the dropped them off at the hotel, went straight to the facility. Bill, I'm headed, all right, don't come to take a physical. Bill has me this playbook, say learn whatever you learn, and you're playing Sunday.

What this is our initial approach? Yes, this is it, I said, Yeah, nice to see you again too. Real Yeah? Here that was.

That was after the limo riye with the five course meal at the airport and private jet to New England.

Yeah, but seriously, Dan, think about this for a second. This is real life we're talking about. You know, Dad's got to move. Dad's gotta go three thousand miles. My family's entrenched here. They love it here. I'm watching my daughters throw up in the ride to the airport. You get here, Bill throws you a playbook you better produce. And in that first game against Baltimore, did it make it all worthwhile? When you score and you win, and it was like, okay, maybe I can deal with my

It was already over.

Hey. Look, I was dealing with it when I got the phone call because I was so excited. But I also didn't know it was gonna have this effect on them, you know. But it only took them about two three weeks. You know, they younger kids, they'll figure it out, you know. Unfortunate now, my oldest daughter, she was born in New England, my youngest was born in Seattle. It's a it's a

I was just like, man, that was supposed to be me and Tom hit me like, yo, did you see that? Hey Bro, I love you, but that was that was us?

Yeah, I know, you know at that particular time, you know, the organization and myself, we just couldn't get on the same page. And no regrets, regrets, but I do wish we could have done that the right way.

Yeah, I bet you. I'll tell you what. He's won a lot of games. Bill's won a lot of games. You've won a lot of games. But I bet you that Colts game, That Colt game that keeps him up when they're having a tough time sleeping or they getting jolted up in the middle of the night. That Colt game. And where were you for that game that probably keeps him up at night?

Oh yeah, I'm pre sure it does, because look I still think about it too, you know. And guess what, I was in a different place. I'm over in to see I don't even know we didn't even make the playoffs. So I'm watching the game, but just to get the phone call from all my former teammates. Okay, fellas I've been gone for a whole season, and like guys are still thinking like we're supposed to be in the dog

And it's whether they want to blame it on me.

They want to blame it on Bill and I don't know. And you know, but I apologize to my teammate teammates. I don't know if coach relitive did, you know, I don't know if he apologized the guy. But we're not gonna put it on that. But I wish, I really wish that debt didn't happen, you know.

And there was no way that team was losing to the Bears if they had beaten the calls. That's that's revision. Well, he is the former Super Bowl MVP, and Dion, we thank you for joining us today. It's been awesome catching up. Appreciate your time, and we should we won't have any four year gaps anymore.

We'll just make it real here, yes, sir man, and let all the guys know.

Man, I'll be over there. Hopefully we can strike up some sort of deal. We can work something now, but we'll we'll figure that part out later.

Great. Do you want to be well? And thank you so much for your time.

Yes, sir. Thank you guys. Thank you for downloading this podcast.

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