It's a podcast call twenty five WIST stuck in parts and they go a whizz.
So, yeah, it's too.
Bad, But what did you expect?
It's a podcast call twenty five WIST.
So twenty line. We've had some awesome guests sit down with us all through twenty twenty five. So let's look back at some of our favorite interviews that maybe you missed. First up, ESPN senior writer and New York Times best selling author Seth Wickersham. Set's one of the best long form NFL storytellers out there. He put out a book called American Kings, a Biography of the Quarterback, So we talked about a lot of quarterbacks. Big thanks to Seth.
Here he is, Seth Wickersham. All right, Seth Wickersham is on with us.
Great to see you, man, good to be here.
Yeah, congratulations on the book. Let's talk about arch Manning for a second. And you know you write about how how ruthless the recruitment was, how did they settle on Texas?
So go with the book. You know, what I wanted to do was show what it's like to do this very uniquely American job, very unique American responsibilities at like every level from current high school to college, pro retired Hall of Famer and Arch was interesting to me because, you know, it was a window into this entire iconic quarterback family, and so I was able to kind of like or I was hoping to try to tell the entire Manning story through Arch and specifically through Arch's recruitment,
and it got so competitive. I think that, like even being there, it was interesting just to see, especially in the NIL era, how hot it got for Arch. You know, I think that it came down to Alabama, Georgia, and Texas. The reasons why he picked Texas were I think they were pretty wise. I mean, in no particular order. Number One, Steve Sarkigian he's the play caller and the head coach, so he's not going anywhere. He's not gonna be one of these guys who gets poached to be a head
coach somewhere else. Number Two, he really liked that Texas might you know, was going to be a team on the upswing. Here's a chance to win a national championship there. It kind of helped elevate it.
He liked that it was at school.
That had a ton of talent, and I think after being at eastand or Newman which is obviously a pretty pretty small school in New Orleans. He wanted to be on a team that had, you know, other five star players. And then finally, and this is the one that I personally find the most interesting, is that, you know, Austin's a big enough city, you don't even call it a college town. It's a city that he thought he could
be pretty anonymous there. And that, to me is the most interesting aspect of it all, because here you have arch Manning and you know, member of like you know, Football Royalty, and you know, part of the reason why he picked Texas was because he thought, and we'll see how well that works out, that you know, he could be anonymous there. And I think that, like even some of the reporting of my book, you know, shows that like that itself was was too difficult to ask for.
How influential were Archie, Cooper, Peyton eli All in Archer's recruitment and actually helping him achieve his destination of Texas.
He did it himself.
And I think that like they're all really hyper aware of looking like they had a hidden hand. And Nelson Stewart, you know, so arch is sophomore year obviously they realized he was going to be a top prospect. So Nelson Stewart, the head coach at Newman, and Cooper Man to get together and they try to think about like how they want this recruitment to look like, and this is looking like staring at a tsunami from a distance, like there's
no stopping this thing. And so Cooper said, I want this to be a nineteen seventy five recruitment and Coach Stewart was like, what do you mean? And Cooper was like, I want you to run point. I want you to be the gatekeeper. And we're not going to take offers. We're not going to be posting on social media every time a school offers to us how grateful we are.
We're going to do things a little bit different to try to give Arch as semblance of a normal high school life and you know, maintain his love of the game. And I think that's really important. And so it was Arch striving things and obviously, like the family members, you know, could weigh in when they wanted. But you know, they went to University of Virginia, where Arch's older sister made goes, and as they were walking around campus, Cooper was like, look,
you know, this isn't a bad choice. You know, it's a beautiful campus, great school. You know, it's not football crazy, and I think that like maybe your life could be more normal here. And you know, obviously Virginia wasn't a school that he you know, ended up considering. At the end of the day, it was him that was driving this and he's the one who decided on Texas really, just like Peyton did with Tennessee and even Eli. Did you know back in the day with ole.
Mis, you're right about Joe Namath then before both of our time obviously, Joe Namath, I think about nineteen sixty nine h him guaranteeing him wearing the fur coats, him being like in New York. But it was an odd juxtaposition because he played at Alabama, like all of that. We didn't get to experience it, but we're only catching it like through story like folklore even And so yeah, what did you think of Joe namath cultural impact once you started to really get into it at a deeper level.
Well, I mean, look, all quarterbacks are cold archetypes of John Unitis and Joe Namath. I mean, like those two guys are huge pillars, and you know, as I show in the book, there are other guys who who helped set them up, especially Bob Waterfield. In the nineteen forties, he was married to Jane Russell. They were like the first couples first, you know, the country's first power couple. But really name it is, you know, a watershed moment
in so many ways. And it was interesting because I've been with Joe Namath at events in New York and I've been with him at one event at the University of Alabama at the stadium, and just my personal opinion, I thought that he was way more revered, way more sought after, almost looked like with a type of reverence that was different when he was at Alabama rather than
the events in New York. I think that like Alabama has such a a you know, a vast you know history throughout college football, and obviously name it has so much cultural template that he started once he was with the Jets and kind of blossomed into you know, this guy who first offered the idea of quarterback as like
a lifestyle. But at Alabama, you know, he said that Barry Bryant said that he was the finest player he ever coached, and I think that, like you know, when you listen to Joamath talk about his career, I think in a lot of ways you hear him talking about more joy when he was at Alabama than even during his heyday in New York.
I love your work just generally too, So good luck. I hope the book sells a ga billion copies and hopefully we'll talk to you again soon.
Hey man, thank you.
I love all the trinkets on your desk, and I really appreciate your time, and thank you very very much.
I seth have a good day, man. Next up is Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco. Joe has played in the NFL for close to twenty years, a lot of memorable moments. One of those moments came when the lights went out when he was playing in the Super Bowl against forty nine ers. It was crazy. And how his body's feeling playing in his forties, which we talk about here. Congrats to Joe on still being in the league playing in
his forties. Here he is Joe Flacco, my partner that I work with a lot, as Matt Castle, who played in the league for a long time, and he talks about once he started to be a bit older and he had dealt with injuries that the hardest part was not not getting injured, it was bouncing back, because as you get older, it's harder to bounce back. At your stage right now, is that the hardest part is when something hurts, does it take longer to heal?
I think you got to make sure that you get to the point where nothing you minimize the amount of build up that happens. Obviously, throughout the course of a game, you're going to deal with acute injuries that you have to try to heal from as quick as possible. But I think for me, as I get a little bit older, it's just that maintenance routine. It's getting a good routine
so that little things don't turn into big things. And when I was younger, you kind of run through those little things in a week, and now that I've turned forty, they kind of build up, they don't go away, and before you know it, you're hurting a lot more than you want to.
Does it hurt after every game or is there an occasional game where you're like you look down, You're like, I'm okay.
That's the beauty about playing quarterback, is that, Yes, you do look down after some games and say, oh, wow, I came out of that one great, And you don't really deal with anything. The other ten eleven guys on the field, the other twenty one guys in the field, when you're out there, they are dealing with it week in and week out. I would say that I have it easy, as you know, as it comes to the NFL standard.
Why are you still playing? You love it?
I better love it if I'm doing this. Yeah, yeah, I listen. I have one thing, maybe maybe hopefully a couple more than one thing, but one thing that I really really enjoy doing, one thing that I feel like I can really do at a high level, and I've never really thought about not doing it. I've been able to do it since I've been a kid, and I kind of just want to keep that dream alive. I still feel like I can do it at a high level and have a lot of fun doing it. So yeah,
that's kind of why I still do it. It's kind of a weird question to talk about, but it's a lot of fun and I do love it. I love being in that locker room with all the players. I love being in the huddle, that feeling that you get before before game time. I wouldn't say that I'm totally in love with that, but when you don't have that for a few months, you realize that you miss it and it's just something that's pretty special.
Can you give me a memory from when the lights went out in the super Bowl? Because that was weird for us. I can't imagine you're freaking playing in the Super Bowl and it all goes down, Like what are you guys even talking about when that happens.
I remember sitting on the bench and kind of the lights go out and you kind of just look around, like, what the heck is going on? I wish I had more memories of it. It's funny because after the game, everybody kind of started expressing to me what they thought, and some people were scared.
I mean a lot.
I had a lot of friends and family that were nervous as what was going on, and thankfully for me, that never really crossed my mind. I kind of just took it for what it was, sat on the ground, stretched out a little bit. You know, you think it's
going to be two or three minutes. You don't realize it's going to be twenty or thirty or however long it was, so I think if I had to guess how my mindset was, it was probably taking it like every two or three minutes, thinking it was going to they were going to come back on and we were going to get right back to it.
Playing at Pittsburgh and College and then Delaware. Like, to me, that's cold weather sounds terrible, But you've played in cold weather places in the NFL for the most part, too. Is that even a thing? Do you even get cold? Or is that just normal?
There's definitely things about that that are not ideal. I think you just you put that big coat on, you sit on the heated bench, and you deal with it for the five ten minutes that you're not sitting on that bench. But we got it. We got it pretty easy. The fact that we got guys waiting for us on the sideline to throw a big coat over us and sit on a you know, one hundred degree warming bench.
When you're out there playing, you're honestly not thinking about it.
It's like the first thirty seconds that you take that code off that you're thinking what the hell am I doing? Or pre pregame warm ups are actually probably more miserable in the game, because you're like, do I want to even go out there and warm up? Or do I just want to kind of hang out in the locker room and say say, I'm good, I'll be ready to go once the game starts.
And warmups probably no adrenaline, right.
Yeah, exactly, you're not. You're just like, I'm not playing the game. Why am I going to go out there and do it to myself? And I don't have to, So it's a little bit harder mental hurdle to get a ticket out there for pregame.
At the height of your career or when you will say that your arm was the healthiest it may even be now. You ever just chunk a ball to see how far you could throw a ball?
You know, I used to when I was in college, but like when I was in late college, early part of my career in the NFL, I was probably more interested in seeing how far I could throw it and doing some long casts. These days, I just kind of do it to keep my arm in shape. I'm not necessarily super wired about where I can throw the ball through the uprights from uh. When people ask me, I always to say I can probably I could throw it around seventy five yards.
I don't. I don't know, maybe give or take a few yards here and there, so.
Eighty eighty five.
I honestly, if I could touch eighty, I would probably say eighty. I don't think I've ever thrown a football eighty yards unless I would unless I was down on the Jersey shore on the beach with a forty mile an hour winds.
I wasn't throwing the ball eighty yards.
So that's a good point, because if I'm lying about driving a golf ball, I never lie short. I always or I always estimate a little long. It's like, what do you do? Yeah, I got to sixty five average, and really it's not that so I guess right, Yeah, that's a good point. When did you realize in your youth that you had a really strong arm?
Oh, I guess growing up on the schoolyard, just kind of playing two hand touch. I could always throw that little ball that you know, the little pee wee ball that kind of everybody plays with.
I think, you know, we might have had a Minnesota.
Vikings or probably a Philadelphia Eagles rubber football that we could kind of I could throw the length of a schoolyard and nobody else could really do that. So you kind of figure, all right, nybe, I could throw the ball a little.
Bit when these guys are getting ready for draft day, draft night, if it's night one or second round or third night, like, what was your draft night like?
So I was sitting on my couch in my parents' house. I really didn't want to let cameras in because I was unsure about where I was going to be picked, and just kind of wanted to be more private in general. But obviously I got talked into, you know, allowing them to come into the house. And I was just kind of sitting on the couch and waiting to see what happens. And we were all watching the draft, excited and kind
of eager to see what was going to happen. But coming from Delaware, I didn't know if I was going to be There was a lot of momentum probably behind where I was going.
To be picked.
I felt like I was probably going to be picked decently high. But I could have been a first round pick. I could have been a third round pick. I had no idea. So I was a little bit I was excited, obviously, because at that point I didn't really care where I.
Was going to be picked.
I knew that I was going to be an NFL draft pick, and I think that was the most exciting thing. Yeah, there was probably a little bit of uncertainty in my mind too, because you just don't know where you're going to go and where you're going to spend the next you know, you plan on spending the next fifteen years of your life probably wherever.
You end up getting picked.
So it was, yeah, definitely definitely a little bit of a mixed feelings about where that could be.
Who called you, Ozzie called me.
Ozzie called me, and I think they were I think they traded up with Houston, I want to say. And he said, hey, Joe, we're about to you know, we're about to trade up here with Houston into the eighteenth pick and and select you to become a Baltimore Raven.
And you know, obviously, like the whole.
Room that I was sitting in kind of went nuts because they were, you know, they realized I was on the phone call and I was kind of giving them a head nod or whatever I was doing to let them know, like, hey, it's about to happen.
How much sleep do you try to get a night.
Right now.
Yeah, we're going to pivot into health.
Man.
I got to tell you there was a time where, like my kids were younger, and we could actually enjoy three hours on the couch being my wife by ourselves from like seven thirty to ten thirty or eleven o'clock eleven thirty, whatever we wanted to do. You know, we could put those kids to bed. But now my kids
are getting older, they complain about bedtime every night. It's getting pushed, you know, further and further back, and I'm usually knocked out on the couch at nine o'clock and then at ten fifteen I'm waking up with my wife going back to bed, and I'm.
Sleeping till six thirty, six forty five every day.
So is there a you get to a game, because there are mornings if I'm either doing the show or if i'm even if I'm on touring doing stand up my bra I just have brain fog some days and if I sleep maybe something my eight. You ever get to the game day and you're like, man, like I'm just not fully there and you have to go all right, guys, my brain's not clicking the right way and need you to help me out a little bit.
Listen, there's times, Yeah, I don't know about my brain, but your body definitely wakes up a little bit tired sometimes, And listen, it's not ideal for us. We're waking up even if most of the time, even if you're at home, you're waking up in a hotel, you don't get to sleep in your own bed. And definitely if you're on the road. And honestly, I'm not great at at falling
asleep and sleeping well. In a hotel, I usually can kind of turn my mind off and not worry about anything, and that I'm the same way the night before the game. I'm not really thinking about it. I feel like if I do have things on my mind, I can actually relax and go to bed and kind of put it out of my mind. But just a night's sleep in a hotel, I've never quite gotten used to it. So there's always probably a little bit of that.
Three final questions that leads me to that. So do you stay at home? Do you stay in the same hotel room, in the same bed to at least have some sort of consistency.
Man, I've been all over the place the last few years. I have no idea.
It's been I think typically, Yes, you're in the same room all year.
Like in Baltimore's same room, Saints, same room, same room. Joe, we appreciate the time, and I thank you for spending some time with us.
No, I appreciate it. You guys have a good one, all right, Thanks Joe.
Now we'll get to former NFL and current college head coach Jim Mora. Coach. Moro was the head coach in Atlanta when Michael Vick was our quarterback. So I asked him what it's like to coach Michael Vick, especially during that time. Here's what he said.
He was unbelievable. Number one, he was a really good person. He is a really good person. We stay in touch. I'm happy he's coaching. He's going to have a great impact on Norfolk State and all those student athletes. But every single day, every single day on practice, on the practice field, he would do something that you would just let go.
Did he just do that?
I mean, the most unbelievable athlete I've ever been around. We're playing the Carolina Panthers. We win the game, I think we win the division or I don't know something, and it's a fourth down and goal, and you know, if we don't score a touchdown, the game's over. Our coordinator we call time out. Coordinator comes over and gives him, you know, all these instructions, like, you know, you got to look here, you gotta look at this guy. You gotta look at that guy this year number one read.
Mike starts to run on the field. I bring him back and I go, hey, Mike, I go listen. Man, if you don't like it, just frigging run, Just take off and go. And that's that that. You can find it on YouTube, a picture of him diving into the end zone against Carolina, his knees about an inch off the ground. And that was the kind of guy. He was, like you just like I tell him every every week, just go be you. You know, like we've worked hard all week. Your skill set's improving, your understanding of the
concepts are improving. But at the end of the day, don't be paralyzed by trying to do things that you're not comfortable doing. Just go be you. And he was man, he was fun to be around.
He was something just to watch like his old YouTube because obviously I watched it as a kid, but to watch it now and to just see the separation at almost at will. It's crazy to watch now that far remove from it, just how athletically superior he was.
His burst.
Yeah, you know you remember that that that game against the Vikings where he split the two defenders.
And you'd see that every day. But his arm was like a whip.
I mean, there was that commercial who was throwing it out of the stadium and I know that was you know, it wasn't real, but I think he could probably do that.
It was.
I mean, he was a cultural icon and he made a huge impact on this league. I think he changed the direction of how people look at quarterbacks. And yeah, he was really fun and just funded to know as a person.
Next up, our interview with Kansas City Chiefs chairman and CEO Clark Hunt. Clark grew up around the league, with his family being a huge part of NFL history, and now he's leading one of the most successful franchises in all of sports. Big thanks to Clark for coming on with us here. He is Clark Hunt. First of all, mister Hunt, I would like to say that I cannot wait for you to be in the Hall of Fame. I want to say what I've seen from your organization.
I'm ready whenever you're on television and that jacket, I'll be like, that's my guy right there. So congratulations on just massive success over the past decade.
Yeah, well, I sure appreciate it. It's absolutely been a very special time to be a Kansas City Chiefs fan. You know, really, from the day that Andy Reid walked into the building in twenty thirteen, we've been building for this moment. We've had an incredible amount of success over the last six years, and hopefully we'll be able to carry that forward.
The legend of the Andy Reid interview is nine hours. Is that accurate?
That is accurate, and it's hard to believe in retrospect. I'm not sure what we talked about for nine hours, but it was a great opportunity to really get to know each other, and I think we just realized that we had tremendous chemistry and that relationship was going to be a good fit. I also had a lot of my staff there who got to spend time with Andy, which I think was good for them and as well
as good for Andy. And there was just a lot of comfort all the way around, and we were able to get him to Kansas City later that week and he's been there ever since.
How important was culture versus X's and O's when making that decision.
Well, we've been through a very challenging couple of seasons leading up to that hiring in twenty thirteen, and I felt that we needed a very experienced leader, somebody who had experience in championship games, which Andy certainly did. Interestingly, our twenty twelve team had I believe six Pro Bowl players on it, and that was a team that won only two games, so it wasn't like we didn't have some talent on the roster. And I think what Andy did when he arrived in Kannessee was he really changed
the culture. He changed the expectations, he changed the relationship between the coaching staff and the players, and he was able to immediately get off on a great start. The team won nine straight games at the beginning of that twenty thirteen season, and I just think it shows what a great coach he is, both from a culture standpoint as well as from the next.
AS and o's.
If I was the owner, I don't want to do like player stuff. Do you ever go work out with the players like cut off a shirt and hop in.
So during training camp, when I, you know, spend a more time around the team, I will occasionally end up in the gym with the players, and I have to say it's very humbling or maybe even humiliating.
That's awesome. I feel like I would be doing that all the time. The folklore of the mister Clark Hunt graduating first as class at SMU true or false.
It's hard to believe, but but it's true. I have several children who are at SMU recently graduated from SMU, and it's it's it's a great university, and I had an amazing experience there. I'm not sure how I pulled that off.
Patrick Mahomes as a person. What's he like? What's your relationship like with him? As people?
Yeah, he's just an awesome human being. As good a football player as he is, he's an even better person. Of course. Everyone knows about his leadership ability in the locker room, but he's a guy that really cares about the people around him, and I think that's part of the reason why his teammates love playing with him, is that they know that he cares about them both on
and off the field. He's a terrific guy, you know, lots of fun, loves to play golf, He's a tremendous family man, and it's you know, so much fun to get to see him be a dad.
I want to make a comparison, and you're definitely way more successful, way smarter, and better looking than me. But when I started to have a bit of success and I was like touring, I'd have all this people come up like, I'm your cousin, let me get tickets. When you guys started to crush it, did you have more friends all of a sudden that wanted to be like, you know, on the field, Oh Clark, it's me, your buddy from my school.
You know, that's one of the blessings that comes with having a little bit of success. And I have a great group of friends and I love having them around for these championship opportunities. That's something when I look back on this time period that I'm going to remember getting to celebrate it with my family and friends. So that's totally a positive that I've got some guys that have reached out that I haven't seen.
In a little while.
Yeah, I had people on twenty three and meters like like one percent match, They're like, I'm your cousin, let me get in see I'd be afraid with the Chiefs, they'd be a lot worse than that, mister Hunt. I'm always super curious about successful people and driven people, like what they read. Like I would imagine you're a studious person, Like, what are your favorite books?
Yeah, so I don't have a lot of time to read books. I spend a lot of time reading literature that's related to the sports business and just sort of staying up on what's going on both in the National Football League and you probably know that we're also involved in Major League Soccer. So it's really more focused on newspapers and magazines. You of course access online today that really, you know, helped me stay up to speed on what's going on.
What about listening to people that have opinions that have no idea what they're talking about. Do you ever come across that, like on social media or anybody like this guy thinks he knows everything, but he doesn't.
Certainly, social media has changed how we consume news, and it's opened up the ability to have a lot of other people that are commenting on sports, and so you've got a lot more perspectives out there. Not everybody's going to agree, and that's okay.
When you were growing up, who was your favorite player?
It was Lynn Dawson.
You know, I grew up during that era where the Chiefs went to Super Bowl, won and lost, and then made it back in Super Bowl four and beat the Minnesota Vikings. I got to spend some time around around the team as a kid with my dad, and you know,
Lynn was definitely a hero for me. I was also a big fan of your on Stin Rude because I was a soccer player and Johan, of course was one of the first soccer style placekickers in the National Football League, and so I love getting to hang out with him as well.
We have three more questions for you, mister Hunt. And you're sitting in front of a wall of accolades, a team accolades for sure, a lot of balls. Which ball behind you brings up the quickest, greatest memory.
Well, I'm not going to stand up and you know, pick one of the balls. But one of them back there has the signatures of our Super Bowl team from twenty nineteen and that was obviously special because it was our first trip back to the Big Game in fifty years and you know, being able to get across the finish line there and win that game that was so special.
There he is mister Clark Hunt Chiefs. That's all see yeah, all right. Final interview is with former Georgia All American and longtime college football analyst David Pollock. David was one of the most dominant David was one of the most dominant defensive players in the country during his playing days, and then he became one of the most recognizable voices breaking down the sport every single Saturday. Thanks to David
for hopping on all with us. Here he is David Pollack. David, good to see you man.
Great to see brother.
Thanks for having me out a couple things. What does Saturday like at your house?
Probably the laziest human in the world.
I always wake up and make sure that I get my workout in, you know, get some steps in because the rest of the day is going to consist of watching football, multiple screens and multiple games going.
I got my laptop in front of me taking.
Notes of everything that I see in the observations, and it's literally it's a quick grind from twelve o'clock to night time. It's like what just happened. It was fast and furious. But it's so much dagga fun too. It's not like it's really working. And think about this, man if says, like, what do you want to do?
Something you want to do?
Like, sorry, bet, I gotta work.
Like I got to sit here right on the couch and work. So it's a lot of consuming for sure.
Do you still catch the West Coast games too? Or is it bedtime?
Oh god, no, we're catching them all, brother, Like, we're not going to bed till, you know, till one or two. I mean it's you know, I was up watching by you late, you know, this past after this past Saturday, after everything was commencing. Actually I'm sorry Sunday morning. So no, you definitely stay up and watch as much as you can to to make sure you're educated. There's some good football out west man, Like, it's fun to it's fun to watch that and consume that as well.
Can you watch NFL though recreationally because you're watching college obviously, because you're an expert. Can you watch NFL with a little less attention?
Man, I just try to. I tried not to on Sundays.
I try to just get away from it, and we've got church, and we've got you know, a small group, and we've got other things.
So it'll be on like during the day at the end of the day. But now we.
Definitely try to do more as a family and get up and move a little bit more and do like I love to play golf in the afternoon if I can, if I can stink that in. But now I can't watch any game like a normal like just sit back and relax and watch like I'm definitely always looking at the game from an analytical view, probably one of the only things that won't turn my brain off. But NFL football is fun and different. And I've played fantasy for years and that's kind of changes the way you look
at the game. But this year I told I committed. I said, I'm not watching for fantasy.
I'm not doing it. I'm not getting upset, like I'm just cheering my guy on.
So I try to decompress a little bit on Sundays after you finished playing after your injury. And I have different friends that played different positions and their bodies did different things after they retired. Some of them put on a bunch of weight, some of them lost a bunch of weight. You played a position nowhere, I'm not sure if you had to keep your weight up or down because you played a very athletic position, but it was
on the line. What happened to you physically after you stopped playing.
Yeah, I was a chunky. I was a chunky monkey. I always was growing up. And it's funny your identity gets you know, it's okay when you're a football player to be thicker and be bigger and so defensive lineman. I was two ninety two at my heaviest, and you do, you're you're absolutely right.
You go one or two ways.
You either keep the habits you had and if you do, you're going to keep growing, or you start.
To change the eating habits.
And so I've definitely lost like fifty sixty pounds from my top playing weight, and it's a different look. I eat to survive. I'm not one of those persons that has a lot of these like temptations and food like I don't care where we go eat.
I just I want to eat the same thing.
I want to know what I'm eating, and definitely me and my buddies. When you go back to reunions, it's it's you're a one hundred percent right.
It's one or the other.
It's get really skinny and trim, or it's put on a little bit of weight and you look like you played a totally different position.
You said you work out every day before, or you try to work out every day, same with me, But I assume our workouts are a bit different. Just looking at us, I would think visually, Uh so are you still a guy who does heavy weight or how have you changed your workouts?
Yeah, I'm done with heavyweight, man, Like heavyweight does nothing for me. I'm not trying to have any more surgeries or put my body through anything I don't need to. Like I squatted almost seven hundred pounds in college, but like, I'm not going over you know, two seventy five on a squad now, and I'll just do twenty five reps bench. I'm not going to do over two twenty five. I'll do twenty five to thirty reps if I need to do twenty five to thirty reps, or I'll slow it
down big time. Like the other day, we did sets of ten and I did you know, five count down with two twenty five hesitate and then come up, Well, you do ten reps like that it'll hurt, like you can make the weight hurt. So to me, it's more about moving fast. We're big on the row machine. We're big on the bike, especially assault bike, because that thing will whip your Heini like.
But it's definitely a different way of training.
I'm not trying to get big and to have all this mass, you know as we get older, trying to fight father time and continue to be able to do some explosive things, but not be like a big corn fed mule. I've had those days. Those days are gone.
Was there ever a game where they rushed it either where you lost and it's just awkward and you're like, oh man, these fans are everywhere or the opposite where it happened, and you're like, man, this is crazy, Like we won and the fans are all down on top of us.
When you're a player that loses, you're pissed off and you got all these people that they're not meaning to, but they're running into you like they're running on the field and they're they're kind of bumping with you, and you literally want to lower your shoulder and eliminate a human being out of your way cause you're you're upset, right like you're you want to take it out, but you know, you know you can't do that, but it is it's hard to keep your composure when that's when
that's happening. But when you're a student and that's happened for you, like the passion and energy because because you get so much like the dog walk at Georgia when I was there, man, like to go through and watch these people's eyes and to watch how much like passion they have. Like, man, if it doesn't get you excited to play, I don't know what does.
If they're that excited, you dang sure better be.
And and the thing I always loved about Georgia, like you can bark it another human being, like a grown
adult can bark engine. That's and that's socially acceptable. Like I'm all in for that kind of culture, but I can see how it could lead to some bad I'm surprised we haven't had more of the other like people getting upset, people getting ran over, you know, because you're you're literally running on the field with a bunch of folks that are you know, not in the greatest of spirits, that are sometimes angry and upset because they just lost.
I mean, I think Aligarrett Blunt, that was not a positive one. When they ran down and punched them. I mean that that was a bad one. But yeah, I think I would. That's why I would react to fans ran down and I lost. I do not think. I think i'muld be so triggered from losing that it would not be a positive environment for me.
Yeah, I mean, you're the emotions are not fun. Like you're trying your best to be a good sport and like shake hands and do that part, and then but now you've got people running and bumping into you left and right, like, yeah, that's not going to bring out the best most of the time in a human being.
In high school, for you, when did you become dominant? Ninth tenth grade? When was it for you physically and mentally that the game was very easy?
So so my freshman year was okay. I was an offensive lineman, a little bit chubby, still hadn't grown into my body. Actually, they asked me the first day, like what position do you play? I was like, you know, full back in the linebacker. They're like, not with the six flat forty you play offensive line. And then my second year I got a little bit better, but I was stuck between JV and varsity and I actually quit. I was like, bro, this sucks. Like football is hard
enough and not playing isn't cool. And then between my sophomore and junior year, I grew six inches and gain sixty pounds. And I don't know if you know this, but like football is a lot more fun when you're the hammer and not the nail.
Like it just makes a lot more sense.
But like, obviously, my junior year started to have success, started to get recruited a little bit. But I'll never forget man. Before my senior year, my coach, I had a brand new coach. He calls me into his office and he's like, hey, man, and I had offers from Georgia, Clemson, like Ohio State and company going into my senior year. He's like, if we're going to be a great team, I need you to be the best player on the field every single play. And I'm like, I'm your best player,
like you know, a cocky punk at that age. And and he put on like six clips in a row of me kind of jogging to the football and I was like, oh my gosh, Like he's not wrong. Like, that's really that's lazy. And I started practicing like an animal. I started flying around and he helped me see something in myself that I didn't see, and it took away that blind spot and showed me I needed to really really work. And then I became a really, really good football player. You know, my senior year of.
High school, why Georgia? What was it?
This is the simplest answer that you've asked yet. My baby doll, Lendsay Pollack, that was that was that was their best. That was the feather in the cap of Georgia. My dad grew up My dad grew up up north.
He was a Giants fan. We didn't pay attention to much college football.
Moved down south when I was four, so we watched NFL, not college. But when I started getting recruited, I started seeing all the atmospheres.
I was like, this is dope.
But my baby doll, Lindsay Pollack, my only girlfriend, the only girlfriend I've ever had now my wife.
Like, I drove to Gainesville, Florida with Steve.
Spurrier and I was like, oh my gosh, that's forever away, you know, from her, And so being fifty five minutes down the road right there in Athens.
Was like, yeah, that'll work.
You have your seatball, get ball signed behind you. So and you do a couple of podcasts, and we're always finding and recommend a good podcast to our listeners. So what are we gonna hear on that podcast?
Man?
I love college football with everything in me and right now with our season of life and my wife, like a lot of people know, she's she got diagnosed with brain cancer, and like, so your your priorities and your travel and your schedule is a lot different. So like television absolutely not going to be a thing, but like football is so fantastic and so great and that's literally
what you're gonna do. I have my buddy, that's my neighbor on the podcast with me, who works for Pro Football Focus and has all the numbers.
But like we come to you, you.
Know, four days a week and just talk football, unbiased, strong opinions that are not like everybody else's. We're going to watch a lot of tape and just I mean, it's football, it's college football. It's the best there is and so just having that and being able to follow it talk about it is something that I enjoy and I just can't imagine life without it, and that's what you'll get several days a week on YouTube and on all the platforms for podcasts.
Hew you guys. Check it out Sea Ball, Get Ball with David Pollock. Hey, big fan. Hated you at Georgia when you played us, but loved you all the other times. And then I was with a bank. I love watching with the Bengals too, So yeah, big fan of you, especially on television. So thank you for the time. Man, really appreciate it and hope the podcast is killing it well.
Thank you so much, Man, appreciate you having me on.
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