2013 NFL Defensive Player of the Year Luke Kuechly joins the guys on ITG to discuss his memories of playing Notre Dame while he was at Boston College – after the Irish had passed on him as a recruit, the 2015 Super Bowl run alongside MVP Cam Newton that put their Carolina Panthers squad up against the legendary Peyton Manning and Denver Broncos, his story of being on the field for the Odell Beckham Jr vs. Josh Norman fight, and what made former Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch so difficult to tackle.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume's everybody. Welcome back to Inside Garage podcast from COYLEA.
Hamilton along with k J. Wallace, Conradigan and Cam Haart.
Today we have a big, big time guest. Um. Luke
(00:22):
Quickley is in the house. Uh is nice enough to
come on and chat with us a little bit. Appreciate
you coming on, Luke. Yeah, man excited to be on
fair It doesn't know. Luke Kickley is one you live
under rock to let me Um, let me go down
some accolades real quick Night. The overall pick in two
thousand and twelve draft, seven time for Pro Bowler, NFL
Defensive Player of the Year, NFL Rookie of the the Year twelve.
(00:45):
Buck is two thousand and eleven eleven in college and
also in the NFL Basic Defensive Player of the Year
two dozen eleven, a SEC Defensive Rookie of the Year
two thousand nine and his college jersey number forty is retired. Um,
so he's had a saired at where was it retired at?
Backup college? Is that what it is off right now?
(01:11):
Boston College obviously. So yeah, he's had a pretty decent
He's gonna been okay throughout the sport. Um has been playing.
But Luke, out of all these accomplishments, what do you
think you're most proud of or your favorite one is?
Oh Man, we so was probably the best year that
we had in Carolina. We went won fifteen o one,
We won the uh the NFC Conference championship, and that
(01:34):
was that was really cool. I think, you know, the
individual awards are are great and everything, and but the
team awards I think are what matters most because at
the end of that everybody just wants to win games
and win championships. And you know that you were special
because we had a lot of really good guys and
just the whole journey that year from training camp through
the season and then in the playoffs we have two
(01:56):
home games and have the opportunity to play in front
of the home crowd and win that NFC title. Was
it was a lot of fun. Obviously came up a
little bit short and super Bowl, but that NFC championship
was something that was really neat not only for me
and the guys the team, but the city as well.
You bring up the Super Bowl and just kind of
touch on it for a little bit. We can circle
back later and obviously you're very cerebral guy, kind of
known for film study and knowing the offensive game play
(02:18):
and stuff like that. How how was it game planning
and playing against Payton Manning in that Super Bowl? Yeah,
I mean, you know, from the defensive side of the ball,
they're those guys like they're looking for everything that they
can gather pre snaps. So any information that's available pre snap,
those guys, those guys are grabbing, whether it's a raccation,
whether it's alignment, if the guy's cheating a blitz er,
stacking a blitzer, those guys are the king of picking
(02:41):
that information up. So for us, for the two weeks
leading up to that game, it was all about how
can we disguise, how can we move late? How can
we make it difficult and Payton pre snap because once
he knows what's going on, he's he's paid Manning a
lot of times you can figure it out and get
him into a play that's more beneficial to him. But
for the most part is just how can we disguise,
(03:02):
how can we move late? How can we get them
stuff that he isn't seeing already in the year to
prepare for. So that's what makes it so difficult for
those guys and as you know, the timing and and there,
their understanding the offense is is so good that you
know you just got to try to execute and do
your job as best you can because for the most part,
they have a pretty good clue of what's going on
for the ball snap. It might be a little off topic,
(03:24):
but like you talking about game planning for Paying Manning,
but what obviously when the game planning people, you obviously
understand their strengths and weaknesses. Like what would you say,
Paying Manny's weakness? This was, oh man, I mean, you know,
there's there's different kinds of quarterbacks in the league, and
you know, you look at you look at guys like
Peyton and Brady versus guys like you know, Mahomes and
(03:46):
Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson, and you know then Lamar
Jackson's like the that the extreme to that. But the
one thing you always knew with guys like Peyton and
Brady was they want to stay in the pocket. So
you can get a little bit more aggressive in your
past rush games, your third down blitz is because you
know you can win in different ways and if the
(04:07):
pocket breaks down, you can have a late loop bringing
clean stuff up versus you know, you play a guy
like you know Lamar Mahomes or Rust or you know
guys like Aaron Rodgers, you you lose an edge on
those guys. They can scramble out on the edge and
and make you pay because they have so much more
space and time. But the one, the one good thing
playing a guy like Peyton is he wants to play
(04:29):
from the pocket. He wants to stay in the pockets,
so you can kind of you can get a little
more creative blitz wise. But I mean the guys, those
guys are still deak on good Man that the weaknesses
are are few and far between, but that's one of them.
You know where they're going to be in the passing
gay kind of feel like I'm in a position group
painting right now, learn a little bit right now. But now,
(04:50):
so you grew up in Cincinnati, correct, Yes, yep, so
I grew up in Cincinnati, midwestern guy went to Boston College. Obviously.
Uh kind of talked us a little bit like you're
high school trovement because you didn't have too many offers right. Yes,
when I was, when I was coming out, man, I was,
I grew up and you know, obviously in Cincinnati, Notre
Dame is everywhere, so I'm like, yeah, get a chance
(05:12):
to get another Dame. And then they came to the Hight.
They came to our high school a few times, and
they always looked we had another guy. They looked at um,
and then we had two guys that both accepted offers
to get or Notre Dame. So I was the guy
that was left behind by the dame that you guys
didn't want me. Man, It's not that, but yeah, man,
(05:34):
So I went to went to Saint Savior High School.
It was it was an all boys pride to Jesuit school. Um,
we had a really good football program there. So you know,
the thing that was very gun official to me being
at Saint Xavier's. We had a lot of kids prior
to me go playing college, so it was already kind
of established that our high school was a good football program.
Our coach, Steve Spect was phenomenal about getting guys names out.
(05:57):
Um after our junior year, you know, the cruity rules
are so much different back when I was playing socacer
my junior I think is when everything kind of started,
and uh, you know it was really cool. Was it
was cool to feel like, you know, people wanted you,
they wanted you on their team, and it was exciting
from my perspective because you know, you always want to
play college you want play in high school and then
(06:17):
you don't play college football and kind of have that
opportunity to know that, you know, hopefully in a year
or two, i'mably able to play college football was really cool.
So it's busy. I enjoyed it a lot. You get
to see a lot of really cool areas. You know.
I went out and took a visit to Stanford never
and I'd really never been in California before, so I
have the opportunity to go out there and see that
campus was awesome. It's beautiful, just beautiful out there. You know.
(06:40):
I looked at Duke and in Wisconsin and ultimately ended
up at at BC. And I think the thing that
really helped me about BC was we had we had
a couple of guys that were on the team when
I was being recruited. So a guy named Nick Larkin
was He was a fifth year senior when I was
being recruited, so he was gonna be gone when I
got there. But he was a great guy to ask
questions to and vast ideas off of and he came
(07:02):
from the same area that I did, so there was
some familiarity there. And then there was a second guy
named Alex Albright. He was three years older than me
in school, so he was a he read shirted, so
I was gonna have two years of Alex with me
at BC. So my freshman sophomore yeor Alex was gonna
be there. My parents and his parents knew each other,
(07:22):
and Alex was great for me and a great resource
for me both during being recruited and while at school.
And then Alex's parents were the same way for my
my mom and dad. I had a bunch of BC
football school related questions for Alex, and then my mom
and dad had you know, how to be a parent
of a kid that is seventeen hours away at a
(07:43):
college football program. So it was the best of both
worlds and for me but for my parents as well.
So I enjoyed it up there. We had a great
group of guys and there's a lot of fun. But
this is a question for This can be a question
for everybody. But if you football wasn't in the picture
where you can choose one school around the country, to
go to it would it be? Oh? Man, that is
that is a good question. I mean, you know, I
(08:06):
love I love being outside. I love I love fishing,
I love hunting. I think something out there and in
Bozeman or north of Bozeman, Montana area would have been Actually,
it's not it's not too much out there. But answer
that was, that's a very unique answer. That would have
(08:27):
been sweet. Man. You think about you wake up, you
go to school. In the afternoons, you can go ski.
Then you know, once spring hits you got the ability
to go hiking, you got fishing. It's so it's so
pretty out there, man, there's so much to do in
all seasons that you don't know how much school I
would have gotten accomplishment that about I'm allowed to stay
it out s U l A. Obviously, I've always talked
(08:49):
about that. That was. I don't know. Definitely, I would
probably want to go somewhere it's fun, our place, somewhere
in Florida, like maybe the US of b U Tampas Day.
I'm sure it's probably similar to BC about to say
(09:10):
we had so much fun at VC. You said if
I couldn't pick BC again, where would have gone? I
would have resoundingly said PC. Way, I loved it. So
I got all of Bostons, So I guess it's time
there Boston a city like that I've never c um.
I probably say like Oxford something like that. Oxfordould be
cool in England. Bro oh, I want to go to
(09:36):
Oxford and like live in England and like PC answer,
not a PC answer. I mean I would have probably
picked U C l An. So I'm good together man, Yeah,
I said that before the podcast. That's true. Kind of
going back to like BC, do you have like a
memorable game for a memorable year, Like I know you
(09:58):
were there a freshman and junior year and left early.
Was there like one of those years that you just
I loved one of the others are a specific game?
So shoot, that was my freshman year, you know we
I think I think it might have been week four
or five maybe we So first two games we played
Northeastern which was a small school up there, and I
(10:18):
think we played Kent State, and then we played Clemson
at Clemson which was awesome, Death Valley sick. And then
we played a game we had game day at at
BC and we played Florida State at night and That
was an awesome experience. My first night game in college
against Florida State. UM at home under the lights, and
(10:40):
you know you grew up, you know you guys on
how it is your first time you grew up and
you play against some of these teams. It's so cool man.
And we played, We played Florida State, We won the game.
They Christian Ponder, They had all kinds of skill position guys.
They were stacked. So we had a couple of big
goal line stands, We played really well on third down,
had a couple of big stops on the defensive side
of the ball. So that was I think my first
(11:02):
experience of you know how special college football is with
the guys kind of knew everybody. By week five, we
hadn't won a game in the a SEC. Have we
lost to Clemson? I think that was week three, So
that was our first a SEC win of the year
at night at home on game day against Fort State.
It was it was so much funness. That's awesome. Um,
I just something just caught my attention. He just said
(11:23):
they played really good on third down and that was
what twelve years ago? Are you are you in that sense?
Like do you remember like like plays from a long
time ago and stuff like that. Now, I think I
think everybody remembers, and I mean you could probably talk
back when you were in in in high school about
(11:44):
certain situation the games you guys all played in. But
I mean, that was just a really memorable game for us.
And you know, there's certain plays that that stick out,
and there's obviously other plays that you totally forget, but
I just remember we played really well. We had a
we had a big goal line stop um by our
end zone in the tunnel, so it was it was
a lot of fun. It was the most memorable play
from that game that Yeah, Lonnie Pryor, who's their fool
(12:07):
back games number twenty four, he had a run on
third down. I think we stopped him and it was
fourth down. Thing was a goal line stop on the
third or fourth down. That was a big stop for
us because they were going in. We made a stop
there and the place went crazy frementum change and it
really started to kind of propel us in the right
direction for that game. So I'm glad we got a
(12:28):
lot of defensive guys and um it was cool because
that was my first big moment on the defensive side
of the ball in a big time game, and it
was that that game was really special for us. We've
only had one experience playing Bouston College and they were
a total of zero fans. Um at Bouston College. They
were zero fans the covered year. It was probably the
(12:50):
weirdest game I've ever experienced because I remember they were
pumping crowd noise into the game and um, going into
the halftime, they cut the crowd noise off and it
was like it was like a scrimmage like it was.
It was the weirdest situation ever. Its cold to how
many empty stadiums did you guys playing that year? Only one?
That was the only one that was Yeah, that was
(13:10):
still very play there this year though. Do anyone remember
that BC ar senior night? It might be a cool one.
Gotta come to that. Look yeah, um, you still got
some eligibility left. Who knows? Raping up the um. Yeah.
(13:31):
So obviously you guys play Notre Dame when you were there,
right so three times? Yeah, So what was like your
experience against Notre Dame? Who who are the some of
like feature guys that Notre Dame had at the time,
And just like memories from the bad rivalry. So my
freshman you we played at Notre Dame. You guys, you
guys are stacked like you guys always all you had.
You know, Jimmy was the quarterback, Jimmy Clausen, cal Rudolph
(13:54):
was a tight end. It's Golden Tate on that team, Michael,
Michael Floyd. I think I think Golden Tate was there
and Golden Tate was there. I believe. Um, you guys
had play against Tyler Eiffert. Yeah, both the Martin's I
think what's his name's all in the same team. Carts
(14:17):
Zack Martin was there. Man, it was cool. You know,
you guys know that you guys have a special place.
I mean to say what you want about the BC
Notre Dame rivalry. Playing at Notre Dame school, man, it's
it's it's a historic place to play a college football game.
We played back when it was grass and I love
playing football and grass fields, and that was it reminded
me of plan at home, just how the grass was,
(14:37):
the old school Midwest grass. I grew up watching Notre Dame.
My grandpa was a huge Notre Dame fan. That was
kind of like that. The quarter state game, my freshman year,
we played Notre Dame at night at Notre Dame and
it's you guys know how it's it's a special place.
We never won. We played, you guys three times, We
played twice up at Notre Dame, once at home, and
(15:01):
you know that, you guys know how that game is.
It's a big, big rivalry. Everybody's looking forward to it,
you know, and it was. It was a special place.
I think that's that's half the fun of playing in college.
In colleges, a lot of these stadiums are just so
so memorable for so many reasons. You look at Clemson,
they have the rock that you know in the hill
they run down, you guys, is old school and other Dame.
(15:25):
Florida State obviously is super cool. We've got some really
cool stadiums in the in the A SEC and then
you obviously get to the SEC. We never really played
any of those schools, but they have some great traditions
down there as well. So that was that was cool
to me. You grew up watching it. Everybody from Cincinnati
came up for the game, and it was it was
the epitome of a Midwest South Bend night. Cold, but
(15:50):
I'd love on grass. That's my favorite. That's my favorite
way to play football, especially on the defensive side of
the ball. So we had a great time. Unfortunately never won,
but um it was a great experience. So I didn't
consider since that was my first offer. So Brian Kelly
was a head coach that you see when I was
being so they were the first offer. I kind of
just wanted to get out of Cincinnati and experienced something new.
(16:12):
So another reason for heading up to VC. Look cute.
According to the status as as you're talking, looked it up.
You had fourteen tackles against us each time in all
three games, and I think a couple of tackles for
lost and each one too. So NA game was like
very very close. Yeah yeah, so the my freshman and
junior year, we played it close to my my sophomore year,
(16:33):
we played at home at BC and we got it
was it was tough, that's all I'm saying. Believe it
at that. So obviously had a great college career, about
of acolades, stuff like that, get drafted high to Carolina.
What was your like main priority or thought process going
through your rookie year and obviously it's a different coming
into college than going to the NFL, Like what was
(16:54):
your soul priority or like main focus going into your
NFL career after getting drafted. I think a lot of
it is, you know, you want to go in there
and and earn everybody's respect, and you know that's ultimately
what it's about. Is all these older guys that have
been the league for seven, nine, ten, eleven years, you know,
they've seen everything, they've been around the game, and they
(17:15):
ultimately just want to win. You know, if you've been
in the league that long, you've made your money, you've
seen a lot, You've seen young guys come and go,
and you know what makes a successful player. So I
kind of saw that from the other side and heard
it from a lot of the older guys that you know,
at the end of the day, really the only thing
that matters is how well you can play, how much
(17:35):
you can help the team, right, And for me, that
was my sole purpose my my rookie year was I'm
gonna help the team in any way I can, and
I'm gonna try to earn everybody's respect. And you do
that by you know, just you know the easy stuff,
working hard, being on time, being accountable, and making plays
when it's time to make plays. So that's kind of
was my mission my rookie year and really every year
(17:57):
I had in Carolina. But my rookie year, man I
didn't I didn't talk a whole lot. I was quiet.
I was trying to find my lane and figure out
where I fit in. But you know, fortunately for us,
we had a lot of really good older guys both
you know, Thomas Davis was one of our linebackers. Helped
me out a lot, but he was in obviously in
my room, in the back of room. And then throughout
the whole team we had you know, Greg Olds and
(18:17):
Ryan Khalil, Steve Smith, Jordan Gross, cam Charles Johnson was
a defensive end in every room in Carolina, every position.
And we had an older guy that was established veteran
that did everything the right way. And I think it
it helped me a lot, and I think it helped
our team a lot. We just had we had great leaders,
and then the young guys that came in kind of
(18:38):
fell online and understood, all right, well, these older guys
are set in the tempo, in the tone of what's acceptable,
We're just gonna fall in. So it was a long
way to say that. You know, my ultimate goal of
my rookie year was to just come in, you know,
and earned everybody's respect through just kind of how I
handled my business. I want to talk about Cam Newton
for a second, because he gets drafted in their thirteen
(19:00):
is that right? Eleven? So he was there before you actually,
and I remember he liked had a great rookie season
and all this stuff. And obviously there's always a bunch
of controversies around in Campa. Everything that I've heard is
just like a down earth guy, the leader and everything
like that. Um, how was it just playing with him
and like the environment that he created and stuff like that,
and obviously one m VP that one year and just
(19:21):
being a part of the team with him, how was that? Oh?
He's he's the best. I love him. He's so fun
to be around. His energy is great. He loves football
and he loves to compete, and he's awesome. I mean,
you know, the one thing there's there's a lot of
things that can does that no one talks about. You know,
he works extremely hard. He's there early, he's there late.
(19:43):
You know, he is tough and he's probably top three
or four guy has toughness wise, that I played, never complained,
ever yelled at teammates, never made excuses. He woord on
his sleeve, and it was all about if we don't
get it done, it's because I didn't play as well
as I could have. You never blamed anybody. He never
(20:03):
made excuses, like just great love for the game, competitiveness,
and you know on Sunday you're getting camp, You're getting
everything he's got. He's not a grade. He's gonna run
you over. He played. He played the quarterback position like
like no one had ever seen it before, from his
size to his athletic ability, to his ability to push
the ball down the field. And what everybody saw with
(20:25):
him is who he was. He wasn't putting on a
show for anybody. I loved him as a teammate. He's
a great dude. He's tough as nails, and I'm glad
I had the opportunity to play with him. You go
through season fifteen and one, Um, I remember the I'm sorry,
bring this up. The game I lost. Wasn't that at Atlanta?
Last game of the season. Yeah, Christmas was Christmas Week?
(20:46):
Yeah that was week sixteen, So the second to last
game of the season. So obviously a great season when
all these games get the super Bowl, super Bowl Week
and just leading up to that, like what are your nerves? Like,
what's your where's your mindset at and all this stuff,
because it's like the pinnacle of football that you're about
to have the opportunity to reach. The thing that was
good is that we had two weeks to prepare, right
(21:08):
so you go, you know, you played in the NFC
Championship game and then they have two weeks leading up
to the super Bowl, so tons of time to prepare,
which I really enjoyed, but also a lot of time
to wait, kind of like what you're dealing with right
now with all your draft stuff. You've done everything you
can do, You're prepared as well as you can, and
now it's like all right now, you just keep looking
at the clock. The preparation side was cool. You know
what's you know what honest is really cool about it
(21:28):
is the media side of Super Bowl Week. They have
that big kickoff media media Night, and they had it
at a NHL arena, so I think it was the
San Jose Sharks Arena. So it was packed. Man, I
had never seen that many media people in my life.
They introduced the whole team. That experience itself was it
(21:49):
was so cool just to have all of our guys.
They're answering tons of interesting questions from people that you
don't normally get questions from international people. That to me
was really neat. And then just you know, when you
walk on that field for that Super Bowl, you know,
to warm up and stuff, it's not your normal group
of people. You know, you go playing a game in Charlotte,
(22:10):
you're gonna see some people. You know, you go play
in l A, there's gonna be a couple of celebrities
on the sidelines. When we played that Super Bowl, we
walked out there in pre game and it was like
who's who of of everybody? Game was in obviously San Francisco,
you know, we stopped Kevin Durant and Usher was out
there and you start kind of looking around and you've
got to really focus back and then realized like, all right,
(22:31):
this is sick that we're seeing all these guys, but
we gotta lock in and understand like we're here to
play football. And so, you know, you have that lead
up the preparations cool, there's a lot of sit around
and wait, then you have the media day, which kind
of starts the excitement of Super Bowl week. When you
get to the city, you have your normal practice week,
and then you get on the field pregame and it's like,
(22:52):
you know, like I said, Usher, Katie, all these are
all these guys are out there, and then once the
ball snapped, it's like, all right, here we go. And
remember that first drive was like a blur. It was
so fast. You know, you're just kind of out there.
I was like, I just need to get through this
first series and then settle in. Um. But you realize, man,
this is like the last game of the year, even
more so than in the playoffs. It was very final.
(23:14):
You know, that game was very final. You know, we
need to win this game or it's gonna be a
long off season for us. And that's what it felt like.
The whole game was we gotta make account, we gotta
make account, we gotta make account. And you know, it
was a great experience for us. Obviously wish would have
it would have went a little bit differently, but the
energy and the finality of that game was was what
(23:35):
made it really special, but also very difficult. You talk
about settling in in the game, like what at what
point were you there and you just kind of realized, Okay,
this is Super Bowl? Was it the warm ups? Was
it the very first contact. I think the first player
the game, like the first few players, I don't really
remember getting a ton of action, Like I didn't have
any runs at me. I wasn't involved in the passing game.
(23:56):
And for me, I was like a rhythm player, like
the suit I can get in on a play that
better off of me. So it took a little while
for me to settle, And I don't think it really
happened until that second series of the game, or I
made a couple of plays in that second series, I'm
like all right, like I'm good now and settling everything
kind of slowed down for me. But that first that
(24:17):
first series, man, what happened fast and all all all
my stuff was always like that when I was playing,
because because you never know, you never know how the
game's gonna be. You never know how the players are
gonna you're going against, are gonna be, how are they're
gonna play, what's their individual playing style. I mean, you're
gonna watch however much tape you want. But the first
time that guard releases on you on a wide zone. Look,
it's like, like, what's he feels like? Is he had
(24:40):
easy physical and for whatever reason that game it took
like it took like into that second series to kind
of figure it out. I mean, I think they went
right down the field on that first series. I might
have had six players or so and they end up
kicking a field goal. But there was no action early
in that first series, and I was like, I need something.
I need to get hit, I need to make a play,
(25:00):
I need to do something that kind of relax And
really happened to that second series, I don't I don't remember. Actually,
it's like I think that's when it was, but it
wasn't right away. Obviously, you've been to a numsent route
of Pro Bowls can talk about how lack a daisical
that was compared to the Super Bowl and the build
up in that week, because I hear like a lot
of stories he just come like to the Pro Bowl
(25:22):
overlaid or they just don't take it seriously whatsoever. So Yeah,
so when I was playing, it was, you know, we
we still played football a little bit. Again. It started
like as the game progresses, if you win, you get
a different amount of money than if you lose, right,
So at the end of the at the end of
the game, the game's always kind of ramped up because
there was obviously there's money on the line. But it
(25:44):
was three or four weeks four weeks after the season,
I think, And so you know, some guys just you know,
season ends, they're not really working out a whole lot,
and most guys will show up right to go in
shape because at the end of the day, you don't
want to be the guy that gets hurt because he's
out of shape. I enjoyed it. The Super Bowl is
and Whai at the time that I went, and that
(26:04):
was that was a really cool experience first time of
why you get to meet a lot of really cool
guys in a more casual basis. So, you know, it
was after my it was after my second year, so
I was still pretty fresh in the league and to
have the opportunity to meet some of those guys was
super cool. I mean when I was there, Eric Barry
was on our team, to Else Stuts was on our team,
(26:25):
and Donkin Sue was on our team, and it was
like all these dudes that I grew up watching and
to be in the same locker room on the same
side of the ball with them was just it was
just so cool for me. Yeah, And I feel like
this is going back to like what you're talking about
the Super Bowls, like with nerves and like having settled
and stuff like that. I feel like it's such an
overlooked part of football and like big games, like at
(26:48):
the end of at the end of the day, we're
all like competitors and stuff like that, and like we're
we've been preparing for this moment for so long whatever
game maybe and super Bowl obviously you're on a different routine,
different schedule and were routine based athletes and have to
be on like a schedule to feel quite coomfortable. And
I feel like it gets overlooked how important like settling
into a game is and like how real that is.
(27:09):
Like I felt it, like I'm sure you did too,
Like even Flota State, like the first game of the year,
like you're like this is our first live against a
different team, and like you get out there in the
first time, it's like, Okay, I'm actually like in a
game right now. And yeah, Like that's one thing that
we always talked about with Cam, like and we never
really talked to him about it. But we always felt
like if he could get in there and and and
(27:30):
and knock someone earlier, whether he's he was running the
ball or he can hit somebody or do something, then
if he ran the game early and got going, it
was like like like look out because then he settling
and I just remember him. It was like that he
could run the ball earlier, even if he got hit early.
I feel like he loved that contact side of the ball.
(27:50):
And we'd watch the special in the defense side of
always sit on the bench and Cam would like truck
someone or or run through a guy for the first time,
and we're like, all right, here we go. That's so cool.
What you talking about him? Like his energy because in
high school I played actually played on the seven or
seven team, and like having him like kind of a
lot of times. I mean, you know the seven or
seventh circuit is you're playing like five and these games
(28:12):
a day. It's just like, bro, we've been out here
since seven am, and blah blah blah. It's just like
he comes out like every game, it's like the last game.
It's like this is the only thing we worked about
right now. And he brings a lot of energy and
I could. I could kind of see how him being
on the team, which is even if you don't want
to do things, like just him in his presence like
would just make you want to. All Right, I gotta
(28:33):
I gotta at least do it for him. Do you
see what I'm saying? Yeah, energy is contagious. He was
the king of him. Man. He wouldn't let you if
you were you were lacking energy. He was like it's
like you were a magnet for him, like and like
spray you down like an annoying Yeah, he's like like
bro stops right. Yeah. We were at a seven or
(28:58):
seven tournament and actually in Georgia and we were playing
his team next and uh, we're on the same like
same field. That's not the kind of this is our
sophomore year. Okay, well what was your Like I have
to look at my snaps. He's lake or something like that.
He's late. Yeah yeah yeah. Up in the Alatuna, we're
(29:21):
like playing that's not this fields cut off fifty Yeah,
so we're playing this other team, but we're like he's
coaching right like right on our backs. So we're like
turning around talking trash to him. He's turned around talking
trash to us. Then the whole time we're playing, like
we're just yapping at him. He's us. He's like run
across the fielding the flags and stuff. Everybody. I mean, obviously, Luke,
(29:43):
you definitely better speak on this one end of us.
But everybody kind of looks at him is like a
bad guy kind of character because of all the all
the trash talking, all the the outwardness he can be.
But like, honestly, I feel like that's just more of
a I mean, that's just personality like that. It gets
him going. There's no bad it's just behind you. I mean,
what do you what do you think? I love him, man,
(30:04):
he's the best. Like everybody that we played with this
would say the same thing about him. He's such a
good guy for young guys, So talk to anybody is
he's just such a good energy guy. You guys saw
him like what you guys saw at that seven on
seven campus. Who he is. He loves the game, loves energy,
loves to compete, loves to go back and forth, doesn't
take things personally, just wants to go out there and
(30:26):
have a good time to compete. And that's who Cam
is at the end of the day, and like you said,
sometimes you know, sometimes he gets ragged for stuff that
doesn't really matter. But at the end of the day,
the guy, the guy will compete. The guy's tough as nails.
The guy worked super hard and his energy and love
for football is is fantastic. So any of the guys
that that we played with, when cameras in Carolina Press,
(30:47):
I always say the same thing. I feel like, that's
so like annoying. The day and age we live in,
the media can create a persona about somebody and then
everybody kind of buys into it same thing with like
like Odell, Like is like around the NFL love Odell
like it been locker room and say he's a great guy.
Like I was talking to Woo, one of our old teammates.
(31:07):
He plays for the Browns, and it was with Odell
when he was on the Browns. He's like great dude,
like one of the best locker room guys. But obviously
the media has a different tone what they like saying
about him, stuff like that. Um, it's like the premiums right,
all that stuff, and it kind of sucks because it's
not what people really are and doesn't even not even
worth their time. To try to justify who they really are.
I just thought about something, Um, speaking of Odell, were
(31:29):
you on the team when all the Odell Josh Norman
stuff happened in New York? Yeah? That was That game
was intense. Obviously, I forgot all about that crazy you
guys going at it Josh and O'Dell when at all
game and it was you know, there was build up
to that week. You know, we challenge Josh like, Josh,
(31:51):
you got, you got O'Dell like, you gotta make a count,
you gotta. We're gonna we're gonna have you on him
all games. Third down, We're gonna press him. We got
to place the man. We'll bring some help, but it's
you on him all game. And Josh Man, Josh was
such a competitor that he loved that, like he wanted
he wanted to be on an island. He wanted to
be by himself. I don't need help. I'll play man
(32:11):
all game on like wherever he lines up, I'm going.
So we gassed him up all week and then the
game came around and like they started like they made
eye contact and pregame and I was like, oh my good. Yeah,
and they started going at it and we were up big.
We were up big, and they started coming back, and
(32:33):
like the momentum was shifting, like we went from being
we're gonna run away with this game. We're gonna stomp
him out too, Like h it's starting at the tides
are starting to change a little bit. LDL Coda Ball
started barking at Josh. Josh started barking at him, and
it was and then it ultimately, uh came to came
(32:55):
to a head there with that. They had that little
scrum there with I think that was in the fourth quarter.
So man, it was just two guys going one at
it all game and it was you know, and being
on the field, the energy between those two guys like
you could just feel it like finding up on each other.
(33:15):
You know how it came like when you're playing when
you're playing corner and their receiver, you might have if
he's playing backside it, you might have a front side
run and you've got nothing to do with the play
and it's like kind of just drop over there. But
they were like fighting everything. Play quarters, I'm gonna play quarters,
I'm gonna press like whatever was that whole game and
(33:41):
it was like, you know, it was kind of one
of those things with josh was like, man, just let
Joshua josh to a certain extent. But he did a
really good job. He played great that game. It was
an ultimate battle um, but that was one of those
games you look back and like dag on like that
that almost got like you got out of hand, but
it could have gotten really at hand. Now, so before
this we were I was looking up, like you up
(34:03):
so I can get all the accolades, right, And one
of the first things that stuck I was like, he's
probably the nicest dude off the field, but so me
and on the field, So what is some of your
trash talks sound like you like half the stuff you
guys know, like half the stuff you say it you
don't really realize what you're saying. You get off the
field and like guying your teams, like, bro, what did
you just that? So true? Like I have no I
(34:26):
have no idea, like and then you see guys, the
league is so small. You see a lot of guys
in the offseason. You're like, you're like, sorry, man, were
there any like specific like running backs? So you went
at like when at it? Like a lot of so
we played you know, inside your division, and you see
(34:46):
all those guys so often that it's like you kind
of you. There's a very neutral respect. The one guy
that was man was always a beast towards Marshawn. Everything
he played, every play was the same for him. Played hard,
and how he was built was so he was so
difficult to figure out how to tackle. You know, he
was big and thick and strong, and he had a
(35:09):
big waist. He had a really big, really big like trunk.
He was thick, big like his chest to his back.
He was kind of like I don't know if he
was bowlegged or something, but there was nothing on him
that was like hesu like to wrap up on. And
he loved and he was one of those guys. You
guys know how certain guys run the ball. When you
get close to him, that stiff arm comes out and
(35:31):
once you had distance, Marshaun was so powerful and strong
and he had such good but body bounce and ability
to like sink into his hips that he'd let you
get close to him almost on him. He'd get, he'd
sink down and then he'd pushed off and extend and
then it was like it was like a piston coming
out of there, and so he was. He was always
(35:52):
so hard to play against. He was big, he was strong,
he was a big body. He ran so physical and
he ran like at you, I'm coming at you. But
then the thing that was also tricky about him is
you didn't know. You didn't know where he was going
to be. Like his running style was so unique and
different that he didn't move in a normal movement pat him.
(36:13):
So you go up and try to and try to
approach him and get on him, and he'd be here,
and then he'd be there. Like his ability to move
laterally and then literally was was unbelievable. And he had
like a sneaky he had like a sneaky amount of shape.
So he'd come at you. We come, actually come, actually,
come at you. And then like the third or fourth time,
(36:34):
he'd gave you like a little little shape and get
your feet to stop. And then his ability to burst
was really good, so then he could he could kind
of get away from you on that. And then the
next time you go up on him, you're kind of
sitting waiting for that shake and then he puts his
shoulder down and it's like, oh my god, you're just
going for a ride. So like, I'll tell you what.
(36:55):
That's one thing when you when you get in there,
when you play teams, make sure you watched the backs,
like because each guy is gonna have two or three
different backs. And when you get in the game and
you watch these guys like you play you play the
Saints man like when you go play tomorrow, he's gonna
run the ball differently than the next guy. And so
have an approach on how you tackle those guys as key.
But with Marshawn Man, it was like you better bring
it and you better hold on because you hit him,
(37:18):
you hit on the wrong way, You're gonna you're gonna
go for a riding. Now that makes sense as the
two dozen ten Saints when the so in the wild
card game, actually it was crazy. It was crazy the
way you the way you were talking about then, how
he's pushing off on people. All I could think about
was the stiff arm he had on Who was that
(37:38):
b Who was that in the in the Saints game?
You never heard of him after that play, like I've
never heard you know, he's so many people like so disrespectful.
It was just I just remember being eleven teen years
old and watching it and I grew up the Saints fan.
I just kinda remember watching the play and I was
just sitting in my living room just like, how did
he do that? And like I rewinded it just wind.
(37:58):
I was like, how does this even happen? And he
was just powerful? Yeah did he talk trash? I feel
like I feel like Marshall I would talk. He was quiet,
one of those quiet man. Everybody that I talked to
that played with him loved it absolutely see that. I
would not have thought that he was quiet. I thought
(38:19):
the extra extra I love football, played so hard man
like he was. He was a lot of fun to
play against. So obviously, Um, you retired quite recently. How
is life post football? Then? It's been good man. I'm
trying to figure out kind of what that path looks like.
I still missed the game. I missed playing and miss
(38:40):
being around all the guys. So you know, it's just
one of those things. I got a lot of a
lot of things I gotta figure out. One of them
is kind of what I'm doing next. So I worked
with the team in the scotting department. That was really
that was really pretty cool. Um, you get to learn
about how the teams really work. Because you know, when
you're playing, you think you understand it. Know you think
you understand salary cap and free agency in the draft,
(39:03):
but until you get up there and you're in it,
you don't really understand what all goes into it. So
to have the opportunity to do that with those guys
was a lot of fun last year. I uh like,
like I said early, I love the hunting fish that
like last fall, last summer, fall, and kind of into
the spring. That's what that was about. And then now
it's like, all right, bom, I need to try to
find a way to get back involved in football because
(39:23):
I feel I feel like that's what I really enjoy.
I feel like I still have some something to give
in the football in the football space, So I'm trying
to figure out what that looks like right now. I'm
trying to have different conversations with people and find out
what the right path to do that is. But I
think if hopefully within the next little while here I
can I can dial in on what I want to do.
(39:44):
But I think right now is looking like maybe football.
We had a pile of fue out formal quarterbacks Brandon
won Bush and he was talking about like life posts
football and how it can be harder than mid to
because that's how we know from a joy of ours.
I'm not sure if that's the if that stands true
for you, but always talk about like how we want
to approach not playing football every again, If you have
any tips, what would that be? I think a lot
(40:06):
of it is you just just think about kind of
the structure side of what football gives you, right, so
you pretty much know I for your next six months,
you guys know exactly what you're gonna be doing, right,
and then into the season, like you guys probably know
exactly what football schedule is gonna look like, you don't.
You know what you gotta do to get ready for training, camp,
for games, for practices. You know where you're gonna be,
(40:28):
what you're gonna be doing pretty much. You know, down
to down to the hour for the most part, and
so when you wake up, man, it's like, boom, this
is what I'm gonna do today. This is how I'm
gonna be successful. And then when you get done playing,
a lot of that's kind of gone, you know. So
to me, it's the biggest thing is what what kind
of structure gives you? You know, a meaningful purpose and
(40:48):
how to how to recreate that on a day to
day basis. So I think a lot of guys kind
of go through that when they get done playing, of
of how can I, how can I create structure and
what what that structure it's like for me? So I've
got I have a pretty good routine day to day
with the structure side. I think for a lot of
guys that get done, played is the most one of
the most important things. What would you say you've carried
(41:10):
over from football and orders into life afterball? I just
think I think there's so much that football provides and
you look at you look at the relationship side of
football and the ability to meet guys that you wouldn't
normally meet. You know, I grew up in Ohio and
a small private old boys school, and then from the
time playing you meet guys from east coast, west coast, north, south, black, white,
(41:31):
different political views, different religious views, different views on life,
and you just realize, how like, you know, special powerful
the relationship side of sports such so I think that's
number one. I think number two is is just the
ability to be accountable and when you play football, man,
somebody's always relying on you. Whether it's on the field
(41:53):
or in a meeting room or if you have a
charity event, people are always relying on you in that
accountability factor. I think it's something that you learned from
an early age. And then I just think you know
your your ability to be resilient and and and deal
with and deal with failure and deal with loss, because
I think you can learn a lot about yourself, the
guys around you, how to come back from stuff like
(42:15):
that because you know every every day, every practice, you're
gonna you're gonna lose, right, You're gonna lose a rep.
You're gonna you're gonna get deep in an offseason, Matt Drill,
You're not gonna hit a weight you want on a
max day, And like that stuff. In my mind, that
stuff is all okay as long as you learn learn
from it. Why didn't I hit that weight? Why did
(42:37):
I get the Why didn't you know? Why did why
did my technique get compromised on that place? So to me,
it's a really powerful tool. It if you use the
right way, it can help you a lot. So there's
so many things that football can teach you if you
let it. Just from the relationship and accountability and the
ability to deal with stuff after after a loss or
(42:58):
after a failure, and then you know, the ability to
enjoy it with other people, I think is what makes
it special as well. So there's a lot I love
the game of football. Things taught me a lot of them,
a lot of people a lot, and you know, I
love that I had the opportunity to do it. This
is a question, just like going through the draft process,
that like every team has asked, and I kind of
(43:18):
want to hear your answer to it. What in your mind,
what's the worst part about football? Did they ask this?
Do you remember them as the worst? The worst part
about football? And that's tough brow What did you say?
I said injury because it's like I said, injury because
(43:40):
you work so hard to like achieve this goal and
something you love and it's taken away from you, out
of your hands and stuff like that. I think a
lot of it is you know, in college, you guys
like your team is there right regardless of how I
got place, is gonna be that. I think the most
difficult part is when that roster turns over every year,
when you've got a guy, did you spend a year
(44:00):
or two with, and he spent off season with and
you know he's a wife and a family, and then
roster cut downs, he just he's cut right and he's fired. Essentially,
That to me, is the most difficult part of football
is known that sometimes these guys do everything right, but
it just doesn't work out for whatever reason numbers and
the position group, or they need a different guy at
(44:22):
a different position. To me, that's that's the most difficult part,
is knowing that you know there's ninety guys, ninety guys
at a training camp, and then at at the end
of training camp there's there's fifty three on the active
and tent on the practice squad, So you know that
a majority of these guys aren't going to be here.
And to me, that's the most difficult part because a
(44:42):
lot of them deserve to be honored for whatever reason,
they just aren't able to make the team that year.
So I think that's that stinks. I think, what do
you think about, like obviously injuries of probably where it's
but like a broken locker room we've never experienced because
you spent so much time in the locker room. Yeah,
I feel like even here, not even a broken locker
room I was saying clickie locker room, because there's been
(45:03):
times when the locker room, like this past year and
this past year, there's been times when black room is
full of like different personalities, but we all are pretty close.
But there's been times when the clicks and lock leave
practice and then it's just like, yeah, you leave campus
and you don't see these guys until yeah, practice, and
that's kind of the league. Well, yeah, I think I
(45:25):
think I think the locker room. A lot of guys
will go home after practice and stuff just because they
have kids and families and stuff. But the best teams
that I've been on in Carolina where we're where, we
had the best guys, Guys that enjoyed being around each other.
Guys that you know, on Saturdays after walk through for
playing away games and stick around and they play cards
(45:45):
and they shoot basketball and they hang out in training
room and watch and watch college football together. Those are
the best locker rooms. And I think that's that just
kind of makes football that much more special when you have,
you know, you got fifty three guys, your tend practice
squad guys, and then your training room, equipment room strength guys.
When all those guys get along in their synergy between
(46:07):
all of them. That's when that's when things are special,
and that's when it really did you just a leg
up on the teams actually play against knowing that everybody
in your locker room enjoys being around each other, cares
about each other, enjoys people's company, They're willing, they're willing
to help each other when you know guy's going through something.
Those are your special locker rooms. And I agree to him.
If if you don't have that feel in your locker room,
(46:29):
I think I think you missed out on some on
some of the special aspects of football. All Right, So
we're gonna go towards wrapping up. Now we're moving on
the outside the garage um. This question comes from Maggie Schmidt.
If you had a song to describe your college experience,
what would it be? Girl? I listening too much music
for this kind of question. Question You've got look you
(46:51):
wanna go first, So I don't know if it epitomizes, uh,
my college experience, but so we my fresh in year,
we had to wake up at like four thirty four
workouts because we were the first group in the off season.
It was terrible. So we like went through some different alarms,
and we didn't like any of them because you woke
(47:12):
up at fourth thing and you're like, gosh, man, I
hate my life. This is terrible. So we settled my
roommate Jake sinking and I sinking back, and I settled
on Only Time by Enya. You heard that song? How
does that go? How's that going? Oh? Man, yeah, you
gotta sing it. I can't sing it, like you can't
(47:34):
even sing you guys gotta listen to And it was
like we woke up in the morning and like it
like made us happy in the morning before we got
to beat down that it's four thirty in the morning.
It's just in a day, it's fourth in the morning,
pre beat workout, beat down music, Like oh i've heard
(47:55):
this boy, Yeah this is the song that's so funny.
Yeah yeah, get you that can get you up in
the morning, and like not get you totally one in
the I think I would slip through that work Um.
(48:22):
We had that, and then we had like we we
set for him. So I sent one on my phone.
He said one on his phone. I sent one on
my alarm clocks which was at and then he said
once we were so paranoid about like showing up late
to a workout and whatever we gotta do to make
sure that we're up, we'll do it right now, four
or five times anymore. Yeah, and you just don't want
(48:44):
to you don't want to do that job. I was
gonna say either it was Kanye. I was gonna say
either I wonder like k or family business. I feel
like like I like family business because we all live
in this house and there's a lot of things that
we say and do just that a lot of people
wouldn't know about us. So I don't even know that.
(49:08):
I probably phases by gunning for slave season one, okay, okay,
is because I feel like each year you take, you
take with you what you want, you leave with you
what you we leave what you don't want. I feel
like it's just every year's growth, every day's growth, every
week's grow. So so this isn't like the lyrics aren't
really like why I'm taking this. So our freshman year
(49:29):
the summer you played called Wolf. So it was like
the song that we played in a freshman because we're
all in the same dorm or freshman year in the
summer going into our freshman year and kJ and Kyle
roommates and they they had like this big speaker and
they always played this song called Wolf and it was
I don't even know what John, that is like Indian. Yeah,
(49:52):
like we don't like we didn't play it for a while,
but whenever like one of us plays a song, if
it was like, think back to that. So I probably
say that because it brings back at Yeah, definitely, time
I hear my my four dirty wake up song, I
feel like after we leave we have if we hear
a Sweather Weather, we're probably some good times here. Oh yeah,
(50:16):
it's gonna sound very very corny Dona. No, No, I'm
not gonna um. We are young but fun. No, that's
what I thought of. We're young. We bonded over that
song when you were at Uba. By the way, Yeah,
maybe I mean my mighty needs some more time on
that one. We all have a little segment where we've
(50:38):
been calling it thirty under a minute. It's really just
yes or no questions, the answer as fast as you
can or as sol as you want. There's no there's
no real time limit. But give your first thought, give
your first answer, your first thoughts to the question, and
just roll with it ready. Yeah, alright, So the first
question I go with this coffee or energy drink? Coffee?
(51:01):
Who would you rather have on your team? Ray Lewis
or Lawrence Taylor? Oh, Lawrence Taylor, because if Ray was
on a team, I want to have a job. I
was just thinking about that. Our naps overrated? No, man,
not after a five dirty workouts? Uh? Spring or fall?
Oh man, I'm gonna go fall. I'm gonna go fall.
(51:22):
What's the hardest sport in your mind? Golf? I love
I love playing, but I'm not very good at feel
you and not raise a family on the beach or
in the city on the beach. Which number do you prefer? Number?
Forty or fifty nine? Oh man? Forty was my first
football number ever, back when I was playing in grade school.
(51:43):
So I got did you wear that from grade school?
I like through college? No. I bounced around a little bit.
When I got to BC, they gave me forty. I'm like, man,
this is kind of cool as my first number. Chipple,
I'm gonna go Chipotle, get more food that way? Country
or jazz? Oh man, I'm gonna go country. M hm. Uh.
(52:06):
Would you rather have two interceptions or four tacks? In
the game. Two interceptions fishing or camping. Fishing if you
had a opportunity. First place you traveled to in Europe Normandy,
historic madness, two k mad Thai food or barbecue? Barbecue?
(52:30):
Do you like to fit in the past? More of
the run the run, a fight, an alligator on land
or a lion in the water. I guess a line
in the water. I think an alligator because I feel
like you could you could at least not get eaten.
I think, like the line in the water. You're gonna
die regardless. But this fun thing alligators thinking that, I'm like, yeah,
(52:58):
but they can run straight, but they can't go shack yet.
I'm not in a circle. She can never get you
line though. That sounds pretty easy. But what easy sideways?
I mean, they can go sideways, but there it would
take longer for them to do. We should try to
be like turning like it'd be like turning a coach
(53:18):
bus in a circle. Would be take for everything? All right,
what's the best show of all time? You're thinkers best
show of all time in your opinion? You know, I
was on the Game of Thrones for a long time.
That was really good. That's the most one. But you
know people are gonna say Seinfeld or friends. But I
loved Game of Thrones, favorite cheat, Dameo pizza all day,
(53:44):
very kind of pizza supreme. I don't want everything on it.
You pineapples belong on pizza. I don't want. I don't want.
I don't want to pineapple on its on it? Uh
if you do? If you didn't play football, whisper, would
you play lacrosse? I played the Crossing High School. But uh,
phone caller FaceTime? I like FaceTime more. What's the last
(54:07):
thing you cooked? Oh? I cooked? I cooked the stay
last night. All right, it's the last question in your opinion,
who's the most underrated player? It could be right now,
who you've played with. Lavante David m back for Tampa man.
That dude. Go look at his numbers, man and what
he's been able to do turn like force some turnover, sacks, interceptions, tackles,
(54:32):
TfL is to do way legit, he just doesn't. I
don't think he gets enough credit for what he's done
down They're just consistency for such a long time, and
he's a great dude. So Lavante David, in my book,
deserves more credit than he gets about one more. Would
you rather live in Charlotte or Since it's a tough question,
I love I love Sharott, but I'm from Cincinnati, so
(54:54):
my parents watch this. I gotta stay neutral. I'm not
get in trouble. Good answer, that's all we got for you. Look.
Appreciate you coming on. UM, appreciate it, Paul, Thank you
for coming on. UM, I hope to see you soon.
Connect soon. UM. I appreciate we're gonna wrap it up there.
(55:16):
Thank you guys for listening this week. UM, we will
see you next time. Appreciate it. Thank you, thank you,
Thank you, guys,
The volume's everybody. Welcome back to Inside Garage podcast from COYLEA.
Hamilton along with k J. Wallace, Conradigan and Cam Haart.
Today we have a big, big time guest. Um. Luke
(00:22):
Quickley is in the house. Uh is nice enough to
come on and chat with us a little bit. Appreciate
you coming on, Luke. Yeah, man excited to be on
fair It doesn't know. Luke Kickley is one you live
under rock to let me Um, let me go down
some accolades real quick Night. The overall pick in two
thousand and twelve draft, seven time for Pro Bowler, NFL
Defensive Player of the Year, NFL Rookie of the the Year twelve.
(00:45):
Buck is two thousand and eleven eleven in college and
also in the NFL Basic Defensive Player of the Year
two dozen eleven, a SEC Defensive Rookie of the Year
two thousand nine and his college jersey number forty is retired. Um,
so he's had a saired at where was it retired at?
Backup college? Is that what it is off right now?
(01:11):
Boston College obviously. So yeah, he's had a pretty decent
He's gonna been okay throughout the sport. Um has been playing.
But Luke, out of all these accomplishments, what do you
think you're most proud of or your favorite one is?
Oh Man, we so was probably the best year that
we had in Carolina. We went won fifteen o one,
We won the uh the NFC Conference championship, and that
(01:34):
was that was really cool. I think, you know, the
individual awards are are great and everything, and but the
team awards I think are what matters most because at
the end of that everybody just wants to win games
and win championships. And you know that you were special
because we had a lot of really good guys and
just the whole journey that year from training camp through
the season and then in the playoffs we have two
(01:56):
home games and have the opportunity to play in front
of the home crowd and win that NFC title. Was
it was a lot of fun. Obviously came up a
little bit short and super Bowl, but that NFC championship
was something that was really neat not only for me
and the guys the team, but the city as well.
You bring up the Super Bowl and just kind of
touch on it for a little bit. We can circle
back later and obviously you're very cerebral guy, kind of
known for film study and knowing the offensive game play
(02:18):
and stuff like that. How how was it game planning
and playing against Payton Manning in that Super Bowl? Yeah,
I mean, you know, from the defensive side of the ball,
they're those guys like they're looking for everything that they
can gather pre snaps. So any information that's available pre snap,
those guys, those guys are grabbing, whether it's a raccation,
whether it's alignment, if the guy's cheating a blitz er,
stacking a blitzer, those guys are the king of picking
(02:41):
that information up. So for us, for the two weeks
leading up to that game, it was all about how
can we disguise, how can we move late? How can
we make it difficult and Payton pre snap because once
he knows what's going on, he's he's paid Manning a
lot of times you can figure it out and get
him into a play that's more beneficial to him. But
for the most part is just how can we disguise,
(03:02):
how can we move late? How can we get them
stuff that he isn't seeing already in the year to
prepare for. So that's what makes it so difficult for
those guys and as you know, the timing and and there,
their understanding the offense is is so good that you
know you just got to try to execute and do
your job as best you can because for the most part,
they have a pretty good clue of what's going on
for the ball snap. It might be a little off topic,
(03:24):
but like you talking about game planning for Paying Manning,
but what obviously when the game planning people, you obviously
understand their strengths and weaknesses. Like what would you say,
Paying Manny's weakness? This was, oh man, I mean, you know,
there's there's different kinds of quarterbacks in the league, and
you know, you look at you look at guys like
Peyton and Brady versus guys like you know, Mahomes and
(03:46):
Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson, and you know then Lamar
Jackson's like the that the extreme to that. But the
one thing you always knew with guys like Peyton and
Brady was they want to stay in the pocket. So
you can get a little bit more aggressive in your
past rush games, your third down blitz is because you
know you can win in different ways and if the
(04:07):
pocket breaks down, you can have a late loop bringing
clean stuff up versus you know, you play a guy
like you know Lamar Mahomes or Rust or you know
guys like Aaron Rodgers, you you lose an edge on
those guys. They can scramble out on the edge and
and make you pay because they have so much more
space and time. But the one, the one good thing
playing a guy like Peyton is he wants to play
(04:29):
from the pocket. He wants to stay in the pockets,
so you can kind of you can get a little
more creative blitz wise. But I mean the guys, those
guys are still deak on good Man that the weaknesses
are are few and far between, but that's one of them.
You know where they're going to be in the passing
gay kind of feel like I'm in a position group
painting right now, learn a little bit right now. But now,
(04:50):
so you grew up in Cincinnati, correct, Yes, yep, so
I grew up in Cincinnati, midwestern guy went to Boston College. Obviously.
Uh kind of talked us a little bit like you're
high school trovement because you didn't have too many offers right. Yes,
when I was, when I was coming out, man, I was,
I grew up and you know, obviously in Cincinnati, Notre
Dame is everywhere, so I'm like, yeah, get a chance
(05:12):
to get another Dame. And then they came to the Hight.
They came to our high school a few times, and
they always looked we had another guy. They looked at um,
and then we had two guys that both accepted offers
to get or Notre Dame. So I was the guy
that was left behind by the dame that you guys
didn't want me. Man, It's not that, but yeah, man,
(05:34):
So I went to went to Saint Savior High School.
It was it was an all boys pride to Jesuit school. Um,
we had a really good football program there. So you know,
the thing that was very gun official to me being
at Saint Xavier's. We had a lot of kids prior
to me go playing college, so it was already kind
of established that our high school was a good football program.
Our coach, Steve Spect was phenomenal about getting guys names out.
(05:57):
Um after our junior year, you know, the cruity rules
are so much different back when I was playing socacer
my junior I think is when everything kind of started,
and uh, you know it was really cool. Was it
was cool to feel like, you know, people wanted you,
they wanted you on their team, and it was exciting
from my perspective because you know, you always want to
play college you want play in high school and then
(06:17):
you don't play college football and kind of have that
opportunity to know that, you know, hopefully in a year
or two, i'mably able to play college football was really cool.
So it's busy. I enjoyed it a lot. You get
to see a lot of really cool areas. You know.
I went out and took a visit to Stanford never
and I'd really never been in California before, so I
have the opportunity to go out there and see that
campus was awesome. It's beautiful, just beautiful out there. You know.
(06:40):
I looked at Duke and in Wisconsin and ultimately ended
up at at BC. And I think the thing that
really helped me about BC was we had we had
a couple of guys that were on the team when
I was being recruited. So a guy named Nick Larkin
was He was a fifth year senior when I was
being recruited, so he was gonna be gone when I
got there. But he was a great guy to ask
questions to and vast ideas off of and he came
(07:02):
from the same area that I did, so there was
some familiarity there. And then there was a second guy
named Alex Albright. He was three years older than me
in school, so he was a he read shirted, so
I was gonna have two years of Alex with me
at BC. So my freshman sophomore yeor Alex was gonna
be there. My parents and his parents knew each other,
(07:22):
and Alex was great for me and a great resource
for me both during being recruited and while at school.
And then Alex's parents were the same way for my
my mom and dad. I had a bunch of BC
football school related questions for Alex, and then my mom
and dad had you know, how to be a parent
of a kid that is seventeen hours away at a
(07:43):
college football program. So it was the best of both
worlds and for me but for my parents as well.
So I enjoyed it up there. We had a great
group of guys and there's a lot of fun. But
this is a question for This can be a question
for everybody. But if you football wasn't in the picture
where you can choose one school around the country, to
go to it would it be? Oh? Man, that is
that is a good question. I mean, you know, I
(08:06):
love I love being outside. I love I love fishing,
I love hunting. I think something out there and in
Bozeman or north of Bozeman, Montana area would have been Actually,
it's not it's not too much out there. But answer
that was, that's a very unique answer. That would have
(08:27):
been sweet. Man. You think about you wake up, you
go to school. In the afternoons, you can go ski.
Then you know, once spring hits you got the ability
to go hiking, you got fishing. It's so it's so
pretty out there, man, there's so much to do in
all seasons that you don't know how much school I
would have gotten accomplishment that about I'm allowed to stay
it out s U l A. Obviously, I've always talked
(08:49):
about that. That was. I don't know. Definitely, I would
probably want to go somewhere it's fun, our place, somewhere
in Florida, like maybe the US of b U Tampas Day.
I'm sure it's probably similar to BC about to say
(09:10):
we had so much fun at VC. You said if
I couldn't pick BC again, where would have gone? I
would have resoundingly said PC. Way, I loved it. So
I got all of Bostons, So I guess it's time
there Boston a city like that I've never c um.
I probably say like Oxford something like that. Oxfordould be
cool in England. Bro oh, I want to go to
(09:36):
Oxford and like live in England and like PC answer,
not a PC answer. I mean I would have probably
picked U C l An. So I'm good together man, Yeah,
I said that before the podcast. That's true. Kind of
going back to like BC, do you have like a
memorable game for a memorable year, Like I know you
(09:58):
were there a freshman and junior year and left early.
Was there like one of those years that you just
I loved one of the others are a specific game?
So shoot, that was my freshman year, you know we
I think I think it might have been week four
or five maybe we So first two games we played
Northeastern which was a small school up there, and I
(10:18):
think we played Kent State, and then we played Clemson
at Clemson which was awesome, Death Valley sick. And then
we played a game we had game day at at
BC and we played Florida State at night and That
was an awesome experience. My first night game in college
against Florida State. UM at home under the lights, and
(10:40):
you know you grew up, you know you guys on
how it is your first time you grew up and
you play against some of these teams. It's so cool man.
And we played, We played Florida State, We won the game.
They Christian Ponder, They had all kinds of skill position guys.
They were stacked. So we had a couple of big
goal line stands, We played really well on third down,
had a couple of big stops on the defensive side
of the ball. So that was I think my first
(11:02):
experience of you know how special college football is with
the guys kind of knew everybody. By week five, we
hadn't won a game in the a SEC. Have we
lost to Clemson? I think that was week three, So
that was our first a SEC win of the year
at night at home on game day against Fort State.
It was it was so much funness. That's awesome. Um,
I just something just caught my attention. He just said
(11:23):
they played really good on third down and that was
what twelve years ago? Are you are you in that sense?
Like do you remember like like plays from a long
time ago and stuff like that. Now, I think I
think everybody remembers, and I mean you could probably talk
back when you were in in in high school about
(11:44):
certain situation the games you guys all played in. But
I mean, that was just a really memorable game for us.
And you know, there's certain plays that that stick out,
and there's obviously other plays that you totally forget, but
I just remember we played really well. We had a
we had a big goal line stop um by our
end zone in the tunnel, so it was it was
a lot of fun. It was the most memorable play
from that game that Yeah, Lonnie Pryor, who's their fool
(12:07):
back games number twenty four, he had a run on
third down. I think we stopped him and it was
fourth down. Thing was a goal line stop on the
third or fourth down. That was a big stop for
us because they were going in. We made a stop
there and the place went crazy frementum change and it
really started to kind of propel us in the right
direction for that game. So I'm glad we got a
(12:28):
lot of defensive guys and um it was cool because
that was my first big moment on the defensive side
of the ball in a big time game, and it
was that that game was really special for us. We've
only had one experience playing Bouston College and they were
a total of zero fans. Um at Bouston College. They
were zero fans the covered year. It was probably the
(12:50):
weirdest game I've ever experienced because I remember they were
pumping crowd noise into the game and um, going into
the halftime, they cut the crowd noise off and it
was like it was like a scrimmage like it was.
It was the weirdest situation ever. Its cold to how
many empty stadiums did you guys playing that year? Only one?
That was the only one that was Yeah, that was
(13:10):
still very play there this year though. Do anyone remember
that BC ar senior night? It might be a cool one.
Gotta come to that. Look yeah, um, you still got
some eligibility left. Who knows? Raping up the um. Yeah.
(13:31):
So obviously you guys play Notre Dame when you were there,
right so three times? Yeah, So what was like your
experience against Notre Dame? Who who are the some of
like feature guys that Notre Dame had at the time,
And just like memories from the bad rivalry. So my
freshman you we played at Notre Dame. You guys, you
guys are stacked like you guys always all you had.
You know, Jimmy was the quarterback, Jimmy Clausen, cal Rudolph
(13:54):
was a tight end. It's Golden Tate on that team, Michael,
Michael Floyd. I think I think Golden Tate was there
and Golden Tate was there. I believe. Um, you guys
had play against Tyler Eiffert. Yeah, both the Martin's I
think what's his name's all in the same team. Carts
(14:17):
Zack Martin was there. Man, it was cool. You know,
you guys know that you guys have a special place.
I mean to say what you want about the BC
Notre Dame rivalry. Playing at Notre Dame school, man, it's
it's it's a historic place to play a college football game.
We played back when it was grass and I love
playing football and grass fields, and that was it reminded
me of plan at home, just how the grass was,
(14:37):
the old school Midwest grass. I grew up watching Notre Dame.
My grandpa was a huge Notre Dame fan. That was
kind of like that. The quarter state game, my freshman year,
we played Notre Dame at night at Notre Dame and
it's you guys know how it's it's a special place.
We never won. We played, you guys three times, We
played twice up at Notre Dame, once at home, and
(15:01):
you know that, you guys know how that game is.
It's a big, big rivalry. Everybody's looking forward to it,
you know, and it was. It was a special place.
I think that's that's half the fun of playing in college.
In colleges, a lot of these stadiums are just so
so memorable for so many reasons. You look at Clemson,
they have the rock that you know in the hill
they run down, you guys, is old school and other Dame.
(15:25):
Florida State obviously is super cool. We've got some really
cool stadiums in the in the A SEC and then
you obviously get to the SEC. We never really played
any of those schools, but they have some great traditions
down there as well. So that was that was cool
to me. You grew up watching it. Everybody from Cincinnati
came up for the game, and it was it was
the epitome of a Midwest South Bend night. Cold, but
(15:50):
I'd love on grass. That's my favorite. That's my favorite
way to play football, especially on the defensive side of
the ball. So we had a great time. Unfortunately never won,
but um it was a great experience. So I didn't
consider since that was my first offer. So Brian Kelly
was a head coach that you see when I was
being so they were the first offer. I kind of
just wanted to get out of Cincinnati and experienced something new.
(16:12):
So another reason for heading up to VC. Look cute.
According to the status as as you're talking, looked it up.
You had fourteen tackles against us each time in all
three games, and I think a couple of tackles for
lost and each one too. So NA game was like
very very close. Yeah yeah, so the my freshman and
junior year, we played it close to my my sophomore year,
(16:33):
we played at home at BC and we got it
was it was tough, that's all I'm saying. Believe it
at that. So obviously had a great college career, about
of acolades, stuff like that, get drafted high to Carolina.
What was your like main priority or thought process going
through your rookie year and obviously it's a different coming
into college than going to the NFL, Like what was
(16:54):
your soul priority or like main focus going into your
NFL career after getting drafted. I think a lot of
it is, you know, you want to go in there
and and earn everybody's respect, and you know that's ultimately
what it's about. Is all these older guys that have
been the league for seven, nine, ten, eleven years, you know,
they've seen everything, they've been around the game, and they
(17:15):
ultimately just want to win. You know, if you've been
in the league that long, you've made your money, you've
seen a lot, You've seen young guys come and go,
and you know what makes a successful player. So I
kind of saw that from the other side and heard
it from a lot of the older guys that you know,
at the end of the day, really the only thing
that matters is how well you can play, how much
(17:35):
you can help the team, right, And for me, that
was my sole purpose my my rookie year was I'm
gonna help the team in any way I can, and
I'm gonna try to earn everybody's respect. And you do
that by you know, just you know the easy stuff,
working hard, being on time, being accountable, and making plays
when it's time to make plays. So that's kind of
was my mission my rookie year and really every year
(17:57):
I had in Carolina. But my rookie year, man I
didn't I didn't talk a whole lot. I was quiet.
I was trying to find my lane and figure out
where I fit in. But you know, fortunately for us,
we had a lot of really good older guys both
you know, Thomas Davis was one of our linebackers. Helped
me out a lot, but he was in obviously in
my room, in the back of room. And then throughout
the whole team we had you know, Greg Olds and
(18:17):
Ryan Khalil, Steve Smith, Jordan Gross, cam Charles Johnson was
a defensive end in every room in Carolina, every position.
And we had an older guy that was established veteran
that did everything the right way. And I think it
it helped me a lot, and I think it helped
our team a lot. We just had we had great leaders,
and then the young guys that came in kind of
(18:38):
fell online and understood, all right, well, these older guys
are set in the tempo, in the tone of what's acceptable,
We're just gonna fall in. So it was a long
way to say that. You know, my ultimate goal of
my rookie year was to just come in, you know,
and earned everybody's respect through just kind of how I
handled my business. I want to talk about Cam Newton
for a second, because he gets drafted in their thirteen
(19:00):
is that right? Eleven? So he was there before you actually,
and I remember he liked had a great rookie season
and all this stuff. And obviously there's always a bunch
of controversies around in Campa. Everything that I've heard is
just like a down earth guy, the leader and everything
like that. Um, how was it just playing with him
and like the environment that he created and stuff like that,
and obviously one m VP that one year and just
(19:21):
being a part of the team with him, how was that? Oh?
He's he's the best. I love him. He's so fun
to be around. His energy is great. He loves football
and he loves to compete, and he's awesome. I mean,
you know, the one thing there's there's a lot of
things that can does that no one talks about. You know,
he works extremely hard. He's there early, he's there late.
(19:43):
You know, he is tough and he's probably top three
or four guy has toughness wise, that I played, never complained,
ever yelled at teammates, never made excuses. He woord on
his sleeve, and it was all about if we don't
get it done, it's because I didn't play as well
as I could have. You never blamed anybody. He never
(20:03):
made excuses, like just great love for the game, competitiveness,
and you know on Sunday you're getting camp, You're getting
everything he's got. He's not a grade. He's gonna run
you over. He played. He played the quarterback position like
like no one had ever seen it before, from his
size to his athletic ability, to his ability to push
the ball down the field. And what everybody saw with
(20:25):
him is who he was. He wasn't putting on a
show for anybody. I loved him as a teammate. He's
a great dude. He's tough as nails, and I'm glad
I had the opportunity to play with him. You go
through season fifteen and one, Um, I remember the I'm sorry,
bring this up. The game I lost. Wasn't that at Atlanta?
Last game of the season. Yeah, Christmas was Christmas Week?
(20:46):
Yeah that was week sixteen, So the second to last
game of the season. So obviously a great season when
all these games get the super Bowl, super Bowl Week
and just leading up to that, like what are your nerves? Like,
what's your where's your mindset at and all this stuff,
because it's like the pinnacle of football that you're about
to have the opportunity to reach. The thing that was
good is that we had two weeks to prepare, right
(21:08):
so you go, you know, you played in the NFC
Championship game and then they have two weeks leading up
to the super Bowl, so tons of time to prepare,
which I really enjoyed, but also a lot of time
to wait, kind of like what you're dealing with right
now with all your draft stuff. You've done everything you
can do, You're prepared as well as you can, and
now it's like all right now, you just keep looking
at the clock. The preparation side was cool. You know
what's you know what honest is really cool about it
(21:28):
is the media side of Super Bowl Week. They have
that big kickoff media media Night, and they had it
at a NHL arena, so I think it was the
San Jose Sharks Arena. So it was packed. Man, I
had never seen that many media people in my life.
They introduced the whole team. That experience itself was it
(21:49):
was so cool just to have all of our guys.
They're answering tons of interesting questions from people that you
don't normally get questions from international people. That to me
was really neat. And then just you know, when you
walk on that field for that Super Bowl, you know,
to warm up and stuff, it's not your normal group
of people. You know, you go playing a game in Charlotte,
(22:10):
you're gonna see some people. You know, you go play
in l A, there's gonna be a couple of celebrities
on the sidelines. When we played that Super Bowl, we
walked out there in pre game and it was like
who's who of of everybody? Game was in obviously San Francisco,
you know, we stopped Kevin Durant and Usher was out
there and you start kind of looking around and you've
got to really focus back and then realized like, all right,
(22:31):
this is sick that we're seeing all these guys, but
we gotta lock in and understand like we're here to
play football. And so, you know, you have that lead
up the preparations cool, there's a lot of sit around
and wait, then you have the media day, which kind
of starts the excitement of Super Bowl week. When you
get to the city, you have your normal practice week,
and then you get on the field pregame and it's like,
(22:52):
you know, like I said, Usher, Katie, all these are
all these guys are out there, and then once the
ball snapped, it's like, all right, here we go. And
remember that first drive was like a blur. It was
so fast. You know, you're just kind of out there.
I was like, I just need to get through this
first series and then settle in. Um. But you realize, man,
this is like the last game of the year, even
more so than in the playoffs. It was very final.
(23:14):
You know, that game was very final. You know, we
need to win this game or it's gonna be a
long off season for us. And that's what it felt like.
The whole game was we gotta make account, we gotta
make account, we gotta make account. And you know, it
was a great experience for us. Obviously wish would have
it would have went a little bit differently, but the
energy and the finality of that game was was what
(23:35):
made it really special, but also very difficult. You talk
about settling in in the game, like what at what
point were you there and you just kind of realized, Okay,
this is Super Bowl? Was it the warm ups? Was
it the very first contact. I think the first player
the game, like the first few players, I don't really
remember getting a ton of action, Like I didn't have
any runs at me. I wasn't involved in the passing game.
(23:56):
And for me, I was like a rhythm player, like
the suit I can get in on a play that
better off of me. So it took a little while
for me to settle, And I don't think it really
happened until that second series of the game, or I
made a couple of plays in that second series, I'm
like all right, like I'm good now and settling everything
kind of slowed down for me. But that first that
(24:17):
first series, man, what happened fast and all all all
my stuff was always like that when I was playing,
because because you never know, you never know how the
game's gonna be. You never know how the players are
gonna you're going against, are gonna be, how are they're
gonna play, what's their individual playing style. I mean, you're
gonna watch however much tape you want. But the first
time that guard releases on you on a wide zone. Look,
it's like, like, what's he feels like? Is he had
(24:40):
easy physical and for whatever reason that game it took
like it took like into that second series to kind
of figure it out. I mean, I think they went
right down the field on that first series. I might
have had six players or so and they end up
kicking a field goal. But there was no action early
in that first series, and I was like, I need something.
I need to get hit, I need to make a play,
(25:00):
I need to do something that kind of relax And
really happened to that second series, I don't I don't remember. Actually,
it's like I think that's when it was, but it
wasn't right away. Obviously, you've been to a numsent route
of Pro Bowls can talk about how lack a daisical
that was compared to the Super Bowl and the build
up in that week, because I hear like a lot
of stories he just come like to the Pro Bowl
(25:22):
overlaid or they just don't take it seriously whatsoever. So Yeah,
so when I was playing, it was, you know, we
we still played football a little bit. Again. It started
like as the game progresses, if you win, you get
a different amount of money than if you lose, right,
So at the end of the at the end of
the game, the game's always kind of ramped up because
there was obviously there's money on the line. But it
(25:44):
was three or four weeks four weeks after the season,
I think, And so you know, some guys just you know,
season ends, they're not really working out a whole lot,
and most guys will show up right to go in
shape because at the end of the day, you don't
want to be the guy that gets hurt because he's
out of shape. I enjoyed it. The Super Bowl is
and Whai at the time that I went, and that
(26:04):
was that was a really cool experience first time of
why you get to meet a lot of really cool
guys in a more casual basis. So, you know, it
was after my it was after my second year, so
I was still pretty fresh in the league and to
have the opportunity to meet some of those guys was
super cool. I mean when I was there, Eric Barry
was on our team, to Else Stuts was on our team,
(26:25):
and Donkin Sue was on our team, and it was
like all these dudes that I grew up watching and
to be in the same locker room on the same
side of the ball with them was just it was
just so cool for me. Yeah, And I feel like
this is going back to like what you're talking about
the Super Bowls, like with nerves and like having settled
and stuff like that. I feel like it's such an
overlooked part of football and like big games, like at
(26:48):
the end of at the end of the day, we're
all like competitors and stuff like that, and like we're
we've been preparing for this moment for so long whatever
game maybe and super Bowl obviously you're on a different routine,
different schedule and were routine based athletes and have to
be on like a schedule to feel quite coomfortable. And
I feel like it gets overlooked how important like settling
into a game is and like how real that is.
(27:09):
Like I felt it, like I'm sure you did too,
Like even Flota State, like the first game of the year,
like you're like this is our first live against a
different team, and like you get out there in the
first time, it's like, Okay, I'm actually like in a
game right now. And yeah, Like that's one thing that
we always talked about with Cam, like and we never
really talked to him about it. But we always felt
like if he could get in there and and and
(27:30):
and knock someone earlier, whether he's he was running the
ball or he can hit somebody or do something, then
if he ran the game early and got going, it
was like like like look out because then he settling
and I just remember him. It was like that he
could run the ball earlier, even if he got hit early.
I feel like he loved that contact side of the ball.
(27:50):
And we'd watch the special in the defense side of
always sit on the bench and Cam would like truck
someone or or run through a guy for the first time,
and we're like, all right, here we go. That's so cool.
What you talking about him? Like his energy because in
high school I played actually played on the seven or
seven team, and like having him like kind of a
lot of times. I mean, you know the seven or
seventh circuit is you're playing like five and these games
(28:12):
a day. It's just like, bro, we've been out here
since seven am, and blah blah blah. It's just like
he comes out like every game, it's like the last game.
It's like this is the only thing we worked about
right now. And he brings a lot of energy and
I could. I could kind of see how him being
on the team, which is even if you don't want
to do things, like just him in his presence like
would just make you want to. All Right, I gotta
(28:33):
I gotta at least do it for him. Do you
see what I'm saying? Yeah, energy is contagious. He was
the king of him. Man. He wouldn't let you if
you were you were lacking energy. He was like it's
like you were a magnet for him, like and like
spray you down like an annoying Yeah, he's like like
bro stops right. Yeah. We were at a seven or
(28:58):
seven tournament and actually in Georgia and we were playing
his team next and uh, we're on the same like
same field. That's not the kind of this is our
sophomore year. Okay, well what was your Like I have
to look at my snaps. He's lake or something like that.
He's late. Yeah yeah yeah. Up in the Alatuna, we're
(29:21):
like playing that's not this fields cut off fifty Yeah,
so we're playing this other team, but we're like he's
coaching right like right on our backs. So we're like
turning around talking trash to him. He's turned around talking
trash to us. Then the whole time we're playing, like
we're just yapping at him. He's us. He's like run
across the fielding the flags and stuff. Everybody. I mean, obviously, Luke,
(29:43):
you definitely better speak on this one end of us.
But everybody kind of looks at him is like a
bad guy kind of character because of all the all
the trash talking, all the the outwardness he can be.
But like, honestly, I feel like that's just more of
a I mean, that's just personality like that. It gets
him going. There's no bad it's just behind you. I mean,
what do you what do you think? I love him, man,
(30:04):
he's the best. Like everybody that we played with this
would say the same thing about him. He's such a
good guy for young guys, So talk to anybody is
he's just such a good energy guy. You guys saw
him like what you guys saw at that seven on
seven campus. Who he is. He loves the game, loves energy,
loves to compete, loves to go back and forth, doesn't
take things personally, just wants to go out there and
(30:26):
have a good time to compete. And that's who Cam
is at the end of the day, and like you said,
sometimes you know, sometimes he gets ragged for stuff that
doesn't really matter. But at the end of the day,
the guy, the guy will compete. The guy's tough as nails.
The guy worked super hard and his energy and love
for football is is fantastic. So any of the guys
that that we played with, when cameras in Carolina Press,
(30:47):
I always say the same thing. I feel like, that's
so like annoying. The day and age we live in,
the media can create a persona about somebody and then
everybody kind of buys into it same thing with like
like Odell, Like is like around the NFL love Odell
like it been locker room and say he's a great guy.
Like I was talking to Woo, one of our old teammates.
(31:07):
He plays for the Browns, and it was with Odell
when he was on the Browns. He's like great dude,
like one of the best locker room guys. But obviously
the media has a different tone what they like saying
about him, stuff like that. Um, it's like the premiums right,
all that stuff, and it kind of sucks because it's
not what people really are and doesn't even not even
worth their time. To try to justify who they really are.
I just thought about something, Um, speaking of Odell, were
(31:29):
you on the team when all the Odell Josh Norman
stuff happened in New York? Yeah? That was That game
was intense. Obviously, I forgot all about that crazy you
guys going at it Josh and O'Dell when at all
game and it was you know, there was build up
to that week. You know, we challenge Josh like, Josh,
(31:51):
you got, you got O'Dell like, you gotta make a count,
you gotta. We're gonna we're gonna have you on him
all games. Third down, We're gonna press him. We got
to place the man. We'll bring some help, but it's
you on him all game. And Josh Man, Josh was
such a competitor that he loved that, like he wanted
he wanted to be on an island. He wanted to
be by himself. I don't need help. I'll play man
(32:11):
all game on like wherever he lines up, I'm going.
So we gassed him up all week and then the
game came around and like they started like they made
eye contact and pregame and I was like, oh my good. Yeah,
and they started going at it and we were up big.
We were up big, and they started coming back, and
(32:33):
like the momentum was shifting, like we went from being
we're gonna run away with this game. We're gonna stomp
him out too, Like h it's starting at the tides
are starting to change a little bit. LDL Coda Ball
started barking at Josh. Josh started barking at him, and
it was and then it ultimately, uh came to came
(32:55):
to a head there with that. They had that little
scrum there with I think that was in the fourth quarter.
So man, it was just two guys going one at
it all game and it was you know, and being
on the field, the energy between those two guys like
you could just feel it like finding up on each other.
(33:15):
You know how it came like when you're playing when
you're playing corner and their receiver, you might have if
he's playing backside it, you might have a front side
run and you've got nothing to do with the play
and it's like kind of just drop over there. But
they were like fighting everything. Play quarters, I'm gonna play quarters,
I'm gonna press like whatever was that whole game and
(33:41):
it was like, you know, it was kind of one
of those things with josh was like, man, just let
Joshua josh to a certain extent. But he did a
really good job. He played great that game. It was
an ultimate battle um, but that was one of those
games you look back and like dag on like that
that almost got like you got out of hand, but
it could have gotten really at hand. Now, so before
this we were I was looking up, like you up
(34:03):
so I can get all the accolades, right, And one
of the first things that stuck I was like, he's
probably the nicest dude off the field, but so me
and on the field, So what is some of your
trash talks sound like you like half the stuff you
guys know, like half the stuff you say it you
don't really realize what you're saying. You get off the
field and like guying your teams, like, bro, what did
you just that? So true? Like I have no I
(34:26):
have no idea, like and then you see guys, the
league is so small. You see a lot of guys
in the offseason. You're like, you're like, sorry, man, were
there any like specific like running backs? So you went
at like when at it? Like a lot of so
we played you know, inside your division, and you see
(34:46):
all those guys so often that it's like you kind
of you. There's a very neutral respect. The one guy
that was man was always a beast towards Marshawn. Everything
he played, every play was the same for him. Played hard,
and how he was built was so he was so
difficult to figure out how to tackle. You know, he
was big and thick and strong, and he had a
(35:09):
big waist. He had a really big, really big like trunk.
He was thick, big like his chest to his back.
He was kind of like I don't know if he
was bowlegged or something, but there was nothing on him
that was like hesu like to wrap up on. And
he loved and he was one of those guys. You
guys know how certain guys run the ball. When you
get close to him, that stiff arm comes out and
(35:31):
once you had distance, Marshaun was so powerful and strong
and he had such good but body bounce and ability
to like sink into his hips that he'd let you
get close to him almost on him. He'd get, he'd
sink down and then he'd pushed off and extend and
then it was like it was like a piston coming
out of there, and so he was. He was always
(35:52):
so hard to play against. He was big, he was strong,
he was a big body. He ran so physical and
he ran like at you, I'm coming at you. But
then the thing that was also tricky about him is
you didn't know. You didn't know where he was going
to be. Like his running style was so unique and
different that he didn't move in a normal movement pat him.
(36:13):
So you go up and try to and try to
approach him and get on him, and he'd be here,
and then he'd be there. Like his ability to move
laterally and then literally was was unbelievable. And he had
like a sneaky he had like a sneaky amount of shape.
So he'd come at you. We come, actually come, actually,
come at you. And then like the third or fourth time,
(36:34):
he'd gave you like a little little shape and get
your feet to stop. And then his ability to burst
was really good, so then he could he could kind
of get away from you on that. And then the
next time you go up on him, you're kind of
sitting waiting for that shake and then he puts his
shoulder down and it's like, oh my god, you're just
going for a ride. So like, I'll tell you what.
(36:55):
That's one thing when you when you get in there,
when you play teams, make sure you watched the backs,
like because each guy is gonna have two or three
different backs. And when you get in the game and
you watch these guys like you play you play the
Saints man like when you go play tomorrow, he's gonna
run the ball differently than the next guy. And so
have an approach on how you tackle those guys as key.
But with Marshawn Man, it was like you better bring
it and you better hold on because you hit him,
(37:18):
you hit on the wrong way, You're gonna you're gonna
go for a riding. Now that makes sense as the
two dozen ten Saints when the so in the wild
card game, actually it was crazy. It was crazy the
way you the way you were talking about then, how
he's pushing off on people. All I could think about
was the stiff arm he had on Who was that
(37:38):
b Who was that in the in the Saints game?
You never heard of him after that play, like I've
never heard you know, he's so many people like so disrespectful.
It was just I just remember being eleven teen years
old and watching it and I grew up the Saints fan.
I just kinda remember watching the play and I was
just sitting in my living room just like, how did
he do that? And like I rewinded it just wind.
(37:58):
I was like, how does this even happen? And he
was just powerful? Yeah did he talk trash? I feel
like I feel like Marshall I would talk. He was quiet,
one of those quiet man. Everybody that I talked to
that played with him loved it absolutely see that. I
would not have thought that he was quiet. I thought
(38:19):
the extra extra I love football, played so hard man
like he was. He was a lot of fun to
play against. So obviously, Um, you retired quite recently. How
is life post football? Then? It's been good man. I'm
trying to figure out kind of what that path looks like.
I still missed the game. I missed playing and miss
(38:40):
being around all the guys. So you know, it's just
one of those things. I got a lot of a
lot of things I gotta figure out. One of them
is kind of what I'm doing next. So I worked
with the team in the scotting department. That was really
that was really pretty cool. Um, you get to learn
about how the teams really work. Because you know, when
you're playing, you think you understand it. Know you think
you understand salary cap and free agency in the draft,
(39:03):
but until you get up there and you're in it,
you don't really understand what all goes into it. So
to have the opportunity to do that with those guys
was a lot of fun last year. I uh like,
like I said early, I love the hunting fish that
like last fall, last summer, fall, and kind of into
the spring. That's what that was about. And then now
it's like, all right, bom, I need to try to
find a way to get back involved in football because
(39:23):
I feel I feel like that's what I really enjoy.
I feel like I still have some something to give
in the football in the football space, So I'm trying
to figure out what that looks like right now. I'm
trying to have different conversations with people and find out
what the right path to do that is. But I
think if hopefully within the next little while here I
can I can dial in on what I want to do.
(39:44):
But I think right now is looking like maybe football.
We had a pile of fue out formal quarterbacks Brandon
won Bush and he was talking about like life posts
football and how it can be harder than mid to
because that's how we know from a joy of ours.
I'm not sure if that's the if that stands true
for you, but always talk about like how we want
to approach not playing football every again, If you have
any tips, what would that be? I think a lot
(40:06):
of it is you just just think about kind of
the structure side of what football gives you, right, so
you pretty much know I for your next six months,
you guys know exactly what you're gonna be doing, right,
and then into the season, like you guys probably know
exactly what football schedule is gonna look like, you don't.
You know what you gotta do to get ready for training, camp,
for games, for practices. You know where you're gonna be,
(40:28):
what you're gonna be doing pretty much. You know, down
to down to the hour for the most part, and
so when you wake up, man, it's like, boom, this
is what I'm gonna do today. This is how I'm
gonna be successful. And then when you get done playing,
a lot of that's kind of gone, you know. So
to me, it's the biggest thing is what what kind
of structure gives you? You know, a meaningful purpose and
(40:48):
how to how to recreate that on a day to
day basis. So I think a lot of guys kind
of go through that when they get done playing, of
of how can I, how can I create structure and
what what that structure it's like for me? So I've
got I have a pretty good routine day to day
with the structure side. I think for a lot of
guys that get done, played is the most one of
the most important things. What would you say you've carried
(41:10):
over from football and orders into life afterball? I just
think I think there's so much that football provides and
you look at you look at the relationship side of
football and the ability to meet guys that you wouldn't
normally meet. You know, I grew up in Ohio and
a small private old boys school, and then from the
time playing you meet guys from east coast, west coast, north, south, black, white,
(41:31):
different political views, different religious views, different views on life,
and you just realize, how like, you know, special powerful
the relationship side of sports such so I think that's
number one. I think number two is is just the
ability to be accountable and when you play football, man,
somebody's always relying on you. Whether it's on the field
(41:53):
or in a meeting room or if you have a
charity event, people are always relying on you in that
accountability factor. I think it's something that you learned from
an early age. And then I just think you know
your your ability to be resilient and and and deal
with and deal with failure and deal with loss, because
I think you can learn a lot about yourself, the
guys around you, how to come back from stuff like
(42:15):
that because you know every every day, every practice, you're
gonna you're gonna lose, right, You're gonna lose a rep.
You're gonna you're gonna get deep in an offseason, Matt Drill,
You're not gonna hit a weight you want on a
max day, And like that stuff. In my mind, that
stuff is all okay as long as you learn learn
from it. Why didn't I hit that weight? Why did
(42:37):
I get the Why didn't you know? Why did why
did my technique get compromised on that place? So to me,
it's a really powerful tool. It if you use the
right way, it can help you a lot. So there's
so many things that football can teach you if you
let it. Just from the relationship and accountability and the
ability to deal with stuff after after a loss or
(42:58):
after a failure, and then you know, the ability to
enjoy it with other people, I think is what makes
it special as well. So there's a lot I love
the game of football. Things taught me a lot of them,
a lot of people a lot, and you know, I
love that I had the opportunity to do it. This
is a question, just like going through the draft process,
that like every team has asked, and I kind of
(43:18):
want to hear your answer to it. What in your mind,
what's the worst part about football? Did they ask this?
Do you remember them as the worst? The worst part
about football? And that's tough brow What did you say?
I said injury because it's like I said, injury because
(43:40):
you work so hard to like achieve this goal and
something you love and it's taken away from you, out
of your hands and stuff like that. I think a
lot of it is you know, in college, you guys
like your team is there right regardless of how I
got place, is gonna be that. I think the most
difficult part is when that roster turns over every year,
when you've got a guy, did you spend a year
(44:00):
or two with, and he spent off season with and
you know he's a wife and a family, and then
roster cut downs, he just he's cut right and he's fired. Essentially,
That to me, is the most difficult part of football
is known that sometimes these guys do everything right, but
it just doesn't work out for whatever reason numbers and
the position group, or they need a different guy at
(44:22):
a different position. To me, that's that's the most difficult part,
is knowing that you know there's ninety guys, ninety guys
at a training camp, and then at at the end
of training camp there's there's fifty three on the active
and tent on the practice squad, So you know that
a majority of these guys aren't going to be here.
And to me, that's the most difficult part because a
(44:42):
lot of them deserve to be honored for whatever reason,
they just aren't able to make the team that year.
So I think that's that stinks. I think, what do
you think about, like obviously injuries of probably where it's
but like a broken locker room we've never experienced because
you spent so much time in the locker room. Yeah,
I feel like even here, not even a broken locker
room I was saying clickie locker room, because there's been
(45:03):
times when the locker room, like this past year and
this past year, there's been times when black room is
full of like different personalities, but we all are pretty close.
But there's been times when the clicks and lock leave
practice and then it's just like, yeah, you leave campus
and you don't see these guys until yeah, practice, and
that's kind of the league. Well, yeah, I think I
(45:25):
think I think the locker room. A lot of guys
will go home after practice and stuff just because they
have kids and families and stuff. But the best teams
that I've been on in Carolina where we're where, we
had the best guys, Guys that enjoyed being around each other.
Guys that you know, on Saturdays after walk through for
playing away games and stick around and they play cards
(45:45):
and they shoot basketball and they hang out in training
room and watch and watch college football together. Those are
the best locker rooms. And I think that's that just
kind of makes football that much more special when you have,
you know, you got fifty three guys, your tend practice
squad guys, and then your training room, equipment room strength guys.
When all those guys get along in their synergy between
(46:07):
all of them. That's when that's when things are special,
and that's when it really did you just a leg
up on the teams actually play against knowing that everybody
in your locker room enjoys being around each other, cares
about each other, enjoys people's company, They're willing, they're willing
to help each other when you know guy's going through something.
Those are your special locker rooms. And I agree to him.
If if you don't have that feel in your locker room,
(46:29):
I think I think you missed out on some on
some of the special aspects of football. All Right, So
we're gonna go towards wrapping up. Now we're moving on
the outside the garage um. This question comes from Maggie Schmidt.
If you had a song to describe your college experience,
what would it be? Girl? I listening too much music
for this kind of question. Question You've got look you
(46:51):
wanna go first, So I don't know if it epitomizes, uh,
my college experience, but so we my fresh in year,
we had to wake up at like four thirty four
workouts because we were the first group in the off season.
It was terrible. So we like went through some different alarms,
and we didn't like any of them because you woke
(47:12):
up at fourth thing and you're like, gosh, man, I
hate my life. This is terrible. So we settled my
roommate Jake sinking and I sinking back, and I settled
on Only Time by Enya. You heard that song? How
does that go? How's that going? Oh? Man, yeah, you
gotta sing it. I can't sing it, like you can't
(47:34):
even sing you guys gotta listen to And it was
like we woke up in the morning and like it
like made us happy in the morning before we got
to beat down that it's four thirty in the morning.
It's just in a day, it's fourth in the morning,
pre beat workout, beat down music, Like oh i've heard
(47:55):
this boy, Yeah this is the song that's so funny.
Yeah yeah, get you that can get you up in
the morning, and like not get you totally one in
the I think I would slip through that work Um.
(48:22):
We had that, and then we had like we we
set for him. So I sent one on my phone.
He said one on his phone. I sent one on
my alarm clocks which was at and then he said
once we were so paranoid about like showing up late
to a workout and whatever we gotta do to make
sure that we're up, we'll do it right now, four
or five times anymore. Yeah, and you just don't want
(48:44):
to you don't want to do that job. I was
gonna say either it was Kanye. I was gonna say
either I wonder like k or family business. I feel
like like I like family business because we all live
in this house and there's a lot of things that
we say and do just that a lot of people
wouldn't know about us. So I don't even know that.
(49:08):
I probably phases by gunning for slave season one, okay, okay,
is because I feel like each year you take, you
take with you what you want, you leave with you
what you we leave what you don't want. I feel
like it's just every year's growth, every day's growth, every
week's grow. So so this isn't like the lyrics aren't
really like why I'm taking this. So our freshman year
(49:29):
the summer you played called Wolf. So it was like
the song that we played in a freshman because we're
all in the same dorm or freshman year in the
summer going into our freshman year and kJ and Kyle
roommates and they they had like this big speaker and
they always played this song called Wolf and it was
I don't even know what John, that is like Indian. Yeah,
(49:52):
like we don't like we didn't play it for a while,
but whenever like one of us plays a song, if
it was like, think back to that. So I probably
say that because it brings back at Yeah, definitely, time
I hear my my four dirty wake up song, I
feel like after we leave we have if we hear
a Sweather Weather, we're probably some good times here. Oh yeah,
(50:16):
it's gonna sound very very corny Dona. No, No, I'm
not gonna um. We are young but fun. No, that's
what I thought of. We're young. We bonded over that
song when you were at Uba. By the way, Yeah,
maybe I mean my mighty needs some more time on
that one. We all have a little segment where we've
(50:38):
been calling it thirty under a minute. It's really just
yes or no questions, the answer as fast as you
can or as sol as you want. There's no there's
no real time limit. But give your first thought, give
your first answer, your first thoughts to the question, and
just roll with it ready. Yeah, alright, So the first
question I go with this coffee or energy drink? Coffee?
(51:01):
Who would you rather have on your team? Ray Lewis
or Lawrence Taylor? Oh, Lawrence Taylor, because if Ray was
on a team, I want to have a job. I
was just thinking about that. Our naps overrated? No, man,
not after a five dirty workouts? Uh? Spring or fall?
Oh man, I'm gonna go fall. I'm gonna go fall.
(51:22):
What's the hardest sport in your mind? Golf? I love
I love playing, but I'm not very good at feel
you and not raise a family on the beach or
in the city on the beach. Which number do you prefer? Number?
Forty or fifty nine? Oh man? Forty was my first
football number ever, back when I was playing in grade school.
(51:43):
So I got did you wear that from grade school?
I like through college? No. I bounced around a little bit.
When I got to BC, they gave me forty. I'm like, man,
this is kind of cool as my first number. Chipple,
I'm gonna go Chipotle, get more food that way? Country
or jazz? Oh man, I'm gonna go country. M hm. Uh.
(52:06):
Would you rather have two interceptions or four tacks? In
the game. Two interceptions fishing or camping. Fishing if you
had a opportunity. First place you traveled to in Europe Normandy,
historic madness, two k mad Thai food or barbecue? Barbecue?
(52:30):
Do you like to fit in the past? More of
the run the run, a fight, an alligator on land
or a lion in the water. I guess a line
in the water. I think an alligator because I feel
like you could you could at least not get eaten.
I think, like the line in the water. You're gonna
die regardless. But this fun thing alligators thinking that, I'm like, yeah,
(52:58):
but they can run straight, but they can't go shack yet.
I'm not in a circle. She can never get you
line though. That sounds pretty easy. But what easy sideways?
I mean, they can go sideways, but there it would
take longer for them to do. We should try to
be like turning like it'd be like turning a coach
(53:18):
bus in a circle. Would be take for everything? All right,
what's the best show of all time? You're thinkers best
show of all time in your opinion? You know, I
was on the Game of Thrones for a long time.
That was really good. That's the most one. But you
know people are gonna say Seinfeld or friends. But I
loved Game of Thrones, favorite cheat, Dameo pizza all day,
(53:44):
very kind of pizza supreme. I don't want everything on it.
You pineapples belong on pizza. I don't want. I don't want.
I don't want to pineapple on its on it? Uh
if you do? If you didn't play football, whisper, would
you play lacrosse? I played the Crossing High School. But uh,
phone caller FaceTime? I like FaceTime more. What's the last
(54:07):
thing you cooked? Oh? I cooked? I cooked the stay
last night. All right, it's the last question in your opinion,
who's the most underrated player? It could be right now,
who you've played with. Lavante David m back for Tampa man.
That dude. Go look at his numbers, man and what
he's been able to do turn like force some turnover, sacks, interceptions, tackles,
(54:32):
TfL is to do way legit, he just doesn't. I
don't think he gets enough credit for what he's done
down They're just consistency for such a long time, and
he's a great dude. So Lavante David, in my book,
deserves more credit than he gets about one more. Would
you rather live in Charlotte or Since it's a tough question,
I love I love Sharott, but I'm from Cincinnati, so
(54:54):
my parents watch this. I gotta stay neutral. I'm not
get in trouble. Good answer, that's all we got for you. Look.
Appreciate you coming on. UM, appreciate it, Paul, Thank you
for coming on. UM, I hope to see you soon.
Connect soon. UM. I appreciate we're gonna wrap it up there.
(55:16):
Thank you guys for listening this week. UM, we will
see you next time. Appreciate it. Thank you, thank you,
Thank you, guys,
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