April 16, 2021 • 52 mins
On this episode of The Colin Cowherd Podcast, Colin answers brilliant mailbag questions from....himself in Fake Questions, Real Answers (1:00). His guest is 5-time Pro Bowl Panthers great Steve Smith Sr., who discusses his anti-climactic NFL Draft (9:00), how he could tell a young player wasn't going to make it (10:00), how he's become more relaxed in retirement (12:00), if he thinks Julian Edelman is a Hall of Famer (17:00), which lesser known cornerbacks gave him the biggest problems (23:00), if Sam Darnold can work in Carolina (23:00), what went wrong with Cam and Carolina (29:00), why drafting QB's is an inexact science (35:00), why he decided to open up about his battles with depression (40:00), why he doesn't necessarily miss playing in the NFL (45:00), and why he's obsessive about cleaning up after his dog (50:00).
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. The Colin Cowherd Podcast, brought to you by
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Duel more ways to win. Hi, everybody, and welcome to
(00:31):
our Friday morning podcast. Before I get to Steve Smith,
who's going to make it into the Hall of Fame,
I imagine it's time for fake questions and real answers.
We do this every Friday. These are questions I want
to answer, but I don't want to have to wait
for you to ask them to me, So I'm going
to ask them to myself. Fake questions, real answers. First question,
(00:55):
Dear Colin, which commissioner do you think did the best
job handling the COVID pandemic? What a question? Listen. The
typical answer is Adam Silver because he had to go
in a bubble. But there's a commissioner I think had
more guts, UFC Commissioner Dana White. Listen. When the pandemic
started shutting everything down, leagues reacted differently, as they should.
(01:19):
Each league had its own unique set of circumstances. NFL,
NBA baseball have wide travel schedules, large rosters of athletes
and staff. Now the USC is different. Handful of fighters
only needed one location. But what they really needed most
was a commissioner that didn't run in fear. Anytime you
are the first to do anything, you get the most blowback.
(01:42):
It's easy to be second, third, and fourth. But Dana
White stepped up. UFC was the first major sport to
come back after the initial shutdown. PAC twelve ran in fear, suffered,
Ivy League opted out, a basketball suffered. Dana White took
a risk. Sure, risk is an inherent part of business,
so is courage. The question is how do you handle
(02:04):
an attack it? Minimize it? And while others backed away,
Dana White was relentless, a great quality for our athletes
and our commissioners. Second question, Dear Colin, why are baseball
ratings up thirty three percent this year on Sunday Night
Baseball when NBA ratings are down? Another terrific question. People
(02:25):
always want to blame a lot of different factors. I
think it's pretty simple. Fans want to see stars play
the games. Live sports still work the way traditional TV
has always worked. Viewers like me or you flipped through
channels and we stop when we see a big star,
a recognizable face. Last week, ESPN was promoting the Bucks
(02:46):
Lakers game on the ad the faces Ryannis and Dennis Shrewder.
No offense to Dennis Shrewder, but I've seen DVDs in
the bargain, been at Walmart with more star power. Right now,
NBA's got a problem build an All Star team out
of players missing games. But in baseball, the season's young,
the stars are healthy and they're playing, and frankly, it's
(03:10):
just better television. Third question, Dear Colin, why are you
always talking about how great it is to live in California?
Have you checked the tax rate or do you enjoy
throwing away money? Yeah, I've checked the tax rate. It's
like a luxury tax. You want to live in luxury,
you pay at tax. There's a reason big name athletes
(03:31):
want to come to play for teams in California. Matt
Stafford had options. He wanted to come here, so did
Kauai and Paul, George Lebron and Ad. Yeah, they pay
more taxes, but they get with it. Beaches, mountains, perfect weather,
access to the most powerful and influential people in sports
and entertainment. That's got value. It's worth the price. Cincinnati's fine,
(03:55):
but what do they do in the winner to attract stars?
All they offer is deep free in four hours of sunlight.
Now you may say, why not Florida. Again, it's not California.
It doesn't have our options, our entertainment, it doesn't have
as many things to do. Their economic bandwidth isn't as wide.
(04:16):
I mean, let's be honest about Florida. I got nothing
against it. But your best friend in the summer is
an air conditioner. Yeah, I pay X for to live
in California. I'd rather pay less. But when I left
Bristol and came to Fox, it was really clear. The
quality of staff you can build in California is significantly
(04:37):
better and deeper. The reservoir of talent here is remarkable.
Fourth question, Dear Colin, just admit you're a Sam Donald homer.
Everybody seems to know it's over for Donald except for
the Panthers. And you listen. Do you bail on a
friend if he makes a mistake? Do you sell your
four oh one chaoff when the market dips? You either
(04:59):
belie even something or you don't. Sam Darnold's never been
given a fair shake. In my opinion and the opinion
of Carolina and others. The reality is RG three and
Andrew Lucke. Sometimes I'm willing to lose an argument for
a year when I know him on the right side.
RG three inherited a much better team in the Shanahansas
coaches and a real running game. Andrew Lucke inherited a
(05:23):
crap sandwich in Indie. So for a year RG three
looks superior, But in the end, I stuck to my guns,
took heat and overtime. Andrew luck was clearly better. It's
like the stock market. Listen. I've been in it since
nineteen eighty nine. It's crashed three times, maybe four. I
generally double down because I believe in it. I believe
(05:45):
the way to make money and have a nice retirement
is real estate in the market, and I'm not going
to move off that, regardless of it dips. Fifth question,
dear Colin, how many friends do you have in business?
Your business? You mean broadcasting. I have acquaintances and a
handful of friends. But if you were in construction and
(06:08):
you came home to your wife, would you want to
be greeted at the door with somebody that had a
hammer in their left hand and nails in the right.
You were on a construction site all day. When I
come home, I don't want to talk sports. I don't
want to be greeted at the door by somebody in
a Browns jersey, unless it's Baker Mayfield and we can
have it out. The reality is, most of my friends
(06:29):
are in the restaurant business. I got a buddy that's
a stay at home dad. I got a buddy that's
a bond trader. I don't want to talk about sports
all the time. It's part of my life. I don't
want it to be my life. And I love sports.
My ex wife and my wife not sports fans. In fact,
I've only ever dated one person in my life who
(06:50):
would ever sit and watch sports with me, and that
was only because she played college basketball and liked hoops.
I don't know about everybody else, but if you were
on the stock market, would you want to come home
all day and talk about the stock market? I do not.
It's deliberate. Most of my friends are not in the business.
(07:13):
All right, I'm gonna bring on Steve Smith Senior fifteen
years five Pro Bowls, NFL Network analyst. He's actually a
world traveler. I'm not joking. He has been to so
many more places around the globe than I have. He'll
talk about that in the podcast. Dude has been everywhere.
I'm not joking. I'm not talking like Canada, Mexico. I'm
talking like Peru and Asia. He's got crazy travel stories. Also,
(07:37):
battle depression. I'm going to talk about that, kind of
the dark hole he was in. We'll talk to some football.
His appreciation for Julian Edelman. Interesting cat. Steve Smith joins us. So,
we're about two weeks out from the draft. You were
the eleventh receiver taken. Your your route was different. You
were like Santa Monica, JC, Utah, Mountain West, and then
(08:00):
you were the eleventh receiver taken. What was your Draft
night or Draft weekend? Like, I mean, it wasn't much,
It wasn't special, you know. That was that was back
in the day when you know, the first three rounds
was done. It was long. It was all day, right,
and you so sitting around, sitting around just waiting, you know,
(08:22):
waiting for those other guys to get called and then
you know, um third, second round and then third round.
So it was a long night. I was on the
West coast, you know, that's when it was used to
be in New York. We weren't doing all this stuff
we're doing now where it's you know, it's it's rotating cities. Um.
But you know, I believe, just like everything else, just
(08:45):
like you know, me and you, the sports world has
has changed completely, right. You know, it's it's an event
every every year. So when you compare twenty twenty one,
twenty twenty, pandemic twenty nineteen two, you know, nineteen eighteen
years ago, I mean, it's it's uncomparable in my opinion. Yeah,
(09:10):
you know, I always ask guys this. So obviously you
show up firstand camp and you can play, and you're
a tough guy. You're not only a good player, but
you're you're not going to be intimidated by it. I
always think this is interesting. When you got to your
first camp and you looked at all the rookies, all
the rookies you were surrounded by, did you know instantly, Steve,
(09:34):
two or three of them were not gonna make it,
and two or three of them were gonna make it. No,
as a rookie, I did not know that now as
I became a veteran, I would. I had the innate
ability to look in the room and say, you know,
there's twelve thirteen guys. You know in camp. I knew
(09:55):
we were gonna carry six. If there was a special guy,
most like five, we probably had to be. You know,
it wasn't a lot to choose from, so we would
go at four. I was able to look at and go,
he's gonna make it. Obviously, I'm gonna make it. He's
gonna make it. Nope, doesn't have a chance. And he's
(10:17):
he's fifty fifty. And the reason I was able to
read that and be able to see that had to
do with and and and it kind of it's harder
to do it now for me being in the booth,
because what I really love, you know in your show,
you do a great job with your show. You're on
(10:37):
the West Coast, And so I grew up in the
West Coast, and I grew up in a in a
place where you had to dissect process and the ability
to evaluate an individual on that that first encounter, that
first impression. And I was able to harness that in
(10:59):
pretty good. I'm I feel like I'm a good people reader,
but I become really it really creates my narrative of
what I believe of that individual as I'm around him
more and more and more. So if I'm sitting in
a lot, if I'm sitting in meeting rooms, and then
I'm watching and observing a guy like I do at
(11:21):
the airport now post you know, pre COVID, postcode whatever,
you know. I sit there and people watch, and I
see a guy in the locker room, and I see
how he acts, I see how he walks in in
the morning. If I'm in my locker when my cup
of coffee at six fifteen, and this dude he's supposed
to be in a special team meeting at seven thirty,
and this dude strolls in at seven twenty seven, twenty
(11:42):
five and he's scampering through. That tells me this isn't
a profession for him, this isn't a career. So what
his what he's doing with this, you know, in off time,
when we're playing cards, playing dominoes, when we're on the buses.
But then when I see him constantly tardy, constantly barely
(12:04):
making the meeting because he maybe he didn't he doesn't
have a long clock, you know, because he uses his phone,
maybe he lives too far, maybe you know, whatever the
case may be. For me, I go, this is your job, right.
There's no other legal business that you can do and
(12:26):
sleep well at night that you can make this type
of money. And so when I see that, and I
see a guy and then I you know, I watch
him make mistake a mistake over and over. This guy
isn't gonna make it. You know, it's interesting you're you're saying,
Steve that most of the guys that didn't make it
in your career, it wasn't physical, and he was like
(12:48):
mental discipline that stuff. It was the discipline. It was
the like I won't reveal a name, so you know,
I'll keep names out of it. Um. Like, I remember
seeing a guy he was like, man, I don't give
an opportunity. I'm not giving an opportunity. I said, why,
how do you feel like you're not giving an opportunity.
He's like, well, I'm not giving an opportunity because you
(13:11):
know they'll give him a play. He get five plays.
First play, he doesn't know where to line up. Checking play,
he actually knows how to line up, but he jumps
outside third play. He doesn't jump offside, he knows where
they're line up, they throwing the ball, and he drops
the ball right, and so that goes. And so he
(13:33):
has five plays. He's made one decent play, and the
rest of the four, you know, he's had either an
MA which is a mental error he just didn't perform,
or the corner jammed him up, or he just didn't
get open, or he didn't get an opportunity. So you know,
I know, I'm not a mathematician, but if you get
(13:58):
five opportunities and you only hand to make one play,
you know, and that and that's something of the stuff
that happened. So I would talk to guys in my
philosophy when I played was I'm gonna make a play
a day, one play a day. And why that was
successful is because when I would have go back and
watched film that one play that I thought was fantastic,
(14:21):
it actually was just okay. But then the play that
I thought was okay was just okay, was actually fantastic.
So now I got three or four plays. But my
goal was to make one play a day. So when
they turn on the field, every single blankety blank day
eight nine always made a play. Now, yeah, I had
(14:43):
some errors. I made some mistakes. I had some emmys.
I dropped the pass or two. I did this, but
they never said they can never say I never showed up.
It is interesting, do you where do you think that
comes from? Like you weren't to a junior college first,
so you were overlooked. And then you went to Utah,
(15:04):
so you were overlooked by the that was the Mountain
West at the time you played, so you got I
mean shit, guys were over overlooking you. Do you think
that kind of I mean, is that why you were
so serious? Like you were tired of getting overlooked? No,
I was serious because I was raised at a serious time.
(15:24):
Like that's just who that's just you know now and
I'm done and now you know even mean you talk, bro,
I'll calm down a lot, like I'm like man, like
my shirt right now says I'll ride or die until
about nine or so, right, because I'm I'm actually a goofball.
(15:46):
But I really don't give that off. I'm always serious.
And my wife he's always telling me. She always say, baby,
you can't fight every fight, right, And I'll be like,
why not? Right? And so now I'm just kind of
like Man, let it Go? You know, enjoy life. You
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(17:12):
and conditions. Listen, when I think of you, I think
you're a Hall of Famer. And what I think about
you and appreciate as you're tough and so. And I
made an argument for Edelman this week, and I said, listen, man,
there's got to be more than one way to the
Hall of Fame. I said, Jason Garrett has a higher
winning percentence to Jimmy Johnson. Who's the better coach? And
(17:35):
I said, Sandy Kofax only had three great years, but
he was the best pitcher in the history of the
game for three years. Marionno Rivera only has eighty two wins.
But the Yankees don't get a World Series with Joe
Torrey if he doesn't pitch the last outs. And so
I look at Edelman and I say, Okay, his numbers
(17:56):
don't stack like Calvin Johnson. But when you played for
the Patriot, Steve, there are no junkyards because with seven
minutes to go, you lead and you're asked to block.
You know, the Atlanta receivers trail shit, it's done. But
junkyards the last seven minutes to nine, ten to twelve
games A year. So Edelman's toughness and ability to be
(18:18):
great in big games means a ton to me. I
think of you similarly. You were better in big games.
You were a physical presence. You would block. That's my
argument for Edelman. You know there's guys in this league
that are gonna make the Hall of Fame, and you
and I know they they didn't like to block. They
(18:39):
disappeared in big spots. You know, they used to say
that about basketball players. Some basketball players hide from the
ball with about three minutes left. Lebron doesn't Kobe that,
but god, that guys hide from the ball. Now. Now,
Edelman's numbers are not yours, They're not great, But how
do you look at Edelman as a guy that played
in this league at a high level, as a Pro
Bowl or five times? You know, it's it's funny you
(19:00):
say it is because you know when I when they
asked me, or when guys like you asked me, I
am called in the middle, which is very rare for me.
Usually I'm either over here over there, I'm very I'm
really in the middle, and I'm calling the middle. Is
because one, I respect the heck out of Edelman. I
(19:24):
love his game, I love what he does. He goes
in there. He's a technician. Um, you know, he has
benefited from where he played. But here's the problem. He
wasn't given that position. He earned it by working his
way through. He mastered his craft. He used to be
(19:47):
a quarterback. Not everybody can go from quarterback to wide receiver.
Now everybody can go from wide receiver to corner. Right now,
everybody can play corner and be a successful wide receiver.
So with all that understanding his body of work, what
I really like about Edelman, which a lot of times
people don't want to really talk about, which is, you know,
(20:10):
we talk about some of these players in the league,
We talk about what they did in the playoffs, but
then they say, well, a guy didn't do that much
in a regular season, and I agree, But then we
talk about guys who have had a fantastic regular season
and unfortunately, not to their fault or their detriment, they
(20:32):
never got an opportunity to playing the playoffs. But then
what about the guys who have played in the playoffs
and didn't show up? Right? And so when I look
at Edelman, I just look at him from what I
know and what I respect of wide receivers, and I
respect them all. Now, I don't agree all of them
are great. I don't believe all of them are Hall
(20:55):
of famers. I don't believe some of the whoevers are
the top echelon um that are on the laundry list
of greats. I'm not gonna say that this guy is
better than that guy. But there are some guys where
I'm like, okay, right, because I'm supposed to respect my elders,
and I shall respect my elders. But then also look
(21:16):
at Edliman. I go, I love his numbers, and I
love what he did when he count the most. What
you do in a regular season just builds you up
to when you hit the playoffs and you're in a groove.
And Edelman was always that guy. You can count them. Yeah,
you know you you talking about your wife? You you were,
You've gotten more than a few scraps. The one with
(21:38):
the Keeb to Leab, it was pretty funny. It's actually
pretty legendary, and I love it. Keeb He's like you,
He's just gonna go right after you. Yea, what was was?
And Khalib was big. He was taller than he's a
big corner man. Everybody's thought me, to be honest, was
was there? You know, I've asked players this before. I
asked Greg Jennings once. I said, who was the corner
(22:00):
you faced that didn't get any pub That was great?
And I think he mentioned the guy for the Vikings winfield.
His son now plays to the box. Yeah, he's like,
oh my god, he was smart. He'd call out the routes.
He knew what he goes. I hated playing him. When
you go back, I remember a corner once telling me
Joe Jara Vicious, remember the wide receiver from Penn State,
(22:23):
the tall dude. Yeah, I played at Cleveland, played at
the Giants. Yeah, yeah, I had a corner once tell
me he's like that dude was way faster. He was
a long strider if you didn't jam him at the line.
If he was like a track guy and uh Ed
McCaffrey by the way, Christian's dad was like that, he
was a track guy. Like if he got running because
you were in big trouble, Yeah, what go back to
(22:45):
guys that you respected that. Maybe he didn't get Pro
Bowl love and didn't get they're not going to be you.
But this league. Half the league is undrafted, which is remarkable.
Were there some badasses you played against that didn't get
the love that gave you that mu up, that were tough?
So here So here's the thing that that sometimes people
(23:05):
don't like this response and it never really gets a
lot of man. There were so many corners that gave
me fits. And it wasn't not because they were physical,
or they were this, or they were that. It was
the guys who understood understood their scheme. And when guys
(23:28):
understood stood their scheme, like a guy like ty Law.
I played ty Law one time when he was with
the Jets, and I had a play where I motioned
the inside and motioned back outside and I was to
establish what it was, but it was also I was
supposed to block them and we were running a toss.
Tyd knew that, and he undercut me and shot the
(23:50):
gap and broke up the run and I got Dan,
and I remember Dan, Henny dog cuts me on the sideline,
called up and they answered the phone. You know, you
know when Shannon Sharp all you see all Shandon Sharp said, hey,
the President's calling. They told him to stick a forking them.
They're done. Remember that, You remember saying that that was
being henty calling me and it was never on camera,
(24:12):
blankety blank. What did you blink and do all this stuff? Right?
And so, and I'm using as an example of I
remember I was playing New England Patriots the first time
they I think they went on to win a Super Bowl.
And Otis Smith is playing corner and we run the
sprint right option and Otis knew it and Chris Winky
(24:35):
throws it on the sprint right. I'm in a slot
neck and I go that way and Otis Chris Winky
throws it. Otis hit me. By the time Otis hit me, man,
the ball was up in the air before you even
touch my hands. Right. That's a guy who he understood
the scheme, but he also understood the play. And so
when I and the reason I'm laying that out is
(24:58):
as I got older and I even looked back, now,
the guys that got me always first half to I
looked at what was the coordinator like and then the player. Yeah,
I remember I was in the slot one time and
(25:18):
Carter the corn the corner that played in Kansas City,
had you know, had Dale Carter Dale Cardale Carter Man
Dale Carter jammed me one time and I was like
in my second year with New York, my second year
at starting wide receiver, and there was I was in
the slot. There was in the slot man Dale jammy
so hard. He jammed me so hard and threw me
(25:41):
down to the ground. When I got up, my face
mask like this, right. Just things like that where Dale
knew the coverage, he knew the route patterns, and so
he knew getting speed to eliminate speed get up on him.
(26:01):
And there was six two physical and just those little
things really said something to me. And so when I
when you ask me that question, the answer is not
which corner is the scheme? Who was the coordinator? And
then I can tell you the corner because the corner
(26:25):
can play well in one scheme, go to another one
and look like a bone, right, like you a great
example of of a guy. And I always remember Jason David.
Remember Jason David had two first names. He played well,
and Indie won the Super Bowl. Man Indie plays him
when he goes to New Orleans, get that big contract.
(26:47):
And remember that first first game they ran, It was
like a they ran a train on him. Let's just
call it what it is. They Marvin and Reggie were
taking terms running around, so he gave up so many
yards that year, right, but a scheme. Who was the
coordinator Jim Haslin, Jim Hallett was always relying on let
(27:10):
me get a good corner, let me bletch you. Mike McKenzie,
al Al Harris, Ray Bu Cannon, Ashley Ambrose, right, UM,
Eric Davis with Detroit and with San Francisco, like so
many different guys, Jimmy, Jimmy Hitchcock when he was with UM,
(27:30):
the Minnesota Vikings, right, Antoine Winfield as well, what he
was able to do UM. So it was a lot
of different corners. I'm Brian Kelly from USC with Tampa
Bay and then Brian would get in your face and
then Ronde with Lawyer to sleep playing that zone. So
it all varied, man, And that's the thing that that's
(27:53):
the unsexy answer, But that's the football and the analysts
in me where I'm just I'm not gonna tell you
why this guy is good. I believe he's good, but
he also understand stands defense and the defense coordinator understands him.
Like Leslie Fraser Man. I played against Leslie so many times.
I got to Baltimore. He was a dB coach man.
(28:16):
I picked Leslie's brain all the time on what he
was saying. If I heard it, you know, hey, don't
bite on the first move. So what I would do.
I would give the receiver the corner. I would give
a corner two moves and then get him on the
third because they would said, don't bite on the first move,
or if I get the first move, you don't bite
on it. Well, I give you the first move. I
know you don't go not gonna bite on. Then I
(28:36):
get the second move, so I give you that. I
give you this the inside route, and I know you're
not gonna buy it on it, but I'm doing that
to straighten you up to even you give you the
outside move, you're gonna buit it on it. Then I
go back inside. I would always learn their rules and
(28:56):
then I would be a rule breaker. So I learned
their rules, use their rules against them to get open
and understanding what coordinator was to know how to do that,
because even the player would not go against the scheme. Right,
(29:17):
You know, Carolina, really well some days I do. I
actually think Darnald fits, Matt ruland Brady, Robbie Anderson, they
want to be more of a big play offense, throw
it down the field. Teddy's not a big arm guy.
Sam's bigger, stronger, more athletic. He's more of a risk taker.
I think it works to what level, I don't know,
(29:39):
but I would argue I think Carolina's offensive talent outside
of left tackle it's pretty good. I think Dj Moore's
a pretty good player. So I mean you, I'm sure
you watched Carolina last year. Can they be viable? Can
Darnald fit quickly? Will will? It's at a system you
can learn quickly with Matt ruland Brady Well. What I
(30:00):
love about why I think it's a good fits because
let's be honest, people are like, man, I don't I
don't see it. I don't understand why you bring in
Sam Donald. That's stupid. The problem is is it fair
to evaluate a quarterback that's on the team or that's
(30:21):
on the team who is trying to get themselves together.
The young man has been under drest from day one.
It's not It's not fair to him, right. You know,
Quarterbacks are one of these things. Quarterbacks when they when winning,
quarterbacks get all the glory and when losing to a
(30:43):
certain extent, you know, sometimes they want to place blame,
but but my blame is not the players. It's look
how good Robbie Anderson has looked here in Carolina versus
what he looked like with the Jets. Look at at
I want to see what Sam Donald can do when
he has time and not under duress. We have never
(31:07):
seen a quarterback perform well under pressure under durest probably
one of the best young talents we got out here,
and we just saw him play in the Super Bowl
where he did not accumulate four hundred and ninety seven yards.
That's how many yards he ran around for his life
in the Super pattle Patrick Patrick Mahomes in losing, so
(31:28):
he did not accumulate four hundred ninety seven yards rushing.
Now that's how many yards he ran around for his life, right,
and that says something. So if Patrick Mahomes is not
effective under duress, why isn't it Sam Donald? Is he
(31:50):
gonna be effective under duress? How are you gonna say, said,
go five step dropping three steps into your five step drop.
You're getting supplex And this is not Smagna. Another Carolina question.
I've been critical of cam although I actually thought after
COVID last year, he was pretty good. I thought down
(32:11):
the stretch he actually played pretty well. Cam Azoa is
an interesting guy. So in my life, quarterbacks, the great
ones have usually been pretty stoic, professional adult. Cam comes in.
He's a big personality. He's a lot of flair, he's
got a lot of fashion, he's got big opinions. He's different,
he's young, he's youthful, And I remember thinking it's just
(32:33):
is he the personality of a quarterback? But obviously he
got to a super Bowl? Why don't you think it
worked longer in Carolina? I mean, who gets the blame? Cam?
Cam never had back to back winning seasons, but he
had you, he had good play. They usually had pretty
good defenses. Ron River's a pretty good head coach. In
(32:53):
the end, you look at Cam and Carolina. What went wrong?
You know, honestly, that's a hard that's a hard answer.
And the reason why it's a hard answer is kind
of like where sometimes it's hard to answer why a
team isn't or isn't where they should be. When I'm
an analyst, especially in COVID, not allowed to get into
(33:15):
the you know, get into training camps and OTAs and
talk to the to the general managers and coaches and
you know, kind of get the ins and out of
how things are going right. And the reason I'm saying
all this is when I was let going Carolina, I
was in my thirteenth year when Cam was drafted. I
had just turned I think thirty something. So the camp,
(33:39):
you know, and people always they always thought I was
evading and not. But here's the thing. The Cam Newton
that I see today. He wasn't a father when we played.
He wasn't he wasn't a league MVP. There were things
in his life that change. And so I can't sit
(34:01):
here and say, man, I know Kim when I don't.
And to be honest, in a month, i'll be forty two.
Kim doesn't know sooner to be forty two Steve Smith.
You know why, because I barely know forty two year
old Steve Smith. And I think it's and I don't
think it's appropriate for me to say this is why,
because the last three years when I was in Baltimore
(34:24):
and then after I retired, I wasn't around any one.
I just can't any one. I haven't been in that
locker room on a consistent basis for eight hours out
of six months for seven years. It is no way
that I can sit here and say that I know
(34:47):
why it went wrong with Kim Newton. Then when do
you get a new head coach? He also get a
new general manager, a new owner, like a lot of
moving parts, new prayer in all that stuff. And for
me to say this is what I know and why
I went wrong, I just don't do it like some
(35:07):
of these other guys do it on TV. Whatever'll say
you know, this is why, because honestly I don't know.
You know, you tell you watch film if you go look,
since twenty ten, I think it is eleven years, there
has been like one hundred and thirty quarterbacks drafted. Eleven
(35:30):
have hit eleven or Mahomes Josh Allen, you know you
know who they are eleven out of one hundred and thirty.
When you watch film on all these young quarterbacks, are
we all just guessing? Or are there one or two?
You do look at Steve and go, that's just gonna
work to some agree you are guessing because here's a problem.
(35:55):
Let me show you my it's my book information right here,
and here's all that paperwork says the name, college, year, age, position, honors,
twenty yard shuttle, hands bench, forty ten, vertical jump, broad
jump stats, injuries, huge strengths, weaknesses, summary, final gray. You
(36:18):
know it's messing on that paper because they don't have
a machine or staff to do it. Heart. You can't
measure a young man's heart by what he doesn't a vertical.
You can't measure a man how he deals with adversity.
Right and and and here's a great example. People killed
(36:41):
me about Josh Rosen. You remember my little tent. You're
on Josh Rosen? You know what? You know what I
you know what, I feel like I'm a Catholic priest
right now because there's a lot of people ain't saying nothing.
Where is Josh Rosen right now? What rosters he's on?
He's a fourth receiver with guess what number? Pick number three?
(37:04):
Pick the San Cisco forty nine ers. You think Josh
Rosen is gonna be staying with the forty nine ers.
He was so classy, and he went down to to
to Miami, and then they got to well before to
they gave him a job and he got out there
for a quarter and he did exactly what he did
in Arizona. You know, people got on me about that,
(37:28):
and they say, oh, Steven's death, and Steve's a hater.
He's the he's the uncle that man. I just saw that.
This was a young kid when he when they got
here's what I'll say, not he you can't that paperwork
doesn't have heart. And this is the air I'm from.
When they when they drafted Kyler Murray instead of Josh
(37:53):
Rosen un following Kyler Murray un following the Arizona Ardens,
I would have loved to tweet that says, hey, Kyler,
see you in the morning. He should have been early
up at Arizona to establish I may lose my job,
but I'm not gonna lose it without a fight. Because
(38:18):
this is the same kid when they drafted him. What
did he say, you may you made nine mistakes prior
to me. If that ain't putting your stuff on the
on the desk, I don't know what it is. And
then all of a sudden, a little bit at versity
come and I get to see that your kool a
valve came a loose on your heart. This is a
(38:42):
this is a career. They have a draft every year.
For my sixteen years, they had a draft. It was
the same time every year, and they and when a
team drafts someone, they they are saying, maybe not to me,
but somebody on the squad, and we drafted this left tackle.
They're either gonna cut you or they're gonna say this
left tackle is either going to take your job, or
(39:04):
we're gonna give you this left tackle, this rookie your job.
And you can either let them or you can go
down swinging. And most of these young boys emphasis on boys,
go out. They're gonna go out swinging. They go out tweeting.
And that's that's the thing that some of these young men. Man, look, hey,
(39:29):
they're getting recruited as being the best player in the
world ranking out of high school, then in college, and
then they get to walk to where carpet next in
a couple of weeks, and then what happens, some low
adversity come and was first thing they do. I'm gonna
unfollow you on Twitter. That's that's how they do it. Yeah, Well,
(39:54):
to your point, a lot of guys don't face adversity.
You you've actually been really honest about ship when you
play you said you struggled sometimes with depression. Yeah, most
guys don't want to most guys don't want to talk
about that, and so you had some personal battles. Um,
And I don't know if it's a it's a family history.
I've had people in my family that have struggled with that.
(40:14):
You would think you're great, good looking guy, smart, successful. Yeah,
you now that you're working out and looking a little fitter,
you can tell a handsomeness of me. I like, But
it's it's interesting because I wouldn't think. I mean, you
were always a guy that was just resilient, tough, making
catches Pro bowls. When did you, honestly, Steve, was there
(40:37):
a moment for you, an epiphany when you're like, I
need to see a therapists something. There's something I can't
I can't I can't get my arms around by myself. Well,
what happened was back in two thousand and three, I
was already I had already had a sports psychologist, a
guy who was working with golf players. And so I
(40:57):
had a sports psychologist that I was working with, so
um visilation. It was always there, um daily goals, monthly goals,
short term, long term, had all that stuff already mapped
out and and and went through that. I had a
whole routine. UM look at looking at my film as
data with no emotions. Right. I had all that stuff
(41:21):
and I and it was built in me. But I
struggled because I was so geared towards data, P and
L profit or loss. Was I created enough passive income
for my family by playing, so when I can when
I'm done playing, I can sit back and enjoy life. Right,
(41:43):
So my mind was always gone. I was either always
on or always off right, and so and and just
having that pressure. Right. And so for me, what happened
is I didn't know and didn't realize the pressure I
was putting on myself. It was causing me to not
really enjoy the journey because of my the way I
(42:04):
was raised and what I went through and what I experienced. Right.
And it's something that I just connected the dots with
is by the age of eighteen, I felt pretty insignificant.
It was in me. I felt already insignificant. So for me,
(42:25):
playing ball was me playing ball. I always wanted to
play ball, but outside of playing ball, I was always
trying to figure things out. Things didn't always equal up
or make sense. So you know, I struggled with that.
And then you add not addressing it. You're playing ball,
(42:45):
keep suppressing it, keep suppressing it. And I just struggled
with it. And so when I started doing counseling, just
not for when I stopped doing counseling on the sports
and I just started doing counseling on figuring things out,
I started going backwards and I was going, oh, because
I was always uptight, right, And you know, I remember
(43:09):
when I tore my achilles in Baltimore, you know, and
I'm and I'm on you know, the medication from from
from from the surgery. Man, I remember, and I remember,
and I was like and I woke up like in
the middle of the night, and I remember saying, man,
if I would have just called these passes, and you
(43:32):
know when you have after surgery, you're always kind of
that medicine does some stuff to you, right, And I
remember I was able to recite when I woke up
middle night. I was able to recite every ball that
I dropped. And if I didn't drop that ball, I
wouldn't be playing right now. I would not be playing
(43:54):
right now. That means I would not have torn my achilles,
because I have had those thousand receptions. You were just
eating yourself up in the hospital room. And if I
would have got those styles of receptions, I would have
quit playing last year the year before, and so then
(44:16):
I wouldn't you know, you see what I'm saying. And
so I just went down the rabbit hole. And the
medication I was on it had me just like I
was like, I mean, if this is if this is
the memories, and I was just like I was. I
was in it. I mean waved out. I got a dog.
But and you ever seen a dog digging in the dirt,
(44:38):
That's where I was. I was digging through the dirt
and the mess, and I was getting filthy inside my head,
inside my heart of where I was, and I was
just like, man, this this ain't good. And so that's
why when I stepped away, I stepped away really my
sixteenth year. I was like, man, I didn't want to
go play for another team. I didn't want to keep
(45:00):
you know, being away. Um, well this year I'm in
Baltimore for three years and I go played two years
somewhere else and play maybe another year. And I was like, man,
decide what you're gonna do. And so that's that's that's
one of the reasons why and that's and that's what
I was able to figure out. And so it was like,
you know, did I want to play? Yeah, but wanting
(45:22):
to play and understanding I needed to stop playing that
was more important. Yeah, do you miss it? Miss what?
Just do you miss the camaraderie the dudes? You know?
Not really, because here's the thing I made myself unapproachable
to where I had this guard up where I didn't
(45:44):
want friends because I didn't I was here to do
one thing, just play ball. I wouldn't here to be
if I wouldn't here to be her friend. Because when
I turned it on on the light switch and I
played ball and go against defenders, I don't give a
fuck about your fan and I don't care how your
wife these kids are doing. I'm here to kick your
ass bottom. Yeah. And so having that, you know, and
(46:09):
then when I got to Baltimore, I realized, man, just
slow down a little bit. And so that's where it wasn't.
Baltimore was such a significantly better place. I was in
a better mind frame, justin for set. Great guy, Anthony Levine,
great guy, UM, Thomas Davis, great guy, UM, Mike Tolber,
great guy. I mean, so many great fantastic players that
(46:33):
I played with, but they didn't really I didn't appreciate
or make them feel appreciated because I was just so
focused on kicking ass and taking names that I was
tough to be around. But I was okay being alone
because alone fed into the anger of playing ball the
way I played. Yeah, yeah, you're you're a pretty um
(47:00):
adventurous traveler. I ran into you at a restaurant in
La and you just got back from South Korea, and
I remember, right, yeah, so you said you go on
big trips. You like to go on big trips. Give
me a country that's underrated and one that's overrated. Underrated
(47:21):
Costa Rica. There's two areas that you can fly into Liberia,
which is a Papagayo. That's that area where the risk
Carlton and Andy off there. That's fun. But then there's
Haco Beach Um that you flying to San Josea that's
like two and a half hour drive from airport. That
(47:43):
place was fun. We love that. That was like a
safer version, cleaner version of Mexico. Um. So love both
of those. My family tell you right now, I love
I love Costa Rica. We've been there twice. And every
time we talked about trips, I threw in Costa Rica
every time, like every time. Now, where did you go?
And you thought when you came home that wasn't as
(48:04):
good as the brochure. Nigeria Nigeria. No, Nigeria's okay, Lagos Uh?
The Lagos Nigeria. Um um um Togo lomey Uh? Yeah,
Togo Lomei was interesting. Now where is Togo Lomai? So
(48:28):
Togo Lomei is um is a French colony. Um you
have to fly into. When you fly the um in
the are you generally lay over in pairs and then
Ghana's in the middle of My best friend is from Ghana.
And then from there we flew from Ghana then lay
(48:50):
over to Nigeria, which is an English colony. So they
don't do French. English don't fly together. You gotta you
gotta have a lego um. So Paris was good for me.
And honestly, Parish is the dirty year version of New York.
(49:11):
And I don't now what I love about Parish is
in London is the coffee, all right, But man, I
hate the fact in Paris like you'd be in a
restaurant or out on the out, you know outside and
man people are smoking cigarettes like man like they chewing gum.
(49:33):
You know. So I really didn't like parish Um good stuff,
Steve Smith. You gave us like fifty minutes there. That
was a lot of time to talk about you. I
appreciate that. So where are you gonna go? By the way,
So this little air of Friday morning, Thursday night, you
got a big good date with your wife tonight. What
(49:54):
do you got? Um? Well, today we're having be doing
on Tuesday. She wasn't she really wasn't up for We
usually do taco Tuesdays. Um. And then after we do that,
since its later, we're probably gonna take the dog on
the walk. And since we're taking a dog on the walk,
(50:17):
I usually psychologically I let the dog poop in the
front and the pine needles because that makes me clean
it up. Because no one, no, no homeowner wants people
coming over their house. Their front yard is full of
dog shit, so it trained it makes me pick it up.
So about once it's about this time, it's either between Thursday,
(50:41):
Friday or Saturday, I literally go out there and I
got the doggie bags and I pick up dog shit
and that's keep it real. I mean, that's that's what
I do. Because if you were to come over my house,
he'd be like it and he's just waiting as for
us to open the door, and you look to the
can be like, bro, he he got like four or
(51:02):
five dog shit. He I can't imagine what the house
looks like inside, right, that's what I think. If he's
not piecking it up outside, God knows what is hidden inside.
That's what my buddy who owns a restaurant says. He said,
make your bathrooms clean, because if people use your restaurant
(51:22):
bathrooms and it's dirty, they think, what's the kitchen look like?
Thank you? So that's why good seeing your buddy appreciate it,
No problem, all right. That was Steve Smith Senior. Follow
us at The Volume, Sports, Twitter, and Instagram. Rate reviews, subscribe,
We're having fun. Keep joining us. Appreciate it The Volume
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Fan Duel. Whether you love basketball, golf, soccer, or any
fantasy sport, there is a contest for every fan Fan
Duel more ways to win. Hi, everybody, and welcome to
(00:31):
our Friday morning podcast. Before I get to Steve Smith,
who's going to make it into the Hall of Fame,
I imagine it's time for fake questions and real answers.
We do this every Friday. These are questions I want
to answer, but I don't want to have to wait
for you to ask them to me, So I'm going
to ask them to myself. Fake questions, real answers. First question,
(00:55):
Dear Colin, which commissioner do you think did the best
job handling the COVID pandemic? What a question? Listen. The
typical answer is Adam Silver because he had to go
in a bubble. But there's a commissioner I think had
more guts, UFC Commissioner Dana White. Listen. When the pandemic
started shutting everything down, leagues reacted differently, as they should.
(01:19):
Each league had its own unique set of circumstances. NFL,
NBA baseball have wide travel schedules, large rosters of athletes
and staff. Now the USC is different. Handful of fighters
only needed one location. But what they really needed most
was a commissioner that didn't run in fear. Anytime you
are the first to do anything, you get the most blowback.
(01:42):
It's easy to be second, third, and fourth. But Dana
White stepped up. UFC was the first major sport to
come back after the initial shutdown. PAC twelve ran in fear, suffered,
Ivy League opted out, a basketball suffered. Dana White took
a risk. Sure, risk is an inherent part of business,
so is courage. The question is how do you handle
(02:04):
an attack it? Minimize it? And while others backed away,
Dana White was relentless, a great quality for our athletes
and our commissioners. Second question, Dear Colin, why are baseball
ratings up thirty three percent this year on Sunday Night
Baseball when NBA ratings are down? Another terrific question. People
(02:25):
always want to blame a lot of different factors. I
think it's pretty simple. Fans want to see stars play
the games. Live sports still work the way traditional TV
has always worked. Viewers like me or you flipped through
channels and we stop when we see a big star,
a recognizable face. Last week, ESPN was promoting the Bucks
(02:46):
Lakers game on the ad the faces Ryannis and Dennis Shrewder.
No offense to Dennis Shrewder, but I've seen DVDs in
the bargain, been at Walmart with more star power. Right now,
NBA's got a problem build an All Star team out
of players missing games. But in baseball, the season's young,
the stars are healthy and they're playing, and frankly, it's
(03:10):
just better television. Third question, Dear Colin, why are you
always talking about how great it is to live in California?
Have you checked the tax rate or do you enjoy
throwing away money? Yeah, I've checked the tax rate. It's
like a luxury tax. You want to live in luxury,
you pay at tax. There's a reason big name athletes
(03:31):
want to come to play for teams in California. Matt
Stafford had options. He wanted to come here, so did
Kauai and Paul, George Lebron and Ad. Yeah, they pay
more taxes, but they get with it. Beaches, mountains, perfect weather,
access to the most powerful and influential people in sports
and entertainment. That's got value. It's worth the price. Cincinnati's fine,
(03:55):
but what do they do in the winner to attract stars?
All they offer is deep free in four hours of sunlight.
Now you may say, why not Florida. Again, it's not California.
It doesn't have our options, our entertainment, it doesn't have
as many things to do. Their economic bandwidth isn't as wide.
(04:16):
I mean, let's be honest about Florida. I got nothing
against it. But your best friend in the summer is
an air conditioner. Yeah, I pay X for to live
in California. I'd rather pay less. But when I left
Bristol and came to Fox, it was really clear. The
quality of staff you can build in California is significantly
(04:37):
better and deeper. The reservoir of talent here is remarkable.
Fourth question, Dear Colin, just admit you're a Sam Donald homer.
Everybody seems to know it's over for Donald except for
the Panthers. And you listen. Do you bail on a
friend if he makes a mistake? Do you sell your
four oh one chaoff when the market dips? You either
(04:59):
belie even something or you don't. Sam Darnold's never been
given a fair shake. In my opinion and the opinion
of Carolina and others. The reality is RG three and
Andrew Lucke. Sometimes I'm willing to lose an argument for
a year when I know him on the right side.
RG three inherited a much better team in the Shanahansas
coaches and a real running game. Andrew Lucke inherited a
(05:23):
crap sandwich in Indie. So for a year RG three
looks superior, But in the end, I stuck to my guns,
took heat and overtime. Andrew luck was clearly better. It's
like the stock market. Listen. I've been in it since
nineteen eighty nine. It's crashed three times, maybe four. I
generally double down because I believe in it. I believe
(05:45):
the way to make money and have a nice retirement
is real estate in the market, and I'm not going
to move off that, regardless of it dips. Fifth question,
dear Colin, how many friends do you have in business?
Your business? You mean broadcasting. I have acquaintances and a
handful of friends. But if you were in construction and
(06:08):
you came home to your wife, would you want to
be greeted at the door with somebody that had a
hammer in their left hand and nails in the right.
You were on a construction site all day. When I
come home, I don't want to talk sports. I don't
want to be greeted at the door by somebody in
a Browns jersey, unless it's Baker Mayfield and we can
have it out. The reality is, most of my friends
(06:29):
are in the restaurant business. I got a buddy that's
a stay at home dad. I got a buddy that's
a bond trader. I don't want to talk about sports
all the time. It's part of my life. I don't
want it to be my life. And I love sports.
My ex wife and my wife not sports fans. In fact,
I've only ever dated one person in my life who
(06:50):
would ever sit and watch sports with me, and that
was only because she played college basketball and liked hoops.
I don't know about everybody else, but if you were
on the stock market, would you want to come home
all day and talk about the stock market? I do not.
It's deliberate. Most of my friends are not in the business.
(07:13):
All right, I'm gonna bring on Steve Smith Senior fifteen
years five Pro Bowls, NFL Network analyst. He's actually a
world traveler. I'm not joking. He has been to so
many more places around the globe than I have. He'll
talk about that in the podcast. Dude has been everywhere.
I'm not joking. I'm not talking like Canada, Mexico. I'm
talking like Peru and Asia. He's got crazy travel stories. Also,
(07:37):
battle depression. I'm going to talk about that, kind of
the dark hole he was in. We'll talk to some football.
His appreciation for Julian Edelman. Interesting cat. Steve Smith joins us. So,
we're about two weeks out from the draft. You were
the eleventh receiver taken. Your your route was different. You
were like Santa Monica, JC, Utah, Mountain West, and then
(08:00):
you were the eleventh receiver taken. What was your Draft
night or Draft weekend? Like, I mean, it wasn't much,
It wasn't special, you know. That was that was back
in the day when you know, the first three rounds
was done. It was long. It was all day, right,
and you so sitting around, sitting around just waiting, you know,
(08:22):
waiting for those other guys to get called and then
you know, um third, second round and then third round.
So it was a long night. I was on the
West coast, you know, that's when it was used to
be in New York. We weren't doing all this stuff
we're doing now where it's you know, it's it's rotating cities. Um.
But you know, I believe, just like everything else, just
(08:45):
like you know, me and you, the sports world has
has changed completely, right. You know, it's it's an event
every every year. So when you compare twenty twenty one,
twenty twenty, pandemic twenty nineteen two, you know, nineteen eighteen
years ago, I mean, it's it's uncomparable in my opinion. Yeah,
(09:10):
you know, I always ask guys this. So obviously you
show up firstand camp and you can play, and you're
a tough guy. You're not only a good player, but
you're you're not going to be intimidated by it. I
always think this is interesting. When you got to your
first camp and you looked at all the rookies, all
the rookies you were surrounded by, did you know instantly, Steve,
(09:34):
two or three of them were not gonna make it,
and two or three of them were gonna make it. No,
as a rookie, I did not know that now as
I became a veteran, I would. I had the innate
ability to look in the room and say, you know,
there's twelve thirteen guys. You know in camp. I knew
(09:55):
we were gonna carry six. If there was a special guy,
most like five, we probably had to be. You know,
it wasn't a lot to choose from, so we would
go at four. I was able to look at and go,
he's gonna make it. Obviously, I'm gonna make it. He's
gonna make it. Nope, doesn't have a chance. And he's
(10:17):
he's fifty fifty. And the reason I was able to
read that and be able to see that had to
do with and and and it kind of it's harder
to do it now for me being in the booth,
because what I really love, you know in your show,
you do a great job with your show. You're on
(10:37):
the West Coast, And so I grew up in the
West Coast, and I grew up in a in a
place where you had to dissect process and the ability
to evaluate an individual on that that first encounter, that
first impression. And I was able to harness that in
(10:59):
pretty good. I'm I feel like I'm a good people reader,
but I become really it really creates my narrative of
what I believe of that individual as I'm around him
more and more and more. So if I'm sitting in
a lot, if I'm sitting in meeting rooms, and then
I'm watching and observing a guy like I do at
(11:21):
the airport now post you know, pre COVID, postcode whatever,
you know. I sit there and people watch, and I
see a guy in the locker room, and I see
how he acts, I see how he walks in in
the morning. If I'm in my locker when my cup
of coffee at six fifteen, and this dude he's supposed
to be in a special team meeting at seven thirty,
and this dude strolls in at seven twenty seven, twenty
(11:42):
five and he's scampering through. That tells me this isn't
a profession for him, this isn't a career. So what
his what he's doing with this, you know, in off time,
when we're playing cards, playing dominoes, when we're on the buses.
But then when I see him constantly tardy, constantly barely
(12:04):
making the meeting because he maybe he didn't he doesn't
have a long clock, you know, because he uses his phone,
maybe he lives too far, maybe you know, whatever the
case may be. For me, I go, this is your job, right.
There's no other legal business that you can do and
(12:26):
sleep well at night that you can make this type
of money. And so when I see that, and I
see a guy and then I you know, I watch
him make mistake a mistake over and over. This guy
isn't gonna make it. You know, it's interesting you're you're saying,
Steve that most of the guys that didn't make it
in your career, it wasn't physical, and he was like
(12:48):
mental discipline that stuff. It was the discipline. It was
the like I won't reveal a name, so you know,
I'll keep names out of it. Um. Like, I remember
seeing a guy he was like, man, I don't give
an opportunity. I'm not giving an opportunity. I said, why,
how do you feel like you're not giving an opportunity.
He's like, well, I'm not giving an opportunity because you
(13:11):
know they'll give him a play. He get five plays.
First play, he doesn't know where to line up. Checking play,
he actually knows how to line up, but he jumps
outside third play. He doesn't jump offside, he knows where
they're line up, they throwing the ball, and he drops
the ball right, and so that goes. And so he
(13:33):
has five plays. He's made one decent play, and the
rest of the four, you know, he's had either an
MA which is a mental error he just didn't perform,
or the corner jammed him up, or he just didn't
get open, or he didn't get an opportunity. So you know,
I know, I'm not a mathematician, but if you get
(13:58):
five opportunities and you only hand to make one play,
you know, and that and that's something of the stuff
that happened. So I would talk to guys in my
philosophy when I played was I'm gonna make a play
a day, one play a day. And why that was
successful is because when I would have go back and
watched film that one play that I thought was fantastic,
(14:21):
it actually was just okay. But then the play that
I thought was okay was just okay, was actually fantastic.
So now I got three or four plays. But my
goal was to make one play a day. So when
they turn on the field, every single blankety blank day
eight nine always made a play. Now, yeah, I had
(14:43):
some errors. I made some mistakes. I had some emmys.
I dropped the pass or two. I did this, but
they never said they can never say I never showed up.
It is interesting, do you where do you think that
comes from? Like you weren't to a junior college first,
so you were overlooked. And then you went to Utah,
(15:04):
so you were overlooked by the that was the Mountain
West at the time you played, so you got I
mean shit, guys were over overlooking you. Do you think
that kind of I mean, is that why you were
so serious? Like you were tired of getting overlooked? No,
I was serious because I was raised at a serious time.
(15:24):
Like that's just who that's just you know now and
I'm done and now you know even mean you talk, bro,
I'll calm down a lot, like I'm like man, like
my shirt right now says I'll ride or die until
about nine or so, right, because I'm I'm actually a goofball.
(15:46):
But I really don't give that off. I'm always serious.
And my wife he's always telling me. She always say, baby,
you can't fight every fight, right, And I'll be like,
why not? Right? And so now I'm just kind of
like Man, let it Go? You know, enjoy life. You
know those hot takes you post on social media, Well
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(17:12):
and conditions. Listen, when I think of you, I think
you're a Hall of Famer. And what I think about
you and appreciate as you're tough and so. And I
made an argument for Edelman this week, and I said, listen, man,
there's got to be more than one way to the
Hall of Fame. I said, Jason Garrett has a higher
winning percentence to Jimmy Johnson. Who's the better coach? And
(17:35):
I said, Sandy Kofax only had three great years, but
he was the best pitcher in the history of the
game for three years. Marionno Rivera only has eighty two wins.
But the Yankees don't get a World Series with Joe
Torrey if he doesn't pitch the last outs. And so
I look at Edelman and I say, Okay, his numbers
(17:56):
don't stack like Calvin Johnson. But when you played for
the Patriot, Steve, there are no junkyards because with seven
minutes to go, you lead and you're asked to block.
You know, the Atlanta receivers trail shit, it's done. But
junkyards the last seven minutes to nine, ten to twelve
games A year. So Edelman's toughness and ability to be
(18:18):
great in big games means a ton to me. I
think of you similarly. You were better in big games.
You were a physical presence. You would block. That's my
argument for Edelman. You know there's guys in this league
that are gonna make the Hall of Fame, and you
and I know they they didn't like to block. They
(18:39):
disappeared in big spots. You know, they used to say
that about basketball players. Some basketball players hide from the
ball with about three minutes left. Lebron doesn't Kobe that,
but god, that guys hide from the ball. Now. Now,
Edelman's numbers are not yours, They're not great, But how
do you look at Edelman as a guy that played
in this league at a high level, as a Pro
Bowl or five times? You know, it's it's funny you
(19:00):
say it is because you know when I when they
asked me, or when guys like you asked me, I
am called in the middle, which is very rare for me.
Usually I'm either over here over there, I'm very I'm
really in the middle, and I'm calling the middle. Is
because one, I respect the heck out of Edelman. I
(19:24):
love his game, I love what he does. He goes
in there. He's a technician. Um, you know, he has
benefited from where he played. But here's the problem. He
wasn't given that position. He earned it by working his
way through. He mastered his craft. He used to be
(19:47):
a quarterback. Not everybody can go from quarterback to wide receiver.
Now everybody can go from wide receiver to corner. Right now,
everybody can play corner and be a successful wide receiver.
So with all that understanding his body of work, what
I really like about Edelman, which a lot of times
people don't want to really talk about, which is, you know,
(20:10):
we talk about some of these players in the league,
We talk about what they did in the playoffs, but
then they say, well, a guy didn't do that much
in a regular season, and I agree, But then we
talk about guys who have had a fantastic regular season
and unfortunately, not to their fault or their detriment, they
(20:32):
never got an opportunity to playing the playoffs. But then
what about the guys who have played in the playoffs
and didn't show up? Right? And so when I look
at Edelman, I just look at him from what I
know and what I respect of wide receivers, and I
respect them all. Now, I don't agree all of them
are great. I don't believe all of them are Hall
(20:55):
of famers. I don't believe some of the whoevers are
the top echelon um that are on the laundry list
of greats. I'm not gonna say that this guy is
better than that guy. But there are some guys where
I'm like, okay, right, because I'm supposed to respect my elders,
and I shall respect my elders. But then also look
(21:16):
at Edliman. I go, I love his numbers, and I
love what he did when he count the most. What
you do in a regular season just builds you up
to when you hit the playoffs and you're in a groove.
And Edelman was always that guy. You can count them. Yeah,
you know you you talking about your wife? You you were,
You've gotten more than a few scraps. The one with
(21:38):
the Keeb to Leab, it was pretty funny. It's actually
pretty legendary, and I love it. Keeb He's like you,
He's just gonna go right after you. Yea, what was was?
And Khalib was big. He was taller than he's a
big corner man. Everybody's thought me, to be honest, was
was there? You know, I've asked players this before. I
asked Greg Jennings once. I said, who was the corner
(22:00):
you faced that didn't get any pub That was great?
And I think he mentioned the guy for the Vikings winfield.
His son now plays to the box. Yeah, he's like,
oh my god, he was smart. He'd call out the routes.
He knew what he goes. I hated playing him. When
you go back, I remember a corner once telling me
Joe Jara Vicious, remember the wide receiver from Penn State,
(22:23):
the tall dude. Yeah, I played at Cleveland, played at
the Giants. Yeah, yeah, I had a corner once tell
me he's like that dude was way faster. He was
a long strider if you didn't jam him at the line.
If he was like a track guy and uh Ed
McCaffrey by the way, Christian's dad was like that, he
was a track guy. Like if he got running because
you were in big trouble, Yeah, what go back to
(22:45):
guys that you respected that. Maybe he didn't get Pro
Bowl love and didn't get they're not going to be you.
But this league. Half the league is undrafted, which is remarkable.
Were there some badasses you played against that didn't get
the love that gave you that mu up, that were tough?
So here So here's the thing that that sometimes people
(23:05):
don't like this response and it never really gets a
lot of man. There were so many corners that gave
me fits. And it wasn't not because they were physical,
or they were this, or they were that. It was
the guys who understood understood their scheme. And when guys
(23:28):
understood stood their scheme, like a guy like ty Law.
I played ty Law one time when he was with
the Jets, and I had a play where I motioned
the inside and motioned back outside and I was to
establish what it was, but it was also I was
supposed to block them and we were running a toss.
Tyd knew that, and he undercut me and shot the
(23:50):
gap and broke up the run and I got Dan,
and I remember Dan, Henny dog cuts me on the sideline,
called up and they answered the phone. You know, you
know when Shannon Sharp all you see all Shandon Sharp said, hey,
the President's calling. They told him to stick a forking them.
They're done. Remember that, You remember saying that that was
being henty calling me and it was never on camera,
(24:12):
blankety blank. What did you blink and do all this stuff? Right?
And so, and I'm using as an example of I
remember I was playing New England Patriots the first time
they I think they went on to win a Super Bowl.
And Otis Smith is playing corner and we run the
sprint right option and Otis knew it and Chris Winky
(24:35):
throws it on the sprint right. I'm in a slot
neck and I go that way and Otis Chris Winky
throws it. Otis hit me. By the time Otis hit me, man,
the ball was up in the air before you even
touch my hands. Right. That's a guy who he understood
the scheme, but he also understood the play. And so
when I and the reason I'm laying that out is
(24:58):
as I got older and I even looked back, now,
the guys that got me always first half to I
looked at what was the coordinator like and then the player. Yeah,
I remember I was in the slot one time and
(25:18):
Carter the corn the corner that played in Kansas City,
had you know, had Dale Carter Dale Cardale Carter Man
Dale Carter jammed me one time and I was like
in my second year with New York, my second year
at starting wide receiver, and there was I was in
the slot. There was in the slot man Dale jammy
so hard. He jammed me so hard and threw me
(25:41):
down to the ground. When I got up, my face
mask like this, right. Just things like that where Dale
knew the coverage, he knew the route patterns, and so
he knew getting speed to eliminate speed get up on him.
(26:01):
And there was six two physical and just those little
things really said something to me. And so when I
when you ask me that question, the answer is not
which corner is the scheme? Who was the coordinator? And
then I can tell you the corner because the corner
(26:25):
can play well in one scheme, go to another one
and look like a bone, right, like you a great
example of of a guy. And I always remember Jason David.
Remember Jason David had two first names. He played well,
and Indie won the Super Bowl. Man Indie plays him
when he goes to New Orleans, get that big contract.
(26:47):
And remember that first first game they ran, It was
like a they ran a train on him. Let's just
call it what it is. They Marvin and Reggie were
taking terms running around, so he gave up so many
yards that year, right, but a scheme. Who was the
coordinator Jim Haslin, Jim Hallett was always relying on let
(27:10):
me get a good corner, let me bletch you. Mike McKenzie,
al Al Harris, Ray Bu Cannon, Ashley Ambrose, right, UM,
Eric Davis with Detroit and with San Francisco, like so
many different guys, Jimmy, Jimmy Hitchcock when he was with UM,
(27:30):
the Minnesota Vikings, right, Antoine Winfield as well, what he
was able to do UM. So it was a lot
of different corners. I'm Brian Kelly from USC with Tampa
Bay and then Brian would get in your face and
then Ronde with Lawyer to sleep playing that zone. So
it all varied, man, And that's the thing that that's
(27:53):
the unsexy answer, But that's the football and the analysts
in me where I'm just I'm not gonna tell you
why this guy is good. I believe he's good, but
he also understand stands defense and the defense coordinator understands him.
Like Leslie Fraser Man. I played against Leslie so many times.
I got to Baltimore. He was a dB coach man.
(28:16):
I picked Leslie's brain all the time on what he
was saying. If I heard it, you know, hey, don't
bite on the first move. So what I would do.
I would give the receiver the corner. I would give
a corner two moves and then get him on the
third because they would said, don't bite on the first move,
or if I get the first move, you don't bite
on it. Well, I give you the first move. I
know you don't go not gonna bite on. Then I
(28:36):
get the second move, so I give you that. I
give you this the inside route, and I know you're
not gonna buy it on it, but I'm doing that
to straighten you up to even you give you the
outside move, you're gonna buit it on it. Then I
go back inside. I would always learn their rules and
(28:56):
then I would be a rule breaker. So I learned
their rules, use their rules against them to get open
and understanding what coordinator was to know how to do that,
because even the player would not go against the scheme. Right,
(29:17):
You know, Carolina, really well some days I do. I
actually think Darnald fits, Matt ruland Brady, Robbie Anderson, they
want to be more of a big play offense, throw
it down the field. Teddy's not a big arm guy.
Sam's bigger, stronger, more athletic. He's more of a risk taker.
I think it works to what level, I don't know,
(29:39):
but I would argue I think Carolina's offensive talent outside
of left tackle it's pretty good. I think Dj Moore's
a pretty good player. So I mean you, I'm sure
you watched Carolina last year. Can they be viable? Can
Darnald fit quickly? Will will? It's at a system you
can learn quickly with Matt ruland Brady Well. What I
(30:00):
love about why I think it's a good fits because
let's be honest, people are like, man, I don't I
don't see it. I don't understand why you bring in
Sam Donald. That's stupid. The problem is is it fair
to evaluate a quarterback that's on the team or that's
(30:21):
on the team who is trying to get themselves together.
The young man has been under drest from day one.
It's not It's not fair to him, right. You know,
Quarterbacks are one of these things. Quarterbacks when they when winning,
quarterbacks get all the glory and when losing to a
(30:43):
certain extent, you know, sometimes they want to place blame,
but but my blame is not the players. It's look
how good Robbie Anderson has looked here in Carolina versus
what he looked like with the Jets. Look at at
I want to see what Sam Donald can do when
he has time and not under duress. We have never
(31:07):
seen a quarterback perform well under pressure under durest probably
one of the best young talents we got out here,
and we just saw him play in the Super Bowl
where he did not accumulate four hundred and ninety seven yards.
That's how many yards he ran around for his life
in the Super pattle Patrick Patrick Mahomes in losing, so
(31:28):
he did not accumulate four hundred ninety seven yards rushing.
Now that's how many yards he ran around for his life, right,
and that says something. So if Patrick Mahomes is not
effective under duress, why isn't it Sam Donald? Is he
(31:50):
gonna be effective under duress? How are you gonna say, said,
go five step dropping three steps into your five step drop.
You're getting supplex And this is not Smagna. Another Carolina question.
I've been critical of cam although I actually thought after
COVID last year, he was pretty good. I thought down
(32:11):
the stretch he actually played pretty well. Cam Azoa is
an interesting guy. So in my life, quarterbacks, the great
ones have usually been pretty stoic, professional adult. Cam comes in.
He's a big personality. He's a lot of flair, he's
got a lot of fashion, he's got big opinions. He's different,
he's young, he's youthful, And I remember thinking it's just
(32:33):
is he the personality of a quarterback? But obviously he
got to a super Bowl? Why don't you think it
worked longer in Carolina? I mean, who gets the blame? Cam?
Cam never had back to back winning seasons, but he
had you, he had good play. They usually had pretty
good defenses. Ron River's a pretty good head coach. In
(32:53):
the end, you look at Cam and Carolina. What went wrong?
You know, honestly, that's a hard that's a hard answer.
And the reason why it's a hard answer is kind
of like where sometimes it's hard to answer why a
team isn't or isn't where they should be. When I'm
an analyst, especially in COVID, not allowed to get into
(33:15):
the you know, get into training camps and OTAs and
talk to the to the general managers and coaches and
you know, kind of get the ins and out of
how things are going right. And the reason I'm saying
all this is when I was let going Carolina, I
was in my thirteenth year when Cam was drafted. I
had just turned I think thirty something. So the camp,
(33:39):
you know, and people always they always thought I was
evading and not. But here's the thing. The Cam Newton
that I see today. He wasn't a father when we played.
He wasn't he wasn't a league MVP. There were things
in his life that change. And so I can't sit
(34:01):
here and say, man, I know Kim when I don't.
And to be honest, in a month, i'll be forty two.
Kim doesn't know sooner to be forty two Steve Smith.
You know why, because I barely know forty two year
old Steve Smith. And I think it's and I don't
think it's appropriate for me to say this is why,
because the last three years when I was in Baltimore
(34:24):
and then after I retired, I wasn't around any one.
I just can't any one. I haven't been in that
locker room on a consistent basis for eight hours out
of six months for seven years. It is no way
that I can sit here and say that I know
(34:47):
why it went wrong with Kim Newton. Then when do
you get a new head coach? He also get a
new general manager, a new owner, like a lot of
moving parts, new prayer in all that stuff. And for
me to say this is what I know and why
I went wrong, I just don't do it like some
(35:07):
of these other guys do it on TV. Whatever'll say
you know, this is why, because honestly I don't know.
You know, you tell you watch film if you go look,
since twenty ten, I think it is eleven years, there
has been like one hundred and thirty quarterbacks drafted. Eleven
(35:30):
have hit eleven or Mahomes Josh Allen, you know you
know who they are eleven out of one hundred and thirty.
When you watch film on all these young quarterbacks, are
we all just guessing? Or are there one or two?
You do look at Steve and go, that's just gonna
work to some agree you are guessing because here's a problem.
(35:55):
Let me show you my it's my book information right here,
and here's all that paperwork says the name, college, year, age, position, honors,
twenty yard shuttle, hands bench, forty ten, vertical jump, broad
jump stats, injuries, huge strengths, weaknesses, summary, final gray. You
(36:18):
know it's messing on that paper because they don't have
a machine or staff to do it. Heart. You can't
measure a young man's heart by what he doesn't a vertical.
You can't measure a man how he deals with adversity.
Right and and and here's a great example. People killed
(36:41):
me about Josh Rosen. You remember my little tent. You're
on Josh Rosen? You know what? You know what I
you know what, I feel like I'm a Catholic priest
right now because there's a lot of people ain't saying nothing.
Where is Josh Rosen right now? What rosters he's on?
He's a fourth receiver with guess what number? Pick number three?
(37:04):
Pick the San Cisco forty nine ers. You think Josh
Rosen is gonna be staying with the forty nine ers.
He was so classy, and he went down to to
to Miami, and then they got to well before to
they gave him a job and he got out there
for a quarter and he did exactly what he did
in Arizona. You know, people got on me about that,
(37:28):
and they say, oh, Steven's death, and Steve's a hater.
He's the he's the uncle that man. I just saw that.
This was a young kid when he when they got
here's what I'll say, not he you can't that paperwork
doesn't have heart. And this is the air I'm from.
When they when they drafted Kyler Murray instead of Josh
(37:53):
Rosen un following Kyler Murray un following the Arizona Ardens,
I would have loved to tweet that says, hey, Kyler,
see you in the morning. He should have been early
up at Arizona to establish I may lose my job,
but I'm not gonna lose it without a fight. Because
(38:18):
this is the same kid when they drafted him. What
did he say, you may you made nine mistakes prior
to me. If that ain't putting your stuff on the
on the desk, I don't know what it is. And
then all of a sudden, a little bit at versity
come and I get to see that your kool a
valve came a loose on your heart. This is a
(38:42):
this is a career. They have a draft every year.
For my sixteen years, they had a draft. It was
the same time every year, and they and when a
team drafts someone, they they are saying, maybe not to me,
but somebody on the squad, and we drafted this left tackle.
They're either gonna cut you or they're gonna say this
left tackle is either going to take your job, or
(39:04):
we're gonna give you this left tackle, this rookie your job.
And you can either let them or you can go
down swinging. And most of these young boys emphasis on boys,
go out. They're gonna go out swinging. They go out tweeting.
And that's that's the thing that some of these young men. Man, look, hey,
(39:29):
they're getting recruited as being the best player in the
world ranking out of high school, then in college, and
then they get to walk to where carpet next in
a couple of weeks, and then what happens, some low
adversity come and was first thing they do. I'm gonna
unfollow you on Twitter. That's that's how they do it. Yeah, Well,
(39:54):
to your point, a lot of guys don't face adversity.
You you've actually been really honest about ship when you
play you said you struggled sometimes with depression. Yeah, most
guys don't want to most guys don't want to talk
about that, and so you had some personal battles. Um,
And I don't know if it's a it's a family history.
I've had people in my family that have struggled with that.
(40:14):
You would think you're great, good looking guy, smart, successful. Yeah,
you now that you're working out and looking a little fitter,
you can tell a handsomeness of me. I like, But
it's it's interesting because I wouldn't think. I mean, you
were always a guy that was just resilient, tough, making
catches Pro bowls. When did you, honestly, Steve, was there
(40:37):
a moment for you, an epiphany when you're like, I
need to see a therapists something. There's something I can't
I can't I can't get my arms around by myself. Well,
what happened was back in two thousand and three, I
was already I had already had a sports psychologist, a
guy who was working with golf players. And so I
(40:57):
had a sports psychologist that I was working with, so
um visilation. It was always there, um daily goals, monthly goals,
short term, long term, had all that stuff already mapped
out and and and went through that. I had a
whole routine. UM look at looking at my film as
data with no emotions. Right. I had all that stuff
(41:21):
and I and it was built in me. But I
struggled because I was so geared towards data, P and
L profit or loss. Was I created enough passive income
for my family by playing, so when I can when
I'm done playing, I can sit back and enjoy life. Right,
(41:43):
So my mind was always gone. I was either always
on or always off right, and so and and just
having that pressure. Right. And so for me, what happened
is I didn't know and didn't realize the pressure I
was putting on myself. It was causing me to not
really enjoy the journey because of my the way I
(42:04):
was raised and what I went through and what I experienced. Right.
And it's something that I just connected the dots with
is by the age of eighteen, I felt pretty insignificant.
It was in me. I felt already insignificant. So for me,
(42:25):
playing ball was me playing ball. I always wanted to
play ball, but outside of playing ball, I was always
trying to figure things out. Things didn't always equal up
or make sense. So you know, I struggled with that.
And then you add not addressing it. You're playing ball,
(42:45):
keep suppressing it, keep suppressing it. And I just struggled
with it. And so when I started doing counseling, just
not for when I stopped doing counseling on the sports
and I just started doing counseling on figuring things out,
I started going backwards and I was going, oh, because
I was always uptight, right, And you know, I remember
(43:09):
when I tore my achilles in Baltimore, you know, and
I'm and I'm on you know, the medication from from
from from the surgery. Man, I remember, and I remember,
and I was like and I woke up like in
the middle of the night, and I remember saying, man,
if I would have just called these passes, and you
(43:32):
know when you have after surgery, you're always kind of
that medicine does some stuff to you, right, And I
remember I was able to recite when I woke up
middle night. I was able to recite every ball that
I dropped. And if I didn't drop that ball, I
wouldn't be playing right now. I would not be playing
(43:54):
right now. That means I would not have torn my achilles,
because I have had those thousand receptions. You were just
eating yourself up in the hospital room. And if I
would have got those styles of receptions, I would have
quit playing last year the year before, and so then
(44:16):
I wouldn't you know, you see what I'm saying. And
so I just went down the rabbit hole. And the
medication I was on it had me just like I
was like, I mean, if this is if this is
the memories, and I was just like I was. I
was in it. I mean waved out. I got a dog.
But and you ever seen a dog digging in the dirt,
(44:38):
That's where I was. I was digging through the dirt
and the mess, and I was getting filthy inside my head,
inside my heart of where I was, and I was
just like, man, this this ain't good. And so that's
why when I stepped away, I stepped away really my
sixteenth year. I was like, man, I didn't want to
go play for another team. I didn't want to keep
(45:00):
you know, being away. Um, well this year I'm in
Baltimore for three years and I go played two years
somewhere else and play maybe another year. And I was like, man,
decide what you're gonna do. And so that's that's that's
one of the reasons why and that's and that's what
I was able to figure out. And so it was like,
you know, did I want to play? Yeah, but wanting
(45:22):
to play and understanding I needed to stop playing that
was more important. Yeah, do you miss it? Miss what?
Just do you miss the camaraderie the dudes? You know?
Not really, because here's the thing I made myself unapproachable
to where I had this guard up where I didn't
(45:44):
want friends because I didn't I was here to do
one thing, just play ball. I wouldn't here to be
if I wouldn't here to be her friend. Because when
I turned it on on the light switch and I
played ball and go against defenders, I don't give a
fuck about your fan and I don't care how your
wife these kids are doing. I'm here to kick your
ass bottom. Yeah. And so having that, you know, and
(46:09):
then when I got to Baltimore, I realized, man, just
slow down a little bit. And so that's where it wasn't.
Baltimore was such a significantly better place. I was in
a better mind frame, justin for set. Great guy, Anthony Levine,
great guy, UM, Thomas Davis, great guy, UM, Mike Tolber,
great guy. I mean, so many great fantastic players that
(46:33):
I played with, but they didn't really I didn't appreciate
or make them feel appreciated because I was just so
focused on kicking ass and taking names that I was
tough to be around. But I was okay being alone
because alone fed into the anger of playing ball the
way I played. Yeah, yeah, you're you're a pretty um
(47:00):
adventurous traveler. I ran into you at a restaurant in
La and you just got back from South Korea, and
I remember, right, yeah, so you said you go on
big trips. You like to go on big trips. Give
me a country that's underrated and one that's overrated. Underrated
(47:21):
Costa Rica. There's two areas that you can fly into Liberia,
which is a Papagayo. That's that area where the risk
Carlton and Andy off there. That's fun. But then there's
Haco Beach Um that you flying to San Josea that's
like two and a half hour drive from airport. That
(47:43):
place was fun. We love that. That was like a
safer version, cleaner version of Mexico. Um. So love both
of those. My family tell you right now, I love
I love Costa Rica. We've been there twice. And every
time we talked about trips, I threw in Costa Rica
every time, like every time. Now, where did you go?
And you thought when you came home that wasn't as
(48:04):
good as the brochure. Nigeria Nigeria. No, Nigeria's okay, Lagos Uh?
The Lagos Nigeria. Um um um Togo lomey Uh? Yeah,
Togo Lomei was interesting. Now where is Togo Lomai? So
(48:28):
Togo Lomei is um is a French colony. Um you
have to fly into. When you fly the um in
the are you generally lay over in pairs and then
Ghana's in the middle of My best friend is from Ghana.
And then from there we flew from Ghana then lay
(48:50):
over to Nigeria, which is an English colony. So they
don't do French. English don't fly together. You gotta you
gotta have a lego um. So Paris was good for me.
And honestly, Parish is the dirty year version of New York.
(49:11):
And I don't now what I love about Parish is
in London is the coffee, all right, But man, I
hate the fact in Paris like you'd be in a
restaurant or out on the out, you know outside and
man people are smoking cigarettes like man like they chewing gum.
(49:33):
You know. So I really didn't like parish Um good stuff,
Steve Smith. You gave us like fifty minutes there. That
was a lot of time to talk about you. I
appreciate that. So where are you gonna go? By the way,
So this little air of Friday morning, Thursday night, you
got a big good date with your wife tonight. What
(49:54):
do you got? Um? Well, today we're having be doing
on Tuesday. She wasn't she really wasn't up for We
usually do taco Tuesdays. Um. And then after we do that,
since its later, we're probably gonna take the dog on
the walk. And since we're taking a dog on the walk,
(50:17):
I usually psychologically I let the dog poop in the
front and the pine needles because that makes me clean
it up. Because no one, no, no homeowner wants people
coming over their house. Their front yard is full of
dog shit, so it trained it makes me pick it up.
So about once it's about this time, it's either between Thursday,
(50:41):
Friday or Saturday, I literally go out there and I
got the doggie bags and I pick up dog shit
and that's keep it real. I mean, that's that's what
I do. Because if you were to come over my house,
he'd be like it and he's just waiting as for
us to open the door, and you look to the
can be like, bro, he he got like four or
(51:02):
five dog shit. He I can't imagine what the house
looks like inside, right, that's what I think. If he's
not piecking it up outside, God knows what is hidden inside.
That's what my buddy who owns a restaurant says. He said,
make your bathrooms clean, because if people use your restaurant
(51:22):
bathrooms and it's dirty, they think, what's the kitchen look like?
Thank you? So that's why good seeing your buddy appreciate it,
No problem, all right. That was Steve Smith Senior. Follow
us at The Volume, Sports, Twitter, and Instagram. Rate reviews, subscribe,
We're having fun. Keep joining us. Appreciate it The Volume
Host
Colin Cowherd
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