Super Bowl Preview

The Super Bowl is upon us, and Michael Robinson is here to give us an insider's perspective on the preparation of the teams in the weeks leading up to game day, and the game itself. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
NFL Explained is a production of the NFL in partnership
with I Heart Radio. Here we go. We've been waiting
all season long for this, the biggest game of the year.
It is the Super Bowl, and that the subject of
today's NFL Explained podcast. I'm not gonna be talking about

(00:26):
the game and the excesses. You can watch NFL Network
for some of that stuff. We're all about the preparation
to two weeks leading up to it and all the
little intricacies that you're not even familiar with. But I
always introduced my guy, Michael Robinson is a Super Bowl champ.
Last week I also included Pro Bowler into the mix
as well. But Emrod super Bowl forty eight, You've got
some good memories. I have great memories. It involves all

(00:49):
of my teammates, Rick Ross, New York City and a
lot of different fun things. Absolutely super Bowl champions. Give
me the Rick Ross. You've got a cool story around
Rick Ross. Well, it's not super cool. It's almost one
of those things that almost got me and my brother,
who is one of my best friends in the whole world.
He helped raised me. He's eight years older than me.
It almost got us at odds and almost had us fighting. Uh.

(01:10):
They threw a super Bowl party for us where Rick
Ross was the guy in the club and I got
in the club, but all I could think about was
my brother, who was stuck outside and it was raining
because snow was getting ready to come the next morning.
If anybody remembers that Super Bowl, a lot of travelers
to that Super Bowl got stuck in the snow. But yeah,
Rick Ross putting on his show almost came between me
and my brother. Yes, okay, I remember that Super Bowl

(01:32):
really well because I was living in the area at
that time. I'm from the Northeast, so I remember a
lot of this stuff. And just keep in mind your brother,
and I learned this in the last episode. Helped you
move in at Penn State. Carried some of the boxes
and the clothing. So there's a lot of love for
your brother. We can't let anything bad get in between you, guys,
Rick Ross or not. Sean cal Polock, Commas, baby, Let's
go Yes State. All right, Let's start with New York

(01:55):
City because as most people realize, like the Super Bowl
is not in the same venue every single year years,
happened to be a place where I call home. So
I'm a little bias here, but we know just facts,
it's the number one media market. Did that change anything
for you and your team? Just know when it was
the Big Apple a little bit, you know, it put
a little bit of perspective on the game. Obviously, we

(02:18):
were going up against Peyton Manning, and we know they
had broke every offensive record that there was in the
National Football League that year, and so we knew that
with the game being in New York, there was gonna
be a lot more added attention, not only because of
the Super Bowl, but it's because it's in New York
City and it was featuring a guy like Peyton Manning,
who some considered on the back end of his career,
who had just had a record setting season. So we

(02:40):
were like, I ain't gonna lie man Like. We were
using the words like goons in our locker room. We
wanted to be like the dooms Day, Like we wanted
to kind of like rain on Peyton Manning's parade and
kind of own New York City. We were calling a
Gotham and it was gonna be Gothil because the big
bad boys from the Pacific Northwest was in town. You
guys were the big bad boys in the Pacific Northwest

(03:02):
with a super Bowl whim. You know, we've done other
episodes rob where we go through the week for a coach,
the week for a player, the preparation, like all the
things that you don't know about unless you experience, and
that's where your expertise comes into play. Super Bowl week.
Not everyone is in that fraternity of being able to
play in that type of game. What's that schedule like?

(03:22):
Because the short week, we know it can be a
little frustrating. The late games can be frustrating sometimes for
players you just want to get out there and play.
All of a sudden, we got two weeks to think
about the biggest game of your entire life. Well, Yeams,
I'm not gonna lie. Like the minute we won the
NFC championship game, we beat the San Francisco for the Niners,
and for anybody who remembers that year, was that great
tip play from Richard Sherman. Malcolm Smith ended up intercepting

(03:45):
the football and from the moment we got into the
locker room and we celebrate a we're hype we're going
to the Super Bowl, and I remember Pete saying, okay, guys,
we got two weeks before this game. We're gonna have
a team meeting early tomorrow morning, and we're gonna literally
give you guys help on how to structure your week,

(04:08):
how to structure the week here, how to structure the
week in New York City, because it's unlike any other
game week oftentimes, and Yams, you know, this football industry
is a small fraternity, man, And during normal NFL weeks, right,
all your homies are your guys, they're playing too, you know,
they have games that they're preparing for, and yeah, they

(04:29):
don't necessary not necessarily available all the time. You text
this that in the third and you share some notes
or whatever. But when it's the Super Bowl, there's no
other NFL game going on. Everybody you text, everybody in
the National Football League you text oftentimes they're sitting at
home watching or getting ready for the game, getting ready
to watch you play. And so it's it's it's it's

(04:50):
a very unique thing. And I remember that Monday, we
came into the team meeting and Pete like literally he
put together a slide presentation and he told us we're
gonna attack this week, this this, this, this week before
we go to New York, Like it's a normal game week.
And so he said, when we step on the on
the bus to get on the plane to go to
New York City next Saturday, the game plan is gonna

(05:13):
be tight. We're gonna be ready to play a game
the next day. Now, the trick is taking all of
that nervous energy and um and kind of bottling it
up and not kind of over exerting yourself in that
short week going forward. So that week when we were
in Seattle, it was a normal week. We met on Monday,
we went over the NFC Championship game, we went over
all of our mistakes. Tuesday was the normal player day off.

(05:35):
And it's funny, Yams that that usually Tuesday's me and
be small. We always had a film session, whether it
was at my house, at the team meeting room or whatever,
just him and I because as a fullback, I was
his eyes. I had to know what he was thinking.
So I knew what cut he would make when he
got to the whole right after I got to the whole.

(05:56):
So you know what I mean, We had to watch
take together, you know what I'm saying. And so that
Tuesday before we left, when we were still in Seattle,
I remember us watching and we watched one quarter of
the Denver Broncos defense and be Smoke stood up and
was like, Dude, what are we doing? And I said,
I know, Bro, I said, I think we're gonna beat
the hell out of this group. Like I don't think

(06:18):
it's gonna be close. And he said, Bro, like why
Super Bowl has gotta be close? And I remember we
walked out of that meeting when we went down to
the coach's offices and we're like, Pete, Bro, like, this
game doesn't have to be close. You know that, right?
And I guess Pete liked it because the next day,
you know what I mean, that Wednesday, when we came
into practice, that was kind of the mottel, this game

(06:38):
ain't gotta be close, guys. Just because we're playing paid man,
and just because it's in New York City doesn't mean
that the game has to be close. So we went
on with our base personnel stuff on Wednesday, or Nicol personnel,
and our third down sub package and our goal line
packages on Thursday. We had the final speed practice on Friday,
would have walked through before we got on the plane
to go over to New York City, and Pete told

(06:58):
us when we got on the plane. Now it's all
about managing your emotions. Now, it's all about going like
guy's we don't know if we're gonna ever go back
to a super Bowl, and it's crazy Yams. Like oftentimes
you hear leaders say, hey, you know, no distractions, you know,
like stay focused. Pace said no, man, I don't know
if we're ever gonna go back to a super Bowl.

(07:21):
Enjoy it. Have as much fun as possible. Man. Yeah,
we're gonna have curfew and stuff for you guys, but
when you're out, enjoy it, because the hay is in
the barn. The x is an old standpoint. You guys
have already won the game on paper. You has already
run the game from an x is and no standpoint.
You just got to make sure that your mind is write,
your energy is right, and that you're happy going into
the game. And Yams eight, I think that was a score. Yeah,

(07:44):
we was right going into that game. So from the
sort of fascinating to me, how much do you think
there's like that college experience that Pete had about having fun,
Like something tells me from the people that I've talked
to that played for him, including you, just sort of
this idea of competition and fun and making it a
fun atmosphere. You know, some guys might flip that switch

(08:06):
when it's a huge game, and I think it's important
to be sort of consistent there. But how much of
the routine was the same, whether it's how you watch film,
the amount of time you watch film, the types of
practices you had compared those two weeks versus what you
were doing previously that season. Well, the crazy part yams,
Like I said, that week against two weeks after the

(08:27):
NFC championship game or after the championship games, before the
Super Bowl, and that first week we were at home
in Seattle. Again, that was a normal week, but that
was also a week when you're outside of the facility.
That's also the week that you're handling tickets, you're handling
travel for your family. You're thinking about, Okay, who's gonna
actually come to this game? If I win, who am
I going to have on the field. You only get

(08:48):
two or three passes for family to be on the
field After the game. You gotta think about all of
this stuff while the game plan is going in. And
the crazy part about the peak thing that you know
you were just talking about Pete and how he makes
it fun coming into work and stuff like that. Uh,
it was one day we were at practice and Pete
likes to play music at practice. Pete likes to make

(09:09):
practice a big thing. Pete may have Will Ferrell come
by practice. He may have Snoop come by practice. He
had Bill Russell come by practice in the wild car
around that year that we won our Super Bowl. I mean,
he'll have celebrities. He'll have people that practice to hit
to see you watch. Because this whole philosophy was if
people are watching you, if there's a superstar watching you,

(09:29):
you're gonna be the best version of yourself because you
don't want to look stupid, you don't want to look bad, right,
And so mam, he always would say this to us.
Every practice is a championship rep. Every practice is a
championship practice. That way, when you're truly in the championship moments,
it'll just be second nature to you. And yeahs, I
know people say things just to go along with the conversation,

(09:50):
but man, I'm telling you, Man, I'm being real with you.
That Super Bowl, it was almost surreal because of how
normal it felt. It felt like a game when we
got to plan, you know what I'm saying, And I
just wentn't anticipating that feeling. I was kind of anticipating
high but you know, you know, obviously you get excited

(10:10):
at the beginning to kickoff, but um, I just was
anticipating a lot. And I attribute that to Pete Carroll
always keeping us in the mindset of always having a
championship mindset and being ready for those championship moments. So
it's really fascinating about this is when Pete was at USC,
I had heard this story before, and you're gonna go like, yeah,
of course, because it's kind of what you just said.

(10:32):
Curtis Conway and I worked together. Curtis's former wide receiver. Obviously,
um you know, played whatever it was eleven twelve years
in the league. Sea Way went to USC and Curtis
told me he would go to practice when Reggie Bush,
win Liner and those guys were there. Pete would make
it a point to have all those dudes come back
and the Will Ferrells of the world and like kind
of lean into that l a vibe. And Curtis told

(10:54):
me that he goes, Man, I've been playing football my
whole life. I had never seen this before. He goes
Reggie would come out of a rap right off a
practice field, be dancing on the sideline, like having fun,
like just literally not like kind of paying attention to
the game or what was happening in practice, but really
just having fun with his boys on the sideline. Then
they'd go, Okay, you're in. He'd go in, and it's

(11:15):
like this the switch that gets flipped where you're expected
to be so invested in that moment. And I'm just
connecting the dots here because you said if you're playing
in front of dudes like well Ferrell, like not for nothing,
like I get it's not a football guy, but like
you don't want to look bad, like you're gonna go
out there and ball out. So I think there's something
to like the psychological aspect of all this that you're
making reference to, which then leads me to this. There's

(11:38):
this old adage of hey, do you how how helpful
is it because it's not your first Super Bowl? If
you got other dudes who've played in this game, it
sounds like for your Seahawks in particular, maybe it didn't
matter as much, or am I reading too much into it?
It didn't matter at all. And I think it would
have mattered if we had a different type of coach,

(11:58):
if we had a different type of coach who coach
different in these elevated games, who did some different things
in these elevated situations. Pete was consistent. He was constant.
We practice every single facet of that game, Yams. We
practiced halftime. We spent a whole two hours in our

(12:19):
facility in Seattle training and practicing the halftime, which is
double the amount of halftime is in normal games. And
so yeah, when we got on that plane to go
to New York, Man, we knew we were gonna win
that game. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having m
rob a little Rihanna going on. Um as you're practicing
some of that halftime stuff. I know, I'm excited for that.
You mentioned the fact that halftimes extended here, like take

(12:41):
me through like you practicing halftime. You know it's longer.
Can you hear the music? Do you want to not
listen to coach? You rather just go watch the concert
that's happening. First of all, a normal NFL halftime is
approximately fifteen minutes, right. The Super Bowl halftime is approximately
thirty minutes. So usually when you're going to a normal
NFL game, right, the coaches are kind of getting their

(13:04):
selves together. Right. You got the training staff and the
equipment staff and all of those guys kind of handing
out fruit and drinks and and things like that. You're
getting your equipment stuff dealt with, you, getting your jersey's
fixed and stuff like that. That's like the first five
minutes right then the coaches come in. Then the coaches
are telling you all your adjustments and things like that,
and then like the last two minutes, everybody kind of

(13:26):
gets together. The coach says something, Man, we go out
to go take on the second half in the Super Bowl,
it's so long, Like I had an opportunity to take
a shower, I changed my pads, I changed everything. You
just have that time. And so we broke it down.
It was thirty minutes. We broke it down into three
ten minutes segments. The first ten minutes was us getting
ourselves together. You know what I'm saying. If you wanted

(13:47):
to go shower, if you wanted to eat whatever, whatever.
Then the next ten minutes was our coaches that came
back in. We made adjustments and now you've got ten
minutes so you can actually wo mean, we got on
the white board. I mean it felt like meetings, you
know what I'm saying. And then the last ten minutes
we cranked the music up, we got our equipment, you've
got our trainers on, and we started warming up like
it was the beginning of the game in Yams. I'm

(14:09):
telling you there's a lot. Our minds are some powerful things.
Our brains are very powerful. Because when I went back
off for the second half, I kept on having to
look at the scoreboard because I wasn't sure whether this
was the first half or second half, because it felt
like the beginning of the game all over again. It
did not feel like we paid the first half. And
so the second half kickoff happens and they're trying to

(14:33):
kick it away from Percy and it bounces and it
and he scores like it was nothing. Because we had
the beginning of the game energy. They had second half energy.
And to me that I mean that energy changed everything. Man.
And um you mentioned can we hear the base and
stuff in the locker room. Absolutely, But we had cranked
our music so much, and we had had our locker

(14:55):
rooms so much. Kind of like what people have seen
throughout this past year with the San Francisco for the
nine is we were kind of in that mold where
we were just cranking the music up and it was
all about getting us because if we were right, it
didn't matter what was going on on the other side
of the field. I'm gonna make an old school reference
that I know you'll appreciate. The old U c l
A Legends basketball coach John Wooden. He used to teach

(15:17):
his guys how to tie their shoes properly, right, like
little things like that, which seemed ridiculous. And I still
don't really know the premise behind why you would do that.
You know, do you double not it? You just don't
want it to you know, the shoelaces again untied during
the game, whatever the reason. But the point is it's
all about the details. When Pete says we're gonna practice halftime,

(15:37):
do you say what the or what? Or are you okay? Cool?
That makes sense? Well for me, you already know I
think a little bit differently. I've always wanted to kind
of lead, be coaching, general manager, that type of deal.
So when when I first heard that we were literally
having an entire two hour period or hour and half
devoted to the halftime. My first reaction was, please, are

(15:59):
for real, Pete. I got some better things to do
this morning. I got my kids. I gotta pick my
kids up. You know, I got lost lot of stuff
going on. And then as I thought about it, and
that always compete thing that goes on that Pete always
talks about, I'm thinking, oh, man, Pete Carroll is competing
right now. He's saying, We're not gonna lose any aspect

(16:21):
of this game. We're gonna win the week before, We're
gonna win the week leading up. We're gonna win on
the football field. We're gonna win special teams. We're gonna
win the halftime, we're gonna win the press conferences. We're
gonna win it all. And once I really thought about it, yeah,
I knew while we were practicing it because we were
going in to beat the hell out of a really
good team. All right, Welcome back to the NFL Explained Podcasts.

(16:49):
Mike Yam and Rob with you. Um. I do think
it's important to sort of set up a little bit
of the media history around the Super Bowl. I mean, look,
the fans want to get to the game. The players
obviously want to play in this game, but it really
is this I don't want to say party like atmosphere
because I think that's not the best way to describe it,
but it's a little bit of chaos. It's like a circus, right.

(17:09):
Media Day has been around since actually the very first
Super Bowl. You got reporters going to players hotels, asking questions,
maybe even having dinner. Back in the day. Media Day
actually started being held on the field at the stadium
the Super Bowl was being held out, which is kind
of a cool different spin to all of this stuff.
In fact, it happens a lot of times on the

(17:30):
college side for the college football playoffs stuff. I was
actually covering a game a couple of years ago when
Washington was playing Alabama down in Atlanta, and we did
the media day on the field. So it's kind of
a cool piece to this puzzle. Media Day was moved
away from the game stadium to a nearby indoor stadium,
which opened up the event for fans. You've got media members,

(17:51):
they're on the floor, you can do some cool things
around that. For the first year, it was held at
the Prudential Center in Newark instead of MetLife stadium. For
those who aren't aware of the geography of New Jersey,
it's not mark uh. Since then aside actually from those
COVID years, it's been held at a basketball or inside
a baseball arena. In the super Bowl City. Super Bowl fifty,

(18:13):
NFL moved Media Day from Tuesday to prime time, a
Monday event, Monday night event here em rob. This actually
opened it up for Super Bowl Week and it really
put it in a better time slot for TV coverage.
Media Day right now broadcast by ESPN and of course
NFL network, and it's watched by over seven hundred thousand
people on TV every single year. That's just like the

(18:35):
Media Day stuff. And check this out. For Super Bowl one,
the NFL credentialed about a thousand media members to cover
the game. Nowadays it's over five thousand media members. By
the way, off air, you and I went back forth
on this with our team, like almost don't even believe
super Bowl one, but our research says it's true, so
it's got to be. Well, you gotta think about it, man,
I mean, super Bowl one the first time the NFL

(18:57):
and the NFL, those guys all came together World championship.
I mean, I guess I can think about a thousand
media members being there a lot newspapers. Yeah, well you
know my rebuttal well, my rebuttal to that. When we
had this conversation off air, was like, dude, there was
like two or three TV networks, Um, we always know
about And I said circus because I do think about
the crazy questions you guys are asked. Anything that stands

(19:19):
out to you? Oh man, well, I'm you know, I'm
a full back, right, and so people look at full
backs is pretty serious. What if I got personality? But
they looked at us as pretty serious. So I didn't
get any super crazy questions. I think I gotta ask,
do I believe unicorns are real? Um like stuff like that?
I don't know. I've never seen once, So it's not

(19:40):
real to me. You know what I'm saying. I'm not
saying it's not biologically real, but it's not real to me.
Do you remember? And I'm sure you guys talked about
it inside the locker room. But when Marshawn said, I'm
just here so I don't get fined. Yeah, so yeah,
you gotta understand, right, My homie beast more, that's my
dog man, that's one of my good friends, one of
my best friends in the whole world, and my brother
from another mother. Um So when he did that, I
don't you know, Um, I'm just here so I don't

(20:02):
get fine thing. That was the year after I retired,
That was after we won the Super Bowl. Was the
next year when they went back. But the crazy part
about that media day was everybody involved, the NFL, PA,
the NFL, you know, Beast Mode, Seahawks, everybody was like, dude,
what is best more gonna do during media day? Like
he during the playoffs, he runs out of the locker room,

(20:23):
you know what I'm saying, so he doesn't have to
always get at So this is a set media time.
What is gonna happen? And I remember having some calls
the night before Media Day with the PA, the NFL,
Beast Mode were all calling back and forth and um,
BES was like, bro, I'll be there, but um, I
don't know what you want me to say, though nothing
in my contracts say I gotta answer these questions coherently

(20:46):
or anything. And then you know, we got off the
phone and meet him and out were just on the phone,
you know, just kind of chopping it up. His homeboys
and I'm like, bro, you just need to have a
saying or something, and it came out, you know, I'm
just here, so I don't get fine and it he
went on to, you know, make some money off of
just that saying. And it wasn't that Beast Mode didn't

(21:07):
want to do media because for all of everybody listening,
I was with him that Super Bowl. I got in
his own personal sprinter van that super Bowl when I
rolled around with him. After that media day, he did
about the thirty individual interviews like sat down with networks
and everything. It wasn't that he didn't want to do it.
He just wanted to do it on his terms. And

(21:28):
that's what made beast Modes special. So yeah, man, that
was that was one of those things. And then the
year before, we had media day just at a hotel
and we were at the table, myself, Beast Mode and
Robert Turbin and they were talking to the backs and
they were they kept on asking beast Molde stuff right yams,
And I was sitting to his left and I started
seeing his left leg shake because it was they were

(21:50):
asking questions, and he was like, man, you know, he
was answering him, but they kept asking the same question,
and I can tell he was getting frustrated, right, and
then he started shaking his leg and I'm like, oh
my goodness, he's gonna flip the table. Like in my head,
I'm thinking he's gonna flip the table and this is
not gonna be good for us as our first of
the bowl we got we you know, So I just said, hey, guys,
you know, and I kind of took over the interview,

(22:11):
you know, went there to help my boy out. We
end up having a big laugh about it and all
of that. Man. But uh, yeah, the things we do
for our teammates on media day, that's what we do.
We stick together, yams. Did he tell you after, like
when you were done, that he was gonna flip the table? No,
he didn't, but he did say he was getting frustrated.
He said, Bro, you know, I'm gonna talk like beast Molde.
You know, I'm not gonna curse, but I'm gonna talk
like blood blood, thank you blood like me for real, bro. Man,

(22:36):
he had me messed up. Bro. He used some other words,
but yeah, that was beast Molde. At the time. He
was happy I was there for him. I know, you
you're thinking, all right, how do I diffuse this? Is it?
Where's the closest bag of Skittles that I can go on? Fine?
And just trying to make this this okay. Um. You know.
One of the other interesting elements about this two weeks
for the Super Bowl, and it popped up this year
during the season because of what happened with Tomorrow Hamlin.

(22:57):
We weren't sure how the NFL was going to respond
logistically with the games, and I think it all worked
out great from a league perspective, but there was this
idea of floating the season and extra week, which would
have cut out a two week window between the a
f C NFC Championship game and then the Super Bowl week.
Generally it's always been two weeks, but there's been seven

(23:18):
times when there's only been one week of a break
in between those two moments. The last time it happened
not too long ago. Actually I say that because I
graduated in two thousand three, but the reality is it's
like almost twenty years ago at this point. But Raider's
Box and that Super Bowl, trust me, I still feel young.
Depending on the day, Um, snap, crackle pop. When I
get out of bed, every single morning on those joints.

(23:38):
But the point is there there are some benefits of
having that two weeks spam for guys to get healthy.
The rest is really important, and there's some instances that
come to mind notable players getting healthy because of that
extra week. T O with the Eagles and Super Bowl
thirty nine played seven weeks after suffering a broken leg
and the torn ligament in his right ankle. Nine catchers

(24:01):
a buck twenty two. That's pretty damn good. And he
didn't start running until two weeks before this Super Bowl.
Uh my guy, Plexico Burst. I say my guy because
I'm a Giants fan. Super Bowl forty two, there was
a little bit of an issue suffered at a spring
medial collateral ligament in his left nee. Thank you research
one seeing and I wouldn't have been able to tell
you what that injury was. He um, um, how do

(24:22):
I how do I put this? Um? He had a
fall out of the hotel shower just a couple of
days before the Super Bowl. I mean, it happens. It's slipper.
You gotta get one of those mats man, you know,
like the suction cut deal. Do they still do that?
By the way, is that still what you gotta be
a senior citizens we get one of those, right, yeah,
I think ye, I think you gotta be a little
older for that games. Come on, We're not there yet.

(24:45):
But I'm telling you right now that year Plexico, she
had one of those. So I'm saying, uh, Jode Freeney
super Bowl forty four, torn ligament in his ankle in
the a f C Championship game. Kind of crazy. Still
he was able to play. One of our colleagues are good.
Bud Thomas Davis super Bowl fifty broken forearm in the
NFC Championship, got surgery the next morning, two weeks by

(25:07):
the way, good enough to get healed up to play
in the game. We gotta bring that up to him. Man,
I forgot about Yeah I am, because I'm gonna say, dude,
you're crazy. I love you. I think that's awesome, but
you're crazy. How do you gonna do? I mean, I
don't understand how you even get your body ready for
something like the trauma that goes through on a surgery,
then the trauma that it goes through playing football. That's
a tough one. That's some iron man stuff right there. Man. Okay,

(25:30):
So there's a couple of college coaches that I can
think of, and they'll tell you they hate playing later
on the day on a Saturday because they just want
to play as early as possible get the game out
of the way. I use that analogy, and because I
think it's fair in the NFL. Do you do you
wish is would it be better from a player's perspective
to have it one week after the championship game so

(25:51):
it's a normal cadence, or do you like the two weeks?
All right? So my NFL players might not like me
for this, but I'm gonna say I like the two
weeks man. I do, maybe because I played a physical
position and so anytime my body can go through a
full week of really not hitting and fully feel good
before the next game, that's always a positive. But it's

(26:11):
interesting you mentioned college coaches, and it triggered something in
my mind that I remember when I played for Penn State,
Joe paternal always used the week's leading up to the
Bowl to get the younger players extra reps that maybe
we're red shirt and maybe didn't get the reps during
the regular season. And I look at when we won
our Super Bowl afterteen season, I mean it was tough defense,

(26:33):
which that showed up in that Super Bowl. I mean
the diver Broncos a high scoring offensive all times. I mean,
you know, broke all offensive records that year, only scored
eight points um. And we were led by Beast Molde
are running game right. You look in the Super Bowl
Beast more half fifteen carriages for thirty nine yards for
a two point six average. He was really not that
effective in the Super Bowl. We used that extra week

(26:55):
for Russell Wilson to develop. Russell Wilson saw soul many
different looks during that week in Seattle going up against that,
you know, one of our top ranked defenses. That it
got him better. And I believe that Super Bowl was
Russell Wilson, along with Doug Ball, went along with um
Jermaine Curse, I call him Chop Chop, but along with
Jermaine Curse. To me, that was the Seattle's passing game

(27:19):
coming out party, so to speak. Because again we ran
the ball, play tough defense to get us to the
Super Bowl. But I believe Russell in his right arm
and that defense won the game for us. Now again
Besmo was in the backfield fifteen carries every time he
play action fake. The defense had to respect it. But
at the end of the day, I think that extra
week helped the development of Russell Wills. All Right, em Rod,

(27:40):
we're just scratching the surface of the Super Bowl conversation
coming up. Let's go here the advice. You've done it,
you've played, you know what it takes to win this game.
What's the advice that m Rod would give to some
of the players playing this weekend. That's coming up next
to the NFL Explained podcast. All right, welcome back to

(28:04):
the NFL Explained podcasts. Mike Yam and Rob with you.
All right, I'm gonna throw another pass your way, and
I want to get your take on it. Some people
will tell you momentum as a thing as an athlete.
Others say it there's no such thing. I think when
it comes to football, it's a little different. Maybe there's
something to it in basketball because of the repetitive nature.
Maybe there's something to it in baseball because of the
frequency of games when you're out there. NFL football is

(28:25):
obviously not like that. There's days in between. There's the
physical nature, how demanding it is when you're out there.
If you're hot, right, you run through the playoffs. You
maybe it's a bunch of road games, like you feel invincible?
Does that does the two weeks does that kill momentum? No?
And I get what you're saying. There is something to
that teams playing well going into the playoffs, right, do

(28:46):
you really want that number one seed to get the
buy to kind of stop the training from rolling this
then the third or what I'll answer that question about
saying this. I don't care how much we change the
rules to our game. I don't care how much we
talk about players safety. This game will always be about
pain in pain management, can you dish it? And how
much can you take? And because this game is such

(29:09):
a physical sport, two weeks off will always be better
than just in my opinion, will always be better than
just playing straight through it. Because again, I'm not a
basketball player baseball player, and I'm not saying that those
guys don't get sore. But after a football game, oh man,
like sometimes I don't feel good to play the next game.

(29:33):
Guess what yams and tell Sunday morning of the next week,
think about what I'm saying Right now, I'm not fully
over the previous game and feel really good about myself
and how my body is feeling until the morning of
the next game. How do you get through practice, how
do you get through the week feeling? You see what

(29:54):
I'm saying. So it's a lot of different factors to that.
So I will always vote for two weeks. Just like
going into the playoffs, I always tell teams you want
the number one. See, I don't care how good you play,
you want the next week. Drest okay, one of the
other major major major topics. When it comes to the
super Bowl. It's not a player's thing, although it is
in some regard, and I'll make it a player's thing here.

(30:15):
It's a fan thing. It's a thing inside NFL network.
H Q okay. Getting a super Bowl ticket like that
is a real conversation. I can't tell you. Last year
was my first year here in southern California. In the
l A studios, people were talking about it. How do
I get a ticket? How do I get to this game?
Each player, by the way, only only gets two free

(30:36):
Super Bowl tickets. Then they got to pay face value
if you're even get the opportunity to get more tickets.
So players in the Broncos versus Panthers Super Bowl in,
for example, allowed to get up to fifteen tickets, but
any ticket on top of the two free ones. Y'all
check this out, eighteen hundred bucks a piece. That's that's

(30:56):
no joke. Top players on the roster don't usually have
an issue affording some of that stuff. Man, you're making
a league minimum, and I know that's like still sizeable.
Eight hundred hours a pop though, that's still meaningful. The Panthers,
by the way, only gay players twenty four hours to
put those requests in, which obviously is a little chaotic. Um.
Just take me through that from your perspective, because I

(31:17):
don't even know how many tickets you needed to get.
And maybe for you, you already have the life rule,
which you told us in our Pro Bowl conversation in
our last episode. If you help me move into Penn State,
then you're like, you're good. If you didn't, you're on
the outside looking in. So maybe that streamline the process
for you. Yeah, you already know. I already have a
kind of way of how I figure out who gets

(31:38):
the special privileges um, kind of in my and my entourage.
If you helped me move into Sean called polit Commas
freshman year Penn State. You get an opportunity to come
roll with me in my special events, man um. But
at the end of the day, man like oh man,
oh man, the the ticket situation, James, I'm gonna be

(31:58):
real with you, there's still family members to this day
that I don't talk to because of that. Isn't that crazy?
It's that crazy. I'm serious. I have cousins who I
think that I wronged them because I didn't buy them
a super Bowl ticket, and we still have issues to

(32:22):
this day. So I want our listeners to understand that
is how big these tickets are two families. It's how
big these tickets are to these players. But again, I
made a rule for myself. I told myself, when I
leave to go to New York, my ticket situation will
be straight okay, And I'm only paying for five of them.
My mom, my stepfather, my wife, my cousin, Bills God

(32:44):
Rest his soul, and my brother them the only five
that got their tickets comped, so to speak. I did
for the next part of my family. I said, hey, guys,
I got ten tickets I can buy. Okay, this is
how much they cost. Tell me how many of you
guys want and I'll send you the in voice for
you to pay for it. I got custed out, man,

(33:05):
I got people ust to me. I'll sending me text.
But man, who you think you are? We changed the diaper?
Help do this? I helped do yeah. Man. So I
say all that to say, man, there's a lot that
goes into when you see, you know, families going into
the field after the Super Bowl. There's a lot that
goes into the people that are picked to be on
that field. Okay, Um, you set us all straight here,

(33:26):
Which leaves me to maybe the most important question. What's
the advice that you're giving to players, not just in
this year's Super Bowl, just in general. Like, if you're
gonna talk to a kid that's going to be playing
in their first game or something that you just learned,
what do you tell them about that your experience that
you think might help them. Um man, that's a good question.

(33:48):
Am I remember before our Super Bowl I spoke to
Ray Lewis, a good friend man, and um, him and
I've had a lot of battles in the b gap
on the football field. Let's just let's just get that straight. Um,
he said, m rob the team that can make this
a game first and not expect the cool we'll win.
And I didn't really understand it when he first said

(34:09):
it to me, and then I went back to my
hotel room and kind of thought about it and kind
of was like, yeah, man, what does he mean he's
really saying? And my psyching myself up to make this
game bigger than what it is. It's still gonna be
twenty two guys on the field at the same time,
we're still gonna go base. Nickel was They're gonna have
kickoff and you're still gonna have a punt. We're gonna
have every aspect of this game that you've been doing

(34:29):
since you were six years old, and it hit me like, oh,
then all the dots connected. Oh this is what kind
of what Pete's talking about, right. You know, if you
make everything a championship opportunity and championship moment, when you
get in these championship moments, it'll feel normal. And literally,
after the first kickoff and then we got the safety,
everything calmed down. It was like, well, we knew this

(34:51):
game wouldn't be close, and now we're just about to
show the rest of the world what we already knew
that we're gonna be Super Bowl champions and you were
hot tip, here we go, let's go. I honestly I
can't wait for the game coming up this week, Like
it is going to be truly awesome to see these
two squads going head to head. I mean, these are Look,

(35:12):
there's a reason why we're playing in this game. I mean,
the path for these squads to get here, it really
is pretty awesome, um Emrad awesome to have you kind
of relive some of those moments that you had during
your Super Bowl time. Hopefully as people watch the game
this week, they have a different perspective on what it
takes to actually get here. But all of the preparation
over the last two weeks for both of these teams,

(35:35):
the stabbs, the coaching stabbs, the player personnel people, it's
gonna be awesome. Hope everyone enjoys the game. Hope everyone
enjoyed this episode of NFL explained