Studio 44, Ep. 1: Marlon Humphrey Kicks Off New Show With Eric DeCosta

Ravens All-Pro cornerback Marlon Humphrey launches his new show and podcast, 'Studio 44,' in which he will interview teammates and coaches, as well as non-sports figures.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the draft is coming up. Everyone wants to know,
and I feel like I got you here, so I
might as well ask you who are we drafting Thursday.
I'm gonna tell you Carlin Humpy is without a doubt
in the conversation to be the best of coming football. Eric,

(00:26):
Thank you for tuning in today, coming into the studio
forty four. Happy to see you. How are you. I'm
doing great, Thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you. I
know you're at a You got a really businy schedule
coming up with the draft and free agency and all
the other things going on. Tell me a little bit
about your daily schedule right now as we're getting closer
to the draft. Well, I would say, mom, for the
last you know, three or four weeks, we were bringing

(00:46):
guys in for visits. You probably remember when you were
a young guy rookie um, you know, visiting NFL teams,
interviewing with gms and head coaches, assistant coaches, coordinators. You know,
we bring in thirty guys. They're coming in the mornings,
they get ysicles in the morning. They're usually done by
around noon, and I typically will watch tape try to
get as many guys done. We've got a board of

(01:08):
about one hundred and eighty five players. My goal would
be to probably watch, evaluate and write reports on the
top one twenty or so myself, which would get this
down to probably the fourth round, fifth round. You know,
I used to try and watch every single player. Nowadays
I got a lot of things going on. Players like

(01:29):
you coming up bothered me, ask me to do podcasts,
things like that, you know, other things throughout the course
of the day. So I'm really focused on, you know,
the picks, usually through the fourth round or so, and
I let the scouts take care of the rest. So
you spoke on you know, watching film. I know you
watch a lot of film along with all the other scouts.
I think it's interest with such a busy day of

(01:51):
scheduling and watching film. I sat with your family in
the box. I was hurt the last game of the year. Yeah,
I enjoyed that. But no, they spoke Kyle live you
and they made me wonder, how do you balance, you know,
being the gym of the Baltimore Ravens with all the
time you spend here that I see you, and I
know what you do at home. How do you balance
that family life? Yeah, that's hard, and you come from

(02:11):
a close knit family, as do I. You know, family
for me has always been really the force in my
life that truly stabilized me. I think as a young scout,
I had the best mentor and Ozzie, and I would
see his routine every single day. You know, he would
always get in around seven thirty and he would always

(02:31):
leave by around seven seven thirty at night. A lot
of guys in this business, they're looking at the clock,
they're looking at their watches, are trying to stay late.
But Ozzie has this unique way of really coming in,
being focused and getting his work done and then being
able to go home and be be this family. So
for me, my goal, the way that I've always organized
my life is take my kids to school when I

(02:54):
can get in around eight, and then I try to
get home every night by eight thirty nine o'clock. I
usually can get that done. Typically won't eat dinner here,
My wife waits for me, have dinner at home, and
then you know, if I can get home, like on
a Wednesday Thursday night, hang out with the boys, play
some video games, play some football down in the basement,

(03:16):
watch some TV. Like last night we watched the Celtics game,
Big Celtics family watched the Celtics last night and just
try to just and And the other thing is I
don't do work at home, so when I do get home,
I'm present. I'm not you know. It may do work
at home, like on a Saturday morning. I may get
up at like four thirty five o'clock in the morning
watch a couple of guys, but by the time the

(03:37):
kids will awake there I'm present. You know, I'm engaged,
and I'm really a full time dad. You spoke on
Ozzy a little bit that we actually actually got a
question for you about Ozzy later. But how is it
being around Baltimore? I see from miss etc. You guys
go to Oriols games, different things. Yeah, you're electing man around.
Are you a celebrity in the city of Baltimore? Do
you get recognized a lot? I really, especially if I

(03:57):
wear a hat. If I were a hat, nobody recognizes me.
You know, I've always cared a lot about this community.
I grew up in Boston. But for me, you know,
one of the ways that I sort of like look
at myself as what am I doing for the community.
How do I get back? So we've been able to
be fortunately being involved in different you know, nonprofits in

(04:17):
the community. There's a residual benefit, which is your kids
see your involvement in the community, so it's a parenting thing.
They see the importance of that, so they're involved as well,
whether it's the family Tree or my Nature Center Maryland SPCA.
I love this community and I love the Baltimore community.
And so for me giving back being out seeing people,

(04:39):
meeting Ravens fans, I think we got the best fan
base in the NFL. I love this community. I love
the blue collar feel to this community. It's a lot
like where I grew up and how I grew up,
So I really appreciate that as well. And I love
the fact. Just the last thing that I would say
is like, for me, starting here in ninety six, we
had a white helmet Baltimore football team, no identity, no brand,

(05:04):
And for me now after twenty six years, to see
the growth of the franchise, to see the growth of
the brand, that's a very rewarding thing for me. I
didn't know that, Okay, Baltimore were called the Baltimore football team. Well,
when we first came in, we had Stationary that was
a Baltimore football team and it was a white helmet
and you know, we were the Ravens at that point,
but they had printed stationary before we knew what we

(05:26):
were going to be. And uh, you know you would
go like I would, you know, tell somebody. I remember
I got an apartment in Owen's Mills and I said
to the woman, she said, do you have a job,
And I said, yeah, I have a job. I'm working
for the Ravens. And she said, what does that is that? Like?
Is that a Canadian League team? She had no idea.
That's funny. Um, so I remember when draft was virtual

(05:48):
and everything everyone was virtual. Yeah, everybody was doing work
from home, the Ravens. But out a clip that you
and Harbor are neighbors. Yeah, and I have to ask,
you know, someone had to get there first. So I'm
trying to figure out who followed who in that situation. Yeah,
I actually followed John. So John had moved over there.
We were living in Hunt Valley and my wife said, hey,

(06:09):
I want to look at this house, and so we
made the decision to move. It was during the season.
It was twenty fourteen, just before Thanksgiving. I said, Lacy,
I really don't want to move during the season, like
it's a major deal. You know, it's not something you
do lightly. So she goes and looks at this house.
She calls me and says, you got to check it out.
So I came over to the house and it was

(06:33):
a beautiful day. The view was insane looking out over
Cave's Valley, GreenSpring Valley, and I was like, let's go.
And so we made an offer and she said, you know,
Harbs lives right over there. And I was like, oh,
maybe we should retract the offer. And I had to
say that. But we actually don't live like next to
each other. We're kind of perpendicular, so we're adjacent to

(06:56):
each other on this there's a huge farm behind us
um and so uh, like I can't really see his house,
he can't see my house, But if we were kind
of walk through someone's backyard, we can. We can get
together pretty quick. We're gonna switch directions a little bit
back to football. So you're known as really good job
of scouting town, especially underrated town. Okay, I'm gonna show

(07:20):
you a guy here all right, Okay, about five ten,
about one eighty five, I mean he was I want
you to get me with this guy. You know, it's
all about playing like a raven. This guy's a raven.
I've I've heard a lot of people say that I
got drafted, someone saying that guy plays like a raven.
I want, yeah, and you tell me if this guy

(07:40):
has what this guy could either work on or what
he does, well, you can just you can just press
play there. You know what, I know where you got
this from? What do you? I would well, I don't.
You haven't even played it. You don't even know what's
going on here. Yeah. Well, number one, I'd say he's
very stiff. I think he's had some great ball skills
though good ball scales, you can tell you it's probably
running back in high school. Undersized, looks like about a

(08:01):
four nine forty um important. I think he's a little
fast in the four nine, maybe four a five four
nine work but smart, overachiever. Looks like a good undrafted
free agent. I would say, Okay, okay, I got this clip.
I did. I did do a little bit of cheating.
I did a little bit of cheating, but I was
but I was impressed. I was impressed by the ball

(08:22):
skills there. And I think you know that eighth round
it came around back in the day. I think, you know, Rot,
you could have been there. Think back in the day
they actually had sixteen rounds before they had eight rounds. Yeah,
you can imagine the product in some of those late rounds.
I know Tony Jefferson would have been really really pumped
about that. He would have been he would have been
in there early. So everyone has You're now the GM

(08:43):
of Valkan Ravens. Of course, everyone starts from somewhere at
the bottom and moves that way up. How did you
get your job with the Ravens. Well, I you know,
I went to school up in New England, small college.
Everybody ends up working on Wall Street or going to
law school or you know. But I was all was
just I love football. I always wanted to work in football,
professional football. I was five to nine, about one eighty

(09:06):
in eighth grade, and in high school I was about
five nine, one eighty, so I figured that I was
going to probably be a D three athlete. So my
goal was to scout my goals. I didn't I didn't
really want to coach, but I knew I had to
get a job coaching. So I went to my coaches
and you know, these guys were really the most important
figures in my life at that point other than family,

(09:27):
and said, listen, how do I get a job as
a GA someplace coaching because I want to end up
getting into the NFL. So I did that. I started
coaching D three level. I coached my first year of whiteouts,
which was good for me because I had been a
defensive player, and then second year D line, third year linebackers.
Along the way, I had tried to get an internship

(09:50):
in the NFL, and scouting sent my sent letters out.
The only team that had a opening was the Redskins
at the time. The Redskins now the Commanders. So I
went down there in nineteen ninety four and worked in
scouting for about eight weeks with Charlie Cassilely was a
GM North Turner was a head coach. They had just

(10:11):
drafted he schuler Michael Westbrook. So that was a really,
I think for me, a really important step in my development.
I had the coaching background now, and I had the
scouting background at that level. Scott Cohen, who works upstairs,
was working for the Redskins at the time and the Commanders,
and he said, Hey, I'm gonna try to help you.

(10:31):
I'm gonna recommend you, and Charlie's gonna recommend you Cashuley.
So they ended up and I had a chance to
interview for the job here with Ozzie and I was
scared to death, like it was just the most intimidating thing,
but I got the job. I came down here in
May of nineteen ninety six. One of my first jobs
was picking up ray Lewis at the airport, and you know,

(10:53):
I was telling people, you know, there was the bottom level,
the bottom of the floor, and then there's six feet
under and that's where I was. We were a smaller organization.
A lot of people got left behind in Cleveland. I
ended up working in PR scouting, equipment, room operations. Whatever
needs to be done, they just say, hey, go give

(11:14):
it to Eric. And the best part about it, and
when the advice that I would give anybody is when
you have a chance to learn what other people do,
you're being given a gift because a lot of people,
especially in this business, they don't appreciate what the other
people have to do. Whether you're a player, whether you're
in some other department, you don't really know what that
person's going through. Every day in their job. And for

(11:36):
me in that situation nineteen ninety six, I got a
chance to understand what trainers do. I got a chance
to understand what the equipment guys do every day operations security,
and that was a gift. Speaking of driving, going to
get Ray Lewis, I heard a unique story about a
crazy thing that happened with you when you were when

(11:57):
you were taking different people to different places, the appointment
and different things. I think you might know this story,
but what is what is a very crazy thing you
had to do experience when you were doing that. I've
had a few one of the stories, and I don't
know if this is one that you're talking about. But
so we had an old gray vand this thing and
we use that gray van. I think it went back

(12:17):
to Cleveland. The gray van had a gas gage that
it was sporadic at best, and so you never knew
how much gas was going to be in the gray van.
And I had no money, so I wasn't going to
put any gas in the gray Vand so I had
picked up a player. I believe he is now an agent.
Maybe then Leo goaz g o E as Hawaiian guy

(12:39):
offensive lineman Saint Louis Rams the time. He was also Portuguese,
which resonated with me because I'm Portuguese. Take Leo. We're
driving down at this time. We're going to Current Nan,
which is an different hospital on six ninety five. All
of a sudden, when they start to like the van
starts to shake, and I'm like, oh no, man, I
think we went out ass. So we pull over all

(13:02):
there by security boulevard and I'm like, what are we
gonna do. He's got an appointment, he's gotta get some memorizes.
I'm like, I'm gonna get fired, you know, like, um,
this is it, man, my dream is over. So we're waiting,
wait and wait, and Leo and I were trying to
flag somebody down. Well nobody's pulling over because Leo is
a big dude. He's about six foot six. So I'm like, Leo,
get back in there, get back in the van. I'll

(13:23):
flag somebody down. So I see it. It's portrayed potato
chip truck and it's like coming down the road and
I jump out in from I'm like stop, stop, I
need your help. I need your help. The guys like
what's wrong. I'm like, can you take us to Karnan
to get an MRI and he's like, ohh, I'm like,
come on, Leo. Leo gets out and the guy's like,
oh man, I don't know this truck. There were no seats,

(13:45):
well there was the driver's seat, but there were no
other seats. It was just boxes and potato chips everywhere,
big boxes. So me and Leo we get in and
we got to stand up. Basically he's hunched over. I'm
standing up. We drive into Karnan and this it's chair
tip truck and doctor Tucker is just out in front
and he's looking at me and he's like Eric, He's like,

(14:08):
I'm sure there's a story here somewhere and uh. And
so that was it. That was one. That was one story?
Was that the story? That was a story? Yeah? The story?
You know, you never know what's gonna happen. I think
you know how you that was some major adversity, but
you got there, you got there in time. Yeah. So
draft coming up, you know, every every team's thinking they're
gonna pick this guy. You don't know who's gonna be there.
What is the I know we do a lot of

(14:28):
preparation ahead of time, but what is it like being
in that draft room, like is there in disagreements? I
wanted this guy, wanted this guy? How does how is
that process? Kind of in the in the draft, Well,
the meetings themselves can be somewhat confrontational. You know, you're
basically scrimmaging players, and so it might be well, you know,
Marshawn Lattimer versus Marlon Humphrey, and you kind of go

(14:52):
through it and you talk about both guys games and
what you see and what you don't see, and what
you'd like to see. How this guy played in this moment,
how this guy played in this moment. Then you go
through the numbers, you go through the backgrounds or families,
you know, you talk about all that stuff. By the
time we're actually in the draft on draft day, it's
much more of a clinical situation. It's basically like a
chess game. It's me, it's Azzi, and we're just we've

(15:15):
got a game plan, we've got our notes, we know
what we're going to do, and we're just waiting. We're
just waiting and waiting and waiting for each pick to
be made, and then we'll pivot based off of that.
And so there's no more like you know fighting, There's
no more discussion, there's no more drama. The work has
already been done. Now. Every once in a while, you'll
get thrown a curveball. And I remember specifically the draft

(15:40):
we drafted Hello Ti Nada, and there was a player
in that draft, Dante Whitner. He was a safety play
at Ohio State. He was going to be the safe guy,
the safe picks. Every year, I want to have a
safe pick of a player that I know is going
to be there. He may not be the guy that
we want necessarily, but we know we'd be happy with
that guy. Um And usually that safe pick is there.

(16:03):
That year, Dante got picked, and I don't remember what
pick it was. I think we had the thirteenth pick.
He might have gotten picked eight or nine. When that happens,
you get a little tight because now you're like, Okay,
what's our fallback plan. Our fallback plant plan just got taken.
We always have a fallback type of player in every draft.

(16:25):
By Monday night, we'll have the list, I'll have my
game plan, I'll have my cheat sheet, I'll have basically
watched every single player that we're interested in, and we
will be ready to go you brought up Marshawn and
me when I when I got drafted, Ozzie was the GM. Yeah,
so you know, I feel like I got you here,
got if you were the GM at the time, would

(16:45):
I'd be a Baltimore Raven or would I be able
over here over there? I mean, well that's a great question.
And you know, I think if you'd asked Ozzie, he'd say, uh,
you know, Eric is always round the draft, So people,
I think people probably, I mean, these guys know because
they've been here. But my role has always been the
same going back to two thousand and five, which is

(17:08):
I'd organize the draft, organize the meetings, come up with
the list, and then basically that's the list that we use.
And so people don't really believe this, but we actually
do draft best available player. So whoever the highest player
is at the time, that's the pick we're going to make.
You were the highest pick at the time, if I

(17:29):
were the GM, You've just still have been the highest
pick at the time because I made the list with
the coach's help, with the scouts help, and I'm still
doing it and so you know, takes a little bit
more work. Now I have an appreciation for what AUSI,
you know, did is GM because I'm running the meetings
and I'm still doing all that other stuff. So but yeah,

(17:53):
you'd you'd have been the highest player on the list
because we go through we talked about every single player
and then but I'm always doing so we go around
the room, we have scouts, we have the coaches on
the periphery of the table, and I'll go around the
room and say, okay, Lattimore versus Humphrey, Lattimer versus Humphrey.
And then I asked the guys who have done both guys,

(18:14):
and then if I've done them, I'll take their advice,
their input, and then I'll say, you know what, I
think Humphrey's better. He's more physical, he's got more size,
he's faster, he played really well against this opponent. Better makeup.
Or I might say, you know, I like Lottimore better.

(18:35):
He hasn't missed any games in his career. He's played,
you know, thirty six straight games. Whatever it is, there's
always gonna be little things when you go back and
forth with players that you look at that you you
know sometimes that you're splitting hairs and it might just
be an interview. It might be an actually a zoom interview.
One guy's on time for the interview, the other guy
seven minutes late. And players don't always understand that, Like

(18:57):
you're talking about players that are so close in your sequence,
and it's just the little things. And I even so
many examples if we were gonna do this longer about
going to practice and player doesn't even know that I'm
affiliated with the team, and I will buy the fence
and I hear him say something walking in and I'm like,
I'm not drafting that guy. You know. Um, it's all

(19:17):
those little things sometimes that resonate with the scout or
the GM that make the biggest difference. Yeah, I didn't.
I noticed. It gets very going through that process. It
gets very. Um, you guys know a lot. I will
say that you guys, you guys do your homework well,
so that that is Uh. Now we got co Cap
working with us. Yeah now, yeah, he's on the other shide. Now.
I don't know how I'll be cutting you up everybody.

(19:38):
I don't know how I feel about that. But but
all right, So this year's draft, every draft class is
so unique. What excites you the most about this draft class? Upcoming. Yeah,
I would say the depth across the board. We feel
like through the fourth round we'll have a chance to
get guys that can come in and start. Now, historically
I think only about twenty percent of fourth round picks
and uh, you know, being significant players. I think we're

(20:00):
a little better than that. But our goal this year
would be, you know, we've got the five fourth round picks.
We want to see if we can get sixty or
seventy five percent of those guys that end up coming
in and contributing. We're looking for guys, you know, and
I think back about like some of our best fourth
round picks, guys like Zadarius you know, there's been a

(20:23):
lot more Jared Johnson back in the day. You know,
Anthony Everett from a recent recent draft. But we've had
some really good fourth round picks. But the goal would
be this year we see the depth, We see the
amount of players on the board we don't see so
a good draft board doesn't have any bald spots. Like

(20:44):
my head, you know, you've got players from the top
to the bottom, all the way down. There's no space
on the board. And we see that this year. That's
exciting for us and we think there's great opportunity throughout Well, no,
we'll do great in the draft. Good luck with that.
But before I let you go, I got some bonus
questions here. Okay, yeah you can answer. These are a

(21:05):
little on the different sides. You can just say, next question, okay,
giving you that fore warning right now? All right, So
the draft is coming up. Everyone wants to know, and
I feel like I got you here, so I might
as well ask you who are we drafting on Thursday night.
I'm gonna tell you we're gonna draft the best available player.

(21:27):
Great answer, great answer. So Tom Brady is like the
ageless Wonder. He's been able to successfully play year after year,
you know, really with no hesitation. So you know there's
other people that can do that. So I'm asking you,
what are the chances I could just sign, you know,
a max deal all away until I'm thirty eight, and
we'll just agree now that I won't age, and well

(21:48):
we can we can get that in writing. Yeah, have
Joel gave me a call? Okay, I'll do that. I
can make it happen. Joel's my agent, So I know
you guys have a great relationship, you know with you know,
harbors and supershody you and so. Yeah, we have a
good relationship. But I want to I want to ask.
This off season a lot of flying going on. I
know he has a jet from what I hear he

(22:10):
might have a couple. What are the chances that I
could borrow mister Bischotte's jet just for the rest of
the off season. I'll give you contact information. But okay,
that work? That works? That works, that works too, that
works too, all right, he might do it if you
renegotiate your contract and make less money. See, that's why
I wanted you to ask. If you ask it, then

(22:32):
we're good. Okay, last question there, who's your favorite player
on the team? And why is that player for me? Wow? Well,
you know what, Marlin, I'll say this about you. I
remember a few years ago you didn't want to weigh in.
Remember that we never and you start yelling at me.

(22:52):
Why are you guys trying to find me all the time?
Why are you guys always trying to find me? Even
have a weight to be? You have grown so much
since then, you know what you do not know? But
you opened up Pandora's box. No, y'all did this You
have grown? I mean, right now, you have just grown

(23:12):
so much. You know a charity level, you know the
way you take care of your body, you know nutrition,
your training. That gets more back to that thirty eight
year old deal. Thet's just take care of my body,
all that stuff. So, Eric, thank you for your time.
Thanks Mattha good