June 16, 2025 • 37 mins
Former Patriots running back Craig James joins the Pats from the Past podcast to discuss his journey to professional football, playing alongside Andre Tippett, Julius Adams and Steve Grogan, plus being a member of the first Patriots team to reach a Super Bowl in 1985.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
It's time now for another episode of Pats from the
Past podcast, where we traveled down memory lane with the
former Patriot great and who better to join us today
than number thirty two CJ. Craig James, the OG member
of the Pony Express, right along with Eric Dickerson, absolute,
which we're going to talk about because how can you
talk to Craig James without talking about that before?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
It's Patriots career.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Anything that gets me back to high school, Matt. That's Greatreig,
thanks for joining us, man.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
This is going a privilege. You know, I walk in
this stadium and I'm cracking up because I'm back in
the eighties, right, And when I walked up to Sullivan Stadium,
you know, we didn't have no film room like this, right,
weren't even the thought back then. Right. But Craig, you
said you were here last June. Explain that. Why were
you here for Tom Brady Day? Well, I got to
get the invitation to come in for the Brady celebration,
(00:54):
which was just remarkable. But I wanted to see Dante
Scornekia because Scar and I we were back together, SMU.
He was here when I was playing for the Patriots.
He was you know, like a legend. He's been here
since before Billy Sullivan bought the team. Right, Scar's just
one of those legendary guys and I got a chance
to speak with him and see him. But what a
great night that was. I was so proud to be
(01:14):
an alum. What a privilege to be a part of
the Patriots organization. I sent a handwritten note to mister
Kraft and just said, man, what an awesome night and
a display of the fans. The fans here in New
England showed off last year. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, we were really happy with the way that whole
night because a lot of people in the organization had
a lot of things, a lot, you know, a lot
to do with that. So we felt like that was
a really strong night for the entire organization. And I'm
glad that so many you know, alums came back for that.
There was a lot of people from a lot of
different areas that took part in that, and I.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Think it was a huge success.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, you know, it's it's like I had a chance
to see Tony Collins and Doug Flute and a bunch
of my teammates that I had not seen in years.
You know, you have to walk up nowadays, forty years
later and say, hey, Craig James, see who are you.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I'll tell you what, Craig, I'm not like. You don't
look a little bit different. You look like Craig James.
Maybe so maybe your hair is a little lighter, but
that's about it. I was joking with you before we
started that Eric could give you ten or fifteen steps.
I wonder if there's a half back option play that
you know, no, maybe one that you could do, if
you know, pitch it out there. I think it could
probably still get a first down off of that kind
(02:22):
of shit.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Thank you very much. I'd be really good with pregame,
warm up and go. If somebody hit me, I would cry,
that's funny, like I said, to kick things off.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I think people here in New England are somewhat versed
on the legend of how it began. But the idea
that two kids who went to high school in Texas
to the best at their position could be recruited and
play for the same college and be so prolific. I mean,
that story never gets old, does it. The Pony Express
(02:55):
at SMU with you and Eric Dickerson.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
We've been nearly fifty years friends, We love each other,
were like brothers and the fact that now we can
look back on it and realize what we did was
really unique. And someone asked me, the media made a
big deal about it. I had won the Vincelentbardi NFL
Offensive Player of the Year the year after Eric had
been the NFL MVP, and they said, how did two
guys go to the same team in Dallas at SMU.
(03:19):
How did that happen? I said, well, it was Dallas,
it was Ron Meyer, head coach at the time, a
lot of energy. But it just, you know, as Eric
and I say the Pony Express, we were better together.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So did you ever have any trepidation, you know, being
a running back, there's only one guy that's going to
get to carry. I'm sure that both you and Eric
felt like you were the man coming out of high school.
Was there any concerns that you were going to be
able to share the backfield together and be as successful
as you were?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
He had rushed for over two thousand yards as a senior.
We were in different classifications in Texas. Both of our
teams had one state championships, so we both thought we
were pretty good. We're both all Americans. We get to
smu ron Meyer made it work, you know. He convinced
us that you guys are going to be fresher for
your twenty carries each per game. I think he averaged twenty,
averaged nineteen, and so now that we look back on it,
(04:08):
it really helped. Eric says it tremendously that it helped
him prolong his career. He wouldn't beat up when he
got there, so he was able to play longer, and so, yeah,
we could have been selfish, but we also recognized that
in the third and fourth quarter defenses were worn out,
and Eric and I had to say to each other
on the sideline, Hey, they're dragging, they're tired. We got
him and you just couldn't keep up with both of us.
(04:31):
It's kind of raird, though, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I mean, like to your part, like there's not too
many people who are the guy who are going and
some going to be the guy and I that can
subjugate their ego and say, I think it might be
better for the team, for our careers and everything physically
like that to split this.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
We were friends. Had we not been friends, it would
have never worked. There, you go, it's truly. I mean
we have never had one cross word with each other,
no bad thought even to this day. And so other
than when he beats me really bad. And golf, the
great golf.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
So the thing that I like about this is is
it sort of starts and the reason why the Pony
Express is obviously a really interesting story for a lot
of reasons and a lot of people, but for the
Patriots specifically, Ron Meyer is there and he ends up
coming to New England, and we talked about Dante a
little bit like it's like kind of like that first
chapter of the story for the Patriots, like Ron Meyer,
(05:24):
what did he mean to you? You know, at SMU
and then when he ends up coming here and you
eventually come as well.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Ron Meyer was not an X and xCE and O guy.
I mean, he knew he knew football, but he was
a talent guy, and he knew he knew great assistant coaches,
and he had a staff that was phenomenal. Steve said, well,
Dante's Garnetki, there was a whole all of them were
world class coaches, assistant coaches, and he made them make
sure we knew what we were doing as athletes. And
(05:51):
he knew an athlete, and so he knew what you
could or could not do, and he'd put you in
position to have success. And so Ron really had a
you know, Unfortunately, him getting fired, you know, led to
Raymond Berry, which was a blessing for the organization. But
Ron got it started, you know, with the assistant coaches
that he brought in here, like Dante Scarnekia, who's in the.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Team Hall of Fame, who's had an unbelievable career. Craig
could did you see some of that? Did you as
a kid who's played at college, did you see this
world class coaching staff? And then specifically what did Scar
help meet you for the two years that you and
Dante were together at SMU.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I don't think as a young athlete that you appreciate
what the coach is doing until that's not happening, and
then especially when you get down the road and you
can look back and reflect and say, well, why don't
we doing this? Nothing against the system when I came
in here as a rookie, but we had a really
hard time, very complicated pass protection scheme. I've got Sam,
I've got strong safety here. I've got that, But if
(06:49):
then I've got that when you get a football player
thinking you've got problems, you got sacks, and so Scar
cleaned that up. He just said, look, let's let's simplify
this thing. Let's make sure we know who we're gonna lock.
If you can't do that, then you can't be successful.
So as I look back on it now, the assistant
coaches that Ron Meyer had and that Raymond Berry had,
(07:09):
that Belichick had, every one of them had a job
and a role and a responsibility. They were really good
at it. You got to have Jimmy's, you got to
have the Joe's, but you got to have the coaches.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
So when you came out of SMU and decide to,
you know, to get into the draft, it was USFL first.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
I think it was the Washington Federals.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
What was behind that decision.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
To go that had zero I had been told by
my agent that this USFL was going to have a draft.
A few days after we played in the Cotton Bowl,
I'd gone home to Houston. I get a phone call
from my agent. He says, hey, they select you the
fourth player taken in the USFL draft. Wow, okay, he said,
we have to go to Washington out of respect. Let's
let's go up out of respect. Within moments of being
(07:53):
around this ownership group in Washington, I realized they were
very serious about what they were doing, and it was
there was significantly more money than I would have been slided.
I knew it was gonna be a first rounder in
the NFL, or was projected to be. But I was like,
I like the idea of pioneering. You know, it was
a great spirit. There was a ton of great football
players obviously absolutely went to the USF Yeah, I'm glad
(08:16):
that happened because it led me to playing for New
England had I not played there where ron Then they
started taking USFL players in the seventh round so that
they would have the rights for us if that league boobed.
And to thank God that I was able to get
away from there and to play for the New England Patriots.
So it was a blessing.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Because the Federals, like most of the teams in the
USFL and eventually the entire league, they ran out of
dough Right, you get hurt in Washington, and Meyer amongst
other people again in the National Football League, had the
foresight to go So wonder if some of these USFL guys,
how long is this going to last? It was the
(08:57):
Meyer drafting you in the seventh round. Well, you're not
a seventh round draft pick, but that's an insurance policy
over here?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Is that kind of yeah? Maybe how that was lucated?
For sure? It was good for me because I knew
that if it didn't work out in the USFL, well,
I was going to go to New England. And for Ron,
he had a guy that he knew about and that
what I could do with my talents. And so they
started taking the Jim kellyes and herschel Walker's and all
the great players that were in the USFL started going
in the seventh round and they had our rights.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
What was it like playing in the USFL? I mean
when it originally started. You know, people look at all
the spring leagues now that are sort of struggling to
but the USFL was in a much higher level than
the spring leagues.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Now, what was it like playing in it?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Oh man? We had a lot of really good players,
not on the Washington the worst team I ever played on.
Half of my teammates and just got out of jail.
The other half are on their way to prison. But
it was a league full of talent, But there was
a discrepancy in spending amongst the organizations right so that
there was not enough quality for that to happen. And
(09:58):
then they wanted to go and jump beyond and try
to challenge the NFL, et cetera. And it fell apart.
But there were a lot of note were they great
football players that came through the USFL.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So you're drafted by the Patriots in the seventh round,
you get hurt your contractor is it that they is
it that the Federals disband? How does how do you
go from Washington knowing that the Patriots have your rights
at that point in time in eighty four.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Craig So it was a very legal move, legalistic move there.
They had my rights, but they but the USFL was
just waiting for someone to try to pluck away one
of their players. So we had to have every USFL
owners sign off on a waiver that said, hey, we're
not going to sue you New England if you work
a deal out with Craig to leave the Federals. I
(10:47):
had to travel under an assumed name. I mean, you know,
we were meeting in places that were secretive. It was
a big deal. Uh, I think Roger Goodell may have
been on the on the legal team. Paul Tagliabu was
like all year for the NFL before the commissioner role,
and so there was a lot of behind the scenes
things that happened legally to allow that to happen. But
(11:09):
it got Washington off the hook. They ended up going
down to Orlando, I believe, and but it kept them going,
got relieved them of my financial debt. And the Patriots
assume that.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Was that unsettling as a kid, because you just want
to play football. You're coming off of an injury, like
I want to get back, I want to do things,
but there's all this maneuvering that has to happen in
order for you.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
To get there. Yeah, I remember, I asked, Remember a
guy named Koy Bacon played for the Races. Yea. So
here I was twenty one years old and Washington in
a locker room with a guy that he looked like
he was fifty and I knew he'd played twenty years
of the NFL football. And I said, mister Bacon, I said,
is this really like pro football? And he goes, you're
getting paid, ain't you, kid? I go, well, there are
(11:48):
rumors that that has been happening in the previous four
years too at SMU.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Right, he cracked up, right, Well, I think that that's
always Like we were joking about this the other day.
You know, you had to take a page to take
a pay cut to go to either the washing NFL ATA.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
We had to report it, right, So we were the
UNI L before the ni L.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Now everything everything you guys did, this is it's all
about boy Now.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I mean, we could go a whole show just in
college football and the and the whole n IL world.
But but good for the players are finally getting taken
care of and compensated. It's it's a it's a scramble
out there right now. And they've got a corral a
little bit.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Did you get a car that was as nice as error?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
No?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
But but I'm not going to say I was riding
a horse either.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
So the difference is obviously you had the connection with
Ron Meyer, but you know he was only hear what
half that season, right?
Speaker 4 (12:37):
So what was it like? What were the differences between
he and Ray Berry?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Oddly enough, Ron being my coach here was a negative
to me. Really, it really hurt me. I came in
and competed in training camp, and I thought that I
had beat out Tony Collins, who was an All Pro
and a great runner h and a locker room favorite.
But I thought I had won that job in that position,
and it just ate me up that I wasn't getting
(13:03):
the carries that I wanted. And I understood Royn's position. Hey,
if I put my college kid in there over my
locker room favorite and leader and a really good player
in Tony Collins, you know I'm going to lose my
locker room. So I understood that Ron got fired. We're
on the flight to Denver Raymondberry's first game and he
walks to me on the plane. He says, hey, you're
starting tomorrow. I started run for one hundred and twenty
(13:26):
yards and eight hundred yards in the second half, averaged
four to nine a carry. I have no doubt in
my mind if I'd have been a starter. This is
nothing against Tony Collins. Tony Collins was a great football player,
great running back. I'd ran for sixteen to eighteen hundred
yards that rookie year because we had it going on
as an offensive line that particular season.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Did you get a sense in eighty four as you're
becoming a little bit more of a central figure in
the offense. Hey, we got something here, you know, were
they're building blocks and a foundation that you believe were
laid towards that second half of the eighty four season
that would help you to find that eighty five team.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I think it was really in the coaches hands to
figure out exactly what are we going to be. They
had seen that we were a powerful team that we
believe we could run the ball and if it was
third and one, we were going to do it. We
didn't need the toush push. We ran the football right.
Steve Brogan or Tony Easton would ask us, how can
we get this on third and two? Yes, we can.
So I think we had to make a decision in
eighty five. We had all these weapons out there, receivers
(14:24):
irving for our Stanley Morgan, all these great players, all
these runners, Tony Collins, Craig James, mostly the TUPA. We
got all these players, Dawson and Tighten. What are we
going to be? And when we decided that we were
going to be a physical, running football team, that's when
we took over and we made our way to the
Super Bowl.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
So was there a time in eighty five was there
a game that maybe you guys said, Okay, this is different.
We're a little bit better, we can do something. You know,
you win eleven games in eighty five, but was there
a moment in that season where you said, okay, this
is a playoff team and we're as good as all
these other teams.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Now. I think just as you go along and you
start playing and having success, and especially on the road,
I think the inner confidence that we had that we
were physical and good. We knew we had a great defense,
like a really good defense. We had really good special teams.
We had guys playing roles that were turning the ball
over for us. I think the more it just was
a snowball, it just kept getting bigger and bigger. And so, yeah,
(15:20):
we got beat bad by Chicago in Chicago earlier in
that season. Really, you know, it wasn't too bad. You
had a play I had yet, And so Richard Dent
I have become friends with and been around more than
when we played, and he always give me a hard time.
I said, yeah, but Richard, it seems like I still
remember that. I think I owned the Soldier Field's longest
(15:40):
past reception touchdown in the history ninety yards.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
That was the longest Patriots touchdown for a long time,
absolutely ninety yard touchdown.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Craig, you mentioned physicality, and you had also talked about
you know that you were here for the Brady event.
And I don't know why I find this interesting. There's
no question who the greatest player in franchise history is
for the Patriots, and that Tom Brady. But I think
there's an interesting debate as to who's number two, and
then therefore because who's number three? And they both played
(16:08):
with you in my opinion on that team, Let's talk
about first the guy who helped you offensively, John Hannah.
Is there a better guard in the history of the
National Football League than hockey.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
When you start talking about it, arguably, he has got
to be in the conversation. A big, big man of beast,
tenacious and did it week in and week out. We're
playing at Denver the game that I started, that first
game that I started, John had been in the hospital
during the week and Pete Brock said that John never
missed practices. It just never happened, and so we couldn't
believe he wasn't there. He met us on the tarmac
(16:43):
at the airport, walks out of like an ambulatory van
with an ivy bottle hooked up to him, and he
walks up the deal and gets on the plane, leaves
his ivy stuck in him right there, flies to Denver,
and I ran behind him for most of those one
hundred and twenty yards that day.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
And that doesn't surprise you about him, does it. That's
the kind of guy he is.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Oh yeah, yeah. He He made everybody around him better
because he demanded it if you didn't do your job.
Brian Holloway was a great player because John Hannah made
sure Brian played. Brian did not want to hear from
John Hannah. So who's the other one in contention? Paul Tip?
So Tippett. I'm so glad Tip. He really liked me,
(17:23):
especially in two days that way when we did the
one on one pass waking drill running back in a linebacker,
the most idiotic drill ever a lot. There's no threat
of a run or right, it's a bad drill. All
good for the linebacker. They don't have to worry about anything.
They just just blow you up. Tip would take it
easy on and he would beat me. But it was
just see so Andre Tippett was ever bit as good
(17:45):
as Lawrence Taylor. Lawrence Taylor lived in New York and
at that time with all that big New York media,
but lt was a great player, similar size. You couldn't
run away from him. You couldn't run away from Andre Tippet.
Tip was a great player. And I'm glad to say
hear you say he's one of those three in your
mind about the greatest players. I think.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
I think it's a really interesting battle between Again, give
Brady his flowers, and he was well deserved, But after him,
is it Hannah, is it Tippin that it's probably about
like what flavor ice cream do you like better? A
Hall of Famer defender of famers or a Hall of
Fame offensive line?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
A little biased because you know he works upstairs. Right,
we're still a little just a little bit afraid of them.
Absolutely we should be.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I still but I see Lawrence Taylors somewhere. I don't
like to go up to him. He had a tackle
on him the first tackle. We were here playing a
game and he makes the first tackle on me, and
it was like a twelve yard game, and he gave
me a little bit of a thigh bruise, but he
stood up and said something. I go, that's all right,
I'll be back. And I was like, man, I hope
you didn't do me. Did you just piss him off?
Speaker 1 (18:43):
You know, the running back position today, Craig has been
a little bit undervalued.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Everybody throws the ball, Paul loves it.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
It's had a little bit of a renaissance last year
with Barkley, Derek Henry and things like that. But I
look back at that eighty five team and you mentioned
some of these guys. You were the leading rusher on
the eighty five team, But it's Robert Weathers, it's Tony Collins,
it's Mosey Totupu, it's you.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Like.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
It wasn't running back by committee. But you were a
lot of different tools in the bag. The coaching staff
had a lot of different tools in the bag. They
could beat you a lot of different ways. And we
might have seen how that worked in the AC Championship game.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Would you guess against the Dolphins? Great analogy. We kind
of had our short yardage goal line package, which was Robert,
and mostly they'd commit TC and I'd come out. We
had certain packages that worked really well as a team,
a selfless team. You know, you had to have that
kind of mentality to make that thing work. But the
fact that we had so many different players and each
(19:41):
one had a role, and you know, you had the
Belichick way that came after our way. You know, I
always looked at our eighty five team in this way.
It was an honor to be a part of a
team that Billy Sullivan was still here with and founded
and his son was the general manager. We got smoked
in the Super Bowl. We got there. We showed that
(20:02):
this organization, these coaches, this front office, you can get there.
The players will be gone, but there'll be different people here.
You have to knock on the door. You have to
open the door before you can run through the door.
And that led the way for a lot of teams
and the successes that they had down the road. I
think our team really opened the door for belief that
it can happen.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Can you take us a little bit on that road,
you know, the ride of those three games, you know,
three games on the road, first team, you know, to
do that and make it to the Super Bowl. What
was it like when that that got started? Where was
the confidence level for you? Guys, because you entered the postseason.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Raymond Barry had a really cool saying about you know,
he goes, hey, all right, men, he go you know, men,
and his fingers were crooked from his plan days. He goes,
he goes, he goes, what's the what are we looking
at when we look at the at the at the
bullseye and you know, well, you're shooting an arrow. Well
you're looking at the bullseye. No, no, you got to
look at the center of the bullseye. And he was
really big on focus. Focus. We have one game this week.
(21:02):
We're gonna go play the New York Jets. That's it.
We're gonna go play the New York Jets. And a
lot of coaches preach this stuff and say these things,
but they but they don't live this thing. Raymond Berry
was focused on the center of the bullseye and so
therefore it was contagious amongst the players. And then we
had that confidence because we had a great defense, we
had a great special teams, and we had a great offense.
(21:22):
We could run the football, so we had everything that
was needed for the team to do really well.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
So when you start you talk about the special teams
because it just seemed like every week some of them
was mishandling a kick, Like do you start to think, hey,
it's destiny.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
We're supposed to be winning these games.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
We're you know, because the Patriots, our whole lives, always
found a way to get hit by the train when
you know, you got to the light at the end
of the tunnel. And that was the one time where
now all the breaks are going the Patriots way. There's
no mystery flag taking away a big play, but it's
Jim Bowman recovering fumbles and you guys forcing these Johnny Yeah,
(21:59):
I mean it started with the Jets game and just
continued with the Raiders and right on.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
You know, I think Miami, still in Miami, just turned
it over again in the as you.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Get in the head of your opponent because you've got
this reputation of creating turnovers. So now you're you're playing us,
You're sitting every thing. Am I gonna be the guy
that's gonna fumble this thing? Am I gonna turn it over?
I'm gonna miss a block that causes a fumble, strip
sig and so you get in their head. We had
a fumble drill at every practice that Raymond did, and
you had to pick up two balls. Every everybody on
the team they dropped the ball, you had to fall
(22:28):
on it. And and it made us become instinctive, you know,
second nature. You fall on the ball, pick it up.
I'm sure nowadays said a lot of coaches do that
with a fumble drill, But for us, it was like saying,
it was instincts. Balls on the ground, you're on the ball,
you know, And so it paid off.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I don't think today's Patriot fan can understand the importance
of going into the Orange Bowl in the AFC Championship game.
You know, we talked today about Mile High Stadium and
you know, Joe Robbie, I call it still or whatever
they call it this week, hard Rock Stadium in Miami.
It's never been a great place for the Patriots to play.
(23:06):
You had lost in a heartbreaker in the regular season
down there, we had that game won, and it's just like, well,
they're not going to be able to go down in Miami.
This is Marino, it's you know, duper, it's Clayton and
everything like that did how big was that game? And
was your confidence in there? You know what, we've been
able to play with these guys. We should have won
the game in the regular season. We're gonna beat them
(23:28):
this time.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Wasn't it like eighteen years or something. Yeah, it was
like a long time. It's like you're going to go
lose in the Orange Squiz the Fish the fish Man.
There was a pep rally, the magnitude of the importance
to the fans and to us. Yeah. Some guy came
up to me and he had had tattooed on his deal,
you know, Craig James. He goes squish the fish. I
was like, oh, dude, right right. But we get down there.
(23:53):
Before we got down there, we knew we were going
to beat them, and they knew we were going to
beat them. Dan Marino said, he he said, I can't
believe you guys beat us, and said, we had no
doubt in our mind we were going to physically beat you.
Exactly what happened. We're not going to take that game
from us. And that was the kind of attitude. I
remember the exuberance, the excitement that we had after the game,
(24:14):
dancing on the sideline, and I remember saying, man, we
got one more game.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Man, Let's go do this one more time to get
to that place, though, Craig, you were doing it. You
talked about all the weapons that you had, the physicality
of the offensive line, the great defense. I don't recall
it being controversial, but Grogan played and Easton played, and
I'm sure that there was an Easton camp, and I'm
sure there was a Grogan camp. But somehow, some way,
Raymonds would have helped massage that to get you to
(24:40):
the Super Bowl that year.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
I think hats off to those two guys for them
not causing a stink about it, you know. I mean,
Steve and Tony were both outstanding quarterbacks in their own way.
Tony Easton was a really talented quarterback, you know, and
just he was a great player. Steve Grogan was Steve Grogan,
you know what. Steve again, one year he would walk
in the huddle and they let him call the plays
(25:03):
as well. He should have probably had that kind of
hell instincts. Yeah, and he knew us. He could feel
it in the game. So we had two really good quarterbacks.
But I think any championship team I was blessed to
bet on a state championship in Texas in high school,
arguably the best team I ever played on the really
good team, college championship teams, and then the NFL playing
on an AFC championship team. Every one of those teams
(25:25):
had a common denominator selfless team. Teams win, individuals don't win.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I think I still have the T shirt, probably buried
someplace in a closet to bury the Bears T shirts.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
You remember bury the Bears.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
So you talked about your confidence going into the AFT
Championship game against Miami. This Bears team in hindsight my words, No,
I'm not asking you know, I am going to ask you.
That's the best NFL team I think I've seen in
my lifetime. Where was your confidence level? You lost to
him close in the regular season, but what was that
two week peer we'd like knowing that you're going up
(26:01):
against the vaunted Chicago Bears.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Going back and looking looking at at the moments of
that leading up to that game, I wish I had
known how long the pregame was, of how all of
the stuff. I mean we knew coming out of the
AFC Championship game the next week here in Foxville, the
number of media attention was phenomenal. I mean it was
cameras everywhere. So we knew that was there. We had
(26:26):
great confidence that we were going to go down there
and run the football. And when Lynn Dawson got hurt
and took away one of our tight ends first down,
when we couldn't go too tight and run the football,
they would have stopped us two out of four times.
But those other two times we'd have got them and
we've been we'd have been a much better game. Different game. Uh,
don't take anything from Chicago Bears. They were a great team,
had the unique defense, the four to six, They had
(26:48):
the right personalities in place for all of that. But
I remember during the week We're in New Orleans and
I kept hearing Jim McMahon and the Bears are out
on Bourbon Street partying it up. We had a curfew.
We were going to bed at eleven or twelve o'clock.
So after the fact, I was like, next time I
ever played the Super.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Bowl, lay it up, hammered so that team, like Matt's
right that that Bears team was special. What was you mentioned?
The forty six defense? You know what made that such
a challenge to go against.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
I remember coming off the field after one or two
series and Bobby Greer, my running back coach at the
time he said, hey, what are you seeing? I said,
I think they got one more guy than they got
fifteen guys out over there, right, But they were close.
They were hunkered down, and if you wanted to throw
the football, which it wanted you to do, you couldn't
block them. They were gonna have somebody get to your quarterback.
(27:40):
You didn't have the normal two point nine seconds. You
were gonna get sacked. You had to get rid of
it and so so then therefore that's why you had
to have the two tight run it pound them man
on man, let's go. But then they have an extra
man in the box. Well that was going to be
up to the running backs. Then we had to take
care of that extra guy. Uh. Just never got to
that point. But they were They were unique.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
So not that we need to go into all the
play by play of obviously a disappointing finish, but that
first series you mentioned Lynn's injury. On the first down,
you get the turnover. I think Peyton fumbled yep, right off,
right out right out of the shoot. So, like you know,
seventeen year old Paul Perillo is like, it's gonna happen.
It's happened that the turnovers gonna happen again. I completely
(28:21):
convinced myself. And you go pass past pass, you know,
kind of against your identity as a as a running team.
You look back at that and say, maybe we're just
taking a check because that's what they want you to
do if you're going to beat them. That's what Miami
did a few weeks before. That's how they beat him
by throwing it all over the place.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Miami was Miami, Miami was Miami, quick pass getting rid
of it. That was that was their unique thing. New England.
We were New England. We ran the football and I
know I was wanting to run the football, man, I
didn't want to. We weren't gonna get soft. It was
a fist fight, brawl and we were ready for it.
You mentioned some of the best teams that you were on.
Is it sad five AFT team in that conversation for you, Craig, Yes, absolutely.
(29:04):
And to accomplish what we did not expected to do that,
and to go on the road three playoff games in
a row, which, as you mentioned, was the first time
that had ever happened. I think it's maybe happened once.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Since The Ravens might have done it right that I think,
so it's a hard task.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I mean, home field advantage means something in the NFL,
and we took that away from them. And so it
was a great football team that we had here. I
thought we were better than next year in eighty six
and that we were heading to the to the super
Bowl again, and it just it reminded me of how
hard it is to get to the Super Bowl. We
go to Denver and we can't meet John Elway, we
ran out of gas, the altitude, whatever it was, John Elway.
(29:41):
But I thought we were better and going to have
a great chance that next year. So we discussed about
that one.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
We discussed that because we said they were better in
eighty six and they were in eighty five.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Why did you think you were better? Experience, You've been there,
you've done it. Confidence, We're not hoping or guessing. We've
been there, we've done this. We can and get in
that Super Bowl game again. And so it's all it
was between the ears that we were better, which made
us better physically on the field.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
So you had some similarities there. You talk about being
the road team and how difficult it is. We know
about the Orange Bowl on eighteen or whatever, consecutive losses.
Mile High was the same. You know, yes, what which
first of all, which one did you think was more
difficult to play?
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Was it mile High? Because of the altstitude.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
We even went out that eighty six season, we went
and spent a week training in Colorado Springs, higher altitude
and I and it was going to get us ready
for the game. So opening series, I have like a
ten yard run, I go around a corner, I'm tapping
my helmet, I'm coming out. I'm like that. Well, that
so much for that strategy. It just it's a real
(30:46):
advantage for any pro team in Denver to have a
visitor come in there who's not used to the altitude.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
When you look back at it, Craig, because then injuries
like what happens with a lot of people in the
NFL happened. You know, how do you look back at
you know, obviously fondly, but how do you look back
at your NFL career?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
You know, I feel like I had the ability to
run for ten thousand plus yards in the NFL. But
you got to stay healthy, you have to get lucky.
And in my time, when my shoulder went out on
me and it dislocated, out the backside, which was rare
and unique. One of my strengths was I was strong,
and I would get in the weight room in the
off season and I was really strong, and then I
(31:29):
found myself doing arm curls and you know, dumbbell presses
and you know, pretty boy weights, and that wasn't my style.
And so I'm sad that I wasn't able to play
another four or five years with a great offensive line
and a great system. But I'm also amazed that I
got to play in the NFL. I was blessed have
(31:50):
played here in a Pro Bowl, being named Lombardi NFL
Offensive Player of the Year of Patriots MVP. I think
I'm on the All Decades team in the eighties here
as a kid. Are you kidding me? That I got
a chance to do that in the National Football League
for the New England Patriots. What a blessing?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
And can you can you put into words? And I
don't know if you talk about it with guys like
Tony Collins or people like that.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Again, you guys lit the match.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Okay, it wasn't linear, it didn't always it wasn't just
that straight trajectory.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
But when you see what the.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Organization has become and the success that they had, it
had to start someplace. They're a little bit of pride
that people like yourself and others go. You know what,
Kudos to them, Kudos to Bob Craft who really took
this thing and they and took it to the next level.
But we helped start something, you know, to make this
an asset that his family wanted to buy.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
So think about Bob Craft. I'm sure he was a
Patriots fan of the nineteen eighty five team, no question.
He's watching this organization do that and gets almost there
to a world championship, a super Bowl, and then he
has the money and the ability to come in and
buy it. It had an impact on him. So it
impacted the family of Patriot fans, organization players. When they
(33:08):
come through here and they go through the Hall of Fame,
they see what's on those walls in there, and it
started in nineteen eighty five. We got there, we knocked
on the door, and very very proud of that.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Do you get much interaction with those players, those teammates
you know from those mid eighties teams.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
No, not really, just because I live in Texas, you know,
I do have a home and I've spent every summer
up here on the Cape, and I just we love
New England. Last year, like I said, being a part
of the Tom Brady Hall of Fame celebration here reminds you,
as a player, how fortunate you were to be a
part of this organization. So thankful. I think back to
the AFC Championship room we got. You know, I don't
(33:46):
wear it all the time. I'm told that the cost
of each player's ring was about what Billy Sullivan paid
for the whole organization. So nowadays you look at these
rings and they're just monstrous. Nineteen eighty seven, walking out
on Route one with my teammates on strike for free
agency Plan B. We got Dak Prescott when he signed
(34:07):
that five hundred and fifty million dollar deal. I just
had a chance to go to his home and to
meet him, and he said, hey, thank you for what
you guys did. That's what it's all about. I was like, man,
I was already a Dak fan. But for these kids today,
football is still blocking and tackling. Zone defense. Man defense
a combination. You got to block and tackle, you can
(34:27):
get fancy. We had to run with me, check with
me at the line of scrimmage for pass or run
as well, and they try to act like it's different.
But it was a violent game back then. And today's
players not that they couldn't have played in that era,
but they'd had to learn how to play in an
era where there were no unprotected play I mean, defenseless players.
You could tackle the quarterback however you want to tackle him.
(34:47):
You could hit a receiver however you wanted to hit him.
It was a violent game and I'm just thankful that
I got a chance to do it.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Deuce is going to be pissed if I don't get
this one in. As we've talked about gen and who
had three touchdown passes in that eighty five season.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
That's right, how about that? And I'd have had four?
Irving Friar dropped one, I'd have had two. What do
you think?
Speaker 4 (35:13):
Irving would would probably say a lot time we had
a cut on his hand.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Nowy Smurf would say, right, CJ Man, I'm sorry, did
you like? Did you like that that they implemented that? Absolutely?
Half back pass was amazing because it forced if I'm
back there at tailback and they would give me that
and I ran it in college I threw a bunch
of as well. It forced the safety just to pause
or the corner coming up. Is he gonna throw it?
(35:37):
Or is he going to run this thing? And it
just gave me just a little bit of an edge.
My last one that I threw was to a defensive
back for the Denver Broncos. It was completed just to
the wrong guy. That's great.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Do you watch much of the game now, do you?
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, you're still But you know what's different. The twenty
three years that I did the broadcast in announcing games,
I knew every trainer, equipment, manager, player, I knew all. Nowadays,
I'm just a fan. You know. I don't know anybody.
I know. There's a kid here from SMU on the
team trying to make it here, Brandon Crossley. I hope,
I hope. BC's a great player, passionate. But I mean,
I don't know these guys. I watch them, I follow them,
(36:13):
and I see them and I see their struggles and
how hard it is. Do you like being a fan?
Is it fun to be a fan? It's easier being
a fan? Yeah, you know, it really is. I missed
the microphone. Every once in a while, whenever something comes
up where there's an item or an issue a change.
College football is going to change again. There's gonna be
(36:35):
another shift, and it's going to be all Big ten
and all the SEC schools, and they're going to invite
another thirty ish from around to join them. And so
there's a scramble to be part of that next thirty
in the next four or five years. And that's taking
place in the NFL. The guys who come in here,
you know, if you could sit down and talk to
them and say, hey, look, I remember as forty years
(36:55):
ago when older guys would walk in and talk to us,
I would say to them, one of these days, you're
going to be that sixty four year old guy sitting there,
and you're gonna be finished. And it's a fleeting moment
that you're playing. Could be seven years, it could be
fourteen years, ten years, two years, it's gonna be over with.
So do whatever you can to be accountable to yourself
(37:17):
and accountable to your teammates, and if you do that,
you'll have success. Great message, great thanks for coming by.
Great to see you, man. You guys have rushed the
memories back to me, and I thank y'all so much
for allowing me to be a part of this.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
Hey this is Evan. Thanks for tuning into the show.
If you really want to help us, make sure to
like us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get
your podcasts. Also make sure to fall on the New
England Patriots YouTube channel see this show and everything else
we do here at the Patriots. Thanks a lot
It's time now for another episode of Pats from the
Past podcast, where we traveled down memory lane with the
former Patriot great and who better to join us today
than number thirty two CJ. Craig James, the OG member
of the Pony Express, right along with Eric Dickerson, absolute,
which we're going to talk about because how can you
talk to Craig James without talking about that before?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
It's Patriots career.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Anything that gets me back to high school, Matt. That's Greatreig,
thanks for joining us, man.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
This is going a privilege. You know, I walk in
this stadium and I'm cracking up because I'm back in
the eighties, right, And when I walked up to Sullivan Stadium,
you know, we didn't have no film room like this, right,
weren't even the thought back then. Right. But Craig, you
said you were here last June. Explain that. Why were
you here for Tom Brady Day? Well, I got to
get the invitation to come in for the Brady celebration,
(00:54):
which was just remarkable. But I wanted to see Dante
Scornekia because Scar and I we were back together, SMU.
He was here when I was playing for the Patriots.
He was you know, like a legend. He's been here
since before Billy Sullivan bought the team. Right, Scar's just
one of those legendary guys and I got a chance
to speak with him and see him. But what a
great night that was. I was so proud to be
(01:14):
an alum. What a privilege to be a part of
the Patriots organization. I sent a handwritten note to mister
Kraft and just said, man, what an awesome night and
a display of the fans. The fans here in New
England showed off last year. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, we were really happy with the way that whole
night because a lot of people in the organization had
a lot of things, a lot, you know, a lot
to do with that. So we felt like that was
a really strong night for the entire organization. And I'm
glad that so many you know, alums came back for that.
There was a lot of people from a lot of
different areas that took part in that, and I.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Think it was a huge success.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, you know, it's it's like I had a chance
to see Tony Collins and Doug Flute and a bunch
of my teammates that I had not seen in years.
You know, you have to walk up nowadays, forty years
later and say, hey, Craig James, see who are you.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
I'll tell you what, Craig, I'm not like. You don't
look a little bit different. You look like Craig James.
Maybe so maybe your hair is a little lighter, but
that's about it. I was joking with you before we
started that Eric could give you ten or fifteen steps.
I wonder if there's a half back option play that
you know, no, maybe one that you could do, if
you know, pitch it out there. I think it could
probably still get a first down off of that kind
(02:22):
of shit.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Thank you very much. I'd be really good with pregame,
warm up and go. If somebody hit me, I would cry,
that's funny, like I said, to kick things off.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I think people here in New England are somewhat versed
on the legend of how it began. But the idea
that two kids who went to high school in Texas
to the best at their position could be recruited and
play for the same college and be so prolific. I mean,
that story never gets old, does it. The Pony Express
(02:55):
at SMU with you and Eric Dickerson.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
We've been nearly fifty years friends, We love each other,
were like brothers and the fact that now we can
look back on it and realize what we did was
really unique. And someone asked me, the media made a
big deal about it. I had won the Vincelentbardi NFL
Offensive Player of the Year the year after Eric had
been the NFL MVP, and they said, how did two
guys go to the same team in Dallas at SMU.
(03:19):
How did that happen? I said, well, it was Dallas,
it was Ron Meyer, head coach at the time, a
lot of energy. But it just, you know, as Eric
and I say the Pony Express, we were better together.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
So did you ever have any trepidation, you know, being
a running back, there's only one guy that's going to
get to carry. I'm sure that both you and Eric
felt like you were the man coming out of high school.
Was there any concerns that you were going to be
able to share the backfield together and be as successful
as you were?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
He had rushed for over two thousand yards as a senior.
We were in different classifications in Texas. Both of our
teams had one state championships, so we both thought we
were pretty good. We're both all Americans. We get to
smu ron Meyer made it work, you know. He convinced
us that you guys are going to be fresher for
your twenty carries each per game. I think he averaged twenty,
averaged nineteen, and so now that we look back on it,
(04:08):
it really helped. Eric says it tremendously that it helped
him prolong his career. He wouldn't beat up when he
got there, so he was able to play longer, and so, yeah,
we could have been selfish, but we also recognized that
in the third and fourth quarter defenses were worn out,
and Eric and I had to say to each other
on the sideline, Hey, they're dragging, they're tired. We got
him and you just couldn't keep up with both of us.
(04:31):
It's kind of raird, though, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I mean, like to your part, like there's not too
many people who are the guy who are going and
some going to be the guy and I that can
subjugate their ego and say, I think it might be
better for the team, for our careers and everything physically
like that to split this.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
We were friends. Had we not been friends, it would
have never worked. There, you go, it's truly. I mean
we have never had one cross word with each other,
no bad thought even to this day. And so other
than when he beats me really bad. And golf, the
great golf.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
So the thing that I like about this is is
it sort of starts and the reason why the Pony
Express is obviously a really interesting story for a lot
of reasons and a lot of people, but for the
Patriots specifically, Ron Meyer is there and he ends up
coming to New England, and we talked about Dante a
little bit like it's like kind of like that first
chapter of the story for the Patriots, like Ron Meyer,
(05:24):
what did he mean to you? You know, at SMU
and then when he ends up coming here and you
eventually come as well.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Ron Meyer was not an X and xCE and O guy.
I mean, he knew he knew football, but he was
a talent guy, and he knew he knew great assistant coaches,
and he had a staff that was phenomenal. Steve said, well,
Dante's Garnetki, there was a whole all of them were
world class coaches, assistant coaches, and he made them make
sure we knew what we were doing as athletes. And
(05:51):
he knew an athlete, and so he knew what you
could or could not do, and he'd put you in
position to have success. And so Ron really had a
you know, Unfortunately, him getting fired, you know, led to
Raymond Berry, which was a blessing for the organization. But
Ron got it started, you know, with the assistant coaches
that he brought in here, like Dante Scarnekia, who's in the.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Team Hall of Fame, who's had an unbelievable career. Craig
could did you see some of that? Did you as
a kid who's played at college, did you see this
world class coaching staff? And then specifically what did Scar
help meet you for the two years that you and
Dante were together at SMU.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I don't think as a young athlete that you appreciate
what the coach is doing until that's not happening, and
then especially when you get down the road and you
can look back and reflect and say, well, why don't
we doing this? Nothing against the system when I came
in here as a rookie, but we had a really
hard time, very complicated pass protection scheme. I've got Sam,
I've got strong safety here. I've got that, But if
(06:49):
then I've got that when you get a football player
thinking you've got problems, you got sacks, and so Scar
cleaned that up. He just said, look, let's let's simplify
this thing. Let's make sure we know who we're gonna lock.
If you can't do that, then you can't be successful.
So as I look back on it now, the assistant
coaches that Ron Meyer had and that Raymond Berry had,
(07:09):
that Belichick had, every one of them had a job
and a role and a responsibility. They were really good
at it. You got to have Jimmy's, you got to
have the Joe's, but you got to have the coaches.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
So when you came out of SMU and decide to,
you know, to get into the draft, it was USFL first.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
I think it was the Washington Federals.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
What was behind that decision.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
To go that had zero I had been told by
my agent that this USFL was going to have a draft.
A few days after we played in the Cotton Bowl,
I'd gone home to Houston. I get a phone call
from my agent. He says, hey, they select you the
fourth player taken in the USFL draft. Wow, okay, he said,
we have to go to Washington out of respect. Let's
let's go up out of respect. Within moments of being
(07:53):
around this ownership group in Washington, I realized they were
very serious about what they were doing, and it was
there was significantly more money than I would have been slided.
I knew it was gonna be a first rounder in
the NFL, or was projected to be. But I was like,
I like the idea of pioneering. You know, it was
a great spirit. There was a ton of great football
players obviously absolutely went to the USF Yeah, I'm glad
(08:16):
that happened because it led me to playing for New
England had I not played there where ron Then they
started taking USFL players in the seventh round so that
they would have the rights for us if that league boobed.
And to thank God that I was able to get
away from there and to play for the New England Patriots.
So it was a blessing.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Because the Federals, like most of the teams in the
USFL and eventually the entire league, they ran out of
dough Right, you get hurt in Washington, and Meyer amongst
other people again in the National Football League, had the
foresight to go So wonder if some of these USFL guys,
how long is this going to last? It was the
(08:57):
Meyer drafting you in the seventh round. Well, you're not
a seventh round draft pick, but that's an insurance policy
over here?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Is that kind of yeah? Maybe how that was lucated?
For sure? It was good for me because I knew
that if it didn't work out in the USFL, well,
I was going to go to New England. And for Ron,
he had a guy that he knew about and that
what I could do with my talents. And so they
started taking the Jim kellyes and herschel Walker's and all
the great players that were in the USFL started going
in the seventh round and they had our rights.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
What was it like playing in the USFL? I mean
when it originally started. You know, people look at all
the spring leagues now that are sort of struggling to
but the USFL was in a much higher level than
the spring leagues.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Now, what was it like playing in it?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Oh man? We had a lot of really good players,
not on the Washington the worst team I ever played on.
Half of my teammates and just got out of jail.
The other half are on their way to prison. But
it was a league full of talent, But there was
a discrepancy in spending amongst the organizations right so that
there was not enough quality for that to happen. And
(09:58):
then they wanted to go and jump beyond and try
to challenge the NFL, et cetera. And it fell apart.
But there were a lot of note were they great
football players that came through the USFL.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So you're drafted by the Patriots in the seventh round,
you get hurt your contractor is it that they is
it that the Federals disband? How does how do you
go from Washington knowing that the Patriots have your rights
at that point in time in eighty four.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Craig So it was a very legal move, legalistic move there.
They had my rights, but they but the USFL was
just waiting for someone to try to pluck away one
of their players. So we had to have every USFL
owners sign off on a waiver that said, hey, we're
not going to sue you New England if you work
a deal out with Craig to leave the Federals. I
(10:47):
had to travel under an assumed name. I mean, you know,
we were meeting in places that were secretive. It was
a big deal. Uh, I think Roger Goodell may have
been on the on the legal team. Paul Tagliabu was
like all year for the NFL before the commissioner role,
and so there was a lot of behind the scenes
things that happened legally to allow that to happen. But
(11:09):
it got Washington off the hook. They ended up going
down to Orlando, I believe, and but it kept them going,
got relieved them of my financial debt. And the Patriots
assume that.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Was that unsettling as a kid, because you just want
to play football. You're coming off of an injury, like
I want to get back, I want to do things,
but there's all this maneuvering that has to happen in
order for you.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
To get there. Yeah, I remember, I asked, Remember a
guy named Koy Bacon played for the Races. Yea. So
here I was twenty one years old and Washington in
a locker room with a guy that he looked like
he was fifty and I knew he'd played twenty years
of the NFL football. And I said, mister Bacon, I said,
is this really like pro football? And he goes, you're
getting paid, ain't you, kid? I go, well, there are
(11:48):
rumors that that has been happening in the previous four
years too at SMU.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Right, he cracked up, right, Well, I think that that's
always Like we were joking about this the other day.
You know, you had to take a page to take
a pay cut to go to either the washing NFL ATA.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
We had to report it, right, So we were the
UNI L before the ni L.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Now everything everything you guys did, this is it's all
about boy Now.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I mean, we could go a whole show just in
college football and the and the whole n IL world.
But but good for the players are finally getting taken
care of and compensated. It's it's a it's a scramble
out there right now. And they've got a corral a
little bit.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Did you get a car that was as nice as error?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
No?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
But but I'm not going to say I was riding
a horse either.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
So the difference is obviously you had the connection with
Ron Meyer, but you know he was only hear what
half that season, right?
Speaker 4 (12:37):
So what was it like? What were the differences between
he and Ray Berry?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Oddly enough, Ron being my coach here was a negative
to me. Really, it really hurt me. I came in
and competed in training camp, and I thought that I
had beat out Tony Collins, who was an All Pro
and a great runner h and a locker room favorite.
But I thought I had won that job in that position,
and it just ate me up that I wasn't getting
(13:03):
the carries that I wanted. And I understood Royn's position. Hey,
if I put my college kid in there over my
locker room favorite and leader and a really good player
in Tony Collins, you know I'm going to lose my
locker room. So I understood that Ron got fired. We're
on the flight to Denver Raymondberry's first game and he
walks to me on the plane. He says, hey, you're
starting tomorrow. I started run for one hundred and twenty
(13:26):
yards and eight hundred yards in the second half, averaged
four to nine a carry. I have no doubt in
my mind if I'd have been a starter. This is
nothing against Tony Collins. Tony Collins was a great football player,
great running back. I'd ran for sixteen to eighteen hundred
yards that rookie year because we had it going on
as an offensive line that particular season.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Did you get a sense in eighty four as you're
becoming a little bit more of a central figure in
the offense. Hey, we got something here, you know, were
they're building blocks and a foundation that you believe were
laid towards that second half of the eighty four season
that would help you to find that eighty five team.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I think it was really in the coaches hands to
figure out exactly what are we going to be. They
had seen that we were a powerful team that we
believe we could run the ball and if it was
third and one, we were going to do it. We
didn't need the toush push. We ran the football right.
Steve Brogan or Tony Easton would ask us, how can
we get this on third and two? Yes, we can.
So I think we had to make a decision in
eighty five. We had all these weapons out there, receivers
(14:24):
irving for our Stanley Morgan, all these great players, all
these runners, Tony Collins, Craig James, mostly the TUPA. We
got all these players, Dawson and Tighten. What are we
going to be? And when we decided that we were
going to be a physical, running football team, that's when
we took over and we made our way to the
Super Bowl.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
So was there a time in eighty five was there
a game that maybe you guys said, Okay, this is different.
We're a little bit better, we can do something. You know,
you win eleven games in eighty five, but was there
a moment in that season where you said, okay, this
is a playoff team and we're as good as all
these other teams.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Now. I think just as you go along and you
start playing and having success, and especially on the road,
I think the inner confidence that we had that we
were physical and good. We knew we had a great defense,
like a really good defense. We had really good special teams.
We had guys playing roles that were turning the ball
over for us. I think the more it just was
a snowball, it just kept getting bigger and bigger. And so, yeah,
(15:20):
we got beat bad by Chicago in Chicago earlier in
that season. Really, you know, it wasn't too bad. You
had a play I had yet, And so Richard Dent
I have become friends with and been around more than
when we played, and he always give me a hard time.
I said, yeah, but Richard, it seems like I still
remember that. I think I owned the Soldier Field's longest
(15:40):
past reception touchdown in the history ninety yards.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
That was the longest Patriots touchdown for a long time,
absolutely ninety yard touchdown.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Craig, you mentioned physicality, and you had also talked about
you know that you were here for the Brady event.
And I don't know why I find this interesting. There's
no question who the greatest player in franchise history is
for the Patriots, and that Tom Brady. But I think
there's an interesting debate as to who's number two, and
then therefore because who's number three? And they both played
(16:08):
with you in my opinion on that team, Let's talk
about first the guy who helped you offensively, John Hannah.
Is there a better guard in the history of the
National Football League than hockey.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
When you start talking about it, arguably, he has got
to be in the conversation. A big, big man of beast,
tenacious and did it week in and week out. We're
playing at Denver the game that I started, that first
game that I started, John had been in the hospital
during the week and Pete Brock said that John never
missed practices. It just never happened, and so we couldn't
believe he wasn't there. He met us on the tarmac
(16:43):
at the airport, walks out of like an ambulatory van
with an ivy bottle hooked up to him, and he
walks up the deal and gets on the plane, leaves
his ivy stuck in him right there, flies to Denver,
and I ran behind him for most of those one
hundred and twenty yards that day.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
And that doesn't surprise you about him, does it. That's
the kind of guy he is.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Oh yeah, yeah. He He made everybody around him better
because he demanded it if you didn't do your job.
Brian Holloway was a great player because John Hannah made
sure Brian played. Brian did not want to hear from
John Hannah. So who's the other one in contention? Paul Tip?
So Tippett. I'm so glad Tip. He really liked me,
(17:23):
especially in two days that way when we did the
one on one pass waking drill running back in a linebacker,
the most idiotic drill ever a lot. There's no threat
of a run or right, it's a bad drill. All
good for the linebacker. They don't have to worry about anything.
They just just blow you up. Tip would take it
easy on and he would beat me. But it was
just see so Andre Tippett was ever bit as good
(17:45):
as Lawrence Taylor. Lawrence Taylor lived in New York and
at that time with all that big New York media,
but lt was a great player, similar size. You couldn't
run away from him. You couldn't run away from Andre Tippet.
Tip was a great player. And I'm glad to say
hear you say he's one of those three in your
mind about the greatest players. I think.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
I think it's a really interesting battle between Again, give
Brady his flowers, and he was well deserved, But after him,
is it Hannah, is it Tippin that it's probably about
like what flavor ice cream do you like better? A
Hall of Famer defender of famers or a Hall of
Fame offensive line?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
A little biased because you know he works upstairs. Right,
we're still a little just a little bit afraid of them.
Absolutely we should be.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I still but I see Lawrence Taylors somewhere. I don't
like to go up to him. He had a tackle
on him the first tackle. We were here playing a
game and he makes the first tackle on me, and
it was like a twelve yard game, and he gave
me a little bit of a thigh bruise, but he
stood up and said something. I go, that's all right,
I'll be back. And I was like, man, I hope
you didn't do me. Did you just piss him off?
Speaker 1 (18:43):
You know, the running back position today, Craig has been
a little bit undervalued.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Everybody throws the ball, Paul loves it.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
It's had a little bit of a renaissance last year
with Barkley, Derek Henry and things like that. But I
look back at that eighty five team and you mentioned
some of these guys. You were the leading rusher on
the eighty five team, But it's Robert Weathers, it's Tony Collins,
it's Mosey Totupu, it's you.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Like.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
It wasn't running back by committee. But you were a
lot of different tools in the bag. The coaching staff
had a lot of different tools in the bag. They
could beat you a lot of different ways. And we
might have seen how that worked in the AC Championship game.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Would you guess against the Dolphins? Great analogy. We kind
of had our short yardage goal line package, which was Robert,
and mostly they'd commit TC and I'd come out. We
had certain packages that worked really well as a team,
a selfless team. You know, you had to have that
kind of mentality to make that thing work. But the
fact that we had so many different players and each
(19:41):
one had a role, and you know, you had the
Belichick way that came after our way. You know, I
always looked at our eighty five team in this way.
It was an honor to be a part of a
team that Billy Sullivan was still here with and founded
and his son was the general manager. We got smoked
in the Super Bowl. We got there. We showed that
(20:02):
this organization, these coaches, this front office, you can get there.
The players will be gone, but there'll be different people here.
You have to knock on the door. You have to
open the door before you can run through the door.
And that led the way for a lot of teams
and the successes that they had down the road. I
think our team really opened the door for belief that
it can happen.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Can you take us a little bit on that road,
you know, the ride of those three games, you know,
three games on the road, first team, you know, to
do that and make it to the Super Bowl. What
was it like when that that got started? Where was
the confidence level for you? Guys, because you entered the postseason.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Raymond Barry had a really cool saying about you know,
he goes, hey, all right, men, he go you know, men,
and his fingers were crooked from his plan days. He goes,
he goes, he goes, what's the what are we looking
at when we look at the at the at the
bullseye and you know, well, you're shooting an arrow. Well
you're looking at the bullseye. No, no, you got to
look at the center of the bullseye. And he was
really big on focus. Focus. We have one game this week.
(21:02):
We're gonna go play the New York Jets. That's it.
We're gonna go play the New York Jets. And a
lot of coaches preach this stuff and say these things,
but they but they don't live this thing. Raymond Berry
was focused on the center of the bullseye and so
therefore it was contagious amongst the players. And then we
had that confidence because we had a great defense, we
had a great special teams, and we had a great offense.
(21:22):
We could run the football, so we had everything that
was needed for the team to do really well.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
So when you start you talk about the special teams
because it just seemed like every week some of them
was mishandling a kick, Like do you start to think, hey,
it's destiny.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
We're supposed to be winning these games.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
We're you know, because the Patriots, our whole lives, always
found a way to get hit by the train when
you know, you got to the light at the end
of the tunnel. And that was the one time where
now all the breaks are going the Patriots way. There's
no mystery flag taking away a big play, but it's
Jim Bowman recovering fumbles and you guys forcing these Johnny Yeah,
(21:59):
I mean it started with the Jets game and just
continued with the Raiders and right on.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
You know, I think Miami, still in Miami, just turned
it over again in the as you.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Get in the head of your opponent because you've got
this reputation of creating turnovers. So now you're you're playing us,
You're sitting every thing. Am I gonna be the guy
that's gonna fumble this thing? Am I gonna turn it over?
I'm gonna miss a block that causes a fumble, strip
sig and so you get in their head. We had
a fumble drill at every practice that Raymond did, and
you had to pick up two balls. Every everybody on
the team they dropped the ball, you had to fall
(22:28):
on it. And and it made us become instinctive, you know,
second nature. You fall on the ball, pick it up.
I'm sure nowadays said a lot of coaches do that
with a fumble drill, But for us, it was like saying,
it was instincts. Balls on the ground, you're on the ball,
you know, And so it paid off.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I don't think today's Patriot fan can understand the importance
of going into the Orange Bowl in the AFC Championship game.
You know, we talked today about Mile High Stadium and
you know, Joe Robbie, I call it still or whatever
they call it this week, hard Rock Stadium in Miami.
It's never been a great place for the Patriots to play.
(23:06):
You had lost in a heartbreaker in the regular season
down there, we had that game won, and it's just like, well,
they're not going to be able to go down in Miami.
This is Marino, it's you know, duper, it's Clayton and
everything like that did how big was that game? And
was your confidence in there? You know what, we've been
able to play with these guys. We should have won
the game in the regular season. We're gonna beat them
(23:28):
this time.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Wasn't it like eighteen years or something. Yeah, it was
like a long time. It's like you're going to go
lose in the Orange Squiz the Fish the fish Man.
There was a pep rally, the magnitude of the importance
to the fans and to us. Yeah. Some guy came
up to me and he had had tattooed on his deal,
you know, Craig James. He goes squish the fish. I
was like, oh, dude, right right. But we get down there.
(23:53):
Before we got down there, we knew we were going
to beat them, and they knew we were going to
beat them. Dan Marino said, he he said, I can't
believe you guys beat us, and said, we had no
doubt in our mind we were going to physically beat you.
Exactly what happened. We're not going to take that game
from us. And that was the kind of attitude. I
remember the exuberance, the excitement that we had after the game,
(24:14):
dancing on the sideline, and I remember saying, man, we
got one more game.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Man, Let's go do this one more time to get
to that place, though, Craig, you were doing it. You
talked about all the weapons that you had, the physicality
of the offensive line, the great defense. I don't recall
it being controversial, but Grogan played and Easton played, and
I'm sure that there was an Easton camp, and I'm
sure there was a Grogan camp. But somehow, some way,
Raymonds would have helped massage that to get you to
(24:40):
the Super Bowl that year.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
I think hats off to those two guys for them
not causing a stink about it, you know. I mean,
Steve and Tony were both outstanding quarterbacks in their own way.
Tony Easton was a really talented quarterback, you know, and
just he was a great player. Steve Grogan was Steve Grogan,
you know what. Steve again, one year he would walk
in the huddle and they let him call the plays
(25:03):
as well. He should have probably had that kind of
hell instincts. Yeah, and he knew us. He could feel
it in the game. So we had two really good quarterbacks.
But I think any championship team I was blessed to
bet on a state championship in Texas in high school,
arguably the best team I ever played on the really
good team, college championship teams, and then the NFL playing
on an AFC championship team. Every one of those teams
(25:25):
had a common denominator selfless team. Teams win, individuals don't win.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I think I still have the T shirt, probably buried
someplace in a closet to bury the Bears T shirts.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
You remember bury the Bears.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
So you talked about your confidence going into the AFT
Championship game against Miami. This Bears team in hindsight my words, No,
I'm not asking you know, I am going to ask you.
That's the best NFL team I think I've seen in
my lifetime. Where was your confidence level? You lost to
him close in the regular season, but what was that
two week peer we'd like knowing that you're going up
(26:01):
against the vaunted Chicago Bears.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Going back and looking looking at at the moments of
that leading up to that game, I wish I had
known how long the pregame was, of how all of
the stuff. I mean we knew coming out of the
AFC Championship game the next week here in Foxville, the
number of media attention was phenomenal. I mean it was
cameras everywhere. So we knew that was there. We had
(26:26):
great confidence that we were going to go down there
and run the football. And when Lynn Dawson got hurt
and took away one of our tight ends first down,
when we couldn't go too tight and run the football,
they would have stopped us two out of four times.
But those other two times we'd have got them and
we've been we'd have been a much better game. Different game. Uh,
don't take anything from Chicago Bears. They were a great team,
had the unique defense, the four to six, They had
(26:48):
the right personalities in place for all of that. But
I remember during the week We're in New Orleans and
I kept hearing Jim McMahon and the Bears are out
on Bourbon Street partying it up. We had a curfew.
We were going to bed at eleven or twelve o'clock.
So after the fact, I was like, next time I
ever played the Super.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Bowl, lay it up, hammered so that team, like Matt's
right that that Bears team was special. What was you mentioned?
The forty six defense? You know what made that such
a challenge to go against.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
I remember coming off the field after one or two
series and Bobby Greer, my running back coach at the
time he said, hey, what are you seeing? I said,
I think they got one more guy than they got
fifteen guys out over there, right, But they were close.
They were hunkered down, and if you wanted to throw
the football, which it wanted you to do, you couldn't
block them. They were gonna have somebody get to your quarterback.
(27:40):
You didn't have the normal two point nine seconds. You
were gonna get sacked. You had to get rid of
it and so so then therefore that's why you had
to have the two tight run it pound them man
on man, let's go. But then they have an extra
man in the box. Well that was going to be
up to the running backs. Then we had to take
care of that extra guy. Uh. Just never got to
that point. But they were They were unique.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
So not that we need to go into all the
play by play of obviously a disappointing finish, but that
first series you mentioned Lynn's injury. On the first down,
you get the turnover. I think Peyton fumbled yep, right off,
right out right out of the shoot. So, like you know,
seventeen year old Paul Perillo is like, it's gonna happen.
It's happened that the turnovers gonna happen again. I completely
(28:21):
convinced myself. And you go pass past pass, you know,
kind of against your identity as a as a running team.
You look back at that and say, maybe we're just
taking a check because that's what they want you to
do if you're going to beat them. That's what Miami
did a few weeks before. That's how they beat him
by throwing it all over the place.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Miami was Miami, Miami was Miami, quick pass getting rid
of it. That was that was their unique thing. New England.
We were New England. We ran the football and I
know I was wanting to run the football, man, I
didn't want to. We weren't gonna get soft. It was
a fist fight, brawl and we were ready for it.
You mentioned some of the best teams that you were on.
Is it sad five AFT team in that conversation for you, Craig, Yes, absolutely.
(29:04):
And to accomplish what we did not expected to do that,
and to go on the road three playoff games in
a row, which, as you mentioned, was the first time
that had ever happened. I think it's maybe happened once.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Since The Ravens might have done it right that I think,
so it's a hard task.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I mean, home field advantage means something in the NFL,
and we took that away from them. And so it
was a great football team that we had here. I
thought we were better than next year in eighty six
and that we were heading to the to the super
Bowl again, and it just it reminded me of how
hard it is to get to the Super Bowl. We
go to Denver and we can't meet John Elway, we
ran out of gas, the altitude, whatever it was, John Elway.
(29:41):
But I thought we were better and going to have
a great chance that next year. So we discussed about
that one.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
We discussed that because we said they were better in
eighty six and they were in eighty five.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Why did you think you were better? Experience, You've been there,
you've done it. Confidence, We're not hoping or guessing. We've
been there, we've done this. We can and get in
that Super Bowl game again. And so it's all it
was between the ears that we were better, which made
us better physically on the field.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
So you had some similarities there. You talk about being
the road team and how difficult it is. We know
about the Orange Bowl on eighteen or whatever, consecutive losses.
Mile High was the same. You know, yes, what which
first of all, which one did you think was more
difficult to play?
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Was it mile High? Because of the altstitude.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
We even went out that eighty six season, we went
and spent a week training in Colorado Springs, higher altitude
and I and it was going to get us ready
for the game. So opening series, I have like a
ten yard run, I go around a corner, I'm tapping
my helmet, I'm coming out. I'm like that. Well, that
so much for that strategy. It just it's a real
(30:46):
advantage for any pro team in Denver to have a
visitor come in there who's not used to the altitude.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
When you look back at it, Craig, because then injuries
like what happens with a lot of people in the
NFL happened. You know, how do you look back at
you know, obviously fondly, but how do you look back
at your NFL career?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
You know, I feel like I had the ability to
run for ten thousand plus yards in the NFL. But
you got to stay healthy, you have to get lucky.
And in my time, when my shoulder went out on
me and it dislocated, out the backside, which was rare
and unique. One of my strengths was I was strong,
and I would get in the weight room in the
off season and I was really strong, and then I
(31:29):
found myself doing arm curls and you know, dumbbell presses
and you know, pretty boy weights, and that wasn't my style.
And so I'm sad that I wasn't able to play
another four or five years with a great offensive line
and a great system. But I'm also amazed that I
got to play in the NFL. I was blessed have
(31:50):
played here in a Pro Bowl, being named Lombardi NFL
Offensive Player of the Year of Patriots MVP. I think
I'm on the All Decades team in the eighties here
as a kid. Are you kidding me? That I got
a chance to do that in the National Football League
for the New England Patriots. What a blessing?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
And can you can you put into words? And I
don't know if you talk about it with guys like
Tony Collins or people like that.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Again, you guys lit the match.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Okay, it wasn't linear, it didn't always it wasn't just
that straight trajectory.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
But when you see what the.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Organization has become and the success that they had, it
had to start someplace. They're a little bit of pride
that people like yourself and others go. You know what,
Kudos to them, Kudos to Bob Craft who really took
this thing and they and took it to the next level.
But we helped start something, you know, to make this
an asset that his family wanted to buy.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
So think about Bob Craft. I'm sure he was a
Patriots fan of the nineteen eighty five team, no question.
He's watching this organization do that and gets almost there
to a world championship, a super Bowl, and then he
has the money and the ability to come in and
buy it. It had an impact on him. So it
impacted the family of Patriot fans, organization players. When they
(33:08):
come through here and they go through the Hall of Fame,
they see what's on those walls in there, and it
started in nineteen eighty five. We got there, we knocked
on the door, and very very proud of that.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Do you get much interaction with those players, those teammates
you know from those mid eighties teams.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
No, not really, just because I live in Texas, you know,
I do have a home and I've spent every summer
up here on the Cape, and I just we love
New England. Last year, like I said, being a part
of the Tom Brady Hall of Fame celebration here reminds you,
as a player, how fortunate you were to be a
part of this organization. So thankful. I think back to
the AFC Championship room we got. You know, I don't
(33:46):
wear it all the time. I'm told that the cost
of each player's ring was about what Billy Sullivan paid
for the whole organization. So nowadays you look at these
rings and they're just monstrous. Nineteen eighty seven, walking out
on Route one with my teammates on strike for free
agency Plan B. We got Dak Prescott when he signed
(34:07):
that five hundred and fifty million dollar deal. I just
had a chance to go to his home and to
meet him, and he said, hey, thank you for what
you guys did. That's what it's all about. I was like, man,
I was already a Dak fan. But for these kids today,
football is still blocking and tackling. Zone defense. Man defense
a combination. You got to block and tackle, you can
(34:27):
get fancy. We had to run with me, check with
me at the line of scrimmage for pass or run
as well, and they try to act like it's different.
But it was a violent game back then. And today's
players not that they couldn't have played in that era,
but they'd had to learn how to play in an
era where there were no unprotected play I mean, defenseless players.
You could tackle the quarterback however you want to tackle him.
(34:47):
You could hit a receiver however you wanted to hit him.
It was a violent game and I'm just thankful that
I got a chance to do it.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Deuce is going to be pissed if I don't get
this one in. As we've talked about gen and who
had three touchdown passes in that eighty five season.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
That's right, how about that? And I'd have had four?
Irving Friar dropped one, I'd have had two. What do
you think?
Speaker 4 (35:13):
Irving would would probably say a lot time we had
a cut on his hand.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Nowy Smurf would say, right, CJ Man, I'm sorry, did
you like? Did you like that that they implemented that? Absolutely?
Half back pass was amazing because it forced if I'm
back there at tailback and they would give me that
and I ran it in college I threw a bunch
of as well. It forced the safety just to pause
or the corner coming up. Is he gonna throw it?
(35:37):
Or is he going to run this thing? And it
just gave me just a little bit of an edge.
My last one that I threw was to a defensive
back for the Denver Broncos. It was completed just to
the wrong guy. That's great.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Do you watch much of the game now, do you?
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Yeah, you're still But you know what's different. The twenty
three years that I did the broadcast in announcing games,
I knew every trainer, equipment, manager, player, I knew all. Nowadays,
I'm just a fan. You know. I don't know anybody.
I know. There's a kid here from SMU on the
team trying to make it here, Brandon Crossley. I hope,
I hope. BC's a great player, passionate. But I mean,
I don't know these guys. I watch them, I follow them,
(36:13):
and I see them and I see their struggles and
how hard it is. Do you like being a fan?
Is it fun to be a fan? It's easier being
a fan? Yeah, you know, it really is. I missed
the microphone. Every once in a while, whenever something comes
up where there's an item or an issue a change.
College football is going to change again. There's gonna be
(36:35):
another shift, and it's going to be all Big ten
and all the SEC schools, and they're going to invite
another thirty ish from around to join them. And so
there's a scramble to be part of that next thirty
in the next four or five years. And that's taking
place in the NFL. The guys who come in here,
you know, if you could sit down and talk to
them and say, hey, look, I remember as forty years
(36:55):
ago when older guys would walk in and talk to us,
I would say to them, one of these days, you're
going to be that sixty four year old guy sitting there,
and you're gonna be finished. And it's a fleeting moment
that you're playing. Could be seven years, it could be
fourteen years, ten years, two years, it's gonna be over with.
So do whatever you can to be accountable to yourself
(37:17):
and accountable to your teammates, and if you do that,
you'll have success. Great message, great thanks for coming by.
Great to see you, man. You guys have rushed the
memories back to me, and I thank y'all so much
for allowing me to be a part of this.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
Hey this is Evan. Thanks for tuning into the show.
If you really want to help us, make sure to
like us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get
your podcasts. Also make sure to fall on the New
England Patriots YouTube channel see this show and everything else
we do here at the Patriots. Thanks a lot
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