March 13, 2024 • 46 mins
Welcome to Unbreakable! A Mental Wealth podcast hosted by Fox NFL Insider Jay Glazer. On today’s episode, Jay goes one-on-one with 2x Super Bowl Champion, 2018 Walter Payton Man of the Year and Host of the Green Light Podcast the great Chris Long. Chris shares his amazing life journey and dishes out incredible advice on retirement. Plus, something from Super Bowl LI that no one knows!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Unbreakable with Jay Glacier, a mental wealth podcast
Build you from the inside out. Now here's Jay Glacier.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome into Unbreakable, a mental wealth podcast with Jay Glazer.
I'm Jay Glazer. Got a great guess for you today.
You definitely heard him. You've seen him play football, He's
won Super Bowls. But before I get to him, if
you're like many people, you may be surprised to learn
that one in five adults in this country experienced mental
illness last year. You get far too many failed to
receive the support they need. Carolyn Behavioral Health is doing
(00:37):
something about it. They understand that behavioral health is a
key part of whole health, delivering compassionate care that treats physical, mental, emotional,
and social needs and tenem Carolyn behavioral health raising the
quality of life through empathy and action. With that, I
want to bring in how do I introduce them?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Error?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
So two Tom Super Bowl champion Patriots. He was there
for the twenty eight three game, obviously for the Patriots
Philadelphia Eagles. Oh I got a great tattoo as a
result of that win. Uh second round pick of the
Saint Louis Rams, but also probably best accomplishment, Walter Payton
Man of the Year Award gave up his entire twenty
seventeen salary to charity and host of the green Light
(01:16):
podcast One and Only my nephew, Chris Long, How are you, brother?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Uncle Jay's.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
People, don't you know? Sometimes it's funny we go back.
I've known you since you were like nine, I think, yeah,
had nine or eleven.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, and even then you were taller than me. That's
what I was going to say. Yeah, yeah, we got
quite the history, man, you know. And we have one
close friend in common, Kyle Long. Yeah, yeah, Kyle Long.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And that other guy who looks like yeah, he looks
like look at Fred Getstad, at Herman Munster, all combined
obviously my brother Howry Long. So I call Chris my nephew.
So here's it. I want to dive in a few things.
But you know, your podcast wildly successful, and you know,
I work with a lot of these players of you know,
when they're retired how to handle transition. Had to handle retirement,
(02:10):
which is difficult for a lot of guys that jump
out to try to find the next thing. You lose
your your team, you lose your structure. More than anything
like your schedule for the first time in your life.
You don't know where to go, when to go, who
to go with, who to sit with, who to eat with.
How did the genesis or the crux of your podcast
come about? Because this was you started when there really
(02:31):
wasn't you know a lot of these players are now
following your lead. But it was like you and Pat
McAfee and that was really it. So how to tell
me that? I've never asked youesus, I've never dived in
to how the genesis of this started.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, I never thought about it, like the thing you
just said with Pat and me and there's a couple
other guys. I'm sure there have been podcasts in a while, but.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
You know, not like how you guys have blown it up. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
No, I mean like we've been lucky and more than anything,
we've just been consistent, you know, Like I mean there's
still days where I'm like, what the are we doing?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
This is my podcast?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
You know, what the fuck are we doing here? You know, like,
what the fuck am I doing here? You know, like
is this a purpose? Am I happy doing this? Does
this seem successful? Like? Is this success? Is this who
I want to be? Do I want to be a podcaster.
Like it's a weird thing to go from like a
gladiator to like a guy with a microphone that's supposed
to be intellectual and you know, have these thought provoking
(03:22):
conversations and overanalyzed stuff and sensationalized stuff. You know. The
media is what you make it, Jay, right. You know.
I think back in the day, it was like, hey,
the media is I used to talk to coaching about this,
Like the media, there's us and there's them, you know,
that whole thing. And I understand that b writers and
you know the history of people that have to get
a story out, and you know, twenty four hour news cycle,
(03:44):
you got ESPN, you got a mind for topics every day.
So there is this this kind of thought that like
the media is all one thing. But I think what
players have done is they've cut out the middleman. And
not that I'm saying the middleman's a bad guy. I
think the media is extremely important. We don't get paid
as much as we get paid. You look at that
new salary cap of north to two hundred and fifty
five million dollars in the NFL, Like these are huge numbers,
(04:07):
and TV deals matter. The media matters. So I'm appreciative
all of that, but we wanted to do things differently,
Like I wanted to do things on my terms and
be the boss. And long story short, I just I
started thinking about at the end of my career, and.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
What at the end of your last year or like
two years or three years.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Or so, probably my last year because you know, like
backing up twenty seventeen, I ended up in Philly, got
very lucky, was a part of a super Bowl team.
You know, it was my second and two years very lucky,
just right place, right time. I liken it to like
picking a Super Bowl future as a player. You know,
we can't gamble, but that was my best long shot
odds bet on the Eagles, like to go there in
(04:44):
free agency to leave the Pats. We won a super
Bowl twenty eighteen, I wasn't as happy. I was real
happy in Philly. I love being an Eagle and all
that stuff, but you know, the realities of being a
vet in the NFL, and like the way people look
at you and count you out and your body and
all stuff. I was like, man, I'm about to be done,
Like at some point here I need to be done.
And I think it's always important. I think how you
(05:07):
leave the game so important to your psyche, Like you
where you run out of the league. Did you leave
on your own terms? How did you leave? Like there's
only a few ways you can leave, and most of
them aren't good.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So that's a forever memory, right, it's like your last memory, yeah,
instead of it's so hard for us to go back
and think, like I got to force myself to think
about the things I've done in the past instead of yesterday.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yes, no, no, no question, And like whether you whether you're
dwelling on it or not, it dictates the way your
thought patterns go and the way you every day. When
I look at football, we all have regrets. We all
have things we wish we did. We all have maybe
some I mean, nobody leaves the game clean, right, you know,
we all. I won two Super Bowls at it in
(05:51):
my career. Couldn't have gone better. And I still have regrets.
I still dwell on the past. I'm still hard on myself.
And you know, I think going into that transition, it's
like you're a baby, dude, You're just you're learning to
walk again. It's a totally different reality, and it's hard
for anybody to anticipate, even me, who I was like, oh,
I'm going to plan this out. It's important to have
(06:12):
a plan for what you want to do before you finish.
And I kind of started planning a little bit preliminarily
in twenty eighteen, and then when I retired, I was like, Okay,
I got this plan. I'm going to go and act it.
And of course your plans are shit. You realize as
you're getting going that you don't know anything, and so
you know, I think for me the media, making a
(06:34):
decision to have my own podcast was dictated by a
couple of things. I was afraid of retirement. I was
afraid of idle time. I do not I'm a grinder.
I like to work. I like to have a purpose.
I like to build something. I'm creative. So the creative
part excited me, but it was mostly about like, I'm
afraid of what I will will happen to me if
(06:54):
I don't have a job, Like straight up, like all
the horror stories you know, you hear and they can
kind of compound and it can be a self fulfilling
prophecy if you're like, well, that's just what's gonna happen
to me. I'm gonna lose my fucking mind. I'm gonna
have all this idle time. I'm gonna get a divorce.
I'm gonna lose all my money, Like you know, all
the horror stories. I was like, if I can just
(07:14):
figure out a purpose, I'll be okay. And so through
that purpose, what I've realized over the last couple of
years is I didn't know anything too. I'm a workaholic
and I've needed to chill out on that because it's
almost like I got out and worked more than I
did when I played, which we got.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
To learn how to excel.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, that's a mistake, but it's one that I'm okay
with learning on the fly, you know, Like I'm I
think making mistakes is a really good way to learn.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And tell me why that's a mistake, because I want
players to use because I always Yeah, I talked to
a lot of guys and I'm like, listen, you you
spilt the blood, you put the foot out there. Yeah,
you need to find something, but you also learn how
to you have to learn. Say, I put my body
throughout so I can excel, so I can enjoy. Yeah,
the next part of my life, So explain that a
(07:59):
little bit more.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Think it's a mistake to go write it. It's good
to have a plan, but in your plan there needs
to be a decompression period. You need to force yourself
to face your fear if you have a plan, If
you have a plan and you know that, hey, in
six to eight months, I'm going to get to work
on this business venture. I have it seeded. I'm doing
kind of like preliminary work. I've done the homework. I've
(08:21):
got this thing outlined out, but I need to sit
with my family for a couple months. I need to
figure myself out a little bit. I think in retirement
you learn so much about yourself that football has. Football
obscures all your problems. It's like a band aid. You know,
it can create problems and the stresses and the you know,
(08:41):
like the existential crisis of being a football player and
all that stuff and the transition. But more than anything,
like you don't work on yourself from you work on
your body, You work on your your mind. You work
on your football career from the time. If you're like me,
from sixteen to thirty eight, I was one thing. So
there's no room to work on yourself. There's no that
(09:04):
thing is obscuring your view. And as great as it is,
you got to you got to rip that band aid
off and you have to be supported socially. You have
to have friends. You have to have you know, if
you've got family, you have to have a home base.
I was lucky to have all those things, right, I
had a plan, But what I didn't give myself was
a fucking break, dude. You know, like I think I
(09:25):
went since I retired. I took my first week vacation
maybe like a year and a half ago, and now
we're retired, how long like four or five years. I'm
not saying this like I work, dude, that's just what
I like to do. I have to be in movement,
but there are other ways, Like I think you have
to get good at you know, this idle time, bro,
(09:45):
because that's what that's what sinks a lot of guys
if they don't know how to how to be bored.
You know, you've you've got to learn to be bored
a little bit. Because the NFL is like this, right,
We're really good at riding the wave and the loads
are tremendous and the highs are amazing, retirements more like this.
It's flatline and that is a really scary thing for me,
(10:07):
and it's a scary thing for a lot of guys.
Like I can handle the roller coaster ride. I live
for that.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, you live for chaos, the comp I always said,
I'm great chaos man. I sucking calm and that, yeah,
right in the com is when the roommates in your
head just don't get along. And you got to be
crazy to be on this level and your roommates don't
get along. That's the biggest journey I've had is trying
to get myself to have the roommates in my head
get along. In the calm where I don't you know,
(10:31):
I would cause chaos, and a lot of times bad
chaos because I felt better and bad chaos, any kind
of chaos than the colmn you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Well, you used to. You're used to pushing yourself, used
to people pushing you really hard. So like if you're
an NFL player, every week it's a day, it's a
box of chocolate. It's like you don't know what you're
gonna get. It could be Monday morning, Sunday night, the
best night of your life. You know, Monday. Great day. People,
you're reading your press clip, ands people are patting you
on the back. It's a good vibe I've been in
(11:00):
the facility, or you see a Wednesday even better, or
it's I don't want to go to the grocery store,
like there's no food in my fridge because I don't
want to leave the house except for to go to
the facility because I am so embarrassed by the way
a defense played or I missed a tackle, or I
can't stop beating myself up over this thing. And it
continues into retirement, by the way, which is something that
(11:21):
like I still haven't figured that part out, but I
will tell you I'm getting a lot better at riding
the even keeled wave. And I think if I could
give any yeah, like advice, Yeah, everybody deserves it. But
my advice to a younger guy when you get out
is like, you got to get used to that still
(11:42):
waters thing. Man, You know, you you just it might
be the scariest thing in the world to you. Some
guys I play with are like they can't wait to
sit on the porch, you know. And I love time
to myself and I love doing nothing. But I'm talking
about not knowing what's ahead of you a week from
just hey, no structure for a little bit, take some time,
(12:04):
work on yourself. Do not lose the hunger to get
in the gym. Don't let your health kind of slip,
because I kind of did it. I was dealing with
pain and stuff and I couldn't do certain things physically,
Like my neck was really bad for you. I couldn't
like turn my neck like the way my dad turns
his neck. That's why I was turning my neck. So,
(12:25):
you know, I couldn't lift like so I was losing weight.
I wasn't healthy. I was staying up late, you know,
working till two three in the morning. I treated my
body like a temple for twenty two years.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, I would go out and drink and have fun.
Like I'm not like some square, but I definitely I
invested in my health. I think when you get out
there's no roadmap that same thing that's terrifying in a
sense of like just you don't have anything to do.
The most terrifying part is you need some structure. And
I'm not talking about like you need a job immediately.
What I am saying is like if your downtime needs
(12:59):
to involve eating right, exercising, sleeping, social interaction, you know,
be around your friends and then build the rest of
your life out because if you start doing that that's
going to take You're gonna get consumed and whatever it is,
whether you're going up to New York to be in
finance or you're getting the media, you're coaching, Like, you
(13:19):
got to take care of yourself. Your body just went
through a lot of trauma, and I think your brain chemistry, Like, honestly,
since we do talk about mental health, mental wealth, whatever
you want to call it, like, we are chemically different
than other people because we needed that dopamine kick for
for so long. We needed we needed to push ourselves.
Do you think about how often I exercise an NFL player,
(13:40):
even in season where I didn't really consider it exercise.
You know, I'm on my feet ten hours a week,
not counting the game.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
You know, you're and you're in sixty car accidents a day,
or when you used to be able to hit every day.
You know, it's like.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
You got to get rid of those car accidents. But
you got to find something that pushes you that you know,
like and you got to do something physical so like
you got hey, professionally, give your head some time to
you know, like don't feel like you're under the gun.
But physically, mentally, and emotionally, you should attack retirement the
way you attack football. And that means like taking ownership
(14:14):
in your body, your diet, you know, the sleep you're getting.
It's taken me four or five years to find an
equil librum, and I'm still tweaking, you know, I'm still
like tweaking with little things in my in my health
or in my routine. And I got all these things
I want to do. It's a constant evolution. But if
you're not trying to evolve, you know, don't worry about destination.
You'll figure it out at some point. I haven't figured
(14:35):
it out yet, but like, if you're not walk in
that way, you're gonna get stuck and you're gonna feel like,
you know, what the fuck am I doing at this stage?
I mean, I've felt lost over the past couple years
at different times, and I was prepared.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Tell me where you're saying you were lost? Was it
mostly lost as far as Okay, I don't have that
daily structure, even though you're saying you did are you
new to put it in or were you lost because
you were still running on the hamster wheel.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Hampshire wheel, I think it was. I think it's hamster
wheel and that takes up all your time and you
can't work on yourself. You look up and you're like,
all right, I'm busting my ass to build this company,
and like you can justify it in all these ways. Hey,
it's gonna be good for my family, all this shit,
But like if I'm not seeing my kids as much,
like why did I retire right, you know? Or if
I'm even more stressed now, like my wife had to
(15:23):
talk to me a couple of times and been like,
you know, you're more stressed now than you were when
you played because of running a business. And you know,
like you have to have people around you to take
your temperature and and you know, come at you a
little bit and be honest with you. So you need
to surround yourself people that are going to tell you
if you're kind of falling by the wayside. So I think,
(15:43):
just you know, when I get focused on something, I
kind of obsess over it, and I got a little
too wrapped up and trying to build this company. I know,
anybody's built a company. That's the way. If you probably
talk to Pat McAfee or something, he'd probably say, fuck,
there was a minute there where, and that guy loves
to work, but I'm sure he had to take his
temperature at some point. And maybe it's happening now because
(16:04):
that guy's NonStop. But whoever you are, like, that'll get you.
I think also, like I'm just really hard on myself.
So I've always I think your career, whether you know
it or not, it's like a death. You kind of
mourn it in five stages, you know, and I don't
know if they're in order, you know, grief, finger, denial,
or whatever the fuck it is. But I went through
different stages with my career where there's like the bargaining.
(16:26):
There's like you try to rewrite chapters that you didn't
like in your head, like what could I have done differently?
What if I wasn't drafted here, bro, Like what if
I didn't have to deal with this at this difference? Well,
it's never going to change. And the thing I realize
is like for players that are still dwelling on shit
in the past is like nobody cares, dude, except you.
(16:47):
Like when you see me.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Big for you, but not for everybody else.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
For everybody else's like, you know, when I see people,
I'm not like running through how their career went. You know,
there's some people you're starstruck by, you know. And I
had a great career. I had a lot of fun
and they got to win. And it's a perfect example
because I got friends that would be like, Dude, you
got to win two super Bowls, you played eleven years,
you had seventy sacks, You fucking did all this shit.
I didn't get do any of that. But it's all relative,
(17:12):
And I think that's why even like Hall of famers
can be hard on themselves, Like you know my dad, Yeah,
like no doubt, guy's done everything. But we always talk
about deep talks at the end of on a Monday.
We're the same way where we're we could have three sacks,
but we're focused on the thing we didn't do.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
So how do you teach yourself to have grace during this?
Like what are you doing to teach yourself to have
grace because that's the biggest thing. Again, you get caught
in the shamsur real Listen, I was the first minute
by minute breaking news guy in this country before there's
this NFL insider role. You know what, But when that
internet thing first came out, I had two phones and
a BlackBerry and a fucking beeper. I think back there,
like it didn't stop right. It ruined every relationship I
(17:51):
ever had because it didn't stop, didn't stop, didn't stop,
didn't stop. And then I had to make a same
as you, like a concervative effort. Thank god. Fox said, Hey,
you're gonna die if you keep doing this. We just
need to be great on Sundays. You're okay, Like you
don't have to worry about this much anymore. Be a
personality on this show, kick ass on Sundays, be better
than everybody else. But that was hard for me to
shut it down. And now I still work on giving
(18:13):
myself grace because I don't do it the same way
I used to do it. How are you trying to
give yourself grace? How are you learning? Where do you
go to learn it?
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Well, it's a fucked up catch twenty two, which is
like a prerequisite of being great for a lot of
people or accomplishing something is being their toughest critic, their
own toughest critic and listen I wouldn't have done it
any different. I'm glad I was the way I was,
because if I wasn't, I definitely would be working at
like Mencer's and charlottesvill or something, you know, enjoying my
(18:41):
dad's money or whatever. Like I had to have a
little bit of a different you know, I had to
have a different standard for myself because the standard was
so high, and the very thing that can make you
successful is the thing that can sink you in retirement
because it's a different game, dude, there's no gun to
your head. You know. What the gun is to your
head is like be a great dad, be a good husband,
(19:02):
be be a friend, you know, like fulfill things that
are important to you, like enjoy things like find hobbies
like this is the chapter of your life if you're
financially secure, is like keep that ball rolling, feed your family.
But find some balance, dude. And there's no balance when
you're a football player. So I think, I think, how
are you.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Giving yourself grace? Like out because you're side You're right.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Well, I'm gonna tell you I'm still figuring it out.
But because I'm the same way as a media member.
But I think that very thing that realization that like,
once you realize you're even smaller than you thought you were,
it's like kind of like zooming out and you get
the planet, you have the solar system, you have the galaxy,
and then there's like like a little spec That's the
(19:48):
way I think about things, like when I'm really when
it's like, bro, this is so small, dude, I'm going
to be I'm gonna be dead in forty fifty years.
Like it's just not it's not import You're gonna look
up and you spend your whole life being hard on
yourself and you're gonna waste it and nobody's gonna care
and there's not going to be a second chance at it.
So like you're the only person living in your reality
(20:11):
between your ears, and like no one else cares. At
night when you're ruminating over bullshit, nobody else is thinking
about the play didn't make or the year you had
when you got hurt or like whatever, Dude, no one
cares except for you. So you are not only wasting
your time, you're also killing yourself, dude, because stress kills you.
(20:31):
And and so I just look yeah, yeah, I just
look at things like I want to live a long time,
and I want to be here for my family. And
you know, we just had a daughter seven months ago,
and like all of a sudden, You're like, Okay, I
got to take care of my health. I got to
take care of myself man, you know, like I'm thirty
eight years old, Like stress is part of it. And
I think therapy, man, Like we've talked about this, but
(20:52):
I just had I just said enough was enough at
some point in retirement, and I just started. I've never
had a problem with talking to somebody, but the person
that you trust, right, Like somebody that you can trust,
like that you hit it off with and you can trust.
And and so for me, I've been seeing the same
therapists for maybe three years now.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
They're coaching. For anybody out there who's listening to this
view of therapists as a coach, like you go to
strength coach every single day, He's just start. These are
our feeling coaches, you know, like is there a heart,
mind and soul coach? Don't because so many guys are
like I don't want to go to therapists. What if
they say something. I don't trust someone? How am I
going to find someone that one gets me? Crazy. How
am I gonna find someone? There's a million ways to
(21:31):
find right and your heelp dot com and there's a
million things, but they're coaches. I I got something for
you too, all right. This is something I do because
we've got to train our souls. And what I started
doing is so now. I don't know if you meditate.
I meditate it now. In the morning, I'll basically put
on a song, right and for the first song, I
(21:52):
just go over things I'm grateful for, and it could
be things yesterday, my whole life, whatever, I've got it
now down where Rosie and I write a gratitude list
of morning ten things were grateful for the day before,
or we do it at night ten things were grateful
for that day. So we go to sleep with some gratitude.
And it's hard at first because we don't give ourselves
like grace. So you got to teach yourself. And it
could be something like I'm grateful for Sammy, I'm grateful
(22:15):
for God. I'm grateful for the sun. I'm grateful for
a fucking pair of shoes. Whatever it is that made
you happy that day, you put it. But the next song,
and this is the key. The next song, I meditate
on things I'm proud of that I've done, so I
try and counteract all those things you're talking about, why
didn't I do this right? Why didn't I do that right?
(22:35):
Or you did this wrong, or you missed this play,
or you missed this jay, or you missed out or
you missed that. So now it's a song of things
I'm proud of. And I had to train myself how
to be proud of myself, and man, Chris, it's made
such a huge difference in that grace that I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And I could try that, but I got to tell you,
I'm not really proud of much.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well, that's what you have to but you need to
be well the man of the year, all the wills
that you've built out, Yeah, you'll get that.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
That's what you've acquired.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
What this Okay, the time you've put in, the sacrifice
you've made, That's what I'm saying. You got to learn
how to be proud of yourself or you don't have
any equity to balance the fucking scale.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
The scale is always going to be in the way
that you said, you know what, I'm proud of honestly,
Like the football thing's different because you know, I come
from a different background than most guys, and most guys
have trouble with this thing.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
I mean, imagine if you go home and what you
just did is an extraordinary at all, which I don't need.
I don't need that, you know, Like, but it's it's
the framing. The context with with which I went out
and embarked on my life journey is totally different than
than most people. You know, Like, whatever you do is
going to be compared to something that quite frankly, everybody
(23:48):
who's wagging the finger at you like you didn't do that,
they didn't do it either, right right the sideline motherfucker,
you know. And so so I don't need to be
proud of it. I am proud of myself.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
But no, no, no, no here but here.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
But I'll tell you what I'm proud of. I'll tell
you what I'm proud of. Proud of being a great teammate,
proud proud of playing hurt, proud of you know. But
I don't get proud of accomplishments. You know what I'm saying,
because you need to.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
But but here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
This is proud of being a dad.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Okay, so every day but none of that, Chris, is
where I want you to dive in. Okay. So look
when I first did this gratitude list, I was out
in Thailand. I'm my little yo fucking mental health journey,
my mom and body spirit journey. And these monks are
telling me that the price did you in one bite.
I was in the fucking jungle, out of water. I
was training in the jungle. Man.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
It was the greatest thing ever.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And but these monks are like I was dealing with
these time monks. They were like, Hey, we need you
write a hundred things You're grateful for them? Like a
hundred things I'm grateful for? What do you just fucking
kidd me? And I was the same way, and they
had to teach me. And like I said, they're like,
who do you like mundane little things? Like I put
that down. So same thing with the pride thing, right,
You're like, oh, I'm not proud of this, Chris, you
(24:59):
gotta go back. I can look at some plays that
did fucking energize you, like, I'm proud of this. I
want supposed to win on that day and I did that,
So put that in the back, right, But it could
be days. Hey, I'm proud of I got one of
my kids to do this. Hey, I'm proud of one
day I had a conversation with my friend that did this. Hey,
I'm proud of this fucking set I did whatever it was. Hey,
I'm proud that I was able to have this long
(25:22):
career or I could buy this thing that I like.
So I'm saying you got to train yourself instead of
saying because you're already poo pooing yourself. So instead of no, I'm.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Not poo pooing myself for something to draw pride, like
self pride, Like there are things I'm proud of, Like
I'm proud of being a great dad, I'm proud of
being a great friend. Like my boys will tell you,
I don't change. I'm the same fucking guy. I'm proud
of my work ethic, I'm proud of what we build
a green light, I'm hopefully proud of the boss I am.
But with football, there's just something about it. You know,
(25:53):
it doesn't have to be football, just yeah, okay in
the morning. Yeah yeah, it's just.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Things you're fucking proud of. Because we're so used to
beating ourselves up. So if you start counterbalancing it and
start telling those fucking bad roommates, you know, having a
good room ways, say hey, fuck that we're in this town. Now,
we're fighting back here. Now, ain't just you guys talking
in this head. Now it helps you out tremendously. It's work,
but you're talking about, Hey, how do we find grace?
This is a way everybody could find grace, but it's work,
(26:22):
so attack it that way.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Yeah, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try, and like, you know,
I just also say I don't know when it comes
to like retirement. One of the biggest breakthroughs for me
we talked about this recently, was like actually formally getting
diagnosed with ADHD, right, you know, like that was a
big ah. And when we talked about therapy earlier, I
(26:46):
totally wish I had gone to see a sports cyc
while I played, because you know, like as good as
I was, I would have been better if I had,
you know, Like I was talking to a teammate recently
about it was Lane. Okay, Lane's one of my best buddies,
and he's been real open with me about the mental
health stuff before he kind of came out with it
and we we have like tough conversations and shit, and
(27:07):
then like this year, Lane Johnson right from me, Johnson, Yeah,
Men of the Year nominee, And to me, all those
guys are winners, whether they win or not. But I
think one of the coolest things for me is like
a friendship like that where you know, I was coming
into Philly do inside the NFL this year. So every
Monday night I'd ride up in suv and sometimes I
leave a little earlier to go sit at Lane's house
(27:29):
and we'd watch Monday night football or something and just
kick it like we were still teammates, which is great
and of itself. But we sat on the back porch
and one night, you know, I had just recently talked
to my therapists about like formally making you know, attacking
the ADHD thing, and just to talk to somebody who
I identify as like me that talk me through you know, Hey,
(27:53):
this is what this I've heard about this drug, Like
maybe you could try this, this is a practice you
could like you can engage in, you know, just to
even because there's some people that you talk to, you
like that person doesn't understand me, you know, And I
think that's the hardest thing, whether the person does or not,
whether it's fair or not. Lane, for instance, was somebody that,
(28:14):
like I wish I hadn't in my locker room when
I played for most of my career, because it's not
that we didn't have deep conversations in that fucked up
d line room in Saint Louis, but we didn't know
how to frame them.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
And Lane had to be vulnerable back then.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Well, no, we knew how to be vulnerable, but we
didn't know how to frame whatever we were feeling. In context.
It was nobody that had gone out seeking solutions or
talking about mental health issues like formerly it was more like,
hey man, I'm hurting right now, I'm sad, my life's
fucked up, you know. I just somebody died back home,
or like we were tired. Everybody would talk about whatever. Bro,
(28:49):
I've had deep conversations, but a guided deep conversation with
somebody who sought solutions. And I think with the thing
that Lane's doing, that's so great is there are going
to be more guys like that in the locker room.
And he changed my life having that conversation. Now, the
first medication I tried hasn't worked out, but what it is.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
I told you about them one of the Super Bowl Calbury.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah. And you know what, I gotta be honest with you.
I stopped the adderall bro good and I feel great,
And honestly, I feel better than I felt when I started,
because when I identified what the problem was, it was
illuminating to me. All the things that I've dealt with
for so many years. You know, they're not debilitating in
a sense of like I can't do my job or
(29:30):
do this job, but there are things that are like
what the fuck is wrong with me? And now that
you know what you deal with, you can read, you
can strategize, like there's all types of things that I
wasn't doing that are very controllable that can improve my condition.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
But had I not had conversations Lane to encourage me
to go down that path formally, then I can't attack
the problem right, and so we might be vulnerable. We
might be like, yeah, man, I'm at the bar, spilling
my guts my buddy or whatever. Year four or after
a game. It doesn't matter if you're not really working
actively to solve the problems and you don't know what
(30:08):
the problems are. And I think that's why therapy is important,
you know. I think that's really important. And anybody says like, oh,
I don't know who I can trust, like YadA, YadA, YadA.
Like bro, all right, you're gonna watch twenty years go by,
and you're gonna say there was a you in there
that was waiting to be out and live and in
(30:28):
peace or some improvement, you know, and your the way
you feel, and you're gonna you're gonna lose that time
Like that for me is what changes watching my kids
grow up and I'm like, hey, don't I want to
be as good as I can be upstairs? Like don't
I want to show up with the with the right
equipment on? And that to me was that window with
(30:48):
my kids where you only get it once. I watched
my kids grow up from like three to now whaling seven,
and it was it fucked me up. I was like, bro,
you better get your shit in order, like sooner than later,
because getting in order at sixty, like I want to
get in order right now so I can be present
and be my best self for these guys and now
(31:10):
guys and gals.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
And again I want you to offset it now with
saying oh man, I missed this with Whalen. But now
on while you start every morning, go I'm proud of
this I did with Whalen. Yeah, I mean that's what
I'm saying that we got to start working on that,
that other tool that's out there. I just want to
point on out. You know, you and I have this
ADHD talk like. I was the first one of the
first adults, not the first diagnosed with a built add
(31:32):
on the East coast of America. Princeton University. I got
taken into their their program in nineteen eighty nine. So
I went through riddle In and then they put me
on Naranton to offset the values of riddle In because
the peaks and valleys are bad. But yeah, I built
my brain chemistry over the years, and then I stopped that,
(31:52):
and then adderall came out, and then you know, I
started getting this the brand name instead of the generic,
instead of the brand in. And then finally a doctor
said to me, or somebody said to me, I said,
why am I so fucking madic? What's going on? Well,
you know, when you get generic, they're not the same.
All of them are different. They're all gonna act differently.
I'm like, what do you mean it's not just addroll.
It's just mixed differently. So I was like, holy fuck,
(32:15):
so I'm putting this poison into my BIY. That's getting
my mind so by manic beyond manic like Skyfall and
I had Look, I lived with Lane for five months.
He wasn't out at that point, right, he saw me
go through shit. He didn't say that. At least I had
your dad who said to me, hey, hey, hey, the
sky's not faull to it. What the fuck is going on?
What is happening with you? That's why I love this.
(32:36):
You know the drug Calberry that's a non stimulant. It's
helped me the stimulant part and getting the generic forms
of things. So I just want you to be careful.
All that is. It was a almost a life ender
for me, I would say, by taking some of those
generics where I would just act in a way like
this is not you. What is going on with you?
What is happening? I beat up myself during that time.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
You're trying to you're trying to find out who the
real you is. But in the process, like the scary
part about just taking different drugs is like it can
fuck you up and I'm not saying like people shouldn't
try it, Like I'm not a doctor. But what I
am saying is, but.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Every but.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
What you're doing, what I'm talking about, and what you're
talking about, I really do believe there's a lot of
people and I'm not trying to slight some people. Here's
what I am proud of, Jay, is that I will
fight to improve. I will fight like how to improve,
whether it was on the football field or in the
media or at my job. But also I think the
most important place to fight for improvement is in your head.
(33:38):
And like if guys aren't willing to because of not
wanting to be vulnerable, or like they're afraid to talk
to a therapist, or like you are leaving money on
the table. And I'm saying that. I'm not saying that
like from a business sense, like in your life, you
are leaving money on the table if you're not looking
to actively improve. But you've got to get a little muddy,
you got to get a little dirty, Like there's going
(33:58):
to be some trial and error, you know. Like it's
like I'm quitting so little thing. I was hammering these
zins like these nicotine man like like way too much. Okay,
you know, I dip my whole life basically, and I
was like, well, I got to stop that because I
don't want to like I don't want to die, like
like I get kids now, you know, it's like, hey,
(34:21):
you know what, why'd you get mouth cancer? So I
switched to zin and then next thing, you know, I'm
like a nicotine addict. So right now I'm like trying
to cut down and you're doing all the trial and error, Like, hey,
is this is this going to improve how I feel
day to day? Like it might be you know, you
might not be drinking enough water. It might not you know,
like there's all these obvious things that maybe are right
(34:43):
under your nose that like, but you just got to
be willing to to cut certain things out, add certain
things and like be honest with yourself. And like like
you said, I'm sure you take a journal or a diary,
but I try, like hell, even with my ADHD brain,
to keep a record of what I'm trying to do
to improve my life and see if it actually worked.
And so I just think it's like it's trial and error, man,
(35:03):
whether it's drugs or health or diet or sleep or
like it's all it's the biggest puzzle. Man, it's the
hardest thing. You got to really try to improve at it.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I love that, like always trying and improve it. I
think a lot of people forget it. That's that's always
gotta be the eye on the prost. And then again,
give yourself grace. Hey I might have only done a
little today, or hey I might like every time someone
leaves them breakable, I tell her crew compliment that person
whatever the fuck they did, even if they think they
had a shitty day. Hey, you fought through a shitty day.
(35:33):
That's something to be proud of, real, real quick. You're
also in the ADHD part when when I first got
diagnosed again, they tell me I have a learning disability.
Being in a Jersey shore with a learning disability ain't
fucking great. But I flipped the script on it. I
looked at this and not on a learning disability. I
just don't learn the way y'all teach, right, right? So
where then I had to look at it and take
(35:55):
a step further. Where does my ADHD give me power?
Where is it my superpower? And I think the same
for you also, it's something to be proud of, is Yeah,
I may not be able to sit there and listen
to a fucking lecture for three minutes or three hours.
I could do six things at once. That allows us
to multitest, allows us to have six different things we're
(36:15):
going after. Allowed you to do all these different things
to become the Walter Payton Man of the Year, and
so your ADHD ended up helping you and.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Being y Yeah in some ways. Yeah, No, I agree,
And that's why.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
I feel it instead of the shame of it.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Yeah, look at look at things from a positive standpoint,
Like I know, I'm probably better as a podcaster for
having it in some ways, you know. But it's about
identifying the areas where it hurts you and trying to
make little improvements or strategize to cover those weaknesses.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Up right, last two questions, I'd never talked to you
about this. I was obviously doing the game. Give me
something about the twenty eight to three, A game that
we don't know that you saw out there, that you've
never said or just the rest of us don't know about.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Yeah, it's funny because I've had to talk at length
about it.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
What I'm talking about for people don't know.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
I mean definitely, I mean I was.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Down twenty eight to three to the Falcons in the
Super Bowl and his Patriots and Tom Brady come all
the way back and went go ahead.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
I was going to retire for sure. I mean, like,
you know, like I think I might have told you
that before, but I said this. It was pretty open
about that game. It's funny, like Dad, he'll tell you
this all the time. He came down to Atlanta and
New England for me and free agency, and he had
said he had nudged me towards the Patriots, which yeah,
it was true, but sorry, Dad, like I wouldn't going
(37:28):
to Atlanta that Dan Quinn wanted me to play.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
I was trying to nudg you to Dan Quinn.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Yeah, well I love Dan. I love Dan, dude, but
he wanted me. I was like, I was like, I
went down there to Flowery Branch, sat in traffic for
a very long time, and then I was like, you know,
I met with Dan and Dan was like, hey, we
want you to be like our Michael Bennett, and I'm like,
well that's a compliment and everything. But he played inside
a lot, so you know, I'm gonna go up to
(37:52):
New England and play outside backer. We'll guess what ended
up happening. You end up playing inside free technique. Even Okay,
at least Dan was going to have me in a
fucking four eye. But the whole thing was, you know,
like at the half of that game, I just that
was one of the lowest points in my life because
not only was it like we're about to lose a
Super Bowl twenty eight three like everybody, but there were
a couple guys in that situation on every team. That's
(38:14):
a very unique deal where it's like this could be
it for you. Maybe you spent eight years in Saint
Louis and one in fifteen two and fourteen all that shit.
Like I was done, bro, I was like, there's no
way I'm going to keep doing this bullshit in another
thirty minutes. Like when this game's over, I'm done. And
just when you think about the way your life turns out,
(38:35):
that's why you just got to have gratitude. You say
gratitude and all, like, there's two totally different realities that
I live in. If if Kyle Shanahan runs the ball
versus if he doesn't. If Dante had retired, I mean
I'd be retired and miserable. Wow, I don't know, maybe
I'd to figure out a way to overcome it, but
(38:55):
the challenges would be totally different. I'd never I'd never
had those two years in Philly, which for me, like
the first super Bowl was like weight off my chest.
The second one was like I didn't cry after the
first one. The second one, I cried like a baby.
It was like something happened where it was like it's
okay now, you know, like you can go. And of
course I was like, I went to it one more year,
(39:17):
You're about to make me cry, you know, But it
was it was like I'll never forget being on the field,
and you know, you got to break through a lot
of bullshit to be satisfied in the NFL, right, like
evidenced by what I just told you, Like New England
was great, but it wasn't enough for me obviously. But
the release after that Philly super Bowl, I don't know
what it was, man, But I never get that. I
(39:40):
never get that that feeling. My life is so much different.
You think I would have had a podcast. I would
have wanted to shut the fuck up and disappear forever
after twenty eight to three, if that's possible. So I
just it was such a big deal. The funny story
was before the game and we almost cursed it. Me
and Alan Branch if you remember him, big Yep. We
(40:00):
went to like the place was a zoo, like all
around the hotel there's a CBS or Walgreens, like a
block away in Houston, like day of the game, in
our Patriots sweatsuits. We went in there and we got
like a bunch of bottles of Andre and slipped them
in our bag because we were like, we're going to
do the thing that fucking Mahomes and them did this
year with the baseball celebration. So we had a bunch
of Andre in our bags. I just cannot imagine how
(40:23):
stupid we would have felt had we lost that game.
After the Champa sitting there, yeah, just like clinking around
on the bus and the way up we got back
there after the game. Evidently Andre doesn't fucking shoot out
like like Corbel or whatever. Everybody's waiting for us to
pop this champagne and it just looks like a like
(40:44):
a bad volcano, and you know, just like that whole
week was crazy, the stories behind the scenes. If you
asked every guy in the roster, you'd hear so much
cool shit, Like the whole team was sick the year
we played the Patriots, Like we were standing the Mall
of America. It was zero degrees out. Everybody's got ivy
backs like Friday night, you know, like the team's sick.
(41:04):
There's just so much going on. Funny story the Philly
year when we were doing the walkthrough in the stadium.
You know, Saturday, you go do the walk through the stadium,
do pictures? Your family comes in. Well, in the walkthrough portion,
we were running fake plays that we don't even have
in the playbook because it was so nervous about Bill
or the Patriots, like Spygate two, they have somebody up
(41:25):
in the luxury box. So there's so many untold stories
from Super Bowl weeks. Man, it's just such an experience.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Fucking incredible. All right, last question, I ask every one
of my guesses, give me an unbreakable moment. Give me
the moment that should have broken you anywhere in life,
could have but didn't, and as a result, you came
out of the other side stronger forever.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Probably the end of my Saint Louis deal. You know,
I had to climb a pretty big hill. Not as
a draft pick. I was a high draft pick. But
just like from a standpoint, a bad team, a lot
of expectations. You know, if you google my name my
rookie year, it would have been like Chris Long bust,
you know, and really through the first half of my
second year because I couldn't get it going. But then
(42:09):
the second half of my second year just started rolling.
And then you know, like had forty over four years
and I was one of the guys. But then then
got hurt, you know, and tried to play hurt, you know,
played through a high ankle, shot it up all year,
contract year, had thirteen, got paid, things were going well.
Broke my did something to my ankle, had surgery, decided
(42:31):
to come back. Looked awful, like awful, embarrassing. If I
look back at I wish I'd never played them. The
very next year came back, I felt like everybody thought
I was on the way out pretty much, and second
game broke my leg. So two years in a royard
and I'll never forget getting cut by the Rams and
like the last two years, like the team moves, you know,
(42:52):
I can remember the last night at the Dome. It
was the weirdest thing in the world. You're like I'm
getting cut in a couple of weeks. I've been here
eight years. I'm never gonna win, you know, I'm gonna
leave an embarrassment. I came in, you know, my first year,
I'm a bus my eighth year, I'm always hurt, you know.
And I thought my career was over at that point too.
(43:13):
And funny I talk about the Pats game and thinking
I was done. But I owe a lot to Bill,
to Bill Belichick for giving me a shot, because I
did not want to go play for any old team
in twenty sixteen. I wanted to win, you know, like
otherwise I wouldn't have kept playing.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
And a place to build good memories.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Yeah, like yeah, see what that's like. Yeah, And so
I'll never forget. We just had our first son whaling,
and I'm in the hospital. I'm kind of feeling sorry
for myself, even though the babies here, I'm just still
just dwelling on all this shit. I go to Harris
here to grab a six pack or whatever, and my
phone rings, and I'm like, fuck, I better pick it up.
(43:52):
And I like go to the front of the aisle
where the service is decent, and it's like gross. Bill
Belichick you know, and his voice and I'm like, whoa, whoa,
and I'll just never forget, Like just the call he
took a guy who was like really downtrod and probably
ready to quit, and I was like, I have no
(44:13):
information on what it's going to be up there, but
I'm ready to go, you know. And had he not
called and he said on the phone, he was like, hey, man,
you're a hell of a player. I don't know what
we're gonna do with you, Like, I don't know where
you're gonna fit, but I'm gonna find a fit. And
that leap of faith on my end and the leap
of faith on his end, which he takes them all
the time. This is been't a big deal for him,
but it was the biggest deal in the world for me.
(44:34):
And if it weren't for that, I probably would have broke.
So some of it's me pushing through. We had a
picture in our d line room. Mike Waffle was our
d line coach, who was the coach for the Giants,
Old marine, fucking intense cat. But we had this great room.
Aaron Donald, Me, Robert Quinn, you know, like William Hayes,
(44:57):
Nick Fairley, Kenna Lank for like all first rounders, but
we never had success as a team. And we had
this picture on the wall, and I think this is
true in life and it's true in football. There's this
diagram of these two guys with pickaxes and they're like
diamond mining. I'm pretty sure you've seen this. And one
of the guys is walking right to left, back towards
(45:20):
the entrance to the cave with his pickaxe over his shoulder,
and he's dejected sweating. On the other side of that
wall to the right where he's walking away from, there's
a huge diamond like six inches through that wall, and
there's another dude on the bottom and he's just hammering away,
and it's just it's a very simple thing, but so
(45:40):
many people give up before they get to realize what
they've been working for this whole time. And for me,
that was a very clean incident that illustrates just that
is like I was this close to saying, hey, fuck this,
and who knows what I'm doing right now, But my
life is a lot better for having just just wake
up one more day, you know, just just put your
(46:01):
shoes on one more day. Just keep fucking walking, dude,
you know it doesn't have to be a sprint, but
just walk. And if you keep walking, eventually you get
a break. And and that was for me, Bill calling
me in a haristeater.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
I love that, dude. That is great, dude, You're a
lot of our lives are better because of you magic.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
You know. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Start tomorrow doing the pride thing.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Right you start, I'll do it. I'll do it perfect.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Well, we'll be battle buddies. We'll check in. Dude. I
love you, I appreciate you. I'm fucking proud of you.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
Man.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Yeah and yeah, let's and again like this is the
best thing we got. People like this too. Where were
you and I could lean into each other throw ideas
at each other. I've been through it now for a
long time. Man. So you got questions, call my answer
up and go, hey, man, if you try this, if
you've done that, we've done that. I'll bounce it off
of YouTube.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
All right, you got it, brother, Good to see you.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
I love you, buddy.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Chris Locke
This is Unbreakable with Jay Glacier, a mental wealth podcast
Build you from the inside out. Now here's Jay Glacier.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome into Unbreakable, a mental wealth podcast with Jay Glazer.
I'm Jay Glazer. Got a great guess for you today.
You definitely heard him. You've seen him play football, He's
won Super Bowls. But before I get to him, if
you're like many people, you may be surprised to learn
that one in five adults in this country experienced mental
illness last year. You get far too many failed to
receive the support they need. Carolyn Behavioral Health is doing
(00:37):
something about it. They understand that behavioral health is a
key part of whole health, delivering compassionate care that treats physical, mental, emotional,
and social needs and tenem Carolyn behavioral health raising the
quality of life through empathy and action. With that, I
want to bring in how do I introduce them?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Error?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
So two Tom Super Bowl champion Patriots. He was there
for the twenty eight three game, obviously for the Patriots
Philadelphia Eagles. Oh I got a great tattoo as a
result of that win. Uh second round pick of the
Saint Louis Rams, but also probably best accomplishment, Walter Payton
Man of the Year Award gave up his entire twenty
seventeen salary to charity and host of the green Light
(01:16):
podcast One and Only my nephew, Chris Long, How are you, brother?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Uncle Jay's.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
People, don't you know? Sometimes it's funny we go back.
I've known you since you were like nine, I think, yeah,
had nine or eleven.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, and even then you were taller than me. That's
what I was going to say. Yeah, yeah, we got
quite the history, man, you know. And we have one
close friend in common, Kyle Long. Yeah, yeah, Kyle Long.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And that other guy who looks like yeah, he looks
like look at Fred Getstad, at Herman Munster, all combined
obviously my brother Howry Long. So I call Chris my nephew.
So here's it. I want to dive in a few things.
But you know, your podcast wildly successful, and you know,
I work with a lot of these players of you know,
when they're retired how to handle transition. Had to handle retirement,
(02:10):
which is difficult for a lot of guys that jump
out to try to find the next thing. You lose
your your team, you lose your structure. More than anything
like your schedule for the first time in your life.
You don't know where to go, when to go, who
to go with, who to sit with, who to eat with.
How did the genesis or the crux of your podcast
come about? Because this was you started when there really
(02:31):
wasn't you know a lot of these players are now
following your lead. But it was like you and Pat
McAfee and that was really it. So how to tell
me that? I've never asked youesus, I've never dived in
to how the genesis of this started.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, I never thought about it, like the thing you
just said with Pat and me and there's a couple
other guys. I'm sure there have been podcasts in a while, but.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
You know, not like how you guys have blown it up. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
No, I mean like we've been lucky and more than anything,
we've just been consistent, you know, Like I mean there's
still days where I'm like, what the are we doing?
Speaker 2 (02:59):
This is my podcast?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
You know, what the fuck are we doing here? You know, like,
what the fuck am I doing here? You know, like
is this a purpose? Am I happy doing this? Does
this seem successful? Like? Is this success? Is this who
I want to be? Do I want to be a podcaster.
Like it's a weird thing to go from like a
gladiator to like a guy with a microphone that's supposed
to be intellectual and you know, have these thought provoking
(03:22):
conversations and overanalyzed stuff and sensationalized stuff. You know. The
media is what you make it, Jay, right. You know.
I think back in the day, it was like, hey,
the media is I used to talk to coaching about this,
Like the media, there's us and there's them, you know,
that whole thing. And I understand that b writers and
you know the history of people that have to get
a story out, and you know, twenty four hour news cycle,
(03:44):
you got ESPN, you got a mind for topics every day.
So there is this this kind of thought that like
the media is all one thing. But I think what
players have done is they've cut out the middleman. And
not that I'm saying the middleman's a bad guy. I
think the media is extremely important. We don't get paid
as much as we get paid. You look at that
new salary cap of north to two hundred and fifty
five million dollars in the NFL, Like these are huge numbers,
(04:07):
and TV deals matter. The media matters. So I'm appreciative
all of that, but we wanted to do things differently,
Like I wanted to do things on my terms and
be the boss. And long story short, I just I
started thinking about at the end of my career, and.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
What at the end of your last year or like
two years or three years.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Or so, probably my last year because you know, like
backing up twenty seventeen, I ended up in Philly, got
very lucky, was a part of a super Bowl team.
You know, it was my second and two years very lucky,
just right place, right time. I liken it to like
picking a Super Bowl future as a player. You know,
we can't gamble, but that was my best long shot
odds bet on the Eagles, like to go there in
(04:44):
free agency to leave the Pats. We won a super
Bowl twenty eighteen, I wasn't as happy. I was real
happy in Philly. I love being an Eagle and all
that stuff, but you know, the realities of being a
vet in the NFL, and like the way people look
at you and count you out and your body and
all stuff. I was like, man, I'm about to be done,
Like at some point here I need to be done.
And I think it's always important. I think how you
(05:07):
leave the game so important to your psyche, Like you
where you run out of the league. Did you leave
on your own terms? How did you leave? Like there's
only a few ways you can leave, and most of
them aren't good.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So that's a forever memory, right, it's like your last memory, yeah,
instead of it's so hard for us to go back
and think, like I got to force myself to think
about the things I've done in the past instead of yesterday.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yes, no, no, no question, And like whether you whether you're
dwelling on it or not, it dictates the way your
thought patterns go and the way you every day. When
I look at football, we all have regrets. We all
have things we wish we did. We all have maybe
some I mean, nobody leaves the game clean, right, you know,
we all. I won two Super Bowls at it in
(05:51):
my career. Couldn't have gone better. And I still have regrets.
I still dwell on the past. I'm still hard on myself.
And you know, I think going into that transition, it's
like you're a baby, dude, You're just you're learning to
walk again. It's a totally different reality, and it's hard
for anybody to anticipate, even me, who I was like, oh,
I'm going to plan this out. It's important to have
(06:12):
a plan for what you want to do before you finish.
And I kind of started planning a little bit preliminarily
in twenty eighteen, and then when I retired, I was like, Okay,
I got this plan. I'm going to go and act it.
And of course your plans are shit. You realize as
you're getting going that you don't know anything, and so
you know, I think for me the media, making a
(06:34):
decision to have my own podcast was dictated by a
couple of things. I was afraid of retirement. I was
afraid of idle time. I do not I'm a grinder.
I like to work. I like to have a purpose.
I like to build something. I'm creative. So the creative
part excited me, but it was mostly about like, I'm
afraid of what I will will happen to me if
(06:54):
I don't have a job, Like straight up, like all
the horror stories you know, you hear and they can
kind of compound and it can be a self fulfilling
prophecy if you're like, well, that's just what's gonna happen
to me. I'm gonna lose my fucking mind. I'm gonna
have all this idle time. I'm gonna get a divorce.
I'm gonna lose all my money, Like you know, all
the horror stories. I was like, if I can just
(07:14):
figure out a purpose, I'll be okay. And so through
that purpose, what I've realized over the last couple of
years is I didn't know anything too. I'm a workaholic
and I've needed to chill out on that because it's
almost like I got out and worked more than I
did when I played, which we got.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
To learn how to excel.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Yeah, that's a mistake, but it's one that I'm okay
with learning on the fly, you know, Like I'm I
think making mistakes is a really good way to learn.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And tell me why that's a mistake, because I want
players to use because I always Yeah, I talked to
a lot of guys and I'm like, listen, you you
spilt the blood, you put the foot out there. Yeah,
you need to find something, but you also learn how
to you have to learn. Say, I put my body
throughout so I can excel, so I can enjoy. Yeah,
the next part of my life, So explain that a
(07:59):
little bit more.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Think it's a mistake to go write it. It's good
to have a plan, but in your plan there needs
to be a decompression period. You need to force yourself
to face your fear if you have a plan, If
you have a plan and you know that, hey, in
six to eight months, I'm going to get to work
on this business venture. I have it seeded. I'm doing
kind of like preliminary work. I've done the homework. I've
(08:21):
got this thing outlined out, but I need to sit
with my family for a couple months. I need to
figure myself out a little bit. I think in retirement
you learn so much about yourself that football has. Football
obscures all your problems. It's like a band aid. You know,
it can create problems and the stresses and the you know,
(08:41):
like the existential crisis of being a football player and
all that stuff and the transition. But more than anything,
like you don't work on yourself from you work on
your body, You work on your your mind. You work
on your football career from the time. If you're like me,
from sixteen to thirty eight, I was one thing. So
there's no room to work on yourself. There's no that
(09:04):
thing is obscuring your view. And as great as it is,
you got to you got to rip that band aid
off and you have to be supported socially. You have
to have friends. You have to have you know, if
you've got family, you have to have a home base.
I was lucky to have all those things, right, I
had a plan, But what I didn't give myself was
a fucking break, dude. You know, like I think I
(09:25):
went since I retired. I took my first week vacation
maybe like a year and a half ago, and now
we're retired, how long like four or five years. I'm
not saying this like I work, dude, that's just what
I like to do. I have to be in movement,
but there are other ways, Like I think you have
to get good at you know, this idle time, bro,
(09:45):
because that's what that's what sinks a lot of guys
if they don't know how to how to be bored.
You know, you've you've got to learn to be bored
a little bit. Because the NFL is like this, right,
We're really good at riding the wave and the loads
are tremendous and the highs are amazing, retirements more like this.
It's flatline and that is a really scary thing for me,
(10:07):
and it's a scary thing for a lot of guys.
Like I can handle the roller coaster ride. I live
for that.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yeah, you live for chaos, the comp I always said,
I'm great chaos man. I sucking calm and that, yeah,
right in the com is when the roommates in your
head just don't get along. And you got to be
crazy to be on this level and your roommates don't
get along. That's the biggest journey I've had is trying
to get myself to have the roommates in my head
get along. In the calm where I don't you know,
(10:31):
I would cause chaos, and a lot of times bad
chaos because I felt better and bad chaos, any kind
of chaos than the colmn you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Well, you used to. You're used to pushing yourself, used
to people pushing you really hard. So like if you're
an NFL player, every week it's a day, it's a
box of chocolate. It's like you don't know what you're
gonna get. It could be Monday morning, Sunday night, the
best night of your life. You know, Monday. Great day. People,
you're reading your press clip, ands people are patting you
on the back. It's a good vibe I've been in
(11:00):
the facility, or you see a Wednesday even better, or
it's I don't want to go to the grocery store,
like there's no food in my fridge because I don't
want to leave the house except for to go to
the facility because I am so embarrassed by the way
a defense played or I missed a tackle, or I
can't stop beating myself up over this thing. And it
continues into retirement, by the way, which is something that
(11:21):
like I still haven't figured that part out, but I
will tell you I'm getting a lot better at riding
the even keeled wave. And I think if I could
give any yeah, like advice, Yeah, everybody deserves it. But
my advice to a younger guy when you get out
is like, you got to get used to that still
(11:42):
waters thing. Man, You know, you you just it might
be the scariest thing in the world to you. Some
guys I play with are like they can't wait to
sit on the porch, you know. And I love time
to myself and I love doing nothing. But I'm talking
about not knowing what's ahead of you a week from
just hey, no structure for a little bit, take some time,
(12:04):
work on yourself. Do not lose the hunger to get
in the gym. Don't let your health kind of slip,
because I kind of did it. I was dealing with
pain and stuff and I couldn't do certain things physically,
Like my neck was really bad for you. I couldn't
like turn my neck like the way my dad turns
his neck. That's why I was turning my neck. So,
(12:25):
you know, I couldn't lift like so I was losing weight.
I wasn't healthy. I was staying up late, you know,
working till two three in the morning. I treated my
body like a temple for twenty two years.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, I would go out and drink and have fun.
Like I'm not like some square, but I definitely I
invested in my health. I think when you get out
there's no roadmap that same thing that's terrifying in a
sense of like just you don't have anything to do.
The most terrifying part is you need some structure. And
I'm not talking about like you need a job immediately.
What I am saying is like if your downtime needs
(12:59):
to involve eating right, exercising, sleeping, social interaction, you know,
be around your friends and then build the rest of
your life out because if you start doing that that's
going to take You're gonna get consumed and whatever it is,
whether you're going up to New York to be in
finance or you're getting the media, you're coaching, Like, you
(13:19):
got to take care of yourself. Your body just went
through a lot of trauma, and I think your brain chemistry, Like, honestly,
since we do talk about mental health, mental wealth, whatever
you want to call it, like, we are chemically different
than other people because we needed that dopamine kick for
for so long. We needed we needed to push ourselves.
Do you think about how often I exercise an NFL player,
(13:40):
even in season where I didn't really consider it exercise.
You know, I'm on my feet ten hours a week,
not counting the game.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
You know, you're and you're in sixty car accidents a day,
or when you used to be able to hit every day.
You know, it's like.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
You got to get rid of those car accidents. But
you got to find something that pushes you that you know,
like and you got to do something physical so like
you got hey, professionally, give your head some time to
you know, like don't feel like you're under the gun.
But physically, mentally, and emotionally, you should attack retirement the
way you attack football. And that means like taking ownership
(14:14):
in your body, your diet, you know, the sleep you're getting.
It's taken me four or five years to find an
equil librum, and I'm still tweaking, you know, I'm still
like tweaking with little things in my in my health
or in my routine. And I got all these things
I want to do. It's a constant evolution. But if
you're not trying to evolve, you know, don't worry about destination.
You'll figure it out at some point. I haven't figured
(14:35):
it out yet, but like, if you're not walk in
that way, you're gonna get stuck and you're gonna feel like,
you know, what the fuck am I doing at this stage?
I mean, I've felt lost over the past couple years
at different times, and I was prepared.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Tell me where you're saying you were lost? Was it
mostly lost as far as Okay, I don't have that
daily structure, even though you're saying you did are you
new to put it in or were you lost because
you were still running on the hamster wheel.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Hampshire wheel, I think it was. I think it's hamster
wheel and that takes up all your time and you
can't work on yourself. You look up and you're like,
all right, I'm busting my ass to build this company,
and like you can justify it in all these ways. Hey,
it's gonna be good for my family, all this shit,
But like if I'm not seeing my kids as much,
like why did I retire right, you know? Or if
I'm even more stressed now, like my wife had to
(15:23):
talk to me a couple of times and been like,
you know, you're more stressed now than you were when
you played because of running a business. And you know,
like you have to have people around you to take
your temperature and and you know, come at you a
little bit and be honest with you. So you need
to surround yourself people that are going to tell you
if you're kind of falling by the wayside. So I think,
(15:43):
just you know, when I get focused on something, I
kind of obsess over it, and I got a little
too wrapped up and trying to build this company. I know,
anybody's built a company. That's the way. If you probably
talk to Pat McAfee or something, he'd probably say, fuck,
there was a minute there where, and that guy loves
to work, but I'm sure he had to take his
temperature at some point. And maybe it's happening now because
(16:04):
that guy's NonStop. But whoever you are, like, that'll get you.
I think also, like I'm just really hard on myself.
So I've always I think your career, whether you know
it or not, it's like a death. You kind of
mourn it in five stages, you know, and I don't
know if they're in order, you know, grief, finger, denial,
or whatever the fuck it is. But I went through
different stages with my career where there's like the bargaining.
(16:26):
There's like you try to rewrite chapters that you didn't
like in your head, like what could I have done differently?
What if I wasn't drafted here, bro, Like what if
I didn't have to deal with this at this difference? Well,
it's never going to change. And the thing I realize
is like for players that are still dwelling on shit
in the past is like nobody cares, dude, except you.
(16:47):
Like when you see me.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Big for you, but not for everybody else.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
For everybody else's like, you know, when I see people,
I'm not like running through how their career went. You know,
there's some people you're starstruck by, you know. And I
had a great career. I had a lot of fun
and they got to win. And it's a perfect example
because I got friends that would be like, Dude, you
got to win two super Bowls, you played eleven years,
you had seventy sacks, You fucking did all this shit.
I didn't get do any of that. But it's all relative,
(17:12):
And I think that's why even like Hall of famers
can be hard on themselves, Like you know my dad, Yeah,
like no doubt, guy's done everything. But we always talk
about deep talks at the end of on a Monday.
We're the same way where we're we could have three sacks,
but we're focused on the thing we didn't do.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
So how do you teach yourself to have grace during this?
Like what are you doing to teach yourself to have
grace because that's the biggest thing. Again, you get caught
in the shamsur real Listen, I was the first minute
by minute breaking news guy in this country before there's
this NFL insider role. You know what, But when that
internet thing first came out, I had two phones and
a BlackBerry and a fucking beeper. I think back there,
like it didn't stop right. It ruined every relationship I
(17:51):
ever had because it didn't stop, didn't stop, didn't stop,
didn't stop. And then I had to make a same
as you, like a concervative effort. Thank god. Fox said, Hey,
you're gonna die if you keep doing this. We just
need to be great on Sundays. You're okay, Like you
don't have to worry about this much anymore. Be a
personality on this show, kick ass on Sundays, be better
than everybody else. But that was hard for me to
shut it down. And now I still work on giving
(18:13):
myself grace because I don't do it the same way
I used to do it. How are you trying to
give yourself grace? How are you learning? Where do you
go to learn it?
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Well, it's a fucked up catch twenty two, which is
like a prerequisite of being great for a lot of
people or accomplishing something is being their toughest critic, their
own toughest critic and listen I wouldn't have done it
any different. I'm glad I was the way I was,
because if I wasn't, I definitely would be working at
like Mencer's and charlottesvill or something, you know, enjoying my
(18:41):
dad's money or whatever. Like I had to have a
little bit of a different you know, I had to
have a different standard for myself because the standard was
so high, and the very thing that can make you
successful is the thing that can sink you in retirement
because it's a different game, dude, there's no gun to
your head. You know. What the gun is to your
head is like be a great dad, be a good husband,
(19:02):
be be a friend, you know, like fulfill things that
are important to you, like enjoy things like find hobbies
like this is the chapter of your life if you're
financially secure, is like keep that ball rolling, feed your family.
But find some balance, dude. And there's no balance when
you're a football player. So I think, I think, how
are you.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Giving yourself grace? Like out because you're side You're right.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Well, I'm gonna tell you I'm still figuring it out.
But because I'm the same way as a media member.
But I think that very thing that realization that like,
once you realize you're even smaller than you thought you were,
it's like kind of like zooming out and you get
the planet, you have the solar system, you have the galaxy,
and then there's like like a little spec That's the
(19:48):
way I think about things, like when I'm really when
it's like, bro, this is so small, dude, I'm going
to be I'm gonna be dead in forty fifty years.
Like it's just not it's not import You're gonna look
up and you spend your whole life being hard on
yourself and you're gonna waste it and nobody's gonna care
and there's not going to be a second chance at it.
So like you're the only person living in your reality
(20:11):
between your ears, and like no one else cares. At
night when you're ruminating over bullshit, nobody else is thinking
about the play didn't make or the year you had
when you got hurt or like whatever, Dude, no one
cares except for you. So you are not only wasting
your time, you're also killing yourself, dude, because stress kills you.
(20:31):
And and so I just look yeah, yeah, I just
look at things like I want to live a long time,
and I want to be here for my family. And
you know, we just had a daughter seven months ago,
and like all of a sudden, You're like, Okay, I
got to take care of my health. I got to
take care of myself man, you know, like I'm thirty
eight years old, Like stress is part of it. And
I think therapy, man, Like we've talked about this, but
(20:52):
I just had I just said enough was enough at
some point in retirement, and I just started. I've never
had a problem with talking to somebody, but the person
that you trust, right, Like somebody that you can trust,
like that you hit it off with and you can trust.
And and so for me, I've been seeing the same
therapists for maybe three years now.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
They're coaching. For anybody out there who's listening to this
view of therapists as a coach, like you go to
strength coach every single day, He's just start. These are
our feeling coaches, you know, like is there a heart,
mind and soul coach? Don't because so many guys are
like I don't want to go to therapists. What if
they say something. I don't trust someone? How am I
going to find someone that one gets me? Crazy. How
am I gonna find someone? There's a million ways to
(21:31):
find right and your heelp dot com and there's a
million things, but they're coaches. I I got something for
you too, all right. This is something I do because
we've got to train our souls. And what I started
doing is so now. I don't know if you meditate.
I meditate it now. In the morning, I'll basically put
on a song, right and for the first song, I
(21:52):
just go over things I'm grateful for, and it could
be things yesterday, my whole life, whatever, I've got it
now down where Rosie and I write a gratitude list
of morning ten things were grateful for the day before,
or we do it at night ten things were grateful
for that day. So we go to sleep with some gratitude.
And it's hard at first because we don't give ourselves
like grace. So you got to teach yourself. And it
could be something like I'm grateful for Sammy, I'm grateful
(22:15):
for God. I'm grateful for the sun. I'm grateful for
a fucking pair of shoes. Whatever it is that made
you happy that day, you put it. But the next song,
and this is the key. The next song, I meditate
on things I'm proud of that I've done, so I
try and counteract all those things you're talking about, why
didn't I do this right? Why didn't I do that right?
(22:35):
Or you did this wrong, or you missed this play,
or you missed this jay, or you missed out or
you missed that. So now it's a song of things
I'm proud of. And I had to train myself how
to be proud of myself, and man, Chris, it's made
such a huge difference in that grace that I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And I could try that, but I got to tell you,
I'm not really proud of much.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well, that's what you have to but you need to
be well the man of the year, all the wills
that you've built out, Yeah, you'll get that.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
That's what you've acquired.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
What this Okay, the time you've put in, the sacrifice
you've made, That's what I'm saying. You got to learn
how to be proud of yourself or you don't have
any equity to balance the fucking scale.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
The scale is always going to be in the way
that you said, you know what, I'm proud of honestly,
Like the football thing's different because you know, I come
from a different background than most guys, and most guys
have trouble with this thing.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
I mean, imagine if you go home and what you
just did is an extraordinary at all, which I don't need.
I don't need that, you know, Like, but it's it's
the framing. The context with with which I went out
and embarked on my life journey is totally different than
than most people. You know, Like, whatever you do is
going to be compared to something that quite frankly, everybody
(23:48):
who's wagging the finger at you like you didn't do that,
they didn't do it either, right right the sideline motherfucker,
you know. And so so I don't need to be
proud of it. I am proud of myself.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
But no, no, no, no here but here.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
But I'll tell you what I'm proud of. I'll tell
you what I'm proud of. Proud of being a great teammate,
proud proud of playing hurt, proud of you know. But
I don't get proud of accomplishments. You know what I'm saying,
because you need to.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
But but here's the thing.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
This is proud of being a dad.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Okay, so every day but none of that, Chris, is
where I want you to dive in. Okay. So look
when I first did this gratitude list, I was out
in Thailand. I'm my little yo fucking mental health journey,
my mom and body spirit journey. And these monks are
telling me that the price did you in one bite.
I was in the fucking jungle, out of water. I
was training in the jungle. Man.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
It was the greatest thing ever.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And but these monks are like I was dealing with
these time monks. They were like, Hey, we need you
write a hundred things You're grateful for them? Like a
hundred things I'm grateful for? What do you just fucking
kidd me? And I was the same way, and they
had to teach me. And like I said, they're like,
who do you like mundane little things? Like I put
that down. So same thing with the pride thing, right,
You're like, oh, I'm not proud of this, Chris, you
(24:59):
gotta go back. I can look at some plays that
did fucking energize you, like, I'm proud of this. I
want supposed to win on that day and I did that,
So put that in the back, right, But it could
be days. Hey, I'm proud of I got one of
my kids to do this. Hey, I'm proud of one
day I had a conversation with my friend that did this. Hey,
I'm proud of this fucking set I did whatever it was. Hey,
I'm proud that I was able to have this long
(25:22):
career or I could buy this thing that I like.
So I'm saying you got to train yourself instead of
saying because you're already poo pooing yourself. So instead of no, I'm.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Not poo pooing myself for something to draw pride, like
self pride, Like there are things I'm proud of, Like
I'm proud of being a great dad, I'm proud of
being a great friend. Like my boys will tell you,
I don't change. I'm the same fucking guy. I'm proud
of my work ethic, I'm proud of what we build
a green light, I'm hopefully proud of the boss I am.
But with football, there's just something about it. You know,
(25:53):
it doesn't have to be football, just yeah, okay in
the morning. Yeah yeah, it's just.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Things you're fucking proud of. Because we're so used to
beating ourselves up. So if you start counterbalancing it and
start telling those fucking bad roommates, you know, having a
good room ways, say hey, fuck that we're in this town. Now,
we're fighting back here. Now, ain't just you guys talking
in this head. Now it helps you out tremendously. It's work,
but you're talking about, Hey, how do we find grace?
This is a way everybody could find grace, but it's work,
(26:22):
so attack it that way.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
Yeah, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try, and like, you know,
I just also say I don't know when it comes
to like retirement. One of the biggest breakthroughs for me
we talked about this recently, was like actually formally getting
diagnosed with ADHD, right, you know, like that was a
big ah. And when we talked about therapy earlier, I
(26:46):
totally wish I had gone to see a sports cyc
while I played, because you know, like as good as
I was, I would have been better if I had,
you know, Like I was talking to a teammate recently
about it was Lane. Okay, Lane's one of my best buddies,
and he's been real open with me about the mental
health stuff before he kind of came out with it
and we we have like tough conversations and shit, and
(27:07):
then like this year, Lane Johnson right from me, Johnson, Yeah,
Men of the Year nominee, And to me, all those
guys are winners, whether they win or not. But I
think one of the coolest things for me is like
a friendship like that where you know, I was coming
into Philly do inside the NFL this year. So every
Monday night I'd ride up in suv and sometimes I
leave a little earlier to go sit at Lane's house
(27:29):
and we'd watch Monday night football or something and just
kick it like we were still teammates, which is great
and of itself. But we sat on the back porch
and one night, you know, I had just recently talked
to my therapists about like formally making you know, attacking
the ADHD thing, and just to talk to somebody who
I identify as like me that talk me through you know, Hey,
(27:53):
this is what this I've heard about this drug, Like
maybe you could try this, this is a practice you
could like you can engage in, you know, just to
even because there's some people that you talk to, you
like that person doesn't understand me, you know, And I
think that's the hardest thing, whether the person does or not,
whether it's fair or not. Lane, for instance, was somebody that,
(28:14):
like I wish I hadn't in my locker room when
I played for most of my career, because it's not
that we didn't have deep conversations in that fucked up
d line room in Saint Louis, but we didn't know
how to frame them.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
And Lane had to be vulnerable back then.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Well, no, we knew how to be vulnerable, but we
didn't know how to frame whatever we were feeling. In context.
It was nobody that had gone out seeking solutions or
talking about mental health issues like formerly it was more like,
hey man, I'm hurting right now, I'm sad, my life's
fucked up, you know. I just somebody died back home,
or like we were tired. Everybody would talk about whatever. Bro,
(28:49):
I've had deep conversations, but a guided deep conversation with
somebody who sought solutions. And I think with the thing
that Lane's doing, that's so great is there are going
to be more guys like that in the locker room.
And he changed my life having that conversation. Now, the
first medication I tried hasn't worked out, but what it is.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
I told you about them one of the Super Bowl Calbury.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah. And you know what, I gotta be honest with you.
I stopped the adderall bro good and I feel great,
And honestly, I feel better than I felt when I started,
because when I identified what the problem was, it was
illuminating to me. All the things that I've dealt with
for so many years. You know, they're not debilitating in
a sense of like I can't do my job or
(29:30):
do this job, but there are things that are like
what the fuck is wrong with me? And now that
you know what you deal with, you can read, you
can strategize, like there's all types of things that I
wasn't doing that are very controllable that can improve my condition.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
But had I not had conversations Lane to encourage me
to go down that path formally, then I can't attack
the problem right, and so we might be vulnerable. We
might be like, yeah, man, I'm at the bar, spilling
my guts my buddy or whatever. Year four or after
a game. It doesn't matter if you're not really working
actively to solve the problems and you don't know what
(30:08):
the problems are. And I think that's why therapy is important,
you know. I think that's really important. And anybody says like, oh,
I don't know who I can trust, like YadA, YadA, YadA.
Like bro, all right, you're gonna watch twenty years go by,
and you're gonna say there was a you in there
that was waiting to be out and live and in
(30:28):
peace or some improvement, you know, and your the way
you feel, and you're gonna you're gonna lose that time
Like that for me is what changes watching my kids
grow up and I'm like, hey, don't I want to
be as good as I can be upstairs? Like don't
I want to show up with the with the right
equipment on? And that to me was that window with
(30:48):
my kids where you only get it once. I watched
my kids grow up from like three to now whaling seven,
and it was it fucked me up. I was like, bro,
you better get your shit in order, like sooner than later,
because getting in order at sixty, like I want to
get in order right now so I can be present
and be my best self for these guys and now
(31:10):
guys and gals.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
And again I want you to offset it now with
saying oh man, I missed this with Whalen. But now
on while you start every morning, go I'm proud of
this I did with Whalen. Yeah, I mean that's what
I'm saying that we got to start working on that,
that other tool that's out there. I just want to
point on out. You know, you and I have this
ADHD talk like. I was the first one of the
first adults, not the first diagnosed with a built add
(31:32):
on the East coast of America. Princeton University. I got
taken into their their program in nineteen eighty nine. So
I went through riddle In and then they put me
on Naranton to offset the values of riddle In because
the peaks and valleys are bad. But yeah, I built
my brain chemistry over the years, and then I stopped that,
(31:52):
and then adderall came out, and then you know, I
started getting this the brand name instead of the generic,
instead of the brand in. And then finally a doctor
said to me, or somebody said to me, I said,
why am I so fucking madic? What's going on? Well,
you know, when you get generic, they're not the same.
All of them are different. They're all gonna act differently.
I'm like, what do you mean it's not just addroll.
It's just mixed differently. So I was like, holy fuck,
(32:15):
so I'm putting this poison into my BIY. That's getting
my mind so by manic beyond manic like Skyfall and
I had Look, I lived with Lane for five months.
He wasn't out at that point, right, he saw me
go through shit. He didn't say that. At least I had
your dad who said to me, hey, hey, hey, the
sky's not faull to it. What the fuck is going on?
What is happening with you? That's why I love this.
(32:36):
You know the drug Calberry that's a non stimulant. It's
helped me the stimulant part and getting the generic forms
of things. So I just want you to be careful.
All that is. It was a almost a life ender
for me, I would say, by taking some of those
generics where I would just act in a way like
this is not you. What is going on with you?
What is happening? I beat up myself during that time.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
You're trying to you're trying to find out who the
real you is. But in the process, like the scary
part about just taking different drugs is like it can
fuck you up and I'm not saying like people shouldn't
try it, Like I'm not a doctor. But what I
am saying is, but.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Every but.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
What you're doing, what I'm talking about, and what you're
talking about, I really do believe there's a lot of
people and I'm not trying to slight some people. Here's
what I am proud of, Jay, is that I will
fight to improve. I will fight like how to improve,
whether it was on the football field or in the
media or at my job. But also I think the
most important place to fight for improvement is in your head.
(33:38):
And like if guys aren't willing to because of not
wanting to be vulnerable, or like they're afraid to talk
to a therapist, or like you are leaving money on
the table. And I'm saying that. I'm not saying that
like from a business sense, like in your life, you
are leaving money on the table if you're not looking
to actively improve. But you've got to get a little muddy,
you got to get a little dirty, Like there's going
(33:58):
to be some trial and error, you know. Like it's
like I'm quitting so little thing. I was hammering these
zins like these nicotine man like like way too much. Okay,
you know, I dip my whole life basically, and I
was like, well, I got to stop that because I
don't want to like I don't want to die, like
like I get kids now, you know, it's like, hey,
(34:21):
you know what, why'd you get mouth cancer? So I
switched to zin and then next thing, you know, I'm
like a nicotine addict. So right now I'm like trying
to cut down and you're doing all the trial and error, Like, hey,
is this is this going to improve how I feel
day to day? Like it might be you know, you
might not be drinking enough water. It might not you know,
like there's all these obvious things that maybe are right
(34:43):
under your nose that like, but you just got to
be willing to to cut certain things out, add certain
things and like be honest with yourself. And like like
you said, I'm sure you take a journal or a diary,
but I try, like hell, even with my ADHD brain,
to keep a record of what I'm trying to do
to improve my life and see if it actually worked.
And so I just think it's like it's trial and error, man,
(35:03):
whether it's drugs or health or diet or sleep or
like it's all it's the biggest puzzle. Man, it's the
hardest thing. You got to really try to improve at it.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I love that, like always trying and improve it. I
think a lot of people forget it. That's that's always
gotta be the eye on the prost. And then again,
give yourself grace. Hey I might have only done a
little today, or hey I might like every time someone
leaves them breakable, I tell her crew compliment that person
whatever the fuck they did, even if they think they
had a shitty day. Hey, you fought through a shitty day.
(35:33):
That's something to be proud of, real, real quick. You're
also in the ADHD part when when I first got
diagnosed again, they tell me I have a learning disability.
Being in a Jersey shore with a learning disability ain't
fucking great. But I flipped the script on it. I
looked at this and not on a learning disability. I
just don't learn the way y'all teach, right, right? So
where then I had to look at it and take
(35:55):
a step further. Where does my ADHD give me power?
Where is it my superpower? And I think the same
for you also, it's something to be proud of, is Yeah,
I may not be able to sit there and listen
to a fucking lecture for three minutes or three hours.
I could do six things at once. That allows us
to multitest, allows us to have six different things we're
(36:15):
going after. Allowed you to do all these different things
to become the Walter Payton Man of the Year, and
so your ADHD ended up helping you and.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Being y Yeah in some ways. Yeah, No, I agree,
And that's why.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
I feel it instead of the shame of it.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Yeah, look at look at things from a positive standpoint,
Like I know, I'm probably better as a podcaster for
having it in some ways, you know. But it's about
identifying the areas where it hurts you and trying to
make little improvements or strategize to cover those weaknesses.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Up right, last two questions, I'd never talked to you
about this. I was obviously doing the game. Give me
something about the twenty eight to three, A game that
we don't know that you saw out there, that you've
never said or just the rest of us don't know about.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Yeah, it's funny because I've had to talk at length
about it.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
What I'm talking about for people don't know.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
I mean definitely, I mean I was.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Down twenty eight to three to the Falcons in the
Super Bowl and his Patriots and Tom Brady come all
the way back and went go ahead.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
I was going to retire for sure. I mean, like,
you know, like I think I might have told you
that before, but I said this. It was pretty open
about that game. It's funny, like Dad, he'll tell you
this all the time. He came down to Atlanta and
New England for me and free agency, and he had
said he had nudged me towards the Patriots, which yeah,
it was true, but sorry, Dad, like I wouldn't going
(37:28):
to Atlanta that Dan Quinn wanted me to play.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
I was trying to nudg you to Dan Quinn.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Yeah, well I love Dan. I love Dan, dude, but
he wanted me. I was like, I was like, I
went down there to Flowery Branch, sat in traffic for
a very long time, and then I was like, you know,
I met with Dan and Dan was like, hey, we
want you to be like our Michael Bennett, and I'm like,
well that's a compliment and everything. But he played inside
a lot, so you know, I'm gonna go up to
(37:52):
New England and play outside backer. We'll guess what ended
up happening. You end up playing inside free technique. Even Okay,
at least Dan was going to have me in a
fucking four eye. But the whole thing was, you know,
like at the half of that game, I just that
was one of the lowest points in my life because
not only was it like we're about to lose a
Super Bowl twenty eight three like everybody, but there were
a couple guys in that situation on every team. That's
(38:14):
a very unique deal where it's like this could be
it for you. Maybe you spent eight years in Saint
Louis and one in fifteen two and fourteen all that shit.
Like I was done, bro, I was like, there's no
way I'm going to keep doing this bullshit in another
thirty minutes. Like when this game's over, I'm done. And
just when you think about the way your life turns out,
(38:35):
that's why you just got to have gratitude. You say
gratitude and all, like, there's two totally different realities that
I live in. If if Kyle Shanahan runs the ball
versus if he doesn't. If Dante had retired, I mean
I'd be retired and miserable. Wow, I don't know, maybe
I'd to figure out a way to overcome it, but
(38:55):
the challenges would be totally different. I'd never I'd never
had those two years in Philly, which for me, like
the first super Bowl was like weight off my chest.
The second one was like I didn't cry after the
first one. The second one, I cried like a baby.
It was like something happened where it was like it's
okay now, you know, like you can go. And of
course I was like, I went to it one more year,
(39:17):
You're about to make me cry, you know, But it
was it was like I'll never forget being on the field,
and you know, you got to break through a lot
of bullshit to be satisfied in the NFL, right, like
evidenced by what I just told you, Like New England
was great, but it wasn't enough for me obviously. But
the release after that Philly super Bowl, I don't know
what it was, man, But I never get that. I
(39:40):
never get that that feeling. My life is so much different.
You think I would have had a podcast. I would
have wanted to shut the fuck up and disappear forever
after twenty eight to three, if that's possible. So I
just it was such a big deal. The funny story
was before the game and we almost cursed it. Me
and Alan Branch if you remember him, big Yep. We
(40:00):
went to like the place was a zoo, like all
around the hotel there's a CBS or Walgreens, like a
block away in Houston, like day of the game, in
our Patriots sweatsuits. We went in there and we got
like a bunch of bottles of Andre and slipped them
in our bag because we were like, we're going to
do the thing that fucking Mahomes and them did this
year with the baseball celebration. So we had a bunch
of Andre in our bags. I just cannot imagine how
(40:23):
stupid we would have felt had we lost that game.
After the Champa sitting there, yeah, just like clinking around
on the bus and the way up we got back
there after the game. Evidently Andre doesn't fucking shoot out
like like Corbel or whatever. Everybody's waiting for us to
pop this champagne and it just looks like a like
(40:44):
a bad volcano, and you know, just like that whole
week was crazy, the stories behind the scenes. If you
asked every guy in the roster, you'd hear so much
cool shit, Like the whole team was sick the year
we played the Patriots, Like we were standing the Mall
of America. It was zero degrees out. Everybody's got ivy
backs like Friday night, you know, like the team's sick.
(41:04):
There's just so much going on. Funny story the Philly
year when we were doing the walkthrough in the stadium.
You know, Saturday, you go do the walk through the stadium,
do pictures? Your family comes in. Well, in the walkthrough portion,
we were running fake plays that we don't even have
in the playbook because it was so nervous about Bill
or the Patriots, like Spygate two, they have somebody up
(41:25):
in the luxury box. So there's so many untold stories
from Super Bowl weeks. Man, it's just such an experience.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Fucking incredible. All right, last question, I ask every one
of my guesses, give me an unbreakable moment. Give me
the moment that should have broken you anywhere in life,
could have but didn't, and as a result, you came
out of the other side stronger forever.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Probably the end of my Saint Louis deal. You know,
I had to climb a pretty big hill. Not as
a draft pick. I was a high draft pick. But
just like from a standpoint, a bad team, a lot
of expectations. You know, if you google my name my
rookie year, it would have been like Chris Long bust,
you know, and really through the first half of my
second year because I couldn't get it going. But then
(42:09):
the second half of my second year just started rolling.
And then you know, like had forty over four years
and I was one of the guys. But then then
got hurt, you know, and tried to play hurt, you know,
played through a high ankle, shot it up all year,
contract year, had thirteen, got paid, things were going well.
Broke my did something to my ankle, had surgery, decided
(42:31):
to come back. Looked awful, like awful, embarrassing. If I
look back at I wish I'd never played them. The
very next year came back, I felt like everybody thought
I was on the way out pretty much, and second
game broke my leg. So two years in a royard
and I'll never forget getting cut by the Rams and
like the last two years, like the team moves, you know,
(42:52):
I can remember the last night at the Dome. It
was the weirdest thing in the world. You're like I'm
getting cut in a couple of weeks. I've been here
eight years. I'm never gonna win, you know, I'm gonna
leave an embarrassment. I came in, you know, my first year,
I'm a bus my eighth year, I'm always hurt, you know.
And I thought my career was over at that point too.
(43:13):
And funny I talk about the Pats game and thinking
I was done. But I owe a lot to Bill,
to Bill Belichick for giving me a shot, because I
did not want to go play for any old team
in twenty sixteen. I wanted to win, you know, like
otherwise I wouldn't have kept playing.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
And a place to build good memories.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Yeah, like yeah, see what that's like. Yeah, And so
I'll never forget. We just had our first son whaling,
and I'm in the hospital. I'm kind of feeling sorry
for myself, even though the babies here, I'm just still
just dwelling on all this shit. I go to Harris
here to grab a six pack or whatever, and my
phone rings, and I'm like, fuck, I better pick it up.
(43:52):
And I like go to the front of the aisle
where the service is decent, and it's like gross. Bill
Belichick you know, and his voice and I'm like, whoa, whoa,
and I'll just never forget, Like just the call he
took a guy who was like really downtrod and probably
ready to quit, and I was like, I have no
(44:13):
information on what it's going to be up there, but
I'm ready to go, you know. And had he not
called and he said on the phone, he was like, hey, man,
you're a hell of a player. I don't know what
we're gonna do with you, Like, I don't know where
you're gonna fit, but I'm gonna find a fit. And
that leap of faith on my end and the leap
of faith on his end, which he takes them all
the time. This is been't a big deal for him,
but it was the biggest deal in the world for me.
(44:34):
And if it weren't for that, I probably would have broke.
So some of it's me pushing through. We had a
picture in our d line room. Mike Waffle was our
d line coach, who was the coach for the Giants,
Old marine, fucking intense cat. But we had this great room.
Aaron Donald, Me, Robert Quinn, you know, like William Hayes,
(44:57):
Nick Fairley, Kenna Lank for like all first rounders, but
we never had success as a team. And we had
this picture on the wall, and I think this is
true in life and it's true in football. There's this
diagram of these two guys with pickaxes and they're like
diamond mining. I'm pretty sure you've seen this. And one
of the guys is walking right to left, back towards
(45:20):
the entrance to the cave with his pickaxe over his shoulder,
and he's dejected sweating. On the other side of that
wall to the right where he's walking away from, there's
a huge diamond like six inches through that wall, and
there's another dude on the bottom and he's just hammering away,
and it's just it's a very simple thing, but so
(45:40):
many people give up before they get to realize what
they've been working for this whole time. And for me,
that was a very clean incident that illustrates just that
is like I was this close to saying, hey, fuck this,
and who knows what I'm doing right now, But my
life is a lot better for having just just wake
up one more day, you know, just just put your
(46:01):
shoes on one more day. Just keep fucking walking, dude,
you know it doesn't have to be a sprint, but
just walk. And if you keep walking, eventually you get
a break. And and that was for me, Bill calling
me in a haristeater.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
I love that, dude. That is great, dude, You're a
lot of our lives are better because of you magic.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
You know. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Start tomorrow doing the pride thing.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
Right you start, I'll do it. I'll do it perfect.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Well, we'll be battle buddies. We'll check in. Dude. I
love you, I appreciate you. I'm fucking proud of you.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
Man.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Yeah and yeah, let's and again like this is the
best thing we got. People like this too. Where were
you and I could lean into each other throw ideas
at each other. I've been through it now for a
long time. Man. So you got questions, call my answer
up and go, hey, man, if you try this, if
you've done that, we've done that. I'll bounce it off
of YouTube.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
All right, you got it, brother, Good to see you.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
I love you, buddy.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Chris Locke
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.