September 19, 2023 • 53 mins
Howard Griffith has two Super Bowl rings to show for his NFL career, but the path to Denver wasn’t easy. A walk-on at the University of Illinois, Howard became a record-breaking team captain. One of those records was scoring EIGHT rushing touchdowns in a single game.
He was drafted in a round that doesn’t exist anymore in the NFL (9th) and never saw the playing field with the team who picked him (the Colts). From Indi, he bounced around to the Bills, Chargers, Rams and Panthers before finally landing in Denver where he played fullback for five seasons. He blocked for Hall of Famer Terrel Davis, caught a number of clutch passes and scored a few touchdowns, including two in Super Bowl 33.
After he retired, Howard hopped over to the “dark side” and joined the media. Again, he paid his dues in the Denver market and then landed an analyst gig with the Big 10 Network where he’s been going strong for 17 years.
He was drafted in a round that doesn’t exist anymore in the NFL (9th) and never saw the playing field with the team who picked him (the Colts). From Indi, he bounced around to the Bills, Chargers, Rams and Panthers before finally landing in Denver where he played fullback for five seasons. He blocked for Hall of Famer Terrel Davis, caught a number of clutch passes and scored a few touchdowns, including two in Super Bowl 33.
After he retired, Howard hopped over to the “dark side” and joined the media. Again, he paid his dues in the Denver market and then landed an analyst gig with the Big 10 Network where he’s been going strong for 17 years.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I was gonna come here, goto Detroit and then go to Atlanta.
I get here, they say you'renot going anywhere. I said no,
I had to catch a flight.Now they're trying to work this deal out.
I'm like, y'all can work thatout, but I'm going to get
on his flight to Detroit. Notjust be a couple more minutes after sitting
around there for five six hours missingyour flight. Probably missed the flight.
(00:21):
Were you kind of a prisoner atthe facility? That? And the thing
about it, they just use wordsto keep me there. Yes, I
wasn't restraint. They just used wordsto keep me there. Welcome to Cut,
Traded, Fired, Retired a podcastfeaturing conversations with professional athletes and coaches
(00:44):
who have been gracious enough to telltheir stories of changes, setbacks, and
moving forward. I'm your host,Susie Wargen. This episode's guest was part
of Super Bowl thirty two and thirtythree with the Denver Broncos, and he
was one of the major key elementsto their offense, or, as Howard
if It puts it, he waspart of the misfit Toys, which kind
of makes sense. There was JohnElway and mostly a bunch of other guys
(01:07):
who were either late round draft picksor college free agents. Howard falls into
the late round draft pick category.However, if he was drafted today,
he would be a college free agentbecause he was taken in the ninth round,
which doesn't exist anymore. Howard paidhis dues not only in the NFL,
spending time with five organizations before finallylanding in Denver. He was also
a walk on at the University ofIllinois, where he had dreamed of playing
(01:30):
since he was young. He wasa running back during high school, college,
and a couple years into the NFL, then smartly switched to fullback,
which is where he gained recognition forhelping plow the way for Terrell Davis and
many other backs. He's always wearinga smile and still looks like he could
play ladies and gentlemen. Howard Griffithgot traded fired Retired Podcasts with Susie Wargin
(01:55):
Howard Griffith, what's going on?I have, mister smile and your energy.
It's so good to see you.It's good to be back out here.
It's good to see you as well. You know, it just brings
back fine memories, just being here. You know. I flew in here
last night and I was like,Wow, this is a great place.
And I really I think back tothe first time i'd come out here as
(02:15):
a smaller child. I was outhere. My dad had brought us out.
He was He's an alpha, sohe came out. There was a
convention here, so that was likemy first time, but I didn't really
know much. All I knew isthat we took a drive to Pike's Peak.
Let me be very clear, Iscream cry. That's what I remember
about it, because there were noguardrails and I'm like, what are we
(02:37):
doing? We're going This isn't right, this can't be right. So that
was my first memory of it,and then coming out here in Free Agency.
But this has always been a beautifulplace to me, and obviously playing
here and spending so much time here, and it's a place that I'm glad
that I get an opportunity to comeback to. Yeah, and where you
spent the most time in your careerout of all the places that you went,
(02:57):
and we're gonna go through all ofthat. So let's go back to
the beginn You live in Chicago now, and that's where you were born.
That's where you grew up. Whendid you get into football? What were
your other sports? What was growingup like for you? Wow? You
know, growing up was interesting forme. I started playing flag football.
I didn't play organized football tackle footballuntil I think I was a freshman in
high school, so I was puttingthe pads on backwards and all that kind
(03:20):
of stuff. But in seventh andeighth grade I played flag football at my
grammar school. And before that,because we had a lot of windows and
cars, we played sock football.Somebody made a sock football, put a
ball in its sock, and we'replaying catch with a sock, so we
wouldn't break any windows. I guessthey didn't know it. We still put
a ball inside it. They couldstill do exactly. We could do a
(03:43):
lot of damage. But growing outChicago was good. It was It was
a lot of fun for me.When I started to play football. I
think when my mom my adopted mom. Now this is stay with me,
okay, because this gets really confusingand I get confused. Okay, all
right, I'm with you. SoI was a junior in high school,
I find out that I'm adopted.When you were a junior in high school
(04:04):
at junior in high school and gettingthis. Everyone on the block knew that
I was adopted, but no onenever told me. I was. So
my neighbor across the street, MissusSmiley, I had gone over my mom.
She had been battling breast cancer.I go across the street and I
was like, I don't know thatshe's gonna make it. My dad just
went to the hospital. I didn'twant to go back out there. And
she looked at me, she said, how are you. I've been truly
(04:25):
blessed because they chose you. AndI'm like, chose me? What are
you talking about? Hello? Nobodyknew that you didn't know? Right?
Oh my god? So everybody andthen there were a lot of kids on
the block, but no one evermentioned it or said anything about it.
Wow. So that was kind ofvery interesting, to say the least.
(04:46):
So I went through my rebellious stageand football was kind of ended up being
that outlet. Changed schools your junioryear, My good, didn't you.
Well? I went to a mentalCatholic for three years in high school and
then my senior Yeah, I wantedto leave my junior year and my dad
was on vacation. He had goneout of town and I was like,
I'm gonna go to Julian. Hewas like, you're not going to Julian.
(05:09):
I said, no, I reallywant to go. And another year
passed so I don't go. Istayed at Mindel. I end up breaking
my ankle week two of my junioryear. Now I'm dead set. I'm
going to Julian. I go upto Julian and the coach there, doctor
J. W. Smith, whoended up being a mentor and a very
close friend of mine, says,you know what, Howard, you need
to go back over to you yourhigh school, go talk to your coach.
(05:31):
Like what you mean I don't wantto go back over there. You
need to go back and talk toyour coach and tell them what you want
to do. I'm like, okay, does this mean you don't want me?
So of course I didn't go backover but I came back and told
him I did. Okay, ifything'sgood. You know they weren't happy,
but I'm going to Julian. Wehave a strike or teacher strike, so
(05:56):
things aren't going really well now,like a two week teacher strike. But
as we do in Chicago, westill practice not organized, but we practiced.
It was during that time when Ireally started to figure out that,
you know, I really liked thisfootball stuff. It's a good outlet for
me, and this is what Iwant to do. And going back to
my first three years, I didn'ttake my academics serious. And then all
(06:17):
of a sudden, like some ofus do, some males like myself,
all of a sudden, we're upagainst the wall and it's like, oh,
now you want to study what Iwas supposed to be doing that the
whole time. Yeah, we're supposedto be doing it. This doesn't seem
to work out for me that way, but that's what I want to do.
So I ended up going to theUniversity of Illinois. I've been recruited
by smaller schools like Illinois State,Eastern Illinois, Northern Iowa, but that's
(06:42):
not where I wanted to do.So growing up, I'm watching Mike White
and University of Illinois. Here isthe Mike White coaching show, Jack Trudeau
and David Williams, a bunch ofguys that had really played at a high
level in college, Like, thisis just where I want to go,
and so now I have to walkon. Oh you didn't get a scholarship
in from a scholarship because I wasa little slow. I wasn't taking care
(07:03):
of my business academically. Oh slowin that way, I was like,
wait, slow, you were slow. I was not doing the things I
needed to academics. So I finallygot my stuff together walk on down there,
which was really a great situation forme because I couldn't play my first
year, so I really had achance to really figure out what the college
environment was all about. But growingup, I think it just all prepared
(07:25):
me some of those setbacks early,whether it was finding out when I was
adopted at that time. That's insanein high school when everything's just so crazy
anyway, when you're a teenager andthen you find out something dramatic like that.
Yeah, I'm sure you have questions, So go ahead, because I
kind of I kind of went.I kind of went past everything. Oh
no, I think, no,that's exactly where I go with this.
So you you did it, Justfind it. I'm curious though, with
(07:46):
the colleges. Your heart was seton University of Illinois even though you had
the other offers, did you govisit other places? I went and visit
at Illinois State and Southern Illinois,which the funny story about Southern Illinois at
that time was just you at thewest side and east side and they want
to enclose one in create a horseshoe. And the guy says to me,
(08:07):
it's recruiting, Howard, if youcome here, we'll be able to put
the horseshoe down here. You're goingto bring it all the fun. Yeah,
okay, right, But what Idid do I said, we know,
I've got a couple of friends wantto come here, got like four
of my buddies in the school.That was nice of you. Really worked
out and I ended up not going, So that ended up being a little
bit of a thing. But thenI'm curious then walking on at University Illinois,
(08:31):
how did that go? Because that'sa tough road. I mean,
you had a tough road in theNFL as well, but you started that
in your college days. To thinkabout starting a journey like that, you
don't know what you don't know,and so you don't know really how hard
it is until you actually start theprocess. But was interesting. We had
(08:52):
a couple of guys that had comein that we're running backs that were if
today's time a high four stars fivestar type players, and I'm saying,
this is where I want to go, but I don't. I don't know.
I mean there's no internet, youhave no idea. I mean,
yeah, there's an article that comesout maybe once a year. They talked
(09:15):
about who's going where, right signingDay article. Yeah, but nobody's really
doing anything, you know, publicizingit. So I get there. Kendall
Gill was there, who ended uphaving an unbelievable NBA career, Nick Anderson,
Kenny Battle who all three of thoseguys in Ellinois Hall of Fame.
So we all came in. Soin eighty six, when I graduated from
(09:37):
high school, there was a hugepush by the University for Diversity to bring
in people from Chicago. People fromSaint Louis and Indianapolis were there, two
targeted areas. I mean, itwas crazy how many people had the opportunity.
So they started what they called theBridge program. You come in six
months, get acclimated to the school, you just go on. You were
(10:01):
admitted, and as long as yougot through the program, everything was fine.
So it was so many of usthat came from the inner cities.
It was really like home. Soa lot of athletes came at that time.
A lot of my closest friends thatare on that team, they came
in in eighty six, so itwas it was a fun time to be
there and to really be around somany people with so many diverse backgrounds.
(10:24):
Because growing up in the Inner City, my parents put me in a program
at the Museum of Science Industry.That is the first time I had been
in a classroom or in a roomwith anyone else that was not black.
Really, that was my first time. So now we're probably talking about seventh
eighth grade because that's just how segregatedChicago is. So you know, I
(10:48):
got the chance to experience that young. But once I got to the university,
I'm like, whoa, what wasthe ratio there white to book.
Well, first of all, wewere probably two percent African American. It's
really low, but we thought itwas a lot higher because it was a
tight knit group. I mean,there's obviously you don't like everybody, but
(11:09):
still you're in a comfort zone orsystem, so you you were forced to
learn how to interact and relate andembrace other people, other cultures, and
that, to me, what wascool about athletics at the college level,
people coming from different walks of life, different backgrounds, religion, and it
(11:31):
was so cool to be in ain a locker room where everybody has one
goal, right, we just wantto win. It doesn't matter which you
look like. And it was nevera problem. We didn't have race issues,
We didn't have any of that stuffbecause it was just we just here
trying to apply it. Again,you don't like everybody, but still,
I mean there was a mutual respectbecause your teammates and you're shooting for one
(11:54):
goal. I think that's funny whenyou say that, because I think sometimes
the thought is that everybody on theteam really likes each other and they're all
and when you have NFL, you'vegot, you know, your fifty plus
guys, and in college there's waymore than that. And I want to
go at your workplace. Do youlove everybody? No, they don't all
love each other all the time,but they are together for that one goal,
(12:16):
So that makes it a group effort. Doesn't mean they're all hanging out
with each other outside of there,Yeah, it doesn't. And we had
some of my teammates that were fromIndianapolis had a house and then some of
my other teammates had another house,so you could say the black players would
hang out over here. Sometimes thewhite players would hang out in the house
that was always passed down. Sothe football team always lived in that house.
(12:41):
Right, there are always football playersand they talk right. They always
had ridiculous parties out of control.And then the other house over here would
have parties, but they would alwaysseem to get shut down all the time.
I don't know why, but theyseem to get shut down. So
you would have that, But thatwasn't because of the team dynamic. That
was an outside dynamic. So whenI say outside, so if law enforcement
(13:07):
decide if they wanted to shut downone of the homes that was a home,
that would be the home they gotyou down. Interesting, and then
I was smart enough because I didn'tlive it. You never want to live
in the middle of all of thatstuff. Do you want to visit?
You just want to visit so youcan leave whenever you're read Oh my gosh,
that's funny. Well, your careerat Illinois was fantastic. In nineteen
(13:30):
ninety, you share the Big Tentitle and then you have a game in
September of nineteen ninety where you scoreeight rushing touchdowns forty eight points in a
game. It's crazy. Does itstill stand? And it's been tied a
couple of times, okay, whichis always an interesting thing, particularly because
I'm doing a Saturday show. Yeah, from your studio. The last one
(13:52):
was a young man at Buffalo.It's a little angst in the studio at
the particularly you're like the Miami Dolphins. Twelve minute, he's got five,
he's got six. And it's notlike I don't already know. Oh yeah,
you're very Twitter going on and Instagram, you know all the information.
But your host is down there andyou're you know, it's like our getting
(14:13):
close. You made he's getting close. Stuff needs So now we're trying to
find the game to pull it in. But anyway, the lucky thing about
because he would have broken it withouta doubt. There were still like six
minutes left in the game. Therewas another running back on the team and
the coach wasn't aware of the situation, and he wanted to get the other
(14:33):
kid some reps. Thank goodness,he got the other kids and reps.
I got to stick around a littlewhile. Wow, it's been around for
a long time. That happened innineteen ninety. Then in the draft,
the nineteen ninety one draft. Youget drafted in the ninth round. Yeah,
don't even to day you would bea college free agent. Yes,
not even a preferred free agent atthat probably the ninth round pick. Yeah,
(14:56):
the Colts get you. You neverplay a game for the Colt.
You're there for a couple of years. No, I'm there for training camp.
That's when I started to not necessarilyunderstand the NFL, but just kind
of look at the dynamics of whatthe NFL is about and the B word
business. Absolutely, and we onlyhad we I wasn't there long enough for
(15:20):
week. They they only kept threerunning backs active. Eric Dickerson was one,
a guy by the name of AlbertBentley who he was probably the first
true third down back. They haddrafted a guy named Anthony Johnson from Notre
Dame in the second round the yearbefore. I'm like, got no chance
(15:46):
at this one. Why am Ihere looking around the room, and so
now I'm gonna I'm gonna move,I'm gonna jump. So there's the would
be rookie hazing. And it wasn'tanything crazy, but it was you guys
gotta sing, you gotta do this. You gotta do that. Here's what
(16:07):
it taught me. I learned fromthat team. No wonder we don't win
or y'all don't win because it wasy'all. Then it's a reason y'all don't
win because I'm not playing. I'mnot even playing in this game. They
were so focused on what the rookiesneed to be doing or the first year
guys that they weren't even handling theirown business. Wow. Now it was
a talented team. A guy likeEric Dickerson wasn't in the middle of it
(16:30):
because he was you know, he'salready a big star making all the money,
right, But there were other players. They were worried about what the
rookies aren't doing. So in mymind I started to I got a sense,
Okay, I don't know why peopletreat each other like this. It
doesn't make any sense to me.But there were still was really a talented
team, and I learned a lotbecause my running back coach there was Sylvester
(16:52):
Crum's who ended up being the firstAfrican American head coach in the SEC,
and he hated me always apply toit was like, I don't know why
we drafted you. Why is hehit Ron Meyers. Why why is he
here? So I'm just sitting there. If the first cut comes, I
mean, I'm not practicing. I'mnot doing anything. Sure I'll get cut.
(17:15):
Walk in. Where's my note?It's the first cut, where's my
note? I'm ready to go.I'm gonna do anything with me. Why
am I still here? Right?Yeah? One of the things coaches will
tell you now, don't count thepeople in the room. Don't count the
reps. Don't try to predetermine whoalready made the team. But i'd already.
I'm looking around. I know howmany people you keep back? Eric
(17:37):
Dickerson isn't going anywhere. Albert Bentleyisn't going anywhere. You know, these
guys aren't going anywhere. So Idon't fit. So I end up getting
cut the last cut. I gohome. I'm not on the team,
and the Buffalo Bills call go upfor a tryout. They've got Thurman Thomas.
Yeah, you're gonna beat him outright, No chance at that. Kenneth
(17:59):
Dave, who was his backup thatto me, of all the backs that
I've ever played with, to me, he was the best number two of
any of the guys that I hadever played with another guy named Colwood.
Gardner was the fullback. He wasa first round pick, had the same
agent is Jim Kelly, so theywere tight. I'm in there. I'm
(18:21):
like, how would just work out? We're gonna work out and see what
happens. Two of the guys thathad come in at this workout were four
more first round picks. So I'malready in the tank, but I'm gonna
go do my best. See whatI can do. Have a good workout,
you see, we're gonna sign you. Huh huh. So I didn't
(18:41):
have any idea of what the practicesquad was or any of that stuff,
but those guys weren't eligible for thepractice squad. I make the practice squad.
One of my teammates from Illinois wasa first round draft pick, Henry
Jones, so I had someone onthe team that I knew. But here
was my work week in Buffalo,which by far is the most talented team
(19:02):
I've ever been around. I didn'tpractice on Monday. I would work on
Tuesday and Wednesday and they be there. I take the rest of the week
off and go, yeah, reallynow to pay It is a whole lot
different than the practice squad of hisnow ye much different. But that was
literally it. But instead of justsaying Okay, I'm just gonna show up
(19:22):
on those two days, I wentto the stadium every day because it was
literally I just need to jump acrossthe creek to get to the stadium.
I lived in an apartment complex rightbehind the stadium, so I jump over
the creek and go to work out. I'll never forget. I'm on an
elevator with Andre Reid and Andre looksat me and said, man, before
you know it, you'll have eightyears in Dude, I'm trying to make
the team. Na, what areyou talking about? But you know,
(19:48):
the way Marv Levy ran that placeis how Shanahan when I got here,
as far as the practice schedule andmaking sure you were taking care of the
players and helmet days, that's whathe did that in training camp. So
he was so far ahead of youknow, how to maintain the body,
how to try to keep your teamfresh. It was incredible. But you
(20:11):
talk about the players that were onthat team, it was amazing to me.
It was probably the most athletic andthe best team that I'd ever seen.
Wow, when you look at thetalent, the hall of famers and
so to go back to hazing.There was none of that when I got
to Buffalo. Interesting because they werefocused on winning. They were focused on
winning, and they were focused onthemselves to a certain extent, which is
(20:34):
probably one of the reasons when theygot to the biggest game. There was
always something. There was always someoutside stuff that was surrounding the game.
But when you think about going tofour straight Super Bowls. So I was
a part of I was on thepractice squad the year they lost to Washington
(20:55):
in Minnesota. I mean you're lookingat these like, it's unbelievable the amount
of talent players, and I meanthey could just turn it on, but
it was none of that Hazen stuff. Here's the only thing that had to
happen. A young player had tobring donuts on a Saturday. So what
would happen. You had to seeMarv earlier in the week so he could
give you the money so you couldgo buy the donuts. Don't have to
(21:19):
pay for a money. You goin his office, he'd give you the
money and he'll tell you where togo get the donuts. Oh and he
just had to go pick him upthe donuts. Yeah, right, but
what a difference that's really interesting.Was an unbelievable difference about the way they
did things and the way those guysworked. It's crazy. Yeah, well,
and you had your opportunity then afterthat, and you did. You
(21:40):
went to the Chargers, to thela Rams and the Panthers before he came
here, and so I'm curious andwe can kind of go through each one
of those, but just the differencein organizations, Marv. The NFL has
finally caught up to what him andcoach Shanahan we're doing back then. As
far as taking care of players,it's finally happening more. But it still
does have to come from the top, and there are some owners who just
(22:00):
don't give a crap. Yeah,and then it just filters on down and
players are miserable. It's that way. So I spent a year and a
half in Buffalo on the practice squad. Buffalo did some interesting things. Right,
You're probably only supposed to have threepeople on the practice squad. They
may have had a few more.There may have been a injured reserve list
(22:25):
and they may have had more.They may have had a tarp around their
field so you couldn't see in soif you were injured, clearly an injured
player would never be dressed in passingto the field to practice in pads,
So you'd get to the field andmiraculously their pads there. So the NFL
(22:49):
got wise to them, finally caughtthem, and they got rid of everybody
off the practice squad. The peopleon injured reserve had to go see a
neutral party physician, a doctor outsideof the facilitycity. So you were a
casualty of numbers. Yeah, becausethey had to start all over. Yeah,
(23:10):
the craziest thing happened. I getcut San Diego calls, who's my
coach at San Diego, Sylvester CRuMs. No, it's such a small world
in that coaching circle. Sylvester CRuMsis the coach. So I go to
that team. I'm on the practicesquad. Still on the practice squad.
How about this roster of people.Eric b Enemy, who we came out
(23:33):
together, his second round draft pick, Ronnie Harman who had just come over
from Buffalo because Buffalo had drafted Thurman, Thomas Maryon, Butts, Rod bernstein
Z who you know, came overhere, got a big deal here in
Denver, and they had just draftedNatron means Ronnie Harman is holding out,
(23:56):
Butts is hurt. Eric might havebeen hurt. Rob Bernstein had just come
over here. So literally, thereare two of us that are healthy that
can scrimmage against the La Rams.You talk about inner squad scrimmages, and
this is gonna pay off twice forme. They gave me the starting back
(24:19):
and do really well in this scrimmage, so much so that the Rams coaches
are like, Wow, that natronmeans it's pretty good. They No,
that's not natron. Wow. Whatwhat are you guys gonna do with them?
(24:40):
Because you can't keep them? Well, we're gonna try to keep them.
We're gonna try to do everything wecan to keep them, but our
numbers are what they are. Thisis when Bobby Bethard, who was the
gem there, he says you shouldtry fullback. That's where it happens,
okay in San Diego. And nowit's like, this is the only way
you're gonna make it because now I'veseen what Eric Dickerson can do up close,
(25:03):
right, I've seen what his backupcan do. I've now sat here
and watched you know, Ronnie Harmonand and Bernstein and and all these guys
marrying butts, and I quickly realized, I'm not any of those guys.
I'm not close. I'm watching theenemy. I'm not close. They were
all faster. I was that twinterguy because I wasn't fast enough. But
(25:26):
I wasn't physically as big as whatsome of the fullbacks looked like at that
time. You know, those guyswere six two two forty and could run.
I wasn't me. So I startedto figure out this whole fullback thing.
And we're going into the last preseasongame San Diego. We're going to
(25:47):
San Francisco, and my guy SylvesterCRuMs, who which I didn't tell you,
when I walk into office, he'slike, how are you? You
look a whole lot different. You'redifferent than you were a couple of years
ago, because you know, Ididn't like you at all. This is
when I find out he doesn't likeit. I didn't even know. This
is when he fesses up and tellme I didn't want anything to do with
it. So you talk about goingback a little bit to the to the
(26:12):
inner squads squad scrimmage. I reallydid well there, and now the rams
are like, well right, Soyou guys, let us know what's gonna
happen. So I get the call. Coach CRuMs calls me to his room
and he says, look, here'sa deal. We're trying to move a
player. Don't think we're gonna beable to move him, but I can
(26:33):
tell you that the Rams in Miamiare gonna pick you up. If we
can't keep you, they're gonna pickyou up. We already know it's gonna
happen. I think the Rams hada worse record, so I ended up
being claimed by the Rams. Iget there. Jerome Bettis had just been
drafted. But I'm playing fullback now, so you know, I'm pretty I'm
(26:55):
good, So you know, itwas really a fun time getting to that
point point. But it was justinteresting. While I was on the practice
squad at San Diego, there wouldalways be moves being made, roster moves,
right, so I really didn't knowabout it, but I think I
would get a call sometimes Howard.Don't answer the phone because I stayed at
(27:17):
the hotel. This is the greatestthing ever. I never had to get
an apartment when I was in SanDiego. I stayed literally in the hotel,
and if I wanted to eat.If I wanted to go somewhere,
I'd go over to Eric Bimmi's house. It's funny he met me, would
have me over all the time,Thanksgiving all the time, what coming over.
(27:37):
It's crazy. And they paid forit. And I'm on the practice
squad. I'm like, this isa great deal. So Bobby Bethy would
see me and say, don't answerthe phone today. I probably was cut
eleven twelve times. I never knewit. I never really knew because they're
doing roster moves well and again inthe day before emails and all those things,
so that they're not putting out pressreleases all the time and you don't
(27:59):
see all the little transit actions thatare going on. Today. We know
everything constant, right, it's constantinformation. Oh my god, go to
the zoo today. It's a greatzook. I was like, this whole
practice squad thing is a pretty gooddeal because going back to Buffalo, I
made more money playing there in theoff season than the basketball games then I
(28:21):
actually made. And it was alltacks, free money. Baby. We
play. It would literally be threeor four games during the week, right,
and the big games will all wouldbe on Saturdays. Drive somewhere in
Pennsylvania. You're playing a game andit was an unbelievable deal. Yeah,
I got it good. I amliving really well now. And then reality
(28:47):
hits when you're with the Rams,because now you're gonna start playing debut.
That's where it happened. I scoredmy first touchdown at mile High. You
did, yes, Oh, Ididn't know that. I scored my first
touchdown a mile high. Also gothit very hard by Steve Atwater here.
You weren't the only one. Therewas a few people, a few people
(29:07):
on that list. Yeah, Idid get hit like Christian got hit nobody.
But going back to it, youstart talking about opportunities, right,
So I go back to that innersquad scrimmage, which is the reason I
was able to get to the Ramsand got on the radar. What if
you hadn't done that. What ifI had just taken it off, just
(29:30):
another day, not going to beany good. I'm not going to be
able to make the roster. Whatif that had been my attitude that particular
day, you would have never wontwo Super Bowl rings, Howard, never
because that was part of your path. It was part of the path,
and so I'm gonna stay with thewhole inner squad scrimmage. But I'm gonna
jump to me getting to Carolina andwe can talk more about Carolina. But
(29:55):
we came here and practiced against theDenver Broncos. When you're with the Panthers
at the past, you went therewith the expansion drive in the expansion Draft.
Well, we were in Greeley fora week and they were going through
They still had to split back fieldkind of more of what the old West
(30:15):
Coast offense looked like under you knowat the forty nine ers, where just
split back. Both running back andfullback had similar responsibilities. But in that
game Carolina, it was all powerrunning game. We would run, but
fullback was always in the game.They had all kind of ridiculous plays where
I had to block defensive ends.It was ridiculous. I always had to
block people that were bigger than Iwas. They thought it was a good
(30:37):
idea. I don't know why,because you are the human plow. By
the way, that's a story too. Okay, Shanahan made that up one
of the Super Bowls. No oneever called me that. I'm like,
where did this even come from?Said it from the podium. Okay,
I get it. Oh my gosh. Okay, so Mike's made up name.
(31:00):
Actually was you in Carolina? Yeah? Okay. So we come out
here and it's a power running game. In Carolina, Joe Pendry was the
offensive coordinator, and our offense wasas boring as it could get because we
were built on the defensive side.Capers, all right. So the second
year was all this offset I powerrun game. So his thought was,
(31:23):
we're either gonna punt kick a fieldgoal or an extra point. That's all
you're allowed to do as an offense. I'm sorry, did you do a
couple more things than that? No? No, no, no, no
no, here's what you do.You're gonna punt kick a field goal or
an extra point. Don't fumble theball, don't throw interceptions. So we
(31:45):
had this play called benjiabb and thetackle would blocked down, I'd have to
go kick out the defensive end.It was ridiculous, gave me headaches,
but we ran it over and overand over again. So we only had
a certain amount of plays, butwe could run him against any front,
any defense. We came here andthey were still trying to run the split
backfield, and then they got theidea you know what, we want to
(32:07):
add the power game to the WestCoast offense. So that's what it ended
up looking like once I got here, But it was because of what I
did in that week of practice.Mike was taking notes. Someone was Yeah,
it actually was probably mister Elway.It was taking notes, because that's
those guys were geniuses when it cameto personnel. They had this whole personnel
(32:30):
thing figured out. They knew whowould fit where involved with that. While
he was playing. No, hisdad was old Jack. Oh okay,
all right, that mister Elway.Yeah, that mister Alway. John John.
I was gonna say, he's justJohn. He could be the other
things too, but John most ofthe time. So again, it was
(32:53):
your practice. You had this opportunity, and I didn't know as far as
I knew Denver. You know,they were set at what they were doing
in the run game. So whenDenver called and said we want you to
come out here in free agency.We need you to make this, I
first stopped what, Yeah, Ialready got what you're doing out there,
(33:14):
but I didn't know they wanted togo to more of a power run game.
It really worked out for us whenwe stopped talking about just the offense,
but like going back, it reallyis about that opportunity absolutely, and
then how they're seeing you and doingwhat you can every time because you never
know who's watching, and every professionHoward's always putting forward your best foot because
(33:35):
that's when that next door could openup, because you never know when one's
going to close that you didn't thinkwas going to close, and another one's
going to open up. So youcame in here in ninety seven, so
right after they lost that Jacksonville game. You came in to a team that
is bitter and ticked and ready tokick them right. So it was the
first day a free agency. Iflew in the night before first year of
(33:57):
the new logo. The logo hadbeen up for maybe twenty four hours.
We pulled up in it already paintgun, already been vandalized. Said,
oh, this is great. Theydon't like the new logo. I guess.
But it was a cool experience becauseDenver ended up convincing me that this
was the first stop, and thenI had a stop with I was supposed
(34:19):
to fly from Denver to Detroit.Not a beauty about Detroit was Sylvester CRuMs
was now the offensive coordinators. SoI know I'm going to Detroit because we
had now we had become really closethrough that process in San Diego and just
you know, really the communication wasthere and he told me what was gonna
(34:40):
happen. It happened. So therewas a lot of trust there. So
and then Barry Sanders was there,and me getting a chance to play with
Barry Sanders was off the charts.So I was gonna come here, go
to Detroit and then go to Atlanta. I get here, they said you're
not going anywhere. I said,no, I had to ca flight.
Now they're trying to work this dealout. I'm like, y'all can work
(35:02):
that out, but I'm going toget on this flight to Detroit. No,
just a big a couple more minutes. After sitting around there for five
six hours missing probably missed the flight, right, miss the flight, Coach
Kobayak lying to me, in thisoffense, you'll catch fifty passes. By
the way, what's the name ofthat play that you run? You go
(35:23):
right at the end and you pretendlike you're gonna block them, and then
you go out into the flat andyou catch them. But what's the name
of that play, Oh flow pass. Yeah, yeah, we like that
play. We're gonna put that inhere. Like I'm gonna catch fifty pass
This is no way I'm catching fiftypasses. Yeah, you're gonna catch fifty
passes. I go to another room. I'm sitting around. I'm gonna catch
fifty pass I'm coming here. Thisis cool. You real? Davis is
(35:45):
a young superstar. This is prettycool. All right, I can get
into this. Later on that night, they start figuring stuff out and said,
well, I call my father,said, I'm not going to Detroit.
After we've gotten the deal done,I'm not going to Detroit. I'm
not going here. I'm staying inDenver. He's like, what is wrong
with you? You don't just takethe first deal somebody offers you. I
(36:07):
said, really, wasn't the firstdeal. They've been talking all day.
He's like, you sure about this? So yeah, I'm signing here.
That was the end of that.Did they strong arm you to stay?
Howard? Were you kind of aprisoner at the facility? That a prisoner?
And the thing about it, theyjust use words to keep me there.
They didn't even straight Yes, Iwasn't restraint. They just use words
(36:32):
to keep me there. Kubiak waslike, hey man, you want to
buy my house. You need ahouse. Now, what are we talking
about around here? Oh my gosh, that's so funny. It's crazy.
But now you did catch I didn'twrite them down. You had nearly fifty
in your five years. Oh yeah, probably over time. I mean they
(36:53):
gave me the ball once a month. He said, it's gonna be like
in a year, you'd had fifty. Okay, for five years, I
had fifty. And that might evenbeen a stretch. That seemed like a
lot to me right now, Iknow, but you did, I mean,
and then really, Howard? Imean, you win two Super Bowls,
you score touchdowns in Super Bowl thirtythree, you catch a critical pass
(37:15):
and the last touchdown drive that theyhad in that game. In that game
against Atlanta was different than it wasagainst the Packers. But being able to
help Terrell Davis with what he didand just the entire offense. What an
amazing way to have kind of acap on your career. Yeah, it
really was. After the grind thatyou went through for with so many other
teams. You know. An interestingthing about that, because I told you
(37:38):
that Buffalo Bill team, it wasby far the most talented team I'd been
a part of. I noted thatmore talented than what was in Denver.
Yeah, absolutely, So what wasthe difference on how Denver won the Super
Bowls? It's a team and seethat makeup of that team was so much
different. If you want to callus misfit toys, some people might disagree,
(38:02):
but really, when you look atthe starting offense, Ed Rod,
I mean you just look at allthat You're like, really, I mean,
think about the people that are onand we're not even talking about the
defensive side, but there was afear letting your teammates down. You all
come together collectively and you want thisone goal, but you still have to
(38:27):
have a respect and a work ethicbecause how does it jail? How do
you get a Rod Smith and EdMcCaffrey, who put up i mean ridiculous
numbers as a tandem, and thenyou add Shannon Sharp to that mix and
Dwayne Carswell to that mix. AndSharp was going to catch all the passes.
(38:47):
House was in probably going to bea run. If Byron was in
the game, you didn't really know. But everybody had their role, and
I think one of the biggest piecesto that, which I noticed right off
the bat was Alex Gibbs. Ohfor sure, because very few people and
(39:07):
I'd never played for Bill Parcels,but I've heard the stories, but very
few people could press all the buttonson everybody in a room. I mean
literally, we would do nine hseven and be eight plays maybe nine on
Thursday. It was the worst periodever mentally, because you knew you couldn't
screw up. If you screwed up, you were gonna be called out in
(39:29):
front of the team on Friday.And then he had this interesting twist where
he had a guest coach which wasone of the players who you'd come in
early that day and he'd give youa play and you had to critique your
teammates. So that was part ofit. Now, that was a fun
part because he made sure that partwas fun. But to make sure that
you're perfect for those eight to nineplays was critical to who we were.
(39:54):
And I remember one of the firstpractices I was here, Alex went bananas
on John Elway. This is differentand that's one of those where if he's
going to do that to him right, and even bigger part of that because
if John didn't want that to happen. He could have stopped it, but
he was talking to the team throughJohn. Very few coaches can have that
(40:20):
ability to talk through someone to getthe very best out of him. And
you would have thought, I thinkmost people would have said, this guy
didn't like me, he writes killingme. Then all of a sudden you
have you have an interaction with himaway from the facility, and you're like,
dude is brilliant. But he wasthe only one who could, let's
(40:42):
say it, check Shanahan, checkKubiak, check somebody underneath. He was
the glue to that staff and tothe team because Alexe was going to do
it his way and he believed init or he was all in. So
you knew, we can't throw itright here, we gotta run, we
gotta run. Okay. They trustedhim, they still yeah, and players
trusted him, so you knew that, Wow, this this is special and
(41:07):
I didn't experience that anywhere else.That's pretty cool. It was he was
able to get the best out everybody. Like you said, press all the
buttons, and then a few morebuttons that you didn't know you could be.
And I think also the other thingJohn did John was already at a
point in his career where you know, the arm wasn't what it was,
at least what I had heard aboutand seen. He had gotten hurt that
(41:31):
first preseason, my first year here, so he didn't even play. And
so I still have not seen thisrocket. I haven't seen it. I've
heard about it. So the firstplayer warm ups, when we could get
everybody during an individual own game day, we come together as a team.
The first play that we ran thatseason was twenty two zen, and that
gave me split back field. Ihad a free release out to the right.
(41:52):
John dropped back and that ball cameat me so fast. I don't
know how I caught it. Ijust stuck and it just stucked. It
just stucked. I'm like, Oh, that's what they've been talking about.
Wow, that's what they've been talkingabout. He let that thing go,
and I'm like, oh my god, be ready, be ready. And
(42:15):
another funny thing about that one though, that was a very superstitious team as
well, So if we were winning, twenty two zen was always called and
I couldn't afford to drop it becauseif I dropped it, We're gonna lose
the game. That team was whenit came to superstition. Man was off
the charts, such great memories.You end up retiring right at the start
(42:36):
of the two thousand and two season, right, you had a neck injury,
and did you just kind of knowthat it was time? I did,
because I couldn't shake, you know, there was numbness and it wouldn't
go away. Right. But here'sthe other thing. I always practice and
play like it was gonna be mylast game because I didn't know how long
I had to begin with, soI always treated the practice in the games
(42:59):
like it was gonna be the lastone. I'll tell you when I knew
for sure. It was in trainingcamp. I ran a play it wasn't
right, or I didn't get theblock the way I should. Alex said
something to me, and I snappedat Alex. Oh, that's when I
knew it was over for me,because that's something I would have never done.
(43:20):
I would have just taken. ButI had reached a point where it's
tingling and just not going away.It's irritated. You're irritated, Yeah,
what are we doing? I knewthen that it was over, and so
was it hard? Yeah? Ithink it's hard because that's what you know,
right, that's what you spend somuch time up until that point.
Your schedule was always set for you, or if it wasn't set for you,
(43:43):
you knew what you needed to bedoing to get prepared for getting into
that routine. But I was like, I'm tired. Well in your career,
Howard lasted three times longer than theaverage running backs career in the NFL.
Yeah, it's crazy, It's reallycrazy. It's crazy. It got
to a point that Sylvester CRuMs comesback to the story again. Yeah,
he comes back to the story afterI retire. He's at Green Bay.
(44:06):
Now they have William Henderson, who'sa fullback, and his contracts up,
and he's like, Howard, areyou sure you can't play? And I'm
like, coach, I can't play. Come on, man, you can
give me one more year. I'mlike, what's the problem with William.
Well, they're having some contract things. I said, let me tell you
something. If you're in Green Bayand you let William Henderson get out of
(44:28):
Green Bay, you're gonna have amorale problem in your locker room. You
guys got to figure out how tosign him. They ended up signing him.
It ended up working out. ThenI got a call from Narraiders,
which just makes your skin crawls.Get a call from Narraiders, they would
gung ho like I can't play,Sure you can't. What end up happening
(44:51):
is uh, mister Davis loved Ithink it was Zach Crockett. They would
have needed to not sign him tomake my deal happen. Mister Davis like,
now we're not doing that, right, You guys got to go in
a different direction. And I'm like, good because I can't play anyway.
As I said, I can't play. I am can't play anywhere. I'm
done. So when you retire,you end up getting into TV. You've
(45:14):
been at the Pac ten network fouryeah, I mean Pack ten Big ten
network for seventeen years now, soyou had a few a couple of years
in there before you got into TV, right, Yeah. So when I
retired, we stayed here for probablytwo years. After I was done,
so I started doing some stuff forFox Rocky Mountain. I was an analyst
(45:35):
for the Colorado Crush. Oh yeah, for the Arena League, right,
for the Arena League. Then Iwould do this arena show for Fox Rocky
Mountain and I'd do some Broncos stuffaround the city. I tell people,
now, I'm like, all Iwas getting was a fifty dollars coupon.
Excuse me that cop gift card.Gift card build the gift cards. Yeah
you can't, had no shot,but yeah, very good to get those
reps. But you need it,you need it reps. Yeah, it's
(45:58):
different on the other side. Ohit's another world. Yeah, it is
an absolute another world on that side. And and I was thankful for the
opportunities because when I left here andwe said, Okay, gotta move back
to Chicago, my dad wasn't travelingas much grandkids with the kids. His
grandkids were smaller. So we goback to Chicago, and I had agreed
to be the radio voice at Illinoisfor football. We're going through that.
(46:22):
The Big Ten network has already beenannounced, and I end up getting an
audition over there comes out of knowwhere I'm not even knowing what's going on,
didn't know I was on their radar, and they hired me originally just
to call games because I hadn't donereally no studio stuff outside of some of
the stuff I did hear, butI'd been doing mostly games to that point.
(46:44):
It had done a bunch of SEUgames for a year and okay,
so they said, hey, youknow, I think we want to make
your part of the studio team.Okay, So they end up hiring me,
but I said, well, youknow, I've already accepted this job
in Champagne. I can't do both. You're gonna do this one, right,
(47:07):
I'm like, Actually, a personwho I didn't realize at the time,
but Roan Gunther, who was theathletic director, had given them my
name. Oh, I guess hegave it to him before I had agreed
to do this ellinariy radio thing.So I said, well, you guys
need to coll to you know,we call him coach Coach Gunther and figure
(47:29):
it out. I mean, ifhe says no, I'm, you know,
just gonna do this radio thing becauseI committed to it. Coach Gunther
was upset with me for a goodtwo three months. I said, this
was it was your idea. Itwas your idea. So we got past
that. But yeah, so westarted our seventeenth year crazy I do,
(47:52):
but it's nothing like it was whenit started. It can't be the Big
ten anymore, right, as it'salways gonna be the Big ten. It's
it's craziest thing ever. When itwent to eleven, it was the Big
ten, but they found a wayto put on eleven in the logo.
And now they've just gotten totally awayfrom that and it's just B one G
And then you can just have manyteams that you want to have in there.
(48:12):
And I was talking to Romo thismorning, we're having coffee in and
you you'll know this and have agreat appreciation for it, just being in
the backyard in Colorado. What theUniversity of Colorado is doing right now,
what Nil has done, oh man, And how quickly you can change the
fortunes of your your university, yourentire school. Yes, yeah, I
(48:35):
will be fascinated to see what thenumber of applications were last season versus where
they are at the end of thisseason. It'll be astronomical of the charts.
Yeah, the admissions folks are,they're get ready for the grind.
They're probably hiring more people than absolutely. Well, that's awesome, Howard.
(48:58):
And then you have your two kidsare now grown in their twenties now,
which is crazy. Ours are thesame thing. It's I mean, they
just grow up and and it's funyou're living in Chicago. I keep up
with you on the Strava app becauseyou're doing a lot of biking, and
that's kind of how we reconnected foundyou. I was like, oh,
dang, look at Howard getting outthere, just riding your rear off.
You're you're standing in shape, youlook great. Thanks. You know what.
(49:19):
It's so I probably found cycling probablyright right before the pandemic, and
then when the pandemic hit. Betweencycling outside and the cult, it is
peloton and it is let's be veryclear, it's a cult because nowhere in
America do millions of people believe thatthey are all friends with Alex Tucson.
(49:45):
He's my best friend. Now he'snot here, he doesn't know he high
five me. And then you've gothundreds of people around the world high five
in each other like they're friends.It is the craziest thing ever. It's
so funny. Yeah, well,I love seeing that you're out there and
doing what you do. It's great. It's been fun. It really has
(50:07):
been. And I think every partof your journey kind of set you up
as you're going through life, andyeah, you know, you just have
to be able to recognize it.At the end of the day we talked
about it. You have to beable to maximize the opportunities that you have
in front of you. And youknow, I steal just from from Nick
Saban about being where your feet are, because so many times, you know
we're doing something, but we're lookingahead to something else. Okay, well
(50:30):
I got this, Now I needto go try to do this and try
to do that. And it's notsettling, but it's understanding that you have
to maximize where you are in thatspace that you're in right now, and
that may be where you're supposed tobe, but so often got to go
through this when my oldest they're alwayslooking for the next thing. Yes,
right, it's so quick and insome ways I admire that, and in
(50:52):
some ways, I mean this isscary. I mean, you just they
will make a decision like that,change jobs. Well I'm tired of that
job. They just same. Thenthey just go. You know, I'm
kind of like and I'm like,wait a minute, where's like putting in
the work, you know, andI know you're working hard, but give
it a little different time. AndI think that's a generational thing, Howard
with that generation where it's an instant, very instant gratification, and so things
(51:15):
aren't going with like, Okay,screw it, I'll go here. Well,
we're seeing in college athletics, yes, with the port perfect example,
which I think the portal's great,I think, and I l is great.
I think all of that is wonderful. And maybe that's us because we've
seen the success that you can haveif you just stick it out. Yes,
and if you're just working that opportunitythat you have for that particular job,
(51:35):
whatever it may be, that youhave a passion for, where in
their mind they're like, I'm notdoing that and it works for it?
Does? I know it does worksfor so it is so puzzling. It's
puzzling for us because we're not usedto it. I'll never get used to
it. You can move job thejob and continue to gain success and attain
(51:59):
all the things you want to attain, but I still will not understand that
logic. I can't wrap my headaround. I agree. Yeah, Well,
I always ask as a last questionyour advice that you would give to
people. But you're so good atwhat you do that you just already did
it and I didn't even have toask you. And prompt you for us,
So thank you, thank you,thank you again for the time.
This was so much fun. Itwas It was a lot of fun.
I have to come back out here. Yeah, you gotta bring your bike.
(52:21):
This is true. You and Ineed to ride. Yeah. First
of all, I'll problem need aweek to get ready to ride out.
But elevation is a little different,a little bit different, a little bit
different rollings. Yeah, exactly,all right, that's a problem. Thanks
Howard, Thanks for having me HowardGriffith, so good to catch up with
him. Well, if you're hearingthis, you've listened to the entire episode,
and first of all, thank you. Secondly, I hope you enjoyed
(52:44):
this episode and listen to others.If you do, do me a favor.
Rate and review on Apple Podcasts andSpotify. New episodes of Cut,
Traded, Fired, Retired come outevery Tuesday on nearly every podcast platform.
Get social with the podcast on Twitterand Instagram at st fur podcast, and
check out the website CTFR podcast dotcom. I'm your host, Susiewargin.
(53:05):
To find out more about me,visit Susiewargin dot com. And again,
thank you for listening, and untilnext time, please be careful, be
safe and be kind. Take care,
I was gonna come here, goto Detroit and then go to Atlanta.
I get here, they say you'renot going anywhere. I said no,
I had to catch a flight.Now they're trying to work this deal out.
I'm like, y'all can work thatout, but I'm going to get
on his flight to Detroit. Notjust be a couple more minutes after sitting
around there for five six hours missingyour flight. Probably missed the flight.
(00:21):
Were you kind of a prisoner atthe facility? That? And the thing
about it, they just use wordsto keep me there. Yes, I
wasn't restraint. They just used wordsto keep me there. Welcome to Cut,
Traded, Fired, Retired a podcastfeaturing conversations with professional athletes and coaches
(00:44):
who have been gracious enough to telltheir stories of changes, setbacks, and
moving forward. I'm your host,Susie Wargen. This episode's guest was part
of Super Bowl thirty two and thirtythree with the Denver Broncos, and he
was one of the major key elementsto their offense, or, as Howard
if It puts it, he waspart of the misfit Toys, which kind
of makes sense. There was JohnElway and mostly a bunch of other guys
(01:07):
who were either late round draft picksor college free agents. Howard falls into
the late round draft pick category.However, if he was drafted today,
he would be a college free agentbecause he was taken in the ninth round,
which doesn't exist anymore. Howard paidhis dues not only in the NFL,
spending time with five organizations before finallylanding in Denver. He was also
a walk on at the University ofIllinois, where he had dreamed of playing
(01:30):
since he was young. He wasa running back during high school, college,
and a couple years into the NFL, then smartly switched to fullback,
which is where he gained recognition forhelping plow the way for Terrell Davis and
many other backs. He's always wearinga smile and still looks like he could
play ladies and gentlemen. Howard Griffithgot traded fired Retired Podcasts with Susie Wargin
(01:55):
Howard Griffith, what's going on?I have, mister smile and your energy.
It's so good to see you.It's good to be back out here.
It's good to see you as well. You know, it just brings
back fine memories, just being here. You know. I flew in here
last night and I was like,Wow, this is a great place.
And I really I think back tothe first time i'd come out here as
(02:15):
a smaller child. I was outhere. My dad had brought us out.
He was He's an alpha, sohe came out. There was a
convention here, so that was likemy first time, but I didn't really
know much. All I knew isthat we took a drive to Pike's Peak.
Let me be very clear, Iscream cry. That's what I remember
about it, because there were noguardrails and I'm like, what are we
(02:37):
doing? We're going This isn't right, this can't be right. So that
was my first memory of it,and then coming out here in Free Agency.
But this has always been a beautifulplace to me, and obviously playing
here and spending so much time here, and it's a place that I'm glad
that I get an opportunity to comeback to. Yeah, and where you
spent the most time in your careerout of all the places that you went,
(02:57):
and we're gonna go through all ofthat. So let's go back to
the beginn You live in Chicago now, and that's where you were born.
That's where you grew up. Whendid you get into football? What were
your other sports? What was growingup like for you? Wow? You
know, growing up was interesting forme. I started playing flag football.
I didn't play organized football tackle footballuntil I think I was a freshman in
high school, so I was puttingthe pads on backwards and all that kind
(03:20):
of stuff. But in seventh andeighth grade I played flag football at my
grammar school. And before that,because we had a lot of windows and
cars, we played sock football.Somebody made a sock football, put a
ball in its sock, and we'replaying catch with a sock, so we
wouldn't break any windows. I guessthey didn't know it. We still put
a ball inside it. They couldstill do exactly. We could do a
(03:43):
lot of damage. But growing outChicago was good. It was It was
a lot of fun for me.When I started to play football. I
think when my mom my adopted mom. Now this is stay with me,
okay, because this gets really confusingand I get confused. Okay, all
right, I'm with you. SoI was a junior in high school,
I find out that I'm adopted.When you were a junior in high school
(04:04):
at junior in high school and gettingthis. Everyone on the block knew that
I was adopted, but no onenever told me. I was. So
my neighbor across the street, MissusSmiley, I had gone over my mom.
She had been battling breast cancer.I go across the street and I
was like, I don't know thatshe's gonna make it. My dad just
went to the hospital. I didn'twant to go back out there. And
she looked at me, she said, how are you. I've been truly
(04:25):
blessed because they chose you. AndI'm like, chose me? What are
you talking about? Hello? Nobodyknew that you didn't know? Right?
Oh my god? So everybody andthen there were a lot of kids on
the block, but no one evermentioned it or said anything about it.
Wow. So that was kind ofvery interesting, to say the least.
(04:46):
So I went through my rebellious stageand football was kind of ended up being
that outlet. Changed schools your junioryear, My good, didn't you.
Well? I went to a mentalCatholic for three years in high school and
then my senior Yeah, I wantedto leave my junior year and my dad
was on vacation. He had goneout of town and I was like,
I'm gonna go to Julian. Hewas like, you're not going to Julian.
(05:09):
I said, no, I reallywant to go. And another year
passed so I don't go. Istayed at Mindel. I end up breaking
my ankle week two of my junioryear. Now I'm dead set. I'm
going to Julian. I go upto Julian and the coach there, doctor
J. W. Smith, whoended up being a mentor and a very
close friend of mine, says,you know what, Howard, you need
to go back over to you yourhigh school, go talk to your coach.
(05:31):
Like what you mean I don't wantto go back over there. You
need to go back and talk toyour coach and tell them what you want
to do. I'm like, okay, does this mean you don't want me?
So of course I didn't go backover but I came back and told
him I did. Okay, ifything'sgood. You know they weren't happy,
but I'm going to Julian. Wehave a strike or teacher strike, so
(05:56):
things aren't going really well now,like a two week teacher strike. But
as we do in Chicago, westill practice not organized, but we practiced.
It was during that time when Ireally started to figure out that,
you know, I really liked thisfootball stuff. It's a good outlet for
me, and this is what Iwant to do. And going back to
my first three years, I didn'ttake my academics serious. And then all
(06:17):
of a sudden, like some ofus do, some males like myself,
all of a sudden, we're upagainst the wall and it's like, oh,
now you want to study what Iwas supposed to be doing that the
whole time. Yeah, we're supposedto be doing it. This doesn't seem
to work out for me that way, but that's what I want to do.
So I ended up going to theUniversity of Illinois. I've been recruited
by smaller schools like Illinois State,Eastern Illinois, Northern Iowa, but that's
(06:42):
not where I wanted to do.So growing up, I'm watching Mike White
and University of Illinois. Here isthe Mike White coaching show, Jack Trudeau
and David Williams, a bunch ofguys that had really played at a high
level in college, Like, thisis just where I want to go,
and so now I have to walkon. Oh you didn't get a scholarship
in from a scholarship because I wasa little slow. I wasn't taking care
(07:03):
of my business academically. Oh slowin that way, I was like,
wait, slow, you were slow. I was not doing the things I
needed to academics. So I finallygot my stuff together walk on down there,
which was really a great situation forme because I couldn't play my first
year, so I really had achance to really figure out what the college
environment was all about. But growingup, I think it just all prepared
(07:25):
me some of those setbacks early,whether it was finding out when I was
adopted at that time. That's insanein high school when everything's just so crazy
anyway, when you're a teenager andthen you find out something dramatic like that.
Yeah, I'm sure you have questions, So go ahead, because I
kind of I kind of went.I kind of went past everything. Oh
no, I think, no,that's exactly where I go with this.
So you you did it, Justfind it. I'm curious though, with
(07:46):
the colleges. Your heart was seton University of Illinois even though you had
the other offers, did you govisit other places? I went and visit
at Illinois State and Southern Illinois,which the funny story about Southern Illinois at
that time was just you at thewest side and east side and they want
to enclose one in create a horseshoe. And the guy says to me,
(08:07):
it's recruiting, Howard, if youcome here, we'll be able to put
the horseshoe down here. You're goingto bring it all the fun. Yeah,
okay, right, But what Idid do I said, we know,
I've got a couple of friends wantto come here, got like four
of my buddies in the school.That was nice of you. Really worked
out and I ended up not going, So that ended up being a little
bit of a thing. But thenI'm curious then walking on at University Illinois,
(08:31):
how did that go? Because that'sa tough road. I mean,
you had a tough road in theNFL as well, but you started that
in your college days. To thinkabout starting a journey like that, you
don't know what you don't know,and so you don't know really how hard
it is until you actually start theprocess. But was interesting. We had
(08:52):
a couple of guys that had comein that we're running backs that were if
today's time a high four stars fivestar type players, and I'm saying,
this is where I want to go, but I don't. I don't know.
I mean there's no internet, youhave no idea. I mean,
yeah, there's an article that comesout maybe once a year. They talked
(09:15):
about who's going where, right signingDay article. Yeah, but nobody's really
doing anything, you know, publicizingit. So I get there. Kendall
Gill was there, who ended uphaving an unbelievable NBA career, Nick Anderson,
Kenny Battle who all three of thoseguys in Ellinois Hall of Fame.
So we all came in. Soin eighty six, when I graduated from
(09:37):
high school, there was a hugepush by the University for Diversity to bring
in people from Chicago. People fromSaint Louis and Indianapolis were there, two
targeted areas. I mean, itwas crazy how many people had the opportunity.
So they started what they called theBridge program. You come in six
months, get acclimated to the school, you just go on. You were
(10:01):
admitted, and as long as yougot through the program, everything was fine.
So it was so many of usthat came from the inner cities.
It was really like home. Soa lot of athletes came at that time.
A lot of my closest friends thatare on that team, they came
in in eighty six, so itwas it was a fun time to be
there and to really be around somany people with so many diverse backgrounds.
(10:24):
Because growing up in the Inner City, my parents put me in a program
at the Museum of Science Industry.That is the first time I had been
in a classroom or in a roomwith anyone else that was not black.
Really, that was my first time. So now we're probably talking about seventh
eighth grade because that's just how segregatedChicago is. So you know, I
(10:48):
got the chance to experience that young. But once I got to the university,
I'm like, whoa, what wasthe ratio there white to book.
Well, first of all, wewere probably two percent African American. It's
really low, but we thought itwas a lot higher because it was a
tight knit group. I mean,there's obviously you don't like everybody, but
(11:09):
still you're in a comfort zone orsystem, so you you were forced to
learn how to interact and relate andembrace other people, other cultures, and
that, to me, what wascool about athletics at the college level,
people coming from different walks of life, different backgrounds, religion, and it
(11:31):
was so cool to be in ain a locker room where everybody has one
goal, right, we just wantto win. It doesn't matter which you
look like. And it was nevera problem. We didn't have race issues,
We didn't have any of that stuffbecause it was just we just here
trying to apply it. Again,you don't like everybody, but still,
I mean there was a mutual respectbecause your teammates and you're shooting for one
(11:54):
goal. I think that's funny whenyou say that, because I think sometimes
the thought is that everybody on theteam really likes each other and they're all
and when you have NFL, you'vegot, you know, your fifty plus
guys, and in college there's waymore than that. And I want to
go at your workplace. Do youlove everybody? No, they don't all
love each other all the time,but they are together for that one goal,
(12:16):
So that makes it a group effort. Doesn't mean they're all hanging out
with each other outside of there,Yeah, it doesn't. And we had
some of my teammates that were fromIndianapolis had a house and then some of
my other teammates had another house,so you could say the black players would
hang out over here. Sometimes thewhite players would hang out in the house
that was always passed down. Sothe football team always lived in that house.
(12:41):
Right, there are always football playersand they talk right. They always
had ridiculous parties out of control.And then the other house over here would
have parties, but they would alwaysseem to get shut down all the time.
I don't know why, but theyseem to get shut down. So
you would have that, But thatwasn't because of the team dynamic. That
was an outside dynamic. So whenI say outside, so if law enforcement
(13:07):
decide if they wanted to shut downone of the homes that was a home,
that would be the home they gotyou down. Interesting, and then
I was smart enough because I didn'tlive it. You never want to live
in the middle of all of thatstuff. Do you want to visit?
You just want to visit so youcan leave whenever you're read Oh my gosh,
that's funny. Well, your careerat Illinois was fantastic. In nineteen
(13:30):
ninety, you share the Big Tentitle and then you have a game in
September of nineteen ninety where you scoreeight rushing touchdowns forty eight points in a
game. It's crazy. Does itstill stand? And it's been tied a
couple of times, okay, whichis always an interesting thing, particularly because
I'm doing a Saturday show. Yeah, from your studio. The last one
(13:52):
was a young man at Buffalo.It's a little angst in the studio at
the particularly you're like the Miami Dolphins. Twelve minute, he's got five,
he's got six. And it's notlike I don't already know. Oh yeah,
you're very Twitter going on and Instagram, you know all the information.
But your host is down there andyou're you know, it's like our getting
(14:13):
close. You made he's getting close. Stuff needs So now we're trying to
find the game to pull it in. But anyway, the lucky thing about
because he would have broken it withouta doubt. There were still like six
minutes left in the game. Therewas another running back on the team and
the coach wasn't aware of the situation, and he wanted to get the other
(14:33):
kid some reps. Thank goodness,he got the other kids and reps.
I got to stick around a littlewhile. Wow, it's been around for
a long time. That happened innineteen ninety. Then in the draft,
the nineteen ninety one draft. Youget drafted in the ninth round. Yeah,
don't even to day you would bea college free agent. Yes,
not even a preferred free agent atthat probably the ninth round pick. Yeah,
(14:56):
the Colts get you. You neverplay a game for the Colt.
You're there for a couple of years. No, I'm there for training camp.
That's when I started to not necessarilyunderstand the NFL, but just kind
of look at the dynamics of whatthe NFL is about and the B word
business. Absolutely, and we onlyhad we I wasn't there long enough for
(15:20):
week. They they only kept threerunning backs active. Eric Dickerson was one,
a guy by the name of AlbertBentley who he was probably the first
true third down back. They haddrafted a guy named Anthony Johnson from Notre
Dame in the second round the yearbefore. I'm like, got no chance
(15:46):
at this one. Why am Ihere looking around the room, and so
now I'm gonna I'm gonna move,I'm gonna jump. So there's the would
be rookie hazing. And it wasn'tanything crazy, but it was you guys
gotta sing, you gotta do this. You gotta do that. Here's what
(16:07):
it taught me. I learned fromthat team. No wonder we don't win
or y'all don't win because it wasy'all. Then it's a reason y'all don't
win because I'm not playing. I'mnot even playing in this game. They
were so focused on what the rookiesneed to be doing or the first year
guys that they weren't even handling theirown business. Wow. Now it was
a talented team. A guy likeEric Dickerson wasn't in the middle of it
(16:30):
because he was you know, he'salready a big star making all the money,
right, But there were other players. They were worried about what the
rookies aren't doing. So in mymind I started to I got a sense,
Okay, I don't know why peopletreat each other like this. It
doesn't make any sense to me.But there were still was really a talented
team, and I learned a lotbecause my running back coach there was Sylvester
(16:52):
Crum's who ended up being the firstAfrican American head coach in the SEC,
and he hated me always apply toit was like, I don't know why
we drafted you. Why is hehit Ron Meyers. Why why is he
here? So I'm just sitting there. If the first cut comes, I
mean, I'm not practicing. I'mnot doing anything. Sure I'll get cut.
(17:15):
Walk in. Where's my note?It's the first cut, where's my
note? I'm ready to go.I'm gonna do anything with me. Why
am I still here? Right?Yeah? One of the things coaches will
tell you now, don't count thepeople in the room. Don't count the
reps. Don't try to predetermine whoalready made the team. But i'd already.
I'm looking around. I know howmany people you keep back? Eric
(17:37):
Dickerson isn't going anywhere. Albert Bentleyisn't going anywhere. You know, these
guys aren't going anywhere. So Idon't fit. So I end up getting
cut the last cut. I gohome. I'm not on the team,
and the Buffalo Bills call go upfor a tryout. They've got Thurman Thomas.
Yeah, you're gonna beat him outright, No chance at that. Kenneth
(17:59):
Dave, who was his backup thatto me, of all the backs that
I've ever played with, to me, he was the best number two of
any of the guys that I hadever played with another guy named Colwood.
Gardner was the fullback. He wasa first round pick, had the same
agent is Jim Kelly, so theywere tight. I'm in there. I'm
(18:21):
like, how would just work out? We're gonna work out and see what
happens. Two of the guys thathad come in at this workout were four
more first round picks. So I'malready in the tank, but I'm gonna
go do my best. See whatI can do. Have a good workout,
you see, we're gonna sign you. Huh huh. So I didn't
(18:41):
have any idea of what the practicesquad was or any of that stuff,
but those guys weren't eligible for thepractice squad. I make the practice squad.
One of my teammates from Illinois wasa first round draft pick, Henry
Jones, so I had someone onthe team that I knew. But here
was my work week in Buffalo,which by far is the most talented team
(19:02):
I've ever been around. I didn'tpractice on Monday. I would work on
Tuesday and Wednesday and they be there. I take the rest of the week
off and go, yeah, reallynow to pay It is a whole lot
different than the practice squad of hisnow ye much different. But that was
literally it. But instead of justsaying Okay, I'm just gonna show up
(19:22):
on those two days, I wentto the stadium every day because it was
literally I just need to jump acrossthe creek to get to the stadium.
I lived in an apartment complex rightbehind the stadium, so I jump over
the creek and go to work out. I'll never forget. I'm on an
elevator with Andre Reid and Andre looksat me and said, man, before
you know it, you'll have eightyears in Dude, I'm trying to make
the team. Na, what areyou talking about? But you know,
(19:48):
the way Marv Levy ran that placeis how Shanahan when I got here,
as far as the practice schedule andmaking sure you were taking care of the
players and helmet days, that's whathe did that in training camp. So
he was so far ahead of youknow, how to maintain the body,
how to try to keep your teamfresh. It was incredible. But you
(20:11):
talk about the players that were onthat team, it was amazing to me.
It was probably the most athletic andthe best team that I'd ever seen.
Wow, when you look at thetalent, the hall of famers and
so to go back to hazing.There was none of that when I got
to Buffalo. Interesting because they werefocused on winning. They were focused on
winning, and they were focused onthemselves to a certain extent, which is
(20:34):
probably one of the reasons when theygot to the biggest game. There was
always something. There was always someoutside stuff that was surrounding the game.
But when you think about going tofour straight Super Bowls. So I was
a part of I was on thepractice squad the year they lost to Washington
(20:55):
in Minnesota. I mean you're lookingat these like, it's unbelievable the amount
of talent players, and I meanthey could just turn it on, but
it was none of that Hazen stuff. Here's the only thing that had to
happen. A young player had tobring donuts on a Saturday. So what
would happen. You had to seeMarv earlier in the week so he could
give you the money so you couldgo buy the donuts. Don't have to
(21:19):
pay for a money. You goin his office, he'd give you the
money and he'll tell you where togo get the donuts. Oh and he
just had to go pick him upthe donuts. Yeah, right, but
what a difference that's really interesting.Was an unbelievable difference about the way they
did things and the way those guysworked. It's crazy. Yeah, well,
and you had your opportunity then afterthat, and you did. You
(21:40):
went to the Chargers, to thela Rams and the Panthers before he came
here, and so I'm curious andwe can kind of go through each one
of those, but just the differencein organizations, Marv. The NFL has
finally caught up to what him andcoach Shanahan we're doing back then. As
far as taking care of players,it's finally happening more. But it still
does have to come from the top, and there are some owners who just
(22:00):
don't give a crap. Yeah,and then it just filters on down and
players are miserable. It's that way. So I spent a year and a
half in Buffalo on the practice squad. Buffalo did some interesting things. Right,
You're probably only supposed to have threepeople on the practice squad. They
may have had a few more.There may have been a injured reserve list
(22:25):
and they may have had more.They may have had a tarp around their
field so you couldn't see in soif you were injured, clearly an injured
player would never be dressed in passingto the field to practice in pads,
So you'd get to the field andmiraculously their pads there. So the NFL
(22:49):
got wise to them, finally caughtthem, and they got rid of everybody
off the practice squad. The peopleon injured reserve had to go see a
neutral party physician, a doctor outsideof the facilitycity. So you were a
casualty of numbers. Yeah, becausethey had to start all over. Yeah,
(23:10):
the craziest thing happened. I getcut San Diego calls, who's my
coach at San Diego, Sylvester CRuMs. No, it's such a small world
in that coaching circle. Sylvester CRuMsis the coach. So I go to
that team. I'm on the practicesquad. Still on the practice squad.
How about this roster of people.Eric b Enemy, who we came out
(23:33):
together, his second round draft pick, Ronnie Harman who had just come over
from Buffalo because Buffalo had drafted Thurman, Thomas Maryon, Butts, Rod bernstein
Z who you know, came overhere, got a big deal here in
Denver, and they had just draftedNatron means Ronnie Harman is holding out,
(23:56):
Butts is hurt. Eric might havebeen hurt. Rob Bernstein had just come
over here. So literally, thereare two of us that are healthy that
can scrimmage against the La Rams.You talk about inner squad scrimmages, and
this is gonna pay off twice forme. They gave me the starting back
(24:19):
and do really well in this scrimmage, so much so that the Rams coaches
are like, Wow, that natronmeans it's pretty good. They No,
that's not natron. Wow. Whatwhat are you guys gonna do with them?
(24:40):
Because you can't keep them? Well, we're gonna try to keep them.
We're gonna try to do everything wecan to keep them, but our
numbers are what they are. Thisis when Bobby Bethard, who was the
gem there, he says you shouldtry fullback. That's where it happens,
okay in San Diego. And nowit's like, this is the only way
you're gonna make it because now I'veseen what Eric Dickerson can do up close,
(25:03):
right, I've seen what his backupcan do. I've now sat here
and watched you know, Ronnie Harmonand and Bernstein and and all these guys
marrying butts, and I quickly realized, I'm not any of those guys.
I'm not close. I'm watching theenemy. I'm not close. They were
all faster. I was that twinterguy because I wasn't fast enough. But
(25:26):
I wasn't physically as big as whatsome of the fullbacks looked like at that
time. You know, those guyswere six two two forty and could run.
I wasn't me. So I startedto figure out this whole fullback thing.
And we're going into the last preseasongame San Diego. We're going to
(25:47):
San Francisco, and my guy SylvesterCRuMs, who which I didn't tell you,
when I walk into office, he'slike, how are you? You
look a whole lot different. You'redifferent than you were a couple of years
ago, because you know, Ididn't like you at all. This is
when I find out he doesn't likeit. I didn't even know. This
is when he fesses up and tellme I didn't want anything to do with
it. So you talk about goingback a little bit to the to the
(26:12):
inner squads squad scrimmage. I reallydid well there, and now the rams
are like, well right, Soyou guys, let us know what's gonna
happen. So I get the call. Coach CRuMs calls me to his room
and he says, look, here'sa deal. We're trying to move a
player. Don't think we're gonna beable to move him, but I can
(26:33):
tell you that the Rams in Miamiare gonna pick you up. If we
can't keep you, they're gonna pickyou up. We already know it's gonna
happen. I think the Rams hada worse record, so I ended up
being claimed by the Rams. Iget there. Jerome Bettis had just been
drafted. But I'm playing fullback now, so you know, I'm pretty I'm
(26:55):
good, So you know, itwas really a fun time getting to that
point point. But it was justinteresting. While I was on the practice
squad at San Diego, there wouldalways be moves being made, roster moves,
right, so I really didn't knowabout it, but I think I
would get a call sometimes Howard.Don't answer the phone because I stayed at
(27:17):
the hotel. This is the greatestthing ever. I never had to get
an apartment when I was in SanDiego. I stayed literally in the hotel,
and if I wanted to eat.If I wanted to go somewhere,
I'd go over to Eric Bimmi's house. It's funny he met me, would
have me over all the time,Thanksgiving all the time, what coming over.
(27:37):
It's crazy. And they paid forit. And I'm on the practice
squad. I'm like, this isa great deal. So Bobby Bethy would
see me and say, don't answerthe phone today. I probably was cut
eleven twelve times. I never knewit. I never really knew because they're
doing roster moves well and again inthe day before emails and all those things,
so that they're not putting out pressreleases all the time and you don't
(27:59):
see all the little transit actions thatare going on. Today. We know
everything constant, right, it's constantinformation. Oh my god, go to
the zoo today. It's a greatzook. I was like, this whole
practice squad thing is a pretty gooddeal because going back to Buffalo, I
made more money playing there in theoff season than the basketball games then I
(28:21):
actually made. And it was alltacks, free money. Baby. We
play. It would literally be threeor four games during the week, right,
and the big games will all wouldbe on Saturdays. Drive somewhere in
Pennsylvania. You're playing a game andit was an unbelievable deal. Yeah,
I got it good. I amliving really well now. And then reality
(28:47):
hits when you're with the Rams,because now you're gonna start playing debut.
That's where it happened. I scoredmy first touchdown at mile High. You
did, yes, Oh, Ididn't know that. I scored my first
touchdown a mile high. Also gothit very hard by Steve Atwater here.
You weren't the only one. Therewas a few people, a few people
(29:07):
on that list. Yeah, Idid get hit like Christian got hit nobody.
But going back to it, youstart talking about opportunities, right,
So I go back to that innersquad scrimmage, which is the reason I
was able to get to the Ramsand got on the radar. What if
you hadn't done that. What ifI had just taken it off, just
(29:30):
another day, not going to beany good. I'm not going to be
able to make the roster. Whatif that had been my attitude that particular
day, you would have never wontwo Super Bowl rings, Howard, never
because that was part of your path. It was part of the path,
and so I'm gonna stay with thewhole inner squad scrimmage. But I'm gonna
jump to me getting to Carolina andwe can talk more about Carolina. But
(29:55):
we came here and practiced against theDenver Broncos. When you're with the Panthers
at the past, you went therewith the expansion drive in the expansion Draft.
Well, we were in Greeley fora week and they were going through
They still had to split back fieldkind of more of what the old West
(30:15):
Coast offense looked like under you knowat the forty nine ers, where just
split back. Both running back andfullback had similar responsibilities. But in that
game Carolina, it was all powerrunning game. We would run, but
fullback was always in the game.They had all kind of ridiculous plays where
I had to block defensive ends.It was ridiculous. I always had to
block people that were bigger than Iwas. They thought it was a good
(30:37):
idea. I don't know why,because you are the human plow. By
the way, that's a story too. Okay, Shanahan made that up one
of the Super Bowls. No oneever called me that. I'm like,
where did this even come from?Said it from the podium. Okay,
I get it. Oh my gosh. Okay, so Mike's made up name.
(31:00):
Actually was you in Carolina? Yeah? Okay. So we come out
here and it's a power running game. In Carolina, Joe Pendry was the
offensive coordinator, and our offense wasas boring as it could get because we
were built on the defensive side.Capers, all right. So the second
year was all this offset I powerrun game. So his thought was,
(31:23):
we're either gonna punt kick a fieldgoal or an extra point. That's all
you're allowed to do as an offense. I'm sorry, did you do a
couple more things than that? No? No, no, no, no
no, here's what you do.You're gonna punt kick a field goal or
an extra point. Don't fumble theball, don't throw interceptions. So we
(31:45):
had this play called benjiabb and thetackle would blocked down, I'd have to
go kick out the defensive end.It was ridiculous, gave me headaches,
but we ran it over and overand over again. So we only had
a certain amount of plays, butwe could run him against any front,
any defense. We came here andthey were still trying to run the split
backfield, and then they got theidea you know what, we want to
(32:07):
add the power game to the WestCoast offense. So that's what it ended
up looking like once I got here, But it was because of what I
did in that week of practice.Mike was taking notes. Someone was Yeah,
it actually was probably mister Elway.It was taking notes, because that's
those guys were geniuses when it cameto personnel. They had this whole personnel
(32:30):
thing figured out. They knew whowould fit where involved with that. While
he was playing. No, hisdad was old Jack. Oh okay,
all right, that mister Elway.Yeah, that mister Alway. John John.
I was gonna say, he's justJohn. He could be the other
things too, but John most ofthe time. So again, it was
(32:53):
your practice. You had this opportunity, and I didn't know as far as
I knew Denver. You know,they were set at what they were doing
in the run game. So whenDenver called and said we want you to
come out here in free agency.We need you to make this, I
first stopped what, Yeah, Ialready got what you're doing out there,
(33:14):
but I didn't know they wanted togo to more of a power run game.
It really worked out for us whenwe stopped talking about just the offense,
but like going back, it reallyis about that opportunity absolutely, and
then how they're seeing you and doingwhat you can every time because you never
know who's watching, and every professionHoward's always putting forward your best foot because
(33:35):
that's when that next door could openup, because you never know when one's
going to close that you didn't thinkwas going to close, and another one's
going to open up. So youcame in here in ninety seven, so
right after they lost that Jacksonville game. You came in to a team that
is bitter and ticked and ready tokick them right. So it was the
first day a free agency. Iflew in the night before first year of
(33:57):
the new logo. The logo hadbeen up for maybe twenty four hours.
We pulled up in it already paintgun, already been vandalized. Said,
oh, this is great. Theydon't like the new logo. I guess.
But it was a cool experience becauseDenver ended up convincing me that this
was the first stop, and thenI had a stop with I was supposed
(34:19):
to fly from Denver to Detroit.Not a beauty about Detroit was Sylvester CRuMs
was now the offensive coordinators. SoI know I'm going to Detroit because we
had now we had become really closethrough that process in San Diego and just
you know, really the communication wasthere and he told me what was gonna
(34:40):
happen. It happened. So therewas a lot of trust there. So
and then Barry Sanders was there,and me getting a chance to play with
Barry Sanders was off the charts.So I was gonna come here, go
to Detroit and then go to Atlanta. I get here, they said you're
not going anywhere. I said,no, I had to ca flight.
Now they're trying to work this dealout. I'm like, y'all can work
(35:02):
that out, but I'm going toget on this flight to Detroit. No,
just a big a couple more minutes. After sitting around there for five
six hours missing probably missed the flight, right, miss the flight, Coach
Kobayak lying to me, in thisoffense, you'll catch fifty passes. By
the way, what's the name ofthat play that you run? You go
(35:23):
right at the end and you pretendlike you're gonna block them, and then
you go out into the flat andyou catch them. But what's the name
of that play, Oh flow pass. Yeah, yeah, we like that
play. We're gonna put that inhere. Like I'm gonna catch fifty pass
This is no way I'm catching fiftypasses. Yeah, you're gonna catch fifty
passes. I go to another room. I'm sitting around. I'm gonna catch
fifty pass I'm coming here. Thisis cool. You real? Davis is
(35:45):
a young superstar. This is prettycool. All right, I can get
into this. Later on that night, they start figuring stuff out and said,
well, I call my father,said, I'm not going to Detroit.
After we've gotten the deal done,I'm not going to Detroit. I'm
not going here. I'm staying inDenver. He's like, what is wrong
with you? You don't just takethe first deal somebody offers you. I
(36:07):
said, really, wasn't the firstdeal. They've been talking all day.
He's like, you sure about this? So yeah, I'm signing here.
That was the end of that.Did they strong arm you to stay?
Howard? Were you kind of aprisoner at the facility? That a prisoner?
And the thing about it, theyjust use words to keep me there.
They didn't even straight Yes, Iwasn't restraint. They just use words
(36:32):
to keep me there. Kubiak waslike, hey man, you want to
buy my house. You need ahouse. Now, what are we talking
about around here? Oh my gosh, that's so funny. It's crazy.
But now you did catch I didn'twrite them down. You had nearly fifty
in your five years. Oh yeah, probably over time. I mean they
(36:53):
gave me the ball once a month. He said, it's gonna be like
in a year, you'd had fifty. Okay, for five years, I
had fifty. And that might evenbeen a stretch. That seemed like a
lot to me right now, Iknow, but you did, I mean,
and then really, Howard? Imean, you win two Super Bowls,
you score touchdowns in Super Bowl thirtythree, you catch a critical pass
(37:15):
and the last touchdown drive that theyhad in that game. In that game
against Atlanta was different than it wasagainst the Packers. But being able to
help Terrell Davis with what he didand just the entire offense. What an
amazing way to have kind of acap on your career. Yeah, it
really was. After the grind thatyou went through for with so many other
teams. You know. An interestingthing about that, because I told you
(37:38):
that Buffalo Bill team, it wasby far the most talented team I'd been
a part of. I noted thatmore talented than what was in Denver.
Yeah, absolutely, So what wasthe difference on how Denver won the Super
Bowls? It's a team and seethat makeup of that team was so much
different. If you want to callus misfit toys, some people might disagree,
(38:02):
but really, when you look atthe starting offense, Ed Rod,
I mean you just look at allthat You're like, really, I mean,
think about the people that are onand we're not even talking about the
defensive side, but there was afear letting your teammates down. You all
come together collectively and you want thisone goal, but you still have to
(38:27):
have a respect and a work ethicbecause how does it jail? How do
you get a Rod Smith and EdMcCaffrey, who put up i mean ridiculous
numbers as a tandem, and thenyou add Shannon Sharp to that mix and
Dwayne Carswell to that mix. AndSharp was going to catch all the passes.
(38:47):
House was in probably going to bea run. If Byron was in
the game, you didn't really know. But everybody had their role, and
I think one of the biggest piecesto that, which I noticed right off
the bat was Alex Gibbs. Ohfor sure, because very few people and
(39:07):
I'd never played for Bill Parcels,but I've heard the stories, but very
few people could press all the buttonson everybody in a room. I mean
literally, we would do nine hseven and be eight plays maybe nine on
Thursday. It was the worst periodever mentally, because you knew you couldn't
screw up. If you screwed up, you were gonna be called out in
(39:29):
front of the team on Friday.And then he had this interesting twist where
he had a guest coach which wasone of the players who you'd come in
early that day and he'd give youa play and you had to critique your
teammates. So that was part ofit. Now, that was a fun
part because he made sure that partwas fun. But to make sure that
you're perfect for those eight to nineplays was critical to who we were.
(39:54):
And I remember one of the firstpractices I was here, Alex went bananas
on John Elway. This is differentand that's one of those where if he's
going to do that to him right, and even bigger part of that because
if John didn't want that to happen. He could have stopped it, but
he was talking to the team throughJohn. Very few coaches can have that
(40:20):
ability to talk through someone to getthe very best out of him. And
you would have thought, I thinkmost people would have said, this guy
didn't like me, he writes killingme. Then all of a sudden you
have you have an interaction with himaway from the facility, and you're like,
dude is brilliant. But he wasthe only one who could, let's
(40:42):
say it, check Shanahan, checkKubiak, check somebody underneath. He was
the glue to that staff and tothe team because Alexe was going to do
it his way and he believed init or he was all in. So
you knew, we can't throw itright here, we gotta run, we
gotta run. Okay. They trustedhim, they still yeah, and players
trusted him, so you knew that, Wow, this this is special and
(41:07):
I didn't experience that anywhere else.That's pretty cool. It was he was
able to get the best out everybody. Like you said, press all the
buttons, and then a few morebuttons that you didn't know you could be.
And I think also the other thingJohn did John was already at a
point in his career where you know, the arm wasn't what it was,
at least what I had heard aboutand seen. He had gotten hurt that
(41:31):
first preseason, my first year here, so he didn't even play. And
so I still have not seen thisrocket. I haven't seen it. I've
heard about it. So the firstplayer warm ups, when we could get
everybody during an individual own game day, we come together as a team.
The first play that we ran thatseason was twenty two zen, and that
gave me split back field. Ihad a free release out to the right.
(41:52):
John dropped back and that ball cameat me so fast. I don't
know how I caught it. Ijust stuck and it just stucked. It
just stucked. I'm like, Oh, that's what they've been talking about.
Wow, that's what they've been talkingabout. He let that thing go,
and I'm like, oh my god, be ready, be ready. And
(42:15):
another funny thing about that one though, that was a very superstitious team as
well, So if we were winning, twenty two zen was always called and
I couldn't afford to drop it becauseif I dropped it, We're gonna lose
the game. That team was whenit came to superstition. Man was off
the charts, such great memories.You end up retiring right at the start
(42:36):
of the two thousand and two season, right, you had a neck injury,
and did you just kind of knowthat it was time? I did,
because I couldn't shake, you know, there was numbness and it wouldn't
go away. Right. But here'sthe other thing. I always practice and
play like it was gonna be mylast game because I didn't know how long
I had to begin with, soI always treated the practice in the games
(42:59):
like it was gonna be the lastone. I'll tell you when I knew
for sure. It was in trainingcamp. I ran a play it wasn't
right, or I didn't get theblock the way I should. Alex said
something to me, and I snappedat Alex. Oh, that's when I
knew it was over for me,because that's something I would have never done.
(43:20):
I would have just taken. ButI had reached a point where it's
tingling and just not going away.It's irritated. You're irritated, Yeah,
what are we doing? I knewthen that it was over, and so
was it hard? Yeah? Ithink it's hard because that's what you know,
right, that's what you spend somuch time up until that point.
Your schedule was always set for you, or if it wasn't set for you,
(43:43):
you knew what you needed to bedoing to get prepared for getting into
that routine. But I was like, I'm tired. Well in your career,
Howard lasted three times longer than theaverage running backs career in the NFL.
Yeah, it's crazy, It's reallycrazy. It's crazy. It got
to a point that Sylvester CRuMs comesback to the story again. Yeah,
he comes back to the story afterI retire. He's at Green Bay.
(44:06):
Now they have William Henderson, who'sa fullback, and his contracts up,
and he's like, Howard, areyou sure you can't play? And I'm
like, coach, I can't play. Come on, man, you can
give me one more year. I'mlike, what's the problem with William.
Well, they're having some contract things. I said, let me tell you
something. If you're in Green Bayand you let William Henderson get out of
(44:28):
Green Bay, you're gonna have amorale problem in your locker room. You
guys got to figure out how tosign him. They ended up signing him.
It ended up working out. ThenI got a call from Narraiders,
which just makes your skin crawls.Get a call from Narraiders, they would
gung ho like I can't play,Sure you can't. What end up happening
(44:51):
is uh, mister Davis loved Ithink it was Zach Crockett. They would
have needed to not sign him tomake my deal happen. Mister Davis like,
now we're not doing that, right, You guys got to go in
a different direction. And I'm like, good because I can't play anyway.
As I said, I can't play. I am can't play anywhere. I'm
done. So when you retire,you end up getting into TV. You've
(45:14):
been at the Pac ten network fouryeah, I mean Pack ten Big ten
network for seventeen years now, soyou had a few a couple of years
in there before you got into TV, right, Yeah. So when I
retired, we stayed here for probablytwo years. After I was done,
so I started doing some stuff forFox Rocky Mountain. I was an analyst
(45:35):
for the Colorado Crush. Oh yeah, for the Arena League, right,
for the Arena League. Then Iwould do this arena show for Fox Rocky
Mountain and I'd do some Broncos stuffaround the city. I tell people,
now, I'm like, all Iwas getting was a fifty dollars coupon.
Excuse me that cop gift card.Gift card build the gift cards. Yeah
you can't, had no shot,but yeah, very good to get those
reps. But you need it,you need it reps. Yeah, it's
(45:58):
different on the other side. Ohit's another world. Yeah, it is
an absolute another world on that side. And and I was thankful for the
opportunities because when I left here andwe said, Okay, gotta move back
to Chicago, my dad wasn't travelingas much grandkids with the kids. His
grandkids were smaller. So we goback to Chicago, and I had agreed
to be the radio voice at Illinoisfor football. We're going through that.
(46:22):
The Big Ten network has already beenannounced, and I end up getting an
audition over there comes out of knowwhere I'm not even knowing what's going on,
didn't know I was on their radar, and they hired me originally just
to call games because I hadn't donereally no studio stuff outside of some of
the stuff I did hear, butI'd been doing mostly games to that point.
(46:44):
It had done a bunch of SEUgames for a year and okay,
so they said, hey, youknow, I think we want to make
your part of the studio team.Okay, So they end up hiring me,
but I said, well, youknow, I've already accepted this job
in Champagne. I can't do both. You're gonna do this one, right,
(47:07):
I'm like, Actually, a personwho I didn't realize at the time,
but Roan Gunther, who was theathletic director, had given them my
name. Oh, I guess hegave it to him before I had agreed
to do this ellinariy radio thing.So I said, well, you guys
need to coll to you know,we call him coach Coach Gunther and figure
(47:29):
it out. I mean, ifhe says no, I'm, you know,
just gonna do this radio thing becauseI committed to it. Coach Gunther
was upset with me for a goodtwo three months. I said, this
was it was your idea. Itwas your idea. So we got past
that. But yeah, so westarted our seventeenth year crazy I do,
(47:52):
but it's nothing like it was whenit started. It can't be the Big
ten anymore, right, as it'salways gonna be the Big ten. It's
it's craziest thing ever. When itwent to eleven, it was the Big
ten, but they found a wayto put on eleven in the logo.
And now they've just gotten totally awayfrom that and it's just B one G
And then you can just have manyteams that you want to have in there.
(48:12):
And I was talking to Romo thismorning, we're having coffee in and
you you'll know this and have agreat appreciation for it, just being in
the backyard in Colorado. What theUniversity of Colorado is doing right now,
what Nil has done, oh man, And how quickly you can change the
fortunes of your your university, yourentire school. Yes, yeah, I
(48:35):
will be fascinated to see what thenumber of applications were last season versus where
they are at the end of thisseason. It'll be astronomical of the charts.
Yeah, the admissions folks are,they're get ready for the grind.
They're probably hiring more people than absolutely. Well, that's awesome, Howard.
(48:58):
And then you have your two kidsare now grown in their twenties now,
which is crazy. Ours are thesame thing. It's I mean, they
just grow up and and it's funyou're living in Chicago. I keep up
with you on the Strava app becauseyou're doing a lot of biking, and
that's kind of how we reconnected foundyou. I was like, oh,
dang, look at Howard getting outthere, just riding your rear off.
You're you're standing in shape, youlook great. Thanks. You know what.
(49:19):
It's so I probably found cycling probablyright right before the pandemic, and
then when the pandemic hit. Betweencycling outside and the cult, it is
peloton and it is let's be veryclear, it's a cult because nowhere in
America do millions of people believe thatthey are all friends with Alex Tucson.
(49:45):
He's my best friend. Now he'snot here, he doesn't know he high
five me. And then you've gothundreds of people around the world high five
in each other like they're friends.It is the craziest thing ever. It's
so funny. Yeah, well,I love seeing that you're out there and
doing what you do. It's great. It's been fun. It really has
(50:07):
been. And I think every partof your journey kind of set you up
as you're going through life, andyeah, you know, you just have
to be able to recognize it.At the end of the day we talked
about it. You have to beable to maximize the opportunities that you have
in front of you. And youknow, I steal just from from Nick
Saban about being where your feet are, because so many times, you know
we're doing something, but we're lookingahead to something else. Okay, well
(50:30):
I got this, Now I needto go try to do this and try
to do that. And it's notsettling, but it's understanding that you have
to maximize where you are in thatspace that you're in right now, and
that may be where you're supposed tobe, but so often got to go
through this when my oldest they're alwayslooking for the next thing. Yes,
right, it's so quick and insome ways I admire that, and in
(50:52):
some ways, I mean this isscary. I mean, you just they
will make a decision like that,change jobs. Well I'm tired of that
job. They just same. Thenthey just go. You know, I'm
kind of like and I'm like,wait a minute, where's like putting in
the work, you know, andI know you're working hard, but give
it a little different time. AndI think that's a generational thing, Howard
with that generation where it's an instant, very instant gratification, and so things
(51:15):
aren't going with like, Okay,screw it, I'll go here. Well,
we're seeing in college athletics, yes, with the port perfect example,
which I think the portal's great,I think, and I l is great.
I think all of that is wonderful. And maybe that's us because we've
seen the success that you can haveif you just stick it out. Yes,
and if you're just working that opportunitythat you have for that particular job,
(51:35):
whatever it may be, that youhave a passion for, where in
their mind they're like, I'm notdoing that and it works for it?
Does? I know it does worksfor so it is so puzzling. It's
puzzling for us because we're not usedto it. I'll never get used to
it. You can move job thejob and continue to gain success and attain
(51:59):
all the things you want to attain, but I still will not understand that
logic. I can't wrap my headaround. I agree. Yeah, Well,
I always ask as a last questionyour advice that you would give to
people. But you're so good atwhat you do that you just already did
it and I didn't even have toask you. And prompt you for us,
So thank you, thank you,thank you again for the time.
This was so much fun. Itwas It was a lot of fun.
I have to come back out here. Yeah, you gotta bring your bike.
(52:21):
This is true. You and Ineed to ride. Yeah. First
of all, I'll problem need aweek to get ready to ride out.
But elevation is a little different,a little bit different, a little bit
different rollings. Yeah, exactly,all right, that's a problem. Thanks
Howard, Thanks for having me HowardGriffith, so good to catch up with
him. Well, if you're hearingthis, you've listened to the entire episode,
and first of all, thank you. Secondly, I hope you enjoyed
(52:44):
this episode and listen to others.If you do, do me a favor.
Rate and review on Apple Podcasts andSpotify. New episodes of Cut,
Traded, Fired, Retired come outevery Tuesday on nearly every podcast platform.
Get social with the podcast on Twitterand Instagram at st fur podcast, and
check out the website CTFR podcast dotcom. I'm your host, Susiewargin.
(53:05):
To find out more about me,visit Susiewargin dot com. And again,
thank you for listening, and untilnext time, please be careful, be
safe and be kind. Take care,
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