April 23, 2024 • 44 mins
Welcome to Unbreakable! A Mental Wealth podcast hosted by Fox NFL Insider Jay Glazer. On today’s episode, former Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim opens up for the first time about going to rehab while serving as GM of the team, and the issues he was battling that led him to make changes in his life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Unbreakable with Jay Glacier, a mental wealth podcast
build you from the inside out. Now Here's Jay Glacier.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome in to Unbreakable, a mental wealth podcast with Jay Glazer.
And I'm so excited for our guest today because not
only am I working with him this week, he is
a former NFL executive, but also he's coming on to
really open up about his mental health and mental health
journey over the last couple of years and the first
time he's really opening up about this.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
So really excited to dive him.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
But before I get to him, if you're like many people,
you may be surprised to learn that one in five
adults in this country experienced mental illness last year, yet
far too many fail to receive the support they need.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Carolyn Behavioral Health is doing something about it.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
They understand that behavioral health is a key part of
whole health, delivering compassionate care that treats physical, mental, emotional,
and social needs and tandem.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Carolyn behavioral Health raising the quality of life through empathy
and action.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Welcome into Unbreakable and Mental Wealth podcast with Jay Glazer.
I'm Jay Glazer and I will be working with this
man all week. Here for the NFL Draft, for hosting
it for Fox Sports Radio, did it last year as well.
He's a personal friend who we've been friends for a
long time, former general manager of the Hourzona Cardinals Steve
Kam and Steve Iman. To welcome you in, and we
(01:24):
have a lot of things to talk about, things that
you haven't talked about in your journey.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So I'm really.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Excited for you know, your vulnerability, and for you to
be able to tell people what your journey has been like.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
But before we hit that, let me give you a
proper welcome.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
How are you, buddy. I'm doing great. You know, it's
been a long time coming.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
You know. You know I've talked about this podcast and
certainly something we've talked about over the years, and it's
I think it's the right time.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, I appreciate you know what I think. Look, every
time we've we've been through things in life. I kind
of refer to him as things we've overcome and our
story and the things we've overcome.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
That's our equity in life.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's not the money we make, it's the thing that
we've overcome we continue to improve on. Unbreakable is something
that almost broke me didn't, and I came through the
other side of that tunnel stronger as a result, and
I could use that for the rest of my life.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Yeah, there's no doubt.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
And I think Jay, you know, you taught me a
lot about mental health and some of the things that
come with it. Obviously, you know, over the past two years,
I've gone through quite a bit, and you know, really,
I think one of the things that is really hard
to talk about is number one is asking for help.
You have to show you're vulnerable enough to ask for help,
and obviously that's a big issue. But at the same time,
you know, I think what's really important is, you know,
(02:32):
my whole life and my whole life as an executive,
as a football player, you're always talked to be tough,
to not show your weakness, and that's really the opposite
of what we go through mental health. You know, you
try to be a proud person, you try to be
a sort of protected you know, you want to protect
yourself to a degree, but at the same time, you know,
once you become vulnerable, once you be able to let
your guard down, that's when I think you can make
(02:54):
growth in life.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So, Steve, I want to go back here obviously you're
the general manager of the Arizona Cardinals.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
You were I don't.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Know whether you were proper tumber you fired us GM
mutual parting in the ways, I don't know what that is.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
But yeah, it happened when you were in a reab right.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Yeah, I went to a treatment center. It was called
the Meadows. It's a phenomenal facility in Wickenberg, Arizona, really
world renowned, but it's an amazing center that it's a
forty five day impatient facility and it'll cover anything from
food addiction, substance abuse, you know, anything anxiety depression, which
I had a big problem with, and it's a great
(03:31):
place to go and reset. You know, you're in there
for forty five days, Jay, you don't have a phone,
you don't have music, you don't have anything. All you're
doing is you're in there and you're really trying to
reset yourself and trying to make yourself a better person
and trying to understand what happened to you that put
you in that position.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Let's go back.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I want to go back in time here because you know,
you were working with the Cardinals and this happened during
the season where you went to reab during there. So
I want you to kind of take us lead up
to us where you knew, Hey, you were kind of
going off the rails, what was.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
For and fill our listeners in take us on your journey.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Well, if you can remember that that summer prior to
the season, we had just done Kyler Murray's contract, which
was a stressful time for myself trying to get that
done and making sure that we had that contract to
finish before the season started, or I should say before.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Training camp started.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
And then at that point in time, you know, there
was a lot of pressure on us, you know, to
be able to pay Kyler that kind of money, and
we were coming off a season where we just won
eleven games and went to the playoffs, and there was
a lot of pressure, and you know, I just felt
like over time, Jay, after we got that contract done
during training camp, I just started to notice that something
was wrong.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
And I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
You know, the people around me, my loved ones and
certainly family members, people that I worked with, they could
tell something was wrong as well. And you know, I
think you and I even had some long talks about it,
and that's what's the scary part about it, Jay, is
you know, my whole life I had never dealt with
mental health issues. I was always a happy, go lucky person.
So to be put in that position for the first
(04:56):
time it was overwhelming. I didn't know what was wrong.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
I was sad. Here.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
I am making the most money I've ever made my life,
you know, more than I could ever imagine making as
a young man, living my dream as a general manager,
and I was still unhappy. So then not only that, Jay,
as you can imagine, now you're living the dream, you're
making that kind of money. The guilt and the shame
that comes with that, you know, it's it's it's I
know it sounds funny to say, but you know you're
sitting there telling yourself what is wrong with you? You know,
(05:21):
I'm sitting there trying to ask myself, what's what's wrong
with you? You know, just get out of this funk.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
It was.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
It was not easy to do, and I could not
sort of, I couldn't get out of it, and it
just got darker and darker. I got more depressed, and
really the culmination of what really happened that probably was
the worst part of it, was my inability to sleep.
I got to a point where I couldn't even shut
my brain off so I couldn't sleep. I was having
to take I was taking xanax, I was taking ambient
(05:48):
just to sleep. And after you go through a treatment
center like the Meadows, you realize in some ways they
say xanax and ambi, ambient, some of those sleep help drugs,
they can really really cause problems, and it can really
become addictive and can put you in a tough spot.
I mean I got to a point where I didn't
take an ambient or xanax to go to sleep. There
was no way I was going to sleep that night.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Look, you know you're in a space now. Also, I
Eve and I've talked about this a lot. We go
through a lot of the same things. I've had the
same issues.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I'm a clinical insomniac, come, clinical depression.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Anxiety, ADHD, bipolar, you name it. I got it right,
had to go big and everything. But I want to
get back to something you said, and this is something
and you know you and I are being honest. I've
called you to my house at one point during this time,
and I had a pseudo intervention, if you will, right,
like Hey, Steve, You've had some fun in the past,
but this is a different level. And what you brought
up to me then was the guilt that man, we
(06:38):
have our my dream has come true, and why am
I so miserable? Instead of dealing with the misery itself,
now you're dealing with the misery of the guilt because
how you feel. And you know that's that's a hard
road to get out of.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Yes, you know, not only that's a one thing I
learned at at the Meadows, which was a great learning
lesson for me, and the treatment centers. Sometimes for guys
like ourselves are type and alpha males, guys who are
so driven to be the best, you know, it can
become a real predicament whenever you get into a situation
where when is it enough? You know, that's kind of
how how it was for me. You know, you make
enough money, money, it's not enough. How many cars do
(07:14):
I need? How many houses do I need? How many
things do I need? How many suits do I need?
How many watches do I need? Just nothing was gratifying
anymore either.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, well that's the thing. Like I always say, our
wallets are not antidepressants. And people you know who were
I've been on both sides because I've been broken than broke.
So I understand that part of Hey, my my built,
which which Bill's gonna get turned off this month? Which
every month Bill's got turned off. I just had to
make sure of my cell phone, you know, didn't get
turned off. At the same time, I've been very wealthy
(07:41):
and blessed in my life, and when I realized it
was almost a hard thing for me to realize when
I did really make it, and I remember standing on
the football field Fox Andvil Sunday, I'm making more money
ever made in my life, biggest fame I could ever have.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
It's the height of my.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Career with everything broken, the biggest store, ballt on and
Spygate doing ballers, and I'm standing in the football field
and I'm like, damn, this was supposed to be rainbows
and unicorns.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
It's not.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
It's not. And that's man, that's hard to deal with it.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
And then you realize, all right, well, over time, I've
realized as hard as I've worked and making it, I've
got to work just as hard and trying to somehow
get myself to find that happiness from the inside out.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, jeah.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
I told my mother when I was nine years old,
I was going to be a general manager in the NFL.
So I was laser focused my whole life. That's all
I was going to do. And accomplished those goals. And
at the same time, again, the amount of guilt and
shame that came with the lack of happiness in that
position was really, really, really hard to deal with. And
it wasn't it was over time, you know, my first
five years. You know, when I hired Bruce and we
(08:42):
won over fifty games in five years. I'm two time
Executive of the Year. I think I'm really good at
this thing, you know, I'm I'm getting a big head.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I'm proud.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
I'm pretty good at this right, And then all of
a sudden, the world comes to an end and it's
like Carson Palmer retires, Bruce Harrians retires. You know, we
go through some tough times. I get it very public, Dui,
which was also something that I always had a hard
time for giving myself for. And that you look, you
learn at a place like the Meadows. Until you can
forgive yourself for some of your mistakes, you're going to
(09:11):
have a really hard time moving forward.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And also, look you got the DWI and the drinking
continued after that.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
That must have been quite a wrestling.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Match for you.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
Yeah, you know, because you're always sort of in the
mindset of how can you determine whether it's a problem,
is it social?
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Is it you know what?
Speaker 5 (09:27):
We learned it to meadows Man, and I thought this
was a great lesson people. People aren't addicted to drugs
and alcohol. They have they have life problems, and those
are your escape.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
So tell me, you know, I want to get back
now to the journey itself. So you're going you realize
things are kind of coming off the rails for you.
Tell me, like the scariest part of coming off the rails,
and then tell me how it got to in the
middle of the season.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Okay, I got to go reap. I can't continue being
on the GM right here.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
The scariest part was, I think once we got to
like November of that season. You know, you're at home,
you know, obviously being divorced and away from my kids.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
It's tough enough. But then at the.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Same time, when you're home at night, you know, and
you come home from the job and you're trying to decompress,
you know, instead of watching the TV show to sort
of come down, or or maybe.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Even having a cocktail. I didn't. I got to the
point where I didn't want to do any of that.
I could not.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Wait to take an ambient or a xanax or both
to go to bed, because for me, that.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
Was letting the pain go. Does that make sense? Gives
you as as.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
Soon as I could get to bed and make myself
go to sleep, that was my ability to shut the world.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Off right, It gives you a broth of the pan.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Problem is, Jay, is the next morning you woke up
and the pain was still there, didn't go away.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, that's hard.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
And that's that's when I knew, you know, when you
couldn't enjoy life, when I felt like life wasn't you know,
a lot of fun anymore? Where I was having to
go medicate, to go to sleep to again stop the pain.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I still want you to come back to what was
the impus Like there hadn't been a day you were
like I'm going to rehab.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Was it the team that sent you or was it
your decision?
Speaker 4 (11:03):
No?
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Leading up to it, you know I had enough people again, friends, family, coworkers,
Michael Biddle even came, our owner, came and sat with
me multiple times and said, you know, hey, you know
you still seem like yourself and didn't I didn't know
what it was, but I also didn't try to hide
from it.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
I told him straight up, yeah, I'm not doing good.
I don't know what's wrong with me. And you know,
he was great supportive here for you.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
But at the same time, again, there's a difference between
acknowledging and saying, hey, I don't know what's wrong with
me and I'm not perfect, versus I really need some help,
right and again that that at the treatment center, the
number one thing that they emphasize is making sure that
if you have problems out there, I don't care who
it is, whatever your problems may be in life, ask
for help. That's the vulnerability that it's important.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
How scary it was it to go in the middle
of the season say man, this is this. You had
have thought yourself, Wow, this is a career killer if
I do this well.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
Number one, you know, after ten years of being a GM,
it's it's sort of ran its course to the point
where it's like, Okay, something's got to change here or
I'm going to die or I'm going to die quite frankly,
And you know, I think that it was like I
knew it was what was best for me. But when
you still enter that treatment center, the first couple of days,
you're a little bit of denial, thinking you're different from
(12:16):
anybody else there. Yet at the same time, after two
to three weeks, you realize you're the same as everybody there.
It builds a lot of cherie chmaraderie in there.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Man. It's it's interesting.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
You know, so many different walks of life and people
that you meet and the treatment something like that that
are going through different things, you know that are going
through different parts of adversity in their life, and it's
it's a bonding time too as well. It was really
really strong. It was it was It was the best
thing that could have happened to me, and certainly I
needed it.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
If you look at your life right now, are you
happier now not being a GM, having gone through this,
being able to dive into yourself more?
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Were you happier than when you were a GYM?
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Much happier now? Good love that much happier?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
No?
Speaker 5 (12:56):
I mean, you know when the paychecks will stop coming
and and the fans stopped screaming. You know, there's certainly
a you know, evolution of life that changes for you.
You know, things slow down and you miss certain parts
of your life in the past.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
But at the.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Same time you can finally again appreciate the small things.
As we said, you know, at a point in time,
how many cars, how much money, whatever it is, how
many watches. Now you know, to go on a walk
and to see a beautiful day and appreciate that as
changes everything.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, so when you're in rehab and Michael Bilboll comes
and you know you're again, I don't know what is
where you fired you or is there beautiful parting? I
don't know what that I want to treatment. I went
to the treatment center and he and I talked and
we both agree. Just said when after I went to
the treatment center and I thought about going back to work,
right in my heart and in my stomach, I couldn't
(13:47):
fathom going back into that office. And when we both
just thought it was best for the organization to move forward.
And uh, you know, still love the organization and appreciate
everything the Cardinals did for me.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
I was there for twenty five years.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Well, it happened while you were in rehab, right.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I was.
Speaker 5 (14:03):
I was just yeah, I was in I was in
the treatment center and we talked on the phone and
he just said, hey, listen, we got to do something here.
What do you want to do? How do you feel?
And because I went to the treatment center, I was
able to think logically and to be able to understand
where where am I really.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
At my life and to be honest with myself.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Versus trying to say, you know what, I want to
just go back and kid myself and think that I'm
going to be able to jump right back in the
saddle here again and handle all this stress and the
pressure that comes with the job.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So you also, you have a big personality, right, You
and I always go play if you do this whole
thing right, I have had a lot of fun.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
What are the stressors and pressures to be that character?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Like I always say, I created this character of the
Glaze right to really hide all my ship from all
these years, and I created this big grit and so
in a way, all my pain did allow me to
build up this character, which I am a big part
of the character, but allow me to build this character
to have a lot of success in my dream job.
But at the same time, over the last couple of
years now, I've tried to figure out a balance where
(15:01):
I don't have to be the Glaze around everybody else. Yeah,
I just be Jay Glazer, you know, and be happy
with that. Tell me your wrestling match with that.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
That was the number one thing I had identified at
the Meadows is I had to realize I had spent
the majority of my adult life not knowing who I was,
truly who I was, okay, and my identity was Steve
kai and the executive, the GM, the fun guy, right
and essentially lazy. I was wearing a mask. And that's
what we talked about at the Meadows is you wear
this mask and you become this person who's almost like
(15:33):
a chameleon. You can adapt to any sort of social
structure you're in.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
You can be the fun guy, you can be entertaining.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
Yet at the same time, there were parts of me
that are dying inside as this sad, little young kid.
You know, was sensitive and I can cry it, you know,
certain things. But no, you're this tough guy, You're the glaze,
You're you know, You're Steve Kime you're the executive the year,
and that's not who we are. And it's a mask.
It's wearing a mask, is what I call it throughout
your adult lively. It's it's really running from your reality.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
And I can tell you from knowing you.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
And I think, I don't know if I've said this
to here or not, but I speak for me and
I know I speak to for also the same opinion
a lot of your friends.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
We've talked about it.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
We love Steve Kahm way more than we love that
big character, right. We love the you, you know, the
guy that does sit there and cry. You can in
my house one time. Yeah, I kind of got after
you about something to you cried and then you know,
head then and then when I you know, also called
you over and saying, hey, the same fucking like you do,
what's going on here?
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Same thing.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
That's the dude we love. But you're you're a very
loyal friend. You're sensitive as shit.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
You are man, I.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Know anytime I call someone, your fucking ass will be
there for me in two seconds. You don't have to
be that huge personality. And that's the dude we love
the most. And I hope you realize that that don't
have to put on a show when we go out somewhere.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
That's that's been one of the fun refreshing things about
the last probably year and a half is I haven't
been around that guy much and it's been it's been fine.
You know, it's it's less stressful, it's everything's certainly more authentic,
and life's more authentic, right, and when life can be
more authentic and you can enjoy again, enjoy the little things,
the relationships that the times you and I could sit
on your balcony and overlook the beach and be like,
(17:16):
here we are too much from the northeast. Can you
believe this is our life? I come to a point
now where it's like, you know what, if you stop
appreciating all those special moments like that, then something's wrong.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
What as a general manager, what are the most stressful.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Things that you realize, Oh, man, this I need to
drink because of this, or I got to do you know,
the things that really drove you the craziest and really
kind of tacked you from the inside out.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
Well, the general manager is a tough position because you know, listen, Jay,
you and I both want to be liked. Everybody wants
to be liked. To be a general manager in the
National Football League, I would have to say you definitely
are not the kind of person that wants to win
a popularity contest because half the time the players are
not happy with you because of the contracts you have
to deal with coaches contracts, so they're not always happy
(17:58):
with you.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
You want to try to make the are happy, which
is not always easy to do.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
You want to make sure the coaches are happy with
the players you're giving them, which is not easy to do.
And everybody's underpaid and most people don't have enough director
levered titles. They're not getting pushed up the ranks as fast,
so you're never really in a position where you feel
like you know you're a likable guy. You got to
make a lot of tough decisions and have to deal
with a lot of conflict, and it's extremely stressful. I
(18:22):
mean the kind of things again that keep you up
at night because of the decisions you have to make ultimately,
which can affect people's livelihoods. I mean, whether you're having
to let people go, those sort of things. But at
the same time, you know like it is it's a
tough position because again you're trying to make everybody happy,
and that can't be the mindset that you have. You
have to do what's best for your organization moving forward.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
For people out there or No, it's not just about
getting players. Like basically, you got to now deal with
every single thing in that building comes across your desk,
so family issues, agent issues, marketing issues.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
You find out the crux of what make people go of.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Everybody in that villain so as like a like that,
you find out everybody fucked up, right, you find out
how fucked.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Up everybody really is and you got to deal with it.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
And you know, as a GM, it's not like you
went to school fish, there's no there's no guidebook. Hey,
how do I deal with this guy coming in saying
that man his wife just cheating on him, but but
she's extorting them for this amount.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
That's right, there's no there's no guidebook for this stuff.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
No doubt, And that's what I did.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
I mean, Jay listen as soon as the press conference
was over.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
It was so funny that.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Press conference in twenty thirteen when they named me general manager.
It was so funny because it's like my whole life
I had worked to become the general manager, right, And
I remember walking up to my office and.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Putting my head in my hands, going, what the fuck
do I do? Now?
Speaker 5 (19:41):
There's no there's no book, right, there's there's no there's
no uh, there's there's nothing that tells you what to
do in those situations. But then you just sort of
have to fly by the seat of your pants and
and and do what you know is is uh sort
of expected. Next, which luckily for me, was Bruce Arians
and Carson Palmer, which led to Good Run for five years.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Would you say it was a just to drink it
on the night meads or there more?
Speaker 4 (20:03):
No, it was the nightments.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
It was as well as those Xanax and the ambient,
which again I don't want to speak out of turn,
but the people with the Meadows, they make it sound
like that those drugs are worse than street drugs, whether
it's you.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Know, marijuana, heroin, cocaine.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
They make it sound like those drugs like Xanax and
ambient are really really problems.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
So are you.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Still battling these Did you say you have another control
or you haven't.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I haven't even used Inx or Ambient since the meadows?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Great, right, So this guy who's now gone through all this.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
What would you say to Steve Kahan in your last
year at the Cardinals, who's kind of going off the rails.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
When it first started.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
Uh, you know, I think number one, try to find
healthier ways to approach adversity and stress. But again, in
those moments, it's easier said than done. You know, sometimes
sometimes too j when you ask about being a general manager,
some of the tough decisions you had to make right
and the stress that came onto your plate, there were
times where almost you felt alone too.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
You know, sometimes in.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Life you have buddies that you can sort of sort
of circle up with and vent. You know, there's some
big decisions and private decisions you have to make that
are stressful that you have to do alone in this business,
and you really can't invent to somebody else. You can't
talk to anybody else. You can't you can't worry about
how you feel, and that puts you in a tough predicament.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
I think, what what are you also?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Just you just mentioned there's healthier ways to deal with
that stress. What are some of these healthier ways that
you've now learned?
Speaker 5 (21:26):
Certainly exercise, meditating, that's the one thing we did at
the meadows.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
We did a lot of meditating, We did a lot
of whether it.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
Was different forms of yoga, just a lot of a
lot of self help stuff, which are breeding techniques. I mean,
some of the breeding techniques that I learned there were phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
I mean the point where Jack, even with my lack
of patients, even standing in a grocery line and almost
losing my shit, where I have to, like, I have
a word like Cabo, Cabo, Cabo, and I can say
in my mind and just sort of chill out and
sort of realized, Listen, you're in a line at a
grocery store.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Relax, it's okay, right. What advice would you give other
general managers now if you can call them now? Now
people are going to see this and go, oh, now
we understand what's going on with Steve, and I would
hope that you could be of service to them. So, hey, man,
I got some advice for you here. What, yeah, what
would you tell these guys?
Speaker 5 (22:13):
Well, I mean, I think number one, I think you
could you can identify this as well as I can.
I think that there's a number of our friends who
are out there doing the job that are going through
a lot of similar type things.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
I mean, I'm sure I wasn't alone.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
I can only tell you what I went through myself.
But these guys have tough lives. They go through a
lot of stuff. And I think more than anything is
to be able to ask for help and to be
able to identify more than anything Jay like anything else,
And the hardest part is identifying and to put yourself
in a predicament where you can identify and you can
be vulnerable enough, to vulnerable enough to ask for help
and to know it's okay to say I have a problem,
(22:48):
would you go?
Speaker 2 (22:49):
You know, one of the things I always talk to
teams about this man taking there your therapist. I was
telling you back then too, bank ghost talk to your therapists, right,
but a therapist in the building, and they only have
to be there three days a week, which is you know,
and it needs to be I think in my opinion,
eventually the NFL has to evolve where you have several therapists,
just like you have several strength coaches, several trainers, all that.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Several there, but they're tucked.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Away in the back of the building like it's almost
like taboo to go if you were to be a right,
if you were to be a gam again, what would
you do to make a different where it's not so
taboo to go talk to that therapist again.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
I want everybody to know that instead of what we've
been taught our whole lives, don't show your pain.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Be tougher. It's the complete opposite.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
You're more of a man when you're more vulnerable, when
you're more open, when you're more open to sort of
battling your demons, because again, that's the only way you're
going to fix it.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
And that's the cool thing in life.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
You know.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
If they say the cool thing in life is to
you know, well, that's not to blow.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
All these things that are so hard to talk about off.
The cool thing is is to talk about them. And
once you learn how to be able to be vulnerable
and talk about things openly, you learn how quickly you
can heal, because you won't be able to heal if
you won't.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
You know, it's so funny you're talking about being an
open and vulnerable and we're taught not to show it.
I'm the living contradiction to this, because you know, I
opened my MMA program, you know, Breakable Mma fifteen years ago,
whatever it was, it just becoll mma athletics. We've trained
all these players, right, and how my gym Unbreakable and
our whole mindset there is.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Man, you don't show it. You don't show it.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
If I'm hurt, if I'm tired, You'll never fucking know, right,
I don't fighters, don't take a stool in between rounds.
You fuck up my arm. I ain't gonna fucking let
you know. And here I am now coming out with
Unbreakable for the podcast and my book, and I am
now preaching the exact opposite of.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Everything that I coach in sports.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Man be vulnerable, show it, make sure what he knows,
and man it's They could both be accurate, But what
we now have to do is really separate them.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
You know, one is for your job, the other ones
for life.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
I mean, here we are two guys who we think
are pretty tough guys right on the surface, you know.
At the same time, here we are talking about how
cool showing our weakness is.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
No as vulnerability. It's not our weakness.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Yeah no, no, no, I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
But the old Steve, the old JA, the old mindset
on set of most is now I'm showing a weakness.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
It's not a weakness.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Right in sports, and that in sports, Okay, you can
look at it that way. You look at it, hey,
if you show your tired hates I never like to
use the term weakness anymore because of this, but it's
more of the Hey, it's my job to break you.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
So if you don't know I'm tired or hurt, you'll
never know.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
But it's the same time, if we, yeah, we don't
show it in life, we're going to end up breaking
in life.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
So that's what I'm trying to do now.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Is really I still coach the one way, but now
I tell guys, hey, guys, this is just for your competition.
This is for your sport or your fight. I need
you to do the complete opposite in life. If we
want to be happiness, to build ourselves from the inside out.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
And exactly right.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
And it's a different world we live in nowt too.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Because back in the day, when you made a decision
to you don't have a million people on social media
telling you what a dumb shit you are.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
You just had, you know, a couple of reporters, a
couple of.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Guys in your building, but not the whole world and
we're set to people and ship bouts.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Exuckly, right exactly.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
I know you're sitting here worried about the guy living
in his mom's basement, talking about what.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
A shitty job you've done? Right, what does this world
come to?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And it affects us, It does all those you know,
every social media post, it still carries the same weight.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
You don't know who it is.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
It's still And just because we're successful folks, doesn't mean
our feelings curtly less that sensitive.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
It's fucked. My feelings hurt easily. Yes, absolutely right.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
And you know it's funny, Jay, because over the years,
you know, being close with you, you know you taught me
that and you showed me that. But there's a real
and this is to be straight honest with you, there
is a real fine line in my opinion and your
ability to finally let go, you know what I mean.
It's like you you can preach and you can tell me,
and you can give me great advice about being open
(26:38):
and vulnerable and all those different things which you have
done over the years, but until you get to your
breaking point, until you get to a point where you
can identify and acknowledge your problems. It's really hard to
let go because you're still going to be guarded. Well,
explain that more, Like, for example, you know, over the years,
it was easy to hear you say here's what you
need to do, or here's what helps me with my
mental health issues, or here's some things I've learned along
(26:59):
the way. Yeah, listen, I can and I can take
all that in and I can, I can learn from it,
learn from it. But can I really really adopt and
live by those terms until I acknowledge, until you know
what I'm telling until I'm ready to let go. You
you can't hold back anymore.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
You can't.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
You can't.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
You can't stick.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
Your toe halfway in the water and be like, you
know what, I'm doing some things to make myself better.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Yeah, it's fine, but you're not. You're not committing your
whole entire self to it.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
I think it was great for you also, Steve, like
what's helped me.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Also as being of service and you being open vulnerable
like this now and yeah I think you do you know,
help out your others who are trying to get in
this position.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
I think that'll that'll give you some freedom as well.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
I mean again, as you and I talk.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
Could I ever imagine coming on this program like yours,
uh to talk about these kind of issues. I would
have never ever could put myself in this position. How
do you feel now that you've done it?
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Completely relieved?
Speaker 5 (27:53):
And and And that's funny because when I when I
walked into the room to do it, I felt that
sort of non anxiety but sort of that a little
bit of excitement actually to be able to tell my story.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
And you're hopefully and hopefully my story helps.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
Someone else along the lines with as many lives as
you saved. You know, maybe somebody else out there, maybe
another general manager, maybe another athlete, can say, you know what,
here's just another guy that has had his issues along
the way and was able to talk about it and
to be open and honest.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
You know what people you say to me all the time, Hey,
if you say one person, it's enough.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
And I used to be like, no, it's not.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
And you know what it is. It's one of the
things that have to come really because I am so
driven and I am guilt ridden by things. And I
used to look at it like, who have I'm not helped?
Instead of who have I helped? So it's one of
the things.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Just you know, also I've had to work with is
given myself that grace of hey no wait wait wait
wait wait.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
If I have helped one person, because I don't know
the ripple effect there, that person may have helped a
ton of people also, So I want you to.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Give yourself that grace too. One person here is this
you help them? Man? What you will? You absolutely will?
You could? You can put that on your resume life
from the big picture.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Yeah, you know, and it's still every days of challenges,
you know. I mean it's you know, there's still days
Jay that you still go through that. It's you know,
you still have to remind yourself.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
I can forgive myself, you know, because I do live
with a lot of guilt and shame.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Well what are you doing to get over that, guilden Champ.
You're still going to therapy m as soon?
Speaker 4 (29:18):
Yeah? Right? Yeah? What else?
Speaker 5 (29:20):
Good?
Speaker 4 (29:21):
No, just just continuing to just do again.
Speaker 5 (29:23):
Healthy hobbies in life, whether it's I just got my
knee replaced so a week ago, so that's that that
was a huge thing for me because that was also
another thing that when you're carrying that kind of physical pain,
that that can also attribute to some of these problems.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
So that was another step in the right direction.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Well, I'm pridy you for coming on.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I want to switch gears here, and you know, we
do have the draft coming up here and talk to
some other things before before I before I do that
though obviously your old team, they got a whole bunch
of stuff going on here, your owner and Tarry McDonough
and yeah, tell me what your your thoughts are on
all that.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
It's just unfortunate to me, you know, because again, as
I said, stress that I carried that I was trying
to keep people happy in every sort of compartment, and
that really would tear at you whenever you knew that
people couldn't get along, and there were things that went
on behind the scenes that maybe only I knew about
or some others knew about that they were they were
just tough to to, you know, to know that I
(30:18):
couldn't fix certain things, because I always felt like I
was the kind of guy that my mentality was always,
you know, be part of the solution, not part of
the problem, and keep everybody's attitude in the right direction,
and roll your sleeves up at the door and check
your ego there and that sort of thing. But it's unfortunate.
You know, we had a good run, and you know,
I'm still rooting for the organization because again a lot
of people that I care about.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
All right, So on draft week and people, I think
people think you guys have your pick set like weeks
and events. I always trying to tell no, it's not that,
it's not how they do it. Tell me what you
guys did you do your When did you get your
board set?
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Generally about three days before the draft? Okay, smoke, I.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Want you hear that three days before the draft. So
every time you hear that, somebody has it, oh man,
they're they're locked in at twenty at this guy, and
they say it in February. They're not fucking locked in
on February.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
And in February, when you think a guy's going to
be there, twenty usually goes about eight.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Right right, right, right right, all right?
Speaker 2 (31:09):
So tell me how the yeah kind of layout the
week of if you will. So do you guys like
take that final weekend off and then.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
Take the final weekend off when you come back that
week and essentially your board is put together. Then to me,
I think most teams are doing it the same way
in terms of ranking players one through say one twenty
or two hundred for that particular team, that you would
take these players in that particular order.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
If the draft slid like that, and you.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
Know now all of a sudden, it makes it pretty
easy that you've already had these conversations between number three
and number four on your board, and all of a sudden,
you're the eleventh pick in the draft and.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Those two players are there.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
People don't get excited because the hard part on draft
day is to not allow the emotions to get ahead
of you, you know, to be able to say, listen,
we did the work, We've had these conversations, and there's
a logical reason why we're making this decision right. And
that can be tough because because the momentum, those rooms
can get crazy.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
You own draft day.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
So you know, I was in a room one time.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
I was in there with the Saints years ago, years here,
Jim Hossett was head coach and Saints this was a
later round pick.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
They still had a guy on the board who's like.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Number eight, but they had all these freaking red flags
and this year time they.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Know, man, we bring him into our room.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
It's he's in a funck our place up, but he's
the eighth best player on our entire board. Talk about
that like it's still I understand because it's it's an
ultimate risk award, so I understand the talent ed of it.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
But if you do have a million red marks in
a guy, oh doesn't really matter where what point the
room up exactly?
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Have you seen those those draft cards? They essentially look like,
you know, like a Christmas tree lit up in different colors.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
You know, there's blue, there's red dots, ors yellow dots, and.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
And there's a goal for guys you don't want to
go near right exactly, huge reds.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
Perfect example for that was for me was I think
we were picking with the twenty six or twenty eighth
draft pick that year and we select Robert Kimdci. Robert
Kimdici was I mean, essentially from a skill set and
a talent standpoint, one of the top couple of players
in the draft. But there was a list of a
mile long of red flag as it came with him.
(33:13):
And it's sort of one of those deals that always
taught me in my later years. The red flag is there,
and it's not only there, but it's with a like
blinking light at you avoid, avoid, avoid. But that's the
hardest part, man, is we get so enamored with these
physical tools and the talent, and then you bring in
coaches into some of these discussions, and these guys can
coach anybody. You know, these guys, I can get this guy,
(33:35):
get this guy right. Well that's interesting. How come the
fifteen coaches before you could get him right? But you're
going to be able to coach right, you know. Then
our defensive line coach said during the draft meetings, I said, listen,
Robert's got these issues.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
I'm concerned.
Speaker 5 (33:48):
I said, if we take this guy, we've got to
be committed to obviously you know, the process and getting
him too, in every category with Robert personally, professionally, everything.
And the defensive line coach said, if we take this guy,
he can live in my basement.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Right.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
That same defensive line, That same defensive line coach brought
Robert into my office the next year and said, I
can't coach this fucking guy.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Really, yes? And I sat back and I said, what
happened to your basement? We must have had a flood.
You talk about stressing a general manager.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
You just took a guy in the first round, and
everybody said, listen, I will adopt this kid.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
I will, I.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
Will make sure he gets the class right. And all
of a sudden, a year later, I can't fucking coach.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
You wonder why I'm stressed out?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So then so we go, let's go back you put
you come back in on Monday, let's say right now,
and your boards set right, and then so then what
happens that, what kind of wrestling match happens from there?
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Or what's your next steps leading up to the drums
next three or four days.
Speaker 5 (34:50):
Yeah, you'll you'll generally get within our next people, and
you'll you'll sort of generate some different mock drafts that
takes you through a bunch of different scenarios, not only
scenarios where that pick falls a certain way, but then
also trade possibilities.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Are you one of the teams that used to have
do everybody sit around the table they're all different teams,
or you just use a computer help it. I know
a lot of people have you know, everybody has a
mock draft and they kind of compare it together.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
What do you do? What did you guys do?
Speaker 5 (35:16):
Early on, we went around the room with all our
coaches and scouts prior to the draft and allow them
to be different teams. It became really unrealistic because then
those people started picking guys that they liked and it
wasn't realistic to the order. So then we started to
generate more analytics based lists off of say guys like
yourself or Daniel Jeremia's mock draft or somebody else that
(35:39):
is reputable that you think could could potentially happen.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
I don't do mock drafts.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
I never have, you know why because you know the picks?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, could you tell me who you can fucking take it?
You go, but glades, you can't say anything. So if
I can't say anything, I'm not going to betray you.
But I'm also not going to.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Lie to the fans, that's right.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
So I can't put somebody out there that I know
I'm alloting the fans. So years ago I stopped doing
mock draft. I'm like, man, these guys and then you know,
people right don't understand my involvement in this.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Or my uh as an insider too.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
A lot of these guys will reach out to me
and go, hey, this is who we want. Can we
get him there, or do we have to move You've
done that with me. Do we have to move this
way or that way?
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Right?
Speaker 3 (36:17):
And yeah, And I've got coaches.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Send players for me to train, to see if I
could break them and see how they are and see
if they're gonna be able to see if they're gonna
pop off on their coaches.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
It's been by the way, by the way, sometimes sometimes
you would like to bear bad news. You know.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
It could be like I'm sitting there and I'm like, please,
we're picking a thirty eight and round two. You know,
I'm thinking, this's just oh.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
He's not going to be there.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
I'm like some shot. I'm like, Steve, you got no chance.
But at the same time, also, look, I.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Trained a guy years ago, and I'm like, Steve, this guy,
he's a receiver, movement tight end. He's a great human man,
and Steve ended up styning him on my recommendation.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
He should have gotten like the fifth round.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
But you're like, hey, if anything else glaze, I will
I'll sign an undrafted free agent. I think he's still
in the league, right, eight years right, he's still in
I think he's still in the league. But that's yeah,
He's had a long career and I couldn't get anybody
to take a look at him except for you, and
I think Minnesota, and I'm like, God, im trend this
guy for three or four months. I'm telling you he'll
(37:23):
be a pro for a long time. I think he
wants to be great. You know what I deal with him, man,
I ended up having him coach my son, because what
I've learned, if you teach me something and I coach
and teaching somebody else, I pick it up fast with
my ADHD and most of these times got ADHD. So
if you do that, I'm like, hey, Ricky, you know, hey,
you're gonna help Sammy out here. So if you teach
(37:43):
Sammy that like I want you to teach you Samy
when I taught you and he would just pick it up.
And you know, we we can all learn in a
different way. Just gonna find out those ways that you learn.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
But no question, but.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
That was good.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
But I'm like trying to hit you in like the
second round, Go get him, Go get him. You're like
I'm using a second.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Round or out him? Glaze? When did the call start
coming for trades?
Speaker 5 (38:06):
That?
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Are you really know? Okay? I could really have a
dance partner.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
Honestly, you get some prior to the draft if they're
going to be real players in the first round, but
generally not till you're on the clock.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
You don't have like frameworks done well.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
I should say.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
You know, when you're five picks away from your pick,
you know, then you start calling teams, Hey, you know,
we see you have this pick considered. Uh, you know
thirty eight or you know, one fifty two and one
fifty six?
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Would you trade it for Hollywood Brown? How did that? Like,
when do those talks start?
Speaker 4 (38:37):
That happened night before the draft.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Night before it was you they calling you.
Speaker 5 (38:41):
I had called er at Tacosta right around the combine
time because I started to think to myself that I
wasn't going to be able to get a real receiver
in that draft. At you know, I think we had
the twenty fourth pick, and uh, I was right, because
they all went off the board prior to twenty four.
Eric said no, and the Ravens maintained no for quite
some time until the night before the draft, and I
(39:01):
think Hollywood put some pressure on them that he wanted
out of there, and they decided to allow him to go.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Was that the only receiver you were locked in trying
to get or are there others?
Speaker 5 (39:10):
I know we looked, we had looked in this couple
other receivers, but obviously his relationship with Kylo was big,
and the fact that he was a speed guy, which
we did not have speed at the time with de
Hoppy and our ex receiver.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Was there any you got any funny trade stories that
almost happened but didn't.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
Well, you know, the d hop trade was the funniest
story just because it happened during the pandemic, So it
was like me and Bill O'Brien did that trade and Hopkins? Yeah, yeah,
we did that trade. You know, right before free agency started.
I don't know if you remember this, but the pandemic
happened and they stopped all of free agent travel, so
they shut down free agency. So essentially me and Bill
(39:45):
had agreed to this trade, which nobody knew other than
Ownership and myself and Bill O'Brien. So every day I'm
waking up. You know, first of all, during that period
of time, you couldn't go to the office, so I'm
like laying in my pool hanging out thinking myself when
I really trade for DeAndre Hopkins and we couldn't consummate
the trade until we got a physical on both him
and David Johnson are running back.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
Well, that was a huge issue obviously.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
So the whole time, I'm thinking to myself, at some
point in time, when they find out that the Texans
are trading DHAP, they're going to murder Bill O'Brien right,
and then he's gonna get then he's gonna get cold
feat and he's gonna pull out of this this trade.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
But obviously good things.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
Happened never happened, and we were able to consummate the
deal and they didn't eventually allow these guys to get physicals.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
I do have one.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Funny draft story trade story is our good virtual friend
Frank Caliendo one time calls you as Gruden trying to
trade right for Kyler Murray and offering Quinn Williams, and
then called you as me that I had heard the
story right on draft day.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Rank's a man of many hats.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
It was unbelievable though, sounds like both of us.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
And he did, and I said, I told him, I man,
I see you know. For you to interfere with my
job like that, you are a real sick human.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Just like, tell me the when you make that pick,
that first pick, when you make that pick, is it
utter joy?
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Is it anxiety? Is it both? What's the emotion when.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
You call a kid and say, hey, you're now we're
choosing you in the first row.
Speaker 5 (41:24):
I think it's a little bit of everything. I think
it's anxiety. I think it's it's fear. I think it's excitement.
And generally, you know, I would say probably most of
the time the time, if you don't have the first
pick in the draft, or even a top five pick,
I think a lot of times you like the player
enough to think you were probably a little bit shocked
that he got to you, say, at fifteen, seventeen, twenty
four or whatever it is. So you're pretty excited, But
at the same time, you know it's a high pressure
(41:48):
pick because obviously that should be the one that is
a guaranteed starter. He's obviously a franchise type player, whether
it's a quarterback.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
Or he's the real deal.
Speaker 5 (41:57):
He's a leader for your team when in reality, you
know you run the analytics studies in forty nine percent
of first round picks pusts right, which is humbling.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Given the coolest call you've made. Done it for first
round of anybody? Coolest call you made to tell somebody
they've been drafted.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
Let me badger, Oh good tell because he was he
was sitting in the third round. I had brought him
in for a visit. So again, here's a guy with
this should have been a top fifteen pick but obviously
had his issues at LSU.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
I pick back then, yeah, yeah, yeah, how does issues
at LSU?
Speaker 5 (42:26):
And and for me, the feelings that I had, it
was my first draft as a general manager.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
So this is twenty thirteen, so here I.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
Am saying, there's no chance that I could ever take
a chance on a guy like that my first draft
as a GM, and it got to be the third round,
and I got to know him personally and felt very
comfortable with the person and the player, and felt like,
you know, NFL football would be a real determ for
him to not go back to make any mistakes.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
And it was. He's in a phenomenal job, had a
great career.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
The call just itself, how emotional was the fact you
know him cry and him promising he would not let
us down and he certainly didn't.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
No no doubt, man, And you know, think back also
how you evaluate guys. His problem was weed back then,
this is now a half the states. He's taken off
from my sports because of weed. My final question, brother,
and I'm really proud of you today. I asked this if
every guest, so I'll have to ask you to you
give me your unbreakable moment, that moment in your life.
(43:21):
It could be specific, whatever it is that could have
broken you and should.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Have and didn't.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
As a result, you came through the other side of
that tunnel stronger forever.
Speaker 5 (43:31):
The day I walked into the Meadows Treatment Center as
the general manager of the Arizona Cardinals, knowing that that
changed everything in my life, could have been for the good, bad,
or whatever anybody else thought about it. But when I
walked out that other end forty five days later, I
found out who Steve Kim was. I liked who he was.
(43:51):
I embraced the things that he did in the past.
I forgave him for the things he did in the past,
and more than anything, I found a way to love
them again.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Man, I'm proud of you.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
That may be the I've been most proud of in
the history of doing this podcast.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
Man, love you Man, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
I see that lip quick and brother so great Crocker dude.
I'm proud of you, man, I'm really proudnant appreciate it,
Thank you, and I cannot call you proud to call
you your friend. Brother man Hey, it's our equity is all
these changes that we make, man, and our experience we
go through.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
I'm proud of Walkers. Walk with your brother, Steve Cott
This is Unbreakable with Jay Glacier, a mental wealth podcast
build you from the inside out. Now Here's Jay Glacier.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome in to Unbreakable, a mental wealth podcast with Jay Glazer.
And I'm so excited for our guest today because not
only am I working with him this week, he is
a former NFL executive, but also he's coming on to
really open up about his mental health and mental health
journey over the last couple of years and the first
time he's really opening up about this.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
So really excited to dive him.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
But before I get to him, if you're like many people,
you may be surprised to learn that one in five
adults in this country experienced mental illness last year, yet
far too many fail to receive the support they need.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Carolyn Behavioral Health is doing something about it.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
They understand that behavioral health is a key part of
whole health, delivering compassionate care that treats physical, mental, emotional,
and social needs and tandem.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Carolyn behavioral Health raising the quality of life through empathy
and action.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Welcome into Unbreakable and Mental Wealth podcast with Jay Glazer.
I'm Jay Glazer and I will be working with this
man all week. Here for the NFL Draft, for hosting
it for Fox Sports Radio, did it last year as well.
He's a personal friend who we've been friends for a
long time, former general manager of the Hourzona Cardinals Steve
Kam and Steve Iman. To welcome you in, and we
(01:24):
have a lot of things to talk about, things that
you haven't talked about in your journey.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So I'm really.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Excited for you know, your vulnerability, and for you to
be able to tell people what your journey has been like.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
But before we hit that, let me give you a
proper welcome.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
How are you, buddy. I'm doing great. You know, it's
been a long time coming.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
You know. You know I've talked about this podcast and
certainly something we've talked about over the years, and it's
I think it's the right time.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, I appreciate you know what I think. Look, every
time we've we've been through things in life. I kind
of refer to him as things we've overcome and our
story and the things we've overcome.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
That's our equity in life.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's not the money we make, it's the thing that
we've overcome we continue to improve on. Unbreakable is something
that almost broke me didn't, and I came through the
other side of that tunnel stronger as a result, and
I could use that for the rest of my life.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Yeah, there's no doubt.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
And I think Jay, you know, you taught me a
lot about mental health and some of the things that
come with it. Obviously, you know, over the past two years,
I've gone through quite a bit, and you know, really,
I think one of the things that is really hard
to talk about is number one is asking for help.
You have to show you're vulnerable enough to ask for help,
and obviously that's a big issue. But at the same time,
you know, I think what's really important is, you know,
(02:32):
my whole life and my whole life as an executive,
as a football player, you're always talked to be tough,
to not show your weakness, and that's really the opposite
of what we go through mental health. You know, you
try to be a proud person, you try to be
a sort of protected you know, you want to protect
yourself to a degree, but at the same time, you know,
once you become vulnerable, once you be able to let
your guard down, that's when I think you can make
(02:54):
growth in life.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So, Steve, I want to go back here obviously you're
the general manager of the Arizona Cardinals.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
You were I don't.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Know whether you were proper tumber you fired us GM
mutual parting in the ways, I don't know what that is.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
But yeah, it happened when you were in a reab right.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Yeah, I went to a treatment center. It was called
the Meadows. It's a phenomenal facility in Wickenberg, Arizona, really
world renowned, but it's an amazing center that it's a
forty five day impatient facility and it'll cover anything from
food addiction, substance abuse, you know, anything anxiety depression, which
I had a big problem with, and it's a great
(03:31):
place to go and reset. You know, you're in there
for forty five days, Jay, you don't have a phone,
you don't have music, you don't have anything. All you're
doing is you're in there and you're really trying to
reset yourself and trying to make yourself a better person
and trying to understand what happened to you that put
you in that position.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Let's go back.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
I want to go back in time here because you know,
you were working with the Cardinals and this happened during
the season where you went to reab during there. So
I want you to kind of take us lead up
to us where you knew, Hey, you were kind of
going off the rails, what was.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
For and fill our listeners in take us on your journey.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Well, if you can remember that that summer prior to
the season, we had just done Kyler Murray's contract, which
was a stressful time for myself trying to get that
done and making sure that we had that contract to
finish before the season started, or I should say before.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Training camp started.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
And then at that point in time, you know, there
was a lot of pressure on us, you know, to
be able to pay Kyler that kind of money, and
we were coming off a season where we just won
eleven games and went to the playoffs, and there was
a lot of pressure, and you know, I just felt
like over time, Jay, after we got that contract done
during training camp, I just started to notice that something
was wrong.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
And I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
You know, the people around me, my loved ones and
certainly family members, people that I worked with, they could
tell something was wrong as well. And you know, I
think you and I even had some long talks about it,
and that's what's the scary part about it, Jay, is
you know, my whole life I had never dealt with
mental health issues. I was always a happy, go lucky person.
So to be put in that position for the first
(04:56):
time it was overwhelming. I didn't know what was wrong.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
I was sad. Here.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
I am making the most money I've ever made my life,
you know, more than I could ever imagine making as
a young man, living my dream as a general manager,
and I was still unhappy. So then not only that, Jay,
as you can imagine, now you're living the dream, you're
making that kind of money. The guilt and the shame
that comes with that, you know, it's it's it's I
know it sounds funny to say, but you know you're
sitting there telling yourself what is wrong with you? You know,
(05:21):
I'm sitting there trying to ask myself, what's what's wrong
with you? You know, just get out of this funk.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
It was.
Speaker 5 (05:27):
It was not easy to do, and I could not
sort of, I couldn't get out of it, and it
just got darker and darker. I got more depressed, and
really the culmination of what really happened that probably was
the worst part of it, was my inability to sleep.
I got to a point where I couldn't even shut
my brain off so I couldn't sleep. I was having
to take I was taking xanax, I was taking ambient
(05:48):
just to sleep. And after you go through a treatment
center like the Meadows, you realize in some ways they
say xanax and ambi, ambient, some of those sleep help drugs,
they can really really cause problems, and it can really
become addictive and can put you in a tough spot.
I mean I got to a point where I didn't
take an ambient or xanax to go to sleep. There
was no way I was going to sleep that night.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Look, you know you're in a space now. Also, I
Eve and I've talked about this a lot. We go
through a lot of the same things. I've had the
same issues.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
I'm a clinical insomniac, come, clinical depression.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Anxiety, ADHD, bipolar, you name it. I got it right,
had to go big and everything. But I want to
get back to something you said, and this is something
and you know you and I are being honest. I've
called you to my house at one point during this time,
and I had a pseudo intervention, if you will, right,
like Hey, Steve, You've had some fun in the past,
but this is a different level. And what you brought
up to me then was the guilt that man, we
(06:38):
have our my dream has come true, and why am
I so miserable? Instead of dealing with the misery itself,
now you're dealing with the misery of the guilt because
how you feel. And you know that's that's a hard
road to get out of.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Yes, you know, not only that's a one thing I
learned at at the Meadows, which was a great learning
lesson for me, and the treatment centers. Sometimes for guys
like ourselves are type and alpha males, guys who are
so driven to be the best, you know, it can
become a real predicament whenever you get into a situation
where when is it enough? You know, that's kind of
how how it was for me. You know, you make
enough money, money, it's not enough. How many cars do
(07:14):
I need? How many houses do I need? How many
things do I need? How many suits do I need?
How many watches do I need? Just nothing was gratifying
anymore either.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, well that's the thing. Like I always say, our
wallets are not antidepressants. And people you know who were
I've been on both sides because I've been broken than broke.
So I understand that part of Hey, my my built,
which which Bill's gonna get turned off this month? Which
every month Bill's got turned off. I just had to
make sure of my cell phone, you know, didn't get
turned off. At the same time, I've been very wealthy
(07:41):
and blessed in my life, and when I realized it
was almost a hard thing for me to realize when
I did really make it, and I remember standing on
the football field Fox Andvil Sunday, I'm making more money
ever made in my life, biggest fame I could ever have.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
It's the height of my.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Career with everything broken, the biggest store, ballt on and
Spygate doing ballers, and I'm standing in the football field
and I'm like, damn, this was supposed to be rainbows
and unicorns.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
It's not.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
It's not. And that's man, that's hard to deal with it.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
And then you realize, all right, well, over time, I've
realized as hard as I've worked and making it, I've
got to work just as hard and trying to somehow
get myself to find that happiness from the inside out.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, jeah.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
I told my mother when I was nine years old,
I was going to be a general manager in the NFL.
So I was laser focused my whole life. That's all
I was going to do. And accomplished those goals. And
at the same time, again, the amount of guilt and
shame that came with the lack of happiness in that
position was really, really, really hard to deal with. And
it wasn't it was over time, you know, my first
five years. You know, when I hired Bruce and we
(08:42):
won over fifty games in five years. I'm two time
Executive of the Year. I think I'm really good at
this thing, you know, I'm I'm getting a big head.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I'm proud.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
I'm pretty good at this right, And then all of
a sudden, the world comes to an end and it's
like Carson Palmer retires, Bruce Harrians retires. You know, we
go through some tough times. I get it very public, Dui,
which was also something that I always had a hard
time for giving myself for. And that you look, you
learn at a place like the Meadows. Until you can
forgive yourself for some of your mistakes, you're going to
(09:11):
have a really hard time moving forward.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And also, look you got the DWI and the drinking
continued after that.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
That must have been quite a wrestling.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Match for you.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
Yeah, you know, because you're always sort of in the
mindset of how can you determine whether it's a problem,
is it social?
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Is it you know what?
Speaker 5 (09:27):
We learned it to meadows Man, and I thought this
was a great lesson people. People aren't addicted to drugs
and alcohol. They have they have life problems, and those
are your escape.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
So tell me, you know, I want to get back
now to the journey itself. So you're going you realize
things are kind of coming off the rails for you.
Tell me, like the scariest part of coming off the rails,
and then tell me how it got to in the
middle of the season.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Okay, I got to go reap. I can't continue being
on the GM right here.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
The scariest part was, I think once we got to
like November of that season. You know, you're at home,
you know, obviously being divorced and away from my kids.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
It's tough enough. But then at the.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Same time, when you're home at night, you know, and
you come home from the job and you're trying to decompress,
you know, instead of watching the TV show to sort
of come down, or or maybe.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Even having a cocktail. I didn't. I got to the
point where I didn't want to do any of that.
I could not.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Wait to take an ambient or a xanax or both
to go to bed, because for me, that.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
Was letting the pain go. Does that make sense? Gives
you as as.
Speaker 5 (10:28):
Soon as I could get to bed and make myself
go to sleep, that was my ability to shut the world.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Off right, It gives you a broth of the pan.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Problem is, Jay, is the next morning you woke up
and the pain was still there, didn't go away.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, that's hard.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
And that's that's when I knew, you know, when you
couldn't enjoy life, when I felt like life wasn't you know,
a lot of fun anymore? Where I was having to
go medicate, to go to sleep to again stop the pain.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I still want you to come back to what was
the impus Like there hadn't been a day you were
like I'm going to rehab.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Was it the team that sent you or was it
your decision?
Speaker 4 (11:03):
No?
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Leading up to it, you know I had enough people again, friends, family, coworkers,
Michael Biddle even came, our owner, came and sat with
me multiple times and said, you know, hey, you know
you still seem like yourself and didn't I didn't know
what it was, but I also didn't try to hide
from it.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
I told him straight up, yeah, I'm not doing good.
I don't know what's wrong with me. And you know,
he was great supportive here for you.
Speaker 5 (11:25):
But at the same time, again, there's a difference between
acknowledging and saying, hey, I don't know what's wrong with
me and I'm not perfect, versus I really need some help,
right and again that that at the treatment center, the
number one thing that they emphasize is making sure that
if you have problems out there, I don't care who
it is, whatever your problems may be in life, ask
for help. That's the vulnerability that it's important.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
How scary it was it to go in the middle
of the season say man, this is this. You had
have thought yourself, Wow, this is a career killer if
I do this well.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
Number one, you know, after ten years of being a GM,
it's it's sort of ran its course to the point
where it's like, Okay, something's got to change here or
I'm going to die or I'm going to die quite frankly,
And you know, I think that it was like I
knew it was what was best for me. But when
you still enter that treatment center, the first couple of days,
you're a little bit of denial, thinking you're different from
(12:16):
anybody else there. Yet at the same time, after two
to three weeks, you realize you're the same as everybody there.
It builds a lot of cherie chmaraderie in there.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Man. It's it's interesting.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
You know, so many different walks of life and people
that you meet and the treatment something like that that
are going through different things, you know that are going
through different parts of adversity in their life, and it's
it's a bonding time too as well. It was really
really strong. It was it was It was the best
thing that could have happened to me, and certainly I
needed it.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
If you look at your life right now, are you
happier now not being a GM, having gone through this,
being able to dive into yourself more?
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Were you happier than when you were a GYM?
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Much happier now? Good love that much happier?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
No?
Speaker 5 (12:56):
I mean, you know when the paychecks will stop coming
and and the fans stopped screaming. You know, there's certainly
a you know, evolution of life that changes for you.
You know, things slow down and you miss certain parts
of your life in the past.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
But at the.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Same time you can finally again appreciate the small things.
As we said, you know, at a point in time,
how many cars, how much money, whatever it is, how
many watches. Now you know, to go on a walk
and to see a beautiful day and appreciate that as
changes everything.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, so when you're in rehab and Michael Bilboll comes
and you know you're again, I don't know what is
where you fired you or is there beautiful parting? I
don't know what that I want to treatment. I went
to the treatment center and he and I talked and
we both agree. Just said when after I went to
the treatment center and I thought about going back to work,
right in my heart and in my stomach, I couldn't
(13:47):
fathom going back into that office. And when we both
just thought it was best for the organization to move forward.
And uh, you know, still love the organization and appreciate
everything the Cardinals did for me.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
I was there for twenty five years.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Well, it happened while you were in rehab, right.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I was.
Speaker 5 (14:03):
I was just yeah, I was in I was in
the treatment center and we talked on the phone and
he just said, hey, listen, we got to do something here.
What do you want to do? How do you feel?
And because I went to the treatment center, I was
able to think logically and to be able to understand
where where am I really.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
At my life and to be honest with myself.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Versus trying to say, you know what, I want to
just go back and kid myself and think that I'm
going to be able to jump right back in the
saddle here again and handle all this stress and the
pressure that comes with the job.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So you also, you have a big personality, right, You
and I always go play if you do this whole
thing right, I have had a lot of fun.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
What are the stressors and pressures to be that character?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Like I always say, I created this character of the
Glaze right to really hide all my ship from all
these years, and I created this big grit and so
in a way, all my pain did allow me to
build up this character, which I am a big part
of the character, but allow me to build this character
to have a lot of success in my dream job.
But at the same time, over the last couple of
years now, I've tried to figure out a balance where
(15:01):
I don't have to be the Glaze around everybody else. Yeah,
I just be Jay Glazer, you know, and be happy
with that. Tell me your wrestling match with that.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
That was the number one thing I had identified at
the Meadows is I had to realize I had spent
the majority of my adult life not knowing who I was,
truly who I was, okay, and my identity was Steve
kai and the executive, the GM, the fun guy, right
and essentially lazy. I was wearing a mask. And that's
what we talked about at the Meadows is you wear
this mask and you become this person who's almost like
(15:33):
a chameleon. You can adapt to any sort of social
structure you're in.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
You can be the fun guy, you can be entertaining.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
Yet at the same time, there were parts of me
that are dying inside as this sad, little young kid.
You know, was sensitive and I can cry it, you know,
certain things. But no, you're this tough guy, You're the glaze,
You're you know, You're Steve Kime you're the executive the year,
and that's not who we are. And it's a mask.
It's wearing a mask, is what I call it throughout
your adult lively. It's it's really running from your reality.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
And I can tell you from knowing you.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
And I think, I don't know if I've said this
to here or not, but I speak for me and
I know I speak to for also the same opinion
a lot of your friends.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
We've talked about it.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
We love Steve Kahm way more than we love that
big character, right. We love the you, you know, the
guy that does sit there and cry. You can in
my house one time. Yeah, I kind of got after
you about something to you cried and then you know,
head then and then when I you know, also called
you over and saying, hey, the same fucking like you do,
what's going on here?
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Same thing.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
That's the dude we love. But you're you're a very
loyal friend. You're sensitive as shit.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
You are man, I.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Know anytime I call someone, your fucking ass will be
there for me in two seconds. You don't have to
be that huge personality. And that's the dude we love
the most. And I hope you realize that that don't
have to put on a show when we go out somewhere.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
That's that's been one of the fun refreshing things about
the last probably year and a half is I haven't
been around that guy much and it's been it's been fine.
You know, it's it's less stressful, it's everything's certainly more authentic,
and life's more authentic, right, and when life can be
more authentic and you can enjoy again, enjoy the little things,
the relationships that the times you and I could sit
on your balcony and overlook the beach and be like,
(17:16):
here we are too much from the northeast. Can you
believe this is our life? I come to a point
now where it's like, you know what, if you stop
appreciating all those special moments like that, then something's wrong.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
What as a general manager, what are the most stressful.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Things that you realize, Oh, man, this I need to
drink because of this, or I got to do you know,
the things that really drove you the craziest and really
kind of tacked you from the inside out.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
Well, the general manager is a tough position because you know, listen, Jay,
you and I both want to be liked. Everybody wants
to be liked. To be a general manager in the
National Football League, I would have to say you definitely
are not the kind of person that wants to win
a popularity contest because half the time the players are
not happy with you because of the contracts you have
to deal with coaches contracts, so they're not always happy
(17:58):
with you.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
You want to try to make the are happy, which
is not always easy to do.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
You want to make sure the coaches are happy with
the players you're giving them, which is not easy to do.
And everybody's underpaid and most people don't have enough director
levered titles. They're not getting pushed up the ranks as fast,
so you're never really in a position where you feel
like you know you're a likable guy. You got to
make a lot of tough decisions and have to deal
with a lot of conflict, and it's extremely stressful. I
(18:22):
mean the kind of things again that keep you up
at night because of the decisions you have to make ultimately,
which can affect people's livelihoods. I mean, whether you're having
to let people go, those sort of things. But at
the same time, you know like it is it's a
tough position because again you're trying to make everybody happy,
and that can't be the mindset that you have. You
have to do what's best for your organization moving forward.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
For people out there or No, it's not just about
getting players. Like basically, you got to now deal with
every single thing in that building comes across your desk,
so family issues, agent issues, marketing issues.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
You find out the crux of what make people go of.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Everybody in that villain so as like a like that,
you find out everybody fucked up, right, you find out
how fucked.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Up everybody really is and you got to deal with it.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
And you know, as a GM, it's not like you
went to school fish, there's no there's no guidebook. Hey,
how do I deal with this guy coming in saying
that man his wife just cheating on him, but but
she's extorting them for this amount.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
That's right, there's no there's no guidebook for this stuff.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
No doubt, And that's what I did.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
I mean, Jay listen as soon as the press conference
was over.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
It was so funny that.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
Press conference in twenty thirteen when they named me general manager.
It was so funny because it's like my whole life
I had worked to become the general manager, right, And
I remember walking up to my office and.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Putting my head in my hands, going, what the fuck
do I do? Now?
Speaker 5 (19:41):
There's no there's no book, right, there's there's no there's
no uh, there's there's nothing that tells you what to
do in those situations. But then you just sort of
have to fly by the seat of your pants and
and and do what you know is is uh sort
of expected. Next, which luckily for me, was Bruce Arians
and Carson Palmer, which led to Good Run for five years.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Would you say it was a just to drink it
on the night meads or there more?
Speaker 4 (20:03):
No, it was the nightments.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
It was as well as those Xanax and the ambient,
which again I don't want to speak out of turn,
but the people with the Meadows, they make it sound
like that those drugs are worse than street drugs, whether
it's you.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
Know, marijuana, heroin, cocaine.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
They make it sound like those drugs like Xanax and
ambient are really really problems.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
So are you.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Still battling these Did you say you have another control
or you haven't.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I haven't even used Inx or Ambient since the meadows?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Great, right, So this guy who's now gone through all this.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
What would you say to Steve Kahan in your last
year at the Cardinals, who's kind of going off the rails.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
When it first started.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
Uh, you know, I think number one, try to find
healthier ways to approach adversity and stress. But again, in
those moments, it's easier said than done. You know, sometimes
sometimes too j when you ask about being a general manager,
some of the tough decisions you had to make right
and the stress that came onto your plate, there were
times where almost you felt alone too.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
You know, sometimes in.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Life you have buddies that you can sort of sort
of circle up with and vent. You know, there's some
big decisions and private decisions you have to make that
are stressful that you have to do alone in this business,
and you really can't invent to somebody else. You can't
talk to anybody else. You can't you can't worry about
how you feel, and that puts you in a tough predicament.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
I think, what what are you also?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Just you just mentioned there's healthier ways to deal with
that stress. What are some of these healthier ways that
you've now learned?
Speaker 5 (21:26):
Certainly exercise, meditating, that's the one thing we did at
the meadows.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
We did a lot of meditating, We did a lot
of whether it.
Speaker 5 (21:32):
Was different forms of yoga, just a lot of a
lot of self help stuff, which are breeding techniques. I mean,
some of the breeding techniques that I learned there were phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
I mean the point where Jack, even with my lack
of patients, even standing in a grocery line and almost
losing my shit, where I have to, like, I have
a word like Cabo, Cabo, Cabo, and I can say
in my mind and just sort of chill out and
sort of realized, Listen, you're in a line at a
grocery store.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Relax, it's okay, right. What advice would you give other
general managers now if you can call them now? Now
people are going to see this and go, oh, now
we understand what's going on with Steve, and I would
hope that you could be of service to them. So, hey, man,
I got some advice for you here. What, yeah, what
would you tell these guys?
Speaker 5 (22:13):
Well, I mean, I think number one, I think you
could you can identify this as well as I can.
I think that there's a number of our friends who
are out there doing the job that are going through
a lot of similar type things.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
I mean, I'm sure I wasn't alone.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
I can only tell you what I went through myself.
But these guys have tough lives. They go through a
lot of stuff. And I think more than anything is
to be able to ask for help and to be
able to identify more than anything Jay like anything else,
And the hardest part is identifying and to put yourself
in a predicament where you can identify and you can
be vulnerable enough, to vulnerable enough to ask for help
and to know it's okay to say I have a problem,
(22:48):
would you go?
Speaker 2 (22:49):
You know, one of the things I always talk to
teams about this man taking there your therapist. I was
telling you back then too, bank ghost talk to your therapists, right,
but a therapist in the building, and they only have
to be there three days a week, which is you know,
and it needs to be I think in my opinion,
eventually the NFL has to evolve where you have several therapists,
just like you have several strength coaches, several trainers, all that.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Several there, but they're tucked.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Away in the back of the building like it's almost
like taboo to go if you were to be a right,
if you were to be a gam again, what would
you do to make a different where it's not so
taboo to go talk to that therapist again.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
I want everybody to know that instead of what we've
been taught our whole lives, don't show your pain.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Be tougher. It's the complete opposite.
Speaker 5 (23:28):
You're more of a man when you're more vulnerable, when
you're more open, when you're more open to sort of
battling your demons, because again, that's the only way you're
going to fix it.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
And that's the cool thing in life.
Speaker 5 (23:38):
You know.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
If they say the cool thing in life is to
you know, well, that's not to blow.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
All these things that are so hard to talk about off.
The cool thing is is to talk about them. And
once you learn how to be able to be vulnerable
and talk about things openly, you learn how quickly you
can heal, because you won't be able to heal if
you won't.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
You know, it's so funny you're talking about being an
open and vulnerable and we're taught not to show it.
I'm the living contradiction to this, because you know, I
opened my MMA program, you know, Breakable Mma fifteen years ago,
whatever it was, it just becoll mma athletics. We've trained
all these players, right, and how my gym Unbreakable and
our whole mindset there is.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Man, you don't show it. You don't show it.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
If I'm hurt, if I'm tired, You'll never fucking know, right,
I don't fighters, don't take a stool in between rounds.
You fuck up my arm. I ain't gonna fucking let
you know. And here I am now coming out with
Unbreakable for the podcast and my book, and I am
now preaching the exact opposite of.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Everything that I coach in sports.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Man be vulnerable, show it, make sure what he knows,
and man it's They could both be accurate, But what
we now have to do is really separate them.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
You know, one is for your job, the other ones
for life.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
I mean, here we are two guys who we think
are pretty tough guys right on the surface, you know.
At the same time, here we are talking about how
cool showing our weakness is.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
No as vulnerability. It's not our weakness.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Yeah no, no, no, I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
But the old Steve, the old JA, the old mindset
on set of most is now I'm showing a weakness.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
It's not a weakness.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Right in sports, and that in sports, Okay, you can
look at it that way. You look at it, hey,
if you show your tired hates I never like to
use the term weakness anymore because of this, but it's
more of the Hey, it's my job to break you.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
So if you don't know I'm tired or hurt, you'll
never know.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
But it's the same time, if we, yeah, we don't
show it in life, we're going to end up breaking
in life.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
So that's what I'm trying to do now.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Is really I still coach the one way, but now
I tell guys, hey, guys, this is just for your competition.
This is for your sport or your fight. I need
you to do the complete opposite in life. If we
want to be happiness, to build ourselves from the inside out.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
And exactly right.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
And it's a different world we live in nowt too.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Because back in the day, when you made a decision
to you don't have a million people on social media
telling you what a dumb shit you are.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
You just had, you know, a couple of reporters, a
couple of.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Guys in your building, but not the whole world and
we're set to people and ship bouts.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Exuckly, right exactly.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
I know you're sitting here worried about the guy living
in his mom's basement, talking about what.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
A shitty job you've done? Right, what does this world
come to?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And it affects us, It does all those you know,
every social media post, it still carries the same weight.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
You don't know who it is.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
It's still And just because we're successful folks, doesn't mean
our feelings curtly less that sensitive.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
It's fucked. My feelings hurt easily. Yes, absolutely right.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
And you know it's funny, Jay, because over the years,
you know, being close with you, you know you taught me
that and you showed me that. But there's a real
and this is to be straight honest with you, there
is a real fine line in my opinion and your
ability to finally let go, you know what I mean.
It's like you you can preach and you can tell me,
and you can give me great advice about being open
(26:38):
and vulnerable and all those different things which you have
done over the years, but until you get to your
breaking point, until you get to a point where you
can identify and acknowledge your problems. It's really hard to
let go because you're still going to be guarded. Well,
explain that more, Like, for example, you know, over the years,
it was easy to hear you say here's what you
need to do, or here's what helps me with my
mental health issues, or here's some things I've learned along
(26:59):
the way. Yeah, listen, I can and I can take
all that in and I can, I can learn from it,
learn from it. But can I really really adopt and
live by those terms until I acknowledge, until you know
what I'm telling until I'm ready to let go. You
you can't hold back anymore.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
You can't.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
You can't.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
You can't stick.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
Your toe halfway in the water and be like, you
know what, I'm doing some things to make myself better.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Yeah, it's fine, but you're not. You're not committing your
whole entire self to it.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
I think it was great for you also, Steve, like
what's helped me.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Also as being of service and you being open vulnerable
like this now and yeah I think you do you know,
help out your others who are trying to get in
this position.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
I think that'll that'll give you some freedom as well.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
I mean again, as you and I talk.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
Could I ever imagine coming on this program like yours,
uh to talk about these kind of issues. I would
have never ever could put myself in this position. How
do you feel now that you've done it?
Speaker 4 (27:49):
Completely relieved?
Speaker 5 (27:53):
And and And that's funny because when I when I
walked into the room to do it, I felt that
sort of non anxiety but sort of that a little
bit of excitement actually to be able to tell my story.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
And you're hopefully and hopefully my story helps.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
Someone else along the lines with as many lives as
you saved. You know, maybe somebody else out there, maybe
another general manager, maybe another athlete, can say, you know what,
here's just another guy that has had his issues along
the way and was able to talk about it and
to be open and honest.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
You know what people you say to me all the time, Hey,
if you say one person, it's enough.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
And I used to be like, no, it's not.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
And you know what it is. It's one of the
things that have to come really because I am so
driven and I am guilt ridden by things. And I
used to look at it like, who have I'm not helped?
Instead of who have I helped? So it's one of
the things.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Just you know, also I've had to work with is
given myself that grace of hey no wait wait wait
wait wait.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
If I have helped one person, because I don't know
the ripple effect there, that person may have helped a
ton of people also, So I want you to.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Give yourself that grace too. One person here is this
you help them? Man? What you will? You absolutely will?
You could? You can put that on your resume life
from the big picture.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
Yeah, you know, and it's still every days of challenges,
you know. I mean it's you know, there's still days
Jay that you still go through that. It's you know,
you still have to remind yourself.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
I can forgive myself, you know, because I do live
with a lot of guilt and shame.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Well what are you doing to get over that, guilden Champ.
You're still going to therapy m as soon?
Speaker 4 (29:18):
Yeah? Right? Yeah? What else?
Speaker 5 (29:20):
Good?
Speaker 4 (29:21):
No, just just continuing to just do again.
Speaker 5 (29:23):
Healthy hobbies in life, whether it's I just got my
knee replaced so a week ago, so that's that that
was a huge thing for me because that was also
another thing that when you're carrying that kind of physical pain,
that that can also attribute to some of these problems.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
So that was another step in the right direction.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Well, I'm pridy you for coming on.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
I want to switch gears here, and you know, we
do have the draft coming up here and talk to
some other things before before I before I do that
though obviously your old team, they got a whole bunch
of stuff going on here, your owner and Tarry McDonough
and yeah, tell me what your your thoughts are on
all that.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
It's just unfortunate to me, you know, because again, as
I said, stress that I carried that I was trying
to keep people happy in every sort of compartment, and
that really would tear at you whenever you knew that
people couldn't get along, and there were things that went
on behind the scenes that maybe only I knew about
or some others knew about that they were they were
just tough to to, you know, to know that I
(30:18):
couldn't fix certain things, because I always felt like I
was the kind of guy that my mentality was always,
you know, be part of the solution, not part of
the problem, and keep everybody's attitude in the right direction,
and roll your sleeves up at the door and check
your ego there and that sort of thing. But it's unfortunate.
You know, we had a good run, and you know,
I'm still rooting for the organization because again a lot
of people that I care about.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
All right, So on draft week and people, I think
people think you guys have your pick set like weeks
and events. I always trying to tell no, it's not that,
it's not how they do it. Tell me what you
guys did you do your When did you get your
board set?
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Generally about three days before the draft? Okay, smoke, I.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Want you hear that three days before the draft. So
every time you hear that, somebody has it, oh man,
they're they're locked in at twenty at this guy, and
they say it in February. They're not fucking locked in
on February.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
And in February, when you think a guy's going to
be there, twenty usually goes about eight.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Right right, right, right right, all right?
Speaker 2 (31:09):
So tell me how the yeah kind of layout the
week of if you will. So do you guys like
take that final weekend off and then.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
Take the final weekend off when you come back that
week and essentially your board is put together. Then to me,
I think most teams are doing it the same way
in terms of ranking players one through say one twenty
or two hundred for that particular team, that you would
take these players in that particular order.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
If the draft slid like that, and you.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
Know now all of a sudden, it makes it pretty
easy that you've already had these conversations between number three
and number four on your board, and all of a sudden,
you're the eleventh pick in the draft and.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Those two players are there.
Speaker 5 (31:42):
People don't get excited because the hard part on draft
day is to not allow the emotions to get ahead
of you, you know, to be able to say, listen,
we did the work, We've had these conversations, and there's
a logical reason why we're making this decision right. And
that can be tough because because the momentum, those rooms
can get crazy.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
You own draft day.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
So you know, I was in a room one time.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
I was in there with the Saints years ago, years here,
Jim Hossett was head coach and Saints this was a
later round pick.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
They still had a guy on the board who's like.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Number eight, but they had all these freaking red flags
and this year time they.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Know, man, we bring him into our room.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
It's he's in a funck our place up, but he's
the eighth best player on our entire board. Talk about
that like it's still I understand because it's it's an
ultimate risk award, so I understand the talent ed of it.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
But if you do have a million red marks in
a guy, oh doesn't really matter where what point the
room up exactly?
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Have you seen those those draft cards? They essentially look like,
you know, like a Christmas tree lit up in different colors.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
You know, there's blue, there's red dots, ors yellow dots, and.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
And there's a goal for guys you don't want to
go near right exactly, huge reds.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
Perfect example for that was for me was I think
we were picking with the twenty six or twenty eighth
draft pick that year and we select Robert Kimdci. Robert
Kimdici was I mean, essentially from a skill set and
a talent standpoint, one of the top couple of players
in the draft. But there was a list of a
mile long of red flag as it came with him.
(33:13):
And it's sort of one of those deals that always
taught me in my later years. The red flag is there,
and it's not only there, but it's with a like
blinking light at you avoid, avoid, avoid. But that's the
hardest part, man, is we get so enamored with these
physical tools and the talent, and then you bring in
coaches into some of these discussions, and these guys can
coach anybody. You know, these guys, I can get this guy,
(33:35):
get this guy right. Well that's interesting. How come the
fifteen coaches before you could get him right? But you're
going to be able to coach right, you know. Then
our defensive line coach said during the draft meetings, I said, listen,
Robert's got these issues.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
I'm concerned.
Speaker 5 (33:48):
I said, if we take this guy, we've got to
be committed to obviously you know, the process and getting
him too, in every category with Robert personally, professionally, everything.
And the defensive line coach said, if we take this guy,
he can live in my basement.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Right.
Speaker 5 (34:03):
That same defensive line, That same defensive line coach brought
Robert into my office the next year and said, I
can't coach this fucking guy.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Really, yes? And I sat back and I said, what
happened to your basement? We must have had a flood.
You talk about stressing a general manager.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
You just took a guy in the first round, and
everybody said, listen, I will adopt this kid.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
I will, I.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
Will make sure he gets the class right. And all
of a sudden, a year later, I can't fucking coach.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
You wonder why I'm stressed out?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So then so we go, let's go back you put
you come back in on Monday, let's say right now,
and your boards set right, and then so then what
happens that, what kind of wrestling match happens from there?
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Or what's your next steps leading up to the drums
next three or four days.
Speaker 5 (34:50):
Yeah, you'll you'll generally get within our next people, and
you'll you'll sort of generate some different mock drafts that
takes you through a bunch of different scenarios, not only
scenarios where that pick falls a certain way, but then
also trade possibilities.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Are you one of the teams that used to have
do everybody sit around the table they're all different teams,
or you just use a computer help it. I know
a lot of people have you know, everybody has a
mock draft and they kind of compare it together.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
What do you do? What did you guys do?
Speaker 5 (35:16):
Early on, we went around the room with all our
coaches and scouts prior to the draft and allow them
to be different teams. It became really unrealistic because then
those people started picking guys that they liked and it
wasn't realistic to the order. So then we started to
generate more analytics based lists off of say guys like
yourself or Daniel Jeremia's mock draft or somebody else that
(35:39):
is reputable that you think could could potentially happen.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
I don't do mock drafts.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
I never have, you know why because you know the picks?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, could you tell me who you can fucking take it?
You go, but glades, you can't say anything. So if
I can't say anything, I'm not going to betray you.
But I'm also not going to.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Lie to the fans, that's right.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
So I can't put somebody out there that I know
I'm alloting the fans. So years ago I stopped doing
mock draft. I'm like, man, these guys and then you know,
people right don't understand my involvement in this.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Or my uh as an insider too.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
A lot of these guys will reach out to me
and go, hey, this is who we want. Can we
get him there, or do we have to move You've
done that with me. Do we have to move this
way or that way?
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Right?
Speaker 3 (36:17):
And yeah, And I've got coaches.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Send players for me to train, to see if I
could break them and see how they are and see
if they're gonna be able to see if they're gonna
pop off on their coaches.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
It's been by the way, by the way, sometimes sometimes
you would like to bear bad news. You know.
Speaker 5 (36:33):
It could be like I'm sitting there and I'm like, please,
we're picking a thirty eight and round two. You know,
I'm thinking, this's just oh.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
He's not going to be there.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
I'm like some shot. I'm like, Steve, you got no chance.
But at the same time, also, look, I.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Trained a guy years ago, and I'm like, Steve, this guy,
he's a receiver, movement tight end. He's a great human man,
and Steve ended up styning him on my recommendation.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
He should have gotten like the fifth round.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
But you're like, hey, if anything else glaze, I will
I'll sign an undrafted free agent. I think he's still
in the league, right, eight years right, he's still in
I think he's still in the league. But that's yeah,
He's had a long career and I couldn't get anybody
to take a look at him except for you, and
I think Minnesota, and I'm like, God, im trend this
guy for three or four months. I'm telling you he'll
(37:23):
be a pro for a long time. I think he
wants to be great. You know what I deal with him, man,
I ended up having him coach my son, because what
I've learned, if you teach me something and I coach
and teaching somebody else, I pick it up fast with
my ADHD and most of these times got ADHD. So
if you do that, I'm like, hey, Ricky, you know, hey,
you're gonna help Sammy out here. So if you teach
(37:43):
Sammy that like I want you to teach you Samy
when I taught you and he would just pick it up.
And you know, we we can all learn in a
different way. Just gonna find out those ways that you learn.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
But no question, but.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
That was good.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
But I'm like trying to hit you in like the
second round, Go get him, Go get him. You're like
I'm using a second.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Round or out him? Glaze? When did the call start
coming for trades?
Speaker 5 (38:06):
That?
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Are you really know? Okay? I could really have a
dance partner.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
Honestly, you get some prior to the draft if they're
going to be real players in the first round, but
generally not till you're on the clock.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
You don't have like frameworks done well.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
I should say.
Speaker 5 (38:21):
You know, when you're five picks away from your pick,
you know, then you start calling teams, Hey, you know,
we see you have this pick considered. Uh, you know
thirty eight or you know, one fifty two and one
fifty six?
Speaker 3 (38:33):
Would you trade it for Hollywood Brown? How did that? Like,
when do those talks start?
Speaker 4 (38:37):
That happened night before the draft.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Night before it was you they calling you.
Speaker 5 (38:41):
I had called er at Tacosta right around the combine
time because I started to think to myself that I
wasn't going to be able to get a real receiver
in that draft. At you know, I think we had
the twenty fourth pick, and uh, I was right, because
they all went off the board prior to twenty four.
Eric said no, and the Ravens maintained no for quite
some time until the night before the draft, and I
(39:01):
think Hollywood put some pressure on them that he wanted
out of there, and they decided to allow him to go.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
Was that the only receiver you were locked in trying
to get or are there others?
Speaker 5 (39:10):
I know we looked, we had looked in this couple
other receivers, but obviously his relationship with Kylo was big,
and the fact that he was a speed guy, which
we did not have speed at the time with de
Hoppy and our ex receiver.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Was there any you got any funny trade stories that
almost happened but didn't.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
Well, you know, the d hop trade was the funniest
story just because it happened during the pandemic, So it
was like me and Bill O'Brien did that trade and Hopkins? Yeah, yeah,
we did that trade. You know, right before free agency started.
I don't know if you remember this, but the pandemic
happened and they stopped all of free agent travel, so
they shut down free agency. So essentially me and Bill
(39:45):
had agreed to this trade, which nobody knew other than
Ownership and myself and Bill O'Brien. So every day I'm
waking up. You know, first of all, during that period
of time, you couldn't go to the office, so I'm
like laying in my pool hanging out thinking myself when
I really trade for DeAndre Hopkins and we couldn't consummate
the trade until we got a physical on both him
and David Johnson are running back.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
Well, that was a huge issue obviously.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
So the whole time, I'm thinking to myself, at some
point in time, when they find out that the Texans
are trading DHAP, they're going to murder Bill O'Brien right,
and then he's gonna get then he's gonna get cold
feat and he's gonna pull out of this this trade.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
But obviously good things.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
Happened never happened, and we were able to consummate the
deal and they didn't eventually allow these guys to get physicals.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
I do have one.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Funny draft story trade story is our good virtual friend
Frank Caliendo one time calls you as Gruden trying to
trade right for Kyler Murray and offering Quinn Williams, and
then called you as me that I had heard the
story right on draft day.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Rank's a man of many hats.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
It was unbelievable though, sounds like both of us.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
And he did, and I said, I told him, I man,
I see you know. For you to interfere with my
job like that, you are a real sick human.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Just like, tell me the when you make that pick,
that first pick, when you make that pick, is it
utter joy?
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Is it anxiety? Is it both? What's the emotion when.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
You call a kid and say, hey, you're now we're
choosing you in the first row.
Speaker 5 (41:24):
I think it's a little bit of everything. I think
it's anxiety. I think it's it's fear. I think it's excitement.
And generally, you know, I would say probably most of
the time the time, if you don't have the first
pick in the draft, or even a top five pick,
I think a lot of times you like the player
enough to think you were probably a little bit shocked
that he got to you, say, at fifteen, seventeen, twenty
four or whatever it is. So you're pretty excited, But
at the same time, you know it's a high pressure
(41:48):
pick because obviously that should be the one that is
a guaranteed starter. He's obviously a franchise type player, whether
it's a quarterback.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
Or he's the real deal.
Speaker 5 (41:57):
He's a leader for your team when in reality, you
know you run the analytics studies in forty nine percent
of first round picks pusts right, which is humbling.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Given the coolest call you've made. Done it for first
round of anybody? Coolest call you made to tell somebody
they've been drafted.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
Let me badger, Oh good tell because he was he
was sitting in the third round. I had brought him
in for a visit. So again, here's a guy with
this should have been a top fifteen pick but obviously
had his issues at LSU.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
I pick back then, yeah, yeah, yeah, how does issues
at LSU?
Speaker 5 (42:26):
And and for me, the feelings that I had, it
was my first draft as a general manager.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
So this is twenty thirteen, so here I.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
Am saying, there's no chance that I could ever take
a chance on a guy like that my first draft
as a GM, and it got to be the third round,
and I got to know him personally and felt very
comfortable with the person and the player, and felt like,
you know, NFL football would be a real determ for
him to not go back to make any mistakes.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
And it was. He's in a phenomenal job, had a
great career.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
The call just itself, how emotional was the fact you
know him cry and him promising he would not let
us down and he certainly didn't.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
No no doubt, man, And you know, think back also
how you evaluate guys. His problem was weed back then,
this is now a half the states. He's taken off
from my sports because of weed. My final question, brother,
and I'm really proud of you today. I asked this if
every guest, so I'll have to ask you to you
give me your unbreakable moment, that moment in your life.
(43:21):
It could be specific, whatever it is that could have
broken you and should.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Have and didn't.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
As a result, you came through the other side of
that tunnel stronger forever.
Speaker 5 (43:31):
The day I walked into the Meadows Treatment Center as
the general manager of the Arizona Cardinals, knowing that that
changed everything in my life, could have been for the good, bad,
or whatever anybody else thought about it. But when I
walked out that other end forty five days later, I
found out who Steve Kim was. I liked who he was.
(43:51):
I embraced the things that he did in the past.
I forgave him for the things he did in the past,
and more than anything, I found a way to love
them again.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Man, I'm proud of you.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
That may be the I've been most proud of in
the history of doing this podcast.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
Man, love you Man, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
I see that lip quick and brother so great Crocker dude.
I'm proud of you, man, I'm really proudnant appreciate it,
Thank you, and I cannot call you proud to call
you your friend. Brother man Hey, it's our equity is all
these changes that we make, man, and our experience we
go through.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
I'm proud of Walkers. Walk with your brother, Steve Cott
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