Unbreakable Episode 89 - Sean Payton

Welcome to Unbreakable! A mental wealth podcast hosted by Fox NFL Insider Jay Glazer. On today’s episode, Jay goes inside the huddle with Denver Broncos Head Coach Sean Payton. Enjoy Sean’s incredible journey to becoming one of the winningest coaches in NFL History!

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Episode Transcript

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.
Welcome into Unbreakable, a mental Wealth podcast with Jay Glazer.
I'm Jay Glazer, and this podcast is great because I

(00:22):
get to bring on people up know him for forever
for a long time, and dive into certain things that
we've had really deep conversations about, but then share them
with the world to lift everybody else up. This person
he's a leader of men. He's learned a lot from me.
I've learned a lot from him, and we continue to
learn a lot from each other. We were teammates about
two years ago for Fox, but you probably know him

(00:43):
better as the head coach of the Denver Broncos one
and only Sean Payton.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
How you doing, man, Jay, I'm doing well. I gotta
be honest with you.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
I appreciate the warm welcome obviously you and I consider
you as close a friend as I have in this industry.
But I'm looking over your right hand shoulder and I'm thinking,
do you actually have a game ball for everyone that
you have on this podcast?

Speaker 1 (01:05):
No, I just have one from the more on to
actually go. Hey, here's my first game ball. That's for
people who are just listening audio wise. Over my right
shoulder is a game ball presented to Sean Payton. It
says New York Giants forty one, New York Jets twenty
eight and the date is September fifth, nineteen ninety nine,

(01:26):
Giant Stadium. I believe that was the first game ball
you ever got. Yeah, so you gave it to me
for a pretty funny, fucked up reason.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Well, so real quickly, here here's the cool thing about
game balls.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
It's not when you get them.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Really, it's like when time goes by and then like
here we are looking at one and then really, what's
in that game ball is a story, a couple stories,
and it brings back memories, that's all. So the date's important,
the score is important. And this is my first year
at the New York Giants. I'm the quarterback coach that year.
And in this game, coach Fossil, the late Jim Fossil,

(02:08):
had a death in his family that didn't allow him
to be there for that week at practice, and so
I think his father passed and Jim Jim was was
gone for his father's funeral, and he's like, hey, I
want you to call the game this week and it's
a regular season game.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Now. The timing was a.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Little tough because it was Belichick is the defensive coordinator
and Parcels as the head coach. Like there's other first
times you want it. This is the first time I've
ever going to call a game in my life.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yep. And I'm like, uh, and no one had no
one had known it, So that's the key.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, Yeah, And I.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Was I was at CBS at the time when breaking
news by the minute started becoming a thing back then,
and on Sunday morning came out with it that I've learned.
Sean Payton, the quarterback coach, will be calling the game
today instead of Jim Fossil. And anytime you break a
story in New York, people go crazy. We just look
at like when I had the Odell Beckham a few
years ago, and people just went nuts or wag Martinell

(03:03):
after they's go crazy. But I've been around that team
since ninety three and you presented it and I think
it is signed on the other side. Yeah, And what
you wrote was, Jay, every squirrel eventually finds a nut.
As a good job, you finally got a story.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Well, you and I at that very moment in time
were probably in similar positions career wise, same industry, different areas.
But the point is we're both young and trying to
make impressions, and so you know, it's not often the
Jets Giants play in the regular season every four years,

(03:41):
you know, in other words, AFC NFC based on the
schedule that that could change now, I guess with the
seventeenth game. But the point is they play a lot
in the preseason, but this was a regular season game.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Bill Parcells, who I was gonna later work for, I didn't.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Know what this time was the head coach, and coach
Bill Belichick was a defensive coordinator, and you know, it
was one of those deals where you just want to
have a good first impression, Like you know, as a
play caller, you know the clock and everything going fast,
and it was one of those games where everything went right.
And I say that humbly. I mean, I can recall

(04:16):
the late David Patton got a double reverse for sixty yards.
Kerry Collins had one of those games that was just
like man, the ball didn't hit the ground. A lot
of guys played well that night. I just remember coming
home and just being like wow. You know, there's that
old saying when you do something. The one thing about
New York obviously, the media can be enormous positively.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Or negatively, you know, because that's really what.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Sells a lot, and that city is one of the
bigger media markets in the world. So I'm just I'm
glad I had that type of result because you know,
obviously in that city, it's going to be one of
the other and you.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Could have been serving me burgers in and out, which
a The first time I had in an alberger was
with you and Oxnard a Cowboys camp because I think
I was still in New Yorker back then. So no,
that's how I know what that was. And you opened
my eyes to a whole new thing. We wait, and
you wait real quick. So and look, folks, I'm going
to have Sean and I diamond to a story about

(05:17):
that he shared with me about his dad, because we've
talked mental health when I really started talking about it
here with a lot of events, a lot of our
players especially, but before that, because you're talking about the
Giants and your quarterback coach, I want people to understand,
though your first job you started, you didn't really have
your own office. Tell people where it was with the Eagles.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, So I coached in college for nine years and
my goal was to be a college football coach in
the Big Ten. I didn't get recruited to the Big Ten.
I was from Illinois. I went to Eastern Illinois, and so, yeah,
those first nine years were you know, San Diego State,
Miami of Ohio, Indiana State, end up at Illinois and

(05:58):
then I'm getting you take a job at Maryland and
there's a quarterbacks job that opens up in Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
And this is one of these unique ties.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
You know, a lot of times people will ask for
advice relative to moving forward in the profession, and I
always tell them the same thing. Be present where your
feed are at. All that other stuff really takes care
of itself. You know, this is a small industry. And
so Bill Callahan was the offensive line coach at the
Eagles and John Gruden was the offensive coordinator under Railroads in.

(06:30):
Callahan at one point spent time a lot of time
at the University of Illinois, and there were a number
of people that knew him still that were there, equipment guys,
training room guys, even in the administration. And Bill was
well thought of back then back there at Illinois, and
there were two or three of these guys that visited

(06:52):
with Bill about me when this job opened, because they
were looking for a young college quarterback. They were looking
for a blank tape they want, or a young guy
to work with the quarterbacks and learn. And so the
point I'm making with that story is you never know
who it is that might be able to help you
relative to your profession, and so you got to approach

(07:13):
it like everyone can, and you're making an impression with everyone.
And I had great relationships with these guys, and I'm
getting ready to go to Maryland and all of a sudden,
you know, I get a call from Bill and Gruden.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
I go up there and interview, and.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
So my first pro job, I get hired by the Eagles,
and I'm super excited.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Now, you know, University of.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
Illinois got a beautiful football office overlooking the field. Maryland
got a mahogany office looking over the field.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
And man, I'm going to the NFL. I'm excited.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
And I get up there and the offices at that
time were in the basement of Veteran Stadium and there
were really just three offices for the offense on the
left and three down the hallway on the right for
the defense. And like the team meeting room had like this, oh,
I'm going to say, like this, dibai, And when they
pulled it back, like fifty of the eighty guys could

(08:05):
actually see Ray Rhodes. And so we had a lot
of team meetings were two thirds of the team saw
him and the third didn't. It just depended on where
you stood in the meeting. So the facilities obviously were crazy.
So that being said, yeah, get to your point.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Let's go correct.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
I'm I'm on a couch in John Gruden's office with
a phone, but on that staff was John Harbaugh.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Wait, wit, but that's your office, right, the couch.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
The couch, So and I zer ound and I thought
and I and he goes, hey, just make yourself comfortable,
and I'm like, then I realize he's serious, Like I'm here,
And so I got a phone, a notepad and part
of that couch. And you know, you felt a little
bit more like a cat or a dog, like I
was like, you know, you'd move in and out of

(08:49):
the office spaces to someone else's, so you really didn't
have your own office, and uh, you know, I'd go
down the hall where the quality control guys were and
kind of sit in there, you know, and that was
kind of nice maybe, And so I was a little
nomadic and yet nonetheless that's what the job was, you know,
but it was still in the NFL.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Back then because not like you know, tape's about the
same it is now. Obviously now coaches they grind, they
watched tape, watch tape. Were you not like were you
just looking over grooden shoulder? Like you have to go
to film room? Like what were you doing on the
couch to work?

Speaker 3 (09:20):
Well, we had film back then, we had beta. So
now everything is on computer basically like our music. So
I can click on right now and watch any game
from last year and two seconds pull up third down.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
We had to cut everything out, so yeah, I had
areas to go.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
It was always like we were always doing beta projects
and so we had to cut up certain teams and
stay on top of certain trends, and it was just
done differently.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
There aren't many people.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
There aren't many listeners that can remember play record, you know,
from any type of tape to tape, and so it
was a little bit of that, and there were just
there were a lot of young coaches that were going
to go on and be successful on that staff.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
None of us knew it. There's no windows because you're
in the basement.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
And how uncomfortable is it just having their office being
on Gruden's couch.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, I mean, didn't bet on you. I think I
think this.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
You know, this gets back to this theme of grit,
like it doesn't matter I'm here, They're gonna have to
like they're gonna there's there's no way that they're going
to figure out how to kick me out of.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
This league, right. I just needed to get an invite
into this party.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
What was the salary?

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Ninety?

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Wow, ninety the first year ninety seven. I've been coaching
nine years, so it was ninety. It was a one
year deal and you didn't have a car. They gave
me some Super Bowl tickets. All my families from Scranton,
and I never lived there, but that's where my parents
were born and raised. That's where all my cousins and
aunts and uncles were and my uncle ran a superbrew

(10:54):
dealership in Scranton, Manuka area, and so it was up
to you to find a car dealer with Super Bowl
tickets and so man, there are a lot of Eagles
fans in that area, and my family members were, and
so I.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Had a super ru And then pretty.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
Soon I noticed that the cars to my right were
a lot nicer than the Superrew with their Super Bowl tickets.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
So anyway, it was all good, all right, So we're
gonna get.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Into it, you know, it keeps serious thing here. But
then after that we'll go tip for tad and stories
we have to bring up about each other, and you know,
we gotta we got a long funny history. But you know,
when I really started open up, I think about my
own mental health, really start diving in. And people always
wonder also, like hey, how that happens? Because I wrote
something in The Athletic years ago. Somebody just asked me

(11:43):
a question about where I get material to talk to
our ex players and combat events, and I'm like, well,
I have my own depression, anxiety, you know, clinically diagnosed.
There s along those lines, and I just went into
it openly. And people are like, oh my god, and
they couldn't believe that I talked about it openly. It's
not I've never hidden my crazy, right Sean, like you've been.
I know, I'm listening. But now I know how to

(12:03):
talk about it, which I didn't know how to communicate
it in the past, and I've done a lot of
work to learn how to communicate it. So yeah, okay,
but I was just saying, you've always known I was crazy.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
We just didn't listen to your personality.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
I think, yeah, I think that's your nature relative to
being open. And I think I say this kiddingly, but
that region in the country, you know, when you when
you grew up in that New York North Jersey area,
you know, Parcels was a guy.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
You knew how he felt right away.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
There was you know, everything was worn on your sleeves,
and I think that was one of the things that
one of the things that draws people to what you do.
And so from Afar, obviously you and are close friends,
but from Afar, it was it's been interesting to see
obviously this passion you have, not internally for yourself, but
this external ability to help others, you know, whether it's

(12:57):
from the military or all walks of life. And I
think it's been kind of cool watching that journey, if
you will with you. We've been on some calls that
involved former military and this thing is around the corner
every day. You know, the golf world just dealt with
the death of a real good player who was battling

(13:18):
obviously depression, and so it's something that transcends race, color, region.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
You know, it's amongst all of us.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
And much like cancer, heart disease or any other illness,
you know, it can be something that affects our family.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Well, because I've eventually found the words to start talking,
you and I start talking one day again, this is
this only a few years ago. You and I have
been friends since ninety nine, and now there's this space
to start talking about things, but also understand your friends better,
why they are how they are, and if you're comfortable,
share what you told me what happened with your dad.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Look, I had a father who who was diagnosed is
bi polar, and I was my family or fourth four
of us, you know, an older brother and sister, and
then myself and my younger sister. My parents had myself
and my younger sister later in life, so when it
was really unique that there were two children, then nine

(14:19):
years and then two more and so you know, when
I was in high school, my dad was close to
retiring and you know, he fought in World War Two.
If he was alive today, he'd be I think one
hundred years older, one hundred and one. So my parents
were older relative to my classmates parents. And that was
when you look at pictures. We just had this discussion
on you know, that generation, and I'm talking about those

(14:42):
that fought in World War Two.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
When you look at those photos.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
You know, I'm looking at my dad, who's nineteen twenty
twenty one, twenty two, and he looks almost like he's
thirty thirty one thirty two.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
They just look older. You know, they went through the
Great Depression.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
He dealt with the death of his father when he
was nine years old or eight years old, and then
he and his three brothers, you know, all four boys
are serving in World War two Army, Navy, Air Force,
in the Marine Corps. All four have to come home
when their mom dies, and they are a family that
has no money. The sister, my dad's sister, so there

(15:19):
were five siblings, and all she's at home with the mother,
and the mother, you know, is in the dining room
until the boys can get home, to help with the
with the burial involvement costs, and so to hear some
of the stories. Obviously, I never met any of my
father's parents because they passed when he was younger. Sometimes

(15:39):
you begin to learn a little bit more about your
parents even after they're gone. But that was I'm going
to say, I was in high school when I found
out about some of his challenges, you know, and there
were some incidents there's you know, there were just a
series of things that and then finally, I think it
was a freshman in high school and you know, you're

(15:59):
gradually learning things. But to his credit, none of us,
you know that back then it was it was such
a taboo topic that it was never talked about. And
you know, I remember listening to one of his doctors
explaining it really to us, like, hey, it's an illness,
just like so many other illnesses. And so you learned
more about it and you recognize, you know, some of

(16:22):
the things that he's dealing with. You know, he fought it,
and I remember there were times where I thought that's
the way it was going to end, possibly with him,
maybe with him possibly taking his own life.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
And it didn't. But I would say there were.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Times when the phone would ring at college and I
would always think, is this the call?

Speaker 2 (16:41):
You know, those type of things.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
So, yeah, that was kind of my personal journey with it,
if you will, or my siblings.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
I think my older brother.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
And sister were aware of it obviously, prior there was
such a gap age wise that you know, those two
knew a lot more than my younger sister and I.
You know, it's Christmas night, those two are downstairs and
we're like, they got to come upstairs.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
Santa Claus is coming, and we don't know any of this.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
You know, we're up in our bedrooms and we're listening
to them play with our toys and we're like, what's
going on?

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Where do you think that that knowing that and seeing that,
and I guess kind of helping along the way molded you.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
I think I can recall that evening specifically, and if
you said when do you feel like you began to
leave adolescents and you know, when we were in high
school and going through puberty.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
When you say that that evening, what I.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
Can recall that evening feeling like dang man, this is life,
Like this is like I can recall just it was
like one of these you know, there's a series of
three or four steps, you know, you finish schooling you
got to go to work whenever that is all right.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Step one you got to pay your own bills. You know.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
This was one of those steps where it was like, ah,
this is this. I just remember, you know, struggling to
go to sleep and thinking, because there's that every one
of us wants to internalize it and think are we
doing everything right? You know, you know, in other words,
but I'm awfully proudly you know, I was awfully proud
of him.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Man.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
He was a great father and and it was just
something that fortunately, uh, he had a treated, but it
was something that affected our whole family.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah, and you were saying fortunately I had a treated,
where a lot of guys, especially men that and men
right now still are willing to get a treated.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
I mean we're talking about back then that was such
a you know, today it's very normal for an athlete
coach to see a counselor, for us to attend relationship counselor.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
I mean, fortunately we've come.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
A long way in that area, and not only the
topic in general, his generation they had trouble laughing and smiling,
you know. I mean it was like the sky was
falling all the time, because it really was for a
period of time when you went through what his family
struggles went through and the depression, and you know it

(18:54):
was difficult, and that's why you see receiving hairlines, gray
hair aging, You see lot of stress in some of
those photos. Then here they are going off to he's
seventeen at eighteen going off to fight, you know, in
a war, and you just think about that and puts
it in perspective.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Incredible too and just working. And Tron came on. He
was talking about a zoo an MVP session. I opened
up by his own dad and his experience too, which
is which is great, man, It's it's fantastic, all right.
So now we'll shift years ago. We kind of go
tip for tad here because we have so many stories
on each other. We'll see which one gets left in
this podcastle.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
First off, go ahead, congratulations, Thank you, buddy, Thank you. Listen,
I mean it, thank you, because it really goes all
the way back to ninety nine. You know, this year
I'm going to tie this in, so work with me.
This year's quarterback class. You know, there's six or seven
of them, and all these kids are great kids, and

(19:53):
all the kids got drafted. You know a lot of
times you're poking looking for holes and what was unusual.
So many of these guys guys either had a girlfriend
all the way from high school. Both Nick's we drafted,
he's married, and one of them, I think it might
have been JJ, who's engaged in. Our general manager George
Peyton said, where'd you meet your fiance? And he's like, well,

(20:15):
I was a sophomore in high school and my parents
went out and they said, I can't go anywhere but
further down the street, you know, stay on the block basically,
And he had some friends that were having a party
and he met this.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Other sophomore girl.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
And George said, wait a minute, you mean to tell
me the first party you ever went to you met
your wife.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
He goes, it took me three hundred parties, and.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
So your point is just taking me three thousand.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Well and so, but you know what, though, that's that's
kind that's kind of the lesson because to see your
face and look all of us who follow you on
social media, I give you a hard time because I
feel like you and I could go six months and
I know exactly what you're doing every day because I
haven't seen it. My wife's seen it. But to see
how that's transformed you is pretty is pretty amazing.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
I'm proud to be with Rosie. You've seen. Sean has
been there for all the failed relationships a lot, and
there's been a lot. But Rosie's just she's different. Man's
she You've met her too several times. She's different than anybody.
I think it's important we've ever been around it too.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
I think it's important the listeners hear this though, because
Jay was in Italy before he got married, and a
lot of times you think, should I leave him alone?
Or now they're having a good time, maybe I'll call him.
And one day I'm driving, I call and man, he's
fired up. Time change. Obviously Rosie's there, and I say,
put Rosie on. I said, Rosie real quick, if you
don't want to do this, right, if you don't want

(21:44):
to do this, I said, I'll send you if you
want to get a plane ticket for Italy. And it's
just and but to hear the happiness like you could
you could feel it over the phone.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
But you've seen her, like you've been around her. She's
total different, right, Sean, Like, yeah, she is, like she
and her sister I jerk around I'm like, nicknames for
them are prozac and zoloft, Like they're walking anti depressed it.
They're always happy always. We were just had a Seah
McVay took us out and Renee came to it and
he's like, you too, are consistent. That's the best thing
I could say. You guys are always smiling. I always

(22:16):
know what we get with you. There's never a surprise,
like you're consistent. And that's what I need in my
life is consistency, right because I am walking chaos. I'm
a rolling ball of chaos. So if I can have
consistency like that, it's I've never had it the way
she does it, and she's so anthetic to my to
my fucked upness.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
Look, there's wisdom in decisions, and as you've gotten wiser,
you've begun, I think, to be a little bit more
clear relative to what you're looking for.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, and I used to think that, hey, date as
many beautiful women as you can. That's I'm showing off
and let's you know, Hey, it's you know what I mean.
It's like it was part of my that mask that
I put on. It was really because how was the
depression anxiety you felt this worthlessness. So let me go
out there and show off and be a womanizer and
you know, show off from the world because it was
like building up this thing that I felt so because

(23:09):
I felt so tiny inside, you know. Yeah, and then
you have the person who makes me feel the biggest.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
So we actually got to be teammates two years ago
when I joined Fox.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
And really different time.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Go ahead, yeah, no, this is this.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
I don't feel the people realize though, and I didn't
even when you really start looking at it that you know,
some of these studio jobs, the history of that team,
and so when you and Michael, who've been on there
for I don't know how many years.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
I've been on twenty one, he's I think seventeen and eighteen.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Seventeen, like are the new additions right right right?

Speaker 1 (23:49):
I mean now Kurt, but Kirk's been there one year
less than me.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Will picture this.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
I'm joining a team that the first off, when Fox
started televising foots were all like who and you know,
we knew that they had the Simpsons, but long story short, Jimmy, Howie, Terry.
Then you have Kurt, and then you have Stray yourself,
not in any order, but when you go then like

(24:15):
fifteen years before, like there's someone else showing up saying, hey,
can I can I join this team?

Speaker 1 (24:20):
And they're like, ah, would you say, we hazed you?

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (24:26):
Daily? Right?

Speaker 1 (24:26):
We did daily, daily? Right, daily, You're coming walking in
like I'm a Super Bowl whing a head coach. We're like,
we don't give a fuck. You're the new kid. So
we got called snack bar on the air by Bradshaw.
I made fun of your sneakers.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
I honestly I love I love the setting and a
lot because the team, the team the really good studio
shows from Afar. You begin to look at it. They
enjoy each other's company away from the set, and it's
not just this is what we do. We actually get
to do this. And then we'd sit in that green

(25:04):
room every day, and like there were a ton of
those days where I wasn't on the second show because
Jimmy was in town and we were rotating, but I
still wanted to hang out because that was my football
fix and you guys provided that. And so I bring
this up because the following year, I just get hired
at Denver. And here it is after one year, and

(25:24):
I remember saying this when I left wait.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
Wait, by the way, we were talking about Hazingham. Sean
would talk in the dream room black, we are right here.
We'd be like, Sean, shut the fuck up. He'd take
we're a kid with him, like, we're not fucking kid
with your rookie. Shut the fuck up. And he's like,
how can they talk to me like this. I'm Sean Bayton,
so I know it's your show.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
I come home to this trophy and it's on the
kitchen table and I said to my wife, what is this.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
She said, it's an Emmy.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
And Bill Richardson and Halt left me a voicemail called
him back.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
He goes, we want an Emmy and they used to.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
Like repeatedly win it, and they had gone a wall
where they hadn't and so I'm like, what are you
talking about, and they're like, no, we won an Emmy.
And so that thing is right next to the Lombardi Trophy.
And so this year, I'm gonna be honest. When those
awards were announced, I scrolled right down the list and
I saw you all didn't win it this year, and
there was a part of me that was absolutely happy.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, ouse, You're like, because you now believe you're the
reason we won that one.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Well, I damn sure wasn't the reason.

Speaker 4 (26:26):
You let me tell you the balls that y'all payton here,
not that I'm going to tell you the balls.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
And you gotta see him coach. He has balls.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
It's a little bit of hoots too.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yes, to kick it outside kick you know in the
super Bowl is ballsy, but here maybe one of the balls.
These things he's done. He brings me in to coach
his team and mixed martial arts for all the training camp.
So I come down with Randy Gator, who I started
this whole program with in like seven, and Jason boorbo
is one of our coaches also, and we come down
and we all go out to uh I think Emeralds,

(27:05):
and then when Shawn gets drinks in them like he
thinks he's the guy that yeah, he's he's won an
Emmy for everybody and then something, so he's like, fuck,
I could beat Randy Couture and he starts fucking with Raddy,
fucking with Randy, and we go outside. All of a sudden,
I see Randy take his watch off. I'm like, okay,
that's it. We're done right there, there's no more like

(27:26):
Sean was literally two seconds away from getting his ass
choked dune to the gutter, and it was just, you know,
Randy was like, yeah, of course, I'm like, no, no, no,
Sean Shawn Shaw, you don't get it. You don't get it.
Oh fuck. It was hilarious. He's ballsy, He's ballsy. Oh
my god. You know, actually, I don't think I ever
talked about this. I just talked about the onside kick.
When did you know you're gonna Like, at what point,

(27:47):
I know you install it going into the game. Well
you're convinced that, hey, I'm doing no matter what. Was
there a situation?

Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yeah, I think this it went back to when we
won the championship game and we played a real good
Vikings team and it was the first time.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
You know, there were so many first in New Orleans.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
The challenge was like trying to act like we've been
there before, you know, and that city's going to celebrate
just a simple regular season win, you know, and then
pretty soon you're having regular success and you know, in
six our first year, we go to the NFC Championship Game.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
All these things were first.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
You know, we never won outside the dome beneath forty
degrees and I'm like, we can't help that. That's never
happened before. But we're getting ready to be one of
the better away teams. In the last fifteen years. You've
never won a playoff game, Homer Away, Well, we're going
to check that box.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Now, We're going to check the away box.

Speaker 3 (28:39):
And so here we are going to play in the
Super Bowl versus an experienced Colts team that has Peyton
Manning and they're returning to Miami Jay because they had
just won their four years ago against the Bears. They're
staying at the same hotel, Manning's in the same hotel room,
and I think the feeling was like we got to
find a way to steal a possession. And you know,

(29:00):
Parcels was a big influence for me, and you know
he played in a similar type of game that he
recalled where they went on the road as the Giants
as an underdog in the championship game to beat the
forty nine ers to get the right to play in
Tampa and upset the Bills. Like that game was supposed
to be Buffalo and San Francisco, but the Giants went

(29:24):
on the road and they're going to win their second
Super Bowl and they faked a pun in that game.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
And he just.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
Talked about being leary of complacency, especially in a city
like New Orleans that's so excited that they're playing in
a super Bowl and so and then also you know,
showing your team that you have the guts to go
win a game, and because then they'll play with the
same confidence.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
So, long story.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
Short started with yeah, when he started with a fake punt, right,
and then the looks weren't there, and and so like.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Wait, did your players know going into the game you're
going to call this?

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
So the night before at the special teams meeting, which
I normally would sit in, but I wouldn't go and talk.
I just stood up said give me five minutes real quick.
I said, here's the deal, man, were coming. We came
here to win a game. We didn't come here to
be in a game. And I said, I'm going to
call this on side kick and I can't tell you
what I'm going to call it.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
We'll figure it out.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
But look, you guys make me right and defense if
they get the ball there at the forty yard line,
so be it. I mean, Peyton Manning is completing passes
at that point, you know, we kick off and touch
it back.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
You know, he can beat your own forty and like
three seconds.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
So we felt pretty good about the risk reward that
the challenge was the rookie kicker and Thomas Morstead. And
the worst mistake was I knew at halftime I wanted
to do this and halftimes thirty five minutes in the NFL,
and instead of waiting till like the last eight minutes,
I told Thomas like coming in at half hey, well second,

(30:54):
So he had to sit at his locker half an
hour listening to the who.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
And then thinking of about this. That was that was
dumb by me?

Speaker 1 (31:02):
Oh my god. That yeah, so it was.

Speaker 3 (31:05):
It was finally kind of confirmed by uh, you know,
the week's practice. I got comfortable seeing Thomas do this
repeatedly because it's kind of a hard technique to kind
of barrel hook this ball.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
You know what can happen a lot.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
As it can be short, you know, it kind of
curves back, but uh, he consistently, he consistently did a
good job with it.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
And then you're you get down to Miami. Now you're
really leery.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
Because you don't know who's watching the practice so it
was something that we felt like could be to our
advantage and and it helped us.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
It helped usteal a possession.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
How has the you talked about bone necks a little
bit earlier, How has the subterfuge changed, say twenty years
ago when you first started coaching, to now lean up
to the jruft because everybody, again, you were kind of
on the oscar of people saying you're gonna have JJ
McCarthy and it was never JJ, was always bon Nicks.
And you know, you got some information out there right
that was able to help you out because you're hoping

(31:59):
JJ would get taken ahead of you. How has it
changed over the last five years, ten years, twenty years.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Well, I think this the media is coverage of the
first round of the draft in the last twenty years
has gotten like dramatically different. Look the fans pay at.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
And then tell everybody what you want to do. Well,
I want you to finish this, but you're a crazy
idea that you called me with the day before the
draft to make sure everybody knew Bonux was always your guy.
But go with this.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
I can't remember you wanted to show up to his house.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we didn't need it.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
I kind of talked you out of it.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
I think this one of the things you learn.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
First off, you don't want to be drafted early ever,
and then you know in a year that you have
to you have to find a quarterback. It is a
quarterback heavy class near the top of the draft.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Two things.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
Number one, you have to pay attention to that NFL train,
but don't ever get on it. And what I mean
by that, don't ever get on that train and then
base your decisions because collectively.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
We all don't know who's driving it.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
When I hear people say, you know, this guy, he
could have gotten the second or third round, I know
that they don't know what they're talking about, all right,
But all of those things can move scouts and coaches
and their grading and their opinion.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
So trust what you see. Tune out the.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
White noise when you're trying to evaluate anybody, and.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
It comes up all the time.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
You know, twenty years ago you didn't have the resources,
and now it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
It's almost like the tail wagging the dog.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
Sometimes relative to if you don't work at it, you'll
find yourself at least in the first round. Paying attention
to these mocks, and so how do you tune that out?
I think that's important. I do think people have more
access to video and more access to workouts and more
access to.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
All of these things.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
But honestly, in my opinion, humbly, I don't know how
many great evaluators are out there. It's a tough position
to evaluate to begin with. I think once we knew
that Bo was the guy we were going to draft,
we knew that we couldn't be the old only team
seeing what we were seeing, and come to find out
we weren't all I'm just going to say that relative

(34:19):
to teams behind us, but neither here nor there.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Once you know what you're looking to do.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
We have a lot of close friends, so you're not
trying to burn relationships. You're just you have to make
sure you're evaluating everyone. And then it's like it's like
when we felt like someone was going to skunk our
first fifteen plays at a hotel we were staying. Then
I'd go crazy because you'd want to protect the first
fifteen plays. And then pretty soon I learned it was
better to make like fifty sets of fifteen plays that

(34:48):
were all different. And then it's what happens right now
in social media. If you want to get someone confused
and completely blurry them and then they have no idea
what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
You with me.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
So in other words, if there's too much clarity on
something as simply as.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Fact, people think it can't be real.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Right, Yeah, there's too much clarity.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
But this was a year there were a lot of
these prospects that I think are going to be successful.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
But you knew Bowl from the night of his workout.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, the wee morning.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
He do it pretty early on because well it was
his work his workout that we hit a string of
these workouts, all within the same kind.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Of eight days.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
And then there's this interesting part, and it's because the
buildings now are bigger, the scouting departments, the coaching staffs. Look,
your listeners will appreciate this, but there's relationships all of
these people have, and so well who else knows, you know,
And so anytime we went up to our board or
discuss quarterback, we just kind of put them in an

(35:48):
order we had them in the spring and left it
that way and never really and then I think at
some point it with George and I and then the penners,
you know, Greg and carry.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
So on your board you had it, you didn't have it.
He just really we just I can't just generic right,
you didn't have how you were last week?

Speaker 3 (36:05):
We had them all like like they all fell into
a magnetrae. And here's the one interesting thing I remember,
you know, so ownership was briefed on.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah, so ownership was briefed, and then we this kind
of Lisa Rice, all right, doctor Rice, Secretary of State.
I mean she's one of our owners and she loves
this draft process, she really does.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
And and well we'll have a zoom call and we'll
go through these mocks.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
And you know, now the mocks, you can simulate them
any way you want. You can include fifty sixty, seventy
different mocks, and so there's a lot you can do.
And we typically like to do that a week or
two ahead of the draft with doctor Rice.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
And so she would say, condy, call me condy.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
So anyway, before that, I remember just talking to mister
Penner and saying, hey, now think about this for a second.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
And the term they use at the White House is
are we going to read someone in on this? And
so can we.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
Let condo Lisa Rice know that this is what we're doing.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
And she is a normal conversation.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
She said, I've kept a lot of secrets in my life.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
And we laugh because if you ever google search her
successes and her experience, you know, she's been the one
reading others in and here we were all right, doctor,
we trust you.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
We're going to be secretary of State. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Anyway, So look, it's changed a lot in twenty years.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
I think the fans are more educated, and I think
the media are more educated.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
And yet it still gets back down to the vision.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
What do you see because there was a lot about
the underneath throws. The offense can't throw the ball down
the field. And look, the good thing is we're getting
a chance to see. We've seen it now for three weeks.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
But you also said, tell people, fill people in what
he did with his interviewer. People may not know this
whole process. So they get a work out. But then
they give him plays and have him come back the
next morning. Yeah, to see what he could recurg you take.
That's when he really blew you out of the water.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
Right, all these guys study and so what we try
to do the day before the private all right, not
the pro day, but the day, and all of these
guys we had private workouts with. So at five pm,
we send an email at five pm the day before
they get they get basically three days' worth of installation,
so be.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Like training camp day one, day two, day three, And that's.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
Kind of more than you can digest before nine am
the next morning.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
So you're getting it. So this is the process for
five pm. You're going to draft five pm the night
before private workout. You're sending him three days worth of plays.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Yeah, and that's going to be probably I don't have
any pages, thirty five pages of just material, and so
it would be like you and I in college at
five pm getting the stuff that we're going to get
tested on.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
But we're getting it right then.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
And pro I didn't go to a class in college,
so I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
Well, listen, that's why here he had analogy.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
I know I was wrong one.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
Way.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
How many plays are on a page? So I want
people understand us.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, so let's talk about a day.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
So one day installed might be six runs and uh,
twenty eight passes.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
The second day might be six or seven.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Runs, twenty four passes, and third day so again wow,
there's more.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
And remember twenty five players, right.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
We're sending more. We don't expect them to We're wanting
to see where's the breakpoint.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Okay, okay, like him, one hundred and twenty five players.
Let's say then a minute, nine am, the next.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Day, nine am, the next day, you come in. You're
in this one.

Speaker 3 (39:42):
He was at University of Oregon football complex.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
We meet him as coaches.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
We've met him already, but now this is and there's
a group that's in there, you know, uh, George Payton,
our general manager, myself, Davis Webb, Joe Lombardi. Each one
of these would include about five or six from the organization,
and we kind of just start with the cadence, the huddle.
We started drawing these formations and no notes. Now this

(40:07):
is like, look, I'll say this and I mean it.
This class is pretty bright. And I can't recall one
in which man, all these guys were were doing a
great job. But certainly both is you can tell he's
real sharp, and pretty soon like he's getting too much.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
It's not, but you're you're waiting to catch him.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
And he's he's hitting these answers, hitting these answers, and
well we're gonna we're gonna go then on the field
and throw. But we meet for two hours and it
was really impressive.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
So he's regard tating out everything you're asked, Oh man,
you can memorize.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Take at five pm when he got to he checked
into a hotel. He put a do not Disturbed sign
on in a pot of coffee and he said leave me.
So he's real conscientious. Uh yeah, he did a great job.
He's real smart. So then I asked him. I remember saying, hey,
what's in your backpack? And he just like, what do
you mean? I said, take me through? What's in your backpack?

(40:59):
And he reaches in he's like, you know, athletic tape,
my grass shoes, my turf shoes. Then he had to
crossball to roll my back out. Then he had some
bomb recovery. He went and bombed and I kept waiting
for him to pull out like a Snicker's bar, some
dip or something like one bad habit.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
I'm like, turn it upside down. I'm shaking. Everything in
that bag was football related.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
Perfect.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
So he's a coach's kid.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
And then we went out and he you know, he
had his pro day was the day before but he
threw another seventy five eighty throws. He just said, you know,
when you're throwing a football, you can do that pretty
much every day. But he really would have thrown as
long as we wanted him to. And I just remember
leaving thinking, man, this was something, and.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
So how many other teams would give him? Like did
what you did?

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Well?

Speaker 1 (41:50):
You have to remember one hundred and twenty five plays
for the next day.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
I think teams have their own way, and this varies.
They have their own way of determining. You know, Kenny learned,
can he quickly learn? I think it's hard sometimes to
evaluate can they multitask at the line of scrimmager or
in the huddle, like can he be talking to the
running back, send a guy in motion, change the play,

(42:13):
like to what degree? Because we can only evaluate the
offense they're in. There was a lot made of his
offense being a lot of you know, I've heard it
a million times he led the league, led college football
with the most quick throws. We got it, We understand
all that. And then when we analytically remove all the
quick throws from every quarterback, he was still first in
his class, first in his class, first in his class, accuracy,

(42:36):
touchdown or you know all these recordables, sacks, the guy
gets rid of the ball. There's so many things that
we kept seeing on tape and then we saw down
the field arm talent. We're seeing it right now. So
these guys can only run their offense that they're being
asked to run. Our job is to project can they
run this offense? And we think he can. But nothing

(43:00):
fell out of that backpack, not like a lifesaver, not
a breath mint. Everything that fell out of it was
like for a workout.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
What's the one thing to judge a quarterback on that
is so overblown? Are You're like, oh man.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
It's so just well, here's the latest.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
So one of the best off schedule throwers in our
league is Patrick Mahomes. You know, we've seen his ability
to kind of torque his body, but it's all out
of necessity, like in other words, that's what makes it special.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
It's not him just wanting to do it. Aaron Rodgers
is another one that.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
Has the ability to take a real quick pokestep, deliver
the ball accurately and fast. And I say this in
funny positions because the receiver needs it now A lot
of guys need to you know.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
Collect, stride and throw every time.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
And so over the years, it even started with a
co star and a farm and you know the guys
that could take a short step or throw off the
wrong foot because they're trying to deliver it quicker to
the open receiver. But Patrick Aaron, those are a couple
that do it right now and very effectively. So I

(44:16):
think what began to happen after the twenty eleven lockout,
you know, you started seeing more of these gurus that
are training these quarterbacks. They're all talented, but they're trying
to give the gms, the scouts, the coaches examples of
their prospect doing these things even though we don't get

(44:38):
to see them doing them on tape. So you watch
some of these workouts now and I'll see a quarterback
just jump and throw a shallow to his left, and
I'm thinking, what on.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
Earth is he doing. What they're trying to do is
show you that my client has the ability to make
these throws. So back to what's the most overrated thing.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
When I watched the combine and I want someone go
five and a hitch, take a second hitch and throw
this eighty yard pass.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
That's the most overrated thing.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
And that I and it's amazing because look, it happened
with a really talented player out of LSU and JaMarcus Russell,
and he could throw the ball drafted really high and
even in pregame when you watched him, they were oohs
and ahs, oohs and ohs, but then during the game
they were just oz. And so I think that certainly,

(45:32):
arm strength is important and plays a big role.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
And look, you have to have an NFL arm, but
you start.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
There are a lot of times when I'm watching stuff
in workouts that I think, what are they doing? Picture
someone that you watch or training for a fight or
training the box or for a UFC fight and them
doing something that you're like, that's never going to happen.
So I see that drives me crazy and I just

(46:01):
like scratch my head and I'm like, holy cow. And
hopefully someone else. You know, there's enough people out there
that could possibly get fooled by stuff like this. But
I think ultimately you got to look at the tape,
and if you studied the tape, this guy started sixty
one games in his college career, all right, and he's

(46:22):
six two and a half two hundred and twenty pounds,
and all I could go buy is what we saw
on tape and now what we're seeing in practice during
these OTAs.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
And we're down to two weeks left.

Speaker 3 (46:33):
So there is that nice bit of confidence when all
of a sudden, all the things that you're predicting that
you've seen begin to come to fruition and you're like, now,
remember we drafted his center the year before, Alex Forsyth,
who he's got great insight relative.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
To his strengths and weaknesses.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
But it look it's a little bit of a twe
each his own position too. You know, like, you can't
pick a shoe out for me. I darn't youre it.
I know for a fact you're not gonna be able
to pick a shoe out for me. I'm gonna like,
and I probably can't fire a shoe out for you.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Wait do you do you during this process? I say, look,
you you're part of guys. So again, we trained these
guys in mm A years ago, and Jason Borber, the
coach I left down there, Jason Borber is a combat vet.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
He worked with our team.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
That's what I'm saying. So think First Airborne fought professionally.
Mitch Marsha luck more time. We've trained a ton of
players together. I sent them down with again me, Randy
Gatur and Jason Boorder. I left Bober there to train
the Saints, and at one point I called him up.
I say, hey, do my favorite go grab Sean and
ask him such and such. He goes, I'm I'm not
talking to coach like that. I'm my coach. He's not

(47:39):
coaching Sean. Go fucking ask Sean. And he's like, oh no, no,
I'm I'm afraid of Sean. I'm like, Jason, you worked
for me, you don't work for Sean. I'm like, what
are we doing here? You're a bun of best motherfuckers
who planet? What are you afraid of? Sean? For my
point is, you have a certain way that you come
across the people. Do you test these rookies? Uh, how

(48:01):
are you going to be how much you're going to
fuck with them? How much you're going to be with them?
How are you gonna, you know, to see who could
take it or not? The way we did you at Fox.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
Yeah, I think we tried, like we try to see
how they handle tough questions.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
You have to understand in these twenty years, but.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
Not these tough questions. It's how you fuck with.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Them, right.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
But think about the history. When this combine first came out,
guys didn't know what the drills were. There weren't videos,
there weren't coaches to coach you how to answer questions.
You know, they have fifteen minutes now. Their biggest friend
when they sit in a in a combine interview these
players is when the coach and coaches or scouts want

(48:38):
to talk because they know that clock set for fifteen minutes.
We want them on the mic real quick. So trying
to dig into the makeup of these players quarterbacks or
other positions. Yeah, you want to be a little confrontational,
why did you suck in that USC game?

Speaker 2 (48:54):
And well?

Speaker 3 (48:55):
And you want to hear their answer really right, because
you know what, they're probably going to have a game
where they suck here too, and you want to see
how they respond, and you want to see how they
like said, hey, look, I played I played poorly in
that game.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Man, I knew it going in. I did this.

Speaker 3 (49:08):
You want to see some accountability and you want to
be able to but you want to be able to
not catch them off guard.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
But you see how they bow up and respond.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
So yeah, to answer your question, now, you have a
limited amount of time, like you guys had six and
a half months at Fox, right. So, but but you
do try to you do try to get a complete

(49:37):
body work on the tape, what they're like. You try
to get to know them as much as possible. I
think it's harder to do. It's harder to do now
because they're so they're so coached up too. Yeah, they're
coached up. But that's why those those private workouts I
used to do it.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
You can't work.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
Out privately three inner players before the draft, right, you're
at those workouts. But for me head coach in a
year where this was important to see all of these
guys and each one of them man like, you know,
I'm I remember Caleb coming into the room and there
was a room rumor that he flew private to the combine.
I'm like, I am going to totally get this guy shit.

(50:14):
And so you're kind of you're expecting something. I'm like,
so tell me when you when did you land? And
he kind of knew where I was going. I said, well,
when did you take off?

Speaker 2 (50:23):
What airport? He's like, coach.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
I was thirty seven, C like thirty seven, He goes,
I was coach. I was a coach, and I'm like,
all right, you know. And so it was a great answer.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
That's good, that's great, that's fantastic, great, I saw where
I was going. That's great. All right, last two questions.
All right, So I'll make it a little quick here.
Give me the best football let's say football lesson football advice,
something along that those lines. That equates the best to
giving somebody advice for real.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Get this all the time, and I want to say
it's easy. It's not easy. The answer is easy, applying
it is difficult.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
But you know this.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
Angela Duckworth wrote this book on grit and Pete Carroll
was the first to bring her.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
To his team.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
And you've heard Dan Campbell talk about it with the Lions.
We've talked about it, you talk about it all the time.
They're terms used. And how do you tell someone that
you were going to fail, and you were going to
fail repeatedly and yet you were always They're going to
have to like kill me before I don't get back up,

(51:30):
and you and I've used those terms.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
You're gonna have to kill me and so.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
That's not that there aren't lessons or times where we
like I feel like I've grown that way with grit.
And yet I knew I couldn't pass the School of
Business at Eastern, so I had to midstream adjust.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
So I went to ECON.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
I couldn't do it there, and then I got a
communications degree, so I got to be smart too.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
So I'm not saying grit dumb.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
But you have to have a mentality in any path,
any journey, business, whatever it is that you're wanting to
be successful. And if you asked me one thing, it
was that, man, I was always going to get back
up like I would have to be unconscious.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
I love that. I love that. All right. Last question
I asked all my guess this, give me your unbreakable moment,
the moment that should have broken you could have and didn't,
and as a result, you came back stronger for the
rest of your life.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
All right, So real quick, when you first.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
Asked me that question, I was thinking, man, when you
put me in that freaking that that vertical cult thing
at unbreakable, So you're not talking about my unbreakable experience, No, no.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
No, not yet, although your unbreakable experience real quick. How
about this? He comes in to work out my gem
Unbreakable one time, and I pair him with another guy,
Justin Hartley, who from this is us And it turns
out these two fucking guys went to the same high school.
How does nobody know that is unbelievable? All things right?

(52:55):
Like the magic of Unbreakable is unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Listen, I've trained it, Jim, and you knew during the
during my suspension, man that that's that was a Obviously
that was a difficult time. I'm not going to count
that as this moment though, because that actually made me stronger.
I think in two thousand and two, we had already
been to the Super Bowl on the offensive coordinator with
the Giants. This is going to be the year my

(53:19):
mom passes away. She's sick, we don't know it yet,
with lung cancer. And we're struggling offensively. We're winning games,
but we're not moving, we're not scoring. We're moving the ball,
we're not scoring. And we had a moment in one
of these away cities in Arizona where there was a
there was an interception thrown and it wasn't a falling

(53:39):
out between myself and the late Jim Fossil, but it
was a frustrating moment for me, and so after that,
Jim wanted to get more involved calling the offense, which
as a head coach I completely understand, and so we
still worked hand in hand and we.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Actually went to the playoffs that year.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
We actually played well, and I remember it was the
bye weeknd we had all gone back to Tennessee. My
mom had retired there and she was getting treatment and
we went back to deal with or get her assisted
living because this cancer was now going to be We
knew it was something that was going to be pretty
soon and terminal obviously, and we couldn't catch up with it.

(54:21):
Like during my father's time when he retired before he died,
there was years of I remember thinking, this is the
last time I'm going to see him alive. This is
the last time I was going to see him alive.
And in my mother's case, she was had this diagnosis
with lung cancer. I I'll never forget September eighteenth, two
thousand and two, She's going to pass away October eighteenth,

(54:42):
two thousand and two, So within thirty days, So by weekend,
all the kids are going down there to get her
squared away. She doesn't want to come live with us,
and when we land one by one, when we get there,
she's now in the hospital in a coma.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
Her brain had been swelling, and so she's going to die.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Like we ended up planning funeral when we thought we
were going to be going in to plan her care.
And so coming back off the bye weekend, then Jim
takes over the play calling, and what I remember was
that battle between like your career and your your ego self,
which was football versus you know, mourning the loss of

(55:22):
your mom, and feeling like there was that I'm in
the tank, I'm down. But is it more professionally would
probably it was selfishly when I say that, because we
get so tied into what we do that what we
do then pretty soon like begins to define us if
we win or lose, And so I would say that
twenty or twenty oh two season and dealing with that

(55:47):
thing offensively, now there was a lot of feeling like, oh,
Jim was gonna I'm going to return to the Giants.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
After that season we had a good we went to
the playoffs, but there were a.

Speaker 3 (55:57):
Handful of teams that had called and it was a
matter of would they give me permission? And I remember
Jim saying to me, and look, I own this. He said,
I'll give you two weeks, but I can't just, you know,
give you a month. I'll give you two weeks, and
if there's something you want, then we'll give you permission
to move as the offensive coordinator because I was under contract,
and you know, Arizona had a position as offensive coordinator.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Gruden to Tampa.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
I knew if I went back to work with John though,
it was going to be like I was back on
his couch, right.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
But then Parcels had taken that Dallas job.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
And I think the curve ball for the Giants was
the fact that it was a divisional team and I'll
never forget this, and you know this man. So that
call comes the next day and it's permission from the Cowboys,
and now it's a little different story. Jim's kind of
I'm not in the meeting, but there goes Ernie. Of course,
Si John Marra Wellington Marra in to meet with Jim,

(56:52):
and my office sits next right next.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
To Jim and Jim. When I say Jim is the
late Jim Fossil.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
He was our head coach, and he gave me my
first chance to be a coordinator, and we lost him
a few years ago. Of course, the son is still
coaching in this league. So that meeting ends and Ernie
comes in and closes the door and he said, hey,
He said, congrats on this next opportunity, and I said,
what happened? He said, they're going to We're going to
give you permission? And I said what took place? And

(57:19):
he said, well, there was some back and forth about
whether they would or not. And then Wellington Marren said,
when when you guys gave him permission, was there any condition?
And the answer was no, and then Wellington simply said,
then we're going to give him permission. And so that year,
though relative to you know, you lose you lose a parent,
when you lose your second parent, you technically kind of

(57:42):
become an orphan. I mean, there is that like, all right,
who's hosting Thanksgiving? Where's home base? That you know, that
kind of is gone. And then from a career standpoint, professionally,
you know, you'd taken a punch in the gut relative
and the team really began to play better, you know, offensively,
you know, and so it was like man.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
You question yourself here.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
That's that's where like it's difficult and is challenging. Of moments,
we have a ton of them, and we're still going
to have more. They're just not going to break us.
So I love the name of your Jim. And we're
talking we're talking about the same subject. We're not talking
about talent right now, not talking about high weight, size,
speed right now, We're not talking about We're not talking

(58:25):
about opportunity because sometimes we can't control that. We're talking
about the one topic that you embrace that when people
ask me all the time, I get that from a
lot of young coaches or young athletes. I mean, I
was just back on my campus at Eastern Illinois this
weekend with Mike Shanahan, Tony Romo, Jimmy Garoppolo.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
They had a big first time. The four of us
were back at Eastern Illinois and we.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
Had about seven of these kind of fireside chats, sitting
on stools with moderators asking us questions from students, from locals, and.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
The topic keeps coming back.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
And the tough thing now and there's a balance here
with the transfer portal.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
Right, there's a balance with ni l and.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
And so but man, currently there are a lot of
exit doors for athletes if they want to utilize them.
And I actually think that's going to help us at
the NFL.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Who's gonna stand there and take it and fight back? Well,
George from high school basketball and fought the way back right, Yeah.
The guys who get benched right, well, I'm going to
come back.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:28):
And I look, the student athlete transferring I think is
very healthy. I'm not talking about that, but when you
start seeing four stops along the way, two different nil payments, like,
it's just going to help us reveal this trait that
we're looking for because I think you can develop it.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
I think you can work on it.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
But I think there's a higher degree of it with
certain people that we get attracted to and we feel
like their chances of success then at this level are greater.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
Well, Sean Pai, man, I appreciate you, dude, I tell
you and go thirty. We went about an hour, and
but that's what happens to you and I because we
both we don't have add we have elemental PEP. We're
so far beyond it. Brother, thank you so much for
winning us at EMMY last year. I really appreciate it,
and man, I really appreciate all the cond things about Rosie. Also, dude,
you know, man, we go back a long way, as

(01:00:19):
you can see by this first game ball that he
presented me with which I didn't do shit except for
break the story, you straight.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
So I have one last story, and I told you
this before we went on air.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
So right now, I've never had an office at home.
My only office is the office at where there's no
place at home to put stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
And that's fine. So it's always in a closet in
a bag. I'm not like all like.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Pretty cool stuff is just in a closet. And so
my wife was, what do you want to do with
these different game balls? And like all of them are
flat or they need air and they just need some attention,
right and then maybe a shelf. So she's kind of
putting this stuff together and you know, you know how
you just open a pose it up and then the
next thing, you know, two hours later.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
You've gotten why did I get involved in this?

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
And so now I'm looking at the ball and I
kept saying to her, where's the Giants Jets game ball?

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
She's like, you don't have it because it's nowhere to
be fine. I said, no, I have it. He said
it's in here, somewhere. It's the first one I ever got.
And so when turned on this screen, I'm like, I've
been yelling out her about this game.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Fantastic. Oh my god. I'll call Skylee later and apologize.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
Yeah, leave that ball where it is right there. John.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Appreciate your brother. Thank you brother,