Bussin' With The Boys - Best of the Bus: Hall Of Famer Luke Kuechly Opens Up About Why He Walked Away From Football

Episode Date: February 14, 2026

On this episode of Best of the Bus, Will Compton and Taylor Lewan sat down with Panthers legend and one of the smartest linebackers to ever play the game, Luke Kuechly last offseason. Kuechly was just inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame! From his early love of football to becoming the heartbeat of the Carolina Panthers defense, Luke breaks down how he saw the game differently than everyone else—and why instinct and preparation made him one of the most dominant players of his era. Luke opens up about his early retirement after multiple concussions and gives an honest look at the toll the NFL can take. He shares stories from Boston College, training at IMG before the Draft, his NFL Combine experience, draft night emotions, and what it was like playing alongside Cam Newton and Christian McCaffrey. The boys also dive into rookie-year moments, getting Mossed by Julio Jones, the veteran linebackers who shaped him, and how he could seemingly read quarterbacks’ minds snap after snap. Elite football IQ. Locker room stories. Legendary plays broken down in real time. This as one of the best episodes of the year in 2025! Big hugs and tiny kisses.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from a Hypocrite Wednesdays on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Our guest today, quite possibly the greatest white athlete to ever be on this earth. A man who has been said, got an apartment, his rookie year, had a bed, no TV just for his iPad so he could be the greatest. Somehow went to Boston College, should have gone to the University of Michigan or Nebraska. Ladies gentlemen, give a round of applause for Luke Keeckley. Also Paul Swanus.

When it drops one day, Hall of Fame, All White Teamer. There we go. Gotta be. Starting backer, bro, welcome to the bus. I appreciate it. It's good to be on here. Yeah, dude. So how do you want to start?

How do you want to do this? Heart's pounding. Hey. Yes. A lot of what's going on. Right. All right. I'll take this.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Because I'll just look at it. Right. That's him. That's Luke Kikley. Yeah. Do you want to start early in his life?

And he's younger than me, too. That's what's even crazy. I know. Like, that's... Did you tell Luke that you actually played two more years in the NFL than him? No, I figured we'd get to that point. It's a fact. Can't hide behind that.

Yeah, I can't run from that situation. I forget we get to that point. You get to that point eventually. But yeah, you can go ahead and start it off. You can go ahead and kick it while I start to gather my thoughts. Luke, how does it feel to be the best white linebacker to ever live? Oh, my gosh. So Brian Erlacker was a guy that I grew up watching him and Zach Thomas were pretty daggone good.

And then Chicago guy Dick Buckas. I feel like he kind of got it all rolling a little bit. Can you hear me? Yeah, get it close. Yeah, but no, it was fun, man. The game of football was special. And the guys that I grew up watching Lack, Zach Thomas, Derek Brooks, Ray Lewis, those are the dudes that when I was growing up, I want to be like those guys.

When did the bug hit you? Because everything I know, this is obviously the first time we've made. But playing against you, practicing against you one time when you guys came to Tennessee, brutal. It's terrible. You guys had joint practices? We went to meet a joint practice. And I was always told this guy, Luke Keeckley, like he is a football.

guy. He's a machine the way he operates. He calls out plays. You have so many clips of guys saying, oh, we would be sitting there. We checked you a play and then you would call out the play. It was no difference when we were in practice. I actually don't know if you remember us. I walked up to you in the middle of practice between plays and said something to you, you were like a goddamn robot. Like you were so dialed and just hot. I was hot and trying to get off the field. You were dials what you were. So when did the bug hit? When did you realize, okay, football is what I want to do with my life? I think growing up, I wanted to play football, probably start in like second or third grade. You know you grew up in the Midwest. I grew up in Ohio.

The first game that pops on is at noon. So you wake up on Saturday. We always would us have football practice on, I don't know, Saturday mornings we'd play on Sundays. And then you'd watch college football all day. So I think for me, it was started as a young age. That's the one game that I wanted to play. And we didn't have an opportunity to play until I was in fourth grade. Because just how the school was set up, my dad didn't play football. We weren't really a football family growing up. So by the time I got involved with it, I was in fourth grade and my brother was in fifth grade and we just played on the local school team it was a group of i think was st mike's our lady to the sacred harbors where i went to school and then st zavier those are the three

teams three schools that made up the team um so it was really like third grade that i want i knew i knew i wanted to play and then fourth grade is the first year that actually played yeah why boston college like how me to big job were you were you an offer guy coming out of high school yeah so i knew you know when you're when you're coming up you never expect you're going to play in the nfl i think for me was always what's the next logical step for me. So when you're in grade school, you want to play on, so it was third and fourth, fifth and sixth and eighth and sixth and you're on the fifth and sixth grade and you're on the fifth and six-grade or you play on the seventh grade.

And then on seventh grade, you go back in the same situation. And then you get to high school, we had a freshman team, a JV team, and a varsity team. So my goal in high school was to play on the varsity on the varsity team as a junior. Which is a crazy. It's crazy. We just had, we had so many, we had, I went to a private all or a, a Catholic, Jesuit, all-boys school in Cincinnati. That's kind of one of the reasons I went to BC.

But there's 1,600 boys, and we probably had, you know, 3 to 400 kids in the football program. Oh, yeah, you have a house. Three to 400. So your school is one of the reasons why Ohio has looked at it as such a big... Yeah, we were southwest Ohio, so we had like 135, 140 kids on the freshman team. The JV team was just sophomores. And then that was probably 70, 80 kids.

And then on the varsity team was like 140 kids again. And so those numbers get big quick. I went to BC because academically was really strong. That was one thing that my parents talked to me a lot about was go somewhere that you wouldn't be able to get into without football. So I wasn't getting in the Boston College. I looked at Stanford. It wasn't getting anything getting there.

Duke and then Virginia were the schools that I was looking at. And I was like, I can't get into any of these schools without football. And I'm like, if I can get a scholarship to one of these schools, I got an opportunity to get a five-year education, a master's for free and go play football. So that's kind of what you're thinking coming out. And Tom O'Brien was a St. Xavier guy that's who went to high school. He went to St. Xavier, and then he ended up coaching at Boston College and started pulling kids out of the high school to go out to play football at Boston College. So we probably had a kid there for, I don't know, 20 years in a row from the high school just overlapping. And the guys that went to school up there had a ton of success.

A lot of them were team captains. A lot of them played really well. And it was a really how that program was run was very similar to how the program was run in Cincinnati at St. Xavier High School of just toughness, playing hard, doing the right thing. We didn't always have the best athletes, but we played really well as a team. And when I was being recruited, Matt Ryan was there. So they got as high as number two. They beat Virginia Tech in Blacksburg on that pass across the field. From Matt, I think I think Andre Calender caught that ball.

And there was just a ton of hype around them when I was being recruited. And it was good academically. It was outside of Boston. I knew guys that were there. It was a Jesuit school just like my high school. And they were playing really, really good football at the time. Were you an overachiever? Like, were you a beast in high school as well?

Like, are any guys in that school, that 3 to 400? Are there any freshmen or guys playing varsity? No. So, I mean, you know, my freshman year, I didn't play a whole lot. We had, we had, since the team was so big, we had an A team and a B team. So the A team would play like on a Wednesday. and the B team would play on a Thursday. So we'd play the other.

This is freshman? Freshman team, yeah. So when did the JV team play then? They played on, I think on Saturdays. No shit. So the varsity team played Friday nights, and then we played Saturdays typically, I think is what happened. So freshmen don't play on varsity typically.

I don't think, I don't know the last time it's happened. Occasionally you'll get like two or three sophomores play varsity, but they got to be dudes. Yeah. But I would say that 85% of guys don't, aren't on the varsity team until they're juniors. So. Yeah.

So that's why your goal was varsity as a junior. Yeah, I mean, I just, I'm thinking you, like if you had the bug, if you had this kind of drive,

the way everyone sees and talks about, this kid must have been a freshman on varsity. But the school you're at seems like an absolute powerhouse. Yeah. And I loved, I loved the game of football. I was small. So my freshman year,

I played outside linebacker. My sophomore year, they moved me to tight end. Because the backers that we had, they were bigger than me. They're just better. So my sophomore year, those guys all played back.

and then I played tight end. And then my junior year, I was a good blocker. Yeah. I'll tell you what, I'm so glad I didn't have to play offense because all formations and trades and shifts, you play Mike Backer, you just line up in the middle of the field. You don't got to go anywhere.

Yeah, but you're also calling out all those trades, formations, and shifts. Yeah, that's he, but offensive formations. There was a guy named Ryan Long, he played right tackle and he played tight end in the year before and then, I think, in like training camp, and then they moved me to tight end. end and then move him to tackle. So he knew all the formation. So I'd line up next to him in the huddle.

And they called the play. Like, hey, where do I line? Where do I line up? No shit. So I, Ryan Long was like my life support playing tight in. And then I switched back to linebacker as a junior. And then I played like a hybrid safety as a senior. So as a junior on varsity, were you starting at that point? I did. Yeah. Okay. That's when there was. So I started to grow. I started to grow a little bit. I got a little bigger. How big were you going into BC? Oh, man. So I played my senior year at like 212. And then I got to BC. I was probably like 218. So I played, I don't know, 218, 220 as a freshman. And then like 228 as a sophomore. And then as a junior, I played at like 230. 1, 232. Just a thick. When did you know in college that, hey, I might have something. I might have a future in the NFL. So I think, you know, you, so in college, it was interesting because Mark Hursleck, you guys remember him?

Monster. Yeah, so Mark Hurslick was a junior. I went to spring game. He was going into his, what was it? Because he got done with his junior year, right? He was like a first round potential take. The cancer thing happened. Yeah.

He fought his way, sat out a year or fought his way back? I go to spring ball going as when I'm a senior, Mark's going to be a senior in college. So it's his spring ball before his senior year. And they'd been telling me, like, Mark's kind of like a low back hamstring thing. He's probably not going to play a lot in the spring. game. I was bummed because I wanted to watch him play. So he goes and plays a couple snaps, comes out. And then like a couple weeks later, he's got Ewing sarcoma bone cancer.

So I get there. I get to school. Marks out the whole year. Essentially he redshirted as he was dealing with cancer. I don't know how the guy did it. He was there all the time, worked out every day, was still big and strong, was in all the meetings. He was fantastic as a young guy to come in. While he's guys fighting cancer. Yeah, he had gone through chemo, radiation, everything. But he was a great older guy to have at BC as a freshman. He wasn't playing. So there was like no stress of, I mean, he was dealing with cancer, obviously, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sick. Yeah, but that is a, that is a football thing to say. Yeah, so the stress of playing is crazy. So, so then Marks out, Mike McLaughen was our Mike linebacker. He's like the prototype from Massachusetts. He had the,

he had the cowboy collar, neck roll. He had the little bull ring. Yeah. He wore the diaper chin strap. No, he had a diaper chin strap, and then he switched over to the padded one, but he was like the prototype. Yeah. He was coming back from an Achilles, so he was going to miss the first couple games of the season. And then, I don't know, a week or two in the training camp,

our starting Mike backer, Will Thompson gets like a shoulder stinger. So I'm over with the freshman doing inside run, get my teeth kicked in, and they just needed a Mike backer. So they called me over, and I had to go over as like little skinny 220-pound Luke, and play against the older guys and just got my teeth kicked in.

I was like, this is awful. And my coach came up to me after that period. And he's like, I was pretty terrible. You got to figure it out because you're going to play week one. Because we don't have anybody else. I was like, what about this guy? And he's like, well, that guy got popped for a drug test, so he can't play either.

So I go to school. You're looking at the coach saying, hey, you're being told you're going to play week one, but you're like, hey, what about that guy? Yeah, that's where your confidence levels are. I'm like, my confidence is zero. So herslicks out, Max out, Will Thompson gets hurt, guy gets popped for a drug test. And then before you note, your top four guys are out.

And so there's really no one left. Like, hey, week one, you're just going to have to figure it out. So the first couple games of season are disaster. Go down to Clemson. We play in Death Valley against CJ Spiller. And that... Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had the D-Ns at the time.

They had Dequan Bowers, and they had another... I forget... Another cat. They had another cat. JPs back there gritting a city. JPs of South. Carolina guy. He hates Clemson. Every time they're mentioned, they have to be trashed off.

Yeah. So, but then you make a couple plays in those games. You're like, you know, I got a chance. And then I remember my sophomore year was when I was like, okay, you played against in Clemson against, you know, C.J. Spiller. And then you just start going through the guys that you play against. You're like, these guys are all getting drafted in the NFL. Like, this might actually be an opportunity for me. So it's just interesting how you go from high school. You want to play on the varsity team to as a friend. freshman, like you're, you don't, I don't really have a choice. You get in there and play. And then you're like, man, this is fun. I'm starting to have some success. And then you fast forward. You kind of,

the next thing you look forward to is like, I love the game of football. I've had a ton of fun. I'd love to keep playing this as long as I can. So you kind of look back as probably, probably three quarters of the way through my sophomore year, you look back and you're like, these are the guys that I played against. This has been their career in the NFL. Like, maybe I got a chance. So there wasn't like a specific play in mind that you made a big play. You're like, oh, shit, okay, I can do this. It was a, it was a, reflection period for you. Yeah.

You're to look back and kind of be like, all right, all these guys are playing in the NFL. This means I can do X, one and Z as well. Yeah, I just think you, you know, you look at it and you're like, I've played in like big games. We play it at Clemson. We played at Florida State. We played at Notre Dame. And you're like, these are the teams in the situations that you grew up watching.

And now you get a chance to be in them. And it's something I always tell guys is like, you need to enjoy the game. Because when it's gone, it's gone. So I was so, when I was playing so laser focused on. football in the process that you don't ever take a second to really look back and say, damn, like, that was pretty cool, you know? Yeah. Because your sophomore junior year, correct me if I'm wrong, but you led the NCAA in

tackles, yeah? Yeah, we just, we were on the field a lot. We were on the field a lot. We kind of really didn't have a choice. You know, you played 80, 90 snaps. Like, you got more opportunities, especially, you know, the other thing, too, is like, we weren't ahead a lot late. So you know what happens at the end of the game.

Their teams are running four minutes. They're going to run the ball. They got five or six run plays and they're going to run power. They're going to lead and they're going to run stretch. It's like perfect. All right, here we go. Buddy, every time you'd see a stat sheet on like league leaders and he's sitting there every week averaging like 15 tackles a game.

That is. I'm thinking who is this Luke Keakley guy from boss? He must be on the field a lot. Yeah. He must got a lot of it. That's like the excuse to the competitor makes. It's like, oh, they got to fucking be on. Well, you know what's funny is you look at all those things and like people are lying

if they don't look at that stuff, right? So then I went and looked at it one time and it had number of snaps played and it was like we had a gazillion and you go look at like Alabama that got like Dante High Tower was at Alabama. He had like half the amount of snaps play that we did. And I was like Chris Borland at Wisconsin. Chris Borland had a million. He was a dog.

Well, you were here as 2013? 2012. That linebacker class was strong. Yeah, you guys had, because I was. 2013 while I was undrafted, but 2012, you guys had, it was you. So, it was Dante High Tower. And then Bobby got drafted in the second round, Wagner. Levante David.

Levante David, DeMario Davis. Yeah. There were some, I'm sure, and I'm probably missing some guys, but those. But those top four that you just said, DeMario Davis, Levante David, yourself and Bobby Wagner. Three of those guys, I mean, DeMario's still playing with the Saints. And that dude, he's, he's a, you look at his stats and it's like, oh my God. Like what he's been able to do. Yeah.

Same thing with Bobby. The guy that I never feel like gets enough credit is Levante. You're on the right podcast for that. I love Levante. You're on the right podcast. Go look at his, his sacks, his force fumbles, and his fumble recoveries. It's unbelievable. Dude, he is always around the football.

He's a great dude. Yeah. He's phenomenal. Yesterday, the Bucks, their profile posted like his stats. He has 1,600 tackles right now. There's only eight guys in the history of the game to have over 1,600 tackles. him and Bobby Wagner are both still doing it. It's unbelievable.

As guys who have those numbers. Yeah. And they're not slowing down. Bobby had over 100 last year. I think he just resigned and then Levanti signed another deal with Tampa, which is cool because, you know, as great of careers he's had, he's been on the same team the whole time. Yeah. Yeah, there's something to be said about that.

It's cool, man. Especially the longevity that he's had. Yeah. And to not get jaded over kind of being overlooked by so many guys. Yourself at points, Bobby Wagner at points. I mean, Levanti has, I was telling JP, he has one pro bowl, I believe. And it was as an alternative. it but it's such bullshit because he's like one of the most underrated players of all time well the thing

that hurts him is that he he's classified because they were four three he was an outside linebacker yeah so like the prototype outside linebacker is like you know the the rush and the guys got 15 sacks right that's where yeah those those salmon whales kind of get screwed over in the pro bowl because yeah the guys at their hand in the dirt when the funniest part about the pro bowl is that they those off the ball backers they're listed as outside linebackers the only rush it's only a down look so those guys have to play off the ball. Yeah, they're playing a four or three. Yeah, so Justin, Justin Houston is playing off the ball at five yards.

Like, what are you doing? Yeah. You know, at the fourth quarter of the game, if it's tight, though. Oh, so they, hey, I'm going to have to take this right here. Yeah, exactly. Because it is a little bit of a war. We interrupt this episode to bring you neutral. Have you tried neutral before?

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neutral keep it tasty were you at iMg training for the combine yeah is that where you were yeah that's where i went as well and that was like i think my first introduction to the lukekely you had like yourself a little mural oh gosh on the wall and they're like you know that guy that was so fun did you have fun jr really is an awesome place because there's no like i was a big-time partier in college and then you know got a little straight as i got into the league but like when you're in braddington flor there's like newlyweds and nearly deads there's no in between there's no nightlife or nothing So it was me and like the 30 other guys that were training. Awesome.

That's all we had. We had like a small little shitty. Those little apartments are just off of the IMG campus. You had the golf cart. Yeah, the golf cart you rip it around in. You thought it was the first time you had a little freedom. Yeah, it's kind of nice. You got a golf cart in your own place.

But it's also well regimented. I loved it there. Was that, were you thinking about between there and Xos? No, because the guys, so Mark hers, like, and then Anthony Costanzo. Costanza's a gangster. A Boston College guy too. Yeah. So he, they were the year ahead of me in the draft.

So Anthony got drafted first round by Colts and then Mark went to the Giants. And those guys trained at IMG and I went to school with them and I was like guys, Xos or IMG and they're like, just go to IMG. We went there. It was sick. We enjoyed it. It was awesome. It was sick.

Yeah, their entire. J.P. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because IMG, I feel like they do it better than anybody else as far as like getting guys for the combine because they don't just do the weightlifting and the running, but they're also, they have at classrooms to like go over.

media stuff. Almost improvisation classes. Okay, you're throwing off with this. What do you do now? What do you say to X, Y, Z? They bring up maybe some things that aren't so great about you. Like, how are you going to attack this situation? So I think IMG was such a great experience.

It's so funny. You do all that work. And then when I worked with a team, the first year I got done playing, I worked a team in the scouting department. And you can pull up all your profiles of, you know, combine and, you know, every, every, you know, report written on you and height weight speed and all your tape and so I was like I got bored one day and looked at it and I looked at my combine interview with the Panthers it's a disaster really yeah I was like sitting had my glasses on I was

nervous I was probably sweating and I was super like they'd ask me a question like yes that's cover four I'm like gosh you suck you sound so bad right now that's how obviously getting drafted like you I met with the Titans and I was probably the same way but a year removed seeing those same familiar faces now in that room. Yeah. Like how timid you are. Oh, you're so scared, man. Because the train station is no joke.

Yeah. Like that, that combine experience, was your, did you have a good combine experience? I really, yeah, I really enjoyed it. Yeah. I think that first night of those interviews, because you have the train station, which is like, they can just come and grab you, obviously. And then the one-on-ones where they put you in the room, where it's only 15 minutes. And half the first two minutes, three minutes are them introducing themselves.

And the last two or three minutes of them leaving. Right. So it's only like a 10-minute window and then they're peppering you with questions and I'm nervous. It's your job interview and you're trying to put your best foot forward and I was just nervous and I was sitting in there just and I was like I would not draft that guy. Yeah. Well, the combine is so crazy is everyone sees what happens when you're running and benching and jumping on that. But really all the scary shit happens. Oh, that's easy.

There's three, four days prior. The running's easy. When you get to go run, you're finally like, thank God it's over. Yeah. Because you get there the first day and it's like kind of introductions, hey, this is how it's going to happen. This is your land yard. This is how the train station works. This is how your official meetings work.

4 a.m. You have a piss test. Yeah. So it's like the number one rule is like just do not miss it. Yeah. And make sure you don't pee. So I remember I was roommates with Zach Martin. Yeah.

And we took shoes and we put it on top with the toilet seat just in case you wake up in the middle night and try to go pee. And we would like be like little count of bill buddies. Make sure we're all up together. Yeah. Which is nice though. Yeah. Yeah.

It's what you need. Because you're nervous. Because you're up at 4 a.m. for a drug test. And then it's meetings all day. MRIs the middle of the day and then back to the train station and everything else. You a weight guy? Did you have to keep weight on? I was always a guy that had to gain weight. Yeah. So you know they get you there. And then you can't eat as much as you typically do. There's no scale. So then when you get to go weigh in, you don't know how much you weigh. And they're like, Luke, you need to be over 240 pounds. So you're just in there chugging. And they have the worst fucking snacks. Like it's all like Reese's cups and skittles and shit. I guess this is what I'm. I got to do it. I got to drink. I got to eat something. Yeah. I did a great job having like food waiting for you.

Oh. They had a little area where you go in stuff your face. They had a backpack and they just stuffed it with everything. I'll tell you what. The combine was I loved it. It was so cool because you grow up watching it. You don't really grow up watching training at IMG. Like you don't really understand that.

But you grow up and you watch these guys run the 40 and jump and bench and do all that stuff. And then you get there and you're like, this is sweet. I get to do. It's like your first step to the NFL. Do you have to do a shit load of MRI? eyes I had to do it um I had to do them on my knees and I had something on my elbow but like not a not a ton I was pretty lucky it's funny too how much the everybody because I know Levant to him being like an undersized guy guys just obsessing over hitting a certain weight got to to weigh in just so you

hit the metric like Levanti always played like in the like 220 to 225 but he's like I have to be like 233 pounds isn't that crazy I never weighed 240 ever again in my life yeah but on that little stats sheet says 240 and you're like, 24 and you're like, yeah, dude. Every, don't, don't skit me a pound right there. Yeah, when you step on the scale too and you saw 242, how juice were you. Well, that thing kept ticking up.

Yeah. And I was like, yes. Dude, you know what? Another thing that's kind of a sleeper. Did they have the little egg pods? Yeah, you'd do that afterwards. Yeah, so we would do those IMG like every couple of weeks. Like, if anything's going to fucking change.

But my body fat would be like, I don't know, like 20 or 19 or something like that. Okay. But it had to be in those rooms, they had to have a certain pressure for those to read correctly. Yeah. So when I got to the combine, they had them like this open room where it was like being opened and closed a bunch. So my body fat was right at like 15%.

Like, yes. I'm like, oh my God, I made a 4% jump in a week. That's crazy. I thought I was killing. I knew I've been on my shit. Yeah, I've been on it. What was the most nerve wrecking part for you at the combine from the like athletic standpoint? Oh, man.

Probably the 40. Yeah. Because that was the question was how much you're going to weigh and what are you going to run? So I actually had to run it. I ran the 43 times. You mess up on one? So the first one I run, it goes really well. Second one, because you know you can't see it.

You got to find ways to get it. You know, you look at your phone and somebody text you. Right. But it's not. They don't do that anymore. Do you watch it now? No. Now they have people in the stands and they show your 40.

They show it on the board. Oh, that's kind of nice. Because it was the same way for me too, where you go up and like a couple of the guys you're like, hey, what I run. They're saying X, X, Y, and Z. Yeah. Oh, it's fucking. So then second one comes up.

And you know when you get in that 40 start. there's holes because everybody's been there so everybody takes like the same like first two steps so there's kind of an indentation in the ground and i was off just a half step to the left and i took my first step out and i stepped kind of in the hole sideways and i turned right real fast and almost ran into the the laser reader and then straighten it out and i ran like it was i ran like it was i ran like four nine and i was like oh gosh that was terrible you said that was the second one that was the first one was like four five and i was like four five and i was like four five and i was like four four or five and then I go four nine and this guy comes up to me.

You all are the same. And he's like, yeah, he's like, hey, you're going to probably have to run another one. We got a bad reading on either the first or the second one. And I was like,

oh no. Did you know at the point two that you had ran a four or five in the first one? Yeah, I knew I ran well. And then the second one, I knew a step in the hole and I'm like, okay, this kind of makes sense.

So then everybody had to go run their second one. So I was the last guy after the last guy in the line to go run again. And I ran it again. And I looked at a guy. I was like, how was that? He's like, you're going to be good. I was like, all right, perfect.

You'd be good. So you were in the four or five range. Yeah, he's like, he's like, the middle one must have got messed up. But it was I stepped in, I stepped in a hole or I step, my step was bad or something. But you know, it's so nerve-wracking. That's like the only thing that matters. What's that? You didn't want to focus on getting a tan before the combine?

Of course not. You look faster that way. Did you ever test? Did you ever test in the four-fours? No. At IMG? I don't think we ever really ran, I think we ran a 40, like the first week we were there. Yeah.

And then everything was just segmented out. Yeah. So you work on starts, flying 20s, you know, flying 40s. So you never really get a true number for what you're going to run. But you have an idea. Like, I felt good. I felt strong. I felt my starts were good.

And then it's like just go. I look so stiff running it. But I know because it will at IMG. You're trying to do everything right. When you're training, you're like elbows and this and that and relax your face. I remember we, I ran a 40. When we first did the 40 IMG and I was like a 5-1. Yeah.

I was like, there's no fucking way. I'm a five guy, no doubt. But I was like trying to like mechanically do exactly what they were saying the whole time to where it was just awful. Part of me thinks that they click it a little bit slower. I thought the same thing. So they're like, oh, you ran 5'4. So then when you run 4-9, they're like, look what we did.

Half second faster. We're the greatest things ever. They were unbelievable. Lauren Seagrave was, was he there? Oh, I believe so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was unbelievable. Older, older guy, right?

Yeah, he was always wore orange. Always wore orange. He had the really shining shoes. And then who was the chick from London? Did you have the girl? Yeah, she was a, yeah, she was a awesome. Awesome. Yeah, she was a great running coach.

I can't remember her name right now, which kind of sucks. It was, I had a ton of, like, everything that they did, there was a reason why they did it. It's not like we just showed up and they're like, all right. And I remember running like the short shuttle. It was footwork. It was like seven or eight steps. Yeah, it's all down to. You're talking to the five and the five 105.

Yeah, because the five to five, five was like two, three, two or something like that. They had like numbers to it. You're like, okay, this is somebody who could like skip over to the first five and just get in like two steps. You're like dialed in. Yeah. Yeah. This was amazing.

Like all that stuff that you put in for, you know, there's Lawrence Seagrave right there. Yeah. Yeah. He is awesome. He was great. Dude. So I don't know if you felt this way, but after I ran the 40 and I got the time that I wanted, it felt like everything else was just cake after that.

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's so stressful when you're standing up because we had, what number were you? Do you remember for the combine? Oh, I don't. So what I was. 13, maybe? I don't know.

19. 19. I was 23. Okay. And my whole thing was like, I just don't want to go first. Yeah. So I was like, oh, I'm 23. Last name's Lawan.

I'll be solid. Well, they broke it up into two groups. Yes. So it was one through 22. Oh, no. So I was the first guy to go in the second group. And they're like, we're all kind of warming up. Everyone's so stressed out.

Yeah. That's my Beyonce walk. And you see that tan. You look, yeah. You look like you're about 15% right there. Yeah. Yeah. That's what the body comp said.

But that chick, that I can't remember her name. the one from London, she's like, hey, when you run, go to the back of the platform and have your Beyonce walk. Like, every, like the whole combine, everyone, you're waiting on everybody. Yeah. But once you do that, it's now your time you take as long as you need, whatever. And so I took all the time in the world because I was, my heart's racing right there. My little gazelle legs. How good did you think your walk was? You see your step on the back too. How did you think your walk was? You give it a thumbs up. I was so, I was thinking about, okay, steps, you're moving your little feet back. And you're just thinking, please don't get called back on this

start. Yes. That was what I was most nervous about. Because learning from IMG, they basically tell you like, your first start's going to be your best one or your first two. After that, you kind of like, your brain fucks up. Yeah. CNS or something. So it was, once I ran that and I got back to the boys and saying, hey, they're saying four nine right now. I'm like, all right. I know I'm selling. Yeah. I feel, I feel good about it. Is there a team you felt like you knocked out of the park with in the interview process? Oh, man. You know what? Not really. I don't really, I don't, that was, I don't remember that. I thought the stuff with the Panthers went really good because so Ron Rivera obviously with the Bears. My high school road roommate was Mike Morrissey.

He was two years older than I am. I was and he was a great older guy. So when we went on trips on the road, he was my roommate for away games. His dad played on the 85 Bears, he played with the Bears like 10 years and he played linebacker with Rivera. So I remember going to the combine and be like, I don't know any of these guys, but I know that Jim Morrissey and Mike Morrissey have said really good things about Coach Rivera and his experience with them and their friendship

and playing together in Chicago. So I'm like, at least I have one guy that I kind of have a connection to. So that one was out of all of them, it was probably the easiest one after I said how bad my interview was on that video. But I felt probably the most comfortable with them because I feel like there was a little bit of a connection there.

Did you know, did you feel really confident that I was gonna be the Panthers that grabbed you in the first, round. I thought there was a chance. So you kind of looked at like teams that I took a visit to Carolina. So I met with them at the combine. I took a visit down there pre-draft. And I kind of knew like nine to 15 to 20 because 15 was Seattle. And they drafted Bruce Irving, Bruce Irvin and then they ended up with Bobby in the second round. So they were going to draft a linebacker. I thought Buffalo was at 10. I think they drafted Stefan Gilmore from

SC. And so I thought it was going to be one of those teams. I also took a visit to Tennessee. So I think it was, oh man, who did? They actually, that was, um, yeah, but they did draft a linebacker and it was a Zach Brown. Zach Brown. He was a chapman who did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He could fucking run. Um, dude, Trent Richardson. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know where they drafted, what point. Yeah, scrolled down a little bit. I want to see who they took. Who you talking about the Titans? Kendall Wright. Kendall Wright.

Yeah. Damn. You've been done to look at. They would have got him anyway. You knew who was... Yeah, true. Should have traded up. Yeah.

But yeah. So you, did you have any... Did you have a place you wanted to go? Like, you looked at the locker room and everything? I thought Carolina would have been cool. I had some family that was down there. I was familiar. I liked it because Iran.

Okay. That was the biggest thing that thought was cool was that I knew him and they spoke... Hey, it's us. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name? Huge news. We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast?

Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it.

Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early, names of our band before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas.

And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smygel and Friends.

Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app,

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Mm-hmm. From navigating friendships and healing to setting boundaries and prioritizing your mental health. These are real honest conversations. We don't always get to have out loud. Totally unreasonable with different parts of life, right? Like, oh, have all three meals and make sure you're mindful during all of them? Absolutely not. During one meal, I'm standing.

I'm standing and handing my children food. Because healing, empowerment, and resists. Resilience aren't just ideas. They're practices. And this Mental Health Awareness Month, there's no better time to pour back into yourself. Listen to cultivating her space on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. So highly of him. And he was a linebacker.

And he coached like Earl Acker and Briggs. Yeah. He's with San Diego and he was with the Bears. It just, it felt, I was like, that would be a cool place. How was it when you first got there? How was he as a as a coach? Because I'm sure he's probably hard on you since you're a line. Since you were a backer.

He was phenomenal. He was like he did a really good job of separating being the head coach, but also like he wanted to be a player again. So he'd be in the locker room. He talked to guys. He was he'd have you over to the house. He just made you feel very comfortable. So I always felt like, you know, he was obviously the head coach. But he felt like a guy that he just wanted, he wanted to help you.

He wanted to put you in a position. to be successful. It was awesome. I couldn't have been in a better spot as far as just the people that were there. Sean McDermott was a defensive coordinator. I don't think that I could have ended up in a better system to play linebacker. With that four-down look, I played Mike, which was, if I was playing Will, I would have struggled.

Because in space, you're matched up on receivers. It's just bad news. Yeah, but you can run. Yeah, you can run straight. I mean, Julio Jones did, you know. He did what he did. That's fine. Everybody's getting out.

I'm sure they can pull a picture of that up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's not even the best one. There's one that's like two pictures, three pictures to the right on that search. That one looks better. That one looks. Matter of fact, take me through. Look how much higher he is there. Take me through that play.

I'm not even off the ground. He just high pointed it. He just high pointed it. So you got a play because you're running with him. So it's quarter. And you're competitive on the ball. So it's three by one. So it's quarters.

And if you have speed at number three, which Julio definitely accounts for that, you get a backside, the backside quarters defender on the hash helps you out. Get you a three to X. Yeah, we called it a fax call. But yeah, same thing. I was like, great. Look at these two bonding right now. I said great. You understand my struggle.

And they motion the empty. And I'm like, uh-oh. Oh, man. Uh-oh. So for the people listening, when they motioned empty, why is out of? There's no more facts or there's no more help from the court of the same thing. They motion to, they motion two weeks. Look at this looks so, this look, you know what Matt Ryan's saying right here?

Is my guy's just better than all of you? Because he looks like he's covered right now. Yeah, you're, you are covering who are jumping down the field. I'm like, man, I am in good shape. They throw that ball and I'm like, I am in great shape. I can't see him, but I know he's behind me. I reach up and all I hear is and it's the ball hitting his hands and me falling down. and my face hit in the ground

and I just hear the crowd explode and I run and I remember I pick my head up and the only thing I remember him seeing is like you know when these guys used to score and they go like this as they run through the end zone I just saw him do that look at me just face face down

and I'm trying to I'm hearing the crowd scream right now and then I pick my head up did you and they right at the end they show him kind of right there that's what I see when I look up. I see that. I see it says, I can't even see the name Jones because he's tilted forward like that. And then I get to the sideline and my coach is like, hey, yeah, you know you're supposed

to be on him, right? I was like, yeah, I know I was. That is the craziest comment of coach to make. You're a Mike linebacker. Look at this. You're coaching Keekely and Julio Jones gets you and scores on a competitive ball and you're like, you know you're on him, right? I mean, a competitive. So there's three by one that motion to back out? Competitive is a nice way to say it. I mean, it looked competitive and then when the ball got thrown that the competition kind of went out the window a little bit let this play a little bit i'm running he's running like three-quarter speed i'm running literally as fast as i can and he's still running away from me your safety over top was trying to get in on the action yeah it was just i mean he looks covered right there it's he's he's covered

until yeah met right he just throws the ball up for him yeah look i'm trying to pull through the i'm trying to pull through the pocket i'm trying to pull through the pocket i'm trying to pull through the pocket He just kind of big-boiled me there a little bit. God. I mean, you see a guy like Julio Jones. You don't have to give me, you don't have to give me an excuse. You just say that you got. You got got got.

You got got. That was on Randy Moss's, you got Moss the next week. So you always want to be on you got Moss as a little kid, but not for that reason. Not that way at all. Was that, what is like the toughest play, like the worst moment you've had? The worst mom. Was that it? No, that wasn't it because it kind of felt like it was the best I could have done.

done. Yeah, and it's Julio Jones. You know, I give 100% effort the result. My effort was much strong. It's just kind of like, hey, man, like, gosh, he made a play. He's just better than you. He was better for that moment. Yeah, he's just better.

I remember my rookie year we were playing Seattle, and it was Russ. Russ was a quarterback. Russ and I trained together at the combine for the combine. Remember, he breaks contain. He's running to his right. He breaks contain. Obviously, he's running down the field. I'm in coverage.

So he crossed the line of scrimmage. I was like, I'm going to crush him. And he's running and he's running like almost straight at me. I've got a great angle and he's running like this and I'm running like that. I'm like, I'm going to crush him. The last second, right before I'm about to hit me, puts his left foot or left foot in the ground and cuts back this way. And I'm getting ready to just like fall into the tackle. And I turn and look, guess who was running Mach 5 at my face at Russ set up?

Mike Robinson. Remember him? Yeah. And Penn State guy? He hit me, he hit me so hard that I don't really, I didn't even feel it. It wasn't a dirty hit. He didn't mean in the head. He just hit me and I just crumpled to the ground.

And I remember like looking up and he just smiled at me. And I was like, he got me. He's like, I know. I know. So it was, that was, that was, you talk about like, welcome to the NFL, your rookie moment. Yeah. That was one of them. And then we played Tampa, my rookie year at home.

It was, we were up at the end of the game. We were probably up six or seven points. They ran a vertical ball, three verticals in cover four. And I was matched up on Vincent Jackson. And Josh Freeman throws this great back shoulder ball to him. And I thought I had him covered. In college, you're close to him. He's covered.

Yeah. I didn't know, I didn't know what a back shoulder ball was. You see the eyes. And so I'm running with him. And then all of a sudden he spins, he opens up, and he puts his hands backside, and he catches this football. And I was like, how that happened? Like some of that stuff, you score a touchdown, they tied it up.

They go to overtime, we lose an overtime. Oh, man. So it was just like one of those things where you don't, you're just naive. And then something happens in a game. And you're like, oh, that's what they were. Yeah. That's what a back shoulder ball was. And that ball, I was, I mean, I felt like I was in great.

but the ball was literally perfect my awareness was zero and he just put it on his back shoulder Vincent Jackson opened up and caught that ball and I was like damn that sucks yeah so did you really not have a TV in your apartment your that's so no I had I had everything I had a oh no show the lure of cats sucks he's all ball so what happened so what happened So what happened was... All film. You lied. So, no, it happened going into my...

The rumor was going into my second year, I've moved apartments, like, in end of July. So then, you know, going in in July, you're going in the training camp for the first, like, three or four weeks of the season. And I just... It was on the back burner for... To set up cable. I had my internet set up, but I was like, I don't need cable for this first, like, six, eight weeks because I'm never going to be here. Yeah. So I didn't have it set up.

and somehow one of my buddies got wind of it and it just turned into this it just turned into this whole thing where so that came from one of your buddies somehow in the locker room yeah came in a locker room like hey did you watch like somebody's like hey you've been watching whatever I was like no I don't have I don't have the cable set up in my in my apartment yet

like why not I was like I just moved and didn't have time to set it up like we just went to training camp like I'm not here very much anyway so when I get back from after training camp I'll get a set up so that was like what had happened everyone's like you didn't have tv i'm like i'm not a psychopath yeah it's very much frame like that yeah i just pictured you in a carpeted room with a blow-up mattress yeah maybe a hyperbaric chamber yeah just paper plates in a microwave and macaroni and cheese and ramen never microwave

takes out too much nutrients for yeah yeah there it is right there god yeah that is that is one of the things that like look at just i mean that's an insane throwing cash and then they went for two they're down they were down eight so then they got the two-point conversion afterwards. God. And I ran into the goalpost and that was just like insult the injury. Like I just got I just got worked and I just got crushed by the post. Watch this. Watch this. Oh, look at my leg. God, it sucks. And then you turn around. And then you turn and then you look up and you're like, he definitely caught it and look at the official. Yeah. It's like he was waiting to do that. It's like, was that all me? You're taking a peek first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He scored. I was like, nobody touched that ball? Oh,

Dang. Look at me. I'm my, gosh, I suck. Good hip flexibility, though. Yeah, that was 21, so it didn't really matter. Dude, defensive player rookie the year, though. Luckily, they didn't see that play. Yeah.

But how awesome is that? It was cool. It was fun. I mean, it was, you just, to have the opportunity to play, like, as much as I did as a rookie was so cool. Yeah. In a great system.

That system was set up for linebackers to just run around. It was cover three, cover four. a little bit of man. We had really good guys in front of us. Our defense line was sick. And they called plays that highlighted the linebackers. It was Thomas and I. So John Beeson, I'll talk about.

Who was it thumper? Who I was talking about, like, so go back to college with Herzlick and Mike McLaugh and great older veteran guys that had no, their pride never got in the way. They were just there to help you. Mike Morrissey, the guy I talked about that knew Ron. And those guys were so helpful. And then when I got to Carolina, it was the same way. So when I got there, it was James Anderson was coming off a career year.

Beast was coming back from an Achilles, All Pro Bowl, or like the dude in the middle, like a stud. And then Thomas was coming back from his 30 ACL. Thomas at full speed was what Thomas was for 16 years in the NFL. And then me. So there was four of us. I was the rookie. Bees and TD were coming back from substantial injuries in Achilles and an ACL. And then James, excuse me, was going to play, obviously.

healthy had a great year coming off a good year so i i remember i showed up my rookie my first days there t d comes in and he's like hey i'm thomas here's my number lock me in you need anything let me know and i was like that's just an older guy coming in and like checking a box and doing all this stuff but it was he was the best helpful talk to you through things taught you stuff where to who to talk to you know chiropractors where to just where to do everything in charlotte he was fantastic, how to practice, how to be tough, how to play hurt, like all that stuff. And then Beasts was, Bees got hurt, beast got put on IR, I think, after the Atlanta game, my rookie year, which was like week or two or three.

And so then I slid from outside linebacker to inside linebacker at Mike Bees's spot. And all Bees ever did was help me. Sat next to me in meetings, talk to me, watch tape with me, hey, this is how I, this is how I played cover two. And this is why. This is where my eyes looked like. there was never there was never any sense of like you're playing mike your first round pick like I'm hurt I've been hurt two years in a row maybe I there was never like I'm worried

about my job it was how can I help you so I think you know I was always very fortunate to have guys like that through my football career high school college and then Bess and Thomas and James and a guy named Jordan Sen who was played with us for a long time he was like a could play all three spots, big time teamer, but was very smart, very intelligent, great with his body. He sat right next to me in the locker room, and he would just, all he ever did was just help me. So I was just a great coach with Ron and McDee was a de coordinator. And then those guys around me was like a perfect situation. Dude, TD had a hell of a career.

I mean, three ACLs. And able to come back and play the way he did. Yeah, and I met him out at one of the NFL, one of the NFLPA meetings. And this dude, you see like burger and fries and Oh, that's how he was. And he sits there, I'm like, hey, are you eating like this throughout the season? He's like, oh, I eat whatever I want all the time. Which is wild.

Like, buddy, how in the fuck do you do that? I think some of those guys, like, that's just, they're more, that's just what they're best at. Yeah. Like, this is what he plays. This is what he's, how his body reacts the best, and that's what he's going to do. But his, like, six-inch snap was unbelievable. He was so fast.

Yeah. So explosive. snap, ultra-physical, and just a great guy to watch as far as how to do things. Just a dangerous linebacker room. Yeah, just tough, high effort, ultra-competitive, you know, like all those things that require no athletic ability. It's all like decisions, like, you know, you are what you are athletically, you are how height, weight speed, whatever, you make a decision how tough you are, how physically

you are, how hard you play, and how much it matters to you. Like those are things that you control and he was, it was great to see that from an older guy as a young guy. Like these are non-negotiables that you make the decision when you walk on the field. You're going to do it a certain way. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like a great leadership.

Yeah. Walking and helping you out, on that road. On that. Yeah. That's unreal. When you, you obviously, there's such a conversation revolved around you about like calling out

plays and game. Did you already have that capability to break down film or did those guys, were they a big part of teaching you that stuff? So I was fortunate in high school. our high school coach would bring us down to his office during lunch and he'd put on a VHS tape and we'd eat lunch down there and he'd put the tape on the tape would just run and we could like rewind it if we wanted to yeah but then you don't really understand why you're doing that until you know you're in the game and you're like oh I saw that and when we were watching tape with

coach and usually it's after the fact so it's like very like retrospective but you start to figure out like oh I can get a real advantage by watching tape. So we kind of did that in high school. And then I got to college and there's a guy, another guy, West Davis, he was a safety, California guy, super smart, intelligent, big tape guy. So when you get to college, you know, it's like you can watch whatever you want. You can sort it, however you want to watch it. Personnel, formation, down a distance, you know how it is, whatever you want. So I go in there and I'm like, this is too much for me to handle. I got to figure out how to do this. So I would go watch tape with Wes. This is as a freshman. And, you know, Wes would be,

being there and he'd be like, all right, hey, imagine we're playing cover four and you get this, like, how you're playing it. So you start to figure out, all right, I can match my call up with the place. So when I watch, when I watch tape, I can envision myself in that situation. So that was kind of like the first step. And then the second step would be, Wes would be in meetings and say, all right, he's like, this gives us problems in cover three. And in my head, I'm like, I don't really know what that means, but like, sure. So he'd like, this is why it gives us problems. He's like, if I see this look in a game, I'm going to let you know, and then we'll just kind of play it like this. You know, you kind of play the play a little bit. And he's like, all right, I'm going to give you

a heads up in the game. We're going to get it. He's like, I'm going to tell you when I play it a certain way and we'll be in good shape. I was like, all right, great. So then comes up in a game. Westman gives me like a nod. And I'm like, hey, this is what he's talking? No, I like give him a nod back. Like, hey, what's up? Like, and the play would happen and I would just be aloof. He'd like, I gave you a nod. I was like, I gave you one back. He's like, no. That was the play.

That was it. So then just slowly over time, you're like, okay, now I understand why he's watching tape. So you watch tape, you understand situations and you pick stuff up and you accumulate knowledge. And over time, you just understand like this is how teams really want to run the football. This is how it matches up against our defense. These are the top formations. I mean, you know how it is.

It's like if it's two by two and the tight ends on. the line of scrimmage. Their top wrong concepts are probably this, this, and this, right? And once you know that, then it's like, all right, so if we're in an overfront and they run that first run play and we're in this defense, who's going to block me? Okay, this guy's going to block me. All right. Say they run the other play in this same defense, same front, boom, now this guy's going to

block me. And you go through that. And then when practice rolls around, you get it. And then when the game rolls around, it's like, all right, here's my formation. Here's my call on defense. This is how we're lined up. The ball gets snapped. I get my one read from whoever I'm reading.

Boom, now I know who's going to block me. I know where the ball is going to go. I have to beat that guy in the run game. Whoever's going to block me, and then I'm clean to the football. You know, one guy is blocking you on each play. So if I know top run concepts, I know how it fits within our defense, I know where I line, I know where my stressors are. The ball gets snapped.

I read, boom, now I know who's going to block me. Now I already have a plan of attack on how I'm going to get after him before the ball get snapped. So then you're playing the game before the ball gets snapped and then everything just slows down as the ball gets snapped. So. I fucking love it. It was just because you got like, you know it is, you got to, this is a bad play right here. So I remember exactly this play. I like to see this one. So Andy Gallex's center. You guys ran, it was like a split zone look. Split zone. Hang on. We're in man coverage. And we're in, it's an in and out. So T. With the safety down here. Yeah. So TD and I are like the in and out guys. So my guy goes back

across the formation, the tight end, I got to fall back in a past game. But if it's a run, I got to stay front side. So it was a run. I see the guy go back across the formation. I fall back and this ball stays front side. And look where it hits. I get blocked by, I think Andy Gallagher's center.

He's a BC guy. Looked where it gets hit. Probably right where it should be. Kind of a disaster. That's Andy Gallic, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So probably a disaster.

This was a touchdown. I mean, there's a lot of holes. Dexter McCluster on this touchdown here. So what was this, too? 2015. Yeah. We were bad then too. How would your three and thirteen year for us? How did your prep develop like in the league? Like are you or are you breaking down each day like on Monday? Are you first second down? Yeah. So like Monday was so you know Monday you come in you get a workout flush watch the watch the game from the night before and kind of day before whatever make your corrections and then I'd always watch two first halves of the team that we were playing and just get like general. feel and I always feel like first halves were better because you got to you got to feel for who they were right so like think about we're like think about like say we're watching we're watching the titans and i watched the whole game maybe in the second half you guys are up big and so now you guys are running

the ball a little bit more maybe the past game's not as aggressive they're different than what they want to be coming out right first in the first half like your first 15 your first probably 25 plays or things that you guys have really thought about your top concepts stuff like that so I'd watch first halfs and just get a feel for like, you know, what do they look like up front? You know, are they like, for example, we play the Falcons, right? Alex Mack, like big, athletic, smart, ranging, really good player. I'm like, damn, I got my work cut out for this guy. And then you go, you know, in the backfield, it was Tevin Coleman.

He's like big, kind of a slasher, like one cut, wide zone type guy. Devante Freeman is like a little bit of shake, good burst, could run, physical, not a real big guy but gets lost and like is a firm really good. I thought he was really good. And if he could speed you up, slow you down, run through you. And then you look on the outside, Austin Hooper was the, the tight end. And then it was like Roddy White and Julio Jones. You're like, all right, boom.

So like this is how they look up front. This is what they look like in the backfield. Like, you know, we play the Falcons. You don't really need to watch Matt a whole lot because you got a really good feel for, we played them twice a year. He's Matt Ryan, you know, like I don't, you know, you take a ton of notes on that. But you get a feel for, all right, Kyle Shanahan, wide zone shifts and motions.

They're going to try to get you in a compromised position and want to run the ball to the bubble. So that's Monday and just, it's like click through, like click through stuff real quick. Tuesday comes. And are you a big notes guy or you just? Notes because that helps me,

if I write it, then it helps me remember. And this Monday, you're not necessarily taking notes. You're just feeling the game. You're feeling the process of the game. Yeah, and feel them and like, I'll write down some notes.

Like if they've got a dude that I'm not used to playing against or I haven't seen a lot of them. I'm like, this is, I'd be like, offense line. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name? Huge news.

We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend. But this one's extra special.

So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. And, well, we were thinking, I, I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers

was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, Hey Jonas.

And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel.

Help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast, and for Mental Health Awareness Month,

we're dedicating a series to understanding the mind when it struggles. I'm joined by doctors, researchers, and those with lived experience. We'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car and then my car got stolen. I was shoplifting. I was having panic attacks. I was agoraphobic. And making it through hardship. To be present is a learned skill. And it's hard to be present. We'll talk with John Nelson about clinical depression and the brain implant that saved his life. What I learned is that procedure made me happy because I'm disease-free. And we'll talk with leading experts like Judd Brewer about anxiety and John Hirschfield about

obsessive-compulsive disorder and the science of how the brain can change. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations about what happens when the brain goes off course and what we can do about it. Listen to Inner Cosmos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Agency, the ability to know that we're the experts in our own body. On the podcast cultivating her space, Dr. Dom and Terry Lomax create a space where black women can show up fully and be heard. I wholeheartedly think, you know, you hit 30. You shouldn't have to share one with anybody.

Mm-hmm. From navigating friendships and healing to setting boundaries and prioritizing your mental health. These are real, honest conversations. We don't always get to have out loud. Totally unreasonable with different parts of life, right? Like, oh, have all three meals and make sure you're mindful during all of them? Absolutely not.

During one meal, I'm standing. I'm standing and handing my chest. I'm standing and handing my chest. children food. Because healing, empowerment, and resilience aren't just ideas. Their practices. And this mental health awareness month, there's no

better time to pour back into yourself. Listen to cultivating her space on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And moves really well. Center 51's a really good player. Running backs, this is how these guys feel.

Because I always felt like with running backs if you don't play against them a lot you don't know how they like feel on contact and I didn't like that like I want to know early in the game how do you feel are you firm like stuff like that and I felt like that was one thing that I was wanted to watch during the week is how do they run how do they take contact do they like contact like are they a stiff arm guy or they what do they like doing because then in the game you got to have a plan I mean you'll play marshawn lynch you can't just like run in there and hope you're going to get them on the ground so then I would take light notes on that and just get a feel because mentally I was like Monday was a day where I'm like

I need to kind of break it up a little bit so if I took a ton of notes I'm like this is just too much mentally so then Tuesday you come in hit a little workout and then I'd watch run game so our coaches did a good job of breaking down run game based on like formation down a distance um excuse me top concepts and then I would go and highlight like four games and then you know you can sort everything so I'd sorted by like personnel. So like, all right, I want to see all their 12 personnel runs. And like, how do they run the ball out of 12 personnel? So three by one, is it two by two?

Do they like running 12 personnel and putting the tight in in the backfield? Because if so, now it turns into like two back run versus like if they're in a wing or double like ace both on the line of scrimmage. Now it's like one back run. It's like 21. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like a completely different concept.

So I want to know what they do. And then I would break it down by like, personnel group then formation and then top concepts inside the formation I take notes on all those and just chart it because like it took a lot of time but I felt like if I could write it down then I would remember it better so then and by Tuesday I usually had I usually had the game plan like first and second down game plan so then I'd watch all that chart everything watch those games and then I'd watch a full game after that and then see how it fits so like when do they run it like when are they 11 when Are they 12? What are they like doing out of 13? When do they do it in a game? And like, what's the game flow? And then you could call, I could call defenses within that, within that watching that game. So, you know, first and 10, the first quarter of like, all right, I'm just like cover three. So line up and cover three. See my overfront. See where I got a line. See where rotation is. And then kind of go through it that way. And then, you know, just kind of buzz through it like that. So then you get a feel for how they want to run the ball out of formations. You get a good feel for what they are. And then. then you see how it applies to the game and how they get to stuff and then I can apply our first and second down game plan to that and just run through that and then Wednesday after practice I do the same thing but with first and second down pass so break it down the same way and see how the run game matches with past game what conflicts you could potentially

what conflicts and then like you start to figure out like are they a formation based team in the sense of do they run plays, run plays and past plays out of formations? So regardless to what the personnel is like if it's three by one wing, they could run that at 11, they could run it at 12, they could run at 13, they could run it at 10 if they wanted, but it's the same run concept. And they're just looking for the best matchup within personnel groupings that run play. Right. Or are they a personnel group team where in 11, these are their top five run concepts. And then in 12, they want to run this. And in 13, they start getting heavy. It's like, short yardage. They're going to play too heavy, a wing and a backside tied in, and it's going to be

like load power, counter O. Y, three poolers going somewhere. Or are they just, like I said, a formation based team. So then as the week goes on, you get a feel for what this team wants to do, why they want to do it, how they get to it. Are they a shift motion team? Do they build sets? Because the only thing that matters in football is what's the final formation? So are they stagnant or do they line up in three by one and then shift a two by two and then motion this guy across to three by one? I don't care about any of that. I just want to know what's a final result. What's the final result of the formation is what I want to get to and how to do it. So when the game comes around, you're not like, oh, well, it's three by one, but I didn't anticipate them get into it. Like, no, I already knew

that they're going to be a heavy shift, heavy motion. My brain's already turned on to it. So when they get to, when they start to move guys, it's like, I've already prepared myself for this. And then third down, you just watch it by, you know, down the distance. Right, right. And then watch another game and see kind of out all ties together and then Friday was red zone and specials so like if we were playing you know cal or alvin camara like you get a lot of matchups one-on-one with him if we play man coverage like i don't i don't like that matchup so like are we able to get to rat in the situation or like stay in the box and if i get put in a bad situation i need to have in a plan of attack of like right does he like moving off a certain foot how does he stem where does he get uncomfortable

where does his move area out of the backfield? Where does he like going? And then so when you get in that situation, if it's man, you're like, all right, like, he's a better athlete than me. He's going to probably make me miss a bunch. But like, here's my plan of attack that I've already thought about on Friday. So when it comes around in the game, you're like, all right, I'm good.

Like, this is my plan of attack. And like, I feel good about it. And I'm going to go attack him. And if it works great, if not, like, I feel good about what I did going into the game. Yeah. How big of a role did it? the TV copy. Love TV copy.

Yeah, the TV copy is that where you found out, like, their verbiage and stuff like that? So you just, I would just watch like the all 22, and then any time the quarterback comes in the line of scrimmage, you turn on the TV copy and see what, you got everything that he says, you got to listen to it and write it down, and then you got to check it a few times.

Do you remember any teams that were changing their verbiage because they essentially knew that they were playing against you? No, if I didn't, If I didn't, if I didn't know a word, I never guessed. But like, you always have to, it's always just like a, it's an... Like you and TD was probably like salt pepper. Yeah, did I tell you that? Black or Briggs.

Yeah, salt and pepper. So that was using the Super Bowl. And I thought salt was left and pepper was right. Because salt is an L and pepper was right. No, that's all. Well, I'm just taking white, black. You've got a white line background. They've got a black line background.

They need salt, salt, salt. Hey, you're white. Hey, they're going to be blocking. in my head. Luke's like, hey, left, left, left, they're going left. And Tidie. Hey, what's crazy? I'm on the same page with you. Because inside that game, so inside the game, they said like Tiger.

And Peridus, Matt Paradis was the center. And he said, Tiger, Tiger. And one of the offensive linemen was like, huh? And he said, Tiger, er. I was like, ah, you're going to the right. So I took that forward to Salt and Pepper. And I remember having an argument with TD about it. and we get in the sideline.

And I'm like, I don't know why they called pepper. And they went to you. I was on the right side or whatever, the left side. They're right. And he's like, no, you missed the whole thing. Salt, you're white. Pepper. I was like, oh, it makes sense now.

Even the craftiest of minds get caught. Oh, my gosh. It was so funny, man. Dude. I mean, yeah, there's definitely like a crazy amount of you calling out those plays. Like what do you think your batting percentage was on those? I think if you feel good about it, like I remember we played Tampa in 2015, and they had a toss play, and it was Tulsa.

And I remember we were, it was a check they talked about. We were, it was like on a third down maybe, and we were all mugged up. So Thomas and I were both mugged up. We had a safety mugged up. So we were, you know, if they had, and they had a front side bunch. And so if you just down balk, pin and pool, the off-the-ball defenders that are supposed to make the play are never going to get there. It's like throwing a screen out of a mug look, like a wide receiver screen. And I remember he gets there and James comes up and looks around and he's like, all right, we got a double mug.

All these guys are in a line of scrimmage, safety's down, showing off the backside, the rotational guy and the nickel's showing up because it's a bunch because he's got to press the point. And he checks Tulsa. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. perfect yeah and so we pull we pull everybody out and bump everyone plus everyone front side just totally get out of the blitz we're supposed to be dropping defensive tackles it was like a sim pressure and we just told all the defense i'm in like go don't drop it's a run it's a toss go and one of the guys i think jared allen made the tackle and i just i was so happy it's like it all work you know you get that one play get that one play get that

one play you make based on film and you just like it's all worth it yeah yeah all the preparation was worth it for sure and td was great at that td watched a ton of tape too so we had a good little combo when you get to those games the amount of preparation you put in knowing like alvin kamar when you're like this i'm going to attack him so i know regardless like my process has been correct yeah did you have nerves before the games or was it like haze in the barn oh i was always nervous yeah like you want to you always want to get in the flow as fast as you can of the game. And the longer you're out of the flow of the game,

the less you feel like you're a part of the game. Yeah. So you can prepare all you want, but you want to get into the flow of the game as quickly as you can. And if you're not in the flow, you feel like you're floating. And I hate that. So you're always nervous to go in the game

because you don't know. Each game feels different. Like it feels different from, you know, the surface is different. how the team you play is different. The coordinators are different. How they want to attack you is different. The players are different.

The run game's different. Everything feels different each game. And you were always like, I don't know about nervous. You're anxious to like feel the game and feel like you're a part of the game. And until you do that, you're kind of like, damn, like I need to get in there. Need to get in there. I need to feel somebody. I need to like a little action early in the game.

With that thought process, was it better for you in your mind to go three and out your first defensive drive? oh boys we got them three and out or like a nine eight nine play gritty drive where maybe they kill out points but like you know the kid this next drive i'm i feel like i'm immersed in this game now so i feel a whole lot better i think it depends on if you get if you get a if you get a piece of something really yeah yeah like you got to get a piece to me the piece of something like if you make a if you make a good tackle like on first or second or third down or like first or second down you make a you make a good play like around the line of scrimmage in the run game you're like all right i got like kind of first hits out of the way i'm good or like you get a like you make a good

on third down, you get a stop, we're off the field in like a three and out, or, you know, you just, you're in the mix or like, you feel, say they're on power and you like, you like, you like stick a guard and you force a guard, you're like, all right, I'm in good shape. But if it's like pass, toss, run away, incomplete on third down, you're still like, like, itching a little bit. Yeah. You need to get like, you need to get a piece of something. Yeah, you need to feel somebody.

Yeah. Talk about the pain from the Super Bowl. Yeah. And have you forgiven Cam Newton for another? jumping on that phone. Oh my gosh. It was it the further you get away from it the more you appreciate it like how special that year was how much fun we had how good our locker room was like all the games that we played in that were so fun the the city of Charlotte was awesome like the media coverage of that season in the locker room it was like anybody that was anybody reporter wise was in the

locker room every week we didn't lose a game until Christmas we played on Thursday we We played, yeah, here we go. Played on Thursday night in Jerry World down in Dallas on Thanksgiving. Oh, buddy. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Yeah. That was my favorite game to watch of you. I'm like, you're like a proud father and I'm your son.

It's like, you just got like super comfortable in that chair. Because we'll talk to the Cowboys. He usually has a dim light on it. So it's nice to see him light up with the Cowboys. Just as a backer and appreciating and respecting the game that we played. Like watching, getting. to watch that Thursday night football game because again you're not like watching everybody else like when you're playing on Sundays but knowing that you had there was dedicated time like on holidays to

where it's like oh these teams are playing today and watching you against the cowboys those two those two picks you had back to back I've sat there and I was trying to get everybody in the room enthralled like do you guys understand what just happened you being a Tampa two player and them trying to run you out clear you out for that deep dagger by one and you coming down to pick it off after you already have your responsibility taken care of. That is art. Oh, you're coming back. You're kind. Coming back the next series and knowing you're in a cover four responsibility with wit as the tight end and they're trying you over the top without any safety help and you picking that ball off getting your head around. That's art. And I just want you to

know that I need you to hang around me and talk me up a little more. I obviously you have all the, you have all the accomplishments in the world, but just like some of those plays and you're just talking through Tulsa, knowing you're mugged up and everything else. I appreciate the art that you put on display. It was, I appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, sorry, I'm getting real juiced up right now. But these plays right here, boys, like you guys need to lock in. The guy that made the play was Thomas.

So we were in a sim pressure. So basically what was supposed to happen is TD was supposed to blitz, and we were supposed to drop the defensive end to the field. So Romo saw the pressure. So he's like, all right, the hook player, it was just sim pressure cover three. The hook player is a defensive end. So I'm going to throw this dig right behind the defensive end.

So Romo Romo checks protection, swings everything. So Thomas is like, do we need to get out of this? They just push protection to me. It's a bad matchup. So he checked, Thomas looks at him. He's like, hey, we need check cover two.

I was like, all right, cool. Let's do it. So. Who's at the green dot? I did. But Thomas and I and like Roman and Kurt Coleman, it was like, it's just a discussion. Yeah, it's just a discussion. It's crazy that you guys have enough time to have.

a discussion as well. That's wild to me. T.D. and I had like a, hey, he's like, he just miced. He wanted to go to cover two. And I was like, you want to? He's like, yeah. I was like, all, cool. Check cover two. So like, you've got time. And then this play is like one of those plays that you talked about. Like you always want to get this play in cover two. And it never works out that way. Right. Like either you're a backside hook player or you're blitzing or it's man coverage and it's just one of those plays where it's just right place right time like it happened and you're taking a shot oh yeah you're like kind of like you're you're you're trusting look at witton look at witton he's yeah he's wide open yeah but again you're trusting your you're trusting you're

can you go back to the top of the play and a lot of it starts too with it's like you starting high and trusting that all right romos went through this progression and where now i'm going to take a shot and leave the middle of the field to go pick off and then the dagger the other thing is ben it so bennay benwickery is playing, he's one of our corners, he's playing at the, I think the same at the bottom of the screen. If you don't get a good jam on that guy, then I can't see the release. So the release by one, if he inside releases and you get a clear out and then a sit, look at the jam. Do you see the jam by B'nai? Yeah. So the jam slows it down. This is what we're talking about. Yeah. He gets the good jam, pushes him inside, and puts those two guys on levels and slows him down. So the

progression for Romo is slower. Right. So he doesn't get to dot that ball when he wants to. But I get to see inside release by one. I can see the sit by two. And then once he puts his foot in the ground, I'm like, all right, I'm clean. Like, I'm good. Because I know that once his inside release is coming, he's probably going to run an incut and that's going to push Roman to that over. Right.

So then you're like, like you said, you're kind of, you're kind of taken like a calculated chance a little bit. Yeah. So as the Mike backer, you have the middle of the field. Yeah, Tampa, too. You see how to bail out and you're deep. Yeah. And his backs to the quarterback.

So again, he's taking like a calculation. just coming out of the middle of the field. And so why at that point? You know, it's like you're jumping the fat lady when the pretty one's behind you. Yeah. Why at that point are you like, okay, I'm safe because you know your safety's now coming back over the top

to help you out? Yeah, and you kind of know where that ball is meant to be thrown. The ball's meant to be thrown to the dig. Got you. Because Romo in his mind is still thinking you guys are in a simulated pressure where the end's gonna drop and that guy's covering him.

I think he probably knows at this point that we're not. I just think he probably is like, oh, I got Tampa. the hook player jumped the the little in-and-out route the whip route so i'm just going to throw it behind right so i had a little bit more time to kind of feel it out because bena got such a good jam he slowed the progress that guy really got him inside so like it's it's one of those things like you don't just make the play by yourself really good jam right we had really good pressure that whole that whole game we hit him a bunch so like that clock gets sped up and then um thomas great awareness by

him of like getting out of that yeah you have incredible course quarterback answers of shouting out the team throughout the entire answer. I mean, it's like what Romo is seen is like he knows as the hook player sitting there, he's like, oh, this is 100 out of 100. I'm going to hit this clear. Right. I'm going to hit this dig over top. Because you can see right here, even with you covering the stampout.

Like that almost seems a little open to me, but he's throwing right here. Yeah. And that where him, he's like, oh, there's no one because he's expecting you to still go up because. Because right. Yeah. Avoid in the middle of the field. Yeah.

Nickel is moving out towards that whip. So that ball is supposed to get thrown between the numbers in the hash, right? that dig that's the dig window so he's like i'm in good shape you know yeah and i'm sure we're not able to show the screen like during the youtube so anybody that's curious is uh tony romo throws an interception to lukely looked at play up yeah you'll be able to show like stills yeah because that is that is art like that's the beauty that's the game within the game that kind of like people see and like wow lukele is amazing but for you to like give us what td was saying the the jam all that like that is

That's good football. That's a good 11 guys getting after. What are you going to say, JP? It's so funny how he's like, you know, we had time. He bumped him and put him inside. He gave me more time. It's like, this is happening in four seconds. Yeah.

Yes. Which is just so crazy because you're not supposed to be anywhere near that ball when it's thrown. Yeah, it just, it's cool. It just all fits, it like all fits together, you know. Was there, and I hate to bring this up again, any chatter about Cam Newton, not jumping on that fumble? Honestly, no. No one ever said no one ever whispered no his His toughness we never questioned it

The guy never never complained There's a first guy in every day He worked so hard Never never yelled at guys never threw guys under the bus Like talk about a dude that just all he wants to do is play football And it's just a that was just a bad game for us We just didn't play it we didn't play our best game that Bro yeah seeing cam Newton on the field

There's like there's like a few guys is Calvin Johnson comes to mind, but seeing Cam Newton dressing on the field. He looks at a creative player. Yeah, he's like an action figure out there. He's like all of 6-5. Everybody's 6-5. Well, he's taller than 6-5.

We saw him at Power Slap, and he was eye-to-eye with me. I felt like he was taller. He's got that hat, too. He's got the hat. He's got the hair now. He's like, he's like seven feet tall with all that. Yeah, no doubt. He's not getting any rides.

But that's interesting you say that because the way he's portrayed in the media is that like he's a cat that seems like a very much an eye guy. When he's on ESPN, he said, I would rather have my MVP trophy than a Super Bowl trophy. I'm not getting that same vibe as I'm getting from you. You were like, oh, he's a team dude. Would you give up your defensive player of the years for that Super Bowl?

Yeah. The Super Bowl is like the mecca, man. Yeah. You know, that's all you want. It's not even a quest. You just want to win a Super Bowl. He looked at you like you were dumb right there. He's like, what were talking about?

I tell you what? Toughness, competitiveness, love of the game of football, love of the Carolina Panthers, like, Cam, just tough. You never questioned, is he going to play hard? Like, you never questioned that. You might question, like, what is he going to wear? But the dude competed. He played so hard.

Loves football. Just tough and competitive. And it just, it also, clearly he knew what was going on, but it's like that, what is it, that clip of that play where somebody's trying to call out something. Somebody's trying to call something. He's like, I see what you're trying to do. Yeah. Oh, you like that?

Watch this. Oh, that was Clay, man. Yeah. Because Clay's like, watch that wheel route. He goes, oh, you watch film. Me too. Watch this. And he threw that ball to McCaffrey.

But like, it's interesting. So Cam, it's like he can, he remembers like everything. So they had a signal, him and Greg had a signal for like, it's like a route that he ran. Yeah. And Cam's like, hey dude, like we got to switch it up. We've run this too many times. like everybody knows what it is and Greg's like all right what do you want it to be and cams like ah I don't know we we did this like four years ago against Atlanta and it was like the

third quarter and you know it was like 10 minutes ago in the game and 10 minutes ago and third quarter and I gave you like this signal like that I don't know that's cool we just want to do that Greg's like whatever yeah and like I like went and looked it up and I was like whoa like he was spot on he was like pretty daggone close yeah so but him and Greg had a really good connection. Like Greg has such a great feel for, you know, space and timing and windows and just he was really good at a lot of things. Great. He was big. He'd catch everything. Could run, block, never came off the field. But he had such a good feel for like where to be, how to get there, how to stem guys. Like he was so good at that. And Cam and him had such a great connection that they could

just kind of look at each other. And they both knew what was going on. They'd line up in this set It was a three by one set. So Greg, they called it one by three. Greg was backside. And you could line up and cover three, cover four. It didn't matter. It was basically, man. Because it was just Greg in a corner or a safety by themselves.

And they just look at each other and figure it out. And it was really cool to watch. But a lot of it was just, Cam's super smart, remembers everything, tough, competitive. And it was fun to watch him and Greg play with each other. How was it being in the mix of the O'Dell Beckham and Josh Norman? Oh, my gosh. that was like peak Josh Norman Yeah yeah

And that was part of Josh's game I remember when we played Dallas him and Des are going out of the whole game And that was part of Josh's game And you know It was we were in it And they let and I'll tell you what They let those guys play a little bit

Until there was a couple There was like one or two instances Where like they had to separate them Yeah, O'Dill went head-to-head missile shot after a play That one that one was insane That one wasn't great but that Josh was another guy. Josh, great feel, great feel smart, unbelievable ball skills in ultra competitive.

Ultra competitive. So that was a great matchup for them. Josh played fantastic that year. Josh was exactly what we needed in our defense. Like long, rangy, great ball skills could compete competitive. He was really good. That was an interesting game. We were up a million points.

And they came all day back. Odell actually caught a ball there at the end of the game to tie it up, and then Cam went down and Ganoe kicked the field with a win-it. But it was like, we were there, Josh and I have a good chat here. You try to tell him to keep his cool? I said, hey, keep doing you, man. Yeah. We had him at Washington.

His ability to punch the ball out, the peanut punch. He learned it from peanut. Yeah. So Josh, Josh was always around the ball. Then peanut came in 2015. And Josh was like his, Josh, I think, saw that and he's like, huh, like, I can do that. And he just had, it's a timing thing.

You know, it's a timing thing. It's an opportunity thing. He was just really good at it. So, he was a stud at it. Peanut was awesome. You talk about a teammate? Oh, my gosh. Great teammate.

Oh, my gosh. I love that guy. You guys had some fucking dogs. That was, man. That's Super Bowl year. So it was cool. I mean, you always. He's about Jared Allen, too.

I'm like, oh, shit. Yeah. Jared played for Kiran. Yeah. We had Jared Allen and Peanut that in that 2015 year and then Roman Harper. So Pepp came in. I remember the first time I met Pepp, I was like, oh my gosh, it's Drew's Pepper. Yeah.

And dude, he is a monster too. He's big, but he's very, he's proportional. So like when you see him from a distance, you're like, oh, he's big because he's so proportional. And the closer you get to him, you're like, oh. Yeah. He was pretty stout. I was so happy when we played Joll and he was, I think he went back, right? He played and then he went to the Packers.

So when you played us in 15, he was in, he was in Green Bay. So he went Carolina, Chicago, and then Green Bay, and then at the end, he came back to us. Because when he, that was like his last year, right? His last two years are in California. His last two years. So when we played, I mean, he put his hand in the dirt. I'm looking at my form and his form. I'm like, this is not the same.

We're not playing the same game. Him and not. But he was in that, he was in that mode of, I'm going to pick and choose my shots to kind of win to really go hard. But he was like playing the game. love. I was so happy about that. Just so talented man. Yeah. Him and guys like Suggs too like just kind of like understood the game at a level where like they knew when it was time to turn it on and not like on that older age was just so cool to see. And then another guy that was a freak athlete, Shaq Thompson. Shack. So you're mentioning all

those vets and yeah, Shaq Thompson had the ability to, he had a lot of range. Oh my gosh. So it was interesting. They bring Shaq in and he played running back linebacker safety at Washington. and we bring him in and Thomas was playing Will, I was playing Mike, so there's not a ton of room, but we're like, we need to get this guy on the field because he's so talented, he does everything well, and he was super smart from the day he got there.

You tell him at one time, he got it, and there's guys that can memorize and there's guys that just have great feel for the game of football and how to play and competitive and effort. Shack showed up in the day that he got there, he had all of that. And so we need to find a way to get them on the field. So we would play them at nickel.

Right. And we called it Buffalo. And it was just like a, it was just a package we had. It was like a big nickel. So we could play all of our nickel calls, but have a bigger body in there. So we could like blitz him. We could play five down with them on the line of scrimmage. We could play zone coverage.

So then there was really no matchup issues. But we were able to get them on the field and highlight what he was able to do. and it was just awesome. Yeah. And he's a great, he took so much pride in being the young, because our room was good. So it was like Thomas, A.J. Klein was a really good player. Yeah, because he was a fourth rounder that.

Yeah, he was Iowa State kid. Was he 2013? 13, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was my year because he sat behind you. But any time, like, you would be down and he'd come in, he'd light it up. Like, he got to go on and take a contract to get bigger money. Yeah.

With New Orleans, right? New Orleans, yeah, with New Orleans. So AJ would put. play, Shaq would play, but our room was like established older guys and he came in and it was like his mission like, I'm not going to let any of you guys down. So like that's how he prepared. That's how he practiced. He's like special teams, never complained ever. Just a good guy that like got it. So that's he's got a great career. Yeah, fires me out. You guys did have just a hell of a room. Yeah. I'm sure like AJ, you know you just got to be itching to get on the field at times like playing behind somebody like

yourself or just knowing you're not going to be seeing the field unless an injury or something like that happens because AJ was a stud at Iowa State. And again, anytime he came in during a stint that you'd be out, like he'd light it up. Like he was a hell of a middle linebacker. Yeah. I tell you what, you give those guys a lot of credit too because he was like the first guy in wherever. So if his need to be will, he could play Will. If he needed to play Mike, he could play Mike. If he were playing, you know, three backers in like a base look, he could play Sam. And you know, you don't get reps at practice. Right. Like, you don't get any. So. So he had to show up and lock in in meetings and go to practice and, you know, do his thing there and then go run down on teams.

And then, oh, hey, somebody, hey, Luke's out. Like, go play Mike Backer. All right. Well, next week, TD's out. Luke's back in. All right, now you've got to go play Willbacker. And it's like, he never lost a step or like had a mental blip. He's just, it's impressive, like, those guys that are able to do that at a high level.

Yeah. Dude, what was so fascinating to me is watching your career and like, when you, when you started like four, five, six, started to sustain a couple of injuries, your ability to kind of tick your head out of it but still be so productive. How does that like transition for you? Because it seemed, at least from me on film,

obviously, like, okay, this guy's not putting his face in as much, but he's still finding ways to manipulate blocks and be just as productive. Which you kind of nailed it. Like you, the order you get, like, physically you slow down, right? But it's like, like physically you slow down, but like mentally you learn more. Yeah, you surpass your physical.

ability with mental ability. Yeah. So then you're like, I don't need to, I don't need to go smash that guy. Like I know where his point of attack angle is I know where mine is Can I speed him up? Can I slow him down? Can I get him playing at my speed? Like my advantages are I'm quicker I'm faster I might be a little bit I might have a little bit more like quick pop than he does if I get a dog fight with him He's bigger, he's stronger. He's more powerful. I'm gonna lose like nine out of ten times So it's like how can I manipulate a block in the sense of like if I need to get there And I can get you to slow your feet down or stop your feet now I can speed up faster than you I can slow down faster than you.

I can speed up faster than you. So instead of like trying to run through your chest, if I can get you to stop your feet doing boom, I can just get past you that way. So it's like how can I, you don't want to hit a million guys in the game. I just wears you down. Yeah.

But there's an ego element to it. Like Mike linebacker being a thumper like you could hit. Like was there ever point where like I don't want to give up this part of me, but I know it's the best from my longevity. Yeah. You just like you got to, you love the game of football. Like you better figure out how to play it as long as you can.

And that's just kind of part of like, like just kind of part of the game, you know? Talk to us about how when you were first starting to sustain the concussions. Like if I'm a teammate of yours and you get dinged the first time, oh, Luke, he's got a concussion. Second time, Luke's got a concussion. Third time when a pattern starts creeping up and then you're coming into the cafeteria or something. And it's like, hey, what are you learning?

Like talk about that time as a pattern starts to show itself with your head injuries. Because there's always a point of feeling like vulnerable, like almost like mortal. And two, like when you're getting stuff like concussions, you know, there's a part, anytime you have an injury and you're coming in the room, you feel like you've let everybody down. Or like if you have an ankle, right,

or a high ankle sprain. And guys might be like, you know, they're not questioning, can you go? But in your mind, you're insecure enough to where you're like, I hope these guys know that I am facing something pretty bad right now. I'm just not able to be on the field. But yeah, talk about the head injuries.

I think a lot of it is what you learn. And, you know, like you said, you're 25 years old. You're like, I'm fine. I think a lot of it is with the concussion stuff, it's like you need to be as honest as you can as you can with yourself and with everyone taking care of you. Because if they don't know how you feel, they can't help you. So like the more honest you are with them, the better and the quicker you can come back from whatever you have going on concussion wise. And that's what I learned, you know, probably the hard way is like our doctors are phenomenal.

They took great care of me. They did everything they needed to do. And I just wish I would have learned from an earlier age to be more honest with them. Because you got to get all the way back before you can go play again, right? Yeah. Like there's no, like, say you have like a wrist that's bugging you. You can like tape it and like, like, okay. Yeah, it's got like a badge of honor when you're like when you have a little.

Like figure out. Like, where you do something to your finger like, all right, but like you don't really, you're going to be fine. Yeah. Versus your head. It's like you can't really tough it out. And the more you try to tough it out, the worse it gets. And then you start to realize like. why do I like you said you want to play and like you want to bring value to your team right

and then you start to realize like all right if I'm not honest and I go back out before I should and I get dinged again I'm providing less value to my team because now I'm going to be out for longer so it's like all right maybe it takes me you know two weeks to come back I'd rather be honest and take those full two weeks and come back then after we'd be like I'm good and like and you're not and then you get dinged again. Now it's five weeks. So instead of it being a two-week injury, it's a six-week injury,

and it's all because you didn't take care of yourself. Like, that's really, I think, what I learned, you know, probably not as quickly as I should have, but what I learned was the more honest you are with yourself and the more honest you are with the guys that are, their job is to take care of you, then the better it is for you, for them, for the team, for your, you know,

I just want to play football. Yeah. the faster I can get back to playing football. So it's like everything gets better, the more honest you are. Now, when you had the first one, like, how many do you, do you think that you had before that first one? I don't think I had zero. Zero. Like, for sure.

Like, 100%. Because you always wonder, like, well, I know if I get one. And then the first one I got was in 2015. And I was like, yeah, that's one. Yeah. So. And did that when you come back earlier from? Like when you're saying, I wish I would have learned.

it sooner. Because if you feel like you didn't have any before that first one, was there some of those early ones that you're like trying to in your brain tough and out? No. So that one was the first one and I was like, I was like, I need to like get my, I need to get better. And it worked out literally perfectly. So that was week one. And then I think we played, yeah, we played three games and we had a buy. So, you know, you got to two weeks into it. And our trainer's like, dude, he's like, you need to relax first of all because you're putting all this stress on yourself. So, Which just, you're not going to play next week. How about that?

And I wasn't going to be back anyways. But he like, I'd give him a lot of credit. Ryan Bermillion, he took all the pressure off me and was like, we're just, you're not going to play next week. And then the following week's a bye week. So like, you have two weeks. So just like kind of relax. And that happened and I was like, like, oh, like, okay.

So then I remember I went home for the buy week and I knew how to aggravate it. Like I knew how to give myself, a lot of it was, uh, oh, uh, exercise base, like heart rate base. Like if I got my heart rate up, then I would start getting like headaches. And I was like, all right, I feel really good. It was like Thursday of the bye week, Thursday or Friday. I was back in Cincinnati. And I rode up like a really hard workout.

And I was like, all right, this is like it. Like either I'm going to be good or I'm not going to be good. And there's like no in between either. I'm going to feel like crap or I'm going to feel really good. Yeah. And I hit that work on. And I was like, all right. I'm good.

And then I had a full other, a full another week of practice. So essentially you had like five weeks, you know, you're not really hitting anybody in practice. Right. Especially at that point. Yeah.

So, usually the third week of the more, third week in season. That was probably the best I could have handled it. And then moving forward, you just have a couple and you want to play. And so maybe you don't like, you just,

I didn't handle it as probably well as I could have. And like, it just, it was unfortunate, but like, now it's like you go talk to guys. You're like, dude if you get one like you have to be smart and you got to be honest with yourself yeah it's

such a difficult game you're talking about though because you have the hindsight of like looking back like when these guys like will and i talk about all the time like when you're in it there's like these blinders that are on your eyes and are solely focused on this thing and this is the main storyline of your life but everything else like the next 40 years of your life you're not even concerned about yeah well and you're also like the only thing i want to do is play football right like that's it like i just want to play football i want to be on the field with the guys like i love playing football on Sundays. And then this prevents you from doing it.

So you're like, I just won't play football. Like, I just won't play. I just won't play. I just won't play. I just won't play. And that cloud's your judgment more than like, really anything else. It's like, I just miss wake up on Sunday during football season and like, just like watching from your, my house.

Yeah. Like we played Tampa then 2015. And I remember sitting in my apartment, like the team went down there and I was just watching get at my house. I'm like, this friggin' sucks. There's no, there's no lonelier feeling than when a team, you're injured and the team goes on an away game. And you watch the buses. Hey, it's us, the Jonas brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news?

Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast. Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it.

We were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast, and for Mental Health Awareness Month, we're dedicating a series to understanding the mind when it struggles. I'm joined by doctors, researchers, and those with lived experience.

We'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel, about anxiety. I started living in my car and then my car got stolen. I was shoplifting. I was having panic attacks. I was agoraphobic. And making it through hardship. To be present is a learned skill and it's hard to be present.

We'll talk with John Nelson about clinical depression and the brain implant that saved his life. What I learned is that procedure made me happy because I'm disease-free. And we'll talk with leading experts like Judd Brewer about anxiety. anxiety and John Hirschfield about obsessive compulsive disorder and the science of how the brain can change. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations about what happens when the brain goes off course and what we can do about it. Listen to Intercosmos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Agency, the ability to know that we're the experts in our own body. On the podcast cultivating her space, Dr. Dom and Terry Lomax create a space where black women can show up fully and be heard.

I wholeheartedly think, you know, you hit 30, you shouldn't have to share room with anybody. Mm-hmm. From navigating friendships and healing to setting boundaries and prioritizing your mental health. These are real, honest conversations. We don't always get to have out loud. Totally unreasonable with different parts of life, right? Like, oh, have all three meals and make sure you're mindful during all of them? Absolutely not.

During one meal, I'm standing. I'm standing and handing my children food. Because healing, empowerment, and resilience aren't just ideas. They're practices. And this Mental Health Awareness Month, there's no better time to pour back into yourself. Listen to cultivating her space on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And you're like, you feel so isolated from everybody in your life. Yeah.

It's terrible. But then it's like, it's good perspective. It's like, what do you take from it? And it's like, all right, well, when other guys are missing games, like you got to have like, you got to check on those guys. Like, dude, how are you doing? Right. Because you know what's eating them up the same way.

You know, isolating it is. Yeah. It's like, dude, I feel you, man. Like, just get better. Yeah. Like get better. How many did you end up getting throughout your career? I don't, I don't know.

I mean, I missed some time. And obviously, fifth. 15, 16, I miss a game in 17, and then like, nothing that was like really, nothing like big after that. When was retirement starting to come into the fold? End of that 2019 season. Because you just like clip a guy and you're like, dang, like, I don't, it wasn't like, you know, you used to just go smack dudes. Yeah. And have no issues.

I would go hit a guy and I'm like, yeah, it didn't really feel great. And so then once you make the decision in your mind, like, you know, I'm not all. the way in it once like mentally you're you starting to think about it a lot in 2019 yeah like the last like the last game of the year i was like i'm done i'm done so that's when you made your decisions that last year after so it was week it's week 16 so obviously week 17's last week week 16 i remember being like yeah probably done so really it was your process of like talking to anybody or was it was just like i just remember after that game like i just remember after that game like I was like yeah you don't you don't got it anymore like you just you don't you don't have like you don't have it

what's your you don't have it because like like I'm you're listening to that I'm like still be playing right now yeah like you know you can't play I would been fine if like I'd physically slowed down like can't run as well like not as fast maybe I'm not as physical maybe like I don't have the same like fire I would have been fine with that and I would have like kind of just probably milked it out a little bit more like man I love playing but once I knew was my head and I'm like like mentally I'm like dude it's either yes or no like if you slow down you can like physically you can still play football hard and like play it fast and play with great effort but once I knew in my head mentally like it's not any of that it's like your head stuff now you can't you can't in your brain in my brain

and I couldn't rationalize, like, I can't play as hard as I want to. My effort's not going to be there. I can't be as physical. And once I knew that, I'm like, man, it's not fair to the guys and the team. And it's not fair to the coaches. And it's not fair to, like, the fans and myself and my family for me to go out there at, like, mentally 75%. Like, if I got to thump a guard and push a guy back to Jack to make a play,

and I'm like, eh, yeah. And like, I get widened and then and then the shack, the tackle's really hard on Shaq. Like, that's not fair to Shaq for me to like, no, especially mentally, I know the reason why I'm not stuffing that guy. Once I knew that, I was like, okay, versus like, I'm, you know, Sam's still playing right now and I'm 33 years old and I go to stuff a guard and like, that dude's 25 years old and he just malls me. like I'm like I mean I did everything right I tried hard I prepared in the off season like I gave it everything I had that guy's just a young dude and just beat beat me versus like in my head I'm like I didn't take him on as like I didn't hit him how I should have like I'm not with that like I couldn't I couldn't do that yeah it's knowing that your effort

wasn't my effort wasn't there and like that's not fair to like the guys in the team so I was like all right and yourself too like you have the stand in your head of how you play the game and how you want to play the game and you know like, not that you're half assing, but if you're thinking about that trying to smash a guard and you're like,

I didn't do this because of X, Y, and Z in my mind. It's just not fair to anyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so. I love that you're sweating on the bus with the boys right now. It's hot here.

Yeah, this is like, we need to have this outside. Yeah, well, we've had it out. We actually started in gravel parking lot. Yeah, in the middle of May. Yeah, dude, it's, it's so impressive to me because like, when I talk to you, when I listen to Utah,

I'm like, this motherfucker loves ball. Yeah. You could just tell. He's not just about himself. He's about the team. He's about everybody. Everybody else's job. And I can feel that from you.

And then you sit there and say, week 16, I knew I was done and that was it. Yeah. It's, what was that transition like for you? Because now you're going from a guy that I have, no doubt was 100% in on football's entire life.

Oh, hell yeah. To now you're, full service on the bus. He's a pool service, white glove service over here. This is a bus brand right here. You're 100% in and now you're waking up in the fall.

Yeah. And it's like, okay. You wake up an office. August and I know you're feeling. We've got it for a few years now. It's like you wake up in August and you're like, it's fucking great. Like there's a pretty few that's like, all right.

Like I know all them boys. 15 minutes out of my house are dying right now and I just woke up with my kids. You know, I might have a little breakfast with them. There's so many positives. But then there's those Sundays where you sit there and it's like 2.30 and the noon slates ending and you see your team catching a big win. Yeah. And it's like, fuck.

I miss what that locker room is going to feel like when they go back in there. Yeah. So my first year out, I worked with the team in the scouting department. So that was cool. And then on game days, I was in the booth with the offense. And I was the personnel guy. So, like, they'd come out and I'd be in charge of like, are they in nickel? Are they in base?

What kind of base are they in? All that kind of stuff. So that was, hell yeah. Look at that. We did upgrade and we go from paper towels to towels. It's great. I felt like a little air coming in, too. Luke, talk about your concussions.

Yeah, I sweat my ass off. So it was cool. I got to be at the games on Sundays. And the first year was like, damn, man, like, I still think I can play. And so that part was hard. And then the further way you get from it, you're like, like I do the radio with the team now.

I do the radio broadcast. And I go on the field before the game. And you see these guys run by you. And you're like, I'm good. All set. I'm good, man. Appreciate you. Like Tristan works.

He comes running by. And you're like, I'm all good. There was a video two days ago on Instagram of him squatting five plates for like three or four reps with ease. He's like the nicest guy in the world. Yeah, he's a great human,

Iowa cat. Like he's just a great dude. He's an athletic ability of a linebacker. Yeah. I can squat 700 pounds. I mean, we were filming that a couple years ago when we were at that Arizona Bowl and you're just seeing the guys

kind of warm up and practice and pop the pads a little bit beforehand and you're just sitting there thinking like, what the fuck? It kind of becomes like, yo, what psychopath would do this? Yeah, because once you get out of it, like, you get soft quick. You want to be the guy that's like on the team, but they put you on season ending IR.

So you're like, you get to show up, like, kind of have a job, but like you don't have to play. You can still travel. You're stress. Yeah. You're like, walk out to practice. You drink some coffee. But you're on the team. So like your way of life is like socially acceptable.

You know what I mean? Versus like if you get done, you're like, I can't just like go hang out in the locker room and like lift. Like, you can't do that. Yeah, like here comes this pro scout, Luke. Yeah. Yeah, you're like the narc. He's trying to replace us right now. Dude, you got to go bring a guy upstairs and get cut.

Yeah. That year. Did you ever have to do that? Brought one guy up. No. It was the worst. Yeah, talking about the year being in the pro scouting department. I tell you what, you learn a lot about the NFL.

Like, what plays, types of guys in the NFL, like, you learn a ton. And it was super cool. Like, I learned a lot and it was super beneficial. But it wasn't something I wanted to do long term. But, like, you really get to see. like what play like the difference between personnel in a three four versus personnel in a four three like body types like length what guys are looking for what plays what doesn't play types of running backs like you don't have a feel for that while you're playing because all you're do is studying

an opponent you're not studying like you know height weight speed size how they play what kind of football player they are and you learn like the whole league by doing that because we did we had to watch all the free agents for that season going to into the next year so then like now moving forward like you watch a guy and you're like man like we watched that guy for 25 minutes and graded him and wrote a report on him and like it's it was really cool what was it like cutting or bringing him up not cut him what was his name like like lu kears your first one it probably was a linebacker i remember it was a corner um and i remember just walking up there and i remember i walked into the gm's office and i'm like hey look like i'm down to

to do a lot of things like kind of don't want to do that like after after the fact that yeah i was like guys like i'd rather just like not do that i feel bad because i'm like i know how hard it is to play and like and make the roster and feel like you're on the roster and then get cut like you see all your buddies do that throughout your whole career and you're like man like i'd rather not be that guy that has to do that and they're like they're like yeah sorry we don't have to do that anymore i'm like like damn you know you got pulling the gym apologize to you yeah yeah my fault Luke's a grim reaper. Yeah, you're that guy.

You don't want to be that guy. No. Because you know you're standing at the door waiting for them to come in from practice and everyone's like, Luke, what's up, man? You're like, hey, can I talk to? And they're like, dang. Yeah, and one year removed. Yeah, I'm like, I'm sorry, dude.

Like 80% of that roster knows you as a teammate. Like you know him all as a teammate. So I got up, I got up there and they're like, yeah, we're sorry. Like, it's cool. I just rather not do that again. Yeah. Was this a guy that was on the team the year before? No, but he was a dude that's like, he was like a dude.

Like a dude in the league. while. Oh. And when you says something to him, was there any like common like man, you're the Green Reaper? No, I think he I think he probably knew it was common. Yeah. But it doesn't make it any easier. Yeah, but he was a vet. He understood the game. He was been in league for a long time and like, was a dude. So I think he's probably like, yeah, yeah, I get it. Luke's trying to study on how to cut guys. He's just throwing on money ball. Yeah. I mean, that's at any point during that season of you being a scout or doing whatever you were doing. Did they ever approach you and be like, hey, could you play a couple more games for us?

They always joked about it, but I was like, guys, like, you know how quickly you tighten up? Like Amshunds and quads? Yeah. And low back. Yeah. You know those videos of guys like running and looks like they get shot? Yeah. That would have been me, like, first time they run, you know, a seam ball.

I got to chase a guy down the middle of the field. Yeah, but you know the first game, the first game that Michael Linebacker didn't have a great one and someone made a joke to you. If you would have been like, yeah, I'd give it a go. They'd be like, are you for real? Yeah. My injury waiver would have been like this long. Yeah.

Yeah. I made that paycheck though. Hey, it would have been a league minimum. No, no, no, no, no. You would have yourself a little bag, pull that hamstring, I are the rest of the season. That's a dumb. You're on the week I are.

Hey, yeah, there you go. That'd have been nice. Bro thinks he's on the team still. Yeah. Yeah. That guy. Yeah. That is.

That would suck to be. Now, did you, were you in a point, too, mentally to where you're, uh, you're juggling or trying to figure out what you're wanting to do long term? Like, how's everything shaking up now? You mentioned your youth football coach with, uh, with Greg. So shout out the boy, Greg. You do radio stuff. But was there a moment to where you're like, man, I kind of don't, I have no clue

what I want to do and I'm kind of chasing some dead ends. I think you, yeah, I think there's, you don't know what you want to do, obviously. Like, you get done and like, like, like, perfect word, I would, I would have loved to have kept playing. So, like, I probably happened earlier than I wanted it to. And so then the process becomes like you have to just continually try stuff until you find stuff that you like. And then once you like it, then just keep doing it. And then if you don't like it, then you stop doing it.

But like you have to, there needs to be a concerted effort to if you're going to go do something like you got to go all the way in. Because if you tiptoe around it, you're not going to get the full experience. You're going to waste your time. More importantly, you're using somebody else's time too. Like if somebody's going to help you try to dive into something and you and you don't go all the way in. You're wasting their time. So it's like, all right, I'm going to go all the way in on a couple things. I'm going to try certain things out.

I tried the scouting. It just wasn't my thing. It was fun. It was just like, I'm not doing this long term. And then the hours are crazy too. Yeah, it's just busy. Then the next year I did the radio with the Panthers radio broadcast. Like, that's awesome.

Like, I really like that. So that's pretty much the whole season. And then the, the, the, uh, youth football stuff with Greg. So his son Tate's in that picture. And that's his dad, Chris. His dad Chris coached high school football in Jersey and just look them up. They didn't lose a game for like five years in a row.

Look them up. Google. Look them up. Just look them up. So we've been doing that for this will be our fourth year. So it's been awesome. Like we have a ton of fun with it. We coach at a school in Charlotte.

Charlotte Christian is a school. Check us out. Okay. And this, our first year coaching at Charlotte. Christian was last year because Tate, Greg's oldest, was in seventh grade. So we did coach Pop Warner for two years and then Tate got in the seventh grade. So then we coach at the grade school, which is attached to the high school. And then we'll coach again at the high school this year. So what happens to the current staff that's like, you know. So they kind of bounce back.

Kind of like, hey, Greg Wilson, Lou Keekely, they're coming in. So it's awesome. So it's really we got a new staff. Yeah. Yeah, right? The two guys that like make it run it are Greg and his dad. Like they're phenomenal. And then the other, we've got two or two or three other guys, three other guys. So it's Stu, Jonathan Stewart. Okay. Coaches of running backs, which has been phenomenal. It's just a crazy.

And then Todd Blackledge. So Todd Blacklidge is quarterback at Penn State National Championship. One of, was a first round pick. Now does NBC, I think it's NBC college with Noah Eagle, Ian Eagle's son. So he does college football on Saturday, big big game. So he did Ohio State Oregon last year. He's legit and he lives in Charlotte. So it's so much fun because I mean, Greg and Stu were like some of my best buds when we were playing.

So now I get to hang out with them. Greg's dad's awesome. Todd's great. And we just have a ton of fun with it. Would you ever want to call games like Greg does? Or rap like Greg does? Rap, right? I think so the radio, the interesting thing about radio and TV.

So radio, you really just talk about like what's happening in the game and like why it's happening. What I think is cool about TV is Greg does a phenomenal job of Setting games up And like what I mean by setting it up is like Talking about what he anticipates going to happen in the game Why it's going to happen What you know

Say it'd be like if Say Tristan Wirfs has missed the last couple weeks And he's back in the lineup Greg will talk about you know Tristan Worf's back in the lineup This is how it affects him in the run game In the past game This is where Tristan Worf's is really good

in the run game so maybe they're going to double up like Greg does it way better than that but you can really lay out a game doing TV because you don't have to explain what's happening every play because the viewer can watch the game and Greg is able to set it up early in the game and then really talk through situational stuff and get into you know really why things are happening and why it worked why it did he does a great job with that and I think that part would be really cool but I just have a ton of fun with the radio stuff. And like I told you guys, like, I just try to do things that I enjoy.

And I enjoy the radio. I think the TV would be really, would be really fun as well. So we just kind of see what happens. You ever... Somebody Burns you're right. You got out to Buffalo for some coaching.

Do you ever see yourself coaching in the league one day or trying to coach at a high level like that? I think it'd be a ton of fun. It's just those hours are like... Bro, they're nuts. It's like take what players do when they're studying all week long and coaches, man,

it's like around the clock. It's just all the time and like I'm just not ready to give up that much time. So it means answer probably not. Yeah. Yeah, the hours are crazy. I don't mean you the boy might I there. There's like an itch. There's an itch in there.

I don't know if it'll ever be scratched. You know what I thought I thought a lot about doing is doing it during OTAs. Yeah. So get out there in OTAs and like and be like hey these next six weeks like I'm in like every day. I'm in whenever you guys are and just do it. And then you'll know. By the end of that, I'm like, yes or no. Yeah, but OTAs is such a different vibe than camp and season.

OTAs is so light, the coaches are feel good. Everyone's kind of joking around. The minute you walk into the building July 25th or whenever that, you know, everyone goes into camp, but holes are tight. Not only that, but if you get behind the A ball in the season. Yeah. Yeah, you start out, you know, two and two, one and three. People just pissed off.

You're trying to navigate bad attitudes everywhere. It's difficult. Yeah. That's like one thing you don't miss is like the bipolarness of, coaches and teammates. You miss like that like, not stress, but like that pressure of like,

we gotta go, like we gotta go. Yeah, it's a big one right here. Like, we got to go make this. Like this is a big game. This is for a lot of reasons. Like you miss that like. The urgency.

That urgency. Dude, those week like week 14 on when your team's like on the bubble. Like are we gonna make the playoffs? Are we not? What do we control in our destiny? What teams have to lose? And it's like you're kind of with your little,

whether it's a linebacker group or me with the offensive line. It's like we got to do X, and Z to make a wild card. Dude, yeah. Happen for us. That's why you play, the band of brothers. December,

like, you want to be, you want your season the matter in December. Yeah. You know what I mean, you obviously wanted to matter in like September,

October, November, but like, if it comes December and you're like, hey, like, you're in the mix. And then anything can happen

in January. It doesn't even matter. Like, you're in the mix. Like, you're in the mix. It's all that matters. And now you got to just go play your best ball.

It's, that's the best part about it. That is. The worst feeling in the world is December and nothing matters. Yeah. And you're like, you hear the older guys, in my first two years, we won five games, my first two years. And I'm hearing older guys talk about Cabo and all these things are going to go on. And you're just still so involved.

Like, you think every game still matters. Yeah. What's going on here? Guys, that's the worst feeling. Yeah. Exactly. Play for the name on your back now. Yeah.

Anything. Just find it. You got to find it somewhere. Yeah, you got to find it somewhere. Yeah, dude, it's a, but you get those coaches to worry, you know, they might be on the outs. where they just start giving the play for the name on your back. Whatever you play for, whether it's your family at home. And you just know, hey, we're all in December.

We're done here. We're done. Whether it's a name on your front, your family at home, maybe the cash of the big account, name on your. Hey, it's us, the Jonas brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name? Huge news.

We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys?

I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast,

for people could call in and say, hey Jonas, and then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy,

not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast, and for Mental Health Awareness Month,

we're dedicating a series to understanding the mind when it struggles. I'm joined by doctors, researchers, and those with lived experience. We'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car, and then my car got stolen. I was shoplifting. I was having panic attacks. I was agoraphobic.

And making it through hardship. To be present is a learned skill, and it's hard to be present. We'll talk with John Nelson about clinical depression and the brain implant that saved his life. What I learned is that procedure made me happy because I'm disease-free. And we'll talk with leading experts like Judd Brewer about anxiety and John Hirschfield about obsessive-compulsive disorder and the science of how the brain can change. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations

about what happens when the brain goes off course and what we can do about it. Listen to Inner Cosmos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Agency, the ability to know that we're the experts in our own body. On the podcast, cultivating her space, Dr. Dom and Terry Lomax create a space where black women can show up fully and be heard. I wholeheartedly think, you know, you hit 30.

You shouldn't have to share one with anybody. Mm-hmm. From navigating friendships and healing to setting boundaries and prioritizing your mental health. These are real honest conversations. we don't always get to have out loud. Totally unreasonable with different parts of life, right? Like, oh, have all three meals and make sure you're mindful during all of them? Absolutely not.

During one meal, I'm standing. I'm standing and handing my children food. Because healing, empowerment, and resilience aren't just ideas. Their practices. And this Mental Health Awareness Month, there's no better time to pour back into yourself. Listen to cultivating her space on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. You're back.

Let that hard turn black when you walk out there. Oh, man. He's got to find it, though. Yeah. Yeah. This has been awesome. Yeah, it has. I was just going to ask if you have any hobbies outside of like the football world.

I love. I love to bow hunt. Really? That's my favorite thing. I get a little jow. You guys are out there. With some real hunters. With Rinella.

Yeah. Dude. He's a real man, too. Bro, they'd have you out there in a heartbeat. I love. That's another reason I want to coach. I love to bow hunt. Like white tail, elk, anything with the bow, that's like my jam.

I'm assuming you'd go out there to Montana. So, yeah, I love to hunt elk in Montana. And then New Mexico's a really good state too. Well, I'm just saying since we're on the airways right now, Garrett, Cal, Ronella, whoever's listening from meat eater. Yeah. Get your boy. They got a great concept. I hope you guys had fun.

Oh, it's a blast. There's so much fun. Yeah. I missed, but it was a blast. Yeah. Yeah, but you, that's part of it. But you pulled the trigger. I did pull the trigger. A lot of guys would stiffen up and I even pull that trigger.

So you did something. At that moment, the moment you showed up. I know. And it's fun too because Will and I, we don't, I look in your eyes and you talk about bow hunting. I just don't, I don't have that. But to go out with them and then, like, work us through like long range rifle shooting. I went and sat down and I went one for five on my first five shots. And I was like, this is going to be the longest couple of days in my life.

But then Gary starts sitting there working with me and he's like, try this, this and this. He's lining me up. They're great coaches. They don't make you feel stupid, even though they're like such bigger, better men than you are. It's just awesome, man. When it's like they're, these animals live in beautiful areas. Yeah. Oh, bro.

It is gorgeous. You go hunt elk. You're going to be somewhere sweet. Yeah. The mountains, the weather's beautiful. It's in the fall. And it's just, that's like my favorite time of year and they go do that stuff. It's just sweet.

What's been your longest like elk hunt to where you're, you're tracking it down? We did. So climbing mountains and shit. I usually hunt out of like an outfitter and it's usually, I haven't done like, the full like nine miles, 10 miles in on a horse and then you set up spike camp. I haven't done that. I'm going to wake up. I'm going to wake up early in the morning. I'm going to be out all day and then. Yeah. And then I'm going to probably come home. Yes. Is there one more? Do we have that? You don't have to read that.

You can just read the question. Okay. Perfect. We do have a Budlight question for you. Okay. People would do anything for a Bud Light. What would you do anything for? Oh, my probably my parents. I think probably my parents. Yeah. I mean, that's a wholesome answer. Dude,

it's, like, you think about your parents and like what your parents have done for you. Everything from growing up to high school to college at all my games in college

it came to down to Carolina. It's like your parents, my parents were fantastic. They set you up for everything. Everything was about my brothers and I. And so, yeah, you do anything for them.

They do anything for you, you do anything for them. I love that. It's a short answer. You got such a good heart. Awesome. Beautiful. So my parents.

How many brothers you have? I got two brothers. So there's a picture. Older brothers on the right, that's John. He lives in Cincinnati. There's my dad, my mom, and then my younger brother, Henry. Were they some dogs? John played football in lacrosse through high school.

And then Henry was a basketball player. Okay. Nice. I love that. Yeah. Do you, I'm sure you have. Who's that profile that has the Luke Keekeekly video where he's going psych, where he's going psycho?

Who's next? Oh, that. Somebody sent me that. That shit is awesome. That guy, that guy's crushes. He's next Danny or something like that. He's all time. That guy's hilarious.

Yeah. He is. Paul, anything that we've missed. We do have Paul Swan sitting in the back with the boys right now grinding it out. Paul was very pivotal in getting the boys in a creatine and intangibles group chat with Luke Keakley and myself. Creantine and Intangible. Do we got creatine on the bus right now? Can we take a couple shots?

I have some of the house. I don't know if I have some of my suitcase. we can take some later on when we get done here. Just put some up the pipe. That's that kind of creatine yet. Get some going, boys. No, no, the real creete team. Yeah.

Anything that I've missed with Luke? This is the all-American man right here. And that answer right there, I mean, that's just, that's gold. The parents one? Yeah. Wow. So I actually just got done hearing him talk about most of this when we were talking to Coach Lee over at Vanderbilt.

So he's been talking about it a lot today. Oh, yeah. Just diving in. Yeah. You know, he's on the tour right now. Breaking down to all the players, too, how to watch film, how to break down film. I'll tell you what, that, like, Diego Pavia, he's, he's like, got it. Yeah?

Like, it. He's a savage. What do you love about him? He's, like, he walks into a room, and he's the dude without trying to be the dude. And he can talk to everybody, you can talk to offensive coaches, defensive coaches. He understand, he's got, football IQ is great, ultra-competitive. He's just, he's that dude, like, he's got it. I love it.

You know what I'm saying? You can tell Luke's got his pro scouting background, too, so he can, like, talk about these guys. He's like, he's snap, his section snap. Yeah, if guys come talk to him, they'll be like, we need to find a way to get this guy around us. Yeah, because he is, he is electric. He's a football dude. He's a football guy. He just loves ball.

He loves a game. He embraces it. That's all he, you know, he's all about football. And, you know, those guys, they're hard to come by, you know. You still? I was going to say, did CMC have it when he first came? my gosh that dude was born with it that he is talk about a guy that loves football and all he wants to do is just be a good teammate play hard Christian the OG incredible white yeah he's

he is what another hall of fame not hall of first ballot hall of fame you talk about a guy that's a tough photo for CMC though it's a bad i mean CMC's a built cat that is a tough that's a bad that's a bad angle but yeah I'm so excited for him this year come back rip You're going to be a daddy too. Yes, shout out CMC. Let's go. He's have a great year. Hey, I'd be remiss to say, you know, listening to Luke is art listening to his football

knowledge, but your ball knowledge is, it's phenomenal. I appreciate that. I got to say. I do pride myself on some IQ. Some good linebacker. You might not think I played in the league a long time, but from the, I was a neck up. You are, I mean, you are looking thin. Nine years.

Nine years. What are you waiting right now? I was there for the 10th year, but, you know, the league said, no. credited season? No, because I had a gambling show so they wouldn't let me play. Look, did you ever come across Wilcofton film at linebacker?

Of course. Never take anything from his game? Yeah, absolutely. Effort, toughness, instincts. Try hard. Try hard. Blue collar guy. Yeah.

I'll tell you what it's those plays you break down. I don't like that shirt. I don't like that shirt you have on. Yeah. It's, like, hearing you two talk about plays happening that you don't necessarily make.

Like being mugged up in the eight gaffes. They got you in a bunch. They're checking Tulsa, putting you in a tall situation. Any type of situational ball awareness, it's music to my ears. Yeah. But I do appreciate that ball. We'll get you that year 10 if you want to come pit some race cars. That seems like a different life, too.

Do I have to be just... Can you do it with the gambling show? Yeah. I think you can do with the gambling show. Yeah, they'll let you play. I was down there to sign and rip. They're to sign and contract wouldn't go through because they're like, let's hold up. The NFL.

Goodell shut it down. Yeah, Goodell shut it down. Dang. When's Goodell going to come on the bus? I don't know. He's got an open invite. Does he? He can come.

Yeah. I apologize to Will for scrapping your 10. You had a good, you had a good number too. 5-1? Yeah, it's a great white linebacker. That's Sam Mills number. That number wasn't available. You see that pick right there?

Keller Moore. Week 17. Yeah, we'll cover. How many picks you in? What covered you in? We were in Tampa there. And we had somebody dropping low hole. Nice.

Because we knew he was going to try to work with. over the middle. Kellamore airmails it right to the bread basket. But hey, you know what? You had the hardest thing about the interception is you gotta catch it. Buddy, that was my first one. And when that ball was in the air,

and I saw that I could make the play on it. I was like, you better fucking catch this ball. I kind of just put the hands out there too and was just so high. Prayin to God. I hope these gloves were. You got sticky gloves or those offensive line gloves? What's up?

Those gloves you're wearing right there. Those stickies? Yeah, we don't wear, we don't wear offensive line gloves. I don't know. We're a little confident. You never know. I'm rocking this thing.

I can never get on board with the keakly wrist with the wrist braces, though. You all were always rocking. Dude, the wrist guards were money. Were you a wrist taper? Way bit of tape. Yeah, it's a little swaggier. It's a little bad. You brought up Jonathan Stewart earlier, too.

I did put him on skates in our game. It's just FYI. It was late game. You put him on skates? Oh, I murdered him coming through the A gap. Oh, got you. Yeah, not put him on skates, jukeed him out. Put him in the air.

Put his ass to the grass to the grass. We're late in the game We're getting our backs blown out by the Panthers But your boy, we're still playing for pride at the end of the game Was that black heart When you go out there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The heart was black in that play. Ran right through the B gap, right through the A gap and just murdered. Stu's gonna want to rematch after listening to this. I know.

He's gonna want to line it up. I don't got it anymore. But if you can find that clip, I will show you guys. I'm sure we can find it. Yeah. But this, hey, look, this has been awesome. Yeah, thanks for having me on.

Thank you. coming on. Been a long time coming, and this is big for Wilcom. It's big for myself as well. Love it. To see you two together. It's beautiful.

It's just great to get a Hall of Fame white linebacker just. We've had her lacquer on. Yeah. Dude would love to get Ray. He's got to get Ray. He's got to get Ray. He's got to get Ray.

You got to get this process out of a hall of fame white linebacker. I'm just saying like just the linebacker appreciation that we have on this bus. You got to get Ray Lewis on here. There's no better position. Yeah, we've had Fred Warner on that dude. Fred's that dude is a monster. Yes. You should get Roquan.

Pro Roquan is a monster. Who are some of the guys right now? You just named a couple. Roquan, Fred Warner. Oh, man. You got, I mean, LeBonte's still doing it. Levante, Bobby. Now you put me on spot here, and I got to be sure.

Demario. DeMario Davis has been doing it a long time. Yeah. Zach Bonn. Yeah. And him going, too, from transition from on the ball to off the ball. I feel like he's a heady transition for Zach Bond. You know who I like Nick Bolton.

Yes, bro. He just resigned with the Chiefs. I like Spillane, just to... Bobby Spar knows fit the A-gap. He just signed with the Bayes. Stack that power pole. Come on, baby. He's a son, too.

He's a guy. He's a guy. We should get him in here. We love Bobby Spalline on the bottom. He gets explained for sure. He had his third and one stop on Derek Henry, 20-20. On the goal line?

Put him on the map. How about Cooper de Jean stick on Henry? Wow. Yeah. Great form tackle. I mean, perfect. It was. It was nice.

Iowa guy. Iowa guy. I would just produce some corners. If you could go anywhere else besides Boston College, if you could go anywhere else besides Boston College, if you, if this is all going to end the same exact way, you couldn't go to Boston College. Where would you go? Probably Big Ten School. Yeah. Which one would that be?

Oh, I don't know. Wisconsin guy. You know what had been fun? Team up north? I mean, I'm not, I'm not going to say Michigan. I'm not going to say Ohio State. Those are the two easy ones. Okay.

I feel like playing line back. playing linebacker at Penn State. Oh, yeah. With like a sick, what are the sick? Cowboy collars. Paul Puzzlezny. Yeah, the Puzzleys, the butterfly collars sticking out.

Yeah, Penn State is awesome. Sean Lee, Dan Connor, Puzzlezny, Levar Arrington, Michael Parsons. They got the kid now, Abdul Carter. Yeah. They had some freaks there. Yeah.

You could have wore a black shirt. Yeah. Is that how I'm at the game used back there? No. Is that Nebraska? A nice one. Nebraska just reps. They're the classic, they're the classic end.

I love the cross. It ain't. Luke knows we stopped the mud hole on their ass for, what was it? The new, what was the ball? You know exactly what all that was. The pinstrike bowl. I don't know how to. The fucking pinstrike bowl.

He's waited the whole podcast to say. Yeah, just wait. That line. Big bad mowers bowl, whatever else call him. And he tried to pretend like he didn't know the name of it. He's been preaching after three months. They put that, they put that on the board up there. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I waited until we were up to hit the group chat to talk shit.

Yeah, it's all right. Will you like Bill O'Brien? Yeah, I like him a lot. Yeah, I'm a big fan of him. He is Boston College Football. Tough, physical, run the football. He's great. He did a great job last year.

I'm excited for this year for him. All right. Okay. Well, dude. Yeah. I see we got rid of our standing round of applause for Luke. There we go. Hats off.

Hell yeah. Appreciate it. Hey, this is awesome. Thanks to turn the air conditioning. Yeah. We were waiting for you to get us. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers.

I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. Nice. We invented a podcast?

Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We get to ask other people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is, getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is, getting a new one put up in its place. I'm Akila Hughes, and Rebel Spirit Season 2 is about both of those things.

As I was watching these statues come down, I was thinking about what it meant that I grew up in a majority black city in which there were more homages to enslavers than there were to enslave people. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Joey Dardano. And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite, I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with thoughtful solutions. Sike, I'm a comedian. I'm not qualified to give good advice.

Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to me. This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from Hippocrite Wednesdays on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.