Cameron Hanes - Keep Hammering Collective - KHC 025 - Derek Wolfe

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

Derek Wolfe is a former NFL player renowned for his remarkable career as a defensive lineman. Notably, he played a crucial role in securing a Super Bowl victory with the Denver Broncos. We discuss the intense world of professional football, including the challenges of balancing intensity and recovery, the cutthroat nature of the NFL, and the importance of strong leadership both on and off the field. Now retired, Wolfe’s legacy extends beyond the game, showcasing his love of hunting and powerful mindset both on and off the field.   Follow along: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronrhanes Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronhanes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camhanes/ Website: https://www.cameronhanes.com   Connect with Derek Wolfe: https://www.instagram.com/derekwolfe_95/ https://www.youtube.com/@WOLFEUNTAMED95 Thank you to our sponsors: Santa Cruz Medicinals: scmedicinals.com use code KeepHammering for 15% off Ketone IQ: https://hvmn.com/CAM use code CAM for 20% Black Buffalo: https://blackbuffalo.com/discount/CAM use code CAM for 15% off MTN OPS Supplements: https://mtnops.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% off and Free Shipping First Light: https://www.firstlight.farm/ Use Code Cam15 for 15% off your first order Leupold: https://www.leupold.com/ Black Rifle: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Use code KEEPHAMMERING for 20% your first order Hoyt: http://bit.ly/3Zdamyv Bass Pro/Cabelas: https://www.basspro.com Timestamps: (0:06:31) - Nothing Compares to Elk Hunting (0:17:15) - Balancing Intensity and Recovery in Football (0:21:29) - Insights into the NFL (0:27:17) - Hunting, Football, and Family (0:46:05) - Passion for Hunting and For Providing (0:50:21) - Elk and Deer Hunting Addiction (1:00:05) - Preparing for Hunting in the Mountains (1:13:30) - Meeting Celebrities and Appreciating Joe Rogan (1:25:44) - Politics and Fairness (1:31:24) - Super Bowl Victory (1:37:53) - Ownership, Leadership, and Expectations in NFL (1:46:02) - What Makes a Great Leader? (1:50:39) - NFL Defense and Teammates Discussion (1:57:43) - Positive Mindset, Shed Negativity (2:05:40) - Parenting, Goals, and Gratitude

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or order on their site using code keep hammering to get America's coffee today. Well, we're here with Derek Wolf all the way to Oregon from Colorado. That's like a two and a half hour flight. It's nothing. I know, but how badass is that you're here in my little hometown, Springfield, Oregon. It's beautiful here, man. The views here are incredible. Seriously.

Like I walked out into your driveway and was looking up into where those towers are. Caldite mountain. Yeah, Cobra Hills over there. Yeah, beautiful, unbelievable. Super green right now,

too. The weather's perfect. Yeah. It's nice up here. Oh, it's, uh, yeah,

I mean, these are about the perfect days. I think it was 80, some degrees today. It's perfect. You got a little sunburn. A little sunburn. It's all right,

though. Yeah. I'll be okay. But sometimes when you carry a rock. No. What about? What a great day? The next run,

shoot. It was so much, the concept is just incredible to me. Because most podcast, you know, you show up and you, and you just hang out and talk and whatever. But you, it's like interactive.

Like, I was like, I was thinking the other day. I was like, man, I was like, I hope I trained enough for this. I hope I'm working out hard enough, you know, to, because I was worried you're going to run me. Yeah, no. That's my message you was like, hey, how far are we running? Yeah. He said, don't worry, you're carrying the rock. Yeah.

I was like, all right, cool. I could do that. I figured that'd be in your wheelhouse. I mean, you're built for like carrying heavy shit. It was like to me. I mean, and you killed it. That rock looked tiny. It was fun.

It's heavy, though. It really is. go a mile with it, you know, it starts getting pretty heavy. And it's awkward. It's not like you're just carrying it. You know, you got to put it on your shoulder. Right. Or on your head. They're carrying on my head on the way down. Derek carried it on his head, which I've never seen anybody do that. Most people their neck would be like, I don't know, who knows what, compressed. 76 pound. I know, 76 pound rock on your head. Man, giant. You're a big dude. But yeah, you, uh, I mean, what a great day. Picked you up at the hotel who went and busted out

the mound. You carried the rock up and down, which nobody had ever done. Then we had course, French toast and bacon because we had to do that, but you also had six eggs. And then what did we do? We went to the bow rack. Yeah. That was quick. In and out. You made it easy on Wayne because you shot so much and you shoot well. So, yeah, you guys were all like, uh-oh. Yeah. You got there. We never know. Yeah. I mean, we've had all, we've had people who've never shot a compound to people like you. Yeah. It's a, well, that's the thing, man. You're introducing bow hunting to people that have never even thought about trying it. Right. And just like their audience being able to see that, you know, because too many guys get a bad name for being a bow hunter. Right.

You get a bad name. Yeah. Because they think we're just out there killing. Yeah. Just flinging arrows. Just flinging arrows at anything that walks by. Yeah. I don't realize what kind of goes into it, how much work goes into practicing. How much work goes into just getting a bow set up. Yeah. You know, it's a lot of stuff that goes into it, you know, all the measuring and making sure the draw lengths right. Making sure your arrows are right. You know, how many arrows do we screw up today? You know, they just, I know. You know, it's like anything could go wrong out there.

Yeah. And then what we do? We came back. Well, we went to Wains. And then we went to shoot. And went and shot at Wains. And I busted that record. Yeah, you did.

A hundred. And I guess we were, I thought it was 131. It was just under 131. But definitely over 130 yards. Yeah. Yeah. And it was interesting. Oh, it was awesome.

It was fun, man. I love doing stuff like that because it's so fun. It's so hard to do. It is. People don't realize how hard. Like 130 yards you're like, oh, it's not that bad. It's a poke. Yeah, you're aiming at the sky pretty much and sending it.

So we had, I mean, just fun in the sun out there. And then you broke the record. Then we stayed and shot 3D targets there, shooting trying to get tricky, shooting in the eye, shooting through the horn, shooting that one you shot through the horn at 60 yards. Yeah. I was impressed by that. I was like, damn.

That was impressive. Well, then you, you stuck one in what we had, the jackaloupe's ear. Yeah. Yeah. Stuck it right in his ear. Right in the ear. We both hit that one now. Yeah.

Yeah. But, man, what a great day. It was a good day, man. Yeah. And he came back and did the old ice tub. Well, no, we got a lift in. Oh, no. That's right.

We left, you broke all the records in the gym, too. We had a lot of, we did a lot today. We came in here, busted the gym, moved all the weight. Yeah. But on it, dude, I'm impressed by your strength. I don't know. Dude, 225, that's a lot more than you weigh. And you were busting those out for reps.

Yeah. I don't know. Nothing compared to what you can do. I mean, dude, I'm almost 300 pounds. You're a big boy. I played professional football. I moved people around for a living. To me, it's always impressive when, like, a smaller guy can move weight like that.

It does. It's impressive to hell out of me. Well, thank you. And then, yeah, then we did in the ice tub. Yeah. Well, I needed that. And I felt great. I know it did.

It brought me back to life. I'll think about carrying the rock again. Well, whatever you want to do. I'll be back. You'll be back. Yeah. I'll be back for that. You're back, break the record, all, every record out there.

But, uh, yeah, I mean, so here we are. And I guess how, I don't know, how we connected was, I guess through bow hunting, through social media. Yeah, that's really how it happened. Um, nobody introduced us, you know, we just, no, just started like, no, I started noticing what you were doing and hearing more about it and seeing this wolf untamed hearing about that of course knew you're going to go on rogan listen to that listen to a few of your podcast now i think i listened to um you were the go hunt guy or big hunt guys i think go hunt yeah go hunt um and i heard a great

story there about i think and you may have said it on rogan too about how killing a bull elk with a bow was a bigger thrill than sacking Tom Brady. Yeah. Is that what you said? In the AFC championship. It was bigger thrill than second Cam Newton in the Super Bowl. Really? I mean, nothing,

there's nothing in my life that I could think of that was like, as far as like an adrenaline rush and like a thrill and like a sense of accomplishment, then killing my first bowl. Yeah. And like putting my hands on and I cried. Oh. Like I don't cry really. Right.

Yeah. I cried because I've been thinking about that since I was a kid, man. And it's like a dream of mine as a bow hunter anywhere. If you bow hunt, elk or the, that's like the pinnacle, you know. Right. And then once you kill an elk, then you're like, oh, big horn sheep. Yeah. Well, for me, I killed a bull.

Then I'm like, I need to kill another bull. And another bull. Another bull. Yeah, I've been like bowl for some reason. I know everybody has our favorite species in different hunts. They prefer. But bull elk to me never get old. It's, no, it's the, it's the best hunt.

they respond back to you. You know, you can play mind games with them with the bugle tube and cow calls. And then, you know, it takes a lot of work

because once you kill the bull, then you got to get him out of there. Yeah. And that's like, to me, that's the reward. I get to pack him out. I know.

I, you know, I love even breaking down the bull after he's killed, you know, getting him. Deboning him. Yeah,

doing, taking care of it, making sure, like, when I take the meat to the processor, I have a lot of pride in making sure, sure that meat is clean, taking care of, perfect condition.

I love that whole part of it, packing it out, keeping it clean, doing everything that I said. It's just, it's just all part of the journey for me. And it's just, it never gets old. It's hard. It's fucking so hard. It's so hard. But I don't know, every year that if I get one killed, I'm like, thank you God for one more bowl. At least another season, I got a bull out down.

Right. Because you can't take it for granted. No, it's hard. It's hard, man. It really is hard. And people don't get that. I mean, they think you just walk out and step out of the truck. Yeah.

And people that've never done it and don't really know much about it, they do. They think you walk out and you pull the bow back and fling an arrow. Yeah. They don't realize you're hiking miles and miles and miles. And you're not hiking on a trail. No. You're hiking through some blowdown and all kinds of garbage. You might not see an elk.

I know. Because there's no way to tell. Your first one, didn't you go a few days? Oh, dude. I went three days. straight. We went 50 miles in three days. And it was hell. Not one bull. Not one elk bugle. That's rough. I mean, we saw some turds. We saw some elk turds and some tracks. That'll test you. How bad do you want it, right? And that's when I realized I love this. Like, if I'm willing to do this and not even see one,

but then I was, I kind of did the over the counter in Colorado because I felt like it's a right of passage, you know, to go out and cut your teeth like that. It's not a lot of guys will go buy a land and make it easy. Yeah. But I was like, I don't know. I don't want to do it that way. I want it the hard way. Yeah.

I want to see if I could kill one over the counter my first time. Yeah. And I was like, we're just out here hiking. We're not, we're just. Yeah. And it was fun, man. You know, we were sleeping in like a sprinter van. You know, me and two other guys in this tiny little sprinter van.

Yeah. You know, stinking and smelling. And then I went down to New Mexico. We wall tinted it. Slepping a little cot and everything. But it was like, might as well have been a king bed. by the time you get back from hiking all day. Have you ever stayed out?

Like, I used to call it bivouac hunting. I don't know if people still do, but where I'd have my bivvy camp on my back the whole time, everything I needed. And I just, wherever I ended up that day, I'd just camp there. Yeah, so guys now call it spike hunting, spike king of honey. So that was what we were going to do for the over-the-counter hunt. Okay.

But once we got up in there, we realized, like, you know, what's a four-mile hike to get up in here? Yeah. You know, it's not worth sleeping out in the woods, you know. Yeah. Might as well go sleep in the van. So we just did that. So that was the plan.

Yeah. So the first day, I had about 60 pounds on my back hiking around. Carrying everything you need right. I was like, don't need this, don't need this, don't need that. You know, I was like, get all this out of here. You know, so it was like, that makes you really appreciate these guys that go out, spike in for days on end. They'll stay out there for 14 days and get it done. Yeah.

Aaron Snyder does stuff like that. South Cox, those guys get after it. Yeah. And it's just, I got so much respect for that because it is not easy. Yeah, it is. It's hard. I think the, you know, like we were talking about that bull right there, that was, I killed that doing, you know, it was 12 miles from the trailhead.

But it's, there's a little bit of an advantage. If you can get past the, the hurdle of being alone, because a lot of people don't spend very much time alone. Yeah. I mean, it's tough. but if you can get past that and if you're strong enough or capable enough to carry your pack and all your camping gear on your back

it's you save energy because you're not going back and forth to a base camp it's like wherever you end up that night just bed down right there you sleep you wake and what I found sleep when they sleep sleep when they sleep but also you're out there you can hear where they're at so you hear those bulls bugling

because you're laying there sleeping the crisp cold air sound carried and you can middle of the night here in Bulls, sight, and they're not going to be well during the day, so it can be a big advantage to being out there. Yeah.

Even though being by herself is rough for a lot of people. Yeah, it's rough. It is, it is. It's to go days on end. I mean, you've seen that show alone, right? Those guys lose their mind. They do. They freak out.

They are thriving, and they start freaking out because they're alone. And nothing has changed. They're creating these issues in their mind, essentially. Nothing's changed. You know, if you can just get, away from it and just be like, no, this is my life right now. This is all I'm worried about is do I have enough water? Do I have enough food? Where I'm going to hunt? That's it. Life is so simple.

But we're not used to life being that simple. We're used to being distracted all the time. Well, it's constant stimulation. Yeah. You know, with screens and phone call. The cell phone has changed everything. I'm still young enough to, I'm still, I'm old enough now to know what it was like growing up without a cell phone. Right. I didn't get a cell phone until I got to college. So I know what it was like to not have one in high school. And I don't know.

I think it like preserved my childhood a little bit, you know, not to have that because it's still created human interaction. These kids nowadays, they got to text each other before they even like have a conversation face to face. I know. Like we used to just get on our bikes and ride around and knock on people's doors and be like, hey, can Johnny come out and play? No, he's not home yet.

Come back an hour later. Hey, is Johnny home yet? Yeah, I know. And that's kind of how it was. Yeah. But nowadays it's like, I'm not talking to them. I haven't even like texted them or DM'd them or anything. It's like, what?

It's so weird. It's just so strange. I have a 16 year old. So like it's just the teenager, the teenage like interaction socially is strange. I know. Now I mean, I think they're losing that. And that's especially like a sense of conversation or connection like in a discussion like this. When does this ever happen in real life?

You know what I mean? Not much. Not much anymore. I didn't realize. I didn't realize how young you were because you said, I said, well, I killed that bull or started a bohoney in 89 and you said, well, that's longer. I've been alive. You were born in 1990.

How crazy is that? I didn't know. So how old are you? 35. 33. 33. God. That's crazy.

And played in the NFL for 10 years and you're still only 33. Yeah. That's amazing. I've lived a lot of life. You have. At 33 already, man. It's super blessed, man, for everything. Everything I went through, it was all for a reason, you know.

It was all for a purpose to get me, to prepare me for those 10 years in the NFL. Yeah. And even during that career, you went through a lot with injuries and, um, but it, like, I was prepared for the adversity. Because it's been like, like, since day one, since, since the earliest memories are like adversity. It's like getting through something. Yeah. why I mean, why do you think you, does it seem weird that you're subjected to so much basically pain and adversity, but we're rewarded with your gifts and your talents to play in the NFL? Doesn't that, it's like the polar opposite.

Well, it's like, it's funny because you say I was, I went through all this pain and adversity, just to go through more pain and adversity in the NFL, you know. But at least make money doing it. But at least I was getting paid to do it. So it was like, hey, we got you, you know. the universe or God, whatever, whatever, you know, higher being that you, you talk to, there's a purpose. Everybody has a purpose. It's whether or not you're capable of finding that purpose.

Right. Are you capable of finding something that you love to do? Mm-hmm. Because when you find it, you know, you know it. You know it. You knew from a, you knew from the first time you stepped out in those woods and shot something with your bow, that this is for you. Yeah, I did.

You knew it. Did you know that when you started playing football? I knew it as seven years old. Teachers would lose their minds on me because they'd be like, what are you going to do when you grow up. I'm playing the NFL. And they'd be like, no, what are you really going to do? I'm going to play in the NFL.

So you just knew. And they were just like, whatever. Like, you know how rare it is for God to make it in the NFL? And I'm like, whatever, dude. I'm going to do it. Because a lot of kids do say they want to play in the NBA or NFL or whatever, but it is a pipe dream for most. It is.

But for whatever reason you were, you knew. I was gifted with size too. So I had the side. But there's a lot of big guys walking around. don't make it to the NFL. That's right. Because they don't have the ability and they don't have the mindset. And they weren't prepared the way I was prepared.

And you think that all that turmoil prepared you for the grind of the NFL. And it prepared my mindset. Because to play defense aligned in the NFL at a high level, you know, you've got to be fucked up. Yeah. You do. You have to be a savage. What do you mean fucked up? Because you've got two 350-pound guys trying to move you.

And then here comes Derek Henry. Right. So you got to be like, you got to be ready for that shit. You know, you have to take yourself to a different place. And I was capable of doing that for a long time. It got a little more difficult once I had kids. Like once my 16 year old is my stepdaughter. But it was even then, it was like coming home to be dad.

After doing that for, you know, 60 plays straight. Yeah. You come home and you're just like, how do I turn this off? Right. It's like being a gladiator. fighting in the arena, then coming home and trying to be a loving father. Yeah. Yeah.

It was like I found it to, I found it getting harder and harder to like turn it off. Yeah. Because I had to stay in it for, because you got to go to practice too. So you got to keep that mentality once you go to practice, you know, because there's guys are trying to, they're trying to win their job too. How, how were you able to do it? I mean, you just, you think it was just second nature because of how you grew up or did coaches help you?

I didn't want, I didn't, how did it, like, you mean flipping that switch on? Yeah, just, yeah, just being like full bore all the time on the field. Yeah, it was great coaching. Yeah. Great coaching. You know, great coaches always used to tell me that you practice like you play. Mm-hmm. Like, you get, you know, John Fox was one that told me this.

He said, you get paid to practice. The game is for fun. Right. Okay. And that was like, things like that, that resonates with me. It makes sense to me. Mm-hmm. When you tell me something that makes sense,

I'm all in. Let's go. Yeah. That means, okay, I'm going to grind and practice. That way when I get to the game, it's easy. What about would there be players who didn't want to grind like you wanted to grind in practice? Yeah, and they didn't do shit. Really?

They get to the game and they just don't, they're not a gamer. Yeah. Because they don't practice hard. And then those guys don't last. And they don't last. Because it's just a money-making machine, the NFL. Yeah. I mean, think about how many colleges there are around the country.

Mm-hmm. And now they have the, not only that, now they have the international program. Or they're bringing guys in from all over the world. I mean, it's only a matter. As soon as they get you, they're trying to replace you. Right. So what are you doing to keep your job? What are you doing to stay there?

Peyton Manning told me one time, and never forget it. He said, you either get better or you get worse. You never stay the same. Yeah. And if you think you're staying the same, you're probably getting worse. Because guess what? The other guy's working hard. Right.

Whenever you're laying in bed at 8 a.m., there's somebody that's been up since five, grinding. How do you find the balance between pushing too hard, and being smart about your body and recovering. So it's it's a it's a fine line. Mm-hmm. It is and I had great trainers because if it was up to me, I'll just keep going. Right.

And I'll and that's how you get hurt, you know, you get injured yourself. So having great trainers, having a great routine, you know, like off days and rest rest days for me, I still had to go do something. So it'd be like I might not be grinding, but I'm doing something like functional movement or something like just getting my hips open, up or stretching and doing this and that. But yeah, it's been a problem. And coaches always tell you, you know, be the guy that we have to tell to slow down.

Right. I always wanted to be that guy. I never wanted to be called lazy or a loafer or, you know, somebody stood around a pile this and that. You know, I wanted to be somebody that finished everything. Did any coach ever tell you to slow down? Yeah, they'll tell, yeah. Yeah, they do. And practice, yeah.

Yeah. You get a little too. Too wound up. Get a little too wound up. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, chill out. Like, we're just, you know, chill out.

But you know for the most part they love that you know that's what they want But coaches coaches aren't gonna tell you to slow down usually that's just not gonna happen yeah I was curious because you have to it'd be like on in private you know Hey chill out like you don't need to do all that yeah I'm sorry I don't know what else no because if they announced to the field and the guys who weren't trying like you were trying It's like oh yeah we need to slow down so then they weren't even achieving what they should have and yeah turn scaling it back and that's how I let I tried to lead that way that's I try to lead with with my work.

Mm-hmm. You know, all that talking and raw, it doesn't mean shit if you aren't doing it. Were you a vocal person? So you weren't that vocal? More like action, speak a louder than words.

During the game, I would be vocal. Mm-hmm. So I would like get, I would get on people's ass during the game. Like your teammates? Yeah, get on their ass,

you know what I mean? Because it's like, you know, I'll give you an example. I was in Baltimore. And we have like one of the best defensive backs in the league. And we stopped the,

we're playing Dallas. And we stopped Zeke on the goal. line three times in a row. I made to play all three times. And then on fourth down, they let him throw a touchdown. And I freaked out. I got to the son. I was like, if he runs through my fucking gap, that's all me. I was like, you got to cover these assholes. Let's go. And they all responded. They were like, you're right. He's right. Yeah, that is. I was right. That is deflating to stuff them three times in a row. Just to have him throw a little dump pass to a wide open guy that they just didn't cover. Yeah. Like, it just.

If you get beat, you got beat. Whatever. I'm cool with that. But a mental error in this, in a situation like that, no. Was it your best DB who got beat? I don't know whose fault it was. I just was yelling at them all. Gotcha.

But they responded to it. You know what I mean? They were like, I wasn't like being insulting or anything. I was just like letting them know that I'm showing passion. Passionate. Yeah. Like if I didn't give a shit, I just come and be like, oh, whatever. You know, I'm getting paid regardless.

Yeah. You know, but I care. I want to win. I understand. Yeah. So what happened with that game? We won. Did you? Yeah, we won.

Okay. And we had a nice lead anyways. That was, you were with Baltimore. Baltimore at that time. Oh, yeah. Okay. It was in 2020. Okay.

Yeah. So it was a COVID year. So we're playing games without fans. It's already like, you've got to bring your own energy, man. Yeah. There isn't 80,000. There aren't 80,000 people out here screaming. No.

You want to talk about weird? Yeah. Lining up against Cleveland that first game. not a single fan. Not one. Did it feel like practice? Yeah. Yeah.

You could hear everything the quarterback was saying. Baker Mayfield's back there making all these calls and I'm like, wow. I can hear everything he's saying. Yeah. This is strange. Who won that game? We won. Yeah.

Yeah, we won that game. Was Baker any good? He was pretty good. Yeah? He was surrounded by a lot of good players too. Okay. I think that it just didn't work out there. You know, he just wasn't the guy.

No, they had like Nick Chub. They had a pretty good running back for a while. Nick Chubb is really good. Yeah. I mean, dude, he's good. He's hard to tackle,

man. And then, yeah, I was kind of, I was always, for whatever reason, sort of a Baker fan. I don't know why.

I like, he's a good dude. Personality. I like his personality. I got to meet him a couple times and talking, playing against him. He's like always chirping.

Yeah. You know what I mean? But he's like shows respect whenever, you know, you make a good play. Like, to me,

I don't know. I love that out of a guy. And he reminded me of Brett Far of a little bit, too. Like, Just like a gunslinger. Like he's just out there trying to make plays. Yeah.

He had attitude in college. Right. You know, and then he goes to what happened last year when he goes to L.A. I know. That's what I was going to say. And learns the playbook and just blows people out. Yeah. He won his first game.

Didn't he? Yeah. First start or something. He was there for 24 hours. He was on the plane right out there reading the playbook. Yeah. That's amazing. That's different, man.

Not everybody can do that. No, that was cool. That was a pretty fun game. But then I think the next game he came out. didn't do anything and they lost. Yeah, right? Yeah. It's hard to say that.

Well, that's the thing about the NFL, man. Yeah. And I try to tell people this. The game planning and so we used to call us this thing FBI. It's called football intelligence. And we also had like, we had like the CIA guys that would watch the film, watch the watch the TV copies to pick up on like vocalization of what this play is and what that play is and what this formation means. So it's easy to get a read on a guy.

Yeah. So like by the end of the season, you got the TV. team figured out. Right. So you've been game planning. Your scouts have been game planning all year and getting things ready for coaches to like go and go through and look at it. And then a new quarterback comes in.

Okay, now that's all out the window. Yeah. You don't know what you're going to get. And that's why he was able to come in there first game. And show him something different. Right. You know, they had a different game plan than they've used all season. Mm-hmm.

So that's why it's tough to beat a team twice in one year. Right. Because they've got you figured out. Who is the best at? game planning, do you think? I mean, anytime I think about being prepared, I was thinking Tom Brady. Dude, Peyton Manning was incredible. Really? Incredible. Yeah. The way he could read a defense and set a defense up. So he, yeah, he just knew the ins and outs of the game so well and new tendencies and did his homework and could see guys probably cheating one way, maybe,

or eyes looking one way. He would use his eyes. He would use his eyes to bring safeties off and then wide open. Yeah. But Tom Brady does, he's the same way. You don't win seven Super Bowls. Dude, he's been seven Super Bowls.

I know. One them all. That's crazy. And imagine if he won those two against Eli, you know? Yeah, I know.

But he almost won. So what he went to 10 and 1, 7? Is that what it was? Yeah. God. Yeah. That's great.

I played 10 years. That's amazing. He went to 10 Super Bowls. I know. It blows my mind, man, for how long he played and it's such a high level.

And then, you know just to stick it to belichick him to go to go to tampa and win another one crazy on a team that hadn't won anything i know it's so crazy awesome awesome awesome competitor too yeah did did you know him well i didn't know him well but i played against him a lot yeah yeah we had there was a mutual respect there right because i was on his ass i was on him you know i was trying to get him every time i got in my rookie year and i was like holy shit i just sacked tom brady you know you remember was that what game was that My first game was the first game of the season against the Steelers.

And I got, I got Ben Rathesburg. You understand? I grew up in Pittsburgh. Everybody that grew up around me at Pittsburgh Steelers fans. Yeah. So I know they were rooting against me. That was a big one. So I was like, I'm about to go out here and kick his ass.

Let's go. Yeah. And I got Big Ben down. He's tough to bring down. He's tough to bring down, man. He is tough. And then I got, and the last game that I played against the Steelers when I was with Baltimore, I went up to him and talked to him and everything.

And he was like, hey, man. I know I've never asked anybody for a jersey, but I wanted one from him. Yeah. And he was like, all right, I'll send you one. And I was like, he's not going to send me one. And he did, man. Did he signed? Yeah, he signed it, he signed it, like personalized it for me and wrote me and

something nice. It was cool. That's great. He's a good dude. Yeah. He's a good dude. He's a good guy. And he bohunts.

Any bow hunts. Any bohunts. Yeah. Well, it's, uh, I mean, you know, you tell you saying that sacking Tom Brady or sack in, was it Cam Newton in the Super Bowl? Yeah, in the Super Bowl. It doesn't compare to bow hunting or. reminds me of, I remember I took Joe on his first elk bow hunt in Colorado, and we had two bulls coming in.

And he was so wound up that he said, I mean, he's done, you know, live UFC, comedy, all these stressful, you know, his podcast, of course, that's like a nature to him, but all these very stressful fighting. And he said nothing compared to when those bowls were coming in. Nothing compares to it. Well, I showed you that video of my first bowl coming in. he's just ripping bugles. Right. It's like Jurassic Park, man. Yeah.

Yeah. Nothing compared. Honestly, I can't think of one thing. The birth of my daughter, my youngest daughter, like watching that happen was intense. Like I was like, whole. Like. Yeah. But it was a different kind of focus.

Yeah. Being out there and like seeing a 900 pound bull elk just raking and ripping and ripping through the trees and ripping buggles. And then you're a full draw. it was like oh I really got a foot like normally it just comes like that flow state just comes to me I had to really like oh okay calm down yeah chill out relax yeah and it was like everything just slowed down and I was like laser focused on him right behind that shoulder and just was it 42 or 42 yards 42 yeah dropped it right in behind the shoulder and I knew it was a good shot just because I could see the arrow yeah you called the bull in yeah we called him in and then was he

I couldn't was he quartering two a little bit or or broadside he was perfectly broadside on the camera angle it looks like he's a little quarter a little bit quartered too yeah I was like but you just smoked him I smoked him yeah and I was like I was so happy I was just shaking on the video if you guys look at my my YouTube you'll see me at the end I'm just like holy shit that was awesome you know yeah it was so intense and then the pack out man like it was just going down there put my hands on him was incredible. I just, I grabbed them and I was just like, I had a second of myself where, you know, my, my buddy Levi wasn't beside me and, uh, and Braxton wasn't with me. It was just us three. And I had my hands on him. And I just like, just tears started running out

of my eyes. And then Levi can't, Levi Mayfield, he's my camera guy, great guy. He comes around just gives me a big hug. He's like, I'm so proud of you, man, good job. Because we grinded for five days for that boy. You know, it's the fifth day. What was it? What was the tears just like? It was like that I didn't cry when I won a Super Bowl, dude. Yeah. I was, it was happy tears.

I was happy. Did you cry when your daughter was born? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You were going to get in trouble if you did. Yeah. I did.

I cried. And she still does things that like bring tears to my eyes. Because like, you know, I didn't have. Right. Well, like the unconditional love that she shows me.

Like when I walk in the door every day, she's like, dad comes and jumps on me. Like that makes me want to cry. Like somebody's happy to see me, you know? Like she's happy to see me and then like I love you daddy. You know, like that just brings tears in my eyes, man, because she is unconditional love.

She loves me unconditionally. Do you think that's the reason why that impacts you is because you didn't have that so long growing up? Exactly. One of the best additions to my daily routine is mudwater. It tastes very good. And I don't know if it's my body craving it or the blend of adaptogenic mushrooms, cordyceps, and lions mane.

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I walked in the house and got choked. choked or punched or, you know, kicked or drug around, you know, I was, I was telling my stepdaughter, because I'm teaching her how to drive. And I was like, hey, you got to wake up a little earlier if you're going to drive to school because, like, you're driving to speed limit, okay? So, like, we're not speeding to school like when I drive. Right. And she's like, okay, so I go and wake her up the one morning.

And I was like, Tatum, listen. Because she was like, you kind of were aggressive this morning. And I was like, all I said was sweetheart. You got to get up. That's all I said. And she was like, it. It was kind of aggressive. And I was like, sorry.

I was like, you know how I got woken up? Right. I was like, the blanket got ripped off of me and I got ripped out by my ankle and landed on the floor. Like, that's how I got woken up. So I'm sorry. If you had a little too much emotion in what you said, yeah. No, I understand.

I mean, yeah, I mean, it is, it is different. But you want your kids to know what that feeling of love is. Exactly. And they do. And then they reciprocate when you walk in. they're excited to see you and yeah it probably is emotional because of everything you went through in life just looking for something like that yeah even if you wouldn't ever say i want somebody to love me people do you know what i mean people always do but it's just like it's uh there's no guarantee you're

ever going to get it well as a as a as a boy there's like a little boy there's nothing like a mother's love and i didn't know what that i didn't i don't know what that is what is that unconditional love that they're gonna a mother will love their, is supposed to love their son no matter what. Right. But I didn't feel that love for my mom. I believe that she did love me. She just didn't know how to love. Like she didn't know how to love either. She came from an abusive home as well. So she had her own, her own struggles. But she just didn't break that chain, you know, she didn't break the cycle. It wasn't important to her to break that cycle. But to me, it was important to break that cycle. Like, you know, even, you know, people argue and there's going to be, if you live with someone,

you're going to argue sometimes. So like, When we have an argument, I do my best. I'm like, I'm not going to raise my voice no matter what. I'm going to do everything I can not to raise my voice. And try not to argue around my kids and try to let them see how a man is, how a man is supposed to love their wife. Because they're going to, those girls are going to marry a man that emulates me. Right.

I mean, that's what they're going to see, how I treat their mom and how, you know, no matter what, they, like, no matter what. And my wife tells me all the time, she's like, no matter, no matter how to, no matter how, no matter how frustrated you get with her, don't yell at her. Right. Because sometimes I'd be like, Roxy, like, Roxy,

get, her name's Roxy, my youngest. I'm like, Roxy, get in here, because she just plays games with me because she knows I won't do anything, you know? Yeah.

I'm like, Roxy, and she's like, don't yell at her because she's going to think it's okay because she's going to think it's okay. Roxy, come here, babe. Like, can I have to like get her to look at me

and then I explained to her why it's important to listen. Yeah. I didn't get that as a kid. I never understood why I was in trouble. I just knew that I did that was bad right it was my fault everything was my fault you know and I but I was smart enough to know that it was all bullshit they were just taken out they were frustrated with themselves they took it out on me so I'm not going to do that with my kids yeah

I'm going to break that cycle they're going to know what love is when it's you know when my daughter wakes up at you know four in a morning because she had a nightmare I'm going in there and I'm going to lay with her if that's what she wants I'm going to do it because that's what I'm her dad I'm supposed to. Yeah. I mean, it's good you have that perspective and you've been through so much to where you know what. This stuff's pretty good. Is it?

I'm serious. I like it. Yeah. So, yeah. We tried the black buffalo here. What do you got there? The long cut winter green, man. It's pretty good.

So that's supposed to have the same feel as like your normal stuff, right? It feels like a normal chew. Does it? It's got nicotine in it. It just doesn't have all the garbage. So you're going to. going to you're going to endorse black buffalo here on this podcast i'm going to endorse this product okay all right well it's approved yeah and it's i mean for those looking to to get off of chewing tobacco

and yeah a more healthy alternative that's supposedly the ticket like i said i i have never been tough enough to chew because anytime i've tried i've got sick so you're lucky i didn't have to worry about being addicted to it. But yeah, I'm glad, I'm glad they're part of the podcast because I know a lot of people do, like the guys who I used to work with and was supervised, a lot of them chew. And, you know, man, if they can do something a little more healthy on pump. So I'm glad you like it. Yeah, my daughter calls it track. What's the trash in your mouth? Yeah. That's what she says to me. And what do you say? I'm just like, it's a bad habit. Daddy's got a bad habit. And I'm going to try to quit. Yeah. And I never, so now every time she sees me with one out, I thought you were going to

quit. Three-year-old saying that to me. Hold me accountable already. I was, how did, how did you go from like that broken home type situation to be in to hunting? Because it seems like if you're in a broken home, hunting is like a, man, that's like a hobby. You know, people, normally people do that are a little more squared away. Like, because their dad takes them or something like that. Well, my stepdad did take me. Okay. he would take me I can count on my one hand how many times he took me but he introduced it to me yeah

he also signed me up for football you know he was the guy that signed me up for football so I mean he had he served a purpose yeah um but he did he would take in his idea of hunting was I was like the I was like the bird dog you know just run into that brush and flush and fessing out of there or something you know there was never anything in there like one time I think they worked really yeah and then uh like the deer hunts he would go to his buddy's property and you'd be like sitting under this tree, don't move. Yeah. Freezing cold, had steel-toed boots on.

That's right. I sat there and shivered for two hours and then he came and got me. That's kind of like my stepdad who I, you know, hated growing up and I'm sure he hated me too, but he got me started hunting because my dad didn't hunt. He was an athlete and a coach here in town. He said when you'd hunt, if you killed something, you lost brain cells. So that was his thoughts on hunting. But my stepdad who had no use for, he did take me hunting. and that's what it's kind of funny that you mentioned that because that's how I got started also.

Yeah, it's wild, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can take, I say in my book, it's like the hero can or the villain can turn out to be the hero, you know, in certain stories and certain ways. And, you know, without being introduced to hunting, maybe we would never have met or connected or, but this whole journey and maybe football. I mean, since he got you sent it for football. So, yeah, I mean, I guess you can take the good with the bad. on some of that right yeah i mean it's all perspective too it's like it could somebody always somebody's always got it worse yeah you know i mean so like you could you can feel sorry for yourself or you can

you know take your licks and realize that it's not forever right and you can change your stars like what's written is not forever it could be erased and you can change it you can change your outcome yeah for sure and so you started he got you started on the hunting journey then you just kind of dabbled in it while you were playing? I didn't. I didn't just dabbling it. When I was a teenager, when I was like 12 to like 15, 16, I was like obsessed with killing big bucks. Really? I wanted to kill a big buck so bad. And I remember the first deer, the first buck I ever killed was just a little spike. You know, like two little prongs sticking up.

Yeah, that was my first buck too. But he came in and I was in a climber. I went up there in a woods by myself really hooked that thing up to the tree climbed up 25 feet and sat there on the edge of a field and he came walking down the trail and I was like it was early in the morning I probably should have waited how'd you know where to set up I just it's like I don't know to me it's like an instinct thing yeah like this looks like the night before I'd walk through there and I was like this looks like a good spot for deer to come through you'd look for tracks or anything yeah there was deer trip big heavy deer trail that'd been moved on and I was like who knows if it's dough or buck like if they're doing And it's November, there's probably a buck coming through here.

So that first buck that came through, he got, it was 14 yards, dude. I stuck him. And I watched him lay down. And I was- The book was a bow kill. Yeah. Really? Yeah.

Who's bow? It was just my, it was the farm I was hunting on. It was his brother, bigger brother's bow. Okay. Barely fit me. Like, we went to the bow shop and got a fitted for me and stuff. And I just used what he had. Yeah.

And I didn't have any money, you know, and just couldn't buy anything. So it was a PSC, old PSC. And it got the job. job done. Yeah. I mean, so you stuck the deer and it laid down and died there? It laid down 14 yards from where I shot it. Wow. Because I measured it. I was like, that was like the thing back then, you know, like how far did he go? Yeah. He must not hit him good, you know? If he went too far, he went, oh, you went more than 20, you didn't hit him good, you know? Right. But I did. I hit him good. Perfect. Do you remember with the arrows or broadheads or anything? No, I have no idea.

Was it just some expandables probably? Just something that they had with the bow. Well, something that he had sitting around, you know, that I could shoot. So I did that and then we I killed my first turkey out there with him. That was awesome. And then, uh, just like random, like what happened was like you just, you go, get into high school and then you're playing football and you're

wrestling and you're training for all that. It's just like you get to go out every now and then, but the chances of seeing something if you just go out one time is not good, you know? Right. So I always found, I found an operator, I always found like solace and being out in the wilderness. So just being in the woods by myself with the quiet was always like peaceful to me.

That was right. That's my church. You know, so I found some kind of peace doing that. So I would always find time to just go sit in the woods. Who knows if I'm going to see anything. So I would just go sit. And then like I said, I'd come back for bi weeks. And sometimes I'd get a stick one and sometimes I wouldn't, you know.

That was in Ohio. Yeah, I'd just go back to Ohio and do it. Because I just didn't understand the rules out west. Like, right. I was like, what is all this draw stuff? What does that mean? Yeah. I was like, I'm used to being able to go to Walmart by a shotgun and a turkey tag and go hunt.

You know, that's kind of how it was. Buy some slugs and get a deer tag if you want. You know, that's just the way it was. It was easy. But out west with these units and I, it just was like a whole other language to me. Yeah. I just didn't understand it. So then I get to the league.

And I would go do like, I was finally able to afford a good bow. So I went got a good, bought a good bow and would do some hog hunting and some action. It's down in Florida. Okay. down in Florida. I actually did the first hog hunt down there with a spear. Really? Yeah. Can you get one? Yeah. Nice. With dogs? Yeah, we had dogs. We just running through them Palmettoes with the dogs. Oh, man. And the dogs like head butted the pig and got him by the ear and I just ran up there. It was pretty intense. It was really intense. Yeah. And it's funny because this is kind of an intense story, but I had a buddy with me.

And he's like, I'm doing mine with a knife. And I'm like, all right, bud. Yeah. They get the thing down and he stabs it too low. Oh. So next thing you know, he's elbow deep in this pig. Oh, God. And he's like trying to get it up to it. It's like vitals, you know? And it's the sounds coming out of that thing. And he's an animal, like, you want to talk about an animal lover?

Like, I love animals. Love him. Right? Like appreciate animals. I love them. I don't, not just killing indiscriminately. Yeah. But those pigs are a problem.

They got to take care of them. Like, why not? But he doesn't do that. Like, he'll save snakes and spiders and stuff. Like, he's like, that guy. So is he traumatized by that kill? in a car and I look back and I'm like his name was we his nickname was Cubby I'm like Cubby you're all right he says why'd you bring me here and I was like you're all right he's like don't ever

bring me to something like this again he was after he killed it yeah because it got so messy it was intense yeah yeah he's like I feel like I just killed a human yeah these are 300 pound 250 pound pigs you know it was like he murdered they paid he did it was like a brutal it was so brutal I felt bad for the pig man I was like you know my my my other son Truitt, he did that in Hawaii too. And he had the video of it. And I'm just like, don't show that to any questions. Because it is like a murder. It's just like, okay, that's a little, it's a little much. You know what I mean? To be to be stabbing something. It's just like, I get it because I know they do it. And it is, I mean, they do it in Texas. They do it in Hawaii. They do it,

you know, where you guys were in Florida. But yeah, it's a, it's a different level. It's different kind of hunting. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I don't know. It's like them dogs start barking. Yeah. They stop the swamp buggy. He said, get your spear. Let's go.

Let's dogs out. We just take off running, chasing the dogs. Yeah. Pomerett is getting ripped up. He said to wear jeans. I was wearing shorts and it cut off. Oh, man. And it was just intense, man.

And it was fun, you know. And then we went and chased after Axis Deere. And I'm getting one. I think I got one that year. I don't know. It took me like two years. hunting access to finally put a stock on one and get it. They're fast.

Well, they'll jump the stream. They're switched on for sure. I missed a bunch. Yeah. I thought I was good. And like they just like completely turned the other way running. I know. By the time the arrow gets there.

I remember Joe sent me in this video. I wasn't with him, but he shot at this giant buck in Lanai. And, uh, arrow just flying perfect, perfect. He's just like, he's just going to smoke this thing. And then right before he gets there, it's like that thing was gone, not even close to getting hit by the arrow. Yeah, not even close. I mean, just kind of stood there for a while and just was watching the arrow come and then just like, okay, I'm gone. I mean, so quick.

The quick twitch is like out of there. Oh, it's incredible. But yeah, I saw I do that kind of hunting. And then finally, what really reignited it like heavily for me was when I went back to Baltimore. Because I was already like kind of preparing for, you know, to hunt. But when I'm back to Baltimore, the deer hunting there is phenomenal. Like there are deer everywhere So I got to really practice

You know the only way to get good at killing deer Is practice killing deer You know with a bow Yeah You get shoot at targets all day But like until you shoot it's something that's alive Right You're not gonna get better

It's like to me it's like football The only way to get good of football To get in shape for football is to play football So I got to hunt I mean the one 2020 I think I killed I don't know Eight or nine deer

And then 2021 it was like 17 year. Really? Because you get unlimited dough tags. And so you go into these like residential areas. Oh. And the company called Trophy Line hooked it up for me. And they sent me a tree saddle that they thought would be like sturdy enough for me.

Yeah. And it was. I felt safe in it. I can hang upside down in that thing. Nice. And I was like, okay, cool. So you go into these, I call them backyard bucks. Yeah.

Go to these backyards pretty much where it's like. There's some good ones? 10, 15 acres. And there's some, I mean, some 140s, 150s. It's like. Good deer. Some nice bucks. Yeah.

But a lot of dough. And the landowner's like, please, can you get rid of some of these doves? And so is it unlimited doughs? Unlimited. Yeah. Unlimited. Then I had a couple of crop damage permits. Okay.

So I go sit these soybean fields and just. Did other guys come with you? Yeah, I'd have a guy. We would do deer drives with my bow. Okay. He would go up there, park his truck and drive the quiet, drive the quiet cat down through the woods, throwing sticks and making noise and pushing them down. And then was that a player?

No, just a, just a buddy that lived there. But you have to do it because they're like, they get diseases and they starve. And then we, the good thing is we have, they have these trucks that drive around Baltimore that will pick up deer meat and serve it to the homeless. Okay. So you could donate it. It kills. Who can eat 16 deer, you know. I know.

Well, and those guys, the homeless, they don't get protein, you know. I mean, so anytime like those, I know I've given a lot of meat to homes. homeless shelters and they can make, if it's protein, they can make it into tacos and spaghetti and easy serve stuff. Yeah. Stuff you can mass. All this stuff, yeah, that has protein with it that's going to last these homeless people a while. So, yeah, that's a great, I mean, great thing to do with those kills for sure.

But that reignited it. So that reignited the passion. Gotcha. Because I love it. Like, I absolutely loved it as a kid. And it reignited. And I was like, oh, man, I really want to hunt some elk. Like El Cunning was just like something I dreamed about as a kid like I saw it on like the outdoor channel or something one time

But it seemed unattainable probably. Yeah, it's like I never I didn't fly on a plane until my freshman year of college. So I don't even know like what is this going to look like? Right. So finally I'm like, okay, when I retire, that's the first thing I'm doing in September as I'm El Cunning. Yeah. And I got that opportunity. The retirement came up.

I played 10 years. I was like, it's time. I had to get double hip surgery. So I had both hips done. That was a six-month recovery on the right one and a four-month on the left one. So about 10 months of recovery and then doing rehab. And finally I was like, okay, I think I'm ready. I think I'm good.

And I went out there and it was tough. Like I had to, you know, cut my teeth in on the first time. Yeah. But I went down to New Mexico, man. And I'm hooked. Full-blown addict. Full-blown sick-o addict. It's pretty amazing to go that quick.

I mean, I guess it's, you're in good area and then with good people, too. But it's pretty amazing to go the first time and kill a bull. Well, the first time I went and see a bull. Right. But when I went, yeah, same year. It was a week apart. Right. So it's just, yeah, but it's still first year hunting elk.

Yeah, I got to put, yeah. Yeah. Because even, but it was target rich environment. I'll tell you that. Like, it's, I guarantee you go to Unit 34 in New Mexico. It's like Jurassic Park in there. It's like, which, where do we go? Yeah.

bugle here, bugle there. Like, they're all over the place. Oh, that's incredible. It's loaded. And it's loaded, though. It's, and it's hard, it's just hard to draw those tags, you know, the percentage is so low. And you, you bought a landowner or what was that? Yeah, my wife got me one for my, uh, right.

Okay. For my retirement. Well, it was like a retirement slash Christmas present. That's an expensive tag. Yeah. You know, but I was like, I was like, yeah, sweet. Let's do it, you know. Well, it was like 10 grand.

It was like 15. 15, yeah, 15 grand. And then after you pay for the guide fees and everything, you're, you know, you're in it for like 24,000. Yeah, I know. And then the one I bought this year, I lucked out and got it for the same price, but in a way better unit. Really?

16A and the Healer. Oh, man, that's going to be sweet. It's going to be so amazing. I can't wait. Like, I'm. Oh, yeah. And then I drew my Montana tag. So you got two elk hunts this year.

I might have three because I have another landowner tag on my property in Colorado. Whoa. So I might have three elk tags. Could you imagine killing three bulls? I might, I mean, I might just quit now. no I'll never quit I'll be doing this till I can't walk I know I mean it's just you get addicted to that to just being out there and like testing your wits and like seeing these animals in their natural environment basically and they look I don't know I never get tired to see in big bowls it's just

like they're the most amazing animal yeah that's when I walked in here I was like it was like oh like all these giant bulls everywhere the taxidermy is just incredible in here man And it's so cool. This is such a cool job. I'd never leave. I was, you know, this doesn't even seem real to me to have. I still feel like I played football at Southern Oregon State. So we lived in the dorm room just for football players.

And I was such a small town redneck that in my, and I had a bunkmate to in the same tiniest room ever. But on my side where the bed was, I had what I called the cycle. Because I killed the cycle. was a spike buck, a four-goldner buck, a three-point, and a four-by-four. And so that was like hitting for the cycle on baseball, you know, that single, double, triple, home rung. So I had all those up in my wall just kind of nailed through the skull to the wall,

and that was the cycle of deer. And people would come in and be like, what is, what's this all about? And I'm like, that's a cycle. I killed all those. So, yeah, I mean, it's like, I know that's what I'm kind of used to, that little rinky dink redneck, type thing. This type of stuff doesn't even seem real. Yeah, it's

it's incredible man. I mean, I've killed them but doesn't seem those bulls from Arizona are unreal. Oh, I know it's uh yeah there there's I don't think there's any better place for big bulls than Santa Carlos Indian reservation and it's just you know 1.8 million acres

and it's um it's just there's places with more elk but I don't think bigger elk. Right. It's, it's, you're not the first person to tell me that either. Oh, it's like a dream come true to be there.

And then plus that it's, you know, a reservation. So that there's some Native American type history and the tradition. You can probably feel it, right? It just feels different to me to be in those mountains.

It just feels so special. Yeah, to be invited in there, right? Right. I know. And then to see these animals the biggest in the world is just like unreal unreal but you know for you to have three elk hunts this year potentially three elk hunts two deer hunts because i got a colorado eastern plains hunt for a mule deer and then i that combo tag in montana yeah deer and elk yeah and then um hopefully i get that white i draw that white tail in kansas because i drew it last year and i went there and got my butt kicked so

really i'm coming back kansas is like a good white tail state too unbelievable we're not seeing anything i saw the biggest bucks i've ever seen like white tail because they grow up in ohio big white tail bucks yeah you know you see big ones in oh yeah like you know just down the road from where i grew up they killed two they killed killed two 200 inch bucks off the same farm yeah wow there's big ones there giant but i just never see them yeah because you have to hunt them hard so to have an opportunity in kansas i mean i saw some giant and what happened they just they were out of range they just skirted me. I wasn't. Yeah. I mean, I just, I went in, I was in a tree saddle.

Yeah. Tree saddle. And then fine, I just, I don't, I won't sit corn. I won't do it. It's not fun to me. Can you bait them there? Yeah. Okay. But I don't want to sit corn. Yeah. Because I don't want to deal with all the doze hanging around. Yeah. Yeah. I want to be able to move a little bit, you know, like, there's does come in. They just start. Those does will be in bring the bucks. I know. I know. I want to catch, I want to catch those bucks moving. Yeah. Let me catch them on a pinch point. Yeah. You know, a transition area. Like something like that. You know, to me, That's like real hunting, you know? And I'm not, nothing against guys sitting corn. No, I understand. There's guys back in Ohio. They sit the same corn pile every year, all year.

Probably kill. And kill a big $1.70, 180 buck every year. Yeah, there's a white tail back there in the corner, but I killed in eastern Colorado and stocked it in the Milo. And so that's probably what should be hunting like Milo. And or they have CRP or sunflowers. I mean, they, good out there, the Eastern Colorado. Grotto grows big bucks, but I was able to stock in and kill that one. It was something special about that.

Stocking white tail is fine. Yeah, I got to do that last year in South Texas. Did you? Oh, yeah, yeah, you killed a buck. Rattling a muck. Or rattling one in. Yeah, rattling one in. I was like hiding in a cactus brush.

Yeah. With a decoy on the front, those one of those ultimate predator decoys. And he told me, Danny, you know, Danny Ferris. Yeah. Danny was like, hey, when that buck stops, if it's not in range, flick the ear. They'll come right in. And I was like, he stopped at like 45 yards. And I couldn't like move my range finder, but I like put my finger up and flipped it.

And he was like, boing, but came right to me, man. I couldn't believe it. They stopped at like 30, like right at 30. And I guessed 30. And I guessed right. Because I smoked him. Put one right in his chest. He didn't make it far.

Wow. And he laid down. He got up again and walked a little bit. But then he laid back down. And it was over for him. But I was like, I just stocked a white tail. Are you kidding me? That's awesome.

I just shot one from the ground. and I wasn't in a blind just sitting here. That's hard to do, man. They're so... Especially at your size. Oh, dude, that's the problem. I don't hide very well. Hard to hide me.

Yeah, I know. That's what I like hunting elk too. You're staying in front of the tree. They don't care. That's what we're supposed to do. Stay in front of the tree, you know, but it's like... Yeah, a lot of people get behind something, then they can't get the shop because they got the tree in front of them or whatever.

But yeah, you let that camo do its work and you get a good backdrop. Then you got your... your field of view wide open and you can shoot either way. That's the way to do it. But yeah, elk are not quite as sketched out as white tail, you know, because they're so much bigger.

They make noise. They're clumsy too in the trees, man. Yeah, they just make, I mean, those animals are going to be hitting on shit, you know, it makes some noise so you can get away with a little bit more.

Huge bulls. Yeah. It's, there's nothing like big bulls. I can't wait. to hear how your season goes this year. So your bow is set up really good. Where'd you get your bow set up and so dialed in?

So Hoyt is like, they're sponsoring my show too, the Wolf Untamed channel. The YouTube, yeah. They sent it to me, and then I take it to no limits. Okay. So I took it to no limits, and they got great technicians in there, man. They're all good. So they hooked it up and, you know, it was shooting good. Yeah.

You know, shooting great today. He didn't have to do a lot of tuning on it. No, no. I just checked cam timing a little bit, which sometimes those, the string stretches a little bit and different things change. One cam gets a little bit ahead of the head. So you had one that was a little bit ahead of the other, but not much. I mean, I think Wayne said the second axis who was right on. Third axis was pretty close.

He tweaked a little bit. But then we went out at distance and you just put it to work. But yeah, I was impressed with how well no limits had it set up for you. They do a good job, man. And they're always like on point. You know, I send guys to people that want to get into bow hunting. I always, I just send them there. Like go there.

They'll hook it up, man. They'll get you shooting. That's a, you know, that's a big advantage of having a good pro shop for a guy. Because there's people who buy the best equipment, but it's not set up right. They get the same bow as you have, same everything as you have. You shoot it lights out. They can't hit anything consistently because the bow is not. It's not set up right.

Right. It's not, you know. And I don't like to have to tune my bow a lot. Yeah. I want to know that when I grab that thing, it's going to be ready to go. Yeah. I don't care if I ding it off of things and, you know, because I carry it on my neck when I walk through the woods. Yeah.

So I'm walking through those, you know, those branches and just after you've been hiking for 10 miles, you don't want to duck under a branch. I'm walking right through it. Don't let me forget to give you one of those A.E. prophecy rest. Yeah, that's the one thing I do need a new rest. I didn't like that rest ripped up some, ripped up some my house. It was a little rough today. The crazy thing is, is that I hit that balloon with an arrow that had two Fletches. You did, yeah.

You had to overcome. Yeah, but you're used to overcoming challenges, right? Yeah, just send it. So that was just another one. Yeah, your whole life's been overcoming. Today you just overcame more and hit a balloon with two Fletch at 130 yards. Today was a grind, man. There was a lot of mental challenges, man.

Carrying a rock, you know, mile, what was that, mile and a half? Mile and a half, yeah. Carrying it up a hill a mile and a half? I don't care who you are. That sucks. That's what I'm saying. That's why I say is like people overthink this stuff. And I mean, you have some great workouts.

You know, you went through some of them today, like amazing hill workouts. But like if I just want to get down to basics, I'm like, I'm just saying here's fucking rock up the hill. Because you know why? Because it's hard.

It's hard as shit. Like your core is going to get fucking wrecked. Right. My core was hit. I was like, damn, I feel, I feel, well,

I feel this in my core. And then you're switching the rock back and forth. So you're like, yeah, I know. It's like it engages everything. But it's like to me to be good in the mounds, you know, all those little adjustments and tweaks and moving in your ankles, you know, on the trail, just being strengthened by being uneven and carrying things like that. There's no better preparation for hunting.

Dude, carry that 76 pound rock. Yeah. I don't care if it's a 30 pound rock. Carry something. I tell people that all the time. The only way to get into shape to go, like, I said it earlier. The only way to get in football shape, play football.

The only way to get in a fight shape is to fight. The only way to get into hunting shape is to hunt. Yeah. And how do you practice hunting? You hike. Yep. You want to practice elk hunting? Throw a pack on, put a 45 pound plate in the pack.

Yeah. And then just go out and hike. That's right. And that'll get you ready. Yeah. Because guys come out west from East Coast and they get their ass kicked. It's rough. It's rough.

They get their ass kicked. And what happens is, you know, everybody starts off pretty good right out of the gate. Like everybody's energized, fired up, but it's once the grind starts. Day two, day three, day four. And then so mentally you're a little fatigued.

Physically you're getting fatigued. So what I notice is people's feet get a little, they're not coming up high enough so they're hitting, making noise because they're scraping on stuff. They're kicking stuff. They're kicking rocks or breaking branches. They're being a little more lazy with their body movement. Then they see an animal and the wind is going a certain way.

and they're like, well, maybe I don't really need to go all the way to the top of the hill. Maybe I can just side hill it and still keep the win. And no. And it's just like all these little, you're taking shortcuts and all this or getting a little lazy or getting a little more fatigued. All that adds up and you're not killing shit. You're not killing anything. You know, so you need to be at your, at the same level you were on day one. I always say by day 10, if I do it right, I'm getting, I'm better than I was on day one because I'm more dialed in.

I'm more like in mountain shape and I'm more, you know, your first day from civilization, you used to being distracted, used to different noises, used to different things. But day 10, you are focused on, okay, this is, I'm in tune with the mountains. I know where these animals are so I can make more decisions on where they're going because I've been here for 10 days. I know their habits. And I'm a little, I'm a mountain tougher. You know what I mean?

So you should be better on day 10 instead of worse. And a lot of guys are worse because they don't take care of themselves. After day two, they're worse. When they get back to camp, what do they do? I don't know. Drink beer? Yeah. Instead of drinking water and putting some protein in you and going to sleep,

they want to stay up and drink a beer, have some whiskey. So now that next day they're dehydrated. Right. So now they set themselves back. So I always take this approach, right? What you just said is just like an NFL trading camp. By day 10, you see guys just fall apart. because it sucks.

You're sleeping in some shitty hotel. You know, the bed's not right, this and that. There's all these excuses. And then you're putting on the same equipment every day. You're going against the same guy every day. By day 10, you should have him figured out. Right. And you should be in better shape.

So what's your excuse? It's because you're not taking care of yourself. You're not getting in the cold tub after practice. You're not, we had a cryo chamber. You're not using a cryo chamber. That cryo chamber is like the. Yeah. Unbelievable love it right like but it's you know it's not accessible to everybody

so to me it's like it's the same thing in the in the woods man by the by the halfway through halfway point you should be in you should have the elk figured out you should have the terrain figured out your feet should be acclimated your breathing should be acclimated I mean you should know how much water you need when you go out there because you're gonna screw that up the first couple days you're yeah like oh i didn't bring enough water yeah you know but keep that pump on you so you can pump water You know, and then what's pretty crazy is so the people who do it right, because you talk about what most people do is most people, you know, run themselves to the ground, come back, they don't rehydrate, refuel. They instead drink alcohol or they fuck around, stay up late.

Bitch about the hunting or bitch about the moon or about the weather or whatever. The guys who stay focused and end up killing towards the letter into that hunt because they've been serious about it the whole time. Those are the guys who, the people who failed will be like, oh, must be nice. Must be nice to beat Derek and be able to go to fucking New Mexico and kill big bulls. It's just like, I don't know. I like 60 miles. Yeah. In five days.

Right. Yeah. To do that. Like, it wasn't easy. Yeah. Yeah, there was target rich environment, but you still got to get the opportunity on the right bowl. People can ride it off. People can write anything.

You know, you earn it. They can ride it off as Must Be Nice. Or it's like, yeah, I'd like to see him do that where I hunt. Yeah, must be nice. I fucking hate that. When people say must be nice to me, I'm like, fuck you. Yeah.

You know? Must be nice to sit around and just make excuses your whole life and never accomplish anything and be a hater. Yeah. Because you know what? I never met it. I'd said this to you earlier. I said, I never made a hater that was doing better than I was. No, that's, if somebody's hating on you, look where they're at.

Yeah. You know why? Because Ray Lewis said this. And this was like the, you know, I heard this in a speech he was given. He's like, you think that eagles, like when an eagle sees another bird at the same altitude as him, he thinks it's an eagle. Yeah. Because no other bird flies that high.

Right. So fly with the eagles. Yeah. Don't fly down there with the fucking crows. Chirping all the time. You know, hey, you know, I wish I was an eagle. Fly to the eagles get to eat the deer first, you know? Right.

Because they're the eagle. Be the alpha. Be the eagle. Don't be the whining little bitch that cries and whines because you don't have. And you don't have because you didn't work. You know, you know, for all the great. things about hunting in the hunting community. There's a lot of people who talk shit in the...

Oh, they talk so much shit. It blows my mind. Yeah, it does. Which blows my mind for this reason. There's an attack on this entire culture. Like, if it was up to the other side, this would be gone. Right. We wouldn't be able to hunt.

Yeah. Can we afford to be talking shit to each other and bringing each other down? We got to come together, man. I know. I don't care what you hunt with. I don't care if you hunt with a bow, a gun, or whatever. Cross bow. Crossbow, fucking spear. I don't give a shit.

Trad bow, whatever. Yeah, we're on the same team. We are on the same team. We're hunters. I know. And that's why it's, but I think a lot of it is,

you know, a lot of egos involved. It is. And it's just, that's part of, you know, with hunters, you're going to get more alpha male type people

and alpha male type people are very competitive. So there's ego. I get it. it's just the way it goes sometimes but we have to be able to still look at the big picture and say yeah this fucking guy did

kill another big ball it kind of hurts my pride a little bit but we're all hunters you know I look at his good when somebody kills a big like if I see you kill a bull

I'm just as jacked up as if I killed that bull yeah that's how it should be now I am now but I remember back in the day and I wasn't always He's like as mature as I am. And I remember there's this guy in town here.

His name is Jim Carter. And he, I had killed that boy yet. So I'd been hunting every year. And I've been, I've been killing bulls, but I had never killed six by six. And this guy was killing six by six big bulls every fucking year. And I'm just like driving myself crazy going,

how can he do this? How can he do this? I can't kill one. How can he do it every year? And so I did have my, my ego was bruised a little bit because I'm just like, is this? do I suck? Is this guy this just that much better than me? So yeah, it's a little bit of an

evolution to to get to where you're like. Yeah, but even now, you weren't you weren't saying, you know, F that guy. I probably was. Yeah. Oh, yeah. When you're young, you know, I was young. I was young. But yeah, I get it. But I mean, now we just have to, you know, because there's a lot of, I get if kids act like that, but hey, there's a lot of grown men who are like grown ass men. Yeah. Come on, guys. Matt, listen, there's, I killed a, I killed a, I killed. I a deer one time down there and swash a big fork buck and my guy that is my friend

he had been hunting that deer hard and it was a management deer they had to get him at like he was this nine year old fork buck old buck I could barely get my hands around his bases he was so big I love deer like that I love that right that was like you know Clay was like we got this giant fork buck and I was like

hell yeah that sounds like my kind of buck let's go so I came down there and day one I just like got lucky and sent it at 80 yards and smoked him. And my buddy Mark was like... Oh, did you see me that video? Was that the one?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My buddy Mike was like, he came out and looked at it and I could see it on his face. He was pissed. And I get it because that's a deer he'd been hunting. You know what I mean?

And he was like, you. Well, especially because Clay sent him a message like, all it took was me to come out here, bud. You couldn't get it done. Because he's a guy, you know. And he knows what he kills a lot of big bulls and deer in Utah. So to him, he was like, oh, fuck you. guys, you know. But like, you see

grown men really get mad over a deer. I'm like, dude, you should be happy for me, you know? Should. Yeah. I mean, it's I mean, when there's a lot of passion involved, a lot of emotion, a lot of hard work, I get part of it, but I still, I don't

get like the shit that the hate that lasts. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, come on. But yeah, don't let it linger. I know. So in Colorado there, who been like who do you shoot with and hang out with and learn from up there who's been those people a couple guys man you know luke cadillo i yeah there's only a couple people that i've ever put

my super bow ring on and luke's one of them yeah he was actually the first one i really let do it there's one other guy we won't talk about him but i let him put it on um but but but luke you know he reached out he saw that i was at he saw that i was at no limits getting a new bow set up okay He had no idea that I'd been shooting as long as I have. So he's like, bring some of that NFL money up. Let's shoot. I said, all right, bud, I'll be there. Yeah, you wanted to challenge you?

And he was like, how long you've been shooting? I was like, I've shot my first year when I was like 13. He goes, wait a minute. You've been shooting that long? And I was like, oh, fuck, I thought you just started. He was trying to hustle me. Yeah. But we did his podcast and shot for, you know, we shot.

I took some of his money. He took my money, took it back, though. He got it back. Because he was making, he was doing stuff on his, it was home field advantage. Yeah, he's a good guy that. He's, he was hilarious. He was so much fun, man. And he, he linked me with a guy named Alex, Alex, Nestor.

Yeah. And Nestor's been like a great, you know, great at like kind of guiding me through like the who's who. Who's a good guy. Who's full of shit, you know. Yeah. And then I, Luke introduced me to Snyder, Aaron Snyder, with Kaffaro and those guys. And those guys are awesome. Yeah.

You know, so it's, but Luke, it's all started with. Luke, man, because, like, he got to know me and realized that wasn't a piece of shit, you know, just some arrogant football player and I was really into this. And, yeah, that's kind of where it all started. And he's like, man, you can really do something with this hunting stuff. I think you're, you know, you're really into it. So you should just chase it. Yeah.

So I did, man. And so those are the guys, you know, Josh Walker, another guy in Colorado. I'm trying to think of who else I. Chris Dorsey. You know Chris Dorsey is, right? Chris Dorsey is another guy that, you know, I'll reach out to and ask him for contacts and this and that. he's a good guy. So there's a bunch of guys in Colorado that are just good people that will link you.

All those guys you just mentioned, yeah, they know the game for sure. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I love Luke's personality and he just seems fun. You know, I haven't hung out with him too much, but I've listened to his podcast. I know him. He sends me stuff. I try to give him shoutouts when I can. And I just like what he does.

I mean, I like his podcast is great too. He's got a great group of guys on the hand. He does. Yeah, gladiators, unchained. Unleashed. Unleashed. Gladiator's unleashed. Yeah, I was screw that up.

Yeah, he's had, and Nestor's good on there, too, because Nestor's got crazy stories. He's got crazy stories. Most of them are probably full of shit. He is full of shit. Dude, that lion hunt he took me on, that's, that mother, hmm. Yeah. He was, obviously, he's like a mountain goat up there, right? I'm crawling through the snow.

And he's calling me, where are you at? Yeah. We're going to lose this cat. Right. And I'm like I'm like fuck you I'm coming you know and he sent me a pin He's like when you get to the top back to the top come straight to the pen so I did yeah It was the road You drop me a pin on a road and he's like oh no you gotta come back up oh no you're never getting up here is what he said

God he must not know me yeah but I was full body cramping now my ribs were cramping my hammies my quads my calves my forearms were locking up But I just crawl what was the forearms locking up for Just- Hanging on to stuff? Yeah. Yeah. I'm like hanging on for dear life. Right.

And I have my bow in my hand. So I'm like, you know, crawling like this. Oh, the whole time. The whole time cussing. And finally I get up there and I'm like laying under the cat and looking up at him. He's like, doing that. And I was like, oh, shit. That's real now.

Let's go. The big lion, yeah. Huge line. I didn't realize how big he really was until I wouldn't try to pick him up. And like I said, I was hurting. And I was like, oh. So I guess Alex wasn't really full of shit. He just, like, made it harder than he needed.

He's just an asshole. Yeah, so I guess, yeah, not full of shit, Alex, just an asshole. No, he's been supportive of, I mean, he started off. He started off as a hater of me, which he'll admit. But now he, I think he's, we're cool now. Well, that's what he told me. He's like, you're going to love Cam. He's like, you're going to love him.

I don't know about that. But, no, I do, I do like Alex. Aaron's been great. Luke. Um, yeah, Aaron's been, I'm actually proud of Aaron's journey because he grew up here in Oregon also, some little shit town, small town guy like me. And I don't want to say his town is a shit, shit town. I meant a small town guy like me. And, uh, you know, kind of overcame all the odds to now he's basically running Kifaru.

It's pretty impressive. Yeah. I'm very happy for it. It's a great company too, man. Yeah, they make great product. I make great stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But, yeah, man, I've been blessed to just kind of be introduced to the right people. And then because you killed that giant lion and it got got you on Fox News, right? Tucker Carlson. Yeah. Right. And then that somehow led to Rogan. Yeah.

It's pretty sweet. It led to Rogan, which before Rogan, so before I killed that lion, I was doing a duck hunt down on stuck guard. And I'm not even really into duck hunting. I was like, yeah, sure, I'll come down. You know, my buddy Russ Rowan. he's the marketing guy. He runs the show at King's Camo now. It's, it's, you know how these big companies are kind of buying up all the little outdoor

companies under one umbrella. He kind of runs a bunch of different companies. Okay. But he was like, let's go down to Stuckard and Duck Hunt. I was like, okay, cool. Well, Kid Rock was down there. So he and I like hit it off, you know, just having a good time together, you know, you know, shooting a ducks and not really hitting anything.

Just, you know, having a good time drinking some beers and, you know, just get know each other and stuff. and he was like, hey, you need to come to the White House to Dixie Ridge. That's what he calls his like compound. Yeah. So we go down there, man, and just like had a blast. And, you know, that led to me playing a foursome and golf with Donald Trump and John Daly and Kid Rocks. So like, that's incredible.

So now it's like, it's just crazy what has happened, you know, just from, and that's why I told Alex. I was like, he really wanted to come meet Joe. Mm-hmm. Because he was telling me a story about how you and Rihon. I left him. We left him? Yeah, you guys didn't call him or something. But he's full of shit. So who knows if that's real? I don't know. I don't know. And he's like, can I want to meet Joe so bad? Can you take me? And I asked Joe if he's already if he came. He's like, yeah, you just can't come into the when we're recording. I was like, he doesn't, he doesn't want to do that. He just wants to come

down. Yeah. So I took him down there with me for that. We went to the comedy, we went to the comedy show. And yeah. And you want to talk about just a solid dude, man. Joe Rogan was, I had a blast just having a We went for three and a half hours and he had to stop me because I was just having a fun time chatting about just random shit. Yeah. We're talking about mushrooms. We're talking about all this other stuff. You know, it was just like. My goal in life has been to do something for Joe because he does something for everyone else.

Yeah. Pays for everything, does things, hooks people up, gives them, you know, access to his platform, which is the biggest in the world. The biggest in the world. Like it's just like what? So yeah, there's like been two things I've been able to do for him as long as I've known him. And it's just like, okay, I finally. Finally. What was it?

What were you able to do? Had to be hunting related. No, no. It wasn't? Well, I mean, hunting is just, that's for me. That's not for him. Right. I just love to take people hunting.

But no, he, he said something like his wife was in vaguely. just going to and him and her and the daughters were going to go see Luke Brian. I said, oh, they got good tickets. You got a hookup? He's like, no, I think he just got regular tickets. So I was like, oh, fuck. Maybe I can get him good tickets to Luke Brian. And this would be one thing I could do for him.

So, you know, made a connection with my buddy Hunter who works for Luke, got it. And they were able to meet Luke and get sweet seats. So that's what it's all about. I'm like, fuck. I fucking finally did. something for Joe. And then I think the other thing is just like I got some shoot my new shoes and then a bow for him. So that's nice. That'll be the second thing I've ever done for him. But anyway, point is, is he is such a good guy that he does so much for everybody else. It's just like, you know, you say what a salt of the earth type person he is. And it's just like, man, you just want to, you want to be around people like that. And then also you want to try to, like, it's been my mission to try to do something for him. Because he's been so amazing to so. many others but yeah I don't know he does it without expecting anything in return you know it's like that's

to me that's a gift isn't a gift if you expect something of return like yeah you're doing it for alternative reasons right yeah yeah you're expecting me to do something for you now right no I mean he never does never never expects anything he's just like I just I just I've really tried to emulate how he treats people I've tried to learn from him yeah because it's just like I've seen it so many times. I'm like, that's how people need to be. And so you know, there's those people that you're around and they make everyone better. That's

what I've learned from him. But yeah, Alex, I don't remember not calling Alex. I'm not sure what I'm not sure what's that about. He's full of shit. I don't know. He just tells good stories. He does tell awesome stories. Yeah. On Luke's podcast,

it's pretty fun to listen to. It's hilarious. I mean, and who knows how much of it's real, but whatever. I don't know. Yeah, I mean. I think a lot of it is real. About 90%. I think it is.

Not 90% is real. He's just done a lot. But, oh, I do want to hear. So about did, uh, did you see Trump grab anybody in the pussy when you're with him? No. No. No. Nothing.

Dude, this guy was so respectful. The news says that's what he does all the time. Yeah. Well, they're, the media. Yeah. Because they're awoke as fuck. And they hate, they hate Donald Trump. Yeah.

But Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and they can just like pay everybody from foreign policy. get money for foreign policy from foreign countries and that's okay but Donald Trump has recorded saying some bullshit back in the day talking shit like

just like we're doing here it's just locker room talk man like people talk shit all the time all this every day but dude I'm telling you like there was we were in Nashville at the Trubodore plan and there was a every

little house we went to had like a party going on with the Trump sign out there he stopped at every single one of them and took pictures of the people and was like let him jump in a cart and come take a picture and and there was a lot of

pretty, there's a lot of beautiful women around. He was so respectful to everybody treated, everybody the same. I never got that creepy old man, you know, old men can be creepy around. They just, they don't give a shit anymore. They say what they want.

Yeah, right. He was never gave me that vibe at all. No. Because I was like curious, you know, like, I was just like, well, you've heard, everybody's heard it for, that's all I say. Yeah.

But that's just, that goes to show you, you never really know somebody until you spend time with them and get to know them. And I spent eight hours with a guy, had two meals with him and a lot of conversation. And he was just like so genuine and so cool. And it wasn't like he was trying to be that way. You could tell it was just like, that's how he is. And he's just got this personality that's just kind of, I mean, when he walks in the room,

it's like, he might as well be the only person there because everybody's like focused like, oh shit, he's got like that thing about him. He does, man. Yeah. And he knows it. But he, you know, it's cool to hear how. how good he was to be around. And it's just like you hear so much of the negative bullshit that, you know,

it's nice to hear the truth from people who have actually spent time with them. It's all garbage propaganda. Man, it's not real. Yeah. It's not really. You don't really know anybody until you spend time with them. No. And I mean, the country, you know, it was, I remember seeing firsthand the type of excitement

there was for, it was his reelection. And, you know, we went around and did a few stops. to help in his campaign. And at the same time, so I was with Trump Jr. and Ted Nugent and me, and we did these stops and were speaking in the same towns that Biden and Obama were in. And we would go and the security would say, oh, yeah, we just did Biden and Obama's thing down the road. You know, I go, oh, yeah, how many people were there? They said, 100.

And there's thousands to see Trump Jr. not me, but I was one of the people, but Trump Jr. and Ted Nugent, thousands in the same town. And I'm like, how can this election have went this way when nobody gives a fuck? Even Obama's there and there's only 100 people. How is this happening? Dude, something's fishy. Yeah.

That's all I'm going to say. Something is fucking fishy and I don't like it. It seems weird. It seems really weird because all you see is him with nobody showing up. And then you're going to tell me he got more votes. Obama. Yeah. I remember in 2008 when he got elected. Right. I was in Cincinnati. I was a freshman. Okay. The city erupted.

They were so fired up. Right. The whole city was voting. Everybody. You're telling me he got more votes than him. When nobody gave a fuck out on the campaign trail, nobody's there. Nobody's showing up to show support. So where is this, you know, because that's what it's all about is like you get on the campaign trail. You see what type of energy there is. You know, what the voter base is saying. if the voter base isn't even showing up for an in-person thing.

Especially when he's locked in a basement all the time. There's no energy. So how are you saying that 81 million people all of a sudden showed up to vote? They just expect you to be a good sheep and bah. Be a good sheep and bah. Pretty frustrating. The sheeple. Pretty frustrating.

But yeah, I mean, that sounds like an amazing foresome. John Daly, Kid Rock. and Trump. Yeah. And you. And me. Wow. It was so much fun, man.

He was like shocked that I was good at golf. You know, he was like, you're so big. How are you so good? Yeah. You know, I was like, I don't know.

So who won? John Daly. Of course. That's right. John Daly. Yeah. He'll put it like three feet from the pen and be like,

ah. I'm like, why didn't you like that? He was like, oh, I should have went in. Who got a second? Oh, Trump. Okay. Yeah.

He's consistent. Did you beat Bobby? I don't think. No, there's some holes I just didn't even finish I'm good I'm good for like a couple good shots here and there man I'm not like it's hard to stay focused for that long the consistency you have to have yeah I was using clubs that weren't mine too which is okay what my I swing with so much force yeah I'm not

trying to swing hard it's just like right much coming that I don't have a really stiff club shaft the the driver shaft will like flex and then send the ball of who knows where right hit it far but it never goes straight well I mean you must have good hips from football and Isn't that like, you know, that torque on that? Yeah, it's all. Yeah, it's torque and pushing, keeping like your weight on your back leg and following through. I just like, he was like, your swing speed is really good. It was cool because one of the first holes, I chipped one in from like way out. Yeah, you should quit right there.

You should quit. I know. He was standing right there watching it. He was like. Who, Trump? Yeah. And he was like, whoa, I can't believe you made that. Like, he's like.

And then he started wanting to bet. He wanted to start making bets. Oh, he wanted that NFL money. Well, he, well, no, he wanted to bet against. John Daly. He's like, I think we could beat him. And I was like, all right, fine. I guess we could. We could beat him. Gotcha. But he was, it was fun competition, man. Oh, that sounds great. We weren't taken to that serious. Like, I don't even really know who actually won, but I know John Daly definitely beat us all. Yeah. I mean, odds are he should win. Yeah. But yeah, I mean,

Trump plays a lot. If you listen to the mainstream media, they say he plays every single day, even when he's president. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, he's, uh, 18, 18 holes, 18 fairways. Really? Never saw him lose a ball, never saw him like. And in between this, while he's like going to his ball, he's like stopping and like talking to the people, you know, like talking all these people. That's pretty cool. So cool, man. The support that he gets, I don't know, I have a hard time believing he's not going to win again.

I, they have to cheat. They're going to cheat again. And that's like, you know, my wife is like really into this like paying attention to what's going on. And she just, she fills me in on stuff. And she's like terrified. It gets frustrated. Because you feel like you're helpless. Like, what can you do?

What can you do? You tell me that it's a democracy and all I can do is vote. And then I do vote. And you're telling me my vote doesn't matter because you're just going to cheat. You're just going to pick who you want anyway. I mean, it's... And then when you live in a place where, like, the city decides everything for everyone else. Yeah.

Like, that's not fair. No, that's like here. I mean, you know how they have the electoral college for the country? I always think that the states need to have that same setup. So, like, here, Portland pretty much decides everything. You know. Yeah, it's the same in Denver. Denver and Boulder decide everything.

So the whole rest of the state is red. Portland and probably Eugene here are blue and that's it. I mean, the whole rest of the state doesn't matter what you think. No. So I still think it needs to be some type of weighted system like the, just like the country runs, but for the states. Each county, right? Each county should have a like a certain amount. Yeah.

And it's just like, because it's not, I don't know. I mean, it does. feels something feels off. It's not fair. Yeah. That's not fair. You know, it's like,

it's like when Hillary Clinton lost because she thought she was going to, she thought that they were going to be able to cheat. Yeah. And she thought the fake dossier was going to work. And she thought all that stuff was going to work. But turns out you're just evil. Oh,

thank God she didn't win. Oh. That was scary, man. I know. I know it. She's like, she doesn't care about human life at all.

No. No. It does not care. that the only thing that did wake them up to be like okay now we got to we can make sure that a fuck because they fucked up to let Trump win basically yeah you know thought they're going to control everything they'd get who they wanted and it didn't work now it's made it really tough you know to make it fair all we want is a fair election that's it just make a fair if you win fair and square fine but i don't think you did yeah i don't believe that i want to see the proof it's hard

to believe but well especially because in the middle of night you just have all these votes show up like from where yeah and then people are saying that their cat had a ballot and their dog had a ballot their dead cat had a ballot it's like I don't know yeah some of it I'm like is this you know is there conspiracy theory in there or is part of a legit I think it's like some of both well I think what they're doing I think their plan now is to they're going to try to like make it so if you don't aren't if you aren't an actual citizen here like these uh illegals that are coming across mm-hmm fine but why do they get to vote? Right.

You're going to let them vote? You think they're going to vote for. They're going to vote for. Exactly. Thanks for they don't get kicked out. Yeah. So they don't get kicked out. They're going to do whatever you tell them so they don't get kicked out.

That's probably the game. So you have a million people coming over. Yeah. You have over, like at one time. Yeah. They say six million have come over so far this year. Dude. You know, I mean something crazy like that.

But it's scary. It is. It's really scary, man. I don't know. I really don't want to give up hope, but sometimes it's, it's hard not to, you know. Well, what can we do?

Yeah. What can we do? We're going to revolt? Going to start a revolution? Carry the rock up the hill. Yeah. I'm just going to continue carrying rocks and doing hard shit. That's all I could do.

I was curious. We'll switch gears real quick. Who is the best in the NFL? I'm always attracted to like the best leaders, people, like men who can lead other men. Yeah. Who's been the best leader that you've ever been around? Peyton Manning. Okay.

Yeah, Peyton Manning and DeMarcus Ware, two guys that I can, even, you know, DeMarcus is just so, like, he's earned it with his play. And then the way he carries himself and day to day and the same with Peyton, you know, everything he does is like on a professional level. Like he shows up to work looking professional. You know, he shows up to meetings looking professional, but he's also got a really good sense of humor that he can relate to you. So he doesn't, you don't feel like you're withless crazy superstar when you're having a

conversation with him. But then you're like, wait a minute. That's Peyton Manning. Holy, you know. Yeah. We were at a funeral and people were, we were paying respects to the, to our fallen teammate. Mm-hmm. And we turned a corner, somebody's like, hey, can I get an autograph? Oh, man. Yeah. Like, he's got that star factor. He's got that star factor to where like, you're at a funeral and you're going to ask him because you might never see him again. Did he ever, what, so was it just his demeanor that would impact you or did he ever talk to the defense? He would just talk to you as a person at breakfast. Mm-hmm. He'd come have breakfast with you.

Like, I had breakfast with him like every day. Really? And we would just talk. And he would just like, you know, it was never, he was never like preaching to you. It was just like. Just made you want to be better. Made you want to be better. Like, you didn't want to disappoint him, man.

Because like, you see how hard he's working. And you're like, man, I don't want to be the guy to let him down. Right. Like. And he wouldn't even really say anything if you did. But he would just be like, hey, you really need to do that. Like, you don't need to do that. Yeah.

So just like subtle things that he would do. the same with D-Ware. Like, he never made you feel like a piece of shit for screwing up. You just didn't want to disappoint him. You didn't want him to let him down. You wanted him to say good job. Right. I wanted Peyton to come up and say, good job, man.

Good job, man. Good, you know, good play. Because it means something coming from a guy like that. Yeah. And that's what made him a great leader. He wasn't like a raw, raw, scream at you guy, but he'll give a great speech and make it funny. And, you know, say, you know, funny stuff. He was, you know, one time he was my rookie year. You know, I was single.

and everything and he goes he's talking to the team and he's talking about you know you guys want to go out on Friday nights and stuff and and chase girls this and that he's like well let me tell you something the more plays you make the more girls you're getting that's what he said to us yeah he was like that's he's right he didn't say girls he said another word but we won't say that yeah yeah that's that's just uh that's a relatable thing to say though you know you don't expect you're expecting some like serious speech you know i'm a rookie I'm expecting like this is the first speech he gave me. And he said that his brother told him that. You know, because it's like, don't, don't focus and don't sacrifice what you want the most

for what you want right now. Right. You know, there's an end goal. So don't sacrifice that for the short-term gain. Let's get in for the long haul. Do you ever remember him telling you a good job on during a game? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like like a kid, you know, when your coach tells you good job. Yeah. You know, come up just smack up a good play, great play, you know? And it's like, oh, Peyton just said great play. Yeah. But then like he's become a friend now So like now if I need advice on something Or I need to I need to I need to ask a question like

He did the the announcement for all the for the schedule And I was arguing with my co-host I was like I bet he got paid for that you know Yeah And he was like no he didn't I don't think he got paid for that I'm like come on man he got paid man he got paid for that All right so I was like let me ask him so I texted him He's like nope I didn't really you know and I was like dude

That just shows you like yeah He did that for the Broncos that, you know, just as a solid. Mm-hmm. You know, because that's a big deal, you know, the schedule release is like a huge thing, you know? Okay. It's like a gender reveal. Yeah.

That's crazy. So they had him announce it, huh? Yeah, they had him do like a whole skit with some of the, one of the actors from the office and stuff. It was cool. Oh, good. You know, but, and DeMarcus, man, like, he gave a speech the night before the Super Bowl 50. Yeah. Dude.

I don't even know what he said. Really? I was just like, whoa. He gets up there with a suitcase. And all I know is he pulled a. he pulled the Lombardi out. Really? And just started talking.

And I was like, I would have ran through a wall for that guy. It didn't matter. You'd think that puts you on the right path to winning? Yeah. That speech. Yeah. Got everybody locked in. Well, we were pretty locked in already.

But that speech, like, set us over the top. Our confidence was so high. It didn't matter. Cam Newton came running by our sidelines in these gold shoes. And I was like, he doesn't even know. What's in store? He doesn't even know. We took his soul.

Yeah. Took his soul that game. He quit. He gave up. He didn't even try to get a fumble. I know. Man, I don't know if it doesn't seem like, was he ever the same after that? Never.

Because then he switched to vegan. And then he's like, wasn't performing, getting hurt. And it's like, I don't know if he ever came back. Everybody that I've seen switched to that vegan diet ended up getting hurt. Yeah. They all got hurt. Something was going on with him. Seems like I.

They'd get lean and look good. Yeah. Can you perform? You can't perform like that. You must need meat. In a sport like the NFL. Fucking meat grinder. Yeah.

And strength. You are what you eat, man. Yeah. Plants are frail. Right. So that year that you guys beat Cam, was he the MVP that year? Yep. Yeah.

It's one of the best offenses ever. Superman, doing the Superman. I know. Doing the dab on everybody. I know. Yeah. It seemed like they were on it. What was the score of that game?

Do you remember? Did you guys beat them? We beat them. I mean, we beat them by like two or three touch. I think we beat them by like 14, 17 points or something like that or 10 points. I don't know. It was a beat down. What does it feel like to be a Super Bowl champion?

Man, it's like, you know, I told you this earlier on the mountain. You know, when I was seven years old, I saw Reggie White carrying a trophy, the Lombardi around. And I said, I want to do that. So everything I've been working towards, it was to carry that trophy. like that and I got to do it. I got to take that trophy in front of a million people in Denver and in front of town hall and just hold the trophy. In the parade?

Yeah. And just like screaming and yelling like, ah, like. That felt like the pinnacle, I bet. The pinnacle, man. Yeah. And then it was like, it was terrible for four years, man. We couldn't win a, I mean, we were winning four games, five games. Like it was.

What happened? We lost Peyton Manning. Yeah. And then a coaching carous. sell and then shit rolls downhill just like in any business yeah once ownership is out our owner got our owner was out he he had passed and it was like a scrap hard a scramble for the family was fight in fighting and stuff trying to take over the team and are they going to sell it they're not going to sell and then like the GM you know john owing just like how's he going to keep up with all that

stuff how's he supposed to run an organization whenever the top isn't even really there yeah um you know So it made it tough on him to do his job. And, you know, eventually we just, you know, going through three different coaches. And it was just too much, man. It was too much. And now the Walmart group bought, they have $60 billion.

$40 billion more than the next owner. Oh, my God. The next closest, richest owner. Yeah. They should have money to put into the team there. And they are dumping money in there. And I got to meet Greg Penner the other day, who's, uh,

Carrie Walton's husband. Mm-hmm. So he's like in charge of the team. Dude, awesome guy. Yeah. Like, I mean, this guy's a super billionaire, man. Like, not even, like, on the same planet as me. He came up to me and had, like, an awesome conversation with me about his plans and what he's looking to do.

Like, he's excited. That's sweet. Like, he's not just a toy. Yeah. Yeah, because some of these guys buy a team and it's just a toy. It's just like buying a car or a house. Yeah. Or some random business they swallow up, you know?

Right. But no, he bought this team to win. And it's pretty impressive to see a group. like that come in and I'm like that's finally they have an ownership group and that's what we were missing was ownership what do you what do you think about Russell Wilson that the QB he had a tough year last year he did have a tough year but what happened with him was that he was he was put into a situation where they gave him all they let him just do what he wanted and that's not always a bad thing what do you mean like like personnel decisions not even personnel decisions

play calling um Russell Wilson is a type of quarterback that has to move around He's got to be out of the pocket. Yeah. You know, he's not a stand in the pocket, read a defense, make a throw. He's like, get out of the pocket. Guys open, I'm going to make the throw. That's him. Yeah.

He wanted to be a pocket guy that wins, you know, plays for another 10 years, 15 years, whatever. Yeah, but he's not 6'6. He can't see over the line. You can't see over the line. Yeah. Dude, he was struggling. Then you had, they said it was just like a free-for-all around there. He had his own office.

He had a coach that he paid. He was putting in a game plan on Tuesdays. And then the coaches come in on Wednesdays. put a game plan in and it's completely different. God. So you want to talk about just like confusion? That's not going to work. It didn't work.

So now Sean Payton's in there. And you're going to see a big change. You're going to see, I think they're going to win 12 games this year. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I think they won 12 games. So he'll come in, Sean Payton will come and clean it up,

get everybody back in the roles they're supposed to be in, put people in position for success, not have the quarterback making the game plan. Yeah. With his coach that he pays? That seems crazy. It wasn't working and they kept doing it. No.

I'm like, what are you guys doing, man? Like, this is bad. Yeah, that's the rough part with being, what, 240 million, I think is what his contract? So when you come with that contract. There's expectations. Yeah, you better win games. You can't win five games. So he's getting just crucified in the media.

Dude, the laughing stock. Yeah. I don't know if you remember, but he did like, they went to London. And he was talking about how, yeah, everybody was sleeping. I was doing high knees on the plane. Like, what the fuck are you talking about, dude? Nobody cares. Don't be throwing your teammates under the bus, first of all.

Well, yeah, like, we know you work hard, bro. Nobody questions your work ethic. Right. We're questioning your decision making. Yeah, you're high-need. And, like, now I'm even more questioning because why would you say that? Yeah, I know. That just seems weird.

Yeah. Well, that's the problem, man. That's why, like, when I talk about Peyton, never feeling like he was out of touch, he always felt like one of the guys. Yeah. And I think that that is really important for a quarterback to relate because the quarterback is going to make more money than everybody. Yeah. And in the NFL, there's a financial lane.

You better stay in it. Right. Don't try to live like Russell Wilson. Don't try to live like Von Miller. Right. Von Miller's making, you know, 25 million a year, 22 million a year, 21 million. Like you can't live like that. You don't get to live the way he lives.

You live a different lifestyle. All right. Don't like stay out of that financial land. But whenever he comes in that locker room, he is the same as you. Yeah. Regardless to his bank account. And that's how Peyton made you feel. Now, I don't think that Russell Wilson makes people feel that way.

No, he doesn't try to, but he's married to a superstar musician. Yeah. You know, they fly private all over the world. They're going to Morocco and they're going to this F1 race and they're going here and there. That's so unrelatable to guys. But you know what is relatable? Peyton Manning pulling up in a fucking Buick, getting out with a vest and a long, in a button up on and carrying a briefcase. that's relatable doesn't it does it seem weird that you'd have to explain that to somebody like

you know if you had a quarterback like wilson it's like you can't do you have to tell them don't act like a prima don't have your own set of rules these are men you need to be able to relate to me if you're going to lead them why would you have to explain that does that seem weird it's a great question i mean if you're you shouldn't have to he should know that by now i would think but i mean they said in seattle that he out out's war is welcome right Like, and it's because he, like, he wanted to get the head coach fired up there. And he wanted this and he wanted that. And it's like, if you were a third round pick, undersized guy who was able to get to two Super Bowl's, you won one, one.

You've never had an MVP vote. Who do you think you are? Yeah. No. Bro, I was around the MVP, Peyton Manning. That didn't act like that. He didn't act like that. Yeah.

And I kept saying on the radio, I was like, man, I can't believe he's acting like this because I was in the combine with Russell Wilson. I played against him when he was at NC State. Okay. So I've known him. Yeah. He used to be way different. Now he's like. Like a normal guy?

Yeah. He was like normal. I have a normal conversation. Now he's like, I'm talking to a robot. Right. Like what is going on here? It's like he has to be told what to say at all times. Yeah.

That seems weird. That's weird to me. Yeah. But I think he's, Sean Peyton will bring him back down to earth. Think so? Yeah. And I could tell by being around.

He's got him. Okay. Yeah. So you've seen a difference. already. Dude, the feel around that building is way different. Yeah. Because it was like a free for all last year.

Training camp, they might as well been glamping. Really? Dude, it was, they weren't competing. They weren't working. They were getting hurt. Like goofing around. But with Sean Payton, you could tell that it's like. It seems like, you know, it's crazy when you take when one person, I mean,

I guess a coach can do it like Sean Payton. But also when you take like a Tom Brady that goes to Tampa Bay, they hadn't won anything. One guy can change that culture. That's the quarterback position, man. Isn't that crazy? It's the only, it's the only sport that's like that.

Where the quarterback position is so important in the NFL. If you don't have a good quarterback, you cannot win. Right. I don't care. We had, in 2016, coming back from that Super Bowl win, we had the number one defense again. And we didn't win. We won nine games.

Who's your quarterback? Trevor Simeon. Exactly. Yeah. Great guy. Yeah. But like he's just not that guy. Right.

He's not the guy. Yeah. He's just a guy. So that quarterback of Tom Brady coming in, he helped the defense even feels better. Yeah. He makes everyone around him better. Yeah. That's a sign of it.

Because you don't want to waste the opportunity. Right. We got Tom fucking Brady. Yeah. You think that defense was like, dude, we got Tom Brady. We got to go now. You know, and I never heard. the crazy thing about it, maybe

is because his play backed it up, but I never heard how much he was making at Tampa Bay. You know how like Russell went to Denver, all anybody talked about was $240 or $250 million? I never heard anything about Tom Brady. Never. With the money. He always took less money.

He took less money. So other guys could be on the team. Okay, that must have been it. Because if you pay your quarterback all this, you have no money for anybody. There's a cap. There's a cap. So if you spend a quarter of your cap on one guy,

How are you going to pay anybody else? He's not going to be, his supporting cast is not going to be very good. If you, if you were a GM or a coach, so you invest in the quarterback, then where? What's the second most important?

Pass rusher. Okay. So an outside pass rusher. Yeah, because that left tackle. Yeah. So quarterback left tackle pass rusher, then lockdown safety or lockdown corner.

Corner. Okay. And then interior pass rush. Yeah. Because if you can put pressure, on their quarterback and be able to lock a receiver up one on their star receiver one on one with the lockdown corner then it opens up all sorts of different things right it opens it up yeah but if you got to double a guy and use safety help all the time mm-hmm then there's another guy

it's exposed right so it's like that you know that's super bowl year we had chris harris all pro a keep to leave all pro pro pro bowl or hall of famer um tj ward he's a duck yeah absolute dog Darien Stewart back there. I mean, they were called the no-fly zone, man, because nobody could get... We were on that... Because you got to think, you got DeMarcus Ware.

Yeah. So the quarterback can only has, what, how long till you guys got to him? So you try to get there before three seconds. Okay. That's like the timing in their head is one, two, three, throw. One, two, three, throw.

So think about that. You've got to get by this guy. You got to get off the ball, get by this guy and tackle him before he gets rid of the ball. So having a great secondary that makes him like second. and guess himself and hold it for just like a, uh,

yeah, that creates an opportunity. That creates a sack. Because a guy like Tom Brady, that ball is like, catch throw, catch throw, catch throw, catch throw, you're not getting there. And that's what Peyton, when he got to Denver, he was like that too. Yep, catch a throw.

Holding that ball very long. Hell no, because all you do was tap his shoulder, he'd fall. Yeah, I know. He was, I mean it. One time this guy, we were playing Pittsburgh, we were playing Pittsburgh in the playoffs. And this guy almost got him and he just said,

you know, he just slid. And they didn't blow the whistle. So he got up and threw a touchdown pass. I couldn't believe. Because everybody stopped. Yeah. Because he's down. No, he got up and threw a touchdown pass.

Oh, man. We won the game. It was insane. Yeah. So, yeah, it is. It's like a, it's a timing thing. And it is, you know, when it comes to the leadership of a quarterback, they are the, they command the offense. They run the show.

And they can't be just a passenger out there, you know, like they have to run the show. So I see a lot of talented guy. Like I play with Lamar too, Lamar Jackson. He is like the team guy all about the team, all about what's good, what's the best for you? What do you want to do? Like that's how he is. And that's why he's so great because he's got the talent to back it up too.

Right. He'll beat you with his legs. He can beat you with his arm. He can read a defense. He knows how to break down a defense. He's just impressive to me. What happens when the team doesn't believe in the quarterback? doubt yeah it's just like anything right what happens when you're out you know in the backwoods and

that doubt starts creeping in right all right it crept in this week but now it next week's a new week tomorrow's a new day the doubt creeps in a little more yeah and then it starts to spread that's why it's like leadership if it's not there mm-hmm the locker room lawyers will start talking and they'll start and chatter and then little clicks develop and next thing you know the team separated yeah they're just hanging out the We don't want to be around each other. I don't be around this guy. He stinks.

You know, this guy's terrible. They're all talking shit about each other. It's like a, it's like a bunch of kids. Yeah. They treat us like children, so they act like kids, you know? I could imagine it'd be tough. If you didn't, if you're busting your balls on defense and then it's three and out, three and out, dude.

Or quick interception or like, what the deep in your own territory. You know, it's like, what the fuck? Well, it's like, okay, three, two. three, four times it happens, whatever. We're like, we can't wait to get back out there. But then as a game goes on, you're like, dude, how many opportunities are we going to give you before you just, we just like accept that we're not going to win?

Because the more opportunities that we give their offense, they're going to get us figured out too. Yeah. Because it's the NFL. They're all good. There's been some, I think it was Denver. It feels like that where the defense was scoring more than the offense for a while. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know. It was a Super Bowl 50 team. Yeah. Okay. It's just like. We had a couple games where we scored two, three touchdowns. That's impressive. That's so impressive.

Well, that guys like Akkeeb, man. And Von Miller, Von Miller would create strip sacks nonstop. Like, the ball was on the ground a lot. So guys were scooping and scoring. Akib, if the ball was in the air, he considered that his ball. Right. And when he got it in his hands, he wanted to score. Right.

That was his mentality. He had that prime, like, Dion Sanders mentality. Like, I'm trying to score. Yeah. And then I'm going to steal your chain. dude he is a dog poked a guy in the eyes once just out of his mind out there

but loved him loved having him as a teammate like he was a good leader as well that's the other thing you gotta have a good supporting cast as a leader right like whenever you do say something like they gotta be backing it up you know so like if a Fikib would say something

we'd all back him up if I said something he would back me up like that's the kind of way it's got to be yeah no that mutual respect who is the the hardest player you've ever went against, gave you the most trouble. The hardest I've ever been hit was Marshawn Lynch.

My rookie year, it was a preseason game. I've been out there for a bunch of snaps in a row. Jack Del Rio was our defense coordinator, so he was like kind of tested me, see what I was about, you know. I was like 12 plays in a row. I go to shed a block and the guy kind of hangs on to me and I didn't like finish the shed, like,

you know, rake his arms off me. So I was kind of like exposed with my head out there. And Marshawn Lynch just like like a big horn ram just like, wow. And I tackled him. But my helmet was all up in my face and nose and I was bleeding. And I was like, my ears were ringing real bad. My chest was hurting. My back was hurting.

I landed on my, landed like kind of crooked. I was like, oh, whoa. I was like, that was different. Oh, man. But I just like got out, put it on. I was like, you know, then he pulled me off. and he was like, he's like, welcome to the NFL, Rook. Who pulled you job?

Del Rio. He's like, come on, you're good. Yeah, I mean, you remember the, what was that, that run, Marchand, what was it? The beast mode. The beast quake. The beast quake, yeah, whatever. Remember that run? I think it was Arizona or something.

No, no, it's the saints. Yeah. And he just went crate. Dude, he was an absolute animal. Yeah. He was so hard to tackle. I bet. So hard to tackle.

I played against a lot of good backs, man. People talk about Derek Henry this, they're carrying that, but, you know, and he's a great back. Yeah. But, like, I always made it, like, a personal thing against him because he, you know, he would, like, stiff-armed D.Bs and stuff. And I'm like, dude, you're a defensive end carrying a football, man. He's, like, of course you can. And he is huge. Yeah.

So, like, Derek Henry, he brings it. Like, he's hard to tackle. But he's got more body mass. Like, he's tall. He's more upright. Yeah. But Marshaun Lynch was like, mm-hmm. Yeah.

Like, and he just, like, kept his legs churning, man. He would run right through you. Yeah. Yeah, he, that's still like probably, people love talking about that play where they didn't give it to him on the one where they tried to pass it. Dude. Patriots won. Crazy. That was a quarterback decision.

Was it? That was Wilson called that? What, audibled out of it or something? Wow. That's rough. I mean. Throws a pick and loses a Super Bowl. So what did he, did he want to get the, like the stats?

That's an ego. Mm-hmm. That ego creeps in. wanted the stats to throw a touchdown instead of getting a rushing. He's never had an MVP vote. So you had to try to prove it in the Super Bowl, huh? Yeah, and you try to prove it this year and look what happened. You're a good, you're a great supporting quarterback.

Yeah. Don't try to be more than that. Right. Be yourself. Be who you are. Yeah. Play within yourself. Yeah.

You got paid already, man. Like, just do it. Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, it's, it was, it was pretty, I kind of had high hopes for Denver. I've always, you know, from when you guys played, and I was always a Von Miller fan because I knew he'd hunted. And so I was like, and then Philip Lindsay,

because, you know, I had a kid, he wore some of my stuff before he was a running back there. I kind of liked, and I was like, oh, shit, this would be kind of cool if Denver could be good. And then it's just like, what a fucking disaster. The expectations were so high. They were. And it was such a crash and burn.

Oh, my God. That made it even worse. With that Broncos country, let's ride. Oh, geez. Dude, when he lost that game and he gets up there and he goes, he looks like he's crying. Yeah. And he goes, Broncos country. Let's ride.

Oh. I was like, dude. It was pretty cringy. This is the cringiest thing I've ever seen. Oh, because you know, he didn't even believe it at that time. No, he was like, I can't believe I'm still saying this. I know. It just seemed brutal.

Oh, my God. Yeah. So I do, I'm a Sean Payton fan. So hopefully he can get it turned around. He's a good dude, too. He's going to get it together over there. You could tell. I went over there for that rookie minicamp, and he's got those guys.

They're rolling. They're going to be all right. They're going to be good to shot. Like I said, I keep saying 12 wins and people are like, you're crazy. Yeah. Oh, you guys were saying that last year with, you know, Nathaniel Hackett, who had never been a head coach before. Right. I was like, this is a guy that knows how to do it.

He did it with, like, all kinds of different quarterbacks. Yeah. After Drew Breese, he was doing it still. Yeah, he's a winner. Definitely a winner. He'll bring that culture like Tom Brady did kind of to Tampa. Bay. Who was the player that you that you never played with that you

wished or you wanted to? Is there anybody? As a teammate? Yeah. I mean, I feel like, you know, I'm reaching there. Yeah. Tom Brady is one of those guys though. Like I would love to have been a teammate of his. I thought there was a chance we could get him in Denver when he went to Tampa. Yeah. No.

Didn't work. I think of some other guys. I mean, I got to play with DeMarcus Ware. I know. I know. Miller. You got the who's who already. Peyton Manning. Demarius Thomas. Yeah. It's like

you won a Super Bowl. I won a Super Bowl, man. Like it's hard for me to like. You killed a bull elk. Killed a giant bull elk, which was like the pinnacle of all of it. Could life get any better? It seems like you've like for for what you've went through as a kid

and your upbringing and all you had to overcome. Now it seems like, man, you've been blessed. Absolutely blessed, man. Like I'm so grateful for the life that I get to live. Like I get to do, my life is like a movie. Like I get to do so. Who gets to go have a for some golf trip with, you know, Trump and John Daly and Kid Rock? Who gets to do that, you know? Yeah, nobody I know. No, I don't know. Other than you. Yeah, who gets to do that? Like, I'm like, I can't believe I'm here. I was like, what am I doing here? Yeah. Just this, just a poor white

trash from Ohio, you know, like, and look at where I'm at. That's what makes it so cool to see. And people, I think that's why people, because of your attitude and how, you know, you, You just share your life and share your journey. People root for you and people are happy for you. Nobody sees you and be like, no, fuck that guy. What does he get all that shit? Everybody who sees you be like, God damn, he's living a great life. I'm happy for him.

When it's crazy because I get that kind of love from people that don't even know me, but when I was like first in the league, guys that had seen the struggle, been there for the struggle, guys that I consider my brothers, they were trying to take advantage. get money or what? Yeah, the one's closest to me. I was like, what the, yeah.

And then I get married and my wife is like, yeah, if your friends are going to come to the game, they're paying for a ticket because it's expensive. And I was like, you know what? You're right. They should have to pay for the ticket. Yeah. Because I got to pay for it.

Why should I have to pay for you to come watch me? Yeah. It's like, yeah, I get two tickets. So other than that, like, you're buying them? You're buying them. And then I guess what? Nobody came. Right.

nobody and then get the freebies somebody else to pay for it wasn't free they didn't want to come and then for my birthday i would rent a house and have all my buddies come and we'd you know hang out for a week up in the mountains and snowboard when i stopped paying for that nobody came yeah that's a nobody came that's a cold hard facts of life it seems like sometimes sometimes you you know it takes a little bit of uh i i guess when all everything's good everybody's there but anytime somebody has to you know pull themselves up or do something for themselves or pay their own way, then it's just like, you really figure it out. Yeah, when everything's going good, when Peyton Manning's around and we're winning games all the time,

we're going to championships, you want to come to the games. But when we're losing, you don't want to come support me. Yeah. You don't want to pay for your ticket. You don't want to do this. You want to do that. You don't want to pay for a flight. Asking me for a flight money, like, dude, you're a grown man.

I'm not paying for your flight. You got a job. You've got afford a $300 ticket. Like, come on, dude. And I'm not. Yeah. It's the principal. Like, you want to come see me, bro.

like come see me. Like I'm not asking you. I'm not going to beg you. You know, I think it's like part of coming up from a situation like you did and like even like I did, it's just like people are used to not having much and like used to, I don't know. It just seems weird that it doesn't surprise me that you'd have to kind of shed those type of people. Yeah. Because there's always going to be the hangers on for a while that aren't really grinding for themselves but want to attach themselves to success. It kind of happens just in this type of environments. It does. Eventually

you work it out. Well, and you want to be, like, I want to be around people that are like trying to grow. You know, creators, guys that are, you know, reaching for goals and shooting, you know, always evolving. Like I said, you're either getting better or you get worse. Right. Like, I never, like, my worst nightmare is like working a nine to five

that I hate going in, clocking out. Clocking in, clocking out. And then living for the weekend. Right. Like, and then just, you know, hiding, go into the garage and drinking beers so my wife doesn't see. Yeah. That's like my worst nightmare.

That's a lot of people's lives. And a lot of people are fucking miserable. Yeah. And it's like, dude, and they're stuck. They are absolutely stuck. And I'm like, you allowed yourself to get to that. Mm-hmm. You allowed that to happen with complacency.

Yeah. It's, I mean, it's one of the reasons why I started this. It's like, because I don't want to be. want to be, I want to surround myself with people like you with what I always say is outliers, because you can't help but learn from people. So when you're around people who I think I, I've been lucky enough to bring people in here or better than me at pretty much everything. And I'm like, if I can like get a little shine from all these people, I'm going to grow. Yeah. But it's like that growth mindset, you know, and that's what, that's what you have. That's what, you know,

I like, you know, having my son be around that, my family be around people. like you because it's like as a society or as a little community it's like you can learn and evolve and have a whole different mindset from people who have done great things right you know and we can get better we can I don't know it's I appreciate you saying that because I I learned I'm just following you in your journey on social media like it brings me inspiration you inspire the shit out of me you do man because like you know why and it doesn't matter what it is that you do You always go as hard as you can. Try to, yeah.

You always put your best foot forward, and if you fail, you fail, but you're not afraid to fail. Right. And you push and you push and you push. And what you've done is you've found something you loved. You chased it as far as you could go. And it hasn't slowed down yet. It just keeps getting better. Yeah.

I mean, I feel real. And that is like inspirational. And anybody can learn. Anybody can do it. Yeah. Anybody can go and find something. something they love to do and fucking chase it. Right.

But they're afraid to. Right. Because they're like, oh, society says, I should do this or I should do that. What if I, what if it does? What if I fail? Yeah. What if you do fail? I'll try again, motherfucker.

Go. Figure something else out. And if you pour yourself into whatever you're doing, there's really no, no failure. You know what I mean? There's learning. There's readjusting. There's recalculating. And then just you keep going.

Well, look at it this way. I played 10 years. How many? times do you think there was a past play in 10 years? How many past plays were there? Thousands. Thousands. 36 sacks. I failed a lot. Right. But that didn't deter me from keep trying next play. Right. But you know what I did? I changed my tactic. I didn't keep doing the same stupid as move that didn't work the time before. Right. I didn't not run to the ball and try to get, you know, create a sack fumble or do something. You know, and that's the thing. When you go hard and you play hard and you work hard,

things will happen. Good things will happen. Right. That's just like the law of attraction, right? Like if I keep like putting it out there that like this is going to happen but I'm not doing anything about it. Right. Probably not going.

But if I'm putting it out there and I keep going and I keep going and I never waver from that and there's going to be days where you're like, man, fuck this. Like every, that's, that's natural to feel that way to be like, man, this is just not going to work, man. I should just quit. And that's just like that little voice in your head that you got to tell the fuck off. Yeah. Get out of here. Now, I'm going to keep going. Wake up the next day before your feet hit the ground. Be like, I'm going to win today. I'm going to win today. I'm going to win today. And you might not. But you're going to keep trying. Eventually it's going to work out for you, man. It's like. That's a rare mindset. It is. You know why? Because people would rather have an excuse. It would rather be easy. They have social media where it looks like everybody's doing well. But it's not real. Social media is not real. Like the shit that you see in there is not real. You know, I mean, these kids these days, man, they don't even have, they have not the first clue of how to even have a conversation with each other.

Right. Right. Like, it's sad. No, they, people do put a lot of power into what they see on a glimpse of highlights or what's not really curated existence. That's not even a real life. But, yeah, I mean, I like your approach on, yeah, you get up. I'm going to win the day. It doesn't matter if I failed yesterday. or yesterday was a fucking disaster,

we're going to give her all we got today. Have a short memory. And I've never, I've never seen anybody who gives all they got to something fail. Eventually they win. Eventually they fucking win. Eventually, it's going to work out and all that effort is going to pay off. But what happens is people get, you know,

one little speed bump, one little hurdle. And they're like, oh. Oh, see, I told you. Yeah. Told you I couldn't do it. I knew this is going to happen. This always happens. I think this starts with with I'm going to go out on limb here and say it starts with parenting

or lack thereof because if you if your parents allow you to quit once the next time it would be really easy right we don't let our kids quit no you're not you're not going to quit if you start it we're going to finish it until there's no there's no rope left right you keep trying we're going to keep trying. We'll find another way. But nowadays, these kids are like, you know, their parents, instead of like problem solving, they just toss an iPad at them. Right.

You know, so now they grew up just like playing video games and watching movies and this and that. And they don't live in the real world. So they get out in the real world and they're shocked. What? I can't make $100,000 a year just like showing up. Right. No, bud.

You got to work hard. And I don't have a million dollars. Why? I don't know. Probably because you don't. don't do anything. What sucks is that the kids see that behavior and they emulate because they see their parents quit.

They hear their parents complaining and whining about things and quitting when things get hard. So of course they're going to be the same. So it's like it's, you know, a lot of parents will say, do as I say, not as I do. No. No. You got to fucking lead by example. Lead by example. And a lot of parents don't.

They don't. They expect their kids to do something great when they haven't. and they haven't pushed themselves. They haven't challenged themselves, but they expect their kids to it's never going to work. Right. That's what, you know,

that's like, don't you want your kids to see you, like grind and work for something, you know? Every great story, think about every great story you hear about like, you know, like basketball players,

football players. They always talk about like a single mom. They talk about how my mom had three jobs and still cooked us dinner and did this and did that. That's what inspired them. Right. That grind inspired them.

That hunger. like not not sitting on your ass and complaining and whining coming home and showing love and getting your ass up and going to work again doing what you got to do exactly and that's what it's about well what's so in that in that vein what's your goals what's what next for so so there's so I really would like to take I want my podcast to take off um you know I was picking your brain earlier about it like I don't want to do it and do it wrong I want to I want to I want to figure out all I can figure out and then I can make a decision

because it's like I don't know what I don't know. Right. So I'm like I got my studio set up. I got my YouTube channel going. I got films out already. I just, I love to hunt. So I want to hunt and I want to make a living doing it.

Like I want it to pay for itself at least and it is already. You know, year one I earned enough to make it pay beyond for itself, you know, which is like, kind of blew my mind. I didn't have a product yet. And I was like, okay imagine when I really get this thing going you know so um the podcasting the hunting and then um I'm thinking about doing a little WWE really thinking about it nice thinking about it I got got some

feelers out do they pay well okay you got hey I don't know I don't know you got the look I feel like I'd be great at it you know I think so I'd be a great guy at going out there and getting the crowd route up doing some backflips you're good on the mic yeah talking shit I mean no I mean that's a big part of that stuff. It is. You got to be able to talk. Yeah. You can't like a big group of people doesn't like intimidate me to speak to them. Yeah. And I think that is a really big there. You know, I'm also doing some speaking. So I get paid to go and I never thought that I would be a in like a what do you call it a motivational speaker. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I never thought that I would do something like that. Because I was thought that like those guys were kind of corny to me.

but I don't write those speeches. I just go in there and speak from the heart and talk to like, what do you guys do for a living? Yeah. Let me show you how you can apply exactly how I lived to what you're doing. I don't care if you're in real estate, whatever. But I'm, you know, I'm doing some public speaking too for, and getting paid to do it, talking to kids and, you know,

talking to adults, like all ages, age groups can kind of learn from like the things that I've applied in my life and how I got to where I'm at. Yeah. And how I continue to try to grow. I didn't just retire from the NFL and be like, oh, I give up now. I'm done, which I could. I made enough money.

I could just, right. I could just say, you know, screw it and just, you know, I'm not, this is the life I'm going to live.

And, but that's not, what's the purpose? Yeah. Is that good for my kids to see? No. You don't have, you don't have a coasting type spirit.

You know what I mean? You fought your whole life. You're going to continue to fight and work. I need some adversity. I need to be doing something where people are like, you can't do it. Right. You know,

we were talking about that earlier, right? And I was like, I'd rather somebody tell me I can't do something, Well, I mean, I have no doubt that if I look at everything you've accomplished so far, there's no doubt that you're going to continue to be successful in your life. And I mean, you're just set up for your mindset is that growth mindset, that winning mindset. And you bring, you bring a positive spirit to, I mean, the time we spent together today, I see that you possibly influence others because you have me. And I appreciate you coming. I thank you for coming all the way to Or again sharing and my lift, run, shoot experience, taking time out to podcast, it means so much to me.

I'm honored. I'm honored. Seriously. Like, I know that sounds cheesy, but like, it's an absolute honor to like be around you, to learn from you, to watch how you do this shit every day. I mean, you've got an unbelievable concept here. A great team around you. Great family. I mean, uh, you know, I'm, I'm impressed, man. It's super cool.

And, uh, you know, I'm grateful for your friendship and for your leadership as well. So thank you. Thank you. Well, I mean, I'll end this with, you know, I think you're an ally. I appreciate you coming. Normally I give my guests a bow, but you already have your own bow. And I don't have a 33-inch bow for you, but you're shooting you so good. But thank you very much.

I appreciate you. Thanks for coming, Derek. Thanks for having me, brother. All right, keep hammering. Hoyt Archery has been my bow hunting sponsor since 2005. And personally, I really don't care what bow you shoot, what brand it is. I just hope that you have the same level of confidence in your equipment as I have in mind because I know if I get one opportunity with my Hoyt, it's going to pay off.

Cabellas and Bass Pro Shops is a sponsor of the podcast. And that's especially powerful for me because I remember when Cabellas came to town, came to Springfield, Oregon. And I actually played a role in the opening of that store. Instead of cutting the grand opening ribbon with scissors, I shot it with an arrow. And it was just a monumental thing. I mean, everybody here in town was talking about, hey, are you going to go to Cabellas? Can you believe Cabellas is coming here to Springfield, Oregon? So I know what a staple those giants in the industry are. And it's actually, it's one of the first places people go when they're looking to get geared up to become a hunter as they go to Cabellas and buy everything they need. So I'm very excited that we've partnered together and we can help

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