Digital Social Hour - The Controversial Reality of NFL Contracts: Austin Ekeler Speaks Out | Austin Ekeler DSH #630

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

🚀 Get ready for an explosive episode of the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! Join us as NFL star Austin Ekeler  sheds light on the controversial reality of NFL contracts. 🏈💥   Tune in now to hear Austin speak out about the pressures he faces, the politics behind player payments, and the unique challenges running backs encounter in today's NFL. Austin's raw and honest take on his journey from small-town Colorado to NFL stardom is packed with valuable insights you won't want to miss. 🌟   Ever wondered how NFL players handle social media hate? Austin reveals his strategies for staying positive and engaged with fans, even amidst the negativity. Plus, discover his love for fantasy football and how he's building a community both on and off the field. 🏅📱   Don't miss out on this eye-opening conversation! Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more captivating stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀   Join the conversation and get the inside scoop on what it's really like to be an NFL player navigating the complexities of contracts, fan engagement, and personal growth. 🔥 Watch now and be part of the action!   #PersonalDevelopmentTips #SuccessMindset #GritAndDetermination #FocusAndDiscipline #NflInsights   CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:33 - Austin's NFL Career 02:19 - Fantasy Football Strategies 04:57 - Babbel Language Learning 06:12 - Austin's Entrepreneurial Journey 08:10 - Overcoming Humble Beginnings 09:48 - Toxic Home Relationships 13:04 - The Power of Forgiveness 14:47 - Sacrifices for Success 17:24 - NFL Performance Pressure 21:30 - NFL Running Backs Influence 23:08 - Importance of Mentorship 25:08 - Real Estate Insights 27:34 - Poker with Blake Win 29:13 - Education and School Experience 29:45 - College Journey 31:19 - Facing Toughest Defenses 34:09 - From 6th String to Starter 36:47 - Closing Thoughts 36:58 - Full Circle with Anthony Lynn 37:28 - Outro   APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]   GUEST: Austin Ekeler https://www.instagram.com/austinekeler   SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly   LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. When I put the stress on myself, when I feel that pressure putting down for myself, there's nothing else that matters besides this mission because there's nothing else that matters. And that's the mindset I put the stress on myself, when I feel that pressure pointing down for myself, there's nothing else that matters besides this mission, because there's nothing else that matters. And that's the mindset I put my in. I put myself in like there's survival, like a survival mode.

Like this is, you have to make this work or there's nothing else to do. All right, guys, got an NFL legend here today, Austin Eckler. Thanks for coming on, man. Thanks for having me, man. Yeah, new chapter. It's exciting for you, right? New chapter indeed. You know, as we go through life, you kind of get in a routine,

but every once in a while there's a wrinkle, and this is one of those for me, and I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, and you're in an interesting period in the NFL with the way they're kind of treating running backs overall, right? Yeah, well, look, here's how I've always kind of approached it. If you're making an impact, you should get paid for that impact. I don't care what position you're playing, right? and depending on how big that impact is made is depending on how big the check should be made which is why we see quarterbacks right getting paid so much because

they make a huge impact you know regardless of what team they're on if you have a good quarterback you give yourself a chance because they can make things happen same with other guys too if we have running backs that are making things happen that are making an impact you should be you know paid accordingly absolutely i'm a giants fan so i didn't like the way Saquon went out, man. I thought they did him dirty. It's so tough because you have these scenarios where you're balancing caps and you're balancing things like that. And so there's a lot of politics and things behind the scene

that you can't really measure and you don't know what the organization wants. Do they want to move on? Are they not willing to come up to a certain so yeah it's it's it's the nature of the business i feel that you wanted to stay though right you wanted to be on one team your whole life i wanted to be on a team that wanted me right and so i think it got to the point where the charge wanted to go in a different direction and so that kind of played into my my thought process of hey let's go find a new team that's excited to have austin on their team and was that made apparent like throughout the season or was it kind of sudden?

No, I think really after this last season, it was a tough season for us. Had a lot of high expectations and ended up falling short from those, not only as a team, but just my personal goals as well. And really wanted to, I guess, look for a new opportunity to, hey, let's get a fresh start. Let's become, you know, maintain the player that I've been in the past. And I think the Chargers were looking for something else with the new head coach and coming in that wasn't necessarily what I bring to the table. And so no hard feelings, but just going to find a place where I fit in.

I feel that, man. Are you still big on fantasy right now? Fantasy is a huge community. And about me, what you'll learn as we get talking is i love communities and bringing communities together and so fantasy is one that is already existing there and i can kind of implant myself in and that i've made an impact in in the past years and so it's something that i definitely embrace and you know i have my show like i told you before yeah we started with yah Yahoo about fantasy football so it's not that I love like watching the picks and I got all these sleepers but I love how fantasy brings people together and people that may not be a fan of my team that I'm playing on are still

fan of Austin because hell I'm on their team you know in fantasy or they put a bet on me um you know as long as I do well it usually turns out all right but you know if I come up short you know I feel that too but it's part of it's part of sports so i do love fantasy yeah i feel that so are you allowed to have your own team yeah you can have your own team you just can't make money off of it got it like it's like 250 bucks you can't make make anything over that on fantasy there's a bunch of rules that we have to follow so yeah yeah do you ever get a lot of hate when you have a bad game what i mean that's is that a real question i mean you know we live in the social media age where everyone's opinion can be put out there without any repercussion right so i can say

whatever i want so if you have a bad game or lose me money you know i'm getting dms i'm getting all this stuff i have my social media team filtering out just delete delete block i probably got thousands of people blocked just get damn get the toxicity oh so you block them i don't block my social media team does yeah so they'll i just get the toxicity out of my of my life i don't want to see it i don't want any of my fans that are supporting me to see it like i just want like good vibes i noticed you're really big on your fan engagement a lot of players aren't really in touch with their fans but you've built a whole community right yeah absolutely and i've done it in different ways too and actually kind of leads to the project that i've been building so when i first got into the nfl i was from a small town and really had a lot of community support around my town like

after the game they'd be on the field you know high-fiving it taking pictures uh you get to the pros you you really lose that because it's too big you can't manage all these people there's too many people that want too many you know people that want these things too many crazy people you know um and so you had to put boundaries in when you get to the nfl and so for me i wanted to find ways to kind of break down some of those boundaries but still keep it safe so i started like streaming on twitch i started a gaming company our gaming company where we you know would combine audiences of nfl and other athletes um to to combine our likeness and and build community relations let them ask questions game with us stuff stuff like that.

Discord channel, YouTube channel, built all that and just realized that I'm not a creator in that sense. I get burnt out. So I've always been trying to find new ways to connect with the community, which kind of leads me to experience the project that I said I was working on. Are you tired of ordering on a menu in a different country only to be served snails? Why not actually speak the language and order what you want? That's where Babbel comes in. Speak like a whole new you with Babbel, the science-backed language learning app that gets you talking. Wasting hundreds of dollars on private tutors is the old school way of learning a new language.

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All it takes is just about 10 minutes a day. It's designed by real people for having real conversations and it gets you talking. I've been going to a lot of Spanish speaking countries over the last few months and Babbel has come in clutch. I now know how to order food and ask where the restroom is when I travel. Here's a special limited time deal for our listeners. Right now, get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners at babbel.com slash social hour. That's 60% off at babbel.com slash social hour spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com slash social hour. Rules and restrictions may apply. Nice. And I love that you have the foresight to do these endeavors while you're still playing

rather than retire and then try to figure it out. Yeah. So a little bit of backstory on me. I never thought I was going to be in the NFL. Like I, I was going to school for business thought i was going to be in the nfl like i i was going to school for business i was going to western colorado not one person ever has gone to the nfl from that school it's a tiny division two school up in the mountains like 4 000 people in this town it's a ski and snowboard town outdoor recreation i'm fly fishing and ice fishing every day up there like that's what i was doing and for me i took my education seriously and i took football seriously because football helped me pay for my school. I didn't get a full ride because we're in Division II, so you get partial, but you can increase your scholarship if you get like academic All-American and all that stuff, you know, All-American. And so I was trying as hard as I possibly could to dominate at football and dominate at my education.

And so I was able to do the football side well enough where my coach came to me one day and was like, hey, man, you have some scouts reaching out. And that was kind of an eye-opening opportunity for me. It was like, well, there's this new opportunity called the NFL that I might be able to tap into. And so I say that because my entrepreneur side has never left me, even though I went the football route. I'm still building a lot of things off the field that continue to really fill my cup there. Because even with football, I feel like it's almost a path that's been laid out for me. Like you go to high school, you go to college, you go to the pros, it's very laid out. And it's not necessarily something that I've built.

I've definitely had to work and build myself up to be able to have success in it. But I want to make something that impacts society that I can say that I've built from my hands, from my ideas, from my vision. And I have that burning spark in me. And so that's why I do all this stuff during the off season. I love that. Damn my ideas, from my vision. And I had that burning spark in me. And so that's why I do all this stuff during the off season.

I love that. Damn. 4,000 in your college. That's how many my high school had, man. Yeah. So my college actually had 2,500. And so the town itself that it sat in was 4,000 strong. Holy crap. So I pretty much knew everybody. So yeah, definitely a tight knit community. That's insane. Half the town was in college. Exactly. Exactly. That's crazy. When college was out, it was like a ghost town. Like, where is everybody, you know, during the summer? Humble beginnings, man.

For sure. You were a white water rafter guy, right? I was, man. I was doing anything I could to get myself by. And that was my first job I ever had. So the day I graduated, I wanted to get out of the toxic relationship at home. Like I need to get away from this scenario. Um, and so I threw my hat in the air on May and May and my high school graduation. And I had a job lined up, which was white water rafting up in Gunnison, Colorado. And that was going to be what held me over to pay rent for the summer. I wanted to start training with the team. So I was like, let me just immerse myself into this new life that I have. And, uh, that's where that, yeah, that job started.

I've done a lot of odd jobs just to continue to get me by through college. But I've just been a builder and a hustler, man. That's what I want to do. I want to work and I want to go put everything into it and build it and try to make it as big of an impact with whatever I'm doing. And try to impact others, not only myself, but the people around me. I love it. And that goes back to your work ethic, which I think is what separates you from a lot of people. 100%.

Because you see me, people are like, oh, you're're kind of small and i've come up with a saying you know it's probably been said before but like don't measure like don't measure my stature measure my impact like that's that's what you really need to measure like oh yeah i might be small in stature but when you watch me on the field when you watch me scoring touchdowns getting yardage you know make an impact in the community building weight rooms building you know washers and dryers you know do you know bringing people together as far as communities. Measure that. Measure how it is. Measure how I speak.

Measure how I make you feel. Measure all that. That's the impact that I'm trying to make, and that's how I measure my success. And so for me, it's continue to put one step in front of the other and try to better myself and then make that contagious to the people around me and help us all lift us each other. There's a saying, it's all like rising tide lifts all ships. And so let me build myself up, be around other people that are trying

to do the same. And guess what? We'll make an impact that's felt around the world. Dude, I love that. You mentioned toxic relationship at home. Yeah, man. So my mother was married to this guy who was straight country guy. Like we lived out in the country and he was just really, really into tough love, like really hard on me.

And so I was the stepchild, right? And he had a bunch of animals. He built fence for a living. And so he would be gone a long time because when I say built fence, like these are barbed wire fences. This is not just like, oh, your neighborhood fence. This is like, hey, we have 26 miles of barbed wire along the railroad up in steamboat colorado and wyoming and all around and so this is months on a job and so during during school obviously i'm back home going to school someone's got to take care of the horses and the cows and the chickens and i'm the oldest guy my mother was a school teacher and so i'm out pitching hay

breaking ice watering horses every single day every single night taking care of all the animals had a lot of responsibility during the summers it'd be sports camps and fence and building fence we live in a camper on the fence site wake up boom go build fence go to sleep fishing shift we'd go fishing at at lunch back to work and then go sleep do it all over again so a lot of a lot of work a lot of environments where i'm either competing or getting pushed and when we worked it wasn't just let's get this fence built it was, let's get this shit done now. Like, I want to see some pep in your step. We're running, like we're in jogging. We're not, there's no walking. You don't walk out there. It was intense. It was intense. So I learned how to

work hard and that translated into how I kind of carried myself. And so even though it was not an environment that I enjoyed, I learned so many lessons from it that have helped me to this day and helped me really separate myself from a mentality standpoint that have been able to help me push and overcome odds as I've come and faced barriers. There's a balance with that tough love, I think, right? Because there's a point where it's too much and then not enough. Well, I was at the point where, like I said, I graduated, I was 17, I left that same day. Wow, 17? Well, my truck was packed at graduation. Okay. So it's a little too tough. I'm like, you know, what's going on. You know, I went out of here. She's

going through it too. Um, and she, you know, thankfully divorced that guy, but, um, yeah, she knew, she knew, she knew I was ready to get out of there and she knew kind of where I was at. Um, and she supported me through that. Um, she knew it wasn't her and I still love my mom to this day. We have a great relationship, but she knew it was him and I wanted to get away from him. And so did that. And then, like I said, it's been one of the best things that I've ever gone through, you know, and now I see myself growing up too. And I want to have children. I'm like, okay, how can I implement some of that tough love, but not make it where it's over the top? Like you were saying, have that balance. Because I do think there's a lot of, a lot of value in going through hard times

and being pushed and having responsibility and not being able to make excuses. Because you know how it is with life. To even set yourself apart, you've got to work hard. But if you want to continue to rise, you've got to be relentless with it. I heard how many episodes you guys are doing and the content you're doing. That's what you've got to do. You've got to take this shit to the next level if you're trying to stand out. If you're going to be mediocre mediocre you're going to fit in with

everyone else that's that's going about it you know and i'm trying to continue to push and build and i want to build and i want to build things like i said that make impact so very thankful for my upbringing absolutely when i hear of shows filming one a week i'm like it's not enough man gotta get those reps in you gotta put the reps in man you gotta put the reps in no matter what you're doing absolutely i heard on natasha graziano show this was interesting so you said you don't have much forgiveness right for people did something traumatic happen to you growing up no i mean the thing is is like i have i have a mission and i'm trying to go this direction right and if you if you have some type of you know other

motive or hey if you come across me and and somehow like we get in a disagreement like it's no tough love but look i gotta go this way i'm trying to go this way like you go do your thing i'm gonna go do my thing and i have a mission like there's there's things in life that you don't get back and one of them's time and so i can't be out here you know messing with drama i tell my my fiance i'm like i do no drama there's no drama like we are on the same team we have to go We have to go this direction. We're trying to build our life so that at the end of the day, when we die, or even before then, where we can be like, Hey, this I'm, I'm so fulfilled right now because I'm, I'm in the space that I'm supposed to be doing and I'm doing what I want to do. Um, and I feel like this is what is my purpose in this life. Um, and so I want to stay in that

lane. And so if you're distracting me from that, if you're bringing toxic toxicity or drama into that, I have no forgiveness for you. Like I'm trying to go this way. Like, like I got, I'm blocking them out. I'm staying laser focused. I heard this, um, phrase, Kobe, um, Kobe Bryant came out and talked to us. I'm out in LA. Um, and he, he had this analogy where he's like, as a lion in the grass, you know, when you're hunting, when a lion's hunting, there's, there's all these distractions, there's gnats, there's grass, as a lion in the grass, when you're hunting, when a lion's hunting, there's all these distractions. There's gnats, there's grass, but you see straight through that. You see straight through that shit.

You're just locked on the gazelle, locked on the prize. And for me, that's trying to make an impact in society. And all these gnats flying around, I'm not sitting around swatting them. I'm not giving them any attention. I'm not giving that any attention. And so that's what I mean when I don't have much forgiveness because I'm just, I'm staying laser focused on where I'm trying to go. I love that. In order to achieve the success you've had in the NFL, would you say you had to sacrifice a lot in your personal life?

Um, it will sacrifice, I guess, is, is perspective. Like for someone else, they might seem like I sacrificed like my free time to do what they think is fun for me. But for me, I really enjoyed being locked in and really just focusing and honing in and just keeping in my lane and really focusing on one thing and trying to master that. And so for me, I guess you could say, yeah, I did sacrifice things based off of your perspective. Because I didn't spend a lot of time with my extended family or things like that or going to the beach as much as I could have. But for me, it wasn't necessarily sacrifice. It was more so just where I wanted to be and where I felt most comfortable.

So I guess that comes down to what you see as real value for yourself. I never sacrificed things that pulled away from the real true value that I thought. That's where I always stayed in. So to me, it didn't seem like really sacrificing. Did you find a lot of your older friends and family members trying to take energy from you? Oh, no, no. And I think that's what was great about me being in smaller towns and having that great community. And I think that's why I have been doing so many different community building things is because when you get a good community around you like you hear the stories of like

people doubted me like I didn't have anyone like they were like awesome like go for it man like this is awesome like go do it like they have my back and they're pushing me forward um and so I had I still have that same support from that same community from both of those my high school and my college and um you know once i got into the nfl now you start to feel something like the chargers players or chargers fan not players sorry the chargers fans you know they're a little twisted because of oh you were a bust last year you're washed and all this stuff and it's like okay okay um you know you hear a little bit more once you get a little bit more exposure but for my small towns no i loved i loved all those people

and those connections that i had and i think think that goes back to my phrase of like, yeah, I don't have a lot of forgiveness. Like I keep it narrow and I keep it focused on the right direction. And then the people that are around me are also doing the same thing. And so a lot of my friends that I grew up with, actually one of them plays for the Cowboys right now.

We went to high school together, K through 12. One's an officer in the army. And so like we were really like focused on goals and we were together and we were a tight-knit group that stayed and kind of did everything together that's important to have i think yeah absolutely it's not as common as it was it's not easy to find but in the smaller town it's a little bit more common just because this is my group around and well luckily i had some some really motivated individuals around me right did you feel a lot of pressure that first year in the NFL to perform immediately? All of the pressure, but it was self-imposed.

I put so much pressure on myself. So I left my last year, my last semester of college. I didn't finish. And I wanted to just 100% go all in on trying to take advantage of this one opportunity, which was the NFL, because I knew this wasn't just, oh, an opportunity to keep playing football. No, this is a chance to change my entire lifestyle going forward leave a legacy and open myself up to a new life that i don't even know what's going to have um you know in for me and so i went everything in like i even told i called my mom during otas i was like mom like

i know you're excited but let me just call you at the end of the week like don't like just let me focus like let me i know you're excited i'm excited too but let me just focus on this let me laser focus let me lock in and not leave anything on the table i didn't want it to be something that i didn't do to cause me to fail or it's like oh i wish i would have studied more i think i know i'm over studying i'm putting so much pressure on myself because i'm from a division two school i have everything to prove and then some like i gotta make sure that no there's no doubt that austin eckler showed up and he knew what he was doing he did his job to his fullest ability. Now, whether I have success in that, I can't necessarily control.

Like there's some things that I can't control, but I can control my effort that I'm putting in to try to get myself to a place to give myself an opportunity for success. And so I put so much pressure on myself. I remember breaking down one time. I was the only running back, but I broke down and straight up. I was just so like just filled with stress and emotion and uh i told my coach i'm like man like i'm putting everything into this and i'm not like moving up the depth chart or anything that was six string on the depth chart damn yeah there's no six strings that make it in the nfl you don't make it and so i'm stressed because i'm doing what

i'm supposed to i'm on it but i started to learn kind of the politics of of the nfl where look guys got to get their reps if they got money in where, look, guys got to get their reps. If they got money in a guy, that guy is going to get more reps. Or if a coach likes someone and they're going to develop that person, that person is going to get more reps. And so, Austin, whatever you have, you better freaking take advantage of it because it might not be much, but it's something. And that's what I had. I remember my first huddle that I got in. I actually had to run out of the huddle.

I was with the third string because I threw up behind the line. People lined up behind the play. And I went in there i was just so stressed ran back out and it literally threw up um because i was just so stressed about what i was doing so yeah i put all the pressure on myself but i love to live in that environment like that environment it keeps me super focused it keeps me i don't get distracted like when i put the stress on myself when i feel that pressure putting down for myself, there's nothing else that matters besides this mission. That's everything.

And I have to go and I have to get it done because there's nothing else that matters. And that's the mindset I put myself in. There's a survival mode. You have to make this work or there's nothing else to do. And with that, you can go and move mountains. You feel like you can anyway. And so that's where my mentality was, and that's kind of the pressure that i put on myself and what got me it still

stays with me with me and my my role has burnt has changed obviously ended up making the team was a special teams guy and then they put me on offense and i started scoring touchdowns like oh maybe this guy can play and sure enough i know i could but i still have that same type of burn same type of fire not only in football but also off the field too is but I still have that same type of burn, same type of fire, not only in football, but also off the field, too. Is it hard to keep that same fire now that you're like the top dog? No, no, because I never knew how far I was going to be able to take this thing. Like, I didn't know I was going to be in the NFL. I have a new opportunity.

This is crazy. Let's see how far we can go. And I think it comes back to my entrepreneurial spirit of wanting to build. I want to keep building. And when I keep building, it means, hey, I stay in the lane that i want to find and make an impact in and you just keep going you keep trying to stack bricks as far as you can as far as you can stack them um and for me the spark is almost it's almost spread now to other things right when it was really laser focused on football now okay i've learned how to be a pro i've now i'm a captain you know i'm on the executive committee for the NFLPA.

So I'm starting to make an impact. I'm starting to grow myself. And so it's like, okay, how much more can I do? What else can I do? And so now it's coming down to, okay, now we're going to a new team. So it's like, okay, perfect. Now let me try to bring that same energy and start over on a new team and do that again. And then off the field, how much can I impact the community?

And how much can I really continue to grow this spark that I have in this direction of doing not only good for myself but then spread that around to people around me I love that, any running backs you watched a lot growing up? I didn't watch the NFL growing up I told you man I was not thinking about the NFL at all I grew up on a ranch, 80 acres

out in the middle of the country taking care of horses, if you see I wish we could pull up a like, a picture on a screen. But if you see where I lived, it is just straight brown grass, flat land for miles. My closest neighbor is a mile away. Damn. Like, I live 26 miles from my school. Holy crap.

There's no friends coming over on the weekends. Like, no, no. I'm driving home because it takes me 30 minutes to get home after practice. I'm not hanging out with the boys. Yeah. So I really stayed really focused. And I grew up watching bass fishing, bull riding, and then building stuff in the backyard with pallets of wood and hunting on our land. And so that's kind of the lifestyle that I grew up in.

So I knew about pro sports, but we just didn't really watch it. I grew up watching Chris Shivers. I'm sure you don't know who that is. I've never heard of him. He's a professional bull rider. Okay. Him and Ty Murray. sports but we just didn't didn't really watch it and i grew up watching chris shivers you know i'm sure you don't know who that is i've never heard he's a professional bull rider him and ty murray you know that's what i grew up watching you know and so that was just the environment that i was in so wow so you really were a country boy i was a straight up country boy yeah riding horses rode bulls in my life so yeah this is a big change for you then yeah um it Um, it's, it has been, it has been obviously being in LA going to, um, a bigger city and, uh, but I've, I've adapted and kind of, it's opened my eyes to how much

actual possibilities and how much actually opportunity there is in this world, where it's kind of, it's really limited when you're in a smaller town, as far as like what's available for you, just because the resources aren't as, you know, aren't as, um, you know, available and accessible and accessible so it's it's been great for me and I love it do you have a guy you can reach out to like a mentor like Kobe was mentoring a lot of the up-and-coming NBA guys right now do you have someone like that I have a few but it depends on kind of the industry and so I have really a go-to mentor his name is Bill Eckler he really helps me with all like my operations of like all the things that I have going on. Um, when it comes to like the workout football side, like that's really just been me. Um, and I think, I think I've got that one covered as far as just

my mentality of how I've come up and how I've applied myself. But it really, I think also that's because I've had some mentors as, as I've come into my way up, but really where I've leaned on people is in these new industries that I've started to get into. And I really realized like as a professional, I just passed my 20 year mark of playing football. I've been playing football for 20 years. I could tell you pretty much everything like the back of my hand. And I know that the defensive fronts, the offensive plays, the football has not changed. It's the same thing. We just call it different things. What you call fish over here, you call chicken over there. You know, like we use weird names like that. But for me, it's like, okay, okay i've been doing that and so when i started to branch outside of football i

realized that i didn't realize right away but then after about five years of being in business like there's people that have been doing business for that long as well and they're professionals in that and i can't think that i can come in which i did at first like oh i'm gonna go and crush it over here just because i have all this energy and I have passion. I'm going to throw some money at it and I'm going to build it myself. No, you're still a rookie over here. You're an amateur. You're not even close to being a professional in the business space.

And so that's where I have a lot of my mentors is in the new types of categories in my life that I'm trying to get into. That's a great mindset because a lot of people crushed in one thing and then they think they can just dominate other industries. But you realize it's not that easy. It's definitely not. It's just like you in in the podcasting space you know if you ask me about podcasts like if i just oh i'm gonna go start a podcast all of a sudden like it's not that easy yeah you know it's not that easy you have a whole system you have a whole team you have editors you have people that help you set up the studio people that get the content people that reach out to all these people and if you're just jumping into that as an individual

think you can just go and do that you're going going to be hit with a wall of reality. Yeah, there's a lot that goes into it. For sure. But you're crushing the real estate. On Natasha's show, you said 117 properties? Yeah. Yeah. And so one of my first passions before football, I had this plan. It was like my plan A. I was like, I'm going to go into the oil and gas industry because it was big in Colorado. So I went to school for energy management, went into business, and then I was going to start using the capital that I was making from that, being a land man, kind of on the private side, dealing with landowners in the business, the middleman, use that to start getting into real estate and start house hacking and start getting into house flipping and then build my real estate empire slowly, but do that.

And so that was my plan A. And so obviously didn't happen went with plan b which came out of nowhere was the nfl and uh came into some capital and so allowed me to get my jump start so i was really knowledgeable on on real estate and house flipping and i was going to follow what i had this this plan to follow a house flipper and anytime he had a multi-family house i had to deal with him like hey i'll buy it from you um after i came into the nfl and so that's why i started building out in colorado and then i actually ended up partnering with that guy that house flipper because we both wanted to scale and then we started a a fund as well and went and bought you know 70 70 houses out in um single family homes out in kansas city missouri and now

we're looking out in alabama right now so we just continue to spread and the the good scenario that we're in is the guy I'm working with, his name is Matt. He's been flipping houses for like 20 years. He has four crews that work for him. So we can go and buy the things that big funds can't touch because they don't want to deal. They want turnkey. They want something I can just buy and just have it right now. They don't want to deal with having to flip things up, but we can move our crews to Missouri for three years, flip 70 homes, go to Alabama, buy a hundred homes, move our crews to Missouri for three years, flip 70 homes, go to Alabama, buy 100 homes, move the crews out there.

Hey, we're flipping, be there for the next three years. And so we can really position ourselves where we can buy these things at a really cheap cost, build them up, put some equity into them. 1031, the bad ones that we just want to get the money out of and keep the cash flowing deals. So we're in a pretty good position. That's impressive, man.

That's a lot of units. Yeah, yeah, it's great. So we continue to scale. And real estate's a thing where it's interesting because our society continues to get older and houses aren't always built. So it's one of those things where I kind of justify it as I give back in a way because we take a lot of the stuff that people don't want to touch that's old, worn down, and we're flipping it over.

So we're making it actually livable, where it's like a shack. There is like a shack. There's like weeds growing everywhere. Like no one wants to touch this thing. Hey, let's buy it. Let's, let's flip it. Let's actually make it something that's actually desirable for people to actually want to live in. So it's a little give back, but also an investment for myself as well. Absolutely. I saw you playing in a Blake win. Shout out to Blake in his poker tournament. Yeah, man. Blake's the goat, man. He's, he's awesome. He's, he's been, he's been kind of my inspiration out here in vegas too during the during the off season i have an office we share the same office building now and we go back and forth all the time to each other's houses poker nights things like that

and i've introduced him to my version of poker so i started playing when i was like 13 and we just play with like you know five cents quarters you know 10 cent pieces with my buddies my basketball team and and football team and uh we'd play random games we'd be making up stuff and so some of my creativity has made it into his like what he has is called uh i forgot it's like celebrity like his celebrity tour um he's got a poker tour yeah i think maybe it's just called game night um but now he's got like in his little celebrity one that we had the other day like at the at the river everyone has to show a card, you know, for this round. Yeah, things like that.

That's dope. He's been putting a little twist on it to make it interesting and bring in some great personalities in. But I know Blake's got some good stuff going on. Yeah, I've been playing poker with him. We're going to see you make a WSOP appearance anytime soon. I don't know about that. I don't know if I have the patience.

I love the cash games because it's like, hey, it was a couple hours. It was fun. It's not as serious. But tournament style, like I got to sit patience. I love the cash games because it's like, hey, it was a couple hours. It was fun. It's not as serious. But tournament style, I got to sit there. I got to lock in. And I kind of get anxious. I feel that. I'm like, all right, it's kind of going slow.

Let me just go all in here. Either that or I'll start playing a little bit more reckless. I just get bored. I'm like, well, shit, I've been folding for the last 10 minutes, an hour. Let me just play a hand. I don't know how people do it. The main event's 10 days. Yeah, no way. 18 or what, 12 hours each day. It's crazy. Look,

I have, I have the bandwidth to lock in on some things sitting there playing poker is not one of them. Yeah. Were you a good kid in school, like getting good grades? Um, I wasn't like the best. My, my mom was a school teacher at the school that I taught at or that I was at, um, for a little bit, not my whole career, but she moved schools. And so I had that pressure at home just to make sure, hey, you have good grades. And so I was really good at math because she was a math teacher and she would help me with my homework there. I think I had like in high school, I think I had like a 3.1.

Okay, decent. So like a B student, you know, every once in a while I get A, everyone's a C in there sometimes. But yeah, so I mean, nothing crazy. Yeah, but you went to college, so. I did go to college so i did go to college i did did you graduate yeah i graduated so i actually went back so like i said i just i left early i went back after my rookie year and uh ended up finishing damn yeah what'd you major in i was a business major okay energy management and so i was going into basically oil and gas, solar, like renewables,

all of that stuff. And you just in Colorado and really on the West, the, the, I guess, yeah, the Western hemisphere, um, or the Western side of the nation, there's like private land owners. Um, until you get to California where in Colorado, you might own the mineral rights. Well, you don't have an oil rig to go get those mineral rights out of the ground, even though you might own them. Maybe you do if you're really savvy with it. But what we would do, I was Noble Energy at the time, they got bought out, but we would approach you, but hey, we want to produce your minerals for you. We'll give you a 20% cut on any of the revenue or any of the net profit that we make. And we'll go put our rig on there and then produce your oil for you.

Like a licensing. Yeah. Yeah. So you get a royalty on everything that we produce for you okay i'm all about passive income yeah hey look into some mineral rights i never even heard of this but that's massive oh yeah you get paid a ton i mean you pump an oil out of ground to support society so i mean these are big checks even though it's 20 percent um ton of money in oil yeah i know a couple of people in the oil space and energy space and they make a killing yeah because they provide energy to countries oh yeah it's just it's just an old industry which means it's like really tough to get into right because a lot of the gatekeeping yeah everyone's already got you know everything's already allocated basically and now it's just these bigger companies trying to move each other around and

decide who gets to produce it you know absolutely um going back to football real quick who was the toughest defense you think you've ever played against? The toughest defense. It's it's so it's such a hard question because there's so many different factors that play into it. For instance, like is there is is their defensive front good? Are their DBs good? Because if their DBs are good, that might not affect me as much because I'm between the tackles. The D-line, really good. But San Francisco two years ago, like their D-line and the linebackers, their interior seven were insane. Was that the year they went to the Super Bowl? No.

Two years ago. So not last year. Last year, obviously, they were in the Super Bowl. The year before that. So I don't know who it was. It was KC and – no, it was casey and no it's casey and um um uh no not san francis casey and eagles that's what it was okay right that that super bowl um so san fran was tough i mean yeah they still got a good front they lost some of the pieces now but yeah fred warner is an

absolute animal i feel that i have a middle linebacker damn i wouldn't have expected that but that makes sense from your point of view as a running back like you said it's a little different right because as a receiver you might you're not dealing with the box like you don't have to block these guys like i gotta block these guys you know and i gotta run through these guys in here you know receiver you you might look at that okay who's got a good db core so it's an interesting yeah and people always ask like who's the hardest hitting guy it's like oh i don't get hit that hard i'm really good at not getting i've been playing eight years no running back no concussions i mean i've definitely had concussions yeah but it doesn't mean necessarily that i'm you

know getting truck sticked out there it happens every once in a while but i feel like i'm like a ball of muscle and so i can bounce and ricochet i got a low you and mcafree man you're you're elusive yeah i think to be a running back and to make it this far you have to kind of get there's like an art to getting hit into landing right now um and you got to make make sure you master that so that you can actually last 20 years of playing i've been playing 20 crazy i've not missed a season in 20 years holy crap i know i played football every year for 20 years straight that's not hurdle for a running back i feel like because that's one of the most yeah i mean well not a lot of us make it to the average career for like running backs like 2.5 years that's it and we have the We have the lowest shelf life, which is reflected in our pay.

People are like, oh, that's risky. But there's some of us that make it through. Did you know that stat coming into this? No. You just found it out? You just play, right? I'm not going out there thinking about injuries or anything like that. I'm just going to play the game.

Two and a half years is crazy. Because you're spending your whole life becoming a running back and then two years in the NFL. Yeah. Well, and people in society don't really realize life becoming a running back and then two years in the NFL. People in society don't really realize that because a lot of these people you'd never heard of. Why? Because they only played two and a half years. Who are these people? They're in and out. That's how you know people like myself have been around eight years.

It's like, oh yeah, that guy, he's been playing for the Chargers for a long time. There's a lot of running backs that will make an appearance and maybe the people in that space will know about it. But to get the actual global recognition recognition to get the fantasy recognition right it takes takes a little longer yeah how long did it take you to go from six on the depth chart to starting oh three years three years yeah that was a grind oh yeah so well here's the thing so six on the depth chart make the team i beat out three other guys i'm third on the depth chart all right third string running back you're playing a lot of special teams.

One of my favorite stats to this day, I'd never played special teams ever in my life. I've never made a tackle ever in my life, never played defense. In my first rookie year, I led the NFL in tackles on punt. Really? Just to tell you where my mindset was, you got to go get it. This is your job. You got to get it done. It doesn't matter what it is.

This is your opportunity. Go do it. That was where I was at. I'm running for my life out there. You can't touch me. I got to go tackle that guy. I'm going to go tackle that guy i'm gonna tackle that guy like you it's gonna be hard to stop um and that was that was where my mind was and that's how locked in i was and so kind of just show what that's that's why it's one of my favorite stats because that's what kind of solidified me

is like oh yeah this guy can play and um actually i caught a couple balls like in the first few games and never handed it off to me until the third game. We were playing the Eagles, actually, and our second string running back pulled his hamstring. Austin, you've got to go in. Melvin Gordon, our starter at the time, he's tired. Give him a break. First handoff, Phillip River handed me off a 34-yard touchdown. Ripped it right down the freaking middle.

I'm just going crazy. I don't even know how to react, man, because I didn i didn't know i was gonna be getting the ball in the game i'm just screaming flexing as hard as i can um and ever since then you know that second string like i said he injured his hamstring but then i got into the game and kept making impacts impact score touchdowns impact and they're like oh shoot like maybe this guy can play offense too um and so basically solidified myself as the second string that year. And then the next year, it was really splitting with me and the starter. And then the next year after that, our starter actually held out for the first few games because he was trying to get a bigger contract.

And so I started for the first four games and was going popping off, scoring touchdowns. And then from then on, he came back eventually. We split again. And then they signed me back for the next four years of the starter i feel like that's a common thing where like the second string or third string they're actually better than the first string sometimes it's well i feel like there's there's some there's some actual examples of that that have played themselves out but it's it's still rare right you know i think like tony pollard

would have been a good one right whereas like zeke there. Zeke kind of moved on, and Tony Pollard kind of stepped into that role. Now Tony's in a different position. My situation with Melvin, where he was trying to get a contract, he ended up going to Denver, and then I took the role. And so you'll see it here and there, but it's not that common. Yeah, it's just glorified, I guess. Yeah, exactly. There you go. I remember the Nick Foles-Eagles Super Bowl run. I was like, that's crazy.

Those situations are highlighted because they're not as common almost, right? So there's a lot more exposure for them. That makes sense. Awesome. It's been fun, man. Anything you want to promote or close off with? No, I think this has just been great, man. I appreciate you getting on here to let me share my story.

And looking forward to a new, actually, something that's kind of interesting in that running back story. So the first three years, when I did finally become the starter after that yeah my head coach is now my running back coach with washington wow yeah full circle it's come come back around and so the guy who who got me on the team who brought me in well he actually didn't know my name until i made the team that's how far down the depth chart it was holy crap oh but so yeah i came back for a circle so uh i'm looking forward to meeting up with Anthony Lynn again and, you know, making a splash over there in Washington. It's a real one, man.

Shout out to Anthony. Yeah, heck yeah, man. Thanks for coming on, man. Thanks for watching, guys, as always. See you next time.