Freakonomics Radio - Extra: Full Interviews With Jimmy Garoppolo, Joe Staley, Mike McGlinchey, and Kyle Juszczyk

Episode Date: September 23, 2018

Stephen Dubner’s conversations with members of the San Francisco 49ers offense, recorded for Freakonomics Radio episode No. 350, part of the “Hidden Side of Sports” series.

Hey there, I'm Stephen Dubner, and this is a Freakonomics Radio Extra, our full, lightly edited interviews with four members of the San Francisco 49ers offense, quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, offensive lineman Joe Staley and Mike McGlinchey, and fullback Kyle Juszczyk. We interviewed them for our episode number 350, which tells the story of the 49ers' attempt to reverse their fortunes after a few dreadful years. It's part of our special series called The Hidden Side of Sports. This is one of several interviews with 49ers executives, players, and other football personnel that you can hear in their entirety exclusively right here on Stitcher Premium. This interview, like the others, took place in May during the

team's first couple days of preseason practice, or what are called OTAs, organized team activities. We'll start with Jimmy Garoppolo, the quarterback who joined the team mid-season last year as they were on their way to losing their first nine games, and who took over and helped the Niners win their last five games, and was duly rewarded with a five-year, $137.5 million contract. Hope you enjoy. Nice to meet you. Hey, Stephen Dubner. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you guys. Yeah, congrats on everything. Thank you very much. Yeah, you're welcome. It's exciting. How's it exciting. Yeah. Our day's going great. Yeah. Really fun. How's yours? Uh, busy. Yeah, it's good. First practice. Was first OTA significantly different from everything else you've been doing here? Um, it was just exciting to get back out there. Really?

Yeah. I mean, being a quarterback, you know, running and lifting and it's important, but, uh, the practices, you know, it's, it's awesome getting out there with the guys and everything i bet yeah what would you spend your off season doing mostly conditioning etc oh yeah just your normal working out were you here uh i was here initially went to chicago for a little bit um for home going yeah i had to see the family and everything right and then uh we got the deal figured out, got out to L.A., and that's kind of where I do most of my training at. Gotcha, gotcha. All right.

So you have about 15 minutes to be here, is that right? Yeah. Or more? Three hours? Whatever. We'll take it. Whatever you got. No, whatever you got, we'll take it.

If we'll begin, just say, I'm Jimmy Garoppolo, and you're listening to Freakonomics Radio. What's up, guys? I'm Jimmy Garoppolo, and you're listening to Freakonomics Radio. What's up guys I'm Jimmy Garoppolo and you're listening to Freakonomics Radio. Okay so last year was a wildly unpredictable and dramatic and successful year for you. Can you just walk us through it quickly from your perspective starting in New England coming here mid-season and how it ended? Yeah you know it was very unique. I don't I mean I clearly had never been in that situation, but it was, you know, exciting at the same time. Just, I went, I took a nap, woke up, just about 100 text messages, 100 missed calls. And, you know, next thing I knew that next morning, 5am, I think I was on a flight out west of San Francisco. So it, it just happened so quickly and suddenly. That's really the way it works. Yeah. And it was three days, four days before my birthday. And it was a whole bunch of stuff going on.

But, you know, you go through so many emotions initially because you don't know what's going on. I've never been in a situation before. And so your emotions are going wild. And then you get here and now you're learning a whole new playbook. It's like learning a new language. You're meeting new people. You don't know anyone's name. So there was a bunch of stuff going on. But, you know learning a whole new playbook. It's like learning a new language. You're meeting new people. You don't know anyone's name. So there was a bunch of stuff going on.

But, you know, things really worked out well. After a week or two, things started to slow down and you're getting kind of a routine. And, you know, it worked out well. Yeah. The first call wasn't from your agent. It was like it was in the press before you actually knew that the deal was up. No, 50 of those calls were from my agent. How long was your nap?

Well, it wasn't that long, I swear. But next thing I knew, I was a 49er, and, you know, the rest is history. Do you nap every day? No, I rarely nap. That was rare. You'll never do that again. Definitely not during the season. All right, so, yeah, so just talk about,

did you have any inkling that you might be traded, first of all? I mean, I know teams have been talking about you, right? There was rumors and everything. But, you know, during the season, especially as a quarterback, you're so locked in. There's so many things that you have to worry about for the next Sunday that I really didn't have time to really think about that. My agents would keep me notified, but they know for the most part I'm all football during the season. So, you know, there was rumors and everything. I didn't really know whether to believe it because, I mean, some of the stuff is hearsay

and it turned out to be true. Would you think and know about San Francisco, the organization, the history coming in? Very rich history. You know, Joe Montana, Steve Young, those guys just, you know, paving the way. And, you know, they went through a little bit of a downstream there, you know, for a couple of years. But just the fans around here are pretty unique. It's I didn't know that I'd never been out here before getting traded. So when I first got out here, though, the fans, the faithful, I mean, they really are faithful through the thick and thin. It's impressive. All right. So of all the weird and wonderful things about the way it worked last year um to me the weirdest is that your agent you you share an agent with

the guy that you were backing up um and then we know the drama of uh the drama of yeah i mean i don't know you can tell me as much as you want i only know what i've read half which is probably true but um i don't know what your relationship like was like with brady i'm happy to hear you say anything you want to say if you want to take a pass on it take a pass but let's start with that yeah uh you know nothing that the media made it out to seem uh we we always had a good relationship you know initially when i was younger kind of like an older brother type of relationship but as i got older and uh you know matured through the NFL, we became closer and we became good friends. We still text here and there.

Jacoby was a good friend of mine, too. So the three of us always were texting each other. And everyone said it was a terrible decision to have the same agent, but I think it worked out very well. Our agents look out for both of us, both of our best interests. But at the end of the day, it's the NFL, so it's a business. Yeah. We also read that Kraft made it happen or wanted it to happen and that Belichick was against it.

Tell me what you can about that. I didn't know anything. Did you hear from Belichick after? Yeah. He was the one who actually told me that, I mean, my agents told me initially, but then, uh, coach Belichick right behind them told me, and, uh, we always had a good relationship, you know, very, uh, both of us are very straightforward people, really no BS or anything. So I always appreciated that from coach. He, uh, he kept it real with everybody, whoever you were practice squad or the starting quarterback,

you know, and, uh, practice squad or the starting quarterback. And you've got to respect him for that. So everything I've read and heard about you coming in, we know the kind of details. We know that Shanahan originally said, let's give him time to get up to speed. You may not even see him play this year. Then, of course, you do come in relatively soon. And as far as I can tell, you've never actually lost an NFL game that you've started, right? You won two. Doing pretty good. Two with the bats, right? Great. But from everything that we've heard from everyone on the exec side and on the player side, you're some combination

of like YA Tittle and Superman and Jesus Christ. Like people just gather around you and love you. It's a hell of a combo right you. It's a pretty good combo. So tell us, I'm sure you can't be that good. What are some things that you work hard on that you struggle with that you're trying to get better at? As far as football? Football and also being part of, I mean, it's a huge thing. You came in, you won five games in a row that you started, and then you're given what was at the time the biggest contract ever in football got got surpassed but it's still pretty big so it's natural for both the team and the fans and maybe even in the league to look at you as a kind of savior that's a lot so i'm just curious how you process that or if you mostly ignore it uh you know for the most part i just go out and do my thing uh you. Everyone sets high expectations and tries to predict things,

but at the end of the day, no one really knows anything or what's going to happen. I set a higher standard for myself than anyone ever will. I kind of worry about that more than anything. All the outside noise is just noise. You really got to stay focused on your craft and all the things that we have going on in this building. If you get caught up in all that stuff, you're going to have a tough time. The NFL is hard enough as it is.

Kyle Shanahan knew you pretty well. He'd worked you out when he was with Cleveland for the draft. So just tell me about that relationship going back and what it's like now. We had a good relationship. I met with Cleveland a bunch. They were looking for a quarterback that year, and they ended up taking manziel trading up to take him right did they well that's what i read but then i thought when did cleveland ever have to trade up to get the 22nd pick no serious well i am a sealer so i'm but still that's probably like

maybe that was their fourth first yeah maybe that was their fourth sorry so anyway now we'll move on from that um but anyway so he'd worked you out a couple times. Yeah. We had a good relationship from the, really from the start. I mean, he worked me out at Northwestern, I remember. And, you know, he was a young, energetic coach. Right. And we were very similar personalities.

And I can remember going home and telling my parents that. And, you know, I didn't know where I was going to go or who was going to draft me. But just you meet coaches throughout the process that you get along with better than others and me and kyle had a good connection right off the bat so again if you don't know football um and you read about the kind of offensive mind he has and that he just tortures defenses by being dynamic and creative etc etc can you just talk for a minute about what that means for you as a quarterback and how that fits for you it's uh i always use complex as the word it's a very complex offense just um how do you call a call a play for us here for instance and tell me what

each term means each term oh geez we'll be here for a while really uh so like you could go um go north right clamp uh three jet uh yco bow that's one play that's a shorter one okay so it's uh you know it tells everyone what to do um but at the same time you could get into different packages where it's one word tells all 11 guys what to do okay and it's just that's the complexity of the offense and now you got motion moving around the defense is looking at 100 different things you snap it all of a sudden and they're messed up and it makes my job that much easier just by you know simple little thing that we did before the ball was even snapped and that goes back to the films the coach's film study and all that and it uh it gives me a lot of confidence in the whole offense as a whole.

Just you go into that game and you know the coaches have done their studying and done their homework. And it's just nice having a game plan like that. Yeah. Let's assume you turn out to have a really long and great Hall of Fame career, right? And if you were to look back on like this time now, you're beginning with your, you know, as your starting career, what would you attribute it to? Because there are a lot of guys who physically, I'm sure, like you or close to you and so on. So what do you think actually makes you successful at this level? I've always relied on the extra work.

The day ends at two o'clock, say you try to be here till eight o'clock. You know what physical anything and everything okay yeah it's uh i mean one day it could be more physical than mental you had a hard day or something like that now it's more mental and physical yeah it's just uh everyone has their own routine and you know being in the nfl for four years now going on five i have a pretty good routine that i've gotten used to and you know during the season it's uh it's a long tough season so you have to have a good routine that keeps your body healthy and keeps your mind sharp for all 16 weeks. What are some things you do physically that like a lay person could do to keep their body and a regular person, not a studly athlete? Well, I do things for quarterbacking, so it's different than your average athlete.

I have to stay loose, be able to throw 100, 200 balls a day every day. And if you lift a ton of weights and get real big, it's tough to do all that. So it's a little different than normal stuff. What's your diet like? Good. Do you cook for yourself or no? No, they make phenomenal food here in Florida. Is that why you're here like 18 hours a day? It doesn't hurt, man.

It doesn't hurt for sure. What do your folks do for a living? My dad was an electrician. He just retired three, four months ago, something like that. And my mom was kind of a cook, chef, I guess you could say. And she's looking to retire pretty soon too. Are they going to move out here now that you're here? I don't think so.

You have other siblings? I have three brothers. Two of which are moving out here. Oh, wow. And then the third is an architect in Chicago. So he's killing it right now. It's awesome. But my parents, I don't know, we're a very tight-knit family, and they like, you know, I don't know, they're locked in back in Chicago. So it will be tough to get them out of there. I see. They'll be out here every week, though.

Is that right? Yeah. Tell me, you may not think about it yet since you're young, but a lot of guys come into the league with all kinds of you know promise and even success and then afterwards it can be a really hard adjustment because you've been doing this one thing since you were six eight ten years old and kind of had people taking care of things can you just talk about what you think about the afterlife of an athlete again i realize it's not the right it's not the right phase in your life to ask you this question but i'm just curious uh

your thoughts. People you've seen do it really well and not well maybe. Yeah, it seems like, you know, I have no idea for myself. That's hopefully a long ways away. But it seems like coaching is a way that a lot of guys go. I have a bunch of guys that I went to school with at Eastern that, you know, they get into coaching because they miss that, that atmosphere, that family feeling. And so, you know, every one of them that I've talked to is they love it. And they say you get just as, as much joy out of that as you do playing.

So I don't know, hopefully that I got a long, long time until I even have to start thinking about that. Do you have a prediction for this season, either in terms of number of wins or how deep you get into the playoffs, do you have any idea in your mind, whether you want to tell me or not, of what would constitute a successful season for you? Or how would you describe it?

I mean, there's a million things that go into that. Like at the end of the season, name three or four things that would need to happen for you to consider this a successful season. I think we have to have a good otas first okay yeah i mean you're talking about successful season we've had one practice so right we got a long way to go uh then we'll get into training camp and that's really where your team starts to come together and uh you start to see the mold of the team and you know we're just trying to create a good team right now good standard that we set for each other and i think we're moving in the right direction on that. Everything I've read from every player says that you're like, you know, the natural leader, that people gravitate toward you in the locker room and on the field.

Is that something you learn to do? Is it your natural way of being? I'm curious about that. Yeah, I think, you know, I've never really tried to fake it or, you know, be, I don't know, someone that I'm not. Because, you know, everyone says this guy's a great leader and you should be like him. But I think if you start, you know, going out of your comfort zone and doing things you're not used to, guys, I mean, especially in NFL locker room, they see right through that. They're not dumb. So you just have to be yourself.

I don't know. I've always thought of myself as one of the guys, and I think that plays a big part in it. Where are you in the in the four brothers like age wise number three okay so two older brothers

are you still in a in a leadership role or are you like the little brother that gets kicked I got two older brothers is that right they'll never let you forget it

that's just and I'd be upset if they did you know it's I don't know that's just how we were raised I'm sure it's made me a better person having them around

you know keeping me humble and everything. Well, thank you. Good luck. No problem. Hope you win a bunch of games, win a Super Bowl. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The only thing is, again, I do have one issue is that as a Steelers fan,

I can't let any team get more Super Bowl trophies than us, and you're one of the few that are. All right, then. So you can get a one or two but we have to keep so if we can toggle between the niners and sealers that's fine yeah see how many big bands there you go yeah i don't know okay good luck to you thank you very much yeah okay next up our interview with one of the larger and more colorful members of the san francisco 49ers my name is joe staley i am the left tackle for the san francisco 49ers i've been on the team

for this will be my 12th season coming up so only played here in san francisco right and you're easily the longest uh tenured veteran here and the best looking yes that's looking yeah your nose i have to say is it leads to the right yeah yeah i've been broken a couple times a bunch of times you can do that with the face mask so yeah so i this funny story we were in green bay and my uh i had this old school helmet from like you know 1984 uh is it legal it's in the last year of being legal uh i was kind of grandfathered in i'm actually switching face masks this year but in 2000 i think it was 12 they tried to get me to switch face masks and so i was trying out this new helmet and very first game we're playing the Green Bay Packers. I'm going against Clay Matthews, and he's a big-time bull rusher,

kind of just like runs down your face. And my helmet was not fitting properly because it was a new helmet, and I have kind of a weird-shaped head. And it was just slamming my nose over and over. And here's a bunch of pictures. I mean, the thing was broken, and all the skin from the top i still got the scar up there was like flapped open over my over the bridge of my nose it was a miserable game so that was broken then i got broken we did a one-on-one pass rush back in college with no helmets for some reason and i caught a spin move heavy elbow to the nose

nose it was completely like on the side of my face. Trainer came over and was like, oh, you're good. I was like, all right. Seems pretty official. It looks good now, though. Yeah. You've grown into it. Grown into it.

I got that big head. So how big are you now? Six foot six. I'm about 295, 300 pounds. 295. So when you started, you thought you needed to be heavier. Yeah. Yeah. I came to the NFL, you thought you needed to be heavier. Yeah. Yeah.

I came to the NFL. I was pretty light out of college. Did someone advise you to get heavier, or you just thought that was the way to go? When I came out in 2007, it was kind of going through a transition between, like, offensive linemen being big, bruising-type players, and I was very much on the light spectrum of that scale of what guys were supposed to weigh when they came to the NFL and so I just continued to gain weight like I was in college and kind of stopped I was about 235 or 335 pounds at one point 330 pounds and uh was that

was way too big yeah felt miserable couldn't, basically was losing everything that put me into the NFL. Yeah. It was my athleticism and my foot speed. So one off season, this was like, screw this. I'm going to try it the other way. Yeah. What did you have to do to put on that much weight? I mean, I was just eating everything.

So, I mean, I was a tight end when I got to college. I was about 220 pounds. And a new coaching staff came in. Brian Kelly's not in Notre Dame um he came in and said you know we don't have tight ends in my in my offense so I want you to play tackle just gain as much weight as you can so I was just eating everything he's like I don't care what you eat just healthy or not I was a man of college meal plan basically and also had you know a couple bucks to go get a burger you know five dollar pizza little caesars and so i was stuffing my face and then also i was working out pretty heavily

um i would do two workouts a day pretty consistently on the off season and working on every day on top of practices and also you're young in college so you're yeah you never played lineman before that though nope yeah i got taught myself. And how did you like it when you started? Hated it at first. No, it was just different. And I wasn't a blocking tight end either. I was brought there to catch passes. I was fast for my size.

So it was a transition for me. I didn't really know anything, so they kind of had a clean slate to work with. I didn't have any bad habits as far as blocking. Took coaching pretty well. I mean, your career has obviously turned out great do you sometimes think i wish i could have stayed a tight end though no i would have never maybe i would have been in the nfl for like one or two seasons but no i wasn't fast enough for a tight end you know i was fast for alignment right fast enough for a tight end right i didn't have that explosion with the guys here yeah so for people who don't know football at all um left tackle just describe kind of your um a primary missions especially relating to protecting the quarterback and also like what you actually do with your body

uh yeah so i play left tackle which is considered the blind side of the quarterback made famous by that movie um hey a book before a movie yeah the book yeah the book sorry michael lewis right yep um so i protect the quarterback's blind side so basically when he's dropped back into protection he's a right-handed quarterback he can't see obviously behind him so that's why they call it the blind side um and yeah i mean my primary job in the run game is to move the guy that's in front of me from point a to point b whatever the scheme is whatever the play calls for we have a you know plethora of different blocks that we have to do and then uh you know different combinations single blocks double blocks uh you know whatever they are and then

in the past game basically keep the defender from rushing the passer and getting the sack on the quarterback. How, I remember we used to hear that on average, by position, offensive linemen were the smartest players on a team. Some people would say QB, some would say OL. You know anything about it? I mean, do you feel like, is your group particularly, because the playbook, you need to not make mistakes obviously yeah it's a different thing i think quarterback obviously is

probably has to know the most um you know thinking just straight intelligence you know offensive linemen tend to be you know smarter um i don't know if it's just because of everything the way we have to break down a playbook, like I have to understand not what I'm just doing as a left tackle, but I have to understand what the left guard, center, right guard, and right tackler are doing, and sometimes also the tight ends. And also the formations, I have to know where the receivers are and all that stuff.

So you have to have a heavy grasp of everything, and it kind of ties together, especially up front, like all five guys playing together, and I have to know the adjustments that we make. So a defense comes down and bring in a safety down that kind of changes our blocking scheme for a particular play that all happens within two seconds so I have to be able to process all that information know exactly what the adjustments are what I'm supposed to say how that affects me and then also the guy next to me what my call is to my tight end if I have one not next to me I mean that's just on one particular play. Do you make mistakes?

Yeah, all the time. So how many mistakes might you make? Like, you're one of the best in the game. How many mistakes of a nature of, you know, actually either an assignment or a pack? So we have, like, you know, mental, you can call them MAs or I don't even know what that stands for. Mental assignment error or something like that. Like, missed assignment. There it is. Missed assignment. It assignment error or something like that. Like, misassignment. There it is.

Misassignment. It's like a mental error. MEs, MAs. And you're graded on those after every... Yeah, those are minimal. You know, those are, I think, if you're getting an MA, that's just poor preparation. You should have a firm grasp. By the time you get to game day, you should have a firm grasp of every single situation that we have.

What the playbook is, obviously, and the combination blocks and everything you know, your hip roll in the run game, your what we call pass sets, you know, our kick slides, the angle that we work using our kick slides, the hand placement on that, when to use our hands. So those are always like, you know, very, very rarely are you going to be perfect. So I consider those mistakes. You're always kind of like judging yourself of, A, did you do your job? Did you win the block? And then, B, how can I make it better?

Well, my hand was light here on this pass set, and I didn't get it exactly where I wanted it to be. So I'll try better next time. So you've had something like six or seven head coaches in your career here? This is my sixth. Your sixth. Yep. So we can talk a little bit about the, you know, stormy years. Then last year, the very bad start and the great turnaround.

But before we do that, when Kyle Shanahan came in for a guy like you, offensive lineman, how much new is there to learn? And I guess for every head coach, how much new is there to learn? And I guess for every head coach, how much new is there to learn? Yeah, every head coach kind of brings something new because they all have a different scheme that they run offensively and a way of looking at the game of football. I've been fortunate and unfortunate to play with so many different head coaches. And also, I mean, this is not only six head coaches, but eight offensive coordinators. So I've been in eight different offensive systems.

So I've kind of seen everything. And so when Kyle came in, I knew he was, you know, basically his staple was zone, outside zone, inside zone, and play action. So I was pretty well-versed in how to attack a defense with that. But what i kind of wasn't ready for was is how um detail oriented his specific scheme is and how um how everything is pieced together in the way that he kind of sees x's and o's and the way he sees the football field is pretty different than typical yeah offensive coordinator so i was really excited just because of his reputation that he's had in the NFL, but I got a firsthand experience of that pretty, pretty quick.

So I can't remember, was it last year, the beginning of last year when, when, when you were her and thinking about retiring and basically everything was kind of garbage. Was that last year during the, during the losing streak? So can you just walk us through like last season from your perspective, it was an amazing turnaround obviously and but also you being her i'm just curious to hear i had um i just had a hip impingement basically something nothing that was injured um just something that was kind of dealing with that was causing my right knee to feel like crap basically um there was not really an injury

there was nothing torn structurally it was really good. But it was just one of those deals that every time I would load that leg up, which I do every single play, there was some kind of, it felt like just basically bone-on-bone rubbing. And it just got to be really, really painful. And something that I was kind of just dealing with through the season, getting a ton of treatment, I mean, doing everything I can to make sure I felt as good as I possibly could. You missed games?

No, I didn't miss any games. But just like as far as what I had possibly could on game day. No, I didn't miss any games, but just like, as far as, you know, what I had to do, just get myself through it. I was in year 11. I was on my sixth heavy coach.

We were, I think at this time, like, oh, and seven and was just like, you know, I had mental lapse of weakness. There were,

I was just, you know, the adversity kind of got to me. So I was, uh, yeah. You were talking to your wife about it. You were, you were, yeah, it was the first time I was just just, you know, the adversity kind of got to me. So I was, yeah. You were talking to your wife about it? Yeah, it was the first time I was just like, you know, this might be my last year. I don't know if I can just continue to do this if my body is starting to fail me like this. And I feel like I'm doing everything I can.

It's just not responding like it used to. If you'd been winning, it would have felt different, I assume. You know, winning kind of heals everything. But also it wasn't really that. It was just kind of the, it was more so just the way my body was feeling. Yeah. And then how did it get better or did it not?

It did actually. It was right before the Eagles games. It just kind of released. I don't know exactly what it was, but I was doing like a bunch of different like stretches. And I think everything was just kind of bound up. And I ended up doing this kind of stretch on my own and just was so frustrated. And I don't recommend this for anybody listening, but I just really wrenched down on this stretch. It was in a moment of frustration, and I was really pissed. And I just kind of put all my body weight into the stretch stretch and I just felt like my whole entire hip just went like and you could just I could feel it move and

then like it was sore for two days like really really sore and then the knee pain was kind of gone after that so I think it kind of released I don't know what it was but it was did you tell your trainer what oh I told everybody everybody was pumped up about it. Yeah. And do you think the trainer is going to recommend that for future athletes who have a, I don't know. They probably just think that I'm making up stuff. Yeah. Just move your body in weird ways toward yourself when you were at your bottom and like, you know, hurting and thinking about quitting and so on, I know your wife is a former athlete as well, a high-level soccer player who never made the women's national team because of injury herself, right? Is that right? So I'm curious what those conversations were like.

Obviously, you'd had a long career, but I'm curious what those conversations were like. Well, we didn't really talk seriously about it, but I had seen her kind of go through just when she was done with playing soccer the league full that she was playing in um and just you know something that she was playing consistently and at a high level since she was like six seven years old then all of a sudden to be gone just kind of seeing that transition so you know when that day does come for me uh we had you know it was the first time i actually brought up possibly not playing football anymore and uh probably got a little bit scared of just that like even talking about that do you have thoughts about what you'll do afterwards no idea no idea um tv i don't even you know i don't even want to i mean i don't want to jinx it if you don't want to go in that direction.

I'm more of a radio guy, maybe. I don't know. I have no idea, really. You have the nose for radio. I definitely do. I definitely do. I don't know. I don't know.

I haven't really thought about that too much because I don't know. I just don't want my mind. The way my mind works, I'm very structured structured and I have to stay in the moment. And so if I start thinking about setting myself up for life after football, then I'm just worried that I'm not going to be as focused as I need to be. You know, let me ask you this. It's obvious now that a lot of former athletes, even those who make quite a lot of money, when they're done, often not done at a time of their own choosing, all of a sudden, like they don't have a career, a career. And they don't, they often don't have anywhere near as much money as they kind of thought they would have, or they didn't take care of it well, etc. But one of the conflicts, I think, is what you just said, which is when you're an athlete, you want to devote all

your mental energy to being good now. So do you have any advice for athletes or for people who are trying to help athletes in the afterlife how do you balance that you know do your job now do it well but also try to think about preparing for the future i'm probably not the best person for that because like i said i mean i'm not really setting myself up for life after football um but you're in good you're making enough money unless you're a total fool with it which you seem like you're not you're going to to be fine. There are a lot of people who earn it. That's the conundrum there is where do you, like you said, you want to set yourself up for success after football

and use this avenue to kind of propel yourself into something that is beneficial for you when this is all done because it's a short part of our life right here. i've been fortunate enough to play for going on 12 years and even then if i retired this i mean i'm still 33 you know yeah i still have hopefully a large chunk of my life left have you ever been a player rep on your team or are you now no yeah i'm not yeah but like if you were if the pa came to you and said, listen, Joe, you've had this amazing long career. How would you suggest that the median player, the guy who's going to be in for three or four years and who earns maybe $4 million to $8 million, which sounds in the beginning like a lifetime, but it's not. How would, you know, do you have any advice?

The PA does a great job of setting us up with programs and stuff in the offseason of trying to take advantage. I mean, that's all to the players as well, though. And that's more of the thing that what you said is, for me personally, I have two young kids. The offseason is my time to really hang out and be a dad. I love spending time with them and love being with them and all this stuff is kind of set up for you know a week two week programs and i just don't want to sacrifice that we could potentially just hang out with my kids just go and you know go to broadcasting

boot camp or whatever it is and um you know i feel like this is kind of like on the job training too for that stuff so i mean i try to take this stuff seriously is what i'm doing is this this could be a potential avenue for me down the road and something and broadcasting or something like that but um as far as taking advantage of the program is probably the best person to talk about yeah all right so go back to last year losing uh nine in a row you'd never had you ever been on a team in your whole athletic career where you lost nine games in a row at anything the year before that we went 2-14 yeah true so yeah we had a rough rough roll there for a couple years i think that was what was coupled with too you know with my body feeling bad we're coming off a 2-14 year new head coach again kind of going the 0-7 route as we were going at that point of the season last year and was just

kind of oh i just don't want to be a part of a rebuild again. Yeah, yeah. You know, maybe this is farther along than I thought, but it's not, you know, and I think that we have a really good thing going here. So we keep hearing from players and execs that even at 0-9, the locker room was good, the building was, you know, positive. It was. It sounds like everybody but you.

It sounds like yours is more about personally this was me personally the locker room and i was pretty i mean i was pretty vocal about this but the media here was something i'd never like seen before in my career i mean in 11 years i haven't seen a locker room that was going through the adversity that we had gone through last season and still stayed so solid and together there was not the i mean i was on teams we were 12 and 4 13 and 3 and we had more division in the locker room than we had last year at 09 how do you so i mean we had a game when we won against new york giants and i was like celebrating it was like it was like i mean i even had a quote in the paper here it was like i felt this felt as good as when we won the

nfc championship game because i was just so like deserving for all the guys in the locker room to like have that success to stay with it. And I think that was kind of how one of the huge reasons why we finished the way we did. How do you account for that positivity? I mean, obviously the coach, everybody,

I'm guessing guys like you also played a big role, but still it's hard to be 0-9. It is very trying. And I think it definitely starts with leadership up front you know it starts with with john it starts with kyle you know the kind of culture that they set um the way they come to work after a loss you know they kind of set the table for everybody else and then you know it's up to the veteran players as well to kind of go out there on the practice field and keep working every single day and kind of setting the example of how you work through it and, you know, not pointing the fingers. Yeah.

We had a really good room as far as that goes. And we had a really cool rookie class last year, too, that just didn't, you know, take it an easy way out. They just kept on working really, really hard. So it was fun to see. It all kind of came together. Do you think that had anything to do with the kind of people that John was looking for in his rookie draft? Yeah, I think it definitely did. I mean, you saw that right away when those guys came in. They were guys that were not so much about being an NFL football player,

but they enjoyed the work of being an NFL football player. And football meant something to them. That's one of the hard things to figure out about guys coming out of college now the work of being an NFL football player and football meant something to them. And, you know, that's one of the hard things to figure out about guys coming out of college now is because they're so programmed to say what they think they're supposed to be saying to the executives and the head coach that really don't know, you know, what you're getting. And I think they did a tremendous job of figuring out, you know, who the right guys to bring in.

And we all crossed the whole entire draft class last season. We had guys that really performed. McGlinchey is the Niners' number one pick this year. He's a giant, too. He is a giant. He's a giant man. All right. So we've been reading that you have been very helpful taking him under your slightly less giant wing.

Yeah. that you have been very helpful taking them under your slightly less giant wing yeah um and this is an amazing thing to people outside of football where you know you've got guys on a team who are working with their ultimate replacements um and yet trying to help them now i'm guessing you in your 12th year it's a little easier if you were in your fourth year you he might be a little bit more of a threat i'm curious if you could talk about that whole dynamic for a second yeah and it's a little bit different too because we have two different positions you know he plays right side i'm playing left side ultimately he's designed to move over right in a draft ninth overall they go play right right tackle the whole career um but yeah i mean i'm trying to we're all trying to win games here so i mean it doesn't matter if i'm feeling insecure about my job that i can't help a guy that's coming in.

I mean, that's on me. When you came in as a rookie, did you have guys who theoretically could have felt threatened by you, but who helped you out a lot? Yeah, we had a good room. It wasn't, we didn't have like an established guy. I mean, I was, I came in and was competing right away. Yeah.

Um, you know, I kind of got drafted to take someone's job. Um, so that was a little bit different of dynamic, but it was never like, you know, there was another,

there was no like weird tension in the room about that. Um, and I just feel like, I don't know. I'm trying to teach him everything i know i feel like it's my duty as a as an offensive lineman that's been in this league for a long time to try to you know accelerate his progression as a as a football player and i'm just trying to teach him everything i can and it's up to him if he wants to listen if he doesn't want to listen um and he figured out himself and that's kind of what i did too figure out what works best for you.

But I'm not going to – if he wants to ask me anything he can about the NFL, the NFL life, how to take care of your body off the field, who to associate with, who not to associate with, all the stuff that comes with you being an NFL player, I'm more than welcome to – more than willing to help him out there. So at the end of the season, winning the last five, QB who obviously was, you know, performing really well, hopefully long-term, what did that feel like for you? Like on the one hand you were six and 10 team, which isn't very good.

On the other hand, you go out with a five game winning streak and you are feeling better. So what was your kind of mind like during the off season? And then now preseason looking toward this year? How optimistic, how realistic, et cetera, et cetera? Yeah, I mean, it was huge for our team last year to finish the way we did. You know, Jimmy coming in really made a huge difference for us. I thought he played at a high level.

You can see why, you know, we gave up draft pick for him, signed him to a big contract this offseason. He's the real deal every way um but i think the the trap is too is to look at that last season those five games that we ended up with and think that we're just going to show up and do that do that again this year i mean every season i've been a part of it for a long time every season is a brand new season and brings a lot of different challenges and uh different situations that you have to deal with, whether it be injuries or another team in the division stepping up. You guys had a lot of injuries last year, didn't you? We did.

The last couple, two years, actually, we've had a lot of injuries, a lot of guys go on IR. So, I mean, that's the thing is taking it one day at a time, and I think we've done a good job of that this offseason so far. Were you a big fan of Richard Sherman in previous years? No, was on the other team and he was so good but I think that was part of the reason why I wasn't because he was so good at what he did you know he's so frustrating to go against because he kind of knew that that side of the field was always going to be kind of taken care of yeah whenever we played the Seahawks so I'm super excited to have him on our team obviously I think he's a great person great player um he brings a ton person, great player.

He brings a ton of veteran leadership to the locker room, especially in that DB room that we have right now. It's a young room. To add him as a veteran voice in there is nothing but positive. How many games would you need to win this year to consider it a successful season? I always just think of it as a Super Bowl. Even the years that we were looked at on paper as not being a good team, I've always just thought that's a goal.

It should be the goal every single year. But I never really have gotten into what the win is, what the predictions are, because that's our goal every single season. At the end of the day, too, it's just what you can do today to better yourself to get to that goal. You're probably the only guy here maybe maybe a couple who lost the super bowl right yeah me and garrett sell like i believe the only two left right um thanks wow yeah um what's that feel like losing the super bowl or being the one of the last two no losing the super oh man it sucked it was oh that's like the worst day of my life thanks for

bringing that up you're welcome no i mean we were so the way we did it too, it's still very fresh in my mind. You know, we were down big early, then had that big comeback in the second half, and then had that drive in the fourth quarter. Kind of time was running out. We had first and goal from the seven-yard line. Thinking that we're going to go in. We were the best rushing attack in the NFL. And, you know, we passed it four times. Or three the best rushing attack in the nfl and you know we pass it

four times so or three times we ran it the first time yeah and yeah and lost so i mean this sucked because we were so close i mean just taste it you know that victory was so close but it wasn't meant to be so i think here i am and i play till i'm 20 you know um 20 more years try to win a Super Bowl. So I have to say, I admire you as a football player. You seem like a fine human. But what I really, really, really like is I find your musical performances. Oh, gosh.

I think your Hakuna Matata is the finest I've ever heard. Thank you. It's absolutely extraordinary. So I would be so honored. Just the Hakuna Matata you want to i'll take some i'll take whatever you i mean i know you've been working hard you just came in from the two hour i don't know moana all right well i don't what's your uh what's your repertoire what do you got oh i got so i got a four-year-old daughter who's obsessed with disney songs and so that's my

repertoire right yeah um and moana is her go-to. I'm sure I'll love Moana. It's really up to you. Okay, okay, okay. I see what's happening, yeah. You're face to face with greatness and it's strange. You don't even know how you feel. It's adorable.

Well, it's nice to see that humans never change. Open your eyes, let's begin. Yes, it's really me. It's adorable Well it's nice to see that humans never change Open your eyes Let's begin Yes it's really me, it's Maui Breathe it in I know it's a lot, the hair, the bod When you're staring

At a demigod What can I say Except you're welcome For the time that's All right, now I'm going to do A Hakuna Matata By the way, you know who sings that, Stephen? except you're welcome for the time that's all right I'm going to do it on Hakuna Matata by the way you know who sings that Stephen in the movie? I don't. The Rock

oh really? really? oh yeah all right you better watch out Hakuna Matata what a wonderful phrase Hakuna Matata. Ain't no passing craze. It means no worries for the rest of your days. It's our problem-free philosophy.

Hakuna Matata. There we go. Extraordinary. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Staley, left tackle for the 49ers in future musical theater. I've got gadgets and gizmos aplenty. I've got whozits and whatzits galore.

You want thingamabobs? Is it 20 or plenty? I got 20. But who cares? No big deal. I got is it 20 or 20 I got 20 you don't have kids what are you doing but who cares no big deal I want more I can't believe

there's a question about what you're doing after football it seems obvious children's theater pleasure and I thank you very much

yeah thank you very much I wish you a very successful season appreciate it thank you very much yeah thanks so much for very much. I wish you a very successful season. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks so much for coming in. I listen to you guys all the time, too.

Oh, thanks. Appreciate it. And here now is our conversation with the brand new 49er and giant of a man that Staley was talking about, offensive tackle Mike McGlinchey. You are going to be starting here playing right tackle, I understand. Yes, sir.

Migrating eventually to left tackle, probably. If that's their plan. That's what they say. I'll do whatever they say they need me to do. So here's the thing. We always hear, like, obviously you're, you know, first-round draft pick, so nobody's trying to bury you. But we do hear the stories about how veterans who are trying to, you know, theoretically make welcome young guys at their positions sometimes aren't

as welcoming as they might be. I know that you've been getting, you know getting good advice and welcome from Joe Staley. I'm just curious what your expectations were and so on on that front. Yeah, I really didn't know what to expect because I've heard a lot of different things. I came from an old line room that was completely the opposite of that. At Notre Dame, we always helped out everyone that came into the room, no matter what age you were. You were always, you know, welcome to this part of the family. And fortunately here in San Francisco, I've had the same experience thus far. I mean, it's an awesome group that we have. And there hasn't been anybody that's making you feel like crap or anybody that's making

you pay your dues too hard other than, you know, a couple of jokes here and there. But no, it's been an awesome experience with all the vets, all the guys that we have in our room and everybody's just trying to do the same job. And that's the, is there any rookie hazing anymore? Nothing that I've experienced. I mean, we're only, we're only in day two of practice. So wait, I'm assuming I'm waiting until training camp. I still have my guard up a little bit. So yeah, even in two weeks, I still have a little bit of a guard up to see what's coming. You're how tall? About 6'8". And you're weighing what?

Like 3'10", something like that. And what's your optimal weight? Is that about right there? Yeah, right there. What's your shirt? Yeah, it's at West Point. A family friend of ours plays basketball up there. I see.

I think they bought a 2XL. I see. I was the one guy that they knew for it. You come from a big family, four brothers, one sister, something like that? Yeah, four brothers, one sister. I'm the oldest of six. Okay. Are they athletic?

Yeah. Yeah. Nothing, I don't know. We'll see. They're all younger than me, so I don't know if anybody's going to make it to the NFL. But yeah, they definitely play their sports. We'll see. They're all younger than me, so I don't know if anybody's going to make it to the NFL. But yeah, they definitely play their sports. So how many games have you missed due to injury in the last ever years? Never. I've never missed a game.

Yeah, there's always, ever since, unless there was like a family obligation when I was in like first or second grade, but I can't remember that. But since you play football, presumably you've been a little bit injured. Yeah. What are some of the things you've played through? Sprain left ankle, stomach flu, broken hand, a couple nicks every other where. So nothing major. Was the broken hand something that most sane people would have not played with? It depends on how much you love football, I guess. Yeah. Can you explain, especially for people who don't care or know anything about football at all, what's your job? My job is to open up running lanes and keep people off of Jimmy Garoppolo.

So that's all I can really do. I just kind of get in the way is really what my job is. Yeah. So the paradox, or I guess the, maybe it's not a paradox, it's the hard thing to come across as someone with your size, who's also fast and coordinated and a good athlete. So there aren't that many of you to start with, but then there are a lot of people your size and speed who don't make it. So what is it you think that is the difference between people who are physically capable and who are gifted with the size, but who don't have the capability to play at your level in college and now in the NFL? Well, I think it's all mental. I think it's about how much you want it, how much you love it, and how much you're willing to sacrifice for it.

I was never the best athlete on my team. I'm still not the best athlete on my team here, but I've always wanted it more. I've always worked harder than everybody else. Just attention to detail and the things that you need to know how to self-correct. You need to know how to learn. I was always pretty good at learning. So the faster you can do that and combined with really, really, truly wanting something that bad, that's what separates everybody else. Can you give me an example of that?

I like football. I've liked football my whole life. But I really don't know. When you talk about learning how to learn in your positions, give me an example of a particular thing that you've gotten better at maybe over the years and how you figured out how to get better at it. I think it's just fundamentally and how to move up playing offensive line is one of the more unnatural human movements on earth in sport. I think, um, you're required to move other large men out of the way. And when you're trying to stop them in pass protection, you're completely moving backwards. So it's a, it's a different, it's a really, really different thing to have to learn

how to do. And, uh, until your body can feel it until you can watch it on film and self-diagnose right when things happen. Um, that's where the separation comes in. So when you watch yourself on film, what do you, uh, what do you look for? What do you learn from? Do you see, like, do you look at for a case where if you've been beat, what you were doing, were you bent or wrong? Well, you know, when you get beat and you're at this level, you know, why pretty much immediately, um, you're just looking at it to look at it and visualize it, have how not to do it again. When you say why does that mean? Because it's you or cause it's the other guy was, was. I'm pretty convinced that offensive unless you're

getting an absolute freakazoid yeah all defensive players are playing off of what you do so if I can control what I can do better than the other guy then I'm going to be in a better position right yeah what about um just confidence um does it ebb and flow for you um I think it is when you're young uh when you first starting out at a major level of football, like it did at Notre Dame for me, my first couple of years, I certainly didn't believe that I was going to be what I became to be. And I'm still not,

I don't think what I want to be. So it's always a, it's a learning process of, of continuing to move on and continue to get better. And, you know, definitely confidence waves a little bit when you're young and mistakes constantly are happening. But when you get to this level, if you're not confident, you're probably not going to be able to, you know, do your job.

But that said, I mean, there are a lot of guys who get drafted first round who don't work out. There are a lot of guys who are undrafted. Well, maybe not a lot of guys who are undrafted, but they're undrafted guys who do become great players, become Hall of Fame players. How do you account for that? I mean, how? I think that a lot of guys come from smaller situations or different situations in college

that some of the undrafted guys that had a tough situation in college came from a smaller school, had other people producing ahead of them at their school, and they're late bloomers. And then once they get their shot, and eventually if you really truly wanted a flip will switch inside you to make sure it happens.

And I think sometimes first-round things, there's a lot of, especially in today's day and age, there's a lot of media, a lot of media attention. And if you play at a big-time program or if you have a lot of, especially in today's day and age, there's a lot of media, a lot of media attention. And if you play at a big time program or if you have a lot of media attention behind you, you know, you're kind of pressured in making picks that necessarily aren't the best ones. And it's a mixture of misinformation of first round guys, of who they are as a person and what they can do as a player. And I think some of it's probably a little bit of complacency as well. Being a first round pick, there's obviously a huge, you know, pride or badge of honor associated with that. But on the other hand, especially when you come into your team now and you were your team's first pick this year, what kind of pressure does that put on you?

I'm not really worried about the pressure. And I think that's one thing that I learned greater as college went on. And once attention starts getting towards your way, then expectations just continue to grow. And you should look at expectation as something that you've earned. And I think that's something that I've always tried to do is if people are expecting the highest and most production out of me, then I've done something right along the way to get there.

So I just got to stay true to what I'm doing and stay true to who I am and good things will happen. If I recall, and I may be wrong, so pardon me if I am, you were not contacted by the Niners during the run-up to the draft? Is that right? I had one formal interview with them at the Combine for 15 minutes long, and that was the only contact that I had. And then you probably had contact with a lot of other teams. A lot of other teams. Yeah.

I had, you know, individual workouts where coaches came to my school. I was flown to, you know, some of these teams were three or four different visits with them. And, you know, sometimes it's just all facade and they're trying to play a hand with other teams or sometimes it's really truly invested interest in you. But yeah, I think that I'm lucky because I love the situation here. I love where this organization is at, and the area that I get to live in now is pretty sweet too. Did they not – I mean, you always hear these cat-and-mouse games

that a team won't contact a guy like you because they don't want to tip to other teams that they're interested in you do you did you talk about that after the fact with john i didn't i didn't talk about it necessarily i did a little bit with kyle because he had had a uh um he was joking around with me because he was so close with my cousin matt right who was his quarterback for two years and that ryan is one of the best quarterbacks in the last whatever 10 he's done a pretty good job yeah um but k him were pretty close, and he didn't even tell Kyle that they were interested just because he didn't want to get back to either me or somebody else. Well, just so that things didn't happen unpredictably during the draft.

So they don't lose you to someone else. Yeah. Yeah. So how surprised were you? Who did you get the call from, John or Kyle? John was first, and then Kyle was right after him. Yeah. So as soon as Roquan Smith was announced for the Bears, my phone rang,

and it was John Lynch on the other line, and I'm pretty excited. I didn't expect it to happen, but it was pretty awesome. Yeah. This team has obviously had a pretty eventful last, well, like 50 years, but the last, you know, 5, 8, 10 years, particularly some good and a lot eventful last, well, like 50 years, but the last, you know, five, eight, 10 years, particularly some good and a lot not so good. What's it feel like to be coming onto a team? Obviously, you've got your stuff to take care of, but this team is in turnaround that started

out really bad last year, then ended up really, really good. I'm just curious what you think of as like, what are you going to contribute to that turnaround? Well, I hope to continue to do my job and, and, and to the best of my ability and at the best ability in this league to, you know, help the 49ers win games. The only three goals that I've ever had in my, uh, my career of playing high level football is to help my team win, be the best at what I do. And then, you know, the third one is be the best offensive line unit. I guess now in the NFL it wasn't in the nation in college, but now it's in the NFL. Yeah.

You were captain of Notre Dame twice, right? What are some duties associated with that that the public might not know about? I don't know if there's anything, you know, everybody knows what a captain does, I think. You're not doing bed checks. No, I mean, if it's needed, I would have. But we had a pretty good group of guys in Notre Dame that, you know everybody knows what a captain does i think it's just you're not doing bed checks no i mean if it's needed i would have but we had we had a pretty good group of guys in notre dame that you know it was it wasn't it wasn't there we had some hard times there in my true senior season we went four and eight it was a hard season but you know it's just the normal be a good teammate set

the example and if anything that needs needs to be said that needs to be said you say it yeah uh how many calories do you eat in a day? Do you know? I don't count. I just try to eat what's right for me. And I know my body at this point of what I need to eat to keep weight on or if I need. I haven't really ever had the feeling of needing to lose weight. So to get my body to feel and look the best that it can, I know what I need to do.

Yeah. So I weigh like 172 do you think you could like break me um it depends on where we're going i don't know i don't know if i could break you on a football field but if i like just throw me up against a wall here i don't know if i have that i don't know if i have that killer instinct in me to just do that yeah i mean right now yeah well if i step between white lines, it's a little different. I'm just curious, like, literally what a guy of your strength and size could do. Like, you could pick me up and put me through this wall, though, right?

Normally, offensive linemen are the best guys on the football team. I know that. I know that. You're also the smartest. But that's the thing with football. It's a dangerous game. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard to live through, and it's hard to be able to flip that switch.

And some guys, unfortunately, aren't able to have distinct lines with that. But the good ones do, and the best guys do. And it's a matter of when it's time to work, it's time to work. And you have to have that edge to you. But when you're in everyday life, you're no better than anybody else. It's really interesting you say that. A sports journal, a really good sports writer once wrote this thing that captivated me about sports because I've been a sports fan for a long time. And he said, when athletes get in trouble, everybody says, oh, they kind of make more of it than than is normal and he said that if you think about it

sports you're encouraged to do all these things that you're you're not allowed to do yeah you're supposed to be big and mighty you're supposed to be the as you know there's supposed to be a different aura about you when you cross it when you get onto a field that it's not normal for society so it definitely um it's a hazy world if you can't manage yourself. But, you know, I've never had that issue. Well, you seem, I mean, plainly your record is we know that you can manage yourself. Have you had guys on your team, Notre Dame, let's say, who you saw were having a hard time drawing that line and tried to help them? Yeah, I think it's not as much of a physical thing as it is mental.

You know, when guys get a little too big for their britches, you've got to bring them back a little bit. Or if they're just nonresponsive, then you've got to figure out a way to, you know, probably get them off your team. So, like I said, you know, you're a great football player. We can all be great football players. But at the end of the day, we're no better than anybody else. We have a job.

Other people have jobs that they do. So it's just our line of work. It's just a different field of work. Yeah. I thank you very much. And I hope you have a great first year. And I wish you all success. Next up is Kyle Juszczyk, a fullback about to start his second season with the 49ers.

Just got done doing some brain training. What is brain training? So we've been doing some stuff with this company called NeuroPeak Pro that, I mean, it started off as you just working on some different breathing techniques, syncing it up with your heart rate. But now we've kind of moved on to a more advanced part of it, where you're working on putting your brain in a parasympathetic state. I don't want to get too... What's that? I mean, I kind of know what the word means, but I don't know how... Basically, like get you out of that fight or flight sense where you know a lot of us you we just be sitting in a room like this and for whatever reason your brain is in that fight or flight state and it can't calm down and it can't get into this recovery mode so um we do this thing where we like we watch basically you're you're hooked up um you're hooked up. These sensors are reading your brainwaves.

And depending on how they're reacting while you're watching a movie, that movie will either shrink or pause or brighten. And it's kind of like giving your brain feedback on how it's supposed to act and kind of put you back into a better. This is over multiple sessions over multiple days or something? Yeah. back into a better this is over multiple sessions over multiple days or something yeah so i'm uh right now i'm trying to log uh i think it's 15 hours worth of training and i'm about 12 hours in uh how many other guys on the team are doing this i don't know how many players do you know probably like six so it's voluntary yeah and why you volunteer? Well, I had a concussion last year. And so this offseason, I kind of made like a –

I decided that I wanted to put a lot of energy towards my brain this offseason. So this was something that I came across and jumped on it. Interesting. So you're like 12 hours into your, and what happens when you become like proficient at 15 hours? Well, I'll get a reassessment at 15 hours and we'll kind of see, you know, where my brain is at, but I've already seen the benefits of it where anxiety levels have gone down big time, sleeping well. And I already feel like I'm processing information faster. Now, how do you persuade yourself that that's not all placebo?

I know. Yeah, that's definitely something you have to watch out for. But I mean, even if it is, that's what I always say about the placebo effect. Even if none of those supplements in my locker work, technically work, if in my head they are, then they are. Has it translated all into playing football? I mean, today was only our second day of practice. I mean, I want to think that I was processing things visually quicker today. So, I mean, hopefully.

Interesting. Yeah. Let's back up just since we didn't get it. Would you just say your name and what you do? Yeah. Kyle Juszczyk, fullback for the San Francisco 49ers. Okay. You happen to go to Harvard. Yeah. Let's back up just since we didn't get it. Would you just say your name and what you do? Yeah. Kyle Juszczyk, fullback for the San Francisco 49ers. Okay. You happen to go to Harvard. Yep. Don't use that against me.

I won't use that. How many Harvard alum are in the NFL these days? You'd be surprised. There's quite a few. I think we have somewhere around like 12 maybe. Really? Yeah. Yeah. All right. So your career, you started Baltimore, correct first four years baltimore yeah then one year

four years baltimore this is my second year okay then here okay all right so you came in just in time for all the fun here yeah right so you were coming onto a team that had gone 2 and 14 the year before yeah and then last year was the dawn of a new era. Yeah. Just walk me through your process last year with 0-9 and so on. I mean, it was an interesting deal. Went into free agency. And, you know, that's an interesting thing in itself,

just not exactly knowing where you're going to be. You know, I had just gotten engaged. So I was trying to figure out you know congratulations thank you you're married right now i assume not yet actually long engagement we got a we got a date set for uh uh this next off season yeah yeah um but you know just you know working with that having you know to figure out where she's going to be coming with me. But everything worked out great when my agent went to Combine. He was talking with a lot of different teams and got a sense that San Francisco was really interested. And the idea of coming out to California, the idea of playing for Kyle Shanahan,

were two really great ideas to me, playing for John Lynch, a former player. Did you know much about them other than what you, you know, kind of... I knew a lot about Kyle because when I was in Baltimore, there was rumors that we were going to hire him as an offensive coordinator. And he's kind of from that Gary Kubiak tree. And that offense fits me very well. And I had a great year Gary Kubiak tree and that offense fits me very well and I had a great year when Kubiak was my offense coordinator so I was excited about that definitely knew who John Lynch was remembered him as a player and just like the idea of a former player running the organization I thought that was really cool yeah so then when they when you first heard that they

were interested in you did you did you have pause about the Niners considering that they'd had some rough years? Yeah. I mean, that was something I definitely had to consider, um, was coming to a team, you know, that, you know, didn't really have a ton of success, but, um, I try to kind of spin it in my head to think about it as like, how cool would it be to be part of that, that first class almost that turns it around, you know, it's almost like going to that college and being part of the first recruiting class for that head coach that turns the whole thing around. And that's how I kind of looked at it here. We were kind of Kyle's first free agent class that, you know, hopefully you can get this thing turned around.

And then obviously it didn't turn around, at least in the beginning. So what, what, what, I mean, I look at it now collectively as 0 and 9, but obviously it's one week at a time. And I'm guessing it gets a little bit more frustrating every week. What was, what was going on for you then? Definitely super frustrating. Not how we expected things to start. But you'd be surprised just how positive things stayed around here. It was pretty incredible. Not something that I was used to experiencing. In Baltimore, if we lost a couple games in a row, I mean, things were getting crazy in the facility,

and people were walking on eggshells. You got a hardball in charge. What do you expect? Exactly. But nobody was walking on eggshells here. We were hardball in charge. What do you expect? Exactly. But nobody was walking on eggshells here. We were still very confident that we were moving in the right direction. And, you know, every week Kyle would pull up some clips to show, like, we're making progress. I swear, guys, like, just stick to it and it's going to turn around.

And once it did, man, it made it super rewarding. You know, we've heard exactly the same thing from everyone, from Jed to players, et cetera, which is that you'd never know from the locker room that it was an 0-9 team. And I'm just curious, I guess kind of hooking up the two things you said about your brain training and Kyle showing you clips of things that are going well. Was that a kind of like, do you think he was practicing some kind of positive psychology that worked because i mean the reality was you were oh and nine and yet people seemed to think that success was coming still yeah definitely i think you know you don't so you don't see the positivity in like our record we got to find it somewhere else. So he did a great job of showing us those clips and showing us, you know, just exactly what you're doing well. And, you know, as a football player,

if you're never getting, or at least the way I work, if I'm never getting any positive feedback, I mean, that makes things really tough. So for him to do that, I know that really struck home with me to, you know, he shows me a clip from the game, a clip from practice that week where I did something really well and he points it out. I'm like, okay, I'm doing something right. And it motivates you. I have to say that just sounds like exactly the opposite of what lay people think about football coaches. We think like you could have a pretty good game and then they call you in and show you this is the block you missed and so on that definitely exists and I've definitely been a part of that too um but I almost feel like it's more of a kind of a new age thinking of this more positive feedback and I know it definitely resonates with me um you know I've never gotten much from a coach

that's just screaming at me and telling me how terrible I am. I don't know. That just doesn't work for me. I like a guy that points out when I do something incorrectly, but he also rewards me when I'm doing something the right way. Yeah, that's interesting. So are there any other examples you can get? Because that's the best example we've heard of how the positivity kind of happened, which is him showing you the cuts of you doing good stuff. Can you think of any other examples? I mean, I just think about my times with the Ravens when things weren't going well. There was just a mood in the building. When you're passing coaches in the hallway, like you're trying to keep it short. You're not trying to make a ton of eye contact. You just want to get moving and get through your

day where here it just, it really wasn't like that. You saw your position coach and it was easy to still go talk to him. You didn't feel awkward, you know, that I didn't get any sense of that. What are your expectations for this year? I got high expectations, and I expect to win. I think you can already feel it just from the two practices that we've had so far that things feel a lot different than they did last year. There's a lot more confidence. On the offensive side, there's definitely a better understanding of the offense as a whole because we've

been in it for a year. Was it a lot of relearning for you? Was it a system that took a lot of, a lot of work? Well, I, I played in a system that was similar, but I mean, Kyle takes everything to a whole nother level. Uh, so there was a lot of learning new stuff. And I mean, for anybody, when you're learning something new, you just you don't react quite as fast. You know, there's just that millisecond of hesitation and you'd be surprised what a huge difference that can make. So can you help me reconcile this? Here's what I don't understand. I know that NFL offenses are super complex, right? That lay people, we literally wouldn't even understand the terminology in the play call right at all and that you got 11 guys

who all a understand it b then execute it at the same time at lightning speed okay so we know how hard that is but then we also see that jimmy garoppolo comes in and after like 10 days is basically running that offense yeah and winning is five games in a row how do you explain that that's a great question i think you really got really got to give Jimmy a lot of credit. I think he did such a good job of, I mean, he put in serious time after practice with the coaches by himself. I mean, he was here all night just trying to learn this playbook. And I think you also got to attribute the fact that he was able to extend plays. He's able to get the fact that he was able to extend plays.

He's able to get the ball out quickly. And, you know, people always ask, what was the difference in our offense before Jimmy and once Jimmy came along? And I think the difference was we were converting on third down. And when you convert on third down, you get to run more plays. When you run more plays, you get to dive deeper into your playbook and into your uh game plan of that week and that's when you get to really start to exploit the defense and all that work you put in this week where okay we saw they were doing this like and we're going to take advantage of that well when you're three and out you can't really set things up you know but when you're actually moving the ball and getting first downs you start to set things up you know um but when you're actually moving the ball and getting first downs you start

to set things up and things really start to come together yeah um you had a concussion last year you said was it during a game or practice during game what happened um so we were playing the uh la rams it was a thursday night game i think it was week three and we were on the goal line and just running a lead play and smacked my head with their linebacker and just had a really, it was really weird. I remember it's, it like sounded like, uh, like I remember hearing a noise in my head. It was almost like a, like a bell, like just ringing. I felt, I remember feeling like a like a uh i said a tuning fork like for a guitar or something it was weirdest feeling right after that play you know i'm pretty shook up but we got back up to the line very quickly we're trying to get another play in and i remember i'm sitting in the

huddle and i'm like i like i'm definitely messed up but like, like, do I sit down and, like, wait for the trainer? Or do I, let's just run this next play and then I'll figure it out after that. Well, it all happened so quickly. I stayed in and I ran the next play. And it was the worst decision. Same thing, ran into the linebacker and that one, you know, finally put me out where I was, you know, unconscious for a second. And then had to, you know, get taken in by the trainers and all that kind of stuff. Wow. You regret? It sounds like you regret the decision.

The second play, definitely, yeah. I should have taken myself out, but things happen so quickly. How much of it is also just macho? There's a little bit of pride in there, which is stupid because there shouldn't be. That's changing, I of pride in there which is stupid because there shouldn't be like you know there's no that's changing i gather and it definitely is changing like there's no shame in like taking yourself out in that situation like your brain is way too important for this kind of stuff and i think i think guys are starting to understand that a lot more but it's still i think so ingrained in all of us that there's a little bit of that pride that still you know keeps guys in there maybe Maybe a play or two.

Had you had concussions previously? Nothing officially registered. Definitely. I'm sure I had, you know, but nothing that I had actually. John Urschel, who we've had on the show actually a couple of times. Oh really? Really. I love him. I mean, he's just such an interesting, nice guy. Interesting guy. So, you know, his decision to retire, I think was misunderstood. It was, it was more complicated than, than just, you know, I saw the report. He'd had a concussion. I think he got in practice when he was with the Ravens.

I'm just curious, you know, whether his decision, whether that made you think about anything differently yourself? Yeah. You know, I've, I would never take it to the point, or at least I don't think I would retire unless, you know, I started to rack up a lot, you know, a lot of concussions that's became a problem. But, um, you know, I, it's just, I love the game too much that I don't think I can step away from it early. And, you know, so that I don't run into that situation, that's why I'm trying to do some of these different things to really strengthen the brain and just get a better understanding of it

and, you know, all those sort of things. Do you meditate or have you ever? Yeah. Yeah. Have you noticed any effect from that as well? I have. I actually, I enjoy that. And I mean, it's nothing extensive.

It's, you know, maybe six to 10 minutes here. You know, I try to. It's nothing extensive. It's maybe six to ten minutes. I try to do it twice a day. Usually just once. I usually do it before I go to bed. At the very least, I try to do it the night before games. But I do a pretty good job of it. Tell us something about being a professional athlete, more specifically, you know, an NFL fullback that you think most people just have no concept of or wouldn't understand or maybe appreciate, maybe. I think a lot of people, I don't think they understand the amount of time that's put in outside of Sunday.

You know, I think a lot of people, they know we practice. They know we work out. But I don't think they realize that, like, during our phase two of our offseason program, we're only blocked for four hours. I'm here for eight, nine hours. You know, like, we're only required to be here for that four. But I don't think people realize just how much time is really spent in this facility have you been on teams where most guys

would only be there for the minimum uh i wonder baltimore was pretty good like most of the guys were putting in that extra time but i i would still say like it doesn't really compare to to here i think they do such a good job of uh there's so much available for us here like what i mean as far as our nutrition is like off the chain it's it's incredible um there's so much information available there uh i mean the food is great so i mean i do a lot with our dietician where um i mean right now we're doing Right now, it's another kind of a brain study. We're doing DHA supplement tests. I have that available.

I have the brain test available. Our medical staff is so great. I can go in there and ask for anything. I can get cupping, I can get grassed in, I can get acupuncture, I can just get a massage flush if I need it. You know, hot tub, cold tub, sauna, steam room. We got the weight room is always available. We got cryotherapy there. What's cryotherapyotherapy uh it's the it's a chamber that they pump uh i think it's nitrogen gas and they're super cold yeah and you're in there for like three minutes and drops your body tempers change super low so tell us um let me just ask you about

a a series of um give me like what you're doing monday at 10 a.m typically during game during the season during the season uh so that's mondays uh are like body maintenance every right is monday tuesdays your off day here then yeah is that right yeah yeah okay so um monday at 10 a.m probably getting a massage okay uh friday at noon friday at noon we're on the field okay um sunday let's say 8 a.m with a 1 p.m game um probably starting to get up and uh get ready for breakfast okay at the team hotel yeah yeah yeah then what about sunday night let's say uh sunday night after the game yeah after the game um you know it depends if somebody's in town for the game usually Usually there is somebody. So we're probably grabbing dinner somewhere with a friend or family that's visiting.

Yeah. All right. Thanks. It's great to talk to you. Really great talking to you guys too. Thanks to Kyle Juszczyk, Mike McGlinchey, Joe Staley, and Jimmy Garoppolo for taking the time to sit down with us. And special thanks to Bob Lang, VP of Communications for the 49ers, who made all these 49ers interviews happen.

If you haven't already, be sure to listen to our Freakonomics Radio episode number 350 about the 49ers. It's one of our regular weekly episodes that are released every Wednesday at 11 p.m. Eastern time. And you can find more full interviews like these here on Stitcher Premium. Let us know what you think. You can find Freakonomics Radio on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or email us at radio at Freakonomics.com. Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. Our staff includes Allison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, Greg Rosalski, Alvin Melleth, Harry Huggins, Zach Lipinski, and Andy Meisenheimer. Our Hidden Side of Sports series was produced by Anders Kelto and Derek John.

The music you hear throughout our episode was composed by Luis Guerra. Our show can also be heard on NPR stations across the country. Check your local station for the schedule, as well as on Sirius XM, Spotify, and even your better airlines.