Green Light with Chris Long - Danny Amendola on Tom Brady. Todd Gurley on joining Atlanta Falcons.

Episode Date: March 24, 2020

0:50 - Open talking about quarantine-ing, NFL News and DICK POUND announces the Olympics are postponed. 27:35 - Todd Gurley on joining the Falcons, Favorite memories with the Rams and what he's watching during his quarantine. 47:25 - Danny Amendola on Tom Brady, the Detroit Lions in 2020 and staying fit amid coronavirus. 1:12:58 - Outro. About Chalk Media: Following the unfiltered voice and vision of Chris Long, Chalk Media is the interactive online community for you, the intelligent and humorous sports fan. Driven by access, Chalk delivers a unique perspective that cuts through the canned talking points and provides a variety of content from your favorite sports and entertainment celebrities. Here at Chalk, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we are rooted in challenging the perception of professional athletes. We embrace the “real” with a unique combination of humor and intelligence. Chalk is a community with a voice beyond 240 characters that brings a perspective and vibe to a traditionally brash and boastful sports media space. Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more. Nothing is off-limits at Chalk - hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. 🌍🏀🏈SUBSCRIBE NOW ⚾🏒⛰️ http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greenlight Pod today, um, we've got Danny Amandola joining us. We've got Todd Gurley joining us. Obviously, Todd Gurley made a lot of the news last week. We'll talk to him about Atlanta. Uh,

what might have went wrong in, in L.A. Danny's going to talk to us about Tom Brady and, uh, next year's Detroit Lions season. Also, Instagram models are struggling. Uh, we'll talk about that for a moment.

And the Rams have a new logo. If you hadn't heard. Hello, welcome to Greenlight Pod, uh, for all of us. of you out there feeling like it's groundhog day i also feel the same way i'm your host chris long and this is like whew day 11 12 i don't know i've lost count of social distancing

it's not like the movies where if you're watching on youtube it's not like the movies where i start looking like tom hanks and castaway um i actually have done the opposite i look like a giant baby accidentally shaved my beard i've been doing a thing lately where i try to accentuate the mustache and like go a little lighter on the beard because i saw some like dude in a cologne commercial do it and i was like yeah i'm gonna do that i'm gonna look i'm gonna look fucking hot my lovely wife meg is gonna love this well i had an accident with the uh the clippers and you know everybody knows and guy with a beard knows there's some accidents,

some mishaps that you can't do over and I had to just shave it off I thought this might be a good time to ride that out because nobody's going to see me I hate having a shaved face very self-conscious about my shaved baby face

but my lovely wife likes it and if I weren't doing a podcast that many people, many people, hundreds of people on YouTube are watching. I almost got away with it. So yeah, I look funny. That's what happened to me. Listen, some highlights, you know, some good news in the pandemic. DJ premiere spinning on IG Live last night.

Ninth Wonder did a set as well. I'm going back and forth. some of my favorite producers of all time, favorite DJs, doing the thing they do with the vinyl. I have no fucking idea how to talk about it. I just like listening to it. Both sets were awesome. I finished on a high note with Primo,

and he loves to shout people out. Shout out to Primo, a friend of the program. If you haven't listened to the Fishbow interview that I did with him, check that out. should be out there right cowboy read it's out there yep it's out there uh primo did uh i'd rather be with you bootsy collins and i called it a night that was almost midnight my wife is wondering why i'm on the toilet listening to music well dear um i don't want to keep you awake all night listen to primo spin on IG Live.

So yeah. And by the way, any of y'all ever knows if you sit on the toilet too long, your legs fall asleep? Well, that was a thing in school, like back in the day, if you played Game Boy on the toilet too long, your legs fell asleep.

Now my legs fall asleep just looking at Instagram, which is way less cool, way less cool than playing Game Boy. But not last night. That was awesome. Yeah, so I do have an eerie tweet. I don't know if it's eerie or if I'm just, I'm just, I'm ahead of, I'm ahead of the curve here.

I found this tweet. Well, I thought of it the other night because I've had a lot of time to just sit around and think. From January 1st, this says my song for 2020 is leave me alone. That's a picture of the rapper that sings that song. I have no idea who he is. I'm about to look it up now. Leave me alone song. That is Flip De Niro,

which means to turn a profit. And Flip De Niro's anthem is Leave Me Alone, 2020, January 1st. I announced that that would be my anthem. Did I know that I would be socially distancing? I'm not sure. You be the judge. Yeah, if you try to find the tweet, you won't find it.

I do delete tweets. I am a tweet deleter. I just, it's like baggage for me. I don't like to have, there's some people who are like, yeah, if you delete your tweets, you don't stand by them. No, that's not true. I just don't feel like five years later having a bunch of tweets trailing me,

like some that I wasn't crazy about, some that I liked. Just delete them all every year. But yeah, I was on top of it January 1st. I knew I would be hold up in the house for 14 days, not seeing anybody outside my family save for Cowboy Reed here. My producer, who me and Cowboy Reed, we certainly haven't touched since the pandemic started.

We definitely do the 10 feet away thing. I come into the studio and I'm at home. That's it. People need content. And it is getting to be like Groundhog Day. uh sports news today dick pound has announced the olympics postponed um dick pound has announced that the olympics are off does that mean there does postpone

mean push back so it could still be 2021 yeah it does i'm learning a lot more about uh verbs like postponed or suspended over the last couple months the last couple weeks feels like the last couple months has been a fucking like two three week span the depressing part um and i'm not going to skim over dick pound here but the depressing part is that like the last couple days is like yeah we'd be tipping off the round of 64 yada yada yada not so obviously not the the biggest tragedy going on by any stretch of the imagination but sports uh it'd be nice if we had them understand why we don't it's a smart thing not to And it's a smart thing to postpone the Olympics.

But you know what also would have been smart? Would maybe somebody at the Olympic Committee being like, hey, maybe I could make that announcement today, Dick? Like, do you know how the internet works? If Dick Pound makes the announcement, it kind of buries the lead. There's a million people more interested in the fact that your name is Dick Pound than whatever happened after the words, Dick and Pound. Dick Pound has announced

I don't hear anything after that guy's name is Dick Pound Did you hear the Olympics got canceled? Nope Just heard there's a guy in the Olympic committee named Dick Pound which reminds me of an old friend Dick Trickel

God rest his soul Dick Tricle prolific NASCAR racer his name was Dick Tricle and he was named that just like Dick Pound when dick pound became a baby and started his life his parents were like let's name him dick and then they introduced first off you can't babies should not be named dick like that's out dude we're not

naming baby's dick anymore so i understand that dick pound pound presumably was born a long time ago and it was less faux pa to name your baby dick. But your last name's pound. Just maybe don't do it. Maybe don't do it. Speaking of gross stuff, if anybody has gotten a bunch of text messages from their college buddies or high school buddies

or their teammates, like in a group text during the pandemic, you have a one in 12 chance. no, one in six chance of having seen a guy named Woods unit. He was a male performer. Most of you know the picture.

He's been embedded in a bunch of links since this whole thing kicked off. And his unit is just out. And a lot of comic relief, a lot of dropping your phone, a lot of don't send me shit like that going on. But it is amazing to me that out of all this horror and uncertainty and like hard times, hardships, no pun intended, Wood has become the most famous guy of the pandemic.

The image was taken around 2009. Wood died sadly in 2016. God rest his soul. We lost a good one. The picture has taken, taking the world by storm right now. The spread rate of wood is much higher than the spread rate of the coronavirus. And the coronavirus, if you've done any fucking reading, is spreading fast.

Wood might be spreading faster. My favorites... Now, no one really has a favorite, because nobody likes opening their phone and seeing something like that. But if you're going to open your phone and see something like that, I'd say, well, the Joe Burrow one's pretty funny,

where Joe Burroughs hoisting Wood like he's a trophy, the water skiers, the Oval Office picture, the hockey goalie picture. I bet you, I bet you would, Wood could put together some better press conferences

than our president has if he were here today. strip clubs are doing delivery i saw that in um in Portland shout out to uh lucky devil lounge they are starting a service called buber eats you figure it out strippers delivering food they don't stay if we have any listeners in Portland they don't stay um they just drop the food off. I definitely feel for, and I'm serious now, like, I feel for the girls in that industry. I don't feel so much for the Instagram models. I read on TMZ that a lot of them have, uh, have fallen on some hard times. I don't want to say hard times, but they're not making the money. They used to. Their IG sales are grinding to a halt. 500K a year is what Abigail Ratchford makes. She's got

nine million followers. Good for her. Evidently you can't call makeup artists into your house and that sort of thing. I think it's very responsible of the IG models for socially distancing. But they can't make money. By the way, I had no idea you made 500K a year doing Instagram modeling.

Unbelievable. I really think that what's going to come out of this is that the IG models that are doing it for the love of the game, they're going to rise to the top. If you're doing it for the money, you know, this is going to knock you down. But if you're doing this because you love to bless the feed,

I think you're going to come out of this stronger. That's all I'm going to say about that. Some NFL news, P.J. Walker got picked up by the Panthers. That's the XFL star, the roughneck star. He was cut by the Colts like a bunch of times. And true story, Andrew Luck suggested him to his pop. the commissioner of the XFL. And obviously he was a big star

for the short lifespan of the 2020 XFL season. He's going to have a shot in Carolina. Cool story. Listen, and I do worry about football in the fall. I'm not being alarmist. I really do. I actually worry that what's going to happen is that testing, and I could be a moron here,

so stop me if I am. everybody is a doctor now but i think testing as it's more readily available is going to drive the mortality rate down and people are going to get overconfident and they're going to go back in the streets and they're not going to take care of themselves and there's going to be a second surge that's what i'm worried about i'm worried about all of it but from a timing standpoint if you're a football fan and you're looking at the fall that's where i think it's threatened i think that you know we could have a little false victory here now summer gets going second surge people got to take care of themselves again uh and football could be in jeopardy one thing we would

big time lose out on would be a uh p j success story p j walker people are going to are going to be really pulling for him and i hope that he ends up getting a shot you know it's going to be a really weird summer. It already has been. I don't know about the fall. We'll see. Two quarterbacks made news this week. You had Philip Rivers and Ben Rothesberger released kind of Twitter videos, social media videos that kind of made waves. Ben Rathusberger has an aggressive beard, huge beard. If anybody saw that, I didn't hear anything he said. I'm sure it was a great message. I didn't hear anything he said after the opening frame because his beard was so fucking aggressive. It looks like he's been doing this for six to eight months.

Philip Rivers, he tweeted a kind of, Hey Colts fans video, very endearing. He's already begun to ingratiate himself in Indianapolis by releasing a, thanks for having me, video on the shitter, because that's where he is in this video. There's no way he's not sitting on his toilet presumably with his shorts on um not doing business but i'm thinking in his house six seven kids nowhere to go to record a hey i just joined a new team for the first time in like 15 years social media video you slip off into the guest bathroom uh because you got a shower curtain there you've got one of those bed bath and beyond kind of $20 paintings above the, presumably the toilet over his left shoulder in the video.

You know he's on the shitter. That's the only place he can hide, house full of kids. I love Philip Rivers. Definitely pulling for him, especially I have to have video. Rams logo, that dropped today. Okay, I'm just going to go out and say it. I don't hate it as much as I did two weeks ago. I still think it deserves to get kind of fried.

It's getting fried online. Go look at the mentions. How about being the social media guy that has to hit send at 1 o'clock, knowing that the game's already fixed? People hate it already. Even if there are little differences between what you saw two weeks ago in that new era leaked, a hat picture, even if the shading is different, the colors, the font, people saw what they saw.

They saw a detergent logo. They saw a Chargers logo. weeks later, you release the real thing. And if you're Kevin Demoff and he said this, it's tough because, you know, when that logo got leaked, quote, it's not a hat I would buy or we would ever want in the marketplace, but we did not get much say in that. Quote, that hat was a terrible introduction to where we are headed, but there's nothing we can do about how that came to be. the Rams will also unveil new new uniforms later this spring the process started late in 2017 and uh the tough part for Kevin and I think the Rams is that one people have made their minds up

two when that came out and you saw like the terrible terrible reactions if you're looking from the outside in you're thinking well just change the logo you saw people don't like it the hard part is you've been working on it since 2017 and although the the logo is different from two weeks ago, you can't just point out intricate differences to say, hey, that's not the logo, the shading, the font, blah, blah, blah, blah, it kind of is the logo. So you couldn't deny it. You couldn't confirm it. Now here we are with the most unceremonious logo unveiling in the history of sports. Mid-pandemic, you've already seen it. It's Monday. And the logo just kind of isn't, it's not that great. I'll tell you what. It looks better on paper

or on a computer screen, then it will on clothing. I think on clothing, because that's where you see logos, and the middle of the field, too. I think it's going to look futuristic. It's going to look like kind of, it's going to fit the new stadium.

It's got a perfect spiral concept. The Fibonacci sequence, that's what they're referencing as they unveil it. You know, it's paying homage to the architecture of SoFi Stadium, which is 85% done. We'll see if that, that gets done. I don't know how you finish 15% of a lofty project like that mid-pandemic,

but they'll figure it out. It's supposed to remind you the waves in Southern California. And it also reminds you of detergent and the chargers as people are pointing out. I've seen a number of memes. Listen, as long as they don't ditch their uniforms completely, which scares the shit out of me in April if they break what doesn't need to be fixed in the uh the the the Eric Dickerson's the yellow and blue the Jackie Slaters the old L.A's that we wore in St. Louis while I was there for eight years. Listen, I played in St. Louis for eight years. I get it. I wish the the team never left. St. Louis deserves a football team, but which you don't want to see if you played somewhere for eight years, even if you're not an L.A. Ram, you're still like a lot of you as a ram.

So you don't know, like when you watch them, you don't know how to feel. Well, one thing I definitely know I don't feel great about would be the Rams changing their logo. I mean, or their uniforms, rather. I mean, they have some of the best uniforms in football. And tomorrow, actually a little info for the Greenlight Pod proper tomorrow with Making Gunner, we are going to rank, or actually fill out a bracket of,

all 32 NFL teams, home uniform concepts. We've got Dave Damashek on. We're gonna vote, two out of three pushes the team on to the next round. The Rams will go far with their current home uniform concept, the Jackie Slaters, the Eric Dickerson's. And when you played for the Rams, there's a rich history there.

There's, you know, I played on some terrible teams, but we also knew that, you know, at one point, point. Well, I play with Stephen Jackson, but, you know, Isaac Bruce, Tori Holt, Orlando Pace, you know, Grant Westram, DeMarco Farr, guys from that era, even back into L.A. with Jackie Slater and as I talked about Eric Dickerson or before that, Merlin Olson, you know, Deacon Jones, like, they're icons throughout the history of the Rams franchise, very iconic franchise. What you don't deserve is a bad new uniform concept. So let's not do that.

Please, let's not do that. Pretty please. And I will tell you, it was tough in St. Louis because we played under those yellowish Edward Jones Dome Lights. We had those disgusting gold pants, which don't do well. They were Reebok. They had a zipper. this what makes you feel

listen makes me feel old knowing that my rookie year I used to roll up to work put my pants on and had to zip my football pants up like that's different now that's not how it is and they were stiff

they were stiff they were gold you ran out there on that hard surface with that yellow lighting it was rough I wish we could have wore those LA concept uniforms the entire time and I hope they don't change their minds and scrap those. You can deal with a new logo, which you can't deal with, is different Unis. And these are some teams that need to go back to their old logos.

I was looking, if you look back, the Jets logo, the simplicity of it, the jet font, kind of the retro font with the jet flying above it, really like that. Don't know what's going on right now with the kind of football outline. Don't like the font. Patriots, Dave Damashik, he's talked about them needing to go back to their old uniform. Forms. Flying Elvis could go with Brady. You could have the old Pat Patriot in a three-point stance. The Bucks can go back to the guy eating the knife. He does remind me of the guy in Princess Bride. Other than that, I think it's a great logo. It's retro. The colors, please, when you change your

uniforms, Tampa, please give us Tom Brady and Creamsicles. Steelers made a big improvement. If you remember their old logo, it was a guy jumping around on a steel beam. Now it's one of the most iconic. logos in sports period also I like the old giants logo as well now I want to throw this up here because I was rummaging through all my sweatpants and my team issued gear that I had because I'm you know like most guys now in quarantine getting told to clean out this closet to like let's let's tackle this project that we can tackle because you're never home otherwise you're always working let's uh let's clean up around the house okay i got a bunch of goodwill stuff i have about a 50 pound box of just heavy stiff reback gear from back in the day uh for when i played in st louis you know

a little bit more updated in new england than a lot of nice eagles gear uh one of the t-shirts i found right here uh from the 2011 season this is one of those like beginning of the year mantras it says draw together. It's 2011 St. Louis Rams, a team that went two and 14, and we should have known it because as you're looking at it here on YouTube.com, and if you're listening, this is what I, you know, what I'm looking at right now is a headless muscle man pulling on a crossbow with a target in the background. I mean, it's one of the craziest shirt mantra concepts, like weight room sign concepts I've ever seen. And we had a lot of failures in St. Louis. That might have been the biggest one. How do you expect to hit a target with no head?

The concept was that if we pull back at the same time on the crossbow, it goes in the same door. I don't know. I don't know. I don't get it, but I'm keeping the shirt. I did not throw that shirt out. I also have a lot of issued gear.

And issued gear, you can't wear it anywhere. If I wear my issued gear anywhere, but like in my home gym, I'm a total goober. We had a guy in St. Louis that got released. A year later, he was at Walmart charging people for signatures and all his issued gear, acting like he was still on the team.

Things like that, we used to make fun. If you caught a guy out in public and his issued gear, it was bad news. In fact, we played a game in St. Louis in 2012 with Cortland Finnegan and Joland Dunbar and those guys called SmackCam, where if you wore your issued gear in the building outside of the locker room or on the field, You could get whipped cream pie in the face.

And there's footage out there of me getting smacked in the face with a whipped cream pie because I accidentally wore my issue gear to a NFL network interview and training camp at like 8 a.m. I forgot the rules. Cortland ran out of some dark corner. Smack this shit out of me with a whipped cream pie or a shaving cream pie, I think it was.

You put shaving cream on just a plastic plate and you just get smacked in the face with it. You look like an idiot. Well, I happen to get smacked in the face on live TV. for wearing my issued gear. Issued gear, any NFL player who's retired has a bunch of it.

This is a time that a lot of it's getting thrown out, but I am not throwing that headless archer concept out. 2011 was a good year for your boy. Contract year, 13 sacks. Good year for your boy. 2 and 14, though, as a team. Really struggled. So again, today, we have Danny Amandola

and Todd Gurley. Both of them just kind of checking in, seeing how the off-season is going, how they're surviving kind of social isolation. Obviously, one made a lot of news and headed down to Atlanta. Last week, Danny Amadola is going to talk to us about Tom Brady and the Outlook for the Lions in 2020. So sit back, relax, and I got two interviews for you. welcoming to the pod a good buddy of mine one of the hardest runners i've ever seen one of the best teammates ever had uh three-time pro bowler two-time all pro and the last man standing on his original team before the other day out of that 2015 running back class todd gurley what's

up man what's up man are you excited do you feel like there's a weight off your shoulders to a certain extent it's definitely like a good feeling for like a fresh start like a new start for me. You know what I'm saying? It's really like a next chapter in my career. Like, and what's funny is like, you know, I've seen the process, like, remember my rookie year with you, like I seen, see them let you go. Yeah, James on the same day. Yeah. And Robert Quinn, then Ogletree, Mark Barron. So, like, you know, I always witnessed that from the beginning for sure. Yeah, well, I mean, like, it's sobering because nothing makes me feel older than when I watch guys that are young and talented and have a lot of good football left in and become like cap casualties because

it happened to me when you know a long time ago and i i saw a lot of rams fans this week tweeting that hey this is the saddest i've been since they let you and james go the same day you know this is terrible we wanted to see uh you know todd in the horns for his entire career but uh you know the injuries happened and and i understand that there were some rough spots there but i mean you got to be excited about Atlanta you've got 10 out of 11 first rounders on the field including yourself Who are you most excited about playing with? We'll leave Matt Ryan out of it because I know you got to say Matt.

I mean, the dude that came over to my house, like as soon as I got cut, like, Julio, Julio DeAndre, they both pulled up to the house, man. Came and checked up on me, chopping it up with Julio. And then, like, that's why I was like, yo, I'm trying to get to the A. Like. So did Julio come home?

Like, I was waiting for it. Well, that's a good guy to recruit you. I mean, how, many Georgia people hit you up the first day? Is it like, do you have about 300 text messages from your old buddies down there in Georgia? Oh, man. They were, yeah, it was crazy.

Like, I woke up and it was like, it was so many text messages. Like, I'm still responding back. And it's been like three, four days. Like, it was, I got like more love from like the sign into Georgia than I did. Like, when I had got cut, it was like, everybody was texting me, though. It was definitely fun. Well, I saw Trey. I'm excited, though, man.

I saw Trey. I saw Trey Young hit you up, too, on Twitter and said he's excited to have you in Atlanta. Who else are you? Because there's like, you went from the fucking celebrity capital of the world in L.A. To the next best thing in Atlanta. And you've got celebrity friends. You're training with YG right now? Is that what's going on?

You and YG getting swall out in the backyard? Yeah, yeah, man. Yeah, we're quarantining in the neighborhood. Man, my buddy got a, my buddy Darrell got a gym in the neighborhood. So we've been going over there. My boy Jay been coming over to trainer, so it's time to get right for the season. Are you looking forward to meeting anybody in Atlanta in particular? Because I know you, you're going to have some celebrity friends.

Yeah. Well, like, I feel like that's kind of like how it all started off with me, like going to Georgia. You know, like people knowing me from Georgia. Like, you know, most of the celebrities like in Georgia, they're Georgia friends. And then I obviously moved to L.A., like Atlanta starts. But, man, I know a bunch of people there, man. You know, Cuevo, you know, Two Chains, Walker. So many people, man, like Yadi.

Like, it's going to be fun, man. Who do you think is the best athlete out of the Atlanta rappers? That'll be hard to say. You know, Chains, they say two chains, basketball. Yeah. They say, you know, Cuevo, you know, he played a quarterback. I saw Cuevo. I saw Cuevo in the, I saw Cuevo in the Celebrity Basketball game.

and then I know walk of flock is like six five and he stopped rapping actually so he might he might just be working on his jump shop and he nah he'd be he'd be all into the vegan stuff man like plant-based stuff so he's been he've been doing that for years since like i known it since college really he's been he big into that and slimmed up and everything looking back at uh you met a lot of cool people you met you you made a lot of great plays you were one of the biggest stars right off the bat with the move. You know, there were high points, there were low points. Do you have some plays that stuck out to you that were your favorites in L.A.,

like some of your favorite runs or your favorite games, maybe? For me, I would say, like, the Dallas game in the playoffs, and I score, like, I don't know, like a 20, 30-yard touchdown, but it was just, like, crazy atmosphere. Yeah. Like I said, I had sat out, like, two games, came back. like school and my family you know my brother yeah my cousin and my dad it was like all in the front in the front so like that was like a rememberable moment for me does your family know my name yet because uh we used to go to dinner no tim your mom used to call me tim what did she used to say

man she oh hey she still asked about you all the time though she'd be like from the when we was because we was at a bar called bar Barcelona Barcelona and St. Louis. And she was like yeah we met with Barcelona. And I'm like, mom, we did not go to Spain. But she really, does she really think, does she know my real name yet? When I say it. It's amazing. When I say it, she was like, oh yeah, yeah, Chris, Chris. That's amazing. So explain something to me, Todd, is we're bouncing around here because I got a bone to pick with you. You are a Duke fan, but you went to Georgia. Yeah, and I used to wear my Georgia gear. I used to wear my Duke gear at Georgia, like around campus. How does that work?

What do people say to you? Nothing. Like, it's just a North Carolina thing. Like, you just kind of got to get it. Like, if you're not from Carolina, you probably won't get it. It's kind of just like Michigan, Ohio State, like that type of beef. Right. So I grew up a Duke fan.

So it's just like, I mean, even I used to like, even like coach Fox, the basketball coach, like he knows I'm a Duke fan. He still texts me like, whenever they played Duke last year, he texted me. He's like, ah, we got your boys today. You know, I'm like, hey. Good luck. How would Duke have done in the tournament this year? I don't think they'd have done so well.

Oh, we definitely probably would have beat Virginia in the suite 16 and then we'd win the championship. Is that right? Because did you watch the game? I don't know if you watched the game in Charlottesville. Weeks ago, you guys scored 50 points against us. Yeah, but that was weeks ago. You know, my guys are fresh right now.

They're very fresh. Everybody's fresh right now. I see guys down. Looking back there, I mean, you, you, you, you, alluded to the, you know, the injuries. You had to sat out a couple games, you know, there were stretches there where I don't think anybody knew what the fuck was going on. Like, people are like, here's one of the best backs in the league, if not the best back in the league, and he's not getting the ball, okay? And this was in 2018, right? Because your, your best year was probably 17, right?

You had over 2,000 yards from scrimmage. 18 was the year you guys make the run. And I felt like sometimes I'd be out there watching. And I'd say, where's Todd? Like, I want to see my friend get the rock, especially because I want to see you guys win. What happened? Can you paint a picture of what was going on at all? Man, like, you know me, man. I try not to press the issue about nothing. So I should just kind of just sit back and do my job.

Like, hey, like, it's not my job to tell who to give me the ball. So if it happens, it happens. Like, I'm not going to, like, bitch about anything. I'm going to just keep quiet and, like, just do my part. But like when I get the ball, you know I'm a dude good for the most part. You know what I'm saying? So it's just like, especially when stuff was going good. But I don't know what happened, man.

All I know is I'm with the focus now. Absolutely. And you'll be wearing- She'll buy fast, I'll tell you that. I know. Five years? What was it? Five years?

Golly, dude. And you're going to wear 30 again, yeah? You're going to wear number 30? Hey, I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about changing it up, though. To what? I don't know. eight i know 21 gotta go down there like prime time 21 would be cool i can you go you can't go

single digits you can't go back to single digits can you as a running man league yeah 20 you can't you can't so like 21 maybe 21's cool i'm going through the numbers in my head right now 23 23 is pretty dope i think 23 would be cool don't wear i might switch it up man don't wear 20 uh don't wear a 25. That one's ugly to me. Nah, yeah. Yeah, don't do that. Not 25 type of thing.

Yeah, no, neither am I. Don't do that. So you had some fun with it, though. I mean, you know, there was, and you did a great job of this, because as you mentioned, you're not the type of guy to press the issue in your words. You're not the type of guy to get after McVeigh or less or Kevin

or any of those guys, like, but you've had fun with it. You've had fun with the social media part of it. You tweeted that you got fired on your day off. You tweeted that, or you put on Instagram that whoever owes you money go to their house right now during the pandemic because they're probably home. And you added the Rams. Are you able to, why are you able to take this so well? You know, some guys, they get cut.

They're like, they're just down in the dumps. But you have fun with it. Well, like I said, like everything, like I've seen it. You know what I'm saying? I didn't see it coming. But like, obviously, like I've seen the process over the years. So I understand the business and I understand, you know, how it goes. But I'm also the same type of person.

Like, when someone else is getting cut, like, I'm joking on them. So I can't get mad if somebody joke on me. That's true. And then, like, you know what I'm saying? So, like, I joke on myself all the time. So, like, if you knew me, like, you know that's me. And it's all jokes, you know, there's some truth to every little joke. But, you know, I'm still like, just having fun with it, man.

That's the only thing I can do. Stuck in the house all day. You know, I know people drink. and they're having fun, so I'm going to have fun with y'all. Yeah, the group text was fired up the first day. Everybody was excited for you getting a fresh start, but also people gave you shit for getting cut. Like, come on, man.

Give the guy who day. Oh, no, no. Look, look, I called, I called Will as soon as I got cut. I said, God damn it, Will, I'm just like you, huh? And I got my ass out of here. The only, I will say the only difference is that you're due $7.5 million from the Rams this year, yeah? Yeah, I know. I've been checking my direct deposit, too.

I got 7-10 business days. Is it there yet? It's not there yet. Not there yet. Actually, three to five business days. Well, they say sometimes these wire transfers take time. You know, it can tell you, if it's a lot of money, you know, the wire looks like this. And if it's a lot of money, it takes a while to get through that wire and eventually comes out on the other end in your living room.

Hey, if a new logo can get up, I can get my money. Yeah. So let's talk about the new logo because it just dropped today. I was one of the biggest criticizers of the logo when I saw it leaked like a week or two. I said this looks like absolute trash. Like, you know, I think that the Rams home uniforms that you guys got to wear in L.A. and

obviously in St. Louis we can get to wear them as much. But I think they're the best in the league, those uniforms, the neon pants, the blue top, the horns. I mean, I loved wearing those. I was kind of concerned when I saw that logo. They just dropped it today. know if you saw the picture, are you good with that logo as somebody who used to wear the horns? But that's going to be like on the clothes? I guess that's going to be on the clothes. But like who

wears their issued gear out, you know, walking around L.A. So I mean, I guess some guys really, some guys probably really do though that you played with. Because L.A., that's a place. No, they actually think. Who was the biggest issued gear wearer at the mall? Like if somebody went to, you know, any kind of ham. Every team he gets on, he wears their gear. Like Beverly Wulcher. Would he be like down? The James Harrison suits too. Oh, God.

You know what? Dude, let Betty live, man. Come on. Give him a fucking break. As you look at the Falcons team this year, what do you think the expectation is in that division? Because it's got to be one. Now you've got Brady in there.

You get Bree signed back. You've got one of the best quarterbacks in the game and Matt Ryan. And let's not. forget Carolina with rule and the excitement there and Teddy Bridgewater. What do you expect in that division? What are there going to be some of the differences of playing the NFC West for you personally and then the NFC South? Because the styles are different too.

Oh, it's definitely different, man, for sure. And I see South, that's a good one. You know, I've been with the Rams, so I've been used to playing, like, the Saints, played the Bucks like twice. So it's going to be tough, man. I got some good running bats. We got McCaffrey, you know, Alvin Kumar. TB just signed with the Bucks.

You know, I just signed with the Falcons. Get to play with, you know, one of the best receivers in the game. Julio Jones got a young dude, Ridley. No, they just got Havenhurst. But, yeah, New Orleans tough, you know, getting to play against that defense all the time. They got Cam Jordan over there. He was one of the best in the game, one of the strongest.

Shack Thompson. So it's going to be some big. Good competition for sure. If you look back, you mentioned Cam Jordan, and that was my next question. If there's a defensive player in the NFC South, you're looking at and you're saying, hey, that's the head honcho defensively in that division.

Who are some of the guys in the NFC West over the last five years that you were like, I got to buckle up when we play this guy? Bobby Wacken. Yeah. Bobby Wackner, every time. Why is he so good? Because, you know, it's like the little stuff.

Man, he's just always there. He's just always around. You know, if it's third and one, it's fourth and one, like, you really got to bring it. Like, some dudes, you know, that's easy work. Like, you're not worried about that. But it's just, like, usually, like, I'm going to get a yard. But Bobby Wagner and now, you got to bring it every time. And they had a time.

KJ. Right, definitely respect KJ right for sure. I mean, he's right there with him. You got KJ. And then you had, I mean, you even were there during the back end of the L.O.B. You were there during the back end of those dominant defenses in San Francisco. So yeah, no shortage. Navarro Bowman. Navar Bowman.

Man. I want to finish off asking you about the immediate future because with coronavirus and with kind of the social distancing thing and everything, the summer is going to be thrown off. And, you know, I guess it's hard to get the specific type of training that you need, especially somebody with a history of knee injuries and stuff. You know you got to do special work, that sort of thing. How are you getting creative to get your shit together for the summer and then the fall?

And like, what are guys saying when you talk to guys? Like, where are guys training right now? Yeah, it's like that's what I was trying to figure it out the whole time. I know some guys are still training outside. But like, that's why I kind of just did the whole like little neighborhood thing going to do my training here. As far as, you know, weight room wise, got a pretty good amount of space. All I need is a good little amount of space to work in small spaces. That way, you know, I can work on my fast-twitch stuff, like working, getting in out the hole.

So I'm going to just be here, man, really just in my neighborhood training, you know, didn't have my, you know, massage people pull up to the house, cow practice pull up to the house, and just try to stay safe from there. But then also try to make sure they're not around a lot of people, too. But just kind of got to do what you got to do. There you go. You're a social distancing champ, dude. You're social distancing champ.

I wouldn't expect anything less. Todd, what should people listening be watching, like binge watching? Is there anything? Like, what are you watching? What are you listening to right now during the pandemic? Oh, I just watched Quiet Place? You seen that movie? No, is it good?

That was pretty good. Is it good? Yeah. Yeah, it's real good. Jim from- I mean, I don't know, man. You know, I'll just be on Hulu, man. You know, I got, well, we ain't got live sports right now, but we'll be back.

We will be back. And I hope to see you out there in the fall tearing shit up. maybe number 30 maybe number 21 i need some free tickets man you know i'm down on my luck i hear you got 7.5 you got 7.5 coming through the wire right now dude i need the good seats with that's the last time i seen you at a game too right which one at the um dude you walked up and i was like so this is my first year um i'm about to retire i haven't retired officially yet but i'm not sure and I come down in the Super Bowl and I've been totally good

like I don't miss football okay Todd I like day to day I love being retired but sometimes during the big situations big games that's when I would have wanted to show up and when I was down there on the field

in a suit on the sideline and you came over and gave me a chest bump I felt like I was just a little tort all I was ready to play like just get out of the suit put the horns back on I could have been out there

you had me hype I just knew I was about to like go crazy with MVP. Like, I just thought I was going to do it all. Dude, that was crazy. And another thing was, like, when I'm in pads, and you're a big dude, you're a big back, okay? And I'm, like, not the biggest guy in the world.

But I never thought of you as, like, that big. And then I'm in a suit. You got cleats on, so you got a couple inches. And then you got your pads, your helmet. I'm like, fuck Todd's a big dude, man. Like, I can't believe I used to have to tackle this dude. And actually, the only, to be fair, the only time I got a shot at you, in LA when we played,

and obviously we came, the Eagles came to LA and beat y'all twice. And we would just talk about that another day. But you ran me over by the goal line. I tried to arm tackle you. I didn't try to arm tackle you. I was kind of held up on somebody else and I was just embarrassed.

You ran right through me into the end zone. Wait, we didn't, did you get a chance when we played y'all in New England too? I think I did. I think I might have a picture. I think I did. I did tackle you. I think I have a picture.

Well, you were down in the dumps that game because you guys were sad, sad, and we were good. And I had to find you after the game and be like, dude, it's gonna be all right. You and Will. Yeah, it was, it was all bad. Well, now I'm, I'm sort of a Falcons fan. I hate to say that, but I'm gonna be pulling for you.

I'm pulling for the birds. I got my buddy, I got an old teammate and Tom Brady down there. I got an old teammate and Todd Gurley. be hard to decide but i'll be watching all the games todd i'm wishing the best of luck stay healthy stay safe you and yg get the uh get the workouts in and get your ass ready man hey i got you man it's gonna be a fun year for sure yes sir todd great talking to you thanks man come on again all right bro okay appreciate you yeah man so that was todd girly uh again a guy who has taken getting cut as good as anybody uh in the league listen i think he's still got some juice

left in the tank. I'm pulling for him in Atlanta and he's got $7.5 million. That's going to go down there with him of the Rams money. So good for him. And now we've got Danny Amandola. Welcoming to the show, a guy who needs no introduction. Danny Evadola. My boy. Dude, slot legend in the building. How you doing, dude? Good to see you. I'm better now that I've seen you, man what where you hold up right now i'm up in austin man texas just chilling hanging out trying to trying to escape the corona yeah well it looks like uh you you you break a lot of tackles uh you know you if anybody can get away from the corona it's probably you i know you're staying safe you got your little ranch out there you're socially distancing i'm sure 100% yeah i kind of

i kind of related to football too i kind of get out of the way a lot try to I know when the journey's over, so to speak. So anytime I get to go in the hills of central Texas and hide away, that's what I'm going to do. Yeah, with a good excuse, a totally good excuse. So how are you going to train, though? That's the big question, because you work hard. It's tough, man. I know.

I've been both of my gyms here shut down. I've been looking for weight here in town to try to set up my own home gym at my boy's house. We're almost there, but the fields are open. I get to run up, Baker Mayfield's here, we're throwing. Colt McCoy lives here. We're throwing. And so the works there on the field in terms of, you know, getting in a wait room, I'm struggling to find that with this Corona deal.

So I'm putting together a little home gym at my boy's house, trying to get it going old school style. Yeah, I saw the home gym. What is the home gym consisting of right now? I'm not even going to lie. I look kind of sad. Yeah, it was tough. So we basically went to, we went to two academies.

to find out that nothing was there. I mean, we took the last squat rack. There's like a decline bench that you could do, like, some abs. We got a medicine ball. We got some. We got some. You gotta have abs. You got it slim.

Yeah. If Danny Evandola did not have abs, I don't know what would happen. We got a summer to get ready for you, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do too. So I need to get on it. You know, although I'm a little more plus size. They're not going to come out the same way. Danny, do you have, do you have, do you get?

Yeah, I was going to ask you about your facial hair. Do you have any grays? Is that a gray, I see? I noticed you shaved, too. I did. I did. It was an accident, and you probably understand this being, like, sort of a hipster. Are you a hipster?

Yeah, of course. It's 70 degrees, and I got a beanie on right now. So are you in, who's a bigger hipster? You are jewels. He wear, his shorts are longer than mine. I don't know if that. Yeah, that disqualifies him, I think. And you have a shirt on that you want to show people what the shirt says.

real quick you got to yeah that's off the wall is what they say and when you're a hipster you do you do what do you do with the beanie you just kind of tilt it back is there like it's a little it's a little lazier and it's usually off to the side a little bit oh because the logo the logo shouldn't be straight on oh no never never never balanced always one way or the other what happens if you're like walking down melrose and somebody's got their logo to the side or straight to the front that that's the mistake. Well, they're on the wrong street. Well, do you tell him that? No, no.

I don't, uh-uh. So what's the right street? Is Melrose a really hipster place? Did I get that right? I think Abbott Kenny would be the more hipster street. Abbott Kenny. Yeah. What kind of music do hipsters listen to these days?

Mostly acoustic rock, I think. Prague rock? And bongo drums. So anyways, I shave my face. This is what happened, Dan. You know, I like to have a beard. It makes me feel like, you know, it feels like a barrier for the grease.

Like if I eat greasy food, like I'm never going to get a pimple. I got a beard. And then also, like, I just like the way I look with a beard better. Yeah. But sometimes I'll accidentally shave. I'm trying to do a thing right now. And as a hipster, you could probably counsel me on this. You know when you try to shave the side a little bit lighter and leave a little more mustache,

Correct. That's what I've been doing and I've been loving the results. Loving them. It makes you look a little bit more leaner up here. Is that what it is? Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, it fins you out, you know? As Niko, Niko does it. Yeah, what does Ninko look like without a beard? He looks like a Mr. Potato Head. He, uh, have you talked to him lately?

I have talked to him lately. He's panicking because of the pandemic. Yeah. If this, if there's any. How's fatherhood in the pandemic? I don't have any kids. I don't have to keep their hands at anything. Are they constantly touching stuff or what? You know, I think they are, but they never leave the house.

So it's okay. Yeah, I mean, and I'm a total germaphobe anyways. You throw a pandemic in the mix. Like, we're not in harm's way. I don't leave the house much. I come into the studio. You know, people need content right now. That's about it.

Yeah. I don't see anybody in the studio. So what I really want to ask you about is Tom, right? So that's that's the, that's been the biggest sports story of the pandemic. Or the pandemic era. And I think in a way it would have been even bigger had this not been going on with, I think it would have absolutely still been the biggest story. You're obviously good friends with Tom.

I see you at the Derby with Tommy Boy. I see you hanging out with Tom outside of football. He's thrown the ball to you a ton of time. times. Did you have any idea where he was going to go? Did he play it that close to the vest? I didn't, yeah, you know how the three agency goes too. You really, I mean, a team can make a late plunge and you could, you know, everything could change the last second right before you sign. So I had dinner with him a couple of months ago. Actually, the day Kobe passed away, I was in New York and Tom and I went to go get dinner and we were talking about obviously Kobe.

He was he was friends with him and then he, so it was kind of a gloomy conversation, but led into obviously kind of what he was thinking in terms of his future. And then, and he was uncertain. You know, he knew two things. He knew one that that he was pissed off and two that he really wanted to keep playing. So I knew it was going to take the right. deal coming from Bill and in in the Patriots to get him to stay. And obviously that didn't happen. So, you know, I knew the whole time that he was, you know, down to make a change, down to

transition a bit, you know, and in, you know, obviously that will never erase what he did in New England. He's, you know, he's the best to ever do it. So he did a lot for the city, did a lot for that team that did a lot for that organization. As long as he's happy to, like, he's the ultimate competitor. He wants to play football. He wants to compete and he's still playing at a really high level. Well, he's the ultimate competitor,

but he's also the ultimate class act. And you don't see too many guys that he would be warranted to make a stink about not getting a competitive offer from a place that he's delivered six championships over 20 years. But that's not his style. He never once dragged him. anybody publicly. Yeah.

You know, the closest thing he did to a publicity thing was, you know, the, what commercial was it? That was brilliant, the Super Bowl commercial. Was it Hulu? It was Hulu. You know, there for a couple days, and I had seen him down at the Super Bowl, you know, this was when the Instagram post, the social post was still swirling around the speculation, what did it mean, that black and white picture of him walking out or into the tunnel?

I don't know which one. Yeah. But I thought that was the closest thing he did to making any noise, but he was making money. He was Tom. I mean, Tom's a brand. Tom never took a shot at anybody. He quietly did it. There was no like LeBron decision. It was like you woke up one morning and there was a letter to fans and a letter to the organization on Instagram. Did you think it would be a bigger deal when he did it? Or was that kind of how you thought he'd go out? I think he wanted to always maintain the image that he was, that he had leverage.

And oftentimes you see players in this league, especially this league, that lose all their leverage due to contract or, you know, whether they're injured, whether they don't produce, whatever it may be, whether they want to get out, whether they don't, whether they're, you know, they ask to take a pay cut, whatever. He's, he's always maintained. It's always been very apparent that he's had leverage. And, you know, you can see that with the contract he just negotiated with Tampa, man. I mean, to not be able to get tagged in this in this last year. And then, you know, obviously all guaranteed money. Right. It's kind of the way, it's kind of the way contracts are trending now.

It's kind of, you know, it's something that, you know, players that are, they're headed into free agency once twice, you know, you're lucky to hit an unrestricted free agency in this league twice. Yeah. And let alone, you know, make your own contract and have it, you know, benefit you. So I think at the end of the day, he made his contract benefits him. He's in a place where he can compete. He's got some good weapons around him.

He's got a great veteran coach and a GM that he's familiar with. So I know we play him next year too. I know, I know. In Detroit, I think. I looked at it because I was looking at, you know, it's been kind of like an exodus from New England. It's been, you know, a bunch of guys headed to Detroit. By the way, you guys acquired some more. Patriots and Duran as well now.

He's a great player and he's going to do great in y'all's locker room. To guys like Kyle Van Nuoy heading down to Miami. You know, obviously, you know, you're going to have Matt Patricia facing Tom Brady. You're going to have Tom Brady facing, you know, I don't know if they play the dolphins, but you're going to have old Patriots players playing Bill and the Patriots. It's going to be a weird year for New England fans. What do you think you're going to see up in New England? You know, Bill's the greatest of all time.

He's going to find a way. Who are some guys that you think have to step up up there for them to take it to the next level and kind of cover that hole? I don't know what they're going to do at quarterback, but they need the leadership, you know, guys like Dev and whatnot. No question. I mean, I think obviously they're going to be in position to be successful. They're going to play situational football to their advantage. that way they can take

advantage of younger teams that aren't as discipline or they'll find ways to create points and yardage and within within that but they're going to have to establish a quarterback position because I know Stidham hasn't played

a lot so people like him just signed lawyer too yeah people like Stidham I talked to a guy the other day who said he was he was he was drafted in the fourth round but he had kind of like a first or second round talent. He was just like a late

ascender down there at Auburn and people didn't know so much about it. If there's anybody who could do it, it's Bill. As you watch Tom walk away and you looked at the options, it was Tampa, it was you know, I heard Chicago, I had heard Tennessee. You know,

Tampa obviously was the destination, the Chargers. Was there a team that you leaned? You know, did you have an inclination that he might end up somewhere? Did you fall for the Tennessee Oki-Doke? I thought, to be honest with you, in my mind, I never saw him leaving. But really?

You know, so I was just as shocked as anybody else. I kind of, I thought, I thought Tennessee a little bit to get down and play with Rable. Yeah. And then they signed Tannehill to a huge deal, which was great for, great for Ryan. It's obviously they were going in a different direction. But I possibly thought Tennessee, if anywhere. Well, there was a FaceTime. Your boy, Jules.

Jules downed up Braves in the Carrier Dome. I'm like, Jules, what are you doing, man? Everybody behind you see the FaceTime. Do you think Jules knew anybody behind him could see the FaceTime? No, Jules didn't know anything. You could apply that to a lot of situations. Blowing up the spot as usual. Oh, he's classic.

He's classic. Do you think Jules eventually ends up down in Tampa one year? Oh, no question. No question. No question. What do you expect to see with Tom? Bruce Ariens more of a vertical passing system, but he has kind of had older quarterbacks before, obviously none with the pedigree of Tom.

Do you see them meeting in the middle, it being kind of an offense that works for Tom and for Bruce, or do you see the pendulum shifting one way or another? At the end of the day, I feel like, you know, Tom's ability to run the offense and what needs to done pre-snap post-snap that's going to be that's going to be head and shoulders you know above half the league anyway right so so then it comes down to just getting reps and and learning the verbiage and then and then the little nuances of the routes and and that stuff will come in time obviously this coronavirus thing kind of sets that back if we're not going to have OTAs if we're not going to have that's that's 15 practices right there in valuable time for a new quarterback coming in

just wanting to work with the guys getting on the same that's going to affect things. I kind of approach this year like that lockout year, so we're probably not have OTAs or maybe the first started it where we can probably, you know, the first time actually working together will be training camps. So if he gets in there and just works, you know,

like anything else, just gets reps. I mean, it'll take four or five weeks, maybe preseason to get things kind of insane, get game plans together, whereas you can start putting things on the offense together. But Tom knows how to, he knows how to operate the offense. I mean, that's all relatively the same. And he's got a lot of weapons down there.

It should be exciting. A lot of good quarterbacks in the division now, too. Yeah, no question. A ton of them. It's like murderers row. So it should be a lot of fun in the NFC South. Do you remember one particular, I know there's so many, and you were there for so many up close with Tom,

and you were a part of some of the biggest plays in Patriots? is history. And I, didn't you snag the two-point conversion, uh, in the Super Bowl? Yeah. I was too busy freaking out. I was too busy. We were mobbing each other on the sidelines. I know.

But, you know, you were there for all these plays. Was there one that stood out for Tom? Maybe that was under the radar that, that, that showed you why he was so great. Oh, I tell you what, there's a certain, there's certain plays that he makes. Uh, and, and you only. really notice him because it's it's situational and it's when it's when it's when it's the end of the game or it's the end of a drive when when he'll pull the huddle together and and say you know we need championship level performance and and everybody kind of dials in and it and knows we got

to have it those those were the moments that I remember the most really and and um one play I can't do it justice you know what I'm saying so he's made so many he's made so many amazing throws and, you know, I know he'll continue to do that. Is it as, like, because this is crazy. When I was there for a year, I was safe. I was, like, relieved because I'm not an offensive guy. I don't have to get yelled at by Tom Brady. Did he yell, did he get after people the way?

You know, because everybody knows him as a guy on the sideline who's going to rage out every now and again. And you've got to have the right amount of clout to do that. Yeah, no clue. But why was he so good at walking that line? of I can rip your ass but but not break you down. A lot of times, a lot of times I figured out two ways.

Tom communicates. One is if he's trying to get across information very loudly, then he'll yell at you. Otherwise, otherwise if he's really mad at you. Right. And I usually did a very good job of making, you know,

of seeking out which one is he trying to do. Yeah. If we're in, if we're in the middle of the play and he yells at you, It's only because he's trying to get information out fast and loudly. Yeah, he's like, hey, go stand on the other side or something like that. And it looks like he's bitching at you, but he's really nice. He's just trying to get your attention and communicate loudly.

Most guys, hopefully you can't take that to heart. Otherwise, you'll get, you'll get pretty beat up about it and be like, why is Tom always healing at me? Yeah, I mean, and to add insult to injury, it's not just, it's not just your quarterback. We're just, we were just like a. We were just like a bunch of labs out there, like a bunch of dogs, like just, and he was getting us all lined up. Just like like, like getting us all like loosening. Who was the lab that couldn't take? The bad lab.

Yeah, who was the bad lab? Once Jules would get snobbles coming out of his nose, he starts forgetting plays. We got it, we got to get him lined up. That's awesome. Well, he was. I mean, but you, you know, like it is intimidating to play with somebody like that, even as a defensive player. I remember what it was like just being there for a year. And I mean, he's the goat.

But he also had a way of making everybody feel like because they were a part of it. And, you know, the 53rd guy on a roster, the trainers, you know, the janitors, like everybody. He treated everybody the same way. And that was one thing I noticed about him in that year. I mean, his humility. No question. He's a great dude, honestly. He was like a big brother to all of us real talk.

in and I remember he was the first person that called me when I signed. I didn't have his number, but he left me a message and I was like, I honestly couldn't believe he had called me. And it was so cool about everything. And honestly, he's been, he's been, you know, a huge influence in my life in terms of creating a lifestyle around playing the game, what I need to do to take care of my body and what I need to eat. And honest to God, if I wouldn't have at least been around him to kind of emulate what he does, I don't think. I'd still be playing, but... So what do you eat when you go out to dinner with him?

You mentioned what to eat and whatnot. Like, you guys go out to dinner in New York, is it, you know, just all little leaves and avocado ice cream? In New York, we ate a bunch of sushi, which... Oh, okay. It's just what Giselle wanted that night. I guess we were just... And the whole family was there.

Yeah. Yeah, it was great. I think me and G. got drunk. Nice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, he doesn't... Now, you talked about when he texted you when you first got to New England. Was that cooler to have Tom Brady text you when you got New England or for you to vomit in my closet the first day you got to St. Louis?

The good news is your closet was spotless when you woke up. The bad news is one of the 20 shots of rumble mints was the straw that broke the camel's back. Rumpelmints. I know. How did we get there? I don't know. It was a deep. Where were we at? We were at, uh, boroughs or something like that. No, Obie Clarks. We went to Obie Clarks.

Oh, Barks, yeah. It was right down Brentwood Boulevard in St. Louis. So the first day you walked in in St. Louis, it's probably 2010, 2009. Is that right? 2009, 2009, our second year in the league. We had played each other in the Gator Bowl. You beat us, uh, Graham Harrell, the N-Migil, uh, Crab Tree. Yeah, last second field goal. I don't remember that at all. But you walk in to the locker room with this little fucking Gator Bowl bag. And I'm like, take that shit and throw it out of here, dude.

You were salty about that. So then we went out and got drunk and we buried the hatchet. And you ended up, you know, I can't do rumplemints anymore because of that night. Like you know. I don't think I've had it since. No. No. That's our boy, Rylan, right?

Rylond is the Rumpelmints guy? Your old teammate. Rylan Reed, the left tackle, Riley's your opponent in the Gator Boy. That's his claim to fame is he blocked the one and only Chris Long in college. Yeah, he sort of blocked me. I mean, you know, there would be so. Yeah, I remember you going for a second.

You just grabbed me by the back of my neck. I was in the air. I was in the air just getting pulled back by my collar. Yeah, so Ryland, shout out to Ryland. He was a strong dude. dude. Danny, what do you expect to see from the Detroit Lions before I let you go in 2020? There's a lot of buzz, excitement about the Lions. I think, listen, the way you guys started last year, first off, great touchdown pass at the end of the year. I love to see that, you getting involved

in the trick play game. But when you start the year, you guys are the Arizona game, you know, that turned into a tie. There was the questionable call on Trey in Green Bay. I mean, there was a ton of things, and you guys had to start fast because your schedule, the division you were in, and you didn't quite do it because of a couple little things. I think you could have been very good. What do you expect with Stafford coming back? I mean, you know, it's the ultimate goal, obviously you know what it is. And that's, you know, there's 31 other teams that are upset at the end of the year. And if you don't make it to the big game, and if you don't make it, if you don't win the championship, then, you know, it's not a very successful season.

That's how we think. And that's our goal. What I think is going to happen, time will tell. You know, we have a lot of good football players. We have a great quarterback. We have good skill position. We have, you know, great O line, great D line. We're getting players in.

We got, you know, some old teammates of mine, some old friends. I'm blessed to be able to play with again this year. and we got some good coaches, man. So, you know, I'm ready to get out there. Start getting it going. What about Matt? What's one thing Matt Stafford does really well that people watching from the outside don't know?

Matt's up there with, you know, the best quarterbacks I've ever played, honestly. His ability to anticipate, re-coverages, see things. You know, he has an amazing arm. I mean, one of the best arms I've ever played with. Still. This guy can chuck it. Hell yeah. He can chunk it.

He's tough as nails, bro. He's like, he plays injured. He's, you know, no bullshit. You know, he's in the building early. He loves the game. He's an ultimate competitor. Yeah. And, you know, he's a leader.

He's not a guy that's going to sit here and start screaming his head off vocally. But when you know, he's, when you know when he talks, you know, it's time to start rolling. And, you know, it's coming off injury. he missed the last, I think, six, seven games of the season. But before that, you guys were in the top couple teams in the league in offense. We were making some plays. I think we were leading every game, really kind of, you know, every game was going back and forth, really wasn't, you know,

it wouldn't really show on the scoreboard, but we're playing good football. Absolutely, absolutely. And as you know, those games, I mean, they can go either way. And we'll see how it shakes out in 2020 real quick. what are some binge-worthy shows that you're watching right now or music you are you're listening to during the pandemic i'm watching uh curb right now oh yeah yeah yeah i can't wait have you seen tiger king yet no i haven't i don't i just i'm on the third episode right now of the last season so okay you need to watch tiger king okay yeah is there any music you want to put the people on to

before i let you go anything going on art i know you're artistic guy shit i'm on the i'm on the i'm on the revivalist right now oh the revivalist is that is the right a passage to wear your beanie that way yeah yeah no doubt okay good so so we've got curb we've got revivalists uh and we've got beanies in 70 degree weather uh danny is riding out the storm in style in his beautiful texas ranch uh we're not going to show the people i'm gonna come down and visit you soon okay bud please do brother i miss you man proud of you keep it going hey man i'm i'm you know i'm up-and-coming podcast so you should be proud of me okay you've always you've always been a podcast you're it's just your time to shine right now

babe all right babe talk to you soon let's be right about see you always fun catching up with danny and i have have been boys as i mentioned for a long time we did uh we've done a bunch of bonneros together um we you know as i mentioned the first night in st louis i took him out drinking uh And that's how it ended. You know, he's such a neat puker, Danny, such a neat little puker. Like, just puked all over the, you know, but he got it all in the closet. And then, like, in the morning, I woke up with a massive hangover and it was gone. He, like, scrubbed it spotless.

That's a good buddy. It was carpet, too. So shout out to Danny Amandola. He always cleans up after himself. And he is a good, good friend. And if you're friends with Danny Amandola and you run into him in a public place, you're not even going to know it until he tackles you.

He's one of the roughest greeters that you'll ever meet. But he's somebody always puts a smile on my face. Great teammate. And I am, I'm amazed. He's still doing it. You know, still doing it. Still doing it. He's about 34.

He's about my age. He's either smarter than me or dumber than me for continuing to play. football. Right about now though, podcast life quarantine. It's not bad. The podcast must go on. We're going to have Making Gunner tomorrow. We're going to have Dave Damashek. We're going to rank, we're going to fill out that uniform bracket I talked about and much more. So check that out. As always, visit our YouTube page. If you're listening, we've got a bunch of other content. Apple Podcasts, Spotify. If you're on YouTube, check that out.

We've got fishbowl stuff coming out. We've got a bunch of pods. And I'm doing a bunch of brackets. I do want to tease one thing. I think I'm going to do an outcast bracket. We're making the bracket up right now. It's being seated by a friend, George Foster, long-time NFL vet, Georgia Bulldog, friend of at least Big Boy.

I don't know if he's friends with Andre as well. But he knows 3K and Big Boy. So I said, hey, get the heat off myself, give it to a friend. He's going to seat it. I'll fill it out. We'll have him, maybe another mystery guest on the pod to talk about our selections. More brackets to come as well. So thanks for listening and we'll catch you tomorrow.