Green Light with Chris Long - Howie Long! On Growing Up In South Boston, Acting & Commercials, Joining Fox, Fatherhood & 80's LA Celebrities. Chris' First Pitch Redemption.

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

(01:21) - Welcome, Layup Line and Chris' First Pitch Redemption. (22:23) - Howie Long on Childhood in Boston, Career with the Raiders, Acting in Films and Commercials, Fox NFL Sunday and Fatherhood. (1:34:09) - Ronaldo Promotes Water, Chris and Macon's Dream CFB Bowl Game and the 2022 Madden Cover. Green Light Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/user/951jyryv2nu6l4iqz9p81him9?si=17c560d10ff04a9b Spotify Layup Line: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1olmCMKGMEyWwOKaT1Aah3?si=675d445ddb824c42 Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including 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. http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And there was a guy over there in a dimly lit room just kind of playing away at the piano a little bit. And he started playing 49 by-bys. And it's a Crosby Stills National Young song. This is before you know what people look like. And I said, boy, it's a great song. He said, thanks a bunch. Yeah, thank you. I wrote it.

What do you mean thanks a bunch? Stephen Stills. Lyle would get him into the Coliseum with a sport. sports writers kind of credentials. Yeah. So there you'd be in your locker after a game, you know, and you've got eight or ten people out in your locker doing an interview

and there's, you know, Stephen, and no one knows. Father's Day pod. Happy Father's Day, Chris. Thanks, you too. Hey, my dad's coming on the pod today. Happy Father's Day to Big Howie. Yeah, happy Father's Day to Big Brad. Thank you.

Offered Brad to come into studio and he was booked. his publicist said he was booked. God love Brad. Brad is a professional hypochondriac, so the Pandy has basically been his Super Bowl. It's a hall pass. I don't know if he's going into public anytime soon.

But he appreciated the offer. I'll send him an e-card. Very much. That's what e-cards are for. By the way, I haven't talked about this. I don't know if I've talked about this here, but my lovely wife and I made a pact that for the rest of our lives,

we're not buying each other Hallmark cards. Okay, can you buy like the fancy indie cards? No, nothing. Like no cards, period. You can construct a card, but we're not, we're going to stop giving our money to big hallmark. Okay. The big greeting card.

I give my money to like, uh, independent artist. Nice, nice. Yeah. Support local. Card will cost you like a $5.99. Nice. And you get it on the. Yeah, it's got like an illustration of a bouquet of flowers.

Yeah. And like two words in a period below it. That's right. Yeah. And the paper's kind of raised a little bit as artists. paper. That's right. Howie Long joined me this week to sit down and talk about a lot of stuff. Father's Day, kind of like raising three knuckleheads, football stories. And really the last couple times I've had them on, it's been a lot of football stories. So we kind of, we kind of stayed there

for a moment, but we talked a lot about after football, like the acting, the NFL Fox Sunday stuff, the commercials. Terry Hatcher came up. He was in a Coors Light commercial once. We're going to talk about that. So stick around after the open. That's what will take you into your weekend. I refuse to start the show

and no disrespect to Big Howie, but I refused to start without switching out the earbuds, which were left over from his appearance here in this chair. Oh, you didn't want his earwax. Yeah, but I, I don't think he would want mine either. Yeah, he's not coming back.

So it was mostly about you protecting your ear holes. Yeah. Like I said, I mean no disrespect. No, no problem. His hygiene is great. Yeah, yeah, his hygiene's pretty good. Santa Monica, California. Hello.

Santa Monica. You know, the significance of Santa Monica, the insignificance of Santa Monica, the thing that didn't even make Wikipedia because they checked. Oh, it didn't, it wasn't on there, huh? No, I wasn't going to mention it. I was born in Santa Monica. And I didn't think you would mention it because you're not really a me guy.

No, no, but I think it's funny. It's good content. I was trying to think of something to talk about as it pertain to Santa Monica. I guess it was born there way back in 1985. You were. So what hospital do you know? The one by the beach. I would imagine.

Yeah, I'm not really sure. I've been to Santa Monica a couple of times. It's funny. I had to talk about what'd you think. Nice, lovely. Yo, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful place. I really like Santa Monica.

I like Venice Beach. But the surrounding sprawl is why I would never live in California. Yeah. I mean, I can't handle traffic right here for, you know, 15 minutes, let alone taking... 15 minutes. Yeah, I mean, where are we getting that, few and far between in Charlottesville? I love Santa Monica. It is a nice place to visit. I was born there. Did not make the Wikipedia page, which led me to look for Charlottesville to see if I'm, like, represented there. I'm not represented there either. Robert Redford born in Santa Monica.

There you go. Yeah, Robert Redford born in Santa Monica. But I actually have... had to recently talk about my birthday and the birth location because I went on Ricky Williams pod. And Ricky is a big horoscope guy, astrology. And the whole pod, I thought it was like, hey, the first five minutes is gonna be about like the hook of this pod is to tell you

kind of what kind of guy you are because I'm gonna read your horoscope. No, no, no, no, no. The whole pod is talking about your horoscope. So I had to look up birth location, what hospital, that type of thing. And then I had to, which I've already forgotten. And then the time of day.

What time of day? I don't remember. I think it was early in the morning. Huh. Yeah, and I'm not a morning person, but I don't think it works that way. But Ricky's pot is really great. You should check it out.

Curious questions with Ricky Williams, who is one of my all-time favorites, just for his kind of off the field paving of the way for the modern football player and modern athlete. Like, he was ahead of his time, dude. Sean Aston is from Santa Monica. Sean Aston. and don't know who that is.

Rudy. Oh! The guy that played Rudy, obviously, because the guy that's based on his name is Rudy. That's right. Okay. Heard things about the real Rudy. They say the real Rudy wasn't quite like the Rudy,

and you have some stuff on this, don't you? I might or might not have Rudy Rudiger's phone number in my mobile. I spend some time with the man. Likes himself of Guinness. Definitely likes himself at Guinness. That was the scouting report. I'll leave it there. But my man's evidently a lot more colorful character than was portrayed by Aston.

Jack Black, Santa Monica. Really? But this is a Jimmy Lee Curtis. Santa Monica. This is a big, long list. I do think you belong on this list. The people just aren't. No, I don't think so.

I mean, like, if we're doing, yeah, it's all good. I don't need to be there. You want to input me real quick? Yeah, I don't know how to do that. Read and put me into Santa Monica, Wikipedia, man. It's a list of people from Santa Monica, California. I just think about Cheryl Crowe singing about when the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard. Santa Monica Boulevard.

Yep. Layup line today. Welcome to vigilante. 80 so don't you ask me. I'm hungry. My body's antsy. I rip through your fucking pantry. Dynamite.

Fire. Yes. Kendrick Lamar. Happy birthday, Kendra Clamar. I think it's our today. You're yesterday. K.D. Top five.

Maybe ever. and he's on a little hiatus. We just talked about it with Freddie Gibbs. You remember that? Hoping that he makes new music sometime soon, but when he's ready, because Freddie said this, he's like, he doesn't know anybody's shit. And I was like, yeah, you're absolutely right. My top five songs, one of these songs, we just used Ronald Reagan era, ADHD, both off

of Section 80, Money Trees, which is kind of a chalky classic. We've already used that for a layup line here. And I really like Duckworth. fear and feel, I guess. But that's probably six. It's Kendrick. I can do six in my top five. Duckworth, put that in your rotation.

I really like that album. Some people are not so keen on that album. Somewhat like you, Santa Monica. Kendrick is from Compton, California. Yeah, right down the road. And it's 34 years of age, younger than both of us. That's crazy when you hear something like that.

I just think he's smarter than me. I just think about Kendrick Kumar. I think about he's been on the earth a while. So that was music. Stick to the arts here. We got more cinema. We're going to review football movies all summer. Coach Wookiee's going to join me for many of them.

If you listen to last podcast, we did remember the Titans 5 out of 10, better than I thought. This weekend, I'm going to watch Necessary Roughness, one of the OGs of the football movie genre. And you can watch along with me. Anyways.

So where are we going next? Well, we've buried the lead, perhaps. You threw out a first pitch for... Yeah, that's true. What might be the second time in your life. Now, I took some liberties with describing the first one. You might have seen on Twitter. I mentioned that you hit an elderly gentleman, veteran in the military.

Yeah, you did take some liberties, and I didn't correct you. You would have never let me do something like that. You would have corrected me on site. Well, then I think I followed it up with the Don King, Jiff. So I made clear that I was promoting. That's what I was doing. I'm a promoter. You are a great promoter and people showed up in droves, didn't they?

They did. They did. They, hey, that's a, that's a, that's a first class, first rate top shelf operation over there with the Charlottesville Tom socks. We love the Charlottesville Tom socks. And when I was called recently or you were called, I love that you're now my like agent. Now, it's been about a decade. Yeah. My guy.

Hey, friend, any day of the week, people want to get to you through me. Let's, uh, no problem. Let's keep that going. I'm sure it's no problem at all. Anyways, the Tom Sox hit you up and they said, does this Chris want to throw out his first pitch at our game coming up here? And I said, of course, anything to remove the stain of that effort in St. Louis over a decade ago. And did you?

I did remove the stain. Ceremonial first pitch at 6.50. I get a call from you about 630. You say, hey, man, you're kind of freaking me out like you're there. already. I'm like, yeah, I don't know that we need to cut it close. Like it's a ceremonial first pitch. Small town. You're like, well, I'll be there. All right. No doubt. No doubt you'll be there. And, and hey, you showed up. You showed up in time to get a couple throws off in the cage. Two throws. We got two throws off in the cage. We had to, we had to bypass the mascot who was

trying to get dressed. Yes, we did. We did. I was kind of starstruck. Anytime you meet a mascot with his head off, like you're just, I'm blown away. I remember one time at, uh, at Gillette Stadium. You walk sometimes, for some reason, I had to go down and what, they have steps that descend into the locker room, which is different. Like, that's a different deal.

And there's a room to the side. I had to go in there for some reason. Maybe I had to take a leak during practice in camp or something, but I saw a Pat Patriot without his mask. And that was like really, I mean, mm. Well, no. But I mean, like, once you see the guy,

you can never unsee it. And that's the same thing with the Tom Sox mascot, which is a bear. I think it might be a dog. I think his name is Prairie Weather Lewis. No, it's not Prairie Weather Lewis. Yeah. It's a groundhog.

It's a ground hog. Well, Cowboy Reed happens to be an alumnus of the Tom Sox staff. And like we got there and Cowboy Reed was there to shoot some Rod Carrier stuff. If you don't know, Rod Carrier. You probably do by now. Yeah, Google him. But Reed was a celebrity. It was like a homecoming.

the whole, I'm coming home. Like people were freaking out about Reed being back in the building. Said he didn't have a mustache, by the way, when he worked there. Which, golly day. I hope that thing never goes away. Yeah. Wouldn't recognize the cat. I'd probably freak out.

So anyways, painted, you said painted the corner. Yeah. I mean, your guy helped you out. He framed it. Yeah, he framed. I think right there on the, sure. Sure, sure. But the big deal is that it, the big deal is that it didn't hit somebody

in the side of the head or come close. They didn't anybody in the side of the head. And my kids were there. And so that was a big deal. I think they would have thought I did great no matter what. I mean, for fuck's sake, they're five and two. But it was nice to just hit the glove. Here's a question.

A serious one. Yeah. Do they understand why dads out there throwing a first pitch and like why all the other dads aren't? No idea. No idea. They asked me when I could go back. I mean like I told you, Whaling gets confused by the whole sports thing.

He knows I played football, but I don't think he understands. Like he sat there and asked me before, is this, is this live? You know, like, is this happening right now? Did you play in this game? You know, like we're watching a live game. Did you play in this game? One time we were watching a Celtics game, they have a guy with tattoos, tall white guy.

You probably know who I'm talking about. He asked if that was me. You know, I was like, yeah, so kids just don't get it. And that's okay. And it's better that way. But he did ask if we were going to go back and if I could throw, do that again. So we just make this a regular thing. It's hard to throw a baseball.

If you haven't thrown a baseball in years, like, you know, me, Conrath, Pawkett, went out recently to Booker T. Washington Park and threw some like triangle, you know, toss, a little game of catch. Are you fucking serious? Yeah, we didn't, we didn't want to make it a square. That's like, would be the most fun thing I've ever heard of.

Square takes a little long. All I want to do is have a toss. Any day of the week. Why didn't know? Why didn't you call me? Seriously. What day of the week was it? It was like your busiest day.

You told me the market was hot and like things were happening. And so I just didn't. Yesterday I show up to a baseball field with a glove thinking we'll have our catch. Content. Yeah. You don't even bring a glove. Yeah. I got a lot going on, dude.

You show up four minutes before the pitch. I can't even get a toss in there. People want authentic. They don't want, you know, like, we threw the ball. twice. I caught it with my hands. That's a game of catch. All the same. I really, I really was nervous on your behalf and you, you weren't. We just have different constitutions. And with different constitutions. And when you watch the video and you hear the first like, yeah. And I wasn't trying to insert myself into your moment. I really wanted to get the, you know, a nice big ovation.

You reciprocated the favor I did to you at your wedding. Right. Yes. I was a, I was a plant. You didn't plant me, but I was a plant. Yeah, at his wedding, he told a, he did a toast about Blues Brothers. He quoted Blues Brothers, the speech, evidently there was a speech in that movie. And it's about the police and the people know it. The people of Illinois. And the people did not know it at the wedding. So it was really good that you told me beforehand when to laugh and what to laugh at.

And I carried that mission out like a champ. Well, and that was just a message to my family friends and my in-law. at that point they were my in-laws yeah we had gotten married hey yeah I'm I'm gonna be me all right yeah here on out past present future I'm not changing I'm gonna be weird no hey and you've you've maintained that thank you that balance in your life um yeah it's a lot of fun thank you again to the Tom socks hey good to be on the board throwing strikes and I and I want to thank you um of course for wishing my lovely wife a happy birthday I don't know if you caught it yesterday. I saved your wife's life.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't catch it. Uh, catch it now. Hey, Reid, can we take a look at that? So you're being interviewed here. Look in the far right. There's your wife, Meg. And then I go over to cover her completely as a ball nearly strikes her in the head. Boom, coverage. Cover it. The ball's 30 feet behind, uh, the aforementioned exchange. And you literally just, Just put your hand on top of her head. Well, I think there was one like on a shoulder and another on a head.

Okay. But I made sure that she was not going to get hit. I appreciate you and I'll make sure that that moment is commemorated in my household. Okay. You know, I will remind my family at various turns in the road. Big occurrences, celebrations might not be doing this if it weren't for making that day at Charlottesville High School. Fucking, I think the baseball players that, were there, like,

obviously had no idea who I was. And then they were like, oh, I guess the guy's a football player when they said over the PA two-time Super Bowl champion. This would bat league is pretty sweet. It's all like college players from around the way. There was one guy from Vineland, New Jersey, who knew who I was. And, um, is that the one who took a picture? I talked to him.

Yeah. But I think everybody else was like, who the fuck is this guy? I don't think so. I think, I think you're in your own head about that. Yeah. It's just an awkward thing throwing a first pitch out. I would imagine. There's a certain self-importance in the whole exercise.

Well, you did a great job. Thank you. I appreciate it. Shout out to Danielle Stein. Thank you for, yeah, Danielle Stein. CBS-19. We needed an anthem. Sang the anthem and was kind of enough to get me that clip of me saving. Got you the clip.

Interviewed me after, but most importantly, yeah, nailed the anthem. Like, she sounded like Whitney Houston. Yes. Yes, she did very talented. On three hours notice, so what can't she do? Shout to Danielle. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Local Charlottesville announcement.

The Seaville Weekly hosts a best of Charlottesville section. One of the sections this year is Best Athlete. Five nominees, Shannon Burns, Macon Gunner, Connor Duddy, Sabrina Feeons, Jay Huff, and Chris Long. Wow. That's one former athlete, one future professional athlete, and three local athletic trainers. Okay, first before we even, I thank you Seville for even nominating me. I'm washed, so technically I would disagree.

But I just want to say, I'm honored to be, no, I don't want to say that. Fucking give me the award, man. Can Jay Huff kayak? Can he kayak? Yeah, you can kayak. Anybody can kayak. No, but has he? Do you know for a fact that he's kayaked?

No, but he chops wood. Okay, I chop wood too. Takes him longer to get, like he chops less wood per minute than me. No chance he chops as much wood per minute as me. He's 610, dude. He's 7-1. 7-1. He competed in organized sport this calendar year.

Yeah, that's great, so did I. Which one? Baseball yesterday. throughout the first pitch. You were there. I thought, I don't know that that was you. Oh,

you don't know what that was me? I've also jumped off of a rock that was pretty high up into the water. Another reason I love it. The evidence is just. So you're a big water displacer? Yeah,

I probably could beat Jay Huff in a swimming race. I can't beat him in basketball, obviously. Does water have feelings? I'm not discounting the trainers. They should probably, probably win. Okay. Give it to the trainers three-way tie because they're who make it possible. So, you know, again, me being respectful. Yeah, what, go ahead. You might be nominated as a trainer.

You are a trainer. A trainer of whom? Me, dog. Oh, podcasting. No. Remember? Yeah, we haven't actually entered the gym yet. Oh, we did. We had a meeting. Listen, I think what this needs to come down to is Jay Huff and I need to compete in an Olympic. Like a decathlon, like a decathlon, maybe a 15 event thing, north of a decathlon. By a decathlon. Is that what that? What? Yeah.

What? Yeah. Say it again? By deck of decathlon. 15 events. Now do 20. A double deca. Cathalon.

That's what they say in London. And Dorset, England. I am challenging. What was it, Prince? or yeah when when when when charlie murphy said prince challenge you to a duel jay and uh we can go 15 events we can go 10 events but we'll let the trainers hold title but i think i got you man i think i got you in kayaking and um jumping probably don't have them in jumping probably do have you have vertical eat probably my vert might be higher dunk contest maybe should be one of them yeah he's

gonna beat me there maybe it looks worse when you start higher start higher start high you start high So if I dunk, you know, yeah. Look at that girthy guy. Look at that dumpy guy. Yeah. A quick background on the contestants. Chris is the host of the Greenlight podcast. Jay Huff, second leading scorer of the 2020-2020-21 UVA men's basketball team.

Shannon Burns is the founder of Salute the Sun Yoga on Ivy Road in Charlottesville, Virginia. In addition to yoga, she teaches stand-up. up paddleboard yoga and created a yoga program for the Boys and Girls Club, Southwood. We love that club. Shannon. I like Shannon. I think Shannon, she's the runaway here. She paddle boards.

She helps with the Boys and Girls Club, which is not an athletic feat. But I mean, I love this. I mean, who gives a fuck about our podcast? She's doing the real work. But anyways, Jayhoff, see me. We'll just do a lot of different stuff. All right. So without further ado, now's Howie Long.

All right, so who do I have here on my notes? I got Howie Long. You got to look on your notes, huh? I do have notes, you know, there's a lot to remember. I just saw you a couple of days ago. Well, you walk in and immediately, what do we start talking about, the trophies? You want to start there? Well, people don't realize.

I mean, as most good dads would do, I mean, I got you a replica of your Super Bowl trophies. when I ordered yours I ordered myself two of them and you know I had my Super Bowl trophy your two Super Bowl trophies in my in my library and I came back from Arizona or Montana and my Super Bowl trophies were gone and you informed me well they're technically my Super Bowls and I said well I bought all four of the damn Super Bowls so why can I have my Super Bowl trophy? No it doesn't work that way it's So now you have two Super Bowl trophies here and two at home. Well, I'm going to get you for Father's Day. Happy Father's Day. Are you going to get two more for your Montana trip? No, for you, for you. I'm going to get two for you.

I had eminent domain over those trophies. I don't know if you know how that works, but it's just the way that we've been talking about CenturyLink a lot around here and some of their transgressions. So I should mention that. I miss that one. Well, you don't, you've got to listen to the podcast. They're putting up.

I do. What do you think about my co-host? Athletic. edgy, twitchy, you know, good vertical. You saw the combine stuff. Oh, boy, did I see the combine? Do you think you can jump higher than Macon at 61? 61 with 14 surgeries, yes.

You do think you can. Oh, gotcha. You could clear a 12-inch vert. God, yeah. At this point. I think your mom can clear a 12-inch fur. I get told if that's a shot at her athleticism. She's more side-to-side than straight.

She's, Meg, Meg can, Meg's pretty, you gotta stop, make, she ran what, a 5-7, then she ran a 5-6? Yeah, just like we were running 40s at this combine thing that Macon and I had if some of y'all missed it where we were doing like the green light combine and I showed up and ran a 5-1. I was happy with that. But then my lovely wife showed up and her job was to smoke Macon, just, you know, run right by him. And she did that like the first time. But then her time started getting better and better. and I was like, babe, don't you have something to do? I was like, you're closing in on my time here.

Dad, happy early Father's Day. Thank you. It is it a lifelong journey. Oh, it is. And, you know, you. Fatherhood, that is. Yeah, when you talk to guys that, you know, are just getting married now and, you know, you think you know, but you really don't know until you have kids.

And now you have two kids of your own, Luke and Whalen. and we just had them over for cupcakes and lunch. How was that? It was great. It was great. They eat good at your place. Luke is just chaotic. Wide open.

Wide open. It's great. It's been a long journey for, I think, both your mom and me. You know, it's been the greatest experience of our lives. And, you know, and in many moments, for example, example, Kyle's wedding was a great moment for, I think, the whole family and it was fabulous and watching him evolve and watching how evolve and certainly what you've been doing. And it's very rewarding. And, you know, you're on. It's like 7-Eleven. You're open. Yeah. And there's no real,

you don't shut it off. And that's what I think most people who don't have kids don't realize. And, you know, you just, you want to be as good a dad as you can be. And, you know, I've said this to you a couple of times. I think, you know, first, probably the first six or seven years of, of your life, I was so obsessed with what I was doing in football. You know, I was there, but, you know, I wasn't fully there. Um, in those days, you didn't have guaranteed money and, you know, you, you were kind of living week to week, uh, year to year. And, and, um, and, you were, you were kind of living week to week. And, you know, wanted to provide for the family and, and, you know, with you, we bought our first house. And then when we had Kyle, we bought our second house. And then when Howie came, you know, we bought

the third house in California. And then, of course, we moved here. And I think it was probably the best thing we've ever done. But, you know, my background, I think, has impacted my desire to be a good dad. My dad was, you know, the older I get, the more I kind of appreciate what he had to deal with and what he went through. He was an orphan from birth to 18 years old. At 18, they gave you the option at the home that he was living in for orphans to go in the army or the military or stay until you were at legal age, but at that time was 21. And I think, you know,

he never really had a frame of reference of what a family kind of looked like. And I was fortunate to be surrounded by people like my grandmother. And, you know, I grew up in a few different homes and, you know, uncles and, you know, people who played an important role in my life. And they always kind of push me down that road of being a, you know, a good person,

and a good family person and being loyal. And it's an evolving kind of job for me. I mean, I'm a better dad than I was yesterday. I'm a better dad than I was, you know, 20 years ago. And, you know, it's a never-ending evolution for me. Would you say you were kind of self-taught because of the circumstance? Yeah, I think to a great extent I was, you know, it's funny. But, you know, when you grew up the way I grew up, so many of your,

impactful people are people you see on TV. You know, it's like you watch, you know, leave it to beaver or, you know, fill in the blank, whatever show it was. And you see how that family acted and the dad acted. And that's a, that's a hell of a way to kind of, you know, get your notebooks for being a good dad. But that's how I got mine. Which family was it? The Waltons, you know, you name it. I, all the shows, leave it to beaver, you know, Bonanza, you know, shows like that where there was a strong male impact figure in the home. And, you know, it's like I always try to get you guys to watch. It's a wonderful life with, yeah, Stuart. And, you know, that to me is, it crystallizes how important family is. And the

impact you have on people, both in your family, and you know, it crystallizes how important family is. And the impact you have on people, and externally. If I had never existed, would all those people that maybe I've impacted or you've impacted, you know, it's the question that everyone can ask. You know, you don't realize how impactful you've been to so many people. And I, walking in here, I saw a guy outside that, you know, was impacted by you and said, hey, I just saw Chris the other day. What a great kid. You know, great kid but a great man and uh i see yeah he takes after his mom and in the same vein like somebody like your grandmother has oh infinite impact transitively you know you just think about that one person who steps in and makes a difference for a kid where there's a relative void she was

amazing not just for me but for everyone you know all i you know her she had four sons and one daughter My mom was, your grandmother was the one daughter. And grandfather passed before I was born. He was in the IRA, you know, classic Irish Catholic guy, maybe drank a little too much and never really got to know a lot about him. But she raised everybody. You know, I called her ma, you know, and I think everybody called her ma, not just me. But she was the classic Irish Catholic grandmother who would just do anything for you and come

get you in the streets. We had a dog named Pretty Girl. She'd walk down on the projects and, you know, Howard, Howard, you know, and get me back home and sent me out to live with my uncle Billy when the busing riots started in Boston. First time you saw grass. Oh. trees, grass, a yard, and I was in charge of shovel in the driveway for Uncle Billy, and I was grounded for life, I think, twice. I served two life terms with him. He was tough. But, you know, impactful to me. He was a guy that I think had a great deal of love and compassion in his heart, but was that classic kind of guy that couldn't show it. And I think as the years have gone by, he's gotten better. at that. But he was a good man. And I look back and I say he had four kids of his own. He's working

in the projects. He's driving a maverick, you know, with 100,000 miles on it and a hole the size of a basketball on the passenger floor from Milford into the South Boston projects. And he's doing it in the wintertime and he's getting up at five in the morning. He's driving an hour to work and driving home, painting houses on the weekend. We were living, you know, kind of, you know, and I wasn't, when you don't understand where you're at, you know, both financially and from just a lifestyle standpoint until you get out in the world. But you didn't know at the time. No.

That's the thing I was going to ask you is like, did you know plainly that, you know, like, and to skip ahead, I'll ask you, your father, God rest of soul, I had a great relationship with him. I mean, you guys did in a lot of ways. But in the moment, though, you probably don't know you're missing certain things. Well, he left when I was around nine and one point was homeless in a car on Main Street. And that's tough. You know, you're in a mile square neighborhood in Charlestown and your dad's living in a car.

And that's a challenging thing. And I'm sure if I went to some kind of a therapist, there would be, you know, maybe weeks and hours of therapy there. But like I said, the older I've gotten and when you guys. came into the picture. I thought it was important that we bring him into the family and try to give you guys the opportunity to spend time with him. And he was great with kids. He really was. Yeah, it made us happy too. Even if it was like, hey, we're working on this thing like y'all were getting along. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we understood not. We were, we were up in Montana. He'd go up to this bar restaurant. We've got you three young kids and we're just, we're living minute to minute. And we're

exhausted and we've got this little dump of a cabin on the lake in montana but we had a ball there right yeah our first place matter of fact you tried to buy the first place i did yeah you know he'd come in at 11 he'd come at 11 30 and one night it was like two o'clock in the morning and i i met him at the door and i said pull out your wallet and he's like why and i said pull out your wallet and you know He was in his 60s at the time. And I said, you know, what's wrong with this picture? I'm standing here waiting for you at 2 o'clock in a morning, a 60-plus-year-old man, and I'm exhausted. He said, well, I got caught in the fog.

You know, he's got that heavy. And I said, fog, where are we, Gloucester? No, we're in Montana. There's no fog. The air is thin, man. Yeah, there's no fog. It was fun to have him as a part of that. And I felt it was important when you're, you're, you're,

grandmother on mom's side passed away. I thought it was important to, you know, and I'm not sure how he took it when I first proposed it. And it was my idea. I said, you need to come down and live with us, Frank. And this was your grandfather, Frankie, who is just a classic. Mom's dad. You know, good, good man. And I think he was kind of, you know, whoa, how do I do that? You know, is it the right thing to do? And I said, what do you have up there? You have a card game once a week or twice a week? I said, we can find you a card. We can find you guys to play cards with. And you could be at a practice or a game or something with the kids every day. And those years we had with him down here in Virginia were, I think they were special. They were special for me. I mean, sitting and eating breakfast with him

in the morning and, you know, reading the paper with him, he was, he was a classic Francesco Adonizio. And piece of work. Piece of work, man. And he was a great-grandfather. You had to let me in the house in Montana much later than your dad, though. Yeah, and I chewed out the guy who was with you, Martin, our friend Martin, who's a cinematographer. I tell this story sometimes. When you're in Montana and you go to a bar, and dad doesn't do bars, but I look a lot like your dad. I think I might have a little night owl in me.

Yeah, makes sense. I remember the night I dropped you guys at that bar. We were at dinner at mile marker 17 And you wanted to go up to Yeah, we wanted to go out to Big Fork Or just short of Big Fork Yeah, there's a place called the Garden Bar But you could really drop me off at whatever bar

No, the bar we dropped you I was on the water Oh, the Raven. The Raven is the best bar on Flatheadhead We dropped them at the Raven And it was a scene The likes of which I've never seen in my life There were people jumping up and down

Dancing strobe lights, twirling fire twirling fire. For people listening. There were drones. And I said they're either shooting a bud-like commercial. This is a vampire movie. Dude, it's an incredible bar because most nights you drive by it on the lake. It's a crapshoot.

There might not be anybody in there. The view is beautiful. The drinks are great. But some nights you go in there and you pop up, you're like, where the fuck did these people come from? Who are these people? Just people from everywhere. It's a lot of the ski like whitefish and that type of thing, snowboarders that come in. And, you know, they like the party.

So you jumped off the bow of the boat. you and Martin, Martin's like 60 years old. So me and Martin, who's a Swiss guy. Yeah, Switzerland. Switzerland, we go down to Big Fork and we have a good time. And when you get, when you, when you end up at 2 a.m. at a bar in Montana, you better have a ride home because they don't have cabs and they don't have Uber. That's for damn sure.

No Uber, no cab. We looked up, 10 minutes later, we were at the hot dog stand because they have a hot dog stand. 10 minutes later, we look up, the parking lot's empty. We had to walk eight miles. and hitchhiked the way home. This is two, three years ago. And literally we're walking in the middle of the highway at three, four in the morning. It's beautiful out.

Singing, running. Just running. And ironically enough, we had to get our invisible fence, dog fence, repaired. So the guy comes by and, you know, he says, you know, it's funny. I said, where do you live? He said, I live right up by the bar you went to.

Yeah. And I said, oh, that's really, funny because he was walking down there the other night. He said, you know, I swear to God, I heard someone on the road singing right there at like 2.30. 3 o'clock in the morning. It's like a highway. It's a highway, but there's nobody on it. So eventually we end up hitchhiking back. And dad's thing is always, you've always told me this. If you're in trouble, call me at 2 in the morning. Doesn't matter. If you're drunk, and this was in high school, like no matter what, like if you end up in a bind, I'm not going to be mad at you. Well, I never took you up on that.

No, and not even at 34. But here's the thing, even at that age, when you're at our house, I can't sleep to your home. Right. And I get. Mom can sleep. I get that. So just to illustrate what kind of guy you are instead of me, when finally the Vietnam vet that picked us up in the middle of the highway and drove us the next 20 miles, pulled into the driveway at 3 in the morning, instead of you being pissed off at me because the dogs are barking and you're awake now. And Lord knows you probably just got to sleep.

You're mad because I didn't call you. Right. I said, all you had to do is call me. I'd have driven up to Big Fork. And that's the type of guy you are. That's the type of guy you are. And fatherhood is, by, you know, evidenced by your 34 year old, the oldest kid in the family keeping you up at night, a lifelong endeavor. Listen, I watch you and, you know, you're such a better dad than I was at this point in your life and their life. You know, because like I said, you know, imagine if you were playing it was 85 through 93.

That was one of the main reasons I waited, not because you didn't do a great job, best dad in the world, but I just know you've talked outwardly about, you know, like you wish you had more time. Well, I was there, I was there, but my mind was always on,

you know, I've got this, you know, my knees getting shot up or my, you know, I broke my thumb or, you know, and I've got to play this weekend. Yeah. You know, and it was always that challenge and it was the off-season of, you know, I'm one contract to another contract.

Yeah, and it probably, it was probably stressful to, you know, like nowadays, we talked about this the other night. You were playing check to check, relatively speaking. I mean, like you were defensive player at the year making a million dollars. No, I wasn't making them. I was making far less than a minute. How much? Probably about 150.

Defensive player year, you were making 150. Yeah, it was defensive player the year. So that was your first contract. That was your first contract. There were two defensive player of the year awards. one is the AP defensive player of the year. The other was the Hallis Award, and they don't have the Hallis Award anymore,

but that was picked by general managers and coaches. Got it. And I was fortunate enough to co-win that. Yeah, you shared that with Andre Tippett from the Patriots. It was just one of those deals where the money was different. I remember when Joe Kleko and Mark Gasson was signed for 500 grand. Right. Bill Pekyll and I, your godfather, were on a plane.

looking at the numbers and said, oh my God, $500,000. We're going to stick with this, which is a lot of money. $500,000, I said, we'd be set for life. Yeah. So my check, my rookie year was $1,07 after taxes. And you were in the lower tax, right? $1,000. Yeah.

And I was driving a used coup de ville. I bought for $9,000. But, you know, I'm saying you're making, by your own admission, $150,000 winning defensive player a year. So like the ceiling of your productivity, this is what you have to show for it financially. And, you know, like it wouldn't have been like me if I was in that situation in a vacuum with no children.

You're staring down every night when you get home at like your Y. And that probably makes you even more desperate. I mean, then just being a poor kid who's trying to make his first big check and support his family or himself, you know, like your motivation. right there. Well, it's like when I went to Villanova, I left Uncle Billy and Aunt Ada's house, and they were phenomenal, but, you know, they had four kids of their own. You know, you're living

week to week. I mean, they were, I can't even imagine what an incredible sacrifice he made, taking a troubled 13-year-old in. And I left and went to college. I was 17 years old, my freshman year, and I literally had the clothes on my back, and I never left. I was there for Christmas. I was there for Thanksgiving. I was there for summer school all year. Because really, where do I go? I can't go back to Uncle Billy and Aunt eight is because, you know, they'd done more than enough for me. Yeah. So it was time to just be in college and had no idea I was going to be drafted in the pros, you know, as high as I was. It was certainly a shock to both your mom and me. So how do you do this? You're raising three kids, three boys who have like the expectations.

of being your kids. And you know how much scratching and clawing it took to be you and to play at your level and achieve what you achieved. And you did it with essentially a gun to your head. So your kids are going to be rich. Did that ever scare you? You looked at it, I feel like the other way, which was like, I made it.

I have to provide. I don't like, I'll worry about how to raise them. I mean, like, I'll raise them to be good men, but I'll worry about how to raise them to be a little more desperate in that type of. of thing to have a work ethic of somebody who's desperate. The thing I didn't realize was, and I really, we really didn't think about this because I think I don't look in the mirror and see the same thing that other people see. And your mom doesn't look at it that way either. We just think we're

regular people. I never thought it would be as challenging for you guys as it was growing up as my son, particularly playing sports. You know, all the things you hear in the stands and, you know, there's some really, you know, and that's kind of manifested itself in social media now. Where in those days it was just at a little league game or at a high school game. And people say the damnedest things and act really crazy. And, you know, they, I don't know whether it's jealousy or, you know, envy or whatever it is or just being spiteful. People can be, you know, they're great people. and I'd like to think that more often than not, people are really good.

There are some people who aren't. I think there's so many people who are supportive, but you just remember it's human nature to remember the shit heads too. Yeah, and now that you have kids, you understand how personal I take to you. Yeah, that's the thing. I've always been like, dude, I'm very Irish. I'm like, dude, like, forget about that thing that happened to me at 17. I don't care about it.

Why do you care about it? You know, imagine if somebody said something or did something to me for real. Imagine if somebody called your kid out at home plate in Little League when they hit their first home run because he missed home plate. Yeah. And the, you know, the team was crowding around you at home plate. He was, he must have been down there with a magnifying. I've told that story about that umpire. How'd you take that?

It was disappointing. I just don't like that. No, it was disappointing because I knew it was such a, you know, it was your first home run. When I think about putting myself in positions of a dad who's like, what the fuck, dude. Like that's, I think I don't know if I'm ready for this. that and and only i'll only know what it happens i'm like a duck on the water i mean it looks calm on the surface yeah but underneath underneath my legs are churning i'm you know and i'm there are many situations where i did everything i could not to explode explode yeah because part of you is like

and part of anybody but especially somebody who played in the 80s for the raiders and that sort of thing and played like i said with a gun to their head like it's it's a different environment you have to be in and a different like your nervous system just constantly like up wound up and you in retirement have found a way to calm down i've gotten better at it um i think you know with time and i think for example what a blessing luke and wailen are yeah um and i can do it all over again but in a chill state but in a chill state and i don't have the same responsibilities to them i mean i i'd die for them i'd throw myself in front of a bus for them. There's nothing I wouldn't do for them.

But it's your responsibility to, you know, kind of guide them and struck them, you know, push them to be the best possible person that they can be. And, you know, when you guys were kids, the last thing I thought was you guys would play football. Right. Because we didn't push football. Right. And when you came on to play football, I was like, I was so, mom was like, bombs rainbows and sunshine she's like oh it'll be fine you know and i said you don't know it's it's it's a

terrible it's a great sport and you and i had this conversation the other night as it applies to kyle it's a great game we both of us love playing the game and love competing and loved our teammates and and all that that comes with it uh and the coaches and the people that you've formed relationships with and a bomb that only can happen in that kind of environment. But the flip side of it is, you know, the carnage physically, you know. And getting those calls as the dad and like as a brother, like, you know, Kyle just got hurt recently. It's like.

When I got that call and then I had to call you and it was, it's shocked to despair to, you know, it's just sadness for him. And the same thing with you. When I get a call that, you know, you were hurt. you want to take that hurt and just give it to me. I'm fine with that. Right. You know, been there, done that.

So how do you instill work ethic in your kids? Because that's a tricky thing and I'm going through with my kids and you know me. You're looking at me sometimes like relax, dude. Like they're going to be fine because I'm just like, I look around. I see where I live. I see the other kids he's playing with. And those kids are comfortable like my kids, but they're not going to be under the same microscope. Right.

And when they go do things like they're not going to be. You're looking at it through the lens of me. The son, you've been down the road that they're going down. And I understand that. And you've got to, you know, fortunately I had your mom. And, you know, you had your mom. And fortunately for you guys and for you, you have Meg, who's just a stud. She's great.

And she's, she's just a great mom. And, you know, you never know how you're going to be as a dad or you're going to be as a mom. And it's just to watch you two. and the way you raise those boys is is just heartwarming for me. I remember the day we were on the trail walking up the two blue hole up there. Back in Sugar Hollow if you're a Charlott's full listener. My dad had never been there. I'd never been there and I'm fresh off of, you know,

shoulder replacement surgery and of course. Well, I was like, man, this shoulder replacement's really sticking because he's doing bucket list items. You hear wailing in the background. Come on, Papa, you can do it. So now I've got to jump off the rock into the water. And I forgot that I should have kept my left arm down. And when I hit the water, it was like a pretty damn good though.

I mean, for you and you like, you don't have to prove you're brave to anybody. But like football and like injuries have made you at times like not do as much because like your body's jacked up. And that can be debilitating the pain you've you've dealt with. And also especially the shoulder, which is why when you got the replacement a couple weeks ago, I was so excited for you. And you're the type that you don't you don't want like in this. cliche older guy shit not like you act like an old man but I don't want any help don't worry about me I don't want to take care of myself and like literally this shoulder has been begging to be replaced for years 17 years I you're jumping in a

swimming hole you haven't you haven't been to in 30 years in Charlottesville and I'm thinking I didn't know it existed he's a new man yeah he's a new man yeah so do you feel like how much pain were you in before you get something like a shoulder replaced I didn't realize how much pain I was in until I had it done two days off of full replacement. I was out of pain. Yeah. I was off the meds and out of pain and it's been a blessing for me to do like a we were just talking before we went on a lap pull down or like at any weight at any way just a motion or a bench a pin loaded bench machine just at any weight is it's it's it gives it's it's another opportunity for me to expand what I can do you know. I'm

I'm looking forward to going to Montana. You look great in a suit, but you were looking fucked up in a t-shirt. No kidding. Tell me about it. Because your shoulder was so bad that the one was just. It was at your feet. And it was like three inches lower than the other one. Yeah.

So the, now it looks good. Yeah, the ones, when I've been in a suit, the one arm was longer than the other arm. Yeah. Really. So when do you make it as a dad? Is there any, are there any moments where you're like, I can take a deep breath a little bit? You know, I think I've started to take a deep breath.

a deeper breaths in the last five, six years, although you don't stop worrying. I mean, you know, the whole thing with you guys playing with you and Kyle playing. And every play, you know, there's a pile and you say in my head, I'm at work. And you can see me at work. And the guys will laugh about this at work. You could see me at work. We're live on television. And I have a television. I have a television into the desk. And we all do. for highlights. And I'm looking down at the desk and then they'll come to me and I'll pop up and do my, you get caught.

Whatever point it is, but I'm watching play to play. And when you two were playing at the same time, not against each other, but at the same time, you know, if the two play sync up at the same time, where do I go? Right. And in my mind, I would always go to the guy that I felt was in the most duress,

whether you had an ankle or, you know, you know, Kyle had this or had that. I would go on that particular play. That's the way I would rationalize it in my head as a dad. It's a blessing. And it was, you know, it gave us so many incredible moments, but, you know, it was all so stressful. Did you feel, did you ever feel like,

now you would have done all the same shit we've done, like playing hurt and that sort of thing, but were you ever like you're being stupid? Oh, looking back on it, I was, I was stupid quite with us as a dad. Like how hard was it to not be, like hey dude i've been through this you know i it's funny i thought about that i was thinking about that the last two days with kyle with you too really um you know you were trying to sell me when you had the ankle yeah and you had the you had the tibial plateau fracture and after the year we had the

ankle you had to put things in yeah so you're sending me film of you doing getoffs and you know and redirecting And I see, I know you and I know your body and I know your movements better than anybody. You know, I know when you're hurt. I know when you're not. And I wanted to say to you, don't do it. Right. But it's really, it's not my place to do that.

Because when you're in that situation, you know this from being a player. Your mind is trained, like the confirmation bias that I can do it as a competitor is so strong or else you wouldn't be there. You're not thinking straight. And that's why like, it's really hard to convince somebody

to look out for number one in the NFL. If you're like a driven player that's not going to take thing. Well, you, you to me are somewhat of an old school player. And Kyle, to a certain extent too, I mean, you know, where you just, you're playing hurt and you're playing hurt a lot.

And there's a difference between, here's the big thing. Are you hurt or are you injured? Yeah. If you're injured. We say that a lot around here when Reed has his sick days and that sort of thing. Yeah. Reed has not had a sick day in two years.

No sick days at all from Reed. I heard he hasn't caught a cold in two years. He's a great employee. He's the best. He's on ginseng or something. He's the best. How good does it feel when your kid gets married? Kyle just got married.

It was great. It was amazing. You know, one is to watch him evolve as a man. and, you know, I think we've both seen that. I always said to you guys, marry your mom. And what do I mean by that? Marry a guy, girl, marry someone who's, you know, energetic, smart, driven, can make you better. And I think both of you guys have done that.

And I think how he's on his way to doing that too. No pressure. No pressure at all. I mean, we've talked. No pressure at all, but she's amazing. I've talked openly to him and, you know, I've talked openly to her. and, you know, just, I think Kate is special. I think Meg is special.

And, you know, I just think you guys were fortunate to find that, you know, it's a big world. How do you find that person, that one person that's right for you? Well, a lot of times it's not going to be perfect. It's not going to feel like that one person. I think there's probably, with marriage, there's so many nights where you're just like, you're working. You're working at it. You know what I mean? But you have to work.

It's got to be somebody that's willing to work and you got to work well with that person. Yes. And it's on both sides. You have to work. You have to make sacrifices. You have to be selfless to a great extent. You know, it's, we're fortunate. We all, and I'm very fortunate.

My life changed when I met your mom. More peaceful wedding. Kyle's or y'alls? Oh, God. Kyle's was, well, Kyle, we almost had a moment of Kyle's, but it went great. It went great. I don't worry about that.

It went great. It was a great wedding. Our wedding and, you know, the thought process, I think, on her side of the family was that, you know, the slightly educated, you know, everyone working in the projects or Hood's Milk or, you know, my Uncle John was a cop in in Boston. You know, the Irish were going to come down and there was going to be a problem. Yeah, it was going to be like gang. You know, they're going to get drunk and there's going to be a problem. Yeah, there's going to be a fight. You know, they start banging on drums and, you know, there's going to be a problem.

and you know there's going to be a fight and as it turns out i'm in the back of the room at the wedding reception and i'm i'm with my uncles all four of my uncles were alive at that time and all of a sudden i hear this bang my cousin michael who's my best man is sitting up on the head table and two of diane's relatives were fighting over a seating issue and the one sucker punched the other and knocked him over the head table. Golly. At the wedding. And my uncle, Mike stood up, God rest his soul and said, you want us to take care of this. And I said, I said, no, this is perfect. Just let him fight. This is like an ace in the hole for life. Oh my God. And as a matter of fact, Michael and I, who is my best man, we went to the wrong church on the way

stop it. Yes. Yes. We opened up the doors and it was a Baptist church. No. Yes, and these poor people looking at us in tuxedos in the back of the room, and I'm 300 pounds and, you know, sweating like crazy. It's about 95 degrees. Were you late? No, we weren't late, but, you know, if we hadn't found it within the next 15 minutes, we wouldn't be. And back then, it was asking for directions. Yeah, it's not like you could pull it up on your phone. Google Maps. Google Maps, you guys. So where were you more nervous? That moment or the moment you and Lyle were late to the time? the Super Bowl. Yeah, that was, that was bizarre. You know, Lyle and I, we were very, and I think like a lot of athletes, we were superstitious. And it was funny because Lyle came in 1982

and it was a strike shortened year. And that year, we practiced in Oakland and played in L.A. So every game was a road game. So the first week we go down to L.A., none of us know LA. And we're staying at the Hyatt downtown or something. And we would go to pregame meal and chapel and, you know, do all that.

And they, at the end of each pregame meal, they do a kind of a roll call on special teams. I don't know why they did that, but they did that. You know, L1, it's, you know, these two players. The reason they did that is because that's always when people are panicking, like, where the fuck is? Right. So, you know, it makes sense. It makes sense because I think I was on. kickoff team and punt team and punt return team and you know that was short that's your

fault you blocked a pun at the blue gray game thank God and no thank God that I was only on those teams for a little bit because special teams is tough but Lyle and I would go to pregame meal and we bring our bag down with us yeah and we'd always take a cab to the game right and we like to get to the stadium early Lyle would get fully dressed taped dressed, spatted, the whole thing, T-shirt, you know, the gray T-shirt, and the silver pants, you know, the Raiders wore silver and black pants. And he laid down on the floor in front of his locker and he'd go to sleep. Yeah. I'd come and I'd get dressed, partially dressed, and I'd go out and I'd run some 50s and, you know, just get loose and get myself, because you were well ahead of

everyone being there. So we get in the car, this is the first odd situation we had with travel, was first week down to L.A. We get in the car and we said, we want to go to the stadium. And the cab driver,

you know, I don't know where he was from, but he wasn't from Los Angeles. And he ends up, we end up pulling into a stadium and it's Dodger Stadium. Yeah. Now,

Lyle is just, you know, the meters on red, He wants to kill the cab driver. Do I fucking look like Don Mattingly or, you know, whoever? And a guy ends up taking us to the Coliseum. But then fast forward to the Super Bowl the next year. We're down in Tampa Bay.

And again, we do the pregame meal. We take a cab. And imagine doing this now where they block off streets. There's police escorts. There's snipers up in the buildings. You know, I mean, it's you're making. that transition from the hotel to the stadium, it's a big deal. We took a cab. We got stuck in traffic three quarters of a mile from the stadium. And once again, Lyle is in the red on the cab driver,

not wanting to drive up on the sidewalk. Right. And, you know, I understand. And Lyle, we have to get out of the cab. Now we're walking through the parking lot filled with people. He's not dressed as he and his football. No. Okay. No. We're in street clothes, but we got our bag or his shoulder and he's angry. He's in a full lather. And, you know, we walk three quarters a mile to the stadium to the game. That's unbelievable to think about the, you know, anybody knows the feeling of being late or feeling like you're stuck in traffic on the way somewhere. What if it's the Super Bowl? And I'm 23 years old, 24, I just turned 24 at the time. And, you know, not knowing here I am 24, we're in the Super Bowl. You know, I'm looking around me, you know, I've got, you know,

Greg Townsend, Bill Pekyll, you know, Matt Millen, Lester Hayes, Mike Haynes, you know, Jim Plunkett, Marcus Allen, Cliff Branch, you know, it's the real deal team. And, you know, I'm thinking myself, this is easy. We'll get back here again. Right. I didn't realize how difficult it was to get to the Super Bowl. And really what crystallized that for me was as the club. as the clock's running down in the fourth quarter,

Lyle's standing on the sideline, tears are running down his face. He's literally so emotionally shot at the end of it and relieved because through his 13 years or whatever it was, through Denver and Cleveland and then to us in Oakland and Los Angeles, his journey to that game and winning was so, much more challenging than it was for me going there as a 24-year-old. Was there a guy that you played with that never got that hardware that you wished had?

You know, a lot of guys at the end, Chester McLaughden who passed away, a good friend, matter of fact, he lived at our place. How many dudes lived at your place, man, because I know. We took a lot of people in. A lot of younger players. Sean Jones. you know Chester we had people from we took it a guy from Charlestown named Johnny McNeil not a football player not a football player from from the neighborhood

he didn't work at like a florist shop did he no he didn't and it turned out to be more challenging that we we anticipated and he ended up leaving going back and you know we took in a cousin mom was you know that's the Irish in me you know yeah yeah you could come over and stay for a month or two months. And mom always, I wrote the check and mom had to cash it. You know, it was always her feeding people and, you know, it was always somebody was over at the house living with us. And you had it too.

Yeah. You know, you had, there were a couple of bad situations where I had to tell people, you know, don't come back. In your. At our house when you were really young. Somebody I won't mention, but he was into some things that he shouldn't have been into. and particularly in our house. And they were coming home.

Yeah. In L.A., which was way different from you being a kid from Charlestown. You're right off the bat. You're a very good player. You know, you guys are Super Bowl champions relatively early. It's L.A., you know? How hard is it to stay ground in that situation? Like, were celebrities coming up to you?

Who did you meet that they were a fan of you? 1980 I think it was 83 we're down in Lyle's house after a game on a Sunday night this is the one yeah and Lyle lived in the tree section really beautiful house and you know Cindy and Lyle and you know I'm not sure if just I think Justin was born at that point you know we'd have like six or seven people who I you know and I didn't know and this is pre kind of internet and you know I I I was always a fan of certain genres of music, Led Zeppelin, Crosby Still's Nash and Young, you know, there were a few albums that were impactful. You love Van Morris.

You love Van Morrison. But at that time, at that time, I really wasn't a Van Morrison guy. It was more Stevie Wonder songs in the Key of Life, you know, that kind of a thing. And there was a dimly lit kind of living room, kind of like our living room where the piano was, off to the side. but it was more of an open kind of format house where the kitchen opened up to the family room and the dining room.

And there was a guy over there in a dimly lit room just kind of playing away at the piano a little bit. And he started playing 49 by-bys. And it's a Crosby Stills Nash and Young song. This is before you know what people look like. And I said, boy, it's a great song. He said, thanks a bunch. Yeah, thank you. I wrote it.

What do you mean thanks a bunch? Even still, Lyle would get him into the Coliseum with a sports writer's kind of credentials. Yeah. So there you'd be in your locker after a game, you know, and you've got eight or ten people out in your locker doing an interview and there's, you know, Stephen St. And no one knows. Speaking of the celebrities, remember when you introduced me to Charlton Heston and it was like your shining moment?

Yeah. What did I say to him? I fucked up the Ben-Hur. I said, man, I loved you in Spartacus. I was like three years old or so. I was like six years old. Loved you in Spartacus. You took me to some, I don't know what it was.

You were playing stuff. It was a premiere for some movie. No, it was a premiere for Firestorm. Oh, well then I was like nine. Yeah. So the funniest thing about it was I know he was like your favorite and I was just trying to make conversation. Well, he was one, you know, we talk about the impactful people that you see on TV when

you grow up the way that. I grew up, you're, you know, you kind of idolize, whether it's John Wayne or, you know, it's somebody that, you know, captures your attention. But Charlton Heston was, you know, Ben Hur. Yeah. I mean, can we. Spartacus. That's like I'm, I'm, I'm spartacus, evident. No, Spartacus. I'm fucking crap. But I just remember thinking like, damn, that was dad's hero. And I had the movie wrong, but I was nine or something. Yeah. Who's what eight year old is watching? No, I met, you know, it's interesting. I met a guy who I met and I'm such a huge fan of and I think you are too Denzel Washington.

Yeah. You know his son played for the Rams. Yeah. Yeah. And Stephen Jackson and him are real tight. And by the way, Tenet is a great. Tenet. I watched it four times to try to understand it. Yeah. Maybe Denzel can call and explain it to me. But such a huge fan of Denzel's and I met him at a thing. It was after, I think I was doing between Firestorm and Broken Arrow. they had a kind of a thing the up fronts in Vegas and it was kind of the entertainment kind of the year looking forward you know and I was the the newcomer kind of category and I was there promoted and Denzel came up and said hello and I that's so cool and I and I didn't have a thing to say you're just frozen I was like I just froze that's that about the only time you froze that's about the only time I've ever frozen meeting Denzel

Washington. Yeah, I mean, you know, I did movies with, you know, John Travolta and Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell. The bad guy from Robocop. Did you know you did a movie with the bad guy from Robocop? I'm trying to think of his name. I watched Robocop the other night. I don't know. He was in 3,000 miles to Graceland, which you also worked with Kevin Costner. Yes. Yeah. Kevin Costner was great. You know, Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner were like athletes. And they were athletes. So I think they approached their approach to doing i think what they do and they they do so well uh you know i'd watch anything kevin costers and i watch anything kurt russell's in and same thing goes for denzil washington but they approach it like an athlete right and that's refreshing because there are some

people in that business who don't was that the thing you did after football that surprised you the most totally i did broken arrow the director was the guy by the name of john woo yeah from hong kong and I was only supposed to be there for three weeks. And here's mom back in Virginia with you three, setting up ramps in the pool, jumping bicycles into the water. That was fun. Yeah, but not fun for mom.

No. And I was supposed to be there for three weeks. And it's John Travolta. It's like a $50 million film. And at that, you know, right? 50 million is a lot of money now. 50 million at that time, but even more back then.

more now. And it was great. And I was having fun for a couple of weeks. And then John Wu comes into the trailer and tells me he's going to make me a bigger part of the movie and that, you know, I'm John Wayne. I remind him of John Wayne. And I'm like, okay. So now I'm calling your mom. And I'm saying it's going to be another two weeks, it's going to be another three weeks. They want me to stay. I'm John Wayne. Right, right. You know, which is lofty. But it's just like, so anyway, it ends up being like maybe three months. Yeah. And poor moms, you know, fighting for a life back here.

Yeah. With you three. But what was it like, like meeting those guys? Were they cool to you? Like, or were they kind of like, you're an athlete? No. Kevin Costner was fabulous, very supportive and, you know, went over scenes with me. And, you know, Kurt Russell was a great guy.

John Travolta was fabulous. That was the longest because he and I were together a lot for a lot of the scenes. I didn't really spend a lot of time with anyone else in the cast because we'd be in a Hummer driving, chasing someone

and really it's a camera truck. Right. And you're out in the middle of nowhere. We shot in the dead center of Montana and Lewistown. Yeah. And then we shot in, golly, where else did we shoot?

It was somewhere, a remote place in Montana also. Didn't we go to Whistler? Was that? That was a Firestorm. That was for Firestorm. Yeah, that was up in Canada. That was for your lead role.

The craziest thing to me was seeing my dad actually get kicked out of a train by somebody I know could not kick him out of a train, Christian Slater. It was a tough pill to swallow for you. It's called acting. Yeah, well, you did a terrific job. He did a terrific job. I'm selling that. Chris Slater's kicking my ass.

Yeah, but I mean, it's crazy. You probably, you were the alpha for years in your world. Yeah. Like, and all of a sudden you're a rookie again. And probably on top of that, there are certain people that have the resentment of you're an athlete doing something and you're not. You know what?

I've always, anyone who really knows me knows that I'm humble. Yeah. I don't, I went into the environment, trying to be a team guy and trying to work with people. Now, if someone didn't act properly, I, you know, I certainly would jade my opinion of them. But as I mentioned, the people that I just mentioned were. incredibly giving. Who would you not mind getting killed by in the movies now if you came back and played another role? Denzel.

Denzel, would you go back if Denzel would kill you in a movie? Sure. We have that as a commitment. Sure. Okay. It's on the record. You did commercials for much of my childhood. Oh.

What was the craziest one that the job that you took and what was one that maybe you almost took and you're glad you didn't? Well, the craziest one was I did Radio Shack for five years. years, six years and shot 150 commercials with Terry Hatcher. And I would literally be at one of your games. Right. With holding your mom's hand and someone would come up to me down in Norfolk or, you know, wherever we were and say, boy, I love those commercials you do with your wife.

I'm like, my wife's right here. And you're trying to get me killed or get yourself killed. My wife was close to stabbing me anyway because people thought I was married to Terry Hatch. Yes. Which, you know, I get. you know if your mom was doing commercials with some guy and you know what i guess it was written a little bit i mean the docs there yeah it we they took liberties well i don't know if they took liberties but you know the chemistry was good uh they were really innovative commercials

the colors the way they shot it uh barry who who was a big part of that uh for for the uh production team was was great. It changed the way people did commercials. It was, you saw people copying the style of commercial that we shot. It was a very successful campaign. The one that I walked away from, and it was, you know, it was just Steve calling me up, you know, and he said, look, you know, the old Steve, when he says, hey, look, I'm obligated to run this by you and tell you. And tell you. So I think it was like, I want to say Viagra or something, you know. I know it was because I was like, hey, dad, if you do this commercial, I'm going to have to leave. You told me, I'd know what you tell me was, don't worry about me.

I'll jump off the roof at St. Anne's. I was like, don't worry. And they were offering a lot of money. You walked away. Hey, I appreciate you, man. No, there's been a lot of things like that. You know, there were things that I just wouldn't do. Your brand, yeah.

I mean, like, you had to think heavily about a brand. I mean, you're coming out of football. You don't have the money people have now. So like we walked away from a lot of things that were, there were things that I just wouldn't do because I didn't like the impact that it could potentially have on you guys. Well, I appreciate the Viagra thing.

Yeah. And I actually liked the commercials where you were shooting a rattlesnake with beer. That was good course. That was a good commercial. And you're not even a drinker. No, I mean, you know, at the time I would have a cores every once in a lot. Really? You used to have a beer every once a while?

A course light. Those were good commercials. They were great commercials. We shot those in Colorado in the middle of nowhere. And matter of fact, at one point, we got snowed in to the town that we were in. It was so remote. But they were great. They did great commercials.

I was killing rattlesnakes. I really liked that. Honestly, I liked that commercial. I forgot about that. NFL and Fox. How did that happen? Because it's been now, what, going on? 29 years.

29 year marriage. dude. So like, how does that start? I come out of football and where I'm down at the Super Bowl, and I hadn't come out of football yet, but I announced my retirement at the Super Bowl, had a press thing. And, you know, it's funny because I played against John Elway a lot. Yeah.

And, you know, I would consider John to be, you know, one of the, if not, when he's in the conversation for, you know, I don't think people now understand because they saw John Super Bowl winning John, which was late in his career because he was a different player than when you played. Yeah, he was just, he was Mahomes with a bigger arm. You know, if you went up and under from the left defensive end position, which you can relate to, he bootleg outside, you'd get sealed in. He'd have six seconds, throw the ball across the field 80 yards.

on a dime. Yeah. He was just an amazing player. And, but we, in those days, we never spoke. There was no real camaraderie or, you know, you weren't texting one another. There weren't, there weren't any texts. And that night before the press conference, when I retired, he and I sat in a restaurant bar that they had closed down and, you know, had a number of drinks and, uh, really the first

substantial conversation I'd had with him. And then I retired the next morning. CBS had just lost the... What do you all talk about? Years you're trying to kill him. And then you just... Happy you're retiring. You know, great career, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know, the usual stuff. And go to the press conference and the Raiders don't know I'm retiring. And I retire. You know, I played with art and also played for art, Archer. Yeah. So it was an awkward position to be in, but for reasons that we won't get into in great lengths, you know, it was time for me to go. You know, they were disappointed and offered me a three-year guarantee, first-time guarantee

contract, and I turn it down. And, you know, I think when you really emotionally move on from it, you can't. It's really hard to go back. You can't open that, it's hard to open that door back up. And CBS had just lost the NFL package. And, Fox, who was then famous for The Simpsons and all this cartoon kind of stuff. And, you know, the concern was, oh, my God, the Cartoon Network is. Cartoon Network, huh? That's what they were kind of like. People were kind of saying that.

And so here we were, there's no Fox Sports. Right. None. It's a blank slate. Right. David Hill is in the hotel and wants to meet with me. So we meet and we hit it off. I go out for, you know, Steve talked to me and going out for a kind of an audition out in L.A.

And it's the first time I met Terry in passing like, hey, Terry, how are you, Howie? And hey, Howie, how are you doing at a Super Bowl? And we went our separate ways. We didn't speak. When I did that, he was kind of spearheading the kind of audition. and I had over, overworked, over researched. I had, you know, they gave me a hypothetical. You worked like a football player.

Yeah. I took what I, the way I worked for a game and worked it into that show. Right. And what I failed to realize was what they really wanted. What they really wanted was something different. They wanted something more off the cuff. Everything was formal. you did a pregame show.

It was a half an hour format. No one had ever done an hour long pregame. And a player at that point had never gone from the field right to the studio. And David Hill, you know, he signed John Madden, he signed Jimmy Johnson, he signed Terry Bradshaw. And I had what, you know, anyone would describe as a horrible audition. I was trying to be Bob Costas, and I'm not Bob Costas. You know, I'm trying to be the typical broadcaster who's, you know, giving you facts and figures. And I've spoken to Paul Tagliabu.

And I literally had spoken to everybody. And I had a pile of papers. When in reality, what they were looking for is what we've come to, I think people have come to know and like about the Fox Show. It's just kind of fun and off the cup. It's like we're in our family rooms just joking around with one another. And if somebody screws up, you laugh. and you joke around with them and it's lighthearted and it's not scripted. It's not over-rehearsed.

But no one told me that. And Terry pulled me aside and David Hill pulled me aside and said, where's the guy we saw on interviews? Right. You know, who was like that. And I said, well, no one told me that. And, you know, finally Terry kind of got me dialed into what, you know, they were looking for and ended up getting the job.

And it was. life-changing. And did I think it would be 28 years? Hell no. Terry and I, it's interesting because we're so different. You know, he's from Louisiana. I'm from Boston. He's Baptist. I'm Catholic. He's, you know, he's a quarterback. I'm a defensive line. He's a Steeler. I'm a Raider. We're just different people. But for whatever reason, as our careers have evolved and our time at Fox's evolved. He's like the older brother. I never wanted. You know, he's just a lot of fun. And for you guys, he's been like Uncle Terry. And the great thing about Terry is when, you know, something good happens to you guys or for you guys. He's as excited as I am. And, you know, he's as sad when, you know,

Kyle gets hurt and he sends me a text. And, you know, he's a good friend. But it's an unlikely pairing. But for whatever reason, the chemistry between him and me, and I know his rhythms and, he knows mine and it's really been a fun pairing and jimmy's been great uh he's someone i've leaned on over the years when it comes to contract with you guys and you know whether it's do i leave or do i go do i sign do i not uh things like that and what money should be involved and bird in the hand versus you know it's like looking in on it's like eaves dropping on meetings that were happening upstairs yeah like your whole career and you don't now you got a friend who was a head coach not only a head coach but built a three-time Super Bowl champion team.

He was doing the-buy-in-the-grossaries and then making dinner. He's the smartest guy in the room. It's been amazing. We've been to Afghanistan. We've been to, you know, Qatar. We've been to, you know, we've done shows at the military academy. And Terry and I've traveled around the world to bases. And you've done amazing games in person.

Amazing games. What's the crazy? If you had one great memory where you guys were on the field, besides like the Super Bowl stuff that you got to. Well, I was in Seattle for, I think it was the NFC Championship game. I think it was the NFC championship game with San Francisco and Seattle. What a game. I'm just getting done with.

Because Aaron had the interview with Shirm. That's when Shirm made the big play on Crabtree. Yeah. So here we are. And we've done our, what we call a rehearsal, but it's really a lighting and sound check. And, you know, you're just going through the sections. and the order that we're going in. That part of it's structure, but the rest of it's not.

So we do that, and I'm walking out on the field and, you know, towards the sideline, because I want to go watch Russell warm up and all that and say hello to some players because we rarely get the opportunity to do that. And I hear this voice behind me, and it's Howie, Howie, and I turn around, and it's Dave Matthews. And Dave Matthews says, Dave Matthews, And I said, yeah, I know you are a day. You're like the mayor of the town.

Right, right. And you live in Seattle. And we had been in, I think it's a Crutchfield that's up on. Yeah, the stereo spot. We were in that store one time together and we both, I think, took the same kind of approach where I didn't want to bother him and he didn't want to bother me. Yeah, you do that. You don't like, you're a lifelong Bruce Springsteen fan. I've been backstage with you at a Bruce Springsteen concert in Charlottesville.

and you didn't even stop him. He said, hey, Howie? How are you doing? And you were like... He was shirtless, actually, walking out of his dressing room. Was he yoked? And he looked, yeah, he was kind of, you know, he was kind of for a guy that... He had great stage presence at that age.

Yeah. And we got to see him when he did the Broadway show. I saw him twice on Broadway. He was great. Is that the coolest thing we've done? It's up there. I'd tell you what, the coolest thing we've ever done, to be honest. That was cool.

Coolest thing we've ever done is Red Rock. Hell yeah. I mean, I was, I was like, this is a whole other world. And we went and saw my morning jacket for people listening. I took, you know, we went up, they were doing a couple night deal. The first year I was out of football. And I was just doing everything I always wanted to do. I was so, I was so obsessed with just getting the bills paid.

And, you know, I never took the time to do things like that. Yeah, yeah. And we went to that. And your mom and I had just the greatest time. I remember sitting there and I'm watching. you guys because to spare you guys we got you seats away from my group of buddies yeah we were on one side of yeah the amphitheater and they were on the other but you can see when you're in red rocks like if you have a buddy sitting somewhere because of the lighting and because of the way things are

you can amazing for those of you haven't been there it's it's a special place but i'm looking over and i'm just seeing you because you stand out among the crowd and you and mom are just standing there completely stationary just just blown away by the music and the the the light show but you're doing it authentically there's a lot of people around you who are having a good time because they're they're on peds enjoyment peds but you guys i'm just watching you where's wado yeah it's like a crowd of hippies and then you guys and then we went up and uh went backstage and then went up on the top we were under the rocks yeah some of the band members you got to meet the guys they were great an amazing amazing group that was amazing that would probably be on my on my list

And then when we went to Catalina Island, that's a great memory as well. Oh, God. We went for boy scouts or whatever. It was the, back then they were calling it Indian scouts, which is not the correct. No, it was a little Indian. Which is still not the correct momentlature. No. But back then, that's what they called it.

And so they had, it was like we had to think of names for ourselves and stuff. Yeah, it was like you were, you were, you were big thunder. I was a little thunder, little thunder. So, you know, Catalina, when we lived in L.A., that was like a place that, I guess, rich Indian scouts went? I guess. I, you know, I really, I didn't track the history. We were, we were on a ferry that was, it should have been about a, I think about a 14-minute.

A three-hour tour. No, it should have been like a 14, 15-minute boat ride. And there was a storm and there were huge waves. and the boat was just going up and down and up and down and people were throwing up everywhere. The boat smelled like vomit. It was terrible. And by the time we got there, it ended up being about an hour kind of ride over there to the island. And then I come to find out the hike up to where we're staying in the cabin that we're staying in.

It's like with bunk beds and you're with five other fathers and sons. And you're passed out by that point. I've got you over my shoulder and I've got the bags and we're walking and we're walking and it's dark out and we get into the place and there's a storm and I put you on the top bunk because I was afraid that you were going to just crush the bunk. If I were in the top bunk and the top bunk collapsed, it's going to crush you. Didn't sleep a wink. Then the window, which was a big window, came crashing in with the wind. with the wind was so bad yeah so nobody slept the whole time so yeah that was and it was not like i remember it in stepbrothers no catalina there was no wine mixer no we were rough in it this was old

catalina we were gentrified it i'll always remember that to finish up here i want to talk just a minute about your your football and then what's next here i mean like if you weren't a football player what would you be it would probably be something that you know if i hadn't gotten to villanova you know you think about it it's the george bailey effect what if i don't meet your mom right i don't know what you're doing honestly i don't know what i'm doing i you know i could be working in the projects i could be a cop maybe the military um you know there weren't a lot of options coming out of you know boxing there was boxing yeah i mean you know it's kind of a kind of a hypothetical and it's hard to kind of a kind of a

imagine what it would be like. I think meeting your mom, my sophomore year at Villanova, changed everything. And Villanova was perfect for me. It was kind of an under the radar division one team. I don't think we ever really played on TV except for maybe the Clemson game. So people didn't really know who you were. I mean, if I got hit by a bus, no one would have really would have been on page three. You know, I wasn't really a star. What's on your? bucket list here i mean uh you know now you got a good shoulder and you're going to go out and seize the day what are we doing the next 50 years well every year my bucket list starts with montana right you know i mean i i look forward to getting there uh love being home here in charlottesville

sitting on the back porch with your mom and we're not doing this exercise very well you're just listing things that you already do we need to think of some new shit are we going to the pyramids I'd like to. We're going to dive in a shark tank? No. You don't want to get in the, like go out to, no. With the sharks.

No. Why would I want to survive as long as I've survived and die in a shark tank? Name a person that's died in a shark tank, man. I don't know. You can't. I don't know. I haven't done a lot of research on shark tanks. Okay.

In the movies, hey, listen, I saw Joe. I saw Joe's. I saw Jaws. You didn't go in the ocean for how long? No, because there were no tanks at the time. Now they have a whole industry. where you can get in there and see Jaws close up. Yeah, they had a tank in Jolom. Jaro?

You think one of these years? Maybe. I don't know. I don't. I think I would feel like your parent. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I couldn't watch you struggling with the altitude or something. I couldn't watch you like if your knee was messed up or like your,

you just don't know. Yeah. So fuck that. You're not going to kill you. You don't know. How many more years of Fox? You got the new media deals mean you got a job for release seven is is 11 more.

If you want, Barclay said he's retiring at 60. You're already past... 61, yeah. So how long do you really want to do this? I think we're going to sign an extension that would put me five years moving forward. So, you know, revisit it at 66 and see where we are. Yeah, yeah. You know, I don't know what the...

You know, how long is Terry going to do it? And I've asked him that and he doesn't think like that. That's the hard part. Because it's about the guys and it's like if somebody leaves. And it really is about the guys. And Tony Gonzalez has been a really good addition. He's got a good future, huh? Yeah, he's a good guy.

Yeah. He gets it. Great player, obviously, arguably the best tight end ever. And, you know, Gronk's in that conversation, but, you know, Tony was amazing. And he's not a guy that walks around, you know, sticking his chest out. He's a good guy. Yeah, he's chill. Yeah.

Any chance you grow a beard out or cut your hair. any point here shorter cut my hair shorter i don't know change your hairstyle maybe is it's a pretty it's pretty set where it is you know it looks to be set it looks like it's not going anywhere or moving it's hard to i i will tell you this i used to go down to staples barbershop a lot and you know unfortunately the barber's got older and mr staples passed and uh miss that it's hard to find a good barber howie long folks he's my dad it is father's day this weekend i hope everybody has a great Father's Day. Yeah.

Love you, Pop. Happy Father's Day to you. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, man. Same goes to you. And we'll get them, we'll get them back soon. Before next Father's Day, maybe this football season, we'll have them on intermittently.

All right, thanks, pops. Have your guy call my guy. I'll have my guy call your guy. I'm going to just text you direct at one in the morning. What's new? What's different? Wasn't that fun, huh? Me and my dad talking.

What was your favorite part of that? Second part, easily the second part for me. What about you? The whole thing. Nah, that was cool, man. It's fun to sit down. You know, it's conversations nowadays, like people just sitting down and talking. It doesn't happen a lot, right?

I hate to sound like, oh, man. And even with somebody like my dad, we do talk a lot, but there's always people around. There's always like, how many times do me and my dad just sit down and talk? and where like none of us can touch our phone and we can't like get distracted and look at something else, that's a lot of fun for me. Even though it's definitely you're probably thinking you and dad talk all the time, yes, we do, but that's different. So a lot of fun. And I learned things about my dad when I have him on. Did he ever make to do a chore around the house? Yeah, he was a big, Chris, do push broom ride on mower. We had a ride on. So that was good. You know, I've definitely

worked the push mower. But the ride on mower was big mulching was one of my, my, my, favorite busy work activities, but I love doing chores, man. I'm a chore guy. Sounds like you're more of a landscaper, less of a housekeeper. I'm a housekeeper now. I've got a podcast. We got some housekeeping. Let's go. Rinaldo, just sinking Coca-Cola. Yeah. And one, well, two fell swoops. Sinking big, big drugs, caffeine. You don't even know. They got caffeine and that stuff. They're giving your kids caffeine, dude. When you give your kids, kid a Coca-Cola?

Like quite literally you're giving that kid drugs and you're looking at me? He scrolls up. He strolls up to the podium at Euro 2020 moves two Coke bottles from the table, slides them out of screen and says Agua.

That's where those Coke bottles should be with the rest of the, you know, the methamphetamines of the world. Some are saying that Rinaldo is now hydrated king of the summer guy. He can have it if he wants it. Tom Segura can have it if he wants it. Has anybody else started a water charity out of respect for water?

I donate to that charity every year. I started it. So who respects water more than me? Drinking it right now. Yes. Okay. I have it in, I already have it in my, it's... I have it in me, in my person and I'm adding to it now. It's in my penis. I got a pee. Working its way down to the end. It's not quite how it works. Yeah, well, it came from my bladder through my urethra and that's working its way to the valve. Hold off just a bit if you would. I'll keep the valve closed for the rest of the open. But don't ever say you respect water more than me.

I got so much water inside me, dude. My body is made up of 70% water. What's yours like 61 probably? Oh, big water guy, aren't you? What'd you do Sunday? Gave my daughter. I kayaked. A bath.

made up of water. Yeah, okay, the river is, there's a lot of cubic going on in that river. Okay, how much cubic's going on in that bath? You have a creek behind your house made of water? Yeah, down the hill. On the street, there's a creek. No, you're right, you're right, you do have a creek. I don't know.

You have a water feature at my house. No big deal. That's cool. Well, segue to the Jimmy Kimmel Bowl, which, whatever, okay, we got all sorts of bulls these days. We got a cheese at bowl. Why not named after a person? Yeah. But if you are creating your own bowl,

you can decide where it is, what time it starts. Yeah, yeah. Any sort of sponsors? I think we're burying the lead here that there is a bowl game named after Jimmy Kimmel. There's just so many people in the world.

No offense to Jimmy Kimmel, like he's obviously a huge celebrity, but we skipped all the other people, you know? Barack Obama Bowl, Dolly Parton Bowl. Tony Braxton bowl Emon Schumpert bowl Johnny Sins bowl

Reed just laughed Reed laughed read laughed you're familiar with the work well you only because you guys talk about it you guys it's one guy it's one guy who talks about that person it's just the funny he's the most relatable adult performer

that people know online the Johnny Sins shit is hilarious people will tweet at people like asking for best wishes for their like their cousin who's a police officer or a firefighter or somebody in the Marines and of course like if you look in Johnny's IMDB he's played all those roles so it's so fucking funny the the well wishes that have been solicited online on behalf of hey my brother he's first petty officer he just went to Afghanistan wish him well Blue Check wishing Johnny Sins well quote tweeting.

I mean, it's the gift that keeps giving. But there's so many people that, you know, probably deserve a bowl game before Jimmy Kimmel. Well, the phone. You, me? Everybody. Everybody. He probably ponied up, you know. Yeah, there's probably a big ad component to it.

You know, he does have that TV show late at night. Which I think people now watch in clips in the daytime. It's. Back in the day, I would stay up. You would? Yeah. Letterman? He seemed like a teenager who was watching Letterman at like 12, 13, 14.

Yeah. But like if, yeah, you hear the footsteps, you turn it off real quick. Yeah, that was me. Conan? You heard footsteps and you had to turn off Letterman? Yeah. Well, it wasn't allowed to be watching TV that late. No, I know, but like, you know, again, on the topic of Skinimax and those types of things,

that was the thing you had to like a normal teenager. Nah. No, I'm all about late night TV. I want to take this opportunity to remind you guys that a group of us used to record Skinimax on a VHS and basically make a highlight tape. So if you watch, if you ever find this VHS, obviously you want to skip all the plotline stuff, which was just bountiful. I mean, it wasn't really porn when you look at what people have access to today. This was just like people making out and stuff with pasties on. and man thongs and shit

just grinding on each other. That's what it was. HBO's real sex. Is that, what's that? Wow. Wow! I've never heard of the show, legitimately. And I got no reason to lie.

I just referenced the Brazzar star. Hey, I'm not out here making VHS tapes of highlights. I'm not either, but the 13-year-old me was making a fucking highlight tape. But you had the snowstorm with the salt and pepper flying through it. Wow. In between, you know, and then it was, you know, you skip all the plot line stuff. Yeah. Yeah, but Jimmy Kimmel, you make a bowl game for yourself.

I asked you to do that. I started with January the 1st in Pasadena. Okay. I have to pivot because that's taken. And it's sacred. The Rose Bowl is taken. So it's the undercard for the Rose Bowl. Your ball game just, that wouldn't be so bad.

It destroys the field. You're going to have like multiple ACLs. You're going to be blaming the making gun. But I'll delete the parade. Yeah. My bowl doesn't have a parade. We don't need to. Yeah.

But no, I'm not doing that. I'm going to Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado. Great backdrop. They have that Colorado on like a little bit of a ramp. I'm turning that into a ball pit. So you score a touchdown, you jump into a ball pit. It's going to be called the CERN Giant Bowl. Look this up.

C-E-R-N-E giant. It is a natural, art thing in England do me a favor look it up it's terrific that's going to be my logo I've seen the giant it's hard to miss the giant that's going to be my logo at midfield yeah it's in the UK

it's a chalk figure it's a chalk figure how old is this thing oh hundreds of years well it's still working if you know what I mean just go just go Google this shit I mean you're holding your phone like look it up

so that's our logo at midfield. Yeah. And we're going to have no conference affiliations here. We're just going to pick dope teams. You just get tackled into the middle of this, this, this chalk figure. Like you get tackled right into the midsection. Somebody just drives your face mask right into the ground over this dude's belly button.

If you're near midfield, everything's being run off tackle. Oh my God, you're just bubble screens. Like all day, get the ball on the perimeter. I, um, you might, you might. Offensive linemen just yank. defensive lineman down face first. I can't stress this enough. No conference affiliations at the CERN Giant Bowl.

We are just picking cool-ass schools, Notre Dame, not eligible to play in our bowl game at Folsom Field. Foles does the coin toss every year. Which will kick off at 8 o'clock Eastern because I want to get a sunset over the mountains there in Colorado at some point during the game. What you're really prepared for this? I did.

My bowl game is going to be so cheeks. Go ahead. Let I'm done. No, you go. Finish. Now you go. I do know what a trash dog. Let me give you some trash dock, okay?

Your mama's like a vacuum cleaner. She sucks. She blows and gets laid in a closet. Now you go. Brought to you by Blockbuster Video. You ever seen the campaign? I like that Blockbuster Video. You ever seen the campaign?

Movie? Yeah. No. Will Farrell. Zach Galaphanacus. Probably one of Will Ferrell's most slept on movies. But there's a line, a sequence of there. Now you go. You ever seen a Hooper named campaign? Wow. Nicely done, dude. Thank you.

Go ahead. You were talking about Blockbuster Video being one of the title sponsors this ball game. CERN Giant Bowl. Okay. Am I up? Presented by Blockbuster Video at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado, December the 30th. Yeah. At 8 p.m. One thing I notice is that you didn't, you didn't say this, but I'll say this first because the most important thing about the bowl is the players are being paid they're being compensated for me in this bowl game and i understand your stance as a fan is jarring to hear about these teenagers getting compensated for their likeness and for their efforts but that's where the sports going i hate to tell you we're we're giving uh the players at our bowl a little goody bag with like an ipad

nano in it oh god and uh 50 dollar amazon gift card i think al grow lit our micron pc bowl uh gear on fire in 2000. Like, like, like, I don't know, I don't even think fire would have sufficed,

uh, with Al with, with, because we lost the Fresno State up in Boise and they gave us, you know, it's the Micron PC bowl. So naturally we got a sweet like DVD player that you could watch on the airplane because you didn't have internet back there nor did you have laptops.

Al grow if he, if he could, if he could burn it, I don't think it would satisfy him. I think you'd have to find the like lava in Terminator 2 and just melt that mother. There was also a very bad call that contributed to the loss. Yeah, there was.

I can't remember what it was. It wasn't just that we lost. We got hosed. We got hosed. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of home cooking out there with the Boise and the Fresno people. They look out for each other. Like a bunch of biker gangs.

It's basically the way I think about that whole conference. I'm holding a tape measure. Yeah. How far do you think that is? Oh, that? Yeah. That's two feet seven inches. Wow!

It's literally two feet seven inches. two feet seven inches it's 31 inches I'm really good at that that's amazing yeah go ahead no I don't think we're closing my eyes but another one I don't think we should ever do it again so anyways my bowl game is going to happen to Laramie I'm totally unprepared I just want I want the kids to earn their money I don't want them out partying and uh I'm going to tell you where you're not going to want to wake up with a hangover and practice football it's going to be Laramie Wyoming as you guys know if you listen to the podcast that's that's hell on earth 7,340 feet or something.

I'm surprised he kept it in the United States. Yeah, I just, well, it was more a function of being unprepared. Yeah. And I'm just going to stick them up at War Memorial Stadium because we love the troops. We're going to pay our players. We love the troops. We don't want them getting drunk. And they're going to have a good, clean, fun time.

At the C-E-R-N-E-Giant Bowl, we also love the tournament. troops. You have to like, how are you going to show that? Flyover. National Anthem. I mean, obviously we're doing that type of thing, but we're playing at War Memorial Stadium. Okay, well, we're playing at Folsom Field named after a prison in California, okay? What does that have to do with the troops?

Yeah, that was a non-sequitur, but I just wanted to say Folsom Field again. Not actually named after the prison in California, Johnny Cash. cover. Yes. This year, Tom Brady seated next to Patrick Mahomes.

You know, I never really played Madden. We were always college sports. My favorite covers probably involved John Madden.

Yeah, mine too. I looked through them all. Here, I got the, by the way, this is the first time

there was two people on the Madden cover since 2010 with Troy, Palamalu, and Larry. And 2010 was like when they started

accentuating the backgrounds, they started doing like, splashes and and different things and there were like an there was like an overlay of fans like stock silhouettes of fans in Cleveland I think with Peyton Hillis. Peyton Hillis right the best well and listen I all due respect he and he would tell you this one of these guys not like the other it's just like you look at this list it's like

Sean Alexander Vince Young again like you know Vince Young he's just a folklore guy even if he didn't have the the pro career some people want to Brett Farb 2009 Troy and Larry Drew Breeze, Hillis, Calvin, Barry Sanders, the 25th anniversary cover with the goat there. Richard Sherman, I forgot he was on the cover. That guy's a big fucking deal, dude. I think sometimes you look up, if you played in the NFC West and you kind of saw the Seahawks team grow up, it snuck up on you how famous that dude got and how famous some of those guys in L.O.B. got and on that defense.

2016, Odell Beckham, your guy in a Giants uniform, Gronk in 17. I mean, Brady, the goat edition is what they called it. And in that one, that's the first time that they went from these like action shots on the field to like posed pictures. And actually I think the posed pictures look good. Yeah, now they're just doing seven different editions for every year, so it's getting a little money.

This is the way it's gonna go. I mean, this is the way it's gonna go. And I, you know, I think these guys pulled it off. But as I look back, I mean, the first year was 2001, Eddie George. Before that it was John Madden from 88 to 2000. Those were my favorites as well. I mean, it was Madden like busting out of like the Kool-Aid man and a bunch of X's and O's. The headset on. Like headsets and shit. They had one is like my favorite like 1995, I think as I was looking

earlier was John Madden with a headset and behind him was the most generic two linemen like one sinking a rip move. They were in like basically movie. Basically movie. extra gear. Like they didn't have, they had licensing to have the game, but am I remembering this correctly? The 1995 cover? It looked like their budget, they just hit the wall. Yeah. And John Madden was like, look at these football players behind me. Number 70 in a red jersey. Yeah, just like number 70 sink in a rip. Who is he? Don't know. But John Madden given the big man a nod. That was the only like big man cover and I appreciate that. 98 we go big pleaded pants. How have we never had a big man on the cover of Madden. Reggie White needs to be on the cover of Madden at some point.

Closest you get is probably Ray Lewis in 2005. Nope, I need a big man. Reggie White needs to be on the cover of Madden one year. I don't know what you can like try to commemorate, but maybe just commemorating the baddest dude on two cleats to walk to planet for a very long time. And Aaron Donald needs to be on the cover of Madden. He's probably gonna be the first big man. Is there a curse? Was there a curse? don't know that there's a curse because Brady went on in 2018, right? Well, what's happened since then? He started getting a sun tan coming out of his shell, living in Tampa, smiling, getting blackout drunk and winning Super Bowls. That's since his first one. Okay? Curse. I know A.B., you look at

it as maybe a curse, but the gift could be that maybe you're lucky to even be in the league. after everything the past couple years Mahomes 2020 won a Super Bowl the next year, yeah? Yeah. Yep, because the years always confused me because they actually date the year like the Madden cover that just came out

as Madden 22. It's a mind fuck. I mean, I don't even, the 52 weeks thing was enough. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the first big man should be Aaron. Okay. And if we go backwards,

let's do Reggie White at some point. Hey, serious for, two seconds. If you're not vaccinated in the NFL this year, you're going to be tested every single day. Yeah. You have to remain physically distant from others in the facility. Yeah. You have to eat by yourself. You can't use the sauna or the steam room. There's a whole lot on this list, actually. I'm just seeing it. Fly alone. Testing every day. Mass at the facility must remain physically distant, must quarantine after high risk exposure, travel restrictions, in effect. 15 player limit in the weight room.

I didn't get that one. Players distance in the meal room, can't eat with teammates. That sucks because the best thing about pro football is hanging out with your buddies in the mess hall, in the calf there, eating chicken fingers and shit like we're in middle school. I thought it was being well compensated

for playing a kid's game. No, it's mostly the food and the hang. You know, the food and the hang is solid. So if you didn't give Vax, you're not going to get the food in the hang. Staff weren't vaccinated. Most grab and go. And that really sucks on a night like lobster night in camp.

Like I got to take my lobster with me. Doesn't travel well. I got to put the butter in there, that type of thing. It's going to be spilling all over the place. Think about it. Your soup's going to get cold by the time you get to your office. I might just get vaccinated in that. Well, I'm not done.

Okay. social media marketing opportunities i don't think that one's fair if i understand it correctly and listen i'm not here to to legislate what's fair and what's not fair i'm not a doctor um but i did play in the NFL uh and i do know that it's a pretty damn good gig um and i totally get the concerns you know jo mixon spoke out about the pa's role in this and i hear that the communication hasn't been great uh but in the result as somebody just sitting on the couch Like, oh, and this is the real bad one, no sauna or steam room. Who can't leave the team hotel?

A lot of guys like to leave the team hotel can't interact with people outside travel party and players can't go home on biweeks. That one sucks. I guess what I'm saying is I'm not a doctor and I'm hesitant to even like say this because this has become such a polarizing issue. Obviously I got vaccinated. I mean like I'm not a DIY guy. You know what I mean?

Like when my pipes are clogged, I call a plumber. I outsource, okay? I don't have that much to prove. You know, I don't need to try to fix things myself. Same thing when there's a pandemic and it's ongoing. It's novel. Like, and it's a virus. I just kind of trust the scientists.

And if you want to call me naive and laugh at me, like, that's fine. No big deal. I'm fine. I got vaccinated. My shit still works. Everything's working. Okay. We've been putting out banger podcasts, fully vaxed up, you know?

But I get it like some people are DIY people and they want to do their own research. Whatever the fuck that means, dude. I'm totally like, do you, but there is also a public health component to this whole thing. And until we get the 70%, like we can't get herd immunity and this thing and going away. And there's still people that are getting it and there's still people that their lives are being affected by this and there's still people that are dying. Now, I'm not somebody that's ever made this thing out to be like the, like the, the black plague.

Like it's, I'm not afraid of getting it. I got vaccinated because I was afraid for people around me and because I want to buy in and be a team player. If you don't want to do that, I think it's fine. I'm not like, I'm not a fucking doctor.

I should just stop there. But if you're coming to work and like people's livelihoods are, are on the line. A lot of money's on the line. A lot of, you know, the list goes on is online. And you're buying into a team.

Like, if somebody asks you to put a mask on, eat some more different, do X, Y, Z. It's yeah, it's kind of a motherfucker and it's pretty overt what they're trying to do. They're trying to get people to get vaccinated. But it's kind of tough shit. Nobody's making you get vaccinated like truly. But yeah, you're being nudged. No matter what you think about this, you're going to have a problem with what I'm saying. You know, like if you're on one extreme or the other, what I'm saying is I got vaccinated.

I can tell somebody that I'm buying into public health. I'm buying into like the science. I'm buying into, you know, just hey, it's been a pretty fucked up year. Do we want this thing to drag out? I'm taking a little bit of a risk. But you also take a risk anytime you stick a needle in your arm. You also take a risk, a gas station boner pill guy

when you consume those pills that you buy next to the scratch. Lotto tickets. Hello Rod Cariker. Like, you take risks, I'm pretty sure, at every turn in your life. But for some reason, this thing has been so polarizing that this risk is just not okay with people. And a lot of NFL players are not okay with it.

I'm hearing that like on a lot of teams, 20 players might, or a few teams, it might be upwards of 20 players that aren't vaccinated. That's a pretty sizable group. And guess what? Here's another thing. It ain't just MAGA people who don't wanna get vaccinated, okay? there are a number of folks that don't want to get vaccinated

and it goes across multiple political party lines and that sort of thing. And a lot of the teammates that I play with, black dudes, don't necessarily trust the government when you want to stick a needle in their arm. You know, there's kind of a bad precedent there. And I understand that people need time

to kind of wrap their heads around this thing. All I'm saying, though, is if you go on to work, you know, and your work wants you to do X, Y, and Z, it's kind of tough shit. Nobody's saying you have to. It is a free country, but this is a private business. No doubt. And these restrictions do seem fairly compelling.

If anybody's on the fence who isn't vaxed, this might push them towards it. Listen, if you're going to do something as bold in this day and age as being like, I am not getting vaccinated in the face of this thing that just killed a bunch of people and knocked us on our ass for a year, then like, cool. But there are things that come with taking bold stances. and you know one of them might be that you know it's going to be a pain in the ass to get around for a little bit and tough shit you still live in america which is evidently the greatest country in the world like does wearing a mask at the supermarket you know are we all of a sudden the third world country to you

like people just act like some of the sacrifices they're going to have to make if they're not buying into public health are essentially you know i heard a woman on tv she dropped the H-word, the Holocaust, like Nuremberg and all this stuff, she was conjuring up crazy shit historically. And I'm like, yeah, there's some inconveniences, man, but life's still pretty fucking good if you just like accept the responsibility of taking your bold stance. Shout out to the 15,000 people in the dude in Starkville, Mississippi this weekend,

watching the Bulldogs advance to the College World Series. I mean, boy, was that a scene. But then I read on the internet that 35% of the, of people in the state of Mississippi are vaccinated. So, uh, wow, that seems like a low number. Wow. Wow, that seems like a low number. That's three and a half people out of 10 making. Right. That's right. Just hit up our, uh, our math team. Speaking of, how long's that? Uh, two foot eight. Yeah. It is. Really? 32 inches. Yep. Yeah, I'm pretty fucking good at this. Yeah. I think I gave that one to you earlier, but still, it's impressive. All right. Well, I

you have a great father's day thanks yeah you might want to know that it's my first so i will ask you i will ask you are father's days good or bad for the for the father you know it's funny the thing about father's day is they always ask what do you want to do i've gotten it twice already well and i feel like it's a dangerous question asked me i mean as is almost anything but it's a dangerous question like i have to be father of the year right or else i'm in trouble no you just have to do do something with everybody. Yeah. And you know, like honestly, sometimes a dad just wants to fuck off.

I know. All right, I'd like to go float down the river with 14 beers and see around sunset. Might just want to take it. Maybe I get a nap. Nap will be great. Oh, yeah. Knapp is a good soft target for you because you're not going anywhere, you know, like. I'm going to be watching the whoos.

Yeah. Play ball. Yeah. From about 2 to 5 p.m. Yeah. And, uh, try to do that nap before. Won't disrupt your sleep.

as much yeah no and and and I do think Father's Day is is overall good for the fathers okay I do just knock out like one family fun errand we'll go grab a coffee or something yep yep yep yep yeah and see it when it's not Father's Day yeah y'all take care