Green Light with Chris Long - Malcolm Jenkins! On Activism, The Saints, The Eagles & Trash Talking Techniques. Best QB #'s. Don't Fight Wrestlers.

Episode Date: February 23, 2021

(00:55) - Welcome, Carson 's New Number, Bathroom Bar Fights vs Wrestlers, and Max Homa. (20:20) - Malcolm Jenkins on Activism, Eagles, Drew and Carson. Sign up for your DraftKings account at https://www.draftkings.com/sportsbook and use promo code : Greenlight 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

If you're evaluating your circumstance when you walk into a bathroom or into an alley or you're outside a bar or wherever young people are fighting nowadays, just pay attention to the ears, man. Look the guy in his ear. If it's misshapen, how do you think it got that way? Like, how do you, that's called a cauliflower ear. Happy Tuesday, everybody. This is the Greenlight Pot. I'm your host Chris Long. I have a very special guest for you here today. And I promise you, we will not talk Philly the entire damn time. My old teammate, Malcolm Jenkins, safety for the New Orleans Saints, two-time Super Bowl

champion, and a champion in so many ways off the field as well. We're going to reflect on the last year and how he's trying to continue to advance the ball when it comes to social justice, advocacy issues, equality. I think he does a great job. and I look forward to talking to him. We will talk about Drew Bree, I guarantee you that. We'll try to talk about Carson Wentz.

He had some really, I thought, fair commentary on Carson a couple weeks ago. So, I mean, it's timely with Carson being traded since Malcolm's comments, what Carson Wentz means

for Indianapolis's future, and then what Carson can maybe do better. You know, get some more clarity on that. So we'll get to him in a bit. I'll tell you what, though, we're going to talk about some serious shit

for about 20, 30 minutes. and then we'll get to the football. Disclaimer, you're here. I don't hammer you over the head with this stuff, but it's relevant, and we should talk about it from time to time on this show. A couple shoutouts off the top. Jeff Pearlman, a real live author, okay?

A good author, too. I happen to be reading or listening to one of his books. Can you say that if you're listening to a book on tape? Oh, I've read that. I've listened to that. It sounds, I don't know, three ring circus right now on Audible. Jeff Perlman wrote it.

It's about Kobe, Shack, Phil, and the crazy years of the Lakers Dynasty. It is a great read, if I might say so myself. It's a great listen. It's an easy listen. Okay. And I love the anecdotes. I love kind of, you know,

the book's about the main characters, but you get a Nick Van Exel blurb. You get blurbs about a number of supporting cast kind of characters in that run. You get origin stories, which I love hearing for me in one of the early chapters, three or four, about how Shaq left Orlando. It's funny going back and looking at like Shaq being a young player, you got the world by the balls, and it just feels like there's a ceiling in Orlando for like his larger-than-life persona

and his agents trying to get him in LA the whole time. But anyways, the most interesting anecdote thus far, unexpectedly was, you know, Orlando lost Shaq as a city to racism. Sort of. What was going down at the time was like Joanne Howard just signed $105 million deal. It's a lot of money right now and especially at that time. And so Shaq's trying to get his market value down in Orlando. And they're a stingier team.

They're not like, they don't pay people the same way that some of these other franchises are paying people. Anyways, the Orlando Sentinel or whatever the fuck it's called decides, let's put out a poll in the paper and see how many people think Shaq's worth $105 million. And a bunch of old folks that are picking up the phone and calling the Orlando Sentinel back and 91% of them on a 5,000 person poll say, no, he's not worth that. I doubt it was just that poll, but Jeff did a great job outlining everything that happened, the perfect storm and how it affected Shaq,

who was somebody who read the press clippings, who wanted to feel wanted. I mean, like, God, he's only human, but Shaq a little bit, maybe more than others, he reads this poll, and I guess that article came out and he is practicing for the Olympics in Atlanta at the time, and Charles Barkley is a beautiful anecdote

of Charles Barcliffe being like, you need to get the fuck out of that town. They don't appreciate you. The butterfly effect of a bunch of old people, possibly many of them racist because evidently a lot of the voicemails were racist. They weren't just, yeah, no, he's not worth $105 million.

A lot of those voicemails, I mean, these are, I presume, older folks who read the newspaper and actually participate in telephone polling. They actually had an effect on end. NBA history in my mind. And that's why I love like reading the little anecdotes and the sidebars.

The book is about Phil, Shaq and Kobe, a lot of it. And it's a great book so far. So shout out to Jeff Pearlman. I look forward to listening to the shit out of the rest of the book. And here's the coolest part, which I didn't even get to earlier.

The point of this whole aside is that he is a listener of the podcast. Reed, did I say that at all? So on Twitter, he retweeted the Johnny Mansell episode. Exactly, dude. So I'm driving home the other day. This is how my brain works backwards. I'm driving home the other day. And I'm literally thinking to myself,

Chris, you are such a piece of shit. You literally don't read any books. And you've tried 15 times to start reading books again. I've read a few. But you know, you hear your friends and you can you read anything good lately? and I just feel like such a moron I feel like the guy that didn't see karate kid and everybody's joking about karate kid

and I got to smile and nod and be like yeah you know like not lately I'm so busy with the kids I haven't read any books instead I've been just scrolling through Twitter wasting my life so I'm driving home and I'm thinking about this and I'm thinking damn

dude you you started on this three ring circus book finish it I started last fall when it came out, I said, I'm going home to finish it. This is this week. I get home. I open Twitter and Jeff Perlman wrote me a nice note and said, I listened to your pod man. Mansell episode was great. I said, thanks so much. Then he pumped part of the interview. What a cool guy. Great author, great guy to count as a listener. How about that? How about them apples?

had a bunch of teachers and when I was in school told me I wouldn't get a mount nothing which I know is grammatically incorrect but I got authors listening to my podcast so who the fuck's laughing now? All right?

Another shout out. Max Homa. I don't watch golf, dude. Max is a guy that I enjoy following on Twitter and he seems engaging. He seems cool. He followed your boy back. It was one of those verified

for verified like followings. And there are very few accounts that I legitimately enjoy, you know, seeing show up on my timeline. I don't think I've ever read a Max Homa tweet where I was like, that's not funny or that's stupid or shut up, dude. He is hilarious. He's always fixing people's swings by way of completely tearing them down verbally. But it's a fun thing.

Everybody's in on the joke and Max's, he seems like a great personality. I couldn't tell you if he was fucking Tom Brady of golf or Nathan Peterman. And I hate to keep bringing up Nathan Peterman, but it just seems like any time you need a bookend on the other end, people bring him up. And I know it's unfair. And I thought it was fucked up when DeFonte Adams just randomly brought him up on like a Wednesday early this season.

And he wasn't even involved in the conversation. Anyway, sorry Nathan Peterman. I thought it was a fucked up situation they threw you into. But I didn't know if Max Homa was, you know, which end of the spectrum he was on as far as golf was concerned. Turned out he's pretty good. He's lighting up Twitter on Sunday night. Only he's not logged on. Some people are talking about him.

So I'm like, oh, Max Homa, Twitter guy. Let me turn it on because I told my lovely wife Meg, I said, all my peers, they watch a lot of golf. Big Cat, coolest guy in the high school hallway of Twitter right now. And all he tweets about is golf. Like maybe I should take a cue and turn on the TV on a Sunday at some point. Plus kind of peaceful. I am on the wrong end of 30. I'm on the wrong end of 35, rather.

On the back half, the back nine of, kind of might be on the back nine in general too, you know, judging by my BMI, 35, 36 years old. You know what I'm saying? It's kind of dark. I don't know, like turn the TV on. So I turn it on.

I said, huh, this guy's about to win an event. What event was it, Reed? I'm not there yet. Genesis Invitational is that a good one? Seemed to be pretty nice. It was very pretty. Oh, it looks.

Oh, it looked gorgeous. They had this drone flying over looked like Marina Del Rey. Marina Del Rey loosely translates to Marina of the sun. How about them apples? Yeah, exactly. Another rubbing in all my naysaying teacher's faces

bilingual. What does this guy not do? So, authors listening to the pod, what I mean to say is that I'm turning it on and my man's about to win a, a fucking golf game. He's got a shot. He's going to hit the winning shot here. Okay?

I know it's match, but I say game. He misses a putt, putt, putt. He misses a putt, putt, putt. He misses the putt, he misses the putt that I make at putt putt, you know and I'm thinking oh no dude no I like this guy but we're still going to playoff we're still going to playoff we're good okay next thing I go to the bathroom I come back dude's got his fucking ball lodged deep in the root system of a tree like right off the rip in the playoff and I'm like oh my god it's just not meant to be but at least maybe they won't remember the put and he gets

out from under the tree and somehow I guess he survived another hole right read two playoff holes so they tied on the first one, him and Tony Fee now, and then the next playoff hole Max Homa took it home. So in this situation, you know, if Twitter is high school, I'm worried that Max Homa's not going to be able to, you know, he doesn't pull this thing out. I'm worried he's not going to be able to come back to high school, you know, come back in the hallways. Like how long would he have to stay outside, you know, and kind of eat his lunch like by a tree outside because he didn't want to eat in the cafeteria. How long does he have to do that? because that would have been an embarrassing way to lose, right? The putt.

Luckily, he survives the playoff. He won $1.674 million. Golly, that's another good reason to be good at golf, isn't it? Yeah, they get paid. Big shout out to the MMA guy on the Oklahoma campus. Have you seen this yet, Cowboy Reed? Yeah, bathroom fight, rolling on a piss floor, fighting each other. Guy walks into the bathroom.

Next thing you know, he ends up on sticky floor, as you mentioned. right read you could feel that floor it's disgusting also there's a pandemic out there nobody's got a mask on in there's covid flying everywhere covid all over that motherfucker uh wide receiver long snapper ends up on the ground we all listen if you've gotten in a few fights you're you're you're not going to always look cool doing it you know fights are not cool looking in general especially if you don't win it you know eventually you're going to have one or two of these pop up but if you're evaluating you're your circumstance when you walk into a bathroom or into an alley or you're outside a bar or wherever young people are fighting nowadays, just pay attention to the ears, man.

Like, look the guy in his ear. If it's misshapen, how do you think it got that way? Like, how do you, that's called a cauliflower ear. You basically bumped into two wrestling dudes and your awareness on NCAA football, 2021 should reflect this, you did not look at my man's ear. So it happens to the best of us, but you have to control the controllables. And one of the controllables is just sizing the dude up in front of you. And if that weren't enough, the ear weren't enough, he actually turned to a buddy and calmly asked the buddy, which one do you want? Like very calmly, dude. So there were

multiple signs here. You know, there were, like, there were multiple signs that you were about to get punched in the face. And you didn't heed any of the warnings. And here, oh, here's another thing. Just realized, made sure I mentioned this. You found a way to run into a wrestler with cowboy boots, dude. That's like in Jurassic Park,

we go from the T-Rex to the Indo Raptor. Indo Raptor was like the most badass one. They had to make it in a lab. wrestler cowboy boots wrestler you want to think about something scary that's a Norman Oklahoma wrestler what do you think a Laramie Wyoming wrestlers like with fucking spurs on his cowboy boots

and at 8,000 foot elevation high elevation cowboy wrestlers Laramie Wyoming might be the place that you just don't like no matter what happens to you you just don't talk back I mean it's just wrestlers out there, out west, scares the shit out of me. Let's talk about Carson's number.

Another piece of news here. Well, I just want, I'll shout him out. I'm going to shout out Pittman, Michael Pittman Jr. of the Indianapolis Colts. Yes, I am pro Carson Wentz. Yes, I'm rooting for him. No, you don't have to give your number up when a guy comes into your locker room. And Michael Pittman Jr. said he really preferred sticking with 11. so Carson's going to leave it to him. Can't be bought. A lot of times when you're in a locker room, new vet comes in,

wants his old number, he's going to have to buy it. Could cost anywhere upwards of like six figures, honestly. You know, a guy with enough money comes in. A guy wants to hold his feet over the fire, really wants that number. Could cost six figures, dude. Real shit.

When I was in St. Louis, my third year, I had waited, which felt like forever in that ugly ass number 72. I wore it because I thought, you know, shit, there's not a lot of good numbers at the time in 2008 entering that Rams roster. There was like only a couple ugly ones. I hate number 99. I think number 99 was available. Don't like that number at all.

91 I wore in college. Leonard Little had it. 72, you know, OCU and Yura. Maybe I'll look cool like he does. I'll start landing cross chops and shit like that. Nah, not how it went down. Just looked stupid for two years. And probably my worst two years is a pro,

of healthy football. And I sat there and I looked at everybody else look fast in their 90s numbers and finally Leonard Little retires mercifully. You know, more snaps for your boy. Maybe I can get a number. Talk to him. I said, hey, do you mind if I rock 91 after you leave?

He's like, no problem. Because me and Leonard had a great relationship still do. He was like a big brother to me. So he retires a year later, almost a year later. It felt like we're getting ready to go out for the team. And I got to pick a number. And I'm saying, okay, I'm going to make this number change. Steve Spagnola calls me up into his office.

Actually, he called me on the phone. It was like 9, 10 at night. Hey, Chris, I hope you don't mind. We're going to hold 91 for a year, just in case Leonard Little wants to come back. You don't mind that, do you? Just staying in 72. So it turned out that I had no choice

because my head coach was praying that Leonard Little would come back and effectively cut down on your boy snaps and wouldn't give me his number. I will say this with quarterbacks. I'm looking at it, the numbers that he has to choose from here. Carson, one, two, four, six, seven, ten, thirteen, seventeen, eighteen,

nineteen, nineteen. Quarterbacks have a lot of cool fucking options now. He's got a lot of good options. Number six, you don't pick number six, okay? Number six, if you pick six, it's literally in the answer. Pick six. If you pick six, you're going to turn the ball over a lot. I don't know if Jay Cutler turned the ball over a lot,

but like I don't think anybody, yeah, I mean, pick six. Just don't do it. Six is, think about it. Read, are there any other quarterbacks besides Jay? Mark Sanchez was number six. Oh, Mark Sanchez number six. So Squanch, squant is six. Okay, never mind.

I take it back. Take it back. Picking six is okay. Picking six is okay. Heisman trophy winner wore six. That's a joke, guys. I know he didn't win a Heisman. It just doesn't make sense that he didn't win a Heisman.

It makes no sense. I have it in my husband. my brain him posing with that statue. 12 is like the hot chick that everybody wants to be with. I did not even realize how many good quarterbacks were 12. Namath, Stobach, Rogers, Brady, Bradshaw, Kelly. I mean, golly, that's a lot.

Quarterbacks have a lot of great choices. Carson certainly does. You know what it would be funny. I said earlier, you know what he should do? He should just start trolling people. Somebody said this. He's just become such a villain. He should ask for 18, ask Peyton for his number, even though it's retired,

then move to 19, Johnny Unitas, and then when he gets denied both those things, just go with number one. And not say a word and continue to say nothing to the media and just make Mike Greenberg's head explode. Like, just, he should just do it. I'm about to text him now. I'm going to tell him do it. I can't wait to read Pro Football Talks article about the Gaul

Wence Wence prefers number 18. We'll check with Manning. I love that. Without further ado, Malcolm Jenkins. I want to take a minute to thank Draft Kings, our great partner for the 2020 football season, and we also want to shout out Stanford Steve for being a big part of that.

We had some laughs, made some buckets, and had a lot of fun along the way. But while the football season may have ended, the 2021 sports calendar has just gotten underway. Had a terrific Super Bowl, might I add. So if you haven't already, head over to Draft Kings, America's top-rated sportsbook app, and enter the code Greenlight and start firing away.

So as usual, Malcolm Jenkins has outdressed me. He's got a nice sweater on that looks very expensive. And I asked him where the sweater is from. He said, my closet. He didn't want to give up his secrets. Very cash. Very cash. That's very cash for you.

Matt, tell the people on a scale of 1 to 10 how bad I dress to work every day in Philly. I mean, you, everybody dresses bad to work. Like, we're athletes. Except you. Nobody sees until game day. Except you, though. Yeah, because I like to feel good about myself. You got fans talking trash so much.

It's like, you know, you got to put on your best. Yeah, look good, feel good, play good. And then, you know, on a Monday after a loss, it's nice to wear. you know like a nice ensemble and it it lightens the load of the criticism I think here's the funny thing to me though is like I'll wear jeans

and a long sleeve t-shirt that's just like whatever a designing t-shirt and people are like wow you're really dressing up they should they should dude like I didn't wear buttons for like three years straight unless we had to getting on the plane

I mean it was just you know nobody was worse than Kelsey though Oh yeah, no But Kelsey was bad even when he was trying We literally said You know We had to travel that coat and tie You see him pull his shirt out of his

Out of his suitcase balled up Just do one of these Crinkled Yeah crinkled put it on It's a Hawaiian shirt You know Either it was a Hawaiian shirt Or he looked like Elmer Fudd

On the way to the Way game So as I said It's great having Malcolm on The The stuff that me and Malcolm got to know each other on, like, really, it's so funny. When I first got to Philly, I didn't imagine that we would become really close, you know, exceptionally close. Because you're a safety. I'm a defensive end.

Like generally, D.Ns hang out with the, you know, defensive line and secondary vice versa. But we struck up a friendship because Malk allowed me kind of in his world when it came to social justice and to help him with some of his initiatives. right now you got one going on called goal setter that I think is really cool you want to tell people about that one yeah so basically you know what would happen through the coalition you know we've grown over the years but financial stability and financial justice has been an area that we wanted to get into um as we created the coalition and really this is the first year we've really kind of jumped into that space we talked about

about finances and how do we help people kind of climb out of poverty. And one of the statistics that came across our desk was, you know, that one right now, I think they just did a recent study, so it might be updated, but I know, I mean, a couple years back, white people have, like, on average, 10 times the amount of wealth that black people do. And the numbers are continuing to grow apart rather than growing closer. They're actually the same as, like, way before the civil rights and all those things. So there's really been no progression when we talk about, you know, how do we improve the people's, you know, lives over generations when we talk about wealth is the number, to me, is one of those main things in this country. And so we started looking at that and there's a company, a goal setter who is trying to open savings accounts for kids, you know, who otherwise don't.

because the statistics said that even just having a savings account in your name, you know, drastically improves your ability to, you know, get higher education, to invest in stocks, to have a savings account and really drastically improves your chance to financial success. So we created the Who's Got Next Challenge, really trying to put as many guys, you know, as active as possible. We open up bank accounts starting with just $40 per kid. and I'm not sure how many accounts we did. I know Goldsetter wants to open up a million accounts.

I know I challenged you. I started with one school that I adopted in Philly, did 250 kids. And I know I plan on going back and adopting a few other schools and hopefully opening somewhere around 1,000 accounts just for me. But it's important when you think about what has longevity, right? How do we really change people lives? I think our entire, you know, football career, we've seen people, ourselves included,

you know, have foundations and charitable endeavors. But a lot of the times you have a program and, you know, you give out money. But it really doesn't change the circumstances of where that person's life is. It gives them a step up, a handout right there, an immediate relief. But it doesn't really change their lives. And so impact, you know, their situation. So that's been my focus. And now I think this is one of those campaigns that you just see a small thing can have an impact on a lot of kids.

So just trying to continue to make people aware of that narrative because, you know, we can dish out as much charity as we want to. But if we aren't really impacting the environments of which, you know, our kids grow up and giving them actual tools to have success later on and like down the line, then really all we do is just, you know, put band. days on things make ourselves feel good about giving back and then you know moving on and i i love what you said because you know and i think this is a point of confusion with a lot of people okay we have these issues we want them solved now i'm willing to work at it for a month as a white person or as somebody who's but this is a long game dude this has been a long game getting here in a negative way. It's going to be a long game, you know, reaching that level of equality whereby it feels like, okay, we're here. And it's one of those things like we can't continually ask,

like, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Like, you'll know when we're there yet. And we're not there yet. And I think, you know, goal setters is a perfect example of something that, you know, the solutions to a lot of these problems are long-term solutions that we're going to have to hunker down and commit to. And I love the sentiment of, yeah, charity's great. Every bit of charity is great, but some charity I see as an investment, you know, as a long-term working investment in people. And I love it. You challenged me.

I challenge Dan Kwan, who does great work with the coalition as well. Can it be frustrating hearing people ask, are we there yet? Oh, my gosh. I mean, it's frustrating. It's even more frustrating to understand that there's a lot of people who think we are there. Forget the people who are asking the board area. that there's a lot, this is a significant amount of people who think we are, you know, and, and, and I think really the last like four years, obviously, with Trump and then, you know, even this, this, this, this past year at the beginning of this year is, it's been really frustrating for, for me and I can imagine, you know, other people. Because the, the, now, you know, everybody's on board, right? There's not a company, you know, that's really successful out there right now that doesn't have some,

kind of Black Lives Matter campaign. Oh, every commercial. Every commercial. I said it the other night, I said, I turned to my wife and I said, well, it's great that we have representation in commercials, but can we fix the problems? Exactly. And it's, again, because everybody now sees it as charity. Like, everybody wants to give out.

Right. But, like, who are the people that are really making, like you said, investments? Right. Or feel like that these are things, you know, that, like, because we don't take ownership in why things are the way they are, right? We're like, well, I didn't make it that way. So, you know, I have no responsibility to help out my neighbor or to change systems that, you know, press people in this country because I didn't, I didn't create it.

And the real fact of the matter is that the majority of us benefit from the way things are set up. And, and we, the way that we approach kind of fixing things of justice is very much from like a charitable kind of thing. Like, well, what do you want me to do about it besides, you know, cut a check and then move on? And people, I think, are to the point, or at least for me, I'm looking for people who are serious about making an investment in actual change. Not just, like I said, it's important because people are suffering right now and need immediate relief. And so the charitable checks are great, but it has to be a long-term plan along with that. All the pageantry and everybody, it's cool to do it now. But I'm still, I'm always looking like, okay, well, what's the next step?

Like how do we, how do we take this? You know, how do you teach a kid to fish so that he can feed his family? Right. And generations to go, you know, beyond that. And I think that's the hard part of what we're stuck with now, where everybody's just trying to get credit for being on the right side. And there's a lot of good things that are happening, but there's a lot of just, you know, fluff. So how frustrating was last summer, right?

I mean, on its head, that's a stupid question. But there's nuance to the levels of frustration. I'm sure you were feeling, like, because. it's frustrating anyways to live in your skin every day. But beyond that, these are things that you've been talking about. Your peers have been talking about. We've been talking about, but you've been talking about way longer than me, obviously.

And then last summer, the floodgates open and you want to welcome people to the fight. But is there like, hey, we've got to have a conversation at the door first. I have to understand why it took you this long to get to the doorstep. Well, I think I'm going to assume something real quick. I'm assuming that you're talking more so about kind of all of the allies that that kind of jumped on board around this past.

Yeah, this whole allyship conversation where like it, listen, at one point I was late, you know, at one point I was late. Here's the here's the thing that I, and I had to, and we ran into this when we first started the coalition. I think you saw some of it. But it's not really to me this summer. I wasn't really frustrated with all of, you know, white or black folks. It was really kind of just everybody who just showed up to the party, right?

Because it's cool now and everybody has a critique or, you know, a way that things should be done. And everybody kind of just downgrades or doesn't, don't appreciate all of the work. that has been put in up into this point. So when we stepped into the space back in like 2016, we recognized very quickly that there are organizations all over this country that have been fighting on these front lines over and over and over again. And so we had to do, you know, play a, you know,

kind of do a dance where we are now into the space and we can elevate it, but we can't step on the toes of those who do this work day and day out. Because like you said, half of us are going to leave after a month of doing this stuff. Right. And these people have dedicated their lives. So I think the hardest part about this summer, we're seeing so many new voices come in and really dominate the conversation and really steer the conversation away from actual, like, results and what it is that we want to get.

And so the result to me was just a bunch of pageantry. We want, we want, you know, Roger Goodell to say Black Lives Matters. Like, okay, he did it immediately. Then what? Right. Like, you know, you got companies that will make entire campaigns. They want you to come. They'll pay you.

to speak on their panels and talk to their, you know, executives, but what's the follow-up? You know, what are they doing in their home? What's, what's the investment that we're doing? Because it's like, now it's like the entire country showed up late to a conversation that we had back in 2016. And so, and now everybody wants to have a conversation. And it's like, oh, we all knew this. We've been reading this book for years now. Let's figure out how we're going to change it. Otherwise, this is just still smoking mirrors. Now that begs the question, though. What is activism? Because I think that word gets thrown around a lot. I think of you as an activist, I have been out front in saying that, like, don't call me an activist.

I'm a supporting role guy. Okay? Like, this A word has been thrown around in sports a lot. I had one of my veteran players I played with a long time in St. Louis, who I looked at as kind of an OG. He was like, as you're getting into this thing, Chris, be careful, you know, being an activist, I believe in what you're talking about, but realize people lose their lives over this stuff. So don't throw that word around and just kind of know who you are and who you're not. Do you ever consider like where that line is between activism being supportive? Oh, all the time.

I mean, I don't put myself on the same level as I do some of the grassroots organizations that are out there. I was like you. It was very uncomfortable people calling me an activist because this is not what I do full time. Right. Like I like to speak truth. If I see something, you know, I'll say something. And that's kind of where I started. And just being able to do that has put us in rooms to really, like, push forward the work that's being done by the true activists who dedicate their entire lives to it.

And then obviously, like, I've grown in that space as well. But it's still a term that makes me uncomfortable because I know I think I have a specific idea of what that looks like. And, you know, I like to pay homage to people who, like you said, put their lives on the line forward, who dedicate their lives. to it day in and day out and don't get any praise for it. And I get praised, you know, we get praised just for speaking the truth that we should have, you know, other folks have been yelling and screaming for years and don't get attention. Oh, listen, I got praise for putting my hand on your shoulder and just to say like, hey, like, it's not that, nothing we're doing should be praiseworthy. That's where we need to get to in, in our lifetime. And so I guess I wonder,

you know, along the activism line. And I've, I've, I've, heard and I've read some of the feedback I'll call it that you've gotten it must be illuminating to see some of that hatred that's so raw and so threatening because you could just imagine if you were that a word your entire life maybe in the 60s the 70s the 80s people are just as brash now so I don't think the time period matters how ugly is some of the things that you've heard oh let's I mean let's be clear nothing that I'm facing now is anything like the you know my the generations that came before me. Right.

And, you know, I think that this, our generation has a hard time really putting the due respect on those that have come before us as far as like what they were willing to sacrifice and put on the line. I'm like, for me, we talk about what endorsements, you know, some threats and just bad comments. But the comments are ugly, though. People don't understand how much, how threatening you are to some people. Yeah, but I always have the choice to turn my.

comments off. Yeah. Right. I can get off the social media. It's not, it's not, it's not, it's not necessarily the life that I live in, and like I'm not fighting against, you know, walking down the street every day where I can't go into somewhere I'm dealing with somebody in my face every single day. So it's very different than my ancestors, but it's still, we still have those same systems in place. So it's a very, you know, covert type of racism. Um, and for me, I think it's, it's to the point now where I've had to just like 2020, I really just kind of, I tried to step back a little bit

and really pay attention to what's happening. And the feeling I got, especially when you look at politics and like, you know, Republicans and Democrats, like I'm, it's to the point where it's the dog and pony show to me. Meaning that you've been in the game, or you were in a game for a long time.

Dad's been in the game, brothers in the game. You know that like there's, there's these sides in our minds, right? We have our agent and then we have the team, GM and the agent is supposed to negotiate on your behalf and the, you know, the GM is negotiating on teams behalf. And that's kind of how we've looked at like the Democratic Party and the Republicans, man, Republicans being the team and the GMs and Democrats, whatever, are supposed to have our best interest in mind when it comes to black people, at least. And so we have a loose relationship

with them. But like, once you learn a game for a while, you recognize that the GMs and the agents, They're tighter than you. They're tighter than the agent and you. Right. And it's not until, you know, you've used up kind of all your energy. You used up all your playing time, you know, all that you have, like, within your body. And then you're kicked out of the game that you realize, like, you've been had. Right.

Like, they've been in cahoots this whole time. And that's what I really feel like about American politics is that we can play the system, right? And they'll praise you for doing. doing things the diplomatic way and doing things, you know, through legislation and playing through the system. But when you really get into it and really go back, you realize that, like, this, it's a rig game. And really, we need a new way of doing things. And so there's a balance or at least a frustration I've had recently, like, how do we continue to, you know, make strides that are meaningful? So, you know, there's the charity and all the things that need to happen

because we need to continue to push forward. But if we're not, if we're not serious about changing everything, like I'm closer to being an abolitionist now than I've ever been. Because I don't think the more and more I study history, I'll ask people, you tell me at what point in time in our, in American history, has it worked? I think we'd be here for a second, for everybody. Right. You know, and that's the point.

So when we talk about reform and, you know, things like that. Those are things that I, you know, ideas I used to really chase. But now I'm a bit more skeptical of it because I don't have a reference for when it was right or when, you know, or what we could go back to. And so when we talk about, you know, politics now, at least a political way, I think I've grown a little bit frustrated in that. And so trying to find, you know, a way to be effective in communicating.

Because social media, I'm tired of that and, you know, and all that goes on on that. So trying to figure out ways to effectively communicate, figure out who's serious about the work, who's having success. Like, even outside of the limelight, you know, who are people that are creating, you know, investment opportunities, which is why I started my venture capital fund. Because I'm like, hey, how are all these other people making money within the systems that we all are governed? And you realize that, you know, black people in the working class and things like that, we use our bodies to make money. And that does not, that's not really great for a structure if they're trying to build generational wealth. Because once you can no longer labor, you no longer make money. And when you look at who who makes money in this country.

Money makes money. Money makes money. Money makes money. Right. And so how do we change then, you know, the conversations about wealth to make sure that we're being, that I'm telling, you know, kids the right thing. All my life I've been telling, been told and been telling people, you work hard, you work hard, you know, you'll get paid. And that's not the, that's not the reality at all in this system. And so there's things that, like, there's some things, you know, from a self-determination standpoint that people can be doing actively themselves.

if we kind of reprogram people on the grassroots. But then there's also hurdles from a systemic standpoint that we got to knock down and abolish, really. And I think that's the space that I'm trying to live in. You know, how do I, you know, get the knowledge that I've been able to get because I've been around some of these people, around some of these wealthy folks and how they do it, you get to watch, you know, the tactics and the movement.

And, okay, how do I teach that to, you know, people who look me who haven't had that education, but then also being able to have access in all of these rooms, you know, how do we, how do we illuminate these issues and knock down some of those hurdles? So even when I do give them these lessons, they're not running into, you know, things that will block them from achieving the success or the dreams that they have. Is there an occupation of these rooms included in the strategy? No, not for me. But, or at least not, not me, but it's very,

not governor Jenkins, not, not, not. No, no, no, no, no, I'm good. But he asked me, somebody has me recently some shit like that. I was like, you'd have to be fucking out of your gourd to run for office. I know this is like we're having a serious conversation, but it's laughful to me, the concept of running for office. I just could not do it. No, I mean, because we've been in those rooms, you know,

like we literally have been in those rooms where, you know, you'll talk to somebody. You're like, well, what's the problem with the criminal justice? And they're like, yo, it's broken. It costs us tax dollar money. It's wasting people's lives and where it's way too punitive. Like, well, what's the hold up? Like, oh, politics.

Like, oh, my constituents would never vote for me if they thought I was soft on crime. Right. And I'm like, hold on. So, so that's when you realize what the game of politics is. And that's why I really have no interest to being a politician. Because it's really not necessarily about what needs to get accomplished, but what can and and and really being a slave to you know um pose and opinions yeah you know and uh and i don't think that's i don't think that's where i'm best suited i think i am a storyteller and i think i am

um you know a voice that um can challenge people to think and so i'm looking at how do i stay in that lane and be most effective than that that's why you know i'm doing more things and in in film and with my production company, listening up, you know, because I feel like we've been in sports all our lives, right? So we've had the ability to jump on these platforms, but they're sports-driven platforms. So it's really hard to talk about real-life issues and politics

on those platforms and to be effective because what they end up doing all the time is just praising us as athletes for even champion in these causes. It's not really talking about the columns, right? And then you get on social media, and it's just the Wild Wild West, nobody really effectively communicates there. But what I have seen is when you get people to sit down and watch a film

or listen to a podcast, watch a documentary, you give them the ability to digest other information or other perspectives and the comfort, like, of their own home or around. And it seems to sink in a little bit different. So for me, I've been really focused on how to effectively communicate these ideas and challenge the way people think but also encourage people like lay out the roadmap to you know to navigate what happens and those things tend to last longer as well um I think you're so right because people don't read first of all

they don't have the attention span we don't we don't discuss things productively online I've said this all the time how many times have you heard somebody say you're right I'll consider that perspective on Twitter okay like you're wasting your time you're pissing in the wind Third, if you say something brilliant in an interview, and I'm sure somewhere along the lines you have, they print it and they put it under some menacing glare that you're giving on the football field, and then you're talking about criminal justice reform

to somebody who's just entering the conversation, they're seeing this football player that's positioned in his kind of more, I don't know, scary role. Yeah, it's like, and then the text is you can't read the tone. You can't hear the inflection in your voice. You can't hear the hurt sometimes. You can't hear the frustration sometimes.

You can't hear that when you're talking about maybe bail reform, you are encouraged by something that you heard recently. It's just that game you can't win. You can't win the clickbait game. You can't win an online argument. But what you can do is tell stories and be, you know, somebody who's a truth teller, as you said. And I think that's the most effective way.

I guess I would ask you, who's your role model in the space then? I mean, I think right now you have so many examples of people that are like moving in different spaces. But I think somebody who's probably not, I wouldn't say close, you know, to me or anything like that, but who is in a limelight, you know, in an entertainment space, but it's really diving into all of these different lanes and being very, very effective, I think will be Jay-Z. And being able to look at how he's, you know, taking his talent, right,

and flipped it to, you know, being an entrepreneur, being a philanthropist, you know, but also being able to then take, you know, his, not only his real capital, but his social capital and leverage it for the benefit of, you know, people. And I think that's,

to me it's a great example of like, Not only how to, if you want to be a successful businessman, right, but if you want to be a trailblazer and set up organizations and set up structures to really last the test of time, like to me, he's somebody that I can look at and see that. Because, you know, it's not just about, and that's why we started the coalition. It's not just about what I can do on my own, right?

I can go my whole life, speak the truth to power, do all of this stuff. If I've never created an environment or created a vehicle for other people to do the same, then once my voice is gone, once I'm done playing, nobody cares what I talk about, then there goes the entire movement. And so I think just watching how to leverage your celebrity, how to leverage the capital you have, how to leverage your circle or peers to make moves and really set up those structures for long-term success and for other voices

to be able to come on and do their thing and take it off to somewhere that I can't bring it. I think that's been my whole focus. Like how do we empower more and more people to take this further than I could ever go? Real specifically, before we kind of move on to football,

is there a place that, because listen, I'm always caught between as a white person and I'm safe asking this question because we've had a million conversations but for somebody who's out there thinking as they're listening podcasts, I think mostly good people

or trying to be good people listening to this podcast. You know, oftentimes it's like how can we help but then you hear people's reaction to how can we help like you figure it out, you know, because there's plenty of ways to help out there but how do we start? You know what I'm saying?

Like if you want to, let's say criminal justice reform because I think that's something very substantive and eye-opening for people. Give me a book. Give me some reading. Give me a place that some statistics land that can illuminate just how fucked up things are. Yeah.

I think the place that we need to start really is the framing of where we are right now. Like I said, we all have this passive kind of idea, especially when we're talking about, or when I'm talking to allies, this is what I kind of see the most, is that it's a very passive, approach that meaning we don't see ourselves as part of the problem, right?

So what can I do to help the problem? And there is no, there is no, you know, person out there or group out there who's just like once we fix them, all of this goes away. This has been built by our society at large. Like, and so the first step is there's plenty of books. You can, I mean, it's an easy Google search to find. books, documentaries, whatever you want to see how some of these system works. But it's like the first challenge is how do you find how you participate in the system?

Right. And then because then you'll have some responsibility as to why we got here. If you never feel like you were part of the problem, then you'll look at this stuff and you probably won't do anything because you feel like you did it right or you'll be in it for a second. But once you've realized that like I've participated in this or I have these same views on criminal justice reform. Right. Like once you figure out, okay, maybe it's me that needs to change something,

then I think you've at least framed those things the right way that you see yourself, you know, in it. And for me the same way. It's not about being black or white. It's like you have to see how you perpetuate the issue. So for me, I'm like, I'm somebody where like, you know, you realize like, okay, well, who are all these banks that are funding private prisons? Do I bank with them?

Right. that's a very simple thing. And this is what I learned most, you know, through the coalition and just how expansive these issues are. We want to go to education. You want to go to poverty. You want to go to criminal justice system. You want to go to a wealth gap.

And all of these things are connected. And so it's like literally everything about the way that we are governed that we've collected ourselves around these ideas, you know, don't work. And so it's like until we figure out, like you said, how do I? participate and perpetuate kind of the issues. And once I figured out, am I willing to even give up that leverage? Because when we talk about equality, it sounds great. But that's going to require some people to give up the privileges that they have

in order for everybody else to be, you know, normal. And that's not what we like to do. We like charity. We never want to give somebody, you know, enough to where they are now on our level. We like that we like those dynamics where I can still be the dominating class. I can still live my life and capitalize off of all these things. And out of the goodness of my heart, I'll give some handouts. But to really talk about, you know, equality in a real way to where systems are equal and just,

that requires a surrendering of a lot of privilege. And that's the part that like why people sometimes, and I can see people feel like they are being attacked, is because they're not recognizing how much, you know, where they stand. or how they benefit it, you know, off of these things. And until you do, like, you know, you are probably perpetuating the issue. Right. And so it's not, and it's so, and it's not the responsibility. It shouldn't be the responsibility of those who've been oppressed to educate their pressure on how they're, how they're impressed.

Exactly. It's like, oh, if anything, asks your people how to, how to, how do you put this stuff together? Right. Like, we're trying to figure out how to. But they're not going to tell you, though, Mal. Well, and I think, and I think, and I think a. A part of it, though, is just the recognition that what we thought we knew about our country and our ideals and our history is really not the truth.

It's just not the rosy picture it's been painted to be. It's never been. You know, from the anthem and Francis Scott Key to, I mean, like, just you have to consider, and the perfect example would be the Drew Breeze conversation. Okay, this is perfect because to Drew Breeze, the anthem meant something very different. And I think that's fair as fuck, dude. that's fair if the anthem now it would help you it would behoove you to educate yourself on the origins of the anthem and then also how it might make everybody else feel i think the latter is

it's assigned reading right now for americans the issue is when you start to apply your interpretation of our ideals and how other people might have to feel i feel like that that's the mistake that drew made to me i got no issue with people that have some some level of i'm proud just like okay I'm from a city and I've got problems there there's infrastructure problems in the city and there's racism in the city and there's I know all that I'm proud on a level I identify with the city I identify with I'm from there it's not perfect but I'm from there that's the way I'm proud to be an American I'm proud of the people around me I'm proud of the community but when you start applying this is how you need to feel about America that's when you fuck up yeah and I don't

think that's what he was trying to say I think you know me Knowing Drew, I just think he probably hadn't put a lot of thought to it at that moment and got asked a question and went back to his 2016 talking points. Yeah, tied. Right. You know, talk about the reasons why it means this to him. Yeah. And I just think, you know, what we have to, we all know our own reasons at this time, right? So the time right now not to evaluate, you know, why the anthem or why the system.

and why these things are so good to you. It's like, no, let's take the time to figure out what does it mean to other people. And then so like the key point in that whole, what Drew said, wasn't, to me, it was just that he left out the fact that like, oh, I have a grandfather that served in this country as well. Yeah.

So, you know, and didn't get in the history of our country with our black, like with black soldiers is totally different than with white soldiers. We came back and were attacked for wearing our uniforms. Like, you get what I'm saying? Like, we treated better bodies in these foreign countries and then came home and we're not celebrated for it, never got anything for it. So now, now, now, now, zoom out a couple of generations to now me and Drew Brees and our different family, you know, histories and lineage to the same kind of symbol, the flag. The relationship is going to be way different.

And I don't think we can really move to like a place of understanding. we really recognize, you know, what those origins come from. It wasn't until I learned about the sisters or the daughters of the Confederacy, that I realize now why so many people who are like Confederate flag, you know, totors really don't think that it's a traitor flag. They really think it's about Southern history and all these things because you go and learn that this is what, through concerted efforts, this is what they were taught and brainwashed and, you know, and that's been their experience.

So to now as an adult get, you know, all of a sudden they're ripping down a statue of somebody who in your whole life has been told as a hero. Like that's why they can't even fathom, you know, why these things need to be removed. And then there's this clash because we, none of us have a real accurate, um, upbringing and understanding about American's history. Like, and it's, and that's on purpose. And so, you know, and I get frustrated with, even like with Black History Month. Right.

We take an entire, you know, generations of history that have shaped the way, you know, we've grown as Americans and shaped the way that we've arrived at this point. And we just gloss over it, you know, for the shortest month in a week. 28 days. 28 days. Let's just squeeze this motherfucker in 28 days. I can't stand the month of February. Can we pick a better few months than just February? Why not? Well, we don't pick

We don't pick a month for white history. White history is the other 11th. Yeah, the fact that we have a month shows that we see black history different from American history. Right. When it's all connected. Like, if we're all citizens, we're all, you know, we all want to be equal. Then, like, to me, I'm like, imagine, I'm like black history to me is just, It really shouldn't be about the things that black people accomplished. I think we should celebrate that year round. If anything, we should take the month to talk about the crazy shit.

White people have done this whole time. Yeah. That's what we need to remember. Because that's what we need to realize. Like, you know, that's what we need. We need that context to really show where we are today. Why are people so angry? Like, why do you, you know, a white person who's coming to the table and trying to be an ally

and feel like you're getting beat up? Where is that coming from? Right? Because we don't have this, we don't have an understanding of like how we've all arrived to this point. So like to me, the more I've dove kind of into all of this, like the history of it makes more sense to me. I understand why people feel they do, feel the way they do who are opposed to me. And I also understand, you know, those people who I'm representing what they're going through. And it at least to me allows, it allows me to navigate these conversations a little bit better. I don't mind listening and talking heads who don't agree with me. I don't mind. hearing other people's perspectives. Because if they're listening to a false narrative, you know, somebody who's running with a false narrative, there's not much you can do. There's no need to argue with that person.

Right. Right. Like, we deal with it on social media. People who are just like, who are completely ignorant or uneducated or have not been exposed to the truth. Like, you know, that's, they're only going off of what they want.

So instead of me getting into a pissing match or a yelling match, I'm like, no, I need to expose you. You're very good at. that you're very good at just laying back and you know my one of my biggest problem is I want to fucking get in that pissing match all the time so I've tried to get at with you and Drew

you guys were able to get that that understanding conversationally I assume at some point yeah and it took a few it took a few conversations you know um especially especially because of I think how

you know hurt I felt like I was and people were because of Drew's comments, but also how broken up Drew was. Like he was hurt because he couldn't understand it at first. Yeah. And I think once he could, you know, because that's a thing, right? Like man, I give so much to, Drew give so much to charity. Yeah.

You know, especially like black and brown communities, right? Cutting checks and doing all these things. And that's why I said philanthropy is not necessarily enough. It's understanding, you know, the real experiences of people in this country and really knowing that that pain. empathizing with it. So that way it's not necessarily your job to give up everything you have and help everybody else, but to really look, now you can look for opportunities to help, you know, and what they're doing and what they're going through. Meet people where they are,

understand their circumstances, and then use the things that naturally come to you, the spaces that you're naturally in to, you know, to try to bring them into those rooms. And I think, but to do that, that takes like, you know, conversation. And that can't happen on social media. It can't happen, you know, and these, these small tickers on ESPN and all that. It's got to happen with real people in safe spaces. But also, you know, as a black person, I'm like, I'm not going to wait for white people to change their minds to live what I believe should be, you know, the American way. And so I'm also now focused on how do we create? these things for ourselves as we still try to, you know, convince everybody else that.

Right, which is two jobs you don't, you don't deserve to have to have. Let's just say that. One is a necessity, though, because I got kids, right? So it's my job. And I got a family. And like, yes, I play football and I've made a life of myself. But I go home and, like, my family deals with the same stuff. Everybody else is dealing with.

My community is the same stuff. You deal with the same stuff. You deal with the same stuff. that drives me the craziest is these guys got millions of dollars so how could they complete when you get pulled over by the police you probably still have the same field feeling that you that everybody else has that that had the same color skin as you i mean it's just i don't i didn't have that growing up i don't have that my kids don't have that your kids go to school they got to deal with different things that my kids aren't going to have to deal with and money doesn't make that go away No, I mean, it doesn't. It doesn't. But to me, it's bigger. It's not just like police, right?

No, I'm just throwing that out as one. Right, right, right. Yeah. And it's, but I want to give it, I want to give it enough. I want to give it, you know, it's, it's due recognition that it's not just the police. It's not just, you know, poverty. It's everything from school system. I was talking to somebody the other day and I'm just like, I don't understand how we have

standardized. testing for, you know, children but don't have standardized education. Right. You know, like our entire system is built. Or if I were a designer and I built our system, you know, it's not designed for everybody to win. Right. Or for everybody even have a real shot at success.

And I think that's what everybody wants when they come here. Everybody wants as an American is just the shot, a legitimate chance at living, like making a life for yourself. And oftentimes, we've snatched that opportunity from people. We've given more opportunity to other folks. And have all – and then when the natural kind of discord comes, then we want to say, no, guys, we're all one nation and we're together. But it's really hard to do that.

And I think the last year is really – or the last few years really showcase that, that we can't continue to sweet things under the rug and cover it with the American flag and think that we're going to have peace or have an understanding as a country. That's just not how things work. And the more and more this new generation goes into our history books and learns about why we are here

at this place, I think the more frustrated will grow And, you know, so I don't, it's hard to meet for me to see us moving closer to the goal until we move closer to the truth. Hard right term. What does Drew Breeze do? Does he retire? I don't know. I don't know, man. You know, I think it's tough. You know, he's somebody who's been at the top of this gang, you know, for since I've been in it. And the last four years for the Saints, you know, been like knocking on the door, you know, for that championship.

But I think, you know, his body is definitely, you know, getting up there and it's starting to wear down. Last two seasons, he's had some injuries that have kept him out for a significant amount of time. And, you know, as you get older, we love the game. We love Sundays. Right. I want to play for all this people doing what I do on Sunday.

Practice and training room. Like, yeah, I do. You don't even get to practice. You're not even playing football. Just in there rehabbing all day, every day, you know. And I've seen Drew do that, and that's not fun. And so I can only, and I'm not nearly as old as he is. And I, you know, I've been blessed to not miss any time in the last.

I don't even know how many years. Been a while. Right. And I can only imagine if I couldn't, like, play how much I would probably hate the game. But, you know, so I don't know, man. It's one of those balances, man. He's an Uber competitor. And I know in his mind, you know, he's sharp enough and he's still got enough in him.

He's competitive enough. I think it's just going to be, you know, for him, decide whether he wants to put his body through another season. And where, you know, where he prioritizes time with his family and his kids, as they, you know, he's got those boys and things. things they're growing up. You know, this game takes a lot away from me. And I think he's gotten a lot out of it. So we'll see. I don't play poker.

I just feel like it's one of those things where like fucking Kenny Rogers said, man, no one to hold him, no one to fold him, man, like, and no one to walk away. It is literally a game of that when it comes to you retiring, considering your legacy, considering what you want that last game to be. Sure, you could keep spinning the wheel and run it back another time. If you think there's nothing more disappointing than, say, losing a playoff game in some hypothetical way, there is a more disappointing way. And it's, you know, maybe you get hurt the third game. Maybe your team doesn't make the playoffs.

And then you're thinking, do I have to run it back again to meet that standard? There's no perfect moment to walk away. And that's the hardest part. I've been playing this game since I was seven. Yeah. Right? You know, and here I am 32. 33.

Dang, I don't even know how that I am. I just turned 30. Gray's. Yeah, it's bad. But, like, you know, I'll still have, like, I don't have college buddies, you know, who play with me in Ohio State hit me up, like, but you're still playing the game. It's crazy. And it's wild to think that, that I, like, they're still allowing me to play the game.

Let me tell you how crazy it is. If I'm sitting here watching you play the game on Sunday and I know you, like, it's, it just doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't compute. As I sit on the couch, you lose that edge pretty quick. You know, you can get it back if I tried hard enough to get it, but you, it's gone. Like, it goes away. It's unnatural what you're doing for living

and what we did for over a decade. And it's so unnatural. And to see your buddies with their families moving up in corporate America, you know, coaching high school football, like it's a totally different world. And it is insane to see a mid-30s-year-old guy out there.

40 car crashes a game. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's, I'm starting to see the game like that. Like when I play, you know, I don't, feel half of that stuff.

Yeah, exactly. It's cool. When I'm watching it, I'm like, man, I feel like my mom must have felt her entire time watching you play this game. Like, every collision, you're like, God, I know that's going to hurt. Gets worse and worse as you get older, I'm telling you. With New Orleans, I've asked you this in private, but I wonder if you could share. Gardner Johnson, who seems to be the best instigator in NFL history,

would he get two guys to punch him in the faces here? Yeah. Pretty impressive. What's he say to those guys? Dude, it's, it, every now and then I walk by and I'm like, oh, like, okay, he's saying some crazy stuff. But the majority of what he's saying is like, just annoying. Like, he's just an annoying player. His birthday's on the same day as mine.

So we have like a little connection. And I feel like he's a lot like the younger me, meaning that, like, right now, I don't have enough energy to be talking as much trash as he does. But I still talk. But with him, you know. man, it's a game. Because, and I've seen it happen over the season, he was doing something dumb, and he did this his rookie year, where he, like, just walk by casually and snatch your mouthpiece off and run, right?

Mind you, it's a free mouthpiece. You go to the sideline to give you another one. It's just the challenge just the act that challenges, like, your manhood. You feel like you get tried. And then you've got to see it on film, right? So now every opponent for the rest of the year is, like, I'm not going to be that guy. and when he shows up he does what he does,

they lose their cool. And I'm like, for him, I'm like, look, bro, that is, that is an element of your game that, like,

you can't underestimate. Don't lose it. A dude willing to get kicked out of a playoff game just to prove a point. I'm like, that's, so I'm like,

you need to figure out how to, how to hone into that without hurting, like, without hurting yourself. Like, you know,

don't get the team, you know, any penalties, don't make it work against you. Yeah. But I'm like, but that's a skill, bro.

And I don't think there weren't many times where he got a flag by himself. It was usually either the other team got a flag or they were offsetting penalties. And I don't know if I'll get fine for this. I don't care. But there was one game where the ref threw a flag on him and he threw a flag on both him and some other opponent. And I said, hold on, why did you throw it on both of them? The guy, like, plunged him.

He didn't do nothing. He's like, well, I saw the whole thing. I said, what happened? He said, he had to say something to make him get that mad. And it went to the point where you don't even, you don't even seeing a violation. It just had to be. It just had to be him, right?

It's like, okay. That's what I'm like, you know, it's, I love it personally as a teammate, but because I think it does give us, when you put that next to Marshawn Ladimore or myself, Marcus Williams, Genoors Jenkins. A nice mix, man. That's a nice mix. And it fits our personalities.

I think it fits in with our personalities. Great. And so for me, I'm like, to me, I'm like, more power to you. Keep doing what you do. Just be cognizant of how what the narrative is around you and how, you know, that's going to affect, you know, how they treat you in the games. But then also, I'm like, even in this league, like,

you know, people are going to judge you based off of the narrative around you. So just be. be careful about, you know, what you, which you, which, how you want to present yourself. I'm like, but don't take, don't take that away from, from your game at all. Because that, it's like Hall of Fame. I think he's doing a bangout job. I love it.

I identified it and I love it. He's now one of my favorite players. What did Brady figure out the third term around? Was it anything different or he just got you all that time? I think he figured out he didn't have to win the game. That's real. Yeah. I mean, like, he was very patient.

He wasn't going to make any mistakes. He's going to run the ball. And a lot of their defense to play well. Their defense, the third time we played them, they played lights out. They outplayed our defense, who I thought had a decent day, and they took the ball away. And as long as, you know, Brady didn't mess up the game, you know, we're split safety, run the ball. And I think they did a better job of running the ball in that third game. But they've, you know, it was, it was, to me, the patience of Brady,

just understanding how he needed to win that game. And then, obviously, their defense that just got better and better as the season went on. Yeah, their defense, you know, showed up that day. How many steps did Grunk lose? Because the second half of our game, and you play great in that game, but we were swimming the second half of that Super Bowl. Like, can we just get a stop somewhere in here? Gronk has just been unleashed, not the same player this year, but still pretty good.

The way they used him a lot, he was blocking that sort of thing. What did you see comparatively, physically from him two years later? I think he's a better blocker now. And you can tell he adjusted his game. They didn't use him that much early. Right. But as the season went on, they figured out in that offense, what does he do best? And how do we put him in those positions?

and, you know, late in a year, he was a big factor when they needed it, when everybody else was going to get all the attention, the Mike Evans, the A-Bs, the Godlins, you know, who are the guys that can win and who have the best matchup? You know Brady's all about matchups. And to me, I think they figured out with all the attention going to these wilds, you're tied-in and you're running back, the run game, and these tight-ins are things that can be, that you can really rest your hat on.

And they did that later in the year. I think that formula played better for them in playoffs. I agree. I agree. I think they were an amazing case study in just learning their team. And you knew it was going to be like that because no preseason, no OTAs, like they were going to get better as the year went on. Because he is Brady. And I think one of the things that makes him great,

you talk about the goat and the best ever. Like people talk about like Aaron Rogers physically does things with footballs that you're just like, all right, Brady's not doing that. but the reason Brady has been able to win and a lot of it's been good teams, defenses, but also leadership and just like kind of willing a locker room to be where they need to be by the fourth quarter of the season.

That's something he did very well in New England. You were in New Orleans, you know, this year, you spent the bulk of your career, it feels like you're an eagle. Alvin Kamara, after we won the Super Bowl, said, data seen us in the NFC championship, X, Y, Z would have happened. They would have beat us.

now that you've been on both teams what would that matchup have been like and has that ever come up in the lunchroom? No, it's never come up. Mainly because I can't I couldn't talk trash about Saints, Eagles because the last time we went up there

we played them twice. What year was that? It was 2018. 18, yeah. They spake this like 50-something to whatever in New Orleans. Then we came back for the playoffs. and put up a decent fight, but lost that game too.

Didn't Sean Payton run the score up and weren't you mad about that? Are you not mad anymore? Oh, I'm not mad. I mean, I was mad about it because I'm like, it's like when you're a boy, you're playing mad, and he runs the score up on you. Like, you knew he was going to do it. Yes. But you just mad that you couldn't stop it.

I'm not bad at him. Yeah, hate the game, dude. Right, you know. But, no, Sean has always been a, has been a coach that I've enjoyed playing for, and even competing against. But he's going to he's going to finish you. If he gets a chance, he's going to finish you.

And that's why I think your coach needs a little bit of that. I got no problem with that. I really don't, you know, you just know that that guy's going to do whatever it takes. You know. But that trickles down. You know how that goes.

Yeah. The way your head coach is, and I think that's the Brady effect, really. Yeah. It's like you can't stand next to a, you can't play next. to a guy who is hyper competitive and not raise your competition level. Yeah.

Like, you're either not going to fit in or you're going to raise, like, you're going to raise your bar to meet that person. I think Sean is like that. He creates environments that make you, like, he's going to find out who the dogs are and who the cats are in the situation. Well, I heard that training camp as hell. Man, but I remember after that game specifically when we play, and I'm not going to put the player out there, but, like, he talked about, like, he talked about, like,

a certain player, he didn't think he could tackle him. So he literally the first five plays ran the ball at that specific player. He's going to find out, like, who does he think, you know, doesn't have the bite to them? And that's where they're going to go. And if you, you know, if they find out that you got bite to him, cool, they move somewhere else. But, like, I respect that. I like that as a player because it creates an environment. Like, we're now, even as the players, we're looking for the weak link, like, and testing,

and testing the armor of, you know, our opponents. And once we find who that weak link is, it's over with. And a lot of times is somebody in your room, a defensive back. I mean, like, whether it's through the air or, hey, can this corner tackle, which is a big one. You know, like corners. And that's why teams that go 11 deep on defense are so dangerous because you can count on 11 guys. I'm not saying all 11 have to be playmakers, but if there's no weak link, there's no matchup exploitation, you take away that automatic bread and butter that somebody great like a Sean

Peyton or Bill Belichick, you know, flipping the conversation offensive. defense you take away that advantage Philly run three plays I want to ask you about let's start with the Julio Jones play divisional round what do you remember about how close that play was and how close we were to going home I remember I didn't think we're going home to be honest because of four plays from the three or something like that and I just remember uh getting the stops a couple times in a row derby made a really strong tackle on like the one yard line of slant on with whoo Huge tackle. Yeah, that was really, to me, the one that saved it.

But the second, because he was by itself with no help. The last play, though, but as soon as they line up, you had me around me, like, hey, this is a sprint out. Like, we knew the play before it came. So I wasn't really, I never really felt like we were going home that day. It was just like, okay, this is, it was like almost, that whole season was one of those things where it was, I never felt like we were going to lose. Like, it was going to be a dramatic, like, game.

for the sake of the story, but I always like, it's like we always felt what the ending was gonna be if we did what we needed to do. No, I know. I hear that, that play was crazy. I hear that there was that sense of, you know, however ugly this gets,

we're gonna walk out of this building and we're playing next week. But yeah, you're right. The whole stadium knew is sprint right. And that, and that shrinks the field down big time. Like, you know, really then the question is, hey, who's gonna be adding, who's gonna be pulling him up,

you know, BG, I don't remember exactly how he got there. Nigel. Nigel pulled. Soon that happened, Nigel shot his gun. Yep. Pulled it up. I took, I took, I took, um, uh, Sunu on a seven cut.

And then the, you got Julio right there at the pylon. And Jalen just did a great job of being in position enough where he didn't have an easy, uncontested catch. But he still was close because it's Julio Jones. Yes. That's what I'm saying. How about the Brandon Cook's play? Did you know when you hit him that he might not be getting up?

I had the fullback in the flat and they threw like, you know, route kind of down the field. And as I'm running to the ball, he's just doing a lot of, like, juke in and shaking. And I'm like, does he not? Oh, yeah, you pulled him up. Yeah. I'm like, do you not feel me over here? I'm like, okay.

And like, within two steps, I'm like, he's got a, like, usually, you know, ball carriers have a little bit of awareness where they'll check the blind spots for a second. And he just never did. And so, like, when I hit him, it was like, rarely do you get to hit somebody who doesn't feel you at all? At all. Yeah, dude. it's a dream or anything yeah and um i just tried not to celebrate like right over top of me

so i just like walked off a little bit but because i knew i'm like yeah he's not he's not getting that he might not get up he got up since but it took a minute he's got enough sense yeah he's not still he's not still laying there in minnesota but uh how about this one because this one has tortured me well for like a week there were people thinking that i had brady on the reverse pass which which is not true, dude. Who had Brady on the reverse pass? Explain to people who, because a lot of times there's nobody that's got him. Nobody has a quarterback in pass coverage. So explain to people as you talk through like a reverse pass, a trick play like that. What are the responsibilities? So most of the time, any of those reverse passes or things like that is going to come down to

who the flat defender is, which would have been me, I think, on that play. Yeah, but you see I had your back. I was like five steps behind him. But so what normally happens is you count the five eligibles, right? And any coverage. Yeah. So you got three wide receivers that tied in and a back. If all of them go to the right, then me is the left flat player. Like I have no work.

I'm going to move and condense the coverage, you know, to where the five eligibles are. Well, the reason that those trick plays work is now they create a sixth eligible receiver with the quarterback. And nobody's ever expecting, oh, quarterback comes over here. I need to go cover Tom Brady. We don't have any coverage that requires me to cover Tom Brady. Which is why the play works.

And luckily for us, he dropped it. Oh, my gosh. This is the only time I think he's ever been a meme. All right, I want to hit the Carson thing because he just got shipped out. I know you, and your comments I thought were really fair. I did. You know, I've made it known.

I think if I've had any issue with the Carson conversation has been how polarizing it's been, And when you use terms like locker room cancer, I mean, dude, we've played with some locker room cancers. The guy's a good dude. He's got things to work on. Right. How does it work out in Indy? I think, I think the change of scenery for him is going to be good.

You know, he gets to recreate who he gets a second chance at it. And it was like the same thing for me leaving New Orleans. Obviously, way different circumstances. But just from the ability. to recreate who you are as a player. Like, I think PPF had me rated like the worst safety in the league at that time. And I think that's almost a good thing to have a bad PFF grade. I mean, right, yeah, it is.

But you know how it is. But, like, you know, you get to a new place and you get to recreate yourself. You get to, you get the control with the narrative. Narrative is around you based off of like a fresh start. And that was good for me and really changed the trajectory of my career. It's just getting into a new space and kind of. starting so i think for him you know he's had to learn a lot of hard lessons right so he's had an MVP season and in that season he had to watch somebody else take the team through a super bowl

yeah the very next year you know quarterback controversy he wins that gets hurt and that same dude puts life into you know your team and go off then you don't have a great year but you still make the playoffs you get like all of these things that have happened to him like whether he can it may be hard to overcome those things in philly right but now that he's somewhere else, those lessons are going to be things that he, I hope, will learn from and lean on and make him a better player, especially when it comes to, like, the locker and stuff. Because, like you said, he's not a locker on cancel. We play with him, and that's not it.

You want him to reach out more. Yeah, as what teams want from their quarterbacks and, like, what teams want from their leaders, that's something that I think he's had to grow with. And honestly, when he first got to Philly, he didn't have to be a leader, right? We allowed him to just stay in your corner and worry about being a rookie quarterback. It was myself, you, Tori Smith, you know, like all these other guys who we had, who won championships, who were veteran leaders, that really allowed Carson kind of to just grow kind of, you know, in a pot, per se. It was an afterthought.

His leadership, our Super Bowl year from the beginning, I never thought about or evaluated. Is Carson a leader or not? What I thought about was, damn, this kid's pretty good. And he's a good kid. if anything, he's a little shy. You'd like to see him reach out more and like kind of go over to that corner of locker room and that sort of thing. Like I read Albert Breers article this morning, which I thought was the fairest synopsis yet, which, you know, read in effect that actually people think he's a good guy.

What he needs to do is reach out to every corner of the locker room better. And, you know, the coach ability is stubbornness. He ain't the only player, but we expect something more out of a quarterback, right? That's the bottom line. He's not the only quarterback who's stubborn. But, you know, this has existed as. this extreme conversation when he's got things to fix but i don't remember ever thinking what an asshole no no you know um but you know i think it's it's one of those situations man we you know

you we've been there and especially especially in philly it's like you you try to keep things so much in-house there because of how the media is yeah that like right like you know that when when you don't handle something and something maybe like bubbles and spills over, then it's like you give them the right to write the story without your narrative, then it. And I think that's really, we've missed

Carson's voice like in this whole discussion. Yeah. Right? Like the only time he's really said something is like, you know, he makes the normal statements or comments that somebody will make, like he's taking responsibility for things. I need to be a better quarterback. I need to do that. Right. Right. But we've never really heard him talk

candidly about his experience in that. locker room or you know what he's going through as a coach because you know like even as defensive players we we'll see what happens in a locker room and on the field but we don't really know you know what his relationships like with the coach we don't know with the system you know with the player who's calling the plays does he have input in that does he have an issue with this receiver does he have like you know those those like if in a d-line room I have an issue with player X we pretty much only know that in the d-line room you know like so there is a case of And this is what's, you know, really confusing to me is I'll ask five players on offense

and one or two of them might echo the sentiments in an Albert Breer article. And three might be like, this is all exaggerated. I think everything does, I think everything depends on your relationship to the player. And so, of course, if you anonymously source 53 teammates or 52, probably be a couple motherfuckers that don't like us. For sure. You know what I mean? So I just think, like, the bottom line is he's got to produce.

When he produces, this stuff becomes less important. And he gets the confidence where he is reaching out to dudes. And I'm rooting for him. You know, like my thing is we all know how tough this city can be. And, you know, it's not his fault that Nick Foles is just this guy with this crazy magnetism. I mean, he's not the greatest quarterback of all time. But he did do those things where he was like really a social dude and would reach out to every corner of the locker.

And I think that's where Carson's got to work on things. Yeah. You know. I mean, but the main thing for Carson, though, we want to see them produce on the field. Yeah. Because like you said, the rest of it, nobody, we don't sign quarterbacks because they're nice guys. Yeah. You sign quarterbacks because you want to win, right?

And you want to see them. And what the kind of X factor you look for is can they make their other team, their other teammates better? Yeah. Right. Like, so if not, you got to be really talented. Like, you can, you can be less talented if you make everybody else better. And I think Carson is just trying to figure out, you know, where he's, fits in that special. The Bob McNair

thing is kind of indirectly led to what we're looking at with DeShone Watson, right? Talking about quarterback mobility, Carson's on the move. Deshawn may or may not get traded. We were in the room when Bob McNair said what he said about inmates

running the asylum and that sort of thing, right? That was, we were in that room. Yeah. How could I forget that? I've heard enough outlandish shit that I forgot seeing that happen in person. Yeah. But how do owner support their players because Bill Barnwell brought it up the other day

that comment started the whole domino effect that's led to the Texans being where they are now goes to show you you got to be in lockstep with your players on at least a lot of what they're doing and support them how can owners support better? Well I think that

the first thing is again framing these things so we're talking about what players are doing off the field or I'll give you a better example. So I look at the NBA as we look at the relationship that their team owners have with their players.

And obviously their players have a lot more leverage with money, contracts off the court, but also what they make. But what you see is you'll see ownership really side by side with their players. So think about how many NBA-owned team owners have done or made money, and brought their players into other deals outside of sports.

That kind of relationship does not exist in the NFL. Or if they do, it's only for maybe a handful of guys. And so when we talk about supporting players, it's not just about, it's not like charity, like, oh, well, my, you know, my player, one of my players has a foundation that saves animals. Like, how do I become, you know, a pet enthusiast? Like, no, that's not what we're looking for. We're like, how can you function in the spaces that you have as ownership to really push the narrative for what your players are fighting for?

And so a lot of these owners have been in the rooms with the people who make the decisions that, like, you know, we're fighting against. They've got the ability to wield, you know, their wallets at city officials and different. people and make things happen way faster than we can because they're in those rooms. We're trying to kick those doors down to get into these spaces when these team owners have them already. And so I think to me, the most effective place is that. I love to see, you know, when team owners don't get in the way of their players, that's like great, but like we don't want to patch me back for not doing anything. You just didn't mess it up.

Right. And it's like, and then, you know, cutting the check and all that stuff is cool. but it's it is in the in the when you look at how much potential a team owner or you know organization has in creating change to see you know to see them only cut a check or kind of facilitate you know players expressing themselves it's just like such a I feel like so much is wasted because we have better examples of of you know what it looks like when ownership is in lockstep with their players. And I think that the NBA is a great example of that. But I also think that they're more owners who are who culturally would not, if they were to speak their voices,

you know, like speak their minds to where they are, we're expecting them to support their players when in fact, they don't support, like, they don't support their even ideals at all. Yeah. And it can be dicey because like Stephen Ross, for instance, done some great work, undeniably great work. But then we had the whole thing where you know where I was. I was like the minute Stephen Ross was down there in Florida in the midst of talking all the social justice stuff and equality was holding a huge fundraiser for Trump. And then you're like, damn, do I want to work with this guy anymore? Like, how do we navigate that? You know, my answer was like, well, I just don't want to work with that owner anymore. But sometimes it's a necessary evil to do business

with guys that aren't in 100% lockstep. Well, I think it goes again to that analogy I had earlier. as a player in the game, once you recognize that the GM and your agent are both in cahoots, at least once you're aware of that, you know how to play the game. So I never would put my trust in a team owner to execute, you know, my ideas of what I want to do for my people. But I also wouldn't leave any, like,

there's something to be gained out of having this person in my corner that'll, you know, that'll push the, the movement forward, or we can get access to some funds to help some people. Like, you got to know how to use people in this game. Like, we, we, we're being used. Like, we, yeah, we're being used every single day, right? And so what you have to figure out is like, how do I then make this work for me or make this work for, you know, the people I'm fighting for?

And sometimes that might mean, um, walking and, you know, walking side by side with somebody you really don't fool with. But, you know, until we have the power to do it without them and on their own, we got to play the game and be smart about it. A little jewel there to finish with from my man Malcolm Jenkins. Malk, thank you so much for the time, dude. I miss sharing the field with you. But I tell you, the view from here on the couch is pretty good, too.

Well, whenever that time comes, I'll be on the couch with you. Okay, buddy. Not to sure. All right, bro. All right. See you soon, dude.