Insight with Chris Van Vliet - 2-Time Super Bowl Champion Chris Long On Developing a Champion's Mindset

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

Chris Long is a retired NFL player, 2-time Super Bowl Champion, podcaster, and philanthropist. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his identity shift to life after the NFL, growing up the son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Howie Long, his podcast called "Green Light with Chris Long", winning back-to-back Super Bowls, his charity work to get clean water in Tanzania, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, becoming a father, raising his two sons and much more! For more information about The Chris Long Foundation visit: https://chrislongfoundation.org/about/ If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. For more information about CVV and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are going. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Bleas! Well, how are you, my friends? Welcome back to another audio adventure on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet. Thank you so much for being with us on this episode and on every single episode. And I've been looking forward to this interview for a long time. Nah, no pun intended, long time.

But seriously, Chris Long is not only a two-time Super Bowl champion with the Patriots and the Eagles. Back-to-back Super Bowl champion, by the way. Not only someone who played 11 years in the NFL, but he also has a pretty fantastic podcast called Greenlight and also does some amazing charity work that we dive into here. You can find him on Twitter at Joel 9-1. So that's J-O-E-L, the number 9.

O-N-E. And on Instagram, he's at La Flama Blanca 95. Mine's a little bit simpler. It's just Chris Van Fleet. So you can find us both on there. So take a screenshot and tag us. Let us know that you're listening. Moses Rocco is our fan of the week.

He simply says, if you can't benefit from Chris and his guests, you need to reevaluate your life. Wow! I love it. Thank you, Moses. I appreciate the kind words. Appreciate you taking the time to leave a review.

I read one on every single episode. So if you would be so kind as to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, I will read it out here for free, of course. For free. All right, let's get into this great conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Long. Always good to talk to a fellow, Chris. Chris Long, thanks for being on with us.

What's up, dude? How are you? I'm doing amazing. Congrats to you and all of the success with everything. Green lights, just crushing it. Thanks, man. Anytime somebody says that I'm kind of surprised, I'm like, Oh, great.

What a nice surprise. We work our butts off here. The guys are behind the machines right now. And we just grind it out, kind of keep our heads down. And anytime we hear that, that's great. Well, the funny thing about podcasting, and you know this, is you're kind of doing it in a vacuum, right? Like, you're just in a room.

There's maybe one or two or three other people in there. And you forget that when you hit that button, it goes out to the entire world. It's easy to forget. But, you know, it's better to forget because if you forget, for the most part, you're going to be you. You know, like, so the goal is, like, if I was on TV or something and, and I, you kind of, like, the cameras are there and you know it's live and that sort of thing, although you don't have the audience, it's more like kind of assume that, hey, what you say

is going to be, it's going to be chopped up pretty quickly here by a million people. But when you're podcasting, it's good and bad. Like, the bad part is sometimes you don't have that, like, when I played, you have that, the crowd that like tells you if you made a good play or not instantly yeah when you're podcasting like you don't have that so that's the one thing that uh that i'm trying to break the habit of of needing to know how people felt about the pod like and it's actually a nice feeling when you finally let that go a little bit yeah you kind of just put it out into the world and that's it you got to let go of it exactly you got to let go of it exactly what is a kids off to college i

Right. What is a green light to you? Green light is basically, well, my favorite color is green. You know, I have a green truck. I have a green hoodie. I have green shorts on right now. My producers are doing this. I like the color, okay. But also for me, it's like we talk about pretty much anything. We talk about whatever I want to talk about, which is the whole point of getting into podcasts. It's the whole point of partnering with blue wire. You know, like on the scale of people who are more meddling and groups that are more meddling and kind of guides you down the path of however they want you to produce your content, they're on the more like, hey, hands off end of the spectrum. So I love that. And it kind of fits the personality of what we got going. I mean, we just kind of turn it on and, you know, whatever we want to talk about, we talk about. No, I love that.

Was football the first sport that you ever played? First sport I ever played was probably T-ball. Either that or soccer. I was on a team and soccer. that didn't score a goal the entire season. Not my fault. I was the goalie. So I was off the hook.

But like T-ball, then football, like football around nine or ten. But I went out there and the weight limit, I was too high. It wasn't that I was like a big kid. It was just I was tall. You know, like inevitably you're going to weigh more than the other kids. Sure. I'd take a few years off and then got serious about it in JV, JV football. But I wasn't real good.

I was actually pretty bad at it for a long time. Yeah. And look, and every kid growing up playing football wants to be past the ball. So when do you, like, when did you go, oh, you know what, I'm actually pretty good at defense? You know what? Honestly, it's probably my middle school. It wasn't so much what you said. It was more my middle school football year. It was like maybe seventh grade. I got the ball out of the back field and I tripped. And my coach didn't give me the ball ever again, which spoke volumes. gave it to me one more time and I gained 12 yards and got called back by a holding penalty in JV football. So the fact that I was six foot three in high school, 255 and could really run or whatever it was, and I wasn't getting the ball, said everything I need to know about my prospects as an offensive player in the future. And like, honestly, my dad thought I would be a better guard than a defensive end because he didn't know if I was athletic enough to play defensive end in the NFL. Like talk about having a dad that's pretty straight up with you.

He's like, you might want to work on your guard sets. I mean, this was in high school. He was like, we should really start working on your guard sets. He'd be a great guard, that sort of thing. Defense kind of just happened, and I loved it. I love third down. I love that thrill of like hearing the crowd in big situations and having that on your side at home.

And whether it was high school in front of 150 people or 200 people with cowbells or college in front of 60 or in front of 85 at a Super Bowl. It's all the same to me. Yeah, I'm sure we'll dig into this a little bit more, but how do you replace that in everyday life now that you're retired? You don't. Like, to me, it's an unrealistic expectation, my personal take on it.

And Al Groh told me this. He was my college coach and somebody I trust a great deal. He's like, don't go into the next phase looking to replace football because you'll never replace football. Like, if I go looking to get that same feeling I got on third down, second a quarterback at the link. I'm going to be disappointed. You set yourself up for disappointment.

I think you replace it with something that, like, if you really do some inventory, why I played football wasn't because I'm like some football fanatic. I played football because it was an opportunity to compete at something, to grind at something. I like to work, and I like to feel the satisfaction of we just accomplished something. That was really the feeling that you loved

when you walked back in a locker, you got on the bus with your teammates, the camaraderie. That's hard to replace too. but that feeling of, hey, we just did something. We just busted our asses collectively for eight straight days. We were sore. We were tired. You know, people were talking about us on the internet.

People were writing articles about us. Maybe we didn't have a chance to win this game, but we went out and we won it, and I was a part of helping us win. And that's something that, like, you can try to replace. You can replace the work aspect of it. You can replace the camaraderie aspect of it at work, different social groups that you're involved in, that sort of thing, the satisfaction of making a difference in your foundation, you piecemeal it together, but you never really replace that

one thing. And as long as you don't have that expectation, I think you can be okay. What I think is so interesting about the career of an NFL player is you try as hard as you can as a kid to make the high school team. Then you play as well as you can in high school to try to get a scholarship in college. And then you play as well as you can in college to try to get drafted or play in the NFL. Then what? Then there's no like, hey, this is the next, you go to the next room. Like the next room is retirement.

It's relative obscurity. It's, you know, it's like some guys, if they want to disappear, they can really disappear. Sure. I mean, it is. And I think one of the hardest things about football and you just outlined it is there's, There's no, there's no, hey, I'm going to work at this job for the next 40 years. Like, if you're one of the best people in your profession or anything else, for the most part in society, you're going to work a very long time at that one thing, which is comforting. It's nice when your head hits the pillow and you're like, I got the next 30 years figured out.

I got to work at it. But it's probably a good thing that, you know, like, I don't know if I'd be able to, I'd be able to handle that grind the rest of my life. if in some like alternate universe, you didn't get old and you just kept playing football. I think after a while it burns you out. And I think, you know, if you approach retirement and you approach the next thing the right way with realistic expectations and you're healthy about it, you can beat retirement. I mean, that's really the next game, right? Like, and so many guys struggle with it.

I've struggled with it at times. We have our ups and downs. But it's just that's the next game is like life. And, you know, I think that's why certain guys struggle. is because it's so different than football. I mean, there are things you can take from football to apply to life, but it's a totally different game. Is there anything now, like when you get out of bed in the morning

where you're like, oh, man, I remember this knee injury from this game or this elbow injury or whatever it happens to be? Yeah. Yeah, mostly like when I drop stuff, I have a fused, I have a fused kind of like thumb, so like my thumb doesn't move like everybody else. I drop keys all the time. I fumble with stuff. I can't reach in my pocket.

You know, there's little stuff like that. Some mornings you wake up and you have back spasms or something because you tried to lift weights like my buddies are doing CrossFit. Like there's no chance I could ever do CrossFit. Like there's barely a chance I can put a bar on my back and squat without having to, you know, be limping around the rest of the week. Those are realities. That's the tradeoff.

My dad played 13 years of league. I know what that looks like. But at the same time I got out on time. Like I left when I wanted to leave and I left really. relatively healthy. And part of the reason was because I wanted to run around with my kids and do a bunch of other stuff that, you know, I hadn't been able to do the rest of my time playing football. Yeah. How did you know that you were done? How did you know it was going to be your last season? I wasn't sure. I mean, even down to retiring, I wasn't sure. But, you know, a decision like that is never going to be like, okay, now it's time. You're like, nobody's going to, I think the craziest thing is if you have the luxury of not getting run out of the league, you know, and eventually, that happens to all of us, but like, I'm sitting there in my 11th year and I'm kind of burn out, not by football, but more by like the politics of upstairs and downstairs, like

the, you know, GMs, coaches, the whole thing, being an older player that I'm trying to run you out of the league because you're older and you call us more with the new CBA. Like, you just get burn out. And I think the bottom line is when you get to that crossroads, it's like, you don't know when that's going to be and nobody's like, here are the pros and cons and let me help you make that decision. You have to like completely make it yourself. Like every other decision you've made as a football player has been based on, you know, like, I've been like kind of like you said, you know what the blueprint is from college, the pros, the pros, the next contract, you know, like there's a, everybody is so different and everybody's

career is so different, how they feel about their career is so different. And everybody's football situation is so different by year 11, 12, 13, that it was, I just woke up one day and I said The stuff that I love doing for a long time Monday through Saturday, I don't love anymore. And I wasn't having fun in the building, like, working as hard as I could to get ready for Sunday. And it came to a point where I was with the Eagles. And if I came back my role, I didn't think was the right role. That's fine. You know, me and Howie Roseman, those guys disagreed, Jim Schwartz, that sort of thing.

I don't hold any ill will. but what I wasn't going to do was like go play some weird place and move my family halfway around across the country. I loved Philly. I felt like I was finally home again. St. Louis, we moved to L.A. I got cut. I went to do England.

Loved it there. But, you know, I wanted a better scheme fit. So I ended up in Philly and I loved it. And it just turned out to be one of those things where I was like, all right, I could go play in like out on the West Coast, a couple teams calling, you know, that sort of thing. But like, I have two little kids right now. and they're without even trying to make it a pros and cons situation they were kind of just more important to me my family is more important to me than football and like i said you wake up one day and you

just realize it there's no like for me at least there wasn't some like 10 year plan you know i thought i wanted to retire at like seven or eight years like and i just kept playing and then there was just a time it's funny how you mentioned like being quote unquote old in the nfl because your age because it's like a three. How do you look at your former teammate Tom Brady who's just still crushing it 20 plus years in? Well, it's really weird. I mean, like, I get that. I mean, I really do him playing as long as he's played because it's quarterback's a different position. Yeah, like I wouldn't want to get drilled a couple times a game, but the car accident thing like, you know, playing defensive end and playing linebacker or playing safety in the NFL

or offensive line. It's like a bunch of car accidents. especially up front every week. So when I look at somebody like Tom, I'm like, he's the greatest of all time. He's been, you know, maniacal about like his body. He's been extremely detail-oriented. He did a great job of placing himself in a situation that would be conducive to him playing longer.

Weather-wise, weaponry-wise, like, offense-wise. Like, he's very intentional about everything he does. And he's a guy who has a 15-year plan because he knows, like, he's going to have the autonomy to carry that plan out. And so I watch him at home and I'm just amazed by him. I mean, but at the same time, it doesn't surprise me. The other day, I'm watching Jason Peters still playing. Jason Peters is like, or like Andrew Whitworth.

You know, like Andrew Whitworth is 40 and he's an offensive lineman. Like that stuff to me makes no sense. Like no sense at all. What would you say is the biggest thing you learned from Brady, whether it was something he intentionally told you or something you just picked up on from watching him? Oh, man. I would say, learn from him.

I would say I learned about him. I learned that he's actually not this, like, scary guy yelling at people on the sidelines. He's actually, like, a really great teammate and really welcoming and a warm dude. Like, he's a great, fun guy to have around the locker room. And I think, like, the way that New England is, like, they kind of close things off. And you've seen the way his brand has changed since he went to Tampa Bay. Yeah. Like, again, it's like a kid that goes to college and never and never got to like, you know,

do anything fun in high school. Like, all of a sudden it's all going to come out in a couple years. And that's kind of what we're seeing with Brady right now. And I think it's really cool that people get to see what he's like and guys that play with him already knew what he was like. Which Super Bowl would you say meant more to you? The New England one or the Philadelphia one? I mean, New England was like a huge relief.

It was like, hey, if there's no New England. if we lose that Super Bowl, I retire. Like, I'm done. I was so sick of it. Yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was hurt for two years in St. Louis. We lost my entire career there.

You know, I was kind of at my wits end with it. And then for us to go down 283 and win that game, that to me was like, if that doesn't happen, I literally don't keep playing. But at the same time, if I'm being honest, the one that, felt the craziest to me and felt the most like fulfilling was the was the eagles one because of the philly contingency people have been waiting a long time like we're the only group you know like we're the only group it's really hard to win circles in the nflb they could win five more we're the first until then we're the only and uh and nobody gave us a chance like if we're being

honest i think some people overplay the underdog thing but not us i mean that was real i mean beginning the season we were picked to be a bottom third team no question there's a philly philly special statue too man it got out of hand i mean like like it just got out of hand we won we won a super bowl wearing dog masks in an underdog type city with a backup quarterback and we beat tom brady philly boston like it was just for that city it was it was incredible and for players like myself for le garret blun or like, and we came together from New England. Yeah. So it was extra special, but like a Patrick Robinson or a Tori Smith, there was like this

kind of meeting of veterans who for some reason, we all kind of saw something there. And I don't think any of us knew it was that, but we were there. I'm curious, when was the last time you put on your Super Bowl rings? Man, that's a great question. Probably at the Super Bowl, like a year and a half, two years ago, or whatever the last Super Bowl I went to. It's not like you can walk around with them on your hands. Two years ago.

Yeah, no, because I, you know, I try to, like, the way I approach my kids and, you know, like, hey, they'll find out I played football one way or another, but I don't need to, like, let everybody know I used to be a football player. You know, and the Super Bowl's ring is the ultimate, like, try hard move if you do it anywhere, but the right function, you know what I mean? Yeah. So for me, it's like, hey, when I go to the Man of the Year stuff or when I'm at the Super Bowl. Bowl or whatever. But even then, I feel weird about it because I'm like shaking somebody's like, if I shake like Dan Marino's hand and he feels my Super Bowl ring, I'm like, sorry, Dan, like you were a hundred times the player, you know, but so there's kind of an unfairness to it. And I also think sometimes like, and I don't apologize for being a part of these teams, but, you know, people give

you too much credit for being a, you know, a Super Bowl champion sometimes. I mean, like, it is the most special thing in sports, but it's a team game. You know, it's a team game and we were all a part of something awesome. And so, like, you know, I ended up on two teams that won the Super Bowl in two years. And there's some luck involved in that. And so, like, if, you know, towards the end of my career, everybody's like, ah, back-to-back, Super Bowl champion, all this stuff. Like, I was a part of something awesome.

So I kind of keep the rings in the safe unless it's, like, the right function. Yeah. You know, you bring up your sons. And I'm so curious, how do you raise kids when you can. can give them everything. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough. I, you know, I kind of went through that, you know, as a kid because there's not,

you don't go through it. But my dad- Realize it later probably. Yeah, my dad, my dad didn't have anything growing up and then, you know, had considerably more as a byproduct to being an NFL player. But I'll be in an NFL player in the 80s. So, like, we make more money now than they ever dreamed of making.

Like, my dad made all his money after football, you know, relative to the way we look at things now. But I think it helps that I've been through it. You know, like as far as how do you grow up relatively grounded in a situation where you could conceivably be an asshole? I don't think it makes it right, but it's easy to fall into that trap because look around. Like dudes with everything generally are a little bit entitled and that sort of thing.

I think the, like I just said, insulate my kids, Waylon and Luke from feeling like their dad's special. You know, I think also just reinforcing through whether it's service or whether it's like a diverse experience that not everybody lives like you. And there are little things. It becomes really hard to stay on top of it because one thing, you think is like when you become a parent that you're just going to be wholeheartedly 100% of the time focused on your kids all the time and like how you raise them like you're still figuring life out for yourself and you're a parent you know what I mean so that's one of the biggest surprises is that you can't just devote all day to building out a schedule that's conducive to them

growing up grounded and all these experience and that sort of thing you kind of just got to work on the fly learn on the fly but I really do believe that the type of person you are the example you set for your kids, whether it's in person or out in the world, like, inevitably, they're going to pick that up. I just have to have faith in that. And so the pressure is on me, you know, to kind of be an example, but also sprinkle into their lives, like little things that might reinforce to them that they don't, so they don't live in a bubble. You know what I mean? Yeah. I love that. Look, in 2017, I think a lot of people just saw the headlines that you were donating your entire salary to different charities. But what went on behind that? What was the thought?

process behind that and how much thought how much time did you put into that as well well we put a lot of time into building out a a program that would be provocative for people to meet us halfway on i mean that was half the thing like i was a little bit uncomfortable with uh hey you know look at this guy is so selfless i i'd made a lot of money playing football throughout my career you know i was born to pass rush uh and they pay us you know you know know what I mean? So I wasn't having a hard time. It's my 10th year in the league. But there were a lot of things going on in the world and in my hometown. And I was involved in some conversations. And for me, equity, sweat equity is really important. You know, like for me to talk about something,

hey, I care about this, I care about that. If I'm not backing it up with action or with a gesture and this was kind of both, then why would anybody listen to me? You know, like, so we, I just had this kind of idea. All those things were factoring in that we could raise money for educational equity in the city and we try to get a match.

You know, me donating around a million dollars, I am far from the first person to ever do that. You know, I mean, like, and I would have never done it publicly had there not been an opportunity for people to match that donation. And they did. And so, like, that's what it was all about.

It was all about the fans. You know, I was throwing them an oop, and they caught it. And I'm just appreciative of that year. It was, like, just a really special year all the way around for myself and my family because we were able to affect some change, whether it was in Charlottesville or Boston or Philly or St. Louis. And honestly, that year has kind of put us on the map so we can do more good. You know what I mean?

And also has kind of introed us into this educational equity world. and instructed kind of our actions after football as a foundation. So pragmatically, it was really awesome and strategically it worked out. But I did it because I cared and because I didn't want to talk about something and not be about it. And it just worked out all around. Yeah. And then when did that transition into water and water boys and Mount Kilimanjaro, which I want

to come with you next time. You would like it. I'm like, dude, it's, I was just talking about what players and stuff we got coming this year, veterans, we got the Conquering Killie initiative, which is awesome. It's a way to, like, involve the military and our water work. And those two things have been, you know, the military has always been, you know, veterans have always been people we tried to support through our work since the inception of the foundation, you know, way back when in St. Louis. And really the foundation started with water. So like we were the first thing I ever did outwardly charitably other than like, hey, you know, we're going to support the Boys and Girls Club at home or we're going to do some things on the low in St. Louis,

support the St. Patrick's Center, you know, donate money to various causes. I was at this crossroads in my career where I was like, oh, I'm six years in. I'm having a great time. You know, I'm on top of the world playing. and, you know, the team's not great, but I'm playing well. I'm making a lot of money, but I felt kind of like empty about it. Not empty, but just like, what am I really doing? Like, it was a fulfillment thing?

The fulfillment. I mean, the fulfillment thing. There was, like, a lot of it for me was, I want to travel more. I want to see the world a little bit. So I went to Tanzania in the offseason to climb Kilimanjaro with a teammate named James Hall, who was, like, my older teammate that was kind of a big brother to me. and I drug his grumpy ass over to Tanzania and told him, like, we're going to climb this mountain. And the only reason it was on my radar was because Jeff Fisher just got hired and he had done it.

And I was BSing with him in the first time I met him looking at a picture. And I was like, is that pretty cool? He's like, yeah, it's cool. I was like, I think I want to do it. He's like, oh, you'd love it. You should do it when you retire. I was like, oh, I'm going to do it this offseason. And he was like, what the fuck?

We just signed you to this big deal. Yeah. So I went over and did it. And we had a blast and I fell in love with just like everything about the place. And this was the, like I said, the reason I traveled, like it played out. You know, like I wanted to see how other people in the world lived. And I want to experience that. And I just didn't want to be this guy that just played football for a living.

And I loved it. And I also realized that there was a lot of, there was a big delta between the way we lived and the way people in Tanzania were living. people were incredibly stoic and, you know, full of life and love. And they're just like really welcoming and brilliant people. But one of the main things that was kind of anchoring in a bad way society there was the lack of access to clean water. And so for me, pragmatically, I was like, well, how do we make the biggest difference? There was no big epiphany.

There was no like I visited, you know, my first village the first time I went. And, you know, I had tears in my eyes or something like, no, it was just, how can I help here? And I met the right people that schooled me on how far water can go. And it was like light bulb, there's a niche for us in the NFL where we can raise money for clean water and kind of do this as a team. And, you know, there was a lot of trial and error, but a hundred wells later, and they're all large solar-powered wells that serve communities of up to 7,500. we've moved into Tanzania. We've served over 500,000 people. We've had 30, 40 NFL representatives.

Like, we really have taken off. And I'm proud because it's an outside the box thing for Americans. I mean, you told me about this stuff 10 years ago. I go, what do you mean? Like, people don't have water. It's also an issue here domestically. We do domestic work through hometown H2O. We're looking for it to work on Navajo Nation.

We're working in schools. So really, interestingly enough, our work internationally has kind of been the thing that has put us on the map to be able to work more domestically and answer some of those questions about, well, what are you doing here for water? Yeah, I love that. I want to be super respectful of your time, so I got just a few questions left here. It's a question you asked recently in a podcast, and I want to ask it of you. Who gave you your worst game? My worst game. Good Lord. Honestly, if I had to, it's... Brian Belaga was a guy that I really had trouble with.

I mean, like, he was a guy I never beat for a sack that I remember. And I had like one of my worst games against him. The Packers came to play us in St. Louis. He was in the prime of my career. It was like 2012. I think it was coming off a 13-sack year in the middle of a double-digit year again. And came into town and, you know, Rogers hard counting. And so you're laid off the ball.

You're afraid to give up the free play to Jordy Nelson, even though we did a couple of times. And then Balauga just had me, I had a bad plan for him, like a really bad plan. And I didn't adjust well during the game. And I ended the game with like, I've been shut out plenty of times because I've been on teams where the ball is coming out. The coverage may not be great. We don't have a bunch of leads. But there aren't a lot of games where I come away from.

And I'm like, I did not beat that guy, like, very much. And so Brian Balauga would be one that might surprise people. Yeah. I don't know if that's a name that would immediately come to most people. Exactly. It's all matchups, man. It's all like, you know, it's like so funny because some of the best players of all time, like Walter Jones is the best tackle of all time.

He had trouble with that guy James Hall, who I just talked about. James Hall is a guy that not everybody would have thought about, but he used to beat Walter Jones. Like, and 99 other guys couldn't. And, you know, it was the guy that you might not have heard of that. And Brian Belaga was a great player in the league and still is playing. I think he's with the Chargers and he's been hurt. So they had that right tackle step in and he's done a good job.

But Balaga really gave me fits. I end every interview with the same questions. So here we go. Okay. What are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now? Oh, man, number one, my family. Always number one, my family. You know, I have two kids that I wake up every day and I just can't wait to see him.

You know, like that feeling is amazing. And, you know, it's, you sit there. there and you're like slow down everything needs to slow down but at least you're thinking about it you know you try to live in the moment as much my kids have taught me to live in the moment as much as I can and I think that's been a great gift and I'm very appreciative of them um number two man oh man number two my health I guess sure and directly related to that number three good weed green light because I'm not going to sleep without it

I'm not going to enjoy that movie I'm watching later without it and I mean I hate to say that but no I really I really am thankful maybe number two is too cliche but family health and some good bud man Chris thank you so much congrats to you on an amazing career in the league

and an amazing career after that as well and everyone should go check out Greenlight wherever they're listening to this right now. Chris, thank you, brother. I really appreciate it. It was fun talking to you. Well, there we go. You can find Chris's podcast

on the Blue Wire Podcast Network. It's called Green Light. So search for it wherever you're listening to this right now. Big thank you to Chris for joining us on today's Chris and Chris show. And I truly appreciate you.

Not only for listening to this episode, but for listening and hanging out with us all the way. Until the end. Share this episode with a friend who you know will love this. Take a screenshot, tag us on social media so we know that you're listening with us. And I'll leave you with an incredible quote from the late great Alexander Graham Bell who says, when one door closes, another opens. But we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which is open for us. That is powerful. Be great. Be grateful, my friends. We'll see you on the next one for some more insight. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do. With rapid fire takes.

So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

You've been warned.