Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Sage Rosenfels talks about what NFL players go through in retirement

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

This week Matthew Coller talked with former Viking Greg Camarillo for an article at PurpleInsider.substack.com about Vincent Jackson's death and the challenges facing former players after they retire from the NFL. His comments caught the eye of our friend Sage Rosenfels, who can deeply relate. Sage talks about what he's learned in retirement, what hurdles there are when it comes to dealing with injuries and finding identity again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I've got my hood up here in the sun porch, which is not so sunny and mostly just frozen today where we're broadcasting. But, Sage, you're on the mend. How are you? I'm doing okay. In some ways, I feel like I'm having, like, an odd, like, releasing physical experience from this injury. I have all these knots and stuff that have been building up over probably 20 years, but just gotten worse and worse and worse.

And now after the surgery and the surgery itself was amazing. I was talking to them next thing I woke up two hours later and you know they're done you know I had a rotator cuff cleanup and a labrum cleanup um nothing too terrible there was a chance there was going to be a like bicep tendon detachment and reattachment which would have been I just like don't do anything really don't't do heavy curls for six months. So that's like really, and that didn't happen. So I'm hopefully, I feel like my body for 20 years has compensated for this injury. And it's really interesting to sort of feel it all want to like unlock itself.

But in the last six months to a year, it's gotten so unbearable that it was, it'd be hard to do a pushup. And my other arm, the throwing arm feels great. But this injury happened a long time ago and I just always put it off. Never wanted to have surgery. It wasn't where it was so bad where I couldn't bench press it a certain way, or I couldn't do most of the lifts or I couldn't do most of the things. My non-throwing shoulder, since we're talking about football, Trevor Lawrence just had,

he must've had something probably bigger than me. Cause it sounds like, well, I don't know, four to six weeks. It said it'd be thrown. I'll probably be able to throw before that. Cause it's my non-throwing. His is a left too, but I'm we'll see how it goes. We will. I have not had surgery since I was 19 years old. I had my right ankle scoped and we'll see how this goes now. I feel like my neck and things have always sort of shifted that way because everything works over time to try to secure this thing.

And now I have to, like, I think get it out of the weird socket it's got into and, like, loosen it out, and then hopefully it'll heal and, like, you know, to where I'm like, I could sign, you know, sign a one day contract again and go out and practice. Well, you still got the hand size. They'll never take that away from you. But the other stuff, I don't know. So this is... You've been obsessed with hand size since the beginning. But it's just the funniest. You people grow up under power lines or something. These freaky myths.

What's really weird, by the way, is I got big hands. I'm 6'4", but guys like Russell Wilson who are really short, I mean shorter and have as big a hand as me, that's to me like the random guy. And then the random really big guys like Culpepper who have small hands. That's right. I remember Culpepper would fumble all the time, and they'd be like, it's because he has small hands. That's right. I remember Culpepper would fumble all the time and they'd be like, it's because he has small hands. That's right.

But he's such a huge guy. Like he's a huge, I look at Culpepper as a huge man. Yeah. And, but yeah, it does help to have big hands. It's like, it's a real thing to a point. It's a real thing to a point. Delvin Cook is like this where he's 5'4", 10. Jared Goff, small hands.

Small hands? Yeah, okay. You ever seen how Jared Goff throws a football and doesn't spin all that much, and when it comes out nice, it's still not really spinning? That is small hands versus Russell Wilson. You watch that goalball Russell Wilson throws, and you see those rotations. That's the difference. That really is

the difference. This actually goes for every sport. Even baseball players, if you meet like pro baseball players, they usually have giant hands too. I don't know what it is. Maybe just because they're very large and muscular people. I know Pedro had like crazy long fingers. Yes, insane. Like bend back or something like that.

Double joint fingers. Yep. Get like that last rotation on the ball. It's nuts. Make it tail. Make it tail. Yeah. A lot of you people are invented in a lab. But anyway, so instead of making fun of your body parts, let's talk about

why I brought you on. Because I had a conversation with a former teammate of yours, briefly, Greg Camarillo, about a thread that he put on Twitter about walking away from the game and how it sort of made him think quite a bit about it after Vincent Jackson passed away. And I know that every time a player, former player, who's younger, is struggling and passes away, that it sort of hits the entire fraternity hard. And I was hoping that I could just read you a couple of things that Greg told me, because I wrote it for an article at the website, purpleinsider.subzack.com. And maybe just get your reaction because you have such great perspective on these things. And, you know, you were in the NFL for such a long time.

And then post-career, you've found your joy podcasting with me. But I know that it's not an easy thing for players to walk away from the game after dedicating so much time to it. So one thing he said to me that stuck out a lot was he said, you put all your energy into one thing and it's gone quickly. If there was a gradual retirement over 10 years, I don't know if it would be so bad. But every day as an NFL player, you work hard toward a goal. I want to make this roster. I want to make the playoffs. I want to make the Super Bowl. Suddenly you're retired and you have all day, literally all day, as opposed to working for a goal. So maybe just give me your reaction to what Greg said. Well, from the time all of us were kids, all athletes, really all people that dive into something. And as athletes,

you dive into all sorts of sports but then you over time really start focusing on one sport in particular and you play that longer than everybody else and you get paid to do it so there's different dynamics going on here you know uh the worst thing you can do to have somebody emotionally mature also is to give them a whole bunch of money to really unage. Right. So there's all these different challenges from when you get out that are one, that rush is gone. The rush of what I'm doing today. Like right now, I'm recovering from the field. I'm in no big hurry, but imagine being in with trainers

where every day their job is to get me back. I drove to the physical therapy place today. I drove to massage lady today. And I'm going to have all these bills, right? That's to it. There, you don't even see a bill. You never see a bill. You never see a doctor's bill. And you don't even see them with your family really either. You get to see some deductible, but like they're paying for the premium for five years after you retire. And then all of a sudden that all gets thrown on you for every single thing you have to do. You know, if I needed my wisdom teeth taken out, I did it through Iowa State.

And I laid on the couch in Ames for a couple of days. But they paid for the whole thing. That needed to happen. Right. So there's this physical side to it. Your body has all these injuries also. And that goes back to even high school. High school athletes have injuries.

Middle school athletes have injuries that haunt them for the rest of their lives. So we just have more and more of those. There's the rush of the game, you know, which is addicting. You know what it's like to be on the field during an NFL game. Imagine like that's your entire life and it leads up to these huge, big deals. And's like to be on the field during an nfl game imagine like that's your

entire life and it leads up to these huge big deals and there's big money on the line and the games are really exciting um it's all a lot to all of a sudden like really nobody cares and that's and that's fine but you have all these other things slapped in the face your structure is gone if you're an nfl quarterback it's like all right set the alarm for six or whatever you know um and you get in there and you have breakfast and you know some guys work out first and whatever there's a whole thing that goes on and even if you go home in the off season at one o'clock there's been this structure in place then you go hang out with your family more and you know go do whatever you actually have some free time but during the season

it's extremely structured. And that goes back to college too, which goes back to high school too. High school life is extremely structured. And then as like my son is, he's in an apartment in Los Angeles going to college. They're off in college doing their whole thing. His life is now like whatever he makes of it.

He has to figure out the food. He has to figure out where. There, everything has been taken care of because their job is to give you the best food. Their job is to give you the best physical care. The job is to, you know, and your job is to go to school and play the sport. So all that structure disappears. Also, if you have enough money, like before, you know, you don't have to have a job.

You don't have to have these things that then usually give most people structure in life. You wake up, you go to a job, you come home, you do this, you do that. And that's your life every day. But when you don't have to have that or you could have that, but it's not really what. And also, by the way, especially the older you get, you retire at 30. All of your even if you have your college degree, all of your friends have been working for like nine years, eight years, right? They've been working since they were 22 years old. They got into insurance and now they do this and they have a little state farm.

You know, J.R. Tolvery, I played maybe a year or two in the league. He was a receiver in Miami, San Diego State. He has like a little state farm insurance office in Southern California. He was doing that 12 years before I did that, you know, right? So everyone else is like a head start on what real life is. And you're sitting here going like, this insurance stuff is maddening. And you know what I mean? And this constant back and forth. And because I have these injuries and it ends up becoming one big paper mess, you know, and it's just, yeah.

So all that structure is gone and you're sort of on your own. And, you know, you also have to deal with the consequences of your playing career, like all of them, all the consequences, the physical side, but also like the good and bad decisions that you made in your career. It all sort of comes sitting down because it's like, here you are. It's negative five degrees and I'm in Omaha, Nebraska. This is great. So it's not, but it's hard. It is. There's all these aspects to it that are hard, that can be challenging.

I'm super lucky. I actually have probably in the last couple of years really realized how lucky I am to not really to sort of do whatever I want. And right now I didn't want to talk about the Vikings all that much this year and the Land of Cokes. I don't get all the fun stuff. I'm going to meet you in Chicago and go to the game and go to the, you know, let's sit here and watch Kirk, you know, for 16 games

and make a few bucks to do it. I think there's other things I have to do in my life right now. I got son in college. I got a sister with a disability. There's all these things that are more important now. And I'm really lucky that I get to spend my time helping other people in a lot of ways in my family. It feels like it's the right time to do that. But, yeah, to not have any structure there, that probably is the number one thing is to not have to, you know, and the thing, you know,

the most about has no value unless you coach or unless you get in some sort of media broadcast. And those are the two most important things. And if you actually do either of those, you never really grow beyond football. You're still not going to emotionally, probably mature of being away from the game and not having a part of your identity being that sport. You know my uh someone said you uh uh i'm sure have been impressing

people since you were like 10 years old and i was like yeah right the young athletic kid and won the tennis tournament and was the mvp of the baseball thing and was on the all-star team and you know like I've been praised constantly my entire life uh he's sage rosenfels you know leads uh makoketa to big win over the savers you know and it has my stats in there and a quote from me I've been getting that and all of a sudden that's that's over that's a really weird thing um and that's that's a that's a childhood actor type of issue that they deal with. The difference is they can act forever. And a musician can really sort of be a musician pretty much forever.

But athletes, you definitely can't be athletic anymore. And to where that competitive thing, physically, it's never as high as it's ever going to be, right? So all that rush. Yeah, I don't know. There's about five or six things there that are pretty complicated. They get woven into guys just saying, screw it, I'm going to drink alcohol or whatever they're going to do and end up in a bad spot.

And it's, you know, it's plus the cte stuff plus the cte stuff which uh you know who knows in my career but luckily as a journeyman quarterback i didn't play that much and plus practices you're not getting hit that much you know often at all where these guys these linebackers are taking on hits every day all the time for years and years you know somebody said to me imagine how many carries adrian pearson's had his life because he was he was the adrian pearson when he was like 11 on the team and right wherever he was from and he was getting 25 carries a game that's a lot to your kid who, you know, maybe makes a tackle or two or a game. And, you know, and that's, you know, and physically what that is on the human body is that's not good either.

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But I wonder, just I was thinking about when you were playing, did you have a sense for how this would be? Or is it just never on your mind? Like what's going to happen after because you have to be so much in the moment and dialed in all the time? So what do you hear when you think of like rookie symposiums and things like that? What are the bullet points you think of? You think of like you have to prepare for a career afterwards. You know, you want to get your degree. Uh, they have their programs for this or programs for that. And,

but it's also, it's like every minute I spent thinking about afterwards, this is my lottery ticket. This is it. This is the lottery ticket. Right. You know, maybe my music career can wait, you know, or whatever guys, or whatever guys sort of want to get into. You know, maybe my financial, Rob Conrad, we used to go fishing and he would be talking about stocks and mutual funds and bonds. He couldn't wait to his career to end because his body was breaking down from

being a fullback at Syracuse. Yeah. Back in the NFL under Jimmy Johnson, he knew his end was. And so he was really looking forward to having a career that wasn't about making money with his body. Right. So there's that aspect too,

but it's hard to, because you're, you know, if you're making a million dollars, that's, that's winning the lottery and every year can do do that what so what's more important than that what's more important um what degree or or what you know off the field what business should i start right you know if you start a business now you're dealing with that you're not actually focused on

the thing it's making you a million what are you doing you want a restaurant making a million dollars a year you would just own the restaurant not worry about all the some other business but they you know so it's this weird balance back and forth and um there's just no way to be prepared i envy the people the people that get done with their career and they immediately get into some job that ends up being like oh they they got into being a financial advisor they got into this again for that they're probably the same people who when they were in like sixth grade ends up being like, oh, they got into being a financial advisor. They got into this, they got into that. They're probably the same people who, when they were in like sixth grade, they knew they wanted to be a doctor and they ended up being a doctor. Yeah.

But a lot of people aren't like that. Right. And life sort of forces you to sort of pick a lane and do it. And then, again, you retire at 35 and you don't know what to do. You know, so you're not forced to do anything. So it ends up been a weird dynamic. So Greg was talking about how he personally coped with this. And he just basically said, look, I didn't have much of an identity. And it was hard to answer the question, hey, what are you doing now? Oh, hey, you're Greg Camarillo or you're Sage Rosenfels.

You played for Miami. What are you doing now? You know, and that goes back to aspects of ego. We hear that conversation. But again, as what I said earlier, your entire life you've been impressing people. And now to say you're a State Farm agent and whatever isn't maybe in your own opinion something that's impressive. But when you get to the point of what's really impressive

is that Greg and I, and I just follow Greg on Instagram. We were teammates two different times, of course. He was sort of a journeyman

receiver a little bit. Yep, yep. And, you know, that's another combination. That should be the golf tournament, journeyman quarterbacks and receivers. And what, yeah, right.

Now you're getting slot guys left and right. That's right. That's right. Is, yeah, as I said, you've been impressing people. But what's actually really impressive is, again, it's those things. How do you judge yourself as a father? Are you doing the best you can? Who in your circle is important to you? Your family, people, your best friends, the people that are still your high school friends that you occasionally call. And still, I think it's things shift to, in some ways, I always say, just try to impress

yourself. You know, like, Hey, I did that. Right. Um, that's not easy to do. You know, I'm a single father. So there's times where I feel like I'm trying to do things and then it makes me feel good. Like, Oh, I did that. So I took my kids on that trip.'m trying to do things and then it makes me feel good like oh I did that or I took my kids on that trip they got to do that makes me feel good it makes me work the shoulder makes the shoulder injury way better when my kids get to go off to expensive colleges and they get to go to a private school or they get to have nice things they get to drive nice cars whatever it might be they get opportunities that maybe i didn't have and the injuries make that's where the injuries have like effect on you that um for me this is worth it so it's

going to get better but it it makes you feel good that my kids have those opportunities because of my sacrifice and i think we don't talk about um you know maybe that's something that for players that should be talked about is like just so you know you are making a sacrifice if you play this right you're going to sacrifice your body you're going to enjoy it you're going to sacrifice your body and your body is going to break down for people around you to have nicer things and better opportunities you need to think about that and i think that to be a thing that makes, makes it feel like it was worth it, right? The guy who tiled my bathroom, I couldn't imagine the backbreaking work

that is. And he's going to have weird shoulder things and knee things and hip things. And but that's to me like the value of the work, the value of accomplishing something and to know like I created that with my, you know, mental work and physical work. But, and I think that's, there's, you know, something to that, man, woman, whatever it might be. But I think that's another thing is when you're done playing, by the way, you, where's your value? You know, that wife that you have a girlfriend that you have that you know you're not making a million dollars a year anymore and you guys don't get along all that much right where's your value to them right there's other guys out there who are surgeons that are going to make a million dollars a year for the rest of their lives right

a little better you know and there's a lot of those uh personalities that hover around you know celebrities celebrities or professional athletes they get and then when you don't have that celebrity or money thing anymore your value goes down and becomes a another really hard thing to come down from and there's also the competitive nature of it too, that being a good dad and starting an insurance thing, or even being a broadcaster, it's not the same. Like, you know me, and I'm pretty competitive as a radio host

and that sort of thing, and maybe a lot of people in media are competitive in their own way, but it's not the same as competing on an NFL field. There's a thing in media in general, everyone trying to be the smartest person, say the smartest thing in the room. And that's legit, right? Draft people. The whole thing is who's, it's a contest and it's not just sports. It's politics probably too. The whole thing of like, who's the smartest guy to talk to?

It's why everyone likes Kornacki. He's like the guy, who else is going to give you all this crazy information better than that guy, right? So people become like specialists of being like the sort of the smartest guy in the room with the best information,

the best insight. And that is, that's just, so that's competitive in your world just as it's an industry. That's probably in some sense, it's capitalism, right? Of being competitive and trying to be better than the guy or the woman next to you at what they do, you know, whether it's man or woman, you got to, you're competing against, you know, Courtney and Sam, who you just hired on.

Yeah, yeah. Not competing against Sam anymore. Chad, you know, all these people, not competing against Sam anymore. Chad Glass and all these people, you're competing against them. Paul Allen, right? Everyone's trying to fight for some ears and who's bad-ratted, whether it's information or entertainment of some sorts. That's a real thing. That's a real thing.

Well, and I know for me that if I had not continued to do this, that would have been really tough for me because it is competitive. Now, and that to me is not even – What were you going to do? Hold on. Let's just say – Oh, I have no idea. I have no idea.

You get an accent. You can't talk anymore. Would you become a typer then? Oh, man. Would you just become a writer forever? If the whole thing had gone away and this hadn't been an option, I don't know. Like I don't really have – and this is where I relate because for a minute there, for like a week, it was like, what am I going to do here? And then –

They don't pay you to play video games. No, not unless you're really, really good at it. That's right. And those are my only skills. It's like doing this and playing Madden or uh nba 2k and that's about it um i even knew even you know your limitations like that's very honest i think we're having a good conversation here no and this is and this is honestly why like i kind of relate to this a little bit because i know um when you have something that you pour everything into and it

is a huge sense of pride to be good at this and be successful at this and to have created a career out of it because my hands weren't big enough to throw the football like you could. But you love the game. You love the game you're talking about. And you put so much effort into it

and then someone takes it away from you. And just for a second there, I kind of had a taste of it. But I got to jump right back in taste of it but i got to jump right back in nfl players don't get to jump right back in and uh you know i i can connect with that but there's the like you're a local person there's the the national writers and and radio and people like there's all sorts of various it's's a whole industry. People love talking about football. Thank God. It's incredible.

There's so many aspects to it. Are there even baseball shows anymore? That's a good question. It's a bummer, and I grew up a baseball player. Oh, me too. Me too. I grew up loving baseball, and it really feels like it's – Football media just takes over every market, every city just about.

It's just incredible. I've always thought about it as a job that what players should do is schools should hire them to come in, and there should just be a football class called football 101 and you just do your best to teach them coverages plays protections fronts give them the lingo you sort of like give them a playbook you create your own thing you have tests on it yet you know all these things but then get into like you know the andrew br Brandt world of salary caps and, you know, and maybe have an agent come in or whatever. And you get to have a football one-on-one class at University of Texas at Austin.

Like, shouldn't Austin, Texas have a football? So every boy, girl, student, you know, whatever, they have a better understanding for this great sport because most people have no idea what's going on out there it's a bunch of people why do they keep running into the pile i get asked this all the time why don't they run around the pile of people makes no sense to me well what's your answer to set up the play action is the answer yeah right and so it's a very complex it is a very complex game baseball is very simple very simple. Tennis is super simple. And so the conversations about football are, and there's so many players and positions

and the personalities are huge and billionaire owners and personalities of cities and history of it. It's really, it's quite the sport. Just to circle back, I was curious about whether and how often you talk about these things with former players. Because Greg said after Vincent Jackson passed away, he got a lot of messages from people saying, hey, miss you, we got to catch up, that sort of thing. And it meant a lot. It was really helpful and cathartic for him working through losing a close friend of his. And I know one of the most, I think, fun experiences that I had just in my reporting career was walking around at the NFL Combine with you and just listening to you talk to other people.

I would shake these giant hands, but I wanted to listen to you talk with Brady Quinn or whoever else we ran into because you guys really have a connection on a deeper level with the shared experiences. Right. It's a community. And I think we joke around about the journeyman backup is that you get to really uh you have the best seat in the house for a long time and you're usually bouncing around so you see various you have these moments in time in your life where you're where you become friends with these people at a young age it's very important to all of you you're all connected by it and there's especially as quarterbacks there's so

many things to talk about but you know a lot of times quarterbacks end up sort of becoming you know you get to know the trainers and of course the coaches treat you differently uh you know i've had i have had conversations with defensive coordinators and talk about different things and i remember when i came to the Vikings, I went in Leslie Frazier's office and took an hour long meeting with him and discussed his philosophy and football and, you know, some nexus knows, and you get to know people and just show them how they are. I'm not in that defensive room, but you, the journeyman quarterback gets to really see it all. And you get to develop all those relationships. And there's people, these organizations are,

there's all sorts of people in them from accountants and marketing people. And you're just community relations people, the public relations, the Bobs and the Toms, you know, and every team has those guys and ladies. And those relationships are, again, they're very, they're, you know, quote unquote, high points in your life that times.

You have all these memories that are sort of instilling you that they don't disappear. You know what I mean? And the people that do it for a career for 30 years, it's a whole crazy world, an industry. It's really something else. But it's a lot of hard work. People work really, really hard. You work weird hours. Like if you want to be a trainer, you're going to be working too much and all in the weekend

and early in the morning and late at night. And it is a never ending thing where you could just go work at the local physical therapy place for your eight hour shift. And that's your job. You know, it's your choice. And it's a lifestyle. And so I think everyone's sort of connected by it. Hey, everyone. We're in the full swing of winter now, and SodaStick has you covered. If you're a hockey fan, check out the North State Icon shirts or the Mick Golden Lights snowmobile designs, all of these along with great football designs like the Skull Hats,

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Original Minnesota sports inspired goods. Code Purple Insider for free shipping. You have you since you've retired, had the discussion about dealing with retirement with other guys that you played with? Or is it kind of like, hey, remember that game or i'm having shoulder surgery or something like that like is it a discussion i think for me it's a discussion less because i end up in omaha around none of like sort of my path yeah right you know i i i ended up so far from a lot of people still live in the same cities and you still hang out with some of the same teammates and if i live in houston i'd be hanging out with owen dan playing golf and Kevin Walter and and who knows who that all these a lot of guys lived out there uh here I got pretty separated pretty fast and I think that actually probably helped me it was a further fall I think

for me because it was like career-ending divorce end up in Omaha, Nebraska, not knowing anybody. It was a very unusual fall, but it was, there's times of challenge in that definitely. And that's a pretty big horse to get kicked off of. And you don't get kicked off by choice. You don't look, Oh, I'm going to time for me to, you know, doesn't happen that way. So it is, but I think, I think for me, it's the, it was, it was a pretty hard landing, but it's the, it takes a lot of work and the years of work and therapy to get back to where I'm very proud of my career

and feel about all the good things and the sacrifice on those things. It is a process. We do get eight free therapy sessions a year through the NFL. Oh, really? Okay, interesting. Eight free therapy sessions a year. I recommend every player, really? Okay. Interesting. Eight free therapy sessions a year. I recommend every player take every one of them. And how about this? We get eight free therapy sessions per issue. So yeah, take this one

for anxiety and this one for troubles with your kids or something. It doesn't matter. Take 16. They're free. It's one of the few things we get that's still free that we get for life. And so I recommend all players to take all those as much as possible. It's one of the few things we get that's still free that we, I think, we get for life. And so I recommend all players to take all those as much as possible. You know, it's worth it. That's interesting. And that's a

discussion kind of where I wanted to end was, like, what could everybody do better? I mean, you know, I saw Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk said, like, did we fail Vincent Jackson? And I think that's kind of tough. You know, it's hard to say. Like could the NFL have done something better for him when he was a player to transition out of the league? Yeah. And there are the rookie symposiums and there are more resources now probably by far than even when you played.

It's never going to be perfect, I think, but is there something that could be done better? Yes. I mean, so one of my best friends in but is there something that could be done better? Yes. One of my best friends in Omaha is a guy that was in the military for 10 years, was in Iraq in the war. When I first met him, his nickname amongst his friends was Iraq.

He was in the war for three or four years. In a weird way, I think we bonded over the years. I think about seven and a half years, eight years, is because we both went through this odd traumatic experience in our late teens, early 20s. And then you get out of it.

And you get out of that, you come back to the United States and you see how our culture is here. And it's like, it's a shock to the system. They were in a world where people were shooting at them and they were shooting other people. And they were just, you know, stress all the time. And structure like crazy. Again, back to structure. They are told when to wake up, how to do it, when to do it, do it this way, do it better, do it faster, do it perfectly.

And it's, you know, the military is like the most socialized thing in the world. It is 100% control. They own you. And, of course, football is not that by any means. But you do have all this structure. And it is sort of a weird traumatic life experience that other people don't go through. And they just can't. You can't connect them with like the average person sometimes um and that's sometimes what's his struggles is just people

obsessed about going to starbucks and spending five dollars on a cafe latte whatever and like he still has what you know the memories of of his early 20s that tried to haunt him you know um there's there is a similarity there in a weird way different levels and totally different things but i think probably the same sort of trauma and you know almost ptsd that's interesting uh so how does he deal with it he's a good father that's how he's that's how that's that's the number one thing that you know he and i talked about he's got two super cute daughters and you know try to keep everything in perspective and of where everything in life is and wherever, you know,

he and I came from two totally different backgrounds and I love being around him. You know, he's like one of my COVID friends, like that one person I can hang out with and have a drink with on the back deck or something like that. And, and you know, everyone has their different ways of trying to cope with things. That's a good question because how he copes with this probably should be how NFL players in some ways figure out where to cope with it because it's probably the same therapeutic ways through it mentally.

Well, I'm really glad we could get together and discuss this. When I asked you, I was like, I don't know if you want to talk about it. I mean, because usually I'm asking about – I'm rambling like crazy, but yeah, it's probably stuff that's – it's always on your mind. And you're always having these conversations and things you hear from a therapist, from your family. My sister's a therapist. My God. My sister's a therapist.

So, you know, you end up having all these types of, like, you know, discussions all the time. And, you know, the NFL is a whirlwind. You know, the NFL is a whirlwind. And it's addicting, too. Definitely addicting. So it's hard to come come off of that well i'm really glad that uh you have done the post-career media stuff because we've gotten to know each other and i've learned so much from you and always do and continue to here today and i hope that other people do kind of understand what players are going through

leaving the game that they would not have understood otherwise. So can I say one thing? You know, I, I've done media stuff. I occasionally will train some quarterbacks. I do some local kids around here. Occasionally I'll do, you know,

these elite 11 type kids and to Ian book, you know, and I, and I enjoy doing it, but less about talking about the football. I actually enjoy helping somebody try to be the best version of themselves yeah and if anything i have a phd in uh i guess it would be football and there's a whole bunch of different aspects of that and one way for me to express that and

share that is through media through an article maybe or us talking about things as best i know uh and the other one is like teaching you know high school quarterbacks or young quarterbacks um whether I like football or not you know it's like it's like the one thing if you could say I'm an expert at it's probably that one thing no one's an expert parent nobody right so none of us can you know but this is like the one thing but I get I get to have the I enjoy the relationships out of it. I enjoy trying to see somebody progress and make their craft better. And just but also I get to add the like it's not about football.

And I have these little conversations with them about their lives. So they're not, you know, so I can maybe give them in a different way that has nothing to do with football at all. I'm teaching little lessons that I've learned over the years too. So that's why I stay in the game. Yeah, certainly trying to impact other people in a positive way, I think, is one way to find your post-career identity, you know. So great stuff, man. And next time, I'm going to make you watch all the first-round prospects, and then you're

going to have to grind tape. You're going to have to come on here and explain why the Vikings should trade up for Trey Lance and all those sorts of things. But for now, this was a really, really interesting conversation. I appreciate all your time as always. All right. Thanks for having me on. Thank you..