The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd Podcast - Bruce Arians on Brady's Impact, Peyton Stories, Adding Antonio Brown

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Colin gives his take on the Ben Simmons mess in Philly and why the NFL doesn't have as many divas (3:00). Then, Bucs Head Coach and Super Bowl champ Bruce Arians and Colin discuss the similarities and differences between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning (8:00), how Brady changed the team culture (10:00), how winning the Super Bowl has changed his life (11:00), what he considers a fire-able offense for his staff (15:00), why he was on board with adding the controversial Antonio Brown (16:00), the reason he and GM Jason Licht work so well together (24:00), what Patrick Mahomes did during his pre-draft work out that blew Bruce away (27:00), and why he decided to un-retire and get back into coaching (32:00).Make sure you subscribe NOW! Also, follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates and check out FanDuel for the best wagering and daily fantasy action! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It's never been easier to play fantasy on Fan duel, whether you love basketball, golf, soccer, or any fantasy sport. There is a contest for every fan. Fan duel. More ways to win. Hi, everybody. Bruce Ariens. Tom Brady's current head coach, Super Bowl winner, is going to be joining us here in about five minutes. You know, all sports leagues copy each other to some degree. They steal little ideas.

The NFL stole some of the Instagram and social media momentum the NBA had. They lightened up the post-touchdown season. celebrations for players, let players do dances, and they've been rewarded by it. They get a lot more free pub, a lot more love on social media for younger consumers. The NBA, which is consumed with being cool, could do themselves a favor and borrow something from the NFL. And that would be a backbone. There's only 450 roughly current NBA players. but you have three stars, Ben Simmons with the Sixers,

Kyrie Irving with the Nets and James Hardin with Houston last year, that have gone total diva and held their teams hostage. The NFL has over four times as many current players. And there is not a single player going all diva. Why? because the NFL doesn't tolerate it. The NFL doesn't coddle the football culture in America. You can be in an NFL locker room,

be unvaxed like Cole Beasley, or vaxed like Josh Allen. You can be a conservative like Cole Beasley or a liberal like many NFL players. In the NBA, you can't remain a broadcaster for an NBA team if you take a more conservative worldview. I have lots of friends that work in the NFL and lots of friends that work in the NBA. And my NFL friends are overwhelmingly happier people.

I know two NBA beat riders who quit this past year, really talented, one covering the Warriors, one covering the Oklahoma City Thunder. You have to align in the NBA with players' beliefs, coaches do, broadcasters do, executives do. In fact, they're sort of an inside joke. NBA head coach is the world's worst great job. So the NBA and the basketball culture in general in America is about coddling. Ben Simmons has been coddled at AAU, coddled at LSU, coddled his first several years in Philadelphia.

So shocker, he's a spoiled brat. This is where the NBA really. struggles. I'm all for players having power. We know that nobody goes to watch baseball for the executives, football or basketball for the executives. That doesn't mean I relinquish total power to the labor force to kids. What you're seeing in the NBA is a result of how basketball's culture is shaped and how basketball stars are coddled. Three stars last year. have held their teams hostage. Like what happens to James Harden,

what happens to Kyrie Irving, what happens to Ben Simmons, they have absolutely no self-awareness. They don't understand the architecture of a business, an architecture of the entire league. So when I see the Simmons situation with Philadelphia, when I see the Kyrie situation with Brooklyn or James Harden last year,

this is what you get for coddling your athletes. I'm not saying they shouldn't be paid. I'm not saying they shouldn't be compensated at the highest of levels. you can't let the employees run the business. Next guest needs no introduction. He is the Super Bowl winning coach of the Buccaneers, Bruce Ariens, two-time coach of the year,

whether he was an interim, the head coach, one of the most respected and light guys in the NFL, and he looks so damn comfortable today. Look at you. Look at you. You look like you're going to go fishing in 15 minutes. You are just perpetually happy, aren't you? That's that time of year to be happy.

You get win a few in a row, you know. You lose all your defensive back, so why not? You know, it's funny, Bruce, you were Peyton Manning's first coach. And, you know, Brady and Manning have some similarities, good height, throw a good ball, smart guys, work their ass off. I talked to Bill Pauline once, and he said, you know, Peyton was a little bit of a teeth clencher. He was a little tight, and we had to say, Peyton, you can lighten up. Tom's intense, but Bruce, it looks like a different intense.

Like, where are there similarities in their differences? Well, yeah, I think what Peyton was like the ultimate prankster. You know, when he was in the room, it was like take note, take notes, pile notebooks. He had a notebook on every corner in the league. But in the locker room, oh, he was the ultimate prankster, you know, pulling pranks on everybody. And those are legendary. Tom is laid back more. Again, preparation is meticulous, you know, grinds it out.

about every single little thing. And they both have that same quality. But they're not losing. You know, I don't give you their play, and they ain't losing. Right. You know, Bruce, were you worried at all that, you know, when this thing happened, I remember saying on the air,

I said, I don't worry about Bruce and Tom. I said, but there's some young players. And Tom is intense. And he's not going to sit around. I'm not going to be real patient with some of these young guys. Were you all worried about, okay, here comes Tommy, Tommy's culture, Tommy's intensity. Are my guys ready for Tommy's intensity?

Was there ever a moment you worried a little bit about that? No, I actually embraced it and we needed it. We needed, you know, that. We had everything. Everything was in place. We needed a guy who'd been there, done it, and they would follow. And, you know, the first year, you saw some of that. But the one thing about Tom, I didn't know how great a teammate he is.

I mean, you talk about those young players. He coaches the hell. He'll take them under his wing, whether it's off the field, TB12, anything, their assignments, how they're running routes, and just work with them constantly. And he's the ultimate teammate. Has it made it easier for you? Do you find yourself going from, I'm a coach? I mean, you're always coaching. But sometimes you're almost now managing because Tom does is so detail-oriented.

Yeah, and it's fun for me because, you know, I'll be telling the receiver, look, you're coming out of your break, you're not pumping your arms, you know, and they'll say, okay. And Tom will go over, hey, look, when you're coming out of the break, you got to pump your arms, I'm throwing the ball over here. Okay, Tom, and they do it. So I'll tell him sometimes to tell them what I want to coach him on because they listen more. You know what I mean? Has it been, Bruce for you? I mean, you look fantastic. Has it been, is it made a younger? Is it, let's it, let's it. Let's it. Let's. Let's be honest about it. You're winning almost all your games here in the last 12. Take me to your life in the last 12 to 15 games. Is it easier to drive to work? Do the eggs taste better in the morning? Like, what's your life like? Yeah, it's so much, so much different. You know, when you had that title Super Bowl winner, it changes everything. And my son always telling me, no, you ain't smarter. You know, you just got you got that, that trophy now. And, but. But it is a lot of fun because we have such a great coaching staff. And for me, I am just riding the bus. You know, we've got great offensive coordinator, defense coordinator, entire staff.

And I get way too much credit for the offense. I don't even go to the meetings. I mean, Byron runs this offense from top to bottom and doesn't get enough credit for it. Will you, when will you get your first look at the game plan? Normally, either Monday evening, Tuesday, I'll throw some things on Byron's desk. Normally he has it done by the, he's one of those 4.30 in the morning guys, like Tybo's. I'm not a 4.30 in the morning guy. So, yeah, he'll have it done early.

We'll sit down. We'll talk about, you know, how about we put this guy in that position, love the pattern, who's the best to do that, that type, the same thing, red zone. We'll sit down, you know, Wednesday evening. And, you know, we're not grinders. We're out of there early. And we don't, we're not in our office at 10 o'clock. And has it always been like that or is it the Brady influence? It's always been that way for me.

Thursday night's been date night with my wife for 18 years. And, you know, a lot of guys are grinding it out in office on short yards and go line or whatever their Thursday routine is. And it's like, you know, for me, it's been out of there by 5 o'clock on Thursdays for forever. And the same thing. To me, you can make this game really complicated. You know, and if you're one of those teams that you're always looking for ideas from somebody else's film, you know, then you don't really have an offense. You know, we have a system that we just change a week to week to what we think that matchups are the best. Right. Todd does a great job defensively putting those guys in position.

Hey, we're going to do cover two this week or we're going to, we're going to play man this week, or we're going to not blitz at all. Just put the guys in position to be successful. And, you know, they're great teachers. Both of them and Keith Armstrong, same way in special teams. They're all great teachers. You know, Tony Dungee had to talk Peyton Manning into that whole family thing. And Peyton wanted to get notes on Saturday or Friday.

And Tony told me he's like, hey, it's Peyton, you don't need to go through it again. Did you, was it a, was Tony an influence for you on that? No, you know, I never worked with Tony, but Peyton was, you know, I'd never gone home before a player. And our first years together in Indy Thursday night, I'd be there like six, seven. I'd say, dude, are you ever going home? No, we're going to watch this. I said, look, here's my number. I'm going to take my wife out to dinner.

You got a question, call me. All right. I'm out of here. He'd call, he called two or three times, you know, hey, what about this against Chicago two years ago? I said, I haven't really watched that one, but I'm sure it's okay, whatever you're talking about. Well, there is. One of the things I remarked, I didn't like in college football a couple years ago, they came up with a second recruiting signing date.

And I said, shit, these guys got no lives. It used to be college. You get some summers off. So in the NFL, there are some miserable coaches. And to me, it's refreshing to hear people, because I always had this theory in my business. prep like hell and let her rip. Don't overthink the room. If you've been doing something for 20 years,

you can watch film. And even if you won 28-0, you'll pick the flaws out first time watching the film. So do you think sometimes do you want to tell these other coaches, you know, it doesn't have to be this hard. Yeah, oh, totally. Totally. I tell all my coaches, too,

if you mess a recital, a baseball game, a basketball game, I'll fire your ass. I mean, I had to do that with one job I had. and you don't get that time back. You know, your kids are grown and gone. And you're still sitting in the office. There's time.

You can come back at 11 o'clock at night if you want to. Go to the game. You know, if it's a Pee-Wee football game on Saturday morning, hell miss the walkthrough. We'll cover it. You know, make sure you do everything with your kids. It's interesting. You've built, it's a trusting culture.

I mean, Tom Brady brings on Antonio Brown. Well documented. had some issues before Tampa. Did you and Tom, you trusted Tom, Tom trusted A-B. Was that a difficult acquisition? Was that a difficult moment? Did you have long discussions on, you know, Tom tends to put his arms around young people that need help.

He'll put his arms around guys. You have been a guy. You'll give guy second chances. Was the A-B thing something you guys wrestled with, or did you come to an agreement fairly quickly? No, it's really funny because, you know, Tom brought it up in the summer. he was looking at eight games suspension.

And I coached AB. We drafted him in Pittsburgh. I had him for the first couple of years. So I knew him personally. And as our season went on, Chris Gobwin's down. Mike Evans is on one leg. And we've got a really good football team.

So we owe it to ourselves to investigate all the best players available. So Jason and I went in. What about AB? You brought him in, had a great conversation with him. Obviously, I knew Tom was on board. And Jason and I's idea. like, all right, let's go with it.

And when A.B. and I met, it's like, dude, there's no second chances. All right. This is me. You and I know each other. All right. This is it. This is your last rodeo. And he'd been great.

Well, he's also been important. I mean, there's, he's, you know, you have a rare situation right now between, you know, Scotty and Chris and Mike, hell, O.J. Howard. You got three tight ends when Gronk comes back. A.B. you had Tyler Johnson, the kid out of Minnesota, who is not a burner, but he's more of a possession guy, but he's a really smart, cagey player. Is, do you have to sometimes tell these guys, fellas, there's going to be 29, 32 passes today. This isn't going to be your week, especially for accomplished people, Bruce.

That's never been a problem in the NFL, but there's so many good receivers. Seems like you have about 20% of the league's receivers. Is there moments or weeks where you've got to tell guys, this is not going to be your week, production-wise? No, we kind of put that fire out long time ago, you know, and it starts with Mike Evans. He's probably the most unselfish superstar I've ever coached. He just wants to win. Chris Godwin is the same type of guy. And they are their best friends that long as we're winning.

And, you know, an A, B, bought right in. Look, dude, you're not playing 80 snaps a game, you know. But each guy has a role. They all pull for each other. And if you bitch about not getting it from Brady, you probably ain't going to get it. Right. Basketball season is back. No better place to bet on it than the Fandall Sportsbook.

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Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win.

A win is a win. I don't care where you're saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined.

And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, the Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment,

and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream, This is right what you need to be.

Listen to The Clifford show on the IHeard radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim?

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It is incredible what I'm watching right now. So through the years, you've written a book on this. Are there things that you look at for a young quarterback? And you just know, Bruce, that's not going to work in this league or that's a trait that doesn't work. Because a lot of different stuff, Bruce, works. I thought Kyler was too small. I didn't think Josh Allen was accurate enough. And I look up and I'm like, two of the top five quarterbacks in the league.

But are there things? If I was a dad listening to this, and I got a high school quarterback, are there things like, A, not going to work, B, not going to work in the NFL? Yeah, I think it's the hardest thing to judge, and that's the brain. If you can't process information in 1.52 seconds, you can't play. And you can be as talented as there ever was. If you can't process that information within split seconds, that's really what separates all the good ones.

And I think what's really helped, all these seven-on-seven leagues in high school and all these high school teams throwing the ball more than they won't. You know, there's no more wing t's and, you know, or wishbones. And it's like the college has got total flooded with athletes playing quarterback. Now, you can separate them on the blackboard quickly. Yeah. And you can watch the tape and like, oh, he looks once and he takes off running.

You know, he's going to struggle. All right. Now, if he's Michael Vic, that might be different. That's right. It's Lamar. It might be now Lamar's really came on as a pastor. Yes. He can sling it at Louisville.

You know, and so each, I think each and every one, you can't judge the heart and the brain. You can measure everything else. You know, it's interesting, Bruce. I don't need to name names, but there are. our coaches that seek power and personnel. Jason has always been an underrated talent evaluator. I mean, good God, you go get try on from Washington. I saw his high school tape.

He was a skinny guy. Didn't even look like an NFL player. He was a three-star guy from Tacoma, Federal Way. And then I watched them at Washington, put on like 30 pounds. And when you guys got him, I'm like, oh, my God, they went and got another one. How much, it doesn't feel like to me you have this power need to control personnel. but you also know it. So how do you and Jason work?

Because, man, when you look at your last three or four drafts, you guys don't miss. Yeah, it's a great collaboration between the scouts, the coaches. We're all in it together. You know, we just want to get the best eight or nine players or ten players that day that are going to make us better the next year. And who cares who gets the credit? You know, if I don't care, Jason is very undervalued in this league. I know that for sure.

I mean, he's one of the best I've been around. And we worked together in Arizona. Steve Kahnman and I had that same relationship. And it was like, let's just get the best players for the bucks to win. And we have a blast. He and I sit there and the scouts. They have their board. The coaches have their guys.

And I'll tell all the coaches, give me a guy you love in the fifth round. Give me a guy. You're not getting the first round fit. Give me a guy you love in the six. You're going to jump on the table for. And then we have that huge, 135, 140 guys on that board. and Jason has a great way of he's going to go right about here. You want him, him or him?

I was, I want him. I will move him up here. And that is so much fun massaging that board the week of the draft. And I used to hate the draft. I love the draft. Why did you hate it? When I was assistant coach, had no control. Okay.

And you just get your voice, you know, and let's get out of here. But now it's so much fun. And if and when I ever retired, I'm something I'm really missed. Yeah. You know, it's I tell friends, the draft outside of the season, the draft's my favorite sporting event in the country because I love college football. I can make, I make this argument. A lot of the quarterbacks come from the West, but you could almost live off the SEC.

Outside a quarterback. If I just said, you can only draft the SEC. I don't know why it is. Maybe it's the culture. It matters more to them. but when you do you are you looking for a different kind of player offensively to defensively like defensively you got a guy's got a lot of have a little dynamite in him like he's okay to just lead head first are there different personalities for different positions in your career

oh i don't think there's any doubt i don't think there's any doubt and and you know that's the hardest thing in evaluation you know that we're so limited now in that personal one-on-one stuff not having a combine not you know those little silly interviews they're important to get to the guy for 15 minutes, you know. Because you can tell a bullshitter in a heartbeat. And, you know, the guy that's rehearsed all his answers. And then you, hey, man, when's the last time you smoked dope? Was it yesterday?

Did you get high yesterday before you ran? And you start seeing him shaking like, you know. But no, yes, that's going out, going out to the colleges, you know, now you can only take three guys. We used to have an entourage on people we've really liked it. It might be not the guy that's a star. It might be two guys that were working out with him that you just wanted to look at in person,

can a back go out of the back field and catch? Little things, you know, and, hey, just listen. Them reacting to your coaching. One of the greatest workout I ever had was Patrick from Holmes. Really? Yeah, dude, it's so smart. I mean, Byron and I had him on the board for about an hour and a half. And, you know, you can see the arm,

and the wind was blown 30 miles an hour. I love it, but it's a night day. And in the middle of the workout, I say, hey, I'm the safety on Blitzin. It's slide protection. And he ripped off exactly the words to fix the protection. And he just learned him an hour and a half before that in a meeting. Then I was like, hey, I'm the strong safety is man, man protection. He fixed it.

Like, I looked at Byron. We've had guys that took three years to get that done. It was like amazing. His recall from that meeting got on the field in the arms, which is an arm. arms, crazy. Have you ever had a quarterback you work with? You're surprised how good they got. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've had a couple of guys. Kelly Holcomb is one of my favorite all-time guys. He was just a battler. But every time he played the throw for 400, you know, and whether it was Indy, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, you know, Cleveland, I think he had three or four starts in Cleveland. They were off 400 yards. One was in the playoffs against the Steelers. And, but he's, he, I might have had something to do with him.

You know, the rest of them, God and their parents, they did all that. You know, when we have 17 games now, you're playing really well. You have a hiccup in Los Angeles. You're playing well. They always talk about this in college basketball. You don't want to peak in January. You want to peak in March. Have you thought about, okay, I got some veteran players.

I'm going to give him the bye week. I'm going to give him, you know, this is no shell this week, no pads. Have you thought about Bruce the year differently because of just as an extra week, but it is substantial to players? Yeah, we've changed our Wednesday practice schedule already and Thursday. We've taken some reps out each practice, forget which week it was. We just walked through on a Wednesday. It was a real physical game.

We had some guys beat up that wouldn't practice that are going to play on Sunday, but they wouldn't practice. Let's just do a walkthrough and come back. and have a really heavy practice on Thursday. We've got a great sports science team here who helps me a bunch with that kind of stuff. But I have about seven guys over 30 that we really monitor their workload.

Fridays, we have a lot of guys that don't practice on Friday, so they're ready for Sunday. Is it, so that's easy for you to embrace. It's not easy for everybody. Like, there's been a cultural, a little bit of a revolution in the last six or seven years. I mean, McBay came in this. league and said, I'm not playing anybody in the preseason.

I'm not playing anybody. A lot of people push back on that. You have always been willing. I mean, hell, you retired, you broadcasted, you came back. You're always kind of an adapter. A lot of guys are rigid. You're not a real rigid guy. I mean, last year, in the buy, you and Tom came out and the offense had been tweaked.

Where does that come from? Most football coaches, it's the football mentality. This is my lane. That's not, I don't perceive that as you. Where does that come from? I think I've always been a pretty good listener, you know, and if you're telling me stuff and it makes sense to me, like this sports science stuff was all new,

started in Arizona with us. You know, we went 13 and 3, came back, lost the championship game, had a killer spring, killer camp, and lost the entire team with injuries. So this year, I don't want to see of that until mandatory mini-camp. We took the 50 young guys. we had OTAs.

And you could come if you wanted to, but you weren't going to practice. We had to make sure at mini-camp, man, bro, they were about to kill each other. I'm like, whoa, slow down. We don't have any pads on nothing. It's like, then we got to camp and we had a hell of a good camp. But again, it was you're not practicing today. You're practicing two. You're off one.

Just load management, those guys through camp. Tom, how's your arm today? Do you need a day? No, he hates not practicing. But as I say, you're not practicing this thing today. All right? And just making them take a day off. And those guys do a great job with, man,

they've got so many gizmos on them. And you can tell what legs are weak and just by how they're running with all the stuff. But you can have somebody that can read that shit. I have no clue with that stuff. I mean, they send me these graphs all the time. I'm like, what the hell does that mean? Does he tired? Yeah, he's tired.

Take the damn day off. You know, when you left Arizona, if I recall, call, it was kind of a burnout thing. How did you get talked back into coming to coach? Yeah, it was, you know, I enjoyed broadcasting. I hated to travel. You know, I'm used to getting on a team bus and a team playing and go to the game and come back.

It's like, that shit going through the airborne. Grabbing calves and, nah, that wasn't, that wasn't going to cut it anymore. But I love going to practice on Fridays. I love talking to the coaches and seeing the coaches. And then my son had a big, my son's. agent and he said, look, you've got to talk to Jason. And I said, what do you mean? He's, you know, they got a really good young football team that's close to home. Then as I got interested, my whole staff became a mill. And my wife, oh, Bulls. Todd, Byron, Keith, the whole

18 guys, and we've added some more. As I told my wife, you're going to walk in to 18 wives. You guys can go have a hell of a lunch on Tuesday right off the bat. And say, the grandbabies are close. Everything just fell into place. And I think she's excited I got about it. And I got to give the Glazier family a lot of credit because I don't fit the mold they hire. I'm not the 30-something young genius, you know, but it's worked out pretty good. Yeah, I know I worked down in Tampa for two years.

Rich McKay was the GM. Sam Weiss and Tony were the co. I loved the Glazer family. They were great to me. Awesome. Yeah. And they, by the way, they're about family. They are.

They were always that way. You know, it is interesting. We kind of joke a couple years ago. Shit, if you had a lunch with Sean McBay, you got a job. It was like everybody had to be young, young, young. And I'm like, come on, Belichick still winning a lot of games. We got to slow down on the young thing. If you coach Bruce today against 36-year-old Bruce Ariens,

where would you take advantage of him? And where would you look at and go, oh, like coach against yourself 25 years ago? Well, you better be physical. First of all, your team better be physical. You know, because I would, you know, when I was 36, I was still the head coach at Temple. And it was my last year. But when we played, we were, you knew you were in a football game. You're going to lose some guys in the game.

And you might beat us, but you might lose next week. Right. That was our motto, Temple Tough and Broad Street. bullies and all that good stuff. And so, yeah, I would, I would know that when I'm going against this guy, this is going to be a physical, physical game. And that hasn't changed for you. No, that's still, having been a wishbone quarterback, I guess, you know, it was ingrained

in me that that was the way to play the game. And, you know, I was so fortunate because I don't know if you know the story, but my senior in high, my senior in college, I was trying to get a junior high coaching job. and I didn't get it. And we got a new coach. He talked me in the coming back out my fifth year. And we had 58 guys my freshman class on scholarship. I was the only one to make it to the third head coach.

That guy changed my life. I mean, I started as seventh team quarterback, ended up captain of the team, most valuable player. And my record held for 40 years. most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback in one year. I win more money on that one, me or Michael Vick. So you, by the way, so you sort of get the Tom Brady chip on the shoulder overlook thing.

Like you probably get it totally. All the way. All the way. I mean, we went Super Bowl 43. And every offensive coordinator who's a two-minute drive to win a Super Bowl, so he's got an interview. I didn't get a phone call. And it was like, oh, this isn't in the car.

You know, for me to become a head coach, Chuck, you had to get leukemia. Why do you think that is? Yeah, I don't know. You know, we've also had a lot of drinks talking about it. And probably because I'd have probably told you exactly what I thought. I did one of those interviews. And don't ask me a question. You don't want the right answer.

I don't give shit who you are. Right. Well, to be honest with you, this is a true story. When I covered Tampa, Tony Dungy had to interview three times to get the job. And I remember they went. went to burn steakhouse. And I was taught I talked to Rich McKay. I was a reporter.

And I said, are you going to name him after this? He goes, listen, we know he's the guy. But shit, he's so quiet. He goes, we'd just like to see him fired up a little. So you didn't fit. You and Tony didn't fit the mold. I mean, it was very much a, there was a parcels, you know, no, kind of a physical presence, kind of angry.

You didn't fit the mold. I was probably more that way than the other. And, you know, but yeah, I wouldn't change anything. That's for the damn true. Do you, a couple minutes left, when after winning the Super Bowl, was there a moment, you're with your wife, you're having a margarita and you're looking at the Tampa sunset. Maybe it's the causeway.

Maybe you're on Davis Island. And you kind of pinch yourself. and you're like, Tom Brady, married to the woman I love, what a great city. I mean, did you have, has there ever been a little bit of an out-of-body experience? Like, Jesus, this stuff has really worked out. Yeah, I mean, on the field, on the field at the game. You know, we wanted to have three people on the field. So my wife, my son and my daughter, they came running out.

We just had the most unbelievable family hug because it's been a hell of a journey. We've moved 19 times. Wow. My daughter went ninth grade, 10th grade, 11th grade. She would have went to 12th grade, but I left and she stayed. So it wasn't not an easy journey. And so we have a huge picture of it. It was just the most gratifying moment, I think, ever.

And then we did go out to a local tiki bar and just sit in the sunset and go, this is really cool. There's, I mean, you're in right now. It looks like you're in good shape. There's no reason to stop, right? No, I'm having a blast and physically really good right now. And, you know, the thing in Arizona, that second cancer thing really shook me up. And but that and my son turned 40, that really shook me. And like, where did all that go?

And, but the cancer, that was like, is this all worth it, you know? And then once we got all cleared up and all that was gone and healthy again and all this was available. Yeah. You're in good spirits. That's what winning streaks do. Oh, there's no doubt. There's no doubt. Even, I mean, after that 13 and three year, when we lost all our quarterbacks, everybody,

and you fought your ass off to get to eight and eight, it's still fun, you know. I know our injury situation right now is bad. especially on the back hand. It's probably going to get worse before. It gets better, but hopefully in three weeks, we'll get a bunch of guys back. Just keep hanging on until then. Great seeing you.

You look fantastic. You're an easy guy to root for. Not everybody's easy to root for, Bruce. You're an easy one to root for. Appreciate it, brother. All right. Great seeing you. You too, man.

All right, Bruce Ariens. I got to talk to him a couple times a year. He's really a special cat. I love the idea of date night on Thursday. So I'm married, right? And so we have a couple date nights. And that has always sort of been my theory. Like when we prep, as a lot of guys at the volume know, because they work on the herd.

My thing is prep really, really hard. Do the show and go home. Don't sit around the office. Because you know when you're not good and you know when you're good, there's no reason to talk about it. Prep like hell, let her rip, go have a margarita. It's a great way to live. and I don't even like margaritas. All right, at the Volume Sports,

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