The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Former NFL DT Marlon Favorite

Episode Date: January 30, 2020

Former NFL DT Marlon Favorite

The biggest game of our career. It's time to celebrate. Welcome to Miami. This is Sports Talk 790, live from Radio Row, presented by Low T-Center and Twin Peaks. And let the fans enjoy this great moment. And welcome back from Radio Row. It is the Matt Thomas show without Matt today. Chris Gordy, Michael Connor, Ross Villa Real, and we've been having all kinds of different guests here on Radio Row.

And very rarely do I get to see a guy that I went to college with and play ball. A guy who played ball when I was in college, a guy who played at LSU. It's my buddy Marlon Favorye jumping on with us, who's getting into the broadcasting world. He's been doing stuff. I saw you on NFL Network. You've been doing all kinds of stuff, man.

Yeah, I've been super busy, man, but I want to let the listeners know right now. Part of this started on the Chris Gordy show back at LSU, baby. Let me see. Chris was one of the first people to say, you know what, let me go into the studio with Marlon when he's recording songs, and then I got some football clips for him already.

So hello somebody. We're going back like four flats. Did he record songs with you at any point? Have you heard him sing? Have you seen Chris Gordy karaoke? Well, he dropped a couple of verses. They're so exclusive, I can't really run them to you. Well, he did one in Minneapolis a couple years ago at the Super Bowl.

What was that song? Oh, yeah, I performed a song, yeah. Your own original song. Out of barn. I'm known for doing the shaggy impression of karaoke. That's what I do. What was the song you did? What was the name of it?

Butter my toast. Butter my toast. That's the song I wrote. He did in front of a whole bar. Butter my toast. Butter my toast. That's important, right? When you eat breakfast, you got to make sure you get it.

some butter on that toast. It wasn't. It wasn't really about that, but we won't go into what it was. Watch out there now. But Fave, so big Fave, as he's known to me, he, after LSU, you won a national championship at 07 under less miles and all that.

Then you start going to all these different NFL teams and you're on these different practice squads and you're cashing those checks and you're putting in the work, and you end up on the Saints at 09 end up getting a Super Bowl ring too. Yeah, yeah, man, I couldn't, man, it's a blessing. It's a huge blessing.

I couldn't ask for a better pitcher or a movie to be painted. or pitch to be paying a movie to be shot. You paint a movie. True, you really can. But no, that whole situation was surreal to me. It was one of those deals where you put a lot of hard work in. And I started that year off with Carolina.

So bounced around from Carolina, St. Louis, Kansas City, ironically Kansas City, right? And then Seattle picks me up. And then I don't sign a futures with Seattle, which makes me available as an unrestricted free agent. And I get a call from Ryan Pace, and he's like, hey, Marlin, you're in town? I was like, yes, I'm on the West Bank. David the Best Bank. How you doing? And he was like, hey, well, we got a roster spot over here on the practice squad.

He can work out. Everything goes well. You can possibly get signed. So, you know what I did. I just, you know, turn my car around and boom! Put the pedal to the medal to the medal. Shout over to our airline and the rest is history, man. Just a blessing to be a part of that in our hometown.

It's just huge. How many different NFL jerseys did you put on? Ten. You played for ten different teams. Ten different NFL teams. in four years. And this, like, every team's got its own unique playbook, its own terminology and all that. How to

how the hell do you adjust to that? Just adjust, like, it's like overload. See, folks really they undermine how smart football players are. Like, you are expected to learn, like, everything that's your responsibility. Some other guys, I know, really. That's just rude. He's a guest.

The special guest, though, we go back, baby. Chris could do that. But no, In all honesty, it was just adapted and adjusting, you know, and put it in the simplest form. Adapt, adjust, and just make sure that you, if you mess up, you mess up at 100%. But, you know, it was cool. And later on in life, now that all those defensive philosophies are engraved in my mind, through our ConquerSports.com deal, with us training the players and everything, we also be able to implement some of that stuff to the linemen.

So it just really came full circle for me. time with the Patriots. What was Bill Belichick and company? How different were they from some of the other teams you played for? Well, surprisingly, Bill Belichick was extremely nice to me, man. My entire time, I always thought, I guess his public persona always put me in a space that, oh, man, this guy's going to be mean. Let me not mess up. And I remember we were coming back from OTAs, well, the lockout, and we were doing the conditioning. So I did my conditioning and tested. You had like skill guys out there that was out of shape. And I knocked out my conditioning. test. I made it all under the time frame I had to make it in. And I can remember walking

through the tunnel after the conditioning test. And it just so happened to be walking right alongside Coach Belichick. And I was like, hey, coach, man, when the last time he talked to Coach Saban, I just wanted to crack the ice because we never really had a real conversation. I was already on the team for like a few months, but still hadn't really talked to him. And he was like, oh, man, he's doing fine. I spoke with him the other day. But hey, Marlon, you came in in a really good shape. You look nice out there. That was one story, right? I'm like, okay. cool, I'm in shape. I might have a shot. And then, you know, we would have fun in training camp.

You know, training camps is a stressful moment. So it's about the fun you can have where you're there. So Patrick Chung started freestyling, and he wanted me to do the beat. That's not bad. I'm busting in the beat. And then Coach Belichick was like, hey, Patrick rap was all right, but I think Marlon's beepopping is more impressive. I'm like, oh, this dude is cool, man. But he's super professional, man.

And obviously, the winning pedigree is there. A lot of similarities with him in Saban, you could tell her buddies. You should have got a... How'd you not end up on a hard knocks? With all the different teams you're on there, it should have been a hard knocks. You'd have been a star. Hard knocks.

Hard knocks. No, it's too late now. You're out of not playing anymore. Broadcast boot camp hard time. You know what? How'd you never end up in Houston? They could have used you on the Texans. I know, you know what?

And I thought that would be a good thing. That would have been a good thing. That would have been pretty dope. It would have been cool. I have a lot of family in Houston, five hours away from New Orleans, so it would have been cool, and they're running a three-four defense. I enjoy being in a three-four defense when I was with the Redskins, too, sidebar, by the way, because nozgar, you don't have that much responsibility. There's really no way you could go wrong, so I thought that that was cool, but I think Houston would have been a decent fit. Have you been like this guy lately, insufferable after the LSU title?

Oh, yeah, man, we've been too much. He's walking around nothing to LSU stuff on. It's my first day, not wearing an LSU shirt. Oh yeah, well, I have my ring on a date and I had look what I did Chris. I wanted to tell you this. This year normally I will go to different press conferences or we'll do like broadcast and I'll wear my ring, you know, just kind of wear it. It's very conversational, right?

This year I said, you know what? I'm not going to wear this ring. None this year. Worked out like a charm and won a national championship and right after the Natty, boom, I put it on my wrist, baby. I mean my pinky ring. What did you make of the? season Joe Burrow had. I mean, and I mean, the guy's going to be the number one pick.

Did anybody predict that a year ago? Nobody predicted at all, but I knew something was special about that kid, because this is my third year with LSU Sports Network, and then the second year we got Joe. So we had two talented quarterbacks there, and Justin McMillan and a Lowell Narcisse. Both guys are doing well. Loewel's out in Texas, San Antonio, and then Justin had a phenomenal year with Tulane. And what I like most about Joe Borough's story is this kid just kept getting better. You could see it week by week, even towards the end of the season, just taking a step and getting better.

And you, Coach Ed Ogeron, right, the genius coach he is, he thinks, let's make this passing game much better. Let's go, hey, Coach Sean, look, I need you to let me get one of your offensive car. Now look, it don't have to be you, but I want you to get one of your. and he's hired Joe Brady, best thing happened. You know, a guy 29 years old. You know, he's dressed in suits with Jays on and stuff like that, relatable to the kids. And I was talking with Justin Jefferson, Jordan's little brother.

And he was telling me, when they got the playbook, they saw all the past plays that they had. And it was like, each installed that he was like, oh, this is going to be fun. Wait, I'm doing this? Wait. And they saw it. And then Georgia Southern happened.

And from that, it's like, wow. Like, I remember Mike Scorable from Tigerbate.com came up to him. He said, I've been following LSU for 50 years. I've never seen them come out in the office like this. It felt like it should be illegal for LSU to have that kind of offense. He really should have. Because I used to dog him all the time about the less miles, pitch it to the running back and die.

The pitch dive was the funniest thing to me ever. It's like, why you keep doing this? But it was like, it was, you came to the new age. How do you sustain that, though? Now, how does Coach O sustain that? Because he's lost a lot from this team, include the coaching staff. Well, one guy he didn't lose, Steve Innsminger.

He's still there. That mindset. People don't realize he was calling the play. Like Joe Brady was with him, but Ensinger was still executing and calling the offense. Yes, he was. And I don't, okay, so let's do this, right? I leave my notebook right here, right? And in my notebook is all of my plays.

And I just lead, but I don't bring my notebook with me. I mean, that's LSU. I don't think the offense change. It's not going to forget what Brady Institute is. this year. It's already been instituted, so it's there. Now, as far as hires, I don't know if he brings in another like-minded person to do that. I don't know if he goes back. Hey, Sean, I know last year I asked you to let me get what he got.

You got anybody else for me? I don't know if that type of this. The Saints cabinet for anymore. So, oh, no, buddy. He can come over here. But or you find an analyst on there that worked side by side with Joe, and then he gets an upgrade. Or he could take the Bill O'Brien approach in Houston and just say, I'll run everything. I'll be the play caller.

I'll be the quarterback coach. I'll be the GM. That wouldn't be a good move. I'll just oversee everything. And I'll be honest with you with Ed. He is a defensive line coach, period. That's his deal. Now, he's an amazing head coach.

He knows how to manage a team. But what I like about him is his intelligence. He's like, you know what? I'm not going to, I'm not the smartest guy. Let me find somebody. The smartest guy in the room knows to find other smarter guys than you. And that's the approach he took to his hires. relationships too Greg McMahon I mean Greg McMahon he was on the Saints team with him

coach Bill Johnson he was on the Saints team with him all the D-line coach with the Saints you know you bring in Steve Innsming or someone you're familiar with you have a friendship with you you start looking at these hires and you're like yeah he's headed the right direction most most head coaches like my assistant coach is not going to get paid close to what I'm getting paid now let's break Dave or Randall of whatever you want so that type of attitude as a coach is going to take him far in this game. Talking my buddy Marlon favorite, a couple more for him.

We're on Houston. A couple quick thoughts on Deshawn Watson. What have you seen out of him in his development? And I mean, he just won his first playoff game this year. What's the sky of the limit for Deshawn Watson? Oh man, a guy fearing, man, a good teammate you could tell

from a mile away that that's his deal. What I like about Deshawn Watson is, man, his ability to run. I mean, that's the obvious thing, right? Noticing when that defensive in may have cheated in a little too much and you have the edge on the outside. High football IQ for a young, for a young player. He's skilled.

In my opinion, man, two years ago, he was, he was very close to being the MVP of the league just off his play. So I think, you know, moving forward with Deshawn Watson in Houston, man, he's going to, you continue to put more targets around him and prove the offensive line and it'll be a ride. Real quick before we'll let you go. You start doing the broadcast thing. You've been on NFL network a little bit. You're doing this broadcast, boot camp, and all this stuff.

What you got going on? So right now we're going to finish out the radio road this week. Probably have some more NFL total access obligations that I'll have to do and just really take it inside the trenches podcast to the next level as well. We're about to do our 200 episode, so I'm bucked up about that. And I'm going to really take the content from here and go ahead. head and put it on that episode. Who was some of the guys you've done the boot camp with? What, Mark Sanchez you were with at one point?

Mark Sanchez, Vante, I mean, Vernon Davis, he was there. Brandon Flowers, which he's here right now. Shane. Shane, Marine. He was there. It was like 36 of us at broadcast boot camp. And all former players getting into the broadcast world. Formal and current. Like Jason Cabrida, he's still playing in the league. He's with the Detroit Lions right now. So I think it's a unique approach that the NFL is taking with this broadcast boot camp and all of this stuff just to really take the former and current players and make that transition much smoother. For a guy like me, you know, I don't have any accredited seasons, right? I bounced around a league for four years, but I never made anyone's active roster, but I'm still a part of the family.

How could we get this guy involved? And I think that's what they did really well this year more than anything else, just kind of help guys hone their craft and just support. the NFL family. Very cool. Awesome. Of course, you got to give some credit, like you said, to this guy, unfortunately. Oh, yeah, I do. I do.

And let me tell you something. No, no. Let me give him credit. What's credit is due. The NFL has been watching me very close since the broadcast boot camp. And this man here allowed me to host his entire two-hour show three times this football season. LSU is the hottest thing on the market, right? And he, like, Marlon, you got the keys to the Ferraris.

So thank you, Chris, for giving me more content for these guys over here to say, say Marlin down there working, baby. Well, we're going to see Marlon a whole lot real soon, NFL network and all those family networks. My buddy Marlon favorite from LSU join us here at Radio Row.