The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Kyle Long Discusses His Retirement After Only Seven Seasons With Bears

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

Kyle Long Discusses His Retirement After Only Seven Seasons With Bears

joined by Kyle Long here at Radio Rose. So why don't you just shut up for a minute? I'll talk to Kyle. He says he's going to be nicer. Oh, me? No, I'm not going to be nice. So it's funny. So I'm broadcasting here in Miami, my partner, well, he's the, it's his show.

It's the Matta Thomas show. My name is Ross. He's in Portland with the Rockets. So we're kind of on a, we're literally coast to coast here all over the place here. You guys are a multi-traveling band. We're in Houston broadcasting from Miami and Portland. That's how we run. Kyle, how are you doing, man?

How are you feeling? I know the announcement came in January and how you, how you feel? feeling you feeling okay you just like where are you right now i feel awesome uh i'm down here miami yeah i don't have to not not a bad place isn't i don't have to worry about my brother playing in the super bowl i don't have to worry about you know any of that stuff all i got to worry about is coming down here and and not messing up on the radio and too bad honestly it was the easiest decision ever for me i'm at peace with my career uh i can sleep well known i did some really cool things in the NFL and I've done things that a lot of guys can say they haven't yeah and yeah it's on to the

next for me I don't know what that is but yeah that's that's great man I think that you know there's been a lot of people like that that Luke Keeckley just announcing his retirement of course Andrew luck before the season uh I think we're seeing this a lot more than we have in years past right you I mean Chris Borland from San Francisco he was a rookie right and he was a phenom yeah so I mean is this is this the new normal I get we're just going to see guys I think the new normal is guys not willing to push their body to a irreversible point. And we have more of an understanding thanks to science and medicine and, you know, images. We can take a look at how serious this stuff is and what impact it will have on me down the road.

I broke my neck two years ago and I played like six, seven games with it. And I didn't know how I had a broken neck. I thought I had a top. Okay, who messed up there? Is that you saying I want to do this or is this the doctors? It's 100% on me. And I thought I had a tight trap. But my finger was feeling weird.

And then at the end of the season, they do the physicals. And I said, I'd like to get this imaged. And it was at that point I had to go get a fusion in my neck and the whole nine. But ask questions. And guys are asking more questions now and taking ownership of their careers as opposed to just saying, like, feeling like they just got drafted in the military. Like you're allowed to have an opinion and you're allowed to have your own brain. And that's one thing that's lost on the older generation.

Yeah. And that's the interesting thing to me is that's what's happening. That's because the old day, you know, they shoot them up, patchy on the butt, just send you out there. And they didn't know any better. Right. And so I guess it's just, I mean, obviously changing for the better. And now is it, I mean, was it always, was it some trainer, some players, or you think it's like a mix as far as the blame? Not necessarily blame, but, you know, just the way it is.

the culture of the NFL. Perfect word was culture. Because it's not the trainers. They're not trying to get you hurt. They're trying to keep you healthy. Right. They're trying to get you to play again in relative health. As players, we want to stay healthy and we want to help our teammates.

But the culture is don't let your teammates down. And how do you not let your teammates down? You go out there and you play. Right, right. And you mentioned your brother, Chris. You said you don't have to worry. You said worry about him being in a Super Bowl. Does that worry you or you make you nervous?

You're really rude for him and all that type? Like you think you're probably more nervous than he is? Yeah, I mean, well, he's a gangster, so I know he's going to do what he's supposed to do. But there's a large gangster watching as well that can't do anything about it. So I guess it would be like watching a dad watch his kid play or like, you know, anything like that. But yeah, my older brother, who's like my hero, he won two Super Bowls.

And watching him playing those was nuts. We're going to have him on tomorrow, by the way. Is there anything embarrassing you can get, like, some dirt you can give me on him like something i can ask him everybody always throw him off everybody always asked me about embarrassing criss stories i'm like dude he's like gondy there's nothing bad you can say everybody's got something though i feel like right they do i'm not going to give you all this oh that's all right you know well that'll be for off here um so now your uh retirement what's next have you are you just uh you're just hanging out you're i'm trying like a decompressed i'm trying so i took about a month and a half and

played a ton of video games yeah i saw you have a twitch channel yeah and i've had it for like three, four years. You've been playing, I saw you were playing some, some, not Call the Duty, Grand Theft Auto. A little bit of Grand Theft Auto, but we do, I mostly do eye racing, so I have a simulating. What's that?

It's like a motorsports simulator. Okay. So. That's your jam? I like that a lot. Right. I haven't, with my friend, J.R. Rodriguez and I, we have Mode Motorsports.

We are the owners of a peak NASCAR eye racing team. And essentially all the owners from the real NASCAR Joe Gibbs, junior motorsports, all these have teams in the digital realm too, and I'm a way for them to kind of expand their social media footprint. Because my following is not all NASCAR people. And when the Venn diagrams overlap, they say, we can reach this many more people if we get football guys, baseball guys, whatever. And that's the direction they're going with, the e-sports now.

But yeah, just trying to find hobbies, stuff that was so time-consuming during my career that I couldn't invest all the way into it. Now I have nothing but time, man. What a wife, kids, anything like? Yeah, I'm engaged. Okay, congratulations. Thank you. It's big.

It's a huge step. But that's another thing that I couldn't focus on. You got a date set yet? Probably next year, spring. Okay. Nothing said. Is your brother going to be your best man? My dad.

Oh, your dad? Yeah. Okay, interesting. That's cool. Yeah, I got a couple of groomsmen. that look like me. See, I have a brother. I'm like, it's easy.

He'll be my best man. I got that one. And that's something I couldn't do when I was playing. Okay, that's cool, man. Well, congratulations to you. You're here also talking about Gillette. What do you got going on with them in Walgreens? Well, Walgreens and Gillette have partnered, you know, skin care is the topic of discussion.

And now that I don't wear a helmet every day, I need to pay attention to first impressions. Speaking of culture changing, that's feel like skin care is really for men, especially the last few years. People think it's feminine. It's important. No, not me. So masculine. Oh, man, dude, I crack. I'm brown.

I'm brown. I'm like, if I don't get much stressed. We see a guy with a great manicured beard. You're like, that's a dude. Yeah. To me, that's it. You take care of yourself. You take pride and that kind of thing because you would take pride and care and anything else you would do.

Right. And so February, buy one, get one 50% off. Specific shave care products from Gillette at Walgreens or Walgreens. And also, you can get $4 coupons towards your. raise your head. So that's huge, man. Check out Walgreens for that. Okay, Walgreens.com. Jellette Shave Care in February. Buy one, get one 50% off. That sounds pretty good to me. All right, well, we've got a break here. Kyle, appreciate the time, man.

Thank you so much, man. And hope you're feeling good and have a good. And go rockets in Portland. Well, yeah, go rockets. Yeah, I don't know how they are this year. They're pretty good.