WHOOP Podcast - Super Bowl champion Eli Manning on training your mind, reducing injury, and the role belief plays in success.

Episode Date: September 15, 2021

Eli Manning is one of the most durable players in NFL history. He started 210 straight games over a 13 year span, and led the New York Giants to two Super Bowl victories along the way. He details how visualization, mindset, and belief played a key role in his career.  Eli sits down with Will Ahmed to discuss growing up in a football family (2:54), learning from his older brother Peyton (5:43), the 2004 draft (8:54), the importance of teamwork (12:19), his keys to durability (14:30), the 2007 Giants (21:51), the David Tyree catch (24:38), mental performance (30:49), training the mind (34:00), using WHOOP (36:30), performing with low recoveries (41:15), why Peyton Manning is obsessed with HRV (43:33), and joining the Monday Night Football broadcast (44:08). Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

What's up, folks? Welcome back to the WOOP podcast, where we sit down with top athletes, researchers, scientists, and more to learn what the best in the world are doing to perform at their peak and what you can do to unlock your own best performance. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, and we are on a mission to unlock human performance. What an amazing past week it's been for those of you following all that. the action. We announced a new acquisition and push. We announced Woop Unlocked, our first virtual event. And at that event, we announced the new WOOP 4.0. And actually, our last podcast got into WOOP 4.0 and everything that it can do. So I encourage you all to check out Woop Unlocked, which was the event. You can see that on YouTube. And I encourage you to listen to the WOOP 4.O

podcast. And you can join WOOP for 15% off if you use the code will. That's just WI-L-L-L-L-A. Now, we got a great guest this week, NFL legend, Eli Manning. Eli spent 16 seasons in the NFL quarterbacking the New York Giants to two Super Bowl victories. He holds nearly every passing record in Giants franchise history and put together a career that many argue is worthy of the Hall of Fame. He started 210 consecutive games from 2004 to 2017. So this is a guy who knows something about consistency. That's the third longest consecutive start streak in league history. So we talked a lot about how he stayed healthy during that time frame, how he overcame injuries, and just

what he did from a recovery standpoint to be able to start every single game. Eli also discusses his upbringing in the Manning family and his journey to the NFL. I particularly enjoyed him talking about his relationship with Peyton and we got into that. Eli talked about why training your mind is as important as training your body, how to set yourself up for success in the long term and not just the short term. And his role on the expanded Monday Night Football Broadcast, which will be done alongside his brother, Peyton Manick. Keep an eye out for that on ESPN 2 and ESPN Plus. Without further ado, here's Eli.

Eli, welcome to the Wolf Podcast. Thank you. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. You know, I grew up on Long Island. So the New York Giants were an important sports team for me. I was a big fan of you and your career. amazing career at that let's go back just to start things off you know growing up as a kid

your father being an incredible professional football player did it kind of always feel to you like you were going to be a professional athlete did you know that that's what you was you wanted to do no i don't think that was ever the goal or that was the thought i think and it wasn't the thought of my dad either i think a lot of people assume you know since peyton and i went on to be professional athletes that he had this master plan that say, I'm going to make, you know, these kids into, you know, professional athletes and nothing could be really further from the truth. I think he just, my dad just wanted to raise, you know, good boys and between Peyton Cooper and I. And, you know, we just love sports. And he loves sports and thought they were great for kids because it teaches

you so much about teamwork and, you know, and hard work and kind of dealing with the ups and downs. And And we, you know, love playing sports, but, you know, we played every sport. It was kind of whatever season you were in, that's what you played. And I didn't start playing tackle football until eighth grade. So I played, you know, I was playing flag football. We played a lot of football just in the backyard or at recess at school. And I played quarterback and could throw it, could always just kind of throw it better than the other kids. So it got to the point where I played permanent quarterback on both teams.

And I was like, come on, I want to play receiver. Like can I catch a pass? Can I do anything? And I go do it. And the quarterbacks were so bad that I would never even call a pass anyway. So I said, all right, never mind. I'm going back and just playing quarterback. So we played, you know, we played basketball all through high school. I played baseball until my junior year of high school. But football is always my favorite sport. You know, I really just, you know, really the goal was, as I got a little bit older, I want to be the starting quarterback on the high school team. And I want to go try to win a state championship. I kind of, I kind of one of those goals. I became a starting quarterback. I know a state championship. But you just kind of took it, you know, the next step after, you know, had some success in high school. So I'd love to go play big time college football. And, you know, you get there. And it's really more about trying to win an SEC championship or win a national championship. And so you just kind of took it at the stages. It was never a master plan to try to be a professional athlete. I think I, you know, originally just played it because I love the sport. I love, you know, being part. of a team and love the quarterback position. How much did your brother's Cooper and Peyton influence you or sort of affect your mindset as growing up an athlete? You know, they definitely had a huge, huge impact on me. I'm five years younger than Peyton.

I'm seven years younger than Cooper. And so, you know, those were my heroes. And, you know, I still remember, you know, Peyton's sophomore year in high school, Cooper was a senior. Cooper was a receiver. Peyton was the quarterback. And so just, you know, watching all those games. you know, with my buddies, I'm like, hey, that's, that's what we want to do. You know,

that's what I want to do. I want to be the quarterback. You'd be the receiver. And, you know, let's go, you know, play high school football. And so, you know, that it was just, you know, you know, so they had a huge impact. And also, you know, probably more, you know, Peyton just because I saw, you know, I saw him go off to college. And I, you know, and he would come back from college during his spring break, back, you know, and come home to New Orleans where we grew up. And he would, you know, start teaching me, some of the things that he was learning in college and some of the drills and like I was just a sponge I was like yes more I like I want to know more and just uh and so you know he was he was

always looking after me always very helpful but also saw like how hard he worked and I went up to when I was in high school I went up to Tennessee in the summer uh to visit him and stayed for a week and you know when you know got to work out with them and go to throwing sessions and saw watching film and like i'm like wow you i mean this is this is like a you know i was i was needed a nap every day i was worn out i'd never seen so i worked that hard or myself worked that hard and sitting in a meeting room and watching film so it all just blew my mind but you just saw you saw the hard work and then you saw the product on the field and how much success and you kind of realize all right you know if you go do this i mean you got to go all in so if i get the the time

period's right. Peyton actually is getting drafted around when you're going or thinking about going off to college, right? Yeah. So you got drafted in 1998, and I graduated high school in 1999. So you get to Old Miss and Peyton at this point is having a reasonably successful NFL career. At what point in the Old Miss journey are you kind of realizing that actually that's probably going to be the next step for you? Probably my, I redshirted my first year, the next year. The next year i played a little bit not much it was really kind of my my third year you'd call it my red shirt sophomore year i became the starter and you know started to have some success and had a good season and won some games and so you know i think at that point um i knew i mean you know it's a combination

i said i knew i wanted to get better and work hard to you know have you possibly have a chance to play in the NFL, but the mindset was still, like, I want to win an SEC championship also. You know, it's still based more on having success and being in college. And I loved, I love college. I love my teammates. And so, you know, I was not in a hurry to leave. I could have left after my redshirt junior year, but I wanted to come back for my senior year, a chance to be a captain.

We had a bunch of us that all redshirted. And so there was maybe, you know, 12 of us seniors that all came in together. you know, go out with those guys and have one final year of college and try to win an SEC championship. We were, we were a game short of doing that. We lost the LSU late the year. Whoever won that game was going to the SEC West and it was going to the SEC championship game and we lost the down. They eventually went on the, and won the national championship that year. But, you know, still, you know, enjoyed my whole college career and still, you know, tried to stay in the moment, even though I knew I wanted to go play at the next level. I knew I want, this is what

kind of what I wanted to do. And so at what point are you realizing you're probably going to go first overall? You know, I didn't know, probably until, yeah, just, you know, until a week or so or two weeks, you know, kind of before the draft. And I'm going through the process. And, you know, there was a few quarterbacks. I know they'd been talking about, you know, that I could possibly go number one. And so, you know, I wasn't all that, you know, concerned about that. And I didn't have an ego about, hey, I want to be the first pick taken. And eventually, I, you know, I obviously didn't have an ego. I said I'd rather not be the first pick taken and go a little bit later and try to go to a different organization. Or I was like, hey, if you go, you know, the problem with

being the first pick taken in the NFL is you're going to a really bad team or the second pick. You're doing top five picks. It's like, oh, it's great, congratulations. But you're going to a bad team. They had earned that first pick by not winning many games. And so, you know, it can be tough. It can be tough to kind of go into that situation. And knowing it might take a little time to rebuild and to, you know, go from a bad team to a good team.

And I think it was very fortunate just the way it worked out as being drafted. And then by the Chargers getting traded to the Giants. And coming to the New York Giants where Tom Coughlin was a new head coach, my rookie season, and Coach Coughlin's, was Coach Coughlin's first season as the head coach. And I think, you know, just bought into his style of coaching. And he was hard and he was tough, but he harped on preparation. And, you know, he harped on hard work and just kind of the commitment of just doing everything, you know, kind of towards that common goal of the team coming to the game.

to win games. And I bought into it and we had enough guys that bought into it and eventually had some success. Well, just listening to you, I mean, it feels like in your whole life, this focus on hard work and then being part of a team comes through. I mean, just listening to all of this. And it's no surprise you've had so, so much success. I feel like when I, and it might be how the media is portraying athletes today, but I feel like there's such an emphasis today on the individual and how much did that individual get paid that individual is holding out that individual's not happy with their organization you know like what do you what do you think of all that and do you sense that that's a growing trend i definitely sense it's a growing trend and and and and don't

like it you know it's i think it's it's bad for for the game and i think it's it's a bad look for young young, you know, athletes kind of growing up that it's, it's, it's a very much of a me world. Look at me, look at how I'm doing I, I, I instead of we and us and being a part of the team and kind of doing something, you know, you know, that's, it's not just about your personal success, but about, you know, doing it for someone else or doing it for someone else's success or getting joy out of your teammate, you know, scoring touchdowns and not you. you or, and, you know, of any joy about, you know, your coach winning and getting to celebrate and not just about, you know, how much playing time did I get or how many touchdowns that I

throw. And so, you know, I love being a part of a team. I love my teammates. I always, you know, kind of, that was kind of always my inspiration to work harder, to be accountable, to be at, you know, practice every day, you know, even when I was hurt or injured or try to play in every game because I wanted to do it for my teammates. I want to be held accountable. I saw how hard they were working. I knew my offense line were all banged up and hurting, but they're out there at practice. And if they're out there, then I can definitely be out there. And so I think when you get that mentality and I think that that attitude is contagious amongst a team, that that's when you start to have success. When you get the individuals, you know, that can also be contagious,

but in a bad way. All of a sudden, it becomes very selfish and it becomes very, you know, what about me? I know we won the game, but I only had two catches. Like, how do we fix that? And there is some of that.

And you obviously, if you have a great player, you want to get them involved, but, you know, there's still ways to celebrate and to be happy about what's going on and make changes instead of being sour and kind of trying to bring down

the whole mood of the team because you didn't get your self, satisfaction on and enough looks or enough plays and so yeah i don't know i don't it kind of started you kind of felt that it started in basketball a little bit about right teams kind of you know leaving a team and you know creating these super teams and to get you know to get success and now you know i thought it'd be harder to do in football but you know people have kind of tried and it didn't always it didn't work you know sometimes it worked sometimes it didn't but i think it kind of create something awkward for the team when you when you when you see that happening kind of during

the offseason yeah well you describe it with a real a really refreshing selflessness just what what it takes to build a team and have success uh you mentioned also you know injuries and one of the most amazing things about your career was your consecutive uh starts 210 consecutive starts it's i think top three uh for longest consecutive starts for quarterback what was it like what were some of the techniques you use to be able to maintain that and just weekend week out be able to be available because in a sport like football i mean that's an amazing statistic yeah i mean i think uh you know i think a lot of it is just you know just kind of your workouts you know during the off season and and you know you're you're stretching and kind of

almost the stuff before the workout make sure like you don't you don't skip out on the on the 20 minute stretch before you get into the lift. You don't skip, you know, you don't skip out on the post stretch after. It's like, it's, it's doing those little things, you know, really well also that, you know, can kind of get looked over and, you know, if your strength coach, you know, kind of, you know, you'd love to be doing it right there with them. Sometimes you had to travel, you're on the move. But it's kind of that commitment to say, hey, you know, give me, give me the workout. Let me do it. I'll get it on my own, you know, on a Saturday or I'll do it, you know, Tuesday night after because something, I had something going on. And so it's, it's, it's just

kind of that being reliable and being committed to, you know, to get to work in, but also makes sure, hey, I'm going to get this full stretch. I'm going to, you know, work on this, you know, maintenance stuff before, you know, before the workouts, get in there early to get stretched. And so it's just like doing all those things, getting a great routine, I think, was helpful. I think also just the mindset, like, you know, definitely had some injuries over the course of the year. Definitely, you know, I was told by doctors that, hey, you know, I think you'll be out, you know, two to three weeks and this, you know, me saying, well, I, I disagree with you doc. You know, I plan to play this week. It's like, you know, I want it to be out there every

week. And I think, you know, sometimes, I always told teammates and players, it's like just because the doc says, hey, two to three weeks or, hey, I think you're out. three weeks. Doesn't mean like, all right, I can relax. I got three weeks to get ready. It's like, no, the mindset should be, I want to get ready for this week. And if you can't do it, you'll probably be ready to the next week. And so, you know, you'll be back a week earlier. You know, so I think it's just. So that's so interesting. Like, what is that moment like, right? You're in the doctor's office. What would be an example of an injury that you had where they were like two to three weeks? Yeah, I separated my right shoulder. So that's pretty important. Yeah, 2007. And the first

in the first game of the season against Dallas. Wow, what a season, right? Right. And so, you know, separated it and, you know, go see, you know, doctors. And not the, you know, not that they were incorrect or not that they were misdiagnosed or anything, but just, you know, so obviously it's a shoulder and you're a quarterback. And, you know, you kind of just, you know, you have to ask the questions of like, all right, you know, doc, like, do you think I'm out three weeks because of the pain?

or do you think about three weeks because, you know, if I can re-injure it and make it worse, you know, and so you're kind of got to ask those questions and he said, well, I don't think you can make it worse. Obviously, if you fall on it the exact same way that you just fell on it, then you could re-injure it, but it can't get, you know, a ton worse and the odds of that happening are probably not great. If you just, you know, land on it normally, it will, you know, it should not kind of postpone the, or make the injury, you know, last longer or anything like that. And so I said, well, you know, let's, I'll try to, I'll try to deal with the pain and just, you know, kind of waited until Friday of that week and through some and definitely was uncomfortable.

And so, you know, I would never go out there if I think, I didn't think I could perform, you know, better than the guy behind me or I was in a, you know, I was going to, you know, make the team worse that, that week. And so I just felt, you know, I felt, you know, I felt all right. I could, I could throw a pretty good by, you know, okay by Friday with two more days of rehab and rest. And, you know, back, back, back then in those days, they had some special medicines they, that have been outlawed since. It took away a lot of pain. So you take those on the, on the game day, or would you practice with them before? I practiced, yeah, because, because I'd never taken, you know, it's a thing called tortural was a, was a, it's a super anti-inflammatory. It's been outlawed since, but they're definitely,

definitely being, you know, there was definitely a lineup of people taking a little shot of that every Sunday. And I practiced, yeah, I used it on Friday to kind of try to get through practice and make sure, you know, I could, you know, handle it on that and then, and then did it again on Sunday that week. And then eventually just kind of did it on Sundays for a few more weeks. You know, that's the thing. It kind of, you kind of learn. I played that next week. And all of a sudden, like, you know, we kind of come back. We have practice on Wednesday. that following week after I just played on it. They're like, all right, you know, full go.

I'm like, well, this thing's still like really hurt. So I don't think I'm quite like full go. Just as I played, like I still got a, you know, it's still a rehab. It was still like I need to, you know, I got to be, you know, smart with this and not overthrow things. And so it's still a process to get through it. But it definitely got better and started winning some games, went a little win streak kind of, we lost the second game in the season.

And then I think went on, they went kind of six in a row after that. And just, you know, it got better kind of by the middle of the season. It was feeling perfect again and went on from there. And during that season, did you have a different feeling about the team than, you know, your prior few seasons? Like you strike me as a guy who's so present that maybe you're not thinking about, hey, this is the Super Bowl winning team? No, definitely didn't think, you know, that, you know, I knew. I knew we had good players and knew we had a good, you know, a group of guys. And we had kind of made the playoffs a few years, you know, the year before, the year before that,

but didn't win a playoff game. And so you just kind of felt that, you know, we were close to kind of making that turn and winning some playoff games. You know, I just feel it's, you know, kind of sometimes you've got to get to those situations. You've got to get to the playoffs a few times before you start making or run. just to kind of get, you know, used to being in those situations, get used to playing playoff football. It's a all sense of different, you know, intensity. It's a different mindset kind of of knowing, hey, you know, you can kind of make you a little tense and a little, you know, rigid because, you know, if you don't, you know, if you don't win, the season's over. And so

you kind of have to get there a few times and figure out how to, you know, stay relaxed and stay loose even though it's such a big game and it's such a big moment. And so, You know, that year we, you know, end up kind of winning a game late against Buffalo, second to last game of the season, to secure our spot into the playoffs. And then the last game of that season, 07, we're going to play the Patriots of the last game of the regular season. I remember that game. It was a close game. And you guys actually looked like you had some, you know, you could handle them.

Yeah. And I think that was a big part. We had already secured our spot in the playoffs. and we didn't know if we were going to, you know, the starters were going to play or how Coach Coughlin was going to kind of handle that situation. And, you know, he kind of came in right away to that first meeting, you know, Monday morning and said, hey, starters are playing. We're playing the whole game. Like, we're going to win this game. And so, you know, this, it was a great message by him to say, hey, this is the, you know, hey, you know, this is the best team in the NFL.

Let's, you know, they're playing. They're going to be planned to go. I like that. I like that. Let's go see kind of how we how we handle that. Let's go beat them. Let's go ruin their perfect season. And so that was the mindset and to kind of have a, have a goal. And we, you know, we jumped out on. We had a league going in the fourth quarter. And then Brady and Moss kind of got on fire a little bit. And, you know, but we had a chance. You know, we're, you know, kicking an on side kick late in the game to try to get it to, you know, have a chance to go win. We didn't recover it. They won. But, you know, but I think it gave us. us a bunch of confidence going into the playoffs all of a sudden where you know we've been in the playoffs two years before and lost now at least we have some confidence going in and saying hey this is the best team in the NFL we hung with them we're you know we're a play away from beating these guys so you know let's we can we can put this together and you know we go and kind of and make that run going to tampa and beat them go to dallas who had beaten us twice already in

the regular season and go beat them in dallas and go beat them in dallas and go to Green Bay, Lambeau Field, negative 21 degrees, Brett Farr, and beat them to go to the Super Bowl. Well, that's the famous Tyree Catch game. Just how we drew it up. Of all the plays in your career, is that the one you get asked about the most? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Just, yeah, because there's a lot going on in that play. It's, you know, it's third and five, you know, about to get sacked.

You know, they're hanging on to my jersey. but you know the guys my linemen were kind of still blocking them you know it's like the guy was just reaching over holding on to the jersey but the line you know my guys were still had a block they kind of blocked them off on me and roll out throw it to tie re and i mean i still you know how he how he caught that with rodney harrison hanging all over him and how the ball did not touch the ground it was all you know and if it just you know with it on the helmet if it just touch the ground at all you don't know how they might you know how they might call that whether that's a catch or that's you know whether it's a catch or not it's so it can be so confusing but there

was no doubt the ball never they've never touched the ground at all and uh i remember going up to him and you know we had to call a time out because it would have taken too much time and and it was going to get reviewed anyway so we called time out and uh i'm here going up to tired david and it's like hey david you know did you catch the ball he's like yeah i caught him like David, don't, you know, don't lie to me. Like, there's no good to lie to me in this situation. Like, you're a Christian man. Like, tell me the truth, did you catch it?

He's like, I promise you, I caught the ball. The ball did not touch the ground. And I'd been burned by receivers before. I mean, I can't tell you how many times, you know, went up to Paxco and, you know, a place getting reviewed and, and, like, hey, did you catch him? He's like, yeah, and I see the replay, and, you know, it bounced like four times. I'm like, why, you know, why do you lie to me? There's no good to lie to me in these situations.

That's funny, yeah. But he did catch it. And then, but that wasn't, you know, I think, you know, people, that wasn't the end of the game. I mean, that just got us to the, totally, totally, totally, totally to the 30 yard line. I said 30, you know, 30 yards to go. I hit Steve Smith on a big, you know, third down play for a first down. And then they finally came all out blitz on us and, you know, had plaques go on a little fade route. And he ran like a little slant move and, you know, bidded and had a wide open for the, for the touchdown.

Now, you told me an amazing story, if you're willing to share it, about the Friday walkthrough and Tyree, you know, maybe not his best stuff. You have a call with Peyton. Tell that story because I thought it was amazing. Yeah, so the Friday, you know, it's a Friday practice before the Super Bowl, and this is the, you know, this is your, this is your last practice before the game. Saturday is just a walk through. So this is kind of, you know, the NFL, they actually call it feel good. Friday. It's one of those days where everything's just scripted to go perfect. It's a lot of red

zones. So, you know, you throw a lot of touchdowns. You do like a move, you know, a little move the field, the defense, the scout team defense is kind of told like, hey, just go one step slower, kind of let, let the guys catch it. You know, the ball should not touch the ground on Friday. It's just, it's crisp and it's, you know, everything's working and you're kind of, you know, running your best plays against the best looks. And so Plaquescoe had a great season that year. He's our number one receiver. He didn't practice much throughout the whole season,

but he would kind of practice on Friday a little bit and play games. But all through the playoffs, he was feeling healthy again. He practiced all week all through the playoffs, and we were playing good. And so also that week, he gets injured again. He's not practicing. and so on Friday he tries to practice can't go like he looked horrible his knee was bothering him and he could hardly run so David Tyree is going to kind of fill a Plaxico spot he's going to be

the ex-receiver he's going to kind of you know kind of you know that way we don't have to move everybody else around and so you know we had a lot of plays kind of put in hoping you know for Plaxico to be there so a lot of balls went to Tyree that day and he you know and I've taught to David I'd never throw him under the bus but he had the worst practice in the history of all practices. And he just, he couldn't catch a cold. I mean, it was, he, and I'm going back and watch the practice, and he dropped eight passes.

I threw him nine, he dropped eight. He caught like a, like a receiver screen, you know, like a, you know, for one yard. Amazing. So, I mean, just touchdown. I mean, everything's just like, boom. And you're like, oh, my gosh, like the feel good Friday, it's not feeling, not feeling so good anymore. You're about to go play the biggest game.

your life, best receivers hurt, and the guy filling them can't catch the ball. So, you know, and you're hitting them on the hands too, right? Yeah. You're like, you're like, you're feeling pretty good. And then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, wow, another incomplete pass. What is going on? And so, you know, I went up after him and I said, hey, we'll, we'll be better, we'll be better Sunday. You're a gamer. You'll figure it out. So I remember, you know, get on the bus, going back to the hotel. So I call Payton. We're kind of having a call. He's asking, hey, how's plaques is he you know did he practice today how did he look and i said no i said plaques who didn't practice um you know he didn't he didn't look great i don't think he's going but i said

the good news is david tyree had the best practice he's ever had and his life is going to be outstanding on game day i just thought i was like if i can just lie to myself and and and make myself somehow feel good about the situation maybe it'll be okay like you know i just didn't want to say anything negative on that Friday and want everything to try to be positive. And sure enough, David comes out, makes an unbelievable catch off the helmet. He had a touchdown on the series before. And so a great story, just a kind of belief. And I guess if you're going to have the drops, you'd rather do them in practice and save the big catches for game day.

I love that story so much. And I think it, I mean, I think it matters that you had that attitude on the Friday going into the Super Bowl. because, you know, who knows what your subconscious does in that moment if you're saying to yourself, this guy's dropping eight out of 90 falls. You might not throw it to him on the touchdown pass. You might not throw it to him on the third down. You might not give him a chance because you don't think he's going to make the play. And so, you know, I think it's, there is something about having a total confidence in your guys on game day. Like, you know, you can have your doubts on practice or you can talk to the coaches about them or you can have a talk with him

and try to pump them up or meet with them extra. But like game day, you got to trust your offensive line. You got to trust your players, your coaches. You got to trust the system and kind of, you know, do what you've been practicing. And, you know, those guys, you know, I believe they're going to step up and make the plays. That's why they're professionals. Well, my sense in listening to you is that a lot of this belief system came naturally to you and sort of came through repetition.

but I'm curious if you did anything in your career that was routine-based or visualization-based, you know, something that you kind of force yourself to do every day as an exercise to sort of foster this belief system. Yeah, definitely, definitely worked on all those things. Kind of that same year, yeah, 2007 was the first year that I started working with like a sports psychologist, a guy named Hayneser, who was at a West Point. and, you know, I meet with him, I meet with him in person every two weeks, but we, you know, so I meet in person every two weeks and in between, you know, have a call on the phone.

And, and so, you know, each week I'm kind of communicating with them. And really, it started in the all season. So we could work on, you know, some of the visualization and, you know, just kind of med, whether it's a little meditation or just being calm and being relaxed and visualize. you know, walking through the stadium, visualize the fans, you know, kind of be in that moment

before you got to that moment. And so, you know, did all those things. And it was powerful. I mean, just be able to kind of sit there in a room and, you know, start sweating and because you're, you know,

going through the plays and you're playing a two-minute drive and you know, you're, you know, all your senses are working. It's not just your kind of eyes. It's your, you know, what you're hearing, what you're smelling, like, you know,

using all those things. to go through it. And so, and worked with him, you know, throughout my, my whole, my whole career, worked them, you know, all season, always had new, new ways to grow, new things to try to work on. And then during the season, just, you know, having different things to, you know, for myself to work on. And also kind of how to how to motivate other teammates, like, you know, how do I use what you've done to me and all of a sudden, how do I become the psychiatrist to other guys to get them

kind of buying in or get them, you know, in the right state of mind before this upcoming game. And so he was a great help and fun to work with. Was that something you would do on the day of the game, too, is like a rehearsed visualization or was it something you were just doing all week? Yeah, I do it. I tried to during the week, I tried to do it really the night before the game and kind of just that was kind of my final, you know, that night we'd have like team meetings and some meetings, you know, on Saturday nights. And then afterwards, words would go in the hotel room kind of do my last little kind of scan of the of the game plan of the playbook all my notes and then kind of lay down and kind of try to play the game a little bit

right there you know you know note we would get like our first 15 plays that might be wrong we know the first third downs I know our favorite red zone plays so you kind of you know hey let's go let's lay down and play the game you know Saturday night and then you know kind of take that then to go to bed after that. And that was kind of like, all right, you know, that was kind of my key. The work had been done, the preparation's done. There's no more I can do on that. There's no more film to watch.

Here's kind of the first game and then the real game will be tomorrow. Amazing. I love that. What percent of quarterbacks do you think do that in the NFL? I think more. I think it's pretty common now amongst quarterbacks and players. I think people are, you know, putting more time and effort. into their workouts and their trainers and their body and their diet and their massage and

their mind they understand that you got to you got to train the mind as well to be to be sharp to be strong to be resilient and all in all those things because the season is a grind and there's going to be ups and downs and you know from from from the season and from you know a series to be so many things and so you got to be mentally sharp through all these things so I think I don't know the exact percentage, but I know a large, I'd say a pretty large part of the quarterback community is definitely using them. Especially amongst, it seems like, the best quarterbacks or the top quarterbacks. I was with Patrick Mahomes maybe a month ago or so, and he was telling me about some of the visualizations

he does before games. I happened to play golf with Gary Player recently, and he was doing a call with Tom Brady because they both were super into visualization, and Brady was talking about how he would do it. it when he goes out into the stadium picturing even things like the score and um erin rogers i think this offseason was talking about his meditation practice so clearly there's something with quarterbacks and visualization and i imagine too it's also that you guys really wear two hats i mean you're both the quarterback and you have to execute in that role but you're also like really the leader of the of the team in so many ways like your demeanor your attitude whether you're you're nervous or calm i think it has a

huge effect on the rest of the locker room. And so I imagine these practices help you develop both, you know, manage both of those roles, you know, processes for breathing and visualizing. Yeah, definitely. I think I think, like you said, you know, the quarterback, you know, everybody's kind of looking to you and how you handle, you know, circumstances. What's your, what's your body language after an interception versus a touchdown? Like, you know, they're looking at you, how you're going to handle that on the sideline. If you're walking around, around, you know, not just what you're saying, but how you're acting, how you're walking around, how you, you know, hey, the week before you get killed in a game, you know, what do you like Monday morning when you walk back into the facility? I think, you know, the way you conduct yourself has a huge impact. Well, it ties to a big whoop theme that we've seen with professional athletes, which is essentially going from thinking of yourself as a professional athlete for the period of time that you're at practice or a game to thinking of yourself as a professional athlete 24-7.

and you know like it sounds like you you were someone who cared a lot about sleep and recovery how do you think you might have used i mean you've been on whoop now for how long um yeah i'm just over a year now so how do you think you might have used it when you were a player yeah you know i started started whoop in retirement you know you should have come up with this thing 10 years ago well you know what are you so lazy yeah it took me a lot You know, it definitely would have used it. I think just the just the information, you know, that I've learned in this year just on sleep on, you know, certain, you know, whether it's the processed foods or it's very, you know, just in the hydration, like kind of having those checkers each day and knowing, you know, seeing how your recovery is on those moments. I think, you know, what alcohol does to your recovery has been so, you know, just, you know, just, you know, so like, holy moly, I mean, that's just, you know, would have changed up a lot of things, you know, like I was drinking a ton, but just, you know, just enough on after a game, you know,

I was like, oh, I got, I got six days to, you know, before the next one, this is a time to celebrate and, and be with your family and, you know, hang out. And so, you know, but going, just how long it takes to, after a late night and some drinks, how long it takes to recover for that, you know, Wednesday practice, I would it be, I would not have been fully recovered. And just having that information would have, would have been, you know, a game changer, I think. And I wonder, the only thing I wonder, you know, just for me is, you know, I guess I could talk, you probably talk to other players, like what the mindset would have been. Like, I would have definitely warned it during the week and had it, but like, whether I would have kept it on Saturday night into

Sunday. Like, I would, I wouldn't want to, like, wake up Sunday. And all of a sudden, like, wait, why the heck am I in the red right now? Totally. Just not have, you know, just not have like, oh, you know, just, you know, you want to wake up Sunday that's thinking, we got the best game plan. I'm feeling totally healthy. I'm 100% ready to go. Like, you, I don't know if I'd want anything to think, you know, to take me out of that mindset.

That would be the only, and I don't know. And maybe if I just, you know, we tried out and preseason. And there would be no reason. I would it be well recovered, I don't think, on a Sunday. But even if you were fighting. a cold or just, you know, I had a West Coast trip the day before you're on, you had a West Coast trip, you know, that you just went on like it could affect your sleep, it's just on the hours and stuff. So, but I think it would have been, they would have changed the, you know, this,

the preparation of my week would have been a lot better, a lot better maintained, I think, if I was wearing it while I was playing. The game day question is a fun one because I've talked to a lot different athletes about this. Football is a unique sport in that there's like 16 events, right? Hopefully more, but 16 events. You know, a major league baseball player, for example, kind of knows over the course of a season, hey, there's going to be days where I'm peaking physically, there's going to be days I'm a little rundown. You might want to tell yourself, hey, all of those 16 days, I'm just going to be peaking. So I can understand that mindset. I mean, it was interesting, though, talking to Patrick about his whoop data.

Like, he was in the red for one of those playoff games. He was coming off like a little bit of an injury. I think he got hit very hard in one of the games. Sure. So he was in the red for one of those playoff games. His attitude towards it, I thought, was healthy, which is like, he's like, look, I'm not going to let what my score is affect my mindset. But I'm going to use that information to help think about my preparation.

So, you know, maybe the warm-ups a little shorter or, maybe I'm, you know, focus more on my breathing on the sidelines or whatever. And I thought that was a pretty healthy attitude. Yeah, I think that definitely, yeah, definitely makes sense. And, you know, if you had a night, if you woke up, you had a night game, you know, when you're in the red or in the yellow, you're like, maybe I'll get a nap before this game or try to sleep a little later or, you know, do some things. Or like you said, maybe not have as big of a warm up, like a pre-pre.

You know, I'd go out, like the pre-game, I would do like a pre-game and go kind of get a sweat. maybe I will do that this you know today I don't because I don't want to waste the energy that you know that extra energy just so I can be fresh throughout the whole game and that's the thing that's like I always kind of used it you know I thought the woo like even those days I might be in the red or green or yellow it's like it doesn't mean I can't just go out there and perform and I could have my best my best day to day it's just you know it's just you don't want to have a habit of you know the day you are performing to keep doing it in those moments and you might be at more risk.

And so you just don't, you know, you want to, you know, try to plan better for those moments. But, hey, that's part of being an athlete. There's going to be times when you're not at your best and you're not feeling your best. And you know it. You've got injuries or you got sick or you got stuff going on and you got your mind wandering. But you got to find a way to like, for those, that three hours, it's like, I got to dial it in right here, right now. And just, you know, forget it and have no excuses and find a way to be at my mind. best and to peak and to make plays when I need to and and just kind of, you know, have that

willpower to forget about everything and, you know, and say, I'm not that, you know, after this game, there are there being no excuses. It's not, I'm not looking for a way out or an excuse of why I played poorly. I'm instead, I want to, I'm going to, you know, show how tough I am, you know, to myself and prove that no matter what's thrown at me, I can overcome it. Well, you mentioned peaking on Sunday, which I think is the right, right way to frame it. One of the one of the, you know, other thing that Whoop has been helpful with for people who literally have like a weekly cadence where they want to peak is actually making sure they don't overdo it on a day that they're tapering, right? Because often you start recovering a little better as you lead up to

something, knowing that you have to be more prepared. So if someone's in the green on a Friday for what's supposed to be a light day, and next thing, you know, they just feel so good that they're sort of putting an amount of strain on their body that they can't feel, that actually isn't that good either because you're now kind of unnecessarily running your body down going into, you know, potentially the game. It would have been interesting. There have been a lot of looking at your strains and just, you know, kind of figure out the best way to how to kind of go about it. And I think you would use like preseason and different practices to kind of understand all those things that kind of, you know, just, you know, get a great game plan about how you want to

handle each week and what you want to do in certain days based off based off how you're feeling a little bit now are you and uh you and payton on a whoop team together or are you on any whoop teams i i'm on one whoop team just kind of with my uh with my cousin kind of uh does some some fitness uh he's kind of like a a strength trainer at a nashville and so he asked me to join one and so i do it a little bit i'm not i'm not with payton i know you've talked to him before he's very Payton is, every time I'm with him, he's like, what's your HRV? Let me see your HRV. He's very worried about his HRV being too low.

So he's very much addicted to it. I asked him, you know, obviously just got into the Hall of Fame. He had a big party Sunday night, but he went to, you know, John Lynch is on Saturday night. He went to Steve Hutchinson's on Friday night. I saw him Monday morning. I'm like, I want to see your whoop after. I know you've been out about 3 a.m., three nights in a row. Like, what's the HRV right now?

He's like, you don't want to know. I can't even look. I don't even want to look at it. I know it's not good. Now, the two of you are hosting Monday night football together. Tell us about this. This is going to be awesome, I think. Yeah, so we're excited.

You know, it's both of us. And we're just doing it like kind of like this on a Zoom. I'm doing it from my house in New Jersey. He's doing it from his house in Denver. And we'll have a host. And it's kind of like you're watching, you know, watching the game at your house or watching the game at a bar and you're just you know you're not analyzing every single play the first and 10 run for three yards like we don't have to talk about

that but you know the big plays you know we can actually analyze a little bit more we can you know dive into that for 30 seconds or 45 seconds or longer so we're kind of you know we're kind of telling old war you know war stories old football stories we'll have guests in and and you know have you know kind of just talk talk ball talk life talk everything And then at critical moments, the red zone or third down conversions or two minute drives, like we'll dive into football and do, you know, kind of talk, talk ball, talk situational stuff. And so it's, you know, I think each week we'll kind of, you know, learn a little bit what works, what doesn't work, what fans like, and grow with it.

But I'm excited about it. It should be a lot of fun. Just, you know, I don't get to see my brother all that often. of, I don't know the last time we've sat and watched a ton of, you know, football together, you know, since probably we were, you know, and, and, or he was in high school and I was in middle school that we would do that. So you get to do that, you know, for 10, 10 Mondays will be, we'll be fun. I think it's going to be amazing. And I'm sure that the two of you are going to have, uh, great chemistry. And, and I think it, you know, I think what, what this is is a different form of

broadcasting in a way, you know, that sort of feeling like, hey, the mannings are on my couch and we're sitting back and watching the game, you know. Exactly. Like, you know, the Al Michaels Collinsworth thing, okay, they've dialed that in. We're going to talk about every play. We're going to know every single player. Okay, let's not compete with them. But, hey, here are two guys who know a ton about football. And by the way, are probably people that want to hang out with you guys. And, you know, to me, that's just a really interesting format. Yeah. And that, and that's, and that's the idea. And so obviously you have your fans that, you know, when, when the Vikings are playing the bears, you have your Viking fans, your bear fans that are like, you know, dialed into this

game. But then you have the other people are just, you know, they like football and they're just kind of watching the game and they just want to, you know, just relax and here's some stories or, you know, maybe learn a few little things, but, you know, we're not, we're not going to, you know, just, you know, have the same structure that's kind of what you see on TV. It'll be a, definitely like an alternative way to watch the game and kind of a new you know a new approach. Well, I love it. Now, where can folks find this? It'll be on ESPN, you know, plus so you can stream that as kind of the starting point. There'll be a few other venues each, you know, each game.

That's the ESPN Plus will be where it's at. It's been interesting. I've gotten to know more about the production of sports from Woop Live, which is our, you know, effort to put heart rate and other live elements of physiology. on broadcast, right? We're doing it with golf and we're going to do it with other sports so you can see their heart rate in real time. But it's been fascinating to learn more about just the amount that goes into a production. I think the average fan takes it little for granted. I certainly did. All those different things that are coming up on the screen are, you know, different forms of software that are getting queued at, you know, at the perfect moment. Yeah, no doubt. There's a lot.

There's a lot that goes that goes into it and getting the team and just, you know, having a game plan of what, you know, what kind of videos you want to show. And, you know, hey, when are we going to kind of go to this story and how am I going to set you up? So there's a lot, a lot going on. And I'm still learning kind of that side of it as well, kind of, you know, being the first time kind of going on the production side. Well, I think it's going to be awesome. That's on ESPN Plus, Eli and Peyton. And this has been great, man. I've really enjoyed it.

Grateful to have you on Woop and in my life. And thank you for coming on the WOOP podcast. Appreciate you. Yeah, thank you. This was a lot of fun. And thanks for the Woop. It's been fun to test, you know, kind of know how I'm feeling, test the days. And I love waking up with the green and just knowing, hey, I got to get after it today.

That's my mindset. When I see Green, I'm like, I got to find a way to get after it some way. Am I going for a run? Am I hitting the weights, pel? a time like tennis, you know, I got to just, I got to sweat and I got to take advantage of this green deck. Thanks to Eli coming on the WOOP podcast. I'm excited to check out Monday night football with him and Peyton. Reminder, you can get 15% off at W-W-M-Mership. If you use the code Will W-I-L-L. You can find us on social at W-W-A-W-A-Mad. And if you like the W-P

podcast, please sure to leave us a review or a comment. Definitely helps people find the podcast and it helps us get better at this. So with that, stay healthy. folks and stay in the green.