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The Downside of Being in The NFL · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 1: The NFL is interesting because it's like it's one of
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  Speaker 1: those sports that there it really is no offseason. I
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  Speaker 1: feel like like you go from OTA's right, well, really
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  Speaker 1: the draft, the draft of the kicks off, but before
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  Speaker 1: the draft, you have the combine where people are still
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  Speaker 1: working and they have like a veterans combine.
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  Speaker 2: All right, yeah, so we I mean we're working.
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  Speaker 3: We've been working as a team as a unit since
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  Speaker 3: April eighth of this year, and the combine was before that.
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  Speaker 3: The veteran I mean, the draft is in what late
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  Speaker 3: it was April this year, so yeah, no, I mean
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  Speaker 3: you're pretty much working all all year, right, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: you know, the only even when you're not even when
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  Speaker 3: you're away from the facility, you know, you can't take
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  Speaker 3: you can only take but so much time off. There's
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  Speaker 3: some guys who find a way to take off a
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  Speaker 3: couple of months and all that stuff, but like by
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  Speaker 3: the time, you didn't.
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  Speaker 2: Let your body get out of shape and all that
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  Speaker 2: type of stuff.
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  Speaker 3: So I mean, even when you're not quote unquote working,
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  Speaker 3: you're working, right, because I mean your body is, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: your asset, and we all I mean, even if you're
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  Speaker 3: not exercise enthusiast you know how quickly you can get
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  Speaker 3: out of shape. It only takes a week, taking your
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  Speaker 3: whole year to get it. Take a week off and you.
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  Speaker 1: So you now, I brought that up because you had
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  Speaker 1: an injury while you were in Detroit and it kind
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  Speaker 1: of like changed the forecast it.
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  Speaker 2: We'll probably get into that in next segment. But what
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  Speaker 2: was it?
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  Speaker 4: A torn And during that time, it was like, you
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  Speaker 4: know what, let me focus on some other things, right,
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  Speaker 4: because I think you went to the veteran combine and
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  Speaker 4: you impressed some people and they were like, wait, this
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  Speaker 4: kind of was a four or five, Like oh, we.
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  Speaker 2: Need to bring him in, but you had to. That
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  Speaker 2: was Detroit brought you in, but you got hurt.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, So so yeah, let me go ahead and just
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  Speaker 3: attack the story. So Year one rookie practice squad, like
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  Speaker 3: I said, we had said earlier, I got cut after
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  Speaker 3: week four.
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  Speaker 2: A few weeks later with the Tennessee Titans. Got cut.
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  Speaker 3: They picked me up back up the next week and
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  Speaker 3: let me through the season. But you're like, dang, this
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  Speaker 3: is kind of fickle. So then year two I'm going
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  Speaker 3: into it. I'm like, okay, hey, like you know, I
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  Speaker 3: got my foot in the door now I know what
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  Speaker 3: to expect. You know, this should be not a walk
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  Speaker 3: in the park, But like, I know what to expect, right.
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  Speaker 3: I was a long shot last year. Now I'm I'm
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  Speaker 3: not a vet, but I'm you know, I know what
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  Speaker 3: I'm going into this year. Make the team, make the
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  Speaker 3: practice squad. I'm there for two weeks, we had new
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  Speaker 3: coaching staff and all that stuff. Two weeks and then
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  Speaker 3: after that I get cut. So I'm like, okay, it'll
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  Speaker 3: be similar to last year. Somebody called me next week
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  Speaker 3: or something. No call, nothing going on, right, this is
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  Speaker 3: my second year.
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  Speaker 2: What's going on? Man? You know?
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  Speaker 3: Okay, So I'm working out, working out, working out, changing
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  Speaker 3: my body up, working out, working out, working out, and
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  Speaker 3: just keep staying focused, staying on the on the on task.
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  Speaker 3: I remember Sunday nights watching the other people play and just.
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  Speaker 2: Like just running on the treadmill. Right.
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  Speaker 3: So during that time, you know, So you go in
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  Speaker 3: September fourteen, fifteenth through January, no no call, no check,
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  Speaker 3: no anything, right, And so I'm like, all right, during
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  Speaker 3: that time, I'm like, you know, you got to figure
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  Speaker 3: out what your life is gonna look like. For me,
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  Speaker 3: that was a big slap in the face. Of like,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I always knew it, but that was a
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  Speaker 3: big shaking of like this, you really can never put
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  Speaker 3: yourself in a position where you're dependent on Tennessee Titans,
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  Speaker 3: the bottom.
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  Speaker 2: Of Ravens check, right, Like, I gotta provide, right.
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  Speaker 3: So I gave myself a year at that point because
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  Speaker 3: I knew I could play in the NFL. It would
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  Speaker 3: be one thing if I went up there and I
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  Speaker 3: was like, man, I'm getting tossed around like a little
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  Speaker 3: school boy right, Like, I'm like, no, I can play
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  Speaker 3: in the NFL and I can be good. So I'm
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  Speaker 3: gonna give myself one year and I'm gonna do everything
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  Speaker 3: in my power to make it. In that march, there
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  Speaker 3: was a Veterans combine. The way God works, there was
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  Speaker 3: a Veterans combine. That was the only year they ever
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  Speaker 3: did it. They didn't have it before they I did
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  Speaker 3: after it was a thousand or like a thousand people.
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  Speaker 3: Over a thousand guys tried to get in to.
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  Speaker 2: You pay to do that.
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  Speaker 4: You pay the product invitation, right, yeah, invitation, You paid
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  Speaker 4: to like fly out there and do all that stuff.
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  Speaker 3: But over a thousand guys tried to get in, and
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  Speaker 3: they only accepted a hundred. I didn't get in it first,
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  Speaker 3: and I remember signing up to play arena football giving
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  Speaker 3: myself a year to do it. I could have went
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  Speaker 3: and played CFL, but that's a two year agreement. That's
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  Speaker 3: against the agreement I made to myself. Right, I give
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  Speaker 3: myself a year to get this thing back. If not,
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  Speaker 3: then I gotta go hustle up on Wall Street to
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  Speaker 3: do something else. Right, I fly down to Orlando Predators
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  Speaker 3: arena football team. I'm literally unpacked my suitcase, literally get
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  Speaker 3: everything in the drawers.
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  Speaker 2: I'm ready to do this.
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  Speaker 3: Right, I lay down on the bed and the boo
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  Speaker 3: whatever the male sound comes to I look at it.
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  Speaker 2: You've been invited to the Veterans Combine. What Okay?
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  Speaker 3: So I call it coach, get all that stuff worked
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  Speaker 3: out from there, and then I go and do the
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  Speaker 3: Veterans Combine. And I literally had the best day of
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  Speaker 3: the office I've ever had.
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  Speaker 2: I ran four or five to one laser.
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  Speaker 3: We actually the day before were supposed to do the
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  Speaker 3: whole combine, the bench press and all that type of stuff.
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  Speaker 3: A guy gets up and says, hey, like, basically, these
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  Speaker 3: scouts don't want to waste their time being here with y'all,
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  Speaker 3: So we're gonna cut out all of that stuff. They
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  Speaker 3: basically said that if y'all were good, you'd already be
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  Speaker 3: in the league. Right, we've seen you, guys, We've seen
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  Speaker 3: all this stuff. So we sitting there eating dinner. I'm like, God,
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  Speaker 3: you took all the money to get out here, all right. Well,
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  Speaker 3: I guess you know, chips are stacked against us. So anyway,
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  Speaker 3: I do my workout and I go from literally no offers,
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  Speaker 3: you know, sitting unemployed the whole year, to seven teams
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  Speaker 3: lined up to talk to me, and then after that,
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  Speaker 3: combine having sixteen teams after the NFL giving me an
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  Speaker 3: offer in an invite to one of their camps, and
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  Speaker 3: again you still haven't made it. Yeah, right, So I
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  Speaker 3: keep that in perspective. I go with Detroit and then
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  Speaker 3: I'm playing. I make the fifty three man roster finally, right,
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  Speaker 3: first year making fifty three man. I played with them
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  Speaker 3: a whole year, go another year, play with them, and
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  Speaker 3: then I'm going into year three, and the year three,
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  Speaker 3: I'm in this position where I'm finally at the point
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  Speaker 3: where it's like you're about to start. I remember going
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  Speaker 3: to we practice against the Indianapolis coach. So now you're
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  Speaker 3: in July of twenty seventeen, we practice against the Indianapolis coach.
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  Speaker 3: We have them joint practices, and you know, my coach
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  Speaker 3: comes up to me the night before the game. So
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  Speaker 3: we practice against them for two days and then, uh
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  Speaker 3: then we play them in a preseason game.
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  Speaker 2: But that's what we do. Now, this dude knows I'm
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  Speaker 2: a good move.
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  Speaker 3: So now now we uh so the coach comes up
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  Speaker 3: to me, my linebacker coaches like, coach, listen, like you,
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  Speaker 3: I want to let you know, like you've done are
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  Speaker 3: your job this week? Right, Like you you really impressed myself.
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  Speaker 3: The GM the head coach, like you're gonna be our
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  Speaker 3: starting linebacker, right, so go out there tomorrow. You know,
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  Speaker 3: get you a few reps. You know, nothing too crazy
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  Speaker 3: to get you a few reps. But like, I'm very
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  Speaker 3: proud of you, kid, Like good job.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm like, dang, like you know, it's been a
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  Speaker 3: roller coaster ride and wow, like I've been working for this.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 3: I think I called my she was I don't know,
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  Speaker 3: she was my fiance at the time, twenty seventeen. She
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  Speaker 3: was my fiance at the time, So I called my
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  Speaker 3: fiance at the time, and you know, I told her,
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  Speaker 3: but you know, don't get ready for the game.
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  Speaker 2: Go out there.
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  Speaker 3: The next day, I'm doing my special teams reps and
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  Speaker 3: do my my few of my reps. And then of course,
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  Speaker 3: on one play, as just a lead running back comes
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  Speaker 3: to the ball making a tackle and I'm wrap and roll,
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  Speaker 3: my arm gets caught in the pile and his body
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  Speaker 3: just goes back, goes back, goes back, and like his body,
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  Speaker 3: the way of his body, I just feel ash, and
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  Speaker 3: I just remember just being like, oh no. And so
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  Speaker 3: I tried to do a push up on the field
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  Speaker 3: and I barely I barely could, but I did it.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm like, okay, cool, Like it was probably a
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  Speaker 3: partial terri So I just run off the field like
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  Speaker 3: all right, cool, like you know somebody else can do this.
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  Speaker 3: They take me in the back and the training comes
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  Speaker 3: to me it's like, yeah, you.
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  Speaker 2: Tore your peck.
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  Speaker 3: I'm like, ah, you know, it's probably partial. Like I
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  Speaker 3: don't know if you saw me out there, but I
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  Speaker 3: kind of push up, bro, like you know, and if
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  Speaker 3: anybody else. The NFL guys and trainers usually are are conservatives,
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  Speaker 3: like they usually try to force you back too quick.
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  Speaker 3: He was like, nah, kiddo, like I'm sorry, I tell you,
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  Speaker 3: like I can feel it, like you tore your peck
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  Speaker 3: tendon right. He was like, I'm like, okay, what's that
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  Speaker 3: like a month? You know, a few weeks now, that's
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  Speaker 3: like six months.
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  Speaker 2: Huh. So that's my story.
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  Speaker 3: That's that dangn Like you know, you get that out
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  Speaker 3: of body experience, like you don't know what you're talking about.
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  Speaker 2: I need to know. You know, I'm in the Boobie
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  Speaker 2: Miles mode like no, man, you know, no, I can't.
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  Speaker 2: I'm supposed to start. I don't know if you heard
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  Speaker 2: the conversation, so we uh end up.
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  Speaker 3: I have surgery, And for me, that was a big
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  Speaker 3: time of like, you know, you can have two paths.
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  Speaker 3: You can go into that what was me that depression
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  Speaker 3: you have that many moment of the well for me,
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  Speaker 3: you have that moment of depression of like are you
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  Speaker 3: kidding me?
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 3: Like you gotta be kidding me, like seriously, and you know,
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  Speaker 3: but you gotta get yourself one, you gotta get yourself
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  Speaker 3: out of it. And then two, you know, I'm a
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  Speaker 3: big believer in everything happening for a.
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  Speaker 2: Reason and whether it's good or bad.
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  Speaker 3: Right, So a lot of people look at the bad
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  Speaker 3: and they just they don't they don't look back at
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  Speaker 3: their lives and see all the bad things or the
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  Speaker 3: moments they thought were bad and how that ended up
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  Speaker 3: leading to something that they didn't never expect it to happen. Right,
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  Speaker 3: So for me, it was an opportunity. I'm like, Okay, well,
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  Speaker 3: this is when I came into the NFL. My dream
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  Speaker 3: was to be in the NFL. This is my dream.
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  Speaker 3: My dream was because it's evolved ever since then, but
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  Speaker 3: my dream was to be in the NFL. You're making
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  Speaker 3: a great salary and then it be nothing in compared
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  Speaker 3: to what I'm doing and making off the field.
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  Speaker 2: Right. My dream wasn't to be an NFL player, right, It.
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  Speaker 3: Is part of the dream, like it had to be
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  Speaker 3: an NFL player to have this dream, but it was layers.
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  Speaker 2: And levels to my dream.
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  Speaker 3: So for me, I'm like, okay, And it took a
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  Speaker 3: week and a half or so. You know, you're in
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  Speaker 3: the slang he ain't doing stuff.
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  Speaker 2: And so you know, it took a little while.
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  Speaker 3: But I'm like, maybe this is God giving me that
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  Speaker 3: opportunity to set up what is going to make me
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  Speaker 3: actually or allow me to accomplish my dream, right, So
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  Speaker 3: for me, that's when I dove into real estate. My
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  Speaker 3: wife has a video I remember she posted to her
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  Speaker 3: Instagram or her snap or whatever, and you know, literally
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  Speaker 3: the day after surgery or hours after surgery, we're invest
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  Speaker 3: buy and I'm slinged up and I'm looking at and
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  Speaker 3: they got the little blood thing like still circulating blood
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  Speaker 3: from the surgery or whatever. And I'm looking at appliances
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  Speaker 3: and I didn't at the time. I didn't realize best
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  Speaker 3: but I had like appliances and and dope.
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  Speaker 2: Discounts like that. But I'm just looking at different washers and.
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  Speaker 3: Drives because I'm I'm I had an apartment. I bought
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  Speaker 3: a house in Detroit going into that that I was
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  Speaker 3: going to live in in the season, and then at
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  Speaker 3: the end of season, I was going renked out right,
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  Speaker 3: So I was already thinking like, Okay, this is.
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  Speaker 2: Going to be a rental part of the portfolio all
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  Speaker 2: that type of stuff.
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  Speaker 3: But but and then I was flipping houses and stuff
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  Speaker 3: like that at the time. So I'm looking at appliances
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  Speaker 3: and looking at different prices and stuff like that. But
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  Speaker 3: like for me, it was like, Okay, this can neither
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  Speaker 3: be detrimental to me or it's gonna be an opportunity.
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  Speaker 3: And for me, that's when the real estate stuff just
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  Speaker 3: turned up tenfold because it was just like, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: I don't have I really don't have anything else to do.
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  Speaker 3: When you're rehabing a peck, if you hold your arm
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  Speaker 3: up like this after a week, that's like that's that's
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  Speaker 3: a perfect segue because now we're going to go into
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  Speaker 3: the business side.
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  Speaker 4: Think but before we go into the next segment, best Buy,
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  Speaker 4: I hope you're listening.
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  Speaker 2: We have sponsorship opportunities, so