Latest / AFR Saints / Demario Davis Addresses Future With Saints | How Much Longer Will Star LB Play In New Orleans?

Transcript

Demario Davis Addresses Future With Saints | How Much Longer Will Star LB Play In New Orleans? · AFR Saints

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  Speaker 1: AFR on Demand is brought to you by Breck Golf.
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  Speaker 2: Run along Radio Row our coverage all week long, presented
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  Speaker 2: by Ilo Baker's Baton Rouge. Very pleased to be joined
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  Speaker 2: by guy many might consider the heartbeat of the New
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  Speaker 2: Orleans Saints defense, not the whole team. It is to
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  Speaker 2: Mario Davis. It was one almighty man for having me.
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  Speaker 2: It's our pleasure glad to have you board with us here.
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  Speaker 3: Man. We opened up our coverage from Radio Row with
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  Speaker 3: your teammate.
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  Speaker 2: Plate Groupie Yeah, who also, as we know, was the
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  Speaker 2: fellow Arkansas State red Bull.
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  Speaker 3: Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Now, he told me he's got tomorrow Davis bobblehead and
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  Speaker 2: that you maybe didn't like the bibblehead so much, so
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  Speaker 2: I had to ask, just for the record, how do
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  Speaker 2: you feel about Rupie having that Mario Davis boblehead.
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  Speaker 4: It was cool. It was cool. They reached out to
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  Speaker 4: me and wanted to have the bobbleheads.
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  Speaker 5: You know, that's something they were giving away at the
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  Speaker 5: games and they hit me up on the concept.
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  Speaker 4: I thought it was cool, you know, you have your
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  Speaker 4: own bibble head.
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  Speaker 5: But I didn't realize that the that the characters looked
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  Speaker 5: so funny and so it just kind of like the
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  Speaker 5: weird face. I think they did a great job with
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  Speaker 5: the hair. They did a great job of the hair,
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  Speaker 5: but the face I couldn't quite get with. But I
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  Speaker 5: thought it was It was super cool and I was
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  Speaker 5: super humbled at the school wanted to do something like that.
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  Speaker 3: And no problem with your teammate having the bibblehead in
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  Speaker 3: his locker.
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  Speaker 4: Oh no, no, no, no no no. He was representing, you.
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  Speaker 2: Have any extras because I'll put one of the set.
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  Speaker 4: I'll I can get you on. We can make that happen.
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  Speaker 3: You know what it is.
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  Speaker 2: I kind of marvel I think most people who love
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  Speaker 2: the NFL marveled you because of the way you've been
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  Speaker 2: able to be consistent and healthy throughout your career. I
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  Speaker 2: was I'm curious if you think because the guy you
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  Speaker 2: missed two games in your career, right, one of them
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  Speaker 2: was coke and the other was hamstrm spring.
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  Speaker 3: Uh, not much of that, Tomrio.
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  Speaker 2: Is just God blessed you with with health and physicality
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  Speaker 2: to be able to go through this and how and
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  Speaker 2: what's the blend also of your protocols, how you take
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  Speaker 2: care of your body.
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  Speaker 4: You know, it's it's it's nature versus nurture.
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  Speaker 5: So number one, Oh, I'm not going to put them
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  Speaker 5: in any kind of order, but I guess I was
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  Speaker 5: talking about the nurture. I have a phenomenal team, and
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  Speaker 5: we're working six days a week, so average out, you know,
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  Speaker 5: six days a week, spending three to four hours on
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  Speaker 5: your body. Uh, during the season, and then even in
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  Speaker 5: the off season, you know, every other week we're kind
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  Speaker 5: of going through a protocol. So when we're not even
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  Speaker 5: in intense training, like we're resetting nobody right now, we're
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  Speaker 5: doing all these different things. So I got a major
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  Speaker 5: shout out to my team, missus, Alexis, jose y'all out there, man,
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  Speaker 5: they do a phenomenal job take care.
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  Speaker 4: But then I think what's most important.
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  Speaker 5: Is God designed my body for my purpose this and
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  Speaker 5: I think I'm living inside of my purpose. So I
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  Speaker 5: deeply believe I'm living inside my purpose, which is why
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  Speaker 5: He's allowed me to play at a high level that
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  Speaker 5: I'm playing at. My goal is through three more years
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  Speaker 5: that I'm out of here, and I'm not playing on
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  Speaker 5: no drop off going out of here. But it's because
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  Speaker 5: of the way that I'm using the platform, the way
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  Speaker 5: that I'm using the platform to inspire and motivate people,
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  Speaker 5: to encourage getting encouraged, uh, loving people. And so the
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  Speaker 5: way I'm using the platform to you know, represent God
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  Speaker 5: in a way. It's like being God's man to do
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  Speaker 5: to do the assignment. And what it doesn't allow for
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  Speaker 5: me is to have any wiggle room. I gotta do
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  Speaker 5: it the way He wants me to do it. But
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  Speaker 5: I think that's what it has allowed me to have
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  Speaker 5: the longevity.
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  Speaker 3: Why three more years?
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  Speaker 4: Three more years? I feel like, man, I would love
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  Speaker 4: to man get win.
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  Speaker 5: Bring a Super Bowl to New Orleans, and that's what
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  Speaker 5: my focus is, and how to we get back to
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  Speaker 5: dominant defense and bring that Super Bowl here.
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  Speaker 4: And I believe that could be done inside of three years.
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  Speaker 5: And you want to you want to go out on
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  Speaker 5: top and I feel like that's just the number. I mean,
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  Speaker 5: it can happen anytime. You know, it's like God say
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  Speaker 5: it's time go home, going home. But I have to
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  Speaker 5: have my mindset to where it's like I'm not slowing down.
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  Speaker 5: I'm not trying to go out on the decline. I'm
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  Speaker 5: trying to go out on the incline. So I have
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  Speaker 5: to set my if it's only one year left, I
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  Speaker 5: have to be able to see, you know, additional year.
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  Speaker 5: I'm gonna ball out this year and come back the
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  Speaker 5: next year. I can't be like, oh, this is the final.
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  Speaker 5: If anybody's like, you know, this is the last year,
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  Speaker 5: you're not gonna give everything you got, like you're gonna
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  Speaker 5: be thinking about what's next.
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  Speaker 4: And so I don't want to. I don't want that
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  Speaker 4: to be me tomorrow.
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  Speaker 3: Davis. Let's courtesy to it with another way you're giving back.
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  Speaker 2: We'll talk about that in just a second, but it's
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  Speaker 2: you know, whenever you signed with the Saints, you won't
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  Speaker 2: remember this, but we had you on the show then
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  Speaker 2: and one of the things that struck me so much
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  Speaker 2: was you're talking about coming closer to home and really
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  Speaker 2: almost feeling like it was part of a a of
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  Speaker 2: a mission that got to send you here and a
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  Speaker 2: lot of things you were doing in Mississippi and Louisiana
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  Speaker 2: in this region as well, like when you started your
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  Speaker 2: professional it's fascinating you know, as a guy now in
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  Speaker 2: your in your mid thirties, who's had this longevity and
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  Speaker 2: during your fourteen when your career started, was this always
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  Speaker 2: your and just like did you know that this was
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  Speaker 2: gonna be your journey? Because you did go jetson Brown's
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  Speaker 2: before you landed in New Orleans, But like, what or
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  Speaker 2: has there been an evolution during your professional career?
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  Speaker 5: I knew, I knew that I could be great inside
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  Speaker 5: the game. I knew it was within reach, and I
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  Speaker 5: knew that you know, with the platform to how much
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  Speaker 5: is given, much much much is required.
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  Speaker 4: We've my wife and I we've always been giving people.
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  Speaker 5: And so when we came out of college, the first
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  Speaker 5: thing that we wanted to do was help bridge the
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  Speaker 5: gap from high schoolers getting to college. We had already
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  Speaker 5: achieved that, so like many people where we're from don't
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  Speaker 5: necessarily go to college or don't get a chance to
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  Speaker 5: make it out of Mississippi, and so we wanted to
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  Speaker 5: help bridge that gap.
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  Speaker 4: That's why we started our foundation.
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  Speaker 5: And so fast forward ten years now we've got a
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  Speaker 5: ten year career and it's like, oh, well, what we've done.
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  Speaker 4: We've learned a lot, but we've been successful in what
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  Speaker 4: we do.
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  Speaker 5: And so like now it's not just helping high school
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  Speaker 5: kids get to college, but it's helping young athletes transition
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  Speaker 5: into the pros and navigate college and you know, navigate resource.
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  Speaker 5: So our platform is kind of gone from just Holy
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  Speaker 5: See development to how you help people have a hall
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  Speaker 5: of fame life.
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  Speaker 4: Like, everybody's not going to have a hall of Fame career.
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  Speaker 5: Even if you do make it to the pros and
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  Speaker 5: some people will never make it to the pros and
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  Speaker 5: you know, but everybody can have a hall of fame life.
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  Speaker 5: And so that connects with people and how do you
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  Speaker 5: do that? Well, come on, one, you got to get
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  Speaker 5: yourself together. You have to do the self work right.
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  Speaker 5: You have to have emotional intelligence to know what's going
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  Speaker 5: on and do the work, the work to become holistically
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  Speaker 5: well speriously, mentally, physically.
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  Speaker 4: But when you do that, now you can impact other people.
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  Speaker 5: You can impact your spouse, you can impact your kids,
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  Speaker 5: you can impact your community and that's what we want
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  Speaker 5: to help people do. And so that's literally what you
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  Speaker 5: see us doing. When you see us doing all these
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  Speaker 5: things and helping all these people, it's just us multiplying
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  Speaker 5: our life.
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  Speaker 3: That's and that's why you're here, Mario Davis with a
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  Speaker 3: Curtesy of Into It.
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  Speaker 2: I want to touch you a little bit more saying stuff,
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  Speaker 2: but let's start with the the NFL Inspire Challenge and
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  Speaker 2: the Financial Literacy Program and why you're working with it
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  Speaker 2: to it here. Man.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm so grateful to be a part of the NFL.
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  Speaker 3: Man.
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  Speaker 4: They're they're really about the work. I mean, you see
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  Speaker 4: so many social campaigns back years.
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  Speaker 5: Everybody's like, I don't know how I feel about so
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  Speaker 5: many social attendas kind of coming into our game. But
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  Speaker 5: it's it's about being I mean, it's this the greatest
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  Speaker 5: game in the world. Super Bowl is the greatest event
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  Speaker 5: in the world, and I think just doing the real work.
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  Speaker 4: You see the commercial I am somebody kind of.
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  Speaker 5: Play, but you see them out connecting with partners like
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  Speaker 5: Into It who are on the ground doing the work.
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  Speaker 5: And Into It is taking financial education into schools and
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  Speaker 5: specifically underserved communities and underserved schools and making sure that
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  Speaker 5: they have resources. Only thirty three percent of adults are
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  Speaker 5: financially literate, and into It believes that one hundred percent
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  Speaker 5: of adults can be financial liter and you do that
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  Speaker 5: by transforming the injecting yourself into the education system. And
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  Speaker 5: you know, most schools don't encourage you to take a
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  Speaker 5: finance class, and they have a whole curriculum for young
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  Speaker 5: people to be educated on concepts such as budgeting, saving
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  Speaker 5: credit taxes, and they're really.
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  Speaker 4: Helping at a lot of kids. I was.
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  Speaker 5: I was with about three hundred kids from here in
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  Speaker 5: New Orleans, which was really cool. They hear it radio
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  Speaker 5: row and they get it going out these breakout rooms
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  Speaker 5: and they're playing these games where they're learning these financial
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  Speaker 5: concepts and all the kids thought it was cool. So
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  Speaker 5: you know how hard it is to make something cool
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  Speaker 5: if a hospit and not only that, they're learning something.
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  Speaker 4: So they're making learning fun for.
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  Speaker 2: Tomorrio Davis and that'll probably help make for high schools
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  Speaker 2: as well. It's really where can people go to get
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  Speaker 2: info is their websit is their website for this.
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  Speaker 5: Learn You can go into it a website and look
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  Speaker 5: up into it for education.
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  Speaker 2: Into it for education. I N t U I T
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  Speaker 2: is where you can get it. Uh to Mario Davis
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  Speaker 2: with for a couple more minutes here from Radio Row.
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  Speaker 2: Your former teammate Zach Palms could be playing the Stoper Bowl.
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  Speaker 2: He had likes. It's this question that everyone's asking, like,
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  Speaker 2: how didn't it manifest in New Orleans?
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  Speaker 3: You know him, well, it was in your position group.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe walking through this from your perspective of what Zach's
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  Speaker 2: time was like in New Orleans and how he's been
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  Speaker 2: able to hit that that parabolic rise this year.
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  Speaker 5: Man, I think it speaks to the Saints organization of
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  Speaker 5: constantly being able to bring the right guys, draft the
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  Speaker 5: right guys and to the team. We kind of saw
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  Speaker 5: the same thing happen uh with Kayden Ellis. We saw
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  Speaker 5: the same thing happen with Trey Henderson. I think it's
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  Speaker 5: just the right time and right fit. Zach Bach was
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  Speaker 5: an amazing talented player, Uh while he was with us.
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  Speaker 5: I think how they were trying to play him as
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  Speaker 5: outside wasn't He was really good at pass rushing the quarterback.
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  Speaker 5: It was kind of a learning curve, you know, trying
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  Speaker 5: to learn inside. But he was a phenomenal talent. For
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  Speaker 5: US and earned us starting role and was helping us
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  Speaker 5: out a lot. And I think it was hard for
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  Speaker 5: him to crack the starting lineup here, but he was
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  Speaker 5: just you just have a lot of good players in
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  Speaker 5: that in that room, and when he was able to
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  Speaker 5: get his shot with the Eagles, he was able to
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  Speaker 5: apply all those things that he had learned in his time.
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  Speaker 4: And man, he's represented so well. Man, oh my god.
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  Speaker 5: Just phenomenal year, phenomenal player, proved to be one of
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  Speaker 5: the best linebackers in the league. And super happy for him.
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  Speaker 5: I hope, you know what I'm saying, he get a
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  Speaker 5: chance him a Super Bowl this year, so I hope,
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  Speaker 5: I hope they're able to take it home.
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  Speaker 4: But you see the same thing with gout In. He
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  Speaker 4: was a phenomenal player for US.
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  Speaker 5: Now he's you know, playing for his second Super Bowl
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  Speaker 5: as well. I think it's just a credit to the
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  Speaker 5: culture that we have that players don't just thrive here.
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  Speaker 4: They're able to go other places and thrive as well.
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  Speaker 5: And so, uh, sometimes it feels like you win in
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  Speaker 5: those situations.
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  Speaker 4: Sometimes you lose in those situations.
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  Speaker 5: But I mean it just it just shows that the
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  Speaker 5: organization know how to pick the right type players.
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  Speaker 2: Sounds like Kella Moore might be the next coach. Nothing's
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  Speaker 2: official yet, Uh do you know him?
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  Speaker 3: Feeling so.
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  Speaker 4: Funny? Story he we got drafted around the second time.
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  Speaker 4: I don't, I don't, I.
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  Speaker 5: Don't he I think he would be the youngest head
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  Speaker 5: coach if he was to get it, and then the
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  Speaker 5: youngest head coach and one of the oldest players in
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  Speaker 5: the league.
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  Speaker 4: You know that kind of dynamic.
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  Speaker 3: But I don't.
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  Speaker 5: I don't know what that is. I know he's probably
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  Speaker 5: focused on the Super Bowl right now. I don't know
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  Speaker 5: who the organization is going to bring it in as
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  Speaker 5: the next head coach, whoever that they that they select.
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  Speaker 4: Uh, they're gonna get my best as always.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, man, I want to ask a couple of things. First,
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  Speaker 3: fashion in the game.
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  Speaker 2: Number one, the arms sleeve the white arms sleep with
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  Speaker 2: the gold is fire.
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  Speaker 3: Why don't we wear that every game?
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  Speaker 5: When I switched it up, I have the black one
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  Speaker 5: using when I'm with the black jersey, and I have
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  Speaker 5: the white one using the white man white. Sometimes I alternate,
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  Speaker 5: but I usually try to stick with whatever jersey color
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  Speaker 5: it is.
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  Speaker 4: I think it's just a better flow. I'm with you here.
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  Speaker 2: You like.
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  Speaker 3: So good.
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  Speaker 2: All right, So before we started, I showed to Mario
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  Speaker 2: so this is no joke, like I really do because
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: whenever the NFL wouldn't let you wear the Man of
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: God head band, I talked about it on the show,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: bought one mid bet a donation, and then work on
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  Speaker 2: my show.
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  Speaker 3: So we talked about it a ton.
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  Speaker 2: And so my friends make fun of me because they
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  Speaker 2: know they know always, but I always put on the
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  Speaker 2: Man of God headband before every Saints game. So like,
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  Speaker 2: what about the like I could rock the Man of
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  Speaker 2: God headband with with the with the arms sleeve.
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  Speaker 3: If we could make this happen, that might be.
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  Speaker 4: I don't know, man, that's the least status right there.
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  Speaker 2: Paul Misennasty, you can put this on the screen, but
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  Speaker 2: there it is. Yeah, every every game I got the
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  Speaker 2: man got by the way, should I go with?
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  Speaker 3: Because it's traversible the black side of the gold Side.
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  Speaker 5: So you flip it up so when the team is
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  Speaker 5: wearing white, you put the you put the gold side on,
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  Speaker 5: the team wearing black, you put the black side on.
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  Speaker 2: All right, Look, I mean, if you're telling me that's
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  Speaker 2: all I gotta do that, I'm gonna listen. I'm gonna
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  Speaker 2: listen to the Mario day. I'm gonna send you black.
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  Speaker 5: I'm gonna send you both arms sleeves, and so you
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  Speaker 5: wear a black on black. He had a white on
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  Speaker 5: white on Chris Cross. Let's make it happen, man.
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  Speaker 2: To Mario Davis, uh an all time Saints great, destined
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: to be no down in the New Orleans Saints Hall
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  Speaker 2: of Fame. Maybe Campton comes calling one day. So will
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  Speaker 2: you ever think about that? You ever think about Canton?
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  Speaker 5: It's a possibility, man, I think yeah, I think you know,
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  Speaker 5: to be in the room with with with other great ones,
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  Speaker 5: it is definitely a part of the journey. If we're
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  Speaker 5: gonna do anything, why not be the best at it
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  Speaker 5: and be in the room and the conversation with the best.
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  Speaker 4: Just blessed to be able to be in the conversation.
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  Speaker 2: Man, it has been I think for every Saints fan,
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  Speaker 2: everyone of Ball's organization, it has been. It's been our
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  Speaker 2: pleasure to be able to watch you play these these
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  Speaker 2: last eight years in New Orleans.
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  Speaker 3: And three more. Get a ring and there's three you
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  Speaker 3: gotta have.
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  Speaker 4: You gotta have no rescue
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  Speaker 3: To Mario David, our pleasure, all right, man,