Latest / Bussin' With The Boys / Best of the Bus: Troy Polamalu Talks the Art Of Defense, Chasing Ed Reed + Life After Football

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Best of the Bus: Troy Polamalu Talks the Art Of Defense, Chasing Ed Reed + Life After Football · Bussin' With The Boys

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to bus with the boys.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: We have an absolute legend with us, Troy Polamalu, Man, it.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Is it is an honor to have you.
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, outstanding Obviously here on behalf of Freedo Lace Right,
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: Freedo Lace.
• 0:19
  Speaker 4: Cool Ranch Cool.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Wherever the fund wants to take you, it is Freedo
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: lay Right.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Before the pod, I was kind of asking him off
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: like us, like what have you been up to? Like
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: you've always done a very good job of staying under
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: the radar. And he was getting into uh, his two
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: boys fifteen and thirteen, Uh, they're starting getting to think
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: of it with sports and and what I wanted to
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: ask is what's it like being like, ah, you know,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: being like one of those sport fathers, being those sport dads,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: like navigating that you're talking about teaching them hard work
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: and everything else.
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: Well, to tell you the truth, like once sports are
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: over with and you know, like you get into the stands,
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: you become no different than any other dad. That's what
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: I realized. Like, first of all, for my children, they
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: don't give it. They don't care what I say, whether
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: it's about football or not.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: Secondly, is I don't like, you know, the crazy sports.
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: That thing is, I've embodied that completely. I've tried my
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: best not to be that person. So it's it's pretty funny.
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: I've been all that. I've been the sports that I've been,
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: the coach, I've been all that, and that's that's kind
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: of been my experience since it's football. To be honest with.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: You, we had Ed McCaffrey on here. He's talking about
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: obviously his son Christian, he's playing in the Super Bowl
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: and all that. And Christian was on last year talking
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: about all the crazy things his dad would do during
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: the recruiting process, putting weights in his sock so we.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Weighed more IV during in the middle of school, pick
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: him up for a night and get an IV.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: He went to a private.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: School and he had to wear jeans and his dad
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: be like, jeans a little heavy for game day.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Huh.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Do you catch yourself like obviously having the success you
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: did in the NFL and you see your young boys
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: like playing yeah, no soda, no carpetation, had the belly
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: like you see your your own boys like starting their process.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Is do you ever catch yourself.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Being like if you know, hey, sleep routine, diet, all that,
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Because when I mean all men didn't play in the league,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: but you know, we just kind of ate whatever.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Right, it was high school. You kind of just figured
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: out as you win.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: But you having that knowledge, have you tried to put
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: that on your kids at all?
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but then you but then you evolve towards doing
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: with the most optimal for your body and for your health. Yeah,
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: it's kind of tough to be honest with you. I'm geared.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: I'm geared very much type A, although I may not
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: act that way, you know, so I am very regimented
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: and how I view things and how I do things,
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: so funny enough is yeah, absolutely, I've watched that Ed McCaffrey,
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: like his his inside the NFL and everything that he'd done.
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: That's how I obsessed I am. I study other fathers to
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: make sure like.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Dad.
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: So so aside from that, you know, a very infamous
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: father and who I think is unfortunately characterized that way.
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: Marv Marinovich was my trainer, so he was kind of
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: like seen as the ultimate sports stat and you know,
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: bestowing all of his knowledge on his son. So yeah,
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: there is a certain balance there, absolutely, but without a doubt.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: You know, as you know and you learn in the
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: in the NFL is it's always the little things.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: Everybody does the big things with always the little things
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: and the accumulation those little things that kind of make
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: the big difference in those inches that are millimeters that
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: you try to gain throughout the sport. And for my
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: son it's it's it's a little bit of that, you know.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: I'm not telling them, you know, wear jeans or not
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: wear jeans or any of that sort of stuff without
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: a doubt. I tell them how important sleep is. How
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: important I'm saying this for all the other kids out
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: there is, you know, the most important thing for kids
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: and for any athlete is sleep, hydration, and then the
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: diet and then the therapy and then the training. So
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: the things that are under your control or the sleep,
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: the diet, you know, and the hydration. So that's one
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: thing that I am very you know strict on is like, no, man,
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: you got a hydrate if you want to play too sports,
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: you want to play five sports, whatever the case is, Like,
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: these things are really important. So I am pretty strict
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: Aboyut some of those things.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Are they both are? They both very different?
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Is one more type A is one more like you
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: that you feel like Okay, I can coach him this
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: way and coach the other one this way.
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, absolutely, they're They're exact opposite ones, very geared towards, uh,
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: trying to please everybody, and one of them is very
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: much about himself.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah they do, they understand, I'm sure they do.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: But finding like that interest of like, oh my my
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: dad played at this high level. He's this hall of
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: fame guy, like the things he says, I'm more of
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: a sponger.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Is it very much that?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Uh? You know, since you're the dad one, you're out
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: the other at times, and then their coaches something like
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: I've been trying to tell you this the whole time.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: To be honest, I joke that my kids are like that.
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: But they aren't. They're very there. I'm very blessed. They
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: listen really well. They do. You look up old highlights
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: and things like that, but you know, they I'm very fortunate. Again,
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: we have a very a very great relationship with my
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: two boys.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Do you love looking back at usc and and and
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: watching that hit you put on Old Boy?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: What was it on Special Teams?
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: I don't even know what you're talking about.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: And funny enough, funny enough, My on that hit. It
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: was Aaron Locket, Yeah it was.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: It was an ill timed hit. But what I always
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: tell people is that was the third one. The two
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: before that we're perfectly timed. So if you were to
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: watch the whole game, you want to saw the two
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: before that. But uh, my wife was like I had
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: met her at that time, right before, and she was like, man,
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: that guy's a cheap player. I hope I never meet
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: that guy. I'd say something terrible to Hi'm like, yeah,
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't want to meet him. There is a piece
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: of crap that she's later found out it was obviously me.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: But yeah, with.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: The kids, like sticking on that for just one more,
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: like it was wherever a point in your life as
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: your kids get older, they discover they go to school,
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: their kids are talking about your your kids friends are
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: talking about their their dad, and like tempering those expectations
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: as they kind of go to sports, like, hey, you
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: don't don't have to Like the goal is not to
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: like achieve what I did. It's like to be the
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: best version of yourself. Did you ever have like were
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: they ever struggling with that anything?
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I think naturally they I me and my son
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: plays football and they both they both be playing tackle football.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: So I think naturally they're going to deal with that.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: And I mean, you guys have been in this all
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: We've been all the same circles. You know, these things
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: aren't to it an advantage to anybody right in our circle.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: But I I I tell them to embrace that. You know,
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: that's only going to harden them, make them even better,
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: you know, in a lot of ways. And also is
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: you know I've I've also been on the other side
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: of where I've always been the jealous athlete, always trying
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: to knock down the who's ever on top, and and
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: you know, there was a lot of bad characteristics that
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: I had growing up because of that. So you know,
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: I try to coach my son like how to deal
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: with people that have similar character of how I was,
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: you know, growing up very jealous, very competitive, very alpha type.
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: So what they do have is they have, you know,
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: somebody who's got a lot of life experience, you know,
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: that's able to impart a lot of knowledge. And to
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: their credit, they're great listeners.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Who are some of those safeties that you were jealous of?
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: Oh, all of them. To be honest with you, but
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: are there a couple or.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Is there one that you're just like?
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: So every year, every year, I watched five safeties and
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: I would literally watch every single one of their plays,
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: and I would make a highlight tape and a low
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: light tape of all of them. So that's what I
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: did throughout my whole career. Ed was somebody I watched
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: every I watched every single one of his plays. So
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: obviously Ed is somebody who I admired. But there's a
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: bunch of guys like Donnavan, Darius, Bob Sanders, a lot
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: of guys that don't get a lot of credit that
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: you know, were Hall of Fame type caliber players that
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: didn't have length. And to be very frank man, I
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: was in the most beautiful situation in Pittsburgh. I have
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: a Hall of Fame defensive coordinator, hall of Fame head coach. Man.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: You could put any of these players in my position
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: and they would have been just as successful as I am.
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: I studied, I was obsessed with the game. I broke
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: downies in this way and even cornerbacks in this way.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: So I don't say these things humbly. I see I
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: study these guys. I studied everything about them. You know,
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: I studied father, I studied MacCaffrey, I studied Marinvi. I'm'm
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: telling you, so these sort of things aren't aren't. Like
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: that's obviously who I am. Maybe a part of my
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: success as a football player, but it's it's it's just
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: who I am. It's the things of how I view
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: you know, trying to be a father or trying to
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: help train athletes or whatever the case is.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Were you very were was all this this uh student
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: of the preparation? Did you have all this in usc
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: and it helped carry you into the league or did
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: it obviously develops over time? But did you kind of
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: have that sense of urgency in preparation at college?
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: No?
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: I absolutely developed it over time. And what I did
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: is I studied the greats. Like if anybody at this
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: period of time knows, like saw how Ed Reid how
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: much he talked about how important film was, and he
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: didn't listen to that, you know what I mean? Like
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: this he was talking in college about this stuff, and
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: I'm listening to him in college and so so like
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: all of these sort of things became habits for me.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: You know, here you hear here and there about what
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: Tom Brady is doing and all these guys about health, wellness, longevity,
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: and you know, how to keep a sharper edge. And
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: you know, you hear about how other athletes rob you know,
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: like Gilbert Rene is talking about how he watched Kobe
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: Bryant play and how he learned from these guys. And honestly,
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: it's very simple in that way. You know, you got
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: to have a student mindset in the sport. You nothing,
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: You're not going to be original in anything. There's a
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: lot of great players that have done a lot of
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: great things, and and and and you guys have walked
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: in these shoes. It's no secret, man, It's it's sacrifice,
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: it's grit, it's hard work. It's no special talent that
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: anybody else has. So you know, as long that to
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: me is it was my mindset. So that's why I
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: learned from guys like Ed, guys like Donovan Darius. A
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: lot of safeties that I studied that aren't quite very
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: famous out there.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: When you were talking about like Hall of Fame decordinators,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: Dick Lebeaux, he was with the Tennessee Titans for a year.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: And this is a guy who like walks into a
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: room and you're like, holy shit, dude, that's Dick Lebow
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: and he's a legend, and there's so many things that
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: we went and played the Steelers on thursdayight football.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: We got destroyed.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: It was like it was ab catching the ball in
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: the back of his head. It was just an absolutely
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: they molly waffed us. But like he bought all these
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: other players in these Hall of Fame dudes is a
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: Kessel Kesel. Yep, he bought him and a bunch of
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: other guys, and they had conversations with us. But one
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: of the things they always would tell amazing stories about
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: Dick and I there was one time for Christmas, right
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: around Christmas time, we'd have a team meeting and I
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: don't know if he did this with you guys. He
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: sat and he read the night before Christmas in front
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: of the whole team.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: No he didn't.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Didn't.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: He cited the entire.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Book or story like verbatim, and so like, are there
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: any like some Dick loboisms that maybe the world doesn't
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: know about as much?
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: Well for to extend on that story, though, this is
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: something he did every year. So it was like a
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: tradition on the last game before Christmas and to me,
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: I always look forward to that every year because I mean,
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: you experienced it, you understand like the level of like
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: you kind of look around here like, dang, man, like
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: this guy's reciting the whole poem. He writes an intro
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: and you know, an intro to it that he wrote
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: himself that like it is perfectly in line with the
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: entire poem. And then you to me what I would
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: love to what I loved At those moments, I would
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: look around at all the younger guys and then they
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: that's when they like would really start to say, Man,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: I'm part of something special and very different, Like they
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: don't do this normally different at you know, in the NFL.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: So to me, that was always really special thing that
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: he would always do. In fact, even to this day,
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: on the night before Christmas, I'll pull up the video
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: on YouTube and my family will watch it as well.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: But Kosa bo Is he's I mean, you experienced them
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: for a year. But in my career he was everything
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: to me. I mean he was came in my second
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: year and we left the Steelers together. Man. Every every
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: day was like a like a like a like a
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: like a there was like a wi sage moment with him,
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: it was like whoa, that was profound, Like thank you
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: for that.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: It was just like every day was that. And and
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: you don't get that from coaches that you like, you
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: know what I mean, Like coaches you get different type
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: of wisdom from he got gave like sage advice. So
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: and it came like at like like he was never
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: a yell er, He was never a custer, you know.
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: But so it was just just came like in a
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: very real sense, and especially the fact that he's a
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: Hall of Fame player, you know. The funny things that
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: he would always do is like he'd come to dB
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: line he just walked down you go twelve, fifteen, twenty seven,
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: fifty five, He's like, all of you guys don't amount
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: to the amount of interceptions that I have. He would
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: literally just go like that, like yep, that's fifty five.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: All you guys come buy sixty three over early. So yeah,
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: he was he was awesome.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Was his was the beauty of his coaching, The consistency.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Consistency like having him from a year two toll when
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: you finished, did he ever kind of waver.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: And absolutely absolutely not. But also like you know, he
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: I think that's one thing is is his consistency. But like,
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: I don't know, like it wasn't like he changed his messes,
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: it got stale, none of it. Never did that. But
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: he always kept us excited and happy. I don't know why.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: It was just that that level of respect that we had.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: For him, such a unique like way to go about things.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: I feel like the coaching world, at least when we
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: grew up in was like more yelling, more intensity, and
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: there was like such a calmness about him. Everywhere he walked.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: He comes, see you, he remember everybody's name. Tap you
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: on the shoulder as he left, gentle tap on the shoulder.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: You're like, man, we had a moment.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: I feel the first time you experienced somebody like that too.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: You're just thinking like, Okay, there's another way that goes
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: about it. And I'm kind of receptive to this.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: Like he's he like told me one days, like he's
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: like he just for the heck of it, he went
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: like four hundred days eating a cheeseburger every day. So
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: you tried to do something like that with like you
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: know what I mean.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: But I'm so fascinated with the way you were talking
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: about your preparation and being kind of obsessed with like
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: watching everybody else and kind of adding those parts of
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: the game.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I know we talk about doing things like that and.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Just that that that level of of detail. Could you
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: you have your style of play of like being up
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: on the line of scrimmage, rolling to the middle of
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: the field, jumping over the line of scrimmage, like doing
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: all these.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Like unique things.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: And uh, was there a time Because I feel like,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: when you're a player and you want to go make
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: a play, right coach coach will be in the film
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: ro I'm like, yeah, you make the decision, you better
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: make a play or it wouldn't work out. Like, was
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: there a time where you're studying these other guys and
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: you're thinking, Okay, Ed Reed just did this or this
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: this guy just happened, Like I'm going to start adding
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: this wrinkle to my and then when that moment did happen,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: you're like, Okay, the leash of Palamolo gets longer because like, hey,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: he's going out here and making these.
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: Plays, so oh yeah, there's there's absolutely a lot of
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: things for ed in particular that he would do that
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: I'm like, oh man, I need to incorporate that, and
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: and funny thing is that's what I would use Scout
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: Team for. To be honest with you, I'm like, I
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: want to I want to do Scout Team. I want
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: to do Scout Team because I'm like, oh, well, you know,
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: I want to try some of the things I've seen
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: how some of these other safeties do you know? One
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: thing that that I try to tell people about football
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: is it's a it's it's a hard sport to get
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: really good at in a sense because we spend our
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: off season working out. So like the mentality is every
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: off season the only way that we can get better
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: is to get bigger, stronger, and faster. You know, it's
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: not get better at our skill development. So for me,
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: I realized that, man, in order for as this for
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: a safety to become better, I need to get more
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: reps at practice. So I needed, like seemore, I need
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: to just continue to see it. So that's where that's
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: where I really started to change my practice habits to
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: like get more reps on the field so that I
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: could I could see see more. I actually learned that
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: from a book of the ten Thousand Hours book I
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: forget yeah outliers and just talking about like that, maximize
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: that rep. So I was like, man, I need to
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: maximize reps on the field. So whenever I would go
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: and do scout team, that's where I was maximizing the reps.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: But then I would also incorporate the things that I
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: saw on film, like oh Man, ed disguis cover one
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: this way to make it look like cover six. So
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: he baited that front side post that they wouldn't throw
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: and cover three, but they would throw and cover six.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: You know that he would do these genius type things
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: like oh man and maybe oh they call cover one, Hey,
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: let's make it look like six. And you know, these
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: sort of things that you could practice and Ryan would
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: be out there or Chris Hope, you know, the other
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: safety would be out there, so we'd be, you know,
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: practicing these guys together. The other thing was at Pittsburgh,
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: the unique thing that I hadn't as a role was
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: my rookie year. They maybe play safety, they may play
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: safety both safeties, which were two different positions at the time,
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: and then both nickel and the dime so end cornerback.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: So I was end up being like the big safety
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: on corner. So I literally played almost every position on
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: defense and then on sometimes on three man rushes, I'd
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: be the fourth rusher, so I could run a text.
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: I can run the X game with some with the
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: with the d N.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: So you could literally.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: Say I played every position. What was really cool about that.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: Terrible about that was I had to learn them all,
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: which was terrible because my whole rookie year I gave up.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: I promised, I gave up a touchdown a game and
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: it was I'm serious. What's funny about that is my
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: second year, if any rookie it would have come in
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: and done that, I would have been like, get him
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: out of the game. Like my standard had been crazy different.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: But anyway, when you look at an offense and then
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: you see, hey man, they attack you in this way,
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: and I'm a safety, I'm like, I play every position.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: I know what everybody's doing. If I know the ball's
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: going there, coach, I'm just gonna switch with him. I'm
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: gonna say, all right, you know, linebacker, you play safety.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna play linebacker because I know if I if
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: you play it right, but I know the play, I'm
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: gonna play, blow it up. So for me, it was
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: that's that's that's kind of where I started really developed.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: It's hard as seeing. Man, I'm knowing everybody's role, and
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: if I know that the ball is gonna go there,
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: I'm just gonna switch positions with him.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: So you would do that in real time in the game.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: In real time in the game.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: This when they wouldn't be a practicing, you'd be like, okay,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: I have a really good inclase.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: It started.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: I started getting smart enough to know that when I
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: would do this and practice, the coaches would say you
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: can't do that. I'm like, all right, I'll just wait
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: for the game to do that. And then during the
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: games I'm like, oh, but you know I'm not talking
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: about I'm also giving up blitz this. I'm also saying, hey, James,
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: you'd be better and this was this blitz than I
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: am because I know you're going to get the running back.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: I won't. I'll get the running back too. But you
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: know the same thing, like the same thing you know,
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: like I know I'm gonna get to tie it end.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Let's switch positions because I'll rush a d gap, you
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: rush your rush, contained I'll get the tackle, you get
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: the tight end. So like you know these little nuances
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: that you can make everybody better. Everybody didn't think like,
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: oh well, why would you switch the place? Are you
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: kidding me? James versus the tight end and me versus
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: the tackle. Of course I'm gonna lose. He's gonna win
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: one hundred percent of the time. Yeah, So that that's what.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: That's what. What what started to make our defense really
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: roll together, and what's started to hurt our defense late
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: in my career is you get rookies out there. I'm like,
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: hey man, you got curl of flight. He's like, what's
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: curl the flat?
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: You can't be doing that.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, man, do you remember the first play
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: where that worked out? Where you just kind of went
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: out of the box and and and took a shot
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: and it happened to work well to where it's like, okay.
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: You know it was more or less that happens in
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: like coverage. You know, coaches will be yelling me, hey,
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: it's covered two, it's covered two, it's covered two. You
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: be in the half and I'm showing cover three. But
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: I'm telling the corner, hey, you got the half, I'm
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: gonna take the flat. So I'm showing cover three the
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: whole time, and coach is yelling at the side. Hey, hey,
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: you got to be back. You got to be back,
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: And I'm like trying to ignore him, and then all
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: of a sudden it's like, you know, I'll get to this.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: Sound like coach, I just inverted with the corner. I
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: let him play the half. I played the you know,
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: I just want to give the quarterback a different look.
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: They've been calling this and cover three every time, So
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: those little things is what Coach Lebo started to allow us,
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: Like yeah, man, here's the call. Make it right, you
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: know what I mean, like just giving us that level
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: of flexibility in a lot of ways. We're talking about
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: how coach Tomman does too.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: How long did it take for a coach Bow to
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: be like, all right, I understand you think it's going
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: to be a point where you're supposed to be a
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Cover two, but you're showing Cover three and you go
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: to sideline and it's like, you can't do that. How
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: many times did it work? How many times I have
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: to work before they were like maybe he's onto something
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: like yeah.
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: I'm I'm a little bit of a politician too, you know,
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: like I I would tell him you told me this though,
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: If you tell me it's one hundred percent run, then
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: I'm going to play one hundred percent run. Don't tell
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: me it's going to be something that it's not. And
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: that's what I try to tell the players, like just
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: don't study film to study film. You know, if Ed
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: taught us anything, man, it's like you make plays studying film.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: Believe what you see is what he would always say.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, I'll believe what I see. So
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: all of these like anyway, Yeah.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: It's like for all the kids out there listening, make
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: sure you understand your install first, know what to do,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: know how to do it.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: But no, that is it's just cool like hearing those stories.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Like I remember I got to play with Ryan Clark
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: in his last year when he was in Washington and
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: I was starting to come into the hull and get
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: some play and everything else, and Ryan at practice like
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: he was somebody that was such a student of the game.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: And you'd be out a practice and you know how
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: it is. It's like you want to be a situational
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: master and like whatever down in distance it was, you'd
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: hear Ryan back their chirp and like how pivotal was it.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: I'm sure that's what made your defense great. Everybody having
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: that level of standard of kind of knowing every situation,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: know how to talk about it. But as the huddle breaks,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: as the formations coming out, emotion happening. But how beneficial
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: was it to have like a back end like that
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: and somebody likes you, like Ryan Clark.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: It's everything's I meant, it's absolutely everything. And it may
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: not be like that in every organization, but it's absolutely
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: everything to me and everything to our defense because the
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: level of trust and exposure that we would consistently put
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: each other in is you know, it takes a lot
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: of takes a lot of like cohesiveness to do that.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: I meant, when we do some of this manipulation on
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: the back end, you have to understand you're completely exposing
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: somebody else. Oftentimes that was Ike, you know, like hey, Ike,
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: we're doing this over here. Sorry you're man and man
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: cover zero with their Chad o Cho Sinkle or Brandon Marshall.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: You know, So we were always like we that was
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: the only reason why we were allowed to do what
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: we do is because you know, Ryan's communicating Ike cornerback
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: Brian McFadden there cover zero oftentimes where you know, we
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: want to do some cowboy type stuff. But they they
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: hold their own. They're the reason why we were, you know,
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: as successful as we were.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Man, Mike Tomlin just I was had the opportunity he
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: coached me at the Pro Bowl in twenty sixteen, and
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: just being around him and his presence was very like
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Dick lebo esque. Yeah, just more of a calming, more
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: like positive and confident. Can you just like elaborate on
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: him and his legacy as a Steelers head coach?
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: Man, I really enjoyed his podcast with Ryan. Ryan Clark
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: did a podcast with him, and I was just like, man,
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: I'm so happy people get to see coach Tomlin like
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: like who he really is, because he's he's not he
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: that's who he is. That's who he is as a coach,
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean? Like I guess, I guess
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: maybe like press conference, like the it's like the he's
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: like the Bill Belichick in the press conference, you know,
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: like completely the opposite. But man, it was really cool
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: to see that level of who he is because when
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, he was thirty four when I when he
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: came to coach the Steelers. I mean, it's it's amazing
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: that he was that young. And aside from that that
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: he had a family and had young children. So like
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: these kids that grew up in the locker room now
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: now that you like kind of see him, So I
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: don't know's he's an amazing father, Uh, Coach. I meant
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: later in my career he would we would have dB sessions.
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: I learned so much from him about protection routes based
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: on protections and all these different things. So he's incredible. Actually,
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: it's so fortunate to have him. Coach Kaward Dick Lebow.
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: That's why that's why I say humbly, but I say
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: in all sincerity, Man, you put anybody in my position. Man,
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: these guys are you can't do nothing but be a
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: Hall of Famer. To be very frank with you, how
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: was it that I know?
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: And we're getting the wrap up signal, but I have
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: to ask, like, how sick is it knowing that you
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: pulled off all those line of scrimmage plays. I mean
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: you're getting to watch back like diving over the line
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: of scrimmage, timing up snaps like that's pretty bad because.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: If it didn't work, yeah it's called.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah it's funny it is. It didn't work sometimes, but
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: you know it goes back to the outliers. Thing what
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: I realized is that a safety needs to see everything,
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: and that means like not only the formation, not only
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: the personnel, but like how they break the huddle. And
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: you know this, You know the difference between zero, silent
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: count or onto and the urgency that offensive lineman comes
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: to you. It's all on zero. Man, they're gonna get
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: up there and then to get ready or if you know,
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: these sort of sort of game situations. So the funny
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: thing about it is that's where I started to develop
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: this because I was like, man, everybody breaks the line
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: very differently. When offensive line they come it's on two,
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: they break with different sense of urgency than when it's
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: quick snap or silent count. And when you start to
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: see that, you also see it when they run back
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: to the huddle. So I would always tell people watch
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: the full length of the play, as in like how
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: long the call it takes to make the call, how
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: long it takes for them to run through the line,
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: and all these things mean something. So the funny thing
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: is when it started to happen. I say started to
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: happen is I was just reacting. I had never thought
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: about it. I was just like, oh, jumping and then
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: to doing it, I'm like, oh man, oh wow, that worked.
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: It wasn't until I was like, okay, is this game situation?
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: Oh you gotta you gotta jump it. And then that's
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: when I would actually jump off side. So I started
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: to really understand how I was as an athlete that
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, you have to overly prepare so that
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: you can just be instinctial and be free rather than
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: like be a student out there that's always like you
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: know what I mean. I really just had to go
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: out there and be free. So when I did jump,
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: you know, blitz and do those sort of things, man,
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: it was I swear to you, pure instinct. It was
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: just like afterwards, I make it play like, oh man,
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: it was like it was a crazy ride. But it
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: wasn't when I was thinking that's when I would jump
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: offside and do it wrongly. So it was funny. Well,
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: I know, we got to one one, one last, This
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: is it?
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: This is it?
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: Right? Like you as you became more famous and more
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: established as a player and all that, Like the hair
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: was always a thing that people were like, that's how
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: we know it's Troy Paul Ballow. Did it ever get
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: to the point for you were like, I literally can't
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: change his look up ever, because this is this is
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: me now, I'm a mustache guy.
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: But you're saying you can never say success. This is
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: my identity.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: I love it so much, But there's got to be
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: a point where're like, you know, maybe you wake up
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: and you had a little bed head. You're like, man,
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: it'd be so much easier if I just kind of
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: bicked it and let it go on a little bit.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: A better way to put it is, it was always
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: part of my identity before yea. So it wasn't like
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: it's something that had to hold on to. So it
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: was more or less like it was always my identity
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: before I even had it, and it was like it
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: was a specific identity. You know, like my my mother
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: in law, who's a classic as a classicist, very Greek classicist,
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: would always say all the greatest warriors through all time
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: had long hair. You know, you talked about Samurais, Native Americans,
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: the ancient Hebrews, to you know, all of them Polynesians,
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: they all had long hair. So I was like, oh, okay,
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: I like that. Probably they probably had mustaches to the.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: Long haired mustache well, thanks so much man.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: This is awesome.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: This is awesome.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: It's making great having you.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Make sure to subscribe, comment, Thank you, thank you.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.