Latest / Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast / Rookie Diary With Mac McWilliams: "Realizing How Far I've Come" During Long Rookie Season

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Rookie Diary With Mac McWilliams: "Realizing How Far I've Come" During Long Rookie Season · Inside the Birds: A Philadelphia Eagles Podcast

• 0:14
  Speaker 1: So tell me, man, how was uh how was your holiday?
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Had you spend that year?
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: It was great man. Uh, some of my folks had
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: came up. I didn't expect them to, uh, but my
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: auntie had came. Uh. They stayed right there in uh Baltimore,
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: so they had came up here. Uh, my aunt, my aunt,
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: my uncle and a couple of and their kids. They
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: came up there, my mom and them. They still in Pensacola,
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: so they celebrated down there with the family. It was great, man.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: I enjoyed it. Uh, washed it watching some home alone.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Nice which one? Which one?
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: I watched one end til we watched one into made
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: some cookies, uh, and let the kids open their present. Man.
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: That it was great.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: That's awesome, man.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: There's nothing like family time defamily.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: But what's what's your fondest memory of of Christmas growing up?
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: I'll probably say, you know, just the memories that I
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: had with my siblings. You know, I'll say, you know,
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Christmas Eve. You always got that. Our tradition was we
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: always get to open one and two presences. So that
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: was what I was looking forward to. It's Christmas Eve.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: So made sure I would make sure I picked the
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: biggest person.
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: Out of them all.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: So I get that, and then I I don't even
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: go to sleep that night just knowing that Christmas here.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: And you know, I was always thinking Santa was real,
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: so I always wanted to see Santa get up and
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: you know, come through the house and things like that. So,
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: you know, just the tradition of being and my family.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: And that's that's what I.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Really listed about.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: What was the best president you ever got?
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: I probably say when I it was it was real,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: like well known around the hubble boards. Then I first
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: got my first hubble board. Yeah, I wrote it into
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: the wheel fall off.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Or because you're a home alone guy, it just like me.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I got the Chalkboy from home Alone too.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Okay, I.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Don't know if that was the best one, but it's
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: something that always sticks out of my mind.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Now are you are you a New Year's person? Do
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: you like to celebrate New Year's?
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: It's just another day.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: It's just another day to me. But I gotta I
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: gotta lady now, so you know we're gonna go up there.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: We wanted to go up to New York and see
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: but that's if the schedule says so if you get
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: a chance.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: He had to check out New York at least once.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: There's a lot it's obviously a lot of people there,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: but it's a good experience, definitely.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: So I think you and I have talked about this
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: at various points in the season, but now that your
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: rookie season is sort of drawing to a close here,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: have you had any moments where you're able to kind
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: of process and take a step back and really evaluate how,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: you know, how the season's going through you.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I was talking to my granddad the other day
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: about it. We would sitting down and just talking about
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: like because he told me, like the time I had
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: my senior in college, he was gonna tell me, like,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: this is gonna be the longest part of your season.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: It's gonna be the longest the longest part of your
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: life actually, like just football wide, just from you know,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: coming in having to do a college and then turn
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: around and gotta do the draft process. You gotta you
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: gotta all star games, so combine. So you know, I just.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Took it all in.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Man. I I had a great time with him. We
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: we chopped it up about it. You know. The best
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: thing about it is that we got the same knowledge
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: you know, he tells me. I talked to him just
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: about you know, just staying consistent. Can't staying consistent about
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: our ways of life? You know. Uh, he's a very
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: consistent guy. So I feel like I feed off of him,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: he feeds off of me. So yeah, man, just sitting
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: there and talking with my granddad, just realizing how far
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: I've come, you know. So that's the that's really the
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: main part about it. They talked about the rookie.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Wall, and some players feel it, some players don't. Yeah,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: did you at any point this season feel the rookie wall? After?
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: You're like, well, in college, my season would have been
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: a yeah.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Uh, I'll probably say probably two weeks ago, you know,
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: just seeing all my guys from college finish up, they
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: finish up, they uh they seasonal or whatever, you know,
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: just having that freedom to know, just go make sure
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: you wake up and you ain't got nothing to do
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: no more. So, but you know, in the NFL, it's
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: it's it's different. You know, we got way longer season.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: So I'm just taking for everything for what it is.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: I want to call it the wall. I probably say
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: that it's a blessing to me, you know, just to
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: be in this position, So I'm just taking for what
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: it is.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: There anybody, whether it's a story or mic or any
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: of the veterans, try to help you push through that.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Uh, it really wasn't about me pushing through it, cause
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: I feel like I can. I can push through it myself.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: I got a great mindset about the way I lived
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: my life. So you know, you know, they they also
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: have their ways, are turping in to me giving me
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Nixon as here and there about how to you know,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: just staying consistent bases and things like that. But you
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: know I was I was doing it on my own.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: I feel like I'm great at the way of life
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: or the way of thinking about life. So that's the gist.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: We hadn't had a chance to talk about it, but
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: big win in Washington last week and had a has
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: to see what it's like to win an NFC East
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: as a rookie.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: What was that like for you?
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: That whole experience, it.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Was great, man. You know a lot of rookies don't
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: get that chance. So you know, just being around the guys, man,
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: see how excited they were, and he gave me a
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: lot of thrill.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Now, I think say Quan said it the other day
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: speaking about you know, Nick Knick Sirianni and why he
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: sort of like overlooked him around the NFL coaches. But
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: one thing he always does is he has.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: His team rate to play every week.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: And his message really seems to resonate based on your
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: you know, experience with him in the season. What makes
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: him such an effective coaching communicator.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: He's a consistent guy.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Man, Nick, he gonna come in, He's gonna let you
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: know what it is and what it is. He's not
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: gonna sugarcoat with you. He expects you to expect you
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: to do what you need to do at the highest level,
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: you know, with professionals at the end of the day.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: So he gonna treat us that way. And I just
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: love his quotes, how you just always talk about being tough,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: detailing together a lot. I put that on my I
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: put that in my mirror when I first wake up.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: That's all I see.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: So, you know, just going about that way.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what does that mean to you?
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: That quote that he says all the time. And I
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: know that they can be interpreted different ways for different folks,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: but you know, whether it was your experience in college,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: so now, like what is that when you hear him
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: say that, What does that.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Mean to y'all? Tough, detailing together. It correlates a lot
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: with the way you go out by life, you know,
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: the way that the way I go up by life,
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: especially with football. You know, just being tough, you know,
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: having a mindset just uh in a tough category. You know, detail,
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: coming in, being consistent, make sure I do the right
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: things at the right time, and making sure I stay
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: on it on a day to day basis. And you know,
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: being together, you know, coming in having guys like Cooper,
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: De Gene and Queen, you know, great guys, man, they
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: will come in, they gonna help you whenever you need something. So,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: you know, just togetherness in the brotherhood here is special.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: How about uh Brandon? We talked about Brown uh last
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: week and a fellow rookie. What was it like seeing
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: him finally get that they.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Have changed to go out there?
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was great, man, be that's my dog Man.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: I'm loving it for him. He worked hard for it.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: He's worked hard for everything that he deserves.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: So very sided for them, And I can't wait to
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: see nixt.
• 7:03
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  Speaker 2: But when we talk about this every week, but what's
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: one thing that you've been particularly honing in on this
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: week that you're hoping carries over. It's something that you've
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: really made an.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: Emphasis same old things, you know, Uh, making sure I
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: keep my mentor right, make sure I keep the guys
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: up together, and to make sure we all are on
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: the court. Cause one falling, you know, the next man
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: got to be up. So, you know, making sure I
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: I take my daily my daily props and make sure
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: I'm staying ready. You know, just a woman that when
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: my name's called.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Did you guys end up doing anything with the DBS,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: like exchanging gifts or anything?
• 11:23
  Speaker 6: Uh?
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, we Uh we didn't.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: We changed a little bit of guests, but.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like nothing of fish.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's see, but we had the guys. We had
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: the Christmas. Everybody met up at Mark Crib. Uh, well,
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: some of the guys met up at Mark Crib and
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: I had I had things to do. I was with
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: my age and so uh it was real special.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I talk to me, thank you and shious