Eagles Legend Brian Dawkins on Super Bowl, Philly vs KC, Andy Reid, HOF Career & Family

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 0:30Ryan Clark?

  Well, guys, it's that time and we are headed to the Super Bowl. I remember where the pivot was about a year ago. When we just got to the Super Bowl. We're only a month into filming our show. But we're back. This is year two and Happy Dad is still with us. We want to say thank you for your partnership and also the DraftKings. Thank you for being a sponsor. Now, we have a Super Bowl extravaganza for you today. Lock in for Brian Dawkins.

• 0:58Ryan Clark?

  Oh, they're dancing, they're...

• 1:02Ryan Clark?

  Hey, I remember when, uh, when we played y'all in Denver, when you were, uh, when you were there. Yep. You know, I couldn't play by that time. By that time, I'd had, uh, my sickle cell crisis there and everything. So the whole week, I was just you. Right? So I had to play B-Dawg the whole week. Yeah, they gave me a jersey. Cause they knew I wasn't gonna play. So they gave me a jersey and I was like, ain't no way they draw the plays up for him like this. I was like, I stay in the Pro Bowl too.

• 1:31Ryan Clark?

  But then, but after I like, they let me blitz, you know what I'm saying? I get in, you know, you can't hit the quarterback, but I sack Ben. I'll be running, I'll be going like that. Bro, best week of practice I ever had, dawg. Ballin'. Ballin'. Hey, that was the first time they didn't care if you picked the quarterback off. You know, the scouts, you not supposed to pick them off. I will flip.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  I started that week.

• 2:12Ryan Clark?

  Hey man, first of all, just thank you so much.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  Nah, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me, brother. I've never been a fan of you guys and the growth. Seriously, been a fan, huge fan.

• 2:26Ryan Clark?

  Thank you, we appreciate it. Channing, Freddie T, I'm RC. Welcome to The Pivot. This is a Super Bowl edition of The Pivot. We got one of the greatest of all time, Brian Dawkins. Hall of Famer, nine-time Pro Bowler, five-time All-Pro. I mean, just did it all. They just gave you nicknames. There was Weapon X, it was Wolverine, no matter who the coach was.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Idiot man, idiot man. Don't forget about idiot man.

• 2:53Ryan Clark?

  Idiot man. That sounds like Media Man.

• 3:00Ryan Clark?

  But it's crazy though, I do a show every week, feels like every day, with two Gators and you come right out of Jacksonville and you didn't want to go to Florida?

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Absolutely, 100%. I wanted to be a Gator, brother. I wanted to be an absolute Gator. I had, listen, I had practiced my chomp and, you know, going all the way back to Louis Oliver at safety, you know, I mean, way back in the day, you know what I'm saying? Was that Will White, another safety back in the day. So, looking at those guys, how they played the game and so I wanted to be a Gator. But that wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't in the columns, brother. So, basically, you know, short story. So, I wanted to be a Gator. They off, they actually offered me a scholarship. They were one of the only schools to offer me a scholarship. I wasn't highly recruited. And so, but my GPA going into my senior year wasn't high enough. So, I remember Ron Zuck coming and sitting me down

• 3:50Speaker 02

  in the dean's office and said, you know, "We love you, but we're going to have to take the scholarship back." So, you know, I got my, got my strong face still.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Boo hoo cried in Connie's arm at the time. She's my wife, not my girlfriend. But what that did, and here's the other, the other side of that, is that later on in that day, my good friend Anthon Lot, who was my other safety, you know, he was hyped. And I was like, "Hey man, what's going on?" He said, "Yeah, man, the Gators just offered me a scholarship." So basically, the way I saw it, they took the one that was supposed to be me, and they gave it to my teammate. But here's what it did for me, seriously, though. It made me do something that I probably wouldn't have done without it. I asked one of my coaches, my defensive back coach, Coach Black, to help me, because I needed help. I was not going to get my GPA where it needed to be in order for me to get a scholarship from somebody else, so I needed help.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  And here's what he did. He tutored me. He let me come to his class and basically, during his off time, he would tutor me on stuff, and he showed me that I learned differently. So I killed it for the next four, nine weeks, and I was A B honor roll. So what that did, it actually blessed me that when I then went to Clemson, I knew I can do it. So had I gone to Florida, the way that I was about to go to Florida, not knowing I can do it, I don't know if I would have been able to survive there at Florida with my grades. So again, that, looking back over that, it was such a blessing for me to go through that painful experience, because it made me, as a man, step up, ask for help, I got it, and I killed it when I went to Clemson.

• 5:22Ryan Clark?

  You know, you mentioned Connie already, and we're definitely going to speak about your wife and just how much she supported you, and maybe some lessons you learned along the way about the things that she had to do to enable you or to allow you to be the Brian Dawkins that the whole world, Philadelphia, Denver, all of football grew to love. But you met Connie in high school.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  High school, high schools we are.

• 5:46Ryan Clark?

  You guys get married at Clemson. I think you got a hundred dollars from her grandfather to get rings. But there's a story that without Connie and without her understanding you, loving you, and knowing you, we don't get to see the Brian Dawkins that ended up being a Hall of Famer, that in your rookie season, just the pressures of being what you thought you had to be, and taking care of family, and trying to excel in all these different places, drove you to a dark place that when you see Brian Dawkins, the believer, when you see Brian Dawkins, the father, the coach, the husband now, you weren't that man. Can you explain a little bit of what you were going through and how Connie, Emmett Thomas, helped you out of that?

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, wow, powerful. So, growing up where I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, um, you know, you rub dirt on everything. So, you don't care if it's a cut, deep wound, you rub dirt on it. Like, suck it up, man up, don't let them see you cry. And there's, there's an element to that in the neighborhood. Obviously, you're gonna have to be fighting at some point. I knew that. So, that's the mindset that I had in life, period. So, I talked to nobody about nothing. So, whatever's going on, whatever toxic situations I've been through, whatever traumatic situations I had seen, I talked about none of that stuff. So, all of that stuff was basically just being, put it in little folders inside of me. And I'm thinking I'm being able to contain it, and I couldn't. So, when pressure, other pressure is, um, applied to that,

• 7:11Speaker 02

  you only can white knuckle, or as what they call it, things so much, I can only hold on and grip a weight in my hand so long like this. At some point, it's gonna drop. But the way that I explain this is that because I was not talking to anybody, it's like you put a hot pot of water on a stove, and you turn the heat up all the way, and there's no room for any steam to get out. At some point, that thing is gonna explode on somebody. And it takes one person to let that lid off and all that steam, and that's what began to happen with me. I, I was a very angry young man. I was had fits of rage. And one episode in particular is when I ran my head through the wall after an argument me and Connie, as when we were newlyweds.

• 7:55Speaker 02

  Didn't, didn't have any necessary help up in Philadelphia for us. My son, Brian June, was colicky, so we weren't getting a whole lot of sleep. I didn't know how to communicate. I didn't know how to, know how to talk about my feelings. So, all of that stuff just exploded, and me doing that thing. And then, in that moment, Connie basically called Emmett, and they basically tag teamed on me and said, no, you're going to get help. And I did, because I, I need to. Because what I was doing was not working. I was miserable. I was literally walking around, putting on a mask every day, pretending to be something else. Pretending, pretending to be what other people thought that I should be, because I was in the NFL, having success, sim- a semblance of success. But I was absolutely miserable. And it's, for those who have gone through anything like that, It's in those times that you're by yourself that it's the worst.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  When I'm out doing stuff, you're cool. When I'm playing football, cool. But when you get in the car, you're on the way home and I'm thinking about ways of not being here anymore. I see it like that.

• 8:51Fred Taylor?

  Wow. How much of that stemmed from the actual pressures, you know, of football of trying to be what you end up being? Trying to be the best of the best? How much of the pressure you put on yourself that eventually carried into the house?

• 9:03Speaker 02

  That was into it as well. So I'm not talking about anything. I'm not letting anything that I'm going through out to nobody. So whether that be things that I've saw, I've saw growing up with losing a couple of my best friends. One of them at the age of, in the ninth grade to the streets. One of them, um, when I was a sophomore in college to the streets, like, and I'm talking to nobody about these things. Now I got into the league, second round pick, a lot of expected from me, right? A lot of pressure on me in a city like Philadelphia, a lot of pressure on me.

• 9:36Fred Taylor?

  Okay.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  And again, I'm talking about nothing with nobody. I'm letting nothing out and I'm just trying to hold on to everything. And so all of those pressures and the way that I also talk about it now and I understand it now is that pressure reveals what's really in your heart. You know, out of the abundance, the mouth speaks is what the word talks about, right? So that pressure will show you what you are, good or bad, right? And what that pressure showed be is that I needed help. That I doggone needed help and I finally got it.

• 10:05Channing Crowder?

  As you speak about like those fits of rage and things that can come over you, um, they talk a lot about like guys turning on and off a switch on the field, that competitiveness that go get them. And then you gotta go be in the real world. You gotta communicate with your spouse, communicate with people in the world. Like to have that and know that, but the way you played was rage full. So have you ever thought about, you know, was your switch not working where you couldn't turn it off? And would you be who you are if that rage wasn't in you?

• 10:34Speaker 02

  The rage that you speak of, so the rage basically is energy is what it is. How you use it is up to you. So the way that I was given to this, and this is me, this is me going into now my second and third year when I really began to study and read the Word of God, this is what came to me and helping me do exactly what you're talking about, use that in a different way. So when you have water and it comes in a flash flood, it destroys everything in its path. If you have a dam up and you have vents to be able to allow some water to come when you want it to, that same flush of water now gives that engine that you're opening those gates up to more power.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  So in my mind, I now have a way to direct this extra energy, that rage you're talking about, now I can use this thing to destroy this dude coming across the middle. I can, I can, yeah, I can, I can use this rage when I go into the weight room to really get that last couple of reps in to make me, you know, you feel me? Yeah. So me being able to understand the significance of that, and I still apply those same thoughts today, like just because that I'm feeling a specific way does not make me the thing that I feel. I can choose to use that energy in a different way. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah, so again, so that enlightenment for me to be able to think about things in this way allowed me to go take the feel differently.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  And later in my career, when I went to Denver, when I went to Denver, I was so angry with a couple of people at with the, with the Philadelphia Eagles, I'm not gonna say no names, but a couple of people, I was so livid, but here's the thing, I wasn't in a power position by the way that I was thinking because I had so much like anger towards, and I'm gonna go show them, I'm gonna go show them. Then again, in that same study time, me still getting down and praying about it, it hit me, go show yourself right. Don't go prove them wrong, go show yourself to be right. That's an empowering place. So now I don't, I'm not doing it to impress you or to make you think that you made a mistake, even though I did what I did to, you know, I did actually do that. But the point is, I'm doing it to go prove me right.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  It's no longer giving you the power. So I'm taking my power back. Does that make sense? Yeah. A lot of the things that I see in my life now, I recognize that perspective is the key to it all. It's your perspective of how you see the thing. That's what drives the thing. And it can either empower you, or it can take power from you.

• 13:05Ryan Clark?

  You mentioned proving yourself right. And I think that's a different approach because now your, your life or your self-worth, or the way you appreciate what you've accomplished, has nothing to do with outside voices. It's all about you. It's all about saying, I put this work in to get to this certain point, and I did what I needed to do for me and mine.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:27Ryan Clark?

  And I think that's just such a different perspective. But, once Jim Johnson becomes the, the defensive coordinator, this is when we realized that Brian Dawkins is not just a second-round pick from Clemson. This is a man-

• 13:41Speaker 02

  Third-round pick, first pick of the third round.

• 13:43Ryan Clark?

  You was first pick of the third round?

• 13:44Speaker 02

  No, I was the last pick in the second round. But in my mind, I was the first pick of the third round. But go ahead, go ahead.

• 13:48Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, I was like, man, I did all that studying for nothing?

• 13:52Speaker 02

  So that was motivation for me to use that way, but go ahead, go ahead.

• 13:55Ryan Clark?

  You know, and so you, you weren't just that guy. You become the premier strong safety in the entire league. And it's all pros, and it's Pro Bowls. And when you are now starting to see the fruits of your labor, what does that feel like for you?

• 14:11Speaker 02

  Man, before I get to that, let me give you the reason why I was able to do what I did with Jim. It was because of Emmett Thomas. See, Emmett Thomas saw something in me that I could not see. I just saw a hard-working dude. I saw a dude coming out of Jacksonville that was too small. Everybody thought couldn't do nothing, do this, do that, the other. And I was just using that anger to just make, try to go just, just, just to make the team. I didn't know as a second-round pick that you're not likely going to get cut in the first, at least the first couple of years. So I'm literally, I'm serious. I'm literally going into my locker during training camp, peeking around the corner to see if I got one of them slips. I'm serious, in my mindset, you can cut me at any time. So I, I just didn't know. What Emmett did, though, is Emmett never let me settle for good. So even when I was doing good in practice, good in the games, he kept like, like, getting on me.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  I'm like, man, I thought I was doing good. He said, no, you should have done that. With your talent, he would always say, they can do that. You should be able to do that. You should be doing this. So here's what, here's what I had to do. I had to believe in Emmett's vision of me.

• 15:13Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  And go after that for a little while. And once I recognized what Emmett was saying, because he was putting me in the same sentence as Ronnie Lott, and that's the dude I looked up to. So I'm like, are you serious? So when I finally understood that, and I understood what I can do, Emmett unleashed the beast inside of me. He unleashed everything that I thought that I could, a lot of the things that I didn't know I can do. And then Jim got that. He got that dude ready. Then Jim just unleashed me in every way.

• 16:11Ryan Clark?

  So I want to go back to Emmett, because that started a question in my mind when I heard you say that. How much of Emmett's words meaning so much to you was the fact that he and Connie took you out of that dark place? That he showed you that it was more than about the Ronnie Lott or the Ronnie Lott type player that you could be? And it was about, no, let's make sure Brian is all right. Because I feel like when you have that sort of relationship, now when I tell you, you should be doing this, those guys can do that. Those words hit different to me, because I know you really care about me. So how much about Emmett's vision of you did you take to heart? Because he cared about Brian Dawkins the man?

• 16:53Speaker 02

  And that was the thing about it. When I got to Philadelphia, you got to understand that Emmett was there. You know, African-American defensive coordinator. Ray Road was there, African-American. Mr. Wooten was the general manager at the time, not general manager, he was a player, director of player personnel at the time, you know, African-American. So basically, I had a bunch of my uncles, the way that I saw it. So the way that some of my uncles talked to me in the neighborhood is sometimes the way that they would talk to me. You feel me? So when I trusted Emmett, and I knew that he cared for me outside, because he would always talk about me and Connie and talk about the things that I needed to be doing as a man, even in my household. So I knew that he was talking to the person. So, and the way that I say it, that...

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Oftentimes, in society, in the workplace, and even on the practice field, everybody's talking about coaching the player. No, if you coached a person first, though, if you helped that person first, you would have a, you would get a better player, you would get a better employee. But we don't look at things that way, and that's what Emmett did. So, when he came to me and began to say those things to me, I believed him. I a hundred percent believed, now, I didn't think, I, I didn't know it would go to the point of me being a Hall of Famer. I, I did not dream that big. But I believed in his vision of me, and I chased it. And once again, once I saw what I can do, to your point, well, how did I touch the field, Ryan? There was nothing on the field I didn't think that I can do.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  Like, when I touched the field, dude, like, like, I was freed. It literally felt like there's nothing that I could not do. Whatever master do, I can do it, and I'm excited to be able to do it. So, I don't know if, I don't know if people would have that experience in their lives at, at any point in any area, but I'm telling you, when I touched the field, so, the reason why I was so crunk and yelling and all that stuff was not to get hyped, it's because I was hyped. Because I knew what I was about to do, y'all, they just didn't. They just didn't. Seriously, they just didn't.

• 18:47Fred Taylor?

  And Brian, saying that, and when people would see you away from-

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Ooh, y'all got me hyping this.

• 18:52Fred Taylor?

  When people would see you away from the field-

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Oh, my goodness.

• 18:55Fred Taylor?

  It's a, it's a totally different person. So, uh, the dichotomy between Weapon X and Brian Dawkins, like, how did you balance that and, and, and keep Weapon X tucked away? You know what I'm saying? So, the people out in the public, they don't see that. They see a very faithful, approachable, loving human being.

• 19:15Speaker 02

  Growing up, I was a stutterer. I was a stutterer. People don't really know this, but I was a stutterer. So, that, that in itself caused me to be more introverted, because I didn't want to say something, and people pick at me now, you know? So, I was always, I was always an introvert in that way. But when you really look at the thing that, when I became, when I became a believer, when I accepted Christ into my life in, in, in ninety, ninety-one, I was looking for an example of what I can do playing football. Because in my mind, you, you know, on the football field, you, you know, you, you causing damage, right? You can't, so, you can't be this image that people have about, you know, turning the other cheek all the time and being passive and all that stuff. And then I watched the Philadelphia Eagles back then, and there was this dude by the name of Reggie White.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  And I saw Reggie play. I saw him dominate on the field. I saw Reggie actually dominate on the field, hurt a person and then pray over him. I was like, that's it. I see it. I see it. I see it. I can go out and act a, I can, the way I call it. I can go out and act a fool on the field, but then if something goes down in that moment, I remove myself from it and I can pray for that individual. So that means off the field, I need to handle myself in a way, though, that reflects the God that I serve. So that was that, that was that dichotomy. I knew that my, I needed to be able to reflect in everything that I do. I need to be able to point people to the God that I serve. And on the field, the Bible says that you do everything as unto the Lord.

• 20:46Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  So if I didn't go out on the field and just do what I did, the way that I played the game, if I didn't do it, then I'm not praising God. That's the way that I saw it.

• 20:52Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  And so that allowed me to play it on the game. But now off the field, I took responsibility for, put it this way, you as my teammate, you would have never had to worry about me not being ready for game day. You would have never had to say, I hope he's not out doing something late at night. I hope he won't, I hope he can give me everything that he got, not just what he has left. That's, that's, I wanted that. And, and from a fan standpoint, you would never read about me in the paper, anything other than something exemplary, exemplary, right? So, and that was my mindset. So that's how I approached that.

• 21:27Fred Taylor?

  You know, just to say this really quick, man, in preparation for this, I reached out to a few of your former teammates. And what they speak about is love, the way they love you and Connie. They speak about the impact that you've made on every player in the locker room. And they just speak on how grateful they are for everything that you, that you all have done. So I can, I, I see the transparency and the vulnerability, and I totally believe it. But I also wanted to go here and ask you,

• 21:56Fred Taylor?

  how, how many times did you pray to God when you were going home to Jacksonville to the 2005 Super Bowl, the first Super Bowl in your hometown? An opportunity to win it in front of your coaches, your family, you know, your, your, your, your church people, everybody that you've ever seen or touched growing up.

• 22:17Speaker 02

  Take us to that night. Man, it was so many emotions coming back, going back at that time for me, coming back to Jacksonville. So many emotions and people have to recognize that at that point, we had lost three straight NFC championship games to get to the Super Bowl. So when you go back and look at that celebration of the fans and us on the field, finally getting past Atlanta to go to the Super Bowl, like we celebrated almost like we won a dog on Super Bowl because again, we had lost three in a row. So going to Jacksonville to play, you know, one of the things that I took from a veteran, I can't remember who it was, that you try to do everything like you've done it before. So you keep your preparation the exact same. So that's what I tried to do when we went to Jacksonville.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  I didn't do, I didn't go visit family a whole lot. I did exactly what I would do. It was out if I was in Jacksonville. And in my mind, I was literally thinking we were going to win that game and there was nothing in me that we weren't going to win that game. So definitely heartbroken. We talked about it and I did, I shared some tears after we lost, but in my mind, we were coming back. Like in my mind, if we, if we had people that, you know, kind of stick to their, stuck to their guns a little bit and, you know, said they were sorry and, you know, came together and we would have been back, but that didn't happen and it took a couple more years, took all the way until my, my last year for us to get back to another NFC championship game. Boy, it still ain't no apology.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Still, still ain't no apology.

• 23:47Ryan Clark?

  Hey, hey, if you couldn't go back and get a championship, they no use to apologize enough.

• 23:53Channing Crowder?

  But like just listen to you talking that passion and then like being a, cause losing the Super Bowl, Ryan got a Super Bowl, but he got carried by Footy and, and, and Pot. He got carried by Peasy.

• 24:05Ryan Clark?

  Don't forget Troy.

• 24:06Channing Crowder?

  Troy, Troy carried him every play. That's what he was around.

• 24:10Ryan Clark?

  I also lost one. Where, hey, I wish they'd have carried me that night then when Aaron Rodgers was carving us up.

• 24:17Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, that's when he was supposed to pick himself up. He blaming on Aaron. That's how he did me. But for you to be all world, everything, we all knew you, man. You know, everybody at that age, I ran out the little tunnel crawling and all like, you know, the impact you have, I'm sure you've heard of it. But the not having that control, cause I thought about when you just say, yeah, we're supposed to do the next year and then some people ain't like, I wasn't no all pro Hall of Fame type player. To be that good and to not know these guys can't play with me or not doing what it takes to get on my level, what's that like? Because I can't even speak on it. I was the dude, I'll be honest, they know it. I was the dude you talking about. I was the dude Friday night, I'm going out. I'm getting to practice on Friday.

• 25:01Channing Crowder?

  We ain't got but a little quick practice. I can sweat the lick out then. We fly to Buffalo Saturday. I'm going straight to Toronto to go to the strip club. You know, I was that guy. Speak to me if you on my team and oh, man. Well, like, what do you tell those dudes that don't have that love and passion like you have?

• 25:16Speaker 02

  So, the only thing that I can do is the example that I gave and the way that I prepared myself and the results coming from that. So, the results that I was blessed to then do does not allow you to see that maybe I need to try this out. Maybe I need to test this out. Maybe me giving just what I have left is not enough. Maybe if I try, if I just try what he doing, maybe it'll work out. Maybe I would be a better player. I would be actually able to earn more money. That can bless my family for a longer period of time. You see what I'm saying? So, all of these things. So, it was always about the example. I can't make, I can't make a grown man do nothing. I can't. I can urge you. I can, I can, I can ask you. I can, again, I give you the example.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  Now, if you've asked me to be an accountability partner, that's different. I can, I can help hold you accountable in that way. But other than that, I can't make you do nothing. The third IV that I had to get will let you know just how much winning was, yes, but how much you mean to me. Does this make sense? So, the way that I always looked at it, when I go out and play the way that I played to help us win more games, more, more games on your record will help you earn more money as well. So, I wasn't just doing what I was doing to make me more money. I'm doing, yeah, we can all eat off this stuff.

• 26:38Channing Crowder?

  And I'm showing you how to eat. My man Zach Thomas, that's my big brother, to the Dolphins. He was my accountability partner, but it was accountability for him to wake me up because I was sleeping in my truck every morning before practice because I go straight to the facility.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  We different, we different, bro.

• 26:54Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, we are.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  But here's the thing, man. I understood that and that's why, and I'm not gonna call like call guys out like there's certain guys that I would maybe nudge just a little bit. I would just have a car and I would never, I'm never doing stuff out in public. It was always me sitting down beside you. We'd be in the steam room together or you know, we hot or whatever, getting warmed up together. And I mentioned a couple of things, man. You see what I'm saying? To get you to just think differently because if I can help you think differently, you have an opportunity to do different. That was always my thought process. If I can get you to just think differently, to do this thing just a little bit more or to stop doing that a little bit more, then you'll be able to give a little bit more. And so on that fourth down that you needed that extra oof to get that big dude off you,

• 27:39Speaker 02

  you will have that extra oof and then we'll get off the field. Instead of giving up that first down, the offense run down the clock. And then we on the defense sitting on the other side, just watching them kneel the ball out. Does that make sense?

• 27:49Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, heck yeah. You know, the teams that people see us play on aren't necessarily the most important team. Not even aren't necessarily, they aren't the most important teams in our lives. It's our families, it's our wives, it's our children. And in 2007, the twins were born. And that wasn't just about the normal, everyday births that we see. You know, they say when a woman is pregnant or giving birth, it's the closest thing to death on earth. And you actually had to live that. And then having one of the twins who was struggling and you having to be on alert and shake her leg just to make sure she's moving, but also trying to still be Weapon X

• 28:32Ryan Clark?

  and prepare to be Weapon X in the season while being not only the man of the household, but the caretaker, the provider. What was that experience in year like for you?

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Man, first brutal, number one brutal. Heart wrenching, test the heck out of my faith. But it also let me see the plight of my wife. The responsibilities that I just didn't, I just didn't know like. And some of it was from a place of selfishness, I will admit that. But others, it's just, I didn't know. When we go off to work, man, we go off to work. We're going into the, you know, office, excuse me, you're going into meetings. You, you, you're preparing to go, you know, do stuff on the field. And so you have to learn these things, learn these plays. You were, we were talking about Fred, look earlier, some of the tips that you would have to come up with to help you, you know, better be able to play. So that's what we're all in, we're all into that.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  And so I'm not necessarily understanding all that she had to do until I had to be mom. So she was on bed rest, Connie was on bed rest for a couple of times. And so I had to be mom and dad, especially when the, when she was about to give birth to the twins. So they were born too much prematurely. The youngest had something called bradycardia, bradycardia, which means that she would stop breathing and her heart would stop just for a split second. So when you're feeding her, she would stop breathing and you would have to shake her and she would, and then she would cut. Yeah. Yeah.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  So when they were born, too much premature, they had to stay another extra month in the hospital and Connie had to spend that another month because of complications as well in the hospital. And so testing my faith, because now I have to trust that the doctors are going to make sure that she's breathing the whole night. Right? So it's completely out of my hand. But here's the other thing, the other two didn't stop being Brian Junior and Briani. I had to then cook for them the best I could, do, do hair the best I could with my messed up fingers.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  And so a lot of that, I wasn't able to train the way that I was normal training. But again, I got a chance to see all of the things that she had to do. And then I was trying to do all the things that I had to do. And consequently, you know, that's the year I hurt my neck. And so I knew, I, listen, I knew, in my mind, I was going into training camp like they used to do back in the day to get ready for the season. Cause I wasn't ready. I knew it. I knew I was not ready. It was to the point that when they came home from, from the hospital, dude, I had to basically spend, take the night shift. And that was Mother's Day when they came home.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  When they came home, right. So, but I had to take the night shift. So what I would do is I would take the night shift trying to feed one twin while the other one sleep. But one of them would take so long that she's crying. So I have to try to, so the whole night and I would go to bed around six o'clock in the morning. Sleep to about 11 to 12 and then try to work out. And then go pick the kids up from school. You see what I'm saying? So that was my, I couldn't do it. I guess, so again, I literally told Connie, if I've ever, um, not given you the appreciation for what you, what you do around this house, if I've ever, um.

• 31:49Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior light beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com slash superior access to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Disappointed you in, in any type of way when it comes to these things, I apologize because I see what you do now and I'm so thankful to have you. So thankful, so thankful.

• 32:26Channing Crowder?

  Connie comes up in all your stories, your football stories, your life stories, your religious story, like everything is Connie. Y'all, y'all met in high school? What did Connie do to you?

• 32:38Speaker 02

  So here's the thing, though, I actually saw Connie in a basketball game in the ninth grade. I was going to one school, she was a cheerleader for another school, so you know, we playing a game, and I saw her at that time. I didn't know I would then meet her in the 10th grade at Rains coming together. And the short story there was, I'm not a talker, I'm someone that's laid back, so a good friend of mine, Maurice, told her that I wanted to meet her, and that's how we met up, and the rest is history, but she has blessed me in so many ways, because there's certain things I had to stop doing to be with her in the first place. So it's a certain lifestyle that the neighborhood would try to present, that if I was gonna be with her, I had to stop.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  So that was a blessing in that way. The church she went through, went to, was different from how I grew up, and they were doing things in that church that I had never seen before, so that helped me grow spiritually. So it's so many things that I've been blessed to have in Connie, and then ultimately, going all the way back, going to my rookie year, you know, she was one of the main reasons that I went and got help, and I understand the power of getting that help. You see what I'm saying? So she's been so influential in so many aspects of me growing into the man that I've become. When did y'all start watching film together? Was it before the 50/50, or after the 50/50? So, man, so, I would come, I would be on the way home, and she would be like, "Well,

• 34:08Speaker 02

  why you didn't make that play? Why, what, what happened on this play? What happened, like, why you supposed to be on my side? Why you didn't make that? Why you didn't do that?" But so, again, so she's always been that type of person in my life, to encourage me, to push me, to not let me settle either. So I've been so blessed in so many aspects to have someone like that, to not just be someone that smiles and say everything's okay, but no, she's like, "No, that was bad." She would literally say, "No, that was bad, that looked ugly." I'm like, "Yeah." And you know it's the truth, too, when she said it.

• 34:41Channing Crowder?

  That's when we hit you harder. You know what, it's funny, because that's like a movie thing. We meet at high school, she was at the rival school, and I saw the cheerleader, I'm an athlete, now we meet up later.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  That's real?

• 34:52Channing Crowder?

  And now y'all together this much longer. Y'all together through all of this, I wanted to ask, what was the hardest point? I make fun of everything, man. You was a stuttering little kid, you ain't gonna get the bad one.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  Real talk, so in my mind, there's no way since she talks to someone like me. I'm, I'm, I'm.

• 35:10Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, you see what I'm saying? I'm like, man, I was stuttering, that's why you ain't wanna walk up to her. You was never gonna finish.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  That's why you put Maurice on it, dude.

• 35:17Channing Crowder?

  You was never gonna finish this sentence. Hey, uh, hey, uh.

• 35:27Channing Crowder?

  But from that, the start of it, but through becoming a star in college, in college, to become drafted, to becoming what you are, to all the way through Hall of Fame. Like, bro, it's a lot of benchmarks in there that I would say aren't advantageous, especially early on for a relationship that deep. What, what, were there any hurdles there? What was the hardest part of being married since you was, or being with your lady, since before you could even, you ain't even pay taxes?

• 35:52Speaker 02

  Man, for me, because this, this, this phenomenon in my life was the thing that blessed me the most, that let me understand that what I was going after should be what I saw in front of me, and what I mean by that is my parents. I saw them together. I saw them work through stuff. I saw them work through stuff sometimes at a loud pitch.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  But they worked through stuff. And so I saw that as the example that I wanted to have in my relationships. So when me and Connie, again, I didn't think that she would go out with a dude like me. So when she said yes, and she was my girlfriend, and here's the thing, people, people will now be, me being in the league, be like, so when did you get with him, right? When he got, after he got his money? Listen, she had a car, I didn't. She would come pick me up for school, to drive us to school. Because of her, I've started eating sushi, right? So she introduced me to so many different things, bro. But, but, but the point is, is that I knew in her I had something special, and I was not doing, gonna do something stupid to jeopardize that, like, seriously.

• 36:58Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  One of the things that, when I went to Clemson, she stayed in Jacksonville, and, um...

• 37:05Speaker 02

  That was a tough, that was a tough first year in a lot of aspect. How I got to Clemson, people don't recognize this and realize this. How I got to Clemson was basically they wanted dude named Patrick Sapp. I don't know if y'all heard, no Sapp. So Sapp was big in Jacksonville, Florida. So Clemson wanted him so bad that they told him, well, he told them that if I come to Clemson, dog gotta come with me. I didn't know that. I thought they wanted me, right? But this is, again, this is after Florida gank back the scholarship. But once I got to Clemson, I recognized that, yeah, I was not wanted there. I can feel it, you can just feel it.

• 37:38Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, you can tell.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  You can tell, man, like, I was not wanted there. But in my mind, there's nobody, you can't break me physically because of my mental conditioning. You can't break me physically. So whatever you put in front of me, I'm gonna crush it. And I'm gonna outwork everybody around me. That was my mindset that I developed in high school. And so when I went to Clemson that first year, it was absolutely miserable. And Connie wasn't there. And there was no phone. We didn't have them things there to pick up and forth. So we, I'm writing letters, bro. I'm stamps, can you get a roll of stamps? We writing letters back, so I gotta wait a couple of days to get the answer back. You see what I'm saying? So we, we didn't have no money to be having no cars and paying extra money. We just didn't have that type of money. So, you know, one of the blessings that happened is what she came up to Clemson that next year. And, and that was a blessing.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  And then soon after that, we got married. So, and I would have done, I would have done that so much differently too. We eloped, we eloped with the hundred dollars and yeah, I would have done that so different. But again, I just knew, in my mind, you know, I just knew that she was gonna be the person that I was gonna spend the rest of my life.

• 38:42Ryan Clark?

  Man, that's, I think those type of stories are inspiring. It's not about taking the leap to doing it, it's about doing the work to keep it. Those are the things that people can look at and say, it's not about perfection though. It's about the pursuit, the pursuit of it. And in your career, your life, it seems that that's what it was always about. Thirteen years in Philly, three years in Denver, retire at thirty-eight. And whenever people put your film on, they put the film on and the first thing you think is, he couldn't play like that now.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:16Ryan Clark?

  You know what I mean? That's the first thing they think. And then you also look and say, I wonder what he's like now. I wonder how his mental is. I wonder how he is emotionally. And we were talking earlier about how you really started to. Study and learn about the brain because you want to help the next generation of athlete, the next generation of player. How have those studies though helped you in coping since you retired?

• 39:45Speaker 02

  So not necessarily coping, it's understanding. Understanding how a dude from Jacksonville, Florida, not really expected to do a whole lot, being small as I was at the time, how that individual changed his mindset and went after something a whole lot bigger than what his neighborhood suggested. My neighborhood only suggested that I was going to be able to do specific things, right? It's going to be able to, if I sold dope the right way, I'll be able to get me a Jeep Wrangler. Jeep Wrangler was a thing at the time. Get you a Jeep, uh, sidekick, Jeep sidekick. Put some knock, put some knock in the back, right? You know what I mean? I'm just being real with you, right? So that was, that's what I saw in my neighborhood, but, but, but.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  The pursuit of what it is that I went after, ah, these stories keep coming back. I had a vision. Somebody blessed me to have a scholarship at FCA camp and I went to North Carolina. This person I would never, ever meet allowed me to see something in that FCA camp in the neighborhood. The neighborhood was a plush one, similar to this one.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  And I said to myself after leaving that, I said, me and my family gonna live into a spot like this. Me and my family, my wife and my kids are gonna live in a neighborhood like this. So whatever I gotta do, whatever I gotta become, I'm gonna become that.

• 41:03Ryan Clark?

  Wow.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  And that's, that's the vision. So I began to drop off with some of the dudes I was hanging out with and I, if they weren't going to help me be able to reach that vision, I'm giving you some real stuff here now. And that changed the outcome and to the trajectory of my life. Because I began to prey on that thing, to believe in that thing and to chase that thing, chase that vision of me living in a, in a plush environment and having my kids be able to, to, to grow up in a place that was not like my own. And so that was an empowering tool for me that allowed me to see the end, to see the end and then go back to the beginning and work my way to it. That's vision, visionary.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  As I began to learn about how the brain operates, I understand how I was doing what I was doing. I didn't know I was programming my brain to think the way that I was thinking, but I was doing that. I was creating neural pathways. I was priming myself to have success in a lot of ways. And these, some of the things that I'm saying is some of the terminology that is used in these realms.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  But I began to do things and go after something that I believe had already happened in my life. Cause I can feel, I can feel what it was gonna be like to live in the neighborhood. I can feel what it's gonna, I can feel in that moment when I begin to dream about that, how it's gonna feel to pull up to that gate and, and just be able to pull right through with the, with the. I began to write out my autograph saying that someday somebody gonna be paying me for this thing. I began to do that, all that stuff around in 11th grade, 12th grade. Having these visions, having these concepts, having these dreams. Again, I didn't know I was programming my brain. I was something called a reticular activating system, system in your brain. When you, for instance, before you got those shoes,

• 42:53Speaker 02

  you probably didn't notice a lot of other people wearing them. But once you got those shoes, you begin to see a whole lot of people wearing the exact same shoes. Why? Because the reticular activated system in your brain recognizes those things that you've made important. Those were important to you. So now you see so many, and it's the same thing in our lives. When you begin to go after that thing that you have already seen yourself have success in, and you begin to prey on that thing, your brain begins to operate in such a way as to help you recognize those things to help you get to it. So for those dudes that wouldn't help me get to it, I was like, no, we good. And so, and I wasn't like rude, I was like, no, I'm good. So y'all finna go to the store? Don't none of us have no money? No, I'm good. Cause in my mind, I know what you, yeah, I know what y'all about to do.

• 43:38Speaker 02

  I'm serious. Cause we ain't got no money. Yeah, we ain't got no money. So no, I'm good, I'm good, y'all go ahead. Oh, you trying to be funny? No, I'm, I'm good, I'm serious, y'all go ahead. Again, they weren't, they, they, they weren't gonna help me get where I wanted to go. Right? And so ultimately, Ryan, and you know this about me. When I discover something for myself, I don't believe that that thing that I discovered is for me. It's for other people. So I'm supposed to share what I have. We're supposed to share the victories in our lives that we've had that God has given us. We're supposed to share them with other people to allow them to receive their versions of the same victory. Maybe it's not Hall of Fame in the NFL. Maybe it's not playing 16 years in the National Football League. Maybe it's something completely different. Maybe it's, you know, having your own trucks, uh, uh, uh, food trucks or something.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  Maybe it's something, but, but, but it's something. It's something inside. And again, if I have something that I've done in my life that can help you reprogram the way that you're thinking to get out, get out of that stinking thinking, to be able to achieve something great in your life, man, man, I'm selfish if I keep it to myself. So that's, that's the road I'm on now.

• 44:42Ryan Clark?

  Hey, man. It's the big game week and the number one seeds made it. Philly, KC. It's time for everything for all the marbles. And so is DraftKings and it's still the same old sweet deal. Any new customer signing up with the promo code pivot, you bet at least $5 on the big game and you get $200 in additional bets.

• 45:02Channing Crowder?

  And now being the big game, you know what these teams are consistent. And I'm staying with my consistency of the same game parlays. The NFC has had a little run now in the big game, but I'm telling you AFC is taking it this year. Same game parlays. Bet multiple bets on the same game and have a chance of winning even more money.

• 45:21Fred Taylor?

  Hey, and Chan, even though it's the big game, nothing really changes on my side. RC mentioned the promo code pivot. No, you guys go pivot from the sports book to daily fantasy. They got both because the sports book not everywhere. Just use the promo code pivot and get that money. RC will tell you the rest.

• 45:38Ryan Clark?

  Absolutely. Get out your devices. Freddie T showed you his. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app. Any $5 bet on any of these games, wait, it's actually only one game because it's the big week and you get $200 in additional bets. That's DraftKings Sportsbook app.

• 45:54Fred Taylor?

  People want to know how you're doing now because you were such a physical playing hard hitter.

• 46:00Fred Taylor?

  Was there ever a moment you were afraid? Because we've seen players like former Eagles great Andre Waters. You know, we've seen him commit suicide. Junior Seau, you know, a lot of other players. And I know I was scared because people tell you, you should have developed this. Do you ever have those moments?

• 46:16Speaker 02

  So, so, so here's the thing for me, and this is before all of these things came out and we begin to talk about these things. This one individual told me something, my rookie, going into my second year, that blessed me to see my life and do things completely differently early on in my life, in my career, than I probably would have had I not had that conversation with him. We were walking into the, um, in the vet at the time. I was walking into the restroom, he was already in there shaving. And, um, for whatever reason, he just said, "Rook, look, if you take care of your body now, it'll take care of you later." It was this Urban Friar. And at that time, Irv was like, year thirteen, still making Pro Bowls, and he was balling, right? And I took that to heart. And so what I began to do is I began to do things different, didn't eat differently.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  I began to take, look into supplementations. I've been taking fish oil ever since. So I've been taking things that help the, the, the, the, the brain function better. I've been taking those things for a long, long, long, long, long time. Now, to your point, fear, absolutely, you have, you have some trepidation sometimes, right? Cause I didn't, I look at some of the hits, man, like, yeah, it, yeah, it, it was. And in the moment, and it's hard for my wife to understand this, and it's hard for me to understand a little bit too now, because I, I have more sense now. I didn't care about my body.

• 47:31Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  Playing the game, I didn't, I didn't, I, I wasn't thinking in that, the realm of me getting hurt. I just knew that I needed to do this thing. My teammates were counting on me, and I gotta do this thing. So I'm gonna do whatever I need to do to get it done. That's, that was my mindset. But because I've been doing these things for so long, and you know, the way that the supplementations I've been taking for all of these years, I believe that I've been helping myself help myself. Obviously, I say it like that for a long time. And I did, again, I didn't know I was doing it. Now that we're stepping to this realm of me understanding how the brain works a lot more, I understand that what I was doing for so many years was literally doing that, was helping me help myself in life after football.

• 48:15Fred Taylor?

  I see.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  You know?

• 48:17Ryan Clark?

  When you speak, people listen. And it's been since you played. And even now, I think your voice carries more weight because you can hear the wisdom in everything you say. And sometimes it's the experiences that we have that we try to give people so they don't have to have them. Right? So they don't have to go through them. And so for you, though, you never got that winning experience of that Super Bowl. And in 18, and when, you know, the Eagles and the Pats play, and now you're a part of the front office, you get the Weapon X ring. And I thought it was dope that it didn't say Brian Dawkins.

• 48:56Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 48:56Ryan Clark?

  Right? Because that wasn't the dude who played on game day.

• 49:01Speaker 02

  Never played a snap.

• 49:02Ryan Clark?

  On game day.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  Brian Dawkins never played a snap. Never played a snap.

• 49:05Ryan Clark?

  And then Andy Reid gets an opportunity to go to the Super Bowl as well in 2020. And you actually said before they played the game that you'd probably shed a tear if Andy won. That's a large statement for another man who is not quote-unquote, or not blood family. What was it about your relationship that made you feel that way?

• 49:30Speaker 02

  Man, so it's, first of all, it's the fact that I'm comfortable doing that. So I'm comfortable crying. I wasn't for a long time, but yeah. Like, men, oftentimes, we as men think that the only emotion that we should readily show is anger. Like, you're tough, angry, you know, ball up your fist. You know, let's do what we need to do. But understanding that we are, we have emotions, we are not built or, we are not our emotions, I'll say it that way. But we do have emotions. And being tearful is one of those doggone emotions that we need to be able to show. Now, I'm not saying you cry about everything. No, I'm not saying that.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  But my point is, is that if my brother, and the Bible talks about it like this, if my brother is having... Problems, issues, I need to step into that space to feel what my brother is feeling. So that I can hopefully help them in that situation. So if you, Ryan, you called me up and you told me something you're going through. You are now lifting a lot, half of the thing that you're going through. Cause I'm lifting the other half. So that's a little bit less and then we both play together and we get it completely off of us both. But it's that same respect when it comes to elation. So if my brother is winning and he's won, I'm, man, I'm, I'm jumping around just like it was me, right?

• 50:53Speaker 02

  I'm more happy, I'm hap- like so, so when Andy won, like I literally, uh, cause it wasn't just Andy, it was Andy and Spags. So Spags was my defensive back coach.

• 51:02Channing Crowder?

  Okay.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  At the time, back in the day and went on to be with the Giants and so forth and so on. So I'm happy for them to do so. I'm literally tearing up and like jumping for joy and like I'm a fan, I'm, oh my goodness. You, you feel me?

• 51:14Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 51:14Speaker 02

  But that's what I'm supposed to do. And I don't do it because I'm supposed to, I do it because I want to. You feel me? Because that's what that relationship meant to me of watching Andy come into the Philadelphia Eagles, kind of right the ship. And then let's go on that magical run year after year. Ryan, you got, I mean, and not everybody, I, I got this and it really hit me. When we went to the Super Bowl in 2004 and we had Jeff Blake on our team. Jeff Blake had planned, I think at that time had played like 15 years and had never went to a playoff run.

• 51:48Channing Crowder?

  Wow.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Never been in the playoffs and here we are, year after year after year. And you mentioned something when we were talking earlier, when you first came into the league, you thought you were gonna go to the championship game. Year after year, I tell you, uh, Super Bowl, year after year after year. But so that perspective was, it's like this for everybody and it's not. So the catalyst for that, but instead the catalyst for that was Andy Reid coming, bringing, him and Jim Johnson bringing what they bring. So I'm, I'm, I'm eternally grateful for them coming to Philadelphia and doing what they did.

• 52:18Channing Crowder?

  Oh, so you gonna have the split jersey?

• 52:20Speaker 02

  No.

• 52:21Channing Crowder?

  No, no, no.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Love him now, love him. Yeah, lo- love him now. And it's a little different for me now because as a player, like if me and Ryan, we don't, you know, we know each other, we Bulls. I'm not, I'm not talking to you during that week though.

• 52:38Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 52:38Speaker 02

  I'm not even called, we ain't no texts and I, I know some players do that. Me, during that week, I don't know you. I don't know you, I don't know your mama, I don't know none of y'all. I don't, I don't wanna, I don't want no feeling short that, that, that week. That's just me now, that's just me. So, yeah, so, but as a, I'm no longer a player like that, so obviously I can, I can indulge, but when it's all said and done, it's Eagles, dawg, it's Eagles.

• 53:00Channing Crowder?

  Be quickly, just, cause me and Freddie got something we always talk about. We played each other in the preseason game and I took a cheap shot on him. Is that too far?

• 53:08Speaker 02

  Preseason, yes.

• 53:09Channing Crowder?

  That's too far? Okay, Fred, my bad. You apologize. My bad.

• 53:14Ryan Clark?

  B-Dawg, you know, when even texting and trying to catch up with you this year, the NFC Championship game, you're, you're a part of the celebration and not, I'm just, let's be real. They don't invite everybody back, B-Dawg. Like, that's not the way it works. There, there are some great players who don't get invited back. There are actually more good men that don't get invited back because they weren't good players. And so you do have that connection, and so now having that connection to the Eagles and still being so much a part of the fabric of what that organization is, because like you said, you, Andy, Spags, all you guys, y'all built that.

• 53:54Ryan Clark?

  But then having a, we'll say a smaller connection to the Kansas City Chiefs right now, how much pride is it though to see so many people that you are affiliated with meet in Glendale, Arizona to decide who the Super Bowl champion was?

• 54:10Speaker 02

  Man, you know, first of all, going to see your first comment, it still baffles me. And I, and I, I do this purposefully too. I, I, I see my success in my life through my 16-year-old eyes. So I always take myself back to myself when I was around that age and how I would see myself now. When my 16-year-old self sees me being called by the Philadelphia Eagles to come be the captain in an NFC Championship game, and the city of Philadelphia love me the way that they love me, are you serious? So I'm still blown away, I'm like, you guys to be kidding me? Like, how, how does that happen, right? I'm, I'm not, I don't see myself as what they see, right?

• 54:55Speaker 02

  And so, like, that's an emotional thing for me. So to be, that was an honor for me, I don't, I don't take that for granted. And for a split second, when we were taking captains pictures, I actually thought I was about to go to battle. Like, for a split second, man, like, for a split second, I was bold, dawg.

• 55:11Ryan Clark?

  Well, you're still swollen.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  And then, but I'm saying, but once we take, we got the first couple of steps, I had, no, no, no, that's them, let me, that's them. But, but, but, so, I love the fact that.

• 55:24Speaker 00

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• 55:53Speaker 02

  Both organizations. Andy has gone from one, and I'm so proud, I'm proud of Big Red, man, I'm, I don't know, he don't need me to say this, but just to watch him, what he's done at two different spots now. The same thing that he did in Philadelphia, he's doing the exact same thing, and then some, in Kansas City. I think he's the first coach to go from one, two different teams, organizations, and go to, I think, 10-plus years or something like that, of some, some years, some, some crazy records.

• 56:20Ryan Clark?

  So that's only his?

• 56:21Speaker 02

  Yes, only his, only his. And again, not only him, but to have Spags there, and so many other coaches on the coaching staff that were coaches in Philadelphia, it's, it'll be a well-warming place when I get there before game day. Game day is not gonna be warming, but before then, it's gonna be a lot of warming, conversations, hand.

• 56:42Ryan Clark?

  So, if I had to guess your pick, we going?

• 56:46Speaker 02

  Oh, come on, man.

• 56:48Ryan Clark?

  No, I'm just saying, like, it's a, and I'm, take off, you gotta take off your Eagles helmet, take off your Eagles helmet, right? You, you, you sitting there, Sunday, watching the game, how do you see this going?

• 56:59Speaker 02

  Man, you know that I'm a defensive guy, right? I do see a lot more points being scored than was in that 49er game, on both, for, for both sides. Well, not for both sides, excuse me. I, I believe it's gonna be in the 30s. I believe it's gonna be in the 30s, but I believe the Eagles will have just a little bit more in the tank than Kansas City. I think it's gonna be a good game, I think it's gonna be a high-scoring game. Sadly, as a defensive player, I don't necessarily like to say that, but I think that that was gonna be the case. I saw, I, I did see a stat that the record, they have the same records, and the exact same point totals. These teams, that's how equal they are, right?

• 57:42Speaker 02

  So it's gonna be a good game, it's gonna be a good game.

• 57:45Fred Taylor?

  And if you had to put yourself back in that captain's position, playing in today's game, and they say, alright, B, we got 87 this week, Travis Kelsey, with your best secondary, how do you match up with him?

• 57:58Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 57:59Fred Taylor?

  In your prime.

• 58:00Speaker 02

  So i- i- in my prime, well, that would have been my responsibility in my prime. And people don't notice that, they think that all I did was hit people hard, which I tried my best, dude, but I was literally the, sometimes the fourth corner, when Emmett got me there, so I was a lot, I was a cover guy as well. So that would have been my guy to cover, but that's not a responsibility just for one guy. Like, he does so much, and he means so much to the offense, that you, you have to, you have to have a bunch of touch points, I'll say it like that. Different, a whole lot of different touch points as he goes into, I'm serious.

• 58:36Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  And, and what that does is over the game, it may not affect him in the first quarter, it may not affect him so much in the second, but into the third and fourth, you continue to touch him along the way, whole time, right? By that fourth quarter, he may, hopefully, if you're doing it right, he won't be that, have that same energy, that same breakaway ability in the fourth quarter, right? So it's, it's a, it's a long game kind of thing.

• 58:57Fred Taylor?

  That's what the Pats did to Marshall in that 0-1 Super Bowl. They beat him up so bad at the line, but that's another story.

• 59:04Speaker 02

  Then it's gonna be some doubles from time to time, it's gonna be different way, but you have, you can't just do one thing the whole game, is what I'm saying. If you do one thing the whole game, they're smart, they're gonna watch it, they know what teams have done in the past, but if you constantly are throwing different things at that combination, again, knowing that he is the guy as, right now.

• 59:22Fred Taylor?

  Right, he's a spine.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  He, he, yeah, yeah, he, he's that dude, you wanna, again, touch him as many different ways as possible.

• 59:29Ryan Clark?

  You know, I was extremely excited about this, I was like, man, B-Dog's gonna be, I'm getting on B-Dog nerves, but I'm just, I was, so he's like, you know, we could do it next week, RC. Nah, I think we need to do it this week, like, I think this week would be nice. But every offseason, I'd pick two or three guys to watch and say, I want to take pieces of their game and try to add them to mine. You were always in that rotation. No, there were other guys who went in and out of it, but you, for my entire career, were always in that rotation. And the one thing I always got to was reckless abandon. And I think people look at that the wrong way. They see reckless abandon as not caring. And you said yourself,

• 1:00:12Ryan Clark?

  I didn't care about myself. I saw it differently when I watched you. I saw reckless abandon as caring too much. You cared too much about making the play. You cared too much about winning. You cared too much about your teammates to care about yourself. And I think that's why all of your teammates, all of the people who you have touched throughout your life, love you so much. And when we have a great guest or a guest with as much to offer as you, I want to give them this opportunity. If you wanted people to take something away from being around Brian Dawkins, listening to Brian Dawkins, or having an opportunity to watch him play, what would that be in the show's open?

• 1:00:54Speaker 02

  Man, somebody asked me a similar question, and it was more about what would be on your gravestone, right? The thing that I would love people to speak about me in terms is my passion in which I live my life, and that I can be counted and trusted. So if you talk about me in those two aspects. So when I speak of passion, I means that the lengths that I'm gonna go to be there. And when I'm there, you know I'm there. I'm gonna be there not just in physical form, but I'm gonna be there spiritually. I'm gonna be there mentally. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be everything that I need to be in those moments to help, not

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  just myself. But I had to conduct myself, even in my most emotional moments in the game, I know my teammates are watching me. So I had to conduct myself and control myself, control my emotions as only to give them what they needed in those moments. Because I know, again, they're watching me. So that passion of how I live my life, how I'm willing to listen to you when you're going through different things, to pour into you if I can. If I can't find, if I don't know the answer, then we're gonna go and we're gonna find it together. That's how I'm gonna walk with you. I'm gonna be that type of teammate to walk with you. So the way that I began to communicate this to myself is excellence. To live with excellence in mind, to chase excellence.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  So my excellence will be different from your excellence, will be different from yours and so forth and so on. So I was chasing excellence. I stopped comparing myself

• 1:02:31Speaker 02

  and I stopped competing so much. Not against, I'm gonna compete against other teams, but what I'm saying is that I stopped comparing myself to people and competing, and I started creating. I started creating the way that I saw safety. Through my lens, safety was different. A safety was someone that could touch the field and be a game changer in every statistical category, not just one or two, not just three, but in every statistic. And if you look at what I was blessed to do, in every statistical category, I was blessed to be a game changer. That's because I was studying film that way. So for those young people that are watching this and you want to be something,

• 1:03:14Speaker 02

  yes, follow the examples of those who've set some, right? Because success leaves trails. We've heard that before. But you gotta go past that. You gotta say to yourself, and I said to myself, what does safety look like to me? How does a safety dominate the game? Can a safety dominate the game? And if so, how does that look? And that's how I then approached playing the game, playing the safety. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. And so, I know this is supposed to be a short, short thing.

• 1:03:51Speaker 02

  So Ryan, I studied pass rush moves because I blitzed a lot. I studied the shot clock of when the team snapped the ball because I needed to be able to time my blitzes. I studied cornerbacks. I studied Troy. Matter of fact, if you looked at me and Troy, sometimes you couldn't tell the two of us apart sometimes because I mimicked some of the things that he did because I was studying. So I was studying every aspect. I studied how to get the ball out, punching the ball out, different angles and different things to do. So I went from someone that just made tackles to someone that I know I can make this tackle, what a ball net. So that's the confidence I went to. When you look at it from that lens, you're no longer just playing the game. You're creating, man.

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  And that's the joy I took in watching film because I knew what I was creating. I knew I was creating something different and I was doing something at a different level. And I was blessed to be able to do it. And so ultimately, if I didn't go out and I didn't approach the game the way that I approached it, then I was not giving God the glory that he deserved. Does this make sense? Because when you look at me and you see the way that I play, I'm going to point you to where my strength comes from, and that's from on high, right? And so that's how it always boils down. Everything that I do in this life, from excellence to creating and all of those things, I want to point anybody who's listening to me right now, I want you to point you to my source. And my source is my heavenly Father. I'm just a resource. That's it.

• 1:05:20Ryan Clark?

  My dog. Appreciate you, brother. Appreciate you, brother.

• 1:05:23Speaker 05

  I'm sitting here, I'm like, I'm outside of the limelight. I'm tuned in.

• 1:05:56Speaker 06

  Every game day, you show up for your team. Now it's your time.

• 1:06:07Speaker 07

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