The Controversial Reality of NFL Contracts: Austin Ekeler Speaks Out | Austin Ekeler DSH #630

Intro when I put the stress on myself when I feel that pressure putting down from myself there's nothing else that matters besides this Mission because there's nothing else that matters and that's the mindset I put my in I put myself in like their survival like a survival mode like this is you have to make this work or there's nothing else to do all right guys got an NFL legend here today Austin Eckler thanks for coming on man thanks for having me man yeah new chapter it's exciting for you right new chapter indeed you know as we go through life you kind of get in a routine but every once in a while there's a wrink and this is one of those for me and I'm looking forward to it yeah and you're in an interesting period in the NFL with Austin's NFL Career the way they're kind of treating running backs overall right yeah well look here's how I've always you know kind of approached it like if you're making an impact you should get paid for that impact I don't care what position you're playing right and depending on how big that impact is made is depending on how big the check should be made which is why we see quarterbacks right getting paid so much because they make a huge impact you know regardless of what team they're on if you have a good quarterback you give yourself a chance because they can make things happen same with other guys too if we have running backs are making things happen that are making an impact you should be you know paid accordingly absolutely I'm a Giants fan so I didn't like the way saquin went out man yeah I thought they did them dirty it's it's so tough cuz you have these you have these scenarios where you're balancing you know caps and you're balancing things like that and so um there's a lot of a lot of politics and things behind the scene that you can't really can't really measure and you don't know what the organization wants do they want to move on or they not willing to come up to certain number so yeah it's it's it's the nature of the business I feel that you want wanted to stay though right you wanted to be on one team your whole life I wanted to be on a team that wanted me um and so I think it got to the point where the Chargers wanted to go in a different direction and so that kind of played into my my thought process of hey let's go find a new team that's excited to have Austin on that team and was that made apparent like throughout the season or was it kind of sudden uh no I think really after this last season you know it was a tough season for us um had a lot of high expectations and ended up you know falling short from those you know not only as a team but just my personal goals as well um and really wanted to you know I guess look for a new opportunity to hey let's let's get a fresh start let's become you know contain maintain the player that I've been in the past and I think the Chargers were looking for something to something else with the new head coach and coming in um that wasn't necessarily what I bring to the table and so no hard feelings but just going to find a place where I fit in I feel that man are you Fantasy Football Strategies still big on fantasy right now oo fantasy is is a huge community and about me what you'll learn as we get talking is I love communities and bringing communities together and so fantasy is one that is already existing there and I can kind of implant myself in and that I've made an impact in in the past years and so it's something that I definitely Embrace and you know I have my show like I told you before we started with Yahoo about fantasy football so it's not that I love like watching the pcks and I got all these sleepers but I love how fantasy brings people together and people that may not be a fan of my team that I'm playing on are still a fan of Austin because hey I'm on their team you know in fantasy or they put a bet on me um you know as long as I do well well usually it turns out all right but you know if I come up short you know I feel that too but it's part of it's part of sports so I do love fantasy yeah I feel that so are you allowed to have your own team yeah you can have your own team you just can't make money off of it got it um like it's like 250 bucks you can't make make anything over that on fanty there's a bunch of rules that we have to follow so yeah yeah do you ever get a lot of hate when you have a bad game what that mean that's is that a real question I mean you know we live in the social media age where everyone's opinion can be put out there without any repercussion so I can say whatever want so if you have a bad game or lose me money you know I'm getting DMS I'm getting all this stuff I have my social media team filtering out just delete deleted block I probably got thousands of people blocked just get get the toxicity out you block them I don't block them my social media team does yeah so they'll I just get the toxicity out of my of my life I don't want to see it I don't want any of my fans that are supporting me to see it like I just want like Good Vibes I noticed you're really big on your fan engagement a lot of players aren't really in touch with their fans but you've built a whole Community right yeah absolutely and I've done it in different ways too and actually kind of leads to the project that I've been building so when I first got into the NFL I was from a small town and really had a lot of Community Support around my town like after the game they'd be on the field you know high-fiving it taking pictures uh you get to the pros you you really lose that uh because it's it's too big you can't manage all these people there's too many people that want too many you know people that want these things too many crazy people you know um and so you got to put boundaries in when you get to the NFL and so for me I wanted to find ways to kind of break down some of those boundaries but still keep it safe safe so I started like streaming on Twitch I started a gaming comp or gaming company where we you know would combine audiences of NFL and and other athletes um to to combine our our likeness and and build community relations let them ask Questions game with us stuff like that um Discord channel YouTube channel built all that and just realized that I I'm not a Creator in that sense like I get burnt out um so I've always been trying to find new ways to connect with the community which kind of leads me to Babbel Language Learning experience the project that I said I was working on are you tired of ordering on a menu in a different country only to be served snails why not actually speak the language and Order what you want that's where Babel comes in speak like a whole new you with Babel the science back language learning app that gets you talking wasting hundreds of dollars on private tutors is the old school way of learning a new language Babel's 10-minute lessons are quick and handcrafted by over 200 language experts ready to get you talking your way to a new language in just 3 weeks because talking is the key to really knowing any language bab's Advanced speech recognition is like having a personal language Guru in your pocket massaging your pronunciation whenever you open your mouth with Babble you can learn everything you need from vocabulary to culture while holding your own in conversation with anybody all it takes is just about 10 minutes a day it's designed by real people for having real conversations and it gets you talking I've been going to a lot of Spanish-speaking countries over the last few months and Babel Has Come in clutch I now know how to order food and ask where the restroom is when I travel here's a special limited time deal for our listeners right now get up to 60% off off your Babel subscription but only for our listeners at babel.com soour that's 60% off at babel.com hour spelled babbel.com hour rules and restrictions May apply nice and I love that you have Austin's Entrepreneurial Journey the foresight to do these Endeavors while you're still playing rather than retire and then try to figure it out yeah so a little bit of backstory on me I never thought I was going to be in the NFL like I I was going to school for business I was going to Western Colorado not one person ever has gone to the NFL from that school a tiny division 2 School up in the mountains like 4,000 people in this town it's a Ski and Snowboard Town outdoor recreation I'm fly fishing and ice fishing every day up there like that's what I was doing and for me I took my education seriously and I took football seriously because football helped me pay for my school I didn't get a full ride cuz we're at division 2 so you get partial but you can increase your scholarship if you get like academic allamerican and all that stuff you know All-American and so I was trying as hard as I possibly could to dominate at football and dominate at my at my education and so was able to do the football side well enough my coach came to me one day like hey man you have some Scouts reaching out um and that was kind of eye openening opportunity for me was like who there's there's this new opportunity called the NFL that I might be able to tap into um and so I say that because my entrepreneur side has never left me even though I went the football route uh I'm still building a lot of things off the field that continue to to Really F my cup there because even with football I feel like it's almost a path that's been laid out for me like you go to high school you go to college you go to the pros it's very laid out and it's it's not necessarily something that I've built I've definitely had to work and build myself up to be able to have success in it but I want to make something that impacts society that I can say that I've built from my hands from my my ideas from my vision and I have that burning spark in me and so that's why I do all the stuff during the offseason I love that damn 4,000 in your college that's how many my high school had man yeah so my college actually had 2500 um and so the town itself that it sat in was 4,000 strong so I pretty much knew everybody so yeah definitely a tight that's insane half the town was in college exactly exactly that's crazy when College was out it was like a ghost town like where is everybody you know during the summer God humble beginnings man that's cool to hear you were a a white water rafter guy I was man I was I Overcoming Humble Beginnings was doing anything I could to to get myself by um and that was my first job I ever had so the day I graduated I wanted to get out of a toxic relationship at home like I need to get away from this scenario um and so I threw my hat in the air on May in May and my high school graduation and I had a job lined up which was white water rafting up in Gunnerson Colorado and that was going to what be what held me over to pay rent for the summer I want to start training with the team so I was like let me just immerse myself into this new life that I have and uh that's where that yeah that job started I've done a lot of odd jobs just to continue to get me by through college um but I've just been a builder and a hustler man like that's what I want to do I want to work and I want to go put everything into it and build it and try to make it as big of an impact with whatever I'm doing and try to impact others not only myself but the people around me I love it and that goes back to your work ethic which I think is what separates you from a lot 100% cuz you see me people like oh you're kind of small and know I've come up with the saying you know it's probably been said before but like don't measure like don't measure my stature measure my impact like that's that's what you really need to measure like oh yeah I might be small in stature but when you watch me on the field when you watch me scoring touchdowns getting yardage you know Mak an impact in the community building weight rooms building you know washers and dryers you know do you know bringing people together as far as communities like measure that measure like oh how it is measure how I speak measure how I make you feel measure all that that's the that I'm trying to make and that's how I measure my success and so for me it's continued to put one step in front of the other and try to better myself and then make that contagious to the people around me and help us all Lift Us each other there a saying it's it's all like Rising tide lifts All Ships right and so like let's me let me build myself up be around other people that are trying to do the same and guess what we'll make an impact that's that's felt around the around the world dude I love Toxic Home Relationships that um you mentioned toxic relationship at home yeah man so my mother was married to this guy who was straight country guy like we lived out in the country um and he was just really really into tough love like really hard on me um and so I was I was the stepchild right um and he had a bunch of animals he he built fence for a living and so he would be gone a long time cuz when I say built fence like these are barbwire fence this is like this is not just like oh your neighborhood fence this is like hey we have 26 miles of barbwire along the railroad up in Steamboat Colorado and Wyoming and all around and so like this is months on a job and so during during school I obviously I'm back home going to school someone's got to take care of the horses and the cows and the chickens and I'm the oldest guy my my mother was a school teacher um and so I'm out pitching hay breaking ice watering horses every single day every single night um taking care of all the animals had a lot of responsibility during the Summers it'd be Sports Camps and fence and building fence we live in a camper on the fence site wake up boom go build fence go to sleep fishing sh we' go fishing at at lunch back to work and then you know sleep do it all over again so a lot of a lot of work a lot of environments where I'm either competing or getting pushed and when we worked it wasn't just let's get this fence built like it was let's get done now like come like I want to see some pep in your step we're running like we're in jogging we're not there's no walking you don't walk out there damn it was it was intense it was intense so I learned how to work hard and that translated into how I kind of carried myself and so even though it was not an environment that I enjoyed I learned so many lessons from it that have help me to this day and help me really separate myself from a me mentality standpoint that have been able to help me push and overcome odds um as I've came and face barriers there's a balance with that tough love I think right cuz there's a point where it's too much and then not enough well I was at the point where I like I said I graduated I was 17 I left that that same day W and I'm like my I well my truck was packed at graduation okay so it's a little all mom like you know what's going on you know I went out of here she's going through it too um and she you know thankfully divorced that guy but um yeah she but um she knew she knew she knew I was ready to get out of there and she knew kind of where I was at um and she supported me through that um she knew it wasn't her and I still love my mom to this day we have a great relationship but she knew it was him and I wanted to get away from him um and so did that and then like I said it's been one of the best things that's that I've ever gone through you know and now I I see myself growing up too and I want to have children I'm like okay how can I Implement some of that tough love but not make it where it's over the top like you're saying have that balance because I do think there's a lot of a lot of value in going through hard times and being pushed and having responsibility and not being able to make excuses yeah um because you know how it is with life like to even set yourself apart you got to work hard but if you want to continue to rise like you got to be relentless with it like I heard how many episodes you guys are doing and at the content you're doing like that's what you got to do you got to take the to the next level if you're trying to stand out you can't just be if you're going to be mediocre you're going to fit in with everyone else that's that's going about it you know and I'm trying to continue to push and build and I want to build and I want to build things like I said that make impact so very thankful for my upbringing absolutely when I hear of shows filming one a week I'm like it's not enough man yeah got to get those reps in you got put the Reps in man you got to put the Reps in no matter what you're doing absolutely I heard on The Power of Forgiveness Natasha Graziano show this was interesting so you said you don't have much forgiveness right for people did something traumatic happen to you growing up no I mean the thing is is like I have I have a mission and I'm trying to go this direction right and if you if you have some type of you know other motive or hey if you come across me and and somehow like we get in a disagreement like it's no tough love but look I got to go this way I'm trying to go this way like you go do your thing I'm going to go do my thing and I have a Miss like there's there's things in life that you don't get back and one of them is time and so I can't be out here you know messing with drama I tell my my fiance I'm like I I do no drama there's no drama like we are on the same team we have to go forward we have to go this direction we're trying to build our life so that at the end of the day when we die or even before then where we going be like hey this I'm I'm so fulfilled right now because I'm I'm in the space that I'm supposed to be doing and I'm doing what I want to do um and I feel like this is what is my purpose in this life uh and so I want to stay in that lane and so if you're distracting me from that if you're bringing toxic toxicity or drama into that I I have no forgiveness for you like I'm trying to go this way like like I got I'm blocking them out I'm staying laser focused I I heard this um phrase Kobe um Kobe Bryant came out and talked to us um out in La um and he he had this analogy where he's like as a lion in the grass you know when you're hunting when a lion's hunting there's there's all these distraction there's gats there's grass but you see straight through that straight through this [ __ ] you're just locked on the gazelle locked on the prize and for me that's that's trying to make an impact in society and all these gats flying around you know I'm not sitting around swatting them deing I'm not giving them any attention I'm not giving that any attention and so if that's that's what I mean when I don't have much forgiveness because I'm I'm just I'm staying laser focused on where I'm trying to go I love that in order to Sacrifices for Success achieve the success you've had in the NFL would you say you had to sacrifice a lot in your personal life um it will sacrifice I guess is as perspective like for someone else they might seem like I sacrificed like my free time to do what they think is fun for me but for me I really enjoyed being locked in and really just focusing and honing in on and just keeping keeping in my lane and really focusing on one thing and trying to master that um and so for me I guess you could say yeah I did sacrifice Things based off of your perspective of oh because I didn't spend a lot of time with with you know my extended family or things like that or or going to the beach as much as I could have but for me it wasn't necessarily saf it was more so just where I wanted to be and where I felt most comfortable so um you know I guess yeah cuz I guess that comes down to what you see as real value for yourself you know and are you I never sacrificed things that pulled away from the the real true value that I thought like that's where I always stayed in so I didn't to me it didn't seem like really sacrificing did you find a lot of your older friends and family members trying to take energy from you o no no and I think that's what was great about me being in smaller towns and having that great community and I think that's why I have been doing so many different community building things is because when you get a good Community around you like you hear the stories of like people doubted me like I didn't have anyone doubt me like they were like Austin like go for it man like this is awesome like go do it like they have my back and they're pushing me forward um and so I had I still have that same support from that same Community from both those my high school and my college and um you know once I got into the NFL now you start to feel some like the Chargers players or Chargers fan not players sorry the Chargers fans you know they're a little twisted because of oh you robust last year you're washed and all this stuff and it's like okay okay um you know you hear a a little bit more once you get a little bit more exposure but for my small towns no I loved I loved all those people and those connections that I had and I think that goes back to my my phrase of like yeah I don't have a lot of forgiveness like I keep it I keep it keep it narrow and I keep it focused on the right direction and then the people that around me are also doing the same thing um and so a lot of my friends that I grew up with actually one of them plays for the Cowboys right now we went to high school together k through2 um one's an officer in the Army and so like we were really like focused on goals and we were together and we were a tight-knit group that stayed and kind of did everything together that's important to have I think yeah absolutely that's not as common as it as it was it's not easy to find but in the smaller town it's a little bit more common just because this is my group around and well luckily I had some some really motivated individuals around me right did you feel a lot of pressure that first year in the NFL to perform immediately all of the NFL Performance Pressure pressure um but it was self-imposed I put so much pressure on myself um I left so I left my last year my last semester of of college I didn't finish and I wanted to just 100% go all in on trying to take advantage of this one opportunity which was the NFL cuz I knew this wasn't just oh an opportunity to keep playing football no this is a CH chance to change my entire lifestyle going forward leave a legacy and open myself up to a new life that I don't even know what going to have um you know in for me and so I went everything in like I even told I called my mom during OTAs I was like Mom like I know you're excited but let me just call you at the end of the week like don't like just let me Focus like let me I know you're excited I'm excited too but let me just focus on this let me laser focus let me lock in and not leave anything on the table I didn't want it to be something that I didn't do to cause me to fail I was like oh I wish I would have studied more think no I'm over studying I'm putting so much pressure on myself CU I'm from a division 2 school I have everything to prove and then some like I got to make sure that no there's no doubt that Austin Eckler showed up and he knew what he was doing and he did his job to his full ability now whether I have success in that I can't necessarily control control like there's some things that I can't control but I can control my effort that I'm putting in to try to get myself to a place to give myself an opportunity for Success um and so I put so much pressure on myself I remember breaking down one time I was the only running back but I I broke down and straight up I was just so like just filled with stress and emotion and uh I told my coach I'm like man like I'm putting everything into this and I'm not like moving up the depth chart or anything I was six string on the depth chart damn yeah there no Six Strings that make it in the NFL you don't make it in the NFL and so I'm stress cuz I'm doing what I'm supposed to I'm on it but I I started to learn kind of the politics of of the NFL where look guys got to get their reps if they got money in a guy that guy's going to get more reps or if a Coach likes someone and they're going to develop that person that person's going to get more reps so Austin whatever you have you better freaking take advantage of it because it might not be much but it's something um and that's what I had I remember my first huddle that I got in I actually had to run out of the Huddle was a third I was with a third string because I I threw up behind the the behind the line people like lined up behind the kind of the play uh and I went in there I was just so stressed ran back out and it literally threw up um because I was just so stressed about what I was doing so yeah I put all the pressure on myself but I I love to live in that environment like that environment it keeps me super focused it keeps me I don't get distracted like when I put the stress on myself when I feel that pressure pting down from myself there's nothing else that matters besides this Mission that's everything and I have to go and I have to get it done because there's nothing else that matters and that's the mindset I put my I put myself in like the survival like a survival mode like this is you have to make this work or there's nothing else to do um and with that right you can you can go and move mountains or you feel like you can anyway um and so that's where my mentality was and that's kind of the pressure that I put on myself and what got I mean it it still stays with me with me my my my role has burn has changed obviously ended up making the team was a special team's guy and then they put me on offense and I started scoring touchdowns like oh maybe this guy can play and sure enough I know I could but I still have that same type of burn same type of fire not only in football but also off the field too is it hard to keep that same fire now that you're like the top dog uh um no no because I never knew how far I was going to be able to take this thing like I I didn't know I was going to be in the NFL I I have a new opportunity this is crazy let's let's see how far we can go and I think it comes back to my entrepreneurial spir Spirit of wanting to build like I want to keep building and when I keep building it means hey I stay in the lane that I want to find and make an impact in and you just keep going you keep trying to stack bricks as far as you can as far as you can stack them um and for me the the spark has almost it's almost spread now to other things right when it was really laser focused on football now okay I I've learned how to be a pro now I'm a captain you know I'm on the executive committee for the nflpa you know like so I'm starting to make an impact I'm starting to grow myself and so it's like okay how much more can I do what else can I do you know um and so now it's coming down to okay now we're going to a new team so it's like okay perfect now let me try to bring that same energy and start over on a new team and do that again um and then off the field let me how how how much can I impact the community and how much can I really continue to grow this this spark that I have in this direction of of doing not only good for myself but then right spread that around to people around me I love that any running backs you watched a lot growing up I didn't watch the NFL growing up what I I told you man I was NFL Running Backs Influence not I was not thinking about the NFL at all so I grew up on a ranch 80 acres out in the middle of the country taking care of horse like if you see I wish we could pull up like a picture you know on a screen but if you see where I lived it is just straight brown grass flat land for Miles my closest neighbor is a mile away damn like I live 26 miles from my school there's no one there's no friends coming over the weekends like no no I'm driving home cuz it takes me 30 minutes to get home after practice I'm not hanging out with the boys um so really stayed really focused and I grew up watching bass fishing bull riding and then building stuff in the backyard with pallets of wood and and hunting on our land you know um and so that's kind of the the the lifestyle that I grew up in so I knew about Pro Sports but we just didn't didn't really watch it and I I grew up watching Chris Shivers you know I'm sure you don't know who that is heard he's a professional bull rider okay him and Ty Murray you know that's what I grew up watching you know and so that was just the environment that I was in so wow so you really were a country boy I was a straight up country boy yeah riding horses rode Bulls in my life so yeah this is a big change for you then yeah um it's it's has been it has been obviously being in La going to um a bigger city and uh but I've I've adapted and kind of it's opened my eyes to how much actual possibilities and how much actually opportunity there is in this world where it's kind it's really limited when you're in a smaller town as far as like what's available for you just because the resources aren't as you know aren't as um you know available and accessible so it's it's been great for me and I love it do you have a guy you can reach out to like a mentor like Kobe was mentoring a lot of the up andc coming NBA guys right now do you have Importance of Mentorship someone like that I have a few but it it depends on kind of the industry um and so I have really a go-to mentor his name is Bill Eckler he really helps me with all like my operations of like all the things that I have going on um when it comes to like the workout football side like that's really just been me um and I think I think I've got that one covered as far as just my mentality of how I've come up and how I've applied myself but it really I think also that's because I've had some mentors as as I've come into my way up but really where I've leaned on people is in these new industries that I've started to get into and I I really realized like as a professional I I just passed my 20- year mark of playing football I've been playing football for 20 years I could tell you pretty much everything like the back of my hand you know I know that the the defensive fronts the offensive play the the football has not changed it's a same thing we just call it different things well you call Fish over here you call chicken over there you know like we use weird names like that um but for me it's like okay I've been doing that and so when I started to Branch outside of football I realized that I didn't realize right away but then after about five years of being in business like there's people that have been doing business for that long as well and they're Professionals in that and I can't think that I can come in which I did at first like oh I'm going to go and crush it over here just because I have all this energy and I have passion I'm going to you know have throw some money at it and I'm going to build it myself no you're still a rookie over here you're an amateur you're not even close to being a professional in the business space and so that's where I have a lot of my mentors is in the new the new types of categories in my life that I'm trying to get into that's a great mindset cuz a lot of people crushed in one thing and then they think they could just dominate other Industries but you realize it's not that as easyly it's definitely not you know just like you in in the podcasting space you know if you ask me about podcast like if I just oh I'm going to go start a podcast all of a sudden like it's not that easy you know it's not that easy you have a whole system you have a whole team you have editors you have people that help you set up the studio people get the content people that reach out to all these people and if you're just jumping into that as an individual I think you can just go and do that you're going to be you know hit with a wall of of reality you know yeah there's a lot that goes into it uh but you're crushing the real estate on Natasha show you said 117 Real Estate Insights properties yeah yeah and so one of my first passions um before football I had this plan it was like my plan a I was like I'm going to go into the oil and gas industry because it was big in Colorado so I went to school for energy management went into business and then I was going to start using the capital that I was making from that being a land man kind of the the on the private side you know dealing with land owners in the business the middleman use that to start getting into real estate and start house hacking and start getting into um house flipping and then build my real estate you know Empire slowly but do that um and so I was that was my plan a and so obviously didn't happen with Plan B which came out of nowhere was the NFL and uh came into some capital and so allowed me to get my jump start so I was really knowledgeable on on real estate and and house flipping and and I was going to follow what I I had this this plan to follow a house flipper and anytime he had a multif family house I had to deal with him like hey I'll buy it from you um after I came into the NFL and so that's why I started building out in Colorado and then I I actually ended up partnering with that guy that house flipper because we both wanted to scale and then we started a a fund as well and went and bought you know 70 70 houses out in um single family homes out in Kansas City Missouri and now we're looking out in Alabama right now so we just continue to spread and the the good scenario that we're in is the guy I'm working with with his name is Matt he's been flipp houses for like 20 years he has four crews that work for him so we can go and buy the things that big funds can't touch because they don't want to deal they want TurnKey they want something I can just buy and just have it right now they don't want to deal with having to flip things up but we can move our cruise to Missouri for three years flip 70 homes go to Alabama buy a 100 homes Mo move the crews out there hey we're flipping be there for the next three years and so we can really position ourselves where we can buy these things that are really cheap cost build them up put some Equity into them 1031 the bad ones that we just want to get the money out of keep the the cash flowing deals so we're in a pretty good position that's impressive man that's a lot of units yeah yeah it's great so we continue to scale and real estate's a thing where it's interesting because our society continues to get older and houses aren't always built so it's it's one of those things where I kind of Justified as a give back in a way because we take a lot of the the stuff that people don't want to touch that's all worn down and we we flipping it over so we're making actually like liveable like where it's like there like a shack there's like weeds growing everywhere like no one wants to touch this thing hey let's buy it let's let's flip it let's actually make it something that's actually desirable for people to actually want to live in so it's a little give back but also an investment for myself as well absolutely I saw you playing in uh Blake wi shout out to Poker with Blake Win Blake in his poker tournament yeah man Blake's the goat man he's he's awesome he's he's been he's been kind of my inspiration out here in Vegas too during the during the offseason I have an off we share the same office building now um and we go back and forth all the time to each other's houses poker kns things like that and uh I've introduced him to my version of Poker so I started playing when I was like 13 and we just play with like you know 5 cents quarters you know 10 cent pieces with my buddies my basketball team and and football team and uh we'd play random games we be making up stuff and so some of my creativity has made it into his like what he has is called I forgot it's like celebrity like his celebrity U yeah he's got a poker tour G I think it's maybe it's just called game night um but now he's got like in his little celebrity one that we had the other day like at the at the river everyone has to show a card you know for this for this round yeah things like that he's been putting yeah he's been putting little little twist on it to make it interesting and bring in some great Personalities in but I know Blake's got some good stuff going on yeah I've been playing poker with them we're going to see you make a WSOP appearance anytime soon ah I don't know about that I don't know if I have the patience like I love the Cash games because it's like hey this is a couple hours it was fun it's not as serious but tournament style like I got to sit there I got to lock in and I'm like I kind of get anxious and like I'm like all right it's kind of going slow let me just you know here yeah either that I'll start playing a little bit more Reckless I just get bored I'm like well I've been fing for the last 10 minutes you know hour I'm just let me just play a hand so I don't know how people do it the main event's 10 days yeah no way 18 or what 12 hours each day it's crazy look I have I have the bandwidth to lock in on some things sitting there playing poker is not one of them yeah were you a good kid Education and School Experience in school like getting good grades um I wasn't like the best my my mom was a school teacher at the school that I taught at okay or that that I was that um for a little bit not the my my whole career but she moved schools and so I had that pressure at home just to make sure hey you have good grades and so I was really good at math cuz she was a math teacher and she would help me with my homework there I think I had like in in high school I think like a 3o one okay decent so like a b student you know every once in a while I get a everyone see c in there sometime but yeah so I mean nothing crazy yeah but you went to College Journey college so I I did go to college I did go to college did you graduate yeah I gradu so I actually went back so like I said I just I left early I went back after my rookie year and uh ended up finishing Dam what' you major in I was a business major energy management and so I I was going into basically oil and gas solar like Renewables all of that stuff and you're just in Colorado and really on the west the I guess yeah the Western Hemisphere um or the western side of the the the nation there's like private land owners um until you get to California where in Colorado you might own the mineral rights well you don't have a oil rig to go get those middle rights out of the ground even though you might own them maybe you do if you're really Savvy with it but what we would do was Noble energy at the time they got bought out but we would approach you but hey we want to produce your minerals for you we'll give you a 20% cut on on any of the revenue or any of the net profit that we make and we'll go put our rig on there and then produce your oil for you like a licensing yeah yeah so you get a royalty on everything that we produce for you okay I'm all about passive income yeah hey look into some mineral rights I never heard of this but that's fascinating oh yeah you get paid a ton I mean you're pumping oil out of ground to support Society so I mean these are Big checks even though it's 20% um money in oil yeah I know a couple people in the oil space and energy space and they make a killing man cuz they provide energy to countries oh yeah it's just it's just an old industry which means it's like really tough to get into because a lot of the things yeah everyone's already got you know everything's already allocated basically and now it's just these bigger companies trying to move each other around and decide who gets to produce it you know absolutely um going back to football real quick who was the Facing Toughest Defenses toughest defense you think you've ever played against the toughest defense it's it's so it's it's such a hard question because there's so many different factors that play into it um for instance like is there is is their defensive front good are their DBS good because and if their DBS are good that might not affect me as much because I'm I'm between the tackles there are D line really good um but San Francisco two years ago like their dline and the linebackers their interior seven were insane um was that the year they went to the Super Bowl no or two years ago so not last year last year obiously they're in the Super Bowl um the year before that so I don't know who it was it was casy and no it was Casey and um um uh no not San Fran Casey and Eagles that's who it was okay right that that Super Bowl um so San Fran was tough I mean yeah they still got a good front they lost some of the pieces now but yeah Fred Warner who is an absolute animal of a middle linebacker damn I wouldn't have expected that but that makes sense from your point of view as a running back like you said it's different it's a little different right cuz as a receiver you might not dealing with the box like you don't have to block these guys like I got to block these guys you know and I got to run through these guys in here you know receiver you you might look at that okay who's got a good DB core so it's an interesting and people always ask me like who's the hardest hitting guy it's like I don't get hit that hard I'm really good at not getting hit I've been playing eight years now running back no concussions I mean I've definitely had concussions but it doesn't mean necessarily that I'm you know getting truck sticked out there you know it happens every once in a while but I feel like I'm like a ball of muscle and I can bounce and Ricochet I got a l you mcaffrey man yeah you're elusive yeah I think to to be a running back and to make it this far you have to kind of get there's like an art to getting hit and Landing you know um and you got to make make sure you master that so that you can actually last 20 years of playing I've been playing 20 crazy I've not missed a season in 20 years holy crap I know I played football every year for 20 years straight that's on hurdo for a running back I feel like cuz that's one the most yeah I mean well not a lot of us make it to the average career for like a running back's like 2.5 years that's it yeah we have the lowest we have the lowest you know shelf life which is you know reflected in our pay people are like oh it's risky you know but there's there's some of us that make it through you know did you know that stat coming into this or you just found it out you just you just play right I'm not going out there thinking about injuries or anything like that I'm just going to play the game two and a half years is crazy cuz you're spending your whole life becoming a running back and then two years in the NFL yeah well and people in society don't really realize that because a lot of these people You' never heard of well why cuz they only play two and a half years you who are these people you know they're in and out boom you know there they're staying on so that's how you know people like myself have been around eight years it's like oh yeah that guy he's been playing the charer for a long time but you know there's a lot of running backs that will make an appearance and maybe that the people in that space will know about it but to get the actual like kind of global recognition to get the fantasy recognition right it takes takes a little longer yeah how long did it take you to go from six on the depth chart to starting oo three years three years wow From 6th String to Starter that was a grind oh yeah so well here's the thing so six on the depth chart make the team I beat out three other guys I'm third on the depth chart all right third string running back you're playing a lot of special teams one of my favorite stats to this day I'd never played special team teams ever in my life I've never made a tackle ever in my life never played defense in my first rookie year I led the NFL and tackles on punt really so kind of just to tell you where my mindset was like you got to go get it this is your job you got to get it done it doesn't matter what it is this is your opportunity go do it and so that was where I was at I'm running for my life out there like you can't touch me like I got to go tackle that guy I'm going go tackle that guy like you it's it's going to be hard to stop um and that that was where my mind was and that's how locked in I was and so it kind of just show what that's that's why it's one of my favorite stats cuz that's what kind of solidified me as like oh yeah this guy can play and um actually I caught a couple balls like in the first few games uh never handed it off to me until the third game um we were playing the Eagles actually and our second string running back pull his hamstring Austin you got to go in Melvin Gordon are start at the time he's hurt or he's uh he's um he's tired give him give him a break first hand off Philip River handed me off 34 yard touchdown RI ripped it right down the freaking middle I'm just going crazy I don't even know how to react man cuz I didn't even know I was going to be getting the ball the game I'm just screaming flexing as hard as I can um and ever since then you know that second string like I said he injured his hamstring but then I got into the game and kept making impacts impact scor touchdowns impact and they're like oh shoot like maybe this guy can play offense too um and so basically solidifi myself as the second second string that year and then the next year it was really splitting with me and the starter and then the next year after that our starter actually H he held out for the first few games um cuz he was trying to get a bigger contract and um so I started for those first four games and was going popping off scoring touchdowns and then from then on we he came back eventually we split again and then they signed me back for the next four years as a starter I feel like that's a common thing where like the second string or third string they're actually better than the first string sometimes it it well I feel like there's there's some there's some actual examples of that that have played themselves out but it's it's still rare you know I think like Tony parul would have been a good one right whereas like Zeke was there Zeke kind of moved on and Tony per kind of stepped into that role now that now he's in a different position the my situation with Melvin where he was trying to get a contract he ended up going to Denver and then I took the role um and so yo you'll see it here and there but it's it's not that comp okay yeah it's just glorified I guess I just remember I remember the Nick fos Eagles Super Bowl Round I was like that's crazy those those situations are highlighted because they're not as common almost right so there's a lot more exposure for them that makes sense Closing Thoughts awesome it's been fun man anything you want to promote a close off with no I think this has just been great man I appreciate you getting on me on here to let me uh share my story and uh you know looking forward to a new actually something that's kind of interesting in Full Circle with Anthony Lynn that running back story so the first three years when I did finally become the starter after that my head coach is now my running back coach with Washington wow yeah full so it's come come back around and so the guy who who got me on the team who brought me in well he actually didn't know my name until I made the team that's how far down to the dep try I was holy crap oh and so yeah I came back for a circle so uh I'm looking forward to meeting up with Anthony ly again and uh you know Making a Splash over there in Washington it's a real one man shout out to Anthony yeah heck yeah man thanks for coming on man thanks for watching guys as always see you next time