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August 22, 2024 13 mins

Stephen A. Smith is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Executive Producer, host of ESPN's First Take, and co-host of NBA Countdown.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Anytime you're sitting down with somebody as great as you.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
It's been a few years.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
You've been away from the game for a while as
a player.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
What is life like for you.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Today being Peyton Manning, considering the fact that you were
so great. But in the same breath, it's been a
while since you've been away.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
It has been a while, and you miss certain things.
You don't miss certain things. I don't miss getting hit anymore.
I can promise you that. I had a guy asked
me the other day. They said, I bet you don't
miss those blind side hits. You know when the defender
just hits you right in the back, and believe it
or not, people don't realize this. I actually could avoid

(00:49):
the blind side hit stephen A, because when you're getting
ready to throw and all of a sudden you hear
eighty thousand people go, you just screwed up a little bit, right,
something bad is about to happen. So I don't miss
getting hit. I think what I miss more than anything
is simply kind of being a part of the team.
There's fifty three players on an NFL team. It's the

(01:09):
ultimate form of bonding, camaraderie and fellowship and we're all
in a group. Text me my old teammates, But it's
not the same as seeing them every single day. I
miss the plane rides after a win. Nothing quite like
being on a flight with fifty three of your friends
after this hard fought victory, the adrenoline, the emotion. You

(01:30):
just don't get to do those things again. I tell
you all the time. Next time you're on that flight
and that flight attendant says this plane cannot take off.
Everyone is seated and your cell phones are turned off,
that is not true. That is an absolute lie. Because
after an NFL game, everybody's standing up, they're high viving
and hugging, and that plane takes off just fine. So

(01:51):
I miss my teammates. But you find just different ways
to kind of stay simulated, stay busy. Obviously, my kids
are a big part of my life, but involved in
some other things. But my greatest takeaway from all the
years in playing football, where the relationships have made with
my teammates, my coaches, the equipment managers, the behind the
scenes support staff. That's my greatest takeaway from playing football.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
We hear that all the time from players, president and
formal Missing the teammates, missing.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
The locker room, camaraderie, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
You don't have to mention any names, but could you
at least highlight and illuminate for everybody the kind of
teammate that got on your damn nerves, the one that
you set up there and said, you know what, he
doesn't need to be here, without mentioning any names. Give
me the characteristics of a bad teammate and tell me
how often you had those on your squad.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
It's a great question, and I think people wouldn't. I
think people wouldn't be surprised, you know, especially when I
played for the Colts. I had a head coach named
Tony Dungee whose philosophy was absolutely His philosophy was, we'd
rather have a guy who maybe runs a little slower
forty yard dash. It's a high character, unselfish guy that

(03:01):
loves football. Will take that guy as opposed to some
other guy who's super talented but is more about him
than about the team. That players probably never get. People
used to say all the time, Steven A, how would
Tony Dungee have handled this type of player? I said,
that player is never getting on Tony Dungee's team. In
the first place, right, That was our philosophy. So we

(03:22):
didn't have a lot of selfish guys. Now, look, every
player can't be the same. If you have a guy
who's really into himself, you try to just surround that
guy say hey, the team is counting on you to
help us. Use the words we and us as many
times as you can to hopefully get him to come
on board. If after a couple of years he just
doesn't want to join, it's probably not the place for him.

(03:45):
But the best teams that I played on are best players.
They were our hardest workers, They were the most unselfish.
They put the team over self. Marvin Harrison, he practiced
the hardest every day on the field. And when and
we draft a rookie receiver, he comes out and says, wow,
Marvin Harrison's going full speed. We haven't even started practice. Shit.

(04:07):
That just creates this culture. So I was really lucky
I didn't have a lot of teammates that kind of
gave us those kind of problems. But look, players that look,
I get wide receivers, running backs, look, they want the ball.
The reason they want the ball is because they think
that will help us win. And I get that I
want to get those guys the ball. At the same time,
the team has got to be the most important thing.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Is it overblown when people, whether it's pundits, whether it's
people talking to the media, it's people that you know,
even in the world.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
The sports that allude to this, is it overblown?

Speaker 1 (04:39):
The cancerous effect an attitude and the wrong attitude can
have on a locker room.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Sometimes you look at a team and you know, like
this they loaded. Oh that guy might be you know,
he might be a problem with the hell with that,
they can be They'll be.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
Fine because they got the rest of the crew. But
other times you listen to coaches, you listen to executives,
you listen to great players such as yourself, and they
allud to how one bad apple can spoil everything.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Is that overblown?

Speaker 3 (05:04):
I mean it takes. It just depends on the situation.
To me, look, a good locker room, you got to
have good leadership in there. Like I said, every player.
It can't be the exact same. I mean, the good
teams have all different types of personalities. But if you
have strong leadership, we can get you know, maybe that
one guy who's a little bit more about himself to

(05:24):
kind of join forces. I think if you have a
lot of those, steven A, that's usually when it becomes
a problem. But hopefully you have strong leadership at the
key position and there's kind of a you know, like
my last year in Denver, I guess I was kind
of the offensive leader. DeMarcus ware was the defensive leader.
We felt like, you know, if there were problems, I mean,
DeMarcus and I would just go and talk to those

(05:45):
guys and we just casey, hey, we got a special
thing here. We need you to step up and help us.
Usually that player kind of comes on board and kind
of gets with the program, you.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
Know, Babe, man, You know, I never saw you really
having a problem with the media. Some other players did,
but that clearly was not the case with you.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
I want to know when you listen to folks talk
about the.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Media and what have you, is that why all my
heart productions your company it's so big.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Is that why you decided to get because I don't
know if you notice it. Now you know you're a
member of the media, now you do know? You do
know that I did not know that you're a member
of the media.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
I mean, you're producing content for a lot of folks
to see out the great content.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
I might add major problems to you.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Was that one of the incentives and getting involved having
your own production company producing content ESPN, Netflix, NBC.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
The list goes on you everywhere.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
It surely wasn't something I was thinking about while I
was playing. When I was playing football, I was all
in on my current job. I think that's how all
players should be. I used to hear players in the
locker room, steven Ay talking about what business they were
going to get into after football. They were going to
get involved in this real estate. I look at it.
I go, you know, are you're not doing your current
job all that? Well, you haven't really blocked anybody in

(07:05):
a couple of weeks. You drop five balls last Sunday.
Let's kind of focus on this current job and we'll
get to the real estate thing later. So I was
so wired in, and so when you stop playing, look
you try to figure out. I think the best advice
I got was from Tony Dungee steven A was figure
out what you don't want to do. And I just
knew that I didn't want to go in to coaching.

(07:28):
I'm the assistant offensive coordinator on my son's eighth grade
football team. That's the extent of my coaching experience, not
qualified to be the main coordinator. So I think you
figure those things out. But look, I always had great
respect for the media, because the media is how the
game grows. The media is how you know who Aj
Brown is, is how you know who bo Nix is. Right,

(07:50):
that's how you grow the game. So I always took
the time to do my interviews. The one thing I
can say I'm always proud of. Look, I had a
lot of bad games, a lot of bad games, but
I always did my interview use after the game. You
can't go do the interviews after you win and then
skip it after you lose. So you always did it.
But that's how the word spreads about the game. And
so you know, look, to play quarterback in the NFL,

(08:12):
you better have thick skin. I never felt a media
member or even you know, the fans had criticisms of
me that I probably didn't already have of myself. Right,
I was always my own biggest critic. So I think
it's important to grow the game.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
How does that influence you in terms of how you
do the manning cast? Obviously it's an incredibly popular show.
We all love seeing you and Eli. This year, you're
going to have the great Bill Belichick on board.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
I mean that's a lot.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
I mean, you guys know what you're doing, especially on
the offensive side of the ball. That's a defensive genius
right there, Bill Belichick. So it's definitely when you talk
about substantive material on the NFL, that is it. That
is the place to see, no question about it. Talk
about what we should expect watching the Manning cast this
upcoming NFL season, with the thought process was behind it

(09:01):
and how you're feeling about it overall.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Right now, Yeah, we're excited about it. It's our fourth season,
our first games, Jets forty nine ers Bill, Bill Belichick
is going to be a permanent guest in the first half,
and he's gonna fit in great because he doesn't like Eli,
and so I'm like, this will be a this will
be a perfect fit, you know, Eli, And I mean
Bill and I can just gang up and make fun

(09:23):
of Eli the whole time. But steven A's right, I
don't think people will necessarily have gotten to hear Bill
Belichick speak about defense, about you know, head coaching decisions
whatnot and he's Eli and I've had a couple of
rehearsals with him. He's got so much knowledge and he's
always shared that with his team, but he never was

(09:45):
sharing that with the general public. And I think he's
going to do that this year, and Eli and I
have kind of found it very insightful. I think that
I think the fans will as well. So he's gonna
be on there and we're excited about. We got got
some great guests lined up. You know. We've tried to
try to find some celebrities that are big fans of
the Jets forty nine. Are trying to get Adam Sandler

(10:08):
for the Jets forty nine. He's a big Jets fan.
There's a lot of Jets celebrity fans that I didn't
know were fans. They didn't because they had nothing to
cheer about for a long time, and now they've now
they've kind of come out of the woodworks, right because
the Jets are going to the Super Bowl. But look,
to me, the great thing about the Manning cast stephen A,

(10:28):
is that I think it's kind of a unifier. I
love the fact that there are so many people from
different backgrounds that different you know, political views, whatever it is.
They all love football, right, and that's one place we
can watch together and be together. We've had you know, Congoateza,
Rice can break down a Cover two defense as well
as I can President Obama. Diehard Bears fan, Snoop Dogg

(10:52):
has been a youth football coach for years in Los Angeles,
had a huge impact on a number of young men,
and I love that three totally different background, but we
can all watch football together. Now. Our guests are on
via zoom so we can see him like in between commercials.
There's a little more smoke coming out of Snoop Zoom
than there is Condalizus, right, but that's okay. We all

(11:14):
love football. We're all on the same page, so it's
gonna be a lot of that this year. I still
love when we get the current players to come on
there as a guess. That's a hard way to get
to commit them because they have to win on that
Sunday before you know, it's a bad look to come
on our show.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
You can't you can't be coming on a law I mean,
you lost, but the hell why did you lose the game?

Speaker 2 (11:35):
And shouldn't you be focused.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
On making sure you don't lose the following weeks and
you just rest Sunday. So I don't blame you one bit.
Did you tell Amon Rodgers to make sure he doesn't
get hurt four plays into the season.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Why I'm just asking. I'm a fan. I need to
see him more than four plays.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
No, we all do. And look, I think he's gonna
have a great year. He is motivated. I think one
thing we've learned Aaron uh, what's the term, keeps receipts.
He knows when people say, hey, you know he's too
old or whatnot. I think he's gonna have a good year.
He looks healthy out there, just from the little clips
that you see. And look, it'd be a great test

(12:11):
for him against that forty nine ers defense in the
first game. And he's always been motivated against the forty
nine ers because they passed on him in the draft,
and so I see, hell, look his arm it is
just so unique. It's unlike just about any other quarterbacks elastic, right.
I mean, I was always a guy that to make
this throw, my feet had to be lined up perfectly

(12:33):
toward the direction. Aaron Rodgers feet can be lined up
over here, and he can throw a forty yard pass
over there. So I see him having a good year.
I really do well. I do too.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
I mean, I'm not gonna I'm not keeping all the receipts.
He did score ten points against the San Francisco forty
nineers in a playoff loss at lambeau Field. He doesn't
always show up a good sanfrances but doesn't need to hear.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
No debt.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
I digress, I digress.
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Stephen A. Smith

Stephen A. Smith

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