PBD - Patrick Bet-David - Ray Lewis Opens Up About Shannon Sharpe, Helmet to Helmet & Kobe Bryant

Sept. 4, 2025 - PBD - Patrick Bet-David

01:40:21

Ray Lewis Opens Up About Shannon Sharpe, Helmet to Helmet & Kobe Bryant | PBD Ep. 641

NFL legend Ray Lewis sits down with Patrick Bet-David to share untold stories from his career: Tom Brady’s ultimate compliment, hunting Barry Sanders, the rivalry with Shannon Sharpe, Peyton Manning’s near-Baltimore move, and the locker room code that built a dynasty. ------ Ⓜ️ CONNECT WITH RAY LEWIS ON MINNECT: http://bit.ly/4lXIuJR 🎫 THE VAULT 2025 | SEPT 8TH - 11TH | THE GAYLORD PALMS | ORLANDO, FL: https://bit.ly/40lR90L 🍋 ZEST IT FORWARD: https://bit.ly/4kJ71lc 📕 PBD'S BOOK "THE ACADEMY": https://bit.ly/41rtEV4 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g57zR2 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ITUNES: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ALL PLATFORMS: https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A 📱 CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4kSVkso 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 📰 VTNEWS.AI: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3OExClZ 🎓 VALUETAINMENT UNIVERSITY: https://bit.ly/3TEWlZQ 📺 JOIN THE CHANNEL: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! SUBSCRIBE TO: @VALUETAINMENT @ValuetainmentComedy @theunusualsuspectspodcast @HerTakePod @bizdocpodcast ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

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	Tom Brady said the only player he ever feared was Ray Lewis.
	Men made up their mind that another side that had different colors on was not going to beat us one-on-one.
	It's impossible, period.
	It's not hard.
	But Shannon Sharp, did you think he was one day going to be a good TV guy personality?
	I'm shocked at his content.
	I wouldn't, in a million years, the things that Shannon has said now or did now, I would never believe that Shannon would say or do anything.
	The devil has the ability to make it possible.
	So this was personal.
	One thing my whole career that was just crazy is we couldn't find one solid quarterback.
	I was 30 seconds from Payton Man and saying yes to come to Baltimore.
	There's no way in hell Peyton's coming into Baltimore and getting an eye-in zone.
	We had an entire life-size pitch of Barris Hennis when you walk in the meeting.
	Period.
	It's not hard.
	We had an unwritten rule.
	Never leave your brother.
	Never leave it, brother.
	The future looks bright for that table.
	Handshake is better than anything I ever saw.
	It's right here.
	You are a one-on-one.
	I don't think I've ever said this before.
	Ray Lewis.
	We're finally doing this, huh?
	We're finally doing this.
	So to the audience that I went up there, I said, give me the biggest, you know, information on Ray Lewis.
	So first, is it the first defensive player to be on the cover of Madden, right?
	You got multiple chips.
	You came up with, you know, on any list, you're put on as the greatest linebacker of all time, UNLT, on all lists.
	Tom Brady said the only player he ever feared was Ray Lewis.
	Is there any compliment above, you know, Tom Brady saying something like that about you?
	But it's good too.
	We've had many conversations, but this is Good Elfront.
	We're doing it with Camera.
	But I wanted to start off, you know, right?
	I just want to make sure that your NFL's IQ is still there.
	Rob, if you don't mind pulling out the recent jersey of, I don't know if you've seen this or not, if you can pull this up.
	Shador Sanders jersey.
	Did you see this clip here?
	With, have you seen this or no?
	No, I haven't.
	You have to see this.
	Okay.
	So this just happened a few days ago.
	Okay.
	Drew ski, Stephen A. Smith, ESPN.
	And I want you to see what questions she asks.
	And the media fans have gone after her.
	So you see whose jersey that is, right?
	Go for it, Rob.
	I'm excited.
	You know, flow here for this.
	I'm up.
	Well, it's a blast for us to have you here.
	Thank you so much for joining us.
	All right.
	So the jersey.
	Let's get into it.
	Because obviously this ties the one Shador Sanders who balled out in his first.
	That was Barry.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm not that Barry Sanders.
	What do you think about that?
	How do you?
	How quickly you freak Barry Sanders?
	How can you miss that, though?
	That's impossible to miss.
	That jersey is like, that jersey is a, you know, one of those where even now you'll see guys wearing that jersey, Barry's jersey.
	Oh, man, too many freaking people.
	What?
	Yeah.
	Did you ever, you played against him, right?
	Yeah.
	What was he like?
	Yeah.
	He didn't have a good day against us.
	No?
	No.
	It was a bad day.
	How bad was this?
	This is when we were just starting to build a bully, and he came to us in 98.
	I think it's last year.
	And he needed something like 48 yards to like, and it was like personal.
	I was like.
	He's not getting those yards.
	Like, I love Barry, but he's not getting those yards.
	And we hunted him.
	Like, we hunted him.
	It was tough.
	What was the game?
	Now, I want to know the stats.
	He's probably the last game we played, what, was it 98?
	Come on, pull up me some stats.
	It was 98.
	He played against.
	Is that the record year?
	If it's the record year, it's 97 because you came in 96.
	I came in 96, right?
	I think we played him in 98.
	Yeah.
	Whatever day he came to Baltimore, that was his last run.
	And it just did not end well.
	Yep, that was it.
	December 27th.
	Trust me.
	December 27, 98?
	Yes, sir.
	What did he do?
	Let's see the stats, Rob.
	Can you pull that up?
	December 27, 98.
	What did Barry Sanders?
	So in that game, so I have won November 9th, 97.
	Barry Sanders played against you during that 97.
	He rushed over 2000.
	In that game, Barry Sanders ran for 81 yards, 20 carries.
	What, 97?
	In 97.
	97.
	But you're saying you guys also played 98?
	Or are you thinking?
	What?
	27.
	Did we play them in 98 in Baltimore?
	How shifty was he?
	Wow, man.
	That was his greatest gift.
	Wow.
	What was it?
	19 attempts for 41 yards.
	Oh, my God.
	Listen, man.
	Oh, my God.
	That's serious business, man.
	And that's what we was building up to.
	Oh, my God.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Personal.
	So right before the game, you're like, we're not going to be able to do that.
	No, because we had a whole Barry, no, I loved him.
	I love him to death.
	But we had an entire life-size picture of Barry Sanders before when you walk in the meeting.
	Period.
	It's not hard.
	He will not get what he's trying to get.
	And so what has the mindset going into the game?
	Are you just looking for a reason to increase the temperature in the room?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	We were bullies, man.
	This is when you can beat people up, like, and just literally beat them up.
	And when he came in there, we was like, look, I told the D-line, I said, look, keep them boys off of us.
	We're going to hunt him.
	And, man, it was that group started to build something that ultimately ended up being 2000.
	98 was kind of the break in that.
	Rob Wilson has just came to us.
	Sam Adams, Tony Saragusa, Peter Bulware, Michael McQuarry, Corey behind us, Dwayne on one side, Chris McAllis on the other side.
	And we're looking at each other and said, how are we going to lose?
	Right?
	Like, who can actually move the ball against us?
	So by the time we got to Marvin Lewis, Marvin was like, I was like, Marvin, stop coaching us.
	Unleash us.
	Like, you're trying to coach us.
	Don't coach us.
	Because if you coach us, you're going to have us thinking.
	We're not thinkers.
	Like, half of my guys on my D-line, they can't think like that.
	In what setting are you saying this to the coach?
	After almost every game.
	Like, stop.
	Like, because so what would happen is we would put in certain defenses.
	And I'm like, Marv, we don't need to blitz.
	Nobody.
	Like, we can beat them in a four-man front, seven-man front.
	Trust me, Sam and Goose, they gonna take two.
	Somebody gonna have to find a way to block me, and somebody will have to find a way to stop Pete.
	We were tough.
	We were a bad matchup for a lot of offenses.
	So, when Marvin came to meet, I told Rob Wilson, I said, Look, Rod, there's one rule: don't let the ball get over your head.
	We win.
	It's that simple.
	There's nobody that can stand in front of us.
	Now, remember, we started piecing this team together.
	96, we got rid of a lot of guys.
	97, my second year, we were like, ah, you know, we were 4 and 12.
	We were 6 and 10, right?
	6, 9, and 1, right?
	Then 99, we got to 8 and 8, but we started to feel this thing started to move early 98.
	But then we were kind of struggling offensively, so we couldn't put no pieces together.
	And then that's by the time I went to Oz, and I was like, Oz, man, the man, you just got to trust me.
	Like, like, the culture, like, who are we going to bring in here?
	Like, it means everything.
	The locker room is everything.
	And he was like, look, and this is why I think me and his relationship is what it is.
	He says, look, it's your locker room.
	You tell me what you want.
	You tell me the pieces.
	And this is who?
	Oz?
	Ozzy Newsom.
	Oh, wow.
	So let me ask you, though, would you go and say, we got to trade for him?
	We got to do for him.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	I was recruiting because we were horrible.
	When we got to Baltimore, there was no identity at all, right?
	In our division, P, it was Jacksonville, Eddie, Eddie George, Steve McNair was in that division, and they were having their way with us.
	We were just a very unbalanced team.
	We had a lot of old Cleveland Brown mentalities still on the team.
	How do we win?
	How do we lose?
	Right?
	We had older guys who really, they just didn't, they stopped.
	Who were the pessimistic guys in the locker room?
	We're like, we got to get rid of these guys.
	Me.
	You?
	Yeah.
	You were pessimistic?
	I was young.
	I was young and I was pessimistic.
	I was like, look, man, I'm not, I come from where we win.
	Every time we step on the field, we win.
	We're not stepping on the field, negotiating if, no, bro.
	So I'm looking at all this and I'm like, what?
	Nah, we got to change this.
	We got to change that.
	We need this.
	We need that.
	So then, then that's when honestly, it was probably 98, 99, actually at the end of 99, where I actually started to ask real hard questions.
	Like, why do we run this?
	Why do we play this defense?
	Why do we play him?
	And why do we make him do this on this?
	No.
	One-on-one or in group settings?
	Group settings and one-on-one.
	So in front of your peers, teammates, you're asking, why is he running this?
	Oh, this was the transparency on what we had in that locker room is what made that locker room.
	When did that become that transparent?
	Right.
	In 98.
	In 98.
	Who revealed that?
	Who allowed that?
	So Marvin.
	Okay.
	Marvin allowed what we started to do on the field.
	Marvin was at the house for your birthday, by the way.
	Yes, yeah.
	Absolutely.
	That's what I'm telling you.
	Like, the way we thought.
	I spoke to him for 45 minutes about it.
	I was telling you.
	He and I had a lengthy conversation together.
	Listen, that guy, he gave all credit to what it means to actually know what you're doing.
	A lot of people can come to work and they can have awesome talent, but to know what you're doing, I came upstairs.
	So DeMonte Dawson was a problem for me.
	Problem.
	Hall of Fame Center for Pittsburgh.
	Had the ashiest hands I've ever seen in my life.
	Did not care about the freaking hands.
	And I'm like, wow.
	So I come in my first two, three years, and we're like really not good on the defensive line.
	And this man is jumping, climbing up to me so quickly.
	And I'm like, what the fuck?
	You know, and you're talking about a pulling center.
	It's very rare, right?
	That you have that many centers that can actually pull and do all these things he was doing.
	And there was one game where he made me take some real gambles that hurt our defense bad.
	And it gassed us drone, hit us down the pipe.
	And Marvin comes in the meeting and he's cursing me from ear to ear while everybody's in the room.
	He's like, I could never have a great defense.
	If my linebacker cuts the middle of the defense, I said, look, man.
	So he cursed me a couple of times, too many.
	And I got up and walked out.
	I was like, look, straight up, like, man, I ain't never had a father in my life, bro.
	So the last thing you're going to do is curse me.
	You can coach me.
	You can coach me hard, but don't curse me.
	You said that to Marvin.
	Oh, man.
	This is why our relationship turned to be much more than just coach player.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	He really started to understand what I was trying to do.
	And it wasn't selfish.
	It was build a culture.
	And the culture had to be built off accountability.
	Do your job, right?
	And know what the hell you're doing.
	Now, when you started to learn, when I did that against Damani, he says, he says to me, you can't do that.
	I said, well, I don't know how to beat him.
	I don't know how to beat him.
	I'm young, Marv.
	Like, that dude is good.
	Who's this?
	Damoni Dawson, right?
	I said, the way this guy comes off the line and climbs to that second level, man, my gosh.
	That's the center you're talking about.
	Yes.
	I'm telling you, PB, he was rough, man.
	Damoni, yeah.
	Hall of Famer.
	Hall of Famer.
	Just technical, technique-wise, just so skilled.
	And then.
	This is a 300-pound guy, 320-pound guy.
	3200-pound guy.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So Marvin says, I says, I don't know how to beat him.
	Help me beat him.
	He said, you want me to help you beat him?
	I said, absolutely.
	He said, start meet me upstairs every morning, 6:30.
	Every morning.
	I was like, before camp?
	He was like, yes.
	Because I want you to go through install.
	I want you to go through anything.
	You say you want it.
	Come get it all.
	Rest of my career.
	From that moment, the rest of my career.
	Are you?
	The rest of my career.
	6:30 in the morning.
	The rest of my career.
	Wow.
	I knew it the way coaches knew it.
	There's nothing that I did not know from a scouting report, from an offensive coordinator, a player's statistics, whatever they was.
	Oh, man, P. There were moments where I got through in my career where I became the one to write up the first 15 plays.
	So before every game, because I started to understand my players, not better than the coaches, but I was out there in battle with them.
	So I know how they think.
	I know how they react.
	And man, I. Was there moments where you're like, this guy doesn't belong on the team anymore?
	We got to get rid of him.
	There was a moment that that happened.
	Those are moments that says we're not using him right.
	Okay.
	Right.
	I'll give you an example.
	Terrell Suggs, right?
	Terrell Suggs probably coming off the ball.
	I saw a lot of people with that first step.
	J.J. White, Derrick Brooks, they got steps coming off that ball.
	But his power and the way T-Sizzle comes off the ball, it's unseen, right?
	And next thing you know, we're in the meetings, and we're calling the first two, three plays of him dropping in the flats trying to fool somebody.
	I'm like, what?
	No, So that's when I went to the coordinator personally.
	I said, look, just give me a chance.
	I'm going to write down 15 plays.
	Give me the first 15 of any game based off my study and to know how my guys hunt for what, like 12 years, like four, 11 years.
	And it was a competition with me and coaches because they used to always say, how do you know this?
	How do you know the way it's going to happen?
	I said, I don't, but I'm dictating what won't happen.
	Right.
	Because every defense, every defense has holes in it.
	Right.
	So if you come and you try to disguise a certain thing and you're playing against Peyton Manner, you playing against Tom Brady.
	Cover one, you know, you got an out route.
	You got a curl.
	You got a backside scene route.
	You got so many things.
	Cover two, you know, check, check, check, run the ball because you got a light box.
	Cover three, you're safely going to cheat down when you want to cheat down.
	But how do you disguise that enough so they don't see it?
	You stop disguising and just beat the hell out of them.
	How much of it was talent?
	How much of it was psychological games with the opponent?
	How much of it was preparation?
	Where would you rank those three?
	Yeah, talent-wise, we had a lot.
	We had a lot.
	We was loaded and we started to load up as we started to go.
	Remember, Sizzle wasn't even there in 2000.
	When we made that run with 2000, Michael McCrary, Rob Burnett.
	And I won't even say it was talent.
	I would just purely say men made up their mind that another side that had different colors on was not going to beat us one-on-one.
	It's impossible.
	When we came in defense, we clicked the button and we say, why is he blocking you one-on-one?
	We're not here to be blocked one-on-one.
	All right.
	We're going to play a four-man rush, which means we're going to be light in the box, which means you got to beat your man, then go do something else.
	Then I started this thing at practice where we had to touch the ball every play.
	Every play.
	And that lasted until I retired.
	Every defensive player on that field from 98 to the time I retired, every play.
	Yeah, practices was longer because I don't care if it was a pass.
	We're running to the ball.
	Goose, I need you running to the ball.
	Same.
	Yeah.
	It was a culture.
	It was a culture.
	Break that down for me.
	Everybody's got to run to the ball.
	Why is that important?
	Because it's a mentality.
	Turn, go.
	Turn, go.
	Don't turn it.
	I can show you football.
	If you ever watch the game with me, you'll be like, why are you so mad?
	Because it's disgusting what you see.
	Nobody on the same page.
	Everybody, one running this way, one running this out.
	That's why so many big plays happen.
	If you're a great defense, a great defense, you can be totally wrong as a great defense.
	And if they run a play that y'all ain't never seen, if everybody wrong, you're right.
	That's how tough a great defense is.
	If we're all playing pass, then you're going to get passed.
	It was just when the thing that you miss, I think now in today's games, back then, there were coaches on the field.
	Rod Wilson was one of the smartest people I've probably ever played in my freaking life play with.
	Stillers?
	Yeah.
	Then he remembered me came to Baltimore.
	And then I was blessed, right?
	It was fun to watch.
	Oh, gosh.
	Oh, gosh.
	I'm telling you.
	He was so much fun to watch.
	He was an assassin.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	He didn't think about nothing else.
	You know, black belt and all that stuff.
	Like, he was, and he was the one when he first got to Baltimore.
	He says, I've never seen leadership from a young man like this.
	So what do you want to do?
	What do you want to do?
	And I said, Paco, I called him Paco for a reason.
	I'm going to keep him.
	I won't disclose that right now.
	He said, what do you want to do?
	I said, I'm going to tell you straight up.
	I would be the greatest.
	I would be the most dominant defensive player that ever played this game.
	He was like, really?
	I was like, trust me.
	But then off the field had to align with the mentality.
	So Rod knew, I was, what, 22, 23 years old.
	So he knew every Fridays, the younger guys would go out, right?
	We'd get cars and go to DC and whatever, whatever.
	And two times he walks up to me, he says, get in the car.
	He said, meet me in the weight room.
	And I go in the weight room.
	And he's like, we're going to meet in here every morning after camp, before camp.
	I said, what?
	You work out before practice?
	He was like, absolutely.
	He said that next Friday, when you go out, when you go to D.C., I'm going with you.
	I was like, all right, come on.
	Now, you guys are 10 years apart.
	We 10 years apart.
	We go to D.C.
	We get to D.C. probably 9:45, 10 o'clock.
	He's tapping me on my shoulder at 11.
	It's time to go.
	I'm like, really?
	We just got here.
	Like, this is horrible.
	This is Friday night.
	This is Friday, man.
	So we can at least rest Saturday for game Sunday.
	That's before game Sunday.
	So he was like, he did it twice with me.
	And then I said, you know what?
	I get it.
	I get it.
	I'm done.
	Because I get it.
	You're basically saying I'm wasting my time going all the way down there trying to drive all the way back.
	Okay, great.
	Great.
	And that was the last time I went.
	He went that one last time with me.
	And I was like, all right, I get it.
	I got to be a professional.
	Done, done.
	Done.
	So the crew, because this is a bunch of alphas in the same team together, right?
	How did they know?
	What did you do to earn the moral authority of I'm the leader of all these alphas?
	How did that happen?
	So I was very vocal by 98.
	98, I had took over the culture, and coach was cool.
	Like Marcia Broda was our first coach, and then Brian Billick came in.
	By the time Billet came in, our culture was set.
	That's our leader.
	That's who we're following.
	And it ain't changing.
	From there, once you started to add pieces like Rod and all these other pieces, it started to become really attractive because we was like from an IQ level, we was like, man, do you know nobody cannot move the ball on us?
	Like, PB, we was actually negotiating in film rooms.
	They will not get a yard.
	I'm talking about one yard.
	Give somebody this football and run that same play.
	And I'm looking at Sam and Goose saying, and you think he's going to block you, come off, slip you, climb up to me, and you let him?
	No way, bro.
	No way.
	So that was Marvin started to realize I don't have to coach them.
	I really don't.
	He used to be in me sometimes.
	And sometimes we'll do some stuff crazy.
	And I would like, I say, Mark, coaches, man, y'all going.
	Y'all gone here.
	Coaches get up and walk out.
	I get up there, bro.
	Y'all, what?
	What?
	Are you freaking kidding me?
	And it used to get like heated, heated, but we loved each other so much that we had to go through the hard corrections.
	How do you call each other out?
	What's the method of callout?
	Oh, you call out exactly what it is.
	Bro, don't you ever sell me out that like that again.
	Like that.
	Just like that.
	So if a guy fights back and says, what are you talking about?
	No, no, no.
	Fighting is one thing.
	I'm talking about guessing.
	I'm talking about doing something that you know is totally against the defenses, the defense's mythology.
	Like we had a defense and we built the defense.
	You got to remember, we went 50, we went 50 straight games without seeing a 100-yard rush.
	And you guys in 2000 broke that one record, right?
	The fewest points given.
	Ever.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and yards.
	We were a problem.
	Did you say 50 games, no 100 yards?
	Yeah, straight.
	Stop.
	Look it up.
	50 games, no 100 yards.
	Look it up.
	Oh, my God.
	And you know who that streak started with?
	Who?
	Barris Sanders.
	You know who it ended with?
	Who?
	Corey Dillon.
	Wow.
	Cincinnati?
	Corey was Cincinnati?
	Yes.
	And Corey had a 278 game.
	Did he have a 270?
	I think he had a 278 game, 278 game.
	Somebody else.
	Yeah.
	50 games straight.
	Look at it.
	Write it down.
	Holy shit.
	Write it down.
	And so, Rob, can you do me a favor?
	50 games in a row with Mike over three plus seasons, man.
	Are you, and by the way, who did you guys face?
	So, you face Barry.
	Hold on.
	Corey Dylan.
	Hold on.
	Jerome Bettis twice.
	Corey Dillon twice.
	Eddie George twice.
	That's an important one.
	Very important.
	Very important.
	Yeah, man.
	We had that.
	We had that bullet.
	And the other one was Fred Taylor.
	Man, we had a dog conference when you talked.
	And then back in the day, they running the ball 45 times.
	It's no secret.
	This is old school.
	I back.
	Give me a full back.
	Yeah.
	Damn.
	See, I didn't know this.
	I didn't know the 50 games in a row, no 100 yards.
	No.
	Who did you face yourself where you're like, ah, shit, these guys are not only capable, but they're also smart.
	And they impose fear as well.
	Who was that opponent?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So I think one of the things we always got to do, because I played in three different eras.
	So it's kind of like, what era are you in?
	Right.
	17 years to play.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So when we first, when I first got there, our Nimitz was like Jacksonville.
	You know, they had Keenan McCartney, Mark Brunel, Jim Jackson.
	Oh, man, they had Fred Taylor.
	They had, geez, Tony Bacelli.
	They were loaded.
	They went to the AFC Championship their first year.
	And then it started to switch into like Tennessee became this thing.
	But Pittsburgh, we just hated Pittsburgh naturally.
	And then I think the biggest rivalry, then it turned into the Colts for a while because we was, you know, in the AFC, NFC Championship, AFC Championships.
	And then it just became whoever thought that they could actually have a good day on our defense.
	So that's what the whole thing was.
	Like 2005, 2006, 2006 stats, stupid sick.
	I gave Peyton Man in five field goals in the division round and lost.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, we had a rule.
	We had an unwritten rule.
	Never leave your brother.
	Never leave your brother.
	That's why I think when you watch the game now, man, it suffers because the way when I transitioned from Rod Wilson and then was blessed with Ed Reed, Jesus.
	I'm like, Lord, you got to be looking out for me if that's the football players you got me playing with.
	But it was a mentality.
	Ed was also fun to watch.
	Yay.
	He was fun to watch.
	Oh, gosh.
	But are you, I get, I asked Kobe, I said, Kobe, how many times would you go to management upstairs and say, hey, we got to go get Barnes.
	We got to go get this.
	We got to go get that.
	How many times did you recruit in the game?
	It's like, hey, Ed, when are you coming down here?
	Would you do that?
	Would you recruit players every year?
	Every year.
	Who?
	Everybody.
	I did most of my recruiting at the Pro Bowl.
	So that's when the Pro Bowl was the Pro Bowl, right?
	So a lot of the guys were coming up.
	The contracts was coming up.
	A lot of guys want to play.
	I was literally 30 seconds from Peyton Man and saying yes to come to Baltimore.
	Me and him sat, we sat in Hawaii and we're sitting at the bar and we stayed there for hours.
	And I'm saying, look, if I put you on one side, you leave me on the other side.
	And me and you go at this thing together, what the freak?
	I sold him.
	I sold him.
	And then at the last minute, he ended up staying home.
	Did you follow up with him on that?
	Yes, man.
	I follow up with everybody, P. God darn it.
	That was the one thing.
	So, the one thing in my whole career, this is another stat you'll be crazy about.
	The one thing in my whole career that was just crazy is we couldn't find one solid quarterback.
	When we were dominant, dominant, we had journeymen in and out.
	I almost want to say in my career, probably 20, 21, 22 quarterbacks.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	I remember you guys never, nobody looked at you guys from the offense side.
	Right.
	Defense would win the championships with you.
	And if you guys had a decent quarterback rate, let me put it to you this way.
	If you had a Payton, if you had a Rothesburger, if you had one of those guys, how many would you guys have won in those 17 years?
	Yes.
	You know what?
	Like, that's always the tough thing with sports, right?
	Because what made us even hungrier is because of what we didn't have.
	So we knew we weren't going to score.
	You know, like, yeah.
	So see, that's 13.
	And that's just, and that's just pure, that's just guys who was like named the starters that you're actually seeing.
	But the guys that was under them that actually started.
	Trent Dilfer was a good, when I watch him do his, what do you call it, commentating?
	Yeah.
	He does actually a very good job.
	But you'll see guys take shots at him as a guy that won as a starting quarterback.
	You know, I don't know how many yards he had that season, 2,800.
	Can you pull up that season what Trent Dilfer's stats look like for that year?
	Type in 2000 Trent Dilfer stats.
	And by the way, he seems like the nicest guy.
	I don't feel like we're taking shots at the guy.
	And this is why I'm going to, you know, yeah, I'm going to make sure.
	There's no way that's the stats.
	Yeah.
	No way that's the stats.
	Wait.
	No, no.
	But see, you got to so understand, but you got to understand something.
	Go a little bit lower.
	I'm not trying to be funny this one.
	Don't do my boy like that.
	No, no, but don't do my boy like that.
	Listen to me.
	In four games, he threw three touchdowns, one interception, 590 yards.
	Completion is 49.4.
	Yeah.
	He's got a rink.
	So look, this is why it worked.
	He was the perfect person at the right time, right?
	We knew where we were limited at.
	We knew it.
	But we had two animals.
	We had Jamal Lewis fresh off his rookie year.
	We had Priest Holmes backing him up.
	Our offensive line was sturdy as they can be.
	We had the right tight ends.
	We had Quadri outside.
	We had Jermaine Lewis on the inside with special teams.
	So two out of three categories, we're going to win every week, which is special teams and defense.
	Guaranteed.
	We're going to get one punt return to the crib and we're going to beat you up on offense, right?
	I think we gave up four shutouts.
	We had four shutouts that year and probably gave up another six points.
	By the way, I got Corey Dylan right.
	Corey Dylan was 278.
	Jamal Lewis had a 295 game.
	295, yeah, against Cleveland.
	So Priest Holmes was.
	With us.
	What era of his career was he with you?
	The first part of it.
	Priest came to us first.
	And then he went to KC?
	Yes.
	We let Priest go first.
	Why did you let Priest go?
	Ah, God darn it, Patrick.
	You're going to give me a headache right now.
	Seriously.
	Seriously.
	Priest was a freaking.
	Yes.
	So remember this, though.
	He was spotty because Jamal was so dominant.
	So he was spotty.
	So he was used, but was never really utilized the way they let him lose his life.
	Yes, in KC.
	So by the time he got to KC, he had so much knowledge, so much experience playing behind J-Lou with us going to win the Super Bowl.
	Then by the time they got a complete football player by the time they got to the point.
	And by the way, nothing to take away from Jamal.
	It's not like Jamal wasn't.
	He was maybe the best running back that year with the type of numbers that he put up.
	So interesting.
	So again, opponents-wise, who did who go back?
	Because winners, they don't necessarily remember the victories.
	They remember that one game that got away that they should have won.
	Who did you lose to where you're like, you know, we should have never lost to those guys?
	And maybe now you're 50 years old, you're at a different age.
	Life is at a different age, you're looking a different way.
	But as a competitor, your highlights are public.
	Everybody sees them.
	Clips on any given day can go viral, right?
	What was the game or two where you're like, we should have never lost that one?
	Dang.
	See, that's what I said, man.
	It's so many.
	I played in so many games and so many meaningful games.
	Like the one I told you about against Peyton.
	So Rex was the Rex Ryan.
	Five field goals?
	Five field goals.
	So Rex Ryan was the D coordinator, man.
	D-foot fetish, Rex Ryan?
	Yeah.
	And I come in, so I tell Ed, I said, bro, I just got through I just filmed before.
	I promise you, 19 straight, you know, 19, 20 hours straight.
	He was like, bro, why are you tearing up?
	Because I was like, Peyton ain't scoring.
	He's like, bro, you that mad?
	I said, bro, listen to me.
	There's no way in hell Peyton is coming into Baltimore and getting an eye-end zone in Baltimore.
	So Ed was like, show me what you're talking about.
	So I sat Ed down and started breaking it down.
	I said, look, when he do this, when he shifts, oh, man, Ed was like, oh, my gosh, we got it.
	Next thing I go to Rex.
	I said, Rex, listen to me.
	I guarantee you, if you trust me with the defenses, that you're going to call and I'm going to call, they will not get in the end zone.
	He says, if they don't get in the end zone, I'll give you my paycheck.
	I said, Rex, they won't score.
	We get on the one-yard line.
	We get on the one-yard line with Steve McNair and Jamal Lewis in the backfield.
	And we pop pass and throw an interception.
	Stop.
	I'm not exaggerating.
	God.
	I'm not exaggerating.
	Wow.
	My heart has never been broken in a game that I know we dominated him in his prime.
	Man, it was poetic what we was doing on defense.
	And it was like, what?
	Like, just stick to the strip.
	Run the freaking ball.
	Seattle, run the ball against New England.
	What the freak?
	This is still football.
	You need one yard.
	I'm going to trust Jamal Lewis and Marshawn Lynch touching that ball every time.
	Wow.
	But people want to get smart.
	But that game, I drove home with my kids, man.
	I got a life lesson out of that game.
	I drove home with my kids and my mom was so mad at me.
	She got to the house and my kids walked in and she pushed me up against the garage.
	She said, look at me.
	And I was like, Ma, not right now.
	She said, you better look at me, boy, and stop playing me.
	I was like, okay, Ma, what's going on?
	She was like, do you understand what you just done to your kids and the whole family?
	Nobody in the car said a word because how mad you were.
	She said, did you do everything you did?
	Did you do, did you prepare at every level?
	Were you prepared?
	Did you give everything you had?
	I said, yeah, mom.
	She said, well, then hold your head up high.
	Oh.
	Better said than swallowed.
	But I met your mom.
	Your mom was at the house, no?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I met your mom.
	She played a very big role in your life and what happened with that.
	But yeah, interesting when you think about these types of moments as a competitor, because as a fan, you know, you're like, oh, man, they shouldn't give him that.
	But at least we won the game.
	But as a coach or a player who spent the 17 hours preparing before the game, you're like, no, no, you don't understand.
	I didn't want that touchdown.
	I wanted to make a statement because this guy, is this after he said no to coming to Baltimore or is this pre?
	This is after.
	So this was personal.
	Oh, my God.
	By the way, is it true that, you know, is it true about the Rex Ryan foot fetter stuff?
	He talks about it.
	You know, he says something.
	Does he say stuff like that around the players?
	He didn't say this, man.
	That's the one person that whatever he thinks, he's going to say it.
	Seriously.
	It doesn't matter.
	He's made for TV, by the way.
	He's made for life, period.
	I'm telling you, he's out of all a lot of my coaches, man.
	If a chick got great feet, I'm looking.
	Did he say that, Rob?
	He didn't say that.
	Did he really say if a chick's got good feet, I'm looking?
	There is no way he said this.
	Yes, he did.
	Rex is saying it.
	I promise you he said.
	Wow.
	I think there's a clip.
	My wife's feet.
	Like, I don't know what it is, but if a chick's got jacked up feet, I'm out.
	I don't care how gorgeous.
	I'm out.
	I don't know what the hell it is, but it's like, some people are boom guys.
	Was he a fun guy too?
	Yes.
	Was he?
	Yes, yes.
	Who was the toughest?
	Who had the highest expectation?
	Who was like, you know, nothing was ever enough?
	Marvin.
	Really?
	Marvin.
	Yeah.
	Marvin built.
	Marvin built that engine.
	Like, because he didn't take nothing from no one.
	And that's why I say that's why I think we grew into like respecting each other a certain way as men.
	And that's why I think everybody in that locker room started to kind of feel that halfway through the season for sure.
	Did he win a chip or no?
	He didn't win.
	Marvin.
	Yeah, he was on.
	So Marvin's the one.
	He was the general.
	But then when did Bill coach?
	So who did you win with?
	The two coaches that won were who?
	Billick and Harbo.
	Billick came in 99, 2000.
	Remember, Ted Marcia Broda was gone.
	Right.
	Billick came in.
	I remember him when he came in.
	He left Marvin the same.
	I mean, left all the defense the same.
	We was picking up a bully by the time he got there.
	And then 2000, that was the year.
	That was the year.
	So he never won a championship, though.
	Marvin never won it as a head coach.
	Oh, no, not a head coach, no.
	Never as a head coach.
	No, because then he went to Cincinnati.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	And so he is kind of like a, would an example of Marvin be a Mark Jackson or a Dungee?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	More on the Dungey side, but yeah, for sure.
	He's just, he's just one of those brains, man.
	Like his brain was dedicated and he was more of, even to men, he was more of a father than he was a coach.
	I know he was.
	Yeah.
	Quiet strength, you know, TD.
	He built Tampa Bay, right, before he left.
	Yep.
	Then Gruden came.
	Gruden came.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So that's interesting when you think about these coaches.
	So I found a clip.
	Rob, if you want to find this clip, the clip on one of the best clips from Hard Knock, Hard Knocks.
	Remember when we would watch this as fans?
	You want to play this one here?
	Maybe you haven't seen this in a while.
	Go for it.
	Look at this.
	Too many times.
	Who's he?
	He's in the office line, man.
	Big boy moving like that.
	Damn.
	He was so funny.
	See, and that, so that's what I'm telling you about what had happened to the culture.
	It was a culture shift.
	When those young guys got there, they were like, it's five lions over there that we do anything they say.
	Anything they say.
	And that's why I say by the time we got to probably the fourth game, Peeby, we had figured it out.
	Once Jacksonville put up, Jimmy Smith put up 222 yards on us, and I was so pissed off because we put our smallest corner, Dwayne Starks, in a bad position, playing a couple ones and all these different things.
	And after that game, probably the rest of the year, we may have blitzed, what, maybe seven to 10 times?
	If that.
	If that.
	Yeah.
	What was Shannon Sharp like as a teammate?
	Shannon was the hardest worker.
	Him and Rod was very similar because they came from the old school culture.
	And him already winning Super Bowls from an offensive perspective, he became Mr. Automatic, right?
	Like when Trent needed a play, they going to Shannon, right?
	Because, you know, our receivers was good, Quadri and Stokely and all those boys.
	But when you needed a play, Shay going to get you a play.
	Yeah.
	Was he like 24-7 in the gym?
	Was he like non-stop training more than anybody else?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I'm telling you, him and Rod were identical.
	And definitely in my young career, they were like, it was a, it was more of a, they was, their standard was already set.
	So who they are, how they train, the reason why they train, the reason why you get up every day has nothing to do with football.
	It has everything to do with who they are as a man.
	And him and Rod was very similar.
	Now, the problem with him and Rod is, and because me being so young, because us three started rolling really hard when we was, when the way we was there, I was the mediator because those two could not have a conversation without a full flight, full out flight fight.
	They arguing about everything.
	Who?
	Him and Rod?
	Every day.
	About what?
	Anything.
	Anything.
	Like real arguments.
	It's the craziest thing you've ever seen in your life.
	And then five seconds later, I jump in and say, guys, cut this out.
	We can't do this.
	We go back.
	They go back.
	Okay.
	So even back, did you have an idea?
	Like when you're playing with guys and you're thinking post-NFL career, do you sit there and say, this guy's going to be a coach?
	This guy's going to be a commentator.
	This guy's going to be a business guy.
	This guy's going to be trouble after football because I don't think he has anything to do after football.
	Did you guys think about that or never crossed your mind?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It's two-pronged.
	But back when I first got in the league, the one thing that was, I think, coming around the league, a common thread was the only thing on your mind was football because it was a battle that you enjoyed because on Saturday mornings, you used to get up and say, who I'm knocking out today?
	Like, who's getting knocked out today?
	Who's not getting 100 yards today?
	Right.
	So everything else may have been talked about, but in one end out the other.
	It was old school, man.
	Like for me to play in Pro Bowl with Junior Sayal, Derek Thomas, Daryl Carters, Reggie, like it was a different culture.
	Oh, geez, yeah.
	Yeah.
	So, yeah.
	So I don't think Reggie, Reggie was a grown man.
	Yeah, grown.
	Derek Thomas had six sacks in a game.
	I think in college, right?
	He had six sacks in some number like that.
	But Shannon Sharp, did you think he was one day going to be a good TV guy personality?
	Yeah.
	So you knew he was made for TV?
	Yeah.
	And would he say he's going to do it?
	Yes, he had already started prepping.
	How much before he retired?
	He'd been starting.
	Oh, seriously.
	So he's known he's going to be doing that.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So you're not surprised by the success he's having with his podcast and TV and him and Skip and Stephen A. all that stuff.
	No, I'm not surprised.
	I'm shocked at his content.
	I wouldn't, in a million years, the things that Shannon has said now or did now, I would never believe that Shannon will say or do any of these.
	Like what?
	Simply, I take drinking.
	Shannon, in my entire career, I've never saw Shannon with a drink.
	Ever.
	Like it was against the law, right?
	Because he had some, you know, some stuff in his family that he didn't want to follow that.
	And yeah, and then so I kind of started to watch him and then we kind of went our own separate ways because I'm like, you're going to take that route.
	I can't go that route.
	Never can go that route.
	And that route is to become so worldly that you become popular because you're talking about ignorance.
	Right.
	A lot of times, a lot of these gossip conversations that they're having and bringing up all this stuff, I'm not going to do that to nobody.
	I'm not in the business for that.
	I'm in life to try to teach people what does it mean to be a better man or get back to the kingdom.
	You know, and a lot of times, like, and a lot of guys get in trouble with these podcasts and things, man, because everybody wants to follow her.
	Everybody wants to be popular.
	Everybody wants to make money.
	But that's a tight rope into what you call influence and popularity.
	The devil has the ability to make you popular.
	God has the ability to give you influence that when people see you, they see an image of him.
	And that's the thing for me that started to switch with not just Shannon, but just a couple of people.
	I'm like, wow, you would switch out like that?
	Really?
	And I would never, ever, why?
	Because of the respect that I have for my mother, my daughters, my granddaughters, life, period.
	And I think men, given these new platforms, we've overrode what the platform is actually for.
	The platform is supposed to help somebody find a new direction.
	We don't help.
	Everybody just gets on, like, everybody's talking now.
	Everybody got a podcast.
	Everybody's the new marriage coach.
	Everybody's the new relationship coach.
	And ain't nobody coaching themselves.
	Because if you were coaching yourself, when it says power of life and death is found in the tongue, then go back and check out a couple of episodes and ask yourself, do you give life or do you give death?
	And that's why me personally, yeah, I kind of do my own thing, stand my own lane.
	When you saw the, I'm sure you saw this incident, OnlyFans, the 19-year-old girl, 50 million ESP and all the stuff that happened.
	Did you and him at all spec, did you reach out?
	Did he reach out to you for counsel or no?
	I didn't.
	We don't have that relationship like that.
	You know what I'm saying?
	When I was younger, we had that relationship.
	But, you know, Shannon, Shannon just kind of did some really awkward things.
	Right.
	And he, and I told him years ago when we was doing TV together, some stuff came up.
	And I said, bro, you know me.
	I'm the last one to get in anything, bro.
	But for you to do that, yeah, I wouldn't trust you again.
	What's going on, everyone?
	It's your man, Sugar Ray Lewis.
	Listen, I'm on my neck.
	I'm trying to connect.
	I don't care what it is.
	Let's say sports.
	Let's say life.
	Let's say leadership.
	Let's say hope, faith, worry, fear, whatever it is.
	Let's chat.
	Let's do it.
	I'm looking forward to seeing you soon.
	Period.
	You know, because that's a man, a brother, a brother don't do the stuff he done.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, no brother does that to a brother.
	Like, you're always looking out for each other.
	So that's why me and him ain't even spoke.
	And what was funny was when this podcast got ready, when he got ready to do this podcast, the first person he called was me.
	It's the first person he called.
	I never forget, I was sitting in Dallas.
	My son had just passed from overdose.
	And he was like, bruh, man, I'm thinking about doing this podcast.
	You want to do this podcast with me?
	And I'm like, bro, look, my mind, I'm going through a lot.
	I got a lot going on.
	And more than that, just personally, I don't think our messages match.
	Not on this side of life.
	Like, they just don't.
	You want to do other stuff and talk about gossip stuff.
	I want to, I'm trying to bless people.
	Yeah.
	So, yeah, I ain't talked to Shannon however long since that's been.
	10 plus years?
	We saw each other at the Bullies where we was filming Baltimore Bullies.
	And we saw each other and we spoke.
	Cordial.
	Yeah, come on.
	I don't care who you are.
	I forgive my enemies.
	I pray for my enemies.
	His name is in my Bible.
	You know what I'm saying?
	I don't try to be rude to somebody.
	Did you see the Sterling Sharp on stage finally going into Hall of Fame?
	Yeah, what was that moment for you?
	Yeah, because he talked about it three years ago or something, and then boom, the brothers on stage.
	But he was, so we, oh my God.
	So Sterling, man, to somebody that was that great, right?
	And actually just get washed in with the eras.
	That's all that happened.
	A lot of these older guys, they just get washed in with the eras where guys are seeing so much young time that you forget about somebody who was that dominant.
	He was a monster.
	Was he number 85?
	84.
	Man, I'm telling you.
	Sterling was probably one of my favorite people to watch, definitely out of Green Bay.
	What is that, Rob?
	I believe those are his career stats.
	No, that's not true because he would do more than that.
	17 game average.
	17 game average.
	Damn.
	That's actually, that's insane.
	You break down his career and you break it down to 17 game.
	That's what he averaged?
	Oh, my God.
	That's great.
	That's good for him.
	Yeah, I mean, do you think he gets in if Shannon doesn't give that speech at the Hall of Fame?
	He says, how's it feel knowing I'm a Hall of Famer and I'm the second best player in my family?
	You think Shannon still gets in three years later?
	You mean Sterling gets in?
	Yeah, I think he does.
	You think he still got in?
	I think he does.
	Okay, got it.
	When he gave that speech, Shannon, I'm like, look, that was, you know, it was a great message to hear him give with what happened there.
	By the way, I looked up the other day.
	I didn't know this.
	Again, as we're going through this, I'm going back and digging up a bunch of different things.
	I said, did he ever play against Deion?
	No, but you were teammates.
	I didn't know you guys were teammates.
	Are you in Deion Sanders' teammates?
	Yeah, Prime came to Baltimore.
	That was another recruit I had.
	When he came in, you know, was he still, when you would watch him, you're like, still has it?
	Or was he like 80%?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, he was way over 80.
	Yeah.
	He was still at about 90%.
	He was still at 90%.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	What was he like as a teammate?
	He was all the fun teammates.
	Listen, what was beautiful is where he was in his career.
	And to come there was a blessing to him.
	Because me and Ed at this time, come on, we're assassins over there, bro.
	Like, we are magical on designing defenses up to do this.
	And he came over.
	He was like, man, y'all got full ownership like this?
	Like, yeah, bro.
	We play a different style of defense over here.
	I was like, so look, stop playing.
	So that's why I started telling him because he loved playing all the time.
	I said, Prime, stop playing.
	We're not playing.
	Like, this is serious.
	But he was such a, me and him have a really different relationship, which is the most amazing relationship ever.
	But I think playing with him was, it was dynamic to see someone that can look at you and say, today won't be a good day for you.
	He.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	He would look at somebody and be like, bro, don't worry about it.
	I got that.
	You've seen him.
	You've seen him say that.
	Listen, man, he's wired differently.
	Prime, like we, our language is so similar because we think.
	It's like me and Kobe.
	Me and Kobe sit down, man.
	Neither one of us are blank.
	We play Guitar Hero.
	And right before we just sitting there looking at each other, I'm like, bro, I'm not blinking.
	And he just started laughing.
	I'm like, bro, we the same.
	We don't know nothing.
	You guys play Guitar Hero?
	Yeah, Kobe.
	Seriously?
	Yeah, I flew out to LA to mess with him with Guitar Hero.
	See that?
	Yes.
	Man.
	Oh, man.
	But that combo that me and him had in that back, man, I'm telling you, like, you know, because we came in together in 96.
	And we started to actually go into the mental of what he really was thinking about.
	And I said, I guarantee you, there's no difference in what you're thinking and what I'm thinking.
	You're telling that to Kobe.
	You guys came 96.
	He's picked 13th.
	I think you're 26.
	But both of you guys become the best of that era.
	I'm telling you.
	And then what was crazy was, it's like every time we saw each other, it was always this certain thing we had for each other.
	It was like, and he used to whisper something or I whisper something, but they would look at each other and just laugh and walk off.
	And I was like, bruh, he's like, you still do, bro.
	You know what I'm about.
	Give me a Kobe's story.
	What Kobe's story do you have?
	Oh, man.
	It's not a story.
	It's more of something that confirmed that when you're that guy, go be that guy.
	So it was in, they played, and I came to the game, and I went in the locker room, whatever.
	And I walked in and he looks at me and he was like, Sassa.
	I said, bruh, that's one way.
	I said, I'll tell you what.
	Let's see who has the longest career with the same team.
	And nobody don't know this, but that was crazy because that was one of the things that we discussed.
	Don't ever leave home, no matter what.
	So I remember telling him two of the stories that broke my heart, which was Joe Montana leaving Camp Lee leaving Casey.
	Yeah, going from the 49s to Casey broke my heart.
	Serious.
	No, I noticed you got to think now.
	This is before I had made it anything.
	Joe Montana was my favorite player on the football field.
	A defensive guy has an offensive guy's favorite player.
	You got to remember, my defensive parallel started fully in college.
	I play offense 90% of the time in high school.
	Yeah.
	Come on, Pete.
	What position?
	Running back.
	Kickoff return.
	Punt return.
	If I touch it, I'm scoring.
	P, I was a bad boy.
	Yeah.
	But that's that's how me offensively.
	Um, and then by the time we got on, like from the defensive side, it was just like, what the freak?
	Because I play safety.
	I never played linebacker.
	In Miami?
	I play.
	So my sophomore year, my senior year in high school, my sophomore, junior year, I play safety, right?
	Strong safety.
	We get in the jamboree, guy get hurt, and my coach comes to me and says, I need you to go play linebacker.
	And I says, I don't know how to play linebacker.
	He said, just find the football.
	See, I don't know this story.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	This is a senior.
	Yes, this is my senior year.
	I'm coming off my junior season.
	Safety.
	I was a little slim, so I wasn't a linebacker prototype because I was 180, right?
	Because I wrestled 189.
	You're 180 in college?
	180 in high school.
	Oh, yeah, 180.
	But what are you in college senior year?
	My junior year, I left my junior year to 220.
	Okay, so you're a big boy now.
	220, yeah.
	I was still too skinny for that.
	That league.
	Yeah.
	Remember, that league was running the ball 45 times.
	You needed to be 250 or better.
	Seriously, you could not.
	Who's the coach that said, go play linebacker?
	Coach Ernest Joe.
	Because we lost the linebacker.
	Jason Bamberger went down and he says, go play linebacker.
	And I went to the Jamboree, which was one we only played in one half.
	And I think I had like 17 tackles.
	So I came back.
	Yep.
	That's my guy.
	That guy right there.
	Lakeland.
	When I tell you that guy right there changed my life.
	He, oh man, he was the toughest coach ever, ever, Coach Ernest Joe.
	And then after that, man, I said, I came to the sideline and I said, I'm never going back to safety ever again.
	Why?
	You fell in love with the position.
	Because I was like, I am closer to the freaking football.
	Like, that's where I'm born to.
	That's where I'm made to be.
	And he was like, okay, stay there.
	So I stayed there.
	So two things you said.
	One, Montana switching teams.
	Who's the other guy that switched teams?
	Michael Jordan.
	Oh, really?
	Oh, Washington.
	See, I was die-hard.
	Like, because I didn't have nothing else but to go watch somebody do what they do.
	Like, you don't have nothing to eat at night, right?
	You're starving.
	I'm starving.
	I don't have dad.
	I don't have none of that.
	So there are certain people on that other team of Joe Montana.
	My favorite was Roger Craig, right?
	But Michael Jordan and what he had done, and I'm watching what he's done.
	I said to myself, like, wow.
	And then the news comes.
	They say, man, Jordan just got released and traded from the book.
	Who does that?
	Yeah.
	And crazy as stat, crazy enough stat.
	Since Michael Jordan's departure, since Joe Montana, Joe Montana departure, neither franchise has ever won a Super Bowl or a championship since.
	San Francisco.
	You ain't got to think of it.
	Steve Young was the only one.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So you're telling this to Kobe.
	You go 17.
	He goes 20.
	But there is a story.
	I don't know if you've shared this story or not.
	You got a phone call from a guy, another team who's a very rich guy who Denzel Washington just called out a few days ago saying you haven't won one since 96 or whatever the year is he's talking about.
	95.
	So did he, you told me this at dinner, I think, a couple months ago.
	Yeah, man.
	It was a quick free agency thing for me.
	Steve, the owner of the Ravens, basically just said, look, I know what you're going to do.
	You know, take seven days, you know, go hang out at my place and just relax.
	You know, whatever.
	And I got a, you know, famous, you know, just like opportunity.
	And I think that's, yeah, and I think that's why me and Jerry is just, I think he respects it.
	Because I was like, do I leave Baltimore?
	Do I leave my legacy to come play in Dallas for three years?
	Nah.
	I'm never doing that.
	Ever.
	Did you at all think about it?
	No.
	Oh, really?
	No.
	So no chance you can change your mind.
	All the money in the world.
	Listen, when I came into this business, me and J.O. got off the plane in 1996.
	We walked in Owens Mills Boulevard and I stood right on there and J.O. will tell you this exact story.
	I said, boy, can you imagine if we had the beginning of something that's legendary?
	Bro, we had the beginning.
	This is brand new.
	You guys really had that, though.
	You guys really had that, though.
	And that's not easy to create.
	Yeah.
	And it's like, so for me to ever even think about, now, when I started to see certain people, like Die Hard, I was a Jordan fan, but I was more of a Lakers fan because I was, James Worthy was my favorite player of all time, right?
	Big play worthy.
	And when I saw the Lakers start to make all of these different trades with people that I would be like, what?
	No, don't do that.
	So then I was like, yeah.
	Yeah.
	Me staying home was the greatest thing that you will ever appreciate after 50.
	You don't have to wonder.
	17.
	How many, what's the most a player played with one team?
	What did Brady do with New England?
	20.
	Oh, he did do 20?
	I think so.
	Wow.
	For sure.
	By the way, going back to, did he do 20?
	He probably did something like that.
	He played there for quite some time.
	Yeah.
	Sanders, going back to Deion Sanders.
	Even when he was there, was he still the fastest guy you ever saw in your life?
	Or had you seen somebody faster than him live, live?
	Yeah, yeah.
	But we had.
	You guys had a wide receiver that was man.
	Yeah.
	She whiz.
	Yeah, I ain't never saw nothing like J-Lou move.
	But, you know, Prime was running different then.
	But I'm telling you, I don't care what it's running different then or not.
	He was still prime.
	That's a different dude.
	He's a different dude.
	He's built different.
	He thinks different.
	He sees life.
	It's all, yeah, it's just different.
	So I'm watching you, and here's what I'm thinking to myself.
	I had a meeting with a guy today who just sold his business.
	He's got a painting business that he sold.
	20 million bucks, made money.
	He's down here in Florida.
	He's wanting to go into the consultation, starting a consulting firm.
	And he says, you know, I'm thinking about starting a consulting firm.
	I said, tell me the knowledge of how much you have with the painting industry, commercial painting.
	And he just starts explaining it like science.
	And I said, you sure you want to leave this business?
	He says, yeah, I'm done.
	I said, you sure you don't want to go out of one more time?
	Yeah.
	Do you have a non-compete?
	Only in the two states.
	The other 40 states I don't have it.
	I said, so if you took your knowledge to another place, could you start him?
	I would do it even bigger.
	Okay.
	Your know-how.
	You broke the record for the least amount of points scored as a defense.
	50 games in a row, no hundred yards.
	Prime goes and becomes a coach.
	Massive story with him becoming a coach.
	You're not going to use all that knowledge to go and be a defense.
	Like even single, a bunch of these guys went in as defensive players, became coaches.
	You don't want to go do that?
	I know there were rumors.
	I wouldn't take this the wrong way.
	I've had too many offers, and what God has called me to do is bigger than just football.
	It's bigger.
	And so the locker room now is bigger, right?
	It's global.
	Because now I travel the world preaching the gospel.
	I have a different recruitment of knowledge of what does it mean to overcome redemption, fight, grit, worthiness.
	You know, and so I've entertained it too many times.
	And I've always said I got so much to give to the game, but then I realized I really got so much to give to life.
	And that is why I do everything that I do, you know, through philanthropy and all that other stuff.
	You don't think you could do that with younger players coming up?
	You don't think you could tell of a college football coach or NFL coach?
	You could.
	And you.
	Press conference doing prayers.
	All these opportunities with limelight.
	Oh, the locker room is amazing.
	It's amazing.
	You don't want to get back into it?
	Which is why I'm recreating it again.
	I'm building a whole new locker room in business.
	Because that's what we're.
	So put it like this: if the game suffered from one thing, it's just me.
	The game suffers from just, I think, the integrity of letting men be men.
	Right?
	So that's just my perspective, right?
	You're talking about like the new cheerleaders?
	Well, no, I'm talking about like letting men be men.
	Like you can never take a jab out of boxing.
	Oh, I thought you were talking about the cheerleaders because they got male cheerleaders.
	No, I thought that's where you're going.
	Another issue will not go down that route.
	Never, never my concern.
	But it's a certain lack of leadership that's missing.
	And when you watch these kids and when you watch all the things that's going on, they have nobody to reach out to.
	Nobody, right?
	If I just started screenshotting half of my requests to you a week, you would be like, there's no way.
	Because that many players in the game.
	Players, men, kids, they're broken.
	They are absolutely broken, which is why you see why so many of them are committing suicides and going down the game life route.
	It's just a bad cycle out there.
	And so I've entertained football and I'm going to entertain it again, just not at the level you're talking about.
	You don't think so?
	You would entertain college?
	Would you entertain college?
	I entertain anything when it comes to the game.
	I like it.
	I like it.
	I just, I'm just listening.
	A part of it for me is, and maybe, and by the way, for the people that are watching this, if you got questions, you can Manect Ray, Ray Sonect, and I'm sure he gets flooded with a bunch of messages.
	Rob, let's make sure we put the link somewhere around here.
	But, you know, for me, it's to explain it the way you explain it in a form of science, defense, if you did, let's just say you did get a team and a team allowed you to gave you the controls.
	Yeah.
	And you know how you had the rule, which was what?
	Give me the first 15 plays.
	If I don't screw it, if I screw it up, I'll take your place, right?
	And you were able to do that for 11 years, you said, right?
	Give or take.
	All right.
	So, coach, let me, you know, let me do the thing, Marvin, and I'll do what I'm doing with defense.
	Okay, great.
	You know, hey, don't talk to me like that.
	Please, if you're going to do this, this is my story.
	What if you find a team and the team says, whatever you want to do with defense, do it your way.
	Yeah.
	We'll give you three years.
	But you can't.
	Why not?
	Because you can't tell somebody to go punch him in the mouth and don't care about what comes next.
	In college, you're kicking kids out for making what you call targeting.
	That's not a target.
	A target is something that's not on the field that you target and you just, that does not supposed to be a part of that.
	No, hell no.
	I am built to do that.
	Don't penalize me.
	Got it.
	And then kick me out of the game and then tell me I can't come back for the second half either.
	Are you freaking kidding me?
	You're doing that to kids for making a play.
	Do this homework.
	If you don't do nothing else, every kid that's been kicked out of, that's been kicked out of a game.
	Tell me how many made it to the league.
	It's their only chance.
	Some of them are, it's their only chance, P.
	And you take away the physicality of football and you tell me I'm sitting in a spot too many times.
	And this is the narrative now.
	Oh, that's a terrible player.
	He's too aggressive.
	P, I don't know what that means.
	I don't know what that means.
	So as a coach, you think somebody like Nick Saban will walk away if that was the same?
	NIL?
	No.
	All of these things forever change what the locker room was built for.
	The locker room taught integrity.
	It taught true character.
	And now it's a free flow, right?
	Guys can get in the portal anytime they get ready.
	They can transfer.
	Oh, if you get mad at the coach and you don't want to stay there, I'm out.
	Man, what the freak?
	So you're talking about the way they're just letting players go from team to team to team where you can't build a legacy the way you guys build it.
	Build it.
	So you don't like today's game on the way it's set up.
	I got it.
	So in a way, you're thinking, all right, I'm going to pour into these guys for four to five years.
	And then you mean to tell me I can lose the two guys because they're going to say they don't want to be here and they're out?
	Got it.
	So don't you think you could be able to shape the mindset of those guys to be locked into you saying, guys, I want 10 years from you?
	Yeah, you could, but once they let money in, you change that, right?
	Because now you get a text from your homeboy, which my sons, we sit around all the time.
	You get a text from your homeboy.
	He said, hey, man, they're willing to give you a $2 million.
	And before you even talk to the coach anyway, you like, I'm getting in the portal tonight.
	That's how, that's how, that's how bad it is, right?
	If you think, if you listen to what Nick Saban said, I'm like, kind of like why he's walking away, like there's no relationships or there's no more loyalty in relationships because loyalty says you come to work every day.
	My job is to challenge you.
	If a coach ain't talking to you, that's when you should have a problem.
	But nowadays, when coaches talk to coaches talk or scream at a player, now you take that personal.
	I never took it personal outside of saying, don't curse me, right?
	I'm good with everything else.
	Coach me, Mike Singletary came to me.
	The first thing Mike Singletary said to me, I don't know how to coach a person like you.
	You know everything.
	I said, yes, you do.
	Teach me everything you know.
	He was like, what do you mean?
	I said, I'm going to stay out the practice.
	I met with Mike Singletary.
	Every Monday after every practice, and we did two things.
	We watched film and corrected any of the smallest mistakes I made.
	And the first thing we did was Bible study.
	Really?
	Every Monday night.
	Wow.
	Wow.
	Yeah, man.
	Click for him.
	Because I want, no, I asked him.
	I'm like, I need you to teach me how to be a better man.
	Right?
	And what, what, what, who, as a coach, where was he at?
	Was he an assistant?
	Was he a defensive coach?
	No, he was lying back as coach.
	He was linebacker in Baltimore.
	And then later on, he went to San Francisco.
	Was it San Francisco?
	Head coach?
	After that, yeah.
	Head coach, yeah.
	So, so then would you see yourself more as an as a college coach or more as an NFL coach?
	He, I'm telling you, it is because I'm thinking longevity.
	Like, if I build something, they're out.
	So, college, you're only going to get me for two years, right?
	Yeah.
	And then I'm out.
	So, you can't really build a legacy.
	You would need to have more of a NYX playbook, right?
	But in the NFL, you may have me for five to 15 years.
	Yeah.
	So, so I don't get emotional a lot, right?
	But I get emotional when I see one of those players walking off that field because I know what 90% of them are going back to.
	Either you're going to give me a chance to make it through college or you're going to send me to the streets.
	And so, every time you take away that, and the game ain't going to change now.
	We done got gambling involved in it.
	So, why is the game going to change?
	Players get hurt now, and your bet doesn't even void out.
	You have to keep the bet, but this is this guy's career.
	Nah, they don't honor us for what we've done for the game.
	We made the game.
	You know, that's the difference of me and billionaires.
	You can be a billionaire, and I can guarantee I can do what you've done.
	But there's a fact, you can never do what I've done.
	That's what makes us different.
	That's why so many people are attracted to people who sacrifice everything: Bruce Lee's, Michael Jordan's, Carl Lewis's, Usain Boat, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson.
	You can't, you can't, you can't, you don't make those, they make themselves.
	Remember, Michael's a billionaire supposed to watch your language.
	I don't want you to upset him because he's going to call you.
	But did you what I said?
	I know, I know what you said.
	So, Jordan, so Jordan basically said the same thing: you cut me out of it, so I'm going to be able to do what you've done, which is he go built a billion-dollar empire, yeah.
	But they can never do it.
	Jordan done, yeah.
	How's your relationship with them?
	No, we're a bruh Q, Omega Sci-Fi, till I die.
	We got we bruhs, man.
	We, me, him, Shaq, we all bruhs.
	Steve Harvey, said the Entertainer, we all, we all bruh, D.L. Healy.
	Yeah, we got a very, very unique fraternity.
	That's cool, yeah, King's Academy Comedy, man.
	I don't know how many times I watched Kings of Comedy with me.
	I piss on myself every time.
	Who's your favorite out of the four?
	Maybe you can't say because they're your friends, but is there one startup?
	Yes, I can tell you exactly.
	I can tell you who mine is.
	Mine is the best one because not the best.
	I mimic him.
	So when I came down.
	Yes, I know which one it is.
	Who?
	Bernie.
	Yes.
	Absolutely.
	I killed Bernie.
	He died too young, man.
	He died too young, man.
	When they first started the first Kings of Comedy, where do you think the first place was?
	Before they filmed it, the first place.
	I'm assuming Baltimore.
	It was in Baltimore.
	And it was my birthday weekend.
	So this is not the video.
	This is not the video.
	This is before they filmed it.
	It was the first one in Baltimore.
	And I walk backstage and my security says, he says, Bernie wants to meet you, you know?
	So I go backstage.
	And as soon as I walk back, I say, I'm looking for this motherfucker.
	You know, somebody needs to tell me something.
	You know, he poked one park out of my house and said, you know.
	And I did that in front of Bernie.
	And he cried.
	He cried.
	He's the best.
	He's so, oh my gosh.
	Have you ever saw Soulman?
	Of course.
	Jesus.
	Yeah.
	No, he is.
	Yeah.
	He did.
	What was the baseball?
	3,000?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	What was Mr. 3000?
	But I think he was also in Transformers 1, if I'm not mistaken.
	He was the car salesman in Transformer 1.
	Was he?
	Yeah, he's the if you go to Trans.
	That's it.
	Yeah, he sold a car.
	Yeah, that's right.
	That's right.
	He sold a car when the car.
	I love him.
	Yeah, he is.
	He's forever be a legend.
	He's one of a kind.
	He is.
	He's one of a kind.
	So the chances of you going back, coaching, maybe, maybe not.
	So if I have some friends that are texting me saying, hey, should we call him?
	Should we not call him?
	Should they call you?
	Yeah.
	They should call you.
	I entertain it.
	You should call him.
	He's willing to take the call.
	You should call him.
	I would call him if I'm you.
	I think, by the way, do you believe in dirty plays in the NFL?
	Do you actually, in your era, do you think there were dirty plays?
	Helmet to helmet.
	Do you consider that dirty plays?
	No, no.
	You don't think helmet to helmet is dirty play?
	No, you don't control a missile.
	You launch him.
	You can't control that.
	P. You can't tell a man in the middle of the action, oh, guess what I'm going to do?
	I'm going to make the biggest play of the game, but I'm going to turn my head to the left.
	I'm going to make sure my body does not follow his body.
	No way.
	You don't think like that.
	Let me give you an example.
	I see a running back.
	You don't saw most of my hits.
	I see a running back.
	I don't see him.
	I want his soul.
	P, I'm not.
	P, I want his soul, P.
	I believe you.
	Right.
	So when I go through him, like, I'm trying to make an impression that he will talk about me every Thanksgiving for the rest of his life.
	Somebody going to ask him a question.
	How does it feel to play against Ray Lewis?
	Yeah, man.
	Like, so anyway.
	But go back to it.
	So to you, Romanowski, not a dirty player.
	Yes, yes.
	Yes.
	He done some dirty things for sure.
	And he would poke the guys.
	He's done some dirty stuff.
	I'm not that type of player.
	Okay.
	So the, what do you call it?
	The fellow who hit Antonio Brown, Cincinnati Bengals.
	Yeah.
	Dirty play?
	Dirty play.
	So that's a dirty play.
	Yeah.
	Things that's things that's outside of the context of the game.
	Now, he may say it was a missile.
	I'm a missile.
	What do you mean?
	No, no, no, no.
	Missiles, missiles have a job.
	What they're doing?
	Targeting.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So you're not for targeting.
	No, I'm not for targeting, but what I am for is the fairness of the game.
	I can show you.
	I'm telling you, P, if I sat with you for 10 minutes, I can show you at least 30 hits that the hell meant never touched the crown.
	Pure shoulder, but you threw the flag anyway.
	80% of them stands as a targeting rule, which kicks those kids out of college.
	You're going to kick my kids out of college?
	They're babies.
	No, don't do that.
	But you, respectfully, a referee can make a wrong call and stay in the game.
	What's the difference?
	We make the game.
	So you're going to take the people who make the game out of the game.
	Why can't you take them out?
	Because they're replaceable, but only by a number.
	They don't replace you by integrity.
	They replace you because of the position.
	Oh, I need another safety.
	Yeah, it's crazy.
	Yeah, I had Antonio Brown here.
	We talked about CT, and, you know, he got upset when I asked him about it.
	I was like, so tell me, yo, no, I'm good.
	Why would you ask me about that?
	Why would you ask me about it?
	And listen, I understand it's a sensitive subject.
	So I'm not one that's sitting here.
	But it's so interesting that a guy like you, who is in the game, defends the game, even though you have peers that were affected by it.
	But it's almost as if a military Delta Force is saying, Navy SEAL is saying, dude, this is what we signed up for.
	What do you think this life is?
	Is that kind of how you view it?
	You can't, when somebody hits somebody in boxing and they knocked them clean out, you can call that barbaric, right?
	You can call that bad.
	You can't take out the cross.
	You can't take out the jab.
	You can't take out the uppercut.
	Why?
	It's a part of the game.
	Hitting somebody is a part of the game, which is why you put on your helmet and you take both of your chin scraps.
	And they always tell you, make sure both of them are buckled up.
	Why?
	Because there are assassins and missiles out here.
	Right.
	I'm not, I want the game to be healthy, but we're not.
	Respectfully, we don't buckle up and say this, then say to myself, I'm going to hold back on him a little bit.
	What?
	Nah, bro.
	Yeah.
	It's, it's, I see this clip, which I'm sure you've seen.
	Which one?
	Before.
	It's Ocho Cinco is narrating.
	Rob, I don't know if you have this one as well.
	It's one of the funniest ones I've ever seen.
	First of all, he's hilarious.
	But, Rob, I just send it to you if you want to go to text.
	He's talking about that he tried to hit you and you didn't even see him.
	And you dropped him.
	And he's telling his coach.
	Here's narrating.
	Go ahead, Rob.
	I thought I was going to win because he didn't see me coming.
	I tried to hit Ray when he wasn't looking.
	Hey, I thought I got a good shot, but I failed.
	Something ain't right.
	On that play, when Rudy's coming, I tried to blindside Ray.
	He ran me over.
	And that moment is going that fast.
	Are you even feeling that?
	Like when you saw this?
	Absolutely not.
	You don't feel Chad.
	How are you going to feel, Chad?
	Me and him.
	You know what was interesting about our relationship?
	So I played, when we decided to play them, right?
	And so he came to me one game and he says, would you pray for me?
	And I said, absolutely.
	Every game, I would send him a Bible scriptures to read every Saturday night.
	Every Saturday night.
	Yeah.
	And I had about 50, 60, 70 guys.
	I used to do that too every day.
	Yeah, he seems like he's a family guy.
	I know he's doing the stuff with Shannon, but he seems like he's...
	Both of them crazy and lost their mind.
	Both of them?
	They're crazy.
	They have lost their mind.
	Well, to me, it sounds like Shannon has been having fun for a long time, but he sounds like he settled down a little bit.
	Now, look, I don't know that.
	He seems like he's got some stories.
	A lot of them.
	A lot of them.
	I'm going to leave it at that.
	So let's talk a couple of the things and then we'll wrap it up.
	Wesmore, you said you were a fan of Westmore, Baltimore.
	We grew up together.
	I met Wes, Jesus, what, 2026, 27?
	So he's from here.
	Or you're saying you brought up in Maryland.
	When I got to Baltimore at 19, I met Wes that same year.
	What was he doing then?
	Actually, running around, Baltimore coming to games.
	That's when we was like, I think one of the first pictures we had, like with Johnny Unitis and the guys was on the field a few times.
	And then we kind of, you know, just always stayed in contact from that standpoint.
	And then, yeah.
	And so you see a lot of pictures of me and him and sitting with each other and hanging out at the games.
	What was he doing then?
	I mean, if you met him at 90, so you guys are a couple years apart.
	What was he doing?
	What job did he have?
	Did he speak to politics or not yet?
	Not yet.
	Okay.
	Not yet.
	He came later on.
	Yeah, I think, yeah, definitely came later on.
	Got it.
	And did you know right off the bat there was something special about this guy?
	Like, did you feel it?
	Does he?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	His energy, his energy is incredible.
	His faith is even better.
	But who he is as a person, I adore him.
	Wes.
	Yeah.
	He's just one of those guys.
	Politically, I think you one time, you and Jim Brown went to the White House.
	You were with Trump.
	Got fried.
	Yeah, you got fried.
	That's back then when you would get fried.
	Today you won't get fried.
	But back then, I mean, it was the first term.
	We got fried for simply an action.
	I wanted to ask him one question.
	This is when he was president-elect at the time.
	And when I went up there, I said, Papa, I'm following you.
	So whatever we're going to do, let's do it.
	And I said, and he says, well, what was the first question you wanted to ask me?
	And I said, I want to ask a personal question.
	I'm going to get fried either way.
	So let me just get this out of the way.
	Is there a plan that you have in place to help black communities?
	You need to talk to my sister, Amarosa, and then let's talk about that later.
	I ain't got an answer since.
	So, yeah.
	You did a lot for the black.
	Yeah, that's what I wanted to know.
	You may have influenced us the question.
	I wanted to know.
	Got it.
	Right?
	He asked me and Jim.
	He said, did anyone of y'all vote for me?
	Absolutely not.
	He asked you that.
	Absolutely.
	Me and Jim said at the same time.
	Absolutely not.
	No.
	But I, because of what Jim started and me being mentored by Jim for about 15 plus years, to see what he's done with the American program, it's similar to my solar program.
	It's similar to everything that why I go in prisons, why I help all the communities the way I do, why I give back so much, why I have a new locker room, right?
	That's just, it's much bigger and more personal when it talks to like human development and mental health and all these different things that people are going through.
	And so when Jim introduced me to that side of life, like everything changed with me.
	You know, because he started to understand, like, I go in prisons and 50% of the prisoners hate me and 50% love me.
	Why do they hate you?
	Why would they hate you?
	Because 90% of them say things that it's everybody else's fault where you are, right?
	Like if somebody else, if somebody else had a similar situation or whatever, yeah.
	It turns into being whatever it is.
	But that's life, though.
	Yeah.
	People like you, people hate you.
	When you're at the house, birthday party, your friends are there.
	You're up there.
	You're praying, right?
	You were emotional.
	You were given an incredible, powerful message.
	You're listening to you.
	And I think your prayer went viral, if I'm not mistaken.
	It was all over the place.
	I don't know where it's at, but it wouldn't be hard to find it.
	But, you know, from talking to a lot of your friends, you know, that were there, is that the one?
	I think that's the one.
	Yeah, that's what you were worried.
	You had that hat on.
	Yeah.
	Is that you?
	No, it's.
	Yeah, that's Jimmy singing right now, though.
	Right, right, right.
	But when you were up there, when you were up there and you're doing what you're doing, I went around and I probably spoke to 70 of your friends.
	Yeah.
	60, 70.
	I spoke to Eddie, spoke to Marvin, spoke to a bunch of guys were there, spoke to, but mainly the pattern I saw, and maybe this is different.
	I got the feeling most of your friends were conservatives.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I could say that.
	For sure, actually.
	And the way you live your life, you don't like excuses, right?
	You just explained, you joined the NFL.
	You're going to get hit.
	You're going to take that kid out.
	You chose to play this game.
	So it's not even like, hey, it's not fair.
	You know, you chose to, this is not this.
	This is not that.
	Straight up having that type of conversation of high standards, right?
	On the, would you say yourself, you live more of a conservative life?
	Yeah.
	Faith, values, principles.
	Yeah, of course, my mom's a pastor.
	And what she done for me, the direction that she gave me, for her to introduce me to God so young and for me to fall in love with God was I wait on it every day.
	And um, I think, I think I just saw so much bad when I was younger that I said I don't want to.
	I don't want to make my mother ever feel like that.
	And that still holds to true to this day.
	That's why that.
	That's why, at 25 years old, I stopped cursing.
	I stopped going to clubs.
	Never been to a script club since, don't I've.
	Last time I had any type of taste of brown liquor even when we was out.
	Give me a glass of wine, I'm good.
	But yeah, you put that one thing in there yeah but, but I think it was.
	It was me P, actually saying that I was gonna do something young, and nobody believed it.
	And so I said I'm gonna continue to do it.
	And it became such a thing that you were so alienated because most kids started disrespecting their moms and their parents and I'm like I would never do that.
	I would never curse in front of my mom, I would never drink in front of my mom.
	Are you kidding me?
	No, and that thing it started to pick up.
	And then me being a stutterer, I stuttered so bad and then for me to travel the world now I just got through speaking in like five, six countries and I've always had that calmness inside of me.
	I've never, I used to have to be forced to fight.
	Like if you wanted to fight me, you like, like this dude would almost hit me in my jaw three times before I fight.
	So you, you, you control your emotions.
	Oh, man.
	The greatest in it.
	Because I will tell you, I witnessed something with my mom that I promised myself that I would never do anything to ever hurt her because of what she had already endured.
	To see my mom go through the stuff that she was going through, man, that's tough.
	And I'm like, I'm not adding more to that.
	So my model, my lifestyle started at 10.
	Like my lifestyle, reading my Bible, praying every day, 14, chasing sunsets, reciting our father's prayer.
	I'm 50 years old.
	Every day I see a sunset, I still recite our father's prayer.
	And that's when I had one pair of jeans, no shoes, duct tape wrapped around my shoes, same turf, the Afro turfs that I had to wear to school, practice, and everybody knew it.
	You know, kids back in the day was harsh.
	Oh, you don't got no daddy?
	You broke.
	You wear the same clothes at school every day?
	Yes, I do.
	Then what?
	Then what?
	It still doesn't define who I am.
	Still to this day.
	That's why you would never see me with what I used to do when I was in my 20s and 20s at two years old.
	Ray, when you see, I'm a Middle Eastern myself, you know, family, divorce, the whole nine, one-pointed GPA.
	Trajectory for me was nothing good.
	What saved me was military.
	When I went to the military in boot camp, because I had one of the top three high scores for PT, I was able to go to camp with this man's house and he ended up giving me his Bible that his parents gifted him December 24th of 1974 that I have till today.
	I'm like, don't give this to me.
	Trust me, I'm not worth you giving it to me.
	He says, son, I think you need this more than me.
	Great.
	I started praying three times a day from then till today.
	I watch my community.
	I watch, I'm Armenian, I'm a Syrian from Iran.
	I watch the community.
	I watch what's going on.
	When you see community-wise and you see single mothers, you see fatherless homes, you see, you know, the stats that come up, you know, where do you go to?
	Do you say, well, it's the government's fault?
	Do you say we should do something about it?
	Do you say it's systemic?
	How do you process that for somebody that seems like you're fairly reasonable?
	Yeah, it's a lot of different verticals and values inside of all of them, right?
	So when I got my doctorate just recently in humanitarian, it's what I've been studying the most, which is the dysfunction of communities.
	Like we're teaching, we're teaching everything about money, but we're not teaching history.
	Like we teach how to fight.
	We don't teach how to love.
	We stop parenting so iPhones and iPads takes over.
	We have done everything the complete opposite of what does it mean to help an individual.
	When you think about the structure of what we were not supposed to do, the reason why when I was growing up, you was growing up, the reason why a man was not supposed to see a woman's nipple is because your brain can't process that at five years old.
	Now, you tell a five-year-old, I can give you the same gadget with every bit of porn and every bit of nudity and every woman as a stripper and everybody.
	What the freak?
	No.
	It's broken.
	All of this fast technology and all of this cute stuff, you are killing our kids and you're destroying our communities.
	We don't even know what human connection means anymore.
	Somebody lose somebody, somebody get killed, somebody die.
	You send a text.
	My condolences, great.
	I appreciate that, but I can't use it.
	Yeah.
	There's no more connects, right?
	A person who really cares, they're going to find you.
	They're going to call you.
	They're going to let you hear their voice.
	They're going to let you see them.
	Bruh, I'm with you.
	So, man, it's like when you go through the phases of what has happened last year from the age 22 to 55 years old, we had more men commit suicide than we had the last 100 years.
	Those are not just play play numbers.
	One out of 12 children have a suicide plan.
	One out of six carry it through.
	But 410.
	And the number now of them committing suicides, our kids, are the ages 10 to 24.
	That's the most alarming age because they're checking out.
	What?
	So what do you think is missing?
	You think something is wrong with the kids?
	Absolutely not.
	It's what we're feeding them.
	Right?
	You got half of our country, 78% is obese in our country.
	And these brands that have this legendary following feed you garbage.
	But we wonder why so many cancers and so many diseases are just running through our country.
	And we're okay with that.
	I want to know, truthfully, I want to know what a man is.
	I want to know what the purpose of a man is.
	I want to know when a man falls down, falls down, how does he get back up?
	Because my kids checking out because they don't have those answers.
	So I don't judge nobody, P. Whatever you go do, go do what you want to do.
	But I do take a hard stand and saying I won't be a part of it.
	You think hip-hop had a negative impact on that?
	I think all phases of every time technology took off, we, another wound, another wound.
	Think about it.
	Think about where hip-hop has went.
	Think about where television has went.
	Think about where video games has went.
	Everything, shots to the brain, full clip.
	You're teaching them how to do it.
	So what do you think you're going to raise?
	What do you think you're going to create?
	It's war.
	It's all that war.
	And once again, the leadership of that is where that should have been controlled.
	There's no way that a seven-year-old should be playing Call of Duty.
	Are you kidding me?
	There's no way that our top people are rapping or saying the things they're saying as if they don't got grandmothers.
	It's if they don't have grandfathers or children.
	The movies, everything, the most violent movies ever is probably the most popular ones.
	So we're desensitized.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I don't know what you're going to do long-term, Ray.
	I'm curious to see what you're going to be doing because I think I told you the other day, I said, I don't know if you're starting a podcast.
	I don't know what you're doing.
	You got to do something more than what you're doing now because your method of delivering message is extremely important.
	I hope you pursue it.
	I hope you do something with somebody on a panel where you can voice your opinion on current events.
	I think a lot of times, at least we go back when he was a president-elect.
	I think Steve Harvey also went up there.
	Maybe it was it in 20, I don't know when he went, but Harvey went there and visited as well when he went.
	He got crucified too.
	But there was a time you couldn't talk about this stuff.
	I think after COVID now, in 2025, I think everybody's free today to talk.
	I think there's, and when I mean everybody, today Chris Pratt, who's a big time actor, is on Bill Maher talking about what's going on.
	You got a bunch of guys that are willing to use their platform to talk about it.
	I hope you do.
	I'm doing it.
	I hope you do.
	I'm doing it.
	I hope you do, and you do it regularly because, you know, you can have a very different kind of an impact, like what you said earlier, not just entertainment way.
	I'm talking actual true impact to kids.
	And I'd like to see a coach as well for selfish reasons.
	I just want to see what your defense would look like if you went up there.
	I think the level of pride would be intense.
	But anyways, gang, if you're watching this, if you want to ask the man a question, he's on Manek.
	Ray, I can talk to you for hours, brother.
	This has been a blast as usual.
	My God.
	One of these days, what we got to do next is do this cigar thing and bring up the bunch of guys are asking.
	We'll figure that part out as well here soon.
	We'll do something else.
	Let's do it.
	Take care, everybody.
	Bye-bye.
	Bye-bye.
	What's going on, everyone?
	It's your man, Sugar Ray Lewis.
	Listen, I'm on Manek.
	I'm trying to connect.
	I don't care what it is.
	Let's say sports.
	Let's say life.
	Let's say leadership.
	Let's say hope, faith, worry, fear, whatever it is.
	Let's chat.
	Let's do it.

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