Chris Claiborne on NFL career, USC legacy, and coaching philosophy

Hajjad's LA Welcome Well, supposedly I'm trying to get my boy Chris Claiborne on the air Former USC legend, Buckus Award winner Told me he was going to be ready to go But we're having some kind of technical difficulties And not getting in touch with him So if he doesn't come on the air for some reason or the other I'm going to call it quick But definitely have a few nuggets of jewelry to drop on you Mike McQuarrie this week Which would you think the Penn State saga is not going to get any weirder It gets weirder Mike McQuarrie has come out and said to people in confidence And he came out and testified that He himself had been molested as a kid And that he knew what that trial was going through And that he knew what that trial was going through when he was arrested, which is ridiculous. It's a ridiculous statement. I don't understand how that could happen. Lookit, the guy's got enough shit. I can see, I can give him a little bit of lead way as far as not being able to do something. I guess he froze up, regardless, whatever. But, hold on, sorry, my engineer was just saying, I'll just bring my boy Chris Claiborne on. I'm sure, about, you know, ready to go? Oh, shit. I was going to say, man, I didn't think he's, you know, California kid, but I didn't think he's that much of, like, sorry for the dead air. Chris, you there? Chris, are you there? I'm here. What's up, Dave? Hey, man, have you been crying all day in your beer because of the passing of William Clay Ford? No. No, I'm just kidding. Hey, man, look, I didn't want to tell you this. It always sucks. I'm sure for the family and everything. I didn't get to know him personally, honestly, when I was there. That's probably my bad, but I'm sure it's a great loss for the Lions. Yeah, I know I hear the piss on the old man's, you know, lukewarm caucus, but, you know, you don't want to do that. And in a lot of ways, you know, he's an interesting figure. The guy, first of all, he was a grandson of an icon. You know what I mean? So, he's a link to a past. He's a link to an era that is gone. But the guy was notoriously stingy to his players. But in the last few years of his life, shit, last year, the Detroit Lions had the highest payroll in the NFL. You know what I mean? But when you played him before that, he ran it like a business. He was just looking at the bottom line. He was looking at how they were going to be a profitable franchise. You know, any thoughts on... Go ahead. Well, I think that once you build a stadium, you realize that, you know, at first at Pontiac, they were basically kind of written a place. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, once you build a stadium, you got to fill the seats. Well, if you're not winning games, you don't fill the seats. And once you fill the seats, you're scoring. So, they did a great job recruiting, you know, Stafford, Megatron, you know, and putting together a good offensive unit and putting up points and making it exciting to come again. So, yeah, you know, you have to change your mindset when you go to a place, when you build your own spot. When you build your own spot, you got to fill the place, and it's all on you. Yeah. Well, every organization, every organization is top down. You know what I mean? It starts with the owner. And when you played, when you were originally drafted by that team, you guys played in the old Silverdome, right, which is outside of Detroit. Yes. How far away is that? Played in a... Oh, man. At least... At least 45 minutes outside of town. I think it was a great thing that he did when he put the stadium downtown because it brought back life to the downtown at the time. You know, and even now, Detroit is a place where they need the development, man. So, that was big for him to do. I really enjoyed playing downtown and, you know, being in that atmosphere. And I think he built up the economy. I'm sure he helped a lot of people with jobs and expanded to areas. I think he helped a lot of people with jobs and expanded to areas. I think he helped a lot of people with jobs and expanded to areas. By putting it downtown. You know, at one point, it was just centralized in Pontiac. And after moving it down there, he created a new market and a market where they needed them. As a California kid, that must have been a shock to go to Detroit. Talk about freaking going to Detroit and try to get settled in there. You know, as a 20, 21-year-old kid, and then the next thing you know, you're thrown in the middle of freaking nowhere and you're trying to make a life for yourself. Well, I think, you know, it took me some time to mature just as a pro. I was 20 years old when I went to the pros. So I was young and immature. And, you know, I think there were some things I didn't do right. You know, I didn't come in shape that first year. I got too big, honestly. And I had to slim down and get back, you know, to playing well. But I got a chance to start, and I started all the games during the season and was able to contribute and made the all-rookie team. But it was tough, man. It was definitely tough going back to the East Coast and trying to adapt to the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, because I played a sport, you're kind of sheltered in some ways because it's a lot of business. But it was tough driving in the snow. I remember driving in the snow one day, making a little turn too heavy and sliding up almost an embankment, and it scared the crap out of me. And I ended up driving about 30 miles per hour after that all the way home. That was pretty much the biggest thing. You had no clue as a kid. No clue. You had no clue as an adult either, because you called fucking Detroit the East Coast and it's like 2,000 miles away. You know what I mean? You're a sheltered California kid and they throw you in those circumstances. That's always blows my mind. You know, kids out here, how they can go out and, you know, play a guy like Willie McGinnis, go out and play in New England. Well, it's fucking cold, man. You know, pardon my language. And it's just a different life. It's a different life. Yeah, but I mean, when you look at it, like, and going back to what you said, I play East Coast because it's hard to do. I know. But, you know, of course, it's in the Midwest, but the time difference is what I meant. But, yeah, I mean, look how long Willie was there and look at the kind of coaching staff that he had there. Yep, yep. Look at the kind of people that he played with. I think, I played with some great people, don't get me wrong. Robert Poche, awesome. You know, we had some good guys. I really did. Steven Boyd, great. You know what I mean? BC guy. Steven Boyd was a great teammate. Yeah, Steven Boyd was awesome. But when they broke up that team, it was just like, we had just went 9-7 a year after we lost Barry Sanders. And if we would have Barry, we probably would have won another four games. And, you know, it would have been, you know, 12 or 13-3 or 12-4 at least. And they blew that team up. And we went downhill after that, man. We really did. That's something. Go ahead. I just don't understand why they did it. But, you know, being young, that was definitely a shot-breaker on me. Well, coming in your rookie year, when you were drafted, right before training camp started, that's when Barry Sanders called it quits, right? Yeah, he called it up. He retired right before training camp. So that killed me because I was looking forward to playing with Barry, honestly. Oh, yeah. Plus the leadership. And one of the things he, you know, again, not to piss on the old man's grave, but one of the things Barry Sanders cited was the culture of losing. With that franchise. And the culture of mediocrity is why, one of the reasons why he decided he didn't want to, you know, and quit was the wrong word. He retired, you know, quitting, you know. I don't want to call him a quitter, you know what I mean? But he retired. He definitely fired from that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think that, you know, the biggest thing he was asking for was the leadership from the coaching staff. You know, Wayne Fon, it seemed like, from the guys that was there, and they loved Wayne Fon. Yep. Loved him. And I don't know how big they were with Bobby. You know, I don't. He was okay. Bobby was okay with me. I mean, he, you know, never did anything personally to me. But the culture wasn't young. It wasn't fun. It wasn't energetic. And I think as a veteran, you get older, that's what you look forward to. That's, I think, looking at it now, that's what Pete Carroll brings to Seattle. Like, that youthfulness, that fun, that going to practice and having a good time and taking care of your team, where it was grind time, man, all the time that first year. And we were playing on turf. Old turf, too. That old carpet, like, this carpet painted green. These kids are spoiled. Yeah, these kids are spoiled. They're complaining about this stuff now. I played on carpet. It was concrete underneath there. Oh, yeah. I'm sure you have. We had to practice on there at times. It was crazy. I'm sure you have turf burns bigger than my freaking head. You know what I mean? Still. But talking about your coaching. I mean, you would be yelling when you're getting a shower after a game because of all that turf burn you got. But talking about your coaching staff, you know, and I felt like a weirdo because, you know, you and I are friends, but I was looking you up and all this stuff and just going to... You had a guy, Gary Mola, on staff, which was just, you know, looking at Gary Mola as a coach, the guy was a head coach at Michigan, but got fired for basically getting drunk out of his fucking head and... Trying to fight everybody. I mean, that's a ridiculous... I mean, you're talking about the head coach at Michigan, kid. This is like one of the top five programs and the guy lost his job and he won, but he got fired because he went out of his mind drunk. Now, I'm not asking you to, you know, talk badly about him or whatever. I don't know what you think about him, but what is he like? He was tough. You know what I mean? He was... He wanted perfection, I guess you could say. He wanted to... He... Just, you know, he wanted us to push us to the best we could be and I could appreciate that in some ways, but as a rookie, you know, you go out, you make a play and it wasn't perfect the way he wanted to. He wasn't, you know... He would, you know, take, you know, give you a bad grade for it. So, there was times that, you know, you scared to make... You know, you tried to make every play perfect and that's not the way to play. That's right. You gotta go out and just... Yeah, you know, me and you coaching together at Diamond Ranch, we had guys that, you know, we're gonna always do it right every time, but we just try to put them in situations to be successful. And as a coach, I think that's helped me be a better coach is having some of the coaches I had in the past. Whether it was good or bad or indifferent was, you know, he just wanted the best for us and he wasn't... He wasn't the best guy as far as, you know, that you can go and talk to and have a personal relationship with. It was just like, hey, Mo, Mo was cool, you know what I mean, or whatever, and that was it. Very diplomatic answer. Appreciate that. First two years, you know, first year in the league, you know, second year, you know, you started balling, man. You had over 100 tackles. The third year with the unvenerable Marty Morton wig, which you balled out, but there's another guy they bring in, no head coaching experience. This is the beginning of the Matt Millen era, you know, which is notorious for being, you know, one of the worst eras in football. That's gotta be hard. You guys lost nine games in a row by eight points. Talk about that season. Man, you know what? That season was tough. We played some good ball, though. Honestly, we lost some close games. We missed a couple weapons, I would say. And you saying that, we lost those games by eight points or less. Nine in a row. You know, we didn't have, we had a young quarterback. Oh, yeah. Charlie Batch, you know, not to shit on him. I mean, the guy won two, two Super Bowls as a backup. But yeah, they threw him in. He's a Michigan guy. And they threw him in. Well, no. Charlie, Charlie was gone at the time. They got rid of Charlie. Okay. We had Joey Harrington. Remember, they drafted Joey Harrington there. Yeah. Yeah. So, Joey Harrington was a quarterback at the time. And, he wasn't quite ready. It would have been good to have a Charlie Batch there to kind of get him ready. You know what I mean? Yeah. But they got, I told you, they blew that team up. Yeah. They blew our team up my second year. So, I come in, I move to the mic spot. And, that's what I always wanted to play. It was great. Playing, you know, Marty was a new coach. And, he was trying to bring some of the West Coast principles to it. And, at the time, everybody was into the West Coast thing. Because, you had, you know, Bobby, who was a three practice a day type of guy, full pad, like, grinded all year. And, we were dead at the end of the year. You understand? Yep. But, then you had Morning Wig, who was young, and, was trying to change the culture. And, you know what? I think that everybody's not, everybody's not necessarily a head coach. He's a good position coach. But, I don't know if he's a head coach. But, he got his chance. And, Matt, you know, gave him his chance to do his thing. And, we lost a lot of close games. But, man, I felt that at that time, those last two years, that I put up good numbers. And, I thought I had a good chance to, you know, go to Pro Bowl. But, because we weren't winning, man, it killed me. Oh, you put up some great numbers some of those years. You know, for an inside linebacker, over 100 tackles, three years in a row. And then, one year you had, what, almost five, what, five sacks, three picks, and a touchdown. You know what I mean? As an inside linebacker, shit. You know, you played well. But, let me ask you, because this is something I've always thought about. And, you may mention it before a little bit. Without getting into too much. On one of your staffs, you had Charles Haley, who was, you know, not to sound insensitive, a freaking nut job. And, on that same D-line, on that same D-line, you had Alonzo Spellman, who was another notorious NFL crazy man. How did those two get along? Was there ever a situation where, you guys must have known, look, we're talking about two unstable individuals dealing with each other. You ever, you ever seen anything with those two? Well, I'll tell you this. Charles Haley was a, a great coach. But, he was not your typical coach. He was more like a, still like a, in the mindset of us, still like a, a professional coach. He was a player, but he was retired, I guess, you could say. Because he was a hell of a coach, but he was like, there was times like, he would be messing around with us. You know what I mean? Instead of being serious. But he was still in the mindset of a, of a player. But he was a coach now. But I, I thought he was very intense, man. And, he was like, he was a get after type of guy. Alonzo Spellman was quiet. Honestly, like, we didn't hear much from him. No, but, like, the first, I remember, the first practice he came to in camp, I was like, oh, Robert, Porsche, he's taking your spot. Like, you guys are all done. Like, he was manhandling people. He's a freak. Physical freak, yeah. Yeah, freak. Like, yeah, he was ridiculous. And then, you know, it kind of changed after a couple weeks, but when he first got there, man, I'm like, he was incredible. Incredible. It was crazy. And he just died off and then just went away, kind of, during the season, huh? It just kind of evened up. Yeah, it just kind of evened up. I guess after a couple days in camp, he wasn't as fresh as when he first started. After that, after, after, after, no, you know, you were playing really well coming out of Detroit and then, you know, you hit the free agency, right? Four-year contract at your rookie contract at the time and then you hit free agency. Was there any, did you want to stay in Detroit or was it just about the dollar, kid, whatever most money you could get? Well, I thought, I thought I was going to stay in Detroit, honestly. I mean, there was a time, I didn't want to be in Detroit. My daughter, my dad, I'm excuse me, was a, was a murdered my second year in the league and I really wanted to leave at the time. Honestly, I didn't want to be there. I just didn't want to be there. Yeah. I ended up sticking it out and, you know, I thought I, I thought I did my, did my due diligence and stay and get a new contract, but they didn't want to give me one. They wanted to lowball me and give me a one-year deal and I, I thought that I, you know, I was the best defender. I let the team in pretty much, every category. Yep. And I wanted, I wanted, but I wanted to win as well. So going to Minnesota was, was awesome. I really loved the, my opportunity in Minnesota. Loved it there. And not to say that Detroit was super bad, but I just felt like, you know, so many things that happened there that I kind of left with a bitter taste, especially after they didn't re-sign me. Yeah. What I thought I was worth getting paid. And that was the Matt Miller era, right? Going to Minnesota was great. So you were dealing with, Yeah, Matt Miller. Yeah. And we know, we don't want to sit here and shit on him, but it'd be cool. But, so you go to Minnesota, right? Which is a rival. You know, now that was kind of pre, well, definitely pre-Twitter, pre-internet era, but you get a lot of backlash from people signing Minnesota when you went back to Detroit? Well, I mean, at first they did because, um, I, I was kind of pissed, you know what I mean? So I kind of talked some shit a little bit about it, but, um, it was, it was how I felt and it was being honest. Um, they might've felt that I didn't play up to the potential, but like I said, I, I led the team in pretty much every category when I was there. So I didn't know what the, what else, you know, they wanted from me. Uh, but, uh, I, I was loving being in Minnesota. High flying offense. Yep. Uh, Randy Moss, Cole Pepper. Yep. You know, good, uh, Henry Crockett was there with me. I mean, I, I was, I had a great time in Minnesota, so I didn't care one way or the other. I was there just trying to do a job and trying to get my, uh, profile high and playing with a good team. Yeah. And you guys, I mean, you made the playoffs that one year or, and, but you had Dante Cole Pepper putting up huge fantasy numbers when fantasy football was really dropping. Like everybody's getting into fantasy football and you had Randy Moss and those guys and you, you guys were playing well. You had Mike Tyson as your head coach. You drafted EJ Henderson, you know, who's, who's a good player and a guy you played next to, but you had, you had that one fucking scumbag that I freaking hate is, uh, George O'Leary was one of your, uh, coaches. And the reason I hate him is a couple of reasons. One, he lied about his playing, you know, and people talk about, oh, you know, resume patent. Forget that. George O'Leary straight up lied saying he was a player at UNH, which is like an hour away from where I grew up. And you can't, you can't, you can't lie about that, man. You can't represent someone that you're not, you know what I mean? You know, that's, that's epic. Fuck that. So I just had to throw that in there. Well, you know, players, if they do something, wrong, they get it rough. You know what I mean? And, uh, everybody deserves it. If you're in a profession, you know, that's just part of the profession. So, you know, unfortunately for George, he didn't get the opportunity that he wanted, but I honestly would say George was a great coach. Fuck him, dude. He's a liar. He was cool. You know, he was kind of funny. Um, but I could see why, I could see why you didn't like him. You know, if you see him from afar, you don't really. Well, no, I mean, I just don't want somebody who's going to lie about who they are. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Straight up. The narrative is there, but he, he was a, he was a good, he was a good guy. I've heard that. I've heard that. I've heard, I've heard that, you know, and you know, yeah, Chris Hovan, who's BC guys, freaking crazy freaking guy. And, and Randy Moss, obviously to me, one of the top five receivers of all time. Yeah. You know, Oh, definitely. But you got hurt. You got injured in Minnesota, right? Yeah. I tore my calf. Yeah. Um, missed, missed some games. And, uh, came back in the playoffs and play well, but yeah, I missed some games and I was hot, man. I mean, I was on fire. Every time I got, I had a bone spur in my Achilles at the time as well. My first year at a bone spur, my Achilles, the second year I tore my calf, but man, when I, before I had that bone spur, I was on fire. Yeah. You find your rhythm, fire. Yeah. And, uh, that I ended up playing that season with, uh, like a soft cast in the back of my foot in order for me to play. And, and, and I, that ended up, I think probably giving me damage on my knee where I ended up tearing my patella tendon. But yeah, man, it was, like I said, I was, I was on fire too. I got hurt. I'm on fire. I've seen you, the sky on your leg is bigger than my leg. So it's like, yeah, I mean, so it's, it's, that's the thing, you know, the, the NFL life, it's fragile. It's, you know, it's a quick thing, you know, and then you play those two years. So what did you, when you got out of Detroit, you signed a two year deal with Minnesota? Is that what it was? Yeah. Two years, Minnesota. And then after Minnesota, I signed a three year at St. Louis, but only played one year there. I didn't know what was going on there at the time. And I wish I would've went, honestly, I wish I had went to Jacksonville with Jack Del Rio and took less and, and play with him behind that great defensive line. Yeah, it would've really, well, now looking back on it, it would've really extended my career. I think me and you talked about that before. Um, that, that D line was ridiculous. Yeah. And, uh, John Henderson and a couple other guys. Yeah, I wish I would've had the opportunity to play behind him and play with, and play for Coach Del Rio. It's funny, you know, people can, you know, so much of, so much about life is just opportunities and, and making, you know, split, split second choices and then things just don't go the way you want to. You know what I mean? And, and that's, that's something like that. You know, it just happens. You know what I mean? It just happens. It just happens. It just happens and you can't control it and I mean, I ain't bitter about it. But I think it taught me a lot of things. It taught, it helped me be a better coach. Uh-huh. Um, and it helped me have a better understanding with working with people that I work with. Like, I think as a coaching staff we're supposed to have fun and everybody's supposed to have some input in what we do. Yeah. Where I've seen there was kind of, at times it was dictatorships with coaches and they didn't create no kind of relationship with the kids. And there's times, you know, as coaches, we don't love every kid we coach and some of them we have to tolerate but I think overall you try to have fun with them and make the atmosphere fun for them to succeed. It's a game, you know. That's the thing about it. It's a game. It's a freaking game, you know. I want to get into the SC days, you know, because we got, we got two LA football legends sitting here. Well, one. One of these days they'll consider you a legend but we gotta, we gotta go. Let's talk about the SC days, man, because, you know, this is Had Yards LA. We're in LA. You know, you were the only, Buckus Award winner to come out of USC and I believe I read something, you were the only one west of the Mississippi till somebody got it but your SC days as a player were amazing. As a team, you guys were kind of a dark era, you know, you had that, you know, a transition era before Pete came in but you had John Robinson for a couple years, a legend. Talk a little bit about John Robinson and what he taught you or what you, what you learned from him. Man, I love John Robinson and I think anybody that played for him loved him. He was like a dad, like a grandfather to you. I'm appreciative of him personally because he gave me the number 55. There was a time I didn't want it. I wanted to wear three, honestly, and he told me, no, you're going to wear 55. So, man, I'll tell you what, I'm very appreciative of him and what he's done for me and he created a situation for me to be, I had to mature early. I had to play as a freshman and to really play at a high level because the expectations for that number is so high. Well, you said you knew you surpassed it in a lot of ways. I mean, you, you know, the only buckets of wood went in, not surpassed it. Great football players all around, but I remember, I remember watching, I don't know if I told you this, I remember watching your first game versus Penn State when you lost to a Wally Richardson led team in Giant Stadium. That must have been a trip, kid. You know, you're coming out of freaking J.W. with the Riverside and next thing you know, you're freaking playing in Giant Stadium against Penn State. You know, talk about that adjustment. Freaking awesome. Honestly, like, the, playing in that atmosphere and honestly, I didn't start that game. Uh-huh. Another guy started that game, but I got a chance to go in and man, it was, it was awesome. Like, the speed was, you know, it was everything I thought it was going to be. You know, we had good, uh, good practice. We had good practices in the summer, so I was learning and getting better, but being able to go in there and tackle a good back like Curtis Enos and playing, you know, against Penn State and East Rutherford and, you know, traveling to Jersey on your first time ever, you know, or first time as a college guy, I mean, it was awesome, man. In New Jersey? New Jersey is Penn State territory. New Jersey is Penn, you're going to, you know, the Lions dead. Penn State, New Jersey, freaking people love them over there, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, big time. So that game was, that game was, that game was crazy. Now, I was, you know, you played for John Robinson a couple years and Paul Hackett came in. You were captain as a junior, but you kind of got caught up, kind of what you did, again, not to talk shit about guys, but you got caught up in an era of USC football where you really didn't have a good quarterback. You know, you had Mike Van Rappelhorst or whatever the freaking guy's name was playing. You know, I'm sure he's a good player and a good guy and all that shit, but, you know, it must have been hard, you know, because it's frustrating when you're playing well and you, it's all about the quarterback. Who are we fooling? If you got a good quarterback. I would tell you this. We had a defense that almost everybody on that defense went to Pearls. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. And we did, we went like six and six or whatever. You know what I mean? Or eight. I don't remember what even the thing was, but we had a good defense. Our offense wasn't very good and it was for us and it was frustrating, but it becomes a situation where it's like, I can only control what I can control. And honestly, you coached with me a year where we didn't score many points and we played good defense every week. It's frustrating as hell. And we probably should have won every game. Yeah. I thought that year. Sure. And we lost a couple games because we couldn't do anything on offense. It's always the way it is, you know? It's, it's one of those things. Yeah. But it's, you know, it's crazy. We had to go and kind of suck it up and, you know, encourage the offense. But if we were bad on defense, you know how bad people would let us have it? Yeah. Right. You know what I mean? In 1997, your first game of the year, you played against Florida State and you guys lost 14-7 at home. I know. At home. And then the next game, you come out and lose 28-21 at home. That must have been hard. No offense. We were playing like, you know, 90 plays a game. I can't, I'm, 90 plays a game we were playing back then. You know, we were playing a lot of plays. I know we lost to Cal in a close one that year with Tony Gonzalez and Mary Uchi was there. Man, those games, we were losing. Now we could have won if we just would have had a little better offense. We lost a game to UCLA that year. That year we should have won our kicking game. The kicking game wasn't the greatest. So, yeah. Offensively, we struggled. And defensively, we paid the price for it. But I will say, I played with some great guys on my defense. Oh, no doubt. Yeah. Brian Kelly, Daylon McCutcheon. Yep. You know what I mean? Darryl Russell. I mean, I played with some good guys on defense. So I was, as a freshman, I was very fortunate. As a sophomore, it was more of my show, I would say. And I played with, you know, Marcus Allen. He was solid. And Zeke Marino came in and played a little bit with us. And Lonnie Ford and a couple other guys that we played with. But you had Hugh Jackson. Yeah, it was tough. Hugh Jackson was your offensive coordinator. Isn't that amazing? Hugh J. Hugh J. was there. But Hugh J. wasn't really, I don't know if Hugh J. really had a chance. And at the time, that was a young Carson Palmer. Yeah. Carson Palmer was a freshman. I think he might have had, like, he was like, you know, throw a touchdown, throw a pick. Throw a touchdown, throw a pick. He was like, 14 touchdowns, 14 picks that year. So, you know. And then Pete Carroll. Pete Carroll, you know, walks in. Yeah, look, take nothing away from Pete Carroll. Pete Carroll's a legend. But, you know, it was one of those things where he comes in, gets a guy like Carson Palmer, has some guys, and then they turn around, but you're gone already. You know what I mean? That's got to be, you know. You never beat UCLA, Chris. You never, you never beat UCLA. Never, never lost to Notre Dame. You know what I mean? So it's like, hey. Can't have it all, right? But, but you got to give a lot of props to Norm Chow, too. Norm Chow really turned Carson's game around. Yeah. When you were leaving. He turned Carson's game around. Well, yeah. I mean, you know, Carson Palmer is going to have a decent career, but let's talk a little bit about, so you come on after your junior year. Was it people telling you not to come out? Or was it just a, you just figured after your junior year, you know, you realize, at what point did you realize, hey, I can make millions of dollars off this? Well, it wasn't for me because I love, honestly, and it sounds, probably sounds like bullshit, but I loved it at, at sea. And I was good. I was in a good situation. But it was a point of they're not trying to win a championship. Honestly, it was like, we're not, we can't win with this group right here. Yeah. And that was my biggest problem. Like, as much as I like my teammates, we weren't bringing enough firepower. And I didn't feel like the coaching staff at the time, besides my coach, my coach was awesome. I can't even say, uh, Slocum, John Slocum was, was, was the best coach, linebacker coach I've ever had, even in the league, period. But, the other, the other, the other guys on the other side of the ball, we couldn't win what we had. Couldn't win. That was the first appearance of, uh, Ed O'Dron, right? That was the first year Ed O'Dron got in the USC? Yep. Eddie O was like, that was Eddie O's first year. Yep. He came in with, uh, Paul Hackett. So I had spent two years with John Robinson and won with Paul Hackett. Yeah. Ed O, eh, slipped up big time. I think he should have stayed on and been the assistant head coach, but I don't even know what he's doing right now. But, yeah, again, though, you guys lost. You got blown out. You're junior year versus UCLA, right? Uh, yeah, blown. Yeah, you know, that's Africa. Yeah. What was the score? 34, 34, 17, 34, 17. Yeah, that could be, that could be misleading, though. You know what I mean? It could be a 21, 17 game. Hey, yeah, I mean, I remember I had a pick to the, I had a like 60 yard, 60 yard pick. Like, well, I was, I don't know, man, I was balling, but we didn't have any offense, man. Couldn't close the show. So you come out, you're a ninth, you're a ninth, overall draft choice, which, all right, I'm going to throw this at you. You can take it where you want, but me, this is just me personally talking. I would not, I would not take an inside linebacker in the top 20. I would take nothing but pass rushes, DBs, or quarterback, or receiver. I just think you can find ball hawks. I think you can find guys who can make tackles, especially the way the game is now, where shit, half the time, more than half, the time, it's three, four DBs, you know, well, you know, substitution, it's DBs on the field, but you're a number nine overall draft choice. What kind of negotiation power did you have? First of all, you're a smart guy. Why didn't you be your own agent? Because nobody was doing it probably back then, right? Nobody was doing it. Nobody was doing it. It was kind of intimidating. You know what I mean? It was kind of intimidating. But I think more, it was, it's more about everything is slotted. Like it is now. It's like, it's slotted. So you're kind of, you're kind of fighting for, you know, hoping the guy above you, before you does a good deal, and the guy behind you, you know, to just work off of what you got. Knowing what you know now, would you do it yourself? Huh? Knowing what you know now, would you do it yourself? I would pay somebody hourly. Yeah. All right. Good point. Or I would just pay them 1% and be done with it. Yeah. You know what I mean? If someone's slotting it, they're slotting the salaries. The fuck? You know, anybody could do that. And like I said, you're a smart guy. So it's not like, you know, they, you know, it seems like they're paying people to do nothing. Yeah. And I think nowadays, you, like what I realized is marketing is everything. Yep. So I would rather pay money for a marketing team than pay for an attorney, an agent. I'll just get an attorney. Yeah. Right. That's, I've been thinking about, I've been thinking about that for years. Like, why don't we just get an, an attorney to look it over and dot the I's and cross the T's instead of paying them, you know, 10% or whatever it is that they're paying them. Makes no spend, no sense. You know? Yeah. Talking about agents. Let's forget the past. Let's talk about the present now. You know, are you doing seven on seven? You still running a seven on seven team? Yeah. Personally. Yeah. I've been talking. Yeah, I got a seven on seven team. You know, I, and look, look, this is just me. And you know, I think seven on seven basically is, is turned into player agents for high school kids. Now, you know, again, this is just me talking, but first of all, I think if you take physicality and pads away from football, it's not football first and foremost. And second of all, I think it's become kind of an AAU basketball model where as you're getting these, you're getting these guys, you know, not you, you know, whatever. You were getting these guys though that are coming in and telling these kids, things that aren't necessarily true. Go ahead. Go ahead and defend a seven on seven football because I don't see much use for it. To be honest with you. I know like we've had these conversations and you are a physical, you know, type of guy and you want to see, you know, the trenches, but it's all about you, what you said about drafted in the top 20. What would you, what would you draft in the top 20? Yeah. Quarterback. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what you're getting. You know what I mean? That's what you get to see and you get to see linebackers that can cover and as you see different forms of the spread is starting to be implemented in the pro game. You know, you still have two back but implemented, it's definitely implemented in the pro game. So now your linebackers got to be able to run a little bit more but at the end of the day, also got to be physical but that also falls on the D lineman now. Yeah. You know, you look at, you know, a lot of these three, four defenses and even, you know, four, three defenses that those two inside guys are monsters and the ends are fast guys who can pass rush. Right? And the middle linebacker and outside linebacker, you know, are needed in the run game for two back stuff and stuff like that but ultimately, you're playing a lot of nickel in the 4-2-5 stuff. Well, that's what you're getting in seven on seven and you got to remember this, scout, rivals, 24-7, XOS sports, they are part of the media. They are entertainment. So, entertainment has really established seven on seven football. Yep. Exactly. AAU, yeah, AAU basketball was more about establishing a rep and then you had all these shoe companies get involved, right? Yep. Well, because of what happened at AAU basketball, football does suffer because Nike is not involved in seven on seven, which I wish they were. Why? But it's not so much about defending it. They, honestly, because there are guys out there that's going to make us look bad for the guys that do it right. And honestly, we try to, I try to build a group of guys that I feel good about. Yeah. That I'm going to play against their teams. If I host a tournament, they'll come to the tournament. They, they rep, you know, they're reputable. They play the game and our respect is mutual. But AAU, whether it's football or basketball, is something that's happening. Soccer has been going on for years. Baseball now as well. Baseball has been going on for years. Yeah. It's just so much, it's just so now that because of the entertainment factor, it's gotten bigger. It's just, it's humongous now. Well, yeah, two things, two things with that. One, you know, you're, you're a good man with credentials, so you're going to do, do right. But for every Chris Claiborne, there's freaking 25 other guys who are out there just trying to make money for themselves. That's one of, one of the points. And two, the beauty of it is, so the good news with this is, they'll never be able to sanction a padded league like that. So, you know what I mean? You have to, the only ones that have a monopoly on padded football is CIF or your local high schools. You know what I mean? So you can never really put anything. ultimately you gotta, right. Yeah, but ultimately you still have to be part of the high school experience. Right, exactly. In football, in football, because it's happening. You still have to, in baseball and basketball, there are kids in our high school, in, in, in my high school right now, that are not playing high school baseball, that are not playing high school soccer, not playing high school basketball. I don't think it'll ever go that way in football, because I just don't think they'll ever sanction it. Nah, and not only that, but I think you kids need to rest on their body. You know what I mean? This high school football season is physical enough as it is to add more games to that with pads would just be not good. Well, shit, you say that, but, I look at Corona, Corona Centennial this year. Chris, they played 17 games, oh, 16 games this year. Yeah. 16 fucking games, man. And nobody's looking out for these kids. You know what I mean? 16 games. What is it about? Is it about everybody getting what they want out of the situation? Now there's a regional, now there's a this and a that, right? Right. So that's what people ask for. So you kind of got to accept it as a coach, because in order to get to state championship, you need to go this route. And before, they were crowned state champions just off ranking. They wasn't necessarily saying you earned it. So now you're going to earn it. Yeah, but they could, CIF could easily eliminate the first two rounds. Easily. At least the first. Because, you know, those first round matchups are a joke. But they're just trying to make money off the gate. That's, you know, of the, all they're trying to do is make money in the first couple rounds. You know what I mean? Make it a little bit tougher to get in the playoffs. Well, and then I think that because there's so many schools now, you, you, they have to do it. How do you give a three seed in the Trinity League not giving a playoff first? That's the thing. You could almost give a four seed in the Trinity League a playoff first. That's the thing with California high school football. You know, within a matter of five, ten miles, you take a team that's sorry as hell and a team that's got a bunch of, you know, a bunch of freaking first rate athletes. It's so big. You know what I mean? But everybody's just going to the spots where they think they're going to get recruited. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's funny. I guess it's the way things are, you know? It is. Okay. Let me ask you this. We've talked about football. We've talked about schemes many, many times. Do you feel now, what offense do you feel now is most prevalent and what should be run in high school now? Because I know you've always had an interesting opinion and I was interested in what you said and I respected it. So what offense do you think people should be running now and what offense would you run if you were head coach? A lot of misdirection, wing T principles with misdirection run game and boot and play action out of it and boot and play action with a little bit of read option principles but making making kids run one way and then running the ball back the other way making, you know, without, you know, without direction. Yeah, just misdirect misdirect double, double tight ends outnumber them with gaps and then misdirect out of that and what happens is teams that run wing T style. They never throw the ball, but you got to be able to throw the ball as well. I'm not a real big fan. If you have the athletes and you've you if you got the quarterback, I have no problems with just putting him back there and let him do things, but I don't have to put everything on one kid, but I think it's unbalanced misdirection and running the football and of course playing good defense, but that's always all right. What's your what's what's your thoughts on the coach from Ohio State? Urban Maya. I think Urban Maya and I think Urban Maya is one of the all-time great college football coaches. As much as I think he's a scumbag and I talked about him at length, but I think what he does, he has a guiding philosophy. Look at one of the things I just read about Urban Maya. Now you're throwing it back on me. One of the things I read about Urban Maya that I thought was really stuck with me is, you know, he took that year or two off and he came back and said, the one thing I learned is you got to have a coaching staff that's on the same page a hundred percent and he went out and he's that's how he runs his program now, you know, and the problem, a lot of problems with staffs in general, college, high school, what have you, you got too many people thinking too many different things. You have to have a head coach that brings people in that are going to have that same philosophy. I think Urban Maya is great, although I think he's a scumbag, but they're all scumbags. What are you going to do? That's the business. You know what I mean? All right, I'm running out of time, so I got a couple things I really want to throw at you. First of all, I read a thing the other day that said, just like two weeks ago, it said 80% of the players in the NFL smoke weed. Do you think that's high? Do you think that's low? What do you think? 80%. I think that's high. You think that's high? I think that's high. Right. What would you think? I think that's high. Closer to 50? I would say 40%. Yeah. They're professionals, right? I would say 40%. Yeah, I would say 40%. I think that's a real high. 80% is high, man. I don't think that's true. Yeah. You play, oh, you play Randy Moss. I don't want you to throw Randy Moss under the bus, but you play Randy Moss in the Randy Moss era, but yeah, I mean, if you're saying that's high, did you play with Brian McKinney as well? Was he on that team? Yeah, but I've never seen Brian McKinney smoke weed. I've never seen Randy Moss smoke weed. I didn't hang out with Randy Moss like that. We was good teammates. We would, you know, see each other while he was out, but I never, went to Randy Moss house or anything like that, so I couldn't even speak on that part of Randy Moss outside of the football. You know what I mean? Hey, were you on that team with the Love Boat? Were you on that team or was that after you? No, I was gone. Yeah, I was gone. I'm glad I missed that because he would have been on me right now. I was fortunate not to be there. Fortunate or unfortunate, I don't know, either way you look at it. It was unfortunate. That was not a good trip. No, no, I mean, you're, you're a smart man, but some of those guys, man, you know, what are you going to do? What do you think about the NFL cracking down on the use of the N-word? I think it needs to be done. You do? You know, yeah, because I think that people, you know, you, you, you do that and you can't expect the kid from Philadelphia and not to say what he says. If you allow people to sit out in the field. Do you think? Oh, yeah, right, right. Bradley Cooper. I blasted Bradley Cooper. That's ridiculous. When you allow everybody to use it, it makes it not important. And it's an important word. It's a history behind it. And it doesn't make it relevant. And it is relevant. It needs to be respected. It needs to understand that that's not something that, you know, needs to be thrown around and things like that. So I think that, that's the right thing to do. But don't you think, though, don't you think, though, that it's become that you're in the might, you know, like I said, you're a smart guy, you're a little bit older, but I sit in the locker room all day and I see Mexican, 14-year-old Mexican kids throwing that word out. Yeah. You know, like nothing, nothing. It's desensitized. It's too late, is what I'm saying. It's too late. Yeah, it is too late. But it has to start somewhere and you, the NFL, which is the top league in the world, and football, once they set the standard, I think it tends to trickle downhill. I just think it's an uphill battle, though. You know, especially got guys It's definitely an uphill battle, but if you continue to let it go, it's only going to get worse. But you got guys like Richard Sherman, who's an intelligent guy, came out with the counterpoint saying, well, why don't we just get rid of all offensive language? Because he said, and I quote, it's only black guys saying it to black guys on the field. You know what I mean? I mean, you just said right now, you hear other kids saying it. I hear it. I see it. Do you know what I mean? So it's not necessarily true. And he's a very intelligent person. You know what I mean? Very smart guy. But I think that's just a general statement. But when you see the experiences that somebody that works with you all the time, you go, damn, it really is affecting them. And they're so far removed from where the N-word started that they don't understand the history behind it. Yeah, I just think, yeah, I know. We're older, so we understand. Like, we have to tell the end of it. But if you say that in front of our parents, it's like, whoa. Yeah. Right? Well, like you said, it's because they don't even know about past football players. They don't know about John Montana. They don't know about Steve Young. They barely know about, you know, Jerry Rice. All they know about now, as far as they could probably go back to, is maybe Champ Bailey. They don't know about Bill Green. I mean, they know about Dion because he's still relevant, but they don't really, really know about Dion. But you know what, though? Isn't that just the way things are? You know what I mean? You know, the problem is, yeah, the problem is people don't continue to, push the past. Yeah. And when that does happen, it does, it's forgotten. It really is. It's forgotten. Yeah. Just, I agree with the sentiment. I just think it's a waste of time. What happens next year, okay, when it's a playoff game, it's the NFC Championship, all right? And I don't know when to throw a guy's name out, but whatever. Guy drops an N-bomb on someone else, and they drop a 15-yard flag. There'll be a first down, you know what I'm saying? I just think this is funny, guys. The thing about the league is, what they're good at is, they're going to hit you in the preseason at wherever. Yeah, yeah. They don't just, that's just not a rule. They're going to come in the playoff time. And honestly, they might let it go and just warn the guy, like, hey, you need to chill out. Right. They're going to hammer in the beginning. You're going to see it in all the preseason games in August. They're going to talk about it. Somebody's going to be embarrassed for saying it. They're going to point that person out, and you'll start thinking about not, and I don't want to let it be me. Yeah, right, right. So the NFL is great at setting the stage for things and setting up stuff. Like you said, I would be interested to see how this thing goes. Yeah, right. Especially, and that's one of the things I talked about in an earlier podcast with Riley Cooper, the guy in Philadelphia. Nothing happened to him. And that's a white boy saying that with something behind it. You know what I mean? He had teeth on that when he was saying that. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't like, you know, he really meant it, and they didn't do shit to him. They fined him a little bit. The team fined him a little bit. You know what I mean? The hypocrisy of the NFL just never ceases to amaze me. You know what I mean? Well, one thing about sports is you can mess up in life, but if you go back and you play good ball, people tend to forget. Yeah, right. Right, right. If you're making plays, forget it. Come on. Lawrence Taylor. Yeah. Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray Lewis, right? Right. Right. It happens. That's the thing about sports. That makes short memories span. Somewhat sports crazy and somewhat, you know, something that you can get away from. I could go on this field, forget my off the field problems and dominate this thing, and they will turn to love me. If I just continue to do this now, does it sometimes teach the wrong messages? Yes, but it's a reality that happened. This is the last question I'm going to leave you with because we got to go. And I don't want you to come out and say anything to when I think about the whole Michael Sam situation. Do you think teams are going to shy away from because I've gone this program and say, yeah, I would. And, you know, unless he just jumps off film at you that much that you think you're getting it, you know, because let's not mince words here, Chris. We all know people and played with guys that don't like gays. So you're going to put your whole team at jeopardy for a guy who runs a four nine bench presses to twenty five seventeen times. You know, I mean, I hate to put you on the spot like that, but it's well, I look at it like this. There's going to be owners that are not going to be with you. I don't want to get that. Yeah. OK, not going to happen. And there's going to be it only takes one owner to do it, and they may not drop them very high where it's not much of a risk. You know, I mean. So I guess the question is, how high is he going to go? The answer is I'll give you the answer. The answer is Michael Sam better ball out or he won't be in the league very long. Yeah. Yeah. He better friggin show up and play. But I don't know. It's just one of those things that, you know, and I don't really care. I don't care one way or the other. I really don't. But Reggie White would have, you know what I'm saying? And you got Reggie White sitting in the locker room. But that's the same way we talk about using the N-word. I mean, that would not have happened when Reggie Whiteman was playing. Yeah. Things change. Can you imagine Riley Cooper on the same team with OK. Yeah. Right. Like we keep saying, times have changed. And unfortunately it's not always right, but it is what it is. Real quick. We didn't get a minute left. Business-wise, what are you up to? Anything good? What are you coaching at, first of all? You were coaching Oaks Christian. What are you coaching at now? The Calabasas. Me and the Clauses left Oaks Christian over to Calabasas doing that. Working on some things as far as just working with the youth. That's kind of the biggest thing. And, you know, really trying to get the company, the Frat Boys and University 55 a brand. I really want to be able to get University 55 into stores, especially at USC, where the number 55 has significance. So that's kind of my goal right now, and that's where we're trying to go. Me and my partners are getting into the media with the IE Sports Chat and IE Sports Chat San Diego. So we're doing that. And I'm just me. I just want to continue to grow. And eventually I would take a head coaching job or just take a maybe take a college job. I'm not sure. We're kind of in the middle of that right now. So in the next couple of years, I really have to buckle down with that and decide if I'm going to take the leap to college and make it happen. Kid, once I get a head coaching job, I'm getting you in here. We're freaking going to rule L.A. We'll talk about this off the air. I got to go. Hey, thanks for coming on, man. You know, I really appreciate it. Thank you, Dave. You're a good friend and I appreciate everything you say and you're freaking good man. All right, Chris, we'll talk to you later. All right, thanks, Dave. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Pistol grip.