Micheal Barrow and Darrin Smith, those guys were really intelligent. They're smart football players. They'd always be a step ahead of the offense and could predict what was coming. Dan Morgan has that. Jonathan Vilma has that. Ray Lewis has that.
When you look at what we want our individual player to represent from that makeup, if you will, we're looking for mentally and physically tough players who are smart and want to compete. And when you say smart, you're talking about situational awareness. Guys that are instinctual. That are smart football players.
You watch guys like Ray Lewis, you watch guys like Brian Urlacher, everything they accomplished was dope. But it was cool to see them do it for one team, one city and really cement their legacy where they were at.
You look at Richard Pryor and Robert Klein and George Carlin and Richard Lewis - those guys were so smart, they were the thinking-man stand-ups.
Ray Lewis, I've grown up watching Ray Lewis. Just watching his intensity, his passion for the game, his love for the game, his work ethic. Everything in a linebacker that you want to be is in Ray Lewis, from leadership qualities, all that.
These stunt guys are good at what they do and they're professional. A smart actor will step back and say, "I'm going to let the professionals do this." Hats off to those guys, man. When you see the credits scroll, look at all those stunt guys and remember all those names 'cause they earned their money on this.
When I grew up Carl Lewis was still running, Maurice Greene was running - he was that figure I see, like Michael Johnson. I really wanted to look up to the fast guys - so those two guys were some of the guys I looked up to.
Ray Lewis is the type of guy, if he were in a fight with a bear I wouldn't help him, I'd pour honey on him because he likes to fight. That's the type of guy Ray Lewis is.
The A's were a team with very few resources. We didn't have access to players who were obviously great, who could do it all and were always in the headlines. We couldn't afford those types of players. So we had to figure out a way of cobbling together players into a team that might be competitive.
We need to have faith in the people who are giving this movement direction to be smart enough to stay one step ahead of what's coming up next.
Chris Jericho and I were really excited about teaming together, but we didn't get to sink our teeth into what we could have done as a team. We really wanted to throw it back to the glory days of Pat Patterson and Ray Stevens. We were committed, we were coming up with team moves, and all of the things were made to work.
Football always changes. There are always new players coming in at your club or young players coming through with your club or England. You have to be ready, given 100%, improve, and get better.
Hey, you can't play football forever unless you're Brett Favre or Ray Lewis.
For what my generation did and went through and so forth, and what these glamour boys earn for what little they play, it's a joke. Is it football? Are you guys football players? Is that what they call football? It's not iron-man football, where you stay on the field for 60 minutes. Everybody! We were iron men. Not a bunch of pussyfoots.
Ernie Hayes, Jimmy Lewis, and either Belton Evans or Khalil Mahdi on drums [were in Sweet Basil]. All those guys really took care of me.
You look at Ray Lewis, you look at Brett Favre. I know it's different positions, but you think about the mental mindset it takes to continue to grind and play at a high level. Those are the guys that I look at that motivate me.
I was the security guard that got stationed directly outside the Eagles locker room or on the field. I don't even know what I did. But there was Jon Gruden, Ray Rhodes, Emmitt Thomas, Danny Smith, all those guys that are legends of the game.