articulate what I'm feeling or maybe just address it in a way
that resonates with me. I've, I've just been kind of
a jumbled mess about the whole thing.
And I, and it's
ice. I want to say, I don't know why. And that just adds to
this overall sense of confusion. It is a life cut way
too short. It is
a man who was a child not that long.
Long ago, you think about 2008 for those of us who are adults,
you know, when you're a kid, 14 years. Yeah, the longtime
Lifetime. Right? Right, but once you settle into who you
are as an adult, the year start to fly by and 14 years ago,
wasn't that long ago? And he was just a little boy who was
happy and I see that then
and you still see that like, I still see the little boy in my
son today. That's what gets me even when the child grows up
the still there,
and I think that's what's going to make it so hard,
especially for his parents
who were with him every step of the way and
my heart's broken for many,
of the people connected for all of the people connected, Dwayne
Haskins, but I think of the parents at a time like this and
it's just my own perspective because my son
I remember going through the age where hey, these football
players are all, starting to be younger than me. That's kind of
a weird feeling, right? And now, it's a really weird
feeling when a hell of a lot of them are younger than my son.
And I
think that's one of the reasons why frankly is my son got
older. I started to have a better perspective on what
these kids go through. Yeah, from my perspective. That's
what they are and they're still learning. Their brains are
still formulating. They're still growing and they
get thrust. Into this billion dollar industry.
And
you know, it's not the easiest thing in the world and that's
why there's been so much talk about mental health in recent
years, deservedly. So you making some pretty big
adjustments and you're operating on a pretty high wire
with no net
when you get thrown into the NFL, and all these people out
there who resent, how much money you're making, and
there's full transparency on how much money you're making.
And people know all these things about your life and they
can speak to you directly on social
media. They can Insult. You they can harass you, they can
cuss at you. They can threaten you on social media. I can't
imagine being 21, 22 years old, and carrying all that around
and dealing with all of that. And
and and there would surely be times where you got to ask
yourself. I don't know. This isn't all, it's cracked up to
be.
Yeah. Well, it's not always, you're right. I mean, everyone
just sees, you know, the great stories and, you know, the NFL
the ones where, you know, everything worked out great.
But yeah, this was a story that, you know, there was,
there was some bumps in the road.
No question. And I think, you know, You kind of laid it out
perfectly, what you got to go through out of the, all
the things we talked about a young guy, you know, yes.
Young, one of the youngest in the draft quarterback, only
played one year organization, you know, not that great in
Washington. Okay, they got their issues
and then you add in,
you know, young guy. Now, you get to his life and what he's
dealing with. It's a very real thing. You're put in a position
that nobody can prepare you for it. It's not, it's not
possible, no matter how How many
ex-players your agents or moms and dads? Talk to you
all the sudden? Yes,
you're expected to be the answer, the guy for an organization.
You're getting money.
You got people talking to you and coming at you and different
angles that you've never dreamed about. You don't even
know how to handle all of it. It can be overwhelming and we
can be very critical of these young kids at times and that's
what they
are. You're right. They're young kids for the most part.
I was one of them at one point to thought. I knew everything at
22 and 23 years old and look at it. And go. Damn, you are dumb
as crap and you knew almost nothing.
So it's a learning curve and you're right. Not everybody kind of
approaches. It goes through it at the same pace
and that's just what stinks about about this case. This
case right here. It's a guy that's just seemed like
a really good kid. He had talent and we're never going to know
how he was going to
wrap up his life story here and where it was going to go, and
that's a shame.
It's one of the blessings and curses of living, a long time.
The longer you live, the more you realize how dumb the things
were that you did when you were young,
but it equips us with the ability to have empathy and or
Sympathy for the mistakes being made by
the kids who were still.
Finding their way through life, and it's not nearly as
glamorous glitzy and cushy. As you think it is when you have
a life in the NFL because there's a lot of downside that we don't
spend a lot of time talking about. And,
you know, the fans. Frankly. I don't want to hear about it.
They just want to be entertained by football
players. And I'm not saying that's wrong. That's one of
the reasons why the money's there for so many of them. It's why
people.
Are interested in the sport. They want to watch the games,
but we need to remember at all times
that underneath the helmet inside. The pads are human
beings. No different than the rest of us. They live normal
lives. They have
family and friends and issues and struggles.
They are no different than the person
next door to you. They,
they have the same motivations and fears and concerns as your
children do as you did.
It once upon a time and
just need to,
I'm not saying we need to spend all of our time thinking about
football players as human beings, but it would be nice if
we all spent some of our time thinking about it, because
I fear that some spend, no time
taking a step back
and viewing them as anything other than
Commodities interchangeable parts in a football machine
pieces that we own on our fantasy teams.
And now players who create frustration for us because
On our phone, we
pick their team to win by five and a half points, and they
didn't because of that guy, and I'm going to be mad at that
guy. And I'm going to say something nasty about that guy
and his family on social media because I lost 25 bucks.
We just need to be willing to take a step back. And remember
that,
that these are human beings, not robots fashioned in the lab
for our entertainment. They are just people, we need to, we
need to factor that into how we view the sport. Not enough
people
Chris. Do
that, I believe? No. I mean, that's that's for real. You're
that. There's no doubt about that.
And I think,
yeah, it's it's it's not easy.
They are treated like a pliers are treated like Commodities.
I've seen in my whole life. Whether it was my father and
myself that is part of it. And
I don't think I mean, I'm agree with you. I don't think
the general public really knows exactly what's going on behind
the scenes and I don't think
a lot of the times the general public respects where
a lot of these players come from and what they've had to
deal with, to get where they are, and how the deck was
stacked against them to get where they are and then still
got there. But yeah, I think it's one of those things where
I
think we could all do that in this country for a lot of
different subjects. Put yourself in someone else's
shoes and think about what they have to go through and what
their life is like a little bit. We become a little too
immediate response, immediate reaction.
What have you done for me right now, and it feels
Like we've had a lost that touch and so, Sasha, and Society.
I'll be thinking about Dwayne has cans in his family and his
friends and teammates a lot in the coming days. I'll
definitely be thinking about Duane on May 3rd. That's
the day. He would have turned 25 gone at 24.
We're gonna take a break, we're going to regroup and when we
return, we'll
talk about the things happening in the National Football
League. That's why you're here. And that's why we're here. So,
we'll focus on that. But I Chris, I wanted to, I felt like
we needed to
start.
With with this because I think we all have something to
process if we care at all about football, we care about the men
who play? We all have something to process with.