right, and the one thing I want to know
like when did you become like, Johnny cigar guy? When did that
actually happen? You know, is this something you actually do
in your free time from time to time and I'll give you a little
background there
just on special occasions. First cigar. I ever smoked was
after the national championship game. And so I figured when,
when I win a championship, whether it's our division
championship, or Super Bowl or national championship, I think
we should probably smoke some cigars. And I think we just
made it a thing.
Okay, I like it. So you had one ready? Like you got a brand you
like like, you know, the one you smoked a few weeks ago
after you clinch, the division. Is there a brand or style
a cigar you like?
I don't really know any brand. Yeah
smoke whatever, somebody gives me.
Okay. All right. Sounds good. Smoke em, if you got em,
all right, next thing I want to know.
I mean, I'm always impressed by this from the from the minute.
I got to know you a little bit watching you on TV the aura of
Joe cool.
Right, like, what is it about you? That's made us all
a believer in a franchise that, hey, let's be honest. Not a lot
of people have believed in, you know, throughout time.
Yeah. I don't know. I'm just,
just myself, you know, I try to
Give the media as much of my personality is I can I'm also
a private person and don't want to give away too much. But
you know, I try to be honest with everybody and I think
media usually appreciates that. Yeah, dude. I doubt you'd
I definitely do. We all definitely do, there's no doubt
about that. Like it wasn't always this way where you
always cool that way was this something you had to like learn
growing up, was your dad, you know, did your dad
and still this and you or just kind of a natural gift of that
you have I don't I've never I don't know. I didn't ever
really thought about. Yeah. Being cool or anything like
that. I just just myself. I don't know. Well, that's why
you're cool because cool people don't try to be cool. They just
are cool. And that's
why you're Joe Cool in my opinion. All right, so you talk
about the honesty. Like,
you know, what is it that gives you the security to kind of
speak your mind. They're like the thing. I always jump out
like, hey, the comments about Wink Martindale, a little bit.
You know, you were one of you were the first quarterback to
come out for black lives matter, which I really
Spect, it's refreshing,
you know, but what is it about you that that that kind of
brings that to the table,
you know, I think I'm pretty good at not caring. What people
think about me, you know, I care about
what my teammates and my coaches
and the fans think about me. But,
you know, as far as
people attacking me on Twitter or anything like that. I don't
really care about that. I don't know those people. I care about
my feelings, family teammates coaches. Think about me, but
other than that,
you know, I do. Really matter. Yeah. Yeah, it's all you're
going to be you. You're respectful to everybody and
you're like, you said, you're not afraid to
give an honest answer. Even if it might
wrinkle some feathers or
rub. Some people, the wrong way in Baltimore. That's what's
kind of cool about you, man. Like, you know what, I want to
ask you a little bit about this year is just
like the Tipping Point
and I know there. You probably thought, hey, things are all
going in the right direction, but was there a game or
a moment this year where you went, like, wait for? Get right
direction. We're like a legit AFC contender.
I think after we started the season
decent, we were three and two
went into Baltimore and beat them pretty good. And I think,
then we knew that we could be really good and we had really
good, good players in the locker room. We have great
coaches. We knew all
that but then we went out and did it in Baltimore and I think
right then we kind of knew what we could do,
right? That was a big win for us. Yeah, right you go into
Baltimore, you put up made some big plays and kind of put them
away in their home stadium. All right, so,
That was the moment I get that totally. Now, like, as a full
organization, you jobber. Oh, you're still a young guy. You
gotta lung young, a lot of young guys,
31-year, playoff gap between wins.
Do you guys really care? Like the plate to the players in
the locker room care about that?
No, we honestly haven't even talked about it all week. Yeah.
No, that's not something that
we're really young team were. We're just here having fun
playing football with with a bunch of friends in the locker
room.
Not worried about
not winning the playoff game. When you go out there and
execute what happens happens, but
you know, we're proud of what we've done and who we are. And
we're gonna go out there and give it our best shot. Yeah.
Okay. All right. Now like I want to get a little nerdy with
you a little bit like football here. Guy. Get in
the weeds a little bit
and I heard you make some comments in the offseason a few
times about like you wanted to improve your arm strength, you
know,
when did that light bulb go off that you needed to know to do?
Something about that because it certainly shows on the film
this year compared to last year with a lot more power and
explosive throws. It's just something that I've always had
to work on. You know, that's always been the knock on me
from from back in my
high school days. Like I didn't have that big arm, but I've
been able to improve that slowly every single year and
I'm going to continue to do that. And you know, I work on
a little bit of everything in the offseason and think my rehab
process,
probably helped me a lot. I really focused on strengthening
my, my hips, and my glutes, and my core. And that's where all
The velocity comes from when you throw. So
the rehab process through my knee. I kind of did that
a little naturally. Yeah. Well, yeah, legs and ass, I'm
a Believer in that. That will always get you stronger for
sure like anything mechanically,
you know, that you could share with us that you think about
a little bit more, you know, to put a little more mustard on
the football. Was there anything there that you follow
through positioning of the body that you also helps you in
that, that area?
Yeah. I was always kind of 70/30. Back front to back foot
to front foot
and then I kind of made a little more 50/50 this year.
Try to get my fun front foot on the ground a little faster. So
I could start that
kind of whipping motion with your with your hips a little faster
Ryan. It's, you know, I was able to
increase my
velocity of my mic or about 25 percent from last year by doing
all the rehab and then changing the way I,
you know, balanced myself.
Of in my throwing motions and so I think that helped a lot.
So balance and like creating those opposites between your
upper and lower half to create that torque to throw
the football.
That's that's where you feel like you really made
the biggest Improvement. Exactly. Yeah. All right, that's cool.
That's a good one to know, certainly. And it shows, man.
I mean, you're throwing lasers all over the field. Alright,
next thing, I want to know about your movement. I always
say, like, when
I got to talk about you and radio and he's one of the most
slippery SOB's I've ever seen in the pocket doing that. That
Always natural or do you do stuff in the offseason to work
on that and even during the season and
you know, how do you go about being so good in that area of
your game?
That's kind of always something. I've been pretty
good at.
I just kind of have a good feel of where people are in
the pocket while I'm cute my eyes down the field. And that was
kind of frustrating for me at the beginning of the year
because I
was trying to figure out how to do that again with my knee. And
I just now started to get back to
being able to make freerunners Miss in the
You know, last five or six weeks,
you know, that was frustrating for me at the beginning of
the year because I've always my mindset when people blitzed was
try to get it picked up with the o-line obviously within
the protection. But if there's a free runner
and I don't have a hot answer,
he still has to tackle me and that's always kind of been my
mindset and I kind of had to change that early in the year.
Just got couldn't quite make that guy Miss and I'm finally
starting to do that again. And so that's exciting for me.
Yeah. All right. Yeah, like, what, what, what?
I was going to go there. Anyways, and you now you
brought me there with Knee injury a little bit. You know,
what was that moment? Where you finally went? Okay, like wait,
I'm actually not thinking about it. I'm just playing football
or I'm not worried anymore.
I feel like it's close to 100%. Did you have that light bulb
pop at any point? No, I don't think there was a moment where
it happened.
I think the first time I made somebody missing the pocket for
the season was Pittsburgh and the first game and not my knee
kind of hurt a little bit after I was like, that's not quite
ready yet. But, you know, I'm still making
plays. Yeah. Yeah. Yadda, but
the last, like I said, five or six weeks after the, by
I finally started to
feel like myself. Yeah, slow progress there. I did to
finally feel like yourself. Do you like, is it a total feel
thing when you're scrambling to move into the pocket? Like do
your eyes come down in
a moment and you actually look and then get back up. Or do you
really try to keep them up and have like the peripheral be in
charge of like what's around you in the pocket?
I think it depends on the situation of the play,
you know, if I know.
Somebody's about to come open and I know exactly what defense
I'm seeing. You know, I'm gonna keep my eyes down field. Try to
just move in the pockets lighted by a little more time,
just to wait for him to
come open. And then if it's a
play that I know is going to be crap against the coverage, that
we, there were seein. I'm
then kind of able to
bring my eyes down and
try to make little more people Miss. Try to get
get my guys into scrambled drill mode,
so they can try to find a space out there in coverage and get
opened.
I think just depends on the situation. Yeah. Okay. All
right. Now, I want to get into your brains a little bit here.
I know you got the full aspect. I call you. The natural all
the time. That's who you are. You just natural. They put
you on Earth to play quarterback.
You know, I know my
my dumb Dad tried to say you were Joe Montana earlier in
the year and you try to say pump your brakes. So I'll tell my
dad, like, Hey, Dad, pump the brakes. All right, but
but I am and tell me if I'm wrong here. But this one I want
to go back to the Chiefs game. Where, of course you just went
off and had a huge day.
At the end of the first half, you throw a little
why out a tight end out route to zoma
and they play cover two and you throw the ball and he almost
gets crushed on the right side.
Third quarter comes around, you run the same exact play
the second or third play of the third quarter. They play
the same defense. They collapse on the tight end again,
you hit your March. Ace in the Hole of the cover to Hole there
for long touchdown.
Did that happen organically?
Or does that something that? Hey, the Microsoft tablet came
into play there. And I noticed that on the on that dry before.
Yeah, I'd say the tablet came in handy there. Yeah,
don't want to give away too much. We could see them in
a couple weeks. But
yeah, that was that was you know, our coaches do a great
job of
seeing that kind of stuff and
getting us to the right play and alerting me to
certain things like that. So I can go out and make a big play
like like we hit tomorrow. Yeah, so you went in like you
went into halftime, you guys talked about it a little Like,
I know, but not going to give anything away. But, yeah,
that was. That was you, did you,
you knew that play was going to be called soon? To like it. Was
that something like, you guys went in, like, hey, let's call
it again. We're gonna get them on this.
Yeah. I definitely wanted that play again. Yeah, I expected
down. Come up, man. That's all, you're my man. Look at you
being honest and letting us do that and you are the man. All
right. Now, I got to ask you like two more things.
First off like your freak your other freak friend. Okay. We're
number one
Jamar Chase. I feel like we don't know the dude. All we
know is he's a baller. But like, I don't know much about
his personality
to please like tell me about him.
He's a fun guy to be around. All of our receivers are
a lot of fun to be around. You know, I'm in an
intense guy and they make sure to keep keep me loose and
cracking jokes all the time. So it's a
great dynamic between us with TV and Jamar all those guys.
They're fun to be around. Yeah, who's the clown of that group?
Who's the guy that keeps you? The loose out of tea? Tea,
Jamar and Boyd? And
Tyler is definitely the
the jokester right cracking jokes the name, but he's not
exactly a
super intense guy at practice but he locks him when he needs
to,
but they're all fun. They're awful. Yeah, I know. Alright,
last thing about Chase to just like physically and just what
is it that separates him? Is it simple? Just as explosive as
speed,
makes them a different animal than a lot of receivers in
football.
I think you know obviously is really fast, you know, there's
only a couple guys
like him in the league as far as speed wise, but I think what
really makes him special is his ability to break tackles, you
know,
we can throw him a
little hitch and he's going to break
two or three tackles and get us 12 yards instead of a catch and
tackle it for yards and that
really makes my job easy because if they're going to
play
off on him because I don't want to get beat over top, I can just
Throw them a little hitch and he's gonna go get us
12 to 14 yards. And then we're going to
just keep moving the ball down the field. So
know guys like that are tough to come by.
Yeah, that definitely. And yeah, it's a that's
a quarterback's best friend. There. Right there. Throw it
short, and let him get me yards from me. His legs are there are
amazing and he's built like a running back in the lower half
at always jumps out to me
last one. This is it right here.
Number nine,
Bangles quarterback, playoff game, number nine, old Saints
quarterback.
Back, Drew Brees announcing the game.
All right, tell me about like the relationship with Drew and
tell everybody out there. Why you wearing number nine?
So Drew is my favorite quarterback growing up. I was
actually a Saints fan in Ohio because of him.
I wear number 9, because I was number 10 at Ohio State and in
high school and then they didn't have 10 at LSU. So,
I figured, why not?
Just go one number less, and go to 9,
but, you know, I've been able to get to know drew a little
bit since my time at OSU first time I met him was when we were
practicing for
the national championship and the Saints, practice facility
and he came and You know, spend some time with me and I really
appreciated that and we text back and forth every now and
then but
he's been, he's been great. And it's
look, I am not Starstruck, usually, but the first time
I met Drew, I was a little star-struck kind of wanted to
make sure he knew. I knew football. So I was talking
about a game plan. Well that
all right,
he's been great to get to know him. All right, that's good. So
Joe Cool does get nervous every now and then. Yeah. Just it
just takes another Superstar quarterback to do that.
Alright, now we know. Hey
like seriously, dude.
Though, big fan of yours, the way you handle yourself on and
off the field like you are the man. Good luck. In your first
wild-card game against the Raiders,
and thanks for taking a little time with me today, man.
Thanks. Chris could say that. All right, she'll be good.
Yeah. Have a good one. You too, buddy.