Beaten and and how he's doing, but yeah,
got caught us all off guard yesterday,
obviously on the on an off day, but reached
out and shot him a text right away.
Reached out to coach Rivera right
when I heard and and coach kept me
up to date on kind of how he was
doing and after he had visited with
him and went over there so.
Yeah, I I think it's a,
it's a wake up call to everybody just
like you know this is there's real
life problems out there in this world.
But thankfully Brian's Brian's doing well
I'm told and look forward to seeing him
and how do you think the team
handled it in general today?
I think everyone was good you know coach,
Coach Sampsi also his
father passed away as well.
So that was that was announced some
some things obviously internally we
just praying, praying for our guys.
You know we're a family and
and we want to keep that,
keep it that way and I pray for her.
Pray for everybody when they're going
through stuff off the field and and as well.
And so I thought practice was good,
guys were still up tempo,
all that stuff.
But yeah, I think everyone definitely
feels feels for Brian and definitely
again it is a wake up call that there's.
There's a lot of things in our
world that that are sad and
unfortunate and things wrong in
our in our society and yeah,
we got to all be smart.
When you hear the information
that this has happened,
it's you're obviously thinking
about football all the time is that
kind of jolt you out of that and
put you in a different reality.
No doubt it's sobering for sure.
You know you definitely you hear
those that news and it's like, OK,
this isn't even football anymore.
You know someone was shot,
you know and this is a real life off
the field thing that that someone's
going through and again we're we're
fortunate with with how he's doing
and again that's all what I've what
I've been hearing but things could
have obviously been a lot worse.
But yes, it is very real.
If it takes you away from football
real quick and say these are real
life issues that we all that we're
all going through and everybody
and we're not immune to it.
You've
obviously gotten to know
Brian this this year.
What's stood out to you about him
as he's kind of going through this
and getting to know as a teammate?
Yeah, he's a lot of fun.
He's a lot of fun to be around.
I mean, obviously we see him on the field
and how he runs the ball and runs hard,
but off the field he's he's
high energy, great dude.
It's been fun getting to know
him a little bit and opening up,
coming out of his shell a little bit
right now and it's been fun to see.
And so I look forward to seeing
him back in here, hopefully soon.
And that that big smile on his face,
I'm sure.
I'm sure he'll come back real quick.
I'm sure there's there's frustration,
disappointment, all that that.
I'm sure he's feeling,
probably feeling a lot of different emotions,
but it is unfortunate and we'll
see see what it means for him
long term and all that stuff.
I have no idea. But again,
I'm excited to see him back in this building,
hopefully soon and.
Put this, put this behind,
yeah, actually heard from a
group text with the alignment.
We were texting each other and one
of the guys sent it in the group.
So the the topic quickly changed
and I read just the headline.
I call it coach Rivera right away
because I I figured go straight to him.
He would know.
He would know best.
So yeah, that's hard.
You know, to to deal with that
and Ernie Zampese and just
before the start of the season,
how do you personally compartmentalize
all that and life in football?
Again, it is sobering and all those
things can kind of, you know,
we're so geared towards our job.
Everything revolves around
football and it is our life and
we try to not at least myself,
I try to not put my identity fully
in football, but you do give a lot.
You give a lot and it's mentally
and physically taxing and so
to to have moments like that.
That are real, real life moments
that aren't completely football are
completely unrelated to football.
I think it gives you a sense of reality
and makes you realize there's there's
a much bigger picture and there's
much more important things in life.
And so I think it's,
it's cool that we can kind of rally
around each other, be together.
We do kind of have this slower period this
week until we ramp back up next week.
So I think everybody can kind of.
Hash through it on their own and I again,
I think it'll be cool to get Brian
back in here and around the guys.
I'm sure that'll be uplifting for him.
And that's because he loves he loves
this place, he loves the ball.
He always comes with energy.
So yeah,
I think it's it's it's always
a tough thing to navigate,
but it's cool that we can be
around each other and be together.