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| Posted on Monday, June 10 @ 00:00:05 PDT |
TRANSCRIPT: Damien Harris’ Interview with TheAthletic’s Robert Mays ???? Read Time: 45 minutes [Patriots Transcripts](https://www.patsfans.com/patriots/blog/category/patriots-transcripts/) [New England Patriots](https://www.patsfans.com) > [Patriots Blog](/patriots/blog/) What did Damien Harris [say in his interview ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxRnmRVDzRs&pp=ygUXRGFtaWVuIEhhcnJpcyBpbnRlcnZpZXc%3D)with TheAthletic’s Robert Mays? If you haven’t had time to listen, here’s the full transcript from last week. RM: Joining us now, it is former NFL running back, Damien Harris. Damien, how are you doing, man? I appreciate you doing this. DH: “Man, I’m blessed and highly favored. How are you doing?” RM: I’m doing wonderful. Back from vacation. Excited to be back having these conversations. A little quieter time in the offseason now. OTAs winding down. What did you typically do in that six weeks? Did you get away for the whole time? How did you treat the post-OTA’s pre-training camp stretch in the NFL calendar? DH: “You definitely want to enjoy it, right? Because especially when I played in New England, Bill Belichick used to always say, ‘Once August gets here, you basically take everything else that’s important to you.
You put it in a drawer, and you don’t open that drawer until February, hopefully.’ So I always just tried to maximize that time. Whether it be trying to see my family, trying to just escape and unplug at times, go somewhere nice, enjoy myself, just anything I could do to just enjoy some time off because it’s … this craft, the game of football, but sports in general, you just put so much into it. So really, anytime you get some time off, you want to enjoy it. So I just tried to get away as much as I can, take my mind away from football, but while also trying to work out and try to maintain being in shape because that’s the worst thing that could happen is you got some guys who after OTAs and mini camp and all this stuff, they don’t really do anything for six weeks. And then they come back to training camp and it’s like, pulled hamstring here, pulled quad there, missed your conditioning test or you don’t make weight. So, you definitely want to enjoy yourself, but you definitely want to keep yourself in the right train of thought and the right routine. It’s all about having a routine in the National Football League. So as long as I can stay in my routine, I was going to see how I could have fun and stay in my routine at the same time.
” RM: This is the first year in a while that you haven’t been prepping to play an NFL season at this stage of the calendar. You retired a couple of months ago. In your retirement announcement, I thought you said something that was really pointed. You said you were grateful that you found the strength to walk away from the game because I’m sure that wasn’t easy. Ultimately, what made that decision? What led you to that decision? And when you decided to do it, how did it feel in the moment to say that and to ultimately land there? DH: “Yeah, it was a whole surreal situation. I mean, obviously, the decision came because of the injury that I had last year, where I messed up my neck pretty good. And ultimately, that just wasn’t something that I could come back from. And in that statement that I made, having the strength to walk away, the reason why I thought it was important to say that was because I see a lot of guys. I’ve played with a lot of guys, and you see it all the time, guys who chase that dream for, unfortunately, way too long. They put their bodies through too much. They put their minds and their brains through too much. Whenever their career is basically telling them that it’s over.
You know what I mean? For me, I never wanted to be that guy. Once my time was up, I wanted to have the mental fortitude to be ready to move forward. Luckily, the injury, obviously, that wasn’t a fortunate situation, but it came at the most perfect time because I just got married and my wife was pregnant, and now we have a two-month-old son. I was really just able to have that mental fortitude to shift my focus from, Okay, Something that I have loved for 20 years, something I’ve given all my attention, every ounce of my being to for the past 20 years, I can flip that page because I got a beautiful two-month-old son, I got a wonderful wife, got a beautiful home, and there’s so much life left to live.” “Every morning, whenever my son wakes up and he opens his eyes, I’m just like, Man, this right here is the life that I want to impact. My life has… I’ve already accomplished so many things and had so many experiences and been able to do so many things, meet so many people, have so many different experiences. Now when I look at my son, that’s the life that I want to impact. That’s the life that I really want to touch and mold and help become a great person. I’m not looking for my son to be a great football player.
I’m not looking for him to be this, that, or the third. I’m looking for him to be a great human being, and everything that comes with that is extra. Like I said, God blessed me with an amazing foundation here at home, and it really allowed me to mentally process what was happening and be able to move forward and move on and just start living a normal life. The whole season is offseason to me now. Like I said, I’m just so grateful. I said that when I retired, expressing gratitude is what I’m all about right now. I’m grateful for all the time that I had playing ball, and like I said, all the experiences that I had. But that time comes for everybody, and my time came. And so because of the mental fortitude, because of all the great things in my life, I was just really able to flip that page.” RM: It’s always interesting to me to talk to people in moments in transition, just because there’s a lot of reflection that goes on. You’re taking stock of everything. As you look back, and not just your NFL career, not just the years you spend in the NFL, but from the time you started playing until the time you stopped, if you could do one thing differently as it relates to football, what would it have been? DH: “Man, nothing.
Absolutely nothing. Nothing.” RM: Not a single thing? DH: “Not a single thing. Because obviously, I thought about it like, Okay, my career is over. Just for shits and [giggles], what can I think about? If I had done this differently, maybe this would have happened. If I had done this differently, maybe this would have happened. But I was so blessed, man. I came from literally the middle of nowhere, Brassfield, Kentucky. I was fortunate enough to be the number one running back coming out of high school. I was fortunate enough to play for Nick Saban at the University of Alabama. Win two national championships, three SEC Championships. I was able to be drafted by the world’s greatest [New England Patriots](https://www.patsfans.com). I got to play with Tom Brady for a year. I got to be coached by Bill Belichick. Then I went on to play with Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs, Coach McDermott, Buffalo Bills. I mean, if anything, I can say, Oh, maybe I wish that I hadn’t hurt my neck last year and had to …” RM: That’s out of your control, though. That has nothing to do with anything you could have done. DH: “Other than that, nothing, dude. Like I said, dude, I’m so grateful for just the opportunities that I had, man.
Like I said, looking back to where I came from, to where I am now, and not just the experiences, but now the effects that I have, the platform that I have, the ability that I have to connect with people, the ability that I have to speak up for certain people, and voice an opinion that might not be heard if somebody else says it. There’s so many parts of this journey of life and so many things that this game of football has done for me and brought for me that I really cannot look back and say, I would change a single thing. I love the life that I lived. I loved every second of my career. I enjoyed every second of it, even the hard times. It wasn’t always easy playing for Nick Saban and Bill Belichick. You know what I mean? But every single thing that happened from the time that I was eight years old until the moment I’m sitting in front of you today, I’ve just been so grateful and so fortunate, with the exception of one major injury.” “But even with that, like I said, that’s helped me transition into being a very present husband, a very present father, a very present member of the community. I’m looking to do my first kids camp back at home, back in Richmond, Kentucky.
So I’m just, dude, I’m blessed. You know what I mean? I know I sound like a broken record, but I don’t have anything that I wish I could go back and change. I’m loving life and everything that God has brought me through the game of football, through life in general. Every day, I’m just looking at how can I continue to be a better version of myself? How can I positively affect people? Obviously, alongside being the best dad and husband that I can be.” RM: All right, let’s look back at some of those connections, some of those relationships you had with those people. As you go back through the… I don’t know how long you played football, 10, 15 years? DH: “About 20.” RM: In 20 years playing football … what would you say is the best, whether it’s a piece of advice, little nugget of wisdom that you got from those pretty heavy hitters that you managed to come across during your entire career? DH: “Yeah. I don’t even know if this is… Usually, I wouldn’t share this, but this is true. So back when I was in Alabama and we had Scott Cochrane as our strength coach, the best piece of advice that he always gave us, and it was no matter what the circumstance in the weight room, on the field, whether it be not showing up to study hall, not going to class, he would always look at you and say, ‘Be a pro, not a hoe.
’ And that was some of the realest advice that I’ve ever got. Because even in college, they were teaching us to be professional, and not just professional football players, but everything you do, be professional at it. Whenever you’re supposed to go to class, be professional, show up on time, be respectful, give the teachers, give the administrators your full undivided attention, and just be professional. Or if you’re out doing community service, doing work in the community, be professional, be polite, be available, so on and so forth. At an early age, when I was 18 years old and got to Tuscaloosa, and the first time I heard him say, ‘Be a pro, not a hoe, I was like, Oh, wait a minute.” “Okay. First of all, I was like, okay, I like that. Be a pro, not a hoe, it’s catchy. You know what I mean? But then, obviously, once you get past how funny it is, then it’s like, okay, seriously, there’s two ways to do it. There’s either being a pro or there’s not. You know what I mean? So be a pro, just be a pro. That helped me with my transition from Alabama to New England, and then New England to Buffalo, and then ultimately Buffalo to now. Just trying to be professional in everything that I do at all times, whether somebody’s watching me or not, whether I’m on camera or not, just be a professional at absolutely every aspect of my life.
” RM: Yeah, that’s a good one. It’s very simple. It cuts through the noise. It sticks with you, it’s concise. I appreciate that. That’s something that I think a lot of people could take and move forward with. All right, I want to have a conversation with you that I’ve had, I don’t know, 100 times on a various podcast. The difference is we’ve talked on every show I’ve ever done over the last decade or so. First football podcast I ever hosted was in 2011. If you think about the way the game was in 2011 to the way the game is now, we have hit every step of the running back value discourse over those 13 years. But in all those conversations I’ve had about the devaluation of the position, how do you understand its fit within the modern game? I’ve never had that conversation in a platform like this with somebody who played the position in the NFL. So, I want to go back about a year, March, June, July of 2023, when you were a free agent, but there was also everything happening with that entire group of guys, Saquon, Josh Jacobs, Tony Pollard, who had fantastic seasons and ultimately didn’t get multi-year contracts. So as you were sitting back and thinking about your next step and about the market for all of those guys, was there a moment as all of that was happening where you finally just said, Come on, this has just gone too far? Was there a breaking point anywhere along the way? DH: “Hell, Yeah, absolutely.
Because I remember last offseason when I was going through free agency and nobody was really signing multi-year deals, nobody was really getting high-level extensions. I was even talking to my agent like, ‘What’s going on?’ Because it was such a surprise because I remember that was supposed to be the class that was supposed to reset the running back market. Everybody was looking at my class that was coming up in free agency. This is going to be the class that reshapes the market for the running back position. They’re going to get guys paid more. They’re going to get guys more guaranteed money, more extended deals, so on and so forth. And it just wasn’t happening. Because, obviously my phone wasn’t ringing. And so I was in touch with my agent like, ‘What’s going on?’ He’s like, ‘Bro, nobody’s phones are ringing because just the market is just not doing what everybody thought it was going to do.’ And it was the weirdest thing, for a lack of better words. I didn’t really describe it as that at the time. I thought it was a bunch of bullshit. But it was just the strangest thing because you got all these guys who were expected to do it.” “So then basically, all these teams gave them a tryout year, and then eventually paid them anyways.
But when you do that, then you only have a couple of guys who are getting paid. Versus in my class, it was supposed to start with the guys up here, and then it was supposed to trickle all the way down. And a lot of guys were supposed to benefit from that. But that’s the thing with the league, unfortunately. With running backs, it’s like, ‘Okay, you’ve been a great player for three or four years. Okay, prove it again. Because you just have to. One, we’re not going to pay you. We’re going to send you somewhere else, and they’re probably not going to pay you.’ So you just got to keep proving yourself year after year after year.” “And then once you finally get to the level of proving yourself, then they’re like, ‘Oh, shit, well, you’re too old now, and now your career is going to start going like this.’ So you work so hard to prove yourself. And once you get to the mountaintop of like, ‘Okay, finally, I’m about to get what was owed to me.’ And then they look at you and they’re like, ‘You’ve been in the league for about five years now, six years now. You’ve already surpassed the average lifespan of a running back. So at any year now, it could be your last year, and you could be gone.
’ So it’s such a weird dynamic, man. Obviously, it was great to see Saquon get paid. Josh Jacobs got paid. Myles Sanders got paid. Deandre Swift got paid. They all got … Tony Pollard.” RM: It was a good year. Tony Pollard got that deal. Mixen got a new contract. DH: “Yeah, you’ve seen some guys get some good deals, but it’s such a… There’s so much, I don’t want to say politics, but it’s almost like there’s so much politics that goes into it, right? Because you have some teams who are like, ‘You know what? I’m going to pay my back. This is my guy. I’m going to pay him. I’m going to keep him.’ I think that ended in the Todd Gurley age, and that’s when it started to transition out. Now you’ve just got teams who are just like, ‘Prove it, prove it, prove it, prove it.’ That’s what a franchise tag is. It’s just a prove it deal. They’re willing to show you out one year’s worth of good dough to prove it, to hope that, ‘Okay, this is going to be his last good year, and then after this, we won’t have to pay him anymore. So essentially, we give him one good year as opposed to one big long lucrative contract.” RM: If you look at it, even the guys that got deals over the last year or so, Jonathan Taylor, Saquon, Josh Jacobs.
Saquon’s deal, I think it’s 14-ish million a year. That’s less than 5% of the current salary cap. If you look at the deal that CMC got when he signed it, that’s 8.1, and Kamara is at 7.6. And the Jonathan Taylor contract is really just a slight improvement on what the Nick Chubb deal was three or four years ago. So even these guys who are getting rewarded at ‘What has become the top of the market,’ it’s a significant decline from what guys were getting three or four years ago. And I think the general conventional wisdom about this is runningbacks are replaceable. You can find them. There are guys that you can slot in and you can get them in the third, fourth round. With that discourse and that mindset of viewing the position, what do you think people are missing about some of the guys that can transcend that idea? DH: “Well, I think of a guy like Saquon Barkley, right? And so obviously, Saquon is an incredibly, incredibly talented guy, right? When he’s got the ball in his hands, he’s electric, right? But then you also got to think, Okay, well, how many times a defense is going to line up in an eight-man box because they don’t want Saquan to rush for 150 yards, and you got two receivers streaking down the field, you got a quarterback that can get them the ball.
I mean, that completely shapes a game plan. That completely changes what a defense is going to throw at you. Or say you got the same Saquan who, obviously, like I said, electric with the ball in his hands, but who’s going to protect Daniel Jones, or in this case, Jalen Hurtz, so he can throw to A. J. Brown. There are so many things that runningbacks do that are transformative to the entire game of football. Don’t get me wrong, it’s 100 % a quarterback-driven league. I get that. But at the same time, you have to have one, a run game to balance out your run-pass option. You got to have a running back that’s going to at least draw the attention of a defense.” “You want a seven-man box, you want an eight-man box. Then what does that set up? That sets up your play action, because as soon as you fake to somebody like Saquan, all three of your linebackers are going to go shooting the gaps. Like, Oh, I got to go hit this, dude. I got to fill my gap. I got gap responsibility. I got to do this. Oh, snap. The quarterback still got the ball in his hands. So then what do they do? They just turn and run. And that’s what linebackers do. They just turn and run. They have no clue where they’re going.
They just turn and run, trying to find a receiver to cover. And by that time, when you got guys like A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, just the plethora of options that Philly has that transform a complete game plan. As a defensive coordinator, okay, do we want to stop Saquan from running the ball? Do we want to sit back and let our coverage handle the deep part of the field and then let Saquan run for 150 yards? Or what are we going to do every time he play actions? What are we going to do whenever they run screens?” “That’s what goes on through a defensive coordinator’s mind. A defensive coordinator is not going to sit and look at a receiver and be like, Okay, I have to design my entire game plan around this guy. If anything, he’s going to be like, We’re going to run one double 11, which is two guys cover A.J. Brown. And that’s it.” RM: Bill Belichick special. DH: “Yeah. You know what I mean? It’s nothing. You designate two guys to him, try to eliminate them from the other half of the field, and that’s it. But you got such a dynamic player at running back who can not only run the ball, can catch out of the backfield, can block, can draw defenders in play action. You literally have to base your entire game plan around this guy.
So whenever you think about it in terms like that, why are running backs so undervalued?” RM: I think a lot of it, the argument that people would make is a lot of those resources and a lot of the defensive structures that teams match with are based on personnel and based on alignment, right? If you’re using 12, 13 personnel, we’re going to line up with heavy personnel. We’re going to put more guys down in the box. But I think that framing of it where it’s really just Xs and O’s on a chalkboard. DH: “Xs and O’s.” RM: Is dismissing the human element of this. The example I go back to is you look at the 2019 Titans and what that play action, that downhill play action game looked like. If you’re the Mike Linebacker, it is a different mindset when that’s a 250 pound Derrick Henry back there and they’re under center, and you have to worry about him coming at you with a full head of steam rather than you actually trying to meet him in the hole. There’s something about that that it has to be in the back of your mind. I remember talking to a couple of Lions players at the Super Bowl about the way they approach the Niners. If you look at the defenses that the Niners play against, the amount of cover three, the amount of heavy boxes.
Some of that is structural, right? 21 personnel, that’s how you’re going to match it? But at the same time, those guys have CMC in the back of their heads before the game even starts. I think those are some of the more ineffable qualities of this and the hard to define, hard to pin down elements of it where there are human aspects to this that probably have more value and more impact than we can understand based on the way that we think about the position. DH: “100%. Because to your point, I remember Bill Belichick, that used to tell us all the time, ‘Don’t go out there and be robots. Don’t just run the line on the piece of paper. Use your instincts, use your eyes, whatever God blessed you with to play this game, use it.’ So naturally, yes, you’re saying, ‘Okay, well, if there’s 12 personnel out there, this personnel is going to be out there on defense. If this guy is lined up here, this guy is lined up here.’ But as football players, if we’re using our instincts, if I’m a middle linebacker, I don’t care what personnel is out there. If Derrick Henry is in the backfield, like you just said, this is what’s going on through my mind. As soon as he steps downhill, I got to start running because I got to hit him before he hits me.
Or same with Christian McCaffrey. Even if you’re not thinking, ‘Oh, I got to go thump this dude.’ Okay, well, if he just has a sliver, a sliver of space, he can make you miss in a phone booth. You know what I’m saying? He can make a mistackle in a phone booth.” “So he just got that little sliver space. So I got to react right now. But like you said, that’s not because they’re in 12 personnel. That’s because Christian McCaffrey is in the backfield, because Saquon Barkley is in the backfield, because Derrick Henry is in the backfield, because Josh Jacobs is in the backfield. Like you said, there’s a human element to this. We’re not – I say we, I don’t play no more – but football players are not …” RM: You’re still a member of the fraternity, the running back fraternity. DH: “I know, 100 %. But football players aren’t robots. It’s not going to be like, ‘Okay, they’re in 12 personnel. Let me just key the exact personnel they’re in in this exact formation. And like, okay, that’s it.’ No. TJ Watt, right? I’ll take this as an example. Whenever we play the Steelers, TJ Watt will line up all over the field. So it didn’t matter what defensive personnel they were in.
It didn’t matter what front they were in because it’s like, okay, if TJ was on the left side, our protection needs to go to the left side. If T. J. Watts is on the right side, then we might need to chip or help on this.” “We might need to tie it in the jam or something like that. So to your point, you’re 100% correct. I think people are missing the human element of what does Saquan bring to the field and how does that affect the team that he’s playing? Just plain and simple.” RM: When you were… Slight pivot here, because I wanted to ask you about this with T. J. Watts. In New England, which defensive player do you think sucked up the most oxygen as you game planned for them? The guy that was just loomed the largest in the week before a game during your time there. DH: “Yeah. Man, we played some guys. A couple of times when we played the Browns and we had to face Myles Garrett. It was just like, ‘This is just going to be a problem and a half. This dude is going to be an absolute problem.’ And we would do that. Every week whenever we would play teams, as soon as we would sit down in our first overview of the team we were I’m saying. Josh Daniels, when I was in doing that, he would circle, ‘This guy is the guy we cannot let him wreck our game.
We cannot let him wreck our game.’ Like I said, Myles Garrett sometimes. I would say, not Mason, Maxx Crosby probably was the guy of guys because he has a supernatural motor. His skillset is off the charts. Don’t get me wrong. He’s got the same skillset as every elite pass rusher in the recent memory. But, dude, his motor. I’ve never seen a guy with a motor like this guy. And that’s what we would say. You can block him with two or three guys. You literally cannot block him or you can’t stop blocking him until you’re going back to the huddle because he will find a way to get to the ball if you turn him loose for a split second.” RM: I really don’t think we appreciate what he is right now. The fact that he’s playing a thousand snaps a year, he never leaves the field. He’s as impactful and as scary on early downs because I think he gets as much enjoyment of blowing up a run play, as he does out of a sack. DH: “Yeah, he’s an elite run setter. When it comes to setting the edge … I remember, it was funny. We played Vegas when I was in Buffalo last year, and I had a run on third, and I think it was third and two, but I ended up busting it for a decent gain, 20 yards.
But the only reason I did that was because he blew through the line of scrimage so fast. By the time I got the ball, I actually had a split second to make a move because it happened so fast. As soon as I got the ball, I was like, ‘Oh, shit, I got to go over here.’ And he he penetrates so well that he just collapsed that entire side. Luckily, I was able to make a move and get around him. But that dude is like, he’s super, supernatural. Like I said, his ability, but his motor, that’s what makes him different. And that’s something that can’t be coached, it can’t be taught. You’re born with that. And I think that he takes the pass rushing game and just playing the edge, playing the position of an edge rusher, he takes it to a whole ‘nother level.” RM: Going back to the running back value thing for a second, because I wanted to ask you, this is somebody who understands every little nuance of how this works. I think for some people on the outside, there’s an understanding that, okay, or an idea that the offensive line drives this, right? The offensive line is the engine of most running games. What can a running back do to make the guys in front of him better, or to put this another way, maybe transcend what is blocked for him? What are the things that maybe were missing that allow specific guys to do those two things? DH: “You got to think the way they think.
You have to look at the… First of all, you have to understand the run schemes the way that they understand it. Because to be honest, it’s not coached the same. It’s two totally different positions, whether it’s offensive line or running back. They’re taught differently. It’s not necessarily the same. But you have to find a way to find that middle ground. And what I would always do is, even in college, I remember when Brent Key was our offensive line coach at Alabama. I just went in whenever we had run game meetings, I would urge our running back coach, ‘please let us go in there and watch film. Let us do whatever we need to do, whatever install, going over the run schemes, whatever. Let’s go do it with offensive line.’ And so we started doing that.” “And then I realized as I got to the league, that was really how it was done. Whenever you do run game meetings, it would be the running backs would sit down with O-Linemen. Whatever the play was, they’d show it on the screen. Then the O-Line would make their calls, and then the running backs would be like, ‘Okay, I see it this way. If you want to block it this way, whenever you hit this, I’m ready to do that.
Or whenever I get the ball and I take this fifth step, I’m expecting you to be here.’ So it’s a little bit of give and take, right? What does the offensive line think? How do they see the game? But also, we’re the guys with the ball in our hands, so we have some say so, too. But once you have that relationship, and I’ve seen guys where running backs, when they come in, they’re just like, ‘Listen, this is how I want it blocked. This is how I want this. This is how I want that. I’m this, I’m that. And so either block it this way or we’re going to find new linemen,’ and everybody’s looking at them like…” RM: That’s probably not the note you want to start that. DH: “Right. But I’ve also been places where I’ve seen offensive line. They like to dictate the running lanes, and they like to dictate where they think the ball should go. And although that might be true as a runner, not only am I seeing that, but I’m also feeling what’s going on from sideline to sideline. I’m also looking at the linebackers. I’m looking at the safeties back 20 yards deep. So it’s like, ‘Yeah, you might have blocked it, and you might have thought the hole was right there.
But based on what I saw, I had to take it. You blocked it to go right, B-gap on the right side, but I got to take it D-gap all the way on the left side.’ But see, that’s where you got to have that camaraderie. You got to have that trust that way. You can go after a drive, sit on the bench, and be like, ‘All right, this is what I saw, and this is what I had to do. ‘They look at me and be like, ‘All right, yeah, you trust your eyes, trust your read. We’re going to block for you. We’re going to do this. You use your eyes, use your instincts, whatever.’ “And then vice versa, I’d be like, Okay, I might have missed the hole right here because I thought I saw something or I felt something that wasn’t really right. I need to just trust you guys a little bit more. You guys are doing your thing up front. You guys are the anchor. You guys are setting the identity. You guys are setting the line of scrimage. I need to follow you guys. So a lot of give and take, a lot of film sessions, a lot of backdoor cookouts and hangouts and stuff like that. But that’s what is so great about this game, not even to pivot away from the question, but that’s what’s so great about the game of football is the camaraderie that you can build, the brotherhood that you can build.
And through football, You can learn more about guys outside of football and spending time with guys outside of football can build your bond on the football field. So it’s just such a transparent game. What you get into it is what you put out. If you bring good energy and you’re willing to work and be, not coachable, but be able to adapt and adjust with the guys around you and vice versa, that’s what’s made up some of the best teams that I’ve been on. RM: I want to get a little bit granular here because I’m curious about this. As we move away from maybe the physical talent aspects of the position, explosion, strength, things like that, what do you think is the hardest aspect of the position to hone that maybe is a little less physical? I know vision is such a nebulous word, but is it aiming points and timing in the zone run game? Is it understanding how things are going to unfold in front of you in gap scheme runs? What is the element of playing running back that you think takes the longest to hone that has nothing to do with the physical side of it? DH: “I think your ability to balance when to use your instinct versus when to use your coaching. I think that that is the most… Because to me, other than quarterback, running back is the most reactionary position.
If you’re a receiver, you’ve got a route, you’re running at this depth, or you convert versus this, right? But with running back, it’s like I said, the hole can be blocked over here and you got to go over here. Or they want running backs to be able to play all over the field, right? You got to be able to do this. You got to be able to play receiver. You’ve got be able to play all these different types of positions. There’s just so many things that can go on in your mind. It’s like, ‘Okay, when do I listen to my coaching and when do I just use my instincts?’ Because there have been times where I’ve done exactly what I’ve been coached to do and got MF’d because it’s like, ‘Well, why did you do that?’ I’m like, ‘Well, I thought I was supposed to do that based on you.’ They’re like, ‘Well, don’t be an idiot. Don’t be a robot. Just because I say, Go jump off a bridge, I don’t mean you’re going to do it.” “But then there have also been times where I’ve made a humongous play using nothing but instincts, gone exactly where the ball wasn’t supposed to go and had a huge success. There have been times where I’ve been coached like, ‘Okay, yeah, that worked out that one time.
But just because it worked out that one time doesn’t mean that it’s going to work out every time.’ That’s why you have coaches. That’s why you have rules. That’s why you have X, Y, and Z. I think for running backs, the biggest thing is trying to differentiate when do I use my instincts versus when do I just revert back to my coaching? Because like I said, as soon as that ball turns over, there ain’t much It’s time to think. So you either got to do one or the other, instincts or coaching.” RM: And so that’s my question. Can you learn that? Or is that just something that’s just innate? You either have that or you don’t. DH: “And truly, I think so, because some guys are just wired to be like, ‘Okay, I’ve been coached to do this. This is what I’m going to do. Come hell or high water, I can’t be wrong if I’m doing what I’m told, so that’s what I’m going to do.’ And then you got some guys who are just like, ‘Man, God bless me to do this. I got to the NFL without you. I got here without you, and I’m still going to be me without you. So as long as I’m playing ball, I’m going to play it my way. I’m going to use my instincts, and I’m going to do it how I see fit.
’ And you see guys having success both ways. So it’s really … it depends on the guy, from guy to guy. I like to be right in the middle of both. I love to do what I was coached to do, but at the same time, I knew I had great instincts, and I liked to use them. So it’s really just over time. I mean, maybe you can develop it, but it’s usually you’re one of the other.” RM: Yeah, it’s a feel thing. And I think that you see that with certain guys. This would be hard to answer because you’re not in the room and you don’t know whether it’s one or the other. But as you’re looking at guys in the league right now, who stands out as somebody that you think has a really good understanding of when to choose one or the other? DH: “You put me right on the spot. Honestly, I would go Josh Jacobs, truly, because I saw it when I played with him. But I also… I’ve watched this guy. I love watching him. Ever since, obviously, we graduated and went our separate ways. But Josh has always been so good at… If there’s a hole there, if the player is blocked perfectly and the hole is there and it’s exactly where it’s coached to be, he’s going to hit it and he’s going to take it for a 80-yard touchdown if he can.
But I’ve also seen Josh take some absolutely crazy, crazy path of the most resistance. And next thing you know, he’s forcing six or seven missed tackles and ended up gaining 35 yards. Everybody’s like, ‘That’s one of the best runs I’ve ever seen.’ So I would definitely look at Josh Jacobs. Josh is a guy who is very much… He very much so does exactly what’s needed within the scheme. He does exactly what’s needed within whether it was in Vegas, whether it was in Alabama, and I’m sure it was going to be in Green Bay. Whatever fits their system, whatever fits their scheme, he can provide that.” “But that’s another thing about Josh is he’s got such an explosive element of just using his instincts and his God-given ability that if there’s no play. If you run 10 plays and all 10 of them are busted plays, I would guarantee you about five or six of them, he’ll make a huge play out of it just because he’s instinctual, he’s crafty, he’s explosive, and he just has that God-given just ability to just make plays.” RM: When you were having those conversations with the offensive liners sitting in some of those meetings, whether it be in Alabama or New England, what jumped out to you or what maybe popped up about the way that offensive linemen think or the way that they see the game that you wouldn’t have understood before you started sitting in those meetings and being a part of those conversations? DH: “Well, I might be exposing myself to a little football or not being as knowledgeable in the subject as I once should have been.
But back in the day, I thought when I was growing up high school and before I really got to college, I was thinking, ‘Okay, tackles are coached to just play tackle. Guards are taught just to play guard. Center is taught just to play center, and so on and so forth.’ What surprised me was the tackle was supposed to know what the center was doing. The center is supposed to know what the guard was doing. The guard is supposed to know what the tackle was doing. But it was because they were all working cohesively. It wasn’t because, ‘Okay, well, I just need to know this dude’s job just for shits and giggles. No, I need to know what he’s doing because we’re going to have a combination block because the D tackle is in a two-wide, not a two technique. So we’re going to have to combo him. And because this other guy is in a shade, that means on the backside, these guys are going to have this combination back there.” “And it was just layers on layers on layers. I was like, ‘Whoa, Wait, what? So you mean to tell me that the left tackle knows what the right guard is doing if the ball is going left?’ That’s crazy to me. And so that was when I really started to understand just how much goes into the game of football.
You know what I mean? Because being completely transparent. Growing up, I was fortunate to just be able to just… If they handed me the ball, I was just running for a touchdown. You know what I mean? I was going to find a way. I was zigzag 10, 15 times, but I find a way to get to the end zone. And And once I got to college, and truly, once I started sitting with the offensive lineman, I feel like that’s when my knowledge of football really just took off.” RM: Was there something that you feel like it took you a while to get down? Whether that’s, again, aiming points, angles. What was the thing as you had to be a little bit more nuanced and thoughtful about the position that was the toughest part of the transition? DH: “Well, if you ever asked Josh McDaniels, my old offensive coordinator from New England, he would tell you that I was the absolute worst inside zone runner because I did not turn my shoulders on my tracks and aiming points to save my life. And the thing is, I would be perfectly on track. I would be perfectly … I would be there at the exact perfect timing, but my shoulders, instead of being exactly parallel, were just a little… Instead of going from here, they’re just like this.
Just a little cock a little bit. And he would MF me, and he would ‘Do it again. You know what? Just get out. You don’t want to do it right, just get out. Just get out.’ So I would say the tracks, the aiming points, and just the ultimate, just the really small, fine-tuned details, the small nuances of the NFL. And I think that would be at any position because there’s such a huge transition from college football to the NFL, just on every guy you play against in the NFL, he was the best guy on his team. He was the best guy in his conference. He was one of the best players in the country.” “So in college, it’s just like the best players on the best team usually win. But in the NFL, it’s like you got the best players on all 32 NFL teams. Those nuances and those small details become incredibly, incredibly important. So I think that just trying to shake the, ‘Okay, I am the best player, and I just got drafted’ to, ‘Oh, wait, I got to be on top of all of my shit, literally every single step,’ from counting steps in your head at practice to like, ‘Okay, I’m supposed to get the ball on my fifth step. Okay, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Okay, I got the ball.’ Just those small details like that.
It’s a hard transition, man. It really is.” RM: All right, let’s chat a little bit about that New England coaching staff and about what the last couple of years were like. When you saw that Bill Belichick did not get a job in this cycle, what was your initial in action? DH: “I wasn’t surprised. Listen, I’m not saying that to say anything bad about Bill Belichick, but I just wasn’t surprised because he’s been in one place for so long, and I think that just at the stage of his career that he’s in, I think that what he was expecting to be handed to him if he were going to be coaching again versus what people were willing to give him in retrospect, I think that maybe they just didn’t align. That’s something that I could have obviously seen coming because Bill was the head coach, Bill was the GM, Bill was damn near the offensive coordinator, damn near the defensive coordinator, damn near the special teams coordinator, damn near this, damn near that. And if he was going to go coach for another team, it would have probably just been head coach, or just been this or just been that. He wouldn’t have had the full range of control like he had in New England. So I think without that, it’s a little tough for him to just go somewhere and just be like, ‘Okay, I’m just filling the spot.
I’m just filling this coach’s spot.’ He needs full, full-on control.” “That’s just the guy Bill Belichick is. But at the same time, can you blame him? Because in the 20 years where he had full control, he had a lot of success. So you can’t blame him. You definitely can’t blame him.” RM: When you saw how things worked in, let’s say, a more traditional environment in Buffalo, where you have a head coach, you have a GM, the set up is just like it is around most of the NFL. How different did that feel day to day than what it was like in New England during your time? DH: “I felt like I was on a different planet, honestly. And the people, all the staff in Buffalo were so surprised at how surprised that I was that shit was so different. It It was just night and day different because in New England, it was like, usually, unless it was something non-football related, unless it was some off the field stuff, you would just go to Bill. You know what I mean?” RM: Give me an example, something that maybe would sound strange to someone else, but in New England, that’s what you did. You just went to Belichick about it. DH: “Okay, I’ll put it to you this way. So in Buffalo, whenever it’s like, okay, if you want to understand why you’re not playing, or if you want to understand why you’re not here or there, talk to your position coach.
If you guys don’t work it out, if you’re still feeling a little uneasy, then you can talk to the head coach and then possibly the GM. So it’s like tiers of who you go to because everybody is in charge of their own department, right? So a running back coach for Buffalo Bills, he’s going to determine how much I play. So if I got a problem with me not playing as much, I go to him. Whereas in New England, Bill has a little bit more say so of like, ‘Okay, I want this running back in the game at this time.’ So if I’m a running back and I’m not necessarily happy with my reps, my playing time, then I just got to go straight to Bill Belichick’s office and be like, ‘Hey, Mr. Coach Belichick? Sir, why am I not playing?’ That’s just intimidating. As opposed to going to my running back cocach.” “In Buffalo, I had a running back coach’s name. We call him Skip, Skipper the Flipper, one of the coolest dudes I’ve ever been around. And you can just go and be like, shoot this shit with him like, ‘Skip, yo, what’s up? Why am I not I’m playing. Tell me something. Tell me what I need to do. Tell me what I need to fix, whatever.’ ‘Man, maybe some of this, or maybe the season, roles get defined,’ blah, blah, blah, this, that, and the third.
Whereas it with Bill, it’s like, You’re not doing this good enough, and this, and blah, blah, blah. And it’s hard, man. It’s hard because I realized that once I got to Buffalo, there are people for everything as opposed to one person for everything. You know what I mean? So that was a big transition for me.” RM: Do you think ultimately that became a problem where he’s just spread a little bit too thin, especially when you consider how many people left the organization who had been pretty trustworthy lieutenants over time? It felt like beyond having that purview, the people he could maybe lean on in some of those quieter moments started leaving at such a clip that there was even more that had been thrown onto his plate. DH: “I wouldn’t think of it as a spreading himself too thin. I would think of it more so of having an idea that, obviously, all the success that was had in New England was because of one person, and it wasn’t Tom Brady. And that one person was Bill Belichick, Because there were guys like Matt Patricia, like Joe Judge, who left and went other places, and however their situation worked out, they ended up coming back. And all of a sudden, Matt Patricia goes from defensive coordinator to offensive coordinator.
Well, why is that? It’s because we’re all just pawns in Bill Belichick’s game of monopoly, and we can all be moved. We can all be interchanged. We can all be like, ‘Okay, well, you coached here all your life. Screw that. You can go coach here because as long as you imply and instill what I am teaching, what I am coaching, then the team will have success.’ I think that is what led to the trouble starting to… The tide starting to turn, trouble started to arise just because then you start putting… I’m going to die on this hill, and people might be upset with me, people might be happy with me, people might be somewhere in between.” “What happened to Mac Jones in New England was not because of Mac Jones. What happened in New England to Mac Jones was because of the fact you took away an offensive coordinator who coached him to be a Pro Bowler and almost coached us to winning our division with a rookie quarterback in his first year. And then you take – whenever Josh McDaniels left – then you take Matt Patricia, who’s coached defense his entire life, Joe Judge, who has been a special team’s coach, coached receivers at some point. And then you just throw him in there and be like, ‘Hey, coach this kid up.
He’s a first-round pick. But as long as you teach him what I say, everything’s going to be fine.’ And shit wasn’t fine. Now, Mac Jones is in Jacksonville. Now, they’re on to Drake Maye. They’re on to a whole… It’s like the breath of Mac Jones in New England, it came and went, and it shouldn’t [gone] have the way that it went. And the only reason that it did because Bill Belichick being stuck in his ways was very much so. As long as I am here, as long as I am, along with Robert Kraft, the top dog at this organization, no matter who, no matter where, what position, where they coach, whatever, we will have success.” “I think that that kind of started with the Cam Newton situation where we brought in Cam Newton because everybody was like, WTF, what the fuck is this? Why Cam Newton? Bill thought that he could make it work. It didn’t really work. Then we drafted Mac. We had a hell of a year that year. It was my third year in the league, his first year. Had a hell of a year. Went on a seven-game win streak, started off kind of rocky. Went on to win seven straight. At that time, we were looking at ourselves like, ‘We might have a Super Bowl run right here. As long as people keep playing well,’ so on and so forth.
And then the next year after that, you replace, like I said, Josh McDaniels with Matt Patricia and Joe Judge, and look at the year that we had that year. Then the following year, and then now Mac Jones is all of a sudden gone. And I think that everybody can look at what I just said, and ultimately look at it and just watch it for what it was and kind of say that maybe Bill Belichick did not do right by Mac Jones.” RM: Yeah, it’s not like he was throwing to Randy Moss and Wes Walker that year, either. I like Jacob Meyers. I think Jacob Meyers is a really solid NFL player, but Jacob Meyers was by far the most targeted player on that team, and you guys finished sixth in points per game that year. I think it was a pretty remarkable achievement overall. DH: “Exactly. And to get to your point, because see, that just got me worked up because … ” RM: No, but I was going to ask you about this, so I’m glad that you decided to go down this hallway before I asked you to. DH: “Yeah, well, what I was going to say is to what you just said, it’s the same dudes that he was throwing to the next year when everybody was talking about he didn’t have anybody – he didn’t have any help.
‘Oh, well, Mac Jones sucks because he doesn’t have…’ Everybody made every excuse in the book for why Mac Jones was not having success other than what could be the obvious, right? The Bill Belichick, kind of whatever that was. And like I said, from one year to the next, nothing changed except for what Bill Belichick did. Obviously, we lost Josh McDaniels. That was beyond our control. But how many great offensive coordinators could we have gone out and gotten? How many? Count them.” RM: Well, it’s just somebody who had been an offensive coordinator before. DH: “Who had been offensive … You could even go down to college. There’s guys from college that get brought up to the NFL all the time. But then you bring a defensive coach, a special teams coach, and it was a debacle. It was truly a debacle.” RM: When did you know that it was just … DH: “Oh, we knew before our first game, we knew during training camp. We knew. We knew. There were a lot of conversations between some of the leadership group in at the time. I was one of those guys, and we just had a handful of guys that whenever problems or things came around, we would sit down and talk about it, handle it, whatever.
Now, granted, I was only in these meetings because once I started talking about offense, then that was when I was incorporated. I wasn’t like a captain or anything like that. But I remember OTAs, minicamp. We were having these meetings. We were sitting around talking amongst each other ‘How are we going to tell Bill that this shit ain’t working. How are we going to tell Bill this shit is not working at all?’ I’ll tell you a true story. Me and my running back coach got into it at the time. It was training camp, and we were having… I think this was right before our second… No, no, no. This was right before our first preseason game going into my last year in New England. And it was like we were practicing, and the defense was kicking our ass. And not just every play, every practice. Every time we stepped on the field, defense was kicking our ass, and it was just day after day after day. “And we were just getting tired of on offense. And so finally, I just look at everyone and I’m like, what the fuck are we doing? We’ve got a game in three days. I don’t care if it’s a preseason game. I don’t care if it’s a tune-up exhibition. We’re going to be on live television with millions of people tuned in to watch us.
And we look like this? We look like the bad news bears in a NFL. And we’re supposed to just be cool about it? And then at the time, it’s like, ‘Well, we’re figuring it out. We’re figuring it out.’ We have a game in three days. We have a game in three days. I don’t care that it’s a preseason game. I don’t care because at the end of the day, this is my job. I’m supposed to show up, perform, practice, do all this stuff, and I don’t feel like I’m doing it at the best of my ability because of all of these, ‘This isn’t working. That isn’t working.’ How am I supposed to go out and be the best version of myself? Because selfishly, I was going into a contract here.” “Now, I want the team to have success. I wanted to have some success, too. I wanted to get paid. You know what I’m saying? I think that it was very obvious for a long time. And just being honest and, shit, Bill Belichick will probably tell you the same way. If anybody had anything to say about it, it was a very, very quick, swift, ‘Shut the fuck up. I know what I’m doing,’ and that’s it.” RM: What was the biggest disconnect? The way an offense and the way offensive meetings and the way an offensive plan should work versus the way that it was working, what were the things that were most obviously missing? DH: “Structure.
Structure. Just a correct offensive system being put in place.” RM: What does that mean? DH: “It seemed essentially like… Imagine I was playing Madden, and I was flipping through Madden, and every time I saw a play and I ran it on Madden, I was like, ‘Oh, that works. Let me put it in my coaching playbook,’ and let me give that to a group of professional football players and create an offense with Madden plays, and let’s just see if it works. Because I tell you, there were conversations that we had amongst each other where we genuinely felt like our intelligence as football players was being insulted. If you’re going to present this to me and think that I’m going to go along with this and just think this is going to work, there would be times when we would be presented with information. We would just be right off the bat like, ‘This shit ain’t going to work. This play that we’re putting in, it’s not going to work. I don’t want to run it. I don’t like It’s not going to work.’ But there was just nothing that could be done or said about it, and rightfully so. I’m not trying to take away from Bill. I’m not trying to say that he was wrong or whatever.” “Everybody has their opinion.
But again, whenever you have somebody who has that much success for 20 years, when they feel like they were the sole reason for it, I understand why he did what he did. But ultimately, I feel like it led to us being at a disadvantage. And I felt like when players aren’t confident in what’s being coached of them, what’s being presented to them, then we don’t have confidence in ourselves. Then we don’t have confidence against the guys that we’re lining up against. And then obviously, the result was what it was. We started losing games and then losing more games, and then guys stopped playing as well. And then ultimately, the Patriots and Bill Belichick ended up going separate ways.” RM: Let me betray my ignorance here, and I’m sure it’s not as easy as this. Why not try to just do your best to copy and paste what you guys did in 2021 and try to trot out the same sort of ideas, even if you didn’t have the same person at the center of it? DH: “Because this is an ego-driven business, and everybody’s got …” RM: That’s what you got to be the answer. DH: “Everybody’s got egos. Everybody has… Yeah, there’s no other way to put it. Everybody’s got egos, and that’s what it was.
It’s just about the egos, man. If I had to guess, Obviously, Josh McDaniels, and I can say this because obviously watching them play and whatever, he took that offense to Vegas, and he applied it there, and whatever had success, sometimes he didn’t. But it could have just been a situation of Bill Belichick being like, ‘Well, I don’t want to run the same offense at another team, in the NFL is going to be running.’ You know what I mean? Because we were a pro-style offense with Josh McDaniels, and there are other teams that are pro-style, but the way that we did things in New England was way different than any other offense in the league, any other pro-style offense, spread, whatever. And so maybe Bill Belichick didn’t want to have the same offense, or maybe he just looked at Josh McDaniels and was like, ‘Okay, you went from friend to foe, so F you and everything you stood for, and I’m just going to do it my way.” “Because honestly, we didn’t take a single thing from… If anything, whatever was left over, whatever was carry-over from Josh McDaniels to, I guess, the Joe Judge and Matt Patricia, they completely changed the names. They changed the thought behind it.
It was just like, we know it’s the same. It’s the same thing. Just like, why are we trying so hard to just make it different just so we can say that it’s not Josh McDaniel’s system? It doesn’t have to be that way. And ultimately, I can say this, again, not trying to get back on the Mac Jones conversation, but that was everybody’s biggest gripe about all of that because everybody saw the potential of Mac Jones. Everybody loved Mac Jones. Mac Jones, as soon as he stepped in, he won the locker room immediately. And everybody was in this kid’s corner, me especially, because I’ve been friends with him for a long time. We played together in college. I was in this corner just like everybody else. And we just saw the disservice that all of this disorganization and all of this basically shit hitting in the fan. We saw what it did to Matt, not only for his career, but we saw what it did for him mentally.” “Obviously, the mental side of it could have affected how he played, But let’s just take football away for a second. We saw what was happening to this kid mentally just as a kid. You know what I mean? As a kid, everyone was like ‘This ain’t right. It’s not right.
’ Obviously, the football side of it, it ain’t right because we ain’t winning games. We see this kid, he’s supposed to be our young leader, our young leader who we’re supposed to stand behind them, lift them up. And it’s like, when we got coaches who aren’t even literally doing anything, like anything, nothing, not a single thing, to help this kid progress and make a jump from year one to year two, it was disappointing to watch. I’m not going to lie. It was really disappointing.” RM: If you look at teams around the league that I think are going to have consistent success and are having consistent success in the NFL, it’s places that have created an ecosystem that is hospitable to a young quarterback. What can I do to ensure this guy’s development, growth, success? And if you can build that, you can be really good year after year. It was the opposite in New England during that time. So with that in mind, as you think about what Bill Belichick’s next opportunity might look like, do you think he’s capable of creating that environment at this stage? And would you be bullish on what he might look like at his next stop if given another chance? DH: “Well, I think that Coach Belichick is in a very special situation because, one, like I said, he was at a place where he had boatloads of success, and he thought that he was the only reason why.
And be that as it may, right, wrong, or different, he had the success so he could attribute it to whatever he wanted. At the same time, he also had the same quarterback for 20 years. Like the same dude who was pretty good. You know what I mean? Pretty good. So I think that, again, I like to preface everything about Bill Belichick with what he’s accustomed to, because it’s like, well, if he’s accustomed to all this, how can you get him especially like, no, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. And he’s about the oldest dog in the game right now. So to expect him to get another opportunity and completely just shift and change the way that he’s been for the last 50 years that he’s been coaching, I think that that would be a little bit crazy to expect. I would hope that if he does get another opportunity, that he would make a little bit of adjustment that way.” “Because I loved playing for Bill Belichick. He was the greatest, one of the greatest, with Nick Saban, greatest coach, greatest mentor, greatest teacher of the game of football, the greatest teacher of professionalism. I don’t want everything that he built to be tarnished by these conversations of, ‘Did he ruin the Patriots his last few years there? Did he ruin Mac Jones? Did he do this?’ I would love to see him get another opportunity, and I would love to see him have just as much, if not more success than he had before, which obviously that’s probably not possible.
But that’s just what I want for him because I respect Bill Belichick. I appreciate what he has done for the game, what he’s done for not only myself, but teammates of mine, peers, so on and so forth, that I would hope that he would make the necessary adjustments to right some of the obvious wrongs that have come to light over these past few years.” RM: I wanted to ask you about this because I do think that there is a slight disconnect between my understanding of how it worked in New England, where he was this figurehead at the top of it, what he said went, and maybe some of the more ‘Kumbayana’ centric thinking that has gone on in NFL buildings, where there’s more emotional intelligence among coaches now. There’s more communication between players and coaches now. When you think about the interpersonal dynamics between Belichick and you guys when you were there, do you think that style can consistently work in the NFL right now? DH: “No, I don’t think so, especially because of the new prospects that they’re getting into the NFL nowadays. I think that that old-school lack of emotional intelligence, lack of adaptability to guys’ personalities, to guys having different ideas, having this, having that, or wanting to express themselves in certain type of ways.
I think that, one, it would already be hard in today’s… just because there is such a discrepancy.” “There’s one former team with Bill Belichick and the Patriots that was very much like, ‘Okay, it’s this way or no way. It’s here the highway. No if, hands, or buts about it.’ But then I would say probably 29, 30 teams in the NFL, they have a little bit more, like you said, emotional intelligence, a little bit more of adaptability around guys’ personalities andkind of tailoring what they’re doing as an organization with the group of guys on the roster, who they have, the personalities they have, the talent they have, et cetera. Well, now you’re bringing in these guys who are making $5, $10, $15 million in college and then going to the NFL, and they’re ‘I’m top dog, so I’m going to be loud. I’m going to be me. I’m going to be unapologetically me. And whatever team picks me, they’re going to have to deal with that.’ I don’t necessarily see that and Bill Belichick kind of vibing all that well. I don’t see it. Somebody can make me a liar, but I don’t see it.” RM: And Buffalo, it’s not like Sean McDermott is this warm, cuddly guy, but you still think that there was a pretty big disconnect between how things and what the environment felt like in Buffalo compared to what it felt like in New England.
DH: “Absolutely. And like you said, Sean McDermott was by no means like, ‘Hey, let me just come give you a hug.’ And like, ‘Oh, how was your day?” RM: Yeah, he’s not Mike McDaniel. DH: “No, no, no, no, no, it’s not like that at all. But I think that also just highlights how stuck in his ways coach Belichick is, because you can take a program who is pretty up to date with, like I said, obviously being aware and being adaptive and being so on and so forth. But also there’s a way to do things. The old-school traditional method of hard work, blue collar, gets you what you want, that is still alive, and that’s still well. I feel like Buffalo was a healthy combination of both. But New England is just very much so. It’s just blue collar, gray, rainy days. You just put the work in, you clock out, and you go home. There’s no if, ands, or buts. There’s no other way. There’s one way, and that’s just the way it is.” RM: I want to turn the tone of this because I want to end this on a high note. Talk about something that you enjoy remembering. Favorite Tom Brady story from that year that you got to play with him? DH: Favorite Tom Brady story? Shit. Well, The first time I ever met Tom was that we were having those NFL … I think it was one of those Play 60 camps where we had fans and the kids come out, and they were on the field.
And so this was during the time of voluntary workouts. And so Tom hadn’t been around, but he showed up specifically for the Play 60 thing. And I remember I just saw him walking across the field, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, it’s him. There he is.’ And he just was walking by, and he was looking around, and he saw me, and he immediately walked up to me. ‘He’s like, Damien, my name’s Tom Brady. We just drafted you.’ He was super excited, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I was just s standing there like, ‘You’re talking to me?’ Like, I know you said my name, but you’re talking to me?” RM: Thanks for introducing yourself. I appreciate that. DH: “No, seriously. I don’t know if people will understand the magnitude or something like that, but to me, that was monumental. Six time Super Bowl champ, literally the greatest of all time. Here I am, a rookie. I’m still rocking number 53 because I hadn’t even earned a legitimate number yet.” RM: That was my high school number, and I don’t really appreciate the … DH: [Laughs] RM: Running back, it is a little bit It was different. It’s a little bit different. DH: “Yeah, but he just walked right up to me and he just introduced himself.
And that level of humility and just… I could tell it was just like, one, he was just a normal guy, and it was just about the team. No one guy was better than another. And that was just that. He was just a nice guy. I loved always seeing him walk through the hallways, not because I was just fucking staring at him, but because I watched, and he would speak to literally every single person that was within 10 feet of him. Hey, how are you doing today? Hey, how’s your day going today? Hey, how are you doing today? Hey, how’s your wife? How’s your daughter who’s doing this? How’s your son who’s got baseball camp today? Oh, your son had a soccer game two weeks ago. How many goals did he score? Is he loving it? Or, Oh, if there’s anything I can do, let me know. That was the kind of guy that Tom was. Hell, even one time, he had said something to me in a serious way. We were having a walkthrough, and me being a young rookie, and I wasn’t really playing, so I just had my hood up, and I was just chilling off in the back.” “And he just yelled at me. He was like, Hey, take your hood off. And I was just, Yes, sir. And a very quick matter of fact and everything. And so after the walkthrough was over, he pulled me aside and he was all like, ‘Hey, you don’t have to call me, sir.
Don’t yes, sir me or anything like that.’ He was like, ‘I just wanted to let you know that there’s a way, there’s a time and a place for everything. There’s people that are always watching. There are people who are always assessing you on everything that you’re doing. And I just want to make sure that you’re always putting yourself in the most positive light, no matter who’s looking at you, no matter what you’re doing that way every time somebody looks at you, you’re always doing the right thing, and so on and so forth.’ And I was like, ‘Damn, that’s real.’ And he ended the conversation by saying, and again, ‘Do not with the yes, sir stuff. He’s like, did you say yes, sir, to Tua and Jalen Hurtz when you played with them?’ And I was like, ‘No.’ He’s like, ‘all right, well, treat me just like you would treat Tua or Jalen Hurtz.” “I was like, ‘Fair enough.’ And there’s a lot of things. I was going to say, there’s a lot of things like that.” RM: You’re a pro. DH: “Yeah, exactly. And there were a lot of things where he was just like that. If it was time to be serious, Tom was very serious. I definitely saw Tom’s serious side.
But other than that, whenever it was time to just be laid back and just share, he was just another one of the guys.” RM: It’s pretty remarkable. And I think that when we look back on it, we’ve had a million conversations about this, but I think that as he’s out of the league a couple of years and we get a better perspective on what his career was, his ability to go to Tampa and instill in a single year that mindset, that standard, and the power that comes along with that, I don’t think we have a proper appreciation for what that was like in real life. No. Not even three, four years later, I still don’t think we do. DH: “No, truly. And that’s what happens when you get so accustomed to something. Obviously, Tom had a lot of success in New England. He won, he won, he was great. But then once he… To be able to leave and go to a completely different franchise, and like you said, within a year, accomplish what he accomplished, it’s not talked about nearly enough because people are too busy doing roast and stuff other than talking about how great that was. You know what I’m saying? But it was just the … That was a supernatural ability. And Tom is a supernatural human.
I hate to say it because at the end of the day, we are all just humans. But he was picked. He was one of the chosen ones, truly. And he has the ability to clearly whatever he touches, it flourishes. So more power to him.” RM: Awesome. Well, that’s all I got for you. Damien, I sincerely appreciate the time. Thank you very much for joining us. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I hope you enjoyed yourself as well. DH: “Yes, sir. I appreciate you having me. Thank you so much. I enjoyed the time. I appreciate the chat. And thank you again for having me.” RM: Sounds great. Hopefully, we’ll do this again. DH: “Yes, sir. I hope so.” Full Video Below: (Editor’s Note: This transcript is done via the available footage and is subject to typos. If you spot something, please take a moment to let me know in the comments below.)
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