Bonus Episode: ATN Origin Stories with Neil Reynolds

00:00:00
Speaker 1: The Around the NFL podcast is huge in England and other surrounding territories. Hi, everybody, it's Around the NFL special edition of Around the NFL. IMP Dan hansis joined by Mark Sessler. We were in England earlier this month as many of you know listeners, doing our annual trip there.

00:00:24
Speaker 2: We've done five trips to England now as part of the Around the NFL.

00:00:29
Speaker 1: Podcast and connecting with our great listeners overseas and Mark. Part of our latest adventure was a trip to Sky Sports and their studios there in London and meeting with a good friend of ours, Neil Reynolds, the anchor of the NFL coverage for Sky Sports, and we got to do actually something pretty special with him, sit down with Neil.

00:00:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think we've ever done anything and like it before, and Neil was kind of like the perfect host for it. We cycled back through the ten plus years of doing our show and the reason I say that I think he's an ideal person to host it is that, like our relationship with England, is this incredibly special, strange and unexpected aspect of the Around the NFL podcast, Because you know, when we started it, we're just like we just want to talk football together. And we thought maybe we'd have some like Jabbroni's from like Chicago and LA and you know, surrounding parts into it. And then we have this like massive group of people from London, UK and beyond, and it's like this connection is the most special part of what we do. And Neil's always been a friend to us an ally, is someone that whenever we've gone over there, we've been on Sky Sports, a bunch, hung out with Neil, had dinners with Neil. So I thought this was a really interesting half an hour to go through the lineage, the history of not only the three of us, but also Chris Wesling of course, and everything that happened over the past decade plus.

00:01:58
Speaker 1: Yes, it was a really nice conversation with Neil, who we go way back with and he has always been really great to us as well, so we were comfortable talking with him. And even though it's you know, it's about us and about our show, and we talked about internally whether we wanted to to kind of amplify this on our podcast. Ultimately, I think we all were happy with how the conversation came out, and obviously we are so blessed to have the loyal listeners that we do in England and the UK and as you said, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Scotland. I mean you could go on and on and on with the sport that we.

00:02:39
Speaker 2: Have overseas and we're very lucky.

00:02:41
Speaker 1: So we touch on that and other things, and yes, get into how Chris Westling affected our show when he's with us, and how we still think about him after he has moved on. So let's throw it now to that conversation with Neil Reynolds and we'll see you on Sunday night for the flagship program.

00:03:00
Speaker 4: Welcome to a very special edition of Neil Meats. I've met Odell Beckham Junior in the past few months, justin Jefferson brock Perdy, but this is the one.

00:03:10
Speaker 2: This is the one.

00:03:12
Speaker 4: A room filled with heroes. Can I take your line, Don Greg Rosen, So, Dan Hanss, Mark Cecily around the NFL podcast heroes straight out the in your lines.

00:03:22
Speaker 1: Pulling back the veil, Neil here that we did our preview episode on our podcast and I was sitting in your spot and you were sitting here and I could tell just like you're seething with anger that I would.

00:03:34
Speaker 2: I would dare touch your territory.

00:03:36
Speaker 1: So now you've you've put me in my place, and now you've amiliated me on your on your network.

00:03:42
Speaker 3: So congratulations, Reg and I are good little boys, and we'll go along with this long standing bit between the two of you.

00:03:48
Speaker 4: Gone on a while as it has, it's probably enough. Although to be fair, some of the bits on your podcast they run around.

00:03:54
Speaker 5: They're funnier as they age, and I'm happy that Odell is a warm up back for absolutely.

00:04:01
Speaker 4: So we're going to talk about your journey from when you first became NFL fans, all the way through your early years at the NFL to what you are now is podcast powerhouses.

00:04:10
Speaker 2: It just heads up me like Greg is opted to be directly in our eye. I'm like sitting down.

00:04:18
Speaker 5: I already am like like a mini mic.

00:04:22
Speaker 2: What am I going to look? I'm just checked.

00:04:23
Speaker 4: So if you're so, do you put your backside up against the back of the check could your feet not touch the ground?

00:04:30
Speaker 3: Look at that it's already gone in this direction.

00:04:32
Speaker 2: Checking. Yeah, I'm just checking.

00:04:36
Speaker 4: So as the host and you respect, I was uncomfortable for the first minute or so there.

00:04:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, you kind of took a dig there at Greg though, and he's a friend of mine, and you've made things really awkward for everyone just.

00:04:47
Speaker 2: Ten years.

00:04:48
Speaker 3: I'm a friend of dancers.

00:04:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you progress. I took that.

00:04:52
Speaker 4: We're going to talking about football growing up. Give me a give me a football memory, what kind of something that stands out that you prey passionate about the game. Early on, it was a different time.

00:05:03
Speaker 3: I like find it interesting that we had practices five nights a week of two hours of contact and I'm in, like, you know, like fifth grade, and the coach was.

00:05:13
Speaker 5: With relationship with professional I don't know.

00:05:17
Speaker 2: What my career career.

00:05:21
Speaker 3: The coach would call us ladies. He's like, come on, ladies, so try to jazz us up. You couldn't do that today. So I like learned the rough and tumble way about the game. And then when I started to watch the NFL, I was like, I'll apply this to my career, and none of it applied at all. I couldn't translate it at all, and just became a football watcher.

00:05:37
Speaker 4: I put some questions down here. I knew it would just still go out of the window within three minutes.

00:05:43
Speaker 5: I remember going to see Doug Flutie the first game I ever went to it. And I only went to a few games at Foxboro Stadium because my dad was more into basketball and baseball. But we went and we saw Patriots Colts nineteen eighty eight. Patriots weren't a great back then, but Doug Flutie ran an end around to win the game with about two minutes to go, and I was hooked. In that place, went freaking crazy. There weren't actually even seats there, it's all. It was all bleachers, one of the worst stadiums ever, and just the excitement in that stadium, and even when they would only win six games a year, it was like each one of those wins felt like it was like, I don't know, like winning a postseason series or something. It was such a big deal.

00:06:26
Speaker 2: Then I was hooked.

00:06:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, my first Jets game, and you know, it was October nineteen eighty eight, and my dad, who's you know, grew up a Namath guy, never even warned me as a child, like, hey, this is gonna be bad, like just the heads up, Like fandom with the Jets is very difficult and painful, and you're gonna have your heart broken and ripped out in ways that you can't even imagine.

00:06:49
Speaker 2: And Week one this year is another example of that.

00:06:51
Speaker 1: But the we were it was Chiefs Jets in a downpour at Old Giants Stadium, and I remember Freeman McNeil inside the twenty yard line and fumbling and overtime to ensure a seventeen seventeen tie, and it's just feeling really unfair as an eight year old, and then realizing that the fact that they tied the game was kind of a win for the Jets, so kind of like I learned to it would even get darker in the future. So that's my introduction to Jet's vandom and torture was a seventeen seventeen.

00:07:20
Speaker 2: Tie in the rain.

00:07:21
Speaker 3: I think my career retrospective was maybe a little more meaningful.

00:07:24
Speaker 4: Well well, I think as you will go through the development of the podcast and how much it's grown, you're the only one who's played the game.

00:07:33
Speaker 2: Out of the curve. So I like to remind them, must bring you closer to that.

00:07:36
Speaker 3: It actually it gets them on the same island against me very quickly.

00:07:40
Speaker 1: Because I don't think they like any remarkable Neil that we're doing a television show, right now and you asked him to share an early memory as like an NFL than and it started talking about.

00:07:49
Speaker 2: When he was an eight year old playing.

00:07:51
Speaker 5: I mean aditionally, my son kind of practiced flag football, you know, out of here this that's about the same level of football that Mark, as.

00:07:58
Speaker 3: Greg Free practices on that team that I was on a humble outfit.

00:08:04
Speaker 4: Just as an aside, I caught your single on that monitor. Then the studio hasn't seen hair like that in years. I'm just going to say.

00:08:10
Speaker 1: It's it's I would say it's your hair people here at Sky, but this is this.

00:08:15
Speaker 2: Is how.

00:08:17
Speaker 4: Fantastic. So how did you guys all meet? When did you first Will meet Greg?

00:08:22
Speaker 5: Well, they knew each other before I came aboard at the NFL. I was hired. I was working at a place called Pro Football Talk, and I came over and uh, and these guys were there. We were actually at the NFL scouting combine. I think when I first we met first there met Mark and that was a good introduction to Mark because most of the time on league events has been out at bars like this.

00:08:43
Speaker 3: That is that is it was organized to meet up with Greg who was coming to the NFL I had joined I think a year plus before, I was working for a terrible corporation. I won't even say the name. I don't know if they're attached to this corporation on level.

00:08:57
Speaker 2: But it was football. No, not at all.

00:08:59
Speaker 3: It was like a terrible job, but it paid well because it was so terrible. And so the NFL I found out was hiring to a friend and I started as a three day a week editor, making what essentially like a high school student would make. About a month later Dan showed up who you came across from the East Coast, and I taught Dan how to use the computer system.

00:09:18
Speaker 2: I think that ever since, it's.

00:09:20
Speaker 3: Like, was this when we two thousand summer of ten.

00:09:26
Speaker 2: So yeah, now that's yeah.

00:09:28
Speaker 1: We both started as part timers three days a week, maybe a little older than most people that take that position, but I guess it was the allure of the NFL, and then we got opportunities.

00:09:39
Speaker 2: Once we were in the door, we just hung around.

00:09:41
Speaker 4: So what was it like the early days trying to get the footing of the podcast established in the NFL?

00:09:49
Speaker 2: It was difficult.

00:09:50
Speaker 5: When I moved out to Los Angeles, Chris Westling, our great friend, moved out at the same time, and the four of us were working on what it amounted to a blo a news blog writing and our bosses at the time when we suggested doing this podcast, there was a studio there for rich Eisen wanted no part of it, thought it was a complete waste of time. Kept that opinion going for about four to five years, even as the numbers started rolling in. They didn't understand what that was. But they had a rule initially that like, well, it was all extra. We're like, we're not asking for anything, we're just doing extra. It's like, well, if you leave someone on the desk that's still working writing up you know that. I'm trying to think oft Yeah, Percy Harvin missed practice, then it could be okay. So at first one person would be at the desk and we would call that person on the podcast and say hello. But that didn't last long and we just started doing whatever we want.

00:10:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's Greg's origin. Story only starts with Greg.

00:10:48
Speaker 1: But we started a podcast Mark and I before Greg's arrival, called the atl Debate Club, which was originally was a column that.

00:10:57
Speaker 2: We wrote like it was like a he said he said another thing that wouldn't exist. Yeah, and I remember.

00:11:02
Speaker 1: Going into a Carmen, one of our bosses at the time, her office and saying, you know, we wanted to try this in podcast for him and Dave Damashek, who we owe a lot to, had put our mini Debate Club.

00:11:15
Speaker 2: It was like a ten to twelve minute show.

00:11:18
Speaker 1: On the back of his program, and so like we were kind of doing it without anybody even paying attention. It wasn't even technically our show. And then we were able to kind of spin that out into our own show, and then when Greg and Chris arrived, then we turned it. It kind of turned into the ATN podcast. But yeah, it was it took a long time for the people in that building to actually catch up to what we the progress that we were making, Like I remember took me a long time to even get like a full time job there.

00:11:46
Speaker 2: And like what I was.

00:11:47
Speaker 1: Essentially warned when they gave me the job, like this is you're not being hired to.

00:11:52
Speaker 2: Do a podcast, Like it's not about the podcast.

00:11:55
Speaker 1: And I remember just shaking my head and thinking to myself, you have no idea what you're talking about.

00:11:59
Speaker 2: This everything is about the podcast. And it was true and that's our jobs.

00:12:04
Speaker 1: We do other things with the company that are important, but it's the Pod that I think has made us.

00:12:11
Speaker 5: You know, we have to wait for those people to end up leaving the company.

00:12:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, to really I would say one thing that listed them. We I felt like.

00:12:18
Speaker 3: We became friends quickly, and we would we would go out to have beers after work sometimes and I'll remember a night that we were walking around this park with like cans of beer and talking about like the debate club in the show, and being like, we can't give up on this, like this is the thing, and you Dan always had that very strong vision for it, and there were I do think that when the four of us got together it felt different. I love, we love doing our thing together, but if something clicked. But I will say, if you go back and listen to those early episodes, our voices are quiet, like we are, We're just our.

00:12:49
Speaker 2: Inflection was no experience, especially and like.

00:12:53
Speaker 3: Like Wesling's first ever a couple appearances, like none of us had done it before, right, and so it was like really raw and it took a lot of time to figure it out, but you kind of just knew from the beginning it kind of felt right.

00:13:02
Speaker 2: You know.

00:13:03
Speaker 4: So you've covered a lot of events, a lot of games, both sides of the Atlantic. Let's go around all three of you. Maybe a favorite game or a favorite event that you've you've really.

00:13:14
Speaker 2: Enjoyed, correct, I mean, there's so many.

00:13:17
Speaker 5: It's tough on this one Patriots super Bowl wins to choose from.

00:13:22
Speaker 2: I mean, it's gotta be to me.

00:13:25
Speaker 5: Patriots, Seahawks before we started actually Saints Colts. I'll always say it was one of my favorite moments of all time when Tracy Porter made that interception and I looked over and the Jaguars owner was right next to us in the media box and he was he was so mad because he hated the Colts so much. To that one, but the feeling I had when the Seahawks had gotten to the two yard line from that Seahawks Patriots and we're all in there together, and at that point it had been arguably the greatest ten year run any team had ever had, win loss wise and consistent success, and the Patriots hadn't won a single Super Bowl in those that ten year time and they had lost two heartbreakers, obviously in the Super Bowl, and that feeling of it's all they're gonna lose it right here, and then the flip in one second and to me, the greatest play in the history of football, Malcolm, Malcolm Butler, nothing tops that.

00:14:20
Speaker 4: It's great to see history when you watch you something.

00:14:23
Speaker 5: You know, you knew, you knew this second half, you could almost not believe that that had actually just happened.

00:14:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the being at Super Bowls is still to this day.

00:14:32
Speaker 2: I still like.

00:14:33
Speaker 1: When when it comes time to go to the game, like growing up just loving the NFL. It's so incredible to be kind of the center of like the pop culture universe. So like being around even though as a Patriot hater, like some of those great games twenty eight to three, Malcolm Butler, even though in the moment it's like, uh, like now.

00:14:52
Speaker 2: You remember, oh you were there. It's part of history, you know.

00:14:54
Speaker 1: And and like I remember like seeing the Giants Patriots too with that ending with the hail Mary, like picturing that ball in the air where Brady tossed it and Gronk just missing it. That great Eagles went over the Pats as well.

00:15:08
Speaker 2: Stick to me.

00:15:09
Speaker 1: But you know the first time we came to London with with Wes as a group, and it was I think I think James Winston threw five interceptions in that game.

00:15:20
Speaker 2: Seven times. Yeah, it was.

00:15:21
Speaker 1: It was horrendous, but just like that whole week, it was such a whirlwind and being in that stadium and seeing how how first of all, this this this community here, the football community here in UK and as I say, the surrounding territories has always been so kind to us. But then seeing looking at the crowd and not looking like any other football crowd, where it was everyone repping their own colors and their own team. It wasn't a typical crowd. And then you know, getting interviewed on the big screen, it.

00:15:48
Speaker 2: Was just like that.

00:15:49
Speaker 1: To me, it was like, oh, we made it like we're here and this is a whole new ball game here.

00:15:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:15:54
Speaker 3: I think I was kind of cycling through some of the same things about that Seahawks Patriots Super Bowl. It came after the flat gate and there was a moment when you know, teams are coming out of the tunnel and it was thunderously loud, and I just remember being like I've been in a lot of football games, I had never experienced audibly something so devastatingly crazy as that When they showed Bill Belichick coming out and he had his hood on and he just looked like literally a villain from a science fiction film, and the place went absolutely crazy negative on you.

00:16:27
Speaker 2: You could say Vader it was, I mean, it was just like.

00:16:32
Speaker 3: He totally was leaning into the role. But then a couple seconds later, out of the darkness, like Tom Brady emerged and it's like, even though he was at the center of that, the place erupted and positive and just you could feel the energy. And I think the thing that connects for me a little bit is that after the Falcon Super Bowl twenty eight to three, you know we would decide for the game, you go to the winters locker room and the losers off the two very different environments. But I went in there and I was in the exact right place at the right time where when Tom Brady came over to hug teammates, like, I was just standing there recording the whole thing, and I was trying to process this moment. I'm like, I've been watching this guy since I was like a young young person not working in football, totally different and he's at the height of his profession, at the greatest comeback ever and I'm like, I'm just trying to measure the idea that I'm a foot and away half from Tom Brady'm like, I'm glad I chose his career versus that accounting.

00:17:22
Speaker 1: Now, so we all brought up Brady there. I think we're going to need more distance because he just retired, I think probably now, but like you know, five, ten, twenty years from now, like we were there for like that incredible second run that he had, right.

00:17:36
Speaker 2: And you know, I think we you know, we went to four.

00:17:38
Speaker 1: Or five of the Super Bowls, and it's just like it's crazy to for a guy that I think part of the reason because he was the dude and that the electricity that he produced just by being the building with him for that game.

00:17:51
Speaker 4: You just mentioned community and you've mentioned him a couple of times already. Wes and felt like we lost Wes on the weekend of the Super Bowl going into that box and Chiefs, I had the stupid thought that weekend West isn't going to know who won the Super Bowl, which is the weirdest thing to think at that time, but into what was it like what losing the reaction after losing him, obviously losing him you guys were devastated, But to have that sort of rally of support and love that was showing around the world towards West and towards you guys. Tell us about that time.

00:18:32
Speaker 5: Well, I just showed what you know, as someone who knew him when we were at Rootal World together and I hadn't even met him in person at that time. He was just this guy on AOL instant message for me for five years who I imagine living. He always was like I can see the water from here and he's drinking his beers while he's writing these fantasy posts too, you know, one of all of our great friends. When we all got out to Los Angeles, to see how many different people he touched, just it it meant a lot, because I think he was such a people person. You started to realize how everyone had this special relationship with Wes in different ways, whether you were one of his best friends, or whether you only met him a few times, or whether you were a listener to the show. So I'll always remember when they put his image and that was one of them right there up on the big screen at Tottenham Stadium a couple of years ago. It was very difficult, but it was also beautiful and it was, like, I don't know, one of the most powerful moments of our lives, and it not one that that that you wanted all but also something that just kind of speaks to the many list.

00:19:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that whole that whole period was because it happened in the middle of COVID and we were all just disconnected in general, and for his illness to return, and then really the way the way it all played out was heartbreaking. And I'll always remember like because he did do is he never gave up like.

00:20:00
Speaker 2: Wanting to be part of the show.

00:20:02
Speaker 1: So even when as he was getting sicker and sicker, he would come on to the Sunday shows and just for a couple of games. And but we you know, behind the scenes, we knew it was not looking great and we knew but right before he passed away that we were aware a couple of days in advance. It was time to prepare for this, and I just I remember we went to the hospital the day before and we couldn't even go up to see him because of like COVID protocols. But Nick came down his brother and Phil and we you know, we kind of shared that moment. I think Colleen was with us too, and then you know, I remember when we got the word and it was a couple of days before the Super Bowl. Thinking one of the things I thought of was like, listeners knew Chris was sick, and if you were watching some of the Sunday show you could see it physically that he was sick, but they didn't know maybe you know how bad it was. So thinking to myself like, now this news is going to get out and it's I was actually remember thinking in terms of the listeners that it's going to be such a punch of the stomach because they weren't aware of what we knew, how truly sick it was.

00:21:02
Speaker 2: So it was it was really sad, and.

00:21:05
Speaker 1: We miss him every day and these trips that are never never the same without him, the podcast will never be the same.

00:21:11
Speaker 2: But so many great memories.

00:21:13
Speaker 4: I remember that week one when you came over and you were on one table you four yes, and I was on another table hosting there with Rob Ryan and Solomon Wilcots, and was whispered to me afterwards, that's one of my greatest Sundays ever covering in the NFL, and I just flew out of the studio. It just was great that we'd all had that experience together. Mark, do you sometimes watched the game now today and think Wes would love that play, He'd love this. I mean he was sort of ahead of all of us on Joe Burrow, wasn't he. I remember that in you know when he would join us on Sky Sports. Do you think you see players now that you'd be like, I'd love.

00:21:45
Speaker 3: To Yes, Yeah, And I think it's there's just this reminder that Wes, I mean from an analysts standpoint, in a lover and observer of football, because I mean long before he did it for money, he just did it because he had like six other brothers. They'd be arguing about football on Sundays. And it's like he became a great analyst because of the way he grew up. And you know, he and I were the same age, and so there were some references that I think kind of had shared meaning to us, and like certain football memories, I think that we each lost like our favorite football friend, you know, And it's like doing the show in the wake of that was really tough, but I think it it brought us together. It challenged us a lot But the one thing that I think still trickles in daily weekly is you still hear from someone who's like, oh, but I don't know if you'll read this. It's like a DM on Instagram or something. I just want to let you know, Like people don't know this, but Wes reached out to me when I was having a tough time and converse with me one on one, and it's like, there's probably been like and this guy also blocked like seven hundred people on Twitter, so he you know, he he was. He took it, took it carefully. But I mean how many people he contained?

00:22:52
Speaker 2: Multitude?

00:22:52
Speaker 3: Yes, just like you find out that Wes changed and surprised and interacted and like helped so many different people. And it was like that who us was because like we had the football stuff, but the friendship that we had with him was paramount overall the work business in general. And it's just like you miss you hear his laugh in your head every day and you miss him.

00:23:10
Speaker 5: I talked to his wife, Lukeisha when we got here. Today's just talking about these trips, and she had said that first trip because she came along with it when we went the one you were talking about meant a lot to him. Was actually a big turning point for him, because I don't think he realized the sort of scope that the podcast had in general, like we don't meet necessarily our listeners back home or like this and having this experience with you guys on Sky and doing this national broadcast and then meeting all these fans upon fans at their live show and it sort of blew his mind. And she said, like that trip specifically meant a lot to him and helped him because he was already having recovered from his first bat with cancer, like really appreciate those sort of moments and what he had made of his life.

00:23:59
Speaker 1: When people ask, uh, what's your favorite moment in the history of the podcast, it's always first trip to London after West got better. Yeah, and we it was so it was like a triumphant show. And I remember and we brought the Keysha up on stage at the end of the show, and I remember going to introducing each of the heroes one by one, and when introduced Chris, like the place exploded in.

00:24:19
Speaker 4: The underground play and it's been pouring on the way I was watching that night.

00:24:22
Speaker 1: It was fantastic and just like I think that's part of the I love that he had that moment for people to be able to show their love for him, and.

00:24:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's he was a star. He certainly was a star. So I'm king to know, when you've met all these NFL stars and you do your interviews and all that in your jobs, have you ever been starstruck? Go down the line with that. I think it's interesting because we round so many big name players and various times.

00:24:49
Speaker 3: I think for me, like the like that Brady moment, like what was kind of huge, but I was functioning. I have a weird one like I named my son Carlton after cal McCoy, and but I never, you know, met Calt McCoy. And then at this last super Bowl, you know when you're at the Super Bowl hotel, if you ever have experience, if you're watching this, like you, it bubbles up as the week goes on and it more and more like people walk by where you're like, WHOA, that's that guy. He's like so I just was one morning waiting for these guys to come down and go do a show. And like Colt McCoy, who is pretty approachable and not really someone that a lot of people even recognize. I think in the hotel I saw him and I was like, I couldn't move. I was like, I just for some reason, was like this is the guy that I'm starstruck.

00:25:30
Speaker 4: Flight response, I realized, away, take me somewhere I'll never expected.

00:25:36
Speaker 2: They couldn't move.

00:25:36
Speaker 1: That's how I usually close with Mark, because it goes off in that direction. Well, a couple of ones like I met. I interviewed name It on the red carpet at one of the Super Bowls, and I don't even really remember that I blacked out, but I remember going back to the hotel room.

00:25:53
Speaker 2: My dad was there and playing him back the audio and.

00:25:56
Speaker 1: Like like seeing me, my dad was like, oh my god, like this is Utah to my hero growing up. But the one that kind of where I actually felt truly like starstruck in a way that I was cognizant of was the first super Bowl we got to cover together. Was the Super Bowl forty six, which was Giants Pats two, And it was in Indianapolis and they had us I think we had turned in time cards that had over eighty hours.

00:26:19
Speaker 2: On it that week.

00:26:20
Speaker 1: They just they had us sitting in this like bullpen pit basically next to the NFL network set and grabbing everybody as they came by, and Joe Montana comes right, and if you're a person of a certain age, it's Montana.

00:26:33
Speaker 2: He's the guy. He's always going to be the guy.

00:26:35
Speaker 1: And I grew up when Montana was Montana and the top quarterback ever. So I went up to him and if you could find this on YouTube, actually Neil like it's a very fresh face young zoozer and I'm interviewing Joe Montana asking him about Tom Brady and just being like, I can't believe I'm actually doing this right now.

00:26:56
Speaker 2: That that one's hard to beat for me.

00:26:59
Speaker 5: Wait did you say that was the young zeuser? So he actually gave himself the third person new nickname.

00:27:06
Speaker 2: Even the operating on levels that that doesn't even think we're possible.

00:27:10
Speaker 5: I gotta hand it to you, like sometimes you just gotta give it to good enough.

00:27:14
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.

00:27:15
Speaker 5: I think it was asking Bill Belichick a question at a Super Bowl press conference in two thousand and seven that because I just remember, I think I had been thinking about what question can I ask to really impress Bill Belichick? Like I had been reading I was He's my favorite football figure and I read Education of a Coach, but Halberston I had like read all the books. I'd read the scouting book that his dad had written in all the books, like he suggested about Paul Brown and all this stuff, and I just thought, this is the smartest guy ever.

00:27:44
Speaker 2: And it was the first Super Bowl I cover.

00:27:46
Speaker 5: I was with NBC at the time, but I was like, well, at the very least, I gotta just like ask something in the middle of a press conference, and my stomach was just like royaling as like Brian McCarthy, the PR guy for the NFL, because it was it was in it was the one in the big you know, the ballroom or whatever where there's fifty It was like it was some stupid thing trying to compare Antonio Pearce of the Giants to like his old Giants linebackers. Like I was really trying to get like mister and I knew. I was like, well, he doesn't talk nice about his players, but if you ask about the other team and it will go deep on end.

00:28:25
Speaker 2: Well you tried. Yeah, he gave a great answer. It all, it all was great.

00:28:29
Speaker 5: But I just like when he handed me the microphones, like this is going to fall out of my I was just.

00:28:34
Speaker 2: Too nervous last one.

00:28:35
Speaker 4: Your growth has kind of coincided with the international growth of the NFL all these regular seasons.

00:28:42
Speaker 2: I know, that's not even.

00:28:46
Speaker 5: It's all been part of our mutual friend Henry Hodson's master plan. We're actually been implanted, got a great game here.

00:28:54
Speaker 2: Yet do you think we've taken out once they don't need this anymore?

00:28:57
Speaker 4: Do you think we're living through historic times? Like if you look back at, you know, on this period of growth in the NFL, it feels as a real story being told.

00:29:04
Speaker 1: It feels like from when we join the league to picture like where we are now. Like the the idea of the NFL could become a global game, I think is it felt like a bit of a long shot years ago, and because it just felt like such a uniquely American game that would be difficult. And you know, the football football thing has caused some heat. I feel like through the years rule and it's so the fact that the game is not only caught on it now feels like there's like really like a really educated football fan base.

00:29:36
Speaker 2: People know there's stuff out here.

00:29:37
Speaker 1: It's and you see the way these stadiums fill up, like we were talking about earlier in the show, just how everyone gets to go to these games when they come to London and rep their team or their favorite player. I think it's incredible the growth, and I think the fact that there's three games, I think you can make a case where they're being more because I think there is the demand for it.

00:29:58
Speaker 4: Dan thinks he grew to internationally. I'll just show you this promo and you can make up your own mind because you can watch more Neil Meets because I've been around some of the biggest start.

00:30:09
Speaker 2: That's with an ellipses or colon where I.

00:30:12
Speaker 4: Just feel like there should be more punctuation on them.

00:30:14
Speaker 2: But there's they're all on demand.

00:30:16
Speaker 4: Neil Meets Odell Beckham, Justin Jefferson brock Purdy and Dolphin's head coach Mike McDaniel. And of course now.

00:30:23
Speaker 2: That is just my headshot.

00:30:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll put them kind of the other two, well we'll put We'll go Greg Dan and some other guy, like, we'll do it that way.

00:30:32
Speaker 3: I'm just I'm just starstrucks sitting next to Dans all right.

00:30:35
Speaker 4: But thanks to Mark Sesler, Dan Hans as Greg Rosenthal, and thank you for joining us for this special Neil Meets and we'll see you next time.

00:30:42
Speaker 2: Both now