how you doing I'm Brandon bden and you're listening to scoop B radio Scoopy radio on the plane on the train everywhere you want to be make sure to check out Scoopy radio no streaming platforms Apple podcast Google play tune in app stit app or simply visit Scoopy radio.net I am your host Brandon Scoopy Robinson and I'm sitting with a two-time Super Bowl champion Brandon Bowen joins us on the program today brother what's going on much man how you doing making it happen just like you I hear that yes sir yes sir you um have your hands in a lot of stuff um from what I understand uh the nonprofit sector and the giveback sector is something that you are orchestrating tell me more about that um right now we're trying to get the found my Foundation off the ground the B bold foundation and it's all about you know early screening getting people moreare of the side effects and stuff about cancer and it's more for um people who look like me and you um those people who are afraid of going to the doctor or just flat out scared of what they're going to find out at the doctor and so we're trying to you know push that knowledge forward and you know get everybody you know feeling a lot better and moving in the right direction what kind of got you started in that process of the get back um that started uh actually it started in in college uh we were at the cotton ball um long time ago uh and we actually went to St Jude hospital and made a few connections there and got to meet a lot of kids and then when I went to New England my first couple years we kind of did the same thing and unfortunately I was diagnosed with cancer in 2018 um had surgery had it removed and been cancer free ever since and even for me I was one of those people who was afraid of what I was going to hear if I went to the doctor afraid of what was going to happen to me um relationship Wise job wise and everything else if everybody else found out about what I had going on and I felt that it's better to get out and talk about it you know stand in front and we need we need a voice to get out and talk about the prevention and things like that to keep our people healthy and keep everybody happy you were New England Patriot when you were diagnosed yes what was the the support system like when you were diagnosed um the support system was great we lost a Super Bowl against the Eagles uh and so went back and had a couple biopsies they told me I took it upon myself to call Bill bich myself and tell him hey coach this is what I have going on and I understand if y'all have to you know move forward or youall have to do whatever you got to do but this is what I'm going through and he told me right then and there he was like well whatever you're going through we're going through with you and you have our full support and you know we'll see you whenever you know you're healthy enough to come back I think I had surgery and I was out the building for three weeks maybe and when I got back it was like nothing never happened you know I I didn't have the full function I didn't have full function of the right side of my face and you know talk looking back on it talking about a few of my teammates and none of them ever bought it to my attention none of them say hey bro you look weird or anything like that um it was kind of like you know it was a job it was a Brotherhood and they looked after me and made sure I was good in all aspects and like the coaches players supporting staff and I can't leave out you know my wife my wife my son and my daughter they didn't treat me any differently like soon as I got out of the hospital back to Daddy dud is I was carrying people in and out of the car and everything else so you know and that's kind of how I wanted I didn't want to D on and I really didn't want to talk about it too much so the support system that I had was kind of support system you dream about I like it I like it and I'm glad to see you uh beat it and I'm glad to see that you had the support system uh like your teammates like your coach who believed in you and uh spoke well of you and spoke and poured into you to make sure that you were great yeah yeah I wouldn't be here without them any of them no I believe it you you know you you mentioned a buzz word and it's got my ears perked up uh you you talked about Bill bich now former head coach of New England Patriots and you're I feel like a lot more people are offering a more uh personable side to him um which I think is pretty cool as he's transitioning into TV and more did his move to TV surprise you yes and no he kind of he kind of went in and out of that during the season even though he was the biggest person against going on TV while you know you still had a job for the New England Patriots uh but to see him you know co-starring a few things time in here and there and it was cool to see and because everybody always talks about you rarely see Bill smile Bill smile if when he wanted to like he'll crack a joke and probably nobody in the whole building would laugh but he would find it funny and it would kind of be like oh you do have that kind of side and it took me it took me maybe three or four years from the time I got there to actually get on that side of him because you hear all those stories like as a rookie coming in it's Bill bich it's Tom Brady it's Rob ganowski and then once you get in the building they're the nicest people in the building well Bill not so much you know Tom Bravo are great but Bill it was all business it was it was was great and like I said like year three or four I don't know I guess I got a little comfortable and we walked past each other it was early in the morning like 6:00 7 in the morning we walked past each other in the hallway and we didn't speak now how I grew up you didn't play that in the house you couldn't walk past anybody and not speak and so it was kind of one of them like hey coach I ain't sleep with you last night good morning how you doing and he chuckled he me out and then he said good morning back and so then like from that point on I was like oh I probably messed up I probably shouldn't have said that I'm getting a little too comfortable but ever since that moment hey B did you hear about this have you watched the news did you hear they doing this rule change and it's kind of became as as like we said in the locker room you just kind of become one of the guys who he just has like little small talk with but through those small interactions you get to see Bill bich the person Bill bich the coach and I got to see a lot of aspects with him because his son was on the coaching staff so you get to see Bill bich the dad um and then winning Super Bowls and all that stuff you got to see I got to see Bill put on a lot of hats and uh he he like when I say this man knows football to the point to where it's scary and I know everybody because I mean like let's throw it out there you mention bill bich first thing you think about is oh he cheats that's not that's not entirely true I can't speak before I got there but I know once I got there he taught us the basics of football to a point where if you went off of just basic strategy you could pretty much have a 70 to 80% chance of knowing exactly what's coming on the next play and that's all the way down to the individual so Bill had me like uh what's the name of the movie Any Given Sunday yep remember that last scene where a coach was telling Jamie Fox if that DN Knuckles turn white he's coming but if they're red he was kind of half assed a little bit that was Bill bich to a te and he had that scouting report on everybody who stepped into that fi on the field and I'm talking about your Scouting Report from high school until the game you played last week and so you have these little side notes and you have these hour two hour long meetings learning about your opponent but we knew our opponent so well to where if even if they were in the Huddle and somebody lined up differently what we know is some it's a different type of play as he would say they're going off script when they do stuff like this or if you had a coach who had a successful as he called it backyard College play and we saw kind of those same same bodies lining up on the field we knew what play was coming so we knew how to defend it and that that goes all the way from the Super Bowl interception with Malcolm Butler the Dante high tower strip sack those were all plays where we were coached if they come out and do this or if he's looking this way this is what we're going to do and we went out there and you know we executed it so it like I said I learned more than just football I learned a lot about people I learned a lot about life and unfortunately I learned a lot about the NFL as a business like it it's it's great it's cool but when you see a 133-year vet and he spent all 13 years in New England get traded for a guy going on his second year he plays tight end we don't even get the same position and you learn it's like this is a business it's nothing personal because even the year I played for Miami New England won the Super Bowl after that season I signed back to New England and at this point this was like going into year seven or eight for me so we're there working out in the spring and they're getting ready for the ring ceremony I'm getting ready to go home and I just get a tap on the shoulder was like Hey you're not doing nothing tonight you should come to the ring ceremony I know you're not getting the ring but you know come hang out with the guys and so then I'm like trying to figure out if that's cool that's cool and I went ran up the bill I was like hey coach um is it cool if I you know pull up to the ring what you mean yeah you better come it's not a party if we don't got everybody comeing so you know and and I you know I appreciate them for that because you know they didn't have to do that I wasn't part of that team as a matter of fact that we was one of the only teams who like really outright beat them when we out in Miami and so for them to let me come to that again showed me another side of Bill to where you know I can respect him on an even higher level because like I said I had no business being I had no right to be there but I sure was right there you know hosting celebrating them and just having a good time because again those are those are my guys my brothers and like I said I only missed that one year but it was it was cool and for them even ask me to be a part of it that was probably probably the highlight of my whole time man wow I mean you you you talked to a lot of different guys and there's a level of of Mystique or there they don't people don't give as elongated of an answer about Bill that you did you literally went on for about five to 10 minutes just talking about Bill bich I think that I've never met him but this is the most conversation I've had about him uh with anybody that I talked with so I'm I'm appreciative of your kandor sure no problem no problem um do you see him transitioning as an analyst lasting long or do you see him going back to coaching one day I see him going back to coaching one day he's one of those uh old school guys where you know he'll try something out but I don't see him being an analyst because he want be able to be his true authentic self right like hearing Bill keeping it PG on TV it hurts me because it's like I know that's not what he really wanted to say right and you know he he was he he's that guy when I say between him saving and uh heat Carol I say just football IQ is not of this world so it's like if you can imagine if you can imagine the top profession out of college having to come in and explain to a freshman class how he got to his master's degree how lost those people were when you really look watch Bill break stuff down people will be dumbfounded because it's like first off why you looking over there and second how you even notice that so I don't see that lasting extremely long unless he gets like his own thing to where he can run it how he wants to he's able to be himself sure no that that that um your your your illustration I as I'm thinking about or as I'm listening to you I'm thinking about Greg papovich San Antonio's spur head coach in the NBA um I couldn't imag Greg without basketball I couldn't imagine belich without football and uh right quirky humor to me uh is so similar and the way that they organizations are very similar very very very very like it was some type of secret school and not everybody was invited word word so you are at the running back position um have seen a lot of uh things change over the last uh I would say five years I feel like just like the point guard position in basketball has evolved where there's more lead guards you have a lot of running backs that are hybrid you have guys like saquan Barkley uh who I think to me is is a similar mold to Brian Westbrook who I think was ahead of his time as far as as the way he played in The Eagle system as a running back yes do you think that that level of of of tier of a running back is going to continue and what's the next thing that you're watching at that position um yeah so let's see this is I just finished year 12 so I've seen a ton of changes when I first came in there was that was your first and second down guys who were more of your Leger blunts um um uh Brian Westbrook towards the end of his career um and then you had the guys who were your third down backs your pass catchers like Danny Woodhead James White uh Shane Vine and just the name a few and you kind of see New Orleans still kind of have that same kind of mentality Alvin Kamar he'll probably get a few runs but he's more in their third down get you out of bad situation type deals but you're starting to see it switch to the the bigger guys actually have soft hands the bigger guys can catch and run the bigger guys can go out there and run 12 13 20 yard routes and you know get things done so I see that coming in a drastic change and um I was actually talking with one of my college teammates and he's a coach out of college now he all he kept saying was everybody's just getting faster yeah even the big kids are getting faster so what I think is going to be next for that position is is it's going to be the fastest guy in the room who's going to get who's going to get going to be you know your Workforce your big guys is going to come in do your goal line stuff short yardage but the fast guys who got a little weight to him like uh the K Atlanta uh I can't think of his name right now uh number seven fast as he is and big as he is and he can catch I think that's the kind of that's going to be the new standard for running back uh moving forward because that's what everybody is going to they don't want to switch it out they don't want guys to come in they know it's going to be a passing situation to keep everybody on their toes so I think you want to see the bigger faster guys who can actually catch passes out the back field and that's kind of where I see it headed right now fello Brandon Brandon Balden two-time Super Bowl champion joins us of Scoopy radio talking all things entrepreneurial football p and present and telling Bill bich stories that the envy other podcast and every other radio show imaginable um you may mention of Drew Brees um and I feel like at his height and his position you don't see guys play the game of football now the way he was playing in his prime do you see that assessment and do you if if so do you see a wave of guys that play like Drew Brees making a a cameo at some point down the line um right now the NFL is is moving towards a more mobile quarterback scene so we're going kind of like history repeating itself with the Randle cunninghams Michael Vicks um you know even I even throw Jared Allen in there because he can get down too and that's more of what's going to we're kind of moving away from the pocket passer the traditional pocket passer the Drew Brees the Tom Brady you know Rick Ganon you know guys not standing back there to get hit anymore you know and so and I don't I don't know a lot of the younger mobile quarterbacks I can speak for I played against Lamar so I got to watch him like watching him and playing him I can tell that his football IQ is on par to Drew Brees I'm not saying that he's Drew Brees in no way form and fashion but his football IQ him being able to recognize coverage is getting in and out of bad plays I still see that um and I can't speak for the young guys I haven't played with a lot of younger guys most of all quarterbacks I had besides last year were all you my age or older so even with Aid noon it took him a while once he got comfortable he started showing signs of a veteran quarterback seeing guys coming out knowing the difference between a cover two shell and a cover three shell a disguise and who's blitzing who's not blitzing and that takes time that takes film work that takes getting in there with your coach and everything else so as of right now like how kind of on TV how you see the play callers even why the players out there look like it's being called they're still on the headset um I think that's kind of what it's going to be and I'm not going to call it a crutch but they're trying to help the young guys and once they get to that Drew Brees point I think you'll see a lot you'll see a lot less people trying to talk to the quarterback while the quarterback's trying to read it you really didn't see you really didn't see the OC in Drew's ear while he's you know demanding what guys do and I had Tom Brady so Tom was an entirely different breed Tom we break the Huddle and he's changing the play we haven't even lined up yet and so like the first couple times he did it to me I'm looking at him like bro what do you see because they haven't even lined up he's like well you know and beautiful part about being in New England was it wasn't the signed seats and I was just being a young guy I wanted to sit in the back of the plane and in this we had the kind of a big plane it was two seats three seats in the middle and two seats on the other side so if you was able to get a road to yourself you could stretch out you know enjoy yourself and I think it wasn't until like week two three where I actually set up to see who was sitting in front of me and it was Tom and he watched RM from the time we set in our seats till we got there and even after the game we won he watched film from the time we got on the plane till we got back to the facility and just halfway was like all right R teach me because I need to know what you're looking at because I can't anticipate changing the plays how you calling them and he sat back there and he coached me for about a solid three four weeks until I finally got it to where I'm looking at him breaking the hudle like you going to change it now or you going play this game right you know and so it's it's it's going to get back to it's going to get back to those Drew Brees Tom Brady s play callers being back out there it's like these guys are young and the NFL the NFL can be difficult because everybody trying to trick everybody pretty much so I feel like in a year or two These Guys these same guys we're were talking about they're going to be out there like straight field generals and it's going to be amazing to watch with I'm I'm thinking it's going to get back to that it's just because we got a young crowd right now it's where you got more input from coaches than actually people who's out there need to be called in place so rle me this you you talked about Tom Brady uh and uh his ability to read defenses and change plays on the Fly um I'm thinking of two things it's a two-part question one does does it give you Kobe Vibes immensely he's a big Kobe fan he's a huge Kobe fan actually and you know him being a California kid you know it was always something for him to brag about like oh my Lakers this my Lakers that um and before Kobe passed he actually came and met with the team um and you you would have thought they met the princess zunda how everybody was just so oh my God it was and it it was it was Co and what the thing that I saw was it's Kobe burn it's V Kobe burn he's in here with a long sleeve Nike shirts some gym shorts and you know his signature shoes but he dressed completely down for the occasion he was comfortable and I remember I remember uh guys just kept talking about like was just walking around like taking everybody hand introducing itself like we a know who it was well so I heard that story first thing came my mind I remember my rookie year I had know undrafted free agent I haven't even got my equipment and Tom Brady come sit next to me at my locker takes my hand and introduces himself like you know I didn't know who he was and you know I went and I actually mentioned that story at the time and he said himself he was like B I didn't know what to do he shook my head and introduced himself he said I try not the fan girl and I was just you know it they they're worth ethic the how they go about the game their that Mamba mentality yeah I see a lot of similarities between them to second part question does LeBron James has sent with the Lakers currently with his son and JJ reick and everything else at this point remind you more of Michael as a wizard or Tom Brady as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer oh oh that's a good one I'mma go with uh oh that's a good one I never thought about that I'mma I guess because it's more recent fresh in my mind Tom and Tampa but now that you say Jordan as a wizard he was he was calling the shots before he hung him all the way up like calling I want him him and him and if it ain't them want him I do remember that so I I I you know what I'm g go ahead and say Jordan with the Wizards because Jordan was he was in the front office before he was in the front office you know what I mean yes he was but you know it ended bad but you know what ended that Washington it did it did it did it did it did you know but hopefully you know as history goes on you know we try to learn from our mistakes so you know we won't hope hope we won't see that again but you never know but I'm excited to see it I think it's I think it's dope you know to be the first father duo in the NBA um and especially like especially a black father in the NBA you know they was my son was showing me pictures of when uh Brony was like a kid when they he won his first championship and to see that he's still out there and he's gonna be able to play with his son and I think that was I think that's going to be dope longevity Health prayer and uh the own the USC so the Lakers keep a keen eye on him uh definitely worked to LeBron's benefit I'm curious as a football player you've seen it in baseball King Griffey Jr and his dad uh teammates but you've not seen it in basketball is there anything close to it in football uh the is CLO the closest I've heard is like like Father retiring and the son going on the team that he was on and the dad just ended up coaching okay um you see that and you mean you also see like the coaches bringing their kids in and the coaches on the K uh coaching staff that was in New England the Raiders are doing that now um it's kind of it's that's kind of like the more of the trend uh not a lot of people are fortunate to be able to play with their kids my son we was sign joke and he's 13 and he wants to play football and he was like you think you could tough it out I said the only way we doing that if you graduate high school in two years and you get drafted in the next two years and you know maybe on my way out hanging around just for you if you can't pull this off in another five years my guy I I'll be in the F waving for you you know cheering just as hard but uh that's a and you know the NFL is like guess people say the NFL stands was not for long you don't really get to hang around too much I I've been extremely blessed just finished 12 years hopefully I'll be able to play for 13 I got to see Tom play over 13 I got to play with Frank Gore who played over who played over 14 years you know uh Matthew Slater I think he played 17 years or something crazy like that so I got to I got to see play against hear stories get tips how to stay healthy and stuff like that and uh that that's been the coolest part but even even when I remember uh in Miami me and Frank was playing and his son was uh his son was at the University of Miami I remember messing with him about it I was like you gonna hang around you know you know your Frank Gore you know you can get five cares a game and you know still have a job next year I love Frank Frank one of them country Florida boy man be I don't like it that much like Frank said whether I'm on the field with him in the locker room with him I'm still gonna be his daddy he still be able to ask me whatever he need to ask me so whe we don't got to be on the same team we already on the same team and you know that's how I look at it with my son um speaking about Matthew Slater his dad Jackie Slater played 20 years in the league and you know he said the same thing you said it would have been nice but you know it just don't work out that way for everybody so um that would be cool I if if it does happen I can see uh kicker and maybe one of his kids do it but as far as uh one of those one of our positions that we get hit every play I don't see many of us sticking around you know past 12 13 14 cuz when I first got in the league average career of a running back was like two and a half years and then for undrafted guy it was like I think one year so I like I said I'm extremely blessed to be in a position I am in got to see a lot of different stuff see a lot of rule changes um and it's just been a hell of a ride and you know I'm glad I had my family to you know witness a lot of this stuff with me for sure and you played in Vegas last year yeah did two years with Raiders how was that heat during the during the I guess during the course of the Season you prefer that or do you prefer New England cold oh I take the heat I look here I take that Las Vegas heat any day of the week any time of the year before that snow globe that they call New England right like don't get me wrong New England is in its own and its own it is a okay place right it's cool to work there to this day and you can ask anybody from New England who know me who wasn't in that locker room I ask people all the time how y'all live here huh because it's gray every day it's just H like some weeks you would go a whole week without seeing the sun like terrible but in Vegas n you don't got them problems you see clouds you know something wrong it's like oh we got to pack something up cuz it's coming there's no clouds and when I say it's 1:14 and 9 in the morning and it's 104 at 6 at night it's hot and it stay hot now only bad thing I got to say about Vegas is just the dry heat I'm from Louisiana so it could get up to 105 and 90% humidity we at 10 like 107 yeah that's different heat in Louis that's Southern Heat versus that desert heat yeah there two two different animals so when you say why the hot or the cold I'm from Louisiana I take heat any day like I said like my birthday is in January so pretty much from the beginning of January to halfway through March the high is like 40 h yeah and what that was like 20 that was in 21 we played in we played the Buffalo Bills at Buffalo I think it was something crazy like 20 at 30 mile per hour WIS and it dropped the W like the windshield made it drop down to like negative 20 nope yeah you see what I'm saying I that's the coldest I ever been as cold as I ever will be I'm not trying to do it again but I think it's crazy that some football players when they play in that cold weather they wear they're sleeveless like they don't wear anything under that's no that's me I so it's it's weird the material that we have for the cold gear it's like it's like a blanket like on if you imagine a sleeve on the inside of the sleeve it's like a blanket it's gonna keep you warm the outside is slick and so when that weather is like that it's already dry because it's cold so the ball don't have no type of moisture so that ball hit that sleeve it's just GNA slide right off that makes sense so your average like your average player they go oh boy they go put vas they do a Vaseline rug like you hit all extremities with just Vaseline from armpit to wrist and they got this uh other stuff called uh it's white warm skin right and it's like the paste version of Vaseline you put it on the same way but it's supposed to like clog up your pores nothing can come in but it just insulates you so you can have that on and the bad part about that so let's say you start the game you go off of warm-ups and it's cold like you not you're not sweating and it's a light warm up because it's too cold to be out there to be full BL ra but by halfway through the game you've been playing so now that sweat kicking off well you not sweating like you're supposed to it's once that sweat breaks through that layer of Vaseline or warm skin you start sweating like you've been in the gym for two hours oh yeah and so that was the first time I've ever been in a game where it was cold like that and this guy's over here cramping up like it's Camp practice like oh my calf oh my pe ah my bicep and I'm looking like I'm off of drinking water and doing electri Li but it's too cold for y'all to be cramping and then when you go back to their locker you see the big tube of Vaseline a warm skin it's halfway empty like these guys go in there and put on a new layer of skin putting all that stuff on so like it's stuff around it but they going out there with the no sleeves for a lot of people that's that's probably your best bet if you not wanted like we had a running back coach in New England if you didn't practice in sleeves you couldn't wear sleeves in a game oh wow so it was a lot of games like especially I play special teams and running back if I knew I wasn't playing running back that game I want to go out there and withar sleeves but I a't wore sleeves all week so now I got to deal with my coach talking about something n you ain't had sleeves on all week you ain't cold what are you serious and it was after my second year it didn't matter if it was hot r raining cold a blizzard outside had some type of sleeves on and even to this day I still even in Vegas we go out there full pads I have on a long sleeve t-shirt a cut off Hoodie just so I can have sleeves in case we get to a game and it's a little too cold for me I know I ain't about to do a whole lot right so just is I'm I'm I'm just it's engraved in me I can't do it if I don't have sleeves on at practice it's not going to be a good day at practice for me I have to have my sleeves on but you talked about if you knew you weren't going to play an offense but special teams you you'd wear sleeves what about a defensive player what about off a defensive lineman or a d tackle like is that logic similar versus you who's more of an offensive player no they don't have we have it's two different two different mindsets defensive players M with Dante H to this all the time defensive players hope they get the ball okay true true on offense we know at some point it's gonna bounce my direction right you know so defensive players and they were kind of the people who was always like I always we my sleeves I always wear sleeves and that's when it was like common sense like duh I always wear sleeves you see me with sleeves on you ain't gonna never second guess me having my sleeves on and it was I think this was like 2014 team where like we we was up there for the record of like most takeaways you go back and watch every takeaway we had that season everybody who intercepted or picked up a fumble had sleeves on yeah so for the defensive guys they're going out there to be comfortable they know they about to get scratched up banged up they know it's a slim chance I'm getting this ball so they out there just fully protected it's cold like I said it get it get cold for some of them games but on offense it don't matter how cold we get them elbows got to be out biceps got to be clear you better not have nothing on your forearms cuz if that ball come out Lord if that ball come out I a you you ever you have siblings right yeah you ever caught one of them whipping where you felt bad for your siblings yes so a few times when them guys fumble with them sleeves on that's exactly what it feel like we on the sideline like oh don't go in the room yes don't go in the room yes yes so that's kind of what it's like for us on no man you schooled me on everything entrepreneurial to Tom Brady Bill bellich sleeve or no sleeve I don't think we left any stone unturned did we I think we covered everything all right well you off the hot SE all right man that was easy yes sir brother thank you so much for your time and I'll be looking out for what you do next all right appreciate it appreciate it man