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Welcome to the Aggressive Life. I'm betting you know where you were on Monday night, January 2nd, 2023. A night in infamy. Who was that who said that? Dirt? That was a- Oh, I'm not very good at history. Oh, come on. That was a night to live in infamy. That was FDR, right? I'm going to believe you. Yes. OK, here we go. It wasn't. That night, right before 9 o'clock, the Buffalo Bills safety, Demar Hamlin, collapsed on the field during Monday night football, just a few miles from where I'm sitting right now in my adopted hometown of Cincinnati. Medical personnel brought him back to life or tried to bring him back to life. And the nation held its breath as he was transferred to a local hospital. In a moment, the rallying cry, quote unquote, pray for Demar. or thoughts and prayers was seen everywhere from signs of stadium to social media platforms the world over. What I love about the man we're hosting today and I've been wanting to get this guy on for a while. He's a very busy guy, very important guy. Apparently he's not very busy and very important in March though. Right. Right. So he's pretty much like the rest of us, a loser nobody in March. But you know, at the time we couldn't really get him. This guy. what made an aggressively bold move on prime time TV with the nation watching his show, Dan Orlovsky from ESPN, who spent 12 seasons in the NFL, drafted by the Lions in 2005, played college football at the University of Connecticut. Amazing pinpoint accuracy. What he did is so crazy. So crazy. He didn't just say prayers for DeMar. prayed, like someone actually saw him pray. Wow. That's, that sounds like, oh, it should be a simple thing. No, that was an incredibly aggressive, great thing to do. And I want to talk about that with him and many other things. Welcome to the Aggressive Life, Dan Orlovsky. What's going on? It's good to be here. I'm excited to talk. Oh man. I'm excited to talk to you. I got to think that. Well, I'm curious, am I last man to the party? Am I early the party of just talking to you about your prayer thing and what that was like? I mean, is that I know that made a lot of ways because you're just not supposed to pray in public, especially if it's not your job to pray and especially you're a football guy and especially if you're actually on TV. So have you gotten like a lot of requests to talk about this? I've had some. Yeah, I've had I've had a good fair share. To your point. I don't have a ton of open windows time wise. I actually am relatively busy like at the beginning and middle of March because the NFL owns the calendar. It's just at the end of March it becomes a little bit, just a little bit less busy. So I've had to say no more than I've wanted to, but with time, you know, with my family after the season whatnot. So I've had the opportunity to talk about a little bit, not a ton, but a little bit. I also don't want to make it about me, you know, when we're talking about it type stuff. So I try to try to make sure that the focus is on the focus that where it should be. So but I love talking about it. I do. Yeah. Let's go back to that. This is this is months after the fact this happened a while ago. Unfortunately, the nice thing about this is we've got a nice happy ending. We've got totally we've got a nice bow that was tied on this. And it's So therefore, it's kind of interesting. I feel freed up to look back on it. Here's what I remember. I don't know if you remember this while you're watching the broadcast or were you like watching the game live in the stadium? Did you see the broadcast? Yeah, so I actually called a college football game before that NFL game got, yeah, it was a bowl game. And I wanna say it was, it might've been the Purdue LSU game. So I was in an airport. when that game in Orlando, Florida, when that game was kicking off. So I actually could not see the game. And we have a group text message with all the people that are on NFL live together. Me, Laura Rutledge, me to kinds, Marcus Spears and Ryan Clark. And I'm like walking to my gate and my phone is getting lit up in that group text. And I'm going, you know, I see all these like, Oh my gosh, tomorrow. So I see all these texts and I respond back like, what happened? And Ryan Clark responded, Damar Hamlin just fainted on the field. And so my thought was like, what? You know, like, what? What are you, on the sideline, something like that. And then Ryan FaceTimed me. I was like, this is, this is different. This is not normal. And that's when I was like, RC, I'm not even at a TV. Like what's going on? And he expressed to me what went on. And I could, again, feel his words. And that's when I was like, I got to get to a TV. And I caught it real time, it happening. Man, it was intense. It was probably the most uniting thing that we've had as a nation since 9-11. Maybe the only other thing is uniting us. at least Republicans and Democrats is that TikTok sucks and should be banned. Like those three things. There's like, Americans are just kind of at each other time. And like we all came around that it was, it was really a powerful and profound moment, I think, for our country. Totally. When I started to watch it live. I wasn't that everybody in the airport was completely locked in on the televisions. And you could see it was a very big. deal to everybody. And I remember sitting with people being like, you ever seen anything like this? I've never seen anything like this in my life. And it was scary for a person who played. I have sons who play. It was a very scary thing to sit there and watch unfold on television. It was scary. It was awful. And at the same time, my situation watching this, I was a bit surprised. when it happened and all that was left was the three announcers. I don't even know who they were. I can't remember their names. And that's not even tell their names if we think about them, because I'm going to be critical of them for just a moment here, whoever their names were, they just, all of a sudden they were given the ball. There you go. No game. You got a talk, carry us here. Figured out. I was, uh, I just sat there going, I don't understand how these professional communicators have nothing to say. Like, nothing to say. They can't string coherent thoughts together. They, is it because, I'm thinking about, I think to myself, I was thinking, is this because they only know football and they can't talk about anything else? Is this because they live such sheltered lives that they don't see pain and tragedy? Whereas like I'm seeing as a pastor, pain and tragedy all the time. Like funerals for children. a prayer list for people who are dying of cancer, who are 26, someone who died of cancer on our church staff, their daughter, oldest daughter. I mean, I'm just seeing and dealing with painful stuff all the time. And I thought, are these people just so sheltered? They never ever deal with pain so they can't talk about it. Or number three, like, do they feel shackled by the NFL or the political correct coalition to not say anything of faith matters? Or I just was. I was just confused about it. I was just, I was racking my brain, which of those it was or something else. And so that's when I, the next day, when it starts going viral, Dan Orlovsky actually prayed and I saw your prayer. I was like, man, come on, man, come on, man. Like, wow. Put your freaking faith on the line, living your faith for people to see, having a coherent prayer that was sensitive. Dude, way to be aggressive. It was fantastic. Thank you, thank you. No, thank you for that. You know, like I think in the moment when the game is happening, you know, for Troy and Joe, you you've never witnessed anything like that in your daily profession for sure. And you just, there's no guideline, there's no playbook, there's no knowing what's next. And I think that there was, they were as in shock as everybody witnessing what was going on. I think it's just a very difficult situation for them to be in. I think, you know, what happened over the next 24 hours, obviously I watch, I go to bed and you still don't know exactly what happens. And so your mind's racing what happened. I've been around football for 30 years. I've never seen that. And then you wake up the next day and you start paying attention to the television of what's going on and your reports and this and that. And then for me, You know, I kept hearing thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers. And those are awesome. They're awesome. They matter. They do. But I had just thought to myself, like, I wonder what would happen if anyone just prayed, actually prayed for tomorrow, because I think we live in a world where, you know, this is not anyone's individualized fault. But like we are very on to the next, on to the next, on to the next people, because everything is so rapid in our world today. And. It's really easy. I'm guilty of it to say thoughts and prayers. And I just thought to myself, I wonder what would happen if someone just stopped down and actually action rather than words and just prayed for Damar. And it was one of those like feeling God tug at you type of things and feeling God kind of pull at your heart. And I called the producer that was producing NFL Live that day and I told him like, hey, this is just something I might do. I don't know if I'm going to or not. I don't wanna blindside you. If I do, I just wanna let you know. And he was like, you'd be you. I'm never gonna not tell you to be yourself. He said, I have one request. If you are going to do it, let Laura and Marcus know cause they're on with me. And so before the show, I told Laura and Marcus, Laura Rutledge and Marcus Spirits, like, hey guys, this is just on my heart. I don't know if I'm gonna do it. I probably won't, but it's just on my heart to do it. So if it happens, and they both were like, You know, like you be you type of thing and kind of in the, in the day or in the the shows happening and it just kept being on my heart. And the moment I got scared to do it because of what the ramifications could be, uh, was the moment I just kind of like settled and said, you just gotta trust God right now, dude, and, um, this is way bigger than you or what the ramifications could be. And that's kinda what led to what happened on TV. That. That's fantastic. So just as I understand here, you counted the cost ahead of time. You thought about it. You honored your authority figure, which is your producer. Bible talks about honoring authorities. You let in your teammates, the other people who are in the booth with you. And then you had to play it by ear. And you're saying at the last minute, you're like, eh, I don't know. But then you had that nudge to push you over and go for it. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. The moment where I just got. The moment where fear was like, I was scared. I was like, yo, like, am I really gonna do this? And cause I'm very aware what prayer is and how it's viewed by some people and it's not normal on television, certainly not on the station that I'm on. And you know, I was very aware of that. And you know, kind of that moment where I got scared to do it was the moment where as a young person, our team chaplain in Detroit, Dave Wilson, He always say the are in real. Yeah. I know Dave. Of course. Yeah. They married me. My, my, my wife and I, gosh, I was of course she, right. He was the chaplain for the lions way back when I just was texting him today about something. Wow. Small world. Yeah. Yeah. And in that moment, I remember hearing Dave as I was a young person in the NFL saying the are in real man stood for reject passivity. And that was that springboard to say, You gotta trust God right now. Wow. I am, man, I'm really challenged by this. This is fantastic stuff. It's really cool to hear that people were giving you the same leave way with verbiage that we give seemingly just a lot of people in culture, right? You be you. I don't hear many people thinking you be you should be applied to people of faith. I think most of us of faith feel like we should be suppressing that aspect of ourselves. That's really cool that you're producing everybody else and saying, no, no, no, everyone gets to be you. However you interpret you, wait, you get to do that. So that's really great, man. You work with some really good people. Yeah, no, I was very thankful for it. Our producers are great. The people that I get to be on with every day are tremendous people. And Mark has even said, Dan, just make sure if you do it, it's authentic. You don't want it to come off as scripted or like a play for attention, you know, and that was really important. So it was a very impactful moment for sure. Did you, before that, I think I know the answer to this. Well, I'll tell you what, I think that you didn't plan what you were going to pray on. It sounded to me like you prayed like a man. No clue. Yeah, that was a prayer from a man who actually prays. That wasn't like a premeditated, okay, let's think this and that, but yet you checked like the boxes on what a great prayer would be about, especially for someone who doesn't believe in prayer, doesn't believe in God. You had some easy outs in there for them to, you know, not check out and for them to still not feel devalued because they may not have the same beliefs. I think it was a brilliant prayer, brother, really great. Thank you. You know, yeah, I had no idea. Again, I was super, super fortunate and blessed to be around some people in my younger years, NFL career wise, You know, I got to like learn what praying was from the Bible and broken down and Dave was great at that stuff. And then I would, you know, hear prayers sitting around the locker room or before a game, you know, and then I had the opportunity to do those as well. And so I just, I really tried to have the prayer be about and for Demar and just honest and vulnerable and transparent and organic all those catchwords. And it was really about tomorrow. And that was one of the things like, cause people since then, you know, I've said a lot of the same things like, oh my gosh, you know, like it was so great of this and that. And I, I didn't really like, I tried to say this to people in a respectful way. My prayer was not for someone who is a believer. And my prayer was not for someone who's not a believer. My prayer was for Damar. Amen. That's it. And if it offended you, it wasn't for you. And it was for Damar. And in that moment, that was the most important thing. I used to get a little bit annoyed. The thoughts and prayers, I get a little annoyed at the thoughts, because I'm not sure exactly what thoughts do. But I really like it, because at least we're We're telling atheists, agnostics, people who don't have any spiritual bone. You can participate in some way where everyone's included. So I think that's cool. I've gotten to be okay with that, but I'll tell you what I still struggle with. I struggle with people who say, Hey, praying for you, who I have a sticky suspicion are not praying. That's what I loved about your thing. It wasn't like these, this platitude. All right, we're, Oh man, praying for tomorrow, praying for tomorrow. I don't know that as many people are praying for tomorrow as they said they would. I've been very heavily impacted by 1 Samuel chapter 12. It says, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you. And I get so many people who say, hey, would you pray for me? Would you pray for me? And of course, I never say no. No. No, I'm not going to, but when I say yes, I know immediately I've got to pray for them like right now. Either I got to right now text a prayer to them, do a text prayer, I got to say one sign, I got to put my hand on their shoulder, because I'm going to forget probably because I'm going to have six more of those in the next three hours maybe, and they're just going to get lost in there. So I have a, I really just don't want to bum God out by not praying for someone who I said I was going to pray for them for. Do you have any thoughts on that? Like just general prayer life thoughts. Yeah, I probably lean a little bit more towards being like that as well, no matter what I'm doing, you know, like the thought and or prayer, I think they're kind of the same thing in a way, you know, and it goes back a little bit to the culture that we're in, and I'm part of is like, what's next? You know, what's next? And we don't really like sit anymore and do. So prayer life for me is, and I learned this a little bit again during my time with Dave is it's like this constant thing. It's more of a never ending conversation that I get in and out of, you know? So I'm certainly guilty of being a person of the past to being like, hey, I'll send up a thought or send up a prayer for you and not doing it. And I've tried to become better. Over the probably the past couple of years, I've actually like doing it like, Hey, this and that, you know, like, I'm going to pray for it. Do it right now, right in that moment. 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, however long, um, you know, I've, I've tried to become a little bit more focused on in that moment, for sure. Did Dave bring you to faith? Uh, Dave, I got saved during my time in Detroit with Dave, uh, bring me to faith. I grew up in the church. Um, but very much so got away from it. Probably I was never really in it, in it, in it, but like grew up in it, grew up going to church every weekend and school and whatnot. Grew up, grew away from it, high school, certainly college, and probably started to weave my way back to the cross, like my rookie year in the NFL. And that's when I was in Detroit. I was around Dave Wilson, John Kitna, Josh McCown. Mike furry, so really, really strong men, strong believers. Dave and John discipled me. And September 26th of September 23rd of 2006 is when I got saved. So in a way, yes, Dave for sure, I mean, tremendous impact. And then like I said, he married my wife and I, and I talked to Dave all the time still. He's a great man. Well, that's pretty impressive. All three quarterbacks were walking the faith. And going the right direction. What do you think it is about the NFL and the NFL's attachment to spirituality and to Christianity? It's much more prevalent. You're not finding corporate boardrooms, people praying the Lord's Prayer before a budget meeting. You're not finding it at Walmart. people gathering up for prayer. But in the NFL locker rooms, center of the field, wherever it is, faith is just a more out there thing. Yeah, do you think it's because more people in the NFL, a higher percentage in the NFL, have a stated faith? Or you think it's just culturally allowed and permissible, so therefore it gets exercised? Or something else? Probably a little bit of the former. I think there's probably a bunch of variables why. Number one. Um, it's been a big part of sports in history's past. So it's a lot of it is carried over. I think too, um, a great majority, if not every single person that plays in the NFL has been, uh, become it's very aware that you are from birth different than everybody else and you didn't necessarily do anything to gain that difference. You were born. and with the body that could become six foot six, 360 pounds. Interesting. You were born with the ability to have tremendous athleticism. This arm that could do whatever you want with the football. So like, I think as you get, as you grow, you realize, I mean, I was gifted with something here, skills and or talent that just is different than that 12 year old, the 14 year olds, the 16 year olds. I'm different than you. And I didn't necessarily do anything to get that difference. So you become aware of it a little bit more. At least I feel that was a case for a lot of us. We understand the violence of the sport and the reality of like every time you go out there that you can get hurt, you can get injured. That's not to say that the person who's the CEO of a bank, but there's just more of a reality in football. I think we understand, you know, the tough times and the hard times and the fears and the doubts a little bit more because our, you know, our job is dependent upon performance on a daily basis. And I think you feel that a little bit more. And so you look towards something else for strength, you know, in those, those moments of self doubt and, and the kind of battle of the mind I think is a little bit more prevalent in football and certainly in sports. That's fresh. I hadn't thought about all those variables, especially that a good number of players recognize they hit the DNA lottery, and that maybe facilitates being humble. That's really interesting. I think that's one of the reasons why a guy in a post-game interview, not every time, but one of the first things out of their mouth is like, I want to thank God right now. I don't think they're thanking God for the result. I think they're often thanking God for the, you know, A big reason why I'm in this situation is because you blessed me with this skill or talent or trait that gave me the opportunity to be here. That's fresh, Dan. I interact with a lot of other peers, just a lot of pastors, period. That's my day job, pastor. I don't know if you know that or not. That's my day job. So I interact with a lot of peers of mine who've got churches in the five digits up there. And I interact with pastors or no pastors who are the three digits. And people are always surprised when I tell them that it's the largest larger church guys that are the most humble. Um, now, or maybe, maybe they're the most able to make themselves look humble. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe that's what it is. But, you know, I've said like for myself, I know that I'm not this good. I know that, or I know that anything that has happened with me is not because of my self-discipline or stick-to-it-iveness. It's just, you know, God has blessed me and enabled me to to lead a church, a great church, and have a really great salary. And I know there's people who pray more than I do, who are more moral than I am, who have fewer vices than I have, who are better preachers than I am, who memorize more scripture than I do. And yet, for whatever reason, life in their ministry is a lot harder. And you're saying that a lot of NFL players are the same way, that's cool. Yeah, I think so. I think they're very aware of it. And I think that... really leads them to that, you know, kind of journey of thankfulness. I do believe that for sure. I really wanted to go down dirt gives me these questions and you should might ask this as they've got a lot of questions. I might get to them, but he's got a lot of football questions on here. Well, we're going to get the football a little bit, but maybe I'm just, I'm always fascinated to talk with people of faith who are living out their faith in the world. It's incredibly manly. incredibly godly. So I'm going to stay on the faith track here for a while. Are you comfortable doing that? Yeah, yeah, whatever. I'm an open book. Of course. Great. So you, you mentioned a word that, um, some listeners might be really, uh, confused by, uh, you said, I got saved. What does that mean for you? And you say, I got saved. Yeah, I think that the simple way that I would describe it was, or is that, um, I had that journey and then singular moment where I gave my life back to Christ. That doesn't mean that I live in perfection. That doesn't mean that ever since then I haven't made a mistake. I think it's, you know, like I was living this life that was, I was good. I was like a good person. I wasn't a bad dude. I felt like I was a really good teammate when it came to sports, but my life was solely focused around me. That's all, me. I think that journey and then moment I got saved was when I decided to say, I don't want to decide to say, the moment where Christ became more important, living for and with Christ. became more important than the things that I want, like the things that I crave, the way I want to be. That moment of getting saved is very much so like me handing over the keys or me handing over the blueprint or the playbook and saying, I'm gonna follow this one more so than following the one that I envision or the one that I want. The freedom that came with it for me, like I was becoming a person I didn't want to become, the person that I thought or I always said I never would want to. And that was a real freeing thing from the things of the past for me, for sure. Saved for you and your nomenclature, what's in your mind, what are you saying? What do you save from? Save from yourself? Save from eternity without Jesus? Save from, I mean, what? I'm just curious what resonates for you and why you like that word. Yeah, I certainly think eternity, like I grew up again in the church. I was baptized. So I don't know if eternity was ever since that moment when I was a baby and poured water on the head and from a priest, if eternity was sealed for me in that moment. I think saved from. leading a life that had no representation of Jesus and doing absolutely nothing to impact the kingdom. I think that's probably what my viewpoint on getting saved was for me in that moment rather than eternity with Jesus. Because of being baptized, this is a guess, that's why I'm fascinated by it. I guess like my feeling of it in the moment. Yeah, okay. Well, I'm not looking to have a theology discussion with you. Well, those are always fun. I'm just curious, you know, for you when you say that. So that's cool, man. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Dan, I approve of your answer and your thoughts. You're not gonna have the podcast guy crack on you. This is really good, man. I just, it's invigorating to find people who were just, who were living their faith and are out in the open with it. I think that's really refreshing. So well done, brother. Well done. Yeah. So I was, when you talk about it's invigorating to watch someone live out their faith, I think part of that, or great part of that is during that early part of my NFL career journey, I had, I'll talk about Wilson, Josh McCown, John Kittner, Mike Furry, they were the first men that I was ever around. And I was probably 21, 22 at this time, when like they were very. like outspoken Christians, like I am a man of faith, and they lived that way, but also were like me. What I mean by that is like I am a maniac competitor, and I am a in-your-face personality, and I love to compete, I love to be tough, I love to I guess I have a lot of qualities of traditional manlyhood. I don't know if I'm saying that the right way, but like, like wanted to, you know, be like, like rugged and tough and in your face and competitive and talk a little trash and have fun, like have fun in life. But then also like hang out and not swear all the time or hang out. And when they talked about their wife or their kids, like said, good things and positive things and stuff that they enjoyed or like had the soft heart that in that moment like to listen to something that was going on in my life wrong or whatever. Like there was the they were the first and they and that to me was really gravitating and I watched those guys live it day after day after day after day after day and not say sorry for it, not apologize for it. not be ashamed of it. I think those guys as like examples were really, really big deals for me. I think it's good for time to time for us, those of us in the aggressive life team, just remind ourselves what kind of aggression we're talking about. We're talking about what Dan just described here. We're not talking about powering up on somebody and belittling somebody or physically domineering somebody when it's not necessary. We're talking about that right there. I'm go, this is what I want. This is the step I'm going to take and whether someone likes it or not, I'm going to do sensitively, lovingly, boldly, and strongly take it and go after that. Instead of just hoping that someday it magically appears in my life. That's a good reminder for all of us, Dan. So did you see yourself having a career in the NFL forever and ever? Cause it looks like that's your gig now you played and now you're now you're. really secure behind the microphone, doing a great job, you've got a good following. Did you ever think that you'd be making money on football for your whole life? It was a dream of mine. You know, I remember when I was probably somewhere around the age of 12, my dad would say like, you're gonna be playing on Sundays. And as a 12 year old, I had no idea what he meant. Like Sundays was, I'd go ride the bike or something. I didn't correlate one with the other. It was a dream of mine, a goal of mine, and then it became, I was going to make it happen. So from an early age, probably the age of 16, I thought I could go play college football and then my sophomore year of college. So I was 18 or 19. I thought I could go play in the NFL for it to go as long as it did. And now for me to be doing it. I didn't really, I'm a very much so like. Where I, while I'm a big picture thinker, like I'm very much so like, where am I? I'm just trying to be like, trying to just do the very absolute best that I can right now. So I'm super fortunate. I'm super blessed and very thankful. I love doing it. I loved being a player. I love doing what I get to do now on ESPN. So it's awesome. And you see this being the run for the rest of your career? Do you have other goals and aspirations you're working towards? Yeah, I mean, I'm 39. So. what's the long-term goal people always ask that i say it's a moving target you know like i have no idea what football consumption is going to be like in ten years or what media is going to be like i have four kids and a wife three eleven-year-old boys in a seven-year-old daughter so you know the the long-term goal may not fit into what's best for my family in two years so uh... three eleven-year-old boys three of them I have triplet. I have triplet 11-year-old boys. Yep. So were you guys doing infertility, or that's just natural natural head triples? I think it's a little bit of a combination of it. We were down in Houston. We were the family that couldn't get pregnant forever. Doctors kind of said, hey, there's these things that you can do to help. We did a process for about half a year with some doctor help that was unsuccessful. Then we did a couple, infertility, unsuccessful. And then we did one, and it worked. And it went from having twins. My wife has twins in her family. It went from having twins to the next week having triplets. So a little bit of infertility, for sure. That's amazing. Having three boys right off the bat. Wow. Intense. So going into your job, how do you prepare for your job right now? What's it look like? Yeah, I mean, the best way for me to tell you that is to give you my schedule because I'm a big preparer. I was as a player. Um, so football season is absolute pandemonium for me. It's seven days a week and pretty nonstop. So, uh, Sundays there's NFL game day, right? So games start at one o'clock on home on those days. Um, I'll watch live football starting at one o'clock a little bit, but if my kids have something going on or they want to play I don't have to watch the one o'clock games right around three, four o'clock. I have an understanding of like what are going to be the main topics that we will talk about when I'm on ESPN Monday morning. I will start to rewatch the one o'clock games that are of utmost importance for Monday morning, probably around four o'clock in the afternoon and then seven o'clock will come. So I will watch from about four o'clock in the afternoon until about 10 or 11, I'll rewatch probably three or four of the Sunday afternoon games. I don't watch Sunday Night Football Live that much just because of time restraints. I'll wake up Monday morning probably around. You can buzz through commercial. I assume you're watching a DVR or whatever. You're buzzing through commercial. Correct. I'm watching an expedited version. Yep. I'll wake up Monday morning. I live in Connecticut. At about 4 o'clock, I'll get picked up in a car, hop in the car. I will rewatch on the laptop in the drive-in from my home to New York City. Sunday Night Football. So anything that I talk about Monday morning, I have already rewatched. So I know exactly what I want to say. I make cut ups, all that stuff, send it into the show. We have a meeting at 6. I'm on TV from 8 to 11 o'clock in the morning on Monday. I hop in a car. What do you mean you do cut ups and send it into the show? What does that mean? Yeah, I'll take my cell phone. And if anybody's followed me on Twitter or whatnot, I'll take my cell phone. And as I'm watching these. I'll be like, oh, I like that play. I'll take my cell phone, record, and I will kind of like break down the play with my finger of like, this is what happens on this play and I'll send it to the show. And then they could take it to like the audio or video graphics people, and they could do what we call telestrations. So it teaches people what's happening on the play, so to speak. Got it, okay. 11 o'clock or so, hop in the car from New York City, get driven to Bristol, on that Bristol, Connecticut. So it's about a two and a half hour drive. On that drive, bang out the laptop, watch another two or three games. I'll do a show Monday afternoon from Bristol to my home is about an hour drive. I'll watch another game, wake up Tuesday morning. I get home Monday night, probably around six 30, um, Tuesday morning, wake up at about five immediately. You know, I wake up, have a cup of coffee, spend some time in the word. I watch two or three games Tuesday morning. Um, Have a meeting, watch another game in the afternoon, go do television Tuesday afternoon, get home. Wednesday morning, repeat Tuesday. Try to get all my NFL stuff done by Wednesday afternoon. Thursday morning, wake up, and I call college football games on Saturdays. So start five o'clock in the morning, preparing for the college football game, watching those games, checking out notes, all that stuff. I'm on TV Thursday from 10 to six. So in between like those shows, trying to watch college football tape, have the college football conversations with the coaches, get prepared for the game. Friday, wake up, hop on an airplane to some college town. Friday night go to bed. Saturday, wake up, call the game. Hopefully Saturday night get home, sometimes Sunday morning, and then repeat it for the next 15 weeks or so. What a great work ethic. Yeah, yeah. My dad... taught that well to me, I'm very thankful for that. And if I'm not gonna do it, someone will. Exactly. Someone will, not someone else has to do it. Someone will do it and they would love to have your job. And I love it. It's great. Yeah, it's great. Of course, who wouldn't love it? I listened to a podcast a number of months ago with Tom Brady, Steve Young and Roger Staubach. It was really interesting. It was a one-time thing. And Steve Young was Tom Brady's hero, and Roger Staubach was Steve Young's hero. And so Staubach and Young both said to Brady that you've reset the standard for how long you could last in the NFL, and if we could do it all over again, we would go back and we would last longer. We would stay longer. And they said there's two things that are the bellwethers for when you should retire, the two things you have to have as a quarterback. They said, it'd be interesting if you think the same thing. I don't want to like put you, make you, well, I'll ask you, what do you think the two most important things are that define how long you can play as a quarterback in the NFL? Yeah, I think number one, if you don't love the hard parts and the grinds, the challenges of it anymore. I like that. That's a marker, that's a marker. And I think that when you no longer find, when that joy is no longer the greatest joy in your life. Okay, well they should have said those two because those are two excellent ones. Don't like the hard parts, that's good. They said, arm strength and emotional recovery. You lose your arm strength and you just can't, that's what Staubach and Young were both saying. They said, we couldn't recover from games. It was just too hard, it was really rough. And I've thought about that with, for me, and my own occupation, I thought, hmm, when do I know that I'm done? When do I know that my run's done? as the quarterback of the organization that I am right now. It's been a really interesting thought. But what I thought about with that was with your work ethic, I don't think Tony Romo is as good as he was initially. I just think it's hard to stay on top of your game. And when you're a quarterback and you're being paid to break down defenses and you know everything that's happening in the league because it's your job, you can kind of skate on that for a couple of years afterwards because of your knowledge base. And once you get past five years or four years, six, seven, eight, it's, it's about your day to day work ethic. You're keeping yourself incredibly fresh. Do you ever see yourself getting bumped? I don't think so. Uh, no, I'm not wired that way. You know, like I love it. Um, I, I, I find it fills my competitive void, partly not fully, but trying to find things that other people can't or won't find. Um, You know, we live in a world when it comes to like the media, the football media world where the fans are the smartest they've ever been. They just are because of access and social media are the football fans are the smartest they've ever been. And if you aren't finding new ways to educate and entertain the fans, there's other places that they can go. And I think the second thing is because of social media. If you go on TV and say something that is factually incorrect, you will be exposed instantly. Now your opinion may not be agreed upon, but that's okay. It's an opinion that you can't be proven to be fact or not. But if you say something that is factually incorrect, someone could put it on Twitter and it could in the matter of hours. Does everybody knows about it? That wasn't the case 20 years ago. So I think you've got to be very, very, very aware of that. And that has to be something that you are very conscious of in this world. So all of your research that you're doing, give us two a straight doc. Do the Bengals have a chance in 2023? Bengals, as long as they got Joe, have a chance. He's that good of a player. Yeah, they absolutely do. One, he's still cheap. That's great in the NFL. So he's still got a good roster. Jamar's tremendous, you know, they've got to stay healthy. I mean, they were probably a healthy offensive line away from going to the Superbowl this year, you know, so, you know, they had to deal with the offensive line injuries this past year and the biggest game against Kansas city. So I'm a huge Joe Burrow fan. Um, I have been since the moment I saw him playing the national title game versus Clemson, so, um, it's fun to see how good of a player he's become. It's just tough when you're inside of a culture that is historically been a loser culture. I mean, you know a little bit about that with the Detroit Lions, right? The Detroit Lions equal Cincinnati Bengals, for the most part, over the last several decades. Man, it's really hard to change that. One thing I say around here pretty frequently is it doesn't matter what your vision is. Culture kicks visions ass every day. It's the culture that wins, not your platitudes on the wall. And so seeing what Joe Burrow has been able to do, into an incredibly dysfunctional, losing culture. I'm sure there's people from the Brown organization who would listen, but listen, man, you don't have the kind of futility they've had for 20 or 30 years before that without recognition. You have a dysfunctional and losing culture. He comes into that, and he turns it around. It's really, really brilliant and amazing. Yeah. I mean, Joe is a, I don't know Joe, but by all accounts, special talent. I mean, you could hear the Heisman Trophy speech and raise the right way, you know, cut from the proper things, the mentality. They've hit on their draft picks as a whole in Cincinnati. That's been a really big deal. When you get a quarterback that has the talent that he does, and then also the pulse that he has, that's how you have some of the success that they've had here recently. And it's good for the NFL. Yeah. All right, I want you to blow out one of your points here. I'm going to give you a chance to preach here. You can preach for 15 seconds, 30 seconds, whatever you want. And I'm just going to lob you what you said. I think this one of the most inspirational quotes I've ever heard. You said before you went on to pray on that ESPN Live broadcast that we talked about, you said, quote, I just kept hearing in my head, reject passivity. reject passivity. Why is passivity so evil? What is it that you're trying to fire yourself up to crush? Because we weren't born to be passive. We were born to be bold. God did not give us a spirit of timidity. And when Dave Wilson broke down, I think it's an acronym, right, am I saying that right, real man? Because there is a reality that the A man in culture has been, we've lost our stinger in a way. We've lost our edge in a way. And R was reject passivity and then E was engage and A was accept the responsibility and L was lead. And he was, these are the markers of a real man. you know, what we might see on a movie or in a television show. These are the markers of a re if you want to be a real man. Passivity is easy. Passivity. We could we could pass it down the road. Passivity. We don't have to bear the burden of anything or potentially be be have to accept anything or responsibility for anything. We could give it to someone else. And. You know, that's why in that moment, um, it was the opportunity to live that out and not just have it be a, you know, a teaching from the Bible that I heard 15 years ago. That's, that's fantastic. Well, Hey, let's, uh, let's give a little final locker room, raw, raw talk to everybody who's here right now. Hey, Hey, Hey, man, women, it's called the aggressive life. Not be, it's not called the interesting thoughts life. It's not called the things that I should believe. It's a nice thing to believe. It's called the aggressive life because we want to take action. There are so many things that Dan talked about here today. So let me just lobby up some softballs. Maybe actually pray instead of saying I'll pray for you. That's something you could do. Here's another one. I'm going to, I'm going to text Dave Wilson. As soon as I'm done with him, I'm going to say Dave. You understand there's a guy you've discipled, you've built into, who mentioned you at least five times. And he probably would do that a lot because you built into him spiritually. So I'd say to you in the aggressive life, I don't know what your spiritual connection is with God. Who are you passing on your faith to? How are you carving time out of your life to build into somebody? Here's another one. Doing the things that you don't wanna do. I love that line. Are you doing the things that you don't want to do? I tell you one thing I didn't want to do. I didn't want to read another chapter of my kid and I put them down to bed, but I did. Daddy, read me another one. Okay. I did until my last one, until my last one, my last one where I was like, no, no, we're not reading over, no, no, no, go to freaking bed. I'm tired. But man, there's something here that Dan's talked about. I'm encouraging you. to pick up and take on the mantle. Live your life as Dan said, you be you, the kind of you that you wanna be, not the passive you, the kind of you that you wanna be. Dan, how can people get a hold of you or follow you? Just advertise anything you want. I'm on TV basically every day, so that's a part of it. I've got Twitter and Instagram for the most part. I don't know what the names of them are. I think it's my name, maybe D. Orlovsky or Dan Orlovsky 7, probably one of those. But I am pretty easily found on those platforms for sure, if they want to. Not a big deal if they don't. All right, man. Well, hey, thank you for giving the time you've gave, given the wisdom that you've given, and thank you for being a model for godly aggression. Way to go, dude. Keep going. My pleasure. My honor. Thank you, man. All right, we'll see you next time. on The Aggressive Life. Hey, thanks for listening. For all things aggressive living, why don't you head over to bryantome.com, find my new book, Move, A Guide to Get Up and Go Forward, as well as articles and much, much more. And no matter where you listen to podcasts, why don't you take a second and leave us a rating, leave us a review. It really, really helps us drive new listeners to show we wanna help as many people as possible, just like we may have helped you, we wanna help others. So why don't you help us out. And if you want to connect, find me on Instagram at Brian Tome. Aggressive Life with Brian Tome is a production of Crossroads Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.