Taking Money From A Booster??? Tennessee Titan Damian Williams

Hey y’all NFL fans. Yes sir. Y’all going to put me up [Music] from a personality standpoint. TJ is going to talk. He’s going to tell you exactly how he feel. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. TJ Ward. What’s up? It’s TJ Ward and you are watching Safety First Show. I’m very excited today cuz I have a special guest, my dog Damian Williams. Let’s give a round of applause. You got to have some noise in here. Audience. Hey. But my dog Damian, you may know him as USC great Texans third round draft pick from Springdale, Arkansas. Arkansas go um freshman all-American with the Razerbacks, all pack 10 receiver in 2009, eight and n eight and nine. Two-year All Pack 10 wide receiver, third round draft pick of the Tennessee Titans, Damen Williams again. What’s up, brother? My dog, man. Long time. Long time. I know, bro. I know, man. Nothing, man. I uh I know we had chopped it up a couple times. So, I’ve been waiting to get out here, man. Come holl at you. Yeah, man. We always talking back on the gram, back and forth on the gram. And that’s why another reason I love the gram cuz allows us to keep up with one another, you know, from a distance, whether we watching every day or, you know, weekly we might see something or just something that catch our eye. Hey, bro. I see what you’re doing. Uh, keep it up, man. I appreciate that, bro. But let’s talk about a little bit about before we get in the ball. Okay. Let’s talk a little bit about what you got going on post career. How’s that been for you? Cuz you know, we want to focus on the game, but us retired guys giving game to the guys coming behind us, you know. What’s that like? What’s that been like? Yeah, man. Um, I did a little bit of everything. My, uh, honestly, my journey’s been really, really cool because I had a kid my last year of football. like in my last year. So, she was born basically in January uh when I when I retired. So, my first year of of not playing ball, I was a stay-at-home dad. And it was the best the best thing ever, bro. Like, I you know, for a lot of us, the worst part is trying to find your purpose or finding something else to do when you’re done. But I had like a built-in scenario for me. So, it was like I just went straight from the career of playing football to the dad career. And uh it was great my first year. Um I enjoyed being a stay-at-home dad. Then one day I was just kind of like looking through my finances. I was paying some bills and I was like I I spent a lot of money recently. And you know, you realize like the worst thing for people with money is idle time. And so, you know, although I was a stay-at-home dad, I mean, I my baby was a baby baby. like she was a couple months old. So, you know, when she was with her mom or if I, you know, I was out of town or whatever, I had a lot of time to do stuff and I realized I was spending a lot. So, I uh kind of went the entrepreneur route. Um, this is when like crowd therapy was coming on the scene for real. Um, and so I had a mobile unit cuz one thing I hated was like if I leave the facility, I’m going home. Like I’m not trying to go to bunch of extra places. So, I figured if I put a mobile unit together and pull up to places like gyms and and different workouts, you know, they had like um the tough mutters and like all these different workouts and stuff um CrossFit gyms and stuff. And so, I figure I pull up to them, that’s one less stop they got to make for recovery. And so, I did that. Um had a good run with that. wound up um meeting a guy that uh worked uh owned a financial wellness u financial management firm uh wealth management firm and then um you know he kind of took a liking to me learned a little bit from him left there went to Visa and then now I’m working u with a company out of Dallas uh called Playbook Investors Network and basically what they’re doing is helping uh small businesses gain or get educated and gain access capital and then um and different resources to scale and grow their businesses. Oh, dope. Dope, man. I was in the same situation. Well, I was trying to get back in the league. I was two years out, man. And no way should I been two years. One season when that season went by and I didn’t play, I was like, “Oh, hell, what the [ __ ] this football like we all do towards like, man, ain’t no way they got him on the field over.” But, you know, I had my son. Um, he’s fine now. Your daughter’s nine. So that kind of was my, you know, it’s over with. Like I I went to the um Cardinals for like 3 4 weeks of, you know, the beginning of the season. They let me go. I was like, I’m not doing this. I’m not going to leave my baby. I had just had him. It was co, you know, I didn’t want to come back and forth from traveling, bringing something back to him. So I’m like, man, it’s over. Sometimes it’s over. It’s over. You still play with us. Like you said, God is asking, “Do you hear me?” That’s it. Because it’s time to go. It’s time to go. But man, that’s that is dope. That’s dope, man. Cuz it’s always interesting as well to see the different entrepreneurial entrepreneurial fields that we jump in as players, bro. Like, it’s fascinating. I see guys doing different stuff and they find different lanes that aren’t your typical. Yeah. And it amazes me. I’m like, man, how you get into that? That’s crazy. For me, it was it was kind of something like that. It was like I didn’t know, you know, you play football your whole life. I played football since I was five years old, bro. Like I literally didn’t know anything outside of football. So even, you know, when I’m playing, like I know like, okay, I went to school for business. Like I know I’m fairly intelligent, but like when you done it’s like you don’t know for a fact that you could just go do whatever it is that you thought you could do, right? Because you never done it. Like you you like go even just like going to work in corporate America, bro? Like I remember my first day in corporate, I was just sitting in there in a meeting and I was listening. I’m like, bro, why are we doing this? Yeah. Like this, what’s the point? You know what I mean? And it’s like, they have processes and procedures for the way that they do stuff and whatever, but like for me, I was like, I don’t this don’t make no sense. We’re wasting time. You know what? You know, I noticed that it’s so minute and and you they corporate it’s got to be I think it’s macro or no, it has to be so down to the micro level because people really don’t retain. They don’t intake the information. So, we’re used to getting information and applying as football players and as athlete, get the information and apply. You don’t get the information, you don’t play. Y period. But we live in an age where it’s participation. let this slow person catch up to where everybody else is doing. He needs time or whatever this sympathy is instead of finding someone that can come in and do the job better and spending less time on things. We’re waiting for those who don’t want to be there, don’t want to work as hard as everyone else and one thing is given to them. Yep. And this is the society we live in. Which is funny because that’s the the stigma that we carry. They think that we’re the ones that feel like that. That’s the stigma we athletes carry. Yep. Right. We getting We’ve been given everything our whole lives. Uh we don’t work for nothing. We got lot about it. You get into these corporate worlds, you get into these offices, you get in these groups of people, don’t nobody want to work. Yep. We’re entrepreneurs. We haven’t had employees or what. Nobody wants to work. Yep. And we be the ones staying after doing the extra work, coming in early, doing the extra mile, asking the questions. Like that be us. Hello. But a lot of times they don’t want to they don’t want to give us credit for that. They don’t want to give us credit for it because we’re not only above and beyond you physically. We’re above and beyond you mentally. And if we had the time to spend just on academics in school, just on passing one class and not have that full-time job at the same time, we’d be validictorians, too. So don’t come at us athletes talking about or thinking that you smarter than this, cuz guess what? You’re not. Yep. You’re not. Yeah. Next subject, J. Let’s get off Let’s get off the business side and get into some football, baby. Hey, my dog played in two of the best conferences in football. Absolutely. Well, we going to bring in the Pack 10 cuz we both played in the Pack 10, which was the greatest conference in football. I don’t care what you say. Yeah. Pack 10, SEC. And I’m not going to ask you who better cuz that’s too easy. I was going to say what do you think was the most difficult part in the playing in each conference you as a receivers? So for me I think that the games were different right so like when we played and when we were in college the SEC was running the ball. Yes. Like that’s what was happening. And we talked about my team like I had a three-headed monster over there. They was real life running the ball and they was all all Americans like you know what I mean? So like this was the time where like Alabama wasn’t good. Say you thought them had some bad razor backs. They was probably the first group that had like a real powerhouse of a stable of running backs for real. Who those guys real quick? Uh Darren McFaten led by him. Heisman runner up Felix Jones who would have been first round pick he was a first round pick would have been up for the Heisman on any other team if he wasn’t playing behind Darren and then Pton Hillis Madden covered Madden covered come on and Payton probably one of the raw athletes I’ve ever seen in my life bro like I remember I remember when I was in high school they had um a video of Peyton Hillis I remember I was in probably a a freshman maybe or sophomore in high school and they had a video of Peyton Hillis his summer workouts he was pulling fire trucks man was in high school he was pulling fire trucks up a hill bro and I remember seeing that thinking like I’m not working hard enough ain’t no way ain’t no way ain’t no way ain’t no way n I ain’t going to lie when I got to Cleveland and uh P was there and he wore 40 so I’m automatically think all right but he was fast n he was fast like this dude who was fast and handle neck juggernaut. We call him straight juggernaut, bro. And I Payton the game the little game we did win. Payton had like a lot to do with those wins. We could run the ball and our old line was pretty good. Um but we couldn’t pass, you know, we had no pass. We had 15 quarterbacks like they got now. We don’t play quarterback. It ain’t hard quarterback. Anyway, but to answer your question though, I I will say this, the back then playing in the SEC receiver, if you was getting off, you was really getting off because it was limited opportunities, right? Whereas like when I went to SC, like the reason I chose to transfer to SC is because they was going to have 2,000 yard receivers every year. Like guaranteed regardless, they it didn’t matter. You could look at everybody that came before me. They had Who was your head coach that year? Um I had Pete. Oh, Pete was still there. Yeah. Yeah. I was the last year of Pete. That was the last year of of Pete’s uh of Pete. Yeah. We had Gamble. Uh my dog Joe McNight. Yeah. CJ Gable. Uh Stefan. Mark Tyler. Mark. And people don’t even know Mark Tyler was called. We had Allan Bradford who AB was a linebacker. Bradford. Yeah, bro. Yeah. So yeah, that was that was a game, man. When when y’all when we had that 2008 class, our secondary was crazy. It was me, Black Sean, Walter Thurman, J, right? So that game for us, we still hadn’t knocked the dust off that USC aura yet. Y’all was still at sem. We was good. So we talked about this, right? Uh, we was talking about this earlier, but this is what I was going to bring up. I just recently realized that that defense was like the second best defense in the history of football of college football. Yeah, that 2008 USC defense. I I was looking at the stats and it’s the 2001 Miami. Yeah. And that 2008 SC defense was like the number two. I didn’t know they were good. I didn’t either. Well, and I knew they was good, but it’s like we practicing against him every day. So, it’s like to me I’m like, man, I’m getting that cush today. Ray, I’m avoiding for sure. I’m getting away from him. But it’s like me and team Maze is going at it like Yeah. But we we had all those guys. But it’s like if that’s your everyday, that’s your normal, right? But I never realized this. And I seen the stat the other day and I was looking I was like, damn. Like we was really like that. Oh yeah. Ray, Clay Matthews. Clay didn’t even really Well, we had Clay Matthews, Everson Griffith. God, yeah, y’all had one of the best defenses in history cuz we came in that game and y’all had a stack team. So, we knew we I mean, we could hold y’all, but we was going to be our offense to score like it was going to be one of them. But our offense didn’t score, got in the red zone, didn’t put up a touchdown, and then y’all just we just couldn’t hold off that long. Was that you making me with a dumb move? Yeah. Oh my god. Don’t show your tape. Well, this the thing though. This is the thing though. We knew y’all was biting, bro. Yeah. Cuz you almost had to. Y’all didn’t play cover two for real. Like you y’all was going to be in that box playing at cover four and we knew it. We knew it. We knew it. What happened was our corner I ran like short shallow out and you stand behind it but our corner was so shallow on this shallow out. I had to respect the corner. I had to and you went on that corner and you put your foot up. Hit me under the corner. But honestly, I blame you Pat cuz you on the back side cover too. That ball’s in the air long enough. You got to get to that ball on the back side. That’s what I would have ran over. Yeah. No, actually, matter of fact, that one was Rojo. That one was Rojo that ran that one. I ran the uh I ran the uh we ran the flip screen. We ran the screen flip. That’s what it was. I got I was wide open, man. But that’s that’s because we was worried about y’all. You and Pat was hitting [ __ ] Sorry. Can I curse? My bad. But y’all was hitting [ __ ] I tried to I knew that this game was an opportunity for me to make my mark nationally because you know you on the roster you looking to make your name or you looking for that team that okay it’s the SC it’s the Orient the Washington I got to show up these Oh no absolutely absolutely and we lost but I showed up I showed up I always got respect for the whole team all those guys I talked to a lot of those I know what I but show me a lot of respect game. Hey man, do you coaches and everything? Yeah. No, we game playing for you. We game playing for you. Where’s number two? Where’s he at? N real [ __ ] man. That’s dope. That’s dope. Um, yeah, that season was dope. Then the next year, y’all came to our house and we had to return that favor. It’s funny cuz we’re both playing for the Rose Bowl. Like that year before y’all was playing golf, the next year we was playing golf and we had and I hated that trip. I had a crazy that whole situation was a crazy trip for me, bro before before we even came to that game. First of all, I was hurt. So like I had a hamstring injury and I wasn’t supposed to play in that game, but like I really really wanted to play. Second of all, I wasn’t supposed to. I almost didn’t even make the trip for that game because I had to go see the Jboard because a UCLA alumni called the NCAA and told them that I was get I was out to dinner with an alumni and I was getting improper benefits. The alumni that I was out with was Sanchez. He had just graduated the year before. So technically he was alumni, but this was my quarterback the year before. And they called and told the Jboard. So I had to go in there to the Jboard and sit in front of them and and explain how I wasn’t receiving improper benefits. And the only reason that I even got out of it was cuz Pete came in there and was like, “Yo, we’re leaving. Like this is crazy. Like there’s this is the wildest thing that he shouldn’t be in here.” He just came and got me like, “We’re leaving. We going to play. And this goes to another point real quick. You see how they go out their way to try to make it hard for a young black brother to prosper. This dude is out to dinner with his teammates. You got some screw job from UC LA trying to say he’s in receiving improper benefits to ruin his life. This can ruin the livelihood for his family and everything that he’s going to work his ass off for. Situationally with Randy Mosley. What’s the issue with y’all man? Let’s go to school. Let’s get our education. Let’s play. Stop bothering us all goddamn time. Facts. Big facts. But yeah, so I almost didn’t make that trip. Couple things that was happening. And then I went up there to get my back to lose. It was the worst, bro. That was the worst. Halloween trip. I got pictures of the game. I had nasty. That was good, man. Nasty. Yeah, because you deal seem like you got a lot to do with the J boy. You transfer. You got to sit out a year. What you got to do back in the trash? We got to transfer sit out a whole year. Yeah. For what? I don’t know. Just make it difficult on us. They going to make it diffult on us. Then you get into school. Can’t have a job. Can’t even have dinner with that quarterback. Like what? Can’t have a job. Can’t have a job. Can’t work. You can’t work. [ __ ] that started you came up. Yeah. Thank God for Thank God. I’m so happy for you young boys that deal with the [ __ ] that we had to deal with some money and a little thing that y’all do trying to uh punish you for normal things, right? Punishment and just trying to bring a bro in our [ __ ] dreams. Y who does that? You got to be an evil spoiled ass inside ass person to do some [ __ ] like that. Man, these players get their money. Um, we just talking about you having a child of the year. Obviously, I’m assuming you’re for Oh, absolutely. Um, what do you what do you think is one thing that makes sort? So, for me, man, like I think I love the idea that they’re getting their money. I feel like we should have got paid. Like I mean I think about what you was doing at Oregon and where you was at like you was getting money. When I was in SC there was no pro football teams there. Like me and T Maze was on a billboard on the team, bro. Like we I was on the ticket for the Rose Bowl. I ain’t getting no money. Like nothing. So I’m happy these kids are getting money. What I’m not happy about is the way that they went about doing it. It was almost like it was like a okay y’all beg for this so here and like figure it out. There needs to be a system in place. If it was me personally, I would have somehow they should have been able to set up a trust for all of these players and as they got their money, put it in there and then a certain amounts released over years or as you hit certain milestones, meaning in the classroom, meaning education wise, financial literacy, that type of stuff. What I don’t like is that they’re all getting this money. And if statistically within 3 years of of leaving the NFL, people are going broke and we grown men, imagine what these kids is 8, 17, some of them getting in high school, 16, 17, 18, 19 getting that type of money. Imagine what they’re doing with it. And to a stronger point, you know, it’s almost to their own detriment because a lot of these kids need money early and get sidetracked and not get to their ultimate goal. Absolutely. What you see in a lot of cases like sitting a big ass cake in front of a fat kid or just a little kid, you know, like right the whole cake, right? You know what I’m saying? Give him pieces or have, you know, financial security. I almost don’t like financial literacy because it makes it seem like it’s very hard to comprehend. Yeah. like financial if you give us all information and make sure that we’re comprehend comprehending it then the literacy is that hard it’s only it’s only hard because you guys are hiding things yes and I don’t want to talk I like financial security just make 4% hold my money I don’t have to be extra anything you want to take my money and manipulate it so You get all these fees and all these bonuses. The only [ __ ] keep my [ __ ] safe cuz here this is money. I understand when you got money here and you look at that [ __ ] like what the Yeah. And nobody’s teaching you how to like how to invest your money. What? [ __ ] Bring that [ __ ] back. Yeah. And nobody’s teaching you how to invest your money. Nobody’s teaching you like what that actually looks like. They’ll tell you like, “Okay, well, we’re going to invest in this. We’re going to invest in.” But you don’t know what these actual things are. You don’t know if it’s a ETF. You don’t know if it’s mutual funds. You don’t know if it’s private equity. You don’t Yeah. You don’t know if if if it’s life insurance policies, if it’s got cash value in it, if it don’t got cash value, if it’s something you can borrow against. Like, you don’t know all this stuff. And nobody’s teaching you any of this. They’re just doing it for you. And it’s cool to have somebody managing your stuff for you, but you need to be learning and understanding what’s happening along the way. And I don’t I don’t think they have that. They’re not providing that for for these kids. Another reason they keep it simple. If you simplify it, we can learn from that simplicity. Yep. We take from here, take it a step up. Give me what you understand here. Now, you can take a step up. When you give all the steps at once and you figure okay who’s holding that person accountable now and nobody does that anywhere else in any other process I understand that I’m in $300 a year $300 a year $300 right here on the street right Yep. Because how and how else you supposed to know? Like the majority of us come from situations where you ain’t had that backing. So all that’s the worst part. That’s the worst part again. All skin. That’s tough. Tired of this. All right. Yeah, bro. Tell us about them on the situation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I went to uh went to work for Visa. Um they had a program there for uh former athletes and it was basically so you could come in get your foot feet wet in um corporate America kind of figure out some of the things you want to do where you want to be that type of stuff. So um I was always interested in marketing but I always wanted to get in tech. Never knew how to get into tech. You know I’m not a coder. I I wasn’t really like up on all the project management stuff and all that stuff. So I was like, well, I could go into a tech company. Every company has a marketing team, right? So I could go to a tech company, do marketing stuff, and then learn the the tech part, right? Well, while I was there, um it just so happened I went to a fintech company. So uh Visa had a um a room at the top of our building of the headquarters. It was called Visa University. And um it was just a a a vault of knowledge of all kinds of financial cases. um different stories about, you know, about the company, but also you could learn like about how credit cards work and like the actual fees and the transactions that happen along the way. You could learn um about just like simple checking and and different types of accounts, CDs and all that type of stuff. So, I would go on go there on Wednesdays. Um I didn’t have a lot of meetings usually, so I would go there and just work out of there that morning. And while I was there, I would be looking stuff up and I realized I’m like, besides the fact that I didn’t know most of the stuff I was looking up, I started thinking like none of my friends know this. Half my family don’t know this. Like, and these is people with with a lot of money that don’t know all of this stuff. And you know, for me, it’s kind of a double-edged sword because it’s like for one, like I’m grateful that I had that opportunity to learn this stuff, right? But then it’s also it’s like how do you pass this along? Because and why didn’t we know this, right? Like I I didn’t learn about money until I retired from football. And that’s when I had all the money. So like why is it that I never learned about money until I was done playing, right? But then like I go to think about it like um I have family friends and like their kids are eight. They’re triplets. Kids are eight. And um they’re talking over Christmas about what they want for Christmas and that and the third and they’re talking about buying different stocks. And I’m like, these is three eight-year-olds. They’re having this conversation. That conversation didn’t happen in my household. That conversation doesn’t happen in a lot of those households. Even right now, like with my daughter, like I teach her certain stuff about money and whatnot, but even that, like she’s nine, she’s not learning about stocks. And it kind of made me think about the way that I was parenting as as well is like, you know, I thought, you know, you think you do a good job, you do the best you can. There’s no blueprint to this thing, right? But, you know, when I see stuff like that, I’m like, you know what? No, this is how it’s supposed to go. Like, we’re supposed to be having those conversations early, right? And it just blew my mind to hear these kids talking about this because they was talking about stuff like I’ll be talking about on regular. I’m like, “Wait a minute.” So I’m over here asking them like, “So what y’all think?” Like, you know what I’m saying? Like let me pull let me pull this swab up real quick and get some gang. Yeah. Like am I invested properly? Like I’m asking them, right? So and it’s just stuff like that. those conversations that like we as athletes a need to be a part of and understand ourselves, but b like as like I always say is like it’s funny raising these suburban kids like like now we need to be able to pass that stuff along and having these kids like like my daughter don’t get to just be on Roblox all day or be on whatever else like we going to learn some stuff in here too from different envir Yeah. Spoiled. Spoiled. Yep. Yeah. We just Man, we just went through this at my house. My daughter is nine. She got a phone this year. I told her, “Look, there I know all the people that’s in this phone, and those are the only people you to talk to. Don’t be getting new no new numbers, like none of this, bro. research. Yeah. And you got to really be in there. I know. I know. That’s a whole another. Yeah. Cuz I was going to say I heard they was trying to put like a dating app in there and all kinds of stuff. And that’s crazy work for some kids. Yeah. Anyway, [Music] note to be I knew we was gonna have to talk about this. I know where we going. Our man was involved in an unfortunate event last weekend and as I like to jump on uh commentating on things before all the facts and the last fact comes out. So what we want to do is talk down the situation which is unfortunate and I know you you know that was your guy. Yeah. Yeah. That’s my dog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. But how are you doing? Uh that’s my dog man. And I’ve I’ve spoke to his family since um and I actually spoke to him um you know and for me my my part in this was I I haven’t heard their side of the story. Um, I didn’t ask any questions about what happened. Um, it was more of just letting them know like, “Look, man, I know you’re going through it and and these are the types of times where you really find out who who your people are, you know, who your real friends are and that type of stuff.” I’m like, “Look, man. Like, I don’t condone any type of violence or anything like that, but also like that’s my friend.” And so, I I wanted him to know that he had support um that, you know, if he needed to talk or whatever. and and just I think more so it’s like we see stuff like this happen, right? And it and it’s it’s sad um cuz you never know the full extent of the situation. And I think for especially in his situation um I I think it’s more just about waiting to to hear all sides, right? but also understanding that regardless of what happened or um how it all plays out. I think the most important take for all of this is just to know like for for guys like us, for guys that have retired, for guys that are even while you’re still playing that are going through whatever they’re going through that like there’s resources out there. Um, and I think that that’s the most important part of this is for, you know, if there is something that’s bothering you or if there is something to not let it build up um to to get out there and talk about it. You know, I’m I’m a big advocate and uh component of um therapy. I’ve been to therapy. Um I know a lot of people have been to it. Um and for especially for athletes, it’s so important for us because we’ve been taught to suppress emotions. uh for forever like and and even thinking like when you’re a little kid you get hit you don’t cry get up but it’s like but that hurt bro like it hurt so you’re telling me that I’m not allowed to react to pain and that starts as a young kid and that goes throughout your life. So if you wind up playing like we did, like playing 20 25 years of your life, at what point did you learn how to manage your emotions? At what point do you learn how to deal with conflict? Like I said, I went to corporate America, right? If you come to me talking about where’s this file at? First of all, it’s on the drive. Go look for it yourself. But regardless of all that, if I’m not having a good day, in football, we going to get to it and then we going to get back to practice. I can’t do that in corporate America. But nobody’s taught me any ways to cope with this stuff or how to deal with and and resolve these conflicts, right? What I do know is is in football, we probably just scrapped and then got back to it and you yell and get it out and then it’s over with. You talk some talk [ __ ] whatever. You’re done. You can’t do that in the corporate space. But if ain’t nobody taught us that like then what you do or you used to have that outlet when you know when you was playing so you can go get it out but now you don’t have that outlet. So now you at home with your family and you and your girl get in an argument or something like how do you release that that tension or how do you release that that way and I know the way that we are doing it right now. Yeah. I know me the the turning point for me when I had to stop drinking. We talked about having these kids, man. I was deep. I was getting in the like depressed, bro. Just drinking to blackout. Yeah. Drinking to literally black out. Like I might not even be doing too much, but I got 86. Yeah. And you can easily that can go into some other things, right? I was just fortunate not to get into something like Mark or something worse, you know. But um yeah, man. We got to find other avenues besides liquor. I mean, liquor is kind of how we even a lot of us just get through the career. We have fun either in good times or in bad times. It’s the liquor we go to. And we have to not rely on the liquor, man. Yeah. Or or even like like like for me for me liquor wasn’t the my biggest thing, but mine was more of just isolation. Like I just disappear for days. Like you get in a little depression or whatever. It’s like I just don’t want to talk to nobody. So like you at home by yourself. Like I would just disappear, bro. Like wouldn’t talk to my family for for days. Wouldn’t talk to my friends and stuff. And it’s like it ain’t like I didn’t want to talk to y’all because of you. It was just where I was at mentally and and going through some of the stuff you’re going through. It’s like, man, like I I almost rather be alone. And that’s when it starts that’s the when stuff starts to creep in and that’s where you start getting thoughts of crazy stuff and and whatnot. Um because again, it’s like you’re taught not to have emotions. You have all these emotions you don’t know how to deal with. And then it’s like I’m embarrassed to even tell somebody that I’m going through this because I’m supposed to be strong. I’m supposed to be the man in the house or whatever else. You know what I mean? So just man, just understanding you have friends, understanding that there you’re not going through it alone. Um there’s always somebody you could talk to about whatever else. And that’s for for all of my friends. Any of y’all listening and hearing this, you could always call me like anytime. I’mma pick up the phone or I’mma call you back. Whatever. We can have that conversation because one thing that’s happening all too prevalent is is people unal alive in themselves right now. Um all over some trauma that that may have could have been resolved or definitely could have been resolved if they knew about a outlet. Yeah. about cuz even a lot of those um unlocked situations somebody they could just get off the phone with somebody you know a family member that thought they could help or yeah just talk to him but um you know sometimes it’s no matter who they talk to or what said y you know they going to go that route so keep our prayers out for those guys for sure guys and girls u before we get up out of here I want to end on a little lighter note you know our big our aunt Mike Irvvin been out there always. Yeah, it’s my dog us with entertainment. You know Mike personally? Okay. Okay. Um he I see Mike a lot. Yeah. Okay. Uh so he had to get back at some of these uh YouTubers talking about uh the receivers in his generation couldn’t do nothing with the guy now. The receivers in today’s generation could would eat us or eat the generation before alive. And he had to go off. He has a few words, choice words, and I’m glad he said it cuz now I can piggyback off of it and then we a matter of fact, you piggyback off it. I’mma go last. Yeah. I’mma close out. Uh, honestly, bro, I agree with it. Yeah. And and I get it. Mike’s animated, man. Like Mike going to give you Yeah. Like like even when you like every time I see him Oh, absolutely. I mean, every time I see him just the dap, he be like, “Hey, young fella. Hey, boy, you look good.” Like you know that that whatever, right? But um I think that obviously the game evolves, right? So like talent level I think a lot of these guys they got it like they got a deeper bag than what we had but a lot of that stuff you wasted motion. What I was going to say deeper bag where like they got all the moves but like if them moves ain’t getting you where you need to go or if you doing all them moves and dropping a pass like it don’t do you no good. Well, what I will say is Steve Smith’s, uh, Johnny Taylor’s, uh, Randy Moss’s, Michael Irvin, uh, all those guys that play, Andre Reeds, like all them dudes that played in that time period was dogs. Dogs. And I wish some a lot of these corners would today try to play with Mike. They don’t understand how big these like like Andre Michael Irvin and you name Steve Jonathan Taylor like Jerry Rice you say you look at him they cuz the the rest of the league was huge 6’2 63 230 yeah like you having to deal with that every play bro there’s a reason Dion’s one of the best corners ever like 63 there’s a reason he’s not little now the corners y’all playing against is little for the most part yeah you got your Jaylen Ramsey’s that are still part of the you know 2010s generation. You still the 2010 guy. Um but that that’s kind of gone now, bro. Like that. But you can’t these dudes ain’t getting touched. Like Jefferson Jefferson may not be in the league. I don’t But you can’t touch him no more. Five years, right? Yeah. Okay. So our when we when you guys came in the league that began, you can’t really touch at the line of scrimmage 5 10 yards, right? Yeah. But we can still hit you guys with Absolutely, bro. I would cross the middle and bro, no lie, bro. No lie, dog. When we used to play the Jags and the Ravens, I used to hate playing them because we run a lot of crossing routes and that was back in the time where they they was looking up the crosser just knocking them out. Like it didn’t matter. Just hit him and that’s it, bro. No, you’re right. Bro, the backside in drop off. Pow. like they it just hit you like they can’t even touch you anymore. So, I mean, yeah, it’s a different era of football. So, yeah, they getting off because they can’t get touched. You can’t get hit. Like, if I was going across the middle now, I would never worry about getting hit. We was looking for y’all. You, Troy, Brian Dawkins, like I’m looking for them. I’m not looking for none of these dudes today cuz they can’t hit me. They can’t hit. Worst case scenario, I get hit in the back. Like, all right. like whatever, cool. But yeah, man, that that violence is definitely not in the game. And I hate that these players, and there’s no knock on the current players, and even our generation, cuz I know the generation before us is like, man, they couldn’t do this, couldn’t do that. And you know, but there was some things the defense could do that we couldn’t do, like jam a [ __ ] 15 yards downfield. Facts. Now for the offense is is reverse. It’s like, damn, we can jam 15. Honestly, the older offensive players I have dumb ass respect for. Not fact [ __ ] they was tackling y’all damn field. And that’s what I’m saying. If you were all the Raiders had them cast on. He was an offensive player back then. You was a boy. And that’s why Mike feel like that. That’s why Mike feel like he should because Mike was known for catching balls on over the middle knowing he get his head crack. These little these kids, these receivers, they ain’t even got the balls to do that. Nah, they too cute. They got ain’t no [ __ ] on Let me chain. I’m knocking them chains off. TJ, I’m knocking them chains off. Don’t you ever come out here with them chains. I’mma take a fine. I used to tell players that, dude. Like, I believe that we rap Garson. Pier Garson. I used to hate that [ __ ] Pierre Garson. We used to get in this all the time. I used to tell him, “Hey, bro, check this out. I would take a suspension and knock your head off, bro.” Literally. And as a person, I don’t know the brother, but as a player, probably one of them guys you want on your team. Yeah. But as an opponent, just, bro, rub me the wrong way. I’mma take a $50,000 just to hold your helmet up like this. N like that no more. Nah facts. You can’t do that stuff no more. I want your head as a prize. I want to put it on. It’s crazy to me though, think about that cuz wearing a chain. If I was a defensive player, I’m snatching chains, bro. Yeah. Like you’re not f to come out here and style on me and you got a chain on them [ __ ] pearls. Not happening though. I’m snatching all that. We going to come in the huddle like, “Hey, you see this pretty [ __ ] with all them chains and [ __ ] on?” Yeah. Hey, leave. You can’t get off today. No facts, bro. Like I can’t let you get off today and leave with that chain, bro. You can’t do both. He been playing that [ __ ] say bring me his chain facts. Big facts, bro. That’s crazy. That’s hilarious, bro. I’ll be seeing Jackson Dart was out there last night. Shiny. He been watching too much MTV. Nah, Jackson went to school with a bunch of them boys. You seen Instagram? He went to school with them boys. Jackson was raised like he was with us. Look at the [ __ ] Where you from? Utah. That’s crazy. Oh, what’s the dude say? Oh, gang, you ain’t like that, gang. Listen, bro. That boy went to Old Miss and got with the boys, bro. He went to Old Miss first though, too. Yeah, he was at SC first. Yeah. Was a SC guy. He was out here with all the bloods and crips. Then he went out to Mississippi with Old Miss. Got some country cooking. Got them country. Came back. Dark skinned. He different. He different. But he nice though. He nice. He’s very nice. He is very nice. But I’m going to ask Dart to stay down. I mean, get down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He got to stop taking them hits. Stop taking them hits, bro. And Cam, you know, he remind me of uh Jake Locker. Jake Locker. He remind me a lot of Jake Locker. The pack was loaded back then. Loaded, bro. We was loaded. Jake Locker was a first round pick. Yeah, he came to the titles. Yeah, he was. Yeah. Jake Locker, I heard he got like acres and doing like some type of Oh, man. Jake Jake was set up before that, bro. He He been smart. He was set up. They was up in Washington. Some big farms. They was set up before that. But but for him, like same thing, bro. Like, get down. I used to tell him all the time, bro, stop taking them hits that [ __ ] college. You got to stop taking them hits, dog. Like, that’s not This is grown man [ __ ] It’s different. College, man. College is still some guys getting hit by that grown man. You can see like cuz it’s every hit, bro. He didn’t even get hit that hard in that one where he was down on the ground. Then I seen it. I’m like, oh yeah, he concussion. Yeah, bro. But yeah, man. This my dog Damian Williams. First episode of Safety First full episode. Check us out on YouTube. Like, comment, and subscribe. Safety First Show. Hey, we going to drop two this week. We’re going to give y’all a bonus episode just cuz it’s the first one. We’re going to drop two. We going to drop one from last week, this one, and uh shoot. Look out for us, man. platforms. Tik Tok, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, uh FM, AM, what you want, analog, [ __ ] we everywhere. Thank you for the show, man. D appreciate you coming, brother. Appreciate you having game us up like always, man. This show is not just about what happened on the field, but how to get better off that [ __ ] Say, let me stop cussing so much, man. I’m trying to get some corporate bucks. All this cussing. That’s all right. It’s coming, dog.

Join us every wednesday @ 7pm for the very first episode of the @Safetyfirstshow as TJ Ward sits down with Damian Williams—former Tennessee Titans wide receiver —for an exclusive, in-depth interview!
In this episode, Damian opens up about his inspiring journey from the NFL to life after football. He shares what it’s like becoming a first-time dad, his transition into the financial industry, and the valuable lessons he’s learned off the field. Plus, don’t miss the never-before-heard behind-the-scenes stories from his days in professional football!
Whether you’re a Titans fan, an NFL enthusiast, or just love powerful stories of growth and resilience, this episode delivers real talk, laughter, and inspiration.
👇 Drop your favorite Damian Williams moment or a question for future guests in the comments!
#SafetyFirstPodcast #DamianWilliams #TennesseeTitans #NFLInterview #SuperBowlChampion #LifeAfterFootball #DadLife #FinancialIndustry #NFLStories #TJWard

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