11.3.23 - JR Interview with Emmitt Smith

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Visit felixcatinsurance.com slash terms for all terms and limitations. It's the JR sport re show here with you on CBS Sports Radio. Right now we're being joined by a legend. We're talking about the NFL's all time leading rusher. We're talking about three Super Bowl rings.

We're talking about MVPs in the Super Bowl regular season MVP. He's just an MVP of a person and we're going to find out and talk about why. It's my main man, Emmett Smith, joining us here on CBS Sports Radio. Hey, Emmett, how you doing, man? Yeah, I'm good, brother. How about you? I have no complaints.

Thank you for taking the time to hop on on this Friday. We're going to talk about emergent and the good works that you're doing. First question, how you feeling about this NFL season? We about halfway through. Well, so far so good.

I mean, not too bad. I mean, the Cowboys have had a couple hiccups, but for the most part, they're still on track. And what I would like to see, I know this week is going to be a tough week going up against Philly, but I would like to see the Cowboys take what they did last week against the Rams and build upon that and expand upon that with a little more creativity. I'm sure Philadelphia is looking at that Rams take trying to figure out what the Cowboys did differently that they did not do the week before. And they're going to try to break that thing down. So from a McCarthy standpoint and the creativity of the offensive coordinator, how do you make all these parts interchangeable to where you can run the same plays, but give a different personnel look and different looks for everybody? So keep people throwing off a little bit instead of being the same and having somebody defend what they're already expecting to see.

Well, let me ask you this, Emmett. We've seen in the big picture, we've seen the disappointments over the past couple of seasons. It's like the Cowboys don't want to see the 49ers by any stretch of the imagination.

How do they get over that hump? It seems like the Cowboys are good, but they're not championship good there yet. You know, me personally, I think it's the combination of, well, it's the offense matching it's the offense matching the intensity level of the defense. When you look at the 40 matters, or you look at the Philadelphia Eagles, these teams are built inside out. They're tough. You can't, it's hard to run the ball against them. It's hard to throw the ball against them because they got pressure on the quarterback left and right. And so they built inside out and they're and their office is just as tough as their defense.

They're going to put up points on you. If you go one, two, three, and out, that's the way the Niners attack you. And that's the way Philadelphia attack you because they have so much talent on that football field with Swift back there running the football.

They can do a lot of different things. And so for the Cowboys to get over that hump, they have to be the same way. We got a nice defense, very nice defense and there's pretty potent. But the office can match the intensity of that defense. You will see a different level football team. And then you start going into special teams and breaking down the teams in general. Heck, Turbin back there can return a kick at any point in time. We got a solid fair goal kicker so we can kick 40, 50, 60 yard fair goals. And special teams wise, we can cover fairly good. So we have the makings of becoming a pretty solid team. Offensively, we just got to kick it and get it. We got to get out our own damn way and create enough creativity, creative plays.

So C.D. Lamb is not covered up the whole entire time. He has his one-on-one matchup.

You create those matchup issues and a lot of that press got to find the matchup issues and take it and explore it. Emmitt Smith is joining us here at the JR Sport Reshow on CBS Sports Radio. You mentioned the Eagles. You mentioned DeAndre Swift. It's nice to see what he's able to do now with the Eagles. He's living up to where he was selected in the draft. And we see so many running backs in the NFL. This was a crazy offseason. Saquon had to settle. Josh Jacobs in the Raiders, a whole other story.

He had to settle. What are your thoughts on the way the running back market has developed? I mean, have we flat-lined out? I feel like running backs are just glorified slot receivers right now, no?

Well, I agree with you to some degree. I think the league itself has shifted away from the running backs. When you think about the evolution of the game itself, you're talking about a lot of kids right now that played in the wildcat offense when they were kids and they played in the wildcat offense when they were in high school and some of them started to emerge in the spread offense that you see right now is happening throughout college football. But what is lacking is the development aspect of the quarterback position at the high school and the college level. When you got guys turned to the sideline looking for plays and looking for coaches to tell them where to throw the ball, that's a problem, especially at the professional level.

And I think the development of the individual players themselves have gone wayside. We have become a pass-happy league. And that to me has limited the ability of the running back to really showcase his ability because they want to throw the ball all the time and they want to classify it's a league of committee of running backs.

It's not necessarily a league of committee of running backs. It's just that your offense is going to this spread kind of offense the way you got three wide receivers versus having two wide receivers and a tight end. Tight ends now are hybrids. Kevin Kelce, Travis Kelce.

He's a hybrid kind of a guy. He's not a true tight end like a Tony Gonzalez used to be or a or even Jimmy Novotad wasn't a true tight end like some other guys like a Howard Cross or someone like that. So the offices have expanded to create room for Travis Kelce to do what he does and he's very effective at what he does, but they're not laying it on the running game because they want to throw the ball a lot more and they try to run 95 plays or 125 plays per game. They're trying to get to that high level so they can put more points on the board. Which is also limiting the ability to test the football as a running back because the more I run the ball the more that clock tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.

That's the way it used to be. Now they're trying to score as many points as possible so the odds makers in Vegas can get their odds. And it's the running backs coming out on the short end of the stick. Emmitt Smith is joining us here the JR Sport Brief Show CBS Sports Radio. You talk about the development of the game someone who you are very familiar with is working on a college level right now in development that happens to be Deion Sanders. What are your thoughts on what Deion has been able to do out at Colorado and when are we going to see you throw on a headset full time?

Emmett, come on now. Bro, I don't know if you ever see me throwing a headset full time, but I think Deion is doing what he's doing is is is is amazing. I'm not shocked because he's been grooming himself for this position and this opportunity since I can go back to my son when my son was seven and eight years old back that young when his kids were seven to eight years old and they all played together.

So watching Deion go from little league football to junior high football and to college for high school football then into college at the HBCU level now crossing over into the power five. He has been working towards that and now he's there. His message is completely different than most.

His philosophy may be completely different than most. He's bringing something very unique and something that people will start to look at beyond just the excitement of him being at the university. And how he's inspiring these young men to become the very best version of themselves beyond the game is part of what's missing from college football. So many people focus on just the aspect of football and not the complete athlete, the mind, body, and soul. And the education is extremely important as well.

So you stack those things up. Deion is bringing the total package if you ask me. Well let me ask you this, Emmett. Deion cares about people.

We hear that in the speeches and everything he always says, whether it's interviews or his students. Tell us about the work that you're doing right now with Emergent. Well, Emergent and I have joined forces with the Ready to Rescue campaign to spread awareness around opioid emergencies. Opioids have been a play on the country and have been running rampant around the entire United States. And with the emergence of now fentanyl in the mix, a combination of drugs that are laced with fentanyl or anything of that nature, we have a deadly, deadly, deadly combination of things that can take people out fairly quickly. And so as a father of five that has two kids in college and one young enough on his way to college, I just want people and parents and students and everyone to be aware, be alert, and be aware and be prepared just in case you find yourself in a situation where you might have a chance to save someone in life by utilizing the Norcan nasal spray. It's available over the counter and to carry it on you.

You never know when you might have an opportunity to save a person's life, let alone your own life might get saved because somebody may recognize that you have that Norcan nasal spray on you. And so if you want more information around the program and the campaign itself, go to Norcan.com. They have plenty of information on there for people to review, read, and get educated on the opioid overdoses and opioid emergencies around the country. There are also some places that you may ask questions about, where can I go get help if I need help? All that stuff should be on the website.

And so I would encourage people to not only get their Norcan nasal spray, but go to the website to get more information. Listen, Emmett, I appreciate you doing something good, not just for the community, but for the country. It's kind of crazy what we see going on right now. Thank you for sharing that.

Emmett Smith is joining us here at the JR Sport Reshow on CBS Sports Radio. We know whether you're a professional athlete or you're just a quote unquote, lazy man, like people have issues and they have problems. We see a lot of it highlighted in NFL players, especially whether they're in the course of their career.

What's going on with Chandler Jones has just been terrible and even post-career. What do you think or do you feel the NFL has done enough to kind of keep players on that straight and narrow so they don't have a lot of these issues because we see people high and then we see them low sometimes? Right, right. Well, I think we all are at an emotional state of highs and lows. We all are stimulated by so many different devices these days, whether it's the device in our hands or the television that's on our walls. We are constantly looking at our screens and haven't been stimulated and very seldomly do we get a time to decompress from any of these things. I don't know when the last time you shut your phone off for two hours or three hours outside of going to sleep when you haven't charged up while you're sleeping.

That's probably the only time, but outside of that every day, every three or four minutes or five minutes, we are looking at our phone. So we're constantly in stimulated mode and then you start tacking on the other emotional traumas that people go through with their self-esteem issues. All of these things can mount up to bring in someone to the state of depression of being liked or not liked. So there's so many different contributors to the things that we're talking about.

Bottom line is we just have to find the resources to help us navigate through this maze of life and dealing with these tools that are meant for good, but also serve another purpose as well and be able to just check out. I mean, check out vacation. We hardly ever vacate and we talk about sports and everything else. And as parents, you're working nine to five, seven days a week because on the weekends, you're running your kids to baseball, soccer, and everything else. And you start back up on Sunday, on Monday again. So you never really get a chance to rest.

And so being stimulated is something that we do 24 seven, seven days a week, 365 days a year. If it ain't that, we're sitting there on Thanksgiving, watching football all day, yelling at the tube. So we are emotionally depleted. And in some cases, when you start talking about opioid overdoses and everything else, we're losing people at an alarming rate where it requires us to take a pause and ask ourselves, are we ready in case an emergency like this happened? And do we have the first aid kits and everything else in the house?

Do we have our drug cabinet cleared of any things that's opioid dependent related? Can we move this out? Am I getting the proper rest?

Am I eating the right food? It's so much that we have to deal with. And it requires just a moment of pause to reflect. And so put that phone down, spend 30 minutes or 40 minutes or an hour just by yourself, getting to know yourself.

And that's one way I think we can start to recapture some of the things that we're losing in the marketplace. Emmitt Smith is out here dropping wisdom on a Friday. It's the JR Sport Reshow CBS Sports Radio. I got two simple questions for you, Emmitt, as we begin to wrap up. When you do turn on the games, man, what player are you most excited to sit down and watch? Who is must see for Emmitt Smith? Krista McCaffie is one Derek Henry is another and I'm gonna go straight to the running bags.

Patrick Holmes is another one. I like to see Patrick throw the ball and move and sling that ball around the field. I love watching my Cowboys obviously. Jalen Hurts is a guy that you have to watch too as well.

The efficiencies of what he's doing. And that Miami Dolphin team down there with the dynamics of Tyree Hill and Jalen Wardle and Tua. That is exciting to watch. And then Lamar Jackson himself. So there are some quality players out there that are doing quality things.

Listen, man, you know about taking a look and keep going, man. Your durability was ridiculous. That's why you lead the league all time in rushing.

What are your thoughts here on an Aaron Rodgers comeback? I mean, is that a whole lot of talk? Is that fluff? Is he superhuman? Is he an alien?

What say you, Emmitt? Well, I think it's possible with today's medicine I think it's possible. I mean, with the evolution of PRP, meaning plasma, being injected or inserted onto the Achilles that they put there, any kind of stem cell treatments that they may have put on the ligament itself, all of that is possible.

And so it would be kind of cool to see him bounce back if he can. It just goes to show that we have a bunch of brilliant, smart people on the planet. Can we use some of that brilliant and intellect to help with the opioid overdoses and the opioid epidemics and things like that? Can we put some sound things in place to where our citizens are not subject to be exposed to fentanyl? These simple things. If we could do this for a man to get him back on the field and make sure that he has the possibility of extending his career, we can definitely save a life.

Tell everybody one more time where they could find out more information, Emmitt. You can get more information at Norcan.com. Maybe you're still new to this whole EV thing, but those range fears? Turns out your all-electric Hyundai Ioniq 5 gets you to work and back all week on a single charge. And now every Ioniq 5 comes with a complimentary EV charger and up to $600 installation credit. When it comes to embracing change, we're thinking of every mile. Hyundai, it's your journey. Call 562-314-4603 for complete details. 2023 Ioniq 5 rear wheel drive has an EPA estimated driving range of up to 303 miles.

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