Dick Butkus, Pro Football Hall of Famer

Day number five inside Radio Row in the Phoenix Convention Center and now joining us is NFL royalty, the Pro Football Hall of Famer, the legendary Dick Butkus.

Dick, appreciate the time. Nice to meet you. How you doing, buddy?

I'm doing fantastic. So, I gotta start you off because when I watch football each and every Sunday and they lock me in a studio for eight hours to talk about football, and when I see all the games from screen to screen, I never know how pass interference is gonna be called. I also don't know what a catch is. But the thing that annoys me the most is I don't know how defensive players are supposed to play defense anymore and put licks on the quarterback.

You know, here your top guy is out. Granted, that wasn't, you know, that was a legit injury. So, you know, okay, so Brady gets, you know, tapped and they throw a flag. But I guess they're trying to save the quarterback because they're the guys that make everything roll.

I mean, you know, like I said, you know, would the Chiefs be in the Super Bowl without Patrick Mahoney? Oh, absolutely not. Okay. So, there's an answer why I think they're doing that. I don't know, you know, you ask us old-timers, you know, you know, this and that, and then that's how people are. Like, oh, man, you can't hit anybody or anything else.

But that's the reason, I think. And... Well, you're absolutely right. Here's just the thing.

You know, what are you gonna do? I mean, like the defensive tackle that got called, you know, and he's holding up, doing everything, and he falls on the guy and the guy throws a flag. You know, and then they said, well, it was right to call it like, you know, but I know true fans, you know, they're saying like, you know, let's put the skirts on and all that business.

They just, they're gonna have to accept it because that's the way it's gonna be. Well, you're 100% right. It's all about protecting the guys that make the most money and draw the eyeballs to the television sets in the quarterback position. But I think there is a difference if you have a violent hit that you know crosses the line, and then you're right. When someone sneezes on a quarterback or like just taps him on the shoulder, that is what really frustrates me. Yeah, but then you're gonna have too much of a judgment call and a responsibility put on the officials.

You know, some guys call different infractions differently. I think that, that, that could, that would, that would get kind of, it wouldn't be consistent enough. I think what they're trying to do is be consistent in their calls, which they're not. Just like, you know, pass interference and all that business. It's, it's, it seems like from game to game, it's different, you know.

Sometimes it's a, it's a right call and sometimes it's completely wrong. But you know, you got human elements, and we make mistakes. So I guess you got to live with it. Dick Buck is here with us. When, when I'm growing up, right, you hear about the names of the past, and your name always comes up. And I associate your name with football royalty. When you look back at your career all these years later, what, what's the part of your career that you're most proud about?

Well, I guess I'm most proud about always playing as hard as I could, no matter what the circumstances were. I was questioning about, well, how do I feel that, you know, you, you had a great career, but you never played in the Super Bowl. Well, really?

That's right. I didn't play in the Super Bowl, you know. But that didn't mean that I wasn't giving my all. And what I'm proud of is one particular year with the Bears. We won one game, won in 13, and I won Defensive Player of the Year award. Then that was followed. I did it again a year later after that. I, so I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, cargo bears are you a believer though in justin fields you know i i i i was at the beginning and uh... somebody asked me about that one of my friends and i says you know the only problem is he's going to get hurt because he doesn't have anybody in front of them uh... and i and i still think he's he'll he'll be but bothered me the first year there you know how quarterback comes off the field whether it be brady or mahomes or erin rogers they sit on the bench someone gives them that i've had and they're looking at whatever you watch a bear game justin fields gets to the sidelines goes to the bench takes his helmet off puts on a on a a baseball cap and notice there was talking to his old rookie year and my my nephew luke is uh... you know he's a line coach with with the packers and uh... he he just you know they never coached him for the whole year i mean it was like a wasted year and i think now that they got somebody in there he's going to do it right they've got some they got some good draft choices uh... spots that they could get some help for the offensive line i don't know if they'll do it right off the bat but they'll find somebody and i think you'll be okay tell me what you're doing today with huddle up let's talk obesity you know it's a problem uh... obesity is you know it's not a character flaw it's a disease and uh... the alumni association has this huddle up for obesity that's a program where we want to get you know what is it forty two to fifty percent of nfl players are obese well what's the problem with that the problem with that is is that it leads to bad health leads to diabetes uh... heart problems so when they asked me when i heard about it i said you know what i want to i want to go on that you know lose some weight so i lost like forty seven pounds and felt pretty good and i thought well maybe that could help me with my neuropathy so in my foundation we deal with it's called takes heart i had a bypass five-way bypass in two thousand one i had no signs i did it i did a scan as a favor and uh... going through a five-way bypass and i had no symptoms and i learned the first symptom of heart disease is death and i see you know this obesity which is rampant i think and it's a sorry state when you see kids that are obese and i just cringe when i hear about well be yourself you're you and you know you can weigh five hundred pounds but you know so flaunt it well what about the disease that it causes you know how selfish can you be because you're going to die sooner then you should have so you're the going to leave your family or whatever i mean it's a big deal and i say it like it's it's it's a disease it's it's not a mental flaw you know i had no problem with it i know some people and uh... you know it's it's a real challenge to keep it off and uh... you know i know people that cannot do it it's you know they uh... it's whatever there's you know there's medicines and other ways of doing it it's just that you know you gotta have that fortitude to do it and get better and to get healthier and so uh... that's why it interests me because of my foundation that works with heart disease you know we do scans at my facility we scanned over fifty thousand people and uh... you know it's like two out of ten four out of ten need some help right away and whenever i hear someone die of a heart attack i'm like i'm wondering if he ever got a scan and was he overweight that's the key like i say it's a disease and we're trying to get the alumni i mean i've got all kinds of you know aches and pains and i don't need to be overweight to the to the list you know we're trying to get that across to the other players and to the public actually because it's a serious deal it's a really a health issue i think when you see the commercials you know here's a guy eating five pizzas it's a diabetic commercial what's that all about that's what you know you can expect it you know gain weight you're gonna get something that's going to have a heart problem you're gonna have died you're gonna get diabetes or or a number of other so anyway that's that's what we're trying to do get the word out and uh... people can go to huddle up obesity uh... dot org and get some answers and get some help well it's real treat to meet you thanks so much for doing this appreciate having good health alright biggest game of the year the super bowl is on odyssey westwood one brings it to you streaming live for free sunday february twelfth on the odyssey app the eagles have been the nfc's best team it's the eagles versus the chiefs the kansas city chiefs the philadelphia eagles are going to the super bowl again catch all the action from westwood one your super bowl your odyssey get in the game and download the free odyssey app today the biggest game of the year the super bowl is on odyssey and westwood one brings it to you streaming live for free sunday february twelfth on the odyssey app the eagles have been the nfc's best team it's the eagles versus the chiefs the kansas city chiefs the philadelphia eagles are going to the super bowl again catch all the action from westwood one your super bowl your odyssey get in the game and download the free odyssey app today having matt talks with matt hardy there's nothing like a wrestling fan you know for better or for worse how do you handle that though we're talking about people talking about your family what they don't know about your family or your brother or you how does one handle that from a day to day basis uh something i joke about with the young bucks all the time i said if you would vanity search matt hardy on twitter i said after you got through a hundred plows you'd want to quit the business and never never be seen again it's just you just learn to deal with it you know what i mean it's the kick rocks wrestling podcast with evan t mac subscribe now on the odyssey app or ever you get your podcast