Laremy Tunsil On Why Jayden Daniels Is Already A Top 5 NFL QB

0:00I think I always hated the Cowboys. Like, I was never a fan of the Cowboys. I don't know why. Miles Garrett's trade was crazy. I didn't think Cleveland was going to let him go. I think the sky's the limit for Jaden, man. I had an honor to play with Jaden and play with CJ. What's different about their styles of play, their cadence, just them as leaders? Damn, that's a great question. I don't want to offend the Giants, but I feel like every game someone tears at the ACL. The turf is trash, like nobody wants to be out there. It doesn't really feel like concrete. Malik Namens, that was tough. What are DC fans like?

0:32Tread lightly. I've been in the water out there, man. Houston fans was tough to play for. They ain't had my back getting booed. It was crazy. 16 years then? You'd have been booing me too. How many was it again? Wait, how many was it? He has really great feet. It's almost like a ballet dance. Is he the toughest you face? He's for sure the best I face. What's up? And welcome to another Boardroom Talks. Today, we are at our studios in New York City. And I have the honor to talk to a friend of mine, as well as all pro linemen, Floridian by nature, Washington Commander's own Laramie Tunsil. What's up, brother?

1:08What's up, my guy? Appreciate you. Of course, man. I'm glad we finally get to do this. Absolutely, bro. It's been a while. Been a while. Been a while. And we've never really had you and me sit down and have a conversation. I was reading earlier today how you were at OTAs. And it was almost like some people in the media were surprised to see you there, I guess. because historically there was never pressure for someone like you who already knows how to prepare and has done this year after year. But you chose to go this year. What was the kind of genesis of that? And is this an evolution maybe in your leadership style?

1:39Yeah, just leadership style. I think that's one of the things I want to work on this offseason was just trying to become a better leader. The reason I went in there also was just to, you know, we got a new officer coordinator, a new defensive coordinator, like a lot of new faces around the building. I just wanted to introduce myself, get in the plays, get in the playbook, you know, learn the new teammates and go from there. So last year, your first year in Washington, Washington just come off this, like, incredibly surprising year. But you seem to have really still found yourself last year. And, like, by the end of the year, it was pretty clear that this was somewhere that you wanted to be and they wanted you there.

2:16Was that kind of the feeling after last season? Yeah, I think that was the feeling when they traded for me, honestly. You know, they gave up a lot for me, so I kind of, like, had that feeling, especially when I came into the building with DQ, Adam Peters, that they wanted me to be there long term. And, again, it's like a great feeling to be wanted. So I was excited to be there. So also I was reading and, you know, Miles Garrett trade was crazy. Was that surprising for you to see? That was hella surprising for me. I didn't think Cleveland was going to let them go. Yeah. You know, and then they traded young boy, Jerry Verse, who's a great player also.

2:48It's crazy, man. This lead is crazy, bro. It's crazy. Any given day. And what's wild is, like, if you had told me last summer he got traded, it made sense. Right. But it seemed like things were right there, and now you've got him in the NFC. But as I continue to read, there's this, like, this feeling, underground feeling that, like, that's not a problem for Washington now because you've had so many head-to-head battles with Miles for the year. Yeah, we've been battling for a while, bro. Back to college. Back to college. I think the first time I played him was his freshman year, and we've been battling ever since.

3:20So it's always a fun battle. especially when we line up against each other. Is he the toughest you face? He's for sure the best I face for sure since college. You know, I go back to college and I'll be like, he's the best player I face for sure. Talk about Jaden a bit. I mean, I've got to know him pretty well over the last few years. You know, a special player. I remember I went to their second game or third game of the season, Jaden's rookie year and was in Arizona, and Kevin and I went to the game. And sometimes you just know, right? You see somebody. And I think it's why sometimes rookie quarterbacks, even when they don't have the most magical year, when a franchise sees it, they know and they bet on the guy.

3:58For sure. What's Jaden like and what's playing with him like? And why is that so exciting for you? I think the sky's the limit for Jaden, man. I think he's, in my opinion, I think he's a top five, top seven quarterback in the league. I think he just got everything that you need in a quarterback, from the leadership, being vocal, you know, the talent's there. You see that all on the film. as far as like arm talent, accuracy, running speed. Like he's, it's a lot to handle. You know, it's a lot to game plan to get. So I think he's, again, sky's the limit for him, you know. Relationships with linemen and quarterbacks are interesting, right?

4:35Like you always hear about these quarterbacks that buy their whole line, like cars or Rolexes after the season. And you see it when the quarterback is down, like the linemen quickly run to pick him up. So what is that like, what is the responsibility when you're a lineman, especially you, the leader of the line, in terms of that relationship with the quarterback? Yeah, it's something that was installed in us when we were playing Pop Warner. Don't let the quarterback get hit. Nobody should touch the quarterback. It's kind of just like, it's been like an ongoing pack for us to live by. So we don't want the quarterback to get touched.

5:10We don't want him to hit the ground. We don't want anything to happen to the quarterback. you know. So if someone hits them late, you're f***ing them up. I'm f***ing them up. Got to. We have to. Especially for you, it's like if you see a rookie lineman not running to pick Jaden up your hand. Oh, we get on his ass. Yeah. You and CJ were really close too in Houston. That's your man. Yeah. What's different about their styles of play, their cadence, just them as leaders? It's a lot of similarities. They're very similar in a lot of ways. I think CJ more of a pocket passer. If we're talking about talent, I think Jaden more of like a mobile, like a Lamar, kind of like Josh.

5:51Both great kids, man. They're both hungry. They both wanted. I had an honor to play with Jaden and play with CJ. I know you're happy in Washington, but you were like a fixture in Houston. And like you said, CJ's your man. Was it tough when he got so much heat during the playoffs, just seeing like damn, I would have helped him out. That wouldn't have It wouldn't happen if I was there. Nah, for sure, of course. You know what I'm saying now? I'm like, I wish I was there just to help him. Yeah. Not go through that, but CJ gonna pick it up, bro. He's gonna ball. Again, I think CJ is also up there with Jaden as far as like a top five, top seven quarterback.

6:27I think CJ's damn good. And the same thing as I was saying with teams, is like it's not a direct line. So you're gonna have a step back at some point. And I could tell once CJ cut his hair, he wasn't playing around. He was on that. Like, you gotta know he's on it now. Yeah, I had dinner with him in Houston. like about a month or two ago, and I could just see. Yeah. I could just see. It was almost like he was hardened a bit. You know what I'm saying? Like, all right, cool. The gloves are off. I get it now. That's something everybody needs in my opinion. Yeah. I think every player in the NFL goes through a season like that.

7:01Was yours in Miami? My season like that, I probably had a couple seasons like that, to be honest. I had a season like that in 2017 in Miami. Then I had a season like that in 2024 in Houston when I had 19 penalties. Yeah. I think I almost broke the record. It was just a lot to go through. I just had to bounce back from that. How many were false starts? Bro, I probably had like probably 15 of them was false starts. I know I had like six in one game. For real? Yeah, in Minnesota. Is that a mental thing? I think it's a mental thing. I think once you have one, it's hard to overcome. Because that's what the ref is looking at.

7:38In any little movement, they throw in that flag. So it's funny because in sports there's these certain moments. Like I went to the Champions League game, the PSG game. And I don't know if you saw it, but PSG won in a shootout. So one of Arsenal's players basically missed the net on the last licks in the shootout. And in that moment, right before he kicked, we were all talking in the suite like, this is damn near the most stressful situation that an athlete could be in. And there's a version of that. right like I've talked to Kevin about being on the free throw line he's gonna hit 90 percent of them right but he's like that is not easy like every part of your body starts to like you're thinking about everything everything bro that's probably what it is for a lineman like I cannot jump I cannot jump outside like if it's like a overtime drive or you're coming down to try to tie the game you gotta get in field goal position in your playoff game like you cannot jump you cannot jump at all, especially in a situation like that because that's a 10-second runoff.

8:38You know what I mean? That's five yards back, 10-second runoff. You know, you're hurting your team. You're hurting your team, and it's like everything is always highlighted on the O-lineman. Like, whatever we do is just like, you know. No praise. No praise at all, but when you fuck up, eyes on you. You got to love it, though, man. Did you go right as a kid to playing lineman? I was D-lineman at first, and then when I got to high school, straight O-lineman. You didn't want to stay on D? I tried, but they were like, good old lineman. Like, I didn't even have a choice. They just put me over there.

9:09When I first played Pop Warner, they put me on the line. I was hot. Hot, bro. I was. Like, come on with a catch of touchdowns. I, like, knew somebody that knew our coach. I remember I ran to a pay phone. I'm like, you got to tell him I have to play quarterback, man. That's why I probably don't play much longer than that. Yeah. Like, once you were like, all right, I'm a lineman. Like, who did you look to and who were the guys that you kind of admired? Tyron Smith, the Trent Williams, those guys, Andrew Wentworth, like those guys. Is there like a unanimous like, nah, he's the one amongst everybody historically?

9:43Now? Or just like overall? Like is there a Lawrence Taylor of Lyman to people? Not really. Not really. Not really. But like in every era. And like you're one of these guys in this era. But in every era there's one of those. Right. But right now I feel like the one would be like, everybody looking to would be Trent. So Miles, you said, he's probably one of the toughest. Who else is it like, damn, I got to get an extra hour of sleep maybe? Extra hour of sleep? Probably Miles would be the only extra hour of sleep, to be honest with you. Miles is the only one that gets an extra hour of sleep. But there's some damn good pass rushers out there.

10:15I'm not going to discredit him. Oh, Michael Parsons, Max Crosby, Brian Burns. Yeah, I'm glad you said Brian Burns. Yeah, Brian Burns, one of them. Even the young kid over there, Carter. Carter's going to be nice. And then we just got Reese. Yeah. What was Jackson like going against him last year? Jackson, cool. Jackson, you know, Ole Miss hotty toddy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I got to always rep that. So he can really ball. I think so. You're a Giants fan, right? Yeah. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. I'm sitting here asking you like six Giants questions. But within the division, I hate the Eagles and Cowboys, right?

10:51And I have now, like because of Kevin, and I know so many people in the commanders organization, and D.C.'s like a bit of my second home, I don't hate the Commanders. Like I'm not trying to see you guys beat us, but I don't hate the Commanders. I hate the Eagles and Cowboys. For sure. I think I always hated the Cowboys. Like I was never a fan of the Cowboys. I don't know why. Maybe because it's American teams. You either love them or hate them. Right. Yeah. Right. The Eagles are that for me now, though. I really hate the Eagles. I played against the Eagles probably once in my career, and that was back in 2022.

11:24so I never learned the hatred. What of those of your division opponents what stadium is like the wild? Oh Philly. Philly is crazy. Philly probably number two would be Dallas. Damn. It's not like that I met life? No bro. But we haven't been good the last year. No for sure. The turf is trash like nobody wants to be out there. Is it really that bad? They really need to switch to grass. Why is that turf worse than a turf? I have no idea. It really feels like concrete. It's got to be the weather or something. I don't know what it is. You can tell they don't take care of it. There's really concrete out there.

12:02I don't want to offend the Giants. But I feel like every game someone tears the ACL. On one of the two teams. Malik Namers, that was tough. Great player too. That's my guy. I would say as soon as I met you and I'm so like I will always gravitate towards town. I love collaborating and building with talent, specifically in sports, but obviously throughout my career in music. I could tell right away you were about your business. Was that something that you even had an understanding of coming into the league? You always thought, I'm going to see both sides here? I think that's something I had to learn through my career.

12:46When I was a young boy, I didn't care about the business side. You were trying to get in the league. I think once I got year five, year six, Once I met Lalo, to be honest with you, that's when it kind of like, we can really do something with this. Was there someone in Miami that you was watching, like how they moved at all? No, not really. I had great vets around me, but not as far as business-wise. What's the chatter in the locker room about? Any business talk? Yeah, it'll be some business talk. It depends on who in there. When I had Bobby Wagner in there, it was some business talk. Yeah, because he's about it.

13:16Yeah, he was about his investments, stocks, whatever it is. He was about it. It's definitely probably evolved from earlier in your career. Because I know in the NBA, it's definitely spoken about now. And everyone sees everyone's moves. Like, I think back in the day, it was less visible. Like, you really didn't know that you and Lala were moving like that. No one would know. So what does that look like? Like, because historically, like, linemen, they get paid. But it's already tough for football players. It's already tough unless you're a quarterback. So for a lineman, it's even harder. But I think what you guys did really well was like it was the relationship building.

13:57Yes. And then putting yourself out there. Right. And like just expressing the desire to do it. But was it a headwind? Like, is it a challenge a bit because of like the idea that you can walk in a room and tell someone you play in the NFL, then they'll know who you are if they know the league. But even if they don't, you just tell them you're all pro and they're going to want to be with you. Right. But the awareness right away that, like, a quarterback would get or a receiver, you definitely have that headwind, right? Yeah, I think it's a little more tough for Lyman, like you said. I have to put myself out there just a little bit more.

14:32And that was never my identity. Like, I always try to stay in the shadows, try to stay low-key, just be about my business, go to work and be cool. And, you know, me and Lalo have talks. He's like, bro, you got to go do these photo shoots. You know, they got to see your face. They got to feel your personality. And, you know, that's something I'm still working on. No, but you guys have done a great job. No, for sure. It's booming. You guys have done a great job for it. So what is, tell me a bit more about that partnership. Like, you guys do have a unique partnership, which I think is part of a new blueprint in sports.

15:06What is unique about that, and what have you guys tried to kind of build and frame for yourselves? Like, what is made up of Laramie Tunsil Enterprise? Right. So, you know, me and Lalu have Devontree. You know, Devontree is a full service management company. And it's like tailor-made to like each one of our clients or whoever we get. Like it can be like, we can have this client over here. It can be day-to-day. Like bills paid, whatever. And this client over here can be like, he need a stylist for Paris Fashion Week. You know, just something like that. For me, I don't have an agent. So me and Lalu, Lalu's kind of like technically like my agent.

15:42You know what I mean? But he's like my agent, my manager, my business partner. He's like everything for us. You know, we kind of just built that from the ground up. We started this Divine Trip back in 2017, actually, going to Tussies. For real? Going to Tussies. That's pretty dope. That's dope. And what about this doc you just did? This doc I'm doing, so it should be out. Well, PTT is like my YouTube series. And this is actually season five. We started back in 2020. You just have the cameras on? Have a camera rolling. Day-to-day life of me and the game. Nah, I don't think they're here. Well, we're filming.

16:20We're filming. Yeah. There's somebody here, probably. We're filming, for sure. But it's day-to-day life for just me and the gang. And you don't mind that? You enjoy it? I don't mind it at all. Sometimes I don't even know the camera rolling. Yeah, you have to get custom to it after all. And what else are you guys, like, are you looking at investing more? Are there other things you want to start to do? Yeah, we'll invest some more. We'll invest into the sports club, KD Sports Club. That's right. You know? No, no. You're going to come to the opening? Got to. Oh, you'll be in season. When is it? It opens over the summer, but then the grand opening is the 9th of September.

16:55Okay. The weekend of Texas, Ohio State. So it's going to be wild. We'll find a way. I like it. Well, if you were playing in Houston, it would have been easy. It would have been easy. It would have been really easy. But we'll find a way. Just tell Josh Harris and two of you fly in on the Commander's Jet. And get out. Josh is cool people. I respect Josh, too. He is. Yeah. They've done something there like in two years that I think people thought would take a decade. Yeah. They're doing a really good job over there. Him, DQ, Peters, all of them. Mark Ein. Yeah. How important is connecting in these cities?

17:30Both from like a fan community perspective, but also a business perspective. Because I think one thing we've realized is, you know, as Kevin's moved, it's just this like whole new platform for a network in each city. I want to first shout out you and KD. how y 'all move is really the blueprint with me and Lala look at. Thank you, bro. I'm going to give that little shout out to you. Appreciate you. But I think it's very important to just connect with anybody that we can, honestly. Yeah. Shake hands, kiss babies, really. Yeah. And what was Houston like? What is Houston from a business perspective offer?

18:01Because I've realized being there with Kevin and the Rockets, it's like a whole different type of thing. Whole different thing. The whole vibe in Houston is incredible. But it's like oil money. There's money out there. Yeah. There's like hospitality money. There's money out there. But there's like a real soul in that city too. No, there is. I think when we was in Houston, we had a whole community out there. Yeah. Really dope. We had the Vine Tree weekend and a lot of people were supporting us. We had entrepreneurship, mixers. We had team bonding activities. We had everything. And we had a whole community behind us supporting us.

18:29So that was dope. And you've kept those relationships there. Yeah. And then D.C., different animals. Yeah, different animals. We got to build it. Yeah. Got to build it from ground up. What are D.C. fans like? Dread light. No, yeah. Something in the water out there, man. I love DC fans. I really do. They really support me. Like, they really, I'm happy to be there. Houston fans was tough to play for. For real? For sure. Texan fans, tough? For sure. Just, like, harder on you guys? Like, when I, 2024, when I got a false start in the stadium, I was getting booed, bro. You said you had 16? I was getting booed, though.

19:10It's crazy. It's crazy to support me a little bit, though. Like, have my back. They ain't have my back. getting booed it was crazy it's a tough team to play for as far as fans I actually imagined that it was like a relatively new franchise Texas too it's like but I didn't see it like that but I mean I'm saying if you had if you had 16 was 16 you said you'd have been booing me too how many was it again how many was it how many was it I had 19 total in the season in the season yeah how many in that game in the game they booed me probably just one when they booed me just one But in one game in Minnesota, I had six.

19:46Oh. Well, I mean, six? If I'm like, if I'm a diehard, I'm booing. You booing me? Oh, yeah. I'm hot, yeah. I'm definitely hot. Booing is crazy, though. Booing is crazy, but that's a separate combo. Just saying. If my star lineman got six false starts. They owe me. I get it, though. So what do you got for the rest of the summer? Devontree Weekend in D.C. is coming up. You know, we have. When is that? I got to get the dates from my Lou. We got to find something to do in D.C. Oh, for sure. Because we have a lot there as well. Let's do it. All right, my bro. Well, I look forward to collaborating with you.

20:25I appreciate you saying that about Kevin and I. And I think for me, at least, when I watch you guys move, I feel like there's this connection that's similar in some ways to Kevin and I. And that's powerful in business. Right. You know, you look at, like, people even outside of sports. I always talk about, like, Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. And I was just at something for Tribeca. And Robert De Niro's had this woman, Jane Rosenthal, has been by his side for 30-some-odd years. And you see what power can be built in that. So I think you guys are doing something incredible, man. And I'm going to cheer for you this year for about 15, 17 games.

21:04You know what I'm saying? I wouldn't mind six false starts versus the Giants. That's crazy. I can't do that. At our stadium. But we on y 'all ass, though. You know that, though. I think we're good this year. Think so? Yeah, I think we're going to be really good. New head coach? Not just a new head coach. OBJ's back. Hold on. Let's go back to the coach. Not just a new head coach. No, legendary. Like Don, right? I'm a little worried about neighbor's knee, but he'll be all right. Because he's still a bit banged up. Yeah. I like our quarterback. I love our defense. Defense nice. And then OBJ will be fun.

21:36Yeah. That's all, like, upside, right? Right. Like we get even 80%. But by the way, he might be 110 % of him. Right, right. He's a freak of nature. He is. All right, well, good luck to you, man. Appreciate you, fella. Appreciate you coming on Boardroom, brother. This is Rich Kleiman, Laramie Tunsil. Go to boardroom.tv, download, subscribe, check out Divine Tree and all the incredible things that Laramie and his partner Lalu are doing. There you go. Very special stuff.

22:10Thank you.