Ex-NFL Star Donovan McNabb Talks the Big Business of Thanksgiving Football

0:00Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them, in fact. You can even target buyers by job title, industry, company, seniority, skills, and did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Kyle Hege.

0:34On today's pod, a special Thanksgiving episode with former NFL star Donovan McNabb. If you're a football fan, you know who this guy is. He's a legendary quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles, a six-time pro bowler and franchise leader in passing yards, passing touchdowns, and a bunch of other categories. And if you're not a football fan, that's okay, because you also probably know Donovan from his iconic Chunky Campbell Soup ads that he starred in alongside his mom, one of the best athlete and brand collaborations of all time. Since there's nothing more linked to Thanksgiving than football, we brought on Donovan to chat about the state of the league, the leadership lessons he took from playing quarterback, and what he thinks about Patrick Mahomes wearing the same pair of underwear for every single game.

1:15It's Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, November 23rd. Let's ride.

1:23Donovan, thank you so much for joining us. Let me just say, as a 13-year-old playing Madden 2006 with you on the cover, this is a dream come true to be speaking to you. This is so awesome. So happy Thanksgiving. And we'll get right into it with a very hard-hitting question up top, which is, what is your Thanksgiving family tradition? Well, first of all, you made me feel super old by saying you were 13. my Thanksgiving tradition is pretty much just family coming together. And I mean, it's got to have, you got to have turkey. Got to. We got to have dressing. I know you got to have candy yams and macaroni and cheese.

2:03You have to have cranberry sauce. You have to have ham, which it could be, it could be smoked, you know, whatever. But, you know, we have a variety, variety of things. But the whole thing for me is just making sure that we have to have greens, macaroni and cheese and dressing. That's the main side pieces that I need. But then the desserts. You've got to have lemon cake, carrot cake, and sweet potato pie. The food at the McNabb household sounds amazing. You take Thanksgiving seriously. No, listen. First of all, it's my birthday. It's around my birthday. I'm a Thanksgiving baby. So I take pride in not only the gifts, the family camaraderie and the family fun, and the eating.

2:47Yes, we work out extra hard so that we can eat too much. That's what Thanksgiving is about. Did you ever play? I don't remember. I'm a big Eagles fan. I don't remember if you played on Thanksgiving, but if you did, what was that like? Did you feel like a burden to play? Because obviously you're someone who takes Thanksgiving very seriously and you're getting away from the dressing playing on Thanksgiving. But was that exciting or special for you? It was special. It was, I believe we played the Arizona Cardinals at that particular time on Thanksgiving. My first Thanksgiving game and only really Thanksgiving Day game.

3:21We were coming off of a loss to Baltimore. We still celebrated Thanksgiving. We did it as a team two days before. And then as a family, we did it after the game. So it was a lot of fun because you watch, as a football player, you watch it all the time. You're watching Detroit play, watching the Bears, watching the Cowboys. You know, Indianapolis got involved while I was in the league. So those were, I think, a ritual that a lot of people kind of on Thanksgiving, you watch football after you eat before you pass out. But, you know, it's just an enjoyable time. And when I had an opportunity to play and me living in Arizona now, being here for 20 years, it was kind of a game that I was bragging rights.

4:01So I was looking forward to beating up on Larry Fitzgerald and Antoine Bowden, those guys. So in the summer, I come back out here to train. I had some fuel to the fire to throw a little trash talk. Can I issue a correction? I was at that game. What? Yes. This is breaking news on the podcast. Don't put your age. I'm not going to say my age. I'm older than Kyle. I'm pretty old. I was at that game. It was a night game. We absolutely thrashed them. Four TDs from this guy right here. It was an excellent game. My only Thanksgiving Day game that I went to was at we ate in South Jersey, went over to the game.

4:34I love this. Super fun. Well, you definitely got breaking rights, Donovan. I want to ask you now about podcasts, not just because we're on one, but there is this growing trend of athletes kind of sidestepping the media and just making their own podcasts, making their own content. I'm thinking like Travis Kelsey, the Kelsey brothers, even in the NBA, Draymond Green. What do you think about this trend of players kind of creating their own media brands? And if you were playing back in the day, like, would you have had your own podcast knowing what you know now? I do have my podcast now. It's the five spot on Outkick.

5:09Make sure you tune in. We're streaming on YouTube and Spotify. But I love the concept for the podcast because you create your own content and you can pretty much just let loose and say whatever it is that you want to say. If there's topics that have been bothering you, yeah, let's talk about it. If there's gossip that's going on that needs to be expressed by feeling like by you, let's talk about it. Yeah. So there's no there's structure. But then there's not the well, you can't say that. Oh, the real sensitive type of stuff where you be on air on TV and it's kind of like you got 30 seconds to talk and you don't really get a chance to really hit your your hard hitting points.

5:49Right. Because, you know, you got three or four other people that need to add their input. and then everyone's sensitive of what you may say. But now on your podcast, you can pretty much let loose and hit at different things that you feel that needs to be talked about and that the listeners and viewers want to kind of see and hear. So I think that's something that's kind of been an idea for a lot of people. Remember, podcast wasn't that big about two years ago. People were talking about it, and then it became a thing where, you know, you have former players or you have businessmen or whatever, you can create your own podcast where you're talking for between 35, 45 minutes of three, maybe two, three, four topics that you feel like you can hit.

6:28And it's like, boom, oh wait, I got a hundred thousand or 150 people watching. And so I just think it's something that's enjoyable. What I have done in my career, I think from a business standpoint, remember in my career at that point, you got to have sponsorships, you got to have people that follow you. And there was no social media while I was playing, like dating myself, but there was no Twitter. There was no Instagram. I think we might've had MySpace back when I was playing, like Google was coming in, like, you know what I mean? It was different things like that where you do your podcast, you might have 20 people watching and 15 of it is your family member.

7:06Can you imagine if there was Twitter during that 2005 team? No, no. we we don't need to go there donovan you talked about uh sponsorships and i think it's a perfect segue into something we wanted to ask you about which is these iconic campbell's chunky soup ads with you and your mom i think i still remember these ads and they seem to be such an awesome collaboration between athlete and brands and athletes family and brand how did that come to be and how did your mom get involved in these ads? Well, you know, it's funny. We had a Campbell's base in South Jersey, so right across the bridge from Philly.

7:45So, you know, when it was brought out, I think at that particular time, Terrell Davis was in it. I don't know if there was another player before TD or right after, but it was brought to us being in Philadelphia. In the first couple episodes that I did, there was an actress that was doing my mom's part. My mom was there in studio with us and she was getting upset and pissed. And, you know, and I was like, what's your, what's wrong? She's just like, I can do this. And I go, Oh God, like here, you know, you can't say no to mom. It's kind of like, okay, mom. And she's like, like reciting all the lines that, that the mom was doing it.

8:23And I'm just like, ah, well, okay. We knocked out, I think three, four commercials. And And, you know, I brought it to my marketing guy. We brought it to them. And they thought it was a creative idea. And it was like, you know, that's something we never really thought about. They figured most moms wouldn't want to be on camera. Like, you know what I mean? And at that time, a lot of moms kind of shy away from the attention, the lights and all of, you know, we weren't about that. Obviously, things have changed with moms now. It's like, hey, look at me. Like, and my mom brought it to them and she did the lines and they loved it.

8:55So we are the pioneers that changed the game with Campbell's. And I put the challenge out there to put old school versus new school with me and my mom versus the Kelsey's in their mind. The old school throwback. I say we bring it out. I mean, I know she's got two in the league and my mom only had weight me. Well, you know, my career was good. But let's let's let's bring the old cans when they were a little cheaper. the old cans and what we did comparing to the Kelsey's. That would be hot right there. We'd get a lot of people following. I'm hearing a billion dollar idea right now on this podcast.

9:31That is such a good idea. So a Campbell's Soup campaign that pits Donna McNabb and his mom against the Kelsey's and their mom. Let's make it happen. Nobody does it better than Chunky. You still got it. Does a tweet from Taylor Swift change the equation? That is, they have a wild card on their side. You brought this up. No, they don't. No, they don't. No, they don't. Yeah, you can't use the Swifties in this regard. Let's go to some topics concerning the current NFL, state of the NFL. So Aaron Rodgers goes down in his first drive as a New York Jet earlier this year on a turf field at MetLife Stadium.

10:12And an intense debate springs up about turf versus grass fields. Do you think all stadiums should be converted to grass? And do you think that the risk of injury is heightened on an artificial turf field versus a grass field? I mean, there were injuries on natural grass. And remember, I went to Syracuse University where we played on turf. And so me being born and raised in Chicago, playing high school football in Chicago, where we played on natural grass. Coming to Syracuse, we practiced on grass, practiced on turf. We played on turf. So when I was drafted to Philadelphia, they have turf. And so I think the injuries are going to happen.

10:46Not saying that does turf add to it. turf does wear and tear on your ankles and your knees and hips, but so does natural grass a little bit. And so I think what people need to understand is the pounding aspect from football is, you know, your body takes a hit and you got to be able to take care of your body. That's why you see a lot of these guys paying so much attention now to chiropractors, acupuncture, scraping, flexibility, recovery with cold tubs or cryotherapy, whatever it may be, because you have to be able to do that. But the NFL, I think in this regard, people are talking about maybe they should just all go to natural grass.

11:20Well, it's great. But then you have some domes that you won't be able to put natural grass into. Now, the Arizona Cardinals have it where the tray comes out and allow the sun to hit where, you know, but it's still slippery. We've seen that in the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl had all the paintings and all that other stuff on there. Guys were slipping. They were trying to figure out what shoes to wear. So there's going to be problems no matter what. The tough part, yes, is that we've suffered injuries from quarterbacks. I believe there's six quarterbacks that are out for the season, six or seven quarterbacks that are out for the season.

11:50And that's not that's not counting other skilled position players due to injuries with ACLs or broken ankles or shoulders or whatever it may be. And you played your first couple of seasons at Veterans Stadium, which is not exactly known for its beautiful. I was about to say, I don't know if that's officially turf. That might have been painted cement. It was a little tough to watch there as well. Let's talk about the NFL's international expansion. and they've had three games in London. They've just played two games in Germany, two packed houses. Do you ever see a scenario in which the NFL puts a team in London?

12:24That's a far ride. I don't know if families would kind of be down for that, nor guys kind of going back and forth. I mean, because what division would they be in? What conference would they be in? Because those are long flights for them. I say we boot the commanders. Boot the commanders, put London in the NFC East. That's messed up. so so you just pretty much gonna have dallas flying you know philly flying i just think having the game there brings much more excitement to them because they know those teams that are coming i think they're doing it now where some team stays two weeks and so now they have they play two games there so at least they get somewhat of a full season out there but it's not the same team so it makes it exciting for them they get the same team and all of a sudden they do get the commanders and they're not good uh then it's like oh team sucks and you know just it's a bad feeling but i just think the excitement of hey we got a game in london or you know i mean we we have a game here and it's like ah well we got to pack up for the week and it makes it exciting for the players the players get away i think families fly in maybe thursday or friday so they get a chance to you know team bond and have a good time out there for a little bit and then they play the game and come home and they probably have a bye week after because of the long flight so at least it gives you something to kind of play for.

13:42All right. We'll be back with Donovan McNabb after this break.

13:49Tonight on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozema St. John host the highly anticipated new competition show. I hired 10 creatives from all walks of life. They will be battling it out to see who can impress the world's biggest brands. This is a huge opportunity. This is the battle for the next big idea. This is not Play Play. We're spending millions of dollars. I'm so excited to embark on this adventure with all of you. Make the best idea win! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere tonight on NBC. I want to move from London into leadership here quick. Obviously, you were quarterback, which I think many people just consider the de facto leader of the team.

14:30You're calling the plays. You're touching the ball. Pretty much every play. You're the centerpiece of the offense. what do you think was the hardest leadership lesson you learned through being a quarterback all those years well you have to you have to adjust to different personalities there are a lot of different personalities in the locker room and some are sensitive some try to add the tough guy role which they're not some try to be the smart guy in the room you know then you have the hard worker you have the one who doesn't work uh and don't understand about work ethic so you have to be able to cater to different players and that's what leadership is about it's not the rah-rah guy i was never the rah-rah guy i hated rah-rah guys i i wasn't i wasn't that guy that you know the false clapper you know come on guys no i was by example and you know if it's me showing up earlier to get a workout before meetings staying after to watch film being with somebody offensive lineman and watch film grab dinner and go back up whatever it may be i was more by example and then just try to be the motivator.

15:32And so from a leadership standpoint, and it's not just in sports, but it's in the business world as well. The ones that follow the leaders are the true ones who put that time in and have that passion and can get people who I guess others least expect them to elevate or want to elevate. If you can get them to follow and understand the end goal and what it can do not only for the the group and the family the team but for themselves then now that people start to understand that and people begin to follow now you see people trickling in hey what's going on what are you guys doing hey can i join you or you know now they start to do different things which those are the ones who uh try to stay to themselves but they're watching every move that you make so now they they don't want to act like they're following you as a leader and then they're trying to be the leader to bring others around them.

16:25And then before you know it, everybody's together. So that's what it's all about. That's the leadership role, not the one that's vocal and being loud and demonstrative for no reason. It's the guy that's quiet that continues to work. And all of a sudden you see people start trickling in with him. I love that perspective. And it's so interesting to me. Obviously, you've had a career in media and business and in NFL. Is there a difference between like juggling locker room egos and other players in a football environment versus like a normal quote-unquote workplace because they seem very different but at the end of the day your teammates are also just your colleagues as well well the difference is the fact that you're in almost a closed environment for 90 of the time now when you get out on the football field everything that you've learned and you've done together in that confines that now kind of is the result out on the field in the workforce course everyone is kind of in different areas you know what i mean it's just like you got one guy who may have to travel for work he may be in california another guy may be in florida then all of a sudden you meet twice or two times every three weeks or so but you're talking on the phone phone conversations are a lot different than in person because in person i can look at you in the eye while we're talking and see if you really giving me the right the real deal or or you just got a beating around the bush when you're on the phone you can talk about anything and then all of a sudden you get back together and people like okay let's get your work out on the table let's discuss it it's like uh well i forgot my work you know and that type of deal so the difference in it all is i'm more in-person type of guy i like to express what i'm feeling with somebody sitting right there so they understand exactly how i feel and i want to get their response more than the emails or the texts or anything like that yeah makes a lot of sense speaking of leadership uh the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell just signed a three-year extension worth more than$200 million.

18:17We can debate whether that is deserved or not. Fans don't think he's the greatest guy on earth. But our question is, let's say you were hired as the commissioner of the league. What would be the first change you implement? Well, they've made so many that it's kind of, to me, soften the game a bit. I think, you know, moving back the kickoff to get kickoff returns back would be one. I think some of these calls that on quarterbacks hitting low or all of a sudden now you bring your body weight down on them it's a penalty we're softening the game we're making it creating almost like seven on seven now instead of back to the hard-nosed football now some hits of course you have to call the penalty on with the helmet the helmet i believe in that but you know i just think for the way the game has been played it's rule changes almost each and every year or two that to me has kind of condensed the game.

19:07And so now I believe what the mentality is, but they haven't said it, it's trying to draw up points. So they're trying to draw 40, 50 points a game where the fans are getting excited and getting enamored, but then defenses are taking a hit. It's almost like people are playing PlayStation. You know, you're playing, it's just like you're scoring, and it's like the game's like 49, 49, 40, or something like that, you know what I mean? Where you're just like, man, did you play defense at all? But that's just the way the game has gotten to the point where it becomes soft. But from a business standpoint, they're trying to do whatever it takes to generate more money.

19:43And so the sponsorships, the people that are following, that's why they're playing over across the water. That's why these games now being televised because the TV deals are coming out. So many games. Remember the Monday night change where you get a Monday night on the East Coast and then a Monday night on the West Coast because it becomes more about the money. So that's why they added more games and less preseason games. And before you know it, probably the next five to 10 years, there'll be 20 games in a season, which, again, it's not about the players and the wear and tear on their body. It's about money.

20:16Let's quickly jump to college football, which is it washed in money right now. It's kind of feels like it's at an inflection point with the Big Ten and the SEC becoming mega conferences. Athletes are now signing endorsement deals. Coaches getting bought out for$77 million at Texas A &M. Science killing scandals. So where does this end? How do you see this shaking out ultimately? It doesn't feel like the status quo is stable given the amount of money that's pouring in and athletes not being able to see any of that. Well, the college football is going to be five power conferences. The same thing that we've been talking about over the last 10 years.

20:51And, you know, everyone remember everyone got mad at the bowl selection because it was ran by a computer, the BCS deal. And then all of a sudden now they got a board and then it goes to just only having a small amount of teams in the playoffs to now they're expanding it to, you know, teams are realigning now. So you got West Coast teams going to the Big Ten in the Midwest to teams that are out east that are going down south, teams that are trying to leave the ACC and trying to go into SEC. You know, so to me, it's becoming almost a cluster to the point where is it really about competition or is it about the end game and that being money?

21:30And so it's no more about the competitive drive of trying to win championships. it's about teams and the universities that are trying to elevate themselves to be on that level with other universities to bring more money in and so i just think for where we are the whole nil deal and all that it's gonna become semi-pro in basketball football you can't even really say baseball because they're almost like that but now that you start to add the sponsorship into that it's gonna take a hit for them because you're gonna have kids that'll play one year one school another year another boom go pro and so the the sports that take the hit are women's basketball soccer lacrosse you know some of the olympic sports that we see they're gonna take the hit because i mean what do you where you go after this what's your end game because most of these end games for these players are trying to go pro but if you're already getting paid two three million dollars you almost take a pay cut when you get drafted or if you don't get drafted and you're a free agent you made more money in college than you you've done in your first three years in the league.

22:33Yeah, it's a very interesting evolving landscape. It's interesting to hear from your perspective, having obviously gone through so much in football, to hear how it plays out. I want to talk about superstitions now, Donovan. So I think a lot of athletes have superstitions. Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes recently said that he's worn the same pair of underwear. Yeah, that's kind of nasty. That was my first question was going to be disgusting or genius. That's something like defensive players like D-tackles, linebackers. When I heard that, I was like, And that visual just like, what?

23:07That's nasty. I hope you might throw a little powder or get some pods in there. Wash that up a little bit. Right. But superstitions that I had, I had a pothole by my house that I always felt like I had to go over. And it wasn't for practice. It was more for games. So I would hit the pothole. But when I didn't hit the pothole, I would turn around and go back around and hit that pothole. heading to the game or heading to the facility to fly out to a game. You know, do I eat something before games? I mean, we pretty much had somewhat of the same things for breakfast or a pregame meal. So I guess you can count that.

23:45But that's about it. I know some guys, some guys, you know, I don't know about the clothing because, you know, it was always about fashion for us growing up. I don't know what the heck these kids are wearing now. You know, you're on a Monday night game. You got to throw your Monday night suit on. You got a Sunday night game. you're gonna look dressed to the tee if it's just a one o 'clock game it's kind of like okay i'm gonna i'm gonna get a sport coat on you know maybe some jeans and some fresh shoes on now these dudes i mean it's got to have a tag like if you ain't got a tag if it ain't gucci louis vuitton you ain't got the bag like these they doing way too much they're gonna be broke about the first seven eight years of the league because they're so worried about trying to keep up with the joneses in the first three, four years.

24:26Right. Mahomes is keeping it pretty discount over there. He's just reusing the same... You're saving money. Same garment for... Mahomes? Yeah. I mean, that visual. We're sorry for putting the visual in your mind. So we want to wrap up here with an actual trivia segment that we're calling Donovan McNabb Trivia with Donovan McNabb. So what we've done is we've found five fun facts from your career. We're going to throw them back at you and see if you can correctly identify them. Are you down to play? All right, let's do it. All right, so as a freshman at Syracuse, you completed the longest touchdown pass in school history against West Virginia.

25:05How many yards was that pass? 96. Bingo, 96 yards. Spot on. You're one for one. All right, question number two. So people might not know this, but you actually walked onto the basketball team at Syracuse as well. You were a two-sport athlete. Do you know how many points you scored in your highest scoring game in college basketball? 10 points. 10 points against Georgetown, the rival. Well done. Yeah. Yeah, we're rolling. 10.6 rebounds, four assists, and a block. Yeah, a big-time block. I remember reading that. I thought you were going to say, I remember watching that, and I was like, I don't know if you watched that game.

25:40All right, we're two for two, and we got some extra padding of the score sheet there. What is the most passing yards you've had in one game in your NFL career? Four, four, I'll say 440. Close, 464. That was against the Packers in 2004. Green Bay. Green Bay, yeah. Was that Sunday night or Monday night? I don't have that information. Yeah, it was a night game. I was hoping you'd remember. Feels like a Monday night. Yeah, it was a night game. Either way, 464 is no joke. That is very, very impressive. Donovan, you played in the 2005 Super Bowl against the New England Patriots. can you tell us who performed at the halftime show for that super bowl uh um was it black eyed peas no it was uh paul mccartney it was paul mccartney oh okay okay because i know bill clinton i had two the president's was was in my way in warm-ups no way but yeah i was warming up i think it might have been i don't know if it was uh bill clinton and i don't know i don't know it It was two presidents that walked out right behind me as I'm dropping back.

26:50I'm like, get the heck out of the way. You know what I mean? I'm out here trying to get warmed up. No, but yeah. I thought Paul McCartney, wow, that's great. Yeah. I can't imagine how you focus on football during that game. Well, we were in the locker room. We were in the locker room, so we didn't see it. That's why I was kind of crazy. I don't know. I remember Black Eyed Peas, but I don't know what Super Bowl that was. Black Eyed Peas are considered probably one of the worst Super Bowl halftime performances in the last 20 years. You didn't like Fergie when she sang the national anthem at the NBA off again?