Tom Brady: From NFL GOAT to Owning A Football Club & World Cup Love!

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2:18Hey, what's up, partner?

2:20Gary Neville: How are you? Good to see you. How are you doing, buddy? Nice to see you. You good? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for doing this. thank you that works is this the one you always do yeah we're all in writing so they're just coming down now i'm not gonna go at them because you're here before them they should be waiting you should be waiting for us it's all good i got here early it was an easy drive over i've had a my apartment's super close so it's a good block obviously it's a it's a beautiful building yeah my friend developed it okay lives in the building right he's from boston right he named his son brady so he's talking about you're at the head of the table tom there's a pool there's a basketball court right gym everything beautiful gym yeah there's a sauna there's a steam room but it was good because he's living it so i'm like i want to buy a netfield thing is it expensive yeah um will we want it you know what it like this real estate keeps going up this city like when covet happened yeah it was so quiet nothing and then everyone said is new york city going to come back right and then yesterday you saw new york and it's oh it's a zoo it's never been busier yeah so do you When you come over here, are you like?

3:24Gary Neville: Do you know something? We got stuck in the traffic, me and Roy went to watch the Yankees. Went to watch the Yankees last night. What do you think of the baseball, by the way? I love it. We love it. Yeah. It's a hard watch, eh? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's slow. It's really slow. But it's a beautiful stadium. Oh, it is. It was amazing. And the Yankees are the best of the best. Yeah, yeah. But it's slow, eh? It's so slow. It's a long game. They've tried to speed it up. I know, yeah. like a time o 'clock was like when it used to be really long games now they're much faster yeah there's a long history of baseball in america right they call it america's pastime okay because like in the 1920s baseball ruled for like 60 years right and then in the 80s our football started yeah coming on our football started it didn't even start professionally right our football started in basically in college and college football is way bigger than pro football in america yeah What's the big swing then?

4:21What was the swing? What was the sort of moment? I think television. Television. And then television happened. And then American football is incredible on television. It's the perfect spectator sport. Yeah. And there's only 17 games a season. Yeah. So you don't, and it's once a week. It's complex. And it's on the weekend. Yeah. And it's a three-hour commitment.

4:40Gary Neville: Yeah. And the visuals on football, the gladiator aspect, the art and the science of it. Yeah. Really took over. How long have you guys done the show for? Three and a half years, four years. Yeah. Are they all done in the UK? All in the UK. We've done a few over here. We did two earlier on in the week. They do well. David's been on. Rory McIlroy's been on. Oh, good. Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, all the boxers, and Usyk. Yeah. Who else has been on? I think he's been on. Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, all the big sort of football players. JJ Watt came on. Oh, good. Because he owned Burnley. He came on.

5:18Gary Neville: Do you know him? Very well. Yeah. He's a good guy, yeah? Great. Yeah, he was a great player. Was he at the most, because when we were talking to him, he was a defender. He had the most tackles. Was it the most tackles or something? Phenomenal. Was it? Most defensive player of the year awards. Yeah. He was incredible. Yeah. Just so gifted. That big, that athletic. Yeah. I mean, think about him as a goalkeeper. Yeah. I mean, you couldn't have. It would have been difficult. Was that his position? Was he on the end? Was he on the? He was kind of on the inside of the defensive line. and he was way more athletic than everybody he played against.

5:52And he's got a brother that's equally as talented. Oh, you said, yeah. So it's like two brothers that are elite players. Both will make the Hall of Fame. Right. Hey, Roy. How you doing, partner?

6:04Gary Neville: Pleased to meet you. Nice to see you too. Big fan. How's everything? Same here. Good respect, yeah. You good? I'm doing great, yeah. He's not a big fan of everybody, to be fair, Tom. Is that right? Why not? For him to say big fan, that's high praise. i do a few games yeah i've always loved it since i was a kid growing up in ireland is that right there wouldn't be much sports on but we always had the nfl on a on a sunday really so yeah why would they have it on in ireland i'm not sure yeah good question yeah so yeah i loved it back in the day i'm going to ireland on monday by the way yeah yeah whereabouts i'm going to play golf with my dad for three days we're going to royal county down right and we're going to port marnock yeah And we're going to Adair Manor.

6:45Gary Neville: Oh, cool. Not bad, huh? Yeah. It's beautiful over there, the golf courses, aren't they? Oh, my God. Have you played some of the courses? I think I played Port... Is it Port Rush? It would be, yeah. Yeah, Port Rush, yeah. I think I played Port Rush once. I played the... David got married in Ireland. Oh, what was the castle called? Where David got married and I played golf there with him. Yeah, I can never remember it. What's the name of it? It's like a famous one. But I'm going to... You're sending me... He sent me to Ireland in about a month when I get back to... I've sent you. I've sent you. I was giving you places to go.

7:17Gary Neville: Ashford Castle. Ashford Castle. Yeah, that'd be cool. Is that a golf course? That's in Galway Mayo, on the board of Galway Mayo. But you have to get the car, Kinsale, have you heard of golf course in Kinsale? Yeah. It's supposed to be, the old head it's called. The old head of course. It's supposed to be amazing. I played here a while ago. Did you? Yeah. Loved it. It's amazing, yeah. Well, I'm not into golf, but I know about the course of course, and I like watching it. How's an Irishman not into golf? I didn't have the patience for it. Really? Yeah. But a practice and lessons. Yeah. Yeah. I tried it.

7:48Gary Neville: I did try it. But did you play while you played, while you were a professional? Did you play? Because to be fair, you didn't like, he didn't like the golf. He didn't like the players rushing off to go and play golf. Oh, yeah. The idea of distraction and just about four hours on a golf course and stuff like that. Yeah. You thought? We played, so I played growing up. I had three older sisters. Right, okay. And my dad was going to be a priest. and when he went to the seminary in chicago he manicured kind of the landscape the golf course so when he had a son my dad was always in a golf and he got when i was two years old he's like come on we're gonna go off and play golf because you know the girls are in the house let's go play golf so i always loved it and i went to college and i worked at a golf course in the summertime to play free golf yeah and then when i got to the pros i was decent but then football took over and I never played during the season.

8:37So my golf game just got worse and worse and worse. And then now, the last three years since I've been retired, I play more. What are you off? I'm pretty good now. Three or four probably. I'm pretty good. Straight back into it. It took a while. It took like three years. I had a lot of bad habits and I'm tall. Golf's not good for tall people. It's hard. You're a long way from the ball. Roy McIlroy's great. He's much closer to the ball. It's a shorter arc. I mean, all the good golfers. Jack Nicklaus was 5 '9". Rory's probably 5 '10". You know, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer. Yeah, or smaller.

9:11Gary Neville: You should be ideal for your 5 '4". And you'd be really good. You know, you still get a lot of that power, but like, you know, Tiger was 5 '11", 6 '0". Okay. But when you start being 6 '3". Tiger looks taller than that when you look at him. I've never met him, obviously, but he looks taller than that. Yeah. When you watch him. He's not, is he? He's 5 '11", 6 '0". Yeah. Are you 6 '0"? About 6 '5". What do you play often after golf? I was 12 going back in when I was 19, 20, and I stopped playing, doing my football career, and didn't pick it back up again. Have you not picked it up at all? No, I'm going to play with Declan on Monday at Hamptons.

9:47Gary Neville: Sabonik? Yeah. Yeah, incredible. Is it good? Spectacular. Yeah, I'm going on Monday. He asked if you wanted to come, by the way. Gary did invite me to go with him. No, come with us. You should go just to see it. Judge Oswin. By the way. I said, what will I do when you're playing golf? He went, you can just sit in the clubhouse. I was like, I don't know. It's a beautiful clubhouse. For three or four hours? We'll go putt or you could putt. You could hit some balls. Tom, could he drive around the Hamptons from there as well? Oh, my God. By the way, the Hamptons is one of the most beautiful places.

10:14Gary Neville: I'm sure it is. Yeah, yeah. Why don't you go? Come with us. You've got an invite. Yeah, but you're... You weren't selling it to me. You know what I mean? You can watch some games. What else are you going to do? Sit in a hotel room? What's the best place for him to go in the Hamptons driving around? It's all beautiful. Okay. You're in the best part. at Southampton where that golf course so where that golf course is Sabonic there's another one called National which is probably the third or fourth best one in the country right which is next to Shinnecock where they're playing the US Open yeah all three of them are you can see all of them from the same place all right okay so it's the most beautiful yeah one of the most beautiful places in the world for golf well you're selling it better than you were yeah you were just saying just sit in a clubhouse and have a sandwich the food's incredible go watch yeah well I might do yeah that's better and it'll be a beautiful day where's Ian by the way We did say 9.30 start.

11:02Gary Neville: We did say 9.30 too fast. Don't worry about it. He's always a bit lit.

11:04Ian Wright: Want a blast for that or?

11:06Gary Neville: Tom, what's in that, by the way? It's a potion. It's all kind of shit. Water, electrolytes, minerals. I've spoken to you about this. Obviously, we did a thing a few weeks ago. But it says the 80-20 diet and it's like completely transformed. What is that? I'm pretty good about what I, you know, when I started playing, I was like kind of like everyone else. and then I needed to improve my processes for playing. And then I got good at it, and I met a guy who now runs our health and wellness at the Raiders, who actually runs our health and wellness at Birmingham City too. Right. And it's good food.

11:39It's the right hydration, the right body work, the right workouts. And I played until I was 45. And we had the lowest injury rates last year. How are you doing? We're already gone. We're just finished. All right. In conclusion, it was great. Thanks for having me. Did you enjoy the show? Thank you. during time to show. I know. I know.

11:57Ian Wright: These were my notes on Tom. Jesus, I went down to get off, you know, I'm waiting late for Tom Brady. Hey, Tommy, how you doing? How you doing? Good to see you, buddy. I know, we finished everything. Oh, Jesus.

12:07Gary Neville: Ian, Vince Lombardi, be 15 minutes early. We'll do it again if we need to. Ian, we were just talking about, actually, you missed the golf bit, but forget that. We were just talking about Tom's diet and his 80-20, like, and how he sort of moved from that. We went well at the baseball last night. Two hot dogs and some ice cream. That's good. Is that okay? It's fine. Is that part of the 80-20? I'm fine. So when you guys were playing, when you guys were playing, did you have a lot of working out physical training like they do in American football? We got a nutritionist in the late 90s and we were talking about it actually yesterday.

12:38Gary Neville: He got down to about 5%, 5.5 % body fat. Wow. Which was like, you said it was too low. He went into like a complete and utter. I can be a man of extremes, so that was too low. And when I was playing in the midfield, I was people were hitting me and I was hitting them so I was feeling a lot I should have that was too low without a doubt who made you do that what happened probably me probably me because I used to be used to be about when I first went to United I was about 12, 13 maybe no higher than that was you yeah I was about 18 or 19 yeah I was carrying a bit you were to be fair I was a Guinness you weren't looking after yourself you weren't looking after yourself I wasn't Gary no I wasn't a good pro but it's not about me is it back off wouldn't you right yeah I had some bad habits stuff you know I mean as you get older a bit more sure yeah bad habits well yeah but what's I grew out of this I have no bad habits anymore yeah I just get trying to climb a lot of bad habits none of which I'm gonna tell him my you know of course we don't want that but like I'm saying that Roy had some bad habits yeah all right you start just playing me this episode of stick to football is brought to you by Skybet before we kick off the show I I want to say a huge thank you to our partners, Skybet, who've helped bring you stick to football throughout this tournament.

13:56Gary Neville: Make sure you've liked and subscribed. You do not want to miss what's coming next. Right, let's get into it.

14:05They didn't have a very high projection of what they thought I could become, and a lot of it was because of that combine photo. I wasn't the big... Do you want to see it? No, I don't. We've got it. We've got it. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to break the iPad. Come on, dude. Roy, break the s*** on iPad. Thank you. There you go. Guess what? As 199th pick, I love beating the first-round picks. How good was that guy in college? I'm going to kick his ass next. I'd love to learn from you guys. Why do you fire so many coaches all the time? Don't they realize the players play? Every play is a set piece.

14:34So if your set pieces are better than theirs... Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tom. Arsenal fans. They've been to the league through set picks. It's phenomenal. When Bill Belichick walked in the room, everyone sat up. He said, do your f***ing job, is what he said. Oh, I love that line. Yeah. You've just drafted the first pick. Yeah, we needed a quarterback. Once you're selected, it doesn't matter. Now you're just a member of the team. Now you have to develop him.

14:59Gary Neville: Tom fell asleep in the locker room before his first Super Bowl. For all he said the last time when I had, he was out the night before. He's bladdered. What do you call that? Bladdered. Bladdered. Absolutely. I love you, Britt.

15:20Gary Neville: We'll talk about baseball. Go on then. The first pitch we've got here of Tom. Fuck me. Is it? That's a good pitch, Tom. That's the worst fucking pitcher of my life. Tom's a great pitcher. Yeah, but you can look back now and say... Tom, we've got worse than this. Was it your good baseball player? You were a catcher, weren't you? Pretty good one, too. So you were... Catcher was a little like playing quarterback. You're kind of in charge. You call the pitches. They don't start until you put the glove up. You're in the action. Every play's there. You get to be a little bit of a leader. It's a pretty tough part of the field.

15:53And like I said, when I grew up, my dad actually got drafted to play professional baseball. All three of my sisters played softball. So it was just in our family.

16:02Ian Wright: You know when you say about the catcher, so is he telling the guy the pitcher to do? Now he does. It's a little different now. I mean, it goes back and forth a lot. When I was playing, the catcher told the pitcher what to throw. There's some really cool stories about coming out. that there was one of the greatest baseball pitchers in America named Greg Maddox. He played for the Atlanta Braves. He was dominant in like the 90s. He was incredible. He would call his own pitches, and he would do it when the catcher threw the ball back to him. How he caught the ball would tell the catcher the next pitch he was going to throw.

16:35So if he had the glove facing this way, it was a certain thing. It was up. If it was this way, it was one thing, and no one ever picked up on his entire career. Some crazy stories. Now they actually have, because there's a crazy sign stealing thing, like what happened in the championship this year, you know, whatever. They now buzz in, they have like an electronic buzzer. So it basically, like between the catcher and the pitcher, they can hit buttons. On the phone? On the watch? I don't know exactly the way it works, but it's basically some electronic communication that doesn't allow signs to happen anymore.

17:11Right. Do you like that?

17:13Gary Neville: Or do you think that's getting too much technology with the sport? You know, I love technology. I know there's like a lot going on with. And there was some last night in the baseball, wasn't there? The decision though. I think that's what it is. When I watch like Wimbledon now and they rule every ball in or out, like I love that. I mean, I think the guys work so hard year round to train and you hit a good shot and it's in and they call it out and you lose and we have the technology to actually improve it. Well, why would you not do it? It's like if it's instantaneous and the flow of the game happens, why would you not take advantage of the technology?

17:44Which I think like in American football, technology is really important in the game because things happen so quick. And I think there's always a part between like protecting traditions versus innovating to make the game better for the fans and for the players.

17:56Gary Neville: For them, sports are more stop-start. That's the frustrating thing in England and everyone likes to fast pace. So in American football, for example, or even the tennis, it is stop-start, isn't it? A lot of that sport where soccer is, football is. So when they slow it down, it's frustrating. Like last night when they were making them decisions, we were cool out, weren't we? Yeah. Take your time. It's the baseball. Yeah. But in England, they don't. But where they got to go anyway? I mean, what's the rush? Why are we? Yeah, that's a good point.

18:20Ian Wright: That's what I liked about the baseball last night. Would you rather get it right? Yeah, I suppose so. But it's just what they're used to. Yeah. Which is actually comfortable for everybody to go what we're used to. But we love the innovation on our technology devices. We love the innovation in our cars. We love the innovation. in so many parts of our life. But in sports, sometimes we like to keep things non-innovative. And it's like, how can we think of these sports in the new generation, whether it's golf or whether it's American football or, you know.

18:47Gary Neville: What changed, Tom, for you? We're going to go to obviously the start of your career where you're, I think, 199th pick draft out of 225 or 250. 250, something like that. 250? Yeah. How did innovation change from that moment to the end of your career, which obviously is mid-40s? What's the biggest changes through that career in technology? What happened in NFL? The biggest, the most substantial change, I think, in the NFL from when I started to now is the contact aspect of the sport, which I kind of appreciated the physicality. And I would say most sports, the physicality is much different now than it was when we all started playing.

19:26But I think there's like physical toughness is the only thing to me that can beat skill. because if you just make it a skills competition then the best athletes will always find a way to win but if you can make it a toughness competition yeah who's tough with skill yeah then i think the toughness can sometimes overtake that and i think just because of people being really conscious and conscientious about head injuries yeah and i don't it's not my favorite thing to talk about i think that like part of what you sign up for as an athlete is you're willing to take more risks than what other people are willing to take.

20:01And I've played, you know, and I've been around a lot of NFL athletes. Michael Strahan's one of my great friends. He's on TV with me. Rob Gronkowski, you know, guys that played in the certain area of tough football. We're great. You know what I mean? We work hard. We took care of ourself. You know, we look back at our careers and I think you're real happy. And I think I'm really happy about the sport that I played because it was physical and the physicality of the sport forced me to come up with disciplines within myself that allowed me to be very healthy over a long period of time. And now I can still use those disciplines when I retire to live kind of a really active physical lifestyle, even though I'm done.

20:39Gary Neville: So what are the big changes, Tom, from when you started to now? I mean, in football, there's something similar going on in England with heading the ball. Yeah. So now I think kids under 16, they're not allowed to head the ball more than maybe one or two times per practice. Is it similar types of things that are happening here in the NFL, obviously with what's happening yeah but i think the biggest change is and i've expressed this a few times is the offensive players on a team my team should protect myself and your team needs to protect yourself and i think the difference is there's a physical element to play where the quarterback can make a decision with the football and try to throw it to roy but ian's really close now ian's coming in with a lot of force to try to knock the ball off Roy.

21:28The problem is if Ian comes in too fast and all of a sudden Roy drops his head four inches and Ian clips his helmet because he's coming in to knock the ball off him, they're going to call a penalty on Ian and they're going to penalize you yards and they're going to fine you. So now Ian's got to come in really slow and under controlled. Now Roy gets to catch the ball with no ramifications. The quarterback can throw the ball in places that he used to not be able to throw the ball into because now we blame the defensive player for making the right play on the football yeah so to me like if you're carrying the football and you're running you're running the ball down the field and you need a turnover the defender has to come in with a lot of force to try to knock the ball off you he's got to run full speed because these guys are so strong yeah if you're coming in at half speed you're never going to put enough force on the football to knock it off me but if you brought in all your force to knock the ball off me you're coming at a speed which you can't change your target area if you're coming in full speed so now all of a sudden the court the running back drops his helmet you're running you hit his helmet and because there's helmet helmet contact automatically there's a flag on you and you're the problem not the runner so i think you should there should be an element of offensive players protect offensive players defensive players protect defensive players it's not the defensive player's responsibility to protect the opposite team it'd be like going to a boxing match and saying i want you to beat him but don't hurt him too bad right don't knock him out and it's like hold on my job if i don't want to knock him out he's got to play better defense he's got to protect himself right so i just think i had this probably 10 10 year part of my career 11 12 year part of my career which was the old way and then there was the new way and now we're easier it's just it's just more I don't think you're I think you're you're rewarding poor styles of play and poor decisions as opposed to saying I got to make really good decisions at quarterback to protect my own teammates to throw the ball where the ball needs to be thrown because yeah I mean it's really detailed I need a chalkboard to draw some of the things up but for the most part you know that's probably the number one change and they have tried nobody wants to see people get injured.

23:45But I think we should get better at actually taking care of people. We should get better. Why don't we focus our energy on how to get people recovered better? Why are we still archaic about that? But then let's change the rules to actually lessen the contact. Where to me, contact is a big part of the game. And it's still a lot of contact in the sport. But we've lessened it by probably 25, 30%.

24:08Gary Neville: When you compare the quarterbacks to the last few years you look at a quarterback now that they're throwing flag I think that's frustrating is that you must look at the current quarterbacks and they're getting a lot more time around there because people are a bit wary of certainly hitting the quarterback yeah and I think one thing so like there there became a lot of rules to protect a lot of players receivers defensive players and certainly the quarterbacks and now the quarterbacks can take the ball and they can run the ball without much fear of getting hit really hard because anytime the quarterback's running it used to be when I first started playing if you decided to run you were treated like a running back and every running back they would come in knock the shit out of you yeah now when you run outside the bucket they still treat you like a quarterback which means you can slide and if they come in and they put their shoulders a flag and I just don't like the fact that like there's a lot of the most amazing players that ever played in the NFL they're in the hall of fame that relied on a physical style of play that those players who are so gifted and so talented in today's football they would be called dirty players.

25:12Whereas all they're doing is trying to do their job really well. And I don't think like you make someone a dirty player because he's playing with a lot of force.

25:21Ian Wright: You know, with the quarterback, you see like when you run, because you are the main guy, so those are tough guys. They want to hit you as hard as you can because you are the main guy. They want to slow you down. Is that not happening? That's not happening today, right? They still are. I mean, look, there's still a lot of... I'm talking about really hit them because you say... It's less, for sure. And there's less like, for example, if I were to hit Gary on the way to the ground, I have to roll my body off of you so my body doesn't land on top of your body. How do you do that? Guys figure out a way to do it, but at the same time, if the quarterback wants to hold the ball to the last, last, last second, I understand that.

26:02That's a decision the quarterback has to make. if Roy's bearing down on me he's going to hit me as I'm getting ready to throw it I want to let him come as close as possible and then I throw it to give my receiver enough time to get open and then you knock the shit out of me right and you knock shit out of me and I got to get up and I got to play the next play now when you're coming in at me these guys wait forever as long as they want and as soon as the ball's thrown Roy can't hit me that hard and if Roy does hit me when he drives me on the ground he's got to peel off so you're just saying you have to be way more under control as a defensive player which i understand why it doesn't mean i like it i like the fact that like

26:41Gary Neville: but that can't be natural can it because if their job is to try and get at the quarterback get a fumble or hurt you yeah their instinct is different then isn't it the instincts a lot so you have a guy let's say this is the sideline and the quarterback scrambles out of the pocket and he's running down the sideline and you have defensive players that are all pursuing him to try to do it. If that quarterback's one inch from the sideline and he starts to step out of bounds and the defensive players knock the shit out of him, they will blame the defensive players. When my view is he's still in bounds.

27:12If he wants to run out of bounds two yards before the defenders get to him, let him run out of bounds. It's his choice. Don't blame the defensive players for trying to defend every blade of grass. As a defensive player, we've won Super Bowls by defending one yard in the NFL. 2014, we played the Seattle Seahawks. We got to the fourth quarter of the game. It was a great game. They got the ball down to our one yard line with under 30 seconds left. If they get the one yard and they score a touchdown, we lose. Playing the symbol. The entire season, seven months of football came down to who could defend one yard.

27:46We defended it. They chose to throw the ball. They should have run it. I like the fact that they threw it. I'm very happy the way they threw it. But to me, every yard should be important on the football field. So why let a quarterback run unabated for five extra yards? Because these defenders are slowing down because they don't want to hit the quarterback or be called a dirty player. To me, it's like, let them play fast and aggressive. You're going to know they're fast and aggressive. As a quarterback or as a runner, you need to make decisions based on the fact that they are. But we basically have told offensive players, you guys are infallible.

28:18There's nothing you could do wrong. You just run until you get tired. And if you want to slide, you can slide. If you want to stay up, we can't hit you that hard anyway. So I think that's the biggest difference. And I think it's created, like I said, a comfort zone for certain players that used to not exist. And the penalties are bigger, aren't they? If you are touched, no, it's like 15, 20, 25 yards. Can it be punished? It's 15 yards. But what they start doing is they start fining you$50 ,000,$75 ,000. And I'm saying, like, I hate that. I hate the fact that, like, you sign a contract for$2 million a year,$5 million a year.

28:49And it's so easy for someone to say, give me$75 ,000. Give me$50 ,000. Oh, it's your second offense. That's$100 ,000. That's your third offense? $200 ,000. Yeah. Boy, I mean, I know. I've seen a lot of people. I've suffered on this. I know. But I'm like, this is like, what job is like that in the world where you make a mistake at your job and they come in and they go, hey, we're going to take your salary away? Yeah. And then people are like, yeah, you should take your salary away. And I'm like, I've been finished. I know. I mean, you would think, oh, you make a mistake in your job. They fine you.

29:18So there's just a few of those little nuances that at least we can bring awareness to it. Yeah. You know, and I think sometimes the pendulum swings too far one way and it's got to swing back the other way.

29:30Gary Neville: This episode of Stick to Football is brought to you by Skybet.

29:36Ian Wright: You see that picture there? I know we've gone off a little bit of it. I'm not going to bring it back because you don't like it. But where was you in your kind of like your growth? We love that picture, Tom. Yeah, we love that picture. Because obviously we look at you now. Yeah, we look very British. No, no, no. Look at that picture, Tom, and we look at you now. It doesn't look real. You don't look real. I was 36 years ago.

29:57Gary Neville: Tom, there's a picture of you. There's a picture of you just before you get drafted. It's a famous picture of you where you're absolutely immaculate. You're the greatest of all time. But your 199th draft pick, at that point where you can see everyone else getting picked before you, it's how it happens. You see everybody else get told you're too... Are you happy? Are you a bit like, I'm... Relieved, maybe. Relieved, I'm struggling here because I'm last drafted. How's that fit? It's a public. Yeah. It's a very public thing. A great thing, yeah. Very public. And it's not like you're... Look, it's a great opportunity to be drafted wherever you're drafted.

30:31And the reality is it doesn't matter where any of us start in our careers. You could start as the prodigy. You could start as someone who never thought would be that successful. There's an element to all of us where you never know who you are until you face adversity in life. And you have to grow up through adversity and through challenges. And things don't always go your way. And I had a really good college career. I went to one of the best colleges in America. I played at one of the most storied football programs in America at the University of Michigan. I played in college in front of 110 ,000 fans.

31:03I was 20 wins and 5 losses in my career at Michigan. We were really good. but then it came to the draft and then you have a lot of scouts that evaluate these college prospects and they think well let's project what they could become and they saw me and they didn't have a very high projection of what they thought i could become and a lot of it was because of that combine photo i wasn't the big you want to see it no i don't i know what it looks like i lived it we've got it we've got it you know it's you know i'm gonna break the fucking ipad get rid of that thing we'll get rid of the eye exactly so it was like they see the picture and they go well he's not that big and he's not that fast but the quarterback position i'm tall i'm not the most muscular yeah it was just been a hard thing for me to put on all that muscle yes and honestly you put on too much muscle you're going to get injured a lot of times too and i wasn't really a runner so what ended up being my biggest weakness was the fact that i wasn't that fast turned into my biggest strength that it forced me to prepare and study better than basically anybody that played.

32:06There was a few other guys that I would compare myself to in terms of preparation, film study, anticipation. And I went into a system in New England that embraced all those things. And then I could truly play field general. I could play the game between my ears. And then my physical skill within two or three years really caught up to everybody else. So I think there's a way for every athlete to truly maximize their potential. And I think there's a physical, mental, and emotional part of us that allow us to all be successful. We oftentimes over-evaluate the physical. And we think, oh, because he's such a physical athlete and he's talented, he's going to be great.

32:43To me, I mean, you probably got along because you understood the game. You saw the passes. You saw the strategy. You saw the tactics. and then emotionally you bring a competitive stamina a energy and enthusiasm and optimism to the team every day there's nothing worse than a teammate that one day he's fucking great and the next day what happened to him yes okay ian sorry no that wasn't me that wasn't it was always a fit yeah when you have that athlete or teammate that you know every day is going to show up he's going to be on time he's going to train hard he's going to be good in the locker room He's always going to be dependable.

33:22Those are the type of teammates you want You would take someone like that over the less skilled player that or the more skilled player that has more volatility Because you know what you can count on. Yes. So to me, I was very Mental emotional was off the charts Physically, I needed to catch up and I started to do that from from those moments on when I improved my nutrition When I was more hydrated when I worked out better when I recovered better a moment where you thought I need to do this now I was always part of it. It was always part of it. I just, it got really intense. It got intense because, and then one of the biggest moments was in my career.

33:56And I met a guy who's my best friend still. I talked to him this morning. I talked to him last night. He's running the health and wellness department for the Las Vegas Raiders now, where I own part of the team. We have the lowest injury rates in the NFL. At Birmingham City in the championship, the last two years, we had the lowest injury rates of any team. And he started to train me with a lot of recovery treatments that got me feeling back to 100 % really quickly after games, after injuries. And now we just run those protocols for our entire - What were they, Tom, back then? What were they back then?

34:27So a lot of it, so I'll give you an example. I was a quarterback. I threw the ball a lot. I had significant elbow pain. It was elbow, it was tendonitis basically. And the tendon in my elbow would get inflamed. Every time I would throw, I would go in the weight room, I would lift weights because everyone says, you gotta lift weights if you wanna be better. If you want a stronger arm, you gotta lift weights. So I would do bicep curls. I do tricep pushdowns. I do bench press. I do pulls. I do all the things. Then I would go on the field. So in the weight room, those muscles are getting stronger, but they're also getting tighter and thicker.

34:59Okay. Now I go on the football field and I've got to create this really elastic movement where all these muscles need to be really long and elastic. But in the weight room, I've changed them to be very dently tight. So now I have this elbow tendon that's like, hold on, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to be dense and tight or do you want me to be long and elastic? So this tendon is now becoming very inflamed through all the repetitive throwing motions, day after day, to the point where I couldn't throw anymore. I would have to take days off. You take this day off and then you come back and you practice every other day.

35:33And after practice, we're going to ice your elbow. We're going to give you an anti-inflammatory and you're going to rest. Sounds like our career is that. Yeah, that's what we do. Anti-inflammatory, ice, rest. And then finally, it wasn't working anymore because you get older, you're like, hold on, I used to at 19 that worked and at 20 it worked, but at 22 it's not working that much. At 24, it's not really getting better and it's hurting more and it's becoming more irritating. So I meet Alex, one of my teammates, Willie McGinnis, who was a great defensive end from USC, a first round pick for the Patriots, I think in 1993.

36:05He says, Tommy, we can't have you. I already won a Super Bowl at that point. He's like, we can't have you miss practice. You're coming with me now. You're going to go work with Alex. And I'm like, what can he do that no one else has ever done for me? He goes, just let's just shut up. Just grabs me, brings me into this little side training room. And Alex says, what's the problem? He said, my elbow hurts. Okay. This is what we're going to do. We're going to through manual therapy, muscle work, we're going to lengthen and soften all the muscles in your forearm, all the muscles in your bicep and all the muscles in your tri-up to relieve the tension on your tendon.

36:40Your muscle doesn't, your tendon doesn't hurt because they're too weak. They hurt because they're too tight. So we need to, through muscle work, relieve the tension. So now instead of these muscles being very short and dense, we're going to make them a long and elastic through the treatments. So now after three or four days of him doing the treatments, I would ice the tendon a little bit to bring a little inflammation out. I stayed on the anti-inflammatory for a little bit. But then after, after making these muscles a little bit longer through the muscle work, the inflammation in the tendon came down when then there was no elbow pain.

37:14And I was like, that was the first time in my life since I was that boy playing baseball that my elbow pain went away. And I was like, well, fuck, can you do it for my shoulder? Yes. Cause my shoulder's sore too. I'm going to lengthen out your pec. I'm going to lengthen out your deltoid. I'm going to lengthen out the muscles in your back that you've created a lot of denseness and stiffness through working out. Now I'm gonna lengthen those out. Well, I didn't have any shoulder pain. And I'm like, well, can you do it on my knees? Yeah, I'm gonna work on your calves, on your quads and your hamstrings, and we're gonna create space in the knee joints so that the knees aren't in pain.

37:47And I was like, it was an unlock for me. So it was like, okay, once I started getting the right muscle work, it was like, okay, when I go away from you, what do I do? You gotta stay really hydrated because I want your muscles to be more like beef tenderloin than beef jerky. If your muscles are like beef jerky and we put tension on that, they're going to tear. So we got to be really hydrated, which how do we get dehydrated? There's a lot of things that dehydrate us. Travel, certain, you know, drink coffee, drink alcohol, dehydrating. You sweat a lot. You go in the sauna, you steam room, you sweat a lot.

38:18But if you don't rehydrate, your muscles get really dry. If you get dry, they tear easy. So, okay, we're going to stay hydrated. We're going to put a lot of electrolytes and trace minerals in what you drink. And then after that after three or four years it was like what I need to eat Okay, we're gonna cut down on the sugars basically anything that can cause inflammation in your body We're gonna try to just cut down on the inflammation. You can have a little bit of you know Sugar and a little bit, you know, you can go out and have fun with your friends, but you just can't overdo it all the time So over time it became The right muscle work the right treatments The right hydration the right nutrition I would take kind of the generic supplements, like a multivitamin or a fish oils or things like that.

38:59And then finally, I did a little brain training exercises, which kind of came into bogue. And then I changed my workouts a little bit. As I got older, instead of doing the heavy weights really slow, like a deep squat, I started doing much more band work that was more elastic and a little bit quicker. So those were probably the major changes. I would say -

39:21Ian Wright: Alba, what kind of period from the time your elbow was hurting you to the time where it was like, I can't feel anything when I'm throwing? Five days. You're joking. Ian, five days. I had been in pain for 10 years. And then after this, I tear my ACL in 2008. And actually, I'll give you another example. Have you guys ever had groin problems in soccer? Hernia, like a - Hernia or like an adductor release? Okay, same thing. In 2006, my groin was hurting. I was doing a lot of single leg squats in the gym, which creating a lot of density in my adductors. And then as quarterback, you move laterally a lot.

39:57It's not a lot of straight ahead sprinting. It's more shuffling with your feet. You're dropping back, you're crossing over. So there was just a lot of tension on my adductors. And I was doing a lot of weightlifting because I was told. So I go to the, after the season, I go and I tell the doctor, you know, my groins just really sore all the time. Like every time I move, I can feel it just grab. and he says and that wasn't I was working with Alex a lot we developed a relationship over three years but I go to the team doctor and he says well this is what we're gonna do we're gonna do an adductor release so we're gonna go in there we're gonna cut the adductor tendon in your groin and while we're in there we're gonna cut the other side as well so it never becomes a problem and I was like okay that sounds not like what I want to do so I called Alex when I left the office he was out in California that's where he was living at the time he would fly in to see me two days every other week.

40:44And I said, Alex, I have this, the doctor told me to do this adductor release. What do you think? He goes, absolutely not. Just fly out here to LA with me for three days and I'll fix it. Fly out there. We worked on the adductors. We lengthened and softened both adductor muscles, my hips, all my glutes, and basically relieved the tension on the tendon.

41:06Ian Wright: Was it painful to do? Yeah. I mean, when you have a tight muscle, you have a tight hamstring and someone starts working on hamstring it doesn't feel very good but it gets to the point where after you do it long enough it does start to feel good it's there's a lot of relief to the relaxation of the muscle so i worked on it he worked on the adductors and then three days later no more pain the doctor said there's a 99 chance that i'm going to have to cut your adductor tendon at some point and to this day nothing would the club okay were you visiting different people and the coach belichick were you happy were you seeking kind of it was hard you know it's again it's hard for these coaches to feel like they're not in total control of everybody.

41:42I'm sure Alex Ferguson wanted to be in control of everything. He still does.

41:47Ian Wright: Sounds good. He still does. I bet he does. I bet he does. Yeah. And that's probably a great quality for a coach, but it's also a little bit of a destructive quality for a coach too. What was Belichick like, Tom, in that sense?

41:59Gary Neville: He was pretty good with me. Was he good to be over? No, he was good with me. At times, I think he definitely wanted to be more in control because especially when you're successful as a coach, yeah a lot of people will tell you how great you are and he was great there's nobody better in the history of american football than bill belichick as a coach there was nobody i'd rather play for than bill belichick as a head coach it doesn't matter i was a i was a great quarterback i wasn't right all the time i made a lot of mistakes i threw a lot of interceptions the working relationship we had was always great he pushed me i pushed him there were some things he didn't like about what i did there were some things i didn't like about the way he did but that's life that's relationships Sometimes, you know, you have relationships where not everything's perfect 100 % of the time.

42:41They were right about 95 % of the time with Belichick. And like I said, he was so good. Now, when it came to certain points with, you know, Tom's getting certain types of treatments and he was, it confused him a little bit. But it was never to the point where it, you know, bothered us that much.

42:57Gary Neville: Who made the calls, Tom, on the pitch in the big moments? You or him? If you're sort of the dynamic, the manager in a football team in England, they would pick the system, they would make the substitutions. But you're out there on the pitch in the big moments that you're talking about. You've had so many of them. Who's making those big calls between you and him? Who has that control at that point? It's a little both. And I think at the end of the day, when there's nobody more, and I think this is probably the right way in European football as well. in American foot.

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45:19It's whole home scenting designed for the way you live. Build your Pura system today at pura.com slash whole home. In football, I think there's nobody more important to winning a game Monday through Saturday than the head coach. He is the most important person in the organization, preparing the team, holding people accountable, getting the players to perform on a high level. On game day, there's nobody more important to winning than the quarterback. Now, everybody's important on the field on Sunday. The kickers, the punters, the linemen, the D linemen. but the quarterback touches the ball in every play.

45:59So if your quarterback plays better than their quarterback, you have a 90 % chance of winning. The coach can't do much on game day. He's done his work Monday through Saturday. So there's always an argument that people talk about in American football. Who was it, the coach or the quarterback? And the reality is you need both. You need both to be exceptional. If there's 32 teams in the league, if you want to be successful over a period of time, you better have a top five quarterback and a top five head coach. At the same time, if you have a top five quarterback and a top 20 head coach, you're not going to be successful.

46:33That coach is probably going to be fired. If you've got a top five coach and a 20th best quarterback, you're not going to be successful and they're going to fire the coach. And once you start firing coaches, which I always think is interesting and I'd love to learn from you guys, why do you fire so many coaches all the time? Tottenham had three coaches here. Why is everyone firing everybody? Don't they realize the players play? I'm sure if you have Leo Messi as one of your forwards, one of your strikers. That would help. You're not going to lose that much. No. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So it's like all of a sudden we're like, oh, no, the coach is responsible for every bits of winning and losing.

47:04When to me, the players on the pitch or the players on the football field are incredibly important to winning. But at the same time, I would say American football. And again, you guys can educate me. There's it's a very tactical game. There's set plays every play. Every play is a set piece. So if your set pieces are better than theirs, you're at a big disadvantage. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tom.

47:28Gary Neville: Arsenal fan. They've just won the league through set pieces. They've been phenomenal. Thomas, we were going to come on to that because I remember you talking to me a couple of years ago and you said that it's a series of set pieces in American football and English football or soccer is more erratic. It's a bit more free. But Arsenal have got obviously American ownership with the Kroenke family, obviously. And obviously this season, they've just won the Premier League title, which is incredible and well done to it. Thank you very much. But they've won it and they've been criticized quite a lot for their set piece excellence, really.

47:58Gary Neville: Yeah. You said, I remember you saying to me it's a game of set pieces. Does it frustrate you when you watch English football and think that it needs to be more organized? Because your discipline in your game is everything, isn't it, in the NFL? The discipline in the NFL is, you know, it's very complex, American football. Like if you were to see the books that I had to prepare for a game, they were this thick. Were you preparing those books? You said the coaches were preparing them. I was taking notes. I was exchanging information. They would give me a lot of plays they like. I would look at them.

48:29I'd say, let's change that. Let's give them back. What do you think about these? And we worked together for six days to put together a real plan. If our plan was great, well, we just need to go execute the plan. If our plan was poor or generic, it was a lot for the players to overcome. I always felt like on our teams, we had really good plans. Now, we weren't right all the time. We were right more than basically anybody else. Tactically, we were better on offense and defense than 95 % of the time. And if our execution was up to the standards of our tactics, we would win. So it's just different.

49:03When I look at soccer, I look at hockey. These games flow in basketball. So to me, the spectacular players make a huge difference. Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, you know, Zlatan, they make a huge difference in the ability for the team to get the ball in the back of the net. When I watch the games, I'm like, God, it seems so hard to get the ball in the back of the net. And then when you watch Haaland, it's like he plays this vertical game. And every time the ball is sent into the middle of the box, the ball gets in the goal. So at some point, you've got to figure out how to get the ball in the back of the goal.

49:36But if there's a lot of defenders back there, you're going to need a lot of height unless you create some counterattack where there's more space and you can make a run. So, again, you guys know the tactics a lot better than me. I mean, you tell me, is it the players or the coaching? Let's not call it the coaching. The tactics of soccer, how important are they for the team? Seth, compared to the skill of the players.

50:00Gary Neville: Well, it's still the hardest part of this football is scoring a goal. Obviously, like you said, there's not many goals in it. Coaches are very tactical now. You mentioned managers. A lot of managers know we're going to games very defensively. They're frightened of losing their jobs. You lose three, four games in England. You're gone. They're getting the sacked. Then there's another balance. Everyone looks at Pep. All the people want to play like Pep. So it's difficult. You need top players. You mentioned Haaland, but there's very few of them around. Yeah. Like, righty goal scorers are still the hardest part, isn't it?

50:26Ian Wright: Yeah. I think the main thing is that, like, now you feel, even with Pep and the way they play, it seems very tactical. It seems very... It doesn't seem to be, like, for a player like myself, a lot of, like, individuality, kind of, like, instinctive stuff. You have to be in the right place for that person to be able to come across. And I'd find it probably very difficult to play in this time. Because it does feel very technical. It does. It does feel like that. It's not flowing as much. It doesn't feel like it's flowing as much. And I do like, like I say, you watch the World Cup at the moment. And you're just seeing things.

50:59Ian Wright: Even like Messi's act the other day. The flow and everything. And then the score. It just feels a little bit more free. England and the US. Yeah, England.

51:05Gary Neville: And the US are probably the two teams who've been a little bit free, I think.

51:08Ian Wright: It just felt like you can just feel the fluidity of it. It feels like it's flowing. And I think a football match is always better when a player can be in, like, especially in the last third, and then you can just be. It just feels like...

51:19Gary Neville: You mentioned Arsenal. You know, like, Arsenal have won the league. Brilliant achievement. But they're getting heavily criticised for their set pieces. Whereas, again, you talk about American football, the special teams, if they produce a big moment, which they do, everyone gets excited, going, what a job you've done. Whereas in England, there's still that element of set pieces. It's a bit... Yeah, but the thing is... It's the perception, yeah. It's a bit boring. The thing is, if you win set pieces every game, if your set pieces are better than theirs, if your set pieces are worse than the other team every game, you're at a huge disadvantage.

51:50Same in American football. We would play on special teams, and Bill Belichick, I think he's the greatest head coach ever. I think he's the greatest defensive coach ever. And I think he's the greatest special teams coach ever. He would coach special teams, and he came up as a special teams coach. We would win special teams almost every week. It was a great feeling as a quarterback Knowing that whenever we kick the ball, we were gaining an advantage. So as a quarterback I don't need to force the ball all the time. I know that if we punt we're gonna change field position I know that if we get it down there close enough, we're gonna make the field goal I know that on our kickoff returns We're gonna have a chance to score or get us good field position where we could start our drives There's other teams that special teams is an afterthought.

52:34Yeah, and now I'm the quarterback sitting there and the balls we kick the ball off to the other team and they run it back 90 yards for touchdown I'm like now I got to run it back out on the field down seven points and I got to drive the team on 12 play drive to go all the way down the field to tie the game so it's a very deflating aspect of the sport is when your special teams are a liability I think if you make it something that's a true asset to what you're doing I mean you gain a huge advantage every single time you take the what a challenge that must be you know about American football

53:05Gary Neville: when you're so far away and you've got like 50 odd seconds you've got to try and get a touchstone and I hear all the commentators someone's got to get out of play that must be so challenging is it for a quarterback to get up the pitch but you're keeping an eye on the clock as well you might have one or two times out I love that multitasking is that obviously your biggest challenge at that moment in the big game it's a great feeling because you've won a lot of your Super Bowls even it's been like one or two scores it's been tight all of them nine of the ten So my first nine Super Bowls I played in all came down to the last drive of the game.

53:36The last Super Bowl against Kansas City Chiefs, we finally blew them out, which was an amazing feeling. Like five minutes left in the game when you feel like we got this one. But every other game came down to either us scoring to try to win or the other team scoring to try to win. And there's just small margins of error. But I always preferred to have the ball in those situations than to see the other team with the ball. I'd rather have the ball with us trying to drive the ball down the field. And it's a really unique position for the quarterback at that time because essentially the coaches are very unimportant at that time.

54:10It's all about the quarterback's decision-making. But did you love that pressure? I loved it. Was that your greatness?

54:15Gary Neville: You thought, this is where I come alive. Yeah, and I thought it was like, you know, quarterbacks are always defined by how they perform in a clutch and how they perform in the big moments. And so I kind of realized like it was almost like a shift in my mind, a paradigm shift where you could look at that situation and be like, shit, man, we're losing. And the defense couldn't stop. And now I got to go out there and I got to go down there and drive them in the game. Or you could say, hey, this is exactly what I wanted. Give me the ball. And if we go down and score, I get to be the hero today. And I think that little shift in your mind as an athlete is really important.

54:50You could look at it as like this is a negative or this is a positive. And when you make it a positive, you can see on a quarterback's faces who really enjoys those moments. And you just see there's a poise, a composure, that there's no panic. He's totally in control and that he feels confident that he can go down the field because of his decisions, his play calls, his accuracy to go win the game. And the chemistry, when you have certain receivers, I'm going to him. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Always. And I would tell them, like, there's only so much, you know, in football where, you know, the field stays the same forever.

55:26They can only defend so much. If, you know, Dan Marino, who's a great quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, used to say, can't guard a perfect throw. You know, it's almost like if you make a great strike on a ball and it's in the upper 90. I mean, look, you just hit it perfectly. I, in those moments, felt like I was so focused and concentrated I could make the best throws I could make in those situations. when there was total freedom to play and make the throws, I felt like you'd come alive.

55:54Gary Neville: This episode of Stick to Football is brought to you by Skybet. You win three Super Bowls, I think, in your first four or five years. And then you don't win one for 10 years. 10 years. What's Tom like that doesn't win? You know, I'm just trying to imagine. Yes. Oh, angry.

56:12Ian Wright: For that long.

56:13Gary Neville: What are you like when you go home? What are you like when you don't win? What are you like when you... Why did you stay for that long? Why did you continue to stay? We were really good still. You're still good, yeah. Were you getting offers, though, Tom?

56:24Ian Wright: Were you getting people with people trying to come and take you away? Oh, yeah. Yeah, and I think our Patriot teams had really two great generational runs. There was a 20-year dynasty, but I think there was really like two 10-year dynasties. The first run that we had was kind of one group of players, and then we kind of transitioned and transformed into a second group of players that both had tremendous winning achievements. And we won three Super Bowls in my first four years I played. In 2007, we were undefeated. You know, we had probably the greatest football team ever. We lost to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl on some incredible plays the Giants made.

57:05One is called the helmet catcher guy. Eli Manning threw the ball in the middle of the field, jumped up, guy who he'd never heard of, caught the ball, stuck it to the back of his helmet, fell backward, landed on the ground, controlled the ball on his helmet, had his other hand locked up, and they ended up scoring a touchdown, and we lost the game. We would have been 19-0 and we'd have been considered, I think, the greatest football team ever. We lost that year. That was the most brutal loss of my entire career. And then 2008, I tore my ACL. It was a tough year. 2009 was probably the worst year we had at the Patriots.

57:40We were not very good. 2010, we had one of the great years. We lost in the first round of the playoffs. We were 14-2. 2011, we went back to the Super Bowl and lost to the Giants again. and we had a lead in the fourth quarter, and we lost that game. We blew it. 2012, we were in the game before the Super Bowl. 2013, we were in the game before the Super Bowl. So we were knocking on the door every time. Then 2014, the Seattle game, it felt like, oh, here we go again. They got the ball down to the one-yard line. Malcolm Butler makes interception, and we win instead of losing. And then 2015, we were in the game before the Super Bowl, lost to Peyton Manning.

58:21They won the Super Bowl. 2016 we won the super bowl 2017 we're in the super bowl and lost 2018 we won the super bowl so we had just yeah so silly question guy really wasn't it no it wasn't it was just meaning like what really is an advantage people competing every year yeah we were competing and we had tremendous continuity in our program yeah we had continuity with players we've continued coaches continuity is the most underrated thing in sports i think when you have the same coaches and same players, you can get really good at the nuances of the game. I think when you decide to change people, you change them mid-year.

58:59There's no accountability at that point. The players feel like, well, we run the system. We run the show. A new coach that comes, I always like it to the audio-visual guy. They come in your house and one group installs the TVs and then they suck at it. So you're like, oh, I got to get a new audio-visual guy. And this guy comes in and goes, well, they wired everything the wrong way you know everything's wired i can't i gotta fix everything and you're like hold on it's such an easy thing to blame the person before that's not in the room yeah you know you fire someone all the coaches are sitting there going well yeah it was the guy who's not here anymore it was his fault for all this mess i've never done that time either am i so i think if you keep the accountability and what you know do players in today's age in soccer, do they still want to be held accountable to an Alex Ferguson who's saying, you're not doing good enough.

59:51You're not prepared. You're not working hard enough. I need you to train harder. I need you to care more. I need you to take better care of your body. Are players still responsive to that? Not as much.

1:00:01Gary Neville: Not as much. I mean, were you like that with your teammates, Tom? Were you demanding of your teammates? Oh, yeah. But would you have bust-ups when you were losing up in some of these big games? Would it be bust-ups in the dressing room with players? no I think because we all realized how hard it was to get to where we were getting to right but um but if you got sacked a few times would you be looking at my yeah you'd be going hey lads come on yeah wake the fuck up yeah let's go and what the fuck we doing like why why are we fucking up and then let's fix it and play harder play better get more intensity get more urgency let's go and I think when your best player is someone that every day is getting you going getting you going getting you going.

1:00:40If you came in here and you're like, all right, what are we doing today? Who's prepared? Who's not? Well, no one has to really be prepared. But if I came in there with energy, enthusiasm, urgency, we don't fuck that play up. We don't mess one up. Come on, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Well, other guys, they know when they walk in the building in the morning, they better be ready to go. So I can't be out at 11 o 'clock at night if I know that Tommy's in there the next morning. So that accountability from a player means a lot to an organization. I think when you have players that... Like a Kobe Bryant, that's what Kobe is.

1:01:14Kobe, Michael Jordan. I mean, you can go Steph Curry. You can't have a doff day. You know, you have to... You need a great environment. You need a great environment. I think that's key. And that environment lifts everybody. And even for the people that don't want to be pushed that hard, it actually drags them along.

1:01:30Gary Neville: Tom, I've listened to you quite a bit. Did you ever lose your confidence? What was a point in your career where you just felt like you didn't want that? You said before you wanted the ball in your hands in the big moment. But was there a point where you went under a little bit, where you lost confidence? In college. In college? In college, yeah. Because I wasn't the best, I had to develop a lot of confidence in myself. And I looked at, I went to Michigan. It was a great program. I had a very challenging five years at Michigan where I was growing into the athlete that I wanted to be. and I would very much make a lot of excuses why I wasn't performing at my best and there was a sports psychologist there named Greg Harden and Greg said to me he called me into his office and he was a great asset to the organization unfortunately Greg passed away about a year ago he was a sports psychologist yeah and he said why don't you quit bitching about all the things you're not getting and how about you do the best with whatever opportunities you get you know stop worrying about what the other quarterback's getting.

1:02:33Stop worrying about what the coach is saying to you. Every time you get in there, you bring the juice, you bring the energy, you bring the enthusiasm, you treat practice like a game. Because if you just decide to go out there and you're blaming everybody else, where does that get you? So I started to change my attitude and I didn't have a lot of confidence in myself. And when you don't have a lot of confidence in stuff, you blame other people. And then all of a sudden, when you gain confidence in yourself, you start pointing the finger at yourself. And I would encourage every athlete to look in the mirror after every day of practice, of game, and say, what can I do better to help the team?

1:03:08What can I do better? Not what does the coach need to do better? What does my teammates need to do better? What do I need to do better? And if you show up every day with that attitude, every player will, and every player does that, you're going to have an incredible team. So through college, it was hard, and I had to change my attitude. And when I started performing better, because my attitude was better, I started gaining more confidence. You can't have a false confidence. And you don't only gain your confidence because of your physical ability. You gain your confidence because you're prepared, because you're competitive.

1:03:43And then you see those things start to transform into better performance on a daily basis. when I got to the pros a lot of people never had those challenging adversities they just felt like well if I show up I'm better than everybody yes so all you have to do is show up well I didn't have that ability I couldn't just show up and be a better anybody I had to show up prepared I had to show up with energy I had to show up with my body feeling right I had to show up you know like I was on a mission so then when I got to the pros everyone's like who the fuck's this guy

1:04:16Gary Neville: Did I help that you were drafted so late? Was there less pressure on you? Yeah, that first year, I was drafted late, so there was no fan expectation. I was really under the radar my first year. I got to train and develop my body through my first year. And then when I got my chance, I always said, if they ever give me a chance, they're never going to take me off the field. Because I had learned through college that I needed to be the most competitive. I had to be the most urgent. I had to be like a coach on the field. Then all the players started really respecting that, especially because the Patriots were one of the losingest organizations in the NFL before I got there.

1:04:54Then all the players who were there, they saw me come in, and they're like, hey, you keep it up. I like what you're doing. Just don't let anyone change you. You keep going. And I had little veteran players that came up to me that was like, we don't have this right now. And this guy is bringing, he's making us all better because the way he's showing up. And that's what you call culture. I think people that are culture drivers, they drive the culture. You need culture drivers on a team. And culture is about values. What values does Gary have? What values does Ian have? What values does Roy have?

1:05:30Are your values work ethic, preparation, caring about your teammates, discipline? If you have those values and you have all of us, well, that creates a culture. so I brought a different values that the team had seen players that felt similar to me began to adopt those and then we transformed I would say a losing culture to a winning culture along with our coaches along with a lot of other players on our team Teddy Bruschi Willie I mean I could name 20 guys that were kind of like me but had not had a chance to so it was retirement for you yeah your time and going in there they were just a bit bit tired a bit flat and you thought yeah project exactly huge and when they came in it was like oh man and then we started winning and then the great part about winning is it reinforces the behaviors people realize that if i make the investment of time and energy and if i change my attitude if i don't go out at night if i don't party as much you mean we win oh well there's an investment that pays off yeah if i began to do the right things and it pays off well then everybody wins I think the hard part is when you're a coach or you're a someone trying to change a culture I'm telling you Roy and Gary let's not go out let's study and then you lose

1:06:44Ian Wright: everyone's like why did we do that yeah why don't we just go have fun so the challenging part is if you try to push people to be uncomfortable and change and be better and you don't get the results it's very hard for people to stick to those because most people aren't very self self-motivated you were you were you were you woke up every day going god what do i got to do how can i be better and you brought that every day which is why you look at your career and you're probably so satisfied with what you accomplished but a lot of people i think they leave a lot out there i think most people probably only accomplish 50 of what they're capable of because they're not in that environment that pushes them to be successful so how can we create environments for people to be successful

1:07:26Gary Neville: you need accountability well why are so many organizations and teams in england and sports teams all over the world suffering because it sounds easy doesn't it what you're saying that environment but a lot of teams don't have it yeah they don't have it high performing environments are hard and they're hard because there's a degree of being uncomfortable every day when alex ferguson showed up you were uncomfortable when he walked in the room because he had a perfection about the way that he expected you to perform when bill belichick walked in the room everyone sat up because they didn't want to be called out for being shitty on the field they didn't do their job well and there was going to be a coach that said i told you what to do yes what do you not do where's the effort why are you not running on that play and you're in there and all front of all your friends and most guys just want to they want to be really comfortable i think you know in the nfl we play mostly on sundays most organizations want everyone to be happy and uncomfortable Monday through Saturday and everyone's happy and everyone's gonna be good and then on Sunday you go and you get your ass kicked And then everyone's uncomfortable, but then Monday through Saturday everyone's happy again because oh it's a new week Belichick made Monday through Saturday uncomfortable Every day was hard.

1:08:45So that Sunday Everyone won and we were all happy that we won on Sunday Which is ultimately what we should be did you ever have a go at you Tom did you ever was he ever calling you out?

1:08:55Gary Neville: Was yeah, yeah, he was oh, yeah Did he say do your job once or something famous? Is that famous? That was his mantra for 20 years. He said do your fucking job is what he said. I love that line. That's fucking into it, right? Exactly. I love that. And he said no one else can do it for you. You have to do it. If this is your job, there's no one else that has that job. You have that job. You need to do it. Don't worry about everyone else's job. Do your job. So that was just his mantra. Look, if you were the running back coach, you coach the running backs to the best your ability. If you were the quarterback, you did.

1:09:33So the standard was perfection. We settled for excellence. And excellence was good enough to win 75 % of the time. We didn't win 50 % of the time. We won 75 % of the time. But the difference between winning 75 % of the time and winning 50 % of the time is an entirely different level of accountability, of discipline, of work ethic.

1:09:58Ian Wright: We had a captain, Tony Adams, and people all shouting before they go. And I remember Tony used to say that just before you go out, he'd get really angry and scream that, just do your effing jobs. You know exactly what you do. And it's one of those, it kind of jolts you into, let me make sure that first one sticks. I want to make sure that it's a time. And that was, I remember that he said that nearly every time at some stage, but then there'd be times where he'd say it with real venom. Yeah. Like, you know, he's done wanting to hear the shit. He just, just do your jobs. You know what your jobs are.

1:10:31Ian Wright: Yeah. That's quite interesting. Yeah. I think it just creates the urgency that people need to, you know, like, you know, we always look at like the military and there's such like a correlation to sports a lot because, you know, everyone wears uniforms and everyone's treated the same way. And you have a drill sergeant who's the coach. and you have a mission and you got to go accomplish that and it's dangerous. Yes. And I think there's a lot of ways like human behavior, we do perform pretty well in those environments, you know. But again, in sports, especially now because of these phones and everybody has social followings and everybody can tweet something and everybody can express their own belief, I think that creates not necessarily the team environment.

1:11:12Because a team environment, when you subscribe to a team, when you come on my team, a good teammate to me says, how do I not let down my other teammates? And how do I put my individual goals behind the team goals? But I think when you have a social media following, or you have a contract or money, everyone in your life tells you, what do you get first? As opposed to, do the team goals come first? And do your teammates come first? And I think the best teams like i watch some of these teams like argentina they play so well together as a team even the other night you know it's like you could tell messi's he's that guy incredible i mean he's you know argues that the best player to ever play the game but it's not like every ball goes to him they the ball goes around when it comes to him he's got a shot he said if he doesn't like it he puts the ball to someone else they all celebrate together they they look like a team you know and there's other teams that don't quite look like a team it looks like they try to get to the star player all the time and then they will do anything to win Argentina.

1:12:16Argentina will do anything.

1:12:18Gary Neville: This episode of Stick to Football is brought to you by Skybet. Tommy, you were 199th pick, but you've just for the Raiders had the first draft pick. Yeah. Fernando Mendoza? Yeah. The Raiders? Yeah. What did I say? Yeah. You said the Raiders.

1:12:36Ian Wright: You said the Raiders. What?

1:12:38Gary Neville: What did I say? You did good. Thanks, John. You're doing really well. You can read. I'm a high achiever. Your 199th pick, you've just drafted the first pick. Yeah. Is that the opposite of you? You said that it actually worked for you because it took the pressure off you. Yeah. Is the pressure now on this lad? How does he cope with that? How do you help him? A lot of pressure and a lot of mentoring. And I always have a lot of... There was another guy who was one of my favorite quarterbacks to ever play, Peyton Manning.

1:13:08Ian Wright: Peyton Manning. Peyton was my age, a little older than me. He was the first overall pick. Was he? And he had tremendous amount of expectation. Yeah. And he was like the first prospect out of high school to go to college. So his dad was a great player in the pros.

1:13:23Gary Neville: Yeah. So even through high school, everyone knew about Peyton Manning. Yeah. Then he gets recruited to University of Tennessee, great football school. All this hoopla around him. Yeah. He delivers. He's the number one overall pick. It's drafted by the Indianapolis Colts. Tremendous expectation around him. And what I appreciate and love about Peyton is he always outperformed his expectation. It was tremendous talent that he had to be able to do that. And, you know, he was very much like me. Process-oriented, tough, disciplined, driven, accountable. And I'd say that path is harder than the path that I took.

1:14:05My path was challenging in different ways. Peyton if he failed everyone saw it right away yeah and he had to take that on and he superseded all those expectations because of his will and determination and I I love that about him so Fernando who we chose he's got that same expectation now fortunately he has me there to help mentor him yes and look at the end of the day there's only so much you can do for him yes and at the same time you know Roy whether you're on the field whoever you're on the field with

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1:15:42You just need them to play well. It's not like you are passing the ball to someone going, hey, that guy's the 8.2 rated guy and that's the 7. Who's ever out there is out there. No one cares. What's your advice to him, Tom?

1:15:55Gary Neville: What's your advice? Have you been speaking to him regularly? Yeah, I talk to him all the time. and a lot of times I ask questions about what he needs in terms of his development and again I see it as three different buckets. There's a physical development, the actual skill, throwing the football, dropping, how you're training, how you're eating, all the physical parts. There's the mental part. What do you know about the plans? What do you know about all the plays, your reads, your drops, your footwork, the strategy, how can I teach you and develop you all the toolkits you're going to need to get us in the right play.

1:16:29And then the emotional part is I think always the touchy part about sports and athletes. You know, the emotional part of all of us that one day we perform great and the next day it's still the same guy. We still are smart, but emotionally, we just don't feel that good today. Why not? You know, why can't we repeat great performance every day? So the emotional part is there's an emotional volatility to all of us and I think the more you can minimize that the better you can. Why did you pick him

1:16:58Gary Neville: because you mentioned when you were drafted obviously people probably like scouting people focus on what you couldn't do maybe instead of going now let's focus on the potential obviously what do you see in this guy do you think I know you said there's a few things going to the mix but is there something that you're gut feeling going like Jordan the great movie about Michael Jordan taking risks happy to take the pressure in the last second of every kind of game that he's involved in what have you seen in this guy you talk and I'm sure there's other people involved in the decision-making but there's a certain one thing you looked at you and let's go for this kid it was great and I think we're very fortunate on our team to have that first overall pick this year I think over the scouting process since the college season ended he did an incredible job of making it very clear to everyone that he was the best prospect for the next level yes and certainly we are at a place on our team where we needed a quarterback.

1:17:52So he was the most developed prospect and the best quarterback this year. It was very natural for us to select him. But once you're selected, it doesn't matter. Now you're just a member of the team. Now you have to develop him. And I think most people, and probably a lot of fans, they think just because you get a player on the team, well, now he's going to be great. No, there's a lot of development that still needs to happen like i said my first year i got drafted 199 by my second year it didn't matter where i was drafted now fuck i was not gonna go kick ass so like to me i don't give a shit if you're the first one guess what as 199th pick i loved beating the first round picks put another of course i'd love you how good was that guy in college i'm gonna kick his ass next i was i was in first pick tom you were no i wasn't oh that's all right i know i think we like each other a lot i mean i I like you a lot because I think you always had between ears.

1:18:46And I think you were a great team player. And you had tremendous ability to, you know, bring the whole locker room together. And fill the void.

1:18:55Ian Wright: Tell him, Tom, he's very self-deprecating. He always does that. Brings himself down. But I think the part is there's a lot of really important people that always, when one plus one equals three with certain players, you know, and you lift everybody up by your style of play and humility, work ethic, I think create the best team environment for people to succeed. Not to mention you're a great player.

1:19:16Gary Neville: I'm going to ask you, what's the expectation of the Raiders this year? What would be, what are you expecting? Are you expecting good things? I would expect a lot of improvement from where it's been. I mean, last year we were just underperformed in every area. And it's everybody's fault. That's the reality. There's nobody who did a good job. There's not one player in the organization. there's not anybody involved that did the job to the to the level that needs to be done at and everybody needs to improve and it starts with me and it filters down to the rest of the players on the field and they got to go out there and ultimately they got to perform at a high level but would that be win five six seven games playoffs or is that all a bit i mean i don't think just improvement just a massive improvement a massive improvement and i would expect daily improvement and i'd expect hourly improvement i really would every day that goes by when you're on a good team every day and every week goes by you should be better like a good team should be better at the end of the season than the beginning of the season or you're not a good team right if you have more time together and more practice and you're getting worse something's wrong if you have more time more practice you should be getting right now the problem is off season you change players you change coaches and now you've got to rebuild to where you were like a lot of the teams i played on the best game we played all season was the last game of the year that says to me a lot about what the team's all about.

1:20:36Gary Neville: Yeah, peaking at the right time. Talking at the right time. I'm guessing here, I want to mention Tampa. Yeah. You obviously win a lot, obviously, at the Patriots. But then to sort of what would be rid this myth that you only won because you're at the Patriots and Belichick, you go to Tampa and you win the Super Bowl. Is that your greatest achievement there? Do you see that as your greatest achievement, winning a sort of Super Bowl somewhere else? Yeah, I think it was icing on the cake. because I mean my I was blessed I had so many great teammates and part of so many winning teams it was uh I mean I would never change anything about my career that was that was I had so much fun in Tampa I could not imagine ending my career and not having the experience in Tampa to play their three seasons to go to a different conference because the NFL has two conferences in the American football conference and the national national football conference for 20 years I played in the AFC three years in the NFC yeah I went to a warm weather state in Florida I played in a cold weather state in the northeast and then I play it was much more of a passing environment and I love that and I played with some of the greatest players I ever played with um it was it was a magical experience and I learned a lot because I learned that what we did at the Patriots yeah was really unique too what we had developed over 20 years was awesome And then I got to see another place where I was kind of like, this is different.

1:21:59And I could take the good things I learned from New England, try to apply them in another place, see the success. Now I'm involved in the Raiders. Now how do I recreate the success that I was able to have with even a different team but in a different role? So it was great learning for me.

1:22:16Gary Neville: This episode of Stick to Football is brought to you by Skybet. Tom, are you enjoying Birmingham? Are you enjoying the football? Are you enjoying that side of it or is it frustrating for you? No, I love it. I love the competition. Our first year season was terrible. There were four different manager changes. I spoke about how I feel about that. We hired a really good manager in our second year, Chris Davis, we're in League One. We had an awesome season. And then the championship is tough. And we got to the championship this year. A lot of change in player. The quality of the player, I think, has been better.

1:22:49We just could never quite get on a run with the right momentum this year. Championship is tough. It's really tough. It's a tough league. It's a tough league. And, you know, it's just those environments are tough. And you've got to put together, like, what Coventry did this year was amazing. Obviously, great playing. They scored so many goals. Talk about, they made it look easy this year. But it was just, it's a tough league. And, you know, again, I think I really, I watched a lot of Premier League, you know, every Saturday I got it on TV. I'm watching, you know, as many games as I can. It's just, I love sports.

1:23:22And I love the competition. and I love seeing players perform at the highest level. Sorry, stop.

1:23:27Gary Neville: I was going to say, which quarterbacks do you love watching now? I love watching all of them probably for different reasons. I love watching Patrick Mahomes and Matt Stafford. They're just tremendous. Jared Goff I like watching. Very different player than me, but Lamar Jackson. I don't know how he does it. It's incredible. Josh Allen, I love watching Josh Allen play. I love watching Joe Burrow play. There's a lot of guys who do it.

1:23:55Ian Wright: I used to love Eli Manning. Really? I hated the way Eli did anything. Just kidding. No, you know, I love, there's a real shyness and a real kind of like introvert kind of energy about him, which was really quite nice, especially when you know the family and where he's come from. But he had a real nice kind of like, don't even want to look you in the eye. Was he your nemesis?

1:24:14Gary Neville: Was he like the sort of like the New York Giants, obviously beat you twice? Yeah. Was he like the sort of the rivalry? They had, I mean, I love you, Ladi. You and I actually have a really fun relationship. And I take nothing away from what they accomplished. And on the two games we played them in the Super Bowl, they played better than we did. But? But we played consistently better than them always. But then there was these...

1:24:42Ian Wright: They just come with a game and they just... And I swear to God, some games they would play so bad and I'd be like... And then they would see our little Patriot helmets come on the field and they would turn into this incredible. You know what that's like, Roy? It's like when you're... Unbelievable. In the FA Cup, like someone plays against United and they're playing in the second division. They beat you all of a sudden. Then the next week they lose against someone. Exactly. And they were, you know, the Giants have had a great franchise too. And like defensively, they were great. And Eli, to his credit, in those Super Bowls played great football.

1:25:15He played, you know, a couple of his best games in the Big Five.

1:25:17Ian Wright: And remember as well, you're talking about somebody, look who his brother is. You know what I mean? I know. This is what I'm saying. This is what I'm saying. When you look at his story. And they have a nephew now that's going to be the first overall pick, probably one of the top quarterbacks taken. He goes to the University of Texas now. Incredible. Unbelievable. They have the dad, the two brothers, and now the nephew.

1:25:35Gary Neville: Aaron Rodgers, where would you put him? Is he in the mix? I love Aaron. I think there's no greater passer of the football than Aaron Rodgers. It would be like someone kicking the ball. I mean, there's certain people like, you know, Roberto Carlos, the Brazilian, the way that he kicked that ball. I mean, there's certain people you're like, you see everyone do it, and then you see one person throw the ball that much better. I mean, Aaron Rodgers was incredible. He's hard to put into words how incredible he passes the ball. The ball, the way it comes out of his hand, the way that it spins and delivers with the pace and with the accuracy, I think it's like a bullet coming on it's like a bullet there's only probably three people in the history of the NFL that could do it like him yeah what have you made of the World Cup you entered the Brazil Morocco game yeah you enjoy it with the family great time I had all three of my kids and I sat with my buddy Michael Rubin who's a great buddy of mine we're going to be at the World Cup final together here in New Jersey but I love watching Brazil soccer I always grew up and probably I was always a soccer fan my middle sister played we all played growing up here here but I love the Brazilian national team and I loved watching Ronaldo the original Ronaldo play and he was so you guys probably played against him a bunch I mean what a player and then I just love watching that team I have two Brazilian kids so we were all cheering them on brilliant I don't know how good they're gonna be and it didn't look no no no no it was at the game yeah yeah they might they'll get better I think yeah yeah as the tournament goes on Tom we always do a little quiz at the end right it's not on you we've got some Mythbusters Do you want to do these Mythbusters Yeah let's hear it Okay Cristiano Ronaldo So this is Is this true or false On Tom Okay Did Cristiano Ronaldo Convince Tom To come out of retirement

1:27:26Ian Wright: Did it convince him Or have a chat with him It sounds like Something that They convinced him At that level Where he could probably Give him a call But not convinced That's a bit strong Might have encouraged him To convince him So do we have to say Like

1:27:40Gary Neville: The question's convinced I said the word convinced

1:27:43Ian Wright: Did he influence? I'll say influence. Influence.

1:27:46Gary Neville: Influence, I'd say influence, maybe. OK. Maybe, because you did meet him at Old Trafford, didn't you? After he got a hat trick. Did he influence? Tom, did he influence you, Tom? Did he influence you to come out of retirement?

1:27:57Ian Wright: I knew he was. He's stronger than that. He's like Keza. Look, he's fucking just found the sucks and froze us out. You just listened to him for an hour.

1:28:05Gary Neville: He's got a mentality of a Brit. I know, I know, but like you don't know. I didn't say that. I probably just had a nice chat with him. That's what it was, yeah. You have one of the largest sports cards collections in the world. Sports cards or cards? Cards. Cards.

1:28:18Ian Wright: I'd say yeah. He has an investment. I'd say. I think it sounds like something. Yeah.

1:28:23Gary Neville: It do. Yeah. I'm going to go with that one. Tom, we love your watch collection, by the way. We're obsessed with the watch. Cards. The cards ask. Yes. Have you got to? Yeah. Nice. What do you collect then? Number one cards. Baseball, football and basketball cards. Big business, isn't it? Wow. Yeah, it's a great business. I own 16 shops around America. I'm going tomorrow to Kansas City. I'm actually going to probably see some of the English players. Yeah. But I'm opening a shop in Kansas City tomorrow. Brilliant. 16th one. So I went to the Yankees. Oh, someone said, we've got a card, Tom. We've got a card, right?

1:28:56Gary Neville: Let's get it valued. It's one of you, Tom. Ian passed that around to Tom.

1:29:01Ian Wright: Tom, Roy just passed it around to Tom. It's him.

1:29:03Gary Neville: I don't know if it's a good one or a bad one or an indifferent one, Tom. They're all pretty good. It looked good to me. Yeah. It's one of you, Tom, eh?

1:29:11Ian Wright: Love it. Let me see it, Tom.

1:29:14Gary Neville: It's a great card. OK. 2014, I was at the AFC Championship game against the Colts. You've got all those memories that, like, remembers every match, every play. It's, like, ridiculous. I can see it all. Tom fell asleep in the locker room before his first Super Bowl. It's a strange thing to say, so I'm going to say maybe it's true. No, Chad. I don't have it. No, he's spinning that he was on. You know, it's all when I've been in the concert. No, but like that. I don't have it. He doesn't feel like he falls asleep. No, I think, for all he said the last time when I have, he was old the night before.

1:29:45Gary Neville: He's bladdered. What do you call that? Bladdered. Bladdered. Absolutely drunk. I love you, Brits. Bladdered. You have the best words. I mean, your words are unbelievable. I don't know what the hell they mean. No, I'm saying he had a power nap. I say he had a power nap. Power nap. He's not asleep, a power nap. Tom, is it true or false? I did.

1:30:01Ian Wright: Yeah. No way, because he can't sleep on the job. No, he's asleep.

1:30:05Gary Neville: He's been there, he knows what he needs to do. It's not like snoozing with a pillow for two hours. You just have like 10 minutes. So just explain, obviously the NFL dressing rooms are massive. They're like huge things. And how many players are in there? 60. Right, okay. So where have you fallen asleep in this? Right in front of my locker. So there was a long pregame show because it was the year of 9-11. It was February after that. It was a long pregame show. We warmed up early and I came in and I was like, I'm going to lay down and I fell asleep for a power nap. Beautiful. My boy.

1:30:36Ian Wright: Yeah.

1:30:36Gary Neville: My Irish brethren right here. Nice. I love them. What's the greatest Super Bowl halftime show of all time? I love watching them. Michael Jackson. So good. Michael Jackson. You can't beat that. Prince? Prince. Prince and Michael Jackson, I think. Coldplay were good. Great. People on a good show, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Tom released it. What do you do? How do you watch a Super Bowl when you're in England? You're watching at midnight? Midnight. That's at night. You're watching midnight until 3.30 in the morning? This guy's boss is massive. Yeah. Brilliant. incredible it's a great show yeah it's a great show you recently released a coconut water drink called good nuts you released a coconut water drink called good nuts good nut yeah good nut good nut good nut sounds quite it doesn't sound coke and oh it's coconut yeah yeah but it sounds good no it's a good nut it's a good nut is it did tom release a drink i love a good time's got lots of businesses he's important he doesn't even know it i uh i'm gonna say it's true yeah is it true True.

1:31:34Chocolat good nut. Chocolate good nut. Chocolate good nut. Beautiful nut. It's good.

1:31:38Ian Wright: I love it. That's for me now, chocolate good nut. That's all me. I should be promoting that.

1:31:44Gary Neville: Tom loves the dollar. Wow. What a good business we got. Tom, you get... Sorry, over here, by the way, that's the thing. You get called over here, we get called pundits. Yeah. You get called a lead colour commentator. Is that because you're more articulate than we are? And Tom, you... Pundits sound so negative. Yeah, but... And you know what's actually made a lot of American soccer fans is Ted Lasso. Ted Lasso. I mean, that's brought so many soccer fans. I enjoyed it. I mean, my dad watches it. I watch it. It's amazing. My wife sells it. It's brilliant.

1:32:15Ian Wright: It's a magnificent show.

1:32:16Gary Neville: Football's just a vehicle. Tom, your punditry contract gets released over here. I know. Why'd they do that? I don't know. Crazy. What do your contracts look like? Tom, they're not... Not as good as yours, Tom. They're not$375 million, Tom.

1:32:29Ian Wright: No, I just... I can tell you that. It's so crazy. It's obviously like the BBC, they have to say what people are earning, but why do people have to know? I don't know. People shouldn't have to know that. Even in sports, why did they, I mean, you look at every contract earning, you just go on, you look up at every player and you realise, but where, why would...

1:32:49Gary Neville: Saying that if my contract was worth that much, I'd be, you can release that. I had to build your knife for$400. It'll take me six months to... The love of the game. Of course it is. Tom, your NFL contracts were publicized as well, weren't they? Yeah, everyone. So what was the biggest contract you ever signed? With the Patriots or with Tampa? Yeah, probably with Tampa. What was that, three years? Three years, probably like 27, 28 million a year. Nice. Yeah. So that's 90 million. Now these guys are making 55 million. Wow. Yeah. There's quarterbacks now. Patrick Mahomes just signed an extension for, look at us, now we're talking about money.

1:33:29It's a lot of money, 55, 60 million.

1:33:31Gary Neville: Could you go back and play for a season now? You look fit as hell, obviously. Do you think you could go back for a while? Have you thought about it? Would you do it? No. No. No. Yeah. Finished. Unless he speaks to Ronaldo, don't he?

1:33:47You guys have no fun on this show. I can't believe they're paying you guys. Let's keep it real.

1:33:53Gary Neville: Tom hates being called the goat. Yeah, I'd say that. I could agree with that. I don't like it myself. He's a humble guy. He wants it. He hates being called the goat. No, Kuzi does. Yeah. Yeah, Kuzi. But you are, I mean... I'm my best. Yeah.

1:34:09Gary Neville: Congratulations to Robin, our ITV7 winner who scooped£50 ,000 by correctly predicting all of her ITV7 selections for England versus Croatia. Next time, it could be you. Download the ITV7 app and get your predictions in now.

1:34:26Gary Neville: This is basically, we've got a name, the seven most followed athletes on Instagram. OK. That's a bit easy. Or is this part of our charity? I see. I have to concentrate on this. Is it because we struggle so much? It's because we struggle so much with the others. Do you think you know who they are?

1:34:40Ian Wright: Easier, Roy, look. Obviously Ronaldo, Messi. So Ronaldo's one. Ronaldo's one. Ronaldo's one. It doesn't matter where they are. Do you lock in that in there? Lock in Ronaldo one. Remember could be American as well.

1:34:50Gary Neville: It'll definitely be American. Ronaldo is number one. Yeah, LeBron's up there. I think Messi will be in there. I've got Tom Brady. You have to be playing. Are they currently playing? Are they playing? No, no. Tom Brady. No, no. How many have you got, Tom? No, no, no. How many have you got? Tom Brady not on there? 15 million. It's big. No, it's not big. It's big. Messi. Locker, Messi. Yeah, Messi's number two. Specs must be on it. Not sure. He's only 80. I'd say only 80. That's a lot of people. What? No, but compared to 508. No, but we need LeBron. LeBron James.

1:35:22Ian Wright: LeBron James. LeBron James. Yes, number five. What's he called? One fifty four, he's struggling a bit. No, no, no. No, Michael won't be. Oh, Virat Kohli, the cricketer. Oh, you're right, you're right. Oh, of course. That's an amazing one. Virat Kohli is number three. What a shout, ladies.

1:35:38Gary Neville: You're making the quiz team. Look at the difference, though. That's insane. That's crazy. There'll be another Indian cricketer on there. He'll be a boxer. What about? No, no boxers. Baseball. What about the... He's got three lives, by the way. What about the... Mahomes, would he not be on? Is he on something? No, definitely not. Mahomes wouldn't have that many. No. Five million.

1:35:54Ian Wright: What about the main Indian cricket? Steph Curry. What's the main Indian cricket? That's got a shot here. What's his name been? Any females like Serena would probably be the most, right? Rory McIlroy, is Rory on? No, Rory not. I'll wait for you to lock it in. You're shooting me down with my show. I would have to be soccer players.

1:36:12Gary Neville: I think Steph Curry, what would you think Steph Curry would be more than Beck? Bex would be in 88, I think. Do you think Steph Curry would be more? Right, Steph's below that. Is he below that? Yeah. Formula One? No. Lewis Hamilton? No. It'll be American football, basketball. I don't think it'd be American football. What, no basketball? Not Lewis?

1:36:30Ian Wright: Lewis Hamilton? No, no. Sorry, he should be.

1:36:33Gary Neville: I would say he'd be a soccer player. He should be. Soccer player? No.

1:36:37Ian Wright: Yeah, we will.

1:36:37Gary Neville: Laminia Moll? Oh, maybe. He's young enough. Maybe. It wouldn't be Bellingham. Is Zlatan big on, would he? Zlatan's big. He's big, isn't he?

1:36:45Ian Wright: No, Zlatan. Zlatan is so good at...

1:36:48Gary Neville: There's no other basketball player. Maybe we go Betts, by the way. Yeah. Maybe we go David Beckham, maybe. Let's look. Beckham.

1:36:53Ian Wright: Don't want to lock David Beckham in. He's number seven. Nice one, Bex. Well done, Bex. I called that one. 87.

1:36:58Gary Neville: I've seen a few of his...

1:36:59Ian Wright: I like the writing on this. Is this Bex writing? It's Bex writing, yeah. It's Bex writing, yeah. We all played last night.

1:37:05Gary Neville: When you were talking before about throwing the ball, the way Bex kicked a ball was similar to what you were describing before, as throwing the ball. Like, there's very few people can kick a ball. It's perfect, isn't it? He could do everything.

1:37:15Ian Wright: He could do everything with it.

1:37:17Gary Neville: I think there's another Indian cricketer. What's the other famous Indian cricketer? Tandulkar? Tenduka, yeah.

1:37:23Ian Wright: Tenduka. Look at Kieran's face. Yeah, but Kieran's not giving us anything.

1:37:26Gary Neville: You've got three lives, you don't need anything.

1:37:28Ian Wright: He's not, he's just one of the Indian cricketer. I'm not going to tell you. You've got three lives. Yeah, Tenduka, Sachin. This is hard. Sachin, Tenduka.

1:37:35Gary Neville: No, no, I think there's a current one. No, I don't... He's not the keeper.

1:37:40Ian Wright: What happened?

1:37:41Gary Neville: What happened? Not on social media. It would be a Real Madrid. Justin, the Real Madrid players have unbelievable followings. And Barcelona. Mbappe? You think Mbappe would be here? Maybe Mbappe. Maybe Mbappe.

1:37:52Ian Wright: Mbappe. Let's say Mbappe because we've got three lives. I think Mbappe. Kylian Mbappe.

1:37:56Gary Neville: Let's go Mbappe. Tom, you're absolutely right. Steven Mbappe is even so good. What would we do without you here, Tom? Wow. One hundred thousand. Real Madrid and Barcelona players have got a phenomenal bowling. Jesus, one hundred thousand. Your man could be right. Oh, it could be Neymar.

1:38:08Ian Wright: Neymar. Junior. Neymar Junior. Neymar. You're correct. What the hell is that? What the hell has come through? You know what? You've got all of them. I can't stop hiding. I'm going to have to give that as a clue.

1:38:25Gary Neville: I'm going to have to give that as a clue.

1:38:27Ian Wright: Roy King.

1:38:28Gary Neville: I thought I'd have to give that as a clue. Why he's got two million?

1:38:29Ian Wright: That's two ones. Listen, Roy King got to a million on Instagram quicker than anybody in the world. I think it was like seven hours. And I'm stuck on that.

1:38:38Gary Neville: Honestly, thank you so much. We've had the best time. Thank you so much. What an absolute pleasure, Tom.

1:38:43Ian Wright: Come on, my brother.

1:38:44Gary Neville: Yeah, lovely stuff.

1:38:52Ian Wright: What was the game we were talking about at breakfast when they were down? That was the one we were watching later. Oh yeah, 28-3 down. You're 28-3 down. That was the one when I was watching it. I went, this is fucking done. That was the Super Bowl against the Falcons. That's the only game you ever watched. I watched all of them.

1:39:05Gary Neville: Ian and I play quarterback now. No, I'm kidding. You're welcome, brother. Nice one. Enjoy your time. Thank you. Thank you so much. Nice one. Cheers. Good to see you. Good luck with everything. Look at Salford. Salford, fuck. There you go. They're right there this year. I know. It's a disaster, Tom. Thanks, fellas. This has been a Global and the Overlap production.

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