So Carl, I saw you were recently on the Giants town hall event.
How was that? And what's it like to be still a part of the Giants organization like so much time later?
So first of all, Federico, I want to thank you for having me on your show. It's always an honor to be a part of the Giants organization, to be able to continue to carry the torch for the legacy that I helped build. So being a part of that and being an ambassador to what Giants football is, and to be someone who was a part of bringing the first ever Super Bowl championship to the organization, is quite an honor for me. And I am, you know, very humbled that they asked me to participate in events like that.
It's like you took the words out of my mouth. I was about to say to you, you joined the organization 1984. They had never won a Super Bowl and had too many losing seasons in a row and you really were a part of the change. What did it take to make it happen?
Well, it took a culture change. We had to focus on the things that were important, the little things. And Coach Parcells was in his second year and he was not sure if he would make it through the season if he didn't win. So we were all in for him and we wanted to do whatever it took, not only for the coach, but for each other. We wanted to make sure that we held each other accountable. And we played a brand of football that was tough, very physical, and very disciplined.
For sure. And being coached by Bill Parcels, what did he teach you? What did you take from him? One of the greats in Giants history.
Well, I think you use two words, coach and teach. I think the one thing that if you ask any of my teammates, they will tell you he was a great teacher as a coach. Our entire coaching staff were great teachers. They taught great fundamentals. They taught us what the important things were in order to create a winner and to be a consistent winner. And he was very insistent upon that as a coach to make sure that we constantly did the little things right. He was a nag sometimes. He was very persistent in making sure that we did all the little things. We didn't take any shortcuts. And I'm again grateful for that experience because the things that he taught us as a coach were things that I took into life after football, into my businesses, and allowed me to be a great leader in business.
I hear you on that. You were also coached by Bill Belichick, coordinator. Did you expect Belichick to have as much success as he did as a head coach too?
Yes. So I first had Coach Belichick as a linebacker coach and then he became defensive coordinator. He was another person who was really detail-oriented, but he was also a coach who could take feedback and create solutions in real time. So I knew that the way he processed information and was able to transfer that or communicate that in a simplified way that players could go out and be productive, told me he had the ingredients to be a great head coach.
So when he left the Giants and became the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, it was not an easy situation for him. Two years after I left the Giants, I joined Coach Belichick, myself and Pepper Johnson. But Pepper went a year before me to help convey his message and how winning football was supposed to be played. Cleveland had an abundance of talent and they just didn't want to adapt to the principles of winning. And having someone like myself and Pepper Johnson who had been a part of what Coach Belichick was doing and having that success, it made it easier for us to communicate with our teammates in Cleveland. And we went on to have two very exciting years and had a historical defense one year. So that kind of laid the groundwork, those successes laid the groundwork for him to then transition to the Patriots and become the greatest coach of all time.
You named it. So, how shocked were you to learn he wasn't named a first-ballot Hall of Famer?
I would say I was shocked if I didn't think all of this was premeditated. I'm more disappointed than I am shocked. I think you have journalists who are on the selection committee that decided to settle grievances in an out-of-context way. There was no way anyone could justfully say that the greatest coach of all time should not be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. And I just thought it was very disappointing. I was not shocked, just because it was premeditated and Coach did not have a lot of favor in the press. He treated everyone equally, but he was just not the used car salesman that always had a story to tell. He was always about football. And so I guess those in the media decided that they wanted to pay him back for that and it just wasn't the right environment to do so.
Okay. So, you're just shocked, not disappointed, you would say.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, it was quite a shock, but it was also like expected to a point, like people knew it could happen, like he could be left off.
Yeah. That's why I say I was disappointed more so than shocked, because of the disdain that some in the media and some of his contemporaries had for him, that they just thought this was a way to, I don't know, knock him down a peg or whatever. But it does not diminish his accomplishments. He's still the greatest coach of all time whether you put him in the first ballot or the last ballot. His record and his resume speaks for itself.
Sure. Yeah. So you think, does it really matter for his ballot? At the end of the day he's going to go to the Hall of Fame?
And he's going to go to the Hall of Fame. It is established that he is the greatest coach in the history of the NFL. And so, you know, whether he goes, like I said, it doesn't matter where he goes in, whenever he does go into the Hall of Fame, he will go in as the greatest coach in the history of the NFL.
Yeah, that's a loud message. So, yeah, you have him as a linebacker's coach before he transitioned to defensive coordinator. So he was really working alongside you all the way?
All the way. Yes, he was. Yeah, he was linebacker coach, defensive coordinator, but I spent most of my rookie year with him as my position coach as well as a coordinator.
So coming off as a rookie, third overall pick, what's it like the expectations set on you? How do you manage them? And what's your message to this year's Giants rookie class with Arvell Reese playing linebacker?
Yeah. So, the expectations for me were a little different than a normal number three pick. I came to the team and they had four All-Pro linebackers already there. So, the expectation was high because I had to prove that I was worthy of being part of one of the most elite group of linebackers in the NFL. Myself and Gary Reasons were drafted that year and then they traded Brad Van Pelt and Brian Kelly and we replaced them. So once we replaced those players, especially me in particular because Brad Van Pelt was such an incredible football player and they were a very close-knit group. People really wanted to know if I could live up to expectations. I didn't feel pressure in the sense of I've got to prove myself.
The thing that I wanted to do is to show that I had what it takes to be an elite player. When you step on the field with Lawrence Taylor, you see instantly that whatever you were doing is not as good as what he is. And so you have a barometer, you have a level that you have to strive for in order to get on the same plane with Lawrence Taylor. His effort, his speed, his tenacity. So in order to be an elite player, you've got to come close to what he is. And nobody's ever matched what he is, but you can come close and then you can perfect the things that you do well at a very elite level. And so that was kind of my goal. Once I took the field and obviously practiced with Lawrence Taylor, it was like I got to be elite at something and perfect my responsibilities.
What would you say was your eliteness coming from? What did you perform?
Hard work. You know, I had the good fortune of being tutored in college my last season by the great Hall of Famer Jack Ham. So he taught me some of the ins and outs of playing the position and then from there I incorporated that into my skill set and it was just a matter of implementing it at the professional football level. And I did that and I continued to work at it and I continued to study myself and how I could get better at every technique, every little thing. And it made me the most dominant strong side linebacker during my career.
Sure. And do you see any player on today's roster that has a similar skill set or that mentality to you?
Well, I think it's more about the mentality than it is about the skill set. I think the requirements of today's NFL player are a little different than when I played. However, I see a tremendous amount of talent at the linebacker position for the Giants. Each and every one of those players can be elite. Brian Burns is already an elite player. Abdul Carter is going to develop into something that's unblockable. I think there may be one player that's kind of similar to me because of his ability to play the run and that's Kayvon Thibodeaux, but he has a very unique skill set too. So those players there just have an opportunity to really take it to the next level. And then they drafted Arvell Reese, who is a linebacker by description, but he's going to be such a utility defender in terms of they can do a lot with him. He's a big kid, but he's going to develop into kind of an ultimate weapon. Tremaine Edmunds, who is 6'5" and really good as an inside linebacker. So they've got players that will have an opportunity to really put their skill set on display with Dennard Wilson's scheme because it's similar to Wink Martindale's scheme where guys are playing aggressive and not thinking a lot. And that's going to be to the benefit of guys with their skill sets.
You just named it, the linebacker position is quite stacked for the Giants with Arvell Reese and John Harbaugh just coming in. He gets such a good draft class for the Giants. What do you expect from this head coach who won a Super Bowl? Can he be the one who takes New York back to the promised land?
I am very confident that he can do that. His resume speaks for itself. He has been a consistent winner. His teams have a profile and they don't deviate from the style of football that they play. And that style of football is similar to the style that I played or that my teams played. They were big, they were fast, they were physical, they were smart. When you look at all of Coach Harbaugh's teams, no matter who the personnel was, they all fit that profile. And that's why he won so many games.
Yeah, I was about to mention that this team can really, with Harbaugh, try to imitate or be quite similar to the ones that took Giants organization as a whole to the next level when Lawrence Taylor was in town with Bill Parcells.
It has a lot of similarities that the fans, I guess, must be really excited about.
Yes, really excited. So, you think the sky is the limit right now for New York?
Yes, I think they have to stay healthy. But I do believe that there's a great opportunity ahead for this team. If they and when they really get the little things that are required to be an elite football team, when they get those things ingrained in them, then you'll see an immediate shift to a different type of football than you have been seeing the last five, six, seven years from the Giants.
And heading to the other team in New York, the Jets, you work for them as a director of player development. How was that change from one organization to the other in the same city? Did the fans let you know about the decision?
I don't think I got too much negativity from the fans. And I think that's because Bill Parcels was there as the head coach and president of the Giants, and because he has credibility, I have credibility. And we were there to do a job and people probably weren't happy with it, but they understood why I was there. And the respect that I had in New York as a champion and as a person certainly helped with fans not being so angry.
And is the Giants-Jets really a rivalry with the NFL scheduling them so in between no regular games between them? Is there a lost opportunity to have a real battle for New York?
Yeah, I think the inner-city or inner-state rivalries are not as strong as they used to be. The Jets have to deal with Buffalo. That's their rival, right? They're in the division. The Giants have to deal with Philadelphia and Washington. That's their rival. You know, bragging rights for who is the best team in the city, it's just not determined by if you win that game, a preseason game against the Jets. Back when I played it was more important to the fans, but I think over the last 20 years, the Giants have had better teams and obviously have won two Super Bowls since. And the rivalry aspect of it just really doesn't make much sense.
