9x Pro Bowler and Super Bowl Champion (XVIII) Mike Haynes stepped “Inside the Locker Room” at Redskins Training Camp Wednesday afternoon to talk about this week’s Pro Football Hall of Fame inductions in Canton, his thoughts on Josh Norman and the fuss over “Madden Player Ratings.” LISTEN to entire audio interview with Mike Haynes from Wednesday (8/3) “Inside the Locker Room”>>
Transcript:
[Audio Clip from Super Bowl XVIII] Pat Summerall: Here’s Marcus Allen – cutting back upfield and Marcus Allen could be gone. 74 yards for Marcus Allen and the Raiders are starting to shove this one in the winner’s column.
Scott Jackson: Oh, Pat Summerall. Back in the day. Super Bowl 18. Did Mike Haynes request that or something? (Laughter) As we bring in the Hall of Famer @MikeHaynesNFL on Twitter via the Hadeed Carpet Cleaning Guest Hotline. Doc’s in Richmond at Redskins Training Camp.
Brian Mitchell: And he’s crying right now, Mike (Laughter)
Scott Jackson: Brian Mitchell and Scott Jackson back here in the studios. And Mike of course will be in Canton this week for the Pro Football Hall of Fame inductions. Did you request that, Mike? Is that how our producer did that to us? Or did we make him mad today?
Mike Hanyes: No, no. I’m sure you guys are tired of hearing that. You want that memory to go away. But ..
Doc Walker: No no, Mike. Keep it alive, man. You earned it.
Mike Haynes: Oh, yeah.
Doc Walker: That was a fine moment for you. I won’t take that away from you.
Mike Haynes: I appreciate that.
Doc Walker: You see, you’re the only person I deal with. The rest of those clowns were sitting at home watching this. They don’t mean nothing to me, those losers. (Laughter) I beat them. You’re the only guy I’ve gotta deal with for the rest of my life (laughter). That’s OK. Dude, I’m never gonna feel humbled being two in the world. Trust me
Mike Haynes: I hear you, Doc. I hear you. Thank you.
Scott Jackson: Well, Mike you’re at the Pro Football Hall of Fame this week. Should be a great class – It IS a great class you have going in this year, I should say…
Mike Haynes: Every year it’s a great class. This year it’s a big class. You know, a lot of the stories – you know some of the guys, and you know their history. And it’s a lot of fun. You know, guys like Tony Dungy and his contribution that he’s made to the NFL. That’s just spectacular. Guys like Kevin Greene, who had a great career and a lot of people though, ‘this was a first-ballot’ kind of a player. What’s taken him so long? I think that gives a lot of other guys who haven’t actually received their call yet [hope] that it’s not over. They could still get in. You know. Kevin Greene. A guy that you never would have thought waited this long to get in. But it’s happening for him. So Rams fans and Steelers fans and I guess Carolina Panthers fans, too who have followed his career have something to celebrate.
Brian Mitchell: I saw a lot of your counterparts out in Napa this past weekend and listening to all of those stories, I’m sure when you get up there and you get with the guys that’s one of the parts you really miss – but you really enjoy every year.
Mike Hanyes: It is. And you learn a lot about NFL history. You hear a lot of the names, but you don’t their stories. Like Bobby Mitchell from your guys’ era. Being the Redskins and the stuff that he had to go through, that the Redskins had to go through, that African Americans had to go through. You know, you hear all of these stories. And that stuff gets left out because over time it gets filtered out and filtered down that it doesn’t seem to be important, but it’s stuff that I think is really really important still. I’m not sure if you guys are aware but the Hall of Fame and Joe Horrigan and Howard Balzer, they do this Hall of Fame Radio Show. I’m not sure if it’s all year long, but it definitely has been on several weekends, and I’ve been one of the co-hosts on that show. And we get a chance to talk about some of this stuff. So that’s a lot of fun. And when you’re here, and when you sit down to dinner with some of these fellows that you just heard their names and before you realized what made them special. “A Hah! That’s why he’s so fast!”
Do you remember Randall McDaniel?
Doc and Brian Mitchell: Yeah. Oh my God, yes. Viking.
Mike Haynes: So Randall McDaniel was the high school swimming champion in the 100 meters, and this guy’s in the Hall of Fame as an offensive guard. So when he was catching guys, you know defensive backs and getting interceptions and running it down the sideline and getting caught by those linemen, I used to think those DB’s were slow. [Laughter] I thought, ‘Dang. He needs to get in shape. He got caught by a guard?’ You know? [Laughter] And then I find out here that Randall was one of the fastest guys in the state of Arizona. And he became a guard because they had an injury in their offense. And he was a tight end. But he wasn’t playing as much as some other guy. They said, ‘Hey. Would you take a shot at playing guard?’ And he loved pulling around the corner and hitting these DB’s and outside linebackers and getting that leverage and then running down the field to get another block. And obviously the rest speaks for itself. He perfected that, and now he’s in the Hall.
Doc Walker: You know, you’re one of those players that whenever I see. And I think I speak for other people, a tall – a long corner, if he’s good, we go, “Wow.” It reminds us of just flashes of you. When you see Josh Norman, do you see him as a guy with terrific tools – which I think is harder to be a really good corner and be long? And I’d just like you to evaluate his game.
Mike Haynes: Well really the only time I had a chance to watch Josh play was last year in the Super Bowl. And it’s one of the things that I wish I had a chance to see a lot of these guys play. I had heard about him, and I go, ‘Oh, yeah. Well, I’ll take a look,’ and you know – I always attribute the success to the entire defense. Yeah, he’s pretty good, but he’s got great linebackers, he’s got a great pass rush, and all that stuff, so I’m sure there’s more to this story. But I got a chance to watch him play.
So he is a good player. They were right about Josh Norman. He is a guy who will probably be considered for the Hall of Fame at the end of his career if he continues on this path. I just don’t always feel like that’s something that I’m a good guy to talk about it, because it’s not something I study and get a chance to watch every weekend and watch these guys play. And the best cornerback in football might be on a team that the guy doesn’t have a great pass rush, doesn’t have a great defensive coordinator putting him in the position to do great things. He may be getting beat every week because he doesn’t have a rush… you know what I’m saying. You guys both know the game.
Brian Mitchell: Yeah. Mike, we always felt – many people felt – the wide receivers were the divas of football. [Laughter] And lately, every time there’s a player talking about another player, it’s a defensive back. What’s going on?
Mike Haynes: [Laughter] I don’t know, man.
Scott Jackson: Were you guys always like that, Mike – and it’s just coming out because of the media and social media? What do you think?
Mike Haynes: No, no. I just don’t know. I used to always say that the guys who play receiver are guys who could take a big hit, and then they just jump up and throw the ball back to the referee. The guys that end up defensive backs are the guys that were receivers, but when they got hit, they wanted to fight. [Laughter] “You don’t hit me like that.” They wanted to get it on, right there on the field. And so, now I have no idea. I think social media has changed things. Guys are not as quiet as they used to be. There’s more encouragement to talk and get your thoughts out there than there was in the past. As a defensive back or any position really you could be a quiet guy. Nobody’s gonna bother you. But now, people are saying, “ Man you need to get your brand out there. You need to talk a little bit more. You need to hang out with this guy. You need to do what he’s doing.” There’s a lot of different things going on now that we never had to deal with.
Scott Jackson: When you played – we talked about this with Doc and Brian – The coverage now is crazy. Teams put up a practice video, and it’s not just fans reacting to it – it’s other players. Patrick Peterson is making a joke about Josh Norman’s “Madden Rating.” It’s just incredible that this is going on. [Laughter] It’s just so different. Do you ever kind of think of your worst day at the office in practice, and think, “Well thank God the TV cameras weren’t there or people would have been overreacting to what I was doing.”
Mike Haynes: It is a different world. People want to know what brand of shaving cream the guy uses. It’s not the same. And the fans love it. It’s like they cannot get enough of it. It’s crazy.
Brian Mitchell: Well I think the video that they used, when they tried to knock Josh – the receiver didn’t catch the ball. [Laughter]. It just shows you people don’t pay attention to the ‘whole.’ They just go by what they think the issue was.
Mike Haynes: Right. And a lot of times the fans have no idea, the reporters have no idea what the defense is, and what is actually going on out on the field. And to say, “He got beat.” Well, yeah. He got beat, because the safety wasn’t where he was supposed to be, the offensive lineman blocked the guy so long the quarterback had all day, things didn’t work out the way they were supposed to work out, and somebody makes a big play. You can’t say, “He got beat.” If everything had worked out great, then that play never would have happened. Anyway, I just think the more sophisticated fans get, the better decisions they’re hopefully going to be making about who’s great, who’s doing a good job, who isn’t. And that Madden game – hopefully that’s helping some of these guys do better. But what if you have a debate about the rating you got as a “Madden Player?”
Doc Walker: Oh, they are. That’s what started this and ignited it. [Laughter]
Scott Jackson: That’s what’s so crazy about this stuff. [Laughter] Mike Haynes is with us – and the American Urological Associates – I know you do a lot of great work for them. “Know your stats” campaign is going on, and that’s obviously very near and dear to you.
Mike Haynes: Absolutely, and you know next month is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. And it goes all through the month. So we’re getting started early. As Doc knows, we try to get started at the Hall of Fame. This is where I found out – not that I had Prostate Cancer, but the conversation started here where they had a screening. And I went over and the doctor started asking about my family history. And I didn’t know about my family history, my grandfather had prostate cancer and died of it – and I didn’t know that meant anything for me. But when it runs in your family, there’s a one in three chance that you’re going to get it. If you’re African American, there’s a one in five chance. And I had never met an African American man who had prostate cancer. I didn’t even know what the prostate gland did or where it was or any symptoms of it. So I was totally ignorant, and just found out by luck by having this conversation. The doctor who told me – he was African American, so I don’t even know if I would have been paying attention if it had been a different doctor there. But he told me all of this. And I said, “Wow man. That seems like an awful lot of men. How many women get breast cancer?” One in Eight. “One in eight? “ I said, “I know everything about breasts and breast cancer. Why is it I don’t know anything about prostate cancer?” He said, “I don’t know.”
Well, that conversation led me to talk to my primary care doctor. And that led to me getting a biopsy, and me finding out that I had cancer – in nine of the twelve places that they checked on my prostate. If I had not had that conversation, I might have found out I had it in the later stages. Prostate cancer is treatable. If you catch it in the early stages, it is really treatable. And there’s a 99.999% chance that you’re going to be fine. So our campaign is just trying to get the word out to all men and actually to all women as well, because a lot of times guys – even though they hear these stats, they go, “Yeah, but not me. I’m not gonna go.” But the guy’s girlfriend or wife or sister might be the one who hears this message and encourages her brother or father or friend to get out and talk to a doctor about it because again, if you have it – it’s treatable and it’s crazy for men to die of prostate cancer when there’s such a good likelihood that they’re going to be fine if they catch it in the early stages.
Scott Jackson: Mike, as always, we appreciate your time. Thanks so much.
Doc Walker: Keep up the good work.
LISTEN to entire audio interview with Mike Haynes from Wednesday (8/3) “Inside the Locker Room”>>
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