Ray Lewis Talks CBS’ ‘Beyond the Edge,’ Lamar, Brady, Peyton & More with Rich Eisen | Full Interview

we got to start it over hit it mike [Music] um [Music] that's the way to get the morning started baby it is now in fact hot in here and i have just pulled something hello ray lewis my friend oh my friend of the smoke you know what it's so funny because i told this story by the way ray lewis is here uh beyond the edge premiering tonight 9 eastern on cbs a new reality series in which he is competing and we'll talk about that on this show there it is there you are right in the middle of the panama jungle metal world peace and mike singletary some of the sports names and faces we recognize right there it's funny i was telling this story the other day about oh boy well about the pro bowl uh oh man oh man where are you and rob woodson were part of nfl total access at the pro bowl this is this is the this is the super bowl season where betis won and strolled off into the sunset of his career which you know you eventually got to chance to do yourself and um beating seattle and detroit and you and rod and i are on the set of nfl total access at the end of at the end of a show he's laughing already so where where you taught me how to hit right now i got a tackle properly right absolutely and you were telling me you know like get you know bend down absolutely you know get down explode up yes right get down yes you know not bend over at the hip switch back right down remember i remember doing it right and then you go in your chest hit with your chest one thousand see what you hear see what you hit through with your absolutely and then i did that and rod was holding the bag yep you let go of it and i went through it and you're laughing and rod's laughing and um when you when you hit the ground it was the most classic thing i've ever seen in my life and the crazy thing is it was like two hours later because it was what a setup it was because we were staying at the pro bowl hotel yeah and we're at the beach and i'm just like trying to get up from the sand and and i can't move my arm i sprained my ac joint and to this day to this day rod says he did not let go of the bag yeah yeah i don't know if you have any memory of this but can you break the tie here because i swear i do have a memory of this rich i don't know if i want to expose it i just don't know if that's the right thing to do you know cause somebody i got to put somebody by the bus that's right me or rod and this was me but you guys are my two friends i don't know who i could throw on the bus oh my gosh well you you wanted to i was supposed to hold the bag that's all i'm gonna say okay he was supposed to hold the back man so as you can see ray you and i uh we go way back yeah way back in the day so uh we're in the free agency period right now did you ever get close to that never never uh ravens never let you get close no it was um i think my one of my last deals and uh steve called me and he was like take seven days call me when you're ready and we just laughed about this i just sat with him the other day it was just shotty yeah the only time under the ravens yeah he says uh he says hey i heard you a free agent take seven days let me know when you're done i said i don't actually go on a tour to go i just said i'll call you back when i get from vacation and i went on vacation and uh but i had like two three offers forget who it was you know offering this crazy money and i'm like hmm so you want me to take 10 plus million and leave my legacy can't do it so you left that on the table yeah man absolutely it was no it was not even i never second guessed it you know like two of my favorite all-time athletes and this is this is before this new day and age right where there's no loyalty no more sports right it's who did you bet on this week that's who win it right but when i was a kid michael jordan and joe montana to me was like never supposed to take off a bull in the san francisco uniform right ever and when that happened years before i even got in the lead rich i knew that wherever i was going i'm never leaving that was the one thing i always had in my head go to one city and never leave that city now i didn't know that city wasn't going to have a name right when i got drafted right that's amazing h called me 26 people that would drive to you who's drafting me who we don't you don't have a team there's no team in baltimore what okay got it i'm drafted to yeah i guess baltimore yeah yeah so yeah man i never even thought about leaving uh when it came came to a free agency and that's one of the blessings of my career because i you know i signed four deals um there and yeah it was like they know what i was about we i knew what they were about and it never came down to any money issues or me bitter with anybody and to leave the legacy that i love being in one city for 17 years you know you can go around the entire globe for the rest of your life it's rare that you're going to have somebody that stays home and home for me was bigger than the game the game was just the thing right the platform but but the community that i invested in and still invested into the to this day right i wanted that to be forever so are you really not remembering it or you're just being you know on time that you don't remember which teams were trying to give you 10 million dollars more yeah yeah it's irrelevant right because i would disagree with the relevance of it it's irrelevant now why yes yes and you did win another super bowl yeah your legacy yeah but i just like who who's knocking on your door right who's knocking on your door nice come on years ago cowboy's knocking on you you know you know some of the time when you got that old phone and you know you need to get rid of that old dolphins like to come home dolphins did the dolphins ask you to come back to the other one who knows everybody missed out let's just say that you know dallas made a play rich i hated it in baltimore yes you did and it's interesting that you say that that that that's worth it because now rogers has that opportunity you know aaron rodgers has that opportunity but brady doesn't it's one of the few things that brady will not have the opportunity to say that he's in one place but he did win another one yeah what did you make ray lewis here on the rich eisenstein what did you make of tom's decision to un-retire even though when he retired he never used the word retire right yeah just you knowing what it's like to leave this game that you put so much into yeah what did you make of tom you know i think the competitive side of thomas is the easy noticeable thing right right he's one of the greatest competitors ever and the one thing i said when i got ready to retire if you've got more in the tank finish it empty the tank right i don't think he's finished i don't think the tank is empty for his passion for i'm done now i think if they would have won it i think he walks out right but tasting glory and then losing the way they did last year and living with that the rest of your life i don't know if that's his pedigree so i you know i think if you listen to his his entire world of i'm retiring but kind of it's kind of open i don't know i just i think his passion for the game still burns and i say to anybody if you got it ride it ride it and whenever you ready to let go me for me it was kind of an easy decision because i said this is my last ride right i didn't go after the season was over you said it going in going in right did you do that to to maybe even block off what you might have i i actually didn't come through if you i caught that no i called steve and i called my daughter and i said dime i said daddy has to make a really tough decision i said i just tore my tricep from the bone like they say i can never come back but i'm coming back so when i come back i'm coming back to do one thing one more one more dance and she was like dad don't come back during the season you know steve was like you know paula willis reed come back in the place yeah i love steve and uh so yeah so bottom line i think for me i did it my way and it ended on the four-yard line in new orleans no greater way a defensive player would ever want to go out so for brady it's like how do you want how do you want it to end right we know what it's been how do you want to see the end jb your own bet is champion forever the last time you ever saw him play the last time i've ever scrapped up my cleats triceps on the knot right i held the lombardi trophy i think that's that's a crave that's a crave for brady after you've seen it seven times you know that's something that says wow if i can walk out one more time like this now i don't know if he's chasing a dream that may not happen right i think it's a lot of people have gotten better definitely in the nfc is going to make it tough think about what you just said seven times seven times that's it's crazy and and just showing you again ray that he wants to do the eighth time that it means just as much to him maybe as the other seven i i i it's a rarity to have that ticking clock within your system yeah i would think yeah you know yes they're it's definitely rare did you what was your biggest battle against brady you had so many of them yeah what was it like going against brady in the playoff game right yeah it was probably for me and him i think we had so much respect for each other um because he understood the chess match and the chess match was i know what you're running and what i'm telling you is you may deliver the ball but somebody's going to pay for that right and so you know he you know he gave he said this thing on his interview a few weeks a few months back right that when he actually competed against me he knew that i knew so he had to be careful where the ball was going you know me and julian edelman now like we work together now right [Music] but julian understood wherever that's a punishment back when we was playing ball right that's a punishment to catch the ball so it was chess i knew where you're going hollow back side two by two back offset you come back and throw you motion to the three side to see a win man we come back we shift out of man go back to two and then on one on one with your running back every time so that was the chess match how can you get me to move three steps to the right or three steps to the left or get ed to see something different and i'm like ed don't move trust me he's right and so that chess match between me him it was it was probably one of the most classic things ever never noticed because it was in the small changes that you had to know what we both were doing yeah it was it's one of the greatest battles that i used to stay up really late for and look at film enough to say somebody going to get knocked out because i know he going through it and and so that was my thing my thing was he will throw it but there's a delivery that comes with that and that's what i think what made us so competitive against each other is we knew like he we knew how good they were right we knew outside of us and pittsburgh and them like the road was going to come through right those areas in that region and um 2011 for me i think when we went to new england and we lost that one i wouldn't i would never say i wanted it you know more i would just say i thought we were better equipped to do what we needed to do if we would have finished that right so when you were going in these battles with brady do you ever verbalize it pre-snap every play i'm not playing with brady but he he know though but that's the thing like julian like that's what we talk about when brady he comes to the line i'm saying i'm telling you what you're running that's what you would run you'd say that i'm telling you where it's coming yeah it's like that's that was my my secret sauce was i i stayed up i stayed up and played the game after 2000 after 1998 man peyton manning was first at the pro bowls old school pro bowls and i never and i never understand i never understood peyton's wife's so cool she's oh my god she's amazing and she's like he studies you all day every day and i'm like really i don't so i need to change my game so i started studying him more though right you know quarterbacks all they do is click so i built an entire room in my house just so i can watch film so i became this guy that wanted to know everything when i went to marvin lewis and said i want to know every check that a defense run that we run that we have why do we check out why do we stay in a certain defense on first down to 10 or second right so all of those little things when you think about the game now yeah that's what you see missing from the defensive side of the game right the defensive side of the game now is look react out mine was look destroy or either intercept it or knock it down not catch it in the enemy because you've done the the work to know what's coming or what their tendency is back in rich rich that back in when you actually get to plan those type of chess match games against brady and payton it's the smallest things ever that will decide the wins and losses in that game it's not this big touchdown or this but no it's the smallest things it's me knowing peyton come to peyton come to the line second down and eight and i see that the receiver right leg is up on the line instead of his left leg is up on the line and the outside receive his back yard then i know i'm getting that high low right now so i know two driving up and number one coming in and no the corner can't make that play yeah because the corner has to sit off so the only person that can affect that play if you know it's coming is the middle back and that's the difference of when i watch football i'm like screaming at kids like you gotta know the game if you can count to one two three as a middle linebacker you can you can be a very effective person so are you talking to anybody in the game today to say you talk to a lot of people i know you do yeah or you so who are you who do you think is equipped to do this or is is doing something i think i think rich honestly we have to because the game has changed right the game is now about the the the guy that get that can get to the quarterback and the quarterback yeah that's the game that seems to be the game that's the game it's certainly that's when you play the super bowl so that's where your defensive players years are coming from because the only thing that's now kind of relevant is the d lineman and you know the quarterback but the essence of a middle linebacker is the general on that side of the ball everything there's no way you can walk to a line and i want you to really just watch the game you walk to the you watch the game now and you the last thing you see is communication in my defense it's the first thing you must everybody's communicating you got to know what's coming right if i if i see knuckles in the ground i'm screaming rabbit if i see knuckle if i see fingers extended i'm screaming bird rabbit is run bird is passed right but i'm giving my d-line some sort of a clue on either to be heavy or be light right so now you play the game different right i'm looking at my corners i'm saying look damn bunch something coming right it's the little things and so um that's the thing that i try to when i talk to people or try to explain to any of my camps i try to explain our greatness wasn't me our greatness was i was able to communicate what made us great right it's like pulling your shoestring i always use this analogy if you pull your shoe straight too far one way the other side going to be short it's the same thing in defense defense has to be on one string when the ball moves even if you're wrong as a complete defense if everybody's doing the same thing you're right and if you're going full speed who cares ray lewis here on the rich eisen show i love this stuff we've got another segment let's take a break we'll come back for the peacock and siriusxm audience we're going to show you a clip of beyond the edge that premieres tonight 9 eastern on cbs you're in the jungle of panama correct competition i still don't know how i got there [Laughter] let me make that clear i still don't know the production looks beautiful okay okay okay see that look cute that ain't cute that isn't cute y'all can see what y'all want to say i'm he'll have a nightmare about quicksand it it was a it was an amazing thing to do once you got there but that wasn't cute i'm serious like that hurt i got scars from that get out of here i'm rich i got scars wounds battle it's like i was back on the field i i just you know when when the guys when we talked when we first had the conversation i i just did not understand i was going to live in the jungle for 15 days i thought maybe you filmed from a hotel you know shout out you know look you get up in the morning they pick you up at 5 30. they have your back at 9 30. i could sleep in my bed and shout out crap services you thought these scratches since i get out there and we sleeping with monkeys rich we with snakes black scorpions i'm one of them one of the nights i ain't gonna tell you the show but one of the nice i'm telling i'm sleeping right and you know we got to sleep with a net over us because we actually outside on bamboo stick so it's storming every night and i promise you i i shouldn't tell this well it it it is you'll see them well i'll just say ray lew is here on the rich island show telling a story of uh recording beyond the edge tonight cbs at nine eastern time so you're you're out where you're out in the yeah in japan okay in the middle dropped off rich on a bus can't see nothing don't know where you're going don't know how to get back home and they drop us off and they say this is where you're going to live for the next 15 days and i'm standing in the middle and everybody's looking at me and i'm like i'm not staying here i can't why they already look at you because you're the automatically the leader like i mean right do something somebody say something right right and and and and you know of course we're doing this to benefit our charities right and i'm like man how much can i write a check for i can just write a check to the charity oh god i ain't been i have not it's i'm telling you this seriously i have not been the same since since i came back from that jungle the point is we get dropped off everybody has a charity that they're supporting mine was john hopkins children's hospital i've been working with them for many years um and to see these kids and to know the impact so every day that you stayed you made more money but there was these tests there was these mental tests there was these physical tests that you had to do daily so by the third day what really happened is god had to be introduced because you don't have food you don't have water you have to find it and you're sleeping wow on bamboo sticks where it storms every night and i'm saying to myself right i'm like okay this is a show so somebody got to come get us there's no way they can leave us in the thunderstorm nobody came to get us so we get up the next morning and we're like man this is so me and um me and coach um mike cenatary we was roommates whatever you want if you want to call it roommates because there's no room there's no room it's just mates it's a piece of wood and huge is laying up you land on it so so then you know before i even decided this i had this whole conversation with my team and everybody and it was just like no it'd be great it'll be amazing and i was like yeah it will be and i got there we went through it and i think the bonding that happened from it is kind of a metaphor for what our world should adopt which is truly loving our neighbor as thyself regardless of where you come from regardless of your race we all had to figure out how to work together and and what made it really tricky is you couldn't get comfortable with someone because every day you had a different teammate some days you may end up the same but every day there's a different captain there's a different order so now you have to communicate differently so that's the way this show works yeah and so who winds up becoming the the champion like how did this how did so the champion see and so that's what makes this really good because of course there's a winner but there is no winner there's everybody wins right as long as you go but at the end of course whoever raised the most money i see yeah really comes home with the prize but there's no prize right the prize is if you can if you can cut this out right there will be people that will benefit from your sacrifice and so hundreds of thousands of dollars um was raised um because the crew did one heck of a job and honestly this cast craig morgan one of became one of my favorite people in the whole world he is he is the i'm telling you we talk so much we face time so much just to hear each other's laugh right because we trusted him him being a military man and some of these circumstances rich where you had to find your own water right like really dig for water like wow right and then we started to travel and to see that these circumstances was like this for real for a lot of people right and we were doing it for you know of course to benefit people the hardest thing i've probably ever done um in my entire life wow i'm because it's the unknown sure of course and you're surviving in the jungle of panama yeah what was it like with the singletary no it was the greatest you he was your coach right back in the day he was your position coach back in the day he's your but don't go that fast because 1985 i was 10 years old and he was the person that i admired to be like you're sitting there dreaming of becoming michael mike singletary as he's doing his what does 85 mean when i couldn't play football i was like wow that's he's that intense what is it that he knows that i don't know so as a kid i started following him and then him and lawrence taylor was kind of my two ronnie lott was the other one sure i have a lot of people i was by the way you chose well yeah [Laughter] i had a lot of guys that i just actually love but i think just like craig i think me and coach we had conversations that we had never had before as men we shared vulnerabilities that in the locker room you don't you do and the day that i i had this crazy blurred out and lost my mind playing against the jets because i knew the call and defensive coordinator called another call and i lost my mind because i knew they was gonna run the ball whatever and he called me to the sideline and he was like you can't speak to no your voice carries way farther than anybody else and it's caught on camera and i'm like what the yeah i think that was on nfl films you caught that was that mike nolan too i remember this right i remember he gets i think he got in like you got on the phone no because there he was called under michael's like get on ray right and i'm like coach i hear you right but you got to think like this me ryan i'm trying to humble myself to look at this lion in his eyes and saying coach i'm listening i remember this right so i'm like okay i'm here i'm listening tell me what you want to tell me right your voice can't care like that he forever changed the course of me as a leader right because from that moment my voice never raised as a leader if it was not passion right we get in the jungle and we're roommates and there's no real sleep you're not looking to get five six hours at least okay right you're not prepping to go to go to bed like you're just laying down hopefully you can stay asleep right and we ended up sitting up and i'm telling you the intimacy of what we found out as men why we connected because we all we me and him in particular we experienced some really rough things to try to come out of you know and so we started to share that and so that's why i said like it turned into this like it's always like the spiritual retreat right because i started like going on like i wasn't even thinking about food i was like you know what i'm done we're not gonna eat we're trying to fish we're putting rod we're putting strings in the water nothing is happening but me and mike man we fell in love with each other all over again i think we did and uh the whole crew there though the whole crew richard was the toughest thing that i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you as a friend don't ever do i want to make sure we're clear because i think we're correct i appreciate that right back at you seriously guys i created an app yes that blocks all reality shows from getting in touch with me eastern how'd he do how'd he do i'm not uh it's just like me getting up this morning right and i said i got to get up this morning and i got to drive in la traffic where i'm going i must be in love with the person that got me there is that me i appreciate it the traffic's not that bad not bad this morning okay first time in l.a traffic wasn't right ray lewis i know it's not your first time in l.a because you ran for st jude last year yeah and you won it yeah took it down you and mark glory took it down you know then now he owns the timberwolves now you're on you're on uh beyond the edge that's a lot of things happen when you win the run rich run i'd have and you run to 40. um ray lewis here on the rich eisen show before i let you go uh and by the way check on the traffic to make sure ray's going to get back can you get something you raise it for him where is it for him yeah okay um so what do you think uh is uh with lamar's long-term future in baltimore what do you think ray because you know it seems like eric decosta and the ravens would love to sit here and talk long-term contract with him and yeah either he's not ready or he's representing himself or he's just a different type of you know nfl player who's not concerned about his long-term future it'll all just come to him he just wants to win right now is what it seems like what do you think yeah i think um honestly i um he's one of the young kids that i that i purposely pray for a lot because for him to understand the mantle that he now carries in baltimore you know i think it's way bigger than football i think um i think he's clear on what he wants to do right and sometimes you know you can't fault a person for doing what the way that they see it um but i think when it comes down to the contract in the rabies i think a deal will get done okay um i really do and yeah i think it gets done and we keep taking our city to the next level and he keeps knowing what he's doing well it's interesting you say his mantle in baltimore do you think if there is a torch that it's been passed from you to him he has to it's no if you know it's like he has to and i've been gone from the game 10 years right like i get it like that's whatever my city i get it right but the new sheriff that he carries a different master he has to understand that and i think he does i really do i think he i don't think he understands sometimes the magnitude of where he could reach and how far he can go and none of us at 24 25 years old had everything figured out what if somebody had come up to you when you were 24 25 said that to you yeah yeah you know so i mean would you have understood i mean i think i think um the same thing i told lj lamar is i had somebody to help me walk through whatever greatness you're running into you're not doing nothing no different nobody else did so you got to have the right counsel right and so for me the guy we spoke about earlier rob wilson rod basically just took me he said i understand that you you're great you can do a lot but you need me to help you right and that's what i think um lamar he's you got to have the right counsel in these type of decisions because they affect not just him i think he needs to understand that clearly like this is this affects an entire culture a raven nation of of what young kids who was told they couldn't play a position right go play receiver lamar now i'm a quarterback yeah that was no question right something that he needed to do unfortunately at the combine like i'm not running receiver routes here like get out of here with that and i'm not running a 40 here because i'm not gonna have the conversation from here be how fast i am and like he amazing and then obviously ozzie newsome with the ultimate you know uh you know gift basket as he's going out the door yeah great move to go get him there's an extra year of contractual control if you want to talk about the business a little bit here and so now clearly he is uh supremely talented no question about that what about though and just bringing this all full circle we had such a terrific conversation in the first segment of you here about how it's now down to past rushers and quarterbacks yeah and he clearly can get away from past rushes but at some point it might be somebody like you coming downhill and taking him out and how sustainable do you think his level of play is in the nfl right man you think and we know this game now so uh any play is that play yep you know practice you know i hurt myself in practice right it's it's that's i think that's the last thing any of us think about right right now when you start to get into the contractual stuff of course they're going to talk about it but it's really irrelevant in your in your mindset right and in his world that he should live in injury is the last thing the one things about lamar is a football player and he's going to give you everything he got and when you think about the core of what a football player is what the hall of famers ultimately live their entire life being that's the person that gives everything empty's the tank that's who he is and injury who cares right i had nine surgeries who cares keep going and you'll figure it out so look you of course you hear all of the oh if he gets hurt one hit one hit yeah it's for a lot of people right but that kid is special he has the it factor and people love to play with him and for him and for me he's one of those people that i run home because i know something's magical is gonna happen right right and i just think he has to keep that in his forward of thinking with the right counsel and i think he'll be okay right you're the man thanks for coming here no man thank you buddy so good to see you man it's very good to see you yeah what's your time this year in the 40 um you know i got to start training and uh we're going to so you haven't started this room uh this is just a question there is no there there there is no re system you know what i mean like so you're just talking to strengths i'm just asking yes uh it's we're right now the tentative plan that's becoming very firm and finalized is five weeks from saturday oh the saturday before the draft is where we're gonna is when we're gonna run it i can't really announce just yet where it's gonna be but it's gonna be here in los angeles california you are very much invited to return and and defend your crown ray olympians olympians start four years just to get to the next olympics yes you got five weeks and you ain't started training yet well i mean i'm doing mental reps [Laughter] so i'm doing i'm doing my mental wraps right now okay so yeah that's the way i approach it let me see let me see the way i feel if i could come back and defend it well i mean just again to bring it all full circle how limber did i look doing the squirrel dance to start this entire a appearance the dragon of the leg is the most impressive thing to me because that means you take your time taking my time see that's that's one thing people don't know about that then it's a state of mind look at my face that means i'm in awe [Laughter] that's where you were looking at me last year i could not believe you did that and you know people was recording that but that's why i love you rick right back at you ray let me see thank you ray lewis on twitter and instagram beyond the edge check it out i mean if you you just heard how real this thing is and this thing is a celebrity adventure challenge in the panama jungle with ray and meta world peace and uh mike singletary paulina porsakova and more celebrities tonight on cbs wednesdays at nine eastern time good to see you ray hey buddy you got it hey you watched all the way to the end thanks for that watch more right here

Channel: The Rich Eisen Show

Views: 127,104

Keywords: Rich Eisen, Rich Eisen Show, sports, NFL, football, college football, CFP, NBA, basketball, MLB, baseball, pop culture, NBC Sports, Peacock, NBC, streaming, NFL Network, Chris Brockman, TJ Jefferson, Del Tufo, Super Bowl, NFL Draft, Ray Lewis, hall of fame, Baltimore Ravens, Beyond the Edge, Paulina Porizkova, Metta World Peace, Ron Artest Craig Morgan, Colton Underwood, Tom Brady, TB12, Peyton Manning, Lamar Jackson

Id: J1x6IPHXuz0

Length: 38min 34sec (2314 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 17 2022