Dec. 3, 2024
Tim Ruddy: On the Ball
A mainstay on the Miami Dolphins offensive line, Tim Ruddy played and started at center in 140 of the team’s 144 games from 1995 to 2003. The Notre Dame grad was also widely recognized as one of the smartest players in the National Football League. Contributors to this episode include Sevach Melton and Dolphins Productions. Theme song created and performed by The Honorable SoLo D.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:00
Speaker 1: You're now diving been.
00:00:10
Speaker 2: Who sitting down with Steth Living Ojay Juice.
00:00:16
Speaker 1: Well, and this is strictly.
00:00:20
Speaker 3: Number one of course, y'all just say the other of ners boys talk that might have been that pitch tank.
00:00:25
Speaker 4: Welcome back to the Fish Tank presented by iHeartRadio right here on the Miami Dolphins podcast network. Seth Levitt and the only podcaster to bowl a perfect game and leave the NFL and receptions.
00:00:36
Speaker 5: He is O J McDuffie juice. It's a big night tonight.
00:00:39
Speaker 1: Well, what, first of all, is that actual senat?
00:00:42
Speaker 4: I keep telling you, well, it is a fact that you accomplished both of those things. And until someone else rolls in here with another guy that has done both of those things, it's a fact. And Harvey Green told me it's right until someone proves you wrong.
00:00:56
Speaker 5: So I'm rolling with it.
00:00:57
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. You know, there's three things that really get pumped about talking about the Dolphins. Of course, talking about the off the side of the balls another one.
00:01:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course talking about some money that actually played with It means the world to me, Bro, because I tremble Crown.
00:01:13
Speaker 2: I know we we grinded through and what we went through man, so this is a special night for sure.
00:01:17
Speaker 4: Well with that, let's welcome in a man who is uh for a big man. He has been ducking and moving and a little hard to track down.
00:01:25
Speaker 1: Here now always been shifting.
00:01:27
Speaker 5: Now he's quick on his feet. He is Tim. Roddy Tim, welcome to the fish tank.
00:01:32
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
00:01:33
Speaker 1: Guys.
00:01:33
Speaker 6: Yeah, the term we usual was quick rather than fast, you know, more quick than fast, you.
00:01:38
Speaker 4: Know, yeah, absolutely absolutely all of those things. But you're here now, you know. Juice and I went to the Tim Bowen's Ring of Honor ceremony to celebrate Tim and to have a great evening. But man, we were out there recruiting, so like we're just we're picking people off as they're walking in.
00:01:57
Speaker 5: He's texting me who's here, who's there?
00:01:58
Speaker 4: And and uh, you know, we darned near a corner yet try to use your wife against you and everything else, and here darn in the fish tank.
00:02:07
Speaker 5: So we're thrilled that you're excited to be here.
00:02:08
Speaker 6: No, it is great to be here. And that was a great event for Tim. I don't know why it took twenty years, you know, to get him to that point, but you know, still a great event and a lot of a lot of familiar faces.
00:02:17
Speaker 2: You no, no man like Seth said Tim, you know at the Ring of Honor celebration for I got Timbo as we both love.
00:02:25
Speaker 1: Of course, we.
00:02:26
Speaker 2: Got to meet both of these these times at the same time because they were both in the same draft nineteen ninety four. We select Tim Bones in the first round, and we end up two picks in the second round, taking Aubrey Beavers and later trading up to snag this dude from Notre Dame. How about that, you damn I love Notre Dame. I'll tell you what about that. I'll tell you what about that? Seth in a little bit right. But the Scott report on Tim was you know that he was strong, tough, maybe a little nasty and last but certainly not least intelligent. Now, now, I'm not sure how many of you know our two hundred plus episodes that we've had a guy on we actually get on, you know, and we talk about a guest and how smart he was.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: But it seems appropriate here.
00:03:10
Speaker 2: I mean, we've heard rumors about a near perfect Wonderlick score. Troy Draken said that used to read like math books just for the hell of it, you know, on the charter planes and at one point you were voted to the smartest man in the NFL. With that kind of head on your shoulders, how the hell would you decide to choose a career where you're banging up against three hundred pounders all the time? Why why would you do that instead of what you you got in your head?
00:03:36
Speaker 6: Jim, Well, yeah, I get that question a lot. I mean, I think one of the things is I was an engineer. Engineering isn't all that fun really when you think about it. You know, it's not nearly as exciting. You know, you go to work and you get designed in a building or you're doing you know, some work with something else engineering wise, or even the fields associated with science and that. So figure that, Go and hang out with you guys for a while, you know, about ten years or so, and then you know, see what that could always always go back toeering. You know, engineering is still going to be there. NFL wasn't.
00:04:03
Speaker 5: So hang out with you guys for a while.
00:04:06
Speaker 2: It's just a decade, right right, hang out you big dummies, big dummies?
00:04:12
Speaker 1: Right there? Is that what he said?
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Speaker 5: I mean? Pretty much?
00:04:15
Speaker 4: Actually I read a blog where he said he was once voted as the smartest guy in the NFL, and he learned later that that was like being the skinniest guy at a fat camp.
00:04:24
Speaker 6: And I was, I was like, damn, Juice will tell you. But there's a lot of smart guys in the NFL. But there's a lot of guys you kind of wonder, you know, how they're driving to work every day, right, how they make it, you know, through stop signs and reading through the street signs and things like that. So you know, it's just a it's a wide mix, you know, Yeah.
00:04:45
Speaker 1: No doubt, no doubt.
00:04:46
Speaker 2: Speaking of Tim Bowens though you know we did our thing with him for going to the Ring of Honor, you had mentioned a funny story about practicing against him when you know, we were running.
00:04:55
Speaker 1: A panel together.
00:04:55
Speaker 2: Talk about that practice against Timbo to some hell you being from Notre Dame playing against some big time guys and then you have to go practice against another guy that you know with the old miss Talk about what you said about practicing against Tim Bowens.
00:05:08
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean Tim was, you know, as everyone knows, a phenomenal player, but even in practice, you know, he was always going hard and it was always one of those things where as hard as you were going, he always felt like he could match you know, where you were at, and then he could add a little more if he needed to. You know, I was lucky enough that in our defense, you know, he didn't play on me as much. He was more on the guards, and you know, they'd be complaining about it every day. So, like, you know, because and then I mentioned, as I mentioned in there, tim Bow really took a day off. You know, he played every game, pretty much, went to every practice. Hell, I don't even remember being sick in ten years, you know, So it was it was one of those things where you know, day in and day out. But you know, something I learned at Notre Dame and as well as with the Dolphins, when you play against competition like that, it only makes you better. You know. When we go and played other a lot of other teams, we knew we weren't going to face anybody as good as Tim or you know, at other times, you know, like obviously the guys who played against Jason and the guys who played against some of the other outstanding players Zach. You know, we knew that guys we were playing in practice, we weren't going to see anybody better on you know, in the upcoming Sunday game.
00:06:09
Speaker 4: And hopefully you were able to do the same for them, right, No, that's what I tell people exactly.
00:06:15
Speaker 5: And you know what, it's right until somebody proves it wrong to him, that's right.
00:06:18
Speaker 1: Now.
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Speaker 6: It's twenty years later, so nobody remembers back that far, so it's like, oh, yeah, I guess he was pretty good, you know.
00:06:24
Speaker 4: Too good, too good. You don't stick around that long if you weren't any good. So Juice just mentioned that you were a golden domer. I can't wait to hear Ojay's story. I'm sure it's a good one. But there is a certain air I'll use the word air. There's a certain air that comes with playing at No Name. Talk about the choice to take your talents to South Bend. You're a highly rated player coming out of high school. Did you get like the home visit from Lou Holtz? I know a few different guys, you know, some we played with, obviously Sean Wooden, you you guys played with and Ralph Stringer who I work with, who actually Lou Holtz was his coach at NC State, So I know a few different guys that had the lou Holtz experience.
00:07:04
Speaker 5: Uh, and the recruiting stories are always fun to hear.
00:07:06
Speaker 4: So what was the lou Holtz pitch to Tim Riddy to pull you out of that kind of Scranton, PA.
00:07:13
Speaker 5: Area.
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Speaker 6: Well, I'll tell you one thing. So Juice and I almost became teammates a lot earlier because it was between Notre Dame and Penn State. So obviously Pennsylvania guy, right, But you know, Joe Paterno was the guy who came, you know, came to the school, came to the house, you know, that sort of thing, and I almost wound up going to Penn State. I actually, I you know, it was real close. I think it had more to do when I visited Notre Dame. I liked the campus and like some of the facilities in there a little bit better. Obviously, both good engineering schools, so you know, you can't really fault either one there. But yeah, with lou Holtz, I'm more I more went there than he came to me, because, to be honest with you, at that time, I think there was a couple of guys they were a little more interested in and they weren't they weren't didn't have a lot of offensive linemen in the class, so I think there was maybe two or three of us really on the scholarship.
00:07:58
Speaker 5: I was wit story.
00:08:01
Speaker 2: You know, I'm straight up pissed off right now. But you know I didn't realize that was that was that damn close to him. You and you shunned us like that, bro, you know what I mean recruiting Notre Dame was my second choice. So I'm like, I mean, we we had it all messed up. Was at least Penn State your second choice in this situation. I mean, I'm a little pissed off right now.
00:08:21
Speaker 1: Tim.
00:08:22
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, we'll be honest with you, juice. If you're showing up on my recruiting visit, you know, maybe it would have been my first, but it stuck with me with a couple other guys. You know, wait a minute, just hanging out, you know, like, Okay, you know this is good, but it is Happy Valley. You know, that's not like South Vend's a metropolis, right But you know, like I said, i met you, I probably would have came to Penn State.
00:08:41
Speaker 3: Oh you and Sean Wooden. You and Sean Wooden are the ones that I lost. It seems like people were in there. If I'd have been president Set, I would have got them to Penn State. We probably won a couple of national championships.
00:08:53
Speaker 5: Both Pennsylvania guys.
00:08:56
Speaker 2: Hey man, just jumped over our state, jumped over Ohio, you know what I mean, and straight into Indiana.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a mess, man, that's a mess. You know.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: I was about to say I had the similar situation with but you like, you know, I had to visit there to Notre Dame tim and it wasn't It wasn't as much fun for me as it was at Penn State. But I guess we had different, you know visits. It sounds like that's that's part of what were your other schools though. You talk about Penn State Notre Dame with us.
00:09:23
Speaker 6: Yeah, well I went to Stanford visit it out there, so it was an interesting campus, kind of far away, and to be honest with you, I didn't think they were going to be that good. So that didn't you know, that didn't go over I was had. Ohio State was probably uh fourth, but again, yeah, that was one of the other time when they had some more turnover in that so I like to Penn State and Notre Dame because I thought they'd be the best teams, you know, actually moving forward and you know, an offensive line. It's kind of like you rarely come in and play as a freshman, right, so it's kind of you know, you're going to have to prove yourself. You know, you're going to have, you know, a couple of years to do it. So it's you don't necessarily look at all where can I fit in right now? But to me, it was more about finding best team to play for.
00:10:01
Speaker 1: No doubt about it. Man.
00:10:02
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I hear you talk about Lou Holtz and you know, you know, like we talk about I can relate to your journey in the sense because you know, I went from one legendary coach and Joe Paterno like you did, and of course going to Don Shula, and you know, and while I probably didn't get the same Don Sula, neither one of us did, right, we never got the same Don Shult that some of the guys got back in the seventies and eighties. But he was still, you know, one of the kind honestly. He definitely was What was your Shola experience like? Because I know what mine was like, what was yours? What was yours?
00:10:34
Speaker 6: Like, yeah, I mean, like you said, he was already a legend by the time I was drafted, So you know, obviously I felt like it was a real honor to be able to come and play with the Dolphins, play with Don Shula, played with Dann Marino, and obviously Juice, you know, right up in there with.
00:10:47
Speaker 1: That, that's it.
00:10:48
Speaker 5: He shunned you.
00:10:51
Speaker 1: Please please please.
00:10:53
Speaker 6: But yeah, like you said, you know, so you play for you know, a college coach who has a has a very strong reputation and then come to the NFL. So I think you kind of you're into that mode of Okay, you know, I want to you want to play for the best guy. So you come to the NFL. Hey, I'm playing for the best guy again. And you know, the coach schule when we got there, like you could tell there was some underminings. People wanted to force him out, you know, that sort of thing, which was unfortunate, but still you could see the reason why. You know, he had three hundred and forty seven victories, you know at that point, probably about three hundred and twenty some, but you know, the consistency, the way he approached things. The one thing that he that he got out of me about which a lot of people don't know, is I was out doing some snaps or something before and someone happened to toss me the ball and I wasn't paying attention and I dropped. Oh, and he said, he said, you're a center. You're supposed to be able to handle the ball. Why can't you?
00:11:41
Speaker 1: You know?
00:11:41
Speaker 6: So like and so after that he had me out there. You remember Juice rich McGeorge. Yeah, absolutely, rich McGeorge like throwing and catching the ball, saying that I should have better hands as a center. So anyway, I think that continued for most of training camp that first year.
00:11:58
Speaker 4: Have you ever had that ball drill at any other point in your career? Then the Richmond George think fast?
00:12:03
Speaker 6: No, no, you know, yeah, we had the wet ball drill, right, you had the you know, the muddy ball drill, but yeah, never the really the Richmond George ball drill.
00:12:10
Speaker 1: So then.
00:12:13
Speaker 5: Big Rich, well what a super nice guy.
00:12:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it. Oh yeah, no about it.
00:12:17
Speaker 2: So what what what interaccdents other than that you have with coach Man? I mean, honestly, I thought it always was an honor to be drafted by coach Shulan, And honestly, you know, we talk about the lineman, we know about your intellect, but your durability at that point too is part of what he was looking for as well.
00:12:33
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, like I said, I know, I knew they were they had some interest. If I remember correctly going back that far, I think there was you know, the Raiders and the Dolphins, and like the Cowboys needed the center supposedly that year, so you know, I was hoping it was gonna be one of those teams. But to be honest with yeah, yeah, I was glad it was the Dolphins because you know, the Raiders kind of been up and down a lot for the past thirty years, maybe more down than up, and the Cowboys were going through a few things then with you know, I forget if it was Jimmy Lee been and Barry Switzer coming in or you know, there was some little bit of turmoil down there in Dallas. So I was actually, you know, pleased from from that standpoint as well as you know, like I said, playing with a legendary coach and playing with a legendary quarterback, and of course playing with Juice, you know, so that's you know, three in.
00:13:15
Speaker 5: A row again. Yeah, from the trifecta. I mean, listen, Juice, it's consistent. This is we're here on this show.
00:13:25
Speaker 1: That's gonna give me a hard time somewhere Alan to the line here.
00:13:29
Speaker 5: And I think I need to. I think Ruddy's got it handled. I don't think I need to.
00:13:34
Speaker 4: So another thing that is consistent on this show is is Juice often talks about how when he got to Miami he really understood the history of the wide out position here right, you know, and you go all the way back. Paul Warfield set the stage for for Nat Moore, who then mentors the Marx Brothers, and and then as the Marx Brothers were transitioning out, you know, and they spent a first round draft.
00:13:57
Speaker 5: Pick on O. J. McDuffie.
00:13:59
Speaker 4: I got to say that there's a lot of history at that position. The center position for the Miami Dolphins is the stuff of legends. Like literally you had two Hall of famers and Jim Langer and Dwight Stevenson and Dwight maybe the best to ever play the position. How aware were you of that history when you first came in? Was it kind of explained to you, and was it ever something that you thought about as you became a mainstay at the center position.
00:14:29
Speaker 6: Yeah, well I agree with you there as far as Dwight Steven said, you know, probably the best to ever play the position, and knowledge of you know, the previous because I think everybody knew about the seventy two team, at least everybody with you know, with who was interested in professional football. But yeah, quite a few really great players at the center position, you know, for the Dolphins. So obviously glad to be able to take part as part of that tradition hopefully, but you know, it was coming in, it was a little bit it was a little bit interesting because Jeff Yule and Aik had been playing center and then he left and went to New Orleans, I believe. So when I came in and you know, Jeff Dellenbach, who had really played everywhere along the line, you know, played the majority of my first year there, which was actually okay with me because I had an injury towards the end of my senior year in college and it was nice to have the year to really fully recover and then learn the offense and everything else. So, you know, I think that was a benefit. But you know, Jeff obviously a great play great player as well, especially for his versatility.
00:15:27
Speaker 4: But it's something that you know you were kind of aware of. Did you get to meet those guys? I know, you know, the Dolphins was such a great job with alumni being around. We saw that at the event we were all just at together. Was there a point where hey, here's you get to meet Jim Langer, get to meet Dwight And I always I was just having this conversation with Kim Bokamper the other day, is like, how much do the current guys on the roster?
00:15:49
Speaker 5: You know, you have your young guys're in your early twenties.
00:15:51
Speaker 4: When you show up and here's somebody that maybe is in their forties, fifties, sixty seventies even sometimes, and you know, how much is it made aware to you that, hey, this guy, this guy was a dude.
00:16:04
Speaker 5: You know. Were you introduced to d White or Jim?
00:16:07
Speaker 6: Yeah, I know I was. You know, I can't remember if it was, you know, first year or second year. You know how it is, it's when guys can make it back right, you know. I mean Dwight was I think at the time still running the construction company, and you know, we had other guys that are living in different areas and that, so you pretty much see them when you know when they're available, right, But you know the history and obviously a lot of respect for those guys. You know, tremendous players and most you know, almost to a man with the Dolphins, tremendous human beings. You know, guys that have gone out after football and done great things either for charity or in business or you know, looking at it, looking at it from a number of different ways. You know, you could see why they were successful on the field because they put all their energy into it, and then you saw afterwards they put all their energy or their effort into something else. And we're successful with that also.
00:16:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean those guys are rock stars, as we both know.
00:16:55
Speaker 2: And hell, man, you carried that tradition on tim I mean, honestly, man, you carried you rock start that thing forever.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: Man.
00:17:02
Speaker 2: You know what though, big seth and enough bullshitting here, all right, we're messing around here.
00:17:08
Speaker 1: Let's get let's get to the heart of the matter here.
00:17:10
Speaker 2: Listen, Damn Reno has had his hands you talk about some of these guys, you know, he's had his hand on the ass you know of yours for the first five or six years of your career, you know what I mean? And Okay, it is what it is. It is what it is, right, It is what it is.
00:17:25
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? That's right, exactly right.
00:17:28
Speaker 2: Not not as much anymore, tim, but it is way it is back back then, right, you know. But we're spending all this time talking about you know, Don Shule and expectations and the fans.
00:17:38
Speaker 1: But what did damn arena?
00:17:40
Speaker 2: What did he expect from the guy relying on to get up you know, get up there all the time each play when they got started, from the snap to protections.
00:17:49
Speaker 1: What was that experience?
00:17:50
Speaker 6: Like, well, you learn a lot. I mean you really as he comes in, you know, you see the way he operates in the huddle. You see the way he calls the play. You see the way you know he's calling audibles at the line. I mean you really just look at that point when I was coming in, you know, he was hitting his stride and and just really, uh, you know, just a complete player. You know, sometimes think he doesn't get all the credit he deserves. But the other thing when I came in, he I think he was disappointed in my height because you know, a lot of the other guys were taller. So at day end, at that point, it had you know, his knees. I had the knee issues for years. I don't think he liked having to bend over as much to take the snap. And like you said, we didn't do as much a shotgun as right now. Maybe maybe the next time you talk to him, you could ask him about that, and I'm sure he'll probably have a couple other funny stories as well. But but no, the tremendous experience to be able to play with him, and you know, you see, you see how the quarterback position is played. I mean that's probably the best way to sum it up.
00:18:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, tim down in Miami, it's always super hot and humid, and I know my ass I sweated so much.
00:18:51
Speaker 1: But you know, I never had my you know, I never had Danny's hands under my pants. And I know this for a fact.
00:18:57
Speaker 2: That was there a point during the game time when Danny has to ask you to change your pants because I know how much I swear, and Danny's like, yeah, talking about that, because I remember if Danny like.
00:19:08
Speaker 6: Go ahead, go ahead, Yeah, Well let me tell you a couple of things. First of all, coming down from Indiana where it gets hot or hot? Is it hot? You know what I mean? Hot?
00:19:18
Speaker 1: Is it hot?
00:19:19
Speaker 6: Hot? Is like you know, oh, well that's a little bit of sun out today. Everybody's happy.
00:19:22
Speaker 5: You know.
00:19:23
Speaker 6: You come down right where it's ninety five degrees and ninety percent humidity, you tend to sweat a little bit, you know. So yeah, I guess maybe I sweat a little bit more than most people. But yeah, so it wasn't in the home games, and this will be the first I probably think it was the first couple of years.
00:19:38
Speaker 1: I don't know.
00:19:39
Speaker 6: I would change, you change my pants halfway at halftime so that you know, wouldn't be as sweaty, and that for the you know, for the second half and that. Yeah, so I don't know, you know, like I said, it kind of was always when I was there, So I didn't know if anybody else had to do it, But I know, I so, you know, maybe I'm just special. I've been told that a lot, but in many different ways.
00:19:58
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, nobody else had to deal with Danny's hands.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: Bro, It's like you're the only position that had to deal with a diva ass quarterback, you know what I mean, because we all.
00:20:08
Speaker 1: Were sweating to death down there.
00:20:09
Speaker 2: It was like crazy how hot and humid it was, especially after a rain or even some rainy games like you know. So I was like, I remember, I was like, damn, I was telling themselves that. I think I remember that Dan had Tim change's pants sometimes because it was their weather was sweaty, and it was because it was super fucking hot out there.
00:20:28
Speaker 6: Bro, I tell you what, it seems like they talk about global warming, it seems like it was hotter in the nineties. I don't know this one question I wanted to ask Juice, because I don't know about now. Obviously we didn't have you know, indoor practice facility right like they have a Davy or and you know, things like that. We were running two a days and all that. But damn, it seemed a lot hotter back then than.
00:20:47
Speaker 2: We were right on the sun. The sun was right on our practice field, right on our game field. Man, it never failed, man never failed.
00:20:54
Speaker 4: Well, do you think it also seemed hotter because you were probably eighty pounds heavier and you were wearing all that equipment and practicing football like then? Now if you go, you get to stand on the side and be that alumni that the current center should come over and shake your hand.
00:21:08
Speaker 6: Don't try to deflect.
00:21:11
Speaker 1: We're talking.
00:21:13
Speaker 6: We're talking facts there. This is my memory from thirty years ago, in Juice's memory from thirty years ago. And oh yeah, I'm very disappointed that you would.
00:21:23
Speaker 5: You know what, you guys have got to be right. You got to be right about night. Did you ever turn around and say, look, what do you want from me?
00:21:30
Speaker 4: Dan?
00:21:30
Speaker 5: He like, you want me to be taller, you want me to sweat last, Like, just take the damn ball and do what you do. Let me do what I do.
00:21:36
Speaker 1: You do what you do right right?
00:21:38
Speaker 6: No, I never I never would have said that.
00:21:41
Speaker 5: Probably a good decision. Probably a good decision.
00:21:44
Speaker 6: I would have been traded in week one, I think if you know that had happened there, Yeah.
00:21:47
Speaker 4: That was probably not a good way to play ten years for the team. That for one team for sure.
00:21:54
Speaker 5: Well, god, it's too good.
00:21:55
Speaker 4: Speaking of Dan, we had Kevin Donnelly on the show and he told us this great story. It was the game at Indie in nineteen ninety nine. If you know, we had this amazing comeback but basically we're down by four, it's the fourth quarter with a minute left, and it's fourth and ten, and Danny wants nothing to do with whatever to play call was that Kippie Brown set in and and you know, Doyk was like, look, I'm not the greatest athlete. I'm not, but I was prepared. I was always prepared, and I had never been in a situation where the quarterback just goes, fuck that play, O, G you do this or whatever. And he says that Dan like breaks the huddle and he wants to know what the protection is and he turns to you and he's like freaking out, like what's the protection?
00:22:41
Speaker 5: And so on.
00:22:42
Speaker 4: So I I gotta imagine, you know, six years in a huddle or five years in a huddle with Dan, you had to see that a lot. But you also had the responsibility to go out and make the line calls. How did you handle that situation?
00:22:57
Speaker 6: Yeah? I mean, and Juice has probably explained this well too. You just got into certain safe situations where it was it almost felt like Dan was just taking over the game. Okay, you know this where we're gonna do this, and this is how we're going to do it. And then so you know, I mean, you know, you have a handful of protections usually running those situations, so we you know, usually we had to call in the huddle, honest, but if we didn't, you know, we could kind of make do and you just kind of say, okay, you know, here's here's a linebacker' looking at We're gonna the lights right sides doing list, left sides doing that. But yeah, I do recall quite a few situations where the play came in and it got miraculously changed.
00:23:33
Speaker 5: By the time it got to the wh right right.
00:23:36
Speaker 4: And that's how he said. It was so funny too, because he said he's freaking out. He looks you were like, you know, and you just go up, You just go do it because you're used to it. He had never seen anything. He's like, look, Warren Move's a great player, but I never saw him do that. And he turned to Dan and Dan's like, just give me a couple of speed bumps out there, bro, Like Dan didn't want to waste his time, Just give me the Dan ball.
00:23:56
Speaker 5: So that was pretty funny. That was that was really funny to hear that story and.
00:24:01
Speaker 4: Then just talk about the responsibility of making those calls like I texted Richmond. Yeah, and and Richmond had a lot of great stuff that we'll get to here as the interview progresses.
00:24:10
Speaker 5: But he said you well, but he was very complimentary.
00:24:14
Speaker 4: He said you're the smartest guy you ever played with and that you made things easy because he just waited for you to make the call and then he just did what he needed to do. So just you know, talk about I don't think offensive line play and that responsibility specifically of the center is something that's talked about a lot in general when people are watching all the you know, consuming all the football content that's out there.
00:24:35
Speaker 5: Now, I know we haven't talked about it a lot here on the show.
00:24:38
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean a lot of times, you know, we have the protections that are called that we kind of have to set. You know, a lot of times it's by the Mike linebacker, but you set where the defense is because generally count from that person. So you know, okay, you've got the first lineman past this guy in second and or we're sliding the protection and going over. So you know, I had played guard in college some and also in high school like tackle, so I played a lot of different positions. But One of the most annoying things is if nobody's making the line calls, whether it's the center of the guard and the plays about to start, because you know, you're not really ready for what's gonna happen next, right, So I tried. I tried not to be that guy, right, try not to be the guy who's not making the calls. So you know, hopefully, hopefully I was remembered as that, you know, because I'm sure, I'm sure I probably screwed it up a few times too, But you know, it was great good to hear Richmond say that. But I always tried to try to make sure that, you know, we got the calls out as quickly as possible that if things changed, you know, obviously somebody's showing blitz, somebody's back and off, we were able to make the adjustments and you know, checked as well as we could.
00:25:36
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I mean, when you've got a quarterback that went to Pitt and this is a shot at Dan Marino, you know we need to smart notre dame guys. So yeah, Danny knows how Penn State feels about Pitt, so he'll be all right with that.
00:25:47
Speaker 5: Good luck, because you know he listens to every episode.
00:25:50
Speaker 6: That he does.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: I'm happy that he does, man, But you know, you know, Tim Seth dropped a couple of names there. He dropped doing and of course Webby. Well, let's talk about the cast of characters on the on the offensive line that you know you played with. I mean, there are some serious cats on there. You know, you got those two, and then you have guys like Mark Dixon, Todd Wade, Keith Simms, Everett mcgiver, you know, John Boch, Gonnick Gogan, Jamie Nails. I mean, this list and goes, it goes on and on and on. How would you describe the offensive line room and those different a lot of different personalities.
00:26:29
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was actually, you know, as you guys know, it was a lot of fun. It was, you know, we had the cast of characters, everybody with a different type of sense of humor, you know. But the one thing that was I think in the ten years I was there, I had something like six different offensive line coaches. So the thing is, at least at the time in the NFL, like a new coach would come in, he'd often bring one or two of his guys, right, So Larry Beckel came in he brought in James Brown, you know, from New York and brought in and remember Cal Dixon was there. He unfortunately got hurt, but you know, and then I think John Back came in on that time, and when Paul Boudreaux came in from New England, he brought Heath Irwin, right, and then you know, so it's kind of like as so you constantly had this. So of course, when you bring in somebody that you like, there's somebody there that you don't like that you know, those goes to place somewhere else, right, So.
00:27:17
Speaker 5: Let's see it.
00:27:18
Speaker 6: Put it politely. But yeah, so and then Tony Wise came in, and then so Kevin Gogan, we've been with him in Dallas, right, he came in. So so there was constantly, as you know, it seemed like every couple of years we were changing offensive line coaches, and so you kind of get a new cast of characters. Like you said, each guy with their own you know, little quirks and uh and sense as of humor. But you know, to be honest with the overall bunch of great guys, you know that to play with I think you kind of have to be on offensive line and even in the NFL in general, you know, you're gonna have good days, you're gonna have bad days, You're gonna have you know, it's gonna be a tough summer camp, or at least it was back when they had two a days.
00:27:53
Speaker 1: You know.
00:27:53
Speaker 6: So you kind of have to have a an approach to life that lets you lets things kind of slide off your back times and you know, be able to make fun at yourself and sometimes make fun of others. So I think that's kind of.
00:28:05
Speaker 5: Uh what sometimes just sometimes sometimes.
00:28:09
Speaker 6: Sometimes in case my kids are listening, I don't want to. You don't think I'm a bully there.
00:28:14
Speaker 4: It is, oh man, the offensive line room and the defensive line room where two of the like they were not for the faint of heart, that's for sure.
00:28:23
Speaker 6: You had to be on your toes. You thought practice was bad, you get into the film room after for the next hour, you know, you could see sometimes it was the other player, sometimes it was the coaches.
00:28:32
Speaker 1: You know.
00:28:32
Speaker 6: I can't even say some of the things Larry Beckley used to say that.
00:28:36
Speaker 5: I was just gonna say beck I was.
00:28:39
Speaker 1: The best one liners man. He has some of the best ones.
00:28:42
Speaker 4: The favorite that I ever heard that I can say here is I was, remember we had Jeff Bucky drafted.
00:28:48
Speaker 5: Jeff Bucky, you're talking about Stanford and I'm trying to clean it up enough.
00:28:52
Speaker 4: And he was like, God, dang it, Bucky, you make more money than the president of the United States. And I just wanted a blo ay gat or whatever he's saying. But I was like, oh my, you know, and you just hear all you guys kind of snickering in the back, all the vents, and I was like, this is not a room to go into if you're sensitive.
00:29:11
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll tell you what Larry Bechtel used to do. If you jumped off side so you got a holding penalty, he'd do, make you do push ups, right, so you'd have to go out. There's no room in the room, of course, so you have to go out in the hall of the push ups. So his famous his famous quote was well, if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta have big arms. And the guy out to do push ups. The other one that was interesting, he's got there's probably, like I said, about twenty stories, but of the ones you can actually tell in public. You know, he was sitting in the back of the room and run the tape machine there, and obviously everybody's sit in front of him. So the one time Brent Smith, I forget what he did something wrong, So he holds up his hand like this, He holds his hand up in front of him so you guys can see it, and it's right like right behind Brent's head, and he goes, Smitty, turn around.
00:29:51
Speaker 1: And choke yourself.
00:29:55
Speaker 6: Lean into his hand, right.
00:29:58
Speaker 1: It goes.
00:29:59
Speaker 6: Because I can't hit you, I'm gonna need you to choke yourself. Oh my good.
00:30:04
Speaker 5: And you guys had to lose it.
00:30:06
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Oh my goodness.
00:30:09
Speaker 5: I wish we could name this up. Tim Roddie. If you're gonna be dumb, you got you better.
00:30:15
Speaker 6: You got that big arms.
00:30:18
Speaker 4: Oh god, that's too good. All right, too good. So you spend We've made it very clear. You spent the six years of your first six years of your career at the center of a damn Marino led offense. And then you know, towards the end of that, obviously when Jimmy came in, especially I think the last couple of years where he tried to take a lot of that, you know, the Audibles and some of those the play calling ability out of Dan's hands, things started to shift.
00:30:44
Speaker 5: But by the time Dave took over, it was a ground and pound game.
00:30:48
Speaker 4: Guys were gonna get thirty forty carries a game started off with Lamar Smith and then of course in two thousand and two, the big trade for Ricky Williams, and Ricky just has this magical season.
00:30:59
Speaker 5: What was what's it like for you?
00:31:01
Speaker 4: What was that transition like to shift from this team that could throw the ball anywhere at any time to playing that style of football?
00:31:10
Speaker 5: And then if you could just talk a little bit about having Ricky Williams as a teammate.
00:31:14
Speaker 6: Sure, yeah, I mean it was interesting in my career. Like I said, you stick around long enough, good things happen, right, But you start off playing for a quarterback who you know, at times led the league in passing, and then by the time you're getting out of the game, you're playing for a guy who's leading the league in rushing. Right, So Ricky did I forget if it was two thousand and two or two thousand and three too, So yeah, so it definitely, you know, you kind of run the gamut there, but you know, Ricky was an amazing player, and you know, I think sometimes he doesn't get the respect he deserves either. And guy ran for ten thousand yards, and like you said, Seth, he kind of carried the team a lot that year by design. You know, the thought was, you know, a defense minded head coach. Okay, we're gon we're gonna run the ball, we're gonna control the clock, we're gonna play good defense. You know, hey, if we get you know, twenty twenty four points a game, we should be winning, be able to win every game. Now obviously we didn't get twenty or twenty four, but that's a different you know, that's a different, different story there. But that was kind of mindset. Yeah, I mean that was kind of the mindset where previously it was, hey, if they score forty, we'll score forty five, right, you know, I mean that was you know before that, so you know, the different mindset. But definitely, like I said, and I think, you know, we focused on the running game more even you know, like as far as you know, paying players. Right, Obviously we didn't go out and get the rock star quarterback, although we had a bunch of guys that did a great job you know during that timeframe, and same thing we didn't go out and sign sign the big name receivers. You know, we kind of got you know, more middle of the road guys and said, Okay, you know we're gonna we're gonna focus on, like we just said, focus on the defense as being the strong point offense. We're going to control the ball, run the ball, and you know, score enough points to win.
00:32:47
Speaker 1: No doubt about it.
00:32:48
Speaker 6: Man.
00:32:48
Speaker 1: I was there at the end of the beginning of that change.
00:32:50
Speaker 2: When I was out there, instead of running routes, I was past blocking the whole time.
00:32:55
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, like you Tim ready, you know, run blocking the whole time.
00:32:59
Speaker 6: So yeah, it made sense, man, you know, and I always when I was out there with you guys, I always felt like you guys, you know, computers and everything were kind of just becoming mainstream at that time. You guys are being treated like typewriters. You know, computers are coming out eighty. We don't need we don't need these receivers as much anymore. You know, we got this new thing here. Bro.
00:33:18
Speaker 1: I thought I was back at Penn State, man blocking block and blocking.
00:33:22
Speaker 2: Man, it was, it was, it was.
00:33:23
Speaker 1: It was rough.
00:33:24
Speaker 5: Harvey had a typewriter in his office the whole time I was there. I can tell you that.
00:33:28
Speaker 2: Probably he probably still has won in his home office right now, probably probably saying you know, Tim, you you obviously man you You were just an incredible teammate bro for so many reasons, and one of those was that I think that one thing that we all respected was the fact that we could always, always, always count on Tim Ruddy showing up. I mean, you missed four games in a ten year career playing office on line. That's absolutely been bananus man, And it's truly unbelievable. And I hope people understand this big seth that you know, one hundred and fifty six out of one hundred and sixty games and fail at that position makes you, It makes you a true iron man. How did you manage, how did you manage to be available for your team all the time?
00:34:09
Speaker 1: And why was that so important to you?
00:34:11
Speaker 6: Well, like you said, if it did feel it was important because if your center's not there, right, you got somebody new. You know, you got the exchange with the quarterback, you got to make the line calls. You know, when you do the double team blocks, you know, there really is a lot of coordination. You know, when you have a good offensive line. It's it's kind of like everybody knows what everybody else is doing. You know, the tackle knows what the guard's doing next to them, the center knows what the guards are doing. You know, and I think, uh, you know, obviously, so you want to try and keep that going as long as possible. And you know, as you know, Juice and we were playing, you know, we were mostly we were in the thick of it most years, you know what I mean. We didn't obviously never won Super Bowl or anything, but you know every year we were ten and six, ninety seven, eleven and five, you know, so and you get into that type of playoff you know, playoff chances, or you're trying to get home field advantage or you're trying to you know, you know, we got a big game against the New England. I mean, I think everybody wanted to play. But you know, yeah, I was lucky enough to be durable enough, and I tried to take care of myself. You know, I tried to obviously work out, stay flexible, you know, do the things that you need to do to be able to play. And then eventually, after about ten years, I felt like I couldn't do that anymore. So I went out back to being boring again, you know, being an engineer.
00:35:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know about all that big staff. I mean, I don't know how many guys leave the game and go back to being engineers.
00:35:27
Speaker 5: Go back to it, right, go back to it and dabble in like you know, financial advising. Right, Oh yeah, not a lot. You just said something.
00:35:36
Speaker 4: I'm going off script for a second here, juice, But you just said you talked about the importance of the center to quarterback exchange the snap. But there's always this, you know, if a snap is an errant snap or a high snap, or how often does the starting center work on that exchange with the starting quarterback, whether it is an actual snap under center or somebody's in the shotgun. I'm just curious as to how often they work on it and should fans like, clearly, you don't want an errant snap and a turnover. But I feel like sometimes fans get all up in arms with one bad snap and meanwhile, this guy's dominating.
00:36:12
Speaker 5: For forty two snaps. He's just completely controlling the point of the offense. And I'm like, man, I think we got to get our priorities straight.
00:36:19
Speaker 6: Well, I think the thing you got to remember, Big Seth, if I can call you Big Seth number one, it's always the quarterback's fault, okay, right, even on shotgun snaps, he usually means to play before. You know, he left the ball in poor condition.
00:36:41
Speaker 5: Okay. No, maybe it doesn't need to be a number two.
00:36:46
Speaker 6: No, seriously, though, it's yeah, obviously critical part of the game. We used to do it a lot. You know when we played, there was always you know, just kind of it was kind of part of the warm up. And then you know, usually when we were running any of the drills we were doing in practice, you were usually you know, first team was mostly operate together, so you'd have the snaps. You know, I have the snaps with the quarterback. I mean you can think of a few in the in the past number of years, you know, like Aaron snaps in the Super Bowl, right, you know it's a shotgun snap and it goes over the quarterbacks head or around to the side.
00:37:13
Speaker 2: You know.
00:37:13
Speaker 6: I mean we've seen a few of those. So yeah, it is uh, you know, it seems like something you take for granted, but for some reason, Yeah, there's there's there's chances for it to really go bad, and you know it kind of takes both center and quarterback to be.
00:37:26
Speaker 4: On the ball, right right. Oh well, I wrote down it's always a quarterback's fault.
00:37:33
Speaker 6: That's the short The short answer is, it's always the quarterback's fault.
00:37:36
Speaker 5: I love it. It's a good answer. It's actually a great answer. So I got this was fun.
00:37:42
Speaker 4: We're not going to take up too much more of your time, since we know you do have to wake up in the morning and go be an engineer and you know, get some good good night's rest. But we end every episode of the Fish Tank the same way it is with our Fish Tank two minute drill. Lord knows, if you played in one hundred and fifty six games, especially a bunch of them with Dan Marino, you had to be on your p's and q's in plenty of two minute drills. So we're putting two minutes on the clock. We're gonna hit you with a few fast paced, fun questions. I feel like this is right up your alley, juice. I feel like we've never had a guy better prepare for the two minutes. Now.
00:38:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's gonna be quick. It's gonna it's gonna be real simple for him, I'm sure. So I'll get it started myself here you ready, yep, go ahead?
00:38:23
Speaker 1: All right.
00:38:23
Speaker 2: So, allegedly a Leslie, your nickname at Dunmore High School was big Master.
00:38:29
Speaker 1: What the hell did that mean?
00:38:32
Speaker 6: That actually wasn't my name, But I saw that written quite a few times and I was like, I can go with that. The worst things I could be called.
00:38:41
Speaker 1: Right, So, so that was that's a false somebody was.
00:38:45
Speaker 6: The one thing they used to call me, and this was Larry Beckhall used to call me big Book. Okay, big book though that got merged with something else, but yeah, that was that was.
00:38:55
Speaker 1: Okay, okay.
00:38:57
Speaker 4: So when you retired from football, you be came a big RV enthusiast, and as I mentioned earlier, you wrote this really fun blog chronicling your exploits with the Ruddy family. What is the craziest thing that ever happened to you while you were r ving?
00:39:14
Speaker 6: Well there's quite a few. Probably the craziest one is almost getting arrested at a rest stop in Iowa. So what so, anyway, we were driving through so we actually drove drove around quite a bit. It's a lot of the national parks you know, different tourist type attractions. But we had pulled over and my daughter was upset about something. So she got out of the vehicle and was going over to the It was a rest stop, right, So she's going over to the restroom, and I had walked after her and I was talking to her and that well, somebody had seen this guy who looks like me, you know, chasing this young girl who was about twelve at the time, you know, and you know skinny, you know, skinny young girl over towards the bathroom and called the police. Oh so at the rest stop, state police come out, come, knock on the door, you know, yeah, hey, circle, we get you to step out of the vehicle. And I'm like, yeah, sure, you know, no problem. That starts to get out and then so like I could, I could see what was happening because they were like taking me and getting me over out of the way so they could talk to my wife and my daughter and my son and my son and uh, you say, okay, you know, hey, is everything okay? You know, you guys you know in trouble. Is he doing anything to you? We got this report that you know, he was chasing this girl into the bathroom and you know, everything all right, So yeah, eventually it all got worked out. But you know that's that's not something you're really looking forward to, you know time, you know, like probably or not.
00:40:33
Speaker 5: Right, So, yeah, that's not when they're selling the RV experience. That's not on the brochure.
00:40:40
Speaker 6: Yeah, that one gets overlooked a little bit.
00:40:44
Speaker 1: Abfinutely. So man, oh man, that's crazy.
00:40:47
Speaker 2: You know, it's hard to follow up that big seth, but I will try, right, So, Tim, we spoke about your intelligence at the top of the show, as well as you know, your mythical wonder Lick score, which I don't know how mine was nowhere probably close to yours.
00:41:02
Speaker 1: But what was what was the hardest question that you had to answer on that on the Wonder Lick?
00:41:06
Speaker 6: Oh Man, going back thirty years and out going now, I mean it, I didn't think anyone were too hard to be honest with you.
00:41:14
Speaker 5: None of them answer obviously, you don't even have to say anything else.
00:41:21
Speaker 6: Tell you a funny story though. I used to teach people because had notre dame. You know, obviously, you man, guys that were smart with than some guys that were so. So I used to teach people. Oh, I stopped halfway and helped Aaron Taylor with him you know, stay, I stopped half way and helped Brian Young.
00:41:35
Speaker 1: With his you know.
00:41:35
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, ten of those points he got they were mine. That is too good, right, last question. Richmond Webb, among other things, said that he called you a silent assassin because you had this hilarious sense of humor. You guys had lockers right next to each other, and he said, you know, much like this experience we have at the beginning of the show Juice, where you couldn't hear him and only I could.
00:42:00
Speaker 5: He would whisper these little.
00:42:01
Speaker 4: One liners to Richmond, and Richmond would die laughing, and everybody would look at him like he was crazy.
00:42:06
Speaker 1: You know.
00:42:06
Speaker 4: So he said, you were the funniest guy you ever played with me and the smartest guy. Who's the funniest guy that you ever played with?
00:42:12
Speaker 6: I would say, off the just off the cuff, probably Ron heller and and haf To. He's a Penn State guy. Was Juice, of course, of course, but half the time he wasn't trying to be funny. I don't think so, you know, well, this is the best. No, he was a he was a tremendous player, tremendous sense of humor. You know, he played the last his last couple of years were my first couple. So obviously he was an older guy that looked up to. But you know, he was always given. He was always giving ship to somebody, you know, either one of the players, Richard George who we talked about. You guys know rich You know, he was always you know, he always took it with uh it took it, took it kindly. But even like John Sandusky, Juice, you remember John, Yeah, he was seventy years old at Rod Heller's, you know, teasing him about something, you know, about whatever, and you know Shuill the same thing, right he co of it's our teasing Schuila about up So uh. He actually was was very quick, quick witted and probably would have to be right up there with the funniest guys.
00:43:06
Speaker 5: That's the two minute drill. I think we scored a touchdown here.
00:43:10
Speaker 1: Juice, absolutely score score score.
00:43:12
Speaker 5: He is Tim Ruddy.
00:43:13
Speaker 4: I'm glad that we had this experience because I know that you know, we may not see it or hear from you now, who knows how long I think.
00:43:20
Speaker 1: He's out now, I think he's out.
00:43:23
Speaker 2: I've seen Tim more than I've seen him in over two decades now, Man, I think he's out.
00:43:27
Speaker 6: Bro pretty much pretty much. You know, you have big seth. You can you could say you had the Tim Ruddy experience. You can go back now, tell the wife, the kids.
00:43:35
Speaker 4: You know, I'm gonna have that story right now, just not at a rest stop, but I'm going to go home and tell him.
00:43:41
Speaker 6: That's right, that's right, Stay out of Iowa.
00:43:45
Speaker 1: Hey, Tim, thanks for diving in man.
00:43:49
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me. Guys, it was a lot of fun. You're now diving.
00:43:55
Speaker 5: Just like Jew said.
00:43:56
Speaker 4: Thanks for diving into the fish Tank presented by iHeartRadio. Be sure to follow us on whatever streaming platform you're using, and don't be afraid to rate the show or leave us a comment. We love your feedback, and remember you can find us, as well as Drive Time with Travis Wingfield and all of our international partners on Miami Dolphins dot com at this time
Speaker 1: You're now diving been.
00:00:10
Speaker 2: Who sitting down with Steth Living Ojay Juice.
00:00:16
Speaker 1: Well, and this is strictly.
00:00:20
Speaker 3: Number one of course, y'all just say the other of ners boys talk that might have been that pitch tank.
00:00:25
Speaker 4: Welcome back to the Fish Tank presented by iHeartRadio right here on the Miami Dolphins podcast network. Seth Levitt and the only podcaster to bowl a perfect game and leave the NFL and receptions.
00:00:36
Speaker 5: He is O J McDuffie juice. It's a big night tonight.
00:00:39
Speaker 1: Well, what, first of all, is that actual senat?
00:00:42
Speaker 4: I keep telling you, well, it is a fact that you accomplished both of those things. And until someone else rolls in here with another guy that has done both of those things, it's a fact. And Harvey Green told me it's right until someone proves you wrong.
00:00:56
Speaker 5: So I'm rolling with it.
00:00:57
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. You know, there's three things that really get pumped about talking about the Dolphins. Of course, talking about the off the side of the balls another one.
00:01:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course talking about some money that actually played with It means the world to me, Bro, because I tremble Crown.
00:01:13
Speaker 2: I know we we grinded through and what we went through man, so this is a special night for sure.
00:01:17
Speaker 4: Well with that, let's welcome in a man who is uh for a big man. He has been ducking and moving and a little hard to track down.
00:01:25
Speaker 1: Here now always been shifting.
00:01:27
Speaker 5: Now he's quick on his feet. He is Tim. Roddy Tim, welcome to the fish tank.
00:01:32
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me.
00:01:33
Speaker 1: Guys.
00:01:33
Speaker 6: Yeah, the term we usual was quick rather than fast, you know, more quick than fast, you.
00:01:38
Speaker 4: Know, yeah, absolutely absolutely all of those things. But you're here now, you know. Juice and I went to the Tim Bowen's Ring of Honor ceremony to celebrate Tim and to have a great evening. But man, we were out there recruiting, so like we're just we're picking people off as they're walking in.
00:01:57
Speaker 5: He's texting me who's here, who's there?
00:01:58
Speaker 4: And and uh, you know, we darned near a corner yet try to use your wife against you and everything else, and here darn in the fish tank.
00:02:07
Speaker 5: So we're thrilled that you're excited to be here.
00:02:08
Speaker 6: No, it is great to be here. And that was a great event for Tim. I don't know why it took twenty years, you know, to get him to that point, but you know, still a great event and a lot of a lot of familiar faces.
00:02:17
Speaker 2: You no, no man like Seth said Tim, you know at the Ring of Honor celebration for I got Timbo as we both love.
00:02:25
Speaker 1: Of course, we.
00:02:26
Speaker 2: Got to meet both of these these times at the same time because they were both in the same draft nineteen ninety four. We select Tim Bones in the first round, and we end up two picks in the second round, taking Aubrey Beavers and later trading up to snag this dude from Notre Dame. How about that, you damn I love Notre Dame. I'll tell you what about that. I'll tell you what about that? Seth in a little bit right. But the Scott report on Tim was you know that he was strong, tough, maybe a little nasty and last but certainly not least intelligent. Now, now, I'm not sure how many of you know our two hundred plus episodes that we've had a guy on we actually get on, you know, and we talk about a guest and how smart he was.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: But it seems appropriate here.
00:03:10
Speaker 2: I mean, we've heard rumors about a near perfect Wonderlick score. Troy Draken said that used to read like math books just for the hell of it, you know, on the charter planes and at one point you were voted to the smartest man in the NFL. With that kind of head on your shoulders, how the hell would you decide to choose a career where you're banging up against three hundred pounders all the time? Why why would you do that instead of what you you got in your head?
00:03:36
Speaker 6: Jim, Well, yeah, I get that question a lot. I mean, I think one of the things is I was an engineer. Engineering isn't all that fun really when you think about it. You know, it's not nearly as exciting. You know, you go to work and you get designed in a building or you're doing you know, some work with something else engineering wise, or even the fields associated with science and that. So figure that, Go and hang out with you guys for a while, you know, about ten years or so, and then you know, see what that could always always go back toeering. You know, engineering is still going to be there. NFL wasn't.
00:04:03
Speaker 5: So hang out with you guys for a while.
00:04:06
Speaker 2: It's just a decade, right right, hang out you big dummies, big dummies?
00:04:12
Speaker 1: Right there? Is that what he said?
00:04:13
Speaker 5: I mean? Pretty much?
00:04:15
Speaker 4: Actually I read a blog where he said he was once voted as the smartest guy in the NFL, and he learned later that that was like being the skinniest guy at a fat camp.
00:04:24
Speaker 6: And I was, I was like, damn, Juice will tell you. But there's a lot of smart guys in the NFL. But there's a lot of guys you kind of wonder, you know, how they're driving to work every day, right, how they make it, you know, through stop signs and reading through the street signs and things like that. So you know, it's just a it's a wide mix, you know, Yeah.
00:04:45
Speaker 1: No doubt, no doubt.
00:04:46
Speaker 2: Speaking of Tim Bowens though you know we did our thing with him for going to the Ring of Honor, you had mentioned a funny story about practicing against him when you know, we were running.
00:04:55
Speaker 1: A panel together.
00:04:55
Speaker 2: Talk about that practice against Timbo to some hell you being from Notre Dame playing against some big time guys and then you have to go practice against another guy that you know with the old miss Talk about what you said about practicing against Tim Bowens.
00:05:08
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean Tim was, you know, as everyone knows, a phenomenal player, but even in practice, you know, he was always going hard and it was always one of those things where as hard as you were going, he always felt like he could match you know, where you were at, and then he could add a little more if he needed to. You know, I was lucky enough that in our defense, you know, he didn't play on me as much. He was more on the guards, and you know, they'd be complaining about it every day. So, like, you know, because and then I mentioned, as I mentioned in there, tim Bow really took a day off. You know, he played every game, pretty much, went to every practice. Hell, I don't even remember being sick in ten years, you know, So it was it was one of those things where you know, day in and day out. But you know, something I learned at Notre Dame and as well as with the Dolphins, when you play against competition like that, it only makes you better. You know. When we go and played other a lot of other teams, we knew we weren't going to face anybody as good as Tim or you know, at other times, you know, like obviously the guys who played against Jason and the guys who played against some of the other outstanding players Zach. You know, we knew that guys we were playing in practice, we weren't going to see anybody better on you know, in the upcoming Sunday game.
00:06:09
Speaker 4: And hopefully you were able to do the same for them, right, No, that's what I tell people exactly.
00:06:15
Speaker 5: And you know what, it's right until somebody proves it wrong to him, that's right.
00:06:18
Speaker 1: Now.
00:06:18
Speaker 6: It's twenty years later, so nobody remembers back that far, so it's like, oh, yeah, I guess he was pretty good, you know.
00:06:24
Speaker 4: Too good, too good. You don't stick around that long if you weren't any good. So Juice just mentioned that you were a golden domer. I can't wait to hear Ojay's story. I'm sure it's a good one. But there is a certain air I'll use the word air. There's a certain air that comes with playing at No Name. Talk about the choice to take your talents to South Bend. You're a highly rated player coming out of high school. Did you get like the home visit from Lou Holtz? I know a few different guys, you know, some we played with, obviously Sean Wooden, you you guys played with and Ralph Stringer who I work with, who actually Lou Holtz was his coach at NC State, So I know a few different guys that had the lou Holtz experience.
00:07:04
Speaker 5: Uh, and the recruiting stories are always fun to hear.
00:07:06
Speaker 4: So what was the lou Holtz pitch to Tim Riddy to pull you out of that kind of Scranton, PA.
00:07:13
Speaker 5: Area.
00:07:13
Speaker 6: Well, I'll tell you one thing. So Juice and I almost became teammates a lot earlier because it was between Notre Dame and Penn State. So obviously Pennsylvania guy, right, But you know, Joe Paterno was the guy who came, you know, came to the school, came to the house, you know, that sort of thing, and I almost wound up going to Penn State. I actually, I you know, it was real close. I think it had more to do when I visited Notre Dame. I liked the campus and like some of the facilities in there a little bit better. Obviously, both good engineering schools, so you know, you can't really fault either one there. But yeah, with lou Holtz, I'm more I more went there than he came to me, because, to be honest with you, at that time, I think there was a couple of guys they were a little more interested in and they weren't they weren't didn't have a lot of offensive linemen in the class, so I think there was maybe two or three of us really on the scholarship.
00:07:58
Speaker 5: I was wit story.
00:08:01
Speaker 2: You know, I'm straight up pissed off right now. But you know I didn't realize that was that was that damn close to him. You and you shunned us like that, bro, you know what I mean recruiting Notre Dame was my second choice. So I'm like, I mean, we we had it all messed up. Was at least Penn State your second choice in this situation. I mean, I'm a little pissed off right now.
00:08:21
Speaker 1: Tim.
00:08:22
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, we'll be honest with you, juice. If you're showing up on my recruiting visit, you know, maybe it would have been my first, but it stuck with me with a couple other guys. You know, wait a minute, just hanging out, you know, like, Okay, you know this is good, but it is Happy Valley. You know, that's not like South Vend's a metropolis, right But you know, like I said, i met you, I probably would have came to Penn State.
00:08:41
Speaker 3: Oh you and Sean Wooden. You and Sean Wooden are the ones that I lost. It seems like people were in there. If I'd have been president Set, I would have got them to Penn State. We probably won a couple of national championships.
00:08:53
Speaker 5: Both Pennsylvania guys.
00:08:56
Speaker 2: Hey man, just jumped over our state, jumped over Ohio, you know what I mean, and straight into Indiana.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a mess, man, that's a mess. You know.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: I was about to say I had the similar situation with but you like, you know, I had to visit there to Notre Dame tim and it wasn't It wasn't as much fun for me as it was at Penn State. But I guess we had different, you know visits. It sounds like that's that's part of what were your other schools though. You talk about Penn State Notre Dame with us.
00:09:23
Speaker 6: Yeah, well I went to Stanford visit it out there, so it was an interesting campus, kind of far away, and to be honest with you, I didn't think they were going to be that good. So that didn't you know, that didn't go over I was had. Ohio State was probably uh fourth, but again, yeah, that was one of the other time when they had some more turnover in that so I like to Penn State and Notre Dame because I thought they'd be the best teams, you know, actually moving forward and you know, an offensive line. It's kind of like you rarely come in and play as a freshman, right, so it's kind of you know, you're going to have to prove yourself. You know, you're going to have, you know, a couple of years to do it. So it's you don't necessarily look at all where can I fit in right now? But to me, it was more about finding best team to play for.
00:10:01
Speaker 1: No doubt about it. Man.
00:10:02
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I hear you talk about Lou Holtz and you know, you know, like we talk about I can relate to your journey in the sense because you know, I went from one legendary coach and Joe Paterno like you did, and of course going to Don Shula, and you know, and while I probably didn't get the same Don Sula, neither one of us did, right, we never got the same Don Shult that some of the guys got back in the seventies and eighties. But he was still, you know, one of the kind honestly. He definitely was What was your Shola experience like? Because I know what mine was like, what was yours? What was yours?
00:10:34
Speaker 6: Like, yeah, I mean, like you said, he was already a legend by the time I was drafted, So you know, obviously I felt like it was a real honor to be able to come and play with the Dolphins, play with Don Shula, played with Dann Marino, and obviously Juice, you know, right up in there with.
00:10:47
Speaker 1: That, that's it.
00:10:48
Speaker 5: He shunned you.
00:10:51
Speaker 1: Please please please.
00:10:53
Speaker 6: But yeah, like you said, you know, so you play for you know, a college coach who has a has a very strong reputation and then come to the NFL. So I think you kind of you're into that mode of Okay, you know, I want to you want to play for the best guy. So you come to the NFL. Hey, I'm playing for the best guy again. And you know, the coach schule when we got there, like you could tell there was some underminings. People wanted to force him out, you know, that sort of thing, which was unfortunate, but still you could see the reason why. You know, he had three hundred and forty seven victories, you know at that point, probably about three hundred and twenty some, but you know, the consistency, the way he approached things. The one thing that he that he got out of me about which a lot of people don't know, is I was out doing some snaps or something before and someone happened to toss me the ball and I wasn't paying attention and I dropped. Oh, and he said, he said, you're a center. You're supposed to be able to handle the ball. Why can't you?
00:11:41
Speaker 1: You know?
00:11:41
Speaker 6: So like and so after that he had me out there. You remember Juice rich McGeorge. Yeah, absolutely, rich McGeorge like throwing and catching the ball, saying that I should have better hands as a center. So anyway, I think that continued for most of training camp that first year.
00:11:58
Speaker 4: Have you ever had that ball drill at any other point in your career? Then the Richmond George think fast?
00:12:03
Speaker 6: No, no, you know, yeah, we had the wet ball drill, right, you had the you know, the muddy ball drill, but yeah, never the really the Richmond George ball drill.
00:12:10
Speaker 1: So then.
00:12:13
Speaker 5: Big Rich, well what a super nice guy.
00:12:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it. Oh yeah, no about it.
00:12:17
Speaker 2: So what what what interaccdents other than that you have with coach Man? I mean, honestly, I thought it always was an honor to be drafted by coach Shulan, And honestly, you know, we talk about the lineman, we know about your intellect, but your durability at that point too is part of what he was looking for as well.
00:12:33
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, like I said, I know, I knew they were they had some interest. If I remember correctly going back that far, I think there was you know, the Raiders and the Dolphins, and like the Cowboys needed the center supposedly that year, so you know, I was hoping it was gonna be one of those teams. But to be honest with yeah, yeah, I was glad it was the Dolphins because you know, the Raiders kind of been up and down a lot for the past thirty years, maybe more down than up, and the Cowboys were going through a few things then with you know, I forget if it was Jimmy Lee been and Barry Switzer coming in or you know, there was some little bit of turmoil down there in Dallas. So I was actually, you know, pleased from from that standpoint as well as you know, like I said, playing with a legendary coach and playing with a legendary quarterback, and of course playing with Juice, you know, so that's you know, three in.
00:13:15
Speaker 5: A row again. Yeah, from the trifecta. I mean, listen, Juice, it's consistent. This is we're here on this show.
00:13:25
Speaker 1: That's gonna give me a hard time somewhere Alan to the line here.
00:13:29
Speaker 5: And I think I need to. I think Ruddy's got it handled. I don't think I need to.
00:13:34
Speaker 4: So another thing that is consistent on this show is is Juice often talks about how when he got to Miami he really understood the history of the wide out position here right, you know, and you go all the way back. Paul Warfield set the stage for for Nat Moore, who then mentors the Marx Brothers, and and then as the Marx Brothers were transitioning out, you know, and they spent a first round draft.
00:13:57
Speaker 5: Pick on O. J. McDuffie.
00:13:59
Speaker 4: I got to say that there's a lot of history at that position. The center position for the Miami Dolphins is the stuff of legends. Like literally you had two Hall of famers and Jim Langer and Dwight Stevenson and Dwight maybe the best to ever play the position. How aware were you of that history when you first came in? Was it kind of explained to you, and was it ever something that you thought about as you became a mainstay at the center position.
00:14:29
Speaker 6: Yeah, well I agree with you there as far as Dwight Steven said, you know, probably the best to ever play the position, and knowledge of you know, the previous because I think everybody knew about the seventy two team, at least everybody with you know, with who was interested in professional football. But yeah, quite a few really great players at the center position, you know, for the Dolphins. So obviously glad to be able to take part as part of that tradition hopefully, but you know, it was coming in, it was a little bit it was a little bit interesting because Jeff Yule and Aik had been playing center and then he left and went to New Orleans, I believe. So when I came in and you know, Jeff Dellenbach, who had really played everywhere along the line, you know, played the majority of my first year there, which was actually okay with me because I had an injury towards the end of my senior year in college and it was nice to have the year to really fully recover and then learn the offense and everything else. So, you know, I think that was a benefit. But you know, Jeff obviously a great play great player as well, especially for his versatility.
00:15:27
Speaker 4: But it's something that you know you were kind of aware of. Did you get to meet those guys? I know, you know, the Dolphins was such a great job with alumni being around. We saw that at the event we were all just at together. Was there a point where hey, here's you get to meet Jim Langer, get to meet Dwight And I always I was just having this conversation with Kim Bokamper the other day, is like, how much do the current guys on the roster?
00:15:49
Speaker 5: You know, you have your young guys're in your early twenties.
00:15:51
Speaker 4: When you show up and here's somebody that maybe is in their forties, fifties, sixty seventies even sometimes, and you know, how much is it made aware to you that, hey, this guy, this guy was a dude.
00:16:04
Speaker 5: You know. Were you introduced to d White or Jim?
00:16:07
Speaker 6: Yeah, I know I was. You know, I can't remember if it was, you know, first year or second year. You know how it is, it's when guys can make it back right, you know. I mean Dwight was I think at the time still running the construction company, and you know, we had other guys that are living in different areas and that, so you pretty much see them when you know when they're available, right, But you know the history and obviously a lot of respect for those guys. You know, tremendous players and most you know, almost to a man with the Dolphins, tremendous human beings. You know, guys that have gone out after football and done great things either for charity or in business or you know, looking at it, looking at it from a number of different ways. You know, you could see why they were successful on the field because they put all their energy into it, and then you saw afterwards they put all their energy or their effort into something else. And we're successful with that also.
00:16:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean those guys are rock stars, as we both know.
00:16:55
Speaker 2: And hell, man, you carried that tradition on tim I mean, honestly, man, you carried you rock start that thing forever.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: Man.
00:17:02
Speaker 2: You know what though, big seth and enough bullshitting here, all right, we're messing around here.
00:17:08
Speaker 1: Let's get let's get to the heart of the matter here.
00:17:10
Speaker 2: Listen, Damn Reno has had his hands you talk about some of these guys, you know, he's had his hand on the ass you know of yours for the first five or six years of your career, you know what I mean? And Okay, it is what it is. It is what it is, right, It is what it is.
00:17:25
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? That's right, exactly right.
00:17:28
Speaker 2: Not not as much anymore, tim, but it is way it is back back then, right, you know. But we're spending all this time talking about you know, Don Shule and expectations and the fans.
00:17:38
Speaker 1: But what did damn arena?
00:17:40
Speaker 2: What did he expect from the guy relying on to get up you know, get up there all the time each play when they got started, from the snap to protections.
00:17:49
Speaker 1: What was that experience?
00:17:50
Speaker 6: Like, well, you learn a lot. I mean you really as he comes in, you know, you see the way he operates in the huddle. You see the way he calls the play. You see the way you know he's calling audibles at the line. I mean you really just look at that point when I was coming in, you know, he was hitting his stride and and just really, uh, you know, just a complete player. You know, sometimes think he doesn't get all the credit he deserves. But the other thing when I came in, he I think he was disappointed in my height because you know, a lot of the other guys were taller. So at day end, at that point, it had you know, his knees. I had the knee issues for years. I don't think he liked having to bend over as much to take the snap. And like you said, we didn't do as much a shotgun as right now. Maybe maybe the next time you talk to him, you could ask him about that, and I'm sure he'll probably have a couple other funny stories as well. But but no, the tremendous experience to be able to play with him, and you know, you see, you see how the quarterback position is played. I mean that's probably the best way to sum it up.
00:18:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, tim down in Miami, it's always super hot and humid, and I know my ass I sweated so much.
00:18:51
Speaker 1: But you know, I never had my you know, I never had Danny's hands under my pants. And I know this for a fact.
00:18:57
Speaker 2: That was there a point during the game time when Danny has to ask you to change your pants because I know how much I swear, and Danny's like, yeah, talking about that, because I remember if Danny like.
00:19:08
Speaker 6: Go ahead, go ahead, Yeah, Well let me tell you a couple of things. First of all, coming down from Indiana where it gets hot or hot? Is it hot? You know what I mean? Hot?
00:19:18
Speaker 1: Is it hot?
00:19:19
Speaker 6: Hot? Is like you know, oh, well that's a little bit of sun out today. Everybody's happy.
00:19:22
Speaker 5: You know.
00:19:23
Speaker 6: You come down right where it's ninety five degrees and ninety percent humidity, you tend to sweat a little bit, you know. So yeah, I guess maybe I sweat a little bit more than most people. But yeah, so it wasn't in the home games, and this will be the first I probably think it was the first couple of years.
00:19:38
Speaker 1: I don't know.
00:19:39
Speaker 6: I would change, you change my pants halfway at halftime so that you know, wouldn't be as sweaty, and that for the you know, for the second half and that. Yeah, so I don't know, you know, like I said, it kind of was always when I was there, So I didn't know if anybody else had to do it, But I know, I so, you know, maybe I'm just special. I've been told that a lot, but in many different ways.
00:19:58
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, nobody else had to deal with Danny's hands.
00:20:01
Speaker 2: Bro, It's like you're the only position that had to deal with a diva ass quarterback, you know what I mean, because we all.
00:20:08
Speaker 1: Were sweating to death down there.
00:20:09
Speaker 2: It was like crazy how hot and humid it was, especially after a rain or even some rainy games like you know. So I was like, I remember, I was like, damn, I was telling themselves that. I think I remember that Dan had Tim change's pants sometimes because it was their weather was sweaty, and it was because it was super fucking hot out there.
00:20:28
Speaker 6: Bro, I tell you what, it seems like they talk about global warming, it seems like it was hotter in the nineties. I don't know this one question I wanted to ask Juice, because I don't know about now. Obviously we didn't have you know, indoor practice facility right like they have a Davy or and you know, things like that. We were running two a days and all that. But damn, it seemed a lot hotter back then than.
00:20:47
Speaker 2: We were right on the sun. The sun was right on our practice field, right on our game field. Man, it never failed, man never failed.
00:20:54
Speaker 4: Well, do you think it also seemed hotter because you were probably eighty pounds heavier and you were wearing all that equipment and practicing football like then? Now if you go, you get to stand on the side and be that alumni that the current center should come over and shake your hand.
00:21:08
Speaker 6: Don't try to deflect.
00:21:11
Speaker 1: We're talking.
00:21:13
Speaker 6: We're talking facts there. This is my memory from thirty years ago, in Juice's memory from thirty years ago. And oh yeah, I'm very disappointed that you would.
00:21:23
Speaker 5: You know what, you guys have got to be right. You got to be right about night. Did you ever turn around and say, look, what do you want from me?
00:21:30
Speaker 4: Dan?
00:21:30
Speaker 5: He like, you want me to be taller, you want me to sweat last, Like, just take the damn ball and do what you do. Let me do what I do.
00:21:36
Speaker 1: You do what you do right right?
00:21:38
Speaker 6: No, I never I never would have said that.
00:21:41
Speaker 5: Probably a good decision. Probably a good decision.
00:21:44
Speaker 6: I would have been traded in week one, I think if you know that had happened there, Yeah.
00:21:47
Speaker 4: That was probably not a good way to play ten years for the team. That for one team for sure.
00:21:54
Speaker 5: Well, god, it's too good.
00:21:55
Speaker 4: Speaking of Dan, we had Kevin Donnelly on the show and he told us this great story. It was the game at Indie in nineteen ninety nine. If you know, we had this amazing comeback but basically we're down by four, it's the fourth quarter with a minute left, and it's fourth and ten, and Danny wants nothing to do with whatever to play call was that Kippie Brown set in and and you know, Doyk was like, look, I'm not the greatest athlete. I'm not, but I was prepared. I was always prepared, and I had never been in a situation where the quarterback just goes, fuck that play, O, G you do this or whatever. And he says that Dan like breaks the huddle and he wants to know what the protection is and he turns to you and he's like freaking out, like what's the protection?
00:22:41
Speaker 5: And so on.
00:22:42
Speaker 4: So I I gotta imagine, you know, six years in a huddle or five years in a huddle with Dan, you had to see that a lot. But you also had the responsibility to go out and make the line calls. How did you handle that situation?
00:22:57
Speaker 6: Yeah? I mean, and Juice has probably explained this well too. You just got into certain safe situations where it was it almost felt like Dan was just taking over the game. Okay, you know this where we're gonna do this, and this is how we're going to do it. And then so you know, I mean, you know, you have a handful of protections usually running those situations, so we you know, usually we had to call in the huddle, honest, but if we didn't, you know, we could kind of make do and you just kind of say, okay, you know, here's here's a linebacker' looking at We're gonna the lights right sides doing list, left sides doing that. But yeah, I do recall quite a few situations where the play came in and it got miraculously changed.
00:23:33
Speaker 5: By the time it got to the wh right right.
00:23:36
Speaker 4: And that's how he said. It was so funny too, because he said he's freaking out. He looks you were like, you know, and you just go up, You just go do it because you're used to it. He had never seen anything. He's like, look, Warren Move's a great player, but I never saw him do that. And he turned to Dan and Dan's like, just give me a couple of speed bumps out there, bro, Like Dan didn't want to waste his time, Just give me the Dan ball.
00:23:56
Speaker 5: So that was pretty funny. That was that was really funny to hear that story and.
00:24:01
Speaker 4: Then just talk about the responsibility of making those calls like I texted Richmond. Yeah, and and Richmond had a lot of great stuff that we'll get to here as the interview progresses.
00:24:10
Speaker 5: But he said you well, but he was very complimentary.
00:24:14
Speaker 4: He said you're the smartest guy you ever played with and that you made things easy because he just waited for you to make the call and then he just did what he needed to do. So just you know, talk about I don't think offensive line play and that responsibility specifically of the center is something that's talked about a lot in general when people are watching all the you know, consuming all the football content that's out there.
00:24:35
Speaker 5: Now, I know we haven't talked about it a lot here on the show.
00:24:38
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean a lot of times, you know, we have the protections that are called that we kind of have to set. You know, a lot of times it's by the Mike linebacker, but you set where the defense is because generally count from that person. So you know, okay, you've got the first lineman past this guy in second and or we're sliding the protection and going over. So you know, I had played guard in college some and also in high school like tackle, so I played a lot of different positions. But One of the most annoying things is if nobody's making the line calls, whether it's the center of the guard and the plays about to start, because you know, you're not really ready for what's gonna happen next, right, So I tried. I tried not to be that guy, right, try not to be the guy who's not making the calls. So you know, hopefully, hopefully I was remembered as that, you know, because I'm sure, I'm sure I probably screwed it up a few times too, But you know, it was great good to hear Richmond say that. But I always tried to try to make sure that, you know, we got the calls out as quickly as possible that if things changed, you know, obviously somebody's showing blitz, somebody's back and off, we were able to make the adjustments and you know, checked as well as we could.
00:25:36
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I mean, when you've got a quarterback that went to Pitt and this is a shot at Dan Marino, you know we need to smart notre dame guys. So yeah, Danny knows how Penn State feels about Pitt, so he'll be all right with that.
00:25:47
Speaker 5: Good luck, because you know he listens to every episode.
00:25:50
Speaker 6: That he does.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: I'm happy that he does, man, But you know, you know, Tim Seth dropped a couple of names there. He dropped doing and of course Webby. Well, let's talk about the cast of characters on the on the offensive line that you know you played with. I mean, there are some serious cats on there. You know, you got those two, and then you have guys like Mark Dixon, Todd Wade, Keith Simms, Everett mcgiver, you know, John Boch, Gonnick Gogan, Jamie Nails. I mean, this list and goes, it goes on and on and on. How would you describe the offensive line room and those different a lot of different personalities.
00:26:29
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was actually, you know, as you guys know, it was a lot of fun. It was, you know, we had the cast of characters, everybody with a different type of sense of humor, you know. But the one thing that was I think in the ten years I was there, I had something like six different offensive line coaches. So the thing is, at least at the time in the NFL, like a new coach would come in, he'd often bring one or two of his guys, right, So Larry Beckel came in he brought in James Brown, you know, from New York and brought in and remember Cal Dixon was there. He unfortunately got hurt, but you know, and then I think John Back came in on that time, and when Paul Boudreaux came in from New England, he brought Heath Irwin, right, and then you know, so it's kind of like as so you constantly had this. So of course, when you bring in somebody that you like, there's somebody there that you don't like that you know, those goes to place somewhere else, right, So.
00:27:17
Speaker 5: Let's see it.
00:27:18
Speaker 6: Put it politely. But yeah, so and then Tony Wise came in, and then so Kevin Gogan, we've been with him in Dallas, right, he came in. So so there was constantly, as you know, it seemed like every couple of years we were changing offensive line coaches, and so you kind of get a new cast of characters. Like you said, each guy with their own you know, little quirks and uh and sense as of humor. But you know, to be honest with the overall bunch of great guys, you know that to play with I think you kind of have to be on offensive line and even in the NFL in general, you know, you're gonna have good days, you're gonna have bad days, You're gonna have you know, it's gonna be a tough summer camp, or at least it was back when they had two a days.
00:27:53
Speaker 1: You know.
00:27:53
Speaker 6: So you kind of have to have a an approach to life that lets you lets things kind of slide off your back times and you know, be able to make fun at yourself and sometimes make fun of others. So I think that's kind of.
00:28:05
Speaker 5: Uh what sometimes just sometimes sometimes.
00:28:09
Speaker 6: Sometimes in case my kids are listening, I don't want to. You don't think I'm a bully there.
00:28:14
Speaker 4: It is, oh man, the offensive line room and the defensive line room where two of the like they were not for the faint of heart, that's for sure.
00:28:23
Speaker 6: You had to be on your toes. You thought practice was bad, you get into the film room after for the next hour, you know, you could see sometimes it was the other player, sometimes it was the coaches.
00:28:32
Speaker 1: You know.
00:28:32
Speaker 6: I can't even say some of the things Larry Beckley used to say that.
00:28:36
Speaker 5: I was just gonna say beck I was.
00:28:39
Speaker 1: The best one liners man. He has some of the best ones.
00:28:42
Speaker 4: The favorite that I ever heard that I can say here is I was, remember we had Jeff Bucky drafted.
00:28:48
Speaker 5: Jeff Bucky, you're talking about Stanford and I'm trying to clean it up enough.
00:28:52
Speaker 4: And he was like, God, dang it, Bucky, you make more money than the president of the United States. And I just wanted a blo ay gat or whatever he's saying. But I was like, oh my, you know, and you just hear all you guys kind of snickering in the back, all the vents, and I was like, this is not a room to go into if you're sensitive.
00:29:11
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll tell you what Larry Bechtel used to do. If you jumped off side so you got a holding penalty, he'd do, make you do push ups, right, so you'd have to go out. There's no room in the room, of course, so you have to go out in the hall of the push ups. So his famous his famous quote was well, if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta have big arms. And the guy out to do push ups. The other one that was interesting, he's got there's probably, like I said, about twenty stories, but of the ones you can actually tell in public. You know, he was sitting in the back of the room and run the tape machine there, and obviously everybody's sit in front of him. So the one time Brent Smith, I forget what he did something wrong, So he holds up his hand like this, He holds his hand up in front of him so you guys can see it, and it's right like right behind Brent's head, and he goes, Smitty, turn around.
00:29:51
Speaker 1: And choke yourself.
00:29:55
Speaker 6: Lean into his hand, right.
00:29:58
Speaker 1: It goes.
00:29:59
Speaker 6: Because I can't hit you, I'm gonna need you to choke yourself. Oh my good.
00:30:04
Speaker 5: And you guys had to lose it.
00:30:06
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Oh my goodness.
00:30:09
Speaker 5: I wish we could name this up. Tim Roddie. If you're gonna be dumb, you got you better.
00:30:15
Speaker 6: You got that big arms.
00:30:18
Speaker 4: Oh god, that's too good. All right, too good. So you spend We've made it very clear. You spent the six years of your first six years of your career at the center of a damn Marino led offense. And then you know, towards the end of that, obviously when Jimmy came in, especially I think the last couple of years where he tried to take a lot of that, you know, the Audibles and some of those the play calling ability out of Dan's hands, things started to shift.
00:30:44
Speaker 5: But by the time Dave took over, it was a ground and pound game.
00:30:48
Speaker 4: Guys were gonna get thirty forty carries a game started off with Lamar Smith and then of course in two thousand and two, the big trade for Ricky Williams, and Ricky just has this magical season.
00:30:59
Speaker 5: What was what's it like for you?
00:31:01
Speaker 4: What was that transition like to shift from this team that could throw the ball anywhere at any time to playing that style of football?
00:31:10
Speaker 5: And then if you could just talk a little bit about having Ricky Williams as a teammate.
00:31:14
Speaker 6: Sure, yeah, I mean it was interesting in my career. Like I said, you stick around long enough, good things happen, right, But you start off playing for a quarterback who you know, at times led the league in passing, and then by the time you're getting out of the game, you're playing for a guy who's leading the league in rushing. Right, So Ricky did I forget if it was two thousand and two or two thousand and three too, So yeah, so it definitely, you know, you kind of run the gamut there, but you know, Ricky was an amazing player, and you know, I think sometimes he doesn't get the respect he deserves either. And guy ran for ten thousand yards, and like you said, Seth, he kind of carried the team a lot that year by design. You know, the thought was, you know, a defense minded head coach. Okay, we're gon we're gonna run the ball, we're gonna control the clock, we're gonna play good defense. You know, hey, if we get you know, twenty twenty four points a game, we should be winning, be able to win every game. Now obviously we didn't get twenty or twenty four, but that's a different you know, that's a different, different story there. But that was kind of mindset. Yeah, I mean that was kind of the mindset where previously it was, hey, if they score forty, we'll score forty five, right, you know, I mean that was you know before that, so you know, the different mindset. But definitely, like I said, and I think, you know, we focused on the running game more even you know, like as far as you know, paying players. Right, Obviously we didn't go out and get the rock star quarterback, although we had a bunch of guys that did a great job you know during that timeframe, and same thing we didn't go out and sign sign the big name receivers. You know, we kind of got you know, more middle of the road guys and said, Okay, you know we're gonna we're gonna focus on, like we just said, focus on the defense as being the strong point offense. We're going to control the ball, run the ball, and you know, score enough points to win.
00:32:47
Speaker 1: No doubt about it.
00:32:48
Speaker 6: Man.
00:32:48
Speaker 1: I was there at the end of the beginning of that change.
00:32:50
Speaker 2: When I was out there, instead of running routes, I was past blocking the whole time.
00:32:55
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, like you Tim ready, you know, run blocking the whole time.
00:32:59
Speaker 6: So yeah, it made sense, man, you know, and I always when I was out there with you guys, I always felt like you guys, you know, computers and everything were kind of just becoming mainstream at that time. You guys are being treated like typewriters. You know, computers are coming out eighty. We don't need we don't need these receivers as much anymore. You know, we got this new thing here. Bro.
00:33:18
Speaker 1: I thought I was back at Penn State, man blocking block and blocking.
00:33:22
Speaker 2: Man, it was, it was, it was.
00:33:23
Speaker 1: It was rough.
00:33:24
Speaker 5: Harvey had a typewriter in his office the whole time I was there. I can tell you that.
00:33:28
Speaker 2: Probably he probably still has won in his home office right now, probably probably saying you know, Tim, you you obviously man you You were just an incredible teammate bro for so many reasons, and one of those was that I think that one thing that we all respected was the fact that we could always, always, always count on Tim Ruddy showing up. I mean, you missed four games in a ten year career playing office on line. That's absolutely been bananus man, And it's truly unbelievable. And I hope people understand this big seth that you know, one hundred and fifty six out of one hundred and sixty games and fail at that position makes you, It makes you a true iron man. How did you manage, how did you manage to be available for your team all the time?
00:34:09
Speaker 1: And why was that so important to you?
00:34:11
Speaker 6: Well, like you said, if it did feel it was important because if your center's not there, right, you got somebody new. You know, you got the exchange with the quarterback, you got to make the line calls. You know, when you do the double team blocks, you know, there really is a lot of coordination. You know, when you have a good offensive line. It's it's kind of like everybody knows what everybody else is doing. You know, the tackle knows what the guard's doing next to them, the center knows what the guards are doing. You know, and I think, uh, you know, obviously, so you want to try and keep that going as long as possible. And you know, as you know, Juice and we were playing, you know, we were mostly we were in the thick of it most years, you know what I mean. We didn't obviously never won Super Bowl or anything, but you know every year we were ten and six, ninety seven, eleven and five, you know, so and you get into that type of playoff you know, playoff chances, or you're trying to get home field advantage or you're trying to you know, you know, we got a big game against the New England. I mean, I think everybody wanted to play. But you know, yeah, I was lucky enough to be durable enough, and I tried to take care of myself. You know, I tried to obviously work out, stay flexible, you know, do the things that you need to do to be able to play. And then eventually, after about ten years, I felt like I couldn't do that anymore. So I went out back to being boring again, you know, being an engineer.
00:35:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know about all that big staff. I mean, I don't know how many guys leave the game and go back to being engineers.
00:35:27
Speaker 5: Go back to it, right, go back to it and dabble in like you know, financial advising. Right, Oh yeah, not a lot. You just said something.
00:35:36
Speaker 4: I'm going off script for a second here, juice, But you just said you talked about the importance of the center to quarterback exchange the snap. But there's always this, you know, if a snap is an errant snap or a high snap, or how often does the starting center work on that exchange with the starting quarterback, whether it is an actual snap under center or somebody's in the shotgun. I'm just curious as to how often they work on it and should fans like, clearly, you don't want an errant snap and a turnover. But I feel like sometimes fans get all up in arms with one bad snap and meanwhile, this guy's dominating.
00:36:12
Speaker 5: For forty two snaps. He's just completely controlling the point of the offense. And I'm like, man, I think we got to get our priorities straight.
00:36:19
Speaker 6: Well, I think the thing you got to remember, Big Seth, if I can call you Big Seth number one, it's always the quarterback's fault, okay, right, even on shotgun snaps, he usually means to play before. You know, he left the ball in poor condition.
00:36:41
Speaker 5: Okay. No, maybe it doesn't need to be a number two.
00:36:46
Speaker 6: No, seriously, though, it's yeah, obviously critical part of the game. We used to do it a lot. You know when we played, there was always you know, just kind of it was kind of part of the warm up. And then you know, usually when we were running any of the drills we were doing in practice, you were usually you know, first team was mostly operate together, so you'd have the snaps. You know, I have the snaps with the quarterback. I mean you can think of a few in the in the past number of years, you know, like Aaron snaps in the Super Bowl, right, you know it's a shotgun snap and it goes over the quarterbacks head or around to the side.
00:37:13
Speaker 2: You know.
00:37:13
Speaker 6: I mean we've seen a few of those. So yeah, it is uh, you know, it seems like something you take for granted, but for some reason, Yeah, there's there's there's chances for it to really go bad, and you know it kind of takes both center and quarterback to be.
00:37:26
Speaker 4: On the ball, right right. Oh well, I wrote down it's always a quarterback's fault.
00:37:33
Speaker 6: That's the short The short answer is, it's always the quarterback's fault.
00:37:36
Speaker 5: I love it. It's a good answer. It's actually a great answer. So I got this was fun.
00:37:42
Speaker 4: We're not going to take up too much more of your time, since we know you do have to wake up in the morning and go be an engineer and you know, get some good good night's rest. But we end every episode of the Fish Tank the same way it is with our Fish Tank two minute drill. Lord knows, if you played in one hundred and fifty six games, especially a bunch of them with Dan Marino, you had to be on your p's and q's in plenty of two minute drills. So we're putting two minutes on the clock. We're gonna hit you with a few fast paced, fun questions. I feel like this is right up your alley, juice. I feel like we've never had a guy better prepare for the two minutes. Now.
00:38:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's gonna be quick. It's gonna it's gonna be real simple for him, I'm sure. So I'll get it started myself here you ready, yep, go ahead?
00:38:23
Speaker 1: All right.
00:38:23
Speaker 2: So, allegedly a Leslie, your nickname at Dunmore High School was big Master.
00:38:29
Speaker 1: What the hell did that mean?
00:38:32
Speaker 6: That actually wasn't my name, But I saw that written quite a few times and I was like, I can go with that. The worst things I could be called.
00:38:41
Speaker 1: Right, So, so that was that's a false somebody was.
00:38:45
Speaker 6: The one thing they used to call me, and this was Larry Beckhall used to call me big Book. Okay, big book though that got merged with something else, but yeah, that was that was.
00:38:55
Speaker 1: Okay, okay.
00:38:57
Speaker 4: So when you retired from football, you be came a big RV enthusiast, and as I mentioned earlier, you wrote this really fun blog chronicling your exploits with the Ruddy family. What is the craziest thing that ever happened to you while you were r ving?
00:39:14
Speaker 6: Well there's quite a few. Probably the craziest one is almost getting arrested at a rest stop in Iowa. So what so, anyway, we were driving through so we actually drove drove around quite a bit. It's a lot of the national parks you know, different tourist type attractions. But we had pulled over and my daughter was upset about something. So she got out of the vehicle and was going over to the It was a rest stop, right, So she's going over to the restroom, and I had walked after her and I was talking to her and that well, somebody had seen this guy who looks like me, you know, chasing this young girl who was about twelve at the time, you know, and you know skinny, you know, skinny young girl over towards the bathroom and called the police. Oh so at the rest stop, state police come out, come, knock on the door, you know, yeah, hey, circle, we get you to step out of the vehicle. And I'm like, yeah, sure, you know, no problem. That starts to get out and then so like I could, I could see what was happening because they were like taking me and getting me over out of the way so they could talk to my wife and my daughter and my son and my son and uh, you say, okay, you know, hey, is everything okay? You know, you guys you know in trouble. Is he doing anything to you? We got this report that you know, he was chasing this girl into the bathroom and you know, everything all right, So yeah, eventually it all got worked out. But you know that's that's not something you're really looking forward to, you know time, you know, like probably or not.
00:40:33
Speaker 5: Right, So, yeah, that's not when they're selling the RV experience. That's not on the brochure.
00:40:40
Speaker 6: Yeah, that one gets overlooked a little bit.
00:40:44
Speaker 1: Abfinutely. So man, oh man, that's crazy.
00:40:47
Speaker 2: You know, it's hard to follow up that big seth, but I will try, right, So, Tim, we spoke about your intelligence at the top of the show, as well as you know, your mythical wonder Lick score, which I don't know how mine was nowhere probably close to yours.
00:41:02
Speaker 1: But what was what was the hardest question that you had to answer on that on the Wonder Lick?
00:41:06
Speaker 6: Oh Man, going back thirty years and out going now, I mean it, I didn't think anyone were too hard to be honest with you.
00:41:14
Speaker 5: None of them answer obviously, you don't even have to say anything else.
00:41:21
Speaker 6: Tell you a funny story though. I used to teach people because had notre dame. You know, obviously, you man, guys that were smart with than some guys that were so. So I used to teach people. Oh, I stopped halfway and helped Aaron Taylor with him you know, stay, I stopped half way and helped Brian Young.
00:41:35
Speaker 1: With his you know.
00:41:35
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, ten of those points he got they were mine. That is too good, right, last question. Richmond Webb, among other things, said that he called you a silent assassin because you had this hilarious sense of humor. You guys had lockers right next to each other, and he said, you know, much like this experience we have at the beginning of the show Juice, where you couldn't hear him and only I could.
00:42:00
Speaker 5: He would whisper these little.
00:42:01
Speaker 4: One liners to Richmond, and Richmond would die laughing, and everybody would look at him like he was crazy.
00:42:06
Speaker 1: You know.
00:42:06
Speaker 4: So he said, you were the funniest guy you ever played with me and the smartest guy. Who's the funniest guy that you ever played with?
00:42:12
Speaker 6: I would say, off the just off the cuff, probably Ron heller and and haf To. He's a Penn State guy. Was Juice, of course, of course, but half the time he wasn't trying to be funny. I don't think so, you know, well, this is the best. No, he was a he was a tremendous player, tremendous sense of humor. You know, he played the last his last couple of years were my first couple. So obviously he was an older guy that looked up to. But you know, he was always given. He was always giving ship to somebody, you know, either one of the players, Richard George who we talked about. You guys know rich You know, he was always you know, he always took it with uh it took it, took it kindly. But even like John Sandusky, Juice, you remember John, Yeah, he was seventy years old at Rod Heller's, you know, teasing him about something, you know, about whatever, and you know Shuill the same thing, right he co of it's our teasing Schuila about up So uh. He actually was was very quick, quick witted and probably would have to be right up there with the funniest guys.
00:43:06
Speaker 5: That's the two minute drill. I think we scored a touchdown here.
00:43:10
Speaker 1: Juice, absolutely score score score.
00:43:12
Speaker 5: He is Tim Ruddy.
00:43:13
Speaker 4: I'm glad that we had this experience because I know that you know, we may not see it or hear from you now, who knows how long I think.
00:43:20
Speaker 1: He's out now, I think he's out.
00:43:23
Speaker 2: I've seen Tim more than I've seen him in over two decades now, Man, I think he's out.
00:43:27
Speaker 6: Bro pretty much pretty much. You know, you have big seth. You can you could say you had the Tim Ruddy experience. You can go back now, tell the wife, the kids.
00:43:35
Speaker 4: You know, I'm gonna have that story right now, just not at a rest stop, but I'm going to go home and tell him.
00:43:41
Speaker 6: That's right, that's right, Stay out of Iowa.
00:43:45
Speaker 1: Hey, Tim, thanks for diving in man.
00:43:49
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me. Guys, it was a lot of fun. You're now diving.
00:43:55
Speaker 5: Just like Jew said.
00:43:56
Speaker 4: Thanks for diving into the fish Tank presented by iHeartRadio. Be sure to follow us on whatever streaming platform you're using, and don't be afraid to rate the show or leave us a comment. We love your feedback, and remember you can find us, as well as Drive Time with Travis Wingfield and all of our international partners on Miami Dolphins dot com at this time
