First off, what have you been up to since your playing days?
I stopped playing in 2017 and bounced around different jobs for a bit. I’m now a project manager for The Pulte Group doing new home builds. I was a carpenter for a while and wanted to do more and get out of the field and came across the opportunity at Pulte, and here I am now.
What made that adjustment to post-NFL easier or harder for you?
My work ethic. My wife was a college athlete as well and we’ve found that in both of our jobs, people who played sports seem to have strong work ethics. They hold themselves accountable and get the job done.
I feel like I’m still competitive – I carry that competitiveness in my work like I did on the football field.
Stepping back, I know you weren’t in Pittsburgh long but you had a very interesting football career. Starting off in Pittsburgh, what brought you to the team?
I came out in an odd year- it was the year of the lockout. As a quarterback it was especially difficult. My agent and I spoke with a few teams leading up to the draft and knew there was some interest from Pittsburgh. We didn’t know if I’d get drafted in the later rounds or get signed as an undrafted free agent.
I was up in the air on what to expect. We chose Pittsburgh because we thought there was a good opportunity there. I spoke to Bruce Arians who was a cool guy. They had Charlie Batch and Byron Leftwich – I thought I would go there and replace Dennis Dixon. Dixon was looking to sign somewhere else so I thought that would open up a spot, but no one ended up signing him, so he signed back with Pittsburgh and I got booted.
As they say, it’s a great game, but a shitty business.
I know you weren’t there for a long stretch of time, but did anything stand out to you over the time you had there?
The locker room was cool – being a couple of lockers down from Troy Polamalu and near Ben. Being near so many elite level guys was cool.
You ended up playing in the Arena League and China League and won a championship in both leagues. And the UFL as well. How hard were those adjustments for you to play in those leagues?
The China Arena Football League was fun – I did that for a year and more for the fun of it. We had a free trip to stay in China with 60 other Americans, 20 of who I knew and 10 I was close friends with.
Right when I was cut by the Steelers I looked for a way back to the NFL – no matter what outlet it took to get started. After a couple of years, you start to see the opportunity fade, but you still have a love for the game and you can still play.
There’s a lot of talent in the Arena League – there’s good competition and good crowds. It’s a cool experience to meet so many people and travel and playing front of a lot of people. They say it becomes your NFL and you make the most of it.
What were the biggest adjustments for you?
From college to the NFL it’s the speed of the players. That’s the biggest adjustment. You see it mostly in the offensive and defensive linemen in terms of that big jump in skill.
Going from outdoor to indoor football – it’s a much bigger adjustment. The drops and throws are different and more difficult for a QB. I had a strong arm – they put me in the Flacco book/category. But the Arena League throws require a lot more touch and timing – you have to throw it way before the receivers get out of their breaks. The holes are smaller and there’s a lot of motion so you have to time your snaps. It’s a fun game though.
Did anyone over you career help you most?
Not a knock on Ben – but Batch and Leftwich are the ones that spent extra time with me and helped with questions. It’s a business at the end of the day and this is their jobs and how they feed their families. It’s not their job to show you how to do it – you have to figure that out on your own. And they weed out those that can’t.
What was that experience like in the China League – how did you get involved in that and what was it like?
They wanted to bring the Arena League to China – the Chinese really liked the sport. That year I was an upper echelon player in the Arena League and the China League held a draft – any Arena League players drafted could go and play if they wanted.
It was like a traveling circus. There were teams in six cities – I was based out of Beijing. All six cities were really larger than New York. Every team stayed and practiced in the same city. We’d stay in the same hotel – each team would play that weekend then everyone would go to the next city, all stay in the same hotel there and practice all week again before playing over the weekend and doing it all again.
The game was eight-on-eight and half the players on the field had to be Chinese. There was a big language barrier – we didn’t speak Chinese and they didn’t speak English, so we had translators.
Everyone was very cool. The coaches were American and couldn’t say the names of the Chinese players, so they let the Chinese players pick new names for themselves. One was Elephant, another was Bear, another Gazer Star….they were all funny guys and super nice.
They treated us nicely. We stayed in five-star hotels and there was some good players there with us like Shayne Austin, Collin Taylor and J.J. Raterink – Clint Bizzell was our head coach.
What happened after that first season?
I was going to go back for a second season – I was drafted number one overall. But the league was suspended for a bit, then they decided they wanted all Chinese players and American coaches.
At the time I had a three-year old child and realized it was just time to get my next career started. I think a lot about the Arena League – I had so much fun playing there. I wish I could have made a career of it but it’s not enough money for 99% of the players. It was impossible to make it for but it was fun while it lasted.
Lastly -any thoughts for what it takes for an undrafted quarterback to make it?
Use your time wisely. It goes fast – enjoy the ride, but at the same time look at the big picture. It all starts in the film room while you’re still in college. Use that extra time to work with the coaches and in the facility. Be present around the football program as much as you can. Coaches will talk to other coaches, the football staff, people you took classes with…. They talk to everyone, and those little things matter – even on how you keep your locker. You have to treat it like a job, even when you’re in college.