Dude, let's hop right into this. I know you got a hard out, and I also have a tea time at 3:43, dude, so this.

Is going to be-I've got my golf shirt on as well, bud.

Dude, are you kidding me? All right, welcome back to another AFK interview episode, everybody. Lace up those cleats because we got an NFL star, an elite athlete, and all-around prodigy, Kyle Long joining us today. Hailing from the sprawling metropolis of Ivy, Virginia, Kyle Long was destined for greatness from the start. With a household brimming with Hall of Fame athletes, it was only a matter of time before he made his mark. And Kyle's journey is nothing short of a legendary, transitioning from a potential MLB career to becoming one of the top 100 Chicago Bearers players of all time in the NFL. But Kyle is not just a sports icon. He's also a podcast host. Partnered with his brother Chris Long on the hit show Green Light. He dominates four-night lobbies with his wife and conquers intense eye-racing competitions within his own house-racing setup. Oh, he's also golf-obsessed like me. Kyle Long is the definition of a multi-talented superstar, and today we're diving into his incredible story from football glory to gaming triumphs. Kyle, welcome.

Buddy, that was an amazing intro. Thank you for that. You have quite a set of lungs on you, dude.

I appreciate it, dude. Listen, that's why we paid the podcast team here the big bucks to write these God-tier intros, man. I love reading them in.

You mentioned golf, and I know we both play a lot of golf. I'm sitting here, I know it's an audio pod, which is awesome, by the way. I was just thinking about how much more comfortable being on a podcast and being able to just have a conversation and not worry about smiling at the wrong time or anything like that. It's nice. But the golf thing is great. I'm in a golf shirt. You were mentioning to me right before you started that you're going to play. That bug bit me hard, dude, and it's a tightrope walk between being a present dad and being a husband and being able to go try to work on my game.

100 %. How long have you been playing? When did it start? How long have you been going for?

Well, as a kid, like a lot of kids, I was playing other stuff. I was doing baseball and football, basketball, lacrosse if I could. Even lacrosse as well. It was never golf. I played hockey as well as a youth, but the practices were so damn early. I ended up just sticking to the main sports. And all my buddies that I played baseball with that have been playing golf since a kid are damn good at it and go figure. They've been grinding this thing for a long time. It's such a unique skill set, and it's something I love. And when I get tired of sitting at the computer and staring at my Steam library and saying, What the hell do I want to play? It gives me an opportunity to go outside and get that vitamin D I so crave, and sweat, and compete, and be frustrated with myself. And for a guy who is a pro-athlete, I think that golf is my favorite because it's so challenging. And I don't know if I'll ever be good at it, but it's that pursuit that I'm into.

That's a great way of explaining it, Kyle. I'm sitting here already on the verge of sweating. I have so many things to talk about, about golf, man. I'm already on the verge of sweating. I was just outside backyard, killing some time before this. Just got my little putter out there and my little pitching wedge, and I have a nice like, I'd say like 40 yards, probably 40, 50 yards of fenced in backyard, actually really solid green, really solid grass. I just practice little chips, do little chips. I try to put a little Baxton on it. I was just doing that for about 30 minutes. I will say that I don't like sweating when I'm out and about in the sun, I get really uncomfortable. It's disgusting. Sweating sucks.

Yeah. Dude, it's the worst. You're not in AC. You're just literally getting just destroyed by the heat. But there's something about golf that is completely different than literally every other aspect of life. I could be out and about walking around, sweating with Jess, just hot out and we're just doing something cute. We did miniature golf the other day. I'm dude, we're on the ninth hole. It's like par threes, dude. We're blowing through these holes every two minutes a hole, not even. I'm sweating and I'm so uncomfortable. But I don't have access to A, shade underneath the golf car number one, B, I don't have five waters, ice in a cooler in the side, right next to you. I think that's what it's about, man. It's just that you're so focused and zoned in and you have access to just infinite cold water when you're golfing, I would assume, the way we do it. And it's just amazing.

And there's no better way to really to disconnect yourself from the stresses or anything else that's a distraction, really, to just your presence of mind. And when you're on the golf course, at least particularly in the fall when there's a lot of leaves on the ground, I'm picturing at my mind's eye right now, the crunching of the brown leaves on the ground trying to find your ball between the second cut and the rough. And it's like, I don't know where it is. And you're like, Damn, these leaves are beautiful. Where the hell is my ball? -where's my ball, dude? -it's the polarity of this game. And you were talking about sweating. You hate sweating, but there's something about getting the sweat on out there on the golf course. But yeah, it's great. I love golfing. It's competitive. It's a huge part of my life post-competitive athletics.

Yeah, and we'll be spending the rest of our lives trying to perfect it, man. It may never happen, but we got the rest of our lives to do it. Dude, Kyl, you're also obviously God-tier, NFL player, Bear's All-Star. I have a question. Here I have it, it's got a line of it says, We have to get into the Detroit lines or Chicago Bear's rivalry. But I don't know, I almost feel like you guys had it worse with the Packers. Am I delusional there or what do you think?

Yeah, we had a battle with everybody, bud. We were skill-based matchmaking. Roger Goodell needs to work on that because it seemed like every single year we would line up our schedule and we'd go through camp and we'd say, This is the year we have answers for our problems. Year after the year, it was Aaron Rogers finding Randall Cobb, or it was Matt Stafford finding Calvin Johnson for just enough to beat us in Detroit. And people always ask me about playing in the NFC North, and obviously it's a really storied division. It really is. It's the most times that the team has ever played as I think, bears and Packers. But the real rivalry, in my opinion, is Detroit Lions, Chicago bears. We hate each other. They say the Packers and the bears hate each other because they're like brothers or cousins divided. But the lions, we're not related to those guys. We hate those guys. And when you go to Detroit, I love Lions fans. I love that atmosphere. They've got great colors. It's one of the coolest cities in America. And you show up and you just want to beat their guts and the fans are cussing you out.

I mean, my rookie year, 2013, I got drafted to help protect Jay Cutler from endomic and Sue.

How many times did he step on you, bro?

He never stepped on me. And you know what? After I finish this, I want to give him a tip of the cat because he got a bad rap. But my rookie year, I'm playing him. I go up there in the dome and he beat me for a sack. I just remember the whole stadium going, Sue. You want to crawl in a hole when you give up a sack. Give it up to an Endomethane, Sue, the guy you were drafted to protect Cutler from, and it feels bad. But then you get him at home and the Bear's fans play a part in that. We can work the snap counts. I get chips and stuff in the second game and I get to compete with Sue. But then I wanted to tell you about the stepping on him thing. I mean, a lot of people talk about how he was a dirty player, and he definitely did some things that were awesome. Yeah. Do not get me wrong.

For sure.

But you know what? At the same time, he played me clean and he played me every down, snap to whistle, he was tough. And you had to know where he was because if it was before the whistle, he was going to try to get you and he wasn't going to get you dirty, but he was a big physical player. People lose sight of how great of a football player Sue was for so long and how important he was to Detroit during that stretch.

Absolutely, man. He was one of the only little gleams of light that we had on defense man for a really long time. Just the pressure that he could get. He was a big boy, bro. I would say he was one of those last... Not last, but now you just got these Aden Hutchinsons, right? These just monstrous, they're standing up instead of lining up. You know what I mean?

You knew what he was going to do. He would put his hand in the ground and he would tilt his body towards the football. He would line up right on you and he would pretty much tell you before the snap, I'm going to go at your inside shoulder and I'm going to run straight through you and there's nothing you can do to stop me. And it was up to a guard to be able to put up a fight. Just like most guys are just not trying to put up a fight against that the whole game. If you can just try to get in his way, the whole game, it'll frustrate him.

That's incredible, dude. I love, I'd never... With Sue, I don't know, years. Was Sue on the Lions before you were drafted to.

Protect Cutler from it? Yes. You were literally- They were showing me like it was like a member of the Halos, Sniper, Montages from Machinima and stuff like that. Yes, dude. I was watching STK Ogre just headshot everybody. It was like that was my visit with Sue just, Bam, Bam, Bam, Highlight film. They're just looking at me not saying anything. I'm like, Why do I keep seeing number 90 on film? They're like, Because that's the guy we're going to ask you to block.

Oh, my God, dude. First off, incredible reference on the STK Ogre reference for Hale Montage.

One and two, by the way.

One and two. Yes, sir, man. I love those guys, man. Bfk with Ninja. Dude, I have so many stories I could talk about Unlockout BRs forever, dude.

-buddy.

-oh, you're.

Talking about the right guy then.

All right, let's just dwell on this then for a minute, dude. I had my brother, so I was the king of 1v1. Like, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo Reach, I was an addict. It's all I did. It's all I wanted to do. If I ever lost in a team hardcore match, I would message the best team, the best guy on the other team and be like, One B. One B.

Lock on the ice.

Literally, dude, just please. Then they would just send me a message back, BK, right? Just BK and I'd lose my fucking mind. Just two letters, man. Bad kid. It was the worst. But I'll never forget, dude, it was two o'clock in the morning. I was 12 years old, 13 years old. My brother, John, who's the oldest, he was up late playing Team Doubles, and this kid was talking shit to him. In the middle of the game, sending him messages and shit. Then at the end, Jon's like, want me? You want me? Lockout. He got destroyed, obviously, in the game. He was down by three already. He was three nil. He runs upstairs, wakes me up in the middle of the night, dude. Middle of the night, two in the morning, and he's just shaking me. I'm like, What, dude? He's like, You got to be this kid in a one-me-one lockout, man. He's like, I'm hiding right now. You got to beat him. I literally sprint out of bed, run downstairs to the setup and just fucking come back and destroy this guy in a one-me-one. Oh, man.

You know what? And you talk about your brother just calling upon a higher power there. It makes me think about all these games like Halo. I remember when I super got into Destiny, it was like 2014, '15. We were running raids and stuff. I'm not the most skilled guy, but I'm the most passionate guy on the team. I'm down to make a game plan, a strat and all that stuff, and I'll communicate well, but I'm just not the best guy. I have a lot of these good friends that I've leaned on through the years, so I've been able to enjoy this stuff like the competitive halo scene you were talking about. I really missed that. It was such a simple game. There were so many mechanics that you could utilize that weren't really intended to be utilized, like BXR-ing. I was never a Super Jump guy, but that game was fun. That game was so much fun. The fight mechanics in Halo was fun, like the CQC aspect of it, it still is, but it's just not the same game in my opinion.

Of course not, man. I mean, Halo in general has evolved to, unfortunately, try to keep up, I think, with these ADHD, fast-paced, almost... At least that's what the developers just felt like it's what had to happen. The simpler times of double shotting, BXR-ing, the super bouncing. I'll never forget how cool it was when you're playing against a standby. Because there were two different types of standbys. There were the ones that would just do it off the rip, they don't give a shit, and they just wanted to win the game. Literally, you spawn, they run at you, and boom, you're in blue screen. You're running in a wall. Yeah, you come back dead and it's like, Okay, this is how it's going to be. Game over. Then there's the other standbys of the ones who are the fucking salty ones where they'll try to beat you legit first. Then once they start losing, then they start pressing the button, you're like, Okay, here we go. There were times where my brother and I, because I play with John all the time, we played Team Doubles, and we'd be up at five or six or whatever. And boom, here comes dude.

Now here comes the blue screen. Here we go. We were next to each other, though. Obviously, we live in the same freaking house. I would be like, quit out, Jon. Quit out. He would quit out. I would super bounce out of any map that we were on and would just win the game. He would get the rank of too. Yeah, we would win from time and he would.

Still get the win. You were running a four-minute offense before you knew what a four-minute offense was. That's a huge strat, and it's something that my IQ is not high enough to be able to pull that off. You're the guy that I would have been mad about. If I do had a cheat back in the day, I would have been pissed at you on the time.

Run out the clock, man. There's nothing great. Then you just message them until they block you, dude. Just like, You're fucking trash. You're terrible. Even though John quit too, this is how Halo 2 worked, even though he quit, you would still get the EXP if you won, which is not a lot of games are like that. You quit out in Halo 3, I think, you lose no matter what. You would do your rank or whatever. But Halo 2.

Is different, man. As long as your team.

Wins, you get the points. Yeah, as long as your team wins, you would still get the points, which was that was the Strat. That was the King Strat.

All they were missing was Prox Chat.

Oh, my God. No, there was though. Dude, that's another thing. There was Death Chat, and Codd took it over with a war zone. I didn't even know what that was. Death Chat. Remember, you would kill someone and then you would just hear like, What the fuck? Then you would hear the mic cut out. That addition was so subtle. There's no way they even did that on purpose. But the fact that you could hear their mic cut out after they had that brief window to talk was just genius, just golden.

That's like when I get the occasional like double or triple in Fortnite, I play with my wife every night and her sister, so my sister-in-law. We run trios, no build, and we get dubs. We really do. We're probably like, We get two in a row, then we'll have a top five, and then we'll win again, and then we'll go to bed. But I wish sometimes when I'm e-moating on a pile of loot that I could just be having a Ted talk.

Yeah.

Just talking to them. I just want to talk.

That didn't go the way you thought it would? Yeah. Oh, my God, bro. You know what? I'd be down. They need to have a hotkey that you can add to mute it immediately if it gets bad. But actually, I think I'd be into it, man.

Yeah, that's the tough thing with streaming. You're not only streaming yourself. I tried streaming a few times, and my buddies can't handle it. My buddies can't handle it, and my chat at times couldn't handle it, and obviously, just John Q, public elementary school student couldn't handle it because there would be things said and you can't control all of it. I'm not savvy enough to put stream remote on everything, so that's got to be tough.

Luckily though, just to touch on this for a second, usually voice prox, et cetera, things like that. If people are acting up, being racist, saying some dumb shit, 99 % of the time, it doesn't affect your channel. If you go out of your way after the fact to attempt to have mitigated it or whatever, that's good. But still, it's terrible when it happens. It ruins the mood. But just continuing down this gaming road, man, I could talk about Hill2 forever, but what was your first game? What got you into gaming?

So when I was a young pup in Los Angeles, California, I was probably four years old. It was when Super Nintendo, SNS was out. My dad was playing on the Raiders, and one of his teammates, Roland Harrison, who was a really good defensive lineman, and now he's like a dad and his kids are grownups, he was asked, I believe, by his wife to be like, Give away your video games. You have too many video games. We got like a giant crate of games, like just.

The car trips. Christmas comes.

Early, dude. I just remember as a kid, I wasn't good enough to advance past the level of any game. But I've got to play so many different types of games. I think that's why you look at my Steam Library now and it's so vast. There's so many different types of genres. But the first game that really got me sucked was Grand Theft Auto 3. -sing Liberty City.

-gta. You were allowed to play ETA.

At that-When I saw Liberty City for the first time and I saw that he had a baseball bat and the guy didn't talk and the guy didn't take any shit, I was like, Man, you know what? That's a pretty cool game there. Yeah, Vice City, when Tommy Versetti was introduced and he had a personality and Rockstar went to South Beach with it. You've got a car dealership and there's a golf course in game.

Did you actually golf in the game?

I believe you could golf in the game. Well, you couldn't golf in the game, but you could drive on the golf course. It was an open part of the map.

There you go.

They had a Porsche 911 always parked out front. These are memories that are burnt into my front. It was the Cometh, I believe it was called. But GPA was the first series that was like, Come here, it's got me by the balls, like we were saying the other day on the podcast.

Oh, my God. I love that dude. Oh, my God. So, dude, you've been in it, bro. I knew you were freaking your family was a bunch of stars, man. You guys are incredibly athletic. Obviously, I know that you knew of gaming. We talked about it on your podcast earlier, Green Light, but I did not know it went this deep, man. I did know it went this deep. I'm pleasantly surprised. You were on the pursuit to be in the MLB, right? Yep. And it switched to the NFL. What was the... Just walk me through that moment of your life because you're basically the Michael Jordan of football, if you will, right?

Stop. Well, in 2007, 2008, I was getting heavily recruited and scouted both by baseball schools and by Major League baseball teams. I also happened to be a really highly recruited defensive and offensive lineman. Chris was at UVA, which is University of Virginia for those who aren't hip. We grew up in Charlottesville, which is the college town that UVA is in. As a high schooler, watching Chris... I mean, Chris was an all-American. He was the number two overall pick, Chris was. That's so cool. He was a D-end, which was a spectacular feat for him, and he's a hard worker. But growing up, out in that shadow. I was like, How can I get out of that? One thing I could do, I was left-handed and I could throw the baseball 96 miles an hour and I could hit. I could turn around a lot of fastballs with the bat. I was like, Let me go do this. In my heart of hearts, I was like, I'm going to go play baseball. I got drafted in the low 20th, 23rd round, but they knew I was going to go to college, so I was like, Don't even waste a pic.

I went down to Florida State and oh my goodness, I had never been away from home. I had never.

Had- That's a place to do it.

-had less structure. I had never been around. So much scenery in my life. What a beautiful part of Florida. Tallahassee, Florida. I just couldn't handle it. I was... I was having a great time all the time. It was affecting my baseball, it was affecting my academics. I went back for Christmas break and I actually had a DUI in my hometown, which was just... It was a nightmare. But I look back now and the best thing that ever happened to me was that night getting arrested and having to be like, Hold on, I'm just on autopilot. I need to really... I only get one of these things. I reset. I went out west. I took some time at a facility out there. I got my act together. Whether or not I needed that, I definitely needed to change of scenery, you know what I mean? I went out there and I got that. I was 19. I was working at Jack's Surfboards in Newport Beach, folding T-shirts and building skateboard for kids. I got fired from Jacks because I was smoking cigarettes out front of the store and they were like, This is a family store, bro.

I was like, okay. Then I enrolled into a junior college and they had a football team. I met the coach, he was cool. He was like, Come play hoops with us on Saturday. We do conditioning. I went and did that. I got in a fight with this guy named Bo, who's a Hawaiian dude, and I was like, These are my people. I was like, Why did I ever play baseball? I can hang out with these guys and run rough shot all the day, every day. I did. I played football there. I was a backup D-line man my first year at Saddleback, and my mom came to a game and was like, I'm so excited to see you play. I didn't play. I remember crying coming off the field. Oh, man. My mom came from Virginia to California to watch me play, and I'm out on the field. And then the second year I moved to offensive tackle, and that's when it was like, okay, this is just football. Here we go. Here we go. And Chip Kelly saw me and Chip Kelly came to our practice. I knew that Oregon was coming to watch me practice, and I was hoping to get my first scholarship offer out of junior college.

And Chip was there during the warmups. You're out there stretching, you're running around, you're dicking around, and he left. I saw him leave and I was messing around too much. I got cocky. Chip left. You know what I mean? And after practice, Coach Mcelroy, Greg Mcelroy, or Mark Mcelroy, I apologize, said, Chip Kelly saw what he wanted to see in the first two minutes. If you just walking onto... You walked onto the field, you had an offer. And the rest was history. I went to Oregon. I ended up being a starter in the 11th week of the season. Somebody went down and I went in a guard and got an invite to the Senior Bull. Luckily enough, I played well at the Senior Bull, and I got picked by the bears by the grace of God with the 20th pick in the 2013 draft. And the rest of my life has been a whirlwind, but it's been a dream. I met my wife in Chicago, who's now the mother of my year and a half year old daughter, Frankie, which is a crazy blessing. But it's been so much fun, man. Yes, so from baseball to football, it was a wild trip.

Oh, my God. First off, what an incredible summary. Thanks. Literally, dude, that was pretty much your entire life right there in the last 10, 15 years. Just beautifully summarized ups, downs, highs, lows. Wow, man.

Incredible. How long did you play for the Bans? But through it all as family. I want to be very clear about that.

I've learned that.

Right now. They'll be hard on you, they'll be easy on you, but when you need it, they'll tell you what you need it here. You know what I'm saying?

No.

Absolutely, man. You can't replace your family. Can't replicate that.

I totally agree, man. I'm 32 now. I've been gaming my entire life. I've been streaming for 12 years, 11 years, and I've been competing in video games for 11, 12 years as well. I retired for the last year, so I started when I was 17. Dude, I lost a lot of time, bro. I mean, a lot. My high school, I was playing video games. Even though I wasn't competing, I just loved video games. I just had this feeling. I was like, I'd rather be doing this. Xbox Live had me by the balls, dude, and then some. I was not going to parties. I was invited to parties. I was invited to the football games. Like to hang out with these girls. Because I came in from this middle school called Woodland Middle School, and it was Gray's like a middle school, right? I went to Gray's like high school, but I graduated in eighth grade with a class of 1,000 people. That's how big this middle school was, right? From Grays Lake? Yes. No, Woodland. Woodland Middle School was a class of a thousand, but I ended up going to Grays Lake High School. I was out of a thousand people that graduated from eighth grade going into freshman year.

There were only 63 of those people that were going to go to Grays Lake. The Grays Lake Middle School was a super small school, so I was this cute, freaking kid that none of the girls knew. When I was a freshman, I had... All the girls were interested 100 %. They're like, Who's this fresh little young dude that we've never seen before? Dude, I just never went out. I always.

Just played video games, dude. And that was sports for me. And I mean, there's so much that... When you were just saying, I missed out on so much. I'm just sitting here staring into eternity, thinking about all of the potentially friendships, relationships I could have been a part of, the parties I missed. And then I'm like, You know what? I don't even bat an eye. And I'm sure you're the.

Same way. I don't regret it at all. It's a.

Trial of passion. I apologize. I missed your wedding and borra, borra. Sorry, I was playing the Packers.

Yeah, first, incredibly. I got to beat it. I got to beat the Packers as they asked me. That's number one. That's got to be a priority.

I didn't say I beat them. I said I played them.

But you tried, though, man. That was the objective. That was the goal. But no, I missed my wife's graduation from college. I watched it. It was streamed. I was in the hotel room the morning of when she was walking. I saw her get it on my phone watching her, but I should have been there. Yeah, that's just one example. I missed dinner parties with my family. I don't want to say dinner parties. We lived in a beautiful neighborhood, the classic, just middle class. Everyone had kids at the exact same time. We had 10 families with kids my age. It was one of those things. And they were just culling all the time.

The real wholesome stuff is.

Like-truly, dude. Truly. I was just in the basement, bro. I was in the basement gaming, playing game battles, dude, just all day, every day. I'd have to beI'd miss dinners. I would miss fucking events.

You've got to keep your sword sharp. We didn't get to talk about this the other day, but I have to ask you this. I know I'm on your pod, but I have to ask you. Give me your argument for why gamers are athletes.

I would just say that anyone who competes at something at a high level is athletic in some form of way. Like physically athletic, mentally athletic. There's different categories. But at the end of the day, you're competing to be one of the greatest. Dude, I think that's athletic, man.

For sure. There's things that I can.

Do- The hands-eye coordination, man.

-i can hit a 98-mile-an-hour fastball, I can turn it around and hit it right back at you. But I play Counterstrike and I picque with an op.

And I.

Can't get a kill.

It's like.

There's something there. There's something there that we haven't been able to quantify yet that I feel like is very much an athletic skill. They don't look like everybody looks like Steph Curry, but they're athletes. I think about Aden or I think about any of these guys that I've gone and watched majors for CS:GO, the guys who come over from Denmark, and I'm like, This guy has the quickest reaction time in the world. Yes, he does.

Yeah, man. I think you don't have to simplify it as much as, Oh, these guys are game... You know what I mean? People try to put people in boxes. At the end of the day, everyone just needs to respect the fact that somebody is this talented at something. That's what it is, right? Because people always talk to you about the meaning. Like, Oh, man, I wish I could sit in front of a monitor and play video games all day. Number one, dude, do it yourself. It's the number one classic go-to thing. It's like do it yourself. You think it's so easy, man? Build up a community, get thousands of followers, thousands of viewers, and make a living offwith it. Do it. It's so easy to sit there and be like, Oh, anyone can do it, or whatnot. But it took Jess, my.

Wife- Go draw 30Ks and talk the entire time.

100 %. It took me a couple of years before Jess tried to... I think I texted her back. I texted her back once. Jess streamed one time, and then was just like, texted me that night after and went, I get it. Because I wouldn't text her back sometimes like three, four hours. We're honeymoon phase, by the way. She would just be like, What the fuck are you doing? He's got to be doing something. I'm just like, Nah, I just got lost. I got lost in the game, in my stream. It's a production.

It's like we watch Red Zone with Hanson. People say he's got the hardest job in the world. Right? Like on Sundays because he's live with you for seven hours, and he's going to.

Tell you- He's a stud.

By the way. But he's the best. He's the best. And there's a reason why there's only one Red Zone. There's a reason why it's been him since its inception. But what I'm saying is there are dozens of people that are doing not in the same genre as Hanson, they're not doing football, but they do the same type of thing every week, sometimes multiple times. To your point, the streaming thing is like intenseintensive, intensive, intensive. Ask. Ask.

Ask with Ninja. You left us off here, man. You were talking about families, everything. You're a new dad. You said a one and a half-year-old or- One and a half-year-old daughter. -named Frankie. What's it like, man? How has your life changed besides not being able to golf whenever you want?

My life has changed for the better when I realized... Because I struggled with being a father, like a lot of people do early. You look at your kid and you're like, Oh, my God, that's my kid. But a lot of people struggle, mothers and fathers and siblings. You see a sibling with a new baby and it's tough. It's an adjustment period. But when I realized that the things that I'm doing in my life that I consider to be work or tasks are often for the betterment of my daughter and my kids and my wife, and I want to make life as easy as I can for them. It's not always going to be easy, but if they can have a rock to lean on like me, then it gives me tremendous purpose. It's almost like I retired from the NFL and protecting the quarterback, and now I'm all hands on deck for being able to play offensive line for my family.

I love it. What an analogy, man. This is one of the first times I think I've even made this connection. What does it like to be a father? What does it mean to be a father, right? Especially to a daughter or just in general. It is that like, Dude, I want to provide for this family. It is my job to protect this family, right? That might not be the first thing that crosses your mind when you're sitting in the hospital room. But I'm happy that you found it and you're-.

Well, because you feel like you lose your sense of identity, right? Oh, my gosh. Now I'm not going to have time to go golf three times a week. I'm not going to have time to do any of these things that are consequential that you can still do. But, I mean, yeah, there's a balance, right? I mean, life is a balance.

I love that, man. Congratulations, dude, honestly. Thanks, bro. All right, one of my favorite segments. All right, this or that, dude. The Bears or the Lions?

Oh, the Bears.

Of course, dude. Starting you off easy, dude. Baseball or football?

Baseball. There's more games. If you mess up, you have more opportunities to do well next week.

I like that. I like that answer, man. Football or golf?

Oh, golf.

I played soccer for 18 years. I wish my parents got me into golf, dude. Travis, Kelsey, or Taylor Swift?

You know, it's funny. I grew up on Taylor Swift, but I did play for the Chiefs. Travis, Kelsey. Great teammate, and we came in on the same draft class.

Do NASCAR or F1? I got.

To go NASCAR and I got to give you my reasoning.

I love F1.

Don't get me wrong, it's sexy. It's a buddy. It's sexy, okay? But this NASCAR thing, it's about us. You know what I mean? It's about us. And they don't just turn left anymore. They also go right. There's road courses. There's plenty of young, hot drivers that can wheel the hell out of that cup car. And it's a lot of fun to watch. If you haven't watched NASCAR, give me a chance.

Fortnite or Overwatch?

Fortnite. Hard Fortnite.

Final answer. Yeah, good answer, dude. There are some right answers to these, by the way. Fps or eye-racing?

I would say, Oh, man, this is tough. I have so many hours in eye-racing. I'm going to go FPS just because it gives me access to more of my buddies that are playing as well. It's tough. It's a niche community in that eye-racing.

Yeah, man, 100%. My gaming brings people together. That's why Forenight was honestly so popular, man. Naptime or play time? Naptime. Yes, dude. Good answer. Another correct answer. Date night out or date night in?

My wife and I are reclusive. We do enjoy going out, but when we're out, we bitch about not being in. I'm going to say date night in.

All right, dude. I've asked that question to several million-I know, I know that I'm wrong with that. -so far. It's the same, dude. It's the same answer. Everyone's like, man, my wife, dude. We just.

Love staying in.

We hate everybody. We're homebodies. Fuck everyone else. Yeah. All right. Other questions, man. Favorite video game of 2023.

Favorite video game of 2023? Man, this is a tough one because there's so much... Well, you know what? I'll go with the classic because I'm going to consider this a new game, Counterstrike 2. I've been watching a lot of it. It looks great. I like some of the defense exchanges they made to the smoke system and stuff, the reskins of these maps. They look great and they didn't touch Dust 2, so that's good.

Best gaming memory with your wife.

Best gaming memory with my wife. I'll go with... Last night we were playing, we were in a tough spot. I was down hiding in a bush because I was crawling and she was able to get me after I bled out. And once she figured out that she doesn't have to fight every fight, she can just hang out, watch, and then scurry in, get the token and revive. Revive is the final goal. Last night she revived. We came down, we just closed in on somebody and got the dove. It's a good gaming. She's getting better, man. She's making progression.

I love that. You know, it's funny. You said that that's how your wife plays. That's how my brother plays and we play duos. That's how Jon plays, man. I'm like, Jon... I'm like, Jon... I did. I said, Jon, just taking me, dude, just getting the bush. Please, these guys are good. I messed up. Just wait for them to go.

They're sweats. They didn't miss any other shots.

100 %. I know it immediately. Then he'll get me up and we won the game, dude. All right, favorite underrated vacation spot.

Favorite underrated vacation spot. Well, if I tell you this, I'm going to have to kill you. Well, the answer is Montana. My family has been going up there since the mid-ninet, and Yellowstone turned people on to Montana, but there's been plenty of those movies. A river runs through it with Brad Pitt. If you haven't seen that, go check it out. It's a fishing movie. And Young, Heartthrob, Swoon, Brad Pitt. And yeah, Montana, Northwest Montana, it's a fabulous part of the country and they've dealt with wildfires the last couple of summers. So I hope it continues to be green up there.

Yeah. All right, man. I promise I won't tell anyone about it. We'll cut that clip out, guys. Cut that question out. Best takeout meal, in your opinion.

Best takeout meal, man, there's a place in Charlottesville that makes their own pasta. They make pasta from scratch and they sell it out of like... You know those doors where the top part of the door opens and it's like a lady leans out like an Italian lady leans out and she's like, One order for Kate. They sell you, like in Chinese to-go boxes, essentially pasta to-go. And it's fabulous. We eat it in the car often. It might be sacrilegious, but it's delicious. I've never thought that to-go pasta would be the move.

Okay. I can honestly agree with you there. I'll have to try it out, man. If you had to delete all but three apps from your phone, which ones would you keep? And they have to be App Store, so you have to download them.

I would keep the X app. I would keep Wodoku, which is a game that I play, and I would keep the messaging app because I need to text my wife.

The messaging app, it comes with the phone.

In that case, I'm going to get Instagram.

Okay, there you go. So no DoorDash then? No. No food?

Okay. The dang Grubhub would have been the one, but it didn't make it. It didn't make it tonight.

All right. Last but not least, dude, we all know AFK stands for on this show. The podcast is called AFK with Ninja. In your own words, define AFK, man. What do you do when you are away from keyboard?

Afk is doing exactly what I want to do. When I see the guy that I want to get, if I get on at 8:00 PM and I want to plan a tournament on Rocket League, I look in Discord and I see that neckbeard gamer 420 is AFK. I'm going to say, Man, he's probably having a lot more fun than I have.

Right.

Now.

All right, man. Dude, great answer, dude. That's a great... One of the best answers we've got, man.

Thanks, bro.

I love it. Dude, Kyle, thank you so much for your time, man. I really appreciate you coming on. Seriously a pleasure. Dude, we got to do this once a year. Every football season, man. I'll come on Green Light. We can swap.

I fucking love to hear that. Let's maybe get out and golf sometime. Have a great round this afternoon, bro.

There you have it, folks. We've reached the end of another epic AFK with Ninja episode. If you've enjoyed the journey thus far, please consider leaving a rating, review, and hitting that Follow button. We have a ton of incredible guests coming your way, and I want you to be the first to know when a new episode drops. Until next time, catch you soon. It's AFK with Ninja. Ninja's got a show. It's AFK with Ninja, the best podcast in the world.