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The podcast by NFL players for NFL players. Each week, we break down the biggest events in football and how they directly impact a player's career and money.
Join Former NFL Veterans Sam Acho (Bills, Bucs, Bears & Cardinals), Zach Miller (Seahawks & Raiders), Jeff Locke (Vikings, Colts, Lions, 49ers), and college coach, Riccardo Stewart, for a raw and unfiltered conversation about the game, the business, and how players can achieve generational wealth.
Riccardo Stewart: Hey, I wanna
welcome you guys back to another
episode of the A-W-M-N-F-L Podcast.
My name is Ricardo Stewart.
I have the pleasure of being your
host and uh, I'm always joined
with my three closest friends,
coworkers, and, uh, partners in crime.
So we got Jeff Locke, Sam
Acho, and Zach Miller.
If you guys have been tracking these
past few episodes that we've been able
to record, which by far have been my
favorite one, primarily looking at
NFL athletes as as business, um, as
people who are able to create value
to be able to capture that value,
convert it, and then to continue it.
And essentially we looked at Brock
Purdy's, uh, contract and be able
to broke it, break it down, and.
And then in light of all NFL athletes
and today, just kind of an addendum to
that, I wanna talk about something that's
going okay as we're recording this.
It's the first week of
July, uh, almost July 4th.
Everyone's getting ready to,
to go barbecue, go on vacation.
Me and Zach in Arizona, so people in
Arizona are trying to get out of Arizona
to, to cooler climates and, but NFL
athletes are going to report here soon.
Whether you're a receiver, you're a db,
you're a quarterback, you're kind of
getting that last minute training in.
And there's, there's one event that
goes on in Sam's hometown in Dallas
that's hosted, uh, that hosts a
ton of the top O linemen in, in
the NFL, as well as some of the top
NFL prospects of college o linemen.
It's called Oline Masterminds.
And I wanna just take a look and,
and think about from the athlete's
perspective of what does it look
like when I think about capturing.
Meaning or creating value, right?
And then capturing, getting paid
for that value, converting it,
investing and growing it, and then
continue it into life uniquely as
it relates to Old Lion Mastermind.
And so let's start with the mastermind
slash mayor himself, Sam Macho.
In terms of the athletes that are coming
here from a human capital perspective,
um, why would O lineman even go to this?
Sam Acho: Well, the reason O lineman
would go to OL Masterminds is twofold.
Number one, they want to create
value, they wanna make money.
Just put it simple, right?
Lemme lead with the headline.
They wanna make As much money As possible.
And how do you make as much money
as possible by making yourself
more valuable to your team?
And so they're trying to create value.
They're trying to be better pass blockers,
better run blockers better in their craft.
And so they're learning
from the best in class.
They're learning from people who
have gone where they want to go, who
have seen what they couldn't imagine,
and who have done what they wanna do
from Hall of Famers, future Hall of
Famers, guys who have done it all.
And so they're trying to create value.
because they understand that it's a
very short window, that there exists
a very short window for them to
maximize IE to capture that value.
Now, here's the difference.
In the NFL, there is a window
for you to capture value.
You might create it.
You have to be able to capture it,
meaning get paid for that value.
Think about it, the highest
paid guard right now, Trey Smith
makes over 23 million last year.
And all this stuff is widely known.
He was making 2 or 3 million,
and so in the span of one year.
He made about 20 million.
But if he can actually learn how to
capture that value for a long-term
contract, that two, that 20 million
could turn into 200 million.
And so there is an opportunity for
players, offensive linemen specifically
to be able to create and capture value.
And so that's why they're there.
They're there to create the value
to capture it, and ultimately to.
get paid
Riccardo Stewart: My man, Sam
over here dropping that knowledge.
I usually reserve that for the truth.
But hey, continuing on that Zach,
you were an elite college athlete.
You were an elite NFL athlete.
And so with that comes this ideal of
people know you are, and there are
people who want to be around you.
So let's just be honest.
O Linemen aren't the only people that
are gonna show up to OL Masterminds.
And even though you were tied
in, we probably should be talking
about tied in you, but we're
talking about O Line Masterminds.
Who are the people that are around
them that are not o linemen, and
why are they there and what do they
particularly want, um, relationships
with these particular athletes for?
Zach Miller: there's
there's two parts to it.
The more successful you are,
the more people are going
to want to be around you.
If you're a top tier offensive
lineman, you're going to
have people that want to
be a part of your team.
And what I wish I knew earlier was
there's also people that maybe don't
have your best interests at heart.
They want to, and this
is anyone that has money
or is going to get money.
You have to be extremely
skeptical once you have money
to be able to protect it.
Because people will, this is America,
people will see you as a mark.
They will want to try to separate
you from some of that money.
Which is fine.
That is like some of them are
providing a service or their
transactional or all of those things.
So what can you do about it?
Align the interests of the people
that work with you with yourself.
And this, I mean, this is no
different than how agents get paid.
The bigger the contract,
they take a percent of that.
They get paid more.
Same thing with advisors.
You want to align their incentives.
You want as much as you can.
Get them to work towards
the same goal as you.
And so as much as you can
get in front of that, because
you're gonna, you're gonna be
wealthy to keep that wealth.
You have to have that game plan of
making sure that you can sustain it.
And that involves not
doing bad deals, being
wary of people that are.
Either trying to take
advantage of you or benefit
themselves over yourself.
So you got to do your research when
you're working with professionals.
And that includes on your
financial team, that includes
your agent, that includes anyone,
anyone that helps you start a
business attorneys, all the above.
Riccardo Stewart: So we use this
language, Zach, and you've said it.
Sam said it.
We say it a lot.
Team that, that, that word team.
And most of us, we've never chosen a team.
A team has chosen us, right?
We choose to go to a
particular high school.
Maybe we choose to go to college,
but we didn't choose the team.
That team was already there.
We get drafted to a particular
organization, but now that we are there,
and now that you are at O Line Mastermind
and that you're about to make, or you
are already making millions, you now
choose a team that goes back to us
talking about you being the business,
you sitting on the top, the business of
you, and you hiring particular people.
Jeff, the professor, how does one go
about choosing the appropriate team?
Jeff Locke: We've all been through
this, this is extremely difficult.
Like you just said, this
is a brand new world.
Sam, Zach and I, when we got
drafted in the NFL, like, We
didn't know what was up, and
we were like pretty smart dudes
getting drafted in the NFL, right?
Or at least we think we were,
some people say we were, right?
But like, we still had no idea
all the nuances with agents,
and advisors, and trainers, and
all the, like, chefs, personal
trainers, all these different things.
We had no idea of
the nuances, right?
So you gotta find, one, mentors.
That will help you, right, to
kind of know the difference
between all these people.
Like Zach said, you gotta
find people in alignment
with what you want.
If I, the player, win,
they also win, right,
not the other way around.
Not, they win, I lose, right?
And one thing we've all seen,
which we hate, is there's a
lot of people out there that
just want to be your friend.
Or your buddy, right?
And then convert that
into them extracting value
from you at some point.
Just straight up.
We see it all the
time in our industry.
So one, you gotta find the
people that are actually experts.
And those experts actually want
to get paid for what they do.
So a red flag for you is when
someone's like, no, no, no.
I'll just do all this
stuff for free for you.
No, it's cool.
That's cool.
We'll figure it out later.
Right.
That's like a huge red flag.
People like us, right.
We'll be your friends, but
we're your mentors and we're
people that work for you.
Point blank And we
expect to get paid.
Because we're experts in what we do.
So look out for those red flags,
ask the tough questions, right?
And it's gotta be in
alignment that win-win
Riccardo Stewart: I love it.
I love it.
Let me, let me wrap up this one,
this episode and the previous four.
This is recap one, we athletes as NFL
athletes, you are the artist, meaning
you create the value and you do that
through your human capital, your physical,
your social, and your intellectual.
When you create value,
you hire the right person.
Usually an agent.
That begins to find teams,
brands, companies, to
compensate you for that value.
Once you've created
it, now you capture it.
We use Brock Purdy as an example, meaning
he's now got this contract and you can go
back and listen to the episodes as Zach
does a great job at breaking down what's
guaranteed, what is cap and skill and
what does that even mean, but you capture.
Okay.
Now what really matters is not just
the contract, it's after tax dollars.
And then what do you do with that
to create multi generational wealth?
Like how do you convert
that contract into dollars?
We've said it before.
If you make dollars,
you better make sense.
And if you're making sense of your
dollars, the last thing you gotta
do after creating, capture and
converting, you gotta continue it.
There's a wisdom that comes
with that to be able to create
multi generational wealth.
And Jeff, himself, the professor
just wrapped it up together, is you
gotta, you gotta find a team, as Zach
said, uh, that aligns to your values.
And so if you wanna know what does that
mean, um, how do I find that I want
more resources, please reach out to us.
Our number is 6 0 2 9 8 9 5 0 2 2.
Zach Miller: Yeah.