Deebo & Joe - Part 2: David Montgomery on Texans Defense, Time in Chicago, Fatherhood & More!

**James Harrison** (0:00)
As a matter of fact, you know what? Speaking of going on tour, where you had said, being with the Bears, you lost that fun of the game, that love of the game, where you enjoy that. You were able to get that back, I'm assuming, when you got over there to Detroit.
What was the leading factor that had you lose some of that joy?

**David Montgomery** (0:21)
Yeah, honestly, because if I say this wrong, this could be viral, but...

**James Harrison** (0:26)
Be careful, you got it.

**David Montgomery** (0:30)
It was less of me being in Chicago. I think Chicago Bears fans think I unappreciated Chicago. I love Chicago, too. They was the team that drafted me. They traded 11

**James Harrison** (0:43)
Yes, I was going to say that, to get you.

**David Montgomery** (0:46)
I appreciated for them being there, but the time and the point of my life, I was a youngin, I came from nothing. I didn't have anything at all, and you give me the most money I ever had in my life. My job and my occupation that I thought was always to take care of my family, my entire family, and that shit was running. We wasn't winning.
I wasn't doing the things that I knew and I thought that I was capable of doing in the first couple of years. That time of me going through my personal stuff, and trying to be an optimal football player wasn't mentioned. And my time in Chicago, it was tough. It was hard. But it wasn't because the city of Chicago was bad, or they were just terrible. I love Chicago. Or the organization wasn't like, I love the McCaskys.
It's all love. It's just my time of where I was at, in the position of my life.

**James Harrison** (1:38)
In your personal life, where you were at, how you were able to deal with it or not deal with it, it didn't coincide with you being able to do what was necessary in Chicago. But you still have that joy.

**Joe Haden** (1:52)
They don't realize too, bro, you growing up, you know what I'm saying? You becoming the youth.

**James Harrison** (1:57)
It came out of Junior.

**Joe Haden** (1:58)
You know what I'm saying? Like, bro, same thing. I was 21, we got drafted. So those first couple of years when family, you know what I'm saying? Like, man, we made it, you know what I'm saying?
That's time where you're still, football is the main, that's what we got to do. This is what we got here for. But that whole time, I've been living my whole life, planning on trying to work and grind and figure it out. Now I got a family here. So that whole time of like maturing, is nothing to do with the city. Ain't nothing to do with the ballplay. Like I'm trying to get right, but I can see how you saying that thousand percent. Growing up at the same time, you trying to get your league stuff to go on.

**David Montgomery** (2:30)
For sure, because I was trying to do, well the craziest thing for me is, I was trying to like fulfill everybody's, everybody else's expectations by my own.

**Joe Haden** (2:39)
Yeah.

**David Montgomery** (2:40)
I mean it was like everybody's expectations were different. So the expectation that I was meeting on this side, it was clashing with this side. And what was happening was, I was forgetting about myself.
You know, they always say like, I can't be optimal for everybody else if I'm not optimal for myself.
I was tore up. Like my rookie year was the hardest year of like my career. I've been through hard shit in my life. You know, I didn't get people get killed. I lost my brother to the system. I lost one of my other close friends to, you know what I'm saying, getting killed. And then another one, like it just was, I'm used to that. I was poor all that. Nobody, I don't feel sorry for myself. Nobody care about that. But like it's a different battle when you playing ball and like you know you, like that's your escape. That's where you go, get away from all of this shit that's happening outside of them. Yes. Then you get inside the lines and it's like, damn, like I got all this pressure of trying to fulfill the expectations of everybody else. And I wasn't, I'm like, I felt like I was failing.

**James Harrison** (3:44)
Yeah, it's no longer escape.
It's a higher expectation on it that it's not your joy anymore. Like I understand what you're saying, dude. Like it's, especially with you, like you said, you being young, like you don't rent it to all this money. So now you really, you're the breadwinner and you're trying to take care of everything, make sure everybody is taken care of. You got all that on top of you. Now you got the pressures of being like, you know what? I'm the man of the whole house, the whole family, dude. I'm taking care of this. I'm taking care of that. Now, damn, what if I don't play well? Like, now, you know, and you're still not even getting to that point of where you're worried about that because you're worried about trying to keep everybody else happy and not focusing on what you need to do to make sure you're good so that you can keep continuing to play well and earn that money so that you can take care of your family.