 How excited are you to be back? Very excited. I want to finish my career here, and just the things we had going, and we have some stuff we need to take care of and finish here, trying to win a championship. Here that makes you want to finish your career? The guys, the coaches, the people in this building, from equipment to trainers to coaches and staff, everybody treats you a certain way. They're amazing. And you don't know what you get until you get outside of this building, and grass ain't always greener. So I've been here, I loved it. I'm ready to finish it here and go win a championship. Looking around it all, Ben, I know for that little window you were hoping that you'd get any offers, talk to anybody at all? Yeah, we had some interest. But the whole thing, I wanted to be here, I wanted to finish it here, and I'm happy we got it done. How much, I guess, been, I guess, your life changed a lot since you first got here. I think I remember when we first got here, asking about eating bugs and money and doing all kinds of crazy stuff. And now you got a family. How much in your mind do you think about that and just how much things have changed over the years? Yeah, you came here, it was just me and my wife, and now we got two kids here, and you're raising a family, looking at schools and everything like that. So it definitely plays in the part. We love Nashville, we love the city. We can get to both our families in a hop and a skip. So that definitely plays a part into it, and we're happy to be here. A lot of your teammates obviously excited to see this extension and calling you the heart and soul of this team. When you hear things like that, how valuable do you feel to the other teammates around you? Yeah, when you're going through this process and you're getting phone calls and text messages every day like, hey, how's it going? What's going on? You feel appreciated and they want to win, and my part in this is my job is to come out there and be the best player today and get guys lined up and execute, but there's more to that. It's being in the locker room, it's mentoring young kids, it's going extra, hey, helping guys find a place to live. My role is bigger than just helping on Sundays. It's how to be a man of God, how to raise a family. So it's more than just sitting in the locker room and practicing. There's obviously going to be some change for you guys up front on the offensive line. I guess how much are you embracing? I mean, I know you're already a kind of a leader on this team, but how much even more so knowing that you guys are going to have some new faces like Rodgers and going to be right next to you? Yeah, and that's what OTAs and camps all about is playing beside somebody, getting comfortable with the next guy and they do a great job of rotating guys in because the NFL is 100% injury ratio. So you're going to play by different guys during the season and you got to be comfortable whoever they put beside you. I've been blessed in this league to be out there almost every Sunday and go out there with my teammates because I love ball and I want to be out there. And we have a mindset here that we're going to be physical, we're going to be tough and we just got to build that. That's what OTAs camp is all about is building the offensive line. That track record, like you say, Ben, and almost no games missed year after year to get right. What do you credit that to and the fact that the performance is still at a high level as well despite the number of years? Yeah, I love playing the game. It's not just about the money or anything like that. I love winning. I want to be out there with my teammates. If I'm not out there, I feel like I'm letting them down. So if I can play, if I can go out there and get up, I'm going to play. And it's been like that for my mom and still that man at a young age growing up on the farm with her and she was coaching our Little League Baseball Football all their sports. So she raised us the right way and it's the way I want to raise my kids. Coach, I'm sorry. She coached all our sports. She is. I mean, I know you still got several months left before camp, but I mean guys, you get to sense guys kind of chomping at the bed ready to start a new season with kind of the lingering thoughts of maybe last year. Yeah. You have that one mind set of winning it all and you never prepare for that a loss at the end of the season. So that wife and kids know that that first couple of weeks till that Super Bowl is over, my mind's not right. I'm preparing to win. I'm preparing to win championships and it hurts. Losing that game at our home field where our fans showed out. It hurt us and it stuck with me for a while. So definitely I'm ready to work. I'm here every day working out. And I'm just ready to get back to it because that's a bad taste and it takes a long time until you get it out until you get a win. You weren't doing that for a long but was there ever a point that you felt like you may not come back? Yeah. It was a point that we were looking to move on but they got it done and I'm happy we got it done but it was a point where I had to have that talk with my wife and it's like hey, we might have to leave. And those are not easy talks and anything like that but you have to have those talks. At the stage of your career to kind of get ready for a new season before the off season program starts to count. What do you do physically to stay in shape and be primed? Yeah. I'm here five days a week. We got amazing facilities. We have amazing trainers and equipment staff. Everybody's in here trying to do everything they possibly can to make you better. And we've been blessed Miss Amy has made this amazing place to come to work to every day and I enjoy coming here to work. Guys have family in different places but this is home for me and I'm here and anybody else wants to come up here I'm always here and happy to help. What do you think of Dylan this year? I know that's one of the big questions going forward is where he might go and if he's ready I wonder in terms of his development this year what did you see? Yeah. He's a young guy you know he was coming out of North Dakota and they didn't have a season of football before that but with Dylan he comes into work every day and you got to have that mindset to be good in this league and it's a process and if you're willing to work and put in the work you'll get better each year in this league and that comes down to it you got to be willing to work. How do you have the chance to talk to Jamarco Jones at all and if so what are kind of your first impressions of him? Yeah. After we signed him I had his number texting let him know like hey I'm here for you so we'll be in touch and make sure I get him all settled in and happy to have him. Dr. Derrick at all this off season what was his reaction when he thought you were coming back? Yeah I got some FaceTime calls and he was definitely one of them he's a guy that I talked to every day we have a great relationship and he's definitely happy and I'm happy to be here when you got a guy that in the back field who's so special and I want to be a part of it I want to see do everything possible because I see how hard he works and we want him to see we want him to bounce back and have a great year I'm with him after the national title game it was pretty quiet after that I definitely gave him a call but yeah he's one of my best friends and he comes in and says roll tide go dogs every morning to me so we have that relationship and outside of football he's a guy I can count on and tall at any point in the game I see the line improve on in general going forward you think yeah we just got to be more consistent we can't have ups and downs and one half to the next half we got to play four quarters of ball every week some quarters we weren't our best early or some games we come out we were hot early and kind of window down and we got to come out and sustain those drives and put teams away and play four quarters of ball every week do you feel with Burke's mechanical and electrical this off season or it's actually one of my brother works Christmas gift my uncle owns a company so I don't like spending money free free free even now absolutely I don't I let so I don't spend money I'm close you're such a family man and what did your family have to say about them the news that you were going to be able to stay here in Tennessee just because you've built such a home here yeah talking to my wife she always wants the best for me she's like what's best for your career I'll support you no matter what and having her back no matter having my back no matter what I was doing it cleared my mind and I knew had just we're we're going to put it through God and let him work his ways so we're so blessed to get this contract so this contract is for us to help us and our family it's how many lives that we can help here in Nash full back in my hometown so we're going to try to do as much as possible for other people with this one you've paid much attention been to the whole free agency thing in general and the AFC just seems to be going crazy with all these signings and so forth what you I've been at the beach with my wife and kids and trying to not let my son drown who's two so I would catch some little news at night when they went to sleep but yeah it was a lot of that's what you want you want competitive ball and exciting football that's good for the for the league and we're excited to get a part of it and I'm glad I'm here and it's going to be fun