When Brian Dawkins Unleashed 'Weapon X'.. WATCH OUT

0:02 The time has come.

0:03 The time has come.

0:04 The time has come.

0:06 The time has come.

0:07 You never change inside the meeting rooms.

0:10 Very quiet.

0:11 Didn't say much.

0:13 And then the transformation occurs.

0:15 Come on.

0:16 Two totally different personalities.

0:18 When it was game time,

0:19 it like a light switch turned on and he became something else.

0:25 Coming out of that tunnel, he transformed.

0:27 He goes from Brian Dawkins during the course

0:30 of the week game day he's Wolverine.

0:42 God, don't you know where do you know

0:46 where do the tunnel experience for me is simple.

1:02 The energy is going so strong right now.

1:05 It's like a crescendo.

1:10 Everything that I needed to do to get myself ready to go is set.

1:16 I prepared all week.

1:18 I'm prayed up.

1:23 The other team didn't know what was about to happen.

1:26 I did.

1:34 To me, it's all about experiencing the moment.

1:38 just fully being engulfed in the moment.

1:43 Hallelujah.

1:47 So now the time has come.

1:50 The time has come to unleash all of that on this field,

1:56 to active fool on this field, to cause havoc on this field.

2:11 Everything is ready to go.

2:12 I would almost feel invincible, like a superhero.

2:35 I'm just as amazed when I see him on the field

2:37 as you guys are because I'll try to hurry up and get to the game so I can see

2:41 what he's going to do getting out of the tunnel.

2:45 I went on the field and I'm standing like adjacent to the tunnel.

2:48 So here he comes in his little weapon X

2:51 look and he ran right through me and he said, "I didn't see you." He was gone.

2:58 He has just lost it.

3:00 I think the very first time I did my bear crawl was in the vet.

3:03 I was just so hyping.

3:04 I just thought of just crawling out like a, you know,

3:06 I'm an animal like I'm going to eat.

3:08 So I went out and did that and crowd went crazy with it

3:11 and my teammates like what's wrong with him that, you know, he crazy.

3:15 I was able to unleash that part of my personality.

3:19 For 16 seasons, Brian Dawkins shed his everyday

3:22 persona and became his alter ego, weapon X.

3:27 A lot of people always talk about Doc.

3:29 I love the way you come out the tunnel.

3:30 Now, I love the fact that you love the way that I came out of the tunnel,

3:34 but I hope you love what I did on this field more.

3:37 You dig it?

3:40 He was a man of faith who terrorized opponents.

3:48 The ninetime pro bowler was a ferocious hitter

3:51 and a family man with a gentle soul.

3:54 Presenting Brian Dawkins for enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

4:03 Hallelujah.

4:05 Hallelujah.

4:06 Hallelujah.

4:08 Oh, you know about Hallelujah.

4:12 Hallelujah.

4:13 He battled a disorder that affects millions and almost didn't make it to Canton.

4:32 First of all, HALLELUJAH.

4:39 The majority of success that I have had have come on the back end of pain.

4:45 Pain helps you develop those things that is going to take you

4:49 to the next level of whatever it is the Lord has for you.

4:53 Believe that.

4:54 I'm a living testimony of that.

4:57 We all go through dark moments and struggles.

5:02 You may act like a crazy person on the field larger than life,

5:12 but Brian's human.

5:14 Uh-huh.

5:15 Let's go, BABY.

5:16 LET'S GO, BABY.

5:17 LET'S BREAK THIS DOWN.

5:18 Let's go, baby.

5:19 Let's go, baby.

5:23 I'm relentless at what I do.

5:29 I'd do anything that needed to be done.

5:36 No.

5:35 To help the team win.

5:39 He fumbles the football and is scooped UP BY DAWKINS.

5:42 35 PHILLY.

5:43 2520.

5:44 HE'S AT THE 15, THE 10, FIVE.

5:47 TOUCHDOWN, BRIAN DAWKINS.

5:50 I wasn't a huge trash talker.

5:52 I just want to remind you what was going to happen.

5:55 Like if the quarterback threw the ball high, you better tell him to get it down.

5:59 I'm coming.

6:01 You better tell him to get it down.

6:02 Cool.

6:02 You can get me all you want.

6:03 Yeah, but you going to feel it, I'm telling you, you going to feel it.

6:07 I say this to anybody that says you couldn't play in this game.

6:10 Yes, I could.

6:11 I could still play today.

6:13 you still can deliver big hits.

6:16 You just have to be more technical in your tackling.

6:21 I considered myself to be a contact safety.

6:23 And when I say contact safety, that means that a lot of times I'm I'm I'm

6:28 going to be contacting somebody about coming where I am.

6:31 You're not supposed to be here.

6:33 If you come down here, you going to get something to take back with you.

6:36 You dig it?

6:41 The weapon X himself can be a dimmined dude in his mind.

6:47 And I've always said, you have to have a screw loose to play defense.

6:51 I just so happen to have about three or four of them loose.

6:58 You see a play setting up and he is in weapon

7:01 X mode like he's transforming into this monster of a football player.

7:10 reading comic books.

7:11 That's what I like to do in my downtime.

7:13 I'm a like a sci-fi dude at heart.

7:17 You dig it?

7:17 Weapon X is Wolverine before he became Wolverine.

7:21 And he was basically a weapon.

7:22 He could do everything you needed him to do.

7:24 That fit.

7:26 It really did.

7:27 I honestly think to this day that Brian believes

7:29 that that's who he became when he went on the field.

7:32 We had a locker set up next to his locker

7:34 for Weapon X and it had a name plate on it.

7:38 It used to be powder there.

7:40 Used to be some hair gel and some and some lotion.

7:43 I'm just saying, "Hey man,

7:44 what's up with these little figurines you have up

7:46 in your locker?" He said, "Well, I'm X now."

7:49 When he first showed up in the locker room, there's three lockers.

7:53 One locker's for him, one locker's for the Wolverine, and one locker's for me.

7:58 All on the same row.

7:59 And I'm like, "Wow." You know, I've been here all this time.

8:01 I can't get my own locker.

8:03 But I realized it wasn't his locker.

8:05 It was the Wolverines locker.

8:10 Football looked very different during Dawkins.

8:16 And as his alternate identity, Wolverine, said,

8:20 "I'm the best there is at what I do,

8:23 but what I do isn't very nice." on the field.

8:30 He walked the line of legality and sometimes crossed it.

8:39 Everybody has a mental note of hard hitters on the defensive side of the ball.

8:43 I wasn't foolish enough to run across that middle without my head

8:47 on the swivel knowing that this guy's roaming around back there.

8:51 Unlike Michael Jackson before, he went crazy.

8:53 YES, SIR.

8:54 I'LL be there.

8:55 Brian Dawkins, uh, you know, is one of the guys you you you feared.

8:59 He was one of the best blitzing safeties that we ever faced.

9:03 He liked to be around the line of scrimmage, which is dangerous.

9:09 For a young quarterback,

9:10 he was tough to go against cuz he could hide it really well.

9:12 Pretty sure he got the best of me when I was young.

9:15 Who else?

9:16 Brian Dawkins forcing this fumble.

9:20 Darren McFett.

9:21 He came through the hole.

9:23 Here comes Dawkins.

9:24 And the sound of the lick, it was one of the hardest licks I ever heard.

9:29 He's the best open field tackler I've ever seen.

9:32 Brian Jacobs about 640 followed by 265.

9:35 Boom.

9:36 Dog scooped him.

9:40 In the 2002 playoffs, I'm running to the corner of the end zone.

9:43 I didn't see Brian Dawkins coming from the right side.

9:46 Brian Dawkins coming out of nowhere with the hit.

9:50 That was some hit by Brian Dawkins.

9:52 He hit me harder than I ever been hit in my life.

9:59 Tim Carter was running with the ball.

10:01 You just see Dawkins just kind of like flying in the background

10:05 like the Wolverines going to jump on that man back.

10:15 Like Brian Dawkins, Philadelphia has two natures.

10:19 It can be cold to anyone it deems unworthy,

10:23 but those who give their all are embraced forever.

10:28 He ain't your typical rookie.

10:30 The scoreboard never mattered whether they're down 20 or up 20.

10:34 He's playing his butt off.

10:35 And I think Philly always is going to, you know, respect that about him.

10:38 Tell me, somebody go the other tiger there.

10:42 20.

10:44 Who?

10:43 Brian Dawkins.

10:44 He played with me last year.

10:45 YEAH, THAT'S DOG.

10:46 YEAH.

10:47 20 in this game.

10:48 He both be bad boy now.

10:52 Dawkins made a favorable first impression.

10:56 Hit in the air.

10:57 Brian Dawkins coming on the safety blitz.

11:00 Aman never saw.

11:02 By week two of his rookie season, he was starting at free safety for the Eagles.

11:13 On the field, weapon X was thriving.

11:17 But at home, Brian Dawkins was struggling.

11:21 I was putting on a mask every day.

11:23 I know what that dark place feels like.

11:25 If you've never gone through depression

11:27 and if you've never truly had those thoughts, it sounds like a fairy tale.

11:32 It sounds like hab.

11:33 But it's not.

11:34 It's real.

11:35 And it was real in my life.

11:37 It's a ongoing another voice in my head.

11:40 It's just waiting for you to come back to that dark

11:42 place so it can remind you that you're no good.

11:48 What drove me to having that dark place was the pressures

11:52 of life on the football field and I'm a rookie, right?

11:57 Trying to learn.

12:00 We just have our first child, Brian.

12:02 He's crying all the time.

12:04 So, we're not really sleeping.

12:05 We're coming up from Florida up here.

12:07 We don't have the clothes.

12:08 We don't have any of the things that we need.

12:11 On top of that, now my family members, they're wanting money and needing money.

12:14 and I didn't know how to say no in the in the beginning.

12:17 So, I was giving too much to them and was

12:20 not putting things away for myself and my family.

12:22 That was putting strain on me and my wife

12:24 in our relationship because she saw that I did not recognize it.

12:28 So, all that pressure on this young man,

12:30 this young green cat out of Jacksonville, Florida was too much for me.

12:34 Going through all of that caused me

12:35 to contemplate suicide to think about ways because

12:39 I had a I think made maybe a three a $5 million insurance policy on myself.

12:45 So I was just trying to find out ways to kill

12:48 myself to make it not look like an accident so she kind

12:50 of can get the my wife can get the money so

12:53 that I could I didn't have to deal with this pain anymore.

12:57 He would wait till things build up and then he would just explode.

13:00 And then um it was a time when um

13:04 he got really upset that we were in an argument

13:07 and stuff and he just had enough and he ran full speed and hit his head up

13:12 against the door and I thought he was gone

13:16 at that point and I just saw him sitting

13:18 there and was just sitting in the corner um

13:22 you know squatted down just like uh just done.

13:28 I was miserable inside and then I was dealing with some anger issues as well.

13:33 So depression, anger issues, all this stuff bottled up,

13:36 not releasing stuff and that was that was not a good recipe.

13:40 I didn't want to go out go outside.

13:42 I didn't want to go in the crowds.

13:43 I didn't want to go I just wanted to sit

13:45 in the in in the house and just do nothing.

13:48 And um that's when I got prescribed some medicine.

13:51 I can't remember what it was.

13:53 Um to uh to help me through that time

13:57 because you know during that time even when

13:58 I was taking that medicine there were still

14:00 thoughts and there was still still an easier way.

14:02 This medicine is making you feel numb.

14:04 Why don't you just go the other way and just go

14:05 ahead and end it all so you'll be done with it all.

14:08 So I still had a choice to make.

14:09 And so when I made the choice I said you know what I'm

14:11 going to my faith is going to increase or I won't be here anymore.

14:16 Lord I'm trusting you to show me the direction you want me to go with my life.

14:21 even know he's second year man, man.

14:23 I He's He's the guy this thing going to work.

14:26 He's got a 20 leadership.

14:28 Oh, he's he's got to be the guy.

14:29 He got

14:30 this morning, man.

14:31 I said, I know you second year, but I got to call on you, man.

14:34 I said, you all I got, you know.

14:36 Well, he he he he picked it up.

14:37 You know, he he going to be fine, man.

14:39 I like, you know, and he'll take it over

14:40 cuz he gets pissed off when things go wrong.

14:42 And I like that.

14:43 He get pissed off.

14:43 He jump people's ass.

14:44 I like that.

14:53 He was one of the few bright spots

14:55 for an Eagles team that won just three games in 1998.

15:01 Play action.

15:01 This batch is rolling.

15:03 Eagles have an Eagles second.

15:04 It is Brian Dawkins on a safety blitz.

15:12 The following year, Dawkins football life changed forever when

15:17 new head coach Andy Reid hired defensive coordinator Jim Johnson.

15:22 I don't think ever before he had had a Dawkins type player,

15:26 somebody that could blitz as well as he did,

15:31 hit people coming across the middle as hard as he did,

15:34 and then cover like he did.

15:36 Ryan really changed the way the game is

15:39 played in the secondary from the safety position.

15:42 What Jim did was built the defense around Brian.

15:45 It was get Brian what he needs and let him go ball.

15:51 Jim loved Brian and Brian loved Jim.

15:54 The running backs Tiki Barber Jim meetings sometimes ran long.

15:59 There was only one guy that could get us out of meetings.

16:03 Guys would be talk.

16:04 Hey And so I say, "Hey, hey Jim, can we get about five minutes?" "Oh, yeah.

16:10 Yeah, go ahead.

16:10 Go take your five." But nobody else wouldn't do it.

16:12 They were scared to do it because they would

16:14 always push me to the front to do it.

16:15 Yeah.

16:17 There was a mutual respect.

16:21 Jim just opened up Weapon X.

16:22 He just let him go crazy.

16:24 WHATEVER YOU GOT, I EXPECT THAT ON EVERY PHASE,

16:27 GOD, WE GOING TO DOMINATE THIS THING.

16:29 RESPECT IS NOT GIVEN.

16:30 IT IS EARNED, GOD.

16:32 I got to have everything that you have.

16:34 You know, I got to have it.

16:35 I got to have it.

16:36 And the reason why I can demand that from them

16:39 is because I was giving them everything that I could.

16:44 Dawkins gave everything in a game that became known as the quadrifecta.

16:48 He became the first player ever with an interception, a sack,

16:56 a fumble recovery, and a touchdown reception in a single game.

17:03 Running with the football wide open getting the block is Brian Dawkins.

17:11 Dawkins across the 15, the 10, the five touch points down.

17:17 During Dawkins prime, playing in the postseason became routine,

17:22 but earning a trip to the Super Bowl was another matter.

17:28 I was always kind of looking ahead a little bit to the NFC

17:31 Championship game and we got back year after year after year.

17:42 To lose period is brutal when you're a competitor.

17:46 That's intercepted.

17:47 Coast to coast Randy Barber.

17:50 This team's losses were more than they could bear.

17:53 to lose three NFC Championship games, two of them being at home.

18:00 Man, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory.

18:06 In 2004, the Eagles played in their fourth straight NFC Championship game.

18:14 All week long, I was being told that the other team has a good defense,

18:18 a good running attack, Michael Vic.

18:21 In my twisted mind, all I heard was Eagles defense is sucks.

18:28 So, somebody had to pay.

18:30 Somebody had to pay.

18:32 Look at the clean hit by Brian Dawkins.

18:35 Just a great shot.

18:36 One of those you'll think about that one later.

18:38 You could hear the air come out of Crumbly.

18:41 You can hear the air come out just poof.

18:53 I wanted to send a message.

18:55 We got the better defense.

18:56 Period.

18:57 Vic wants to throw.

19:00 He fires.

19:01 Intercepted.

19:03 Ryan Dawkins has himself a pick.

19:10 The Eagles for the first time in 24 years are headed to the Super Bowl.

19:18 The thing that I remember about that victory

19:20 is just the emotion that was poured out.

19:37 We finally got over that hump.

19:39 It took us so long to get over.

19:46 I remember Jim crying, you know,

19:48 tears coming down and hugging me saying, "Doc, we did it.

19:51 We did it." That is the game that I will remember the most.