Fathead Insider – Darrius Heyward

Hey Fathead Nation!  Where was I on the travel routine?  Oh year – so we go straight to the plane, me as a rookie – all the veterans already have the seats they like  so I go ahead and try and sit down only to have a vet go, “no man – that’s my seat”, so you’ve got to get up.  Picture a bunch of rookies standing around the plane waiting to see where the open seats are.  Now I’m a window guy, but at that moment I’m just trying to find somewhere to sit!  Luckily I did get a window seat to myself which was good because I like to look out and see what’s going on out there. 

The good thing about our flights is they usually throw in a movie and they get the new still-in- theatre movies.  The NFL must have pull because they get these brand new movies.  We watched “The Hangover” which was hilarious.  I’m a big movie guy, so I’ll usually watch whatever’s playing before I do anything else.  I have my iPod with me because depending on how far we’re going the movie won’t last through the flight.  I try and stay awake on the plane as much as I can because when we get to the hotel in that new city, we usually have about 3 hours of nothing to do.  I usually catch my nap once I’m checked into the room.

After the break we have a team dinner and then we have meetings for about an hour or two.  1^st it’s an offensive meeting and then, for me, it’s wide-receiver meetings to go over everything -  making sure we’ve got everything straight and we’re ready to go come game time.  We do that until about 6 – 7pm and then we get a little more free time.  Usually for the guys that are in a new city, we’ll walk around – maybe go to the mall just to get your mind off of football for a minute.  Your mind’s been on football all week and for that couple of hours you can just take your mind off the game.  If you didn’t do the team dinner you can go out to dinner with some teammates.  That’s what I did, me and two of my teammates went out to a nice place and just sat and talked and relaxed.  We got to know each other a little better, because remember, at this point in the season everybody’s still getting to know each other.  You find out who’s got a family, pets, where you’re from, what the hobbies you have.  For me, that probably the best part of having a chance to travel.  Getting to know and spend some time with your teammates.  

Then it’s back to the room and to get some rest for the night.  Curfew is 11pm and you have to be in your room.  Your discipline kicks in and you try and get a good night sleep.  I look through my playbook one more time for about an hour before I go to sleep.

The locker room is very business-like compared to college – you go in and get prepared and do what you have to do.  While I was on my way to the stadium I got a chance to see my Fathead on the website and it’s pretty cool to see it up there.  I’m really a Fathead. 

Fathead wanted to me to blog out about my traveling routine for away games…I’ll give you a little before I have to run; we leave the day before on Saturday for a Sunday game.  We’ll start out at the team facility and have a game walk-thru in the morning about 8:30 then breakfast and from there we’ll leave about 1pm.  You get a chance to change clothes because we have to travel business casual as far as dress goes, that’s a collared shirt, a nice pair of pants, jacket, tie; you have to travel presentable – you can’t just fly in anything – no sweats, you know.  Our guys definitely arrive well dressed.  It’s like a fashion show sometimes.

We get checked and cleared at our facility before we get to the airport – it’s really convenient for the team.  An airport official works with us to get us situated so we don’t have to go through the airport and deal with any crowd situations that would probably happen we were walking through airports.  It’s a very organized, easy and quick process for us. 

Next we load up on our team buses to go to the airport.  About 4 buses transport the players, coaches, training staff, equipment staff and the front office to the plane.  My bus routine is to try and get on the bus with the least amount of people so I can stretch out and have two seats to myself.  What I try to do is either get on the 1^st bus or the 3^rd bus because the 1^st bus leaves about 45 minutes before the 3^rd bus.   Some guys like to go home to change their clothes and say goodbye to their family’s right before the trip so they usually catch the later bus.   As long as you’re on one of those buses your good.  And nobody misses the bus.  If you ever miss the bus – not only do you not play you get fined so No one misses the bus!  Hold that thought!

Good question Tommy, I’ll get back to you from practice tomorrow on the MAC book, which I cannot live without!  It does everything – emails, iChat, you name it.  I can keep in touch with the family – I can talk to my Mom and stay in touch. 

Today I tried to relax a little at the house, which is sort of outfitted with all the comforts of a Man Cave.  If I’m in my living room, I’ve got the Big Screen with the Mac to the side and my PS3 and I’m just playing video games and relaxing. 

If I’m in music mode; I’m rocking primarily Hip-Hop and as soon as I get in the car it syncs right up.  Right now, I’m listening to a lot of Jay Z, and some Young Jeezy, Gucci Mane and Trey Songz are all playing heavy in the iPod.  

All my teammates know I’m the movie man.  They know I’m the one that tries to see all the movies.  I’m the movie reviewer for the team and I try and see everything.  My favorite summer block buster were Transformers and Terminator though as a whole the summer big release were just so-so. 

My Super Hero Alter Ego is…well first my favorite Superhero is Superman – the Man of Steel – I can relate to him…but my alter ego is probably The Flash because of the speed thing.

What’s up Fathead!  I’ve got a minute so I’m blogging fast…speaking of fast, I logged in one of the fastest times at the 2009 NFL Combine which with all the incredible talent there was something I was very proud of.  Coming out of high school I knew I had something unique and that was speed and I knew I was tall enough – so throughout college I just worked hard on the weight training to put on the weight I have now.  Going through the whole combine and throughout college and even in the NFL now I know I have that great combination that you can’t teach.  I’m thankful that I have a God given talent and I believe I was blessed with those abilities and I take that and try to improve on it each and every day.  I know it’s an advantage that I have and I try and use it as an edge whenever I can.    

In my everyday routine, I just try to do the same thing in my preparation the same way every day.  Like I said, I have to have my OJ every day.  I have to put the right shoe on before the left and my right ankle brace before the left and my right glove before the left – it’s just something that I noticed I have done throughout the years but after that I’m pretty ready for whatever happens happens. 

A couple of other things I was thinking you might like to know about…yes, the rookies do have to sing a song in front of the rest of the team during training camp and it is hilarious.  The Wide Receiver’s did the smart thing and all got together and did a funny parody song about our wide receiver coach, everyone including Coach go a kick out of it.  It was a great night for the vets, the rookie’s coaches, and staff alike. It gave us a chance to laugh our heads off. 

Can you say The Black Hole?  The Black Hole and Raider Nation is something you have to experience once in your life.  They roll really deep.  They want you to jump into the stands when you score a touchdown and the energy on that side of the end zone is just madness.  When you do signings and appearances they ALL come out to support you.  It’s a beautiful thing to see and feel.  And it is NOT wise to wear another jersey at the stadium or ANYWHERE near the Black Hole!  Our fans are the most loyal and passionate in the NFL and the players appreciate that loyalty to the end.  I’m out for now…we’ll talk next week.

Well blogging for Fathead after being told that I going to be one of the first NFL rookie Fatheads is very cool.  My Fathead is up on the site today!  They told me the head designer Denny wanted to know what type of pose I would want to see my Fathead doing and I think it would be me exploding off the line or blowing by somebody.  Capturing what I’m known for and making it into a Fathead would be sweet. 

The 1^st time I saw a Fathead was the Chad Johnson, “You calling me a Fathead” commercial – so I’ve seen them all right up to the Reggie Bush and the Big Camera dude – hilarious. 

So Fathead wanted me to talk about what Training Camp was like start to finish.  My alarm goes off at 6:45am and I head down to breakfast and I usually do a ham and cheese omelet with a lot of ketchup, that’s my thing.  I like pancakes, too, so I always have to have the pancakes and a big glass of orange juice each and every day. 

Let’s go with what a 2-a-day practice is like.  Right after breakfast, I head over to the locker room because practice starts at 8:30am so I get taped and get stretched for a little bit and just get my mind right early in the morning. 

In Oakland it’s pretty cool early in the morning – it’s not hot like a lot of other cities and towns where training camp takes place so you really want to get warm before you get out there on the practice field.  I usually get out to the practice field about 20 minutes early – before everyone else.  I have a little routine that I have with my wide receiver coach where we go through some ball drill to warm up my hands and work on my hand to eye coordination before practice starts. 

Then we kick off practice for about 2 and a half hours in the morning.  It’s pretty much full go between offense and defense.  The morning practice is definitely the tough one.  So after practice we head on in to the locker room and then we have meetings where we watch film of the practice for about an hour to an hour 15.  The Wide Receivers watch as a group and we go over in detail what was good, what was bad and what we can improve on.  That part is kind of fun to me because you’re learning as a tight unit, when you watch as a big group – you’re learning about the offense as a whole instead of what specifically you can do in your position to be a better football player.  You can really focus on what you’re doing and you can ask questions as needed. 

Well, basically that is the first half of the day. More later…