The Falcons linebacker and Georgia’s No. 1-ranked MMA welterweight formed their alliance in the winter, just two guys throwing each other around a padded room.
Their cross-over training sessions included certain motivational thoughts, at no extra charge. Similar to the sloganeering so prevalent back at the Dan Quinn Commune. There was, you see, common ground between the linebacker and the Mixed Martial Arts fighter besides the whole obvious get-somebody-on-the-ground thing.
“We always talked about the grind,” said the MMA fighter, his name Jared “Nite Train” Gooden. “About how you got to do what everybody else isn’t doing. Do more than what people think you’re doing.”
For the linebacker, his name Duke “No Nickname Required With A First Name Like That” Riley, doing more meant stepping outside the long, wide familiar dimensions of football and into the close quarters of mixed martial arts. It meant getting a little uncomfortable in order to improve upon one of the perceived weaknesses of his rookie season in the NFL, his tackling.
Strange as it may seem, in tackle football one of the skills that often go unhoned is tackling. There is a limit, after all, to how much contact the body can absorb. Nevertheless, Riley went in search of more once his season ended, hoping to take certain ultimate fighting techniques and re-purpose them to football.
The Falcons third-round draft pick out of LSU in 2017 is entering his second season, a critical period when others on that defense like Deion Jones and Vic Beasley made such huge gains. “That’s where the big jump comes,” head coach Quinn says. “They’re like whole new players, they’ve improved so much during that time.”
And Riley has some big gaining to do. First in becoming more literate as far as reading the intent of offenses. Then, when he does get to the play, there is the little matter of bringing an end to it. Last year, according to Pro Football Focus, Riley missed eight of 31 tackle attempts, the worst rate for any linebacker in the NFL.
“Not that I couldn’t tackle,” he said. “I was doing things technique-wise I didn’t realize I was doing. I was leaving my feet early. In college you hit a guy, he goes down so easy. You really have to have great technique with these (NFL) guys, these backs. Not like you’re going to get the big hits. Most of the tackles it’s hey, make sure you have the correct leverage and keep your head out of it.”
There is good news to report concerning the last sightings of both the linebacker and the MMA fighter.
In the season’s first preseason game against the New York Jets, Riley was once again running around without clear purpose, putting up the second lowest defensive grade among Falcons defenders according to PFF. But by the next week, Quinn was praising Riley’s work against Kansas City, even as he moved from outside linebacker to inside on occasion in place of Jones. “Really rock solid,” the coach said.
And in his most recent fight, the 24-year-old Gooden, now 11-2, caught his opponent with a third-round knee to the face during a fight in Kennesaw, winning by knockout. Unlike the NFL, you can do that sort of thing and it’s applauded rather than penalized.
Before Riley, Gooden had done some training with former Falcons linebacker Paul Worrilow (out now having torn an ACL during Philadelphia Eagles OTAs). The vet had been a valuable tutor to all the younger Falcons linebackers, even those who eventually would supplant him. Hungry as Riley was to prove that he’d try anything to mitigate the disappointments of his first season, the thought of following Worrilow’s hard-working example appealed to him.
For nearly two months, at least twice a week, he and Gooden sweated it out in the gym. Even if it meant being a 170-pound human tackling dummy for a 230-pound professional football player, the MMA guy was game. “He would just run me over,” Gooden said. “But it helps me out, too. I’m helping him with knowledge how to better his take-downs but it’s also giving me a chance to work with bigger athletes as well. As I’m showing him these moves, I’m still having to use my body against bigger guys. I know when I’m fighting a 170-pound guy, it’s going to be nothing, it’s cake.”
To both work on stamina and the kind of competitive stubbornness needed to make a tackle, the two wrestled round after round. “I’d always end class with wrestling. At first it was hard for him to keep up. At the end, he was asking for more. That’s what I love about Duke, his grind is amazing,” Gooden said.
They worked on various take-down techniques that might apply to football. You’re not the only one who hates watching defenders bounce off ball carriers without wrapping them up. It drives the MMA guy nuts, too.
They practiced other martial arts moves that might translate well for a linebacker trying to shed a block. The exact nature of those moves the teacher wants to keep to himself, lest he tip off any opponent. He’s just paranoid enough to have a real future in coaching.
“It was intense,” Riley said. “I fought to get better for those guys (teammates). It was one thing I needed to get corrected for them, to show the (linebackers) room I could do it.”
Both the linebacker and the MMA guy have big dreams. Gooden longs to break out of the mold of a local fighter, to somehow make it to the upper reaches of his sport – “I’m trying to show I’m best in the world,” Gooden said. “On the regional level it’s cool to be No. 1, but I want to say I’m No. 1 in the world.”
“I have so much I can do that I haven’t shown off yet.”
In much the same way, Riley is anxious to put last season behind him and prove that he belongs on a defense of which much is expected in 2018. “I had a great learning experience my rookie year – it was one I needed to be set back. It just made me a stronger person, stronger mentally,” he said, taking the positive view in retrospect.
If some offseason sessions in a gym with a professional cage fighter make Riley feel better about himself come September, then the unorthodox training will have returned quick and sizable dividends.
“I know I can do it,” he said of becoming proficient in the ancient art of tackling. “It’s just a technique thing I had to get corrected. That’s something that was primary to the offseason, that and getting stronger, getting my legs back stronger (recovering from a balky knee). Everything else was there. The effort will always be there.”
He’s not the only one interested to see if this detour into MMA paid off. “I’m anxious to find out,” Quinn said. “I know he’s certainly improved and that was an area of emphasis for him. We’re pretty pumped to see him do it, not just on defense but on special teams as well. He’s put the work in and now it’s time to see it.”
And to the martial arts mix let’s throw in a scrap of Eastern mysticism – if you can really stretch and count a fortune cookie from Panda Express as anything in the least bit spiritual.
In his wallet Gooden keeps a little slip from one such cookie that really spoke to him. It reads: “The world is ready to receive your talents. Don’t hold back.”
The question is, might the MMA fighter let the linebacker borrow that sentiment, as well as a few of his moves, on selected game days?
