Interview: Austin Bryant talks fighting through adversity, ‘Karate Kid’ celebrations

Austin Bryant shared his inspirational story with us this week.

Detroit Lions outside linebacker Austin Bryant didn’t have the start to his NFL career that he dreamed of. He lost the majority of his rookie season to injury and even when he came back, he suffered another injury in his rookie season finale. That led him to miss the first couple months of his second season in the NFL. Heading into the third year of his career, Bryant was finally healthy, but had to deal with a full change in defensive philosophy, a new cast of teammates and a brand new coaching staff.

We chatted with Bryant on Tuesday as part of our Movember Charity Drive month about his glorious beard, his “Karate Kid” inspired sack celebrations, and the challenges he faced fighting through the adversity early in his career.

“A lot of times, I’m not going to lie, I wanted give up. I wanted to pack it up and skip a rehab session. I wanted to not do the extra (things) to speed up my process. I didn’t want to do treatment all the time,” Bryant said. “ But I just looked at the people around me. My mom, my dad, my uncles, my cousins, grandmother. To know everything that they’ve been through in their lifetime and how much they poured into me, there was no way I could give up. There was no way I could quit. I owed it to not only them, but I owed it to myself to put everything I had into it.”

You can listen to the entire interview below.

And as a reminder, you can donate to our Movember Charity Drive—which supports the Prostate Cancer Foundation—by clicking right here. For every $20 you donate, you get a raffle ticket to win prizes like Lions tickets, signed footballs by Penei Sewell and Jamaal Williams and more. Full information on our charity drive is here.

The PODcast is available on every major podcasting platform, including: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or iHeartRadio. For the video version of our podcast, make sure you’re following us on both YouTube and Twitch.