Austin Hooper Compares Myles Garrett to Gumby

Celebrating victory Monday with a guest spot on the Jim Rome's Show, Cleveland Browns tight end Austin Hooper discussed a number of topics from his touchdown, Myles Garrett, Baker Mayfield and why he supports children aging out of foster care.

After a critical victory against the Baltimore Ravens where he caught one of the team's two touchdown passes, Cleveland Browns tight end Austin Hooper was a guest on the Jim Rome Radio Show discussing the play where he scored, teammates Myles Garrett and Baker Mayfield, and his cause that he represented for My Cause, My Cleats, supporting children aging out of foster care.

Rome asked Hooper about the role of the tight end in the Browns offense without David Njoku and Harrison Bryant in the lineup. Hooper not only talked about his offensive line teammates regaling him with their triumphs of their tight end pasts in high school, but the play in which he scored.

The conversation shifted to Myles Garrett, who had a strip sack he was able to recover himself. Rome asked Hooper what it's like playing with Garrett.

"With him, it's like similar to Julio [Jones], who I played with in Atlanta. Just like, guys are born better than you. The guy is massive, jacked. Runs like the wind. Super bendy. Most guys that are that big and strong are usually stiff, but he's like Gumby in that sense. He can still bend and lean on edges. Evidently, we get the bell in his hands, he's dangerous too, so must nice. He can do it all."

It immediately begs the question how many people are still even aware of Gumby.

After addressing Garrett, Rome turned the conversation to Baker Mayfield, who has been a lightning rod this season. He asked Hooper about his feelings about Mayfield and the tight end immediately sought common ground.

"The one thing that's not up for debate is this man's level of toughness," Hooper said of Mayfield. "The stuff he's playing through, man. Like forget football, that stuff sucks to walk around and live life with, let alone staring down the barrel when you got a 300lber taking a shot at you while you're delivering the ball within the timing of the play. When you got a guy like that, who's willing to gut it out, who the hell are you to complain about your finger."

"I couldn't be happier just based on his leadership, who he is as a man, who is he as a quarterback who leads in the locker room. It's one of those intangible things in sports, but it does mean something and it does resonate with those guys in the locker room. We do notice it and we do appreciate it"

Hooper was asked about why it was so important for him to support children in foster care who age out of the system.

"Depending on the state that you're in, they gave you a few hundred bucks and a GED and say 'Go play life'. That's a tough place to start the race. That was something I was made aware of and once I got put in a situation where I'd be given the opportunity to give back, that was something I really wanted to address because it's definitely, unfortunately one of the holes within our system."

Starting to get emotional, Hooper's pace quickened as regained his composure. "I just saw a need, looked around, saw no one else was really doing much to address it and  thought to myself, 'Why not me?'" 

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