Transcript of Bill Belichick, Grit Week 2026, Cavs Win Game 7, Aaron Rai Takes The PGA + Who’s Back Of The Week

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Stella Blue Coffee is more than just great coffee, it's coffee with a purpose. Introducing We Brew to Rescue, a nationwide campaign using proceeds from our new ready-to-drink cans to help fund 1,000 pet adoptions this year. Every can you crack open helps a real pet find a real home. Simple as that. Made with 100% Colombian coffee, each 11-ounce can delivers smooth, drinkable energy with a boost of protein. Available in Espresso Cafe Mocha and Espresso Sweet Cream. Built for mornings, long days, and everything in between. Drink Stella Blue, fuel your day, and help save a pet's life. You can follow our progress in real time throughout the campaign by watching the adoption tracker on our site. Grab yours now at stellabluecoffee.com, Amazon, and select retailers nationwide. On today's part of my take presented by DraftKings, we got him, Bill Belichick, Grit Week 2026. We're starting it with a white whale. We had an awesome time with Coach Belichick. In Chapel Hill, recorded with him for like an hour and 40 minutes. Get excited. Grit Week is ready to go.

We're here in Jacksonville. We got a great week planned, some great guests. We're going to talk some Game 7. We're going to talk PGA Championship. We're going to talk Vanny, Zach, maybe becoming a butterfly, just coming out of his cocoon.

We're talking chrysalis.

Yeah, we're talking chrysalis. Zach, are you a chrysalis? Are you a butterfly?

Maybe in—

probably still in cocoon. OK, maybe butterfly aspirations, but we're still in cocoon.

Great show, though, coming your way. And it's all brought to you by our friends at Chevy. It's Grit Week. This is the part of football calendar where nobody's watching, but everything gets built. Early mornings, pads back on, conditioning, film, reps. Spring training in football is all about putting in the work when nobody's cheering yet. Check out the current offers and build your Silverado at chevy.com. We've got a Silverado with us this week in Grit Week. We're going to be traveling through the South and Chevy will be with us the whole way. So check out the current offers. Build your Silverado at Chevy.com. It's a football guy's truck. It's grit. It's the Chevy Silverado. Go get a Chevy Silverado today and check it out at Chevy.com. Okay, let's go. Welcome to Pardon My Take, presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Monday, May 18th, and it is Grit Week, boys. Grit Week 2026. Is here. We all feeling it?

I'm loving it. I, I like the new logo that we got for a great week here. Um, it's me and you wearing, uh, it appears to be like Saints-style helmet, and then that guy in the middle Hank said was him. Yeah, as the football player. But, uh, yeah, I love Grit Week. I love being on the road.

Do you know why he said it was him? He said it's because he's holding it in his left hand. That's what he said. He said he's holding the big mallet in his left hand.

That's what— you're also holding a hammer in your left hand, big guy.

That's true. Yeah, ambidextrous.

But I'm, I'm very excited back on the road. I love the new Vanny Woodhead. I can't wait to hit the road.

I am sexy.

That thing was built for comfort. That was built for interstate travel.

It was built for Hank naps.

Oh, the yawns are going to hit different from the back of Vanny Woodhead 2.0. Yeah, I'm ready to roll. Love being on the road with the boys.

And we have an awesome interview with Coach Belichick coming up. But before that, Game 7, the Cleveland Cavaliers advance. We're actually recording this while the fourth quarter is going on. So Let me check the score real quick.

Yeah, we're good.

A lot to a little for a long time. It was— they're down 30. It was, it was, uh, yeah, what's the current score? 108-70, 110-80.

So congrats to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Congrats to Dan Gilbert, who, who did an all-time owner move, shipping 25 busloads of fans.

It's out of the George Soros playbook.

It's pretty nice. Yeah, he's stuffing the ballot. And it was, uh, I mean, the Cavs, like, they just were so much better in this game. The series Friday night, thought, thought the Cavs were going to close it out at home. B-Ball Paul had different, different ideas. He was incredible. But this was— we've, we found the antidote for Big Game James, James Harden's game 7s. It's just simply have Evan Mobley, Donovan Mitchell, Sam Merrill, and Jared Allen all play out of their mind.

Yeah, Mitchell played awesome in the first half. He was controlling the offense when he was getting to the rim.

Sam Merrill, 7 He was 9 for 9 from 3.

He was either scoring 5 from 7 or hitting somebody for a dunk. It was just, it was dominant from the Cavs. This series, is it fair when we call the series a mid-off?

So I was talking, I was actually hanging out, we're talking about it earlier. I think we just need to come to grips and we haven't seen the Knicks play in what feels like forever.

Yeah.

I think it's okay to just say that in the NBA right now and the Knicks might throw this theory off because they might just be better than what we kind of expected. A lot of teams are just okay, and that means they can all beat each other. And then there's OKC and San Antonio. Yeah, that's kind of what it feels like, where it's like both of these teams have flaws. Both these teams did okay things during, you know, the Pistons had a very good regular season, uh, but at the end of the day, they both, they like, if you just keep playing this series forever, they'll just keep exchanging wins back and forth. And the Pistons just don't have enough offense. So we knew that kind of going in. Tobias Harris, that's got to feel good. Max, bad, bad.

That's another win for the Sixers.

Still waiting for him to make a bucket tonight.

Still waiting for him to make a buck. He had a stretch there in the playoffs where he had like 20 points. He looked okay a bunch of games in a row and then it just has fallen off a cliff. But yeah, it's— I mean, the Cavs, we were, we were having this discussion last week when we were asking Memes who he wants to play and he wanted to play the Cavs. He wanted to play the Cavs, wanted to play, wanted to play the Cavs. And my counterpoint was the Cavs. Well, I think the Knicks are going to win. The Cavs do still have players that are very good, and the Pistons have Cade Cunningham and then some guys that can chip in, but maybe not on a consistent basis, whereas the Cavs have— I mean, like Donovan Mitchell can go off, James Harden can go off, Evan Mobley and Jared Allen can be very good. So Max Struess, dog.

I think this is the progression of the Pistons along the way is like, what were they 2 years ago? I said it the other, the other day. They won like 16 or 18 games.

Oh, they were so bad.

Years ago. Yeah.

Yeah.

So just 2 years ago, they were, they were just dogshit. They're really, really bad.

Last year.

And then last year they made the progressions against the Knicks. Then this year, the natural progression from that is let's take the regular season super seriously. Let's win all the games that we can, get a high seed. Then they get to the playoffs and it's like, oh yeah, when you play against better teams, the flaws are more easily exploited. So then going into next year, you would think that they would continue to adjust the roster and then maybe be a more serious playoff threat next year.

Need more scoring.

Yeah, this might be— it's a step in the— I don't, I don't know if this playoff was a step in the right direction for the Pistons, but I would say the totality of this season, we're still going the right direction in Detroit. Yeah. So next year you'll build off this.

And Kate Cunningham wasn't good tonight. He's had weird turnovers and like, yeah, tonight he was not— he was— he needed to be superhuman for them to win. This series and he fell short on the superhuman thing, which is not saying he's a bad player. He's a very, very good player. It's just when you have to carry the load that Cade Cunningham had to carry, you can't have an off night, especially in a Game 7.

Yeah, there was a moment after halftime, but I made this note because, you know, we always go back and forth on what the biggest leads are in sports, like what they look like. Oh yeah, I've got a new one. I've got a new one. This is the biggest—

I saw it too.

What was yours?

72-49. Yeah, yeah, I saw it.

I was like, holy shit, that is by far the biggest 23-point lead in sports. Yeah, 72 to 39.

No, 49.

Oh, 72 to 49. 72 to 49.

It feels like that. It feels like 40 points.

When that score was on the screen, I sat there, I did the math like 3 times in a row and I was like, this has to be a 40-point lead.

Correct.

It's crazy. But yeah, congrats to the Cavs. Good luck in the next round. I know, I know the Knicks fans that I know, me, Zach included, very excited to play against James Harden and the boys in this round. Are you, are you worried at all that James Harden has been saving it up his entire career for this series and he's about to just unload on you?

Uh, in the NBA, you play who you play. I am looking forward to playing the Cavs. I've done but respect for James Harden's game, but I have the utmost respect and confidence in Jalen Brunson and the Knicks. Memes?

I agree with Zach's statement. Uh, never in my lifetime though have the playoffs started in the Eastern Conference Finals for the Knicks, or like any team I've ever rooted for. So I'm just excited to watch them play. Knicks in 6. Knicks in 6 for sure. Knicks in 5. Knicks in 4. Knicks in 4.

This will be over by next week.

I know.

By the time we're back from Grit Week, this series will be over.

I'm going to say Knicks in 5.

Okay. Nicks in 5.

Nicks in 4.

Hank, is it a disappointment for New York if the Knicks don't sweep them?

No, no, it's the NBA. You can have an off night.

It doesn't—

you win the series, you win the series. But it's, it's Knicks in 4.

Will you personally be disappointed in the Knicks if they don't sweep them?

No, I, I know how it goes. It's, it's the, you know, you can, you can, you can get cold and lose a game, but that doesn't mean you're the worst team.

That's facts.

Yeah. And then on the other side, I can't wait for the Thunder and the Spurs. Jalen Williams is coming back for the Thunder, too.

Yeah.

So they've doubled their amount of Jalen Williams that they have ready for San Antonio.

We're in the conference finals. It's conference finals. We still have— we still have a Game 7 in hockey, but it happened like that. Hank, your best 2 weeks of sports gone in a flash. I know.

It's a good run. Not really. Actually, it was a horrible run.

Yeah, I was going to say you hated those 2 weeks.

It was like— it was a— yeah, basically I never— Like, I never came back from Max's bachelor party. Like, my, my sports, my sports season just ended. Yeah, now I'm just like, now I'm just a neutral observer. Like, I went to Vegas as like, go team, go.

Yeah.

And then I came back just like, what's on TV tonight? Like, all right, let's watch this game.

Yeah, we'll never come back from Vegas. You remember the Carolina— or the Carolina Hurricanes?

Yeah.

They're still playing hockey.

We had a nice— there was like the old debate, the bodybuilder debate on what day of the week, how many days in the week. There was a lot of debate on how many days off the Hurricanes have. Is it 11 or 12? I think it was spurned by our good friend Ryan Whitney saying 12, counting the day that the Hurricanes play Game 1 as the 12th day.

That's an off day.

Yeah. So, but I got a little chuckle out of that. So that's how long Like the fact that they haven't— we're debating on how long their rest is. Is it 11 or 12 days? That's how long it's been. And we just haven't seen them play.

That's really mind-blowing.

Yeah.

I've been working on an impression recently because, you know, I'm good, pretty good at impressions. This one is Keith Yandle from Spin Chicklets.

You want to hear it? Yeah.

Wow.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Wow. Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

I texted you. That was such a funny video. And it also I think Biz knows it's mostly his stories. Wow.

Wow.

Wow. But we'll have— what we have to have. Yeah, we— I think we're on Yance in the rotation, right? Yeah.

Yeah, dude.

Biz with— yeah, we're back to Yance. So we'll have Yance on next week. But all right, we're going to talk PGA Championship after this quick ad. OK, before we talk PGA Championship, DraftKings, the NBA playoffs are here and DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting part of the NBA, brings excitement to every game day. The whole postseason, when the lights get brightest, the best players in the world show you exactly who they are. Playoff stars turn it up round by round, and DraftKings turns it up with them from the first round all the way to the finals. Bet player props, bet live from the opening tip to the final possession. Every bucket, every dime, every clutch takeover matters, and only DraftKings Sportsbook keeps you in on the action all the way through. New DraftKings customers bet just $5, you'll get $100 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app, use code GRITWEEK so you're ready for the moment. That's code GRITWEEK, one word. Turn $5 into $100 in bonus bets instantly. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem?

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Restrictions apply. Bonus bets expire 7 days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Limited time offer. Okay boys, none of us have to get wet from soggy sorrows and Shane Bacon because Aaron Rai is your 2026 PGA Champion at the course that Max took his prom pictures. Congratulations to him.

That's pretty huge. What's the most iconic moment on that 18th green? Is it Aaron Rai winning a PGA Championship, or is it Max DeLente buttoning up a suit with a bow tie for the first time in his life.

I mean, it wasn't very like dramatic. He had that thing locked up.

He did.

Yeah.

He actually had it so locked up that I was a little, I was a little weirded out.

The fact that the Gale was inscribing the Wanamaker while there were guys on like the 15th, it was like, I know it's a total crazy long shot, but what would one of the guys like as a guy who had bet John Rahm and was just hoping for a prayer and anything that could possibly happen to go wrong, that gave me like one last second of hope of like, this tournament's not over. Yeah, he's not, he's not in.

A trophy jinx would be all time. Yeah, that would be incredible. I think it— yeah, it was— the tournament just kept going on because they had Schmidt and a bunch of other guys that weren't going to win that had to wrap up. Um, I would have left the course if I was Schmidt. I'd be like, yeah, this feels like I don't need to actually finish.

It was the, uh, 68-foot putt that was awesome. Awesome moment. That was the moment of the championship. And that was— from that moment on, it was like, all right, he's got this. But yeah, it was a little weird that down the stretch there was a guy like, who, who had like an— was it eagle or birdie? Smalley had an eagle. Smalley Pirates, shout out that guy who said that should be their, uh, his, his fan, his fan group's name. But he had an eagle and was like, okay, yeah, obviously there's pretty much no chance, but it's par 3. What if he hit a hole-in-one?

Was it like a 68 or 68-yard or 68-foot putt, foot putt that, that Rye hit to wrap it up, which I think was like a little bit longer than the one that, that Spawn hit last year, right?

Yeah.

Like, like by a foot or two, it was over at that point. It's a cool story, although it is— it's the second European to win a major this year, and Europeans are now 2-0 in majors for the first time since 1934 when the Masters began. And then nothing bad happened after that.

Are we— are we as a country washed? Because this also is on the heels of Shams announcing SGA back-to-back. MVP. And I think it's been like 9 years, I believe, 8 years since an American has won the NBA MVP.

So that is tough.

We're just getting— we're just getting— this counts as a loss for Philly.

Yeah, not a good sports town.

Yeah, not being able to defend home turf.

They did get Roy rattled.

They tried.

Roy is such a bitch.

Oh my God, it was so funny. He just hit like a chip shot and then it went poorly. And then one guy, it wasn't even his backswing. He's after the shot, went back, goes, USA! And Rory turns around, he goes, that guy right there, get him out, get him out, get him out, get him out of here, kick him out.

It was, it was so soft by Rory. But yeah, it's, it's crazy. What are you guys talking about? Memes. What did you find? Joel Embiid. What? Joel Embiid, USA. That's true. Joel Embiid is USA. Yeah. USA MVP.

And also we're going to win the Stanley Cup again. It was which, which that's like your what? 15 or how long has it been? 1994, '93. Yeah, yeah, we've been dominant. That—

I think the official, uh, like, guy who was born in America was 2018, James Harden.

Okay.

Yeah, so that was the last one. It went James Harden, Giannis twice, Jokic twice, twice Embiid, Jokic, SGA twice, and then it's gonna be Wimby for the next 10 years. Yeah, it's gonna be Wimby forever.

The Canadiens.

Yeah, the Canadiens. Uh, by the way, I will, I will get dual national—

I, I will renounce American citizenship and become French if the Canadiens Canadiens win the Stanley Cup this year.

Game 7 coming up. Max, are you— what? He just said it.

It won't happen.

You're just saying stupid shit.

Yeah, that wasn't stupid. They're not gonna win. What did you say?

I said the shit.

No, no, what did you— I know, I— what'd you say before that? You're gonna renounce your citizenship?

I don't know, sometimes I just say things out loud.

Generous.

I was gonna just become French if the Canadiens But you're not going to win the Stanley Cup.

How do you acquire— you're going to marry someone from— how do you acquire—

yeah, you just eat enough croissants.

I'm pretty sure that France has taken everyone they can get.

You're going to have to move there for like half a year or whatever.

Yeah, it's fine.

No, that's not fine.

Oh no, it's not fine, Hank. I'll probably need somebody to come and hang out with me.

And yeah, no, you don't want to go to France?

Not for half a year, dude.

The south of France is nice.

Yeah, of the places I'd like to go, France is not on the shortlist. If the Canadians win—

it's a bad take.

No, that's a bad take. That's a bad take.

Very bad take by him.

There's a lot of places south of France.

It's really nice.

It's very nice. If the Canadiens win the Stanley Cup, you have to eat a croissant every single day until an American team has the Stanley Cup back.

That sounds awesome.

Yeah, I know.

I'll do that.

All right, great.

That'll be my—

you would get a little sick of it after. Like, imagine if, you know, if the Oilers won after that and he had to do 2 years.

You know what, Big Cat?

Croissant every single day.

I'll do the croissant. I'll also, because I'm so confident, that we're not going to— we're not going to lose the Stanley Cup. Also eat French fries every day.

Oh, no.

Yeah, it's going to get real bad.

Croissant. You would get sick of a croissant.

I don't know, like a croissant and coffee in the morning.

That sounds like—

that sounds like a sustainable breakfast every day.

A lot of carbs.

So then he's got to eat 2.

2 would be a lot.

2, then 2. 2 would get heavy. 2 croissants every day until we get the Cup back.

Oui.

And yes, you agree?

Yeah, I'll do it. It's not going to— Listen, it's going to be the Colorado Avalanche. We already said they're winning the Stanley Cup.

Um, okay, so back to Aaron Rai. Uh, sorry dude, that was, uh, we were, we were throwing praise on you for winning a major and then we just got sidetracked by a million different things. Um, oh, Max, are you doing your draft? He's in his draft right now. He's got live draft.

I don't know, I may not have—

Max said that he had a live draft. I was like, do it on the show. He's like, why would I do that? Because Why not? He's got a— he's got a fantasy football draft.

Well, I have a co-owner.

Yeah, yeah.

Now we went— we went with Fernando Mendoza.

It's great. What is it?

It's a—

it's a dynasty rookie draft.

It's a dynasty rookie draft.

Too early. Oh, okay.

He's getting Fernando Mendoza with our second pick and then Jordan Tyson with our fourth pick, which we're going to the Saints.

So, okay. So yeah. And who's— and then when's your— let us know when you're next.

I think that's it. I think that's all we got.

That's it. Oh, good draft.

Because I think we traded all of our other picks to get up to the first round pick. So yeah, that's it. You more against the future?

Huh?

Mortgage the future.

Mortgage the future for what?

You said you trade all your picks to move up.

Yeah.

Uh, I can't really tell you.

Okay, great. Good draft.

Super flex, super flex dynasty. So that's why we went with Mendoza.

All right, Aaron Wright. Uh, I love when you're watching a golf tournament and you don't really know who the guy is who's about to win, and they start pouring on the stories and My initial reaction, because, you know, we all root for different guys and have different bets. I'm like, fucking A, get this guy out of here. We need someone else. And then they start giving us the stories and I'm like, this guy might be the coolest guy ever. The stories about him wearing two gloves because he grew up in England and he golfed in the cold and he didn't have a lot growing up. And his dad used to clean his irons after every single practice round. So that's why he has covers on his irons. I'm an Aaron Rye fan. Like, you can't— they— for, you know how they always will throw on some stories that make you feel sentimental? Like, they were really hitting us with it, and every single one I was like, yeah, you know what, that's awesome. He's— and he's on the record being like, yeah, I know it's goofy, but I'm never gonna forget where I came from.

I'm never gonna forget the fact that, you know, having a pair of— a set of clubs when I was a kid was a big deal, and taking care of them is a big deal. And so I show that gratitude. Cool for Aaron Rye.

Yeah. He said that when he was a kid, his dad bought him those clubs and they were like way, way, way beyond what his dad could afford to pay for.

Right.

So since it was such a nice set, they would take great care of it. And he's like, yeah, actually, like golf clubs are really expensive. And it's pretty cool that I get sent free clubs now, but I'm still going to take care of them just the way that I would have when I was a kid. That was very cool. I'm wondering if we're going to see more golfers now wearing two gloves. Like, why don't we wear my gloves? Why don't we wear two gloves now?

Couldn't tell you.

I'm going to go to—

what's the reason?

Because I even do gloves. Two gloves in there.

Black and they're black. And I would say, like, between this and the Michael Jackson movie that's out right now, the right-hand glove has had the best week since the O.J. trial.

Yeah.

It's like every kid across America is going to be like, I got to go out and get a right-handed glove too.

So I don't know, it might make a comeback. Yeah, you might be like, oh, shit. It's two glove season.

It's my era.

We're in the two glove era.

Me.

So, yeah, I might—

I don't know.

Hank, have you ever tried golfing with two gloves once?

No, I've tried golfing with the wrong glove on.

Yeah, I remember that. Well, a couple of times.

We don't even know which side you golf.

Well, it was an accident. I asked for, like, a right-handed glove, and they gave me a right glove for my right hand.

But it's very confusing. Like, I get that. That's actually— it's a mindfuck when you ask somebody for a right-handed glove.

Yeah. Shout out, by the way, the guy after the third round who he was mocked for it. He had Aaron Rye sign his baby. And did you see that going viral on Saturday night? Everyone's like, who in the world would ever have Aaron Rye sign your baby? That baby's worth a lot right now. Yeah, you can sell that.

Yeah, I'm never—

well, he's probably going to— he's going to— he's probably going to PSA grade that baby tonight.

That guy's like, I'm never washing my son again.

My son's worth so much.

Mint condition.

I think he probably is like, shit, I probably should have had him sign something else. Yeah, maybe my hat.

Yeah, this is— it is like just a ton of of wholesome Aaron Riefax coming out. So when he, when he was a kid, when he was 15 years old, he broke the world record for consecutive putts holed from 10 feet away. He made 207 in a row from 10 feet away.

Wow.

Yeah, pretty cool.

207. I think you should try. You should test that.

Oh, maybe it sounds like a dark stream after dark.

After dark stream with mulligans.

Yeah, with mulligans.

And you also get to drink like 2 beers and then hit 100 putts and then 4 beers and 100 putts.

Yeah.

And we'll test you.

And don't forget, don't forget other people do it.

Don't forget hot chip and then hot chip, hot chip and, and, uh, lemonade, shot caller.

We'll do lemonade too.

Yeah, you get shot callers. But yeah, it's, it's cool. Awesome. Like, did it— Hank, you're, you're a golf nut. Do you think that this— were you satisfied with this tournament?

It was a great tournament. It was exciting going into the day Sunday, bunched up leaderboard. There was like 30 people within 4 shots. All a lot of big names. Aaron Rye, nice guy, great story.

Okay, boring as hell.

Boring winner. The Justin Thomas going off and like getting into the elite, uh, the clubhouse with like 5, you know, 5-under.

All-time blue balls.

All these, all these guys like Rory, Jon Rahm, Cam Smith all in the hunt. It was so exciting. And it's like, oh, we could have a playoff. We could have like an all-time moment. It was pretty boring down the stretch, honestly. Like the only thing that happened was that, that Ry putt for the win. But even if he doesn't hit that, he probably still wins by 2 strokes. It was kind of a blue ball Sunday where it was like, it was really exciting going into Sunday. I was like, look at this fucking leaderboard. Like, oh my God. Like everyone's within everyone. Everyone's within 4 shots. Nothing happened Sunday.

Great, great crowd.

Great, great venue. Great fans. Great leaderboard going into Sunday. Disappointing finish.

Okay.

What, what if, what if you, what if we say 10 years from now Aaron Rye has won 9 majors?

Don't care.

Still, no, no, that's, that's the thing about, that's the thing about golfers is it retroactively would be like, yeah, that was actually the coolest.

Yeah, that was awesome. We saw it.

Because golf fans, when they watch, when they watch their sport on TV, like, he comes out and he's like, I like sports advisors.

Yes.

Like that.

Scotty was the same way. Yeah, Scotty was boring. And then it's like, all right, he's like, he's, he's cool.

They're like, I want exciting guys to win. But in golf, really what you mean by the exciting guys is just guys that you've seen win before.

Yeah, big names.

Yeah.

And also your bets. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's really just, you know, distill it down to You had a few, you had a few lines in the water and none of them.

Yeah, Jon Rahm and Cam Smith, I was, I was preying on, but still it was, I don't know, it was like, it was a hard course. They set the course up hard and because of that there just wasn't like a ton of really birdies or anything. Like nothing really all that exciting happened.

I'm still laughing. The best part of the tournament for me personally was we were all sitting in a hotel suite together watching the tournament. Zach got us pub subs, which we'll talk about in a second. Great job, Zach. And Hank was rooting his ass off for Cam Smith, and Cam Smith went up to take a putt from, I don't know, like 20 feet for a birdie. And PFT just goes, brick! He was just like, no, you said it before he putted it. Hank was just like, why would you do that?

Because I wanted a brick.

The pitch is like, I got Shoffley.

He was like, who's like, uh, no, Shoffley, he finished 10th. Shoffley was in and around. I had Shoffley and Reed to finish in the top 10. Reed, Patrick Reed, let me tell you, I think he might be the first POG golfer, like P-A-W-G. Yeah, yeah, he is. He's thick as hell.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, he was filling out.

Also, back in the day, it was POG City.

Yeah, but he also—

Tiger was just POGville.

But now he looks like, he looks like early era Meghan Trainor.

He does.

And he also He does like, like, like fat guys usually wear, you know, dark shirts. Patrick Reid's like, I'm going to wear the most ridiculous, like striped, like diagonally striped but very large shirts that make him look fatter.

And then he wears the tight pants. He's got like yoga pants. Yeah. When he plays, he bends over, he's like, oops.

Yeah, he's got, he's got some shit going on. He's thick, thicker than a bowl of oatmeal.

He is Patrick Reid.

I love Patrick Reid's story. That'd be great if that was the documentary. It comes out. Thicker than a bowl of oatmeal.

I hate to watch him go, but I love to watch him breathe.

Uh, yeah, over— I, I like the tournament just because I thought— I like the tournaments when they're really hard. I think they're cool when, when it's like Scottie after Friday was like, this is the hardest pin placement I've ever played. There's something about golfers complaining that just— it, it makes me laugh every time. It's like, yeah, it was your job.

Yeah, I enjoyed the fans yelling at like, like just eat Eagles at Scottie Scheffler. Yeah, yeah, that, that was just funny.

And like, go Birds after every tee shot.

It was very Philly.

It was very Philly. There was another story about Rye. Again, it's just like wholesome fact overload about Rye. Great guy. Memes, you'll love this. His story is pretty much Happy Gilmore. So he hurt himself playing hockey when he was a kid.

Aaron Rye?

Yeah. He had a hockey stick. He had a hockey stick.

Oh, he wasn't— he just had a hockey stick.

And his mom said— that's MUM— his mom said, that's not safe. Let me get you some plastic golf clubs instead. That's a much safer sport that you can enjoy. So he wanted to be a hockey player and he was like, thank you, Mommy. Yeah, I was trying me hardest at the hockey.

Being a hockey player in England, that's quite something.

2 minutes for boating.

Wait, so did he get hurt or his mom was just like, I don't want to like drive you to practice in the morning?

I think his mom was like, that looks, that looks quite dangerous. So he didn't get hurt?

No, but he just, he wanted to be a hockey player. His mom was probably like, we don't have ice rinks in England.

Yeah.

So you're not playing hockey.

Yeah. Mumsy was like, Those, those skates sound quite expensive.

Yeah. Mumsy handed him a soccer ball. Like, try this. OK, great. So I like the tournament. I enjoyed the tournament. I understand what you're saying, Hank. You did want like a Jon Rahm-Scheffler duel.

I wanted a playoff like that. That's, that's what I always wanted. I wanted a playoff and I wanted some fireworks on the back nine.

Well, the way that the playoff would have worked, you're going to hate it once you find out about it because you're going to be like, I wish that that had happened. No matter how many people had tied for the, for the number one spot after they were all done with 18.

They would chip.

They would have all played in the same group for the playoff, like just all teed off at the same time. If it was like 5 of them, 6 of them, they would all play together playing the playoff scramble. That would have been awesome.

Internet Invitational was just 3v3 scramble. Scramble would get it down to 3.

A scramble would have been awesome.

Okay. Other news, we got the Spurs won Game 6 convincingly against the Timberwolves. We now have Spurs-OKC in the Western Conference Final starting Monday night. Going to be awesome. And then we also had the fallout of the Timberwolves. Timberwolves are one of those teams. They are every single playoffs. You said this, every single playoffs they are heard from. They, they've the last 3 years, they've upset someone. They've made a mark on the playoffs. And then when they go out, we had Anthony Edwards dapping up everyone on the Spurs with 8 minutes left in the game. And then was it Nas Reid? I believe Nas Reid afterwards. Said essentially like, we don't— like, we don't play as a team.

Yeah.

And, uh, that's why we lose. And not exactly a great quote that you want to hear. His exact quote, here it is, uh, asking what they need to do to be able to catch the teams like OKC and the Spurs. He said, probably just the moodiness. You look at both those teams and they're playing for one another, they're excited to be on the floor with one another. They're a team where they're selfless. I think we have more than enough talent, but just being less moody I think that that's just the name of the game for us, just being less moody and more selfless. I feel like he could have just said Julius Randle.

Yeah, I mean, Randle, he had his struggles. I think it's just, you know, he was playing away defense a lot. Yes. Game 6, they lost. They're upset. They don't know what— in reality, the answer is like they, they need somebody to counteract Wimby, which they don't have now. In the last game of the closeout game, the Spurs guards all played in.

Castle was insane.

It was, it was a great night for the 3 of those guys. Guys. And, uh, but I mean, in reality, if you want to catch the Spurs, Wimby is going to be a puzzle that you have to figure out how to solve. I don't know if it's just like sending Rudy Gobert out there every night and just be like, piss this guy off and get him kicked out.

Like, I think it's just you gotta get under his skin. You gotta find an even taller French guy.

Yeah, good luck.

Yeah, but they do feel like they're a team.

I mean, they're— I think that they're a good team that is now getting frustrated not being able to get over that hump.

Correct.

Correct.

And I— they would have lost this series if Anthony Edwards was 100% healthy, I believe. But it would have been maybe more competitive because when you see like they won game 1, which is a little bit of a shocker, then they won the game that Wemby got ejected from. Game 6, the other games were blowouts. Game 6 especially where it was like, I mean, do you guys, do you guys, did you guys have a problem with Anthony Edwards going up to the bench with 8 minutes left?

I have no problem with it.

I thought it was a little weird. I don't, I don't have like a big, oh, Anthony Edwards can't win with that guy. But it was a little unorthodox.

I mean, it's just like they actually couldn't win this series. Yeah, they were just completely outmatched. So yeah, I did. You would like your superstar to not do that if you had like an A or B choice. Which option do you want?

Then again, I don't know what happened in the huddle, but if Chris Finch was like, hey, and you're not going back in. Then what the coach is basically telling you, hey, we're done. We're done here. So he's not going back in. It's like, all right. Yeah, might as well go say congrats.

Can you imagine hockey players lining up to shake each other's hands after a game? They would never do it. Like, these guys take the game so seriously, especially in the playoffs.

That's like—

that's the difference between the NHL and the NBA.

That's facts. OK, any other sports stories that we had from this weekend? That we wanted to talk about. It was Roger. Yeah, that was me. My— who's back? We'll talk about him. No, Aaron Rodgers is back. Aaron Rodgers is back.

$5 million.

I, uh, I feel bad for Steelers fans because that is just— he's not, he's not the same quarterback. No. Is he better than what you have right now? Probably, although you don't know what you have with Will Hart.

Oh, I think I thought you were going to say Drew Aller. Drew Aller is just, you know, you have a Drew. No, not that's old Drew Aller. You thought that you knew, but they just, they're doing a complete factory reinstall of the software. You see that quote?

Yeah.

They're uninstalling everything he's ever learned.

Correct.

And they're doing brand new program.

I mean, listen, Mike McCarthy is a good coach, the quarterback. So I would guess that would be the silver lining is that Rodgers and McCarthy together, maybe you can recapture a little of the magic. But it does feel like the Steelers just put a finite floor and ceiling on their season. Yeah, right. And it's somewhere between 7 and 10 wins.

That's what we're thinking.

What was the relationship like with them at the end of their time?

Not great.

What do you think it was like? Not great with Aaron Rodgers. It's usually not great.

Yeah, it doesn't go well.

I thought that was like why they split up.

It was part of it. It was— I mean, it wasn't great, but it was also Aaron Rodgers with the Packers overall. And then, I mean, McCarthy left before obviously Aaron Rodgers because he had LaFleur. But yeah, I mean, I think, I think Rodgers also has had— I mean, even when he was with the Jets, you could see it in some of his comments where he's just like, I kind of maybe shouldn't have left the Packers because they know how to run an organization, which they do. So maybe he's like, hey, this will maybe work out again. They did have good times together and Rodgers was at his peak with him. I think, although he won, I think his last MVP was with Lil Four.

You know what, I think that this is the year that the Steelers win a playoff game.

Okay, there you go.

Yeah, no, I, I think it's, uh, yeah, it's the best option that they had right now, without a doubt.

But again, it's like, what are you building? Like, what do you— what's the long-term plan? I guess it doesn't matter if you're gonna spike McCarthy's first year. It's like, hey, just try this once and then, and then figure it out.

It's the best option for this year, but they're gonna—

again, is Isn't next year's quarterback draft great? I mean, we don't know, but it could potentially be great. They're probably going to play themselves into the 16th spot where they can't get a quarterback. Yeah, that part would piss me off if I were a Steelers fan.

Yeah.

Hank, do you have a review of your, uh, Ronda Rousey-Gina Carano fight? And it was horrible. That was a little bit more than that.

It was horrible.

Yeah, it was way more.

Yeah.

It was, it was really bad. Those fights are a joke.

You watch the Nate Diaz.

Nate Diaz, you can— he can fight anytime. He'll put on a show.

So I was—

yeah, one of the most difficult things like I've ever watched on a television.

More difficult than the drive we have tomorrow?

That we're not talking—

that's a different category. So you were uncomfortable, Max?

Yes, I was so uncomfortable.

The most difficult things to watch on the television that you've ever watched on the television.

Other than Eagles or Phillies sports losses, like, that was up there.

He was bleeding from, like, a really bad tragedy.

You don't, like, see them on the, like, live on the television.

There's one that we could— you saw, he was like 8.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I was 5 years old.

Okay.

Challenger.

Yeah, the Challenger.

We weren't alive.

That was tough.

What is the Challenger? I don't even know what that is.

You don't know?

Hey, Google, Google O-rings.

O-rings. They got cold in Florida.

O-rings?

Yeah, they tried to launch a spaceship before it got hot out.

Rocket goes boom. There's a teacher on there.

And then every school in America wheeled the TV in to watch it live because there was a teacher on there.

There's a first grade teacher on there.

Boom.

On the Challenger.

Everyone's okay.

No survivors.

No, it's bad.

Survivor?

No survivors.

No.

Oh, no survivors blew up on live television. In front of America's children.

But yeah, I guess the Ronda Rousey fight was bad too. Yeah, whatever.

Yeah, that armbar was vicious.

I'm sure that wasn't—

it wasn't an armbar.

What was it?

Ronda Rousey was an armbar.

I said Ronda Rousey's armbar.

I mean, Nate Diaz, he was just— he was just—

that's what he does. He just doesn't care. He's just a fucking—

you watched it.

Nate Diaz is a healthy reminder. It's like there's levels to being a man.

Yes, correct.

An absolute savage.

Correct. Every time Nate Diaz fights, you're like, oh my God. You think he's going to die for the first 3 rounds? Yeah.

You think it's a dead man?

Yeah.

He just eats punches and it makes no sense. It's, it's the most sobering reminder of like, yeah, I might be bitch made because his face was a faucet of blood.

Like the amount, like the stream of blood that was coming out of like the pores of his face were very graphic.

We might have a new MMA correspondent with Max. Max is doing a good job.

I like that. You are doing a good job. Hank, you've been replaced. You've been replaced, Hank.

Fuck.

And then the Canadiens— Canadian Sabers going Game 7. That's gonna be awesome.

Good for hockey.

A lot of— you know that this series is getting serious because we've got a lot of, uh, fan discourse, what it means to be a good fan, because Canadian fans were leaving early when they were down 8-3, which I understand. Yeah, but previously they had been like, we don't leave. We don't leave early for these games.

Wait, Canadians, they, they won.

They lost 8-3 before, earlier in the series. They're like, look at Sabers fans leaving.

Okay, this is bullshit. They were talking shit about the Sabers.

Yeah. And then I didn't see—

I didn't— I guess I didn't see too much of that discourse.

Yeah, it was— I mean, listen, Canada's— it's, it's a hockey country except for the gold medal and the Stanley Cups. Other than that, the number one hockey country. Okay, should we do who's back of the week? Oh, also, we had rivalry week in, in baseball, which I feel like they don't really pump that up because we had Yankees, Mets, Cubs, White Sox, Phillies, Pirates. Cubs need pitching.

Nats, we're in trouble.

Yeah.

Wheeler, Skeens, Wheeler.

PFT dropped a Nats fact on us that we're like— he's like, did you guys know?

Did you?

Let me do it. Let me—

nope.

Let me do the fact. Let me do the fact because it's a good fact. Did you know that until Saturday, the Nats had lost 15 straight games when they were trying to get back to.500?

Yeah.

When they were one game below.500, Hank and I both are like, nope. Yeah. Well, that all changed. That all changed because 500— they were 500. They lost today. But we got a pup. We got a dog, which there's, there's a strong correlation between getting like a 13-week-old puppy and your season getting completely turned around. So shout out Natty, the Nationals pup. Looks like a very good boy. I just hope that he's got a couple innings out of the bullpen in him because our pitching staff stinks.

Yeah. Cubs need pitching. White Sox are good. They're actually like, this is finally like, it's kind of, they're not a joke.

They've got some sluggers.

Big time sluggers, dude. They're not, they're, I don't know what the price is for them to win the AL Central, but they, they, they are not a bad team. Yeah.

I have a question, Big Cat.

Yeah.

Um, why does PCA hate women?

Uh, he actually talked about it afterwards. He said that there was a woman in the, um, outfield, in the— in center field, who was talking shit to him, and he said, I just talked some shit back. I like that.

It was— I think it was her engagement party or something, maybe.

And then right as— right as they go, they show the clip of him talking shit to her, and then it's like— it's like Children's Day at the park, and it was perfect. So Yeah, I have no problem with that. A PCA is a— PCA is a guy who can start like he— people get mad about PCA if he's not— if you don't root for the Cubs, people get mad about him. If you root for the Cubs, you defend him. He's a lightning rod guy. He's good for rivalries. He is. And Schwarber is also just— he just hits. I mean, that was insane.

He hasn't hit any homers in the past 2 days and I'm getting antsy.

You're like, this guy stinks now.

No, not this guy stinks. It's just I'm just used to Schwarber homers every single day. So now that I have— I've had 2 days without them.

You go through a draw, though.

Harper has hit homers in both of those days.

So at least one of them back.

Oh, yeah. Above.500. There you go.

Mets. Are the Mets back to a season-defining win this weekend on Sunday?

Not back, but they've moved up a level from dead to scrappy.

Oh, that's an important step. Yeah, there's still 6 games below.500, but they won 5 out of the last 6. So long season. Tyrone Taylor, big home run today. So long season. OK, Twisted Tea. Who's Back the Week's brought to you by Twisted Tea. Summer's right around the corner and Twisted Tea is coming in clutch to turn our day drinking up a notch. Their new summer party pack has a brand new Twisted Tea lemonade. And I want to go on the record saying this will be the drink of the summer if It's got a refreshing taste with a little kick and no carbonation. Grit Week is the official kickoff of preseason football that we've all been waiting for, and we know that Twisted Tea is a staple during football season. So what are you most excited about in the upcoming weeks, and how can you bring Twisted Tea along for the ride? Well, go grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. Get in on it. Twisted Tea all summer long. We're excited. We got Max doing drafts. We're talking to coaches.

I'm working on—

I'm working on a trade right now to get back.

This is what we're talking about. You know, minicamps, OTAs, like football's going to be back. Tell me the schedule release.

Tell me about this trade, Max.

Get to get the trade going. Go get a Twisted Tea. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today.

We're, we're pretty tight end.

What's the—

I don't think there's a trade. No, no.

For the draft, there is.

That's when the pick is in.

Yeah, they don't do it.

Uh, I think Trey just goes, all right, do the, do, do the trade.

Uh, I mean, it's, it's nowhere close to confirmed, but what are the, what are the initial talks? We're, we're in talks with, uh, Keon Coleman for the—

he's in your league?

Keon Coleman? Yeah, he's on my team.

Oh, oh, although you said you were in talks with Keon Coleman. I thought he was—

oh no, we're in talks with having Keon Coleman, trading Keon Coleman so that we could draft— we're looking at Max Clare, the, the new Rams tight end.

Oh, hell yeah.

Just because we're thin at tight end and, you know, a Rams tight end will be—

yeah, you know, he'll be heard from.

He'll be heard from. He'll be heard.

I'd like you to actually reach out to Keon Coleman and seek his permission to be traded. Can you tweet at him?

Let him know.

Sure, I'll do that right now.

Okay. Uh, who's back of the week, Hank?

Um, who's back of the week? I should probably just let Max take it based off our earlier discussion.

Interesting.

Oh, okay, go ahead, Max.

It's now that you're the guy, UFC guy.

Oh, UFC. Uh, Conor McGregor.

There you go.

Conor McGregor.

Dana, Dana White is back right as Francis Ngannou is, is walking out for his fight and MVP, I think it's called. Um, Dana White just drops Conor McGregor back versus Max Holloway. Crazy, crazy. July 14th.

Yeah, okay, I think that's right.

Great work.

I think, I think that's—

it's close enough.

Can Conor McGregor still fight at all?

I'll watch.

Uh, yeah, people are gonna watch.

I think he's a heavy underdog.

No, I don't, right, at this moment. I would imagine It's the old you don't do road work in silk pajamas. Once he got very, very rich, it's probably harder to be like, hey, I want to go get my face bashed in.

He should have actually gone to prison if you wanted to get better at fighting.

Yeah, he had many chances.

I know he should have told his lawyer like, hey, yeah, hey, I'm not going to fight. Let this one through.

Yeah.

July 11th. I got to get in July 11th. I was wrong with July 14th.

June 4th.

June 14th is the White House fight. And that's where I got—

it's like getting— getting— you'll be there again.

I will not be there for Conor McGregor.

Like, getting head from your wife on your mega yacht versus going and training to get your face mashed in. Yeah, tough one. Tough, tough to choose.

It's tough to get a blowjob on a mega yacht and say, you know, I need to work harder for my life to get better.

Yes, exactly, exactly. So he's back. So Hank, you're— that's your who's back.

That was my who's back. Also, Sham's spoiling. Yeah, so being a piece of shit.

Yeah, so he just Amazon was ready to have a big ceremony tonight and like waited, like, we're going to wait till the playoffs get going. Shump's kind of pissed me off.

Yeah. No, it's like it's just a dick move.

Yeah, it's a dick move.

Why did he say—

tweeted out this morning that Shea was the MVP and then it came out that like had been Amazon and the NBA had been intentionally like waiting, delaying, planning on doing this whole ceremony before Game 7 and they just—

what an asshole.

They just tweeted it out. What was it?

Tweeted out. I worked on this story for years.

He just tweeted it all out.

Yeah.

Yeah. Dick.

Like, what's Sean's deal, dude?

I don't know, but I'm out on Amazon games.

Why?

They are harder to find at bars. Oh, I know, because I brought this up the other week and you were like, well, all these bars, they have to have Amazon packages.

No, it's kind of same.

It's not the same. Is that— so I was in Virginia on, on Friday night and I was just trying to watch the game out so I didn't have to stay in my hotel room.

We're on the booth, we're on the booth, guys. You got to share with the class.

Yeah, funny Blake Griffin quote memes.

What do you say? Uh, this is regarding the Shams situation. He just said it. He said, it's Sunday, Shams, go to brunch, you nerd. Yes, I love that. I love it.

So that's the only good part about Amazon I like, Blake Griffin.

Yes.

Um, but Yeah, I'm over Amazon NBA. I'm over it.

You got to just watch at home.

I—

but if you're in a hotel, you don't get Amazon on the TV. I was reduced to watching on my phone the entire time. I had to watch a game on your phone for— and it was 2 games. I had to watch about 6 hours of NBA nonstop on my phone sideways. That's, that's a very hard thing to do. I feel like I should get a medal for that.

The— on Friday night, I think everyone had plans. Oh, Hank was maybe stopped over, but I had Russell over because he was still in town to watch the games. And notepad. He brought the notepad. It was legit. He's taking notes. We're sitting outside. What is that?

Perform?

It's not. I watched him take notes. I watched him take notes.

You have a notes app on your phone now.

It's something about— something about that yellow legal pad.

It's easier. Plus, it's—

you remember it more.

A guy like Russell. The blue light. He's trying to cut down on that.

Yeah, that's true.

He's addicted to the blue light. It's bad.

I usually only have it in the— in the go-yard. What did he pull it out of? Like, did you bring the go-yard and then pull the—

No, he just had it in his hand. We were sitting up on my rooftop and he was— he was just taking notes throughout the whole game.

Roof on or off?

Roof was closed. Roof was closed. The pergola is the word I found out is a word that people use that I didn't know. Pergola.

Pergola.

Pergola or perugla? No, you're going to sound like something I want to eat.

You're combining arugula. You're combining it with—

arugula is the cheese, right?

No, it's a vegetable.

A vegetable.

It's a vegetable.

I don't want to eat it.

That rabbits hate. And you're also mixing up with a Bill's.

Oh yeah. Arugula, perugla, and pergola, and pergula, and pergola. But that's purgatory.

Bo-per-bu-la.

Bo-per-bu-la.

You're thinking Pergola. Pergola is the thing.

It's the— it's a thing over my head that I have a remote and it just goes, roof, roof closed. It's a little windy.

You might actually—

I didn't want his yellow legal pad to blow in the wind.

You might have an awning now that you— now that you mention it.

No, I think it's—

I think this might be an awning.

Pergola. I really do.

It's a power pergola. What? Power pergola. So on/off.

It's—

it's got like the— it's got like slits that just go like that.

So if I want the sun to come in, oh, it's almost like a car air vent. You go, yeah, open up.

Yeah, but they're like, yeah, there's a bunch of ones and they just go like that.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, I actually haven't never opened it up, so I don't know if it opens now that I'm saying this out loud. I just assume because they're slits, they open.

I thought that was the whole genesis of this thing, was you being like, I took the—

I took the roof off.

That was taking the stuff off the couch. Oh, I was just taking the winter the winter covers off the couch and the winter cover off the TV. That was me opening it. And then everyone's like, oh, do you have a roof, an actual roof that you open? And I was like, wait, I actually do, but I've never opened it. It's a pergola. That was, that was maybe the worst 2 minutes of podcasting ever. Go ahead, PFT, your who's back.

My who's back of the week is El Niño, because we have a potential super El Niño coming in. I don't know if you've seen the computer models, the projections of what this looks like. Just looks like a big vagina on the globe.

Yep.

According to the model that I've seen. But then I did some research into it and it seems like this might be the biggest El Niño that we've had since like the 1800s. Yeah. Since then, it was like a big thing in the world with that El Niño. There are droughts and floods.

It's going to be awesome for us.

Yeah, there are famines.

So the Midwest is drier warmer winter. I love that.

Oh, in the winter. Okay.

So it's only El Niño only really affects things in the winter anyway. Okay. I watched a video about it last night. Weather volatility in California and southern United States. It basically pushes all storms like south, drier, warmer in the Midwest and East Coast.

What about like the Chilean fishermen that we were very concerned for the last time El Niño?

I didn't remember that. Yeah, I didn't. That didn't get touched. On the video. The video looked like it was a broadcaster out of L.A. So it was like, yeah. And then the woman— he told— it was a meteorologist. He told the whole thing. And the woman was like, so I don't have to buy a boat yet? He's like, not yet.

I love that. That's very—

but you might. Yeah.

I just remember the one on one. The last time there was like a super El Niño coming, everyone just kept talking about Chilean fishermen. And then the other topic I remember is that 10 billion crabs died off the coast of Alaska last time, which sounds like a fake number to me.

Yeah.

Like, I don't want to get all Nick Fuentes. I don't want to get all Nick Fuentes, but like 10 billion? Did everyone count every single snow crab?

I mean, that's a lot of crab.

It seems like a lot of snow crabs.

That's a lot of crabs. OK, my Who's Back of the Week is football because we have Bill Belichick coming up and it's an awesome, awesome interview. Got an hour and 40. It was— we also have a vlog dropping. When's the vlog dropping?

The vlog is dropping Tuesday.

Okay, so this is where PFT got his injury. Yeah, uh, we had a great time though at UNC. So we went out— shout out, by the way, we did see some AWLs out in Chapel Hill.

I don't—

I feel like people were pretty cool about, uh, not spoiling it. We did, we did play a game where anytime anyone asked us who we were interviewing, we had to say someone from UNC, but we couldn't repeat. So I think one guy came up to us and he's like, who are you guys here for? I was like, James Worthy.

And he's like, what?

I'm like, yeah, we're interviewing James Worthy. Isn't that crazy?

The guy came up, I was like, yeah, we're— we got an interview with Eric Montross in the situation. Yeah, he was like, oh, that's awesome.

Yeah, but it was cool because we went, we got to watch practice. Um, Hank and I got to call some defensive plays at the end of practice, very end of practice, as spring ball they let us, you know, I think they made it pretty easy for us because there was only like 3 options.

It was one of the coolest—

it was one of the coolest things I've ever done because we had a moment where we had like we got like 2 stops in a row and Bill Belichick looked back at us. It was like, good job, guys.

And Steve Belichick and Jamie Collins, one of the defensive assistants, like, you guys are on their fucking ass.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

It was awesome. It was awesome.

It was unbelievable.

But yeah, shout out, shout out my guy Brandon, who I've known for a long time, who was able to, you know, it's been a long time trying to get this interview done. And I'm sure there'll be a few people who will be like, hey, how did you not ask about Jordyn? They didn't tell us we couldn't ask anything. We were like, hey, we want to have a good football interview with the best football coach of all time. We're not going to ask about his girlfriend and potentially ruin it.

Yeah, I think—

and I'll take that. I'll do that every single time. To get the good interview.

I think if that had happened, the interview probably would have been over at that point. And I did not want— like, we talked to Bill Belichick.

They didn't tell us we could for about an hour, 40 minutes.

And we probably could have talked to him for about 3 hours.

We— there were so many— there was a moment you'll hear in the interview where it's like 20 minutes left where in my head I was like, wait, we haven't asked a single question about Tom Brady. I was like, hey, Tom Brady, pretty good, right?

And there is a moment in this interview coming up where In the last 3 months of this podcast, I've cried from laughing too hard. The first was with Jerry O'Connell when he was doing his Geno Smith impression. Was it Seven Sundays? Seven Sunday Heroes?

Yeah.

And then the second was when Zach was asking Bill Belichick his question this time, and Belichick was trying to figure out like what the issue was and how to actually help Zach out. It was, it was so funny. I hope you guys like it. But again, yeah. They didn't ask us to not bring anything up. But I do think that if we had, it would just been like interview over. So if some people are mad, I get it.

Well, I still want to interview Jordan. Yeah, yeah. I want to keep that open.

But yeah, I get it. I get it. If you wish that we had asked that. But also at the same time, it's like we were never going to.

I don't get it because you want like if we have a chance to interview Bill Belichick, who knows more about football than pretty much anyone on earth, I'm going to ask an hour and 45 minutes of football questions. I agree with that.

I agree with the fact that when we started the podcast, there was a short list. There was a short list of 5 people. Of who, like, dream interviews. Like, he was top of the list.

And I've been, I've been working to try to get this interview done for a long time, and it finally came together. So I wasn't going to be like, oh, you know what, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna hit him with the Jordan question 2 minutes in.

You guys did talk a lot about Jordan last year, but I understand.

I understand why.

I understand. I understand. No, no, no, no, no.

But like, it's, it's not like, whatever, it's understandable why you did.

We weren't the only pro-Jordan voices.

We are pro-Jordan. We want Jordan on Show has brought her up in the last year. Well, she was in the news. We want her on the show. Yeah. So I think we did. And we want— I mean, we've been doing this for 10 years now. Our rule is always when we have a guest on, we want them to come on again. Maybe not Dak Prescott, but I think we did a good enough job that we'll have him on again. I really do. I think Bill Belichick will come back on the show.

I would love to talk to him again.

Yeah.

And yeah, I couldn't talk about, about the injury over the last like 3 weeks. Hamstring, hamstring just snapped clean off.

Just watch, watch the, watch the vlog.

Yeah, I don't, I don't need surgery. There was a moment where the doctor told me he thought that I needed surgery on it. Thank God I don't. And it's way better now. But yeah, I think you can hear it in the video too when it snaps off. Yeah, I will not ever make fun of somebody else for having a hamstring injury in my life.

That's why I told PFT that I wanted to kick him in his leg after he got surgery when he made fun of Joel Embiid.

Chat, are you being so funny that time?

No, I was just giving context.

I was giving— you did an inside joke when you said that, that only the room knew. I'm correct.

So saying, got it, got it, got it.

But yes, it was— that is, you are going to kick PFT at some point in the back.

No, he's not going to get surgery.

Don't need surgery.

Yeah.

Healthy as a horse. I'm still retired from running, but I'm healthy as a horse. Starting yoga. I'm developing an obsession with yoga this week.

Clean off.

No, no. The MRI just said torn hamstring. Slight tear to the tendon. Don't have to get surgery on the tendon. The worry was that the hamstring tendon had snapped.

Right.

Because you couldn't feel it in the back of my leg because there was a bunch of swelling and shit from where the muscle itself had rolled. Yeah, we're old. I'm old.

So it's great.

That's why I'm retired from running and I'm going to go full time into yoga.

Yeah, but enjoy the interview because I really do think it was a great interview and I was like, it was one of those interviews where we were, you know, I think we agreed on like 45 minutes and it just kept going and it was awesome and we got in a groove and it was like, I don't want this to end. Um, Zach, you're who's back?

Uh, my house— who's back of the week is going to be a professional Call of Duty because generally we had the, uh, third, uh, major of the year today. Bush, uh, in the Challengers division of, uh, the CDL, or, uh, in the Challengers division of Call of Duty, the Bush did take home the prot.

They shout out the book on the trophy.

Big win for the Bush.

That's, uh, Abe came in capsule pro loop Big win from the loser's bracket, which is tough to do.

Yeah. Knock down a loser's bracket and 7-game run to go grab the trophy. That's real hardware.

Congrats to Mook, Jerry, and Sass and the boys.

Push, definitely. And then you got your guy, Nadeshot, PFT. LA Thieves won the CDO, so they beat out OpTic for—

let's go as well. That's my guy, Nadeshot.

They got it done.

Also, any other who's backs? Oh, you know, we have some Zach stuff at the end of the show. So we got some good Zach stuff, both the Publix run and your trip, solo trip to the club.

I am glad everybody enjoyed the subs.

Yeah. Yeah, we'll get into it. All right. Let's get to the Bill Belichick interview. It is brought to you by our friends at Chevy. It is Grit Week. Chevy is a proud sponsor of Pardon My Take. This is a truck that is the definition of grit. Long days, dirty work, and showing up day after day, no matter the conditions. Strong, dependable, and built for the grind. Because grit isn't about being flashy, it's about being ready when it's time to go. That's Silverado, all grit, no quit. Check out the current offers and build your Silverado at chevy.com. Go right now, check out the current offers, build your Silverado at chevy.com. We have a Chevy Silverado that we're traveling with from Jacksonville to New Orleans. We love it. We're also in Vandy Woodhead, but it was just also a Chevy. So go check out the current offers and build your Silverado at chevy.com today. That's Silverado, all grit, no quit. It. Okay, here he is, Coach Bill Belichick. Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very, very, very special guest. It is Coach Bill Belichick, UNC head football coach. It is the first, uh, interview for Grit Week.

This first question is brought to you by Reese's. Coach, thank you so much, by the way. This has been an incredible day, but we got to start it how we start every Grit Week interview and ask you, what does grit mean to Yeah, I'm not a big grit guy, so, you know, definitely don't like grits for breakfast.

That's not one of my things either. So I like toughness, competitiveness. So if that's grit, that's tough. That's what I like. I like toughness, competitiveness.

That's a good answer. I also— so I was— I purchased your book as a little preview for this interview because I wanted to, you know, get in the mind of Bill Belichick. And I noticed something right away. You've coached some unbelievable football teams. You've won 8 Super Bowls, 6 as a head coach, 2 with the Giants. You say, though, that the 1963 Navy football team is the best football team of all time. What is it about them?

Well, I think they had the most impact on me. I don't know if it's the best team of all time, but it's a hell of a team. It was a great group of players, but it's a great group of people. And so I learned so much from them about leadership, teamwork, being a good teammate, sacrifice. And, you know, Staubach, Tom Lynch, you know, Skip Orr, Jim Campbell, Johnny Sye. I mean, those guys are, you know, I've been kind of adopted by that team, you know, I was 10 years old, but I just hung around and those guys are such great people, great leaders. And it's such a great team. Like, the chemistry on that team is amazing.

Yeah. Yeah.

So a little bit about us. We're, we're big fullback guys. We love fullbacks. We created an award for the nation's top collegiate fullback. It's called the Lowman Trophy. So we put it out every single year. One of the favorite things that we do. And I'm curious from your perspective, because you've coached a lot of fullbacks, you've seen the game change over the years. What's your, what's your philosophy on using fullbacks and also how to teach fullbacks?

Well, like anything else, you can gain an advantage to do it. And so when we felt like we could gain an advantage with a 2-back set of the fullback, depending on who our fullback was, then we would try to use that. And so certainly in, you know, goal line short yardage situations, 4-minute, things like that. But we've had some really good fullbacks and, you know, James Devlin, Mark Edwards, you know, Yock was, you know, did a nice job for us. And, you know, even going back to, you know, Cleveland and Baltimore, I first came into the league, there were some, you know, good fullbacks. Nobody like Jim Brown. All right. But he was the best of all time. But, you know, it just gives you a chance to build another gap in the running game as opposed to having 2 tight ends and 12 personnel up on the line. When you have a fullback, you can go to either side and create that extra gap and it gives you more flexibility in your blocking schemes. You know, Coach Parcells is big on that, you know, with Maurice Carthon and, you know, fullbacks that he had.

And so I certainly learned a lot from, you know, the way he employed them as well.

When you're looking at a fullback, are you, are you looking at a guy and saying, okay, this guy is very good at running directly into people? Or is there like, is there an art to blocking the shit out of people? I guess is what I'm asking.

You know, the— it, it's interesting. The fullback is really the running back. He's the eyes for the running back. So he has to see the same hole that the running back sees. If he doesn't, then you just got a mess on your hands. So that fullback needs to see where the running back would enter in, and that's where he needs to go. And then the backs follows him. If the fullback makes bad decisions, then the, then the tailback's kind of stuck with, you know, a bad picture and there's nowhere to run. So, um, he actually has to be a very instinctive guy, um, to be able to, you know, when can I go around, when can I go through, when do I have to take the guy, you know, it's not my guy, but he's more dangerous than me getting to my guy and all those decisions. It's, it's, it gets dirty in front of you and, and making those decisions, have enough toughness. And especially when you get guys that are coming up in the line of scrimmage, you know, guys like Ray Lewis and, you know, Earl Acker and guys like that that are really coming to attack those fullbacks.

You know, you need somebody that's strong, powerful, and tough, ready to go head to head. You know, we had Landon Roberts at middle linebacker and James Devlin at fullback. You know, after about 4 plays in training camp, we just said, that's it. No more lead plays with you two guys. You're just going to kill each other. So we know you're tough.

We know you can block.

We know you're You're going to take on the lead blocker. All right, let's, you know, let's try to stay healthy for the rest of camp. Yeah, those are some— there's some train wrecks.

Yeah.

So I was able to— we were able to go watch practice. It was incredible to see it. I, you know, I don't know what, you know, people outside might be like, oh, well, Coach Belichick, he's not hands-on. You were in there. You were in there every single, you know, down. You guys were playing last practice of spring offense, defense. What is it like? How much have you had to change your style coaching college kids now versus pros? Is it, you know, are you looking for a specific type of guy that's different than what you're looking for in the pros, or is it just football's football?

Well, I try to do whatever I can to help improve the players and the team. So whatever that consists of, if it's giving them coaching points on the field, off the field, watching film, you know, talking about fundamentals, you know, however I can help them, you know, reach their goals, play better, and help our team reach its goals. That's what I do. It's fun. It's a lot more opportunity to coach really at this level than, than in the NFL. And I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I enjoy, you know, coaching all the groups in practice. You know, I can go yell at anybody. It's fair game. So yeah, head coach, you can take on anybody you want.

Yeah.

And it's actually a lot of fun.

Yeah.

I would imagine like being able to watch because, you know, once you're a pro, you're a pro. And yeah, obviously the coaching is very important, but In terms of like watching a freshman and the leaps and bounds they can make, it's probably pretty cool to see guys come back, you know, your second year and be like, oh wow, they've put on muscle and they've figured out the game a little bit more and being able to see that growth probably at a more rapid rate than what happens in the pros.

Absolutely. There's no question about that. They improve a lot. They improve very fast. And, and really in a very short amount of time, sometimes, you know, 3 to 6 to 9 months, it's, it's almost like watching a different player. So So that's very gratifying to see that type of improvement. They don't improve that fast in the NFL. They improve, but not at that rate.

Yeah.

And so it's, you know, if the kid is open-minded, willing, will listen, and then we'll really work at the skills that he needs to work on, again, they can improve very quickly, both physically and from a fundamental technique standpoint.

Yeah. And I might have read this situation incorrectly, but Hank and I were calling some plays on defense with your son, and you looked back at us at one point, and I, I think the look was like, damn, you guys are calling some good defense. Yeah. Was that true? Is that, was that a fair look?

Yeah, you made a couple good calls to, uh, really stop the offense there. You stopped them cold.

It felt good. Then we, then we lost, but for a brief second there, I think Hank and I both were like, I think we might just be on the UNC staff now. Like, this might just be our future.

Yeah, yeah, you guys are on a roll for sure. Yeah, you have about 4 or 5 calls in a row that just like stuff the offense. Yeah, like you're in the huddle, you to play.

Yeah, chess match. Yeah. When, when you talk about yelling at the different position groups, do you have to change how you yell at a kicker as opposed to like how you yell at a linebacker, how you yell at a safety?

I don't yell. I just emphasize.

You emphasize.

I just emphasize points.

Yeah, I don't yell. Which position group is the most fun to emphasize points to?

Honestly, I enjoy all of them. I really do enjoy all of them. You know, I love to get on the quarterbacks and the receivers, the skilled players and, you know, But certainly defensive players because, you know, I like that, you know, defensive play style, special teams, same thing. Offensive line, you know, those guys need to be some of the toughest players on the team. And, you know, it's good to get after them, see them respond to tight ends and offensive line. So honestly, I enjoy all of it. Yeah, yeah, I do. I enjoy coaching every position. They're all challenging. They're all different. That's the great thing about coaching special teams. You know, I started off as a special teams coach. And other than the quarterbacks, you coach every position on the field. And so it's, you know, the mentality of a defensive back compared to an offensive lineman or a linebacker compared to a receiver is so different and the personalities are different regardless. Each personality is different of every player. I get that. But as positions, they're very, very different. And it's a great learning experience to understand how to handle different, different players that kind of look at the game differently.

You know, toughness is a, is a, it's an interesting thing in football. You know, you see guys on defense that are tough. They'll go run in there, they'll make these tough tackles. And then you look at a receiver who's going to go over the middle and catch a pass and he's going to get cleaned out. He's going to get clobbered and he still hangs on and makes a catch. It's a different kind of toughness. It's a different kind of mental toughness, like a Julian Edelman toughness compared to a Lawrence Taylor toughness. They're both tough players. But in different ways. And so it's kind of interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of special teams, you get the opportunity to coach everybody. One of my favorite calls that you ever made was the dropkick, the Doug Flutie dropkick.

And, you know, that was a Chris Berman call. Okay.

That's— I was going to ask you about that.

I got to give Chris Berman credit on that one. He's the one who told me, hey, you know, Flutie could dropkick. And I'm like, no, not really. And he said, yeah, he absolutely— I seen— I saw him do it up in Canada. And he can drop kick. What do you think about doing it? I said, all right, let's see here. And so I go to Flutie and said, can you drop kick? He goes, yeah, sure, no problem. So he drop kicks a couple and said, all right, well, last game of the year, we put in the drop kick. So it was a different formation, right? Because there's no, you know, he's back there kicking and we had an extra guy. We actually split him out. They had to have somebody go out there and cover him. So we— there's like 4 minutes left to go in the game and 5 minutes left to go in the game, something like that. And we're moving the ball. We got the ball down like maybe around the 20-yard line or so. And I look over to Doug and I said, Doug, are you ready to go on the drop kick?

And he's like, well, I haven't warmed up. I mean, I haven't. I'm like, look, Doug, if you want to do it, then don't do it. Okay. But what do you want me to do? We're about to score a touchdown. Either go in there and kick it or we'll kick the extra point. I mean, what do you want to do? I'm ready, Coach.

I'm ready.

I'm ready.

Good answer.

Exactly right. I mean, what do you want?

You're giving him the opportunity of a lifetime.

I mean, this isn't like baseball.

Baseball where you got, you know, hey, just warm up in the bullpen. We'll bring in 2 or 3 more batters. I mean, if we score, kick it.

Yeah.

So we sent him in. So we score, we sent him in there and he kicked it. And it was the first one since 1940, 30-something. I forget what it was now, but it was like, you know, 75 years or something.

Yeah, it's crazy. It was a great— and I was going to ask you about that because I thought stupidly, I'll raise my hand, I got this one wrong. I thought maybe the Schwamm had embellished that story to us. That he told you to call it. But credit to him, he knows ball.

He did. He— yeah, he turned me on to it. And I said, I mean, you know, I'm a football historian. I mean, you got a chance to drop kick it. You get an extra guy in protection, right? Yeah. So you don't have to worry about, you know, you got one more guy to block and, you know, Doug just popped it through.

Yeah, that's incredible. I love it. I saw— so I have a coffee company and I saw a quote that broke my heart, but also was probably the coolest football guy quote of all time. You said, I don't drink coffee. I get all my energy from football. Is it— do you actually not drink coffee?

I can't stand coffee.

Okay.

And you get all your energy— I can't stand to look at coffee. I can't stand—

oh no, we're gonna cut all this.

I can't stand the smell of coffee. I can't even eat coffee ice cream, and I can eat anything that's sugar. Yeah, but the coffee ice cream, it just— I, I It's terrible. I hate it.

Yeah.

So, so when they say, yeah, can you make coffee? No, I can't make coffee. And where do I want coffee? You want it, you make it yourself. I'm not making coffee. I don't even know how to make it.

So if you, if you were like a shot of espresso, which you might not even know because you don't drink any coffee, like that's, you know, that's a lot of extra caffeine. What's the shot of espresso of football where you're like, I need some extra, I need an extra kick of football? Do you put on film of something specific where you're like, like, this is where my energy comes.

Yeah, if you see something that looks good and you feel like, man, that's gonna be a good play, or, you know, we do this, we can make a, make a play on this, or, you know, this is something that can stop something that they're doing. Yeah, that's an energy, that's an energizer for sure.

So like, you could be, you could be like dragging ass in the afternoon, you're like, just give me a piece of tape, let me watch it real quick. All right, I'm ready to go.

Yeah, I mean, look, if I wanted, if I wanted energy, I'd go to my cinnamon tea.

Okay.

You know, I'd hit that, but Football. I wouldn't drink coffee if there was nothing else to drink. Yeah, just—

this is heartbreaking.

Are you anti-caffeine in general?

No. Oh, hell no.

It's just coffee.

Just coffee. Yeah, you're good with like an energy drink or any kind of tea?

Yeah, no, I drink tea. I drink, you know, you know, soda, Cokes, whatever. But, you know, coffee, not a chance.

Okay. All right, so pick one.

I don't care how much milk you put in. I don't care how much sugar you put in. I don't care how much whipped cream. You can't, you can't bury that taste. Yeah, it's still, it still finds a way to go through.

Yeah.

And, uh, you really hate coffee.

This is—

no, that's fascinating.

Let me test you right here, right now, gun to your head. Coffee or the New York Jets?

I'll go with the Jets.

Oh wow, that's a man who hates coffee.

Yeah, remember Undefeated, unscored on, head coach of the New York Jets twice.

Yep.

Never lost a game, never gave up a point.

That's a great point.

Did you ever think like, maybe I should have grabbed like an envelope or like a half-torn sheet of paper to write my resignation letter on?

Yeah, in retrospect, I don't think that was the greatest choice. Yeah, I don't know.

It got the message across.

It certainly did. Yeah, it did. I did in a very— I don't know, it wasn't real. It wasn't the classiest thing I've ever done. I'll say that.

Yeah.

But I mean, I wasn't in a mood. I was in a mood at that time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it probably worked out for you, though.

Well, I mean, I had worked for Modell. And the two trains that were coming down the tracks were Dolan and Woody Johnson. And I just felt like I don't feel comfortable working for whichever one of those guys ends up with the team. Nothing personal. I just, you know, I'd had a bad experience and I was either I'm going to work for a good owner or an owner that I felt comfortable with, that I shared a vision with, or I'm not working for that.

Yeah. So, you know, was that, was that last season in Cleveland the toughest year of your coaching career? Because, you know, knowing the team's moving, everyone's like basically out, the fans are going after you guys and you have to coach a football team.

Oh, yeah. It was unprecedented. Yeah. I mean, you've never seen anything like it. The stadium was literally empty. There wasn't one sign, one billboard sign for anything. It was as barren as it could be. And then, of course, in the last game against Cincinnati, you know, we had to turn around 3 times because we couldn't get close enough to the dog pound because they were throwing, pelting us and they were taking those big seats, you know, the steel seats and they were unscrewing them and tossing them over the upper deck. I mean, it was, it was, there was some violence there.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was, it was terrible because the Cleveland fans had lost their team and we were still there. Modell was gone. Of course, he never came back. And, you know, you're just kind of stuck there. And everybody was— they weren't really upset at us because we didn't make the decision to move, but we represented what the Browns were. And, you know, I mean, that team, the town loves football. I mean, northeast Ohio, you know, western Pennsylvania. I mean, Canton, that's as football as it gets. Yeah, they know football. They love football. And of course they were devastated. And so, you know, we were the ones left to, you know, kind of feel their wrath. But honestly, we weren't happy about it either.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No, that was a bad position for you guys to be in. And we've noticed that too over the years. Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, Youngstown. There's something about that area that produces fantastic coaches too. In your experience, have you, have you noticed that? There's a lot of guys that come out of that, you know, small area that end up becoming really, really successful football coaches.

Right. Well, I mean, of course, my dad was from Struthers, which is a suburb of Youngstown. So he was 5 miles outside of Youngstown. There were several coaches there, Ron Lynn, Jerry Angelo, guys like that who, you know, he, he knew they— he was a little older than they were. But, you know, they also came out of Struthers. So, yeah, I mean, it's football. I mean, that's just football, I guess.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah. I got a question about your dad because did he have a photographic memory? You explaining what his job was seems impossible. That scouting, advanced scouting a team with no tape, no replay. You just have to go and watch the one play and then you have to figure out exactly how they're blocking it, what they're running it, what their tendencies are. That's an insane, like, task to do. And he was able to do it. Exceptionally well. What, like, did he have a photographic memory or was it just meticulous and knowing the game through and through?

Well, I think what I saw was preparation.

Yeah.

So he knew what he was looking for. You know, here are the plays they run. You know, when this guy comes in the game, you know, be ready for this. This guy comes to the game, be ready for that. Now, of course, that was back when most players went both ways, right, before they had even substitution. But regardless, and when he would see certain formations, you know, he could anticipate plays, but he trained his eyes well. You know, as soon as the linemen set for pass, he put his eyes downfield, he saw the pattern, he saw the coverage, the line run block, then he'd pick up the run blocking, not worry too much about who the receivers were blocking, although that might come into, you know, the periphery later at the end of the play. But you got one look at it, you got one look at the kickoff return, you got one look at the kickoff coverage, you got one look at the punt return, and, you know, he would write fast. And, you know, then when there was a timeout or at the end of the game, you know, he'd go back and, you know, kind of clean up some of the notes and everything, but But I mean, he, you know, he didn't miss a play.

I mean, yeah, it didn't matter whether it was kickoff return or blitzes or play-action passes or whatever. Like, he could identify the play. And then when the film came in, which was usually late Sunday night for the Saturday college games, so usually he wouldn't get the film until late Sunday night, then to try to get that done for the coaching staff on Monday. Then as I got older, he would let me help him with it. So I would go through and, you know, he'd maybe take half of it. I'd take the other half of it and I'd draw the formation, draw the play, you know, draw what I saw him do. Then he would go back, look at it, double-check it. But it was a lot faster because a lot of the, you know, the legwork had been done.

Yeah.

Tight splits or that was 83, 85, whatever. And so that's how kind of how I learned it. And then he would, you know, correct me like, you know, well, this isn't really what happened. He was supposed to block him, but he, you know, he screwed it up. And so you know, this is what should have happened on the play type of thing.

Yeah.

And so, you know, putting the game into the, into the film that came in was, you know, incredibly, you know, helpful. But he was also there. I mean, you know, he was an hour or, you know, whatever, an hour and 10 minutes before the game, timing the snappers, timing the punters' hang times, you know, seeing who handled, who were the punt returners, who were the kickoff returners, who's the long snapper, you know, charting all the punters' punts and everything, even in pregame warmups. I mean, it was a full it was a full evaluation of that team. He wasn't a personnel scout. He wasn't there to scout players like, oh, this guy's a good center, right? That's a good tight end. Like, that's not what he really was doing. He was looking at what the team's plays and strategies were and other things that you can, you know, pick up as well based on, you know, sometimes things on the sideline, you know, you see the head coach talking to, you know, maybe somebody on and it's a fake punt or, you know, stuff like that. I mean, there's a lot of little nuances that, um, you know, he, he really had an eye for.

Yeah, that, um, I learned along the way.

How old were you when you first— was there a moment in your childhood where it started to click, where you're like, okay, this is what I want to do, like, this is the— this is, this is it?

Well, my dad was going every weekend, right? He never stayed at the Navy game, so he was gone every weekend. So if Navy was playing, you know, Penn State next week, then he would go to State College, or or whoever they were playing, maybe they were playing, you know, BC, whoever it was, he would go to that game. So, you know, if I was good and, you know, I did my homework and, you know, then I could go on a trip with him. And so we went to various trips, you know, to Penn State, to Army, to William Mary, to Maryland, to Pittsburgh, to Virginia, you know, driving distance type things. And so So when I would go, you know, with him, then I would sit next to him in the press box and watch him do it, you know. But it was great because I, you know, spent all the time with your dad. And again, whether you're going to West Point or State College or Charlottesville or Williamsburg or wherever it was, you know, that was part of the trip too, you know. And we would look for, you know, he'd go to used bookstores, you know, and pick up some of the, you know, used books that he collected or, you know, stuff like that.

So, and then, you know, ride back with them, talk about the game and stuff. So, you know, I'm 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, you know, and then eventually, you know, I went, even when I was in college after our season was over, I went with them to West Point and that's when I first met Coach Parcells.

Oh, wow. So wait, so that was when you were in college, you met Coach Parcells?

Yes.

And then, and then from there.

So Coach Parcells was at Vanderbilt.

Yeah. Yep.

And they were playing Army. My dad had known Coach Parcells when Coach Parcells was at Army, right, with Coach Cahill in like '67, '68, '69, somewhere in there. But then when Bill came back as a Vanderbilt coach with Coach Sloan and they played Army, my dad was there scouting Army. And, you know, and then that was my first introduction to Bill. You know, we both kind of remember that, like, that's how we met was, you know, through my dad. So I went to Coach Marcia Broda with the Colts and who I knew a couple of people on his staff. Pete McCulley was the receiver coach. George Bussells was special teams coach. Frank Lauterbur, who's another Ohio guy that my dad knew, who was formerly head coach of Iowa. There's 4 or 5 people on the staff. And Kawaii Develos, the offensive line coach who worked at my dad's football camp. And so, you know, so why don't you go talk to them? And see, you know, what they have. Well, Coach Marcia Broda had come over from the Redskins with Coach Allen, and Coach Allen had like 23 assistant coaches, right? I mean, he had like, you know, a battalion.

And at the Colts, who were— they were incredibly cheap, so they only had 8 coaches and that was it. There's nobody else. And so when I went to Coach Marcia Broda, he said, well, 'Well, yeah, we'd love to have you, but I mean, we can't pay you anything. We can't, you know, like we can't do anything for you. But if you want to come here and work, we got stuff for you that you could do.' I'm like, 'Yeah, that's all I want. I don't care about anything. Like, can I stay in the dorm?' And he said, 'Yeah.' You know, and he said, you know, after the— after we broke training camp, he got me a room at the Howard Johnson's by Friendship. At that time, Friendship Airport was BWI because that's where he was staying because he came over from Washington, kept his house in Falls Church, and so he was staying there. And so Ted, Whitey DeVille, George Buscellas, and I all stayed in the Howard Johnson's right next to, um, right next to the airport. And so every morning we would get up, have your coffee— they would— and Ted was very disciplined, honestly, for, I don't know, 4 or 5 months.

He had the same thing for breakfast every single day. I mean, that's a, you know, that's what— anyway, what was it? I was like 2 eggs over medium, bacon, you know, just same thing. Yeah, same thing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they didn't even ask for his order.

Yeah.

So every morning I would drive them, the other 3 coaches, Whitey, George, and Ted, to the office. So I was like a little mini staff meeting and and then at the end of the night, I drove them home. So it was like another mini staff meeting. Ted and Whitey would talk about their game plan on offense and ask George about the kicking game. What are we going to do about, you know, punt return, whatever? And so it was— and I was working on defense with Maxie Vaughn. So it was, it was an incredible experience. And because Ted was so understaffed, every time he needed something done, it was Billy, can you do this? Billy, can you do that? Give me these stats on this. Can you look up this? Can you do that? Yeah, sure. I mean, whatever you want. So I actually got to do a lot even though I wasn't qualified to do anything. Yeah, because just because I was available and you need somebody to do it, you know, every time. Yeah, every time you need somebody to do something. So about halfway through training camp, Joe Thomas comes over and says, you know, 'Like Ted says, you've really been doing a good job.

I see you working pretty hard out here on the field. You know, we're going to start paying you $25 a week.' Like, great. That's more than I was making. So, so $22-something after taxes a week is what it was. But honestly, it's probably about all I was worth.

Yeah. So it's interesting. You've seen so much football. You've been around so much football.

So, so. So after that, yeah. So then, so now the season, like the Colts. Okay, so the Colts were 2-12 the year before. Bert Jones comes in as quarterback. We're 1-4. We win the next 9 games. We're 10-4. We win the AFC East and we lose to Pittsburgh in the playoff game. You know, and kind of a heartbreaker. We're down by like 4 or 5 points and we're driving and we're on the like 10-yard line and Hamner steps past running back 90 yards for a touchdown. So we got beat beat. So now the season's over. And so general manager Joe Thomas, you know, comes, goes to Ted and says, you know, Ted's like, well, I'd like to keep this guy. And I said, well, look, I mean, Ted, like, I don't have a place to stay. I don't have a car. So, you know, can we do something there? And Joe said, well, no, we, you know, why don't you come back for training camp next year? And I was like, well, you know, it's 6 months away. I mean, I really— Ted's like, look, we got a lot of work to do. We got to break down film and this and that and everything else.

And Joe was like, there's no way. Like, you know, we're not paying him. They're paying me $25,000 a week. So, okay. So then Coach Verzano offered me a position in Detroit, and then Coach Holtz became the head coach of the Jets. And that was— I had already gone to Detroit. Then when Coach Holtz got the Jets job, I probably could have gone there with him, but I'd already gone to Detroit. And so, I mean, I could end up with— but Coach Holtz didn't even stay for a full year with the Jets.

Yeah. The stuff that you're talking about with your dad, the things that he would log for each game and the things that he would pay attention to. Technology has changed so much about the game. The game itself has changed a lot too. But out of what he taught you and what he actually did for his job, how much of that is still relevant to what you do? In terms of coaching and advanced scouting today?

Well, it's relevant. I mean, look, advanced scouting, you get a film of the game, you know, 5 minutes after the game's over. So it's not that. But what is relevant is coaching, right? So like when you walk out there on the field and you watch the play, I mean, you know, there's no scoreboard. There's no— out here in practice, right? I mean, there's no replays. There's no— like you get one chance to look at the play and tell the guy what he did wrong or, you know, and coach. And so how you see the play and how you're able to coach, you know, I would say multiple players, like I think I can see, you know, enough. And again, depending on what the play is, it's a pass. A lot of times, you know, I'll go downfield and, you know, see the route, the coverage, see that part of the play or so forth. But that's, that is, that's real football. And even though now, especially in college where you can, you know, look at the iPad and run the plays back and all that, that it wasn't always like that, you know, and there was days in the NFL when you just had the Polaroid shots, which I would say one Polaroid shot could give you some information, but not, not a ton, you know.

And so you still had to see the game. And, and that was really what became valuable to me was, yeah, the scouting, that all got, as you said, out-technology. But in the end, what was valuable was when you actually watch the game that you're coaching in, right? Or practice that you're coaching to be able to see what you need to see to be able to help your, your team.

Yeah.

It makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. Is there one or maybe two specific game plans that you look back on and you're like, that's like when I think about what coaching and getting a team prepared for, like I really just did my job. Maybe it was the Rams Super Bowl. Maybe it was the second Rams Super Bowl, which by the way, I bet the over in that game. Thanks a lot for that.

Yeah, you're about 20 points short.

Try 50 points. 50 points. You had them in hell. But is there one that you look back on? You're like that game plan, everything I did there, I just was so dialed in and I had the team ready to go.

Well, one of the— I mean, first of all, like, I don't think game plans don't really win a lot of games. Players win them, you know. And when you're at the Giants, you're coaching Lawrence Taylor and Harry Carson, Pepper Johnson and Carl Banks and Leonard Marshall and all that. That, you know, I mean, you're coaching some really good players. The one of the most interesting games for me was when I got to Baltimore. The first project that Maxie Bond made me do was to go back and look at the Rams who beat the Redskins in 1974 in the playoffs. Playoffs, and the Rams came out within a 2-tight-end offense and 12 personnel, and they put the tight ends on either side. And Washington's defense was all based on 2 backs in the backfield, right? So strong side, weak side. So 4-on-3, 3-on-2. There's a lot of different combinations, but that's, that's George Allen's defense— 4-on-3, 3-on-2. Well, when you put 2 tight ends in the game and the back can go either way, Well, either side is the 4-on-3 side or either side is a 3-on-2 side. And so if you're now 3-on-3 and 4-on-2, you got problems.

Yeah.

And Rams killed them. They killed them. So Maxie said, I want you to break down that game because I know we're going to see this again because it, it killed the Redskins. So I broke it down. I go through, I watch the whole game. We never saw 12 personnel, not one play, not one play. But then we get to Detroit and I'm coaching the tight ends and coach Charlie Sanders, who's, you know, obviously Hall of Fame, awesome player. And we draft David Hill. David Hill was a hell of a tight end, a great player in his own right out of Texas A&M. So we're sitting there with two tight ends. We're 1-4. Ken Shipps, the offensive coordinator, We're sitting there, we're 1-4, and we're playing the Patriots. And the Patriots have like beat the Raiders like 40-10. They beat somebody else, Miami, like 39-7. I mean, they had just steamrolled 3 teams in a row, really good teams. And we were 1-4, I think it was. And so I said to Ken, I said, shit, what do you think about David Hill, Charlie Sanders? And, and he immediately caught on. It's like, oh yeah, if they rotate this way, we go that way.

If they rotate that way, we go this way. So we've been like 35 to 14. I mean, we killed them. Well, from that point on, that formation has always been Detroit in the New England verbiage. So Fritz Schirmer, Ron Earhart, Bill Parcells, who went there in 1980, it's always been Detroit, Detroit formation. And we'd end up having a great year, but that particular game and the way that that unfolded kind of was, you know, kind of I got it from the Rams, right? Okay. But it was kind of a front runner of the 12 personnel that has become pretty popular in the league. Even, you know, when Joe Gibbs was running and Don Coryell and those guys are running all their one-back stuff out in San Diego, they were doing a little bit differently, but it was kind of the same idea.

Yeah.

And to be able to come out where the strong side is either side and defensively, if you declare what your strong side is, then, you know, you got problems on the backside.

Yeah.

And so Charlie Sanders and David Hill, I mean, like, I mean, they're running, you know, seam routes and flag routes and wheels and everything on linebackers. And, you know, I mean, they just couldn't cover them.

Yeah.

I mean, that's, that's, it's a great game plan. You've had some great games as a coach. Can I give you maybe my, maybe your worst game plan of all time?

Ooh, well, there's plenty of those. Yeah.

You might not have thought of this one for a while. The Pro Bowl.

Oh, yeah, that was— yeah, we're down. We were down 42 to 7 with 10 minutes to go in the second quarter.

Yeah. Yeah.

You really fucked that one up.

I mean, it's impossible to give up the 42 points in 20 minutes.

Yeah.

How did that happen?

We got strip sacked. We fumbled. Welker fumbled and got stripped. They ran it back for a touchdown. I think they returned an interception and a fumble and maybe a— might have been a kick return in there somewhere.

Yeah.

Yeah. And we scored like 14 points. I mean, it wasn't like 42 to nothing. It was 42 to 7, 42 to 14, something like that. But I'm looking up there and it's 42 points and we're not even halfway through the second quarter. I'm thinking to myself, all right, 3 times 42, these guys can score 120 points at the rate we're going.

Yeah. I mean, I don't want to say poor coaching, but I mean, you look at the film and you can't help but notice that.

And then that was bad. It was bad. Yeah. So then we get into that. We go into halftime and, you know, in a Pro Bowl, like, nobody says anything, right? But I mean, I mean, I was pissed off. Like I said, and we're walking back out and like 4 or 5 players are like, you know, because I've never heard anybody swear at a Pro Bowl game. I said, well, the way you assholes are playing, like, honestly, like, you deserve it. And he goes, yeah, I know, we definitely deserve it. I've just never heard a coach get upset about a Pro Bowl. That was a bad, bad day.

I mean, it was like, it was like 42 points in 20 minutes.

It was unbelievable. You couldn't, you couldn't score 42 points against air. Like if there was no defense out there, you couldn't. I mean, it would take you more time than that to score.

Right. And then you guys got desperate and you tried to run a fade. Fake punt directly into Sean Taylor's face. What was that play call about?

Well, Moorman, who was really fast, right? Yeah, Moorman ran like about 4.5, and so he fake punted us at Buffalo, right? And it was like 4th and 8 or whatever, and he ran and he got like 10 yards. And so that pissed me off and pissed off Sealy too, the special teams coach. And so We're like, well, this guy's really fast, the Pro Bowl, you know, nobody's really expecting us to fake the punt. So like, you know, let's go and put it in. You know, you good with it, Mormon? Yeah, yeah, sure. He's good with it. We call it and I've never seen anybody get hit as hard as Sean Taylor hit him. I was just telling Jackie yesterday, his daughter who goes to school here, we were talking about that play and that was a total yard sale. His helmet, his ear pads, his chin strap, his mouthpiece. His— I mean, he's over there by the team doctors. Yeah, he's like 10 yards out of bounds underneath the team doctors and the dentist and over everybody. And I've never seen anybody get hit so hard. Yeah, I'm like, Brad, I mean, coach, he finished the game.

Yeah, finish the game.

He popped back up after that.

He didn't pop back up, but he finished the game.

Yeah, finished the game.

That is one of the hardest hits I have ever seen.

Yeah.

That was a— oh my God.

Yeah.

Probably my favorite player, Sean Taylor. I grew up a Redskins fan, so loved watching him play. Yeah. But you had a great game plan that year against the Reds. I think you guys scored like 56 points or something like that.

That was a big win.

But Sean Taylor, he did take your punter out that one time. So we'll call it even.

Even in the Pro Bowl.

Oh my God.

Yeah, I mean, if you go to the top 10 hits all time— yeah, top 10 hits— that's got to be like— I mean, that's as hard a hit as you can find.

Yeah, and it all goes back.

And he saw him coming too, you know. It's one thing like when a guy's coming over the middle, catch a pass, and he can't see, you know, and the guy just annihilates him. Yeah, but Mormon saw him coming.

Yeah. And man, he sure did that punt against you.

Yeah. Yeah, that put the seed in your head like, yeah, that you're learning. So I also— you talk about that, like always learning and just constantly learning in football is something that you just always learn. I also heard you say that Randy Moss taught you what real speed is.

No, absolutely.

It was— it that different than everything else you had because you had coached a lot of football before Randy Moss went to the Patriots.

Never anybody like that. Never anybody like that.

What exactly?

I mean, we had Michael Jackson. Roger Carr and the Colts. But, but Randy, Randy is such a smart player. And look, I've never been fast. Okay. So I don't know what it's like to— if I'm running, they're going to catch me. If I'm chasing them, I'm not going to catch them.

Yeah.

Okay. So I don't know what it's like to be faster than everybody else. I don't know what it's like to be able to be even with somebody and to be able to outrun them by 5 yards. With 20 or more yards to go. And so Randy, you know, he explained to me like how he would use his speed and how he didn't feel like he was really able to do that at Minnesota and Oakland, you know, that it was like, well, you got to run a go route. Well, they're rolled into me and the safety's over the top. I'm like, yeah, we're not going to throw you the ball. And he said, exactly. You know, they get pissed off because I'm not running as fast as I can. But honestly, there's nowhere for me to go. And if they throw me the ball, ball, it's going to get intercepted. So I'll tie up both guys, but I mean, I can't, you know. And so I said, well, look, what if we do this? What? And he goes, yes, that's what we need to do. We need to run at the free safety. We need to run at the half field safety.

If they roll outside on me, then we got to go inside. I can't just, you know, the guy's 25 yards on top of me. I can't run past them. I mean, there's no way. I said, yeah, I wouldn't expect you to. So half of his touchdowns in 2007 came when he was in the slot or he was the outside receiver, but he motioned or lined up in a, in a position that would have been where the slot receiver lined up. So if there was a middle of the field safety, he would run right at the middle of the field safety. And if the guy overplayed him, he'd break back to the outside. And if the guy played him high, then he'd cross his face and go to the far pile. On. First quarter of the Jets game that he ran that pistol route touchdown against the Jets and, you know, just took off from there. And if it was a half field safety, he'd run right at the half field safety. And those guys are scared to death of him. A lot of times they were like 30 yards deep and so he could just go wherever he wanted to go.

They were so deep. It was like trying to cover Tyreek Hill. Some of the same issues we had with Hill where you line up so far on top of them that you give up so much space in front of them that when he catches it now, you can't even tackle the damn guy.

Right.

So Randy, 23 touchdowns. But he explained to me how, you know, how to use his speed. Like, here's how I can use my speed. Can I— what about on this route? Can I do this? And Mike explained that to him and he goes, well, if I see him there, I'm going to go here. I'm like, yeah, sure. And Brady, me, okay, who could process it and embrace it and understand it, you know, made it work. And so they weren't— it wasn't like he was making up routes. It was like, I'm gonna go here, and if there's space, I'm going into that space, and if there's no space, then I'm going into this space, right? Okay, makes sense. And he could do it.

Yeah.

And, and there wasn't a deal where Tom was like, oh, I thought he was gonna go here and he went there. I thought he was gonna go there anyone here. Like, when Randy made the decision, he always made the right decision.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, hearing that story though, the— I would imagine when you traded for Randy Moss, you didn't expect to line him up inside, you know, and have half his touchdowns come from there.

No. But as we started talking about it, and Randy's— look, Randy's— I love Randy. Randy's like, you know, and at West Virginia, look, I'm a line inside, I can go deep, but I ain't running a 2-yard crossing route over the middle.

Yeah, right.

You throw it out to somebody else. Yeah, like, yeah, okay, all right, I got it, no problem. But yeah, you know, when I traded for Randy, you know, I talked to Coach Davis for like 2 months, and Mike Lombardi was there too. Mike was at the Raiders, and I talked to Mike trying to trade for Randy, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It took 2 months. I mean, it It was like a glacier moving. And finally, it was a 2-day draft and Mr. Davis calls me up and says, "All right, look, do you want to do this trade or not?" And I said, "Well, yeah. I mean, been trying to do it for 2 months. Like, yeah, I'm not cold feet now." He goes, "All right, we want your pick in the 4th round for Moss and that's it." And we had like the 6th pick in the 4th round. It's a 2-day draft. So, okay. So I said, well, look, he's making $11 million a year. Like, I got to get a hold of Randy. We got to bring him in for a physical and we got to fix his contract because we don't have $11 million worth of cap space to make the trade.

He goes, look, Belichick, that's your fucking problem. If you want him, you figure it out. Like, all right. So it's like midnight. So I call up Randy, get his number. Randy, it's Coach Belichick. What? Who is this? Slams the phone down. Randy, who is this? Don't play no tricks on me. Who is this? Who is this? Who's calling? I said, this is Coach Belichick for the— Randy, don't— please don't hang up. Don't hang up. Listen to me. Listen to me. This is Coach Belichick from the Patriots. Please listen to me. Seriously? What? Why would you call me? So we just traded for you. Was it to New England? I said, yeah, I know. Look, here's what we got to do. Like, you got to come to New England. You got to take a physical. We got to redo your contract. But it is that— it was by when? So the draft starts at noon tomorrow. It was like 1 AM. I'm at a club in Houston.

Yeah.

So, well, what do you want me to do? Like, this is what we need to do to make this trade happen. Randy goes, I'll be there. I'll be there. All right. Hangs up the phone. Next morning, he comes into Gillette Stadium at like 7:30 AM. I don't know. You know, got his plane, got his guy, got a car, whatever. He shows up there. 7:30. All right, you want to go take physical? Take physical. Contract, you know, what are you going to do about this contract? It was, I don't care. I said, well, look, you're making $11 million and we can't afford to pay you that. He goes, well, what do you want it to be? I said, well, how about 3 and we'll do incentives to 9? He goes, fine. Fine, call Buzz. Buzz Cook. Call Buzz, get it done. This guy just took an $8 million pay cut.

Yeah, Buzz Cook probably didn't like that.

Okay, so sign the contract. Now he earned all $9 million.

Yeah.

No doubt about that. So, but that's how willing he was.

Yeah.

And so we got that done. It's noon. Call back Mr. Davis. Deal's done. We got it. Okay, boom. So they take our 4th round pick. We got Randy. So now it's like, you know, 12:30, 1 o'clock. We're in the middle of the draft and Randy's like, where's my playbook? Like, look, Randy, we're trying to do this draft. He goes, I want that playbook because this is now April and we'd already started offseason program. Now, granted, we weren't like, you know, all out, balls to the wall, but we're doing our pro— you know, we're in the offseason program. Says, look, I need that playbook because when I go out there with Tom Brady and the rest of the offense, I might go out there and make a bunch of mental errors. Like, I gotta have this offense down cold. So you give me that playbook right now, and I want to have that down by Monday morning when I go out there with the team. What a godsend. Yeah. So I'm like, I said, Josh, do we have a playbook? And he goes, well, you know, we haven't really run them off yet. I said, look, Brady wants a playbook.

Josh said, got it. Boom. So Go, we'll give him the playbook. He goes out there Monday, he goes, I need to know all the signals. I can't have Tom Brady signaling and my dumbass misses signal or I run the wrong route. He goes, I'm not doing that. I want this and I'll have it down cold. And he did. He goes out there on, you know, he goes out there with Welker and, you know, we traded for Welker too, right? That same year. And he goes out there and I mean, never, never missed anything. And then, like I said, really helped coach me to understand how to use his speed Yeah.

Fourth round pick.

Always learning.

Not bad. Not a bad trade. Yeah.

Randy was incredible. Yeah, he was incredible.

Yeah.

I got kind of a weird question for you about your attire. I know people talk about the sleeves a lot. I've always seen the sleeves as there's, there's definitely some sort of utility behind the three-quarter sleeve cutoff that I just don't know. There's got to be a purpose for it, a reason why, why you would cut those sleeves off.

Short arms. Yeah, if I don't cut them off, then they like hang over my wrist and they're in the way. And so I don't— I got short arms, so I just cut them off.

You and Reuben Bain. Yeah, it's—

I feel like that was fucked up of him. I'm sorry about that. He shouldn't have said that.

Why? Why?

No, he just gave a look like, you're gonna compare me to Reuben Bain?

No.

Well, yeah, I always assumed that there was like some sort of pocket access that I wasn't seeing, like, because there's a reason reason for everything that you do on the side.

No, honestly, I mean, I did it in high school, you know, like junior high, high school, college. Like, I mean, I've always cut them off and it's just my arms are short and if I get, you know, they're just, they're too long. They hang over my wrists and my hands and I try to roll them up and they fall down again.

So, so just cut them off. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's smart.

Yeah.

Can I do my weird question? Yeah. Yeah. I got also a weird question. You're obviously, you know, You know, best head coach of all time, should be in the Hall of Fame. We don't have to get into that. It's crazy. Uh, we thought it was crazy at the time. It still is crazy. You're prepared better than anyone. You've won all these Super Bowls. But we have a theory, and you could tell me if this is way off. The one time that you are seen flustered or not prepared is— and maybe it's only happened a few times in your career The challenge flag when you know there's really nothing to challenge and you're not going to win it, but you're just frustrated and you want like time to pause for a second.

Yeah, I mean, like that was the Manning catch in the Giants Super Bowl. It was right in front of me. I saw his feet in, but I'm like, well, you know what? I mean, it's a big play. Fuck it.

Fuck it.

Just, you know, and then you watch the replay and it's like, right. It is. Yeah.

Yeah.

So we were right that there is the, every now and then it's like, I just, I don't like how what has just transpired. Let me just pause for a second.

Well, I mean, again, I was, I mean, like, again, taking a shot at it. Hope that, you know, maybe I didn't see something that was there. The worst one was the, was the Super Bowl against the Rams. And so, you know, we're playing in Mercedes-Benz, right? And so, they had the big scoreboard over top of us, right? And so I tell the players all week, like, look, keep your eyes on the field. I don't want to be looking to send you into the game. You're up there watching the game and, you know, watching a replay and whatever. I said, you keep your eyes on the field. So we're in the second quarter and we're— I mean, they've got maybe a first down and not much.

Yep. Had me over. I know.

and they throw a sideline route over in front of their bench. And, you know, it's a close play, but it's on the other side of the field. And so I'm— and then, and then they kind of start to come to the ball, right? And so, you know, I'm, I'm watching and like, all right, well, so they're gonna, you know, officials call it a completion. So they're coming to the ball. It's like, all right, what are we gonna call here? Like, you know, what are they doing? They're going fast. So look, when a team goes fast, that's actually a good thing because you can see the formation they're in, right? You don't have to guess. Is it 3 by 1? Is it 2 by 2? Is it what, you know, you kind of look out there and say, all right, there's the formation. Just go and make the call. And the players beside me are saying like, he's out, he's out. And we got one foot in, he only got one foot in. But I'm not going to look up at the screen because I've told these guys for like like 6 days straight, do not sit there and watch the screen.

Keep your eyes on the field because that's where the action is. The screen is for the fans. And they're like, coach, coach, he only got one foot in, only got one foot in. So just as the ball's about to be snapped, like I think it was Brandon Bull, he grabs me. I look up and I see he's got one foot in, and I'm like, oh Christ. And now the ball snapped. Yeah. And it's too late. Oh. And they look at me like, great job, Coach. But I had, you know, I said don't do this, and I was too disciplined to not do it. And then it caught, and everybody in the stadium game saw that, right? Except for mine.

And you were just like, I'm not looking at this screen, I gotta do it.

Yeah, we'll get back to Belichick in a second. He's brought to you by our great friends over at Reese's. Some fans believe in turn— in teams of destiny, but I believe that everything happens for Reese's. Just think about it. Because let me get one of those Reese's over here. Let me get some of that product.

I was having one on the, uh, flight down.

You were? I actually thought about asking you for a Reese's, but that game, I think you were eating all of them. Uh, these are delicious.

I only had two of more.

Oh, I love the smell of Reese's, that chocolate peanut butter smell. Nothing like it. What's the one thing every team or athlete wants? It's a championship, because half of them are called cups— Stanley, World, Ryder— just like Reese's. Luckily, scoring a Reese's Cup is way easier than winning a championship. It's almost like you were destined to get one right now, because everything happens for Reese's. Pick one up today. Reese's, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports. Everything happens for Reese's. Get yours. At hersheiland.com/reeses. Coach Belichick's also brought to you by our great friends over at NASCAR. Memorial Day weekend is here, so is one of NASCAR's crown jewel events, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, happening Sunday, May 24th at 6 PM Eastern, streaming live on Prime. This track is fast, demanding, it's built for drama, and when it's 600 miles under the lights You're in for a marathon of nonstop strategy and speed. But it's more than just a race. It's a moment. The Coca-Cola 600 is part of NASCAR Salutes 250 Together with Coca-Cola, an annual tribute honoring the brave men and women who serve our country, taken to the next level as we celebrate America's 250th birthday.

Will Ross Chastain repeat? Will 23XI continue their dominance in 2026? There's only one way to find out. Grab your snacks and drinks and don't miss this Memorial Day weekend tradition. The Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Sunday, May 24th, 6:00 PM Eastern, only on Prime. And now here's more Coach Bill Belichick. So we have our producer over here, Hank. Hank is a massive Patriots fan.

Part of the Brady Four.

He actually went to— he went to jail for Tom Brady.

Yeah.

He locked himself, handcuffed himself in the league office. And spent a night in prison.

Do it again.

Yeah. So did that cross your desk when, when, uh, the Brady Four got locked up? Did you— did somebody come and tell you like, hey, just so you know, sir, there's four Patriots guys that, uh, that have handcuffed themselves to Roger Goodell's desk?

Yeah. So was that when Portnoy got—

yeah, yeah, he was with him. He was in jail. Oh no, Dave got dragged out of the Super Bowl. Super Bowl. Yeah, but before that that he and Dave and Gaz and Feitelberg went, uh, to the league office and were protesting and they went to jail for a night, right? Yeah, right.

I mean, I do remember that, but I mean, it wasn't, you know, kind of like Portnoy getting dragged out. I was like, you know, because the video, that's hysterical.

Oh yeah, I mean, skinny jeans, he videotaped the whole thing, right?

I mean, that's hysterical.

The dead legs.

Yeah.

Dead Legs skinny jeans.

But I mean, I didn't really get to engage or follow up on it. I mean, I'm sorry, but I do appreciate the support.

Yeah, of course.

And then, you know, when Matt Patricia wore the t-shirt with Goodell, that was another one that's like, I don't know if this is really gonna like ingratiate us to the White House.

But it's a good t-shirt.

Sold a lot of I'm sure it did. Yeah, there's no doubt.

Yeah. All right, Hank, you got a question? Yeah.

I mean, obviously I grew up in Situate from '96 till 2016. You made me and like an entire generation of kids feel like winners because of your team. So thank you, first of all.

I appreciate that. I really do. I really appreciate that. And those, those comments or stories from people who say, you know, I went to the game with my dad, or our family always watched the game. And those are some of the best memories of my childhood or my relationship with my whoever— son, father, whatever. Like, those are such meaningful stories. I mean, I just want to tell you, like, seriously, that those hit home because when you're a coach, you don't like— you don't know. You're just trying to make a first down or stop one. And then you find out, like, like you had such an impact on somebody's life or relationship. And you're like, wow, you know, it's really, you know, I actually did something good. I wasn't trying to do it, but I actually did something good.

Beyond good.

Yeah.

I mean, it drives these guys nuts because it's like, you're like, you're so cocky, you're so cocky. And it's like, yeah, growing up rooting for a team that was just always like, we would joke. It's like, you know, wake me up when the playoffs start because we know we're going to be there. And that's all thanks to you.

That's why I'm going to say like, maybe it's not always a good thing.

No.

You hear a guy like that say, I say, you, you spent your entire year like play to play, focusing like next play. Hank's like, yeah, I don't really care.

It's not the whole process of— yeah, building. You, I think you preach it a lot, like you don't, you don't go to the mountaintop in 15 minutes.

Hank did. Yeah, you taught— you actually taught Hank to skip the process.

But yes, thank you from the bottom of my heart. My question though, I was watching an interview with, uh, Matt Leit on Julian Edelman's podcast and he was talking about, you know, practical jokes that he's played over the years. And I was wondering if there was one, there was one in particular that like might have pissed you off in the moment, but like when you get back to your office and, you know, doors closed, you're like, all right, that was, that was, that was a good one, that was pretty funny.

There was plenty that pissed me off at the moment. Um, the worst one for me was Lighthead this remote control mouse. And so I'm standing up there talking to the team, kind of doing my rant or whatever. And I catch this out of the corner of my eye and I like see something move. And of course they see me, but I don't know, right? And so I'm trying not to get distracted and I'm going on. And I kind of catch it again. And now I'm distracted, right? But, you know, trying to stay with it, trying to be, you know. And then he runs the thing like right underneath my feet. I'm like, whoa, you know. So then of course, like, they all go crazy. And I'm like, fucking light. Like, I know, you asshole. What, what, what? I— wow, what happened? What did some— is there something wrong? You know, and they're— I mean, they're howling like he killed me. But, but my— I got even with these two guys. Maybe not even. So it's like, oh, 5, 4, maybe And so, like, goes out to Hawaii for the Players Association meetings. I'm like, Matt, if you guys want to really get something done for the Players Association, why don't you go to Buffalo?

Okay, but no, you guys are going to go out to Hawaii, sit around, drink Mai Tais, you know, and, and like, and call it business. So he goes out there and he says to the media, you know, offseason program is the most important time of the year for us. It's where you bond with your teammates. It's where you, you know, you work hard together, you sweat in the weight room, you push each other. And if you have new guys on the team, you kind of get to know them. And this is so important. So Matt comes back. I'm like, Matt, like, those comments are so— they're so bad. You're the only one who's not here and you're talking about how important this is. I said, like, we got a problem here. Well, simultaneously— well, not simultaneously, but at the same general time we're in our offseason program, right? And so we're working on pass rushing. And so I got Rosie Colvin. And so we're working on this pass rush game and like I'm the offensive lineman. And so Rosie, he like slaps me and like this slap up or cut move. And I'm like, God damn.

He breaks my rib. So I'm like, for 2 days, I, you know, I can't breathe. It's like painful as hell, but I'm trying to like suck it up. And yeah, but I'm not going to get in there and do this pass thing anymore, right? So now I'm like, all right, now Colvin and Light went together at Purdue. They were at Purdue together. So everybody's got their own locker and they got their they're picturing her wife and her kids and, you know, bullshit. And so I took— I said, look, I'm gonna put you two assholes together in the same locker. Now they don't like each other, and now they got Rosie's wife with White's kids within the— everybody else got their own locker, the rookies, everybody, but these two guys are in the same locker. And I'm like, you can't do that. So, yeah, I'm doing it. So every week they come to me and they're like, now they, I mean, they hate this. Like, they, they don't want to be that close to each other. And they said, how much longer is this going to last? I said, I'll tell you how much longer it's going to last.

It's going to last until my rib feels better. And that's a long way off. So they're there for like 6 weeks in the same— and the rest of the team loved it. Like, they loved it. You know, they're like, hey, Matt, you—

what?

Oh, that's Rosie's wife. Oh, oh, look, those kids are so cute, Rosie. Oh, those are Matt's kids. Oh, I'm sorry. And I mean, so like, we had our back and forth. Yeah, I would say Light got more in than I did. Although, you know, I could like say my stuff in the team meetings and all that and piss them off. But, you know, like practical jokes, he killed me. Yeah, it would kill Dante too. He got Dante worse than he got me because it was the same type of thing. You know, he got some technology thing. Dante would, you know, he had the little mouse thing, right? And he'd go to the mouse and they would shock him. Like there was like a little shock.

You're just obsessed with mouse presses.

Well, no, it was the— there was the computer one. And yes, but he had a little attachment he put on it where it gave you like a little shock.

Yeah.

And you know, Dante's— and he picks the thing up, he turns around, he throws it right at Light because he knows, he knows what it is. You know, we've all been like— but you know, Light would just— Light would just think of this stuff. Like, I swear to God, he stayed up at night doing this, but I'm telling it, best one he ever caught, the best one he ever got on Dante. So Dante, you could not get to the— you could not get to the stadium before Dante. It was impossible. I could get there at like 4:30 in the morning, his truck's already parked there. Like, you could not beat him there. So needless to say, Dante's truck was always in the parking lot. So we're at Gillette Stadium, which is like, you know, not, not a dump, but like it's borderline middle of nowhere. Yeah, yeah. And so Light takes like 3 bags of garbage and kind of like cuts them open and throws them in the back of Dante's truck at like 7 AM. Well, all the seagulls and all that, they come in. And so Light goes out there at lunch lunch, and he looks out, it's like 50 seagulls, and he's like, oh boy, this is working, right?

And so now Dante comes out at like 10 o'clock at night, right at the end of the night, and here's all this shit in the back of his truck, you know, seagull shit everywhere, like the biggest mess you have ever seen. And we leave, you know, before Dante, like you go out there and like, oh boy, I don't want to be here when Dante sees this one, this is going to be bad. But that was actually one of them. That was one of them. I mean, but that's light.

Yeah.

I mean, he thinks up stuff like that. Oh, man. And I mean, it just destroyed Dante's truck. Just totally destroyed it. And he didn't do a damn thing. He just sat inside and let the seagulls do the work.

Made your tickets, Coach.

Thank you, Coach.

Yeah.

All right. Good job, Hank. There's one other guy I wanted to ask you about in particular. He's a close friend of ours. Vanny Woodhead.

Woody.

Yeah, Woody. So, uh, named our van after him. We did. Vanny Woodhead. We got a, yeah, uh, 1987 Gladiator.

So Woody, like, I was this close, this close, the caddie for him in the US Open, right?

Right. He's, he's, uh, trying to qualify again this week.

Okay, but he was like, I don't know, real close, whatever it was. He was really close.

Yeah.

Yeah, and he said, hey, if I, if I qualify, would you caddy for me? Like, the US Open? Yeah, sure. I mean, yeah, no problem. And so I think he, you know, he lost the match, like, I don't know, one up or something like that. And whatever it was, he, he didn't qualify. Yeah, but I was set to caddy for him in the US Open if, you know, we gotta have that. Not that I could have helped them, like, there's no chance I could have helped them, like, me to putt or anything, but it's gonna be the one in Boston too.

Yeah, that's—

I think that's the year that he came really close. It was going to be the Boston US Open.

And, um, oh, was it a country club? Yeah, yeah, that's right. That makes sense.

Yeah, we— so we were actually talking, he was looking for sponsors. We were going to put our podcast logo on his hat, uh, but having you on his bag would have been incredible. And it does speak to, like, people always say what a, like, a scrappy, uh, like, you know, really hard worker Danny is. I'm sure that's all very, very very true. They sleep on how freakishly athletic of a guy Danny Woodhead was as well. And I was curious, because when you first picked him up, I think a lot of people thought it was more of gamesmanship to the Jets. Like, okay, he's— he was just on their, uh, training camp roster. He's got some insight that he can give us, uh, to how they like to run their offense. Um, but I'm curious to know, like, who, who decided to bring him in? And then why did you decide to keep him?

The crazy thing about Woody is I want to say we opened with the Jets that year, or I want to say we opened with them. Maybe it was the second game of the year. But, you know, when you open with a team in the NFL, you watch every preseason game, you watch the first one, which nobody watches. But if you open with that team, you watch it like, okay, let's see what are the first plays they put in? you know, and who is this guy who's like their second string or third string tackle, but he ends up making their team. And yeah, if we got to play against this guy, you know, here's the deal on him. So we watched literally every play of the Jets offense, and Woody's playing receiver. He's playing receiver. He's their slot receiver. And we're like, you know, this guy's not really a receiver, but He's good with the ball in his hands. He's tough. He's not really that fluid as a receiver, but, you know, maybe as a sub running back. And so we claimed him thinking that he might be able to return kicks. And, and I forget what happened to running back.

We need a running back and we need a kind of a third down back. I think that was like we had Maroney and some of those guys. Anyway, we end up getting him and then and he, you know, you play him and then you find out he's actually pretty good. You know, when you watch him practice, you're like, eh, not that fast, you know, and he's little, but he ducks under tacklers and he's quick and he's just got a way to make yards. And so we put him in the game, he starts making yards. And, you know, Tom's like, look, let's get this guy in there. Like, we'll give him the ball. Like, he'll make some yards. But he was actually played receiver. I think he played running back in college. Where'd he go to college?

Chadron State, I think.

Yeah. Okay. So I think he played running back there. The Jets played him at slot receiver and then we moved him back to running back. But all the film we watched of him, he was, he was, I think, played receiver.

Did he ever get into your doghouse? Do you have a doghouse?

I mean, not for very long. Yeah, I'm sure he did at some point. Must have fumbled or missed a blitz pickup or something. But yeah, I mean, look, look, you love guys like that because he's super competitive, he's a great kid, he's a team guy all the way, do whatever you would ask him to do. I mean, you can't get pissed off at those guys for very long.

No. And he's still trying to qualify. I think it's this week.

Wow.

He's playing in the, uh, the sectional. So yeah, if he does make the US Open, is that— did he tell you like that offer's on the table as long as he's trying?

We really haven't talked, I don't think, since that, that came Yeah, I mean, not out of like any hard feelings or anything. It just— I don't know.

He's in your doghouse because he didn't make the US Open.

No, that's not true.

That's not true.

I'll let him know. I'll text him right now. Say, hey, true.

Okay.

I'll say Coach really wants to catch you.

Yeah. Woody was, you know, he was one of those many guys that we had that a lot of people look at and say, you know, this guy's really not that good. And, you know, Chris Hogan. And, you know, all these guys and then all of a sudden, you know, they just keep making plays and producing and it's like, you know, you know what, he can actually play.

Yeah. Yeah. I want to bring it back to UNC real quick. So this year is your first year where you get a full recruiting class. You get a full transfer portal where you've been here. What are you most proud of in terms of the guys you've brought in and what you expect from them this year?

Um, well, what I expect is for, for us and them to get better every day, you know, to get stronger, to get faster, to be more explosive, to be better fundamentally, to be, you know, better technique football players. That's what I expect from them. And then, you know, as a team, but, you know, they're— we have a good group of kids. They work hard. They, are, you know, they're pretty smart. I mean, they, you know, go to class, they do well academically. They, you know, they try to do what we ask them to do. And the group yesterday— last year, I mean, I wouldn't say they were like disrespectful. That's not the right word, but it was just different. It was like they were recruited by somebody else. They came here for somebody else. You know, I was new. They were leaving. You know, it wasn't I mean, it wasn't a bad relationship, but it wasn't a great one. It didn't have as much, I would say, you know, there wasn't the same kind of adhesion that there is to guys that you bring in that come there because of you or because they want to be with you.

And then, you know, you grow together.

And I would imagine like the player development side of it is probably a very strong selling, you know, point to a lot of these players that you're recruiting. Like, hey, I will I will make you a better football player. Like, I've read some stuff where, hey, I'm not a rah-rah guy. I'm not going to whoop it up. I'm not going to give you some speech that's going to have you run through a brick wall. I'm going to tell you how to get better day by day.

Absolutely. And we'll deliver on that. You know, our strength program is good. Our nutrition, our chef is good. Like, good food, good rest, good recovery, good training. Physically, they'll be much better and they already are much better. And then from a football standpoint, like our fundamentals and the techniques that we've used and coached the greatest players from the Tom Bradys, the Randy Mosses, the Dontah Hightowers, the Stephon Gilmores, Tua Tagovailoa, Ty Law, Seymour. I mean, guys that are in the Hall of Fame, guys, some of the greatest players ever. This is how we taught them. This is how they did it. And these are the plays that we're running. We're running the same plays that they ran.

And right.

Watch them do it.

Yeah.

And so, and they, and they're very receptive to that. You know, they're like, they're receptive and I'd say appreciative of like, okay, you know, I'm learning from somebody who is really, really good at this skill, whether it's a guard, a tight end, you know, quarterback, whatever that, you know, we have great players literally at every position that can exemplify how to do certain skills.

Yeah. You've got some good tight ends, by the way. We saw— Yeah, we saw some of the practice 45. It's a good number for a tight end.

Yes. Yeah, he's a beast.

Yeah.

I also saw your mantra, tough, smart, dependable. How— so great mantra. How do you like teach that day by day? Because I need help, because at Barstool Sports I don't think we check any of those.

No, we're tough. It's like, you know, we're weak, we're tough, we're dumb, and we're flaky.

That's what we got on our wall. So how, like, you know, when it comes to like actually enacting that and telling people this is not just— these aren't just words, these are what we actually need to do. How the hell do I do it? Like, you're talking to a guy like Nicky Smokes, an absolute moron, you know, one of those guys that are mincy. You got— I got morons that I got to teach them how to be tough, smart, and dependable. I can't do it.

Well, I think tough starts with, um, you know, being physically tough and being mentally tough. It's not— it's not going to be easy. It's not easy to to win a football game. Nobody's giving those away. Those aren't door prizes. You know, you got to go out and earn it. So there's a toughness that, that's going to be necessary for you to win. And from a mental toughness standpoint, like, something's always going to go wrong. I mean, you know, kid comes here, he goes to the NFL, you know, it's going to be an injury, or he's going to have a professor doesn't like him, or he's going to break up with his girlfriend, or what— it's going to be something. And what's your mental toughness? You know, how do you work through that, you know, whatever it is. So that's the kind of the tough part. Smart. I mean, it really starts with don't beat yourself, you know, like don't go out there and make mistakes that are— we control on a number of levels, right? Whether it's taking an illegal substance, whether it's academically being ineligible, whether it's, you know, doing something that causes you a problem on the football field that you control, pre-snap penalties.

Post-whistle penalties, all those things like we, we have to control those. And then dependable is, is consistency. It's earned every day. And so we have to earn each other's trust daily.

Yeah.

And that's how you trust and, and, you know, have to be a good teammate is, you know, you're there every day, you're consistent. And now we get into a tough situation and I can count on you and you can count on me because we've done it for each other, you know, on a regular basis. Practice is harder than the games. So our thing is, you know, if you can do it in practice and do it consistently in practice, we're going to make it harder than the game. You know, instead of a 40-second clock, we have a 35-second clock. You know, instead of a dry ball, we have a wet ball. Instead of no crowd noise, we have a lot of crowd noise so you can't hear anything and so forth. Right. And we try to make it harder than what it's going to be in the game. So So when the game comes, there's not— and what your volume is in practice, right? So if you run, you know, 4,000 yards in a game, then maybe you're running 4,500 to 5,000 yards in practice.

Yeah.

So we don't want to get into a game situation and feel like, oh, it's really hard. I don't know if I could do this. No, we do it every day.

Yeah, I'm sure.

That's why at New England the sign we had on the door about what our, what our, what we try to do every day. And it's the same here because we're in the stadium. It doesn't matter whether you're in preseason camp, training camp, a preseason game, a regular season game in October, or the AFC Championship. Like, our goal for the day is the same. Yeah. Work hard, pay attention to details, put the team first. Right. Like those team— those are our— that's our mantra and we do it every day.

Yeah.

And so we get into a big game, we get into a championship, whatever. It's the same. It's what we've been doing. We're not asking you to do, you know, to do something you haven't done before. This is what we do.

Yeah. I feel like that, that works on recruits too, because it's like, like there's a lot of probably some recruiting that's, you know, tells you what you want to hear and you're telling them, hey, no, it's going to be tough, but we're going to make you better.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

We're not on the hype. You know, we're not going to have like the dancing elephants and a trapeze act and let everybody, you know, drive a Maserati around the block. And, you know, we just don't do that. Like we, we tell our recruits, here's what we're going to do, here's what we're going to deliver. If that's what you want, we have it. If you're looking for something else, then, you know, this is probably not the right place for you.

I'm going to push back a little bit on the not a rah-rah guy because you gave a great speech one time that I saw. It was at the Patriots Super Bowl victory parade, and there's a massive crowd in front of you, and you got everybody started with a "no days off" chant. And I think it was like on a Tuesday. So everyone that was at that rally, they were taking a day off.

No days off.

And they— but you're such a good coach that they all started chanting, yeah, he's right, no days off, as they're taking a day off work. That was incredible. Just a great job of motivation on your part.

Well, it's funny because the no days off, honestly, like most people don't really understand what that means or what it meant to us. I should say what it meant to us. What it meant to us was when you come to work, you go to work. You don't come to work and dilly-dally around and like, I was here, I broke a sweat, I showed up and go home. That's a day off. When we said no days off, we meant you come to work, you're ready to work, you're prepared, you put in a good day's work. Okay, maybe tomorrow is an off day. That's okay for recovery day. That's fine. I'm not saying like, don't take a day off. We're saying don't come to the stadium. And take a day off.

Yeah.

And so the no days off was when you come in here, man, we expect your best and we expect you to work at it. When we're done, we're done. And, you know, you're with your family or you're, you know, whatever you're doing. Sure, there's days off, but don't take them here.

Yeah, makes sense.

Yeah, that was— I mean, that's the, you know, Brady and Edelman and Hightower and those David Andrews and those guys were like, don't come in here and screw around. Like, we're not here to screw around, we're here to win.

Yeah.

And if that's what— and if you don't put enough into it, then we're, you know, we're pissed off at you. Like, we're not going to accept that. Yeah. And that's really the no days off.

Yeah.

And, and, and so if a guy was kind of, you know, if he would like jump offside or do something, you dumb, then they would kind of get on them and be like, you just come in here and fool around and take a day off? Like, just like, don't even come here then. Like, if you don't care enough, then just don't show up because we can't trust you.

Yeah, yeah.

And that was kind of the connotation. But of course, you know, in the hype train of the Patriots, you know, I'm sure it sold towels and some you know, beer mugs or whatever, and it was used in a different context.

My No Days Off beer mug.

Yeah, those people were cheering their hardest, so they were not taking a day off.

That's true. It's important.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's— that's not what it was. But if that's what they want it to be, like, that's fine. It was just, it was a kind of a marketing thing where it's like, do your job, no days off, stuff like that turned into marketing hype.

Yeah.

More than it was—

Getting away from the meaning in the core.

Yeah, it wasn't really what it was intended. And we kind of laughed about it. It was like, they don't really know what it means, but if they want to talk about no days off or do your job or whatever, like, that's fine. Like, yeah, yeah, with it.

I was going to ask you about, about coaching here at UNC and connecting with, you know, much younger players than you've been used to connecting with over the course of your career as a coach. And curious to know, like, is there— are you aware of the fact that you're, you're Bill Belichick, right? And so you're coming into a place like UNC and a lot of the kids that are playing football for you, they look at you as being like a legend of the game. Is there anything that you've done to try to like make yourself more approachable? Because I could see myself— I mean, obviously I can't see myself being like an 18-year-old 5-star football recruit. Because I'm 5'8" and I suck. But, um, if I, if I was, yeah, if I was, even if I was good, I could see myself being like a little intimidated to go talk to you about something if it's an issue I'm having, or like, hey, I think we could be doing even something better. Um, is that something that you think about? Like, hey, these kids might have like a block in communicating with me at times, and I need to be proactive in overcoming that?

Yeah, you know, I think it varies from kid to kid. I mean, again, And, you know, it's really about building relationships and building trust. I think if they think you're helping them, then they're going to be receptive. If they don't think you're helping them, my experience has been, you know, they're probably going to turn you off. So I try to, you know, help everybody. Now, sometimes it's maybe not in the most comforting way, but if they're actually committed toward reaching their goals and dreams of playing professional football, being a really good then that's what I'm— that's the spirit that I'm saying it in. It's not personal. It's just, you know, if you want to be good, here's what you need to do. You can keep doing it this way. It's not going to work. It's no good. Don't take my word for it. You watch a bunch of other people do it this way. It's not going to work for them either. If you— here's the way you need to do it. And so why don't you commit to doing it that way? If in the end they don't want to do that, then I mean, you know, I've done kind of all I can do.

Yeah, but that's not— it's rare. Most of them, they really, they really do want to. Now, some don't have enough staying power, and they like, well, they do, and then they kind of drift off, and then they come back again. Um, the guys who are more— but we had those guys at the NFL too. I mean, trust me, everybody in the NFL is not, you know, Tom Brady and Julian Edelman and Dontah Hightower and Deb McCourty. Like, that's far from Yeah, maybe we had more than most, but they're not all like that.

Yeah.

Oh, I root for the Redskins. So yeah, there's— I know what you're talking about.

Yeah.

Was there— was there a moment? And this has been so much fun. Honestly, we could do this for the next 5 hours. I don't want to take all your time. So I really, really— we really appreciate this. There's so much football history. We just love football. So we'll wrap it up very soon. Was there a moment, though, early in Tom Brady's career where you're like, like, okay, this is different. This is, this is different than what I expect. Like he is going, he's on a trajectory to something different than what I might've expected when we drafted him.

Again, if you, if you spend time around Tom, you, you understand how totally committed he is and how he just day by day takes incredibly small steps that eventually, but never backwards, that eventually lead to a very high performance. And I mean, really, he was our fourth-string quarterback. Like, you can't name another fourth-string quarterback I would say in any level of football, college or pro. I mean, there isn't one, very few. So that's how far down he was. I mean, you couldn't get any further on the bench than he was. He was a fourth string, never even played, never even dressed. And then I brought in Damon Hewitt because I didn't think he was good enough to be the backup. And he beat Hewitt out. And then Bledsoe got hurt, and then he didn't lose games. He didn't win many, but he didn't lose them. And we won them on defense. We won them in the kicking game with Troy Brown's punt returns and blocked field goals and so forth. And then he kept— and by 2003, 2004, we won games because of Tom Brady. And from 2004 on, not only did we win games because of Tom Brady, but every week he was the focal point of our opponents.

Mm-hmm.

Because we got to stop Tom Brady. And what's our game plan to stop Tom Brady? And that's the real greatness, is when they're doing something to stop you every single week and there's a target on your back and you're still producing at a high level.

Yeah.

But I always say Tom wasn't great. Wasn't even really good, but he became great. Gronkowski, same thing. Rob wasn't great, he wasn't even really good, but he became great. Julian Edelman, I mean, for 5 years, I mean, he didn't do anything. He returned punts. He was a very good punt returner, but he wasn't great. He wasn't even good. He didn't even play. And then he became great. And so that process of day by day by day by day after month after year after year, okay, now you finally— and it's very gradual, but it's consistent. It doesn't, you know, jerk up and down. It just— hey, things he couldn't do, now he's starting to do them. Now he's starting to do them pretty good. Now he's actually starting to do some things at a level that, you know what, he wasn't able to do before. And that's what makes Tom Brady great. The biggest thing about Tom, and, you know, I told him this all the time and he took it to heart. I'm like, Tom, we can't gain any yards until you give the ball to somebody else. You're not gaining them you got to get the ball to somebody else for us to gain yards.

Hand it to him, throw it to him, pitch it to him. But as long as you have the ball, we ain't going anywhere. He's like, you don't tell me that. So get the ball. And so that's what he did. How do I get the ball to Julian Edelman so he can run with it? How do I get the ball to Rob where he can catch it, where the guy who's even though the guy's draped all over him, Rob can catch it and the other guy can't. How do I get Danny Woodhead productive? How do I make Kevin Falk productive? How do I make James White productive? How do I make— and he's kind of like a point guard, like he could distribute the ball with great accuracy and decision-making. And through all those years with Brady, we were the least penalized team. We had the fewest negative runs. We had the fewest sacks. Sacks. We had the fewest turnovers. He never killed the team with those plays. We didn't go backwards. He'd throw a quick pass out for a yard and it's second and 9, but at least it wasn't second and 13. And if we, you know, he got rid of the ball so quickly that he didn't get sacked and we didn't have dumb false start penalties and shit like that because of sloppy play.

Like he would make sure that that, you know, the play was run right or we were set or we, you know, two guys are in motion. Ho, stop. Whoa. Okay, now you go in motion. Things like that. I mean, there's such little things, but when you listen to him broadcast the game, you'll hear him say over and over, they're going backwards too much. This team's— they need to go— they're losing too many yards. And that was it. We didn't lose yards. And he didn't ever put the team in a bad situation. Every play wasn't an 80-yard touchdown, but he didn't put the team in a bad situation, and he got rid of the ball so that somebody else could gain yards, because God knows he wasn't gaining them.

That's, by the way, you're, you're not even good to good to great. That's, that's the recruiting pitch that, you know, anyone who's coming to UNC, like, that's, that's it right there. Like, hey, you might not be very good right now, but we can day by day get you to great.

100%. But that's the way it was in New England. These guys will come in in New England and they look at Tom Brady and like, oh my God, look at Devin McCourty. Oh my God, look at Edelman. Like, oh my God, Gronkowski. Like, oh my God. I'm thinking to myself, you don't know that these guys weren't any good. They're just like you. Like you're no good either, but you can become great. But you know, this is what you're gonna have to do, and it's going to be a process. It's not going to happen overnight. It didn't happen overnight for Rob, didn't happen for Julian Brady. Then McCourty played corner, and then he ended up playing his whole career at safety. And you know, 12-time captain. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm just— Stephen Neal never even played football. You know, 3 Super Bowls, started for 8 years, never even played football. So he was no good. Talk about no good. He was terrible. But he became, you know, a really good player. So people don't understand the process and they think that Rob Gronkowski was always great. Far from it. It was to the point where Brady and I sat him down and said, Rob, like, we can't put you in the You're too undependable.

You run the wrong route. You fumble the ball. You know, you just, you make too many mistakes. We can't play you. Okay. What do I need to do? Okay. And then he became great where he was, you know, as dependable as any player we had, never fumbled, always did the right thing, was a great teammate, was a good blocker, understood by blocking. It created play-action opportunities for him that wouldn't have been there if he didn't block. And so forth. I mean, but, you know, it was such a process, and those guys all bought into it, and they deserve the credit for it.

Yeah.

And that's what we're selling with our guys. Absolutely. We're selling the same thing with our guys.

Yeah, yeah.

But people think that when you look at Brady, you think, you know, in 2016, '17, '18, the rookies come on the team and they're like, oh my God, this guy's so great. Yes, but he wasn't. He was where you were actually further ahead than he was at the start. That's how bad he was. But they don't realize that, you know, they're like, oh man, I'll never be that good. Well, you could be if you do what McCourty and Chung and guys like that did. Even players like that nobody wanted, like JC Jackson. And Malcolm Butler, Rob Ninkovich. Rob Ninkovich was a backup snapper. We signed him because we needed a backup snapper because our snapper got hurt. We had no intention of keeping him as a snapper because once our guy was healthy, we don't need Rob. And Rob comes in there and, you know, first day of practice, it's like he knew light. It's like, yeah, hey, Do you mind if I do a couple pass rushes? Like, Bob, you're like a long snapper. That's Matt Leiter starting left tackle. Yeah, go ahead, take one. Boom, walks right by him. Dante goes crazy. Wait, it's a long snapper.

Can't block this long snapper. Get back in here. Boom, goes right by him again. And of course, light— I mean, you talk about taking some heat now, like getting run by a long snapper.

Yeah.

But Nikovich had played against them at Purdue with them, not against them, with them at Purdue. And, you know, he kind of like, hey, like, I know how to rush this guy.

Yeah.

And then all of a sudden it's like, wow. Now, Rob wasn't a great player either, but he had 10 sacks a year for 5 years in a row.

Yeah.

By just doing things right. And, you know, being disciplined and like all the things that he did. I mean, he's just like, he's no Lawrence Taylor. I'm just telling you. Yeah, but 10 sacks a year for 5 years. I mean, you know, it's pretty damn good.

Yeah.

Do you think maybe Leite let him beat him a couple of times?

No, no.

He's like, hey, man, I really need this job.

No, no. Yeah, no, Leite. I mean, I mean, Matt is so competitive. Matt's such a tough kid.

Would you say that Rob is the most improved player that you've coached?

No, Steve Neal. Steve Neal never played football.

Yeah.

Steve Neal didn't even know where the huddle was. Steve Neal didn't know where to go at the end of the play. Like, what do I do now? Steve, go back here with these guys. They'll tell you what to do. Oh, all right, you know.

Yeah, you probably had to be really patient with him then. Like, you saw something in him.

Steve? Yeah, he's 6'5", he's 295 pounds, he's a championship wrestler, and he ran 4.9. All right, and he's tough. I mean, this guy is all day tough, like a lot of wrestlers are all day tough. You could not wear Steve Neal down. He was all day tough, tough as they come. Yeah.

Um, all right, well, this has been awesome. I have one last question. We'll finish with something a little lighter because it's been so much fun. Uh, Rohback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Rohback.com, promo code TAKE. So yeah, I'm, I'm honest, like, we— I— hopefully we can do this again because we could honestly, like, I, I got to like maybe be 10% of my questions, but I thought we'd end with something light. And because you are such a great coach, and we, you know, in doing this podcast for the last 10 years, we have guys that we, we don't coach them, but they become part of the program, and maybe they slip up and we got to figure out how to motivate them. So what would you do for someone who maybe sleeps in a couple times every couple months and misses some things? Zach, why don't you come over here?

Come talk to Coach Zach.

Yeah, come, come talk to Coach and tell him maybe what the issue is, and then, and then we can maybe get to the bottom of it and figure this out.

So yeah, to put this in NFL terms, like, what would Zach would be like our first round pick?

Zach is— Zach would be the definition. He's been with us for a year now, and when he— we got him, he wasn't, he wasn't good. He was bad. He was bad, but he's become great. Okay, but he's got an issue with sleeping in. So Zach, you want to explain to And Zach is great now.

How are we doing today, Coach? How are you?

I'm great. I'm awesome.

I love to hear that.

And congratulations on your ascension to greatness.

I just appreciate being a part of the program, Coach. Thank you for your time today. There has been some instances where we had scheduled things to take care of and I wasn't there. And I should have been there and I wasn't there. And I overslept. And I've been working on it. I've been trying to work on it, and it— and it— and I do my best to make sure it doesn't happen again. I just wonder, I get— I guess if you have any advice for, for somebody who could— about overcoming objections of time and when you're asleep.

Good question, Zach.

Right. Can I, can I answer frankly?

I certainly— yes, sir.

Well, do you care?

I do. Yes, sir. Which— yes.

So you care?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Do you have an alarm clock?

I do. Yes, sir.

Well, then I would get two more.

Okay, we'll do—

I can do that.

I mean, you set one alarm for 6:55, one for one for 7:00, one for 7:05. And if you don't hear the first one, the second one goes off, the third one. Like, I would invest in an alarm clock or a watch or whatever and get a backup so you don't oversleep.

Backup?

How many do you have?

I do currently have 3.

And you still sleep through them?

Yeah, I have. Yes, I've been trying. I really— I know it's pathetic. Pathetic, I know, but I have been making it.

He has one that's called the bomb alarm. That's how loud the alarm is, Coach.

He's, he's probably going to get evicted because his alarm is too loud. His neighbors call noise complaints on him.

Okay, well, I mean, okay, so we need to find another solution. Yeah. Okay, um, well, well, I'd say talk to somebody who knows more about sleep than I do and see if there's I mean, look, obviously you, you're a hard sleeper. I mean, yes, earthquake could come through and you'd, you'd sleep through it.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, we've all had those days. So do you have a sleep, like, apnea or sleep issue?

I don't believe so. Maybe I, maybe I do that. Maybe I check out with a sleep doc. That might be great. Fantastic advice, Coach. I appreciate that very much.

Oh, look, there's got to be a solution to it. I mean, the other thing I would say is Do you live with anybody or is there somebody that is on a similar schedule that you are on?

Not currently. Solo in the apartment.

Yeah, but so if somebody called you, would that wake you up?

Phone call?

I've been doing that with my— I'm so sorry for stuttering on my words. You deserve better vocalization out of me. It won't happen again. I do want to apologize for that. Yes, I've implicated a phone call setup Phone calls have been working out. It's a good way. I've been catching up with my family early in the morning. My dad's been calling me. Shot. So that was great.

That's another option is to get somebody else to assist you with, you know, if that wakes you up.

Thank you for the advice, Coach.

That was great.

That was great. Coach, thank you. We can't thank you enough. This was an interview we wanted to do for a very long time. We love football. We love being here. We saw, you know, the practice was awesome, seeing you in the mix. And, uh, incredible things you got going on here at North Carolina. So thank you very, very much, and, uh, best of luck this year. And hopefully we can do it again, because like I said, I think I have like 90% of my question sheet is still there. So we, we threw it out after the first 15 plays.

Yeah. All right, appreciate you guys being here. Appreciate you calling some good defenses for us today.

Yep.

All right, that was awesome. And, uh, it was a lot of fun sitting there and chopping it up with you, so thank you.

All right.

Thanks, Coach.

Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

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OK, wrap up the show. Zach, you're a star. Great job with the Bill Belichick interview. The ending was very— PFT said it, but I was crying as well. So funny. You also had a couple of moments this week. The pub sub we're in, we're in your home state, Florida.

Florida.

Yes, sir.

You went, you gave us a questionnaire. We— I said, I don't want to tell you my order. I want you to decide what pub sub matches us. So you gave us like a BuzzFeed questionnaire and then got us pub subs. You crushed it. Uh, what is it about Florida that everyone likes to get their subs from a grocery store?

Uh, so part of it may be accessibility, just because like it's close, it's familiar, but also it's so friendly when you go online at Publix Big Cat. Everybody's smiling, having a great time. They don't rush you through the options. There's some subchains that kind of push you through, you know, they let you take your time with the Publix.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I enjoy questions that you sent us. So maybe you can walk us through some of these. How much range of motion do you typically like to have after a meal? I think I get— I understand that one, but you relied on that one pretty heavily, I think.

Yeah, I thought that was important just to understand like how heavy of a sandwich you wanted to—

that really was, was that Tell me if I'm wrong. That question was essentially, do you want the chicken tender sub or not?

That's what that question was. If you're going to just— yes.

Yeah. Because the chicken tender sub was incredible.

It's good, but it's heavy.

But it's very heavy in hindsight.

Like, how many, how many good subs do they have there?

I think they have a really strong top 5.

But also, like, if you knew the top 5 and then you were like backtracking—

listen, the question— yes, Max.

I really like this. I think we do it again tomorrow on the drive.

What if you do?

Oh, so we're stopping? Whoa, whoa, Max, that's a stop, dude.

What if you do Wawa hoagies for everyone for the next stop?

We're not in Philadelphia, Max.

They have Wawas all throughout the drive from here to our next stop.

I feel like that we're already mapped it out.

Well, I was, I was looking for Wawa.

We're a long way from home, Max.

OK, do you—

are you—

so is a— is a frequent flyer of Wawa?

The Wawa sandwiches are good, but we just set the bar so high.

Right. Publix is so good. It's like I don't like to order seafood if I'm in grocery stores.

I'm one thing, I'm fucking gas station away from a Philadelphia gas station. Well, here's the thing, Zach, you don't let them—

don't let them.

Hold on. Here's the thing, Max. The beauty of this drive to where tomorrow. It's so long, we're gonna have to have two different meals. So we could do both. We could do a Publix and a Wawa. Whoa, we already did Publix.

What about Waffle House?

We—

I think it's Waffle House and Wawa. Yeah, well, but then we got to sit down. Now we're really stopping. Now we're not gonna get there, but not for very long.

Taco Bell.

Okay, well, we'll think about it. Either way, the pub subs were good. Cool. The chicken tender— well, Hank, here's the problem with Taco Bell. I love Taco Bell. You love Taco Bell. Every time we get Taco Bell, 10 minutes after we get Taco Bell, you're like, I need an emergency bathroom stop.

Yeah.

So that's—

yeah. Or nap, right?

So we could do it.

I'm napping either way.

We can do it. But I like—

we know we can do it.

I've been thinking like, what if we— should we do— I think we should bring enough water bottles that like no stops, no stops until the gas is— so we need to get gas. No pit stops.

There's the thing about Wawa is you can do both.

That's true. No pit stops.

I'm down. I'm down to piss in the box.

I mean, because the van doesn't go that fast. We forgot about that part too.

Zach, this was another good question that you had on the list, which is when shopping, uh, in your everyday life, do you find yourself in more yellow or white cheese situations? So you admit that cheese is yellow.

So that was more so there's— I know there's an argument on which color cheese could be, but if when it comes to your everyday life, I would just— the question is more so asking like which one you encounter the most, like in your meals. I was thinking like, what do you see while you're eating? Just to kind of get an idea of what visually, what do you usually see on your sandwich?

I like that Zach, instead of saying like, what do you like better? He's like, which one do you find yourself around more? Yeah.

Like, what do you— because I couldn't ask like sandwich specific. Questions in the questionnaire, so I was trying to go off eyeball tests from your meals.

It's a good question.

Zach actually apologized to me, uh, the other day.

About?

He said, Max, I'm— I, I would like to make an apology to you, sir. And I was like, about what? He goes, I had a meal last night with 5 different cheeses.

They were all white.

They were. Yeah, the pizza, the jalapeño popper filling, the mod sticks.

What?

What was this meal?

It was just pizza spot.

It's a lot of mozz. Wait, how many mozz would you eat?

Just a pizza, which has the white cheese. Mozz sticks have the white cheese, and the jalapeño poppers have the white cheese. And it just kind of— a bell went off, and I was like, I owe Max an apology.

What else did you have? At least 5 white cheeses. I may have.

Oh, exactly.

Uh, that was a— that was 3, but it was across every item. So it was like, I owe him an apology. Cheesecake. That's a great one. Great point. That's definitely white cheese.

Max makes a lot of good points. All right, so we'll do—

I would like to get another pub pub sub. I like the chicken tender sub.

It was—

it is very good. And you can do it—

I'm a pub sub guy.

You can do them hot and cold, you know, they— it's versatile.

Yeah.

It's like— I got another question about these questions that you sent us. You sure? This one says, in, in the early 2000s movie Holes starring Shia LaBeouf, spelled S-H-I-L-A first name and then last name B-U-F-F, Shia LaBeouf.

Tricky name. I definitely didn't go birth certificate correct on the spelling, but we knew kind of who we were talking about.

Did You know who he was talking about.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's not my question. Yeah, no, let me finish my question.

A little insulting.

I was reading it, I was reading it for accuracy.

It's understandable.

I was reading it for accuracy.

This whole couch.

Okay, uh, phonetics. This is— I get it, I get it.

We're hooked on phonetics.

Never got the Hooked on Phonics.

Yeah, well, I can't believe that you just corrected Hank. Everyone knew what he was talking about when he said hooked on phonetics, and then you had to correct him like that, Zach.

Oh no, I thought it was two different— two different programs.

It was phonetics was different than Hooked on Phonics. Yeah, that's wild. But Zach's question was, were the jars of sploosh appetizing? As a man who has not seen the movie Holes. Yeah, that's Shia LaBeouf.

I hadn't either.

I don't know if the jar looks better. Sploosh. Is it appetizing? But what was the reason for that question? Like, what sub would have been indicated by, yes, I find it appetizing?

So initially, off memory, I thought the jars of Sploosh in Holes were onion-based, but I was corrected by Shane. They were peaches-based. So that question was to determine if you wanted onions on your sandwich, but I had the wrong food group in that original question.

But also, Shane is notoriously anti-onion, so he might have fed you some propaganda.

But he is well-versed on movies, so there's a crossroads there.

Mmhmm.

Movies and corn dogs.

He sleeps with an onion.

And tiramisu.

It's basically like Do foods that, that reverse a generational curse intrigue you?

Got your palate. It was a great job, Zach. I want, I want another PubSub. Do they have them in Louisiana? Publix?

I don't know. I don't believe so. They may have one like on the fringe.

So we got to get one before we cross the state border. We have to.

We got to go just gas station food in Louisiana. There's good gas station.

Yeah, that's true. And then the last thing, Zach, you so So we love you, Zach. This is—

I—

this all comes from a loving place because I admire you. You— we've been trying to get you a little bit out of your comfort zone, out in the public. You're a sociable guy. You're a great guy to be around. You're an awesome hang. When we went to the Cubs game, I was like, Zach is such a fun hang to be around. And then our guy Dante tweeted a video on Friday night. He has a club in the West Loop in Chicago called Good Night John Boy, which is kind of like a dance party club. And it was what time? 3 a.m.? 2 a.m.?

Oh, the lights, it was closing. So I think it's probably around 2, 2 a.m.

And Dante was like, Zach is just here. There was a whole entire table of Barstool people, but you went to the club by yourself and just danced your ass off for a few hours by yourself.

So last, last summer, spring, you guys kept telling me to go outside and I kind of took it for granted. I was like, I won't need— there won't be a 5, 6 month stretch where it's just way too cold. You have to, you have to stay inside. I never experienced that, so I took the spring and summer for granted. So I've been trying to tell myself I think it's important to like, you know, get out there a little bit and take you guys' advice. Uh, so yeah, just, I, uh, went to the bar, had a couple of beers, and then went to the dance club. I don't dance very well, but it's, it's fun to bust a move. Yeah, not poor.

And you were just by yourself? That's awesome. That's like a, that's a move I, I don't think I have the balls to do that.

It was incredibly uncomfortable, but it was like felt good to like just, you know, get out there a little bit.

And did you meet any women, uh, at the dance club?

It was more— I was more so dancing solo. Uh, I did met— I did meet someone at the bar. We talked a little bit watching a movie at the bar. That was fun.

Oh, what movie?

Uh, uh, X-Files.

Okay, okay.

Did you get any numbers?

Uh, no, no, just, uh, did anyone offer you a number? Some good convo. Uh, yeah, there was like an attempt at, uh, like exchange on the way out, but my Uber was coming, so like like it was just bad timing.

If she was offering you her number—

yeah, she was like, we can, uh, we can hang out some time. And I was like— but she'd also previously said that she's always at the bar, so I was like, oh well, we'll just see each other like at the bar again.

All right, so Zach, having a good Uber rating is important.

You don't want to take—

but exactly, this is why he's the best. This girl was basically asking Zach out on a date. He's like, I'll just come back here and see you if I want to see you.

Back.

She was adamant that she was there quite often. I was like, I'm not here very often, so that'll probably sync up.

So Zach, you were, you were, you were on your way out?

Yes, like I was leaving to go bust a move.

Had you already stood— you, you stood up and you were walking out and she was like—

yeah, like it's coming, you know, it does like 2 minutes, 1 minute, but then it's like a one-way, so like, all right, we'll just loop back. Time was of the essence to get your phone vibrating saying like it's nearby.

I was like this, just looking and she was like, hey, let me throw my digits in your phone real quick.

I fumbled a little bit and I was like, yeah, we'll see you next time.

And I—

but it was fun, it was a good time.

Zach, do you want to do your best situation? Someone else and they can go get the Uber and you can grab the number, but it's like if you're by yourself, some room for the fact that Zach—

maybe Zach wasn't into her. Like, were you into her?

Uh, I had a good time at the bar. I don't know if I would like, uh, if I would seek additional conversation outside of the X-Files watch party.

There you go.

But it was fun.

There you go.

I do, I do feel bad. Uh, shout out to AWS, AWS saw the bar, nice guy. I feel like I may, may have ruined his date because we talked for too long. Like, I could see his date was getting, his date was getting physically upset that we were chopping it up.

Yeah, but that's not the same girl that asked you for the number?

No, no.

Okay.

I felt like an invert, uh, cockblock for that guy because we just, we just started start talking like we were friends.

How long were you at the club by yourself?

Uh, probably like 2 hours.

I love it. Dancing?

Yeah, I'm a bad dancer, big cat, but it's fun.

Did you meet up with, uh, any of the other people from Barcelona?

No, no. Uh, I heard that they might have had a table at the bar, but like the table situation, you don't get to dance as much, you know?

It's more—

it's like, like, I went to dance, hanging out, drinking, which is fun, but like, you know, I'm just trying to do this like Studio 54 shit.

He went to dance.

What's your go-to dance move? Like right when you hit the dance floor?

Uh, there's a lot of shoulder because my feet don't get into it as much, you know.

So white guy dancing.

Yeah, it's a lot of— it's way— it's too much hands, to be honest with you.

A lawnmower?

Uh, I'm not— I'm not opposed to a lawnmower, maybe, you know, getting the pot a little bit.

But you stir the pot?

Yeah, we eat a little seasoning, you know, maybe a little— oh, you did some seasoning? A little over medium egg. No good moves, but some moves.

I love it. You're doing a little of this?

Too much shoulders? Yeah.

You have any idea how many steps you in with the dancer?

I don't know. Stop tracking though.

Good for you, Zach. Good for you.

Maybe we have a boys dance night one time. That could be fun.

But we all should go solo.

Oh, 8, 8 or 9 different spots and then report back.

Yeah, then meet up and be like, how'd you guys dance tonight?

I mean, this is how girls plan their hangouts together. They're just like, let's just go dance.

Yeah, they might be up to something.

You want to just go dance, Zach?

Good job.

It's freeing Yeah.

All right. Good show, boys. Great week. Get excited. We got, we got a lot going on. We're on the road. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to do this. We're going to do this trip. Max, you got this trip.

We got this. I'm confident Max is being a big baby. And let me just say for the record, Max would not— Max would not have lasted a second on this show in 2016 on Grit Week.

I'm just trying to keep this organized.

It was way harder.

I'm just trying to keep this organized.

Guys, yep, Max, you're a capable guy. You can handle this. You can do all things.

Yep, agreed.

Mhm.

Don't be a baby.

You got this.

You got it.

All right, uh, numbers. I got the part of my balls. Shout out to that guy. Shout out to Deck. Deck. 2, 26, 77, 56. Jonah?

18.

18. It is is such a cool site that he made. 66, 66. Uh, any birthdays at any point? Because Max Homer's birthday is in November.

Maybe I was just— maybe it was early. Are we sure it's in November? Yeah, one of the websites had it as May 14th.

You're stalling right now because you don't have—

no, you want to bet? I got birthdays right now. You want me to start? I'll say happy birthday Travis Hunter.

Happy birthday Hank's mom.

Happy birthday to Hank's mom. Happy birthday to Vince Young. Happy birthday to Mr. October. Reggie Jackson got fooled by an AI video the other day. Then on Tuesday, happy birthday to, I believe, your dog Stella.

Stella's on Tuesday. Mm-hmm.

Just got birthday. That's my mom's birthday.

Oh, happy birthday to Big Cat's dog and to Hank's mom. Mm-hmm. Also happy birthday to Archie Manning, Kevin Garnett, London Fletcher-Baker. Mario Chalmers, JoJo Siwa, Sam Smith, Andre the Giant, Malcolm X. Shout out Malcolm X. Happy birthday on Tuesday. Is he still alive?

He is.

Shout out Malcolm X. And then also today, as we're doing this podcast, it's Matt Ryan's birthday. Did someone send you all these? I made a list.

Let me see.

I made a list that somebody also helps me with.

Someone's sending you all of these?

I have a list.

I'm not—

I don't want to talk about who sent me the list because they're—

You just went like this and Someone's just sending them all of them.

Max Homo might have been on the list from last week, so I don't want to throw this guy under the bus.

This guy, whoever you are, do the right thing. Do the right thing and keep—

keep— now you gotta find a new guy. Yeah, now I gotta find a new guy.

Keep doing it. Throw some random ones in there.

Uh, so that's a lot of birthdays.

Memes. What? Oh no, I had the wrong day pulled up. I thought he missed Jayden Daniels' birthday, but that's December 18th. Oh, okay. Yeah, well, he'll probably say it next week. Week by accident. Happy birthday, Tina Fey. Hit it out the park.

All due respect.

Ciao, Tina Fey.

Well, you gotta think for Tina Fey. You guys look like you could be brother and sister.

All right, see everyone on Wednesday.

Love you guys.