Transcript of CFB With Stanford Steve, Bears QB Case Keenum, Bears Crush The Eagles, Baseball Playoffs And FAQ's

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I just realized something. What'd you realize, Meebs? There's somebody not here.

Oh shit.

Come on.

Oh no. Oh no.

We've been texting him for 6 hours.

Has he not replied?

No.

Did he fall asleep?

Oh no.

On today's part of my take presented by DraftKings, we've got a pack show. We've got Our good friend Stanford Steve talking college ball in studio. He came and visited us before Monday Night Football. We're going to recap Monday Night Football, the Case Keenum game. Speaking of Case Keenum, we have him on the show as well. We're going to talk all about how incredible it was on Monday night. 38 years old, hadn't thrown a pass in 3 years, came out and torched the Eagles. We have playoff baseball, the 0-3 boys. So we're going to talk about the baseball playoffs and all of our teams getting Absolutely dominated in different fashions. And then we're gonna do Hot Seat Cool Throne and finish with FAQs. And it's brought to you by our friends at Chevy. Football season is here, and whether you're grinding through the week or gearing up for kickoff, there's one ride that's always game ready— Chevy Silverado. There's a reason Chevy is called the heartbeat of America, and Silverado keeps that heartbeat strong with Whether you're towing, hauling, or tailgating, Silverado lets you show up strong and tackle any task with best-in-class standard torque, the most functional bed, and the advanced tech that's football guy approved.

Check out current offers on the 2026 Silverado at chevy.com. Go get a Chevy today, the best truck in the world. Chevy.com. Okay, let's go. Hey.

Football guy, but you know, AWM.

Part of my take.

Yeah.

Part of my take.

Yeah.

Part of my take.

Hey.

Part of my take.

Yeah.

Part of my take. Welcome to Part of My Take presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, September 30th. And Max, Hank, the 0-3 boys in the baseball playoffs, the 0-3 boys. We got absolutely dominated every which way. A blown, blown save for Max and the Phillies. The Cubs got their shit kicked in and Ben Rice buttfucked you, Hank. Does that sum it up?

Yeah, the buttfucking. I wasn't, I wasn't ready to go that far yet. I, I just want to say it's kind of an indictment of Dave Portnoy that we've got Schlittler and Ben Rice both growing up as Yankees fans.

Yeah, yeah, that part doesn't make sense, but it does, it does hurt that it's like— and I like Ben Rice a lot. He's, he's from my neck of the woods in Massachusetts. He, he carried me, uh, to the, the Dingers Only championship this year.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

The fact that it's 2 guys, 2 guys from Massachusetts that were just shoving it down our throats the entire night. And like Ben Rice is, he's beefed up a lot in this one year.

He was incredible. I mean, both of them were. Schlittler had 10 Ks, 6 innings pitched, zero runs. He was just like a true, he might be Haas potentially. He's probably gotta gain a little weight, but like to just show up and shove like that.

Analytics, like 119 pitches in 2026 is—

That's hot.

Boss status and then some.

And then Ben Rice, unfortunately, Ben Rice was, was he 4 for 5 with 6 RBIs? Just absolutely dominated.

Are the New York Yankees better without Aaron Judge?

I think so. I mean, Ben Rice has got his pinstripes faster than Aaron Judge did.

I mean, I think this is Ben Rice's, it's his second set of pinstripes, right? He got him last year.

Yeah, I think so. But he, he, he doubled up. He just renews him every year. Yeah. He, I don't know if he got him last year cuz I don't know. They, they lost in the second round.

I think I saw a stat that he has just as many hits in this postseason as he did in last postseason.

So this is his pinstripe year.

Yeah.

Hank, how are you feeling overall?

I don't know.

Do you think—

I, I have to fact check that, but I'm—

Fact check that, Max.

I'm pretty sure I saw that somewhere.

Fact check that. Hank, how are you feeling overall? That was a non-competitive game.

Yeah, say the least. They took Roman Anthony out for seemingly like he's— he got hurt, which is a bad sign. Back against the wall. Feels bad.

Well, all right, so let's debate this. Embrace debate. Who, who had the worst loss? Because the Red Sox were at least— it was still a game, what, until like the 8th or something when it, when it got blown open. The Cubs, the Cubs got, the Cubs got shit on immediately. Fernando Tatis hit the first ball out of the park. PCA almost—

San Diego, by the way, unbelievable standup. Most electric, most electric crowd of the day by far. Like far and away. Max probably combined the other 3 games and the crowd was better in San Diego.

Yeah.

Max couldn't have been more wrong.

Terrible team.

Wrong.

Yeah, it was a, it was a bad time.

I also can't be more wrong. I also can't be more wrong.

Unreal home field advantage games over the past few years in San Diego. And when they started out, like when Tatis, was that the first pitch of the entire game?

First pitch of the game. Well, they were obviously bottom of the first, but yes.

First pitch for the Padres.

Yes.

First pitch for the Padres and just absolutely walloped it. That is a moment where you're like, this is going to be one of those nights.

I said right away, I was like, it is just simply too loud in San Diego. I needed to be a little quieter because it just, I was getting intimidated from sitting on my couch. I was intimidated. San Diego was electric. And yeah, the Cubs, I mean, they, they absolutely sucked today. Almost got no hit. I texted Max in the 5th. I was like, you know what's, what's going on right now? Because I was just thinking, and, and the game got so outta hand that they weren't gonna bring in like their, their best pitchers. But when it was like 4-nothing in a no-hitter and the, and the Padres' unbelievable bullpen was gonna maybe come in the 7th, 8th, and 9th, I was just staring a combined no-hitter right in the face. And Max was like, I know what's happening. I know what's happening.

Weird.

We were all thinking about it. I tweeted out though that I think this wouldn't count as a postseason no-hitter because the wildcard's not really the postseason.

Yeah. All right. So the Cubs are, we'll get to the Phillies. The Cubs, that was just a sad, sad display. I think this team probably is dead. We don't have pitching. Knew that going in. Matthew Boyd is, we have, we have a, we have an entire rotation full of like 4s and 5s. And our, our other 2 pitchers, well, Gausman got hurt. I don't know if he, he's on the roster, so he's not hurt. I would've rather started him. Peterson and, and Holmes started on Friday because you were still trying to get a home playoff series. So that would've been short rest. So it's like, all right, Matthew Boyd, he did well against the Padres last year. He's, his velocity's been up, he's been better, but he was just throwing meatballs. But the thing that just sucks is the, the Cubs, and I get it, like They have not been good as a hitting team in the last like month. They just cooled down and the Padres have gotten red hot, like the best hitting team in baseball in the last month. But I knew that the Cubs pitching sucked going into this series. Their defense is elite, their hitting is elite.

To have no hitting is like what— that's the part that drives you insane. 'Cause it's like, I knew that the Cubs have to win softball games. Like we don't have a bullpen, we don't have starting pitching. You gotta just do it by, by being dogs at the plate. Non-competitive at-bats, garbage at-bats. And to lose that way when you know going in, it's like, hey, if we lose because our pitching sucks, we knew that all along. We knew that all season. It was not a surprise, whether it be injuries or, or mismanagement. You knew the pitching sucked. To lose and have just no chance at the plate, that's what drives you insane. And I guess to, to bring it full circle, Max, because Hank and I lost in similar ways. Would you rather lose like this?

You had the best loss. The Cubs had the best loss. They were—

I don't know, man. This is a, this is actually like a joke. Like this was like an embarrassment of, in a joke.

But it's such an easy—

I agree with Nick Cap because Big Head also had to stay up late and sit all day through the other games.

No, but like it was over. The game started at 9 and the game was over by 9:30. Yeah.

But you know that like I was, I was sitting there like in the 4th inning when it was 3-nothing, 4-nothing. And I was like, all we need is a base runner. Like we got a chance. I didn't say in my head that it was over, over until it was, you know, 7, 8, nothing. Like I still stupidly thought it was, we could have a chance.

I think it's Max and it's not even close.

No, to me it's Hank and it's not even close.

No.

Hank, you lost to the Yankees.

Yeah, I mean, Max had the most gut-wrenching. That's not even close. That part is not even close.

The gut-wrenching, yeah, that way of losing sucks. But Hank, the Reds, your Red Sox lost to the Yankees in the playoffs.

That's not—

yeah, but it's about, we were talking about how you lost.

But here's the thing, Max, and you could talk to us about the Phillies game, what was going through your head. You still have your ace and they use their ace, correct?

But we also used our only, like, we used our only high leverage pitcher for 30 pitches yet today.

That sucks.

And he's the one who blew it.

That sucks.

And like, he blew it against a guy who was Statistically one of the worst hitters in baseball this year. He hasn't given up an opposite field home run to a right-handed batter since 2023. That was the last time he gave up an opposite field homer to a right-handed batter. And the game— Michael Harris hits the biggest fucking piece of shit hit up the middle that, I mean, people are blaming Trey Turner. I don't blame Trey Turner. It's just the way fucking baseball goes. And it just sucks. We were 4 outs away to just being in the driver's seat to go into the next round, completely changing the vibes and the momentum of this team. And then Bryce Harper himself after the game just goes, yeah, that was a dagger. It's hard to come back from your best player looking at the game and being like, yeah, that was a dagger. Like, it's so easy for you guys to just turn the page, be like, all right, that game sucked. We're on to the next. We're on to the next. You can't. It's so much harder to turn a page in that game. And they looked so much better in that game than they have in the past month.

They were fighting. They were giving great at-bats. Lozardo pitched his balls off. He hadn't pitched in 2 weeks. He came out. We expected 3 innings. He gave us 5. He gave us 70 pitches. And it's just one swing, one bad pitch fucks up the whole thing.

Yeah.

Fucks up the whole thing. Fucks up the whole season. Fucks up all of these guys at the prime of their career. They're probably not going to play next year. By the time the, the, the next year they're gonna be old men. One swing, one swing change. Okay. You convinced me.

You convinced me. Yeah. I mean, I, I've turned the page already. Like the game's still going on.

Yeah.

PCA just struck out again and I'm, I'm, I've turned the page.

Max, when you were watching the game, we have, we have our ace going up against and, and their ace is done PFT. So it's like we can, we can, we can tie this thing up tomorrow and then it's, and then it's game 3. Anything can happen.

Yeah.

There's a lot of different ways of looking at it. Like, like in terms of who had the most heartbreaking loss. Absolutely. Max, who has the most reason to believe? Probably Hank. Big Cat, your loss sucked because you had to stay all day, like just watching other baseball games, waiting for yours. And then it was over on the first swing and the Padres didn't even use their high leverage bullpen. So they're going to be like ready to go. So it sucks. Bad, bad baseball day for part of my take.

Bad baseball day. I would say, I mean, the fact that the Cubs, again, they don't have pitching. So it's like, we don't have, it's not like, oh, but we guess what? We got our ace coming up. We got our 5th 4 coming up. Watch out. It's going to be crazy. Max, I got a question for you. 2 questions, actually. First is, I was watching some of the stream on the Part of My Take YouTube. By the way, you're going to do it again tomorrow, right?

Right. Same spot, same corner. Zach has got to be there too.

Maybe, maybe don't do the iPad because you just lost in a heartbreaking way.

No.

Yeah, the iPad's done now. I think now I'll, now I'll, I'll take one of those screens.

Okay.

All right.

So it was tough watching on the iPad.

Well, I'm going to stream the Cubs game at 9 o'clock. Everyone can tune into that as well. But Max, I was watching. You went silent. Usually there's rage. Was that a, was that a choice that you made before the game? Because it was just pure silence. And it was very funny because Zach said, do you, Do you want to talk about it? And you're like, no, not right now. What happened there?

I had nothing to say. I had nothing to say. It was, the vibes were so high and it was just such a shocking, shocking, but not shocking at the same time. It was just a speechless, speechless moment where the ball leaves his hand. I'm like, oh my God, that's middle, middle. The ball, hits his bat. And I'm like, oh my God, there's no way it actually goes there. He's gonna catch it, right? He's gonna catch it, right? And it just kept carrying and carrying and carrying to just enough to get over that fence. And I was like, I just can't believe that just happened. I just can't believe Yoan Duran just gave up that homer. I just can't believe that just happened. I can't— like, the only thing that was going through my head is I can't believe that just happened. I can't believe—

Tears?

I can't believe that just happened. No tears, but it was It was just, it was truly, truly, truly a speechless situation that I had. There was nothing that— there was nothing I could do. There was nothing I could do. And then the shadows came up for the bottom half of the inning. And I mean, the shadows were honestly there for Austin Riley's swing too, which made it even more impressive. But you just know that you had no shot. You just know you had no shot. And now somehow they got to pick themselves off the mat and Chris Sanchez has got to pitch a fucking gem tomorrow because it's the only way.

Yeah. How would you, uh, how would you discuss your departure from Barstool Sports this afternoon?

Oh, is it bad?

I don't know.

There's a little bit of a storm out, a little bit of a Rory McIlroy parking lot shoot-off.

That's not true. I left.

Rain cloud, rain cloud.

It was over and I went home. It was, it's a normal thing.

No, you ran, you ran out the side entrance. Went directly into your car, and I've never seen a car drive off faster than you did.

I heard you were carrying your sweatshirt and it was just dragging on the ground as you were walking to your car.

You got—

you got it.

So fucking quick.

Yes, the game was over and I left. My workday was over and I went home.

That's literally—

that's what the— that's what 99% of the American population does.

Yeah, it's completely regular. departure from work. All right.

Yeah, I left.

Here's the other thing, and we're going to talk— so, so we recorded the whole rest of the show in studio. Uh, we're going to talk Bears, uh, Monday Night Football. We have Steve, we have Stanford Steve, we have Case Keenum. Uh, I did see, uh, a guy named Brendan Deeg posted this on Twitter that, uh, he said, inspired by a Reddit thread, I gathered some stats on how Vic Fangio's defenses from 2023 to the present day have fared from before the Phillies were eliminated from the playoffs to after. So essentially, Vic Fangio is like Kyler Murray with Call of Duty, except it's the Phillies for Vic Fangio. And he did the stats, and before the Phillies have been eliminated, EPA per drive, they're the 28th worst defense, or 28th defense. Yards per play, the 21st. Success rate, they're the 17th. After they've been eliminated, they're the 4th best on EPA drive, 3rd best on yards per play, 4th best on success rate. So the Phillies being in the playoffs is making the Eagles bad.

Yeah, I mean, we talked about it off the show today. It, it's, I, I, I guess it's a problem, but I, I, it's so hard to go off of both of these losses the past 2 days. and be like, right now I'm so mad about the Phillies that I can't care about that Eagles loss.

Yeah. Oh, wow.

Like, I— it's gonna be hard for— because you're gonna— in about 5 minutes, you're gonna hear me be really mad about the Eagles loss.

Yep.

But, but the way that the time has happened since we have recorded that to where we are at right now, I, I don't know. I don't know. My, my brain has been in a pretzel Since Saturday.

You, you, you did have a Fleming tweet, uh, which may give me a chuckle. You, you know that, that would, that, that reeked of Fleming, your tweet after the game, right?

Sports are dumb?

No, just humiliation every day. It will never end.

Oh, well, that's been humiliation every day.

I know. Oh, just, just the past 2 days.

It will never end.

Saturday was also humiliation day.

That was a humiliation day as well.

I had, I had one. I've, I've had 3 out of the past 4 days of humiliation days.

No, one of them was great.

LeBron media day.

Shut up.

It will never end. Oh, Zach's here. Zach, you joined us. No, his mic's not working.

No, he hasn't.

He's not joined us. Nope.

Wait, does Zach have— I think Zach has the Apple Earbuds in and then he has those with the headphones over top of them. Yeah. So he's got 2 mics that aren't working right now.

5-mic. This is tech. This is some good tech right here.

It's bad. That was bad. That was bad. You're going to see.

Yeah.

When we get back to the studio, it's like a different show because I was riding high off the Bears on Monday night. But this is, the Padres are going to keep scoring. And baseball's so stupid. You go ahead, PFT.

I got one last question about Vic Fangio. Do you think that Vic Fangio would be better at coaching off of Phillies wins? Like, does he give himself Victory Monday, like, you know, a little time to celebrate the wins? Or do you think he'd be better off of a loss because he's pissed off and he's not sleeping?

I'm sorry, this is a complete— Colton just sent the video of me leaving the parking lot.

Yeah, this could not be more— everywhere, dude.

There's a— you almost ran over a little girl.

You need to check both sides of the street before you crossed.

Oh no, that's just me.

I'm gonna have Max— this is a completely normal exit. I was, I was hoping that he was storming out and he was peeling out. It was a completely normal exit.

It feels dirty even watching that video because it's like, why does someone even take a video of you just walking out of the office?

This entire time, by the way, Zach is just trying to get his mic to work and it's not working.

Oh, he's still talking and we can't hear. We can't hear you.

No, baseball's so dumb. Baseball's so dumb. I, I, I love watching baseball, but it's like you, you invest so much time in, in a season and you hope, like I talked to myself, I knew the Cubs had major, major flaws going into this postseason, just like you knew the, the Phillies had major flaws, Max. But then when, when the playoffs start, you talk yourself into it and you say, hey, Like, it's going to be like the best version of ourselves are going to show up. The best, the offensive Cubs had for the majority of the year where they're really, really good. It's going to show up. The defense is going to show up there. We're going to get the best version of the pitching. And none of it happened. None of it. Just absolute disaster.

It's just, you get to the postseason.

Oh God. Yeah.

I don't know. It's just like, there's so many things that you go back and you second look and like in the moment, I'm so fucking mad about the Yoan Duran coming in in the 7th inning. when he hasn't done it ever. And then he goes and he has 5 perfect, perfect outs, and then he just can't get the last one. And I get mad at him. And then a couple, a little bit of time goes past. I'm like, I'm not actually mad at him, but I am mad at him in the moment. I just need to blame somebody.

Mm-hmm.

But it's just so frustrating. It's so frustrating. It's just one moment and it just, and it, and you could do everything right for 99% of the time. And then it's just one moment and you're fucked. And it's just so fucking frustrating. And Zach cannot— he just left.

Zach just left again.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think he's— he's probably cutting the cord right now.

Baseball sucks.

It's brutal, man. There's one other story that came out right after we got done recording this afternoon. I think we should at least mention it because it is— it's pretty significant news. The English Premier League did an investigation into Man City. for like salary cap hijinks over the last decade, 15 years. They were found guilty of everything that they were charged with. So they, they had— imagine an entire team that's run out of guys that are getting Kawhi Leonard contracts. Like, that, that's how bad it is, to the point where like Man City, I'm hearing, might get relegated, like kicked out of the league.

I I asked people to explain it to me in terms I can understand, and, uh, the— someone said it's like the Houston Astros did 16 9/11s.

It's pretty bad. Yeah, it's, it's awesome though. Uh, Zach was telling me about what his breakdown was.

Zach, you got it?

You want to comment on that?

He keeps moving in his apartment too. He moves in his apartment to a different place. It doesn't change anything.

So the crazy thing is that they've got this big-ass, like, brand new stadium. If they get relegated, they're just gonna have to have concerts every day in order to actually make money and have the ownership not go broke. It's a pretty, it's a pretty hilarious predicament they've found themselves in, but they're essentially running a fake set of books.

Okay.

Yeah, I didn't understand it. It sounds significant. People were like, holy shit, how is this happening? But they're still, they're in the middle of, I mean, I know they're on a break right now, but they're, they're gonna play the rest of this season.

Maybe. I, I don't know when the, uh, so this is the, just the panel that like decides whether or not they did that shit. And the panel today decided they did all that shit and also plus some other shit too. So it went about as bad as it can go. And then there's gonna be another panel that decides what the punishment's gonna be.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but it sounds like this is, this probably should be death penalty stuff. Because it's pretty much the worst thing that's ever happened in English soccer in terms of like rule violations.

Damn.

Man City. I love it.

Yeah, Man Shitty. Zach, do you have any thoughts on it before we kick it to ourselves in studio, talk some Monday Night Football?

Man City's been playing with the money for a while.

Oh! Zach!

Been playing with the money way too long.

What happened?

You guys can hear me good now?

Yeah.

No, to Man City. Then I want to know what happened otherwise.

I have no idea. Oh, what happened to Man City is they may be fraudsters, Big Cat. They may be relegated.

Okay.

That's a big stadium to have to keep filled if you're not playing in the big leagues. Yeah, but I'm not sure which microphone you guys are coming through or you can hear me through now, but I think we're good.

It sounds beautiful.

What happened with— did you fall asleep?

Yeah, I did. I did.

It is late.

It's 11:45.

It was a playoff baseball. I should have been there with you guys. That's all I did. I did fall asleep.

How was it watching the game with Max today?

Max is a passionate guy. Max is passionate about the Phillies, and things got extremely steamingly passionate in that corner.

That sounds sexual, dude.

It honestly, it got a little tense.

There was like definitely a little bite in the air.

So you're saying there was a chance that things could get sexual?

Yeah, but individually.

Okay.

Like separately sexual.

Was that like between Max and the Phillies or between me and the Phillies?

It was separate.

And if one of us were going to do that, high chance it wasn't me.

I did see Max waving somebody home.

Oh, well, I was— yeah, I was, I was trying, I was trying to win a ball game.

Yeah, that was impressive because that was during the silent stream.

The silent stream was something. The silence—

yeah, he was something. The, the Phillies actually scored some runs while we were interviewing Case Keenum. All right, uh, before we kick it to ourselves, what are predictions for, uh, Game 2s?

Who do you want to go for? I like the White Sox.

Oh yeah, the White Sox were awesome today. We should have mentioned— yeah, White Sox were awesome.

That's—

they're better than this.

Part of the day was the Chicago the White Sox beating the Astros because it's, in my opinion, it's still fuck the Astros and probably always will be fuck the Astros. And it's cool to see the White Sox having success out of all the, you know, they, what, it was 2 seasons in a row, 100 losses or more, including like some historically bad teams. And now they're just young and fun. They don't know any better. I'm rooting for the White Sox in the American League for sure.

Yeah, they, they had, they won their first, that's our bad. I, I think we all were just kind of pissed off at our own teams. They had won their first playoff game today. For in 1,815 days, kind of a no-doubter. Could have actually been worse. They had bases loaded, I think, in like the 2nd or 3rd inning and didn't make it like a crooked number. But they, I think they're just better than the Astros. And if they can, they've had stretches this year where they've been like one of the hottest teams. So if they can recapture that, watch out for the White Sox. They also, if you wanna talk about like tampering and stuff, they got a letter from the Pope today. That feels, that feels like that's a destiny run. You get a letter from the Pope.

Yeah. Yeah.

Is it an actual letter?

Like a letter from the Pope? Yes.

Handwritten.

Uh, it looks like it was typed on like a typewriter and then signed by the Pope. Looks pretty damn official.

Let me, let me look this up.

And, and, uh, the, so the White Sox will be going for tomorrow, uh, their first playoff series win in 21 years. And Sean Burke is pitching, and I like his quote. He said, this is my life. No family, no girl, no kids. This is all I do. That's, that's who you want pitching in a chance to clinch a series. So, oh, Cubs have bases loaded on Joe Musgrove.

To Mr. Jerry Reinsdorf, I was pleased to receive the kind letter that you sent following the game that took place at Wrigley Field on August 11th, 2026. I am most grateful for this thoughtful gesture. As I have noted, sport can truly become a school of life where all can learn that substance— that abundance does not come from victory at any cost, but from sharing, from respecting others, from the joy of walking together. In this spirit, it is my hope that the White Sox will continue to foster bonds of friendship and solidarity among people, and thus bear hopeful witness to the possibility of living and working together in peace. With these sentiments, I willingly invoke the Almighty's abundant blessings. Upon you and your loved ones. That sounds like he just, like God just blessed the White Sox.

Yeah.

Just bless the White Sox.

It doesn't sound any more clear-cut than that.

The Cubs might be back because we just, we have bases loaded, one out, but we just made Mason Miller get up, which, listen, any little bit helps. He's warming up right now. So, you know, he's got to get up. He's got to get up. That's got to, that's got to change a little bit tomorrow. Maybe he doesn't have his shirt. He's, he's so fucking funny.

Good.

I don't know what I'm saying. I'm coping right now. Oh, last thing I had. We don't need 3 announcers in these playoff games.

I got one more thing.

Yeah, we do not need 3 announcers in these playoffs.

Yeah, we do if, if John Fanta is involved.

John Fanta is actually the 5th announcer in this game. Clayton Kershaw is the 4th announcer.

I know, Johnny Diamonds.

John, I love John Fanta. Baseball is a sport that you have to let it breathe.

You—

it's a slow sport. It's a dramatic sport. Stuffing the booth with everyone. I get it. They're trying to do the, you know, they're trying to do the, you know, a guy from each team to make it neutral and all that stuff. You just don't need that. I listened to the majority of the Cubs game just on radio tonight, like while I synced it up with my TV. It's too many announcers. NBC is doing too much. I'm sorry. Do you guys agree?

Yeah, I love Anthony Rizzo, but it was— it just, it was unnecessary, right?

It's just like, it's hard. It's hard for— it's hard for there to be a flow when you have 3 guys trying to like find their place in. It's not a fault of them. None of them are bad.

They're not—

they're not together. It's like, it's like, right, not— they're not— no, but that's next to each other.

Rizzo's the 4th, Hank. Oh yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, like we had the, the Cubs color guy, uh, Jim Deshaies, and then the Padres color guy were in the booth with a play-by-play guy, and then Clayton Kershaw was sitting in the stands, and then Jon Fanta would join in. There's a lot. There's a lot. Yeah, baseball's a sport that's just so— like, you just need one announcer in baseball.

We had Cruck, and like, the, the beauty of Cruck is that he does, you know, the Phillies local broadcast, and he's the biggest homer of all time.

Yes.

And like does side tangents and this and that. And then in this game he was like trying to be like super professional and like complimentary to the Braves. And I'm like, this isn't Cruck. Like, Cruck is doing this right now because he's on like, gimme, I need Cruck in, in like the middle of August where he's just talking about like the hoagie that he had last night.

Correct.

This is, they should, I don't need this.

That's what they did with every single game. They mashed announcers, announcer crews.

Yeah.

Oh yeah. It's, it's so simple. NBC, just, you have all your streaming apps, the TV version on NBC, you can have be whoever's the home team, that could be their announcers. And then the, the streaming app can be the away team. And I, and everyone can pick who they wanna listen to and just do it that way. Like everyone, every fan of baseball would, would tune into their home announcers to watch a massive, massive game who's watched them for 162 games.

That sounds great.

Yeah. They mash guys together that have never worked together and like, hey, this is gonna work.

Just put them on the cock and have them and you, and you have multiple streams.

Right. Cruck on the cock. Jimmy Shades on the cock.

Okay. Gimme, gimme Cruck and T-Mac on the cock.

Yeah.

Gimme Cruck and T-Mac on the cock.

Okay.

Why, why do they have Kershaw down in like the booger mobile of baseball?

Dude, Rizzo was in the same spot. It's crazy.

Like, I don't—

we had Joe— I don't understand, like, in our game doing that.

Yeah, I don't understand what, what that innovation is supposed to solve.

Yeah, I don't know. I have no idea.

I don't know. But I, I do like it when they kick to Jon Fanta and he's like, you know, uh, this guy's favorite pitcher, uh, also used to pitch for the Padres. Back to you.

Yeah. Yep.

All right.

Well, White Sox rolling team had a good day. Shout out to the White Sox. That was a hell of a performance. I do think they're just better than the Astros. And I, and I think they're better than the Guardians too. So I know that doesn't make sense because they lost the Central to them, but I think the White Sox are going to go to the ALCS. Okay. Let's kick it to ourselves and talk some Monday Night Football.

Welcome back, Hockey.

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Case Keenum.

What a game.

QB3.

QB3 hadn't played in an NFL game in forever. Comes in QB3, lights up the Eagles. An incredible, like sensational, like not just backup lights up, like throwing the ball down the field, throwing absolute seeds. 247 passing yards, 3 total touchdowns. His first game with 3+ TDs in 2,500 and 77 days. I gotta say, it was a very enjoyable watch. It was a dominant win by both Case Keenum and the Bears defense played lights out, especially in the second half. They held the Eagles to no points. I am also— I know that my praise for Ben Johnson keeps going up and up and up where I've said, you know, I would leave my family for him. I'm now at the point where I would, I would, I would kill for him. I'd murder for him.

Doesn't matter who or just anyone.

Anyone.

Anyone.

If he's like, hey, I need you to murder this guy, murder for him. Yeah, done.

No problem.

No problem. Memes. No problem, Zach. No problem.

Okay.

Probably not you.

All right.

I'd probably— what I'd have to do is probably like, you could kill me.

No, no, no, no, no.

I would understand.

I can't lose you. I'd do like a Gone Girl situation.

Okay.

Where I'd like— I'd be like, hey, we got to get— we got to get rid of you and then say that you're dead. And then we'll just do the podcast and hope Ben Johnson doesn't listen.

Yeah, you can fake kill me.

That's fine. I think he's the best coach in the NFL. I would not trade him for any other coach in the NFL.

I mean, it was, it was a great game plan that he had and incredible. And Case Keenum played awesome. Even the last minute, the touchdown scramble that he had or the sneak, the design sneak.

Yeah.

And we're just not going to block Philly's defensive tackles. I hope you're cool with that, Case.

Yep.

How was he, 38?

He might have called that on his own, by the way.

You're 38.

You're 38, Case. You probably won't mind getting hit by some defensive tackles and then just nobody was there.

Yeah.

And they trusted him. They let him throw the ball downfield too. Yeah, it was cool.

He, he, he, it was to watch the Bears get off the mat after a Week 2 game that was really tough to watch. And, you know, you had— I, part of my love for Ben Johnson is how much the rest of the NFL hates him. And I'm not saying like anyone in this room. I'm saying the like executives. And I don't know if you guys saw, but after Week 2, Mike Sando did one of his like blind reporting, like talking to executives and coaches in the league. And this is week 2, 2 games in. And he had this quote, the Bears are entering into this world where it's like Ben Johnson is constantly out of his— out over his skis and they have come through. Well, now guess what? They got smacked in the face and scored 3 points. What does that mean? It means that Ben Johnson is going to drop his nuts on the table and be like, hey, this guy who hasn't started in, in years is going to run a perfect offense. And like, you know, going into it, the narrative was Ben Johnson's only called plays for number 1 overall picks.

Yeah.

And Jared Goff and Caleb Williams. Doesn't matter. Ben Johnson is the man. I would not trade him for any other coach. I get it. There's coaches that have Super Bowl rings. There's coaches have been doing it for longer. But if you said, hey, Ben Johnson, trade him for Andy Reid, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it.

You said something interesting there, Big Cat. People are going to want to know. You said It doesn't matter. Caleb Williams, Jared Goff, Case Keenum.

Oh, well, I do think that, I mean, obviously Caleb Williams is the quarterback. He has the highest ceiling. He's, he will run the offense to a level. I mean, he scored 59 points.

There will be people at home that are, that are saying, I love it. Address the system QB allegations.

Yeah, that, that's great. I welcome that discourse because it's, it's like when you don't have anything else to say, you're like, hey, system QB.

Yeah.

It's like the— it's the last button you can press. I just think Ben Johnson is so good at coaching and you could see it in the game plan. Like he was the, the, the last year on Black Friday, the Bears ran it down the Eagles' throat. The Eagles all week were saying, we can't let that happen again. And they did a pretty good job. I think we only had 27 rushing yards in the first half. Ben Johnson said, okay, I'm going to basically make the game plan out of making your linebackers just be in distress constantly. with Khalil Khalif Raymond and Luther Burden across the middle and Case Keenum throwing on time. And that's how we're going to win the game. And that's how they did it. And yeah, it was, it was just, I like, I'm starting to get some, some feelings that are scary, but the Bears are good, good. And yeah, that was, it was a fun, fun watch.

I thought what Ben Johnson did best was slow down the Eagles pass rush. Yeah. And make their linebackers, like you said, make them confused. What, what, Max? Max is shaking his head.

We're going to—

Case Keenum was getting the ball out with him like that. It wasn't slowing down the pass rush. It was just getting the ball out before the pass rush could get there.

He got the ball out. But we're saying, like Big Cat was talking about, the linebackers being kind of in conflict all the time. Like, I like—

pass rush had no chance to ever even start. I like— Case Keenum was getting the ball out in a second and a half. He was every time.

He was. He was getting the ball out extremely quickly. But Ben Johnson was also dialing it back to some Formations that I haven't seen since playing Madden in like 1994, where you've got 2 guys in the backfield and like the pro set formation. Yeah.

And he was doing— I mean, Ben Johnson does stuff like where it's, oh, it's obvious first down where it's like, hey, this is going to be a run. Sam Rausch is on the field who's a blocking tight end and Colson Loveland and Cole Kmet aren't there. Oh, Khalif Raymond across the middle, like shit like that where he just keeps the defense on their toes. And yeah, I just— it was, it was, it was so much fun to watch. I'm happy for Case Keenum. It's pretty cool like that he has this story and is able to play one more time. He did tell an anecdote that to lock in this week, he put his phone on do not disturb all week. And the only— like, you know, the setting that you can do that someone can go through, do not disturb. Yeah, he had it Ben Johnson and his wife. And he's like, guess who called me and hit me up more? And it was Ben Johnson, obviously by a lot.

I love that. And then when he had like his daughter on the postgame. Yeah, that was an awesome moment. And she had never really gotten to see him play.

Right.

And he was like, yeah, so now she believes me that, that Daddy's a quarterback.

It's just so cool.

We're gonna watch the tape together. It was, it was a pretty cool moment for sure. Um, yeah, the, the offense— if, if people are accusing you of system quarterbackery, that means that you have good quarterbacks.

Yeah.

And that means that your team is playing well.

Yeah. And the system is awesome.

And that—

and it is just crazy watching a— like, if you say you're going into a game with QB3 who's 38 years old I think most people in their head would be like, there's no way you can win. But that's what Ben Johnson does. He gives you a chance to win every game. It took me till 6:46 PM, about 35 minutes before kickoff, where I was like, you know what, Case Keenum is going to be awesome tonight. So it did take me a while, but I got there. I also— the tweet that I had from 2019 saying RIP Case Keenum, I can't wait for him to win a game as a random backup in 5 years. I was off by a couple of years.

Yeah, but still, that's pretty close.

Yeah, it's pretty damn close.

People do like when they look at Case Keenum, they, they think— I, I, what do we say on this show? He is the Andy Dalton of Cooper Rushes. Um, he was an awesome quarterback in college. People— yeah, like, he is— I think he has the all-time yardage record, right?

Yeah, his senior year at Houston was insane.

Yeah, he was, he was a great college quarterback. He is now, I think, the only quarterback besides Ryan Fitzpatrick to win for 7 different NFL teams.

That is a fact.

As a starter.

Yes.

Which is awesome. I'm shocked that Josh Johnson isn't also on that list.

That is kind of crazy.

That's pretty wild that— I guess he just hasn't really gotten into games. He's only— he pops up once every like 4 years.

Yeah. Also, Case Keenum, uh, a crazy Case Keenum stat. He has 32 wins as a starting QB in the NFL, including playoffs. 9 of those 32 wins, so 28% of his wins, have come against a Super Bowl-winning quarterback. So he, he, he can, he can step up in the moment. And, uh, he also— a crazy Case Keenum stat— he was playing last night, obviously, and Sean Mannion, who was calling plays for the Eagles, also threw a pass for the Rams in 2016, as well as Case Keenum. So they were teammates.

That is cool. Yeah.

And there was also the great pull by memes when Andy Dalton got in for a minute. It was that cover of— what was the COVID from? Texas Football: A Cut Above, the 2010 preview. And it was Case Keenum Jared Johnson and Andy Dalton.

Yep.

And they were all there on Monday Night Football.

I think all 3 recruited to play safety for Mac Brown.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

So yeah, it was, it was a great night and it was very fun to watch. Do you want to— do we talk about the Eagles side?

Well, one thing real quick. So we talked about the blitz. He was 11 of 11. Yeah. For 145 yards and 2 touchdowns throwing against the blitz last night. Which is pretty fucking good for a 38-year-old guy that has— that hasn't seen it in a while. So whatever they were doing during the week to simulate the pressure was pretty impressive. And before we get to Max, I just want to say, Big Cat, welcome to the club.

What's the club?

Oh, you don't know the club? The club?

Yeah.

What's the club?

You now join the Commanders. We both have 2 quarterbacks that have more passing yards than Drake Maye.

Oh, is that— it's just us?

I know the Seahawks as well.

So the Seahawks also—

3 teams, 2 quarterbacks. Yeah, 2 quarterbacks. Welcome to the club. Thank you. You're welcome.

It's good to be in the club.

It's a great club. Yeah, great club.

I actually think there's also a world, and this is crazy to say, I think Tyson Bagent might start on Sunday. So I don't care.

Ben Johnson, whatever he does, I feel bad for Case Keenum in that case because his postgame, like, it was, it was a good, like, his postgame speech to the locker room afterwards where he's like, like, you know, I've gotten— I've had this taken away from me before. Like, this means a lot.

And then he said—

And he played so good. Yeah, he's like, I might not be a cowboy, but this ain't my first rodeo.

Yeah.

And it was like, you know, that's a feel-good moment. It's like, he played great. It must suck to be like, yeah, I got this, I could still— I could still do this. And it's like, yeah, you're not playing again.

I, I think he's, he's gonna be fine either way. I, I actually feel the reverse. I feel bad for Tyson Bagent because he finally was gonna get his chance and he got concussed and then Case Keenum balled out. It doesn't really matter. I think that like whatever Ben Johnson does, if he starts Tyson Bagent and people are like, how can you not have Case Keenum? It's because it's Ben Johnson. You just go with whatever he decides.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I think, I think they might go back to Tyson Bagent.

Yeah. Well, he said, I think he said after he's QB2, but I don't know. It doesn't matter. It's Ben, Ben Johnson can pick anything, do anything. And I'm just going to follow him like with the The, the, the 4th down go for it, which was a terrible sequence for the Bears when Rome Odunze dropped the pass and then they went for it on 4th down. Everyone's like, oh, you have to go up 10 with the backup quarterback. No, no. Ben Johnson is going to play aggressive. And as he plays aggressive, it's going to— if you play aggressive the same way all season long, the numbers will eventually be in your favor.

Mm-hmm.

And that's the thing. It's not— he's doing it in a way he's not going to flip-flop. He's not going to be like, oh, situationally I have to do this. I have to do that. No, no. He's going to be pedal to the metal the whole time. And I trust that. All right.

Sorry to interrupt, Max. A lot to talk about. Big day today.

Yep.

Well, we already talked about the Phillies, which we're doing everything in order.

Definitely went well.

We did. We did the baseball late at night via Zoom. And now we're back in studio. We're taping this in the morning before any baseball has been played.

Would you like to apologize for earlier getting too upset about the Phillies on the pod? When we recorded, when we recorded later on tonight.

No, I mean, this is— this is— that was a scheduled loss.

Okay.

That was a scheduled loss because they couldn't— they couldn't win until game 162 and had to pitch their ace on Sunday.

Gotcha. All right. So, yeah, Monday Night Football. What went through your head, Max?

The Eagles. I mean, I said it all week that everyone was saying that it was Case Keenum against the Eagles and it has to be a win, blah, blah, blah. The Eagles have not looked good in either of the 2 games that they played going into last night. Cam Ward sucks. As a guy who watched the tape of that game, tape guy, Cam Ward, any competent quarterback wins that game and it's the fucking Titans against the Eagles. Like, I— the defense didn't look good in that game. They didn't look anything like they did last year. And Jalen Hurts played very well the first 2 games to basically will those games to victory. And then he played a bad game last night. And that's what happened.

Not according to Manuel Acho.

No.

Well, I don't know when Emmanuel— Jalen Hurts did play really well in the first half. We all, we all were saying it. Yeah. In the first half, he was great. And then the third half— in the third half— the third quarter, he was fucking horrendous. And then that's what happened.

Yeah.

I'm going to wait. I'm going to find exactly when he— oh, it was okay. It was, it was, it was early in the game.

So I mean, in the first half he had a— he was 11 for 13 for 122 yards with like, I think the Bears pass or the Bears pressure rate was getting there in less than 2 seconds and he was still 11 of 13.

Yeah. Bears defense. I should have said more about the Bears defense. The Bears defense was— that was the best game they played in a long time. Second half got the pressure. Theonoman's an absolute stud. I know Andy Dalton kind of threw him. an easy one. But the Bears defense is the weakness of this team, and they were not on Monday night. They played their fucking asses off.

In the second— I mean, the first half, the Eagles were moving the ball. They were moving the ball.

Saquon was running it down.

Saquon was running it down their throat, and we just couldn't stop shooting ourselves in the fucking foot with penalties and Andy Dalton and the Andy Dalton situation of it all.

Do you think Nick Sirianni should have called a timeout there?

Yeah.

Yeah, that was— that was weird.

I, I thought there must have been some sort of rule of why he couldn't call all of his timeouts to get him back in.

I feel like one timeout would have gotten him back in.

I don't— he should have used all of the timeouts to get him back in that game.

Even fake an injury. Have a guy just like lay down on the field.

The fact—

I mean, I— before we were, we were streaming before that play, I just said I knew that they were going to throw it. They took Saquon out of the game. Everyone knew they were going to throw it. And the only thing I said is, Andy, don't do fucking— don't do something dumb here. Don't do something dumb. And he did the dumbest thing ever.

It's pretty dumb. And he should have— there should be a signal where Okay, our quarterback's almost out of the blue tent. We think he's fine. Andy, lay down on the ground and grab your knee, and then we'll bring the cart out for you.

That would have been great. I mean, yeah, anything would have worked other than what they did.

Yeah, it was, it was a bad choice. Uh, but I mean, credit also to, to Jalen Hurts. The operation at the end of the first half was awesome, getting that quarterback sneak in with like, yeah, a tenth of a second.

In the first half, he was great. We were, we were all saying that Jalen Hurts was playing an awesome game in the first half, and then the third quarter came and he just shit down.

his leg. Do you think DeMarco Jackson is a fucking pussy? What?

Nick Sirianni.

Oh, DeMarco Jackson is the one who hit— I mean, it was kind of bang bang. I don't, I don't think it was like fully out of bounds. I know I was stepping as he got hit.

I didn't, I didn't really look at, look at it like that anyway. I, I think there's an argument to be made that it was, that it was a clean hit.

I guess football player. Yeah. Do you think—

but, but also I think there's an argument to be made that they shouldn't— he didn't, he didn't get hit in the head in any way and he shouldn't have had to go to of the tent, but that's—

I think what happened, his head probably bounced off.

It didn't.

It didn't.

Okay.

I saw the hit and it was, it was clean. It was to the shoulders. And he, yeah, he flew back and it was kind of a, it was a tough hit.

I think they just saw that it was a big hit and they were like, there's got to be— he had to have hit his head somewhere and he didn't.

Do you see any irony in Nick Sirianni calling DeMarco Jackson a pussy and then Nick Sirianni not going for it on 4th and 1? Midfield with 3 and a half minutes left in the third quarter.

That was a big pussy move.

That was—

people love going or keep going back to that.

And then he went for it on 4th and 5.

But then he got a 3 and out. Yeah, so it wasn't like that— it wasn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of the game. Like, that— I get it. Like, I, I was pissed in the moment. Looking back on it, it's a pussy move to not do that, but he did— it did work out kind of what he was thinking of. Like, okay, Pin 'em. Trust the defense. Get, get the ball back in good field position with, you know, you're down in distance. So it's like, I'm mad about it looking back at it, but in the scheme of the game, it wasn't that big of a deal.

When you look at the Eagles offense compared to last year, are you happy with, with the changes?

It looks like a lot of the same.

The first half, like you said, better. Second half, I would— I was thinking a lot of the same.

Oh yeah.

We completely abandoned the run even though we were dominating them in the run game in the first half.

Mm-hmm.

The bubble screens, the bubble screens are an absolute joke. The offensive line is bad. Like the offensive, like the strength of the Eagles team for the past 6 years has always been run the football, rely on your offensive line. Now you have to rely on Jalen Hurts who Is at this point, he is just an inconsistent quarterback. Like that is what I've found about Jalen Hurts is that he has stretches where he looks fantastic and looks very good. And then he has stretches like, like he had in the 3rd quarter where it's really bad. It goes back to last year. I still think like you can see it like a lot of this year he's capable of playing really well, but then he goes through these stretches where he's just really bad.

Can, can I ask a question about Jalen Hurts? That I noticed it more last night than ever before. And I think we all have talked about it, but Jalen Hurts is so good. And I think Jalen Hurts is a good quarterback. I don't buy into the like he stinks. He's, he's bad. Jalen Hurts is so good at evading the rush. But when he rolls out, he never completes a pass.

He is terrible.

He's crazy.

He is terrible at— he, if he, if he evades a rush, he has to run.

Right.

Because he cannot make a throw on the run.

There was that one last night where it was like DeVonta Smith was actually open and Jalen Hurts still threw it away.

I like, I don't even think he was trying to. He just is, he's incapable of throwing on the run. But like the reason he got to that situation is because the pocket completely collapsed on him.

Right.

And he did a great job of evading the pass rush, but he just can't finish the play with that. It's just so bad at throwing outside of the pocket.

If you get him out of the pocket, pocket, it's an auto incompletion if he's not running the ball.

Yes. So like he has to run and he is good. Like he is good at running and picking up yards after he gets out of the pocket, but that's his only success rate.

Yeah. It's like, it's like the, like there's guys like when you think of like the best quarterbacks right now in the league, like Josh Allen, Mahomes, Brock Purdy, like Brock Purdy had that play on Sunday where he was jumping out of bounds and made a completion. Like that's, that was sick. That's the difference. Yeah. Where it's like Like, not only can they get out of the collapsing pocket, but then they can still throw it downfield. And I feel like Jalen Hurts, that's the part of his game that's the most lacking. Like, if he could fix that, I don't know what the fix is. The Eagles offense would probably look a lot better.

Russell Wilson was the best at that when he would scramble. Yeah. And still, like, somehow Lockett would be down there, right? Because he would find him.

But yeah, because Jalen Hurts does keep like 4 to 5 plays a game alive that very few quarterbacks could keep alive. It's just when he keeps it alive, it then dies.

Yeah. Yeah. So the offense does look very similar to last year. I agree with that. What about, what about the defense?

Defense is an enormous problem. It turns out not being able to re-sign to Kobe Dean and having Jihad Campbell take his spot is not working out for any of the parties involved. Jihad Campbell was horrendous last night. He was so bad and he hasn't been good all year. And then Kobe Dean is like part of the reason the Raiders are 3-0 right now. He's been fucking awesome for the Raiders. And that's a, that's a big deal.

Hey, did you have questions?

No, I mean, it's tough. It's, it's, I wish I could, I wish I could make fun of Max more, but given the state of my current team, it's a little bit harder. The, the DeVonta Smith sideline video was, was, made me laugh at least.

That's the fucking camera crew. They like, You— it was a completely projecting depressed— yeah, like you're there, you're getting your ass kicked in on national TV, Monday Night Football. Like, no, yeah, no one is gonna look happy in that moment.

You were—

they were getting fucking stomped on.

Maybe it was because of that attitude.

I mean, he played that—

that catch was insane.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. The first half, that catch and throw was perfect.

Like, Here's a spin zone, Max. It could be worse. AJ Brown could still be on the team because then it would have looked really bad, like in terms of sideline body language.

I'm not— well, then the camera just would have— it would have been the Taylor Swift of like, let me— let's make sure that we get AJ. Whatever.

He was brought out.

You think maybe DeVonta Smith has been skating by for the last couple of years because AJ Brown's always drawn the camera attention? Oh, and now DeVonta Smith Actually a problem. Now we're only—

He didn't do anything.

It sounded from Hank like he did something.

He, he looked like he was upset that they were losing the football game.

Okay.

Hank didn't like his body language. Yeah, I think I laughed.

It made me laugh.

Oh, he liked it.

Oh, he liked his body language.

Yeah.

We'll translate for you because you guys don't talk anymore. What?

No, you guys just point now. Max, I think it's going to be okay. I think you need to stay positive.

Sunday, must compete. Must compete.

Oh, not even a must-win.

Must compete.

Yeah, the Rams, they need to win bad too.

Right. Like, if they, if they look like they did last night on Sunday against the Rams, season over.

Do you need it? Do you need Jalen to look better?

Jalen had a bad quarter. Like, he looked very good in the first half, and like, that's what I'm saying, it was a really, really, really bad quarter. So I'm not I'm not excusing him for that.

The pick was really bad after they had shown that defense. Yes.

There was a lot of he's still running last night.

There was a lot of he's still running. He missed a lot of guys.

Were people accusing him of being a big stupid pick guy? I mean, it was 4th down.

It was 4th down. That's the only thing.

4th down is like, who cares?

But no, it was more of a he's still running because he was like 4th down. There's a guy there. I'm throwing it to DeVonta Smith no matter what instead of actually surveying the field. They had—

we had 3 guys.

It was one of those where it was like, I'm throwing this to DeVonta Smith. I don't care if it gets picked because it's 4th down.

Right.

So that's like the— that's the only difference of like a punt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But also you'd like him to see the guy that would—

correct.

That would hit his head.

That's what I'm saying is that that is the problem is that there were multiple times last night where he didn't find the open guy. It's like that was less of like a— you got to protect the football. You got to protect the football because it wasn't He wasn't trying to protect the football in that situation.

What's the—

but he's got to find the open guy.

What's the common thread between the offense last year and the offense this year?

Jalen Hurts and Nick Sirianni. And that's what everyone, everyone is saying.

Yeah.

Is Nick Sirianni in the hot seat?

No, no, not yet.

How— what temperature is his seat?

Are we going on— we're going off Fahrenheit? Yes.

No. So, you know what? Let's do Celsius.

Celsius.

I'd like you to do Kelvin.

Kelvin. Kelvin, I could probably do Fahrenheit. It's, it's like 80. It's like 81.

So he's got maybe like 2 of the 3 seat warmers on in his car.

I would say 1.5, 1.5 seat warmers.

1.5 seat warmers.

I don't think they have that in the settings, but that's fine.

Maybe 1 seat warmer and a juicy fart.

Yes.

You know, you actually heat up your seat.

Do you think that He should be on the hot seat because I feel like he, he coaches better when he is on the hot seat.

True. That is true.

You're actually doing him a disservice.

Yeah.

You need to actually call for his job.

Has Max lost his fastball?

No. I mean, yesterday, the— that was one of the worst coach games I've ever seen in my life last night. Just absolutely zero preparation looked like it went into that game.

The—

you're, you're very calm right now, which I feel like the— you've digested it. But last night, yeah, I mean, it was—

Last night I was mad. Yeah, it was, it was— you got, you got absolutely embarrassed by Case Keenum on Monday Night Football.

Yeah, in front of the world.

You got absolutely embarrassed by Case Keenum on Monday Night Football.

Yeah, Jalen Hurts got outplayed by Case Keenum.

Not even close.

Like, not even close.

Not even close. And Ben Johnson had those guys locked in. The difference in game plan was astounding. Whatever.

Yeah.

Max, can I— can we give you some— make you feel better?

Well, yeah, sure.

Okay.

I don't believe that this is actually going to make me feel—

Why? Why is that?

Why would— why would the entire history as friends in a show— would you think that PFT would be doing something that wouldn't make you feel better?

We always look out for each other, Max.

Yeah, always.

Yeah. Okay. Well, a little positivity memes. Can you give him his present?

Oh my God.

Thank you. Thank you, memes.

Oh, it's Jalen.

There you go.

It's a wacky Jalen Hurts inflatable figure.

Yeah.

Is that nice?

Yeah, that's great.

Beautiful.

Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome. Does anybody like it?

I'm so happy. Thank you.

You look like you might want to stab it.

No, no, that's what you want. You want me to do that?

I don't. I want you to be happy. That's why I got it for you.

We screwed up. We should have probably recorded last night because Max filled out. He's Phillies. It's Phillies. It's all Phillies right now. Eagles are a problem for another day. Okay. What else we got? Any other cleanup? We're gonna do all college football with Stanford Steve. Any other cleanup from Sunday? We did have the, the, the old guys being good again because it was Case Keenum, Aaron Rodgers, Jacoby— or sorry, Jameis Winston. Who else? Oh, Marcus Mariota, Kirk Cousins. Am I missing one? There's someone else, I think. All won a game on Sunday. There was also the, the teams who started their non-week 1 QB all went 6-0 or are 6-0 in week 3. It's pretty crazy.

That's pretty good. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Actually, that's all season, not just week 3 because Drew Lock won.

Week 2. And we, uh, we got into the trade for JJ McCarthy with Steve, which happened like as we were recording the interview with him. There's been some fallout from it.

I love it for both sides.

5th round pick seems like it's a little light.

Okay, yes, but I said this before the season, I do not— like, the minute you make Kyler Murray QB1, you have to trade JJ McCarthy because there's just There's always going to be a weird locker room tension. You're not going to start him. You're not going to play him. So you just got to, you just got to move on from your mistake and get anything back for it. I think 5th round pick, I think it's like addition by subtraction where you get a 5th round pick and you also get this entire narrative headache out of your room.

You get the narrative out.

That's not JJ McCarthy's fault. It's not, it's not like he was a narrative headache, but you know, you know what I'm saying? The conversation will always be there if JJ McCarthy's on the roster.

Trey Lance went for a 4th round pick a couple of years ago. So that's why I'm saying it feels like it's a little light for JJ McCarthy. Yeah. Because I, I, you can say what you want about what you've seen out of him. But we haven't seen a lot. So you never know. He did win a lot of games in college. And I think Harbaugh obviously talked to his brother about that and got as much intel as he can. I'm interested to see what happens if What if they start winning football games?

Yeah.

Like if it, what if JJ balls out for the rest of the year?

Yeah.

What if 9 shows up?

I think, listen, for the Giants side of it, it is the smartest thing to do because you have an offense that can run like Matt Nagy has created an offense for Jackson Dart. JJ McCarthy has similar skill sets. What happens if he's really, really good? You now have 2 young quarterbacks, both cost controlled that you can have options with. What happens if he's really, really bad? You get a good draft pick.

It doesn't matter at all.

So yeah, it's—

I hope that they let him run because that's when he's at his best is when he, he's able and available to use his legs as another part of the running game. And it felt like in Minnesota they didn't want him doing that as much.

Right.

And so maybe this will be a better offense for him. The big question is, is he going to get the number 9? That would be a disaster.

Isaiah Likely currently wears the number 9.

I think they have like 1 through 19 all accounted for. But I saw a tweet saying that.

I was saying, what about, what about 99?

99 for a quarterback? I don't know if you're allowed to.

I don't either.

It would rock.

It would be awesome.

So looking at the tweet Max just pulled up, number 10, 11, both retired. Number 16 retired and everything else is spoken for.

I have another question.

Jameis has 19.

Yeah.

I could see Jameis being a good teammate and being like, I'll give you 19. I don't think that Likely is going to give up 9.

I have a question. And maybe it's too early to tell because we're only 3 weeks into the season. What does this do though to KOC's like QB whisperer tag?

Organizations fail quarterbacks.

Right.

Was his quote.

He, he obviously did a really good job with Sam Darnold. Sam Darnold then went and won a Super Bowl with someone else. He JJ McCarthy didn't work out. He decided to move on from Kirk Cousins.

Yep.

And now the Vikings are 3-0. That's a lot because of their defense and Brian Flores. They have gone back-to-back games with one single red zone possession.

Yeah.

So is— are we— are we rethinking KOC as a QB whisperer? Not as a bad— I think he's still a good coach, but the QB whisperer part, I've lost it.

I'm not because my take on KOC remains the same. same, which is he's, he's a foster home for quarterbacks.

Yeah.

He's the best foster dad thus far.

The fostering of Kyler Murray hasn't looked great. I know it's a very small, very small sample.

Itty-bitty cute little sample size. But he is, he has won football games with Carson Wentz. Yeah. So there's that.

Yeah.

True.

Okay.

Do you want to talk about NBA Media Day or do you want to do that in Hot Seat, Cool Throne?

I had a bunch of Hot Seat, Cool Throne.

All right.

So let's do it.

Let's do Hot Seat, Cool Throne. And again, we're going to do college football talk. Uh, oh, one thing we didn't really talk about with Stanford State that I wanted to bring up. Lincoln Riley's got to be done, right?

This is bad. So his buyout is $70 million, which is— it's a, it's a steep one. This was a bad loss. And then to have Dan Lanning just like drop his nuts on your face afterwards saying, if you want to win football games, come to Oregon. If you want to go to Chris Brown concerts, go to USC. Pretty emasculating.

Um, and also the, the dirty hit.

The dirty hit was bad. And then it wasn't just the hit. It was also The celebration afterwards. And you had a couple guys on USC that looked like they wanted to stop it or they tried to calm the player down. But it was bad. Was that Desmond Stephens?

Yeah. And it was just the whole thing was, it was ugly. It was just, it was a bad hit. And then he was celebrating. Then I think he didn't get— I think he was on the sideline.

Yeah.

Afterwards.

I agree with our guy Stat Hole about, about the quarterback slide, which is it's designed to protect quarterbacks. But it ultimately puts them in more danger. Yeah, because when you're sliding, you the only thing that's keeping the the top half of your body up is just like your abs as you slide through. So if anybody hits you, and it doesn't even have to be a dirty hit, if they hit you in your in your chest, in your in your shoulder, all that's going to happen your head is going to fly backwards into the ground. Yeah, bounce off the ground and knock you out. It feels like it it might seem counterintuitive, but banning quarterback sliding might ultimately be better for them.

Did you guys see the USC radio broadcast? One of the funniest clips. Can we play the audio of it? Because it was so funny. It was the USC home radio broadcast and their announcer essentially just being the biggest homer of all time, which I actually respect when announcers do this. But I don't know if the guy has eyes because— wait, who— what is his name? I want to get his name. USC radio broadcast. Uh, he, he, he's calling the hit as it's going on. All right, so Sean Cody's the one who actually would like disagree with him. Uh, Pete Arbogast. All right, play it.

And Stevens went in helmet first, but he kind of ran into Dante Moore who ducked into that hit for him. I did not see him put his feet out first.

I saw him dive.

He's laying feet first. Yeah, he is now because they spun him around. I want to see the replay. Here he goes down into it. Yeah, not a feet-first slide, more of a knee slide. It didn't look like sliding on the replay to us.

It looked like he was asking for it. Dante Moore was asking for that.

Feet first, Pete. You see what he was like? No, they— yeah, they spun him around. Yeah, they spun the lifeless quarterback around.

That's crazy. And, and what is Lincoln Riley now 0-4 against Oregon, I think.

0-3 maybe. They came at the same time. Lincoln Riley and Dan Lanning were hired at the same time. And yeah, it's a bad, bad hit.

I wonder if Dante Moore, if he's going to play at all this season, because I think he might just— I don't know. The statement that they put out the other day made me think that he might be— he might just focus on the NFL. Yeah. I wouldn't blame him.

With, with Sam Receiving, he brings up the point about Dylan Rayola, pretty good backup. 5-star backup. Not a lot of teams can do that. So yeah, but we'll get to more college football. I think we talked about Wisconsin with Stanford seed, but I am— it's— it was a good weekend. It was a good weekend to go 2-0. It's been a while for that to happen. But I feel like things are maybe turning around in the right direction for the Badgers, which is— sometimes it takes a while. Things, you know, it takes a long time to turn some things around.

Mm-hmm.

And it feels like we're going in the right direction. Also, PJ Fleck is a psycho.

Yeah.

Mention that. Yeah.

So his quarterback was bleeding on his face and then PJ was so, so excited after the win. He just ran up to him, smeared it right across his mouth almost. Drake Maye could learn a lot about how to handle blood on the football field from PJ Fleck.

That's true.

Like PJ Fleck embraces it.

Also, PJ Fleck had a mini Mike Tomlin moment. I don't know if you saw that. No, he threw—

oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

He threw his, his play card. I saw he pretended to do a hold in the middle of a play and the play card went onto the field.

Yeah. Yeah. It looked like a flag because his play card card was a yellow thing. PJ Fleck is a psychopath.

Total psychopath.

Like, like certified insane person.

I was just saying, I'm not, I'm not trying to take any credit, but the Badgers have looked a lot better since I essentially told Luke Fickell he's got to burn the vest.

That's true.

The vest is— the vest can never come back.

They've looked good this year.

Can never—

they've looked better.

The defense looks, looks very, very for real. Okay, let's get to Hot seats, cool throne. It's brought to you by our friends at Twisted Tea. Football season is finally here. We've never been more ready for game day. We're bringing Twisted Tea along for the ride all season long. Twisted Tea is a refreshing hard iced tea made with real brewed tea and 5% alcohol. The Twisted Tea Party Pack has a little something for everyone with original, half and half, raspberry, and peach. It's got that refreshing taste with a little kick, no carbonation, and goes down smooth, making it the perfect drink to keep the good times going at the tailgate all day. And all football season long, whether you're tailgating at the stadium, crushing teas in your man cave, or grilling out with friends, Twisted Tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time a great time. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. Keep it twisted with Twisted Tea. Henry.

My hot seat are a couple— I guess they're probably former Kings reporters at this point.

Yeah.

NBA Media Day was Monday. I love how they just, you know, do it all on the same day. It's fun. A lot of clips, a lot of things to talk about coming out of Media Day. This was like a— there was like a break in between players coming on to do press conferences with the media, and there was like a hot mic that caught a group of Kings reporters talking about how Ben Simmons was cringe. He's lucky he's so fine. And then they were like—

No, no, Zach LaVine was cringe, I think.

No, Ben Simmons was cringe. Zach LaVine's personality.

Zach LaVine's also fine. Fine.

Or no, the personality fucking annoys me, but still fine.

And then one of the other male reporters, like, I thought, you know, I thought you liked Jordan Poole. And she was like, yeah, I guess, you know, light skin's my type. So it was— and then they, you know, internet found the reporter. She's married. Tough scene.

Oh, no, no.

Tough scene all around.

That's really tough, man.

Was Ben Simmons going third person? I guess it's not. Is it third person when you have to say your full name, or can you just say he? When you're talking about yourself.

I think that's second person.

Second person. He went second.

You hardly ever get guys going second.

He went second person. They asked him if he can return to his prime and he said, I'm there. He's there. He woke up.

That is third person. I think you is second person.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's— he's inside me somewhere.

Yeah. I'm going to say right now, Ben Simmons, you, you do not get the privilege of using third person.

Cringy, but fine.

That you have to be really, really good.

I don't. I, I might disagree.

Ben Simmons is living the dream.

I think I disagree with you on that.

Why?

Because—

He just got to fish for like 2 years. Now he's in Sacramento where no one cares.

But I'm talking about the actual play on the basketball court. That's what he's talking about. If they'd asked Ben Simmons, how's your life going? Then he could say, yeah, he's awesome. His life is awesome.

No, there was a moment when he was good.

Yeah, no, I know.

So he's talking about that guy, which is also him admitting—

Oh, coming back?

That he's not good anymore.

Yeah.

But that guy—

But he started with, I'm there.

So he's where he's saying he's back to being that guy.

And then he said he's there.

I think it's very confusing for Ben Simmons.

Yeah.

But yeah, Hank's right.

English is his second language.

Yeah, he's Australian. He's used— instead of he, he should just say cunt. Australian. That cunt's in there. Yeah. Ben Simmons, good for him. This is a perfect place for him. Perfect place to do a comeback. Yeah, pretty much. This is like him doing like a rehab stint in AAA baseball.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's the Sacramento Kings are the exact opposite of Philadelphia, literally polar opposites.

Yeah.

And then speaking of, uh, and I guess it's cool to throw more than Knicks because there was, there was Wemby talking about his, his, his quote was like, we lost to 4 fucking best friends.

That was good.

Which was just funny. Power of friendship. Cool thrown. And then LeBron said he was going to go to the Knicks before they won the championship, which I don't know if that's cringe or if that's— I don't know if that's good for the Knicks, if you're sad about it.

Oh, that's great for the Knicks.

Yeah.

To not need LeBron to win your first title in 50 years.

True.

It's awesome. He also said that Philly wasn't even on his radar until they got Jaylen Brown. So like the Celtics—

You're just talking about things that everyone already knew about.

I know, but he reiterated it.

Those were—

I feel bad for Jaylen Brown already. Yeah, even though—

Dillon Prown was having a great time at media day yesterday.

Whose team is it?

Who's, who's the alpha, Max?

That's— he answered that question perfectly.

Which is next question.

Correct.

Which is not an answer.

Exactly.

Who do you think the alpha is?

I personally think that the alpha is LeBron James, but I don't need them to be talking about who's an alpha and starting anything in the locker room. How, how would you have answered that question?

I think it's Tyrese Maxey.

But like that, then that, that starts a conversation of blah blah blah. If it's this, there was no good way of answering that question.

Well, we're having a conversation right now about it.

I think it's Joel Embiid.

I think it's Jaylen Brown.

There you go.

Like, but we're having the conversation.

So you see why we want to know the answer.

But like, you don't need to know the answer.

They need to know the answer.

The team doesn't need one alpha. We're a bunch of alphas. We're just trying to get out there and win as a team.

Yeah, actually.

But now saying no, no, next question. Now it's just gonna get keep asked, keep asked, keep asked. I don't think him saying no next question is going to— like, there's a way to answer that question so that it doesn't keep getting asked.

He should have, honestly, if he had just answered Nick Nurse. Yeah, it would have been over. I guess that would have been—

I mean, that's also a lie.

Yeah, but it would have been the move. Just be like, Nick Nurse is the alpha. He's the coach.

I have zero issue with him just being like, this is a stupid question that's just trying to cause drama inside of the locker room. And I'm not going to answer that question.

It's also a little, a little pathetic that like the diehard LeBron fans are like mad at Jaylen Brown for not saying LeBron. Oh no, you need, you need, you need someone else to say that you're the alpha. That's the most un-alpha thing possible.

Dom texted me and apologized this morning.

Yeah, true alphas don't need to be told that they're alphas.

I think that it would have been nice for you to say that about LeBron.

He goes, this is my first stint with Philly media. I went back and listened to it. That question was just trying to set them up for failure. He goes, I apologize.

I'll be better.

I kind of agree. I think you need to— you got to take care of him a little bit better.

Take care of who?

LeBron. You have the privilege of hosting LeBron James. Well, yeah, take care of—

kind of.

What are you about to say?

Does he not live in New York?

He got—

he—

oh, Philadelphia.

Wow.

He has—

he will have 2 residences, a residence in New York and a residence in Philadelphia.

Do you think LeBron having a residence in Philadelphia Just him will now make Philadelphia not poor. He is a billionaire.

It does help.

LeBron's changing the economy.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure.

By the way, I'm not calling Philadelphia poor. That was something— that's a callback to Max calling Philadelphia poor in relation to New York City.

I like—

he's got a place in both places.

I like this quote when he said, I didn't leave my family to lose in the second round. That's, that's a great quote.

So he got divorced.

I can't— well, Tom Brady tried doing that.

Yeah.

Tried doing what?

His last season.

Leaving his family.

Family?

Yeah.

He won.

Yeah.

Well, not his last— his family.

Yeah.

What?

Not the last season.

Oh, yeah.

He moved in with Antonio Brown.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or vice versa.

That's actually a— if you're going to leave your family, like, to move in with Antonio Brown, it really makes the point clear, you know? Yeah. It's not like you're not like, hey, maybe we'll get back together.

No, no, no.

He lives with Antonio Brown now.

Yeah, I'm— this is a football decision to live with.

He didn't just get like a duplex right around the corner so he could see the kids. No, he, he's living with Antonio Brown.

And Max, you guys are bringing back the black unis.

Yeah, those are—

yeah, that was a shocker. I think LeBron was just like, he just said, I want the black unis. And then Nike was like, OK, which makes a lot of sense.

Oh, so it's his team now. Is he the alpha?

Well, he's definitely the alpha in Nike.

You know, if he's telling his teammates what to wear, have you seen—

oh, he's telling—

oh, we should also—

I feel like not enough people were talking about him going full bald. He looks bad.

Oh, he looks incorrect.

Should we, by the way, PFT, now that Max brought that up, should, when we're talking about LeBron's legacy, should we not bring up the fact that Nike stock has completely tanked? And Max just said he's the alpha of Nike.

Okay. So as chairman and CEO of Nike, is he responsible for the loss in like $3 billion in market value?

Yeah. Let's go to this podcast to talk about the stock market.

I'm just saying, let's talk about the stock market.

You know, a bunch of guys, you know, Did you ever— everything about the stock market.

Listen, do you know what MJ did for Nike? He made it Nike. Yeah.

And listen, we get paid in Bored Apes. We are heavily leveraged in Doge dating back to 2020. So I think maybe you should respect our investments a little bit more.

August 1st, 2021, Nike stock was $172 a share. It is right now $35.

Was LeBron playing in 2021?

What?

What?

You're just saying—

what are you talking about? I'm saying the high. This is all under LeBron's watch as CEO.

LeBron, what are you— what are we doing?

Yeah. What are we doing?

CEO. He's watched Nike just completely tank.

But he was also part of the high.

No, no. MJ gave LeBron Nike in 2020.

What?

Yeah. You didn't.

You didn't know that? No, I'm not. I don't— I don't follow the stock market.

LeBron's not the CEO of Nike.

I mean, you could make the case after the most recent championship. Every time he wins a championship, the stock goes up and he hasn't won a championship in a long time. So the stock's way down.

That's a fact.

Get ready for the time to buy stock in Nike.

Oh, okay.

You won't. You guarantee?

I don't have it. I'm not guaranteeing.

Okay. Your cool term?

My cool term was New York and friendship. And, and, uh, the Avengers— did you see this Embrace debate for Tyler Herro?

No.

I sent it to you, Max. It's great, great question. Big J question.

We're big Avengers guys.

Okay.

You were in a promotional campaign for Marvel Studios a few years ago, right? And as everybody knows, you know, Avengers: Doomsday is about to drop in December. My question to you, do you believe that the Avengers are cooked? Or are they going to win this, this, you know, this year or whatever with Avengers: Doomsday? And if so, how?

What? Inverse debate. Are the Avengers cooked?

Avengers: Doomsday?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't what's his name cook them? Thanos?

Yeah, but he cooked them. They came back. They came back through the portal.

What happened? But wasn't Spider-Man like a big movie?

Mm-hmm. No, he's talking about like in the movie. Oh, are they cooked?

I don't know enough about Avengers.

Did Ant-Man crawl up the ass thing?

No.

Okay.

Memes.

What happened with that? I liked Hank just explaining it to you guys.

Basically, like, do you think in the upcoming superhero movie that the superheroes are going to win?

Oh, no, I don't think so.

No, that never happened.

I think they're— I think they're cooked.

They're cooked.

Yeah. They're cooked.

How will they— how will they wiggle their way out of this one? Yeah, probably not.

It says right there Avengers: Doomsday. You'd assume the doomsday would be for the Avengers.

This is probably gonna be—

Doom is the villain.

What's crazy is the villain.

Yeah, it's also Tony Stark. Oh my God.

RIP my dog. This— that's crazy because it's not Tony Stark. This movie franchise, it makes so much money for the studio, but there's no way they can do anymore after this because they're cooked. So yeah, I think, I think they're all dead.

Did you— Big Cat and I learned this last night.

Oh yeah, this nerd Connor Griffin. I own it.

I own it. This was insane. That event— Marvel just put Avengers: Infinity War back in the theater because they're putting in 2 minutes.

They added 5 minutes at the end of the movie.

Well, then Rick said it's not even 5 minutes. Oh, way less.

And I cannot believe people don't feel like they're just taking advantage of It's exactly—

that's some Taylor Swift shit.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

That's literally what she would do.

That's crazy.

Oh, by the way, I put the— we're going to repeat the last chorus with a very special guest on stage, and then that's going to be the second release in theaters. You have to go see.

Crazy.

That's some crazy shit.

Yeah. Not a fan of that. And that is why I'm out on Avengers. You got it. A man's got to have a code. And that's where I draw the line. Fine. So as someone who's watched every Avengers up until this point, done. Pretty good cutscenes though.

What?

It's pretty good cutscenes. Hey, are you gonna watch Odyssey?

Never seen a cutscene.

Are you gonna watch Odyssey on TikTok? Because I'm gonna watch it on my phone. Yeah, I actually watched the Avengers cutscenes on TikTok. The whole thing? Just the 2-minute. But are you gonna watch all the Odyssey on TikTok?

Yeah, probably.

All right.

I watch all my movies on TikTok.

I was telling people that last night. They were like, what do you mean he watches movies on TikTok? And he's like, I was like, Well, you can explain it.

I'm gonna do a review of Odyssey on my phone. Yeah, there's just accounts that record the movie screen when they go to movies. That's very illegal.

Super illegal.

It's super illegal. And then I get trapped in a rabbit hole watching it. Yeah. And I just end up watching an entire movie.

They always put the weirdest filters on those clips too. I don't know what it is, but you can like— it looks like they AI the movies.

My algorithm has been just dogshit recently. I've just been getting fed body cam like traffic stops, but every single one of them is like part 1 of 10. And there's no— it's like 7 minutes. You won't believe what happens next. I'm like, I don't— I'm done.

I'm out.

That's the trick they do. They always say like part 1 or part 2, and then there's never another part.

Yeah.

They give you 3 part 1s, then 4 days later you get part 2 of the original one you saw. Right. Impossible task to keep up with.

Right.

And they always caption it like, oh, this drug dealer got caught. And it's like part 1, they're just— they're doing a routine stop.

Give me the arrest.

Yeah. Give me the arrest. Give me some yelling. Give me some screaming. I want to watch cops. OK, PFT.

I mean, that was a lot of my hot seats, Cool Thrones, because we did like every NBA media day storyline except for Mark Titus being called the best basketball player that, that Brad Stevens had ever seen.

I sent it to you, Max, which is pretty good.

Pretty good shout out. You got to make Mark— you got to make Brad Stevens compliment you.

So we were talking about the Yak. We'll play the clip.

clip.

The only pro— you, you'll, you'll hear it, but Brad Stevens starts talking about what Titus does and he kind of, he kind of ran out of things. And, uh, here, play.

Like everything.

Yeah, sounds crazy. I coached a 3rd grade team in Indiana when I was in college. That was Mike's class and some of his best buddies still to this day. I don't remember if I saw Mike play at that age, but Mike was at Lawrence North. all the way through middle school and high school, which was right down the road from us at Butler. So Micah, I definitely saw Mike in the early 2000s. I might have seen him in the '90s.

We're gonna go with that, and we're gonna say that you did see him in the '90s.

Much of this team wasn't even alive in the '90s.

Most of it, I'm sure. Um, and then of course you did have Mark Titus on your team, right, in 3rd grade?

Mark's so excited that we're talking about this, I'm sure. Yeah, that's right.

I'm a big fan of Mark Titus. Uh, do you think that he could lock up Mike Conley in 3rd grade? Was that the matchup for you?

Um, I'm sure, Mark, it's been great to see Mark have success. And from an author to a podcaster to— And we're talking about the act. There's a basketball— there's really no more depressing thing to be like, from an author to a podcaster. It's like, oh, that person was an actor. Now he's a porn star. Like, you're— when you— when you're an author, and then, well, now he's podcasting. podcasting. It's like, okay.

Yeah, he went from a chef to a reality star. That's what I'm hearing from him. But I mean, he does it all. On the other hand, he said like, Titus is a guy, he's a 5-tool player. He can write and then he can also talk.

Yeah.

Which is kind of the verbal version of writing.

Yeah.

We really need— Brad Stevens really needed like one more thing for Titus because it just—

from an author to a podcaster to a What do we think about Brad Stevens' judgment considering his recent track record?

What do you mean?

Some of the moves that he's made.

Oh.

Such as?

Such as trading Jaylen Brown.

That was a good move for— you don't know cap. That's fine.

Okay.

Oh, you're a cap guy?

Cap.

Yeah.

Tell me about it.

You are cap.

We, if we had, we wouldn't have been able to sign anyone. We would have been a 2-team, 2-team team, 2-player team. In the NBA, which you need at least, you know, 7 or 8.

You need more than one, more than 2 players.

Who'd they trade him for?

Some picks.

And?

We traded him to create— oh, for Paul George. But Paul George, one year and then we can get rid of that contract.

Got it. Okay. All right. But I mean, I think my point of his evaluation stands. His personnel.

Do you think Brad Stevens is a bad personnel evaluator?

No, I said recent. I said recent.

As of one move.

So, but like, if that combined with the last—

Brad Stevens, a good evaluator and personnel guy, yes or no?

The last—

yes or no? Yes or no?

No, I think there's gray areas.

Yes or no?

Because the last 2 moves that he's made, one, trading Jaylen Brown, 2, saying that Mark Titus is the best player he's ever seen. Max, dare to question him.

Uh, Henry Lockwood, you also said, uh, Jaylen Brown, one year, or, uh, Paul George, one year. He also has a player option for $60 million for the next year. Do you think he'll probably take that or no?

No, I don't.

You think he's gonna say no to the $60 million player option?

I do.

I would like to ask the desk, do you think that Paul George will say no to the $60 million player option?

I, I do, because I think he's a big team guy and he has a tremendous love for the city of Boston. So I think he'll turn it down. down for the good of the Celtics.

Yep.

I think he will only turn it down for more money from the Celtics. That would be the only case where he would turn it down.

Yeah.

Which is on the table.

We'll see. My other cool throne is going to be— I'm going to do the Twisted Teas at JMU this weekend.

Oh, hell yeah.

So if you're in Harrisonburg and we beat Marshall, which we should, free Twisted Teas for at least a couple hours at Finnegan's Cove. Cigs inside. Go down, drink some Twisted Teas.

Enjoy.

Anyway, on me.

All right. My hot seat is fans of the Carolina Hurricanes because they have started a new— they're banning cursing in the Carolina Hurricanes arena. They're banning cursing. How? Fans shall refrain from using abusive language or obscene gestures. Be aware of your language and please avoid profanity around children. Violation of the fan code of conduct may result in eviction from the arena without a ticket refund. If you encounter a security concern, another guest is interfering with with. They basically said, hey, we're, we're going to be policing cursing this year more than we have.

So if all it takes is somebody reporting you for cursing—

Yeah, in front of a, in front of a child. They've updated the rules. The Canes have officially banned cursing at the Lenovo Center for the 2026-27 season. Any fan who curses in front of children will now be evicted from the arena. Cursing has no place in the game of hockey.

I'm okay with not cussing in front of kids.

Yeah, I agree with that.

There should be a cuss zone. That's— how about that? How about you have specific segments of the barn where cussing is not only accepted but encouraged? And that's like the rowdy zone. You don't have to wear a shirt.

I think this has the beer guy just patrolling the aisle nonstop. This also can't be a rule for the playoffs. You have to let cursing in the playoffs.

Yeah.

And also, like, that's also— come on, we— this might be a little bit of a soft society thing because kids kids learn how to curse by being at games.

What about the players curse all the time?

Yeah, kick them out.

What happens there?

Imagine if you get a 5-minute major.

Yeah.

Can you report like the entire Carolina or the Florida Panthers?

There's kids that are sitting by the, by the glass for sure.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, they're going to hear some cursing.

Probably the better thing to do is just have a kids section instead of just a Go ahead and cuss section.

Yeah, that would be smart. Like a ball pit.

Yeah, have it have a kid section. Be like, okay, absolutely no cussing unless it's the playoffs in the kid section.

Yeah.

And then my cool throne is Dan Wilson, the manager for the Mariners, because he got to do the very rare scene, very rare occurrence of announcing his own firing. Did you guys see this?

Yeah.

Yeah, I, I assume Dan Wilson told them, hey, I'll just handle it. But boy, was that off.

I don't think they asked him to do it. I think he might have said, let me tell him, I'd like, I'd like to be the one.

So he goes to the media, play just the first like 30 seconds. He goes to the media and he's like, this is his postseason, uh, you know, media availability, talk about the season. And then he starts it and then it quickly is like, oh shit, did he just fire himself? And he did. Well, he didn't fire himself, but he announced that he got fired. Go ahead, play it.

Get through it, hopefully.

Uh, this state—

uh, sorry, uh, this season, um, has been very difficult, and of course the results have not been what any of us have expected. Um, as a result, it was concluded that today is my last day as manager of the Seattle Mariners. I'm still processing this with my family, and it's a very difficult day. Um, we love this city.

We love this community. He fired himself.

And we, uh, appreciate the organization.

Announces on fire. So awkward. So awkward.

Yeah. It's tough to make your—

But I guess it kind of also—

Was he saying goodbye to the media?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's also kind of—

Baseball is such a weird sport where you, the manager can be the, the person that gets the scapegoat for the team that gets all the blame and they're probably Like, if your bats— if you just don't hit well. Yeah. How is that the manager's fault?

Yeah. I mean, the Marlins were— this was a very disappointing season for them. Also the Mariners, because they— I mean, they were good last year and they played in a dogshit division that if they had just played a little bit better, they would be in the playoffs.

Yeah.

All right, Zach, finish us off. We probably—

this is—

Zach has a tough job of like just picking at the carcass of hot seat, cool throne.

Oh, the carton's empty, boys. We got a couple. We're going to— we can pivot a couple of times here. We're going to go hot seat the kids from Penn State because it came out they only made $120,000. Yeah, they ruined their lives for $120,000 split amongst like 14 guys.

You talk about the coke guys.

Yeah, that's always hot.

That's a lot in college, though.

But over how long? Over the course of years. Over the course of years. That is not a— they made it seem like these guys were cartel.

And as if, like, you take that $120,000, it's not getting divided evenly. A couple of guys probably got like $30,000. One of the guys probably made like 4 grand.

Yeah.

Ruined his life.

Yeah.

Yeah. I thought the internet had the same reaction where they're like, that's it, $120,000. Because like the way they made it seem like these guys were running a very elaborate cartel cocaine ring that was moving like tons of weight.

They made it seem like these guys took meetings in Colombia.

Yeah. Yeah.

They did.

That's like— that's like 2 years at Penn State.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You cover books and housing for a 5th year.

Mm-hmm.

And then cool.

They should knock some of the charges off after finding that they didn't really get paid that much.

Yeah. No, they should not.

Sympathy.

Yes. I mean, that's like, you know, we're sorry we portrayed you to be kingpin type shit. Turns out that your paper's not up. So, yeah, we'll knock 50% off.

It's not— it's like— it's almost like, sorry we embarrassed you. Yeah, because when the real facts came out, that's— you look like fucking losers.

That might be part of the punishment, like way to discourage kids from doing it in the future. Yeah, it's like they'll make an announcement, they were arrested, they're going to prison, and then you do one of those photo shoots where the cops put like all the, all the cash that they confiscated and it's like $200 in ones on a big-ass table. They're like, we got the— we got this off the streets, thank God.

Or they— yeah, they changed the law and it's like anything under $1 million is a felony, anything over $1 million So you better get up.

Yeah, you better.

You better get your business.

Yeah. If you're going to do it, do it.

You guys are this—

don't do it.

Don't do it like this.

Like, at least contribute to the local economy, right?

You guys are embarrassing. You had all the opportunity in the world to get an education. You sucked at selling coke at college.

At college.

Yeah. I feel like Jimmy Tatro is going to make a great show about this.

Ooh, about the college coke boys.

Yeah. Yeah.

He's got to be the gorilla first, remember?

Right?

Yeah.

The gorilla.

It's whiteout season.

There was a kid in the cage.

The gorilla.

All right.

Your cool throw?

My cool throw this week is going to be Charles Barkley because he doubled down. He's on the retirement tour. His last year. He said he's stepping away. He's 64. He's gonna enjoy life.

Wait, what?

He's got one more year on the desk. This is the last—

no.

He just says this so he gets paid more money.

This sounded pretty convincing. This one, we can't like— he's like, Ernie said stay a couple more years. He did last year and this year. He's like, I don't believe in public life.

I don't believe it.

It sounded genuine this time. This—

but Charles Barkley has one of those jobs. I mean, we— I count myself as in this camp of like, if he stopped doing what he's doing, he would probably just do it with his friends.

I would be— if I, I would not be surprised if Charles Barkley actually did walk away though.

Oh man, that would suck.

Because I feel like he just wants to play golf and get drunk.

And he's good.

Yeah.

Maybe he wants to gamble too.

Draymond?

Yeah.

Is that what it's going to be?

They're grooming Draymond.

Yeah.

Okay, good job, Zach. Let's get to some college football talk with Stanford Steve. Before we do that, PFT's got a couple ads.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It's our guy Stanford Steve, in studio. We're lucky enough to have him here to talk some college ball. Steve, you look good, by the way.

Trying. Trying to get— the goal is to get back to playing weight.

What was playing weight?

Like 250.

And what are you at?

We're just north of 260.

We were actually talking about it. The, the fact that Chet Holmgren is too— he went from 213 to 215 in the offseason, gained some weight.

I mean, percentage-wise, that's Oh yeah. Is that like 10% body weight?

Yeah. His body fat. Good Lord.

What are you doing?

Just trying to do something every day.

Let's go. I'm doing the same thing.

I mean, your summer motivation got me going, but like that gets old real quick. So it's just like something up early, tried to get a half hour, hour walking the streets this morning. That's a beautiful day.

Steps are big.

That's, that's been my goal is like, I don't, when I get in my head like, oh, you got to go out and you got to work out hard. It's like, no, no. What if you have 25 minutes, go walk. That's enough.

Yeah. And yeah.

And also you said no to the ice cream.

You know what? I forgot. I was going to get it on the way out. I didn't, I didn't mind. I wasn't trying to deter you from that. And I was just kidding you about the jokes that were being said about it. But yeah, I'll get some on the way out here.

All right.

How about that?

So yeah.

All right. Fair. Great punch.

All right. So college football week 4, we've just completed. It feels like we are finally, now that teams are playing in the conference, we are finally starting to learn some things. Do you want to go big picture first and like who, who you think is like what, maybe what's the top 4 or 5 wherever it stops above everyone else? Yeah.

Well, I think you start with Texas because they have the 2 best wins, but are they the best team? I, I still, I just want to see more.

Yeah.

I want, like I expected coming into this year that we were going to get the second half of the A&M game last last year from Arch every game. And, you know, with this idea of NIL and transfer portal and the lack of continuity, what I've really looked at and being at a bunch of these games, I thought it was a big spot for Texas. I thought Ole Miss was in the same spot. The first time an offensive line goes on the road.

Mm-hmm.

Because you could say, you know, you know, Lane, LSU the week before, you know, Lane's system is the same. buttoned up as there is, like, as far as, you know, being averse to sound. Like, you know, crowd's going, all right, hey, we got to make sure we're all on the same page here. All right, don't worry, we got hand signals, whatever it is. Like, they are— they're noise-proof. And that— it wasn't good.

Right.

And offensive line, still the great ones, you need continuity. Those guys are going to get ice cream together. They might be pulling out their books if they're studying together. Like, it's just time. You need to know each other. It's a lot like, you know, What you do, you guys do, right? You know, you guys talked about it, like, go back to the first year of your podcast.

Yeah.

But you just learn each other. And in that, when it's crowd noise, other guys that are complete animals lined up against you, and it's that fast, like, you need reps of that. And the lack of 2-a-days now, like, offensive line is far behind. So I looked at Texas. I just want— like, they spent plenty of money. Goosby's going to be a top pick. They got Sione from Wake Forest, who's, who's been good. You just want to see more and it's just consistency.

Yeah, their offense just hasn't looked clean. No, at all.

Would you trust Arch to put together a game-winning drive in a big moment, like in a playoff environment right now? Because I'm not sure that I would.

I think it's a bigger picture deal with that because the first thing on that is he's going to get protected. You know, you know, what's the defense look like? You know, everybody's got backyard football, you know, let him go. Look what he does.

Yeah.

Like, I believe last week at Tennessee was the first time they went up 7-nothing in a start. And I had fun all week when I started looking back and I was like, you know, Arch hasn't won a true road game in regulation.

Yeah.

And last week was the first time. Yeah. People were like, oh, Oklahoma is a road game because it's 50. I'm like, yeah, no, no, no, no, no. True road game. And people ran with that. But I was just having fun because it was a talking point. But when I looked at it, I'm like, Kind of got, you know, taken it, taken to school. Georgia, Florida, Ohio State on the road, you know, come back and win against Mississippi State and Kentucky in overtime. And those are the wins. So I thought it was just a game where you just got to go win it. Like, Neyland's really, really good. Tough place to play. Tennessee had nothing to lose. You had a young quarterback. Go there and win no matter how it looks. But watching the tape back, you're like, got to button it up a little bit more because they're playing with fire at the end of these games.

And they should have won by— I mean, Tennessee, you know, they get the punt return. They couldn't do anything Nothing.

Nothing. Sportsmanlike penalties.

Tex had what, 10 sacks, I think?

Yeah.

It was insane.

Simmons had 5, 10 sacks. And then they almost got to 150 yards in penalties.

Yeah.

That's hard to do.

How do you have 2 guys that do something illegal simulating a penis motion? The first guy, okay, boys will be boys.

And also Simmons should get a pass because he got 5 sacks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You pretend to take a leak on the ground.

I get it.

I thought it was a garbage pass.

I get it.

He's watering the grass.

But then the other guy, uh, there was a lot there. Wiping the taint, smelling the hand, and passing out all in the same motion.

Yeah.

I mean, while falling.

While falling.

It was actually— it was very funny.

Um, yeah.

But I feel like I heard Sark like talking to media after the game.

Yeah.

And he's playing—

he's so weird.

His blame was like on the media, on the world as, as a whole. This is a societal problem that we have 2 guys that are whipping their dicks out in simulation on the field. field, uh, in, in a big, uh, conference game.

I did look at that postgame because knowing he's going to be asked about it, and he could have been a prick, right? Like, if that's Saban back in it, like, that dude, he would have been—

yeah.

And Sark took the high road. So I, you know, players coach, like this whole, you know, what are you labeled as and this and that, I thought that was a chance for Sark to put his foot down, but he didn't. So, so he's letting— he's—

maybe we could expect more of it.

Yeah.

I did also like that Chris Fowler was like, that's the most vulgar thing I've seen. I, I feel like you could see a lot more vulgar things.

Yeah, I wouldn't want to test guys.

No, I mean, right. Like, if that's a challenge, see a guy piss is— that's not as vulgar as like, what if, what if we just simulate titty fucking? What if we just do, you know, what if he, what if he gets a sack and he just starts butt fucking the quarterback?

I know he's your colleague, but like, we've seen Herb Street's dog take an actual piss on the field.

Yeah.

Yeah, and that would have been 50 yards, and Peter was allowed to stay in, like, I don't know, on the kickoff pregame.

Yeah, it's pregame.

Yeah, there's— I mean, you could say that it was the, um—

go ahead.

I was just gonna say, moving forward in celebrations, did you see what LSU did to the Yell Leaders?

Yes, like awesome, right? They did, they did the— they mimicked the Texas A&M Yell Leaders right in their face. It was awesome after a turnover.

And that's one where A&M people are just so irate Because, you know, you know, we have other things at our school and we're not weird.

We just wear our rings everywhere.

We just continue to show the Yell Leaders. Yeah, that drives them nuts.

I got a shotgun for you.

Yeah.

Yeah. I love, I love watching those videos. They're so funny with the—

I still can't get one. I'm in person. Like, I try mimic. Like, I don't understand it.

No, no, nobody does.

It's like a code.

No, nobody does. In the big picture, obviously, like, you know, the refs have to take control of the game. Oh, breaking news.

Breaking news. Is this going to be appropriate for Wednesday's show?

Well, yeah.

I mean, we're going to talk about it a lot tomorrow.

Okay.

JJ McCarthy.

Yes.

Traded? New York Giant.

Oh, it happened. That's a good trade.

You guys brought that into existence.

Well, no, we didn't. You mentioned it. I, there was a—

I know you guys don't get into the news breaking stuff, but—

No, it was, I, I, we did talk about it, but it was someone else tweeted about it. I think I, did I credit them? I can't remember, but they should have. No, you know, we were talking about it because Because someone said what would make sense is the Giants trading for JJ McCarthy.

Yes.

And then Emmanuel Acho being like the dumbest person alive was like, oh, you know, it makes sense. The Giants trading for— who'd he say they should trade for?

Was it Mac Jones?

Oh, Mac Jones.

Yeah.

We're like, dude, no, that's totally different scenario. The 49ers need to keep Mac Jones. They should have a good backup. They get hurt every 2 seconds. The guy who said JJ McCarthy makes— it makes perfect sense. Would they give up basically a no-win team? So either he's good and you, and you save your season, or he's bad and you, and you tank and you get another pick.

Yeah.

So smart.

The Harbaugh's, they just love sharing players.

They do.

Do you think—

And coaches.

And coaches.

And coaches.

Each one needs like a letter of recommendation for every, every new player that they sign or every trade that they make or like a free agent in the offseason. It's like, real quick, I just need my brother to vouch for me.

Yeah, this is ours. When they get a player, they're like, this is—

we own him. Hold on, let me text him.

Yeah.

Do you, do you think this is going to work out? Where did you have JJ McCarthy after watching him at Michigan?

Like better than this.

Yeah. So do you think there's something in there that he could maybe tap into?

Yes. Now when you, I mean, I was here last year for that game where he couldn't do a thing and then the 4th quarter they win the game. Was that a missed field goal?

Yeah, that was a bad one. That was, that was pretty much rock bottom for week 1.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it was like same old, same old.

Oh no, they got a guy in JJ McCarthy. Yeah. He played really well in the second half.

5th round. 5th round.

Yeah.

And he was top 10.

Yeah.

Right around 10.

Well, no, Penix was 12 maybe.

Oh yeah.

I think, I think, I think McCarthy was like lottery. Yeah. He was in the lottery for sure. He was a lottery pick.

Yeah.

I mean, it's got to be in there somewhere. Maybe.

I think knowing Greg Roman's there, Mike Bloomgren, old, like old school hardball guys, like going back to the Stanford staff. I know the terminology and what they want to do in the run game. You know, Big Cat, I made the joke to you yesterday. Every time we looked over at the Giants game, Skadaboo was getting it. Like, I just wonder how much he could take.

The stat was that he had 60 yards rushing, 74 yards after contact. That doesn't make sense.

I don't care who you are. That's not going to last in the NFL.

Yeah.

This, I mean, it could be interesting if JJ's, if he's good. good, what that means going forward.

Yeah. I mean, he has some similar skill sets. Like they can run the Jackson Dart offense with some of the RPOs and him running. Like they should use that.

That's what I thought I would see more with the Vikings. Like you get a guy like that. It's like, all right, you look at third down conversion. Like all the best third down conversion guys are the guys that could use their feet. Right. You know, and he just, there's something, something got locked and they need to unlock it. Yeah. That's the way I look at it. But he still got to beat out Jameis. Jameis is coming off a win.

Yeah, that's true. Jameis did—

he did what he had to do.

He did exactly what he had to do. All right, back to college football.

Yeah.

All right. So we talked Texas. Who are your top 5 teams right now?

Oh, I knew you were going to ask me this.

Yeah.

And you got to answer.

Texas, Miami, Georgia.

Georgia.

It's going to be tough because I don't think I could—

Georgia's not getting talked enough about.

I think that's fine. They love it. Yeah, I know. They love that, but they're just wasting people. Yeah.

Non-competitive SEC games.

You'll leave them out. JMU?

No.

Well, yeah, thanks for bringing that. Yeah. Good point. No, I'm talking about JMU Central. JMIU.

Indiana?

Yeah.

They're that— they're on the cusp. Yeah.

Struggling, which is— I actually think that's fair. Before the season, correct.

I had them too. Right. Preseason Notre Dame.

Yeah.

So jumble those up.

Ohio State, Oregon, right?

Ohio State's there.

Yeah.

With a big spot.

Indiana. Is it actually like that?

I think you have to have Ohio State ahead of Indiana. Right?

Yeah, I would say so. Like Indiana hasn't— they might start just steamrolling people again.

Correct.

But they haven't looked good.

And that's the thing. It's no—

they haven't looked as good as what we expect.

Turbo.

I don't know how long long he's gonna be out.

That didn't look good.

That's bad.

But yeah, I mean, you see in that offense the difference in quarterback.

Yep.

Like Hoover just had— like somebody had the stat off target, 20% of his throws.

Yeah, he just misses throws, but he still was like 20.

I mean, it still was fine. I still think the receivers are elite and the offensive line was getting there. But I thought Chip did a really good job in the second half of getting Childs on the move. Like he was just sitting So we'll see. He's got to go play Cheyenne. Yeah. Yeah. Friday night or no? No. No.

Northwestern-Penn State's a Friday night.

It's a night game. No, it's Sunday.

Yeah.

I know that. Yeah. But Indiana's right. I mean, they're right there. But the biggest, not issue, but I don't mind when people move up and down weekly. Like, be reactionary. Like I kept saying, you're getting offensive lines on the road for the first time. Now Ohio State gets their second crazy tough environment. environment this week going to Iowa after playing in Texas. Like, they're going to be more buttoned up, you know, and how Iowa just beat Michigan.

Yeah.

Like, I think, I think Ohio State will be focused.

Yeah.

Coming in.

Yeah.

So I think it's, it's those things. Miami going to Clemson, we'll get to see them. I don't count Stanford as a true road game. No offense. But that's an environment that I want to see Miami in.

Is Florida Florida considered, if we're going reactionary, they should be top 5. That was an impressive, impressive game.

Yep.

Back to back, really, because the Auburn game, they dominated that game. I know it looked a little closer in the end.

Yeah.

They dominated that game. And then Ole Miss, I know the spot was brutal for Ole Miss, but the way Florida runs the ball, I think their offense, like, it just runs so well, and it just feels like they got that juice to them that they're, they're going to be like a real team here. I know they have a tough schedule school. But that, that was an eye-opening, oh shit, back-to-back Auburn, Ole Miss, no problem with either.

But I also look at it as, remember, uh, remember Paul Johnson? Navy, Georgia Southern option, and he got the, he got the job at Georgia Tech. It was like, wait till you see what he does with, you know, 4 stars. Yeah, I think that's what you're seeing with Buster Faulkner's offense. Yeah, like being at Georgia Tech, like he did all this stuff. Haynes King was a, you know, human bowling ball, uh, in the offense. But now he's got weapons and the offensive line's come together. Summerall is awesome. He's an absolute maniac. He's a great dude. You guys should definitely have him on. He's that good.

We actually have it scheduled for next week.

Oh, perfect.

We're going to have him this week. We bumped him for you.

Don't tell him that. Don't tell him that.

I mean, you deserve it.

No, he'll be thankful.

He's got a tricky spot. I know he's got a tricky spot.

Or Missouri.

Well, that's why I wanted to wait a week. It's like, go win that game and then—

Yeah.

Then we can say that.

Yeah.

Maybe, maybe they're number one.

Maybe they're number one. Speaking of Georgia Tech, did you see Brent Keenan at his press conference?

I went to bed.

He was taking notes during his press conference when people were asking questions.

Oh, I like that.

Well, did you see his quarterback's last play?

But then you zoom in on the notes that he's taking and he's, he's not actually writing anything. He's pretending to write during the press conference as like a distraction technique for him to not—

Maybe it was a to-do list on that flight home because that's a long-ass flight It is.

But you actually drove him insane where he's like taking pretend notes and not writing a single word on the piece of paper. It's like mimicking it.

That's—

you got to, you got to take your wins.

Getting in a coach's head. Yes. Stanford students, first game out, you know, after school started. So maybe they got in his head.

Why do you start so late?

Quarters, I think it's called.

Okay.

Yeah.

October.

Actually, this is early. I remember starting October 1st. That's rough. Just all ball for 2 months.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah, that's, that's how you build continuity.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Speaking of out west, Oregon. I mean, USC has an Oregon problem. They just kind of eat their lunch every time they play. USC is a whole other situation where it's like, it's the same shit every year.

Every year. I bought in last week and I'm done.

Their, their, their offense is always going to be explosive. Their defense is always not going to be able to get stops. I'm just sick of like being told that this is the year that Lincoln Riley is going to turn the corner. It's not going to happen. Okay. But Oregon, how much of Oregon— and, and we'll see what Dante Moore happens because that was a brutal hit— I'm starting to believe and buy into Oregon, that Oklahoma State game, they literally did have all their plays. Oklahoma State had all of Oregon's plays. And I'm not saying like in a spy gateway, but they were— we saw the, the tape after, they had every single tell on Dante Moore. They were stuffing every single run.

Mm-hmm.

So how much of that Oregon-Oklahoma State— how much that Oklahoma State loss can we kind of throw out and be Like, yeah, Oklahoma State stopped them at an insane level because they knew exactly what was coming every time they came.

And it's a lot. Yeah. If I could tell you if it's run or pass, you're going to do all right.

Right.

You're going to do all right. Right. And that's what, that's what we got there. Listen, a couple of things on Oregon. I was really impressed because this is a tough spot. We talk about with Saban all the time. Like, it doesn't even get talked about how many coordinators and coaches went through Alabama in Saban's tenure.

Yep.

Like that is big time stuff and trying to adjust and bringing in guys. And it's like, all right, yeah, here. So Lanning had that his first time this offseason, didn't interview anyone outside. Like that's Oregon, man. Like look at the 2 guys that he brought in. Kenny Dillingham's doing a good job at Arizona State. Will Stein, we see what he's done at Kentucky. Tosh has been an unbelievable recruiter and he leaves and goes to Cal. So I looked at that as like I had Oregon below Indiana, Ohio State in the Big Ten because this was the first time. It's a big deal replacing both coordinators. I think Larry Coker is the last guy to win a national title having to replace both coordinators. So as a young head coach, and I still consider Lanning a young guy, that was a big spot. But then you fast forward to that and how humbling that could be flying home from Stillwater knowing that they were in your, they were in your bag.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you have all the expectations of Dante Moore. And now you go to USC who, you know, looked improved. And you go there and you take it to them. And what makes Oregon, and I think there's maybe a couple schools that you could put them in there, maybe a Texas, maybe Ohio State. They got the money to pay a guy to sit on the bench as a 5-star former quarterback.

He was awesome.

He did it with Dante Moore behind Dylan Gabriel.

Yep.

And that's where I think you, I mean, they didn't lose a beat.

It's true.

Raelo was awesome.

No other teams can have that depth.

No. what, you know, other schools are supposedly paying. Like Florida State, they misjudged the whole quarterback market and they had to take Ashton Daniel, who's, who was 6-21, I believe, coming into the year as a starter.

Yeah.

You know, Stanford, Auburn, and now he's, you know, Florida State. Like, you can't strike out there. And Oregon just backs up the truck and doubles up the room.

Yeah.

And they're like, all right, well, we got a good quarterback room. Like, we're going to be all right there. At some point we're going to need it. And sure, in the biggest spot of the season, like you had to have it moment. Or else they get 2 losses. Their season is back all the way up against the wall with road trips to, believe I, Columbus and Seattle maybe.

Yeah.

But still, I mean, huge. All the respect to Dan Lanning. Like, that was a big time, big time deal. No one— you had to have it. You lose a quarterback, still up against it and getting the job done and win by 2 touchdowns. That was really impressive.

Yeah. That loss to Oklahoma State might be like actually sneaky good news.

for him. Well, they at least got that— got out that their tells are out there.

Yeah, he got that out. And also it allowed Dan Lanning to tap into like his, his inner psychopath to be like, hey, we're going to fix this fucking thing right now.

Correct. And I think, you know, being in Oxford a couple of weeks ago and then being in, in, or being in Oxford and then being in Knoxville, like you talk to the SEC fans, it's like, you know, what happens if we lose? What happened? I'm like, the biggest Ole Miss, I think, deal is push all your losses back as far as possible.

Yeah.

You know, like Ole Miss had to have it against LSU. And I'm like, all right, this was the game you had to look at knowing what Florida was going to be. But now you got your bye week. Like, I think Ole Miss is at perfect timing for a bye week.

Right.

Because you don't have Lacy. You give him another week. He's the, he's the key. I get Trinidad is awesome, but he's an absolute home run. You don't have that going on the road. You need all your home run hitters on offense, especially when you go on the road. So for Ole Miss, knowing you still have Georgia, you still have Texas, like, let's assess things. The defense hasn't been great. The defensive line got shredded last week, but Florida's doing that to everybody. I think it's a big self-coach. I mean, Pete Golding's never had a bye week as a head coach.

Yeah.

So, you know, you learn stuff as you go, but I thought getting that LSU win was monstrous. And, you know, You know, you still have opportunities to get big-time wins. You got the best playmaker in the country at quarterback. So I think it's important timing here for Ole Miss.

I would say like the 2 best playmakers in the country at quarterback are both in Mississippi. So Kamario Taylor at Mississippi State. Now the schedule is going to get interesting for them because they're— they get absolutely fucked by the schedule makers. They have Alabama at home, then they go to LSU, then they go to Oklahoma. And then they've— they go to Texas after that. So that 4-game stretch, and he is— I think he's the most exciting quarterback in the country. He's so much fun to watch.

Kamario?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Seems like a great dude.

Yeah.

Um, and also me and Big Cat agreed last week, uh, we need to just like punch anyone who starts discussing Kamario Taylor by saying, I wonder where he's going to play next year, because I don't think he's going to play anywhere. I think he's going to stay at Mississippi State. He loves it.

I mean, how many college quarterbacks grew up Mississippi State fans? No offense.

Yeah, right. He did.

Yeah. I think he said Nick Fitzgerald was his favorite quarterback. Yeah. Which is pretty funny because everybody assumed Dak or, you know, something like that. But no, it's an awesome story. I look at the quarterback on the other side this week.

Yeah.

PFT. Yeah. Like Bama is the team that I look at that has gotten better and better every single week. And that Kentucky win coming back, I think at the end of the season, that's going to be a very, very good win.

Kentucky's good.

I know. They're legit.

Yeah.

So a lot of pressure. I'm sure Brandon has the numbers on Bama and Mississippi State. It's not great.

No.

But I say it all the time. All you can ask for is an opportunity. And Mississippi State has that opportunity against that team with everything you want. I'm really happy for Jeff Lebby, man. Like he's, you know, I think it was Netflix or one of those shows where they did the all access and he loses the Egg Bowl and they have the cameras in the locker room after, and it's as gutting a locker room as possible. But his message was, when we flip this switch, it's coming, it's coming. And, uh, really cool to see that, like how they— every Mississippi State has to do it. We just talked about Oregon. Mississippi State can't do it that way.

Yeah.

They have to do it their own way. And I think that says a lot about Lebby and the belief they've had, what he's brought in as coaches. I think he has 4 former head coaches on his staff, which you want going through an SEC slate. You know, so big time spot for Mississippi State. I can't wait.

You think they can win 2 of those next 4 games?

Yes.

Is that possible?

Yes. I think he, you have a chance. I mean, I just said Bama's getting better every week. Kamario has gotten better every week. I thought he was great against Minnesota, getting a huge lead on the road, whatever. Second half, you take care of business. They come back, they get another win at South Carolina. You're down 16-nothing. And then last week had to have it. I mean, a couple of those throws were big time throws. So yes, I believe he's, he's, he's, he's capable. I mean, look at who would you rather have in the court at the quarterback position in those matchups, you know?

Yeah.

Kamario.

Yeah.

So he gives him a shot, man. It's super exciting. Happy for Starkville.

Yeah.

Notre Dame question for you.

Yeah.

They don't play anyone. They have Miami. Miami will be the test. That's—

yeah, I think you put Notre Dame and Miami in the same line till they play.

Right.

Like I wanted to do a thing like compiling the score of their games and what, how much, how big of a favorite they were. It's identical every week. They're 20-plus point favorites, even more sometimes. Notre Dame's going to North Carolina this week who's been a good, good, good start to the season. Improved team, 21.5. Yeah. Like nothing. Miami's going to Clemson. I think it's 17.5.

I kind of like UNC in that game now that you said that. 21.5.

Really?

So here's my question about Notre Dame.

Go ahead. Sorry.

Can they run the ball? Because they have not been able to— like, it's not that, you know, they killed Rice, they killed Purdue.

Yeah.

Shout out Purdue for still fighting and getting us that over. That was insane. You never get those where Purdue was running tempo down like 50 points with 10 seconds left. But they— those type of teams, when Notre Dame plays them, they should be running for 8 yards a carry and they've been running for 3 yards a carry or 4 yards a carry. So is that a concern where it's like, hey, Notre Dame, CJ Carr, I think he's an absolute stud.

Me too.

I love— I love Marcus Freeman. I think he's an awesome coach. The message is very clear. Leave no doubt. They keep talking about that. You got to finish every game. Losing Jaderian Price and Jeremiah Love, like that's significant. And now, and when you get, you won't even know how significant it is, unfortunately, until maybe the playoff. And then you're like, oh shit, that was kind of a pretty nice thing to have 2 first-round running backs.

And I think I told you guys like at before the season at Notre Dame, at LSU, Ohio State, I'm not going to worry about the depth of the running back position.

Right.

But with Notre Dame, I still don't worry about it. I still think they have depth. I look at that O-line having continuity, but also they have— look at the tight ends they've gone through and they got youth there now.

And I—

you need reps, man. Like, you got—

they're gonna go in the corner.

You need—

like, Florida has been unbelievable. Alabama in the run— like, you talk about teams that can run the football because that's another dying breed, right, of offense coordinators being stubborn enough to keep trying to run the football. football. Notre Dame will get there. But to your point, because of the competition they play, I mean, it is all hands on deck November 7th. I mean, look at that slate of college football games. I would still bet we're going to be in South Bend for College GameDay because Miami's coming. But the games across the country are incredible that day. But to your point with Notre Dame, I'm going to have them there with Miami until they play. I'm not worried. Like, again, I'm not just because I'm here. I texted you this Saturday night and going into that game. I believe Wisconsin's defense is in the upper tier, maybe the top tier of the Big Ten.

I agree.

And what impressed me against Notre Dame, or Notre Dame against Wisconsin, it was at Lambeau, crazy environment, awesome, awesome setup. But I mean, Wisconsin guys are flying all over the place and CJ Carr just settled down. He's to his point without a run game and said, all right, let me take some some, some easy throws here. And, you know, first down, 5-yard hitch. All right, now it's second and 5. It's not freaking second and 17. So I think you're going to see the evolution of CJ get his team in the right play. And I trust Den Brock, the offense coordinator, as much as any offense coordinator in the country. They'll get it figured out. I am not— I'm not worried about Notre Dame. I think that Wisconsin defense we're going to hear a lot from.

Yeah. How much should the Dave Portnoys of the world be panicking about Michigan?

You know, watching Bryce Underwood. Yes.

Every single dollar.

And a lot of Michigan people want to talk about Ohio State and how much they spent.

Yeah.

Right. Like it's just never stopped between those 2 schools. It sucks because that might have been Bryce's best game.

Yeah. He was playing like I got—

I was, I was flying. So I had Florida Ole Miss on the iPad and I was checking the stats and I checked the stats at halftime. And I think it was Michigan 291 yards of offense, Iowa 81. Yeah.

Oh, Iowa was— I mean, Iowa didn't—

couldn't run the ball.

I'm like, like, they—

Iowa game-winning drive. How long was that drive?

It's like 91 yards.

That's crazy.

And Iowa did that in a minute 16, I think.

Yeah.

That's gotta be like, at one point you look at Iowa and the entire program and you're proud of them for pulling that win off. On the other hand, you're like, where the fuck has that been like for the last, I don't know, 25 years?

The ability to do that. that.

Yeah, they're glad that it happened, but I don't know, I, I would be, I would be panicking a little bit if I was Michigan.

I thought the future— Bryce did— I actually too, because I've been very critical of him. Yes. In the middle of the game, I was like, Bryce is playing great today. He was. And it wasn't just his legs like it was the Oklahoma game, but it was very basic, right?

And I think that's what— I think they had to tear it down and get back to— you go back to the Oklahoma game, right? Had to have it moment, knowing what all the talk was after the Western Michigan game, he had more designed run attempts than pass attempts and they won. And you know, it wasn't a factor. They fall behind a couple turnovers against UTEP.

All right.

What are they going to do against Iowa? Basic fundamental football, run the ball, make throws, nothing, you know, nothing crazy with, with crazy amount of receivers in patterns, you know, maybe one, one read throws and all that. And it's working. They're going up and down the field and then he throws the pick on the 2-yard line.

Mm-hmm.

like, you— all that good gets erased. And I think that's the case for that game against Iowa. There was a lot of good in there. And to me, everybody talked about Whittingham coming in and Beck coming in, the offense coordinator, and he had the big turnover or turnaround at Utah, and they led the country in rushing the football. But when I look back at it, they had 2 top 15 NFL tackles.

Yep.

On Utah. So like, yeah, you're gonna do really well in the Big 12 if you Yeah. So I wouldn't be panicking. I still think Michigan's defense is really elite. And I think you saw the versatility because that's what I want to see against Iowa. Would they be able to hang in there against Oklahoma? You're going to, you're going to rush 3, you're going to drop 8, you're going to mirror the court. Like everybody has that as long as you have the personnel. Michigan has that. And then to be able to do what they did defensively and play in that, in that box that Iowa makes you play in was impressive until Yeah.

And I think the one thing you could say about Bryce in that game, because he did play so great, is that the problem is you are limited when you get into situations where you need to get a first down.

Like, they—

like, Michigan had the ball twice in the 4th quarter where it's like, get 3 first downs, game's over. They go run, run, run, and then an incomplete pass. They go the— I think the last drive they had was 45 seconds. They go run, run, run, and that was it. Like, they don't trust him. No, to, to do it there. And those are the plays, like, if you can mix in a pass on 2nd down and when they're not looking for it, yeah, you could maybe win that game and never— Iowa never gets the ball back.

Yeah, but to your point, you knew, you knew what they were gonna do. They got all the way there, you know, you, you lose the lead 14-13, you come right back. Um, but I think you're gonna see it, you know, they're gonna open it up more. Uh, Buchanan's a stud. Heider, the running back is an absolute stud. If they could figure out, you know, get more consistency on the offensive line, I believe Michigan will be fine.

Yeah.

Penn State comes in, they go to Ohio State. I think they go out to Oregon or Indiana.

I think they have to play.

Okay. So again, though, they have opportunities.

Yeah.

Like, that's all you ask for.

They host— so they host Penn State, they host Indiana, they have to go to Oregon. And then go to Ohio State.

I—

yeah, I mean, I think their defense— they obviously can't lose because they're gonna get dinged for the Western Michigan whether they realize it or not. Like, if they— if they're a 2-loss team and there's another 2-loss team, I think they will lose a tiebreaker.

Yeah, but I mean, look, if they— if they go— what if they went 3-1 against those 4?

Yeah, no, that would be impressive.

That's gonna be what you're stacking.

Yeah, and I think their defense will keep them in every game.

No doubt.

Absolutely. Uh, can we talk real quick about Wisconsin? That was awesome.

Yeah.

But I don't even— so I was just happy for the first time in a very long time on a Saturday. Like, I, I didn't even think about the Penn State of it. I was just thinking the whole time, like, I cannot believe we won this game down 17-nothing. Colton Joseph, roller coaster, just like, just a terrible pick 6, the interception right after that. Our defense is legit. Poza and Catalano, like, those guys are just dudes.

Absolutely.

Absolute dudes. Um, but so I, I— not to I think, you know, the gloating is done because you've got to keep winning. And I'm starting to look at the schedule and be like, oh shit, could we, could we rip off a few here? Penn State though.

Uh-huh.

That was a bad loss. And Rock O'Beck looked really bad. A lot of credit to the Wisconsin defense and Matt Campbell. Like there's obvious— I think that the Penn State fan base knows they have to like be like, hey, it's okay. It's okay. Like talk themselves down. But if you can't beat Wisconsin when you're up 17-nothing at home, this might be a long season for Penn State.

Yes, but all anyone did was talk about the schedule preseason. Yeah, right. I did. All it was. And, and I, I love Matt Campbell. The deal with Matt Campbell, you're going to be in every game. Every game you're going to be in. And Beck, what, 114 yards?

Ugly.

He did have his best weapon, obviously very, very big.

And I will say That judging defenses proves to me Wisconsin elite defense because the 17 that they got. Yeah. Pick 6 and a pick in opposing territory.

Yep.

So that's 14 right there. So for Wisconsin to climb back.

He also made a throw to win the game and the guy dropped the ball in the end zone. Tight end for Penn State's got to catch that football, win the football game.

Okay. Rocko Beck was bad.

I know. But in that last drive, he made multiple plays. plays to win that game, and he had no one step up.

Yeah, but he had a bad game.

Correct, but like, it, it wasn't all bad. He made, he made plays to win the game.

Yeah, he was bad. I know he was bad for a lot of the game earlier. Max, you're up 17-nothing.

Wisconsin win this, or did, did Penn State lose this, Max?

I'm just, I'm just giving credit where credit is due. Like, it wasn't all him. He did— you said he didn't have his best play. And he, in that last drive, it didn't, it didn't result in a touchdown. But I think that like he at least showed some fight in that, in that last drive.

Fight? Fight?

What are you saying?

We didn't say anything about fight. He played an objectively bad football game.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But no, we're not—

you got to win that game up 17-nothing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's it.

Yeah. You got to, you got to find first downs like to, especially knowing Wisconsin's like our offense isn't explosive. No, obviously that Jacob Harris, that might be the fastest guy in the world.

How about the stiff arm?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Unbelievable.

I just have a question. We've been talking a while. Like, did he just hear Penn State?

And yeah, he got mad. He got mad a little bit there. Like, no.

Well, I don't know.

I mean, you have to talk about that drop touchdown.

You got to talk about the drop.

Got to talk about it.

Yes. You're acting like that is like an inconsequential part of the football game.

No.

Yeah.

You got to talk about it.

He said that.

I'm not acting like I'm saying you have to watch it. You have to, you have to talk about it. We saw it. You got to say it.

You got to say it.

You see it.

You got to say it.

What's the Phillies rotation going to be?

It's a great question. It's a great question. We got to see if—

Be optimistic.

Great question, Steve. Every one of those guys played.

I mean, my man's like, why are we not talking about the last one?

I'm like, wait, Ryglebeck played bad.

I mean, he was 12 for 29.

Yeah.

Somebody who watched that, I did, I did I bet on Wisconsin, but I did— I don't have like a rooting interest in it.

Yeah.

Um, I would not say that Penn State should have won that game.

And also, we didn't say Rocko Beck gave up. We're not like, oh, he's— he gave up and he, he didn't try. Like, yeah, they—

he—

they almost— they had a few plays on that last drive where it was like, shit, that ball was right there.

To your point about the Western Michigan game, people are going to hold that against Michigan. Yeah, that game for Penn State, because they're not— they don't have a lot of opportunities.

No.

No, they got to throw it out. They got to put it on the table.

Yeah.

That weighs a lot more.

I'm going to hold it against him. You're right. I will. Steve's right. He knows ball. We'll bring up this loss many more times. College football.

Are people, are Penn State fans, like, I think Penn State fans might freak out a little bit on Matt Campbell because Matt Campbell, remember, was not the first choice. So that changes it a little bit where it's like you don't get the guy that you wanted and, and have the time to say, oh, well, he's got to get it figured out. got your like 6th choice after a long process. If this season goes bad, are they gonna be like, what the fuck is going on?

Yeah, I just don't think it's gonna get to that point.

Okay.

I, I do have— I love what Matt did, you know, uh, bringing guys, uh, back. Danton Lynn came back, uh, Mowdy, the old Penn State linebacker, like infused Penn State, you know, where it's very touchy with, you know, what happened in the past there. I think he's, he's smart enough to do the right thing.

It's just crazy looking at the schedule and being like, oh, Northwestern's actually a tough Oh, that's a big one. Yeah. Like Northwestern is a tough game on Friday night.

Yeah. Yeah. Very improved team.

Yes. Yeah. We mentioned him earlier, but Will Stein, he is listening to this podcast right now as you're saying his name. So just be aware of that.

Love Coach Stein.

What should the expectation be for him? Because I can't get enough of him. I think he's, I think he's like a walking soundbite after a game when he was at the A&M game. Just awesome dude. Feels like a guy I would want to play for if I was like, you know, obviously a football player. But they've got a tough schedule coming up.

Uh-huh. Tricky spot.

I believe in them.

Absolutely. I think what I learned about Will Stein was I thought he went into one of the toughest jobs going back to Oregon because when he went there, you had Kenny Dillingham make Bo Nix look like— still to me, the best version of Bo Nix I've ever seen. Like, I still haven't, haven't seen it at the pros. And so here comes Will Stein. So like, what do you do? You're the offensive coordinator. Do you bring your own stuff in? Do you adapt? Do you run a bunch of Kenny stuff that, you know, made Bo Nix good? And Bo Nix took another step with Will Stein. Like, that's really tricky. Like, you need to talk about egos and all that. And like, I'm gonna do it my way. And new coaches come in, it's gonna be energy and tempo And, you know, we're going to play, you know, faster than anybody. All this stuff. That was a really tricky spot and they didn't lose a beat and even improved. So with that, I mean, have you seen his entrances to the stadiums with the boombox? I mean, it's, it's really good. And I, you know, you didn't know much about Will Stein, but I think that fan base and him having that deal of being a Louisville guy, but now wearing blue, I think it's awesome.

Yeah.

at this week as a big spot because now the expectations, how have you tempered those? You know, they were— they came out slow on Saturday against South Alabama. Yeah. And then they end up covering a big second half. So South Carolina is at rock bottom, but it's still an SEC road game. And I believe South Carolina is favored.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a desperation spot. That's scary. If you've ever seen—

no Dylan Stewart.

Yeah.

Big spot for Coach Stein. I mean, this is to take that next step. Well, you start talking about 8, 9 wins. You got to win this one.

South Carolina is minus 2.5.

Is Beamer coaching for his job?

I don't— it's not really South Carolina. Does it seem like— I mean, that job is tough.

Whoa.

It's his job to coach.

His job is to coach.

So he is coaching for his job.

That's—

oh, okay.

Just a fact.

Yeah. Play on words. I knew one was coming. You get me every time.

I'm just saying.

But I mean, it doesn't seem like it's going well.

No, but as far as like—

Suspend your best player and like he obviously wasn't listening. He might have some other stuff going on like this kind of a pattern for him at this point. But just like not listening to your coach and like blatantly disobeying him. I feel like he had to suspend him for that game. But it's still not a— it feels like he might be in danger of losing the locker room here.

The other thing is this isn't the first time with Stewart, right? There's been been past instances. So I just, going into the year, I thought they were going to be improved because I thought a new offensive coordinator, new O-line coach was just what Lenore Sellers needed. And it hasn't looked great. I mean, up 16-nothing against Mississippi State and you can't win that game. You have to win that game. So again, another chance here with a much talked about Kentucky team. It's what makes this whole thing awesome. Yeah.

And see if you, you obviously follow the NFL. Well, quite a bit. I just wondering from your, your experience, you saw this weekend PJ Fleck at the end of the game.

Yes.

Wiping his own quarterback's blood on his face in celebration. Could Drake May learn a lot about how to handle blood on your hand from PJ Fleck?

You talking about the blood fumble?

Minnesota.

I'm talking about the blood fumble that Drake May had.

Maybe.

Yeah. Drake Maybe. That's what they're calling him. Yeah. Yeah.

Boy, I learned a lot about the cave and their feelings about Drake May yesterday.

Well, no, I've— Drake May lover had to leave the cave.

I'm rooting for the guy.

Yeah.

Yeah. Drake May lover literally left the cave.

I mean, and we're not talking about Hank.

No, no.

We're talking about the Drake May lover.

There is an actual Drake May lover.

That's his name.

Hank is just a Drake May liker.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. He's— Hank sounds bad right now, but he's going to pick it up.

I thought Vrabel saying he was very concerned.

That's what we were talking about on the show. It's like, that's a shocking thing for him to say. That's not normally something he would say is like, we just got to have, you know, we got to get back to work and blah, blah, blah. Coach speak being like, I'm very concerned.

Because also Trevor Lawrence, what he did was downright rotten.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Egregious.

Yeah.

Taking that knee at the—

but that score could have been way worse. Way worse. I'm looking.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right. Last couple of questions. Who do you have winning the World Series? You, you turned to me yesterday in the cave.

Yep.

And you, by the way, gave Max and I— you called me up. It was like maybe mid-August, Max, right there when you were like, you're like, hey, Phillies plus 600 to win the— yeah, plus 800 to win the NL East. I was like, fuck it. I'm going to bet it. Whatever.

They made up 6 games in a week.

And then they just fell apart.

They were right there.

Yeah, it was like great for a minute. But what, are you doing like a jinx on the Phillies because you're a Mets fan? Because then you turn to me in the cave and you're like, Phillies-Yankees World Series.

Yeah.

What?

You know me.

So it is your jinx.

Have a little scratch on the teams you despise.

Yeah.

And I mean, that, that Phillies, what was that, '09?

Yeah.

Like couldn't watch TV.

Yeah.

So you're just saying Phillies-Yankees. I couldn't watch SportsCenter. Like, it was like those 2.

So yeah, bet them.

Yeah, I think it's—

but I don't care. I don't actually— I don't care about either of those teams. I think I'd have to do like a—

there's a difference between not caring and not liking.

Yeah, like, like, I'd have to bet the Brewers to win the World Series.

Okay. Yeah, but you don't hate them.

I do.

I started—

no, dude, I hate their fucking manager. He's such—

he, he's—

this year, good time old guy. Oh, this year's— he's, he's, he gives the Coach K vibes of like when they lose. Oh, Watch it when they, when they lose. Yeah, you're a little dookie over there. When they lose, he's like, we're just the scrappy underdog, you know, small market teams. Like, dude, you guys win 100 games every single year in the regular season. Shut the fuck up. I don't like him. So he's pissed me off. What are you looking up?

I think he's checking out the odds.

Plus $5,000 for Phillies-Yankees World Series.

I mean, that's good.

I bet it.

Yes, sir.

You have to admit it's good value.

Every one of the Phillies has played in the postseason. That's what you want in postseason baseball.

You got the experience.

Wait, but so the Philly bet you gave us was a real bet. That wasn't a troll bet because it would— no, you hate everyone in the NL East, so it wouldn't be correct.

Yeah, I honestly thought that was going to happen.

You hate the Braves too, so it's not—

yeah, that wasn't like it. Or their mascot.

Oh, Bloopy. He's gone though.

Really? Well, fired him.

They changed Bloopy. Bloopy left for to be, I think, work for the Lions.

Yeah.

So it's a new Bloopy. New Bloopy.

The Detroit Lions.

Yeah. Yeah. New Bloopy. He moved.

He got in the portal.

There's a trade moving up.

In the world.

Yeah. He went to the NFL.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. So no, you know, Bloopie sent me a whole message being like, dude, it's been fun going.

Handwritten.

New job.

Jersey swap.

No, DM.

I didn't know Muppets could write.

Yeah.

And then, and then new Bloopie just, it isn't the same. Like I just know there's no, they still have a rivalry.

Runs fast. Flash or whatever.

Also, yeah, Max is right. He's pulling it up right now. Bloopie kind of was ended when, when the Phillies bullied him offline. Remember that?

This is my favorite tweet of all time.

Phillies fans bully the Braves mascot into an online meltdown ahead of NLDS matchup.

It's a mascot.

Yeah, that's it.

That's a real headline.

That's a real headline.

Yeah. No, Philadelphia had Bloopy in hell.

Speaking of the great city of Philadelphia, Max, I was talking to Kelsey about it. We're going there for Monday Night Football Cowboys game. And I was talking to him. He's like, hey, do me a favor, wear a Cowboys jersey to the game. I was like, what? I'm like, is it that big? He's like, don't even think about it. He's like, if you want to get pummeled, wear a Cowboys jersey to the lake.

So shout out to the Blues.

I'll be at that game.

Yep.

All right. Let's go.

Love it.

All right. Roback question. RHOback.com. Promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts.

Roback.com.

Great stuff. Best stuff. Also, thank you, Steve, for coming by. It's been awesome seeing you. We don't have a I don't think the Bears have another Monday night game.

Maybe Cubs World Series. Cubs-Phillies.

You're just picking every fucking team.

Cubs-Phillies.

I do think we can beat the Padres. After that, I don't love our chances.

I would love to see the Cubs.

Definitely right in the World Series.

Yeah. Ideally, I'd love to see the Cubs play the Phillies and then I'd like to see the Cubs play the White Sox in the World Series. Yeah, that's what I want.

Speaking of troll, I almost bought a White Sox shirt to wear here to troll you, Dan.

Listen, they're in, they're in the playoffs. Fun.

They're going to—

what?

Will they sell out?

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Well, they don't, they're on the road. They're at the Astros, but no, they'll be, they'll have an awesome crowd. Awesome crowd.

Okay.

Probably a future Pope in the crowd.

Possible.

Zach.

White Sox, Dave.

How are you doing today, sir? I did, I did have a quick question. Do you have an extreme dark horse candidate for Heisman this year you think could come to fruition?

Oh, preseason, it was Nick Frazier at Georgia. He didn't even play last week, I don't think. I think it's really hard now to be an extreme dark horse and win the Heisman. Do you have the odds?

He's pulling it up right now.

What's Keelan Russell?

Keelan Russell, 16 to 1. 16 to 1. I don't, I don't hate, you know who I don't hate? Gunner Stockton, 28 to 1. Georgia runs the table. He, I mean, he's never going to have the best numbers.

I just don't think he's a Heisman.

Yeah.

He's awesome. I love him. But you know, you need wow moments.

You need like, I know, I know.

Keelan, right?

Like if Keelan beats, Keelan has the wow.

If he beats Mississippi State this week and like again over 300 yards, like you're gonna see him way at the top.

Yeah, the odds right now, I, I feel like Malachi Tony might be not a bad—

love Malachi.

I know, Minshew's up higher, but like if he— if Malachi Tony goes off, they need, they need like the Charles Woodson effect.

He's got to return punts, he's got to throw passes, and as we were talking before, they're going to have the opportunity to do whatever they want offensively, so he's gonna have the moments. But what's he right now?

18 or 19. I can't see real good.

I think 18 or 19.

19. 19 to 1.

Okay. Malkhiel or Keelan, those, I like those a lot.

All right.

But is Ball the leader now?

Smith.

Smith.

Jeremiah Smith.

Oh yeah.

Smith.

Yeah. Speaking of not extreme dark horses.

What about Nico? 60 to 1 right now.

UCLA's good.

UCLA is a good team.

Handsome Bob.

The problem is it's the way night Yeah. If you're going to be betting on Nico, who hasn't really played—

Shocker.

You're taking Knight's side opposed to the Colorado Rattlers.

He is like not a JMU guy.

He's one of the best running backs in the country. Undoubtable.

His story is pretty nuts too.

His story is crazy.

And then brother.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Then they get, they get a week off and then Oregon and Bob's not afraid of Oregon.

We know that.

No.

Put up 500 yards against him.

Signed up for 60. Yeah.

That's right.

To the dot.

Absolutely. All right, Steve, you're the best. Well, so yeah, I don't think we have a Monday night game, but we'll tailgate at Soldier Field.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

There's— I mean, it's especially this weather. It's going to be a fun time.

Very good.

Very fun time. Just a little Case Keenum, you know. We're going to run this on Wednesday, but look, Case Keenum, you know. Hey, a little Case Keenum never hurt anyone.

By any means necessary. Get a win against that team.

Tread water in the next few games until Caleb gets back. Go .500. That's all. That's all I'm asking.

Love it.

Yeah.

All right, Steve, you're the best.

Appreciate you guys.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is Case Keenum, fresh off his electric Monday night performance, the Bears beating the Eagles. Case, thank you for joining us. We were actually joking. We've been doing this podcast for 10 years. It's actually insane that we've never had you on because you're, you're right in our wheelhouse of like quarterback guys that we love that like, you know, they get in, they gunsling and just been around forever. It was awesome to watch on Monday night. The very first question I have though is how sore are you right now? Because we're older guys. We're 41, 38. Like, are you sore?

I am very sore and I feel like I'm getting more sore. By the minute, I'll probably be more sore after this after this this phone call than I am when I started it. But it's a good sore, man. I woke up this morning still smiling, man. What a what an incredible 24 hours! I mean, the last week itself has just been nuts, and to to cap it off with a night like last night, I mean Soldier Field at night. I mean, so many cool memories there, and just to add to it last night.

Yeah, it was so much fun to watch you play live. And I'm wondering through the week, because I think a lot of Bears fans, they didn't know what to expect going into this game. They don't know, you know, if you still have it in the tank. I don't know if you felt confident in yourself, but going into Monday night, like, were there nerves there? Was there confidence? What was— what were your emotions like going into the game?

Oh my gosh, man. Yeah, so many nerves. And probably for me, man, I just, I care a bunch. I love this game. I love what I do. And man, I put so much into this. I mean, you're not going to believe the amount of hours that I put into it just this week alone. I mean, the last 3 years coming back from injury, you know, rehabbing. I told a lot of people I was basically ready to, ready to call it quits, you know, and be done playing football. And Ben calls me. I'm in Hawaii at the NFLPA event. And, you know, I get a call from Ben Johnson. He's like, hey, you know, you still want to come play? I was like, I mean, yeah, let's meet and talk about it. And we met and talked about it for supposed to be about 15 minutes. And 2 and a half hours later, I was like, where do I sign? Let's freaking do this, man. I'm ready to run through a brick wall for that man.

That's awesome.

What'd you guys talk about for 2 hours? Just like you're trying to figure out if you wanted to be a Bear? Like, could You've probably could have figured that out after like a couple minutes, right?

I, I knew pretty quickly that I was like, okay, this is, this is where I need to be. But we just, we, we agreed on so many things and started talking about ball and this and that. And it just, it's like when you just, when you meet somebody the first time and you're like, wait, wait, you did this? Like, and then, and we just agree on just about everything on, and, uh, I don't know, it just, it got me geeked up, excited, and man, it really helped me kind of spark that love of football again. And it's been just a magical year and a half. I mean, last year, I know you guys followed along very closely. Big Cat, I know.

Yeah.

Golly, man, we'd come in after games and be like, is this really happening? Like, yeah. And man, it's just, it's a special group of guys, man. Ben's a special man. And I'm just, I'm just happy to be along for the ride.

Yeah, it was, uh, he is, he is the absolute man. I have a question about him, but I do want to say, uh, I did get on the right side of history. It took me till 6:46 PM last night, so it was about 35 minutes before kickoff. I got— no, no, I wasn't hating. I was like, I don't know what to expect. I was like, I mean, I just, I'd imagine that there was moments where you're like, I haven't played in a few years here, like live action. So I, all week I was like, look, I think I trust in Ben and I, I feel like anything can happen. Then at 6:46, I was driving into the office to stream the game and I tweeted, I've talked myself into it, Case Keenum's gonna be awesome tonight. So I got in right before. I got— and then they should— yeah, I was there. I was just at the nick of time.

So all those messages my buddies back home were saying about how you— all the stuff you were saying all week, that's not true?

I don't know.

You switched right before?

Did I say anything bad about Case Keenum?

Listen, if anybody— I might have said— I wouldn't say even bad things, just we, again, we didn't know what to expect. Yeah, I think I called you the Andy Dalton of Cooper Rushes.

Oh, that's probably what it was. Yes, that—

Hand up. That wasn't me. That wasn't me. I didn't say that.

I don't know.

That's the thing is like, we— I don't know. It sounded right at the time. And I'm not—

And I called you the Patrick Mahomes of Cooper Rushes.

Yeah.

So yeah, I almost actually had your back.

I'm not a hater. Listen, I got my psych— I got myself psyched up for an entire season. of, of Case Keenum going into— what year was that, 2019 with the Commanders?

Yeah.

I was, I was ready.

You were QB1.

The team formerly known as the Redskins.

Yeah, you, you, you— I see, like, that was the stuff that I was seeing because I was like, listen, I think, you know, he's, he's been in the system, he obviously knows it. But then there's stats like Case Keenum was the last quarterback to start for the St. Louis Rams and the Washington Redskins. And like, Case Keenum hasn't thrown a ball over 20 yards. And so, but, but going into the game Obviously you're practicing, you know, you know, you were at the ones, but was there any part of you that's like, this might be different as soon as we get to live bullets because it hasn't happened in a while?

Yeah, I mean, you can't help it. I mean, then Laura Rutledge right before the games, like, in case you know, it's been 1,000 whatever, 9 days.

Yes.

And I'm like, no, I didn't know that, thank you. Like, um, I don't know, I honestly, I had such a great mindset the day of. Of I put in such a great week of work that the guys, like, I trusted the guys, I trusted the plan. Where I'm at in my career, like, seeing the game the same way as Ben and us being able to meet and talk at such a high level and, you know, call plays and like my favorite plays of the week were his favorite plays and wound up in the first 15. And you saw how the, the, the, you know, the first drive, it was just— and it felt like we got into a rhythm. He got me very comfortable very quick. And the guys just stepped up. Everybody stepped up. Khalif, I thought Luther really looked like some Luther from last year. Colston's getting going, man. The O-line, I thought they fought their tails off. And man, it was just— it was electric. And the defense, I mean, you can't say enough about the defense. I mean, it's— it really is a carryover from last year, like just making huge turnovers when we need it.

And I mean, they were, they were 1 second away from putting up a goose egg, you know?

Yeah, no, it was really— I don't know, it was incredible.

That snap, it was right on.

It was right on it. But then we had one too, your touchdown, which by the way, did you, did you call your own number on that play?

Well, it was just, it was a, it was a play with another play killed to it, and if we got the right look, um, yeah, a little, little, uh, sucker sneak there.

Uh, it was good.

both guards and just kind of sneak underneath there. It was a little bit of a gutsy, gutsy play, but, uh, I thought the guys upstairs did a great job putting together a really good plan. I mean, from top to bottom, including that play, uh, was, was really fun to see it, see it come to life.

Yeah. And I, I also, I mean, I never gave up on Case Keenum because I know you saw it, you retweeted it, but I woke up this morning and everyone was retweeting the, from 2019 when I said RIP Case Keenum.

him.

I look forward to him winning a random game in 5 years as a backup. Little did I know it would be for the Bears on Monday Night Football. I was 2 years off. It was 7 years ago.

A backup's backup.

Backup's backup. And then did you see the first reply to that tweet in 2019?

I haven't looked on it.

What was it?

Someone, someone in 2019 just said Bears question mark. So that guy knows even, even more than I do. It was incredible. But then here we are.

You just inceptioned it, man. You inceptioned it.

Yeah. So I want to talk about Ben Johnson real quick. I saw the quote that all week you put your phone on do not disturb, and the only people who get through is your wife and Ben Johnson. And you take a guess who, who, who called you and hit you up more. Was it just constant, like Ben Johnson being like— because I imagine we've met him a couple times, he's just got— he's always on and he's always like locked in.

Oh yeah.

So was he just sending you stuff and being like, I got this idea, I got this idea, and just kind of like peppering you? Because that feels like his vibe.

Yeah, it was back and forth. And actually, I did that because one of the days early in the week, I kind of locked myself. I'm in here in the QB room and locked myself in here, and I'm studying. I'm looking through stuff, and I'm you know I'm hitting a groove. And I didn't realize it, but he had called me two or three times and texted. And then finally, he like somebody shows up in here, and I'm like kind of locked in. And like, oh hey! He's like, dude, come on. We got to meet and talk about some stuff. stuff. And, and I'm like, oh, okay, that's when I need to put him on the do not disturb list. So yeah, I can be ready to reply, uh, and get some, get some more work done quickly. But yeah, I mean, he, uh, he, he is— there's a lot of coaches that say, uh, you know, the hay's in the barn. Have you ever heard that saying? Like, at the end of the week on Fridays, fast Friday, we're done, the hay's in the barn. Ben says there is no hay and there is no barn.

So he's, he's putting stuff in at the last minute. And, uh, you know, some of our best plays, um, you know, are stuff that he's, he's coming with constantly late Yeah.

Yeah. Could you feel that, um, that, that QB draw was going to be open? Because they were disrespecting your legs. They were saying Case isn't going to run the ball. They're saying he's afraid to take it up the middle. I don't know if you, you felt that on the field. It was very easy to see on TV. It's like they don't think that you're going to run. And then at the last— that was a beautiful sneak at the last moment. Yeah.

They probably heard Troy and everybody talking about when the last time I had a rushing touchdown was or whatever that stat was. 2009 or whenever.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I mean, they checked to the front, got there kind of at the last minute. Again, it was another, you know, we got out of the huddle a little bit late, but a little nerve-wracking, man. But, but a drive, I think that was like a 16-play drive. I mean, it was, it was a huge drive there late in the game that, man, just playing complimentary football towards the end really sealed the deal for us. And, um, you know, there were so many great plays there on that drive and just happy to seal the deal there at the end.

Yeah, there's, uh, there was one play that I saw, uh, the All-22 of today where there were 2 wide receivers that ended up running through the C-gap at the line of scrimmage.

Yes.

Um, plays like that, is it— I mean, you've played a lot of football before. Is it, is it hard to remember all the new plays that you're putting in every week when there's weird shit like that that's coming in all the time? Or is it like like it's so unusual and creative at times that it's easy for somebody to, to sit down and memorize those plays?

I would, I would, I would not say it's easy. Um, I mean, it's another language, you know. We've spent now 2 years learning the same language. Um, and, you know, I don't know how many plays there are, but I mean, there's, there's so many plays in a given week, and you've run them, you know, you get a chance to run them a few times, walk through But you mentally walk through them to where it's just like, okay, this is a fast flip to gun Charlie right squeeze shovel weasel kill pop Navy Lucy bow. And it's just like you're in and out and you— I hear Ben and all he says is fast flip and I'm like, okay, I already know what we're about to call, what we're about to play. I know the cadence, I know the front I need to get to, you know, and I need to, you know, know exactly what I'm looking at, the reads for the next play if I do have to kill to the next play. So so that if, you know, a situation like on the goal line where we break the huddle with 10 seconds left, the guys line up quickly, we get to the right play call and execute.

So, um, nothing really easy about that, but, uh, man, when you got guys like we got that are willing to work, come in every day and put in a lot of work, um, man, it's, it's a lot of fun when it comes together, especially on, on primetime.

Yeah.

Uh, so obviously you're playing in the game, you don't see the broadcast. So I don't know if someone told you, but they, during the broadcast, they put it up on the screen that you've been in the NFL for over a decade and you still have more yards and touchdowns in college football, which that like on its face could be like, oh, that's insult. No, I took it as people need to remember how fucking good you were in college football and how like you were an absolute gunslinger, 48 touchdowns. 5 interceptions in, in your senior year. Uh, what— I mean, what was that like playing in that offense where you're just every single game you're like, I, I know I'm just gonna rip the ball and it's gonna be— it just seemed like so much fun and it was so much fun to watch you play college football.

Oh, it was a blast, man. It was, it was so much fun. Um, you know, Coach Art Bryles was there when I first got going. Coach Sumlin came in, Cliff Kingsbury. We had so many great coaches in that system of like a kind of a branch off of the Air Raid and what Coach Leach was doing at Texas Tech that, um, and honestly, like, um, for stats, you know, for offensive stat, our defense wasn't great. And so we, we had to score 50 points if we were going to win a game. And we've even lost games scoring 50 points. But golly, we just went out and, and slung it. I'll remember one time, um, a cool Cliff story that we were playing in the Armed Forces Bowl against Air Force. This was like my junior year. And just kind of his mentality. We go out and I throw 3 interceptions in the first, first half. And it wasn't going very good. He comes in at halftime. He's like, Case, I don't care. He's like, I don't care if you throw 10 touchdowns this next half, or 10 interceptions, we're gonna keep slinging it, dude. And I'm like, alright, let's go.

And it gave me the ultimate confidence. And you know what, I went, we went out there and I threw 3 more interceptions in the second half.

We lost the game.

But man, that's just, that's just his mentality. And, and, and it was, it was contagious, man. Our whole, uh, our whole offense, our whole team, man, we were just gunslingers and we just loved going out there and slinging it. And, you know, it may not work every time, but, uh, it worked a lot of the time. Yeah, it's a lot of yards, a lot of touchdowns, a lot of completions, and, and, uh, it was a lot of fun.

Yeah, it would— that was so much fun to watch those teams. Um, one thing I was really impressed with last night, uh, the hard count. Hard count's still there. Hard count Yeah, I jumped. I just jumped. Does that get better with age? Because I feel like that's one thing, like, that's got to be as good if not better than it's ever been.

Yeah, getting guys to jump with your mouth is always, you know, gets better with age a little bit. So yeah, I enjoy, uh, I enjoy a good hard count. Um, uh, you know, just trying to make it sound the same every time. Uh, and man, we've, we practiced those type plays and it And when it works, it, it's, uh, it's, it's nice. And in big situations, that was a huge 4th down conversion there to be able to do that on.

Yeah.

Um, all right, so I, I just saw this, uh, uh, tweet. So last night you had 247 yards, 3 total touchdowns, 24 for 34. Your PFF grade just came out. You got an 18 out of 100.

Is that good?

No, it's really bad.

Oh darn.

I just made that up. I did like you saying that the, the sack that didn't happen.

Did you see that?

I love that. I mean, it's just, I don't know, it's, it's fun to have. Like, this is where I, I feel like you're in the point too where you can have fun with it. And it's like, it's— yeah, sports should be fun. I know they're serious, but I don't care.

I mean, I, I— PFF is great on, on like for us breaking down film, and I can go search and find stuff. And there's, you know, they have all these people that grade every little thing that goes on in NFL as far as like, uh, where guys line up and what the formation is and what the coverage was and maybe what was a pass or run or a deep pass or short pass or one to the right or left or slant. When you start getting grades, it's just so hard. And I know there's a ton of takes out there on all this right now, and I haven't seen a bunch of them, but the intent of, of the play and the design is so hard for somebody who has no idea what's, what's going on to grade on. And then also, like, I just, I never really liked the same night football. Like, you get guys like, it's a dream as a kid.

Yeah.

To be able to say Case Keenum, University of Houston, you know, like, and, and get announced on Monday Night or Sunday Night Football. And like, and then to have that little, you know, right here, you know, it's like 28th out of 30, you know. And I'm like, that nobody, nobody wants to see that. I mean, I don't know. I just, I don't know.

So yeah, yeah, when it's like dead last, you're like, oh fuck, this is my big moment and I'm dead last. Yeah, you know what, we need more people people like, uh, me and PFT here who we know what we know, we know what we don't know. We're not gonna grade, uh, and talk about like play designs. We're gonna do the meatball thing of criticizing a coach when it comes to timeouts and going for it on 4th down because that's stuff we can understand.

We get that. We play video games.

Yeah.

And we always play the results. So it's like, if you don't get the 4th down, that was a bad decision. If you did get the 4th down, that was a great decision. And then we just say afterwards, like 2 hours later, like, oh, should have called a timeout. there.

I also like to say that, like, uh, you know, yeah, 4th down clock management, that's good, but if that doesn't work, I'll just be like, you gotta want it more. Yeah, you didn't want it enough.

Yeah, you can't get one yard, just run the ball.

You don't deserve to win, you can't get one yard.

Yeah, stuff like that. Obviously no scheme there, just line them up and play.

Yeah, we are lucky enough to work around a lot of, uh, former professional athletes and, and some that work right here at Barstool, like, uh, Paul Bissonnette. He played for the the Coyotes. He was in the NHL for a very long time. He was kind of a goon, tough guy. And I talked to him one time about, about showers and just like after a game, and he would have a healthy scratch situation sometimes. He wouldn't play, but he would still shower with the boys afterwards. Um, I saw Caleb Williams wearing a bathrobe in the locker room after the game. Did he shower with the team?

Yeah.

I love that. That's camaraderie.

Yeah, that's camaraderie.

That's, that's leadership.

Yeah, why not? I mean, there's some of the best, some of the best postgame, like, stories. Like, you're in there sudsing up and like, dude, you remember, remember that in the middle of that play where we like locked eyes and like, then like, I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know.

I have some great memories in there. And I don't know, there's something, something about that. I don't know.

Yeah, it's like war stories when everyone's— yeah, it's like before the media comes in before everyone leaves to their own families.

Well, the media's in there. That's the only place that they really can't go now, right? That's the only place we can actually talk in the locker room now. So until we get the, the media out of the locker room after games, you know, that's not gonna— it's not gonna happen. And the showers are gonna just become that much more sacred.

Yeah, I wish Caleb had kept his glasses on the whole night. He looked so fucking cool.

I don't know, you, you're probably all digging his mustache. What do y'all think?

It's a good mustache.

The only thing, and I, I I obviously love Caleb, and, and, uh, the only thing I, I would say about his mustache, he needs to shave his, uh, like the rest of it more often because his jaw is fucking awesome right now. And now I'm sounding ridiculous. The sentence I just said is ridiculous, but his jaw is so sick, and I— he needs to let it pop more.

Okay.

That was a crazy thing for me to say. All right, I'm gonna ask a, a last question that's not weird. Uh, dude, how could— how good of a, a kid's show is Bluey? Bluey, because I saw you talking about it. Uh, I have 3 little kids.

Is it a kids show or is it an adult show?

It might be both. The best part about Bluey is that the episodes are short. So when I— like, my 3-year-old—

And the worst part.

Yeah, well, no, but it's the best part because like I have a 7, 5, and 3-year-old, and when my 3-year-old says, I want to watch one more, I want to watch— I'm like, if we're watching Bluey, I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna let you watch 2 more because it's like, that's nothing, you know? And he doesn't know, he doesn't know how time works. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. 2 more.

You're the best dad in the world.

Yeah, but it's— wait, did you do some Bluey this morning? I guess it was school.

You know what, uh, yeah, well, we all, we all slept in a little bit and, uh, they did a half day, but we did, we did actually, we watched a little bit of the game. They wanted to see themselves on TV.

Oh, that's awesome.

Uh, called and were like, uh, this is my sister's kids and they could care less about the game, but they were like, they could not believe that their cousins were on And so they got to see them. And then Cadence got to show off her, her pants there that she got, the little, uh, bell-bottoms. And, uh, so we did a little bit of that, had some victory waffles. That's a Keenum family tradition. Oh, uh, my wife Kimberly always makes victory waffles. They are excellent.

That's a perfect morning.

Oh my gosh, perfect morning. Came in here, get some body work. Uh, uh, they gave me an extra massage slot here in the, in the, the training room, so I'm feeling a bit better.

Yeah. Do your kids— I mean, that, that was the coolest part of last night, uh, not to get sentimental, but the fact that, like, you even said it, like, my kids didn't really believe that I played in the NFL because they were so young. So they believe it now, right? Like, that's such a special moment to be able to share that with them.

Yeah. I mean, for them, it's just football work, right? Like, Dad's going to football work. And, you know, honestly, it makes them more sad, you know, most of the time. Uh, they get to come up here and play on the turf and, you know, run around and, and come to training camp. and, uh, you know, do some other fun stuff. I, you know, I'm really thankful for those videos. And I mean, Scott Van Pelt, you know, talking to Cadence like that and, and doing some of that, because I think that they'll remember that maybe based on the, the videos and—

Right.

The memories that, that are created now through that. So, um, yeah, I mean, it's really special. Uh, you know, getting announced at Soldier Field as the starting quarterback of the Chicago Bears. I mean, I mean, a lot of things to smile about and getting to talk to you guys.

Yeah.

You know, day after, come on, man. Are you kidding me?

Case, I might, I might have to, to like, however the rest of the season goes, I might have to throw out a tweet though, being like, that was awesome from Case Keenum. Can't wait for 5 years from now when he wins another game as a backup. Just extend it. Just keep going.

There's, that's it. Yeah. I was full, full gray beard at that time.

Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Last question. Roback question. Rowback.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Rowback.com, promo code TAKE. Thank you so much, Case. This has been so much fun. Zach, you got a last question for Case?

Oh, yes, sir.

All right.

How we doing, Case? I did have a quick question. Uh, 38, you got a lot of life to live, but at the same time, that is a super established age to be QB1 under center. And I was just curious, like, you know, after you get the win last night, you play as well as you did, things kind of settle down, and you do check the phone. What are the guys back home saying? Like, was it just absolutely nuclear? Like, what, what was the, the sentiment among the boys?

You know, it's, it's funny, it's a lot of the same questions that you guys are asking, you know? Like, how sore are you, dude? Like, yeah, um, yeah, they're all— I mean, they're all super pumped. My phone is still blowing up. Uh, it's so fun to have, you know, so many, so many crews, man, just in my You know, there's a there's a group of guys back in Houston and our and our little group of of you know elementary school our Little League you know all the coaches in the Little League I'm a I'm coach pitch for for my son Kyler 7-year-old and they're all they're all you know giving me a hard time about pitching you know on on the mound for the for the Bunker Hill Expos and you know how that paid off now on Monday Night Football so. So, um, and little stories like that. But yeah, give me a hard time and, and, but really pumped for me. It's, uh, it is fun, man, doing one for all the middle-aged white dudes out there.

Hell yeah. Yeah, representation matters. Well, I see you on TV and I'm like, I could do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, we're, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna take up for you, uh, the, the College Football Hall of Fame rules make no sense. I still don't understand it, but you should be a College Football Hall of Famer. So we're going to start making some calls. Appreciate that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's bullshit. There's just the rules.

Tweet it into existence, man. Just like you do.

Yeah, I got it. I got it.

All right.

Well, Case, thank you so much, man. We really appreciate you doing this and get, you know, maybe, maybe get some extra sleep. I don't even know. I, you, you like, I mean, yeah, I can, I sprained my ankle walking off like a curb and I'm done for months, but I also am not a pro athlete. So you're the man.

I appreciate you guys. I'll take your advice. I'll go get some sleep.

All right. Thanks, Casey.

Casey.

Okay, let's finish up the show. We've got FAQs.

Yeah. Hey, fam.

What's up? Hey, fam.

Shout out memes. Long-suffering fan of Jets, Mets, Knicks. Not anymore. Want to know what old PMT bits do you miss and might bring back as a one-time special? Piss dogs. Thanks.

Oh, I'll say it.

I—

it had to stop. I do miss calling Lenny Dykstra. Had to stop, but I miss it. It was doing some locker room talk, talking pussy with him. Yeah, it was fun, but it had to stop.

I think, um, if we were going to bring back who's the most famous person on your cell phone, I think Ari Emanuel would have been a good one for that.

Oh yeah.

Although he's not famous though. He's just powerful.

Well, that's right. He's got—

oh, asking him.

Yeah, he might have the most powerful phone.

Oh yeah. I'd say like him, Rico Bosco, probably the most powerful 2 phones in America too.

Yeah.

And if, if Ari's on the East Coast and Rico's got Ari B. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

How many jumpsuits does he have?

Yeah.

What do you say?

Do you guys wash your apples?

That's a good bit.

Yeah.

First boob.

First boob that lasted one episode.

I do have a dream of I don't know. I shouldn't. Whatever. I do think it'd be funny if we could ever figure it out. We've toyed with it of Zach picking up our guests in Vanny Woodhead and doing like a little pre-interview or bringing them—

Exit interview.

Exit interview too.

But pre-interview would be funny to warm them up. Just the idea of Zach picking up like a famous person in Vanny Woodhead. It'd have to be— the problem is it'd have to be someone who like we really know, because I don't know a lot of people who come through this office. I don't think we can be like, hey, don't worry about— don't worry about getting, you know, an Uber or a driver to take you here. We've got a guy who's been in multiple accidents. He's going to pick you up in a 1994 Chevy conversion van.

That thing's got a steel frame.

Yeah.

Steve were to be— Steve would have been perfect.

That would have been a good one for it.

Steve would have been perfect.

Yeah, he would have got Yeah, she would have played along.

Yeah.

I would like to bring back at some point one question with the quarterback.

Yeah.

Those are always good this year.

Yeah.

Also, Hank, I liked your quarterback rankings.

You did quarterback rankings?

He did. He did part of my Take Active QB rankings.

Oh.

Case Keenum was 1.

He was 1.

Nice.

Jacoby Brissett 2, Marcus Mariota 3, Drake Maye 4, Geno Smith 5, Jalen Hurts 6, Justin Herbert 7. 7. Okay. And no Baker.

Baker's not active.

Okay. No Jalen Daniels.

I haven't seen him play.

Yeah, I think he threw a Hail Mary.

Deep ball. 2 of them.

Deep ball incompletions, but deep.

But he sent it.

He did send it.

Let us see a little something.

All right.

With the sports equinox upon us, how do the fellas prioritize what to watch? How do you explain to family and friends that you will be devoting all your time to taking in All the sports.

Yeah, this is just the best time of the year. It is.

Yeah, I just saw— I'm not gonna sleep this week. And multiple TVs. That's really it. And it's the best. It's the absolute best. So you got to just say, hey, we're blessed to live in these times. Do I wish the Cubs weren't playing at 9 PM? Yeah, I do. But you just survive in advance. Figure it out. This is the best time.

Best week of the year.

Well, no, your best week of the year is first week of the NBA playoffs.

And NHL.

NHL.

Respect hockey.

Yeah, it's true.

First round.

What are you looking forward to the most about hockey season, Hank?

So much.

Ask him in April.

Yeah. No more cosplay starts. When it starts in Carolina.

84 games? There's 84 games this year. They had 2 games.

That's a force.

Are you going to be in 84 games?

No. God, no. Like a 2.

You're going to be tour?

A tour.

Speaking of tour, tour Tagovailoa.

Nope. What is the preparation like when you—

Wait, what do you mean nope? You don't even know what I was going to say.

I'm moderating this segment.

You're nexting my tour Tagovailoa quote.

I'm just moderating.

This is—

Good job moderating.

You're out of segment. This would have been good for segment 1.

I'm out of segment 1.

This is A block.

Okay.

Okay. Yeah, we can save it.

What is the preparation like when you do these interviews with college coaches, professional athletes, etc.? How much of it is predetermined, such as questions you want to ask? How much of it just goes based off the flow of conversation and what they say?

Hmm. Yeah, I mean, we do take notes before an interview, and we know, have a general idea of what we're going to talk about.

It also depends on the interview, like a college coach on for 15 minutes, I'm not doing like a ton of prep because we know we only have 15 minutes. If it's a sit-down interview, maybe Grit Week or Chill Week, that's a lot of prep. That's a lot of like trying to figure out what's a good question and stories that we can bring out of them. So yeah, it goes up and down. And obviously when we have— I think, I think most AWLs love it when we have recurring guests that get the like San Fran Steve, like that's, that doesn't take any prep. That's just talking ball.

Yeah, there's, there's some coaches too that kind of fit into that category. We're just gonna chop it. We're gonna talk about whatever's going on. But then there's the first interviews that we have some guys, and then we typically have notes, but you also want to kind of see where the interview is going and feel the direction and yeah, like engage in active listening. Mm-hmm.

Active listening.

Yeah.

Do you ever have a take where you realize halfway through that it's probably wrong, but you're just committed to defending it at that Point all the time.

Like, yeah, for example, when PFT said that she got got by more than one account, not just Football Crave.

I did get got by more than one account.

No, you got got by one account, but then he researched, so it was fine.

Yeah, I did. Well, it was what happened with multiple accounts. There were, there were lots of quote tweets of that tweet that I saw and failed to realize it was from that same original account.

But yeah, we do it all the time.

Yeah.

All the time.

Yeah.

You just get into a take and you're like, what are you getting?

Almost all my takes.

Yeah. You just get one. And once you start it, you just have to stay.

International football.

Yeah.

You can find— you can find reasons for your argument after the fact.

Oh yeah.

Easily. Easily.

Yeah. Just double down.

Yeah. I mean, and then, you know, every now and then you just be like, yeah, I was wrong. But then just Just cover up the wrong with an even wronger take. Just keep going, right, Memes?

Yeah, sometimes you just gotta say good dunk and then golf lefty.

Oh, I am golfing lefty.

Good, good dunk. Let's just golf lefty. Yeah, you cover one with the other. Yeah, like, I'm gonna get a 6-pack. No, actually, I'm gonna dunk. No, I'm actually gonna golf lefty. Yeah, right.

All 3 of those things could happen this year.

Nope. None of them. Well, I guess you could golf lefty.

The dunk, no.

And the 6-pack, absolutely not. He's been promising a 6-pack for months, for years and years.

But it could still happen. No, the dunk could never happen.

The dunk, no. I want you to say no to the dunk.

So you're saying it all could happen like I could play in the NBA?

No, come on. Let's be real.

They're the same.

They're the same likelihood.

No.

Yes.

Would you not say that in that 6-month span where you're training very, very hard to dunk, that's, that's as much as you'll ever work on those muscles on that form? You had a dunking coach.

And also, PFT, I don't know how time works, but he's getting older, right?

Yeah.

He's 35 now.

I'm Ben Simmons. I'm in my prime.

He's in his prime.

Yeah.

You're in your prime.

He's in, he's in his prime.

He's in my prime.

The best shape of my life.

The mid-30s prime that everyone talks about.

Yeah.

Okay. No, dunking probably won't happen, but the six-pack and golfing likely will.

No, the six-pack's not going to happen either, Hank.

Super Bowl.

We might have a six-pack at the Super Bowl.

What are you doing actively to get a six-pack?

The food is in the kitchen.

Now manifesting.

Okay.

Yeah.

Dream board.

Start. That's where it starts.

That's true. All right. Is that it?

Yeah.

All right.

Good show, boys. Numbers.

3, 15, 3, 1, 8, 17, 5.

I gotta piss so bad.

Philly's definitely won, right?

I did it.

Cubs for sure won.

Yeah. Bullpen game against Chris Sale. It's probably, it's probably fine. Yeah, that's probably, it is probably, it probably worked out.

They scored more than 2 though, right?

Toss him.

I don't know.

I, I would take the under, but maybe that, maybe they rip. This already happened. This already happened. We already talked about it. I could have scored more than 2.

86. 69.

13.

That was a hiccup. Don't, don't look at me like that.

That was a shocking noise that you just made. Shocking, Max.

7.

7. Anyone 7?

No one's 7.

Close.

What'd you get? What was yours, Hank?

Ah, I was 5.

5 for JD5.

I heard he's coming back week 5.

Did you guys hear that?

I don't know why he's going to England if he's not gonna try to play.

Yeah.

Case Keenum's number in Houston, 7.

76.

79.

Sorry, Colton.

Should we do one more?

Happy birthday to Max Verstappen. Happy birthday to Landon Dickerson.

Push, push.

Happy birthday to, uh, Kieran Culkin. Happy birthday to T-Pain. Happy birthday to Brandon's mom. What's up? Happy birthday to Livvy Happy birthday to Mark McGuire. Jimmy Carter.

You've been pretty dialed.

Jimmy Carter dead.

Correct.

What do you say?

Good edition memes.

What was it?

Was the edition— it said Jimmy Carter's dead. Oh, breaking news.

Very dead.

Extremely dead.

Happy birthday to David Bocchiari as well. Oh, love you guys.

Remember when he made me puke because he hit me so so hard in the back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cold card.

Yeah.

Didn't have anything to do with a million. Didn't have anything to do with like the million beers that you had that day.

No, no, no.

He, he brushed my back hard enough that I spit up.