Transcript of Dianna Russini, NFL Combine Week In Indy, A Big Dom Peace Meeting, Hot Seat/Cool Throne And Guys On Chicks New

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On today's part of my take, presented by DraftKings, it is Combine week. We're in Indianapolis. We're in a big conference room doing interviews. We're going to talk about what's going on in the NFL world. Football is back. We got Team USA partying up. We got Hot Seat, Cool Throne. We have our very good friend, Diana Rossini, on the show to talk to us about what the stories that are buzzing around Indianapolis. We also do a little town forum with him, which was very funny, and everyone got to ask a question. With her. With her. Sorry. Thank you, Hank. We're going to finish back in the studio with our leftover Olympic takes and some guys on Chicks mixed in. It's brought to you by Chevy, football Football season might be over, but you know how it goes. The minute the big game ends, we're already talking about what's next, free agency, the draft, who's getting paid, who's grinding. Because for football guys, there is no offseason, and that's exactly why they roll with the Chevy Silverado. Silverado is a truck that shows up every time, built to haul, tow, and take a beating, but smart where it counts with modern tech that makes life easier.

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Aw head.

Yeah, Welcome to Part of My Tate, presented by Trap.

This is the Brownie. Today is Wednesday, February 25th. And football is back.

So back.

We had a nice two weeks.

It was so painful. We remember when we pretended to care about hockey for a day, and now football is back because the combine's here. We said it. Listen, all we did, we just tapped out of football season for a second, real quick, became double gold world champions in the Olympics in Hockey. Now we're back hearing about football.

Yeah, it's like the first day back from summer vacation. What did you do? I don't know. Won a gold medal. Now I'm here, ready to talk football. Pretty good. We are in Indianapolis. We have Diana Rossini on the show. Awesome interview with her. Let's talk some football. What do we got buzzing around? I have a couple of stories.

Couple of things going on right now. It looks like Kirk Cousins might hit the open market.

He is. They said it. The Falcons said it.

I think they said a 311 release date, which took me right back to high school, and he's going to maybe be a Minnesota Viking again. Maybe. I think there'll be a couple of teams that might be interested in a guy like Kirk Cousins. Ten.

We also had-What's that?

Ten. Ten what?

Ten?

Ten. What do you mean 10? Ten.

Instead of nine.

Oh, his number. Yeah, 10.

Nice.

That was good.

You know numbers.

Yeah, what would nine think about 10?

7, 8, 9.

7, 8, 9. I think he'd be like, Whoa.

We have in other quarterback news, everything's on the table, which we knew.

Everything's on the table.

So all the GMs talk today. A lot of the coaches talk today. Everything's on the table for the Dolphins. We also have a word on Aaron Rodgers that it's a fluid situation that should be resolved sooner than later. I feel like I've heard that every single offseason.

About to Sean, though.

Yeah, but this is Aaron Rodgers for yet again. We're just going to wait.

Yeah, well, real Real quick, go back to the Tua thing. Everything's on the table. I love that phrase. Everything. Because we don't know what is going to be on the table, but it's all going to be on the table.

Tua could be a fullback.

What do you think the Dolphins would say yes to for a trade for Tua?

Anything.

Everything. Anything, right? If it's a pick. Yeah. Like a 6th-round pick for Tua.

Yeah, a jugs machine.

A seventh-round pick for Tua.

Probably. I don't know. What the hell would Tua's market be?

I don't know. It might be Tua plus.

Because what? The alternative is they just cut them?

They could cut them, or they could... I don't know how that works. If they trade them, that probably saves them money with the cap. This is why we need a cap guy. Max, you were supposed to be your cap guy.

Jay, Look up, Che, Che's here. Look up what the options the dolphins have for Tua in terms of cutting versus trading, and then report back to us.

Because they might have to do a Tua plus where they go, We'll trade you Tua, and we'll throw in a fifth round pick with Tua, and then you can determine whether or not you want to keep Tua on your own.

And then you can cut him.

And then you can cut them and take our fifth round pick.

So Tua is on the table. Cuslin is on the table. Everything's on the table. The Aaron Rodgers situation is fluid. The big story, though, with Trent Williams is the 49ers of Trent Williams are struggling to come to a contract, so he could be a potential free agent, which would be quite something.

That would be big time.

I think every single person, every fan in the NFL said, I want that.

You can find room on a roster for Trent Williams. I want that bad. Trent Williams is a joy to have on your team. He's just a fucking bully. Yeah. He's the best. He's also the rare offensive lineman where you have fun watching him play. And that might just be because I watched him on the Redskins for so long when we didn't really have anything else to watch. After the ball was snapped, my eyes would just go to Trent Williams. Yeah. Because it's like this guy, we might throw interception, but Trent Williams might punch a guy in the throat. Yeah. But he's a fun player. I feel like every single team should want... Even me, the commanders, he probably would never go back to DC, and we have two great offensive linemen at our tackle position. I still want Trent Williams.

I want him on the bear's bad.

Yeah, he's the best. I want him on the bear's bad. Hank, do you want him? He's got long arms.

Of course. Everyone wants him.

Really long arms. Hank and I had a really good ride to Indy. We drove together this morning.

Did you almost lose your phone, Hank? No.

We had a couple hiccups.

What were the hiccups? I left my phone in my bag, and I put my bag in PFT's trunk, which is located in the front of his car.

They call it a frunk.

So there was-You have a frunk? I have a frunk now. There was like an hour where I was pretty confident it was in there, but there was an hour where I was like, I don't have my phone physically with me, and we had to wait till we stopped to check the frunk.

It's really no different if he put it in my trunk, but it just happened to be in the front of the car.

It's going to happen to be in the frunk.

Yeah, in the frunk. Frunk is a flex. It is a flex. We had a couple of minor hiccups on the way here. I just said that people are going to be talking about arm length at the combine, and then Hank got very offended by that for some reason. Why Hank? We used to talk about hand size. I feel like arm length is more of a discussion.

Is that triggering for you, Hank?

I'm interested to see this arm length discussions because it felt like it was a direct personal shot.

At who?

Will Campbell.

Oh, does he have short arms?

He does. Okay. Is that the reason why he did not play well at the end of the season?

No, I didn't say that. He was hurt.

Correct.

That's a good way of saying that he got killed in the Super Bowl. He didn't play well at the end of the season. He didn't play that great in the play-off either.

He was hurt. He was very hurt.

He was hurt. He was a warrior. I just feel like the arm length discussion Because you have an example of a guy that didn't have his best game in whatever the last game of the season was, you have more people who will point at an offensive linemen that does have short arms and be like, It could be another Will Campbell situation. You know the media is very lazy when it comes to that.

I don't. You're lazy.

That's true.

Then what was the other hiccup?

We got into a little back and forth about windmills.

Oh, okay. What happened with the windmills?

Lots of windmills on the drive over through Indiana.

Che was very enamored with the windmills. He was like, Holy shit, that's so many windmills.

A lot of windmills doing nothing.

Yeah, he pointed out the ones that were doing nothing.

Hank was disgusted by the windmills. Then I wanted to talk to him more about his point of view because I'm always trying to learn. Some people would say I'm a lazy thinker, but I don't think that I am. I'm always looking to grow. So I was asking Hank for his reasons why he doesn't like the windmills.

Well, we did talk about the original windmill take was because of Indiana. It was.

Memes.

Memes is upset with Indiana Colts fans. Indianapolis Colts fans. Yes. So we just went back and forth a little bit, and Hank explained why he doesn't like them. And really, it all does boil down to one windmill in particular, that it fell into the ocean off the Coast of Martha's Vineyard. And then Hank, I was like, That sucks. So ships couldn't get past it. Hank was like, No, actually, I think the fish were eating the windmill after it fell into the ocean glass.

That was thousands of pieces of fiber glass.

Hold on. That's the fish's fault. Why would the fish eat fiber glass, idiot?

Because It's in the ocean. They thought it was-It thought it was bait, the giant windmill?

Well, they're dumb.

Fish are dumb.

Survival of the fittest.

But yeah, in this discussion, which was very not heated whatsoever, I did come to realize I have no issue with the land windmills. It's just the ones off the We grew a little bit today. Yeah, a lot of growth.

My drive was great. I just had Stephen Che in the back seat just randomly saying weird things, and we'd be like, huh? And then Kadek in the front seat who is Mike Kadek, who is in some of these interviews with us. We've had him show his past set. The reason why I love Kadek, people don't know, he played in Indiana. He's been working with us for a year now. He's just basically like a six-year-old where everything is the sweetest. He's like, What happens in the combine? I was like, There's GMs and coaches there. He's like, Oh, that's so sweet. Then I asked him, there was a moment we were talking about you, Max, and he was just like, It's just so fucking sweet drinking beers with Max. I was just like, Yeah, dude.

It's an awesome compliment. That rock.

Everything you say in life, he's just like, That's so sweet.

It was a great drive. I like to picture Steven in one of your kids' car seats still.

Yeah, he was. I buckled him in.

I will say the quitting nicotine thing has gone swimmingly. It's been awesome. Haven't had too many problems. The road trip is hard. The road trip is like the final boss. I think you got to slay when you're battling something like that because I had a breakfast crunch wrap on the way and following up a meal on a road trip with no nicotine. That's it right there. I got some scars from today. That's it. But I made it. But we made it through. Warrior. Yeah.

Was Hank also going no nicotine? Oh, wow.

Hank and I were road dogs today besides the whole windmill thing. In the front set when I just talked about-I don't understand what you guys fought about with the windmills.

No, the windmill wasn't-The only thing you guys just described was that you agreed. Well, no, honestly, no. I was getting defensive.

Sounds like you were defensive the whole car.

He was getting very defensive about the windmills.

It was a learning experience. I was getting defensive about the windmills. Like, windmills are bad. And then PFT was explaining why they're good. And then I was like, you know what? You're actually right. You're correct what you're saying. I don't know why I have an issue with land windmills. It's just the ocean ones.

Yeah, and I stand with Hank. I hate the ocean ones, too, because the fish eat them.

Land windmills good. Yeah.

Did you ever figure out why some of them don't move?

I think those might be broken.

It could be broken.

And it is true. When they get broken, there's nothing they can do with them, and they create more waste and it takes them. You can't dispose of a piece of a windmill because of the material.

I also learned from Landman, which is just one entire commercial for the oil industry, that windmills actually take a lot of oil to build, and so it's actually stupid. That was in between Billy Bob Thornton and Ali Larder fighting over dinner for the 7,000th time. It was a great show.

We should watch it. I think I saw that one scene. He was like, How much it costs an oil to build this One Windmill. That was a great scene because it didn't talk at all about what if you built more than one windmill at a time. No, just one.

Then they had tacos for dinner, and Billy Bob Thornt got a plate thrown in his head. That rocks. They made up by the pool and then had sex. Good show. Yeah, great show.

That's the show. Yeah, Windmills. We made a lot of progress about Windmills today.

Okay. I have a couple of quotes for you guys. You want to hear them? Yeah. Tell me which one do you think is more, I don't want to say dire, but it's like, okay, that's a weird quote to have said. The first one was, Playcalling is my superpower. You would probably think that's like Sean McVay, Mike McDonald, Ben Johnson. Yeah, whatever. That was Aaron Glenn. Aaron Glenn said, Playcalling is his superpower. Yeah, that is his superpower.

Superpower.

Memes? What... Do you guys ever see that documentary about the people who dress up like heroes and try to vigilante justice. Aren't it all in Seattle? I think San Diego, maybe.

Yeah, I feel...

Yeah. Yeah. Aaron Glenn could be with that crew like the fat Batman and just calling different players. Superpower.

What does it mean?

I had quotes. There's quotes. Why does it mean?

This might be a superpower. What? Call him defense. When does-You're trying to say you can't call defense.

No, I didn't say that. I said the quote.

You're making fun of it. No, I'm not. When does a superpower become a good thing? Week one. Starting now, it's a superpower. No, week one. Yeah, but this is going to be his first game with that as his superpower. He got bit by a superpower spider this offseason, and now he's got the superpower.

Did he call plays last year? No.

We're pretty much going through the same cycle as they had with Bob. Bob didn't call defensive plays. He let everybody handle it on their own. Would he intervene chained with Bob, said, You should just call the defense. He was like, No, I'm going to trust my guys. So now they're going through the same cycle with Aaron Glenn, where... Oh, look who's here.

Oh, Big Don's here. Hey, Big Dom. Hey. How are we doing? Big Don is here. So Big Dom came. We were obviously stopped the show to talk to Big Dom.

Some things have to be off the record.

The beef has been squashed, Hank.

He was going Going outside was mentioned, and I was like, this is one of those situations where I just have to just go outside and maybe just Chuck Nucks until I die with Big Dom. So I was ready to do that. I'm happy the beef was squashed. That was That's awesome. I mean, I said it. I don't think Big Dom knows me as well, but it's like I have talked a lot of shit about Philly and Italians. So it wasn't as personal with Big Dom. I stand on everything I said, but.

Well, it's like a I was just about to say that's a vent. You can't say- You did Philly and Italians, Big Dom's the middle. That's what I'm saying. He was taking it personally, but it wasn't as personal as he took it, but we squashed the beef. The look on your face was pretty funny when he first walked in. You were not exactly pumped.

Well, I was like, We're going to step outside. I was like, All right.

I think that Big Dom took the situation.

I think I stood up pretty well for myself.

He did good.

He took the situation more seriously than Hank anticipated him to take. Big Dom was not joking around. Hank also was done no favors by his good friend, Max.

Yeah, no, Max was the LVP.

He jumped up and sprinted out of the room. He left the room. Did not have your back at all. No.

I said, Where's Max?

No, I did not have your back. It was Alex Stein coming to the office.

I could have died and you would have been come back and be like, Oh, thanks, dad. All right.

You said some bad things about Big Don, and I wasn't going to take it.

This is all your fault.

No, we're good. We are good.

You're good with Big Dom.

Let the record show, It all started because of Max. Might have.

Factor fiction.

We don't know all sides.

Hank, will you be besmirching Big Dom in the future? Now, the beef is squash. He's family. He said we're all family.

I don't think I've besmirched him. This is a show where opinions are given. I have given my opinions. You guys have amplified those opinions and said things for me that I may or may not have even said. So I will continue to give my opinion.

No, no, no.

I've made faces, and then you guys are like, Oh, this is what you think. And then that's what gets back to him.

That's good. If he says no more slander, you have to... No more poking of slander. Yeah, that's the thing.

Because you guys are both pokers. You guys force me. You guys force me into things.

Let me ask a question, just a simple question. We'll just get face reactions. You don't even say anything. Big Dom is one of the most important pieces of the Philadelphia Eagles organization.

Yeah, I don't know how the organization works. What do you want me to say? What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to now just be like, Yeah, Big Dom is- His family.

Big Dom is a good guy.

I like Big Dom. I I respect the fact that he showed up. I like that he was standing on business.

He's the man.

I think he really wanted to hurt me at one point. That's funny. I respect that. But then if I'm now like, I love Big Dom, it's like I'm super fake. How fake is that ofIf I'm out, it's like, I love... There's no beef. There was never beef. It's just a show where we give takes.

There's a little beef.

No, not for me.

Max, can you explain?

You're just as bad. You poke and you make him say shit that he shouldn't say.

That's true.

You say shit you shouldn't say.

Max, you're doing this gaslighting 101 right now.

No, but you make him do it.

You made him say shit.

I make him say shit he shouldn't say.

Max, can you just tell us what went through your mind? When Big Dom came in, why did you leave?

I ran away. I got scared.

What were you scared of?

Because I love Big Dom. He's the best. He's arguably the face of the Eagles right now.

Why were you scared?

Hank, don't make a face, Hank.

I agree. Obviously, I love Hank, and Hank's my boss. I didn't want to get... I didn't like to see mom and dad fight, so I went and played outside.

Who's mom and who's dad in this situation?

Hank's for sure, mom.

I don't know, Hank. You're dad.

Hank was willing to throw down. Hank said it. I was willing to go outside.

What was your question to me?

Now, I was going to ask you the same question you asked me, but obviously, you're going to say yes. What? Is Big Dom the most important member? Yeah, I know. I'm fine with that.

Big Dom is the thing I feared the most about the Eagles by far.

Me, too. I want Big Dom.

I would love to have Big Dom.

The good news is Big Dom has accepted an invite to Max's bachelor party.

Wait, what, Max? I was doing that thing where you always yelled at me when I get nervous. I itch my balls. I caught myself mid-itching while I was getting anxious about this conversation.

That was a Max hat trick. He was itching his balls, caught himself, and then got mad at himself. He yelled at himself for itching his balls.

Max, big doms come to your bachelor party, maybe.

Yeah, maybe.

How sick would that be? How sick would that be? The tracksuit you would have at the cabana would be incredible.

I would love for big dom to be there.

Yeah, it would be.

It would be sick.

I like Big Dom more after that interaction. Yes. Good.

He's the man.

Good.

And beef squashed.

Beef squashed.

There was never a beef.

Hugged and dapped.

There was just twice. You have to have a beef to squash the beef.

There wasn't a beef. Big Dom also said he'd come on the show.

He had beef with me. But join the club, Big Dom.

We said that. It's like, he hates me. Join the club.

Big Dom also said he'd get max some of Vic Vangio's meatballs.

He did say that. I felt like it was stolen valor, but he did say that he would do that. Yeah.

Maybe you just eat them and spit them out so you can taste them.

No, that would be the most disrespectful.

But eating them, swallowing them, you can't poop out.

But as soon as it touches your lips, it would-Yeah, you got to swallow them.

Maybe you just smell them. Maybe you just hold them. You just hold Vic Vangio's Max got so excited from Big Dime.

He gave himself the hiccups.

I've never seen someone run away faster than Max ran away. Hank stood here. Hank stood on business. I did not. Big Dime stood on business. Max just... I had to say out loud, Where did Max go?

I left the room.

I'm happy that Biff is squash. I did say to him. I was like, I have talked more shit about the city of Philadelphia and their scumbag fans and honestly, Italians than pretty much anyone else. It's like Big Dom, I respect the fact that he took it personally, but I don't think it was as personal as he took it.

Well, you just described Big Dom.

No, I know. I understand that. But that's where it's like I was trying to explain to him. It's not that serious, at least from my side.

That was beautiful, though. Me and memories of the combine.

Did you think he was going to come?

Did you really have no idea?

I had no idea. I'm interested to see-We were texting about it all day.

You know who set it up?

Kadek. Kadek.

Kadek, that was sweet, dude. That was so sweet.

I mean, it was good. It was funny.

Hank apologizing is a superpower. Yeah. That was good. Yeah. It was fun. What means? Did I apologize?

No, I think you just- It wasn't as funny as...

It wasn't funny. I thought he was going to beat up Hank.

I thought it was hilarious.

But credit to Hank, he was just like, All right, if you want to go outside, let's go outside.

Chuck some knocks.

Dude. God.

And Max ran right into the bathroom.

Beef squash, beef squash, beef squash.

Max, did you ever put your hands over both your ears?

Oh, yeah, for sure.

I went outside. It was me, Kadek, and Big Dom's guy Cole, and I was covering my ears. I couldn't... I was like, this is... I was like, think of how uncomfortable I feel when you guys talk about Big Dom, and I couldn't see it in real time.

It did get to an uncomfortable point where I just threw out just to try to break some ice. I was like, Big Dom, that Laboobo was awesome. Just trying to get the boys on the right page. We ended up at a good spot. We did. We all hugged it out. It's great. I mean, that's the thing. Big Dom will do anything for you now. That's a fact.

I don't think so. No, I think so. But I will also never ask him for anything.

I think they're at the point where the beef is squash, but I wouldn't say Hank is in the Big Dom family.

No. Yeah.

But He feels neutral about you now.

Maybe bachelor party things could change.

Yeah, bachelor party. You guys could be the best friends. Bachelor party could be the best friend. I want him to come so bad.

He would be the one-one. He's the one-one.

We also have a big dom translator and security guard Mike. We just have them just hang out together.

Man, Big Dom and Fanta at the Black Jack table together. Doing Schrums?

Oh my God.

Well, no, just Fanta. No.

Fanta is the only one to do Schrums.

No, Fanta, no. He listened to Dare.

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By the way, sneaky part that everyone missed. Zack was standing off to the side, this ready to go. He was ready for anything. He was like, literally, he He got them loaded. He got both those things loaded.

I'm not a physical altercation guy, but you got to be a show guy first. I just weren't sure where we were going. So you had Hank's back. I think it was fair. I will say you got to give credit to Hank because before the beef was squashed, that was a beautiful thing. When Big Dom said, We can go outside, Hank didn't miss Stride. No matter what his fate was going to be outside, he was ready to accept that fate. All right, we're in the convention center, I guess.

It would have been a hell of a story.

I guess I'm going outside.

I love the idea.

That's the thing about Big Dom. He would have put you in the hospital then brought you Canolis.

He would have stopped by.

It would have been good, though, if you guys went all the way outside, so you had to traverse through this entire convention center before it was like, All right, now let's get physical.

Yeah, it's a long walk to get outside.

I mean, things really would have escalated from Jordan Schultz and Ian Rappaport last year to now it's Hank and Big Dom.

Max just whaling like a baby watching.

Max gets put in a foster care for podcast at that point.

I'm not Hard forever.

There's another on the table.

Oh, okay. I had one other quote, too. Okay. Yeah, go ahead.

There's another thing where everything's on the table.

That was so awesome. That was a great PMT moment. It was great.

Holy shit. It was awesome. Listen, I don't know if I can truly explain how awkward and a little bit scary it was, but also awesome. Awesome.

Every second of it, I was like, this is the best. Hard disagree. The whole time, I was like, this is the best thing ever.

It was great. But also there were some times when I thought maybe it be the worst thing ever, but then it was back to being the best thing ever again.

I thought the whole thing was awesome.

I describe it as like when you commit a crime, you commit a crime, and then the cops come to you and you're just hoping that they let you off, but you're like, if I go to jail for this, I committed this crime, and I just have to hope it works out.

That's respect. Yeah. That's respect. Okay, the quote I had was, Joe Shane, GM the Giants, said, I'm still the general manager of the team. My role has not changed. I feel like that's not great when you have to say that.

Yeah, if you ever have to describe the fact that, by the way, I'm not fired. You're pretty much fired. Right. I'm still the GM. Nobody has ever said, Hey, just so you know, technically, I'm not fired. And they got an extension after.

Just a heads up, still the GM over here. Yeah.

But the other, everything on the table. There's two on the tables. There's the two, everything's on the table. The Cardinals All options are on the table at quarterback. Not just with Kyler Murray. Austin Font, their GM, who, by the way, he's around here somewhere, had a beer with him last year. I like him. Cool guy. He said, We've got Kyler Murray Jacobi Braset, Keaton Slovis, all under contract as it pertains to that position, and we're going to continue and go through that process. It's all on the table. So everything's on the table with Kyler.

Including the Cardinals, maybe trading for Tyson Bajian. That's been a big story. I mean, not a big story, but the bears might trade Tyson Bajian. Is that true? Yeah. Cardinals are one of the teams.

I feel like that is-Kyler in Chicago?

Why?

That's who you just said?

No, Tyson Bajian to the Cardinals.

Four. Would they trade?

No, I think we would trade for a draft pick.

So Kyler to Chicago?

Yeah, that's what I heard.

I do not think we'll trade for Kyler in his contract.

That's what I heard, too. City of Big Shoulders. Okay. I feel like Kyler Murray. Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like Malik Willis. Florio speculates Malik Willis as well, but I speculated before. I pre-speculated Florio weeks ago regarding Malik Willis to Arizona.

Okay. So we'll keep everyone updated on comment. We have more combine talk with Diana. Before we do Hot Seat Cool Throne, should we talk about the USA hockey team controvers? Because I'd like to address it. So there's a lot of people who are talking about it and the national anthem at 11 last night. 11 is not a strip club. It is a club with strippers. Let's just get that clear, okay? Because a lot of people were upset about it, and I'm not going to stand for it. You guys agree, right? It's a club with strippers. Well, IThere's a big difference.

I thought the controversy was everyone singing, or did everyone just have their hand over their heart? I think you can do whatever you want. If you want to sing, that's fine. If you sing, I don't think your hand has to be over your heart. It would be nice if it was. But if your hand's over your heart, that's good enough. If you don't feel like singing, your voice is gone. So maybe just everybody chill out because everyone shows their patriotism in a different way.

There were some takes flying around that they sang the national anthem at a strip club, and it's like, guys-What's wrong with that? I don't know what's wrong with it, but again, put some respect on Eleven.

It's a club of strippers. I think every strip club should have the national anthem.

Before they start the poll work?

Every performance, yeah. I agree.

You got a problem That looks like the best party ever.

You get the fuck out if you got a problem with that.

Yeah, that looked like the best party ever. If you have a problem with the Eleven takes, just know Twitter's not real. A lot of Twitter's the real world, but it's not. Because those guys were having a blast.

It is the best time ever.

It is the best place on Earth.

Imagine the scaries the players are going to have when they're just in their regular uniforms Wednesday. Going to play. Yeah. And they just have to go play a regular game.

I don't think they're going to right away, they're going to get a little bit of time. But yeah, it's got to be a tough wake up. There also was a residual Canada Cope that I loved. Some guy was like, I feel like if Canada had won the gold medal, they would have just gone back to their NHL teams, not celebrated because that's what we do in gold medals. You don't. You didn't this year.

Yeah.

So you didn't.

Also, Canada doesn't celebrate is a weird take.

But Canada is now in the Cope spot where they're doing the SEC football football hypotheticals. If we had won this, we wouldn't have celebrated at all.

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure that Canada- Canada doesn't have an 11. They don't have 11.

Montreal has got some good strip clubs, but they're not clubs of strippers.

Eleven is not a strip club. That's true.

What's that place out in Vancouver that they got? Where you get the flu, the Roxy flu?

Yeah, the Roxy flu.

They got the Roxy, which is pretty nasty. But Canada, when they lost the Stanley Cup, when it was Vancouver, didn't they riot after a loss?

Yeah, they burnt the city down.

They burnt the city down. So yeah, maybe they only riot when they lose. Maybe. Who knows?

It's so great that we have it for four years. That's got us things.

We should just- Because the Four Nations, yeah, okay, but it's not the gold medal. Let's try to just get-If we win it again. Let's just try to get hockey canceled in the Olympics.

So it just stays ours. We should.

From now on. Honestly, it's not good for the health and safety of the NHL players. It should go back to just being amateurs. Oh, man.

I fucking I love that we won the gold. And we are. The takes that we talked about on Sunday, being like, Americans are just going to move on to the next sport. Bill Self, Big Monday. We said it. That's all he does is win on Big Monday, and we're at football is back. Then I saw the one guy double down, and he's like, Don't even worry about America. They're just going to be busy filling out their brackets in a couple of weeks. That's sweet. To quote Mike Kadek, sweet, dude.

You're going to have to be more specific about which brackets because we have so many brackets that we're going to fill out. We might do a bracket for the NCAA tournament. We might do one for the NIT. We might do one for the CBI, the Crown. We might just fuck around and just do fast food brackets and then get mad about those because we have so many different kinds of fast food that we can literally make a 6014 bracket. We bracket everything. Fast food restaurants. Yeah, listen, buddy, it's not easy, snacketing all the time, but it is something that will be our cross to bear as Americans.

We got to win the World Baseball Classic.

And the World Cup. Yeah. Can you imagine how awesome it would be, though, if we did... We're not going to win the World Cup. But the level of fuck you's that we could give to the world if we took over soccer. They might cancel all sports. I think every other country would agree to bomb us if we won the World Cup. Yeah.

Max, by the way, I told you off air, but I'll say it on there. We have an in with the Italian team in the World Baseball Classic. Our guy, Vinnie, he was on your team, right? Passcortino?

Vinnie Passcortino is on my Dinger's Only team. It was for most of the season. That guy's a stick.

We're in preliminary talks with him. I'm in preliminary talks with him to get Max to go to a game dressed as a meatball. Would be pretty sick.

I accept.

It would be awesome for the vibes.

I will join Team Italy if they need me to be a meatball. I'm still a little shook, so my words are not working great, but I will do it.

Just touch your balls again. Your words are not working great.

I'm nervous. I'm still anxious about what happened. Check in your home. There you go. I'm texting Roan right now. I'm getting-What did Roan say?

Also, Roan fucked me. That was so dirty. Big Dom was like, Yeah, your guy at the party was like, That guy's a piece of shit.

That is right. Roan's the best for that.

It's like one of my best friends.

We do have... Che got to the bottom of Tua. Che, are you here? Here he goes.

Our CAP expert.

He's our CAPologist.

I would also like to hear what was Steven doing?

Yeah, Steven, where were you when the Big Dom was going down? Come over here. Come to a mic. Here's Get up for a second. I'll go wear Max's. Were you worried for Hank? Yeah, you weren't around. If things got third, I would have stepped in.

Oh, wow. Che knows karate.

So Tua signed a four-year, 212. 4 million dollar deal in July 2024, including 167. 2 million dollars in guaranteed money. Deal expires after This year, 2028, so three years left. Cutting Tua pre-June first this year incurries 99. 2 million in dead money.

That seems like a lot of dead money.

If released after June first, they can spread that money over two years.

But you can also release a guy and then designate it as post-June first, which doesn't really make that much sense. They ideally would like to find somebody to trade for Tua to take on that caption.

Yeah, but his salary is 56 million dollars this year.

So you'd have to throw in like, Hey, we'll give you Tua, and then maybe be a good draft pick.

Yeah, but that's still a lot of money for a team to incur. Who can absorb 56? So they're going to have to cut them or play them.

Yeah. Cut them or play. Everything's on the table.

Everything's on the table, but mostly it's cut or play. Okay, thank you, Steven. Great work as our Capologist. Okay, before we get to Hut Seat Cool Throne. By the way, a reminder, we have Zack's 36-hour stream coming on Friday. Okay.

We've got a Max top 18, me and Max, and then I'm 18 on the back in, one man, yes.

Okay, and we'll also have a tracker on screen with Microsoft. So we're going to have a QR code, a tracker on stream with Microsoft Copilot. And what we're going to do is people can download Microsoft Copilot, and once the downloads get to every X amount, we'll figure it out before, it will trigger a wheel of four challenges, four rewards, four punishments for Zack and Max to complete. So that's going to be fun. And the more you download, the more Zack gets punished. Tune into Zack's 36-hour Punishment Stream Friday and download Copilot with the QR code on screen.

Yeah, there'll be a QR code on screen, the whole stream.

It's going to be great. The punishments are the... There are four sections of the wheel that are all two and a half K in the booth.

Love it. I want to see the 10K in the booth.

There is an out if people just don't do that.

If everyone downloads It was copilot.

10k in the booth. It's going to happen.

It's roughly only 4,600 down and back. That's not bad. One way, so 2,300-ish bottom.

That's not that many hundreds.

Because the booth is bigger than we first thought. It's 158 inches. So we got a decent run.

I think it's 312 down and back. Down and back is one. You have to do that 312 times per wheel slice.

Oh, that's not that bad.

The worst part about that is going keeping count. Yes, it is.

No, we have a pitch counter.

Okay.

Down and back is one.

Down and back is one. 312 times.

312 times.

So much.

That's not bad.

I think my biggest worry is getting dizzy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Zack's also... We'll see.

Okay.

Maybe we take like, airborne or something. You know, like from ocean sickness. Yeah. Get ahead of it. Dramamine.

Then he might sleep in too much. We could Dram up. Yeah. That could...

Can't sleep in too much.

Your wake up.

That wouldn't be entertaining at all. Okay.

Hudson Cool Throne brought to you by Pizza Hut. Have you heard about Pizza Hut's Big New Yorker? It's Pizza Hut's biggest pizza, massive 16-inch slices, so big you have to fold them for just $10. Ten dollars doesn't go as far as it used to, but the Big New Yorker, it's an XL pizza with fluffy New York-style crust and Parmesan, oregano, reasoning, that's a lot for $10. What more could you want? The $10 Big New Yorker is a big deal. You can't argue with the math. For a limited time only, order a $10 big New Yorker and solve dinner with six XL slices on New York style crust. Hank, your Hot Seat cool drone.

My Hot Seat fanatics, Nike, back in the Hot Seat. They thought that Canada was going to win the gold, so they just did not make enough USA jerseys. And so by the time USA won the gold, they were already sold out. It's probably like everyone was fired up. Everyone was feeling their patriotism, wanted to buy a jersey. They just could not.

That's brutal. It's disgusting. Dropped the ball.

That's brutal.

We should be allowed to make our own. They shouldn't be allowed to copyright-strike us or say it's knockoff. If you didn't make it-until you produce enough. Let the free market fill in.

Let us do it. I agree.

My cool throw of this is true. The first time I read it, I just assumed it was fake. But then I saw enough sources. I think you're going to steal mine.

Heat 2? No.

Heat 2, Christian Bay, Leo DiCaprio. Oh, okay.

Hell, yes. Do you think it's real?

Yeah, Disgusting Film. Discusting Film?

Discusting Film?

Disgusting Film.

Disgusting Film. It's a Bonnie Blue.

This guy, Jake's Takes, who is an MU-winning entertainment anchor for Good Day Chicago.

I'm excited about that because he-Oh, Jake Owen.

Jake Hamilton.

Jake Hamilton, I meant. He is the best. Jake Owen is the golfer. Jake Owen is the golfer.

He's a real guy.

Jake Hamilton, yeah, furball. Yeah. Yeah.

So he reported it.

Yeah, okay. I trust Jake.

He is one of the best movies of all time.

And Christian Bay, Leo DiCaprio, he, too.

Yeah.

I'm in. Awesome. I'm in. I'm in.

I hope there's guns in this one, too.

All the way in. Also, Jacob Bridgman. What about him? He won the Riviera last week, and there was a clip on PGA Tour posted from his wife that said he's a better person than he's a golfer. Nope. Not true.

Not true. Not true, dude. You just won a PGA tour tournament. Like, Scottie Scheffler, he even admits, Way better golfer. I don't think Bridgerton is a better human than Scottie Scheffler.

You're a better golfer, dude. You are top 50 golfer alive right now. You're not top 50 human being. Sorry, buddy. Yep. Seems like a nice guy.

Wrong. Fact.

Also, Biasource much, his source much.

His wife. She She's got to say that. She might not like golf.

That's true. She might not like him.

I think she does like him. She doesn't like the fact that he plays golf. He's gone every weekend.

She's trying to get him to stop golfing, to go out and be a person full-time.

Yeah. By the way, we got her up, guys. Yeah. Just a fact.

Hudson Coolter on PFT?

I'm a Bridgeman guy. You're a Bridgeman guy?

I'm any golfer.

I'm a golf guy. Just any golfer.

Anyone who wins, that's your guy.

If you're on a tour?

A tour?

What did you say?

It was like that? Patrick Reid guy?

Yeah.

Just any golfer?

Any golfer.

Ever?

Basically.

Okay. All right. We'll find some golfers. Oj, I was about to say OJ golfer.

Loved golf. Not professional.

But he loved golf. You said any golfer.

No. Was he on a tour?

He was not on a tour.

All right. My hut seat is going to be, because Hank took one of them, the NFL rule book.

I had one.

On the hut seat because the NFL just unveiled their rules today. A little bit gimmicky. I'm just going to say it. Mike Rupoli is now in charge of the NFL, the body armor guy. We love Mike Rupoli. And Noble. And Noble. But it seems, and Hank, you might enjoy this take or this angle on it, seems like they've assembled just an Italian football league because it's Mike Rupoli, it's Dean Blandino, and it's Mike Pereira all calling the shots for the NFL now. They've changed some of the rules. They're doing a four-point field goal for long field goals. You're not allowed to punt inside the 50-yard line. Then they've got one, two, and three-point conversions after you score a breakdown. I don't like the banning of punting inside the 50. That's going to be tough on some of the older coaches like Mike Tomlin.

Wait, this is NFL or NFL?

It's NFL. Yeah, it's Rupoli's League.

Okay, yeah. I So I don't have to learn any of these rules.

You don't have to learn any of these rules unless they try to bring over some of the rules. Got it. The four-point field goal, I think, is one of those things that... That's been the league leader and stuff that you say when you're watching football with the boys that you don't actually want in the NFL. It'd be cool if there's a four-point field goal past 60 yards, but nobody actually really wants that. No. Field goals are worth three points.

We don't want more field goals.

Extra points are worth one point. Two-point conversions are worth two points.

Three-point conversion It could be fun.

It could be worth three. I disagree. A nine-point game being a one possession game. If you're up nine points, that should be two possession.

I do see the rule getting floated around again. Instead of an on-side kick, you have to convert a fourth and 20. I'm all for that.

I like that. All for that. That's good. Yeah. Then my cool thrown is Darren Peterson. Yeah. So Kansas back, time of the Cougars. I was pissed off. Houston didn't really drop that much in the Futures Department after this little stretch that they went through. But Darren Peterson gave an interesting interview after the game. He said, Somebody has had something to say probably after every game. I don't really pay attention. I have been an antisocial loner my whole life. And that's how he handles some of the criticism. Not the greatest thing to hear from your star player being like, I'm an antisocial loner. But I think it's probably for the best that he's saying it out loud I think that's progress, right? As opposed to just being an antisocial loner and not talking about being an antisocial loner.

It's a team game, though.

Now he's being- You want to be a teammate. Now I feel like he's being a social loner.

We have gotten into a weird area where now the kids are getting paid a lot of money We're like, Well, they're getting paid, but they still... He's 18. Yeah. So his brain is half formed. What is your brain forms fully in 25?

Until you're 25.

So it's like, I cut him a little slack.

Yeah, just kids.

He's 18.

Now, I do think that if you're 18 years old, having millions of people that have an opinion on you is not something that a human was ever meant to absorb as an 18-year-old. Until what? A hundred years ago, 200 years ago, the most people that knew about an average 18-year-old in the world was probably 5,000. What's up, Mims?

Eighteen was like life expectancy.

What's up, Mims?

Are you laughing at Max?

Mims just keeps texting me, calling me a pussy. I say, Yes, I am a pussy.

All about running out the room. Running out the room. But yeah, I feel like the college kids are in a weird spot right now because the human brain is not equipped to handle people, a million people being like, This guy's a bitch. It's fine if your boy is like, Hey, you're a pussy, and text you that. But imagine if you're a young kid and you've got a million people hitting up the DMs. But it was still weird to see that from... It was weird to hear that in a press conference, but I do feel more optimist about Kansas after last night.

If they could play all their games on Monday night with Bill Self. Okay, my hot seat is boxing. I actually thought this was fake. This is what I thought was fake when you said Heat 2. Mayweather and Pacquiao are fighting again.

Finally.

Why?

Who wants this? Who asked for this?

They were washed the first time.

Yeah.

This is now Mayweather is 49, Pacquiao is 47.

Why? Why?

This sucks.

It sucks. No one wants it. No one wants it.

I'll watch it, but I don't want it.

It's two guys that have the most boring fighting style when matched up against each other when they're young, and now they're old.

But you didn't say where it is.

Where is it?

Sphere.

Yeah, it's at Sphere.

Fuck, I'm in. I'm so in. I'm so fucking in. That's awesome. The first morning is at Sphere. That's so sick. I'm so in. All right, my cool thrown is I have two. The first is we have our March Madness gear now in the store, store. Barcelsports. Com. We got the new Positive Vibes hat. I got the Just Cover hat. I love this Just Cover hat. We got Just Cover sweatshirt, everything. So go right now, buy it, get ready for the best month of the year with March Madness coming up. And then my other cool thrown, Hank, I have something for you. I'm such a good friend. I came across a tweet and I bookmarked it. You ready for the tweet? Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm a good friend. Laid on me. Okay. I have not fact-checked any of this tweet. I'm just going to say it to Hank, and we just go from there.

314?

Yeah. The length of Jason Tatum's documentary is 314. I didn't even know he had a documentary. Jason Tatum was eligible for a $315 million Supermax, but signed for $314 million. St. Louis area code is 314. Celtics play the Wizards on 314. I love this. Yeah? I think going to come back then.

Wow. It's also pie.

It is pie. 3.

1.

It's pie day. 3. 145678,2,3.

You're just making this up.

I made it all up.

You know what, Hank? I believe it.

There you go, Hank. That's big.

I believe it. I feel like Tatum is coming back.

Definitely.

I feel like the Celtics are the team to be. I did cash out of the future.

Why?

Because I didn't want to be right again. I saw how angry that made Hank.

Wait, but you were wrong.

No, I was right.

You bet on the Patriots.

Yeah, but I wanted them to lose.

You were wrong because you said the Patriots weren't going to go to the Super Bowl in five years.

I was wrong about that. That part I was very wrong about. But no, I didn't want to do it to my boy Hank. I wanted Hank to enjoy this postseason in the NBA free from my trolling. I wanted to let nature take its course and let-That's not going to stop anything. And let Jerry O'Kunal step back in to the role that he was born to play. Okay. Jerry does it better. Good.

I want the Knicks. Okay.

You want the Knicks. You want them. Why?

Because I want a bing bong in Jerry's face.

Okay. Revenge. You'll have your shot.

Not scared, yeah.

You'll have your shot. Zack? Knicks aren't scared either.

Oh, there you go, Zack. Way to go. You stand up for yourself. You know what I mean? No, dude, he was cocked and loaded. I love that. Swear to God, he was ready to go.

No, it was just high stress environment.

I didn't know what was going on.

Did you have a knife? I think I saw you take a weapon.

All the way weaponless. May have been a portable charge.

Zack just stabbed Big Dom while we were trying to do peace talks.

May have been a portable charger. Peace, squashed.

Peace, squashed. All right, Zack, your Hudson Cool Thrun.

My Hudson this week is going to have to be a friend of the program, Terr Scouble. Did you guys see? Yes. He is going to have a roster spot for the baseball classic, but he's just going to pitch one game.

He isn't pitching more than one game.

He's pitching one game against Great Britain. It's because he's in a contract here. It's definitely-Oh, that makes sense. He definitely said that he wanted to pitch in it. Then Scott Boris definitely was like, No fucking way you're pitching in this. Then they probably came to a compromise that was like, All right, you can pitch three innings against Great Britain so that you can say... It's bullshit. Scott Boris, let him fucking pitch on the team. Yeah. I blame Scott Boris.

Because we know Scooval would do it. Absolutely. He's a haus. You don't just stop being a hausse because it's a World Base Classic.

It's bullshit.

I agree. It sucks.

I agree. You hate to see contrast getting away of country. And then my cool thrown this week is going to be-Wait, do you do emojis on your cool throng? Yeah, I do. I separate the ice cube, and then we do the heat.

That's awesome, Zack.

Emojis are the best way to categorize- Wait, let me see.

You had a lot. You had you come prepared. You had Tush Push, NFL United Football League.

Don't bring up Tush Push. Max will get mad.

The NFL is quiet talk, but NFL won't stand for... Oh, so you had that and then you had scuble. Kind of lame for taking a spot and only pitching one game against a team like Great Britain.

I tied it, but I didn't say it.

Okay, go ahead.

My cool term this week is going to be guys who game. You guys are into studies done by accredited colleges and accredited medicine libraries? Hell, yeah. So 30 minutes of cardio all we need could drastically change performance in virtual worlds such as video games.

So are you going to start?

So I hit the treadmill last night. I did have a losing record for the evening. I was two and three, but that's drastically better because the previous evenings, I was like, oh and six, oh and seven. What was your KD ratio? I'm more of a hold the Hold the point.

It's hard. I'm not exactly on the point, but I'm watching the cut. He's trying to get time in the point.

I give the guy's time on the point. I make some separation between P1, P2. Hold the hills.

What games are we going to play on Friday?

I think it's a possibility we play a couple of games. Maybe me and you hop in a chain together. That could be fun. A lot of doubters think we couldn't beat it, but I think me and you could beat it.

We're not going to commit to beating that because that'll take the entire stream.

Yeah, we never commit, but we give it a shot. I think it'd be fun. Maybe we go up in the skies, PFT, maybe. That could be fun.

We do our tight sheet work out before.

I said Zack up with the flight sim last week, put him in the goggles, VR. Zack is a natural on the stick. I believe it. He's a natural on everything. I feel like if I gave Zack two2 days.

To get it off the runway.

Flying a plane. Autopilot. Zack is already well on his way to being a better pilot than me.

No, PFT's ability to fly the plane from the back of the plane is the only reason we made it off the ground.

We're going to compliment off. No, Zack is like... I'll tell you I went into the sky with the wrong mission. First chance, first opportunity to land a plane.

He landed the plane. Hank's going to show us again.

This is how you do a flight simulator. Hold the joystick, tilt it up, get it in the air, autopilot.

That's just not true. That's not true. We don't use autopilot.

You don't respect the skies. That's not cool.

Hank's just being a hitter right now.

I respect real flying. Flying real planes is beyond respect.

Until you're in Syria under attack.

This is really simulating. You're flying a plane.

By Russian fighter jets.

Zack landed his first attempt.

And then PFT ejected me.

You're arguing against yourself.

No, I'm saying Zack's different. Zack is nasty on the stick. He's different.

I think anybody could be decent in the skies, but we got to have respect for the skies at the end of the day.

Yeah, respect for the skies.

Respect for the skies.

I respect for real skies.

Okay.

Okay, let's get to our interview. Great interview with Diana Rossini, and then we'll finish up back in studio with guys on Chicks and Olympic takes.

Your arms have to be long enough to touch the autopilot button. Sometimes guys don't have long enough arms for that. Before we get to Diana Rossini, she's brought to you by our great friends over at Twisted Tea. Twisted Tea is a refreshing hard ice tea made with real brewed tea, 5% alcohol. Twisted Tea is a perfect drink, keeps the good times going all day, all season long. Whether you're hanging out at a friend's house, if you're catching a game at the stadium or at the bar, if you're day drinking 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. I'm going to have a Twisted Tea with my dinner tonight. Going to crack open an ice cold. Maybe you get a half and a half. Got a nice little buzz going on a Tuesday night. All thanks to our great friends over at Twisted Tea. Diana Rossini is also brought to you by Microsoft Copilot. It's going to be a lot of chaos in this interview with Diana Rossini, but before we get there, we got to tell you about something that helps people focus on what's most important.

Microsoft 365 Copilot. The world moves fast, your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work, built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps that you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize. So you can cut through any clutter and clear path to your best work. Learn more at microsoft. Com/m365copilot. Learn more at microsoft. Com/m365copilot. And now here's Diana Rossini.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very, very special guest, one of our favorite guests. Dear friend. Dear friend. It is Combine Week in Indy. It is Diana Rossini from the Athletic Scoop City, which has been crushing it. I see you have added an extra A Day of Podcasting?

Yeah.

Thanks, guys. So Monday, Wednesday, Thursday now?

Well, what happens is the bosses go, be more like Pardon My Take. Why are they doing all these shows and you're not working hard enough?

Have you thought about getting stuff wrong more?

I focus on it all the time. That's why we added a show because I get so much wrong. We needed an extra episode every week.

That also tells me that your bosses don't listen to Pardon My Take because if they did, they'd be like, hey, they would be like, be less like Pardon My Take. Don't spend 20 minutes talking about Levia on Bell's tweets on a show.

I will say, even sometimes, I'll see the length of your shell, and I'm like, Who has two hours and 47 minutes? It's usually a fight. Then I'll go through and I'll listen a little and I'm like, What is... It just goes off the rails.

If there's something that happens or or some story, and then we just go down a rabbit hole. It's like, Oh, shit. We just wasted 45 minutes on that?

We had to do a little debate about which grocery store you would fuck, which grocery store you would marry, which grocery store would be your second wife.

Is she yellow?

You get lost in the pod sometimes. That's a good question, though, to start off. You're a reporter, you're in the news. How old is Levia on Bell?

Thirty-six. Okay.

Close. Well, close and far.

Sources say he's anywhere between 34 and 45.

Yeah, he keeps saying he's 45, but he's 34.

He's not said he's- Multiple times, he said he's 45.

On his birthday, he said, 45 trips around the sun. It's whatever. We shouldn't do this.

You remember Ryan Lockey's dog? Ryan Lockey's dog, nobody had any idea how old it was. It turned four seven years in a row.

Is he still alive?

We'll say yes.

No, Levia on Bell.

All right, let's bring it back to focus here. Combine Week, three biggest stories in Combine Week.

I mean, right now, I'd say the biggest stories are A. J. Brown.

Okay.

Will he/women? What the equals are going to do. I think Max Crosby is still the biggest story, and probably what Minnesota is going to do, a quarterback. To me, those are the three outside talking about the upcoming draft and free agency. I think that's where everyone's putting all their energy into.

That last one, Max Crosby and A. J. Brown, we all know, could be traded. I think A. J. Brown is probably going to be traded. Max Crosby, I actually would go gun to head not traded. Vikings, though.

You can ask me what I know.

What do you think? You think he is or no?

I think that it's good in both situations.

Do you want to start with A. J? Yeah, let's start with A.

J. Traded. I think AJ has been pretty open about wanting to move on, right? So I think it's just going to come down to whether or not Philly is going to be able to move them to a team that would make sense for AJ Brown in his camp and how they want to do it. But I think there's hope from some Philly fans that they can maybe make this work. But I don't know. I just look at it as, yes, AJ is a great player and the team is better with him on it. They've been to two Super Bowl, but sometimes it's just better to just split and go in separate ways in separate directions. They've got so much to manage and handle anyways with all these new coaches that I think it's probably better that they do split. I expect a lot of that to heat up over the next few days. We'll probably have an answer very soon. Oh, wow. It's going to be that quick. Because usually that's how it works. Because what happens is all the teams start chatting and things start getting done, and then we have to wait for it to become official.

But I think people start talking about it.

When you say that people like, stuff gets done when they hang out here at the combine, how much gets done just out at steak dinners? A lot. Just like two GMs happen to get drunk together and they're like, Yeah, fuck it. Let's do this trade.

I've stood next to them. I've had a lot of stories break in bars. I had one last year. Whereas remember when the Giants were interested in Matthew Staffer, we weren't sure if Staffer was going back, and Vegas gave him that huge offer, and York was really hoping that he would go there. I think we all were like, Yeah, he's not doing that. But the Giants had hope. I was at Prime, and it was probably like 1: 00 in the morning, and I was like, Okay, I got to go home. I have a flight in the morning. I just saw some people who I knew would know about the situation walk in. I just did a loop, went right back in, and found out that Stafford was going into the Ram's facility in four hours to tell Sean McVay that he wanted to be there and that he wants to do a deal. I just wrote the story from the airport when I never went to bed.

You're like, Instead of going to bed, I'm just going to hang out with Peter Schrager.

No, I beat Schrager on that story.

Okay, are we stafford?

You can just listen to her podcast, and she'll tell you everything. It'd be great.

I want to do the Max Strauss, me and Viking as well, but I have a side question here. In the combine, going to the bars, you're a big J journalist. We're two idiots, so we can go and talk to people. We don't share secrets that we hear at a bar. We might joke about it, but we're not trying to gather information. Is that tricky, though? Having that like, Hey, I'm friends with you. We're sitting at a bar, but also I'm doing a job. Where's that line?

It's Forget the bar situation. It's every day. You wind up talking to so many people because you have a great relationship with them. And there are some relationships where you're talking so often and you're sharing life stuff as well, like family, and you get to know each other. And I'm like, Wait, did he want me to know that? Is that he's trading that player? I'm not sure. I got to go circle back. I think most people in football are pretty savvy to know what I do for a living. So I like to think that they're not it. I think they trust that I'm going to handle the information well. But most know what they're doing, especially Combine week. There's reporters everywhere.

Do you respect retroactive off the record? If someone says something to you and you have a shocked face and they go, actually off the record.

I hate that, actually. I get offended. I'm like, everything's off the record with me until it is. Until it's on. Then I say, Okay, can I go with this? That's actually probably how I work more than ever now. I just talk to everyone, and then I will call them back or shoot them a note or an audio message and be like, Hey, would you care if I go on my podcast and say that you're trading your quarterback tomorrow?

That feels like it's a good way to do it. You probably get way more information if you're just like, You know that it's always off the record. Then at some point, I'll be like, Hey, can I report this?

You know what the hardest thing is? When you do know so much and you can't say it. You guys have had me on shows before When you know I know, but I can't say it, and everyone's up in arms about, Well, she doesn't know what she's doing. I want to scream like, Oh, my gosh, if they only knew.

You know what you're doing.

I over talk sometimes.

What about the-I over share. Audio message? I hate that. I hate that move. The most annoying thing ever is audio messages. Just text or call, but don't call. Just text. Text works perfectly fine.

Why does the audio message bother you?

Because I have to hit play, and I have to play it out loud, and it's so annoying. Just text.

I just hit it, and you know how it transcribes it? I just read it as a text. I don't really listen to it.

You got to listen. You got to get the inflate. When I see the audio message, I think to myself like, This is some good shit, because the person was not willing to write it. But then it will be normal. They didn't want it to be screenshotted.

Right, and then it'll be normal. So like, Jerry O'Neill and Julian Edelman, those are the two biggest-Jules is big. The two biggest where you'll just be texting back and forth. Then they'll just pop an audio message in and it won't be anything. You'd be like, Dude, you could have just kept on texting.

Exactly. I had a weird situation on the walk over here. I had a player send me an audio message about his situation, and then at the end of it said, Thumbs up this if you're down with this. But I didn't listen to it all the way through. I didn't realize until I saw the font. I'm like, Oh, good thing I read it.

Did you thumbs up it?

Yeah, I did. Okay. Then he emojied it back to see that he saw the thumbs up. I'm like, This is so much work.

What emojiSpy games. What emoji did AJ Brown use back to you when he thumbs up it? Crying face.

Crying face.

With AJ, you mentioned something earlier about what's good for him and his camp and what they want to accomplish. How does that factor into what the Eagles are going to do because I feel like Howie is going to do what Howie does.

Howie is going to do what's best for the Eagles, but I like to think that he's going to want to work with Jimmy Sexton, that's AJ Brown's agent, and put AJ at a team that has a quarterback that he probably wants to Can I throw a couple of cities out there to you? Sure.

New England. If AJ were here right now-It's cold.

You want me to talk about the city?

What emoji would AJ Brown use to respond to these cities? New England. Smiley Face. Buffalo. Smiley Face. Okay. Washington, DC.

Thumbs down.

Tennessee Titans. Poop emoji. Okay. That's a good city.

Los Angeles.

It's been everywhere. Which one? The city.

No.

Which team?

The Lightning Bolt.

Oh, that'd be an interesting one. Smiley Face.

Smiley Face.

Good quarterback. Okay. What's the deal with...

But by the way, I'm answering these just based on the quarterbacks. No, we're interviewing you right now.

You don't like Kim Ward. Okay, print that.

Knowing the wide receiver wants to play with a quarterback that is very good. You're naming teams that have very good quarterbacks.

Jaden Daniels, you said thumbs down.

I don't think Washington would be a place he'd play. Why is that? I mean, if the opportunity is there, I'm sure he'll listen, but I don't see him going there.

A lot of people are forgetting about Jaden Daniels. That's all I'm going to say. A lot of people are forgetting. I'm keeping a list, and now AJ is on the list, even though it just came three. Diana should be on the list. You're on the list, too. Yeah. You're good with memes now. Now, I hate you. Yeah. What?

Pass the Diana file over to the PFT.

Every time I come on, I'm growing more enemies. When we started, it was like we were like a family, and now it's like I'm on the outs with every person. We have to just pass you. Dan is just me and you, baby.

Yeah, we're good.

We're fine. Can we talk about the bears? Yeah.

Max Crosby? Because Spitech just said that they weren't going to trade him. I know that you've talked a lot to Max Crosby.

Oh, my gosh. What are you guys doing to me today?

You've shared news about Max Crosby. You text him every day. In the very recent past, you have discussed Max Crosby, his desires, how he feels. We have Max's back because he's been... No one's going to accuse Max Crosby of not being a good soldier. He's gone out there. He gave his all for the Raiders for years on some pretty bad teams when they were clearly trying to throw the towel in. Max is always going to play well. He's going to try to be a good team player. But it seems like something changed this season. Yeah. So what changed?

Well, I agree with you that Max is the type of player that every team wants him in their locker room, on their field. He did put in a A lot of years, and he's in his prime right now, and he hasn't won anything and has been through tons of change. I think the frustration he had was how they managed him and his injury this year. This is someone that wanted to be on the field for every single game. His legacy is important to him, the type of player that he is. He wants to be able to reflect on his career in a way that he put maximum effort. I think when they shut him down, that went against what he's about, when he's like, I do everything to make this place great. Let me have a voice and a say in this. And this regime decided to say, No, you're going to say it.

But now it's a new regime. I know John Spitex is still there, but Pete Carroll, gone.

Tom braided is still there.

Yeah, Tom Berry is still there. Mark Davis is still there. Shout out, Mark Davis. We love you. Come on the show.

I feel like he's not going to get traded. I know. I can feel that. Why do you think that? Do you think this is all just Max being emotional and then he's going to chill out and be like, You know what? I don't want to anywhere. I want to be right here.

No, I think he's not to the point of an A. J. Brown or even... I mean, Miles Garrett didn't get traded, but he doesn't feel like he's demanded one publicly.

He didn't attend the new head coach's press conference.

That's right. But that happens to a lot of guys. Max is You know, I know.

The Classy, take the high row guy.

I think it's more about the Raiders being like, why would we trade Max Crosby? Because you know in the NFL, you can go from worst to first pretty quickly. I know the Raiders have a lot of holes, but they're going to hopefully get their QB1 with Mendoza with the first pick. It's the opposite of NBA, where NBA is like, Oh, we're tanking. We don't want this guy. In five years, he'll be good. He'll be past his prime. The Raiders could be good in a year or two. And Max Crosby, you'd want him on the field.

See, I don't think they're that close. To take the Raiders. Let's say the Raiders were open to doing this and want to move them, they're rebuilding. And think about what you can get back while they're trying to build this up. I don't thinkI don't think it's bad.

They might not be that close, but they also like there's teams. I mean, the commanders, Jaden Daniels. When they weren't that close, they got Jaden Daniels.

He stinks, remember?

And then they were in the NFC Championship game. It does happen in the NFL where if you hit on the quarterback, it can be that quick that the turn can happen.

But can you hit on the quarterback? Yeah.

I want Max Scroggy on the bears. I'm just saying I feel like everyone's going to talk about him going somewhere, and then he might not end up anywhere because the readers are like, Why would we trade a guy this good?

Let's play the game of where would you see Max? The bears. I don't think they have the money.

Yeah, probably not.

Right? And so it's going to be a Micah Parsons-like package for the readers. So what does that look like? Who has it? I think that's the problem. Who has it? I don't think a lot of teams are going to have that available. New England could do it. The Ravens.

That would be... Could do it. I could see him on the Ravens. Could you imagine?

Yeah.

He look great.

Doesn't that just fit?

It's a bit. Yeah.

Okay, so you think he's going to get traded?

I will not be surprised if that winds up happening.

Okay, and then the last one, which, what are the Vikings going to do? I didn't know that was a debate. I feel like they got to go with JJ McCarthy. He's nine.

Are you anti-nine?

You're anti-nine. Okay, all right.

No, I don't know if you're kidding, right? No, I'm not.

Are you anti-nine?

Jj McCarthy is a winner.

Every level. I think he started 10 games. It was tough for him to stay healthy. It's also tough to pull a plug on a quarterback this early. However, Minnesota is a team that could have possibly been in the Super Bowl this year if they had kept Sam Darnold. I don't think that's off the table. No, they were still being 8-9. Their defense isn't as good as Seattle, but they're still really good. They obviously made that decision because they believed in JJ. I think we saw that it is a work in progress. They're going to have to bring a quarterback in.

Kerr Cousins.

Who's now going to be a free agent.

Right. So you think that's going to happen? It feels like it's destined.

I don't think it's off the table.

Okay, what about Aaron Rodgers?

I don't think they're going to go back down that road because remember, they had thatopportunity.

Yeah, how close was that?

Close?

Very close. I remember when it was going down, there were a lot of people saying that I guess Kevin O'Kanaugh was publicly downplaying the likelihood of that happening. But it was so weird.

Coaches are lying about things that are going on?

The way that the Vikings approach their entire last year at the quarterback position has been really, really strange. Why? Well, they seemed like they kicked Sam Donald out the door because of two bad games, maybe three bad games. The backup quarterback situation that they would bring in and bring out almost like they wanted to protect JJ as the unquestioned starter. They didn't want to bring anybody in around him that had outside starting experience. I guess with Carson Wents as the exception.

Yeah, but he came in late.

He came in late, right? But it seemed like they were going out of their way to gas up JJ, being like, You're a guy. But at the same time, they were flirting with Aaron Rodgers. How serious was it with Aaron and how close did it get?

I can tell you read my stuff.

I read some of your stuff. I know. Before you developed the anti-Jaden bias.

That's not true. I have never written about that.

You have a Jaden bias. You hate the guy. It's fine. Never mind. I was about to say something I'm not going to take back.

I agree with I know Sam.

You agree with your column.

I agree with my reporting. No, I noticed it actually just observing it. It was no reporting. I was like, Why is everyone going so hard on this quarterback that we don't know anything about? It turns out that I actually understand what the organization was doing. They were trying to build his confidence up because this team did win 14 games the year before. I do think the building loved Sam Darnold. To have to manage that emotionally for a young guy coming off an injury, I think Kevin's thought was, Let's give them as much support as we can. But what happened, unfortunately, I think it bit them in the bud a bit because they almost overstated his ability. I remember Justin Jefferson during camp, it's almost like he slipped and went off script instead of being like, He's the guy. He's also about there. Because remember, they just kept saying how good he was in practice. He was like, I mean, it's a work in progress. It's going to take time. He's still really young. I I was like, Finally someone's saying the truth. Right. Look, I think they learned a lot about JJ McCarthy in the offseason and then how to make a decision as a team.

All right, we let Sam go. We let Daniel Jones go. When I say we let them go, other teams obviously came in and paid them more money, and they didn't want to invest that much, and they believed in JJ. The Aaron Rodgers thought was, Can maybe Aaron Rodgers come in and help JJ McCarthy develop as well as a quarterback? Because Aaron, as you've seen now in in the final years of his career, I think he's done a really good job with his teammates of being a bit of a mentor. I think that was the thought, and then they pulled the plug on that.

Is JJ McCarthy Kevin O'Neill's guy? Or how was that? What's the closest thing to the truth to how this all went down.

It's the hardest thing to figure out because when I've worked on this story with Alec Lewis, our Vikings reporter, we've shared notes on it, and it's unbelievable how many different answers we've received from Because there's a lot of... I bet you if he panned out, every single person would be raising their hands.

It's the old victory has a thousand sons and defeat as an orphan or whatever.

But Look, you have a coach that was Coach of the Year and has developed veteran quarterbacks very well. I have a hard time believing that he sat in a draft room and had no say on who the quarterback was going to be. That's So much of this is common sense. Even sometimes when PFT texted me questions, I'm like, You're so dumb. You don't have to be a journalist. It's right in front of you. I'm so dumb.

I read your column too much. You're so dumb.

You're like, No one ever calls you dumb, but sometimes your stuff is...

I get those colored glasses sometimes. Yes, you do. It would be awesome if...

It would be awesome if... If they started assigning whose draft picket was. When they pick it, it's like this scout, that was his.

Like Terry Pagula did? Yeah. He was like, he said that Brandon didn't... Brandon did.

It was something like that.

His guy, Aaron Coleman. That was bad. That was really bad.

Sometimes That broke code. You can't assign-That broke code. It's tough to assign blame to a GM if he's having kids all the time. He's never in the office because he's taking paternity leave. That story was wild.

That is not what the story was.

The story was that Quaisy had sex, which is against the rules for the Vikings. Then during training camp, he wasn't there and that pissed everybody off.

You're like an aggregator as a podcaster.

No, I'm being dove climbing in real life.

It's ridiculous. I know. The Vikings fan base has a lot of aggregators. There's a lot of them that do it. It's funny. Half of them will always give me the benefit of the doubt and read what I'm reporting and then reflect that, and then the other, they're doing what you do. They just immediately go to the false part of it or just try to make it up so it makes me look bad. No, the crazy thing was, first of all, the paternity thing was the worst kept secret in football. I would argue that I dropped the ball by never putting that out there all these years. I should have probably just mentioned it one day. This is interesting. In a casual conversation about, I've never seen this before, but a general manager has taken paternity leave twice. This is crazy. It was great. Cool. But I included it in the article about his firing to point to the fact that he was unique, and he did manage differently than other general managers in football before him. But you picked up the paternity thing, and you guys made it a whole big thing that if you want to spend time with your kids, and you're a bad coach, a bad general manager.

Thank you.

I think what we just said, yeah, you need to either hire a gay general manager. It would be great, or get a vasectomy before you work for my team if I'm an owner.

Just do it at the combine.

That's a great idea. Have a snipping room back there. But yeah, I think that it was interesting, the article about Quaisy, because everybody was shocked because he just got an extension the year before, right? Then it seemed to anybody with an actual brain like, This It was very much tied in with the quarterback decision. Is that how quickly it happens? It's like you whiff on a quarterback or you appear to whiff on a quarterback while the old guy has so much success, and it's like, That's it. We're done with you.

I don't think that the Vikings fired Quaisy because of JJ McCarthy or because of the quarterback situation, because he had to manage all of that, right? Because those are all those contracts with whether it was Daniel Jones or Sam Dutner. He obviously was part of it.

It was because of the kids.

He was a thousand % because he was home helping his wife change diapers. No, I think there was a lot of internal relationships. Him and Kevin O'Neill get along great. That was the one thing I even observed it when I would go to their practices. They were cool with each other. But I do think the way he manages is just different from what most coaches are used to, and it's hard. If it works, great. But most of the time in football, guys like to do it the old way and the way they know and the way they're comfortable. You look at that coaching to have where most of them come from, it doesn't really line up with where Queezy comes from.

Who of the new hires where you say you talk around the league and everyone's like, They nailed that. This is going to be a big- Jesse Minder.

Okay. That's the I like that. I hear that a lot of just, Man, they got a winner. I'd say the Eagles OC. Just kidding, Max.

I like you again. You're the best. I'm totally kidding. I don't know. I don't even know. Max, honestly, gave you one of these. Yes.

No, I don't even know the truth. Here's what I do know about it. The second it happened, I had some people in Philly on the team call me. It was like, Hey, what's the deal with this guy? Is he good? What do we know about him? And I was like, Let me go dig on it. So I called around and I heard amazing things about him. And then the players heard about it. And then so now everyone's all in on this guy. So I'm excited to see what this is going to Everyone's all in.

What about the Blau? A lot of people are talking about the Blauer movement.

You locked him up fast.

Yeah, the Blau are people. So fast.

Were you surprised about the Cliff situation?

Blau or Power. I was not surprised about the Cliff situation.

I remember you texted me about it.

I think, yeah. Really annoying. You were surprised that I wasn't surprised.

You were hoping for more surprise from me. No, I told you before I broke it. I said Cliff's getting fired, and you're like, What?

That's not true. What happened? Tell me now. I need to know everything. We can apparently just lie on podcast now. That's the thing. I'm going to I'm going to take it up and I'm going to tell you exactly what the reaction was.

The last time you read text off your phone is from Max. No, it's me texting about Max.

I like this.

I'm enjoying this very much because I like to hear the news just when it happens. I don't like when I get inside. I've done it for you. No, I've done it I really want to know.

Yeah. There was something I told you, and your reaction wasn't like Eric's, whereas he's just like, I don't want to know. I don't know yet. I need to know. Send me voicemails.

If I know too much, then it's a bad thing where I can't sit on it. And also, I just want to know what everyone else knows.

This is a wild misinterpretation of all our conversations.

By the way, the fact that the Cliff thing happened early January.

That's where I'm at right now. It's going to take a minute. Okay, hang on.

I'll ask a filler question while you do it, okay? Who Did you vote for an MVP? Was it Josh Allen again?

Drake May. Okay.

Oh. Did you think- I didn't vote for Josh Allen last year.

Well, last year.

You didn't. That's right. You voted for Lamar. That was the problem.

Remember what happened?

I forgot why I was mad at you.

Did I tell you the story about that? No. Yeah, you voted for Lamar. I see Josh. I see Brandon Bean, I see all the Buffalo people before I cast my vote. I tell them I'm voting for Josh. Oh, that's dirty. Then I vote, and I was going through it, and I have a weird style of doing it. I call players, and I ask them. I tell them who I'm voting for, and then I get their reaction. Then I collect all their thoughts because in my opinion, the players know better than me. Who is the best player on the field when you're playing against them? I like that. Yeah. Actually, the answer I got the most, and I regret not voting it, and he and I have had a conversation about this, and Max, you'll appreciate it, it was Saquon Barkley. This was last year, the year they won the Super Bowl. So many players were like, It's Saquon Barkley, but I did not vote for him. I voted for Lamar. Then they revealed the votes and who we voted for. I just looked like an ass because I'm like, I obviously lied to Josh Allen.

Yeah, you do look like an ass.

I know.

But you did also vote for Shuck for Rooky of the Year, which I appreciate.

Yeah, that was a good vote.

Do you remember in the draft when I told you that he's like a stud? Like he's going to be really good? He did.

You're right again.

We didn't listen to you. Are you listening to this? As men, we didn't listen to you, and we came to that conclusion on our own about six months later.

And by the way-We were like, That was our idea. Tyler Shox. By the way, we were right. We were so right about it. We fucking nailed that. Tyler Shox. All right. One thing you were wrong about, Monday, January fifth, 8: 32 PM, you just texted me out of the blue. I'm shocked you haven't asked me about my Cliff Kingsbury reporting. Okay.

No way. I told you the night before I broke it.

No, there's nothing there. You said, I'm shocked. It's a little thirsty that you're asking me to be shocked about something that I was not shocked about. But I wasn't shocked about it because I was okay with moving on from Cliff. It felt like things were like... Yeah, it was off. It was weird.

Things were off.

The way that he was using Terry didn't seem like it was always the most creative ways. There were button heads sometimes with I don't want to say the GM and him were budding heads, but they didn't have the best things to say about each other. Usually, if you have a great young offensive coordinator, number one, you would like that person to be in demand to be a head coach from some other team, right? Yeah. It says a lot that Cliff didn't get that opportunity. I thought he was a good offensive coordinator, just not a great one. Yeah.

No. Now he's with the Rams, so we'll see how he does there. I also just think what they captured in the year that they went to the NFC Championship game, I think Cliff actually a really good job of masking a lot of the flaws your team had. Obviously, your quarterback was also like a superhero.

No, it was a shot at the entire roster, which I agree. A little bit. Was that a shot about Jaden? A little bit. No, not at all. Gun to your head. No.

Okay. I love Jaden.

By the way, I found where I opted out of getting news from you. It's because you said that Ben Johnson was going to the Jaguars. I literally was like, I'm opting out. I said, I'm fucked. I would like no more. He was at one point. I was like, I want no more updates I remember.

I think it was a Saturday morning. Yeah.

I was like, I do not want. I'm opting out of this news source. I do not want bad news.

Because you know what happens, too, it's probably why I tell you guys stuff, is because I can't report it, I want to tell someone. I'm like, who would appreciate it? Oh, these guys.

Except what is bad news?

I don't want it. Actually, we'll never tell your bad news because we'll just forget it. I think we forget most of the stuff people tell us. So it's not like we have a big file of off the record stuff that we can divulge at any point.

I think the last time I texted you about a story that I knew you would like because it was so weird was when I did the Mac Jones' Body Story.

Yeah, the Mac Jones' Dead Body.

That was the weirdest thing.

That just never had a follow-up.

How did you find out?

Nobody cared. I was like, This is...

They just wanted to see him eat bananas. He eats so many bananas. It was after that game. Yeah, I know. It was the Thursday. That was the thing. It was like dead body bananas.

It's all good. Somebody tipped me off on it. It was like, You want to hear a weird story? I'm like, Yeah. He's like, Mac Jones saw a dead body this morning.

I'm like, What? The substation claimed another. Yeah.

It was a Friday morning, and I probably spent more time on that story than anything else I've done this year, which is ridiculous because it's a body. It's a human. I have to go confirm that it was a a body. I'm on the phone with the Marina Del Rey police, and they're like, Wait, who are you? Why do you care? I'm like, Well, the San Francisco 49ers are at the hotel. There's a body. And they had no record of. It was a mess.

See, that's where you go wrong with the athletic in Scoob City. You should have just spent 20 minutes talking about Mac Jones eating bananas on your podcast.

That's what we did. There are times where-It was 14, by the way. I know I have a big story, but I know it's going to take so much time and effort to pull it in. And sometimes I just get lazy. I'm like, I don't want to do it.

Right. Especially if you're like, no one's going to care about this story.

Well, Most of those I know are good.

Any big story I've ever worked on usually takes time, and you know at the end it's worth it all. But it's like getting an assignment. You're like, I'm going to have to make so many calls and deal with so many annoying agents and fight with head coaches about the stuff I'm going to put out. It's going to be rewarding, but this is going to suck.

But climbing back up the mountain sucks.

It sucks because it's taking phone calls in my driveway. It's always at weird places. When people come-Thank you for your service. You're welcome.

First of That's what I meant.

It's important. I know. I do sound like I'm like, poor me.

I have to work. Obviously, we joke about it because there's definitely some times where you're like, there are some sports journalists who come across as like, Dude, come on, you're covering sports. But you have to wrap all these people who do this business, we would be screwed without beat reporters. I always tell the beat reporters, You guys don't get thanked enough because being in a locker room every single day and getting the vibes of a team, if they If there weren't Beat reporters, we would have just so much less information on how a team operates.

Yeah, but the other part of it is it's like a marriage for these people. They're stuck with these guys every day seeing them and looking at them. It gets so old so quick. That's where I always feel for them. Like, oh, man, it's January. They're still going to practice on a Thursday. That's the worst. Like, Zack Rosenblatt, who covers the Jets. I just feel for him towards the end of the year where I'm like, Hey, dude, you got two more weeks. You can do it.

You said about the Jets in their hiring and firings in the offseason, What a mess, was your quote. And then Memes posted a gif of LeBron James giving you the finger.

I didn't see that. Oh, no, I think I did see that. I did see that.

Do you have that meme on you now, memes?

I remember where I was, actually, when I saw it. Would you like to share?

Is it as much of a mess as you said when you said, What a mess?

No, I said, What a mess? I I think the reason why it caught Mims attention, obviously, is the Jets, but I don't usually weigh in on the situation. I can give you the information. But at this point, I had known how ridiculous it was behind the scenes in terms of not telling guys when they're getting fired, not allowing them to go get jobs, and then changing their minds on who they were going to hire based on ownership and the head coach's difference. It's just the whole thing. So I'm like, This is just a mess.

What a mess.

So Mims is at the microphone right now. What do you think he'd like to address you. I would say that we just found out. Everybody found out at the same time because nobody had any sources inside the building.

Oh, yeah. Memes thinks you've lost all your sources. No.

They're better than ever there. The messier, the better. The bad teams are the ones that have the leaks.

Max, make sure to get Hank in this shot, too. He's getting jiggered. Okay, good.

Go ahead.

It looks like he's proposing. Hank's not a troll.

Yeah, Memes is convinced that you lost all your sources.

Was the Gruden thing real?

Yes.

Wow. You want to elaborate the Gruden thing? He said not interested, and then the next day, Gruden said, I don't know who reported that. I never said that. Man. Give some context to your memes.

What were they asking him? You're doing a very bad job of explaining this.

If the Jets offered him a job.

Okay. So the Jets did offer him a job?

Yeah. No, they talked to him about the job.

And he said not interested.

Yeah, he was not interested.

Okay. So what's the dispute here? What's the problem? It was reported that he was offered a job. Was it reported that he was offered the job or that they talked to him about a job? They talked to him about a job. What's the fucking difference? There's a big difference.

It's the same thing.

No. Ask Max. They went through 17 interviews for their OC.

17?

17. Wait, are you serious? The Eagles interview 17 guys?

17.

That's a lot.

That's crazy.

Did you know that, Max? So, Manion's their 17th choice? Max, did you know that?

No, he was like, Wait, no, no.

Switch means the max. Wait, we meant an 18th choice or 17th choice?

He was-Just because it was 17 interviews doesn't mean that it was a 17th choice.

No, he was like sixth, actually.

Okay, there we go. That's pretty good.

But they didn't like the other interview. So he was six, but they wanted to do 11 more interviews to make sure he wasn't the guy?

Well, this is always what happens. Look at Tennessee, right? Everyone thought Matt Nagui was getting the job. In fact, my colleague, Mike Silver, he calls me one day. He's like, What are you working on? I'm like, Oh, I'm just working on the Titans head coaching search. Just trying to nail down some of the guys to get on the phone with them to see how the interviews are going. He's like, Oh, my God. Wasting your time. It's Matt Nagui's gig. This is such a ruse. They're just interviewing people to interview people. I'm like, No, they're not going to interview all these people if they know they have the guy. Then, of course, Robert Salah comes in and closes it and gets the job. Now Matt Maggie's with the- Hank, you go up.

I got one for you. Hey, Hank. In Super Bowl week, you had the quote, People around the League view the Patriots as not that talented. Hank?

We were in the Super Bowl.

Right. No, she did it Super Bowl week, so she was saying they're not that talented.

That's just hate us because I don't think that's Diana. She's reporting what people are saying.

I think that's also maybe Mike Rable trying to get some rat poison out there, some bulletin board material.

Diana, I don't have you muted unlike some other people on this show.

Thanks, Hank. I appreciate that. I think the reporting I do on the Patriots is solid, and I try to keep it as objective as I can. And they don't have leaks because they're good.

So are they not that talented?

I don't think they have a great roster. I think they're going to get better, but they play in the Super Bowl to Hank's point. How bad How would they be if they got there?

We made it to the Super Bowl with a bad roster. Imagine what we'll do with the Good Rocks.

Good Rocks. Good point.

I do think that this is going to be a challenging offseason for the Patriots. Why is that? Because first of all, the bar is so high now. Nobody expected. I I thought they'd win six, seven games, if, this first season with Mike at the helm. But now they got to make a lot of moves. They need to get more... It's obvious what they need to do in terms of players. But I just think The pressure is just going to be on. This is like a true... Even though this regime was there last year, I feel like this is their first real one in this offseason coming off.

Quick break from our interview with Diana Rossini. Talk to you about McDonald's. This The part of Part of My Take is brought to you by McDonald's Hot Honey Sauce. Hot Honey Sauce is at McDonald's for a limited time. Your favorite order just got better with Hot Honey Sauce. Try the Hot Honey snack wrap. It'll beat what you thought was your fave. I also love Hot Honey with the Mcnuggets. Let me do a little Hot Honey Mcnuggets. Ready? Taste test review. One bite. Everyone knows the rules. Hot Honey. That's a 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. Rookies score for 10 out of 10. New Hot Honey Sauce, now at McDonald's for a limited time only. Go get it. We love McDonald's. We love the new Hot Honey sauce. Now, back to Diana Rossini. All right, Steven, get up there. I got one for you.

Wait, everyone, we're doing a whole...

Why are we doing this like town hall? It sounds like a Ajay. It does look like a town hall.

Yeah, Diana, take out Ben Johnson and take out Mike Vrabel. Who is the best hire of last year's hiring cycle? Take those two guys out.

I don't even remember who was hired.

Nobody does. Jaguars. Oh, yeah. Was it Jaguars?

Yes. Liam Cohen? Yes. William Cohen's a great coach.

Great coach. All right.

Thank you, Steven. I agree. Yeah. All right. Good question. Wait, what's your question? He was mad that William Cohen left the box. Do you have a question, Steven? I do. I have one very... Katie, are you ready to be next? I have one very biased question, then I have a general question. Sure. Very biased question. Where's Mike Evans playing next year?

Tampa Bay.

That's not a biased That's a biased question, by the way. That's a biased question.

I think he just wanted it. He wanted music to his ears.

Yeah, he wanted a biased answer.

You wanted a biased answer. The question is just the question. Okay, fair, fair, fair. What is the confidence level of these teams at quarterback? Rank them 1-4.

He's producing a segment.

Four being the highest, one being the lowest.

Wait. Hang on, hang on.

Okay, hold on. This is a...

Can we go one to four? On a scale of one to four?

Can we go one to four the natural way? One being the highest?

Okay. Why is it one to four?

I only have four options. Oh, you're ranking the team?

Yes.

This is the team's confidence in their quarterback. Yes. One to four, one being the best. Yes. Why would you do four being the best? Cardinals, Falcons, Panthers, Texans. Okay.

Texans, one. Most confidence.

Okay.

Panthers, two.

What were the other two? Falcons and Cardinals.

Falcons and Cardinals. Then Falcons and then Cardinals.

Cardinals. Interesting. Yeah, it is interesting that-I didn't like that game.

That was hard.

He made a face when he said the Texans. Yeah. He made a face. I think the face... If I could translate the face that Jay made, it was like, Lil Bro ass. Yeah.

Do the Texans know C. J. Stroud's ass?

I don't think C. J. Stroud is ass, and I don't think they think he is. I think they still believe in him. I think this year is It's going to be really important because he's going to be up for a very large contract. But why are we forgetting that C. J. Stroud was once really good? Yeah, but he's also been really bad. But they also have a A week offensive line, new play calls. There's a lot of transition. I think there needs to be a little bit more patience with C. J. Stroud. What about Zack?

I like Zack. I got a question. Yeah, Zack's got a question. This will be good. Let it rip, Zack. Hi, Zack.

What's going on, Diana?

How are you Quick question. With the talks about how Liam Cohen left the 10 Bay Bucaneers, would you consider him a better coach or a better person?

Good question.

A better coach. Yeah, he's a very good coach. He's a better coach, right?

One of the best football coaches in the world. Yeah.

Thank you for your time. I appreciate you.

Thanks, Zack. Good question. Good question.

That's my case. Way to go, Zack.

Real quick with the Cardinals. Kyler, probably not going to be the quarterback there next year. Do you think Kyler Murray, gun to your head, is he starting week one somewhere? Yeah, I do. Where? Who would be in the Kyla Murray sweepstakes?

I'm curious to see if Minnesota checks that out. That could be interesting.

He looks so short and purple.

Are the Cardinals going to trade for Tyson Pageant? That's the rumor.

Who told you that?

I've just been hearing it.

Why? I'll work on it. I'll let you. I can't let you know. You don't want to know.

No, I don't want to know. Max, you have another question? Oh.

Yeah, well, that reminded me. I saw something about the Jets are interested in Taylor McKee.

Oh. This is great. We just have to ask our very hyper-specific questions about our backup quarterbacks.

Yes, I actually think that's something they're going to be exploring. That's a good question. Memes?

Where are the chances nick Seriani gets fired this year?

Good one. So I see what they're doing. They're giving shitty questions for each of their teams. I think this is a big year for nick Seriani. Is there a hot... I'm I'm not doing the hot seat. We will. Who does the captions on the show? Memes, do not put out, Rossini says, nick Siriani, Hot Seat, 2026. It's a big year. This is big. The seat's warm? Because you said the seat's warm.

How could it not me.

It's Philly. It's always freaking warm there.

Always sunny.

I'm not putting him on the hot seat.

No, Max, respectfully, this is about that.

I've never asked you this. Do you think Nix is a good coach? Yes.

Excellent coach. No, just make it short. Super Bowl winning coach. Highest winning percentage of all active coaches right now.

How are you going to feel if A. J. Brown gets traded? How does that make you feel? Are you mad about this? It depends on the package. Okay, so you're cool with him not being an angel anymore?

I would prefer him to be an angel, but I think that I also understand that there's times where it's better for both sides to move on.

Yeah, what I said before. I was like, This relationship is probably done. They probably need to go and- Best case scenario, we meant the relationship, but if that can't be meant, then I'm okay with it.

I'm okay with it. Stay there, Max.

Do you have any concerns about your quarterback?

Well, I was going to say, is there a world, Diana, that they trade A. J. Brown, and then they're like, Whoops, we traded the wrong guy? It should have been Jalen Hertz.

I thought you were going to say, Is there a world where they trade A. G. Brown and then bring them back when they get rid of Jalen? No.

Yeah, I'm just saying. That's a good question, too.

Let's wait for whatever. Max is pretending there's sound going on in the hallway because he doesn't like the way these questions are going. Yeah. He just did a fake pause of the show.

I think the A. G. Brown situation, the thing that we're not doing enough of, and Max, I'm surprised you haven't tried to dig on it as a fan. What is A. J. Brown frustrated by? What is he upset? And why is anyone having that conversation and being real about it?

Good question.

Because I think the answer is the one they don't want to have.

So you'd rather your team ignore a problem because they don't want to-I don't understand how it can be that big of a problem when it wasn't a problem the year before when they went to the fucking Super Bowl.

You said you weren't getting mad anymore.

I'm not mad, but I don't understand how it's that big of a problem when they just went to Super Bowl and they were there two years before. How all of a sudden is it now a problem?

Sometimes when quarterbacks win Super Bowl, they develop a bigger ego, and they don't want to run the same plays that they maybe ran before or do the same type of offense or listen to the same guys that they were listening to before because now they've got all figured out.

These are just questions, by the way. The offensive line the year you won the Super Bowl was magnificent. Saquon had the best season of his life. Jalen played incredible in the Super Bowl. What's the difference between the- Everything lined up well. By the way, I'm not pushing back on your hopes It's in dreams that I believe Jalen is a really good quarterback. I just think if your best weapon on offense, not including Saquon, is voice and concerned about something, maybe there's more there that they're not owning up to, that they need to.

Everyone's talking about it. The entire world's talking about it. Everyone likes to say this is some big secret that Jalen Hertz and the Eagles are not in a good spot. Everyone talks about it. It's not a big secret.

It's there, but how is it going to get fixed?

Coaching. We got to have a new offensive coordinator that can bring everyone together.

I have an idea. There was a time where Jalen Hertz was struggling at quarterback, and the team went in a different direction and brought in Tua, and they proceeded to win a championship. Is another team going to look at Tua this offseason? Is Tua going to be traded?

Yeah, I think there's going to be teams looking at him. I don't think Look, I think the Dolphins have made it pretty clear that it's on the table, that they're going to probably move forward without them in some form. But we've seen how many quarterbacks in football in the last few years have a resurgence in a different for him. Right? Like, literally, that has been the story of last year, whether it was Daniel Jones before his injury, the guy that just won the freaking Super Bowl. If you can just put him with the right team, the right organization, sometimes it can pan out.

What about a percentage? Give me a percentage. I'm not going to hold you to this. Joe Burrow gets treated because there are at least some rumors out there.

Oh, my gosh. Well, it's because Joe's not happy, and we know that. When I say he's not happy, he's frustrated that they stink and that they're not doing enough to improve the roster. And the pushback is, Well, look, they paid his receivers. What could he possibly be upset about? The defense has been trash for a few years here. I I don't believe the Cincinnati bangles are going to trade Joe Burrow. What I want to pay attention to, though, is after this season, will Joe then start voicing, Look, I don't want to be here anymore because we're not winning? Because talk about his prime years, the windows closing there. Yeah. How old's Joe?

He's probably late 20s.

Yeah, I want to say 27.

I'm going to look it up right now. I'm going to say 28.

26, 27?

Because he was obviously older when he won the Heisman and everything.

He does have the maturity of a 40-year-old, though.

He's 29. Yeah. He's 29. That's surprising. So he's going to turn 30 this season.

Oh, my God. How old is Josh Allen?

Josh Allen, I think, just turned 30.

See, I would have thought Josh was older.

What are you hearing?

Well, he is because 30 is more than 29.

Thanks. Yeah, good point. What are you hearing about Joe braided?

The same age as me.

Joe Brady-Oh, actually, Josh Allen is 29.

Oh, he didn't even-Yeah. So they're the same age. So they're the same age. Good point. 96.

What are you hearing about Joe Brandy and the bills? What was the coaching search really like for Buffalo? Was it just, Hey, we'll interview some people, but it's ultimately going to be Josh's call.

What about when Philip Rivers went in there? Yeah, Philip Rivers.

He won't be a coach one day, right? Yeah.

High school.

We were saying Jason Fitts had the idea, but we were joking about it. There should be a loonie rule that every team has to bring in just a crazy off the wall.

Like a condoleezza rice?

Yeah, right. You just have to do that just so that we have something to talk about.

Story is not talked enough about. Yeah, agreed. It is my... I remember. Yeah.

I agree. It's the best news story.

Actually, make that your first question to Schefter.

It always is. It's that and then where's the Des Bryant tape?

We need to see the Des Bryant. But wait, what was that process like with Joe Bryant? Did they actually interview a bunch of people or was it like, Josh, who do you want?

The backstory I heard was they weren't completely out on firing McDermott. It wasn't like they said, If we don't make the playoffs, he's out, or if we get bounced in this round, he's out. If anything, it was pointing the direction of keeping him. Actually, the Saturday before they lost was the first time I caught wind that if they lost, he was out. They had made that decision pretty Within those days. It wasn't like something they were sitting on. They obviously lose. They fire Sean. I do think it was a bit of a shock to the system up there because they weren't ready for it. Then they were scrambling around, trying to figure out, All right, we got to get the... Remember, then they had the press conference, which was not great.

Which actually made us give more credit to Sean McDermott. Because you're like, Wow, he. Good job, Sean.

He was the one running the show the right way. The mistake I think they did in that Well, there's a lot of mistakes they did in that press conference, but they probably should not have had the ownership with the GM. Especially a GM that was getting crucified at the moment for keeping his job. Then they put out at the same time that... Didn't they put out at the same time that they fired Sean and promoted Brandon?

Yeah, one had nothing to do with it.

Maybe separate those. Wait a day.

I like being a lot. I feel like he's done a pretty good job. But if you miss on a pick, it doesn't It doesn't help your case to have your owner sitting there saying to reporters, Now be nice to him. This wasn't his idea. It puts off a weird vibe, and it makes me think that, number one, I want to hear more owners talk to the media, but number two, they shouldn't. If they were smart, they would never talk to the media.

I have a group chat with Jeff Darlington and Mike Silver, where the only discussions that we have in this chat are about the PR that we would recommend to teams, a player or an organization, someone that does something stupid, and then obviously the team reacts to it, and it's usually stupid. Then we will be like, They should have done it this way. You could do that every day on this show if you really wanted to. But yeah, that's probably not the best way to do it.

That's a good segment. Pr 101. We can call it PR 101. It's a good idea. We've been doing it for 10 years. Okay, so what do you tell Pukinakuwa? He does a livestream. You swear you do this? What's your PR?

We stopped doing this segment, but yeah, that was the old segment.

Maybe change the title.

Just bring it back. Pr 101. We might bring it back. Any surprises this week? No.

I mean, what do you mean surprise?

I just want you to give us a scoop. Can you give us a scoop and we'll bleep it out? Then if you get it right, we'll retract the bleep in a video that we put out later. Okay. We will bleep that out until she gets it right. Oh my God. And then we'll put it out. There was another question I was going to about the comment. Are there teams, since you talk to everybody-You guys have never asked me this many questions.

No, it's a good question.

Yeah, we're having fun. You want to hear a good question? We're having fun.

I've asked you a lot of questions in my life. I don't think I've ever asked you about this, though. Are there teams that are annoying and thirsty that hits you up and they're like, Hey, I've got some more information, trying to give you, overload you with information to make you like them? Yes.

Every team operates very differently. That's what's funny about it all. They all have our own style of how they manage the reporters and the insiders and how they want their message out and who they give it to. You don't have to know football that well to know which teams like to go to who to be their mouthpiece on stuff. You can see it.

Schraiger and the Rams.

He doesn't even break Ram stuff, though. That's why I'm always like, Sure. He's like, You know everyone there.

You should just move. He's that close. He's part of the Ram.

He's probably making the decision, so he can't really break the news.

He's sitting there doing it all. But Schraiger I think it's probably a great example of where you're too close to it. I've had that problem before where you get close to a player or an agent, and then you're like, Oh, wait, I'm not going to report that because I don't want to make it weird. It's how we started this conversation about the boundaries of what you can go with. But when I come to the combine, my thing is I always think of three or four people in football who I don't know, that I need to know, and just try to find ways to either find them or just not have break the ice with them. Last night, I was practicing my breaking the ice routines with some people in football because I was sharing the same story to them. I'm like, Hey, I got to go see this guy. What should I talk about? Someone suggested I just start telling jokes. But I realized I am not a good joke teller. Tell us a joke.

Make us laugh. Who are you trying to break the ice with? This is important. Okay, I'll be Mike McCarthy.

Oh, that's a good one.

You don't have a neck. My new quarterback, Will Hard. Will Howard.

Tell a joke. I only know dirty ones. Yeah.

Go ahead, tell us a joke. But it's dirty. It's dirty. Yeah. You can tell a dirty joke. Okay.

So this guy walks into a bar with a Penguin and a bat. And he sits at the bar and he asks the bartender for four shots. Takes four shots, takes the bat, starts beating the Penguin. Then the Penguin starts going down on him. Goes up to the bartender.

I don't find this funny. Just so you know.

Goes up to the bartender says, Can I get four more shots? The guy's like, All right. And everyone in the bar is looking around like, What is going on here? He takes four shots, does it again. Takes the bat, starts hitting the Penguin. Penguin goes down on the guy again. Everyone's like, What? This is weird. What is happening?

This is bestiality.

Disgusting. So then the bartender was like, Hey, man, I'm going to do some shots with you. He's like, All right. So he does four shots. He's like, All right, my turn is next. Just don't hit me so hard with the bat.

I like that. That was a good joke.

But I did it probably eight times, and I kept forgetting the hook. Everyone's like, You're awful at this. There's six people watching me do this. It's a long joke. It's a long joke. It's not very good. It's disgusting.

It's got penguins sucking people off.

It's really bad. I should probably cut this. I work for the New York Times.

Bird sex. You think it's appropriate? But here's the thing. And penguins are also going extinct.

This whole thing is bad.

Now you're sexually assaulting them. Now you're sexually assaulting them. All of this.

Yeah, I didn't cut it. No, please He's got this. He hasn't got anything in a long time.

It's so annoying. There is a reality, though. It is awkward sometimes to go up to people for a ball that you don't know and just be like, Hey.

Because you're like, You probably know who I am, but I still have to do the song and dance of, Hey, I'm Diana. They know who you are.

Yes. It's funny because that conversation came up last night because one of the coaches was like, Why do you always introduce yourself as a reporter? Everyone gets it. I'm like, I understand, but I think it's very presumptuous of me. If Taylor Swift introduces herself as freaking Taylor Swift, but I guess she doesn't say singer.

No, probably not.

That'd be weird. But yeah, always trying to come up with ways to connect with people. It sells. I know you guys do it, too. It's like, how can I get this person engaged in what I have to say in 2 seconds? And I strike out a lot.

Okay, last question. This has been awesome. We love having you on, Diana. Rowback question, robackk. Com. Promo code take 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback. Com.

Buttonups, too. Look at the new buttonups.

Yeah, the buttonups are awesome. Rowback. Com. Promo code take. This actually isn't a question. I just wanted to say I am very happy for you Because it feels like your jump from ESPN The Athletic has worked out better than you could ever have imagined.

Well, first of all, happy anniversary to you guys. Thank you. It's more important. Thank you. It's tremendous. I can't believe...

Yeah, the sex is still great.

This is crazy. It is crazy. How did this thing get so big?

We're never going to stop.

It's stupid when you think about it. We just started doing a podcast, and then just our lives changed.

And the craziest part to me is that there's no reason for us to stop, so we're just going to do it until we're just a punchline, which I'm fine with.

I know, but you guys work really hard at it. The best part of this show, outside of you guys and the team, it's actually your listeners. I love the part of my take of listeners. They're great. They're loyal as all hell. I was in the pool on vacation, and my husband went and got me a drink, and the guy next to me was like, Hey, is that Kevin from part of my take? I go, Wait, do you mean Max? He's like, No, Kevin, that's your husband, right? I'm like, Yeah. So When the love comes back over. I was like, Dude, that part of my take listener was more exciting. That's all I'm at. That she was you. That's awesome.

Kevin from part of my take.

You just did a very good job of reversing a compliment into a compliment for us. That was nice. But seriously, Scoop City going to three times a week It feels like it's getting bigger. Also, half the listeners are female, so what's up to them if any of them are listening to us right now. But it's awesome. I know that was when you were going through that, it's a daunting and scary thing to be like, ESPN is ESPN, and you made the jump, and it feels like you're just crushing it.

Thank you. I know you were talking before about it's not that serious. I always hope that that's how my vibe is as a reporter. I know what I report is serious sometimes, but I freaking love it. It's sports. That's you guys. I think we do different things, but we have so much love for what it is, which is why I think we've been doing it so long.

To Big Cat's point, I know that there's a lot of people that don't leave. They never leave ESPN because they think to themselves, This is safe. It's secure. This is sports. If I leave out on my own, I don't have the mouthpiece of the Disney Network behind me. It's a scary thing to do. You left. Now, I don't know what your contract situation is, but I would assume that whenever it's up, ESPN would probably pay double what they were offering before, after you left.

Let us negotiate for you.

You did a really smart business move by meeting, growing your brand, growing your profile, to now you have the power to be like, I don't even need to go back to ESPN ever. I'm doing great out here on my own.

I don't know about that. I've been at the athletic. This is my third season, so it went fast. I remember making that decision, and I did think everything you just said. You guys are my friends, and you knew it was a big decision because it's scary. But when you just go back to the basic of just do what you do well, you can do anything. Not to sound all motivational and inspirational, but if you're good at it and you work hard at it, you can find success. Someone is going to hire you if you are doing it. I would probably be a big star if memes didn't tell the world I was a bad reporter. I would probably be back at ESPN with Schefter, but he has destroyed my credibility. You have the Pulitzer.

He's happy that you said that.

You're good. Also, congratulations on, hopefully, becoming a New York Times best-selling author because you wrote a chapter in our book. I did. Which is going to be coming out. I don't want to spoil anything, but I learned something from reading what you wrote in that book.

What are you doing? Are we allowed to give this away? No, no spoilers.

We're going to try some books.

Yeah, no spoilers. Go on Amazon. But one of your children should be named after me. You think so? Based on what she wrote, yes.

Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. But my kids names are basic Jersey kid names.

Eric doesn't really- Maybe middle name, PFT.

Yeah, it should have been a PFT middle name.

You can pronounce it like that.

No, it doesn't work.

Sound. Okay. All right, Diana, you're the best. Everyone subscribe to Scoop City and read The Athletic and read Diana's reporting.

Thanks, guys. Good to be here.

Racine was brought to you by our great friends over at Morgan & Morgan. A lot of power moves going on recently. When Big Dom came in here, that was a power move. When Max left, that was not a power move. When Zack stood up to Big Dom, that was a power move. Just like how hiring Morgan & Morgan is a power move, too. Morgan & Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. If Hank had to get his jaw wired shut, the first call he is making is to their good friends at Morgan & Morgan. They have over 100 offices nationwide, more than a thousand lawyers. Over $30 billion were covered for over 500,000 clients. Morgan & Morgan has a proven track record of fighting to get you full and fair compensation. In Florida, a client recently received 6. 1 million after the insurance company's best offer was around 100,000. In Georgia, another client just got 29. 5 million. In Nashville, another client was awarded $10. 6 million. If you're ever injured, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win. For more information, go to forthepeople. Com/pmt or hit poundlaw on your cell phone.

It's F-O-R, thepeople. Com. Venmo. Com/pmt or pound law from your cell phone. Dynamic Recy. It was also brought to you by Venmo. Get in the game. They've got college-branded Venmo debit cards. You can earn up to 5% cash back at some of your favorite brands with Venmo Stash rewards. You can add your Venmo debit card to your mobile wallet just as soon as you sign up and pay online and pay in-store right from your phone. And the best part, the card is tied to your Venmo account. So if you got paid back for dinner, you can immediately access that money in your Venmo balance. Spend it on what you want: game-based snacks, tickets, new merch. You can easily split purchases in the app. There's no monthly fee, no minimum balance. Source more and score more. With a college-branded Venmo debit card. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash. Sign up at venmo. Com/collegecard.

Okay, we're back in studio to finish the show. We got Guys on Chicks and some leftover Olympic takes.

Guys on Olympics.

As we say goodbye to the Olympics.

What do you want first?

Why don't you go back and forth? Switch back and forth. Switching back and forth between Olympics and Chicks.

Pardon my Olympics take. It's a waste of time that NBC does not get John Cruck to do commentary on the boring sports.

Okay. I do agree because I think that more John Cruck is better than less John Cruck in general.

That's This is where Bill Walton, the RIP, would have been just incredible. Bill Walton doing cross country skiing would have been the best thing ever.

Yeah. I could see Charles Barkley filling in on just about anything. Yeah.

Although people would be pissed because it'd be like, he just makes fun of all the athletes, which I would have loved.

Which is fine. Yeah, totally fine.

But yeah, that's a good call. We need guys like that who could just talk extemporaneously.

Yeah, nailed it.

Nailed it. You ever get into a word and you know you're going to go for it and you're like, oh, boy, let's hope I land this one. That was actually-Many times. That was basically me landing a sick- You did nail that.

Yeah.

There's a lot. I just nailed the 360 snowboard cross perfectly on my feet.

Something spoken, performed, or composed with little or no advanced preparation.

Damn. Damn, that feels good. I'm going to walk around with my chest puffed out for the rest of the day.

Does that make temporarily something that is performed with a lot of advanced preparation?

Maybe.

No, you don't really hear about temporarily. No. Is that a word? Well, if extemporaneously, I think-Temporaneous is an archaic or rare additive meaning temporary, lasting only for a short time or provisional. Oh, rare additive collected.

I love provisionals. One of one. I take a lot of provisionals.

Hey, boys. My boy.

Golf course. Isn't that what you say? Yeah.

Speaking of golf course. What?

What, Max? I actually think you guys are in a good spot. We were doing some testing for the screen. It didn't go well? I actually, it went better than I thought.

Tickly golf?

What is better than you thought? Itchie golf. Itchie golf. What's better than you thought?

I thought they had no chance, and Max was being a little bit cocky. I now think they will do it eventually. Well, we're doing a...

It has now turned into one of us to get a birdie. We're doing scramble to get a bird. Because you guys will get a birdie.

Yeah, with a scramble?

We're not very good golfers.

No. I can't even close my eyes and see Zack. I just had- All I can see is Zack throwing the ball into the bush and then Hank being so upset at him. That's my experience with Zack and golf.

I forgot about that.

Oh, the best throw ever. What did you do?

There were six different people saying directions on one shot. There was only one... That was bad.

You did a mix of everybody's directions.

Satisfied none of the directions. Yeah.

But I think Max can sack up. He can hit far drives, get lucky with the iron shot, and then I think Zack could hit a put, potentially.

I think one of the two of you could hit a decent shot on a par three, and then you got two chances of a put.

See, Hank keeps saying par three. I can't hit an iron. I keep saying par five is my best shot.

You would have to hit at least two or three good shots. Yeah.

Par three is the best shot.

But again, it was- Which is why some are saying that getting an eagle on a par five is harder than getting a hole in one on a par three.

A lot of people say that.

Do they? Yeah. We'll see. It's going to be... I hope it's...

We'll see. We'll see. You will see.

Hey, boys. My boyfriend and I have been dating for four years, and just recently, he has really gotten into Chick Flicks from 2000s, almost watching one movie a night, more specifically, ones with Matthew McConaher. Should I be worried, he may dump me and come out of the closet. Not that there's anything wrong with being gay. Just didn't see it coming from my boyfriend.

No.

Chick Flicks are great.

Liking Chick Flicks is wrong or gay, then I'm gay.

Yeah.

Consider me really, really gay.

Don't clip it. Memes is just sitting there laughing. All three of us just box ourselves in for a for a long time in the memes files.

If watching Love actually twice a year is homosexual, then I am the biggest gay person on planet Earth.

On my Netflix-Especially the Matthew McCona.

On my Netflix for you, it's basically all rom-coms.

They're the best.

Before I go to bed, I like to watch something light. Yeah. And rom-coms are the best thing to watch right before you go to bed. And I watch them before I go to bed every night. So rom-coms are... Netflix basically assumes that I'm just 100% rom-com guy.

You just turn your brain off. You enjoy it.

Fulls Gold. Is that what it's called?

Does it have to end well, though?

Does it always have to have a good ending?

No, it doesn't even have to be a good movie. It just has to make you feel good. I love the breakup.

Breakup is good.

Zack said that's his one-one. We were talking about that yesterday. Either I'd be in a break up or 50 First Dates right there.

Yeah, I mean, break up is funny and it's got the rom-com.

Would you say The Wedding Singer? Wedding Singer is a good one. Is that a rom-com? Yeah. Or is that just a com-com?

That's a calm rom.

That's It's like Wedding Crash. It's a calm rom.

That's a sand rom. Forgetting Sarah Marshall as a calm rom.

Those are good rom-coms. I like bad rom-coms. I like really cheesy, really dark. Hallmark? Not Hallmark, but like- Sweet Home, Alabama? The Other Woman. Sweet Home, Alabama is cool. Kate Upton. You just did Press?

Just go with it?

No, that's not just- The one with the Brooklyn Decker.

The Boobs. The Big Natties.

The chick that's got the boobs.

The fatty naddies.

The Duggie Girl.

The Duggie Hey, girl.

Let's see.

Yeah, let's see.

Being really good at technical events like figure skating is more impressive than running really fast.

I'd agree with that.

I'd agree with that. In a way, yes, but also- But would you rather be Usain Bolt?

Or what's the kid's name? If you're the fastest person- The Flipbot God?

The Flipbot God? Yeah, if you're the fastest person, that means that you're objectively faster than because everyone runs. But I think- So it's like you're dominant over more people on planet Earth. If you're the best technical figure skater, it's harder to learn that skill.

The barrier of entry is way higher.

Yeah, barrier of entry is way higher, and you'll always have people being like, If I had grown up figure skating, I'd be better. You'll never hear somebody be like, If I had learned how to run when I was a kid, I'd be faster.

But I would say this. I think getting silver or bronze in figure skating is more impressive than silver or bronze in a race. Because silver and bronze in a race is like, Yeah, you just weren't the fastest. There's only one fastest.

But it's also like, you can always figure skating. You can always... Figures can always be like, Oh, Russian judges, whatever.

Running is But if someone walked in here like, Yeah, I got silver metal in the women's figures came back. Holy shit, that's impressive. Someone walked in like, I got silver in the 100 meter dash.

We're like, You're not the fastest. Now, if somebody says, I got silver in 100 meter dash, the correct response is, Oh, man, that sucks. Yeah. I'm sorry.

You're just not the fastest.

Because the only sprinter, the only fast guy we know is the guy that finishes first place in the 100. Correct.

It's also not fun. You're just running. If you're really good at figure skating, that would be fun. You know what I mean?

Yeah, it would. Yes, it would. It would be fun. Getting good would not be fun, but once you're good, that'd be fun.

Yes.

Just like sick skater. Yeah.

It'd be really fun.

It'd be so technical.

Yeah, but you get to just go out there and chop it off.

We're talking about after you get good.

It's still so technical.

Right, but that's fun. That means you could just skate. The little things, you could just do a twisty. It's not even that technical, and everyone went, whoa.

I'd say the same thing about gymnastics, too. Gymnastics would be better than running.

Even if you're not on the ice, like Alyssa Lew, she went out there and threw that first pitch, and she did the jump on the land, on grass. That was awesome. That was almost more cool than it was on ice.

I'd rather be a sprinter.

I need some help.

What? Is he being stuck in the mic?

Hank, you would rather be a sprinter, but you'd rather be a sprinter so you'd be better at other sports. You'd rather have that speed for other stuff.

Yeah, you're thinking about it not just straight line running. That's boring as fuck.

What do you mean? Just being fast for the sake of being fast is boring.

You're thinking about how sick it would be to be fast. So like playing basketball, you'd be faster than everyone. That'd be all that stuff. No.

That's not it. You're putting words in my mouth. I never said that.

You just want to go on a track and run?

I would much rather be the fastest or second fastest person in the world rather than the best figure skater, second best figure skater in the world.

Okay, but you can't use... We're not talking... You can't use it for any other sport.

Yeah.

So just running fast.

Yeah. You just love being out on that track.

How often would you run fast?

Every four years.

Zack just made a great point back here. What? No one goes on a date to the track. Everyone goes on a date to the ice. Yeah.

Good point, Zack.

Yeah, but what if someone steals your date's purse?

Are you going to be mad enough to then confront him?

Yeah, I get my head start, too.

But wait, the guy steals your date's purse on a track?

No, just on the sideway.

Well, you can't use it for anything else, just for being on a track. That's the rule.

You said other sports.

But you're saying you want to be fast. Okay, then you can't use figure-skating on a date. At an ice-skating rank, you can. Yeah.

Got it. If you went to a date on a track-You could do it.

You could get the purse back on the track if they stayed in their lane.

So we'd go to a football game and be like, Oh, watch this.

Being super fast peaks at age 12.

That would be cool, going to a high school football game and just going down onto the track and sprinting and then having everybody that stands be like, Who's that guy?

That's not cool at all. Who's that guy down there? No. Everyone would be like, Why the fuck is that guy doing that?

The best scenario is you get caught by the freeze in a Braves game.

You can't do it in this in your made-up rules.

But if you are at a free and you see some guy just do a triple actual, you're like, Holy shit.

You can go ice-skating with your friends. Just going to the track sounds lonely.

Yeah. Listen, being fast would be awesome for other sports. I give you that. It would be so sick.

I agree to disagree. I don't think being like, I'm a man, really good figure skater, is that cool?

Yeah, maybe when you put it that way.

Whereas if you're like, I'm like...

He's got to made a good point there.

Yeah, but I mean, if you're like, Hey, I'm a man.

I'm a good figure skater. Yeah, you're right.

But you're probably also pretty good at hockey.

But we can't do other sports. That was the- But it's on the rink. I'm now on Hank's side.

You're on the rink. You're on ice.

I'm now 100% on Hank's side. All he had to say was being a man, being like, I'm a good figure skater.

No, you can do whatever you want on the ice rink. I liked Big Cat, Max, and Zack saying, Why would you ever go to a Yeah, never, ever.

Unless it's a horse track. The track sucks.

You could be Ashton Hall. Guys got a bajillion followers just running fast.

But then everyone's asking, Oh, you're really fast. Why don't you just play football?

Why weren't you awesome?

I guess you could say the same thing. Why didn't you play hockey?

Why don't you play hockey? Yeah. I'm on Hanks. I think the correct answer is neither one of those things is particularly cool.

I disagree. Usain Bolt's a fucking man.

Yeah, Usain Bolt's great.

There's so many... You could name more sprinters than you could figure skaters.

What if you finish like eight players?

Johnny Weer. Who else?

Elvis Stoico.

Cua God.

Tanya Harding.

Tanya Harding. Not women skaters?

Tanya Harding's awesome.

What's the guy? Oh, no, that's Lopinski. That's a woman.

Johnny Johnny Wears is the guy.

Johnny Wears is the guy. Yeah.

I feel like he's- Chaz Michael Michael's.

All I got is Elvis Stoico.

Now, if you're saying Johnny Wears, he's a gay man. Now, if you're I'm a gay man, back to the previous question, as a figure skater, I think that would maybe rock.

That'd be the best sport.

Yeah. Just being like, watch me flip. Watch me flip in a sequins uniform him, and I'll rock out.

Speed could be good for survival.

But you can't do it unless- Unless you're good.

Unless someone steals your purse on a track.

In which case, chase them down like an Ace Ventura.

All right. Whenever my fiancé goes on trips with his friends and I text him asking how it's going or ask him to call me, he just responds, Send nudes with a Z. I never send them, but he still ask, Do you think he actually wants them, or is he trying to just get me to stop talking to him so he can enjoy time with the boys.

I think he's probably showing off to the boys being like, Look, my old lady wants to talk about how the day is going. Look what I just wrote her. Send nudes.

You also got to understand that when we're on trips with the boys and you ask for an update, there are no updates. The update is drunk again. That's it. There's no gossip, there's no tea, there's no, Oh, my God, I can't believe this person is drunk again.

Nobody did anything really kind.

No.

We're not making big plans. Yeah. We're just drunk again. Drunk again. Drunk again. Drunk again. Also, he probably just would like to see nudes. Yeah.

You should just send for an update, you should just send a sheet that just says drunk or hung over. He just has a check which box. That's the only two states. I'm trying to think.

I mean, here's a good one. To keep the Winter Olympics entertaining, we should have one random person from the crowd lose your skeleton just to see how they do compared to the pros.

Yeah, it's a good point.

Wait, say it again. Jens is up my ass right now. He's texting me because he says there's no chance we could make that Nathan McKinnon shot 10 times out of 10.

Oh, well, guess what? We have a goal, so we can try it.

Yeah. Memes already did it. Yeah.

Did he make it?

And he He was saying it was a one-timer, but he didn't... I understand a one-timer, but he wasn't...

I would make it 10 times out of 10.

If I could get on the skates, I could make it.

Probably with my eyes closed.

If football is an Olympic sport, neither should soccer. It doesn't make sense when we have the World Cup and the stars don't even play during the Olympics. Is soccer an Olympic sport?

It is, but it's not the same.

Yeah.

No one cares. It's not like best on best.

What was the previous one? Was that it?

No, the previous one was just where you should have a regular person do Olympics to see how they would Yeah, we've discussed that.

We would suck.

But football is-I curled.

It was terrible.

Listen, football is going to be best on best. It's going to be our NFL players.

Yeah, we better not lose that.

Last one. My take on the Winter Olympics is they should add big game hunting as a sport and winter survival as a sport. Love that. I log hours watching Luke from Outdoor Boys Surviving 15 feet of Alaskan Snow with nothing but a shovel. If they added that as an event and had 24-hour feed running on survival list on a a random channel, that would make up the Winter Olympics so much more watchable.

I do agree with big game hunting. That would rock. It's like you go out in the wilderness and then you just have to weigh. How much bear did you come back with?

An Olympic sport of just watching dudes in the middle of the woods in the winter who can start a fire faster, I'd watch that. John Cruck announcing. That would be an awesome one.

The idea that we had a couple- Who can make John Cruck a sausage first? Cooking. Cooking.

You can make the fire, Cook the sausage. Hand is John Crock.

I think just cooking in general should be an Olympic sport. It's like, who can make the best steak in the world? You get the same ingredients. Who does best?

Isn't that just Top Chef?

No, it's a little bit different. You're thinking like, chopped. No, I mean, you all get a ribeye, You get salt, you get a little bit of oil, you get a fire.

And you got to kill it.

Well, you have to kill the ribeye first and then cut the ribeye. There is actually a sport that we're talking about a couple of days ago, which is on the skis, you just go up and back down the mountain until somebody stops. Just for time. Who can keep moving for the longest period of time before you have to quit?

That sounds awful. Yeah.

There we go. Jens just said, Yeah, you score 100 out of 100. I just watched it again. All right. He might be fucking with me, but we score that every time.

A hundred out of 100.

Yeah, 100 out of a hundred. Nathan McKinnon, he should probably never play hockey again.

Okay.

Numbers. Five.

Three.

I'll do six. 56.

Twenty-six. Seventy-five.

I just got to be able to stand on the skates when I'm there. I just don't know if I would be able to stand on the skates.

Yeah, that part would be tough.

That part would be… I would probably slip as soon as it got to me. But if I knew how to skate, 100 out of 100.

Everyone said their number? I'm not sure if that's the case. 36. There's a ball caught up there. The zero is caught up there. 98. 98. No, wait. 86. Oh, 86. All right, boys, come in. We'll do one more.

All right, we'll do one more. We'll do one. Yeah.

Yeah, it was. You're going to say 86? Wait, are you wearing a jersey that's '86 right now? Oh, no. That sucks. You were going to say '86? That's a sick jersey. Shane.

He said he's guessed every single-You've guessed every time?

That's a shame. I've guessed every single time this new machine. That's a Shane.

That's a real Shane.

Are you fucking with me?

What's it? What's it? Eighty-six.

Eighty-six right here, buddy. Oh, my God.

Oh, no. That's tough.

Eighty-six. Damn. All right, well, Shane, You can guess first. Go ahead. Numbers.

Eighty-six.

Oh, me.

I can't guess first.

No, you can't. Well, you did, but you paused. You paused. Do you want 86?

I mean, it's not going to be 86 twice in a row.

It could be. The same chances. Might as well try. All right.

Eighty-six. Yeah, you got it.

All right.

I'll go six.

That sucks. This is a setup. It's not a setup.

It's not a setup. It actually happened.

It's not a setup, dude.

56.

It's not a setup. That's so funny. You're wearing a '96 jersey. Yeah, I'll go five.

You're going 99.

43.

41.

What's your guess? 50?

Seventy-five.

Six. Oh, 86.

Back to back?

There you go, Shane. Was it? No, it's 58..

Anybody else get it? I got 56. That's fucked up.

58. No one said 58.

Yeah, I didn't know I was going to do that, Shane. There was no way.

No way. Also, we got to pick zero. Sold it pretty good.

Zero stuck up there. Yeah.

If you would have came in on time, you would have got it. Love you guys. Happy birthday to maybe the biggest draft bust of all time, Chr. Ponder.

Yes.