Transcript of Celtics Head Coach Joe Mazzulla, Kyle Long In Studio, Hot Seat/Cool Throne + Guys On Chicks New

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Stella Blue Coffee is more than just great coffee, it's coffee with a purpose. Introducing We Brew to Rescue, a nationwide campaign using proceeds from our new ready-to-drink cans to help fund 1,000 pet adoptions this year. Every can you crack open helps a real pet find a real home. Simple as that. Made with 100% Colombian coffee, each 11 oz can delivers smooth, drinkable energy with a boost of protein. Available in Espresso Cafe Mocha and Espresso Sweet Cream. Built for mornings, long days, and everything in between. Drink Stella Blue, fuel your day, and help save a pet's life. You can follow our progress in real time throughout the campaign by watching the adoption tracker on our site. Grab yours now at StellaBlueCoffee.com, Amazon, and select retailers nationwide. On today's part of my take presented by DraftKings, we've got a twofer for the people, and it's actually an incredible back-to-back. We have Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla. Haven't caught up with him in a while, but we're going to get him on to talk some NBA playoffs, how the season went.

Also an incredible story he told about his household. And then we have good friend, best friend Kyle Long in studio talking a little draft, talking a little what his draft process was like, just catching up with him. Great back-to-back interviews. We're going to talk some playoffs set, the play-in. We're going to do a little choose your own adventure for Tuesday's play-ins. We have hot seat, cool throne. We've got guys on chicks. It's a great show. And it's all brought to you by our friends at Noble. This episode is brought to you by Noble, Barstool's favorite footwear brand. Noble is a brand known for the best-in-class footwear, and they're everywhere right now, walking around city to city at the airport, grabbing coffee wherever I go. They've got so many great styles and colors, and it's about to ramp up the launch of their new daily runner. The Journey 2. This is Noble's daily running shoe with an emphasis on comfort, support, and dependability. Soft where you want, structured where you need. Take it outside, you can run or walk. The Journey 2s are made to move your way. Exclusively for Pardon My Take listeners, Noble is offering 35% off your first order.

Visit www.nobleproject.com and use code PMT for 35% off your entire first order. That's www.nobleproject.com. N-O-B-U-L-L-P-R-O-J-E-C-T.com. Use code PMT for 35% off. Okay, let's go. Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, April 15th, and we've got some more playoffs set.

Happy Tax Day, Hank.

Happy Tax Day.

Let's go get your shit done.

You guys paying your taxes this year? Always. Always.

I paid a little extra. Government gave me a little tip this year.

Nice.

15% gratuity. You guys have done a great job.

I'm on the— I'm on the extension October 15th. So it's like, yeah, April 15th always kind of fucks me up because I'm like, oh shit, did I? Oh wait, yeah, yeah. I just get one tax form to get you on extension. You just stay on the extension for life.

No, I'm 100% on the extension.

It sucks.

Yes.

It's like I'd rather just be done.

October 15th is my new tax day now.

Whatever a K-1 is.

Mm-hmm.

Don't even know. Hank, you pay your taxes this year?

Yeah.

Got a guy.

You did them.

Yeah.

When did you do them?

I didn't do them.

When did you tell him to do them? Recently. Nice.

I don't think Hank's done his taxes. I think this is all—

yeah, you want an extension?

You can see there's still time, dude.

We'll extend for you.

There's still time.

Good.

I'm chilling.

I don't think you're good. I don't think you're good. I don't think you're chilling.

I'm good and chilling.

I got a question, Zach. Do you pay taxes? Have you paid taxes? Do you pay taxes? Have you paid your taxes?

I have paid taxes previously in life. I have not yet paid taxes this year. I will pay taxes today or try to do like a late extension situation. Uh, it's also like a state thing. I don't know if I'm filing here, if I'm supposed to file back at the house.

Oh, you know, got to get an easy thing to do because you, you moved up here. You lived in Florida for part of the year, right?

Yeah, I think I lived in Florida the majority.

If we do— if we count— not the majority.

I think I lived in— I think I may have lived in Florida too many days.

Let's be careful what we say over—

I have no idea.

I have no idea.

I'm going to get a professional to do my taxes.

Yeah, just say, Zach, anytime somebody asks you a question about your taxes, just Refer them to your attorney.

Did—

hold on a sec.

You're, you're going—

you're reaching out now to start?

I've got no further comment at this time.

Yeah. Talk to his attorney, Max. What are you wearing, a wire?

Well, I feel like it's pretty late to, like, go search for an accountant now.

No, there's plenty of fly-by-night guys out there that'll take it. Max, bad job by us to start the show. Max, congratulations on the Philadelphia Flyers.

Fired up.

Fired up.

Fired up.

You're in the offs.

I'm sorry that we, that I had to do you like that.

No, it's fine. You guys got a lot of loser points this year and that catapulted you above us and we had more wins, but that's fine. You had more loser points and that's the way that the, that the cookie crumbles. So I want you to beat the Penguins, Max.

Yeah, let's go.

Everyone's fired up.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

It was a crazy game. It was overtime. You know, if they, if they don't win the shootout, then you're still alive. Yeah. They win the shootout. The 45% gone.

Gone. And for that, that's the thing about 45% is like there was a 55% chance that I wasn't going to make it.

Actually, you should just, you should just spin zone it and just be like, that was one of the greatest magic tricks of all time. You made 45% disappear so fast.

Instantly.

45% is— people forget that is actually more likely that they wouldn't make the playoffs.

Don't explain that to Chef Donnie. What were you saying, Matt?

The Flyers and the Capitals actually have the same amount of wins. If anyone were to make that argument, it would be memes because the Islanders have more wins.

Okay.

Both of those.

All right. My mistake.

Regulation wins. What about regulation wins? That's what I—

that's where you lose me.

I don't know that you can't find regulation wins.

I also don't really understand.

I don't know what's in regulation.

If you lose overtime, if you lose in overtime, it's actually not that bad.

Yeah. Regulation wins. Is that what—

if you win in overtime, is there— is there a difference?

To win, the Capitals had 8 more regulation wins.

What about overtime?

But why?

Let's—

I can't get too into the nitty-gritty with hockey. I'm fired up.

That's all.

That's my personal statement.

Some really, really nitty-gritty stuff.

Yeah, some big time. But how the point system works.

Congratulations, Max. I do actually want you to beat the Penguins. I am rooting for you. This is not me being a troll. I hope that the Philadelphia Flyers beat the Penguins in the playoffs. So congratulations. I'm happy for you.

Congratulations, Max.

I'm excited.

It's going to be fun.

And we are set, everyone.

And Hank, also, hockeyed up, clinched it. He's up. Remember last year? That was so funny when you're like, when the playoffs started, you're like, I'm excited for the Bruins. It's like, they're not in it. Oh shit.

But you're back.

I'm Bruins.

I've said this for—

yeah, no, I'm not saying that. It was just a funny moment.

The playoffs start and I lock in.

Yeah.

And if the Bruins aren't in it, I don't.

You lock out.

That's fine. Yeah.

You're Henry Lockout.

You can't pay attention to every sport all the time. No, I agree with that.

No, that's, it's very hard to do.

I, uh, I was going through it a little bit last night. I got very upset when the Flyers won in a shootout because the Hurricanes did not put their best players on the shootout lineup. Um, for some reason, Memes, maybe you can explain that one to me.

Positioning.

Positioning.

They just didn't play in the game.

Yeah.

Well, they already had positioned the best record.

Yeah. So, um, I was a little bit upset because I did want to see Ovi and the boys take on the Penguins. For old time's sake, one last time in the playoffs. I thought that would have been an awesome series, at least, at least for me to watch. And maybe I was going through it a little bit too hard, but I started to think about the calendar year that DC Sports has had. And I think I got StatHole digging into some like deep Saber metrics on this. But based on the research that I've done, I think that the last 12 months in DC Sports has been a top 5 all-time bad sports year for a city, for a sport, for sports town. Okay. And also including that, I would say that like 2023 Chicago might be in there too.

Yeah.

If you take the White Sox instead of the Cubs as the baseball representative.

Yeah.

I would put maybe 2015 Philadelphia, 2014-15 when you guys were doing The Process, that might be in the list too. And then I mentioned to Dom, your assistant, earlier that Cleveland, right after LeBron left.

Yes.

That was a tough year for them too. Now they're not foursport, but he said that. Yeah, but you know what? That was like the year before we had Peyton Hillis. Oh, and then I thought to myself, that actually makes the case that it might even be worse. Yeah, because you're saying it's always darkest before the dawn, but your dawn is Peyton Hillis playing so good that he got on the Madden cover, but the Browns still didn't make the playoffs.

Correct.

But yeah, I think that 2025, 2026 Washington, D.C. is a top 5 all-time bad sports year with all 4 major sports, all 4 major sports. The Wizards historically bad. The Nationals were terrible last year.

The Mystics didn't make the playoffs, but we got it.

Hey, we got a great center from UCLA.

I'm just saying. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, you got her. Yeah, she's awesome.

She's a beast.

Yeah.

And then the commanders backsliding and just disappointing. Everybody, this has been a tough year, but maybe that just means it's darkest before the dawn.

Peyton Hillis is coming.

Peyton Hillis. I've got— that means Luke McCaffrey, Pro Bowl next year. That's what that means. Jeremiah Love, maybe, maybe.

But you see that— did you see that tweet that was like, last time every team has drafted a running back in the first round and the Commanders was 1967?

Yeah, I can't remember who was that.

I don't know. I was trying to find the tweet. It's crazy.

Yeah, it was. It's been a tough year in DC, but that's okay because I do have to remind myself that I had that nice little 2-year run where everything worked out my way. But these are the things that you think about when you get frustrated with sports. And yeah, it's been a tough year, but we move on.

But also Max gets to get fired up.

Max is fired up. So it's all worth it.

Yeah. Max so fired up.

So fired up.

Are you going to go pigtails?

Sure, I'll go pigtails for the Fly Guys.

Soggy Soros?

Sure.

Okay.

Okay.

I'll get soggy as hell.

I don't know.

You might not have to. Don't do that. That's loser talk.

You could, yeah, you could just win the cup.

Yeah.

It's for the cup.

Are you actually going to get fired up?

Like, it's for the cup.

I want you to be actually upset if they lose.

I can't promise you that, but I will be excited if they win.

Okay.

That's a promise. And I will get soggy if they lose. Also a promise.

Also a promise. Love that. So yeah, we got play— I mean, playoffs, play-in, uh, choose your own adventure. I'm rooting for the Hornets. I hope the Hornets win. Yeah, this isn't to get in the playoffs, it's to get to the Friday play-in game for the Eastern Conference. For the Western Conference, uh, I'm rooting for the Blazers because the Bulls have their pick if the Blazers go to the playoffs. So Blazers, Hornets. Yeah, actually, listen to this right now. That's what happened.

Hornets, Suns.

Hornets, Suns.

Why would you say that?

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Colton, Colton.

I want Hornets. And you know what? I'm going to say Clippers.

I like—

that's not it. That's not a game.

Choosing your own adventure.

Yeah. Yeah. This is truly choosing your own adventure. Yeah. That Clippers play on Wednesday.

Right. But I think, I think that I want the Clippers to advance out of the play-in.

Got it.

I want the Hornets.

Well, there's two teams, right? Yeah. But what's the other one?

The Hornets and the Clippers are the two teams that I want to advance.

There's two teams each conference.

I'm saying I want the Clippers to advance. I want the Hornets to advance. I want the Blazers to win tonight. Okay. Um, and I'm going to go Sixers. I want to see—

I want to see—

yeah, Sixers. I want to see Max. Yeah, I want to see Max because he's got— he's playing with house money with the Flyers.

Yeah. By the way, is Steph Curry kind of just a play-in guy? I feel like he's always been in the play-in every year.

Yeah. Well, he's— they're even like limiting his minutes in the play-in.

Is he a play-in merchant?

He might be. I don't know. I don't know what the Warriors are going to even look like if Steph Curry is going to play like 19 minutes. Not good.

I hate the plan. I hate the plan, Max. I know I was, I was busting your balls the other day. It's playing stupid. It's stupid. And I honestly, like, until, until a team in the 9th or 10th spot can go deep in the playoffs, I'm not going to take it seriously. The 9th and 10th team are never going to win. Like, they're never going to go deep. This isn't serious. I know that the Heat, that one year that they went to the finals, they were in the play-in. But they were a playoff team anyway. So it's like, what are we doing? I just— it's so stupid.

I hate it.

I hate the play-in.

I think it's—

it's exciting for like a team like the Hornets.

I think it's fun for, for like 1 to 2— like, the Blazers are probably pumped.

But it would have been cool too if the— if the— but the Blazers would have been in the playoffs.

Yeah.

So that one doesn't— like, the Hornets are the only case that I'll hear because they wouldn't be in the playoffs normally. And so now they get like a pseudo playoff game. But even then, like, what about just next year making the playoffs for real and having that be the excitement? Like, we're back in the playoffs.

Yeah, the playoff. I don't, I don't love the play-in in general. I'm going to watch. You know what? It feels like the Heat are just in the play-in every single season too. Yeah, that's like their spot.

We actually like, we left, we left them high and dry because it was always the Bulls, the Hawks, and the Heat. Yeah, those, those 3 teams would just always be in the play-in together. But yeah, I play in—

let's get to the weekend.

Let's get to the weekend. We got double playoffs this weekend.

This is my favorite week of the year.

It is. This is your number 1 weekend of the year.

No, no, no. Next week.

Next week is your number 1. Next 2 weeks are your number 1, 2 weeks of the year.

I think it's the best sports time of the year.

Is the first round of the NBA playoffs and NHL? NHL, I'll go with NBA playoffs first round is not— I mean, there's— I'm excited for the Timberwolves and Nuggets. I would be excited for the Heat or the Hornets if they played the Pistons. The Hawks-Nicks could be good. I don't know what else I'm excited.

Celtics-Sixers.

Celtics-Sixers could be good, but it will be fast.

The Sixers are one-point favorites against the Magic.

So they're favorites, but like 55%.

That's pretty good. 100% again, they're favorites. I, I like the NBA play.

The first round of the NBA playoffs can be tough, but combined with NHL playoffs—

yes, the NHL playoffs first round is awesome.

The bottom line is I'm saying you get playoff, you get double playoffs, double play, a lot of games.

If you're nimble on the remote, you'll be able to tune into at least one hockey game and one NBA game per night that will be exciting. Yeah, you just have to be on your game.

Um, okay, anything else on play-ins, playoffs, anything? You see the bullshit they're doing? What? All nationally televised games. So, oh yes, taking them off. I did see this. This is bullshit.

What?

Local networks. It used to be local networks got the first round, so like Mike Breen could still do the Knicks games.

That is bullshit.

Um, That's complete bullshit, memes. Those guys, those guys go through the whole season, they don't get one playoff game.

No, it's, uh, I forget the stat, but it's the first time ever first round has been on SMY or MSG since like the '60s.

Yeah, that's crazy. That's crazy. That's so— that poor Mike Breen. Mike Breen should get to call the Knicks. I guess he will end up probably calling a Knicks game.

I think so.

But he should get to call a Knicks game with Clyde Frazier, and that would have been cool. Fuck it. Memes, memes, what happened to the Islanders, by the way? Well, Frazier— I don't know why I said Clyde.

Uh, they just had a bad March. They were playing really, really, really, really, really, really bad.

Okay, that was— they were just getting— they were just getting destroyed by every team.

They ended up firing their coach. Hired Peter DeBoer to get an early start for next season. To get an early start. Was it your coach was Patrick Wah, right?

No longer.

How'd he take it?

I think fine. He probably couldn't hear that with all the rings in his ears.

Yeah, it's true.

That would have been funny if he said, I'm not fired. I couldn't hear you. That would have been great. Okay, let's get to— you want to do Hot Seat, Cool to Run? And then we got two awesome interviews coming up. Sure. Hot Seat, Cool Throne is brought to you by DraftKings. DraftKings. We love DraftKings. The NBA playoffs are in full swing and the intensity isn't letting up. And with DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA, your winnings get a boost every single day, all playoffs long. Bet player props, bet live from the opening tip to the final possession. Every bucket, every dime, every clutch takeover matters in DraftKings Sportsbook. Keeps boosting you all the way through. All DraftKings customers can enjoy a profit boost every single day throughout the playoffs. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now. Use code TAKE to claim your profit boost. That's code TAKE to get a boost every day of the NBA playoffs in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours.

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My hot seat is Usain Bolt.

Okay.

Hmm.

You guys hear about Gout Gout?

I did hear about—

Yeah, Gout Gout. Gout Gout's a beast.

Gout Gout is next.

18-year-old Australian sprint phenom ran a 19.67 in the 200-meter, breaking Usain Bolt's record. Only 18 years old. Great name. He's next. He's absolutely Usain Bolt shaking in his boots.

I think what you say—

I don't remember what exactly you said. You don't respect speed, right?

What? That's not what I said. That's absolutely not what I said.

We were talking about sprinting. You're like, I don't think sprinting would be that.

No, no, no.

We—

what was the debate?

It was Donald Trump or I show speed.

You know, the debate was— what was it? Was it you could run fast but you could only do it on the track? And then what was the other side of it?

Swim? No. Was it swim?

No, it wasn't swim. Does anyone remember this? This is going to drive us nuts.

I just remember that you— you—

no, no, no, because no, running fast—

and I think— no, no, that running fast would be—

no, PFT, help me out.

I don't remember.

Come on.

I actually don't remember what the debate was. It was, but would you rather run fast—

you kept saying, but it's only on a track.

Yeah.

And then, which is why— which is why I didn't like it.

Yeah, right.

Only do it on a track.

What was the other side?

It was some sort of Olympic Sport.

Come on, figure skating. Figure skating.

Yeah, be able to skate really well.

All right, yeah.

Now sometimes you get caught up in the moment.

All right, now that I got the, uh, 40,000 view of this, uh, debate that I got in, yeah, I'll go with speed.

Well, this was— it took a guy like Gout to show us how cool it is to be able to run fast on a track.

We should do that.

9.67 is so fucking fast.

We should do an old debate series in the summer. Just bring up old debates and don't tell us which side we're on and see how— because like you just get caught up. It's like Hank says one thing. I think, I think both of us were like, figure skating, bro.

How's that?

Staying strong with figure skating back here.

Yeah, 100%.

I think I was saying like, I would like to be able to skate for hockey.

Yeah, but then we were— I can't remember. We kept on putting qualifiers on Hank's side but not on ours. We're like, you can't just run down the street. You have to do it on a track.

But if you, if you're a great figure skater, you could use that skill in a hockey game. Yeah, that's what I would say.

I think we just said that figure skating is more fun than running.

Okay.

Yeah, we can, we can move on from that debate.

I think we can agree to disagree.

I take it back.

I—

speed is fun.

Elite balance beats speed.

19.67 seconds. And Usain Bolt didn't do that until he was 21 years old.

That's crazy.

Yeah, he might be. What can he do in the 100, though? That's where we really start to respect speed is 100-yard dash.

Yeah, that's blinding speed. Yeah.

So if he can If he can beat Usain in the, in the 100, then I'm on board.

Yeah, it didn't look— the race didn't look as Usain Bolt-y. Maybe it's just because the guy that came in second also was flying and he's a white guy. But I'm excited. I'm now excited to see— I'm excited to follow Gout in his career. Just great name.

Yeah, I was going to put Gout on my cool throne, but I did read that his dad is thinking about changing the pronunciation of their name back to what it used to be, which is Gwat.

Gwat.

Yeah, that's the original. It's Gwat Gwat.

Gwat Gwat.

But I don't know, I feel like Gout Gout now. Everybody knows Gout Gout. You can't take it away. But he's like, I'd prefer that my son not have a name that is also the name of a disease. But that's fine.

A lot of that.

Now you know how Corona feels.

Yeah, right. A lot of cool people have Gout. Paul Bissonnette.

Yeah.

Large.

Large. Yeah.

Deutsch. Yep. Deutsch has it. Yeah.

How do you get gout again? You just eat too much steak.

It's like steak, red wine, alcohol.

The disease of kings.

Yeah.

That's what they used to call it.

And then my cool throne is Diego Pavia. Getting ready for the draft. I, and, you know, obviously followed him last year. I did have the outside view that he was basically just Johnny Manziel 2.0. The stuff he did at the Heisman ceremony seemed very flashy. He's fucking hanging out with Glenny Balls all the time. It's like, this guy is not, not a serious person, was my take on him. And then I watched the full Gruden QB camp, like YouTube hour-long sit-down he did with him. I'm in love with Diego Pavia. He's got his head on his shoulders. To say the least. Like, he's, he's a true underdog story.

Like, yeah, I like that.

He's, he's a great— like, he's very smart. It's crazy, his story, where it's like he wasn't recruited, went to some random, you know, New Mexico Tech, like, military school or whatever.

Yeah.

Dominated there, dominated New Mexico, dominated Vanderbilt.

Yeah.

It's a great story.

And he, he's a dog.

Gruden was talking about— he's like, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to say name Taysom Hill. Like, what do you think about that? He's like, I would love that. Like, just get him on a team and he's going to— he's going to do some shit. Yeah, he's going to do some shit. I'm all in on Diego Pavia. I would love him. I would love to see him in New England. And I just— I've never done a 180 more, I don't think, ever. Like, I was just going into it being like, it was going to hate this guy. That was what I was thinking. And then it's like, no, Gruden, like, he fucking loved it.

It was for good reason. It was the post-Heisman that hurt him. Yeah, the Heisman, losing the Heisman and being like, fuck the Heisman voters. Like, come on, dude.

And I like Lenny Balls, like one of my favorite people.

But when it's like he's, you know, no, Diego Pavia is an absolute dog and he is like the definition of a winner because he didn't go to any like— and he's going crazy awesome football factories, but he won everywhere he went.

He was a negative 4-star recruit. Yeah. I don't even know that was the thing.

Yeah.

What do you mean?

That Bruno's like, were you, you know, what, 1-star, 2-star? And I don't know if he was joking or if that's a thing. He goes negative 4.

Yeah, I think that's probably a—

Probably a joke, but he was— he had zero stars.

He had negative four. Zero offers.

Like nothing.

Jeez.

All right, Hank, you're a draftnik.

I love this. If Hank's on board, I'm diving in.

What position would you want to play New England?

Any—

anything. So quarterback? Hot seat Drake May?

No.

Oh, Taysom Hill.

Like, Taysom Hill and Drew Brees worked great together.

Okay.

It's like you get him in for packages, and then it's like when, when he comes on the field, you get excited.

Would his package be like, get the ball in his hands to run?

Maybe times snaps, maybe run.

It's like you sometimes throw, sometimes run. You never know what he's going to do. Yeah, it's kind of like a new version of Wildcat.

Get him in the slot, whatever. Flicker.

He's a little short, but that doesn't matter. Did they bring up his size? Yeah. What do you say?

He was just like, I've been, I've been short my whole life and I've played against guys that were taller.

I love that. That's a good answer. It's a good answer.

It is what it is.

Yeah. Okay. You know, good hot seat, cool throne.

Does that—

does— does— does— should you get— should you get unfairly judged because you're short?

I know, but I think I should be fairly judged because I'm short. Does that make sense? You get like—

if I say that again.

Yeah. Hank asked me if I should be unfairly judged because I'm short.

Like, should you get written off as a podcaster because you're just a little guy?

No, no, because I can see over my laptop. Just fine. So that's good. But like, if I was playing basketball, I would probably not draft myself early. What about football? If I'm playing football, depends on the position. Now, if you're talking about doing like some sort of wild, wild Diego package.

Yeah.

Then yeah, maybe you're like Darren Sproles, great running back, hid behind his offensive line.

Scatback.

Scatback. Yeah. So I'm not going to unfairly judge him. Hey, we're all the same. We're all the same height laying down. You know what I'm saying?

Yep, I'm gonna judge him a little, but I think he's a really good player. But I do, I do think that height matters for quarterbacks. But I'm— again, I think he's a good player. Height does matter, right?

But I, I don't care anymore.

Okay, okay, that's fair.

I don't think he's good.

I don't think he's gonna—

I don't think he's gonna be— it's like not a top draft pick, but it's like, right, he's a guy.

Yeah, he's a utility. You want him in the building, do everything. Yeah, I would— him being a backup, would— you could do a lot worse than that because he does have that this is going to sound like a diss, but I'm using it as a compliment. He has that backup, I can go win a game type of energy.

Does he have too much of that to be backup? Does he have too much dog as a backup quarterback?

You probably got to put a little bit of his dog down.

Put a leash on him.

Yeah.

Muzzle.

Yeah.

Just keep him inside.

Give him a Kong toy.

Yeah. Yeah.

Give his dog a Kong toy and let him just go.

Just like when you go into that quarterback meeting room, cover the ball in peanut butter and just let him sit in the corner licking it for a while.

Yeah. Okay, PFT, your hot seat cultural. Good job, Hank.

Very good.

Come prepared.

Thanks. My hot seat is Harambe. Oh, because we got— there's another new gorilla on the block. Happy birthday to the world's oldest gorilla today, Fatou. Fatou. She just turned 69.

Whoa.

And she's in captivity right now in Berlin. She's like the nicest gorilla ever, apparently. People love her. Yeah, she's in captivity in Berlin.

I got a question.

What do you mean captivity, Hank?

What do you mean captivity?

She was— she lives in a zoo.

I got a question.

Yeah.

What's going on with this? This war? The apes are warring.

Oh, Civil War Amongst the Apes.

Yeah.

How are we getting the video of that?

It's been going on for like 15 years.

Who's getting the video?

I don't know.

How am I seeing like, like these, these apes like running at each other and fighting like they're two rival Russian gangs? You know, the Russian gangs where it's like 100 dudes versus 100 dudes. Yeah, that's what we're seeing. Yes.

Like gangs.

It's nuts.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Apparently that war has been going on for 15 years.

They forgot someone covering it.

They forgot what they're fighting about.

They're just pissed.

Yeah, they're just pissed. It's like we've always been at war with East Asia and then they just go. They just run at each other and kill each other. Do you guys respect them?

Do you guys want to know a fun animal fact I learned? Yeah. Did you know that orcas, all the orcas, like they're in different pods and they all eat one thing and they don't overlap? Isn't that crazy?

The Jack Spratt situation.

So there's like one pod of orcas that only eat salmon and one pod of orcas that only eat, you know, seals. And none of them eat humans. No, there's no recorded footage of an orca trying to eat a human because they just don't and they just train themselves.

Why not?

Yeah, because they only eat the one thing and they don't go out of it like they won't go. A salmon-eating orca— again, this is also something I read on Twitter, so might not be true. A salmon-eating orca will not go and eat a seal even if they're dying of hunger.

Really?

They won't go across. No, it's crazy. Can we get the screen? Can you change it? So I think he's searching stuff and we can't see it. We just have a beautiful setting. A beautiful setting.

Yes, it is true that orca pods have unique specialized diets passed down through generations. See, different pods often focus on specific prey such as salmon, seal, or sharks and may completely ignore other potential food sources. That's kind of cool because it's like the ocean provides enough food for all of us and they respect each other's turf. They stick to sports, right?

Yeah. They said the thing—

what happens when one pod starts eating humans?

Well, then that would be a problem.

That's going to be an issue. And I would be happy to take that pod out expeditiously.

But they said they saw— they documented a pod that was— that was dying of hunger because like the salmon population was low and they would— they wouldn't eat the seals.

Yeah, but that's— that's a— It's a very cool thing that the whales do that.

Yeah.

They're like, we can all survive.

This is the other thing I learned. As soon as you take them out and you put them in SeaWorld, they will eat humans, Hank, because now they're taken away from their family and they don't live by the rules of the road.

It gets them angry.

They don't eat the humans that they kill.

They just kill.

Yeah, they—

that's just because their big foot brought them all the way down and they drown.

They send a message. They kill for fun, dude.

Orcas. I didn't know orcas had it like that. I respect the fuck out of orcas. Are great.

Bad news.

No.

What?

They don't kill humans. What are you talking about?

Orcas are awesome. They're apex predators.

They fuck up sharks as fuck.

They should be.

All right, we need to get— you know what we need?

There needs to be— there again, I ask again, if you are starting a new sports franchise, have the uniforms look like orca whales. Yeah, like the Orcas is a fucking badass name.

I'm going to say right now, soccer team sent us that shit.

Yeah, but I mean like a real sports team.

I know.

Yeah.

We need what we need to do. I'll text Malicek right now. We need to get Gruden to do a QB camp with an orca, and then Hank will all of a sudden be like, these things are awesome.

No, could be a change of pace.

Orcas are evil as fuck.

They're not. I just told you they don't eat humans, bro.

Why do you say they're evil?

They are evil. Tilikum.

Oh, that was one that we put in jail.

But then that fucked up the entire orca ecosystem.

No, it didn't.

No, he stayed in the jail. No, dude, he died in captivity. Hank, what are you talking about?

We took an orca prisoner and we tortured it for decades and it killed a couple guys, and now you're like, orcas are evil.

It's kind of similar to Planet—

wait, what are you talking about? Tilikum? Didn't Tilikum die in captivity?

But it had children.

Okay, and their children became evil. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They put them out there.

Yeah, there, there is like a—

are you sure?

I believe so. Like the pyramid or whatever.

Yeah, the coaching tree. Tilikum does have a coaching tree and it's all—

it's bad news.

Yeah, really? Like, it's coaching tree are a lot of violent—

it's a— it's— it's a documentary. I don't want to get depressed, but it's fucking depressing.

But again, like Tilikum's— yeah, it spawned a bunch of pissed off orcas, but like with good reason. Right.

But again, it's human's fault, but it's like it's basically—

Hank, you watch a lot of Game of Thrones. Or is it— is it—

yeah, you watch a lot of Game of Thrones.

Is it unusual for like the children and grandchildren of a certain family, like the Baratheons, to hate the Lannisters and shit like that?

Yeah, they're just trying to get justice.

Yeah.

If we made you do handstands and push-ups for your dinner for two decades, you'd be pissed too.

Oh, great point. Yeah. Get his ass.

It's not the human's fault. But like, orcas are bad news.

No, they are not.

No, they're great news.

I'm telling you, they live— they live by a code that is so strict they would never I could drop you in the ocean right now in front of an entire pack of orcas. They wouldn't touch you, dude.

I disagree. They'd actually probably form a raft and bring you back to land.

No, they wouldn't, because you're not salmon or seals.

Bump you up.

Yeah, I think it's just that Tilikum.

No, no, it had a— it had a buddy, some offspring that it said were bad news.

As of 2026, 4 humans have died due to interactions with orcas. Tilikum was involved in 3 of those deaths.

Yeah. So it's Tilikum.

Yeah, but it's— it's spawned Tilikum's children.

But where are they? Tilikum's children are out in the wild. Who'd he spawn with?

It might be a little unfair to like look sideways at the children of Tilikum and be like, you're, you're probably like your old man.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

It's got a lot.

How many kids does he have? Is Tilikum the one that Jim Merce tried to save?

No, that's a different one that he tried to fly across the country. He would have done it too if it wasn't for all the orca haters like Hank.

It is fucked up that they put these guys in like these guys are smart. They put them in a fucking jail cell.

Yeah, it's messed up. We could learn a lot from, from orcas.

Oh, shit.

Hank has a Tilikum 21 family tree. Wait, what is this? But is it all deaths? No. So they're still alive, but they didn't kill anyone. You just hate— you just hate the kids because Tilikum was arrested.

Tilikum's offspring have shown that the aggressive instincts of transient orcas have passed down through generations.

You know what this is? You know, this is big cat. This is Kim Jong Hank. This is what they do in North Korea. You screw up and then they take 3 generations of your family, lock them in a work camp.

This is fucked up.

This is fucked up, dude.

I said I'm going to get here.

What are we on?

I'm on Team Orca. I was just saying happy birthday to Fatou.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

The 69-year-old gorilla. The gorilla.

Okay.

She seems like a real sweetheart. So shout out to her. Then my cool throne is true love because the Dallas Wings drafted Ozzy Fudd and she was a player at UConn. She was Paige Becker's girlfriend. She is Paige Becker's girlfriend. So now two number one picks living together, working together in Dallas. It's so funny whenever this happens in the WNBA.

I— so we had this debate on Wake Up Barstool, which I think it's bad. I do too. Yeah, I don't know why you'd want to work every day with your partner, and especially in a locker room setting too. Like, that's, that's the part that makes it a little weird.

Sometimes you want to go home after a long day at work and you get to talk to your spouse about, here's something that happened at work today that you don't know about, right?

I think it's good in the fact that, like, good for their relationship, that they get to live together and don't have to, you know, travel to see each other all the time. But bad in the fact that there's being a rookie in the WNBA and then also having to navigate, oh, you're the franchise player, you're dating the franchise player in the locker room and all that stuff. Did you also see the backfire that the WNBA commissioner had? Yeah.

When she— well, it was a backfire to her backfire. She tried— she tried to backfire it on the reporter.

Right.

Because the reporter asked her, about her job security.

Yep.

And then she says, I'd like to know if you would ask that same question of a man.

And everyone was like, yeah, yeah, all the time.

Because you stink at your job.

Every, every time a man sucks at their job, coach, commissioner, whatever, they get asked that.

Yeah. They weren't asking you to smile more while you sucked at your job. They were just saying, hey, you were terrible at running this league.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's— I think it's a nice story for them. They're probably happy right now that, uh, that they get to live in the same city and work for the same team. I think it's gonna be a nightmare on the team.

Agreed.

I think it's gonna be bad news on the team.

Agreed.

Also, if you're Page, you probably don't mind looking at some of the ladies on the team every now and again. Now you can't do that anymore.

Nope.

I think it's, I think it's bad news. I mean, Hank, what do, how are things gonna work out with you and your boyfriend Diego Pavia both rooting for the Patriots?

What?

You're gonna be upset at each other all the time?

What?

What?

Okay, I was just making fun of you for liking Diego Pavia.

Ah, yeah. I also just don't like, uh, Ozzie Fudd because I bet on her in the Final Four and she was so bad. She just played really bad, and that's all it takes.

That'll stick.

That easy.

Yeah, but I think it's a good story. I think it'll be bad.

And I like Paige Buckets.

She's awesome.

Uh, okay, my hot seat is— I have two. The first is Todd Haley.

Okay.

Have you guys seen a picture of Todd Haley?

I can't say that I have in the last 6 months.

So Todd Haley is a coach on the Aviators. Is that a team name?

Yeah. Columbus, maybe?

Coach. Go to my Twitter, Max. He's on. Yeah, he's a coach in one of the leagues. That's Todd Haley right now. Look at this guy, dude. His hair is banging.

He's got a little Rob Ryan in him.

Yeah, I, I was shocked when I saw that was Todd Haley. So yeah, Todd Haley, he used to— Todd Haley used to be kind of like a sex figure, you know?

It still is. Yeah, I mean, used to be. Yeah, look at that dude.

But he, he is— he's different. He— Todd Haley, he's out there. I don't really know what else to say.

Looks good.

He looks great. He's a real football guy.

Did you see the, there was like a walk-off penalty in the UFL over the weekend? I think it's like if you get 2 penalties on a conversion in overtime or something, it counts as a score.

Yeah.

And so they, yeah, the refs just called conversion good. It was a walk-off.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Okay. Then my other hot seat is AI videos. Did you guys happen to see the AI video of Rory McIlroy getting his green jacket, then Tiger Woods driving a Range Rover up the 18th fairway and then crashing it?

Is that real? Was that a real video?

It was actually AI. Okay. For a second there, it looked real.

I saw a lot of those on the first tee. It was like, now driving.

Yeah.

Jack Nicklaus and then Tiger Woods driving a Buick.

So, yeah, yeah, I bring it up because Jay Williams has decided to take a stand finally with AI. Oh, God, we were waiting for Jay Williams.

What?

Not, not RJ Williams. Jay Williams, Duke.

He—

we were all waiting for him to finally pick a side. He has. He said mocking Tiger Woods with AI isn't entertainment, it's exploitation. Add stolen PGA and CBS footage and it becomes theft. That's a real man with real kids and a real family. Platforms need to take it down now.

Okay, thank you, Jay Williams.

Uh, okay, that was the most narci tweet of all time, being like, oh, and also CBS. Why PGA?

Why is this the one that was—

I don't know, it's crazy. But that— now Jay Williams, he's just gonna get AI'd all the time.

Well, it's a Jay Williams credit. This might not have been Jay Williams that tweeted. This might be the guy that hacks into his account once every like 4 years and tweets about Edoka and, and tweets something really embarrassing.

Yeah.

And then he has to like get back into his account afterwards.

Wow. I can't believe that's AI. Tiger runs away. He's wearing his Sunday red.

For me, it's more about stealing the intellectual property of CBS Sports. Yeah, that's the real crime.

Listen, I'm not a big fan of AI, but when it's so blatantly AI, who the fuck cares? You know what I mean?

Yeah, it is kind of classless of Tiger to upstage Rory like that.

While drinking whiskey. Yeah, that's how we know it's AI. He wasn't drinking blue, blue triple zero.

Yep.

All right. And then my cool throne. I also had love. So shout out to Paige Beckers and Ozzy Fudd. Also cool throne.

Us Sabers. See what they did to Whitney.

What they do?

Put them on a billboard.

Was that—

let me see. Let me see.

0.0% chance that Buffalo makes the playoffs.

Oh no.

With his face on it.

Oh no. Whit, you can't have that happen. You know what he got to do? He's got to just put out a billboard and be like, remember when Biz said he was going to get a circumcision and didn't? Buffalo's not making the playoffs 0.000000%. That's very funny. Hey, they're talking about Whit. Right. Mm-hmm. It lives rent-free. Rent-free.

Is this a real billboard?

Yeah, I think it's one of those ones they can digitally change constantly.

Oh man, that's awesome.

No, the— this podcast and space, we are on the cool throne. So NASA ran a study on what it takes to be a good astronaut. Do you guys have an idea of what the one trait that they said was actually like extremely important?

Being able to sit for long periods of time?

Nope. Okay. Hank, any idea?

No. Podcasting?

A sense of humor.

Okay.

How crazy is that? So this was a study. Perhaps the most important insight NASA has gleaned from studying team dynamics in space and on Earth is the preciousness of one trait in particular: a sense of humor. Studies of crews overwhelming at the South Pole showed that a— overwintering at the South Pole showed that a confined group needs people to fulfill various roles, including leader, storyteller, and social secretary. But the most important task by far is that of the clown, a person who's funny and also wise enough to understand each member of the group and diffuse tensions. Laughter, as much as courage, will sustain astronauts on their long quest to Mars. You just need a fucking locker room.

You need a good hang. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's all this is. This is just— you need that going back to like talking about a backup. You need a backup quarterback's personality.

Sick. We could be astronauts unless you don't think we're funny, which—

yeah, fair enough. I bet. Yeah, I bet the tennis podcast could go to Jupiter.

Absolutely. Zach, hot seat, cool throne.

We're back. We're back with beef in these female podcast streets. So my hot seat is going to be Alex Earl.

The Alexes.

Double Alex.

The girls are fighting.

Going head to head.

One with an I, one with an E.

Different spelling, but they're definitely beefing.

All right, so whose side are we on? We have to be very careful about this.

And is there a chance they make out?

Oh, I've got no clue about that. But I don't know. I don't even know if it might be too early to pick a side because they're just getting passive-aggressive right now.

So I'm going to go with Alex.

My understanding—

great call—

is the fight is about the fact that they are going to have a fight. But no one's talking about what they're fighting about.

It's like ramping up for the fight. Like, so the Hot Mess— Alex Earls probably got dropped off the Unwound Network last year, and then she got picked up by Brady.

And then now by the Brady Network. Yeah, but let's go with Jim Brady.

Pick it back up, Brady Inc. Yeah. And they're just beefing over like passive-aggressive tweets and likes. But then Alex Cooper's coming back over top like, hey, listen, girl, you better get to the point. What's going on here? Tell the truth or nothing. And I'm just kind of excited to see where this goes.

Yeah, I kind of want to be a draw.

Hank, who do you like? I—

we need Alex Earl to drop and then we can make a decision. Which, if you're listening to this podcast on Wednesday and Alex Earl has not dropped, then Cooper won.

Oh, you're giving— you should tweet that right now. You should tweet at Alex Earl and be like, You have 24 hours. Well, no, I know you do not drop in 24 hours.

Alex Cooper made a video being like, spill, right? Like, spill the tea forward. And Alex Earl commented and said, okay, on it. This was on Monday.

Mm-hmm.

So if you basically called out, if I'm like, PFT, fucking come at me, bro, and you say, I'm on it, and it takes you 2 full days, like, yeah, the year I've already won.

That's shortsighted, though, because we remember we had that exact same conversation like a year and a half ago, and we're like, Kendrick Lamar is probably never going to come out with another song again. And then he had like 3 in a row that he dropped.

You guys mind if I ask a question?

Yeah, please.

We have done a bet.

I know.

No, I have no idea what's going on in this fight. I have no idea what they're fighting about. Is it IP?

All right. So here's— here's what you want to go. You want me to go? I watched. I watched her video and Dave's video.

Alex Cooper, expert, left Barstool, started Unwell Network, a podcasting brand, whatever media.

She's a megastar.

Alex Earle was already a huge— the biggest number one TikToker going last year. She had her own podcast. She signed to the Unwell Network. So Alex and Alex Earle's podcast got signed to the Unwell Network. There was apparently infighting that happened. No one knows what happened, but it was a short-lived stint on the Unwell Network. She left, never really discussed. And then recently, like, she would repost vague things, kind of talking shit, very passive-aggressive about Alex Cooper.

Yeah.

Then over the weekend, she reposted a video from a TikToker calling Alex Cooper an ambulance chaser and basically telling her followers why Alex Cooper was bad news. That was the—

that's a—

that was a shot. Yeah, that's a bar shot across the bow.

She's an ambulance chaser, but for trauma.

Yeah.

Like, if you go through a bad breakup, Alex Cooper will be calling you in the next couple of days to talk about it.

And Alex Earle reposted that, which then basically forced Alex Cooper's hand to be like, what? Like, if you got— if you want to talk shit, say it to my face via your own social media.

Could Alex Earle just drop a video and just be like, I'm hotter than you?

I don't think that— I don't think so.

Oh, she'd get my vote.

But then Alex Cooper would just do a podcast about how she got bullied.

And Alex Cooper could then be like, I'm richer than you.

Yeah.

Yeah. But hotness is a pretty big trump card, I guess. But she could also make a lot of money. She's younger, right? Alex Earle's younger considerably.

Yeah.

National Sports Podcast.

We could— Alex Cooper.

We could use this moment to remind everybody that Alex Cooper might not exist in the same way that she does now were it not for Tom Ley.

True.

Super producer here.

Just as for Tom Ley.

He was her producer on Call Her Daddy. Him and Moosh wrote like most of their episodes word for word, bar for bar, just got completely washed out of the, the history that Alex has written about herself.

And Chef Donnie.

And Chef Donnie.

Alex Cooper also once told me I had a tiny dick and she wasn't wrong. She had tiny dick energy. She didn't see my dick.

She once told me I had a huge dick and she was wrong. She was probably more wrong about me.

So, yeah, that's our Alice Cooper talk. I've never met Alex Earl.

Me neither.

They all seem nice. Yeah, they all seem like good hands.

Get together and have fun. Who are you picking?

In—

if they're going to combat or just in the hotness, whatever you want. I would probably— I would say Alice Cooper probably clears.

Okay. In all facets.

Yeah, all facets.

Wow.

Girl boss.

Yeah.

Girl boss.

Yeah.

Okay, well, we— that was good. National Sports Podcast. What's your cool throw?

My cool throw this week is going to be the Artemis II recovery team. Did you guys see the video from the Pacific Ocean?

Yes.

That was awesome. Just dudes getting in there, opening hatch, dapping up like, yeah, boys, we made it back from space. You see this? I didn't think they really went, but after I saw that video, I think they went.

I was pooh-poohing space because I do want to go to Mars. I do want to go to moon. Watching this video and being like, holy shit, these people are sitting on a boat. And like 2 days ago they were so far away. It's pretty awesome.

I also think that getting a hatch opened on you would be one of the all-time most relieving feelings.

Apparently the hatch on Apollo 11, they smelled so bad in there that like the crew threw up everywhere and couldn't—

couldn't—

it was like the most disgusting.

I love it. I know it smelled crazy in there.

Yeah.

I guess they figured that out. They got like one of those trees.

Yeah. No, I mean, it does seem like a really nice way to come back home. Also, don't you grow when you're up in space? I feel like you get a little bit taller.

Oh, I think your vertebrae do because you're really compressed here on Earth. The gravity's got to like kind of just like open you up a little bit.

Your spine decompresses. So maybe pre-draft Diego Pavia go up to space for a little bit.

Was the helicopter necessary? It feels like they could have just gone boat to boat.

Helicopter might have been artistry. So I go grab the boys, right?

Yeah.

That was a boat to boat, was it not? Like they had a boat go meet them at the pod and then helicopter them to the other boat.

You got—

if you have all these cool toys you want to use, there's a boat right there. Could have just walked on the boat.

Yeah, I think it's— it was cool seeing the stuff that they filmed from outer space too.

Yeah, it was.

And for all the people, I know I said this maybe last week on the pod that I feel bad for for like flat earthers because there was just so much content that came out of the earth not being flat. I've kind of done a 180 on that. I think that there's, there's so much content that came out there. There's a whole bunch of new lore.

Yeah.

Like the flat earthers have so much material to work with right now and stuff to pick through with a fine-tooth comb that I think they're probably having the time of their lives.

Oh, definitely.

Yeah.

Flat earthers stay undeterred.

Yeah.

I don't think any— I think that's the number one sign of being a flat earther. Is no new evidence will, will get you off of what you believe.

They got to explain Antarctica first.

Yeah, good point.

True.

It's kind of like Skip Bayless and LeBron. Yeah, it's like you're never going to stop fucking that chicken.

Yeah, it doesn't matter. Okay. Good hot seat, cool throne, boys. Let's get to our interviews. We got Joe Mazzulla and Kyle Long in studio.

Before we get to Coach Joe Mazzulla, he's brought to you by Reese's. Some fans believe in teams of destiny. I believe everything happens for Reese's. Just think about it. What is the one thing every team or athlete wants? A championship. Why? Because half of them are called cups. Stanley, World, Ryder. Just like Reese's. Luckily, scoring a Reese's Cup is way easier than winning a championship. It's almost like you were destined to get one right now because everything happens for a Reese's. So go out there, pick one up today. Reese's. It's the best. We all love Reese's. The best peanut butter chocolate combo in the entire world. Check it out today. Everything happens for a Reese's. And Joe Mazzullo is also brought to you by Chevy. Draft season's here. That means that suddenly everyone thinks that they're a GM, which is when you realize that some picks just make sense, like having a Chevy Silverado. Silverado has the power to haul pretty much everything— gear, grills, tailgate setups. So whether you're driving to a draft party, a road game, or towing a boat to the lake, you need a truck with strength, reliability, and the drive to go the distance.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very, very special guest and very good friend, recurring guest of the program. It is Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla. Coach, good to see you.

Great to see you. Sorry it's been too long.

Yeah, I know it has been too long. We wanted to start with something special. We've never done this before, but we did a straw poll. We did a voting before you joined us today and you have won. Hold on, let me read this.

The results of the poll.

Oh yeah, there it is. Okay. You are officially the first ever Pardon My Take Coach of the Year. Congratulations.

Congratulations.

Wow, it's a real award. Yeah, it's a 100% real award. Uh, first ever. Do you accept?

It's the first ever PMT Coach of the Year?

Yep, correct.

Sure is.

Yeah, nice. Yeah, I accept it.

Okay, well, all right, great. That's awesome.

Hell yeah. I mean, you're calling it the most prestigious coach of the award in history.

Yeah, I mean, you know, this morning I was going through the season and, and I was looking at, you know, what we talked about on media day and our goals, and, and this was at the top of the list. And so I can I can only thank the people at PMT and, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do from here because now that I got this, my life goals have been achieved.

Yeah.

And now I just have a sense of emptiness.

That's awesome. Wait, but are you not going to thank your players at all? They're probably going to be upset when they find out that you didn't thank them when you won PMT Coach of the Year.

I mean, this one's going up as soon as you walk into the Outback Center. It's going up, right? Right in the front. Moving all of Red's— we're moving all of Red's awards.

Yep.

And we're putting this one right there.

I like the idea of Coach Mazula, like his press conference before round 1, he's getting— he's a little like sad and a reporter's like, what's up? And he's like, I just got nothing left to achieve. Like, I don't know if you heard, but I won PMT Coach of the Year.

I don't even know where I go from here the rest of the day.

I would love to see one person win an award and just say that, like they win an Oscar for Best Actor. And they're like, yeah, that's it. I mean, I don't know what— yeah, I'm done here. Thank you guys.

You know what?

I'll give you something to look forward to. Every year in July we do the Takey Awards. You could still win Italian Coach of the Year.

Oh yeah.

So that one's still hanging out there. You got some competition.

Got to come with like, to me, you have to like, that one's got to come with, I probably get a suit. Yeah. An Armani suit. You know, I got to take it to another level if I'm up for that one.

Yeah.

I mean, you also, you're nominated this year and he's going to be tough to beat.

Patino's nominated. Calipari's nominated. Also, we have the takey for most likely to be choked out of the year. It's you versus Zuckerberg. That's going to be tight. Like, there's a lot of stuff still that you can win.

Where is, first of all, Italian Coach of the Year? That's tough. I don't know if I could pull off the white suit. Slick Rick is, he takes it to another level.

Yeah, he does.

He's nice.

Yeah, I think he's the, I mean, he's the Don. He's the grandfather of it all. So I'll wait my turn.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where is, where's Zuckerberg in his training, you think?

I don't know.

I think he's one of those guys. He has to register his arms as lethal weapons. He can't touch anybody in public or else he could get arrested.

Yeah. Did you see that? Do you remember the story that came out where he, he had to like, I think it was like the New York Times is like, just, just so everyone's clear, he did not get choked out.

Yeah.

Like he had, he had to, he had to clarify.

It's like, well, clearly you got choked out, dude. If you had to, if you had to actually put this out there saying, hey, stop, stop saying I got choked out. I didn't get choked out.

I got choked out twice yesterday morning before the game. So, I mean, that's par for the course.

Did you really? Wait, so I know we've talked to you in the past about, you know, like some of the jiu-jitsu that you do and, and like how it teaches you to like unlock a different level. How do you go back after you get choked out once? How do you say, you know what, that's not enough. I want to get choked out again before the game.

I mean, I think it's just like it's just it's a it simulates the playoffs. It simulates the regular season. It simulates competition. Like, you know, if you're going to go, you know, and train and fight like like you have to— when you're going after something, you know, greatness and success and winning, you have to be able to accept the other side of that, which is losing, getting choked out. And it's like, to me, it's more about who you are when you get choked out. Like, you know, do you like just curl up into a ball and, you know, start bitching and crying about it and like quit that round? Or are you like, no, like, I actually want more of that and I'm gonna try to get to another level. And, and you have to take on, you know, those risks. So to me, it's the best simulation of, uh, the playoffs is Everybody always focuses on like the goal, the journey and going after success. But when you want to go after something, if you're not aware and can't surrender to the fact that you could fail at it, then I don't think you're really on the journey, you know?

Yeah. No. Yeah.

I mean, that's—

that's yesterday's game. I needed to be at a different mind frame. Like, you know, I credit our guys, those guys that played yesterday. It was one of the most fun games I've ever coached. And I love how the guys brought about the mindset that they brought, but like I needed to enter the Garden, you know, in a different mindset so that I had to— that had to happen yesterday.

That's really intense.

Yeah. I was going to ask about that game because you're playing in a game, Game 82, nothing to play for. You're locked in your seed. It's, it's a lot of the backup guys and you were— you got— they played their asses off and they beat a team that actually had something to lose. Like the Magic did lose out on having a home play-in game and all that stuff. Was it like going into it, was it even— it just never even crossed your mind that like, we don't do this tanking stuff, we're just going as hard as we can, we're trying to win this game?

I think never crossed my mind. I thought it was— I thought like that type of mindset could be disrespectful to the players and disrespectful to the staff. I think, you know, what we try to create, and I really think yesterday was a culmination of like the identity of this team and who these guys are as players, is like Whoever's playing, we have to go out there with a chance to win. And for some of the guys on the roster, they're looking for opportunities to prove that they can impact winning and that all the work they do when no one's watching is getting better. And I think it's the same for like our assistants and our player development staff. Like these guys put in more time when no one's watching on getting players better. If you don't treat yesterday as the absolute most important game, I think you're doing a disservice to the, to the players. You're doing a disservice to the process of like Maine, our development team, the process of the two-way. You know, our two ways, the process of our player development guys, you're just doing a disservice to it. So we approach that game as like we have a chance to win because we're wearing Celtic jerseys and everybody's put a ton of time into this.

So it was a credit to those guys. It's a credit to our staff. And we got to take that momentum of like our togetherness and get ready for the, for the playoffs.

It kind of was a perfect like microcosm for your season. And I want to go back to the beginning of the season to ask you if there was a moment that maybe you had a light bulb moment with the team or kind of kicked it, kicked their ass and been like, hey, we're better than this? Because starting the season, I think a lot of people were like, hey, the Celtics might just be bad this year because Tatum's not playing. And you start 0-3 and you start kind of like puttering around for, you know,.500 for the first month or so. And then you guys kicked it into overdrive and start ripping off wins. You're like, oh no, this team is still really good. Was there that moment of practice a game where you're like, hey, what are we doing? Just because Tatum's out doesn't mean you guys still aren't a really good team.

You know, I think, I think one, we got off— I never, you know, the first 20 games are really your, your, your testament. And I think, you know, one, your record, it may not be a reflection of the team that you're about to become, you know. And so I loved how we approached training camp. I think, you know, our guys came back hungry. I think Jaylen came back with a chip on his shoulder. I think we all came back with an understanding of like, we're going after this. We're going to go try to be the best that we could be. So I was very confident in training camp, but I think a little— I think the season gives you like small gut-check moments. We were 0-3 and sitting in that locker room in New Orleans of like, this is a must-win game. Like, and that was a small gut-check moment for us, you know, was like, hey, like we're 0-3. We've shown signs of what we can become. But at the end of the day, this isn't good enough and we got to make a decision on like what we want to be. And so we were sitting in the locker room together in New Orleans and like, this is a must-win game.

And, you know, we have to learn how to take it to a different level. And I thought the guys did that. And even when we were, you know, 500, we were still showing signs of like, this is who we're going to become. And, you know, it's a credit to the guys.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's— it really is, because I think a lot of people saw, you know, the injury and they thought this year might be, might be a year that you would punt. I never thought that the Celtics and you in particular would ever, would ever punt on the season. But has it surprised you? in terms of Tatum's health, how quickly that turned around. Like, we think of an Achilles as being, you know, a year-long, maybe 2-year-long injury to come back from. At what point did you think it was realistic that he would make it back?

Well, it's 2 things. One, like, for the team coming in, it does not— you know, I can't say that, like, the expectation is to go 56-26 or whatever every year, but the process of how we played and who we became as a team Did not surprise me one bit because of the people that we have, like the character, the competitive character that we have in our players. You know, with Jalen, with Derek, with Peyton, with Sam, with Nimi, like we've had guys that have impacted winning and like care about winning. And I thought, you know, JB helped us get off to a great start just by taking this opportunity as a chip on his shoulder. And like he's at his best when he's doing that. Right. And for me, I knew we were going to to, uh, you know, go after this thing. The day, uh, JT decided to get surgery, I was like, oh, he's serious. Like, I don't think you can, uh, you know, talk about his mental toughness enough. Of like, some guys waited 2 weeks, some guys waited 10 days. Like, he waited 18 hours. And so I knew at that point, um, you know, I knew that we were gonna, uh, just continue to chip away at that and, and kind of the journey that he went on.

Uh, and then as we started to get closer, you know, we were really growing as a team, and it's like, hey, like, you know, here's where we're at as a team, uh, we can go after this thing, uh, and then we get whole and we develop our identity. And, you know, I think we have a chance. So again, it was— everybody had to take it to a different level mentally.

Yeah.

Was that a, uh— I'm just curious if that was like a closely guarded secret that he was going to come back, because I remember there would be videos of him like in the gym that would come out every week, and people would be, you know, start to speculate on how good he looked, how healthy he looked. Was that something that you guys tried to keep as close to the vest as possible?

No, I mean, you just— we just didn't know. I mean, like, you can say, like, you know, like, you know, in your heart or in your mind, you have an idea, but you still don't know because obviously you're dealing with something that is very complex and it's an injury that can have not only physical but like mental, emotional and, and things that you have to get through. So like we didn't— we like in the bottom, bottom of our heart, we knew. But at the end of the day, like, you never want to take a day for granted or you never want to take rehab for granted in the process of coming back because it's complex and there's a lot that goes into it.

Yeah. Did you— the quote when they, you know, I'm sure it wasn't fun going to the press conferences every day and having people ask you over and over, like, what's going on with Jason Tatum? What's going on with Jason Tatum? Was the quote that you dropped when you said, I might not be alive, I go to bed questionable and I wake up probable, was that off the cuff or were you— do you say that all the time? You say that to your kids?

I say, I mean, there's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of spiritual context to that. And I kind of, we talk about that every day with our family and our kids. And I think, you know, there's more to than that. And so I kind of use that as a reference. I think at the end of the day, like, you just can't assume that you can't take life for granted. You can't take stuff for granted. You just can't assume that like, you're going to be able to go after things, you're going to be able to achieve things like you got to have the mentality and the presence of like, this is the present moment, have gratitude and a perspective for it because you never know. And quite honestly, at that time, I was really thinking about that. And it was on my heart because one of my close friends who helped me get into coaching. He was on a golf trip with his son, and he went to bed at 7 p.m. to get up for a golf trip, and he never got back up. And so I was kind of like, one, I was talking to myself.

I was kind of processing that. And you just can't take stuff for granted like that. So there was a lot more that went into it. But I thought it also applied to that.

You just Cena'd us. Good job. Yeah. Yeah. You John Cena'd us.

Well, what is that?

Well, your quote was objectively very funny that you go to bed doubtful and you wake up probable. And then it turns out that there's a very deep, yeah, there's an actual sad story behind you. And so now we can't make a joke about it anymore.

So John Cena, we famously had him on. We've had him on a couple of times, but the last time we had him on was like 4 or 5 years ago. And we asked him a question about— he had— there was an internet rumor that he died and everyone eulogized him for like a day. And it was— it was— and I asked him essentially like, How awesome is that, that you got to basically watch everyone talk about how great of a guy you are? And he was like, I don't find it funny because I had a friend die last week. Like, that's not funny. And we're just like, okay, well, that's—

well, I mean, I will say, like, I mean, I guess we could kind of turn this— we could go full circle in a humorous thing. If people spend one second worried about the day that I'm not around anymore, shame on them.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I do know I'm sitting—

I'm sitting a second. I mean, you're a great guy.

Yeah. After— all right, one second. After that, it's like, okay.

Time to move on.

I got a good segue here.

What's for lunch?

Yeah, I got a good segue with the Cena thing. Um, I don't think I've ever seen you happier than when you were at the, uh, WWE, uh, match and you were fake hitting Derek White in the face.

Um, I mean, that's—

that's— is that fair to say that that's— that was that better than, than, than winning an NBA title?

I mean, that to me, you know, everyone has a different love language. My love language is like violence and, uh, I never felt more connected to Derek The only thing I regret was like, I almost flipped him over the wall, like into Michael Cole and the table. I thought we could have just sold it and took it further. Yeah, it was the off— if it was the offseason, I think we'd take that further.

That was exactly my take when I saw it. I was like, I know the coach wishes he could be going harder at Derrick White here. You also— so wait, were you a big wrestling fan growing up?

I was. And so, like, you know, that was a cool moment because my dad took me to the Providence Civic Center for Monday Night Nitro. I was like 8, 9 years old. And I cried the entire time because I was so scared sitting that close. And it was like different back then because I felt like it was like more violent.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. It was like, like Lex Luger was like 4 feet from me and I was like, this guy is massive. Yeah. And, and so like it was a cool moment to take my kids there because, you know, my dad did that for me. And so I was, you know, a fan growing up. But that, that what I was doing to Derek is the ultimate sign of love. I mean, I love that. And if we could do that to each other more, I think we'd all be nicer.

I'd agree. Were you a Stone Cold or a Rock guy?

I was a Rock.

Bad answer. That's okay.

You don't remember? You don't remember, like, going to school and, like, you know, people asking stuff and you just cut them off? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I gave out so many stunners. I love Stone Cold. Stone Cold was the best.

Yeah. Doing the People's Elbow on a kid in the hallway. Yeah, it was very fun.

Absolutely. Like, yes. Like, in class. Like, In between classes, you're at gym and like a guy is like, you catch him sleeping, you hit him with a rock bottom.

Yeah. Yeah. What did your teachers think about you?

Did—

were you a good student?

There's no way they liked me.

Too intense?

There's no way they liked me. No, they couldn't have liked me. I can name— I think I can name every teacher in elementary school and middle school, and I think everyone I can name also why they would be like, this guy is just like I can't— why am I putting up with this kid?

Yeah, I would never think of you as being a bad student. I feel like you're eager to learn, like you like to learn new things. You like to— you like to expand your horizons a little bit.

I was already— I was just— I was just like constantly— I just couldn't sit still, so I was always just doing something ridiculous.

Yeah, that's actually Hank. That's— Hank is the exact same way. You guys peas in a pod. One guy that you've been learning from— this is a great transition— Pep Guardiola. We talked a little bit about him last year. Um, but I, I think your friendship has kind of grown over the years to the point where you're like adopting some of his soccer strategies for basketball. Can you just like talk a little bit about that and, and like how you've used some of the things that he's implemented?

I mean, first of all, you guys are great at transitions. I think we've had some great transitions.

Great transition.

Thank you.

That's what they say about transition offense.

We are, yeah, pro transition offense. The margins, like we're winning on that right now, transitioning from topic to topic, and we haven't to beat. So I think, I think you're learning from Pep as well.

Yeah, there we go.

But, you know, I think, I think the sports are very similar. You know, they're both free-flowing games. I mean, they're both, uh, you know, they're both games where like everybody on the field has to have an impact offensively and defensively. I think, you know, the more basketball is changing to reads and, and, uh, the players are so smart and so skilled, like everything is a read and everything is a transition, right? And, you know, he's taught me how you know, offense can impact your defense, how defense can impact your offense, how to disguise your best players and, and get them to do different things, whether it's cutting and screening and have them hide and find them ways to get better. Like, I think he's just— his brain is tremendous at that. And I think you're kind of seeing that they got a chance to win this year. So just his mind and how he thinks the game has allowed me to open up my mind and how I think basketball. And when I watch soccer, I kind of look at basketball and vice versa.

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Have you thought about having any of your players start flopping?

I mean, there was a— we had a couple of good ones last night on illegal screens, I'd say.

Oh yeah. Speaking of, did— how many times did you say illegal screen in that one press conference? And also, are your kids of an age yet? Because I would imagine there's a little bit of spillover. Like if I were— if I were your son or daughter, I would just hit you with that when it's like, hey, go time to go to bed and just hit dad with the illegal screen.

My wife is at her wit's end in our household because she has 3 kids, me and our 2 boys, and we are exactly the same. Like, if she's arguing with me, our oldest or our youngest, we have the same mannerisms, the same look, the same, like, you know, passive-aggressive, like sarcastic. No, you're right. No, absolutely. I was wrong. Yeah. So she's, she's at her wit's end with the house. They take on my personality. And it's not going well.

Three Little Joe Mazzullo. So, all right.

Can you imagine that? Like, no. Can you imagine that?

I can't.

No, I can't.

That's—

God bless her.

Do you think you could be married to yourself?

Absolutely not.

No, no, no.

I'm not hot enough.

No, no. My daughter, my middle child, my daughter, she's got like a little bit of my troll energy. And that's like just one having that. I'm like, this is a lot. Like, she'll troll me back. I'd be like, what the fuck?

Fuck.

How did you— like, this is not right. You're 4. How are you trolling me? So yeah, I— 3 Joel Mazula's in one house. The illegal screen though, that was a great press conference. What happens afterwards when like your PR staff or, you know, your head of communication, do they say anything like, hey, can we stop doing that? Or they're just like, you crushed it, man. You said illegal screen 500 times.

I'm a lost cause at this point. They just— they go. They go into every conference like, I just hope this guy makes it.

That's great.

I'm a lost cause. No one can help me. You can't save me now at this point.

Yeah, it was a great kind.

I also have no idea, like, because I'll play it off like they don't know what I'm thinking or what I'm going to do. And so they're like, they're on eggshells.

Yeah. Yeah. You should, you should, you should kind of reverse it on them. Keep them on their toes in some, in like some press conference, just randomly just be the most like the nicest guy, most gregarious, give like the longest answers. Do like an hour press conference thanking everyone. Just keep them on their toes.

I know you have to. I do, I do a lot of that behind closed doors, keep people on their toes. Like, like how you talk about like you have a little troll in you, I have a little like I'm just testing you mentally. Yeah, yeah, just see if you can handle it.

I like that.

Do you do that with your players, just behind the scenes, a little test here and there?

They do it to me more, I would imagine.

Yeah, yeah, we—

I think they like, I think they like doing it to me.

After the, uh, the illegal screen press conference, I think that's all Hank said during part of my take. Anytime we'd ask him a question, no matter— it could about football, would he just be like, illegal screen? Just getting in line. Yeah.

Well, I mean, the goal is to be like as creative as you can without getting fined.

Yeah, that's true.

Have you thought about how can you— Yeah, like, how can you get your point across? How can you be— How can you push the line and the button as far as possible without, you know, getting fined? That's the goal.

Yeah.

I would think like talking in Pig Latin or doing just the, the copying game where you just repeat the questions back to the reporters. That might be—

I'm not the one staring at me.

Yeah, that might be next on the list. I've got a game that we play with every coach. This is an anonymous NBA player said this, and I'd like to hear your reaction. We call it unanimous sources. Look at Joe Mazzulla. He had so many opportunities this season to make excuses but never did. He realized what he had in his players, and everything about my next decision is based on winning. That's an anonymous player who might be looking for a new team next year. What would you think about an anonymous player that said something like that?

To me, it's like my biggest goal is every player on our team, I hope they say something like that. And I think in this world today, like, it's easy. I think coaches get, you know, both too much credit and too much blame. And my number one goal is to always highlight our players. You know, because even like yesterday, somebody asked me a question of like, what does it say about you that your team was able to perform like this today? And it's like, it says nothing about me. Like, I didn't score one basket. I didn't, I didn't dribble the ball up the floor. I didn't get one stop. I didn't do anything. And, you know, the reason why I got into the NBA was to develop relationships with guys, you know, with, with guys, you know, at different levels and to work together to bring the best out of each other. So You know, when I hear a comment like that, I think that's, that's what you're going towards in building a culture and building an environment. And, you know, anytime someone hears or thinks something like that, I want them to think of our guys because they're the ones that give me the opportunity to coach every day.

They don't have to listen to me. They don't have to buy in. They don't have to. We don't have to do this. But they give me that gift and, you know, they go out there every day and compete. So I'm grateful for the guys that we have. And I hope every player that plays for the Celtics and plays for us Uh, says that.

Yeah. All right, just so you know, the, the reason why coaches get so much of the blame is because we're really stupid and we have to find things that we think we know, like, oh, he used the timeout at the wrong time, or he shouldn't have challenged that. Those type of things. That's where we can, we can be like, yeah, coach so stupid for doing that.

You know what's crazy though, and as people ask, like, when we win is when I feel like I make the most mistakes, and it happened the other day. I forgot what game it was, but I kind of challenged too fast and we ended up losing the challenge and a timeout. And so like we were down timeouts going into halftime and fortunate enough it was a Charlotte game and fortunate enough they called both timeouts in the third quarter. But I like I had put my team at a disadvantage because I had, I had kind of jumped the gun too fast on something that I thought I was right on. But it gets washed away because we won the game and we were winning and stuff like that. But like like, you know, I think as a coach you have to go back and say, regardless of the result, like, I messed this up and it just went— it just got swept under the rug because we won. And so, yeah, that's a perfect example of like, you could lose and coach a great game and you could win and coach a shitty game. Yeah.

Yeah. Is there a guy on your team that is like, when they— because pretty much in the NBA, every single time there's a 50-50 call, the player will immediately go to the bench and be like, challenge it. Is there one guy who does that? You're like, I'm never listening to you. I know what I— like, you're not going to be right. Derek.

Okay. Yeah.

Because it is true. Like if, if you challenged every single time a player asked for a challenge, there would be 75 challenges a game.

Yeah. But so I like what baseball has done.

Yeah.

I think there could be coaches challenge and then players challenge.

Yeah. You should actually find the player. You should do an internal fine of the players. Like if you tell me to challenge it and we get it wrong, I'm finding you.

There's also like the spite challenge.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's just in football where it's like, I'm mad, I wish that didn't happen, so I'm gonna challenge it.

Yeah.

And hope that—

like, I would say one of my, one of my greatest strengths is spite and weakness, I guess, at the same time. But like, you— I think the spite challenge comes out a lot. Yeah, that was one that I was talking about. Like, that was, that was just a spite challenge, but you gotta, you gotta have that in your—

yeah, yeah. And then who's, who's the best? Who's got the best eyes in the game on your team?

Who's like, oh, they all do differently. One guy I think that is Nimi. Nimi's kind of like, he plays it cool. Like he doesn't really get emotional during the game. He kind of knows if it's the right call or not. Like there was one time where I challenged for him and like he came back and he was like, I don't know if you should have did that.

That's awesome.

I know.

So he kind of stays right here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The baseball stuff is, we were talking about it a couple of days ago, but it's shocking how good everyone's. I know obviously they're professional athletes. But when a guy challenges and it's like a centimeter off in being a ball, you're like, 5 seconds, right? Yeah. You're like, how is that? They're that good at that.

Yeah.

You know what Derek is the best at? If it was out on the other player. Oh, yeah. He can see the deflection, you know, like the ball goes out of bounds and they call it there. So he's the best at like seeing that even when he's not involved in it, like he can see that. And so if it's a 50-50 call with that and he he's all in on it, I usually go all in on it with him.

That's good to know. Hank, do you have any questions for your best friend?

Yeah.

What's up, Coach?

Hey, I didn't know you were working today.

We're here.

It's Monday. Back to the grind.

We also worked yesterday.

Yeah, every day. Every day is a workday. Yeah. Jason Tatum. Obviously, when players get long-term injuries, sometimes they don't travel with the team. They stay back in rehab. How important do you think it was for him in that he traveled with the team the entire year and how, how much easier did that make the transition when he came back?

Yeah, I thought that made a— I thought that made the transition much easier because it just showed that he was— we were all in. He was all in and that we were all in together. So being at film sessions, being at road games, being on the bench during the games, I think it just gave that environment of like, you know, one, he's all in, he's serious, but we're all in as a team. And I kind of said that to the team yesterday. I thought You know, everybody who didn't play, I think it was our top 7 or 8, they were all at the game, on the bench, in the locker room, locked in on the game. And I think that just shows being all in. So, you know, he showed that, our team shows that. And I think that that's kind of like who we are as a team, you know?

Yeah. And you said you live off of spite. And obviously when you're, you know, the game starts, you're locked in. But before the game, halftime, do you ever like— is there anything in the crowd, fans, maybe fashion choices that just like tick you off, like get you going?

I mean, I'll make up stuff sometimes, like just lie to yourself and be like, oh, that, that person said this to me. Like, and they might not even— like, oh, that person looked at me the wrong way. Like, you just make up something to just be mad.

That's great. Yeah, that is a— I like that. And so you just get upset at them before the game starts, or do you, do you do this like during the game?

Could be like, it could be at any point in time. It could be like 4 hours before the game. You just see something and then you're like, you're just like, you know what, I'm This is how that just pissed me off. I'm doing this the rest of the day.

Just making enemies. Yeah, he's got a little Rico in him. Yeah, that's, that's kind of a Bosco move.

Italians.

Yeah, I like it a lot. Yeah.

So that's definitely, it's definitely an Italian thing. Like, you just wait, you're just mad for no reason. Like, you're just mad.

Yeah.

Yeah. You were talking about how intense these last couple of games have gotten for you. Where do you go from there? Like, do you, do you try to ratchet up the intensity for the playoffs or do you try to pull it back knowing that it's playoff basketball? So it's going to be intense anyways.

I mean, I think you have to find the balance because you don't want it to turn to like where you're tense, you know, and you can't execute. And so I think, you know, playoff basketball, in my opinion, is no different than preseason basketball, regular season basketball. I think the biggest difference is just the intensity and the physicality that you do it. So we got to be able to bring it from a physical, you know, intense standpoint. But at the same time, we just got— we got to be loose and we got to be ready to execute, you know. So I think that's the difference in the playoffs. Everything is just done Faster, harder, stronger, more intense, more physicality.

Yeah.

Has Brad Stevens ever said no to you?

Yeah.

Okay. So you're just like every single college in America.

I mean, yeah, we have a— he says no a lot.

Yeah. You have to make—

yeah, we know you have to.

Yeah. How many times has he picked up the phone like the last couple of weeks and just been like, no, not, not too often though.

Not too often.

Yeah.

But he does a good job of like I'll call him and be like, hey, like, this is where I'm at. And he'll be like, ah, yeah, he doesn't give you a no, but he doesn't give you like a yes.

Oh, interesting.

So he's on the fence sometimes.

Yeah. So we're doing a bit right now because it's every single college that ever has an opening, we always joke the first thing you got to do is make Brad Stevens say no. And he will say no. He 100% will say no. But like UNC opens up and everyone's like, got to make Brad Stevens say no. It's like, well, yeah, of course he's going to say— he's been saying no for a decade now.

Um, so he has a great ability to say no without saying no.

Oh, okay. So that's why they keep coming back.

That's a good skill set to have. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

He has a great ability of that.

I would like to like do a deep dive on, on Brad Stevens' ability to say no.

Yeah. So tell me more about that. Like, what do you mean he's got an ability to say no without saying no?

Well, like, we'll be talking and I'll like run this by, like, he'll be like, yeah, you know, he's like, that's not how I would have done it. Like something, like something like that. It's like, yeah, that's it. That's interesting. Like, yeah, that's the way.

Yeah, like, I love your passion, but let's try to redirect some of this.

That's a— that's an interesting way to look at it. Not how I love where you're coming from.

Yeah, I love where you're coming from. Okay, it all sounds really great.

Yeah, so that's probably what happened when UNC called. They're like, they're like, hey Brad, we want you to take the job. He's like, listen, I really appreciate where you guys are coming from. Yeah, you guys are not how I would have asked.

In theory, I like what you're doing here. I think I would be a great coach for you, but unfortunately I'm kind of busy right now.

Yeah, that makes it— that makes a ton of sense if I was looking at it from your perspective.

But is he, uh, has he been drawing up more blobs for you?

Always. I mean, I think that's the cool thing. Like, before games, if we're in there as a staff and, uh, you know, we got a big dry erase board in the office, and, um, any chance we, we bounce stuff off each other, uh, it's always great. Yeah, always though. I mean, that's one of the, that's one of the things that I learned from him the best, right, was it like in real time being able to, to get the exact right X is an old call that's necessary.

Do you think that he is holding back one blob like forever? They'd like, if you really got him, if we got, if we could hit him with true serum, he'd be like, yeah, I actually have this blob. I never was going to show anyone just in case I ever needed it.

Absolutely.

The perfect blob.

It's probably in his back pocket.

Yeah.

He's probably in his back pocket.

Like literally. He walks around with it every day.

He could use it at like a CYO game if he was at— like, he might not even use it in an NBA game. He could give it to like, you know, some CYO coach.

Yeah.

Hey, I've had this for 20 years.

The perfect blob doesn't exist. Yes, it does. It's in Brad Stevens' back pocket.

How much game planning are you doing right now for the playoffs? Like, I know that you don't know who you're gonna be playing that first round, but like, are you actively doing like an either-or situation where it's like, okay, if this happens and Well, we got one guy working on this team, one guy working on that team.

So the staff is doing that, and that's where they're great. Like, the staff is kind of divvying up our two potential teams. But for me, it's like between now and Wednesday night, even Thursday morning, it's like, okay, how can I get us, you know, myself and the team kind of ready mentally and really mentally, emotionally, and psychologically? Like, the physical stuff will happen at practice, but like right now, just focused on like by you know, Wednesday night we have to be so locked in on like our identity, our tendencies, our situational basketball, our discipline. Like, can we take it to another level? But, you know, the guy that like— the guy who does that is JB. Like, he has an innate ability to like— I bet you between now and tomorrow, we have a couple of days off or like an optional day. JB is going to just take it to another level mentally and psychologically. Psychologically, where like he comes into the building and like he changes the entire building with his mindset and like everybody kind of feeds off of that. And so I like to feed off of him and in those moments, you know, and, and he can, he can take it to, he can take it to a dark place and in a good way.

But I'm looking forward to that.

JB sounds like a weapon, a guy that just changes the entire building with his mindset.

He is a weapon. He's 100% a weapon. Mentally, psychologically, like, he can change an entire building. And I think a lot of what we've done up until this point was like his decision to turn himself into a weapon heading into the season. And I think we were able to all leverage that. That's why, you know, we talk a lot about, you know, why we are where we are and everybody in the organization deserves credit. But I think, you know, this season, a lot of it started with him him, you know, like, you couldn't have said it better, taking it like just turning himself into a weapon.

Yeah. Did he say, did he tell you before, like, at any point in the beginning of the season or training camp where he's like, hey coach, I'm thinking about turning myself into a weapon?

He doesn't have to. You can just tell. Yeah, that makes sense.

Like Megatron does that too.

Yeah. Because that would be cool though if he sat you down, he's like, I've been thinking about this for a really long time. I think I'm going to be a weapon this year.

And the thing that he could do, like, he's very similar. Like, I'd learn this from him. Like, he uses people to get what he needs to get. Like, he'll come in and he'll be having a conversation with you, and meanwhile he's just like either extracting information from you or like getting mad at you so that he could go out on the court and like, and take it to another level. And I'm just sitting there and I'm like, I'm loving every second of this.

Yeah, sounds like the Terminator.

What's the, uh, what's the status of your house right now? You were telling us about how when your house gets too nice you have to like junk it up a little bit, break something. Um, but yeah, you've had a lot of success recently. The house might be looking gotten a little too fancy?

So we, uh, so again, you know, getting ready for the playoffs is very similar. Like, you know, you're almost trying to— you got to enter a dark space. So today's like a graceful day, you know, spending the day with my wife, uh, have some meetings at the downtown office to spend time with the organization. You know, tomorrow we start transitioning into the darkness, and like by Wednesday you shouldn't even know what real— like, you shouldn't even know what world you're in. Like, you should just be so locked in. And my wife is great because, like, what JB does to people, I do to her. So, like, if I need to be a certain type of way, I usually test it out on her first.

Okay. Yeah.

You go in weapon mode.

Yes. And, like, we've gone, like, in the playoffs, we've gone up to almost 5 to 7 days without, like, speaking.

That is weapon mode.

Yeah. Like, We were like 5 hard days where it's like, we're not even, we're not even communicating right now. But it was necessary because like, we all have to feel playoff mode. We all better be in it.

So she's also in weapon mode.

She's, she's in weapon mode more than I am, partly because, probably because he lives with me. Like, you have to be in weapon mode. Yeah. But yeah, 100%.

When you guys are in weapon mode together at the same time, is, is that, is that cool? Or do you like recognize like like, all right, game respect game.

Yeah, dangerous.

Yeah. Do your kids go to weapon mode? Is the whole house in weapon mode?

We try to keep the kids out of it, but I'm trying to teach my oldest how to get into that because—

yeah, they're mini weapons. It's about— they're for sure mini weapons.

They gotta learn something.

I could tell by your answer that my youngest is, uh, my youngest, he—

so we have a rule in the house that like you can put anybody in a guillotine at any time. We had to We had to hold him back because, like, some people were coming over and he was, like, jumping behind the couch, like, just putting people in, like, chokehold. And he'll always be like, don't let your guard down. Yeah, we have a thing where, like, if you cannot get guillotined in the house, but he's taken it to another level.

So does everyone respect the tap in your house? I would assume they have to, right?

There was a point in time where he didn't.

Oh, no.

Yeah, we get really pissed at him. I was like, kid, listen, like, you have no respect for the art.

How old was he?

7.

A 7-year-old who's addicted to guillotining but doesn't respect the tap. That is a— I would move out. That's a house I'd move out from.

But he's a 9. He's 9 now. He respects the tap a lot more. He understands the compassion that you have to show for people who are choking.

That's good.

And, um, he's much better at it, but he has a mean guillotine. But you'd be sitting down on the couch and he'd just be like, don't let your guard down. Medio, like guillotine.

I bet, I bet he's had some teachers that didn't really understand what you were trying to teach, uh, that, that maybe didn't appreciate him bringing the martial arts into the classroom.

Which to me, that's the only way you learn. I mean, you want people to pay attention. There's nothing like paying attention more than knowing if a guillotine's coming around your shoulder.

That's true. I agree.

Head on the floor.

You almost fall asleep. Yeah.

I'll tell you what was a better one. So we go to WWE and I'm, I download the playlist for like WWE intros of like the top you know, guys. And what do you think is the one that he flocked to the most?

Hmm.

I mean, Undertaker is always a great one.

Yeah.

Who was it?

Old school as well or no?

It was old school. Yeah, it was old school.

Motorhead, Time to Play the Game.

So it was, it was Shawn Michaels, Sexy Boy. So this guy's singing it the whole night. He's memorized the song and I'm like, I'm taking him to school the next day. I was like, kid, you cannot sing this song at school.

I'll tell you what, I'm excited to— I'm excited to hire this kid as a barstool intern in about 10 years. Maybe bring back wrestling. Yeah, that'd be great.

We should actually have— we should have somebody like that in our office because we get—

we should just adopt the guillotine.

Yeah, I think we should adopt the guillotine rule in the bar.

Get in weapon mode.

I almost feel like we're having one guy whose job it is to just like roam the hallways like secretly.

Yeah.

You get got by this guy like It's like it would keep us all on our toes a little bit more. Bring back some of that survival instinct that we've lost. Getting soft, fat, and complacent. If we just have like some assassin that's hiding behind chairs ready to choke us out.

Yeah.

And you start with guillotines, but then it gets to like trips, then it gets to camoras. And now you're coming into the office every day locked in, ready to go.

Yeah.

You're walking in.

It's dangerous, but like in a good, exciting way.

Yeah, very exciting.

I'd like to nominate Zach to be the guillotine guy.

Well, first of all, wasn't Hank supposed to be training jiu-jitsu? He should be the one that's doing it.

Yeah, it's my resolution. New year's resolution.

I actually am going to try. I think I saw a jiu-jitsu gym right by my house, and I think I might try.

You should.

Like, can you just walk— can I just walk in as a 41-year-old man and be like, hey, I want to jiu-jitsu?

That's— that to me is the beauty of the art, is like when you go to class, everyone is a weapon. And there's like— it's probably one of the few spaces where there's literally no judgment. And like, you could get got by anybody, you know, like the guy who's 41 who can't do 5 push-ups, but he's a purple belt, is going to just— he's going to hem you up in some way, you know what I mean?

Like, I could do 5 push-ups, coach. Come on.

My wife, my wife is going to start training.

Okay.

All right.

Maybe Hank and I will do it.

I'm going to choose my— she was my sparring partner yesterday before the game, which is—

well, just when you— when you come to Chicago next, we'll just rumble tumble around. That'd be fun.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, Coach, this has been awesome. We love having you on. I got one last question. Roback question. RHOBACK.com promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. RHOBACK.com promo code TAKE. I assume you'll be watching the playing games. Do you care at all or is it just whoever's— whoever is going to show up?

Honestly, it's very similar to like fighting. Like, every— whoever wins, they're going to be better than us at something. And, you know, we're going to have advantages and disadvantages, and our opponent is going to have advantages, disadvantages. We got to quickly get to, like, what are our advantages and how do we keep those, and how do we, you know, leverage our disadvantages. But whoever it is, I know it's going to be a tough matchup. But like I said, up until then, we got to get— we got to get in weapon mode and we got to be ready to go.

Yeah, I saw there was a quote, I think— I think I think the players were asked what their favorite Missoula quote was, and Sam Hauser said that your quote is, "There's no fouls in a war. You either die or you don't." So you can't actually— you actually can't complain about fouls for the entire playoffs.

I know. Nor we shouldn't.

Yeah, it's war. Illegal screen.

Illegal screen.

Illegal screen. Illegal screen.

Oh man. If you guys need resumes on you know, the guy that's going to come in and keep you guys on your toes, let me know. I got a few guys in mind. I love that.

Well, you know what we got to do? The first thing we got to do to find this new job, we gotta, we gotta make Brad say no. So we'll, we'll reach out.

Okay.

Yeah, we'll ask him officially if he'll come and be the designated guillotine guy at Barstool Chicago HQ. He'll say no in a nice way.

Well, you know, guys, I kind of, I think that's a really good idea for the people that are interested in.

Yeah.

So we'll get the no and then we'll find someone else. Yeah, it's perfect. All right, Coach, you're the best. Thanks so much, man.

Good luck, fellas.

Thank you, man. See you guys.

Joe Mazzullo is brought to you by José Cuervo. José Cuervo. Meet the moment. José Cuervo. You know, the Cuervo moments. Whenever— when Cuervo enters a room, every moment just gets better. You find yourself at the center of the dance floor. You can't help but stand up and high-five those around you at the game. The room reacts like it just got the same text at the same time. You stop checking the time and suddenly small talk escalates to laughing so hard that you can barely catch your breath. That's the Cuervo effect. The signal everyone understands, a moment that anyone can join, and a good time that just grows. All you have to do is keep it Cuervo. José Cuervo. Before we get to Kyle Long, he's brought to you by Microsoft Copilot. We got to tell you about something that helps people focus on what's most important. It's Microsoft 365 Copilot. If you can add an AI assistant to your work without leaving your workflow, What could you accomplish? It's built into Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook. Copilot works where you work. It's helping you do more in the apps that you already use. In Word, Copilot helps turn scattered notes into a first draft.

In Excel, it generates insights from your data. In Outlook, it cuts through the noise to get you up to speed faster. The apps that you know go further with Copilot. Learn more at m365copilot.com/work. And now here's our good friend Kyle Long.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very, very special guest and a very good friend, recurring guest. It is Kyle Long in studio, looking great as ever. How— what do you weigh right now?

I'm 305 according to my bathroom scale the other day.

But you're like—

305 for me is skinny. Like, I look sick.

Yeah, you look skinny. First thing I said when I saw you was Dude, you lost weight and I don't think that you did.

I got a bigger shirt and I tucked in my shirt.

That's it.

For any of you who pull your shirts down, I'm a big pull your t-shirt guy.

Oh yeah. This move.

That move.

All the time.

Get the boobs more comfortable. Get the belly less visible.

Just get a bigger shirt.

And the haircut's good too.

Yeah, it's good. Thank you very much. I've decided to go with the offseason look because during the season I like to bick the head.

Yeah.

When you're bald, you don't have many options. You either look like Trevor from Grand Theft Auto or you look like Mr. Clean. Right now I'm going for the Statham look, which is let it grow a little bit but keep it tight.

Yeah, it looks good.

And you also got lucky as a bald guy to have the facial hair to, to like— because like a bald guy who can't grow facial hair, that's the real tragedy. A bald guy who can have a sick beard like you do, lined up and everything, thank you. You're good.

Thank you very much.

You're good. It is important because it's kind of like letting everyone know, hey, I, I can grow hair at certain points in my body.

It's like I always think it's funny when they show like the Brian Dayball inverted facial hair, like where his beard is on his head, or A'Shawn Robinson is one of my favorite pictures. Shout out to A'Shawn. Love A'Shawn. Yeah, you need hair on one of the spots.

Yeah, somewhere.

I wonder if SVP ever tried to grow a beard because he's always just been smooth. He got the big glasses, which I feel like does— it's functionally the same.

It helps.

It breaks up the smoothness a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah, something that gets the eyes going somewhere else.

SVP should do that. He should grow like an evil goatee. Yeah, just to see what it looks like.

Yeah, that would be sick.

Come up with another set of initials.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right. So you're here. I wanted to talk about a couple of things, some ball. I also want to talk because we have the draft coming up next week, draft memories and the whole process. Like, let's start with this. If you could go back in time to right now, when you got drafted, like a week and a half out, what is going through your head as someone who's been told, hey, you're going to probably be a first rounder, but we don't know? Well, like the whole thing.

I don't think I've ever talked about this, but I think my dad knew that I was going to be a first round pick, but he always told me through obviously his contacts and stuff. And these guys talk.

Yeah.

Like Mike Mayock and him are like frat brothers. You know what I mean? The indication, unbeknownst to me at the time, was I was probably going to be an end of the first round pick guy. I was under the understanding that I was a third round, maybe a fourth round guy.

Oh, wow.

I didn't have many starts in college. My technique was shit. I got tired quickly. I had an ankle injury. I thought, you know, obviously I'm going to get a shot to play somewhere. When I was sitting in that living room in Virginia with my older brother, my younger brother, my parents, and I got that phone call from an 847 area code. And I didn't recognize the 847 area code at the time. It was amazing. And I remember the look on my parents, my brother and my dad looked at me like, you lucky bastard, like you're going to play for the Chicago Bears and congrats on being a first round pick. But more importantly, yeah, you're going to the best place.

Yeah.

And that was the experience I had. Yeah, it was such a blur, dude. The stuff I remember was training prior to the draft, right? Try to put yourself in as good a position physically as you can be in. And I remember training and seeing guys like Andrew Luck prepare and just thinking I was like sharing a field with a Greek god. And guys like Julian Edelman putting in 3-a-days out there on the turf in the offseason. It gives you an indication of the type of work that you need to do to have success.

And so going into like the pre-draft and everything, because you didn't play a ton of college football the injury, whatever. Was there extra pressure on the combine where you're like, oh, fuck, I have to— because that's the funny thing about the combine. A lot of the guys, they're going there and it's like, all right, you know what I am.

Yeah.

But there are certain guys, especially a physical, like, freak like yourself, we're like, hey, if I show up to the combine, like, there is a world where they draft on measurables and they draft on your, your ceiling, even if you haven't shown it all on tape.

Well, I think that for a guy like myself who had a lot of red tape in my file, not just for on-the-field stuff, but for, you know, character stuff. And every guy has some semblance of character issues unless you're Kirk Cousins.

Yeah. Every guy, which that becomes its own character issue.

You're right.

Yeah. Too many cats. Yeah, too. Yeah, exactly. Put them on the list, man. What is it? Was it Brian Cox? He's like, never trust a man without a vice. That's what he said.

I heard never trust a man named Tracy and never trust a man that doesn't have a mustache.

Okay.

I learned that from an OG when I got in the league. And I've been leery of Tracy's ever since. But when I got to the combine, I knew that I was going to run fast, jump high, be strong, be a freak. The thing that I was really afraid of, not afraid of, but I was concerned with was that I was going to have 20 private meetings in person with these teams back to back to back to back, going to 12:30 in the morning throughout the night. And they were going to rip apart my file.

Yeah, your red flags.

And it dawned on me early at the combine that, ah, these guys know everything, right? They've talked to everybody. Just be an open book. They'll appreciate that. And I remember getting more laughs than questions after I answered the initial questions. And I said, you know what? I did a good job there. Now go run your nuts off tomorrow. Somebody's going to pick you up. And it ended up being the Chicago Bears.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm looking at the draft right now. I think if we did a redraft, I think you would probably be top 5 in that draft.

Really?

I think so. Yeah, I would put—

where do I end up?

I think I might put you around like 4 or 5 and that would send you to— you'd be— you might, you might be a Bird. You might, you might have been an Eagle.

Could you imagine if Lane Johnson and I played right guard and right tackle next to each other for a decade?

Right. Well, that's the thing. Lane Johnson, I think, he would shoot up to number 1 in that draft.

Who is number 1 in that draft?

Eric Fisher went number 1.

Yeah, Eric Fisher.

Yeah.

And then shout out to Eric Fisher.

Luke Jokl went second, then Dion Jordan went 3. I think you go probably— no offense— probably Lane Johnson number 1.

Oh yeah.

In that draft. Then I would say DeAndre Hopkins 2.

Yeah.

And then I would probably put— I don't know. That's where we start to have the Kyle Long conversation.

You know what, Travis Frederick would go up.

That draft class often gets—

oh, Geno Smith.

Man, that draft class gets shit on for, you know, 1 through 32 might not have 32 Pro Bowlers, but I'll tell you what, there's a couple Hall of Famers in that first round.

Travis Kelce in the third round.

There's a couple guys in that draft who had unbelievable careers and they're still playing now. So I mean, say what you want.

Yeah. So I was looking at your weaknesses on NFL.com because they still have your weaknesses, your draft profile. Can we talk about those? And you can tell us if you address those or if they were valid weaknesses.

Yeah.

Okay. Still new to the game of football.

100%. Still new to the game.

And still today.

37. I'm still learning every day.

We all are.

Yeah. His play is still a bit unrefined.

I kind of like that. I'm like crack. I'm not like refined. I'm not like that el puro. I was that.

Yeah.

I hit like crack in the '80s.

Yeah. Doesn't always play with the natural bend that he possesses.

Ooh.

How was the bend?

Sure.

Okay. Overextends off the snap at times, trying to land his punch, losing his balance and allowing his man to disengage.

Yes. So when I got into the league, it became see what you hit, not just throw your face at the enemy. And when I was at Oregon, I remember I was on the ground way too much because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. But I agree with that.

Similarly, will lunge at linebackers when he reaches the second level.

Yeah, we call that getting horny when you get real close to it and you want to hit it real hard.

Yeah.

And you end up missing it because they're better athletes.

You're like, this guy weighs 70 pounds less than me. I'm going to take advantage of this.

I heard Puka Nacua reference that one time about football. He was like, we call that getting a little bit horny. Like when you get a little bit quick in your route progression or as an offensive lineman, it is swinging the bat before the ball's in the zone.

Yeah.

He struggles to keep his hands inside of his defender.

Who is this guy?

I don't know. Now you're mad.

Now you're mad.

Do you struggle to keep your hands inside of another man?

No, I don't actually.

He will catch his assignment. I don't know what that means.

Catch his assignment. So as an offensive tackle, you often see guys that play with great strength or length. Darnell Wright plays with his hands out in front of him, does a great job of that. I was a guy that invited contact and then I'd bear hug you and then I'd find a way to sit down and make you stop. I didn't have that length that a lot of those tackles had. So I agree with the catch.

Whatever way you do it. Seems to second-guess himself in space. Don't we all?

That's because I didn't know the plays. Yeah.

Or get partial glancing blows. Oh, sorry. Seems to second-guess himself in space or get partial glancing blows when blocking on the move instead of driving his man to the ground.

Well, this guy's going to have a really hard time.

These are all the weaknesses. I just want to know if he addresses it.

Positive. Howie Long.

It said Rocky start to his career.

Chris Long is his brother.

Strengths. Looks the part of an NFL lineman.

Great.

Yes, facts. Looks good in shorts.

So did Tony Mandrich.

Oh, this is good. Has nice height and long, thick arms.

Nice.

Which he can extend to keep defenders at bay in pass protection. Sometimes using one hand to ward off his man while on the move.

That's sick.

True.

That is pretty good.

Strength.

Excellent mobility given his size. Has no issues moving behind the line or pulling in front of plays. Hitting multiple targets at times. Solid on combo blocks, maintaining his bend. Also displays the footwork to get the outside angle on run blocks. Plays with attitude, backs up his teammates on the field, cleans up piles.

Love that.

That's good.

Thank you for going through that. This reminded me of when I went to the Senior Bowl and it was my first time having to take my— So I'm bald. You know, I don't—

What?

I have a cul-de-sac on top of my head, but I've had that since I was I was 20 years old, I started going bald. You know what I'm saying? I went to the senior bowl and it was the first time where I had to take off my fitted hat. Like I was a fitted hat to sleep guy. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

And I thought I could weigh in with my hat on and they were like, nah. And it was like a stage in front of all the scouts, all the people. And I had the worst hair, like the worst bald guy hair, horrible. And I got off the stage and immediately checked my Twitter. Because I had just made a Twitter for that pre-draft process. And the only tweet from the weigh-in was, every year there is a player that is more bald than bald. This year's player is Kyle Long. This has been the worst fucking day of my life.

Get me out of here.

Smart move, by the way, not having a Twitter until the draft.

Yeah.

I feel like you saved yourself.

Very much so. Or your agent, like, a lot of money. Well, it's funny because Halfway through my career, my older brother went through a process where he like cleaned out his Twitter. He like hired somebody to go in there and just make sure that everything's all good. And, you know, just stupid, you know, tweets at the end of the night, end of the day. And I did the same thing. I'm probably due for another one. Have you guys ever done that?

No.

Yes, we did. We did before Barceló Van Talk. They did. Remember? They cleaned— they made us clean it out.

I don't think— I don't think I deleted anything though.

I think— I think they cleaned it out and they're just like, hey, what's this? And it's like, it was a lot of like, uh, the manual retweets of other people. And they're like— I was like, yeah, but I didn't say that.

Yeah, but it's not yours. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, there wasn't a lot there. Uh, and we also just completely missed the biggest thing, remember, which was the Pick 'Em episode. Yeah, we did a terrible job of of cleaning it up.

Remember when the bad thing in sports was people with Twitters? Like, when I got in the league, I was active on Twitter, and it's really what got me to be friends with so many people in the media space and have so many relationships. But I remember I get looked at like a pariah. Yeah, locker room.

Yeah, because it was just— there was only downside, which is— which is wrong because there was definitely upside. And like, there's— I think there's always, especially like guys that are younger, like having a connection to the fans. Like, fans just want the athletes they root for to just feel like regular guys.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like, I grew up watching Ken Griffey Jr. Like, I wish I could have read his tweets, right? Like, when I was 12 years old, I would have been able to, like, look up what is Roger Clemens tweeting before he goes out there and pitches against the Red Sox. That stuff's cool. And when I was a young player, I was like, I want to be— I want people to know what's going on, right? And who we are, right? We wear helmets. We're not in the NBA. You don't see us, you don't get to talk to us. So connect with people that way.

So we were actually talking on Monday's show about how, you know, the Masters has their cell phone policy, how more places could actually benefit from that. I think you might agree maybe a locker room would be a good place to not have.

I think you and I can all, we can all agree to not have a cell phone. Well, I would say you can have a cell phone as long as I get 30 seconds to prepare for the show.

Yeah. By the way, I read your chapter that you wrote for us in the book.

Book.

Thank you very much. And it was, it was, it was part like the story of you getting, uh, a picture taken by the media with your dick out. That would like—

my dick wasn't out, my dick was just there.

No, yeah, he was in the locker room acting normally as one does in the locker room. Somebody had their camera out.

But that was why— that's why part of my take exists is like to have, to have a place where it's like, hey, you want to come on and let's make some jokes about it? Because like, yeah, what else are you gonna What are you going to do? Yeah.

So it's a funny moment. We move on. We don't talk about it anymore.

Ever, ever, ever.

I will never bring up negative things about you.

I still don't understand why you were rock hard. Yeah.

I don't know. It was an exciting time. Monday Night Football, man. It's exciting.

You guys won, right?

In the nation's capital.

Yeah. So yeah, every guy gets like a little bit.

Won the battle, lost the war.

Yeah. Yeah. You were saying before, did you go to Gruden's facility before the draft?

So when I retired from the Bears, okay, in 2019, I took a year off and started working for CBS and I was like, man, I still want to hit people and I'm still athletic and I still can play. So I'm going to go do that. And the first person I called was Mike Mayock. As I alluded to earlier, him and my dad are tight. He was like, we'll get you in for a workout. Coach Gruden would love to have you in for a workout. Tom Cable was the coach. Now, Tom Cable is somebody who has some personal experience with substance abuse from his own house because he's dealt with it with his immediate family. And when I was in the pre-draft process, Tom Cable was with the Seahawks. One thing I'll never forget is going to the Seahawks private meeting room with Pete Carroll at the end of the board table and all the staff on the side. And when I sat down, they brought out a case of Keystone Light and slapped it in front of me. And they kind of were like, you want to have a beer? And I remember being like, You realize I could fucking rip every single one of you guys up in this room, and this is like wrong on so many— I've never told this story, but it pisses me off thinking about it now.

Um, and Tom Cable was there, and Tom Cable really grilled me that day, and I feel like he was, uh, projecting onto me a lot of the things that, you know, I, I just had— I got caught having fun a couple times, right? Um, and I have fun still, right? Sue me. But But when I got to the Raiders, Tom Cable was the O-line coach for that workout. He tried to kill me. Didn't kill me. Tried to kill me. And then at the end said, you don't have it. He said, go talk to Jon Gruden. And I went up there and I—

Wait, you did a whole workout and at the end of it he's just like, you don't have it?

He didn't say you don't have it. He said, go talk to the coach.

Oh, okay.

You know, type thing. And I was like, all right. And as a guy who played in one place for so long, I never did any of these workouts. I don't know how they go.

Right.

You know, who's bringing you where. And I go up to Gruden's office and it was great to see Gruden. I just, I just love that guy. All football. And he'd sit down in the chair right next to him, right across from him. Good to see you, man. I'm like, good to see you, Coach. And he goes, you love football, man? I said, yeah, Coach, I do. He goes, I bet you don't like football as much as I do. And I looked down, I said, you're probably right, Coach. He said, well, I think we're going to go with Leatherwood. Oh, thanks for coming out.

That's fucked up.

And I was like, see ya, pard.

Yeah, see ya.

Was he hoping that you would fight him? Be like, I know I love football more, bro.

It was like I was a kid looking at Chucky, you know?

Yeah.

Like, I grew up watching Chucky.

Yeah.

He was giving me Chucky in that moment. I just said, Coach, you got this one. I know you love football more than me.

Yeah.

How'd that work out for them?

They've been on the come up ever since.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think they're paying 4 head coaches.

It is.

It is really fucked up, though, that the Seahawks did that. Like, if you had a severe drinking problem, if you were like an alcoholic, which I don't— which you don't. But if you did, let's say that you had like a problem. And you bring a kid who's— how old were you at the time? You got the twisted teeth.

You got the lefty.

I was 23.

Okay, so you bring a 23-year-old in for a job interview and you just slam a case of beer in front of me. I bet you want one of these, don't you?

And they all laugh.

Yeah, that's like— that's actually a fucked up thing to do to a young man.

They're testing.

Because what people don't realize, you know, out of context, that seems funny. Oh, it's funny, you know?

Yeah.

But the meeting before, there could have been a substance abuse psychologist or a therapist in there trying to grill me like cross-examination style.

Right.

I'd been through the wringer that day. And like I said earlier, 17, 18 of these private meetings in a row.

It's crazy.

You start to go crazy. You start to feel like the guy from Severance who's in the like, yeah, get me out of here. How do I get out of this building?

Did they have a camera in your house on draft night?

No.

Did they ask?

No.

They should have. That's a big miss on their part.

It is.

Yeah. If they had asked you to go to the draft, would you have gone?

No.

I think that's a lose-lose situation.

It's a lose-lose.

Right?

Yeah. It's a lose-lose unless you're Chris Long.

Yeah. Yeah. Or Jake Long. Do you remember his draft night?

I do. I would say that Chris's draft night was the best night of sports in our family. I mean, Chris won 2 Super Bowls, so he would have a different answer. Yeah. Chris got drafted number 2, you know, which was everything. Chris is my hero.

Yeah.

And I pitched that night. We slaughtered the team. I think I was— I think I had like 14 strikeouts and I went like 4 for 4. And I remember in the 6th inning there was 2 outs and I'm getting ready to strike this guy out. And the PA announcer, Robert Morris— shout out to Robert Morris, who's like the OG PA announcer at St. Ann's-Belfield. He's like, in a brief pause in the action, Chris Long of St. Ann's-Belfield High School goes number 2 overall in the NFL draft.

Oh, shit.

And I remember just being like, oh, I'm about to fucking K this guy.

That's awesome.

And I just remember my parents and we had prom that night.

Oh, so this is the best night ever.

Like, literally the game ended. You shower up, get your eye black off, get your suit on. And I remember my dad and my mom showed up with Rams hats to, like, take pictures with us. It was just like the best day ever.

Perfect.

Chris didn't make it back because he was in New York with all those hooligans.

Yeah.

Doing God knows what.

Having a great time.

So you struck out 14 guys, went 4 for 4 at the plate, and then went to prom. Yeah, that's a great—

and your brother got drafted.

Yeah, that's a pretty good night.

That's a really good night as far as high school seniors. Are you, are you pissed at all?

The rest is cloudy.

Yeah.

Are you, are you pissed at all at Chris and your dad for having hair?

Oh, you know what, sometimes I am.

Yeah, you should be.

But there are some things I have that they don't.

Yeah, but Howie's kind of got it all. He's got it.

He's got it. But one thing, and his hair has never changed. He can't golf because he said it hurts too bad. So I can golf, he can't.

Yeah. Okay. How's the golf game?

It's all right.

I mean, me and Hank are ready.

Well, no, but no, you say all right. What is— what's your handicap?

I'm an 11.2.

Okay. So it's pretty good.

I'm trending up. I was a 14 last week.

When did you start?

Well, I started it again, like, after the season. I started going to the range a lot.

No, but I mean, like, when did you start? Aren't you relatively new to COVID?

Probably.

Yeah.

Oh, you're one of those guys. Shrink.

Yeah. Shrink the game.

You probably have. I wear a lot of Malbon.

Yeah, you got the hats with the big letters on them.

Yeah, I wear metal spikes.

You get the Bluetooth speaker.

Yeah, yeah. We still haven't golfed.

I know, we got to do it.

We need to do that.

Yes, we should. Yeah, we absolutely should.

A little lefty versus righty.

Yeah, yeah, he could play twice. No, well, he could be on both. Some athletes over here, he could be on both teams. So we okay with that? He bet he's lefty with you and then righty with us.

I'm fully converted.

I posted a video of me swinging right-handed the other day. Unbeknownst to me, Hank did that too. And somebody was like, you're fucking stealing. I'm like, fuck, Hank. Fuck right-handed people.

Well, let me ask you a question.

No, the lefty swing looks great, Kyle.

Kyle, let me ask you a question. Sweetheart, are you fully converted to lefty if you still putt righty?

I'm a left-hander.

No, I know. But if so, if someone were to walk in and say, hey, Kyle, you're a lefty, I'm a lefty, love you, bro. Like, there needs to be more lefty representation in the world. Oh yeah. By the way, I also putt right.

Well, it's funny you say that because as kids, if we're putting, oftentimes as left-handers, there's not left-handed putters around. So we learn to putt on our dad's putter or our, you know, whatever's putter, and it's always right-handed. I'll never forget that.

Isn't going my way.

I used to— there was a Ping putter that sat in my dad's office and I would just fuck around with it. And then, you know, he's like, you're a lefty, you don't use that one.

Yeah.

What about, um, what if you still chip right-handed?

We got to talk to a therapist.

Okay, maybe. Yeah, he's converted lefty, but he chips and putts.

I've seen I've been seeing one-handed chippers. A lot of guys have been going to that to rid themselves of the yips. I don't understand it. That's crazy.

That's a sad—

right-handed is the yip yaps.

But yeah, I will also be chipping lefty soon enough.

I just—

good.

What does soon enough mean?

I got to practice more. I got to practice outside.

We got to set it. We have to set a deadline on this because you're just going to keep pushing it off.

Okay. Memorial Day.

Okay. Done.

MDW.

MDW.

Left-handed chipper.

Going to be— yeah. Huge. Spanish. Uh, Kyle, let's talk some football about like actual this draft this year.

Great.

Um, there's a lot of really, really good defensive players I feel like that are going to go high up. Um, is there one guy that you think is like a little bit undervalued right now that could make his way up in that top like 6, 7 area?

Look, I don't know if, if this guy is going to be anywhere near that zip code, but some guys are just born football players and this guy, the linebacker from Texas Tech.

Yeah.

Rodriguez.

Yeah.

I believe his name is Malcolm Rodriguez.

Yep.

Awesome.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

I mean, just like I like to watch the cutups of these guys in coverage because in my opinion, you should be able to play the run. That should be just like, you know, 101 is playing gap integrity.

Right.

But where you see a lot of the disparity in the NFL is when these running backs go on these choice routes, when these tight ends are crossing the field, when these Mike linebackers middle of the field players are forced to be in trail technique. Rodriguez has a ton of ball skills. He's also a great tackler in space. And I feel like there's a premium with the athletes at the tight end position, the hybrid guys at running back. The other guy that I watched a lot on the defensive side is Reuben Bain. I like his buddy 61, Maui Noah, the right tackle. But if we're talking defensive players, what a rare body style Reuben Bain has.

Yeah, he's like a gummy bear.

He is like a gummy bear, but like pressed down a little bit.

Yeah, like a violent, explosive gummy bear.

And I just think that folks at home look at the length conversation, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. Well, tackles and defensive side of the ball, and they overvalue it. I think if a guy has natural leverage, if he can bend, the decision has to be made by an offensive lineman. I'm going to be in for a fistfight 70 plays in a row. And Reuben Bain reminds me of one of those kind of players. And I think he'll have success in the National Football League. I think he can reduce down in nickel. I think he can be first, second down guy on the edge, whatever he wants to do.

So if you were a lineman and you were matched up against a guy that he has those small arms, but he's strong as fuck and explosive and he's got that bend, like what, what would a guy like that give you problems with?

Well, first and foremost, you want to make sure like in that negative scouting report, you don't get your head out in front of your body. With a guy who has a leverage advantage against you, you want to make sure your feet are under you. You see what you're hitting because oftentimes they get on you and they can shuck you. Or a guy like Von Miller, and these are not the same player, but Von Miller could do that ghost rush where he'd go under you. You have to be aware of the things that they can win easily with and take those away and then just ride the bull. Fucking find a way to get on the bull and pray to God that your quarterback is in sequence and that he's stepping up at 10 yards.

Yeah. Zach, do you have some questions for a gamer to gamer? This is our segment, Gamer to Gamer.

Oh, GDG.

Yeah, little GDG.

Hop on comms.

Yeah, do some comms.

You been hitting Stellamontis at all? You damn Battlegrounds?

Any Stellamontis? I haven't been in Stellamontis for a while, but you know, they stopped the endgame is what bothers me about ARC Raiders. It was, it was like Christmas morning for 2 months playing that game. Everybody had so much fun. Everybody and their mama played.

And then people—

it's like a ghost town, I imagine. Now I switched to Crimson Desert though, Zach.

Okay.

It's a great game. It doesn't require me to have any of my buddies online. It's like Skyrim for the OGs used to be in there. You could play Skyrim still, probably. Crimson Desert, in my opinion, is one of those games.

They kind of did destroy— they went too heavy on the player versus environment. So the player v. player on the updates, the devs are destroying the game.

Yeah. You know what? I want to shwack players.

I agree.

I want to shwack players that are fighting the environment.

I mean, I don't understand.

Take these guys out.

So, so, PvP. So essentially there's a giant map. You spawn on one side with you, and me and Zach spawn on the other side. And within that map, there's a bunch of little missions that we can all do. If we happen to run across each other, we can have one of two options. Hey buddy, you friendly? Can we work together and get this giant mech down and we can get all the loot? Or I can say, hey, we're friendly, and then in Discord I'm like, Zach, we're gonna fuckin' kill them. And then we kill them and we run those pockets, big cat.

We take everything.

We get the goop. That's what they call it, the goop.

Yeah. Oh, you've been goopin', guys?

You goop up, get gone.

Goop up and get gone?

Yes, sir.

That's a shirt right there. G-U— T-shirt.

Is it G-U-G-G?

King Goopa.

Goop up and get gone. Goopa Troopa.

Couple dudes goopin', can't go wrong.

Super Goopas.

Couple dudes goopin'.

Gotta bring some wet wipes.

Goop up and get gone. All right. Do you have any other gamer-to-gamer questions?

Yeah, I guess. I guess it was just selfish. You ever trying to run it? Just let me know. I'm up late.

I would love to. I would love to. I'm an 11:15 shut the computer off East Coast time guy. Oh, so maybe I'll get you started.

That's when he turns it off.

Yeah.

No, we're shutting down like 12 Central, you know, so we're similar on the—

really?

On the shutdown. Really? That's not—

it's a lie.

Unless you have an important meeting, in which case you stay up till 3.

Yeah, I—

yeah, if it's stringing some wins along, you know, there's nothing I can do there. That would just be selfish of me to get off.

When was the last time you shut it down at 12 Central?

Probably last— probably last Thursday.

Okay, okay.

Hank, PGA 2K, you done it?

Oh yeah, not the new one as much, but I'm a winner gamer.

Hey, it's great. And if you turn the difficulty up, it's not just pull straight back, pull straight forward. It's like if you hit a draw or a cut, you got to do it. I mean, the ranked is awesome.

Yeah, I've had some struggles, some viral clips that went re-viral last week of my struggles on PGA 2K, but it's a great game.

Get back on the horse.

I like, once it gets nice out though, it's real fun.

I miss playing video games.

Kyle, we gotta get up in the skies in DCS over the Persian Gulf. I've been running some operations over the Strait of Hormuz.

Let's get that blockade out.

And I've been fucking up some Iranian Navy ships.

And they're not happy.

They're not happy about it. But I'm opening up the fucking Strait. Like, you see what gas prices are? If they come down, you can—

Yeah, the virtual gas price right now is so low.

Yeah, but we can, we can, we can get you up in that map and I'll fly in the A-10. I'll provide close air support. We'll get you up in the F-15E Strike Eagle and you can take out some of these skippers.

Love that. Put the NODs on.

Yeah.

Yeah. What's doing media? Is it scarier than playing in the NFL?

Sometimes. Okay, good.

Depending on who you work with.

Good.

Yeah.

Depending on who you work with. That's like the big thing.

Yeah.

If you work with Pete, is that scary?

Pete is amazing. Shout out to Pete Prisco. You know, my biggest job is just come with the energy to be ready to react off of Pete's energy because he's going to be bringing his fireball and his fastball. Sometimes you work with people that don't do that and you have to be more of like the quarterback, I guess. But I really like my role as kind of the sixth man or, you know, glue guy, I guess. I'm not a leader. I'm not the big star. I'm just a guy that's in there trying to make conversation happen.

I think you and Pete make for a very good duo.

Thank you, bro.

Because he does watch the tape, so he will have— it'll be an informed opinion. Sometimes it'll be incorrect, but at least he's got an informed opinion. And then you just get to react off that.

I—

you guys got the whole big, big guy, little guy thing going on too. So it's a, it's a good dynamic.

He's been a great vet to be around.

Yeah.

I've learned a lot from him. And he's a guy that's done it the right way for 40 years. I mean, he's been covering the National Football League for so long. And if you see him have interactions with coaches or scouts, they're like, fuck you, Pete, but great to see you. Like, how's everything? They're like, I read what you wrote. You're right, but you shouldn't have wrote that.

Yeah, no, he writes whatever he feels.

I respect it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Do you have any hot takes going into this? To the next football season. Like a team that we can do the team that will make the playoffs.

I love Jackson Dart. I love the idea of Matt Nagy being the OC and not having to worry about head coach duties.

Yeah.

And just like having a guy like Jon Harbaugh be the OG and you know that the programs could be run a certain way. If Matt Nagy and Jackson Dart can get on the same page, it's going to be a lot of fun for people in New York. Yeah. Okay.

I like that.

Is there a team that you think might regress?

Team that will regress. Well, I don't want, I don't think that the Bears are going to regress, but I think similar to the, it's not the same as the Commanders, but when the expectations are at 35,000 feet and you end up at 32,000 feet, people act like the sky's falling.

I think there's a chance that we could have, we could be a better team with the worst record, given the fact that a lot of those wins were pretty crazy.

Wait, wait one second. Going into last season, that's exactly what I said about the Commanders.

Yeah.

And you guys said that I was, uh, being half in, half out.

Well, I think the difference is that you—

you're—

the Commanders were an old roster. The Bears are a young roster. So I don't think— I think we'll be in the playoffs. I'll be very disappointed if we're not in the playoffs, right? No, that's it right now.

I think that's exactly like verbatim what I said going to last season, that we're gonna regress with the record but not as far as a team goes. But I was wrong. I was wrong about about everything with that take. It's not like I was correct about it.

They learned, which is so, so hard to do in this league. I mean, obviously winning is hard to do, but winning close games, winning 2-minute situational football, that breeds so much confidence. And when I watch that team in Kansas City, when Patrick's healthy and when things are rolling, they know if they are within striking distance with 4 minutes left and there's a chance on God's green earth that Patrick gets the ball It's the same feeling we have in Chicago.

I think Caleb's going to make another leap. Like, I really do.

We have the same feeling here.

Yeah, because it's just like he— everything that happened last year, he did a lot of the hard stuff and made it look easy and a lot of the easy stuff look hard. And if he could just raise the— like, his ceiling is so high. Just raise the floor a little. Some of the easy plays, some of the checkdowns, like, those are there.

And now every guy on that roster, 1 through 53, understands that if they can ratchet it up one or two clicks, they may have an opportunity to be a guy. Because when you're on a team like this, it's like a kingmaker team.

Yeah. Okay.

These guys become higher paid, more marketable, Pro Bowlers. You win games, you get all that. And people smell that now and they want a taste of it.

I also will say that a lot of this depends on how the draft goes. Yeah. You got to nail— like, we have a lot of holes on the defensive side right now. And if the draft draft, if you can't get the— the Bears need probably 2 to 3 like impact starters in this draft, which is a tall task, but that's really to be done to, to get where we want to go. That's probably going to have to happen. Like it's going to have to be a couple dudes on the defensive line that are instant, oh, they're dudes and they can contribute. Yeah, that's just the spot they're in.

Have you paid any attention at all to Jennings Dunker?

Help me out.

He's the guy from— I believe he's from Iowa.

He's Iowa. He was in the office position last year.

Yeah, uh, he offensive lineman. He's got the mullet.

I watched their center. I haven't watched the mullet guy.

Yeah, the mullet guy.

The center can go.

The mullet guy is— he is becoming extremely marketable. I think ESPN just wrote a giant article about him.

Well, that's like the guy from Denver, uh, a couple years ago, white guy with dreads, the All-Pro Quinn Miner.

Quinn Miner, yeah, who marketable has been incredible. Yeah. Um, but yeah, this Jennings Dunker guy, I don't know if he's more flat, which is weird to say, like an Iowa offensive lineman. Is he too flashy? Is he like too Iowa? Has he gone so far—

Too much sex appeal.

—in his Iowaness that he's actually become anti-Iowa? But I guess we'll find out more about that. I did have one more question about the Bills for next year. I don't know what to expect out of the Bills. And I like Joe Brady. I think he's a really smart guy. I think a lot of teams have thought about hiring him in the past. And he's been like clearly a great offensive mind for a few years now. What can we expect out of Joe Brady's offense? How is it going to look different? Different from maybe the way that the Bills have operated in the past while having Joe Brady on the staff?

Well, the Kyle Long-Buffalo Bill Venn diagram is strongest at the point where Aaron Cromer intersects us. And Aaron Cromer was the offensive line coach/run game coordinator, and in my opinion, outside of Josh Allen, was the MVP of that offense. And the things that they were able to do with Cook and get that offensive line on the same page, it pays dividends for Josh. A lot of what we heard last year towards the end of the year, don't make it all Josh. He doesn't know. I think Joe Brady's like, hey, Josh, you want to go make it all you? You want to go be a freak baller? You want to go LeBron this shit? And I think Josh is like, yeah, I do. And I think what we see next year is the Josh Allen show. And with DJ Moore coming to town with a few of those offensive linemen still around, this group is still going to be firepower on offense, who's going to rush the passer in the playoffs? Who's going to be the guy that, you know, sends chills down the spine of a tackle on third down? Because they've brought guys in over the last course, of course, the last couple of years that have been over the hill.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

I mean, you need young guys with juice. I don't care if it's marquee guys. Rotate 3 guys that are pretty good or get a really good guy.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, Kyle, last question. Rowback question. RHOBACK.com promo code TAKE, 20% off 5% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Oroback.com. Promo code TAKE. I just thought of this because we do have to do a golf video with you. Do you think that any of us here could get a hit off of you?

In baseball? Right now? Yeah. Probably.

Max, for sure. Max, you could take a max out. What speed do you think you'd throw at right now?

It depends on how many A-Bs.

We might have to do this. We might have to have him come out for—

Top half of an inning, he gets 9 fastballs. Oh, all fastballs, 100%.

Okay.

Oh shit, how fast do you think my shit hurts, bro?

I might have to hank this. Imagine that would suck.

Left on left is tough.

I'll be honest, I'll be honest, bro. Be a quick one.

Yeah, I would get it.

I would get it quick. Oh man, if it's all fastballs, for sure. If you're that confident, I would just bean you and deal with the consequences.

We might have to wear I would wear that shit too.

Shout out to Philly for being an absolute tough guy. He just gets killed over here for his quarterback, his team.

Max does. Yeah, I like his quarterback.

I just think it's sad what they're doing.

Someone doesn't like him in the building.

These fucking Eagles fans, man.

What happens when a story comes out like that and you're in the locker room? You're like, who the fuck is talking in this locker room? You just—

you don't trust anybody. Yeah. You can't even look people in the eye anymore.

That was, I mean, that was the Aaron Cromer, bro. I've been, I've been, uh, yeah, that was Aaron Cromer was the leak that was like, Jay is bad.

Yeah. And then he, I think he walked out of the locker room. A reporter was like, hey, what happened there? He's like, you want to know exactly what happened there?

Jay stinks. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man.

Shout out to Jay. Haven't talked to Jay in forever.

I talked to him a couple of months ago.

He's doing well. He's, he is at peace with the countryside.

He also every, yeah, every like every other month I'll just see a picture of They'll pop up and Jay just like killed an animal.

It's like wrestling a narwhal.

The craziest animal I've ever seen. Yes. I didn't know they made those on Tatooine, hunting, like having a great time. All right, Kyle, always great having you on, guys. Always great seeing you. Uh, appreciate you. You want to plug anything? You got anything to plug?

Uh, I think we should plug Waterboys. Okay. Yes. Yeah, Water Initiative. Also still are going to do Kill 'Em and Yeah, Kili. I'll be there eventually.

We're going to do it. Have you never done it?

No, I'll take a jetpack. Oh, so you're with us. Yeah.

Okay. So yeah, we'll do it when you do it.

Okay.

I still remember before the draft, before— or it was before the Super Bowl, maybe Blake Bortles was nominated for Walter Payton Man of the Year. And we talked to him about that award and he was like, yeah, you know, I didn't know that the Long brothers were going to deliver water to the entire continent of Africa. It was just one of us. Yeah. So Chris Long ended up getting the— Yeah. The Walter Payton Man of the Year Award over him. He's a good man. Good charity. Very good charity. So that's where we'll leave it.

You will do Kilimanjaro when you do it.

You'll do it when we do it. When I'm under 280.

And we agreed to just never do it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right.

Thanks.

Thanks, guys.

Okay. Let's get to guys on chicks. Before we do that though, Hank, are we going to rip some packs?

It's time to rip, boys. Okay.

Let's go. Let's rip. It's our final week of the rookie pursuit.

We're ripping a 2024 Topps rookie box this week. Okay, this comes from Rip Hamilton Rips on Whatnot, the number one live shopping app in the US. Final week, I need some Drake May. Which QB should have been drafted first? Drake May. Who's primed for the biggest upcoming season? Who has the best autograph, etc.? You guys ready? Yeah, yeah.

Okay, let's do it. Let's rip. So we all have a pack. Uh, PFT, would you like to choose which pack you'd like to do first?

I would, I would love to. Okay, shout out, that's a classic O.J. Simpson.

This is the energy all day long, just way bigger during Whatnot Card Show. Live shopping, ripping, having fun. Download Whatnot today and get free shipping on your first order and join in on Whatnot Card Show 8, the biggest card show on Earth, from April 30th to May 3rd. That's W-H-A-T-N-O-T Download now.

Oh boy. Hey fellas, what'd you get? Hey fellas, what'd you get?

Show it.

He's here and he's perfect. It's Jaden. It's my guy Jaden. Look at that, he's wearing the suit. That's draft pick second overall, Jaden Daniels. Oh, it's beautiful. What number is it numbered? It says QB on the front. On the front. Number 4 out of 75. Nice.

I got an 8 out of 50. 50. Bonicks. Oh, Believer. Believin'. What did you get?

I got a 1 out of 5. What?

Caleb Williams. Oh, signed auto! I want it, I want it. I'll trade you this Bonicks.

Throw in a Jayden Daniels.

You love Bonicks. You do love Bonicks.

Max, I'm gonna need you.

I got my favorite guy, Tanner McKee.

Who'd you get? Who'd you get?

That would be a 23 out of 99 Drake May.

Whoa.

Everyone knows I'm a Drake May guy.

Will you trade with me and then I could trade with Hank? Or trade with Hank and then I'll trade with you. You love Bonex.

You're a bow lever.

You're a bow lever. I need—

hot. All right, good deal.

No, Hank, let me see the—

Hank, you didn't even trade.

There you go.

Oh man, this is a— is that auto?

Auto, 1 out of 5.

Holy moly, Drake May is so much hotter in this picture though.

I love it, I love it. Okay, good job. Thank you to Whatnot. Go to Whatnot, download it right now. W-H-A-T-N-O-T. Download Whatnot today and join in on Whatnot Card Show 8, the biggest card show on Earth. We're so back from April 30th to May 3rd. So back. Okay, before we get to, uh, guys on chicks, breaking news. Don't need the moo cow. Uh, this just happened. Diana Rossini has resigned from The Athletic, and then she wrote a letter that is, uh, Should I read it? It's long. I'll read it. Please accept this letter as my resignation from The Athletic. I can't read. Effective immediately. I've come to this decision with deep sadness, with clarity about what is right for me, my family, and work I spent my career building. Wait, this is, uh, when the Page Six item first appeared, The Athletic supported me unequivocally, expressed confidence in my work and pride in my journalism. For that, I'm grateful. In the days that followed, unfortunately, commentators in various media have engaged in self-feeding speculation that is simply unmoored from the facts. Moreover, this media frenzy is hurtling forward without regard for the review process The Athletic is trying to complete.

It continues to escalate, fueled by repeated leaks, and I have no interest in submitting a public inquiry that has already caused far more damage than I'm willing to accept. So she's resigning. Her contract was up June 30th, so she's resigning from The Athletic. This story has gone from from like Tuesday night pictures on Page Six to, whoa, we ended up here exactly a week later. Yeah, I'm starting to think maybe the girls trip might not have happened.

I can see from her point of view why she would not want to continue with the inquiry. Yeah, especially because like every couple of days there's been something else coming out from The New York Times. Yeah, I've been trickling out. So it's since her contract was coming up anyways. I feel like her cutting bait might be the right move at this point. It might.

It's probably right for her to go away with how hot everything is. And, you know, she got ratioed to hell on Thursday when she tweeted the thing about the refs. I would say that it does feel like the original story that was thrown out there when the photos came out has probably not held up to scrutiny. And that's part of why she's resigning right now. I'm just speculating. I have no clue what exactly happened. But it does feel like there might be like, hey, I know how this— I know where the wind's blowing. I'm out. Yeah.

Or maybe positioning for a lawsuit. I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure. But it's the whole situation continues to suck. What happens with Rabel? See, that's the thing is like there will be conversations about like a double standard and it is kind of shitty how— and I am speaking from a biased point of view being a friend of hers. I'll freely admit that. That there's been a lot of shit. And I think since she lives in the online sports media ecosystem, Vrabel doesn't have to see as much shit directed at him. Yeah. For essentially being the same part of the same story that people are getting mad at her for. So I don't know. I don't— again, it goes back to what we're talking about with Jerry. I don't think that either one of them was going to get fired because, again, based on the pictures that they had, I don't think there was a smoking gun to fire somebody over. Yeah. But with Vrabel, I don't think he'll get disciplined at all because he's a football coach. And if a football coach can win a football game, then they won't be disciplined. Yeah, I think it's like I—

for me, it sucks when anyone loses their job. I do think that there's part of it that is probably her own demise, like in that that was a bad look. I said it from the beginning. That was a bad look. When you see the pictures, you're like, I don't We maybe we don't have the full context, but the context we're going off of is not a great look. So she was probably gonna have to deal with this for a long time. She probably can find a job working in some space in football, but maybe it's not insider. So I don't know what, what, what's next for her. I don't wish her any ill will whatsoever, but this also felt like it was coming from the beginning, from the photos to the girls trip, guys trip thing that didn't really make much sense. To, you know, the zoomed out picture with the beautiful Sedona mountains in the background. If you just ask anyone on the street, take a look at these, it's— you objectively are going to say this does not look good. And we don't know the context, but it seems like we're not going to get any more context because she resigned.

So the thing about being an insider, though, it's like if, if she breaks stories, people are going to pay attention to the stories. True. She gets a story. That's the thing. It's like, yeah. Yeah, it— I think she might have a hard time finding a traditional media outlet like The New York Times, like ESPN, that's like actively pursuing her right now. But I think I saw Ryan Glass-Beagle talk about this online. I agree with him. If she just broke a story online tomorrow, yeah, people would be like, oh shit, she's back. She's breaking stories. It's not like that value is going to go away if you're still able to do it, right?

Yeah, we're— I'm looking right now at the Twitter on the screen. It looks like Barstool's trending. I would assume it's trending because people are saying that she's coming to Barstool. I don't think that's probably going to happen, would be my guess.

We are the number one outlet that people speculate people will be hired by.

Yeah, we are. We're like Nick Saban's Alabama refugee for coaches. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a similar feeling also. Yeah. So that, that's it actually. That's, that's all of it. I don't think anything's going to happen to Vrabel or we'll find out. He didn't do his media thing, Hank. So he's, he maybe is just staying low profile for a while and then we'll see wherever Diana pops up again. Don't wish ill will, but I also think this was an avoidable situation that kind of feels like it, you know, what you did is going to have repercussions, especially when you're in this line of work. All right, let's, let's do guys on chicks. Guys on chicks. Yeah, it's been a fun show. We did everything. We did orcas, we did space.

We know PFT can shoot a 110 at the Masters. Or no, sorry, take that back.

Wait, how are you going to start off?

We know PFT can't shoot a 110 at the Masters.

The classic.

But he for sure can shoot as much as he wants on this pussy. Wait, what?

That's not a question.

That was not a statement. Just guys on chess. Oh, those guys on chess.

Statement of fact. That sounds like it was written by an actual female listener of the show. That's pretty cool.

Yeah. Meme sent me this.

Meme sent you that one? He's lying.

Meme, you wrote that? No, no. Meme, that's perverted.

I read it out loud this morning.

Max, like, I just sent him it. I was like, I sent him.

I thought, I thought it was a good submission.

Yes. Yes. Listen, it's real.

Do you know what I learned today? I don't really know if I want to say this.

Oh, yeah. Now you have to.

KB told me that there's a trend in the gay community that guys are calling their buttholes pussies.

That's just funny to me. My man pussy. Yeah. Just being like, fuck me in my pussy, my boy pussy butthole. Yeah.

I shit out my pussy all the time.

And then we found out Connor Griffin calls his butthole his pussy all the time. Really? Yeah. Kind of fucked up. That's—

that last part was not true.

Why? What? The Connor Griffin part. The Connor Griffin part?

Are you talking about the Pirates player?

No. The phenom? Yeah.

He calls his butthole his pussy?

Connor Griffin or Connor Griffin?

The guy on the Pirates? The guy that just signed the contract?

Orange hair Connor Griffin?

Connor Griffin, the guy that just got Tate McCray.

Nothing.

Griffin, wait, he's dating Connor Griffin?

Is dating Tate McCray? No, he just wore her on a t-shirt.

Which one are we talking about now?

Okay, we're talking about the one that calls his butthole his pussy.

That's the C Connor Griffin, right?

Yeah, the rich one.

Rich in friendship.

Got it. Also, we don't talk enough how the president of the Pirates is named Mr. Nutty.

Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, it's awesome. Should be the Pittsburgh Peanuts. I would— Connor Griffin, the Pirates phenom, was in the office and he stopped by the Yak and I asked him what he's— if he's going to do anything with his contract because he signed like $100 and what, like $20 million or something? It's like, are you going to spend it? And he's like, I'm spending on myself. I was like, that's an awesome answer.

Yeah. Yeah. Very good answer. Yeah. And if now's the time to do it, if you're a $140 million extension, he's 19 years old.

You want to sign these guys before the next CBA.

It's like you get a discount. Yep.

Cap's going to go up.

Cap goes up. Cap is up. The cap. The cap.

The cap in MLB always goes up.

I don't think that the cap can go down in MLB. It's infinity. Think about that.

The cap is technically infinity. Yeah.

The ceiling is the roof. Hey, did you say they should be called the Pittsburgh Penis? Is that what you said? Peanuts. Peanuts. Oh, why?

Okay. What's the owner's name?

Mr. Nutting. The president. President. Yeah.

Max, you hate those colors right now.

I think about me.

I hate the Penguins. Fire it up. Fire it up. Fire it up.

You got to fucking hate all those colors. Does it big.

Max, it's going to be an awesome series.

Yeah. You should love orcas because they eat penguins. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Only some of them. Yeah. Other ones. Sidney Crosby. Oh, what about Malkin?

He can't still be on the team.

You know, I don't think Gino's on the team. Is Ryan Whitney really?

Am I so— I know Paul Bissonnette.

He's very much, very much on the team. He's 100%. He's like 90, right? They had like a whole video of Ovi and Malkin playing with their sons when, like, before the last game, they were just playing full-on hockey in his hallway in his house. Is LeFleur—

LeFleurie?

Nope, he's gone. Yeah. Are you talking about— Mark-Andre Fleury. Yeah, the guy that he retired.

Yeah.

My friend Jess is mad at her guy best friend Mike because he's hooking up again with Bertha, a girl Jess used to be friends with who previously caused a whole chaotic scene at the bar Mike works at on Thursdays. Back in January, Bertha showed up alone, blackout drunk, made a spectacle, knocking things over, calling Mike her soulmate, chasing him into the bathroom. He insulted me out of nowhere, and Mike did absolutely nothing to shut it down, then still went home with her. Afterward, Bertha went through his phone, read private messages including with Jess, spiraled, and everything blew up, so they stopped talking. She later DM'd me acting like she didn't remember anything, calling herself a girl's girl, which doesn't exactly match the performance. Jess cut Bertha off because of her behavior, but now Mike is back hooking up with her again, which is why Jess is upset.

Okay, so this is real. This sounds—

there's no fucking way someone said that. This is a movie.

It sounds to me like it might be the plot of a movie or some reality show. No one's named Bertha. I'm sorry. They're writing about—

Mike should just say, Bertha, don't you come around here anymore.

There's— can we just acknowledge that? Yeah.

No one's named Bertha. What is Bertha short for?

Bertholomew? Elizabeth? It's actually Sarah.

Yeah. Okay. If this is true, it sounds like the person that wrote this is being a little bit of a hater on Bertha. Yeah. So just because Bertha comes in like a hurricane, they probably call her Hurricane Bertha. She rolls in the bar. She doesn't take any prisoners and she ends up sucking face with Mike, the bartender. Sounds like this person's just jealous.

Oh, Roberta. Huh? Roberta and Alberta. Alberta. That's just, that's just provinces.

That's Canada. Yeah.

By the way, I can't even— someone asked me, I think it was Chaps, like, name the provinces. Couldn't get like—

I got like 4. There's Ontario. Ontario. There's Winnipeg. Quebec.

Quebec. Vancouver. Newfoundland. Toronto. Alberta. British Columbia.

British Columbia. Northwest Territory.

Sure. There's 13. France.

None of it. None of it. The one— that's the one that's all the islands and icebergs and shit. Winnipeg. I think it's a city. Yeah, I think that's in Saskatchewan.

Okay. Sunnyvale. Oh wait, no, Newfoundland's not. No, Newfoundland and Labrador. It's Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba. We didn't get that one. New Brunswick. We didn't get that one. Newfoundland and Labrador. We got that. Northwest Territories. You got that. Nova Scotia. None of it. Ontario. Prince Edward Island. Quebec. Saskatchewan. Yukon. We did pretty good.

Yeah, that's not bad. Yeah, that's, that's honestly the best that Americans can do. Also, we don't need to.

So we— so we rock.

If they want us to learn the different provinces, they should all get sports teams. Yeah. Then we'll figure it out. Yeah. Probably some sick-ass lighthouses up there too.

Oh yeah. Okay. Next one. This one's—

this one's tough.

Do you have anything else to add about Bertha?

No. And I said my piece. No, Chrissy, I think— girl. Yeah.

Get it. Get it.

Hi, Big Daddy Cat.

What's up, Eric? Hankalicious, Maximus, and good boy Zach. Oh, where's memes?

Where's the fucking— the 11th hole? Bitch ass memes.

18th hole.

18th hole.

I know it said period and bitch ass memes.

18th hole is the one that Tiger crashed his car on.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a trend where a lot of gay guys are calling it their pussy. Yeah. The 18th pussy.

Yeah.

Yeah. My boyfriend listens to your show every time an episode comes out, and ever since you started streaming on Netflix, it's all he watches when he comes home from work.

Love that. Shout out that guy.

This is now where it gets complicated. Uh-oh. I can't watch my mom talk Girls, Housewives, or anything because he's so adamant on watching you on TV rather than listening in the car. Got it. We have one TV in the living room, and with it being the biggest TV in the house, I think it's unfair to use it to watch a podcast rather than watch my shows. Whoa. What can I do to convince him? That he should go back to listening to your pod in the car.

I think we need to just take on a— it's a valid point that she's making. I think that if this person is having this issue, then there's probably a few thousand couples that are having similar disagreements at home about what to watch on their television. We just need to put in a segment where we do mom talk.

Yeah. Housewife talk. I listen, what we're— we're— we get— we should get the same respect as a TV show. No, come on. We put—

we're on Netflix.

Hours, multiple hours into doing this idiot jazz.

You think—

I think we prep. We don't prep.

We're in the union. We are. Are we in the union? What union? Podcasters.

The army? Podcasters Union.

Which side would you have?

Oh, the north.

Which side would you have fought on?

Which war? That's a good question. Good question, Hank.

Like whatever one I'd fight for. I was about to say, I was thinking about Game of Thrones and, you know, Jon Snow, but they were the South.

Okay.

So you ducked that question.

War. Let's say the— In Game of Thrones, I would have fought against the Lannisters?

French Indian War.

I don't know.

I don't know anything about that. What about the War on Drugs?

Is that France versus India? No.

Oh, but it's good. It's good that you're saying— yeah, the War on Drugs. Which side did—

I think I'm on the drug side. Reagan was actually— he fucked everything up. Ronald Reagan. Reagan. Reagan.

Reagan.

That was Jack Nicklaus. That was Hank's Jack Nicklaus.

I mean, it's spelled like—

how does it— it's Ronald Reagan. I mean, everybody knows that it's Ronald Reagan.

How do you— how do you spell—

it's also not spelled— it's spelled Reagan. Ronald Reagan. I have a friend named Reagan. Shout out, Reagan.

Hank, but no, you and I, we served together in the war on drugs. Yeah. And we won. I think— I think we won. I think every war that I've taken part in, I think I've won. War on Christmas. Mm-hmm. I won that one. Defended Christmas. We're saying it again. Oh, yeah. War on Drugs. Massive dub.

Yeah.

Reagan, bad guy. Anti-Reagan.

All right, cool. Yeah.

And in what way? Didn't he just like pop, you know, he, he faked the War on Drugs, but that was actually like sending drugs into the ecosystem. Fucked a lot of people up.

He had a meth lab in the West Wing. That's right. Exactly. Yeah. Well, him. Yeah. Nixon. Nixon also.

All right, last one. We know PFT can't shoot a 110 at the Masters, but he for sure can shoot as much as he wants on this pussy.

Oh, fucking callback king right there.

That was good. More like PFT PT commenter. That was fucking good, dude.

Whoa, my microphone. Oh, these— we gotta get new— have you guys— ah, Hank's shaking his head, he's rolling his eyes.

It's not in the book.

I just wanted to say something.

It's not in Hank's book. And I—

we could say no. What if maybe sometime this summer we just do a little overhaul, something fresh, something new?

You're just seeing other shows in this office do this, and then you're like, oh, I want—

that's actually not at all. No, it's not. I can tell you exactly what it is. I'll tell you what it is. My mic stand breaks.

We can fix the mic stand.

Every time I lean back in my chair, 17 things fall on my head.

Yeah, these shelves are not stable. The shelves are—

the shelves are bad.

Kyle Long was knocking his arm and head on that shelf.

You can get new shelves.

It would be cool if we had colored microphone covers, just pop something different.

I think, I think the— I don't know if you could deal with new stuff.

We've been in this studio for what, 3 years now? Like, what, just something new every now and then? You do a remodeling?

Yeah, I agree.

What? Why are you shaking your head?

I just—

how about we get that— how do we get our little R. Kelly TV working? Why? I don't know. That thing is the funniest thing ever. I don't think anyone's listening or watching even knows what I'm talking about, but there is a Size, like 15-inch TV that's just above the studio. That makes no sense. And by our—

never turned it on. The meme of R. Kelly watching on a small TV is what he's referring to. Yeah.

And the files. Yeah. So no, I'm in.

I'm down.

So why are you shaking your head? I'll shake your fucking head.

That's— this has been a theme. I mean, we're 10 years in. This has been— you do this often. What? Or like you just randomly are just like, let's just remodel.

I think the remodel, by the way, is not like a crazy remodel. It's literally get things that don't fall on our heads and fix the microphones.

Bring in real shelves. Real shelves.

I don't know what that means. A real shelf.

Watch, I'll show you. See that? When I go like that, whoa, whoa, things are going to fall down. See, like stuff could have fallen. Everything could have fallen. It could have been really bad.

Replacing shelves and remodeling are two different things.

It's a guy remodel. So replacing the shelves is remodeling. What do you mean?

It's actually not. It's a few things at all.

But like hypothetically, hypothetically, if you were like at your house and you bumped into the shelf, would things not fall off?

I'd fucking throw that shelf in the trash. No, you know what? Shoot it with a gun. Because I got shelves in my house for men. Yeah. We have pussy shelves.

We just need to maybe move you guys up. And maybe Whoever did the shelf shopping behind where your guys' seats are, where you guys have just thrown like so much shit.

Okay. All right. Now, why don't you shut the fuck up? Because I need all this stuff. We're talking about the shelves, Hank, and you're distracting.

This bat, this putter cover. That's a sick putter cover. This trophy. Iowa, the Heartland Trophy. All this shit. This Cubs jacket. Sick Cubs jacket.

Extra small. Hank, no way. That— there's also— what about you, PFT? What about me?

This does fit me. Fuck you.

What about me, Hank? Yeah, don't listen to him.

You have a mountain. I got—

I got a pile. Yeah, I got a pile. We're not talking about my pile.

Let's remodel your pile.

No, the box cut don't fit me.

That's a nice jacket.

Hey, bitch. Oh, look, what is— oh, it's a towel from the playoffs. Fuck yeah. I took this jacket off after the playoffs and never put it back on. Oh, what's that jacket? My pile. Great jacket. It's perfect, Hank.

Yeah, look, I got— look, oh look, I found another Hank doll. Oh no, it was down there.

Look, this Bowling Green Pudge the Cat, need that.

Got my hat with every NFL team on it.

My dog was— oh, so shout out the Osos, our Mexican football team, gonna need this. This.

My dog was big on the Hank toy yesterday, and then she pissed on my Advil last night.

Yeah, fuck yeah.

Oh, this is when my ear wouldn't pop. My ear wouldn't pop. I'm happy. Yeah, I got the fucking ear pop.

Serves you right.

I've also got my shirt with all the NFL team logos on it.

Oh, nice.

This is, this is important shit that we need that you, you want us to just throw away.

These are some bitch-made shelves.

Whoever decided to buy these shelves, I'd like to know their I just can't. That's the one. That's the one I can't get over.

Zach, football guy, checkmark. Intercourse guy, no checkmark. It's a good shirt.

Never know when you might need it.

What shelves could we put up that, like, they're fucking shelves?

Yeah, some solid shelves. Solid shelf.

It is solid. It's holding all your shit.

Hey, Hank, see the Pope? He's got no fucking head and he's weak on crime because you keep running into the shelves.

Hank doesn't get— Hank wouldn't understand. You don't get it, Hank. Hank's anti-Reagan, anti-Pope.

Fucking Pope is weak on crime. The Pope has been—

many people have been saying that he's weak on the border.

Oh, what a quote. What a quote. Okay, yeah, good show, boys.

Numbers? 356. Yeah, we could just move everything up.

No, dude, the shelves.

Hank doesn't want us to exist. That's the problem. He doesn't want to see us happy.

No, we can't move everything.

Hank doesn't want to see us happy.

What do you mean?

Because we need— I'm going to go with, uh, I'll go with 69. Happy birthday to that gorilla.

58. I'll go with 23. 24.

17.

Colton, are you sunned up? 82. Colton, are you sunned up? You sunned up? Give us a little word on the sun. Word on the sun, Colton. I know you already played.

The future's bright.

The future's bright for the Phoenix Suns.

Jamari Bouye is the fucking truth.

What if you move? Devin Booker certified.

Better. You better say his name. Jalen Green. Nope. Dylan Brooks.

No. Dylan Brooks is a game changer.

Better say his name.

We got a bully. Say his name. New guy.

Moluok. Colton. You better say his name.

Oh, Colin Gillespie. Thank you.

Yeah. The GOAT. The GOAT. The GOAT. Colin Gillespie.

Are we just not going to talk about— not going to talk about Grayson Allen? I can't hear you.

You just get the number. 22.

Oh, let's do one more. You got it?

No, big head at 23. 23. So close.

I should take 11. I take 11.

What did you have before?

3. You can't change. Ah, unless you want to. No, I can't change.

67. 67. Yeah.

Happy birthday to Antonio Cromartie and Sexy Red. Did you miss anyone on Monday? Yeah.

No, I saw Sexy Red at the Eagles Super Bowl celebration.

Did you miss anyone on Monday?

Of course not. Chief Mikey Betts. I did miss—

Mikey Betts confronted me. He confronted me yesterday when I walked into the office. Office and he said, you forgot my birthday. Yeah. And I said, I'm sorry, Mikey, happy birthday. He's like, no, that's too late. And I said, yeah, you're right. I do respect it. It was also Chief's birthday.

It was also Chief's 40th birthday.

It's tough because when you got a big boy like Brandon Walker, he takes up all the oxygen. He sucks up all the birthdays.

Yeah, he does. Yeah.

He's like Kirby. He's birthday. He becomes 100% birthday. And that's all he did yesterday. He's shaking that cake around everywhere.

One giant birthday.

So, yeah. Happy Happy belated birthday to Mikey Betts, even though it doesn't mean anything. I'll get you next year. And then Chief, I probably won't. Aren't these—

I thought you have the directory of people that work here.

It's behind the scenes.

Those should be the easiest ones. Yeah, he just doesn't like—

No, he doesn't like talking behind the scenes. You say Chief's behind the scenes? Mikey Betts. I didn't say Chief. Mikey Betts is content, brother. Eh.

He's half and half. Eh. Yeah, no, I— He's combo. He could do some content.

But like, he's in the system behind the scenes.

Behind the scenes.

He's allowed to do behind the scenes content, but like, he's in the system. If you're saying it's behind the scenes, well, he didn't—

he's in the system. He didn't opt into my behind the scenes birthday spreadsheet. I love Mikey Betts.

Happy birthday, Mikey Betts. Happy birthday, Chief.

Might be too late. Really happy birthday to, to all, all you guys and everyone who's got a birthday. And anyone— yeah, all the people out there, future and past, that are listening. But seriously, right now what you guys are doing is very mean to Antonio Cromartie and Sexy Red, whose birthday it today. Also, happy birthday to the Washington Commanders new jerseys that are coming out today.

Oh, nice.

On the 15th. Nice. So we are turning things around in D.C. Nice. Love you guys. Justice for Tom Lai.

Happy birthday, Baker Mayfield.

How did you miss that? Come on, PFT. Baker Mayfield. Good thing we got Antonio Cromartie in sexy red.

Zach just slid in.

Not just a fucking guy that we love in Spanish.

There's no way it's Baker Mayfield.

April 14th, great guy.

Oh, so it's right now. It's not the 15th when the show comes out. Well, actually, this show could come out.

We taped early. It could come out on the 14th.

When we put the show out, if I had said a birthday that was not on the day, we all remember what happened to Frank Kaminsky. I get chewed out. This show will be on April 14th. Happy birthday to Baker Mayfield.

Thank you, Zach. Happy birthday, Bake.

Love you guys.