Transcript of Derek Carr, Oklahoma State HC Eric Morris, The Chiefs Are Back, CFB Recap + Listener Submitted Takes

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Stella Blue Coffee is more than just great coffee. It's coffee with a purpose. Introducing We Brew to Rescue, a nationwide campaign using proceeds from our new ready-to-drink cans to help fund 1,000 pet adoptions this year. Every can you crack open helps a real pet find a real home. Simple as that. Made with 100% Colombian coffee, each 11-ounce can delivers smooth, drinkable energy with a boost of protein. Available in Espresso Cafe Mocha and Espresso Sweet Cream. Built for mornings, long days, and everything in between. Drink Stella Blue, fuel your day, and help save a pet's life. You can follow our progress in real time throughout the campaign by watching the adoption tracker on our site. Grab yours now at stellabluecoffee.com, Amazon, and select retailers nationwide. On today's Part of My Take presented by DraftKings, we've got a twofer. We've got Derek Carr on the show, recurring guest Derek Carr, talk some week 1 football, what he saw out of the quarterback play in the NFL. Some college football. Great catching up with him.

We also have Oklahoma State head coach Eric Morris off the big victory against the Oregon Ducks on Saturday. We're going to do some college football talk. We're also going to hit Monday Night Football. The Chiefs look like they are back. Hot Seat, Cool Throne, and Pardon Your Take. A little cleanup from Sunday. It's all brought to you by our friends at Chevy. Football season is here, and whether you're going Uh, grinding through the week or gearing up for kickoff, there's one ride that's always game ready. It's the Chevy Silverado. There's a reason Chevy's called the heartbeat of America, and Silverado keeps that heartbeat strong. Whether you're towing, hauling, or tailgating, Silverado lets you show up strong and tackle any task with best-in-class standard torque, the most functional bed, and the advanced tech that's football guy approved. Check out current offers on the 2026 Silverado at chevy.com. Okay, let's go. Hey, football guy. A.W.

Harris.

Part of my take.

Yeah, part of my take. Yeah, part of my take. Yeah, part of my take.

Yeah, part of my take. Welcome to Part of My Take presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, September 16th, and the Kansas City Chiefs are back because Monday Night Football, that was a showing in brutality by the Kansas City Chiefs in the way they ran the ball down the Broncos' throat. Broncos, one of the worst tackling performances I think ever.

I, I, I was definitely the worst of week 1.

It looked like PFT. It looked like a college football game in that there were 2 times And there might have been more, but 2 times it stuck out in my head. The Kenneth Walker touchdown run from midfield where there wasn't a Bronco in sight. They looked like they went field goal block on that play and he bounced it outside. And then the Travis Kelce catch and run where there wasn't a Bronco in frame. It was, it looked like a college football game. We were like, wait, there's supposed to be a safety there. What's happening?

So I know the popular take today is why did we forget about the Chiefs? Yeah. And I kind of agree with that a little bit. I actually don't think that the Chiefs are near close to what they're going to be at the end of the season.

Definitely.

I think they're going to get a lot better from this point on. I don't know that they're a great team right now. I think the Broncos might be kind of broken.

So the scariest thing, and I want to talk about the Broncos, scariest thing about last night, if you are someone who's scared of the Chiefs or like, oh man, the Chiefs, like maybe they've reached their downturn, is the fact that that run game We have not seen a run game from the Chiefs like that since maybe what, first year of Kareem Hunt? Like it's been a long time. People are saying Jamal Charles, like it has been a long time. And Patrick Mahomes was not— he's clearly still coming back from injury, but him not having to be Superman and having a run game like that essentially gives him the perfect on-ramp to get back into the flow. And be playing his best football at the end of the season where he doesn't have to do everything. Because that has been for, you know, the first Chiefs, the first couple of Chiefs like runs, you know, they had the outside weapons, Tyreek Hill. They were able to do dynamic things. Travis Kelce was younger. The last couple of years of the Chiefs, it was a lot of Patrick Mahomes being Superman and figuring out a way to make plays with no run game, with not the most explosive wide receivers, and him just putting the whole team on his back.

Now he can just hand the ball off to Kenneth Walker and they can just run it down your throat and he doesn't have to worry about making like, like constant plays to get the Chiefs out of holes.

I think he will. And he'll get back to that.

I will. I do too.

I think that right now what, what they're doing is like, that was, it was a great game plan they had in place. Kenneth Walker is a, a really, really good running back. And I've always thought like they're, they had him and Charbonnet splitting carries in Seattle. Which can be a really good thing, keep both guys fresh. But I think that it's really tough on a running back to get into a real rhythm if they have to come off every series, let the other guy step on the field. And it's like, yeah, it's the rhythm of like getting used to where your blockers are going to be, all that stuff. But I was talking to Arian about this yesterday and he was saying that maybe the most important part why he never liked coming off the field for a series is you never feel like your job is totally safe.

Mm-hmm.

So you never feel like you're free to kind of be yourself and free to take chances in the running game. Like you're thinking I'm one fumble away from getting benched. And that can, that can have a real negative effect on a running back. I think now that he's the guy, he's going to get even better. And I looked up his stats when he was in, in Seattle and his yard, he, I think averaged more than half a yard per carry more in games when he got more than 20 carries than when he got less or fewer than 20 carries.

Right.

Like getting in that rhythm is going to be awesome for him. He's a really, really good running back. The Chiefs window, I like, I don't think we ever actually closed the Chiefs window.

No, I didn't.

I think, I think Mahomes was just in bed because he was injured far away from the window.

They had a year from hell last year.

They had a year from hell. And even before, like the year before, they won a lot of lucky games, but we still said like, it doesn't matter. They're the Chiefs. They'll be fine. It's like Patrick Mahomes gets injured for, for 8 weeks and we're like, well, the Chiefs are fucked. Will they ever be the same again?

Yep.

Good dynasties find a way to reinvent themselves, Hank.

Yeah, facts. You know that.

So this might be, this just might be the start of the next era where they've got a beast at running back now. They can lean on him a little bit and then open up the play-action game. And Mahomes is going to be great by the end of the season.

And Rashee Rice.

Yeah. And Rice. Yeah. But in the season, Mahomes is going to be back to being Mahomes.

And the scariest part though is the Chiefs are one of those teams that they know how to play with a lead and they know like, You saw it even before they had a running game. The Chiefs were one of those teams that they were like an auto bet to the under if they had a first half lead where they just take the air out of the ball. They shorten the game. They, their, their pass rush can get home. They're built perfectly for Kenneth Walker to be an absolute monster. And then Patrick Mahomes again, to, to get healthy and be all the way back.

They stomped the shit out of the Broncos and Mahomes was the only quarterback in the league that did not throw a pass. Longer than 10 yards downfield.

Longer than 10 yards. Here, here's a crazy stat that's good for our guy Shane. Justin Herbert leads the AFC West in passing yards.

That's good.

Good for him.

For one week. For one week.

I'll tell you what, that first, the first run that Mahomes had for the touchdown, it was because I told you this, Big Cat, going into the game last night. I said, I don't necessarily love the Chiefs right now because I don't know that Mahomes is going to be healthy. I think he's healthy.

Yeah.

He was fast as shit.

His timing is a little off with the passes, but it doesn't matter. It's like the knee looks fine.

The knee's fine.

You would have been concerned if Mahomes was scared to run. Yeah, he clearly wasn't. And I don't know about you guys, but I feel like Arrowhead was louder than it's ever been. Maybe that was just the tele— the broadcast, but I— and maybe I just forgot how loud Arrowhead can get, but it was fucking loud.

I mean, Memes went and saw it in person, but when we finished the show on Sunday night, I saw a video of like a long-ass line of people like getting ready to tailgate for Monday. This was like more than 24 hours before the game.

Yeah.

They were so insane.

So loud.

Yeah. So, so it was, um, Mahomes is now 14-2 against the Broncos and undefeated against the Broncos at Arrowhead. So I don't—

And I think the— are the 2 losses— so one loss was last— was— no, that wasn't last year.

Was one on Christmas?

Yeah. He was one of the games when he broke his kneecap.

It might have been.

That was in Denver.

It might have been. He's owned, he's owned the Broncos.

Yeah. Chris Oladukan did not beat the Broncos last year in Arrowhead.

No, no. He's owned the Broncos. And I, I'm, I think the Broncos are kind of broken right now. I think they, they'll probably get back to where they need to be. The defense looks like shit without Cooper.

28 missed tackles. 28 missed tackles.

All right.

What are the—

That's USC stats. Loss.

Okay. Oh no. So those weren't— no, no, that was okay. So that wasn't the broken kneecap. 2023 and 2025, he lost in Denver. So that's pretty recent. But yeah, 28 missed tackles. It was, it was shocking to watch them just like bounce off guys. And the bigger concern, because I do think their defense will figure it out, but Bo Nix looked bad.

Yeah.

Real, real bad. I don't know if this is a, like, it's great Sean Payton gave play calling duty away.

Is it?

Why? No, I'm saying I'm— it's great that he's giving guys like a chance. It's not great for the Broncos. I feel like he needs to take it back. That was the 3rd fewest yards in a Sean Payton coached game for his team ever. The other 2 were in 2021 when I think it was Jameis like week 2 and then later in the season. I think it was Trevor Siemian or Taysom Hill quarterbacking. So yeah, that's— I mean, they added Jalen Waddle. They just— Bo Nix looked— he just looked tentative.

And I don't know.

Jalen Waddle was useless.

Sean Payton, maybe, maybe bad husband of the year if we're going to do that in a take.

Yeah.

Yeah. He told his wife, draft Jalen Waddle in fantasy.

Yeah. Really shitty.

And then how many catches did he have last night?

Yeah.

I remember one, one catch, 2 yards, I believe. Bad husband. I, uh, bring home flowers, Sean.

I mistakenly last night, I like, I'm trying to watch more games with my son and I said, you can stay up until they score again when it was 7-7. And so then we just had to go all the way through halftime. It's like, I swear they usually do score, but then we keyed in on Waddle. I was like, root for number 17 to get a catch. Just didn't happen. Yeah, just didn't happen.

Yeah. The Broncos, their defense looked like They can't tackle to save their life. I think that when it comes to Sean Payton and, and the play calling, he had to know going into the season that if you make this decision, the first thing people are going to want to change if things go wrong at all is for you to take it back. Yeah, he's, he's one of the best play callers of all time. And he gives it to an offense coordinator that's young and probably pretty smart, probably pretty talented. But like, if things aren't going well, you have a very easy solution right in front of you. Although I guess Sean Payton, he's got the button.

They said that he's got to stop himself from hitting the button.

His answer might be, It might just be, let's get Peyton Hillis here.

Yeah. Or no, Taysom Hill.

I'm sorry, Taysom Hill, the other guy. Yeah, let's get, just mix in a little bit of Taysom Hill into the ingredients and, and that'll solve everything. Bo Nix, if I'm going to say one good thing about Bo Nix starting slow, Bo Nix has been, Bo Nix has been doubted before. I'll put it that way. Bo Nix has had some pretty bad football games.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, and he typically bounces back from them.

He is also coming off an injury, like both quarterbacks coming off an injury. I didn't love Bo Nix like yucking it up. He was smiling, you know, couldn't believe his life when they were getting just the shit kicked out of them in the 3rd quarter. But I guess it's week 1.

I—

so the Broncos have coming up, they have Jacksonville at home, which playing in Denver early in the season, September, when it's hot, that is a very tough place to play. But they play Jacksonville, the Rams, the Niners, the Chargers, the Seahawks. That's their next 5 games. That's like, that's why, and we're going to talk about it with Derek Carr, like the urgency that happens in the NFL after one week is, it's unlike any other league where you can, you have a game and you're just like, all right, if we lose 2 in a row, if we lose the first 2 games, the odds are we're going to be in a big hole trying to chase this for the rest of the year.

Yeah. Yeah. Did you see that? The weird touchdown play call that they had and Kenneth Walker was like, Andy Reid had us watching film from the 1900s. It was probably like 1999, but it was like a single wing play where they— it was like, you know, the Chiefs like to get cute inside the 5-yard line.

Yeah.

And Andy likes to unveil something. So Kenneth was saying that it was hard to figure out the play and understand where it was going because it wasn't in HD. So it was hard to keep track of it. Now, it turns out that that play call was given to Andy Reid by Chris Berman.

Ooh, love it.

Boomer told him like, hey, you might— Andy, I know you like to run these, these whack shit plays. down close to the goal line. Take a look at the single wing shit that nobody has looked at since like the 1970s. So I like that for Boom. I do. I, again, I'm a little concerned that he's, he's giving aid and comfort to the Chiefs when this is supposed to be him getting the Bills to the Super Bowl. Yeah, it feels like button that shit up. But that probably means that he's probably talking to Joe Brady too.

And he also probably knows that like, we don't have to worry about them. Maybe, maybe he's so confident in the Bills.

Like burn all the good plays. Early in the season.

Yeah.

Maybe if he's that close to Andy Reid, he can actually feed intel to Jim Leonard behind the scenes about what Andy's going to do.

That's not a bad idea. Do you guys, uh, did you guys see this is, and I know preseason rankings, we're, we're past, uh, getting upset about them, but, uh, I'm not.

Okay.

Here's one to get upset about.

Okay.

Where do you think Bo Nix was ranked in the top 100, uh, NFL players going into this season?

By the other players or by—

I think this was the— I think this is the NFL.com one. NFL Top 100 voted on by the players themselves.

Bo Nix was ranked 80.

Bo Nix was ranked 59th. Okay, where do you think Lamar Jackson was ranked?

He was not ranked.

He was ranked.

Oh, he was?

I thought he was ranked 69th.

Wow.

Would anyone take Bo Nix over Lamar Jackson right now?

Dottington Bones?

Dottington Bones.

I mean, we said there's probably some— I wouldn't, but there's probably— I'm just wondering if there's like an analytics guy that would just because of age.

Well, I'm thinking like sabermetrically and like Bo Nix.

Yeah, I guess not contract. He's going to get a shit ton of money too.

Bo Nix was in the Heisman conversation for like 3 seasons. Lamar was only in it for 1.

Yeah.

So now Lamar did win 1.

True.

But where would you rank these? Marry, fuck, kill. Hank, you ready? Bo Nix, Lamar Jackson, Cooper Rush.

I would marry Lamar Jackson.

For his money?

Fuck Cooper Rush. Kill Bo Nix.

Dude, Bo Nix would kill you in a half second if you even tried.

Does Cooper Rush win that game for the Broncos?

He might.

I think if—

I saw he got ranked 30th.

Yeah.

And like of all the quarterbacks in week 1.

Yeah.

Listen, I was watching. I was watching with my heart, not with, you know, analytical eyes, I guess.

I agree.

That's why we're not— listen, this podcast is not meant to—

I was trying to will a game to victory.

Expert opinions.

Yeah, we got to, we got to come up with some sort of like our own stat for a Cooper Rush adjacent quarterback and what you expect out of that person compared to what you get. Because it didn't look as bad when Cooper Rush did it, right, as it would if Bo Nix had done that same. It's like Cooper Rush adjacent players crap, the crap metric.

It's the meme. It's the, it's the like Justin Herbert, you know, 2 picks I think he had or whatever, like 150 yards. Call human resources. Cooper Rush, 2 picks, 150 yards. Ooh, I'm in love.

Yeah. What is the one with Gordon Ramsay? You idiot sandwich or something.

What are you?

You donkey.

You donkey. You absolute donkey.

Memes. I know you pretty well. How many power rankings did you look at today?

I made my own.

No, but how many power rankings did you look at today?

I looked at Florio's. I looked at yours.

Yeah.

I looked at some other guy.

Were you triggered by any?

I was triggered by one.

I did do my power rankings and you did corrupt the software and I put the Jets ahead of any other 0-1 team because you were kind of right. Like, what's the point? It's one week. I looked at some power rankings last night and I saw the Rams at like 3. And I was like, come on, we can't have an 0-1 team at 3. Yeah, it's crazy.

People look at preseason rankings and last season into theirs when there's only a sample size of 1. And that's how you have to base it off of.

Yeah.

All right.

Jets 24.

Jets 24.

There we go.

What, what, what's this?

25.

I think that's NFL.com.

So the, the Commanders moved up from 31 to 25.

That's pretty good in a loss.

Love that. That, that actually might be the best loss of the week.

Moved up to 20, 25 from 31.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good in a lot of these.

I don't think I did.

Don't gaslight him.

Yeah, you're gaslighting me right now.

What are you doing, Max?

I'm not.

You—

it sounds like you're gaslighting.

Nope.

I, by the way, I just wanted to— I went back, I watched the All-22 of the Commanders.

Oh, I thought maybe of like our gambling cave.

No, no.

Funny.

Like, I actually didn't say—

are you going to talk about that clip where it's like a bunch of Jayden Daniels routine throws?

I was just going to say they were all very average throws. Nothing to get excited about.

I'm not going to be excited. He should make those throws.

Shame on me. Yeah, you're a professional quarterback.

Make those throws.

You should make those throws.

Make those throws. Okay. What other cleanup stuff from week 1 do we have? How's everyone feeling? It's—

the AFC is absolutely stacked.

Yeah.

That was my biggest takeaway watching last night.

The AFC is all the way back. Last year was the year with Mahomes hurt with, you know, Burrow in and out and they missed the playoffs. Lamar missing the playoffs. You know, Josh Allen at the end of the rope with Sean McDermott. That was your year.

Yeah. Mahomes is like, he's the biggest winner of the, in the entire conference. He's won 3 times. Joe Burrow's made it to the championship. Lamar Jackson's won multiple MVPs, been to the AFC Championship a bunch. And then Josh Allen's the best quarterback probably right now out of all of them.

Oh, and, and by the way, and Justin Herbert, and we're not even mentioning still a team that's won 9 in a row in the regular season, the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, the AFC is, is, is stacked. that, watching that last night, I was just like, fuck.

That, that one throw that Trevor Lawrence had in between 4 Browns.

Yeah.

Was just absolutely unreal. It's actually so good that I think it was probably a bad idea to make that throw.

Yeah.

But it was such a— I like that there's so many other people out there just besides like the handful of original accounts that, that will break down film because you get to see all the homers find the best throws that their guys make. So there's a lot of like pro every quarterback propaganda if you dig deep enough out there.

Yeah. The tape. Todd Monken found the Deshaun Watson tape.

He found it.

He liked it.

He found it. There's some things that he could really enjoy about that. I liked the 13-step drop that he had.

Yep.

And then got sacked and then got mad at his offensive line. That was good. Oh, one other thing about Monday Night Football. Um, actually, I guess it's 2. One thing that was announced to us before the game started, Drew Brees said that he was in touch with Sean Payton and thought about coming back to play for the Broncos before the AFC Championship game last year. I'm sick of this trend. I fucking hate it. I can't stand it. When Kyle Shanahan was like, yeah, we almost had Philip Rivers play for us if we were going to beat the Eagles and get to the Super Bowl. Like, fuck that. I don't want to know.

I don't want to—

I don't want to, like, have to think about what we missed out on because it would have been awesome. And now I just feel like there's a giant hole in my life where Drew Brees beating the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game should have been.

Well, it's also— it's bullshit to say, like, at least Phil Rivers was about that life. Phil Rivers at least, like, did come out of off the couch and play. All these other guys, get out of here.

Yeah.

Like, don't tell us this after the fact. Yeah, we don't want to hear it. What are you, what are you highlighting there, Max?

Was there something I didn't—

oh, I mean, oh, it's just the power rankings. Seahawks vaulted to number 1. Seahawks should have been 1. I'm a big believer in if you win, you should stay 1. Indiana should be number 1 for that reason.

There was a— I guess he talked to Ed Werder about it and said that part of it was that he didn't want to have to reset the clock on his Hall of Fame. Ah, but, but he was—

the weather had to have been a factor.

It probably, it probably was. But he was— he said that he was assured that it would not affect his Hall of Fame, but it might. And he was like joking about how he was worried about it, but actually not joking. So I do think that that had something to do with it. And then the other thing, just to ESPN and Joe Buck, if you're going to have a B-2 flyover during the national anthem on Monday Night Football, can we get a camera at the sky?

Yeah.

Like a B-2 bomber?

Yeah.

It costs— I'm guessing it probably costs the taxpayers A couple hundred thousand dollars to have that bomber fly over the stadium.

Is that the stealth bomber?

That's a stealth bomber.

They are in— I think they're stationed in Missouri.

OK, so it's probably— let's, let's call it $75,000.

I read that article. It's not— it's not cool because war is not cool. We don't want people dying. But the stealth bomber that went from Missouri all the way to Iran and back without ever landing. And like their whole, like their process of that is fucking ridiculous to hear.

It is crazy.

Nuts.

The midair refueling.

Yeah, but they put them in the middle of the country because they're so expensive and so important.

Yep.

So, yeah.

And we can't get a camera pointed up at the sky.

Well, there's one. It's a B-2 stealth bomber.

It makes— yep, nailed it.

Yeah.

It makes you wonder what else ESPN's hiding because that was— we had to see it in the background on the scoreboard. We couldn't see it on our TVs.

Yeah.

You have one job. I personally blame Joe Buck.

It's kind of— it's sad that Arrowhead's like closing.

Why are we—

it just bums me out again. Why can't we have more stadiums like be updated and stay where they are?

Do I have permission to ask a stupid question?

Please. Always.

What does keeping it in the middle of the country have to do with keeping it safe?

Protected from—

because it's very hard for someone else to get into our air, like are like if it was on the coast. So could theoretically attack it, get like shot down. No, no, like the base.

Oh, the base.

Yeah.

Got it. Got it. Got it.

All the B-2s in the middle of the country.

I'll put it this way, Max. If you go to the grocery store and they keep all the ice cream in the middle of the store, fewer people would buy ice cream.

And it's harder to steal the things that are in the middle because you have to go.

Got it.

Let me, let me give it even an analogy that is, is real world for us. We keep now the food farther away from us. It's safer from us the farther away it is.

Thank you for letting me ask a stupid question.

It's a lot of airspace that we have to— we have to cover if we want some chips.

Yeah. Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri is home to all the entire operational fleet of the B-2 stealth bomber. It's pretty badass. Knob Noster, Missouri, which is, I assume, pretty damn close to the middle of the country. I think the actual middle is somewhere in Nebraska.

Yeah.

So pretty damn close.

So I guess it probably didn't cost that much money.

But still, still, I agree.

Turn the camera, point it up at the air.

Yeah, it's $170,000 per flight hour on the B-2.

So that was probably like a 30-minute flight. Put quote 80. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you guys want some stupid stats that mean absolutely nothing? But you're like, you see them, you scroll by them, you're like, oh, that's cool. You get the stats that you can tell someone at the bar this week and they'll be like, oh shit, you know ball. First one is the Raiders, Cardinals, Jets, and Giants are all 1-0 for the first time in NFL history.

Whoa.

Raiders, Cardinals, Jets, and Giants, all 4 won their week 1 game.

That's pretty crazy.

Yeah. And then the other one, which is, I still don't understand how this is ever, this has never happened, but it is pretty cool. This is for the first week ever. I think this is ever, not just week 1 stat. Each team won by a different number of points.

Yeah. We had a weekend of gummy.

That's crazy. Yeah, there it is. First 16-game week in NFL history where the result of every single game had a different point differential.

That's pretty cool.

4 got left out. 4 is something that should happen.

Yeah.

4 is a football number.

4 got left out big time. 4 and 11 got left out.

I got another stat for you.

Yeah.

Jaguar stat. Liam Cohn has won 14 games as head coach of the Jaguars. That ties him with Gus Bradley.

Oh, I love these.

For 5th most wins by a head coach in franchise history.

Okay.

So it took Gus Bradley 62 games to get to 14 wins, which is— that's, that's honestly sad. That's sad that he was allowed to do that, mostly for him.

Yeah.

He had to hate going to work by the end of it. Cohn did it in 18 games. Gus Bradley again did it in 62 games.

That's quite a stat.

Good time to be a Jaguars fan.

Quite a stat. Landon Dickerson out, Max. That actually was like, for a guy saying he's going to miss some time, that was better news than you'd expect because he's not going to miss the whole season. And he essentially was like, yeah, I was so bad, I'm hurting the team.

Yeah, you never want to see somebody hurt, but it was like the best, oh yeah, I'm hurt news of all time because if that's just like what he was now, The Eagles were fucked.

Yeah.

And now it seems like he's going to take as much time as he needs, get back to 100%, try and get back to what he was in his prime, or at least close to what he was in his prime. Like apparently like the Eagles offense, offensive line was absolutely horrendous on Sunday. And I'm not one of the tape. I'm not one of PFF grades.

Well, PFF grades have been getting roasted.

Roasted.

They had, and I think he played well, but Geno Smith was number 1 and Caleb Williams was—

Congrats, Memes.

Caleb Williams was 20th.

Sounds like a shot, Memes.

No, no.

Sounds like a shot.

I said he played well.

It sounded like a shot.

Well, Tom Lay came up to me. He's like, you see Geno Smith, number 1 passer rating in week 1? I was like, no way, dude. And then he pulled it up and it was the PFF grades.

But what I was saying is that According to the tape, the offensive line as a— everyone else in the offensive line actually played pretty well on Sunday, but because Dickerson was so, so, so, so bad that it made the entire line like that much worse.

It brought it down.

So if we can figure— like, it's just one thing that needs to be figured out, and we got some young guys who are gonna get a shot, who are gonna compete out there, and then we'll get Dickerson back after he's fully healthy and the line will be good again.

You sound like the offensive line coach right now talking to the media. We got—

that's just—

that's just—

we got some young guys. Really excited to get them in there, get them some experience. That type of stuff's invaluable this time of year.

I've thought about becoming an All-22 guy this year, um, and just for my own personal files.

Yeah, yeah.

I wanna— I wanna make some— make some judgment this year based on— based on my own 2 eyeballs.

I would love to see you get into some film.

See that, Max?

I don't think— I don't think I could make— do film breakdowns because I don't really know what I'm talking about.

No, you'd have to No, I, I think you should do film breakdowns for the average guy and be like, hey, look, all right, here we go. They got, uh, 2 wide receivers and I don't know which way the wide receiver is supposed to go, but then he passed to this tight end. Good play.

Or like, yeah, defense, I wouldn't even— I like, I, I don't know anything. Yeah, I— and I played football up until like up until senior year of high school. I mean, through senior year of high school. But I played D-line and it was basically just go, go straight, go right, go left.

That was my—

that was like—

That's how you should do the breakdown. You're like, look, all right, we're gonna focus, we're gonna key in on this defensive lineman. Watch his technique. He goes straight, perfect straight.

I bet, like, our def— the only defensive thing that I remember from high school is the middle linebacker would tell me, Richie, Richie, Richie, Louie, Louie, Louie. What did that mean? And that just meant if I went right or left. That was, that was all I got.

And no one ever figured it out.

What do you say, Meebs? Meebs, what do you got?

Max said this exact same thing last year.

Like, did I?

The exact same conversation.

Max got jealous of my film breakdowns that I would put out about—

No, I—

yeah, about Jayden's handoffs.

No, I said this on Wake Up Barstool this morning. I said I was going to become— start becoming a film writer.

Let's do it.

Maybe Sam Schwartz can help you.

Yeah, but whole— I don't want to— I don't want to know too much.

No, I meant literally give you like his passwords.

Oh, okay. But I don't—

yeah, I don't want him to like Teach me too much.

I like to live in my—

I would watch Max's breakdowns for a guy who doesn't really know football but loves football. Yeah.

No, no, you don't.

Yeah, dude.

I just want to watch and I just want to, I just want to watch like each player.

The All-22 angle is fun.

I know. That's what I want to do.

I watched, I watched the entire game again last night and I was pretty much doing it just watching one player. And I don't know how the film guys do it. You do, do they just watch a single player? And then go back and watch a different player all the way through.

I was wondering that too.

Because you can't actually watch more than one guy if you're actually trying to figure out if one guy's good on a play or not. You have to just look at that through it.

Like they go through, like they'll watch the guys who are really good will do game film. Like they'll do an entire game in like 25 minutes. Baldy's just like ripping through it.

I think it would take me a full day, like full 9 to 5 of trying to just watch one game and get like a real film break because you get distracted too. No, that doesn't sound like me. I'm really good at multitasking.

Yeah.

Memes?

I mean, no, we're having the same exact conversation.

I don't think I said this last year, but I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to figure out how to get the All-22 and then I'm good.

You were jealous of my handoff breakdowns.

I asked Steven Che. I already said it. I said it this morning before you even said that.

No, I'm saying last year. That's why you said it last year. Oh yeah.

Oh, the handoffs. Yeah. The handoffs. Those were, those were impressive. How are his handoffs? You said you watched the game.

Yeah, I did. You know what's kind of sad is I was going through trying to find the best handoff to break down. His handoff game might've fallen off.

Oh no.

Jayden gets a big downgrade from me this year in terms of handoffs from week 1. Comparing week 1s year over year, it's bad. There was absolutely no flair to it. He didn't have any joy in the handoffs. I'd like to see more explosiveness in that elbow.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Also, Mikey Sanders still sucked and he's probably going to get benched.

Damn. Yeah.

You love Mikey.

I do love Mikey. I thought he was gonna be my honey badger.

That one touchdown that he gave up to Wicks was—

Can I do a little—

I don't want to overload everyone with my love for Ben Johnson because it is going to— it's getting borderline like too much. You know how the coach, a coach after having a really good season, And there's a catchphrase. The next season, it's like, do you bring back the catchphrase? Do you not? So he did the perfect thing after the Bears won where he broke down the huddle and then he was just like, all right, that's all I got. And then I'm not joking. If you pull up the clip, like, Jay Walker looked like he was, he was having like a mental breakdown because he needed good, better, best so bad. He's like, he was convulsing.

Give me a hit.

And then they fight. And then, and then he hit it and then he hit it and everyone was like, Fuck yes, that was like the best. He blue balls the entire locker room. Let me just get it to a point where they're like, we need it so bad, you have to do it. That— it was before that. I don't know if you have it.

Let me just get a taste of some Good Better Best.

He was— it was, it was before he did Good Better Best. He said, I'm gonna break it down here. You know what, you look, I'll do an ad. Uh, DraftKings. The wait is over, football is here, and so is DraftKings. DraftKings Sports app is now live in all 50 states. That means from Texas to California to Florida, every fan is in on the excitement. And this, and this September, DraftKings is giving customers the opportunity to get boosted every football game day. That's right, every game day all month long. DraftKings customers can get a football profit boost. One app, every sport, all 50 states. New DraftKings customers sign up with code TAKE, spend just $5, get $200 in total rewards within 21 days. Includes all markets. That's code TAKE in partnership with DraftKings. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER, 1-800-MY-RESET. Connecticut, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org.

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Good better back.

Never let it rest.

Never let it rest.

Good gets better.

Good gets better.

Everybody gets better.

Everybody gets better. Hands on 3.

1, 2, 3. You got a whole locker room of guys just screaming, I need it. I need it. But it is a hard thing to like decide if you're going to bring back the thing that you did last year.

He knew what he was doing with that walk away.

Yeah.

He knew what he had. A little smirk on his face.

All right.

See ya. Because you don't know, like, do you bring something else that you want me to say?

Yeah.

Do you bring something back year after year? I mean, because eventually it probably Like falls on deaf ears.

So I think you have to make them beg for it. Retired after you win a Super Bowl because your best can't get any better. Yeah.

Or if this season doesn't go well, then you retire.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hank, what do you think?

I like it.

I just want to know your thoughts.

I like it.

How are you?

How are you feeling about your Patriots? You've had the benefit of watching every other team play and digesting all that.

Yeah, I talked about it earlier. The AFC stacked. It's, it's, it's Concerning. A lot of good quarterbacks, a lot of good teams.

Geno Smith ranked number 1.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm so excited. Week 2, there are some loser leaves town games already. Well, actually only Cowboys-Commanders is loser leaves town.

Maybe.

No?

I don't know. It's still, it's still early.

Okay.

I think we just got to win one of our first 3. There's, I've seen some bad starts before.

Like the Packers are in must-win. It feels like, yeah, the Broncos are going to be in must-win with their schedule coming up. The Chargers might have the most must-win game of all time playing the Raiders with the schedule they have. Like if they don't win this week, it's over. And I know that sounds crazy, but it's over. It might be Pinky Team if they lose to the Raiders. I might not do Pinky Team this year.

Flew too close to the sun.

It's just so stressful. It's so stressful. And I don't know if I really want all that stress for something that— because I would go through with it and I don't like— I feel the stress. I'll have to decide. See who loses, who starts 0-2.

You're going to end up doing it.

If the Texans lose to the Bengals, you know, Texans again.

No, no.

Run back the Texans.

All right.

You guys want to talk some college ball?

Let's talk ball.

The big game, obviously, Ohio State, Texas. Texas, uh, that was an incredible second half, really bad first half for March Manning. Do you, PFT, see this as more a Texas win or an Ohio State choke?

I think it's a Texas win. Okay, as much as I would like to say Ohio State choke, I think— I don't know what the numbers are, it's probably just about impossible to look up, but it's got to be very, very rare that in a matchup this high profile that a team that fumbles on the first play comes back and wins after committing a turnover right off the bat. I, I feel like right when you watch that, most people, you see that and you're like, oh, that's how the whole game's gonna go. Yeah, it's usually like a tone setter. And the fact that in the 4th quarter, I don't think that any of the points that they scored at the end of the game were off short fields. I don't think they were off like directly off turnovers, like deep in the, uh, opponent territory.

I think Ohio State kept on going 3-and-out, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

What I'm saying is like Arch had to do that.

Yeah.

He had to put together like really good drives to come back and win. And yeah, it's kind of a choke job, but I think, I think it's big for Arch. I think it's huge for Texas. Yeah.

There was, you could feel the angst in the stadium at halftime with Arch playing that poorly after, you know, redshirt year, backup to Quinn Ewers. Then last year where he's, you know, not good. They fall short of the playoff. And then you have this moment again. You're like, oh no, is this going to happen again? And he was great in the 4th quarter. I will say Texas win, Ryan Day choke because Ryan Day, too, too. I mean, the play calling, I don't know, like maybe they got too conservative. I think they probably did. The, and there also were a couple of plays like that. That was the thing Texas did have. Like there was a couple of plays that if Julian Sayen makes a pass or if a catch gets made, Everything can kind of change. I didn't— I hated the punt they had on the Texas 39, 2 minutes into the second half on 4th and 4, up 20. It's like, dude, just, just fucking step on their throat right this second. Like, just, just end it. You score a touchdown. It's not— the game's over. And then absolutely zero brain, zero situational awareness to not let them score.

Yeah.

At the end of the game, because you have Jeremiah Smith, you have— you let them score, you get what? What did they end up scoring? I think first down was like a minute and a half left. A minute and a half in college to get into field goal range is an eternity. You're down 1, all you got to do is get into field goal range, which obviously the field goal kicker making it would be, would be a whole different story. So you have a minute. So they let him score, it'd be a minute. uh, left, and I think a timeout. Yeah, 1 minute with 1 timeout is— that's like 10 minutes.

It's a long time, especially if you have the weapons at Ohio State.

I don't. And I know Ohio State's defense is awesome, and that's their thing where they, you know, stop people at the goal line. Just let them score and let Julian Sangoh win the game with his arm and Jeremiah Smith.

All right, can you think of any recent examples where Ohio State has stopped Texas at the goal line? Yeah, but no, what the difference was Sark actually called football like a, like a man.

In the second half.

In the second half, yeah. But like ran the ball down the dick.

He—

Sark gets obsessed with these stretch runs.

Yeah, he loves them.

And it's just like, dude, it's not working. And then yeah, you're right, the second half he was just like, I'm gonna run it right down your throat. Yeah, that's what's gonna happen.

Maybe, maybe, uh, maybe Ohio State was— they told like their cornerbacks and safeties, hey, when they run that stretch, let them score, right? But didn't tell the defensive linemen. And the linebackers, and they're like, okay, we better tackle them as they're trying to score here.

Yeah.

Um, I thought also like there was a play in the first half that could have changed the entire game. It was the early turnover, um, on the first play. And then Arch throwing that bomb to Cam Coleman.

Yeah.

It bounced off that he caught and then kind of bounced away and got picked off.

That wasn't Arch's fault.

That's not Arch's fault. That's like a, it was a, like a 50-yard gain that instantly got wiped off, turned into a turnover, like to battle back from those 2. like really, really unfortunate starts of the game and, and keeping your head together in the second half. I think Texas is a really, really good team.

Yeah. All right.

Also, Ohio State can't get a kicker. I like how the more things change, they stay the same. Yeah, they just are unable— they're unable to, to recruit kickers at that school.

The big story, which we have Eric Morris from Oklahoma State on, Oregon losing as 23.5-point favorites in Stillwater, which was shocking not just because they lost, but they got Dominated. And if it weren't for some defense, I mean, they had a pick 6, their defense kept them in it. They were getting absolutely killed in terms of like total yardage. And shout out to Eric Morris because to go from week 1 where you have a really disappointing start to the season to then have a game like that against Oregon, who a lot of people, Brandon Walker, picked to win the national championship, was super impressive. It's not apples to apples. I've heard some people say this. I'll throw this out there. You guys can tell me it's not apples to apples because I think the situations are different. The setup is different. Dan Lanning's only been there for a few years, I think 5 years maybe, but there's some kind of similar— you could make some similar correlations with Penn State last year.

Dan Lanning.

has been an unbelievable coach who has fallen short against basically the best competition. That's it. Like he beats everyone else. He loses to the national champion. This is a game early in the season where he should have won. And like, remember James Frank? Again, I don't think Dan Lanning's fine, but the, it's more like Dan Lanning's not gonna get fired. It's more in season. Could this spiral? Quarterbacks could go to the draft, stays.

Mm-hmm.

Dante Moore, Drew Allar. you think you're loaded, you think everything's set, and then you lose the game that you never lose as 23.5-point favorites. Does it spiral from there? I tend to think no, but it's very interesting to look at and be like, oh yeah, this is— remember when Penn State lost last year and you're just like, they lost what? They lost the Oregon game and then UCLA. UCLA.

And then North Carolina.

And that's— and the UCLA loss is like, oh fuck, the wheels are off. Like, that's a game that James Franklin never But it was also—

there's also similarities because they kind of played with their food before the Oregon game.

Yeah.

And then Oregon also played with their food against Boise State.

Yeah.

So there's— the difference is Oklahoma State sucks. And Penn State's first loss was against— Yeah.

And again, I'm not— Dan Lanning is going to be the Oregon coach the rest of the season. I'm talking more about the season itself. Could it spiral where if they lose to USC in 2 weeks and you're like, oh shit, we thought, you know, Dante Moore coming back was going to be this great thing. And it hasn't gotten better. And like, I don't know, it's a very fascinating team to watch.

I don't think that Dan Lanning has slept since that loss. No, I think Dan Lanning has turned into an absolute psycho because of this loss.

He's sick.

It actually might be a dangerous thing for the rest of the Big Ten that Oregon lost that game.

The USC game will be massive. Like, that's— to watch that game, it's in 2 weeks at USC. USC looks really good. It's like that if Oregon loses that game, they're How about, uh, Mestemaker's Elway moment?

Yeah, that was an awesome play. That was such a good jump. I loved watching that. There's one where the, uh, the announcers— I love it when announcers say this— they see like some reckless play like that happen, they go, you think this kid doesn't want to win this game? Yeah, because like I'm at home, I'm like, I didn't think he wanted to win, and then he did that and I'm like, well, yeah, good point, I was wrong.

Yeah.

Um, also, uh, Michigan with the most obvious. Dave Portnoy, Michigan bouncing, bouncing back after week 1. John Matisse was really, really bad. Bryce Underwood wasn't that much better. He was great with his feet.

Mm-hmm.

That was, it was, it was very clear that Kyle Whittingham was like, we're going to run Bryce Underwood and he is an absolute freak of an athlete and that will work. But I think, I think Bryce Underwood had 4 pass attempts in the second half. The story of the game was more Michigan's defense is fucking for real. And if they can figure out Bryce Underwood at all, like if he can get a little bit better, that's a real team.

I think he will.

I think he'll get better. He's still really, really young. You would ideally like to see him make that jump between the end of the first season and the start of the second. So it's fair to say like he had enough time to improve over the course of an offseason that it's not, he's not that young anymore, but he's still It's still very likely that he gets better, but they might not need him to get that much better.

This Oklahoma fans have to be going through it right now because not, it's not the, it's not a similar thing, but I had this with Wisconsin when Russell Wilson was at Wisconsin and we had the best offense we've ever had in like the program history and just lit up the scoreboard. And our defense was bad for one year. Oklahoma has been like Like, forever, what can you say for Oklahoma? Points. Like, they have Heisman quarterbacks, they score points, they have a really good defense. Their offense is dog shit.

Yeah.

And like, to have that flip where you're like, if you just gave us our offense from like any other year in Oklahoma history, we would be national title contenders.

I think it was, uh, this offseason, Venables was like, if I can just fix the offense, then we should win. Yeah. And then maybe— I don't know, I, I still think their defense is gonna be really, really good. This is a bad game for them. And it might be that situation where Michigan looked like dog shit week 1. Oklahoma might have thought to themselves, like, we got this. Yeah, that team stinks.

Yeah.

But Michigan, I mean, they have a couple, they have some big games coming up, but that is that. I mean, the fact they survived the last 2 weeks 2-0, they're, they're for real as for real gets. What else? Any, any other notes from college football?

James Franklin had a very funny press conference yesterday.

Yes.

Where he— Michael.

Michael. Hey, Michael. Michael.

Hey, Michael.

Michael.

Hey, Michael. Sound like, like Dwight Schrute. Michael.

Hey, Michael. It reminded me of the Francesca.

Yeah.

Michael.

I guess the guy was on a Zoom call and he might have been lagging a little bit.

I don't know.

It was, it was a very funny moment from James Frank. It looked like an absolute psychopath.

Yeah.

Like when coaches get it in their head, like, I need to— I'm trying to instill the same discipline in my press corps as I do in my team.

Yeah.

We greet each other by name. We shake hands and maintain eye contact.

Yep. And oh, I should say, yeah, Alabama looked really— their defense looked really, really good going to Kentucky. And all eyes on LSU-Ole Miss.

Yeah.

I mean, what a game. This is going to be so much fun to watch. I like LSU in this game. I don't know. I've been also ice cold, but this is going to be so fun.

It's going to be great. I have no idea what to expect. I think it's going to be— it's going to be the craziest environment.

Nuclear lava hot viral moments.

Yeah. Lane does need to get the Mississippi National Guard to protect him on the sideline.

Yeah.

Why doesn't he get that? Doesn't LSU have the biggest cop in the world? Biggest cop in the world.

Yeah. He should make that trip and just stand right behind him.

Also, our guy Coach O is dealing with some health issues. So we're thinking of Coach O. I saw that Lane talked about that. So hopefully he gets back out there. He's— Lane made a joke that like Coach O said, like, I'm never going to the doctor. I'll die on that field. And Lane was like, maybe we shouldn't joke about it.

Go to the doctor.

He would.

Uh, okay. Let's do hot seat, cool throw, and then we'll get to our interviews. Talk some more ball. We got Eric Morris and Derek Carr. Uh, before we do that, TickPick.

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Henry.

My hot seat's Arch Manning. Yeah, there was the, the, the Sark, I guess, controversy, whatever you want to call it, with the sideline interview at halftime where there was a timing technical issues and he kind of ran away. And then there was Arch Manning was asked about it. And he said he's like, saw one of the AI videos that was like Sark slapping Holly Rowe, and he like said it was funny, and then everyone's, you know—

Well, she shouldn't have touched his golf clubs.

Upset with him for talking about it, which is just like, he's, he's a, he's a dumb college kid. Like, it's very, you know, immature humor and probably something that, you know, that gets sent around in group chats, whatever. But, uh, it was, it was very dumb of him to say, yeah, acknowledge that he saw it and like that he, that he thought it was funny.

I, I agree. Like, he's a manny. I bet you, uh, I bet you the grandfather, I bet you Archie called him up and was like, hey, we can't be saying that.

You just can't be saying, you can't be saying like, it was, it was, it was just very dumb to say that.

It was crazy in terms of like how good they are at dealing with the media. It was weird that he was like, yeah, that was awesome. I really enjoyed that. Like, you got, you got to be smarter. You cannot say that in a press conference for everybody to hear.

It's just, yeah, I mean, his apology, I, it was a decent apology because he did, you know, he said, yeah, he wrote a whole Instagram story, like kind of Notes app-ish apology.

And Holly Rowe replied and said they talked privately. They're not going to talk about what they talked about, but like that, it's all good.

But I thought the apology was good in just the fact that he could easily have been like, I didn't mean it that way. He said, no, I know what I said, what I meant. And it was, yeah, it was stupid. Just, you know, AI. Real AI is a fucking— are we going to die from AI?

Yeah.

Oh, yes.

Okay, we'll get to it.

Definitely.

And then, like, are you— are you picking your ears with a fork?

Oh my God.

I don't— I didn't— sometimes I do stuff and I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing.

No one's ever been less locked in.

Dude, it's football season. Lock in.

Yeah.

This is— I—

there's no, there's no video of that.

I don't know about you guys, but when, when football season comes back, I get so locked. I'm just happy all the time. Yeah, just going. It's like every, every week is the same pattern where it's like, I know I got football at the end of this.

Yes, I should be back in a routine.

Yeah, Tuesdays. There's a feel to Tuesdays during football season.

Get some sleep.

Yeah, there's a feel to Wednesdays. There's a feel to like every day has— Tuesday is react to Monday Night Football day. Wednesday is get your fantasy team set and stacked, even though—

Yeah, prep for this week.

Even though I don't do that anymore. But like, a person who takes active care of their fantasy teams, Wednesday's a big day. Thursday, you think about Thursday Night Football. Yeah. Friday, you react to Thursday Night Football and think about the weekend. Weekend comes, and Monday you have Monday Night Football, and you have an entire day's worth of games to be mad about or happy about. There is— there's a distinct feel to every day of the week. Yep. And outside of football season, My body clock gets a lot like NBA playoffs. I have no idea.

Well, no, it's, it's, they basically make your schedule for you. Yeah. We're toddlers and we need someone to tell us like, hey, this is when you should be watching football and then this is when you should go to sleep.

It's like, that's maybe why I don't like it when the NFL does games on Wednesdays.

Correct.

Because it's, I personally get like body jet lag because I wake up in the morning. I'm like, wait, today's a football day?

Yeah.

That doesn't feel right.

What do you mean we're watching football? By the way, shout out Jerry's kids. 1-0. Yeah, the skin of our teeth.

Yep. Nice work, Jerry. Good job, Jerry.

And then my cool thrown was just football guy quotes. You talked about the Edo one. He said, yeah, I'm not going to the hospital. I'm dying. I'm dying on that field out there. And then Kenny Dillingham, who is in London growing the game. Love to see that. Big Noon is in London this weekend. Our fearless leader, Dave Portnoy, is out there growing the game. A little surprised they didn't ask me to go be like a guest picker or something. That's fine.

Oh, you— I could make a text right now and get you there if you mean it.

No, he meant it. He meant it.

He just said it.

I could get you— I could get you there.

He just said it.

So you mean it, right? I'll get you there.

I think you'd lie.

I meant that. I just said it.

I wasn't asked.

I'm not saying I'd want— like, I have a wedding this weekend, so I can't either way. But oh, I was just saying I did mean that I was surprised I wasn't asked.

Okay, okay, interesting.

But Kenny Dillingham was doing an interview. He said he hasn't slept in 36 hours and doesn't care about sightseeing at all.

Yeah, which is just— If you're, uh, if you're handicapping that game, I did do the research. Uh, Kansas is leaving for England Tuesday afternoon. Arizona State left for England immediately after the game against Texas A&M. They didn't go home. They went straight to England. So they've been there since Saturday.

Love that.

Yeah.

I mean, going from Tempe to London, they got to be— they got to be sick of being in England by now, huh?

Yeah. The most like extreme weather changes.

Yeah.

That you could have. It's just wet.

And Hank, what do you like so much about London football?

Just international football.

So Hank, I assume you can't— so you can't go, even though I could get you there, but you're saying you don't want to go. I assume you will be watching this game.

Probably.

Can we get some live tweets?

Sure.

Okay, maybe a hashtag?

Sure.

Hank goes abroad.

Yeah, Big Noon. I love Big Noon.

Okay.

What?

Hank really dug his own grave with this one.

He loves— how?

He loves international football.

Because you got to— now you got to lock in on this game, and I know you don't want to lock in on this game.

I love to lock in on international football. football.

You're, you're not gonna be locked in on this game.

A little bit.

Over-under 15 seconds of this game watched by you? Over 2 minutes?

Yeah, you just gave him that. Now all he needs to do is go over 15 seconds.

I actually don't think he's gonna hit that.

He'll hit that.

I don't think that he will.

He'll hit that.

I'll hit that.

Smash it.

I mean, we're close, Hank. Sunday, October 4th, first London or international game.

Fuck yes.

Commanders versus Colts. Well, 3rd. Did you not watch UNC versus TCU?

NFL.

Oh, okay. 2nd because Australia.

Yeah. Yeah. International, I think.

Yeah, that is international.

That's correct.

Yeah.

I wonder how the 49ers are doing.

Are they jet-lagged? Yeah, they're, they're, they're all kinds of fucked up right now. Fucked up. They're very fucked up.

Okay. Good job, Hank. Thanks.

Nice work, Hank.

Thank you.

Great work, Hank.

Thanks.

My hot seat is Sam Darnold's butt.

Okay.

He got seen by a doctor and they said that it's not a hip injury. It's a weird— it's an unusual, strange deep tissue injury in his glute. So it's some sort of butt injury that NFL doctors are not super familiar with. So it looks like he's going to be out for at least another couple of weeks.

Okay.

So I don't know what you did to the man, but you hurt his butt, Hank.

I saw something that night that it's actually the— it's the turf. It's the way they have that field set up.

Concrete underneath it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's on Seattle.

Is that a—

Bad sports town.

Bad sports town. They just— I'm not even going to address it.

What are your list of bad sports towns? Seattle.

Ohio.

Ohio. I actually like, weirdly enough, I like the Cincinnati Reds. Like I saw that De La Cruz home run when he hit one out of the stadium. And I was like, I like— I have no issues with Cincinnati despite them being like, I kind of like, I like, I like pretty much Kentucky.

Yeah.

Seattle, Cleveland, New York.

These are all very good sports.

Yes.

Miami.

That one might. Yeah, that one.

Okay, that's fair.

That's it. Okay.

Philly?

LA?

No, I mean, I'm from LA, so good sports town. No, I like, I like, I like Philly. Philly, like, they're such scumbags. Like, I like how like big of scumbags they are. Like, that's a sign of a good sports town.

Good.

And they're the biggest.

You and Philly, good rivalry.

I mean, New York are like— they bullied the entire Ryder Cup team to a point where they're like, this, this tournament has gone too far.

Yeah, that's classless.

That's the difference.

Took over every away stadium.

That's true. In the playoff run, the Knicks didn't do that.

The Knicks are different. There's no other team.

Yeah. Hank, when you say that the Nets don't exist, when you say you might respect Philly, maybe you actually respect New York, because when you watch their games, it's usually a bunch of people from New York there.

That's true. Mm-hmm.

But they're rich.

They're just richer.

Yeah. Yeah. They have jobs. They're so rich. LeBron also brought back—

so poor.

LeBron brought back Taco Tuesday today, Max.

I saw that.

You got it. You're not locked in on LeBron.

Oh, I knew about that. Me and Dom have been talking about Taco Tuesday all day.

Also, he's got a boat team. What?

Oh yeah.

E1.

Yeah. What is that? Powerboat team.

It's—

LeBron's guy is trying to do everything but play basketball.

It's F1 on the water.

So just since he signed in Philly.

He's a YouTube golfer.

He's done 2 videos.

Taco Tuesday guy.

He's done that his whole career.

And he is a powerboat owner.

You have no idea when he started that.

So he's a sailor now.

You just, you're just aware of that now.

What was Angola to watch his team?

That's it. That's—

oh, he lost to Team Brady. What the hell is going on?

This has to be funded by, by the Public Investment Fund.

Either that or Russian oligarchs.

Yeah. Qatar. It's one of the— yeah, one of the big 3.

What the hell is— there's boat racing like this?

We're all going to be— everyone on Earth is going to be living in deep poverty in 30 years. And LeBron James, Logan Paul, and Tom Brady are going to compete in powerboat racing. And that will be the only form of entertainment that we have.

And we'll watch.

And we're going to watch.

We're going to watch these powerboats.

When they go too fast, they end up like 200 feet in the air. It's some— it's kind of insane.

There's nothing that's—

no, actually, I'll add one thing to that. We're going to watch the powerboat racing with— what was it? Logan Paul, LeBron James, and Tom Brady.

And yeah, also Michael Rubin.

And every— and depending on your birthday, you get assigned a team. And if your team loses, MrBeast kills you.

Yeah, that's— welcome to the future economy. That's it.

These boats are kind of cool.

They are weird looking. They look like decapitated birds.

Well, they're electric boats. They're not gas.

They're hovering over the water like a chicken.

I mean, this does look badass.

I'm—

this is, uh, no, this is the new F1. Would you watch this?

It's E1.

I'm watching it right now, PFT.

Yeah, we remember when you tried to watch F1.

Yeah.

Oh, oh, oh, it's a woman driver. It's definitely not Saudi Arabia then.

This is not a camera cut I expected.

Okay.

All right.

Well, good for LeBron. That's awesome.

Good for LeBron.

I hope he makes— I hope he has a third of the global wealth in the next 25 years. Oh, my cool throne.

This is the cockpit. Just has a chicken. It's like, okay, yeah, this is— is this the— is this the women's division or is this the men's and women's?

Oh, no.

Sam Coleman. Lucas.

Sam's a Unisex name.

Yeah, but Lucas isn't. Lucas is not our Lucas.

Lucas is definitely a chick name.

Yeah.

Christine.

Yeah, there's a couple boats I would— I can't see a world in which I would watch more than 15 seconds of this. I would watch— Hank's going to watch more of this maybe than the state game.

Do you know what would be sick is what if they had— what if we had pontoon boat racing? That's something I'd watch.

Mm-hmm.

I think this is cool looking.

Oh yeah, Team Brady pontoon boat racing. And it's like each pontoon has to have a minimum of 12 people on the boat when they're racing, like drinking.

Yeah, they got to be hammered. You get points off actually.

You see the video of like it was— it's like they— it was junked cars and on the track was a tow truck.

Yes.

And then the cars.

Yes.

Only objective was to try and get their car to stop on the tow truck.

Greatest sport ever.

Electric.

Unbelievable. Absolutely.

It was in New Hampshire.

Hampshire, right? Yeah, it was. I don't know how that's not the most popular sport in the world.

Uh, yeah, I would watch that all day long.

A car would just get on the back and then they would just get rammed and go off.

Can you imagine if they had pontoon boat racing and then for every beer that somebody on your pontoon drank, that's like a half second off your time?

You'll love it.

And then like the louder that you sing along to like Steve Miller songs—

Yeah, or like Wagon Wheel.

Wagon Wheel, then you get— yeah, that's another half second off your time. Oh, Team Drag Nice.

And there's also— I think it could be Team Steve Aoki.

Oh my God.

Also, that's just a complete guess.

This is the future. And also, does Diplo have a team? What do you do in the offseason? Well, that's a good question. They have virtual races of these where you can bet on like the pretend boats like we do with the digital racehorses.

Okay.

Also, my LeBron guy has informed me that he's, he's, he's had this team for a while. This isn't a new thing.

Yeah, but he just went to Angola. To watch him.

Okay.

Don't you think he should be practicing or stretching?

It's the offseason.

Not really.

Yeah, really coming around the offseason.

I mean, we're what, 6 weeks away?

Jalen Brunson was just at the US Open. You didn't say anything about that.

Sports. He was at a sports game.

This is sports in New York.

He owns this.

He lives in New York.

He can fly wherever he wants. It probably takes just as long for LeBron to get to Angola. As it does for Jalen Brunson to get to Queens.

That's— no way that's true.

Traffic?

There's no way that's true.

Traffic? There is no way that is true.

Max, you don't know what a map—

I don't know where Angola is.

I too don't know where Angola is.

It's definitely farther than 15 minutes away.

Is that a Caribbean island?

If you think it takes 15 minutes to get from Manhattan—

Oh yeah, if you're on the Knicks, you have a special lane of traffic.

That just doesn't exist.

Yeah.

What do you think, he's taking the subway?

You don't know about it, but they have ways. Yes. If you win a championship in New York, he's probably taking— they give you different roads. Yeah.

The Nets have the HOV lane.

Yeah. No, they make the Nets wait in more traffic.

I don't think Jay-Z is still an owner of the Nets, right?

No, no.

All right.

What's your cool throne?

Then my cool throne is going to be fullbacks. Fullbacks are back.

Hell yeah.

So up from week 1, There were fullbacks on the field for 12.4% of offensive plays in the NFL this week.

I love that.

That's up from 7.5% in week 1 last year. We're back. And I would imagine that if you go back even a couple years before that 7.5%, it was even smaller. I think fullbacks are on the way back. And we talk a little bit about it with Derek Carr about like how running the football might be coming back a little bit in the NFL. I think, I think Smash Mouth hit you in your face. Football is coming back and I'm so, I'm so glad that it is.

I agree.

Because for a long time, if you were a fullback fan, all you had is Ushek and maybe Ricard.

Yeah.

And that's it. And still, you know, for the most part, that's kind of who you look at. But fullbacks are back.

Yeah, fullback goals.

We brought them back. Yes, we brought them back from the dead. And also, Humanity was going to be my other hot seat if you want to talk about that.

Yeah.

So you might all die.

Okay.

How painful is really my question.

It sounds like it's not going to be that painful.

Okay.

But all the AI companies got together and they agreed to pause or to at least slow down development because they saw something that scared them a lot.

So but when, when it happens, is it going to be just the AI robots turn off all our power?

I think it's going to be like they turn off most of our power. They keep the power for themselves.

And so that is painful.

And for the speedboat races.

So that is going to be painful. That's going to be the play.

And then they maybe they launch all the nukes Ah, that's less painful. That would be less painful. That's what kind of what we're hoping for.

I'd rather get nuked than be like no power for the rest of your life.

It could be that or it could just be the, the robots show up to your house.

Okay.

And then they just kill you. Like the robots show up and then they're like, hey, sir, can you let me in? I'm here to fix the— here to fix the plumbing.

All right. So fuck these guys.

Yeah, fuck them. Right now there's a 0% chance though.

Why?

That's what they're saying right now. There's a 0% chance AI will kill us. Well, at the end of the decade, they're saying there's a 10% chance.

That's too high.

Yeah, that's too high of a percent chance. So they're saying that right now, we're not going to die now. 0%, 0% chance that we die today from AI.

I saw that one guy had a viral tweet that was very funny. He's like, we need to, we need to create the AI that will kill us before China does, because we don't want to die with robots speaking Chinese. And I think that's right.

Imagine how brutal that would be.

That would suck.

Can you Can you imagine if, like, just anybody, if one of us had something and we're like, hey, there's a 10% chance that this thing that I have in my house is going to kill us, like everybody on planet Earth in, in 10 years. 10% chance.

You'd be like, hey, don't do that, dude.

I think probably I would get arrested and shot and killed.

Yes.

And then my house blown up. Yes. That's what I think would probably happen if I tried to do it. Yes.

All right. My hot seats. I got 2 or no, I got one. The Chester Zoo. We're zoo. We're zoo podcast. The Chester Zoo in England. England's number one zoo. Hank, are you listening?

You love England.

Grow the game.

They put up a promo called the Predator Tour for lions and stuff. Well, then you can click on it, PFT, and it says child predator tour.

OK.

Tour only.

Like, look for child passes. Yeah, I'll take— yeah, it's— hey, this is why copywriting is important. The robots can't do it yet.

Child Predator Tour. AI would have caught that.

AI definitely would have caught that.

Yeah. Child Predator Tour.

That's not great.

Oh, man. Yeah, that one is not.

No, it's like one of those sting operations like they did back in the day where they did like a— was like a free ticket giveaway to catch criminals.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think the Redskins did that.

No, the—

in Alabama Auburn famously did that for people who didn't pay child support. The Redskins did do it for Super Bowl, I think. Yeah. Alabama Auburn. I remember I watched that whole video where they're like, free, free Iron Bowl tickets. And they're like, you haven't paid child support.

So maybe they're— this is like they're trying to do that.

That's true. Anyone who clicks on that link, yeah, you're in jail.

Yeah. So it was, it was Operation Flagship. And it was run by the US Marshals and the Metro Police Department in 1985, where they had a bunch of fugitives who voluntarily went to the Washington Convention Center following an invitation sent by a fictitious television company, Flagship International Sports Television, for a chance to win tickets to Super Bowl 20 for the Redskins against the Bengals. 166 marshals and police officers were involved in the operation, and they arrested 101 people that showed up for it.

Damn.

Uh, all right, my, uh, cool throne is, uh, one Connor Bedard.

He is—

shout out RA, he had the breaking news— captain of the Blackhawks. Uh, RA, I don't— he tweeted it last night and he was right. He scooped everyone. My other cool throne is, uh, the Mets, like, up-and-coming best player. What's going on with this guy memes. Matt— Mitch Voigt. So Mitch Voigt won Uh, I think Developmental Player of the Year or something. Is this guy AI? Have you guys seen this guy?

Yeah, quite a hairline.

He doesn't look real.

Where's he from, Memes?

What is going on, Memes?

I don't know.

Handsome guy.

I think he also is the same guy who pretended to snort coke on the foul line in a game. college baseball game, which is pretty funny.

That was, that was fair play.

That was pretty funny. Yeah. Mitch Voigt, very attractive guy. But I— he looked AI.

I think he's a beautiful guy.

Yeah. All right, Zach. Oh, also Martha Stewart said she's gonna start posting nudes.

Let us pray.

From the last place you would think.

Milwaukee.

Okay.

Mitch Voigt. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Whitefish Bay High School. Shout out.

Did he go to college?

He went to Michigan.

He's a Michigan—

yeah, he's a Michigan man.

He's got the Tom Brady face thing going on a little bit.

It's crazy. I saw that video and I was like, is he AI or something? What is going on? He's a very attractive guy. Okay, Zach.

My hot seat this week is Sidney Sweeney. Sidney Sweeney is taking some heat from the women.

What?

How?

We've got a like women Olympians, other women athletes are coming after her saying somehow it's like, uh, like suppressing women in sport. There's, uh, one woman quoted, she's like, uh, muscles, hard work, blood, sweat, and tears. This is what real women athletes look like. Uh, but she clapped back with the, uh, ESPN— they do the, the nude art, the nude magazine every year.

Yeah.

With the, uh, ESPN Body Issue.

Yeah.

Uh, and so yeah, the women are coming after her. She lost about 200,000 followers on Instagram.

I think she'll be okay.

Yeah, she'll be fine. That's tight.

Half a percent.

Titus pointed out, uh, something I hadn't really thought about, but it, it is pretty nuts that Sydney Sweeney in today's age like has a stranglehold on the internet every time she gets semi-nude.

Yeah, well, she's like—

this isn't 20 years ago when it's like, oh, the swimsuit issue was the only time we got to see shit. This is The OnlyFans, the Instagram, like the AI Instagram, the Instagram. Like there is so much being bombarded. And then when Sydney Sweeney does a commercial, I guess the world stops.

She is the hot chick now. Yeah. Like she's the only— she's the definition of a hot woman in America.

But she's doing it in like the most difficult era to do it.

Yeah.

Like Marilyn Monroe, very attractive. She did it in an era where there was like 3 hot girls in the world.

Yeah. She's the only hot— as far as I know, she's the only attractive woman on planet Earth. And everybody else— Sydney Sweeney.

Yeah.

And everybody else online is just a bot.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

So congrats to her with this much saturation rising to the top. Yeah, very impressive. Okay.

And then my cool throw this week is going to be Romania because Romania has come out with a competitor to the Power Slap League Dana White runs.

Yeah.

What is it?

I saw it.

It's the RXF Slap League. They go through 10 rounds. And judgment is based on impact and redness.

It's ass slapping.

It's just ass slapping. Yeah.

10 rounds of ass slapping.

10 rounds of ass slapping. Okay.

He's had the championship.

This just gives you an idea.

Sydney Sweeney in this?

No, no, no. I— would you guys watch like a competitive dick punching league?

There is.

Yes.

Remember we talked about that like a few months ago? It's dick kicking.

I'd like to see punching.

You just get—

I'd like to see flick, like, not actually not punching, flicking.

Yeah.

So there's an art to it. Yeah. Sack tapping. Just watching guys just wail in pain. So this is just ass slapping?

Just grab ass. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it's rated on what?

Uh, after the 10 rounds, it's rated on contact and redness.

This is more to Titus's point. Like, we have an ass slapping league.

Oh, see, that's a bad slap. She missed the ass entirely. You can't do that.

Yeah.

Yeah, but like, this is something in like, in like the late '90s when I would have to, to time my day around Brooke Burke on, on E!, you know, Wild 'N Out.

Yeah. Oh, I found a Maxim in the park.

Yeah, right. Like, that was what we were dealing with. Now Sydney Sweeney is dominating and we've got fucking ass-slapping leagues going on overseas for no reason.

Yeah. How far away are we from having— we got to be close to having the world's first, like, female all-nude MMA competition. Yeah, they're working on it. That's somebody— somebody's working on that right now.

They're working on it.

God bless that person.

Like lingerie league football for just cage matches, all nude.

I'm gonna say something. This does nothing for me. The ass-slapping league. It's just kind of— if they go 10 rounds, like, what do—

Well, as someone who, like, will never think that violence against women is funny at all, even if it's AI, I can't watch this. Yeah, they're being too violent to each other.

Yeah.

But maybe I'll watch just one more just to make sure.

All right.

Good job, Zach. Good hot seat, cool throne. Should we get to our interviews? We've got Derek Carr and then Eric Morris, head coach of Oklahoma State. Before we get to our interviews, King's Hawaiian football's back, which means another season of figuring out what to eat during the game. And this year, King's Hawaiian has what you covered. Has you, has you covered. Sliders made with King's Hawaiian really are the perfect football food. They're soft, sweet, the perfect size for sharing, not to mention just legitimately delicious. And possibly the best part, everyone loves King's Hawaiian, so it's sure to make the whole party happy. King's Hawaiian is the undisputed MVP of game day, a clear 1-1 pick as the best slider in football. So next time you're wondering what to eat on game day, the choice is simple. Elevate your game day with King's Hawaiian, the best slider in football, available in major— all major grocery stores. Just look Look for the orange packaging. I'm just gonna say off script, I brought home some King's Hawaiian, some shaved turkey from the deli in a King's Hawaiian, uh, bun. Incredible, incredible. Just quick, easy, so, so good. So for more information about King's Hawaiian products and details on where to purchase them, visit kingshawaiian.com. Okay, here he is, Derek Carr.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest, recurring guest, It is Derek Carr, who is retired now, enjoying retirement life, doing a show with his brother called Homegrown that you can find on YouTube. Derek, great to see you. Let's talk some ball. First of all, let's talk about, have you been— has anyone reached out to you recently about coming out of retirement? Is it still on the table? We have to ask that first.

You know, what's funny is people have texted, but I am— I'm still retired.

Okay.

I am definitely still retired, but it is great to see you guys, man.

Yeah.

And, uh, hope you guys have been good, man. It's been, it's been a little bit.

Yeah.

Well, I saw you, I saw you the other day, uh, on the sideline at UCLA, a special advisor to Bob Chesney. It looked like you were standing next to a guy that we are now, uh, hot on the trail to talk to, uh, Mikey, Mikey, uh, Vulcano. Were you, were you next to him? What is he, what's his deal? We talked to Coach Chesney. And we are fascinated with Mikey Vulcano and want to know everything about him.

He is, uh, he'll talk to you. He's got a great, he's got a great, uh, history of coaching. He's got great stories. And I'm telling you that all of them, if they're all true, this guy is one of the most interesting men in the world.

Yeah, we got it. We got to meet him. Have you learned anything from him?

Absolutely. Yeah. Oh man, there's some things you can share, some you can't, but there is definitely some things. that he has shared with us. Uh, but he's got a— he's a wealth of knowledge, man. But you guys got to have him on. He's great.

Yeah, this guy sounds fascinating. To piggyback on what Big Cat asked you, I, I do have to ask you if, uh, you hit up Sean Payton to offer to play for the Broncos last year, uh, in the AFC Championship Game. We saw that news from Drew Brees yesterday. Um, was that something that you did?

I did— I did not initiate anything, but, um, I know that my agent talked to certain people and things like that just, just to see, um, you know, where, where they were at. And, uh, and I thought that they ended up, you know, going with Stiddy. And Stiddy did a great job, man. He's a good quarterback. But yeah, there was definitely conversations, uh, that had happened, but nothing, nothing personally for me. I was sitting on my couch enjoying my life, that's for, that's for sure.

You didn't think maybe I'll go out there and throw the ball around a couple times to see how the shoulder feels?

I— oh, I— there was, uh, there was 3 times last year where I got actual real calls that I went out in the back, grabbed— I called my buddy, I was like, hey, can you come over in like 10 minutes? I gotta see if I can still Yeah. And so I've been training, I've been working out, making sure the body's right. But throwing-wise, I let that rest until it's needed.

All right. Can we talk about that Monday Night Football game? Because obviously you used to play in the AFC West.

Seeing—

I was— I kind of had forgotten how loud Arrowhead is. Maybe it's just like, you know, first game and Mahomes is back, but it sounded so loud. And When you're watching that game, it looked like Bo Nix was just— I don't know what was going on with their offense, if it's, you know, the new play caller, but what— he looked very rattled and out of sorts versus what we saw at stretches last year where he looked really in command of their offense.

100%.

I mean, if you look at both quarterbacks, I know what it's like coming off an injury, you know, especially a surgery that you have to get. And there's some rough patches for both of them. You know, there were some things that— some throws and things things that they'd want back. Even the first pick that Bo threw, I see what he's saying, that he sees the double on Waddle, he's trying to cut it loose versus man-to-man. That's your end cut. You can throw it on time, especially, uh, with a rush bearing down on you. So I, I see what he was trying to do, and obviously the young kid made a play. Um, but like you guys said, it just was a little rusty. Um, and there was a lot of that in Week 1 offensively, you know. There was, uh, I would say defensively too, tackling, you know, wasn't, wasn't the best. You know, no one plays in the preseason anymore.

Yeah.

So You know, tackling, throwing and catching, blocking, all those things. So there's some procedure penalties that you wouldn't like to see in the NFL, but I think that they're going to be fine. I think that him, he's such a competitor. He's such a, he's such a talent, right? We see the talent. You see the arm. You see all those things. And I know one thing about Coach Payton too. If he's anything like Gruden, which I know he is, is they're going to meet for hours on the game plan this week, the calls. They're going to, you know, critique, you know, the coordinator and all those kind of things. And he's going to get better. You know, I don't think it's gonna stay the same. So there's— it's not the panic button yet, but like you guys said, that's a tough environment to go to anytime. Yeah, especially coming off an injury, coming off week 1, Pat's back, the crowd's into it, they got a new defense, the corner gets a pick. You know, just so much excitement was happening early that it's tough, man. It's tough to operate in that environment.

Yeah. Yeah. How much of that do you have to process in the moment? Like, you obviously put in a game plan. You think you know what the Chiefs defense is gonna look like going into a game like that. And then, you know, Spags is— he's a wizard. He'll switch stuff up on you. So how much is like you seeing it on the fly that first series versus, you know, making an adjustment after you, you get off the field for the first time?

Well, you know, you're exactly right on what you're saying because early on when you play Spags, man, it is, uh, it's, it's chess, man. It's, it's mentally stressful as a quarterback because you see something, you think you got it, and then he switches just one little wrinkle up that takes something away, you know. And then you're If you're a half step late, that rush— when I was playing them, they always had a rush and they're getting, they're getting home, you know. And so for, for me as a quarterback and, and for Bo really going forward, you're gonna— he's gonna play his best games as time goes on and he learns more and he gets more reps against him, right? You're gonna, you're gonna realize certain things. You're gonna know where you can go. You're gonna know where you can't, uh, especially when the same guys— like, this is a new group too, right? So Spags has new toys. When the Honeyman was there, man, he's putting him in the middle. He's gonna make him rob. He's gonna do crazy stuff with the COVID 2 and all this kind of stuff. Okay, he goes. Well, then what kind of pressures can we bring?

What's our front like? So the more you play them and it's the same guys, you'll get a feel for them and be able to play a little bit more efficiently.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When it comes to like when we're thinking about the week 1 and you come out of week 1, what's the mentality like winning and losing in week 1? Because we overreact as fans. We're crazy. When we, when you see a team win week 1, you're like, that team's never going to lose a game. When you lose, you're just like, oh man, the sky is falling. I know that you guys are really good at compartmentalizing and keeping it like, hey, next week. But is there something about like week 1 where it's like, oh fuck, now we're in it again? Or, oh shit, we're a really good team that you take a little extra, like it means a little extra more.

Yes, you're right. You know, I think that whenever you get that win in week 1, it's like, cool, we got it. It's kind of like this moment of, all the work you put in. Hey, we're doing the right thing, we're on the right track. And you always want to make corrections from a win, right? You want to start the season hot, there's no doubt about that. Um, but you get that loss, that sense of urgency, if it's not there, it wakes some people up.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, hey, like, we— this game in September, we don't want to look at the end of this thing and be like, how did we give that one up? I remember there was a game against Green Bay my first year in New Orleans. I ended up getting hurt and I don't even remember at the end, you know, what exactly happened, but we ended up losing the game.

Right.

And we look back and we were one win out from being a playoff team.

Yeah.

How much that would have changed and how that would have felt for the organization, for the fans. Right. That would have been awesome. But it was one win back in September, you know, that we like, man, how did we not win that game? So they all matter. But that sense of urgency, if it's not there, it has to wake some people up.

It is kind of— it's why we love the NFL that we're going into week 2 and it does feel like there's an actual must-win for some of these teams, you know, like the, the way the Packers finished that game that feels like a must-win, like the Cowboys coming off of all that hype and then losing to the Giants. Like, so I know it's not actually a must-win, but you actually like, it does feel that way.

No, you're exactly right. Because these are, especially when it's a division game, because those count for, we always say those count for double, right? You know, you're trying to chase these division games and you're trying to You got it. You want to win all six of those because you know it's going to help you when the wild card or the playoff standings come out. And you know those those games those hurt man they they hurt deep. But the the best thing about the week one to week two jump, especially with again we said already no one plays in the preseason anymore. Like no one nobody's playing. And so there is going to be a jump for some of these teams that we think are good. They are going to look more improved because you know those teams that have the good offensive line that have the running game the defense they're going to improve. move. Like the Dallas game, I mean, they're letting guys run free. Yeah, like that, that's, that's not just a physical thing. That's like, hey, let's get this corrected in the meeting, in the walkthrough, and let's not let that happen again.

You know, there was 3 running backs in a row where they'd hear just free, free yards, right? And so those things can get corrected. But, you know, the, the teams that should be worried are the ones that, you know, you get blown out in the first, you know, first week and you're like, oh shoot, like, do we even have the matchups? Do we even have the ability to come back from this?

Yeah, I mean, I guess we could say the team that we're thinking about right now, the Browns, If you're in the Browns locker room, like, what, what do you do? How do you get prepared? Because it does seem— and, you know, obviously anything can happen, we've seen crazy stuff happen— but it, it seems like it's going to be an extremely long season in Cleveland. Um, what do you do at this point? It's like you got blown out, you got no hope at the quarterback position. The owner, the guy that's writing the checks, has publicly said like, we whiffed on, on our quarterback, and then he's expected to go out there and keep starting. Like, how do you get through that season if you're on the Cleveland Browns?

You know what's hard is, um, you know, it's a great opportunity for the leaders of that team to step up because yes, maybe the owner's against, you know, the quarterback. Um, you know, the fans are definitely against it. You know, all, all the things can be so against you. And, and if you're wired the right way, it's not an attack at anyone. It's not an attack at the owner. It's not— I just want to prove my guys right for trusting than me, right? I want to prove my guys right. It's not, I want to prove them wrong. And you get into that, well, guess what? It's going to hurt even more when you get booed again, you know? Like, no, I mean, I need to rally around my guys. You guys know how it is to have some, some dudes that are close to you that you go through something in life and you need to rally around them. You need them to encourage you. You need that group. What happened with us when, you know, I remember when Gruden ended up getting fired and Rich comes in, one thing that we kept doing, me, Yannick, uh, Max, everybody is like, we look around everybody, hey, nobody cares.

Nobody cares that our coach is gone. Nobody cares about this. Nobody cares about that. Nobody cares, man. It's just us. And we had this like little rallying cry of the 53 inside the locker room, and it took us to the playoffs, man. A team that probably shouldn't have been in the playoffs, we ended up being in the playoffs. And, and so I think there has to be a little bit of that brotherhood and unity inside that Cleveland locker room because it's definitely not coming from outside the building.

Yeah, you're right about that. Um, back to your time in, in, uh, with the Raiders. Raiders, because they're going through kind of a, maybe a similar thing to what you experienced there as a rookie. They got a highly touted rookie they brought in and they said, we're going to give him time. Kirk Cousins is going to be the guy. And Kirk looked, he looked pretty good. He looked pretty decent in week 1. Kind of cool to see that out of him. But like your time with the Raiders, you were brought in and I don't know what they told you from the get-go, but I remember before week 1, they were just like, we're going to go with Derek. And it's not like this is a week 1 decision. he's our starting quarterback. What was the expectation when you got there, that you were gonna start week 1, or was that something that you kind of had to prove over the course of that camp?

Yeah, as soon as I was drafted, they literally told me, hey, come in here, be the leader that you are, be the, you know, be the good teammate that you are, grind, compete, but you're not playing. I was like, all right, you know, okay, sweet. Like, you're gonna be the backup, you know, we're gonna help groom you, we're gonna build the team around you, all that kind of stuff. Well, then Matt Schaub ends up having like an elbow thing I end up starting the last preseason game and tore it up against the Seahawks, you know, Legion of Boom defense, you know. And they were like, yeah, you're gonna play. I mean, honestly, fellas, I remember getting called into the office. Dennis Allen calls me in the office. I thought I got traded, like, because they already told me you're not playing. I knew some quarterbacks had got hurt. I was like, I played well, maybe someone tried to trade for me. Yeah. You know?

Yeah.

I was like, welcome to the NFL. And they're like, hey, you're starting week 1 against Rex Ryan. I was like, sick, cool. You couldn't give me a heads up earlier? That's great. Um, but I remember that whole thing was a whirlwind. Now this situation is different because I, I really do believe they are trying to be patient for Fernando. Now he came from an offense— I played pro-style spread, I was in— I kind of had a leg up, you know, especially with my brother. He, he didn't throw but 3 passes under center at Indiana. Like, that is not gonna happen in Clint's offense. He's gonna have 3 under center in his first 3, probably.

Right.

You know, and so for him to gain that experience, to see The preparation, how fast the game is compared to preseason. It's different now. Like that speed, that rush, those windows are closing.

Yeah.

And so for him to experience that before he has to step out there, the longer Kirk can play well, we hope he goes the whole year, but it'll be a big, it'll be a good thing for Fernando going forward.

I had a question about that because I think one of the things we saw week 1 was, you know, a lot of quarterbacks going under center a lot more. Joe Burrow went under center a lot more. Lamar, I think, actually was under center more than he's ever been in his career. his career in a single game. How hard is it to learn how to go under center like a quarterback? Because it does feel like a lot of quarterbacks in college just never do it and they, they're at a disadvantage when they get there. And then like from a game perspective, from, from playing quarterback, how important is it to be under center a lot of the time? And for you, like reading defenses and being able to give them multiple looks?

100%. And that's, that's the most important part is we have to be able to be balanced on offense. that the quarterback in the shotgun is going to be in that place, you know, 7 yards behind the center. It's really hard to stop those guys from getting there on the rush, right? Like, we got to be able to move the pocket. The best way to do it's under center, play action, bootlegs, screens. Uh, can I get under center instead? They think run, now we have quick game. I got my one-on-ones. They're trying to fit the run, they're thinking run, boom, I got one-on-ones. It's an easier throw. The, the tough— the, the biggest adjustment is going to be turning your back to the defense. I, like I said, the, the defense is so fast. These windows close so quick compared to college, right? And I played in the Mountain West, but I did play some SEC schools, all right?

And they—

those windows were closing. But, and you get to the NFL and you're like, I don't even know where that guy came from, right? Right. And when you're first in the league, and imagine turning your back to the defense, flipping your head around, and they're like, make the decision, like, let's go. And you're like, I've never seen this before, right? You know? And so there is a learning curve. Like, on our show, I, I And I encourage our Raider fans and all that, like, just have some patience because can he do it? Yes, he's going to be able to do it, but you need 1,000 reps of that before it ever becomes natural.

Yeah.

Now, like, so you're, you're helping out with UCLA, your special advisor, you're helping out with some of the quarterback stuff. Are you guys, are you, are you trying to help Nico be like, hey, we got to learn some under center? Or, or if, let me ask it this way, because it's not your program, but if you were coaching, if you're OCing in college, would you emphasize guys playing under center more to get these guys better prepared for the pros?

Yeah.

I mean, let's, let's say it this way. If me and Philip Rivers are getting calls and we are happily retired men last year, you know, like there, there is a quarterback issue of development going on, right? Like, let's, let's just be honest. Like there's no, there's no reason we should be getting called. We're, we're more expensive.

We're older.

You know, we're not as fast. You know, like there's no reason, but there is a reason that they're calling us Because we know how to play the game.

Right.

And so, you know, there's— there should be no reason that the practice squad guy on every NFL roster should be getting developed, be able to go out there and execute at a high level, like at least complete some passes right now. Now there's, there's an issue going on because these guys are jumping colleges. They can't just stay in a system and learn and grow like I was able to, like Phillip was, like a lot of these guys were able to. So So there's that going on. But for me, yes, I would be, we'd have to be under center. Like I, I, it's not just about, you know, winning and the program. You want to do that, but it's also about the development of the young kid. Right. I want him to have a career that changes his family's life. And the best way to do that at the quarterback position is being able to do both.

So which of the, which of the young quarterbacks in the league right now impressed you the most week 1?

Oh man. Week 1, you know, I was actually, people are People will say, I don't know. CJ Stroud showed me something going against Buffalo that I was actually impressed with because he came back and it was a tough game. Now, he wasn't perfect, but there were some throws in that game. And I know it helps having Nico back, that, that helps everybody having that run game back. But CJ did some good things. Uh, Bryce Young continues to do things where I'm like, bro, they go out there and score 30-something points and lost the game. Like, that's not on Bryce, you know? Like, he played great. You know, there You know, he had the turnover and those kind of things, but there's some plays there where you watch these guys that we're really hard on, right? And, and of course their quarterbacks were going to be, but they're making some plays where they're, they're— you see some growth out of them that I didn't see before. And so I hope that those 2 can, can catch, catch the right footing and, and, and take those, those franchises where they need to be. Because— CJ, it's hard.

They didn't get a contract done, you know, You know, how's it going to go in Cincinnati? Or do they want Burrow? Are they going to try to— like, all those questions are going to start popping up. And so for these guys, I know that they're focused and I hope that they play really well. But, you know, those aren't 2 names that everyone's like super excited about, but I'm excited to see what they do because some of the things they showed.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And, and I was hoping, because I remember when you did the, uh, the Brazil game last year, you broke out a little Jon Gruden, a little Jon Gruden impression of your old coach. Can you give us a little Jon Gruden breakdown maybe of CJ or Bryce?

I tell— yeah, absolutely I can. Um, I, I always tell people, I was like, Gruden is the little voice inside my head. Like, he, he literally is like that voice, like, hey, Gar, make sure that you tell your kids to go to bed, man.

All right?

Yeah, it's, it's that voice in my head. So like, we'll be doing our show and guys are like, dude, stop with the Gruden. I'm like, I genuinely can't stop. Yeah, it just comes out.

I think that's, that's why McVay talks like that now. Yeah, because You spent time around him and now he's got like the natural like inflection in his voice. And honestly, we can't afford Coach Gruden anymore. He's doing his own show with his brother. So I was hoping to just have you kind of impersonate him and you could be our new Gruden.

It happens to everyone who's around him though. Jake Malicek, one of our guys who's now Gruden's assistant, he will, he will throw in an extra man on stuff and you're like, where'd that come from, dude? You never talk like this.

Hey, I'm telling you, he would come in the room every time. And we'd come off one of these, we'd talk about week 1 losses. If we ever had a week 1 loss or an early loss, he'd be like, hey, Gar, we didn't lose the game, man. We just ran out of time.

That's a good point.

Did he ever have any crazy motivational stunts like burying a football, burning game film, any of that crazy shit, like having a funeral for the game plan?

No, he was very good at moving on. He was good at that. But I will say that when we did beat the Chiefs, it was true that we drove around Arrowhead a couple times. He told, hey bus driver, go around again, man. Everyone's like, dang. But he definitely— we definitely did that.

Yeah, it's got to be weird for the Raiders. We haven't really talked about it too much since, since the game started, but it's got to be really strange for, uh, for Max to come back there and to still be, you know, like playing, being as intense as ever, being a team leader, uh, knowing that like, hey, you got dumped, uh, but please come back and please continue to be the leader and the captain that you You, you've always been for us. That's got to be a weird situation inside that locker room, right?

It 100% is. Now, knowing Max, uh, any awkwardness at all, he just is gonna come out right in front of it and be like, fellas, I got traded, I'm back, let's ball. And then like, that's it, you know? Like, it's— he's not gonna dance around it. It's not going to be awkward in the locker room. I'm sure he addressed it. But I definitely— we had some good texts back and forth. Um, uh, I said, good luck in Baltimore. And I was like, just kidding, you know? Like, it's over. But we knew Max was going to come out humming like that. That's what's so crazy. You make the decision as Baltimore to trade for Max, and we all know what he is as a player. You know his knee is hurt. You're going to fail him on a physical, although you already agreed to it. Like, something's up, bro. Like, I'm not buying it. Yeah, I'm not buying that.

Yeah, it's pretty fucked up that they were— they knew that. Like, I think they knew they had an out there, just waiting to get some sort of confirmation on the Hendrickson thing.

And he was so good in week 1, Max. Like, that was a game. He does that a few times a year where it's just the game just becomes Max Crosby.

Would he like hit you in practice? Was it because I've heard some, some things about him that like he gets intense sometimes, right?

He absolutely does. Him and I, so me and Max really close. He's one of my, he's one of my good friends and he would never hit me. Now he would, he would throw the lineman and he would do some extra stuff and disrupt plays and hit the running backs and all that. But for whatever reason, I told everybody, I was like, you know, Max, we had a certain level of respect. He didn't touch me, you know. But as he gets older, we get grumpier. I know that as you become a veteran in this league, you get more grumpy. You just stop caring. So if I, if I was still there, he probably would have hit me at some point.

Yeah.

Was there any other teams that, uh, that impressed you week 1? Are you watching the— are you sitting down and watching the tape after, after every game?

Yeah, I am, man. Uh, I, again, that's part of the Gruden in me. I gotta learn ball, man. I, I just, I watch film. I love You know, I want to see what guys are doing. I want to see the new trends. What are the new blitzes? What are the new things on offense? And so, uh, really impressed with the 49ers. Really, really impressed. And, you know, the whole travel thing, all that, I don't really care about that. You still got to put the ball down and play, you know. And what they showed, the, the dispersion of the football— it wasn't just one guy, right? It wasn't just Christian in the backfield. You know, they got the young running back, they got, you know, uh, you know, DeMarcus going down the field, they got Deebo, they got Kittle. Kittle's going to keep getting healthier and look good. And hopefully the young receiver is going to be okay. But, you know, there's so much talent there. But the most impressive part was Purdy just distributing the football.

Yeah.

Right. Like that, that, that right there is like, he was like MVP. Like I sent the group text. I said, here's our MVP. Like he genuinely has that kind of shot this year playing like that. So I'm excited to watch him. I loved Baltimore. The, the first getting Lamar under center again, what that does to the defense. Like, imagine being the defensive end. Do I crash down and try and tackle Derrick Henry, who's bigger than me, or do I stay wide and play the boot, which he's gonna outrun me if I'm one step off? Like, that, that right there got me so fired up. Yeah, the old school under center of me. And then seeing Pat under center in that run game, like, Pat's gonna be more efficient. He's gonna— they're gonna keep growing. But if they can run the football like that, I don't remember a time playing against them they could run the ball like that since they had Jamal Charles. Yeah, like that, that That was impressive.

It was.

I said it like 4 plays into the game. I was like, this is the best running back they've had maybe since like the year 1 Kareem Hunt. And that was just 4 plays, just through 4 plays. You could see the explosiveness and what that's going to do to that team. It's going to be— the bad man is back. It feels like he's going to get even healthier and healthier. And fuck, man.

I think the real test is going to be, will Andy Reid stick to running the football? Because he loves to kind of steer away from the run. And part of that might be that he hasn't had a running back that looks as good as Kenneth Walker does. But like, he needs somebody to stay next to him and be like, hey, Andy, don't forget to hand the ball if you get a good running back now. So you don't have to throw it every down.

Yeah.

You know what, that's a great point that you bring up because a lot of those guys come from that, you know, that Holmgren tree. You know, you got Gruden, you know, Andy, you know, you think of Sean Payton, you think of all these guys. They love throwing the football now because they got— they know they got the best plays in the world. They know that. They know how to shred your defense. They know your rules better than you do. You know them, right? They want to get to it, but you're exactly right. Can they stay consistent when maybe the first 2 runs are, you know, 2nd and 8? Ah, you know, 3rd and 7. Like, can we still stick with the run the next series? That, that's going to be the thing to watch for sure.

I, I don't know if we brought this up when we talked to you in Tahoe, uh, but you hit a hole-in-one with no one there. Yeah, that sucks, dude.

It was, it was so bad. I was in, I was in Las Vegas at Southern Highlands. Shout out to my homies at Southern Highlands. Highlands, uh, but there was a group playing behind me and there was a group in front of me. Well, on this certain par 3 on 12, once they leave, they, they can't see the green. And the people behind me ended up hitting a right and ending their day. Well, I thought they were waiting, so I hit my shot, it hits, it goes in. I'm like, oh shoot, I'm going crazy. I'm like, oh my goodness. I turn around like they're gonna be behind me and I see their cart driving the other way.

Oh.

So no. So I walked in the clubhouse, I was like, fellas, y'all know me, man. I'm not gonna lie to you. They're like, what happened? I was like, I hit a hole-in-one.

Like, no way.

I was like, I promise.

And so they ended up giving me like a little ball and like a flag and stuff. But yeah, it happened, but no one saw it except me.

That's crazy.

You're the only one.

I mean, I will say that it's a testament to you as a person that I believe you. Like, like, there's some quarterbacks that if they said they hit a hole-in-one, I'd be like, I don't know. But you, you're You, you're a stand-up guy, but that's, that's crazy. You had no one there to celebrate with and you're just like, well, this— no one, no one's looking at it. Like, not even to have one person with you.

Fuck.

Oh, bro, it was the worst, bro. I, I ended up— I was like, guys, I'm done for the day. I'm going home. Don't care about none of nothing else. I grabbed the ball, I drive home, and I'm like, babe, guess what? I hit a hole-in-one. She's like, I'm so proud of you. Like, what do you want for dinner? I'm like, no, I hit a hole-in-one.

Oh yeah, that'd be, that'd be so tough. I would almost just like sit my ass on the tee box until the next group got up there and then I'd be like, hey, come walk to the green.

Yeah, that's a great point. Honestly, fail by me. That's what I should have done.

Yeah, but yeah, no, I do believe that you got it. But if you were to like— who else was in your draft class? Blake, I would believe Blake Bortles. Yeah, if he said he got one. Johnny Manziel, uh, maybe. I believe that he believes he got a hole-in-one, but I'm going to have to check it visually. Yeah. Make sure it went in there.

Yeah.

That's good.

I think that's, yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. PFT.

What about back to the NFL? What about like from week 1, any quarterbacks that you saw that you thought to yourself like this is going to take some work?

Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things that I wouldn't say worried me, but we already talked about Bo Nix. Like, with a guy like Sean in the room not calling the plays. Now, I know he's gonna— I don't know if he's withholding himself or if he's sending ideas, you know, through the headset. And then Bo is such a dynamic player, but that one worried me a little bit.

Mm-hmm.

Like, you got Sean Payton. That'd be like having, for me, like, Jon Gruden in the room, and you're asking someone else to call the plays. I'm like, man, if I'm the quarterback, I'll be like, man, please. You know, 'cause Gruden— what people don't understand, like, Gruden and these guys, like, that have done it forever, they have such a feel of the game. And these coordinators— Gruden in the headset one time, time, multiple times really. But just example, we're playing, I think it was the Dolphins. He was like, hey, let's go, uh, 58Z in here. Hey, they're gonna bring internal pressure play, man. Just be ready for this through right here. I break the huddle and I'm like, yep, there's the through.

Boom.

So, you know, 40-yard gain. Like, I was like, that's, that's insane. Like, just those little nuggets that help you as a quarterback, because that was just an alert. The read was over here. He's like, now just be ready for the through. And there it was. Like, yeah, those things make a difference in the game. So That, that one for me is probably the biggest one that stands out because they're, they're such a good team. And I know that's not how they wanted to start, but I hope— I'm interested to see how they bounce back. And if, if we can get like all the plays coming in, like after he calls it, is Sean relaying stuff, you know, to the coordinator at the same time? Like, that'll be interesting to me.

Yeah, it is. It's a fascinating situation because I, I think I admire what Sean Payton's doing, like the spirit of what he wants to kind of bring. He sees promise. and in his coordinator, and he wants to give him an opportunity to grow. And there's probably no better place to do that than, you know, with, with Sean Payton's supervision. But at the same time, if you're Bo Nix, you're like, hey, I have a, I have a job to do, and this is kind of my career that's on the line right now. And so I prefer to not be part of an experiment when we have a great play caller. So I don't know what they're going to do about that, if there's any room for compromise or, or like if Sean Payton then has the last word. and can override his, his coordinator, then does that just completely neuter the coordinator in everybody's eyes?

Yeah, that, that's exactly right. You know, that, that to me is, you know, I'm thinking as a quarterback, right? Like, again, I got Sean Payton in the room. I would like to hear that voice. Now, that's not going against anything that the, you know, Davis is doing or anything like that. I think he's a great coach. I think he's going to be awesome, right? There's a growth there. But there's also a sense of urgency as a quarterback. Hey, we were just in the AFC Championship. Like, it wasn't like we had a rough year, you know, like, this is a, this is a good thing and you want to grow from that. But that, that, that'll just be an interesting one for, I think, for all of us to watch and keep an eye on.

Yeah.

What, uh, what is a special advisor to a coach?

Yeah, that's a great, that's a great question.

Yeah.

I mean, are you going there every day? Like, it sounds like an awesome job.

No, it's been amazing. And, and so literally, you know, I, it was whatever we wanted to make it right now. What, what Coach Chesney has done is he opened the door for to come in, I wanted head coaching experience. Like, I was like, man, I want to learn from you. I want to— and then if there's any value I can provide, which I think I can with the team, I want to be able to do that for you. And so, man, I help, you know, with, with some game planning type stuff, you know, helping the coordinator if they use it. If they don't, great. You know, it's just ideas and things that I'm seeing and trends I'm seeing from us and things we can do that maybe could help. Um, then helping Nico personally, and then, uh, you know, just asking questions. You know, I'm a part of the recruiting. I'm learning that part also. I'm in there with the GM, Derek Wright. who's a good buddy of mine since college. And he's been, you know, open door, man. Like, they, they literally said the door— every door is open, whatever you want to know, whatever you want to learn.

And I was like, dude, this is like the dream job of someone that wants to be a head coach someday.

Yeah.

Like, you're allowing me at a Big Ten school against— or with, with Coach Chesney, who I think we all can agree is a great leader, uh, of men and a great teacher of football. Um, it's just a great experience. Now I get to do a lot of the work from home. I can come down to the games. I can come to practice, whatever we got. You know, I'm still coaching my kids. I told him, I was like, I still got to be able to coach my kids' little, you know, little youth football team. And they're like, of course, please continue to do that. And, and so it's really been a way to stay involved and really provide value at the same time, learn. And so they, they were wide open, man. Like, Coach Chesney was like— I never met him before, guys— and he was like, the answer is yes. Now come down. Let's figure it out.

That's awesome.

That takes a lot of a leader, man. So I was really impressed by that.

That's great.

Do you have an open-door policy as well?

Yeah, you guys are more than welcome, man.

Okay.

Come on.

Because if the door's open, I'd just like give the ball to Wayne Knight. That would be my recommendation. Just hand the ball to that dude and let him cook.

Those running backs, man, that was their most, I'd say, senior group, right? They've been together a while and I was watching these guys in practice. And I was looking around, we're doing 7-on-7. I was like, we need to be at 9-on-7. We need to be handing the ball to these 3 guys. Like, this, this is insane.

Yeah, yeah, they're really good. So you have, you have like a very unique, uh, I think probably skill set from being around the college game now and then, um, being in the pros for so long. And I always think of like the, the college game, at least on offense, tends to influence the, uh, NFL game in about like give it 5 or 10 years lag, and eventually those concepts start to make their way to the pros. What are you seeing right now in terms of college offenses that you think are going to make their way to the NFL in the next few years?

Well, the biggest one was we saw the quarterback run game, right? That's the number one thing. You see all these quarterbacks running around and every time they do, I'm like, you can't play. That's the only position you can't play with a sore right shoulder. And so what you start to see is the timing of it. You know, when are we going to run the quarterback? When are we going to, you know, You saw it in multiple games last week inside that five-yard line. You have an extra hat running your quarterback, right? You know, there's a there's not a free hitter, and so there's a certain thing going on there. I also see this trend of NFL pass concepts coming back to college, which excites me because I think that college and pros can see that there's a there's a need for something more than just bubbles, right? You know, there's a need for we I don't need to just see guys throwing bubble screens. You know, you ask talent evaluators; it's so hard to grade these quarterbacks. You know, you could look at Ohio State and your guys are running wide open. Well, it's like, yeah, that's, that's pretty easy, you know, to throw to Jeremiah Smith against Ball State or, you know, like that.

It's hard to see that on a go route. You know, they want to see concepts. Can you get through a progression? Do you see the defense? And I'm seeing some of that coming back. And it's really exciting for me for the quarterbacks in college because I think they'll be more prepared going forward. So I agree with you. You always see this flow of college going into the pros. I'm starting to see a little trickle backwards of guys starting to get into some pro-style concepts, which it's only gonna help these guys' future down the road.

Yeah. Well, Derek, this has been awesome. We got one last question. Rhoback question. rhoback.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. rhoback.com, promo code TAKE. Let's definitely do this again later on in the season. It's great to have you on Talk Ball. Zach, go ahead.

How you doing, sir? I did have a quick question for you.

Uh, yeah, absolutely, Zach.

During your career, uh, which, uh, when it comes to home games, which fan base maybe had the, the nerves going in terms of like pressure to perform more? Was it with the Raiders or was it with the Saints?

Oh, that's a great question. I think that there was, there was so much pressure on us, you know, with, with the Saints. I'll say Saints is my answer, but Raiders was— we were coming from such a hole, right? We were coming from such a hole that I remember throwing for a first down and the crowd blew up like, wow! And I was like, we're gonna have more of that, you know?

Like, it's all right.

All right, when we were with the Saints, you're coming from a Hall of Fame quarterback and they're used to seeing 40 points a game, right? And then they have a few quarterbacks in between, and then I get there and, and we ended up having a winning record, but it felt— it didn't feel like that because that's not the expectation. And so it was, it was awesome to be a part of, but there was a lot of, a lot of pressure there to get it done as a team, uh, because of the, the way that that one Rams play happened. Uh, there was pass interference, I believe I can say that without getting fined now.

Mm-hmm.

You know, back in the day. So the fans are still feeling that, right? They're, they're still, you know, missing out on these playoffs and this kind of stuff. And so there was a lot of pressure there on our team. Um, now it didn't affect us, you know, but there— but you could definitely have this sense of feel, um, that, man, when's it going to happen again? And so we got, we got super close. And then my second year there, I thought we had a real chance to actually make a run and win the Super Bowl until we all got hurt, you know. Like, we— that team, that's one of the best teams I was ever on talent-wise, and we had a real chance. But then We all started breaking stuff, but that's a really good question.

Yeah.

Great question. Did you, did you know that that would be a fumble when Jared Goff fumbled this last weekend? Or did you think that's an incomplete pass? What would they call against you?

Oh, especially if I'm with the Raiders, that's a fumble and a touchdown.

Yeah.

We all, we all know how that one's ending. Like that, like I'm pretty sure if I threw the ball backwards without getting hit, that's a fumble too.

Yeah.

So I was But like, I love Goff. He knows that. But that's a touchdown Saints any day of the week.

It feels like that type of stuff only happens against the Saints.

We got Gasly.

Where everyone in America was like, I've— we've watched a ton of football. That is— I think that's a fumble. I'm pretty sure it's a fumble.

I completely agree. That one got me. I was like, that's a touchdown. What are we doing?

Yeah.

All right.

Well, Derek, thanks, man. We appreciate it so much. Everyone, again, go check out— oh, what's up? How's it going?

Are we talking crazy?

Are you still— do you still block me on Twitter?

They hit me with that last time.

1,000%. Hold on, I'm gonna look, I'm gonna look, I'm gonna look.

Hang on, because I know Derek, you do still block me, but I told you to still block me.

I thought we fixed it.

No, no, no, I said it's a good idea that you block me. You don't need to be exposed to my thoughts. If I have anything— if I have anything important, I'll tell Big Cat and then, yeah, yeah, he'll let you know about it.

I don't know the sound I can't hear him anymore. The sound went out.

I think you blocked me.

Let's see. David Carr. No, David Carr, you do not block me. Oh no, that's the David Carr from the New York Times. RIP.

Okay, hold on. All right. Your, your other brother definitely blocks all of us. No, I'm not blocked. All right, cool. I'm good.

You're unblocked.

I'm unblocked. I think it's the third brother. He's got me blocked.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, he's got everyone blocked.

He blocks everybody.

Yeah.

He fucks everybody. Hey, go Bush. All right.

Go Bush.

Oh, are you, are you guys, you guys Bush fans?

We're rooting for you guys.

Okay. Rooting for you.

Unshaven.

That's, that's amazing.

Yeah. I love that. Are you guys gamers?

Oh, big time. 2K is our game right now. We're playing 2K.

Yeah. Fuck yeah. All right. So we got to get you, we got to get a Bush, uh, Carr brother collab. That'd be fun.

We would, we would thoroughly enjoy that.

Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Derek. Good to see you, Dave. All right, David, we'll see you guys. All right, all right.

Later, guys.

Thanks, guys. Twisted Tea football season is back. It's the moment we've all been waiting for. Football season is back in full swing, which means we'll be posted up with an ice cold tea until further notice. Twisted Tea is a refreshing hard iced tea made with real brewed tea and 5% alcohol. The Twisted Tea Party Pack has a little something for everyone with original, half and half, raspberry, and peach. It's got that refreshing taste with a little kick, no carbonation, and goes down smooth Making it the perfect drink to keep the good times going at the tailgate all day and all football season long. Whether you're tailgating at the stadium, crushing teas in your man cave, or grilling out with your friends, Twisted Tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time a great time. We love Twisted Tea. Half and Half, the originals, they're all great. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today if you're going to a tailgate, if you're going to the bar, if you're sitting down on your couch. It's football season, baby, and it goes perfect with Twisted Tea. Keep it twisted. With Twisted Tea.

The interview is also brought to you by Reese's, the best candy in the world. I love Reese's chocolate peanut butter. What could go wrong? They also have cool new Reese's. The Reese's Oreos right in front of us. Had one of those yesterday. Unbelievable. We've got the whole Reese's lounge here. Reese's is the absolute best candy. Best Halloween candy too. Never too early to start stocking up for Halloween. Maybe you'll get a bunch of Reese's and then you'll eat all the Reese's and you'll be like, oh crap, I got to go back back and get more Reese's to give out on Halloween. It's delicious. And there's something for everyone when it comes to Reese's. I personally like the marshmallow peanut butter cup.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is head coach of Oklahoma State football, Eric Morris. Coach, thank you for joining us. Congrats on a big, big win against Oregon on Saturday. That was a lot of fun to watch.

What—

let's start here. What has the last 2 weeks been? Because the last, you know, week 1, the team obviously came out a little flat. And then you play Oregon, who is picked by a lot of people to win the national championship. And you guys not only beat them, but you kind of, you kind of dominated the game. So the whirlwind for your first 2 games at Oklahoma State has to be insane.

Yeah, not the way we want to start, that's for sure. And I think just the ebbs and flows of football. Obviously, this is my 3rd gig, you know, 3rd program I've taken over where they were in a bad spot. And I went 0-2 at my, my first gig, Incarnate Word, 0-2.

Yeah.

To start the season at North Texas. So I've been in this spot before. Obviously, we've got a lot of new players. So many teaching moments from that first game. And, you know, we challenged these guys in every which way possible over the course of the last week. And I think, you know, that's how it is. We had all these offseason hype and we brought a lot of big-time players with us, you know, and Drew and Caleb and all these names. They've been told how good they were for the You know, 9 months and they got punched in the mouth and it didn't go very well for us. And so they stood up to the challenge, great week of preparation last week. They were dialed in, locked in. You know, in my mind, just, I think it's better to go simple when you have this much, because everybody was telling me how many problems we had, which we did at a lot of different levels. And so as opposed to try to put a lot on them, we simplified everything and And our guys played extremely hard and we physically dominated that game at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.

Yeah, it was awesome to watch. What was your, your message right before kickoff? Because it did seem like your team played with their hair on fire, like they were motivated, they were angry, they had a little edge to them. What was the last thing you told them as the final message?

Well, I mean, it started a week ago in our Monday morning telling the truth and letting MC, right? And the people who we thought were the alphas on our team got dominated in the trenches against Tulsa. So I think it was the build. We, we went a little more old school in practice. We went outside every day, didn't use the indoor, super physical during the week. And then once we got to it, usually, you know, for us to evaluate our performance after the game, we have 8 checkmarks that we try to hit each week that I think are super important. And those were in this game too. But I threw all those out the window. I told the players, I said, hey, a coach isn't allowed to grade you on technique. He isn't allowed to grade you on assignment. I said, you get, you get one of two things. You either played really fast that play or you didn't play fast. And so that's how we graded our team. We simplified the whole thing. And, um, and, and our kids bought into it and it was fun to see just the emotion, the raw emotion You know, we had some success early, which I think allowed our fans to get involved.

Our fans were phenomenal. Our student section, our alumni, so happy for them, right? It's been a long time for a storied program that, you know, had 18 straight years of success and used to winning games and big games like that. The last 2 years, they just haven't felt that in a while. And so I'm extremely excited, not only for our players, but for our fan base to get that feeling back. Still watching.

Yeah. Did you, are you opposed to burying a football or burying the tape? Because we love when coaches do that. Did you think about doing anything like that after the Tulsa game before the Oregon game?

No, exactly the opposite, actually. There were so many great teaching moments off that tape. And so, you know, I think that our kids, you know, they were embarrassed by it in so many different levels. And so I think challenging them and they responded in the right way. And came out and had a lot to prove. And especially, you know, against a defensive line as good as Oregon, right? And we're a couple guys down. I mean, our left tackle goes down first drive last week and playing a backup left tackle. Our right guard gets hurt, you know, in the second quarter. And it was just like next man up and like nobody flinched, which is incredible to see.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it was a, it was an awesome job. You might be the first, maybe you'd be interested in burning this tape, like after a big win.

Oh yeah.

Like too much rat poison.

Yeah. I would be more, I think that's That's a good idea. I might, I might take that with me.

Don't get high on your own supply. Yeah. And one thing I love about Oklahoma State is, um, the home field advantage when the team is rocking, when it's— when you got a good program there. The student section, not just that, the entire environment in Stillwater seems like one of the best in college football. When you get a night game there, I've always said the sky is darker at night in Stillwater than it is anywhere else in the country. It's like a neon black that, that envelops the stadium. stadium. And if you can get that crowd rocking, Oklahoma State's going to be a ton of fun to watch this year. And if you're not familiar, um, with you and the program there, maybe some people's first introduction to you came last week when, uh, ESPN sent a push notification to our phones saying that you had shot and killed an armadillo. Yes, it was, it was national news. ESPN thought that it was important that we all find out about this. Like, we didn't— America needed to know instantly that the armadillo was dead. I didn't realize you had a bit of a rivalry. Were you stalking this armadillo?

Yeah, I was. It was getting after my yard pretty good. I'm from Texas, and usually, uh, you know, wild hogs is kind of what roots everything up. I thought it was a wild hog. I just had no clue. My yard guy, I called him and asked him if I had a hog problem. He started laughing and said, no, you got a bad armadillo problem. So, um, just couldn't sleep one night during camp. 2:30 in the morning, got up and And, you know, it was, it was, we, I finally won the match. Now, ironically, you know, I had a lot of people, a lot of family in town, 50 plus, and everybody come over to the house to celebrate. One of my nephews, 16 years old, we were up about to go to bed at 12 and he said, I wonder if there's another Almerdell out there. And lo and behold, there was Saturday night. And so it was, we, We got one more.

I love it.

It's pretty impressive.

Victory armadillo. What'd you use?

What'd you use to take that sucker down? They got, they got that thick shell.

I have a nice little AR. That's it. Not— it's a good match for the armadillo.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

I got a question for you. So your nickname is, is the Elf, given to you by Mike Leach, who, rest in peace, all-time football guy. We had him on the show. We love I loved talking with him. How did you get that nickname? And, and maybe do you have a story about Mike Leach? Because every time we talk to someone who's been influenced by Mike Leach or was around Mike Leach, it, it's clear the impact he's had on football across America.

I did a lot of soul searching this past week, and, and I'm so thankful and blessed that Mike gave me my first job at Washington State. And so thinking back at rebuilding that culture at Wazoo when he got there, which isn't such a a bad place. And, um, Mike was super militant, like, behind the scenes. I mean, if you weren't accountable and didn't do things right on a day-to-day basis, like, you weren't going to play for him. And so I remember I was the receivers coach, and, um, I think it was week 2, uh, we weren't very good to start with, and, uh, 2 of my best receivers weren't, weren't doing what they were supposed to do and not being accountable to the team. And he walked in my office and told me he cut my best 2 players that were there, and we weren't too good to start with. with. And so I'm like, holy smokes, like, what am I gonna do now, right? And but over the course of the year, I saw, um, why he did it and, and the effect that it had and how he was able to build that, that program and turn it into what it was there for 5 or 6 years.

Um, but I got the good ball, bad ball, which I still do. We were playing Oklahoma my senior year. And so he paused the film and I was dipping underneath a linebacker. ended up making a great play on, on a 4-vertical route. So when he paused it, I looked tiny on it.

I'm always—

I'm a small guy in stature. And someone in the back said, hey, look, it's a midget. And in, in Mike Leach's form, you know, he could think on his, on his toes better than anybody. And he's like, no, no, no, no little people can do magical things besides elves. He will now be known as the magical elf. And so after that—

this is a true story—

so next Thursday, I, I show up for Thursday practice and my whole uniform's green. He had bought me an order. I had a green jersey, green tights, green shorts. Obviously at Tech we're red and black. He had taped elf ears on the outside of my helmet. And so I go in his office, I'm like, Mike, come on, man. Like, I'm not— and, and this is the best we'd ever been, 2008. We were number 2 in the nation. And I said, I'm not wearing this for practice. And he was like, that's fine, you're not going So for, so for 3 or 4 weeks, the last 3 or 4 weeks of the season, you know, we'd practice a serious practice on Thursday. Everybody's supposed to be mentally focused. And there I am running around with a green costume with elf ears taped on the outside of my helmet.

That's unreal.

I love that. And all the stories about Mike Leach, they're all fascinating to me. And, you know, some of the ways that you implement, um, kind of like build off off, uh, what you learned from him. It's always fascinating because, um, you seem to have found a good mixture of like explosive offensive football but also like being extremely physical. And I'm always curious about like you guys' philosophies when it comes to, uh, offensive football. Some people look at and say, oh, this is a finesse team, blah blah blah. But, um, also maintaining like the mentality of we're gonna punch you in the mouth and we're gonna be strong and tough and we're also gonna be fast and score a lot of Yeah, I really went back and studied when I first got my head—

first head coaching job at Incarnate Word. I went and studied just what the difference was in some of the top offenses and the people who were winning championships. And so as I did that, the biggest thing I could find, you know, it was Clemson at the time that was spread winning national championships and LSU. So as I studied those, you know, with Mike, we were rushing the ball for about 50 to 70 yards per game. Same thing when I worked for for Cliff Kingsbury at Texas Tech, and we were the number 1 offense in the nation, but it didn't translate to championships, right? And so the people that were winning championships but also had a spread, you know, fun offense, they were rushing the ball for about 150, 170. So we were about 100 yards off that mark. And I, I think, you know, I just adopted that mentality and knew that was something that was going to be important to us. Started using tight ends. I mean, I always felt like I had a PhD in throwing the football just because the people I learned under, like my mentors You know, my 3 position coaches in college were Lincoln Riley, Dana Holgerson, and Sonny Dyches.

Those were my position coaches. And so like, I knew how to throw and catch the football, right? There was this other aspect. And I just think it's made our team so much tougher. Not only has it made us better on the offensive side of the ball, but like our defenses have gotten better just because, you know, they got to face it every day.

Yeah. So, so one of the guys you coached is Patrick Mahomes. When you were coaching him, him at Texas Tech. Did you have any idea? Did you see that? Were you like, oh man, this is going to be something that's special and one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL? Or was like— I just always am interested in guys like that who, like Patrick Mahomes, wasn't a universal, like, oh, he's a 1-1 pick. Everyone thought it was a work in progress and he ends up winning 3 Super Bowls, MVPs. He's the best quarterback in the NFL. It's got to be cool to be part of that process and see that when he was, you know, before he got to the NFL.

Yeah, that's one thing I've been blessed to be around. I think through Mike Leach and Cliff Kingsbury teaching me how to evaluate quarterbacks and what the traits we're looking for, right? And, you know, from Case Keenum to Patrick Mahomes to Davis Webb to Cam Ward to Baker Mayfield, I've been around all of them. And now Drew, like the one thing that stands out, like they all have phenomenal spatial awareness and they're able to see like most of those guys played multiple sports. They're used to playing with their eyes up.

Yep.

And they process information extremely fast. Like, that's one thing nobody talks about Pat enough because he makes these crazy plays. One of the smartest football players I've ever been around as far as how fast he can process information and anticipate things. And so, yeah, it was something— we had a tape that was really cool, you know, all the no-look and crazy stuff you see right now. Like, we had, we had a practice mixtape that Coach Kingsbury put together at our time at Texas Tech that was I wish I still had it. Like, it was phenomenal, some of the things that he did in practice.

Yeah. Yeah. And there is that famous game that, that people always talk about, the Baker Mayfield versus Patrick Mahomes game. When you're coaching in that game, are you like, fuck, man, we can't— like, this has just gotten out of hand? It was 66-59 and Baker threw 7 touchdowns. Mahomes threw 5. One of the funnest games to watch where you're just like, this is just Big 12 football. This is just what we do. It's just no one's getting a stop and we just got to hope to have the ball last.

Yeah, it was crazy. There's something, you know, both offenses had the exact, the exact same yards. I can't remember. It's like 815 or something wild, but I—

854, 854.

854.

Yeah. It's like exactly the same. And so I do remember getting home that night and laying down and like, I was just physically exhausted from being up there and just watching it all happen. And being in that moment in real time and going back and forth. And football's changed. I think, you know, we're seeing a new cycle of football. People are adding tight ends, running the ball, slowing it down, less possessions. Like, I think old school Big 12 football has kind of morphed back to what it was before Mike Leach kind of revolutionized this conference. And so I'm interested just to get into these conference games here in a couple of weeks and really be able to feel this conference kind of in a different way. Yeah.

Would you consider yourself to be more of a quarterback guru or a quarterback whisperer?

Good question.

I don't know, man.

We've been around.

I've had really, really talented kids, you know, none of them that highly recruited, but just, it's so exciting for like me now. I got a 10-year-old son and have relationships with those guys. And he goes to the draft. He goes and snaps for Mahomes in the offseason. Like that's the fun part to me is is all these guys are incredible human beings, and to be around them and watch their stories and to watch them be great husbands and fathers and just be good human beings now has been fun.

Yeah, I mean, you've been around a lot of the great ones. Cam Ward, famously at Incarnate Word when you were the coach there, he, uh, zero-star recruit. What did, what did everybody miss about Cam coming out of high school, and what did you see in him?

His tape wasn't very good. We found him at a camp and we loved him. He had one of probably the best camp performances I've ever seen. And, uh, Cam was a little overweight at the time and a little bit out of shape, but phenomenal basketball player. So he was truly one— we loved him. And then we're like, okay, let's go watch the, the highlight tape. I think we're going to offer him right after this camp. And we went in there watching, he just didn't— I mean, he was under center, wing T, didn't throw the ball but a couple times a game. And so he was one of the ones that we felt like we could hide out and Nobody's going to find him just because what he was doing, the system didn't allow him to kind of shine. But maybe the most competitive human that I've ever been around. And so hopefully had a first, first game. I mean, a rough first game yesterday. Hopefully they can get those guys back on track.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, so yeah, when you're looking at these guys, because you said like, you know, Texas Tech, when they were humming, like they weren't getting the same, you know, star recruit that Texas was or Ohio State, but you guys were always finding great players.

Was—

is there a specific trait you look for in a quarterback where you're like, okay, if they have this, I can, I can, I can do the rest. I can, I can help them get to the next level as long as they have this basis, this, this like, you know, floor of skills?

Yeah, I think so. And, um, you know, I, I think the way that we prepare in the meeting room is elite and, and that's what really allows us to set these guys apart. And that's something that I learned from from, from Cliff Kingsbury. And, you know, he was sitting in a room with Tom Brady. He's sitting in the room as a backup, sitting in a room with Drew Brees. And just the preparation and the notes and the way we build out the plan and the cutups that we make throughout the room throughout the week is, is something that I think that we really do at a league level.

Yeah.

Yeah. All right. So, Coach, this has been awesome. We have one last question. It's a Roback question. rhopack.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, rowback.com. Zach, you ready?

Uh, yes sir.

Okay.

How we doing, uh, Coach? I did have a quick question. Uh, you have been defeating Ducks for decades. Do you think your history of greenhead mallard hunting had anything to do with your ability to defeat Oregon?

That was an epic picture, wasn't it? And so— and that's not AI. Like, that's, that's one of my passions. My wife's family's from Northeast Arkansas. Um, I'm an avid duck hunter when I get the time time to do it. I love to hunt in general, but my coaching football doesn't match up well with dove hunting, deer hunting, any of those seasons. But luckily, during the course of late December and all through January, I get the opportunity to go in the woods in Arkansas and get after some mallards. But, but yeah, and I'm a pretty good shot with a 12-gauge.

See, this is something I'm so mad I didn't know before the game. Like, you're actually a duck hunter. And the, and the Ducks are coming to town. Like, that's something that needs to be— that's the alert we need to get in our phones. Like, Eric Morris is going up against the Ducks. Did you know he's one of the best duck hunters in the world?

Yeah, right after the armadillo one. That needs to be the next tag.

Yeah, yeah. Have you ever, uh, taken out a cougar? I'm just looking at October 17th right now on the schedule.

I have not, but I would love to. I have some friends that have actually got one. Um, it's high on What about a buffalo?

You ever, you ever kill one of those?

No, no, no, really exotics.

Um, okay, so no wildcats?

Bobcats, plenty of bobcats.

Okay, all right, that's close to wildcat. Kansas State. What about a knight? Have you ever taken out a knight? Okay, just, you know, never enough. UCF coming up in a couple weeks, we got to just make sure.

Mike, Mike Leach would love that one. Swing your sword, he had some much pirate stuff. Yeah, he would love to talk about a sword fight right now.

Yeah, yeah. There's one other thing that Zach actually pulled up when he was— I think he was going on a deep dive on your Instagram account. Zach, you want to ask him about the other thing you showed me?

Uh, yeah, we can. Uh, quick question.

Uh, I—

you, uh, beautiful family, love to see that. Family man. I saw a photo, you, uh, brought your, your son home from the hospital. Uh, was his first gift a shotgun?

That was actually—

that's a .22.

Oh, fair.

I appreciate the clarification.

Yeah.

That was sick. That's actually the gift. My wife, she didn't love the thought of that, but that'll be a family heir forever.

I love that.

Great picture too.

Yeah, I love it.

Oh man.

Well, Coach, thank you so much. Best of luck next week. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it was fun to watch. And this is what we love about college football. When you tune on, tune in on Saturday, you don't know what to expect. No one thought that Oklahoma State was going to beat Oregon and you guys did.

Appreciate y'all. Love y'all's content.

Thank you so much, Coach.

Coach Morris is brought to you by our great friends over at YouTube. The NFL season's finally here. If you're like me, your Sunday revolves entirely around making sure you don't miss a single snap of the action. So don't limit yourself to one game on Sunday. You should be in total command. You should see every big play, every touchdown across the entire league right there on your big screen. But thank God for NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV. It literally gets you every game every Sunday, plus features like multi-view so you can watch up to 4 games at once. You can just lock in, you can watch the games unfold without missing a thing. And get this, for new users, it's just 8 payments of $30 a month. Stop stressing out, go sign up right now, youtube.com/NFLST. New users pay $240 or 8 non-cancelable payments of $30 a month. month, first charge at purchase. Availability varies with NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games and YouTube TV for local and national games. YouTube TV required. Terms and embargoes apply. Device and content restrictions apply to MultiView. Commercial use excluded. No refunds. And Eric Morse is also brought to you by our great friends over at Morgan and Morgan, America's number one top injury law firm.

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Okay, let's wrap up. We got Pardon Your Take from the listeners.

Henry.

Uh, Pardon Your Take: Justin Herbert will be bad all year so he doesn't have to worry about January football and will have more time to canoodle with Mrs. Beer. That sounds like I wrote that because that was my thinking going into him picking him as LVP this year.

Has there ever been a quarterback who's like dated or married like a really, really attractive woman, like globally attractive? And if so, how did that impact their career?

I don't know. We'd have to look it up.

I'm thinking of one specifically. He had a pretty good career.

Drew Brees?

It was Tom Brady. Wow.

Close. Peyton Manning, steroids?

Go ahead.

Yeah, finish that thought.

Well, his marriage impacted his career for sure. Yeah, Brady. I mean, that worked out well for him.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So like, I understand the thought. It's not a terrible— like, if he might not be as focused right now as he has in the past.

Yeah, he's got to win. He's got to win someday.

The difference is Tom Brady, I think he just like—

He was also a winner before.

Well, yeah. And he was also like a complete psychopath that he like actually love football more than hot women. I think Justin, I think Justin Herbert might be like a lot of us and be like, well, I pretty much won. Like, what's it— is the Super Bowl really better than this?

Hey guys, with Mahomes' performance on Monday Night Football, do we think the AFC West or NFC West will be the most competitive division? Love you guys, especially the booth boys.

AFC West or NFC West? If you're going off of just week 1, Not AFC West. You'd say the NFC West for sure because the Cardinals look like they're not a rollover.

I was gonna say dream team in Arizona.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Should the, should the Rams tank?

No, they have no picks.

It's a good point. Yeah, that's a really good point.

Yeah, the Rams. I mean, listen, super team. They'll win. Who are they playing this weekend?

Giants. Oh, New York Giants.

That will be interesting.

In LA, I assume.

In LA, I think Sunday Night Football. No, Monday Night Football.

Monday Night Football. The Niners got a nice comeback to the world.

Yeah.

Game against the Dolphins.

Yeah.

But how crazy would that be if, if the Giants just won?

Yeah. I mean, the Rams are officially in that list I was saying earlier. The Rams have to— it feels like the Rams have to win this one, don't they? Yeah, they're 7-point favorites.

Okay. Pardon your take, refs should all have to wear a mask and not be identified by name. TV refs are getting out of control and this could mitigate the problem. Would be a big problem for the Cowboys, Chiefs, Lakers, Michigan, and Yankees though.

Okay. So you're suggesting like, like Squid Game?

Or just robot. I think this guy just wants robot refs with guns.

I agree.

Yeah, why not? How are refs getting out of control?

I think he said they need to wear a mask. I think they're just getting too full of themselves is what he's implying.

Got it.

But if you think that there's a problem with corruption in officiating, if you can see the refs and they're like wanting too much face time, if they didn't show their face at all, that would be way, way worse for—

yeah, they would be anonymous.

Yeah.

I have a theory.

Yeah.

Yeah, every NFL season we try to make it a new year starting week 1.

Wait, wait, is this your theory?

No.

That was such a good job reading and acting.

Thank you. Yeah, but every year there's a carryover of the previous season for most of the teams. Patriots lose horrifically, Chargers stink, Jets no picks, Steelers ugly win, Stroud terrible late in game, Packers blow a lead, etc. The actual changeover of the new NFL season is week 3 to 4 once everyone is settled in.

So you're just kind of—

I kind of agree with that.

Using the first 3 weeks like the preseason.

Okay.

Yeah.

The storylines, like it's there. We are still talking about storylines and stuff.

Yeah. Like that.

Yeah. Like we're saying the Rams week 4 is when it's like, all right, we know we've seen these teams enough. The offseason's over. It's October. Like this is the beginning of the year.

Right. Everything in your body says the Rams are going to beat the Giants on Monday Night Football.

But it's like, why?

Maybe the Giants are really good this year and the Rams are just not good this year. Yeah, I agree with that.

It is kind of like episode 1 of a new season of a TV show. It's mostly about what happened at the very end of the last episode of the last season. And then maybe like one character dies and you're like, whoa.

So, so we should say football's back after week 3?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. Remind me, Zach. Week 3.

Gotcha.

All right.

All right.

Gotcha.

It is true that like October is when you really feel like the first 4— Lovie Smith used to do the whole quarters thing, which isn't like— you can't do it anymore because there's 17 games. But yeah, if you said the first 4 games, the first quarter, it's like you don't really know what this season is going to be until you get through the first quarter. And then quarter 2 starts, you're like, all right, here we go.

Okay.

All right, last one. If the Browns and Falcons traded QB rooms, who would win more games?

Browns.

Browns.

Falcons.

Browns.

I mean, whoa, because of Cooper Rush?

Yeah.

I was gonna say Stefanski would be very upset with that. He'd be like, goddamn it.

Do you think the Browns had a meeting about whether or not to wish Deshaun Watson a happy birthday on their social media? Or was it just like, we're just not even going to discuss this?

I—

my theory is that it might be in his contract. Don't know that, that you have to. Oh, they forgot this year?

Yeah.

Last year, yesterday was his birthday, right? They did not.

Because they did the year before.

Yeah.

I think they had a meeting.

I think it was in his contract, and which is why they did it last year. And then they're like, I think we can all agree that maybe we don't do it again.

Yeah. I think they probably had to sit down and be like, all right, so birthday's coming up. Deshaun's on Monday. Do we want to be ratioed to hell?

No.

Okay.

We got enough to deal with over here.

Yeah.

Yeah, because that would have been an all-time bad, you know, he would have been trending.

Yeah.

Just let his birthday go. Okay, good job, Hank.

Thanks.

Good show, boys. Football's back.

Week 3.

Not yet. It's not back yet.

Numbers 3, 4.

I'm gonna do 8, 17.

I'm gonna do 88.

He's a winner now, but he still can't win this. It's like the one thing that we remember from old memes. He's gonna win it right now.

I'm gonna win it right now.

Old memes is still here.

I picked 4 because it was the only number that wasn't picked in that thing. Oh yeah, I'm really in the show. Remember, I remember the, you know, the thing, the scores, score differences. You guys like, what about 4?

Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!

Uh, 34 for Jacob, 69 for Colton, 15 for Shane. Shane, put those headphones on.

Shane wasn't here for the Chargers talk.

Yeah, bolt up, Shane. Are you bolted?

Yeah, I'm bolted.

A lot of season left. 26.

26.

Anyone?

I think that one just hit.

Did Yeah.

Shane, uh, any word, uh, anything you want to say about the false starts? Too many false starts. Too many false starts.

Gotta fix that.

Yeah.

Hey, did you hear what I said? Justin Herbert, leading passer in the AFC West right now.

I know.

Oh, there's a 4 in there. 74. Oh, 74. Anyway, Shane, it's that you realize like Sunday is the most must-win that anyone has ever had.

Oh yeah.

This last Sunday was must-win, but this is really, really must-win.

Have you thought about season ending, changing up the weird way that you text?

No.

You got to get locked in. I mean, you're not locked in.

Have you guys tried it?

Yeah, it's weird.

Yeah, you end up saying false star a bunch.

Yeah, but like, you can do it one-handed though.

You— I can text one-handed. That's how I always text. Yeah, but it's easier. Disagree.

I disagree with your disagreement.

Okay.

Okay.

That's fair.

Yeah.

Happy birthday to All Business Pete. Happy birthday to Sam Howell. Happy birthday to David Copperfield, Bryson DeChambeau, So happy birthday to Alex Ovechkin. Happy birthday to Patrick Mahomes, or excuse me, Pat Mahomes. Happy birthday to Dick McNutt. Happy birthday to Mark Brunell, George Blanda, and James Wood. Happy birthday to Dan Herren for another program.

Oh, when is his birthday?

That would be Thursday.

Okay.

The 17th.

Remind me.

So it'll be tomorrow if you're listening to this, everybody tomorrow, tweet Dan Herren a happy birthday. Love you guys.