Transcript of Eli Manning, Ryen Russillo Talking CFB, Falcons Dominant MNF Win, Playoff Baseball And Listener 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.

Trust no one and accuse everyone in Who's the Bad Guy, the official Barstool Sports social deduction game from the brilliant mind of Nick Toraini. In what's quickly becoming the most popular new party game around, players are secretly assigned unique roles with the good guys trying to expose the bad guys and the bad guys doing everything they can to stay Stay hidden. Each game unfolds under alternating day and night phases with roles like the cool chick, the shy guy, the gambler, El Presidente, the mentalist, the planner, the funny guy, and more. Every round is unpredictable, chaotic, and ridiculously fun. Who's the Bad Guy is great for parties, pre-games, family gatherings, or groups who just love deception-based games. Game night will never be the same. Shop now on walmart.com.

On today's part of My Take presented by DraftKings, we've got a massive show for everyone. We've got Eli Manning in studio talking ball with Eli, catching up with him. Ryan Russillo, our good friend Ryan Russillo, in studio talking college football, playoff baseball, Monday Night Football. Lane Johnson retires. Hot seat, cool throne. We're in the thick of it, boys. We're in the, we're in the sports thick of it. And we also have listener-submitted takes at the end of the show. And it's all brought to you by our friends at Chevy. Football season is here. Whether you're 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 is 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. If you're looking for a new truck, if you're looking for a new vehicle, it's a Chevy Silverado. It's the choice to go with. So check out the current offers on the 2026 Silverado at chevy.com and tell them PFT and Big Cat sent you, and maybe they'll give you a free tank of gas.

I don't know if that's actually possible, but go right now, 2026silverado@chevy.com. Okay, let's go. Hey, Welcome to Part of My Take presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, October 7th, and boys, Playoff baseball. We are balls deep in playoff baseball. It has been a hell of a— oh, Hank, you're faster than me. Was that a strikeout? You're faster than me. You're way faster than me. We're watching the end, the last 2 outs of the Padres-Brewers game.

It's not a strikeout.

That was a walk. It was a walk, Hank. Why did you do strikeout?

Because I wanted it.

No faces. No faces, Hank. Promise.

Because you wanted it. It was close. Oh, this might not be the last inning. And we're gonna get to this game after it finishes. It's been a hell of a series. Like one of just peak, peak playoff baseball between the Padres and Brewers. Unbelievable games. And as we're sitting here in the top of the 9th with 2 on, 1 out, Mason Miller having a baby today was probably bad timing.

Yeah, this is why like you gotta have better awareness than that. If you're, if you're a high-leverage closer and you have aspirations to play in October, No sex, or at least pull out in January.

Yeah, it's not that hard.

Not that hard, guys. It's, it's, it's simple math. Use your calendar. Every manager that's worth his salt should have a presentation sent out. It could be an email sent out to the guys. Hey, feel free, you can raw dog now, you know, once February 15th comes around. But, um, yeah, this was, uh, it was, it was kind of always a possibility that it could happen.

Yep.

And I I understand it's his first kid, so makes a lot of sense in that circumstance. But man, they'd probably like to have him right now.

Yeah, listen, you don't want to miss the birth of your child. He also, there is the possibility, like, that, you know, isn't being talked about. There's a chance. Oh, and the Padres win. There we go. Oh, I'm right ahead of you. Sorry.

Yeah.

Shoot, shoot. My bad. Double play. That's my bad. I thought you were ahead of me. After that accusation, I thought you were ahead of me. You did strikeout before me. Either way, the Padres win.

That's good.

Win's a win.

That's good. Win's a win. Uh, Mason Miller, I actually don't know if he would have pitched tonight anyway. He pitched 40 pitches 2 days ago, and that was a lot of pitches. He pitched multiple innings. So maybe that was the thought process that he's like, hey, I don't have it in my arm tonight. So I also, my baby's being born. And, and if you put me on paternity leave, you can call up another player. You can put another pitcher on the roster. 'Cause I think the Padres were the only team to have 11 pitchers out of all the postseason teams. So that was probably—

It literally means, it means dad in Spanish.

But what a series. I mean, this has been like punch, counterpunch. The Brewers, like I've watched a lot of Brewer baseball this year because the Cubs obviously play them a ton. They're so relentless and they just always put pressure on you. And it's like, even like that, that short fly ball where where he tagged up and went home and like the bunts and it's just there. You're never like the Brewers are never out of it and they just constantly are putting pressure on you. Credit to the Padres though for winning this game and forcing a game 4.

Yeah, there was, there was a great moment earlier in the game. Did you see when Merrill made that catch in center field as the manager was being interviewed?

Yeah.

And he was like, goddamn it. Like that's by far the best manager interview that I've ever seen. Getting that reaction live was It was pretty cool. But yeah, the Brewers, they, they are just clutch as shit. They, they know how to get things done. Like, Churio is a guy that you can never feel comfortable with if he's up at the plate. And honestly, Yelich having a great series. Hank, I apologize.

Hank, we, we bet the Padres tonight. You're, you're potted up. We won the bet so we can now laugh at the fact that we talked about Christian Yelich not having an RBI since 2018, and then he had a very clutch one tonight. Yeah.

And I'm, if anyone was going to get an RBI on the Brewers, I'm happy it was Christian Yelich. I'm happy that, you know, once again, I can help the team. I root for, I like, unlike you guys, I root for the friends of this show.

Yeah.

Always.

That's fair.

And if that's wrong, I don't want to be right.

You're right. Hand up. You're right. Okay. So that series is going 4. Tomorrow we have all 4 games, which is going to be awesome. Do you want to talk Braves-Dodgers? Braves-Dodgers. Uh, I have a question for you, Max, as a, as a seam head. You ready for it? Is it about Freddie Freeman? No, I was gonna say, was it— and this has made me think, like, I don't know how managers— you, you probably just have to win the game ahead of you. Was it a mistake to throw Chris Sale today?

I don't know what they're doing with Chris Sale. Like, I get you have to— every manager kind of takes it like you gotta win. You gotta win this game. You gotta win this game right now. You gotta— but to get to the next round, you're going to need Chris Sale at full strength. And they're just kind of using Chris Sale all the time now.

Right. And so the thought process— yeah, the thought process is, so Chris Sale threw, uh, game 1 against the Phillies on Tuesday. Then he threw, I think, 20 pitches, 21 pitches on Thursday, which, yes, that's a bullpen day, but still there, it has to be it has to be more taxing to be in live action.

Yes.

In a playoff game. So technically, if you want to go off that, he's short rest. He didn't throw obviously a full start on Thursday, but he's short rest today. He's also going up against Yamamoto, who is like the best pitcher in the world on the road. So you need Chris Sale to be like perfect to have a chance to beat Yamamoto. Would it not have been smarter to be like, hey, we're probably not gonna win this game. We're gonna try to win this game obviously, but we're gonna then save Chris Sale for a must-win on Wednesday if we don't win Tuesday. Now they burned Chris Sale and oh yeah, the Dodgers have Glasnow going. I don't know.

I mean, the Dodgers have everyone. The Dodgers, like, there's, they have everyone. There's no matchup that is like a beneficial matchup to anyone. I guess Chris Sale against Snell, I would like Sale, I would like Sale in that situation. But like the, it's, it's hard when you're going up against a roster that has all aces everywhere up and down the board.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I mean, it's not like Chris Sale had a bad outing today. Chris Sale, he pitched pretty well. He gave up 2 home runs, but overall he was, he was pretty good.

Yeah, he was pretty good. It's just like, you know, you're going up, up against Yamamoto and you're gonna have to like, giving up, you know, 3 runs is probably not gonna cut it. And he only went 5 innings. Like he was, it was a hard 5 innings that he had to go. Like it wasn't like he was, you know, dialed perfect. You know, he, he wasn't peak Chris Sale today, and Yamamoto is just such a fucking beast that it's, I don't know, it's probably overthinking it. You probably have to throw him when you can. I just know that between the Thursday to Tuesday, it's like, wouldn't you want him to have the full rest and get the best Chris Sale? That's, I don't know. And also the Dodgers, like you said, Max, like they have everyone and then they also have like Quique Hernandez. He is the best postseason player ever. He has 17 home runs in the postseason. I think he's tied like all these legends. He, it's crazy. Every postseason, I was looking it up. His batting average is like 50 points higher in the postseason. He just, no matter what, he just gets a big home run.

He just gets a big hit. So the Dodgers are already a super team. And then they have Kike Hernandez, who's like the best player ever in the playoffs.

Yeah.

I think to, to your point about the, the rotation thing, I feel like the Braves psychologically, they just, they really, really wanted to take a lead in this series and then they can figure it out from there. I think they just really wanted to be up and that's why they kind of threw out there. But yeah, you're right. Kike Hernandez, he's always hitting some. Freddie Freeman, always doing something. They just, it's impossible.

They're impossible to beat. They have the perfect combination. Yeah.

Outstanding starting pitching. And, uh, and a shutdown closer. And then maybe you have a chance in, in terms of like fluking your way into, uh, 3 wins against them.

And the Dodgers have all the best players and then they all have all the clutch players.

Yeah.

It's great. And Yamamoto, like Yamamoto is such a fucking beast. He had 10 strikeouts on the road. I mean, I, it's, we were talking about it. I can't remember where we were talking about it because we were, I was wondering out loud, like, oh, Yamamoto's not pitching game 2. I think it was Meek Phil was like, yeah, he's got like a 3 ERA in Dodger Stadium and like a 1 ERA on the road. That is anyone else's ace pitcher. And they're like, yeah, we're going to actually just wait and start him on the road because we know he'll just be awesome. It's crazy.

Yeah, they, it was, they had to play a perfect game and they didn't. The Braves also, I'm sure Braves fans, they might agree with me on this one. You should always wear the white jerseys at home.

Yeah.

The Braves white, white home jerseys are probably, I think they're my favorite uniform in baseball. They're perfect. It doesn't get any better than that. It's so clean, classic. Don't bring the red stuff out here. Also, they're probably pretty pissed off at Ronald Acuña.

Mm-hmm.

Because he hasn't really done anything in the postseason. Since 2020.

Yeah.

Supposed to be like, wait, their most feared bat, supposed to be a superstar. His last RBI came in 2020 in the postseason.

Now we gotta bet him to hit an RBI tomorrow.

Yeah, it's true. But I mean, it's true. So 2022, 4 games, no RBIs. 2023, 4 games, no RBIs. 2026, 6 games so far, no RBIs.

He's got to get it. He's got to get an RBI. That's also about the guys in front of you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good point.

Good point for the Cats.

Yeah.

They're smarter.

Yeah.

All right. Let's talk about the funnest team in playoff baseball. It's Chicago White Sox. It's crazy. They go up 2-0 on Monday. I mean, Sean Burke was lights out. That was, that had to be so demoralizing for Cleveland Guardians fans because Gavin Williams was pitching like an absolute gem. He had 11 strikeouts. I think that's the most strikeouts of any pitcher in the postseason thus far. And Sean Burke, like, it wasn't— you can't even call it like in relief because he pitched basically an entire game and he was so fucking good. And the White Sox just keep getting the big moment, the big hit there. I saw a quote, I think it was from Mike Vassell, who's a good guy. He came in the office a couple of weeks ago. He's like, yeah, we're just a team of like best friends. He's like, you make friends along the way. We just all ended up on the same team. And that's how they play. They play like just unafraid baseball. And the Guardians, I like— Great Field is going to be on fire on Wednesday. I, I, I know I'm not trying to do any jinxes.

I do think that this series is over because I think the White Sox are just playing at such a hot level and they just have the momentum and that counts for something in October.

And the Guardians are the polar opposite of that. It feels like they've been a big bummer.

They're— so the Guardians stat since the Guardians, when they were the Indians, were up 3-1 on the Cubs in the 2016 World Series, they're 11-24 in their last 35 playoff games, 11-24. They make it basically every single year. And they're just, that's essentially the ceiling for this team.

Yeah, they've got, I mean, you look, you look at a lineup like the Dodgers and then you look at the Guardians lineup and you're like, wait, wait a second. Outside of De Lauder, no one. Like, yeah.

No one scares you. Not a single person scares you.

And the only time that they've had success, they got shut down by White Sox Dave.

Yeah.

White Sox Dave noticed them too. Is that, is that true that White Sox Dave Noticed that the, the Guardians were, were picking up on tipped pitches.

Yeah.

And White Sox Dave made a call to people on the White Sox, was like, hey, heads up, they've got you, shut this down.

So, so he told the story on The Stretch, which is a Chicago podcast I do with Eddie Chief and White Sox Dave. On Saturday, he was noticing that they were tipping pitches and he has a bunch of guys' numbers and he texted them all and was like, hey, you got to make sure you check this out. And they were like, I think they were like, yeah, we just saw it. But like, still, he got in contact with guys who weren't playing and they read the text immediately. And so yeah, White Sox Dave, he's basically, he deserves a ring if the White Sox win the World Series.

Yeah.

Or at least like free admission to heaven from the Pope. Yeah. Get a blessing. Yeah. Get a blessing from the Pope. No, that's honestly like great job by White Sox Dave to do that. And I saw his response to it. He's like acting humble.

I got it.

Yeah.

He was like, yeah, you know, they were probably working on it too, but I'm just doing my part as a fan. And if that were me, I can assure you I would not be as humble as White Sox Dave is being. Yeah.

There's no way the Pope's throwing out the first pitch, right?

No, because like, what if he bounces it?

Well, so there's alleged to be like a big-time first pitch thrower at right field. Cusack would drive White Sox Dave crazy. I think it's probably gonna be like Paul Canerico. I don't know. But it's—

no, it can't be the Pope. Like, if honestly, if he like, if he bounces it, that pretty much ruins the entire thesis behind Catholicism.

He also, the Pope, and it's like no offense to where we are at in the playoffs. The Pope's not an ALDS guy. He's a World Series guy. He's gotta be a World Series guy. You can't like, I know that it's like, oh, well, they might not get there. You might not. You just gotta wait. You just gotta wait. The Pope has to wait for the World Series. Then he can throw out the first pitch.

Yeah, it's insulting to bring him out against the Guardians for game 3.

Right.

I think you can use him in the World Series.

Honestly, the Pope could probably use— yeah, the White Sox like 3 innings against the Guardians tomorrow. It would be no problem.

Yeah. Or I was going to say opening day too. You could use the Pope opening day. Popening day.

Yeah, that could work. And then the last one, Hank, how much are you enjoying the Yankees demise? Because, oh my God. It's a comical demise. They are through 2 games at the Trop. They're hitting .086 as a batting average. And on Tuesday night, so they got 1 hit in game 1, and then in game 2, they had more errors than hits. And if it weren't for Ben Rice, it would be just the most pathetic, like, offensive showing of all time.

Yeah, that, that second inning was like a legitimate, like, comedy of errors. Like, just, I was, I was sitting on my couch laughing. Cam Schindler, I don't know what, why, why he's so dominant against the Red Sox. I was coming out and just expecting him to go like 7 or 8 innings scoreless, 1 or 2 hits.

And well, he was dominant all year.

Yeah, he's a Cy Young. I know, Cy Young.

But you were like, I don't know why he's so dominant against the Red Sox.

He, but he wasn't good.

He was dominant. He was correct.

He wasn't good on game 2. Obviously there's errors, but he, he had 2 strikeouts. Like, that's not Cam Schindler.

This happened, this happened last year in the playoffs too.

But he's, but last year he was a rookie. Like you can't just be like, Cam Schlitter's not the guy.

I'm just saying he dominates the Red Sox and then the next series he just kind of, kind of, he's just not, it's not the same guy.

You're a Red Sox merchant.

I don't think Cam Schlitter was that bad. And I think that's crazy to say.

Like, he wasn't Cam Schlitter.

He got pulled in the 5th inning. Like he would, like I was expecting.

His defense was horrendous.

But then he threw his— he threw his team under the bus. That was also— that was—

that is bullshit.

That is bullshit. That's you being salty. That's you being salty that he's a Mass guy and he's— and he's a Yankees fan.

No shit.

Like, but like, you can't just be like, Cam Schindler's bad.

Yeah, he can. He can say whatever he wants.

I don't understand why he's good— only good against the Red Sox.

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's not why I said—

I just—

he was so— I think you should say about shit the bed.

Yeah.

You should be like, fucking Schlittler kid.

He slit the bed. He, he, he wasn't dominant, Max. They needed him to be dominant. He wasn't dominant.

I don't know. Yeah, he wasn't dominant. You gotta expect your, your defense to pick you up a little bit.

I agree with that. I mean, also, they can't hit. Yeah, they can't hit. They, they can't do anything. The Yankees are, the Yankees are built. I feel like they have the greatest dynasty of being the 2nd best team in the AL. Every year they're in the playoffs and every year they're like good to win a series and then just fall apart. And, and the Yankees fans in our office, Wyatt, who's a psycho Yankees fan, he— I, I think I'm gonna bet the Yankees game 3 'cause he said that what, what's gonna happen is the Yankees are gonna win game 3 like 10 to nothing.

Mm-hmm.

And you're— they're gonna get everyone's hopes up again and then the Rays are gonna shove it down their throat in game 4.

Yeah, they don't really get swept.

Right.

Like they're, they're always, they always have one game where the lineup puts it together and you're like, okay, well the Yankees might be back. And if the bats wake up, then nobody can beat them. But then they find a way. What inning was that against the Dodgers? The best inning of all time.

Oh, I think it was like the 4th or 5th inning. That was so funny.

4th or 5th inning. They were going to win that game. I think they were up like 5 runs and then just, they forgot how to play. How much blame is being put on the Tampa Bay field? Is anybody out there blaming the, the rings?

Are you talking about the rings?

Yeah, the rings, uh, the, um, the, the roof as well.

Yeah, yeah, no, the rings on the roof. That's the, the rings on the roof where you hit it.

Yeah, yeah, the catwalk. And then, um, also just the turf there. I've heard, I've heard some discussion about the turf not being fair, not being true bounces.

Yeah, it's, uh, it's not—

They use, they use like sand.

Yeah, it's not a good place.

They use like, they use like coconuts in the grass.

And it's, it's crazy too watching.

I'm not, I'm not kidding.

Yeah.

No, I know.

No, I know you're not.

But it's, it's nuts watching like the Padres crowd, what the White Sox crowd is going to be, and then watching a game in basically a warehouse. They're like, yeah, like, okay, baby, we're in someone's, we're in someone's very big garage. And oh shit, we have to have rules that if you hit the ceiling, there's, there's different rules for where you hit on the ceiling.

Yeah, if it hits the railing, then ground rule double. By the way, I went back, I watched that, that Ty France fly ball again. I think it was a home run.

You think so? You think the Padres should maybe be up 2-1?

I do. I think that that was probably— well, no, they shouldn't because that's not the rule. But I think it was going out. I think that roof wasn't there.

Zach, what do you have to say for yourself for Tampa Stadium? You're so crisp right now. It's fucking insane. I know we've said this before, but you look like you're in a VR porno right now.

Just don't— you just can't skip to the middle. You got to let it play through.

Yeah.

Look, both teams are playing on the same field. You know what I mean? So I don't think there could be too much cope there.

Yeah, that's true. And then we're gonna go to Yankee Stadium where the, you know, the right field is, is like 250 feet.

So a little league field on the right side.

What? Yeah, yeah.

All places have their, their downfalls for sure.

Yeah.

PFT's got a question. Yeah, sir.

PFT from Part of My Take Sports Podcast. Uh, quick change of pace with this line of questioning, but were you able to see, um, 2 of the best soccer players in the world And how they spent their respective days.

How did they spend their respective days?

So it was Messi's last game that he's ever going to play for Argentina. He scored 1 goal and he had 2 assists. And then Ronaldo didn't get into the game, and then he threatened to leave the national team because his coach did not issue an apology publicly for not playing him. Would you care to comment on who you think had the better day?

I'd say the latter part of that is pretty understandable. You gotta know what you got as a coach. You have to know who needs to be on the pitch. So for Ronaldo's sake, yeah, you gotta know what you got in Ronaldo. You gotta put him in the game. Messi side, good run, great run. Some guys have a little bit better longevity when it comes to international play. So sad to see Messi go, but good news is a couple of the greats still gonna be in there, Nate.

There was allegedly an 8-point letter that the coach was supposed to read. Absolving Ronaldo of being a baby for crying about not getting into the game. And he elected to not read the agreed-upon 8-point letter. And now Ronaldo's left the team, still thinking about coming back if he gets that public apology.

I think it's only fair.

Oh man.

All right. Last story before we kick it to ourselves. We got a lot of show coming up back in studio. Lane Johnson retires. Max, instant Hall of Famer. We've had him on the show a couple times. He's a great, great dude. One of those guys that like you hear all the stories. Like I actually think the outpouring of love for him just shows how great of not only a player but guy he is. Because in most circumstances, if a player retires midseason, there'd be like fan anger and there was none of that. There was just like outpouring of love for Lane Johnson and what he's done for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Uh, yeah, Lane Johnson's an all-time great. He's been in the organization for, I think, 14 years now. He's won 2 Super Bowls. Uh, he went to a 3rd. Uh, he's been the leader of this team for a really long time. Um, it's sad. It's sad to see him go. Um, I hope he's doing all right. I— he did talk about mental health a decent amount in his, uh, good— his retirement post. The Eagles will miss him, but he, you know, he doesn't deserve any, like, he doesn't have to give any explanation to anyone. Like, when he, since he felt it was time to go, like, he has every right to do whatever he wants. Like, he's given everything to the Eagles organization and that's it. Like, he's the best.

We'll miss him.

Yeah, he's, he's one of the best.

Like, of all time. Yeah.

Right.

That's not an exaggeration. Like, yeah.

Redefine the position he plays.

Athletic freak. Also just like played with a mean streak. Big, strong, tough, fast, smart. And if you look at the stats of the percentage of, you know, the winning percentage for the Eagles when he's on the field versus when he wasn't on the field, it's actually shocking to see that for one offensive lineman. What a big impact that he made. But yeah, Max, you're right. I hope he's doing okay because Like he's, he's gone through it before and obviously he's going through something right now. So just like as a, as a human, I hope that he's good and I hope he's making the right choice for himself.

And, and that's part of the Lane Johnson story too, because he's been very open about mental health, which is a hard thing to do as like the big strong right tackle who just mauls people in an NFL locker room. And you've heard quotes from the Eagles in the past being like, yeah, Lane Johnson made it okay for us to like Check in on each other and talk about things and what we're going through. So I think that's really important. And he's just, yeah, I mean, first ballot Hall of Famer, one of the best to ever do it. The stat you were referring to, PFT, he was, since 2013 when he got drafted, the Eagles are 122-63 when Lane Johnson started and 18-30 when he did not. And I also saw the stat in his 30s. So he turned 30 in 2020. Lane Johnson gave up 4 sacks total, 4 sacks total. That's including 5 years since he turned 30 where he gave up 0 sacks. 2,485 pass blocking snaps, 4 sacks. It essentially was a cheat code for the Eagles for the last decade plus, whereas like, we don't, we can just put him on an island and we don't have to worry about that entire side of the field.

And that's how like special of a player he was.

Here, here's another crazy stat. With Lane Johnson on the field, the Eagles have had a QBR of 62.5. That's 3rd best in the NFL. Without Lane Johnson on the field, it's 46.8, which is 29th.

It's crazy. It's crazy. And we'll talk more about what it means for the Eagles overall when we do our picks and preview on Friday. But it just like, you know, it's not, He deserves to be celebrated, not be like, what does this mean for the Eagles going forward? So we'll do that Friday. But yeah, Lane Johnson, Hall of Famer, awesome guy. Before we get to ourselves, kick it to ourselves, do you guys want to do— let me do a quick DK read. Do you want to guess what the current odds are for the World Series? Because I was looking at it today. I got to say, I was pretty upset at myself. The Dodgers were +260 going into today. What do you think they are now?

Plus 180.

They're plus 150. They went all the way down to plus 150. That was a stupid— looking at it, dumb, dumb, dumb, Dan. Like—

I parlayed them about a month ago with the Rams.

White Sox down to +800. So they're, they're the 4th.

I mean, one of the pods.

Pods are 22 to 1, 22 to 1. And it's all on, okay, uh, DraftKings. You can go to DraftKings now. It is football season, it is baseball season, everything's going on and it's all happening at DraftKings. The 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. Follow the teams you love, keep up with the biggest games, and experience the excitement of football all week long. No matter which game you're watching, you're always connected with one app. One app, every sport, all 50 states. New DraftKings customers sign up with code TAKE, spend just $5, and get $150 in rewards within 14 days. Includes all markets. That's code TAKE in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours.

Gambling problem?

Call 1-800-GAMBLER. 1-800-MY-RESET. Connecticut, call 888-789-7777. Visit ccpg.org.

On behalf of Boot Hill Casino in Kansas, bed tax passed May apply in Illinois, 21 and over. Void in Canada.

Bet with DraftKings Sportsbook to get bonus bets that expire in 7 days, or trade with DraftKings Predictions to get Predictions Dollars that expire in 1 year.

Event contract trading involves risk of loss. Predictions offer void in New York. Non-withdrawable rewards issued as $50 click-to-claims every 7 days for 14 days. Terms at dkng.co/offer. Limited-time offer. Nationwide based on Sportsbook predictions and free-to-play sports contest availability.

Varies by state. Okay, back to ourselves in studio. Okay, before we get to Monday Night Football, you know that feeling when everybody walks into your house on game day and immediately heads for the food table? That's what King's Hawaiian is all about. Their sweet, soft slider buns elevate every game day recipe, from cheeseburger sliders to buffalo chicken sliders. You can make just about anything on King's Hawaiian because football is about more than what's happening on the field. It's about great food, great company, and making game days worth looking forward to. King's Hawaiian. The best slider in football, boys. I think we got to have Chef Donnie maybe make us some buffalo chicken sliders this weekend with King's Hawaiian.

But he cheats at golf a little.

He does. A little spice, a little sweet. That's what King's Hawaiian delivers. They have the absolute best stuff out there. And look, we got the soft pretzels, big hit in my house. We also have the soft swirl cinnamon bites. King's Hawaiian does it the absolute best. There's no one like them. So go grab King's Hawaiian today. King's Hawaiian is available in the deli or bakery section of major grocery stores nationwide. It's super easy to find them. Just look for that orange packaging and you know you're in good hands. You got the best slider in the business. It's King's Hawaiian. Okay. Monday Night Football. The Atlanta Falcons.

Hoo boy.

The Atlanta Falcons.

Dirty Birds.

45-24. That was an offensive explosion. Back-to-back primetime games where the Atlanta Falcons have had offensive explosions. I saw the stat in weeks 1 through 2—

1 and 2—

the Falcons offense was 32nd in points per game, 31st in yards per play, 32nd in red zone drives, 27th in plays of 20-plus yards. Since Michael Penix has come back, in those categories, they're 1st, 1st, 2nd, and 2nd.

Yeah, a big difference between Cooper Rush. Big difference.

Hank, would you like to say that maybe you were wrong on your Cooper Rush take? Now that you see the Falcons offense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think it's probably fair.

I'm glad that Michael Penix looks healthy because the offense is fun. They've got so much talent on, on that offense. Uh, Bijan, Bijan is amazing. Both B. Robinson. So justice for everybody that accidentally drafted Brian Robinson or bet him.

Yeah.

Being like, oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Uh, Bijan is +600 to score a touchdown.

Yeah.

So justice for both those guys. That was a, that was a great performance. In what we all thought would be a pretty emotional night in the Dome. Yeah, the Dome coming. There was sweet Dome.

There was emotion to start the game, but the Falcons basically sucked that out of the Dome. Yeah, they were up so fast and it was such a kind of ass-kicking. Yeah, there was the only chance the Saints had was at the end of the first half when they had a possible chance of doubling up when it was, I think, 24-7 and you're like, okay. They could, if they score touchdown, touchdown, it's 24-21.

Nope.

Not even close.

So yeah, yeah. Bijan was absolutely incredible. Everything was working for them on offense. And I saw this stat that Michael Penix and Drake London have the most yards per game for any quarterback-wide receiver teammate duo since 2024.

Yeah. I mean, Drake London's a true number one when Mike Penix is out there.

120 or 102.6 yards per game between the two of them. Yeah. So like legitimate threat, uh, in the passing game. I mean, the Falcons have always been— they've, they've had a lot of talent. Stefanski's a great coach. They just need a guy to be a slightly above average quarterback in Penix, and that's what they got last night. And if that continues, then they're going to be, they're going to be right up there for the division at the end of the season.

Yeah, no, I mean, it's— and not only that, but the NFC South with the Panthers and Falcons, whether— like, if you're a believer of the NFC South in its totality sucks, I'm not gonna like push back. But the Panthers and Falcons are fun teams and they, they have chances to be good teams. Like, and I was, I was thinking about it with the way that the NFC is looking right now, because the AFC is stacked. The AFC is absolutely stacked trying to find your 7 playoff teams. Like, you could make a case for a lot of teams, like even the Texans, you're like, they might be heard from. The NFC feels a lot more wide open. Where the fall-off of like the Eagles, we'll see what happens to the Packers. They haven't looked great. You got the 3 teams in the West, but there could be, you know, like there could be 2 teams from the South. There could be 2 teams from the East. There's that. It just feels a lot more wide open after you account for the 3 awesome teams in the West.

Because even, even the Lions, I thought that they were going to be a Super Bowl team this year. Their defense does not look anywhere close to being ready for that.

Doo-doo pee-pee.

They should be taken— I'm going to remove them from my personal Super Bowl conversation. Yeah, no, they got a doo-doo pee-pee defense. They can work their way back from doo-doo pee-pee. But as of right now, they're— no, I'm not going to say the word Super Bowl with them. No. The Vikings, great defense. Offense, I'm thinking will probably get better as the season goes on.

Maybe not.

But I don't know that the defense is going to be able to sustain what they've done for the entire season. So they'll probably regress a little bit on that end. So I'm not ready to have that conversation with them. So yeah, I think the Falcons, there's a chance that the NFC South does get 2 teams. Yeah, that's right.

The whole point is basically like we always just are saying, oh yeah, the NFC South will have their one division winner and why not? Like the Panthers and Falcons have looked really good. And I, I will see how the Falcons look on Sunday night against the Ravens and if Lamar plays or not.

Mm-hmm.

Because we'll talk about the Saints in a second. There's a chance the Saints and Packers are broken. But if, if, if the Falcons look great in that game as well, I like, you just throw out the first 2 games. You're like, they started Cooper Rush. That's not the same team.

It was Cooper Rush.

And I think, and we've always, we've, we've held firm in the, uh, Kevin Stefanski stock. We've, we've held it for a very long time. We've had people be like, you guys are idiots. The, the, the, the founding statement of the Kevin Stefanski stakeholder committee that we have been holding for a long time is that winning a playoff game in Cleveland is very much similar to winning a Super Bowl. If Kevin Stefanski had a Super Bowl, you'd be like, you'd give him more time. You should do that with his Browns playoff victory, even from his basement. Also, Tommy Reese. Everyone's looking for the next hot coordinator.

Yeah.

Small sample size last 2 games. Got to see how the rest of the season goes. But Tommy Reese will get, will, will get some buzz if they play like this. They were never stopped.

Yeah. I was concerned of Tommy Reese's play calling with Cooper Rush.

Yeah.

That, that's going to stick with it. Also, remember that one year that he decided to go by Tom?

Yeah.

Tom Reese.

That was weird.

Yeah.

We hit that out.

Maybe if he wants to be a head coach, I think he has to go back to Tom at some point.

But he was doing it. He was, he was pulling all the right strings last night. It felt like guys were open on every play. Bijan was being used perfectly. Like, that's a game where, you know, 19 rushes for Bijan. I mean, he was so good. He's so fucking good.

He's awesome in primetime too. That's like, that's all he does is score touchdowns in primetime.

He's just so fast.

All right.

So the Saints. Are we concerned about Hank's curse of the Saints?

I forgot that Hank cursed them.

His butt? They're 0-2 at home since Hank farted in the Saints/Pelicans facility.

I don't— I wasn't at the Dome.

Right. But it's their facility. That's where they practice.

But it's also the Pelicans facility.

Yeah. I'm going to wait to see how the Pelicans—

yeah, I'm going to see how the Pelicans don't make the playoffs.

I think something's weird.

Something smells.

Pelicans might be— if the Pelicans are bad this year, that's your fault.

No.

Yes, it is.

Disavow.

Yes.

What if they're good? Maybe the fart's what they needed to jumpstart that franchise.

But that's what you got. You guys can't do both things. You guys were giving me credit for the fart for jumpstarting the team.

Wake-up call. No, maybe it just became like Freaky Friday where the Saints lost all their momentum, the Pelicans gained it. I'm giving you guys both A's because their facility is so close, especially in a workout Because I think that the Saints probably smelled the fart too much because it was in their facility. Yeah. But the Pelicans only got a whiff of it because it was just in the adjacent building.

Yeah.

It did not smell.

I did.

These are non-related things.

Okay. Well, the Saints look terrible. I'm— I don't know what the fix is.

They—

Shuck was not great. We're Shuck guys. We're going to stay firmly Shuck guys. But he was not great. I also think Kellen Moore didn't do him a lot of favors with the fact that it felt like every single play was just Shuck in shotgun and then a speed rush just getting teed off towards him. Like, I was so sick of watching him in shotgun. I get it, like, they don't have an offensive line good enough for him to like get him under center. Like, they showed a stat halfway through the game where it's like play action, he was 9 for 9, and everything else, I don't know, he was just getting buried.

And, and guys like Troy Aikman get all horned up when they see a, a quarterback get teed off on, get destroyed with rib shots, and then stay And Troy was like, I'm— I really like what I'm seeing out of Shuck tonight. Just the fact that he was getting abused and, uh, and getting up without, without like pissing his pants. That went a long way in Troy Aikman's book.

Also Troy Aikman, uh, a tell that was very interesting when he said that he talked to Brandon Staley. This was middle of the game. He's like, Brandon Staley doesn't have any answers for the Falcons offense. And I think he knew that when we talked to him.

Yeah. He was just saying it.

He's like, yeah, he, the defensive coordinator knew they were fucked.

They didn't have the guys. Yeah. They didn't have the guys up front. And Cam Jordan after the game had, had a lot of great things to say. pretty much a similar statement where he was like, yeah, we— this is entirely on us.

We—

the defensive line, we got to get better. We stunk tonight. And I did see that this was actually— it's the, the second Domecoming celebration that they've had.

They do one for 10 years.

They did one for 10 years and they got beaten down by almost the exact same score.

I needed this stat.

Yeah. The first Domecoming was bad. Second Domecoming was exactly the same as the first Domecoming.

Because I thought for sure, I was like, you can't lose the Domecoming.

You know what I think the problem was?

Sounds like they have lost every Domecoming.

They've lost the Domecoming. Uh, Eric Church at the Domecoming. Does he have any relationship whatsoever to the city of New Orleans?

I don't know.

I don't think that he does. He's just what you get when you, when you type in— he was AI country music before AI existed. And to have him go out there and do The Saints Are Coming, that was a bad idea. Yeah. Green Day doing that on the original Domecoming. 2006 was amazing. They should have brought Green Day back for that.

Yeah.

And it was, it was, I mean, I agree with you. Eric Church. Where's Eric Church?

The guy's shtick is he just wears sunglasses all the time. It's so fucking lame.

That is lame.

Eric Church, North Carolina. Yeah.

Carolina. Yeah. Eric Church always coming to Chicago. Eric Church, come to the— oh, no, not till June. Soldier Field.

Damn.

Eric Church got it like that.

Fuck yeah.

I don't know.

You might have some Blue Dot fever.

I don't know. I don't know country, country music.

Springsteen.

You better not have him at Soldier Field after seeing what he did to the Dome.

That's true. Well, it's in June, so he's going to probably just mess up the field.

Yeah.

Like everyone else.

Yeah.

I don't know what to do if you're the Saints. I think you might be bad. I think you might be bad. And now you got to play for a team that has a bad defense. offensive line issues. You now have to face Brian Flores and the Vikings, and they couldn't run the ball. And I know that Achane is hurt, but they couldn't run the ball. And that was a big part of it too, where it's like they could— they felt like they had— it felt like the entire night for the Saints was 3rd and 7 shotgun.

Yeah, they were behind it the entire night. Yeah. And they haven't been able to run the ball for a while. But yeah, I do think that the Falcons are for real. I said, yeah, in the offseason, I like what they're doing. I like Stefanski. If Penix can get healthy, I really like the Falcons. And I just wasn't, I wasn't sure that he was going to be this healthy this quick. But if he can stay like it, yeah, he's, he's what that offense needs. He's, he's playing like the perfect quarterback for that team.

All right.

Let's see Falcons schedule coming up. They play the Ravens Sunday Night Football. They play the Bears.

I like that Jesse Minter is getting like very, very well acquainted with the is Lamar injured conversation already.

Yes, it was.

It didn't even last 5 games.

Yes. Oh, so the Falcons, they got some games coming up. They got the Ravens Sunday night, the Bears, the 49ers, the Bucs, the Bengals, the Chiefs. That ain't easy. No, we'll find out.

They're a good team. I'm telling you, the Falcons are— I'm putting them in my actually good category.

Okay.

I'd like to see them go against the Ravens defense and then I'll absolutely put them in the actually good category. Okay. Any other thoughts from week 4 that we missed?

I—

the big story coming out of the weekend is just the flags. I saw the, the Warren Sharp had a stat that was essentially like, there's like 17 touchdowns that have been called back and there's a lot more flags than usual. I think we all kind of felt it.

Well, this always happens in the first 4 weeks.

Yeah.

It's like an outlier that the first 4 weeks have way more flags than the rest of the season. One, because the refs are trying to do their little like points of emphasis. And 2, there's some sloppy play and like illegal shifts, illegal formations that get cleaned up there. They have taken away a lot of touchdowns, though. That part is like a legit outlier. That's why I think that having that guy, that ref cuss at McBride, the more I think about it, was that just like a setup to get us distracted and stop talking about the fact that the refs might be calling back all these touchdowns?

I did on WUB today. I threw out the idea that we should have a just an official swear ref. where anything can be said to them and they can say anything back to you and mic them up.

So like a captain, like the refs have a captain.

Yeah, it was just like, that's the guy. If you swear to a linesman, you're— you can get a flag, but you have to go up to the guy who's got a mic on and you swear at him. He could swear back at you. All's fair. And then we— I mean, do we not all tune into that episode every single week? I'd watch what the guys say to each other.

Like every, every ref should be mic'd up. Yeah, the body cam thing.

I think that's just the swear ref.

Just swear at him.

Just swear at him.

Mic'd up.

And so you get a flag if you go swear at someone else.

Or if you— the ref can swear at you, but he has to kiss you afterwards.

Okay. Okay.

I think that's fair.

Yeah. Just a quick smooch.

So they— did they suspend Jeff Seaman?

I don't know.

I think Jeff Seaman—

Is that the guy who yelled at Trey McBride?

That's the referee.

Is it spelled— is it really spelled Seaman?

Jeff Seaman.

Is there an I in there?

Mark Butterworth. The refs have the most hilarious names.

Is there an I in there or is it just, just Jeff, straight up Jeff Seaman.

I think it's— oh, there's an A. Jeff Seaman. Yeah.

Oh, wait. Oh, no, no. There's 2 E's. Sorry. Jeff Seaman. Okay. So he's like a look at me guy.

That's like Ellis Island said, we're going to do your family a favor and we're going to add an extra E. Yeah. Yeah.

We got this. There's going to be a problem.

Yeah.

All right.

So Jeff Seaman.

That'll—

Jeff Seaman.

Hilarious name. Also, one story. What's going on in Pittsburgh? So it seems like things might be bad because Mike McCarthy confirmed their, their issues with the locker room and that they need to clean their house up a bit. And they're doing like a self-reflection day. That seems bad. They need to clean their own houses first. So, Joe, it feels like it's related to Joey Porter getting traded.

Yeah. It also feels like things are kind of weird between him and Aaron. Where we saw last week on Thursday night the back and forth. And then I saw some of his press conference where he was like defending Aaron. He's like, you know, that's just sometimes how, how guys talk to each other. He sounds, sounds a little bit like a battered spouse.

Yeah, it sounds like he thought it would be different this time around.

He's like, that's, you know, you know, sometimes guys, a couple of alphas like me and Aaron, we butt heads, but that's just his way. And ultimately, at the end of the day, we respect each other. And he's a, he's a sweet guy. It's never gonna happen again.

Yeah, yeah. I just— doesn't feel good in Pittsburgh. Anytime it's week— it's week 5 and your coach is saying we gotta clean house a little bit, maybe that means like they, they have to—

he has to start his own Minecraft world.

Maybe.

Yeah, it is true. Like, Mike, Mike Tomlin's kind of stealing all the swag from Mike McCarthy. Yeah, Big Mike.

You don't think that Mike's got it in him to bench Aaron?

No.

No, not even send a message.

No, because you can't. I mean, you bench him, it's like that's—

you're retiring him. True.

That's why he came back.

6'3, 245.

To get his revenge.

Yeah.

To retire him once and for all.

I would respect the hell out of that.

Yeah, I would. If he came up to the press conference, he's like, I— my one goal when Aaron got me, ran me out of Green Bay, was to find him and retire him.

Track him down. This is Count of Monte Cristo type shit.

This is an awesome revenge script for this.

Revenge is best served cold.

Mike McCarthy.

Yeah.

Goes to Dallas.

Dallas reads the writing on the wall, decides, you know what, I'm gonna get fired and I'm gonna spend the next year working behind the scenes to position myself. I'm gonna move back to Pittsburgh.

Yep.

Ingratiate myself into the local community and then persuade Aaron to come back for one more season while they—

Just to retire him.

Yeah.

I like this.

I would, I would love that.

I'm in on this storyline. Mike McCarthy, do it. Do it, dude. Okay, let's, uh, let's do Hot Seat Cool Throne. Let's do Hot Seat Cool Throne. Then we have 2 awesome interviews. We got Eli Manning in studio, Ryan Russillo in studio talking college football with Russillo. It is brought to you— Hot Seat Cool Throne is brought to you by our friends at TickPick, the no-nonsense ticket app. Listen, game 3 in Chicago, White Sox, hottest team in baseball. The current get-in price is $309. Average purchase price for, for Game 3 before the series was $225. Now that the series is ongoing, it's up to $458. But TickPick is helping get Tate, White Sox Dave, and Nikki Smokes into Game 3, and they can make the whole ticketing process seamless. The White Sox have not been in the playoffs for a while. Home crowd, it's going to be incredible. Ticket prices are going crazy. But you know you're going to get your best deal at TickPick. You know the runaround with the big ticket sites, fees layered into the final cost. You're left wondering whether you overpaid. TickPick doesn't play that game. No nonsense, no service fees ever, which means the exact same seat costs less on TickPick and your tickets are backed by the buyer trust guarantee, 100% authentic and on time every order.

Don't take my word for it. Fans genuinely love this app. Read the reviews and see for yourself. So why overpay for the exact same seat? Download the TickPick app and never pay another service fee again. And for new TickPick customers, take $20 off your first order with promo code PMT20 in the TickPick app. Orders must be $200 or more to apply. Terms apply. That's PMT20 at checkout for $20 off your first order. Thank you to TickPick for sending the boys to the game. Tate and White Sox Dave, going to be some great content. Hank.

My hot seat is NBA teams breaking the rules.

Oh, what happened?

First, the Wiz. Bob Carrington just admitted to tanking.

Oh, shit.

Wait, what?

Shit.

He just admitted.

He admitted in an interview that they were purposely trying to lose last year.

No, Hank, it's illegal.

I think we have on record you telling Ryan Russillo that he admitted to tanking.

No, that's not at all what happened.

We actually do have that on video. We do.

You guys are doing fake news right now.

Colton, right now, put that clip.

You guys are all doing fake news. Basically admitted we were trying to lose last year. I asked Russillo if the NBA was going to go after Bub for saying that, because—

Why would they go after him?

Well, because in the, in the clip, it got cut off right before he says—

Can you show the clip?

Yeah, well, we're gonna see the clip before it gets cut off. That's what I'm telling you.

Oh, okay.

It's edited. Show the whole clip. Let's hear him.

Let's see. Let's hear out Bub.

Um, we just haven't been told yet to go be the best version of yourself.

What do you mean you haven't been told that? Um, we're like, we've all in, in a way been held back just because, like you said, we were trying to get AJ to banter.

That's, that's no secret.

That's no secret.

So like, Like, but now it's no, no one has handcuffs. Everyone's shackles free. So that alone is already a conversation starter. But then you put that on top of the coaching, on top of the vets that we have, that's a playoff team. And that's going to happen.

That seems like a pretty full clip to me.

No, after the camera cut off. First of all, this guy's a DC—

After the camera cut off.

He cut— I mean, he said that at like second 20.

First of all, this guy's a DC reporter. What are you— what is this guy doing asking the follow-up, what do you mean by that, Bub? You know what he meant by it.

Let it go. It's good journalism.

He's trying to get him in trouble. Um, second thing is, after the camera cuts off, he goes, psych.

Oh, he did? Oh, he crossed his fingers too?

Yeah, fingers crossed behind the back. And plus, it was opposite day.

Nice.

Uh, all these things not included in that clip. So I was asking Russillo if the NBA was going to go after the Wizards despite all these things. Uh, just because we saw that one clip that was selectively edited. Also, this is way too much talk about the Wizards. All right.

My other one was, was LeBron. Oh, uh, circumventing the cap, him and Michael Rubin in cahoots. He'd signed the vet minimum, but then part of his deal with Fanatics, which is owned by former owner of the Sixers who's still heavily involved, Michael Rubin. So is that the owner of the Sixers gets to use— I said heavily—

I like these scare quotes—

the helicopter unlimited, like as much as he wants?

Yeah. Wow. It is interesting.

That's not the owner of the Sixers. So just a Philadelphia businessman is allowing another Philadelphia businessman to create more.

What you're talking about right now is business for New York is verbatim salary cap circumvention.

Yeah, that's incorrect.

You just said so. What you're telling me is a Philadelphia businessman, Josh Harris, is allowing—

not Josh Harris—

another Philadelphia businessman, Michael Rubin, to donate services to a player in exchange for him playing for Philadelphia.

That's illegal.

Which, by the letter of the law, is against the rules.

Yeah.

What does Harris— Harris has nothing to do with this. This is Michael Rubin.

Well, he's the owner.

Right.

Josh Harris is the owner.

But it's Michael Rubin and LeBron.

So, so this, this was just an understanding between the two of them.

Just friends?

No, they're probably doing business together.

Okay.

But Michael Rubin does not own the Sixers anymore. Yeah, he does not own the Sixers.

Are you taking any questions right now?

Sure.

Okay. Question.

Yep.

Mr. Cat, can you please respond to a tweet with a video that I did not watch the whole video? It was only like a minute and a half, but I just was kind of like, this guy's weird and I'm not going to listen to this whole thing. But please Please respond to the caption of the video from James Lee. Why is LeBron making 4 times as much money promoting Polymarket than he is playing basketball? Answer, he is now an asset of the deep state with Daddy Peter Thiel paying him to promote a DARPA surveillance app dressed up as sports betting.

You ready for an answer?

Yeah.

I don't know what a lot of those words mean.

Neither do I, but I want to hold the gun to your head, buddy.

I saw it. DARPA.

Yeah, surveillance.

DARPA's government research— military research agency.

LeBron is a member of the deep state. Fact or fiction?

Thank you.

I don't even know what the deep state is, so I'm not going to be able to answer that.

Yes, you are.

That sounds like a guy that's in the deep state.

Sounds like 8-Max.

LeBron is—

Listen, I'm not going to talk about things that I don't know about. Everything I say on this show, I'm highly knowledgeable on. Deep state, not one of those things.

Convenient.

Next question.

Yeah, I have a question, Mr. Commenter.

Yeah.

What about the allegations that this is salary cap circumvention? Direct, clear as day, right in front of all our faces.

What, providing transportation?

Yeah.

And also deep state.

What does the deep state have to do with this?

Michael Rubin. Michael Rubin's in the deep state.

Deep state.

You guys don't— you guys, maybe you got— if anyone's in the deep state here, it's you two.

Why?

Because you two are the rich guys. Ask memes.

Yeah.

Memes. Retractable.

Yeah.

You would think that—

I sent a picture of the guys. The roof is just— it's just a fucking— you open, you open up arugula or whatever. That's probably the wrong word.

I think arugula is right.

No, you're talking— you're thinking of a vegetable.

Yeah, the vegetable. Arugula. Max, I have another question.

I eat arugula.

How many— how in a regular dinner setting would— how many meatballs would you say you can eat?

Interesting. It depends on the size of the meatballs. Meatballs come in all different—

Medium. That's an interesting question.

Yeah.

Well, I'm sure now you're talking about things that I'm knowledgeable about.

Yeah.

He said he can't answer any questions about things he doesn't know about. So I was like, let's give him a softball to loosen him up. So how many would you say, sir?

Medium-sized meatball? Yeah, I could take down a 12-pack for sure.

All right, now let's go back to the deep state.

So LeBron James, deep state asset.

I don't know what you're talking about.

He's probably— my theory is—

Let's go back to the meatballs.

He's responsible for this new outbreak of pneumonic plague to get the NBA into a bubble so he can win another fake championship. And also so that we don't spend all year booing Kawhi Leonard like we did with the Astros after COVID. This is all— it's all by design and it's all LeBron James fingerprints.

Jaylen Brown cooked the Knicks last night. No, and you guys don't even want to say anything about that.

Preseason?

Yeah, don't— that's sad.

And Huck Poorty memes killed Huck Poorty.

Preseason, bro. You killed Hawk Bordy.

He was playing you. You're on the Knicks. You never had to play against dirty Knicks.

All right, cool throw. Did he just step weird?

Yeah, it was not got that, but it does suck.

Cool throw and couple— very— Mazzulla, Coach Mazzulla, my king. Celtics are training in Charleston. There's like insane amounts of rain and flooding. But he said that he wants the Celtics to not give up on their golf plans. And he's like, I want to see how much people care about their passions. Like, I don't care that it's pouring rain. If you had plans to do it, go do it. So I love that out of a coach. Then also—

Golfing in the rain sucks though.

Horrible. Yeah.

Like miserable.

I would—

but like, it's— that's his attitude. It's like punishment. Yeah. But that's—

That's like getting choked out.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And Jerry O'Connell.

Why?

Why?

He was— he's in a— he's in a— that's a movie. It's like a movie clip with Kai Cenat, Kevin Hart, and Drewski.

Now that's the guy who's deep state.

Did you see this clip?

Mm-hmm. I saw he went to a Diddy party.

Yeah. They're saying Kai's the new Diddy.

Pulling it up.

I'm pulling it up.

It's so funny.

His wife went to Epstein Island, Zach.

That's just not true.

Kai said that.

I saw a clip.

What? What's not true?

A lot of AI out there.

What's not true, Zach?

It might have been before the Diddy thing happened. Oh, there's a clip of KSI being like, I'm the new Diddy.

Oh, is that true?

Look, that's before a lot of things were done and found out about, you know.

It could have meant anything.

Yeah, like, it could— like, what someone represented before and after heinous crimes, 2 different things.

They had this man stressed. This is Jerry O'Connell with Drewski, Kai Cenat, and who else is in this? Uh, white cane sugar and also brown sugar. I like that.

Great.

I want to say I feel a little uncomfortable with the N-word being used. Come on, man, you do it too.

No, I know, I never said that.

Should I use the milliliters or do you like, uh, ounces, whatever the language is.

Hey!

No more N-word, please! Please, this is live, people see this. People see this! Stop with the N-word. I find it to be highly offensive. This is, this is a live stream?

It's a clip from a movie.

It's a movie about a live stream.

Got it. Okay.

When's it coming out?

Jared's the best.

It's on Amazon. Climbing up the ladder.

Tubi.

Prime. Next up, Netflix.

Yeah, I saw it with Tinge.

Then he's gonna be back in theaters.

Yeah. I wonder how he got that gig.

He's everywhere.

Because if you, if you say like, I need a white man, I feel like Jerry O'Connell is near the top of that list.

Mm-hmm.

I need a white man to, to, to be an extreme liberal cuck. He is. He's it. He's perfect. They probably saw him win Cuck of the Year and also say that he was getting beat up by his family. And they're like, this guy's perfect.

perfect. He's perfect for the livestream from hell.

Good for Jerry, though.

They should have had him—

good actor—

making something with salt and the V-word.

Yeah, we need to get Jerry in more stuff. He's a fucking good actor.

White guy.

You agree he's a good actor?

Yeah.

Oh, that was not—

I said yeah.

What? Oh, memes. You're saying no?

Well, I'm saying he might be in too much stuff. Is he the white Kevin Hart?

I've just been doing like Some rewatches of stuff and he's just like, he just pops off.

Yeah, he's a hard worker.

It's great.

And somehow he finds the time to be a full-time guest on this podcast.

Fantasy owner.

What's our record?

I don't know, because Jerry locked me out. Is there a hostile takeover? I think we do. We have to— starting on this Friday show, let's have him back to do his fantasy.

Yeah, we'll have him do a fantasy minute.

The 1-minute show.

Okay. PFT.

Uh, my hot seat is the NHL. Number one, the NHL's back. Let's all remember that the NHL came back in September this year. Yep. Um, which feels way, way too early for hockey.

They—

84 games.

Yeah, 84 games. They got 2 extra ones, which means that they have the exact same schedule as like a school. They go September through June in the, in the NHL now, which is— that's too much.

Yep.

That's too much. Too many months with hockey. I'm sure it even caught— probably caught caught Whitney off guard. He was like, wait, what? We're doing games again? But, um, before the season started, Ovi announced to his teammates this would be the last year. He's retiring at the end of the season. And, uh, I think that I'm thinking good thoughts about the Capitals this year.

Oh.

I'm thinking that like scriptwriters might be on it. Ovi's last year. They've got a really good team that they built around him, which shockingly, I know a couple years ago I was saying They might just construct a team to get Ovi the goal record and, and kind of put off the rebuild till after he's gone. I think the Capitals are a really, really good team this year. And if you, if you were to write a script, I feel like the Caps might make another run in the playoffs.

What do you think about the year-in-advance retirement announcement?

I think if you're Ovi, it's fine.

OK.

Yeah, I'm OK with it because he wanted to tell his teammates before the year started. Everyone thought he was going to retire last year.

He should have just not leaked it.

Well, so they kind of did leak it by mistake when somebody on the Caps, like one of the ticket salesmen, sent out an email to everybody being like, buy your tickets now.

Yeah, that's the part where I kind of get annoyed with— it's not Ovi's fault. I mean, it's not saying he doesn't deserve it, but I just think the retirement tour, like, and then they just squeeze every dollar out of it. It's like, come on.

I think you tell your teammates about it.

Yeah.

But they— yeah, I got no problem with them putting— if anybody deserves one year where it's like, this is going to be Ovi's year, and I don't think it's going to be like Major League Baseball was for like Mariano Rivera.

Oh, it is. They're going to give him gifts.

I don't think so.

Oh, he'll get some gifts.

He'll probably get a couple of gifts here and there. But I think he'll just mostly get like acknowledgment at the stadiums that he goes to.

He'll definitely get some gifts.

What does that mean?

He'll get some gifts.

We're just going through standings back here.

Flyers haven't won a game.

Oh, oh no.

I think they're on like a historically—

Historic— I watched an entire Blackhawks game. We lost 5-0.

That's not— I mean, they got 2 points. They may have played the most amount of games, but they got 2 points.

There you go.

Only 2 points back from the Bruins.

Same, same amount of games.

So fuck you, Hank.

Fuck you, Hank.

Come on, Hank.

Yeah, fuck you.

Fuck you, buddy.

Yeah, I think, I think the Caps are gonna be very good. I don't think it's gonna be a massive deal for Ovi's retirement tour. I really don't think that other teams are gonna like roll out a red carpet for him.

Okay, your cool throw?

My cool throw is Dylan Brooks. Dylan Brooks is back big time in preseason basketball. Got into a fight last night right off the bat. I think it was, I think, 22 to 6. I think the scoring the first half—

that's horrible.

What?

They're 22 to 6.

Is what?

The score? The score differential? Yeah, that's tough. Well, they did lose a game 7 to nothing. So not counting that, it's 15 to 6.

Counts the same.

The other 3 games, they're only losing 15 to 6.

Yeah, it's not even that bad.

Yeah.

Hank.

Yeah, that's 5 to 2.

I also shouldn't even be thinking about hockey right now.

No, you got a dead football team, right?

I got to think about—

Yeah, 2 dead football teams.

Yeah, I'm, I'm looking forward to Villanova basketball.

That's, that's going to be the thing.

You got the Pope on your side. Pope, he's doing miracles for the White Sox.

So you guys hung that cool— that was cool. Did you see they put up a like commemorative, like, thing in—

is—

was that in the Sixers Stadium or Villanova Stadium?

What was it?

I'm not familiar.

Of the Knicks.

What?

Oh, of the Nova Nets.

Yeah.

Oh, this sounds like AI. Yeah.

That would be cool, though, if they did it.

I don't think it was.

Did they include Dante on it?

The Pavilion?

Yeah, that's—

OK.

In Philadelphia?

No.

Where?

Villanova.

Oh, which is—

Yeah, get your fucking towns around Philly correct.

It's in the—

it's in the—

what is it, the King of Prussia Mall?

Come correct next time.

Don't disrespect the King of Prussia Mall.

That's why I always shout out to the King of Prussia Mall.

Is it Main Line?

It's Main Line, right?

It might be the best mall in the world.

It's Main Line. I knew it was Main Line.

So in the Philadelphia area, correct me if I'm wrong.

There's a lot of grit from the Main Line, all right?

Villanova's, uh, They're one of the Big 5, right?

They are.

Yeah. All right. I like that they're respecting the Knicks.

They respect alumni.

Yeah, that is— that's a big, big time.

What does the banner say?

It's like an entire— I'll send it to you. It's a mural.

Yeah, that is cool.

It's very cool.

All right.

You got anything else?

Yeah. Dylan Brooks.

Yeah.

Dylan got into a fight with John Collins. in the first quarter of a preseason game.

I love that.

Uh, he got choked. Well, Dillon Brooks was like throwing his ass into him, pretty much trying to start a fight and instigate in the first quarter. And, uh, John Collins just grabbed his throat and tried to choke him out and then realized like, what the fuck am I doing? This is the first quarter of a preseason game. But Dillon Brooks still has it. He's still got it.

So— Well, that's all he has.

Yeah.

You gotta just be that guy. It's—

listen, he's in, he's in midseason form is what I'm saying. Dillon Brooks is, uh, Looking to put up career numbers in terms of ejections this year.

Yeah.

Okay.

My hot seat is Jim Mora and Colorado State. We're going to talk some college football with Ryan Rosillo, but this story needs to be talked about. Colorado State's defensive coordinator quit in the middle of the game, so they got in a fight. Tyson Summers and Jim Mora Jr. got in a fight and Tyson Summers just left the field. And, uh, this is what Oregon State— for, for people who are not following, they're only following P4, uh, schools— Oregon State, New Mexico, those are my 2 schools. I love watching them. Uh, Oregon State, Brayden Atkinson and, and their, uh, receiver who's maybe one of the best receivers in the country, Jesse LeGree, uh, are fucking awesome. So they were so good on Saturday night, the defensive coordinator quit in the middle of the game. That's hard to do. That's really hard to do. So that's, that was a fun story.

And Jim Moore Jr., I feel like he's, uh, I'd forgotten that he wasn't at UConn anymore.

Yeah. Jason Candle's at UConn.

Yep.

Yeah. So that, that was, uh, it just, you can't have your defensive coordinator quit in the middle of the game and just get in an argument.

Was he quit or was he fired?

He, it was like a combo because I think they got in an argument, then he left. And then after the game, Jim Moore Jr. was like, Yeah, he ain't coming back.

Because wasn't that guy— he was, uh, like a holdover from the previous regime? Yeah. And Jim Mora came in and—

So he was—

he was on thin ice.

He was told he was relieved of his play-calling duties and then he was like, you can't fire me, I quit, and walked off.

I— so was the story that he was relieved of play-calling duties during that game?

Yes.

Or the week before?

I think it was during the game. I mean, he kept on— Oregon State was just lighting them up. They went— they, they scored 56 points. They scored 35 points in the first half. The guy was just— I was watching the game because I like watching Oregon State and I bet on them. The guy was just blitzing and getting just fucking torched. And then they were like, yeah, you're done playing college. He's like, no, I'm out of here. Pretty funny story to have that happen in the middle of a game. So it's going well right now at Oregon State.

I'm starting to come around on the, the non-power conference playoff. Yeah, because there's some really fun teams.

Dude, New Mexico, Jason Mack has like one of the funnest teams in the country.

And I want to see them play in a way that's not Okay, let's— who's going to get fed to Texas?

I completely agree.

Last year was cool. Got to check it off the list. But ultimately, like, you zoom out a little bit and you see that it's a team like that is never going to have a chance to win.

Right.

They ultimately end up becoming great feeder programs for, for the power schools. Like you see, like, JMU UCLA is 5-0, I think.

Yeah.

And JMU Bloomington is also undefeated.

The problem is they— like, Boise could win a game in a playoff. I mean, they almost, you know, they played Penn State pretty tough. Boise, JMU, all these other schools, they could never win 4 games in a row.

Yeah.

So that's where it's like, I, I get it. Like, it would be awesome for the Cinderella to win a game. There's just no way they could withstand 4 games in a row against that level. And it's just, it's not like a knock on them. It's just, it's just a fact. Like, what are you going to do?

The problem, the problem is you beat, let's say, who would be like the 3rd ranked team this year?

Right now?

Ohio State? Yeah.

I mean, right now it's, it's probably what's, it's probably, no, it's not Alabama. Maybe Alabama. Yeah. Texas, Georgia. I think it's— oh no, Alabama. Oh, Notre Dame. Miami.

Yeah.

Maybe we could beat Notre Dame.

But then you'd have to beat Miami and then you'd have to beat Ohio State. It's like, that's really what it comes down to.

The point was like, you beat whoever the 3rd place team is going to be, if that's going to be Notre Dame. And then your reward is in the next round, you get to play against like Texas.

Right.

And then you just like, ultimately, it's not going to be a great experience. Your last— your lasting memory of that season is not going to be a good one.

Where being the national champion of the— of the like, what is it, P6? No, group of— group of 6, G6 would be pretty fucking cool.

There should be—

it'd be fun football. That'd be a fun football tournament.

It'd be very fun. Like, you want to talk about overs? Yeah, there'd be a lot of overs in that tournament. But then you run the risk of it becoming like the NIT of football, which you kind of forget about eventually.

What makes this different than just another version of the FCS.

That's why I was opposed to it. It is a little bit.

That's why I was opposed to it.

No one really cares that much about the FCS.

Yeah, they don't.

So these have at least a little bit more brand names behind it.

I think it would eventually just become the same thing.

Maybe you might be right.

Possibly.

I still would like to see more football and like those teams competing against each other would be fun.

But the FCS already exists.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's better football than the FCS. But you're right.

I don't know if that's true.

That's why—

because the best FCS teams that keep getting promoted end up being the best Group of 6 teams.

Right. That's what I'm saying. It's like the best—

So maybe the FCS teams are— maybe that tournament is North Dakota State wagon.

Yeah.

That's what I'm saying.

The best Group of 6 teams can compete— or sorry, the best FCS teams historically, they can compete with a Group of 6. Yes. If not be better than most of them.

They—

I mean, the top of the Group of 6. will beat the middle of the pack of the power conferences.

They're the best. Like, JMU and North Dakota State have both just come into the Group of 6 and been the best.

Yeah.

So that maybe that means the FCS.

Yeah.

May actually be better than the Group of 6.

Yeah, I see what you're saying.

Possibly.

Yeah.

At least the top of them.

And no one cares about the top.

And no one cares about the top.

Yeah.

The top. I'm saying the tops are better than the mids at whatever level is above. of them.

I'm saying no, the Tops are better than the Tops.

No, they're not, because they— well, no, JMU and North Dakota State are the Tops.

And also, JMU didn't do it on year 1 of being—

North Dakota State is.

They could be.

Yeah, I guess that would prove— JMU kind of did do it year 1 though.

Yeah, they weren't allowed.

Yeah, they weren't allowed.

Yeah, they just—

what did they lose?

They lost games the first 2 years. Like, would they have made it year if the expanded playoff?

No.

Yeah, they were, they were the one of the best, like, 2 or 3 teams.

And what was the year they lost? What was the year you did Game Day when they lost?

That we lost one game, right?

That would have probably eliminated them from being in the expanded playoff that year, right?

Maybe. I forget how the rest of the Group of 6 did, but it was like in the conversation.

Yeah, that was the year that Boise made it. Yeah, 2024, when Boise— I think they almost beat— I think they almost beat Oregon that year.

Because I think, was that the year that JMU beat UNC like 70 to 50? That game rocked. Made Mack Brown quit football.

Yeah. Boise, Boise would have made it that year. Boise lost one game. They lost one game by 3 points to Oregon. So it would have been Boise.

You guys lost to App State, but still, I think it would have been the same. Meme's point is the same, which is like the, the top of the— Max's point. Sorry, Max. Max's point remains.

Meme doesn't make any points except positive ones.

pocket watching.

And the Knicks won the championship.

We know, dude.

Okay.

Wait, this is the first time hearing it.

My Cool Throne is Amazon Day. I mentioned the other day, Stell Blue Coffee on Amazon today is 20% off. So go please buy Stell Blue Coffee on Amazon.

Helping—

we're trying to adopt 1,000 dogs this year. Also, my Cool Throne is the Eagles because Sirianni letting the boys sleep in their own beds a little bit this week. He's not leaving for London until Friday. He's doing the McVay.

Yeah, that went great for the Rams, huh?

It's a little different. It's obviously a lot easier. It's a 5-hour flight, but still feels like— actually, I don't know. I don't know what the Eagles feel like such a mess right now that I don't, I don't know if there is a right answer. I mean, the whole team's hurt.

Is there a reason for— are they waiting? Maybe Saquon's going to get healthy? I don't know.

I don't know.

They probably had to have planned this a while ago.

Yeah.

I don't think Saquon's going to play.

Who would? Cam Jurgens? No.

Cam Jurgens also seems like he's not going to play. Yeah, because concussion.

Yeah, he self-reported a concussion.

Concussion protocol.

And then Lane.

Lane, we don't— we have no updates on Lane.

What about Dickerson?

Dickerson not going to play.

So a lot of people—

Tank Bigsby not going to play.

Who's going to run the football?

DeVonta, maybe. I think Zach Bond will be back.

Okay.

Grenard, look, is looking like he has a good chance of being back. He's day to day right now.

Okay.

But they said he—

aren't we all?

Major, major injury.

Who's playing running back?

That'll be Will Shipley. And maybe we will promote Carson Steele from practice.

Oh, okay.

Alligator.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah.

So he's got a pet alligator.

Yeah.

Cool.

Very cool action.

Maybe see Willie Lampkin at guard this week. Yeah.

So you guys are gonna have 2 white running backs?

There's a chance.

When was the last time that happened?

Probably used to happen all the time.

Yeah, but it's probably been a while.

It's probably been a while.

Yeah. I'm thinking like, Woodhead and Burkhead were never on the Pats at the same time, were they? No, I have to get the stat— the stats accounts to take a look at that.

I'm looking.

That also isn't official, the Carson Steele thing.

That's Peyton Hillis reporting. No, no, I don't know.

No, I'm just thinking of one white guy at a time. Yeah.

And then was there another white guy they had with him?

Let's see. Christian McCaffrey. Has he ever played With the white guy. Uh, Juszczyk? Yeah, maybe there was a game where it was— yeah, that was the backfield.

Kind of.

Um, oh, was, uh, was, was Rex Burkhead— did Rex Burkhead ever— was he ever sharing a backfield with James White?

No.

That would have counted too.

Oh, definitely counted.

Possibly.

Yeah.

Maybe. And Danny Woodhead might have also—

James White.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right.

So I might count.

Yeah.

Okay, Zach, finish us off.

My hot seat this week is going to be humanity. You guys see what the researchers at the University of Tokyo have been cooking up last couple days?

No.

So researchers at the University of Tokyo have figured out how to basically affix human skin to robots.

Good.

So we're now doing real human skin on robots. As of right now, they have to keep it a little wet for it to stay alive.

What?

Naturally. Yeah. But they're like reverse Gremlins.

Can everyone just chill out? I feel like as a world, we need to just chill out, get laid, smoke a little weed, watch some ball, listen to some music. That would solve a lot of this.

Oh, this is disgusting. Who is donating their body to robots?

So I guess they're—

yeah, that's the ultimate cuck move is being like, hey, when I die, I'd like robots to use my body.

They're able to, like, create these collagen skin cells.

Oh, they're growing them in a lab.

Yeah, this actually might be good for me.

And then fixing it.

This might be important if I ever have to cut off my pinky.

Yeah, I mean, further later down if you need to. Yeah, but they say when they attach the robot hands now, it'll even make the wrinkles of like, look at your knuckles and things. When the hands bend, it creates like the natural wrinkle of the skin.

All these companies are doing the worst shit and, and they're warning everybody and they're saying, hey, just a heads up, We're doing terrible stuff over here, but if we don't do it, someone else is gonna do it. So that means we have to do all the bad stuff.

Yeah, we might as well do the advancement.

But just a heads up, what we're doing sucks and you should all hate it, but don't yell at us because if we don't do it, someone else is gonna. That makes no sense. Just stop doing the things.

What if we all agree to not do some things?

Just, just stop doing the bad things that you think everybody else is gonna do.

What would you guys say timeline on Full robot, human skin. You run into it like the grocery store and don't know it.

Oh, I mean, under 10 years, sex bots are going to be the next thing.

That— OK, I'm cool with that.

Once it was—

memes is already looking at this as a sex bot.

Oh, yes.

He's thinking about getting his butthole fingered.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Look, scratcher. Yeah.

He was like, he's like, go back to that first thing. That would be useful. Oh, 100%.

Finger. Imagine if Max points at Hank with a robot finger. He's like, I didn't point, it was my robot finger.

Hank just—

it's over at that point.

Whipped his neck around.

He just whipped that neck.

He served you a look. Hank serves the—

it was like a model.

Yeah.

Hank was serving cunt right there.

Oh, yeah.

Big time.

Hank always serves cunt.

Cunt is what's for dinner.

Yeah.

The, the finger thing, though. That's, that's clearly what they're doing, right? Memes are making guys like Memes think like it's going to be a sex thing.

Yeah.

You're the horny guy.

No, you are the horny guy. You're talking about getting a finger up your butt.

Backscratcher.

Backscratcher, dude.

And we can't even buy these. PFT Memes is going to be like, oh, you got your own. Oh, you got a robot? You guys figure it out.

Yeah. No, it doesn't. It's not a sex bot, Memes. It's my butler. You have a sex Gremlin.

And then I already have a blowjob machine. Memes, you're good.

Yeah, Memes, you own a blowjob machine.

You do? No, I was last guy out on that.

Yeah, that's not the place you want to be.

No. When you guys shared a blowjob machine.

Oh, any other position but that. Last in line at the Bonnie Blue concert. Yeah, Shane broke his.

All right, Zach Coulthron, charge up.

Bolt up. My cool thing this week is Joey Chestnut, because he showed us again that he's just undisputed GOAT.

What'd he do?

This—

get this off the screen.

Yeah.

How many robot flesh?

How many robot fingers did Joey Chestnut eat?

Get it off the screen.

This—

all right. Got Joey Chestnut up.

It was not robot fingers this time. It was baked beans.

Oh, man. How many?

So he would— he did £16.

Oh my God. How much time?

This was in competition against 4 dudes going for £8, and it was just you could finish first.

Holy shit.

There's been guys in like a grocery store for like a little under a year trying to consume 5— the entire store, 5 million calories. Okay, then at the end, like, we got all these beans. There's one guy to come in and compete. So they beat Joey, they would have got some cars. But Joey Chestnut showed up and ate £16 of baked beans.

Jesus Christ.

This is a MrBeast competition.

This is a Beast Bout. Yes.

£16 of beans. That's so many beans.

That's insane. They should have— he should stay on camera for like the next 12 hours just to see, like, mic'd up, ripping, just ripping the best farts ever.

There he is.

All right.

Have you guys ever worn like a weighted vest? Like 10, 20-pound weighted vest?

Yes.

That's a 16-pound vest. It's all beans.

I did it in COVID when I was trying to get in shape and I hurt my back because I went for the heaviest one. I think I put down on like a 40-pound weighted vest. I was walking around my 6-month-old with, with, with tactical glasses to help my vision and a weighted vest. And I just looked like an ICE agent.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was so heavy.

That guy in—

it like fucked up my back really bad. £45. Yeah. So bad. Yeah.

100-pound weighted vest.

You see that shootout in South America with like— it was a real-life sicario that happened at the border checkpoint. Ooh, it's crazy.

Picks punishment.

Join ICE.

Weighted vest. Weighted vest for a week and join ICE.

Fill out the application to become an ICE agent.

Weighted vest sounds better.

Weighted vest for a week.

You're deep in LA.

In LA. Oh, it's so sweaty.

But you have to wear it over your clothes.

Yeah.

Everywhere.

Everywhere. That's not bad.

It's pretty— and how much weight we talk— second place is like £10. Last place is like 50.

45. Last place, 45.

Looks like it goes by for interviews too.

I agree with that.

Yeah.

Everything. Dinner appearances. Anything. Parties.

Parties.

Yeah. That would be £15. Oh my God. It'd be All right, so what, to the beach with your suit on? 15 and 45, you said? I mean, you look so ridiculous at the bar.

You should also have to go surfing.

I think second place shouldn't— should only have to do it during the day because it's like at night the second place can take theirs off.

Okay, but it has to be stepped-up weight then.

15, 45.

What about 50? What about 45, 25? I'm gonna come in second, so I just—

I'm gonna come in last.

It is a tradition on the show that I come in second every What is it?

What are the—

45, 25, first, 45, 25, second place has to wear it from 9 to 5.

Okay.

I think that's fair.

In. Do we know what— yeah, what are the standings right now?

I'm last. Terrible. I can't win. I mean, it doesn't matter. There's so many weeks left.

Max, you're in first place.

Yeah, correct. I mean, so many weeks left.

So many weeks left.

Doesn't get serious until like week 10. Then you got to start paying attention. All right. That sounds good. That's going to suck forever. Oh my God. £45 every single day is like— that's painful.

Ruins you.

Like, that just—

you—

I will— I will not be going out.

I'll have to wear a back brace.

Yeah, £45 on top.

I'll have to wear a back brace underneath my shirt to then put on.

Probably lose some— lose some lbs during Super Bowl week.

Probably get really, really hurt.

Or that.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing is like injuries. You got, you got back injuries like me and Big Cat do. That's actually—

I might just go wheelchair.

I think you should have the option.

Wheelchair and bed.

You should have the option of taking it down to, because I still kind of like the idea of, of doing the DeSean Love Instagram takeover where you make it look like you're an NFL player and you commit to it. If you want to take it down to 25, you should have to do that.

But you have to do the De'Jon Love with that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. All right, Zach, was that your hot seat? Cool throw?

Yes, sir.

Okay, let's get to our interview with Eli Manning and then we'll have Ryan Rosillo talking college ball after that. Okay, before we get to our very special guest, King's Hawaiian, it's the absolute best. We got it all out here on the, on the table. You listen, it's football season. You can put out chips, you can order pizza, or you can show up with King's Hawaiian sliders. And trust me, people notice the difference. There's something about King's Hawaiian slider buns that takes a game day spread to another level. They're soft, sweet, and built for everything from barbecue brisket sliders to pulled pork and buffalo chicken. A table full of King's Hawaiian sliders is always a win. King's Hawaiian, the best slider in football. I'm gonna go off script for a second. My personal favorite, I go King's Hawaiian slider, couple pieces of fresh turkey, maybe throw in a potato chip. That's the best snack out there. I had it for lunch today. Yeah, I saw the King's Hawaiian here. I ordered some turkey. It was like, boom, slider, slider heaven. So King's Hawaiian is available in the deli or bakery section of major grocery stores nationwide.

Just look for the orange packaging. Also, kids love it. My kids, I put a King's Hawaiian roll in their lunch every day. It's the perfect, perfect slider for football, for kids, for everything. So go get King's Hawaiian today, available in the deli or bakery section of major grocery stores nationwide. Just look for the orange packaging. Okay. We now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is our good friend Eli Manning. I think the 3rd or 4th time you've been on the show here with King's Hawaiian. The debate is that you're a better slider than King's Hawaiian. That can't possibly be true. Well, that's what I'm debating.

I think the, we, you know, after years and years of debating this and lawyer fees and everything, we finally agreed upon that I'm a better slider on the field. Kings of Wine makes better sliders off the field. But really during this whole process, we've come to realize that, you know, quarterback sliding is very important. It's important to the game of football. It's important to keeping quarterbacks safe, but it's not an official stat. No one is keeping track of quarterback slides. So we are doing a— petition. We have a, uh, a, you know, a, a slider petition, um, in that, you know, it should be an official stat. I mean, if we're keeping track of how many targets a receiver has, like how many times we're just throwing at a receiver, why aren't we keeping, uh, stats of quarterback slides? So you can go to, uh, www. Um, you know, QB, uh, best QB, uh, best slider in football. Sorry.

Okay.

www.bestsliderinfootball. Sign up for a petition. You know, and you have a chance to win Kings of Wine rolls for life.

You know what this opens us up to though? And we've talked about this before. We need to start tracking the self-sack.

The self— oh, the self-sack.

You were elite. You were the best at it. When you're like, oh no, there's 2 defensive linemen coming down. I'm just going to, I'm just going to crumple into a ground.

It's like the slide. It's kind of the, it's like you don't have to be running to slide. You can slide at any point. It's like going down.

You were the greatest self-sacker of all time.

These sliders could ever put themselves in a sack? I don't think so.

That's true.

You can. You can.

So I say advanced D-line.

Thank you.

Thank you. Now you're on my side.

Yeah.

I actually think Kyler Murray, his slides.

He's got a good slide. He's a baseball guy.

He slides and then, but he can just like immediately pop up. He almost takes a knee on the run.

I think that's, I don't agree with that. I think that's very dangerous. The part of the slide, and honestly, I think about it with quarterbacks. Is you got to slide and then you got to turn. So if someone does hit you, you don't just get taken to the— to the shot to the face and get knocked out. You saw it with Dante Moore the other day in Oregon.

Yeah.

Like, he's sliding, tries to be safe. But if you're sliding like head up, chest up, if someone— like, the point of sliding is not to take a hit. You're not trying to get hit and get 15 yards. Like, I don't want to get hit and get knocked out. So you got to slide and turn, give your back to the defense. So even if you do get hit, You're not gonna get hurt.

Dante Moore didn't slide, by the way, according to the USC play-by-play guy. I don't know if you saw that clip.

I saw that.

Yeah. They turned his body around.

Yeah.

He just got hit so hard.

That was bad.

Yeah, that was pretty bad. But no, you make a great point. We were just talking about this last week that sometimes when quarterbacks do slide, they almost put themselves in a more dangerous position, right, than if they dive at the opponent. Like Lamar Jackson, he'll dive at your, at your feet, at your shins. Sure, saves himself. But if you do the slide correctly, where you slide and turn. That's a great point.

Slide and turn. It's the same kind of when you run out of bounds. You see a lot of quarterbacks or players, they go out of bounds and then they relax right when they step out of bounds and they get blown up. It's like, no, you got to accelerate like 2 yards out of bounds. And that was the whole— like, I just, you know, that was my take is like, I don't want the extra hit. It's not worth the 15 yards for me to get blown up, whether sliding or running out of bounds. So you got to be good at that.

All right. So can we talk some ball?

Let's talk ball.

You want to talk college first?

Yeah.

All right. If Ole Miss plays Texas in the playoff game, who are you rooting for?

You know what? This is the way I look at it. I look— I mean, Ole Miss is going to play Texas in a few weeks. Yeah.

All right.

So who are you rooting for? You root for your family. I have basically, you know, maybe 2 years to root for my nephew. in college.

Yeah.

And then, and, and so, you, you know, I'm not— for those 2 years, you know, or maybe it's the last year, whatever happens, I'm gonna root for my, my nephew to win every single game that he plays in. And that's just the way it is. And then after that, you know, Texas, yeah, well, I won't care about him that much. I'll, you know, Ole Miss will be 100%. I root for Ole Miss to win every other game, probably besides a little bit that one.

Well, I mean, that one actually, you could just go into it being like, I'm gonna win one way or the other. Because like, if Texas loses, you could just be like, good, good game, Arch.

Right.

Nice.

I'm not the miss.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, you play the winner.

Yeah.

Yeah. Are you just—

it's fine. But I think it's just, that's just the way it is.

Hey, that makes sense.

This is a kid I've known, you know, since he was born. We— I've, I've played football with them. I've, you know, done drills with them. I've taught him the game of football. He's, he's my, you know, my brother's son. He's like, you know, he's family. And so you, you root for family in, in these scenarios. It's bigger than It's bigger than your college. It's bigger than where you went. It is your blood. And so I'm going to support him 100% on his football journey for the rest of his life.

I think you flip it on him and you say, I want you guys to battle over my affection. Whoever wins, they get Eli.

Put some stakes on this thing.

Yeah.

Why not do that? But no, it's been fun to watch him progress. How often do you check in or do you kind of keep your distance and you're like, I'll give you any advice if you want it, or are you proactive?

Yeah, I think that's the game plan is, you know, if there's really advice that he's looking for, he knows I'm a text away or a call away. I'm happy to give anything. And he does that some during the season. You don't get a whole lot during the season. If there's a certain, you know, a great throw that I recognize in the game, I'll save that for after the game. Hey, great game. You know, you stayed patient, didn't force things. Hey, the out to Coleman in the 3rd quarter, like that was a money throw. Boom. And you're out. So just kind of a, hey, good game. You know, you know, just some, just a little check-in text to, to how it's, how it's going.

What about, have you given him any advice like don't ever make jokes in press conferences ever again? Because we were joking after like, listen, he's still a kid. Like he's what, 21 years old?

Right.

And then the next press conference he gave like one-word answers.

We're like, uh-oh.

Well, here we go. Peyton Manning got to him. Yeah. them like, hey, never say anything and you'll be good.

Don't be funny with the media. Don't try to be funny. Don't try to, you know, wait till after your playing career.

Exactly.

Doesn't matter. So I think that's, that was the idea is like, yeah, he's feeling good. Hey, you know, he beat Ohio State, feeling relaxed. All this stuff's going on. Hey, I can be funny with these guys. And you, yeah, you give them a little window, you give them an inch, boom, they jump on.

We hate, we always make this point. We hate that there's this like double-edged sword with the media where the media wants the players to be honest and open in themselves.

Sure.

And then the minute they do that, we're like, oh, how could he say that? It's like, well, no, I, I would rather like, yeah, guys can, people can make mistakes. I'd rather them be open and tell us how they're feeling and make jokes than just be like constant clichés. And then they get criticized for that.

Right.

So it's not fair.

It's not fair. Not fair. And that's just part of learning, being a quarterback, being in the spotlight, doing interviews. Like you're going to make more mistakes. And that's Like, you're gonna have to learn how to, you know, hey, when someone messes up and it's like their fault, but you're gonna have to take the blame for it, and you're gonna have to take credit for that. You're gonna have to, you know, that's just part of being the quarterback. You're gonna, you know, be in awkward, you know, situations and try not to call out people, and you're gonna mess up sometimes, and you just got to learn from it and move on.

It was perfectly done by you guys because it was like The Godfather 2. when they flew in the uncle from Italy in the court scene and he just sits there and everyone just shuts up. That was basically what happened to Arch.

Yeah.

You just don't do this.

Like, once a quarterback, always a quarterback. So do you accept— do you apologize for sending him funny memes?

Do I, do I, do I apologize to him?

It was you.

So you sent him that meme, right?

It was pretty—

it was a funny meme.

I'm a quarterback.

You're gonna send a meme.

Isn't that what memes are?

It's supposed to be funny.

You're supposed to laugh. Everybody saw it and it's like so outrageous. You can laugh at certain things. We're allowed to laugh at memes, aren't we?

Did you ever get sick though of like taking responsibility for stuff that absolutely wasn't your fault? Like that guy ran the wrong route, but I have to go in front of the media and be like, yeah, that's my fault. That was a bad throw.

I think you just got to like, that's part of the quarterback position. You got to have the broad shoulders and you just understand the longer you do it, You get a better understanding that you're going to have to take blame for things that aren't your fault, and you're probably going to get credit for things when things go well that aren't necessarily to— you should be getting credit for. So you're going to get too much credit, too much blame. That's just the quarterback position, and you got to understand what's best for the team. And hey, we got a young receiver messed up. I'm going to kind of earn some points here. I'm going to take— I'm going to say, hey, You know, we got to communicate better. You know, I got to make a better throw. We got to work on this. Hey, I'm not going to throw this guy under the bus. And now you start building, hey, you know, afterwards, hey, I took care of you. Now you got to pay it back.

Right.

You got to take care of me on the field. We got to not do that again. Don't repeat that mistake. And we got to get better. And you're going to have my back because I'm going to throw a bad pass one time in a game and I can't have you putting your hands up and like, I was open. Like, we don't do that either. So it goes hand in hand.

Or maybe if a wide receiver makes a spectacular one-handed catch on an absolute bomb that you threw, maybe every now and again you'd be like, that was a great pass though.

Yeah.

He would not have made that catch if it wasn't for that perfect pass.

Yeah.

Well, it was a double move. It was like a comeback and go. If he would've actually run a better comeback and sold the double move, he would've been wide open. We would've been walking into this, but—

He'd be still running.

I have a skill. It's really amazing. I have a skill of throwing the ball like just bad enough where guys can make great catches. It's really an art. I've done it. We have a lot of practice. Tyree, Manningham, Odell. It's a, it's a skill. Just out of the reach where they can have the opportunity.

Yeah.

I want them to get on, you know, be on highlight reels. That's my goal.

When you're, uh, when you're throwing around the ball with, with your kids or your nephews or whatever, nieces, do you ever have like a, a day where you're like, oh shit, I still got it. Like, this feels awesome. Do you have that every now and then? You're like, man, ball's flying out of my hands.

Yeah. You know, just, just this past Sunday on, uh, yeah, my first, first and second grade flag football team, I was running a couple out and ups. Kids could not stop it. The defender, they fell for the out and up every single time.

Wait, you're quarterback of the flag football?

Uh, I'm not. I'm just, I'm just doing some drills. Like, as the real team's playing on the field, I'm on the side.

Got it.

And I'm just doing some one-on-ones.

Because that would be awesome. I know they do have like flag football leagues where like parents are quarterbacks.

No, I would love that. I'd be all about that.

That would be incredible.

I've been just now getting the speed, you know, this, the 2nd and 3rd grade speed. I can get it because they're not stopping right when I throw every time. That's usually like when you're in first grade, I'm like, all right, go deep. And right when I throw, they're like, oh, and you stop.

Yeah.

So now they're staying on the move. They can actually— I can like kind of draw the plays on my shirt and on my chest, do this. They can kind of do it right. And, and the double moves, unstoppable.

We need, we need the Giants to get back to a point where it's like— this is like a new fad where we saw Drew Brees say he was thinking about playing for the Broncos last year in the AFC Championship Game. Philip Rivers for the Niners. We need, we need to get Yeah, Eli actually was thinking about coming back for a game. Like, he was, he was, he was contemplating it.

Zero, zero chance. Zero chance. You know, there's no way you can come back. Like, when I go for a workout or I go for a run and like after 7 minutes of running, my calf just like explodes. And like, you know, if I try to do any burst movement, like everything would fall off.

Yeah.

On the same time, like, you see Philip Rivers and you're like, yeah, maybe. Joe Flacco, he's still playing.

Flacco's still doing it. I think once— like, it's impressive with Rivers because once you stop getting hit, like, that's the hardest part. Like, I don't want to get— like, I didn't want to get hit that much when I played. I definitely do not want to get hit right now and, and get injured. Like, right, injury as you get older. Like, you play— you start playing like pickleball or you play any sport, the whole, the whole philosophy of the sport is don't get injured playing this. So like, I'm not gonna burst for that ball. Now, you know, you go back into playing football and everybody around you, you can't really have that mentality.

Adult injuries are really pathetic.

They are, yeah.

It's bad. You can't—

Right.

You just can't, if you're an adult walking around in a walking boot, you're a loser.

We can't have that.

Yeah, we can't do it.

Yeah, somehow like it'll never heal and then you're in a walking boot for like a month after.

And then you gotta tell the story, like how did you do it? Oh, I stepped wrong. I was playing like indoor soccer.

I was leaving a pizza restaurant.

It's embarrassing.

At least you'd say playing football, like tackle in a football, you get injured.

Tried to dunk.

Little cool.

That's what you need to say.

So there's no part of you That, that even a little bit misses the contact, that misses like getting hit just a little bit.

I don't want to be sore. I don't want to get hit. I don't want to be— it's— that's, that's as you get older, like you take a hit to the quad and you get like a thigh contusion. Like, that sucks. It's like, it's brutal. It's not fun at all.

At some point when you're— yeah, there's a difference when you're young and you're sore. It feels kind of good. It feels good to be sore.

You can handle it.

And then at some point it's just like, I really don't want to feel that ever again.

It also—

like, you're sore when you wake up once you reach a certain age.

1,000%.

Yeah.

You wake up, you're like, why? Why does my back hurt? Why does my knee hurt? And when you're young, you heal so much faster. It's like a day and it's like, oh, it's gone. And when you're older, it's a week. It's not like, it's not a 50%, it's like a 200% worse.

Is there a quarterback that's playing right now that you look at and you just see that player and you're like, that guy's got a little Manning in him?

Ooh, a little. Well, I always kind of said it about Baker Mayfield just because like he wasn't scared to throw 3 interceptions. I could, you know, he was going to throw it. He was going to sling it. He probably runs around a little bit more than I did. But I think just that, like, you know, hey, he's going to let it rip. And so—

Yeah, we like our quarterbacks throwing a couple of interceptions.

Yeah. It makes you feel alive.

Got us.

Push it down there. Yeah. Thanks for the shot. Give your guys an opportunity. A lot of it's, hey, I trust my receivers and I know, hey, I'm going to throw it. I'm going to throw it to you. I'm going to give you a chance. And you got to have my back. You, hey, you know, hopefully don't let them intercept it, but if you knock it out a few times or you'll get it, you fight for it, you know, sometimes it gets tipped and it gets intercepted. We're not talking those, but if you kind of have my back and don't let it get intercepted, I'll keep throwing it to you.

What about, what about a coach? Is there a coach coaching right now that you're like, I would have loved to play for that guy?

Um, you know, Mike McDaniel. I think what he's doing in Seattle, just, I, you know, and, and I remember last year talking to you know, to them, you know, kind of late in the season, you know, Sam Darnold was playing well, but he was— he did have a lot of interceptions. He had turnovers. And the philosophy was like, keep ripping it, keep throwing it, keep being aggressive. And this is how— this is our offense. This is what we're doing. We're going to run it. We'll be good on defense. And we need— we need the explosive plays. So keep pushing it down the field. Now, you know, don't force it. Don't like— you know, there's a—

there's a—

there's a happy medium there.

Right.

But he didn't want him to get get, uh, gun-shy. That's like the worst thing. As you know, he's a defensive-minded coach. If you just like harp on your quarterback not making mistakes, your quarterbacks can't play that way. You can't play, you know, hey, just trying not to screw up. It just, it throws off your whole psyche. So I think he gets it, and, and so I think he's fired up. He gets his guys to play hard and, and seems to have a great demeanor.

Yeah, yeah.

He's also like, he's an interesting guy. We interviewed him, uh, last February. He's kind of a nerd, but he like is okay with it. And like, I respect it because he kind of understands he's not trying to be something he's not.

Correct.

And it's like, I think people just— you can tell me, but like when it comes to like a leader of men, it's like the leader of men probably is a little overrated. It's, is the coach putting you in a position to win? Right. Are they, are they making you feel like Sunday you have an advantage over the other team?

Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a big Do you trust— do you trust this guy? Is he going to have your back? Is, you know, obviously they have to, you know, is he putting in the work? Is he having us prepared? And he's doing those things, you play hard for him.

Yeah, there's a way about him that he always gives credit to his players first and foremost. So when we asked him like about all the different schemes that he runs, how confusing it is for the quarterbacks, he just told us like, it's not really that complicated. I just try to put my best players in a position where they can do the things that they're really good at. But also the way that he's doing it is incredibly intelligent. But he always— he'll never tell you that. Like, he'll never puff his chest out.

Yeah.

And make it about him. There are some coaches that make it about themselves sometimes that are also good coaches, but they have to have that, like, extra bit of shit to them, an extra bit of intelligence to really make it worthwhile. Like, you played for— I mean, obviously Coughlin was a guy that I don't know if, if he ever had, like, a best buddy type relationship with you. But the way that he ran the team, it was like having a person that's— that is that like authority figure. Did he have somebody like— I don't know if the offensive coordinator was this way, but was there like a good cop, bad cop where he was the bad guy at the top sometimes and underneath it's like, okay, I'll talk to like the assistant principal?

No, it was just bad cop, bad cop.

He was—

he was intense. And he just had his— he had his things. He had his way that were very important. And it just took a couple years for you to understand and the players understand, you know, just like he had this little, you know, hey, you had to be 5 minutes early for every meeting. And that's like every meeting.

That's actually late.

On, on, on game, like on practice days in the hotels, like everything 5 minutes early. And like, you just dealt with it. He wanted everybody to look the same at practice. He didn't want some guys having cutoff jerseys, some guys high socks, some guys— he's like, we're a team, we're uniform, you know, let's, let's look the same. You know, he wanted people to, you know, when we get on the plane, We wanted everybody in suit and tie. Like, he wanted— he had his things that he was, you know, very just like, you know, not concerned with, but just his rules. And if you did those rules, and it was like 3 or 4 things, if you worked hard at practice and you like football, he didn't have a problem with you. And as a professional athlete, you're thinking like, oh, that shouldn't be that hard. Like, I can wear my socks a certain way, it doesn't matter. Like, I didn't care. I love football, I'm gonna work hard. And, and we had a great relationship. And, and, and then, you know, after like 2 or 3 years, I was a, you know, I was a rookie when I came in.

So like, hey, as the other guys came in, I said, you know, even before he had the opportunity to, to tell the guys, I'd be like, hey, this is what we do on practice is wear your socks this way, or be early and, and just, you know, wear— get a suit for, for the games because we wear suits. We look at— we, we go as a team. We're going to look good as a team. And so they're like, I just bought into it. That was like the rules of the team. And so it, you know, became more player-driven eventually. It wasn't all coming from him. And, and, and, you know, he was fine. He was— he worked hard. He was passionate about it. And he got us ready to play.

Yeah. Can I say, uh, your, your plan for the Hall of Fame is working perfectly.

Which is what? What is my plan?

Like, I think, and I mean this in all due respect, I think you're a Hall of Famer. So I— let's start with that. I think if you'd gotten in like the first or second time, there would have been a lot of people being like, this is crazy. Now you're getting to the point where everyone's like, Eli Manning was way better than people realize. So you're like, the, the legend is growing.

Oh, thank you.

You're gonna get in, but I know what you're doing.

Good job. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's been a master plan.

It's gonna happen. I mean, it is like, you can't— 2 Super Bowls, like, it's, it's for the amount of time, like, years you played, it's gonna happen. And I think that people are realizing, because like, the internet's so stupid where it's like If someone gets something right away, everyone wants to tear them down. But it's like once it passes a couple of times, like, oh yeah, like, what are we doing? Eli Manning is a Hall of Famer. Like, this is stupid.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, we got you.

It would be absolutely incredible if it was like Belichick and you get in again. That would be—

Belichick, Brady, and Eli.

We don't know when Brady's up. Did Brady—

Brady's got maybe a few more.

He might have one more year.

Yeah. But yeah, if you— that same class. That's what I would like to see. Yeah.

I mean, the fact that, yeah, Belichick didn't get in last year.

I mean, that also, yeah, that, that was part of your plan too.

Yeah. Yeah.

Make sure Belichick doesn't get in.

We're talking about this. We want to go in together as a team. Absolutely.

I know those things too, like the Hall of Fame. I, I don't know why we, we let sportswriters decide it. Like, players should decide it, right? It should be the guys that played and they should just like, I don't know, it's just always so silly to me. It's like, how How do a bunch of sportswriters sit in a room and they're like, yeah, Belichick isn't a Hall of Famer?

It's because we're— it's because we're important.

Yeah.

Is there any— is there any football writer or member of the media whose opinion you would trust over like a general manager that had spent 10 years in the NFL? Good question. Like, does anybody actually know their shit?

Yeah. No, there's— there's definitely guys that know their stuff. And, you know, I don't know. Yeah. If there's one, one, one writer out there that I would— could name out that's like, oh, this is the most knowledgeable guy around football. I mean, People, they watch the games, they're involved. And so, you know, but yeah, obviously you get a, you get a GM, you get, you know, coaches, you know, I mean, coaches would probably be the best people.

Yeah, actually, that's true. That's true.

To vote. I mean, they're the ones watching the game film of other players, offense and defense, and being like, this guy's—

Yeah, we have to change our entire strategy for him.

We got a game plan for this guy. This guy is a game wrecker. And you're spent, you're like losing hours of sleep or you're, or you, you, yeah, you think you have this master plan. plan. This is what we're going to stop him. We're putting this plan to slow this guy down. And he puts up, you know, 500 yards passing or he runs, you know, for 200 yards rushing. And you're like, all right, we don't have an answer for this guy. Like, that's, that's, I mean, coaches would probably be the best source for these things.

Yeah.

Yeah. I would agree with that. Would you, would you give up one of your Super Bowl rings if every year that you played in the NFL, the Giants automatically double-digit wins every single year?

Oh, going forward, you're saying?

No, no, no, no, over your career.

Oh, would I give up a Super Bowl ring for if I, you know, so then 16 years of playing, all 16 years we had double-digit wins.

10-plus wins.

Whew. That's actually a pretty good question.

Pretty good question.

That would be nice. I mean, it'd be nice to, yeah. I mean, double-digit wins, you're making the playoffs most likely every single year. But you only win one championship.

I won't ask you which ring.

I'm going to take it. I'm going to take the championships.

2 rings.

Yeah, that's probably fair.

Yeah, that's probably fair.

That's the goal.

They're pretty good championships.

Yeah.

Like if you had to pick 2 to have, those are, those are the best ones. You guys had some great, even as a Redskins fan at the time, I found myself rooting for the Giants in those games.

Yeah. Well, I think during that time, you know, the Patriots have won so much. If you weren't a Patriots fan, you were kind of against the Patriots. You didn't, you didn't like them. So, and if you're part of like in the AFC, You definitely didn't like him. So we attracted a lot of those, those fans.

Yeah.

Do you think, do you think Mahomes is all the way back?

I think so. I think—

I mean, it feels like the Chiefs have that aura.

Yeah.

I mean, the Chiefs are playing good, obviously, you know, just the, you know, getting the run game going and having that, that's going to open the play action. You know, terrible about Thornton, their receiver, you know, but I think, yeah, I mean, I think the fact— I mean, that's, that's kind of what you need. I think as, as you get like a quarterback, you get a little older. You get a defense that's playing well in a run game, like, then you put Mahomes— like, this is where he can be his best.

Right.

If he is still kind of, you know, coming back from injury, don't like have him throwing it 50 times and scrambling around every time. Like, let him control the game. Let him be a little bit more selective in, hey, when are we going to push the ball down the field? And let him manage the game because he's a smart player. He can do those things. He can make all the throws. And hopefully that'll keep games close. And then you get those close games. He's still going to be great in the 2-minute drive. He'll run when he needs to. And that's how you keep him healthy for the season.

It feels like that's kind of what the Bills are missing a little bit, where it's like they've, they've been in spots. I mean, their defense does not look good this year.

Right.

And then you put it on Josh where he's got to be almost perfect every game.

Yeah.

Didn't have a great game on Sunday. It's like, okay, like, so he has to do it all every game.

Right.

I mean, the quarterback has to be like on fire every game to win. It's tough. I mean, you can obviously I think Josh is the best quarterback in the NFL right now and what he— his skill set and be able to run and make the throws and be just a 4th quarter guy and throughout the whole game can take over a game. But there's a lot on his shoulders and it's tough to do that week in and week out. And it's tough to do that. You know, I assume they'll probably make the playoffs, but 4 games in a row in the playoffs against good teams, like you're going to have a tough game.

Yeah.

You know, not that you played bad, But, you know, teams are going to stop you or they'll have a game plan. They'll make some plays. And it's just, that's what makes it tough, you know, for that to win a championship. Even though I picked them and the Bills to win the AFC championship every year.

And you're doing the Manningcast for the Super Bowl, right?

We're doing it this year.

So what do you got planned? You guys have to be in the same room, right?

Yeah, we're going to be in LA together. Peyton and I will be kind of sitting. I don't know if we'll be on the same couch. Like, I don't know if I want him that close to me. But it could get like, it could be interesting, us together. Like, I don't see it going that well. I, I could see like a—

You guys should do the same couch. Beavis and Butt-Head.

Yeah, exactly.

Let's make it a really small couch.

I could see some fight, like, you know, definitely some fighting or like some, you know, a little, a little horseplay. A noogie might come in.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'll mess with his hair. He'll get all worried about it.

Yeah.

He has like a makeup artist in there a lot of times, which I don't do makeup. He does like the big makeup stuff. I mean, I don't know how that's going to be. It might bother me if she's getting in my way and getting all my notes and stuff.

Do you guys ever find that— because we do every Sunday show, we recap the games and it's just myself, Big Cat, Hank, and the guys in the booth. We don't have a guest for Monday shows. Do you find sometimes on the Manningcast, like, you like just when you don't have to worry about the interview, you guys are just talking ball?

Yeah, I think it's kind of good to mix it up. I like to kind of get through the whole first quarter, no guest, and we can just like go heavy ball. We can do all the preparation that we did and kind of things we want to show or demonstrations. Like we can get all that out. Like, hey, boom, let's do it. Let's like anything we want to do, let's get it done. And then kind of, you know, second quarter, bring in someone football related, you know, give them a little break. Um, and then, and then fourth quarter's kind of, you know, we all, we go back and forth.

Yeah.

We usually like to get someone football-related fourth quarter, but also someone with a personality, just because if it's a good game, you want to stay football. If it's a tough game like last night, and you know, you want someone funny where you can just like, we don't have to talk about the game at all, and we can just kind of deep go tell funny stories. So that was great to have our brother Coop and just kind of just go riff.

Yeah, I got a question for you, and you can get heavy ball on this. Actually, I'd like if you could get heavy ball. Like, forget about us being morons. Just talk to us like you would from your perspective as a quarterback.

But also remember, we're morons, so say it sometimes.

Okay, you can say it the real way the first time, and then at the end maybe do one sentence for like a 5-year-old.

Got it.

Because we're talking about the Chiefs and the Bills, and where you see a big difference in their offense especially is inside the 10-yard line.

Okay.

Where the Bills, it's like Josh Allen is going to run the ball in.

Yeah.

They don't hand off a lot to their running back. They kind of lack a sense of creativity inside the 5 to 10-yard line. The Chiefs, on the other hand, sometimes get too creative and too cute.

Sure.

They're doing shovel passes to backup tight ends, etc., etc.

Um, can you explain to us, as a quarterback, what makes an offense good inside the 5-yard line, uh, when it comes to passing the football, as opposed to an offense that's good everywhere else on the field?

Well, I think, uh, you know, a group that's very good at passing inside the, you know, 5-10-yard line, I think you have to have great concepts that You know, that are, that are good versus a lot of different, you know, uh, you know, coverages. And so either you gotta have great play action, you have to have things that are getting people open. And it's like, hey, this is a deep dive into this is what they do. And usually you're probably calling multiple plays. Like, all right, if they, you know, down here they play cover 3, they go all out blitz zero, or they'll play cover 2. So, all right, this is, this is a concept. They play cover 3, This guy's going to get open and it's going to create that. And so, or you have some play action, you know, if you're running the ball well. And obviously the quarterback run is another weapon that teams have to defend now. And so they're like, all right, how do we play zone and make him hold the ball? But if we play zone, they're going to have a light box and the quarterback can run.

So all right, we got to load the box, but now, you know, they're more one-on-ones outside and we got to defend that. So I mean, it's just like the more The more things you can do, whether it's, you know, kind of the play action, the pass game, the run game, the quarterback run, that's 4 ways you can score. That's hard to defend, whether if you're just a team that says, hey, we're a great running team, we're going to run the ball down there. And, you know, once they stop the run and you got to go shotgun, if that's not your strength, then they can stop. They want you playing shotgun. So if you can score multiple ways, whether it's, you know, hey, we can only kind of run the ball or play action. It limits you a little bit if you can only score 2 ways instead of 4 ways.

All right. That's a good answer. What about for a 5-year-old?

5-year-old is, you know, yeah, the better players you have and the guy who can improv, you know, that's what Josh Allen is. It's like, all right, we have these great plays. If they cover it, we have a guy who's just a better athlete than everybody else and go run in and score. Then you have a good offense.

Fast man score. Fast man score.

Big fast man score.

And what about some heavy ball on the Jaguars? Because we love watching that offense. I don't understand exactly what Liam Coan's done. I just know that it works and Trevor Lawrence looks like the very best version of himself that we saw flashes of in years past. But like, that's just been him. He's been confident for the last season and a half now. So what is so tough to defend about his offense?

That's, you know what, I wish I had seen a lot of their offense to watch. I know that they're scoring a lot of points. We did a game last year talking with Liam and he's hard. He's hard on Trevor. I think he gets on him about his accuracy, about his footwork. And I think he has been like harped on like the quarterback-specific footwork mechanics, where he's going with the ball, what the read is. And I think he's kind of got like Trevor just dialed in on this is exactly what you have to do and this is how we got to do it. And he's bought into it and he's doing it. And it's, it's, you know, you know, kind of putting them in a position to be really efficient. And so, and I think that's the same thing where As a quarterback, if you know exactly what the read is and you say, hey, this is, this is what you do, and you're reading 1, 2, and if that guy's not open, it's either check down or you run. And like, that's— you're being taught that and you believe it and you buy into it and you can play that way every single play and don't try to, you know, freelance and get off script, then you're gonna be, you're gonna be in a great position to be successful.

You know exactly what you need to do and you, you can do it. It's— that's, that's usually when you have success in a quarterback Yeah. When he's not freelancing. And freelancing, like, you can still run and you can still scramble and you can make plays, but it's because you're doing it at the right time in the right moment because they caught— they guarded, you know, they had a better defensive play than what you had offensively. And that happens. That's going to happen 5 times a game where no one's open because they have a better call than you do. When you can recognize that early enough to say, now I got to scramble, now I got to create the play, and doing it at the right times, it and you're athletic to do that, you know, you got a good quarterback.

Yeah.

Have you talked to Jaxson Dart at all?

Talked with him, yeah. Just been— I kind of text with him more than talk to him, but text, you know, kind of text him after the injury, you know, and then text him a little bit kind of the past week, just kind of telling him, hey, you know, still stay around. Like, you know, you're a young quarterback, stay. I know you got to heal, you got to do your treatment, but be in the meeting rooms Just be around the players. Like, you're still a leader. They want to see you, but you got to keep learning. Like, you got to be learning this process of watching all these defenses, watch the different ways they're playing Jameis and what our answers are and what, you know, what you need to do and what the— get the game plan, practice saying the plays, practice having the game plan. Like, these are all things that, you know, you're still a second-year player. You got to get these reps.

Yeah, don't waste the year.

Yeah, you got to get these mental reps when you can.

Yeah.

Uh, has JJ McCarthy reached out to you for reservations yet?

No, not yet. Not yet. Yeah, yeah, that's— you got to play a few games. Okay.

Yeah.

Or you gotta, you know, go through training camp or something. So not yet. I hadn't talked to JJ yet. Uh, uh, know him a little bit, but, um, yeah, just kind of let him get us— get settled.

Yeah. I saw on the Manningcast last night, you, uh, you— Peyton said something about the refs, uh, saying like, fuck you to the players. And we had that Trey McBride incident.

Yeah.

I feel like the refs should be able to say whatever they want. Why not? You guys say stuff to the refs, right?

Well, I don't think you're allowed to curse at the refs. So I think that's kind of, you know, I think those guys got in a little trouble. The refs got into trouble. You can say like, hey, you know, that was, that was holding, or, hey, he's grabbing me, or, that was a face mask. But you can't be like, hey, you know, curse at the ref and do that. That is a penalty. You could get flagged for that.

So here's my idea. We should have just a designated swear ref where he can say anything to you and you could say anything to him. We mic it up and then we release it on NFL Films every Monday.

I'm down for it.

Okay.

I'm down for that.

Yeah.

Because, you know, there's guys who like want to say whatever they want to say. It's like, go up to that ref.

You can curse.

Say whatever you want. You're not going to get a flag.

Get it.

And then he could say it back to you.

We can get a fine jar. You just kind of— every curse word, throw some money in there.

Yeah.

And it goes to charity.

Yeah.

Can you hurt this ref's feelings without swearing? That's actually a good challenge.

Yeah.

Or what if— what if they gave players flags? So if a ref cussed at a player, you can, you can throw a flag on them. I don't like that.

I thought they were getting a little out there, boys.

Yeah.

All right.

All right.

I won't tell you the idea I had about letting the ref kiss you if he cusses at you. That's another good idea you guys don't want to hear.

All right, Eli, this has been awesome. We got one last question from the booth.

Yeah.

Rowback question. RHOback.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Rowback.com, promo code TAKE. And do go to the website, sign up. Was it best slider in football? Best slider in football.

Sign the petition.

Sign the petition.

Free King's Hawaiian.

Yeah, get the King's Hawaiian. I mean, they're life. They're the best. They're the absolute best.

And I agree with you, the turkey. Turkey. I'm turkey. That's like my— hey, I'm like running around kids on Saturdays and it's just like I need a little lunch.

Yep.

You know, 2 rolls, throw some turkey on there.

You slide like 2 potato chips in there, getting crunch.

Crunch.

We're off.

These bites are really good. The cinnamon bites and the pretzel bites. Yeah, great snacks.

Oh yeah, I take those home and they're just gone. Yeah, gone. All right, Zach, go ahead.

How you doing, sir? I do have a quick question for you. You do come from a family of a bunch of guys who can absolutely spin the football. But I want to know if it's cool to you, who, who gets to play all-time quarterback at Thanksgiving? Like, who is the— who's on the field?

Well, Peyton would try. Like, Peyton wants to be in control. That's his, that's his deal. He wants to to control it all, but, you know, he just can't throw it like he used to. So I think he's gonna get benched. Yeah, I think it'd be like I'd probably quarterback one side and have little Arch, you know, handle the quarterbacking on the other side. Peyton would probably, you know, he could be offensive coordinator. Yeah, he can call some plays. He'll try to be audible-ing and doing that. So I think that's— I think that would be like the teams right now.

That's a nice way of saying your brother has a noodle Yeah, it's just, you know, hey, he's old now.

He's had some neck injuries. Yeah, he just can't, he can't, you know, he can't sling it like he used to.

Oh, I actually have one last question. Zach, did you have a follow-up?

Yeah, we can do a quick follow-up. I guess we were saying that Arch would be on the other side of the field. Is there a current NFL team you think now or in the near future that maybe Arch could make the most impact on?

Ooh.

Yeah, I mean—

It could be any team.

You have to answer this question. It's a robot question.

I have to.

This is not draft related. This is not— I mean, Arch might not even be in the NFL next year.

We don't know.

We don't know.

But if he were to be, which team, I wonder?

Well, there's 2 ways I look at this. From purely selfish reasons, I wouldn't mind if he went to the Jets.

Yeah.

Just because I live right there. I can go to games.

Yeah.

I could have dinner. I could have dinner with him during the week a little bit. Like, you know, he would— I think it'd be great for him to have some family nearby. So like, I wouldn't mind him going to the Jets, being up in New York and, and, you know, help Rauf over here smiling right now. My Kings of Wine guy, big Jets guy. So, you know, yeah. So that's just my selfish reasons. I think he can help them.

So in which team is Cooper going to block him going to? I don't know.

You know, that's just going to be people like saying that. Yeah.

So my follow-up question was, have you ever had a conversation with Peyton that he did like the greatest service to every young quarterback in the history of the NFL by throwing so many interceptions in his first year?

It's amazing.

That literally any quarterback can suck their first year and they'd be like, you know, threw a lot of interceptions. Peyton Manning kind of taking out the context that Peyton Manning was a pretty damn good quarterback and we all knew it was going to figure itself out and he was on a bad team.

Right. You know what?

I don't—

that record will not be broken again because now if you threw, you know, any quarterback threw 28 interceptions, if any quarterback threw 10 interceptions in their first 3 games like he did, like they're getting pulled and they're getting booed and like the coach is getting fired and he's being called a bust. Like no one has any patience now for that.

Yeah.

And so like, I just don't think it's happening. But yeah, I think it's, you know, it is great that the quarterback's coming in like, hey, you can throw a few interceptions. Yeah, it's fine. You'll never break Peyton Manning.

He bought everyone a second year. Yeah, he bought everyone a second year where it's like, even if you have a terrible rookie year, it's like, well, he could be on Peyton Manning's track.

Yeah, exactly.

10 in 3 games is like, it's, yeah, you got to get off to a good start.

Do you remember that? How old were you? Were you in college?

I was in, I was a, I was a senior in high school. I was a junior, junior in high school.

And what was the conversations like around the house?

You're like, damn, I think he kind of knew it was going to be a rough year. Yeah.

That's—

it's also, I mean, when you, when you're the first pick into the draft, like you are going to a team that sucks.

Yeah.

They have earned that first pick by being a horrible team the year before. So like all of a sudden you're thrown in there, you're not going to help that much. Like it's going to be, it's going to be tough. And so, I mean, you didn't know it was going to be 4 interceptions like every game tough, but You know, I think it helped being in Indianapolis, like a little smaller market.

Yeah.

It wasn't like everybody just was ready to turn on him immediately. They're less, you know, it was like, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't even like a football town like it is now. Like he turned it into a football town. They're like, all right, well, you know, whatever. He'll, he'll get better. They had some patience to it, which was, which was nice.

Yeah.

Unlike New York, you played in, that's a nice way of saying it.

It would have been brutal.

A much more difficult market.

It would have been, no, it would have been disaster. I mean, I threw, you know, like I think one interception my first game and they're like, oh, I don't know.

Was it— was Kurt Warner— was he, was he injured for that game?

No, they just— we kind of made a decision. Uh, we were 5-4, had a bye week that, hey, we're gonna make kind of go to the young guy. And, uh, at that point we kind of had lost a few in a row, weren't playing great offensively at the time, but it was kind of a bold move by Coughlin just because, you know, it's like you're 5-4, you're still right in the mix, and once you go young quarterback, it's Like, all right, like, yeah, we're gonna have to deal with the growing pains of this a little bit, probably.

Yeah, I was trying to remember when Kurt Warner— because he was talking about dislocating his elbow and then going back into the game. That was 2007 though.

Oh, so that would have been with Arizona.

With Arizona. Yeah, I mean, he's a tough guy.

Yeah, he's a tough guy. So Kurt was great. He was great to play, play with and play under and, and kind of watch how he conducted himself and, and game planned and, and went through the film and did everything. He was a trooper.

Well, Eli, always great having you here. I think this is 2 years in a row. Let's do it again next year.

I'm ready.

We love having you on the show.

Love being here.

Shout out King's Wine.

Hey, King's Wine. It's the best slider in football. It is the go-to on Sundays. I mean, it's just the base is just perfect for those slider footballs. And, you know, so hey, it's awesome. Get the petition. We got to get the slider stat. We got it. We need it. An official stat for quarterbacks. You know, go on, sign up, get in the petition, get, get some free King's Hawaiian rolls for life.

Love it.

And congratulations on the Hall of Fame. It's going to happen. Thank you.

Eli Manning was brought to you by King's Hawaiian. Football fans will argue about anything. Who's overrated? Who's underrated? Who's winning the Super Bowl? Whose team got robbed by the refs? But there's one football debate that's already settled. The best slider in football, and it's not close. King's Hawaiian slider buns are soft, juicy, Soft, and loaded with sweet, honestly irresistible. Smash burger sliders, chopped cheese sliders, French dip sliders, whatever's on your menu, King's Hawaiian makes it better. Some debates never end. This one did. King's Hawaiian is the best slider in football. King's Hawaiian is available in the deli or bakery section of major, major grocery stores nationwide. Just look for the orange packaging. You guys know the orange packaging. It's King's Hawaiian, the best slider in the world. And Ryan Russillo is also brought to you by Noble Noble is Barstool's favorite footwear brand. And at the end of the day, just a bunch of no bullshit people working hard to get better. Fall's here. That means that cooler temps, better running weather, and a pretty good excuse to get outside and move is all here. So whether you're training for a race, getting back into a running routine, or just looking for more ways to stay active this season, fall is a great time to lace up and get moving.

That's where Noble's Journey 2 comes in. It's built for every step, every day. with the comfort and support that you need wherever the season takes you. And running isn't just about race day. It's the early morning miles, the runs with friends, and those days when you just need to get outside and clear your head. So lace up the Journey 2 and get out there. You trained for this. Now enjoy the journey. Exclusively for Pardon My Take listeners, Noble is offering 35% off your first order. Visit nobleproject.com, use code PMT, get 35% off your entire first order. That's nobullproject.com. Use code PMT for 35% off your first order. And now here is Ryan Russillo.

Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is our guy Ryan Russillo in studio. Go listen to the Ryan Russillo Podcast right now.

We're here.

He's going to— we're going to talk some college ball. I want to throw— actually, you know what?

You start.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You start. Biggest, biggest thing you're thinking about after week 5 of the college football season.

Or if you have any life advice questions for us, we'll answer them for you.

Why does everyone hate me?

I don't hate you, Ryan.

It's complicated. No, we already covered that one earlier today. I just filmed a new Reese's ad, so we'll see how it goes. Look, college football's— we're the dumbest on this sport than in any of the major sports that we talk about, right? I mean, that was always the way. And now you throw in the transfer portal. Like I've joked, every single preview you read about a new offensive line, the offensive line is always better because it's just, hey, we got, we grabbed 3 guys. We got a guy from Arkansas. We got a guy from Wake. Like we're good. And that's a lot of assumptions. What is probably the most important unit in college football because the quarterbacks are so young and all this stuff that's happening up front. So we know going in, we're the least educated on these teams in this sport. I think we all agree on that. And so you try to figure out like what's changed. I remember it was the 3 Big Ten teams. We didn't know which SEC team would be at that level with Oregon, Indiana, and Ohio State. And now I'd say 5 weeks in, it's, it's really, we've said, we can say there's parity.

We can say it's wide open. It feels really wide open in like an awesome way.

Yes.

It's almost like, so that's where I'm at.

The best SEC team on any given week is the team that's playing against the best SEC team. So like if you win a big game, your next game, right, you get knocked off. You get knocked off by whatever that next game is because you're riding high on your own, on all the press clippings that come after you.

The guys at Solid Verbal had a funny bit where they were saying it's a Clemson Ponzi scheme because LSU beat Clemson, got ranked higher, then Ole Miss beat LSU, got ranked higher, then Florida beat Ole Miss, got ranked higher, then Mizzou beat Florida, got ranked higher. So it all goes back to Clemson being terrible, but being like, that brand is still good, right?

Yeah, it's like I tried to figure that out with the AFC a little bit because in the beginning you're like, all right, Chiefs beat Denver, but then Denver beats Jacksonville and Jacksonville destroys New England. And then you're like, yeah, I actually just think Jacksonville's good. Denver's gotten lucky twice. But another thing, you know, whether you're caught up in the Big Ten SEC argument, which I'm fully caught up into all of the time, the SEC's not had the same results, whether it's the national championships or just that, you know, usually that Illinois-South Carolina bowl game or Tennessee somebody, you're like, hey, did you see that was 35 to nothing?

Yeah.

And you can get into opt-outs whatever, but the Big Ten's been really good in those games the last couple of years. Illinois got 2 wins in 2 bowl games where I'm like, all right, you're fun and all, but that's not going to happen. I think that second tier, whether it was supposed to be Michigan, maybe USC thought they weren't in it. I don't know what Michigan really is, but it feels like it's going to be a little bit more challenging in a good way for those top Big Ten teams because look at UCLA's ranked.

I don't know.

I mean, they're scoring a million points. Wisconsin's way better than people thought they would be.

Yep.

Chip Kelly at Northwestern, which, you know, I just could not believe anybody would actually believe that he would be the Raiders OC and not know what the plays were. That had to be somebody who'd hated his guts to have that leak out. And Chip shows up on the scene here in Chicago and it's just like 8 child— they're scoring 40 a game with that dude.

They're running like crazy formations and guys in motion and running it up your fucking face.

Yeah. So normally I always looked at like who the 3 or 4 with the expansion, that's obviously a little bit different, but it used to just always be Michigan, Ohio State were so much better. than 8 of the teams they were going to play. Like, all right, cool. Like, we'll see. And now I think that second group in the Big Ten, which is usually that second group in the SEC, like, I think it, I think it's better right now, which means we're probably going to maybe have a few more surprises. Like Indiana has been flirting with it here, man.

Yeah.

I mean, the Rutgers game definitely, it was the first time they covered all season was, was on Saturday. But yeah, they have been flirting with it. They haven't looked the same. I mean, I think it's fair to say that Hoover's not the same guy as Mendez. Mendoza was so good.

And I liked Hoover going into this year better than I liked Mendoza going into last year.

I'd agree with that. The, uh, so here, here's one big picture one I want to throw your way because you did, was it maybe like 2 or 3 years ago that was, uh, really, really smart and I hadn't heard anyone say it about like the unhappiness of NBA players and just like, it's crazy that there's just so many guys that are unhappy and want to be traded. traded. I think we're getting there with college football. And I— the, the reason why I'm saying that is with the transfer portal and NIL, the volatility year to year, I don't think people are comfortable with. And you have teams like Illinois. Illinois, Beilema has gotten that team to a great spot. This year they look terrible because you miss on a couple of transfers. The cohesion doesn't work. And the difference between going, you know, 8, 9 wins and losing to Purdue is like, it can happen like that. Penn State gets Matt Campbell, they're already miserable. Michigan, we don't know what, like, they're already kind of miserable.

They're—

Arkansas, that's a death spiral that's going on. They just hired a guy. So it's like the, the fan bases, I think, aren't used to the fact that the volatility is going to be so severe year to year that there's just going to be a— like, so many fan bases are so unhappy right now. And I don't know where that's going to go for the sport, but it's something interesting that I've Yeah, nothing that I would even think that I would disagree because I think you're right.

I mean, I guess I don't know like long-term, right, what it'll mean because I feel like, you know, there was something somebody was writing about the other day. It was like, well, these kids today, it's like, you know, we've done these kids today a lot of decades in a row. We're on a multi-decade run of going like these kids today because, well, now it's the portal. Well, now it's the draft. it's NIL, but before it used to be like, oh, you know, the guys want to get on SportsCenter. It used to be SportsCenter's fault that like guys weren't team players.

Trying to get a top 10.

Yeah.

You know how stupid that sounds?

Yeah.

Like that was accepted for a long time because things didn't move as fast as they do now. But the unhappiness part of it, like back then when you were unhappy, you just dealt with it.

Right. But I think the patience now, like everyone wants instant fix.

Right.

They want—

Signetti messes it up for everybody.

Yeah. Signetti messes up. Like, look at even Arizona State. We love Kenny Dillingham, but like that a minute ago, he got paid and it was like, look at Arizona State, what he's done. They got absolutely smoked by Baylor on Saturday night. And everyone's like, why did we pay this guy? It's like, it's just so fast. And I don't think people realize that instead of in the past, it was building a program through recruits and guys come up and you get, you You know, you get the 4th-year starters and all that stuff. Now it's just like, if you don't like your team, next year they could be better. They could, you know what I mean? It could be one transfer class away. And if you like your team, it could also be one transfer class away from bottoming out. And it's just so severe where I think college football is one of those sports where it's like you expect this team and this team and this team to always have 8, 9, 10 wins. And these teams always have 4 wins. And now it's just all jumbled together.

Yeah, because I wondered when there'd be a correction on some of the NIL stuff, because prior to the NIL, and even though teams were paying guys, there were people that were probably just like the stigma of it, of like, well, I'm not, I'm not helping out. And now it's like in the beginning, it's like, oh, we can start doing this. And I bet you there's some programs out there who couldn't believe the amount of money that they were getting in from people. And I wouldn't like compare it historically year by year, but in the beginning it's like, oh, like, we can start doing this. hey, this is something we're doing. So I think the fan bases were probably— I don't have specifics for it, but you can just imagine how it works. It's like, say you're some middling program, and then they're going to some boosters that never would have felt comfortable doing anything in the shady way before, and they're going like, all right, yeah. Like, and it was almost this, this thing of like showing up and going, I can't wait to spend money now. Like, this is going to be exciting. And the problem is like, yeah, it's just an arms race, right?

You're just spending as much as everybody else is like every year you have to keep spending, right?

So I would think there's some guys the second time through when—

I'd agree.

Hey, fuck that. I saw that thing they had on The Athletic. Boston College had $8 million in whatever NIL, and it was the lowest of all the P4. There's like 7 schools that are like $50, $48 million, north of $50 million.

Bryce Underwood's $12 million alone.

Right.

So like, what are those meetings like with Boston College guys?

Yeah.

What results are you expecting to get for your investment at Boston College, right?

Yeah.

Like, do they pitch a booster and go, we've got to get it up to $30 million? And they go, why?

Yeah.

Yeah. So you can win 7 games, right? I'm not fucking doing it.

Like Tennessee, they put together that, that massive offer for Nico when they signed him a couple of years ago. And then sometimes you get a guy that you pay like $6 million to and you get absolutely nothing. And he's, he's trying to transfer like before the season's over. I feel like if I were one of those boosters, that would be enough for me to say like, this might not be the best use of You'd probably never do it again. Never. No, never. No, ever.

Like, he—

wait, he can kind of like whatever it is, but he can just sort of bail on us now.

There's no like deliverables for like, he doesn't have to play.

You're right. It's weird. It's a weird setup. But I just, yeah, I think, I think the fans have to get more comfortable with how up and down year to year is going to be. And it's not, it's not a linear progression thing. It's more like one year we might, I mean, like I said, look at Michigan. Like Kyle Whittingham is an awesome coach.

No one disagrees with that, but they couldn't have gone better for them considering everything that was happening.

The alternate would be Matt Campbell, who like, I like Matt Campbell, but whenever you're interviewing, you know, 8 guys, then you end up with your 9th. It's probably not going to be exactly what you want.

They did. I think they bumped it up a little too to like convince him to get out of there, but go ahead.

Yeah.

Right. I don't know if it's maybe a lack of patience, but like, well, is anyone—

I mean, you could just say, hey, we're all less patient than we've ever been before.

I think that's fair.

Think how dumb you can get on a flight where like I had internet and I'm like, goddamn. And it was because it wasn't up in 10 seconds.

I always—

20 seconds.

No Starlink on this flight. What the fuck?

Yeah, I try to remind myself in those moments, like the, you know, like when we lived in New York taking the train and it would, you know, the train would be delayed once every It's like, think about all the times you— it wasn't delayed and you didn't think about it. Like, it's okay. It's going to be fine.

But to your bigger point, I think that the beauty of college football is that it's always been broken. There's never been a time when college football was not broken. And part of the fun in it and part of why it's so unpredictable and so, you know, fun to talk about is you're always trying to figure out what's wrong, what needs to be fixed about the sport. And that's by its very nature. It will continue to be broken. broken. As far as we can look into the future. That's kind of the charm of it. It's a stupid sport. It's crazy. I love it. It's great. But there's chaos.

Yeah, that's perfectly said. And I think there's a nice parallel there with the NBA where we spend so much time talking about the bullshit with the NBA. But it's kind of good. Yeah, even if not saying like the Clippers thing is a good thing.

That's the marketing for it.

But all of the next mad player asking his way out and the drama that's gone on with all these players where, you know, normally when it's— I I get like a quiet 6 months or something, I'll say something about it being like, it's been real. We haven't had a pissed off guy in like 7 months. You know, who do you think it's going to be? And that's a segment. It'd be like, who's the next pissed off guy? Probably don't do that in ESPN as much. But, um, back to the BCS stuff, like wringing your hands over and over and over again. It's like, oh, okay, but they played Toledo and that was a night game. And then that was that. And like all of the things that you were freaking out about, it becomes a little narcissistic in that way.

that Yeah.

every fan base thinks it's only happening to them, and they never seem to think that anybody else is ever going through any of the same stuff, which is the irony of the whole deal.

The computers hate us.

Yeah, so if there's ever a way to talk about the product that has nothing to do with the actual result and all of the different theories, even though it can kind of drive me crazy because I'll be like, you know, they're saying the same thing in Texas, or they're saying the same thing in South Carolina, like, you're not as special as you think you are. It's all you're paying attention to, and that's a win. Because the NFL is so— look, obviously the NFL is killing everybody, but the NFL is just so straightforward, right, that sometimes it doesn't have that kind of bullshit topic attachment to it that those other 2 sports.

Yeah.

Yeah. And the only way that you can, you can thrive in that type of environment is get somebody that adapts to chaos well. And that's why Lane Kiffin, I'm sure, will be the LSU coach forever.

Job for life.

What do you think he would leave if Because he's wanted it the whole time.

You want to see again? Would be funny. I mean, Lincoln Riley, I think, is probably— you tell me. I mean, you, you live in the market. Like, Lincoln Riley, it just, it's the same team every year. I watched that game against Washington. I know they won, but that one clip of multiple defensive players pushing the Washington player closer to the goal, they just don't tackle.

They're soft.

And it feels like anytime they play a big boy, they just get punched in the mouth.

They don't.

After the Oregon loss, like, I looked at it. I think it's 0-7 against top 10 teams. I think it was 6-15 against ranked. And I was going through, I'm like, what's that win? Yeah, because they beat Notre Dame, but Notre Dame was 15th and Notre Dame was like a 9-4 team. They beat LSU to start the season 2 years ago in Vegas. I went to the game and after that game you were more annoyed. You're like, how did LSU lose this fucking game? But then you're like, all right, LSU's 13th. If you go through the Lincoln Riley resume, this is a really long time since starting in '22 to not have that signature win.

Right.

Like, trick us.

Right.

Give us one. Beat Oregon once and be like, hey, Clemson.

Yeah.

We talk about Alabama being like the, the team and the program that had it the worst once NIL became legal, that everybody else could start paying their players. You could make that argument for USC. Yeah. USC built dynasties off of NIL. of like, yeah, it was, it was a fucked up rule. But they were one of the ones that were willing to kind of go around the rule, get the players that they had to get and then dominate. And then in this era, it's like, yeah, everyone can do it now.

Yeah, there's been a lot of talk about how like the parity part of the NIL has corrected the SEC's dominance. And most people totally believe it. I sometimes think that you're going like, all right, wait a minute, something's different. So something different has happened, we have a different result. So because we have this new system, system this means.

Yeah.

All right. So, and I, by the way, I could still be totally wrong about this because I think some coaches would argue, hey, we haven't been able to stockpile the same amount of guys. But the funny thing is in basketball, in college basketball, you're like, oh, nobody has a chance. It's all the blue bloods. And you're like, why? It's like because of the NIL. So maybe it's just because basketball, smaller roster, 2 guys can change everything far more than 2 guys can change everything for football. But if you looked at the transfer portal rankings for the SEC versus the Big Mississippi State, I think, was last out of all the SEC teams, and it was still higher than 7 Big Ten teams. Top, I think, 10 of the top 30 were SEC schools. Like, there was a clear, clear gap. So it's like, is the SEC going to turn this thing back around where they're going to start rolling through people again? I mean, it was still hard for me to believe, like, they're just not going to win national championships now because of NIL. That's the kind of parity.

Yeah, I don't believe that.

I don't. I mean, how would anybody sell you on that part? But I don't know, PFT, like you'd think Bama, like, is it, is it because of the NIL or is it because like God left Tuscaloosa? Yeah.

No, it's, it's definitely because Saban would figure it out. Say what you want about him.

Figure it out.

He was—

I think Jalen Milroe, he was like, I can't do it anymore.

He was an old guy, but he would adapt. And it's a rare thing to have, especially in a coach that's had so much success. It's like you're not necessarily set in your ways.

Well, he has an example of it when everybody was talking up-tempo and it was taken over in the early And he goes, this is really what you want?

I'll just get the best wide receivers.

Is this really what you want to do?

This is what we want college football to do?

Like, all right, fine.

Yeah.

We talk a lot about Coach K on this show. He adapted too.

Yeah.

He had to.

Yeah. No, he was, he was opposed to the one and done and then he just, he perfected it.

It was Luol Deng that changed his mind because Luol Deng was like, sir, I'd like to go to the NBA and send millions of dollars to my family in Sudan. They have no money and I would like to be able to pay for an entire Like city in Sudan to be able to eat for a year.

What's the city go for over there?

I don't know. Not as much as it used to. But Coach K was like, okay, yes, you've changed my mind. That's a good point. I will allow you to GoPro.

Yeah. And I never know what to believe with you guys when it comes to—

That's no, that's like I'm exaggerating, but that's pretty much what it was.

Are you guys Coach K guys now? No.

I want to know where that puppy is that they gifted him. Haven't seen it since. They gave him a retirement puppy. I haven't seen it.

Are you a Coach K guy?

I used to hate Duke with the passion of a thousand suns.

Yeah, the Johnnies are back.

I hated Duke so much. I hated him. I still think they're the reason offensive fouls became such a problem. But I gotta be honest with you, once I started being around it a little bit more, I think the ESPN of it all—

They start to get to you.

He's choking that puppy in the picture. Who's taking care of that?

The puppy doesn't look happy.

No. And that puppy doesn't know.

He was just—

he probably handed the puppy to a staffer as he walked out.

It's transactional.

I'm a big Shire guy. How about that? I got Shire 1K2.

Shire does seem like a— he seems like a good guy.

I think I just respect, like, when you're— not to be Big J on you guys, but when you're around it, respect greatness, and you see what they do in this community in 40 years. You're like, all right, real fucking chill out.

Give me your— the 5 teams you trust the most in college football right now.

Trust is an interesting way of putting it because when I look at Texas, why do you not put them in the top 5?

But that's not what I asked.

No, it isn't. I mean, their yards per play is dog shit.

It's their offense looks broken.

Their defense is lacking explosives. Yeah, defense is just filthy. I mean, I know Collin Simmons whipped out— the way he whipped out his dick makes you think I think that I don't want to talk about it.

He should have been able to. When you have 5 sacks in a game, you can do whatever you want.

New rule.

Fire hose.

It was like a pop-up book. Like, it was like, what?

I mean, I'm sure you've done the thing. If Arch Manning's last name was not— if it was Arch Minshew, how would people be talking about him? If it was Colin Watt and he was a Watt brother, would he be automatic? Yeah. Automatic first overall pick.

It doesn't look good live. And then the tape guys tell you how good the tape is. I'm not a tape guy. Really.

I mean, Max is a tape guy.

I got a guy that you could—

yeah.

Max.

Big time tape guy.

Got huddle.

Yeah.

Got access.

All right. So top 5 teams you trust.

Georgia, because I think the defense is there. I think the receivers are a lot better. They've got about 5 different people that can run the football and they have explosive plays in a way that they haven't had the last couple of years. Like you can say, oh, Georgia slipped a little bit. They're winning the SEC. But when Georgia lost in those playoff None of us were shocked that Georgia was losing those playoff games.

I did the whole thing when we did our preview. It's like, oh, Georgia slipped. Georgia lost to Notre Dame and they were the backup quarterback, right? And then they lost.

Yeah.

Well, no, Carson Beck got hurt.

He did get hurt. Stockton, that's when he came in and he almost got decapitated.

Yeah, you're right. So they lost to Notre Dame who went to the national championship and the next year they lost to Trinidad Chambliss who caught fire. And it's like the guy played. He played a month of football where he was just out of his mind good.

Do you think they beat Bama this week?

I don't know.

I got to look more at the game. Keelan Russell is really good, man.

Beginning of the year, I was like, all right, you know, and I sounded like I was being a little too critical of a guy in his first play starts ever. But it was like, there's these young dudes that are so nasty that look at one read and then bail and they've gotten away with it their whole lives.

Yeah.

And, you know, this is part of what can be frustrating as an offensive coach is you're like, can you just let the play develop a little bit more? Well, something clicked after the Kentucky game. South Carolina, he was waiting on the pocket. What he did this past week against Kamario and those guys, he has the number 1 QB— QBR in college football the last 2 weeks combined.

Yeah, he's awesome.

Although number 2 on the list isn't super impressive.

Is he?

Who's number 2 on the list?

I'm not going to say.

Who is it?

I'll say it off the air.

You don't want to say this guy's name?

No, I don't. I don't, because it hurts my Keelan Russell point. I think Texas from a personnel standpoint, there's no way, like they really aren't going to have any explosives the rest of the way with that defense. So I'll put Texas, I'll put Georgia in there. Out of the 3 Big Ten schools, I went in thinking Indiana was going to win the Big Ten again.

Same.

Ohio State, I'm a little bit more down on saying. this year than I was last year because I just thought it was going to look like— I thought he was going to be at another level. And all he has to do is throw it to number 4.

But is that like— that might just be enough because Jeremiah Smith is that good. That game against Iowa, they, they were— they had triple coverage on him and he was still catching the ball. It was— it's— I don't know.

I, I know I would, you know, if you didn't like your roster in the NFL and you needed a quarterback, Do you think next, well, yeah, next year's draft, you just go, let's just take him.

Yeah.

He'll make our lives easier. Yeah. I do think he's that good.

Would you trade Jayden Daniels for him right now?

Absolutely not.

Yes, he would.

No, absolutely not.

Come on.

I promise you I would not.

Would you trade Caleb Williams for Jeremiah Smith?

No.

Okay.

That's the right answer.

Yeah. Why would you, why would you think about trading? We have good wide receivers.

Jeremiah Smith's special.

He's very special.

But wait, so you wouldn't trade, you wouldn't trade Jayden Daniels right now for like some imaginary transaction where you get Jeremiah Smith and start over at quarterback?

No.

You still like Jayden Daniels?

I still do. And I think if you talk to most Commanders fans, they would probably say the same thing. Like he's really, really good when he plays. The first half that he played against the Cowboys before he got hurt, like that's, he was making incredible throws. The legs are still there. He's a very good player if he can just stay on the field. If he doesn't stay on the field, I'm willing to say like, hey, we fucked up again. This sucks. But no, I'm willing to, I'm willing to stick with him long-term because I think he can still be very, very good.

Yeah.

All right. Who else you got?

Who else do I trust? Georgia? Alabama?

I don't think they got in there. Ohio State is.

I'll put Ohio State in because I still like both the running backs, even though the yards per carry thing was a little lower than I thought that was going to be. And I think Jeremiah Smith, like when I was watching Dallas against Houston yesterday, it's like, how are you going to stop CeeDee or Pickens 4 times in a row?

Yeah.

Like how are you in that spot where you have a 4th down to play with? You're not going to. With Jeremiah Smith, it just feels like you can feel good about 80% of the possessions and he's still going to go over the top and have 2 touchdowns. Like he's starting with 14 points today. I realized that, right? So yeah, I'll do that because of him and because of Oregon's offensive line and the Dante Moore thing. Although Raiola, who I've never necessarily loved, he was so nasty in that SC game.

I know.

So I'd have to see more to put him in the top 3.

I'm also like, I'm kind of feeling, and maybe this is wrong, I'm kind of feeling like the Oregon-Oklahoma State game, like the, the fact that Oklahoma State knew every single play. Like, I'm not throwing that game out, but I might be getting close to throwing that game out.

And thinking Mestemaker doesn't move and then he runs for a million yards.

Yeah, right. And it's just like the— like, it was clear that they— like, the way Dante Moore was standing, the stuff rate that Oklahoma State had in that game was off the charts.

They had 2 3-man rushes where they didn't block it.

Right.

And then Moore had a 4th down where he threw it short of the sticks and they were a fucking mess in that game. I still I'm not putting Oregon in there. I should, if I'm putting Ohio State in there, I should probably put Indiana in there, but we haven't even touched about Miami and Notre Dame.

All right.

So let's do this. Let me take out, let me go Georgia. Let me go Notre Dame. Let me go Miami. And I'm actually going to say Ohio State. I can't take Ohio State and then not put Texas in there.

Yeah.

I'm going to figure out, I'm going to guess.

All these teams, like to your point at the beginning of the show, Like all these teams have flaws. No one feels unbeatable. No one, no one right now are you sitting there like that team cannot be stopped.

But usually most years we're going like after week 6, we're like, oh, it's these 2 teams and then it's everybody else. And then that's wrong.

But we could list 10 teams where I'm like, yeah, I could see it.

When does it get weird? Like maybe the exercise is how many do you go before you go, well, that doesn't make any sense that they would win a national championship.

Like I'm a little surprised that Yeah, go ahead.

I'm a little surprised people like BYU still so much in the polls.

They're 8th.

They're 8th in both polls. And I was arguing Texas Tech being overlooked because at least they have some P4 wins in there. There's a ranked win in there, but they looked like shit against Colorado.

Texas Tech's a mess as well.

They were, they were number 1 in opponents' yards per play last year. This year right now, I think they're 57th, 58th.

I do think BYU could beat almost any team at home.

You think they're going to beat Notre Dame at home?

No.

Almost. I watched almost every single—

almost every team.

I put you in an unfair spot.

I bet.

Yeah. The answer is no. I don't think that they're going to beat them.

They're already a 10-point dog in that game.

Yeah.

But I think they're number 8 in the country.

They're not. It would be crazy if they won. That would be one of the—

I think they're going to be—

I watched the entire TCU-BYU game because I had TCU. BYU had 62 yards passing. Yeah.

62 yards passing.

They had 62 yards passing.

I had to go with—

That should not— they should— they got outgained by TCU like Like, they— that was— I just watched the whole game being like, how is TCU not covering this game? How are they not going to win this game?

I—

BYU, I will not trust.

Did TCU just— did their entire program get ended in, in the biggest game of that entire school's lifetime?

What do you mean?

Like, they get— they make it— they get their shit kicked in by Georgia.

Yeah.

Well, everyone left and everyone was gone.

Everyone left.

Like, every single person, which is why the Colorado win against them.

Yeah.

When somebody was selling it as, oh, they beat the national champ runner-up. Like, Deion beat TCU without any of the guys that were on TCU, and then the Colorado State comeback, and he's on fucking 60 Minutes, right? Yeah, but I think it's fair to remind everybody what happened.

Colorado should be— should have maybe beaten Texas Tech this weekend too. So the Big 12 is a mess. Like, it is.

That might be one of those things where if you ask them, like, would you want to play that game again? Was it worth it going to the national championship game? Yeah, they might say no, because if they had lost— is that against Michigan, right? The semifinal?

Yeah.

If they'd lost that game, which was an incredible game.

It was awesome.

It was just chaos. If they lose that game, that's an incredible moment for the program. Like, we were this close to a national championship, but you show up at the national championship and then you look like you're a peewee team.

Well, you're right.

People remember, like, people remember Clemson whenever, like, Clemson gets talked about during the Dabo years. It's like they take out Bama twice. And then, you know, the first game was great that Bama won. Second game's all-timer throw to the right side. And then they just, it was one of those games where it unraveled. And you're like, I don't know if the gap between these 2 teams is like reflected in this score, but this is just brutal. And then remember the other Clemson players being like, best team of all time. I'm like, I don't know who said that at the time, but then no one ever remembered any of the Clemson losses in the semifinal.

Yeah. Yeah. The back to Big 12 though, it's a mess. I actually like weirdly I think it's going to sound crazy, but I might trust Baylor.

You're going to put a future on Baylor and Langway?

Oranda has— I think he's breaking the record for most years successfully coaching with the hot seat. He has been on the hot seat for like 5 years in a row. They have been so close to firing him so many years and he just keeps finding a way off of it. It's, it's actually remarkable.

Yeah.

I like—

if you had— if you told someone, if you knocked someone out like 3 years ago, You're like, and you woke them up. You're like, who's coaching for Baylor? They'd be like, there's just no way Dave Veranda is still there.

But I always wondered, do ADs fire coaches more often because they think that coach should be fired? Or is it because they have to make sure the people donating money are happy that their impatience is rewarded by firing them all the time? I wonder how many ADs have fired somebody to be like, I know this is the right person, but you know, we had a bad roster year one.

Yeah.

Brought the wrong quarterback in, fucked around with that.

I made him change coordinators even though though, his coordinator schedule was really bad one year.

Yeah.

Like that was the same thing with Clemson too. The beginning of the year when it was Vicenza. Does I have that right? He's already been the backup now. So I forgot how to pronounce his first name.

Oh yeah.

Vicenza.

Yeah. I forget.

So anyway, he's like, couldn't we have played like Houston Baptist week 1? Like I could have walked around campus for a week.

Yeah. Vicenza. Christopher Vicenza.

I already forgot. I think he's hurt too right now.

Yeah. How hot? Well, let me ask you open-ended. What other hot seats are starting to fire up?

Other hot seats. That's almost like I'm a reporter type of thing.

If it was just based entirely on, on performance, your personal— Ryan, Ryan Rosillo's personal, personal hot seats. Like, coach, I think they wiped out most of the guys.

Well, the, uh, I mean, Norvell's always on the hot seat, right?

But apparently, like, the deal there is they didn't spend on the roster because they're saving to pay the next coach.

Okay.

So like, hey, you can come back and coach this year, but the only reason is shitty teams so we can save money on however we're going to go ahead and replace you.

Do you think Shiano's on the hot seat? No.

Okay.

Shiano is not.

Thank God. He is.

He puts other people on the hot seat. Thank God.

How many times you guys interviewed him?

But I shook his hand like 3 times.

How'd it go?

The handshake?

No, the interview was pretty good. He's a cat guy.

That makes sense.

Yeah. He did a lot of the keep shopping.

He said he doesn't like the cats. His daughter does and his wife does, which every cat guy will say.

He was actually—

Happy cat, happy, you know.

He was way more affable than I thought that he would be.

Yeah.

He was so tough when he was at ESPN. He came in studio. He would just come in and do his thing. And then you're like, do you not want to do this?

And the answer is, yeah, probably not.

Probably didn't want to do it.

Yeah. There was a story that probably not in Tampa. He would like, he would confiscate everyone's cell phone when they came in the building and put them in a big bucket and lock them up. So it's like no cell phones. You can't have cell phones when you're in the Buccaneers team facility.

I don't know. Does that shit work? We were just on the Yak, right? And you guys started talking to PJ Fleck and it's like, no, they just beat Michigan for the first time in a while. Because like none of this stuff, like I was thinking about it the other day, like John Summerall, right? He was at Florida. So the first like introduction he gets to the bigger college football audience, like most people weren't paying attention. And then the phone goes off at that press conference and then he gives like a real hardo like thing to that person. And that's the only way some people have ever consumed him. So then it turns into like, what a dick this guy is. Like, I can't believe it. And then they get off to the streak that they get off to.

Foro's back.

And Bruce Feldman, who I love, is my guy, writes this piece of like, hey, Jon has a very intentional way, and he understands people, and he understands dynamics. And it's like, oh, so all of this stuff that the general public was like opposed to, now they've gotten off this stuff. start, they, they like it. And like PJ Fleck is the embodiment of—

yes. Yeah. I've turned around, by the way, John Sumrall, I want to talk about PJ Fleck, but John Sumrall had an unbelievable quote after getting killed by Mizzou. He said, if you pat your team on the ass too much, eventually they're going to shit in your hand. I love that quote. It's a great quote. But PJ Fleck, I, I could tell you maybe resisted my take. I've come back around on him in the fact that you don't believe it. No, but you don't believe it.

I don't like Minnesota.

Their rival Wisconsin. He tasted He is so like openly, I'm the guy and the team doesn't matter, it's all about me, that I find it funny. Like, it's— I don't know how he did it.

That's not you saying you like it.

No, it's not.

But it's like I'm now amused again because like he's gone from being annoying to being funny.

Yeah, it's like—

Which is—

but it's only because they've won a few games.

By maybe, but by winning the games, it's given him the platform.

Yeah.

To be— just be more PJ openly annoying on a bigger stage, which then becomes funny.

Yeah.

Like, this is a very important part of the life cycle of anybody that we talk about on Part of My Take is like, we'll make fun of them and then they'll get so big being the person that we make fun of that we start to like and appreciate. Yeah. How authentically funny.

The clip of him just after every win making the whole team do a crowd surf of him is so ridiculous.

Do you think that he waited for the cameras to be on before? No, he's been doing this.

No, I disagree, Ryan. No way did he wait for the cameras.

The lighting was perfect.

I shouldn't say that. It was irresponsible of me.

I don't know that for sure. Oh shit, the cameras are here while I crowd surf.

But there was a time once when a player went down with an injury.

Oh, he sprinted out there. Oh yeah, that's PJ Fleck classic. It might've been when he was at Western Michigan.

I think he was at Western when it happened. And that was like the first Yeah, no, he'll go out and kiss a guy. Yeah, I went, whoa, all right, put that one away in the holster for a little bit.

But he wins. He's— I mean, he's done— I think Minnesota fans are like, get upset, but like, he has raised the floor of that, of that program to places they never thought they'd be. Really. I didn't say ceiling. I said floor.

Fine, fine.

It's been a nice little run, but, uh, He won the Big Ten West one year.

They didn't actually win it, but he said they did. There was a 3-way tie. He's like, we won the Big Ten West. We just didn't get invited to Indianapolis.

Sometimes they do that.

He broke the—

he lost the tiebreaker.

It's actually really unfair.

Yeah.

When you win your division, they decide you're not a big enough brand.

So, but you just don't—

if you're a competitor, you don't take that win. You go, we're not playing for Indianapolis. the Big Ten Championship. So therefore we did not—

Nah, nah, PJ's got— he's got the trophy.

Probably.

He probably does. But the reason I always harp on this all the time is that just, I can't believe how stupid we are sometimes about this shit where everybody does the same fucking thing, where you're the same person, you are the exact same thing. And then we only play the results. Like, I always use this as a perfect example of what I'm talking about when Josh McDaniels got the first job with the Broncos. Remember, they got off to like a 6-0 start.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. And he was so young and people kept talking about like, he's so young, but like he thinks like the players and he can relate to them because it's like so much closer in age. And there's this energy in the building that's going on right now. And granted, like the schedule was pretty easy. I think they got a couple of close ones. They lost like the rest of the season and they're like, you know, he just wasn't prepared. He was inexperienced. His youth showed. up. It's like he's the same fucking guy doing the same exact thing. And we just want everything to be like simply processed to be able to come up. So like your whole PJ Fleck thing, which I know you don't actually believe.

I do.

No, you don't.

No, I don't like him.

But are you gonna have him in studio?

It's funny.

He's making me laugh.

If they ask, make me laugh.

Hey, can we get PJ in studio? Do you say yes or no to it?

We've had him on.

Will you do it now?

In studio?

Yeah.

Yeah. In studio.

Yeah.

They keep Only if he comes in here and empties a brown jug of water.

And we, and we, and we like carry him around the office.

Only if he, if he eats my blood. That's the price.

Tell him when the SID assistant reaches out to you and says, hey, we're talking about PJ. And PFC's like, you've got to lick my blood.

He has to lick my blood. That's, that's admission price to this video.

I know all these guys are psychos. And like, you know, I always laugh about Dabo running down the hill before the team and everything. And like, that makes me laugh every time. I know they're all psychos and they all are like, I'm the guy. guy and it's about me. But you are supposed to have a little bit of like decorum and be like, the team, the team, the team. PJ's like, nah, fuck that. It's me.

Yeah, we agree. You're just entertained by it.

Yeah.

He used to have like too many sayings.

Yeah. Yeah.

He's got like—

When he had the row the boat thing and then it was like, yeah, he had a sign-off once where I think he got 3 of them in there.

Yeah.

He tried to take row the boat to Minnesota, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He tried to row the boat across.

He did bring it to Minnesota.

2 Great Lakes.

I think he had to put— I think he had to pay Western Michigan. I think Western Michigan owned it.

But it's really about the lakes.

They're huge, dude. They're massive.

They're so much bigger. People in the United States are not educated enough on the size of the Great Lakes.

I agree. There's a beach here in Chicago.

It's an ocean.

Look at a globe. Tropical concrete. Kids aren't buying globes as much as they used to.

You know what?

You're right. Yeah. And now they're all into maps, but the maps are messing them up because the projections on the— I don't know if you're a Mercator guy.

Oh my God.

Give me a break. You screw up your entire— Max still thinks Alaska lives in a little box off the southwest coast of California.

Yeah.

Ohio is like the size of Russia, but because of the angle.

Yeah.

Yeah. Are you just trying to distract us from talking about what a great job Bill Belichick's done?

They were in that game.

Should we be talking more about the on-the-field, between-the-lines Bill Belichick and UNC?

You don't see her a lot much anymore. No.

Are you saying maybe pregnant?

I didn't say that.

Maybe she's showing.

Yeah. Our queen. Whatever.

Whatever. He didn't make it easy on himself. And here we go. You know what I mean? A little reset year for you. The 33rd team. I don't know if they're quite there yet.

I don't have them in that tier.

They actually were playing good ball at the end of last year too. Like they were in those games where they were just like, it was like, oh, 17-13, they would lose.

I mean, they, they haven't looked bad the last 2 weeks.

No, defensively, they're, they're fine. I mean, that, that Clemson game, I actually think they probably would have probably beaten Clemson.

All right.

So what other— so you asked, let's just—

we did the list though.

Yeah.

The list of teams that we, we were like, yeah, that makes sense.

That's the cutoff and it's still going to be wrong.

So just when we go in order, it's Texas, Georgia, Notre Dame, Miami, Ohio State, Alabama, Indiana. That's 7 right there. BYU, I'm, I'm not putting in there.

I'm not putting them in there.

Ole Miss.

Yeah, because I think Trinidad's probably the best quarterback in college football. And I think he's the kind of guy like even in that Florida game, he came back and responded on 2 big drives and they desperately needed it. The problem was that running back duo for the Gators that day was just nobody was stopping.

And Ke'wan Lacy has to be healthy.

Yeah.

All right. So put them in there.

That's 8.

LSU.

Levis scares the shit out of me.

I know, but their backup.

Yeah, but when Levis gets cooking, he's had a couple quarters where he's really seen it well. He's throwing darts in there, you know, leading guys really well. He just likes to run too much. And it was a problem when he was at Arizona State. And that's why I think it's so funny that Lane's the first guy I think that's ever given us an injury update when not asked and gave us an accurate one. So at the A&M game at halftime, he's like, well, Sam's hurt. And he wasn't even asked about it. about it.

Yeah.

And then he made the point that I thought was pretty funny. He's like, him being hurt with his calf kept him in the pocket. So it might actually worked out a little bit better. So I think their defensive front, even with Weeks out, like there's these moments I have with LSU defensively. I'm like, this should be considered one of the best defenses in all of college football. I don't know if that's going to be the case. I don't trust, I probably just don't trust Sam enough with, I think what's a bunch of B receivers from what I've You know, Green's been hurt. They shuffled the O-line a little bit. Would it be shocking if they turn this whole thing around? Well, I shouldn't say turn it around. They've had a really good season so far. If you're going to do Bama, then I think you have to include LSU and Ole Miss. I mean, if you have to include Ole Miss, yeah, I'd be all right with that.

Okay. And then disagree? No, I'm in on that. And then we have, I actually should have mentioned Utah because that's probably the best Big 12 team.

Yeah.

And they're behind BYU and Texas Tech in the polls too.

They can run the fuck out of the ball. They do a lot of weird shit with their running game.

Would you go to pick them against BYU right now?

I would. I would pick them against BYU.

I wonder what the spread would be.

Let's just take out the Big 12. Oregon, I think, has to be in there. I know.

I'm not ready to put them in to win the national championship.

You would be shocked if they won the national championship.

Well, no, I mean, framing it that way. But yeah, from what I've seen so far, I know they've switched around their O-line a little bit and, you know, they're down one of the receivers, but like they were one of the groups. It's like, well, they can lose a receiver. They've got 5 other guys.

Yeah.

4 maybe.

I, and then I think it falls. So it's like 10 teams, 9 or 10 teams.

What about Missouri?

Missouri?

Well, no, they're, they're next up. They're next up to lose.

You get picked off.

Who are they playing this week?

I still don't trust the quarterback, their offensive line.

You don't trust their quarterback?

Missouri?

Yeah. Simmons?

No.

Really?

No. I think he's, I think he's prone to, I mean, he played flawless against Florida, but no, I think in a, in a big-time game, I don't think I would.

A&M is going to beat Missouri this weekend.

Oh, I don't think so.

That's how it goes.

That's how it goes.

I just don't like A&M's quarterback. I haven't liked him even when they were good.

No, but Missouri has at Ole Miss, Texas. It's Georgia. Yeah, that's tough.

Any Big Ten teams have a stretch like that?

Yeah, actually, I think so.

See, I agree with you now. Yeah, maybe not that level, but no, which is definitely about—

USC.

USC has that stretch. USC still has to play at Wisconsin. Tough. At Penn State. Whiteout.

Yeah.

Ohio State and Indiana.

Yeah, it's almost the exact same thing.

The exact same thing.

Have you seen the line for Penn State-USA?

Oh no. Where's the line? Is it— we play a game on the show called Whose Line Is It Anyway where we guess the lines.

That's a great idea.

Penn State whiteout.

Okay. I'm going to say USA.

You got to add a field goal to it when it's Penn State whiteout.

By 6.

I'm going to say Penn State. Penn State minus 1.5. Bang.

Got it. Penn State minus 1.5.

They give a lot to the whiteout night game. USC's not— I mean, USC, they're both—

Penn State stinks.

They're both very flawed teams. I probably will take USC in that game.

Yeah.

But those kids, those California kids, the Samoans, they see a whiteout, they're going to lose their shit.

It's true. Yeah. You know what?

I'm going to wait.

I'm going to wait for the weather on that one.

Weather report's going to be big.

I mean, it does feel like it very desperately—

Weather report, Jakob Pistorius on base.

Yeah. We have a weather guy here that does—

He's actually awesome.

Weather picks.

Yeah.

Exclusively picks based on—

Right. He's like 12-2.

Where they haven't factored in what the weather's going to be.

I need a new system. I'm stuck in between 2 systems right now.

This guy, he knows the wind.

He also, Ryan, he did the most improbable thing ever. He started 8-1. until Dave and I figured out that he was doing this. He actually won the 9th game. Like, that never happened.

I know.

Now you don't want to see it.

For Dave and I to hop on and for him to win, that's never happened in the history of—

I've had a tough 2 years.

You'll turn it around. Uh, what else we got?

Uh, Oklahoma.

Yeah.

Hot seat. Rosilla's hot seat.

Ugh.

There was no way. Mateer's thumb. The most talked about thumb, you know, going back to Megan Fox.

Yeah.

Whatever happened with that?

Her toe thumbs? I think they're still there.

You need to get that worked on.

I don't know that there's a certain—

All the things have gotten worked on.

Yeah.

I don't think they do thumbs. The bottom line is all of her thumbs look hideous. If you ever see somebody like holding something in a picture, everyone's thumb's disgusting.

Yeah.

Thumbs are not—

Yeah. My thumb doesn't look that great right now.

No, that's why it's an insult. It was like, you look like a thumb.

There's no coming back from that.

Nope.

Nope.

You just—

no, dude, I'm a pointer finger.

No, the only— yeah, you just flip them off. That's the best way.

Or the English way. Oklahoma, as bad as they were on offense, and it was all on Mateer's thumb, right? Mateer's thumb, Mateer's thumb. I think they were like 1-something yards per play last year. They're just as bad again. Like I was looking, I think it was 107th last year yards per play. Now it's 95th. And we spent all offseason talking about Metcalf being back or whatever. And, you know, I just don't— I always look at quarterbacks 3rd and 7+ in college. And you kind of get to a point in October where you go, I trust this guy.

And the long—

there's not a long list of guys that you trust on that long in college.

No.

And with him, you know, like that Michigan game, you're like, this looks exactly And so I know with Texas and the history, that's why this number's not big. I think it's only Texas minus 6 considering they're the number 1 team in the country.

Well, Texas offense will probably look bad.

I don't think we're going to have like those 4 overtime shootouts that we had back-to-back years. They scored over 200 points combined in this game.

So awesome.

It was wild.

And you've had, you've had games where one team was like clearly the better team.

Yeah.

But they can never throw a huge— this can't be a 10-point spread. No, it can't be.

Yeah.

Because of what happens. But I, I don't know, man. I keep waiting for like, I guess the film on Arch looks really good. I'll say that again.

Oh, okay.

They say the film looks really good.

Well, if he improves as much this year as he did from the beginning to the end of last year, he should be in a good spot.

Yeah, I get the attraction with him. I do. I actually think there's some stuff with him that's really good, his mobility inside the pocket, which is like a very I think Saehn actually has a little bit with Ohio State. There's some stuff I don't like about him physically, but it's that I don't care about how fast you are, how strong you are, all that stuff. Are you finding ways to slide to get to those throwing lanes? And I think Arch actually does that really well for a guy his age. But, you know, you bring in Cam Coleman, you've got 2 new running backs, you know, like all of this stuff and the rest of the guys in the receiver room, you're kind of like, okay, what's Like, the plan here? you guys are just going to be an average offense? Like, how the fuck's that going to happen?

Yeah, it is very baffling.

It's probably not going to wake up against Oklahoma's D because it's— no, Venables can coach defense.

The rest. All right, Zach, you ready? Roback question. rhoback.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. roback.com, promo code TAKE.

Right. I have a quick question. I know they say you're not typically supposed to talk about this, but I did want to— I did want to ask. A couple months ago, were you in a fight club in France?

Yeah. How'd it go?

Come on.

How'd it go?

I can't talk about that.

What are you talking about?

What's the first rule?

I just— I thought I saw Ryan maybe in France knocking up, and I was very curious.

At a fight club?

It looked-esque.

What happened?

I was in Antibes and I, I went and did a workout with— I forget my guy's name. Oh, there's Jacques. Now you're going too far now. Wow, look at the ups on that one though. That was when I sold the boat.

I did a day in Antibes honeymoon.

Just one day?

Yeah, just one day.

Yeah, he's too busy.

Fucking—

where'd you stay?

Cab, probably.

It was actually on my— we stopped there on my away from—

yeah.

Nice to Saint-Tropez.

What'd you think of Saint-Tropez?

It was, it was nice. We only did like 2 days there. I think that, I think that was enough. I liked Eze a lot. Only did one, one night there. As I liked Eze the most out of everything. That place is cool.

I think I'm going to Japan in February. So if you get— if you ever get divorced and remarry.

Yeah.

Where—

what's this fight club?

I took a Muay Thai class in, in Oh, hell yeah. And I found a gym and, oh, here it is. It's coming up here.

Nice.

Yeah. Wow. There you go. That guy, uh, sparring. Yeah, I was, to be honest with you, it wasn't sparring. He was just taking me through a workout. Um, and I—

Are you doing this? Are you doing jiu-jitsu or Muay Thai?

Muay Thai. I, I can't grapple at all.

Yeah.

Diplos.

You're doing Muay Thai?

I have been for a few years.

Yeah.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

I mean, I bought a boat. Screenwriter, Muay Thai. Obviously I—

Stop asking about the midlife crisis.

5 years from now, I'll be posting up in Colombia and I'll actually like post a picture of me with a woman thinking it's me. it's cool that she likes me. Like, I met this little, little bundle of joy.

She loves Americans.

Yeah.

Like, we just randomly met and connected. I, you know, it's just, I found my person. It took a while. So yeah, I get, I'm probably 5 years away from that part of it. But I, when I was with, well, Wes, but it's, you guys know him as Diplo. His, his fight coach Yama, who I hung out with all weekend.

Yeah.

And then he kept being like he wanted to grapple with me, and I was like, I'm not good at any of that shit. Like, I don't know how to do that stuff. So he leaves. Like, he like tied— Diplo was doing his set, and there's a video you can see Yama, and he's like £60 less than me, and he's like pushing me all over the place. And I finally, I'm like, all right, fuck. Like, I don't really want to do this anymore. Like, I'm—

Those guys are badass.

I know we hit it off great, but that part, like at any moment I'm in a clinch. Yeah, dude, I'm in Chicago for a couple of days.

You fight them off.

It's not very good. I'm admitting, like, I'm not— the last thing I want anyone to think is I'm some badass.

So you're not gonna do the Jonah Hill?

Only I like Jonah Hill, but that was—

Yeah, you gotta say that now because he'll fucking end you otherwise.

Yeah. So, you know, You know what?

He's really good at that.

Next question. Next question.

I'll let Max ask one Sixers question to end.

Is it going to work?

What a great— he should have a— you should have your own fucking show.

That's the only thing I want to know.

The Embiid bet's a bad bet. So like, I can't say— I can't sit here and say yes. And what we mean by work is like getting of the East.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's it. Get out of the East. It's not impossible.

I just—

He's skinnier.

He does look better.

He's skinnier. I don't know what that means, but he is skinnier.

I mean, he has to play what, 40 games this year and they could still get a top 2 or 3 seed.

I feel like I could argue 7 teams for like a 1 or 2 seed. It's kind of exciting.

Go through that list of 7 teams.

Oh no, no, I just want to hear what this guy's talking about.

I cannot believe you guys gave Trae Young that contract.

Oh, here we go, here we go.

Oh, here we go. Oh, Wind Horse got to you, huh?

Yeah, that's exactly what happened.

Yeah, the Windy Mafia.

Why don't we wait until after, right?

Because prior to that I was open-minded about it.

Why don't we, uh, love Trae Young before that? Let's wait for a ball to be tipped off before we bury a guy's contract. Okay.

Can I say something to Max here about his Sixers question though? Yeah, that's really funny. And then Embiid thing, because so I finally was like, hey, look, cool workout drills. He's got to lose weight. He's got to lose weight. As great as his shooting touch is, as great as all that stuff is, like, he's got to lose weight. Like, there's no other way to go into this season other than he has to lose a little bit of weight. And so then a Sixers fan emailed the show. It wasn't even life advice, but it made its way in. It was like, aren't you who's always complaining about injuries? Don't you think it's time for you to listen to your— because my doctor was like, hey, you could probably just avoid some of these injuries if you wanted to get back down to like 220. I'm like, fuck off, nerd. And the emailer basically saying I'm a hypocrite for suggesting Embiid needs to lose weight while I myself will not listen to my doctor's orders and get down to like 220, 250.

Because as a podcaster, the physical toll that your body takes over the course of a season is, is severe, to say the least.

But Embiid did lose weight.

He's got to lose more.

But that puts me even further on the hot seat.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's true.

The Sixers are in a better spot now than they were when they ended the season. And that's the only thing that I just have to keep reminding myself is that the Sixers were in a state of nothingness and now they're in a state of maybe somethingness.

Somethingness.

Yeah.

LeBron might have arthritis though. So he's, he's taking it easy.

And this is the first time a team has won where it's been the first time I'd say in 3 years, maybe 4 years. years? No, 3. So it'd be Denver, it'd be Boston, it'd be OKC where the same thing happened. It's like, when's this Denver run going to end? All right, next year. All right, Boston just pulled this out. Look how young they are. Like they're going to go forever. Okay, no. And then OKC wins it and they're like, how could you possibly pick against them? That's not happening with the Knicks in the East. So that's a good—

I still think the Knicks are really good.

Of course they are.

I mean, I, that, that honestly makes me feel worse that the Knicks will be the team that—

Because no one's talking them up the way you have the other 3 champs.

Yeah. Do you see this, this Russian pneumonic plague thing? I think it's LeBron and he's trying to get everybody into a bubble so he can win another championship.

Hmm. I think he might be onto something there.

Yeah.

We'll look into that.

We'll look into it.

Wait, but real quick, unpack the, the 7, the 1 through 10 teams that you think could compete for either title.

I'm going to forget some. New York Pacers, Boston. I'll never pick Cleveland in a series that matters, but they're going to have a good seed. I still am a huge believer in Orlando. Everybody can shut the fuck up. I'm probably wrong. So that'd be Philly would be 6 and Toronto, like Toronto, Scottie Barnes, man, after that playoff series, I was like, hey, I really like him. And, or maybe he's only this, or maybe he's like good, but not I fucking love Scottie Barnes after this playoff series. And the only thing with Kawhi is now that he's re-signed, you just won't know whether or not he's going to show up to work, which is why he wanted to go to Toronto because they're such fucking pushovers in that city for anything that's ever been positive that they were like, we're just psyched you came back even if you don't want to play. He's going to pay to live there. And he was like, this is perfect. You're going to extend me out like this and all of it's in the past and I just get paid again for being a horrible part of this team. And Toronto's like, we're absolute suckers.

Yeah, we'll do it. I don't— Scotty Barnes.

I don't like the Toronto fan base. I like Scotty Barnes more.

Future face of this league.

Future face of this league.

Oh, wait, that was 7. You got to do 8, 9, 10.

Right.

I like the Chicago— I like the Bulls system.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, Norm Powell said it perfectly. He's like, yeah, we might, we might be good and we might suck.

Oh, I haven't even said Miami. Sorry. PFT.

Yeah.

9.

And so we went 1 through 9. Ryan's top 10 almost done.

Well, Charlotte.

All right.

And now they move on from them.

Get them out of here. You know what? You're not invited to any games.

I'm not. I got to see what that looks like, man.

Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do.

And you will.

Yeah, you'll see.

Everyone's gonna see.

Yeah.

All right, Ryan, you're the best. Everyone listen to Ryan Rosillo Podcast. Thank you for talking ball with us.

Thanks, guys.

Ryan Rosillo was brought to you by The Farmer's Dog, the best dog food in the world. Blake is a Farmer's Dog dog. They are the official pet food of the NFL. Blake loves his Farmer's Dog. He's on the turkey diet. He loves it. Every morning gets up, goes straight to his food dish. Dish, never has any food boredom. Dinnertime comes, put the food in the dish for him and he wolfs it down. Clean plate club every day with Blake. He loves his food. Your dog will love it too. The Farmer's Dog is real food for dogs. It's never ultra-processed. It's real meat, fresh veggies, all gently cooked. You can look at it in the bowl and you can tell exactly what's in there. It's made to human-grade safety standards. The Farmer's Dog meal plans are personalized for each dog's unique caloric needs. needs to help keep your dog lean. It's clinically shown to support healthy aging in dogs and help dogs age well. He looks great. Blake is trim, he's healthy, and it's thanks to The Farmer's Dog. Get 50% off your first box at thefarmersdog.com/PMT and see how real food can be a game changer for your dog with The Farmer's Dog.

Check it out today. Ryan Rosillo is also brought to you by Twisted Tea. Perfect time of year to crack open an ice cold Twisted It's football season. We've never been more ready for game day. We're bringing Twisted Tea along for the ride all season long. Twisted Tea is refreshing hard iced tea. It's made with real brewed tea, 5% alcohol. The Twisted Tea Party Pack has something for everyone: original, half and half, raspberry, and peach. It's got that refreshing taste with a little kick. No carbonation, it goes down smooth. It's the perfect drink to keep those good times going at the tailgate all day and all football season long. So if you're tailgating at the If you're crushing tees in your man cave or you're grilling out with friends, Twisted Tea is there. It'll turn your day up a notch and make a good time a great time. Twisted Tea is the best. Grab one now. You can drink them all day long. No carbonation. Delicious. If you're out on the golf course, I love cracking open an ice cold Twisted Tea. Get one today and keep it twisted with Twisted Tea.

Okay, let's wrap up the show, guys on chicks. But before we do that, what, what's going on right now?

Well, no, this is actually the first question that was written.

in.

Do you guys think that Earth is flat? And that's from Chris. He's 4 years old, from Chicago.

No. 60% no.

60% no.

I got a quick question.

This is— I just asked a question to some guys and they spun it. I have a quick question, gentlemen. If you saw a compilation of guys who fly planes, pilots being asked after the flight, what do you think the Earth is flat around in an and so many pilots go instantly round. What would your thought be about that?

It's round.

My thought would be that the ground is round.

All these pilots say flat.

All the pilots say flat.

A lot of pilots are saying flat.

Uh, then I, I'm never gonna fly in a plane again.

Who, who said this?

I— all I did was see a video of many pilots being asked if they think the Earth is flat or round. A lot of pilots were saying flat. I don't make a decision based on that, but I'm just saying if anyone sees the most Earth, it's definitely the guys steering the planes. Something to think about.

So you think the Earth is flat?

I—

40%.

60% think it's round. But I'm just saying, we got to give some validity to pilots who are like—

It sounds like you're arguing a lot more in favor of it being round than it being flat if you think it's 60% round.

I'm trying to be objective here. They're in the skies.

Right. This video, are we sure that it's not a prank video?

No.

Was Danny Jackal one of the pilots?

Definitely wasn't.

Also, isn't 60% 60% round, 40% flat when you combine them. Exactly what the Earth is, the spheroid or whatever, the, the oblate spheroid where it's not actually— it's like kind of misshapen. It's literally misshapen if you look up the Earth, like what the actual— what the actual Earth looks like. Not, not from a NASA picture, but what its actual shape is. It's like kind of like a misshapen like ball of like Play-Doh. So it's kind of— that's probably what it is. Look at— get off this. Look up the— look up the Earth, what the Earth's shape is.

But Zach said all the pilots are saying it's flat.

Yeah, I want to see that. I want to see the pilot video because, I mean, there's one pilot that says it's a little kid asking him.

Okay, so this is—

this is— so it could be flat. I just got—

I saw it on a different medium.

Flat or a ball. All right. I don't— I would not fly with those pilots.

See, look up Look up the shape of the Earth. And this would, this would basically be if you do go 60% round combined with 40%.

I know, like at the poles, it's squeezed.

Yeah, look at that.

That one all the way to the right. That's 60% round, 40% flat. It's quite literally it. There's a flat part right there on the bottom.

But, but the whole thing is still Round-ish. Ish.

All right.

So, so how did this come up?

We're just a couple of guys chopping it up.

We were talking about—

no, a quarterback.

There's a quarterback that said that he thinks that the moon landing didn't happen.

Who's that?

You have guesses? All right. Blind resume.

Aaron Rodgers.

Blind resume. One's Tua and one is Drake Maye. Blind resume. Which one said the Earth or that the moon landing didn't happen?

I would say Tua.

No, Drake Maye. Oh, Drake Maye said the moon landing might not have happened.

Drake?

That's a— that's like a good conspiracy. Like, that's an accurate one.

It's actually a basic bitch conspiracy theory.

Which is like a good answer where it's like, we're not going to get into like crazy conspiracy theories. We're going to go with one that's pretty much like a fact.

My MVPs, they say Babe Ruth wasn't real.

I'm pretty sure he was just watching tape.

Yeah.

Like, remember, you want to be like your heroes.

right?

Aaron Rodgers.

Yeah.

He's like, yeah, this studying tape.

By the way, did we ever talk about—

is there wind on the moon, BFT?

Who said Babe Ruth isn't real?

PCA, when he was asked for his favorite conspiracy theories, like, I don't believe it, but I saw a conspiracy theory that Babe Ruth wasn't real.

Is there—

I thought the Babe Ruth thing was that he was Black.

No, no, he's Dominican. That is a real one.

Yeah.

But PCA was like, I saw someone make the theory that Babe Ruth was not real. And then I found out, I don't know if we ever talked about it, closed the book on this. Do you know who created the Babe Ruth wasn't real conspiracy theory? It was Buddha Ben. Buddha Ben created a video that was like, what if Babe Ruth wasn't real?

There's videos of Babe Ruth.

I understand. But he was like, he was having fun with it. And he was like, I'll send you the video. It's all time. The, uh, yeah, we had— Are you sure Buddha Ben didn't read about that somewhere and then No, he made a video that went kind of viral that was really stupid and very funny. Babe Ruth isn't real. I saw his conspiracy theories. Guys, are you drinking piss, Zach?

Not piss.

What the fuck was that?

If we're talking— we talked about the piss charts earlier. If your piss is this color, see a doctor.

So why are you drinking it?

This is just water flavored with sweet tea.

Okay, wait, wait, so how much—

that's sweet tea?

How much sweet tea?

tea did you put into the water?

It's, it's low cal.

It's low cal.

It's a flavor agent that tastes like sweet tea. Like, you know, Mio?

A little flavor enhancer.

I just imagine Zach just pouring sweet tea into a Body Armor bottle and just being like, yeah, it's water flavored with sweet tea.

No, it's like infused.

Okay. You big sweet tea guy?

Uh, I do like sweet tea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Southern man.

All right. So moon landing, fake.

Yep. Babe Ruth, Dominican.

Got it.

Good FAQs.

Yeah.

All right, go ahead, Hank.

Speaking of conspiracies, fact: the last team to go 0-4 and make the playoffs was the 1992 San Diego Chargers.

Oh!

Conspiracy: Coach Harbaugh has planned this 0-4 start this whole time to get the team mentally prepared to win out.

Hmm, okay. I don't hate— I don't hate the cope.

They could beat the Broncos.

Yeah, this is great cope, actually. This is like the last straw that you have as a Chargers fan. fan. Like, maybe this is all by design.

Let's see the Chargers schedule because we knew it was— all right, so they have the Broncos, at the Chiefs, that's tough, at the Rams. Oh my God, it never stops for them. Yeah, no, they're not.

Okay, let's see.

Going to the playoffs.

Broncos, Chiefs, Rams, Texans, Ravens, Jets, Jets, Patriots.

Is this the easiest picky bet ever?

Yeah, it's the most no stress I've ever had. It's Awesome. Feel great about it.

What if Michigan just called up Harbaugh and said, hey, we'd like to hire you back? I know there's a whole show cause thing.

Yeah.

But we'll just accept getting kicked out of the playoffs and postseason ban. And then we can just like complain about not being allowed in the postseason, but we can still win football games.

I, that, I mean, I saw, I saw some Michigan fans theorizing that last night because they were talking about how, well, there was a Michigan fan who was like, Harbaugh should just come back. And then there was a Michigan fan who was like, Harbaugh fucked us because he basically, uh, when he left Michigan was like, hey, you guys should hire— like, push Sharon Moore on him so that he could keep Jesse Minter. Yeah, because he was like, that's the dummy, I want the smart guy.

And then Urban Meyer was like, hey, I got a great guy that you can hire, my best friend, my buddy. Trust me, I'm Urban Meyer. Don't look at my resume and where I coached.

I'd love to have Harbaugh back at Michigan. It'd be fun.

I mean, it— I think there's a certain percentage of Michigan fans that would accept a postseason ban if it meant that they could come back, win, beat all their opponents, and then be like, you guys are pussies for not letting us in the playoffs.

Yes, absolutely.

Which is actually— that's probably the— that's, that's the funniest possible outcome to this.

My question to you guys is, for the rest of the NFL season, how many head coaches can we expect to not make it through? I have the line set at 3.

Yeah, there were a lot last year, so I think, I think the crop's gonna be down this year.

Over-under?

I'm gonna say over because there'll always be some— wait, impulsive.

Are you talking about in-season?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Under.

In-season firings I could see coming, possibly Todd Bowles.

Definitely Todd Bowles.

Um, possibly I mean, if things go really bad in Los Angeles, I could see Harbaugh. If things go like off the rails bad.

Or if things go really bad in Washington.

It's a possibility. Yeah.

Green Bay, maybe. I don't—

I still don't think the extension—

Yeah.

So it's like, no, I take the under. I think there might be one or two in season because the other thing is like the Titans just hired Saleh. Cardinals just hired LaFleur. The Dolphins just hired Halfley.

What about the Jets?

Yeah, Jets definitely, definitely could see that in season, right? Yeah, it could be in the next 2 weeks.

Yeah.

So yeah, I mean, it's probably 2 or 3.

What'd you think about that tweet from the Jets? Working in social media, you just got to post, post something.

Yeah, you got numbers.

You got to get numbers.

And they did.

What was it? It was—

yeah, exactly. You know how it is. That's why you post of all the stuff you post about me.

Yeah.

You don't want to.

Numbers factory.

Numbers factory.

Was it, was it 4 plays, 26 yards?

Yes.

Yeah.

They just, they had to post something.

Was that a bigger reach than the 0-2 fart graphic?

No.

0-2 fart made perfect sense.

Yeah.

You destroyed the Saints season.

Yeah.

And Pelicans. Yeah.

You turned them— your fart turned them into the Taints.

You, you, you farted and destroyed 2 professional franchises.

Well, they're whatever. The New Orleans Smellikins. The New Orleans Taints, thanks to your butthole.

Sup, hoes and memes? The 2026 Browns will be the 2025 Patriots. First-year coach, easy scheduling, probably will get lucky playing injured opponents. No Breece Hall this week and maybe no Lamar next week. Giants with no dart. Deshaun and Drake Maye are the same talent-wise.

Same personalities too, I heard.

Browns will go to the Super Bowl and get fucked like the Patriots Hank hates Cleveland, but he doesn't realize that he is Cleveland now.

All right. I think you're trying—

you're, you're hoping that at best, at best, Cleveland is New England. That made— I was following that until the Hank is Cleveland. I will never—

The schedule thing is not— Dom was whispering this the other day.

He's like, although we are going to both get swept in the first— in the playoffs. Yeah, that sucks.

He's like, Dom was talking about— he's like, we might be the schedule this year because he was looking ahead. But I, I don't know. I also don't know who we— like, we don't fully know who's good and bad. Like, I think he was looking at it being like, oh, the Texans is an easy game. Texans aren't an easy game just because they're 0-4.

Dom's a crazy person.

Yeah, he's a crazy person.

They followed me into the bathroom today with 2 cases of Stella Blue in his hand because I just said— I just said, guards, huh?

I don't think that they are the schedule because—

Zach walked in and he was like, Dom, what are you doing in here with 2 cases of Stella Blue?

Someone, someone talked about my favorite team.

You can't be the schedule if, if you're a team that is part of other teams' easy schedules. Like when the Patriots see the Browns logo last year, that was one of the teams that were like, yeah, cakewalk. Yeah. But the Browns, I don't think they can become schedule merchants.

Right. What was, what's going on there?

Zach, I didn't hear what Dom actually said to Zach. He goes, no one normally gives me a layup like that to talk about Cleveland.

That's basically what he said.

No one says my name like that.

Yeah, a little bit of paraphrasing, but it was just like that. It was like, well, it was, it was right there.

It's also ridiculous because it's not like you were saying guards, huh? Like they're hot. They're getting fucking killed. Yeah, it was guards, huh? Most people wouldn't want to talk about the team after being down 2-0 both home games.

No, he's back. He's back. They're gonna win.

No, there's not a single guy in that lineup that is scary.

Also, the Bills might be schedule merchants.

Why?

Something to look at.

They have an easy schedule?

No, they beat the Texans week 1. Texans, oh yeah, not good. They beat the Lions week 2. Lions, not good. They beat the Chargers week 3, barely. Chargers, not good. Played the Patriots. So yeah, not what I'm getting at is— So then not an impressive win by the Patriots. Yeah.

Okay.

Because the Bills aren't— the Bills are schedule merchants.

Got it.

So you just beat a schedule merchant.

Wins a win. Uh, is there a bigger mental gap between a team's record than 2-2 versus 1-3? It's only one game difference, but I feel like a 1-3 team is dead. 2-2, anything can happen. Yeah, even the difference between 2-3 and 1-4 feels huge.

Yep.

Is this just a fan's way to cope? I feel like it ends there. Once it's 3-3, 2-4, 1-5, it starts to all blend into bad teams, whereas Week 5 has unique 2-2 versus 1-3.

You're right.

0-4, where there's hope for No hope.

This is exactly correct.

It's a good— it's a very good point.

Yeah. And there is a massive difference between 2-2 and 1-3.

I also— there's a couple other ones out there. I think that the difference between 8-2 and 9-1 is big.

No, I think both are good teams.

And I think the difference between 10-7 and 9-8 is massive.

That is— that makes sense. Yeah, that one makes sense because 10 wins is double-digit wins. Is that it?

I believe so.

All right, good show, boys. Do some numbers. I mean, have you ever gotten this?

I have.

No, you haven't. 2 times.

80.

10.

3. Oh, you went 3. What did you guess last time?

2.

I'll do 2. I will do 2.

Go ahead.

I just did, man.

What number house is Max Pass?

I'm not sure.

I'll do 7.

86.

86 for Shane.

Jaylen Brown's a bust.

69.

15.

92.

One more, one more, one more song. Memes duck. You ever gotten this? 83. Oh, I thought someone said 83. Shane said 86.

I said 80. And then Meme said 3 right afterwards.

Yeah.

Combo.

Combo. Hey, Meme, we almost got it. I love a combo. Yeah. Happy birthday to Priest Holmes. Happy birthday to Chase Daniel. Happy birthday to Mookie Betts. Happy birthday to Vladimir Putin. Happy birthday to Simon Cowell. Happy anniversary to Pearl and Andy.

Fuck yeah.

Are you close to your parents?

No, it's my whatever, my second cousin, second uncle.

Okay.

My dad's cousin.

Uh, how did you get also happy birthday? It's the same per—

like, it's got— it's like—

Happy birthday to—

Yeah.

Matt Damon. Happy birthday to, uh, Bubba Wallace. Happy birthday to Grayson Allen. Happy birthday to Brian Thomas Jr. Happy birthday to Sigourney Weaver and Nick Cannon. Love you guys.

Love you guys.