Transcript of MLB Trade Deadline With Jeff Passan, Hard Knocks Episode 1, QB Tier List, Mt Rushmore Of Places To Get Drunk That Aren't A Bar + FAQ's

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On today's part of My Take presented by DraftKings, we've got a packed show for you. We've got Jeff Passan talking MLB trade deadline, breaking down winners and losers. We've got the Mount Rushmore of best places, or Mount Rushmore of places to get drunk that are not a bar. Uh, we also have What else do we have, boys? We have Hot Seat, Cool Throne. We've got the QB rankings, finally the QB rankings tiers, the official tier list. We have Hard Knocks episode 1, probably the only episode we're gonna watch this season, but we are— we did watch it and we're gonna recap it. And then we finish with FAQs. It's a great show, a lot of laughs on this show. We're starting in on Zoom, but we're only gonna be on Zoom for 10 minutes and we'll be back in studio And it's all brought to you by our friends at Chevy. Summer's in full swing. That means no schedules, no plans, just more of the good stuff. Chevy Silverado makes that possible. There's a reason Chevy's called the heartbeat of America, and the Silverado keeps that heartbeat strong. These trucks work hard so you can chill harder, whether that's getting out of town, heading to the lake, or just not turning around when you probably should.

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I wasn't sure if you even saw it.

I was reading the ad and I look up and PFT's gone, and PFT's back. He's back. PFT, you're back. Just like football— football is back, Hard Knocks is back. PFT is back. We might lose him again, but listen, we're only doing 10 minutes on Zoom. The rest of the show's in studio. PFT, football is back.

We're locked in. The, the Jeff Bezos, the Al Gores of the world don't want you to hear these takes that we've got about Hard Knocks. They're trying to limit our free speech. Um, Hard Knocks kind of sucks now, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. It was great to see Football is 100% back. Um, the highlights for me— I, I have like two highlights.

Yeah, before you do the highlights, I couldn't agree more. Hard Knocks— I do not care about Hard Knocks anymore, but there's something about the first episode of Hard Knocks where it's seeing the guys in training camp. Sam Darnold did a whole thing about the, the, the pads cracking and hearing the music and just them saying the word football over and over. It really is the beginning of like, oh yeah, football is back. It's, it's, it's, it's like the first leaf falling off the tree. It feels— I can feel it coursing through your veins. Football is back. I'm not going to watch probably any more Hard Knocks, but I always watch episode 1. That is our promise to you. And yes, go ahead, give us your highlights.

Now, my highlights were number 1, Coach McDonald does have a son and his son does recognize him.

Mm-hmm.

And his son also, I keep an eye on him because this is a football guy in training. The only words that I think he can speak are football.

Yeah.

So that was, I think that was probably my highlight of the entire episode was his son probably about like a year old just watching football practice, pointing outside and just saying football repeatedly.

And he's going to be a brother. He's going to be a big brother. So congrats to the McDonald's.

Yeah. Big bro. And, um, two, it seems like Coach McDonald is almost like, almost like a therapist when he's in his coach's office, or at least that's what they're showing to us. Like that long conversation that he had, um, they showed a couple of them. So yeah, he seems like a good coach. Uh, not exactly what you dream up when you, uh, get in a lab and you try to figure out what coaches, what type of coaches do you want to see delivering that beginning of the season speech on Hard Knocks to get you really feeling like football's back. He's like, a little too cerebral when it comes to that sort of thing. I would like to see, like he mentioned, Rex Ryan. I would actually just like to see Rex Ryan giving the welcome back speech. Yeah. But overall, overall, like it's football. There was grass, there was a ball flying through the air. There was the sound of pads hitting. There was a linebacker showing up in the biggest truck I've ever seen.

Mm-hmm.

And they had the Blue Angels.

Yeah.

F.A.T.

You know what I like about Mike McDonald? He's human. Like, you could tell he's a little bit awkward. He's a little uncomfortable talking in front of the, you know, like in front of a big crowd. The opening scene when they're getting their Super Bowl rings. By the way, I have a take. I think Super Bowl rings have gotten too big.

Like, too big.

You can't even wear that. You can't.

It's pretty much a glove.

Yeah. It's not. It's like, I would rather have a Super Bowl ring that's really cool that you could wear all the time versus something that is It looked— it was just insane. They're pressing buttons and shit.

It's like a—

it's like a Nintendo Switch on their finger.

Yeah, we've lost the plot on the Super Bowl rings. We need— we do need to dial them back because when they— I saw that ring, I saw the old ring, I thought to myself, the old Seahawks ring looks awesome.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. And wouldn't you want something you could wear? Yeah, you could wear it all the time instead of just like having it be so big that it doesn't even make sense. But yeah, Mike McDonald's, he's like a real dude. He's just— he seems like a real dude. The, the talk with, uh, with, uh, Nicky Imanwara, uh, in the, in the, in his office was really cool. He mentioned the Rex Ryan, when Rex Ryan said this new hotshot coordinator is dog shit, um, when he was dog shit to start his career. He just seems like a really good dude. And, uh, yeah, my highlights were bald eagles rocking. They had the bald eagle at the beginning. Uh, the, the, the coaches sitting in that room just talking about we got to get the pads on, We'll know, we'll find out when the pads are on. We don't know if this guy's good until the pads are on. I loved that, that supercut. Um, and then yeah, he— and then I also wrote that he— I know we now know he has kids. So that's it, that was Hard Knocks episode 1. Stella's now barking.

This is—

we're having a whole show. Max, take it away while I let Stella out of my office. Take it away, Max.

Um, I had 3 notes. One of them was Rex Ryan. And I wanted to know— oh, he's also gone.

PFT's stuck drinking water.

Stella's barking on again.

Die. You know what? Why don't we do this? Why don't we kick it to ourselves where we're in studio and we have a great show for everyone? We have like— what do we have, an hour and a half or no, 2 hours that we've already taped? How much do we have?

Yeah, we're good. We're good. We're good.

We have so much show. We've been doing show all day. Memes. What do we got?

I kind of like this chaos beginning.

I also realize I just have like bedding behind me that because the National last week, Tony Scheffler slept over my house. So like, this is just chaos everywhere. My Stone Cold Steve Austin thing is sick though.

PFT's back.

PFT's back.

The vest is awesome. Yeah, the vest is so sick. I don't know if everyone could see the vest. See that? And then you got my kids' mini golf clubs there. PFT, we're just going to kick it to ourselves. Because we got Stella barking now. You keep cutting in and out. We've done like 2.5 hours of great podcasting in studio today. So let's do it. Let's— Hard Knocks Season Episode 1, I'm going to give it a B-. And it was also interesting that Hank didn't show up to this because he knew there was going to be highlights of the Super Bowl.

Hey, Stella, how's it going?

Stella? All right, kick it to ourselves back in studio. Okay, before we get to the rest of the show, DraftKings this summer, whatever you're watching— baseball, golf, soccer, racing— DraftKings has you covered for every single moment of it. The DraftKings Sports app is now available in all 50 states, bringing the game straight to your fingertips wherever you are. From Florida to Texas to California, you're in on the excitement at the speed of sports. Follow every buzzer beater, every walk-off, every photo finish. Sweat the moments that matter in real time with a seamless experience built for the biggest season of the year. No matter where you're watching, you're always connected and in the game with one app. New DraftKings customers sign up with code TAKE, spend $5 to get $150 in rewards within 14 days, including all markets. That's code TAKE. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours.

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Before we talk football, uh, we're gonna have Jeff Passan on to talk some MLB trade deadline. Does anyone have a winner? Max, how do you feel about the Phillies? I'm very excited for what the Cubs did. They went and said they were going to get some arms. They got two starters, bullpen arms.

Go for it.

Don't be afraid of the Dodgers. Just fucking go for it. So good job, Jed.

Max, uh, I wish I had the same opinion as you.

You do not feel like you went for it?

We did the same thing that Dave Dombrowski loves to do every single year, which is like go for it a little bit but not enough to really make a difference, but to be able to go back to the fan base and say, hey, look, I did this, we have all these good— we have all these good players, we should be playing better. I still think that we have a good ball— ball club to compete, and look, I did this one thing. But that one thing is not enough to compete against the Dodgers, in my opinion. We still right now have Aaron Nola pitching in the playoffs as our fourth starter, who is not a major league pitcher right now. He is not a capable playoff pitcher.

Who's he pitch for?

He pitches for the Philadelphia Phillies.

What league do they play in?

They play in the National League.

What?

In the major leagues.

He's a major—

he's a major league pitcher.

He's statistically, like, he's statistically the worst starting pitcher in baseball right now, and right now he's slated to start.

Yeah, you're right.

Got it.

I wish that he either just didn't do anything and just said, this team is not good enough to compete, we gave up our fourth best prospect, who I don't fucking know shit about prospects. Yeah, but people that I, that I trust say that he was go— he was on a track to be one of the best starting pitching prospects in baseball. And we gave him up for a guy who is good and he's going to make our lineup better, but our defense is now absolutely terrible. We're moving Luis Arraez to second base, Bryson Stott, our only plus defender, to third base, Alec Bohm, who is atrocious at first base, to first base, and Bryce Harper to the outfield. He hasn't played the outfield in years. So we just made our offense slightly better, our defense, which is already the worst in the league, significantly worse. And we gave up a good prospect.

The prospect thing—

just for him to say that we're— look, look, look, we did this without really, really going all in.

The part of MLB trade deadline giving up prospects, it's, uh, it's like, hey, I just hope I don't hear this guy's name in 3 years.

That's what you're hoping for, especially for a rental.

Zach, did you see— I don't know if you saw, but Mo Bálor got traded. I was a little upset about that. Where's he at? He got traded to the Angels.

That's disheartening.

I was looking forward to—

he was supposed to pop off this season.

He's supposed to be the one.

I know.

He can never be the one.

Because Zach, when we went to— when Zach went to his first Cubs game, like, early in the season, he was like, put me on to someone. And I was like, listen, I love Mo Baller. I think he's going to be, you know, he's got a bad body, but he can hit the ball. He kind of fell off a little bit this year, was struggling. They put— they sent him back down, then they traded him. So no longer a Cub. Maybe you're an Angels fan now.

Yeah, maybe swap. I'm not sure.

You're just a baller fan.

Yeah, I was a baller fan, then he dropped, and then some things went on, and now he's moved on.

So yeah, I'm excited though. The Cubs finally— like, I actually do think that Bruce Levine sending the tweet, Twinkle Dee and Twinkle Dum, started a chain of events that the Cubs went and went all in for this trade deadline.

They're like, we better do something. We better actually make the people happy because we're getting called out.. And people send— they seem to agree with the writer that was calling them Twinkle Dee and Twinkle Dum. Yeah.

Hank, are you happy?

I'm excited. I mean, I know, like, I'm not— I'm not a 162er. I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I've been locked in on the Red Sox all year. Obviously, this last month, greatest month in team history. And then they went for it at the trade deadline. I've said it on the show before, the season doesn't start till the trade deadline ends. This is where you can make a run. They're mid-run. I'm on the bandwagon. And it's exciting.

Yeah, I think the Rays did good. I mean, the Rays going for it too, like Freddy Peralta, Liam Hicks. Those are good. Those are good trades for the Rays.

The Yankees. Yankees, they're going for it.

Yeah.

The Nats, Padres. It was a good— I'll say this. I did not want to be a seller at the deadline, but the most recent series against the Dodgers, getting— just getting your ass kicked. Excuse me, against the Braves, getting your ass kicked 4 straight games. It makes it easier to become sellers. It's easy to say, okay, now I get it. Let's just say, fuck it, punt for next year. It does stay. I'm glad that we kept CJ Abrams. That was my one big worry that we would end up getting rid of him. And I still do have that worry. And until I see an extension for him or James Wood, I feel like this— the front office is not really prepared to commit to handing out big contracts. But I guess we had a lot of— we got a lot of arms from all the guys that we dealt. Luis Garcia, if you're going to trade a guy like that, trade him in the middle of the best season of his career. Same with Curtis Meade. Same with, I mean, Forrest Griffin. Great story, by the way. Forrest Griffin traded to the Guardians. He was pitching in Japan for like the last 3 seasons and we brought him over, developed him a little bit, had the best season of his career.

We were able to trade him. So all in all, it sucks being a seller, but at least if we had gone like 2-2 against the Braves, if we had split that series, then I would be sitting around being like, maybe we should go for it. Maybe we should add a couple. If you're going to go out, it's good that we got swept. And then, and then last night we saw just like how bad that bullpen continues to be against the Phillies.

I was kind of shocked. The Braves and the Brewers were the big teams. It's like it didn't feel like they pushed. They have teams that are definitely championship caliber teams and they didn't go like big game hunting. So that one was a little confusing. But maybe they just think they have enough.

Yeah, there was one wild thing that came out from the Nats. They traded Luis Garcia to the Yankees. One of the guys they got for Luis Garcia was Jack Siebert. And then Jack Siebert's mom tweeted this out a couple of days ago. Her son had DM'd the Nationals back in 2015 telling them, hey, trade for this kid. He's going somewhere.

Hmm.

And then so his mom said, proud mom moment.

That's tampering.

Proud mom moment. Our son DM'd the Nationals when he was 13 years old. Yesterday they traded for him. Baseball is weird and wonderful.

That's tampering.

He tampered with himself.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's why you got to keep an eye on your middle school boys.

We're going to— Jeff Passan will break down more of the trade deadline. Let's talk some football before we get to Hot Seat, Cool Throne. We have Bijan got paid. Big time paid. Uh, what was his— $75 million, 3-year extension worth up to $75 million with $51 million guaranteed. That's pretty— it's pretty damn good for a running back.

Yeah, I guess the Zoom call worked.

Yeah, that, that was a big one. Uh, someone else just got paid too, right? Well, I know— did we talk about Chris Olave the other day?

I think we mentioned— yeah, Zay Flowers got paid today. That's right, $140 million, uh, 4 years.

Travis Hunter looks like he's, uh, a real man now. He wasn't a man before.

He wants to play, uh, every snap on offense and defense this year.

Yeah, yeah, he's, uh— and then we have Kenny Pickett starting officially on Thursday night, which will be fun.

Yeah, excited about that. It's football.

Very excited. Uh, okay, and then the other big news in the NFL, we finally got our QB tiers, our offseason tiers. This is from The Athletic. I think Mike Sando does it every year, and he basically talks to a panel of 21 executives, 29 coaches overall. Each voter's placed, uh, 35 veteran quarterbacks into 5 tiers, from best tier 1 to worst tier 5, and then he weights it all and spits it all out. And we have— so you guys stop me when you think that there's an issue. I, I saw a couple issues that maybe come up for this show. Patrick Mahomes number 1, Josh Allen and Matthew Stafford tied at 2. And Joe Burrow at 4. That is tier 1. Yeah, I feel— I guess you could make an argument Lamar and Joe Burrow, like, hey, yes.

Yeah, that was my— that was my issue.

Yeah.

Joe Burrow, great quarterback. Love Joe. The league's better when Joe Burrow is healthy and playing football. In the last, let's call it like 3, 3 years, I feel like— I feel like it's gotten to the point where we can say Lamar Jackson should be ahead of Joe Burrow because we're doing a lot of like, Joe Burrow, if all the stars align, Joe Burrow should be top 4, I think.

But Joe Burrow 2 years ago, remember that year where he was— it was like 43 touchdowns, 9 interceptions. He basically carried that terrible team, and they started slow. He could have won MVP if they got in the playoffs. Their, their defense has just been so, so bad. There's that stat out there that, like, the, the teams basically— any, uh, Joe Burrow in games when his offense scores more than 30 points are like 30-15, and every other quarterback when their offense scores more than 30 points or like 90% win percentage.

Yeah.

So I'm okay with it. I think you go one way. I think maybe it's not Joe Burrow shouldn't be in tier 1. It's Lamar Jackson should also be in tier 1.

Yes.

And then so Lamar Jackson is, is 5, Justin Herbert 6, Dak Prescott 7. That's a big jump from our, from our top 17 last year. Yeah. 14.

Well, last year he was 17. So that's a 10 spot jump from a year ago. And then big jump since just the Takey Awards.

Yeah. Uh, Drake May at 8, Jared Goff at 8, so they're tied. Jordan Love at 10, Brock Purdy and Caleb Williams tied at 11. Jaden Daniels at 13, Baker Mayfield at 14, Sam Darnold at 14, they're tied. Trevor Lawrence and then Jalen Hurts. That's tier 2.

Tier 2 is massive, massive, big tier.

They made the whole plane out of tier 2.

Yeah, which is— I get it, um, but these are— they're all quarterbacks that have like that are very talented with question mark. I'll tell you what, I don't want to admit this.

Yeah, I agree. I actually agree with what you're about to say. I know what you're going to say.

Max, cover your ears. Yeah, Max, cover your ears. I don't want you to hear this. I'm about to pay a compliment to somebody. I don't want you to have any evidence of it.

Cover them.

Okay, thank you, Max. They're not covered. Okay, so Jalen Hurts. Yeah, is 17 on this.

Disrespect.

Jalen Hurts won he, he beat Patrick Mahomes in a Super Bowl. He's been outplayed in two Super Bowls. It's the quarterback tier list. Yeah, not the running back tier. Okay, okay, I guess that makes more sense. Uh, never mind.

I saw it and I was like, Jalen Hurts feels like he's too low, and Sam Darnold just won a Super Bowl, right?

I—

that, that, that was a little confusing to me. But the tier 2 list is— the tier 2s are the— like, the tier 1s are you win because of these guys. Tier 2 is they can be that guy, but sometimes they're not.

Right.

That feels good. And then Bo Nix is in Tier 3.

Hank, I got a question for you real quick. Yes. Drake May.

Yep.

He's tied for 8. He is 2 spots behind Justin Herbert. What are your thoughts?

Herbert's been in the league longer.

What about Dak Prescott?

Also been in the league longer.

Okay. Drake May is third year.

But this isn't about like who's older. This isn't quarterback age tiers.

I mean, you like you, we saw with Jane Daniels, like he having one good year doesn't, you know, you got to, you got to prove it over time. Those guys have played well for, for more time.

They are giving Dak a lot of credit this year. He did play really good last year and they've got CDN Pickens coming back, which is going to be massive for them. Would you, all things being equal, would you rather have a quarterback who is freshly engaged, a quarterback who is married, or a quarterback who is divorced or just broken up, I guess, for Dak?

Married.

I think freshly engaged. You're still trying to prove it, you know, not actually married yet, right?

Still trying to prove you got to do planning and it's like you still got to be like if you're married. You don't have to work, you know, you're locked in. You can make— you take care of that. But if you're engaged, you got planning and talking and— yeah, it's a lot more that goes on.

Talking a lot.

You got to talk to your significant other. Woman sucks. Yeah, well, he's going to go home and he's going to have his—

you know what I mean?

Yeah, no, I hear you talking about his wedding.

How much do we have to hear about Max's fucking wedding last year? Like, that's, that's what Justin Herbert's teammates are talking about.

My life.

Justin Herbert's going to go.

I know, but that's what they often say. A marriage doesn't start till you stop talking.

He's going to— he's going to put the playbook down when he goes home and he's going to pick up the binder, the binder of things that he has to review, like all the decisions she made that day. He has to go through them and then pretend to have an opinion on all of them. It's going to be exhausting for him. I think I would want— if you're just getting to the league, single.

Yeah.

And then after, like, you get that second contract and then you get married.

I— so the only other note I had. Well, there's two more. One, I know that we're biased on this show. We wear our bias on our sleeves. Tyler Shuck was 26th. I'd take him over almost everyone in front of him, like in that tier. Maybe not Bo Nix.

Is Levis on there?

Will Levis is not on the list. No, but I would tell— I mean, Tyler Shuck, come on, he should be higher.

Cam Ward is 25, but there's no Will Levis. Tied for 26, he's tied with Tua.

But I feel like people didn't watch the games last year. If you have him tied for 26, yeah, like he's— I'd take him over the guys in front of him.

I would agree. I think it's just, again, a massive win for any Panthers fan out there. Bryce is 22. You would— if you were to say 2 years ago that Bryce Young would be listed as 22, you would probably be pretty pumped about that.

Yeah.

And the fact that he's only like 1.5 spots, 2 spots away from CJ Stroud. That's a big win for Panthers fans. Then Kyler is 23, 9 is 34. I don't know how they did that. Like, do they have access to the depth chart? Is it— are they doing like proactive propaganda for Kyler Murray? I don't get it.

It's, it's also crazy to look at CJ Stroud. I think 2024 he was the 8th ranked quarterback and he's now down all the way to 20th. Yeah, that's a precipitous drop.

It is precipitous. What about Rodgers, 19.

That's fine. It is what it is. He was 7 2 years ago. So he's dropped a little.

So Deshaun is 31, Shedeur 35.

You had both of them.

So the Browns have like an almost an embarrassment of riches.

They have a lot.

It looks like so the Browns and the Falcons and the Vikings, I think those are the 3 teams that have more than 1 quarterback. On this list. That's pretty impressive.

Yeah, they— the Browns, you can— I mean, having 2 quarterbacks in the top 35, it's pretty, pretty awesome.

Quantity over quality.

That's pretty sick.

Yep.

Uh, I'm just looking if there's any cheer changes that some of the— some of the risers. So Joe Burrow was ranked 3 last year, so I guess he's gone down a little. Uh, and Lamar Jackson was ranked 4 I believe last year. So he was in tier 1 last year. He's dropped to tier 2. I don't know what it— I guess, I guess them not making the playoffs.

Yeah.

I feel like Lamar is going to have a good season from like— not that John Harbaugh— John Harbaugh is a very good coach, but just something different is going to— and Dak went from 12 to 7 this year.

Big jump.

That's a huge jump.

Big jump. And Geno went from 3 to 4.

Tier-wise.

Tier-wise.

Tier-wise.

Yes.

Yeah.

I think that Trevor Lawrence could also be higher on this list.

Yeah, probably. Probably. Uh, all right. So we have Oldie here to give us his tier. You're going to give us your top 10?

Oldie, the instructions were for Oldie, uh, no computer, no Google, no phone.

So you could have forgotten something.

Off the top of the head, Oldie's top 10 quarterback tiers. And what were you writing in? Is that just a piece of cardboard?

Piece of cardboard. Yeah.

Okay.

From the one of the boxes there.

Okay. There's nothing better than walking into the office and seeing the Timbits and being like, yeah, oldies here. It's like Omar's coming.

Pretty incredible.

There's, there's donuts for 4 days.

Donuts. And did you check a bag this time with candy or was this carry-on?

No, I had my luggage, carry-on backpack, carry-on, a whole big bag of all dressed Hickory Sticks in the one bag. And then as soon as I get into the airport, I go down to Timmy's, I get to the order, I don't even order a coffee. I go up and I go to Lady Luxion, she says, you're back again, eh? I say, yes, miss, how's it going? Order 2 dozen donuts, 150 Timbits, and there's like 9 people behind me like, what is this guy doing? And then I get it in a recycling bag because it's so heavy. And then I try to get on the plane, lady's like, that's, you can't have that much stuff. And I'm like, no, it's okay, I gotta get it down to the boys and yeah, I'm good to go. And she's like, just come in zone 2. And I was down to the back 40.

I love it. I love that the lady at the airport Tim Hortons knows Oldie.

Oh yeah.

And is familiar with Oldie.

Well, they probably have him on a watch list for smuggling like sweets.

Yeah. She's like, another couple of weeks back. And I'm like, maybe a month. But yeah, you never know. A couple of weeks. We'll see what's up. And she's like, we'll see you soon, dear.

Yeah. All right. So give it to us.

Okay. I just went off the old school brain here. Coconut College, no knowledge. Baker Mayfield, got to go number 1. He's my dog, Pox fan. Zach knows what I'm talking about. Lamar Jackson, great runner. 3, Josh Allen for the Mafia. New field, he's got to do something out there. 4-banger, Jalen Daniels. This is his year.

I mean, Jalen Daniels from Kansas.

Yeah, Jaden Daniels. 4-banger, 5, Caleb. Let's go. He owes it to the Windy City. I mean, they got to figure out it. You guys got to figure out a stadium here. Yeah, you got to get something going. 6-banger, Jalen Hurts. He's still out there grinding for Maxi.

Hey, nice.

He's still out there. Nice. Drake Mayo, it's time to shine there, buddy. Enough with the moan, you gotta go.

Okay, so wait, what number's Drake?

Drake, 7, banger. Okay, okay. Uh, JJ McCarthy, I know, I mean, I mean, McCarthy, I mean, this guy's not the greatest quarterback. I just like the Vikings.

Close to Canada.

I just, yeah, it's close. I just like the Vikings getting fired up and the horns going off.

He's good, he's good.

Yeah. Uh, Prescott, he's got to do it for Jerry. I mean, I don't know how many years Jerry's kicking on us like this. Like, we got to get Dak something.

Do you guys think that if the Cowboys win the Super Bowl, Jerry Jones will die? I think, I think so. I think within probably a couple months, yeah, he'll just kind of like fade out and be like, this is, this is what I was sticking around for.

That's the final, final—

thank you, boys.

Yeah, thank you very much. Sign off. And then last but not least, old school legend Aaron Rodgers. Okay, just because he's out there running his mouth like a hot animal, he's still out there just giving it to people. So I love to see that.

You're just thinking of people you know in this office.

Yeah, so, so, so notable, notable players left off. Patrick Mahomes, not in the top 10.

Fair.

Matthew Stafford, not in the top 10. Uh, Justin Herbert, not in the top 10. Jared Goff, not in the top 10.

No, I don't like those guys.

Okay, we love—

I do know those guys are all dogs. I just— those— that was off my brain. It kind of felt old school because it was like, you know, when the dick teacher tells you like, go look in the dictionary to try to explain that word, but if you don't know how to explain the word, how can you look it up in the dictionary? So I just went off old school, off my brain, and that's what came to the— that's what came to the oven.

Hang on, back up just one second for it. So if the teacher says, if I look up a word in the dictionary, wouldn't you look up the word in the dictionary and then it would give you the explanation?

Yeah, but if I'm asking how to spell the word, like, how do you spell the word?

You got to guess.

Go look in the dictionary. Yeah, figure it out. I'm like, well, how do you— I don't even know where to start.

Yeah, 1 out of 26 chance.

Yeah, exactly.

Pick it. Pick a letter.

Pick a letter.

OK, well, Oldie, great list. Thank you. If you're listening to this right now, there's a very good chance that Oldie is still live on Barstool After Dark. That is why he's here. They are attempting— so on Tuesday night, they started their attempt to get a hole-in-one, their longest putt ever, which is 157 yards, which is a strict— that's a par 3 hole.

That's like a 7, 8 iron.

Yeah.

So you shoot golf where the wind is going. But so they're They're going till they get it. I'm almost— I'm going to guarantee that as you're listening to this, they're going to be just pulling up on Barstool After Dark.

Oli, are you like from a cardiovascular standpoint, are you feeling okay?

I've been drinking so much water today. Like, I just need to keep—

I know I'm talking about like your breathing. Body armor. You're breathing pretty deep.

I'm like the heaviest I've ever been. Like, I'm like the biggest. Like, I need those Breathe strips on my nose. Like, I should get the Darth Vader mask on.

Like, I need like a ventilator. You need to be intubated. Like, I need to be on a treadmill. You're wheezing a little bit over there.

I know I am.

Are you wheezing just from giving a top 10 quarterback list?

Yeah, it's not easy out here just picking it off the top of the brain cells like that. That's true.

I just want— I want you to be okay. I want you to be healthy.

No, I'm— I'm good. I'm good.

All right.

I'm trying to get better.

All right.

Well, I also want to send a shout out. If you haven't yet, go right now, preorder August 18th.

Yes.

Anderson Bookshop. Get your order. Put it in now or you're not going to get the autograph from all the boys in the house here. Okay.

Yes.

Please go out, preorder right now. It's easy. Click your fingers, hit the little side button, pay for it automatically. Why not grab two?

Love it. Thank you, Oldie.

Thank you.

All right, everyone tune into Oldie. He's probably live still. All right, let's do Hot Seat, Cool Throne. Then we will get to our Mount Rushmore and then Jeff Passan talking some more baseball. Hot Seat, Cool Throne brought to you by Twisted Tea. Summer's here and so is the Twisted Tea Summer Party Pack. Twisted Tea is a refreshing hard iced tea. Made with real brewed tea and 5% alcohol. They also have a new summer party pack, has a brand new Twisted Lemonade. It's a refreshing hard lemonade made with real lemons. It's only available in their new party pack, so grab it while you can. Whether you're hanging out at the bar, hitting the lake or beach for a weekend, or day drinking with friends, Twisted Tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time a great time. Keep the good times going all day and all summer long. Keep it twisted. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea. Today, Hank, hot seat, cool throne.

I'm a hot seat to ESPN.

Oh, okay.

What happened?

Aaron Rodgers was on McAfee Show.

Yep.

He was— he was talking Fauci. He was roasting Fauci.

He was—

we asked why ESPN didn't cover that. That one, I don't know why ESPN would cover that, but he was basically saying they talk so much about COVID now they're not talking about Fauci and all the stuff that's coming out now. But then he also was like, they didn't cover the Rossini stuff. They're gutless cowards. And then ESPN just said, we have no comment. Oh, so tough, tough look.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You got to, you got to at least try and try and stand strong. But I don't— obviously, I guess I don't want to—

he just showed up once.

Yeah, it was very funny. But then ESPN is like on ESPN, right?

That's why. And then ESPN just being like, yeah, no comment.

Yeah. Yeah.

Tough look.

I think, I think ESPN is just terrified of lawsuits at all times.

Mm-hmm.

But they had Rodgers on their airwaves.

Yeah, right.

How do you think Rodgers could be this year?

He's been good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm a believer. I've been wrong. I think I've— I mean, like, I think I'm a believer that if you were a high-level quarterback at any point, you can still— like, Deshaun Watson, I think, is going to be good.

Yeah.

The only thing I would say about, like, the mobility shit.

No, it's true. Like, it's true. But I, I, I've thought like the last few years with Deshaun Watson, I'm like, yeah, you know, all this stuff off the field. But like, he's, if he plays at a high level, like he'd be great.

It is crazy how like Deshaun, like he was a really, really good quarterback. He was probably, he was, if not Tier 1, like right on that edge, like top five quarterback. And then people found out that he got jacked off. And then he sucked at playing sports. Like, it's weird how mentally that type of stuff will fuck up your game. And you just— yeah, Hank, I'm with you. I think he's somewhere deep inside.

And Rodgers has been terrible. Like, I've— like, we've watched all of his games and it's like, all right, it's Rodgers though. He can lead this drive like fourth quarter, 2-minute drill. It's Rodgers. It hasn't happened.

But maybe Mike McCarthy brings it out of him.

Yeah, I'm— I I believe that, but it's probably not the case.

Well, he told Mike Silver that he was, he was actually sick before their, their playoff loss to Houston.

I don't think they were winning that game anyway.

Probably not. They lost 30 to 6 and he was like, I remember how he was like, I had a fever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Wait, are you going to say it, PFT?

Which one?

About the Steelers?

This might be the year.

You know what?

They could win. You know what? What if it was the— what if the Steelers finished 8-9, they finished below .500, but then they won a playoff game, hosted a playoff game? Yeah, a playoff game and won at home. Yeah, this could be—

they could win a playoff game this year.

They might win one playoff game this year. Outside of that, no.

Yeah, it feels like the Steelers have made the playoffs a billion years in a row, and they— but they haven't made the playoffs, right? Because of how they've lost in the playoffs. Like that wasn't a playoff team. Yeah, like last year was not— they weren't even close to competitive against the Texans. Remember the year— I think the year before was the Ravens. Yeah, that one.

It was a really odd thing where Steelers fans would be like, you'd finish the season, you would make the playoffs, and then Steelers fans would dread that week leading into the playoff game. Yeah, because they're like, yeah, this is going to suck. We're not a playoff team.

Okay, cool.

Turn on my cool throws. Jon Rahm.

Oh, why?

Oh, that's interesting.

Monday Q Info, who's great, great following on Twitter, legitimate, legitimate source. Like, he is—

he's an insider.

He put out a tweet saying multiple people I spoke with, including players, Live Golf could still be owed— like, some players could be owed up to $250 million combined from contracts they signed. The biggest portion of the lump sum is Jon Rahm, who is allegedly still owed as much as $150 mil.

Yeah, but that's not a cool throne.

Wait, uh, seems like a foregone conclusion that Live will file for bankruptcy, so almost no chance Rahm and the others owed will get all the money. It could be converted into equity if they find investors for LIV 2.0 and the players decide to stay. So Jon Rahm went from being a player in a league just getting paid a salary to he might own like 60% of LIV 2.0, an owner of a league that is bankrupt and is not viable currently.

Like equity in that is worth zero.

Wasn't—

no, but wasn't like the whole Dodgers TV thing because of bankruptcy?

Now, now, yeah, very—

I don't know. Am I wrong? No, because I read, I read about—

they were in the Major League Baseball.

I read about that so many times that it's just easier to be like, the Dodgers are cheating and it's not fair.

But like, if you're like, if you get in at the ground floor and you, you have a big—

but they would have to then be— it would have to continue and flourish.

Yeah, I mean, make money.

Look at where you've come from. You're, you're on your high horse. Like, Barceló— people didn't believe in Barceló. Like, you, you know, you people thought you were crazy for leaving your job and like, all right, I got a little equity in this upstart company. Now look at you.

That's a great point.

That could be John Rahm.

John Rahm. John Rahm in 5 years.

Right.

You're right.

It's really good.

You're right. You're so right.

So like, John Rahm is going to buy it back from— No, he's going to get it.

He's going to get all the money.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What if they sold it to John Rahm for a dollar?

Yeah, then he'd be in a great spot.

So you're saying you think John Rahm will take the equity in LIV versus trying to actually make money and play on the PGA Tour.

Yeah, it's $150 million.

No, no, no, that's not $150 million.

$150 million of stock.

That's what he's owed.

Yeah. So he's getting that percentage, which could be way more than $100 million.

It could be $150 billion.

Right, right. All they need is like some super rich investor with unlimited money from the Middle East to invest in them.

It could be from anywhere.

Yeah, it doesn't have to be the Middle East. I'm like, that's a limited mindset you've got. And Jon Rahm.

Yeah.

People look at that story like it's a bad thing.

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

But like, it's not.

It's not right.

The fact that they don't have great opportunity, like, yes, they don't have any investors, is actually a great thing, right, for the golfers on the tour. Because imagine what if they did get an investor, right?

Like, like, I'll not believe in LIV when they fail with an unlimited bankroll.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Like, that's until that happens. I'm going to believe in that.

Yeah. If they find themselves somehow, hypothetically, if they find like the one investor or, uh, or public fund that would be willing to spend whatever it took to prop up LIV as a golf league. I don't even know if that person exists out there, but if they were to find that one person, whoever it might be, then this thing, I'm sure, would be a massive success. But we will— I guess we'll never know until we find some public investment fund that would be willing to throw like I don't know, hundreds of millions of dollars.

I think like $5 billion.

Yeah, something like that. But can I, can I throw out a hypothetical?

Sure.

Let's say, okay, which would you rather have? The LIV Golf Tour gets an investor, absolutely crushes it, flourishes, lasts for the next 100 years.

I don't know what you could say that's going to make me take option 2.

Well, I'm trying to think what would be fair, because I like— I think you would take Patriots Super Bowl over that.

Yeah.

Bruins Stanley Cup victory. You're such a— I would take Bruins.

I would take Bruins if, if, if, if Jon Rahm wanted to cut me in on some equity. But like, I have no— I have no— if I had a vested interest.

How about this? How about this? The LIV exists, it exists for another 100 years, or you get down to an 8 handicap.

I mean, I'll get down to 8 handicap.

Is it—

if I don't take LIV, do I never get down to an 8 handicap?

Never. You're capped exactly where you are. You'll never get better.

Well, that's—

there's no—

what if you get to a 12?

No, I, I, I, I mean, the, the, the fun of golf is trying to progress. You know, the numbers are—

right, right.

You'll still try, but you'll never get better.

Yeah, that sounds awful. Yeah, the fun of golf is— I might not be getting better, but like, I, in my mind right now, I'm like, I'm going to be— I am getting better.

What about LIV lives for 100 years? I can, or I can snap my fingers and you're scratched tomorrow.

Scratched tomorrow.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you love LIV.

But you love LIV.

LIV 2.0 is what they're calling it. You believe? Yeah. Yeah. What is LIV 2.0?

It's louder.

Yeah. Golf, but louder. But louder.

Golf, but even louder.

Even louder.

There's none more loud.

There's more speakers— there's more speakers on it for us?

Yeah! There's just... It's so loud what Max I just... It's never gonna end.

I know you don't care about LIV but like max: "I SO DON'T CARE!" But here's why it's insane how little I care about them. Here's why I care so deeply about LIV because it's such a ridiculous league that people somehow managed to weasel their way into national discourse No no no no no no no no nooohhhh! Into our discourse?!

Oh god oh God noooomax!

Max, anytime if you can sign away Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, I got news for anybody.

Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson.

They, they became a storyline in golf, like it or not.

That was, that was the old LIV.

And it's very funny that with all the money in the world, how many dead dinosaurs, probably, probably millions, maybe even billions of dinosaurs had to die back in the day to generate enough oil to give the Saudi government enough money.

That's what creates oil.

Yeah.

Probably billions of dinosaurs, dude.

Billions of dead dinosaurs. Their last wishes were, I hope that you can sign Cam Smith.

Dinosaur bones.

Use my body.

Yeah.

Go out there and sign and recruit Ian Poulter.

You're all— everything that you want in life is based on a triceratops that died hundreds of thousands of years ago, deep below the Earth's crust.

Probably hundreds of millions.

Millions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. Dinosaurs. No one knows.

Yeah, I don't believe that.

You know, there's like, there's, there was like 6 extinctions.

Oh yeah.

I didn't—

I watched the Netflix show. It was too much, too much AI.

But I took my kids to the field.

It was like a— there was, there was 100 million years.

Yeah.

Yeah. It was like, wait, I thought there was just one big one.

And T-Rex lived way closer to us than it did to the Stegosaurus.

Yeah. I think I told you guys you can go smell the breath of the T-Rex. So, wow.

Museum.

Yeah, it smells terrible.

Awful. Wait till 3.0.

3.0. Oh my God.

I mean, dude, Steve Jobs. What happened? What happened?

But we're screaming at all times.

He died.

What happened with Apple?

He died.

Was that successful at first? No. Did he get kicked out of his company?

Yes.

Did he come back again and it was the strongest company in the world?

Yes. Yes. Is he way smarter than That's the old regime. Is he way smarter than a league that said, hey, we'll play less golf, but we'll do it in shorts? Also, yes.

But it's all about the comeback.

Yeah.

Yeah. You think Greg Norman's sitting by his phone?

What do you think, Max?

I'm over it.

All right.

Hot seat, cool throne, PFT. I never wanted to die. No, this is good. I need it to go forever.

This is a great convo. What, Max?

I hope you just say something with the Wizards to start this.

I mean, I, I could dig deep if you wanted me to.

Well, we have to hit the quota.

No, go, just do a regular hot seat. Don't— he's Googling now.

I mean, we might extend Anthony Davis.

All right.

Hot seat.

The Wizards might extend Anthony Davis. That's, that's my— that's my Wizards conversation. Uh, no, my hot seat is, uh, is the substation. And the 49ers. Mike Evans, he, he hurt his quad and I have no idea if it's a serious injury. I hope it's not. But the 49ers social media staff has found themselves in quite the predicament, which is they're paid based on engagement and the numbers that they generate. And then you sell sponsorships, obviously, for the team based on what the social media accounts do. And they know that any time they have a training camp video that has the substation in the background, that thing is going to do numbers online. Mm-hmm. However, it's going to be a discussion of, oh, your team continues to hurt your own players with this, you know, however much of pseudoscience it might be. But the 49ers are still going to continue to post about this. Like, they're not posting about the substation.

Yeah, but they are.

But it's going to be featured because they know. Yeah. That it's going to be good for the numbers. I don't know if Mike Evans is seriously hurt, if this is more of a precaution, but it's definitely going to be like confirmation bias anytime somebody gets hurt.

Yeah.

For the Niners all season. Yeah, it's just going to be— it's going to be Substation 100%.

There's also a Substation Twitter account now that has like—

I saw that—

10,000 followers. It's ominous.

It's ominous. And it's directly threatening players.

Correct.

It told Kittle, like, just wait.

Yeah.

Yeah. I don't like that.

I got my eye on you.

I'm going to report that.

Yeah. Ban that guy. Or community note it. Then my cool throne is Carrie Underwood. She's back. And there's a new anthem this year for Sunday Night Football.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's bullshit.

Yeah, I'm on hand. That's it.

But they're going to— that's going to— that's going to get changed in 2 weeks.

People are going to—

they've done this before.

What do you mean?

Waiting, waiting all day for Sunday night. That's how every Sunday night has to start.

Right.

Agreed. So I don't know if it's—

you know what?

I haven't thought about that. This might be a hot seat for NBC then.

Yeah.

Because I just, I just assumed that it was going to be a new version in that like they come up with a different phrase to rhyme with, uh, like Chris is the best on TV. You know, like they do it on a weekly basis. I imagine that she goes in the studio like once a month and records what are going to be the intro lines for that weekend. Mm-hmm. But would that count as a full new anthem? I don't think that it does.

I don't know why we have to do some research.

We have to do some massive research because, like, research— they should not change the Sunday Night Anthem. Is perfect as it is. Yeah. A brand new version of the iconic anthem is on its way. I don't like the sound of that. Mm-hmm.

That sounds—

you said cool throw?

Yeah, but then I changed it after because I had assumed it was like what they do every year, week to week. This makes it sound like they're actually going to change. They better not fuck this up, the entire thing.

No.

And I'm not—

I'm not down.

I've got my eye on it.

Yeah.

OK, my hot seat is Hank because we have a new fart of the year. So people are talking about his part of the year. What?

That would be cool.

Well, no, because everyone's bringing up your fart of the year now in relation to this.

So that was last year.

Yeah, right.

But there was a horrific fart attack that sent moviegoers running out of the theater in the middle of the new Spider-Man. And it was ridiculous. Why?

There's only like, what, how many people could actually be affected by a fart if it was really bad?

15, 1 viewer, 20 to ruin a whole segment. Like, I think you're shit.

You had 4 rows behind, like, He shit in a movie theater.

Yeah. No, he shit.

That's—

that smell's not getting all the way back there. There's probably 15 people that are even within range of that fart.

But what could have— what if somebody threw up?

Yeah, throwing up or poop, that— that's a stronger scent that travels and sticks.

I'm saying like if the fart's bad that somebody in the local area pukes. Yeah. And then that puke makes somebody else puke. And then before you know it, the entire theater's puking.

Family Guy. But yeah.

Yeah.

Well, Stand By Me.

Yeah.

Oh, you never seen it?

I think I watched it.

What? I watched it in school once.

Wait, what? I haven't seen Stand By Me.

You've never seen Stand By Me?

I have. I watched it in school.

You know, Family Guy was— the scene was just Stand By Me.

No, that part I— again, like, I watched Stand By Me in like high school in like class.

Hanky.

Thought it was boring.

Hey!

You didn't like any of the acting?

Nah. The, the, uh, Corey Feldman.

Oh, the other Corey.

Oh no, Hanky. It's a great movie.

Yeah.

What did it get? 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, 94% Popcorn Meter.

Isn't it like an anniversary of that movie or something? I've never seen it either.

Well, you're a hater.

Yeah.

I've never seen it.

It's actually good.

It came out like 1974. It came out in 1986. But it's a classic movie.

Never.

You would like— we like— it's actually funny that we're like— like we joke about Jerry. Like he was in an awesome, awesome—

no.

Yeah.

They taught it in school.

They taught it in school.

That's where I watched it. We watched it in class.

If you ever see a dead body—

Yeah.

So wait, what did they teach you about the movie?

Uh, don't eat pie.

No, it was like a— it was like an elective class I had. It was honestly a great class. We just sat and watched movies. Like, we watched like The Godfather and Stand By Me, some of the old like black and white movies, Hitchcock movies. And my teacher would just break them down of why it was like a Classic movie.

That actually sounds like an awesome—

it was a great class. Yeah, it was a great, great senior elective class.

Don't Walk on the Train Tracks.

Also, hot seat is Memes because on Sunday's show he said that we need another earthquake. And then California's top earthquake expert— this is like when we're in a simulation because it was, it was maybe like 12 hours after Memes said that he's wishing an earthquake on LA. He said California's top earthquake expert issues chilling new warning on the big one. It could be tomorrow. Good timing, memes.

Memes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When you're hot, you're hot.

I probably should have said for my preemptive take that the Jets were going to break their playoff drought, but I might just be God. So you could be, could be, could be. Memes might be God.

Yeah.

Whatever I say happens is going to happen.

Yeah.

So what, what are you calling for next episode? He check? No, no, no, don't do it! Not gonna do it. Okay, I apologize to the people of LA.

Okay, uh, and then my cool throne is the Bears because this actually just happened a second ago but Darnell Wright signs— This is weird phrasing by Ian Rapoport. Would you guys agree? The Bears and All-Pro offensive tackle Darnell Wright have agreed to terms on a fat new deal. To make him one of NFL's highest paid, per me and Jay Fowler, ESPN. That's weird.

Sounds like you're talking about a butt.

Yeah. Fat new deal. Also cool throw because Kobe Bryant is only out for 8 to 10 weeks, which we— Eddie had a great—

it's a miracle.

Yeah. Eddie had a great point on Wake Up Barstool today, which I think we need to enact everywhere because everyone has gone through this as football fans. The training camp injury when you're not watching because there's no cameras., and you see instantly carts coming out, player throws his helmet, player's emotional, teammates are going up to the cart. All those bad ominous tweets. Eddie said that every single injury, no matter how big or how small, in training camp, cart should come out. Because then when you get the news— like, I thought Kobe Bryant was out for the year. I thought he was gonna not play for the Bears for like 15 months. I was like, this fucking sucks, is our big offseason signing And then it comes back that it's 8 to 10 weeks. I'm like, that's a miracle. Like, we're good. So I think we need to just set the expectation that every injury is the worst possible. And then you get the good news and it's a great relief.

I would, I would go a step further and say that every player entering or exiting the practice field, regardless of injury, everyone's got their own cart.

Yeah.

So nobody walks back.

There is nothing worse, though, than seeing the tweet, uh, X player throws his helmet in like disgusting after injury.

That's the one I look— yeah, like the Teddy Bridgewater.

What are you gonna say?

I want to go one step further and they should stop saying weeks and just saying what week of the NFL season. I agree, because 8 to 10 weeks me right now is fine, but I can't put that math together of what that actually means.

Like, it's about week 5.

Yeah, week— weeks 3 to 5 return is what you need to hear because that sounds like nothing. Yeah, 8 to 10 sounds like a lot. But then there's, there's more weeks before the regular season starts.

The thing is, if this happened during the season, we would be like, this is the worst injury ever. Oh my God, what a terrible injury.

We need a chart.

The fact that it happened at the start of training camp, we're like, I just— everyone's nicked up this time.

Yeah, what we need, Max, is we just need a chart where it's like it— so it's, it's the reverse where it's like now if the— if you get injured, you can go to the chart and be like, all right, here's when you come back. So like when we get to week 14, it basically says anything over 4 to 6 weeks, you're out.

Yeah, you're fucked.

Yeah, you're fucked because like the clock just keeps ticking down because, yeah, you're right.

We do—

you do that, you do the math in your head and you're like, oh shit. But yeah, this is early enough in August. I thought it was like when the cart comes out and it's just like, this is fucking—

10 weeks is bad. 10 weeks is bad. But that's not— that's the thing.

It's August 1st.

Yeah. Yeah. We're basically still in July, right?

Yeah, almost June.

Yeah.

Okay, Zach, finish us off before we get to our Mount Rushmore.

My hot seat this week is gonna be Klay Thompson. So, uh, here recently Kevin Durant was responding to a post kind of comparing the two super teams, Golden State and the Sixers. Kevin Durant goes on to say, it ain't even close. Joel MVP, Jaylen Brown recent Finals MVP. Tyrese Maxey, All-Star last 3 years.

Mm-hmm.

We all know what Bron does. Klay Thompson, never an MVP candidate in nothing. Ooh. Klay clapped back, you good, man. Why you using my full government? Klay Thompson does not want the Twitter or Instagram smoke with Kevin Durant. Why would you take an online battle with KD? He will go to the depths of hell to win such a battle.

That— you're not wrong on that.

He's got the time.

He has the time and the accounts. He's got the numbers. Yeah.

Also, never MVP in anything is kind of mean. Never.

It is really mean.

Is that true? He had to be MVP in something.

Yeah.

Maybe high school.

High school.

Little league.

AU.

Oh, he definitely was.

He was a good baseball player too.

Yeah, that seems like a really weird shot.

Yeah, then he threw the ID emoji. So Klay Thompson really didn't like the whole full government use. Felt kind of personal to him. Would be sick if we saw these two guys throw hands.

I mean, also, that's, that's kind of a weird argument for Kevin Durant to be like, I don't see how the Warriors were better at all. How about the fact that that team won 73 games? Wouldn't that be why they were better?

Mm-hmm.

Also, and then you added Kevin Durant.

In a weird way, is that him trying to hide behind him without him saying it out loud that I kind of went to a super team, but look what LeBron did. But he knows he can't say that.

Yeah. Yeah, he was— he was— he did it perfect. We talked about on Sunday his quote. He was perfect with what he said where he didn't really diss him. He just said, yeah, of course they're, they're championship like or bust.

But man, this might have been— this might have been meant for the burner.

Oh, this was Sentil. All this.

Do we get Sentil?

No, I don't think so.

I don't just— I don't know.

No, Max just pulled up NBA Central and Ballsack, the other one.

All right, that's— so that's what he pulled up is Draymond Green's Instagram, which is fake. Okay, so Max needs to find the post of that.

So did he do it?

Klay Thompson put that on his Instagram story, 100%.

But did KD say it?

Yes.

Where? Yes.

No, wait, what the fuck?

Yeah, I think KD did.

Why did— Sentinel can't be doing real stuff.

I agree.

They're doing the fake— the fake stuff is the Draymond.

Ballsack. No, I think the—

I think the Draymond stuff is also real.

That's Ballsack right there.

Bleacher Report posted it.

Yeah.

And Complex also said that the Draymond is real.

The Draymond, yeah, was on Threads.

Okay.

Why is Ballsack and Sentinel doing real?

That's illegal. That's illegal.

So Draymond did— Draymond said that he thought that KD was on the burner, was supposed to be on the burner.

I think all, like, all real.

Okay.

All right.

New York Post posted about it.

It's real.

Okay.

It's real. It is real.

All right.

But yeah, Ballsack and Sentinels can't be posting real stuff, muddying the waters.

No, you can't do that. You absolutely cannot do that.

They're switching back and forth.

It's like it also— why is Klay Thompson getting upset on full government name? He called him Klay Thompson.

Yeah, that's probably just super valid banter.

Yeah, just banter.

Or maybe he just wanted to set a tone of like, hey, I didn't— even though it doesn't make sense for me to feel upset about it, I'm gonna let you know I feel a type of way and we can get into whatever.

You know what, I kind of agree with Klay. Like, if you're Kevin Durant, you know I'm good enough, you just say Klay, you leave it at that.

True.

Okay, good, good hot seat.

Then my cool throw-in this week is gonna be Cleveland fans. Cleveland fans may have missed out on LeBron, but they did acquire an entire new team here shortly.

Yeah.

WNBA expansion.

The Rockers?

The Sirens.

The Sirens. Oh, shit.

Wait, is it multiple sirens?

Yeah, I'm thinking it's plural, 'cause it's not like a fire truck. It's more like the mermaid that convinces you that you're in love, and then you end up killing yourself.

God, you know that thing's gotta be grippin'.

Yeah, true. Could be.

If you're like, fuck it, I'm going to— I'm just going to run into this giant rock.

But it'll be in 2028. So a little bit of early entrance there.

But also, we should all say the whole show is on the hot seat if we ever have Jonah Hill on the show because he could annihilate all of us. That was quite a clip. Just the most— I didn't play a single sport. I just found something when I'm mid-40s and someone told me I'm good at it energy.

Ever.

It seemed like he just started doing it. I also, when I saw it, I think he was, I think he was joking.

I think he was joking, but then he went, yeah, I think he's joking. But also I think he might, because there is that guy who like starts like karate like late in life is like, I could fuck you up.

He's joking, but I don't think he would be joking about it like that if he didn't kind of believe it too.

Yeah. So don't call him the fat guy from Superbad.

I would fuck him up personally. I think I'd fuck him up. Yeah, I'd fuck up Jonah Hill. How old is he?

Shout out to— like I said, my initial takeaway was shout out this Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor. Great job convincing Jonah Hill he could annihilate other men.

Mm-hmm.

I'm sure he— Jonah Hill probably paid for personal lessons, probably a lot of money. And oh my God, he was the fastest black belt of all time.

Yeah, I think if you're— if you're like a jiu-jitsu instructor, your goal is to really inflate the ego of whoever you're training with. Let them beat you. Like, first you kick their ass on lesson 1, and then maybe lesson 7 or 8, you're like, all right, you're scaring me now.

Oh my God, you're so strong.

And then by lesson 12, you're like, okay, I trust you to go to the slums of Rio on your own.

Yes.

And you are essentially like a walking Superman.

Yeah. Go on a podcast and say you can annihilate any man. Although he did clarify, not anyone heavier than him. Or bigger than him. He's like 5'7". Okay. So, so that was a good clarification.

How much? I'll say right now, I got skinny, right?

I can annihilate any man that is, is not stronger than me or equal strength to me or even half the strength. Like, if you're a man who's less than half the strength of me, I can annihilate.

And the point of jiu-jitsu is like, you're supposed to be unassuming, but you can— you're lethal.

Yeah, that's correct, Hank. I think most badasses in life don't go around saying they can annihilate other men. They just do it.

True.

Yeah.

I would beat the fuck out of anybody 10 years or younger.

10-year-old.

10-year-old.

Yeah.

Any 10-year-old in the world.

I still think I think there's a 10-year-old out there that would fuck us up.

There's definitely like a 10-year-old that's, you know.

Yeah. He's got like abs and shit. He's wrestling bears in Russia.

Yeah.

I thought about Khabib.

The kids that do like American Ninja Warrior.

Yeah.

I forgot about Khabib.

Well, if we're— if they're trying to like escape me on a jungle gym, then yeah. But I'm saying like in the dojo, 10-year-old Khabib would have fucked you up. No, I think he would have wrestled you to the ground. He was probably like 5'1". He probably weighed £70.

But it doesn't matter. That wrestling is different.

He would not be—

he was wrestling bears, though. He was wrestling bears.

Yep.

Yep. That's a fact. The bears are probably taking it easy on him.

Why did you search UFC airport?

Memes made a good point.

What?

You were like, people who could fight don't say, yeah, fuck you up. Dustin Poirier. He told this guy he was gonna fuck him.

Well, he was also hammered, I think. He still said it. Yeah, that's true. But he also—

he's a professional. I think legally you have to tell somebody.

Yeah, he probably was giving him a warning, like, hey, hey, you take one more step, dude, and it's gonna be a nightmare for you.

And then legally you can't get sued or arrested at that point.

I would take anyone with cauliflower ear over Jonah Hill. Let's say that. Yeah, that's fair. Okay, let's do our Mount Rushmore, brought to you by our friends at Reese's. I have 4-pack right here. There's something for everyone when it comes to Reese's. Reese's is the number one pick. Thank you. Want some right now? Reese's is the number one pick of candy. If we did a Mount Rushmore candy, it'd be Reese's. Guess what? It would probably go all Reese's across the first, uh, round because they have everything. The Reese's Sticks, the Reese's with Oreo, the Reese's, uh, Peanut Butter Cups with marshmallow. They are The Spanish national team of candy. They are the Carolina Hurricanes of candy. They are the— who won the NBA title? The San Antonio Spurs of candy. No, they're the New York Knicks. There you go, memes of candy. Reese's is the best candy in the world. We love it. We have the Reese's Lounge upstairs. The animal crackers with Reese's. I'm just going to put everyone— if you haven't been on to it, you got to get on to it. Also, the pretzels.

They're all—

they're all the best because Reese's only does the best. Reese's, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports. Go get Reese's wherever you shop. Okay, boys, Mount Rushmore of best places— or I guess, you know, best is redundant— Mount Rushmore of places to get drunk that are not a bar.

Love this one. Great topic.

Great topic.

Deep topic.

Deep topic.

A lot of good picks out there.

So, you know, I, I—

this is one of the ones where I'm just calling it ahead of time. The, uh, the undrafted free agents are gonna put together a hell of a team.

Oh yeah, people will be pissed. So right now it's memes, uh, Max and myself, 30 29 points, PFT 29 points, Hank and Zach 28 points. They came in second.

Anyone's, anyone's year.

Anyone's year. Anyone's year. And Hank, you are not going to be here Friday. Are you comfortable with Zach going solo dolo?

Extremely.

So will you even text with him?

Yeah, I told him, I told him to text me topic. I'll send him like options, but I will let him do whatever he wants in terms of choosing.

When this team's not in person, we go virtual.

Zach, how are you feeling? Are you feeling comfortable about it or do you want like some— do you want hands-on advice from Hank?

Hopefully I can do good, but right by the team, you know?

Okay, maybe you're just a star.

Like, do you want the ball?

Hank is holding you down.

No, we're a great team. I think we had a great showing last week. I think we're going to continue to do the best we can do.

Do you want the ball in your hand or do you want Hank like maybe taking the last shot? Are you going to be consulting with him up to the last second?

I'm typically a pass-first guy, so there is some stress going into Friday.

But all right, because 3 years ago when Hank and Max were on a team, Hank left for a week for vacation and Max was ripped off, I think 3 straight wins.

That could be that incident that you— that's 3 straight wins.

Yeah, I mean, it might have been, and then I, and then I left the week after and I think it was 3 straight out.

Yeah, it was a pretty big— All right, we got— Yeah, it was also—

I think—

I believe that might have been—

Who cares about last year and the past years? Like, you guys are living in the past.

That also might have been—

You guys are living in the past.

When Max found the meatball system 3 years ago.

I didn't— You were the one who started to question it. I was just answering your—

The meatball system was revolutionary. It changed the game. It was basically like Billy Bean and the Oakland A's. Yeah. Max realized you could pick meatballs for any draft.

No, it was really like draft day meatballs no matter what.

Yeah.

On every pick.

Yeah.

Okay, PFT is going first. Max Memes and I are going second, and then Hank and Zach are going third. We somehow are 2 months into Mount Rushmore. We still fuck up the order because Hank walked in and he said, I have first pick, we have first pick, right? And I said, no, you have third. He said, fuck.

Yeah, still doesn't get it.

Okay.

1-1.

Oh, I'm going to go with wedding. Okay. Wait, wait, what are we saying? Wait about memes?

What are we saying?

Wait— no, PFT has first pick.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, we have second!

Yeah, yeah, Hank's saying that's a ball.

You just fucked me up. So we fucked up the fuck. We— I was telling you a story about fucking up, and then you almost fucked us up again.

You saying that made me think that we were fucking up, but we did fuck up.

Okay, we're second. All right, wedding, first pick.

Easy. I also like the easy one.

One, I like that you set the tone of like traditional bar because technically there are bars.

Yeah, no, no, we're, we're not—

I wanted to make sure that we were—

just because you got a drink from a temporary bar does not mean that it's a bar.

Otherwise it's not a bar.

No.

Yeah, that would be a good Mount Rushmore too, like Mount Rushmore of places to sneak booze into. Yeah, like places that definitively do not have bars, right?

Yeah, like, like Zach has a water bottle at his desk that is filled with booze every day. People don't know that about—

Yeah, work one.

It's like Maurice Claret. He's got to get his goose on.

Court.

Court would be a good one.

All right. We have our one.

Abortion clinic would actually be a good place to get drunk.

Actually. Yeah, most of those. I'm drunk right now.

Okay.

We have our one.

One. Tailgating. Tailgating.

Okay.

There's just nothing better than like a Being outside, getting the big vibes game.

You wake up early, you get, you get to the stadium as quickly as possible. It's a big game feel. You're so in. You're so excited to get into the stadium for the big game and you just got all your friends together. Just like a little foldable table there.

You got that one friend who's just, just killing the grill for you. Yeah, maybe breakfast burritos into steak tips.

It's the best.

Oh, the best football tailgate.

Back.

It's about— you might meet a hot guy and then you invite him into the office, then you do a competition to confirm that he's a hot guy. That kind of tailgating, you know, normal guy stuff.

Guys.

OK, that was our 1-1 as well. Good pick. I will be— did you hear Zach?

Oh, what do you say?

He said, how's that fall?

That's great value at 2.

Yeah, we liked it too. We would have taken it at 1.

Same.

We liked it too.

Uh, I will go with— I was not going to take this one-one even though it is my one-one— the golf course.

Yep. Okay.

Yeah.

Nothing better. I mean, but it got back to us. As, as fun as it is to golf, most of the fun is just being out there with your boys, having a good time. You get to, you know, have some drinks during the round, then you get to hang out, eat after, sit on the patio, turn a, turn a 4-hour round in like a 9-hour day. There's, there's no better day in my opinion.

I would say that I'd rather get drunk at a golf course than a bar. Yeah, I would say that like getting drunk on the course, I'd like to get buzzed on the course and then get drunk after.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, good pick.

Zach, you think 4 or 2?

Oh, you guys take as much time.

I don't want— I don't hate 13.

Oh, see, 13, 4.

I'm going to go 7.

English.

Yeah. On the big list.

I have no problem with you guys talking it out.

Oh yeah, we can do that. Yeah, man. We're going to go sporting event.

Okay.

Yep.

Okay.

Any specifics or just all sporting events?

Well, if you don't—

you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just the worst form of our pick, but that's fine.

Yeah.

Just any sporting event.

Any sporting event.

Youth soccer game.

Golf.

Yeah, yeah.

Golf.

Golf tournament. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I We're agreeing.

Little League World Series.

Well, Max, what was your—

how would you—

yeah, strong point.

Well, we were— we had— we had baseball. We just had baseball.

Yeah, we just had specific.

But then that would have just turned into—

yeah, yeah. Just because we were like, the, the best— the best summer outdoors baseball game.

What about fall football game?

College football game is pretty good.

Yeah, football's good.

What about NBA Finals game?

Nah, no, that's not—

it's a great one.

It's a great one.

Would recommend.

Same, same.

What do we do now? We have everything. We have our whole board.

I think we just have those two picks. All right. There's three picks off your board.

We have a big board.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a big board.

It's a big board. Most of your big fucking board, dude.

I think we stick with nine. All right. That's what we were going to—

three.

Yeah.

All right. We'll go backyard barbecue. Just great vibes.

Okay.

Great time.

Whether you— whether it's, you know, Fourth of July, Memorial Day, or just getting your buddies together, get in the backyard, get the grill going.

Play some, play some bags.

Yeah. Play some beer. Beer.

Dai.

Who?

Beer.

Dai.

Elite. Great vibes out there.

Great vibes. Get someone on the aux. They put on Sublime. Sublime.

Come on now. Come on now.

Sounds terrible. I'm going to go with on a boat. Okay.

Good pick.

Yeah, we had it on a boat. And then I'm going to give it a one-two punch. Boat followed by concert.

Okay.

At a concert.

You're a drug guy.

I'm not a drug guy. You, you, I enjoy, I enjoy some drugs. I enjoy all the good drugs and none of the bad drugs. But at a concert, yeah, you have to have, you have to have some booze at a concert. Or at least I, I enjoy having some booze at a concert. I think most people out there do too. You get, you double fist it, you stand, you get the like 2 32-ounce beers and you're good to go for the entire night.

Okay. We're going to take with our next picks the Beach.

Yep.

Good pick.

Love getting drunk at the beach. There's not the beach all day drunk and then like going back inside and being like, oh fuck, I'm drunk. That was fun. And then taking a shower and like re-energizing yourself. It's great feeling.

Again, so many great games you can play on the beach. Oh yeah.

A little high.

Just jump in.

Spikeball. You like spikeball? Can Jam, Hank?

You like—

Yeah, I'll be doing that this week.

Yeah, you know it. Fuck yeah. You gonna be on a golf course this week?

I will not be on a golf course this week. Yeah, I know. I mean, it is what it is. Um, I'll be on a beach instead.

Tough.

Zach, it's a good draft, boys.

How you feel about 5?

Good draft.

About what?

About 13?

We took 13 already.

Oh yeah, yep, you're right. It was 4 and 2, or 4 and 2 just picked.

2 was just picked. I don't hate 5 and 4, but they're kind of redundant. I'm going to go— we'll do 5, Zach. And then I think, I think you just—

oh, we're going off 2 different 5s and 4s. My bad.

Oh, no. You guys don't even have your—

oh, no.

Well, you got, you got the big list or the little list or maybe even the in-between list.

You're thinking 5 and 4 up top.

Wait, your 5 and 4 is the opposite of his.

Let's go 2 up top. Let's go. You want to go? Let's go to 2 on the bottom.

Also, you have 2 picks. You could just do both of those.

You can. We just do 2 picks. We take a timeout real quick. You would be crushing us right now for this. Every time we'd say numbers, you get mad. You guys don't even have the same numbers.

These are 2 numbers. You guys go on 3 numbers.

The equation goes, oh, we don't even know.

What about 2 and 8 on the ball?

You guys don't even have the same list.

I think they're doing this.

I'm in on that.

I think they're doing this on purpose.

I don't think so.

Yeah. Look at Hank.

Yeah. No, he's now he's pretending to do it on purpose.

We're going to go—

I number my list, too, and I have these internal debates in my head.

You should talk them out. I do talk them out.

And they're not. And the weird thing about my list right now, My list right now goes 7, 10, 8, 9, 3, and 0. I have a 0. I have a number 0.

We actually went into this. We were like, let's actually, let's actually number these out in order so that we can finally— no, but then we were like, we can't, we can't do it. We got to see, we got to see where the board plays out.

Yeah, it's all about it. So you got to, you got to go with the flow of the draft.

We are going to go, uh, House Party.

Okay, good pick, good pick.

Have it, have it.

You think an 8 on the bottom?

I think, I think so.

8 or 9.

I don't even know what 9 is.

What?

Uh-oh, it's got to be 9 then.

It's got to be 8.

I literally—

no, you got to do 9. We're going to do 9. No, we're going to go with Casino.

Gambler's Responsibility.

That's actually—

no, Gambler's Responsibility.

Terrible pick. That's like the worst.

The last—

that's a terrible pick.

Gambling and alcohol don't mix.

Yeah.

Okay. Gamble responsibly.

You may just have to lose your pick for that pick.

Do we go with 9?

No, no, no, no, Zach, you have casino.

What?

How do you not know that?

That's a horrendous pick.

What happened with 9? Is yours blank?

The casino. That's the, that's the number one thing the casino wants you to do.

Yeah.

I didn't say is the correct choice. I said if the choice feels right, you know.

Oh, I choose not to speak. If I speak, I'm in big trouble.

Yeah.

All right, I choose not to speak as well.

There is a chance we may just have—

you already spoke.

We may just have to redact that pick.

No, you could get drunk at a casino. You're allowed to get drunk.

He didn't say anything about gambling.

Yeah, yeah, he just said at a casino. Okay, they serve you alcohol. I know. Yeah, yeah, I personally, I love getting drunk at a casino and not gambling. Yeah, that's one of my favorite things.

That's the smartest way to do it.

It's actually—

it's like, you may have to put that on.

No, shut the fuck up.

It's like, it's like getting drunk in an airport.

It's pretty much the same thing. It's so much fun.

Should we go with what we were saying? Yeah. For— you know what? You know what actually is really fun to get drunk at? Hank, you may have a little bit of experience with this. We're going to go with the championship parade.

Championship parade.

Very fun.

Very great pick.

Yeah, very fun to get drunk.

Should have taken it. Best day of my life. Actually, Missoula was in my dream last night.

What?

Yeah, I went to his house.

Tell us about it. Were you drunk?

Jackie Chan was there.

Okay. All right.

Keep going. No, don't choke back in your dream. Don't hold back. I know you're going to hold back right now, but I want to know what Jackie Chan was doing.

This is crazy.

We actually—

they were just choking each other out.

They were just taking turns choking each other out. Was Jonah Hill there?

It wasn't Jackie Chan. It was a guy named Chan. And then I called him Jackie Chan in the dream. Then the room got silent. They're like, his name— that's not Jackie Chan.

Like, it's Mike Chan.

And then like, then like My friends from home were there.

That would be Stephen Jay.

You were racist in your dream?

Crazy. I don't even know why I said that.

What?

What else happened? Did everyone laugh at you?

No, it got kind of awkward. Like, my— some of my friends from home were there, and then, like, they kind of like— that was kind of like— then we were watching a movie, and then that was kind of like the end of the night.

You guys just hung out. You, not Jackie Chan.

Missoula. An Asian guy named Chan. My friends from home who was not—

Jackie Chan's wife was there. It was a great— it was a great dream. I wish it happened in real life, minus the Chan part.

How's Missoula doing?

He's doing good.

Yeah.

What movie were we watching?

It was like— it was like Star Wars, but it wasn't— it wasn't Star Wars.

Oh, okay.

It was like a new Star Wars.

Star Wars.

Star Wars took place in Boston and they, they robbed banks. Instead of flying X-Wings, it was a Star Wars, but it wasn't Star Wars.

It was like a new Star Wars. I know exactly what you're talking about.

Like the plot of the movie wasn't any of the Star Wars movies that have come out, but it looked like— like I think Darth Vader was in it.

Yeah, he had a spinoff.

Yeah.

Whose Millennium Falcon we taking? Mm-hmm.

Okay. All right. Last pick, PFT.

All right. Last one. A lot of good picks. A lot of good picks still on the board right here. I'm gonna go with on a plane.

Mm.

Drinking on a plane. Fun times.

I do not enjoy drinking on a plane.

I do.

Okay.

That's the beauty of Mount Rushmore.

Yeah.

Drinking on a plane. They made a song about it. So good. Yeah.

Anyone? Thoughts? You guys drink on the plane?

No.

Just sleep on the plane.

If you're on your way to a vacation and you get on a plane going there and you got nothing else to do for the rest of that day, You get on the plane. Let's just say it's 9 a.m. They bring by the champagne or the first cart person comes by and you say, yeah, you know what? I know it's 9 a.m. I'll have a beer. Fuck it. That beer turns into 2 beers. It hits you at altitude. You get drunk faster. You have a great time. You're so excited about the vacation. By the time you land, you feel like shit. You hit the—

no. Yeah, that's, that's why I don't like drinking on a plane.

You hit the ground running to start your vacation when I— and you're having the best time ever.

Then you have to travel.

When I get off a plane, and I'm drunk. I'm like, fuck, why did I do that? Because I now feel a little hungover, a little jet lag, and then I got to get in an Uber. I'm like, shit.

The best is it's on the way to the vacation and it makes the start of your trip that much better. It's the mind. I like getting so many better pictures. So at the airport, you're not a plane.

That's a bar.

Yeah, I had airport to airport.

Airport's a bar. Airport would not have counted.

Airport doesn't count.

No.

Okay.

Unless you are like going to duty-free in the airport bar. Yeah.

So I took, I took airplane instead of airport. I also had at the end at a movie. Getting drunk while you watch a movie is fun. Well, this honorable mention.

No, I know these are honorable mentions. I don't like getting drunk.

You don't like it. You don't like having beers while you're watching a movie.

I don't. I like to focus on the movie.

I like a soda.

If we should have— do you think Thanksgiving would have been a better pick than casino?

Uh, would have been a better pick. Yeah, probably would have. I mean, there's a lot of picks that are still—

what was the thing that—

lake house?

Zach, Zach had—

what is plane?

What?

He literally just said plane. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Zach spelled it P-L-A-I-N.

I was reading it.

I'm like, what the fuck is You were thinking like a coastal plane. I didn't know what I— like, I read the word plane, but I didn't realize he meant—

I was confused.

I was like, what do you mean you don't know?

9.

Oh my God.

That's equally bad for Zach and for him.

Oh my God.

No.

Oh yeah.

No, I'm at—

that's bad for Zach.

That's bad for Zach.

For Hank reading the word plane and not understanding.

I don't think I would understand it. It says plane. Yeah. Spelled plane.

Yeah, plane.

He just took plane.

I understand, but you took plane. He just took plane. No, he took—

no, he took plane.

No, cuz a plane, it's a, it's a, it's a flat piece of— it's a flat piece of—

talking about like the Midwest.

Yeah, you were talking about a cornfield in Nebraska.

You guys never had a field party?

Listen, we had woods on here. We had woods.

Field party rips.

Woods were on there.

Yeah, camping.

You guys are passing judgment thinking I meant Flying plane.

Lake house would have been great. Yeah, lake house.

Woods.

I was going to say your boy's basement, but that's kind of like a house party.

We had—

yeah, we had basement.

Yeah. Rooftop.

Rooftop's good.

Rooftop is like very city-centric.

Just a pool party.

Yeah, we weren't going to do beach and pool.

Yeah. Party bus.

We had floating a river.

Yeah, that's good.

That's a good one.

Street festival, block party. Garage.

Garage is good.

Getting drunk in the garage, open up the garage door.

We had your own house. Mm-hmm.

What else? Plane.

Meme said the streets of New Orleans.

Yeah, he said the streets, which would have been a tough— it would have been tough because where are you getting the drinks from?

Yeah, yeah.

But yes, yeah, it's true. New Orleans is fun.

Men's softball game.

Oh, that's a good one.

It's a really good one. Meme's also asked when we were getting prepared, he said, can we just take a whole city? I don't think so.

I would have allowed that if it was like streets.

Where are you getting the drinks?

If it was streets of New Orleans, there's a— there's probably some stands that you can, you can drive through, like the drive-through daiquiri place. Yeah, I would have allowed that.

He also said resort, but I feel like those are the resort bars.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Plane, limo.

Yeah, I'd rather party.

Yeah, party bus limos.

You can stand out there.

Similar vibe.

Limos are just going out of style though. I feel like you don't see limos anymore.

No, mostly me and Brandon tried to buy one. Yeah, his mayor was selling one.

I remember that. Would have been sick.

Would have been—

I want to be a limo driver.

Be so sick.

That was a very— that was a very funny turn of events right there.

Oh my God, planes.

I was so confused.

Camping is a good one.

Yeah, I know.

It's like, oh, camping is great.

Yeah.

Camp is a great one. Yeah, playing. It's all right, Zach.

Work.

Not actually, that's a distant honorable mention. Getting drunk at work. Yeah, I think we got them all.

Yeah, that was good.

That was a really good Mount Rushmore.

I feel strong about it.

Good work, boys. Okay, let's, uh, let's talk some more trade deadline with Jeff Passan. And before we do that, Pete's got a couple ads.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest breaking down the MLB trade deadline. It is ESPN's Jeff Passan. Jeff, thank you for joining us. I, uh, I made a critical error yesterday. I texted Jeff Passan on trade deadline day, like 6 hours before the trade deadline, being like, hey man, can you come on the show, uh, tomorrow? And then I got no response. And then like 8 hours later I said, hey, that was a really dumb text to send you right before trade deadline. So I apologize for that. It was chaotic, was it not? Were you just— it was insane for you all day.

I love getting inappropriate texts on trade deadline day. Yeah, because it, because it definitely makes me think, wow, what a self-important dipshit. Like, like, who hasn't thought of what I might be doing right now? And the fact that, like, of all the days of the year, Dan, Yeah, it was, it was an impressive lack of feel. And that's the thing, you, you have, you have always come off to me as somebody who has an exceptional amount of feel. Like, it feel— I don't know, is feel like a word in, in other sports? Because it's a big baseball word.

Yeah.

Where if, you know, for those unfamiliar, you just got like feel of a situation. It's social awareness, essentially. And, and that it took you 8 hours to realize what a dumbass you were, that's my favorite part of the whole thing.

Oh, I knew right away. No, no, I knew right away. I expected, I expected you to have the feel to be like, yeah, let's talk tomorrow. But you just ghosted me, so then I completely followed up.

Um, did I, did I lack feel there by not responding?

Yeah, like a quick, just like, yeah, let's talk tomorrow would have been great, just so I knew that you saw it. But that's— listen, I, I admit I should have texted you on like Saturday, uh, and been like, hey, we'd love to have you on Tuesday. But either way It was a great trade deadline. It was crazy, crazy. You got— I feel like, uh, starting Saturday night with Tarik Skubal all the way up until the deadline, was it 41 trades or something?

It was— I believe it was 42 on deadline day alone. Okay, so, uh, starting Monday morning, I think with Luis Arraez was the first one. Yeah, 40, 42 trades. Baseball's— I, I don't, I don't think the NFL's trade deadline day is, is anything like this.

No, like, every year we say it's going to be big and then nothing happens.

No.

Yeah, yeah.

The, the NBA usually has, uh, like, at least a few big moves, but, but to me, like, baseball has the best trade deadline by a mile. Even, even if it's like a bunch of jobbers who are going back and forth. Like, that's the thing, people get so excited on trade deadline day about getting a middle reliever.

Yes.

When do we ever get excited in life about middle relievers? On trade deadline day, it's like, wow, that guy could be the difference between us going to the World Series or not. And you start to convince yourself of things, and it's the beauty of it.

You're 100% right, because outside of a couple of the starting pitching that the Cubs got, the relievers they got— like, I got pumped for guys I've just never seen play baseball. I'm like, fuck yeah, dude, this guy's going to be awesome. This is going to be so sick.

Ryan Zephyr-John is going to be incredible. Actually, you know what, that was, that was a good pickup. Yeah, I thought the Cubs, I thought the Cubs had an awesome day.

I do too.

And, and I, it just like, to me it goes back to this. I understand the Dodgers, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about them, I'm sure. The Dodgers are in like their own category. But if you go and look at the rest of baseball right now, especially the American League, it is so winnable and it is so there to be taken. And so the fact that the Red Sox went and like comically overpaid for Adley Rutschman. I don't care, they're going for it. I appreciate that.

The—

now, you know, we, we have been conditioned as sports fans, and I think especially as baseball fans, but you've seen this in the NBA too with the, the whole idea of the, the process. We've been conditioned to accept that now is not as important as the future.

Yeah.

And I hate that. I hate that as a sports fan. I want executives and owners to treat this year like it's the last year that's going to be played. I want them to have reckless abandon trying to go for a championship right now, not because I have like a short attention span or because, uh, I, I have an inability to have delayed gratification. It's because, can we just acknowledge, we don't know what the future is going to look like. We don't know when our franchise player is going to suffer a catastrophic injury or get arrested or get divorced and have a terrible year because his mind's out. We can't predict any of these things. So why wouldn't we throw all of our resources at what we've got right now and try and steal a championship? Because that ultimately, that's what this is all for, right?

Agree.

I get it. And, uh, you said it perfectly. We don't know if next year is going to exist at all in baseball. That's maybe kind of true. Like, are we going to have it? Are we going to have a sport next year? Nobody really knows what that's going to look like this time in 12 months. But like big picture stuff, how did that— how did the impending lockout and the, uh, the future CBA, how did that impact, if at all, this trade deadline?

It certainly impacted it. I remember probably 48 hours ago having a conversation with the GM, and we were talking about those guys who were free agents after the 2027 season, because there were— there were— I mean, Adley Rutschman chief among them, as guys whose contracts expire after 2027. And he was saying, we're having a hard time pricing this because the, the way, you know, it's, it's funny to me, like, fans, fans will come up to me and say, hey, like, who are the Yankees gonna get? Who are the Red Sox gonna get? And it's not so simple as either of those teams wants a specific guy and is going to go full bore for him. Like, in the NFL, you have 53-man rosters and you have taxi squads. In the NBA, you have 15-man rosters and D-League guys. Or G League or whatever it's called right now. In baseball, you have 26-man rosters in the big leagues and 180 players in the minor leagues. So you have this whole wide universe from which trades can be made. So it doesn't come down to, we have these limited pieces here and we got to figure out how to shuffle them within the constraints of a salary cap.

In baseball, the world is your oyster when it comes to a trade. So you can do everything from focus on guys who are at the big leagues right now to guys who are at AAA or AA, maybe on the cusp, to 16 and 17-year-olds playing in the Dominican Summer League. Uh, you can trade some kinds of draft picks sometimes. Like, there are just all kinds of opportunities to make deals. So what these teams look for, almost more than individual players, is value plays. Where do we get the best value? Where do we feel like we come out of this deal, which inherently, because it's at the trade deadline, you're going to be overpaying like it's an inefficient market like that. But in, in the constraints of that inefficient market, how do we get the best value out of it? That's what they're looking for. And that's how the, the Yankees wound up with Luis Garcia Jr., who does not fit what they need necessarily defensively. They have Paul Goldschmidt and Ben Rice at first base already. And so, uh, they got Luis Garcia because they're like, we need a hitter, we'll figure out where to play him.

It was the You know, it was the same situation with the Phillies and Luis Arraez. Like, if everything goes how we expect it to, Luis Arraez is going to play second base, Bryce Harper is going to shift to right field, Alec Bohm is going to shift from third base to first base, uh, and Bryson Stott's going to shift from second base to third base. And I mean, Tim Kirkjum was like, this is a slow pitch softball team. And it, it like Dude, I have to say, spending a day with Tim Kirkham, everyone should do it at some point.

Yeah, he is the best.

I just love it when he gets excited. When he— when he's— when baseball—

when the—

when the stove is heating up the most, that's when he sounds like the Pillsbury Doughboy, and he's just— he's giddy all day long. I love watching him on TV.

Funny. It's all— yeah, he is great for baseball. All right, so off of what you just said in terms of the, the vast resources teams have have in which to trade, uh, at the trade deadline. Let's talk about Tarik Skubal. And was there anyone who is as competitive as the Dodgers, or was there— we have our conspiracy theories on this show that this is partially a collusion situation where the owners want the Dodgers to get all the best players, want them to win a World Series, so then all the fans say, hey, we need a salary cap. What, what transpired? Was anyone else in, you Did the Brewers make an offer? Did the Rays make the offer? Because I saw Scott Harris called the Dodgers himself on Saturday night is now the new reporting.

Uh, the, the whole thing was very interesting and there certainly was, was some consternation among the teams that did not get a bite at the Tarik Skubal apple, if you will. And, and here, here's the truth, guys. Scott Harris could have sat down because he went around asking at the beginning for the number one player for every team. With the Rays, it was like, "Can we get Theo Gillin?" And he was told no. Theo Gillin, who's, uh, I think he's a 20-year-old outfielder out of Austin, uh, had a big breakout this year, uh, year this year. Dynamic guy. He's gonna be a star. And the Rays just simply did not want to give up a player of that caliber for what amounts to a rental, regardless of how good Tarik Skubal is. Is, uh, same thing with Brewers. Jesus Madero is the number one prospect in all of baseball. They are not going to give that up. But here's the thing, the Dodgers weren't going to give up their number one prospect, Josue De Paula, either, and they didn't want to give up Eduardo Quintero, another young outfielder as well. So I, I think what the Tigers did was go and look through the rest of the prospects.

And so with the Rays, for example, their number 2 and 3 prospects, Caden Bodine, Nathan Frueling, both catchers. The Tigers have the best catcher in the big leagues in Dylan Dingler. So the match might not have been as good there. The Rays could have given, you know, 5 or 6 guys, but they would have been lesser. And I think it was clear that, that Scott Harris wanted a smaller and more robust package with the Brewers. They could have done that. You know, Luis Peña is a shortstop and he is really good. They don't have outfielders quite the same way though. That the Dodgers did. And if you look at what the Tigers have right now, they have a long-term shortstop in Kevin McGonigle. They are missing a corner outfielder right now to go alongside Riley Green and Max Clark. They want another pitcher who's throwing, you know, like Jackson Jobes going to be coming back up after Tommy John surgery. Troy Melton just been a breakout guy this year. And adding River Ryan, you know, I talked to someone with the Tigers and he's like, our rotation Next year is gonna have 3 guys who throw 100.

And so they, you know, I think they looked at what the Dodgers had, looked at those assets and said, for this team we have right now, this makes sense. Now, all that being said, guys, I get the conspiracy theories. You guys are not the only ones. There are plenty of people within the baseball realm who were screaming, this is collusion, this is this, this is that. I've always been of the— and maybe this is the nerd reporter in me— I've always been of like, Until I see evidence, uh, I, I have a hard time believing it. And I just have a hard time especially believing that an entire organization in the Detroit Tigers and all the other 28 non-Dodgers organizations around Major League Baseball would agree to the idea of giving the most valuable thing, the only thing you play for, another time to a team that's already won the last two. Like, it's a, it's a fun story, it's a tidy little idea, It's just antithetical to the way that these people act and, and to the— their whole goals. Like, this is their livelihood. Do you think they're gonna sacrifice what they're doing on the altar of Major League Baseball trying to get a salary cap?

Maybe the answer is yes. I don't discount anything because MLB really wants a salary cap, guys. And I'll tell you this, this goes a long way to pissing off fans and having pitchforks and torches in the, in the baseball streets.

Yeah. So what's interesting is the timing of it. You know, if the deal was done on Saturday, there's still, you know, a day and a half left where you can actually get on the phone, get your best and final offer from other teams. As far as the Tigers and their front office goes, I don't, I, I'm not sure I really buy that they would be less inclined to trade him to the Dodgers because the Dodgers had won the World Series. World Series, um, that like especially in a different league. To me that, that seems like that wouldn't be as much of a factor if they feel like they're getting a fair offer in exchange for him. It's like, okay, the Dodgers are going to win, you're the Tigers, you don't— that doesn't really affect you as much as if it was another American League team. And I do think that the motivation from an ownership group would be bigger if you know you're not going to win the World Series this year. Um, the motivation for getting that salary cap is maybe the most enticing carrot on a stick that you could have in, in the entire sport, and that's billions of dollars in your pocket moving forward.

So I, I am thinking about the conspiracy here, the timing again on Saturday. Why— can you explain to me? Because Big Cat had an idea of maybe they wanted to trade somebody else, so it didn't make sense to trade Scooble.

I, I thought it would have to go Scooble first because then it's like basically the whole trade market is decided on Schubel. And specific— like, that's all of MLB, but then specifically for the Tigers, they were also going to trade Casey Mize. So it's like, you gotta do the Schubel deal first and then figure out where you go with Casey Mize. That was my understanding of why— maybe one reasoning for why it went Saturday night and not all the way till Monday afternoon.

So I guess my question is, um, what do you think? Like, could they have gotten better offers? Is that— is that again just like a tinfoil hat, because I think it makes a lot of sense. Hang on to him for at least another day, another 2 days as it's heating up. You've got that offer from the Dodgers. Do you think that there would have been competing offers, if not stronger offers?

I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to think, guys. I also think that we have to factor in that waiting a longer time might not lead to bigger offers. Let's say that the Dodgers get tired of waiting around. And listen, this is a risk that you have to take. You need to go into the heads of other executives and try and think, okay, if I'm in their shoes, how am I going to handle this situation? But what if the Dodgers say, you know what, I'm tired of waiting, I'm going to pivot away from this and do something else. Now, that probably wasn't going to happen because there's nobody like Tarek Skubal on the market. They were probably going to have the Dodgers just waiting there the whole time. But you run the risk then of not getting or of having another team out of it and then some of the other teams that have been in have made other moves already or traded away pieces that you might have wanted. And I think it's a bird-in-hand situation.

Yeah, yeah. And, and Scott Harris was able to make his moves after that. All right, who else?

And, and can I, can I just, can I just say this, guys? I, I want to put a bow on this. What the Tigers did might not have been right. What the Tigers did might not have been optimal. I also think that it's within reason enough to think that there was strategic elements involved in it. It might not have been the correct strategy, but I think it's a fair and reasonable one.

Yeah. Okay. Who else won trade deadline for you? I thought the Padres, you know, talking about Casey Mize, who— Casey Mize is a really, really good starter, and the Padres are like, that's a team that has always kind of lived in that weird, you know, they're in the wildcard, they're in the same division as the Dodgers. They basically said, hey, you know what, we're going to try to go for it. We're going to try to not be scared of Dodgers.

The Padres aren't scared of the Dodgers. They've never been scared of the Dodgers. They've beaten the Dodgers in the playoffs, remember? Like, it was them and the Diamondbacks. They have, you know, they have slain the beast there and shown that even though the Dodgers are the overwhelming favorite right now, baseball is a funny sport. And especially in short series, uh, you can see things not go the way of the most talented team. Sometimes the other team just gets on a heater. Sometimes you just play an utter horseshit series. Like, that happens sometimes. But, uh, I— it was interesting because Casey Mize's market sort of collapsed there, uh, in his last start. He had come off the injured list with a groin issue. His velocity was down. A number of teams thought he was hurt and were going to see his start. Then he got scratched from that start, and they're like, all right, you know what, we're, we're just not gonna pay for somebody who might be broken. AJ Preller, he's like, I don't, I don't care. I mean, he's a swashbuckler at the deadline, and he'll go and do the things that other organizations are just not willing to do.

And adding Casey Mize, adding Robbie Ray, who over his last 10 starts has been one of the best pitchers in baseball, and doing that to a team that's finally hitting, guys. It has taken more than half the season, but Fernando Tatis Jr. hitting, Manny Machado hitting, Jackson Merrill. They picked up Luis Rengifo. He's been one of the best hitters in baseball since the All-Star Frank. Ty France has been awesome this year. The Padres suddenly look really dangerous, but they have looked awful at points this season, and it's a very helter-skelter team. And if they make the playoffs, yeah, they could be a problem. I'm just not sure that they're going to make the playoffs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, sometimes the biggest trades are also the ones that don't get made out there. How about that bit of analysis? The Braves trying to make a move.

Chestnut of wisdom.

Exactly.

Love it.

DeGrom giving a big fuck you to the Braves. Braves. I, I love that. We got some Mets fans here in the office and that they, they love that. I, I just love the idea that, you know, like, it probably wasn't just because he hates the Braves because he played in New York. There's probably some other factors in it maybe that you know about, but, um, it's fun to pretend that he was just kind of once a Met, always a Met.

I mean, if you'd like to, to actually know that, no. I mean, I think he probably likes Atlanta better than New York, and that's one of the cities that he would have gone to typically.

Yeah.

Uh, But it was a family thing. He's got his family down in Texas. They're settled there, they're comfortable there. And beyond that, when Jacob deGrom got no trade protection in his contract, the idea is not just to be able to say yes or no, but to use it as an economic cudgel. And he's got a $37 million mutual option at the end of his contract, and he very easily could have said, either you turn that $37 million mutual option into a player option that is now in my hands, or I'm not going to take this deal. So the financial parts of no trade protection come in and sometimes make the decision for him.

Yeah.

And then with Paul Skeens, was there ever anything that was close to happening with Paul Skeens in, in terms of him, like, in terms of having lunch, or in terms of any trade? Were the Pirates taking offers?

Hell no.

Okay, yeah, no, no, they did—

they're not—

I mean, they're not even— they're not even getting offers on that. Like, the Pirates— the Pirates went out and got a bunch of relief pitching yesterday. And it's interesting, guys, because I, I think people probably don't realize the Pittsburgh Pirates have the third best offense in baseball this season, and they've been doing it lately without O'Neil Cruz and without Conor Griffin too. So two of their best offensive players. Pirates starting rotation, uh, highest fastball velocity in Major League Baseball, 97.6 miles per hour. They got a bunch of dudes who can chuck it. What they were missing was a bullpen. And while they didn't get big names, you know, they did get Luke Weaver, who was the best reliever out on the market, uh, getting Lake Bacher, Kirby Yates as well. Like, not big names, but it's the sort of thing, guys, that I think will go a long way to showing what the Pittsburgh Pirates can be. And inside of that clubhouse, they were, you know, you know, Paul Skeens among them. They were really hoping to get relief pitching, and that's exactly what the front office did.

Yeah, they're still in the wild card, uh, 3.5 games out. All right, I know you got to run in a second. I got a couple other quick hitters. What do you do if you're an Orioles fan today? Because that was a probably demoralizing, you know, trade to see. The Orioles had a young core a few years ago. It was this hype, this everything's going the right direction. They get swept in the playoffs playoffs. They never really got back to that, like, level of baseball. And now it feels like another reset button if you're an Orioles fan.

Yeah, I think that's fair. I think this is more reset than rebuild, though. And those are two— like, the Orioles, like, were the worst of the worst when it came to tanking. It's like them and the Astros. And after 2023, they win 101 games. It's like, oh my God, what is this team going to be? And again, this goes back, guys, to what we were talking about earlier. The Orioles thought that they were going to be a championship-caliber contender for the next half decade, and it just has not worked. For— we could go over a multitude of reasons. It just hasn't worked. And so Adley Rutschman was like the face of that, and to ship him away, it's painful. Uh, getting back Anthony Ianson and Kyson Witherspoon and Andy Ozakar and Carlos Narváez, like, they They crushed that deal. The Red Sox understood they were overpaying significantly. There was a tax for being in division. There was a tax for keeping them away from the Yankees. Uh, but they got their guy and they got a franchise caliber catcher for the next year and a half when they believe they can win the American League.

And based on the way they've been playing lately, uh, they, they look like they've got a real shot at it.

Yeah.

I've got one other question for you here. Uh, this is actually maybe a little a little bit outside of your normal expertise area, but I'd like for you to break down this trade if you could. This broke last week, kind of slipped under the radar before the baseball trades happened. There was a gorilla trade where the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago sent two western lowland gorillas. It was a 20-year-old and a 12-year-old, both female, Kamba and Nora. They went to Columbus in exchange for a 12-year-old and an old. So again, it's a 20 and a 12-year-old— for a 12-year-old and an 8-year-old coming back to Chicago. So Chicago gets younger. Columbus, do you feel like this is an all-in move for them? What's your breakdown of the Gorilla trade?

You need veterans in the gorilla world. I mean, it's, it's, it's hard out there in the trees. And when— listen, when you have somebody who's a force, somebody who's who's been there before, somebody who can take you through getting your ass kicked one day, getting punched in the face, and then someone coming up to you and just beating their chest and telling you you suck. You need someone there to pat the 12-year-old on the head and say, "It's okay. You can go grab them by the balls the next time and throw them to the ground, and you have my permission." If it's a 12-year-old and an 8-year-old, you know, they haven't been there before. They don't understand— the way that if you twist the nuts, then the gorilla goes down and won't fuck with you again.

That's facts.

We're gonna have—

we're actually gonna have the president of, uh, the Brookfield Zoo on on Thursday to break it all down. We're preeminent, uh, zoo trade, uh, podcast. All right, last question, Roback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com, promo code TAKE. I know you gotta run. Tell me, what is the date date that Major League Baseball starts their season next year? And we're not going to hold you to this.

Oh God, I hate this question.

Yeah, I know. That's why I asked.

Because it's— because it's changed. Um, for a long time I was on the, uh, no games missed train, and I desperately want to stay there right now. So I'm going to continue to say, um, you know, I think the schedule starts March 25th or 26th next year. I'm gonna continue to say that, but I am much closer to pushing that date back to June 1st.

I was gonna say June 1st. Yeah, June 1st. I think we're gonna have a season. It's gonna be a short season. Uh, Jeff, sorry again for texting you on trade deadline day, although again, I think you should have just like thumbed it up or something.

I know, I, I, you, you made me, you actually, you actually made me think, should I have, should I have responded to him? And the answer, you selfish douche, is still no.

Okay, well, I did clarify. I was like, I know this is a crazy time to text you, uh, but yes, you're the best. And, uh, next time, not trade deadline, before the playoffs, we'll have you on for a longer time. And we always appreciate your time, man.

Boy, it's always a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Jeff Passan was brought to you by Mountain Dew. Summer's here and it's time to rip into some ice cold Mountain Dew. Can't wait to get back outside at the camp with the boys drinking some Mountain Dew. It's the absolute best. It's delicious. It's cold. Cold. Nothing goes better with the outdoors and hanging with your friends than the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. It was proudly born in the foothills of Tennessee. Enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew, an American original. Grab a Dew, tasting great since '48.

Okay, let's finish up. We got FAQs, Henry.

Uh, FAQ, should we talk FAQ since, you know, the book is basically a giant FAQ and we've been— what have we been doing all week?

John Hancock's signed winning a lot of books that are on sale.

Anderson, go buy it now. I did like you— you, Hank, had Mr. Portnoy, or he had Max read a random chapter, Mr. Portnoy's chapter.

Yeah.

And I did read this like a few months ago when I was reading through the book. And it was very funny, the line of Mr. Portnoy being like, I had a podcast, they had a podcast. I didn't understand why they were getting such big guests and I wasn't.

He also like took— I feel like I I heard it is like almost a shot at his son. He was like, Dan took a big risk, like not a lot of people knew, knew the company when they moved to New York. It's like, that's your son's empire.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But Mr. Porno is in the book. We have a bunch of different chapters. But yeah, we've been signing books, Anderson Books. You can still buy some signed copies. Uh, we are 2 weeks out, 2 weeks out from the book launching. And, uh, we appreciate everyone who's bought. And if you're thinking about buying, you can also wait and buy it the week of, and that would be a big help.

I gotta say, as good as the chapters are that are written by people, not us, like guests on the show. You've got the SVP chapter. You've got just a lot of people that, like Joe Buck, was able to contribute to the book too. A lot of people helped us out. But I think the best chapters are the Zach chapters.

Zach chapters.

And also the, the, the just history of ice cream or just like what ice cream means to Zach is absolutely incredible. And Memes, his chapter on how to rebuild the Jets, pretty good too. And my chapter's wrong.

Don't forget, don't forget Max and Florio doing the Mount Rushmore of Italian.

I have a terrible panic pick in that I've been stressing about for months because he took— he—

Fauci?

No, that would have been so funny.

Well, yeah, it's Italian Americans in sports. I guess he had something to do with sports.

Shut it down.

Shut it down.

Who could it be? Shut it down. Who could it be, Max?

I—

you're gonna find out.

Yeah, it was a panic. I'm like, I'm mad at myself for it.

Hello, soon-to-be bestselling authors. My brother and I argued about this consistently. Content-wise, what is better for the show, a winning Hank or a losing Max? Also, how often do arguments happen the hour before recording? That would make great content. Thank you for all you do.

Team Hank. Yeah, it really depends on the level of heartbreak.

Uh, I don't know.

Shut up, Hank.

If it's bad, it's a bad loss, then yes, 100% losing Max. Max at his worst is just absolute gasoline for the show.

But think about a couple years ago.

No, shut up.

No, are you talking about for you personally? Yeah.

No, no, you're talking about you personally.

No, the show was popping off.

The, uh, the other part of that question, yes. Uh, we have a big problem as a show, uh, where we We just chill too much beforehand.

We—

what is it, about a year ago we added chairs outside the studio and it's just become our chill zone. It's a problem.

We just added another section of chill because the way our show goes, it's like, all right, we meet it, we meet at this time that we do a little bit of. Now we do a little bit of chilling outside of the studio.

We say we're going to record it, like, say we're going to record at 1. We meet at 1, chill, chill.

Then we come into the studio and then we do a little bit more chilling because we— there needs to be a little bit of a buffer zone when we're also in the studio before we start recording. Yeah, it's normally about 45 minutes that we start after we say we're going to start.

It's also just— I guess it's probably a testament to why we've been able to do 10 years, because we all are actually friends with each other and like being around each other. Unlike, you know, some other shows where they just like don't— you know, the famous Mike and the Mad Dog didn't talk until they sat down on Sunday night.

I—

at like 10:45, we finished recording recording, and I texted my wife. I was like, are you asleep? She's like, no, but I'm about to be. I was like, okay, cool. I'm just gonna chill with the boys for a little bit. And we just chilled for like 30 minutes after recording. So yeah, there's a lot of chilling that goes on, but that also is when the magic happens. We get it going, you know, you get the juices flowing.

Sometimes the guys don't listen to save it for the show though. Yeah, they just, they just, they try to blow right past you. We gotta—

don't act like you're not part of that, Hank.

Shut the fuck up for a second. You know that the Save It for the Show, the warnings go unheeded more often than they go respected.

They're more just a call, yourself included.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, no, you said some guys are the guys. You are the guys.

Okay, I am the guys, but we do need— I'm saying if there was one thing we could improve on, it's respecting the Save It for the Show. When somebody calls, you tried to show me the Joe Biden video.

I'm happy. I was like, I'm gonna wait, and I'm very happy I did.

I just knew that you loved it.

It's a really good Save It for the Show.

Yeah, you're like, I want to show you this. I was like, should I? He's like, it's really funny. I was like, should I just wait then?

I knew that you loved the guy. I'm sorry for wanting to put a smile on my boy's face.

The best is though when there's actually a big like, save it for the show, save it for the show, and one person just really wants to talk about it, and then the other people are actually start yelling, save it for the show. It's normally I will want to talk about something and Big Cat will yell at me, I'll be screaming, save it for the show.

You gotta save it from the show. We save a lot for the show.

Assuming views and listens were the same regardless, if you had to only choose one type of guest to have on, one, would you prefer it be a coach/player or media member?

It just depends on like how we get along with that person.

Well, you gotta pick one.

Yeah, you gotta pick one. Oh man, this is actually a really hard question. Fuck. I think, I think me. I'm just like, I'm putting it in the camps. I think media member, right? Right? Like if you had to break it down, it's like, all right, you don't get any more interviews with like Harbaugh or like all the Big Ten coaches on one side, or you don't get interviews with like Russillo or Winhorst or like—

Russillo's a coworker. He's not really—

All right. But this is like, I'm just trying to think.

I think it's coach-player.

You would get rid of them or no?

I would, I would interview them.

Interview them. Yeah. One. I like the fact that we get to do both.

It's a really tough question because I think some of our, our best episodes are with people that are closest with us. Yeah. Which isn't always coach, but now it's the rare combination of like a coach player that is close with us like a coworker, then that's, that's the real answer. But I think I'd probably go overall, I'd probably go media member.

Blake Griffin, a media member.

Yep.

That's what I like.

There's, there's gray areas now. Yeah.

So he would be now, right? Right.

So like you would still get former coach players.

Yeah, I don't know.

But now you wouldn't have coach players, you just have future guests. Part of my take now, I'm thinking about like when they retire, when they retired, then the— yeah, then we're like, okay, now we can interview you.

But what if they're not in the media?

They will.

The, the coach player interviews are funnier, specifically players. I think coaches are like, we put it to them a little.

Yeah, showing coaches like Ryan Day's nipple ring is funny.

I agree.

But like, Charles Barkley is media, not player.

Yeah, man, that's tough.

That's what I'm saying.

It's brutal. He's definitely— he's Tony Romo now. But yeah, what if Tony Romo starts working for Barstool Sports?

Like, when you— when you hear Charles— when you hear Charles Barkley, you hear— you think, yeah.

All right, tough. Great question. That's a great fucking question.

Final answer.

I say media.

I'll keep coach, player. Do you want to do a show together?

Yeah, yeah.

Question on booking guests. Do you guys ever feel uncomfortable approaching guests you love and asking them to come on the show? Is there too much? Example being Caleb or Jaden. Like, is there a clear relationship there, but is there a point of asking and it's like, okay, this is too much? In similar vein, when are we getting PCA on the show? Big Cat, we need Pete.

Yes, it's called— I actually talked to someone from the Cubs. Yes, it's gonna happen. Um, no, I don't— I, I think I've gotten pretty good at it. Even the Jeff Passan, I actually looked back, I think I did a good job. I'm gonna read you my, my text to Jeff Passan because he was fucking— he was coming at me, which I love. He's got spice. That's what Jeff— like, that's why he's a good guest because he kind of— he has a little shit to him. I said to him, 8:30 in the morning, happy deadline day. I know today is nuts. We'd love to have you on PMT tomorrow for 20 minutes if you have a window. We can make whatever work for your schedule. I feel like just a reply being like, yeah, let's talk tomorrow, would have been fine.

That's not that bad. I don't think it's bad at all. I think if anything, your follow-up to it encouraged him to go hard. Yeah, where you followed up, you're like, hey, I just realized I'm a jerk. You could have followed up and just been like, that might not have been the best timing, let me know when it works.

Yeah, well, that's what my follow-up was. I said, sorry, this morning was probably a dumb time to text, let me know if you have a window tomorrow. That was like after the trade deadline. Yeah, and then he called me. And he was like, yeah, that was a dumb time. But I was like, yeah, he admitted that though.

Also, Jeff, like, and he deserves this, we love Jeff, he's great at his job. This is the day, this week is really when he's feeling like top of his game. So like he's got a little extra spice. But I didn't— he's feeling—

he had a good day.

He had a good day. So he was going after— if you're going after Big Cat, that's a heat check for Jeff Passan.

But I read it back because I was like, wait, did I fuck that up? Because I think it would have been a fuck up if I texted him. I was like, hey, can we have you on at 11:00 AM tomorrow, like something like that. I basically was like, we have a wide open day, just let me know if tomorrow at some point works. All you had to say is, yeah, that's cool, I'll hit you later. But yeah, that's a lot of the— a lot of my texts are like that. Like, hey, we— like, would you be down to come on? And I have enough of a relationship with a bunch of people that doesn't feel weird.

And my favorite—

one of my favorite things about Big Cat for our entire relationship is his lack of social anxiety, especially in situations where there's like athletes and celebrities where he will just go up to everyone.

Yeah.

Oh yeah. Like there is no, like, you know, you get a little bit nervous. You go, look, it's that person. Or like, I don't want to just go up and like bum rush them. Like Big Cat, I want Big Cat going up and he's talking to them and he's going to be, he's going to want it to be awkward.

Like, yeah.

Did you ask Larry David to come on the show or no?

Uh, no.

That's probably the one person you might not have, but I feel like you still might have.

I pulled back a handshake from Larry David because I was, I realized he's a germaphobe. And I said, hey, congrats on the Knicks. And he like mumbled and walked away. But yeah, I'll go up to anyone and just be like, hey, you want to come on the show?

Yeah.

I mean, at this point it's also easier. People know who we are.

Yeah.

Like, no, but even—

yeah, early on, like, it did not matter.

That's always— we said it— the one of the worst sentences you can say in the English language is, do you want to come on my podcast? It's just you cannot say that without feeling like a loser. Thankfully, something is wildly wrong with my brain that I can I can not feel like a loser even though I am a loser.

When somebody tells me, yeah, yeah, we'll talk about it. That is— that's the worst feeling that you have. You ask somebody like, hey, will you come on the podcast? Yeah, yeah, let's talk about it. We can make something happen. And then they don't actually like settle in the date.

Oh, I put the screws to people. I just say— I say, can you come on tomorrow like this time? Because then they can't— then you got to say yes or no.

With Jaden, I'm intentionally— I don't— I don't want Jaden to spend a single second thinking about me. So I, I have intentionally let the guy just play football. It was great meeting him, um, but in terms of like chasing him down to try to get him on the pod, hopefully one day he'll come back on. But I think the less Jayden Daniels thinks about my stupid face, uh, probably the better for his NFL career.

What's up guys, love the show, especially, uh, Hank. Question for PFT: what goes through your mind when you get dressed in the morning? For example, how do you choose to wear a football jersey on a random summer Tuesday after Okay, so this was, I guess, a question from Hank Lockwood.

No, this sounds like a real piece of shit. Hank, so right now I'm wearing a jersey of my favorite team. I root for the Washington Commanders. No, I'm wearing a Washington Commanders jersey.

I think this person just genuinely like—

with a— wait, wait, you get out of bed and you're like, jersey day. With a Washington Commanders hat.

I—

but like that, I know that's wild. It's pretty crazy.

We do know it's August 4th.

We do some Zane tiny bits here at Barstool.

Was there a reason?

I'm genuinely curious, the process. Like, you wake up, you get out of bed, I gotta get dressed for work today, jersey.

I got a new Mikey Sandristill jersey when they redesigned the entire Commanders jerseys, and so I decided that I would wear my Mike Sandristill jersey today. Football's back this week.

I'm just like, I'm like Inspector Gadget.

It's kind of football season.

David N. Tawai black t-shirt.

So I feel like, uh, wearing, wearing a football jersey at Barstool Sports shirts of your favorite team.

I love sports.

And the hat that goes along with the team is pretty standard. Guy loves— no, you're right, it's crazy.

That's why no one said it was crazy. I was genuinely curious, or this person was genuinely curious, of just like the process.

Well, yesterday I wore all Bullets gear, so there was that. I know, I'm saying I have like matching—

I've been like, when you're like, like 2 days in a row, you go to sleep with an idea of what you're gonna wear, it out like the first day, you just wake up and they're like, I'm gonna wear I'm going to wear a jersey. I'm going to wear like—

Hank, I have never once in my life thought about what I'm going to wear the next day before I go to bed.

And then when you get out of bed—

Yeah, that tracks. Every day is a surprise. It's a wonderful adventure.

Even if you got like an early flight or something.

Okay.

Yeah.

No, that is true. So the first time that we did Wake Up Barstool, first day, I was like, ah, shit, I got to wake up at 5:45 tomorrow morning. Might as well figure out what I'm going to wear on TV. TV. And that was just basically being like, oh yeah, I got to wear pants. So I put pants out one day and a t-shirt. It was a very underwhelming outfit. But yeah, no, I mean, I, I, it's no secret. I don't really spend that much time planning out this one. I just think you picked the wrong day to ask that question. Nothing wrong with wearing a jersey.

It's a little random. But I wasn't, I'm not, I'm not chirping. I think you look good. Like you match well. You look stylish. I just genuinely like was it to know if it was Jersey for a reason or if it was just like, fuck it, Tuesday, August 4th, football jersey.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I don't like— I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

I'm not—

I'm not coming at you at all.

I'm genuinely walking through your double t-shirt look you got today. Hank, was one t-shirt not enough?

It's actually one t-shirt.

It is.

Oh, so it's a fake one t-shirt.

That's the one that Jack McCarthy wore. They both wore to Max's wedding.

Yeah. And then he wore it yesterday. So I knew that he wasn't— yeah, yeah, because like I wouldn't have— I would— I'm scared. There's a— we know we have a few matching shirts, so it's like I wouldn't wear it just in the off chance we'd do it again. Like, that can't happen. So once I saw him wearing it yesterday when I was getting changed, I was also just like going through and I was like, oh boom, green light.

It's a good shirt.

Thank you.

Does it come in your size?

It's just too small or too big?

It's a little too small. It's a little tight around the It's all right, PFT.

I decided to go a little different today.

You might be— you might just put on weight.

I'm not coming at you. Yeah, I'm putting on weight.

I decided to go a little different today, PFT. I'm wearing a black t-shirt.

That's good. It's a good outfit. Mm-hmm. Zach, what are you wearing today?

On body today, I decided to go with a black t-shirt.

It makes— it makes getting dressed very easy.

So efficient.

Like, I do— I don't know if you guys noticed, but I do one day where I get a little freaky and I just wear like a golf shirt.

A great—

that's my fucking nuts.

A great, a great, like, you know, Zach, everyone's Mr. Nice Guy, Mr., you know, he's, he's been coming at Max and rightfully so. No LeBron gear and today he's wearing Jordans.

Oh, your GOAT.

Yeah. I did say I will give Jordan the nod to sneakers, but like a LeBron guy would never say no.

Yeah.

You're not fully LeBron.

No, you're not.

If you guys want to worry about apparel, I'll worry about on the court.

What?

You have to— what do you wear on the court?

If you want to worry about what he's wearing on the court, I'll worry about how he plays on the court.

Oh, so you changed it just there because I just asked you what, what does he wear on the court? Because you do actually have to work if you're gonna play back. If you're LeBron James is going to play basketball this year, he does have to get dressed and he has to put on shoes.

Okay, you can worry about that. I'm just saying the game—

well, no, you should be worried about that.

I'll worry about it. Like, if the Wizards LeBron, PFT would be— have worn LeBron shirt every single day.

I would have gotten—

since they got—

I would have gotten LeBron's face tattooed on my face.

Yeah, PFT is an anomaly.

Hold on, but you understand that you should be at least a little worried, like, what if LeBron just doesn't get dressed one day?

All right, why, Max, do you own—

that's a problem.

James jersey, they're sold out.

Oh, you didn't even— is your name on a waitlist?

Yeah, they're sold out.

You're on the waitlist? Yes, you're on the waitlist.

You're on the waitlist?

Or did you just—

I don't wear jerseys. I don't wear— you're the only grown man who wears jerseys.

That's an absolutely insane take.

Hank also just said the same thing. You wear— you wake up on a Tuesday morning and you pick out your favorite Michael Jordan jersey.

That wasn't Hank.

I have one Michael— oh, oh, whoa, whoa, we're going to do the grown men can't wear jerseys.

Well, if you're going to come at me, if you're going—

I don't, I don't have a problem at all not coming at you whatsoever. You wear it on a football Sunday, makes sense. The random Tuesday in August is just like, I'm curious.

I, I did not realize that this was going to be controversial.

It's not.

Of all the things I've worn to work, I didn't think that this one was—

by the way, Mikey Sandestrom is 25 years old, so he's not half—

only 17 years younger.

Yeah, well, 16, idiots. Yeah, he's hit it right now. He's about to be 26.

Max, do you own any jerseys at That was mean, Max.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You own a lot of jerseys, Max.

I think I own—

you, Max, you did walk around with shoulder pads on like a month ago.

That's a— that's my own jersey. That's a meatball shirt.

Yeah, it's a meatball shirt.

Yeah.

This was not the day I expected to have the, uh, should grown men wear jerseys?

I think you should.

I think there's no problem.

You asked the question. That wasn't even an FAQ. You. Yeah, you just, you just went out of the blue.

And then Hank's like, I don't know why you're coming at me.

I wasn't coming at him.

I genuinely, like, I wouldn't have said anything if he isn't coming at me. He's a brilliant mind, he's a fascinating guy. I wanted to get inside his head and learn about his process, and, and we got to it. We got to it.

My process this morning was literally, I just got this jersey because they put out all new jerseys.

That makes sense.

So I— it was between— honestly, can I tell you what happened this morning?

Yes, please.

That was why I asked the question. Okay, all right. I, I had I had two choices.

Your laundry got stolen?

No, because they learned their lesson last time when they took a peek inside and they're like, that was a waste of time. I had two choices this morning. One was the Mikey Sandristill. The other was the one that I tried to wear, which was Luke McCaffrey. And I wore that and—

Salute to Service?

It was not the Salute to Service. It was a brand new burgundy Luke McCaffrey. And then Blake threw up on it this morning on the way out. And then I was like, well, I get my other jersey. I bet I was already in the mindset of wearing a jersey, which Hank is right. Like, it's a weird time to wear a jersey. But because I was excited about the Mikey, about the Luke McCaffrey jersey, I was in a jersey mindset. Blake throws up on it. I was like, okay, I'll just go to the backup jersey that I have because I'm not going to— I'm not making that switch. Once you put on the jersey, you don't take it off and you put a polo shirt on. No, you're already be like, you've set your intention for that day. You're going to go to work and, and probably be like a little shady in the way you operate that day as a grown man wearing a football uniform in August. So I said, I'm going to then elegantly switch to the Mikey, and I think I pulled it off pretty good.

Thank you.

Getting new clothes is exciting and you want to wear them. If, if that was just a jersey that you've had, that would have been weird. I would like a new jersey. It's like, yeah, this is fresh. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna wear wear it.

If you agree though, if this—

if that was just like a jersey you've had and you were like, fuck it, Jersey Tuesday.

Hank, that's why I didn't put on the, the Luke McCaffrey Salute to Service Arctic Camo jersey. Yeah, because that's an old jersey. I had the new one I wanted to put on, and then I had the new Nike. So I'm glad we talked this through.

Yeah, me too.

And I'm glad that it didn't evolve into you leveling accusations that grown men should not wear uniforms. Fascism.

Yeah, I did that.

Ugly shit.

Very ugly. Really ugly.

All right, good show, boys. Ah, numbers. 0.

23.

Pick that meme. 11.

7.

31. 3.

35.

69.

So there's 0 and there's 100? 92.

So that means—

so does that mean there's 101 numbers in there?

I don't know.

It's broken.

Cats game. Oh, 93.

93.

Anyone?

Anyone?

No one? Oh, I think about 92. Oh, so close.

Let's see one more.

35.

Colton, what do you have? 69.

69. Why isn't the jersey stitched? I don't know, really coming at you. This is a brand new, the top of the line, memes. Buy some books.

Whoa. 20.

Happy birthday to Liam Bluttman and Rosillo. Happy birthday to Patrick Reed. Happy birthday, uh, and Anthony Edwards. Happy birthday, David Robinson the Admiral. Happy birthday to, uh, Mike Greenberg, my life. Happy birthday to Ginger Spice. Love you guys. Happy birthday.

Happy birthday to my dad.

Hell yeah, hell yeah!

Let's go, Memes Dad!