Transcript of NFL Week 3 Picks And Preview, Falcons Whomp The Packers, Super Agent Ari Emanuel In Studio Plus Fyre Fest of The Week

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You just said Max always fucking should. I didn't say a fucking word. All I said was say that you're ready.

We don't need to hear this.

Can you turn my headphones down a little bit, please?

Just don't, don't even talk.

It's very loud.

You guys can't turn on the mics when you say the funniest fucking things in the world.

Just a wee bit.

Zach, if you say something funny today and your mic's not on, you're, you're sussy.

He will.

No, he won't, because I just said I'd sussy him. Turn your fucking mic on. Yeah, you have every Well, you, you, all 3 of you, can I just make this clear? All 3 of you have full autonomy to turn on the mic whenever you want. On today's Pardon My Take presented by DraftKings, it's NFL Week 3 picks and preview, and we're going to talk about Thursday Night Football and the Packers stink. Michael Penix is back. The Falcons have some life. We got some MLB postseason clinching. We're going to get to all of our picks every single game. We also have Ari Emanuel, super agent Ari Emanuel, the guy who Ari Gold was written after in Entourage. He's in studio. Really interesting interview. He's got a new book out. I like the interview, PFT. It was like it was a different interview than we usually do, but it was a good conversation.

Yeah, good insight. Interesting talk. Yeah.

So, and I mean, guy has seen it all in Hollywood and done it all. And so we had a good talk with him. Then we're going to finish with Fyre Fest. And it's all brought to you by our friends at Planet Fitness. Planet Fitness is a place where you find what works for your fitness journey. Their clubs are a space that doesn't judge where you're at or what you need. Planet Fitness is the most accessible gym with easy-to-join, no-commitment options, multiple prices, price tiers starting at $15 a month. Convenient locations and most clubs open 24 hours. We have the Planet Fitness gym here in the office. I've been doing it. I've been getting on the treadmill going 11 incline, 3.5 miles an hour. Then I've been getting off doing a little free weights, a little squats on the Smith machine. We've been doing it all. It's all here with Planet Fitness. Join today in club online or in the free PF app. I'm making a commitment this year. I'm trying to stave off the football 15, and I'm using Planet Fitness to do that. Hours, amenities, and offers vary by club. Check out planetfitness.com or stop by your local club for more information.

Must be 18 years old to enroll, or 13 to 17 with a parent or guardian. Okay, let's go. Hey, football guy. Welcome to Pardon My Take presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Friday, September 25th, and the Green Bay Packers are dead.

That was bad. That was ugly.

They stink, PFT, and it is fun to watch.

Yeah, you can hear the smile from Big Cat. Oh, it's, uh, they're a bad football team. That's just point blank. how it is. They might have a couple of good players. They've got some talent kind of scattered around. I'm not ready to say that anything's on Jordan Love, but the rest of the team is—

I will.

Pretty bad. Offensive line, one of the worst performances by an offensive line in totality. When you look at how many pressures they gave up, like dudes were coming in Love's face all day, all day, and they could not block up front to save their life for the running game either.

And they also—

Falcons had—

they got gashed.

Crazy stat. The Falcons 244 yards rushing from their backs. That is number 1 in the NFL so far this season.

Yeah.

Of any game.

Yeah.

The Packers, 17 rushing yards from their backs. That is the last for any team in any game this season.

Bijan was so, so good. Well, let me actually, let me, let me talk more about the Packers sucking and then we got to give the Falcons flowers because this is legitimately exciting for the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta Falcons fans. You had basically hell the first 2 weeks, and now you have what looks like a real offense. But that was the, uh, so the Packers had won 13 straight home openers. 13 straight. That's a lot of years that you've got to be good to win 13 straight home openers.

Unstoppable in homos.

Yes, in homos, they are the best team. Uh, they— so the last time the Packers have won a game in regulation Was week 14 of the 2025 season. Week 14 of the 2025 season. Uh, the last time the Packers lost by at least 20 points at home was 2017, and they are looking like a bad team. That was one of the most lopsided losses in home opener for Green Bay since Lambeau Field opened in 1957. It was an ass-kicking, and You're— if you look at the Packers' first 3 weeks, the way they fell apart against Minnesota, like, yes, they beat the Jets. Memes, are you feeling a little bit more mad that you didn't win that game?

Oh yeah, they fucking stink.

They stink. They're bad.

They stink.

They're a bad team.

In case any of the haters are trying to use this to diminish the Jets, I think the Jets, they just beat them up.

Well, yeah, isn't the stat like 0-17 when going into overtime?

Don't you—

you took it to overtime, you beat them up, and then they had a short week. Don't you have to say that after you play against the Jets, your team's gonna probably lose.

We do have their pick.

So that's great.

I did happen to Google, has a team ever had the first 3 picks tonight?

But yeah, has it? Wait, no, but they know the Jets are good. What are you doing? One of those is your own pick.

Yeah, we're gonna have first, second, and 32.

Yeah, right, there you go. But yeah, they don't have a first-round pick. I know Micah Parsons is going to come back, but there seems to be some serious problems with the Packers team. Their offensive line is very banged up.

Yeah.

Uh, they lost their best offensive lineman for the year, but man, they're 4.5-point favorites to a team. And obviously Michael Penix— the Cooper Rush to Michael Penix change is, is significant because you actually had a quarterback that could throw it down the field. Uh, but still, the Falcons scored 3 points. They hadn't been in the red zone. They had not been in the red zone through 2 games, and they had 500 yards of offense on the Packers' head. in Lambeau, the home opener. It was a sweet game. It was a fun Thursday night game. We should give the, the Falcons some flowers because Michael Penix looked great, like, for his first start in a long time.

There was some rust there, but yeah, it's a start. Yeah, Michael, I— listen, I've been saying that I, I think I like Mike Penix. I think that he's— I think that the Falcons can win with him. I think that Stefanski is a good enough coach, and I think that he's accurate enough and he's a good enough passer that they could win, they could win a good amount of football games with the rushing attack that they have. And if they have a half-decent defense, I think he might be— I don't know that he's going to be the guy that like you would trade up for in the draft like they went and, and, uh, they went and got him when they, uh, had just traded for Kirk Cousins. That's still going to be like a head-scratcher. But I think he's going to be a good enough quarterback where they should win that division.

Yeah, well, I wouldn't go that far.

Shock.

Yeah, I wouldn't go that far. But they, they have a team that is now The, you know, after the first 2 weeks watching how abysmal that offense looked, Michael Penix, when I say great, he looked great for the fact that he had been out for a long time and was playing his first game on the road. Yeah, the first interception wasn't great.

But he'll get better.

He, but what he does is actually let this offense like breathe because he can throw it deep. Drake London in 7 of his last 8 games With Michael Penix as the quarterback has gone over 100 yards.

Yeah.

In 7 of his last 8 games. You just go down the list. It's like 8 for 110, 10 for 158, 9 for 118.

Just down—

he is a true number 1 receiver when Michael Penix is on the field. And then what happens? You basically open it up because you have the threat of throwing it deep for Bijan to be one of the most electric backs in the NFL with the way he cuts, the way he moves. He just ripped them to shreds. And that was right from the get-go. I feel like he had that 60-yard run or whatever it was like in the first quarter. And it was just off and running. It was again, a beautiful watch, a beautiful, beautiful watch.

The way he stops, the way he stops and starts again. We were having the debate, like, who would you rather have, Bijan or Gibbs as your running back? I think, I think they're both obviously awesome. I think Bijan's cuts are better. I think Gibbs is more like explosive.

Yeah.

And quick.

Yeah. And listen, the Falcons defense played well. They've, they've got some guys out, obviously. Uh, they'll get some guys back. Like, they did a great job on that side of the ball. That's a— that Falcons fans, you were in hell and you were, you were momentarily out of hell, and it looks like you can now watch this season. You're in purgatory. The first 2 games, any Falcons fans like, I can't watch this team anymore. Totally understand. No red zone chances in 8 quarters and, and to be that bad on offense and then to have it all flip tonight where you score 35 in Lambeau on opening night for Lambeau, which they never lose again. 13 straight PFT. I don't know if I mentioned that. Packers are in trouble.

It's great.

I'm a little— I'm still like, there's a small part of my brain like, what happens if Mike— when Micah comes back?

Yeah.

Josh Jacobs comes back. But for right now, I got to enjoy it because that was a fun watch.

They will get healthier. And I still think that Matt LaFleur is a great coach. I think that they'll, they'll figure something out as the season goes on. But they are— they're too banged up to be efficient. Like, if you can't block for even half a second, you're not going to win many games. And Love made a lot of boneheaded decisions. He had those doy-doy plays.

Yeah.

He almost had the, the funniest pick-six that I've ever seen. Yeah. When he tried to throw that one lateral that just bounced off the defense.

Guy didn't even know it was coming to him.

Didn't know it was coming. Bijan, that's his third primetime game with 200 yards from scrimmage. Uh, that, uh, takes him into the lead tied with Derrick Henry, Jerry Rice, and Shaun Alexander with 3. Those are the only guys since the merger to have 3 primetime games with 200 yards from scrimmage. Now there are more primetime games, uh, right now than there were back when Jerry Rice was playing.

So many primetime games.

We'll forget about that. Um, also this is the first time between Drake London and Bijan Robinson That we've had teammates with 190-plus yards from scrimmage in a road game since 1976. They just, just carved them up.

Carved them up.

And I do think that Drake London is, uh, I think I said last year at one point that he might be a top 5 receiver. I don't know if he's top 5. I'd say top 10. Yeah. I think when he's healthy and he has, um, a non-Cooper Rush Jack Strand.

No, he's— but he's a true number 1.

Yes, he's awesome.

True number 1, which is every team needs.

Yeah, he's, he's big, he's tall, he can be a red zone threat. I still don't know where, where Pitts is at.

Um, they'll find him, but they didn't— got to get his 6 touchdowns.

They didn't need him tonight. I think it's 8. I think—

No, no, it's a 6-year. He needs to get 6 touchdowns.

I thought he was having 8 this year. My mistake.

Yeah, yeah, he's— he goes 1 a year starting. This is his 6th year in the league, so he'll get 6. He'll find— they'll find a way to get 6.

I just think that the, uh, I don't know, I'm buying on the Falcons. I, I think that it's not crazy to say that they could win that division.

I am going to— I mean, the Falcons were great tonight. The Packers might be that bad. Like, they might just be that bad when you think about the 3 games they played. If Aaron Glenn had remembered how time worked.

I mean, they, they played okay in those first 3 quarters against the Vikings.

The Vikings kicked their ass. Yeah, their ass. I know there were some calls that went against But I mean, there was a 4th quarter.

It was like that once the floodgate opened, it just hasn't stopped for the Packers.

No, no. Okay. Any other thoughts from Thursday Night Football? Did you guys enjoy the game?

Yeah, it's better than, better than expected.

Yeah, a lot. I mean, shout out the Falcons, by the way, for not rushing Michael Penix back and knowing like, hey, there's like the— we talked about it. The Falcons have 3 primetime games coming up.

Yeah.

I'm okay with that now.

Yeah.

I mean, it's fun. It makes such a big difference having somebody that can play quarterback. Everything looks different.

Everything looks different.

Representation matters.

Lefties. Yeah, but he's always been—

wait, I thought you were— what was the announcement that you made?

The haters won the battle.

What was that about?

Just the battle of the summer.

So are you going righty?

No, no, the war's not over.

That's just— it's like game one.

That was game 1. The Haters won.

Yeah.

Was it on the road or was that a home game?

On the road.

So that's a big win for the Haters.

Yeah, huge win.

But we're coming home for Locktober.

Wait, oh, Locktober's happening?

Game 2's at home.

What's happening in Locktober?

I'm dialed in performance golf.

Oh, okay. Nice.

I love that.

All right. MLB Cubs and White Sox both clinched within 2 minutes of each other, which was pretty cool.

It was a I think it's—

I saw the stats, like only 3rd time that both are in the playoffs same year. It was pretty, pretty fun. PCA went 40-40. That's a crazy stat.

It's— I think it's the 4th time.

I mean, the Cubs—

you have to count 2020.

Yeah. Which we don't.

Which we don't. So it's like 1906, 2008, and 2026.

I mean, you got to remember the Cubs didn't go to the playoffs from 1945 to 1984, which is also a crazy stat.

I know it's not going to happen, but I need it to be a Chicago World Series.

We don't— we could barely beat the Marlins when we needed to win more than one game and we only won one game. But PCA going 40-40 was awesome. He's the best. He's the NL MVP. They took the odds off like a month ago. So that's been over for a long time. But what a season. What a stud.

We were both there on Wednesday and he did like a hesi for one of the steals. It was, it was insane. It was an 0-2 count, like 2 outs, no reason not to go for it. And he like pump faked the catcher. He started running and I looked to the catcher to see like what the pitch was. It was a breaking ball and I was like, yes, he got it. And then I looked up and he was back on first.

He— I also think the crowd almost like, like we— the crowd actually fucked it for him because the pop when he was like starting to lean just was such a tell for the pitcher. And then Seiya, yeah, hit out. I think he popped out in that. But yeah, it was— I mean, hey, he got it and it was cool. Now they got to Now, now we got to see what happens with the Padres and Dodgers. Max.

What?

I'm— All right.

Point, Max.

Okay. I was going to ask, how are you fucking— how are you feeling right now?

The Padres are going to win. The Phillies are fucking terrible. They're fucking terrible.

They just have to win one game.

No, not if the Padres win.

What do they— what's their magic number? 2?

It's really confusing because the Diamondbacks and the Padres play each other. So it's like, it's hard. It's hard.

It's hard for you?

There's— the Phillies are up 2 games, but they're up 2 games on the Diamondbacks.

Games to make up a magic number? Isn't that—

But it's not. It's like a magic number to win the game.

It's because if the Padres lose this game, Phillies' magic number to clinch a National League postseason berth stands at 2.

But it's one.

I don't understand what's confusing.

I get what he's saying. I know the Padres and the Diamondbacks are playing each other, so you can't go off of— it's not gonna be off Padres losses.

Because one team losing helps the other team.

But I think it's just 2. I think it's just you win one game and the Diamondbacks lose one game and you're in.

I need the Padres to fucking lose a game.

So who controls their own destiny right now?

What? The Phillies.

Like the—

like the Phillies do.

So yeah, yeah, yeah.

So what you're talking about is win. It's 2.

There you go.

But if the Padres win this game—

Diamondbacks losses and Phillies wins, right?

If the Padres win this game, they clinch, right?

So the Diamondbacks— but the Padres are still going to try to play for the home field.

What's the home field in San Diego?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. I, I don't disagree.

Podheads are not—

I don't disagree with that statement.

That's bullshit.

The home field in Chicago is— we're 15-1 against every team not named the Brewers in the playoffs. I don't know.

I'm pissed off. I fucking hate baseball. I hate that we're even talking about it.

I mean, I've seen some pretty electric home field atmospheres in San Diego. You're a Bears fan, so don't show me. Don't tell me. When the Dodgers and the Padres have been playing each other in the postseason. I've seen some, some pretty awesome crowds.

But, but let's not even entertain this because if you ask anyone in— You get drunk walking out of the stadium.

It's not the bank.

If you ask anyone—

It's the NFC South.

sucks. But if you ask anyone on the Padres, would you rather be home or away, they're gonna say home.

Yeah, obviously. I think everybody would rather— would probably say San Diego.

Yeah, whatever.

It's nothing to do with the—

Nothing that I— I'm, I'm mad at my own team.

And you said you gave up.

You're taking it out on Max and that you had no expectations.

I know, but then watching them is so fucking frustrating because they, they fucking suck so much. They fucking suck so much.

I do feel bad because Max and I This week have been commiserating.

The Cubs suck too.

Well, hold on. I was like, hold on. We were commiserating together because the Cubs and the Phillies both just needed to win a game against— like, there's like, just win a game.

The Brewers did a bullpen game today because they're saving their pitching.

So through 2 games, the Cubs lost twice to the Marlins.

The Brewers—

the Phillies lost twice. Max and I were texting last night. We're like, baseball's so stupid. No one wants the wild card. And then the Cubs, we kind of abandoned the Phillies and won a game today.

The Phillies were 0 for 12 with runners in scoring position yesterday. 0 for 12.

0 for 12.

In a game that you need to win.

I left him.

You were a couple old ladies saying, let's never get married.

We were.

Men are the worst.

You beat the fucking Marlins one time.

I know, Max.

You said it.

Max, I said that it's crazy we couldn't win more than one game against them.

He's mad that you—

Well, you keep doing this like you feel bad.

I don't feel bad.

I said that.

The, the vibe changed when, when the Cubs abandoned the Phillies. We were commiserating last night.

And now we're not gonna play each— it's, it's that—

it's probably dead.

That's dead. Padres are gonna win this game. The Dodgers are a bunch of fucking losers when I need them to be good one fucking time.

Glasnow did have no hits going through 5.

They can't fucking score.

Uh, Max, I guess there's probably plenty of time to talk about this with the Phillies, but Where are we at with the window for that team?

Dead.

All dead. All old. All suck.

Closed.

All right.

So close.

It was— you guys know, like, 162 games, a lot of games. I know that the playoffs have expanded and it's a little bit different than it used to be, but still, clinching is cool and it's fucking awesome.

You make the playoffs. Yeah, it was like anything can happen once you make the playoffs.

Chip in a chair.

That's why I'm excited about Maybe getting a sub-.500 team winning the, the AL West.

Yeah.

The Guardians also clinched. The Guardians also clinched.

All right. Love that.

So they're in. Yeah, it was cool.

It was—

I can't even say it was a good baseball day because he's going to get mad at me.

I think any day is—

I'm not saying anything. You got— you talk about it. Don't worry about what I have to say.

I think every day that you're above ground watching baseball is a good baseball day.

At least you had runners in scoring position.

Yeah.

Great point. Come on, Hank.

That's, that's the thing is they're going to win one game, like not even this weekend. They're going to win game one. I'm going to be like, fuck yeah, this team's back. Yeah, they're going to fucking suck.

I had an awesome afternoon.

I, I'm reserving the right for me to be happy when they win.

Max doesn't care about an awesome afternoon.

But I'm done talking about it. It was like a beautiful weather day in Chicago and I went for a walk and just listened to the last 4 innings on the radio. Baseball on the radio is the best. Pat and Ron, who do the Cubs, I mean, they're just the best. There's something about it. It just slows time down. So it was a fun day. It was a fun day. And shout out the White Sox, who they have eaten so much shit in the last long time. They lost. I saw the stat. I think it's— let me see. Let me pull it up so I get it exactly right.

There's such a, such a good story.

They went like 324 or 2 years ago.

It's crazy.

2 years ago, all 324 losses over the previous 3 seasons. 324 losses. This— no one predicted them to make the playoffs this year.

They—

I saw floating around the ESPN graphic that was like 0% chance. A dream season they're in. And so, yeah, we're getting closer and closer to baseball playoffs next week.

Yeah.

And Max gets in.

They've got some great— they've got some fun young players too, the White Sox.

Yeah.

So Murakami, I am awesome. Awesome celebration.

Yeah.

For Murakami.

I mean, the Japanese get showed up like Immanaga had what is— He's getting Chris Bosh-ish.

It's going to be, uh, it's going to be reused. I'll put it that way. Memes, have you filed that one away?

Shota was—

What was the name of the folder that you put that under?

Just bookmarks.

I mean, he took a shot to the face.

Oh man.

Oh, that reminded me. Yeah, you brought up, um, I forget who you said it was, but, uh, some player that had the most porn star name in the NFL.

Yeah.

Um, Skyy Moore.

Yeah, Skyy Moore's up there.

Skyy Moore's got to be.

I think I might have said it. Oh, I think he might have been on the— was he on the Dolphins on that 2024 team? He might have been.

He might have.

That was my— that might have been part of the 2024 Dolphins being the, the best, uh, porn team of all time.

Because I was thinking—

Oh no, he's never on the Dolphins. I don't know why I said that.

I was thinking tonight the Falcons have an excellent porn star name team.

Yeah.

They've got Skyy Moore. They've got—

Well, no, Skyy Moore's on the Packers.

Oh, sorry.

Tonight's game.

They've got—

yeah, yeah.

They had Skyy Moore out on the field. Jordan Love could also be definitely a good porn star. Then the Falcons had Jesse Bates. Yep. Sidney Brown.

Yeah, that's hot.

That's a hot matchup. That's hot. Also, Torrey Taylor is a pretty hot name.

That is very hot. Yeah, it's basically any, any name. I mean, like I said, this all started because every time they say Riley Moss, I'm like, that's a hot chick. Yeah, that's a hot sorority chick.

All time, I was thinking Shannon Sharpe.

Shannon Sharpe.

Shannon Sharpe.

Ashley Lillie, who I said. Yeah, that's, that's number one.

Janice Hubblefield, if you're into that Jeffree Star thing.

We didn't, we didn't mention it in the picks and preview, but Kyle Juszczyk is being unfairly taken advantage of by the NFL, being fined for celebrating and drinking. Chugging a beer is what they called it.

Yeah.

The guy's nickname is Juice.

His nickname is Juice.

He was drinking juice.

He doesn't drink beer is the thing.

Yeah.

So I don't know how—

like, it's really—

it's Roger Goodell telling on himself.

It's crazy.

Like, he's the one with a dirty mind if he automatically assumed that Kyle Juszczyk was drinking beer, right? Your brain went there, dude. And then they, they threw the book at the Bengals receivers, Tee Higgins and Ja'Marr Chase. I think they got fined $90,000.

So we're back to the no fun league.

It's no fun league. But you know what their celebration was? What they said, it was the people's elbow, but it was, it was this one. You go like that and then you let it hang. Yeah, you let your dick hang.

Got it.

And then they're like, that's a wrestling move, Commissioner. And he's like, no, no, it's not.

Yeah, that one I could understand.

I think what the league is doing is because they've got this new, like, advertising thing. They're calling it like the Celly Zone, a place where you can practice celebrations.

Okay.

The league is going to try to my cause, my cleats, end zone celebrations.

Yeah.

And be like, look, we're going to let anybody do their celebrations that they want for one week. It's like the parents that are like, you guys can drink in my house and that's fine as long as I can keep an eye on you.

We also know how Roger Goodell works. He's going to crack down on these celebrations. Then they're going to go to the negotiations. table and he's going to be like, hey, I'm going to let you guys celebrate. We're going to do an 18th game.

Yeah.

Sound good?

Yeah.

Like, yeah. Okay, cool deal.

We're going to bring back 2-a-day practices and go 18 games. And in exchange, we'll let you do penis simulations.

We're going to make you play on all corners of the earth. But you can do— you can chug a fake beer. And again, you're going to have to play 18 games and it's probably going to be 20 eventually.

Ah, fine. Guess what?

We'll—

we just won't test for weed anymore, too. But we're going to put that team in South Africa.

Listen, listen, we care about you guys. We're going to make you play on the slickest soccer field you've ever seen in the deepest parts of Europe and South America. But if you want to chug a fake beer, we won't— we'll look the other way.

It is bullshit.

That's a good deal.

It's such bullshit that they're— they're fining him for this.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Appeal that.

But that's what they do. This is what they're going to do.

I think every player in solidarity should, should pretend to chug a beer in the end zone.

They can't arrest us all.

Nope, they can't.

That's a good point.

They definitely can.

Yeah, they can fine everyone. Okay, let's get to— we're gonna do picks and preview. Then we have interview with Ari Emanuel. Really interesting interview. A little different than our normal interviews. Guy's fascinating to talk to. I think we had a good conversation. We kind of We got maybe a little contentious, a little contentious.

I'd say, I'd say just a good sharp conversation.

Sharp conversation about private equity with Ari Emanuel. But he was, he's an interesting guy. He's lived a million lives and it was cool talking to him in person. Before we do that, before we get to the picks and preview, picks and preview is brought to you by our friends at Reese's. There's something for everyone when it comes to Reese's. I love the Reese's Oreos. I got them right here. Reese's are the absolute best. Reese's, you know what they are? They're the Atlanta Falcons tonight of candy. They're an absolute dominating machine. 500 yards of offense of candy. They're the 1-1 pick, uh, whenever you're looking for a candy. Reese's Cups, the original, absolute best, and they've done variations that are even better. They keep elevating the game. That's what Reese's does. They're the New York Knicks of candy. Reese's peanut butter and chocolate. The best combo out there. Reese's, the official candy partner of Barstool Sports. Go get Reese's wherever you shop. And before we get to picks and preview, DraftKings, uh, the football season is heating up and every week feels bigger with DraftKings. The DraftKings Sports app is now live in all 50 states.

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Okay boys, week 3 in the NFL. This is the week where we've got a couple games under our belt. There's a couple teams that I'm looking at that are desperate as all hell.

Mm-hmm. I got stats for, for the 0-3 teams.

Yeah.

Oh, and 2 teams.

Well, the 0-3.

Yeah.

And it's not good.

Yeah.

Since 1990, if you go 0-3, only 2.4% of those teams make the playoffs. There's 4 out of 165 that have done that since.

Got to win. I think the Texans are like 3 of I think they are maybe the entire staff. Yeah.

And then if you go the other way, 3-0 since 1990, you make the playoffs 75.3% of the time.

Okay. So big week, huge week. By the way, CBS, before we get into the game, CBS Sports put out their NFL coach hot seat rankings. I disagree with number 2 and it will lead into this game. So number 1 is Todd Bowles. Wholeheartedly agree.

Yep.

Number 2 is Aaron Glenn. That feels like that was just off-the-clock gate and not being able to know how time works. 3 is Jim Harbaugh. 4 is Dan Quinn. 5 is Shane Steichen. Then 6 is DeMeco Ryans. That makes no sense.

Yeah, that doesn't make— I guess the theory on that would be if they make the playoffs and they've got a great defense and CJ Stroud underperforms. That's not at all going to happen.

They've made the playoffs like every year.

Yeah, that'll be like firing the best part of your— that'd be like Yeah, it'd be a bad idea to fire DeMeco Ryans. Yeah. If their offense can't get it done, I would put Dan Quinn maybe number 1 on the list. No, Todd Bowles also.

Bowles got to be number 1. He's lost like however many straight— he hasn't covered in 11 straight games.

Yeah.

And then Aaron Glenn, I don't know. He doesn't understand how time works.

And he—

this week he had a quote that made me think maybe he's still like doesn't understand. He understands less about how time works as the week went on.

It's confusing even more.

He said, we all know our history and we're trying to change that history. I don't think, you know, like history, history, you can't change. It already happened. You're trying to change the narrative, right?

You're trying to change your future.

Trying to change your future.

Right.

But saying we know our history and we're trying to change our history, not beating the I don't understand time allegation.

He's— he sounds like he's about to go on a controversial podcast and be like, you know who the real bad guys were in World War II. That's what he— that's what's changing history.

Yeah, but you're not allowed to say it. You can't say it. Uh, all right, he's not gonna be allowed to play Gillette if he keeps going down that road.

No, definitely not. Okay, Chargers-Bills.

You like that one, Hank?

Yeah, it's true. It's true.

I love it when Hank gives, gives smirks.

Yeah, Chargers-Bills, first game that I have on here. Uh, Bills -7, over-under 50.5. Boys, I think I'm going to bet the Chargers in this game.

Yeah.

This is the desperate that we're talking about.

Yeah.

I have—

that makes me feel worse a little bit, but yeah.

Oh, fuck you. I mean, it's true. Okay. You're so much better.

Do you think everyone's thinking that?

No. I think a lot of people are thinking the Chargers are dogshit and the Bills are going to kill them because the Bills have looked like the best team in the NFL so far.

They—

their offense is on a different level. They went on the road and beat a, uh, well, what we think is going to be a good Texans team. They went home and beat what we think is going to be a good Lions team.

Here's—

you, you want us to make this the, the case for the Chargers? Let's start with a very easy one. The Bills are wearing their, uh, ugly gray uniforms. If, if you go by the Deion Sanders look good, feel good, feel good, play good, play good, pay good, I don't know how you look good in these jerseys.

You don't really. Besides the fact that like Josh Allen, just a handsome guy in general.

Yeah, that's fair.

In thinking back to last Thursday's game where they opened up the new stadium in Buffalo, I had a thought. Are Bills fans hot now?

Well, it's early in the season.

Did Bills fans get hot? Like the crowd shots that they had, it was, it was shocking. Like, I'm not saying that they weren't beautiful human beings before, but like, you know, a little Rust Belt. Um, in their past, you wouldn't think of the Buffalo Bills fans as being like the most attractive fan base. And last Thursday night, there were, there were a lot of good-looking people in the stands.

I didn't notice.

You might have just been horny for football.

Yeah, I was probably horny for football.

Probably horny.

I don't know. I, I think, I think there's something to that. I think the Bills, like the new stadium, maybe it takes off £15.

Well, I mean, also, yeah, well, it isn't late winter, you know what I mean? Yeah, I think a little different when you see, when the crowd shots are It's, it's 10 degrees with wind and there's just a fat guy who looks like he pooped his Zubaz.

That's true.

That definitely gives a different vibe.

I think when a team of any city is like actually a really good team and have been for a few years, like the hot fans.

Yeah.

Come out of the woodwork.

In the warm weather.

And then they, then they show up. Whereas like you're used to seeing the Bills from 20 years ago when they were terrible and it's like the only ones going to those games are—

You get uglier as the season goes along.

I also think in a big game like the first game at a new stadium, Ticket prices probably pretty high for that one to get in.

That's a social event.

So yeah, if you look at, you know, do people typically get more attractive the more money they have to spend on their looks? You could make that argument. Maybe we were overrepresenting that aspect of the Bills fan base.

Mm-hmm.

They look great though.

Yeah. So listen, the Chargers stink, but again, it's a week-to-week league, right?

Well, they're Their pressure rate and their sack rate is down like astronomically. And it's because they lost their coordinator. So if you look at the Chargers right now, I think their pressure rate is 9th in the NFL, or excuse me, it was 9th in the NFL. Now it's 22nd this year. Meanwhile, the Ravens went from 23rd to 19th. They've improved a little bit. The sack rate is the key one though. So the Chargers sack rate in 2025 was 6th in the league. Now it's 28th. The Ravens were 31st last year. Now they're 17th in the NFL. So they cannot, they cannot get after the other team's quarterback at all. And that's just the defensive side. The offense hasn't looked good either, but it's a—

That's also game, game flow. That's a game flow stat as well. The Chargers have somehow been down in both of their games significantly.

I would say that would be more about total sack numbers, but sack rate. It's more of a percentage, right? It's like of the dropbacks.

Right.

Right.

Okay. I got you.

Yeah.

So it's of the drop, but they also— yeah, I mean, they just have looked bad. They look bad overall. Their offense stinks right now. Justin Herbert is 31st ranked quarterback in QBR rankings. I don't know what QBR is, but he is. He's one ahead of Cooper Rush. Hank, shout out. Also, people are bullying Madison Beers online for her new Fortnite skin. They're, they're getting in the comments section And being like, hey, what happened to our quarterback? Fix him.

I don't like that.

Yeah.

Stand down, internet.

What is a Fortnite skin?

You equip it just to change your style up a little bit so you can just be Madison Beer in Fortnite.

Choose your player.

You play Fortnite as hot Madison Beer.

Can you tell us about your Fortnite skin? Because you kind of alluded to this yesterday on Macro Dosing and I kind of let it slide a little bit. But can you say it again?

I go Kim K because she's like The waist is real snatched, so harder to hit.

Yeah.

Like if you pick a fat character, you're going to get shot a bunch.

He plays it like Oddjob.

Got it.

Something to think about.

Okay. So yeah, she's getting bullied. Justin Herbert's got some— he had a testy press conference moment where they were asking him about leadership in the locker room. And he said, I'm going to stop you right there and say that it's very present. We've got great leadership on this team. I trust those guys in that locker room. It's not a notable quote on— oh, it's only a notable quote because it's Justin Herbert and I have never seen him mad. And he is now mad.

Yeah.

So yeah, this, this feels like a kitchen sink. You got to do everything you can. And, and look, the Bills defense has not been great. They've been, you know, they made CJ Stroud look good in week 1. The Lions, I know that the Lions didn't really get going till the second half there. But if you're going to have a game that maybe things start to turn around offensively, it would feel like this would be the game. I still think the Mike McDaniel thing, he's got to make the adjustments because it feels like he's trying to run an offense with the personnel that he doesn't have in— that he didn't have in Miami.

He's got to figure it out. And our guy Shane, our Chargers guy Shane, has been very much on edge all week. He got into a like literal fight with Big Cat's assistant Dom when they were going back and forth about the Browns and the Chargers. And, and Dom posted what was honestly a pretty shocking graphic to the group chat, which was side-by-side comparison of Deshaun Watson this year with Justin Herbert, with nearly every stat favoring Deshaun Watson. Um, that's— that, that was a tough realization to have, I think, for Shane. So yes, his response has just been to pretend that it doesn't exist.

He's kind of putting his head in the sand, which I understand.

I get it.

You got to do anything you can to, to try to survive an 0-2 start against 2 winnable games that you thought you had. I do think, and this is going against myself because the Chargers are my pinky team, I do think that everyone has talked so much about this gauntlet the Chargers are about to run. I do think they're going to come out of it a little bit better than we expect.

I don't think they're going 0-9.

No, no. Also, Hank, I am not going to ladder Justin Herbert's yards this week, which I have done the first 2 weeks, and that has been the worst bet by far that you could ever make. He hasn't even sniffed it. So that's also a positive.

I love the Chargers this week. Points or money line? Money line.

Wow.

Yeah.

I love that you love them.

I'm sorry for lashing out on you loving them. I just thought—

Yeah, no, I mean, it was— it's just like, I didn't— listen, I'm a bad gambler. Sometimes you're not like some sharp—

I know, but I also know like if me, you, and PFT all think we know something, like we don't.

Well, I like just—

so it's like, I'm not like— I don't know if I know I'm bad, but then I know if like you and like Jerry are like, oh yeah, like, you know what's I sneaky love the Chargers. Then I'm like, oh fuck.

When we all come to the conclusion independently, it's usually a big problem. I'm going to probably take the Chargers against the spread. I don't know if they can win the game.

I'm going to push back on that though, because we all came to the same conclusion about Sean McVay not understanding time.

True.

And we were 100% right.

Every now and then we are right.

We've never been righter about anything in the history of the show.

That's facts. That's facts.

I also remember the Chargers have lost 2 straight games by the same score. I don't think it's ever been done 3 times in a row. I will be betting on the exact same score.

Okay.

It happened 26-14.

Just bet on lightning again.

Yeah. I got to bet on history.

Hold up.

Listen.

Also the jerseys. Let's remember those jerseys suck. And that does matter. Like if we're just basing it off of how you're looking and guess what? DJ Moore is important. I don't think he's going to play. Like that's Very important. That he's very important in terms of stretching the field and being that number one option. Yeah. Yeah. We have the Colts Anvil jerseys coming up as well. That's my other jersey game of the week. All right. Next game. This is the game that PFT and I are on the hot seat for. It is the Carolina Panthers -2.5 at the Cleveland Browns. A reminder to all AWLs, if the Cleveland Browns beat the Carolina Panthers by 23 or more points, PFT and I will combined give one AWL who's a Browns fan $50,000 and 2 toilets.

2 toilets. And that's— we should put probably a cap on the toilet price. Like, they have to have it in stock at Home Depot.

Oh, you're not going Kohler?

I think we got to get— I think we got to get them like a bidet.

Yeah, we can. We can do the bidet. Yeah, I'm sure they have a Kohler. They have those in stock. I just— I don't want a custom job. Nothing marble.

Yeah, no, not gold. Yeah, no, it's got to be off the— it's got to be something we can buy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree with that.

Maybe some seat heating.

Yeah, we can do some seat heating.

Yeah, sure. I mean, not like, not too fancy.

You could get the seat heated.

It's about to be winter.

Yeah. There we go, Zach. Good, good, good addition. Good, good. I put a— I said Zach has to click that mic 3 times during this because too many times the booth has just been not clicking the mic and they've been saying funny things. Uh, I, by the way, one of the stories through 2 weeks, I know that it's, it's only 2 weeks in. Bryce Young has been awesome. I think he's 3rd in the, in the league in passing yards. He also, do you guys, so Bryce Young is the answer to one of these, but can you give me the other one? There's 2 quarterbacks with 3+ passing touchdowns in the first 2 games this season.

3+ passing touchdowns in both games. Brock Purdy?

No.

Jacoby Brissett.

No, it is Kirk Cousins. Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. Bryce Young and Kirk Cousins.

Nice. Turnback stock.

So he's tied. He's second in passing yards, tied for first in passing TDs. Are we having the conversation that he might be better than CJ Stroud?

Yeah. I think we've been having that conversation. Yeah. It's got to feel great for Panthers fans to even be entertaining that and thinking that positively about your team. He's also been able to win as a favorite.

Yeah.

Wow.

Which he wasn't ever able to do ever.

Yeah. The first time. Yeah. Last week.

Yeah.

They did it.

He proved it.

He did it. He proved it. Also, Todd Monken has said he got a little blowback. Remember we talked on Wednesday about him saying Deshaun Watson's a young quarterback? He said, maybe I didn't phrase it right. What I meant was being away from the game, how many games he's played the last 5 years. I didn't expect pushback from it. So he's talking about young in not the literal sense, but like the football sense. He's a young quarterback because he had a 5-year gap in his resume where if he went and tried to get employed at any job in America, they'd be like, what happened here, Deshaun? And then he'd have to explain it and they'd be like, all right, that's the end of the interview.

It was just his body's young.

Yeah.

His, his, he's got a, yeah, his body's very young. Not a lot of wear on those tires. Um, yeah, he's, uh, it would be shocking to see the Cleveland Browns at 2-1, right? It would be shocking just to look at that number. next to their name. That would be just kind of a wild turn of events. And it seems like, I don't know, it seems like there's a lot of noise around the Browns right now about when and if they'll make a change at quarterback. But last week, I mean, Deshaun, he wasn't bad.

Yeah.

PFT.

Do you know how shocking it would be if the Browns were 2-1? My assistant Dom, who we've talked about, who's a psycho Browns fan to the point where he's— I've gotten HR complaints about his Cleveland fandom multiple times. Do you know that he's created his own Browns simulator that he will put in the results of each game and it tells you what will be the next game? So like it's a win or loss. He made his own.

It's only applicable to the Browns.

Only applicable to the Browns. So this week's game. Is a season-defining game.

Okay.

And if the Browns win this game, next week against the Steelers is dubbed Game of the Century.

It's a little early. Well, last Game of the Century last week, we still got a lot of games in that simulator.

The, the, he had been saying this all summer was like the, the game against Baker was their Super Bowl.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's different. That's different from Game of the Century.

I know.

Yeah.

But how— if Super Bowl's week 2, you can only go so many rungs up.

They might have multiple Super Bowls this year. They might have a dynasty.

Yeah, it's— I mean, it's, it's pretty shocking to be in this simulator. And I think it's— oh, I think it's if they, if they start the season 6-1, they have a big game against the Steelers called Little Brother Becomes Big Brother Bowl. OK. And then I think it's I think it's, uh, I think he gets to Soupy thinking Soupy around 8-1, but it's, it's a, it's a disgusting simulator to look at. It's, it's crazy. So he's got every single game mapped out, what, what happens, win or loss. So this is, this is a season-defining game and potentially gets them to a game of the century.

Yeah. Um, Watson had a great quote this week about like what he's learned so far this year. And he said the biggest thing is never try to go to war with the fans. So good job. Good job by Deshaun. Don't start a war with your own fan base.

Yep.

That is— that's a good lesson to learn. Really good lesson if you didn't know already.

Yeah.

I don't know.

You think they're going to boo him at home?

I don't think so because they did win. Yeah, they might boo it.

Okay.

But I mean, they were—

let me take this back.

They took a deep breath getting ready to boo him.

Yeah.

Like 2 weeks ago.

I think—

I don't know that they've exhaled that breath.

I think they will boo him if things go bad. I do not think they'll boo him right out of the gate. You're 1-1, you're literally in a season-defining game that could lead to the game of the century. I think they'll support him for the start of the game. So that first pick or bad play, then the boos.

So when he, when he runs out onto the field before they've run a single play, there's going to be that moment in the stadium. I feel like if, if one section starts the boo, yeah, it might be— it's going to catch on. They need to all be on the same page and say like, Maybe let's, let's let him throw a pass. Yeah. But in terms of like a short fuse for the boo, it's going to be like if you— if it's an interception, God forbid, or if it's just like an incomplete pass on the first toss, I think the stadium is going to just go nuts.

Yeah. So, yeah, here's the— here's his, his, his presentation.

Would you like to go yes or no?

Yeah, let's go yes. So then they get to the game.

All right.

So the Browns win the season-defining game.

Yeah. Then they go to— they get to the game of the century. Now, here's where I get loose. So let's just say they won the game of the century as well. Uh, so that's a yes. Now he's— we're 4 weeks in, we're 3-1, and he's already calling the Jets— a Browns fan is calling the Jets a trap game. That feels illegal.

It's also— he's misspelled the word avoid.

Yeah, that's true.

This, this simulator is making me a little bit sick.

It's making me uncomfortable.

I didn't know it was going to be like the zoom in. It's like when you do one of those nature documentaries that goes down to the level of an atom or a quark and just keeps zooming in over and over and over again. I feel like the Browns are definitely not a team you want to be absorbing like this close up.

Yeah, it's, it's a— we're gonna, we're gonna file this away for, uh, some evidence for a future date.

I don't like that he calls the playoffs the offs.

Yeah, it's y'all. It's y'all's. It's y'all's.

This is—

we now have the Browns 5-1. Little brother becomes big brother bowl. You're getting shocked. Watson revenge game. Why would Watson He's misspelled Watson. Why would Watson need revenge against the Texans who paid him a lot of money and also kind of stood by him for a long time?

And, and through— they've kind of covered up a lot of shit and traded him to a team that was about to give him the biggest guaranteed contract in NFL history.

Yeah. The can you go 2-1 or better stretch? That's against the Falcons, Raiders, and Bengals. And then it's Soupy.

Okay.

I would— I honestly, if I'm a Browns fan, if I go If I start 5-1, I'm thinking Soupy.

Yeah, definitely. But no. Yeah, it's a— it's quite something. Okay. Does anyone like anything in this game? I mean, I just don't want the Browns to win by 23 or more.

I, I think I like—

I like Cleveland.

What point would we get— what point would we get nervous if the Browns were up 14 in the third quarter?

14. Because at any point they go up 14, you're nervous.

You got a pick 6 coming.

Yeah.

Then anything can happen.

Yeah.

This would be a tough conversation with my wife to be like, hey, this is so dumb. $25K in a toilet.

I think it's a great thing.

Yeah, it's a great thing to give back. We're giving back. Everyone should commend us for giving back.

22 plus.

23 or more.

Just or more.

Or more. You're—

are you looking at how to hedge?

Are you going to bet it?

I'm trying to see.

Oh, I don't hate it.

You guys should bet it.

We should hedge it.

Yeah, we should. You should. You like the Browns in this game, Hank?

No.

Oh, you like the Panthers?

I'm going to bet the Browns to win by 23 or more.

I think I'm also going to bet that.

Yeah, I do like the Browns to win outright.

You probably can't even get that.

And if that's— if the spread is at— what's the spread?

2.5. Panthers -2.5.

I hope it goes to 3. It probably won't. No. But I do like the Browns to win outright.

Okay, next up, Jets-Lions. Let's go, Memes! Jets are +6.5, over-under is 48.5. Do you know, Memes, this is the first game, uh, the Jets are playing in where the over-under is more than 48 since November of 2021 versus the Bills? 78 games. 78 games where the Jets had every single total 48 or less. That's pretty impressive. But the Jets might be— it's probably a combo of the Jets, Geno being a, like, fine quarterback and the Lions defense being atrocious would be the— would be my guess here. How are you feeling, memes?

Feeling good.

This is the week where you find out what the Jets are. Oh, week 1, they, they played 95-degree weather in Nashville. Week 2, it was raining.

What does the weather have to do with it?

I'm saying they got— they— it's like weather luck slash you don't, you don't really know what a team is when they play in that kind of weather.

I think it would be more that they played the Titans that you don't know what they are.

It was also 95 degrees out.

Okay. Keep going.

Sorry.

But they're playing in a dome. You get to see what— You see what you got.

You got it. It's like a sterile environment that you can truly observe.

Yeah.

No weather involved.

No weather involved. You see if you're actually good, if you're actually bad.

What do you think the answer is?

Oh no, I'm, I'm not sure.

I thought you thought they were good.

I think they're better. They're better than expected.

You definitely think they're good, but you're nervous to say that you think that they're good.

This is a big game.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

I understand where— I understand where he's at. He doesn't want— you don't want to fully commit yet, but, but you know, you're in your mind.

Yeah.

Like if we were off camera right now, you'd be like, yeah, the Jets are good.

But right now, but I get in your group chats with your friends from home. You're like, we're going to win this game.

You don't want to put yourself in an emotionally vulnerable spot, which I— you have to stay guarded.

Correct. But, and also those group chats, like the Lions have had 10 days off. Everybody's been telling them they suck for those 10 days. I didn't have this game as a win going into the season.

Okay.

That makes sense. I have a question. Yeah. Can you give us an insight into the actual group chat that you have going? The Jets fan group chat. I want to know like some of the things that people are actually saying.

I was in one last year. I got kicked out.

Can you tell us behind the scenes?

I was in one too.

I want to know what the actual—

I was in that too.

Yeah. I was in one to be the Justin Fields translator for him and I translated too well. Because I was like, after week 1, I was like, this is a classic Justin Fields trap game. He sucks you in, you lose the game, but he looked good in moments. He's not good. And everyone kicked me out because they're like— and then I turned out to be true. They burned the witch.

Yeah, right now it's just David Bailey could be a beast. Alec Pierce is on IR. We really could have something here.

Okay.

Like if the Colts, you know, get the first overall pick.

Got it.

Okay.

And then if Cooper comes back, we We could be a beast on offense. That's, that's the—

When is he coming back?

Week 5.

Okay.

You could be a beast on offense.

Well, here's the thing. The Lions defense through 2 games, 31st in points per game, points allowed, 31st in yards per game allowed, 31st in defensive passing yards, 28th in defensive rushing yards, 32nd in first downs allowed, 32nd in fourth down defense, 30th in third down defense. Their defense has been bad. And yes, of course, they played Josh Allen and Shuck, maybe the first and second best quarterbacks in the NFL. I get that. But still.

And the Jets defense might be good. Might be really good.

Might be good.

So they're, they're number one in the NFL for yards allowed.

Yeah. They're playing over their head right now.

That doesn't sound good. Although for Jets, that makes sense. But why would you say that?

Just the talent they have on defense.

They have a bunch of guys hurt.

So they are just playing over their head at the moment on defense.

I mean, they could also be really well coached on defense too. Depth is important. I mean, ask a Lions fan and the Lions are 31st in most defensive categories.

I just, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But what's crazy is they've also, they've scored exactly 31 points in both games too. So if they're going to win games, they have to score until Branch gets back at least. And they are very, very good after a loss, though. That's the problem that you might be looking at, Beams, is in their last 15 after loss, they're 12-3 against the spread. So Dan Campbell has a way of getting the Lions to bounce back.

Aaron Glenn revenge. Yeah, but not really revenge because Dan Campbell kind of gave him the opportunity to then become a head coach. But we could just say Aaron Glenn revenge.

Yeah, Aaron Glenn revenge. He did get blamed for Their playoff loss.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And it— but it is funny because the narrative that floats around Lions, once Ben Johnson left, the Lions have not looked the same. Their defense is the problem, is the problem. Their offense has been fine. It's their defense that doesn't look the same.

Yeah. Do you think that the players on the team, especially like the, the defense, just anybody on the Jets right now, do you think that they took what their coach did at the end of the last game as a sign of him being afraid and him not believing in them?

Yes.

I think he— I think they might if I was on that team.

I, I don't know how you could look at it any other way. Could you? It was a classic brain-stalling moment where he's like, I don't want to call a timeout because they might go for it and get a first down.

Yeah. Could you ever imagine a good coach doing that? Yeah, is what I'm getting at. I can't imagine like anybody that we think of as being one of the best coaches Are you getting at something here? No, I mean, yeah, my question was like, if you're a player on the team, I asked it already. Do you think that the players think that about their coach?

It does feel like there's a setup.

Yeah.

I thought you were saying, is there like, did somebody else do that?

No, that, no, that is the question that I have is like, if you're a player on the team, Do you think that your coach doesn't believe in you?

I'd probably say the offense.

Yeah.

Even though they took the ball first, but yeah.

Smart. They wanted to control the clock.

Yeah. That's all I'm getting at, Mims, is like that, that one decision. I think it gives you a little bit of an insight into what he's like, what's going through his head at the end of the game.

Yeah.

I see where you're coming from.

Yeah.

Okay. Next up, Texans-Colts. This is a loser leaves town game. Colts +2.5, over-under 42.5. If both teams 0-2, whoever loses this game, it just—

it—

I know the season isn't over, but they will feel like the season is over. And whoever wins will feel like, hey, you know what, bad start, but we're good. We're off to the right start, especially if the Colts win, because the Colts did have Ravens, Chiefs, Texans. That's a hard 3 games.

Yeah.

If you told a Colts fan before the season you'd go 1-2 in those games, they wouldn't be shocked. So the Colts feel like They can kind of salvage it. The Texans are just— I don't— yeah, I, I don't know. I, I don't know what— I mean, you need Nico Collins. The Texans defense hasn't been as elite as, uh, we thought it was going to be. They're one of 3 teams to, uh, have no takeaways this season so far.

Mm-hmm.

It's the Texans, the Eagles, and Commanders, actually. Um, and then on the other side, we have the Anvil jerseys from the Colts, which I hate. They look weird. And you have Sauce Gardner in his feels because he has gone 644 days without winning a football game in the United States. And he had a quote saying, they'll word it any way to make it sound egregious. So it's just one of those things where I'm used to the criticism now. I don't think that's worded any specific way other than it's been a really long time since you won a game in the United States.

I think the only part you could make an argument is the in the United States. Yeah, but still, it was like they did win a game in Germany. That's, that's a very, very long time. for him to— he hasn't won a game in the United States since, since Donald Trump has been back in office. Is that right?

Um, even if the stat was he has won 1 game in the last 640, that is still a horrendous stat. Correct.

Yeah.

So it's not like that he won 10 games overseas, right?

It's not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not like they played an entire series over in Brazil and he was awesome there.

And the Colts, they, they're 0-9 going back to last year. They've got the longest losing streak in the NFL. Alec Pierce going down is going to be tough for them. He's going to try to do it without the surgery and rehab back. But without him on the field, that, that's like, that's taking away maybe the most important dimension of their offense that, that actually will help the running game when he's on the field. And not having that, I feel like that might be really bad news for, for the Colts.

Last time he won a game in the United States was December 15th, 2024.

Yep.

It's a long-ass time ago. It's a long-ass time ago. Sorry, Sauce, but that stat— I mean, it's a fun stat to say. Yeah, I don't really know what else to do.

The Colts— that loss against the Chiefs, it was tough, but I— and there's no moral victories. That should count as— Sauce Gardner has one moral win in the United States.

I don't know if that's a moral win when you— Shane Steichen, like, I still don't— why kick the field goal there and no— and just give the ball to Patrick Mahomes who's going to win the game? Yeah, just go for it. I would rather lose going for it than just doing the thing that you know how it's going to end. There's no one in the world thought that it was going to end differently.

Yeah, everyone that's watched the Chiefs play football, we know, we know how that movie ends right there. It's going to be 75, I think, in Indy. I don't know who's making the announcements that the roof is going to be open or closed now that Mr. Irsay has passed away. Can we— is that coming from the team account? I need to know.

It would be his daughter.

It should be. Is she on the sidelines like taking notes?

Yeah, she does every game.

Like, like getting right up into it.

every game. She's, she's, uh, she's hands-on.

Yeah, she— but like, I feel like a lot of times she's standing back a little bit. This time she was— she's starting to lurk like Jerry Jones used to lurk, or like Arthur Blank used to lurk, like directly behind the coaching staff.

I don't know why you wouldn't sit upstairs. It's such a better view if you're trying to learn the game.

I think, I think she wants to get down and see the, uh, she wants to see the body language, the white in their eyes. Yeah.

So who's making this announcement now that I've only seen it after the fact or like from press people during the game. I haven't—

I think the roof's going to be open. I think 75, sunny Indy. This might be one of the last times. Open the roof. Do the right thing. Let Mr. Irsay watch.

I have no idea who's going to win this game. This is a coin flip game in my head. Do you guys agree or does anyone have a strong opinion? 2 desperate teams.

I think Texans.

Division.

I think Colts. I think the Texans are the better team. I think the Colts will win this game. And then DeMeco is going to be, okay, we're 0-3 again. No problem. And then they'll, they'll rip off a bunch of wins in a row.

Yeah. Okay. We can go through quickly through this one. Chiefs -10.5 at the Dolphins. The over-under is 46.5. I mean, the Dolphins are the worst team in the NFL. The Chiefs look like they might be the best. They're They're the only team with a— through 2 weeks has a top 5 in total offense and top 5 in total defense. Um, everything just feels like— I mean, you just read the quotes and, and like Travis Kelce is saying, like, everyone feels more locked in and this feels like a different vibe. The purpose, uh, Travis Kelce's running like he ran 4 years ago somehow. He's got speed again. Mahomes throwing deep balls. The defense looks young and spry. Chris Jones is talking about how much he loves Butt. And yeah, the vibes are good.

Everything's good in Kansas City right now.

He said, I love Butt and I trust in Butt.

Yeah.

He was talking about Booker.

Yeah.

But he said Butt.

Yeah, Butt's the man.

I love Butt.

Butt splits those uprights.

Yeah.

Yeah. I have a fun game we can play.

Okay.

For this, this Dolphins-Chiefs matchup. Let's see how many Dolphins we can name without looking it up.

Okay.

A-Chain.

Okay. Malik Willis.

A-Chain.

Malik Willis.

I don't think I got a single receiver.

I got one more, I think.

Linebacker from Texas Tech, Rodriguez.

Oh, Rodriguez. Okay. Oh, he's on the Dolphins. Okay. Malik Washington. They got— yeah, they got 2 Maliks.

Yep. He's fast.

Yeah.

I mean, they have their entire defense has like no No guys. No guys. And they all are like, I think it's— I saw Dolphins rookies most snapped by rookies in the NFL. The Dolphins have 842. The next team is the Giants with 505.

Yeah.

And it was also Jeff Halfley said, like, he said, get out here and support the team. Make it loud. We've got a team that is young and is giving everything they have. That sounds like a, like, low-level college football team. That's a quote that Purdue would say. We got to get out there and support the team. Make it loud. We've got a team that is young and is giving everything they have. That's tough.

Yeah.

So that's a first-year coach at like Northern Colorado.

You don't want that for an NFL team, but that's where the Dolphins are. I mean, they are a full reset. So it's not like we're shocked that the Dolphins are looking like this, but man. Oh, Chop Robinson.

Yep.

That's definitely Chop Robinson and Caden Proctor are 2 that we could have gotten. The receivers are wild. Caleb Douglas. I have no idea who that is. That's a starting receiver.

Oh, Ollie Gordon.

Yeah.

Ollie Gordon.

I remember we bet on him, I think last year.

Oklahoma State.

Oh yeah.

And Greg Dolcich.

Yeah, these guys are, uh, look, they're out there trying. Get out there and let's get loud. Okay.

Come on, Miami.

Let's make— hey, Miami, get on your feet. Let's go. Let's make it loud.

Miami, we understand that you have a choice when it comes to how you spend your Sundays, and we will be honored and humbled if you would come out and support your Fins. Thanks, Jeff Halfley.

Yeah.

Double-digit dogs. This is one positive Miami. Double-digit dogs often against the spread loss as a double-digit dog. So the Dolphins were 13-point underdogs last week against the 49ers. They lost both outright and against the spread. They're now double-digit dogs again. That setting, 50-25 against the spread. So that's pretty good.

Yeah.

Basically, everyone thinks you're so bad. You show that you're so bad. Then they're like, hey, watch them. They're really, really bad. Maybe they'll bounce off the mat.

Everything is telling you that you should maybe think about trying to think about taking the Dolphins.

I'm not going to do it.

And I will not, I will not fall into that.

No, I'm not going to do it.

I'm not going to.

I am not going to do it.

I think this, they're a special kind of bad. Like that stat about how young they are.

Yeah.

Um, they're, which is good. I think they're doing the right thing.

Well, it's good and bad. I mean, if, if you're young and bad, that's never good. You want to, ideally you'd like to be young and good.

You'd like to be good, but maybe you, maybe that's how you find out. just how bad you are.

Yeah.

And like which people maybe might not be bad enough to completely move on from. I think they are doing it the right way though. If you're going to be bad, you should be bad. You'd rather be bad and young than bad and old.

Yes, that's true. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Okay, next game, Titans-Giants. Giants +3, over-under is 38.5. Jameis time. Jameis time. How do we feel like Jameis is gonna do now that he's got a week with the This game feels like a trap, like the way the Jaguars felt like a trap last week.

The Giants feel like a trap this week.

They feel like you're— well, they haven't— it's been a while since they've won a game.

Or the Titans.

Jackson Dart.

It would be the Titans, right? Sorry, the Giants are -2.5.

But the Titans, even though it's a double trap— Titans— no, it's the Titans, like, feel like they should win this game, right?

The Giants are at home. They're 2.5-point favorites. You're like, the Giants stink. The team's giving up. The Titans almost beat the Eagles. They looked pretty good. You got to take the Titans here. I kind of agree with you.

So yeah, they, they didn't win a game last season without Jaxson Dart starting. So it's, it's gone back a while for the Giants. Now, Jameis is a different—

I count the—

He's a different guy.

He looked horrible.

The game against the Lions is a win. The Jameis game against the Lions.

Yeah, yeah, that counts as a win. I don't think— listen, Hank, that's a tough spot to come in for.

Yeah, just chill out, Hank.

What was that?

Are you a Jameis guy or not?

No, no, no. I hated the football. I was a Jameis guy and then I was watching that game. I was like, oh no.

He had no time with the ones.

It was one bad game. He threw—

he was thrown in there.

He didn't even start. He's had zero bad starts this year.

That's true. Yeah, let him at least get a chance, a full week of practice, work on what Jameis does best.

Yeah, we'd agree with you if someone else was—

H-word is a little premature.

Horrible?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Also, his number 1 receiver went down for a little bit.

Time change.

Time change and all that stuff. And like, this is— I think this is going to be Jameis weather. It's going to be like 20 degrees, a little windy.

20?

Or sorry, sorry, not 20 degrees. It's going to be 20-mile-an-hour winds, a little windy. And it's going to be raining too. So Jameis is a mutter.

That might not be Jameis weather.

Jameis is a mutter. What could go wrong? No, no.

Well, Jameis is at his best when he's throwing touchdowns and picks.

Picks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He just threw a pick.

But, but, but the, the rain feels like fumbles.

When has he ever fumbled?

Yeah, he's, he's not— he's a pick guy, not a fumble guy.

Hank, it's really—

touchdown guy.

Just stay with us. We can stay with our guy.

There's a lot of evidence. No, he's got some— was that game against Oregon?

That was kind of a fumble-pick hybrid.

That was an awesome— maybe my favorite turnover.

This is a new kind of pick.

Yeah.

It never been seen before.

Oh man.

I'll give him one more chance this week.

Yeah. Okay, cool.

Thank you. I just want him to be— he's talking about how he's excited. It's always been his dream to be back to being a starting quarterback.

Yeah. Harbaugh said he's going to be the starter. So we're going to build a game plan for Jameis to suit his skill set. I mean, how promising does that sound?

That sounds like an under. Yeah. Okay.

You're done. You're not allowed to root for Jameis anymore.

Nope.

You're banned. If he throws 5 touchdowns and 4 interceptions and they win 45 to 39, you're not allowed back on.

Okay.

Banned.

Yeah.

You're banned. Do you think the discourse out there, do you think that I saw someone throw out the idea that the Giants should trade for JJ McCarthy?

I did see that discourse.

That actually makes a little sense. Then of course, Emmanuel Acho, who's like the dumbest guy in the world, was like, the Giants should trade for Mac Jones. He, he like saw one person have an actually well-thought-out idea, because the idea is that JJ McCarthy— you trade for JJ McCarthy, if he does well, you can then trade JJ McCarthy. You have options at quarterback because he's still young. And if he does poorly, you're gonna have a top 5 pick anyway. So that, like, it's kind of a no-lose situation for the Giants, and the Vikings would get something out of it.

He also—

Then the Mac Jones one's like, why would the Niners ever trade Mac Jones? when they're like the most injured team in the world. And Mac Jones proved that he could be a good backup last year.

Yeah. Otto also got bodied by Leonard Fournette.

Oh yeah.

Barcelonie.

Barcelonie got him, dude. Just like—

Anytime you got to be like, I'm smarter than you, you're a loser. That's what basically what he did.

He said that multiple times. He was too—

like, he tweeted out essentially that same thing, which is like, instead of studying like X's nose, I pick up and I study quantum finance. Like, he was getting like really into like talking about how how intelligent he was.

It's a pretty good sign in life that if you say to someone, I am smarter than you, and like with no joking, no sarcasm whatsoever, you're a dumb person.

Yeah.

Like that. Smart people don't say that. They don't walk around saying, I'm smarter than you. They just act. And then everyone says, wow, that guy's smart. So, yeah, he's a dumb guy.

I heard something about Emmanuel Acho a couple of years ago. I don't know if I said on this show that he saves up vacation pictures. So when he's— I did say so. When he's working again, though, he'll like occasionally post an old vacation picture and then act like he's on vacation at some exotic place, just that people think that he takes a lot of cool vacations. And so they'll ask him about it. He'd be like, yeah, I got to keep them guessing of where I'm at.

Okay.

Yeah, he's a—

what a—

it's crazy.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

He is.

Which is why I think maybe that thing that he said about the security person that showed up—

not right, right.

To like change a police report for the Giants. Yeah, that, that might have been made up.

Did you see the— let's see, I retweeted it. I got to find it. It was Sam Munson does really good work. Emmanuel Acho a couple of weeks ago say— or actually it was this week saying, LOL, in middle school they was teaching me Well, okay, let me read this again. This is the guy who's talking about how smart he is online. LOL, in middle school they was teaching me French, not how to fight. I was learning Shakespeare, not squabbling. Boys can spot fake J's but can't solve for X. Make it make sense. And then someone found a tweet from 2020 where Emmanuel Acho said, someone tell me how to say thank you so much, my friend, in French.

Yeah. That should be cool.

There you go. That's me.

Yeah.

Amour.

He was teaching me French, not how to fight.

Okay.

Yeah. That's—

We side with Barcelonani.

So that was a fucking lie. Yeah.

Yeah. So what do you guys think? Should they try to trade for— because the Giants did say they're going to look.

No, I mean, this is just— you try to find a Harbaugh connection.

Yeah. And there is one.

And there's a massive Harbaugh connection there. I don't think that they should.

No.

No, I don't. You should what?

I don't think they should try to trade for JJ.

I think they should probably add someone just in case.

Yes.

But we're all in on Jameis.

I'm going to put Emmanuel Acho's take to the side and look to Mike Florio and wait for Mike Florio to suggest Colin Kaepernick.

Yeah.

Big bet.

That train's never late.

Yeah.

Okay. Next game. Bengals-Steelers. Steelers +3.5, over-under 42.5. Memes, you sent us this. Can we pull this up? This made me laugh. The, the, the video you sent us of Big Ben's podcast. This could be, this could be take of the year because so through 2 games, the Pittsburgh Steelers have scored, I believe it's 16 points on offense. Is that the total points they've scored? They've scored 1 offensive touchdown. I believe it's 16. Did they win? They scored 20 points in the first game, but it was TJ Watt pick 6.

It was.

Yeah. Yeah. So 16 points on offense through 2 games. Big Ben had a bold take before the season. Do you have it?

He sent it to me now.

He's sending it to him. Oh, I also see—

oh, don't say it.

What?

What?

I'm just looking at Max's DMs because he pulled it up.

Well, you've been chatting. You're a little bit somewhat of a Chatty Cathy over there.

I mean, I know, I know what's coming. I heard 15 quick.

We were chatting with some, some people in the film community. All right, play this.

Actually, there's multiple people in the film community. Yeah.

All right, play this. This is from Big Ben before the season, the Pittsburgh Steelers season, that again, they've scored 16 points on offense through 2 games. You believe there's a good chance that we will see 30-plus points every game this year?

Sheesh.

You believe that?

I do. With, with Aaron, with this offense, an offensive-minded coach that wants to outscore you. No, listen, every, every coach wants to— he'll take a 2-0 win. No, no, that's the thing is like, wait, a defensive coach doesn't want to outscore.

They don't. Mike Tomlin did not want to outscore the opponent. It just sometimes accidentally happened.

Mike McDonald did the impossible as a defensive head coach. He won the Super Bowl without outscoring anyone.

Yeah, it's— that's how good that defense is.

Okay. Uh, okay, so what, what, I mean, What do we think of this game? I love the under in this game.

I—

the Bengals defense is, is good and they're getting pressure on the quarterback at an absolutely crazy rate. So they've been, they've been so much better without Trey Hendrickson on their defensive line and it makes, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Well, it does because of Dexter Lawrence.

Dexter Lawrence, Sexy Dexy.

Changes everything.

Sexy Dexy is, yeah, he's a beast.

He was so— did you see the mic'd up of Dexter Lawrence? He was so mean.

Yeah.

He's just walking around telling people they're pussies. He was like, your breath stinks. I'm coming for you. Like, you're soft. He was just being a bully.

So they're not, they're not blitzing and they're getting insane amounts of pressure. So thanks to Lawrence, they're getting home with 4. And it's, it's very impressive what this Bengals defense is doing, like a complete and utter turnaround. So they've outscored their opponents in the first halves, 31 to 13. They get off to fast starts and then you can't catch them. Then the pass rush gets after you and you're fucked.

Wait, 31-13. But the Steelers also come out fast, right?

They come out really, really— yeah, yeah, very fast.

69 games in a row where they have not scored more than 7 points in the first quarter.

But Big Ben says he's expecting 30 points a game this year.

With all that said, I kind of want to bet the Steelers.

Hank?

No.

Okay.

They've shown nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Oh man.

Not—

you don't think a single thing?

What if—

I mean, it's, it's, it's—

what if DK catches those passes?

I don't think that would have changed all that much. I think the Bengals offense is really good. I think their defense isn't bad. Like, I— there's the Steelers have shown nothing. Like, I was, I was bought in on Aaron Rodgers. I believed that I was on the same page as Ben Roethlisberger. Going into this year. Now I'm on the like complete opposite side. I'm not going to just keep going to the well.

Yeah. Was there anything that they did good last week against you?

Defense.

Yeah.

Their offense was, was horrific.

But Aaron Rodgers said that he was going to—

I mean, their, their best, their best receiver was the rookie.

Yeah.

That was, that was exciting if you're a Steelers fan.

And yeah, Aaron Rodgers said that he's got to do a better job letting his coach know what plays suck. So that's good. I think the accountability communication lines are gonna be wide open this week.

I'm just, I just keep thinking like maybe it's still, they still got a little of that Tomlin DNA where this is a perfect Tomlin spot. You know, that's, that, that is there somewhere.

I don't know.

They're, they're so bad. They're such a tough watch. Steelers is such a tough watch. But if there was going to be a time, it feels like +3.5 at home division.

Yeah. Bengals feeling themselves a little because I don't, I don't know how many more games Aaron Rodgers can play this season if that's, if he's getting hit like that.

Yeah.

He got ragdolled a couple of times.

I mean, I did watch that playback and it looked like Aaron Rodgers was just changing the play so many times that offensive line just didn't have any idea what to do. They were all standing up looking at each other right before he snapped the ball.

Yeah.

So, okay. Seahawks-Commanders, Commanders +7, over-under 40.5. PFT, how are you feeling about this game?

I mean, first of all, I'll get to the Commanders in a second, but the Seahawks, we don't talk enough about how dominant the Seahawks are.

I do every time when I bring up how many they won in a row. But yes.

I mean, it's, it's insanely impressive. Not just their 12 straight games that they've won. It's by a combined score of 344 to 162. They've also won 15 out of their last 16 road games.

Yeah, they're playing awesome.

We should be talking about the Seahawks as being the best team in the NFL.

They're the first team since 2006 to not allow a play of 20-plus yards through 2 weeks. I know that's only 2 weeks, but still, that's not a single play over 20-plus yards.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's great.

There's a couple that could have happened. He would have still been running.

Yes.

There's a few that you can look at. Like, what, what did they miss out there? The only misstep that they've made, I think, so far is their coach went on a podcast. And kind of got fucked. It sounds like he got fucked.

Yes.

This is not something that—

Big time fucked.

That part of my take would do to a guest.

No.

But he got, he got fucked. He went on the Graham Bessinger Show and he talked before the actual interview started about a beef that he had with Coach Sean Payton, where Payton got mad at him a couple of years ago for allegedly using like fan footage.

Which I don't think that's a problem.

No.

Like people that went to training camp, took videos of the plays that they were running.

He said, yeah, Mike McDonald said they pieced together like over 100 videos of all the fans at training camp and were able to kind of decipher what some of their plays were going to be.

And so they had words behind the scenes about that. And then McDonald was also saying that he ran into Sean Payton, I think at the combine, and that Sean Payton kind of turtled when he saw him and had like Twitter fingers about it. So that wasn't meant to get out. He didn't, he didn't know that that was part of the interview.

Although, did you see the I, I think the Seahawks PR might be on the hot seat.

They might also, because the guy said that he sent the entire interview to them.

Yeah.

They might have been under the impression that everything before he started the interview was not going to be part of the interview.

Which I understand. There's definitely times people send me stuff and they're like, watch this. I just don't watch it.

Yeah.

I'm like, it's good. And then it goes out. I'm like, wait, what is that?

And then would it be a reasonable expectation to think that everything before the interview started would be cut?

I don't know.

Yeah, that's, that's what this guy does do. The Graham Benstetter guy, he does do these, like, he puts those into some of his shows, the, the pre-interview vibe, whatnot.

But that seems like the only— it's like that and then admitting that he hadn't met his son until after the season are the only 2 big PR missteps that you could say that he's had. No, he's a really good coach besides that squeaky clean.

I like Mike McDonald a lot.

You got the—

yeah, my bad. I didn't mean to.

No, that's okay. Hey, it's fine. It's week 3 for everyone.

So yeah, the, the, uh, that's what I'm saying. Yeah.

Okay. What about the Commanders side?

Uh, the Commanders, again, Marcus Mariota is not going to be anything special. He's going to be a serviceable backup game manager type guy. I don't think that we've got any chance in hell though of winning this game. Maybe not a chance in hell of covering this game because we're the most injured team. that I've ever seen in my life after 2 weeks in the NFL. So yeah, like 24 guys on the injury report. We're going to be down. I don't know who's going to be starting. I'm going to learn some guys' names.

Yeah.

That's how, that's how beat up the Commanders are right now in terms of all the injuries, not just to Jayden. Um, so yeah, I, I think it's going to be ugly again. Uh, and I, I've done some soul searching and some thinking this week and I've reached the conclusion that I, I personally would like Jayden I would like Jaden to get the elbow surgery like right now.

Okay.

And start that clock.

Okay.

I'm more confident than I've been in a long time that Jaden's going to be a very good quarterback and the answer for the future of the Commanders. But we got to restart that clock right now. It's not his throwing elbow. So that's great news. 2 great quarterbacks have had this injury and come back to have very long careers. Drew Brees had it at the Pro Bowl back in like 2008, had a great career after that.

that.

Kurt Warner had that same thing happen to him and he was okay. So, um, the fact that it's his left elbow makes me happier, but also I know that if he continues to try to play on it with just the brace and not getting surgery, it's just going to pop out over and over and over again, and that's going to suck for everybody involved. So it sounds— now that's where I'm at. Now my problem is I think Jayden's going to want to play.

Yeah.

Because he posted the, uh, Allen Iverson clip of everything he's going through, making him stronger. If you're posting AI clips, Allen Iverson, Hank, not AI. I know that's a touchy thing, but if you're doing that, you're not taking the mindset of I'm going to be out for the next year. You're getting fired up about coming back in like 3 weeks. And I don't think that's a good idea.

Max.

Hi, Max Delente, part of My Take podcast over here. Mr. Collins, sir, this week there was a clip that went a little bit viral of you calling Jaden or Caleb Williams a pussy.

You know, yeah, yeah.

Where was that?

There's other people in the media that are actually reporting that Jayden Daniels may actually be the pussy.

Oh no.

What are your thoughts on that?

Giant pussy?

Step in for my client real quick before—

in reference—

before he talks about this. Yeah, I want to say that we categorically disavow any, any pussy talk whatsoever. Giant pussy, giant pussy, little pussy, tiny pussy, big pussy. I don't care.

Big pussy.

Emotional game.

Go ahead.

I was, I was also clearly like making a joke about the 2 opposite situations of the quarterbacks.

I know, but that was something that was, that was going around the internet streets this week.

Right.

I mean, do I—

And now Kurt Warner's basically calling Jayden Daniels a pussy.

Do I think that I'm tougher than Caleb Williams? Absolutely.

All right.

Was I also joking?

Yeah.

Both things. What did Kurt Warner say?

I didn't see that.

He said, I played through a disability. I played through a dislocated left elbow. Jayden Daniels can if he really wants to.

He's basically calling him a pussy. Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, I think it's bullshit, which is insane.

If Kurt Warner, good for him. I'm glad that he was able to do it. It looks insanely painful. There's no way that's not painful. We all saw it. Your elbow bending backwards.

Well, the Commanders offensive line didn't see it.

That's the other thing is so like that's— It'd been addressed and everybody in the locker room was like, yeah, it's insane that people are actually making this a story.

They should have name-checked Hank.

That would have been awesome.

And there's, there's also like a ton of clips.

Oh, the grin on Ek's face when you just said that.

But how funny would that be if like, if one of the Commanders offensive players is like, yeah, that Henry Lockwood, fuck him. 33 years old. Fuck him.

Yeah, there's a, there's a ton of clips of the defense running over to him and like taking knees and Josh Connerly, their left tackle, like crying while standing next to him. It's what I said it was on Wednesday's show, which is the half ended. The referees told them to leave the field and go to the locker rooms. And so some of them did not turn around. But the ones that did see him, they went up to him immediately. It's a non-story.

Agreed. That's why I'm happy I didn't take a definitive take.

Good.

And was just trying to clarify the situation, which has now been clarified.

Right.

So much of a non-story. We've, we've talked about it every single episode.

We are— we are starting to hear people want to know that. That's right.

Yeah, it's a non-story.

I'm glad that for the record, it was— I asked if it was AI. It was not.

Right.

I'm glad that Hank's bringing this up.

Community noted. Yeah. Not.

These are good conversations that need to happen.

These are important conversations.

People are—

the thing is, people jump to conclusions.

Today's day and age, like, everyone is— they hate each other, we're all hiding behind screens. It's important to have these type of conversations face to face and build bridges with people that we might not have common ground with. So I appreciate Hank bringing this to my desk.

Thank you, Hank.

You're welcome.

My desk thanks you. I have seen the, the start of the conversation about whether or not they should proceed with talks of giving Jaden the 5th year Or discussing an extension.

That always gets tricky with injuries.

Yeah. To me, the answer is a very, very easy yes.

Yeah.

Yes. 100%.

But when is what they're probably asking, right?

Yeah. I think they're mostly talking about the timing of everything. If Hank, I know that you're a big chart guy, big chart talk guy. I saw a graph with talking about which quarterbacks get better during close games from 2017 through 2026. And Jayden Daniels is the outlier that it's— he is the guy that raises his performance. He's already—

2025.

And what's up?

2026 doesn't really matter for Jayden.

It's through today. And we don't know, he might come back in a couple weeks.

2025 didn't really matter either.

But there were some games in which I was told that Jayden looked really, really bad.

He played one game in 2026 and he lost that game.

That's— he played 2 games. Well, one and a half, kind of.

Thanks for Googling Grafftalk, Max.

Yeah.

Not even Googling. Sometimes I just—

He's our stenographer.

This might be cope, and I'm willing to accept the fact that I might be, I might be just freebasing cope, which is what you kind of have to do when your quarterback gets insanely injured. But the half that I saw him play against the Cowboys before he got injured, that's as good as—

Half of the year?

That's it. What's that?

Half of the year?

It was half of the year. It's the best I think I've ever seen him play. And granted, the Cowboys defense is not very good. But if you watch that and then you take into account the fact that he had one pass that traveled like 60 yards in the air and missed the hands of his receiver by about a foot, which is still like a good throw. It doesn't count obviously, but like I'm a process guy, not a results guy.

From last week?

Yeah.

Half of the year.

That was such an overthrow.

It missed his hands by about a— it hit his hands about a foot.

Okay.

Hey, what do you say?

If you can touch it, you can catch it. But let's be honest, that was a bad throw.

You can touch it, you can catch it. A very smart man told me that.

Half of the year, Hank. Respect the half of the year.

You just said basically he threw a ball 60 yards and he should be getting— You can't watch that half of the ball and think that you should move on from that guy.

That's all I'm getting at is he was fully back and now he's not. And that sucks. And again, I am coping. I admit that I'm coping with this.

Yeah.

You'd be coping too.

True.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this is, this is the most productive way.

So do the Commanders have any chance of winning this game? No.

0.000000. It's going to get very, very ugly. And having Mike Sanders still on the outside, maybe covering JSN is going to be disgusting. I don't know what happened with Mikey since his rookie year where he looked awesome, but he's just completely lost back there. I hope he figures it out. I think, I think if he is matched up against JSN and Drew Lock slinging it back there, not afraid to take chances, we could see a 200-yard game from JSN this weekend if that's going to be his matchup.

Okay.

I don't think that it will because if it starts bad, they might just pull him and get Mikey out of the game. But it's, it's been that bad.

Yeah, I think Seahawks probably win. Although, I mean, cross-country desperate team, 0-2 versus 2-0. I just don't know how their offense, the Commanders offense, is going to move the ball.

Here's what's going to happen is ideally, I think either way Dan Quinn is fired at the end. I don't, I don't see a way that it gets better for him because if Jayden comes back in a couple of weeks, I think he's going to get injured. Unfortunately, again, I don't think that elbow is going to be magically stable. And if that happens, you almost have to fire him on the spot.

Right.

For letting him play.

Yes.

And if he doesn't come back and gets the surgery, I see— I don't see this team winning a whole lot of football games. And I don't know that you're going to want to bring him back and trust what right now is a very delicate future with your quarterback, right, to a coach that has not proven that he can do anything. And as a defensive coach, I think at that point it would probably be a young offensive mind that you would bring in.

Declan Doyle.

Hope that they can grow together.

The bar—

the bar owner?

Declan Doyle.

The financier?

Yeah.

We'll see. But yeah, that's where I'm at. So in conclusion, not good.

What if— no, I actually don't want to say no.

What if it was What If Wednesday yesterday? We can talk about it.

What if the Commanders fired Dan Quinn and brought in an offensive guru genius who also has some head coaching experience?

Are you talking about A guy that was in Florida for a while?

I'm not talking about a guy that was in Florida.

Oh, I thought you were talking about McDaniel.

No.

You're talking about Josh McDaniel.

Yes.

That would be—

that would be—

please, you can have them. You can have them.

Very funny twist to the Pardon My Take world.

Well, I've, I've openly speculated the last couple years how funny it's going to be when he gets another job. I've been told that it's not happening on this show.

Yeah.

But I've, I've laughed about the possibility of some poor schmuck franchise having to deal with hiring him as a head coach for the 3rd time.

And I feel fine saying, because you did say when we were, when we were thinking about hiring Ben Johnson, like it would be funny if the Bears hired Mike McCarthy. And I agreed, it would have been very funny. So this would have been a funny—

And this, yeah, this would be ultimate, like me calling my shot. And at that point, I, I think I might just have to be the biggest Josh McDaniels fan in the entire world. That's, that's— he didn't get enough time with Tebow.

No. Or in Indy.

Or in Indy.

Yeah.

Or in Vegas.

Well, no, in Indy he just—

Yeah, in Indy he just went to the bathroom.

No, other way around.

Oh, other way around.

He didn't take the Indy. That's actually maybe showing growth and evaluation.

That's right.

This guy's been in the bathroom too long. I can't do it.

Right.

Okay.

Things ended up good in Vegas though. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Yeah.

Let's, before we get to the rest of the games, Twisted Tea football season is back. It's the moment we've all been waiting for. Football season is back in full swing, which means we'll be posted up with an ice cold Tea until further notice. Twisted Tea is a refreshing hard iced tea made with real brewed tea and 5% alcohol. The Twisted Tea Party Pack has a little something for everyone with original, half and half, raspberry, and peach. It's got that refreshing taste with a little kick, no carbonation, and goes down smooth, making it the perfect drink to keep the good times going at the tailgate all day and all football season long. Whether you're tailgating at the stadium, crushing teas in your man cave, or grilling out with friends, Twisted Tea is there to turn your day up a notch and make a good time. A great time. We love Twisted Tea. The half and half, the peach, the original. Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. Keep it twisted with Twisted Tea. Okay, last game of the early slate, Patriots at Jaguars. Jaguars -3, over-under 45.5. How are you feeling, Henry?

I'm feeling good. I'm feeling excited. Prove-it game.

Prove-it game.

Another, another good team.

Yep.

Underdogs. Vrabel and Drake Maye are great as underdogs. I'm worried about— I mean, Josh McDaniels has had a really bad start to the year. Hopefully this is when they—

Oh, don't talk about—

Yeah, no, he's been, he's been, he's been terrible.

Uh, I— this cannot become a running bit that I'm gonna have to think about Josh McDaniels as my head coach.

Well, I think—

I don't mean it is—

if they keep playing as bad as they have, they're not— he's not even get an offer.

I can't, I can't deal with Photoshops of him wearing broken D gold. That's gonna, that's gonna send me off a cliff. So they've been good as underdogs. You said Vrabel and Drake Maye.

Yes.

They're 5-0 against the spread as road underdogs, including 5-0 against the first half spread.

Let's, let's— what are we doing here? What are we doing?

Yeah, let's, let's, let's talk.

Let's see what Glenn has.

There's no way.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Max, not yet. Max, not yet. I do have some questions for Hank before we get into it. Okay.

I feel like— Not yet.

We're not going to ruin this.

No one wants.

We're not going to— we're not going to— I do have some questions for Hank. Do you have— has your faith in Drake Maye and his future taken any hits at all this season?

No.

Okay. What about the— he's thrown 4 interceptions through 2 weeks.

You just talked a lot about how good the Seahawks defense is and are talking about how people aren't talking about enough.

Yep.

And last week the interception, which I said on the show was bad, was tipped.

Oh, okay. Max, can you, can you play that? Actually is directly relevant to the film that I was— you, you know, no, Glenn, that I was watching.

Got it.

I saw this tweet earlier. Can you start from the beginning?

And it's 3:57.

It's 4 minutes long. So yeah, turn the sound off.

Up.

But I think you— we can learn something.

What If Wednesdays. This is NFL Tape Watch with Glenn.

Hey, welcome back to What If Wednesdays. It's me, Glenn, and happy you're back. Thanks to all my new followers out there on social media. Make sure to like and subscribe across all platforms. And a big bonus thank you to all the Glentlemen out there. You guys are very glenerous. So make sure to like, subscribe, and for bonus coverage, Premium Plus, become a Glentleman. And party like a Watch Star.

Party like a Watch Star.

This week we're gonna jump back into some more Drake Maye. I know we addressed some of his concept analysis last week when he was struggling finding the open man in coverage. That wasn't so much the issue this week. It's good to see him move on from that and progress as a not just thrower but as a passer. He had a bad game last week. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it, but I have reason to believe we're going to get a bounce-back game coming up against the Jaguars. I actually like the Patriots-Drake To be a certified cover boy this week against the Jaguars. I'll tell you what, it was always going to be a chess match last week. Patrick Graham, former Patriots coach, he won a Super Bowl, New England 2014. He's now the defensive coordinator for the Steelers, and it was a chess match. Why do I say that? Well, watch this extremely underthrown ball.

Tipped.

By May, resulting in a super easy interception. It's Patrick Queen on the back end. You don't get too many interceptions as easy as that. I call it a chess match. That's a black queen making Maye look like a white rook. Maye hits Hunter Henry on this open pass right here, and he was open. Sayonara, cowboy. He's still running.

He said it!

Okay, so that's the bad. The good news is this is correctable. First off, Drake counts every yard on the field before the snap, like that. Yep, there's 11 out there. And as the pocket collapses, and we all know the Patriots hate deep pockets, mostly because Will Campbell can't reach his tiny arms to the bottom of them to get his phone out, the ball's actually tipped as the pocket comes in. The ball is tipped on the line of scrimmage. If we enhance it, you can see the ball is tipped and Maye has bad tip luck yet again. And I never blame tips on a quarterback. It's not the quarterback's fault. It's either on wide receiver if they're running under the defensive pad leverage, or it could be on the media for being negative. So it's not the quarterback's fault. Maye's tip luck has to improve tremendously. I expect it to because I went back and I ran the numbers on his first 3 seasons. in the NFL, or really 2 seasons and change, and Drake Maye has the worst tip luck of any quarterback. Again, like these picks, they're not his fault. They come on tips and that's not up to the quarterback.

It's What If Wednesday. So I thought, what if defensive players didn't have arms? No tipped balls. Well, Drake Maye, he would be one of the best, maybe one of the best all time. Here's a simulation. This is what it looked like against The Steelers, as you can see, that ball falls harmlessly to the ground. If defensive lineman had no, no hands, no fingers, means he got no arms, no elbows. And maybe it might be a good thing, uh, for a slow start right here if you get to a—

I mean, look at the lack of arms there.

Yeah. There's a lot of reason to think that this can build the season.

No picks.

What if Wednesday?

This is what it might look like against the Jaguars. No tip.

This is what it might look Falls harmlessly to the ground.

So just a visualization like this tells you how much better Drake May could be.

See?

If you just take out all the tips. So I expect that tip luck to regress and for Drake May to elevate by not accidentally having defenders kind of throw their hands up in prayer. And, you know, just like through, through butterfly effect and almost chaos theory and just the random lottery of birth, this guy's hand happened to be in that exact piece of airspace at the same moment that Drake Maye was throwing a surefire touchdown to his tight end. You can't expect that to happen too many times. I expect the Patriots to cover and cover big this weekend. So again, thank you for tuning in to NFL Tip Watch. This has been Glenn. And until next week, hit the button for me. The sound effect. He's still running. Sorry.

Hank, he got you.

Gosh.

It wasn't Drake's fault. The ball was tipped. Thanks, Hank.

I mean, it was tough to follow up the first week. That wasn't— that wasn't his best stuff, but it was—

it was pretty good. I thought that was pretty good.

The guys didn't have arms, Hank.

Damn.

I like— I like— I like the Patriots to cover and cover big time.

That would have been such a great pass.

Certified cover boy.

It would have been such a great pass from Drake if that guy didn't have arms.

I like the B-roll that you started with in the beginning of the tape watch of Jalen Hurts' interception.

Oh, that Glenn started with?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, Glenn.

Glenn.

Glenn.

Sorry.

You're going to win this game, Hank?

Yep.

Yeah.

Yep.

Confident.

Very confident. Okay.

What's the news on AJ Brown? Is he coming back soon?

He's on the IR, 4 to 6 weeks. I don't, I don't think anything's changed.

Okay.

Positive update on Patriots wide receiver AJ Brown's ankle.

What's the positive update? Drake Mayon downfield throws 10+ air yards this season, 0 touchdowns, 4 interceptions. I mean, the Seahawks defense is really good. This is a game that, well, I guess without AJ Brown, but your offense should look good.

Yeah.

Schefter said the original projected 6 to 8 week timeline now looks closer to the 6 week side.

Okay. That's good. That's good.

Emphasis to start fast this week was what Drake Maye said in the media. Find completions early and stretch the field still when able to. So fast start.

And I don't know if the Jaguars are going to be able to. Or what the issue is, but they're starting to have to answer some questions about Travis Hunter not being able to play.

Yeah.

I've read a lot. That's, that's everything I was reading about the Jaguars is like, he needs to be playing every, every snap at cornerback.

It's crazy what they gave up to trade up for if they're not going to play him. That's, that's kind of nuts. And I don't know if it's that they can't figure out if he should be playing offense more or defense more, but he's got to do something.

Yep.

You should have him doing one of those 2 things.

Also something to watch. The Patriots have been blitzing at 41%. And Trevor Lawrence against the blitz has not been good through the start of this season. So just something to watch. If they're going to blitz him, they're going to heat him up.

Oh, one other story that was out there. Harry Kane.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He wants to become an NFL kicker after he retires from soccer, or maybe possibly while he's playing in the MLS at the end of his career.

Yep.

He's a big Patriots fan.

Oh, he is?

Yeah. So you would think like maybe he's, he's He ideally would like to play for the Patriots. That'd be pretty crazy.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm sure—

I would like him to do it. I wouldn't like him on the Patriots, but I would like to see him.

Yeah, that's, that's ripe for getting made fun of if he misses a kick.

Like that. He needs to be doing that for like the Dolphins.

Yeah. Yeah.

Playing with Messi.

Unfortunately, Miami, there's not too many like 6-yard field goals.

And for a team that doesn't like— they need, you know, they're not in the playoff contention. So it's like, this is, this is a fun thing.

We're just trying it out.

Yeah. Sell tickets. Let's see.

Okay.

Afternoon games. Cardinals at Niners. The Niners are 8.5-point favorites. Over-under is 47.5. Listen, I think the Cardinals beating the Chargers week 1 said a lot more about the Chargers than it does the Cardinals. I don't think the Cardinals are very good. I think the Niners should easily win this game.

Yeah. The Cardinals have lost 7 straight division games and Brock Purdy looks like he's playing at the peak of his Brock Purdy powers. And yeah, yeah, I was just going to say this, this does feel like Raheem Morris is going to kind of bring what the Cardinals think they might have going back to earth a little bit.

And the Cardinals, the discourse about Marvin Harrison has gotten to like every time I open up the internet, it's just Marvin Harrison tape being like, what happened to this guy?

Yeah.

Jacoby Brissett. We like Jacoby Brissett. We stood by him in his holdout, which we documented and covered extensively. Maybe not the best quote from Jacoby Brissett when he was asked about Jeremiah— or sorry, not Jeremiah, Marvin Harrison Jr. He said, we just signed Mike Wilson to $25 million. Nobody's complaining about him having 2 catches.

Yeah.

So it's actually worse than you think. Worse than what you're asking me about. In fact, if I keep talking, the problem might be me.

Yeah.

Yeah. I don't think it is him. I think— I don't know, Big Cat, you, you watched more Ohio State games than I did.

Yeah.

It didn't look like this when he was in college.

No, I mean, it's— I mean, college is obviously a very different game. And when you're playing against some of the bad teams in the Big Ten, you can get open very easily. But yeah, it does.

It—

I thought he was going to be very good.

He was able to run routes with sharp corners.

Correct.

And look like he was getting separation because of his misdirection and stopping and starting. And now it Everything's rounded and he's kind of coasting.

I don't know, loafing.

I don't know what's going on.

I don't either.

It doesn't look good. He also said that he sees everything when talking about the criticism. That feels like a bad strategy because there's a lot, Marvin Harris. Maybe that's why you're not playing so well is because you're like spending so much time looking at everything. Because if you see everything in terms of criticism, I don't know how you have time to sleep.

There's not.

There's so much criticism.

There's a lot of criticism.

There's a ton of criticism.

And for the record, we support the Harrison family and everything that they have, you know, been about and just big fans of Maserati Marvin, his proud pop. So best of luck to them moving forward. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Well said.

Thank you.

Well said. I think that the Niners are going to win easily. That's all I got for this game. This is one of those games where it's like that will be on, but But come on, I expect it to be a boat race.

Yeah.

Vikings-Bucs. Bucs +1.5, over-under 42.5. Let's see. This is another desperation spot. Do you like them, Hank?

No.

Okay.

Maybe Kyler Murray back.

Just the Chargers?

Yeah, Patriots.

Kyler Murray might be back. Bucs really need this.

I don't know.

I think I'm gonna probably— I mean, the Bucs have not covered in 11 straight. Zach, talk us— tell us how the Bucs can win this game.

This is a redemption home opener.

A redemption home opener?

Yes.

Chance of delays again.

How is it a redemption home opener?

We had a home opener last week, didn't go as planned. This is the redempt—

redoing.

And we've—

do you normally get like a second shot at it?

I mean, we've historically said on the show football starts week 3.

Yep.

So yeah, week 1, week 2, don't really think too much about it. Week 3, we go. Then we get Jacob Parrish back on defense. That'll be big. And yeah, honestly, I'm speaking emotionally because if we don't win this game, it's tough.

No, if you don't win this game, it's over.

Done.

It's absolutely over.

Last time we started 0-2 in a season, we went— I believe we went 2-14. So this is a breaking point here, I think. Yeah, unfortunately.

Crossroads.

Yeah.

11 straight games against the spread you've lost. That's so impressive.

You need everyone to hear that.

I actually was saying, I said it on WUB, I was like, if you get over 10 games, like, loss streak against the spread, you should start losing draft picks and shit because you're not only hurt, you're not only hurting your team, but you're hurting your fans because your fans are most likely to bet on your team. So like, you should You should be punished. You should have to— when you get to 8-9 against the spread losses, your team should have the desperation for the whole community.

This would be the spread breaker. This is when they do it.

Hey, you were saying that there might be a delay again?

There's a chance of thunderstorms again.

I don't like that.

Nope.

I don't like that for Tampa.

I mean, this— I kind of, I kind of like it in this one because this one would be like almost a night game. If they came back, this one's kind of fun.

It might finish during the first half of Sunday Night Football.

This also, though, this was from Ashley, the weather girl on Barstool Sports Advisors. And then we were looking at the app and nothing. I think she might just improv the weather. Yeah.

No, I know she does.

Like, I'm looking at Sunday and there's not even a chance of rain.

I wasn't going to say anything, but the weather that I had written down was perfect.

Yeah.

No, like that.

Yeah.

High of 86.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because she said that about Jacksonville too. Yeah. And it's also the same.

Yeah.

Or is she making up the weather?

There's a chance. There's a chance.

I actually respect the fuck out of that.

Watch it happen now. That would be crazy.

Yeah.

You know, maybe she's a witch. Defense, trying to predict the Florida weather a week out, impossible.

You know what they say about an hour-by-hour place.

You know what they say about the weather in Tampa?

What do they say?

If you don't like it, just wait 5 minutes. That is true.

Yeah. Is Reuben Bain hurt?

Brunebane, maybe not 100%.

Okay, what, Max?

I don't know, I thought that was funny.

I was more so thinking you started to just change it.

Yeah, I messed it up, but I like that better.

I think if you don't like the weather, just, just change the weather.

I think over the course of part of my take, 10 years, I think I've said that same phrase about 45 different cities easily. Yeah, just change it, Max. Oh, that's what Ashley does, I think.

Yeah, just change it.

Let's change it.

I also don't like Todd Bowles saying we're 0-2, not 0-9 or 0-11. Yes, you are. You're 0-11 in your last 11 against spread. You can't say—

you are.

Also, yeah, you're 0-2, but it's a bad 2.

It's a, it's a just a continuation of last year.

Yeah, it's a really bad 2.

It's a really bad 2.

Bowles believes in his guys.

Second one was really bad. The Bengals, I get. Bengals look good.

We don't talk about week 2.

Week 2.

We don't talk about it.

No.

Okay.

I'm almost willing to say you got thunderfucked. Mm-hmm. Then I might be willing to look past that if you beat the Vikings. That might just be a thunderfucking that you got and everybody would have lost that game to the Browns.

This is when we thunderstruck.

Yes.

Come back.

Bounce back.

Redemption.

Week 3 football season now.

Yes.

All right. Ravens-Cowboys in Brazil. Cowboys +3.5, over-under 52.5. Go ahead, Hank.

Really excited for this game. Love the Cowboys.

You right. You excited for the, the, the bad turf that's going to probably get someone injured?

Yeah, because there aren't injuries every single week in the NFL. We haven't had like 100 already this year.

But injury international is way worse.

Injury is an injury. You guys know that.

Yeah, we do.

Yeah. Well, not always. Sometimes it can be a hurt.

I think this turf shit is bothering me though. It actually is.

So the turf was bad for the Eagles game. But this is a different stadium.

But it's apparently still— turf is still bad.

I'm hearing bad things about the turf.

I've heard that the little soccer, soccer boys, you know, because they don't weigh a lot, they can, they can run around on this turf. You put big, strong American men on there. I love that it breaks.

They don't have grass that can handle our big feet.

Correct.

What do you say?

Means our big boys.

I just found out that it Yeah, this is supposed to be a really good game.

This should be a game in Dallas. It should be the game of the week in Dallas and it would be very fun to watch.

Yeah. 40 to 35. That's what the final score would have been.

Now it's going to be— well, we might even get it because of the slipping. Slipping does help the offense, I always assume, because the offense knows where they're going.

Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, do we know what the travel situation is going to be like for the Ravens? Because I know the Cowboys are leaving Thursday night.

I don't, but I mean, obviously same time zone.

Yeah.

Or maybe one off, whatever. That is the nice part about going to Brazil.

And the butts.

You like the Cowboys?

Love the Cowboys.

I do think the Ravens, like, I mean, they do lose their Week 2 game, it feels like every year. So I wonder how they've bounced back from that. Remember they lost to the Raiders?

Was it last year or the year before? Yeah, that was, that was really strange.

Yeah.

I don't know what to make of this game. I would, I would have a bet on this game if it wasn't in Brazil.

I think, I mean, the Cowboys offense looks legit.

Yeah, they should be legit. They have so many fucking dudes. Yeah, it should be awesome.

What do you think about this quote from Zay Flowers? So I, I don't know, is he playing? I don't think that he is.

I don't think so, but maybe. They probably, uh, they don't have anyone else.

The Ravens are 7-3 straight up and 8-2 against the spread the week after they lose, uh, At home when they're leading by more than one possession.

Okay.

Since 2020.

What do you think about this quote?

So they're good at bouncing back though.

Yeah. Flowers did not practice on Wednesday.

Here's a quote from him. You ain't got to like me. You ain't got to respect me. Just don't disrespect me.

I didn't have a strong opinion about Zay Flowers.

So you— so you cannot respect him. But one, not respecting him— disrespect—

you can't disrespect—

disrespectful.

Yeah.

You don't have to respect him, but also don't don't, but you can't disrespect him.

Yeah, that, that's a quote.

You just got to toe the line between not respecting—

I think you have to be ambivalent to Zay Flowers' existence, and that's okay.

Did you guys have a strong opinion about Zay Flowers?

I think he's good.

I think—

no, no, not, not his skill. I'm saying like his like personality.

No, I know, just like I, I forgot about him. Yeah. So I guess he's fine with that.

Yeah.

He is a really good football I'm gonna probably just take the over and be so mad when the turf sucks. That's what's gonna happen.

Yeah.

Okay. Saints -3, over-under 43.5. Kirk over Shuck. Tyler Shuck, they— he's got to start early.

They got it.

The Saints got to get out faster than they have. I feel like you can't get in a hole again. The Raiders 2-0. Like, I think it's a— I don't think the Raiders are going to end up being a playoff team, but I don't think they're gonna I don't think it's like such a fluke that they started 2-0.

So yeah, I think it's a little bit maybe.

The Dolphins win. The Dolphins are the worst team.

They're a pretty bad team. They had a favorable schedule, I guess. And Kirk Cousins has been playing very well.

Yeah.

There's like no, you can't doubt that he's been making some, some great throws and looking like 5 years younger to the point where like the Falcons could probably use Kirk Cousins right now. They probably would love to have Kirk Cousins. The Saints, we're talking about a lot of teams that get off to slow starts. The Saints have not scored a first quarter point in 4 straight games going back to 2025. And they only scored 29 first quarter points last season.

And they just, they, it's maybe it's Shuck is too good where they're like, he'll always save us.

Bail us out. That you got to burn the boats.

That could be a real thing, right?

Never out of it.

it.

Shuck is too good. And they're like, hey, don't worry, we could start really bad and we'll end up good. Shuck will get us there.

Yeah.

Kirk Cousins, like, I mean, he just passed John Elway on the all-time TD list. 6th all-time for passing TDs. Kind of shows you, I mean, he's had a great career. Can't say much. I mean, no, he's made a lot of money and he's played good above average football for a very long time. Yeah. Has he been the top 5 player? No, but it doesn't I mean, he's been very good.

I think he's been a top 15 quarterback for more than 50% of the years of his career, which a lot of guys can't say. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Last game. By the way, I'm going to be Shuck Ladder.

You don't have to say that.

I like that he almost didn't get it. I like that he didn't get it last week so that it's not— otherwise everyone's like, oh, Shuck Ladder all the time. But yes, we will be Shuck Ladder. Rams-Broncos, very excited for this game. Broncos +2.5, over-under 44.5. We got to try to record some of the show early so we can really take this game in. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I think the Rams are— I, I think the Rams are going to win.

I've only got one thought that I've really— like, everything that happened on Monday night we kind of talked about on Wednesday with Rams, but something weird is going on with Puka.

Yeah, there's a lot. I would say a lot weird.

The way that McVay's kind of talked about him in a completely different way than how he's talked about him in the past and how he's talked about other injuries that he's had.

Yep.

There's something going on that, that McVay is doing a good job of keeping in-house.

Yep.

Um, but it's— I don't think this is a normal tweak that, that Puka is going through, and I think there's something else.

And there's something going on with Puka in life too.

Yeah, that's— we don't know what it is.

There's a lot.

It could be the injury might be be worse or more uncertain than he's letting on. It could be there's something in the off-the-field life that he's dealing with, but something— I think there's, there's more iceberg underneath the water than there is above it.

Yeah, he said he's not making great progress.

Hank, something like, we'll welcome him with open arms when he's back, which doesn't seem like something he would say of just like, oh, he's got a psoas strain.

Hank, Did you see Davante Adams purple Taco Bell card?

Elite. So one of 2.

So he's got one of 2. Kevin Hart's got the other one. It is unlimited and he can buy as much Taco Bell as he wants for free. He said he could buy $7 million worth of Taco Bell tomorrow and there's nothing you could do about it. That's incredible.

It's a flex. I wonder if he like, I feel like that's, he probably just, they paid him a lot less for those commercials. Well, gave him the card.

His, the Taco Bell drive-through thing that's in his house is not like a set. He was doing, I think it was Kay Adams' show and it's still there. So I think he's just, they love him and he loves them. He's the number one Taco Bell guy, by the way. Notice purple. Remember Mount Rushmore?

True.

It is purple. That's as purple as purple gets. But yeah, that's—

I mean, I love Taco Bell. It's in my blood, but—

It's kind of a waste on Davante Adams. He's not eating Taco Bell as much as we would eat Taco Bell.

I don't know that I would eat Taco Bell that much with them. I mean, it's, it's—

I would.

As you get older, it's, it's—

They're not giving it to an offensive lineman for a reason.

Yeah.

Fun fact, Bo Nix, 9-1 against NFC teams in his career. The only loss was his first game of his career. So 9 straight games with the end versus the NFC.

I think both teams went undefeated against the other conference last year.

Yeah. So that's something to look for. I also think early— I know it's gonna be a night game, so it's not gonna be as hot, but early season September altitude games, you saw it with the Jaguars kind of fall apart in the second half. Something to watch with there. I'm excited for this game. I'm excited to watch this game. It's gonna be a fun game. Okay. Should we do our picks? We did. We were so bad right now.

I did. I lost. I'll be out.

I won, but I think we went 1 for 3 again. I don't think we've— I think we're like, we might be 1 for 6 in our touchdown.

I think we're 2 for 6. 2 for 6.

2 for 6.

I might, I might bow out because I didn't— I missed mine too.

Okay, so you're back in, Max. DraftKings. DraftKings. The football season is heating up and every week feels bigger with DraftKings. The DraftKings Sports app is now live in all 50 states. That means from Texas to California to Florida, every fan is in on the excitement. Follow the teams you love, keep up with the biggest games, and experience the excitement of football all week long. No matter what game you're watching, you're always connected with one app. One app, every sport, all 50 states. New DraftKings customers sign up with code TAKE, spend just $5, and get $150 in rewards within 14 days. Includes all markets. That's code TAKE in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours.

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I'm gonna run back, uh, Kittle.

I'm gonna go Shuckster, Chris Olave.

Okay, I will go— I'll run back Javonte Williams because he didn't score last.

Okay, I like that.

Let's go, let's win this. And then for picks, Zach, you're up first.

I'm gonna do—

Are you in last, Zach?

Uh, right now, yes.

Okay.

Yep, that is true.

Okay, we, we, uh, I talked to Hank, uh, and AWL did throw out an interesting punishment that we can We can just discuss.

Okay.

One of us would have to be the role of Tate for a weekend and follow Mincy to whatever he wants, which would be hell.

Yeah, that would be interesting. That's an interesting option for sure. Yeah.

Okay.

That's just something to throw out there.

It's fascinating.

Or, or—

oh, never mind.

And then second place follows last place.

Yeah, I was gonna say, what if, what if it's just Mint? What if, what if last place and second place just have to drive to LA for the Super Bowl with Minzy?

Do the cross-country?

Why would he be going to the Super Bowl?

Just to fly back. Just put him on a plane right back.

I don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

But Mincy has to—

whoever comes in second place gets like headphones for like a few hours.

Yeah.

And you still have to do the Mincy thing.

Yeah. And second place gets it. So it gets to book their own hotels. First place has to have— or last place has to have Mincy book the hotels and everything.

And Mincy has a list of stuff he wants to do during the ride there. Different states.

Wait, that would be—

wait, there's a Then whoever finished in first place comes up with a scavenger hunt for that, that car to do on the way there.

You just would— you just wouldn't stay in hotels. You would just sleep in the car. So second place person— I'm just saying this as the person who finishes in second place for this competition every single year. I just know where I'm going to be.

Mm-hmm.

All right. We have a lot of time.

Yeah.

Okay, Zach.

I'm going to go Tempe Bucks +1.5.

Wow. Okay. Must win.

Certainly.

PFT.

I'm going to go with Jameis Winston and the Giants -2.5.

Okay. I am going to take the Jaguars Patriots over.

45.5.

I will take the New England Patriots +3.

I am so happy this got to me. Chiefs -10.5. The Dolphins suck ass. I had the 49ers last week. They won by a millimeter.

True.

They did.

They did.

I have— I'm going head-to-head with Henry. I'm taking Jags -3.

Okay.

And I am taking the over in Jets-Lions, 47.5.

Jets-Lions over. I like that one.

I will just do it. Cowboys-Ravens over 52.5.

Just make it a double, doubleheader for me and Max. I'll take the under 47.5.

What? You guys are going head to head to head to head?

Yep.

It's too early for it to really matter, but that's fun.

Yeah. Were you already doing? All right, sure.

It was, it was, it was on. It was, it was. I didn't love any, any over-unders. That decided for me.

That is very—

I actually like the over in the—

in what one Memes just took in the Chiefs game.

No, in the Cowboys-Ravens.

I'm going to— they want to take Saints -3.

Nope.

I'm taking Saints.

I like that too.

Yeah.

Shock.

I'm going to take the Bengals-Steelers under 42.5.

I'm going to take the Texans-Colts under 42.5.

Okay. Good luck, boys. We'll post those picks. Let's get to our interview with Ari Emanuel, super agent Ari Emanuel.

Before we get to Ari Emanuel, he's brought to you by Pepsi. Football's back. No game day spread is complete without the great taste of Pepsi Zero Sugar. You spend all week thinking about the wings, the nachos, the burgers that you're going to dig into at kickoff, but are you pairing it with the right drink? What are you pairing with a Pepsi? I like to pair pizza with a Pepsi. It's my favorite. Chicken wings with a Pepsi, you name it. Burgers with Pepsi.

I'm thinking a cheesesteak with a Pepsi this weekend.

Cheesesteak with Pepsi sounds real good. Oh, maybe chopped cheese.

Sure.

Pepsi.

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Yeah, it's bold. It's refreshing. Watching your defense make a goal line stand to seal victory is also pretty refreshing. Grab Pepsi Zero Sugar. Elevate your game day. Tailgating deserves Pepsi. Food deserves Pepsi. And Ari Emanuel is also brought to you by Chevy. Football season's here, and whether you're grinding through the week or gearing up for kickoff, there's one ride that's always game ready: the Chevy Silverado. There's a reason that Chevy is called the heartbeat of America, and Silverado keeps that heartbeat strong. Whether you're towing, hauling, or tailgating, Silverado lets you show up strong and tackle any task with best-in-class standard torque, the most functional bed, and the advanced tech. It's football guy Approved. Check out current offers on the 2026 Silverado at chevy.com. That is chevy.com. And now here is Ari Emanuel.

All right. We now welcome on a very, very special guest. He's got a new book out. It is Ari Emanuel in studio. Super agent. Is that how, like, super agent?

Yeah. Yeah.

The number one agent.

Doesn't matter.

His new book, Roll the Calls: A Memoir is out now. Now I'll say this, it is like, I don't think we've ever had an agent on the show.

Oh no, not true.

Who?

Sean Stellato.

Oh yeah, Sean Stellato.

Tommy DeVito was in.

That's right. So there will probably be some of our—

When was that?

That was— That week that Tommy DeVito had a really good game.

Yeah, we struck while the iron was hot.

Soon after that.

So people will probably, our fans will probably be like, why the fuck are they having an agent on? But you are probably the agent, the most interesting agent. Your new memoir, I mean, for people who obviously, I think a lot of people know, But Ari Gold, the Entourage character, was written after you. So now you have a memoir out. Do you name names? Do you go after people in this memoir? Are you letting it all go?

I don't talk about client situations and certain clients. I just don't name them. I just name things that happen or clients that were clients and then no longer and my fuckups. Business people. Yeah, it's, it's really a book about, you know, I grew up in Chicago. My brother was the mayor here.

Yeah.

Moved out to the suburbs. I had dyslexia. I had really 2 bright brothers. And it's a book for parents about if you had a kid that had dyslexia and what happened and how to get through it. And then it's for people starting out in business. Here's what happened to me. here's how I made it. Here's how— I don't know about you guys. I only had Plan A. I didn't have Plan B. When I went out to Hollywood, it was like, either you make it or you're screwed.

Yeah.

And so here's how I did it. You guys will have your own roadmap to do it. But here's some hopefully lessons that helped me. You guys got to just incorporate it into your lives and how you function. And it's okay to announce, I want to, I want to make it.

Yeah.

You know, and, and take ownership of that.

Yeah.

And trade in actions. I think there is something that happens with a lot of people where if they give their full effort and they fail, like, they, you know, you kind of guard yourself where it's like, I don't want to ever give 100% because then when I fail, it's like I have nothing else to give.

Yeah.

Or if you give 75%, you fail, you're like, oh, I could have given more.

But, you know, the funny thing is I don't I don't know when— I have 4 kids, uh, 2 30-year-olds, a 27, almost 28-year-old, and a 24-year-old. In that generation, when I come around, I talk to them, I'm gonna do— I'm doing this and I'm doing that. I like— I didn't have any of that. I just had this.

Mm-hmm.

And maybe it's just because there's more opportunity. Like we just talked, podcasts were 20, 25 years old, and, and then there's other jobs and the social. And no, I just, I just, I wanted to make it as a as somebody in the representation business, and then see where that took me. And it's taken me on a lot of different paths.

Yeah, yeah.

The, the, uh, dyslexia part is interesting to me because I, I think you kind of take ownership of it and you see it— yes, it's something that made you different, but also something that you had that could separate you and allowed you to approach, whether it's problems or just interpersonal relations, it allowed you to see things differently.

You know, Malcolm Gladwell talks about it as a superpower. And if you can get through, which my mom really put upon me to get through and learn how to read, and it was painful emotionally. But once you gain those skills and that emotional stability that you can do something hard, it enables you to be somewhat of a free thinker in a different way than somebody who's linear and reads and that type of thing. There's nothing wrong with that. I would have given my arm to be that type of reader, but it does get you to free think. And when in business, that is actually— you think differently, you think freely, you have different ways of attacking stuff. And that is then, in my opinion, a superpower.

Yeah. I think it's really interesting how that's helped you and turned what might be a weakness some people would look at into a strength. I'm also interested, like, when you go out to Hollywood, you've got this dream. What was your initial dream? Did you say to yourself, I want to be a super agent, or were you just wanting to be involved?

I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I went into There's a company called Creative Artists Agency, CAA.

Mm-hmm.

And at the time, they were run by this guy, Mike Ovitz. And he was— he's on Mount Rushmore of agents, him and this guy Lou Wasserman way before him. And I went into the mailroom because that's where everybody started. The David Geffens of the world, the Barry Dillers of the world, Mike Ovitz, Ron— they all started in the mailroom. And I was driving packages around, making 15 cents a mile. a while. Became an assistant at somebody's desk, became an agent there, and then in the television department because there's a movie department, music department, book department. And then a company broke off and I just said, I don't want to be at a big company. I want to be at— like you guys, I want to be at the startup.

Right.

Went to the startup. That company got bought. Went to this company ICM, International Creative Management. And then this crazy moment happened. I don't know how old you guys are, but I was 32-ish. I'm walking across the street on Wilshire Boulevard crosswalk. I'm 32, and when you're 32, life's— you got plenty of time, healthy as fuck, right? Car hits me. A flatbed truck.

That sucks.

It sucked. I laid on the ground on Wilshire Boulevard. wiggled my fingers, wiggled my toes. All right, I'm not crippled. And I just say to myself then, you know, this shit is not a dress rehearsal. I can't be— I got to figure what I want to really want to do because your life changes.

Right.

And then after rehab and surgery and then rehab, I said to a bunch of friends that were working there, I said, we got to get out of here. We got to start our own business because Because we saw the business landscape changing. A lot more distribution. There was going to be Fox, WB, which was Warner Brothers Network, and CW, which was another network. And there was going to be 6 networks. And in the economy of television, we could put television shows in, we could get equity in the television shows, we could make a lot of money. With more distribution, the cost of guys who create personalities is more valuable.

Yeah.

Did it.

King of the Hill, '70s Show, Ally McBeal had huge hits. Made a lot of money, and then we were off to the races.

So when you get hit—

That's a long story.

Yeah, so when you get hit by the truck, are you working in the mailroom then?

No, no, no. I'm an agent now.

Okay, so you're an agent.

I've left CAA. I've gone to this company, Intertalent.

So you're on your own, so to speak.

And then they get bought by ICM. I'm working at ICM.

Okay.

And it was, in my opinion, a fucked up company. And I just realized This is— I don't want to do this. I think there's a business opportunity because of where the world's going. And there's 4 guys, me and 3 other guys, say, let's come together and let's start this thing. We're really strong in television. Television business is changing and there's a huge opportunity to create economic value for our clients and for ourselves. And we do it and then shit just gets crazy.

So how long were you in the mailroom slash like being an assistant before you become an agent? So what was that? That was just 7 days a week just doing whatever people ask you to do.

You're delivering packages, you're copying packages, you're getting bagels and fruit, and you're puffing pillows in people's offices, you know. And, uh, you're, you're at night, you're delivering packages until all hours, all over the, you know, because you didn't have— you couldn't email somebody a script, you had to deliver the script, right? You're doing coverage.

This is in the early '90s, late '80s, you're saying?

Yeah, this is, uh, late '80s, early '90s. You're doing coverage on scripts, so you're reading the scripts and giving descriptions of, here are the characters, here's the plotline, here's what's good, here's what's bad. That's 7 days a week. And then 6 months, 8 months into that, I get on a desk in television, get on another desk 7 days a week also, and then they make me an agent.

Yeah.

You don't strike me as a guy that eats shit. You don't take a lot from a lot of people. I would imagine that a big part of the job, or part of the job when you're coming up through the mailroom, you have to eat shit sometimes.

Yeah, a lot of shit.

Were you able to do that?

I got through. Because if you want something, at times you do what you got to do.

Yeah, without ruffling the feathers. And then you get—

I wasn't perfect. I was not a very good assistant. I was not great in the mailroom, but I figured it out.

And so you get into the accident. How long were you able to take for yourself to recover? Or were you in the hospital like, I got to help out my client?

No, I was in the office 5 days later. And I blew out this knee, fucked up my hip, broke my ribs, cut open my head. And I had to have surgery on this knee, but I had to go through rehab so that the knee would move so that when I had surgery, it could move properly, that I could repair it properly. So that took 6 months surgery, another 8 months of rehab.

And then Super Agent. Who was the first person to call you Super Agent?

Uh, I don't know if anybody's called me Super Agent.

I did.

Yeah, I've heard it.

So here's what I'd say is, um, to me, when, when that show happened and, you know, Mark Wahlberg was the executive—

Which you sold that show, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you sold that show show and your ego is so big you're like, I need to be in the show.

No, no, no.

So I'm just fucking—

there's a guy by the name of Doug Ellen.

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Wahlberg's manager at the time was this guy, and still is, this guy Steve Levinson. They're partners. And Mark, we go into HBO, and I had a lot of shows on HBO at the time. And, um, Doug Ellen's agent at CAA, my former place, was this guy, um, it doesn't matter what his name is, and And we go in and I tell them, I'm not in the mood for a no, you got to say yes. So they said yes.

That works?

Well, it did work then.

Okay, and that's a good line.

Yeah, we're leaving. This guy Steve Levinson that managed Mark Wahlberg also managed the writer, and they call me up and I said, yeah, it's sold. And he goes, do they want to see my samples? And I said to him, you want me to send the samples in and unsell this? I just sold it.

Right.

Okay. So show happens, and I didn't tell my wife because, you know, there's Mrs. Ari.

Yeah, right.

You know, and he's a guy that— and he never met me. Jeremy Piven never met me.

Okay.

And he did an incredible job. I mean, the guy is hysterical.

Yeah.

And so Yeah, it started, and I go to Wahlberg. This is the worst thing in the world for me because I can't watch the show. It gives me anxiety of everything, like what I look like, and the kind of show was leading, I was following. Sometimes I was leading, it was following. And he turns to me, Wahlberg says to me, you know, this is going to be— when it became— when it was starting to become a hit, he goes, this is going to be the greatest thing that ever happened to you. And I said, I don't see it. Cut to, it was, you know, it opened a lot of doors. People talk about the character all the time now, right? The kids still watch it and call me, and, and I, and I do the stupid hug it out, bitch routine.

Was that, was that true to—

No, I never said that. I never had a Lloyd. I didn't, you know, but it was—

Oh, you definitely had a Lloyd.

I didn't have a Lloyd.

You had an assistant that you probably bullied.

No, there wasn't, there wasn't a Lloyd.

Was the rage real? Because I've read obviously enough about you, like, that the, the Ari Emanuel rage is how a lot of things sometimes get done. It's like, if you get a call from Ari Emanuel, you— like, most of the time he's gonna have to just ream you out.

No.

And then shit gets done.

Well, Cormac McCarthy once said, rage is there to help you kind of settle, get to an answer properly.

Okay.

You know, without rage, you're just dealing with grief and A lot of my relationships, good and bad, have been clarified by rage and how that exchanged. But I'm not always rageful.

Okay.

Yeah.

But you have—

I do have— I, I did have, and I at times I still have enough of it to—

Right.

Yeah.

You know that if they interviewed Ari Gold and they did like another season of Entourage, they asked him about Lloyd, he— his answer would be like, I— who's Lloyd? Yeah, I never, I never had a guy named Lloyd.

But I was—

that would be, that would be your answer.

Yeah, we Before we started, you were sitting taking a phone call, and you did give me a little peek of it where you were just like— I don't know who you were talking to, but you're like, I want my fucking 10%. You actually said that while I was sitting right here.

Yeah.

And I was like, well, that's pretty cool, right? Yeah. So you're gonna get your fucking 10%.

I'm definitely gonna get my— I'm gonna get my pound of flesh.

Yeah, right. All right, so, so speaking of the rage, can you tell the story about when you're leaving CAA? Because that's like a famous one, right? With when, when you have to tell Michael Ovitz Right. That you're leaving and starting a competitor and him being like, I'm going to fuck you over. And you're like, no, I'm going to fuck you over.

So I've decided to leave to go to this new startup that broke off some from CAA, some from ICM, led by this guy Bill Block, who's a dear friend now. And they're recruiting me and I say yes. And I have to go in and let Mike Ovitz know. And I used to play basketball with a guy that was also an assistant there, had not become an agent yet, and I was an agent. And as a friend, you say to him, hey, I'm just letting you know. We play basketball a lot. We hang out a lot. He went to Northwestern. I'm leaving. No big deal. We'll still be friends. I'm not telling him I told you. It was during President's Day, actually. He calls me up 5 o'clock. the next morning as I'm going in, he says, I just had to tell him.

Oh!

I go, what? That was actually an episode. That is a storyline I gave on Entourage. I said, what are you talking about? He goes, I just had to tell him.

Yeah, because he's probably trying to get a leg up with Mike Lobitz.

No, he did.

He got promoted.

Yeah, right, of course.

And I just said, fuck you, and I hung up. So I go in and they know. Now this startup was actually getting a little traction, this thing that I was going to, this company called Intertalent. And I'm scared shitless because it's Mike Ovitz. I mean, at the time, he was God in the business.

Mm-hmm.

He won't see me, I told his assistant. And I just walk in, I just burst into his office. And I said— he goes, I can't see you right now. And I just turned to him, and I had no idea where these balls came. I said, I'll be back in 10 minutes and you'll deal with me then.

I leave.

10 minutes later, I come back. He's in there with the head of HR and head of business affairs and one of the heads of the television business, this guy named Lee Gabler. And, you know, they're sitting— the 2 guys are standing behind his desk. He's sitting at his desk. And he does does the Mike Ovitz on you, like, you're not going to make it in this town. I'm going to make sure. And I'm like, my parents grew me up like, nobody threatens you. And he was kind of threatening me. And I'm a pimple on the ass of an ant at this point in the business.

Mm-hmm.

And I just stand up, put my hand— there was an opening in the back— put my hand inside the chair, and I said, are you threatening me? Kind of hold up, and it was my only move. I had no other moves. And meeting ended because I was getting kind of heated.

So you're holding a chair being like, I'm gonna do something with this chair.

I'm gonna fuck this up.

I'm gonna fuck it up.

And you don't even know what you're gonna do with the chair.

I don't know.

I'm gonna fuck this office up. And he had the feng shui beautiful office. And he's Mike Ovitz. And so meeting ends. It was my only move. I leave. I don't even know if it was a move actually.

No, you're right.

It's your only move.

Yeah.

chair.

Yeah, fuck that.

I'm not getting threatened.

This is a red— this is a guy who loves wrestling.

Just grab a chair, you know, hit the red button.

Yeah.

And I leave, and everything turned out okay.

And he didn't try to ruin your life?

Well, I think he probably did. I didn't even know. I was so small in the business. How would I know?

But do you think he, like, sneaky respected— did you ever have another meeting with him?

He and I are friends now.

Yeah, but did he— would he be like, hey, that chair move really scared the fuck out of me?

We've never— we've never addressed it. He, you know, he's had us in, you know, as I said, he's on Mount Rushmore. And we and I, he and I are friends now. And, uh, he, by watching him, just by osmosis, you, you learned a ton. And his partner Ron Meyer, you learned a ton. And his other partner Bill Haber, you learned a ton. And, um, yeah, I mean, it's, it, it's, the relationship is great now. How many, how many of those people He became a manager with this guy, Rick Yorn. He left Disney, starts this company called— I think it was called The Firm. And the guys that took over CAA, the 3 guys that took over CAA, they got into a beef because he started a management company. And so they start fighting. And at one point, I think I said to him, I guess we're going to war And I sent him like 10 mattresses, like from The Godfather, like we're going to the mattresses, right? And I sent— delivered to the offices were 10 mattresses. It was really funny. So yeah, we're, we're good now.

So how many of those people— like, you have enemies through the years— how many become friends again? And are there still people, like, if you saw them at a restaurant, right, it's like you're giving them eyes, they're giving you eyes?

Yeah.

Are there still those relationships?

Yeah.

Are they in the book?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Who? Give me one of them. One guy who's just like, if I see him, I'm, you know, we're not speaking and we might be—

There's a guy by the name of Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Okay. And he's just—

Yeah. I mean, there's just— I don't know. It's not my thing.

Okay. And there's other guys that like, you'll be in the same room with them and you're just like, I don't know.

I mean, you know, it's not like I'm mad. I just— I don't agree with with those situations. I don't agree with the situations. We're— you do your thing, I do my thing. Yeah, no, I, I don't care.

Yeah, our boss, uh, Dave Portnoy, keeps a list of some of those people.

Yeah.

And celebrates when he sees that he has defeated them.

Bottles of champagne.

Yeah, I mean, I, I, I don't do that, but, you know, a phrase I like is revenge is best served cold. You know, there's been a lot of people in my life that have said, you're stupid, you're not going to make it. And okay, I'm just going to work really hard. I'm going to show that I'm smart at what I do, and time will tell.

How much of your—

And I should get better at that. I'm trying to get better at it.

No, it's probably what makes you great.

I'm not mature enough yet. No, you shouldn't. You should not get better at that. It's good that you say that you want— I think that's like a good thing to say.

Yeah, that's bullshit. Yeah, it's bullshit. How much of your, uh, motivation drive comes— I, I, I don't know your relationship with, with your brothers, but they're obviously like, you know, Rahm was the mayor of Chicago and, and deep in politics. Your other brother is a world-renowned, uh, doctor, right? And it's like, was there ever— was that feeling in your household of like, oh, Ari's just an agent, like, what is that? You know, like, that's not, that's not politics or medicine.

Well, here's what I'd say, It was, you know, doing well in school was like paramount in my house. You walk in, grades go on the refrigerator as you walk in. A+, A+, B-, C+. So, you know, I'm dyslexic. These guys are really smart. I'm smart, but, you know, back then dyslexia, nobody understood it completely.

Mm-hmm.

My mom made sure that I could read. Everybody said certain things. My mom said, you're going to college, you're graduating, everything. There was always 3 boys. I don't know how many brothers or sisters you got here. Healthy competition, but we completely were ride or die for each other.

Yeah.

And, um, but as you notice, one's in Washington, right? One's in Chicago, one's on the West Coast, and in completely different businesses.

Yeah.

So that's what it should be, right? Yeah, right. And at the time, coming into my household and saying, I'm going to go to the mailroom and make 15 cents a mile. Fuck yeah, there was a lot of ribbing.

Right.

Yeah. And my father, who was an immigrant, like, you're not going to go get your graduate degree?

You're not going to be a doctor or something?

Doctor, no. A lawyer?

What are you doing? Yeah.

But it all—

I would imagine that's part of the drive.

Yeah.

Proving them all wrong.

Trying to get your own identity in that family. And I think all of us had it is one of the motivating factors.

Are you still competitive against them right now?

It's not competitive. We're all successful. My brother Zeke is the vice provost. He's an oncologist, health policy, probably one of the best in the world. I don't think there's— if my brother runs for president, I don't think there's a better candidate with more experience across all aspects of politics.

That sounds like he's going to run for president.

Yeah, it would be great for the country. It would be incredible for the country. He's gone through everything that's possible, '08 financial crisis, Obamacare. I mean, you could go through all of what he's done. And I do my thing.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a pretty successful family, I would say.

Yeah.

I read that you don't say goodbye on phone calls ever.

No.

Because that's— you've never—

You know, I do say goodbye. That's not true. But there's times like, you know, it's— it— you're rocking and rolling and conversations ended. I have this thing now going on with this woman Dana Walden and this woman Bella. Dana Walden's from Disney and Head of Content, and Bella Bajaro actually from Netflix where you guys are. And, and we have this whole thing, and I've known them for a long time. And it's like, we don't— I don't say goodbye. And now they're getting back at me. They hang up on me more now than I hang up on them. And it's fucking pissing me off.

You took the upper hand.

They learned your move.

They are kicking my ass on this move.

Yeah.

So it's just the conversation's over.

You don't have time to say goodbye. It's all bullshit. We're just trying to get a deal done or move on or talk about an issue. It's very funny now though.

Yeah, it is funny that they take your move, which you didn't ever think of as a move. As a move.

And now you recognize it when it's happening.

They're getting it done.

One thing that I think I have to give you a lot of credit for is having the foresight in terms of live sports being at a premium. When you kind of saw that coming, what, 20 years ago or so?

15 years ago? So we buy IMG. It's William Morris, Patrick Whitesell, and myself. We get We take control of William Morris. Then this company, this investment company Silver Lake comes in because this guy Teddy Forsman had passed away. He was a friend and he owned this company IMG. I had a relationship with this guy Egon Durban, who's an incredible investor, like the best. I think he's the best. And he makes an investment Patrick and I take over William Morris and he says— and we had this idea, Patrick and I, to go after IMG. And he says, I want to invest in you and then I want to go after IMG because then you have a global company in sports, in live events, in movies and television and music. And it would be the first kind of global footprint in entertainment. And he's had the same vision we've needed. Distribution is expanding, new forms of content, global. Great. I didn't think it was going to happen, but it happened. We get that deal done. And we were doing everything for sports, negotiating deals, doing production, representing licensing, everything. The only thing we didn't have is we didn't own a sport.

Well, as you guys know, you can't own the NFL.

Right.

You can't own the NBA. You can't own English Premier League. You can't own a lot of stuff. So we had a strategy that the thing we should be, because of what we do, and this is what Egon said also, and he was 100% right, because you already negotiate all the economics, instead of taking 10%, we should own the whole thing. So when the UFC, who we represented, came up for sale, And I represented Dana and the Faditas and did all their business. We went for it. And that was in 2016. And at the time, we paid $4.2 billion. And everybody thought, I don't know if you guys remember this, that was the craziest number ever.

Right.

And they also said that about us buying IMG. NBC, which in hindsight, even though it didn't own the sport, it was in the sports business, they were blowing us up like we're nuts. And it was like those 2 were the cheapest acquisitions in the sports media. And we just saw where the Netflix and the Amazons and all these guys were going, that they were going to have to keep viewers. They were going to have to get into sports and turn it into advertising.

Right.

There's so little now. that everybody watches at the same time that unfolds live.

And it's the greatest, as we all know, it's the greatest reality show of all time. You don't know that—

you don't know what's gonna happen.

Yeah, yeah.

And so we saw that, we bought bull riding, PBR.

Nice.

And then COVID happened. We got it up on its feet with Fight Island.

And what's the story behind Fight Island? I've been hearing—

number one, it's not an island. You fucked us over.

That sound like it was that your idea?

So here's what happened. So here's what happened. The world's shutting down. It's a beach. The world's shutting down. We're having to fire a ton of people at William Morris, at IMG. We bought this thing On Location, which does the Super Bowl and a bunch of live, kind of high-end premium events. We're taking everything down to the studs. My partner, also Mark Shapiro, is doing that. We had almost gone public. failed. So yeah, we had just made this big deal at ESPN, and if we didn't get UFC back on its feet, the company's— it's over. Dana calls me and everybody's freaking out. Can you do fights? Are you gonna kill people because of COVID And, you know, Disney's freaking out. And Dana just said, no fucking way we're putting fights on, because we had fighters in Europe, we had fighters in the United States, we had fighters in Russia and all that region. And, you know, we have to find a way to get fights on. So he calls me and he says the following, and to his credit, man, the guy's an animal. He says, get me an island. I mean, who says that?

Yeah, well, I only know one guy.

Yeah, there's some people.

Yeah. So I pick up the phone to our friends and partners in the Middle East and in the UAE, and a really good, an incredible partner, incredible friend for a lot of years, this guy called Dune in Abu Dhabi. And I said, I have to figure out how to get an island and put on fights and get all the testing done, fighters in, testing, testing, people there. And he says, I have an island for But it's not an actual island.

Yeah, it's just a beach.

Yeah, right.

You think we had maps?

Yeah.

And he says, here's what we'll do. He gets me on with his people. We get to everything we're going to do, all the testing, the planes, the testing people there, everything. And we just put on months of fighting. And at the time, I don't know if you guys remember, there was no sports.

Yeah, no.

thing. And we put on 2— we have— we put on, I think, like 2 months or 3 months of fights. We had also put on PBR. We had figured that out. And that was kind of the only things on TV. And the sport then exploded after that. And so that's what happened.

Yeah.

And this, you know, our partners in the UAE were incredible. He was incredible. Dana and the team were like Lawrence Epstein and Hunter And everybody was unbelievable.

So yeah, it was, it was very smart. And I guess you showed a lot of foresight knowing that the way things were going with streaming sports was going to be— it's going to be the one thing everyone's gonna be watching live, the kind of the, the one last remaining bit of like uniculture that we might have where we can all as Americans like tune into this together from now until like 20 years from now. Where do you see— what's the next trend that's going to change the industry as we get into Like 2030s, 2040s?

You know, I don't know what's— I think there's an underlying form of technology, 6 Wi-Fi coming, which is different from what we currently have, more bandwidth. I don't know what that's going to do as it relates to streaming and people being able to own things. You then simultaneously have this thing, AI, where the cost of production on the movie and television situation is coming down to a really interesting number. There's going to be some dislocation, which is unfortunate, but we'll have to deal with that.

AI actors and actresses. I saw that one interview.

AI as it relates to, let's just say, the below-the-line production costs, a bunch of stuff is going to come down. How that affects the movie, television, sports, The implications are pretty big. And then, you know, how big is your reach in social across the whole platform here?

Barstool?

Yeah.

I mean, it's millions and millions.

Same thing with Kim Kardashian and Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson and Dana White. So you become, if you can handle advertising and sponsorship, You could become your own broadcast network.

Yeah, so it's kind of what we do here.

Yeah, exactly. So then people like me are gonna adapt, saying, wait a second, we have to help people monetize this concept. And so I think it's gonna be a pretty interesting next 20 years, how it plays itself out. We just have to think through that and, and be prepared for a different way to quote-unquote what we decide now as broadcasting. And you guys are at the forefront of that, and I think that's gonna continue to morph.

Yeah.

With costs changing, technology baselines changing. And so that's actually the really exciting thing, I think, because I think there's gonna be huge opportunity for what— you guys are now a brand.

Yeah.

And your ability to reach an audience and the monetization formula will shift.

Yeah. I mean, we're—

You're seeing it.

Listen, we feel at least confident we're too dumb for AI in that AI can't replicate how stupid we are.

That's what I say with my new company. I have this events company called Mari. Elon said to me, the only thing that's not going to be dislocated is live sports, live music, and dumb people. Live events. Because this is a live event.

Yeah.

And we're social animals. Probably it's a 4-day work week for most people. I mean, Bernie Sanders wants to be 36 hours only. Europe, some countries are only 4 days. So Thursday is Baby Friday. I like that.

Baby Friday.

My son Leo told me that. Don't let Hank hear that.

Holy shit.

My youngest son.

Baby Friday.

My youngest son who works at Polymarket said that to me. And I said, because people go out now Thursday night, they book hotels, they're traveling, they're doing— right? And so you got Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday And people are getting into the office on Monday at 11 o'clock. So the weekend—

Where is this that you're describing?

All over the world now, when you look at all the data points. So we're gonna have more time. We're social animals. We're gonna need more stuff, entertainment to consume and music and sports. And I think that— I think the entertainment, music, sports is just gonna explode.

Yeah.

Is there a specific talent Is there a talent or show or project that you passed on to represent or sell that you're like, goddamn it, I missed that one? I assume there's a talent that you met with or was in your orbit.

You know, I, I've been lucky. I represent some incredible people and I've been—

So you didn't miss on anyone?

No, I'm good.

Are you closed for business right now?

No.

Like, how many people do you—

No, I'm in the middle right now.

You got to get your 10% from whoever you're talking to.

I'm trying to sign this guy out of New York, this incredible writer-director. There's talent that I'm going after that I think— just in the representation business.

Right.

Yeah. And I just was on the phone with Larry David. There's a Jonah Hill situation. I was on the phone with Aaron Sorkin, who's got the new Facebook movie coming out. I'm having a blast there.

So you are currently— you're always looking for new people?

Yeah. Something I see that I love. Yeah.

What about when it comes to like pitching someone to represent them? There's obviously a belief that, you know, agents are kind of slimy and, you know, you can't trust them.

How am I doing?

I'm asking, what do you say to that? Like, if you were trying to represent me— Listen, I'm just saying, like, would people say that?

He's not answering the question.

No, I do think there There's definitely something to be said for like, if you are a creative and then you have to give away 10%, that sucks.

But here's what I would say to you is, here's what agents do. If a client, and that takes many different forms, podcasters now, writers, directors, social, you have a dream, an idea, a vision of something you want to say. You want somebody that has the wherewithal and the fortitude to see that through, find a place for you to do that, make you the most amount of money, kind of deal with the conflicts that come up and give you really good business advice and see it all the way through. That is as much as what you guys do is an art form because people like it and it's a business. That is a real art form and it takes a lot of skill. And I don't think that's scummy. I think that's a beautiful thing. And when that relationship works with an artist, it's an incredible relationship that can really benefit both sides. And people pay me and the agency I work for and the agency I founded 10% because over 100 years, because we do good, do good job, and we do good, give good advice. And I'm proud of that, and I'm proud of all the people that work with me.

And it's a skill set.

Yeah.

So I don't think it's scummy at all.

No, it's a really good answer for a slimy agent. Really good answer. You've done well with that. No, there's definitely— I mean, there's, there is a—

there's some—

no, there's a—

there's some guys on Ventura Boulevard that probably are scummy.

No, no, listen, I, I, I understand, like, being in our world and having to deal with some of the business sides. Like, there are definitely times where, like, I'm, I'm over my skis when it comes to business and—

right—

and, and cutthroat things and being the bad guy. And, like, having someone who can be the bad guy for you is very important and get you the creative freedom and the things that you want.

And as you know, there are times when there's crazy conflict And disagreements. And one of the jobs is navigating that.

Yeah.

And getting everybody comfortable in the gray area of that relationship. That one, you get to express yourself creatively and you also make enough money. And 2, they feel like they're heard.

They got a good side of the deal too.

Correct.

Have you ever had a moment where you're like, I've gone soft? Where you look back and you're like, shit. I wasn't like peak Ari. I kind of let them off the hook.

There was a negotiation. There was a writers' strike a couple of years ago, and they were saying like, you're not going to get the best price if you're doing this and this and this. And I said to myself, I said it maybe to one of the executives at the Writers Guild, I said, you know, I never saw my face in the dictionary that says, get the least amount of money for my client. That was not not the definition under my face. No, I mean, I believe, and I say it in the book, I was taught this by this incredible business affairs person at Warner Brothers in the day of Friends and everything. And I was negotiating with him and I was a pipsqueak and he was the head business affairs guy at Warner Brothers. And he goes— I said, this is not fair. And he said— and I'm in Beverly Hills— he goes, drive out to the valley. I get into his office and he goes, young man, fair's where we end up. And as an agent, you try and get to a fair place for both sides. And that is a good deal.

You don't start at fair.

No, of course not.

Yeah, right.

Because wherever you end up is fair.

Right.

What if you start at a point where you anchor the negotiation too far in the unfair category? Like, and somebody calls you out.

Well, here's the call they don't counter, then you look like a schmuck.

Yeah.

You know, and like, no, I'm not doing that. And it depends on how much leverage you have. You know, do they need it? How much do they need it? You have to read those situations. You have to convince the client that's a crazy ask if you believe in staying and why and understand all those little subtleties.

I have kind of like a macro sports-related question for you because we, you know, we pay attention to the business dealings in sports, but I wouldn't say that we're necessarily like experts on it.

on it.

And one thing that's been in the news a lot recently is private equity getting involved in—

Yeah.

Whether it's professional sports or—

Yeah.

Like college sports. But I understand that the teams are getting too expensive where we're running out of people to buy a team that don't already have one. So you have to open it up to international investors, private equity funds, you name it. But across the board, it seems like private equity is seen as a big net negative for fans, for the fans of sports.

Why?

Because their goal in the entire relationship is to maximize profit.

So is everybody.

For the company. Not necessarily like—

That's not true. I think everybody's— everybody's—

I disagree.

You do?

I do.

All right, so explain to me who's not looking to make profits?

Well, everyone's looking to make profits.

Okay, yeah, yeah. So private equity's bad for the consumer?

You have to have a business.

Why?

I understand that.

What do you mean?

I'm asking why. I'm just—

I want to know your thought process on it.

My thought process is that you look— private equity tends to look around the margins where they can spend less money, decrease costs, increase profits. And that typically, more often than not, has resulted in the consumer paying more and it feeling like it's less about—

I think that's contingent on the industry.

Yeah, but we have less chicken in our burritos at Chipotle because of private equity.

Well, I don't know.

I don't know.

No, no, that's a fact. No, no, they nerfed it.

Ari, they nerfed it. I don't eat that.

Yeah, right.

But guys like us, because there's guys that eat that and we know that private equity comes in and they cut all the margins and then we have a worse product.

There might be private equity that has come in and done that. And that—

I think a lot of them.

Okay, great. Yeah, I have dealt with private equity and I said I dealt with Egon Durban and Silver Lake. They're incredible businessmen. They run it for long term. And, and I know a lot of private equity that do this. So I don't know that situation at Chipotle or any of the other places you're talking about, but I think what's happening now is private equity is coming in there. I think it's going to be because you have pretty good commissioners, both at baseball, hockey, Adam, Roger, that are very smart. And they will put, to kind of address your issue, that they— chisel on the economics and make the product— but I think they will put the proper guardrails in if they're going to permit private equity coming for more than— I think right now the cap at the NFL is 10% and in the NBA is 20%. I don't remember all the caps. I think they will put guardrails in to make sure that the product is not diminished.

I think they are.

Yes. I believe.

I think that if you're talking about is, uh, is the quality of play— are the athletes getting better in sports?

Like, for—

crazy.

The answer is yes. The answer is yes across the board.

Every sport, I think.

But I, I think you and I are talking about different things in terms of like, is it improving? From my point—

What do you mean by—

you mean—

So from a fan's perspective, um, it is harder for a family to go to a baseball game than it was when I was a kid because of ticket prices and stuff and food and everything, everything across the board. And it does seem like a lot that is, you know, not all private equity. There's certainly some teams that are run by owners that—

Incredible.

They will do anything to just try to make money. And in baseball especially, you don't, you don't have to have a good team to make money in baseball is the dirty secret that got out a little bit ago. But I think that what I'm speaking about is the game day fan experience or just being a fan, the amount of money you have to pay to get the games at home. Yeah, it's driven by people that are, like you said, like focused on making that profit, whereas before it wasn't always that case where there were teams that were run by owners who, sure, they want to— you have to make money. It's a business. You have to make money or else good luck. Your team's not going to be good and you're going to have to sell it. Forget about it. Not going to work. But making money was less. And I don't think it was at the forefront. I'm not even saying it wasn't number one concern. But what I'm saying is it is one of a concern that was also weighed across the board with we have to make sure that our fans have a good experience because we love this sport and we the tradition of it more so than we love looking at our balance sheet at the end of the year.

Here's what I would say. I don't like generalizing about private equity. The experience I've had with private equity has been really great.

You're a vegetarian.

You don't eat prosciutto. I might be one of one. But again, I would say Silver Lake is incredible.

But you've made a lot of money with them, I'd assume.

I've made them a lot of money, and they have backed every play, and they have made me a lot of money.

That is one thing that if I'm looking at like the big picture of American sports, because we're This podcast, this whole company in itself is a large byproduct of us being fans and of like a fanatic—

Listen, I can't argue. This is what you're feeling.

Yeah.

But I also think that we're in danger of losing a lot of that over the course of the next 20 years because people will think that they're the product or they're getting wrung out for every dollar. And that's, that's, you know, what looks like is a cash cow right now. And it probably is, might start to dry up.

Well, here's what's going on. I'll just— let's pull back. Here's what I believe is going on. As we just said, AI's coming, 4-day work weeks. They want to, in addition to investing in AI and data centers and all that crap, right? They realize live is the place where people are going to have to go. So then they're switching. One, they get a tax break when they own something. There's a lot of financial engineering that's happening.

Yeah.

No question, that's true. And they don't know how to invest and the prices have gone up. They've raised a lot of money as values have gone up. So they buy it at X, it goes to Z, they're raising money in their funds, they can mark that up. There's a whole process to it. I agree with that. But I do think Adam Silver, Roger Goodell are understanding the possibilities that you're talking about and the need for the fan experience.

Yeah.

I don't know if they have the answer, but they definitely— I know Roger has. I've talked to Adam. Adam has. So there's going to be a balance. They're going to get it wrong sometimes. They're going to get it right sometimes. What, for me, on a completely crazy one, I think the athletes are getting unbelievable. If the Lakers are worth $12.5 billion, and Josh is a really good guy, Bob Iger's a really smart guy, loves basketball. I said to everybody, I just said this on CNBC, with David Faber and Mark Shapiro, my partner. I have 4 leagues. What is a league worth? What is the UFC? What's the WWE? What's our boxing business? What's that worth if a team is worth this? So, in a weird selfish way, I'm like, knock yourself out over there.

Yeah.

I don't want the bad fan experience to be horrible. I do not. Because I'm a huge fan, you know? And I'm now an owner, a piece of the Raiders. So, but I'm like saying to myself, if a team's worth that, what's my league worth? Right. You know? And right.

So do you go to meetings with Mark Davis?

I've been in. Yeah. Mark's great.

He's the man. We got to get him on our show. He's our white whale.

Okay.

Yeah.

Is he the most famous person?

I will call him right after this. Love that.

Can he call now?

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

I don't know if I can get him on the phone.

Yeah.

Try to, try to. Really? You love Mark?

We've seen him multiple times and asked him to come on the show. Every time. I don't know if he knows what podcast or—

he said, he said sure a couple times.

Yeah.

But I think what you should do is have him and Egon on the show.

Yeah, but he's— yeah, PF Chang's with Mark Davis is our dream lunch.

Yes, we will, we'll fly to him.

And text him right now.

Yeah.

Okay.

I think you should call him.

I'm not doing that on the—

well, if you're, if you're the super agent that gets deals done, I think you would call.

If I get this, I just want you every week, buy the book, buy the book.

Yeah, we'll say it. I'll say it.

I'll give you—

if you get us Mark Davis in-person interview, I will, I will tell everyone that I see for the rest of my life, buy the book.

Mark Davis and Egon on the show. the show because I know Egon listens to the show.

Okay, okay.

How about this? How about we do a PF Chang's live interview with Mark Davis?

Okay.

And you get 10%. Whatever the bill is, we're giving you 10%.

Yeah. All right, wait, so, so the— can I ask a question about the Lakers real quick?

Yeah.

And you might be too close to it, so you might not be able to answer. What, what is going on with this situation, the Mark Walters thing? Because that, that was $10 million, then it was $12.5 million a year later. You just say I— or $12.5 billion, because you just mentioned $12.5 billion. I think that's what the number that they But there's no way it went up $2.5 billion in a year.

Yes, it is.

No.

Yes.

Yes.

It's not people helping other people out in a jam?

No, I don't know anything except what I read, and I don't know if that's true.

I don't believe that.

I don't know. I really don't know the Mark Davis situation.

Or Mark Walter.

I mean, Mark Walter. I have no idea. Yeah, I've read every article that there is to read. There's the Dodgers situation, there's the Formula 1 situation, there's this history, there's the WNBA situation. I don't know what's going to happen, but I do know that Josh Kushner and Bob Iger, 2 incredible human beings, got the Lakers for $12.5 billion.

Yeah.

He bought it for $10. He sold that there's stuff around it, I don't know.

Yeah.

So, I mean, everybody's value of everybody's team went up.

Yeah, that's— it's a money glitch right now. Every team, no team has gone down.

You know, in my events company, we own the Miami Open in tennis. And I don't know if you're a tennis fan. I'm a tennis fan.

We are.

That's what I do. Hey, you know, it's the 3rd most watched sport in the world.

In the world.

world, 10th most monetized, tennis.

That seems like you're underperforming.

Well, we're going to get to perform. And I said to my guys, because owning a 1,000, which is Miami and Madrid, is like owning the Cubs and the Red Sox. It is. I'm like, reprice that thing. Move that equity up. You know, so it's crazy. It's now— I agree with you, like, how this, like, it just like turned on and the prices went, right?

Yeah, yeah. It's just like, if— yeah, from an outsider perspective, it's somewhat suspicious, correct, that it happened so quickly. Yeah, when I do understand, because I think if you buy a team, you're probably— you're not looking to sell it within a year. Yeah, for at least—

well, yeah, here's—

I think also what you're hoping, that it's— and I think I don't to read into it behind the scenes, because I love sports. You guys love sports. You just don't want it to be a financial transaction.

Yeah.

You want it to be the love of sports. I grew up with my grandfather watching the WWF, Crusher and the Bruiser here. I was a wrestler in high school. I love the UFC. I've represented it for 26 years now. I've owned it since 2016. I've become a fan of bull riding. I love boxing. I love our sports. And so, and I get to make money and, and, and, and I'm blessed. But you don't want somebody just like, I, I bought it for 10, I sold it for 12.5. You know, that, that, that, that, that, that ruins the experience just generally.

And also just like someone who buys it and doesn't have any connection to the city or like to make it better.

But I would say the And you might not think this is good as a Cub fan. I don't like it. And hopefully it doesn't cause a strike in baseball.

Well, I think a strike's coming, but yeah.

I agree.

Also, we did have Scott Boras on. I screwed up.

You're sitting there. He did an incredible job. Take the Lakers out. He has done an incredible job with the Dodgers. Now that might have— that situation might have caused the strike.

Yeah.

We also— yeah. I mean, I guess we don't know. know where the money is and what's going on. I feel like there's some, some things that we might find out. But yeah, he has— he— every, every fan of any sport wants their owner to try to win a championship, and he has tried to. He has done that time and time again. Yeah, that's a fact.

Yeah, that's like old Yankees. Yeah, when Steinbrenner owned it, you know.

Yeah, you know, player they want, and those guys take them.

Like Steinbrenner, great for sports.

Yeah, he loves the game.

Yeah, and also evil. Like, the— you do need good and evil sports. You need the team that everyone's going after. And so I think that NBA is in a weird spot right now, actually, because they wanted parity so bad. And dynasties are what make the NBA, you know, and it doesn't— it doesn't exist.

It could happen if he can stay healthy. I think he's only getting better, Wemby.

Yeah. Well, he's got to win one first.

I know.

Yeah.

But he's only been in the league 2 years and he's so young.

Kind of choked last year.

That was a crazy pass.

Yeah. What did Skip call him? Uh, victim Wemby.

Victim.

He— what is he, 20?

Yeah.

No, he's gonna be great. This is us doing like you did your spiel about not being a slimy agent. This is us doing our— where we're just giving out hot takes for no reason. Like, Wemby's a choker.

Yeah.

A Frenchman can never win.

That's the point of this show.

No French guy in San Antonio will ever win an NBA championship.

How many MVPs have now come from international?

A lot.

A lot. It's actually the last— yeah, it's been a long time.

I have a, uh, like another big picture question, but about the entertainment industry when it comes to movies. Uh, why don't we make original comedy movies anymore?

Yes.

Well, I will say the following. Mark Wahlberg has an original comedy coming out. Incredible. Incredible, hysterical.

You represent him?

Yeah, I represent Mark.

Oh, okay. So yeah, it's incredible.

And how am I doing this? Yeah, I'm the scummy agent representing him.

Best movie ever.

When did you watch it?

And then, uh, I watched it 3 months ago, and I think I represent him too. Jonah Hill at Warner's.

He's got an incredible movie coming too?

An incredible— wow, can you imagine?

And so, um, I guess what I'm asking is, big picture, why it harder for original comedy scripts to get funded, maybe unless they have a giant name attached to them?

Here's what I'd say to you. We had COVID for 4 years. We had a writer's strike for 2. Things were just streaming, and that's where people were, and that's how the business was going, just because they weren't able to get to the theaters or whatever. You've now seen an uptick in ticket price— I mean, in theater and attendance and I think you're going to see a lot more comedies coming out.

Okay.

Okay.

All right. So this has been awesome. Thank you for coming.

It's been incredible.

Go buy Roll the Calls, a memoir out now. Go buy it because we want to interview Mark.

I'm just hoping, Mark.

Yes, we got to get— we got to get—

I promise I got to— I got to get this because I want that book right there. Listen, for at least 5 months.

Yeah.

That's a good start to the negotiation. I'm actually not going to respond to that.

Yeah, the— our fans listen to Ride or Die. So like, if we're— if it means that we can get a Mark Davis, P.F. Chang's interview, they'll—

you'll go out to Vegas, wouldn't you?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

In a heartbeat.

In a heartbeat.

All right. So last question, Roback question, rhoback.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback.com, promo code TAKE. It's coming from Zach. Do not steal Zach from us.

Never.

Zach is an upcoming star in this business.

Okay.

Zach, hit me.

How are we doing today, sir? I did have a quick question. With you representing people across, like, you know, all aspects of sports and entertainment, did the— is your ability to, like, build common ground and rapport with essentially people from all sorts of different backgrounds, is that something that kind of came naturally or something you had to work towards throughout your career?

It was pretty easy.

Pretty easy?

Yeah.

That's awesome.

People person.

How am I doing?

No, you're doing great. Yeah.

Never met you, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

No, just don't let anybody know. You know, I thought you guys were gonna get mad at me.

For what?

You know, I started this podcast called Rushmore.

Oh, that's right.

I thought this— I was gonna get a question from you guys. Kick the shit out of me.

I'm glad you brought that up though.

Yeah.

We invented Mount Rushmore.

I know you did. I actually tip my hat to you.

Thank you.

I've taken it to the next level.

Yeah, Rushmore.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, well, you'll see, you'll get a cease and desist from us coming right up. We'll fight you in court.

Zach's actually also our lawyer.

Yeah. Yeah.

Not practicing right now, but you never know. I did have a quick follow-up. Obviously, tons of hard work goes into success like that you're having, but what would you consider your biggest miss?

I just— he just asked me that question.

It's okay.

I'm—

I mean, on a client or just generally?

I'd like to apologize in general for that.

No, no, don't apologize.

Yeah, never apologize.

Because he—

because— Never apologize.

Good question.

Good Good question, because— You just gotta pay attention.

No, no, no, but Ari skated out of the biggest miss question. He said, oh, I've never missed.

No, I didn't say I never missed.

You're like Lenny Dykstra picking spots.

No, I didn't say I never missed. I said, you know, I represent who I'm supposed to represent, and I, and I'm really proud of it.

There's got to be a miss.

There's not a miss.

There's got to be a miss.

No, there's not a miss.

A trend that blindsided you.

Yeah. Something.

Something you were late to. You're like, damn, I wish I I listened and saw that thing earlier.

I didn't see Beanie Babies coming.

Matt and Trey.

Okay.

South Park.

Yeah, those guys are—

I represent them now.

Okay.

Uh, I think it was at— it was either at Toronto or Sundance. It was in a hotel room. Somebody showed me the animation, and I had rep— I was involved with Mike judge through Greg Daniels on King of the Hill. And for whatever reason, maybe it was the timing, I hadn't gotten sleep, I just didn't get it.

That's a good one.

Years later, yeah, I now represent them with other people.

So that's why you don't have misses, that when you miss, you just come back, circle back around.

Yeah, I'm getting the rebound.

Yeah, that's good.

All right.

Zach, you good?

I'm good. This is awesome.

Did you have another last question? It feels like you have one loaded.

All right, one more follow-up question. Is there an Ari blacklist? And if so, could you share any of the names?

It's in the book.

Okay, give us that question too.

Jesus Christ, they've asked this question.

Are you— no, you're in negotiation, Ari. You gotta circle back. We got, we gotta hammer these points.

Yeah, we gotta hammer it.

I answered it.

Who's gonna be the most mad reading this book?

Probably Jeffrey Katzenberg. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. Is there going to be a couple of people that are going to be mad?

No, I don't think so.

Yeah, that's a lie. No, I think there's some people that are mad. Oh, but that's what you got to do.

Yeah. Yeah.

But that's good. It's good for business. Getting in fights with people. Yeah.

He hasn't—

he hasn't hit me back. It's pissing me off right now.

So if you're raging against somebody, somebody, are you aware of the fact that eventually your rage and their rage will break through and you'll end up becoming good friends?

You know, there's sometimes you, when you rage, um, it's like I, I had, I started out as a, as a verbal fight at Sundance or Toronto with Michael Moore, who did Fahrenheit 9/11, you know, um, and other great documentaries. And then I've represented him now for 25 years, but it started out screaming matches.

Have you ever gotten physical?

No.

Like, but just a little emotionally.

The chair.

Emotionally. Emotionally, I wanted to get physical.

Does the rage like zap your energy faster, like a video game?

No.

Okay.

Yeah, I guess you wouldn't waste your time raging against somebody if you didn't think that there was something real and valuable.

You know, I got in a fight. I don't know if you watch Morning Joe on MSNBC.

Zach's a big fan.

I do know.

Zach, you a big fan?

Yeah.

So I start— that started out as a fight too. Oh, they started screaming at me, I started screaming at them. 10 minutes later we hung up. The next day they called and said, you know, we want to— we want you to represent us. And I said, okay, let's do it.

I love it. Okay, so the rage gets you—

gets you busy.

This has been incredible.

Yeah, this has been so much fun. Everyone go buy, uh, Roll the Calls: A Memoir Ari Emanuel, thank you so much.

No problem.

Ari Emanuel is brought to you by Venmo. Football season has a way of turning every normal weekend into a group project. Suddenly you're buying enough food for 12 people, somebody needs a ride, somebody forgot the drinks, and somehow everyone has an opinion on what the group should bring. Eventually somebody says the 3 most important words in the English language: I'll Venmo you. And then bam, the money shows up right there in your Venmo balance. It's available to use instantly. That's super nice. nice because with Venmo Debit MasterCard, you can use that balance wherever you need it. One guy gets the food, one guy gets the drinks, one guy brings a speaker that sounds like it was made in 2007, and one guy contributes absolutely nothing except opinions about the quarterback. So while everyone else is arguing over this week's underdog, you've got the money that you need to keep the tailgate moving. Spend that balance instantly with a Venmo debit card. No monthly fee, no minimum balance. Learn more, venmo.com/card.

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vinmobalanceaccount required to use a balance and get the card. Effective November 1st, 2026, the Venmo Mastercard is issued by the Bancorp Bank in a— Firefest of the week is brought to you by Morgan and Morgan. With Morgan and Morgan, they are America's number one injury law firm. You know that hiring the wrong people can be disastrous. How many, how many coaches are we putting on the hot seat already at the start of the year? Well, it's maybe because you didn't make the right call in who you hired. With Morgan and Morgan, if you're ever injured by the negligence of another, they are America's largest injury law firm for a reason. They've been helping people with their own fire fest for over 35 years. They have over 100 offices nationwide, more than 1,000 lawyers, over $30 billion recovered for over 500,000 clients. Morgan and Morgan has a proven track record of fighting to get you full and fair compensation. If you're ever injured, you can check out Morgan and Morgan. The fee is free unless they win. For more information, go to forthepeople.com/pmt or #529 #law from your phone. That's forthepeople.com/pmt or #law. That's #529 right there from your phone.

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Okay, Firefest of the week, Henry. Not a bad week.

I have had one interaction that I've been, I've been replaying in my head last few days with Scotty Scheffler.

Which one?

We did the interview in a hotel room where it was like the suite where you guys did the interview. It was like packed. Me, Zach, and Memes and the audio guy were kind of like around a corner in like the bedroom of the hotel room.

Yeah.

And the interview ended. You guys took a picture with Scotty. I didn't. And like, you know, sometimes I'll ask and like, I love Scotty Scheffler, but I will usually like ask, like, I'm gonna ask for a picture or whatever. Like, I didn't with Scotty, but you guys yelled my name. You're like, Hank! And so I like kind of just walked into the frame right away. Like, oh, you want a picture? And I just kind of froze. Like, I wasn't really thinking about getting a picture with Scotty. And like, in that moment, I just got awkward. I was like, uh, no, I'm good. And then Scotty was like, whoa, dude, you like ran in here. You don't want a picture? And I was like, it was so awkward. Didn't end up taking the picture.

Mm-hmm.

And it was just a really awkward moment.

Wait, he called you out for like being super eager to take the picture?

Well, like, I was literally like one foot around the corner, so when you said my name, I was like instantly in the doorframe.

Yeah.

You looked like you wanted it.

You looked like you wanted it bad.

But I— you like—

we've obviously done this show forever.

I like— I, in hindsight, it would have been a million times less awkward if I had just taken the picture.

But it just—

I like, you know, short-circuited a little bit in that moment, like, just because I wasn't thinking about it till you said it. And like, I usually— we've done this show.

It was a little awkward. I was standing right next— I remember it.

We've done this show.

Yeah, it was, it was, it was awkward. I just— it was, it was awkward. Like, so that was my Fyre Fest. We've done the show for 10 years. We have a lot of guests. We meet a lot of people. I usually ask for pictures of people that, like, I was I guess like a big fan of when I was a kid, like when it's like, oh, like David Ortiz or Julian Edelman, like those type of guys are the ones that like I'll ask for pictures. I'm not gonna be the person that's gonna ask for a picture with every guest that's in this office. But yeah, I should have just said yes and taken a picture.

Would have—

and I would have been cool to have. But yeah, that was really cool. It was awkward. It was—

it was—

Do you think he felt awkward? Yes.

You do?

The—

he said he's like, well, You came in here quick.

You want a picture?

I think he's still thinking about it.

No.

Like, and doing that thing where you think back and you like cringe a little bit. You're like, uh, looks like an idiot.

He's probably thinking about it.

I, I— he's not.

We could have so easily taken the picture too.

No, I know. Yeah, no, I know.

It was picture time.

I had my phone in my hand.

It was literally picture time.

Yeah, you guys were staring at it.

And they brought the President's Cup out.

Yeah.

For the pictures.

It was, it was, it was, it was It was.

All right. So we got to get you a picture with Scott.

We got to redo this.

Yeah, we got to get you a picture.

Very obvious. We have to redo this.

Yeah, we got to get you a picture with Scotty.

Yeah, it's the only way to get closure for you.

No, you're going to be thinking about it.

No, I now wish I didn't bring it up on the show because memes is going to bring it up all the time.

Yeah, well, to be fair, Hank did big time.

In what way?

He was like, nah, I'm good. I don't want a picture.

You big time Scotty?

Oh, yeah.

It was like, I will say, I like—

I, I, you, you were like, Hank, you want a picture? And like, I like—

It's our fault.

And I was like, in my, my initial reaction was just like, no, no, I was just like, not like— I was not thinking about taking pictures.

Like, no, I'm like, great.

I was like, no, I'm like— and I—

So next time don't say, Hank, do you want a picture?

No, it sounds like you said it too loud.

Yeah, my bad.

And that was— Dad, you're embarrassed.

Well, you didn't ask anyone else.

Well, because you're the golf guy.

I know, but like, he's—

I don't know, it was, it was—

I should have just This is blaming—

yeah, this is a great transition.

By asking Hank if he wanted a picture with Scottie Scheffler.

It's so nice to watch Hank go from like embarrassed, reflective about what went wrong. Maybe you knew this was coming, to seeing one little—

was he blaming me in the car?

One little sliver.

Big Cap told me to get a picture with him. I was like, this is your fault.

What the fuck? I'm not blaming you, I'm blaming myself.

My guy Hank loves golf. Scottie Scheffler, the best golfer in the world, is right here. I'm going to ask if my guy Hank would like to get a picture.

And that was a very nice gesture. I like— I was just like, I don't know, you know when you think about like, oh, like I'm gonna ask to take a picture with this person. So when you said, do you want a picture? And I was like, no, like, I like my—

my—

I just answered honestly in that second. I was like, no, like I'm good. But then he— then it was so awkward and I was like, what? Why? Like, why? No, it's my bad. It was a nice gesture by you.

Just say you screwed up.

Scott, I said that. I already said multiple times.

It's my Fyre Fest.

It was awkward.

I mean, it was awkward because of me. Scotty was the man. I should have just said yes. Now it's more awkward.

He'll listen to this and we'll get you a picture.

That's persuasive.

I think—

I get it.

You want to get a picture with Hank?

No, he doesn't.

Like, bad guy.

Bad guy.

Whatever.

I will say this. I think that like in our line of work, work, we get to meet all these people, and there's definitely— I, I think about it a lot where I'm like, don't get jaded because this is a dream. And like, Fasoli— LeBron mentioning Fasoli today, that's like, you're not jaded. That was like a holy fuck, I can't believe this is happening. LeBron James knows who Fasoli is. Scotty watching Advisors is still one of my favorite things in the world.

Yeah.

Like, that, that still blows my mind, and I'm so grateful that he's watching Stu Feiner talk about, you know, well, tune into Advisors tonight because possibly the most off-the-rails Advisors, like, and that's saying a lot.

It was— I was thinking about that as we were watching it back.

I was like, teaser ready.

I can't believe Scotty Sheffer watches this. I can't believe anyone watches this.

Hank, it's 15:50.

Not like that, but it's fucking insane. It's, it's insane.

15:15:30 doesn't happen anymore.

Oh no.

Yeah.

Which the first 15 or the second 15?

You'll have to tune in to Advisors to find out.

Or the 30?

No, he's, he's adjusted all the numbers.

Is it now lower? 30, 36?

No, it's lower.

5, 5, 10?

He's getting older.

Are we talking 5, 5, 10?

No, you wouldn't be able to guess it.

1, 1, 3?

You wouldn't be able to guess it a million times because it's, it's very specific.

Okay.

But yeah, Scotty Shuffler with his beautiful family. before they go to church, watch Stew Fighters. That's what I was—

I love it.

I love it.

I also— man, I do. I do also love the idea of LeBron James thinking about Fasolo.

Oh yeah.

Just thinking about it.

Oh yeah. But Scotty's the fucking man.

Yeah.

And I shouldn't have— damn it.

I never said that. I never blamed you.

No, no, I— yeah, you're right.

You didn't.

But if you hadn't said it, that interaction never would have happened.

You never— you never blamed him. But after your explanation, I I do blame Big Cat.

It got more and more clear that I was the culprit there.

Like when I, when I find out all the facts, Big Cat's kind of a dickhead.

Yeah.

I can't believe I asked if you wanted a picture.

No, it's not. It's not. It's my fault. It's my fault you asked Scotty that question.

BFT. A pretty clean week. The only thing I'm dealing with right now, I'm dealing with a phone that for some reason, when they announced that the new phone was coming out, the battery, just everything about it just went to dog shit. So I think I told you guys the other week that I'm having to like daisy chain it with a magnetic charger that I charge while I put that on my phone to get my phone charged. Like, I've lost all capacity to charge my phone.

When did you last get a new phone?

It's been probably like 3 and a half years, but I've got a plan. My plan is in place. I just have to get through October. I'm going to get the Fold iPhone, the one that has a big screen that you fold up. So basically, I've got a phone that's— it's— I've got Mitch McConnell in my pocket, and I'm just trying to get through October.

That's a long time. And then that's also the most important, like, month of the year.

But it's working. So the phone is working. I just have to do like very delicate stages. It's got a— it's in hospice right now. So I'm just making it comfortable.

October, when the new phone comes out.

That's— yeah, that's when I can get the new phone.

Got it.

So I just have like 3 weeks that I got to get through and it's working.

Wait, is the new iPhone out yet?

No.

Okay.

So I, I can buy it, I think, like first or second week in October and then they're getting delivered, I think, the third week in October.

Got it.

So that's, that's the plan for now. It's probably going to be a shitty phone because it's like the first generation of the Fold phone.

But you're getting the Fold?

Yeah, I kind of want to see what it's about.

Oh, man.

I don't know.

Do you—

where do you guys stand on Fold phone?

Out too much.

I'm seeing a lot— Max's thumbs downing.

Out on fold phone. But if they decide to do the fold iPad and have a TV in your backpack—

Zach, isn't it? Fold phone.

I mean, I just, I kind of, I kind of want to see what it's all about. What if it's, what if it's the best?

It looks enticing, but I'm a fidget with the hands guy. So I feel like I'm gonna— I'm snapping that thing week 1, week 2, just playing with it.

You think the hinges and the joints—

you're also— wait, so is it double the screen?

I mean, I'm not exactly sure. Yeah, I just saw that folded, doubled up.

Yeah.

You would eat it?

Yeah, I'd probably just put it— I'd probably just chew on it or something.

What?

I don't know.

I'd eat it because the picture quality is that good. So if you like—

if you—

is there a certain picture of a burger?

So there's a certain phone size that if it gets too big, you're just like, that's actually the no-fly zone for Max.

He's going to eat it.

Eat it.

I don't know what I said. You guys threw me off with the Philly stuff.

That was like 30 minutes.

Also, how do we throw you off with the Philly stuff? We just asked about the Philly.

Yeah, well, I didn't— I wasn't ready to talk about it.

So the question was, is this your handwriting? Yeah. Once a phone gets to be the size of a piece of toast, Max has to start chewing on it.

Yeah, I do chew on stuff.

And then my other Fyre Fest is I got to take— I'm taking the El Camino on a little road trip tomorrow. And by road trip, I mean like about an hour and a half on the highway. And I don't know, I don't know if I'll ever be back.

To where?

We don't know.

Golf.

Golf.

And then I'm driving it over to Michigan.

Oh man.

Yeah.

So if I don't see you guys on Sunday, I'm playing. I see you at golf and my phone dies. I'm on the side of the road somewhere in western Illinois.

Oh man.

So it's been real. real. Uh, good luck to the Phillies in the playoffs this year, and I'll see you guys in the Funny Papers.

They'll get it. Uh, all right, my Fyre Fest, uh, is kind of similar to what I was talking about, like how lucky we are in, in this job. So I took—

I'm, I'm—

my, my 7-year-old, he's starting to finally like get into sports with me, which is awesome. It's like the best experience. I took him to the Cubs game on Wednesday night. I'm lucky enough that like I know all the guys, you know, the, the radio guys, the TV guys. They've always said, Hey, if you bring your kid, you ever want to come up and watch an inning up here? And I was with Waddle and Silvy's producer, my friend Tyler, who also knew the Marlins announcer. So we went up there and got like incredible experience. He got to— he got to sit there with the headphones on and watch an inning in the radio booth. Like, it was awesome. So we're sitting there and I see another friend of mine who works for the Cubs. He's like, hey, does he want to work the score And I was like, are you fucking serious? Yes. So we go up and it's literally— there's a guy who sits up in the press box and he, he works the big old Wrigley scoreboard, like the batter's number who's coming up and the outs and stuff, because there's an electronic part of it.

So my son gets to work the scoreboard. He gets to punch in Kyle Stowers' number, 28. And, and like, you get to see it on the scoreboard. It's a fucking unbelievable experience. Kyle Sowers then hits a home run like 2 seconds after he punches in his number. And I was like, we got to get out of here. You're a jinx. And we get out, we like scram. And my son's like, what, what does jinx mean? Why did you call me a jinx? And I was like, well, you might have caused that home run. And it broke his heart. And it was like a first real experience of like, we're losers. We, we lose things and we have to blame ourselves. And having that experience of like, like, I was like, a jinx means you cause something to happen even though you didn't, but you kind of did. And he's like, so I caused the Marlins to hit a home run there? I was like, no, no, but, but maybe.

But yes.

So it was a, it was a tough, tough explanation. He, he was a jinx in that moment, like 100%. That was his fault without a doubt.

Do you think he knows? Like deep down.

He did get back a little bit because he said that he, uh, then the Cubs scored and, uh, I think they, they, we tied it up 2-2 and he told me after we tied it up, he's like, I actually was wishing for that run. And he thinks that he can wish things like that. So I was like, good job. Solid job.

You got to turn it into a positive. So it's not a jinx. It's like you just, you're so good that you can give people the power to hit home runs.

Yeah.

We just got to make sure that you don't turn that power onto the, onto the guys that the Cubs are playing against.

Yeah, it was a good— it was a good, like, first life lesson of, yeah, I mean, jinxes are real. And in that moment, he was a jinx, like, 100%.

That he—

that home run. And if we didn't make the playoffs, it probably would have been his fault. But we made the playoffs, so everything worked out.

There's also nothing more fun than as a kid, like, believing that you have an impact in the game.

Yeah.

If you put the whammy on somebody.

Yeah.

And like, you and your dad or your grandparents, like, yelling at the TV or like shaking your hand at the TV, being like, I got that guy struck What are you pointing at?

I was just making sure.

Hank just fucking keeps looking at me when the fucking Dodgers suck.

Just making sure you're locked in.

You're right though, PFT. I agree with what you're saying. They're having a stare-down.

Yeah.

No, he is staring at me.

And are you backing down?

I'm watching the fucking baseball game.

He just pointed at me through the, through the the booth. He pointed straight at me like Gary Bertier.

Oh, shit.

Is this true?

I don't— Hank, I don't care about Hank.

I don't know what he's doing right now.

I don't know what he's doing right now.

I wanted to make sure you're seeing—

Okay.

Is it true what he just said?

What we have to do at some point, we need to put a one-way mirror on this glass.

I love this shit.

Would we— I think we—

No other show.

We have to put fucking Hank in a box.

No other show.

We have to be able to—

You're in a box. You're literally in a box.

We need to see into the booth. But I don't think you guys can see out anymore. You've lost seeing out privilege.

I disagree. I think this is—

I would like it if Max could see me.

The beauty of the Dodgers— Oh no, are you gonna look at him again?

The Dodgers— oh my God, the Dodgers are a Little League team! They scored 1 run in the past 2 games!

I actually need the Dodgers to win too, very badly.

Fleming is coming out.

No, but hey.

Oh, it came out when Che hit one.

No, what I just said is a fact. They've, they've scored one run in the past 2 games.

Yeah, no one's saying it's not a fact.

Well, he said the Fleming is coming out. The Fleming would be, the Dodgers haven't scored in 93 years.

The Little League team is—

That's like a normal thing that everyone says when they're watching a shitty baseball team.

It's the Dodgers.

Yeah, and they're fucking kicking the ball around.

All right, Zach, finish this up. Oh, the frick.

It was an aggressive point, but uh—

Wait, who pointed?

Max daddy pointed. Max reached through this window.

No, no, no, the first point, the first point was Hank, cuz Hank looks at me and then he points at the TV after I'm seeing— after he sees me looking at the TV and seeing the Dodgers fricking implode. So the first point was to the TV from Hank while looking at me.

That was a heads up though. That was like, that was like your just being like—

No, the first point was you.

Hey, we got action here. Point at the TV.

But you looked at me watching It literally—

Gary Bertier on the sideline running up to me.

So wait, let me understand. You're mad because Hank pointed at the television? I didn't—

I didn't—

let me—

I'm trying to understand this, Max. There's a lot of people out there that are just listening to the show that might not see your, your, uh, enormous gestures and don't get it. Hank pointed at the TV because— well, looking at you and that that offended you for some reason.

Yeah, you, you know exactly.

Hank's hot right now. He is.

But what did you—

he had me in the thunderstorm on Wednesday. Hank's getting us.

I pointed at him because he was being a fucking asshole.

Hank, you're on a hot streak.

So Max pointed at Hank, causing Hank to point at the TV?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hank pointed at the TV because Max Max then pointed it at his face.

Like, way—

like, my, like, my, my hand was here, my, my, my arms were like bent. I was just kind of like little, like, you know, point. Max was like full arm extended. Like Zach said, he pointed through the glass like he was trying to like— yeah, assault, give me a concussion.

No, it was, it was a ferocious point, but I was feeling ferocious.

Ferocious point. All right, Zach, what do you got?

My, uh, my Farfetch'd this week is, uh, pretty weak, but, uh, this studio did get a recent upgrade. We went wood on this sidewall, and I've been duped by the studio.

What?

I thought this, this might sound— and I would like some feedback because maybe you guys thought the same thing.

You could eat it?

No, I thought that was a TV behind you for like 3 weeks now. And I just— I know now because it came off the wall a second ago and has like a like Command Strip on the back. I thought, I thought that was like an interchangeable screen that you guys could throw things up on for like 3 weeks now.

That's fair. I got framed. I got framed. I got reversed. That happened to be reversed with Dana Holgerson.

What?

Oh, would you remember his house? I was like, why do you have a picture? Like, is this—

did this—

oh, it's a TV.

Yeah.

Player Houston house die.

Like, why do you have this giant picture of you and like on the sideline, like random ass pictures? Like, you fucking idiot.

It's a frame.

The bezels are the exact same.

Yeah, they're nice. So if you get a pic, like a really nice picture of you with like an idol of yours, Scotty Scheffler or something like that, you can always have it kind of rotating up on your wall.

Can't you see behind it?

No, I know it looks— it matches up like perfectly.

Screens.

I shouldn't have pointed.

So now I know. But I—

yeah, I agree with— well, no, actually, that's going to trigger Max more. I think pointing Is Stephen Che came up to me the other day and pointed at me and I said, put that thing away.

I didn't point at him.

Yeah, I know you didn't. No, that's why I said it's going to bother Max.

But he—

I literally made him like—

I do that to you guys.

If something's happening, I'll be like, hey, you have— you have a very irritating point.

I agree. Very irritating face.

You have a very irritating point. Hey, it's very sharp.

That's crazy. And if you're lashing out—

no, I'm—

I'm just trying to be like— you're just trying to be like—

No, that's just kind of what sets Max off a little bit. But like, if you go— how about you just start pointing hand up? Yeah, it's a softer point.

No, no, that's bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really bad.

That's a shrug. That's not a point.

No, that's bad.

How about if you go, uh, right hand face down and then you point?

Here's the thing, here's the thing, Hank. I'm gonna try, Hank. As the years go by, Hank really is correct when he says he can't exist because his—

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, listen to me.

His face and mannerisms do piss everyone off.

Yeah, but he knows what he's doing.

Existing.

That is not existing.

He's the best troll we have.

You are a troll.

I'm—

you are a dirty little troll that lives under the bridge and you fucking know it.

I did literally like, I have to be in the studio while we record. My body is here, my face is here, and that's it. And everyone just gets mad.

And wait, what about your— so everything else is elsewhere?

Well, like nothing else is like my hands. It's my hands and my face.

Yeah, no, it's his hands and his face.

What about sometimes my outfits? Big Head gets mad at my outfits.

Yeah.

What about your mind?

My mind's most of the time is here.

Yeah.

Not actually. Not all the time.

When he used to troll, he had a banner week. He got us all in fits. He had me so mad on Wednesday.

Oh, man.

This is Big Cat's fault, though.

It is.

You brought up the Phillies.

I brought up the Phillies. I brought up the Sky Scheffler picture. Hand up. I shouldn't have brought up the Phillies on a sports podcast, and I should have asked our guy who loves golf more than anything if he wanted a picture with the best golfer in the world.

Yeah, I should have said yes. Maybe, maybe, maybe Saturday.

My bad.

It was such a long pause. What?

What? I just—

when he went to the room. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was tough.

Do we have it on video?

No. We might.

We got to find it.

Is there any other Fyre Fest for you guys?

I broke the fuck out of Shane's driver in the—

oh yeah, yesterday.

Don't ever touch Shane's driver.

I don't know that. I didn't mean to. We were doing— shout out the—

tried to eat it.

Shout out to the performance golf people. They were in the office giving, giving us lessons. And I think I was trying to— I was trying to hit fucking bombs and I was swinging as hard as I've ever swung before in my life. And I just hit her.

But any other Fyre Fest, like any— any fruits that were left in any places this week?

What?

Anything like that?

What happened?

Oh yeah. Dante the Don came in here earlier today and he started yelling at me about the watermelon that was used when you guys made that video tossing the watermelon In the backyard. You oiled up the watermelon and he came in here yelling at me about how the, uh, watermelon smells like a rotting corpse because it was thrown out back, uh, like with the grass clippings. Yeah, and it was making people physically ill to walk past it today.

Oh goodness, we made sure to throw everything away. We thought it was like the right course of action.

No, sure didn't throw everything away.

Oh, he's saying— he's saying there was loose watermelon.

Luke sent Max, uh, that video. Max, I haven't, I haven't watched it.

No, we threw it away.

It apparently is with the grass clippings, not the trash. So it was garbage.

Oh, you're saying wrong trash can?

That's what Dante said. I've not inspected it, but Dante seemed— the way he presented was like it was obviously not the trash.

But you're gonna get us all banned from the backyard.

Yeah, we might get kicked out of the backyard.

Ah, definitely didn't mean to try— I accidentally saw it ban us.

Did you—

all right, numbers. What?

I gotta find this video. Which I— where did— where did I get this?

Numbers.

I can't remember.

3.

8.

I'll go with 2.

5.

I'm gonna go with—

86.

Uh, 69.

15. I'm gonna go with 1.

What'd you say, Jacob?

15.

No, that PFT said it.

51. I got the video.

32.

Anyone?

32?

Anyone?

All right, play the video.

Play it, play it.

No, no, no, no more numbers.

We'll do one more number. Play it, play it. All right, so I'm over here tidying up a little bit, trying to clean up and organize before we wheel the furniture in here, and I get close to this. Now this is This is where Spider dumps the grass clippings because I guess you can use it as fertilizer eventually.

So we've just been storing it all in here.

And I get over here and I'm like, what is that smell? Smells like a dead body, like rotting. And I flip the COVID over and look how—

look how all the condensation—

Oh my God.

Just grow— there's like—

Oh my God.

Slime and shit.

Oh.

All—

I flip it over, all these flies.

You can still see some. All these flies come fucking buzzing out.

You guys could have killed Dante.

Yeah, that cracked open rotting watermelon that the PMT guys were out here tossing around the other day. They threw it in the grass clippings garbage, which honestly, it's not their fault.

It's a fucking garbage can.

Look at all these flies.

You gotta see, you gotta see. All right, so yeah, it's not our fault.

Okay, so Cover your nose.

After watching this video, it sounds like you guys threw away trash into a trash can.

Correct.

You gotta get shot.

Got it.

Mystery solved.

We were like, where do we put it?

Here's a garbage can.

That's completely fair.

For a second, Zach was sweating though.

Zach said he's sweating.

Zach said he's Oh my God.

59. 59.

No one?

No one.

Happy birthday to John Lynch. Happy birthday to Brandon Cooks. Happy birthday to Cade Cunningham, Will Smith, Donald Glover, and our dear good friend and podcast guest sharer, Bill Simmons. Happy birthday to Jake Marsh as well, our darling Jake. Very cool Jake.

Happy birthday, Jake.

Hope you get a scoregami on Saturday, Jake. And happy birthday to Chris Rodriguez, and happy birthday to TJ Houshmandzadeh. Love you guys.

Forget anybody?

Uh, nope.

All right.

Did you?

No.