Transcript of Peter Schrager Talking NFL, Giants Running Back Cam Skattebo, NFL Season Long Picks + Super Bowl Winners New

On today's Pardon My Take presented by DraftKings, we've got a twofer to kick off the NFL season. We've got our good friend Peter Schrager on. He gives us his Super Bowl pick, which he's been right about, I think like 4 out of the last 5 years he's nailed. We also have Giants running back Cam Scatteboe on the show. We're going to do our Super Bowl picks, including MVP and LVP, and division winners. It is football time. Football is all the way back this season. The NFL 2026 season kicks off tonight as you're listening to this. Let's go, Hank. Are you ready?

I'm so ready. So excited.

I love it. I love it. Okay. We also have Hot Seat, Cool Throne. We have Pardon Your Take. And it's all brought to you by our friends at 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. Twisted Tea is the absolute best. The half and half, the original. It's the perfect accompaniment if you're at a tailgate, hanging out at your house, watching ball with the boys.

Grab a refreshing Twisted Tea today. Keep it twisted with Twisted Tea. Okay, let's go. Hey, football guy. Welcome to Part of My Take presented by DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, September 9th, and Hank.

Yeah. Football is back.

Yeah.

Goddamn right.

It's back. Goddamn right. It's back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We said it. We said it a million times. This is the first time you're saying it.

Oh yeah. It's so back.

How nervous are you?

I'm excited.

I'm excited.

Banner night for the Seahawks.

Banner night for the Seahawks, but it's, it's the start of the championship DVD for the Patriots. We locked up Christian Gonzalez. It's exciting time. You guys, you know how it is, uh, Dan, having kids and like the summer's nice, but it's like, it can be a lot. It's nice. It's nice, nice, nice to have fall back. Kids are, kids are gone. Work's a great distraction.

Oh, you're done golfing?

During the week.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Wait, what is a weekday? We need to go back and have that conversation again.

Monday. Yeah, Monday through Friday.

So how are you feeling about this game?

I'm nervous for this game.

Like, I definitely could see a world where the Patriots lose, but I think it just depends, you know, it depends what we put out on the field.

Yeah. I mean, the way that Drick made—

Like, we, we played so bad in the Super Bowl. As long as we play better than we did in the Super Bowl, I can still walk away from this game looking at it as a victory.

His— What if you play worse?

That would be troublesome.

Right now the Seahawks are -3, over-under is 44.5.

Drake Maye's 4th quarter against the Seahawks was the best 4th quarter of all time, maybe even the best quarter of any time by any quarterback in Super Bowl history with the amount of garbage time yards that he put up.

Yeah, yeah.

So like, he's on the right track. Yeah, like, he's building—

we have momentum.

Well, we ran out of time. We got, we got a Drake Maye lover in-house, but like, I might be Drake Maye's stalker.

That's good.

I'm more obsessed.

More the merrier.

Yeah.

Hop on board.

Drake Maye tracker.

I do.

I am tracking Drake Maye this year, by the way. I don't know if you're familiar with this stat, Hank, but— They haven't played a game. We haven't played a game. No, it's an interesting— like, we got to have—

Oh, football's bad.

We got to have numbers that matter, numbers to keep our eyes on going into the season. I think it's an interesting thing that Patriots now have the biggest swing from one of the least amount of travel last year to one of the highest number of miles traveled over the course of the season. So they went from— they were a bottom 6 team. I believe they were number 26. In the NFL last year, they only traveled 12,547 miles. Now this year they're traveling 27,590 miles. So they jumped to a top 5 travel schedule from a bottom 5.

Yeah, we have a much harder schedule this year.

Was your schedule bad last year?

I mean, just based off the teams that we played, they weren't— they didn't have the best records. But this year it's a harder schedule. When you go to the Super Bowl, that's what happens.

Yep. Super Bowl losers are 6-20 against the spread week 1.

Yeah, I don't think— I don't have the highest hopes that the Patriots are going to win this game.

If it gets to 3.5 though, it feels like— because it doesn't feel like the Seahawks are so obvious in the fact we just, you know, the last NFL game we watched, they dismantled the Patriots. Like everyone's going to say, oh, we got to bet the Seahawks are going to do it again. It's like it's a different season.

It's different season, different players. Their hands might be tired from lugging around those giant-ass rings that they got. I don't know. I don't know what to expect because last year the Patriots, they took such a giant step from the year before. It's like, how much better can they get? Can they improve? Are they going to regress? We don't know.

Is this a Will Campbell revenge game?

No.

Oh, I think it is.

I think Will Campbell's like, he just, just, just make some decent plays. I don't know how— I'm not super high on Will Campbell.

That doesn't sound confident at all in your boy. What's the, what's the reports from camp?

Are his arms longer?

His arms are not longer. Reports were fine, but I don't—

I—

it's, it's still— it's year 2. We gotta, you know, we just gotta see some balls go through the hoop.

The, the, the—

I don't think he's on a revenge tour yet.

What does that mean when it comes to an offensive lineman? What's a ball through the hoop?

A block.

One block.

Yeah.

Okay.

A block.

Some good blocks.

Is Travion Henderson going to play?

No, no. Highly doubtful.

Disaster for a fantasy team.

But we get—

it's, it's—

we don't have the ability to play on Wednesday and then we get a full week and a half off. So I think that's good for, you know, the coming weeks. I highly— I would say no. I do. My report is no.

I do not like that the NFL season's kicking off on a Wednesday.

I feel it's weird.

It feels— I also forgot.

I also thought the Australia game was Wednesday until last week. I think I said it on the show, but that has thrown me off.

I also memory hold the fact that I just completely forgot that the NFL added a Wednesday night game for Thanksgiving week. That sucks.

Oh yeah. I don't like that blackout Wednesday game.

Yeah. They're going Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. It's like, when, when are we going to like hang out with our families?

Yeah.

Or like, you know, maybe watch some Feast Week.

Oh, you're thinking college basketball?

Yeah.

Yeah. That's your favorite week of the year.

It is. Well, now it's one of my 5 favorite weeks of the year.

Now it's even better with more football.

Yeah.

Have you heard the derogatory slur being tossed around about NFL fans? No. Shieldies.

Oh, I'm a shieldie.

Well, no, I don't think you'd agree. A lot of college It's mainly used by college football fans. Oh, we're getting that debate to talk shit about NFL fans that only, you know, they parachute in and they see players that the real diehard college fans have been watching. Oh, I'm not sure.

So you're talking about— is that Jersey Jerry?

Jersey Jerry is the ultimate shield.

Yeah, I'm a shieldy. College football is a joke.

College football is awesome.

Semi-pro. It's not—

it's not—

it's not the college football that we grew up Loving.

I do agree that one of my favorite things is when a player gets to the NFL and they're not good in college football and then they're all of a sudden really good in the NFL. Like, like Bo Nix was a classic example. Every college football guy was like, you don't want to root for Bo Nix in the NFL. It's like, he looks pretty good in an NFL uniform.

Bo Nix was good at Oregon. It's Auburn Bo Nix that if Auburn Bo Nix got drafted, I would have been like, no, don't do that. But we— yes, wait, Hank, you didn't like college football ever in your life.

It's true.

So to say that you are sad that it's not the same game that you loved—

There's the rhetorical we.

Okay.

As a nation.

Yeah.

You think it's bad for us?

No, I think it's fine. I think the NFL is far superior.

Yeah, I think you can love both. I think there's, there's plenty of room. I'm If it's got a football, I'm going to watch it.

It's, it's crazy going, switching back and forth between— like we just did college football week 1 and like every game was, you know, -42, -51. And then you see this and you're like, if it's 3 and a hook, that might be too much.

That's these guys to play football too.

Yeah.

Goddamn, that, that could be too much. Too, too, too many points. 3 and a hook.

All right.

So we're going to be streaming this. What do you want to do for food?

Hamburgers?

No.

Clam chowder?

Yeah, let's do some clam chowder. Let's do—

Get the boys—

Let's get some fish.

Belly full of clam chowder.

Let's get some— let's get some fish on ice.

You get to decide the menu.

Toss some fish around Pike Place Market.

Yeah, let's do some fish on ice for the commercial breaks.

I do think there's a weird—

Like every commercial break in Seattle, they just go to that market. It's just, you know, big fish on ice.

I do think that weirdly the Seahawks are being like disrespected a little bit in the fact that all the talk is about the Rams and the Seahawks did just win a Super Bowl in a very convincing fashion.

I—

we're going to do all of our picks in a second, but I, I think the Seahawks are going to be really fucking good again.

Yeah.

Like what, what makes— what, what would say— I guess the Seahawks haters out there could be like, ah, Sam Darnold did it, but can he do it again?

I think the Seahawks haters would say they got lucky.

I don't—

yeah.

To get home field advantage throughout the playoffs. That's probably what they'd say.

Yeah.

And it's not untrue, but you have to get lucky. Like, it's a big part of football. It's just if the harder you work, the luckier you tend to get.

Yeah.

Banner night.

Banner night.

It's going to be loud.

Loud. Real loud.

Are you ready for that?

Have you been simulating that? Yeah.

I mean, it'll be loud in the cave too. I'm excited.

You ready for all the 12s?

A lot of 12s. A lot of noise meters. Hopefully not a lot of highlights of the Super Bowl. I don't know how—

Oh, there will be some highlights.

The rights works. Yeah, maybe a limited amount.

There'll be a lot of Bad Bunny. Yeah, that'd be awesome.

It'd be a lot. And then, I mean, Thursday night, we'll record after Thursday Night Football, so you'll hear it on Friday's show. Does anyone have a pick for that game? I mean, I think we just have to go with the 49ers because they've been there forever.

Yeah.

Like, I don't know what else to say.

It's a travel bet for me.

It's just you have to— it's auto travel.

It's a travel bet.

They've been there so long.

Yeah, they are speaking Australian. They've got the accents. And then the Rams just coming in. There's no way that this works in terms of the body clock.

No.

If it does, it's going to revolutionize bachelor parties.

Yeah. Aaron Donald also not playing in that game.

Oh, officially?

Officially.

Okay.

I didn't think that he would. I mean, that'd be crazy to— you've been out of football for over 2 years and then you just get on a plane, fly to Australia.

And did he even fly with the team?

I don't think so.

Oh man, I'd be pissed. By the way, I was thinking about it. I think that If Goodell really wants to do—

That was probably part of why he came back. Yeah, I'll come back. No, not go to Australia. Oh, like, I'll come back. Yeah, I don't have to go to Australia.

Yeah. I think Roger Goodell, if he really wants to do this global expansion of football, he should have to go to every game and fly coach. Like, that's only fair. Yeah, you, you're making these guys go through hell traveling.

But they're not flying coach.

No, I know, but the fans are to get there. Like, he's a fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, most fans, I think, do fly coach.

No, you had it like that.

No, I'm saying I thought there were more local fans that are going to be—

No, fans travel from America to these international games. They probably fly business class or coach.

They go over, they collect the pins.

Yeah.

I wonder, guys, what's the difference?

Actually, I did fly.

That was so stupid of me.

Yeah, no doubt.

I went to an— I went to an Eagles game.

Max is back.

And I did fly coach.

You fly coach?

Yeah.

Yeah. Wasn't there a report that, like, the Giants coaches weren't even flying coach at one point? They were flying coach. I think the assistant coaches were flying coach.

What's, what's, what's the difference between coach and business class?

Business. You got a suitcase.

Is there a difference or is that—

No, business class is closer to first class.

But that's still coach.

No, no, business is first.

I don't even— they don't even call it coach anymore. It's like economy, economy plus business, first class. But a lot of times business class is first class depending on the plane.

I think it might be all legroom until you get to first class.

Yeah, first and business.

No, business class you get.

Business class is business class.

You get, you get, you get good seats. Business class depending on the plane.

Coach is now economy.

Got it.

Yeah, there's no— I don't think I even— I don't think coach is a thing.

Why'd they call it?

Probably a stagecoach. Like, probably a train car would be my guess. I want guys to fly coach.

Coach on an airplane.

I also think each airline calls it different.

Oh, that comes from the old practice of borrowing words and seating names from earlier forms of passenger transport, specifically trains and stagecoaches. There it is.

Coach.

Yeah, like, you know, that's where he should fly. Roger Goodell should have to do that with a layover.

I would agree. Yeah, you should have to— he should have to ruin his entire week, right? He should have to attend business meetings like on Zoom because they're back on New York time because he's not going to all these international games.

You, you put these games on, you have to go, Goodell. Yeah, you have to show up.

You think these guys have Passport Day?

Definitely.

Remember Passport Day?

Yeah.

Big topic of conversation. A part of my take in 2016.

You got huge Passport Day. Yeah, they definitely have Passport Day.

Aaron Donald probably showed up for Passport Day and now he's pissed that he doesn't get to go to Australia.

Yeah, TSA PreCheck.

I did like one thing that Devonta Adams—

Oh, one tree.

Yeah. They asked Davante what he was doing to get ready for going down to Australia for the games. And he said that he's just been researching what's typical for Americans to know, the stuff that's going to kill you, the spiders and how dangerous all the waters there. So he said the most venomous octopus in the world is found there. Great whites on the south, saltwater crocs in the north, koalas and stuff a little bit inland. So Davante Adams just preparing for— was it the blue-ringed octopus, I believe?

Okay.

So they're getting ready. They're not going to spend long enough there, I think, to get attacked by anything. But they certainly are ready about their trip.

Yeah, they're very ready. All right. Should we do our picks for the season? So we're going to do our preview. Everyone's going to— we'll make a graphic of it. And then we have Peter Schrager and Cam Scadaboo coming up. Before we do our picks, DraftKings. The wait is over. Football's here and so is DraftKings. DraftKings Sports app is now live in all 50 states. That means from Texas to California to Florida. Every fan is in on the excitement, and this September DraftKings is giving customers the opportunity to get boosted every football game day. That's right, every game day all month long. DraftKings customers can get a football profit boost. One app, every sport, all 50 states. New DraftKings customers sign up with code TAKE, spend just $5, and get $200 in total rewards within 21 days. Includes all markets. That's code TAKE in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours.

Okay.

Uh, memes, do you want to start? So we're going to do— give us— everyone's going to do their AFC, NFC playoff picture. So say that your division winners and wild card, and then give us your Super Bowl and the winner, and then MVP, LVP. Also, let's throw in that everyone should give a prediction that, that is, uh, a blood prediction for your own team so that we have it on record what your own team is going to do, what success looks like. Just a mini preview of your team. Memes, are you ready?

I am ready. Okay, I am ready.

AFC.

I don't care if I'm right about this one, but it would be nice. Jets, AFC East winners.

Okay, I just—

I don't want to pick anybody else. Okay, Jaguars out of the South. I got the Broncos out of the West and then Bengals win in the North.

Okay.

Okay.

And the, the wildcards?

Bills, Ravens, Texans.

Okay. So no Chiefs, no Patriots, no Chargers?

No, I don't think the Chiefs are gonna be very good this year. Is it?

It's a— like, I was looking at the AFC in preparation for this. It's tough. The AFC is tough. Like, I did a first run-through and then I was like, wait, I forgot like 3 teams.

Yeah. They just said that Mahomes is gonna be playing week 1. Yeah. So he's good to go. Maybe not full go, but he is going to be the starting quarterback for the Chiefs.

Yeah.

Okay. And then NFC?

Seahawks win in the West.

Yep.

Saints win the South. Eagles win in the East. Vikings win in the North.

Whoa.

Whoa.

Switching up.

Okay.

Wildcard Rams, Lions, Bears.

Okay. So who do we leave out? We left out the 49ers. The Cowboys.

Packers.

The Packers. Okay, interesting. Now give us your Super Bowl champion— Super Bowl matchup and champion.

Super Bowl matchup, Bengals versus Rams rematch.

In LA.

In LA. Bengals come out on top.

Oh, okay. That'd be fun.

That would be fun.

Joe Burrow MVP. I also have Will Anderson MVP, but that's just okay. Well, yeah, why not?

Co-MVPs, it's happened before.

Yeah.

And then least improved Drake May.

Least improved Drake. Well, that is—

wait, is it least improved?

We're doing both, I think.

Least improved or LVP?

Least improved and least valuable player.

Least valuable. That's what that meant. Yeah.

So we need the least improved Drake May and then we need a least valuable player.

They're 2 very different awards.

Yeah. Because what you're saying is Drake May was so good last year that he's not going to— Yeah, because it's either MVP Right.

Well, he didn't win MVP.

Right.

So his improvement would be MVP.

The only step up could be MVP. And if not, it's a regression.

Least valuable player memes.

Kirk Cousins.

Oh, damn. Interesting pick.

Kirk Cousins. Okay, Max.

Okay, I had to switch up my— okay, ready?

Yeah. We're ready.

Bills, Ravens, Jags, Chiefs. Okay, Chiefs, Chiefs, Chiefs are gonna come back. Everyone's down on the Chiefs. Chiefs are gonna come back. Then Chargers, Texans, Broncos. Wow. No Patriots.

No Patriots. No Bengals.

No Bengals. We play this game with the Bengals every year. Someone's gonna get hurt and they're No Bengals.

Okay.

No Bengals.

No Bengals.

Bengals.

Then I'm good.

I mean, I can't wait. Oh, well, we'll go back to Meme's Jets thoughts, but go ahead.

I changed mine to Tua, the last one, instead of Kirk.

Nope.

No fingers off the piece.

Nope.

All right.

Ready? Yep. Lions, Saints, Rams, Cowboys.

Okay.

You're taking the Cowboys to win the NFC East?

Then Eagles, Seahawks, Bears. Okay, so am I doing Super Bowl or not?

Yeah, Super Bowl.

Eagles still win the Super Bowl over the Chargers, but just out of the wild card. But the Chargers—

Eagles-Chargers—

Chargers are gonna get healthy throughout the year. I don't even know if that's— if they're coming back or not.

Well, no, not a home game because they— no, they're Rams.

That's Yeah, that's more of an Eagles home game.

Well, not only that, but it's the Rams stadium. They're just, they're just a tent. It's a, it's an apartment game for them, a sublease game for them.

Right. Then I have Jalen Hurts MVP, Kyler Murray LVP. Oh, Jordan Love least, least improved.

At least improved. Okay. I like it.

All right.

And then Eagles. So Eagles, like, we missed this with memes. Give us your Jets take. What do you think the Jets are going to do? What's success?

Blah, blah, blah. I think the Jets are going to be better than people think. They're +20,000 to win the Super Bowl. So there's no expectations for them. I think they actually have a decent to good roster. So I think they're going to be better than people think.

Okay.

Okay.

Eagles.

I think the Eagles are going to be good. It's really hard to win the NFC East 2 years in a row. It's— I assume it's going to be even harder to win it 3 years in a row. This feels like a year that we get back to the wild card, but it also feels like a year that we win the Super Bowl.

Maybe both. Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's, that's basically my thought process there. I think it may take— it's a brand new offense. It may take a little while for everything to click. May lose a couple of games early. But by the end of the year, everything's going to be humming.

Okay.

But I hope we still win this weekend against PFT. Yeah.

But not a must-win. Must-win for PFT?

No, must-win for like this show.

But must-win for PFT.

If I didn't know PFT, I wouldn't say it was— I wouldn't say it was a must-win. But for my anger coming into the podcast on Sunday, it's a must-win.

You needed to— you can't start week 1 On 10.

Yeah.

And you will.

I needed the fact that I was starting.

The thing is, Max, the fact that Max is saying like it wouldn't be a must-win if it wasn't for PFT, like that's bulletin board. I'm adding that to the bulletin board list right now.

What side of the board? I feel like that's, that's like a compliment to you.

Front side or back side?

No, it's the front side of the bulletin board, I think. And it goes, it goes back to— and I'm living in reality, like the last 15 years, 20, 25 years in the NFC East, if you were asking Eagles fan like, which teams do you hate the most? It's probably the Cowboys and the Redskins football team. Commanders are a way afterthought. Yeah, but I'm still using that. That's bulletin board. We got to get back to that spot.

I feel like that's kind of showing respect to the—

It is a little bit of respect.

I don't know if it's respect.

It's respect to you personally.

I want to get back to the place where, like, where other teams hate us. And it looked like, you know, that might have been a possibility.

No. Well, I hate you.

Like, I hate you.

Respectfully, I hate you.

When it comes to the cave, I hate you. Yeah. And I hate losing to you.

So yes, same.

Okay. Zach, you're up.

All right. I've got Chiefs, Jets, Texans, Bengals.

Wait, Chiefs, Jets, Texans, Bengals.

Okay.

Then I've got Cowboys, Lions, Rams, Bucs.

No, no, Cowboys.

No, no, no, you got to finish the AFC.

Oh, okay. Yeah, wild cards here. I added it in a different row. Sorry about that. So we're going to do wild card. I'm going to go Steelers, Bills, Ravens.

Whoa, whoa.

Give us the AFC one more time.

Okay. Jets, Chiefs, Texans, Bengals.

Okay.

Steelers, Bills, Ravens.

So we've got no Chargers, no Broncos, no Patriots. Okay.

This is true.

Yeah.

No Jags.

No, no Jags.

All are true.

Okay.

Okay.

This preview.

And if we've got Cowboys, Lions, Rams, Bucs. Wild card.

Cowboys, Lions, Rams, Bucs. Okay.

Wild card, we're gonna go Eagles, Vikings, Saints.

Okay.

Super Bowl winner, we're gonna go with the Bengals. They're gonna play against the Lions.

That would be a hell of a Super Bowl.

It would be. And?

I do have Joe Burrow as MVP.

Wait, who's winning the Super Bowl?

Oh, that's going to be the Bengals.

Okay, so we have 2 Bengals Super Bowls, huh?

Damn.

And then one not making the playoffs.

And one no Bengals, no Bengals. We did not team up on this.

It's never the Bengals. You guys didn't team up on this?

Because you guys both have Bengals Super Bowl and Jets to win the AFC East.

Yes.

Surprisingly, no team up here.

Okay.

But some similarities. Least improved, I'm going to go with Bryce Young. Least valuable player, I'm going to go with Travis Kelce.

Hmm. All right. I love that least improved. Like Bryce, it's probably the ceiling.

Yeah, he's done it very much.

He gets a tiny little cute little ceiling.

The top he's got.

Yeah.

Okay. Good picks, Zach.

Hank?

AFC East, Patriots. AFC North, Steelers. AFC South, Jaguars. AFC West, Chiefs. Then I have the Bengals, Bills, and Broncos in the wild card.

Not buying the Texans.

Triple B. Not buying the Texans.

You got the Steelers winning that division.

Yeah, Mike Book. We talked about it. I'm a big believer in you know, rekindled love, rekindled love, and guys that had it having it again.

Throwbacks.

Mike McCarthy, Aaron Rodgers, DK Metcalf. Great defense. And then in the NFC, I have the Bears out of the North, the Falcons out of the South, the Cowboys out of the East, Rams out of the West, and then I have the Seahawks, Eagles, and Lions in Okay.

Okay.

Super Bowl 3-peat, Patriots versus Rams. Patriots win again. Oh, I think the Patriots— for the Patriots, I think by, you know, week 12, week 13, much to the chagrin of the world and especially this podcast, the Patriots will just— people will just have accepted that there wasn't— last year wasn't a fluke. The Patriots are once again a powerhouse and people are just gonna have to deal with it for the next 20 years.

It'd be a nightmare. Yeah, honestly, that'd be a nightmare.

Yeah.

It'd also be good for the show.

I agree.

But also a nightmare.

Nightmare.

So I have Drake Maye as MVP.

Okay.

Justin Herbert LVP.

Okay.

And Sam Darnold as least improved.

It's because he didn't win the Super Bowl.

Yeah, I don't hate that.

Yeah.

Least improved Sam Darnold. I'm sure he'd be fine with that.

Yeah.

If he stays exactly the same, that'd be wonderful. Yeah.

Yeah.

Never strike midnight.

Least improved is tricky like that.

Like, at least improve, you get worse.

No, no, no, no.

That's it.

You don't understand what the opposite of improve is.

Least improved could mean just stay the same. You chill.

Everyone else gets better. You stay the same. You're the least improved.

But someone else would be less improved if they got worse than someone who stayed the same. Right.

I'm saying everyone in Hank's world, every single player in the NFL gets better. Sam Darnold stays the exact same.

Got it.

Got it.

Got it.

Got it.

Got it. It'd be a great season to watch if everybody improved.

It would be incredible.

Coaching's never been this good.

I still don't think Sam Darnold would be okay with that.

I'm sure if you want a Super Bowl.

Yeah. If everyone got better.

Yeah.

It probably would suck for him.

Yeah.

And he didn't.

But if you want a Super Bowl, he'd be okay with it.

He's going to win a Super Bowl again. But he didn't say that he was going to win a Super Bowl.

I'm saying if he did.

Oh, then yeah.

Yeah.

Then he'd be fine.

For sure.

Yeah. Like at some point the, oh man, what if Sam Darnold turns into Sam Darnold, stopped being a bad thing. And now Sam Darnold being Sam Darnold, I think is a good thing.

But if he doesn't win a Super Bowl but throws for more yards, that's still an improvement.

That's disagree.

I mean, I think he's— Sam Darnold's a team guy.

But there's multiple ways to improve.

True.

Sure. You can always get better at something.

Yeah.

But 1% every day.

What if he is— what if he improves as like a husband?

Improving, like, whatever.

Yeah, I'm an MVP dad. What if he says that?

Yeah. Says, you know what, we want— we went— we went 5-12 this year. Life's not about football. I fucking— yeah, life's not all about football.

Yeah.

Come on, memes.

What if he— what if he made a commitment to reading a book a month and he followed through on it?

Yep.

Self-improvement.

That's the worst.

What if he—

I think everyone should read at least one book this year, Max.

You could—

you don't have to do a new one every month. Just one. Just one total.

Yeah, one total.

What if, what if he said, you know what, during this football season, I'm gonna eat 101 cheeseburgers? He'd improve.

I don't think that is about setting a goal and hitting it.

I've been thinking about doing 100 salads.

I'm not— What? I'm sorry.

That was a genuine laugh that I had.

What time frame?

I don't know. Anytime.

Do they make ice cream salad?

No, they do like chicken salad.

They should name it.

It would be really—

it'd be really funny if you did that challenge just because you would eat a salad and then you'd Yeah, that's true.

That's very appetizing. Yeah, you could do that.

Yeah.

Pasta salad.

Who's your winner? Patriots over Rams.

All right.

PFT.

Okay. I have out of the AFC, I got the Bills, the Bengals, the Texans, and the Los Angeles Chargers.

Wow.

Bolt up.

Bolt up. I'm fully bolted. You'll see how bolted I am. The Chiefs, Colts, Broncos are going to be my wild card picks.

Colts.

Colts.

Colts.

Colts.

Yeah, we are the Colts. Then out of the NFC, I've got Seahawks, Saints, Lions, and the Washington Commanders shocking the world, winning that division. My wildcard teams out of the NFC are the Bears, the Cowboys, and the Los Angeles Rams.

Okay.

My Super Bowl is Bills and Lions. And I got the Bills winning in overtime.

Wow.

That'd be fun.

What a Super Bowl that would be. My MVP is Justin Herbert. Has a great season. Mike McDaniel's got that offense humming. He looks awesome. True definition of what an MVP regular season could be. Just awesome regular season.

So he got, he got MVP and LVP.

He is.

No, he's going to have— No, I'm saying in this, in this group, in this preview.

But I don't think you—

And AFC champion.

And AFC champion.

I don't think you understand how good— Shane's got to be fired up. a regular season I think Justin Herbert's going to have this year.

Yeah.

It's going to be an amazing regular season. MVP regular season for Justin Herbert. Then yeah, in the Super Bowl, I do have the Bills and the Lions and I got, yeah, Bills in overtime beating the Lions. My LVP is Marcus Mariota because he's not going to get in at all this year. And then my least improved player is Trevor Lawrence.

Hmm.

I think that's a max. We saw, we've seen max Trevor. Yeah, he's been Trevor maxing and it can't get more max.

Okay, good pick.

Awesome. I would love to—

what?

Fucking Prisco.

Yeah, yeah. All right, what about Commanders?

Uh, my thing for the Commanders, I— so last week I was as down as I've been, just like it's just the Sunday Scaries for the NFL season starting again. So I went through that, I came out the other side because I sat down last night, I looked at every position group, I compared it to 2024. Across the board, every single position group on the Commanders going into this year should be better than it was in 2024, with maybe the exception of cornerbacks because we're still waiting to get Amos back. And once he gets back, I would put that group above 2024. So what am I, what am I getting so worked up about?

Yeah.

It's a, it should be a better team than it was in 2024. And Jayden's healthier than he was. Uh, all season last year. So I'm back, I'm back, I'm fully in. I think we're in a great spot because the noise against the Commanders has gotten so loud now that I actually think it has been a benefit in terms of like they can actually play the nobody believes in us.

Yeah, I mean, in 2024, no one expected that.

Yeah, so I'm, I'm fully back in. I can't wait for Sunday. It is a must-win, actually. First 3 games.

Yeah, you guys have a tough—

We gotta, we gotta go 1-2 at the minimum. In the first 3 games. Can't go 0-3 because we got the Eagles, the Cowboys, and the Seahawks in the first 3 weeks. So we have to get at least a third of a win against the Eagles.

Yeah.

This upcoming Sunday.

Yeah.

OK. America's Game of the Week, Max.

All right. I will do my picks. I have in the AFC, AFC East Bills, AFC North Ravens, AFC West Broncos, AFC South Texans. My wildcard teams are the Chiefs, the Bengals, and the Patriots. So I don't have Jaguars, I don't have Chargers, I don't have Steelers. Uh, yeah, I'm not—

I'm hot.

I think the Ravens are gonna be really good. I've talked myself into the Ravens recently.

I mean, yeah, they've got a lot of pieces.

Yeah, talk myself into the Ravens. Okay, in the NFC, I have, uh, the NFC East Eagles, The NFC North Bears, the NFC South Bucs, NFC West Rams, and then my wildcard teams are the Seahawks, the Lions, and Cowboys. The New York Giants.

Okay, you love the Giants.

Weren't you like talking about the Cowboys?

I switched.

I've switched to the Giants.

That's insane.

Well, what do you want me to do? I've switched.

You said Texas Super Bowl like a week ago.

And then I got off it because someone told me that that's stupid.

You're also—

I can't remember who told me that was stupid.

You're allowed to change your mind, though.

Yeah, you are allowed to change your mind, Hank.

Schrager also said that he likes the Giants.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I can't remember who said that the Cowboys were going to suck. Who the fuck told me?

I mean, there's a good chance that right when the Cowboys— you have the expectations of the world on them, that's when they let you down the most.

I also wanted to take one crazy one. So that was, that was really what it is. I, if you If you made me bet right now, I'd say, yeah, probably the Cowboys over the Giants. But I want to take one. There's got to be one team that no one sees going to the playoffs.

I do think that Tyler Smith, the guard from the Cowboys, being out is a big— that's a big deal. Yeah, he's the highest paid guard in the NFL. He's played close to 100% of their snaps since he's been in the league. He's a very, very big part of that offensive line and that offense. So him being out for like the first month, I do think that's a massive deal. Yeah.

The Super Bowl. It's gonna be a fun one, boys, for this show. And we're gonna have a really fun time talking about the Super Bowl on Super Bowl Sunday, February 14th, I believe. For that Monday, pardon my take, it is going to be the Buffalo Bills defeating the Philadelphia Eagles. Imagine how—

we'd love that.

That would be a crazy Super Bowl.

We'd love that. Yeah, be a crazy Super Bowl on Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Buffalo Bills over the Philadelphia Eagles.

That would rock.

Holy shit. My MVP is Josh Allen. We know what that entails. My LVP is Josh Jacobs because he's a scumbag and I don't even know if he's going to play. So can't, can't be valuable if you're not on the field and they kind of need him.

I don't want— you're forcing me to take the side of Josh Jacobs in this argument.

Yeah.

What if their running game absolutely stinks? Then it's like, by omission, how valuable was Josh Jacobs to this offense?

Right. But if his— if the running game stinks and he's out for 6 weeks, that's his fault.

And there's more to life than football.

There's more to life than football.

We already established that.

Like being a good human.

Bad.

Yeah.

But couldn't you also say like most improved player for Josh Jacobs if he like doesn't beat any women in the next 12 months?

Yeah. If he's acquitted, I guess.

Like great job on not beating anyone.

Yeah.

Something to think about.

My least improved player, I think Deshaun Watson is going to get worse.

Okay.

I think he's going to get even worse. I think it's going to be comically, comically bad. So he is going to go backwards.

Did you see what the Browns—

even further backwards.

Did you see what the Browns just said, that Shedeur might not even be the number 2 quarterback?

Oh, is it Dylan Gabriel? No, no, he got hurt, right?

No.

Yeah.

Yeah. What's his name? The guy from Arkansas. Shit. Quarterback from Arkansas.

I like Taylor Greene or whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Electric athlete.

Damn. Shador. Shadussy. Well, that makes me think that they're going to stick with Deshaun through everything and that the more Deshaun plays, the, the, the least improved he becomes.

I actually think that the meanest thing that you could do to Deshaun—

I feel like that's tough because his bar for improvement's low.

Yeah. That's what you're saying.

That's how bad he's going to be, Hank. It's going to be shocking how bad he is.

a Deshaun hater, the, the best punishment is to make him play football all year. He clearly does not enjoy it. He doesn't like playing for that team, for those fans. Be like, too bad. Yeah, you gotta go play football.

But Hank, I want to take a shot. Like, everyone's, you know, uh, they have Drake Maye as least improved. Yeah, okay, he could probably like be 3rd in MVP and he didn't improve. Think about how bad Deshaun has to be to, to, to go backwards on improvement. That's how bad I think he's It's true. It's going to be like fun to watch. It's going to get to a point where we're actually going to enjoy it.

It'd be great. Yeah, it'd be great.

As for the Bears, I did on the stretch, I did the blind win losses. I have the Bears at 10-7. I think our defense is going to be really bad. We're going to win a lot of shootouts. I think it's going to be a year before the year if they can spend a lot of money on the defense next year. It's about the offense getting a lot better, which I think it will. If the offense becomes a top 5 unit, then the problems that the Bears have can be fixed hopefully with offseason draft, etc. So that's kind of where I'm looking forward to Ben Johnson, new wrinkles.

Yeah.

I mean, I think I really do like it's basically like Caleb take another step forward. Luther Burden or Rome Odunze be a true number 1 and Colson Loveland be a superstar. If those things happen, I don't know, like the defense is just, objectively not going to be good because the entire plan was to build a good secondary and half of that plan has already gone up in smoke. So is Roma Dunze okay? Roma Dunze is okay. I'm saying the, the, you know, Kobe Bryant out for the year and then Kyler Gordon is just not—

he—

I think everyone hates him and he's not even practicing. So that was, that was a big part of the secondary being good.

So because I think—

Oh wait, what happened to Rome?

It was his foot, right?

He has a, he has a foot.

He has 2 of them. He's got 2 feet. Yep. Confirmed.

Let's see. Why is he trying?

Ben Johnson says he's more day to day.

Okay.

He's day to day. I don't believe he'll be out there today, but we're hopeful he'll be out there Sunday.

He has like a— he talked about it like being the new normal that his foot is never like, it's going to be a little different.

Well, he said this is a different foot injury than Odunze was dealing with last season.

Listen, I hope Rome's okay. Luther Burden is going to have to do it. Step up and be the man.

I think, I think Ben Johnson's going to unleash a lot of downfield laterals this year. It's going to look like his last year in Detroit, which by the way, I did some research on that. You know how many turnovers? I think there were 33 designed downfield laterals thrown over the last 2 seasons. And not counting end of game scenarios. You know how many turnovers there were off those 33?

How many?

Zero.

Whoa.

Zero. Ben Johnson's going to dial it up.

Okay.

Okay.

All right. So good picks, everyone. Let's rip around real quick. Your Super Bowl winner memes. Just remind everyone.

Bengals. Eagles.

Took the Bengals also.

Buffalo Bills.

Bills.

Patriots.

Okay.

How many?

A lot of AFC.

We'll have to make this a graphic and then see who is closest to being right. I'm sure the best part about the NFL season is there's going to be at least 2 teams that none of us talked about that are going to come out of nowhere and, and do it.

Yeah. What MVPs?

I have Josh Allen.

Drake Maye.

Joe Burrow.

Jalen Hurts.

Uh, Joe Burrow.

Justin Herbert.

Justin Herbert.

No Matt Stafford. All AFC except—

Yeah, I actually was thinking also like, go back, my LVP or LIP was going to I was toying with the idea of Puka just because he's crazy and I feel like we've forgotten how crazy he is and we don't know if he's going to stay sane enough to play.

Quarterback award, though.

Yeah. Well, no.

LVP. Oh, yeah.

LVP.

No, no.

Definitely not thinking about him for MVP. OK, let's do Hot Seat, Cool Throne. Then we got more football with Peter Schrager and Cam Scatteboe. Hot Seat, Cool Throne brought to you by TickPick. Quick math for football season. 18 weeks, 9 home games. And one question, how many Are you actually going to? Here's how you get to more of them. TickPick, the no-fee ticketing app. TickPick has never charged any service fees, so tickets for the same seat section and row cost less than other sites. Max, uh, what is the first road game you're looking at for the Eagles right now?

For this weekend, the get-in price for the Titans is $21. Next weekend against the Eagles, the get-in price right now is $217. That's a 10x difference, which means that I think next week is also kind of a home game for the Eagles.

Okay, love it.

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My hot seat is Schefter.

Schefter.

He's in some hot water for his reporting on the Christian Gonzalez contract situation.

What did he screw up this time?

He was saying that there were conversations in the Patriots organization in recent days if they should withdraw from the offer. Oh, and that they're— the 2 sides aren't even close. This was yesterday.

Do you think that there were conversations or no conversation?

I think Schefter is just—

he's—

he gets a little like he gets one source and he's maybe not doing as much reporting as he used to, where he's just going with, with his source and kind of carrying the water for that source.

Oh, Mr. Editor.

Yeah.

What you're saying he needs— he needs—

he needs to do, you know, check his sources.

Check the source. Because I saw him report that, that Michigan won the other day.

He did.

But I heard that's even up for dispute. It is crazy.

My hot seat's also love.

Oh no.

Alex Earl unfollowed Braxton Berrios on Instagram.

Oh no.

They've been broken up for a while.

Yeah, but then the TV show came out. It was, it was a lot of Braxton Berrios in it.

What show was that again?

Earl Meets World.

Oh yeah, I'm behind on that.

But yeah, big. That's just, you know, I've been wanting to get back together.

I didn't. I actually did.

What?

What, Max?

Um, a lot of drama from that show.

A lot of drama from that show. What other drama came from that show?

Alex v. Alex is at an all-time high right now.

I personally didn't want them to get back together. I think Braxton could do better.

Wow.

Braxton went on a date with Lando Norris's ex-girlfriend.

Love that.

That's also part of the drama.

I love that for Braxton.

Because Alex went on a date with Lando Norris.

Love that. Don't love that for Braxton. Little—

yeah, love is dead.

So they just— so, so wait, Alex Earl and Braxton Burrow are still just madly in love with each other?

That's— who knows? You see, you've seen unfollow like that. Seems love is dead.

Yeah, but that's exactly why she wants Braxton to hit him up, hit her up, being like, I saw you unfollowed me.

Probably.

I would even say that, like, going out with somebody that's targeted because they're somebody that your ex has some connection to, that's also probably just signal like, hey, yeah, I miss you.

Yeah, big time.

Okay.

And then my cool throw-in's rugby.

Yeah.

Did you take this from PFT?

Did I?

He's trying to. Yeah, I know. Might have had it on my list.

Okay.

I want to hear you explain it. I'm not going to save your ass like I did with the flyovers.

I think I nailed that one. Miles Garrett. There was a video of Miles Garrett working out with former Australian rugby coach Billy Coffey to like hit harder, basically. And in this drill there, he's like teaching him how to, you know, tackle or like hit with your hips. And he— the hits that Myles Garrett was hitting this guy with, I think if I took one, I would die. Like, he was still hitting him through the pad, and it looked like a bowling ball going through a wall, putting him over 90 degrees to the ground.

Yeah, it was pretty crazy.

But yeah, as if Myles Garrett needed like to learn how to hit harder.

Yeah. Yeah, we got to pull it up here. Watch the contact that he makes because it's like cartoonish.

It hurt.

It hurts to watch.

Oh, that had to have been sped up.

You're controlling it, dude.

No, I'm saying I'm— I didn't edit the video.

No, I know.

But yeah, probably was sped up.

Yeah, maybe a little.

Yeah.

I don't know.

All right, so Miles Garrett's gonna hit even harder.

He's gonna hit harder. Yeah. And what's weird is like the, the type of rugby— oh, see that? That looks intense, that one right there. The kind of rugby this guy plays, you have to try to wrap up. It's not the kind where you can just shoulder charge, but he's teaching him the shoulder charge. So I don't really understand that part. But yeah, it's terrifying. Anyone that, that is trying to improve Miles Garrett's contact ability is probably—

stop.

Please stop doing that for the sake of everybody.

Yeah.

Okay. Good job, Hank.

Thanks.

PFT.

My hot seat is the power in Tallahassee.

Yeah.

So last night we watched a little bit of college football. Power went out before the game. Somebody drove a car into a transformer, knocked it out, and then We got to see a very chaotic— but I like that kind of college football where it's like something crazy.

You really doesn't—

you literally watch a game every weekend and something happens that you've never seen before on a football field.

SMU is the dumbest team of all time. They, they should have— they outgained them by like 1,000 yards. They should have won the game.

Yeah.

By multiple scores. And they just— every time they had a— it was crazy.

Is, is Mike Norvell the most pre-fired head coach of all time?

Yeah, I think so.

I think he might be.

Yeah.

He's just got— he looks like a nice guy.

What do you guys look like?

He looks like he's already fired. Yeah, he's—

Hank was giving me eyes.

You guys got eyes?

I just looked over. Max was staring into my soul.

Well, you were staring at me.

I agree.

Looked over at me. Yeah.

Looked over. They're literally just staring at each other. I don't know what to say.

You guys have any—

well, I wasn't going to back down. He started staring at me.

Oh, you're—

we're having staring contests?

Are you guys doing this?

I don't know.

Are you guys about to go?

Do you think, do you think other, uh, other podcasts out there, other sports podcasts, have their, uh, producers just get into staring contests with each other?

No, I just looked.

During an episode?

I can't exist.

But you know that your looks are—

I just looked back.

You're—

you have loaded looks.

Well, Max had his mic on and like, and like, my mic was on. I looked over to see what was going on.

I canceled the mic.

But if you didn't make a sound, I wouldn't have looked.

I did make a sound and I looked back. Yeah. All right. Continue. Sorry about that. I missed you guys.

I think that, Hank, a lot of the grief you get would be like minimized by just realizing you do have loaded looks.

I know.

I understand. I can't— this is an existing situation. Like, I— yeah, if my face wasn't my face, I wouldn't have the issues that I have.

But because like, I understand Max was breathing heavy. But if I look at Max, Max can't back down.

I guess. I don't know. I literally just— I wasn't staring. I just merely looked.

I mean, you of all people shouldn't really comment on other people breathing heavily.

Yeah.

Given your yawns.

Let's ask what— never mind.

It's kind of relaxing.

I actually, I actually had a couple of people like, be like, I used to be able to fall asleep to PMT, but Max being on vacation, I haven't been able to do it.

Yeah.

There's not enough white noise on this podcast.

My mic is on. I need to shut up.

Cancel that mic.

Yeah, cancel the mic.

And stop staring.

Hank, you stop looking. Max, you stop breathing.

I'm pretty sure if you go to a zoo, they have, they have this type of problem where they've got certain animals that are next to each other that they have to put up visual dividers so that they don't get distracted during the day and spend all day trying to fight the other guy. We might have to do that at some point.

Yeah, Max is literally a gorilla in a cage. Yeah. And Hank is like a little kid that came up and poked the cage, you know, tapped the glass.

I think we need to put a divider like right next to Hank's left side so Hank can look at us and he can't see them. What do you think about that?

What were we talking about?

Mike Norvell. Most—

oh yeah, most pre-fired coach.

Coach of all time.

Yeah.

Also, hot seat is Tallahassee Power because Pup Punk is playing there. On Friday, we're flying out. Zach is coming to do a little hometown throwdown with us to get things set up. I believe I've had Zach agree to get on stage and sing a song.

Nice.

In Tallahassee.

What song? Wait, signing it or singing it?

Singing.

Either one.

Okay.

Singing. You could also sign while you sing too.

I don't know if I can double 2 languages at once. I don't know if I can speak them.

Well, your choice.

I'd have to go one.

You can do either one.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Either one. It's going to be your call. But that's Friday night. I think it's gonna be an earlier show, like 7, 7:30 at Potbelly's. Is that what they call it, Zach?

Yes, sir.

Potbelly's, not the sandwich place, but a different place.

Different place.

Yes, sir.

Different place.

But I think you guys could— I mean, you guys could rip a Potbelly's sandwich place too.

We might do both.

Wait, it's Potbelly's, but it's not Potbelly's?

It's Potbelly's, but it's not Potbelly's.

Wow.

I kind of like the idea of Zach, you signing.

That's kind of crazy.

Signing while Frankie sings. You think you could learn that?

Yeah, it's got to be out there somewhere.

You're nervous. You're nervous.

It's okay.

It's got to be out there somewhere.

But you will get on stage and perform.

Oh, I've been to this bar.

It's a good bar.

Yeah.

Good times. My cool throne is Antarctica. Did you see the interview with DK Metcalf?

Yes.

He's talking about what he's going to change going into this year, kind of where he's at mentally with his life after leaving Seattle. Seeing them win a Super Bowl and what he thinks about the Steelers. And it sounds like Aaron Rodgers and him have, have really hit it off recently because he was talking about Antarctica and he wants to know what's really going on there.

Okay.

So he said, I think it's another world. I think there's another civilization inside of Earth in Antarctica because you can go to Alaska, you can go to the North Pole, but why not Antarctica? Why can't you just book a trip to Antarctica? You actually can book a trip there.

Definitely can.

Which the article kind of editorialized, seemed like it was dunking on him. And then he says, why is there a secret meeting? Well, it's not a secret meeting, but why is there a meeting between every world leader of every country in Antarctica specifically? I don't really know what meeting he's talking about, but I choose to believe him.

Is he talking about the UN?

Well, that all the countries that have a stake in Antarctica, they get together and they talk about what to do about Like this, what happened over the last 6 months with all the aliens that live in Antarctica?

Got it.

How do we continue to keep this secret from DK Metcalf? And he's all over it. And I guess he said that him and Aaron Rodgers have bonded over this type of stuff.

Yeah, I was gonna say, they spend enough time with Rodgers, you're gonna start spitting out some conspiracy theories.

Yeah, so I, I do think you almost need to be a conspiracy free thinker to even believe that winning a playoff game in Pittsburgh is possible this year. Like, you can't be limited to the stuff that's been taught to you and fed to you, the propaganda that you've heard out there.

So you have to think the impossible is possible.

You have to think it's possible for the Steelers to average more than 24 points a game. Yeah. And everyone's going to call you crazy until you do it, just so you know. So good for DK. I'm rooting for him.

Wow, that's a crazy iceberg. Antarctica. I didn't say it right. Why is it so blue?

That's like old water that you haven't seen in thousands of years. I think that's sick. All right.

My hot seat is Michigan because they have fallen out of the top 25 ranking. And also Western Michigan is now officially appealing. They say they said replay protocol was not properly followed in the Western Michigan-Michigan game. And they filed a formal appeal with the NCAA FBS Oversight Committee to be recognized as the winner. I mean, what are the chances this happens? That would be— it would be pretty fucking cool.

It'd be chaotic.

Yeah, it would be awesome.

So the MAC, the conference is appealing. Yeah, this game. And what is the committee that they're appealing to? The NCAA FBS Oversight Committee. Are they allowed to just change wins to losses? I guess the College Football Playoff Committee can do whatever the fuck they want. Yeah. And can say, like, for the record, we're going to recognize that as a win. But this is, this is why you have to wait till all the facts come out. The MAC, I don't think, did a good job. And I would say maybe Western Michigan, they were, they were like gracious.

Yeah.

In defeat.

They should have been.

But they should have just not said anything. Anytime after you lose, you have to say, I'm going to talk to my lawyers first and then I'll get back to you and let you know if we actually lost that football game. Yeah. Because what they did after the game was kind of admit that they lost. Which is going to be tougher for them to, to kind of go back on. But I think the premise of what they're saying is what we said on this show, which is by the, the very rulebook according to Mike Pereira, or the protocol. If there's a discrepancy in the clock, you go with the clock that everybody that's watching on TV can see.

Right.

And they didn't do that.

Right.

Trevion Henderson ruled out for Wednesday.

Oh, no.

So, so our fantasy team is fucked.

It's Chris Rodriguez, who, by the way, New face, same face, new place. I fucked that up. He's backup on the Jaguars, no longer 4th string on the Commanders. So I fucked that up.

Okay, so good pick by Jerry.

Good pick by Jerry. Maybe.

Yeah, why not? We're in trouble then. Jesus, that's, that's early to be in trouble on your—

Do you have a statement, Hank?

I was expecting this. And we're gonna have, you know, an extra week and a half to recover.

Okay, that's a good statement.

Print it.

My cool throne is umpires on a power trip. We didn't talk about this on Tuesday's show. But the— I think it was Friday night, the Rockies-Cardinals game. Doug Eddings, all-time umpire power trip. He, he demanded that pitcher Hansel Rincón straighten his hat since no one will wear a hat like that on his field. And then when Marmot came out to talk to Eddings, the manager for the Cardinals, he gave— during a pitching change, Eddings then called the pitch clock violation and ejected the manager for the Cardinals. All-time power douchebag asshole. But sometimes I'm like, I kind of like when the umpire just is like, you know what? Everyone's here to see me.

Is there anything—

something about it?

Is that a rule in Major League Baseball that your hat, your hat has to be on?

No. His rule.

His rule.

on his field, his field, what he says goes. Yeah.

And then he also screwed up a play at the plate like 2 plays later and the Cardinals were out of challenges because of— they were out of challenges. So yeah, he's just— I think then everyone on the field, everyone the next day wore their hats sideways in protest, which I love that. Yeah, guy sucks. But again, there's something about umpires that are just like Yeah, this is my— this is my game. You guys don't deserve to be on the same field as me. I respect it. We lost that a little bit. Joe West, we lost it. Mm-hmm. All right, finish us off, Zach.

My hot seat this week is gonna be LSU because it seems like they may have a double agent in the locker room, boys.

Yeah.

Yeah, it feels as if Lane Kiffin's halftime speech was leaked against Clemson and they're recording all shoes the whole time.

Mm-hmm.

Is there a chance that this was on purpose?

Yes.

There's a chance, yes.

Do you think it was on purpose? He would have came with like a little more bass. It feels very organic and natural.

I think there's a chance. I don't, I don't know if it's likely that it was on purpose. There's definitely a chance that Lane was like, hey, roll tape on this.

Yeah, like record my halftime, then show me what you recorded. We'll see if we want to put it out. Because I listened to it, I was like, that was an awesome— like, that's a killer mentality from Lane Kiffin.

I'd want to go play You're saying get the rough take and then we'll put it out? Yeah, I didn't think that angle— that could be the case for sure.

Depending on how the second half goes. Yeah, put that out. And I think by the end of it, he was like shooting basketballs and shit on the sidelines while the game was going on. I wouldn't put it past Lane to be like, hey, drop that banger of a halftime speech I just gave. Now, it could be a double agent.

Let me go viral.

Let me go.

Let me go nuclear.

Nuclear lava. Got— got up. I got up, gave him all kinds of hell.

burn Nashville to the ground.

Now, I think that the lawsuit against LSU is very, very interesting right now because that seems like it's not something that you would do if you were just— if you're bluffing. So the SEC has reserved the right to schedule a membership vote on Thursday on whether or not to kick LSU out. I'd say good luck with that. Yeah, I think that every other school in the SEC is probably like, hey, yeah, that's Louisiana. And they, they're being charged like lack of institutional control. If anything, I think the state of Louisiana has way too much institutional control over, over what happens at LSU. I think they're— they know exactly what they're doing and they're doing it.

Yeah, I'd agree.

What memes?

If you're LSU, don't you want to get kicked out? Because then you're just Notre Dame and You get to play independent and then you get all that money.

I don't know, because the trick is I don't know what would happen with the rest of the schedule this year and what would happen with the other sports. The other sports could be an issue. But yeah, you could. LSU is one of, I think, a handful of schools that could command like a media rights package just on their own. But definitely, I don't think that they want to get kicked out of the SEC, especially if this is all going towards like an SEC-Big Ten only. Yeah, national landscape. I think you'd probably want to stay.

LSU in the Big Ten.

LSU in the Big Ten would be funny.

Come on home.

Yeah, maybe JMU to the SEC. Step right in there.

Your cool turn.

Cool turn this week is gonna be Mike Tomlin. Mike Tomlin spoke a little bit about how he wanted to connect with his kids growing up. So what are my kids into? My kids are into the game right now. Let's hop on to Minecraft. His kids grew up, but Mike Tomlin didn't grow out of Minecraft. He said he's been playing for the last 12 years. And he's built his own little Mike Tomlin. No way.

That's very funny.

I love that.

Very funny.

I need, I need to see what that city looks like.

That is so funny.

Like, would he do that to unwind? Like, he'd get home, tough day. Le'Veon Bell just tweeted out some softcore porn. Antonio Brown brought K2 Spice into the locker room. He's trying to hotbox Ben Roethlisberger. Yeah, I got to just go home and hit the server.

I got to, I got to, I got to just Chop wood, cigarette, and a little bit of Minecraft.

He said his, uh, Tomlin City needs me.

His kids come home and one of the first things they do is like, Dad, we got to see the city. What are we— where are the advances?

I thought that was awesome. That is awesome. All right, good job. Uh, let's get to our interviews. We got Peter Schrager and then we have Cam Scadaboo after that.

Before we get to Peter Schrager, he's brought to you by our great friends over at Performance Golf. If you're anything like us, you've spent hours on the driving range You hit these 3 terrible shots in a row, you get frustrated, and then you try 50 different swing thoughts that you saw on TikTok or YouTube. It's a vicious cycle. It completely ruins your confidence. But now is the time to break the cycle. We're teaming up with Performance Golf. We're trusting them with our game because their PG1 app takes the absolute chaos out of practicing. So next time you get to swing a club, just open up the app, use Swing Scan. It scans your movement, pinpoints your actual root swing flaw, Whether you're casting over the top, whatever it is, it gives you a personalized blueprint to fix it. No more guessing, no more range panic, just real data-driven progress. Right now you can get 7 days of PG1 app entirely, entirely free. Head over to trypg1.com/pmt. You download the app and actually play some good golf this weekend. I was, uh, I was slicing my drive every single time I would hit it, just big slice off to the right.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is Peter Schrager. He The host of the new show called Big Day with Peter Schrager. It's actually airing on Thursday. So tomorrow, as you're listening to this, Schrags, we wanted to have you on to talk some football, but it's perfect because you got a new show coming out. Congrats on that. What, what, what should we expect? Is the A-block on Thursday going to be Tua starting for the Falcons?

No, it won't be.

That's a mistake. That's a mistake. I'm not going to try to tell you how to do your show. That's a mistake. That should be the A-block.

Okay, we should start with Tua Penix talk and just do it for an hour.

Yes.

That would be the way to go. Uh, it's the coolest shit. I'm getting my own show on ESPN, which is a dream, and it's after McAfee. So he goes 12 to 2, and then I'll be 2 to 3 every day. The challenge is gonna be, uh, you know, football I'll be fine, and then it goes to basketball season, college basketball season. I'm excited for that because I've always been NFL. So, uh, the hope is that we're gonna provide a show that you're gonna want to watch. I always say like The goal of this, and we've been working on it for quite a bit, is that it's on in the hotel lobby or it's on on the plane. And instead of it just being on mute or you don't put your headphones on, you're seeing it, you're seeing energy, you're seeing a good conversation, you're seeing people you like on television. You're like, I'll listen to that. And then you're hooked and then you're in. You know, I think about all the different shows that I love and you guys are obviously one of them. But I think of Howard Stern. I think of, you know, whether it be McAfee's guys or Simmons's guys, it's always like the show within the show where there's inside jokes and it's day to day.

It's like, what are these guys gonna say about this? That's the hope of it. So it's all sports, kicks off, uh, 2 o'clock. And our whole rule is like, no ego, no assholes, uh, just fun. Celebrate sports and have a good time with it. Let's not make this feel like it's life or death every single day.

I love that. It's a, it's a great way to, uh, approach a show. And you said, you mentioned Howard Stern, you mentioned us. So who's gonna be your Mincy? Who's gonna be your Frank the Tank? Who's gonna be your Nicky Smokes? Do you have a whack pack whack pack waiting, uh, because it's a hard thing to do. It's to build the— a perfect whack pack there. These guys are, uh, unemployable otherwise, and then you got to find a way to, to, to have them part of the crew.

You know, it's funny, I, I was watching the videos—

Not Frank, by the way. Frank could be employed elsewhere, but Mincy and Nicky Smokes for sure.

Sure. And if I'm not mistaken, Mincy is still shitting all over the title sponsor that it wasn't big enough of a gift.

Yes, correct.

That is true.

Correct.

It was a little light. It was a little light. It was a $100,000 production and it was 10 grand.

He was up at 5:00 AM and they're getting after it, whatever that meant.

Give him hell.

He's giving them hell.

Yeah, he's giving them hell.

Yeah.

No, we don't have that yet. And I don't know if I'm looking for that necessarily, but I do want the ongoing thread of like, all right, it's Tuesday and this is what happens. And then Wednesday we're going to pick up from there, which I don't think ESPN has a lot of where it's usually episodic, like day to day. It feels like an entirely fresh new show. I think it's okay if there was a running inside joke from Tuesday to bring it over to Wednesday, or if you want to bring in the audience and there's like a funny theme that you guys have and you finally figure out, oh, week to week we should bring this back, like, that's okay to do on ESPN also. It's okay to have continuity amongst the different days. And also, you know, we have this amazing access, and I think you guys have tapped into it when you have Berman on and you have some of the legends on. Like, I've been working the last few months on this show. They have every clip from primetime, from SportsCenter.

Oh, hell yeah.

Dude, it is an untouched set of archives that I think we can go in. And I told him, like, it's not showing B-roll of an old play. It's, hold on a second, Craig Kilborn did an amazing Sonics versus Nuggets highlight this day 30 years ago. I'm gonna lay out, and for 3 minutes we're gonna play the actual clip of Craig Kilborn. Like, resourceful. Like, let's do it. Let's just show it. and dip into that nostalgia because everyone says all the time, uh, ESPN's not what it used to be, not what it used to be. Well, it's not, and there's a lot of good shit that's going on right now at ESPN, and I hope to lean into that. But we can still tap into that nostalgia and show you those clips, and not just the footage of the sports, but the actual SportsCenter clips or the actual NFL primetime clips of Chris Berman doing a Falcons-Rams highlight. Like, I'm excited to dip into all of this.

Yeah, that'd be awesome. Have you thought about getting maybe an Italian, uh, sex addict producer from Philly?

No, I haven't.

That could be— that could be a strategy for you as well. Unless he leaves for 2 weeks, in which case the sex addict thing, you know, it comes and it goes. Yeah, no pun intended.

Yeah, exactly.

Um, well, I want to say, so I, I saw the Stu Finer video of him raving about some local restaurant. I would say I've never been to said restaurant. I wish I had it on. That little piece of content was one of my favorite pieces of content all summer, and that's the kind of stuff I would like to explore.

Like, you can't look away.

Yeah, random stuff. Like, we can. And if We have a guest in from out of town and Steve Smith is going to be on a lot, the wide receiver, and he's awesome. We worked together at NFL Network. If we want to do man-on-the-street stuff with Steve Smith and get him into like different situations, let's try it. So there's going to be some different feels. It's going to feel like we're breaking the fourth wall a little bit. That's the hope.

All right. So we are, as we're airing this, the NFL season is going to kick off where we have our first game of the, of the entire NFL season. But I had a question for you because Listen, we know that you're tight with certain coaches around the league. What the fuck is Sean McVay doing with this plan in Australia? And how— he's definitely explained it to you and you've been like, this makes sense, Peter. But I still can't understand that they're like— the 49ers have been there for a week and the Rams are going to fly in, fly out. What's going on? Is it— I can't imagine this doesn't affect. how they're going to play, uh, against the 49ers in Australia.

It's interesting because there are members of the organization who are already there. So like, they've got a bunch of front office guys and, and executives that are there. Their radio guys are there. So it's not like everyone's on the Sean McVay plan, but they have a very, very detailed plan. And their thought is, this flight is what, X amount of hours? The adrenaline of us getting up off that flight, playing a 10:30 AM game locally in Melbourne— by the way, it's going to drive you nuts if people say it, but it's pronounced Melbourne, not Melbourne. Um, they have a 10:30 AM game there. His theory is this: we come on, we got a long flight, we get off the plane, we play football, we come back on this flight, and then we have 17 more weeks of the season to play. I'm not looking to dedicate 10 days out of our calendar year to one game where we have to adjust our sleeps to the Melbourne, but then we're going to come back and have to get back on America. The pure adrenaline rush. And this is what they did last— you've probably seen this, but last year he was like, let's throw out the plans of other years, let's fly into Jacksonville the day before, let's beat the shit out of the Jaguars, and let's get out of town.

And it worked. So he's rolling the dice again. There are different sleep science experts that say that if you have something in Australia from the West Coast, this is an advised way to do it. Where if you have a 1-day— whatever, it's a film premiere, you have to do something— you come in, you do it the day of, and you get out, and then your body's not messed up for a month. So whereas the Niners might be on a perfect sleep track and they can wake up, they're still playing at 10:30 in the morning, right, in Melbourne, where that's not going to be normal anyway. So completely different philosophy. But McVay, I mean, texting yesterday, he's still here in the States. Like, it's, it's crazy. And meanwhile, the Niners have basically been there for 2 months, it feels like.

Yeah, I would argue that, that playing a football game is a little bit different than attending a film premiere in terms of, uh, how much it demands from you physically. Uh, and I can— but I can see the philosophy of being like, you know what, fuck this game. If the NFL wants us to go to Australia and I'm not going to dedicate 10 days and then risk, you know, the back half of that when you come back to the United States and then you have to turn around and play the next weekend. I could see that being a big advantage for the Niners this weekend, a big disadvantage for them as they try to go back to the U.S. and pick up their schedule.

Yes.

So maybe that's what they might be thinking, because it doesn't, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me that you can just like kind of get there and just rely on adrenaline to get you through that. that, that game?

So I've got notes on this because I actually— I disagreed with it as well. And there's a guy named Leon Lack, and he's one of the leading sports sleep experts. And I'm reading off my notes, but he says their body clocks will likely not have changed very much in one day. And Lack said the reaction time and muscle strength of players is at its best late in the afternoon. And the Rams could go to bed early on Thursday night in Melbourne, wake up about 4 AM on Friday, which would be late morning Thursday at home, giving them something of a typical lead-in they would normally have. And yet the 49ers' body clocks would adjust to local time throughout their week, and they'd be getting up at this unusual early morning start for a 10:30 game, which they've never played before. So it's basically like, we're just gonna balls to the wall, go do this and get out of town while the Niners have been there. It's funny, the Niners thing also— the Niners have been doing all this NFL promotion for the game in Australia. So whereas I haven't heard it from the 49ers people, I have to think they're not only doing football stuff, but they're also wearing this like ambassador— yeah, of football.

And we're gonna do all the NFL events and the international events, The Rams are like, no, we're getting in, we're going out. We're not— we're playing a football game. We're not here to do the song and dance.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay.

That does— it does make sense. And I'm very interested to see how it all shakes out. If I'm the Rams, I would almost just say, like, I'd put, like, blackout rules in effect once you get there. Like, we're not even going to look at the sun. Maybe even just, like, put blindfolds on your guys and be like, we're going to simulate the time of day that I want it to be, that it's Los Angeles. You're not allowed to look at the sun. You're not allowed to be in the sun. until we get out there and we get— we show up at the field for game day. That's it.

And, and it's— they play the Giants in, you know, a couple days later, 9 days later, and it's like Monday Night Football, and we have away we go, and then there's 16 more games. So it— the season doesn't stop for them once they play this game. Um, but I think they are really, really pretty confident after a great summer.

Yeah.

Uh, the one interest— I feel like I'm going 100 miles per hour here, but I do want to call out there's a, there's a reporter in like video guy, whatever, Grant Cohn out of San Francisco, who is very controversial amongst Niners fans because he's always— he's an antagonist to the team and he'll criticize a lot and he'll be one of the guys in the media who actually takes on the team and the organization. He's been there for about 5 days doing content from Aussie Rules football games and being very serious about it and like shitting all over the local team and like killing their coach and doing all this stuff. It is incredible content and like, this is maybe the gift of these international games where we get our American reporters overseas and they're like, here are the keys, go and make content. And I, and I don't even know Grant Cohn, and I know a lot of Niners fans are probably throwing, uh, you know, their, their remote at the Netflix screen right now, but Grant Cohn is, is doing a fantastic job with content, just absolutely bashing the local Aussie Rules football team.

I love it.

It's fun.

It's cool.

I love it.

I love it. All right, so let's talk about the rest of the league. Uh, we're gonna get your Super Bowl pick at the end, but before we do that, give me an AFC and NFC team that you think is going to surprise people this year, whether it be through things you've heard, people talking about it, scrimmages, you know, preseason games, which you can't really take a lot out of, or something they added. Who, who, who do you have your eye on, both AFC and NFC? Like, people are not paying enough attention to this team.

Yeah, NFC, I, I, I think the Giants are going to be very good. I don't— I, I know that's like kind Vogue pic, and I'm in New York City, and it's very easy for me to pander to the local fans, um, and get a couple new followers. That's not— I've been to practice, I have talked to the team. Like, it is night and day than what it's been the last decade since Coughlin left. They spent 14 days in West Virginia together, living in basically college dorm rooms out at the Greenbrier, all hanging out, breaking bread, and like came together almost as if like one of these movies where— or surviving Barstool, if you will.

Yeah.

Like, you put it out there and you're like, all right, we're all gonna be together. And we're gonna come together on the same page. And Harbaugh's just an adult in the room, and they've been hitting— like, they hit for 2 and a half hours. They're hitting in these practices. And I like Dart. I think Dart's legit. So I think the Giants, despite a very difficult schedule and a hard, you know, first 2 weeks— Cowboys and then Rams— I, I think the Giants are going to be back. I think they could be a double-digit team this season.

I'm with you on that. I think the Giants were a team last year that you looked at them, they were in so many games. And just getting a little bit better on the edges— I mean, especially like special teams— that's what Harbaugh will do instantly. Ultimately, if Jackson Dart can stay healthy, I do think they're going to be a big improvement team.

Yeah. And I would add that their defense has a lot of top 20 picks in that front 7 and they just haven't come together. So you have the Abdul-Carter, you have obviously Reese, who's been awesome as a middle linebacker for them, but then you also still have Brian Burns and Thibodeaux who are now veterans but like are still awesome pass rushers when they get going. So the hope is it all comes together. And I don't know, I just being around that team, it's interesting, you know, to get in the weeds a little bit. They have Matt Nagy as the offensive coordinator, which I'm sure you have your thoughts on. And you got Greg Roman who's running like the run game. Then you've got Brian Callahan who's working with the quarterbacks. Then you got, then you got a guy, it's actually, I'm going blank on the last name, but I don't know, I'm embarrassed. It's actually Kelly Stafford's brother.

Oh yeah.

Chad Hall.

He's great. Chad's the man, and he's coaching the wide receivers. So you have all these guys who have been in all these different systems with all these different quarterbacks, and you're putting them all together as almost like a Frankenstein. And you might say, yeah, but Callahan wasn't a great coach, and Nagy wasn't a great coach, and Greg Roman's, you know, been let go the last few places. That said, they've all had a lot of success in this league with great quarterbacks. So the hope is they all pour themselves into Dart, and Dart can, you know, rise above with that. So I'm in on the Giants and Chad Hall. I'm sorry, that was embarrassing.

No, that's all good. He's a good dude.

Player at Air Force.

Yeah. Yeah, he's, he, he is, uh, he's a very good, uh, wide receiver coach. All right then, AFC.

AFC is different. I feel like it's so top-heavy in the AFC and there are so many good teams that you can pull one out of a hat and say, okay, well, that's your team. But the Cinderella team is a little bit more difficult to find. I'm not sure I'm jumping in on the Titans yet. I'm not sure I'm jumping in the Raiders yet. And I think you're looking for like one of those off-the-radar squads. The team that I think is going to be actually be significantly better, and that might actually hurt the fans' feelings based on what they want in the draft. I think the Cleveland Browns are going to be okay this year.

Yeah, I agree with that as well.

Yeah, 2 really good drafts in a row, solid defense. I know they traded Myles Garrett, but Jared Verse is, is not this huge drop-off and is also an emotional leader and a leader in a way that I'm told is galvanizing everyone. So like, those players aren't looking to tank, and Monken isn't starting Deshaun Watson because, you know, they're trying to lose games. Starting Deshaun Watson because he outplayed Shedeur this So I think Cleveland's gonna be a pain in the ass. I think they might be pretty good. I'm talking like 7, 8 wins, better than they've been in the past. Uh, but I don't think there's a Patriots like last year where you go from the 3rd overall pick to being a Super Bowl team.

Yeah, I was looking at that win total for the Browns. I think it's 5.5. Um, but, but with that defense, it is like—

it's—

and that schedule also is the other side of it. The schedule combined with how good that defense is, they can win some games 13-10. Yeah. And so I would not be shocked It's hard to tank in the— I can't remember the last time that a team actively tried and accomplished tanking in the NFL.

No.

And the one year everyone thought the Jets were doing it, they beat the Rams in like Week 14 and it cost them Trevor Lawrence. Like, it— you don't give tanking because all these guys are fighting for their jobs and the coaches want to stay the coaches, so they don't tank. Like, it's hard to tell them. It's different than other sports.

So what about, uh, what about first-year head coaches, guys that we haven't seen before? Which one of these guys do you think is going to be the most interesting? or, or, um, you know, like refreshing? Like, which guys are bringing something new to the table here?

Yeah, like, you know, I look at Joe Brady and he's got some shit to him, and he didn't just win that job or get that job because Josh Allen tapped him. They, they claim— and, you know, Brandon Beane is not only a friend of your show and a friend of McAfee's and talks quite a bit, but I can tell you straight up, Brandon Beane, the GM, said, we tried to do as objective an interview process as possible. We had a bunch of different candidates. They all came through the door, and Daboll had history with Josh Allen and Davis Webb Webb had history with Josh Allen, and Joe Brady blew the doors off, and Joe Brady was the guy. Um, I think Joe Brady's gonna be a really interesting one. And of course, Minter's the other one, based on the fact that it's, it's the New York Knicks theory. That's how I look at it. It's like everyone was like, well, why would they ever fire Thibodeaux? He got in because the message got old, and we need to try something different while we have this young core. And Mike Brown happened to be the guy that got him over the hump.

I think both Minter and Joe Brady, the hope is that new, fresh, younger voices can get these guys where they have to be.

Mm-hmm. Okay, give us— you know what, let's just do your Super Bowl pick. Do you have it already? Because I've— speaking of the Bills a second ago with Joe Brady, I'm toying with— we're going to do our Super Bowl picks in our preview, actually in this episode that you're listening to right now.

Okay.

But I'm toying with the idea of the Bills. I know that that is— I think there's probably a laundry list of people in the media who've picked the Bills in the last 7 years.

Can't worry about it.

And I'm doing it not, maybe not even because of Joe Brady, who I think is going to be very good, but I'm doing it because of my guy Jim Leonard, the defensive coordinator, who I think is an unknown in terms of like how high he can take this team. The ceiling might be unknown in terms of defense.

Wisconsin fans absolutely love Jim Leonard.

He was my favorite Badger when I was at— we were at school at the same time. He's just, you know, a walk-on, just did everything, had an unbelievable, you know, NFL career. given the fact that he was a walk-on, now a coach, all these things. Love Jim Leonard. So I'm toying with the Bills, but you have— what was your streak that you had?

I did really well.

I, like, over the course of 6 years, I either got the exact matchup and the Super Bowl winner right, or I got the matchup and not the Super Bowl winner right, or I just got the Super Bowl winner right. And then last year I swung and missed. My first year at ESPN, I come in with all this pomp and circumstance, and I'm like, it's gonna be Eagles-Bills, and it's gonna—

and then last year was a tough year. I mean, I don't think anyone had the Seahawks and the Patriots playing in the Super Bowl.

No. And I— and I— and it kind of made me want to this year like really swing for the fences, like out of my shoes and do something crazy. And the more I look at it, I'm like, I just don't see it this year. I feel like there's a lot of teams chomping at the bit. So I'd like to do it on your show. Why not? I was gonna save it. Let's do it on your show. Oh shit. Um, NFC, it's— it's 2 teams for me and it's the rest of the world. It's Rams versus Seahawks. And I had a clip on McAfee last week where I did a whole spiel about the Seahawks and how everyone's talking about the Rams Rams. We had a segment on, on Get Up basically saying, is it the Rams or the field? And I almost couldn't even fathom stepping on set with that conversation considering the Seahawks won. Seahawks have been sitting quiet in the Pacific Northwest, and all the Rams fans are coming after me like, you're a traitor, you know, you're McVay's guy, you've been with us all along. I'm like, I'm not—

I'm—

I don't play for either team and I don't care about either team. And yet the more I look at it, the only thing that holds me back on the Rams, the only thing, is that Knock on wood, I fear what happens if they have health issues at the quarterback position. If Stafford goes down, they are not— they are not equipped. Last year they had Jimmy G and they didn't need him, but Jimmy G can win you games. And this year right now it's Stetson Bennett and Ty Simpson, and that, that gives me a lot of fear if I'm a Rams fan. So let's hope Stafford is standing up. Out of the NFC, I think the Rams are gonna win that thing.

Oh wow, come back home, come back home, Peter.

He's not gonna fuck you, Peter. All right, listen, Come back home.

Yeah.

And I, and I apologize to Adam Ray and Jeffrey Dean Morgan and all the other nuts Seattle Seahawks fans who are liking my video about the Rams getting too much hype. I just, I just think they're so damn good. And I think Garrett and McDuffie are 2 of the best defensive players in football. And then you add in Donald, which I don't know what version we're getting, but yeah.

Well, you have to think about that because like it's, it's hard to come back after 2 seasons. Like there's, there's being in great shape. I'm sure he's in great shape, but you see a lot of guys, they, they get out of the league and And, you know, it's good for them. They lose a lot of weight, get that, uh, get that body fat percentage down a little bit. Like, has he— is he going to be able to jump back into the trenches where you have to be, you know, big, strong, and used to violent physical contact?

I don't know if it's going to look great right away, honestly. And, and from what I remember, and like what I'm told, it's like Labor Day, they're not allowed in the building this whole weekend. So like, he didn't practice necessarily the first day he was back on the Rams with the team. He hasn't been hitting with them the last couple days. Do you roll out, you know, how many snaps week 1 you're playing against the Niners? Does he play 20 snaps? Does he play 10 snaps or is he out there for 60 snaps? And Sean hasn't given a real indication. And anyone who tells you that there is a plan and they know the plan, that's not been shared to anyone. So yeah, I don't know. And we'll see what version we get. But over time, I would imagine Aaron Donald's going to make an impact down, you know, especially next to Garrett.

My biggest knock on the Rams is just that super teams and the most obvious team never wins. And but that's not really a knock like that has nothing to do with football.

That's an idiotic thing.

Right, right, right. And their counter to me, because I, I've been kind of saying that, is I know it wasn't dubbed a super team, but when we went out and traded for Von Miller and we traded for Dante Fowler and we went out and traded for Jalen Ramsey, we went out and traded for Odell Beckham, like, we made all these moves. Like, that wasn't considered a super team in 2021, but we collected a bunch of assets and did win a Super Bowl, right? I get it, right?

Okay, and then the AFC.

AFC, I'm debating between 2 teams.

Let's talk it out.

Let's go. The Houston Texans are so good.

Yep.

And they are so good on defense.

Yep.

And that quarterback held them back last year when it mattered most. And you have to think, if they can— it's almost the inverse of the Cowboys. If you can get the offense a little bit better, closer to somewhat good, like you're talking Super Bowl championship type team.

team.

That's the Cowboys in their defense. Now the Texans in their offense, they add David Montgomery, who we love. They have Tank Dell coming back. We've got a couple young players, a new tight end that they drafted. Like, they're excited about it. Kalen Rutledge, good on the offensive line. I just can't get there yet with them. I feel like they need to knock on the door one more year, and then it's like the following year is their year. The team that I'm going with out of the AFC, similar to your Buffalo Bills, I'm just saying, fuck it, I'm going Baltimore Ravens.

Oh.

Okay.

Okay.

They're there. They are there. They have the talent, they have the leadership, they have the hunger. And this is my New York Knicks theory on them. Harbaugh was fantastic for what it was, and it may have run its course. And for 31 other teams, Harbaugh might be the best coach in all of football. But for that group of men and that organization, they needed a fresh voice. And they bring in Jesse Minter, who's been there before, and they bring in Declan Doyle, who's 29 years old, and I'm told has an awesome relationship with Logan. Lamar already. And I'm just banking on the fact that the talent's always been there. They just needed to get a couple changes to get over the hump, and then the coaching is going to be what it is. So I'm going with Rams versus Ravens, and when it's all said and done, I've got the Rams winning at home again in the Super Bowl.

Oh, okay. I thought you were gonna suck up to, uh, to Stavey there for a second.

Yeah, straight Sean McVay.

You're just—

come on, dude.

Yeah, Rams guy.

Yeah, that's it, Rams guy.

I like the Ravens.

I No one's picking him, right?

It's, it's, it's an interesting thing. Yeah, because I think it's, it just was, it was so weird at the end. And Lamar, the last couple years, the like injuries where it has— he hasn't like missed a ton of time. I think there's a little bit overblown. It's more that when Lamar is out, it's always a conversation because there's been just weird shit and there's such a drop-off when he's out. But yeah, I mean, the Ravens are— I mean, a couple years ago they were were, they were the best team in the league, you know what I mean? They had the one seed.

If L'Jarius Sneed doesn't knock that ball out of Dave Flowers' hands, they probably— I don't know if they win the game, but they held— their defense held the Chiefs that day.

Yeah.

And their offense just couldn't do anything. They couldn't move the ball. They abandoned the run completely. It cost Roman his job, basically. And Monken got him going, and now the hope is Declan Doyle does.

And I'm, I'm done predicting when Derrick Henry's gonna fall off. I've tried that a couple times, and then he just—

It's like, you know, saying that this is the year he's gonna fall off a cliff. It doesn't happen. Yeah, yeah.

He, he'll He'll have a couple bad games and then everyone will be like, oh shit, myself included. And then it'll be like, oh no, wait, he's still like an absolute monster that could just roll over people.

I also have to imagine that Declan Doyle, when he was talking about getting the job, a big part of it was like, identify Derrick Henry from this lineup of people so you don't forget about him. Like, because that was— it was a unique experience watching Ravens games sometimes where it's like the biggest, most physically imposing guy on that sidelines with the biggest track record of getting better in games as they go on.

Like LaDainian Tomlinson in that game against the Patriots.

Yeah, yeah, they just forgot about him. So I mean, I have to imagine that that's a pretty big part of the, uh, the new offense's game plan. It's like, use that dude.

Yeah, use that dude. And on defense, Anthony Weaver interviewed for a few jobs. He was a Dolphins defensive coordinator last year, so you're like, who? One of the most intense, beloved defensive coaches in football. Former player, played for the Texans, played for a couple other teams. And I was around that team a little bit this offseason. Weaver is just on 100 at all times, and it's It's like if you just get a couple different voices and you get a little bit different of a feel, that might be all it takes for that team to get over the hump. And again, for the third time I'll say it, having watched the Knicks do this exact thing where everyone's like, why would they ever get rid of that coach? Well, it's because they were running against the same wall year after year.

Mm-hmm.

Let's try a fresh new voice. And I think Minter and Doyle and Weaver, and then Anthony Levine Sr., who's their special teams coach, might be those voices.

Okay, let me ask you one more question, Peter, uh, because it's about a team that I think a lot of people are confused. There's high expectations, just like there have been every year, I feel like, for the last 6 years or 5 years in Cincinnati. And it feels like this might be getting to a point where if it doesn't work out this year, there's gonna be some major changes. Um, I mean, obviously a lot depends on Joe Burrow and how healthy he stays, but outside of that, outside Burrow's health, where do you see the Bengals finishing this year? I think they're gonna be in the playoffs. this year?

Playoff team. Yeah, they return 11 starters on offense. They brought in Dexter Lawrence. They added— obviously I'm gonna go through all the names— they added the, you know, the defensive back Brian Cook. They added Boye Mafe. And everyone's like, oh, it's make-or-break year for Burrow. If they don't win, then it's— he's going to want to get out of there. And it's a make-or-break year for Zach Taylor. Remember now, their owner's 92 years old, goes to practice every day, and is still very much a part of this team. And his daughter and his granddaughter are very involved too. And Duke Tobin, who's been the It's been there for about 30 years also. So this is not a team that just tears it all down and starts anew. This is a team that believes in loyalty and a team that really trusts what they have in store. Now, Marvin Lewis eventually lost his job, Zach Taylor took over, but they're kind of hitting that same point right now. And I would think with 11 returning starters on offense and a really good defense and 2 of the best players in all of football in Burrow and Chase, that they are a playoff team in the AFC.

Okay. What about a team that everyone is high on that you're not as high on? Let's do some negative talk.

Yeah. This is not where I usually—

I know I'm going to make you uncomfortable, but you know what? You got to get ready. You're doing a show every single day. You're going to have to say some negative stuff.

I know. I'm, I'm curious to see what we get from the Philadelphia Eagles.

Yeah.

Me too.

Oh, no.

Okay. That's not bad.

I'm curious.

I'm very curious.

I'm sorry, brother.

You said something very interesting about the Houston Texans there.

What?

That they have a really good defense and that their defense is Super Bowl caliber, and if they can get anything from their offense, they can win a Super Bowl. What about that doesn't describe the Philadelphia Eagles?

That's fair.

He just said he's curious. He said he's curious.

Here's what I'll say, and here's what I'll say. They interviewed 17 different offensive coordinators and they went with Sean Mannion.

It's a lot of interviews. It's a lot of interviews.

How many did you guys do, PFF?

Oh, I mean, we had our guy in-house, David Blough. The future is Blough. That's what we're saying. Wait, wait, Max, you, you gotta chill out. The season hasn't started yet.

Oh, never.

He's not angry.

He literally just stepped off of a, a boat from Italy.

It hasn't, it hasn't started.

I was on a boat.

He's not, he's not being negative about the— he's fly curious.

He's curious.

The defense, the defense is there. The defense is there. The offense is question marks.

It is there. There are some players that aren't there this year that have moved on to different spots. But there are new players.

players there that are really good players.

They have—

Greek Williams, a very good player. Very good player.

A lot of guys who play in the NFL, Peter, you forgot about that.

And I'll tell you this, I talking to guys there, like, I was like, well, Stoutland's a huge loss. And they're like, yes, but Cooper's been great. And also this offensive line looks fantastic right now. So that was another fear of mine. So Manion not having any play-calling experience, kind of being a first-time play caller in Philly with that spotlight, no AJ Brown, the pressure now of hey, we had to do this because of the, you know, the relationship, whatever. But all right, we're relying now on a bunch of guys— Hollywood Brown and Dontavian Wicks and Kai Lemon in year 1. These are legit questions. And I just— I— the Eagles to me have always been, take a pen, put them in the playoffs, they're straight, they're good. That's one team that you know is going there. I just think this year I'm curious to see year 1 with a first-time play caller and offensive coordinator.

All right, I got another team I'm curious about, and maybe you can give us some insight. Is Patrick Mahomes just going to be like totally fine week 1? Because I don't believe it. And it's not that I don't think the Chiefs can be good this year. I think their defense has gotten younger. I still don't know. I mean, I love the Kenneth Walker add. I still don't know what to expect from their wide receivers, but it all relies on Patrick Mahomes. And this guy got injured. He tore his ACL, what, 9 months ago?

Yeah.

And yes, he is superhuman. And yes, Yes, when healthy, he's the best quarterback in the NFL. But are we like— what have you been hearing? Is he going to be just fine Monday night against the Broncos when they open up the season?

Apparently, yes. And again, I have doubts also. And that team as a whole going 6-11 last year, losing all the close games when they usually typically win those close games. Did they do enough to just say, well, that was a 1-year blip? They got older everywhere and then they totally tore down the defense, drafted 4 guys with their first 4 picks on defense. And like all 4 of those guys guys are gonna play a role. You know, we're throwing them all right into the mix. Traded McDuffie. Like, there's a lot not to like. I, I've learned in all these years to not doubt Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, so I would say I'm leaning more towards wild card team than out of the playoffs.

Yeah.

But there's a lot of questions, and, uh, you know, Mahomes's health is the last of them. To me, it's— this is an offensive line that left a lot to be desired. Spent a lot of money on Kenneth Walker, who was never really the primary guy in Seattle.

battle.

And you're just assuming that, hey, this defensive backfield, which was completely gutted over the offseason, is going to be okay because they drafted a guy 6th overall and they brought in some other guys. So I don't know. I, I trust that building, I trust that team, I trust that coach, and I trust Spagnuolo. Um, but I'm usually like, Chiefs Super Bowl, let's go. I, I can't do that.

All right, so it's okay to be curious. I mean, it's so loaded. The West is going to be— I mean, the Broncos are a really, really good team. It's going to be what, what Bo Nix— can he take another leap. The Chargers, it's— I feel like every year the Chargers, like, hey, if they can stay healthy and they can protect Justin Herbert, right? It's so—

it's—

there's some good teams there, and it's, it's, it's like, man, are the Chiefs— are they gonna miss the playoffs 2 years in a row? That would be kind of crazy.

I did see Tyreek Hill's last 3 tweets, and, and he's been off Twitter for the most part this offseason, I guess, uh, working on his health. Um, his last 3 tweets were, hmm, and then, uh, the after that was a quote tweet of, uh, Patrick Mahomes throwing him that touchdown pass in the playoffs against the Bills, uh, when they're down 26 to 29. And he said, Pat a wild boy for even throwing this. And then today he tweeted out again, hmm. So I ask you, if you're Tyreek Hill, are you thinking about coming back to the Chiefs? And do you think the Chiefs would have him?

Yes, I think it's all very possible. Let's see where his health's at. I'll tell you this, for all the star players that leave teams and get traded The one relationship that I always found cool was that the Chiefs guys still love Tyreek Hill, and that's when they played against him in a playoff game a couple years later, the hugs before the game and all that. But Brett Veach, Andy Reid, to a man, none of those guys ever spoke ill of Tyreek Hill. They're basically like, he wants to get paid, we're not looking to pay him that, we're going to trade him to a destination he wants to go. Miami was the place, and in return they basically filled out an entire draft class that ended up being Carl Aftis and McDuffie and all those guys that they got in that loaded 2022 draft, I think. Um, I I think the fact that they drafted him in the 6th round and he was a running back in college and he had this career in Kansas City, I think there's a lot of love for Andy and Veach for Tyreek Hill. I don't think they're gonna go down that road unless, A, he's healthy, and B, they feel like there's a need for what Tyreek Hill can bring.

So let's wait on it, but I certainly wouldn't close the door. I would love that reunion. It's almost like Odell coming back to the Giants. Like, there was no greater player when he was on his game than Tyreek Hill for the Kansas City Chiefs. And the hope is that maybe he can end this career with a chapter or have another couple years to this career with a couple chapters with the Kansas City Chiefs.

I would agree with that. Um, uh, I'm gonna give you the opportunity to make one of us hate you on this show, if that's okay.

Yeah.

So at the end of the season, if we look at the 3 quarterbacks that, uh, Hank, Big Cat, myself took in the draft a couple years ago, which quarterback are we gonna say turned it up the most this year, showed the most improvement, most upside? Which quarterback are we gonna say we might want to be having some uncomfortable conversations about that quarterback within the next year or 2?

Yeah, I don't know how much further a huge leap Drake Maye can make when you go from being, you know, a quarterback who didn't do at all his rookie year, then all of a sudden be second in MVP and almost win that award. So So I think as far as the delta goes, I don't think you're going to get another huge leap out of Drake May in year 2 out of Josh McDaniels. I do think Caleb has a lot more he can do. So I'm going to say Caleb's going to be the one that's going to hit these new ceilings. And Jaden, I'm just curious to see what this team looks like. I'm sorry, I love you. I, I just— David Blough is also a 30-year-old first-time coordinator calling plays. They lose Tunsil and Stefon Diggs and McLaurin. I, I'm not sure. that this is the best situation for a huge year for Jayden Daniels. And if he does it, PFT, I would think this guy is an MVP candidate.

I would make the argument— I, I, by the way, I kind of agree with the premise of what you're saying, that we don't know what the offense is going to look like. And last year did not give us a ton of room to hope after watching, you know, he was only, I think, healthy for like 3 or 4 games last year. Not a lot of good stuff to say about last season. So I kind of agree with the premise that you're saying. But I would say that the team offensively is more talented than it was when we got to the NFC Championship Game.

Fair, fair. And that team had a lot of older veterans and guys that were like brought in as like, you know, emotional locker room leaders and ended up playing in an NFC Championship Game that no one expected. So fair. And look, you see the league, like Washington, if Jayden's good, like they're, they're competing with everyone. Last year they went 0-8 in primetime games. Yeah, you watched every one of them. It's sucked.

Like, it was terrible.

It was just unfortunate. So I don't know, I have a lot of love for that team. I feel like they have a lot of good, you know, young players. I just don't know if they're going to be in the mix this season.

That's fair. Okay, um, and then what about, uh, what about the NFC South? Because I feel like that's a division that is wide open.

Yeah, I always like lean on just like Baker Mayfield's the best quarterback in that division, so I feel like, you know, Tampa's gonna be in the mix. I know they lost Mike Evans, but Last year it came down to the final game. Obviously they beat Carolina, but then due to tiebreaker, Carolina gets in.

I—

to me, you pick your team. There's 4 of them. Obviously if Tua is good, the Falcons can do it. If Tyler Shuck takes this huge leap, they can do it. And then obviously Carolina and Tampa. There's going to be a 10-7 or 9-8 winner of that division. They're gonna have the 4 seed and they're gonna play in the playoffs at home one game. Then we'll see what happens from there. It's what it is every year.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay.

That's fair.

All right, Peter, I got one last question for you. It's actually Zach's question. Zach's gonna take it. Roback question, rhoback.com, promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com, promo code TAKE. Zach, you ready?

Yes, sir.

Peter, I did have a quick question for you. If Roger Goodell were to be deemed unfit tomorrow to do his job, you're appointed commissioner of the NFL. What's our first thing, first order of business? You step into the office, what are you getting done?

done?

Good question, Zach.

Great question. This is a crazy answer, and it— and my friend Adam Weinberg, who I grew up with, all right, nice boy, he brought this up to me a couple months ago. We've been talking about it. The first thing I would do is I would institute an NFL Draft lottery. I would do an NFL Draft lottery, and this is the year I think this would be the perfect reason for it. You've got all these teams with these multiple first-round picks with these great quarterbacks, whether it be Manning or Moore, CJ Carr, you name whoever it is, Chambliss. There is going to be a quarterback frenzy. There are some bad rosters— Cardinals, Dolphins, Jets, you could say the Browns. They all are jockeying for who's going to get that first. A draft lottery like the NBA has, of course we can make it into a massive TV event. Again, I'm citing my friend Adam. This is not my idea, but I love it. Do this in between instead of the Pro Do this in between the last week of the playoffs before the Super Bowl. You captivate an audience. Do it in Vegas, do it at the Barstool Chicago offices, do it somewhere fun.

And you all of a sudden have this— you get rid of the tanking, but you have this little extra wrinkle that you can make on this thing, and you can do it. So, okay, we're not even talking about tanking. And also, it's another cool, fun event, and it's a way to, you know, throw this whole league upside down again and get the fans engaged, even if your team misses the playoffs.

I hate it. But hey, listen, you took a shot. Tell everybody. Why do you hate it?

Why do you hate it?

I don't know. I like, if you're really, really bad, if you win 2 games in the NFL, you should have the number 1 pick. That's such a miserable experience to lose that many games. Like, you should have the number 1 pick. You shouldn't have— you shouldn't— if you win 2 games and then somehow lottery luck goes against you and you end up with the 5th pick, that would be devastating.

But what if you weigh the balls in a certain way where you make it where it's like very advantageous for those guys?

Of course.

Yeah, yeah.

And so there's even a spe— like, to me, you know, I look at it, I'm like, all right, so the Dolphins are gonna go 2-15 this year, and then they just get gifted Arch Manning. And it's like, well, their coach already, Halfley, is like, we're gonna play hard, we're gonna try and everything. But like, look at the roster. It's just— if you have a lottery, it's all right, you have to go out and try to do everything, you might as well. And then, by the way, It's the Ravens or the Steelers might get the first overall pick instead.

Sorry.

So I think the difference with the NFL is that having the first overall pick and picking the first overall quarterback still doesn't mean the quarterback's going to be great. And that's the beauty of it is like there's the picking quarterbacks. The NFL is so fucking hard to do that it's like already you're already kind of gambling on the fact that like you, you could have a great pick, but you could, you could pick the wrong core. You have the third pick, you have the fourth pick. You like, you could still pick the wrong quarterback or, or the, or things could go wrong. So I'm fine with how it is. I would say no more international games. That would be my first rule if I was, if I was Goodell for a day.

You know, I read something today that like the NFL, you know, Goodell just got a new deal until 2031 and there's, it's incentive-based, which means the more money the NFL makes, the more money he makes. And I think a lot of those incentives are tied in the global expansion of this game and it's flag football. It's both boys and girls and it's international. So I— Big Cat, I hear you. I don't love the fact that we're doing a Wednesday, Thursday, Monday, then we have— I don't love— yes, a traditionalist, if you will.

Yes.

That said, they want this golden goose to keep on.

I get it. I think there is an actual, like, argument to be made about the scarcity of the NFL and why it's so popular. And we are going to eventually screw that up when it's like you put a game on every single night.

Like Mark Cuban's argument, right?

Yeah.

And I— listen, he was— he said that like 10 years ago. He couldn't have been more wrong.

No.

And I'm gonna watch it, but I, I do think that when you take like, you know, whether it be the Black Friday, like traditional spots that are for college football or other sports, and you start just gobbling them all up, I think it does. And it also makes it— you know what it does too is like we talk about it, but like you have to load the Christmas Day, right? You have to load that slate. Guess what happens that Sunday? You have like 6 matchups and they all kind of stink. Like, I don't, I don't know. I just—

My argument would be more towards, I think they need— obviously Roger Goodell's job is to try to acquire new fans of the NFL. Like, the NFL is the biggest sport in America. So if you really want to make more money for the leagues and for the owners and make the franchises worth more money, guess what they want you to do. Get more eyes watching football. And the way to do that would be to look to other countries, because you look like in the United States it's almost close to saturation, right, for what you can do. But as you do that, I still think you run a very real risk of making diehard fans that in the past, like, uh, lived and breathed and bled and, and, and, and pissed and jizzed the NFL— you run the risk of having them, you know—

My light went off when you said pissed and jizzed.

But if you get into that, like, you do run the risk of losing that fan base a little bit. And they are really the ones that, you know, are the most valuable customers to have, the ones that in the, in the past historically have bought all the tickets, bought the Sunday tickets, you know, gone, gone to the ends of the earth to watch their favorite team and to watch the NFL. And I feel like that fan base is going to get neglected as Goodell tries to keep expanding internationally. That's all I'm saying.

I, I 100%, I totally get that. And I think the 1 o'clock window window becomes now, all right, those are the, you know, the, the games that I don't necessarily think, you know, are primetime worthy. And it's not going to be Thursday, Sunday, Monday, and in this case, these holiday games. And that's really the risk you run, that Sunday window. It's all fair. I've said this on your show before, I'll say it again. I used to work on the Fox pregame show for many years. I would fly out to LA and do the Fox pregame show. If you've got football games every morning at 9:30 AM on the East Coast, You know, international games, I'm not some, like, I don't, I don't have like so much feeling where it's like, I can't, I can't believe that we're not gonna have Nate Burleson and, you know, Russell Wilson talking about the game at 12. But you do run the risk of people completely being done with these pregame shows. Yeah, because why would you ever watch a pregame show when an actual game is going on?

Yeah, that's very true. And I do, I got one last, last question for you because it just popped up. We didn't have— we haven't really talked about that much on the show because because, quite frankly, we're idiots and feel like sometimes we're not equipped to talk about serious things. But the study that came out recently about brain health in NFL players, and where they look back at the numbers of people that have donated their brains, is that something that Goodell's looking— is that why we're looking at flag football moving forward? Like, he's getting heavily invested in that. Where do you think Goodell stands on that? Because I do see that as a possible threat to the future of the league too.

I mean, they have a whole health and safety team, obviously, that are working on it. It's why you've seen so many rule changes I will say this to the league's credit, and you might say, oh, you're just talking the league talking points. They said with this new dynamic kickoff last year, concussions went up. They didn't like that. So they've got to figure something out and say, okay, not all these rule changes are necessarily, you know, great for health and safety right out the gate. So let's see what we can do with that. I think the flag football obviously is they want more people and I want boys and girls. And I think the trickle-down effect of You know, you go to Long Island at any weekend out in Syosset or Roslyn. There's you know sixty different fields of girls playing flag football. The trickle-down effect is oh I love this sport Sunday, whereas maybe in generations prior those girls aren't sitting home on the couch watching football. They are now because they look at themselves as the next Diana Flores or the you know Ashley Clam or whoever these other young female superstars in the flag football world are.

So I think that is two-pronged. Yes, health and safety, but also So you're talking about new audience, an entirely untapped resource of young girls across America who can play in college football and then can eventually be fans for life.

I do like the idea of like a big meeting at the NFL headquarters and they're like, we have 50% of the country is football fans. How do we get another 50%? Oh shit, we get women too.

Cheers.

All right, Peter, you're the best. Everyone tune into his show on Thursday. Uh, can't be— couldn't be happier for you, man. You're gonna crush it. And, uh, if you ever need Zach on the show, we'll allow Zach on it. PFTI, we're not gonna do it, but Zach will definitely come on.

I, I appreciate it. This is for all the different ESPN conversations you guys had. I'm gonna carry that torch and try to get it to the finish line. It hasn't premiered yet, but we're hoping we can get there.

Yeah, I hope you last longer than one show.

It would actually be really funny if you got canceled. It wouldn't be funny if you got canceled in a month. It would be funny if you got canceled in one day.

That's what I'll say. One day is good. One day is fun.

One month is not good. One day is very fun.

Yeah, you can, you can't have us, but Brendan Walker, he'll go on ESPN.

Yeah, you can get Brendan.

I heard, I heard he's on the Eisen Show.

Yeah, you got him.

Uh, all right.

Not with Eisen though.

It's like another guy.

Yeah, with Bobby Bones.

All right, Shakes, you're the best. Thanks so much, man. See you.

This episode is brought to you by The Farmer's Dog. The Farmer's Dog makes real food for dogs. It's never ultra-processed. It's just real meat, fresh veggies, all gently cooked. I have Blake on The Farmer's Dog. He's been on The Farmer's Dog since he was a wee pup. Uh, the very first food that he had in my house was a Farmer's Dog meal. He loved Farmer's Dog. We got him on the turkey right now. He loves it. Never had an issue with him turning his nose up at The Farmer's Dog. He's always excited for breakfast. He's always excited for dinner. It's made human-grade safety standards. So sometimes, I'm not gonna lie, I take a look at The turkey, and I just think to myself, it looks like they got that seasoned up pretty good. I could see myself eating it, but it's for Blake, and it says he would get mad at me if I stole his food. The Farmer's Dog meal plans are personalized to your dog's unique caloric needs. So all they do, they send you a bunch of packets, and then it's one packet per meal. It could be a half packet per meal.

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Okay. We now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is New York Giants running back Cam Scadaboo. Uh, Cam, we're excited for football. I'm also excited. Uh, we found out that you are a Farmer's Dog, you're part of Farmer's Dog. You're going to be in a commercial. We are Farmer's Dog guys ourselves. Uh, I heard— do you have a— do you have an elderly dog? Because I have a 15-year-old dog that Farmer's Dog has, uh, she, she still every day is like pumped to eat dinner and breakfast because Farmer's Dog's in her bowl. Do you, you have a— you have a dog as well?

Yeah, I got—

I actually got 3 dogs, but I got one older one's about to turn 12. Um, you know, I think true Farmer's Dog's been good for him. You know, he has no teeth in his mouth. He only has 4 teeth because he had some things go wrong with his gums and stuff. But I mean, it's easy for him to eat. You know, he's— he loves waking up in the morning at 9 o'clock and going to eat food. So it's helped him a lot with, you know, simply the fact of his gum health and the way he's been feeling energy-wise. You know, it's, it's real food. I mean, I would eat it.

So yeah, I'm not gonna lie.

I understand why he loves it.

Yeah, I look at the turkey sometimes and I start to get thoughts. Yeah, I think about cracking that open, tossing it in the pan. It does look good.

I always thought about taking a bite, see how it tastes, but I know there's some—

You won't. You won't do it.

It is, it is, uh, it's great stuff. And, and I've, I've been using it. I was using it before we even came on as a sponsor because we were trying to find, uh, Stella, my dog who's older, she's 15 like I said, trying to find something that she liked. And, and Farmer's Dog was like, oh, this is interesting. And it's, it's a great, great product if you love— everyone loves their dog. Dog's part of your family.

Farmer's dog.

Uh, treat him well. All right, so Cam, you've got football coming up. Uh, you have obviously last year ended in injury. You're back. Uh, how are you feeling? Are you, are you getting like the juices flowing? Like, I'm back, like I'm ready to go? Because that, for a guy like you, it feels like that's a long time that you had to spend sitting out not hitting anyone.

Yeah, it was too long. Um, you know, The pain of not being able to play football, I feel like, is worse than the pain of playing football. When you're sitting on the couch for 4 to 5 months not being able to do much, and then, you know, you get to the last 3, 4 months of rehab and you start feeling better, and then you put the pads on, it's, you know, it's been— it's definitely helped me find myself again and, you know, get back out there and feel comfortable.

Yeah.

How good was that first piece of contact that you got this Yeah, it was fun.

I mean, obviously, we— I played a little bit in the first preseason game, but just simply going against these guys in practice, you know, Coach Harms brings a physical mindset. So practicing with pads on every day during training camp almost, and, you know, constantly hitting each other. And, you know, it's time for— it's time to hit somebody new. So I'm excited to see what's going on Sunday.

We had— we had Coach Gruden on the show not too long ago. And at one point, I think he had Mike Allstott and Lorenzo O'Neal on his team and they had rules and at some point he had to just be like, all right, Mike, you're not allowed to hit people anymore. We can't have you doing that in practice. Are there any rules for you in terms of like how much contact you're allowed to dole out in an intersquad practice?

Yeah, I mean, they don't— we take care of each other as much as possible, but, you know, there's the guys on the defense this year, 6'3 and all above. So, um, if they can't take a hit from a 5'10 guy, then I don't know what to tell you. You know, they don't try to hold me back. We take care of each other. We try not to hurt each other. We try not to do too much. Um, there's a couple days where we pop here and there, but, um, for the most part, we got a, we got a pretty good defense. So I don't think they shy away from anything.

Yeah. Uh, so your, your career is fascinating. You obviously, like, famously zero stars coming out of high school. Uh, just love ball. So the, the first year you're coming out of high school, you're You're not getting Division I, like the big-time Division I offers and all that stuff. Was there ever a moment where you're like, maybe I'm just not going to be playing college football? Or you're like, no, I'm playing somewhere and it's going to be Sacramento State to start. But was that— did that ever enter your head, like, this is the end of my football career?

No, it never entered my head that I was going to be done. I think it was the JUCO route was, you know, the next step. And then I went to camp at Sac State and Coach Taylor offered me. And I knew I was going to end up there. You know, I actually got offered by Sac State and my dad looked at me and was like, you're not going there. Like, we're going JUCO. And I was like, ah. And then they went like 12-2 the year before I got there. We're like, maybe we should go there. It'd be a good little step, you know? So I mean, if Troy Taylor never left us, you know, Sac State, I probably would, would have still been there all 4 years. Um, but you know, he took his, took his talent somewhere else and I chose to do the same. And you know, that was the best move of my career.

Yeah.

And it's incredible, like watching you at Arizona State your last year It was awesome to watch that. You know, the Peach Bowl was one of the best performances, like, to see. I know obviously it didn't end well for you guys, but you put it all out there. Did you— during the Peach Bowl when you're puking, are you— do you realize, like, that they're just zooming in on you the whole entire time? Like, you became a cult figure when it's like throwing a touchdown, running for a touchdown, then getting on the sideline puking everywhere.

Yeah, I mean, I had no clue. You know, obviously I knew I was on the camera because I was kind of going crazy, but I didn't know they were going to catch me, you know, throwing up on the sidelines. Now, usually when you get to the bench area, there's a snippet of you here and there, but I didn't think they were going to shoot a 45-second clip of me just puking all over the place.

Yeah.

If you watch that drive, I had like 7 carries in a row, back to back to back, straight up the middle. So Usually when that happens, you don't feel too good after. So, you know, I had to come out, come out and let it out a little bit.

Yeah, it was awesome. Do you throw up during games a lot? I know some guys, that's like their thing even before a game.

That's my first time. That was my first time I ever threw up before during a game. You know, I don't— I'm not a big eater before a game. Like, I'll eat what I need to before the game and get some food in me, but I don't— I don't ever feel like I need to throw up during a game. You know, I get really tired. But, you know, workouts and stuff have never really pushed me to the point of throwing up or puking.

Yeah. So Big Cat was talking about Sac State and how good you were as a college running back. I think Jerome Bettis just kind of anointed you when he saw you run for the first time, said, this guy's going to be really good. When you get there, was there ever any college coach that, that saw you and tried to turn you into a linebacker? Because I think about that with, with Derrick Henry sometimes, like, you know, guys that have a big physical style. A lot of times a defensive coordinator would see a guy like that and be like, I could use that dude on this side of the ball. Did anybody try to do that with you?

Yeah, I mean, you know, there's— I'm sure coaches think that as I was earlier in my career and caught in college and stuff. But, you know, as I, as I, I think the defensive coach realized what I did with the ball in my hands and was like, you know, that's where he's supposed to be. Um, I would say, I always said if I was 6 foot or 6'1, maybe I'd have played linebacker. but I'm just too short to play the position. I'm, I'm tough enough, I hit hard enough, but it's just not for me. I can't see over those big old dudes trying to read the running back and read the pass. I just get through it. So it's, it's not, not something I was ever interested in. I did play when I was little, but no coach has ever tried to push me too hard.

Speaking of being when you were little, is this story real that you put on your brother's pads and ran into telephone poles? I feel like that's a—

it's an awesome story, but do I think it's real? No. Does my mom say it 100% happened?

Yeah.

So then it is, then it's real because your mom's—

I would say, I would say it's real because I was probably too little to remember, but you know, I'll take my mom's word for it. If that's what I did, that's what I did. You know, it kind of explains who I am now.

Yeah, I would imagine you were a little bit of a handful as a child. Not, you know, I mean, obviously not in like a, like a, you know, kids aren't bad way, but like just a lot of energy, a lot of rambunctious going running around kind of shit.

Yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't too much of a troublemaker, but I was a troublemaker. That makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, right.

I stayed out of trouble, but I caused trouble.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like fun trouble, right? Not, not like bad trouble.

Yeah, like other, like at school not getting in trouble, but at home being like a pain in the ass to your mom, like trying to find you.

Yeah, push the a little bit. We were talking, uh, last year on this show about the, uh, the story when you got hurt. You go to the hospital and, uh, and Big Dom paid you a visit. What was that like when he walked into the room? Was it kind of a, hey, uh, like, you know, we don't, we don't talk about what happened out there, we're gonna keep our mouths shut, good to see you type visit? Or was it a, uh, just a friendly stop-in?

Yeah, I mean, we, we talked about what happened, you know. Um, when it— you got to realize in the NFL In the NFL world, everyone is one. And when someone like that from an opposing team, especially a rival, wants to show support and wants to appreciate you for your game and do something good for you to help you out, understanding you're stuck in the hospital, you don't have good food, you're eating Jell-O and cafeteria pizza, he thought it was a good thing to come bring me some Philly staple. So it was awesome that he came and saw me. I've talked to him a couple times since Um, just checking in, make sure he's good. Um, because, you know, when people do stuff like that, it means something to you. So, um, it was a friendly stop, but, you know, he was a good dude that just wanted to do something good for somebody that, you know, pays a good price for the game. Um, and that's all I got out of it.

Yeah, he's a great guy. That's— it didn't shock us. Like, we know him well, and he's, uh, he's just a stand-up guy. That's something he would do. Um, when you got hurt, your reaction Uh, was it just the shock and adrenaline, you didn't feel the pain, or are you just such a badass that you didn't feel the pain? Because I watched it and I was like, holy fuck, why is he not screaming in horror?

Yeah, I mean, my, my pain tolerance is pretty high. Um, you know, even when I work, work on my ankle now to these days, I'll have a little bit of soreness and, um, you know, they'll push on some spots and I won't really say anything about it even though it hurts. But my pain tolerance is high. So when that happened, obviously the adrenaline's running. I had some, I think, ibuprofen in me at the time, and it was kind of not painful for the first 15 minutes. Once they put the ankle actually back into place, I think that was the most relieving moment.

Mm-hmm.

Because even when I was in the 8th grade and I broke my left Forearm, same thing. It was fully snapped, both bones. And as soon as they put it back, they put me in a finger trap hanging in the hospital. And as soon as it popped back into place, it was like the best relief ever. So once I got that relief of the ankle, I kind of felt a lot better. And that was within 45 seconds of me snapping it. And then once I got in the ambulance, they gave me some drugs and got me going to keep the pain away. But I'm not a big medicine guy, so I hate taking medicine. So, um, I just deal with the pain, and I guess over time I've been able to, you know, deal with it better and better as times went on.

Yeah.

Uh, all right, I got a question about your coach. Uh, we're— we've had, uh, Coach Harbaugh on. We're big Harbaugh guys, just both Jim and John. Uh, but him coming in, uh, what has it been like so far? And is he, uh— I feel like, you know, these comments about the 15-yard penalty, like he loves you but he also wants to keep you you in check? Have you maybe told him that you could punt too? Because he's a special teams guy. Maybe that's how you get on his good side, being like, hey, you know, I did punt a little bit at Arizona State. Then you get him on his good side, and then he, he can deal with you maybe being like a little rambunctious.

Yeah, me and Harbs are— we're on the same page, you know. Um, I think, you know, I don't— we argue, you know, offense, defense, every single team does it. Guys get in fights, everybody does it. It's all this testosterone built up and all the guys, you know, constantly hitting each other for 3 weeks in a row. Something's going to cause some anger and some frustration. Something happened at practice, it was whatever, you know. Now we're— me and the guy that got in a fight are good friends. So we don't worry about that anymore. But, you know, Harv, he wants me to understand that, you know, if you do something like that outside of the field, outside of the practice, you know, that is a 15-yard penalty. That is a personal flag that will cause you something. So something that I don't really think about. It's kind of in the past. And, you know, I think he's kind of on the same page with me.

So yeah. Have you, have you practiced punting since college?

Yeah.

I mean, I kicked a couple of punts the other day, but I think I'm retiring from that.

I would love to see that make a comeback, though, whether it's a quarterback doing the pooch kick or running back doing it. That could be, that could be such a weapon. I would love to see that this year. Oh, what's up? How are we doing?

Oh, who's that?

Malik.

Oh, what's up? What's up, Malik?

He felt like he had to come in here and headbutt me.

Is that— is that just like people— is that your handshake that you have with like people on the team?

Yeah, I guess it's just normal.

Now, is it— is it to the point where like people love you so they try to headbutt you, or you want to go around headbutting everybody?

I think he was just being annoying right there. I don't think there was a headbutt correlation. I think he just wanted to come in here and bother me.

Do you have a certain, like, group of people on the team where it's like, all right, I know they don't like me headbutting, and then there's some guys you're like, I know I can go to them for a headbutt at any time?

Yeah, I mean, without my helmet on, the headbutts kind of stay away. Yeah, but you know, every time we get in the huddle, I think our— if you watch before the game, you know, before the snap, before the first play, you'll see everybody give a little headbutt to each other. Um, it's just something like we give, you know, kind of lock in, get ready to go. And, uh, get ready for battle.

Yeah. Are you standing by your prediction for this year? 2,000 yards?

That's the goal. Uh, I mean, it's, it's a hard goal, but, you know, if you put something out and reach that you can never— that you could possibly not reach or possibly can reach, uh, there's always a chance. So, I mean, I'm gonna continue to push. You know, we got a new sign. We got Najee back. So we've got Najee over here. So, um, you know, things are gonna get a little different. we're gonna, you know, really run the ball this year. So I'm excited for it.

Yeah. How crazy was that Thursday night game against the Eagles last year? I loved watching it. That was just— that was pure football.

Yeah, I mean, it was, it was awesome. Um, you know, that was my real first game of like feeling like myself, um, in the league, you know, getting, getting up to speed with the game and, um, feeling things out. And, you know, I think people don't realize I only played 7 games last year, so I wasn't really, you know, fully in the system and kind of comfortable yet. Um, so now that I'm, I'm here and I'm ready to go, I think it's going to be a big year for me.

Yeah, I do love your self-awareness, by the way, where you're like, yeah, I've done some dumb things. Like, I, I, I can be, you know, a lot, but I just love football. That, that is what makes it— I think if you, if you didn't have that, people would be like, oh, what is he talking about? But it's like, you just love football. You love hitting And your style is— I know that Harbaugh said you're, you're like an infectious disease, which is kind of— I don't like— it depends on what type of infectious disease.

There's some good ones.

Yeah, there's some ones that are really fast. Uh, but it is, it is infectious, like your love for football and how you play the game. Watching it, it makes you just pumped up to watch more football.

Yeah, I mean, I love the game, you know. Uh, we had a player, you know, guy, CJ, that we traded for from Baltimore. He came in yesterday and said, you know, it's legal to hit people. And I kind of looked at him and laughed and I was like, yeah, you're right. Like, we get to physically beat up on people for, for a lot of money and for fun.

Yeah.

So it's, you know, it's a game that, you know, you get to take out your anger, you relieve your stresses on the field. And once you get off the field, you know, it's kind of just take a deep breath and relax.

Yeah.

They say that everybody gets got sometimes. When was the last time you got got on the field?

There's been a couple times in practice I wouldn't say that were bad, but, you know, on the field, I mean, I feel like I got a pretty good sixth sense of who's around me. I try to take light on the blow as much as possible because, you know, some of these dudes hit pretty hard, how big they are. So I try to, you know, understand where they're coming from and how to fall and stuff like that. So I don't really feel it too much. But, um, shoot, I don't even know last year where the big hit— I guess, I guess, uh, against Denver when I hit the linebacker, you know, he got real low, got the best of me. Um, I didn't expect him to get that low and kind of blew me up and to the quarterback's lap, and we threw a pick on that play. So, um, kind of caught— was a costly mistake for me, you know. But other than that, I haven't really felt too much.

Yeah, we— I do a podcast with Arian Foster, and he always talks about how he, he had to practice falling when he was in the NFL, like learning how to fall correctly, not just take a hit, but how you actually take your body to the ground as much as possible was the reason that he stayed healthy for a while. Do you practice falling?

I don't practice falling. But, you know, over the years, I mean, I've been playing football for, you know, 15-plus years. So Um, over the years, I feel like I just have a good knack of falling the right way. Um, you know, and the one time I did fall the way I didn't want to fall, um, I tore my AC joint. So there's been, there's been times where, you know, you get little scares, but, you know, for the most part, I feel like I fall the way you're supposed to when you get tackled from a certain direction or, you know, you get hit a certain way.

So, yeah, yeah. Um, okay, so, uh, back to, to Farmer's Dog real quick. So So you're going to be in a commercial, right? That's pretty cool.

Yeah.

How, how many commercials have you been in? Is that your first commercial?

Yeah, I mean, I've been, I've been in a lot of commercials. Um, I don't know if you guys seen the other Paramount one.

That's right. Yes.

Yes. Paramount one and Farmer's Dog. I did a State Farm commercial that's going to drop soon during the season. Um, that'll be a funny one. You guys will enjoy a lot. And then, you know, I've done a lot of little stuff here and there. So, um, Um, got a couple more coming up this, this weekend when it's, uh, offseason, but— or when it's— we got the weekend off. But, you know, other than that, it's time to roll.

Time to lock in. Yeah, time to be ready to go. Um, a couple last questions before we, we kick it to Zach, who will finish us off. Um, the clip of you when you looked— when you checked on Jackson Dart in the, uh, blue tent, you look like a guy who's like looking for some snacks in the snack Would, uh, did you get yelled at for that, for, for taking a peek? Because it was very funny to watch. You're just checking on your boy.

I got yelled at by the NFL. I don't think anybody else cared about it. You know, I was, I was genuinely going in there to make sure that, you know, he was okay.

Yeah.

You know, it sucks to see your friend. Well, I mean, it was my best friend at the time, still is. But, you know, I came in with him, got to build a good connection with him. And when you hear that something went wrong with his head, you know, you, you're interested in what, what's wrong. You know, you wanna make sure he's okay. So popping in there, you know, nobody really gave me crap about it, but they let me know, you know, you shouldn't be over here. And after the fact, and then, you know, we, we had the thing with the NFL, but that's all in the past. So hopefully we can keep him outta that thing.

Dumb rule. I think that, I think everyone should have like a buddy system on an NFL sideline that it like, hey, if your guy goes in the blue tent, you get to like, if, if Jackson Dart goes in, you're the designated buddy where you get to go check on him because everyone's probably wondering how he's doing. So you get to go check on him and let everyone else know.

Yeah, that'd be dope.

Yeah, it might be scary in there. You go in there all alone. You need a friend.

Yeah, you need a friend to hang out with.

Like an emotional support running back by your side.

Yeah.

Be nice.

Do you ever think that, uh, he watches you run and he's like, damn, that's cool as shit, and then he tries to run like you sometimes?

Um, maybe. Uh, I'm not too sure. I think, you know, I— we always talk about it. If we were in a dogfight, you know, a cage fight, who would win, you know? And, uh, he thinks he would bring me down to the death and he would have no chance.

No chance he would beat you.

But Jackson's a killer, man. Jackson, Jackson's a dog, you know.

You—

he has no doubt that he's going to come out on top every time, um, whether it's hitting somebody, fighting You know, throwing competition, tackling competition, he's still going to think he's the best. So that's why he's such a good player. You know, he has good confidence and he trusts, he trusts in his abilities.

I love the confidence. Before the record, you would murder him. Yeah, it would not, it wouldn't be close in a cage fight.

Not even close.

Let's put that out there.

Yeah. So, you know, what feels, what feels better on a football field, lowering your shoulder through someone's chest or the perfectly timed stiff arm?

Uh, I think, I think perfectly timed stiff arm sending somebody out the club is like the best feeling because you don't get it often.

Yeah.

Um, and you know, usually when you get one of those, it's a one-on-one situation and you have a lot more, um, position to go to. So, uh, a lot of better position to be in after the fact. So, uh, definitely a stiff arm.

Yeah. All right, well, I got one last question.

It's—

Zach is gonna ask you a question, Roback question, rhoback.com. Promo code TAKE, 20% off your first purchase. Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Rowback.com, promo code TAKE. Uh, everyone go check out Farmer's Dog. We love it, we stand by it, Cam stands by it. Uh, Stella's been eating it for many years, basically since Farmer's Dog was created. But, uh, Rowback question, Zach, go ahead.

How we doing, man? I did have a quick question for you. Uh, with you and Jameis in the same locker room, it seems like an unreal amount of energy And I was wondering if you can give us kind of a sneak peek into, or like a peek behind the curtain on the new handshake. What kind of went into building that with Jameis?

Yeah, you know, um, I'm a dog person, you know, and, uh, from the camera angle it looked bad, but all Jameis was doing was holding his dog on a leash, um, trying to make sure that, you know, he wasn't letting me free. So, um, we're gonna get that fixed. We're gonna make sure it looks okay and it, it it looks right for the people. But there's no changing between the two of us. We're going to continue to be us.

Yeah, I loved it. I don't know what people had a problem with. It was one of the greatest intros I've ever seen.

Don't—

I don't think you have to change it too much.

You just got to change the angle a little bit.

That's it. The camera guy was in the wrong spot.

Yeah. In the pregame, you got to get the camera guy perfectly placed. Be like, hey, you got to stand on the side here.

I originally had no idea he was there. So if I'd have known that, I probably wouldn't have— probably kind of would have backed up a little bit.

But Zach, do you have a follow-up?

Uh, oh yeah, quick follow-up question. When you're not on the field, sometimes we do see you on the stream, and I was just wondering if there's any games you're running right now you felt good about.

Yeah, I mean, I've been playing, you know, the new 2K just came out like 3 days ago, 4 days ago, whatever it was. I've been grinding that, made a couple builds already. You know, a lot of people, a lot of NFL guys, NBA MLB, you know, they get the— Ronnie gives them that free, that free character that's a 99, kind of. That's not who I am. I like to grind my accounts. I like to, you know, go from the bottom to the top, you know, work my way up. So that's a game that I continue to grind. And then Apex Legends is, I feel like, the best game ever made. It's the best battle royale that, you know, has been out there for a long time. And, you know, they haven't done much to the game to change it, and it's been good ever since. So it's been awesome.

Now, 2K, are you, are you running through MyCareer challenges? Are you in the park?

I do a little bit of both. I'll do some challenges here and there if I'm by myself, and then when the boys are on, I'll hop in the rec or the park and grind out with them. But, you know, everybody's not very good right now, so it's kind of perfect time to just get in there and have a little bit of fun.

Gotta get the badges up.

Pre—

it's preseason forever. Yeah, now it's regular season. All right, well, Cam, best of luck this season, man. It's awesome watching you play football. We're excited to see you back out there. Oh, last thing, would you give a message to anyone who's drafting you this week in fantasy football? Because it is a big fantasy football draft week, so maybe pitch yourself on being drafted.

Yeah, I mean, draft me or don't draft me. It doesn't matter to me, but I played 7 games and I was 20-point average, so that's— I'll leave it Yeah, that's true.

And also good— that's good perspective being like, draft me or don't draft me, I don't really care. You're, you're right on that.

That's it.

Yeah, you guys have fun. Who cares?

Um, I'll go out there and give it my all.

So yeah, perfectly said. All right, well, thanks so much, Cam. Best of luck this year, man. Guys, the NFL season is finally here, and if you're like me, your Sunday revolves Tyler around, making sure you don't miss a single snap of the action. Why limit yourself to one game on Sunday? You should be in total command, seeing every big play and every touchdown across the entire league right there on your big screen. But thank God for NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV. It literally gets you every game every Sunday, plus features like multi-view so you can watch up to 4 games at once. You can just lock in and watch the games unfold without missing a thing and get This for new users, it's just 8 payments of $30 a month. Stop stressing out and sign up right now at youtube.com/NFLST. New users pay $240 or 8 non-cancelable payments of $30 a month, first charged at purchase. Availability varies with NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games and YouTube TV for local and national games. YouTube TV required. Terms and embargoes apply. Device and content restrictions apply to multi-view. Commercial use excluded. No refunds. Okay, before we wrap up the show, I want to talk to you guys about Lucy.

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Yeah, there's, there's simply not enough. No, actually, no. During, during like a major season.

Yeah.

Like during playoff baseball, even, I would say. say, like, but in the dog days of playoffs or in the dog days of baseball season before we get to NFL season, there's not— you can't do a show every day, start making shit up.

Yeah, you can't have like Max and Hank having a stare-down in the middle of the podcast.

Nobody would listen to that.

Yeah.

Baker Mayfield will either— will be either a 49er or Viking come trade deadline and will carry either team to an NFC Championship Game.

Baker on the Vikings would be— that would be fun.

Baker on the Niners?

Yeah, can't picture it.

Mac Jones is there though. I'd see more likely Vikings. What?

9?

9? You're still talking about 9?

Yeah.

All right, buddy, I got news for you. 9 is— 9's not gonna come in if Kyler gets hurt.

They're gonna go to Carson Wentz.

Carson Wentz or Brosmer.

Did we see that? JJ Watt tweeted a picture of him doing research research and it was like he had the depth charts and Carson Wentz was listed as 2.

Yeah, yeah, I saw that. I think Nye needs to be traded.

Yes, 100%. Yeah, I actually don't— I'm not gonna give up on JJ McCarthy. I am giving up on JJ McCarthy as a Viking. Gotta be traded. I like that take though. Yeah, we never get those like trades of starting quarterbacks mid-season.

You always hear, oh, this guy is rumored to be traded for this guy, and there's no trades in the NFL.

They should make it a rule in the NFL that you have to do like one trade every 2 years in— on trade deadline day.

Sup, fellas? I think if the Bengals fail to make the playoffs this year, Joe Burrow gets traded— wait for it— to the Rams. Yeah, Stafford retires. Rams trade Ty Simpson, first-round pick, and a couple more 2-3 picks. McVay gets himself another guy and Rams continue to be a Yeah, I mean, I hate how right that is.

I could see it for sure.

I would hate it.

I could see it for sure. That is—

we break him.

Oh, no, that's perfect.

ESPN sources, 2-time Pro Bowl selection Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers reach agreement today on a 3-year contract extension that will prevent the quarterback from becoming a free agent after this season. Fuck yeah.

But he still could be traded.

He could, but that's— I'm happy for Baker. Yeah, he deserved it. How much is it for him?

Not out yet, it looks like.

Good for him, man.

Really good for him. But yeah, I could, I could definitely see, I can see Joe Burrow going to Los Angeles Rams, just win everything. I'd be happy for Joe, but that would suck. I don't want to see him go. don't want— yeah, we don't need that.

Hey guys, my craziest take for the 2026 season is the Philadelphia Eagles finally realize halfway through the season Jalen Hurts isn't good enough to get them back to the Super Bowl and are forced to either tank/trade for a top pick in next year's draft to get one of the top QBs. Manning, Moore, Mensah, Carr.

That'd be interesting.

That would have been a real shame if they thought that he couldn't get back to the Super Bowl after the first time he went to the Super Bowl.

Right. It would—

it would be—

we're talking— we're living in the present now and saying like, can he get back?

That would be for a third time.

Yeah.

Jalen Hurts having a bad year this year would be very funny for the podcast.

Could he get back again? What if anyone can get back? What if he can get back again?

What if the Eagles stay good, but Jalen Hurts is just so bad they just win? I mean, they did that last year.

Now, yeah, I think maybe the funniest premise now would be if Like, what if AJ Brown was MVP?

Patriots would be awesome.

I would—

you know what, I would—

I think it's got to go one way or the other though. It's got to be either AJ Brown MVP or Jalen Hurts MVP because he got rid of AJ Brown.

Yeah, I would—

that would be fun.

What if they're both good?

I think I would make that trade now for AJ Brown to get MVP.

Someone's got to win.

Patriots another dominant season. If it meant that he was MVP on the Patriots and Eagles fans were sad about that, I think I would make Same.

AJ Brown's gonna have like 900 yards tomorrow.

That'd be a record.

He's gonna have a very good year.

All right, last one. Uh, this isn't about NFL but has still been on my mind for about 10 years.

10 years?

On an extra point or field goal attempt, how come the holder has a knee down and is not considered down? In NFL, I get it because they have to be down by contact, but in college, the rules are different. For example, on a punt, if the punter caught the ball on a knee, the ball would be down right there from a long snap. But if the holder has a knee down, how is he not down as well?

So good point. I think it's just written into the rule. Yeah, I think it's the only case where a knee down does not count.

I, I gotta say, dude, like, I'm not casting judgment. I feel like 10 years is a long time to not just Google something that's been bothering you.

Yeah.

Can we Google it? Why is your— why is it—

why is the holder not down in college This sounds like somebody that lost a major game on a field goal. And this is like the last straw of cope that he can have.

Like, why?

That field goal shouldn't have counted.

In college football, field goal or extra point holder is not ruled down with a knee on the ground because of a specific exception in the rulebook. Finally, we figured it out.

Thank God.

This poor guy.

He's been tormented by NCAA Rule 413. The ball remains alive when an offensive player is in position to kick a ball held for a place kick by a teammate at the snap. This exception explicitly allows a holder to keep a knee on the ground to catch, hold, and place the ball.

Yeah, I feel like this guy is maybe an Ohio State fan and he's still pissed off about that field goal by Georgia. Yeah, as the clock struck midnight, he's like, that should, that should have been a sack because his knee was down. And this has just been what he's thinking about.

I'm sorry, man. Sorry that it is Haunted you for this long.

Yeah, it gets better. Yeah.

Yeah.

You listen to this show and you realize you can move on. Like, I imagine this guy has just a list of things that he's been putting off until he figures this out.

I'm glad we could help, though.

The rest of your life has now begun.

You do get smarter.

Yeah. All right. Good show, boys. We'll see everyone on Friday for our Week 1 preview and a recap of Wednesday and Thursday Night Football. Tune into the stream Wednesday night.

Numbers.

3, 10, 48, 5, 55, 5, 5, 5, 5, 55, uh, 88, 88. Oh, Stinky's back, can't wait to see him.

88, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 69.

69.

32.

32.

Bolt up, Shane.

Bolt up, Shane.

A lot of positive talk about the bolts today, except for Hank. Bolt up. 5-5. 5-5.

5-5.

55.

69-30.

How about, how about a 69 for Colton?

36.

36.

One more.

Ah, one more.

69 for Colton.

Phil, PFT memes, and Colton.

He never got that.

Colton for 69.

Can we get a 69 for Colton?

Let me see a 69. 69. 5.

That's Max just telling me to do it. Oh, stop saying no.

29.

You don't like that?

Yeah, stop saying no every time. Oh, happy birthday to our good friend Keith. Happy birthday to John Kuhn, our other good friend. Happy birthday to Dick LeBeau. Happy birthday to Colonel Sanders. And happy birthday to Adam Sandler. And happy birthday to part of my balls, David Eckelberger. Shout out part of my balls.

Shout out part of my balls.

That guy rocks.

Happy birthday to Randy Johnson. Randy Johnson and Dick LeBeau are my friends.

LeBeau.

Names kind of mean the same thing. Love you guys.

We have a countdown for Yandle's birthday.

Breaking news. LIV has filed for bankruptcy.

Oh, no.

Love you guys.

Emergency.

Emergency.

Hank.

No, we're done.

I know.

I need to know.

Max, shut up.

I need a comment. Comment, please.

I don't know what— I'm not a finance guy.

LIV Golf has formally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Dodgers filed for bankruptcy too, and they're doing fine.

Listed as the top 2 unsecured creditors.

I don't— I don't understand bankruptcy. I think successful companies do this all the time.

It's smart.

Yeah.

It's actually a good thing that they're out of money.

Isn't Donald Trump a big bankruptcy guy?

Huge. And look at him.

He loves golf.

He's the president.

Yeah.

This doesn't mean you can't love golf.

America is like $40 trillion in debt.

That's great.

That's a great point. Hank is cooking right now.

All right. So LIV never, never been stronger.

We're fine. Yeah, it's fine.

Every company does this.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's just a setback for a major comeback.

How many times did the PGA Tour do this?

I don't know.

Probably a lot.

Well, they had to sign with the Saudis to probably not do it.

What, the PGA Tour?

Yeah.

LIV did that.

So did the PGA.

But LIV did that and then declared bankruptcy.

Because the Saudis backed out. I don't fucking know, dude.

All right.

Holy shit, the Broncos have beer vending machines.

Love you guys.