Transcript of Seahawks HC Mike Macdonald, March Has Arrived, CBB, Combine Cleanup + 10 Years Of Pardon My Take Memories

Hey, part of my take, listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hey, guys, it's Francis. Look, life moves fast. Dating is a tough thing to find time for and to be intentional about.

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Get started in the Experian app now. Okay, let's go. But Part of my take. Yeah. Part of my take. Yeah.

Part of my take. Yeah. Part of my take. Yeah. Part of my take. Yeah. Part of my take. Yeah. Part of my take. Yeah. Part of my take. Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings. The Crown is yours. Today is Monday, March second, and this is March, PFT. We made it. Something about it, man. Something about March. You turn the calendar. I know that there probably will still be a couple of weeks left of cold weather somewhere mixed in here, but the calendar turns. You got March Madness, you got Conference Championship Week, you got brackets. You have... Baseball will be played this month.

You got... Well, Pitchers & Catchers already reported. I watched baseball. A long time ago. I watched baseball today, which was crazy.

They've been playing games for weeks.

There is no offseason.

But he is right. Pitchers and catchers have already reported.

They've already reported, but I watched a spring training game. I watched actual baseball on TV.

It's all happening. It feels good.

I think it's the official end of winter. Winter's done.

I don't like the temp feet because I know that we'll get something mixed in.

It was like 30 degrees this morning, and that's fine. 30 degrees, bitch made weather. Next week, it's going to be 60. Get the golf shoes out, get the shorts out. We I made it.

Another jokey air of winter in Chicago. I'll say it.

Yeah, the only thing that sucked about this winter was the... Well, again, I don't want to attempt it because it will probably snow in April now that we've said all this. But the snowstorm we had in Thanksgiving, That's what sucked when it was early. But other than that, it wasn't that bad. I feel like the Northeast got it worse than us this year.

Yeah, soft winter in the Midwest.

I think winter is now just earlier. It starts in November and ends middle of February.

Are you saying that just because of this winter? Yeah. Okay. Because I was going to say last winter was not that at all.

That's how it's going to go. Okay.

What just happened is going to keep happening.

Yeah. It starts early ends early.

I agree. It did feel like Winter Irish goodbye to us this year. It just left and we're gone and fuck off.

We're knocking on wood. By the way, Hand Up, we are an accountable podcast. When we get things wrong, we say we get things wrong. We fucked up. The clocks are changing this Saturday. So Hand Up, we fucked that up. I woke up this morning, I was very confused. I thought it was this weekend. But yeah, that does mean more sunlight, Hank. Sunlight. Sun's going to be setting at 6: 45 next Sunday.

You know what that means? You get to spend more time with the kids. Yeah. Yep. Very excited about that. It's golf season. Also, we got to do something about the clocks. Our clock situation. I feel like the daylight savings snafu starts from the top down because our wall of clocks right now It's in bad shape. I don't know. We've got some that are just on zero. I don't know if that was a countdown to World War III, and we hit that on Saturday morning. There are some that say 658.

By the way, that's World War III number 15. Yeah, we've had-A lot of World War IIIs.

I think it was the first World War III of the year, though. I feel like those are getting earlier and earlier every year.

I do distinctly remember World War III three or four years ago where Billy was like, No, you guys don't get it. This is World War III. Yeah.

One of those outlets had to be unplugged because Zack had to plug in his bomb.

Yeah. By the way, speaking of World War III. No Hamas, Max. No Hamas. Zack, how are you feeling? You did a 36-hour stream. You did it.

Yeah, me and Max were able to accomplish quite a few hours live at the same time. I think it went good. It was a lot of fun. It was a great time.

That's a great way to phrase it.

How did you just collapse when you got home last night?

Yeah, got home, ordered a pizza, ate some slices, passed right out. Good pizza? I thought I ordered a deep dish. I didn't order a deep dish, but I definitely ordered a thicker pie, and then it came skinniest pie you've ever seen.

Zack, I did the exact opposite last night. I tried to order a skinny pizza, and then I got home. It got delivered, and I took it from the guy. I was like, This is the heaviest pizza I've ever had in my hands. I think we might have switched pies because I brought inside and I was like, What am I going to do with this? It was like a 15-pound pizza.

If only we would have had that discourse yesterday, I would have traded you.

I would have driven this pizza over to your apartment and just traded right then.

But you did a good job, Zack. Thank you, sir. Proud of you. I came by on Saturday afternoon to maybe the saddest thing I'd ever seen. It was no one in the office, Zack, playing Oregon Trail, just full conversation with the chat. To stay awake, I assume.

Yes, I was fading pretty bad at that point. The Chinese workout saved me. It did. It really did.

Then we played a little video games. I had to leave. You did it. You did it. That was a haul of a stream.

Just got to get better pics.

What was your favorite moment, Max, from the stream? Because you stayed extra. You stayed till 7: 00 AM.

I gave Zack an extra five. I was supposed to do 18 hours. I did 23.

I think the scheduling, in hindsight, we did Zack a little dirty with the scheduling.

Yeah, we probably should have scheduled it where either Max comes in for the last 18 or during a work week when people are here. Because again, it was creepy walking into the office, not a soul in this office, and how the office is laid out, going all the way through the office to the PMT studio, into the PMT studio, into this little corner, and then Zack just huddled over a screen. Yeah.

I think... Well, the big thing is we had to use this studio, and we don't have to... It's hard to find two full days where we're just not using this studio. True. That was the reasoning of why it was... We could have done Saturday into Sunday.

We should have just done it where you came for last 18, not the first 18.

Yeah, that would have worked as well.

Can we look back at the segments that you guys had planned and give them grades based on how they turned out compared to how you had them planned? We're excited. The sassy Legos got off to a hot start.

A plus for visuals, F minus for execution.

It's impossible.

You didn't build the Lego.

You can't build the Lego with those on.

Now we got nails. I've been seeing them everywhere. We got nails all around the office.

They fell off sporadically within 20 minutes. Listen, I might not be a sassy Lego guy. One thing that we still owe the people, we We were planning... We still have to write Sleep tight, Saquon.

Yes. You need to do Sleep tight, Saquon?

We had some technical issues on Friday night that led to a big problem that really derailed a lot of the things that we had planned for Friday night. We are going to do a stream soon where Zack and I do write Sleep tight, Saquon.

Okay, good. All right. You're going to need that one. What about Itzy Golf?

I thought Itzy Golf was great. The Itchie part wasn't great. The itchy part wasn't great.

It's a big part of Itchie Golf.

Well, we bought a product that was supposed to be itching powder. It was baby powder.

I think you got some product that was stepped on.

It felt good on your hands.

Yeah, it was not itchy.

It wasn't itchy at all. I would have put it on my balls for sure.

Even if the itchy powder was extremely itchy, I think the hardest part there is still the golf. The golf's impossible.

How long did it take you to get your birdie?

Five hours.

Yeah. I think five hours is inaccurate.

Yeah. Longer? I thought it was going to be two or three hours. I committed to staying, and I think I left at eight, and we started at three.

We're about to Booth 10K.

Booth 10K was good.

You guys finished it?

Kind of.

What did you finish?

I got a dub in Fall Guys.

36 Hours Street? Yeah, 36 Hours Street.

And we got a birdie.

And you got a birdie.

We got a birdie. I mean, Big Cat You got tattoos? Yeah. If you're watching on Netflix, check it out. Look at that beast. You got the Vanny Woodhead tire. The tire? I forgot about it. I woke up on Saturday morning. Blake woke me up by jumping on the bed. Middle claw, boom, directly to the ribs, right on the tat.

I got Vanny Woodhead right on my forearm. Love it. So, yeah.

Hank? What did you get? Didn't get one.

It's basically his way of quiet quitting our friendship. Yeah. That's insane.

No, but Hank, It's insane, but guess what?

Who got the first ? We could be insane seven years ago. Maybe we're just going to be messy bitches about it and be like, Hank has just quite quit us.

That's fine.

It's peer pressure.

I can tell when we're not wanted.

This is the moment we can look back and be like, Yeah, we should have known.

Hank big time. Hank's on for bigger and better things. The Michael Scott podcast.

It is weird that you got an impulsive tattoo.

I promise you, there will be no other podcast if I'm not on this one.

Max actually believe me there. His head, he was like, You Is that an impulsive tattoo?

Well, I thought there was maybe, I don't know.

Hank, would you ever start your own podcast? Never.

You wouldn't want to?

I would actually love a spin-off version of Hank.

Fanish Football Factory. Yeah. Yeah.

How'd that go?

Hank and I did talk about doing a spinoff pod seven years ago, Do Your Pod, just Patriots related. I'm down to restart that if you wanted to.

I think you talked about Hank sat in the room while he talked about it. He rolled his eyes.

I'm 100% down to restart that idea if you want to. I would I love for you guys to do that.

It's one episode.

We'll do one episode. Maybe a season preview.

That's basically what part of my take was over… It was just you two talking about the Patriots.

It was Do Your Pod. The last of the month of the season.

People love it.

Okay, let's do some national... We're going to talk some more 10-year stuff after Mike McDonald, by the way, incredible interview, Super Bowl winning head coach. Let's do some national sports podcast talk. You want to do it? You want to dive into it? Let's dive in. Let me hit a read real quick, and then we'll dive into some national sports podcast stuff. Draftkings for one electrifying Tuesday in the NBA, the stakes rise higher and the Crown shines brighter. Draftkings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA, presents a $3 million king of the court. Opt in, use your token, make a $5 pregame bet on the player you believe will dominate. If you pick a player who finishes top three in the league in points, rebounds, and assists that night, they're crowned king of the court, and you'll claim your piece of that player's $1 million prize pool in bonus bets. That's $3 million total in bonus bets. Choose your king, claim your crown, download DraftKings Sportsbook, use code take for your shot at a share. 3 million total in bonus best with code take in partnership with DraftKings Sportsbook. The Crown is yours. Gambling problem?

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One of my favorite college hoop season we've had in a long time, and I think this past week has crystallized it in the fact that we have five, you could even maybe go to six, just absolutely dominant team. In the past week, we had the Power Five conferences all had matchups where it was the number one team versus the number two team in their conference. Here are the scores. Here's what the number one team did. The number one team won all of them. It started on Wednesday night when St. John's and Yukon played. Yukon beat them 72 to 40, killed them. Then Friday night, Michigan beat Illinois at Illinois, 84 to 70. Duke pieced up Virginia. Again, one versus two, 77 to 51. Arizona kicked the shit out of Kansas, 84-61. And then Florida beat Arkansas by 34 points on Saturday night. And it's these five teams right now, Michigan, Yukon, Duke, Arizona, and Florida that are playing at such an insane level. I'm so excited for brackets.

So excited for brackets. There's some second-tier teams, too, that are capable of winning it all. But those teams. It did separate a little bit. Yukon seems to be feeling themselves a little bit now, too, which is nice to see.

Although they struggled a little with Seton Hall.

Yeah, but they- On senior day. I would not leave Yukon out of the discussion for a team that could win a championship.

Florida, though. I've been talking about Florida for three weeks weeks. They could shoot threes now. They absolutely kicked. I mean, that was the worst loss Cal party. I think it was tied for the worst loss Cal parties ever had, and they just throttled teams. I saw the stat from Matthew Winnick. He said that Just from an analytical where these teams would rank in net ratings in previous years, because you have these top one seeds right now are projected to be, or at least the top four teams in the net right now are Duke, Michigan, Arizona, and Florida. Basically, they would be the best team. All four of them would be the best team in the previous five years, and they're all four in this year.

There might be some chaos. There are going to be some really good games at the end.

Right. Well, there are really good teams. What Texas Tech did to Iowa State was shocking as well. That was a crazy game. Alabama is playing lights out, like going to Tennessee and winning that game. There's just a lot of really good teams. Then there are a handful of extremely dominant teams to the point where if they were in any other season, they would be the best team. But there's four or five of them right now.

I was hoping that Alabama was going to get their big man back again against Tennessee. There was going to be another judge's ruling where this guy could only play games against the University of Tennessee, and then there would be another stay or an injunction, and he'd have to go back to the NBA. Yeah, there's some great teams. Purdue, very funny loss by Purdue. Two losses this week. Really enjoyed that from the Boilermakers?

Yeah, they lost twice this week. They won't be top 10 after this week, but two losses this week. The bubble is getting tighter.

We've got also- I do think this is the year Nebraska gets their win. I think they have to. I think that might be my game of the century of the week.

Okay.

It's going to be like a three or four.

There'll probably be a three seat.

It's now or never. They got to win. They got to win one. They're going to be minus 300 in the first round, minus 400. They got to win.

We We also have the pre-MAD. We have it working both ways. We have some of the old-school people saying that Miami, Ohio has to win the MAK to get in. They shouldn't be in otherwise. Then we have people pre-mad about it. They're going to be in no matter what. I'm just saying right now, the winning every conference, if they go unde in the conference, that is so hard to do in college basketball, no matter what conference you play in. But I did like Bruce Pearl. No matter what? Yeah, I think they'll be in no matter I do.

What if they lose in the second round of the conference tournament?

I think they still should be.

The Mac does screw. It sucks for the-I don't think they'll be in no matter what. It does suck for Miami, Ohio that the Mac doesn't... There's some conference tournaments where The Big Ten has a triple buy for their top four teams. The Mac, I'm pretty sure, just goes eight teams regular bracket. It does hurt them. I think if they go undefeated in the conference, they I think how many games they have left? They have two games left? One game left, two games left in the conference. I'm saying if they go undefeated in the conference and then lose in the conference tournament, I think they will be in. But Bruce Pearl, very funny, using his time on CBS because he's on the desk now, saying that they're not one of the 68 best teams and they have to win their tournament to qualify. I wonder if that had anything to do with the fact that Bruce Pearl's son, who is now the coach of Auburn, is firmly on the bubble.

Yeah, at large?

No. It has nothing to do. It's just a coincidence. Just a real weird coincidence that happened.

You know how when you go on CNBC, you have to disclose if you have a short position in whatever stock you're talking about? Bruce Perle should be forced to remind everybody, Hey, I gave my son the head coaching job at Auburn. Just so you guys know.

I think it's just so difficult to win every conference game, given how long the season is. I mean, you look at some of the results that happen. Iowa goes to Penn State yesterday and loses. Who'd UCLA lose? Lose to this weekend? I don't know. I can't remember who they lost to, but they, off of looking like they had righted the ship, UCLA lost. It's just Minnesota. At Minnesota, it's just very hard to win every conference game. There's a Florida who looks incredible lost to Auburn a month and a half ago.

Chad Baker-Mizzara is out at USC right now, so he'll probably... Can he come back for a 10th year? He has to be able to. Is there any more eligibility?

Yeah, USC is unfortunately, the wheels have fallen off there.

I was looking at the bracket for the Sun Belt Championship, and the bracket for this tournament is just so awesome.

Yeah, the one where you get 17 buys.

You've got Troy and Marshall that are grandfathered into the semifinals already. Then on each side, it's like, yeah, Louisiana, they could win the Sun Belt tournament, but they'd have to win 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, six, seven games in a row. Whereas Troy could win the tournament, they would have to win two games. Yeah, the whack is similar.

Gonzaga and St. Mary's are always in the semifinals.

It's a great format for a tournament.

By the way, I'm happy St. Mary's won. That was the final regular season game. Not talked about enough that Gonzaga is going to the Pac-12. That was the final regular season game between Gonzaga and St. Mary's as conference opponents. Hopefully, they'll schedule out of conference.

They should. Also, it's very funny that Gonzaga is finally joining the Pac-12 now after decades of us begging them to.

Max, you got white-suited. Rick Pitino shows up in the white suit. All his friends were in the white suit. You had Roundball Lenny, Wildcat Paul, Michigan Mike.

At no point was Villanova ever going to win that. I told both of you-Credit to Max. Saturday morning, I was like, They had no shot.

He was like, They got no shot. This is going to be the... I mean, Rick Pitino said it. He was like, This is the most important game of my career.

I don't know if he said career, but I think he at least said this is the biggest game of the year by far.

When he breaks out the white suit- And he brought out the white suit.

They did a white They were never going to win that game.

At no point. At no point.

At no point. When he's wearing the white suit- At no point. You think he only orders Alfredo when he's eating in the white suit, right? No marinera.

He doesn't do Alfredo.

Not even the white suit?

Alfredo is fake Italian. Yeah.

What?

Oh, yeah. Is this true?

Alfredo is not real Italian.

I think that's fake Italian. He would maybe do a chicken, a lemon chicken. Maybe do a lemon chicken. Piccata?

Yeah, piccata. I Like, caccio e pepe, that's Italian. Yeah.

But Alfredo sauce- There's no heavy cream in Italian cuisine. This is going to start a war.

Yeah, I don't know if this is true. Max is very sure of himself.

What about the name Alfredo?

I'm not going to trust him.

That's a slur. Alfredo is a slur. Remember Cuomo said it's like saying the N-word for Italians?

You can't call him that. You can't call him that. You said that. But Petito's got the white pants on. One of the all-time quotes. The white pants, nice and camo. He could spill whatever he wants on those. You won't be able to tell. Whatever he wants.

Cuomo just trying to be like, just make up a vicious slur out of thin air. Be like, You don't say that.

I mean, Villanova, they are what they are. They have no shot of actually making a run. It looks like they're still going to make the tournament.

Are you on bubble now?

No, we're still pretty comfortably not in the bubble.

You got an injury that you got to deal with, though.

Yeah, we did get... We had a couple of guys get banged up. One of them looks worse than the other. I was trying to look. That's a problem with college basketball. You just don't get injury updates.

Yeah, they don't have to say anything.

They're like state secrets. Yeah.

Nfl, you'll know within the next morning about what happened.

No, College Basketball, you won't know until 15 minutes before because the guy's actually dressed on the floor. That's when you find out that he's actually going to play.

I had a visualization the other day when I was thinking about what's going to happen this final four. I think it feels like it's Iso. It feels like in a visualization, how is he going to go out? He's going to go out in a final four. He's going to get there.

Are you going to say he's overrated? This feels like- This is for whether or not he's overrated.

Okay, all right.

Because I was just saying this feels like you're in a win-win situation where if he doesn't get to the final four, you could be like, I told you he's overrated. If he does, you're like, I called it. But I like the fact that you're saying- This is it. The final four decides whether he's overrated or not. He has to get to the final four. Cohen Carr is awesome, dude.

He just fucking does. I will walk back that. I will admit It that I was wrong. I heard 10 years of being wrong about Tom Iso if they make it to this final four.

It's such a Iso team, too. Jackson Kohler looks like a '90s bully, high school bully. He's got the hair, he's got a little bit of a chin strap, waps a couple of threes every now and then. Just like, I hate the Michigan State team. I say that with all due respect because when Iso gets his guys like this, it's like, watch out. Yeah. Okay. Any other college basketball takes? I'm so pumped. Dude, Florida looks good.

I can't wait for conference tour any week. It's going to be- Duke looks good.

I'm worried about Duke. Although this is like, I keep wrestling with the idea Florida and Duke both look so dominant, but is their conference down?

They definitely are both down, but Duke does look better than they were last year.

Yeah.

I'll say that- Probably need to win it. I don't know if they're better. They look more dominant than they did last year.

If they don't win it this year, it'll be a shock.

Yeah, I think so. Big disappointment.

I think it'll be the biggest disappointment since last year.

It'll be like a double generation of disappointment with Booser.

Every single- Booser one.

Every single year. Yeah, but I'm going to say it'll be doubly disappointing.

Every single year is the biggest disappointment.

The Brotherhood takes a knock. That's another loss on Carlos Booser's record as well.

Got it.

You don't agree with this?

If Bouzer had lost, I would agree with it, but he won.

He did win a championship. Then left early, and then Coach K tried to blackmail him to stay and got really upset at him for leaving. Different era. For a kid trying to make his life's dream come true Coach K was like, Oh, you can't do that. Actually, I have it on my card. Let me see. What about Yukon? I'm going to read the actual.

I have a Yukon future from preseason.

The two futures I have, or I guess three. It's a worse odds right now. Wisconsin, technically, I do have one on Wisconsin, but it's Yukon at 15: 00 to 1: 00 in Florida at 19: 00 to 1: 00. Hold on, let me see if I can read this. I'm going to try to find my... This is my Coach K fact sheet that I hold in my wallet. It's so hard to read. Fill the time so I can figure out where I can find Boos here.

Hank, who do you think is the biggest disappointment in Duke history? Wow. A lot to pick from.

I mean, the Zion team was a major disappointment.

Yeah.

Three top five picks or three lottery picks. Bare made it to the sweet 16. I mean-Almost had to get a cat because of that team.

You could say last year as well. Cooper Flagg Kniple.

I mean, the team that lost is C. J. Mccollum.

Yeah.

I love JJ Redick. I love JJ Redick and Sheldon Williams, but they We should have got one. John Sire, Stud. I'm trying to... Yeah. That Zion team was that. That team was too good to be true, and they dominated the regular season, and they just couldn't get it done. I mean, the team that lost Coach K's last season, too.

Big Cat, did you cash out of your Gonzaga future?

Yeah. Yeah, a long time ago.

I'm still holding that.

Oh, the minute they got killed by Michigan. I'm talking like, November, I cashed out. Well, I took it the day before Michigan. I think I had- You told us to take it. Rico. It's Rico, Pasco. I think I had the Gonzaga future for 15 hours and lost like eight grand.

I still have it.

I was like, I got to get out now because this team's not going to win.

Maybe Michigan State. I'm trying to look for a value play right now.

I know all the value Florida went down to what are they? 8 to 1.

What do you have Yukon at, Hank?

I have Florida and Yukon both at 12 to 1. Oh, nice.

You got it on Florida?

All these are on the DraftKings sportsbook, by the way.

All right, I can't find it. Whatever. Michigan State, 40 to 1.

Is there any value there? Yes? Mims says yes.

Yeah, I think there is.

The 10 to 1 to get to the final four.

Their offense goes It's like very Iso. Well, B-Y-U.

No, they suck.

They've lost twice this week, right?

And Saunders is out for the year.

Saunders is out. They lost to West Virginia. You just wanted...

Max wanted value. I'm I'm finding value for him.

St. John's is the value. Yeah. Arkansas, too. 70 to 1. Alabama might be value. If Alabama just shoots...

What's Houston at now?

10 to 1.

Yeah, value.

Marquette.

You could say anything.

Marquette.

Marquette.

Marquette is one of the worst- Yeah, they need to win the biggies to get in. I actually think they might not even... If they won, they just make still. I don't think so. Market. I'm not going to say Market.

That might not even be listed.

No, it is. No, I'm looking at it.

Oh, yeah. What is that? A hundred to one? That might be-One dollar to win a thousand.

It's a thousand to one.

A thousand to one. That's value, dude.

That is value. That's really good, Valley. Okay, let's transition to some cleanup on NFL Combine. The first, and I think the biggest headline from NFL Combine was Aaron Glenn fell asleep.

That's some fake news. That's some fake news. It's rubbish. This is a classic legacy media cat trying to chime in. What happened? They caught a bad angle of Aaron Glenn. He's looking down on his tablet. I'm going to get Memes back on this. He was looking at his tablet. Guys can't look at their tablets anymore because people think that they're falling asleep. He's doing what he's supposed to be doing. Now everyone is starting to think. Long blink. Now everyone's starting to think that maybe the coach of the New York Jets, doesn't have his shit together. It's bullshit, Memes. I got your back. Aaron Glenn is locked in. He's as ready as he's ever been. Jets' playoff next year.

Memes, is he asleep? I think he was looking He could have been sleeping. I really wish this happened to another coach. But after thinking about it, I don't think it matters.

Because you're just watching guys running a straight line. Here's the question.

It doesn't matter at all.

Given the Jets history of guys that they have drafted, wouldn't it be better if they were paying less attention at the combine?

Yeah, if they all close their eyes?

Yeah.

That's fucking mean.

Just saying.

That was really mean. Other than that, from the combine, we had some guys run really fucking fast.

Yeah, the running backs. The running backs have decided that the way that they'll all get paid more is if they all get really, really fast.

I saw a theory floated out there that we're right on the cusp of Around six, seven years ago was when high... Yeah, six, seven. Was when high school athletes started getting personal trainers and training pros. Now you're seeing just an absolute... Because it did feel like there was a ton of guys that had eye-popping numbers. It's because we're reaching those guys who started training in the high school range as pros are now about to be pros.

Yeah, everyone's getting really fast. I feel like this is about the peak of what the human body can do at these sizes and these weights. Because now, I don't about you guys, I'm starting to get fatigued or numb to the good times that players are putting up. Ten years ago, if there was a guy that was 300 pounds that ran a 4'7 or a 4'8, I'd be like, Holy shit, that's incredible. Now I hear about five of these guys every year. You looked at the running back times this year, and everyone's like, 4'3, something. I'm like, Okay, yeah, that's pretty much what I've come to expect.

Yeah, that's what you need to be. The one that did get me pump was Kenyan Siddique, our guy from Oregon, who we just spam when we play Dugs. He ran the fastest tight-end time since 2003.

That is pretty incredible. So 4.

39. That's fucking fast.

Yeah.

Also- He's an absolute monster.

It's a smokescreen season for Mekai Lemon. I don't think I've ever seen as many anonymous reports about Mekai Lemon and how weird he was in his combine interviews as I have this year. It feels like that's the most talked about rumor going around the combine, and no one's giving any specifics whatsoever. It's just like every team was freaking out by this guy.

Well, yeah, he had the press conference where he was looking It's weird staring at reporters. Yeah, you're right. The anonymous sourcing, none of it. The guy's really good at football.

Who the fuck cares? Yeah. Also what you want from a wide receiver.

Yes. Is Fernando Mendoza's hands too small? Are they too small?

No, I don't think. But he might be fat. Fernando Mendoza actually has just built a brick shit house. I think he's like 230, which is heavier than people thought he was going to be, but in a good way. Yeah. Because there was one picture of Mendoza from the combine taken from behind, and it's just his arms with his veins. He looks jacked. The veins in him. So, yeah, it's like he's the same body size as Big Ben coming out.

Yeah, his hands were nine and a half inches, which I think it's fine. That's fine. It's not a freak.

How big were his arms?

His arms were huge, massive. Arms were 31 and seven eighths. I don't even know what is that.

I think it's fine.

Yeah, I think that's fine. Yeah, I think that's The smallest hands were Cade Clubnik with nine and a quarter. We didn't have any sub-nines. I feel like sub-nine is when we start to mock them.

It's like right at nine. That's where the cutoff usually is.

There's also- Carson Beck had the largest with 10.

Oh, a huge hands? Huge hands. There's a big story that's brewing under wraps at the combine, and it's been happening for the last couple of years. But the guy that measures arm length at the combines is not good at measuring arm length. Oh, no. Because now this is going to be two years in a row where the arm length that's measured at the combine does not add up to what happens at the individual workouts or the guy's Pro days.

Yeah, but those numbers, the Pro days are always- It's one guy?

It's one guy that measures at least the offensive linemen. There's one guy who's in charge of the tape measure for the arms, and apparently, he's got a short measurement. I don't know.

Oh, hey, that's good.

Because it doesn't add up to everything else.

Yeah, but the Pro days are always very funny because the Pro day numbers are always wayThey're way better. They're way better across the board. Way, way better. Because, I mean, Ohio State has a 37-yard, 40-yard dash. They have their guys, too. Then we also had the grades. We had the grades, the NFLPA grades for all the teams, everything. There weren't many notable things other than the bangles went from an F in food to an F minus. That's pretty hard to do. Most of the teams, they actually try get better. The bangles are like, No, we're going to give you even worse food.

The bangles punish you for opening your mouth. Yeah.

You guys thought it was bad. Here's really bad.

I want to stand up for the bangles real quick because F minus is not a real grade. No one in school has ever gotten an F minus. You get an F, that's as bad as it gets. Yeah.

I guess the food is that bad. Also, the Steeler's locker room only has five bathroom stalls for the entire team. That's egregious. That was very funny. That's insane. Five bathroom stalls for 53 large men that have to take shits all the time? Mm-hmm. That's actually torture.

Yeah, T. J. Watt probably stabbed himself in the lung because he's like, I need to get out of this place so I can take his shit.

If you're a Steelers fan, think about this. Your favorite player is oftentimes awkwardly trying to silence his shit, which no man should have to do.

That's probably what drove Antonio Brown and Levyon Bell crazy. Yeah. Was just having to work in that environment for so long.

There's nothing worse than when you go into a packed bathroom and you have to sit next to someone. You know you're next to someone who's been there and you got to put a little bit of the silencer on it. You can't let it go.

It sucks. The other thing I notice in these grades is that every team hates their home field. Yeah.

Well, that's because of the term.

Yeah. Well, even some teams that have grass playing fields, they don't like it.

The Steelers, yeah, because they play a million football games that are not Steelers football on that field.

But across the board, it's like, We don't like our home team. We don't like our home field. We also don't like travel. None of the guys like their travel department. Big surprise there.

The last story I had from Combine, this was news and notes. What's going on with JJ McCarthy? I feel like the Vikings are maybe putting out some travels. I heard Kyler, potentially Gino Smith. Gino, huh? I read an article that everyone was like, Yeah, none of that was Gino's fault last year.

Well, If you look at what the NFLPA report card was for the Raiders, they hated their offensive coordination. Right.

I don't know. There's a chance that the Raiders keep Gino Smith.

Is Gino Smith this year's Gino Smith?

He might be.

Where everyone wrote him off.

Yeah. Kyler, Gino. I mean, the Vikings, if you see what happened with Sam Darnal, wouldn't you want to go to the Vikings? Yeah, probably. That would be the spot.

Probably. I think Kyler should definitely want to go to the Vikings. I think JJ McCarthy should want to go back to the Vikings.

He should want to play for Kevin O'Neill.

Yeah. Maybe Kevin O'Neill is really good at finding guys that have sucked other places and then bringing them and fixing them. Maybe he's not so good at identifying guys straight out of college that are already good.

Why are you guys yelling at each other?

Because Hank is watching this Sixers-Celtics game, and he just doesn't look. He just looks at his phone when the Sixers going to run. Every time the Celtics make one basket, he looks at me and he's like, Two to the head. He just looks down on his phone when the Sixers going on eight over on. Yeah, see? Also, the Sixers suck.

Two to the head.

The Sixers are a bad team.

Two to the head.

And Embiid's not playing. The Sixers are back to losing every game that Embiid doesn't play. Damn.

Either way, I agree with you. Pft, JJ McCarthy should want to play for Kevin O'Neill. Yeah.

A hundred %. Jj McCarthy should do the Chet powers thing and just disguise himself as somebody else and then be like, Hey, can you fix me, Kevin O'Neill? I'm some unheard of former college football player. Bring me into your system.

Did you see... Jj McCarthy won a national championship, what, three years ago? Was it top 10? Was he the 12th pick? What was he picked?

Nine.

Either way, I don't think he was the ninth pick.

He is nine.

But is a professional quarterback in the NFL, did you see the Ayatola on the nine meme? That's tough.

I did not see that.

I saw the- He had the Ayatollah on the nine jersey in the locker room.

I do remember the Ayatola- Where are we at in the world?

A professional quarterback is getting mixed up in geo-politics.

Well, there was somebody, I think it was at Minnanjad, the former President of Iran, is a big-time University of Michigan fan. Back in 2018, he said like- What? Yeah, he was like, Inshallah, the University of Michigan will return to its glory in football. Yeah, RIP.

Wait, he died, too?

Mahmoud at Minnanjad.

Okay, he died, too.

I think so.

Did he get the nine treatment?

He got nine, yeah.

I did see. Do you see there's some guy has the Expos account, Montreal Expos? He has the actual official account, and he runs it like the official Expos team. He's like, Due to unforeseen circumstances, we have canceled the Ayatollahoumene's bobblehead night from April 14th. Okay, what else? Any other national sports podcast topics? Did Shane Lowry choke? Oh, big time.

Biggest choke I've ever seen.

Give me the stage for the choke.

He was up three with three to go. He Double bogey, two holes in a row, which he's never done in his pro career.

Double bogey, two in a row?

Both of them wide right.

Yeah, he went in the water two holes in a row. Bear trap. He said it stung the most because he just wanted to win for the first time in front of his daughter. His daughter was there, and he choked.

You know how last week we were talking about the hack to winning a golf tournament is to have a kid or to get married? Then that way, they'll definitely show you on the broadcast and show your wife and your kids as you're going up the 18th Fairway and all that. They tried to do that this week with the guy that won Echevarea, but the thing about him was he just closed on a house earlier this week. And so what a magical week this has been for him and his young wife. So they were just talking about what a great story it This youngster buys a house and wins a golf club. Bought a house. You can't write this. If you tried to bring that to a script developer in Hollywood, they would light your eyebrows on fire and stab you in the throat. They would say, This is too unrealistic. Get the fuck out of my office.

Yeah. I'm looking, Hank just sent every T-shot hit at 16 this week, and then the white dot being Shane Lahr. How did he hit it there? That's just a true old-fashioned joke. Yeah.

That's just a true old-fashioned joke. Yeah. Shank. Two shanks in a row.

And then the next hole stepped up.

Same It wasn't as bad, but... He was up three with three to go?

I think there was a stat, like a win probability. It was like 99. 6%.

You could have won the tournament.

Easily. Easily. I could have righty or lefty.

Up three?

We could have had the first ever women's slalom gold medalist.

I would lose by 10.

What was the event?

Yeah, if it was a slalom golf hole event, I'd dominate.

The second shot that he hit was so bad, and then he started yelling at his caddy afterwards. He's like, What the fuck, dude? Why did you make me do that again? It was very weird. I think Shane Lowry just has a temper, and he just needed to direct it somewhere.

Your job. My three iron.

If you're Shane Lowry's cat, your job is just get bitched at if Shane does something bad. Mmm-hmm.

Brooke's and Max played well today. Okay, good.

The boys are back. Max is a double header.

Max is the-Max is playing right now. He's the Mike Tariko of golf.

Oh, he's You're playing simulator golf?

Yeah, TGL.

Was it right there?

It's in Florida, yeah.

Okay, so he didn't have to get on a plane. That would have been a commitment to the game.

We should do the thing where it shows his travel for today and just it's a Google Maps. Him on a highway. This is a drive? Yeah.

Did you guys see the... We talked a little baseball because it is about to happen. Did you see the Cardinals are offering a $29 all-you-can-eat concessions set up?

I saw that.

This actually... I actually was thinking about it. I don't know why more teams don't do this because there's no way that you can... Hank's doing it again. Did it again? He just put a tree in his face. There's no way you can eat as much as they give you for $29. You buy it and you're like, This is a great deal, and then you have two hot dogs and nachos. You're like, I'm full.

But how much the hot dogs cost normally?

I don't know. That's a good question.

Yeah, you got to... I think that- I'll shout out the Madison Mallers.

They do the duck blind I think it's $30. All you can eat, all you can drink, too, though, beer. Okay, so you get- That and they open before the game starts.

You get unlimited hot dogs, chicken tenders, bratwursts, nachos, fries, popcorns, peanuts, chips, ice cream, bottomless soda. Right. That's a great deal.

It's a great deal, but I feel like no one's going to... There's going to be a couple of people who will test it, but a lot of people will spend the $29. Then if you do the math, you're like, Oh. But also just, yeah, you're right that the markup is probably so severe. It makes It makes sense anyway.

You know what? This is what teams are able to do now that the games are only two hours long. True. If this is a four-hour game, they would get put out of business with a deal like this.

You never be able to. I would do this. If the Cubs did this, I would definitely buy it because my kids ripped through half those things, like one bite of everything. They're mini Dave Port noise.

Yeah, that's the activity when you go to a ball game with a kid. It's just like every ending, let's get up and do something else. Let's get another treat.

Okay, should we do who's back in the Week. Then we have Mike McDonald on the show. Great interview. Then we'll talk some 10-year... Oh, Hank's doing it again.

Did you get three-ed up?

He just keeps threeing in his face.

You guys just don't even talk about Tom him with this chip.

Tom him with his ship. Let's go. I saw that.

That's a caption?

Tom him. Tom him with his ship.

Let's go. It also doesn't go in.

Yikes.

Memes, how do you grade that as a social media guy? Caption. Well, they've gotten 19 likes.

Tom.

How do you grade it, Memes? I'll give it a B minus. Okay.

What would you have done?

Probably just wouldn't have tweaked it. Yeah, or just decent chip. Decent chip that doesn't go in.

What about, Come on?

I like the first reply to this tweet is, Wicked respect to Max Homa for popping out after playing at the cognizant.

Yeah. Yeah, wicked respect. Wicked respect for Max.

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My who's back of the week? Got a couple. First one is AWLs and their dogs. Yeah. Yeah. Shout out. We've sold a lot of merch and a lot of items over the years. Obviously, it's probably just because it's a picture of me, but I've never had an influx of messages and tags like I have in the last five days.

Hand up, I might have had a part in that, too.

I don't know how many, I mean, hundreds of thousands The ones people listen to this show. I think every single one of them bought a dog.

I did say a few days ago, I was like, Every time I see one, it's an instant retweet.

It's so good.

I've just been retweeting all of them.

I love the ones with the dogs that are getting particularly violent with the Hank stuff. They're just chomping at him, fighting over it.

I just pull up Twitter and I just see a dog with Hank's stupid face, and I laugh every time. Like, Oh, here's a dog. Here's the cuteest dog looking at this shithead face, and it's just so funny. Sorry, Hank. No offense.

Yeah, I was trying to work out.

Look at that one. That guy's just got a fucking…

It's just Hank. For some reason, dogs absolutely love it. They love your stupid face.

Well, that's a good sign of character, right? Yeah. It's just like thinking of this person. He's just sitting there having a Saturday, and he looks over. It's just Hank's dumb face in his dog's mouth. Yeah. Man. Look at that. If you just look up, that's a funny thing to look up to. When you're sitting in your living room, it's, Oh, there's Hank's dumb face again.

I love it when they're just chewing off his ear, too.

Yeah, his dumb ear.

His big dumb ear coming out.

But yeah, a lot of dogs.

Just fang right into your eye. Put them all in the show.

Yeah, love it. Okay.

Then my other her was back, just the Celtics. They're putting belt to ass on the Sixers right now. Oh, They also had- They had eight.

Hey, Max. How about this, Max? Two right in your forehead.

I mean, the Sixers went on an eight-hour run to cut it to single digits.

Was Hank one? No, Hank was buried in his phone.

Shut up. I was watching the game. Every time I was doing three, you're just looking at. I don't even know what you're looking at.

Yeah, Because that's what you do. Also, my eyeliner is... I have to... You're in my eyeliner.

But you're still not looking at me.

What about his eyeliner? You're not addressing the eyeliner.

I'm currently looking at you. Actually, fuck you. I won't look at you.

But that wasn't the point of Who's back? They're my who's back there. My who's back, regardless, they had the best offensive rating in NBA history on Friday night. Who did they play? The Nets.

The Nets. Nets are good. Oh, wow, dude.

You beat the fucking Nets.

The Nets are good, right?

You made three players on the Nets.

It wasn't How did they beat the Nets.

They had the best offensive rating of all time.

Hank, name three players on the Nets.

Name three players on the Nets, Hank.

Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, Daryl Williams.

Name one. Jason Kidd. Can you name one player on the One player on the Nets.

I could name one.

I had one. I had one from Frank the Tank. You should be able to get that.

One player? No.

nick Klaxon.

Michael Porter Jr. Still on the team, right?

Coync.

nick Clarkson.

Coync.

But regardless, it's all-time NBA history.

Oh, yeah. Danny Wolf from Michigan. I don't know if he even plays. All-time NBA history against the Nets. That's impressive. That happened. Did you watch the game?

No.

You just knew it was going to be-I just saw it. Yeah, you just saw the history afterwards. That's how I like to consume my history.

Well, yeah, you see it. It's like, All right, history.

History, checkmark. Done. What did you do Friday night?

Did you do history? No. I would watch the game. I was busy watching Max and Zack struggle with itchy golf.

Game was definitely still on after it.

I don't know why Max-We started at 6 and we left at 8.

I don't know why he's hitting on the fact that you did something that's never been done before.

History. Most NBA games end in 2 hours.

Two and a half hours? Yeah, I had to drive home. Yeah. Then I turned the game on, they were up 100.

He was like, Oh, that must have been history. Boom. Turns out Hank was right. He knows the ball. Yeah. What was the final score?

Like 148 to... I don't even know.

I want to look at this box.

They're probably sending that ball to Springfield.

I don't know what your guy's problem is.

I have no problem. I have no problem.

I'm an admirer of history.

You have to admit the Nets part is funny. The Nets are so bad.

History is history. This is a sports history podcast.

No, it is. Oh, wow. So they did shoot Sixty-five % from three, 22 for 34. That's pretty insane.

I tend to look forward, Hank. That is insane. The past is in the past.

Twenty-two for 34.

All right, no, I won't do Who's Back anymore.

I'm looking at the box score, Hank, and I appreciate you bringing this up. Twenty-two for 34 from three is nuts.

That's it. That's all I got.

Are you on strike now from Who's Back?

No, I don't know what- Till next Monday? I don't know what I'm supposed to do here.

Well, you're being dick.

Hey, Max.

I went on the... Max. This was me going on the attack because you're being a dick.

If you were a better golfer, I would have been watching witnessing history.

Two in your face, Max. Right in your forehead. Yeah.

Deal with it.

I like the two in the forehead.

There's one.

There's You're doing free throws to the face? That's what Hank was doing. It was every single point.

It's free throws to the temple.

It was a two-point layup in the middle of the third quarter, and he was looking at me going twos to the forehead.

Oh, hit it. Clank. Okay, PFT, who's your Who's Back?

My Who's Back of the Week is part of my take, Inserting themselves into international diplomatic crisises. Oh, no. Because I think that We need to speak up about something. There's a big story that took place this weekend that I feel like we need to use our platform to address to our listeners. Chet Hanks is stuck in Colombia right now. Yeah. Chet Hanks, Chet Hayes, whatever you want to call him, he was just with his boys in Puerto Rico just going for a nice vacation. One of them was like, Hey, Chet, let's just bounce over to Colombia real quick. I got a bro in Medellín. Let's just go hang out. Because Chet Hanks is a good friend, he said, Yeah, okay, let's go over to Columbia. Oh, I don't have my American passport. I've got my Greek passport, which he has for some reason. He goes to Columbia, he's in Medellín, and now he can't get back to the United States because they won't let him back in. He has to get a green card now and wait in line for that to get back to the United States. There's no greater American than Chet Hanks, and we're in danger of having Whiteboy Summer canceled this year if Chet still stuck in Columbia.

We have to have an AWL that works.

I feel like Chet Hanks in Columbia is like a Whiteboy Summer primetime.

But then we don't get to participate. We need Chet back stateside.

Can Chet just get back by just dropping the accent?

He could get into Jamaica.

Yeah, no, I'm saying, do you think that he lost his passport? He keeps coming, going to customs with the accent. They're like, Dude, you're not American. And Chet, just talk like you probably have talked your entire life.

They're like, Chet, what's wrong with your passport? It's disqualification.

Disqualification.

All I'm saying is that we need to get Chet Hanks back. He's stuck in Medellín right now, probably having a terrible time in Medellín. I can't imagine a guy like that has too much.

Max is standing up to look at me.

Well, because he looks at me after everything. And then whenever the Sixers score- I'm watching the game, I can't look over. Whatever the Sixers score, it's just silence. You can look over when you score.

I just wanted to see if you were looking.

Yeah, I wanted to see if you were looking.

This podcast has quickly become just a livestream reaction show for some. To a nothing game.

I don't care about this game.

It's a game 63 in the NBA.

And let the record show, Max doesn't care about this game.

I care about Hank being a fucking asshole.

Listen, we got bigger things to take care of right now, and that's getting Chad and Hank's back to the United States.

The Twitter search is fucking horrendous. That's also pissing me off.

Disqualification.

Can we please... We have to have an AWO that works in the consulate. Get free chat. Please. Free chat, please. Then Chad, if you get back, you are now legally bound to come on part of my take. Yeah.

Okay, who's back in the week is Mark Sanchez because he's back in the news. They have the preliminary investigation.

Is he stuck in Medellín, too?

He's not. But Mark Sanchez, when he got stabbed in Indy, had cocaine, fentanyl, marijuana, and alcohol in his system. Damn, dude. Did you have a game you were calling the next day? Yep. That's a wild one. He just fucked around. He went for a four-piece.

Was it the next day or was it a Friday? I don't know. Then he had like, I think there might have been one day that he had Either way, dude was walking around.

We hit the cycle on just a casual indie night. Just being like, I'm going for all four.

It sounds like he had something that was stepped on.

I don't know.

That's what it sounds like to me.

He was having... Uh-oh. We got another one? Max, he had another three. Another three.

He looked that time, though, so I respect it. I respect that he looked.

I'm not bringing this up, by the way. I've never said this one time. I've been silently doing this.

Yeah, but you did start it with the two to the forehead.

But that was between me and Max.

You also said you were going The Celtics were going belt to ass on the Sixers. It's a six-point game.

It's the third quarter. We got a lot of game. We're going to have to watch the whole fourth quarter together.

It's still not belt. He said belt to ass. We have so much game left in this game that doesn't matter. I agreed, and I didn't care about this game before I started being a dick. The Sixers lose every game and B doesn't play again.

Also, Shia La Buff is back because that interview was wild. Charlie Sheehan energy. Did you see any of it? The Mike Piazza one was very funny. Strange guy. Him just being like, Fuck Mike Piazza. I tried to get his autograph 90 times. He never gave it to me. I like that. That's a grudge.

It's a serious grudge. Yeah, I stand with Shay. That's a Jersey Jerry type thing. He would never forget that.

No, never. Isaac, who's your who's back?

My who's back of the week is a NASCAR driver, Tyler Reddick. They had the Duramax Texas Grand Prix today, which is the third race of the season. He did win, but he's one of the previous two one races as well. He's the first driver in history to start the season 3-0.

This is Jordan's guy?

It is Jordan's guy. He goes 3-0 after going winless last year.

He's won three? Yes, sir.

In a row? In a row? Yes, sir. Fuck, yes.

3-0 is pretty solid.

I wasn't his kid there? Shut up. His ice hit ice in his shirt. What?

He's 3-0, though.

Yes, sir. 3-0.

And that's never been done?

No, first guy to do it.

I thought Denny Hamlin went to the race.

Interesting. I think the first three The first three races of the year, I believe.

That's interesting.

He may have won three races in a row, but I believe this gentleman won the first three in a row. No, Denny Hamlin So Dayton 500, Auto Trader 400, then the Dura-Max Grand Prix. Stud. I also had no idea just how physical NASCAR driving was till today. You could just lose 10 pounds driving in a car. Oh, yeah, it's hot. I had no clue. It's 150 degrees.

Yeah, sweating.

That's good. Who's back? Max, you have a who's back? What are the boys doing sitting in the booth? They come in too early. They always come in early. I'm sorry. I love the boys.

I can't blame Shane.

Why?

Because he missed his number last week.

Yeah, but I don't want them to-What was he supposed to do?

They would have had to stand-Coming in too late, he missed his number.

We still have 15 minutes.

Yeah, they would have had to stand for another That would have sucked for them. Is that right?

I thought it was an early-We still have the interview coming, too.

We have the interview that we have to, and we also have to finish this whole game.

We don't have to finish it.

Yeah, we do. We got to finish. We do not. Is that because the Celtics hit a three?

No, the Sixers hit a three right before the end of the-So what's the score? Six-point game going on in the four.

If you're listening this morning and you went to sleep early, you missed the thriller.

Belt to ask.

Yeah. Again, who could forget Game 62? Are the Sixers even-The Sixers are bad.

They're the Six Seed right now.

Hey, sixth seed is not playing. Six seed is not the plan. Okay, PFT, you got a couple of ads before we get to our interview with Mike McDonald.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very, very, very special guest, Super Bowl-winning head coach from the Seattle Seahawks, Mike McDonald. Let's start with that. Does that get old? Has it gotten old yet to be introduced?

It'll never get old, nor will I ever believe it. It's this weird, did it happen? I was there. I'm pretty sure I was there, but it happened. It happened.

It happened.

Kind of bittersweet. After the game's over, you don't get to play any more football.

Well, then I have to see my son I don't know.

That was my other first question was to win the Super Bowl and meet your son on the same day. It was epic. Had to be incredible.

You could tell he wasn't happy to meet me at that point.

I did see the clip, though, after that you were upset that you didn't have more practice. That's how much of a football cycle you are. You're just like, Well, yeah, we don't get to practice tomorrow.

Yeah, I miss the group. It was such a great group. It's like going to work with your buddies every day. The wives aren't excited to hear that, but they're like, You just got to go to work with your boys and talk football all day. It's like, Yeah, it's pretty much what we do. It's over. It's a bummer.

That was a very strange thing to come out on the news, though. It's like the graphic just looked bad when it was like, Coach Mike McDonald spends 30 minutes a week with his son. When you look at that on a quote card, it doesn't look so great. We were saying at the time, I think we defended you.

I did because I have three kids, and I was like, It's not as crazy as it sounds.

Your kids are probably around you during the week. It's just maybe you're not at home all the time during the season.

Well, for one, you can't go back and like, That's not what I meant, because then that's a bad deal. But it was an extra 30 minutes on Thursday. That was what I was trying to say. It didn't come across the right way. Jack's like, He's 14 months. He goes to bed at seven o'clock. He wakes up after I'm gone.

Do you plan it out, though, like a practice session? We were like, First 10 minutes, we're going to read a book, next 10 minutes.

Well, originally, when he was younger, It was like, okay, between naps was definitely down to the minute of exactly what we're going to do. Yeah, he got out of first 15. Yeah, because those were slow intervals.

But when you go from the two naps to the one nap.

Yeah, that was... Oh, yeah. It was three, then it was two, now it's one. Oh, my God. There's only one nap?

It must be surreal, though, this whole offseason for you. Now you're getting to spend this offseason as the genius. Are you a football genius?

No. Couldn't say anything to make me any more uncomfortable. Football genius.

Yeah.

No, it's not... I don't know. It takes away from what the players do, I think. That's what makes it uncomfortable. You watch our guys play and you watch what they do and the inputs every day to make it come to life. And you're like, Yeah, they're the ones that do it.

You look at your job as just being... It's your responsibility to put them in the best position to do what they do the best.

Yeah, totally. It's like my job is to do everything we possibly can to put you in the best spot as many times as we possibly can in a game. And when you fall short of that, that's when you're kicking yourself on end games where teams dice you up or whatever. You're like, Man, shoot, we I really screwed that up for the guys.

Do you have a photographic memory? Do you remember every play? No. Can I test you on one play? Sure. See, maybe if you remember. All right, so it's in the Super Bowl. It's the third quarter, 16 seconds left. Third and six. Drake Mays got the ball. Yeah.

Are we in... Well, there's some more to the call, but are we in the Manaline cover two, sack fumble?

I was about to say that, but yeah, it sounds like you remember it pretty well. Yeah. Did you know that third and six was-I thought it was third and five, actually. It's interesting you say that because on the broadcast, it did say third and five initially. Then they went back, they updated it later to make it third and six.

I shouldn't have called it then because It was originally for the third and medium category. Then third and five was in the first category. I was like, Ah, one yard. Is it worth doing it? But we said that was our next call, and we ripped it, and the guys did it.

It worked out. It worked out pretty well.

That was pretty sweet.

I didn't know if you had done any film in the scouting on Drake May ahead of time, but third and six, he's a great quarterback, but third and six is the one down and distance he struggles with disproportionately.

Just that yard?

Yeah, just that one yard.

I'm glad they fixed it then. I'm glad it actually wasn't third and five.

Yeah, that's why that happened, is because of that weird stat.

When we were scouting them on third down, they were like, undefeated on third and two, third and three, third and master.

Third and six.

Third and six. It's obvious. Different story.

I got a question about the Super Bowl. Your use of Devon Witherspoon in the Super Bowl? Because he didn't blitz. I think I read he blitzed, what, 12 times maybe? Or it might have been 20 times during the season in 12 games. And then you blitzed him six times in the Super Bowl. Was that something that comes to you during the week of preparation? Where you're like, this is something they won't expect and we know we have an edge here?

We didn't think it through that lens. I think he's such a great blitzer. But on first, second down, Nick's normally at that position, and Spoon has been playing outside a ton, so it's hard to blitz him when he's outside. Side. But we just felt like in that game plan, some of the stuff that we were able to get to in some of those passing situations, it was important to bring the nickel. It turns out he's a great blitzer, so I was like, All right, let's go for it.

You did it early, too. I rewatched some of the blitzes because they're incredible. There was one where it was nick and Devon Witherspoon on opposite sides, and then you dropped both tackles. It's like there's nothing the offense can do because you're Basically holding the ends and the running back has to make a choice, and they're going to be wrong no matter what.

You can design blitzes. There you go. It's all you got to do. You just got to make sure you have an extra guy.

Yeah, but that was early in the game where maybe they aren't expecting that, and it felt like the aggression was dialed up a little bit for the Super Bowl.

Well, Spooning is such a great knack for the timing of plays and when to uncover and when to blitz. But yeah, we're in zero, so it's not like it's the smartest thing of all time. We're just bringing an extra guy. But it's how you disguise it and how you hide it. We're so much shell and we don't blitz that much. So when we do do it, you want to make sure you're right. Yeah.

Have you gone back and watched the Super Bowl?

I haven't.

You should go back and watch the TV in the Super Bowl. It was pretty good watching on TV.

I've never watched a TV copy, but I think I'm going to watch this one. You have to. You should. I'm going to like commercials and everything. Yeah. I want to just watch it straight through.

You want to enjoy the moment. It's honestly amazing that the Seahawks are now back so soon after they had success earlier this decade. The GM that you work with Schneider, seems like just the greatest dudes dude of all time. Absolutely. Have you had a word with him about the importance of undershirts? The pit stains sometimes look like they were a bit much.

What I respect about Johnny is he's owned it. It was like, Yeah, dude, I sweat. That's what I do. It's his thing. It's cool. It's a calling card.

It seems like he's a great guy to work with. Everyone that has worked with and around him has nothing but the best thing to say. What's that relationship like when it comes to evaluating who's actually going to be on the field for you? Because I'm sure you to have your say. He wants to have his say.

I think we just look at it through the lens of who do we need up for this game to go win? And so he's not like, Hey, you need to play this guy or play that guy. A lot of times, there's transactions to go with it, too. We got to elevate guys from the practice squad, or maybe we got to sign a guy onto the team, and now you got to cut a guy. It's like there's a lot of moving parts. And so he's a problem solver to get to the most optimum roster going into every game. So he's great at that. Nolan Teasley does a great job of that, too. He's our assistant GM. He's always got the out-of-box type of ideas. But yeah, he's really responsible for the environment of the building that makes it so much fun to come to work every day. It's really his fault that I wanted to come back to work and not hang out with the family.

How did the decision to bring Sam Darnold in? Was that John starting it and then you're being like, Hey, I think this could work? Because obviously, You know the narrative for Sam was the outside public being the seeing Ghost guy and the guy at the Jets. But he was so phenomenal, wins the Super Bowl. Incredible story. But how did that all start and come together?

Well, I think it happened in three or four days from when we traded Gino to once Sam happened. When it became clear that we weren't going to be able to get Gino back, it was like, Okay, what's the next thing? There's some good quarterbacks on the market, and Sam was one of those guys. He's still super. You forget how young he is. Then we played him the year before, and he diced us up at our place, which sucked. It's like, Okay, this guy, he's pretty good. Then having Clint I've been working for the whole year. So it was like we had all these data points, and there's people in our building that were with him at USC that loved him, loved the person. So it just came together like, man, this guy sounds like a great teammate. He's going to be a great leader. He's got great tape. I think I think what people were attributing to at the end of the season, I think it was the Rams game, and maybe it was the Lions game or something. It's not a great take. Okay, there's a couple of rough games. You could argue on why those things happened, but you look at the whole season and what he did.

I was like, he won 14 games, and he played at a high level, and he came in and beat us. That guy's pretty good.

Yeah, that must have stuck with you because you mentioned it a couple of times. The fact that he came in and you got to see what he can do against your defense who you obviously believe pretty highly in. And to see that up close, that sounds like that was the X-Factor that-Yeah, I'm not a quarterback guru by any means, but I do think it does mean something like feel the guy in person.

Can you tilt the field? Do you feel the competitor? Do you feel like he's turning it down? Do you feel the poise? If we feel like we're putting stress on him, how does he handle those types of things? He was couldn't get to him that game, so that stuck with us. Yeah.

Have you updated your LinkedIn page to include Super Bowl champion?

No. It came to my attention that I remember I had a LinkedIn page, and I was so upset with myself that I updated it as head coach. I was like, That was a tchatch move. No, that's awesome. No, I just... And then I'm like, Well, now it's like an overthink thing. So it's like, Well, now do I delete it? But now it's a thing. It's like a Vince Vawn, Wedding Craftors. In my mind, it's Awards and reconnaissance segment, Super Bowl champion head coach.

You just got to lean into it heavy.

Yeah. I don't know. It's cool the way it is right now. I don't know.

Just like a time capsule.

I have a hard time thinking I'm going to go in and type that in. Log it in, yeah. That's going to That's going to be a tough thing to do.

How close are you? Because your story is awesome. You're the first Super Bowl winning head coach in play in college football. You thought about maybe going to Wall Street. Were you close to doing that or was it always like, Hey, this is football. It's What was going to be football?

Well, I wanted to be in football, but Georgia was a grind. I learned a lot, but that was before. There was small armies of support staff. So you're doing everything all the time. I was sleeping at the facility No family at that time, so I wasn't sacrificing that yet. But you would have. I totally would have neglected everybody included. I just got to the point where I was like, Man, there's no future for me. I got to rip. I got to get out of here. And it's like, as God has it, it just puts the Baltimore opportunity in your life. And then there you go. Okay, let's go.

Would you have crushed it on Wall Street?

I don't know. That sounds boring. It does, butYeah. It wasn't Wall Street. It was KPMG, a consulting gig. Okay.

What year was this? 2014. Everybody's making money.

Yeah, you would have crushed it.

Yeah, you would have done it. You would have crushed it.

I was a finance major. I totally knew that, by the way.

Wait, So the Baltimore thing happens, and you also went to the University of Michigan. We love the Harbaughs. We've had both them on. We've dubbed ourselves Harbaugh Whispers because for some reason, they keep coming on our show and liking to come on our show. And Tom Crean. And Tom Crean, yeah. All of them. But what's the difference between being in both of their systems? What's the difference between the two of them?

I got this question a ton at Michigan, and I finally told Jim. I was like, Hey, I keep getting these. He's like, Just tell him I'm taller.

That's That's awesome.

And he can beat him up.

Jim can beat up John. I'll let them figure that out. Then I told John. I was like, Hey, this is what Jim said to tell me to say. And John was like, Well, tell him I'm two and oh. And I was like, Oh, okay. Now we got to...

They're exactly like that, though. I remember last year in the combine, I was actually at a dinner with the two of them. And halfway through the dinner, they started having an argument whose head was bigger. And they took my hat and they were testing it on my hat. And I was just like, What's going on?

I believe that 100 %.

That's awesome. Imagine that at least once a day, Jim gets up and goes back to back with somebody to see who's taller. Come on, let's see.

We would race people to see... It was like the last guy in camp. The punters would race. He was like, We should race. And whoever wins. It was like, That's brilliant. He just thinks of those things immediately. It's just compete.

It's unbelievable. I got a question about your childhood. You're from Situate, Massachusetts. Yeah. Our producer, Hank, also from Situate, Massachusetts. Right on. He didn't believe me. I was calling you Situate Mike all year, and Hank was like, He's not from Situate, dude. You are from Situate.

Yeah, I lived in Situate for six years.

Six years. There you go. So it's like you're on the Mount Rushmore of Situate. I think it's you, Ryan, Whitney, and Hank. Who else?

This is an honor. Yeah.

Anyone else, Hank?

Jim Longmore. Clearly, how do you forget him?

I texted you. Credit to Hank after the Patriots lost Super Bowl to the Seahawks. He was like, another Situate guy is doing big things. So he had a nice spin zone on it.

Yeah, sorry to do that to you. It's all right. You guys have enough, right? Yeah, six is good.

So you lived there until you were six, and then you moved?

Yeah, I went to Georgia.

And then when did you decide that you were going to try to coach football?

Oh, shoot. The first time, I sucked in high school, and then I ended up getting hurt. And so then my whole senior year, I basically coached the linebackers. I thought I invented power. I would doodle plays during class, and I brought it to We were running this play, and I was playing fullback, and my job was to kick out the defensive end. I just got my ass kicked all day, every day. The guy would kick my ass. I'm like, Well, if we would just pull the guard, we might have something here. I brought it to my coach. I'm like, Hey, What do you look like? What do you think? He's looking at me like, You're an idiot. I'm just like, Shut up and get away. I was always interested in it. Then I did it when I was hurt my senior year. Then again, my high school coach ended up taking a job in Athens, not near Atlanta. Then it was like, Man, I got to go for this.

Did you play a lot of Madden? Did you get good at clock management and time management?

Yeah, well, NCAA was my favorite growing up. Then that game, Madden got better, what, 10 years ago? Yeah.

Is there anything specifically about video games that you can look at and see, this really helped me in my progression coaching actual football?

It really is problem solving. This guy won't be running his freaking play, or where he's got a glitch play, and it's just pissing you off, and you got to figure out a way to stop it. That happens. Shoot every play when you're calling plays. You're always either attacking something or you're mitigating risk somehow or trying to protect somebody or attacking somebody. It's always a reason on why you're calling it, but you're really playing off the guy that's calling plays across from you. That definitely transfers.

Was there a specific thing that the Rams... Because your defense It was so good all year, and then you played these two Rams games at the end of the year.

We're still looking for answers.

You won them, but they did have the most success that anyone had against your defense. Was there anything specific that they were doing that was like, you just couldn't figure out or crack the code?

I hate to say, we got enough stops to win, but we didn't play up to our standard. And they played great football, and they had great game plans. So a combination of... I think they did some great stuff IDing some things, how we operated, operationally. They're great at how they operate. And then Sean's great at having change-ups and compliments off of things. And then you got the MVP with a great... The personnel they have, who can He's making the plays he's making. It's just... Those are some tough games, man. Our guy has played hard, but the game we came back and we sucked in the first half, we played great in the second half, end up giving him a little breakdown. We've had these back and forth with the Rams, really for the last three years. I feel like we're just going to keep evolving and sharpen each other for the next, I don't know how many years we go at it. It's really exciting.

Two things in those two games, though, the punt return from Shahid and then the muff punt by the Rams in the playoff game. It feels like you put a very big emphasis on special teams, and other teams around the league maybe don't. Is that something that you're very deliberate about? Because it does feel like when we get in these playoff games, it's always like, a special team's play can swing everything.

Well, another hardball. Jay's our special teams coordinator, and he's a lead at his job. All we know is how Jim and John, they treat special teams. That's how we've been trained, and it does turn out it's a third of the game. It's like, why would you treat that any differently? But don't tell anybody. We'll keep playing great special teams and keep helping us win games. Yeah.

Is it important to you to to keep calling plays on defense? Does it feel like that's something that you're ever going to give up as a coach?

When I came into the opportunity, I told everybody, We'll call plays as long as we feel like it's best for the team. Ultimately, Certainly. At one point, I've always thought I would like to just coach the whole team. We'll see. I think the timeline is a little different than we thought coming in. I thought it was going to be a year or two before we moved in a different direction. But I think the thing that we have right now on our staff, it's not just me calling plays in the corner. It's like AD's handle in the front, we're Maren in the front in the rush. Karl is doing coverage adjustments with Jeff and KO and those guys. It's like this It's this organized chaos on the head set, what we're going to next, how we're building things. So ultimately, I'm the guy saying the words, but it's really like everybody's coming together on how we're going to really progress throughout the game. If you call a third down and third down in five or third down in six, it's like, we're going to come back with the same time next time, or is it a compliment the next one?

You got to be thought out on, and you got to be ready because things happen. If I tell a player, if I tell the guy, Hey, look, the next third and six is going to be this call, and they have 10 minutes to think about it. They're going to execute that way better rather than just be like, Oh, shit. Whatever. In the spur of the moment, like, execution goes way down when that happens.

Yeah, I heard.

I would say whatever you're doing right now is working pretty good.

Yeah, I heard that you don't finish your play call sheet until two hours before the game, which is very atypical. Most coaches are finishing it Friday or Saturday at the latest. What is that? Is that something you always have done, or is it just you got thoughts going all the way up until kickoff?

When I was in Baltimore, I'd finish it earlier, but I would still like, Here you're going through different... I don't really know that situation as well as I should right now. Let me go buzz that again, get ready to go, or Maybe it's two minutes. But in the last two years, you got so much stuff throughout the week as a head coach. My process gets kickback, and I procrastinate like a son of a gun with everything I do. I just want to wait till the last second. We actually have a cool cadence now. After the 90-minute meeting, Carl comes in and AD comes in, and we write down our final pass-rush fronts. We write down what we're going to do in two minutes, and sometimes it's fourth down, sometimes it's short yardage with CP. We go all the way up to-So you really go up until the gun.

You wait all the way.

We know what's in. We're not installing anything, but organizing our thoughts on how we're going to go in some of those critical situations.

Was there a moment in the Super Bowl that... I know there was a clip of you being like, I'm not celebrating until it's zeros. But was there a moment where you were like, I think we're better than them significantly? Because it felt like, especially early on with some of the blitzes, with some of the situations you were putting in, it's like, If the Seahawks just take care of the ball, this is going to be very tough for the Patriots to win.

We gave up some big leads in Baltimore the first half of that first season I was coordinating. I learned very quickly, you got to keep the foot on the gas, stay aggressive, and you're trying to go win the game. We're trying not to not lose the game. And so you're calculating possessions and time on how you're going to handle the game, game management-wise. But even after Chenda's shutdown, I'm like, Shit, that's a pretty big lead. That's cool. I think we might win. And then they go right down the field and score. They're like, Well, shit, here we are. Now we need another stop. So that's where their mind was. Just like, Okay, what's next type of mentality? And then honestly, until the last drive, because it was like, Well, the last drive, they could just go score. Now they're on an onside kick to tie the game. Right. And so really to the last play, I was like, Oh, shit. Now we're going to win this.

Yeah, you're going to win the Super Bowl. I know it's hard after winning a Super Bowl to say you have any regrets from the season, but do you have any regrets from the season? And why is it that you didn't get the ball to Jake bobo enough?

How awesome is it they made the play? He's the man.

For me, it's more like you're surprised. What are you talking about?

It's bobo. I know. We really screwed that up.

We had him on the show of Super Bowl week, and he's the man.

He's like, I need to play more.

No, we're trying to gas him up. We're like, You need to go in there and say, Give me the ball.

He should have done that. Maybe we would have won three more games.

Yeah. He was very polite and reserved and gave all the credit to his coaching staff. We were like, Dude, you got to say, you got to be more of a wide receiver. To be honest, a real wide receiver, a diva, would be like, Give me the ball. And Bobo doesn't do that enough. Yeah.

He had every right He had every right to. Yeah. He had every right to. Just feed Bobo, please.

We got to have that.

Just Jake Bobo. I know. That's probably the biggest regret. Good.

Was there anything that you had in the tank for the Super Bowl that you didn't get to use? A trick play or a gadget play, but it was so much of a blowout that it wasn't necessary.

No, it was actually funny. I remember on the sideline telling the guys in the heads, I was like, Guys, we're just about out of pressures. We pretty much called everything on the call sheet. We got things that are in every game and stuff, but I'm glad that we didn't need it later on in the game because we fired all our bullets pretty early.

Did you have one that was someone other than Sam Donald throwing a pass, like a wide receiver or anything?

Yes.

God damn it. I bet every I bet over two and a half players to have a pass attempt. Tough. Yeah. Yeah, tough.

Yeah, didn't get to that one. That's Clint's fault. You can play that. Yeah, that is. That is. That is Clint's fault. Now, he's the enemy. Yeah, right. We should make Clint as uncomfortable as possible.

Is it true that good offense beats good defense?

No.

So what about perfect offense versus perfect defense?

Is that possible?

Is it true that there's no defense for the perfect pass? Dan Marino.

Respectfully, no.

Okay. So what is the defense for the perfect pass?

Perfect defense. Okay. Is that possible? Yeah.

A guy gets.

Well played. Yeah, I love this, just living in theoretical spaces.

This is awesome. Just cliché in the back of the call that you've heard people say all the time.

Yeah, great defense is going to be great offense, right?

Defense wins championships.

There's a lot of like...

Is that true?

Yeah, it is this year.

Is it true?

Yeah.

I feel like there's a lot of Super Bowl's and big games in the past where I feel like if you were just chalk up all the ones where the great defense went against the great offense, I feel like the defense is probably one more. I agree. Lost, yeah.

Especially also what you are able to do is get pressure with four. You don't like blitzing.

I love blitzing.

But you don't do it often.

I love blitzing when it's going to work. Yeah. Why blitz if it's not going to work?

That's a good point. How are you able to... Is there something do specifically to time up the quarterback's snap count and everything?

Because you were-How dare you suggest that?

No, I'm just saying, studying tape and stuff, because like I said, in the Super Bowl, Witherspoon, he was just shot out of a cannon multiple times where he just had it perfectly.

It's a shout out to the twelves. It's way easier to do that when they're on silent cadence. If they're on verbal, they can go on anything they want. Their verbal cadence is to the point where they can bring it down really low and still adjust protections and stuff. But when you're on silent, your operation is pretty much locked in at a certain point, and Spoon has got a great feel for that. So shout out to the twelves.

The twelves were-It was really incredible, wasn't it? It was one of those things where we were watching because the last time the Seahaw When the Rocks were in the play house was during COVID at home. When the opening kick gets returned back to the 49ers, we're like, Oh, fuck. This game is over. We forgot about the 12s. We forgot how crazy this is. You could really feel it when teams were playing there in the playoffs.

Well, it sucked last year because we couldn't win at home. Then in our first year, I'm like, Gosh. But the place was still rocking, but you could tell there's another level to where it could go. And so we finally made it come to life this year, man. It was freaking awesome. The play of atmosphere was insane.

We brought that up actually a few times. You were an anomaly where you were insane on the road to start your career. What was that?

I don't know.

It was crazy because it was like, you had Seattle. It was like, Mike McDonald just doesn't lose on the road.

Yeah, we just love losing at home. It was great just to keep it close. I don't know. Defensively, it is harder to play at home, believe it or not.

I was going to ask, is the noise level a factor? Because obviously it disrupts the offense, right?

Yeah, we've had to adjust how we operate on a certain level and what we can call and things like that. But it turns out how you play is way more important than being in a sweet call. We learned that one the hard way.

Would Do you have anything in mind for... Because winning a Super Bowl is very, very hard. Repeating is even harder. Not a lot of teams have done it. I saw a lot of your messaging this year was like, how much you love the guys. Have you thought about how you're going to change it up? Just maybe OT The A's, you show up and you're like, I hate you guys. Just switch it on them.

Yeah, just keep them on their toes.

Or like, we don't care. Maybe this year, it's like, we're going to read every comment.

Guys, we're going to care.

We're going to care too much.

We're going to care.

What's the Seattle Seahawks reddit saying about us? You pull that up. Maybe that's what you should say.

That's the thing. That's a great source material. It's never going to run out. Yeah, right. So I'll always have a team meeting ready to go.

We care too much.

Yeah, we care What do you want? What do you think about the nickname The Dark Side?

Do you like that nickname? I do. I think it's pretty cool.

Who came up with that?

I'm pretty sure Leo came up with it, right?

Leonard? I'm not sure. I wasn't sure if it was born from the team or if it was born from a writer.

I'm pretty sure Leo and the guys came up with it.

I feel like it's a very menacing nickname when it goes well.

If it doesn't go well, it doesn't look good.

The Dark Side is really easy to point out and be like, Oh, The Dark Side. All right, here's the first thing on the Seattle Seahawks reddit right now. Perfect. It's Don't talk about my QB. Oh, that's good. And just Sam Darnold with some good stats about Sam Darnold locked in. So you're good. People are very happy. There's a graphic that somebody made that makes it look like you guys are Star Wars and you're the Super Bowl champions. This is actually rat poison. This is too good, the stuff that they're saying about you right now.

How does that work? Do we need to struggle for maybe...

Yeah. Oh, get some adversity.

Yeah, get some adversity, then get them talking shit, and then we can care more.

Yeah, that's exactly what you got to do.

It sounds like a winning strategy.

Here's a good one. Have you ever seen this meme before? It's like a timeline of a game, right? At the start, it says, Oh, boy, am I excited to watch my favorite team play? Then right in the middle, it says, I'm going to kill Rik Wollen. Then at the end, it says, Nice, we won.

No, I haven't seen that one. Shut up, Rik.

That was a pretty crazy moment in that Rams game, huh? But I said credit to the team.

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

I thought it was really good that the team was able to bounce back from that moment after what could have just been a disaster.

Yeah, I totally agree. Well, one, I was the one that probably had to come back to Earth. I was pretty upset. But I actually watched it, actually on the TV copy, on the... It's like it's inter-spliced on the system. It really wasn't that bad of a penalty. In real-time, I thought it was way worse. It shouldn't have gone over there, but I don't know. I've seen worse. Not the best decision, but-I think in that moment, it would have been really easy to just crumble, to mentally fall apart after you go from-I screwed him up on the next play. I put him in one-on-one, and that was dumb. I shouldn't have done that.

All right, so here's another one from the Seahawks Reddit. Radicus 9. This was after your first year Someone posted just saying, What is everyone's thoughts on Mike McDonald after the first year? Radicus 9 said, He's okay, had some huge things work in his favor and was unable to take advantage of them. A considerable regression is likely next season. Whoops. That guy was wrong.

I love that. What do you think? You think he's like, Hey, I screwed that up?

I don't know what he's screwed at.

He's sticking to his guns.

We need to hear from Radicus 9 be like, Dude, you said a regression is happening.

Year 2, like lucky Super Bowl, year 3, he's screwed.

Yeah, and then this was CryptoClepto said he's done a good job, not bad, but also not great.

He's into crypto, so he knows what's going on.

Yeah, so maybe this is the new thing. You care too much. Instead of studying a film, you just read the comments.

Here's an anonymous quote from me.

Yeah, that's brilliant.

Anonymous player. I'd like to be trade away from Seattle. I'd prefer to be dealt to a contending team. That was from before last offseason.

That's on Reddit?

Anonymous player said that. Oh, no, that's a report from Adam Schefter about DK Metcaf. My mistake. My mistake.

What is it like, though, when you go back with the guys this year, is there a plan to change things at all, or is it like, Hey, it worked? Because you got to keep it fresh, but you also had an incredible season. You won the Super Bowl.

I think you always have to evolve, right? How we do our offseason program is going to be a little... I have some ideas on how we're going to do it, but we have a shorter offseason window. So how do we maximize the time away, but also get the biggest bang for our buck During those 8-10 weeks. We say methods and principles. Principles, how we work, how we compete, great spirit. We get after it, take care of all that stuff. That's not going to change. But what we do in the building, how long we're there, what exercises we do, how we do the install, all that stuff will change up. How we build our systems. Offensively, we have a new coordinator, so it's important for the guys to be there and get back to work. But it'll look different than last offseason for sure.

What's the conditioning drill that you do? Becauseconditioning test? Yeah, you kick the shit out of everyone.

Well, I was a little disappointed that guys don't want to do it.

I'm like, no, don't. That's conditioning.

This is not the time. You can't care now. We're off that change. We're going to do... The reason there's a conditioning test is so you're in shape to go to training camp, so you stay healthy, and your team's in shape so you can practice. So what is the test?

What's the test?

It's 6 150s at a certain 25 yards and back three times. Is that 150? Whatever that is.

You're the nerd.

We're not the numbers guys.

Clearly not.

It's 50 times 6?

No, 25 times 6 is 150.

Oh, 50 times 3. Yeah, 150.

50 times 3, 150.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you got it. You just said a bunch of numbers.

You got to do it in a certain amount of time based on your position, in a certain amount of rest.

That's not that hard. You're confused why guys-Thank you.

Yeah, I used to do it when When I was the Bear's coach, every year, I would try out for the team by doing the conditioning test, passed every year.

That's elite.

Yeah, no big deal. I did pass it like the nose tackle position.

I love hearing that.

When Albert Hainsworth, he tried and failed 11 times, I I think for Washington, I got drunk. I drank a Mad Dog, and then I went out. I did the test and passed it.

The Lyman test is way easier now. It's like a joke. It's only the skill guys, but the Lyman one is a joke.

Are you confused why people don't like doing the test?

Well, I know why they don't like it, but now is not the time to lower your standard. It's a good point. It's like, Oh, we won. So now you don't want to do what it takes to win? That doesn't make any sense.

What's your number one combine question that you ask a guy? Do you do like a ping strong balls in a triple seven or anything like that?

No, I'm not weird. I don't really ask much, honestly. You get a feel for where the guy... It depends on what you feel like where the guy is coming from. I don't know. Anybody that goes in those meetings and says, Okay, I got this guy pinned. I asked the perfect question like, Dude, you're an idiot. And that's completely disrespectful of the scouts. I just spent three to four years following this guy's every move, and now here we are for 20 And it's like, look, I got them. I ask them three questions. I crack the case. Yeah, I crack the code, guys.

Has there been one guy that you've talked to that has either confirmed something that you liked about him already? And you're like, yeah, I'm now more convinced than ever because I got to meet them in person that I wanted him on my team.

Full disclosure, I haven't watched any of these guys on tape yet. So this is my first exposure to them. A couple of them are guys that I started recruiting when I was at Michigan because I was a terrible recruiter, but they were on the recruiting list. So I watched them in high school and stuff. So it's cool that it's come full circle, and now they're entering the draft. I remember that guy. I think he was sweet in high school. Yeah.

Wait, why were you a terrible recruiter?

I'm just awkward. I actually had a question There was an article I read, did you know you have an awkward pause before you answer things?

I haven't noticed in the interview, but there was a whole article about Mike McDonald's awkward pause.

I was aware that I did pause, but I didn't do it on purpose.

People said that it was you just downloading information and coming up with a perfect response.

I mean, that's probably what I was trying to do.

It sounds like somebody wrote an article being like, Mike McDonald thinks before he talks. Is this a red flag?

Maybe I'm caring too much. Maybe that's the thing. I got to care less on what to say.

If they wrote that same article about us, they'd be like, These guys say some dumb shit without thinking. They talk too fast. Yeah.

It's way worse.

Okay.

It's way worse. You sound like a normal person when you talk. Right. Thank you. Are you such a preparation freak that you prepared the Gatorade bath because it got you perfectly.

I was just fired up there as going to be one. Because When the game ended, I'm like, Wait, there's no... Where's my Gatorade? Is there going to be a Gatorade bath? Then it was like, coming straight at me. So I was like, Well, you just embrace it and just jump into it. I did like, screw my ear. I got ear infection a week later. Really?

You got swimmer's ear from the Gatorade bath?

I sound funky right now. I'm still dealing with it. But I had an ear infection. I was hurting for a minute. That's crazy. Totally worth it.

I thought it was your fullback that got you, right?

It was Patty Joe and Bradley Russell. Yeah.

The send of the fullback with the mullet out as a captain was a power move. You did that just to-That was on purpose. To intimidate, right? Yeah.

That was strong. You need to use that story, by the way, next training camp. Be like, Hey, If you guys are injured, if you're hurt, just know I got an ear infection from the gatorade bath, and I still went to the party.

Yeah, I had a great time. I didn't bitch on a podcast or anything. You didn't complain.

If you have to do it over again, is it worth it to win the Super Bowl to get an ear infection?

I don't know. I don't know if we wanted to talk about it.

How bad are we talking ear infection? Was the flight uncomfortable for you?

Yeah, this is something I'm going to deal with the rest of my life. This is permanent.

Battle scars.

Yeah, that's right. Wait, I have one last question about the Super Bowl. Two weeks off going into the Super Bowl, were you going a little crazy being like, I just want to play because I'm thinking about all the things I want to draw up? Is there a moment where you're like, I'm actually overthinking this?

Well, that's me. It's a lot of time. Yeah. You ask coaches that have been in the Super Bowl, Hey, what's the best way to do it? There's different philosophies behind it. I think, again, being procrastinator, it's like, and we want to keep the guys mentally into it the whole time. So if you're like, Hey, let's do a full game plan the first week, and then we'll rinse, repeat that next week. It gets old for the guys. You know a couple of the best ideas, you're under the gun. So we ramped into the second week, had a base foundation of what we felt like we were strongly what we wanted to do. Then we really dialed it in the second week, and it added a sense of urgency behind what we were doing. That Tuesday before the Tuesday that guys had off when we were in When we were in California, that was a long day. We were just sitting there and I'm like, Hey, well, what about this? Our staff's like, Dude, we're good. Just do that. We're going to be fine. We can play those plays in this defense. I'm like, Yeah, but I don't know.

But that's how we work together. I bring up all the problems, and they calm me down.

Did you think at any point during the Super Bowl that, What have I done? We might have a kicker as MVP?

The game ended, and I didn't know. The game ended, okay, you do the awkward stare at the sky thing, and then you're walking towards the stage. I think it was Dave was with me. He was like, Oh, yeah, by the way, Kim Walker's MVP. I was like, Oh, yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. Okay, sweet. He was awesome.

That's good. Yeah, great. But there was a moment watching at home where we were like, We might have a kicker. It might be a kicker.

If you win, it's all good, right? That's true, yeah. It's totally worth winning the Super Bowl again. Ear infection. At what cost to have a kicker be the face of the lead? Ear infection, kicker is the MVP.

I don't know if he's even prepared for this, but we have a guy that he played high-level college football. He was a center.

He's not prepared for this.

I want you to scatter him. I wonder who it is. He was on the Hoosers, so he's a legitimately good center. You want to just give him a set and you can judge? We're at the combine right now. Yeah, we might as well. This is a job interview, Mike.

I played center. I also played both cars.

Okay, we got a ball here. Over here?

Yeah, give him a ball. Give him a ball, Max.

Max, you be quarterback.

I played with AJ for three years.

It's a sniff right there.

Here we go. Let's see what you got. What do you got, Katie?

Can I ask what defense you're in?

Running? Yeah, let's say we're a shade right to your left and a five technique on the snap, they're going to run like a-TE? Yeah, T.

All right, so we're sliding left.

All right.

Let's go 48. It's the mic.

Hey, Louis, Louis, Louis, Louis.

I want to bring pressure over here really bad.

Oh, should we wait? So then you have to check. You have to check.

Hey, flip, flip, flip. Check.

Hey, right. Hey, Roger, Roger.

Roger, Roger. Grenady.

Grenady, check.

Oh, he blocked the whole team. Yeah, that was good. He got the whole team, yeah. No warm-up.

Yeah.

Thank you, Coach.

And that's just cold. Like ligaments intact. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Meniscus lateral after the 2021 season.

Didn't miss any games.

Is that as bad as an ear infection? Or is that- That's right.

No. I bet your ear infection is probably worse. But yeah.

Yeah, it's impressive. Oh, cool. Just straight cold, too. Re-ideed the protection the whole night. I'll tell you what, we didn't time there very well. Yeah. That was bad. Really nervous.

It's interesting seeing how a defensive coach approaches that as opposed to an offensive coach because we had... We work with John Gruden, and the first time he met Kadek, he came in the office, and Kadek was like, Yeah, I was a center at Indiana. Gruden just goes immediately, All right, get down your three-point stance. He just goes up, puts his hand in his mouth.

I feel like Jim would have done it. Jim would have done something like that. For sure.

I tell the story, but we were at Chargers camp, might have been two years ago. My third child was just born, and he asked how the kids were, and I showed him a picture of my youngest, and he was, I think, six months old at the time. And Coach Harbaugh just goes, he's got a great skull for football. I was like, he's six months, dude.

That's an all-time line. How does he think? He says things. I'm like, how does he think that fast?

He's just always thinking ball.

I'm pausing, trying to think of it. He's just banging it out.

Are you going to get any residuals for when the team gets sold because you increase the value so much? I feel like that's worth at least $20 million, right? It break you off the top.

If we could just keep me in my job, that would be worth it. It would suck if they just said, Hey, we're going to change everybody.

I think you're good. I think they'll probably stay with what works.

Give us a chance, at least.

Yeah, that's a weird circumstance. I assume you have absolutely zero to do with, no control over what happens, but it's going to be in the background for the next six months or a year, however long.

Yeah, it is going on. It doesn't really affect us. Just what we do day to day. There's going to be some transition period at some point. It's probably going to happen maybe during the season. If it does, it's whatever. It'll just keep rolling.

What's the most important position for you on defense that you were like, I need this to run my defense?

Just give us great players, man. We'll make it come to life. The D-line plan as well as they did just unlocks everything.

But it feels like, too, that if you have a really good safety, like you had Kyle Hamilton and then you in Seattle, having a safety who can do everything gives you the ability to just call everything you want to call.

Yeah, nowadays, teams are trying to manipulate you and your structures that you're in based on who's on the field, and are you single high, two high, mans, all that stuff. Our philosophy is like, well, let's give you one input and then just make you operate without having cheat codes. And nick allows us to do that. We can stay in the same people and pretty much get to anything we need to get to, which is rare.

Is there a game from this season that you can look back on, say, this forced us to make a change in a meaningful way?

Yeah, Tampa.

Okay. What happened there?

nick didn't start that game, and he balled out. He played really well. But again, that was one of those game plans. We were like, This is dumb. I put these guys in this situation, this situation, this situation, we sucked at it. We had a terrible Friday practice. I'm like, no wonder we had a bad practice. It was just a bad game plan. It's like, Hey, trust your players a little bit more. Let's be a little bit We're cleaner throughout the week. And then the players, I think they understood, Hey, look, we need it. The standard of how we practice every day does matter. We got to bring it even on a Friday. And so together, we're like, Okay, let's strip this thing down a little bit. We found our identity here. We found our sweet spot. Let's just hammer that home and get really great at that. And after that, I thought we played pretty great defense the rest of the year.

Yeah. The game against the Colts, did you tell your guys, Hey, don't kill Phil Rivers?

They had a great game plan.

He was throwing it so fast. He was getting the ball out.

Yeah, they had a great game plan. They operated differently than they had in all the other groups, which for a guy like me, it's hard to be like, I need tape. I need to go off of something to build a game plan. It's hard for me to be like, Hey, we're just going to run our stuff and let's go. So not knowing how they're going to operate with him was a challenge. Then he came in and he was doing it like old school Phil Rivers style. He's IDing stuff and talking shit if they scored a shutdown, it was actually cool. As much as you hate giving up a countdown, I was like, I've seen that guy before.

Did he yell something at you?

No, but he has done that in the past. When I've been on that, not to me personally, but I've been on the sideline. We're in a We actually got them to re-ID the protection when I was in Baltimore, brought an extra guy away from the slide, like we just did over here. He saw it, drifted away, knew we were in a certain coverage through the post, and just talked, and he was like, Deuce. He's like, You're in deuce. He knew the exact coverage, yelling us right down the sideline. I was like, Man, what a savage. The guy's awesome.

Who did you have running Scout team, Philip Rivers?

Jalen Millrow would have been a tough comp that week.

Jalen Millrow, but he has to only hop on one leg.

Yeah, it's like a one-legged J-Mill back there. Can't move. Put him in a knee brace. It's good. Like braze.

Well, this has been awesome. I have one last question for you. It's a rowback question. Robackk. Com, promo code take. Q-zips, hoodies, jogger shorts. Pft is wearing it right now.

Get the button up. Looks great.

My last question is, could you give us two barks?

He goes, Give me two bark.

There we go.

Give me two bark.

Ajay Barner told me, he's like, You got to ask for two barks.

We'll do it right in the middle of a team meeting. Aj will start barking in the middle of a team meeting. And then I'll just like, Oh, I probably need to do that now. So you bark back at him?

Oh, yeah. Can you bark louder?

No.

Wait, so he yells, Give me two barks?

No, so that's Jay Reid's thing. But then when AJ gets excited, he'll just bark.

Start barking in the meeting. And then you, as as a dog have to respond to the barks?

Yes.

Now I understand why it's fun to go to work.

The team is this organized chaos at a certain point. Once you put your guard, it's just like, whatever. Let's just do great work and have a good time and let's roll. We're barking each other.

Sometimes you have to bark until you move on. Like, Okay, I bark back. Can we get back to the conversation?

When it started, do you hear the story about how it started?

No, give it to us.

What game was it? I think it was San Francisco at their place. We were fired up about to go on the field initially, and Jay Reid is like, Give me two barks with everybody that's about to go out. And nobody knew that was coming. So I'm standing back there. I'm like, That was weird. And then so he yells it again. And then so By the fourth time he yells it, the guy start barking back. And then we're like, Okay, that was really weird, man. All right, whatever. So we took the field and then we won the game. And he's like, Well, I was trying to think of something to get the guys going. And it just came to my mind that we're dogs and we need to bark, and whatever. He said something at the end, and then the guys just loved it. Then that was the thing we do before games now. It was pretty awesome. That's awesome. That was great.

Give me two barks.

Are we allowed to do that or is that stolen valor?

No, No, you guys are honorary. Honorary barkers.

As a student at Georgia, did you ever bark at another man? When they're calling all the dogs?

Yeah, unfortunately, I did some really dumb things. I was at Georgia. Luckily, it was not recorded.

Oh, man. Well, Coach, congrats on everything. Awesome having you on. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks, guys. Now you're a recurring guest, so you have to come on anytime we ask. Love it.

Football genius. Yeah.

Football genius and Barker and dog, and also ear infection survivor.

Yeah, that's probably my most proud moment.

Yeah, let's hope you don't take a turn for the worst year.

I wouldn't say survivor.

We got to get you cleared medically.

You're fighting. Mcdonald's strong.

Just keep him going. As long as the Super Bowl's come, we'll be ear infection, so keep going.

Mike McDonald is retired after winning the Super Bowl because of an ear infection. Thanks, Coach. All right, guys.

Thanks.

Mike McDonald is brought to you by Venmo. You can get in the game with the college-branded Venmo debit card and earn up to 5% cash back at some of your favorite brands with Venmo Stash rewards. You can add your Venmo debit card to your mobile wallet as soon as you sign up, pay online and in-store right from your phone. The best part, the card is tied right to your Venmo account. Got paid back for dinner? Well, you can immediately access the money in your Venmo balance, and you can spend it on what you want: game day snacks, tickets, new merch. You can easily split purchases in the app, and there's no monthly fee, there's no minimum balance. What would you spend your Venmo Stash on? Think about it. You can score more with the college-branded Venmo debit card and get up to 5% cashback with Venmo Stash. Sign up at venmo. Com/ CollegeCard. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancor Bank, NA. Select schools available. Venmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply at venmo. Me/stashterms. Max $100 cash back per month with the Venmo college-branded debit card. Mike McDonald was also brought to you by Jose Cuervo.

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Okay, boys. Ten years, 10 years apart in my take. Pretty crazy. We talked about it on Friday. We figured out that we recorded our first episode ever on February 29th. Our first episode launched on March second, so March first does feel like our 10-year anniversary. I wanted to start with it. I appreciate I read everyone who tweeted, had messages today. It was really cool. I always... I struggle with this. I don't know if you struggle with this, too, PFT. It's always a little weird being people glazing us or us in a certain way because it makes me feel a little uncomfortable. But I've started to realize you got to at least enjoy these moments. I don't like birthdays anymore. I don't like anniversaries, but you do have to have a step back and be like, Hey, you know what? This is really cool. It's awesome that it means this much to a lot of people. But I thought the perfect description that I saw today when scrolling was, Can't Guard Jake.

Yeah, I tweaked this one.

Yeah, 10 years of PMT to the day. Dumbest thing I've ever listened to. Complete garbage. Bunch of It's the idiots who have no idea what they're talking about. I haven't missed an episode. Five stars would recommend. That's it right there. It's perfect. That's our legacy.

That's a great encapsulation. I'm with you. I'm with you. If we're on a list or if there's a sports podcast award, unless it's the time list, which I was really broken up about, that the Tennis podcast usurped us on. I never give that any mention. It makes you feel uncomfortable. If we're on a list of the top five sports podcasts in the United States, whatever, that's great. But I I never feel like any emotion about being included in some industry thing. But 10 years did make me stop and look back and think about it because it's 10 years of my life. It's 10 years of what we've done all day, every day. I got drunk yesterday, and when I went home from the bar, I actually wrote down something. I started to write a tweet out. I wrote the tweet, and then I just kept writing the tweet. I was like, I'm not going to post this. I'm just going to save this and say it on part of my take out loud. I love that. I just opened it up right now. I haven't read it. Again, I was hammered when I wrote this last time.

Do you want Zack to read it?

Yeah. Zack, do you want to read-Zack, can you please read it?

The hammered PFT tweet from yesterday.

I can read it if you'd like me to read it.

I think it'd be good coming for you, Zack. It's like an out-of-body experience.

This is going to be good. That way I can have plausible denial. I didn't say any of that. No, I don't have emotions. Zack has emotions. Not me. I'm a man. Zack, what email address? Pmt Bachelor Party?

Oh, no. Pft. They did. They put the nipple ring on you.

Oh, yeah. No, I retweeted that. That's very funny. Oh, no. For all the shit that we talked about Ryan Day.

You got to know.

Oh, man. All right. Zack, I just sent you the tweet that I started to write last night, but I did not finish. I want you to read it to the class. Okay.

Here we go, Zack. It's from Zack Cornelius. If anything bad is said.

A lot can happen in 10 years. Since we started Part of My Take, we've seen the death of dynasties, a bunch of Boston sports championships, one Chicago Championship, one Philly title, two Washington titles, zero New York Championships. Ten years ago, we were bloggers. Hank was thinking about quitting. I didn't have health care or face. In the last 10 years, I've seen Hank become a creative boss with amazing production and hiring instincts. All the success of Barcaul since 2016 is a direct result of his growth. I've seen Big Cat grow into becoming a father and the most talented voice in all sports media and a college football national champion winning coach. Thank you. We've been through a lot together. Failed TV shows, the predatory sports media business, trying their best to split us up or weaken us. But the one thing that kept us together was a realization that we've got a great thing. We're lucky enough to have built this from the ground up and we don't need egos to break it up. Collar Daddy could learn a lot from us.

Banger.

That was great.

We're the luckiest guys in the entire world, and we got the best job in the entire world. I get to work with my best friends at the best job. These guys have been there through starting this podcast, to fail TV shows, to two cross country moves, to family starting, to some very tough times, personally, like the loss of my dad. So much has happened, and the only way to make it worth through these 10 years of ups and downs is you better have good people in your corner. I've had the best right here in this room. We owe so much to the guys and the girls who listen to this show, who are always there for us. To the people who used to listen, we appreciate you. To the new listeners, we love you guys, too. Lucky doesn't even begin to describe us. Ten years ago, we were hardworking shitheads with a commitment to consistent stupidity. Even though the show has changed, and I don't really see much of a change in what got us to this point, I'd be honored to do 10 more with you guys. Thanks for changing my life. Yeah.

That was perfect, PFT. Thank you, Zack. Or Zack.

Yeah, good thought, Zack.

That was good because then you didn't have to get sentimental.

That way, I didn't cry. Yeah.

But it's the truth. Everything you said there was perfect. I said it today. I was like, Here's the 10 more, and then probably 10 more after that because what the fuck else am I going to do? This is the best thing in the world.

It's the best job ever. I always tell people that if I had If I had told a guidance counselor when I was in high school what I wanted to do when I grow up, I would have said something very similar to what this job is right now. My counselor probably would have said, Well, that's impossible because that job doesn't exist. Nobody will ever pay. Yeah, right. Much less what we've been able to do together and build. It makes me sentimental thinking back over 10 years. Ten years is a big part of my life. I don't know about you guys. Longest job I've ever had by far. Yeah, by far. I hope it's the- The only job I've ever I hope it's the... I honestly, I want this to be the only job that I have for the rest of my life. It's incredible that we get to do it every day. I am the luckiest person on the planet for getting to work with you guys.

The I got two tattoos on Friday, and one was Vanne Woodhead, and the other is one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs, and the lyrics is Grass ain't greener, wine ain't sweeter. It fit with Vanne Woodhead in the fact that this is a Very difficult, and no one feels bad for it. Difficult business in what you said in that message is there are people always trying to climb the ladder. There's people who are always trying to split people apart, be like, Oh, we can whisper in your ears saying, Oh, you can get this, you can get that. Why don't you do TV? This, that, and the other. We realized a long time ago that there's nothing better than this. It has been a blessing that we've all come to that conclusion on our own and as a group where it's like, We got it. To be able to comfortably sit in a seat and not want for anything else is such a blessing, and that's what the show has provided. I think that's why we've done it for 10 years, and we're going to do it for 10 more years, and then 10 years after that.

I looked back at episode one. I was thinking about episode one last week, and then memes went back and listened to it. God bless you, memes, for getting through it.

Oh, boy.

Was it hard to get through?

No, it was pretty much the same. Hank's audio was extremely low.

Okay. That's it. You just criticized Hank. Hank has always sucked.

No, it was the first episode.

His audio was low.

He forgot a tripod to the shoot you guys are going to in California? What was that shoot? I love that we're having this sentimental moment, and Max and Hank are literally in a blood war right now, just locked in this stupid game.

I saw the Celtics were playing in the Sixers, and I was like, I don't care about this game, but now I do because I hate it.

This is like when Diana said, oh, yeah, the people at the athletics say, be more like, pardon my take. We're like, why? This is why. We can't script any of this. We're having an actual moment, and it's '99, '91 in a game that means absolutely nothing.

Meams told me that in the first episode, there was one thing that stood out. We promised to join a cult every week.

Oh, no.

Is that true, Meams?

Yeah, I wrote it down. List of things you guys said you were going to do. One was monthly remote show from a different airport in America. All right, we've done a couple of those.

We did airport reviews. Yeah.

And Cult Week, Join a Cult in the Summer during July. That one we could still do.

I think maybe what about in Grit Week?

Well, we created our own cult.

Yeah. I mean, it is bad that we said we would join a cult. We haven't done Texas A&M. We haven't been to Clemson. We haven't been to Penn State. Those are the big three. We should do- Hanging out when you're hanging out. Yeah. But we should do Cult Week where it's just those three schools.

Yeah. But it's pretty incredible. It really is. I feel very blessed Again, not only for the success of this show, but being able to do it with people because you just look across any job. It's like being in a marriage. It's the same thing where it's like our relationships are so deep and we spend so much time together to be able to To get 10 years without having anything catastrophically break us up or cause a problem is a true blessing. That's to all you guys and everyone in this room.

I wrote this in the book.

Yeah, book out in August. We get into everything.

But I have always felt weird. I am the luckiest person in the world. Just the fact that I was involved with this show since the beginning, and you guys are super humble and gracious that when you talk about the show, you're like, Oh, me, PFT, or me, Big Cat, and you'd throw my name in there with you because it's like, I just happened to be the person that was producing and editing it in the beginning. I always get a little awkward when people combine the three of us because it's always been like, It's your guy's show. I feel very lucky to be here since the beginning. But yeah, I also hope I never... I don't plan on ever having another job. No.

I think I'll just disappear if the show ends.

It's our show.

It's the guys in the booth, too. The guys who came in way too early to do the lottery ball, them, too.

It's everyone. Yeah. Hey, You deserve to be mentioned in that for sure. The show would not be the same if it wasn't for you. I did mean what I wrote when I was pretty hammered, that watching Hank grow from being literally the guy that would show up to press record and then get it uploaded into what you've become since that has been one of the really cool things about doing this show.

I also think, Hank, talking about how we're so lucky that we've made it this far without having anything break us up, you're a big of that. You guys in the booth are a big part of that. If it was just me and PFT doing the same show, just the two of us, and it was only our two voices every single Monday, Wednesday, Friday for 10 years, it probably would have ended because that's just hard to do. Having the ensemble cast and having everyone be a part of it, it's why coming to work every day is the best because you just come in and you just bust each other's balls and have fun, some laughs. It also goes for everyone, Jake, Billy, everyone, Bubba, all these guys who Anyone who's been part of it. Jilly. Jilly. Lenny Dykstra, anyone who's been part of it at any point shares in this. It's pretty awesome. Pug.

I miss Pug. Yeah, I miss all of them. Yeah, I do.

I miss all of them. But yeah, it's great. Thank you to everyone who's listened, we know. I think that's the biggest message from all this 10-year stuff is we fully understand how lucky we are. We fully understand how awesome this whole experience is is, and we are going to ride it until we are the biggest old losers that everyone makes fun of and parodies. Because we started parodying everyone else when we started. Eventually, that will come for us. It will happen. We'll just laugh with it.

The beauty of the show is, yeah, we started off making fun of everybody else in the business. Then what do you do when you become one of the biggest in the business? That's how you got there. That's when you got to start putting your fucking name on cheesecakes.

It is funny. Yeah.

If you ran down a list, if you listened to the first four months of the podcast, the advertisers that we had then.

Oh, my God. They were probably all- Offshore gambling companies.

I would guess the founders of all the companies that advertise with us are probably in prison right now. Shout out them, though. They're important, too.

There was something that Zack read off, and I forgot why I put it in there, but now I remember, the people that used to listen to the Because I did see a couple of tweets from people being like, I haven't listened as much recently. We do hear that a lot from people that as they get older, you don't have enough time to listen to the podcast.

I saw a couple of us like, Dude, can you let us have one day where you don't have to point out.

But honestly, respect to those guys because they were like, I used to listen a lot. I don't as much anymore because I've gotten older, but I'm really fucking pumped for them. Yeah, that's true. It's like even- There were people like that. Because naturally, you don't stay. I don't listen to the same shows with the same frequency as I did 10 years ago. Things change in your life. You don't have enough time to listen to certain things. But it's cool that we can part on good terms with the people that you see. We both went our separate ways amicably.

I just always laughing.

Every now and then, maybe late night, they're thinking about it. They're just like, You know what I'm going to do?

I just love when people announced.

I want to hear what Max and Hank are up to.

Let's tap in. Oh, shit. They're watching a game and doing threes in their face. I'm out again.

Yeah, now I realized why I broke up with you guys.

I just laugh when people announced that they no longer listen like they're choosing a college. I just want to let all my fans out there know I'm no longer listening to this podcast. But you're right. I listen to podcasts, go in waves in and out. I mean, life changes, but hopefully, they'll find their way back every now and then. I think we still-The show is still growing.

That's the thing.

The show is still free. The show is still free. The thing that I love the most is I know everyone will always pick, Oh, here was my specific time that I thought was the best or that. I really do think it's different, but it's still so much fun that I think we keep hitting peaks that we've never hit before, and there's moments that I'm like, That was the funniest thing we've ever done. I think we still got it. I still want to keep going. Maybe we renew our vows.

Yeah, I'm down. We get a podcast vows.

We'll do it in Vegas. What if we renew our vows in Vegas? She's added to the list. The Max Bacher party is getting a little out of hand.

Mark Davis, renew our vows in Vegas.

It's going to be a little out of hand. In terms of people invited? No. If someday they're like, Big Cat lost all his money, where did it start? Max Bacher party. I love my boy. I want to have fun with the boys.

It's going to be a weekend.

It's going to be a weekend.

It's going to be a movie.

I felt like when I was thinking about it earlier that I was 22 when the podcast started. I felt older than 22 at the time. Now, thinking back about how young 22 is, it seems way younger than I guess I felt. But I'm 32 now. You guys were 32 when this podcast started, and I feel way-31. 31, sorry. But I still feel way younger now Well, then I felt like you guys were when the podcast started.

That was just a long way of saying we've been old for a long-ass time.

No, just maturity.

I think if there's like maturity. You guys were so old when we started the show.

I'm asking if you guys feel the same way. Sorry.

Now you're really old. I actually I feel opposite. I feel like- Do you think I'm...

I don't know.

I guess- I think you're more mature for sure. You're an adult now.

Do you think I'm as mature now as you guys were when the podcast started?

I think maturity in this room is a sliding scale. We are truly the Lost Boys, Peter Pan. We're never going to grow up. When people will say stuff like, Oh, two 41-year-old dudes talking about getting horny, I'm like, Yeah, we got to talk about tits on a show.

I'm in year 25 of my midlife crisis, going strong.

I don't think I'm going to ever have a midlife crisis. I think I'm just resigned to the fact that I'm always just going to have the humor of a 16-year-old, and I'm cool with that. That's what it is. Yeah, maybe a little older. I'm like the semester after you join the frat, and I get to haze all the pledges. That's where my maturity starts.

I've honestly felt like I've been 23 years old for the last 17 years my life. Yeah. That's where you stay.

You do get a little time capsule with PFT every time he comes to work. That shirt, I think, is from 2016.

That's why I wore it today. It's the 2016 shirt. That's incredible. That's incredible. I still fit into it really well. No, it's tight in some places. It wasn't tight before. That's the same.

You wear shirts like that all the time.

Yeah, no.

That's the thing about that shirt. It's different.

Pft wear things that got sent to us for free in 2017.

This is an official 2016 part of my day.

No, but I don't think that-I have nothing but respect.

Did anyone look at the PFT shirt and be like, That's an oddly fitting PFT shirt?

No, not at all.

Wearing a shirt of the podcast that I'm on?

No, I'm saying that you were trying.

You were saying it didn't fit. It doesn't fit.

You said it didn't It fits. It fits good. It fits really good.

What is the booth? Anything for the booth?

Look at my body.

You wear shirts. It doesn't look bad. Thank you. Yeah, this is... You're making this compliment sound like an insult.

Hank made it seem like an insult.

Three in your head.

It is like I'm jealous of your war job. As much as I give you shit for it, it's like...

The confidence is liberating.

And just you hold on to things that...

He's close to saying the confidence to look like shit. No, it's like we get sent like, cheap, like random things from like random colleges 10 years ago, and you'll pop up.

I'm like, I remember when that got sent in New York, maybe before we moved to New York. Respect.

Anything for the booth? Was it...

Yeah, it's different for us because obviously, we've only been here for-Well, I hope you guys know how important you guys are to the whole thing. I started to do a tweet, a tweet thanking you guys, and then midway through, I just deleted it.

I was like, This is lame. Listen, we're men. We're not going to do feelings. I was like, This is lame. This is the most we'll ever do feelings, and then none of us are ever going to listen to this back.

I started to do a sentimental thing, and then I deleted it, and I just put it on my Instagram story, said, Love my boys. I was like, That's how sentimental I feel comfortable being.

I love that.

But yeah, no, I appreciated this. I've listened to this show since day one. I remember listening to the first episode. Wow. Oh, yeah. It was my favorite show for forever. Who was the first guest? Chris Long. I mean, we also... Whatever. I'm a historian of the show at this point.

That would actually have been really funny if you're like, And then I stopped listening two years ago.

I listened to Chris Long, but then You guys went woke and had Balmani on week two, and I was like, Fuck these guys.

Yeah. My interview at Barstool was with Dave. The one thing that he kept in the video was I was like... When I got into When I got into doing production, it was because I listened to this show and was such a fan, and I was like, If Hank can do it, I can do it. I said that to Dave, and that was the one thing that Dave laughed at. I was like, That's a good point. I wonder how many people that Hank is inspiring I'm not making any good business. Yeah, it's a big-It's volume slow.

Visibility is important.

Well, I mean, there was a point where I was a junior in college. I was doing marketing. I was like, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. I switched to getting into production because I was like, What is something that I really want to do? My mom asked me, when I was transferring from Hofstra to Vilanova, I was like, I want to get in. If I had any job in the world, it would be to work at Part of My Take, my favorite show. Then it's-I love that. You guys have been doing this for 10 years. I feel like it's different because I saw a lot of AWLs that were like, Oh, yeah. I feel like this is a 10-year anniversary as a listener, too. It's interesting to be in the halfway point of like, I've been there from the beginning, and now I've been on the show for four years, and it's the best show in the world.

I appreciate. We We got the retweet finally from Dave, importantly, today. Oh. The 10th anniversary. No comment. Actually? No commentary. Just retweet. Yeah, he did- That was awesome. Retweet on today's official 10-year anniversary part of my take. Do you think over and under half an episode that Dave has listened to?

Under. Way under. Way under. He's watched Clips. Clips. Clips for sure. Clips for sure. Is the extent of it. Yeah. Under. He was on an episode. Yeah, he was.

Yeah.

What was I about to say? The Chris Long interview, you guys were like, We want to do playoff music.

Yeah.

I took the soundtrack from Air Bud, the movie. That's just a fun fact. That's a fun historical fact.

This is why I love this show. It was never...

We need Oscar's music, and I was like, How about the Air Bud soundtrack?

Now, podcasts come out and they're already full fully polished, have great studios and a bunch of people behind it. You can't replicate what the show has been because we're so stupid. When we started, we were so dumb. Man, it has been fun. Memes, you got anything? You were a super fan. I also had a sentimental tweet right now, but I deleted it.

I was like, Why?

I love that we all did this.

Why would I ever say anything positive ever? You Why you don't want to bring... You turned babyface. Yeah, but I was thinking last night, I was like, I don't even know how I lasted this long. It's been five years at this point. I didn't even own a laptop when I first started working here. I was just doing everything off my phone, listening at home.

I don't know if it's... It's definitely not legal, actually. But Memes was really good at... He was doing basically what he's doing now for free. I remember DMing him. I was like, How old are you? Because I was like, If this guy is 40 or something. We're not offering an internship. Not cool. I think that's also very illegal.

Yeah. Yeah.

You said Memes, are you pregnant? Yeah.

Because I was just like, Oh, this guy's great. But if he's a 50-year-old, that's going to be awkward.

Memes also admitted something to me recently that he never had social media at all before he started the meme account, which I don't even understand how that's possible because I feel like you know everything on the internet.

Yeah, if you go to my personal accounts, I have no photos on Instagram. I was just living. Yeah, but you had them. You just living. I was just living. Then the internet trapped you. Then COVID happened. Yeah. Zack, what does 10 years mean to you? Did you listen Have you seen any episodes before?

I would listen, yes, for sure. Oh, really? I've obviously been here for five minutes.

Well said.

But I do want to say happy anniversary, guys. Ten years is all.

That's a beautiful thing. You're part of it, Zack. You're part of it.

Okay. I bet Boston is going to have a 10-year anniversary next week.

Yeah, by accident, they're not going to realize it. So dumb. Just be like, Oh, yeah, it's our 10-year anniversary.

How many episodes do you think we've actually done?

Five hundred.

Can I use my calculator or no?

No. Okay. Well, yeah, I guess.

I mean, that'll be easy. Well, no, it'd be like 150. I would say 1,500.

I think-I don't actually know the answer.

Well, it's like 150 a year, right? No. So 52?

150.

160 a year?

No, less than that, I think. Three a week. Oh, yeah, you're right.

52 weeks. Yeah. Yeah. So 150 a year for 10 years. So 1,500. Yeah. It's a lot of podcasting.

And a few Saturdays.

I always think about it all the time. Oh, yeah. I think about it all the time. My kids someday finding us and just being like, what?

Yeah, I'm not even close to that, but that.

There are some people that- I think they'll My digital footprint is horrifying. There are some people that started listening to us when they were probably in ninth grade.

Yeah.

They went through high school, went through college. They're probably married now.

Dude, we're at a point. It's so crazy. My kid's school, friends with some of the other parents, and one of the parents told me that his fifth grader, what he wants to be when he grows up as a podcaster. I was like, What? They're like, Well, bring him to the office. I'll show him around. But think about that as a fifth grade. That was not even an option. We said it. It wasn't even an option when we were 22 that it was an option to do something like this. No. He's probably going to be a sick... He's probably going to be the one who's going to parody us eventually.

Good luck. It's tough to parody stuff that's this stupid.

He'd ever know which way we're zagging. We're going to say these guys don't watch sports, and then they're going to spend an entire episode watching a Celtic Sixers game and interrupting everything they do. Three said.

Ball game.

All right. We got to get David Wallace back on. Yeah, we do.

We also got to get Lenny Dykischer back on.

Yeah?

No, not actually. People are always like, I wish they still called Lenny. When he showed up to the office and he was strapped. Yeah. He got caught by a fake Dave. That was so funny when he He just walked into our office. With a gun. He was like, Yeah, Dave told me to come here. We pulled up the account. It had 17 followers. It was dual presidente with a Z. Okay, good show, boys. That's enough self-suck. Thank you to everyone who wrote really nice messages. They were awesome. Very, very cool day. Never thought we'd get here. I don't think we ever celebrated any of the anniversaries up until this one. No, 10 just feels-Don't Don't worry about us. We're not going to do this every year. It's the next one that happens is 20.

I think 25.

All right, fine. '25.

I think you're like, anniversary are like birthdays. You get your decades.

Okay, so 25. But 25 means a lot.

Also, the first episode did come on March third, so I think we'll have to do it on Tuesday as well.

Okay, all right, good. That's part one of the self-suck. Just the tip. March second. We'll go full-throat on Wednesday.

No, just March second. I do hate the constant anniversary people.

Yeah, I don't like that either.

Online. So we did one for 10. We're going to write a book, we're going to do a live show, and then for 20, we'll do a porn. We'll do a porn together. If we make it to 20. To put that on the list with the cult, if we make it to 20, we will do a porn. Softcore? Nine-way gang bang.

Softcore?

Of Zack.

Okay.

Okay. Oogie-cookee.

Oogie-cooee. Oh, an okey-cookey.

You'd rather do a porn? Oh, numbers. Numbers. 23. 6. 3.

I meant to say 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 You need someone to get there. 42.

Should we do one more? Yeah. It's still 10. You want to get someone on the board. Everyone, say your number again. 56. 3. 14. 28. 7. 28. 23. 21.

71. Oh? I thought it was 10.

18.

Check out it.

I loved it.

One more. One more. One more. Last one. Last one. 48.

I would like the Jets to make the playoffs one time while I'm on the show. Wait, this is a wish I just want to say. It's like a wishing wheel. I'm sorry, I included the zero.

For the 20th anniversary, the Jets will make the playoffs. That's so far away.

That actually might be what breaks up this show. If the Jets win a Super Bowl, it means just so mean to all of them.

They'll make the playing game. Dj M. C.

Is fucking killing the people. I mean, that's the best one.

You see what he did to the fan? 79.

He kicked a fan in the face.

You jumped in the stand in the stand to save a ball.

You kicked an old woman in the face.

He kicked an old woman in the face. 79.

Happy birthday to part of my take. Also, happy birthday to Sebastian Genakowski and Big Ben and Tua.

That felt mean, throwing Tua like that.

And Tua.

And Tua, I guess.

Love you guys.