Transcript of CFP Rankings Reactions & Inside the NFL Trade Deadline With Dianna Russini Plus Woj on Leaving the Insider Life

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The Ryan Rosillo Show, presented by DraftKings. A packed show for you today. Diana Rossini on the NFL Trade Deadline. The Jets turning the page. What are the Cowboys doing in a huge name that didn't get traded. We've also got our guy Woj, Adrian Wojnarowski, who is up at St. Bonaventure as the general manager of the men's basketball team. What that job has been like for a year, and also his thoughts on moving on from the media, and did he feel left out when the Luka trade happened? We've got that and life advice. We are presented by DraftKings Sportsbook. All of your favorite NBA players are back, and DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA, is the place to bet NBA stars this season. Steph Curry, drilling Logo 3, Donovan Mitchell taking over, and Kave Cunningham leading the next wave with more markets open for more of the game. Draftkings, the number one sportsbook for live betting, is live when others aren't. Bet quarters, player props, scoring scoring runs and more, all while the action unfolds. New customers bet just five bucks and get three months of NBA League pass plus score $300 if your bet wins paid in bonus bets.

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No way. I don't know that I can get super mad about any of this. Group of Five is probably not loving it right now. There are zero non-Big 10, SEC, Big 12, ACC teams other than Notre Dame who came in at 10. So we'll run through the rankings in case you haven't bought a computer. Ohio State, Indiana, A&M, top three. Bama, that would be your fourth buy, fourth seed. Georgia, Ole Miss, B-Y-U at seven, Texas Tech, eight, number nine, Oregon, number 10, Notre Dame. Texas is 11, Oklahoma is 12. Oklahoma and Texas fall into that old... I always use that old Baylor TCU thing from what was that? I don't know, 10 years ago, where the problem was the head-to-head was the loss, but it was a better loss. You know what I mean? You're sitting there going, Hey, how are we going to do this? The head-to-head should matter. And head-to-head should matter up until maybe it doesn't matter. And I don't even know necessarily how to define it, because there'll be times where I'm just huge on the head-to-head. But then if you go Texas, Oklahoma, you're like, Okay, wait a minute. Texas The losses are at number one, Ohio State.

But then the Florida loss is worse because technically, if you're looking at what Oklahoma did, their loss is better to Texas, who was actually unranked at that time and now ranked again, and then at home against Ole Miss against the top 10 team in the country, but they have the Michigan win in there. Look, if you want to do that for an hour, go ahead. I'm not going to do it right here. I think really what we would have are the main talking points. If I were doing radio today, I had three to fill. I'd probably still be talking NFL. But Texas, Oklahoma at 11: 00 to 12: 00 is irrelevant because on the seeding part of this, UVA is your 11 seed as the ACC champ, even though they're ranked 14 in the committee's rankings. And then the 12 seed for this would be Memphis as your highest group of five, who, again, is not ranked. They're 22 in the AP. So, yeah, big party momentum here for the bigger conferences. Small guys feeling left out. Welcome to college football. So Texas and Oklahoma is both relevant based on how the committee seems. If Texas all of a sudden or one of those two teams was 14 or 15.

You'll be like, okay, maybe they have some work to make or some ground to make up here, some work to do. Although the committee emphasizes that we recede it every single week. You can say that, but it also means this is how you feel about these teams, which will be likely a lingering feeling through the rest of these rankings. So Oregon at nine. I have them four. No one agrees with me. The AP has them at six. The coaches' poll has them at six. So the coaches' AP a little bit closer to me on this one. I understand the argument against Oregon. I understand every one of them. Best win is what? Northwestern, Rosillo? You pretend to be a knower of ball? Yeah, resume is not going to work. You want something even worse for the Oregon resume? Their opponents combine a winning percentage is just about 47%, which ranks 116 in the country. Not great. Their loss is really good because, again, I think, inversely, the Indiana win at Eugene is the best win of the college football season. So can you be the best win and then also suck? Because I think a lot of people agree with the first part and disagree with the second part.

I could tell you it was 2020 in the fourth quarter against Indiana, as it was. But even I came on after that weekend I was like, Look, I'm putting Indiana, too. I think it's the best win. And we could sit there and pretend it was really, really close. But I would say for three hours, Indiana was clearly the better football team. So now you look at Oregon. If you really want to attack this and go, well, if you're digging into it, like Northwestern is your best win, Montana State, Oklahoma State. Hey, Rosillo, don't you usually bring up those kinds of games and go, this is who you played in your non-conference? Are you kidding me? Did you see what South Carolina was slated with this year? Fair point. Sometimes I do just watch the teams and go, Hey, I think this is pretty good. And it's the thing that I can never... I can't say it other than you just have to believe in me. I believe at Happy Valley in the Whiteout a few weeks ago, despite what's happened at Penn State, what's happened to James Franklin, I believe that that was a hard game and a nice win.

You want to believe that it was easy retroactively because Penn State shit on themselves against UCLA, Northwestern against James Franklin, looks like he's going to beat Vatek. If you want to tell me that it was actually way easier and the non-ball knowers are falling for it, you can make your point. I'm just going to disagree with it. Now, if you want to say, Hey, the LSU Clemson, did you do the exact same thing? I did. I thought beating Clemson opening week at Clemson was a tougher game. I think what we've learned is both those teams weren't that good. And I think that it can be true with the Penn State one, again, it's my opinion, versus the LSU Clemson one, where it could be my opinion that it's not as impactful, but there's more argument for that. I just think, again, like Bama losing the Florida State, I think that was a really tough game for Bama. Florida State looked awesome. Sure, Bama was down three guys. Teams like Bama, I usually don't have a ton of sympathy when it's like, Oh, you're missing. I mean, other than a quarterback, maybe your left tackle or your best edge guy, they're missing a running back, one of the edge guys, and I think another offensive lineman who's not one of their best offensive linemen.

So there's a game that we're all going to keep playing here over and over and over again, arguing for or against. And what I think is lost in all of that is that any time a team doesn't have necessarily a great record or you're the disaster that is Penn State, based on expectations and everything that's happened with them, then the mistake is that that win actually isn't a good win. And I'll never agree with that. I'll never think after watching that Penn State, Oregon game going like, Yeah, it was pretty easy, actually, because Penn State sucks. Shouldn't have gone over time if Oregon is that good. So a lot of arguments against my position on liking Oregon more, I totally understand all of them. Let them fly. But that's where I'm at with the Ducks. Uva. What do we do with Chandler Morris and the crew? Because if you start looking at the worst loss, the Bama Florida State loss, as of right now, looks like the worst loss of any of these top teams. Then maybe you go Texas, Florida. I don't think at the swamp is a bad loss. Then you start thinking, okay, where's that next bad one?

Is it Virginia, NC State? Virginia Virginia is in a weird stretch. Double overtime, Florida State. The overtime game, Louisville. 22-20 against Washington State, four and five. Overtime win at UNC, which I guess UNC is a little bit better. But I don't think Syracuse played like a football lacrosse player at a quarterback. And then at Cal, which traveling all the way out there, going out of Cal, even though Sangapulatelli is not the hipster thing anymore for them. I don't know that that's like, Hey, I was on the fence about UVA But after those five games, I'm all in. But ACC champ, they're going to get in, so it's not going to matter. Look, I think the biggest thing that I love about this year versus last year is how dumb we all collectively can be as people. I'm reading 1929 right now in the Great Depression, and more and more as I've gone through my readings, if you're new here. I just start coming back. I think there's so many of us that want to do the right thing that are a burden in society, that just get really frustrated with the people. It's like, Are you just a taker?

Are you a complainer and a taker? I mean, the combination of the worst people you can think of. Because I think most of us are wired the right way and want to stay out of each other's way and hope everybody does as well as they can and are happy. I think, unfortunately, we hear from a lot of the people that fuck it up. But then you read a book like 1929, and you're like, maybe we just are all way worse collectively than we'd like to believe. Maybe my first point is actually completely wrong, and that even if we're nice to people and we stay out of each other's way, our belief system, the way we project things that we are just so much more flawed than we could ever imagine, the no good government line of like, do you ever realize that whatever system that you have, you always think that the other system is going to be better? Much like firing head coaches in college football. And so when I think about the playoff committee and structuring this new 12-team playoff last year for them to go, Hey, we're just going to give straight seeds to the conference Championship winners no matter what.

You do realize you could have a disastrous season where that team is automatically getting a bid and a chance to play for a national championship. There will probably be a eight-win team. If you ran this out for 20 years as 12 teams, which isn't going to happen, if you had that much history in the same exact system, because it doesn't really make a ton of sense. It's like, Well, last year, the committee did this. It's like, Well, last year was the first year of a new system, so it's going to run out 10, 20 years before we think we can come up with any trend. And again, the committee is completely different every single year. But that with this system in place, someone in a hypothetical scenario that stinks as a conference champ of a conference that's terrible, it's like, Hey, you're welcome to the party here because we want this to be... I'm not going to bring up socialism right now, but we want there to be elements of this where it feels like everybody's involved and everybody gets their chance. Everyone has a seat at the table, the program. And then you're like, Yeah, but we're also going to give the top four seats to those champs or the higher ranked group of five team that we had last year.

And you just go, yeah, that's really stupid. That's really stupid. You could have Oregon who got the buy in the second round playing Ohio State, Penn State who did not get the buy because they smashed SMU as the ACC champ for two years now. It's just ACC is not doing a great job perception-wise. But then you have Penn State play SMU, and then they're playing Boise. So Penn State is playing Boisey because of the seeding stuff in the second round, and Oregon is playing Ohio State. And this is the part back to the human nature where I'll finish again, is that sometimes we can see the mistake before the mistake happens, but we don't change until... It has to take place. We can see the hypotheticals and be like, I will be fine. And then the first year of the new 12-team play, if you're like, You know what's not cool? Is that. Is that seeding. So at least now we have the straight seeds, even if I still hate the 12 teams. It's official. The Big Shack is out now. I tried it just two days ago, and it lives up to the name.

It's a serious burger, two Angus beef patties, three guns, new secret sauce. It's stacked, balanced, and built the right way. You get everything you expect from Shake Shack, fresh ingredients, that toasted potato bun and sauce that pulls the whole thing together. For 9. 99, it's wild how much burger you're getting, especially one that doesn't taste like typical fast food. It's big, it's fresh, and it's legit one of their best burgers yet. I got to be honest with you, I've been around for a lot of the Shake Shack timeline. I remember the first time, I was like, Wait, this is allowed? We're allowed to have it taste this good and come out this quickly? I was even the voice of the Buffalo Buffalo chicken thing. Buffalo Shack, that was me. I was like, Man, that sounds familiar. That guy's usually just given us great NBA takes. Is he talking about spicy chicken, too? Well, now I'm talking about burgers, and I'm talking about multiple patties, and I'm talking about the middle bun in there, the foundation, the Just putting up the forms and pouring it. That's what that middle bun is doing. It was incredible having the smell of Shake Shack in my house for an entire day and starting on a Monday morning, and I loved it.

I don't want to tell you, it took a little long in getting the boxes out of here, but it's just something about it. It inspires me. If you've been waiting to see what all the hype's about, today's the day. Go to Shake Shack and order the Big Shack. Sounds familiar, made different. Trade Deadline's behind us. It was an exciting one. Very excited to Back to Diana Rossini, who joins us quite a bit from The Athletic. Check out her column on Saturday mornings. Me and the family, we start our Saturdays with it. Soccer practice, we're like, We'll get there, but we're going to read all this info first. And of course, her podcast, Scoop City. It's good to see you. What's up? Busy day.

Hi. Busy day. Yeah, not expected, I will say that. It was one of these trade deadlines where when you talk to a bunch of people around the league, they all say the same thing, which is, It's a lot of smoke. You know how this goes. Everyone just likes to make it sound exciting. And then Monday, I feel like it shifted. Conversations that I think a lot of the flirting started to get really serious. And then we saw what we saw, which was pretty wild. And when you take a look at it big picture, though, if the Jets didn't decide to do what they did. I actually don't think this would have been as juicy. It would have been just like they always are. It was the Jets making that call over the weekend, which is from what I understand is when they said, Okay, we're doing this. That's essentially what made this fireworks.

All right, so let's get into the Jets thinking here. The sauce trade is huge. We'll talk about the cold side of it, obviously, the Quinn and Williams deal. So we're talking about two pieces of your defense here, foundational piece is they just redone the deal with sauce, which is historic in itself. Like, hey, rookie, massive extension, but we'll trade you before that. I think the number I saw was two first rounders involved in season in the trade. First time it happened like 30 years or something, or maybe the second time in the last 30 years. So let's start at least with Sauce. It's a need for the Colts with their injuries at the secondary. You could argue a bit like there's some declining numbers there. You look at the passer rating against Sauce, at least for this season. But okay, so fine. Maybe he's dipped a bit. But the thought of resetting it already, even though, yeah, it's been a largely disappointing year for the Jets.

Yeah, I think that just tells you that they made that decision collectively. And from what I understand that it was, this wasn't like Woody or his son saying, We're doing this. We have to tear this thing down. This is Mugi and Aaron Glenn, who you got to take into account that Aaron Glenn was a corner, and he just traded it away in all pro corner. You know that position well, and you know what the expectations are. And that just says to me that they didn't think they were good enough for what they want to do. But I also think they know that the New York Jets aren't going to be good enough to have these guys on the team. There's no reason to have them when they can start building towards doing what they need to do, which is go get a quarterback. That's what this move is about. That's what both these moves are about of how can we finally go get what we need. And I mean, initially, when When I was reflecting on the moves they made, I'm like, This just feels like deja vu, and it is. They did this already, right?

But they did this a few years ago, and they found the pillars, and these two guys were part of it, yet they just haven't had the quarterback. I was at the owners meeting two weeks ago, and I was talking to Woody Johnson about all the different things from the past year. He was really transparent. He was really open. He took time to talk, and I appreciated that. But the last thing I asked him, right as I could tell, he was done talking to me, I said, Hey, before you go, who are the most important people with the New York Jets organization in terms of the players on your roster? When you look at your roster, name the foundational pieces, the pillars. And he's like, We're all good here. And he walked away. And I was like, That's so weird. That's a layup question, right? That's an opportunity to talk about all the guys that you want. And yet, I think I know why now. I think he knew then that he was going to have to move on from the pieces that we would have thought a Quinn and Williams, a Sauce Garner, were going to be the future.

Garrett Wilson, obviously, he's loved by Woody Johnson, so I knew he wasn't going anywhere. A couple of teams called to get a feel, but the Jets phones were busy over the weekend because I think a lot of teams realized that they were willing to tear this thing down a bit.

Okay, now take us through the Quinn and Williams thing, because, again, the Sauce decline for whatever we think it is, it's probably being overstated. When I share that number... Go ahead, it seems like you have something on your mind.

Yeah, no, it made me think of Indy, right? Indy's not saying it. Indy's not looking at it that way. It is funny because it's now their prize. I just think what sauce was going to be able to provide the Jets for right now is a wash. Whereas you look at Chris Ballard making a move like this, and Lou Aneromo is sitting in a meeting yesterday when he found out about it, and he's jumping for joy just knowing what it can do for a beat-up secondary, as you explained, but also just to help with the pass rush. Think about what Lou was able to do in that AFC Championship game with a roster that I would argue was not as good as this indie roster. This is the piece they need, an organization that believes that they're in this. They're going all the way. They're going all in. And also, obviously, going in all in on Daniel Jones, right? Because that was another thing. I talked to Andy a few weeks ago. Why don't you just extend the guy if you like him so much? And like, Oh, we'll get there. We'll get there. We want to see.

Well, we don't have to see, right? They just told us. They just told us Daniel Jones is the future, whether they have a deal with him or not in eight games, which I don't know. Are you sold yet? I don't know. Maybe I'm too close to New York and I saw too much Daniel Jones that I'm still like, damn, isn't there an injury that's going to pop up here? I don't want to put that out there. But that's a lot to say, Daniel Jones is the guy already?

I've seen it argued a bit like this just means that the Jones thing will happen because they're using this draft capital on a corner, which would take them out of the... Look, it doesn't take them out of the market. If Jones thing doesn't work out, it's like, oh, we made the sauce straight, so now we cannot figure out a way to draft another quarterback. You draft one later. It just allows you less flexibility to use as much capital for somebody on that. But yeah, this is a lot like college football in Indiana and Ohio State. Ohio State is a three and a half point favorite in a hypothetical match up here in the Big Ten Championship. And I think Indiana is incredible. I think they've had the best win in college football this season. But it's going to be really, really hard for me to pick Indiana in that game. And it's going to have everything to do with just the history and the uniforms and all the stuff that shouldn't matter. And when I look at the AFC, I was looking at the playoff seedings today. I was like, I have to get to the fifth seed before.

I'm not going to pick Denver to win the AFC. I'm not going to pick Pittsburgh, which is now only seated the way it is because of the division. I'm not going to pick New England, which is a nice story, but it probably has as much to do with scheduling, and we'll see how the rest of it plays out here. And so that leaves you with the Colts. And it's like every single number tells you. Every number here tells you they're really balanced. Jones would be great. I know this is coming off the Steelers' loss where they had five turnovers before the Steelers had that fumble. The only thing getting in the way is that, is this really going to happen? They're really going to play in the Super Bowl, turning this thing around with Daniel Jones in one year. It just feels hard. It feels hard to say that.

It's so hard. Is Ice Spice got to like Indy? She dates Sauskarner. You probably don't know that.

Do you know who Ice Spice is? I do. Let me write that down. Is it spelled the normal way?

This is why I come on the show to keep you updated with all the rappers dating players. Cardi B. See her in the suite? I did see that. With Robert Crap? Rubbing that belly.

I was happy. Everybody seemed to be having a pretty good time.

When did New England become fun? Oh, my gosh. It's like everything on my social media is just them celebrating. I'm like, What planet am I on right now? But yeah, so really to put a bow on Indy.

It's a huge need, though, to your point. Like, Javarius wards out with that strange pregame injury. It's not like there's name brands at corner. And they've been shuffling... Go ahead.

But there's talent... I keep stepping on you today. Sorry, man. It's not like I came in high. The roster has been talented, though. And I remember talking to someone there this summer, and they kept telling me how good they are, which everyone says in the summer. But I'm like, What? Really? And it's always like, Oh, we're a quarterback away. We're a quarterback away. And then when you go through that, you see you're right. They They are built really well. They just have been so bad at quarterback. It's been hard to appreciate them because they haven't been able to show that off. And go figure, it's Daniel Jones that is the one that shines the star now. So I'll be curious to see what deal they give them. We'll reflect a Sam Darnal deal that we just saw get done. The two quarterbacks right now that I had no idea were going to be this good this year are now the story. And remember, too, in this time of year, this is a general manager who he was under the gun to win this year.

He is.

He's had plenty of time, and Shane Siken as well. So I think you make these moves because you're all in. You have this attitude of like, We got to win. We got to do this. And he may be right. Just like I look at the Jets making these decisions, we may look at this in three years and be like, Holy hell, the Jets are dangerous, or we'll be having a conversation about who the new general manager is going to be.

Yeah, right. It just depends on whether or not they hit on these draft picks. And then we're talking not a couple of years before the picks. We're talking five years to know if this even worked out. And so whenever you're trading somebody like Sauce, who you think more often than not, He's not Sertan, I don't think he's singletary, but he's certainly in the next conversation. It's a bit like, and I'm doing another analogy here, but I cannot stand when bad baseball teams trade an ace, especially be a young guy that's under control, because I'll just think, whatever you think you're doing in two or three years, you're desperately going to want one of these pitchers, and you're not going to have it. So if he's happy and he's fine, I don't think the need is that everything has to be torn down. You're not allowed to have anything good.

Well, that's why they didn't move Jermaine Johnson. That's why they didn't move Breese Hall. I think there's a little bit of that there as well.

But the whole thing would have happened if they've gotten the third rounder instead of the fourth rounder, right? Which it probably felt like other teams that were calling, are they going Look, they're tearing it down. They'll give in. It's a running back. They're not going to argue third or fourth rounder. It sounds like they held to that.

Yeah, they did. Not that I'm like Ms. Gm over here, but I don't necessarily agree with that decision because you're not keeping the guy, obviously. You're not going to tag him. I mean, if they tag him, I really don't get that. You already haven't extended him, and he wants out. Everything is in line to just move the player and just get more back. But they didn't want to do it. The Jermaine Johnson one, over the weekend, I was hunting on that because I had heard from a bunch of teams, they're listening on him. Quinnin, not so much. People with the Jets kept putting it out to us like, Yeah, we're not moving them unless it's for a boatload. So the fact that Dallas was able to come in, I think it was around Saturday night when conversations started to get serious or even Sunday morning, where it was like, Oh, wait. Dallas may actually really do this and give up a lot. And even talking to Jerry Jones recently about it, he loved telling us all, I got the pics, I got them, I got the ammunition, and I want to do something with it.

Everything is funny. I kept getting questions from even my editor. He's like, Hey, you got these great on the record quotes from Jerry Jones. Do you believe him? I'm like, I know. Is that crazy? I have to wonder if the owner is lying to me. But he didn't. He did lie. He was like, I'm not going past Rush, and I'm going to make moves. He's like, And I like to stir it up. So everything, check, check, check, check, and he did it. I don't know what their plan is. But one Can we go back to the Jets real quick on the Quinnen thing? And then you want to talk a little, Dallas, here?

Well, yeah, because Quinnen, and I hate that I keep referencing it this way because I just don't think... I think Sauce maybe has numbers this year that don't look as good. There's numbers that do look good. The Aaron Glenn part of it is absolutely fascinating. I don't know if it means that Lou is going to use Sauce more in zone, which is probably more to his liking, and that they're like, Hey, they're using him wrong, and Glenn wanted it to be somebody different. The Quinnen decline feels like it's a little bit more real, and he's expensive. If you talk time to pressure, it's gone down like three straight seasons. I still think he's a terrific player, okay? But Dallas, I was wondering, is everyone on the same page? You need a Zack here. There's no argument to understand the Parsons transaction in relation to Quinnen. There's none, especially once you realize that the Jets control. It's almost like the NBA swap here. They control the better of the 27 first rounders. So considering how massive that might be between where the packers, which we would expect to still be good, the gap between who the packers would be and then who the Cowboys would be and then going, We'll take the better pick, that's the movement that can cost you a first rounder in and of itself to move up to the 20s into, say, the If the Cowboys are...

It could be even worse. So sure, Quinnon is less than Micah costs. But to brag about the Micah haul and then to flip it for Quinnon later on, to use some of that money that you could have used in Micah and then have the '20s seven pick, the better one in the Jets control. This is fucking stupid.

They don't think it is, though, right? And look, they're dug in on it. They made the decision. And Jerry will tell you a million times, he has no regrets. I got the pick. I'm not spending as much money. And they're going to try to make and prove that this was the right move. But you break it down the way you just did. And most people that I was talking to trying to get some reaction to all this around the lead yesterday, look at it exactly the same. This is not a win in terms of if you want to compare it, because there is no comparison. And it's such a basic response. But my favorite thing people say is like, Do you know what the Dallas Cowboys need? They need Micah Parsons. You You know what I mean? This will just go down as one of those traits. I just think the fact that we just don't know what the philosophy is there, especially when you have a front office, including Jerry, by the way, to give him the credit, that has drafted so well. They built up this team really well based on the roster.

Will McClay is definitely sitting there like, What the hell, man? I've given you so many players. Why are we giving away so much? I can draft well. What we're giving this away to get Quinn and Williams right now is like, Is this really going to move the needle for us? Is this really going to get us into the NFC Championship game? Based on the way I've seen this defense look, I don't think so. I don't think Logan Wilson is going to come in here, a Dallas defense that struggles, and then they go, Oh, wait, let's go get a player from a worse defense. You know what I mean? Let's go get Logan. I'm not sure what they were trying to do here. And look, they looked into a lot of other options, too. They called the bangles about Trey Hendrickson. That was a name, by the way, that I did think would generate more heat. He cooled off in the last day or so. They were looking for a first rounder for him Monday afternoon. It was like 4: 30. I was talking to someone like, They're still looking for a first rounder for him?

This has got to drop. I do think it wound up getting down to about a second rounder, but no one took And so Trey Hendrickson stuck there for the next half of the year in Cincinnati.

The other part of it, not to bring it back to Micah, but it makes sense in looking, Okay, you brought this in. These are the arguments and whatever. But whatever you think of Micah, even... Okay, you like Gary better than him? Fine. You like Max Crosby better than him? Fine. I don't think anybody would want TJ over him at this point. Bosa's injuries So these take them out of the equation here a little bit. There's some other pass rushers that maybe for a year that we like, but what are we talking about? Third best of his position, and you can line up all over the place. And he's young, and he plays. And is he at worse, a top 20 player in the NFL, and then you want to start getting cute about money. I just don't have any sympathy for teams when it's like, okay, so whatever the structure of the deal is now, it's fine. But in 2021, the NFL salary cap was 182 $2. 5 million. This year, it's 279 million. So even to the sauce contract, we're like, oh, well, the extension hasn't even kicked in. The cults may look at that and go, hey, we really love this guy.

We love the age. We love the certainty. Sure, it's a big price. But we have him locked in at a number now. It's not that it's in the 20s. It's that look at how much it declines versus what it is, percentage of our total cap space. And that's the mic part of it where it's like, All right, you don't like the money up front, you don't like the cash out. You don't like the three years. That you're locked into this whole thing. But the NFL with this exploding business is created almost this... It's not like a get-out-of-jail free card, but you can screw up on a contract in a way the other sports you can't screw up on because of how the cap number has absolutely exploded here in a very short amount of time.

Correct, which is why the other big theme that you saw, a little bit of a trend, and Philly, probably more Specifically, they ate a lot of money for better draft picks. When teams were making trades where they were willing to take on a lot of the contract knowing that it's not a big deal, they can afford it. The salary kept going up. Smart teams were doing that in order to get better draft capital. But I will say this, especially as somebody that has been so hard on the Jets, just because it hasn't been good. We've reported a lot. I like the aggressiveness here, and I like the honesty that they're having, because I think that's a big issue that teams go through is, what are we really? No one wants to just say the truth, which is we're not good, and we're not going to be good for a while because Nobody wants to hear that. And no owner wants to hear it because most people in these positions, in general manager and head coaching roles, aren't confident enough in their roles, but also just in the team's commitment to them to say it, to go, Look, we got to do a lot of things over the next few years because most owners aren't patient.

So credit to the Jets for having the guts here to go, We need to make big moves here and take a couple of swings to set this thing right, because if we just keep treading water like this, we're all going to lose our jobs.

Yeah, I like it, especially when you don't have the quarterback and you're like, We're not going to be good. And you could even apply that a little bit, even though this Dallas offense is terrific. Dak has been really good. You love the receivers, what they've done at running back, like the tight end, and they're just scoring all these points, but the records are very good. Nobody really thinks they're any threat whatsoever. So it's like, What are you doing here? Why are you giving up this capital for Quinnen, who may not even really be a need, even though, look, I like Quinn and Williams. I mean, if there's one part of this that I want to make clear is that I definitely like him.

It reminds me, you know when you go to a casino and you hit and you got a bunch of cash that you didn't start the day with and you're like, Oh, it's just house money? I play roulette. I'll throw 50 bucks on one number, something I would never do. But because I have it, I'm like, Why not? I think there's a little bit of that, too, in this for Jerry of like, Well, I got these things. I got to do something with it. I'm getting older. I can't just sit on these things. I'm not saying that's what he did, but it made me think of it yesterday. I'm like, Man, he's playing roulette the way I do, which is not good, by the way.

Yeah. What's the deadline? Like, Hey, let's do something. Well, I don't know. This This one's really tough to justify, I think, in connection with the Parsing, which we've covered. You mentioned Hendriksen as a name. I don't know if we're allowed to get a little irresponsible here. I don't want you to get yourself in trouble. But were there any other names that at least people were saying Hey, this could be in play that didn't happen?

Yeah, there's names in teams, right? I think the pass rush position was a need for everybody. Buffalo was poking around on wide receiver all day. They were trying to make something happen. In terms of player, yes, Trey Hendrickson definitely leads the pack for me in my mind. Jermaine Johnson. I know the bears were trying to get something done there. Even close to the deadline, it was like 1: 30, 2: 00. I was talking to somebody who was like, be ready for this. This could happen. And then the Jets decided to stay pat on it because they weren't getting the second rounder that they were looking for. I think A. J. Brown had the biggest name in this Trade Deadline from a... Philly was so strong about letting everyone know we are not moving him. We love him. We need him. But it was so hard to gage what was the reality just knowing how miserable the player has been. All you have to do is go to his Instagram, and you can pretty much read the tea leaves here, which is he was fed up with everyone and everything with the way the offense was running.

Look, there's a couple of conversations that you could have in relation to AJ Brown. One of it being, what is he so upset about? Coming off the Minnesota game, he's got two touch downs, 120 yards. He wants to be part of this offense consistently throughout. He doesn't want to just be used, to use his word, when they need him. So how do you fix that? And if you have a disgruntled wide receiver, which we've seen a million times in our careers, where they want the ball more, how do you manage those personalities and keep him happy? Which is why I kept watching that. I know Philadelphia fans were getting frustrated with some of my reporting on it because I've seen this happen a million times where the player pushes enough that whether or not financially it works or doesn't, teams will just go, I'm done with this. You are a cancer. This is not helping us. I'm not saying E. J. Brown is a cancer, but how much can they manage there? And lucky for A. J. And really lucky for Harry Roseman, Philly's good at one thing, and that's dealing with drama. They've done very well with that over the last year.

They did it last year, and they won a Super Bowl. A. J. Brown wasn't happy last year. We'll see what happens in the offseason. But that was a name that I think, look, I knew it was a very small shot they were going to move them, but I thought maybe it would get hot depending on what the relationship was between the player and the team.

Just to decide on the A. J. Brown thing, why is anyone acting like this is some secret? I mean, this has been going on now for a little while. You know what I also started thinking about leading up to this trade deadline with just whatever stuff I was reading. It's not like I'm talking to anybody. But when he read the book on the sideline and then it got pivoted into this is just a way that he resets his mind and the book has really helped him. And then it was hilarious because then the author was crushing it because everybody started buying the book and the whole thing. I just couldn't help myself months removed from that. If like, AJ Brown wasn't sitting there talking with his buddies being like, I was doing that strictly just to... I'm reading a book during the game, and then somehow it gets packaged into some feature on these pregame shows of like, Yeah, man, this is Because it's actually still, I think, fucked up.

It is really fucked up. That is a distraction. Most organizations will be like, Yeah, you're not going to be part of this. This is selfish, right?

But But I think- Yeah, and again, it's not- But he's that good. That's the problem. Right. It's how selfish is it if it's helping him with his mental health and all that? It's like, Yeah, but imagine if this is what you do is just start reading books all the time. You're like, I've got this new Philbrook.

Remember, Odell was kicking nets and stuff, and we were like, Get them out of New York. It's so stupid.

Well, the net kicked him back or headbutted him. Yeah.

He got hurt, right? Or he didn't get seriously hurt.

Well, I don't think he got hurt. It didn't work out for him.

It didn't work out. Yeah, it was bad. I just think with the AJ Brown situation, it's just watching. It's just boiling up, and he's allowed it to explode, and they know it. And you're right. I don't think people in Philly are blind to it. I think they're in denial. They don't want to see it because nobody wants to see this offense without A. J. Brown. After Johnson, he's the best player on offense. I'd say A. J. Brown is without a doubt their best player after Lane.

Well, I don't know. I mean, Saquon's in the conversation. Not the issue. Or are you just going on 25 in the fact that it's- Yeah, I don't know.

That'd be interesting.

We're just talking best player. We have to mention Saquon.

Who cares? We're not like a no idea. Either way, he's crucial, right?

Sure. Yeah.

Look, we'll see how they manage it, but it definitely would have been the headline if they decided to move them.

Were you surprised that Arizona went with Brissette in the way that they did, in that they were like, Hey, even if Kyler is healthy, Brissette is going to be the starter?

Something's so weird there, right? Something's not right in Arizona.

Well, they had the out. They could have not said it that way and yet still believed it. Yeah.

Doesn't that tell you? Going back to what we just said?

It tells me a lot.

Why do we do this? If we can see it, it's probably happening, and there's probably something wrong. That's not the normal way you do it if you think that he's the best player for your team to play quarterback. And look, Jacobi % has done a really good job. And you look at, I can't believe we're even saying this in 2025, that Jacobi % did a really good job over Kyler Murray, who when he is healthy and it is working, he's electric, right? He's a good quarterback when When it's coming together and it's right. But there's always been something with him internally in the building. I don't know if it's being a teammate. I don't know if it's his habits. I don't know if it's the job of playing quarterback. You always hear coaches talk about that. You have to know how to be the guy in that position because it comes with more than just understanding the playbook. But it definitely feels off there in terms of what this regime wants and if they're going to be committed to him. I'd be interested to see what they do this offseason, what he would be worth.

Yeah, and the numbers are, I mean, whether it's eye test or numbers, they're better on third down. They're scoring five more points per game. Mcbride has been different. Marvin Harrison has been completely different. And it's interesting, too, because when you take out Kyler's rushing stats for the team on the yards per carry, it's not like they're this threatening run team. And yet Dallas is just going for play action all night against them, and they just dominated that part of the game against them. So I guess I'm always a little surprised in the massaging of the decision. We can all sit there and say, Hey, man, it looks like for such has been steadier. It's Kyler's thing. There are some early years where I thought, Hey, this guy's making throws that there's just not a very long list of people that can pull some of this stuff off. There was that season where it felt like the only reason they were in these games or having these big moments at the end was just sheer based on his talent with not a great roster. I'm over all the early immaturity stuff. It doesn't really matter. But the fact is, he'll take hits that you can't believe he got hurt on.

And then it's not like, Hey, I'm going to be limping around next quarter. It's like, I'm going to be out for a month. And it would make sense based on his frame. And so looking at the money, they're still into a lot of money. There's a $50 million number going into, I think, 26. And then maybe after that, they can get out of this thing. But that was something- He's got two years of guaranteed money left. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Next year's number is really big. So it also talks about from the trade. That's the other thing that will happen, is you would think if you've turned the page from him as an organization, and then you're thinking like, Okay, well, we have to trade him, then you're almost making excuses for him to retain some value if you were going to talk to other teams about it. So I'm not saying it was... I appreciate the honesty, but I was surprised at the transparency.

Yeah, there's been a lot of that around where people... Look at Dan Quinn the other day, just straight up. It was like, Yep, I messed that up.

Which I- All right, so I know you have something on that, so let's talk about that with Daniel's injury.

Well, I think there's a lot to it. There is a lot, but there's not a lot. This is obviously a bad decision. He admitted it. We don't have to debate why he did it. We know that he made the wrong call. The reason why they did it, from what I understand, though, was to give the offense some confidence, not in this game. This is about just trying to find a rhythm, and they just felt like they were so disjointed. Again, I'm just sharing why they did it. I don't agree with it. It's stupid. You think you need to find rhythm in your offense in the fourth quarter when you're down four scores? This doesn't make any sense to me. It's funny. I was talking to my co-host on Scoop City, Chase Daniel, about it. And the VACO quarterback perspective is so funny to me. He's like, In a game like that, I'm warmed up. I'm going in. You don't think you're not going in any other time. Nine times out of 10, you're going in. And so he was just saying, If it's a three-score game, he understood why they kept him in. But four-score, this is stupid.

It's just dumb. And look, that's something Dan Quinn has to deal with now. But also, I think you have to take into account, and even just talking to friends of mine that live in Washington, everyone's got PTSD so bad from RG3, like another injury against Seattle. It feels like a long time ago, and it was, but that was the last time Washington felt like this, where Washington felt like they were a true contender with a quarterback. And now he goes and gets hurt because the coach kept him in too long again. Like, really? We're doing this? So unfortunately, I just think this is the second-year quarterback syndrome, and this isn't on Jaden. I just think collectively, Washington is just too old. They They didn't make a lot of good decisions in terms of the roster, and they've got injuries. So this is the bad vibes team for me, probably after Miami for this year.

Mike Sano had this note yesterday on his piece in the athletic and looking back like running through the true media game scenarios. So six times over the past five regular seasons, the team trailing by exactly 31 points took possession between 13 to 12 minutes remaining in regulation. Per true media in the other five cases, coaches for the trailing teams did not make quarterback changes for that drive, including when Sean Payton left Nixon for a game last season in a 41-10 loss.

Wait, so that's in favor of Dan Quinn's decision making? Yeah.

And I knew... Look, You can make a Jaden argument specific to Jaden, where it's like, he's already been dealing with injuries.

He got two in his scrambler.

I do wonder if Quinn believed it, because history tells us that actually you do leave the quarterback in. It's the prime time part of it. If I've learned anything about this business, no one loves anything more than, Hey, the person that has this job that's supposed to know everything may look stupid, and I may look smarter. Yes. So it was just universal praise of like, Quin's a moron. And it was also a very freaky injury. But because it was prime time, because if it's a one o'clock window, this is not getting even close to the amount of tension. It's like, Oh, what happened? Oh, he got hurt. Oh, that's ugly. I mean, it's obviously really, really gross. But I think we're... Look, history tells us we're lying to ourselves if we think that every other quarterback is yanked in that situation.

I hear you. I just think, and you made the point a minute ago, I just think who it is changed the way you handle it. That's all. It's the style of quarterback he does. This isn't Jared Goff. I'm just trying to think of someone that likes a different type of sit-in-the-pocket type of quarterback. This guy is athletic as hell and is making moves with his legs all day long, which is going to put him at risk all the time. So Yes, history says it. I just don't necessarily agree it was the best thing not trying to pile on to Dan Quinn because it takes a lot to go out there and own that, by the way. I don't know. I don't know a lot of coaches that would have done that. Maybe he had it, though. It's like at this point, what else is he can't defend?

It was smart. It was smart to own it because even if he didn't believe it, then it adds on a whole other layer. It's like, Oh, what's up with this guy?

Isn't that the lesson in life, though? People just want to hear you eat it. They just want to hear you say it. That's what I've learned. That's why I'm so quick to be like, Yeah, I fucked up. Because they want to watch you just... Even just in reporting, I made mistakes, especially early on. I've had to go on TV and be like, I got that wrong. And then everyone gets off you. But if you just stick with it, then everyone just wants to tear you down all the time.

Hey, we appreciate it. Make sure you check out Raciney's column every Saturday morning for all of your NFL information. And get some... I'd say get some rest, but I know you're not going to.

The story of Insider's not Sleeping is getting old. We sleep. Congratulations on the show. Congratulations to your whole crew. I just want to get on Life Advice once. I know I don't bug you too much on things. I never have you come on my shows and stuff because I just don't do that. I don't like to ask people I care about to do stuff like that like you do. I don't know. Just thought maybe a life advice segment one day because you know I love talking about all this stuff, especially now that I'm old. I've lived through a lot of things I want to share.

I think you'd be great at it. I would just tell you we keep planning on having Michelle Smallman on. If you hear Smallman before you, it has nothing to do with that we weren't going to use you. It's just that that was a promise that was made, and for whatever reason, it hasn't happened yet. She's just so busy five days a week now. She's a five days a week now.

Yeah, she's busy. I understand that, though. I think the listeners want to hear her first. My advice... By the way, I wasn't saying that because I have good advice. I just like to share the ridiculous things that I've decided in mind. In fact, I'm an example of what not to do. That's why you should have me on. But all right, I look forward to hearing Michelle, but for real, congrats. I'm so happy for you guys. You deserve all the success, and I hope you guys continue to dominate.

All right. Thank you. I appreciate that. We're DriveKings, guys, and we're excited about it. So, Rudy, Kyle, we've got a couple of things chefing up for you. Some Harley Davidson gear as well for Kyle today. First time seeing him up on the video.

Dude, I might just start riding. I'm trying to decide who I'm going to be. There was an exercise ball. I was like, Should I sit on the exercise ball today? I'm like, It's new me.

Better for sex.

It was upstate New York, man. They're just free.

Office reference. You would have to understand that. And I said, You better get the reference in there because you just look super weird. Can we decide on who you're trying to be prior to Life Advice? Can we do that a little bit later in the show? Because I love this. I love the entire topic. I could not read emails and just do this with you for 30 minutes.

I was thinking about maybe even going one button for Life Advice, one less button. I don't know. We'll see. We'll figure it out.

It's a long show. It's all on the table.

It's a long show.

We're trying different stuff. I mean, the show is essentially the same, but who knows? Maybe some different bunting. All right. Good start. Good start for us. And we've got an alliance play for you as well. So what do we got, Sourdi?

Yeah. So we did our first King of the Court pick last night. As a group, we each picked one guy. And Ryan, you hit it. Josh Gitty, who is the top five player in the NBA, apparently right now. He leads the night in points, rebounds, and assists. So you and anyone that followed you, I think it was like 10,000 people had Gidey. I think he was like the fourth-highest choice. So everyone who had him almost 100 bucks, like 97 bucks in bonus betch, which is awesome. I had Maxi, who came in second, and Kyle had Devon Booker, who came in fourth. So honestly, we were on it last night. We were locked in. So we are your king of the court. You're home for king of the court, apparently, on draft games.

So I get a shirt? I have to get a shirt out of that, don't you think? First pick with the new sponsorship, and then it's just a good feeling.

You could probably expect at least a shirt. Yeah.

It feels like we could pull that off. Yeah.

Okay. That'd be cool. Originally, I was I was going to go with LaMelo. I was going to go with LaMelo. I know, late scratch. And then, Saree is like, Late scratch, buddy. And I was like, You know what? Give me Gideon. How about the comeback for the Bulls last night? I went to OKC's comeback. James Harden, I think, had 17 points, eight minutes into the game. I had a blast. I was like, This is what I came here for. And Jim played well, no Kawhi last night. But you could sense, especially like Wiggins hits that three. They messed up Collins. It was the two for one. And then they had the ball to almost Almost the same as the game clock, shot clock. And then they took a shot a little bit too early. Okay, see, he comes down, he hits that three. I was like, Thunder went in this game. Thunder going to come back and win this game. And they did. There you go. Little NBA for you. Tales from not the couch, tales from the club seats. All right. We got it all. What do we need?

We're bringing the Alliance back. Nba Alliance. So three picks for your boys. We're going to do player props and-MBA Alliance.

Never is it a sport I'm locked in on, but I'm a chameleon. I'll make a pick just like you guys.

What do we need Kyle to bet? I guess, Drake Mayovers.

Hey, college basketball. I don't think anybody would dispute. I'm a college basketball guy for the last couple of years, at least.

If it was about watching, I wouldn't have had as disastrous a year in college football as I did. So don't worry about it. Oh, you know what?

You're right about it. All right, cool.

Sometimes I say the more you watch, the worst you are.

Last year for college golf, for me. Absolutely.

Becoming a little gratuitous.

Let's get to the. How are you, though? How are you feeling, guys? I'm doing great.

I'm feeling great. And honestly, Kyle, why don't you lead us off? So we're going to do player of props. Again, you could bet these individually or as a parlay, as the alliance parlay on DraftKings. So what do you got, Kyle?

I was looking at Brunson. I knew it off the jump. It's just the energies here, even in the Crown jewel.

I feel it even upstate.

Yeah. Any bar you go in, the Knicks are on. It's awesome. And I had to scroll a little bit to the left to get because they wanted me to bet over 30 or 28. I went to 25. I believe that's minus 180 or minus 150. But for a parlay, that'll work for us. So I have Brunson He's in 25 or more points as my leg.

That is good. I am going to take my former nemesis, Laurie Markinen, playing the Pistons tonight. He's averaging like 31 a game. Give me 25 plus points for Laurie.

There you go. Johnny George is going off. He's not even making threes yet.

Yeah.

Okay. You like that 25 number two?

Cool.

Yeah. So we're going to go with that. And then Ryan, what are you taking?

I'm going to zag on all this Jaws stuff. I I'm going to trade you dick for that guy. But give me-Noted? For a night, although I don't necessarily love the matchup defensively for him in this one, maybe the angry jaw gets up 26 shots tonight. So give me... I don't like the payout on the 20 or over points, the 22 or over, it drops down dramatically. I think it's minus 114 to minus 120, so it's worth it. Just the value alone on the two extra points.

All So Jamel Brunson, 25 or more. Lory Marken, 25 or more. And Ja, 22 or more. Pays out just over 4 to 1.

Come on.

Let's go. Sweet spot.

Also a little seed planning. I've got a thought because I was going to use this today, but He's not playing tonight. Embiid's not playing. I don't believe. Do I need to double-check this? Let me see. Let me go back. Because he's not on the board right now. Because I was going to do something different with my play that was Embiid-based, and it's watching a lot Sixers. So let's just double check here. He's not playing in the back. It's back to back.

It feels like he's not playing.

Yeah. And he wasn't available to pick here because I was looking for action on first point, scored in a game. If you watch Sixers games, One of the first things that they're trying to do is get him fouled. So he ended up taking a three in the Charlotte game. So he did score the first points in that one. Against Washington, this is I first noticed it, when I was like, okay, he got an absolute dog shit foul call on Alex Sarr, and he was at the free throw line, made the free throw. Then against Boston in the rematch, I can't believe I'm going through this again. He had free throws. Actually, it was two minutes later there. So he was touching the ball with Jabbari Parker. Excuse me, not Jabbari Parker. That would be news. Jabbari Walker ended up making the layup off the Embiid play. Away. And then the reason that I'm bringing this to your attention is that last night, as I watched the start of the Bulls game, I was like, oh, wow, 10 seconds into the game, bullshit foul on Vuchevich, where all he's doing is just like, let me see if I can flail and get to the free throw line here early.

So That's three of the last four games. The other was when he actually had the assist. So just plant in the seed. Plant in the seed. First point, scored. Next time, he's back in there. And the reason I remember it is not so much because of tracking or charting what they're running. It's just how mad I would get. It'd be like four o'clock West Coast time.

Your visceral reaction.

Five o'clock West Coast. All right, on the couch, ready to go. And then it's like, the first thing I'm seeing to start the night is that foul call. That's garbage almost all the time. So ran over. All right.

Good note. Shout out DraftKings.

He was. I don't want Herb Street to get jealous, but our guy here was going to be our first guest on the Ryan Rusillo show here, but he had a game. He had a big game. It's Adrian Orenski, who is the general manager of St. Bonaventure's men's basketball team. And he's also the host of a podcast because he just can't leave this media stuff behind him. The program with Woj, please subscribe to that. Check out the first few episodes. It It's great to see you, my friend. How are you?

Ryan, it's great. Great to see you. Great to be with you. It's great to be one and I. I'll tell you that. Most of all.

Okay, so look, the announcement is just over a year old, right? You're leaving ESPN. You're going to a place that I know you love dearly, and we're going to get into that a little bit. So what's this year been like for you?

It's been awesome. It's been awesome just being certainly back on campus, spending the time that you do with our players and our guys, and then this university that I love. Met my wife here, and her side of the family all went here. And so it's a special place, but it's a challenge. This job is, especially in this climate for schools like St. Bonaventure, it's a challenge. It's like putting a puzzle together, but I love it. And it's fun, Ryan, to at 56 years old, really learn something entirely new and take the things that I think are helpful from the job I used to do that helped me in this, but then also recognize you've got blind spots and you've got a lot to learn. And that's been a ton of fun.

So You spent your life watching sports. I know that you had a bit more of a diversity of background in some of the sports that you covered. You were ground up grassroots, like grinding, local news and all that stuff. But then you become the most powerful person in information when it comes to the NBA. I remember the Tate George draft pick. I was like, Hey, I watched this guy all these years. He's not an NBA player. I can't believe they drafted him. Like, nice shot against Clemson. But come on, you're going to be kidding me. I think those of us that spend our lives watching this sport assume that we think we can evaluate talent. So did you think that you could evaluate talent while you were also covering this lead?

No. But I think that what I thought I could do and what I thought that would certainly be something that would be helpful to me was that having been around... Two things I thought that I had coming into this job, the people, the players who are successful and who they are and who's around them and what they're about, like his people. And then the people who fit at St. Bonaventure. And for us, that's Jim Ratz. That's guys who love to play. There's no distractions at our place. I think it's a lot like being a UVM. If you're looking for a third thing, we don't have it. You're going to go to school, you're going to play ball. And we've got a great coach in an incredible environment to play college basketball in a great league in the A10. But there's no question, and that's the blind spots of learning curve. And so what I tried to do, Ryan, is come into this really humble at that and initially come in with players or things, Hey, I think this might be a fit for us. And you go to an assistant and sit down and talk about, Hey, why that's not a fit for us?

Being in practice every day really helps to see. It's one thing to be able to... I used to watch all the games at Bonadventure. Being in practice every day to see who can play for Coach Schmidt here. But then really leaning on people who know... I'm not that smart, Ryan, but I do know a lot of smart people. And so sharing tape and getting evaluations from folks in the NBA. I'll give you an example. When we're recruiting international players, especially, there's European scouts or outside of Europe or wherever we are in the world. If you're a good enough player for St. Bonaventure, if you're good enough for us to want to be able to recruit, there are evaluations on you with incredible intel that NBA teams have. So being able to get access to those, especially to learn about guys' backgrounds, who they are, if there's any red flags, and you're just trying to eliminate people, and then spending a lot of time watching guys. And so we're excited about the group we put together. And then the other thing, Ryan, is we all can tell who the good players are, but it's in context of what we can afford, try to put a payroll together.

And we've got a guy, Caden Charles, from Division 2, North Georgia, who's starting for us. When we signed him and recruited him, I thought he'd be a guy that would practice hard every day, high character guy, had done a lot winning in Division 2. I didn't imagine he would be a starter for us. And he comes out against Bradley and goes for 15-8, three steals. And you feel good about hitting on some guys. But I was never... I'll say this, Ryan, I never imagined doing anything but what I did. I only ever imagined being a sports writer and then what it all turned into. I wasn't one of those I was like, Oh, hey, I want to go work for a team. I didn't. It didn't seem interesting to me. I didn't feel particularly qualified to do that. I loved what I did. But coming to Bonaventure when I did with what's going on in the world, I thought I could help. And I would only have done it for Bonaventure, and I don't aspire to be anywhere else.

Then why did you do it?

Two things. I was done with the other thing. I was done with... I just I had done everything I wanted to do as an insider in media. It felt like the same thing over and over. It didn't feel particularly challenging anymore. I'm not saying it wasn't hard and you don't have incredible competition. I never felt like I was challenging myself, and it started to feel a little like rinse and repeat. For me, I really felt it in the last year. The best reason I could think of staying to do it was the money, and the money wasn't a good enough reason for me.

All right, that's clear. Let's go back to something you said that I think is really interesting here, though, because you're connected to everybody. So are you talking about help with evaluations with not just only your own staff, but I'm sure some of these GMs you've known for decades. There's probably and coaches you've known for decades. Do you ask them, Hey, what do you think of this guy? Or are there times when they're watching somebody internationally, they go, Hey, you know what? This guy's not good enough to be drafted. He's probably looking for a landing spot in the States to go to school for a couple of years. Is that part of what happens here?

Yeah, I would say it's more me going to them with players and, Hey, what do you think? And sharing video and whatever information I might have to get an evaluation and see, Am I missing something here? Again, Ryan, we've got to do it differently at St. Bonaventure. If we're in it with a bunch of I'm not necessarily to say high majors, but mid-major pluses who have a lot more money than us, I'm probably moving out of it quick. You got to find the guys who value growth, development, who aren't as worried about maybe the first paycheck as they are, what our environment can help them get to. And then you're also looking at agents and folks around the world who care and the people in their life who care about what our environment is. Small school, but in the sixth or seventh ranked league in any given year in the Atlantic 10. But you're coming to a school with 2,000 students. You're going to have a pro day, which no other midmajor is doing like we did this year in New York City. I had 23, 24 NBA teams there. And it doesn't mean you're going to get drafted.

That doesn't mean I have some magic dust I can sprinkle and get somebody to have a relationship with the league to draft you. That's not going to happen. But it's about opportunity exposure and then also learning how much further you have to go. And the NBA stuff, that might mean, can I help you get a summer league invite? Can I help you get workouts with an NBA Can I help you get into Portsmouth or Chicago pre-draft? There's more than just, are you one of the 60 players on draft night? Obviously, there's very few guys who get that, especially out of college basketball. Almost half the draft is outside of college now. So all those things are helpful. But yeah, there's no question that for us and for what I'm doing here, you try to find the advantages where you can. And I've been all over Over the World. I think sometimes about football. And if I had to recruit a class of 30 guys, it seems insurmountable, but it's basketball. And we need eight or nine who can really play. And somewhere on this planet, I know that within our price range, what we can afford, we can put a team out there that's really competitive in the A10.

I think we've done that this year. I think people saw that a little bit opening day against really good Bradley team. And so the way I did my previous job and the way I evolved in that industry, I tried to do things different. I tried to look at things in a different way, coming from small newspapers, coming from a website at Yahoo that was just starting up in sports at the time. I'm approaching it the same way here.

When you're talking about fit, you say, Hey, we who can play. So you can look at the five stars, you can go to the camps, and you can just go, Okay, here with my staff, let's go down this list, and then cross off all of these people because it's probably just a waste of time for you. It's a waste of even pretending that you can compete with the NIL. How do you put together a plan of who's obtainable but yet also still fits and understands we're not one of the power fours. We're not probably a place that you're coming from one and done. So even though you You, speaking of you, I have all this notoriety. This is not the program that we're able to run. So how do you balance fit versus just the talent guys that everybody could decide that they would want?

Yeah. And I think the summer evaluation camps have very little value for us anymore. We're recruiting so few high school guys. Some of the high school guys you're recruiting, you're just recruiting them for when they're in the portal. I can build a relationship with them. I can get to know them. We're offering you, but we know you may take more NIO to go to a high major. But we also know the statistics say you're probably going to move on at least once in your career. And so I spend time with players that I know I'm not going to get now, but in a year or two, when they're in the portal, maybe they visited campus, maybe they came to our Pro day in New York. They got to know us. And so that has value. I look at it that way. I thought a little bit in the NBA where guys, they're They're not drafting high enough to be able to pick a player, but they're able to get 30 minutes with him at the pre-draft camp, interviewing him, and they get a window into him, and he gets a window into them for later on.

That's important. But I You look at our starting lineup right now, Ryan, our point guard, DeSante Bowen, started at Iowa, transferred to Bonaventure, got injured last year, red shirted, preseason, second team, maybe a little traditional, was like a top 75 high school player in Boston. Our shooting guard, Buddy Simmons, who had a great game against... 24 against Bradley, probably one of the most undervalued guys in the portal. Came from Garner-Webb, where he averaged almost 18 a game, had a 40-point game, had 22 on Tennessee, was really efficient. And in the end, even in his recruitment, was under-recruited again out of the portal because he's 511. And he's going to be terrific for us. Our three-man is a division two player from North Georgia who I found out about on a Saturday, talked to him on a Sunday, and had it done on a Monday. Minimal NIL, Just an incredible kid, family, winner, but a division two player who we didn't know what to expect when he came in, and he is starting for us, goes for 15, 8, and 3 against a really physical Good Bradley team. Our foreman is Joe Grohovic, junior college player from California who played two games of high school basketball, didn't go to school for five or six years after, played at 24/7 fitness, played in the Drew League, worked in a warehouse, worked baling hay, worked as a sander.

Every blue collar job you can imagine. And then goes to Fullerding College last year. I would be out there. I would let you know, Ryan, hey, I'm out in LA again. I'm out in California. I went from staying at that Ritz downtown where they would keep us for ESPN down to the Fuller and Marriott. It was great. And Chase and Joe in a recruitment. But I played one year at J. C. Basketball. He's 24 years old. We got in early with him and then held off a lot of big schools in the end because we built a relationship. And I think he really valued a smaller school, a place where he trusted, knew the people. And then our center, Frank Mitchell, was a hockey player in Canada, was working construction, gets laid off during COVID, goes to the park and starts playing basketball, plays one year at a Juco in Canada, goes to Canisius, goes to Minnesota. And he comes back to us, a Canadian kid, we're 90 minutes from the border. He's going to be a double-double guy for us. So you can go through the list. It is a nontraditional group. Yet I think, and then you go down a little further down our bench, and I think we have guys who their paths are a little different.

And then the international players, two from Italy and one from Russia. And I think the Italian players were very highly recruited. And so wasn't Ilya Irmakoff, the point guard from Moscow. Those guys were high major recruits. What you're selling them, Ryan, is a chance to come and play, get an opportunity right away. It may not be a four-year situation, but I think agents, especially, they see going to that high major and not playing at all, initially. Isn't that helpful? And if you come to a place like Bonaventure And the Atlantic 10, Melvin Council last year for us, comes from Wagner, comes to Bonaventure. He leaves for an incredible opportunity, incredible money at Kansas. And so we're a trampoline in that But I think the international players are going to be huge for us. In Canada, we got three from Canada. We're obviously right near the border. We're spending a lot of time there. And then internationally, when I go over there, I do see... I'm like this 1990s rock band that no one talks about in the US anymore, but somehow you're in Europe and they're filling a stadium or they're number 11 on the charts.

I haven't heard this song in 20 years. That's what I am walking around Europe, so I'm going to try to ride that as long as I can.

Okay. I think there's a follow-up in there with that, but I want to stay at least on the roster building for one more question. What do you understand about the NIL now that you've been in it that you didn't understand prior to being a part of this?

If it's the first thing somebody brings up, it's going It's going to be a quick conversation with me because the way I see it and the way it has to work for St. Bonaventure is, let's figure out if we're fit. Let me get to know you and why don't you get to know us? Figure out all the things that go into style of play, who we are as a school, what we can do, all of those things. And then if we both really like each other, then let's figure out the money. Let's figure out if we can get there. Too many of the conversations start opposite that. And And you get on with an agent or somebody, and the first thing they say is, what can you pay? And you're like, what can I pay? I watched the five minute clip that was posted. I looked at his his chats and his numbers. I'm calling you to see where your process is. He hasn't talked to us. I haven't talked to him. I don't know anybody around him yet. And when it's that initial call, you just go, probably not going to be. We're probably not going to be the place.

And that doesn't mean we have to be competitive financially. And I spend every day, most of my day on money and trying to raise it and trying to be creative with it and trying to stretch the money we do have. But you better find value for people well beyond just the money. And that's what I try to do in our environment is to give guys and their families my time and a full investment, whether they're going to be here one year or two years. I'm going to try to put people in their lives, on the court, off the court, that they can take with them and get a lot of value and know that they can still call on me for stuff. That's how we have to do it because if it's just about the money, I'm probably trying to move off that one quick.

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Com. You left this job where... I'm glad that you'll admit some of this stuff because I think sometimes you're a little too with the answers, but you're just a rock star, a global rock star for NBA fans. I still don't even know what that China thing was, but I love the logo. I forget what it was called, but the first time I saw that, I was like, This is amazing.

Woj in the house. Woj in the house, yeah. That's what it was called.

If we go back to February this year, February first, and the Luka trades announced, in that moment, did you miss it?

No. I'll tell you what I was doing. I live over a bar, as you might have heard. And we had a guy, the big guy from California, Joe Grohovic, was coming in that weekend for his visit, was Super Bowl Sunday. And we were playing at noon, which is a brutal time to play a college basketball game because your fans who travel in from Buffalo, Rochester, they're going to have Super Bowl parties. Maybe they're not coming in as easily. Students, maybe people go home. You're just trying to make sure that place is packed. And we had put so much time into Joe. Like I said, there's a big student bar downstairs where I hung out in. All my friends hung out in, but I just have an apartment over it. I never go in there, especially when there's people in there. Just can't be the old guy, like wondering around the student bar. But I did go in. I was just recruiting kids to go to the game Sunday. So I don't know if that was a Thursday Friday night or Friday night. I don't remember what night it was, but I remember I stopped in there and I was just like, Hey, are we going to see you Sunday?

We need you there. And for five minutes. And I went upstairs and I got a couple of text. I don't know, it might have been like, midnight or 11: 30, I don't remember.

It was late. It was really late. Yeah.

I remember I got a couple of text about it and I just shut my phone off and went to bed. I would just say, Ryan, it just felt like I've done it, right? One trade is bigger than the other. I get it. If I wanted to still be doing it, I'd be doing it. And the time you So much of that job is, it's not necessarily chasing the story. It's if you've got it pretty wired when it's either happening or you're waiting for it to be completed, you You're waiting for the team to tell the player, waiting for the team to tell the agent, waiting for the owner to get found because nobody knows, whatever it is, so much of that job is waiting, and it's paralyzing to your life. You just sit very often in this concrete room off the studio, and a lot of your life is just spent alone, waiting to tell producers you've got what the big thing is. Typically, now that one may... I'm not saying they don't come out of the blue because that one probably... I don't know the process of it exactly. But I would say in most cases, I would generally have had an idea if something was in the works.

I'm not saying I would have on that one, but you're charting a million different things all the time. I think there just comes a point where you say, I just don't want to spend my time on it anymore. Somebody has to. And I did the piece with Manix at SI, and there was a quote where I said something about breaking news is a vapor, and in the end, nobody gives a shit. I didn't mean that the job isn't really important. If you're at ESPN and you're ESPN and you've got the rights to the NBA, the NFL, college football, you better own the news. You better own it. And that's why they brought me to ESPN, because they didn't own the news before we got there. And But what I'm saying is for me, it just didn't feel important to me anymore. And so the big trades come and go. And it's funny, I'll hear from Schefter or I'll hear from Thamel when they're sitting on something big and you're just there there waiting for it to come. And I'll get a text from one of those guys or pass them like, Hey, just be glad you're...

I know you're glad you're not doing this right now. And again, you're really lucky to get to do that job. They pay a lot of money. You get famous. I'm not complaining about it, but I just had done it, Ryan, as long as I think you're meant to do it. I was 55. I've done it a long time. And I'm like, am I supposed to just do this forever? Am I supposed to... Because as long as someone will pay me all this money, am I supposed to just keep doing this? Like I said, I never imagined doing something else. And I think if the Bonaventure thing where I started thinking about that, if that wasn't there, I probably would have stayed maybe another year at ESPN. And if I did, it would have been a big mistake. I would have regret it.

I know I've talked to you about this whenever we've hung out a little bit because it's almost like a hard thing when you're competitive to even give up the belt. I have the belt, but you're also explaining like, All right, I've done it. I've been maximized this. I don't even know what another level is. And then you have this thing that I know that you're in love with, drawing you to this I hope, reinventing yourself. But is it when you're in that life, you realize it sucks, or now that you've been out of it for a year, you realize it sucks even more than you thought it did?

It's a bubble. Being out of it, you realize what a bubble you lived in. I really see how it affected my family and being around me. I think just how unappealing it was to be around me as I did that job. I don't know how my wife did it for as long as she did or my kids. You're there, but you're not there. You're present. Even when you're there, you've got your... Half your brain is percolating with these other things that are all going on. And you're just trying to do simple things that if you really want to try to be dominant at it, that you just have to not do and not be a part of. And once I didn't have to live... Now, I worry about a hundred other things now. I'm worried now about an X-ray. I'm worried about an MRI, literally today. I'm worried about somebody's grades. I'm worried about somebody's family member who's not doing well and how it affects the guys that we have and all those things. So it's not like you don't, but I could shut my phone off. I turned my phone off for as long as we're here.

And I'm not I'm worried, I turn it back on. I would never do that. And you're always flying like 6: 00 AM flights or red-eye flights. And again, I don't mean to complain. The media business is brutal. And I look at people who are so talented and have had incredible careers. And this thing is getting away from the thing. It's getting away from them. It's harder and harder to find good jobs in the business. And so I'm not complaining about it, but I just know all that said, I did it for as long as I felt I was supposed to do it. I just felt like it just felt like the same thing over and over, not that challenging. I'm not saying it wasn't super competitive and hard it was. But I bounce out of bed every day to do this job. I wake up earlier than I ever woke up to get in here. And I definitely didn't feel like that at the end at ESPN.

Do people still check in with you about like, Hey, do you know if they'd move this guy? Do you still have NBA people reaching out to you, following up on something maybe they're wondering about?

No. I do get once in a while, You know this person well. Can you feel this out? I still get a couple of those. The calls I still get and still talk to a lot of the same folks that I always did were more Just how are you doing? And they're very curious about what's going on here, how I'm enjoying it. And I call with questions. I call with medical questions about an injury, and can you ask your trainer, can you connect me with your trainer or your sports performance person on how they handle this or any number of things, negotiations, contracts. I go from being a sports writer, pretending to be a GM to now a GM, to now a GM Pretending to be a lawyer, a trainer, because there's all these areas that you've got to be fluent in. And so I'm always calling guys and ask them about how they approach things. But the agents and guys I've known, they may not be dealing with a college player, but somebody in their orbit at their company is, and they're trying to be helpful with us and help us find guys. And that's been a great part of this is how much people wanted to help us and help me.

That doesn't mean like someone can just hand you something. It's still business. There's still a marketplace. But at times, it helps to open some doors. But I still talk to... I mean, you and I have a lot of common friends in the league. I think they would tell you. It's not the everyday thing it used to be. I mean, there were a couple of guys who had trades. I mean, I laughed last spring. My Twitter is there's no NBA in my Twitter. It's just college.

I unfollowed you.

I wouldn't unfollow my friends, but I definitely muted them. I just want... It's like college basketball recruiting, NIL stuff, Bruce Springsteen, SaveDemocracy. That's my feed right now. But I will still be on email list for teams. You get the press release. And those things come out like three days after a trade is reported, by the time the physicals. And I did laugh last year. There were a couple of times where on my personal account, I got the email about a trade that happened three or four days earlier. And it was the first I knew about it. And a couple of times I did text a guy going, I would have been talking to you every five minutes for six days before this deal, and I just found out about five minutes ago. But I would tell you very quickly, it felt normal, and it just felt like I made the right decision for me, for my family. I'm just invested in this place. I'm invested so much more in the results of what we're doing, the lives of the guys we have, and more than, are we going to drive a ratings point this week because we talked five days on the Lakers?

Not terribly inspiring to me anymore. But someone's got to do it, and God bless those guys for still doing it.

A couple of More thoughts here before we finish up. But the thing that you just finished on has always been what I think would draw in anyone is that you have to be really competitive to accomplish what you accomplished in your world. But I would argue like, Hey, all the hours of watching and on the phone and all these different things. And it's like, okay, for what, though? Because I got it. I tweeted it out 30 seconds before the other guy did. And to then pivot into, well, it's still the same field, although I'm attacking it from a different way. Like all the hours you're putting in now, you're putting in for a community, you're putting in for a win or a loss, you're putting it in for kids. And whether that's a professional level or college level, obviously, the kids changes the dynamic there at the MBA level. That, I think, is the thing that is always really appealing to anybody that loves this sport. That it's like, what if I spent all of this time working towards something that everybody could be proud of, as opposed to, to your point, this imaginary win?

Yeah, maybe technically it's a win because I got this huge story first, but no one cares tomorrow. No one will remember tomorrow. That's where I think the transition to that side of it, granted, it's a massive pay cut. That's the part that I completely understand because that's the part that I think about sometimes.

I don't know where Saint Bonaventure would be in 10 years if we're not in the Atlantic 10. Basketball is so important to this school, and it has been, and it's what brings back all of our alumni. We only have 2,000 students. We have like 30,000 living alumni. There's a school or two in the Atlantic 10 that have almost as many students. So multiply that. So fundraising all that is difficult. But just something like we were down at the field at 68 Monday morning, 11: 00 AM, second college game of the day, and that place was packed with Bonnie's fans. Our players, as much as we told them, this is what it's like when you travel, to hear the whole place Shani, let's go, Bonnie's in the final minute of a win against a really good team. You feel a part of something, and it's fun. And I believe strongly that if we aren't competitive in basketball, we're not in this fight. Now, does that mean we got to go to the Insight tournament? It's really hard to do. The Atlantic 10s become in the last few years a one bid league, which is crazy to me, given we're the sixth ranked league in the country, but it shows you how the high majors have gobbled up.

So of this thing. To me, you feel like you're fighting for the school and for this is a really difficult time. And how do we stay in this fight financially with rev share, NIL in a league where We have schools with high major resources in our league, and we've got to figure out how do we have high major players on mid-major money. And that's my challenge or our challenge every day. And so I don't feel like I've got a bunch of answers, Ryan, on how to do this. I'm I'm trying to learn. I'm trying to contribute here the best I can. But I haven't looked back once and said, I wish I was still doing it. I miss people. I talk to the guys and the people I worked with often. They're friends and all over the NBA. But there's not been one moment where I said, I long for that. And I think I did it just long enough. I just think I did it long enough. And Lee Jenkins had a great line to me when I was asking him about... We were talking about potentially doing this. And he said... I mean, Lee was at the top of our profession.

Lee is probably, to me, he's the best sports writer of my generation. And he went to the Clippers, and he stayed at the Clippers, and he's had a chance to come back to media at high levels. And he stayed there. And the one thing he said to me that stuck was, it's okay to say you did it. You don't have to do it forever. And And I feel that even more strongly now that I'm here. And I don't know how long... I'm committed to being here, and I want us to be successful. Who knows how long I do it, but I love every day of it. And people that I care about who are important in my life care about this place. And so that's enough for me.

It was funny earlier in this, Woj, when you were laying out the plan, I was like, Man, this is such a good pitch. Kentucky might call and go. You wanted I know. But were there NBA, maybe even owners, were people reaching out to you once you'd made this decision to be like, Well, I don't know you wanted to run a team. We would have been interested.

No, not really. A couple of them passing are like, no, I wouldn't say that. There have been a couple of college ones since I did this, but that's not... I'm here at St. Bonaventure. I want to be a Bonaventure. I'm not looking to make... I'm not trying make a career out of being a college GM or aspire to do it somewhere else. I want to help Bonaventure. There's nobody else, I would say this, there's nobody else I would work this hard for. I will never work this hard again. I'm not working any less, probably, than I did at ESPN. It's just different. But it's a little easier, again, having... My wife is invested in this place the way that I am and her family. So it just means more. She's much more interested in what I'm doing now than what I used to do. So that makes it easier. But, yeah, I'm not... I'm going to be a Bonaventure.

I don't know if the SEC will like you using their tagline for that.

Listen, I would say this. It's unique to this place. I wouldn't make much of an impact in any of those places. There are far more qualified I think the one thing about this college GM thing that's different from NBA, even the richest to the poorest team in the NBA, the gap isn't... If you have a really good player, I don't know who we would say. Let's say maybe the Pacers have had the lowest payroll on average, or they're going to give Tyrese Halliburton a max deal. They're not going to lose him because they won't pay him. We're probably going to lose our best player to Kentucky You use them as an example, if they really want to pay him. We lost our best player to Kansas, and the disparity is so much different. So the jobs are so much different. And the way that I do the job at St. Bonaventure is so different. And I talk to a lot of the college GMs and compare notes and talk about contracts and how we're doing things. At the high major level, the job is just very different than it is here. We're almost doing everything, a little bit of everything.

But it's fun. And I love the It's a challenge of it. I started the program with Woj as the YouTube show podcast. It's not an NBA show. It's a show on team building in sports. So it'll be basketball, football, college, pro, international, talking to people who are doing interesting things in team building or who are around really interesting team building, but I'm doing it for the NIO money. I otherwise would not be doing Doing that, I'm not going back to media. It is not an entry back, but it was a way that there was an interest. There was sponsorship with Novig. And Chris Corcoran, who I started my podcast career with back at Yahoo, if it wasn't him and somebody I really trusted, I probably wouldn't have done it. But I think we can get really good guests on. And I think the revenue that we can bring to it for Bonaventure was something I couldn't say no to because we need to be as creative as we can to stay in this fight.

I'll say this as we say goodbye. We didn't know each other prior to ESPN. We have a mutual friend, Justice Anick, who we all love with the Utah Jazz, and he was like, You're going to love Ojo. And I was like, I don't know. I think he was talking me up to you. And then we were at the combine, and it was just an awkward like, Oh, hey, new guy. But obviously, we'll see how it goes. And then, I don't know what it was between you and I, but very quickly, we became friends, and your friendship means a ton to me. I would say this to everybody listening, but those rare occasions where Woj would be in Manhattan Beach, although he'd like to come out here a lot, and I'd get the text, I'd get the call, and be like, Hey, let's do a dinner tonight. We'd sit there for maybe two hours, and you would light up whenever I would be able to hang. I can't with you on any of the old school Connecticut stuff and the high school stuff. But I told you who my AU coach was from Wethersfield. I told you about how I went to this game and the old field house with Calhoun and all the Yukon people.

And to see Woja's face light up. He didn't want to talk about any of the NBA stuff. There'll be even sometimes we're like, Can you tell me the market on this guy without thinking I'm going to give it away or anything? We could have spent two hours having dinner. We might talk old school Big East and New England hoops, and he would know every single high school coach and every single player. And this guy was this guy. To see you light up like that in a way that you did not light up, not to say you didn't love or appreciate the NBA, but I could tell when this was announced and you and I talked about it, it was like, this makes all the sense in the world once I understood what you truly got excited about. So I'm so happy for you.

That means a lot, Ryan. I love you. I appreciate your friendship. And in a lot of ways, in what you're describing, some of it feels like I'll go to high school games. I'm in high school gyms. I'm in these gyms in Europe, in these really interesting places. And it's such an education. And it feels like, not the Europe part, but even when I go to a high school game. We do recruit some there. It reminds me of how I started out in the business when you just wanted a buy-line and you just wanted the Hartford Current to give this kid who was a clerk in the office a chance to go out and write 10 400 words on a high school game. And it was the biggest thrill. I got so much more of a thrill out of that than breaking some big trade at ESPN. And so a lot of it does bring me back to that. And I actually still run into faces that were there when I started doing this. And that's been an awesome part of this because you can lose yourself at ESPN. You can lose yourself in that place and start to think that there's There's a world that revolves around you, and you have to fight that.

And just being back here and living the way I live. I joke with people. I went from Stephen A picking my hotels to Triple A picking my hotels, but it's true.

We will end on that. There's some people close to me that are going to be upset if I don't say, Go, Bonnie. There'll be some other people close to me that'll be upset if I do say it. But, hey, Woj, Go, Bonnie's. I know this means a ton to you, and we'll talk again soon, all right?

Thanks, Ryan. Awesome to be with you.

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I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet.

What's up?

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork.

I have every toy you can possibly imagine.

And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required.

Our email address, LifeAdvice, lifeadvisor@rr@gmail. Com. Again, lifeadvice@rr@gmail. Com. That's so Rudy and Kyle with us on a Wednesday. What's going on? Actually, we teased it a little bit earlier, so let's stay in this. Let's stay in this a little bit. You, Kyle, I don't know if It's funny that you said it, but I'm starting to wonder if maybe you are, are you at a stage where you want to reinvent yourself? Like Woj, maybe.

No, I don't think so. I mean, it's just I'm usually here in vacation mode, and now I'm here in Just got to plan the next thing I'm doing for the rest of my life deal. And both times people are a lot nicer here. And also I've been way more afraid here than I ever was walking around LA. So What are you talking about? I'm in a Dunkin' Donuts, right?

And everyone- You run that place.

Everyone is absolutely not. I don't even think anyone, I'd say maybe 0. 005% of Poughkeepsie even knows what I've been up to, which has been wonderful. But I'm in a Dunkin' Donuts, and everyone's just talking to each other. Strangers, it's great. Then at the same time, I'm on Main Street and I'm just 10 times more head on a swivel than I ever was on Hollywood Boulevard. I can't really explain why. It's just feeling. I'm just like, I remember what happens here. So I don't know. It's just still full of excitement. Every day is like a new adventure.

Does it feel crazy just driving around and being like, I live here now?

Yeah. I'm wondering when it's going to... I'm going to stop just listening to the radio because that was my one thing. I'd come here, it's like, I'm not listening to a podcast. I'm not checking in. I just drive around, listen to WPDH. And I'm like, All right, when are you going to figure out what the hell you're doing every day, man? You're just listening to the fucking Drive Time radio. The drunk guys are calling in at one o'clock. It's like, Come on, let's I'll figure out maybe a little bit of a routine. But my shit hasn't even arrived from LA yet. It's going to be next week. Movies are taking their time. So I just haven't even had my shit.

Repeating the Harley Davidson shirt.

You could say that.

That's all right. It's a good one to have.

I think this is big enough I can throw a hoodie under it. I might even be a hoodie under a big button. I mean, the possibilities are endless.

Anyway. Has the word got out that Kyle's back in town?

Are people hitting you up?

People are showing up. People are showing up. They basically know I'm either my dad's or my mom's for the most part during the day, I have to work, and they're just show it up. So it's been great. Nice.

Love seeing that smile on your face. All right, let's get to some emails here. Music. Did your brother do the music for the new show? Yes, he did. How many different cuts do we have going?

Three? There was five different tracks we were potentially choosing from, and then I liked one, and I chose that one. I just made an executive decision.

Some of us just did what Sourudi said. Some of us just said whatever you say, man.

I did put my foot down on that one. I don't usually do that a lot, but I was like, I think this is the one. This is why. And then our guy Francis made the intro with it. I'm like, it looks awesome and it sounds awesome. The vibe is right. So why change it?

I'm into it, and obviously I'm biased, but my brother was fired up to provide some of that music. We're probably layering some different things. I remember we tried a monolog with music once, and that didn't go over well at all.

You were big in the music. You were in a big music bed face for a while there.

Well, the problem is when you don't have any music that's licensed to your pod, pickings can be slim. Be a little slim. That was something that was just like, Hey, is there any way we could maybe get a song or something? Something that I like.

It always remind me back at the radio days when it was be like we do a segment. It's like, hey, just fade up the NFL Films bed if we're talking about football that day.

I love that. I love that music. Even when Red Zone goes off the air, it's like, what do you do with a drunken sailor NFL version? And it's just on in the background because we were testing the equipment the other day. So the Red Zone was on in the kitchen and I just liked it. I liked it. I didn't even turn it off. I was going up and down the staircase, and it was just on a loop the entire time as I was waiting for the late game. And it was just the first night before the big game. It's like came over, like coming out of the tunnel like Hardeen warrior. That's how I spent my free time. All right, run clubs, a couple of follow-ups here. 6'4, 2'10. That's a lot of size. Basketball comp would be maybe a mid-career Jokim Noah, not great, but can still give you some run. I love Noah. I love him as a player, I love him as a person. I don't even know.

Have we told the Jokim Noah story on the pod?

When he destroyed the protein shake in the worst possible-It wasn't him, it was his buddy, right? His buddy did it, right? Yeah.

In the studio at ESPN. His buddy just goes to shake a protein shake and the top was on. It's exploded all over the equipment all over the room, all over the studio. Not great. There are little stickers everywhere, no food and drink.

Everyone's like, Listen, we'll just be adults about it. We can bring in a fucking water. And then that guy does that.

It's like, We got to have a revamp of the rules. Do you think Joke and Noah's odd, or the Raj, cared about that sign? No.

Of course not. And neither does talent either. But it's just everyone's like, but it's gone okay for a while. And now it's like we're back to square one. And it's like we need to have a talk. Just a little refresh on the no food and drink rules. Oh, man.

Somebody got yelled at and it wasn't Noah. Noah was dying laughing. He looked like a 12-year-old. He was like, This is the funniest thing in the world. And it wasn't in a punky way, even though it at its core was a punky thing, that he just looking at his friend who fucked up so bad. But nobody could say anything to him because he was doing a car wash and he was famous. But I can tell you, a guy hoping to crank out 22 hours that week at a talking to, and he didn't even do anything. It wasn't even his routine. All right. Like Sourdi, I used to think run clubs were stupid. That's until I started training for a marathon. I started showing up to the Saturday long runs because once you start getting into it, 10, 20 mile runs, it gets hard to map those out. And oftentimes, these groups have pre-mapped routes. I was skeptical, but the first thing I noticed once I started with them is they'd push you without even trying. I was running these long distances around one to two minutes per mile, faster than previously, simply due to me not wanting to get lost in my own competitiveness.

His first marathon is in a few weeks, and I'm hoping for the 4: 24-4: 30 mark. It would be disappointed if it took five hours, bearing an injury, of course. Barring an injury, of course. Well, thanks.

Yeah, but the point... There's always going to be somebody who's holding back in the run club, right? There's always going to be the fastest guy who's not quite going as fast as everybody else because he has to stay in the herd. And that was the point of the last email, was that he'd have to stay with his girlfriend this whole time, and that's a bummer.

What do you think of the accepted social norms of meeting people? Do you know you'll never do? Like, Kyle.

We could say run clubs is not happening. Just for the exercise.

Who's the least likely of the three to join a run club?

Well, it's certainly me. Well, I don't know. Maybe it's like, Oh, jeez, was that a heart attack? Maybe you better get out there. I think it's me. No, no, no, no.

I don't run.

Yeah, but you look like out of all three of us, you look like you might.

Thanks. I appreciate I did say I was sneaky slow in the past, so I don't know that. I think I'm the... I would not go in a run club.

You can't believe it. Captain of the football team is senior, sneaky slow at safety. I was not...

Now we're getting carried away.

Wait, so Kyle was the captain of his football team, though, right?

No, I was defensive player of the week. I got the shirt to prove it, but I wouldn't say I was a captain.

Did that shirt make it in the move or do you put that in the carry on just to make sure?

That wasn't in the carry on. I'm hoping it...

Have you worn that? You've worn it once, right?

Yeah, I wore it once. I think it was laundry day. Anyway. That one's more for me.

That's not for everyone else. How about that? Of the three guys on this show, the only guy that wasn't captain it besides the football team is me.

Crazy.

Who would have ever guessed? All right. Let's talk about relationships. How can I address this politely to my new girlfriend? I will go by Sam, and we can call her Gabby. Well, that doesn't sound like it's going to work out from the jump, but we'll go with it. Hey, guys. Love life advice. Some stories make me I literally laugh out loud as I'm listening all to Jim. I have a question for you, Brown. If this is an acceptable thing to bring up to my new girlfriend. Stats, 6'2, 215 pounds, 27 years old. Jim stats, can max bench 240 But I'm typically doing 225 for three sets of five reps, not trying to bulk up it much anymore. So I'm fine sticking around these numbers. Okay, great. Nba player comp, Marcus Smart. That's it? Solid defender and passer. Act as the soul of the team, too, despite not being near the best player. When opposing teams see me shooting a three-pointer, it's a victory for their defense. But when they are going in, it's back-breaking for them. Do you also try to end Steph Curry's fucking season by ripping his arm out of his pocket at the beginning of the year?

And then holding up your arms going, What? What? Back to the question, rant over. Is this appropriate to address with my new girlfriend, or how can I go about addressing her politely without offending her? Gabby and I have been dating for about two months now. Things have been Our humors, plural, go well together. She's beautiful. She's in great shape. I'm very happy to be dating her, exclamation point. We recently, after a handful of dates, finally completed the final step in that dating process, if you catch my drift. Nice. I think I got you. Sounds like a 30-year loan.

Congrats, man.

Finish the paperwork there. It was great, and the chemistry is definitely there. There was one small thing I did notice, and it is still bothering me. While literally there is not a That's the thing that could be wrong with a body anywhere. Built like Sloan from Entourage, if you know, you know.

Nice dude.

Wow, Sloan. High approval rating on the show. I didn't even know that. I could not help but notice that on her chest, Gabby has several 2-3. So that's more than one. Several is. We're talking Gabby has two or three long hairs on each side of her chest, maybe an inch long each. I've been with other women, and I've never run into this before.

What color, man? Blonde, I just say, forget about it. It's blonde, I just say, you know. Train yourself. Train yourself to I don't care about it, man. But if we're talking dark hair, I could see how do you write an email about it.

Just a thick, gnarly black.

She's Italian. We put it this way.

She's Italian. Free root of my side chest hair. I don't know. Well, I guess side would be oblique. She literally doesn't have much other body hair. Am I shallow for even caring? Should I just let it go because things are going well? Is there any way to address this politely to her at some point without her getting offended? If so, Please let me know. Hey, bro, if we had easy ones for you. I feel like a quick tweezer would go a long way. Please let me know.

You're right, pal. I'm just thinking whether I should say it or not, but I think I can. But again, this is me being married. We've been together for years and years and years. Sometimes when she's got something going on a little long, I'll just, making sure she's not walking by, I'll just like, bink. But not actually pull it out, just get a little traction on it. So she feels it. A little tension? Yeah. Reduce the drag. And not say anything. I'll be like, What? I love it. I'm sure she loves that.

I love I love it.

No, but obviously, it gets addressed within the next 24 or 48. But I haven't come with a great way to mention it, so I don't. I'll just give it a little traction, and that's it. I'm not saying this is correct, But you're married.

This is early.

Yeah, I know.

That's why I said I prepped this whole thing. As am I. You can't. I'm safe. We're talking maybe years of this is just something that's going to have to happen without you saying anything. When you're comfortably, maybe be engaged, married, or even years of dating, okay, and you're comfortable in that spot. You're still in that weird place where it can go either way. It also sounds like you're really pumped to be dating here, which is great. If you throw something like this in there, you just never know. You're probably going to regret it because it's not something that actually matters. It's not something that really matters. Yeah, you may think about it here and there, but it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. It does remind me in college, we did have this girl who was around, who was known to have Finish it, dude.

What the hell are you trying to say?

Two to three several individual chest hair. She was known for that?

Yeah. A specific part of the chest, maybe around the nipple area. She was known for that, which I always used to think, that's such a bummer. All these dudes know that you have hair in their face. She was good looking, too, which is crazy. But why is that crazy? I don't think anybody said anything to her about it, I would imagine.

I'm wondering, listen, you certainly have to wait it out a little bit. You said you just sealed the deal. Just revel in that and focus on the good for now. I'm wondering if you could, while you're sealing the deal again one time, you could just be like... You know what I mean? Just don't say anything.

But just pull it out of your Oh, yeah. A little furball like a cat.

Yeah.

That's a great idea.

Wait, but even if it's not true, I don't see you have to actually get it there, but you could just be like, make it seem like it happened. Then she'll take a look. You're not saying anything. It just happened. You're a good sport. I don't know, man. This is tough. I mean, this isn't a platform.

It's a very tough one. Yeah, you're right. I'm just trying to give you something.

It's not. It's a hard ignore. It's a hard ignore until further notice. You're doing fine. She's hot. Sounds like you're outkicking your coverage. You like everything else about her. This is not something to make a big deal out of at all.

I think the only move is the Zack, like the John Moran over where next time, maybe things are heating up and you're just like, whisper in her ear and be like, Oh, my God, I love your individual 2-3 long chesters. You're complimenting them. Then she's probably unaware, doesn't realize, and then she's like, Oh, my God, what are you talking about? And then you're like, Oh, I like them. And then she's like, I don't. Boom, problem solved, but she thinks you complimented it instead of criticized her way too early in the relationship.

What if you guys get spray tans? What if you got the spray tans? Don't you have to shave if you're getting a spray tan?

Not your entire body.

I don't know.

I never got- I guess there's probably guys in New Jersey screaming right now being like, Yeah, you do.

Yeah, what are you, an idiot?

And Saugus, not just New Jersey. All right, we got another one here. This one's a little tougher. This one is another complicated.

That one was tough.

Yeah, starting really tough here. All right, love the show. 26 years old, 6'182. Love it. Player Comp, Derek White. Incredible third, fourth option. But when asked to do more with the ball in my hands, you'll see some real flaws come out. Our rec team has some former All-state players, so I'm happy to hit corner threes and occasionally run the floor. The problem, my sister won't stop kissing my son. My son is four months old, but this issue has been going on since we brought him home from the hospital. My sister's 33 years old and has no kids of her own, and no, they're not normal, newborn kiss on the head type of kiss. These are full open mouth to mouth kiss. I've wondered if she's ever gotten some tongue involved.

That is...

Yeah. Well, he has to explain it to us so we understand the audience understands, but I don't want to ever read that sentence again. For context, my sister lives about six minutes from me and my wife. Sister's an incredible cook and is very often making dinner for our family. She probably makes us five meals per week, most of which are more than enough for dinner and enough for lunch at work the next day. It's a huge bonus, no cooking and dishes for us, but we get homemade meals and not having to spend money eating out, so this makes the situation a little sticky. I don't want to offend her and have less meals delivered to us, but this kissing has gotten out of hand. When my wife mentioned to me that this was a serious problem, I told my sister, With sixth season coming up, we don't want anyone to kiss in the baby. She said, That's a great idea. When I walked into the next room, she proceeded to smooch him. The final straw came last night while I was at my rec game. We won 113,61. Dude, 113 in a rec game?

There's no mercy rules in rec games?

That's crazy. It's like Loyola back in the day. My sister delivered some chicken Alfredo Alfredo with bacon and garlic bread to my wife. You don't like Alfredo at all, huh, Rudy?

No, I'm saying I think the kissing is going to continue if that's what's going to be on the menu.

With a side of smooch.

Yeah.

I've got no problem with it at this point.

She walked right into the house, grabbed my son from my wife. My wife said he might be sad because he's teething. My sister then kiss him on the mouth and puts her finger in his mouth to feel his teeth.

Oh, my God.

Well, actually, I think the second part isn't that abnormal. You don't check babies for their teething?

Not other people's babies.

Coming off the street?

I mean, usually it's like- I'm constantly checking.

Coming off the street?

Was it the farmer's- Touching doornabs? Yesterday, I was like, Oh, they're coming in good. I checked out.

I'm going to give my hand in there.

Yeah. I was going, I'm Ryan. Oh, we love the father. What's going on with your kids' chips? Let's get in there. How do we stop this behavior without the meals getting impacted? She's pretty easily offended. If I approach this the wrong way, I could see her being upset. Not upset It's enough to make a huge deal, but enough to subtly stop cooking food for us. Any advice or guidance is appreciated. Well, you guys are the married guys. It's true to you.

It's true to you start, buddy.

I don't know. No, this is a legitimately reasonable request. My wife was way more into it than I was about just like, Hey, when the baby comes home... Because we had our baby, our first kid, in the middle of COVID. Happy birthday. Everybody was on edge. Rsv was bad. Thank you. She just turned three. She was really like, Hey, I don't want anyone's face around the baby. She was the one that was being the no-kissant police thing. That's definitely way more lax with the second one, but it is a legitimate concern.

Second one is smoking.

Yeah, listen. She just leave her alone in rooms at times. It's fine. She's great. But it's tough because I think the play is... You might not like this, but I think the play is the kids are going to get a cold at some point, right? And then after the kid gets a cold, I think you say, Hey, we got to put our foot down. She passed a lot of germs around. There's a no-kissant rule now. So that way, you can at least blame it on something. If you do it out of nowhere right now, it's going to feel like a personal attack to your sister. It's going to be bad. Hopefully, it's a minor... I mean, my babies get sick all the time, and they're usually pretty minor. Then you get sick. It's super fun. Love it. I was just sick for a week and a half right before the show started.

You still sound shitty.

I still... Dude, not to be gross, I have not blown snops on my nose the way they're looking these days. It is unbelievable. It is actually insane. But neither here nor there.

During the holiday season, though, you'd be amped up.

Hopefully. I mean, you'd think my immune system would be better, but it just has not. I've been sick more in the three years of life that I've had kids than I was literally in my entire life combined, literally. So I'm just a weaker human now. It's great. So anyway, back to the usual thing. Wait for the kid to maybe get a minor cold. Just say, Hey, we got to put our foot down. We're just worried about the kid getting sick again, so we don't want any stuff. And that's how you do it and not really have it be a personal thing to her.

The one thing I'm seeing here is this is your sister. This would have been like, I feel like we've heard a above version of this email where it's not putting fingers in baby's mouths or it's something else, but it's just like, It's my mother-in-law. It's my great aunt. It's my great... My wife's aunt. You have a direct line. You should be able to be like, Is it his first kid? You can be like, Hey, listen, it's our first kid. You know how it goes. Second kid. We're a little bit overcautious, and I just think this is a thing that would make us all feel comfortable if we could just not have it. This is your sister. I know you're like, You don't want to have a tough conversation. And you're like, I don't want to get my free... She's not like, forgetting that she's giving you free meals. All of a sudden, she'll be like, Oh, this has to stop because you mentioned something to me. This is your sister. I don't know what sister you have. You say you live six minutes away and she comes over all the time. This is something that I think they can handle, especially if it's your first kid.

You can be like, you always hear People are a little crazy about their first kids. We're just, whatever. Do you mind this? We're just making it a hard and fast rule, whatever. The neighbor's doing it. You can make up some... I guess she's six minutes away. You could say this, the neighbor's coming over and getting in the baby's face. We're just trying to put a small new rule in place. But this is your sister, again. I just think you got to consider what relationship you guys have.

But he said she's easily offended, which I think we know who that person is, and I think we know how it's going to go.

It's not going to go well, right? I mean, a lot of times when we have these things presented to us, I default to, who can get away with telling the person they want them to stop doing the thing? Is it the husband or the wife in this case? And since it is weird that you were there to see your son's first kiss, but If you look at it like your sister can mess with you, you're still her brother. This is more since she doesn't have kids, since she's 33, I think is what he said. This is so much more than just a nephew. This is like, oh, my God, my brother has a baby. People freak out about babies. People drive hours on weekends just because someone had a baby. I don't know if Six Flags, towards the end, was like, Do we just tear down the rides and have babies everywhere? And then we'll get back in the black here. But I think if you were to blame the wife on this one, and not have a wife.

Having a wife is huge.

Yeah. It is. This is part of marriage. Is that, all right, who's taking the hit here? And then the wife doesn't actually have to have the conversation. So all you have to do is the brother and go, Look, I think she's crazy. But you got to chill out on making out with my four-month-old son. She's just she's worried about germs. I think Cerruti's ultimate advice on this one, though, like germ police, crank it up. We got Halloween, we got Thanksgiving, we got right into Christmas, right in New Year's President's Day, for Christ's sakes. We're on fire.

So print an article that says, Hey, RSV is tough this year. When that comes out every year, just give it to her and, Hey, this is going around. We just really want to be protective of our kid.

Boom.

Yeah. Or blame your wife.

Yeah, this article has her going nuts. There you go. Now you got it all in one little package. Shout out to being married, dude. Sometimes, stuff like that just falls in your lap.

I saw this on The Atlantic the other day. It's like, Why five-month-old shouldn't make out with grown women?

I disagree, but this is what The Atlantic says.

I think it's bullshit. Ben/something, something, something, thinks it's a great idea.

All right. On Blue sky.

Yeah. That'll do it for us today on the show. Thanks to Seruti. Thanks to Kyle, as always. Make sure you subscribe and check out our YouTube exclusives as well. The Ryan Rizillo Show, part of the Barstool Network. Chill.