Transcript of What Does the Bills’ Win Over the Chiefs Mean? Plus Kirk Herbstreit and Richard Jefferson Stop By!

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Today is the first day of the rest of your lives.

It's also the first day of the new Ryan Rusillo Show with Barstool Sports.

Very excited about the first episode today. We are packed.

Kirk Herb Street talking all sorts of college football, including number one versus number two in the Big Ten, and trying to figure out the rest of the SEC and what the committee might do on Tuesday night.

We've got Richard Jefferson talking about the first two weeks of the NBA season, including why he loves OKC. See, for obvious reasons, some not obvious reasons. Also handling a guy like Ja as a teammate. Little story time from the Nets back in the day with Richard Jefferson and a bunch of other stuff, including Houston, Cleveland, or Orlando.

We've got life advice.

So Kyle and Steve, I've got my College Football Top 12.

And to open the show, what a Bills win means again in the regular season against the Chiefs. But first, every week in the NBA, stars rise, legends are made, and one player rules them all. Draftkings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA, is bringing back King of the core. And now it's every Tuesday of the season. Here's how it works. Draftkings is putting up one million in bonus bets each week. Opt in, apply your token, and place a $5 pregame bet on the NBA star you think will dominate each Tuesday. If your pick finishes the night leading the league in points, rebounds, and assists, they're crowned king of the Court, and you win your share of $1 million in bonus bets. And this season, there's a new way to track the action, the King of the Court leaderboard inside the app. Before tip off, see the top 10 stars in PRA while games are live. Watch your pick, climb the ranks, and when it's over, find out exactly where your star is stacked up. And if you've been crowned a winner, download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use the code Ryan, R-Y-E-N. That's code Ryan, R-Y-E-N, to win a share of $1 in bonus bets if your player is king of the core.

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Okay, week nine. You know how we do this? If you're new here, we go best win, we go worst loss, some stats to impress friends or acquaintances, the Caleb roller coaster, and I'm going to admit to some straight up bad analysis.

All right, we start in Buffalo.

21 points for the Bills in the first half against a Chief's defense that you may not have known. Going into that game last night, number two in scoring defense in the NFL, now they're number three behind your Houston Texans. So Allen sets a Bills franchise record for completion percentage in a game, minimum 15 attempts, completes 88.

5% of his passes. A Bills defense that was 23rd against opposing third down percentage holds KC to three of 13 on third downs.

They put up 141 on the ground against this Chief's defense. It actually susceptible a little bit based on whatever statistics you want to look at here. But there's some Chief's numbers in there that show they're not necessarily great against the run, but they've won five of the last six.

A lot of teams don't really get to expose that weakness because they're playing from behind against the Chiefs.

This Chief's offense is rolling. So going into this and looking at this Bill's secondary and a lot of stuff like I know the Bill has been getting him here in the regular season, which we're going to get to, but it looked like, at least on paper, it was lining up for the Chiefs to continue through this run and just announced their like, Hey, this is for real, despite the bad start here.

We are still the class of the AFC. Well, that's not the case because Allen was in complete control despite limited opportunities down the field. I mean, Kincaid went off.

He's great. I love his growth as a player. Shaqir, who's their clear number one, he had seven catches, but I think it was four plus yards per catch. So So there were just limited opportunities down the field here. But if you look at the throw chart for Alan, on the 23 completions, 16 of those were within 5 yards of the line of scrimage or behind the line of scrimmage. So 16 of the 23 completions are all right around him. Now, Hey, Ryan, don't you get another QB for doing that? Hey, man.

Yeah, I do.

Usually, they're QBs that suck, though, or QBs that I'm like, Cool completion percentage. Cool this, cool that. I I just never trust you if you're down two scores to really rip it on third and seven.

Although if it's down two scores and you know you're not getting the ball back and you've lost the game, usually those guys will let it rip.

So I think we can all agree. We don't have to hug about it. But if we all sat down and we were at a bonfire and it's like, what's a good quarterback? What's a bad quarterback? If you're already Josh Allen and we've seen what the high side of you is, what the ceiling, what you're capable of. I'm okay with the game yesterday with that throw chart because he was in total control. He was asked about it after the game. He was like, Do you know you have it going early? And he's like, I can't speak for every quarterback, but at least for me personally, I know arm slot, which he said is something he's been working on the last few weeks.

I know at least that's something that early on, okay, I've got this going.

So I think it was him just being in control of the game on top of them being able to run the football and looking at how that builds, especially that interior part of the offensive line, how they started getting some push there later and later in the game and just breaking Kansas City, at least defensively.

Some more stats for you.

Mahomes, who, again, a disaster on third down when he's my favorite third down quarterback, he went 15 to 34 in this game. It's his first game under 50 % completion in 142 starts.

I went through the game log again because I couldn't believe that it had never happened before.

He was never in the 40s or lower ever completion percentage in any of those starts. 142.

The only stuff I could see that was at 50 were a couple of Pro Bowl games, which is a little surprising. Does he take the Pro Bowl off? Maybe that's a Wednesday topic.

But he was sacked three times, which is the same as Alan. Two of those sacks on Allen were in the same series there when it felt like Kansas City is still trying to find a way to keep this game.

And even though clearly the Bills felt like the better football team for three plus hours, it's still the Chiefs, and it's still them after a missfield goal with the football late. And you're like, Is he actually going to be able to do this with 22 seconds because of the 13 seconds stuff that had happened years ago?

But Mahomes was pressured all day. So the sack numbers are Totally misleading. On 52. 5% of his dropbacks, Buffalo sent pressure at him, 14, 14% higher than any of the other previous nine Bills Chiefs matchups. Mahomes was 3 of 16 against pressure. And so that's, I think, the haunting thing about this for Bills fans, is that, does last night mean anything to you? Because the most important part isn't just, Hey, the Bills beat the Chiefs. The Bills have been beating the Chiefs in the regular season. This is five straight for the Bills against the Chiefs in the regular season. So I don't know. I'm not a Bills fan. I'm one of the few media guys that has no connection to Buffalo whatsoever that hasn't decided to become a Bills fan. Although, look, if they're in the Super Bowl, I'm rooting for the Bills.

I don't know.

I can't imagine any NFC scenario unless I found out that I had a kid 20 something years ago and he was...

I don't know. Well, I don't want to do that. I don't want to speculate.

I don't know if there's any like, Oh, we got the monkey off our back, because all of it's irrelevant, because despite the five straight wins in the regular season, we all know that the last five playoffs, KC's eliminated Buffalo in four. So the Bills feel like they're built to beat Kansas City, where I don't know if this is even fair.

It's like, well, Kansas City feels like they're built to beat the NFL, and the Bills have put all of these resources in. It's like, okay, well, yeah, they have a ton of guys on of the defensive line.

They have an interior line that you can think can push around a defensive line here that's probably a little undersized with Kansas City, and it felt like they got worn down.

Or maybe the game was just in Buffalo, and Kansas City would get this one at home. Maybe these teams are total just a coin toss with it. But the five straight feels like it should mean something, but because of the playoff history, I guess it doesn't. But I don't know. I don't know if those fans look at this and go, Hey, cool.

We beat them again in the regular season, and none of it really matters. Or if it's like, Hey, those games, Those losses in the playoffs, they're all close. They're all really close, and at some point, the luck has to go our way. Another important part of this about the D-line, I think this is the most amazing thing that I saw from yesterday. So Mahomes against all that pressure, what would you normally see? You'd expect him to escape on those third and sevens, keep the possession alive. That really frustrating like, Hey, he's not Lamar back there, but you know it's going to happen. They were able to get pressure all day long.

All right?

Without sacrificing any of those escape lines. That was the most impressive part about this D-line.

And granted, Hoyt going down late, it's going to be like, Welcome to the NFL. Welcome to the party. This is what's going to happen. You think you have this depth in this one unit? You're probably not going to have it by the end of the year.

But at least for a Sunday, the Bills may not be afraid of KC, but the books still are.

I couldn't believe it when I saw it this morning.

On one book, Out of Vegas, your Super Bowl favorite, The Betting Odds at plus 550, Kansas City Chiefs.

Draftkings has Buffalo plus 600, Kansas City second at plus 650.

So maybe the Bills aren't afraid of them.

Maybe you're a Bills fan and you're not afraid of the Chiefs or anything like that, but certainly the books Still are. Okay, let's have some fun with standings because this plays in a worse loss.

Despite those odds, Kansas City this morning is not even in the playoffs in the AFC.

They're the 8 seed.

Buffalo is the 5 seed. So that three-headed monster of Buffalo, Kansas City, and Baltimore, that's the 5, 8, and then 10 seed.

Baltimore's win on Thursday night almost felt like two wins because it was the nationally televised game. The only thing going on, Lamar was back. We're like, Hey, it's pretty good when they're healthy, and Lamar's back there is the Ravens.

The strength of schedule, I think on paper, probably sounds a little tougher, meaning, like I was looking at the remaining strength of schedule this morning, they have the 22nd toughest remaining.

So it's obviously on the easier side.

But there's a So it in there. There's Green Bay, Pittsburgh, twice after their Colts win.

What does that mean? Maybe it's just the Colts had five turnovers before Pittsburgh's first turnover, which was a fumble at the very end of the game. But yesterday, to start the day, to start week nine, Green Bay was actually the one seed in the NFC. Today, they're the fourth seed. They scored 13 points against Carolina Panthers.

That gives up 24 points a game.

They lose crap. One of the best tight ends in the NFL this year.

I thought It looked worse than his numbers. But whenever you're looking at the packers, whether it was the beginning of the year and that went against the Lions, the Dallas tie was really frustrating. Then they put together some wins, lesser opponents, still given up a few more points than you would want from this defense. They were the one seed, and that's how I look at it. I only look at the packers as, Is this a Super Bowl contending team? And look, they still are because the Panthers are, broadly, five and four, and the gambling darlings of the NFL, six and three against the spread this So a loss of the Panthers this year isn't a recent history loss. The last few years, historically, we lose the Panthers.

What the hell is wrong with you guys?

But it still feels like, what's wrong with you guys? How did you let that happen at home for a Sunday where it looked like you couldn't? And there were some weird, like fourth down, not decisions, but too far for the field goal, down a full score, not three. So we can't really kick it here. And if we kick it here, the kick of the next one, we're still down. But just an odd, odd loss for a packer's team that's supposed to be on the short list of teams that can win this whole thing.

And again, Carolina, a little bit better than you realize. Numbers to have some fun with.

Denver was one in six in one score games last year. They're five and two this year.

Mike Sando, who we love, True Media, put this one together. All right, Broncos fans, this is going to be like when the Titans were the one seed years ago. And I was like, this is the worst one seed that we've had in recent history.

The score differential during this six-game win streak that Denver is on right now. They're a plus 55 because you're like, Man, is Denver this good?

Because even last year, you're like, All right, they're losing these one-score games, but it's a rookie QB.

The whole 24th season for the Broncos is a massive success, considering the unknowns in that part of it. This year, they're winning these one-score games.

We all love their defense. I'm going to get to some of this stuff here in a second. But a lot of it's just like, Okay, what do we do with Bo Nicks? What do we think of him?

But during this six-game win streak, they are plus 55 point differential. So if you look at the 56 teams that have had a six-game win streak in the NFL since 2000, that plus 55 is 47th out of 56.

I know, Broncos fans. You don't care. You're not worried about it.

Nicks started 1 of him with a pick.

It was awful. Again, used his defense, number one scoring defense in the league.

Then in the fourth quarter, he goes 9 to 16, 76 yards. And of course, the game-flipping 25-yard shutdown run that sets up the game-winning field goal. But I'll ask you this because I feel like we're going to be doing this Bo Nick's thing for too long. We love Denver's D-line, right? Number 4 past rush win rate in the NFL. Pass block rate from their offensive line is number one. When you look at the O-line and some of the win rates, the grades they have. Mcglinchey and Bowles, the tackles are tied for fifth in past block win rate. Ben powers is 18th. Sertan is out with this Peck thing for maybe a month. I'm embarrassed that I ever even mentioned anyone else at corner being at his level, because when you really dig into who he's going up against consistently every single week and how much he just completely discourages anyone for ever throwing at him, even though you still have to throw the number one receiver. So there's actually more attempts against him than you might think. It's just off the charts, those numbers. I like the receiver.

I don't love them.

I like them. And as far as their yards per carry stuff, they're fifth in the NFL. So we love the Dee line. We love their pass rush. We love their secondary.

We like the receiver, I think.

We love the offensive line. Running back numbers, I don't know if any of us really care about running backs outside of the handful of maybe three or four game changes we see each week. And we love all that stuff.

And it's like, well, how come we don't love the team?

I think we're going to be doing Who is Bo Nicks for six years?

I'm going to take the over.

The Goodwill Hunting Award. All right, Life with Caleb Williams.

Wow. What a game. What a game for my bears.

Well, the first thing is the bears could run the football all day long.

Swift's out, Swift week to week. Like, Hey, you want to hit that hole, buddy? Oh, let me see if another one develops.

Monunga, just a stud all day yesterday. So the bears could run the football whenever they wanted to, which then gets to, Shouldn't that be great for Caleb Williams?

Because again, time to throw stat, number one in the NFL. I think number two on the day, Caleb Williams, time to throw. It's like, yeah, you have plenty of time to throw when you drop back, because every other drop back, I'll admit, I love the guy, still holding on hope. And I'm like, what is going on back there? But here's a perfect example of the roller coaster day for Caleb Williams.

Third and four, that throw to commit was a miss.

Kmet makes the catch, but is completely exposed. But he passed, he gets hurt.

And then two plays later, a roll out on second and third to Lovaland. And you're like, there's the Utah game, Caleb, that I love. That final series, when they actually go down and blow this lead to Joe Flacko, you're like, Are they going to lose this game? The beginning of that series just looked like a mess. Incompletion, incompletion. A Caleb Williams run.

You know how I feel about those runs?

Like, nice to have them, don't like defaulting to them. And then he rips a 58-yarder to Loveling for the game winning a countdown. So if you've never seen Caleb Williams play before, that is a perfect example.

And by the way, bears five and three for the first time since 2018. I shouldn't even share this. I found a stat I don't really like. I looked at aggressive throws this morning. Aggressive throws are throws where the defender is within a yard of the intended target, whether it's a completion or incompletion. Caleb Williams ranks 37 out of 38 quarterbacks in aggressive throws. So when he drops back, you're like, what's he seeing? He's seeing things that he does not want to pull the trigger on that it appears other quarterbacks would I like to pull the trigger on.

Aggressive throw chart.

You look at those stats, you're like, where do you want to be? Well, if you're high and you're Stafford, Darnold's incredible. I've got some Darnold numbers for you. I might do them later, and I know you're really excited about that. You're like, I'm psyched. This guy went to Barstool. Like, do you hear about this Rassila guy? He's going to do this Darnold thing on his throws, 10 minutes of just reading fucking stats? I don't know what they're doing over there.

Yeah, but If you're 37th out of 38th on aggressive throws, Jacobi Berset is the only guy behind him.

So out of starters, Caleb is actually last. But I'm not going to share that stat with you. All right, finally, bad analysis. I'm going to share with you those moments where I'm thinking about something that I probably shouldn't share because it's really stupid and meaningless, but I can't help because I thought it. So Jacksonville, Vegas, that was fun. It actually ended up being fun. It ended up being a fun game. But that first half was like, why is this on a screen? Has basketball started yet.

So Kam Little for Jacksonville hits an NFL record 68-yard field goal to close out the first half.

Trevor Lawrence was so happy. Liam Cohen looked like he could have been hit with a targeting call on his kicker. They were celebrating so hard. And I was like, You guys just scored three points against Vegas, and you're this happy.

I get it. People love being part of history, but I couldn't help but think, Is this why I don't like this Jacksonville team?

Why are you this happy? You sucked for an hour and a half. And they came back in one in overtime. So maybe that was truly bad analysis.

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Got to travel a bunch of days back in the college game day days for radio and then television. It's Kirk Herb Street, who's not only part of Game Day, calls the biggest game in college football on Saturday nights, and also Thursday night football for Amazon. Good to see you, man. What's up?

Good to see you, bud. Congrats on all this. Excited for you.

Yeah, I'm excited too, man. And I'm just excited to start a new chapter. And you understand how that works, even though you've been at ESPN since when? Were you a sophomore at Ohio State? They put you on TV.

30th year this year. But I'm in my 30th year at Amazon. 30th year. Oh, my God. Believe that, dude? What was your first year?

The beginning of '06, it was Disney the Weekend, and they were so hurting for radio people that... Mcshea had brought my tape in and was like, Here's the deal.

He's like, I'll get your tape in and I'll make sure somebody actually listens to it. That's the only thing I can promise you because he had just gotten signed on with the ScoutSync thing when they bought ScoutSync. And I was like, That's all I need because we know how this works. You don't really get... Nobody listens. Nobody wants to listen to any of this stuff. And so he got somebody to listen and they were like, Hey, it's not terrible. And we have this massive problem with ESPN The Weekend, where we send all the talent down to Disney and there's no one around. So we have a couple of radio slots open. So can you do solo on this Saturday for two hours? How about that? That's awesome.

So back then, too, I was worried I was going to be considered too young because I had just turned 30.

They were worried I was too young.

And what were you doing up to that point?

I'd done play by play, AA Red Sox, Trenton, but I was the second guy in, so I wasn't the main guy.

I had never been on the air before, but they just put me on. And so at least I had in my resume. That's to this day still the worst job I've ever had. But then I ended up in Boston because I was a AA Red Sox guy. I ended up in Boston, talk show stuff. And that station of Sporting News went under after I signed an extension that was fake. And then I was just, when you're desperate, you're like, Hey, would ESPN? I almost felt delusional asking if they listen to the tryout stuff. But yeah, that started in '06, and then I was there until the end of '19. So almost-Yeah, I knew you, obviously.

I couldn't remember because that College Game Day radio show-08 was my first year on that. Okay. Remember Brad? Who was Brad's last name? Brad Edwards?

Brad Edwards, yeah. Emma Brad?

Yeah.

I love Brad.

He would bounce around on that show as well.

He was the first guy to figure out the BCS.

Of course. Always God. What would we have done without that?

I know.

I would always tell people, How do I get started? I'm like, Well, there's a few guys that did something a little different. This guy, Brad Edwards, figured out the BCS.

Basically, he did.

He was on TV with you guys all the time.

That's right. Then he was radio, he was doing TV, SportsCenter hits. But this is great, dude. Obviously, you had a hell of a journey. But this is awesome for you. Like you said, you just want to be part of and take off and go. You'll kill it.

Thanks, man. This is an easy one, or maybe it's a tough one. If you had to pick today between Ohio State and Indiana, who would you pick to win?

Indiana is real. Last year, I was not in. I wasn't real high on Indiana. I had nothing against them. I just never really saw it against a great opponent. And this year we have. One thing I really admire about Indiana is the consistency at the line of scrimage. They're not a gimmicky offense in this day and age of, Hey, we're going to run some form of RPO. I mean, they do. But man, if you really watch them, they pound you into just misery. On both sides of the football. With that being said, Ohio State's skill and his quarterback Julian Sand, who I didn't know a whole lot about, every single week, he seems to take another step and another step. And we know that he's got NFL receivers everywhere. I would probably on a neutral field, well, we're going to see it in a few weeks, but I would give Ohio State, I don't know what Vegas would think, I'd probably give Ohio State a three or four point advantage over them.

Yeah, I imagine the spread might be Well, that'll be an interesting one because if they throw a two and a half on it, you're like, wow, they love Indiana.

But there's going to be so many people betting on Ohio State, and I'm probably guilty of it, too.

It's like, I probably would still pick Ohio State, and it would have everything to do with the uniforms in the history of being like, do I do you think Indiana can get this team? But I'm glad you brought up Sam, because I meant this as a compliment. When I look at Ohio State, most years, especially before the expansion, it's like you're going to be more talented than the other 12 teams.

Maybe Michigan has more talent that one year. You're likely always going to be more talented than Penn State.

You enter in these four Pac-12 teams.

That changes up that scenario. But then it's such a massive conference that you look through it and you're like, in most years, this team is probably good enough with any quarterback. You could bring in somebody where you go, Hey, we might still 12: 00, 12: 00, and we don't even really ever have to throw it.

Now, saying has developed into somebody.

It's like, Wait, you want that?

That deep shot that he took where he got hit on that throw, you're right. Every Saturday, it just takes them to another level, which almost feels unfair because there's so many times with the Buckeyes where I'm like, Hey, I like the QB, but he's not what they're about. He seems like he could be that guy if they needed it.

They just don't need it necessarily.

Totally agree. I think if you go back to that one game that you thought they were going to be challenged, it was Texas, and you really watched that game, he didn't have to do a lot. It's going back to your original point. It was just the defense played great. Arch obviously didn't have a great day. The offense didn't... Texas was there at the end. They still had a chance. But if you think about Julian Sand, he's probably the last name you bring up on why Ohio State won that day. But I think Ryan Day was very intentional with that. He's like, Okay, we got Jeremiah Smith, we got Tate. We're going find a running back. Let's not lose it on this side of the ball. Let's just be smart and let's gradually grow with this quarterback. That's where they were early in the year. But as we're saying, I think we all just thought, Ohio State is Ohio State. They're special. They recruit well. They develop. And by the way, they lost eight guys off that defense. They're now playing in the NFL. Not on the... They play in the NFL. And this defense so far has been with Patricia.

They've been as good, if not better. You still have Caleb Downs. You still have Style. So let's not feel bad for him. But I guess what I'm saying is this kid, when he won at Washington, made me go, Okay, he doesn't turn the ball over. If you watch, I don't know how many turnovers he has, but there aren't a lot of- He hasn't thrown a pick since September 13.

There you go.

So he's playing smart, but this downfield accuracy. And Will Howard was great in that offense, but they picked their spots to hear Jeremiah Smith, but Jeremiah Smith went off in that four-game payoff. Up to that point, they didn't do what they did against Penn State this week, this past week, a whole lot last year. And I think that's that next step for this offense, where it's if you're going to load up on the run because we can run the football, we're going to take shots. You're going to dare play man to man against us. We believe now in our quarterback, and we're going to take shots. So I think that'll be a The great thing is it's not a subjective debate. It's not a hypothetical. Early December, we're going to see Indiana and Ohio State in Indianapolis, both teams, regardless of the result, are going to the payoff. But it's going to be cool just to see that match up and see who the better team is.

The Heisman conversation, I'll admit, like some flaws in my game, where I don't like the propaganda, but you can't ignore how important the propaganda a part of it is. And then it becomes this exercise of like, Well, wait a minute.

If this guy can be talked about, he's an accepted candidate, how come our guy can't be an accepted candidate? And then sometimes it makes you think.

Let me be like, Have I just dismissed these people that I don't think are worthy of it. Even with some of the saying stuff, it's like, Okay, but they're loaded and they don't even need them.

It's like, Okay, but it's not MVP here.

It's who do you think? I like to default to who I think the best player is.

And I think at this point, he's the odds on favorite.

He and Mendoza have real cases for this.

It also feels like a year where I'd probably try to get a little too clever and being like, Is there a defensive player this year?

I just love when the defensive players get mentioned.

I don't know if love for Notre Dame with the two losses can even be on the radar for a lot of voters.

I don't want to make it like Sands now becoming the default choice, but I feel better about it, at least now, than I did four weeks ago when I first started hearing it, just because they're the number one team in the country, and then he's the QB, which I think happened a few times there where it felt like Bama's guy was always in the mix.

And I'm like, That guy is not one of whoever it would be. That guy is not one of the best players in college football, but they have the best record, and they're terrific. We're saying it feels a little bit different.

Yeah. And I think what I've learned about the highs in these last five or seven years. It's almost not a race until you get to the last three weeks of the season. There's just never that Derek Henry or that just obvious candidate. It's a bunch of quarterbacks that happen to be engineering, undefeated seasons. Like you said, it's almost by default. Okay, let's see what Ty Simpson does in the past two or three games. He plays great, let's say, in the SEC Championship. Hey, let's give it a tie. That's how I feel where the Heisman's been. Marcel reads the name to watch. I think he's been doing some stuff at A&M. If you're looking for a... You mentioned a defensive player, the kid of Texas Tech, the linebacker, have you watched that kid play much? Jacob Rodriguez.

Yeah, Rodriguez. He's four, seven fumbles this year, 13. There feels like there's two of them every week. I'm like, he was over there. Oh, he was in on that. Are they twins? Is it the Weeks brothers?

They're He's right. But there's a name and who's the best player in the sport. I know defensive guys rarely get traction, but that guy, if they're playing, you're so used to wanting to watch the quarterback in the offense. It's fun to be able to, Man, where's that guy? What's that guy going to do today? Where's number 10? That guy makes a ton of plays. So hopefully, he starts to get some traction. If they keep winning games, obviously, game day is going down there, Saturday, hopefully that guy starts to get some recognition because he's played as well as anybody, I think, all year.

Do you feel comfortable saying you think this team, fill in the blank, is the best team in the SEC?

Clearly not. I think Georgia is the most resilient team because just when you think it finally caught up to them, they find a way to get out of it. Bama, of course, since their loss against Florida State, we've all been giving them their kudos. They deserve it. I think it's going to get much tougher. Even the LSU game, as much as you may think, LSU fired Kelly, there's still something there. They got Oklahoma coming up. I would probably lean towards the crimson tide, but it's still a discussion. I think it's still a thing. Georgia and Ole Miss are still right there to me.

You had the Georgia-Tennessee game, right? When I shoot the text or talk to you, I always appreciate I appreciate you saying it without saying it, especially when college, you don't want to be super negative.

But it was very clear, you were pointing out some stuff with Gunner Stockton where it's like, you would like him to stay with it a little bit more, but he's such a good runner. You understand how he's bailing in the pocket.

But you were letting us know he needs to stay with the reads a little bit longer for this team. And then, of course, he has that ridiculous, was it the play to Cash Jones where he gets hit and you're like, What was that? And then he's got the fourth down throw where he throws in a bucket to the front of the end zone.

And I would say that was maybe a tease of what could happen, but it doesn't seem to be necessarily who he is as a quarterback.

And look, they ran. They had the big 36-yard run there against Florida to put it up.

But I know Kirby loves this team, even though this is probably the most frustrating team he's ever had there. But I just can't imagine if they had pulled out that Bama game, where they shut Bama out in the second half.

We'd be looking at Georgia as the number three team in the country, and they'd be branded as good old Georgia, and this is the worst Georgia team in the last five years.

Well, they don't have the defense of just Jalen Carter.

Not even close.

Just a guy that's just going to take the game over. And yet, I've called, I think, three of their games. There is something to be said for this because it's hard to find it. The 20, whatever it was, 22, 23, 21, 22, whatever those Georgia Georgia teams were back to back titles. Stetson Bennett, defense was as good as we've ever seen. They still have freaks. If you look at them, you're standing on the field watching them warm up, and then you turn around and go to look at still a good team, you're like, Georgia still has guys, right? But they're not... They're 94th in the nation in past defense. They have eight or nine sacks on the year. They just get eight or nine sacks in a game. So it's a different team. But I will tell you this. And Kirby told me when we had their first game, he said, I don't know how to explain it. This team, they really have bonded in camp. We don't have the superstar names, but there's a togetherness about these guys. And I'm not just saying it may sound corny, but it's just refreshing to see. The receiver's actually like to block.

The corners actually want to come up and tackle. As a group, there's not one guy. It's a group. And I always remember him saying that and just thinking, maybe that's... Kervi is generally pretty honest with me when we meet with him alone. And then I've watched his team play. And when you talk about the secret sauce of teams winning close games and being down in the second half and always seeming to find a way to win. I think some of that stuff is a secret sauce to this particular team, where they're no longer just Just roll the ball out, we're going to beat you no matter who we play. They don't have that, but they got something going here that's something to keep an eye on and something to watch as they progress throughout the rest of the year.

When I think about this question, I'm going to ask you, which unit out of these SEC teams that we're talking about do you like necessarily the best? Because last year, it's probably that pass rush from Georgia after that Texas game. I'm like, Give me that, and then I'll figure out the red.

If I can have one unit from any of these SEC schools are in the conversation. I think prior to your game with Tennessee and Oklahoma, that one again in Knoxville, I might have taken Aguilar in that receiver group.

I still, for the life of me, as you saw it in the first half, the idea Oklahoma wins that football game. Tennessee is going to be disgusted. They should be disgusted all week long. And by the way, that fumble recovery was like such a horrifying play for the home crowd that you didn't even realize, did that actually just happen? That's one of the best plays the entire season. Absolutely.

Fourteen-point swing, took the crowd out of the game. That was it. Yeah.

And a stiff arm for 30 straight yards and get hurt.

And get a hammy out for the game. I mean, you talk about just a lot in one play. That was incredible.

Look, I guess I still like Tennessee's offense, but they got three losses now, so I got to move on. But Oklahoma, if they can survive this, which is saying a lot, because we may have to talk about a three losses CC team. I know as much as everybody's going to enjoy us from every other part of the country, You and I doing this.

But did you see... Mateo clearly has not been the same guy, and the Texas game was just him. I think he wanted to play in the Texas game.

He probably shouldn't have played in it.

Maybe I'm playing the result of getting the win because the numbers overall aren't better. But being around it and prepping up for that game, are you feeling better about Mateer now?

A hundred %. First half, it was same old John Mateer, same old Oklahoma offense since the injury, looking for an identity. He was He was hesitant. He was unsure. He's almost rattled back there without answers. It's where they were, and they don't run the ball well enough to have an answer. So if he's not making plays, you're in a tough spot. Second half, if you watch the whole game, it was like, oh, my God, they rediscovered the magic. They're back to being this guy's back there running around scrambling, making plays. He's not hesitant. And then it just seemed like everything worked together. So if you're looking at all these different groups, what do you trust? I trust Marcel Reid right now. I trust A&M. I think Mike Elko has got something going. They may get blown out, who knows? But just what we've seen so far, if there's one thing to trust, I feel like it's A&M.

So that would be the unit because I hybrid the questions there. You'd say which unit, A&M's defense?

I got to go back to a quarterback, and there's just... I like Marcel Reid's playmaking ability. I like the receivers. I like the Concepcion kid from NC State. I like how they, again, They play their asses off. And this quarterback, I don't know if he's nationally getting enough recognition yet, but he is slippery. He can play within the structure of the offense. He can sit in the pocket. But When shit breaks down, he's got some unique playmaking ability. Like I said, he's very elusive, he's very dynamic, and I think he plays his best when the pressure is the biggest. I would probably give the nod right now to Marcel Reid and A&M.

All right. I like that answer. What would you do if you were Lane Kiffin?

I might stay. I really might. In the world we're in now, nick Saban, we were talking about this in a meeting on Friday, and we were just talking about there's always been structure and always been as a coach, you're at the MAAC, or you're at Conference USA, or Mountain West, and you hope to go to the Big Ten or ACC. And even there, there are tiers. Ole Miss has always been a second tier, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, LSU, whatever it is. But, man, now, what's your budget What does the budget look like? What can you afford? It's no longer, We win here, we send guys to the NFL, we've got tradition. No one cares. It's how much you pay. I mean, it's crazy. So at Ole Miss, without the pressure of Brian Kelly, When or else, you're fired, or two freets, When or else, you're fired, or Calin De Boer, who's right at the ship, When or else you're fired. O'miss, they're like, Hey, you notice the miles an hour? We put it 18 miles an hour. It's fun for Archie Manning. We have fun here at the Grove. It's not the same. Now, if he gets to the playoff and makes a run, maybe it'll become that.

But what's wrong with coaching at Indiana in 2025? What's wrong with coaching at Ole Miss? What's wrong with coaching at Vandy? I don't know. I mean, if you got the resources to put a staff together and pay your players, why not coach there and not deal with not sleeping at night because you're not going to win 11 games? And if you don't win 11, Ryan Day had a 24-hour armed guard at his house last year after he lost to Michigan because of his own fans, because they wanted his ass fired. And then he went on to win four in a row and win the national title. That's not forgotten. At Ohio State or Michigan or those high high-profile jobs that you think are revered and wanted? And I'm not saying they aren't, but why do you have to go there? It's like in hoops, why can't you just go to Gonzaga and do what you want to do? Why not go to Xavier? Why not go to Butler or University of Dayton? Why do you got to go to Duke? Why do you got to go to Kansas? Why do you got to deal with you better win or else mentality when maybe you can accomplish the the same stuff at less of a stressful situation?

So I don't know. I'm not saying he won't go to Baton Rouge or Gainesville. I'm just asking, why? Why do you have to go?

What do you think the best job is?

I think LSU is the best job. And I think it is because your LSU in the state of Louisiana, you have competition, but no state, nobody within the state. So So you're recruiting Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette, everywhere. Everyone that grows up in that state, they want to play for the Purple and Gold. They want to play at LSU. So you got an embarrassment of riches in your own state. It's great high school football. And then you can sprinkle in Miami or Florida and get into Alabama, whatever you got to do. But I think LSU, because there's no competition for the recruits and there's big time support, I would lean towards LSU. Of the available jobs, I think LSU has the best shot.

I want to pivot to some football stuff for the Thursday night football, the NFL stuff.

But with your access and now prepping for that, you like anybody who loves football, I'm sure you're watching when you're flying back from the Saturday location, you're getting all caught up on Sunday because you grow up with football.

Football is a massive part of your life. But now you're in it to a level that's different because you're prepping for it the way you would be a Saturday night game and you're getting the production meetings.

There's probably a level of access. I wonder if this level of access has changed at all the way you evaluate the quarterbacks on Saturday, because we know it's this imperfect thing. I think it's a thing we're going to be chasing forever. We're never going to perfect the idea of, Hey, which quarterbacks work?

Which ones don't? Which stats work? Which is fake? What's real? A lot of it's the guy. It's just understanding the guy.

But now being around the NFL like you have been for so many years in combination with the college part of it, has there been anything that's made you change the way you prioritize what you see on Saturdays?

It's a great question. I'm fourth here doing these. I've been an NFL fan since I was basically alive. I think everybody's an NFL fan. But you view it and analyze it and think about it very differently when you're calling games It's been very strange for me these last four years. Usually Saturday, you get home at 2: 00 in the morning. Sunday is like a veg day in the past before I got this job. And now Sunday, like yesterday, whenever I get in Saturday night, Sunday I'm flipping around watching NFL, but who's my game? I got the Raiders, and I got the Broncos. So I'm watching Raiders Jags. Who's watching Raiders' Jacks? And I'm not just watching Raiders' Jacks before you and I hopped on here and after you and I hop off, I'll go back to my film of watching, whether it's Raiders Jags, watching the Broncos, whatever it is, that's what my world is. So it is very different. And I tell you, I think if in the Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers, Tom braided era. It was pocket. It was seven-step drop. It was you got to perform in the National Football League, you got to play from the pocket, and they still do.

But my gosh, how much the game has evolved and changed, where Lamar Jackson, and Patrick Mahomes, and Josh Allen, and these guys are no longer your prototypical stereotype, seven-step, can't move. Now you got to look at JJ McCarthy, what doing with the Vikings. You have to have the ability to play within the structure of the offense. But how many guys are good in the NFL that can't, it's not there, I got to get down and I got to make a play? Almost every guy now has the ability to get out of there and make a play. So I think when it comes to evaluating a college quarterback, and by the way, nobody's figured it out, there's still so many busts that are first rounders. And I think we're all very guilty of looking at, I'm not saying Anthony Richardson or Will Levis or Bust, but I remember that year, I didn't know a lot about Anthony Richardson other than he's played some football in Gainesville. He's a beautiful athlete, sick CX4, 250, 40-inch vertical, runs a 4'4, and there's a lot there to look at on potential of what he can be. Will Levis played some football, but was it consistent enough to be able to hang your hat on he's a franchise guys guy.

So I only bring those two up as examples of how you can get enamored with a guy's physical ability. And what's really, really hard to digest is Mac Jones, who in college in Alabama, playing for Sark, who runs more of an NFL system, you really get caught up in his ability to process and his ability to boom, boom, boom, balls out. And that offense with Devante Smith and and all those great receivers. I remember when he came out that year, I thought, I know Trevor Lawrence is nice, but man, there is a lot to like about this guy and what he can do. And then he went to the NFL with the Patriots and struggled. And at one point, I had Patricia calling his place as an offensive coordinator. And I always just thought, Man, I give up. I have no idea. When it comes to college guys transitioning to the NFL, and I'm so happy to see Mac Jones now has resurface and is doing his thing with Kyle Shanahan, who has a quarterback friendly offense and allows his guys to be able to get back and get the ball out, whatever it might be.

So I guess it's a long way of saying that, yes, I look at it, but I've always looked at these quarterbacks and tried to project them and wondered how they will make it. I just don't know if any of us... Jackson Dart. He looks great right with the Giants. Could you and I have watched him at Ole Miss playing in that RPO lane Kiffin offense and said, This guy's either the next Matt Corral or he's going to go to New York and be a superstar right away as a rookie? I really don't know.

I still don't know on Jackson, but he's playing exactly how I expected him to play once he got in. Because they're dialing back a little bit, but he's already exposed. The first thing I saw him at USC, I go, This guy doesn't care about anything.

Yeah.

He and Dave were a great connection. But I guess what I'm saying is it's very, very hard in an era where you follow it. I mean, a lot of these college quarterbacks, they're looking at the sideline. There's Daffy Duck on a sign. There's Dan Patrick on us, whatever it is. And they don't huddle. They don't have to do a lot of the quarterbacking that we've all grew up with and expect. Because since middle school, these guys are a elite at spinning it. They've had quarterback guru coaches since they were in sixth grade. Their skill is in a whole other galaxy than when Tom braided was coming out of California and went to Ann Arbor and was still figuring out how to throw the football in Michigan. These guys, like Caleb Williams, if you watched him in ninth grade or 10th grade, you would look at him physically and be like, that guy looks like he's a starting quarterback right now at Oklahoma, and he's 15. As far as his mechanics, right? Right. Yeah. And yet they're so far behind on managing the game, understanding the nuances of the position, reading coverage, Bridge. Safety does this.

I do that. And so it's just hard. I guess it's a long answer. It's hard to throw a blanket over college quarterbacks right now because they come in so many different ways up through the grassroots of high school football. And I like guys, personally, that struggle, go through some struggle in college. I like them to have a ton of reps. Brock Purdy at Iowa State, Mr. Irrelevant. I watched that guy play for four years at Iowa State. Now, I couldn't have said, this guy is going to hit it big in the NFL, but I could have said, man, there's a lot to this guy that he He sees it, he understands it, and he knows where to go with the football, and he's accurate. That's it. I don't care how tall he is. I don't care how fast he is. By his third year, that dude was just like, boom, boom, boom. Sees it, sees it, boom, answer, answer. Very rarely was he like... He was just... Yeah, he saw it and understood the why, and he had answers. And so when he started to do well at Sam Frin, it wasn't like, Oh, where did this come So I don't know.

Same thing with McCarthy at Michigan. When he went to go to Minnesota with Kevin, and I thought, match made in heaven. Absolute match made in heaven. Now, we'll see how it plays out. But watching him and watching his leadership, that's a kid that I think is just scratching the surface of where I think he's eventually going to go in that system with KOC.

Tom braided caught a ton of shit because it was like, you better be the best thing we've ever heard.

And he was also replacing Greg Olson, and Greg is one of the best to do it as well.

And so the first year for braided, especially that first week, it's like, Look, I don't care who you are. There's no way you can be as good. The TV thing I'll always tell anybody is, As bad as you want to be great, day one, there is no way to avoid that no matter what you do and whatever preparation and however. You are just going to be better in six months.

You're starting at zero.

So enjoy the ride, and especially if you have that contract, I don't think you're good.

I don't think you have to worry about being let if you have a bad year.

But I think Katie's been so good in this second year. So I don't know if you have the audio on the film of that. Have you seen the McCarthy third down throw in that game?

I saw the throw. I haven't gone and watched the TV copy yet.

Katie gives you these moments where you can see how excited he is, so that it...

Especially him on the goal line, he's like, I just don't like pulling guards on the goal line. I was like, You know what? I was like, I'm going to start paying attention to that a little bit more.

And his excitement on that third down throw by JJ, where it is clearly like, you've got to make this throw, and it's not an easy throw.

The overall box score for JJ isn't terrific. It's still who knows? Who knows what he's going to end up being?

But I just think to hear braided be that excited about that throw was beyond just the color commentary role of like, Let me be excited about a third down conversion.

Oh, yeah. I'm with you, man. I was a huge Tom braided fan in college. Before he became Tom braided, greatest to ever do it, I love number 10 in Maze and Blue. They threw Drew Hensen on him. I remember thinking, it was one of the early times I saw maybe a coach made a promise of some kind. What's wrong with 10? 10 is really good. Then Drew Hensen was supposed to be either He's either going to be the third basement for the Yankees or he's going to be the quarterback for the Cowboys, like coming out of high school. He was the biggest name of all time. And nothing against Drew. He was a good player, but I was just a fan of Tom's game in college. And then he to become a brilliant player, the best to ever do it. So then when he goes into the broadcast booth, it's only because I've been doing it for 30 years, and I enjoy listening to guys. I really do. It's probably like maybe people who are out there who, if you're an accountant, maybe you align with people who are accountants, or if you're a lawyer or a school teacher, whatever it might be.

When I watch games, I don't really watch games. I don't like to watch games with people because I'm amazed how much people miss, how much and how much talking they do. When I watch a game, I'm there. I'm watching the graphics, I'm listening to the crowd, I'm watching the director, how he cuts the game, I'm listening to the play-by-play guy, I'm listening to, obviously, the analyst. So I really immerse myself into a game when I'm watching a game. And I know exactly what you're talking about with Tom. I think that's the fan in him. I think that's just him being as big as Tom braided is. I think At the end of the day, he prepares, he does his work. He probably loves JJ McCarthy for obvious reasons. And when he makes a big play, he can't help but be excited. I applaud that. I love that. Because just because we have a mic, it doesn't mean we're not fans. Especially if you see a guy make a play that you really... That's like, Man, that's that next level. Hell, yeah. Good job. I love to see him make that throw. And I haven't gone back and watched the TV copy of what you're talking about, but I will.

And I enjoy Tom. I enjoy a lot of these guys, and I learn from everybody. I don't think you ever stop growing and learning. But yeah, I heard a lot of the nonsense Tom's first year. What do you expect? He's never done it, right? So he needs... And he's never worked with Kevin, and it seems like every game they get a chance to do together, and every season, they get a chance to grow together. Yeah, it's almost like he was set up to fail, replacing Greg and a new partner, and now go be Tom braided, the to ever play a quarterback, be the best to ever call games. Like anything else, it takes time to get comfortable.

I wasn't planning to ask it, but it's actually a good follow-up with this is that you could probably do a Saturday game, biggest stadium in the world that It doesn't matter. You probably have your eyes closed and you and Chris could do an awesome broadcast.

Was there an attempt by you to be like, Hey, I cannot duplicate that.

I'm working with Al now. I'm doing the NFL. The NFL, by the way, I would say the lead and their fans are very protective. They really don't like these Saturday guys.

Was the goal to be like, I want to be as comfortable with Chris or I want to be a different version of myself? Where are you with that?

That's What's the side of it?

It's an awesome question. I would say I've been with Chris for basically 30 years. A lot of that studio work. I've been with him in a booth now since 14, and I could close my eyes, and there is a comfort there. And so you go into a booth in the NFL, never called an NFL game, and you're working with Al Michiels, of all people. Now, I'd worked with Brent Musburger from that same era. I did college games from '06 to '13 and enjoyed that. Now, you got Al Michiels. I don't know if you experienced this when you were doing that play by play early in your career. I don't know if you had a partner, if you were just doing your own thing. But seriously, when you work with two people. And I would tell Tom this, he's probably experienced this with Kevin. There is a cadence and a rhythm that is different with whoever you work with. And maybe dancing with the stars. You could have all these experts that are dancing with the stars. But when you're with a different partner, it just feels different. And so I'm deferential by nature, especially to a guy like Al Michael's.

So it took me a while. I would err on the side of not wanting to interrupt him, not wanting to cut him off. Al has a tendency to say his thought, and then he'll have a little bit of a pause, and then he'll have another thought. And I was so conscious of not necessarily being so much consumed with the game and the analysis of just trying to get comfortable with who I was working with, new producer, Freddy Gadele, who's done 100 Super Bowl's and Al Michael. So my first year, it was more about not just dealing with NFL analysis of trying to help the fans know the why or the how to a play, but getting comfortable and making sure Al felt comfortable with me. And now in year four, dude, I think we had a turning point in the middle of year two. And I think going to dinners on Wednesday night, being very intentional about just the hang, and Al getting to know me as a person, me getting to know him as a person, being around Linda and his kids, his wife, his kids, just being around his family off camera, and then just BSing with each other about baseball.

And me asking him about, did you call the series, the '81 series, with the Cardinals and the Brewers or the Royals? He's like, we did. Next thing you know, we'll go 45 minutes It's talking about Jack Clark and Tommy Herr and Ozzie Smith. Because I'm a baseball freak. I love baseball, old-school baseball. And I'm not doing that just to do it. I'm enamored with talking to this guy about stuff he's done. And the Anaheim, it used to be the California Angels and the Red Sox in '86. People forget before Buckner, they had to get through the Angels and just talking about Donnie Moore. And I'm just sitting there like, just shoot this into my veins, right? And so it's amazing how those conversations carry over to our broadcast and the comfort and the familiarity, because the greatest compliment you could give Tom, Katie, and Kevin isn't, well, Tom, you're killing them on the XL. It's, man, you guys are such a comfortable listen. I just feel like I'm hanging out with my buddies when I'm listening to you guys do a game. To me, that's the greatest compliment Somebody can tell you to an analyst and a play-by-play guy.

And I feel like the last year and a half, Al and I have been in a really, for us, comfortable place. And we sit when we call games. I It might sound weird. I sit when I call a game with Al. I've never sat in my life. I've always stood. And then Saturday, I'm back to standing and I'm in Knoxville, and holy shit, this place is going crazy, and I got chills. And then Thursday, I'll be in Denver with the Raiders. I'll be sitting down. It's like speaking a different language. Not just the XO, but the vibe, the cadence, the feel. And it took me a little bit of time to feel that out. But man, I'm in such a good spot right now with Al. I can't even tell you how much I love calling games with Al Michiels. Not because it's just Al Michiels, but the bond that we've created on that entire crew. But it's very different from what I do Saturday with Chris.

I have two things.

I just want to say that little tease of an Al Michiels impersonation you just did sounds tonally phenomenal.

So I don't know if there's more there next time.

So I have a story to finish with before I do that, like a last question. The committee, the playoff rankings that come out Tuesday, and I was going through it because I'm going to do my top 12 a little bit later on. But there's a Texas conversation.

If they can get one of the two, that means they're a nine and three team, but they still got to go to Georgia, they got Arkansas, they're going to finish up against St.

M. So a nice little two top five team stop on your way out. Whereas we look at Miami Miami. And I don't know if we're going to read another story about how Carson Beck just loves football again after Georgia. Look, they've lost two of their last three. They've got QCency State, Virginia Tech Pit.

I'm going to go over this in my top of again.

I'm curious to see what Texas does with Virginia because Texas is behind them in the AP. I am very much like, Hey, if you go to Columbus and play another team that ends up being the number one team in the country, you should actually be rewarded for going on and taking on that challenge. The committee and the voters, they don't want to ever do it. They can't seem to fucking, sorry to get so upset about this. They can't seem to fathom of like, who are those four or three out-of-conference games? Wait a minute. That team went and did that and they lost it? Yeah. But they have one more loss than this other team. It's like, well, then who do you think is better? I would personally, and I'll do this a little bit later on, there's a Texas-Virginia conversation, but there's maybe a nine in three Texas, 10 into Miami conversation that will happen at the end of the year.

First of all, they went to Columbus, and they lost 14 to seven, and had the ball late with a chance to tie. Lossed 14 to seven against Ohio State. They went to the swamp. You know how the swamp can get? The swamp can get hostile.

It's not a bad loss.

It's not a bad loss.

No, they lost at the swamp. So I think you can make a strong case for a few teams. Oklahoma would be another one. What if Oklahoma takes a third loss? Think about what, Oklahoma, just for fun, they're going to throw Michigan, who's not necessarily maybe a superior, but the fact that they scheduled Michigan as a non-conference game, and when Indiana's playing, who they're playing in the non-conference, Oklahoma played Michigan. And then you look what they have to go through, the gauntlet every week. It's just, you thought that was tough? Come here. Bang. Hit him again. Bang. They go to Tuscaloosa here in a couple of weeks, coming off a game in Knoxville. So this week, that's a good discussion. Acc had a rough weekend, obviously, with SWB, Miami, Georgia Tech losing. I think the ACC right now is looking at one team, the conference champ in Charlotte. I think the Big 12 would be fortunate to get two. I think the only way the Big 10 gets four is if Michigan were to win out, somehow knock off Ohio State again and put them at 10 and two. If they don't do that, then I think the Big Ten gets three.

If you're a fan of these at-large teams and you're wondering, How can my team get back in the mix? You have to pull for Notre Dame to lose. I think the only way some of these teams get back in and get a chance for a team like Miami to get back in it is Notre Dame, who are almost reserving a spot for. If they lose and they get to that third loss, I think there's a good chance they're done. And that opens up the door for someone else. So Notre Dame has Navy. They go to Pit, which is a tricky game, Syracuse and Stanford. So Notre Dame is still a couple of tough games, especially at Pit. But it'll be fun tomorrow night to see what they think of Texas after what they've been through so far this I'm curious.

They should reward Notre Dame more than the AP voters are. I also think Oregon is penalized way too much if we think Indiana is actually this good.

I would have Oregon in front of some of these teams. Again, I'm going to do my top 12 a little bit later on in the show. And then that Virginia, Texas thing. But I mean, granted, nobody who's ever listened to you or I ever talk about the SEC is thrilled. I can already see Kenel tweeting, Herbie and Rosillo plant the seed of nine and three Texas in over ten and two Miami. Yes, Danny, we did plant the seed. So There you go.

Let me ask you this. The coaches do a poll, the AP does a poll, the CFP rankings do a poll. They all must be guilty of SEC bias. The coaches as well because the coaches- Yes. So basically, if your objective... I went to Ohio State. I was a captain in Ohio State. You don't think I want to promote the Big Ten? You think it makes me happy to sit there and promote good teams? I would love the SEC to have three teams in the top 25 and the Big Ten to have eight. That would make me happy. But you go by what you watch. And the coaches who are actually competing on the field, they're putting the SEC. And the NFL in April, when they draft these players, the SEC, why is this a thing? Why don't you think it's a thing? It's such bullshit. No, it's called watching. Watching football. That's what you do.

And how about this? No love for game day, going to BIO, Texas Tech. So let's hear it for the boys on this one.

Where were we last week? We were at UC, at Utah. I mean, whatever.

I don't even work there anymore, and I get upset about it. I'm so fired up for Lubik to be the center of the college football world on a Saturday.

You're going to have a call that game.

And as we were reminiscing a bit before we started taping, Texas going in there is the number one team in the country. Remember, Texas had to play four absurd ranked teams in a row.

So even to survive that at three and one, it's the crab tree throw.

I've got to find a picture of myself because I'm next to McShea. We see Scooter over there. You're in the booth. Fowler is losing his mind with all of his notes. I'm a little further down with Stan- Are you closer to the goal line? Yeah, because I I remember the angle I had on the throw from Harold, the crab tree.

I was like, Oh, that's an incomplete.

I couldn't believe the angle that I had where he threw it back shoulders to the crab tree. And then I look and I could see Must Champ losing his mind as Crabbtree just steps past two defensive backs that they couldn't believe Crabbtree made the catch and then was able to pivot his body.

Again, that kid was such a baller when he was in college.

It is to this day, and I don't know that I'll ever be...

I don't know that I ever be as impressionable as I was then.

It was my first year on the road.

It was my first year doing College Game Day radio.

It was fun just to even be around you guys.

I don't think I talked to Fowler for two years until he and I realized we were wired a little bit more similar than we'd want to admit.

But it's my favorite sporting event I've ever been to in my life, and I don't think it can ever be top. That night, that atmosphere, the buildup, the leach angle, it's Halloween. Batman had just come out, the tortillas, Why So Serious, and the chaos. Absolutely bomb scene around that stadium afterwards. You're like, this looks like it may be declared a national disaster. Guys in pickup trucks with shotguns. Just an unhinged back in time experience. I will never, I will never, I think, enjoy a live sporting event the way I did when Texas Tech knocked off number one, Texas.

And I'm so jealous you guys are going back to love it.

That's awesome to hear you reminisce because you're taking me back to that '08 season. And you're right, man. Texas was Texas, right? And just to put in perspective with people that aren't familiar, Lubic, Texas, is in the middle of nowhere, and they're not used to having good things happen to them, right? So they go to the game. They're used to be in four and five playing in Texas, but here they are with Mike Leach. They're in the mix. They're in the BCS rankings, and they do the unthinkable on a last play of the game and get it to the best player maybe in the country. And he makes the catch that you're talking about and goes into the end zone. And you're like, What the hell just happened? They won. And the real story was after the game, we're trying to get back to the hotel. I mean, there are cars, there are people standing, not on the hood, but on top of their cars, and they're surfing, and music is blaring. There's fights over here on the sidewalk, just brawl, a straight-out brawl, and no one cares. And It was one of the wildest scenes I can remember, and I'm glad that you have that memory.

You've been around a lot of cool sporting events. Pretty amazing that that one stands out at the top of them all.

Remember, they rushed the field three times. They got penalized each and every time.

So then the kickoff was like, Where are we kicking this thing off from? Right. And they never had anything happened before that or anything happened after that.

Like the Celtics and all these great teams have They have lots of moments. That was Texas Tech's moment. And now here they come back in 2025, heavily invested with the NIL. They have a billionaire, and Tony Campbell, who's a former player, young guy, oil guy, who's made it very clear they're going to be all in on bringing players in. And now they got exactly what they want. They're ninth in the country, BIO's eighth. May the better team win with College Game Day and everybody watching. This is historic moment for their program.

Had I not experienced it, I just can't appreciate. I'm not saying, Hey, if you haven't been to Lubbit, you can't appreciate Saturday Night's kickoff. No, that's not what I'm saying to anyone else.

But I was lucky enough to be able to get to go there and then realize He's like, Oh, okay.

You want to go to Dallas? Cool. You want to go to Houston? Cool. Oh, you're going to Austin? Whatever.

It's like, Man, this is Lubic.

It's a little different.

It's Friday Night Lights. It really is.

Yeah. Friday Night Lites is basically what you're What you're talking about with Riggins and the boys.

Hey, this means a lot, especially to be my first guest on the first new episode.

You know I'll do anything for you. And if you need an extra spot or if Darren calls in sick, maybe I'll fly down to Lubic, all right?

Dude, I'm honored to be your first guest. Wish you all the best. Anytime later in the season, you want to have me on and down the playoff or whatever you want to get into. Always happy to do that.

All right. You're the man, Kirk. Enjoy Saturday.

All right. Take care.

All right, let's talk about the Big Shack again because this thing's basically a protein play between two guns, buttered and toasted potato guns. You're getting two quarter pound, 100% Angus beef patties and the highest quality toppings made to order and totaling 56 grams of protein. That's the most protein shake shacks ever packed into a burger. Maybe the most anyone's packed into a burger. The thing is, it doesn't taste like one of those high protein gimmicks. It's one of those burgers that makes you rethink what fast food even means.

I got to be honest with you, I was sold on Shake Shack before any of this was pitched.

But the idea now, I can rep out whether it's a high rep chest day or just a heavy chest day where it's like, Hey, I'm going to be here a while. And it's like, Dude, is that a new protein bar? I'd be like, Yeah, it's called a burger. 56 grams of protein?

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The Big Shack's available starting November fourth, so grab it pre or post-jim to watch a game or just because you deserve it. And now you're getting your protein in while you enjoy this massive burger. Big Shack, big flavor, big protein. Every Monday through the rest of the college football regular season, and then obviously the conference, Championship Games will give you our top 12.

I don't know if anybody else in the industry even does this. So here we go.

Number one, Ohio State, 17, 14 at the half against an inspired Penn State team.

Coaching changes. Hockey, you'd figured Penn State would win this, 21 zip in the second half for the Buckeye. Sayan just keeps rolling. His last interception, as I told you earlier with Herb Street, was September 13th. So if you look at the top shutdown thrower, because now we're starting to talk about this high has been thing, Sayan is now the favorite in the books that I looked at this morning at plus 175. So that's a real momentum number, okay? Of like, maybe I'll just give it to the best team and a quarterback who looks like he is not just there. Because, again, I think Ohio State could have a guy from a dual threat who can't really throw. Some guy lighting it up in their murals, they're probably still going to win 11 games this year. That's not an insult. It's simply that, like saying raises, that elevates this, as we were talking about with Herb Street not that long ago. So, yeah, the last pick was a long time ago, but if you go, touch downs, D1, all right? Sawyer Robertson, McShay's guy out of Baylor, Mendoza's number 2, Sayan's number 3. So there's a Mendoza-Sayan debate here where could you then go, well, Mendoza This is actually more important to Indiana than saying it's to Ohio State.

I don't know. Maybe if I have a Wednesday where topics are light and I'm struggling, I'll put together something like that for you. Number two is Indiana.

They're the number one scoring team in the power four.

Shout out to North Texas, who's actually number one. 43. 6 points per game. Indiana is at 43 points per game. They are killing teams right now, 149 to 29. That's what they've done in their last three games combined since the win at Oregon. So since that Oregon win, so like, Hey, is there going to be the let down here? No. Hey, maybe it was the Iowa game after destroying Illinois, but we'll get to Iowa here. Are they sneaky good? Again, down at Kinnock.

But then these games, if you're a national title contender. That's what I want to see.

I don't want to see 27, 24 every week. I'm like, I know you're good.

I know you have a lot of NFL talent, but what's going on? Indiana is destroying teams since that win at Eugene.

And I I just think that's really important if we're going to start talking about you as a team that can win this whole thing. And look, the Mendoza stat part of it as it ties back into the Heisman conversation, it's certainly like saying it's exactly dialing it back up a million times a game because they don't need to. Mendoza has only had 71 attempts in the last three games combined. Oh, and by the way, they ran it for 367 yards against Maryland. That Maryland loss was so bad for them. People thought the coach was fired because someone made up a graphic for it.

All right, number three, A&M.

I think you got to go here, A&M.

I flirt a little bit with maybe, I still like Oregon better than the voters do. I think I'd pick Bama right now against A&M head-to-head. The defense, the Arkansas game messes up the stats, but the slippage here isn't that bad.

It was still only 25 to LSU. They're off this week. Look, they're 25th in opponents' yards per game. The big thing with them is they may give up a couple more yards. And again, that's not a bad number, 25th in the country. It's not elite, but this number is elite. Again, That's third downs, you've been on this with A&M all season long. Number one in the country, opponents only 22% of third downs against this defense. You want to compare them to the other SEC schools? Bama is 45th. Georgia is 85th in opponents' third down conversion. That's even Georgia? Georgia Southern? No. Ramman? No.

Georgia.

Uga. Athens. Ever heard of it? Widespread panic.

So old Old Smith, not a college team.

Old Misses, they're 19th in the stat. Texas, anyone? Can I interest you in a little Texas? Texas is 23rd. Opponents, third down conversion rate.

Marcel Reid, Herb Street likes him more than I do.

15th out of 21 SEC quarterbacks on completion percentage, but he doesn't ever get sacked. Chambleau is another guy, doesn't get sacked.

Same number of dropbacks. So even when the possessions look like they're mess, at least on the Saturday field.

Marcel Reid is too dynamic right now. So even if it looks like, what's going on back there? I said, I'm just going to start calling him the Caleb Williams, the anxiety dropbacks.

How many anxiety dropbacks do you have per game, Saturday or Sunday, with Reid, even if it happens, he's likely going to get out of it.

So that's been a big part of their success on that side of the ball.

Number four, I'm going with the Oregon Ducks, even though I ran through a defensive profile there for the SEC at Iowa this week.

Look at how Iowa, some Iowa numbers. Can I interest you in them? Let's look at the defense first.

Opposing yards per play.

Number one, Ohio State. Number three is Oregon. Number two is Iowa. So a defensive battle. America needs a first down.

So Iowa, perfect Iowa profile.

It gave you the defensive numbers there. Their offensive yards per play, 98th. So just as on brand as it gets. Iowa, that's six and a half. It feels like, hey, Oregon's really good. They can go there and beat them. But then it's like, oh, man, I was lining up for a kick to make it 24/20, and they made it. They never had a chance in this game. Now it's 24/20, and now I have a losing ticket. This doesn't seem like very much fun. Again, I don't know where that line is going to go, but it felt like maybe a nine and a half if they were really dismissive of Iowa or thought Oregon is as good as I think Oregon is. But a tough close to the Big Ten schedule for Oregon, at least tougher than some of the other Big Ten contemporaries. They've got Iowa, Minnesota is seventh, USC who's sixth. I would not look at that Nebraska game as a reason why now USC is ranked 20th. They're just running out of teams. Sc is just... I guess I've just seen too much stuff because I'm out in California. It's like, Oh, SC is so overlooked.

They're like, They're all right. And then they're going to face Washington, who... I mean, look, I think that's four challenging teams. Washington is still technically ranked at 24.

All right, number 5, Bama.

Because of the head-to-head against UGA, UGA now at six, I move them up.

It is crazy to think. If UGA had won that game...

I should stop saying UGA. If Georgia won that game against Bama and they're 8-0, are we watching the exact same team, statistical profile and all, defensive deficiencies, lack of being able to run the football?

They're 47 in college football in yards per rush.

And that's what's standing accounting for 290 yards rushing at quarterback just this year.

If they were undefeated, would it be going, Oh, man, it is a Ohio State, Indiana, Georgia, draw a line.

And that's where we make mistakes with records.

All right, number seven, Ole Miss. They close with the Citadel, Florida, Mississippi State. Mississippi State is not easy.

Lane Kiffin, I guess John Gruden.

Well, I could say he ran or walked so Kiffin could run, but Gruden involved himself in every single possible rumor imaginable.

And I think Gruden did it more than Kiffin is doing it now. I mean, it's just hilarious that it was like, Auburn thinks that you're in the mix when Florida and LSU and Penn State are available? Silly Auburn.

Number eight, I'm going Notre Dame. In the AP poll, they are not as high.

I don't care.

They're 10th in the AP, they're 10th in the coaches poll. Look, this is where the BIO conversation is like, How can you do that? Bio is 8-0, Ryan.

Notre Dame is 6-2. I'm giving Notre Dame credit for scheduling up big at the beginning of the year and the fact that Jeremiah Love keeps putting together an incredible run here, 364 yards, three touch in his last few games, 67 yards receiving on top of that. So we're talking about like 400 total yards of offense. And look, the defense has only allowed 20 points one time in the last five games. If BIO, Texas Tech, Notre Dame, any of those games, line up, neutral field, I'm picking the Irish against any of those two matchups. Sorry. Bio, number nine. Not the end of the world. Right there. Only moved not a spot.

Before the Big 12 matchup with number 9, Texas Tech, who we'll get to in a second. Look, I was not sure what to do with BIO.

You've heard me talk about this.

The non-conference is a joke.

Three-point win against that disaster in Boulder. I don't know if he'll be on 60 minutes again.

24 points allowed to West Virginia, who's on their sixth quarterback this season. Two overtime game against Arizona before we realized that Fafita and the boys are dealing again down there in Tucson.

So Arizona is not Overtime with them isn't exactly bad right now.

But the Utah win, 41 points out of Iowa State, who's falling apart the last month. I feel a lot better about them, but I am picking despite having them a spot behind BIO, number 10, Texas Tech.

43 at Kansas State, where this game, man, you want to talk about anxiety dropbacks. Everything that wasn't like a design run from A. B. Johnson, this thing was a disaster. And how about a little highsman love for Jacob Rodriguez, linebacker number I think. I don't know. I forget. Seven force fumbles this season, 13 on his career everywhere. He's absolutely everywhere. I'm going to get a number check on that one for you, Stan for Steve. Don't you worry about it.

All right, 11, 12, 13, 14.

What are we going to do here? Louisville, out of conference. Nice James Madison win. What are you going to do with Virginia? Well, Virginia didn't go to Columbus. Virginia didn't schedule Michigan.

And even though I may like...

Well, I can't say I like Oklahoma voter. That's head to head That wasn't that long ago. And then the Kentucky game for Texas is certainly something worth shitting on them about. They were up 31-10 on Vandy. Vandy is a good football team. And then it was 34-31. So they were in control of that game for three quarters. Nice win at home. You can laugh, Hey, number nine against Vanderbilt here. But that team isn't a joke. They're good. And Texas smoked them for three of those quarters. So Texas with the head-to-head against Oklahoma, Oklahoma with the win at Tennessee. These are just better wins than what Virginia has. So I have no issue with it. And I wish the committee would... I wish they would listen to me. We'll see what happens Tuesday night.

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Let's talk some NBA.

He is part of the voice of the NBA Finals now from ESPN, also the road trip and podcast, and the Richard show where he interviews people. We're going to ask him about that at the very end. It's good friend and neighbor, Richard Jefferson. Good to see you.

We are neighbors. We were neighbors. I saw this thing the other day where people were shitting on Redondo. If you live in the South Bay and you're a normal human being, not one of the uppities, we're one of the normal human beings that live in a nice area. People are like, oh, well, Manhattan Beach is too pretentious, and Redondo is just blah, blah, blah. And then Hermosa Beach, like, look, it doesn't know. And it's like, wait a second. I come from Glendale, Arizona. If you live anywhere up and down here, you are lucky. If you live here and you complain about three blocks over or three blocks down, you're really an actual piece of shit. So we're very lucky to live where we are. So we are neighbors. If we're in the South Bay, we are neighbors.

We are lucky to live where we live. And I remember I had some elitist thoughts on Redondo. And now that I understand Redondo, I'm like, you know what? Redondo is awesome. If you end up in Redondo, you're- You're having a good time.

You're having a good time, right? They're having a good time.

I wish I had made it out to Redondo earlier. It's been looking at Manhattan Beach prices. All right, let's start with some basic stuff here.

I started the season being like, Look, anybody that goes, look, I'm just going with OKC, I can't tell anyone that they'd be wrong if you're picking them to go back to back.

I mean, there's a million reasons. There's very few negative reasons. And my favorite thing maybe about that team is how you could have a young team in today's NBA world where drama is expected, and yet they're the most drama free and also the best team.

I picked Denver to zag a little to be a little different. But who did you pick?

I think OKC because, again, I was always taught to never disrespect the champs. I think that they're in a very unique spot because they have a young core. You look at a young Golden State team where it was like you had this core guys that in their first five years, six years, then they win a championship. Now you're like, can we keep them together and build on? I think Denver is the one team. Denver took them to seven. Indiana took them to seven. So it's like they're not not that far above everybody else. But if you look at these other teams, they have eight guys that can all get 5 % better just because they're so young in their career. Even you look at the kid Mitchell, Mark Dagnald said, he's like, dude, this kid is going to make me look like an idiot at some point in time. Why were you not playing him? And he's basically like, Look, the first 20 games, he was great. He gets injured. He comes back five games to go in the regular season. Now, how do I interject him? Rhythm, flow, all that stuff. So when you look at it, they basically, in my opinion, added a 10-point-a-game guard.

He's a guy that if he plays the 25 minutes in a normal rotation, he's going to get you 10 plus points a night. So you get to add a free agent, a player that you didn't have in your rotation last year. So they get to add a player. So I look at OKC is very, very good. Denver is the one team that I'm like, if those boys are healthy and turn it around and adding Valentunas and Brown, and I just think that Denver is the team that actually you could pick very easily over them because their series was so close. And Denver, it looks like they got better and added more talent.

Yeah, the A. J. Mitchell thing I love because I was looking at him the other night, and I even had said it on one of the more recent positive. He's scoring 18 a game. It was like four or five games in the season. A. J. Mitchell is getting 18, he's 17 a game now. Jalen Williams, the one that plays a lot, he's out. He's going to be reevaluated in two weeks, which means he's probably four weeks from us even thinking best case scenario that he's going to play. We're talking about, at worst, a top 15 player with his defense, projecting to maybe be a top 10 player, and they're seven and 0. And granted, they get off to those two really competitive games in the beginning of it.

But Shay will likely be a better basketball player, but when they have the full cast, his numbers will go down just because I think the guys that... It's almost It's just like he want a title ahead of schedule on his own personal thing, where some of these other dudes... It's likely going to take Wemby seven years.

We know how long it took LeBron. We can even go back to the Jordan conversations of like, Hey, is this guy just a scorer?

If you're thinking about the great current players and where SGA is, he's actually ahead of schedule, already getting the MVP and already getting the NBA Championship under his belt, which probably means, even though I don't think he's wired necessarily this way, I think it's a very common timeline of the best players being like, I'm going to get mine.

I'm going to make All-stars. I'm going to get my extension. I'm going to do all of these things. And then it's like, okay, now I'm getting sick of being shit on by the media here after year seven and eight, and I'm going to learn to find a way to take a step back statistically to then make everyone around me better.

So that means at the end of the year, the playoffs, these people I realized I trust them. And SGA can now already do that way ahead of schedule, which sets this team up even better for long term success.

But is he ahead of schedule? Is he ahead of schedule? Because you look at Now, Jason Tatum, it's tough last year with the injury, but Jason Tatum wins a championship in the first, let's say, half of his career. Jokic wins a championship. Yannis wins a championship in the first half of their career. And then since And now, again, there's always going to be ups and downs and bumps and bruises. But Shay, to me, falls in that line of Jokuj, Giannis, those guys that won that championship in their mid to late 20s. So is Shay going to go and win a couple more? That's what we haven't seen in the last... Since the Golden State Warriors, right? Obviously, that was a unique situation. We haven't seen one of those players then transition into the back to back, into the three out of four. We've seen MVPs. Jokuj, in my opinion, has been the best basketball player on the planet for the last five, six years, right? But he's got one Championship and one finals in that time. Even if you would throw in Yannis, and what he did over a three, four year period and still doing, he's got one Finals appearance, one Championship, two MVPs.

So that's not a knock on that. But is there a player that can turn into three, four Championship, three, two championships over a four year period. That's what we haven't seen since Golden State.

I guess I would say he's ahead because our awareness of who SGA was going to be was delayed just by situation and then wondering, Okay, is he going to OKC in this where they're rebuilding?

And by the way, that's the quickest rebuild ever.

Maybe it's like a four-year run of big numbers where with Jokić, it was pretty clear.

Well, no, I can't say it was pretty clear from the beginning of his career because he didn't have the same profile as a Tatum or some of these other lottery guys. I understand what you're saying, but I mean, SGA turned 27 this summer. And usually, if you're, Hey, this guy is one of the five best players in the world. He's been going on for five or six years, he's getting closer to 30, it's when we start to turn on these guys, even if it's not their fault.

Yeah. But that's the thing, though, is Jokić, Janice, Jokić, Janice, and Tatum, right? They won championships. And then I think Jokić is different because of his greatness. But I think Janice, you look at Yannis, it's getting real bubbly over there in Milwaukee. They went all in. They got the championship, changed coaches. It's been crazy since they won that championship. And so I don't think that Shay people are necessarily... I don't think that their profile, Shay's profile or OKC's profile, is so big where people would turn on them. If they wouldn't have won the championship last year, you weren't going to hear Trade Shay or we need to go get a superstar in Oklahoma City. They were going to be a patient fan base because that's what they do. That's what Presby does. They make it. He's like, this is a team. And think about how many draft pics they hit on. We could call him the architect But it's Mitchell, J-Dub, even Chet. Chet, they could have taken Jibari if you look at that from that space. But they hit Chet. Chet's injured. I thought that they were a year away. They should have gotten a big the year before.

They should have gotten a big the year before, and they didn't. They lose to Dallas with all those bigs, and then they say they got Jokić. And you see all of these bigs in the Western Conference, they're going to go get Hartenstein. I thought that they were a year late. But Pressy, what he does, he's He's hit on draft picks. He's hit on stars. He brought in the right free agents in Caruso. So when you look at egos, a lot of it, in my opinion, starts with the top, your best player, your coach, your general manager your president. And then who do they bring in? Who do they bring in? And they're batting a thousand right now.

Does Wemby's start of the season change what you think is possible for the Spurs, whether it be this year or whatever that timeline is?

It is 100 % on par and on pace for what you expected. He is going to do this. This is what it is. It's not going to be straight up and down. I don't think it's going to be this because he has so many physical abilities. And even on an off night, when he had nine to nine last night, even on an off night, he's still going to impact the game defensively in all the different ways. But Wendy, after his first year, was like, hey, let's get this thing going. I showed you guys I'm Rookey of the Year. I'm different. We're not doing this three, four year. We're going to be trash. And he's too good. Certain players make you change your timeline. You look at Blake Griffin, he showed up, and they were like, Oh, let's go get this dude a player. Zion William said, they tried to do it with him. Certain players switched their timeline. And so I think Wemby switched their timeline. And then they get Castle. They hit on Castle. This dude, he's a future All-Star. So they hit on Castle. They bring in De'Aaron Fox. They brought in Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes.

So I My projections of them, I'm looking at what San Antonio thinks of him. If they didn't think he was ready or on his way to being ready, they wouldn't have fielded this team. Because now you put this team around them. Let's say they win 48 games and finish sixth or fifth. They're not getting a good draft pick. So they're loading him with talent being like, Hey, before we have to pay him $50 million or $48 million, whatever his rookie max extension is going to be, let's capitalize on this space. So I think he's right where he should be. I think this is right where the Spurs believe he should be. And so nothing that I'm seeing. He led the NBA in blocks, and he played 48 games last year. Led the NBA in blocks. So what are we saying that? He was going to break the NBA record for blocks. So when I look at last year, then I'm basically saying, oh, this is just a continuation in a growth and a strength and an IQ, more teammates around them that know where he wants the ball. Wemby is right where we thought he would be, and that's scary.

There is a conversation. I'm already having it with just how the NBA world works. We all love to gossip and whatever.

But I wasn't sure about who Castle was because you knew he played his ass off, but he was not a point guard.

He was marketed as his point guard prior to the draft.

There was all sorts of opportunities for him last year, so that's fine.

But his aggressiveness, his purpose, he does not fear anyone from the jump.

The guy that I see now, I'm like, Okay, so now you have Castle who feels like a real thing.

I didn't know if he was going to be like, Hey, rookie, a little bit of accolade here.

Maybe we package him with something else because actually internally we're like, Hey, there's a ceiling on what he can be offensively.

And now I'm like, All right, that whole theory is gone because what I've seen from him this year, it's completely recalibrated what I think Castle is possible of. And then Harper, my guess is he's going to be pretty good. I mean, it's a struggle right now.

As you expect for the first two weeks of your NBA career.

Let's not freak out about a ton of this stuff.

But then it leads to the De'Aaron Fox part of it where it's like, well, does Fox make sense for them? Maybe it's this year, but does it make sense for them long term?

And you're saying it does.

It does from this standpoint. Fox is proven. He's an All-Star, All-MBA. He's been to the playoffs. He's that class of player, De'Aaron Fox. And you're looking confused because you're going to look it up. I think he made third team All-MBA the year they made the postseason.

I'm looking up. I'm going to check on you sometimes.

I don't mind it. It was either him or Sabo.

No, you're right. Nba third team, 2023. Good for you, man. That was good.

That's what I do. So this is what I say. Because he's already a proving commodity, now it's like Mitchell, what Mitchell does for OKC. Now, if we get to the space and we're like, damn, we got to pay Cais and Wallis. We got to pay one of these dudes. And it's like, well, he's still on a rookie extension. Now we can trade them, get more, because now they can offset those little... You get an opportunity to, instead of pay a guy, maybe move on, put them in a better position, and then you let the next class of guy take over. So De Aaron Fox, right now, he's the guy that goes one, two year. Now, in two years, if Harper doesn't make it, if Castle... Now, you got De Aaron Fox. He's the security blanket of greatness at the point guard position. So now that he's there, in two years, maybe Fox does move on, and now Dylan Harper is ready, and Castle is an all-star. That's what that window of transition gets you right now with De Aaron Fox. But when De Aaron Fox gets on the floor, he He's different. His speed, his pace is everything.

He's one of the 10 fastest players in the league. So right now, it fits everything that they're doing.

The line is now infamous. We Good in the West.

It's John Morant with Malika.

And I watched the Lakers game last week.

I just happened to be like, Let me lock in as a Memphis LA. Luke was back. It was actually so easy for Luca. It looked like he was bored getting 40. So we could even do some Lakers stuff if you want. But I want to talk about Ja because this is somebody who shows up on the scene. It's so much fun.

He immediately is one of the most fun players in the league.

And because it's Memphis because it just feels cooler when it's good in Memphis, it just feels like that fan base is so prideful of that team and just the different versions they've had of this franchise and how it represents this. I mean this in a good way, like the griminess.

And then Ja gets hurt. He's got the two suspensions in '23, the total '33 games.

He does another interview. I remember with Jaylen Rose where I saw that interview and I was like, Okay, this is a major problem. This is like, Ja's delusional.

After the suspension, he does the finger gun celebration, and they're like, Dude, what are you doing? And then he decides in that Lakers game, for whatever reason, to just stop playing. And I watched only him, and I don't know if I texted you about it, but immediately, it was like people that were watching games that night where everybody was texting me like, Did you see Ja? Did you watch Ja? And he just stopped. He didn't touch the ball. He didn't take a shot the last five minutes. He wouldn't cross over the three-point line. He'd usually be the last guy crossing half-court. After the game, supposedly, he and Isolo, the head coach, got into it. Then there was also the interview with Ja where he was like, Ask the coach, ask the coach.

He gets suspended for a game.

So I'd ask you right now, is Does this mean this thing is over?

I don't know. I don't know people in Memphis. As a basketball person that has followed and has been a part of this, I would say this. I'm I'm not even sure who the owner of the Memphis Grizzly is. Do you know who the owner of the Memphis Grizzly is?

Yeah, it's that young guy. Remember, he had the cell phone thing and he wanted to play Tony Allen one-on-one?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's a phone call from the owner. In my opinion, in the history of being a part of the NBA, the owner, Ja, what's going on? Talk to me. You are the face of our franchise. I need you 100% committed. What's going on? Tell me the energy. Because he's such a generational talent, and he's so unique, and he's so marketable that you need to make sure that he's locked in. But let's go back. They trade Bane, one of his boys, trade Dylan Brooks. They've been trying to replace Dylan Brooks since he left. They've been like, Oh, we need a big wing We need a big three and D. We're trying to go get Jimmy Butler. And then what's Dylan Brooks doing? Whether you like Dylan Brooks, whether you're... He is an impactful player for a good team. In Houston, in Phoenix, when you look at Excuse me, but when you look at players that are being aggressive, he's one of those three and D guys, and they haven't been able to replace him. Now, you fire the coach that drafted Ja, that Ja has had that success. When do you fire him?

Five games before the postseason? Was it five games last year before the postseason? And the team was on their way to the postseason. We saw it, and I think it glossed over because of the Michael Malone news when they're like, whoa, how did two coaches get fired? But it was like, no, there was a A Memphis coach that got fired, too, right before the postseason. And so now you have a new system, a new coach, maybe a new hierarchy of how we're going to run things. And now all of a sudden, things are looking off. Even Ja, the last part of last season, was They're ultra-aggressive. So do I think it's over? No. But they need to go to couples therapy. They're not in divorce court right now, but they're for sure in couples therapy. They need to figure that out. So Your best player, your head coach, it can't be like that, especially a new head coach. Yeah, he was there on the staff and he took over it. But I think that anything can be salvageable. We've seen things. We saw Kobe ask for a trade and then go on and went to two more championships.

Anything can be salvageable as long as that thing is there. But let's focus in on Ja. I said it on road tripping. John Anthony Edwards reminds me of that window of time after Michael Jordan retired, and then there was a counterculture. I'm going to do it my way. This is my thing. I don't care what anybody says. That was Allen Iverson. That was Allen Iverson. He was a hooper's hooper. Every kid loved him, and he was just so unique from how the culture looked at him to basketball to moms and grandmas like Allen Iverson, that to me is Jacques and Anthony Edwards. We're going to do it a little different. We're not going to be this cookie cutter. We're not going to do it the way everyone says. When I When you see that energy, that to me is like, you don't often see those guys win two, three championships. You don't see the counterculture. You might see win-won, you might see MVPs, but you often don't see them winning multiple championships. So Memphis, they got to figure it out. They have a unique talent on their hand. And then what they have to do is figure out how to get him back locked in.

Because all of the stuff we've seen for the last few years, then the coach trading Bane, then coming into the season in this, The last four years of Ja does not look like a high, high level locked in individual. It looks like a person that had off the court, that's now having on the court, that is still trying to figure things out.

What's it like? Give us a story. What's it like when the main...

I don't know if there's a story you can share us where it's the main guy. I'm sure there's all sorts of stuff that we have no idea about of how bad it gets over the six months.

But when it's your main guy and it's already this bad two weeks into the season, it just sets a terrible tone.

And I don't know if I'm wrong on that one, if it's actually way more salvageable, but do you have something that reminds you of this?

Okay, so back in 2000, maybe seven, eight. Jason Kidd wanted an extension. Jason Kidd wanted an extension. He didn't get an extension. Now, he averaged a triple double. We played Toronto and Cleveland. Over the 12 games that we played, he averaged a triple double in the The Postseason. One of five players to ever average a triple double through multiple rounds of the postseason. He asked for an extension. They say no. Rod Thorne. Rod, I love you, but also can't stand you. Rod ends up giving an extension to Vince Carter and Lawrence Frank, not to the most important person in our franchise. So J. K. Looks around like, Wait, you think Vince is running this? You think Lawrence Frank is running this? And this is no disrespect to them. Vince, obviously, Hall of Fame player. Lawrence Frank was a very, He's a very good coach right now now with the Clippers. So J. K. Was like, Oh, you're not going to give me an extension? You guys are just going to run me into the ground into my late 30s and not pay me to take care of me. He's like, You guys should pay after everything that I've done.

You guys should make sure that I leave, stay here, don't go anywhere else, and my name is up in the rafters. They're like, We don't know what we're going to do. So J. K. Basically played very relaxed basketball, and that's ultimately how he got his way to Dallas. Davis, Devin Harris comes to the nets. Like, J. K. Was literally made an all-star in the East, but I think he was traded to the West right around that window of time. So it was a very confusing time. But when J. K. And Rod Thorne, and they weren't locked in. Our entire team was on cruise control. Because J. K. Is like, no, you're not going to play me 40 minutes a night at 30 whatever years old and then not give me security on the back end. He was just like, I'm good. So there might have been a missed nick game at some point in time. I can confirm, no deny, that he had requested a trade. They might not have been listening to him. And maybe there was a flu that happened during a Knicks game. And J-Kid didn't show up because he was sick.

He was sick. And then shortly after that, the trade happened. So let's just say I've seen star players be like, Hey, what are we doing here? No. But also J-Kid was upset. They were supposed to keep Kenyan Martin. They didn't keep Kenan Martin. That's what they were told. We were in San Antonio. We lose to them. Don't worry. We're going to keep Richard. We're going to keep. We're going to resign you. We're going to keep Kenan. They don't keep Kenan. And now he's like, he was bubbling. They're bringing Vince. Okay, Jay, kid's cool now. He's like, Okay, I got another wing. Then we go in, and he's like, Okay, well, where's my extension? The extension is like, Wait. He's like, I'm the reason why Richard is good. I'm the reason why Vince Carter lifted up his performance again. And Jay And Vince and myself would both agree. We both agree with them. So when he goes to management, all of a sudden, it's like, No, we don't know. And that was the end of that Nets era. Once they didn't extend them, they got rid of Jason Collins. They got rid of me. They got rid of J.

K. That was the end of anybody associated with the Nets in that moment. How was that for a story.

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Com.

I love J.

Kidd. I think there's moments where I've watched him play, so this is just an aside, and I'll bring it back to the main discussion here. But you just almost want to wonder what it's like to see the game in his body.

If you could just for a night, I wonder what it would be like, what the fuck does he see that no one else sees? As a NBA player, had a really nice career, Richard. Do you ever think of... I'd love to be aunt dunking on John Collins and looking like Collins may retire in that dunk. That's probably going to feel pretty cool.

You probably have a few of those.

But for the 48 minutes to see the game the way Jason Kidd must see it, it must feel like you're playing a different sport.

No, it is a different... I would say there's 10 guys that is passing it. When you can pass, you see the game. When you're in a elite passer, you're not watching the same game. He's playing the game, and then he makes the pass. So obviously, he's seeing the game different. And all of the people watching the game are like, how did he see that? That means his brain is functioning at a different level. Jake Kidd, the So the things that he would create. J-kid and LeBron are the only players that I've ever seen. We'd run a play, and it would work. J-kid could run the same play and hit every single person for different shots. He'd run a pick and roll, hit the roll guy. He'd run a pick and roll, hit the pop guy. He'd run a pick and roll, hit the corner guy. He'd run a pick and roll. He just could see, Oh, this defender is coming in. Okay, this is what we're going to do. And it'd be the same play. J-kid has an ability to see the game. He would try things. He wanted to do... We were throwing off the back He was throwing off the backboard to me.

He was throwing off the backboard to Ken and Vince. He wanted to do a double off the backboard. We had an opportunity where either J-Kid throws it, then Kerry would throw it, and then either me... Because we would get a lot of steals in transition. He was like, I want to do a double off the backboard. I want to do a double off the backboard. You know you were doing warmups, and then the last person would go and dunk? We had an opportunity, but Kerry wanted to be second. It was so annoying. It was literally we had a transition. But that's what I'm It's like, how the fuck did your brain even work where you want to do a double off the backboard? You throw it to Kerry, Kerry catches it and throws it off the back where it throws the lob to me and Ken. These are the weird things that he's trying to do. And if you go back and look at the bowling ball, passes all of that stuff. J-kid is Magic, J-Kid, and then everyone else when it comes to passing. It's not even Magic, J-Kid. The only reason why Magic is above is because Magic was 6'9.

Magic was 6'9. So even then, his view arc is different. J-kid is looking through the trees. Magic was the trees. That's why those two. You could have more Cish, you can this, but the flair and the vision in which they did it, there's no one better.

All right. I love that we talked a little J. K. There, but I'll bring it back to the jaw thing. Jaw is not J. K. We can get into stats here, and maybe there's an argument. If you look at the profile of J. K.

Be like, Oh, he was slowing down his little bit of this.

But everything we've just talked about is the reason why you can't just look at a stat line for Jason Kidd and say, This is exactly who he is as a player because he is raising everyone around. The way Steph's shooting and Steph's movement raises everyone around him and makes their life easier, that's what Jason Kidd did without shooting during those next years. When I look at jaw, Again, it gets back to somebody who I think is incredibly delusional.

I don't think NBA teams or general managers or owners should ever operate from the position of, we have to do something. But this is getting about as close as to, we have to do something with Ja. And the problem is whether it's his availability or his shooting, more importantly, his attitude. I don't like saying, Hey, I'm done with this guy, but if I were running an organization, I'm like, Okay. And they've already mapped it out. They know what Jaws market is or isn't.

Those things can change quickly.

You can have something towards a deadline where another team just feels incredibly stale and they're like, Hey, ceiling-wise, there's no one else that we're going to be able to get somebody like this. But this thing feels like it's already over and which is going to play out in front of us, which It feels really dramatic, and this is when you can make mistakes.

But this is three plus years of this shit.

I'm a fan of Ja. I think every great player in that class, they have to prove that they can be the best player on a championship team. And then you look at, can Jason Tatum do it? Can Shay Gilgish Alexander do it? Can LeBron do it? It's always that, okay, you're a first team, second team, all-MBA guy. Can you lead a team now? We We know your talent. We know your ability. We know that you can dominate a game. But can you lead a guy? Right now, at this point in time, I don't know if Ja is showing us that he can lead a team, whether it's the off-the-court, whether it's the on the court, whether it's on the court, whether it's the availability, whether it's the lack of shooting. If you put Ja in a different situation where maybe he's the second best player on the team, maybe he's setting up a guy. And then you look at a De'Eren Fox who's improved his shooting. He can make a shot. But you put him next to Wimby, and now he's a complimentary All-MBA player. And that's what I'm thinking. You couldn't bring in Jimmy Butler.

If you brought in Jimmy Butler, maybe Ja's energy and world is different, but that's just not the case. So I think it's one, I very rarely say the owner needs to get involved. I rarely say. It's President of Basketball Operations, General Manager, those are the guys that need to get involved. The owner needs to get involved. Ja. We're not firing the coach or whatever it is. What can we do to help facilitate a positive energy again? Because your energy, the coach's energy, it permeates through the whole basketball community. When the basketball world is talking about Memphis and Ja and not in a positive light, that's terrible for their organization. And that's basically what's going on right now. You've had off the court, now you have on the court. You had off the court availability, now you're having on the court availability, where it's like mentally his physical health. I think that was part of the reason why he stopped driving last year just to be like, Hey, I'm LeBron, for instance, wouldn't post up a lot until the postseason. I'm going to take down that wear and tear over my body over the course of the year, and then come the postseason, all right, let's go to work.

So maybe John wasn't driving, wasn't being as aggressive, wasn't trying to do all the highlight dunks to protect his body. So then when we get to the postseason, I can literally just go all the way. I think it is close. So if they can't, they're in couples therapy. Definitely, the organization is in couples therapy. And if they can't figure it out, the divorce is coming.

Let's go to the East. Who? Cleveland.

Look, man, I don't know how you felt about Cleveland before. They've gone out to a bit of a slow start, but they also haven't had Garland. They've also had other players already missed some time, so I'm not really going to get that worried about it.

But did you feel like there were multiple contenders? Do you feel like that only team is the Knicks, higher Milwaukee? How did you feel about the East versus now a couple of weeks in if it's changed at all?

I think Cleveland has the most talent. I think the Knicks, they have the grittiness. They have those guys that just have a bit of toughness. But the East is still open. I think Orlando is going to figure it out. I think Detroit is going to be in that mix. I think Milwaukee. How weird is Milwaukee right now? It's based off of like, oh, well, I want to see. Giannis wants to see how well they play in the first third of the season. He's not making any... It's like, I'm here in Milwaukee, but we better act right. Again, couples therapy or the divorce The Horse is coming soon. I'm going to keep using that. I don't know why it works so well.

Milwaukee, I feel like this is... Come here. Look, because Honest has been...

Wait, really quickly. This is with my son. I love you so much. Give this to me. Give this to me. Give me the whole thing. This is when he comes and sends me. Can you see it? Probably not because it's reversible.

Can we watch the Marvel?

Yes, you can watch the Marvel. Yes, you can watch the Marvel. Yes, I love you.

He just tombed in and goes…

That's good parenting right there. By the way, imagine if you had said no.

Well, they would have already watched it. It's on right now in my house. They want to make sure when I walk out that it's like… But I wonder, is he watching it or are they buying it? That's the problem. I didn't get that clarification. Keep going.

Well, you can bill us for that. You can bill us for your time on a Monday. Yeah, I've had this Yana's theory where if they get off to a really good in the first third. And he's, once again, just absurd.

The Ryan Rollins part of this is one of my favorite stories in the lead because he looks like a baller.

And what he did against Golden State, like going shot for shot with those guys, a little revenge for him on that one. I'm just going to be totally strict. The fact that Kevin Porter Jr. Isn't deciding huge possessions down the stretch, him not playing, and then Rollins getting to those minutes is actually a huge bonus because I'm just not good for Kevin Porter Jr. And his talent and finding a way to get another year out of this.

But if they were to get off, Hey, we're the three seed at the third part of the season. That might be one of those misleading, the worst thing that could happen to Milwaukee long term is if they get off to a fake good start, but it's not really who they are, and then they hit the... Because there's not one person in the league, and people can sit there and say, well, of course, the rest of the league wants the bucks to trade Giannis. I still think you're in this window now.

If you were to move on from Giannis, You're actually getting the player. You're actually getting another...

There's some other player that you be getting back as opposed to so many of these other trades where teams know their hand is forced, and it's like, okay, here are the four picks, here are the two swaps, and here's the salary filler, and then maybe a guy we took in the first round two years ago that we know stinks.

Right. This is the problem, though. Because of this new CBA, these trades aren't what people think. These numbers, I'm saying, it's like, because of the new CBA, it's not the same. These trades, you see a lot more It's just I don't know what the package looks like for Yannis, a player of his caliber in the prime of his career. We're not talking about the latter third of his prime. We're talking about the middle of his prime. Where on any given, the next three years, easily he can win an MVP, another one. That's how good he is right now. So I don't know what that trade package looks like. Again, with the second apron and all this other stuff, I don't know if you can get the house. And even then bringing in Yannis has to make the other team fluctuate what they do. I think those traits of superstar players are more complicated than they ever have been.

Orlando, you mentioned there, because they got up to a bad start. They've won a couple in a row. I mean, one of the biggest things is they were 23rd on defense, and now look, in two games, your rankings can be all over the place. They're like 10th on defense. So when I was looking at them struggling, I'm like, Whatever they are, whatever their issues are, they're not going to be in the bottom third defensively. That's not going to happen to this team.

But the offense, even with the addition of Bane, and now you're either Palo is a bad habit, bad one option, which is I've heard some really negative stuff.

My guy Goldsbury, calling him Josh Smith. I was like, Oh, that fucking stinks.

No, don't do that. He's way better than Josh Smith.

No, I'm going to help you out.

No, we are aligned.

Yes. Okay. I'm like, Josh Smith was never... Josh Smith, super athlete, great shot blocker, great piece, probably a second or third. He's probably a third on a great team. And he was. He was in Atlanta.

6-9 jaw.

Yeah, he was. And if he hit a shot, if he hit two, three, you live with it. But you're also like, damn. I think Paulo is better than that. But also- Give me your Orlando take then, like him and everything, because I'm a fan of his and I defend him. As you should. Look at what the kid has done. I think if they were three and one right now, we'd be taught... Again, that's what I'm saying. We're giving four-game sample sizes and be like, Oh, he's Josh Smith, or, Oh, they should trade him, or, Or this team is Tread. No. I tell everybody, now, this is not the world we live in. You get a 10-game sample to start the season. You got new coaches. You got new players. You got guys that are moving into homes. You got guys getting settled. Are they 100 % like this on basketball right now? No one is because you're Okay, Bane, where do you like it? Okay, now this is in practice. Now it's like, okay, how do you like it? Now it's also a recognition of like, oh, he likes that pick and pop, or, oh, that's his dribble up shot.

So let me go crash the board. There's so much IQ that's learned over the first 10, 15 20 games. If everyone's healthy, think about DeAndre 8 missing time. Think about LeBron missing time with the Lakers. So when I look at Orlando, I'm like, You got Bane, a couple of other injuries. You got a new system. So I give guys at 20 games First 25 games, now I know who you are. Now I can unleash why is your shooting? What's going on with your defense? Especially, the last thing I'll say is, imagine if you're a top five team, if you're Denver, if you're OKC, if you're playing against juggernots to start the season because that's the NBA marquee. It's like, oh, it's Nicks versus Celtic. Undefeated teams don't often happen eight games into the season if you're a great team because you're playing against the other marquee teams, and eventually you're going to drop one. So I don't put too much stock in Orlando. I think Jamal Moseley is a great coach. I think they got a great number one, you think Wagner and what he's doing. And so you look at it, give me 10, 15 games.

Remember, Indiana was like a 500 team the first half of the year last year. And then go back to another conference finals, they figure out their defense, they figure out their flow, and then they end up being one of the best teams in the second half of the year. There's a reason why January 1 is always a benchmark for great teams in our league. What is their record from January 1 on? Because up until January 1, everyone's starting to figure it out. Christmas Day starts the NBA season as a term we use. Why is that? Because if you're the best team from January to April or a top three defense, top three offense, that's who you are. Before that, you're figuring it out.

What are the Lakers going to look like when LeBron's back?

Good. I think good. I think good from a space of... You look at Leravium, what he's doing. I think if you look at what Austin Reeves has proved, he can be a very, very good playmaker, but also he has the ability to play off of superstars. So I think when you have... What's amazing about the jump that Austin Reeves has had is you have LeBron, you have You could now you have Austin Reeves. You have three 20 point in a game scores that can give you 10 assists on any single night. That's monstrous. So Austin, you just need people that can play off the ball. That's what Austin is. That's what Leravia is. I think you look at Marcus Smart, his plus minus is the best on their team. So they have Marcus Smart, and then they have Vanderbilt Energy guys. So when DeAndre Ayton is going up 90 % for a rebound, you got Vanderbilt coming in and cleaning up. When Austin Reeves or Luka might be struggling against the guard defensively, you got Marcus Smart. So it's like, I think their team, again, I think that if healthy, I think they're a 50-win team right where they were last year.

And then they're going to need to play well in the playoffs. But this team is better than they were last year going in. If they were to start the playoffs, this team is more talented than they were last year.

I do worry about the rumbling stuff with LeBron, and yet I can't quite figure out what it would be He. Did he want the extension? Did he want them to trade all the draft picks? They're gift-wrapped Luca. The Reeves thing has completely worked out. I'm not an Aten guy, but he was a necessary addition in considering what they gave up for him. So they had a really good offseason. And on top of everything else, if I wanted to be...

I was like, You're going to get mad at the franchise that drafted your son and then gave him a four-year deal.

So granted, when you are the absolute best in the world at what you do, you're probably not counting the favors people have done for you. You're He's the only condition to think of, How am I being done wrong? But if they're in a nice little stretch here, there's just a lot of wrong things. They go, Oh, maybe he's unhappy. He's this, this, and this. But at some point, 25, 26, at least for this season, in your goals and the team's goals, whatever slight you felt, you're probably going to have to get over. And I don't know why he's going to do that.

Okay. Why do you feel... I think this is the biggest issue for the big guy, for Bron. Why do you feel like there's rumblings? Why do you feel like there's rumblings? He's been injured. He's 41 years old, whatever. He's got a little back issue, which he's had over the course of his career. He's always been available for all NBA. Is he going to hit that game, Mark? And then you look at it, it's like, because he's not talking to the media. He's got sciatica. Is he supposed to be jumping up and down? If you've got back issues, is it... Yes, he gets up and down. He's feeling better. But we know one thing, LeBron loves to play basketball. He loves to. So if he's frustrated that he can't be out there with his teammates, but because he's LeBron James, because he is this ecosystem of attention, the game is going on. What's going on with LeBron? Do you see he's not standing up? He looks a little grumpy. What can we write about that? What can we talk about that? That's what the energy is. He hasn't said a thing. He's been tweeting out support for his teammates.

Well, he couldn't go to this game, but he was at the Dodgers game. And it's like, again, now there's rumblings. Where are the rumblings coming from? Like you said, look, they've got a great team. They made the plays. They bring in your son. What is the rumb? You think the extension? You think LeBron doesn't... The Brown got plenty of money? So my point that I'm- Yeah, but he doesn't...

I'll push I have to go back on that. It has been...

That's a point of pride that he is as highly compensated as he can be over the years.

Like, it is, Hey, I'm not taking the discount, even though, look, he still makes less than other players and like that. But I don't think it has anything to with his bank account on whether or not he feels respected with financial decisions.

But didn't he sign an extension? Was it last summer? The summer before?

He signed a- Yeah, it was the one-on-one. One-on-one?

Yeah. He's a 40-year-old guy, right? 39, signing a one-on-one at what number? 50 million?

Yeah.

I say that to say we are so conditioned in the media to search for what's going on, what's the issue. The team is playing well. He's been supportive on social media. He hasn't talked to the media, and he hasn't been animated enough on the bench.

So are you suggesting anyone that thinks that there's rumblings, that it's all bullshit because of the lack of access?

I think that there isn't an NBA player or team that doesn't have rumblings everywhere. That's just part of our job. But I do believe that 100 %. No, something's off. And why is LeBron acting like this? It's like, well, you need something to talk about. You need something to talk about. Lebron is not playing. His team is playing well. So the initial thing is we can't go positive because he's not playing. We can't go positive. They're not going to be... Look at how excited LeBron is to not be playing to start the NBA season. So it's like, well, what's wrong with LeBron? Why is he not playing? Is this the end? The negative flow so quickly. And he gives you excuses. I'm not saying that he gives you something, but I have not seen anything that would imply that he is mad at the organization, that he is... The only thing I've seen is it looks like a frustrated great player that's not playing yet this season.

Do you like Houston? Dramatic pause. I do.

I really, really like Houston. I think defensively, they can be elite. When they I have that huge lineup that they can throw out there, that really big lineup, I think you can drive and attack that lineup. But I look at, can they handle... I know Kevin Durant can handle it, but can the younger players handle the intensity that it's going to take for them to accomplish what that goal is. Thompson, Shin-Gun, all of those guys, there's a difference between being the number two seed during the regular season or going to the second round. There's a difference when you We want to win an NBA Championship. That's a big jump. And I think Eme has that intensity. So it's just a matter of whether or not those young guys can meet and match that intensity. I think that's part of the reason why Green is gone. They didn't think that he could raise that intensity or he wasn't on the timeline. Obviously, Kevin Durant's available. But it's like there's an intensity that it takes, and Houston has to show it. That's all.

Yeah, I like watching them a lot. I mean, this has been a couple of years now with this group, and granted, some of the names have changed here and there, but I always look forward to them because I'm always asking a very simple question. You can like them, but how much are you going to let yourself like them? Which means, what do you think they would do against Denver? What do you think they would do, this version, against an OKC? And a lot of it rests on a man. I mean, if you're waiting for him to turn into a shooter at some point, it's been a pretty disaster start, even by his standards, statistically. So I don't know that that's going to happen now in year three for a man.

But I think there's some other responsibility stuff with him that bigger picture I've been pleased with.

It's not perfect. I don't know that it's always going to work, but it's almost development minutes for a team that's actually hoping to be a two or three seed, which is really hard to pull off. But Roster-wise, they may have no choice.

That's what they were last year. Yeah, right. But I think the- But Vanvly is still running it enough to be like, okay, everybody, enough of your shit. And that's the issue. The Vanvly Van Fleet being gone forces Thompson into an on-ball position. We've seen Kevin Durant plays better when he has a point guard. It doesn't have to be true, but when he has a playmaking point guard with a high basketball IQ, Kevin Durant plays better. And so I think the minute Van Fleet got hurt, I think that there's probably... Let me say this. What's the best way to say this? I think that there are a lot of other players that they could have lost on their roster and been in a better position versus Vanvleet. That's my opinion. I think what he brings the stability that he brings, I think you look at a Kyle Lowry when he was in Toronto. Was he the... No, but there was something about when Kyle was on that court that That makes sense.

You're absolutely right.

He's one of my least favorite players that I've ever seen of the modern era.

And I will tell you, there were possessions where it's like, this guy's totally in control, and he's going to get you that good look, the way this endangered species in that position is.

It's all right, enough of this stuff. We're going to come down now, and this is what we're going to do.

And Lowry epitomized that during that run. So absolutely.

Yeah. And let me say this, though. I have two little kids, and they're learning to play basketball. I'm not teaching them 3 and D. I'm not teaching them post-up. I'm teaching them the point guard position, how to catch the ball and look up. What place should you run? What plays would you run for each one of your players on a court? Okay, Shingun needs a shot. Okay, Kevin Durant needs a What two plays are you going to run? Where does he like it? That's the basketball IQ that you said is a forgotten position. It's not just come down, run a pick and roll. Who are the five guys that are open? Because a pick and roll, we talked about with Jay Kit earlier. I can come down and get different players every single night, hit a guy on the same pick and roll. But what do I do when Kevin Durant needs a shot? What do I do when this guy needs a shot? What do I do when they're on an 8: 0 run? What are our top three plays?

That's it, man.

That's it. It's like, look, the pick and roll thing is like, okay, roll guy, pop guy. To It's a fair point on Kid, but I mean, Kid was also... That was my Gary Payton thing.

I just see Gary Payton up close for a full season.

It's like, Gary Payton knows, Hey, this guy hasn't eaten yet. This guy hasn't eaten in five minutes. And we need his defense, and we need his rebounding. I got to get him a touch here, even if I don't like the matchup, even if it's ISO, Hey, this is your possession.

And that's something that I think is almost completely eliminated from the game.

But we still see it from great players. We still see it. How many times have we seen AD with the Lakers and was like, Why hasn't he had a touch in the second half? Why hasn't he had a touch in the fourth? That's basketball IQ of the teammates around you, of the coaching staff. That's also a lot. Ad has got to go get it. But it's like, I would see that Donovan Mitchell has done a really good job of that, right? Where it's like, he'll defer to the second half. He'll defer to the second quarter. He's done a really good job because he's like, go eat. And if you... Kobe would do that early. Sometimes he would set the tone primarily. But there were times where he would try and get Powell going. He would try and get guys away because I know I'm going to need them late. And if I wait until late, I might not have them. So when I look at the way that certain teams are running, that's why I think that Kevin Durant and them losing Fred early on in the season pushes Thompson back into a spot of...

Not that is he not going to be a great player for the next decade, but is he ready to do those little bitty incremental things? Draymond Green, great at it. Somebody needs a shot. There are certain players when you look at championship teams that understand the IQ of what is needed, who is needed, how do I get people going, who has it tonight, who doesn't? I promise you, I've seen it Where I have missed three, four shots and J. K. Just stopped passing me the ball because Vince had it going or Kenyan had it going. Not in a bad way, because you have to understand it's like, all right, I'm three for nine tonight. And J. K. Will look at me and throw the ball that way. And that's an understanding, okay, Vince is six for 8. But then it would also be reversed, where Vince would be 3 for 9 and I would be 6 for 8. He would look at Vince and throw that ball to me. That's the IQ that I think Houston is lacking. We saw it in Phoenix. Who's the point guard? You're asking Devon Booker to read and see the game.

Now, he can create because he's a great basketball player. Bradley Beal, that's not his natural spot. Kevin Durant is like, I'm a weapon. I need people to let me go shoot this weapon. And so when we bring it all back to Houston, that's my one thing. Do they have the IQ to manage what's going to take for an actual long run in the postseason? They've got the talent, they got the ability, they got the position. But do they have the IQ? And that's the part that I think we have got to just wait and see.

Let's do this again, man. Again, Richard Jefferson, ESPN.

He'll be on the finals with Breen and Legler, road tripping his podcast with the crew. And of course, The Richard show is coming as well.

Yes, The Richard Show is coming back. We did Tim Duncan's episode about 18 months ago.

Just prepping for the next one, I see.

I did it 18 months ago. And then that offseason, JJ decides to take a liquor head job. So now I'm up for the finals. So I didn't really do any go have fun, just joke around stuff because I was trying to show that I could be locked in serious and do all the things. Once we got the finals, I signed my new contract, then it's like, okay, let's have fun. So I started doing one on one interviews. I'll give some respect to Sunday conversations between two firms, where I don't believe that the sports media or the basketball media allows athletes to just have fun. We don't. It's very inside stuff. We sit down. We did Tyrese Halliburton. We did Jalen Brunson is about to come out this week. We're Draymond. We got Gilbert, but we're going to have to wait on that until the feds come through. T. J. Mcannel, Robert Hory. We did some really good players, and the whole premise behind it is let's sit down, talk about nothing, laugh and joke, and it's 10 minutes on YouTube. Go subscribe.

All right. Thanks, man. We'll talk again soon.

Yes, sir.

You didn't think we'd close out the show without telling you about the Big Shack one more time, did you?

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It is LifeAdvice. Lifeadvice. Rr@gmail.

Com.

We have Souruti, we have Kyle, where you got some Red Storm gear. That might look like 24, 25 gear.

So have we not updated you with the St. John's gear?

I've got nothing with the details on it. I do not. So shout out to Rick for closing that deal. But I'm going to be We're going to be going down a couple of times this year. I bought one for the Creighton game, but I'm going to try to maybe get to Carnasec as well and visit the team shop. I'll load up. Xl still, Ryan? I'm going to pick up some stuff.

Getting close to double XL. Where are you from? Are you in a nursing home right now?

No, this is just... I'm a little bit homeless job-wise right now. We did some Zoom meetings before and you were like, Dude, look at that wood paneling. Please do the Please do the pod from there. And then the Zoom cuts out. I'm like, That's not really good. My mom swear she has the best WiFi, and I'm like, I'm just not going to fight you. So I'm in my dad's house with some... Found some blackout curtains. It's a work in progress. Might be getting in an office. I don't know. We're juggling stuff.

I I got a plant situation in there, too. Looking good.

A lot of sun. A lot of sun.

So wait, you didn't like in some of the test runs, video stuff, you didn't like me mentioning the faux rock wall and the wood paneling on the beam supports?

Man, I was happy to do it. I was like, I just wanted to see the smile on your face. But the WiFi was bad, and I was like, This is not a good start. So I'm hustling around trying to figure out where I can set up shop.

All right.

Anyway, Fire up some emails, lifeadvice@rr@gmail. Com.

I hope everybody had a great truck-tober. I don't really know. This is it. This is the first new show. We're excited about it. There's really not much else to say other than than that, I think. Do we give it a couple of weeks and we start doing what? Talking about how things have been in the new place? We're a drama-free show, so I don't really know what to do with this.

The most drama that we've had on the show is Big Cat's fault. Actually, that's not true. The Coors light thing might have been more drama, but I didn't really care about that. The audience seemed to care more about that.

That felt like war gone coded or something. I would have kept that one to myself.

That sucks. We don't have war gone with us because we have a marathon question. Damn.

Damn. All right.

All right.

Am I a bad boyfriend? High team. Love the pod. Go, Pat's 25 years old. 511, 180.

Play pickup, hoops, and soccer. Consider myself In decent shape, but not where I was in college. But like R. R, I refuse to ever say or think I'm washed and still think I could get in a really good shape if I committed to it. I could dissect that a little further if I wanted to, but I don't think I'm going to. I've been dating my girlfriend for three years. We live in a major northeast city and are thinking about moving in together soon. Things are great. We've hit a crossroad and need the council's opinion.

She floated out the idea of running a marathon next year together.

Oh, my God. She has run two, and I've always been open to doing it, so I think it's a great idea. The problem is she says, If we do it, I have to run at her pace so we can do it all together. What is wrong with them? This is not necessarily a bad thing, but my point was, I am running in a marathon, which I might only do once in my life, and I want to run it as fast as possible, which would mean not crossing the finish line together, supporting each other on the run, etc.

For context, she ran the last marathon in five hours.

Five hours. I actually don't think that that's... Well, go ahead, Sruti. We don't know.

As a non-ball knower, I think that might be a little long. That feels high. As a guy who would be proud to complete one, I think it sounds like a little... Maybe it's a little long.

My buddy Mark used to be like, Hey, you have the Boston Marathon thing.

People wear the jacket, and they'd walk around or whatever. And be like, Oh, I ran the marathon. And they'd be like, Oh, what was your time? And they'd say a time. They'd be like, So you walked all day? And now you're going to wear the jacket. It was definitely a dick thing to do.

The metal and the teeth thing.

Yeah. I think it's the training, maybe throw the sticker on the car. I don't think... I mean, again, I just googled it. Five hours is not considered slow for a marathon as it is a solid and achievable goal for many run.

It's getting soft.

It's below It is below average.

It is below average.

It's a great way to get the emails back up after we take a couple of weeks off.

But then again, should Google be saying, You can probably go faster than that. Put your laptop down.

That's what I would like Google to say. But instead, it's like, Hey, buddy, you're doing fine.

All right, so really, the question has nothing to do with that.

We just spent too much time on it.

The question is, what do you do in this situation?

Because he said, The question is, am I a jerk for wanting to run solo and trying to train go as fast as I could?

Should I run with her, which would be a lot of fun in a different way, but I think I'd be left wondering what my time would have been.

Appreciate the advice. We'll have to DM Oregon on the side to confirm. Yeah, I would do that first.

And then come get back to us. Take me over on Wargon mentions in the first show. Jesus.

Yeah, Jesus. Hammered it. Not even available. Gary Rozier is like, these guys just trust me.

They got to figure it out. Should have listened to them. I agree with our guy here. If I'm going to run a marathon, I'm not going to half-ass a marathon.

Are you going to talk? Are you guys going to talk? That seems like it would be hard to run and talk, right? I'm not a running expert. I mean, if But it seems like that would be hard.

That sounds miserable.

For five hours? Maybe that's why she's a five-hour... Maybe she's talking the whole time. I wonder.

I just don't think it's...

You're so mad.

You're so mad for it. I am mad for him.

I am mad for him. It's like, Hey, we're on the marathon together. Okay, cool.

But you have to run next to me the whole time.

Who knows?

Is this guy full of shit? Is he going to get out there?

And you realize like, Oh, wait, maybe I'm not going to get 4: 20. Not a wee joke, a realistic time for somebody doing it their first time. So, yeah, I'm mad on his behalf because I already know what world he's entering. He's entering a world of conversation pain because if he says, Hey, I'll do it, but do you mind? And then she's going to be like, Oh, what am I supposed to do?

It's like, I don't know, run the marathon in the original form that you thought it was going to be without your buddy side car in it next to you for five plus hours where your slow ass is working it up 12 pitch grade.

I've never understood run clubs. I'm going to be honest, because if you got a dozen people, are they all supposed to be at the same pace? Like, you're all supposed to just... It seems odd.

I think you're supposed to try to bang each other after. I don't think it's about running. I think it's more about after.

But you stick in a pack. They're always in packs. So it's like if somebody's really good, it's like, Man, I have to put the governor on just to try to hook up with somebody later. That doesn't seem like fun.

I don't know.

You want me to go to a concert?

I don't want to go to. Fine. You want me to go to a lunch spot that's all vegan? They don't have any flour. It's like a non-flour tortillas. Yeah, we'll give it a shot. Just dump some sauce on this. You want me to watch Sex of the City reruns, season one through however long it went because there's a couple of good lines in there. Yeah, I can give you those 28 minutes. But if you expect me as a physical specimen, as an athlete, to just, I got to run next to you the whole time?

Speaking of this, I brought my wife to 1 o'clock football yesterday. She thought maybe because it's not 10: 00 AM, whatever, we went to Hurricane. Shout out. Right off Main Street, Poughkeepsie. Two hours in, she was like, I had no idea it was this long. And you're not going to talk. I was like, Well, the Patriots are on. It's the Giants everywhere. So I had to get a side TV. And I'm not looking at her the whole time. My two other buddies are here. And she was just like, All right, great. I'm never doing this again. So I was like, I bit the bullet. That was my one marathon. And now I'm free Sunday is at one o'clock. I think she had a new win because football is not at 10: 00 AM now. It's 1: 00. I'm going to give this a shot. Yeah. This is the opposite of what is going on with our guy. But just because you were bringing up that whole thing, I felt like I wanted to share. I still enjoyed the game.

That might be the move then. Just be super annoying the whole time.

Maybe it does fit. Yeah. You want another gel?

Another gel shooter?

Hey, let's get some of that. Just keep nutting it. Yeah, just potassium.

Hey, let's split. Let's just spread the needle on these two guys in front of us.

Like tactically. All right, let's draft. All right, she's the target. All right, chase after this one.

Hey, do you think we have enough in our 401k's? And then she'll be like, Just go.

It's Mile 7. My God.

All right. I think we might have gotten into something here. That's good.

Are you doing Norwegian splits on your watch?

The only problem with that, though, is you're doing that for five hours.

That's Not if you're good at it. You might only be doing it for 90 minutes.

She's just like, go, go, just go. You're good. All right.

Can you imagine running a marathon and running it faster than you were supposed to, and then because your girlfriend was slower, then you get to the finish line, this is incredibly challenging thing to do physically, and at the end of it, you're in a fight because you went too fast.

I know we want to move on, but it sounds like he didn't push back at all. It sounded like she was a suggestion, but obviously, you have to run at my pace. It seems like maybe that was his one time to push back now that he's close. Now, if you don't do it then, as the marathon creeps up, you can't try to change the game plan. I think you had a second, I think.

No, I think you'd be like, Hey, I've been thinking a lot about this good idea. I really want I want to know what's best for myself. I want to know. I want to push myself to the limit. You think like two days out?

Oh my God. Yeah. I think the window's open.

It could be a no, but I think the window is still there to potentially bring it up.

So this means that my career is not taking off in five years, and she's like, You're just not pushing yourself hard enough. I can't point back to this and be like, Well, somebody didn't want me to push myself all that hard five years ago. So maybe you planted the seed for me to just accept what it is.

All right, different one here. Boss owes me some money. 5'9, 175.

No impressive gym stats, but I did lose 20 pounds at the beginning of the year and have kept it off. No basketball comp was a grinder in my pickup gears, but I'm a six handicap. Must be nice. Hey, guys, writing this during the break, so hopefully you all still see it.

I've been working at a restaurant since graduating from grad school while looking for a full-time job.

My manager boss is a really nice lady who works six, seven days a week, single mom, and can get bitchy, but a good boss overall. She has three kids, the middle of which is a big soccer player in middle school. I walk into my shift the other day, and She's complaining about how her babysitter flaked last minute, and no one can take her kid to practice. I volunteered not realizing the practice was 90 minutes away. Dude, welcome to you. You stupid son of a bitch. I'm on a Southwest flight to Dallas for this soccer showcase.

Jambourie.

I said, whatever.

It's better than a slow shift at the bar. So I took him to practice. It was overall very fun, actually. Crazy how much a 12-year-old can change her perspective. The thing is, she said she'd Venmo me ASAP, not just for gas food, but also for doing it. I spent like 40 bucks on food for the kid, and she hasn't even mentioned it over the last two shifts.

Any advice here?

I'm not necessarily broke, need the money since I've been with my parents for a few months, but we're still expecting some change I'm so bad at this.

All right. The first thing you have to- I'm so bad at this.

I'm so bad at this, man.

Well, okay, but understand, you just admitted she is a single mom of three who you like and is running a business.

She's at six, seven days a week.

So she is trying to just stay above water every single day.

So let's have some sympathy for her and her situation and what she's dealing with, okay?

And you said you liked her.

Right, right. Shout out to the single moms.

Marathon Girlfriends, not a high approval rating on the show. Single moms, we love them.

All right. So A little background if you're new.

She forgot about the compensation the second you said you were going to take care of the kid.

So she's not doing this to be malicious. She's simply doing it because this is so not important to her and the number of things that are important to her.

I would think there's probably going to be another opportunity at another time if you really care about the money that much.

So we don't like to just sit there and say, Hey, what is it? 50, 60 bucks, like suck it up or whatever. You met a 12-year-old, who knows? Who knows what life lessons that... I mean, Well, you get to pay him in knowledge. What are you looking for in a receipt?

So I would say there's going to likely be another opportunity where she will be like, Is there any way? And you're like, Yeah, no problem.

And then leave it or see if she says it again. And then she'll probably go like, Oh, my God, I never...

Unless she's a terrible boss, but you've not said that, she 100% forgot because she is overwhelmed with stuff.

Yeah, I'm so bad at this. I have had to get better because of like, Green's fees with golf and stuff. And even then, I've certainly taken the L couple of days.

So Venmo is for, though, dude.

No, I know. I know. I have done that, too. I've just sent a request. There's no text like, Hey, man, just right down to business. But outside of that, I mean, I've probably left a ton of money on the table just because just the entry into that just feels gross to me. And that's probably just a me thing, but just the entry into it. And then you got the whole boss thing. You're like, Is this going to screw something up for me in the future by weirdly bringing this up when I could just lose the money and maybe get it back another way by not being a weirdo? But the truth is, if somebody said they'll pay you something, it's okay to ask. I just suck at this. I don't really have a good... I got nothing for you, man.

I'm with you. Any situation-Whatever they say to do, I say do. I'll just eat the loss and just, Hey, this is a chalk it up to the game situation. But I will say, I think it's as easy as just a joke, be like, Hey, I'm thinking about making this my full-time side hustle if you want to keep paying me. You got any dates coming up? Just make it a joke. Then maybe she says, Oh, yeah. By the way, what do I owe you? That thing. Then there you go. It's off like that. I think you bring it up in a light, hard It's a funny way.

Don't just say, Hey, you're going to give me that 50 bucks.

What's the word for that? I don't know. I've thought about that, too, in certain things and be like, Don't. I'm not doing that. If there's a word... It's not disingenuous, isn't it? The word inception? That's what I was going to say. I don't think- No, but I'm always afraid someone sees through it and they're like, Look at you. You're such a little... You're such a wimp that you tried to do this through a joke. There's a word for it, but I don't know.

Yes, but I don't know. That's the most comfortable way that I would do it.

This dog has been breaking down the door. I was going to I can't believe it. I was going to say, What's going on, though? This dog is just like, I got to find a place to exist.

We need a rabbit update, speaking of animals.

Oh, my God, dude. They're in the garage. They're out of sight.

None done?

None are dead.

Is it cold in the garage?

Don't worry about it, man. It's fine. We all agree that it's fine.

This has been discussed.

Dude, I'm sleeping like a princess. It's incredible.

It's incredible. The air has never been cleaner.

Yeah, dude. It's really unbelievable.

Is it weird to not smell rabbit shit every moment? Dude, so weird. So weird.

Well, no, in my apartment, it was fine. It was just in the bedroom. And I was like, how could this be? What option do we have? But I had an office.

Who does this?

Yeah, maybe save the marriage. Getting out, getting back to the old crown jewel. So I'm on cloud nine lately. It's been awesome.

We have a lot of emails saying, Hey, where did we get the show?

Can't find it. Well, you couldn't find it because today was the first episode. So I think with the YouTube drops ahead of time, it confused some of you out there on where it is. But this podcast, its first episode today, is available wherever you get your podcast, Apple, Spotify, and of the YouTube stuff that we'll do, primarily one extra thing a week that will be video only and not audio. So I think we've had a pretty long episode today.

We're approaching three hours right now.

I think everyone has peed at least once before the before this episode is finished recording.

Yeah, we got... Yeah, Jake, who's putting our video today, is just like, I got to take a piss. Let me know if I missed anything. You're good, man.

I think we've all peed one time.

Yeah.

They're normally not this long.

We wanted to come out with just a really good start So thanks to everybody.

Please subscribe.

Tell everyone else to subscribe so you can make sure you can find us because we're starting all over again. So I'll thank Sourudi. I'll thank Kyle. Who else do I need to thank? Do we do that here?

Do we thank no one? Yeah, we thank Jake Bass, Kevin, who's our social guy, Tom, who's going to be one of our video guys, but is off the first week of the show. So good for him. But no, it's been great.

Off the first week, huh?

Yeah, but he was incredible the first two weeks of getting this thing on the ground.

He was awesome.

He This is not an anti-Thomas the man.

Yeah, I know. But there's going to be a lot of people. I hope these guys know they're in the crosshairs now because of Warga. Not because of me, just because of the audience.

But look, once again, just to thank everybody that's ever hung out and listened to the show and watched any of that stuff.

Just hoping to build it back up again and get back to where we were. So again, please subscribe to Ryan Rusillo Show, part of the Barcelo Network. The Barstool Network.