Almost Athletes with Dude Perfect - Chris Pratt Trains Dude Perfect's Cody Jones for NBA Celebrity Game

Episode Date: January 21, 2026

Star of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Jurassic World, and The LEGO Movie, Chris Pratt joins the Dudes to talk about his movie career, his hilarious Almost Athlete moment, and his Seattle Seahawks super-fandom before turning into a coach and giving Cody advice on how to get in NBA shape. Before Chris joins, the guys break down the College Football National Championship and the divisional round of the NFL Playoffs, including hot takes on Bo Nix, Josh Allen, Dak Prescott, and C.J. Stroud. Later, the Twins jump in with behind-the-scenes stories from Dude Perfect’s newest video, Highest Dunk Wins. It all wraps with hilarious fan voicemails debating whether the Super Bowl and March Madness should be national holidays, plus a classic two-minute rant to close it out. If you have a question, hot take, or your own Almost Athlete moment, go to AlmostAthletes.com or call [phone]. Be sure to check out Chris Pratt in Mercy, in theaters Friday, January 23rd. Chapters:  00:00 Introduction  02:00 College Football National Championship 09:00 MLK Day Incident  12:00 NFL Playoff Recap  17:35 NFL Predictions  24:50 Brooks Koepka, PGA, & LIV  27:05 Almost Athlete Moment  34:45 Chris Pratt Introduction  35:55 Chris Pratt’s Take On The Seattle Seahawks  38:30 Chris’ Almost Athlete Moment  42:35 The Moment Chris Pratt Knew He Wanted To Act 53:05 Cory and Coby Cotton Introduction  54:15 BTS On Longest Dunk Video  56:20 Round 1: Highest Free Throw 57:45 Round 2: Slingshot  01:00:20 Round 3: Elevated Dunk Tank  01:03:00 Final: Highest Dunk  01:07:25 Voicemail #1: What Is Everyone's Real Name  01:08:55 Voicemail #2: Is March Madness or CFB Easier To Win  01:14:35 Voicemail #3: Should The Super Bowl / Day After Be A Holiday  01:18:35 Two Minute Warning What to do now: 1. Smash that LIKE button  2. Hit SUBSCRIBE so you never miss a DP podcast moment  3. Drop a comment with who YOU want to see on Almost Athletes next! Subscribe for more!    https://www.youtube.com/@almostathletes    • • • • Almost Athletes with Dude Perfect is (almost) a sports podcast. Tune in weekly to hear the dudes’ hottest sports takes, great debates, interviews with your favorite athletes and entertainers, and hilarious BTS from all things Dude Perfect.  New episodes drop every Wednesday.  Follow along on all platforms.   Listen to the pod on your morning commute or wherever it finds you: Apple: - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/almost-athletes-with-dude-perfect/id1834502483 Spotify: - https://open.spotify.com/show/55gaQm31JIbp6td7QtYsPU?si=6423db3118ac497f Follow Almost Athletes to keep up with the Dudes!: https://www.instagram.com/almostathletes https://www.tiktok.com/@almostathletes https://x.com/almostathletes_ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How long do you have? 30 days from today. Oh, yeah. Dude, I'm telling you. You can, you could actually do. He's motivated, baby. Yeah, let's go. You could do 100 burpees a day for 30 days,

and you'll out hustle everybody in the court. Burpees. They're like, that's like the worst. I know, that's, guess what? And that's why no one you're competing against is going to do it except for you. So man up. Hey, get the burpees done and go win this game, bro. Let's go.

Step up. Do you hear that? That was motivating. Walking out the door doing 100 burpees right now. I want to just run through the monitor. All that for my God, though. You're so right. And if I somehow pull off the MVP trophy,

I'm giving all the glory to my guy, Chris Brad. Let's go. I'm watching now. I'll become a fan of basketball. I'm watching now. Hey, join it. We can, the little pick and roll action, you can just give me six different looks.

Welcome to Almost Athletes with Dude Perfect, A Wave Original. We're your host. Garrett. Smart. T.T. Back for another app. Yeah, and ties and shorts today, which is crazy talk. It was a bad move.

You know, I don't look a lot. a lot of times at the weather. But I got a jacket, so I got half of it right. Half right, half wrong. It's really cold, by the way. What is the temp outside today? About 29? Something like that.

I think it's below 30. So naturally, we came in early, and then we're going to go outside and film today. So going outside. That's fun. Yeah, it can be. If you get frostbite, can you like ramp that? Yeah, you can rent, you can expense frostbite. That's a new company policy.

It's 27 degrees for everybody wondering at home. Oh, you got it. Yeah. At least the humidity is 54%. That helps. That's a good humidity. Coming up on today's app, we're going to talk to movie star Chris Pratt. We're going to react to the NFL playoffs headed to championship Sunday.

We have a national title crowned in the college game, and the twins are going to join us to talk behind the scenes of our newest main channel video, highest dunk wins, all that and more. Let's start with the Indiana Miami game. Who are we all cheering for? I wanted Signetti to get his championship. You wanted Indiana to finish the mission. Yeah, I was rooting for Indiana the whole time. And then when Miami had that that last.

last drive, I was like, man, it'd be it'd be just storybook for them to come back and win this thing. After the roughing the passer call, it felt real. I was like, man, he's going to lead him down the field. What a full character arc, you know? Indiana has pretty much beat down every opponent

that they played. And Miami game around for their money, dude. They're a good team. I feel better about the Aggie loss. I don't take really a ton of solace in that because it's a single game. Take solace care. If we played Miami

again, they might beat us 45 to 3. Like, I don't know. I'm not like the other college programs. We're like, well, you beat this and this. So I'm a national champion as well. It's like, no, but it was clearly a very good team that we lost to. Yeah, Miami's really good. Defense of Francis stud.

I want that Bain kid on the Cowboys ASAP. Yeah, yeah. I do credit the Aggies for waking up Bain, though, for all the stuff they talked about them before the game. Yeah. I had a buddy asked, though, like, can we now say that the two best teams are in the Natty? I was like, well, I mean, it's still a one-game playoff. There's a world where if Ohio State played in, you know...

I still think Ohio State is one of the best teams. Agreed, agreed. But all things considered, really good showing from Miami. I was impressed by, and we heard that there was going to be mostly Hoosier fans there in Miami. They took over. Yeah, there was a lot of them. But I think I lean that coaches don't impact the game maybe as much as a lot of people give way. I downplay the coaching generally.

I think hearing some of those stats about the game. that team, that is on, and I don't know, they said that that was their first false start in a second half of a game all year long, which is when they, Miami got the ball, because they could have, they could have iced the game. That O. Lyman got the false start call. Then that led to Miami getting the ball back. And then Spark said just a minute ago that they had not lost a fumble. This old dominion week one. In, I mean, that's crazy. I mean, you play like that and that's going to be really hard to lose. You always generally have that.

That one guy on your team, too, who's known for the fall starts, you know, you practiced with them growing up. Yeah. They didn't even have that guy. I mean, that's very impressive. Rewind to week one, what's incredible. Their first play of the whole season, Old Dominion, 75-yard touchdown on the first play of the year against Indiana. Wow. You're not crazy.

Congratulations, Indiana. What a football team. I also heard that they have the biggest alumni base in the nation in the country. Is that true? Can you fact check that? I heard that from somebody yesterday. There's no way. What are the biggest, just numbers wise?

Alumni. Over like 800,000 alumni? That can't be true, but... Yeah, top universities by living alumni. IU, number one, over 805,000 living alumni. They just live older than those fans or what? Is there some kind of secret sauce to where... I don't understand that.

I don't understand that stuff. How does that work? And is that a good thing for Indiana, or does that mean they're like admissions maybe a little too easy? Yeah, graduate... I don't know. I don't know. Passive working number of...

That's why. That's why. Why? It's not just one. campus. Oh, you got the I-U-P-U-I? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I just think all the stats are crazy about Indiana. I mean, they were, they had three winning seasons since like 1985. I think zero-ten wins seasons. And then they've lost two games, the last two with Signetti, Big Ten champions, never done that, Heisman Trophy winner, a guy that was a two-star recruit, third string quarterback, now a Heisman

trophy winner, national champion. Like, all that. storybook stuff. They were like everything just doesn't make sense but what does make sense is they were coached well. I had a little little Giants character arc to them

you know. The team that wasn't supposed to be there but to Ty's point it's like service academy levels of discipline. You expect that out of your Army Navy type teams but man they're so buttoned up.

But you expected that at a Sabin team too and Signetti came from Sabin. Like he doesn't celebrate the little stuff. Like he just like I mean it's like you're supposed to score a TD yeah.

We're not going to celebrate that. The expected things. I was like, that's pretty cool. He did let himself go on the awesome play call in the fourth and five. Huge draw. He accidentally went his hand. What a play call.

That was his Heisman moment. He won the Heisman, but my gosh, dude. That was special. For sure. Well, and because they showed the behind the line of scrimmage and they, you know, they had that safety come up and he was going to the left. He like geared off the ride. Did you hear his little post game right after talking about that play call?

Dignetti? Yeah, they were asking him, what was the call there? And I think they called a timeout right before that. They sent the field goal team out there and then called time out. Called time out. Then the defense was in some package that he liked. And so they were like, okay, let's send him back out. And we're going to call the QB draw.

And they stayed in that same defensive formation. So when he snapped the ball, he was like, okay, he's going to have a chance at it. And then it looked like he was going to get stopped. It did. And then he juked off. That was cool. Leap of faith into the end zone. Yeah.

Heck of a game. Back-up again. The biggest play of that game, though, the block punt. Yeah. 100% of the block pot. Oh, yeah, but also like all the, I mean, is Mendoza the greatest, you know, back-shoulder fade thrower of all time? I've never seen so many back-shoulder balls.

And he puts them like, underthrown balls, whatever you want to call them. He puts them right where only his receiver can catch him. A Becker kid had two big boys on those back shoulders. Catch us. Those were huge moving the chains. Yeah, they won fourth down, one special team. You think he's going to be good in the pros? Who?

Mendoza. at the Raiders. Man, I actually thought Miami's front did a really good job getting to him. Like, the pass pro, wasn't that great? He was shaking there early. He was shaking to him in the first half a lot. I mean, dude, they knocked, they knocked some sent to him for sure. He got smoked one under the chin that made him bleed a little bit.

I love, I love Signetti's half-time speech, too. That's just gold, dude. He didn't wait around to call them out on that. Yeah, I mean, they missed three personal foul calls in one drive, but, uh... I'm all for letting them play. I almost text you. When it's black and white, you probably should call it. That's so good.

I almost text me like, oh, there. Garrett was showing right there. First question, not even asked about the officiating and he went in. Yeah. It was fun. It was super fun.

Super emotional, though, now that college football is over. How do you feel the void of no football season? I just plug and play with baseball. Oh, Dallas Stars for sure. I brought up that we should go back and just do an off-season fantasy football

where we pick a year 86 where nobody really knows what happened. And you draft. But nobody can go look up stats or anything and you just play 86 football. and you do that until next year. And you just, you watch the games in order. Yep, in order.

We figured out how to get them all televised. Yep. Who's up? Before we get into the NFL, anything fun, interesting happened this weekend? I heard rumors of what happened at the office. Oh yeah, my daughter. Dude. Are we getting sued?

Shoot us straight, dude. Yeah, so here's a deal. We have a very strict policy. You bring, you bring family, friends, you sign a waiver. Yeah. I've never done that because, you know why? For this exact reason. You wanted this option.

Yesterday was a holiday, MLK day. So we had off, and I was like, I don't want to work out at 5 a.m. So woke up, and I was like, hey, family, let's go to the office. I'll work out. Y'all just play around. Probably should have just gone and worked out at 5 a.m. Daughter fell off the box jumps, hit her chin, blood everywhere. Oh.

Six stitches. Yeah. Yeah. And a lawsuit coming. Where's the location? Oh, right under the chin. It's just like. Chin music.

I mean, bro, like she got up and just... Do you clean up the blood? After the workout. You did? Yeah, I was like, Kristen, you're going to have to take her to the ER. I got, you know, bench set to finish up here. Yeah. Describe to me how it happened.

She was jumping on the box jump? No, she's just getting off. She's getting off. And Velcro caught her shorts and kind of kept her on and flung her forward. It doesn't always hurt more when it's your favorite child, too. That goes through something like that. Oh, dude, the sound was brutal. If it was one of your boys, it's like, you know, I'm just like, get up, dude, put up, you know, walk to the hospital to block away.

When it's your girl, though, that's, that's tough. I was doing some extracurricular work this weekend. We're filming a log cabin video for D.P. Outdoors. And I, Chad got mad at me, but I went ahead and did a little work off camera, built a really nice cedar and oak table. Now that table's just going to appear. I know, we're going to have to. I know, I know. I've already heard all this.

They want to refilm it. They want me to deconstruct. can do it again. We'll see. It's going to be good, though. I was very pleased with how it turned out. Yeah, that table turned out awesome. It was good.

It was good. There's no almost athlete and building a log cabin, that's for sure. No, you can be. It depends on who's building it. Like, if you put Jackson, building a log cabin, you got your almost athlete.

It's a foundation falls while you're sleeping inside of it on night one. That's true. Back to the stitches real quick. Y'all ever had any? No. Wow, really? Zero career stitches?

No, and Iris has had she's had, this is their second stitch. She had the knee and then chin and within like six months. She's just killing it right now. She doubled down. I should have had a lot of stitches. Yeah, but you just butterflyed them up yourself. I usually would avoid going to the doctor and I'd do it myself. That's insane. I started at two years old, caught a rock to the head on family vacation, sister through it. That's stitches number one. Yeah. The one between the eyes was running to the door. Cousin was coming, tripped on my shoe. That was before I double bunnies. That's when I started the double bunny shoe time. I'm a big butterfly guy.

Big butterfly. As long as you can close up the wound and stop the bleeding, I'm good. So I'll do my finger with a table saw. You can still see the mark. And there was nothing to stitch to. There was just a big gap where the table saw went through my finger. That's just shocks me. I would have taken the over two and a half stitches.

On paper, I should have had probably 10. Give them some of the crazy things you do. Did them all usually myself. It's a good segue into, you know, Bo Nix's ankle. Yeah, ma'am. I need to stitch that up. I had somebody ask me this, and it really kind of. It doesn't make any sense.

They claim it happened on a kneel down. Yeah, that makes sense. That's the thing is I don't know what it happened. It's either pre-existing injury or he celebrated and did something and they're like, it just doesn't make it. I've watched that play a million times. Like where did it happen? Maybe he had a really bad bunion and he couldn't bend his toe so his ankle kind of went out weird.

It's preexisting then. Maybe you need to get your bun taken care of that means before you break your ankle. So he was just playing with fire and it just happened on a cold night. It stinks. It's insane that like he didn't even know when he did it. I will say, oh, Nix has been. he's been decent. I don't think he's been like,

you know. A world beater. Yeah. Until like I think their defense is really what's held them in the games. Sure. And like, Stidham coming in, like I think they,

I don't think it's like that big of a fall off. Really? I don't. Last time he started two years ago, what a full circle moment for him. Before we get into Stidham though, do you feel more bad for Bo Nix who wins and then loses his season to injury

going from that high to low? Or do you feel worse for Josh Allen who just straight up loses in heartbreaking fashion when he was given his emotional post-game presser. Yeah, I mean,

you obviously feel bad for Knicks because, like, he did everything to win that ball game and now he can't even see it through. That's gut-wrenching, man. Yeah. Josh Allen had arguably

the worst game of his career. They still had the op. They still got the stop in O-T. Not as bad as some other QBs in the league, though. Mm-hmm. C.J. Stroud. It's, yeah. Yeah.

I agree. Dan O, I think, said it. You put almost, you put any other quarterback in the NFL in that game. He had 10 turnovers in those two games. And now granted, the weather was nasty. Also, are we not going to talk about?

I know, but you got, I hate the fact that we're going to I mean, yeah, some of the balls were a little overthrown, but dude, the receiver's hands were on those balls tipping them up to the... Sure, there's some that are not necessarily... And then on top of that, it's like, the team also, you know, with Mark's fumbling, like, they just played bad football.

They didn't play. Opposite of Indiana. Right. Definitely not playoff football. Now, I will say he can't do that two games in a row and expect to win. No, but I also think he was, he's also trying to do too much. Like a lot of those fumbles were he's already pressure. He's getting brought down.

And then he tries to make a last minute throw. Ball gets to it. It comes out. Like. And Collins was hurt, right? That game. Nico was hurt. And then they lost Schultz, which was a huge deal too.

So like he was like down to a rookie, his rookie receiver. Yeah. Like he was down big. And what shocked me the most was, Houston, I believe it was like a one-score game that early in the second half, we're just dropping back. And I was like, run the football, baby, run the football. It's nasty weather.

They should have beat. I mean, I just don't think. You can't turn it over that many times on the road in Foxborough and expect to win. And they still found themselves in a game. Should they move on the Texans from Stroud? No. He had the great rookie season.

You see this a lot. Unbelievable rookie season. You see this at the quarterback position. I bought one of his rookie cards and paid an absurd amount of money for it. Oh, no. I did the same with the same with the, I did the same with Richardson. And it's been downhill ever since.

I don't think you give up on, I mean, dude, like, again, who's too early? Who are you going to go get? Sure. Yeah. Like, that staff should remain intact. Now, I will say. You're pressing the restart button.

Yeah, but then you have a game, like, what was it, three or four weeks ago, when literally the first drive every place, 60-yard TD, Hanuko, Jaden Higgins, 55 yards, like, they looked unreal. It cold weather. The weather played a huge effect. Yeah. I also think the game before with the four and he's just confidence.

I wouldn't give up on him. Anderson's not giving up on him and that dude is a beast. Yeah. Anderson said he still believes he's the best QB in the league. I know he's, I know he's hyping up his teammate, but. It's a good teammate play. But like, I don't think you give up on him.

The good news about Houston, though, is they don't need much roster instruction. Like, they're close to. Dack went through the same thing. Yep. And everyone wanted to jump ship on Dack. It happens with the quarterbacks. lot. Every single person. After a good rookie season, you have the sophomore slump.

Unfortunately for Stroud, it was just a sophomore slump that turned into his third year. And as good as that defense is, you really don't need to have that grade of QB play, which is, that's what's crazy. You just got to drive the bus. You could be bad. You could be bad. Just don't be bad and turn it over. Yeah.

Ten times in two games. I do have a hypothetical. I saw this question the other day and I was like, I don't know. I guess the only thing I would side with Josh Allen is because he got to the AFC championship one time. Better career, Alan, Dak Prescott. Up to this point? Yeah, right now.

I mean, they're on like the exact same trajectory. I know. Like they literally, like, they haven't won really, they haven't won anything. Josh has the MVP. Does Dak have an MVP? So if they switch teams,

what are the records look like? I don't know. See, that's the thing is like. That's a great hypothetical. I mean, I don't think Josh plays better than, DAC played unbelievable this year.

Yeah. I don't think that changes the Cowboy season if Josh is on the team instead of Dak. Yeah, I'm not sure it changes. I don't either. I agree. It was a, it was a good question because we have been,

me and a lot of Cowboy fan have been like, you know, is Dak the guy? And he basically has the same as Josh Allen. Yeah. I don't think it change as much, to be honest. Yeah, I think Josh is the AFC version of Dak. And the Cowboys are the exact opposite of the Texans. In terms of...

I'm saying they're offensively, most of the time, they had no struggles. The defense was a nightmare. And then Texans is just complete opposite. Their defense kept them in the games. We're one side of the balls in the competition. And they just couldn't score. Lean on one side of the ball to do it all.

Okay, so looking ahead, boys. Yeah, you have Denver hosting New England. I saw that opened as like a touchdown favorite. I think Patriots get that done. Easily? No, not easily because it's a AFC championship game away from home. But weather's not going to be an element for them because they play in nasty weather. And they're playing it back up QB.

Pretty cool, full circle moment though, for Stidham, who's drafted by the Pats and he has a chance to do like the coolest thing ever. What a house money opportunity for him. It's a good way to tell kids, stay ready, you know, when you're not starting. I think Seahawks. You have Seahawks and Hose. I'm trying to think, well, I think my prediction was Seahawks and Pats. I don't remember a couple weeks ago when we did our predictions. I did do Seahawks and Pat's.

I think mine was Bill's and Seahawks. Mine was Bills and Rams. So we lost our bills in gut-wrenching fashion. And you still have the Rams in play? Anybody like the Rams chances, though? I mean, Seattle? Experience. No.

McVeigh and Stafford, but. It'll be a good game. Depends on Darnold. See, there's another guy, though, that took some time to come around. Arnold? Yeah. Yeah. I needed a change of scenery before you ever came a way around. But that's my point, though, is like Donald, you wouldn't put in like the top?

No. Eight? No. Quarterbacks? No, I don't think so. And he has a chance to take their team to the Super Bowl, and he's playing in a conference championship. Because they're a well-rounded team. Yep.

Well, that's what I'm saying. I wouldn't give up. Houston's a well-rounded team, man. I think Houston's very close to being good for a long time. Yeah. Very much so. Well, Gary, what was your opinion on the controversial catch-vers I-N-T call? Personally, like I wanted it.

After watching it, the Devante Adams one was different than the Cook's one. Yep. I think the refs got him right. The Cook's one to me, that should have been a catch. Like no I-N-T.

Caught the ball, goes down to the ground, is down by contact. Then the ball gets rid of way. Which I thought was the rule. And then the ball gets taken away. So I don't know what the actual rule is or if it's there, it's just, I think it's subjective. It is.

That's the issue, though, that it is subjective. We've been dealing with this since Deskot. Pre-Deskatch, really, we still can't define exactly what it catches. No, but the Devante one looked different. Like, he, like, caught the ball, took a step, bent his knee down, then they ripped it. First, Cooks was, like, all in one motion. More simultaneous. Yeah.

It was like he was falling out. Now, I will say, I agree with their call that it could have been, like, interception, sure. But I disagree for not calling a passenger interference. Because you called a passenger interference at very next drive, one of the weakest pass interference calls. And that should have been pass interference on Cooks, on a McMillan. Who was gardening? No, who was guarding them?

It was McMillan. In those games, I'm so, like, if it's 60, 40, 50, 50, 50, go with the no call. Yeah, I think you got to go to the offense. Like, you got to, it's like, it tie goes to the runner. I hate that the refs overshadowed that game because that was a good game. Because that was a good game. In fact, actually, while watching the National Championship last night in the college game, I was like, they do their PI rule better.

They let the college game get away with more hand fighting and stuff. And they stuck to it the whole night. There was hand fighting going on, but they never called it. And I enjoyed that. Whereas the NFL, I feel like they're nitpicky. You touch a guy when the ball's coming down to them and it's. But other than the Seahawks game, like, that was some good NFL. What about the Caleb play, man?

What makes no sense to me? I don't understand why you're even guarding that way. Backyard football. The old of the pocket just went on it. On an arm, though. The arm talent. He threw that off his back foot. 40-yard ball?

Don't forget the temp. It was like negative two wind chill. And then he overshadows it with a just a bad throw. Yeah. Is that one of those things where you wish you almost didn't even throw the miracle touchdown on fourth down? Because you go to overtime and miss the off. And then lose it. Yeah, because it wouldn't have been on him if they lost that game.

Because you could have been like, well, do my offensive line, let four guys through and I had to heave it up. Now it's on him because he threw the. the interception and for the winning drive. What a pick by curl, though. Full extension hangs on to it, too. I'm happy for Matt Stafford. I know he already has one, but it's been a really fun year. Matt's obviously on the way out. You might get one more, man.

That's going to be some good football coming up. I think if it's George Pickens instead of Brandon Cooks, you have a different opinion on the I-N-T versus catch rule. Oh, if it's cowboys? Yeah. 100% I'd be a catcher. I just keep going back to that one, and I'm like, if I was a Texan-Rexam. You can watch, I mean, if you're in my house, like, I was a Bill's fan that day.

Like, I was obviously been like, that's a catch. Review that, review that. But like, then looking back at it, you're like, I mean, I don't know. Yeah, that's so tough. Yeah, if that was the Cowboys, I would be living. I'd be blasting that rest. Because it's not like it was a contested catch. It was a catch.

Yep. Goes down, rips it away on the ground. Yep. I think that should be a catch all day. I never want to be. It got Sean McDermott fired. So. Wow.

I never want to be in an NFL. NFL ref. That's a job I could easily never take. Just a ref in general. What a tough life. Yeah, I feel bad for Sean. But it's a results-based business. It is. And he just didn't get it done.

And you're not going to fire Josh Allen, so. Sure. Somebody's got to be a fall guy. Somebody has to be. So what jobs are open? I hate the fact that Harbaal went to the Giants. Yeah, that's a good hire. That's a good hire.

He's going to cook us, dude. Yeah. He's just a good coach. He's a wild. Stapansky, his contract's kind of wild. Like getting like 12 and a half a year. He's the highest paid NFL coach. I didn't know that.

He did win two, Coach of the years in like the last six years. If I'm Raiders, I go after Sean McDermott, though. Or I go after Joe Brady, but I think the bills are just going to promote from within. Raiders may need that bridge coach where you bring somebody in

who's a raw-rah kind of guy for two years. If you're the bills, do you go to Joe Brady? Bills, you go to go with whoever gives you the best chance to win a Super Bowl. Well, I'm saying he's a great O.C. Yeah. He's going to leave you. Well, heck, you saw what happened in Chicago.

Man, they hired an O.C. And it really worked. They got really close. I think Bill's hired Joe Brady. That's my guess. That's good prediction. I think Raiders go Sean McDermott. Steelers, Browns, and Arizona all go like OCDC type guys.

Where's Tomlin end up? Is he done? He has to get a job. Mike's been doing too well for too long. Yeah, I mean, he could go to the Raiders. That's a great person to turn that team around. I will say, I was watching with a group of boys, the NFL playoffs. We were having fun with it.

It was a great time. And I just stopped and said, boys, how fun would this be if the Dallas Cowboys were around? It would be really fun. We're missing that, man. Now, granted, I'd be stressed. I'd have stress levels up to my ass. I'd rather be stressed and. Same, man, I just want to be a part of it again.

I want to be a part of the dance. So hopefully the Cowboys are there in the near future. Mike Tomlin claims, by the way, he's taking a year off. I also am claiming to take a year off. Can we do that? Can we do that? Is that legal? I mean, yeah, sounds like it.

I'm claiming a year off, heard it here first. It's a good move by him. Smart move. You know? You think he's out building the log cabin? It's going to chill in it. I don't know. I'd love to get him on D.D.

You should hit him up? Yeah. See if he wants to come join the build. A tunnel and DPO collab. That would be fun. People wouldn't see that one coming. No. And then you hit him with a Pete Carroll in the next episode?

Gosh, that's fun. I like it. A guy who's not taking a year off. Who's that? Brooks Keppka. No. No, he's not. I listen to a podcast with Willout Torres.

He thinks the punishment's fair. $5 million fine. Is it? $5 million? That's it? Well, and you're not allowed to partake in the player equity program.

So he's looting. I don't know enough about that. That's 50 to 80 million loss. I would take $300 million a year to pay a $5 million fine pretty easily. And your $80 million loss from the player equity side. I mean, again,

you got a free $200 million paycheck. So if you're really trying to keep guys from, and I don't know what lives future is, but if you're really trying to keep guys from going over there. Yeah, but see, Liv only really has two other guys, three, that really move the needle for PGA. And that's Rom, Ram, Brigham, Smith, and Bryson.

Yep. Other than that, like, who cares about your DJs and your Ian Poulters? Like, those guys aren't really going to win on the PGA anymore. So... Do you think this moves the needle, Brooks going back to the PGA side, where live takes a massive hit here.

Yeah. Well, this, to me, tells me there's not going to be a merger. Ever. Which is a golf neutral and a golf lover. I was really hoping for the merger, to be frank with you. Yeah, I think everyone was, but now they couldn't. So now it's like, all right, we just want the best product for PGA, which it's kind of like NBA and, you know, all the other leagues overseas.

Like, those exist fine, but like the main, the main is the NBA. Same with NHL. Is this a domino effect? Do you think Brooks is the first golfer of many? I don't know. I hope Rom and Bryson come back to the PCA. Just for the love of the game, just as a guy wants to watch. Yeah, at some point for those guys, after you've collected that check, it's like...

Yeah, the deed's done, right? Now it's about competition. Yeah, and you're just going to go play a, like, nobody on Live tour? And Liv went to four rounds this year, so, like, it's not like the lower toll on your body. Yeah. They went away with the 72 holes? Playing on Sundays again. Now they're going to 72, yep.

Now they're going to 72. Wow. So it'll be a fun season. I miss golf. I'm glad it's back. Just had the Sony open. Boys, this week's almost athletes moment is kind of a sad one. And by kind, I mean just straight up sad.

High Point Central High School in North Carolina, that's a mouthful, announced that they are suspending their varsity football program after their team finished the season. O in 10 and got outscored 523 to zero. They didn't score a point. How do you not score one point? How does another team, like, on game eight, just not, like, put the, put the three deep in and let you get one?

That's our most lob-sided defeat was 72 to rip, which is actually surprising, given the fact they gave up 523 points. Have y'all ever seen anything like this? I've watched a little bit of it when A&M played Miami. We couldn't score anything. Yeah, but at least you didn't give up 523. It felt like we gave up 523. I don't, is that that has to be the first time that a team in,

I don't know, is it that they've scored zero points? entire season. I don't follow North Carolina high school football too closely, but I'm saying high school football in general. I come from a historically bad high school. I saw some, I saw some things growing up, Gainesville beat them 77, nothing, Salina, 81 to 3. Yeah, but those are the big games. It has the big games. Never got shut out a whole season, though. That's what I'm saying. A whole season, I mean, just your parents have got to be not a field goal, nothing? So here's the thing, boys. Not only did they get shut out, go defeated, they folded the purse. They folded the program for a year. I think that's probably a good call. You're like this. You're endorsing this?

I think that surprises me. I think that's probably a good idea from the AD. It's like, hey, look, maybe we're a basketball school. Yeah. You know? Concerns about safety and long-term sustainability. I will say like, he threw the safety part in there. I think he's just, he's embarrassed. Imagine getting 523 and then you got to go in for like your standard eyed testing the next day at school. That's a tough school year. Poor seniors on that North Central. Maybe they're not ready. Small school. What about the pet rally? Yeah, not much pep in those rallies Probably not a ton of pep

It's like hey guys Maybe this is the week We score a point Unless our sadness rallies What's the worst team you've ever been on Been a part of? Oh yeah, our flag football team Our dude perfect flag football team

We created a couple years ago It was pretty bad You know I didn't play high school football I was a basketball And so You know we were a small school And most of the guys played football And so we

But the basketball season would start before. Right. So, man, it was like, we never had a losing season. No, no, no, I'm saying that's the, that's the lowest I've been, though. It's like, it was me with a bunch of freshmen.

Oh, before the football guys. Yeah. And you're playing ponderers who are basketball only. And you're getting beat 95 to 28. That's what high point North Carolina needs to do. And you're just trying to like, you're cheering for the football team to make in the playoffs, but you're also cheering them to lose so they can come back.

Yeah, you're not going to shed a tear when they lose. Yeah, it's his, Where I grew up is we were on the opposite of that. We were, I had our full roster for basketball because we were out of the football playoffs. We were beating up on teams. I don't think I've ever been on a losing season team. You wouldn't associate yourself with such. I would.

I'd be okay with it. But I don't think that have been. You move out. You go buy your own property and move out from old North Central High. They did score in 2023. That was their last win. Wait, that's their last score. they were scoreless in 24.

They managed to score 19 points in 24. Their last win came in 23. They must just have a really bad class. And if you're a senior from High Point Central, I apologize, but... Wow. Also, if you're at High Point Central, and you're listening to this for some reason, I think it's time to go home and maybe ask for a transfer request from parents.

Maybe go to Low Point Central. Yeah. That's fair. I don't know the rival school. I love. Point Central may be a better fit. Well, man, that's brutal. That's, that one's hard. I don't know. I'm just surprised y'all are, y'all are in agreement with the fold. I mean, you scored, you scored 19 points and 31 points in three years?

Yeah, what's that averaging about 11 points a season? That's one point a game. Just know, when you get, when you get, when you're scoring, you're a parent watching a kid, and you're like, well, we're not going to see a, another one of those because on average we're only getting 11 points of season and there go seven. Does the stadium erupt when they scored last year?

It's like when you go to it's like you sports when you're your kids on that team. You know, they're getting beat. Hadn't scored all season. And then they score and it's like winning the national championship. Somebody kicks a ball and it goes off your kid's foot and you're like, oh yeah, he scored. It was a goal.

We're counting that. It's like that, yeah. We need to know more. Which is brutal. Yeah. Yeah. Not five-year-old. It's hard to tell a senior that five-year-old you can kind of. Yeah, they don't know they do score. Yeah, exactly. That's tough. Wow.

I'd love to know more about this, though. So if you were on this team or played against them, send a voice mail, tell us about it, 972-805-8866. That's a job I will not be taking. I would take some of those NFL jobs, but... You're not signing up for High Point Central? No, beautiful part of the country, though. Yeah?

Yeah. High Point is beautiful. Is it? Oh, it's absolutely gorgeous over there in the Carolinas. Yeah. Maybe they got a great golf program. Maybe. Not beautiful enough to take that job.

Boys, this time for almost sports, we did car jiu-jitsu last time around, which we do have a fun social coming out very soon. We got almost athletes. You got in the car. I was going to say the rink, but you got in the car. Got in the car. Damaged the car as well. Yeah, we don't want to give any.

Do you, after playing that almost sport, do you think it's an almost sport, or do you think it's a sport? I'm going to keep it in the almost sport category. However, it's an almost sport that I could really get on board with. Oh, yeah. All right. You would excel, for sure. That's a fun one.

Sometimes we have these almost sports, I'm kind of like, yeah, I don't, that's, we've gone too far. You don't want to play quidditch. I would love to play quidditch. Well, if you're flying. Yeah, yeah, physics-wise. If they figure out the flying part, you're in. We figure out flying broomsticks I'm in.

But some of these is kind of like, you know, that's not really. I'm not putting that as an almost sport. Carjujitsu, that was a blast. You'll see the video coming out. out. I believe early next week. That was a fun one. Okay. Life is tough, G. Between the work and the friends and all the sports we need to watch for the pod, I don't know how you do it with kids. And now you know I lost all my hair, but I wouldn't be able to juggle it without two things. My amazing wife and DoorDash. I definitely need a wife,

but in the meantime, DoorDash has been there for me during my marathon eight-hour gaming sessions. And as a parent, DoorDash is definitely a lifesaver at dinner time. But we've used DoorDash for a lot of other things. Have you ever dooredash sand for a sandbox like Corey did? Not yet, but when our kids were sick, we did have to doordash some cold medicine. Or when Kristen is homeschooling and the kids run out of supplies, we doordash some supplies so she can keep her lessons on track. Well, it's good to know that no matter how unpredictable life with kids can be, DoorDash is there to help. Do you think DoorDash could help me get a wife and kid? I think you're on your own with that one, but they definitely could help you get some body wash, cologne, and some new threads for your next date. Speaking of dates, it sounds like

you and Kristen could use one. Why don't you DoorDash a romantic dinner tonight after you put the kids to bed? I like the way you think. When life gets crazy, DoorDash helps bring a little order to it. Our guest is a huge movie star whose films have grossed over $14 billion. He's the star of Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Jurassic World, the Lego movie, the Super Mario Bros movie, the list goes on and on. And you can see him in the new sci-fi blockbuster Mercy. Only in theaters January 23rd, give a warm welcome to none other than Chris Pratt. Appreciate you joining us, Chris. Sparky, that was my dad's nickname.

Really? Yeah. I'm going to have to find out the origins about that one. I'll tell you real quick. He was a handyman and a remodeling contractor and a builder, construction worker, and he worked at this place, and he never wanted to use a multitester

when he was testing to see if a wire was live. He would just lick his fingers and go and touch it. It would spark. They called him Sparky. Fair. Yeah. Mine's just a lot. play off my last name. His story's a lot cooler.

Last name's Sparkman for me. There you go, Sparky. I love it. I promise. We're going to talk about your new movie, Mercy, which is in theaters January 23rd. But first, the Seattle Seahawks, man. You're a Washington State kind of guy. Come on, we already talked about Mercy. You said January 23rd, right? All right, let's talk Seahawks.

Let's talk some Hawks. That's good. Now, granted, this is airing in a couple weeks, so we don't know what's going to happen. Oh, we know. How do you feel? Oh, we know. He knows. I'm getting geared up right now to get my Super Bowl. tickets. Yeah, really. Okay. Very nice. Oh, it's good. Yeah, how fun is this year been? I saw you down, field level, getting the Hawks fans pumped up, the 12-man juiced up. You were getting after it.

How fun is this ride been? It's been an awesome year, man. Like, honestly, a bit of like a surprise in a way. Like, you know, I kind of felt like we were going to be in a rebuilding year, you know? You know, we've got like, you know, new quarterback and new coaches and all these, like, young players that we drafted. And we're in the number one scene in the NFC, dude. Like, and, you know, and And NFC West, that's a tough division. So, like, to be division champions, and the NFC West is crazy. To be number one seat is amazing. And, wow, what a, what an awesome ride.

And it's, it's like, it's been, on paper, looks like a dominant year. But there have been some games that were really close, could have gone either way. You know what I mean? Like the big comeback against L.A., a couple of, and even other, some games that we did lose that could have gone either way, like our first lost to L.A. So it's been, it's been a wild and surprising year. Well, congratulations on the home. field advantage. Of course, the Super Bowl will run through Seattle.

How about that? What doesn't run through Seattle anymore? The Supersonics, man. When are we getting a basketball team back in the Pacific Northwest? Oh, I don't know, man. I don't know. I miss those Supersonics, man. Maybe never. Maybe never. I hope so. It'd be cool. But I'm not as big of a basketball fan as I am a football fan. Fair. I picked up on that. Yeah. Yeah. You were an athlete growing up, Did some wrestling. Yeah, but I wrestled.

And that was the same season as basketball. So, like, where I grew up in this town called Lake Stevens, it was like the rich kids played basketball and the poor kids wrestled. And so we kind of hated each other. It was like the outsiders, you know. It was like the greasers and the soches. And so, like, the wrestlers were always antagonizing the basketball players and vice versa. And so, yeah, I always had this thing against basketball. And one of the things I had against basketball was I sucked at basketball.

And so, you know, it's easy to hate on something you suck at. And I still suck at basketball. So, yeah, but I was a wrestler. That's like me and ping pong, ping pong, pickleball, cornhole. I'm out because I'm such a liability. The lame sports. I'm just not good at any of the lame sports. But all the real ones, I'm incredible.

Spelling? I like what you're doing there. So I don't enjoy doing it. Spelling? Spelling. Yeah, spelling v. There you go. Okay.

Well, we're called almost athletes here because we like to think we were on the precipice of making the league when in reality we weren't. Did you ever have a moment in your athletic career growing up where maybe you set back and we're like, yeah, you know, acting or something, other profession is probably best suited for me. Any embarrassing moments or... Oh, man. The thing is, yeah, like, okay, it's going to sound already like I'm making excuses, but I am just prefacing this story to say that I broke my femur when I was young. And it grew in a little bit wonky, right? And so I remember when I was a kid, I was very, very fast. I was the

fastest kid in my school for many, many years. And I wasn't like one of those early bloomers who, like, the reason they're fast is because they were a man in fifth grade. Like I had a couple of those, you know, like bearded dudes, but then they grow up to be like small dudes, like peak in fifth grade. I was fast. I was fast even for a boy, but then slowly over time, the one monkey leg kind of messed me up. So I was a good, I was a, I would say a really good high school football player. Like I was like a, you know, I was like an all area, first team guy on both sides of the ball for junior and senior year. And our team was very good. And we had the highlight reel, you know, at the end of the year, they'd have the highlight reel of all the highlights.

And I can't tell you how many times in the highlight reel I was fullback. I get the ball, open field, just the middle of nowhere. I'm like going for glory. And then like the fat D tackle would just be like slowly gaining on me. Like I never got out of first gear, you know, and I just get caught or I would just simply fall over in the open field because of my wonky leg, man. So like I kind of think God. Yeah. That's the fom.

Yeah. That's the famer. That's not on you. That's the femur talking. In fact, you probably need to keep that other femur in. attack because it could hurt your acting skills. You know? I'm telling you, I honestly think that God broke my femur because he was like, you could probably be a mid-range college football player, but then I wouldn't have ended up in Hawaii at 19. I would have been discovered to be an actor.

Like, you know, God, it all works, it all works out the way it's supposed to. He put me on that tire swing in second grade. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So if you were a collegiate fullback, where would you have chosen to play? Say every school in America offered you where we had? Oh, every school in America offers me a full ride. Where do I go? Dang. Coming from Washington State, probably somewhere sunny, I probably would have went somewhere warm. You know what I mean? Because I was like, I had a lot of rain, enough rain. I probably would have went to like Alabama, something like that. Or maybe Georgia. I love bass fishing too. So I know you got great, maybe Georgia because you got really great bass fishing in Georgia or somewhere down to Florida. Or somewhere down to Florida. Oh, is that a bass pro shop? Let's go.

Yeah, let's go, baby. I'd be down in the south. Yeah, Florida, maybe Texas. Florida, Georgia. You wouldn't get any Pullman, Washington vibes down in Alabama or Georgia. That's for sure. No, no, no. A little different part of the contrary.

Big fish guy. So what's the biggest one? You got a 10-pounder? I went down to this place down in Mexico called Lake Bacarack, and I did a fishing charter down there, and I was with my friend Zeb, who was actually, he's a Washington native. He was my co-captain on the wrestling team. And we lived together in a van for a,

while and he's my still a great friend of this day he caught a 13 pound two-ounceer and I got one and that was like 11-8 and so those are our two biggest bass those are big fish that lake me and Tyler had a trip booked to go to that exact lake come on and then they told us it was a red-hot time of the year and so Tyler was too scared and he wouldn't get in the plane so we didn't go oh yeah they said the same thing to his fish is like eight pounds that's still a good bass though but they said the same thing to us but I, you know, at the time, like, I was like an actor, but very, very unknown. And so, like, I didn't just feel the pressure.

It was epic, dude. It was epic. There's two bites a day. And you'd get into us. Like, we went to a school, got into a school that was like back-to-back six, seven-pounders. We each caught like 10 in a row. It was so cool. Oh, double-digit weight. That's a big deal, man.

Yeah, I haven't done that yet. It's on the above top of the list. It's anybody in house. I love that you snuck in co-captain, too. That's good. That was a good snuck in. Yeah, I caught that. Well, man, the acting career has been awesome to follow from afar.

You've obviously started a lot of movies. Winding Road towards becoming an actor? What moment, maybe in your youth, where you like, yeah, that's or, you know, as you got older, that's the thing I want to do, acting. Well, I can tell you the exact moment I knew I thought acting was awesome was when I was, I lived in Anchorage, Alaska before I moved to Washington. So that would have been before second grade. So I must have been in first grade or kindergarten.

and my brother was in second grade, and he was the star of the school play. He played Boo Bear in the Christmas special, and I did everything my brother did. He was like the captain, the wrestling team, I did wrestling. He did every, I'd literally wear his clothes the day after he wore. It was like my absolutely my idol and, you know, best friend. And when I saw him up there and I saw my mom crying and he was giving his performance, I was like, oh, so this is, this is it. This is how you, this is it.

This is a really cool thing to do. So anytime a play came up, I was never of the mind. instead of like, I'm not going to be in a play. You know, I was like, oh, play, yeah, I got to do a play. So that was the moment I knew acting was really cool. But the moment that I knew I was going to have a career as an actor, because I always, you know, was a performer. I followed my brother's footsteps doing all the assemblies at school and stuff like that.

I went further. He went into the Army. I went a different route. I started doing stand-up comedy, and I always wanted to be a performer. But I had no avenue to get into Hollywood. It was like, it was outside the realm of possibility. But I was waiting tables, and I met this director. and then she gave me an audition.

And I remember in the audition, her saying, yeah, you're good, we're going to use you. And I was like, wow, cool. I was in Hawaii at the time. I was like, so where does it shoot? Like what part of the island? I got to get some time off. Like, how much time she said, oh, shoots in L.A.,

and I'm like, I got like 60 bucks to my name. You know, I was like, I can't go to L.A. Like, this is crazy. She said, sweetheart, we'll fly you there. And in that moment, I really felt like, oh, the door's open. I'm barreling through this. Like, no way. Nothing can stop me now.

and, you know, I got paid $700 to do that movie, and I was like, dude, that's the biggest check I've ever seen in my life. And I lived on it for like a year and then just like kept going. And now I'm an actor. Okay, switching gears real quick. I have a little bit of a mission for myself. I'm going to be playing in the celebrity NBA All-Star game in about a month. And I'm trying to get a double-double, so 10 points, 10 rebounds in the sport that you cannot stand. any tips for me on bulking up, staying fit, health-wise, talk to me. Dude, I'll tell you this. If you're going to be in this celebrity basketball game, right? Talk to me.

You got the skill that you got. You're not going to become a better basketball player between now and then. But you can get your stamina up. What you should do is straight up, cryometrics, man. You should knock out, you should see how long it takes you to do 100 burpees and try to beat it and do it literally every day. It sucks. sucks, bro. Do start with five burpees every minute on the minute for 20 minutes. That's tough. And then up, start with, do 10 burpees every minute on the minute until you cannot and then

break down to five. And if you can get that down to where you're doing 100 burpees in 10 minutes, you will out hustle everybody because that's what it's going to come down to. It's just the hustle. He's actually right. I've been watching tape. I've been watching the last five years of the celebrity game that are on YouTube and I've been just grinding, looking at player comps. And I think cardio is the biggest player. Dude, 100%. Just. Just. get how long do you have 30 days from today oh yeah dude i'm telling you you can you can actually he's motivated baby yeah let's go you could do it you could do 100 burpees a day for 30 days and you'll you'll out hustle everybody in the court you can get better at burpees in a week and it sucks

it's moving your body is jumping it's just it's just cardio get there i know that's guess what and that's why no one you're competing against is going to do it except for you so man up hey get the burpees done and go win this game bro let's go step up do you hear that that was motivating walking out the door doing 100 burpees right now. I want to just run through the monitor. All that burpee talk, though. Did feel like I got a soft tissue injury from all that burpee talk. That's a dangerous game. You got that. That's a dangerous game. This guy does have a wife and kids, Chris. Don't you know. Yeah, easy. We need them. We need them around here. I'm worried about those burpees. Hey, get your cardio level up and you'll, you'll be a wife, you'll have a wife and kid for,

they'll have a husband and dad a lot longer. You know what I mean? Heart help. You're so right. And if I somehow pull off the MVP trophy, I'm giving all the glory to my guy, Chris, Let's go. I'm watching now. I'll become a fan of basketball. I'm watching now. Hey, join it. We can, the little pick and roll action, you can just give me six different looks. Bro, I would tell you right now, you would watch me play basketball for four minutes and know that you should have me on the other team if you want to win. I suck so bad. I can shoot a double leg from like 12 feet away, but I cannot even hit a layup, man. So you don't want me playing basketball. I love the transparency. I love the honesty. I'm so proud of him. It's out in front of it. Chris had the joy of watching a special screening last night of your new movie,

Mercy, man. The premise was awesome. It really made me think some deep thought in that, including, of course, all the AI stuff. When it comes to AI in that stuff, did you do a deep dive before the movie, or did you just kind of go in blind? Well, no, I mean, there's always a really extensive rehearsal process. I wasn't deep diving too much on the AI so much as I was deep diving on like the life of a homicide detective in LA. So I got to go and spend a lot of time with these guys who are living right on the edge, you know what I mean, of life and death on a daily basis. My brother, like who I mentioned before, went on into the Army for 10 years and then was in law enforcement for 20 years. So I took,

I had his year and he became a tech advisor on the show. So just trying to get into the mindset of a police officer. And as someone who's like, Got some level of darkness to him that might, you know, on trial having been drunk the night before and not knowing what happened, who could potentially consider that he could have commit this heinous crime that he's been accused of. So most of the research I did was trying to get into the mindset of a human being like this. But I've been deep diving on AI for a long time like anybody else by basically being hypnotized by my algorithm driven passive entertainment glued to my reels. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, I think everybody's, I think AI's been doing a deep dive on. me is what's happening.

That's what they're saying. Yeah, bro. All right, if you could use the advanced cloud AI judge technology to solve any mystery in your personal life, what are you investigating? Oh, bro, I would use it every day to be like, where's my keys at? Yeah, that's so good. That's exactly where my mind went. I got to a point where I just put the little Apple tag, air tag, on my keys.

I know. I'm scared to go there because that's like me announcing that I have a problem. Almost if I have to air tag it. That's the first step. That's the first step. That's the first step. I know, dude. I don't think we're wired to be able to find this stuff.

We are T-Rexes, okay? If it wiggles, we see it. If I could just get like a little push-a-button and everything important to me wiggled a little bit, I would have no problem finding it. But if it's just sitting there on the desk, I'll look 25 times. I'll say to my wife, honey, please help me. I know this is so annoying to you. Where's my key?

She's like, right there. I look there 15 times. I didn't see it because it didn't wiggle. Like, that's the hunter mentality. that's that's that's that's thousands of millions of years of genetic evolution working against us you're right right and you said T. rex I can relate short arms as well yeah yeah I can like T-Rex you too I can see that I can see that well thank you Chris appreciate your time brother check out the new movie mercy only in theaters on January 23rd you're the man uh welcome you kids whoever you want to bring to the office sometime test out the trick shot

skills I go I got to see it hey thanks I appreciate you guys and hey good luck in that uh basketball game man I'll be rooting for you. Yes, sir. He needs it. Thank you, buddy. You got it. Best a lot. God bless you, brother. God bless you, Chris. We'll see you. I'm impressed. I'm impressed, man. Great guy. What a dude. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate the time, man. Check out his new movie, Mercy, January 23rd, only in theaters.

Coming up after the break, we're going to talk highest dunk, the new main channel battle video, and we're going to answer fan voicemails. And while you do that, I'm going to go do some burpees. Stick with us. I'm so motivated, dude. It's still January, Garrett, the perfect time to put energy into action and Shopify is the perfect place to go if your goal is to grow or start your business. In fact, I found out that Shopify is actually the platform that dudeperfect.

Dot stores e-commerce site is built on. That's right. So if you visited dudeperfect. Store to buy some of our great merch, you know how user-friendly it is for both sellers and customers. And if you want your online store to look as good as ours, Shopify has thousands of design templates and formats to help. How'd you know that?

Stephanie told me, who runs dudeperfect. store. She's kind of obsessed with Shopify. I asked her how her weekend was and she told me that Shopify's AI tools are an absolute game changer. Yeah, I asked her if she had any gum and she told me that Shopify has an AI assistant to help you with everything, editing images, writing content, generating reports, breaking down complex data and giving you ideas. But does it give you gum? No, and neither did Stephanie, but she did tell me that Shopify lets you sell across TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, everywhere your customers already are. So if you want to grow your brand, do what we did for our online store and use Shopify.

What are you waiting for? It's time to build your brand. Head to Shopify.com slash almost to see how easy it is to start your business today. Garrett, we use AI a lot on this pod, whether it's finding facts to support our arguments or scouring the internet for almost sports. AI has helped our workflow. But not all AI tools are the same. That's why we're excited to start using Zapier. In fact, 3.4 million companies already use.

Zapier to streamline their marketing sales, IT, HR, and more. And we love streamlining here at Dude Perfect. The more we can streamline, the more time we have to watch sports. That's right, Sparky. And Zapier connects to AI models. Your team is probably already using like ChatGPT and Claude. So you can add AI exactly where you need it, whether that's coaching your team members, resolving IT tickets, or coming up with strategies to convince Tyler to use soap.

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Get started for free by visiting Zapier.com slash AA. That's ZAPI-E-R.com slash AA. Welcome back to Almost athletes. Glad to be joined by both Twin One and Twin Two. Come on. Good to be here, guys. And fresh off the dude perfect video boys. Such a fun one.

So the only fitting that we talk about it. Yeah. And I can't wait to talk about this. Yeah. Wow. Some said it would never be done. Some said I'd never climb the mountain. Yeah, that was what I said.

For sure. Well, actually, I should thank Garrett right off the bat because you're, we filmed this before the holiday break. Yeah. We did some batch filming to get ahead. Yep. And Garrett was sidelined fresh off a hernia. That's true.

I thought he was good to go. Our trainers thought he was good to go. But at the last second, you had to wave the light flag. And when you find out what we did. I'm still injured. I don't know what's going on. How is the hernia, by the way? That's good.

That hernia is great. Now I'm just dealing with a nagging calf injury. Really? I don't know that. A nagging cat. That was a no, yeah. Oh, calf injury. Gotcha.

What's wrong with your calf? I think it's just age at this point. Not enough colostrum. Yeah. They sell my stuff on that. I know. I mean, that is. Clostrum, protein, vitamin C.

I don't know where I'm deficient, but I'm deficient. Interesting. And, uh, It's annoying, but I'll battle. Yes, you will. Well, I don't want to lose. I don't want to lose. But not in this battle.

Fresh off new video post, boys, Corey, give the people a little something, something on what took place in this app. Yeah, one of the most popular videos for us over the last five, six years, was longest dunk wins. Yep. Actually, sore subject for me because I lost a heartbreaker in the finale. I don't say it. You could say that. You could say that.

Let's not play the clip right now. Yeah. That's tough. I wish we didn't have to be reminded of that. But that happened. Anyways, popular video. So we've always been chasing. seeing, okay, what's our sequel to that? And the answer is not longest dunk wins, but highest

dunk wins. And this video from our art props team, whatever you want to call it, the build team, may have been their Mona Lisa. Yeah, I mentioned this a couple weeks ago to Gare, where you'll have a fan come up to you on the street, right? And they're like, hey, that video was epic. You did phenomenal. I'm like, oh, I just showed up on, you know, film day and got in front of the camera. Little do they know behind the scenes, the fabrications. Insane. were insane that day. We had a full crane out there with crew. Sometimes I'm like,

Ryan Britton surely can't want up himself from the last video. And then there's a Taj Mahal of cranes and slingshots. But yeah, first round was the highest free throw. We had the big old slingshot going straight up in the air with it. Shout out to a very long time ago, the actual goal that we shot into.

It is a massive, originally, essentially a copied Nerf basketball hoop when we launched our Nerf Dude Perfect product. back in the day. And that thing's been with us for a long time hanging on our office wall and here the build team put it on the top of a huge pole. Those were some great, uh, those were some great builds. So here's what I'll say about round one. We were told by the team, here's what's coming. You really want to avoid round two if you can. Yeah. And the way this video was set up is that the winner of each round automatically gets a spot in the finale. So knowing that

round two was going to be a brutal, brutal competition. Everybody wanted to skip it. And at this point, you don't know how brutal. They have just, no, no, they just told us like, hey, by the way, gear up. Round two is a beat. You don't even know what it is yet. Yep. So here we are in round one in the highest free throw where we're basically laying down on the ground with a bungee launching a basketball and high in the air as we can try to get to go up into this giant basketball goal that Corey was referencing. And, man, it's funny looking at it because the goal looks so big. and when you're down there and you shoot that ball

and the wind gets a hold of it it felt so small. Very small. How far was it up? Really high. Yeah, I don't really know. I was going to say like 20, 20, 30 stories up.

Like, it was up there. And it took us surprisingly quite a while. Yeah, a better part of an hour, I think, to make that. Until somebody made it. And who made it? Kobe, right?

I was close, but 20-1. It was Kobe Cotton. It was me. It was me. And I'm telling you guys, genuine, genuine smile my face. I mean, because I knew

to your points where I didn't really know, but like I knew I'm getting out of something that I do not want to participate in in a round two. Usually our team would downplay what's coming next. They got ahead of this one. They got out ahead of it and said, hey, you do not want to be part of round two. That was a good shot.

Kobe, yeah, you see him running around. Pure joy on his face. We brought these guys in from out of the country, yeah. Sweden. Sweden sounds right. Where? Slovenia. Slovenia. Same as Luca.

These guys have done some crazy things, but they basically contrapped this, like, human slingshot. And this, what's turned down? Oh, yeah, way down. Way down. Like, this thing would launch you 200 feet, I believe. Something crazy. Something crazy.

And so what the video doesn't do, like, a great job showing is, I don't know if you can see how still the water is. Yeah, that's a good point. But the water is very still. and so they're landing without breaking really the plane of the water and they're basically landing on their

like hamstring you know backside area over and over and they're taking every time you go up that it's it's three Gs yeah it's a lot of G of Gs and so like it's just their bodies are taking their bodies are taking a beat down and honestly all these guys just wanted to make

because again the first one to make it it ends the battle but who cares about the next round it's just this is over. You know, we're just ready to be past this. Well, someone had to make it. Someone had to move on. We had to go in for how long?

Oh, it was a long time. I will say this about Cody. I don't compliment him a ton. Yeah, rare. And I definitely don't compliment his toughness a lot. That day, after getting done with it and going home and realizing how just bruised I was and sore,

that man was a champ that day. Because not only you're coming out of the slingshot, you're coming out with your, you know, almost at like a 30 degree angle. And for him to get his body to shift back forward and not land violently in the water, it was tougher on him since he's a bigger individual. And the amount of just like smacks you'd hear when Cody hit the water. And you're like, I don't know if he resurfaces.

He was tough, though. He kept getting back in line. And you're right. It turned into a point where it's like, I don't even care of somebody else makes it and goes through to the finale because that means I don't have to get human cannonballed again. It was a, I mean, you can see it on my face whether I did not want to do it. Every time he's sad in that thing. you just didn't want to be there.

Who ended up making it in round two? Cody makes this shot. Cody did. Cody made it. And what was funny about that was Cody wasn't even close all day. No. Natural like trick shot form.

Cody wasn't even close. It became where Sparky and then mainly Thai were dialed in. Their scopes were dialed in. Cody did have a couple close ones, but it got to the point where it was me, you tie and Cody. And then at some point I kind of tap out

and I'm like, dude, I'm not even remotely close to this. Boom. Back hard. And Cody just found it out of nowhere. Look how shocked you. shocked. But it hurt when you hit the water. It hurt.

They all had bruises, you all had significant bruises, down the whole side of the body. Ty had crazy bruising. Ty came into work the next day and it looked like him fresh off the bull ride before he got stomped on. Maybe worse.

So then the next round looked to be super fond and this was basically dunk tank that's raised above a lake. Again, the fabrications for this video. And this is all or what, 20 feet in the air? Yeah. This is after we're, so this is the next day. Next morning, yeah.

We're all bruised up. We feel, you know, like we need five chiropractors. And we're sitting there and the setup is so cool. This build is awesome. We are trying to shoot and if you make it in someone else's basket, they get dunked. Yeah. This should be what all counseling sessions are. Put you over a lake.

Couples counseling. Yeah, dude's counseling. I don't want to get you guys too, too, too excited. But in our future destination, it's already been discussed. This is happening. Wow. over a foam pit over a foam pit. Oh, that's so good. So buckle up families. You'll be able to go against your dad and your mom splash out. And you get a pick on who you want to shoot against

which is a strategy involved. This is one of those lines where did you first try splash me. I did. I forgot that happened. Dude, look, Corey falls straight forward. Look, kind of flings you forward a little bit. Look at the shooters roll. I forgot. Dude, good touch. And look. You'll like, face plant. Did I have, it's not a 10, but that's not a zero. Oh, that's a pretty good dive. A diving form factor. Yeah, that's not bad. That happened fast, though.

It did happen fast. Look at y'all laughing. That's where my hopes in that moment for the video are over. Oh, man. That's a great shot. Almost over-rotated for a straight backer. I'll say backslop. What I remember about this video is that I basically had two days off.

Yeah, it was. I was not. It was nice. After I made that first round, y'all were out there launch and I said, love you guys, and I left. And then the next day, I was like, I'm doing whatever they're doing. I ain't coming. It was great. I don't even remember what I.

did. Team Pink, we did not get to that video. But Sparky, in the other hand, he's battling out with Ty. Well, the fun part about this one was every time I missed, I just knew Tyler was about to deliver a dagger, and we went back and forth for like a good 10 shots. Oh, really? Really? Oh, yeah.

He first try splashes me, and then him and Ty go back and forth with it felt like eternity. And very much like the human canon would leave you like that anticipation moment every time it was like, oh, here it comes. And Sparky ended up splashing it. Send in the goat home.

My siblings could attest spent hours and hours and hours of my youth shooting on like a Nerf goal. Yeah, many hoops. And that came back. It prepared you, dude. Yeah, little did I know. Hovering above the water. That's a good. Hold the follow through. This is such a great video. Oh, it's so good. Tyler took a swim. That's all that matters, baby.

And there's your finale. Did it the hard way. Did it the hard way. Had to participate in all of them. And then Sparky had to jump in. Oh, that's great. Graceful entry there. And then that took us to the highest dunk. Yep, the finale. This was fun.

So initially it was longest dunk wins. So pictured lots of basketball goals on the ground in a row. That's where we ran. And we jumped off a trampoline into a foam pit and tried to dunk as far as possible. So when we were initially coming up with this idea, we went vertical. So this was the initial whole concept of the whole video was let's stack a bunch of goals vertically somehow. Of course, our team figured out how to do it. And this is, we kind of worked backwards to this from the whole video.

Insane. Yeah, and we did a little bit of this on tour, and Cody was a little too heavy. He is the word you're looking for. And so he had a sub in Jackson just because there's not enough cables. They really couldn't figure out a good way with bungee to do it with him. Yeah, the only way to get high enough was to bungee. And so we used our stuff that we figured out a tour. It's just a sick build.

I mean, our team really did a good job on this video. Really good job. Incredible. How hard was it to actually do that? I'll tell you this much. Your abdomins, your abs would be feeling. it on that bungee after doing it for a while. Tougher than it looks.

Tougher than it looks. No need to race it. There's no need to show that guys. Here's the thing, guys. If you have not yet watched this video and you don't want it spoiled, need you to pause this podcast and go watch it because we're about to give away who wins. Highest Dunk wins. We'll give you a chance to do that.

And if you're joining us again or you never left, I would like to give a round of applause to Kevin Sparky Sparky Spark. Yeah. First live a solo battle victory. You know, I've had team success in Aerosoff. Never any individual battle success. I was on the precipice. Close to dodge ball.

Island dodgeball had it slipped through my hands. And, you know, I thought that might be my only chance right there. Then this day came. This was well executed out of you. You got to realize that's the same gym I got cut trying to walk on. It's the same gym that I walked during college graduation. Wow. So the character arc back home.

Oh, that's a good story. And luckily, both Jackson and Kobe didn't perform their best. And the stars aligned, I'll tell you what. You got it done, dude. I got it done. And that's all that matters. I had one critical error at the end. I tried to do a flip. And I did not have the juice on the backside to pull anything off. And I just knew the moment it happened, I knew I've blown it.

I've blown it. It's just hard. It's hard until you're in that moment. I'll regret that. But I am proud of the man who pulled it off. You deserved it, Spark. You had great performance. And then Jackson, on the other hand, had to do zero hard work the whole video,

didn't have to get launched out of a cannon, didn't have to make an incredible slingshot to get there. He just got gifted a chance to walk in. Which is actually kind of a tough spot to be. Yeah, totally. Oh, totally. And he wanted it, dude. He wanted it.

He wanted it. Why was Cody out again? Because he is too heavy. He couldn't do the weight on a bunch of. This was pre-Shon doctor meeting. Look how discouraged Cody is. Pre-L-Colesterol levels are high. Pre-blood work.

Great video, though. Back to our old roots there. For sure. Very much so. Very much so. That was really fun. That was really fun on set. They are.

But yeah, that bungee stuff. This video was more taxing to the body. Definitely. Than a lot of things that we've done in the past. But one of Britain's classics, man, Brother Nature was in his bag and gave us a beautiful video. Well, that does it for that video. Should we dive into some voicemails?

Yes, G, let's do it. Let's dive into those voicemails. This segment is brought to you by DoorDash. When life gets crazy, DoorDash helps bring a little order to it. Jared, were you the one telling me that you listen to voicemails for the entire Christmas break? It was like an outrageous amount of voicemails that have been coming in. He loves listening to voicemails.

What's the most popular kind of, if you had to choose our voicemail listener, lever, what's like the most popular stereotype there? Are we talking like a 12-year-old boy? Are we talking 50-year-old guy? Actually, for the statistics of how many females, watch our show. There's a surprisingly large amount of women that call into the show. You're telling me that girls like to talk on the phone. There's also been, you know, a couple requests for Spark in the Dark. Oh yes. Oh, that did seem to have a disproportionate number of

comments from that episode. I agree. Well, it's a good chance to remind you. Send us a voicemail. 972-805-8866. You can also find the number at almostathletes.com. So let's get to it. First voicemail. What's up? Dude, perfect. My name is Megan, and I'm calling from West Virginia. And in one of the earlier podcast, it was briefly mentioned that the twins first names are not Kobe and Corey.

I was wondering about the rest of the dude's real names. And is John and William fit the twins better? And if that's what they should go on. Great question. Wow. William fits the twins better is what Megan just said. We tried to call them by their real name. names.

I think anyone's only made it like a half a day. I think John and William were technically family names and then our parents thought my mom basically that Kobe and Corey

was just a cute twin name and so that stuck and yeah, y'all and lots of other friends have tried to call us versions of John, William, Billy, all the things didn't sit.

Didn't hold the same weight. Sparky, real name. Kevin. Kevin. Mom, usually the only one who calls me that. Got the nickname

in fourth grade. I was actually telling somebody about the story last night. Well, it's called Kevin early in my youth, and then it just didn't match me. I would have been the fourth earnest in a row. What? Are you supposed to be Ernest, Sparkman.

But, of course, the name is kind of a wild one, and my mom stood on that. She could have not naming him Ernest. Yeah, I would have been a... She shut down a four? Family name, yeah. Actually, think there was some family division because of that. I'm sure. I've never heard this.

I'm Kevin. All right, before we start any more family drama, let's move on to the next voicemail. What's up, dude, perfect? This is a Tucker. from Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey. I had a debate with some friends a couple years back

that I'm curious about and I'm curious what you guys think. Is it easier to win March Madness, college basketball, or easier to win the college football playoff? Wow. That's good.

As an athlete, like as a player, not like filling out your bracket. He's talking about it, is it easier to win the championship? Sure. What do you all think on that? Because I have some thoughts. these are the kind of questions I love.

I mean, let's just get factual. You have to win more games in basketball. 100%. That's just a fact. But it's not as brutal on the body. It's tough. I have an opinion, I think. I have one too. You can go ahead.

Seven to win basketball, right? Depends if you're in that first four or two. It's like maybe one and more. Round of 64, round of 32, 316, elite eight, final four. Okay, here's my general general opinion. Okay. In college football, I

think there's only about four teams that are capable of winning the actual championship. And in basketball, I think there's way more than four. So I'm going to say it's harder to win in March Madness because I think the pool capable of winning the whole thing is larger. And I'm just going to simplify it to that. I think you have a few powerhouses in football. And this may be changing. But I think you have a few powerhouses in football capable of winning, which I think

makes it easier, quote unquote, to win in football, although I think physically it's far more demanding, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, my only devil's advocate to that is longer season, more slip-ups. In which sport? In college basketball. You're allowed more. You're allowed more.

You know, you have two at the max in college football because the season's short. And then I also think it's harder to win because you go from champion in March Madness you go from championship you know week straight into that next week being the madness you go from last week of college football SEC or conference championships

wait two weeks wait two weeks wait two weeks wait ten days wait ten days which I think is really tough on a on a kid yeah sure that's ready to go ahead and play yeah which now you're asking 22 two guys on that team to stay dialed versus five guys.

I do think it's probably harder to win in football than basketball. I mean, that was a great point. Just the simple fact of it's way harder to make the tournament in football. Yeah. Just way harder. Yeah. Because what you just said, chances of slipping up, especially if you're in a good conference throughout the year,

brutal and only getting harder. I would say tougher to win basketball, one, simply because the nature of the sport, uh, football, I feel like you can get away with more things, the better team. Whereas basketball, if you have a two, a 21 night from the three-point arc, you know, in a single game, a one guy can go off and flip a game. Exactly. If another guy on the opposite team has a hot hand, you can find yourself in trouble. Also, there's like 360 plus Division 1 basketball schools at this point. There's like 130 something football. There's 130 in FBS football. So massive difference there. And to your point, Corey, yes, it's hard to make it,

but again, I think there's only probably 30, 40 schools that, ever really had a shot to make the college football playoff, in my opinion, where we stand right now. That field is pretty small. The first year we had chalk, meaning one seed, one seed, one seed, one seed. I totally was. I think that doesn't happen all the time for good reason. To my point, I think it's just basketball can be very much an open-ins-court. It's a great question, though.

It's a true winner. And it's incredibly hard to win either. Let's be clear. Really hard to win either one. I know. Like a lot of things have to line up. With D.P.U. A lot of things have to line up. What seed in the college football playoff do you have to be to be considered a Cinderella in football?

I think it hasn't happened yet. Miami this year. Is it an intense? Yeah, that's a double-ditch. Once you're in double-digit land, that's pretty remarkable. And they were left out. I mean, they were. Well, they were the final at large, right?

Right. Committee looks pretty good. Currently, you can't have more of a Cinderella. Again, the only thing the committee messed up in in that scenario was just not ranking them ahead of Notre Dame when it came out the previous weeks. Right. The fact that we waited to do it until the deadline. Will you search this real quick, Jared? The lowest seed to win the national championship in basketball,

which I think is... I think it's like a 9-seat. I think it's NC State, 9-seed with Valvano back in the day. 8? Was it 8? Nova at an 8? What year was that? 85. That was Patrick Ewing's team. They famously upset. 7-seed U-Con did it. The lowest seed to make it to the final 4, 11 seed.

Butler almost hit it versus Yeah they did The one that's forgot about George Mason in 06 Yeah No I didn't forget

about that That was awesome They beat some teens I was my team Who was that coach That's fun It's the best Uh who

Masons Yeah Oh gosh I'm looking at him Not I'm looking at him too Yeah I'm looking Right at his face

What a fun team Bye George Vern Lungquist's call When the Yukon Misses the three Bye George They're headed To the final four

All right Next is a great question Great question Right. Insightful. Phenomenal. Did he end up going to Miami? Yep.

Yes. That's exactly what happened. Dude, I just saw him at football. He coached their football team? Dude, no, I just saw him at Aguiland. He went to the game. Miami versus A&M. Yeah, that was the coach.

That was him. It's all coming together for you. Wow. Hey, dude, perfect. This is Bill. And Jack. We want to know, do you think the Super Bowl should be a holiday? Let us know what you think.

That's not a really smart question. Why? Because on Sunday. It's rhetorical? Yeah, it's on Sunday. I think the better question would be, should the day after be a holiday because everybody's watching it? You think that's the heart of the question? It's more like should the college football playoff championship, which is a Monday night.

That's affected us. Basketball is a Monday, isn't it? No, no, no, it's a Thursday. Always. No, no, no, the championship. It's a Monday. Oh, the championship game. Got you.

I thought you were talking about the first. It's Saturday Monday. All right, let's tackle both of these. Let's talk about these because it's a good point. The Super Bowl, aka the day after the Super Bowl. I think they might as well at this point. I think they might as well. They say 100 million people in America watch the Super Bowl every year.

You might as well just give Monday off. What the heck? Okay, let me pose the question this way. Hypothetically, you could take a day off via sport. What day you're choosing? First day of the Masters is up there for me. Thursday. Yeah, that would be a good one to have off.

I thought that way about March Madness, though. I've always been under the impression that opening day in baseball. I feel like this very special day. I would love for that day. I'll work double on that day. I would probably go, yeah, I'd probably go Thursday, March Madness. There's just so much to watch. It's the best day.

It started in my PTO this year. 9 a.m. and it lasts until you fall asleep. I would put in my PTO. If you need help at home, March 19th and 20th, or the Thursday and Friday. I would skip school as a student. March 19th is the day? Yeah. Maybe one of the more unethical things I've ever done is we had to track me.

And Travis Labhart, our good friend, knew exactly what I was up to, but I didn't show up to school on the first day of March Madness. I told my mom was straight up, didn't fake the sickness. I said, Mom, you know what March Madness means to me. I'm bad at track. I don't want to go to saying you're running up track meet. She was like, thank you for being honest. Yes, you can stay on what Travis is calling me. Like, I know you're watching March Madness.

Yep, skip your track me for it. Wow. Dedicated. George Mason. Dedicated, baby. Oh, yeah, we're giving out holidays for anything these days. So make it a Super Bowl of National Holiday. But I also feel like...

I think your birthday also should be a national holiday. I think everyone should get their birthday off. Yeah, that gets a little out of control. Why? Yeah, it gets a little out of hand. Why is that out of hand? It's one day. Think about that. I mean, everybody at your office has a birthday. I mean, that's a lot of days off, man.

It's one day. Not sure what y'all would do when both Kobe and I would be out on a whole day. Yeah, what would you guys do around here? What I was going back to real quick, I feel like tie a bow on it is that's the Super Bowl. I feel like I would raise my hand and say Monday, you might as well give it off. A lot of people were up late. Just go ahead and do it. Why not?

You said college football is on a Monday. I actually feel less about that. It's at night. You don't need to take off Monday to watch the game at 8.m. We take off Tuesday the next day. Yeah. But for some reason, I don't feel as passionate about it.

I don't think a lot, it's not nearly the engagement. That's what would make the first round of the NCAA tournament. So, you know, you'd want to take it off just because it is all day. You get hoops from 11 to 11. Yeah, well, this is a good time. Contact your local congressman. I think we get the opening day of March Madness

as a National Hall. holiday. Call in. I am here for that. Every opening Thursday, Friday, I don't see it happening. National holiday. Yeah, both of them. Whoa, this is getting awesome. I like your idea. Okay. Comment below what you think at home. What's for? Hey, look, this is a great segment into your way into helping change the world for what you believe. Yep, get involved. Get involved. This is the important stuff. This is the important stuff. Pretty sure this is what Congress people are for. That's what Congressmen are for. Absolutely. I feel like you could get both aisles to be interested in this. 100%.

Especially if congressmen. Are you about to start a movement? Yeah, we might. I need congressmen across the country to say, fill out one bracket too. I'm not a multiple bracket. I agree. I don't judge people who do.

I totally agree. You get one bracket because you're cheering against yourself. Yeah, that's weird. Multiple fantasy teams. Don't get me. It's a billion dollars that changed that for people. They weren't in the billion. That's true.

That's our two minute warning, boys. Which I've got something prepared today. Oh. I'm ready. I love Rand. Since I'm ready to go in. This is something that I've been passionate about. Are we familiar with February 2nd?

It's coming up. It's my mom's birthday. It's my sister Kara's birthday, too. Wow. Anything else happen on February 2nd? Yeah, that is. Something else happens on February 2nd. 12 days before Valentine's, you start planning and you book your reservation.

Have you ever heard of Groundhog Day? Yeah, I'm familiar. Okay, so up in PA, up in Pennsylvania, they do a thing where punctuwani Phil, as I believe how you pronounce that, punctuali Phil comes out. If he sees his shadow, it's more winter. I think if he doesn't, it's more spring, but let's bring this to attention. He's been doing it since 1887.

A long time. It's the same fill. You look at Groundhog Life Expects and see 10 to 15 years, but they love the folklore. Sure. So they're saying it's the same fill. We know it's not. Predicted winter, 108 times. Predicted spring is what they're supposed to say.

Sorry, 21 times. His overall accuracy since 1887, 39 to 39.5%. This guy is fabricated. And I like Groundhogs. Don't get me wrong. But we're living a myth. Even recently since 2014, 30% for old Philly. So we need to flip it.

30,000 people have been known to show up to this. No. Isn't that outrageous? So I'm just calling them out. Either Phil, get this number higher or let's do away with them. Because you're ruining ground. And also, and also, kill him. Well, no.

I mean, you're saying, let's just not take his opinion for a ground. I will say no way that guy's real name is Phil, just like Sparky and Coring Kobe. I want to know Phil's real name. It's punctuan. I actually feel like the solution here is simpler. Whatever he says, do the opposite? Yeah, we just change the outcome. So he's, if you think about it, he's 70% correct.

Right? Like, you know, it's backwards. I see. But like, he's on to something. We just need to flip what it is. And then we'll be right. Maybe there's a language barrier there. Maybe he's thinking shadow means more,

but he's not speaking for himself. He can't. Because he's a grown-hub. We, like, our scientists got it wrong. Why do we care? There's a lot of people who care. But why? Because you're supposedly getting tipped off whether there's more winners.

And I'm saying you are getting tipped off. I will say this. February 2nd, if Phil Punctuani or whatever his name is doesn't, if he sees a shadow, it means it's going to be winter? I think that's how it works. If that guy says it's no more winner, he is lying. Our winner hasn't even started yet, boys. And February 2nd is two weeks away.

This is, you better see a shadow. I'm just saying he needs to go on a decade run. of being correct because he's been historically bad. That's all I'm saying. He's overrated in terms of like Mount Rushmore. What a good rant by Eastmore. Is this only supposed to apply to Philadelphia? That's where it takes place. But it's supposed to apply

to us or just him? Yeah, how does that work? I think it's worldwide. Is it worldwide? Okay, I'm not sure. I have no idea. If he sees his shadow on Groundhog Day, it means six more weeks of winter. He's seen a shadow. If I'm, if I'm

Vegas right now, the odds have seen a shadow are legit plus a thousand. Through the roof. Yeah, he's 108 times he's gone predicted winter. He's going to go winter again. He's going 109 winter again, no doubt. Tune in February 2nd. Whatever punctuwanis says, do the other.

I have an idea. If he goes spring. Should we get our own ground? No, no, no, no. We need to send the interns. They need to be there. That's genius. The interns need to be there when Phil pops his head out.

I want live coverage of this. I don't want to be relying on a news station. I don't want to be relying on anybody else. I need a direct feedback from the interns. Jackson and Graham is their shadow. And do you buy it? And that's what I want to know. He's in a fabricated shadow.

You got to pick the groundhog, brother. We're ready. Send us. You're ready and willing. Here I am, send me. Can we pronounce his name correct? You got to practice. Punk satanis.

I don't even need that. I think that's how you say it. I want you to dress up as a pilgrim. I want you to go the full. Maybe I could be the groundhog. Jacks could be the shadow. I'll let you guys work that out between yourselves. That's amazing.

Yeah, we'll figure it out. Hey, you're like really young. Have you ever even heard of this idea? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've seen the movie Groundhog Day. Yeah, we're the same events. There you go. It's just nice.

I actually don't think about this. I did rate it low, though. It's not my favorite movie. Okay. Well, that's great. Good idea. Looks like we got some content. And it looks like that's it for us.

Our time's up. And it's probably up for a punctuanie or ever he say his name too. But we'll be back. next Wednesday. I'm not sure about all Phil next year. All new episode next Wednesday. Follow the show on all social media at Almost Athlete. Like and subscribe to us on

YouTube or listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We would love a five-star rating. Share your favorite episode with a friend Almost Athlete with Dude Perfect is a wave original. Thanks for tuning in. Pound it. Noggin. See ya. See ya. See you Phil.