Green Light with Chris Long - Alex Honnold On "Free Solo"! Jimmy Traina On The NFL's 17 Game Season! Bruce Campbell On His Fake Fight! NCAA Championship Reaction.

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

(00:54) - Chris' NCAA Championship Game Reaction. (5:30) - Welcome, Chris is a Baseball Fan and Easter Weekend. (21:51) - Bruce Campbell on His Fake Fight Video. (32:42) - Sam Darnold Trade Reaction. (42:35) - Shout Outs: Stanford Women's Basketball National Champions and Aaron Rodgers Hosting Jeopardy. (50:04) - Alex Honnold on Free Solo, Fear and His New Podcasting Career. (1:22:05) - Jimmy on the 2021 MLB Opening Weekend and the NFL's 17 Game Schedule. Green Light Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/user/951jyryv2nu6l4iqz9p81him9?si=17c560d10ff04a9b Spotify Layup Line: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1olmCMKGMEyWwOKaT1Aah3?si=675d445ddb824c42 Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A lot of people root for the underdog. I'm like, I don't care about the underdog. I want to see a team, you know, exert mastery, basically. I want to see a team dog. You're probably a lot of fun around March Madness in the tournament. He's just picking one seeds all the way to the fucking final four. You know what, though? He's honest about it.

Happy Tuesday, everybody. A champion is crowned. We can move on to the Masters for real now. Virginia's been out of it for quite a while. So I'm ready to get this show on the road. I know Jim Nance is ready to get this show on the road. I think my man, like, it must feel like that one thing is done. I know he probably enjoys calling this, but that is probably all that he had on his mind during that blowout tonight.

Listen, I'm going to get into golf this week. I'll probably place a bet maybe Thursday. I'll pick a golfer. Any advice? Hit me up on Twitter, Instagram. Direct message me. Let me know who I should place a bet on this week. Big golf guy.

I'm not quite golf watcher, Chris Long, but I plan on dedicating a weekend of my life to the Masters. It's about time, guys. Anyways, basketball. Blowout. Best part of the tournament was the game two nights ago. I'm not going to talk a lot about tonight, but the best team won, man.

Baylor has been money all year long. Stanford Steve talked about it. Stanford Steve, in fact, talked me into betting Baylor. I won a lot of money off the Bears this tournament, and tonight was no different. Only the damn over didn't hit because that white kid wanted to dribble the ball out at the end. I mean, buddy, just give me a two-pointer.

Gonzaga goes down and hits a meaningless three, back door cover. Instead, I end up just with Baylor plus four and a half. Not the most entertaining game, but one of those blowouts that you were able to appreciate one of the teams being really, really good. So, yeah, blowout, But Baylor, if you like defense, if you like physicality, if you like closeouts, like that team was money defensively.

And Gonzaga, not the best three-point shooting team. Baylor, they were money. So Baylor Bears, national champs, and let me not forget. I mean, somebody tagged me or mentioned me in a tweet tonight that I wrote evidently and I had no memory of it. I wrote it March 30th, 2019. So it's been two years. you can just retweet this thing every year. Fool me once.

Shame on you. Fool me twice. Shame on me. Fool me 14 times. Yorgonzaga. That's how I feel this year. I wasn't fooled again. Bet the Bears.

And by the way, Baylor, two players with mullets. I didn't even know they had a second guy with a waterfall. We had dual waterfalls at the podium tonight. Mark Vital, my hero, my favorite battle. basketball player, love this guy. He was an absolute menace on the boards tonight, offensive boards. The guy like the ball goes in the air, you just know he knows how to go up and get it. He wants the ball more than the other guys. That's a cliche generally, but this guy

who's built like a football player, he wants the ball more than you. And to close out the night, man, one shining moment, I got to say this, it's a huge bummer the last night. it's so cool most of the year but you know to see that and think about March madness but when it's really crunch time to put the you know the highlight reel they've been working on for the better part of a month together and you see all the teams that have been out for like an entire three month span it feels like like Michigan State those people have have grown up and gotten jobs and families in 401ks by now like that's how long ago I feel like Michigan State was in the tournament they showed me Luca Garland

And I was like, remember him from like, when did he play like two years ago? One shining moments of bummer. It lets you know that it's over. And it's on to the Masters. It's on to baseball. In years past, wouldn't be so hyped about that this year really into it. Big golf watcher this weekend. And as you know, the lead here, which I'm bearing is that the Phillies are four and oh.

We won't talk about the Orioles, took one on the chin tonight. but the Phillies are 4-0. Coincidence? 4-0 since your boy became a fan. I'm telling you, Greenlight pot, it blesses people. The Blues need some help. Blues have lost now seven straight. That's my favorite hockey team.

I've had so much success on the diamond. Maybe later in the week, we'll light them up a shrine if they haven't gotten a win. Otherwise, sit back, relax, listen to the pod. Got a lot to talk about. Talked about it earlier today. Baylor is your national champion. It's Monday afternoon. The game is tonight.

You just heard my reaction. Hope it was a good ball game. You know, couldn't get any more chalky than the two teams that everybody was expecting to be there in Baylor and Gonzaga. So hope at least it's pretty good. Because you know what would suck if that buzzer-beater was the...

Has there any other word that I could use then climax of the tournament? If that was the climax, it was a game early. Hopefully it was good. And that's a late game, dude. My lovely wife called it earlier. She asked me what time the game was. I said 920.

She was like, like no chance I see that game. And she's got a point. That's late for moms. So NCAA, consider maybe sliding that game a little bit earlier. Think of the moms out there. 920 tonight.

At this point, I don't know who won. today the main attraction is Alex Honnold Alex Honnold if you've seen the movie Free Solo is the guy that um did the crazy thing in the movie and I got 30 30 minutes with him about and that was something I was really looking forward to did not disappoint so um I'm going to talk a little sports today but the main event is a real sport climbing a 3,000 foot Hi, granite edifice is what the internet refers to L-Cap as, which sounds not even as intimidating as it actually is.

When you watch Free Solo, when you think of Stan's dad in South Park, and I often reference him, I think about Alex Honnold. When you think about Stan's dad putting his balls in that wheelbarrow, that's pretty much the way I'm thinking about Alex Honnold. that that character might actually be an animation a rendering of Alex Honnold I talked to him last week and we kind of banked this interview knowing we could use it this week I love doing this interview

because like what he does climbing um like the technical climbing listen I've walked up mountains okay like I'm a hiker dude like okay like people are like oh you did killy and all that stuff like I walked up a mountain like this guy uh is is a human spider man and uh you know there's there's a lot to that sport and i don't know shit about it and so i really enjoy interviewing people that i'm not supposed to know anything about because it's like it's it's kind of nice it's like there's no such thing as a stupid question or maybe there is if you're listening and you know um what it's like to free solo a large rock i enjoy talking to him i think you're going to enjoy uh hearing it 30 minutes or so and he's very interesting we've also got my

buddy Jimmy Trayna coming by on the back end to talk a little baseball and talk some 17 game season overreaction or underreaction. I don't know like depends on what you think of the big change going to 17 games in the NFL. Reid, what do you think? 17 games too much football. Well, I don't know. I think we have to get through a season to see what it's like. I couldn't tell you how much more that extra game would hurt. It's going to hurt. It's going to hurt. But, you know, there's positives, you know, eventually, well, I don't, the negatives outweigh

the positives in my mind. But first, let's catch up a little bit here for my baseball teams, the Orioles and the Phillies, I should say the Phillies and the Orioles, sorry, 6 and O, O'Brien. Talk to Jimmy about that. Makin's team, two and one, and at the time of record, battling it out with the Yankees, It should be up towards the top on my score app. I check it a lot. Oh, it's live.

It always is. Blue J's up 401. Top six. Good for you, Make. I just don't get it. They can't even play at home right now. How many times are we going to go to Toronto? It just was kind of out of left field, that pick.

We'll be back Thursday together. Anyways, um, listen, this weekend was Easter. Which means a lot of things for sure. does mean a lot of things. It also means that, you know, without fail at about one in the morning, Sunday morning, I'm going to realize that it's Easter and I'm drunk and I'm alone. And my friends went home because tomorrow's Easter. Like if I'm drinking beers with a buddy or I, you know, before the pandemic went out for a few, like everybody at a certain hours,

like, yeah, tomorrow's Easter, dude, and then they leave. That's how I ended up Saturday night. suffice to say my brain is scrambled so it is tough to podcast today playing hurt that was a typical typical easter for me dag hunt was great kids had a ball but dads across america are playing hurt i just don't want you to think that like if you you know us podcasters go through it too and there were so much so so much sports this weekend oh my goodness i talked about baseball earlier my team's great both of my teams are great the orioles tweeted at my son wayland basically they they said whalen season three and oh did you see that read i did he fired back or the orials fired back that was great yeah no the orioes not many uh four-year-olds are getting tweeted at by professional

baseball teams well read he's five now five okay well there's a ton of five year old so he's in a bunch of, he's got some competition. Well, listen, here's the deal. Now, you know, the Orioles, I'm going to be so painfully obvious about when I'm going up there and taking whaling up there to try to get like some free stuff. Oh, man.

Oh, buddy. I'm not going to lie. Like, you know, like I said in the last pot, I'm a life free agent and, you know, I'm shamelessly into the free year. But it was a great weekend. You had that. You had college basketball, which was incredible.

It was incredible. I'm not even going to pretend to care about the other final four game other than the fact that Baylor won me money that was a layup no pun intended the Gonzaga finish was undoubtedly one of the best of all time in NCAA history okay I'm not being a prisoner of the moment saying that um you know like the back and forth with no stoppage at the end of that game there were literally no timeouts and there's very little chance that that game has been usurped as the best one yet this March upon your hearing this. I'm not going to do the the Skip Bayless thing, you know, which it's incredible being a troll is only supposed to be

easy when you're anonymous. He actually, the entire thing about being a troll is the tradeoff of being a troll is you look like an asshole, but you're an anonymous guy on the internet. But for you to troll like the entirety of mainstream Joe fan and make like millions upon millions of dollars to do it and everybody know what you look like, what your name is and all that, it's incredible to me. Can you imagine just being like, I'm going to throw that. I'm just going to shit on this half court bank shot I just saw to win a final four game. I'm not going skip Bayless.

I'm just saying like let's not get carried away. the best shot of all time went through it today I had a feeling but it was confirmed watching the video and like going back down memory lane it was the nova shot it was the nova shot it was the jenkins buzzer beater and they were playing uncc which factors into this listen the the shot saturday night was legitimately one of the few relatively few sports moments that i will remember exactly where I was who I was watching with. This was an incredible shot. But since this is what we do,

we immediately start parsing it historically. Not the greatest shot of all time. It was incredible. But, you know, beating the underdog, punching down takes a little bit off the top for me. What else are they going to do? But I'm just saying, like if I'm waiting it, you're talking about Nova knocking down a blue blood like that.

Although Nova is like thought of it. of Blue Blood, I'm pretty sure if you polled 98% of Americans who are not, who don't bleed Carolina Blue in every corner of America, like 3% of Carolina fans actually went to Carolina. I mean, it's like the most five logos on a Twitter background

college team you could root for. People were probably happy Villanova One, dude. So that added to it. It was like, if you look at the shot in a vacuum, not to steal the shine from Jalen Suggs. It was incredible. And also not lucky, Skip, not lucky. This Jenkins shot was a movie buzzer-beater.

I went back and watched it. We don't have any fans, like the entire buzz, the sounds, like you had the horn right after he let it go, the clank of like the back of the rim. It just hit the back so perfectly. And then you had the bench in the same shot, people flooding the court. Like, I'm sorry, like, as cool as the Jalen Sugg shot was, it wasn't that for me.

And then Jenkins stands there with the perfect, like, big guy celebration, like, feet planted, just outstretched arms. Rafferty with the onions cause, like, in that case, he said Jalen Sugg Saturday night was major onions. He said that you've got onions. And then there was like this pause and I was like, my jaw was on the floor. And I'm like, what's he going to say next? And then you got major onions.

And I was like, whatever you say, Bill. Like, he told you right there. Bill told you that was major onions, but it wasn't a double order of onions. Sauteed. That's what he said about the Nova shot. And that's the way I feel about that Nova shot. You had Charles Barkley off to the side,

like Calvary Reid told me to look back at this, and I forgot about this. Chuck definitely won some money on Nova that night, the way he was celebrating. It was definitely relieved kind of, of oh my gosh thank you celebration he had both fists clenched and they kind of came into his side like that's that's relief that means he had a lot of money on that game and he was chasing i'm just telling you there's no no reason for him to care about villanova that much but that that's the

best shot of all time and you know you talk about the trauma shot chommer shot was cool but it was at Derek Rose's expense, which sucked, and it was to tie and send him to overtime. You know, so Charmer shot doesn't do it for me. Leightner, no thanks. Should have been ejected, as Reed pointed out early, very astutely. Should have been ejected earlier in that game. It was an elite eight game. That was all pass, okay?

Every kid in the backyard has hit that shot at least once. I'm kind of fucking around right now, so don't take offense if you're like a huge Christian Leitner fan, who was actually a better pro than people realize. but the Jenkins shot was amazing. Double order, sauteed. Championship game. And actually, it's only four feet closer in Jalen Suggs his shot, probably.

Reed, how many feet would you say if you had to eyeball that? Yeah, I mean, that's about right. The differences are that Ruggs hit it on the run with a couple hands in his face while Jenkins got the handoff and Archie Deaconow got to run interference for him. No doubt about it.

It was worth. One was a set shot where he's waiting. You know, you get the perfect pass executed the little underneath the little hook and ladder. Like, I don't need. It was just perfect the way they drew that thing up. Now, the Suggs thing frustrated me if you're UCLA, and I don't know shit about basketball to this degree, but I'm like, I know somebody's got to stop the ball or like put some pressure on the ball

before maybe half court. But it's a tie ball game. So if you foul, I know it's dicey, whatever. um yeah chomers late nor not the best of all time is jenkins in my opinion um and then after that game dude oh my goodness i said this on twitter and i was i was kind of like Saturday i turned into the final boss of like Caucasian dads in their 30s okay there's no other way to put it i had you know craft beer uh i had my labrador retriever and i was breaking the rules because my my wife and my kids were out of the house all day and I had the house to myself.

So what do I do? I let the lab sit on the couch with me. Right, fellas? He's not supposed to be up there. I'm drinking craft beer. I'm watching baseball during the day. I'm watching baseball on a Saturday. I'm not saying this disparagingly,

but it's a pretty white thing to do. I'm doing that. Then I'm watching college basketball. And I'm just sitting there and I'm thinking, what a day. Like, this is perfect. At 25, that was not a perfect Saturday. That was the perfect Saturday.

So I really succumb to something here. And I'm okay with it. I really am. Like down to the lab. Love that dog. Shout out to Willie. But it was like, oh, really, this is what I do now. Right down to, like I said earlier,

had a buddy over to drink some beers, and I'm ready to get a buzz on, and my man leaves after three beers. And I feel like that's the classic middle-aged white dad buzz, like your friends left. And he's probably drinking just like you at home. but you're kind of just tired at this point. Well, the game was enough to keep you into it.

Man, when it ended, I realized that I really do think when you finish witnessing something that great on TV in the sports world, whether it was a great Sunday night game or an afternoon game, like you know how many people watch 60 minutes accidentally because they were just stuck? Like people are learning about the Gaza Strip

and they've never turned on this. news before because they're just stuck from some fourth quarter Philip Rivers comeback. You know, that that's the phenomenon I'm trying to describe here was that buzzer beater, it was like, whoa! Then everybody left and I'm sitting there alone on the couch and next thing you know, I've watched the entire local news. And I'm not sure if I've watched it once or twice at this point. They do a great job actually here locally at CBS. It was great. I'm not complaining, but it's just not something that I would do generally. When it hit me that I was stuck to the couch after midnight, I think I was 15 minutes into NCIS, New Orleans.

I didn't even know there was an NCIS, New Orleans. Had no idea. Running out of cities. But it's actually a pretty good idea when you think about it. And the show wasn't that bad. I had very low expectations. I also have low expectations for just getting lost in like unplanned TV programs. like just wandering like throwing away the roadmap and just sitting there and whatever's on TV I'm stuck watching it and a great sports moment nudge me into doing that for the first time in my adult life I'm out of football I'm retired this is really like life now and it wasn't so bad dude I've always feared that like sitting in a lazy boy and just forgetting that I've been watching TV for two hours that's what I did Saturday night I did it because that's the rule after a big shot or a big play you get your friends leave you got the white dad buzz and you don't move that's law after a big shot you have to

watch all the programming on that channel until into sunday and that's what i did um and when i tweeted about it people identified with that it's a lot of people going through that same thing people were just glued to their chair after that shot it was an amazing shot it was an amazing game everything about it I loved it. I loved it. Hope the game tonight is that good. You guys know. I don't. Real quick, the fight, okay? The alleged X-Rater's offensive tackle Bruce Campbell fight. The news that spread like wildfire that, you know, this ginormous former NFL player, who I actually remember very well, he's a Maryland guy, a little younger than me, had gotten beaten up in like a home to or something and like in this grainy video this large dude just got peace by this guy that

you knew could fight because like as soon as the guy walked around the corner he like pulled his pants up a little bit and if you pull your pants up I saw somebody say this this weekend and it's totally true that if you like adjust your belt before you square up like you probably can fight I knew it was over for the big guy but when I saw it I sent it tory Smith and the first thing to say was that is not Bruce Campbell and I was glad it wasn't because the guy just could not fight. Like, listen, you know, let's put it this way. I was like, I was, in my head, I was thinking to myself,

if you're Bruce Campbell and you're waking up the next day seeing that, if you really got beat up, do you ever go out in public again? Like, that was a rough one, okay? The best, the rare good twist in a retired NFL player story was that it was not Bruce Campbell. Bruce Campbell is alive and well. He didn't get beat up in a Home Depot this weekend. He's still athletic.

He doesn't have bad footwork. There was a tweet today this morning from the Bruce Campbell. This random person is not me. I'm a thousand miles away on the East Coast. I'm in good health, enjoying fatherhood and pursuing my coaching career. Also, let's not get it twisted. My hands are certified. What he means to say is he would never look like that in a fight.

And I am so glad. This is like the personification of Denzel relieved.jif. I mean, that was me because you never want to see one of your former, you know, colleagues getting pieced up in a Home Depot in a cutoff shirt. You know, it's just not, it's like automatically it was going to be that guy's doing bad. And actually, he's doing very well. And if you ask Tori Smith, his hands really are certified. Evidently, Bruce Campbell could really throw hands, so to speak.

So the ramification of this for me, my instant reaction is I mean, we don't even need to deep fake people. I was really into this deep fake thing with Tom Cruise. Like we can just, you know, some guy like the fake Albert, which is an account that started this whole thing, could just tag a video to a former player. And we'd be like, uh, looks close enough.

You know, like could be him. video's pretty grainy and it's from like 30 feet away but because I saw it retweeted like I fell victim to that for an hour or two I was like damn Bruce Campbell got beat up the story spread like wildfire man it was like trending um so that's the scary thing about like the way we consume media right now myself included you just like take it and you share it and you send to somebody I sent it two people one of them was Tori thankfully

but I mean that's pretty fucking scary and you know as a public figure, it's a lose-lose to get in a fight. Perfect twist for us here. He hit us back. He hit us back. He hit us back. Bruce is available. Bruce?

Okay, we got to get Bruce on here, man, because I'm so glad that we could, maybe we'll clear this thing up. I really want to, I DM Bruce earlier. I mean, shoot, he's a Maryland guy. We played against each other. Reed, he's probably setting up right now as we speak, so I appreciate you. In the meantime, I'll give you the background. Maryland had some huge tackles.

And he was younger than me, but I remember, you know, just that run of guys, Jared Gaither, the whole group, and then this guy. When I saw the video, I just didn't believe it was him. I'm really glad we're going to get him on. So I reached out to him and I said, listen, I want to clear your name.

Don't go on anybody else's show. Go on our show. Clear your name here. This is a safe place. He's ready? he's ready here you go so listen this is about the only time i'm going to do a campaign for a maryland terrapin here on my show i saw one of my colleagues was in trouble there's slanderous information out there i got bruce campbell here i got the source here bruce how's your day been

man oh man my day has been it's been wild man um literally i go to sleep wake up up to just my phone going off and just people texting, calling. I'm like, dude, okay, like, this is a lot more serious than I thought. Like, I'm not the guy to really entertain it, kind of. So I'm just like, wow, this is serious. So long story short, I basically just wanted to get the point out like, dude, it's not me. Like, point blank, like, it's not me like, do like at least, like, come on, like, at least give me a little bit of credit. I kind of just stopped playing football.

Dude, that's what I'm saying. The first time I saw it, I was like, no, dude, there's no way. There's no way. First off, didn't look like you. Second, like, honestly, if you told me Jared Gaither's knees aren't doing as good, shout out to big Jared Gaither. Like, that's a huge human being who I think might have some like, huge. Yeah.

Like, I just, I was like, man, this doesn't make sense. There's no way your feet would be that bad. I mean, it's always questionable whether or not. not we have hands as players, it's not automatic that we can fight. But I was like, there's just no way athletically that could be a guy who just got out of the NFL and was such a big athletic cat, because I remember, like, you know, we, we played against each other. Yeah.

Dude, it's, yeah, it's just been, I mean, this on top of, like, doing it, you know, I'm, alignment. I'm not, I don't need that, like, you know, I like to get, get my hand dirty, you know, playing the trenches a little bit. Don't, I don't need to put, you know. So that combined with I got two kids as well. Dude, like my day has been wild. So wait, are people texting you off the top like buddies?

Did the people that text you first, did they know it was bogus? Or did mostly were, okay. Because I was going to say, like, if you believe that your friend got his ass kicked in Home Depot, you might give him a day before you text him. Yeah. Yeah, I believe that. I believe that, yes. For sure.

For sure. I believe that. And I love that you tweeted. And I love the way you finish that tweet. You don't have it memorized. I'm just going to read it. And I think this was great, but I think that the screwed up thing, Bruce,

you only got 841 retweets here. That's fine. We need to retweet this more. But that's the screwed up thing. Everybody on Twitter, the lie can travel around the world like that. Yeah. I mean but when you when you actually you know bring some clarity of the situation only 800 people want to retweet it yeah I mean that's but that's I mean isn't that what the that's the joy of social media right okay so the end of the tweet this random person's not me I'm a thousand miles away on the East Coast I mean good health enjoying fatherhood and pursuing my coaching career which I love this I love this also let's not get it twisted my hands are certified tell the people at home what that means for

I mean dude I mean I'm more of a fighter you know like I'm my I fought in my days he's fought in my days and the word is that he's fought

pretty well in his days that's what Torrey Smith's first when I hit up Tori Tori was the one who cleared the air for me and was like first thing first text I woke up to this morning I was just so thankful when I got that text from Tori and he's like nah dude and he's he's he's He's got heavyweight boxing skills.

So it's ironic that you got dragged into this thing. But like amazing. Enjoying fatherhood in good health. It's always good to hear a former player's story that has a positive twist rather than the other way, man. Where are you coaching at now? Just a local high school here in Fort Mill South Carolina, Catap Ridge. Oh, okay. So have you seen the kids yet?

Did the kids hit you? They kill you probably worse than anybody else. else. No, they haven't, they haven't done me that bad yet. They haven't done me that bad yet, but they pretty much joke on me all the time, though. I am by it. So this is going to be a running joke for probably some time now. Oh. Thank you. Hey, I was, what was your, what was your scattering report on the fight, man, as you looked at it, if you were able to break it down? Dude, one, like, you just don't go out there, approach nobody swinging that wildly in the first place you ask you ask it for a chin check right yeah um man it just like I said if that was me

dude I would I'd have walked away from a situation you know what I'm saying like you got nothing to prove you know deep go walk away dude walk away and also I said this to the listeners earlier before I knew that you were going to pop on I was like when the dude walked around the corner and pulled his belt up like I know like okay that guy can fight the other guy is just like flaming. He fought like a, he fights like a guy who's never actually had to fight anybody because he's six, nine. He's just,

he's been able to wrestle people. Yeah. Well, Bruce Campbell, we just want, hey, dude, we just want to get you on just to clear the air. And I'll do that, like in the name of the truth, even if he's a Maryland terrapin, even if we would have had to headbutt each other back in the day. I'm glad to hear he's doing well and that wasn't him in our depot. Yeah, it was Walmart.

And man, the funniest text I think I got today was from one of my buddies. And he goes, yeah, I knew that wasn't true. You're more of a Target guy. Oh, man, I broke out. That was the one that broke me out in tears, man. I broke out in tears. Oh, that's so good. I broke out in tears from that one.

I couldn't even, I didn't even respond to him. It just left me laughing. That's amazing. Bruce Campbell, man. Hey, alive and well. and can fight much better than that cat we saw on the internet today. Dude, I'm glad you're doing good. It's great talk to you.

It's funny circumstance, but it's good catching up. Appreciate it. Yeah, Chris Tyler, man. And as we're recording this right now, Chris, Sam Darnold has just been traded to the Carolina Panthers. The Jets get three total draft picks, a sixth rounder in 2021, in a second and a fourth in 2022.

So, Darnold reunites with Robbie Anderson in New York and Matt Rule, who when Matt Rule interviewed in New York, came away with a glowing impression of Sam Darnold. And then also all signs point to the Jets now selecting their quarterback pick at number two, whoever that may be. Yeah, I mean, that's the number one thing. You know who the quarterback of the Jets future is. It's probably Zach Wilson, yeah.

No, they could pull a major upset and, you know, pick some late riser at two or, you know, something less chalky. But this makes sense. And yeah, impressive to see Joe be able to move Darnold. I just did see the, thank you for that, the Carolina graphic. Well done. The old Sam Darnold out indefinitely with Mono. but altered to fit the occasion. It's out of New York indefinitely

and then morphing into a Carolina Panthers rendering of Sam Darnold. And I didn't have this on my bingo card. I didn't. You know, like I said, this off-season stuff, it can be all over the map. Sometimes it's better to just wait and see what happens. And listen,

I think the big risk if you're Carolina is Sam Darnold playing really well and Joe Brady going getting a job. I think Sam Donald's got one more year on that deal. He does his rookie deal. So his deal, he becomes an unrestricted free agent after the 2022 season. Yep, after 2020. And so I think, yeah, the biggest fear, I think it's great for the Jets.

You know, you get something for a kid that you probably like. If I think I know Sam Donald, I think, you know, there's something in there, but franchises don't have time to get it out sometimes. and you'd much rather have a chance to start fresh. I mean, if you can move Sam Darnold, 10 out of 10 times knowing what you know about Sam Darnold and his prospects and how it's played out, you would probably take Zach Wilson

because if you put Sam Darnold at USC in that moment, head to head with Zach Wilson at BYU, I think Zach Wilson, the buzz on him is just, and I'm not trying to be like somebody who is a prisoner of the moment and knows that Sam didn't pan out in New York, I think he'd probably take Zach. So, like, even if they were college prospects side by side, I think it's at least a conversation about Zach or Darnold.

You add to the fact you kind of know that Darnold needs to develop, and it's probably not going to happen here. It's just like, if you can move him, move him. No problem. Get it. Nice, classy note from the Jets about Darnold. I'm sure they like him. They just don't like him enough.

to think that he's gonna be the solution here in a transitional period. There is more risk, undoubtedly, on the side of the Panthers. This kid could, like I said, play really well under Joe Brady and Matt Ruhl for a year or two. Joe Brady could leave. He could struggle after that. We've seen all the time, quarterbacks

that have some success and then struggle after that guy leaves. Like, it's almost like you're afraid of the best case scenario a little bit. But there must be something in Sam Darnold that Matt Ruhl saw when he visited the Jets because he really likes him. And he probably isn't so worried about it being Joe Brady and not Sam Darnold. That's going to be the scariest thing in Carolina is going to be not knowing for sure what you got.

You're going to see an improvement. What do you got long term? Now the interesting thing I'd like to know your opinion on is what do the Panthers do with Teddy Bridgewater. Do they hold on to him as a backup? Does he maybe go to San Francisco? Oh, man. Could he go to Denver? Would you like him in Denver? You know, I would. I really like Drew Locke, despite his shortcomings. I really like Drew Locke. I wish that switch could just be flipped to where you get it. You're locked in. You're locked in. You're locked in for another year, Drew Locke. I am. I think that he can turn it around. I mean, the

problem is that if he if his turnovers can't you know decline that roster's built for a long playoff run you can't have a playoff team that turns the ball over no you can't yeah he's he's turned he's turned the ball over way too much i would take teddy bridgewater for sure yeah yeah i i would i would listen denver would probably be happy with him uh but again teddy's in this funny spot now where, and I almost feel for him, he's played himself into this place where he's never the guy. You know, he's never the guy, but he's

somebody that's greatly respected, can win for you, but teams are always going to want a little bit more. And I hate that because I really, really like Teddy. Depends on how good the Panthers think they are. If the Panthers think they're good this year, if the Panthers think they can make a run at, like, a

playoff run or a run at that division, as hard as that might be. Right. And it wasn't like he was a bad quarterback. They were in a lot of games. And Bridgewater didn't have McCaffrey for most of the season. So I saw Dan Orlovsky talking about this with Mel Kuyper

earlier today before the trade went down. I'll turn on the TV and I rarely do, but they're just screaming at each other. Predictably, people are screaming at people about quarterbacks. But the whole conversation is in New York, would you keep both quarterbacks if you would you keep Donald,

which now we know they're not keeping darned, would you keep Donald and perspective exactly Zach Wilson. It's not a Teddy Bridgewater type vet. You'd have a guy who's probably pissed off, still on his first contract. He's looking out the door. I don't care what you think about being on a team.

Like if you're not the guy and you're nearing the end of your contract, you're thinking about getting the fuck out of there. You're going to help. Sam Donald's a good kid. I'm sure he would have helped a rookie. But it's not like Teddy Bridgewater who might, although Teddy might think that,

and here's the thing. You've got to sell Teddy Bridgewater backing up. Sam Darnold, which I almost feel like if I'm Teddy Bridgewater, I'm like, get me out of here. As classy as he is, I mean, we do, us classy guys, we do also look out for ourselves and we want to be in the best situation possible. And I would think if I was Teddy Bridgewater, I don't care how cool I am. I don't care how like, I would kind of take this as a slap in the face. so it would be hard for me as Teddy Bridgewater to sit behind Sam Darnold. Now, I'm sure if he has to, he'll do it because he's a great guy,

and he'll try to mentor him, and maybe he's fine with that. So I think Teddy Bridgewater and Sam Darnel probably could coexist in some form there, and maybe you want to hedge your bets because you think you're pretty good, or maybe you want to hedge your bets because who wouldn't want to back up like Teddy Bridgewater or a backup like Sam Darnold. But the truth is convincing Teddy Bridgewater at his age with what he's been through, with what he's earned that he's not the guy just because we're going to try to salvage a guy who is a high pick.

That kind of sucks for him, you know? And I got nothing against Sam Darnold. And I know the business side of this thing. I've been the older guy who just thought of as like, you know, like you just get pegged. And I feel like Sam deserves an opportunity, but does he deserve it automatically at Teddy's expense. It'll be interesting to what they say about, like, is this a competition? Are they looking to shop Teddy? If Teddy wants out, man, Teddy deserves out. Teddy deserves to go play in San Francisco or somewhere else. Now, San Francisco is a bad example because they're probably

going to draft a quarterback. But what if they don't? Maybe you'd have to think San Francisco moved up knowing what they were doing. Sala, Shanahan, they probably still talk. And so you have to actually deduced from this whole situation that the Niners never moved up to get Zach Wilson, which of course has been a big deal when people have put two and two together

that it's incomprehensible that they might like Mac Jones. Like this is the thing I'm talking about. We don't know shit. We really don't know if Mac Jones is good or not. We can't just make fun of anybody who has a take that Mac Jones might be good.

Like we don't know. I don't know. I don't know if Trevor Lawrence is better than Zach Wilson. I don't know. How's that for you? I have no idea. and I'm not just being cute.

It's hard to figure. So, yeah, there's this big domino effect here. But three picks, good haul for a team that already has a lot of ammo in the draft. And, you know, for the Jets on the back end, you're talking about a team that's looking around the division and saying, everybody's trying to win. Everybody's on the come-up. The Patriots were spending like they won the lotto. The dolphins have a million picks and feel like they have their guy and they move back.

right and the bills have built a contending roster so you see your guy you got to go get him and i think probably up in new york right now they're they're freaking out because they must really like whoever they saw because there's something to like about sam but it's better to start over i guess a couple shoutouts before we get into uh alex honald here the women's basketball team at stanford national champs pack 12 just dominant this year good news on that tournament uh you Yukon didn't win at all. I mean, that's something we all like to see as casual basketball fans. And so Arizona was kind of the team that slayed the dragon,

and I was thinking to myself like, man, it would be fun if Arizona won. Also, Airy McDonald, she is electric. She's going to be a coach one day. She has to be a coach one day. I don't know what her, like, WMBA prospects are like because I don't follow that closely, but she just has this magnetism. She's also one of the fastest walkers I've ever seen. I mean, she walks everywhere really fast.

Just a ball of energy. I was like, with her performance, I popped in for the Connecticut game. She was dominant, man. I was rooting for Arizona. But Stanford got the job done. Big year for the Pac-12. Big year for the Pac-12. Shout out to Stanford women's basketball.

And their coach, Tara Vandevere, evidently waited like, 28 years to win a second title. I guess they won in the early 90s. It's like the longest weight that any coach has had to endure to win a second championship. So pretty exciting. Jeopardy. Okay. Aaron Rogers is doing Jeopardy tonight.

I almost wish we could do an emergency pod tomorrow to recount it. By the way, I learned today how to spell Jeopardy. That's a tough word. Read. J-O-P-R-D-Y. It's J-E-O-P-A-R-D-Y. Yeah, but you need one of those Nymonics, don't you?

Right. I don't know if that counts as a mnemonic, but anyways, like, that's a tough, tough word I noticed today as I was trying to tweet about it. But I said,

you know, they're packaging Aaron Rogers to be so docile. You know, he looks like he's in this ad and I shot the picture out there. I did a double take because it looks like he's doing like local news.

He looks so harmless. He looks so homely. He looks like he's, going to um you know do a high school highlight or read the weather but no he's like a certified throat ripper shout out to mcgruber he's like a guy who's going to end your team he's a guy that's going to make your kids cry sitting there crying in his jersey um i don't care that the playoff success hasn't um you know up to some people's standards the guy's a certified killer you can't rebrand him and put him in a plaid sport coat and have him reading the answers i found out today the hard

People don't say reading the questions because it's technically an answer, right, Reed? Would you say that? Yeah, that sounds right. I'm such an idiot. I had a really good tweet and I was saying he's just here reading questions. And then, of course, my co-host jumped in and corrected me. I look like a moron. Who, by the way, I'm challenging to Jeopardy on Thursday.

It's on. I would say I'm like plus 400 odds to beat Macon. Macon is highly educated. He's a brilliant cat. I'm not smarter than Macon. I'm just not I know who I am but that would make it all the more sweet

if I mop the floor with him Thursday Reed for the Friday pod so Reed we got to get together a jeopardy situation for me in Macon and I'm not asking you shit scouts honor right yep no you're good

I have all the questions submitted John and I have it covered you guys are going to have a good contest I almost feel like if he loses to me he should have to sit in the Waffle house with me That sounds about right

It does and if I and if I lose 48 hours in a lot That's not worth it dude It's not worth it and I am headed to the Waffle House soon Anyways we Like I said Sorry this pod's all over the place I mean but uh

We've got Alex Honnold Um Free Solo All types of crazy feats In his sport Reed, you're a big fan of that stuff, right? I am. I saw a free solo twice in theaters. I saw it once at your alma mater at Steynance Bellfield when they showed it there.

And then right down here at the movie theater that you frequented the past couple of months. Yeah. It's phenomenal. Not only in showing his, you know, how he attacks his craft, but also like his emotion, the sides of these kind of movies that haven't been shown before. And also the cinematography of Yosemite is unreal. I mean, it's something that Jimmy Chin. The Yosemites.

Yosemite. But it's something that Jimmy Chin is no for the director. And it's just beautiful. It's such a beautiful place. And it's a really great movie. And Alex, it was a wonderful interview. You mentioned that we did last week, yeah, a couple weeks ago.

And he brought it. And you guys had a really good conversation. Dude, you know what? It was cool because like I said earlier, if you're talking about a sport like that, if I interview football people or people that are kind of in my realm of relative expertise,

like I can't afford to look stupid. You know, like you try not to, but you're going to look stupid sometimes. You're going to ask dumb questions. When I ask somebody like Alex Honol questions, I'm not supposed to know the answer. And I'm also not supposed to know what's a dumb question. So like I enjoy that freedom and it was just a lot of fun.

And honestly, that that side of it when I watch Free Solo was the thing that I took away that was even more impressive than his skill or like his physicality. It's just his it's fearlessness. Sure. His state of mind. It's just you can't you can't do something like that. without being incredible up top. And so, and when I was watching interviews that he did leading up,

I was kind of blown away by Roxanne, I wouldn't blown away. When I was watching interviews leading up, it was like, even when somebody asked him a question that I felt like was maybe a dumb question, he never got upset with it. He's kind of entertained by other human beings. He's just kind of like,

I wonder what it's like to be afraid of stuff and not live life to the fullest. and I wonder what it's like to for the idea of fearlessness to be foreign you know like for him he's very much different than everybody else he encounters day to day that's a great point it seems like he never gets tired of the how can you do this it's so terrifying question

I don't think because answer is over and over and over he and I think he understands that like he understands well that it's a it's a perfectly good question for people like you or me you know it's there he he does a a really good job of being patient with us who just have no idea how that's possible because he knows I think that he is a little bit different so loved the interview loved having him on hopefully we get him back again um here's Alex Honnold and then stick around for a little back and forth

me and Jimmy so I got Alex Honnold American rock climber you know him from free solo that was the first time I had seen Alex um also Yosemite triple crown as well and getting ready to do a podcast soon called climbing gold. Alex, how you doing, man? Yeah, good. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. Are you nervous to get in the podcasting game? You're pretty fearless, but podcasting is scary. I know nothing about it, so I wasn't nervous, but should I

be? No, that's the, okay, you got the right attitude, because when I started this thing, when I retired from the NFL, like, two years ago, I knew nothing about podcasting. I was like, oh, it's easy. You're just talking to a microphone, and then you just learn from your mistakes over and over again. You know what I mean? So tell us about the podcast, what you guys are going to be talking about mostly.

Yeah, so climbing gold is, well, it's, I mean, it came about because climbing is at such an interesting point right now. I mean, I don't know if you know, but climbing's going to be in the Olympics for the first time this summer. And then with the success of the film Free Solo and just, I mean, the growth of climbing gyms, it's like really climbing has been seen tremendous growth and there's a lot of change. And so we felt like it was a good time to share some of the stories from the previous generation of climbers. And then also kind of share where the sport is going with the Olympics, because, there's this big disconnect between generations of climbers right now. And we felt like sharing the right stories could help sort of bridge that and show where the sport's going.

What is that disconnect? Well, it's just that like, I mean, the sort of stereotypical ideas that, you know, you have the crusty old dudes like mountain men, you know, like 60 year olds that grew up like in the woods, climbing mountains. And then the kids that are going to the Olympics are like 18 year olds that have trained in the gym six hours a day for the last four years, you know, I mean, basically the same as like an elite level of gymnast. And so, you know, those are totally different worlds where you have like a young person who trains as a physical sport nonstop or an old person who's a full on adventure that wants to have a life experience in the mountains.

And so that's a big part of what we explore in climbing gold is that contrast between athleticism and adventure. Yeah, it's funny because when you think about like mountain men like stereotypically, you think about a dude that's a lumberjack and also can climb that mountain. You know, like, and he could be any age, he could be any fitness level. He just has to have good wind and have done it a lot of times before, presumably. But it is interesting, like these super athlete, like gymnast types, and I would count you as a novice evaluator of what you do as somebody who, when I watch Free Solo, I was like, damn, this guy's an amazing athlete. But there's work behind that.

There's like a lifetime of training. Yeah, but I actually kind of fall right in the middle between of the spectrum from Mountain Man to gymnast athlete. I'm kind of in the middle because I grew up with the first generation of climbing gyms, which are pretty scrappy facilities. And I'm just a little older. And I personally love adventuring. Like I love climbing mountains and going outdoors.

And so, but, you know, I can still appreciate the new school. And so I think that's a big part of what we bring to climbing gold is being able to bridge that world and sort of share both ends of the spectrum. I was just thinking when you were talking about mountain men and lumber jacks and climbing mountains, is it Rocky Four with the training montage? Yeah. He's like carrying logs and like running through the snow. And so, I mean, historically, that was kind of climbing training. You know, it's like if you think of like 1970s mountain climbers, you think of that, you know, like guys out in a cabin chopping wood all winter and like, you know, climbing peaks when they can. And modern Olympians, you know, it's much more in the gym, super focused, periodized training like, you know, with coaches and, you know, video playback and all this kind of like elite training methods.

It's just, I mean, it's really different worlds. Football is the same way. Like back in the day, dudes just kind of mindlessly went out there and more was more. it was like the more output, the better shape you're going to be in. Like there's no point of diminishing return. There's no science to it. It's literally, hey, here's a heavy thing, lift that repetitively. And also it was much less year-round.

So it was less specialized. And it was more like trial by fire for six weeks before the fall when our season started. Like my dad played. And back in the day, they'd kill him for six weeks. Well, now it's very specialized. You've got stuff hooked up to you. There's different gyms. There's people, you know, analyzing, are you a fat burner or you a carb burner?

Suffice to say, like, we've specialized too. So that makes a lot of sense that as this thing pushes forward, it's going to become more like that for you guys as well. Totally. No, I mean, I'm sure that turns true across all sports as the sports develop, you know, as it become more popular as, well, actually, I mean, part of it, I think, is as there is money in the sport. Because with climbing, you know, when I started climbing on as a kid, they're basically

wasn't really a climbing industry, so there's no money in it. But, you know, what you're describing, I mean, with the NFL, everyone has their nutritionist and their sports massage and like all this, you know, like super high in development. And climbing isn't quite there yet because there just isn't quite enough money to pay all those people. But I'm sure in, you know, 15 years it probably will be where like elite competitors each have their body worker, their nutritionists. They're like sports physiologists. Like, who knows, you know. Well, and this is perfect because we've touched on this a lot, you know, when I've watched you talk is. And it came across pretty nicely and free solo as you've been frugal.

And you're a guy that doesn't want for much. And I admire that a lot as somebody who's very cluttered and, you know, thinking things are more is more. And like, you know, and then you realize that I got a downsize, do some spring cleaning. You never have to do spring cleaning. You also give a lot back to charity, I heard, like a third of your salary back to charity. I want to give you a chance to plug like any foundational things you're doing off the rocks. We would say off the field. What the hell do you guys say?

Yeah. Off the rocks. I say in real life. Because there's all the climbing that you do. There's like the fun stuff you do. That's fake life. Yeah. Yeah, but no.

So like you said, the Honol Foundation, I started donating a third of my income every year to the foundation. And it supports solar projects for a more equitable world. So basically any kind of solar projects around the world that help the local communities. And it's, I mean, honestly, the best thing about the whole free solo film tour and all that was just that it did tremendous, basically the, Basically, the foundation blew up. And, you know, because when I started the foundation, I wasn't making that much. And so I was donating, you know, 50K a year and grants to a couple organizations.

And then this year we'll donate over a million dollars to solar projects around the world, which is great. And that's because of public support because of things like free solar, you know, getting out there. And that probably helps make sense of all the noise, too. You know, being a celebrity a little bit, I'm sure it's not why you got into this. But the positive of that is you can actually do cool shit with your. That's exactly the thing. Because I mean, very early on, I kind of realized that there's no, there's not a huge personal benefit to being more well known.

You know, like it doesn't make my life better for people to recognize me on the street and ask for a selfie or something. But if I can translate that into something that does legitimately have a positive impact in the world, and I'm like, oh, it's worth it, you know, it's like, it makes it much more worthwhile. I think that's athlete philanthropy in a nutshell. You know, if you're not into being famous, well, there's one positive. and that's people will listen to what you want to accomplish for good as well which is huge

and on the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to being frugal i actually watched an interview where i heard that you think we all own tigers in the NFL you think we we spend all our money on tigers did i say did i say NFL because i think of that with like pro fighters you know i was thinking do you think we're fucking cartel guys like well you know i don't know there's definitely uh Yeah. Well, the question was, it was Graham Bessinger. He was asking you a question about, like, you know, how do you spend money? And you were like, well, the NFL guys, you know, like, they got tigers and stuff. And I was watching it. I was like, yes, I have to ask about what he thinks about my tiger. There's a tiger in the studio right now, but it's stuffed. I brought it in for Tiger King over the summer. So technically my kids have a tiger. If you had NFL money the way you put it, like, I know you're frugal. I believe you don't like items, but say you had like a blank check, I know that there is. is an item somewhere out there that you would covet that cost more than what you have right now. If you had $100 million, maybe you'd give it all a charity. But would it be land? Would it be art? Like what would? I think if I had $100 million, I would have a personal cook, things like that.

Because there's some things in my life that I just don't like doing. Like, you know, I don't like going to, like, I just had to smog my car and, like, go to the DMV and stuff. And you're kind of like, I don't like doing that. Like, I'd have an assistant. I'd have a cook. Basically, I would have the things that allow me to spend more of my time doing the stuff that I like to do, which is like climbing or you know i mean actually i just started working on a puzzle two days ago like you know i'd much rather work on my puzzle than then go to the dmv what's on the puzzle oh dude actually it's something that my my in-law's got me for christmas it's an escape puzzle so it's like a crazy like i don't totally understand it yet because it's like a puzzle with no picture and with

weird rules and you have to like solve a riddle inside of it i don't yeah you sound like you want a second brain you want a second you like free yourself up so that you can do all the other things that you want to do with your time. Well, really, I would put the money into time. Like, if I can buy more time, you know. Yeah, but absolutely. You used to live in a van. So I'd say you're pretty comfortable where you are now, uh, or maybe uncomfortable. What was the van life like? You said it's not all it's cracked up to be. Expound on that for me. No, van life is great. I mean, but there's no bathroom. There's no shower. There's no Wi-Fi. You know, it's, van life is, is great for being know the climb full time and I'm still living in the van you know several months a year it's like

I'll go to yosemite for the spring and the fall and I'll be in the van for several months it's like I'm still totally comfortable in the van and I do love the van but you know in terms of of living life it's like you know you can't have a conversation like this from the van because it's just like too hard to get stable Wi-Fi too hard to get stable cell service you know it's like it has its pluses and minuses for sure but you're probably in a pretty nice van now back in like the early 2000s, I read that you were at Berkeley for a second. Yep. Yeah.

And then you said, fuck this diploma, which would be very impressive. I'm going to go live in my mom's van for a while. Yeah, yeah. That van died, though, very quickly because I didn't know how to take care of it. That was a minivan, so that was pretty scrappy. So you just ride it to different rocks and climb them. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, sleep in the back. And then I lived in a Ford O'Connell line for 10, 12 years or something. And that was pretty scrappy because I couldn't stand up. You know, it's like you're just hunched over inside the van for all day. And then now I have the van that if you saw Free Solo the film, now it's like a full-sized van. It's like a stand out. It's pretty comfortable.

It's a sweet van, dude. I got van envy, but I feel like a lot of us like just non-rock climbers. We sit here and we're mostly exposed to the van lifestyle like these IG van people. You know the people that put a bunch of filters. on their pictures and they have, they're very attractive people and they cook gourmet meals. And I'm like, what do you think of the IG van life? That stuff drives me crazy because the thing is, I don't think it's like cool to be in a van unless you're doing it for a reason.

And the thing about climbing is that, you know, you have to travel all the time to follow the weather and basically fall in the seasons to different areas and different styles of fitness because, you know, if you're like bouldering in the winter, you're working on pure power, but then you're working on endurance like later in the spring. and then like big endurance in the summer. It's like basically you have to be in different areas, like different venues to pursue different types of climbing. So you have to be super mobile.

And so the van makes total sense for that. But when I seen sort of like lifestyle models, just like lounging in their van, just like traveling to look at beautiful places, I'm like, yeah, that's cool. That's a nice way to take a vacation. But like what's the life purpose behind that? You know, it's like, what are you doing besides just like looking at beautiful vistas

all the time? I don't know. It's weird. Everything seems functional with you. And I mean, that's a compliment. I mean, like, it's got a purpose. That's why you lived in that van.

That's why somebody who climbs rocks for a living or just for fun would live in a van. It's not for show. There's like, I'll put it this way. I heard you talk about pee bottles. There's no way they got pee bottles in those nice vans with the IG models. Well, it depends on how nice because some of those vans have built in toilets and things. The thing is like having a built-in bathroom in your van is actually kind of stupid because then you have to deal with gray water all the time. You have to deal with black water.

you have to go to RV dump sites. It's like, basically it's like a bunch of overhead, you know? That's me. Is that you? I got a stupid toilet in my van. Hey, Alex Hottle just called my van. He called the toilet stupid,

the van sweet. But that's legendary, bro. How many people get to have their van toilet called stupid? And it is stupid because it's so much maintenance. I end up pissing outside anyways. That's exactly the thing. It's like you never want to end. I mean,

I just saw a van the other day where the toilet is basically like right in the center of the van. And it's like, If you're with somebody, are you going to take a dump like one meter away from your wife? Like, no, like, no one's going to take a dump with like their family sitting. Well, that's a good question then, because not to fast forward to personal life and home life and that sort of thing, but Sonny and you were dating at the time. And everybody knows that like when you're dating somebody, you don't like the first dump that you're like, I'm comfortable enough to take this dump around my new girlfriend.

Did you, like, where were you on that, on that spectrum of comfort at that stage in the relationship? I actually don't remember. We still don't really, like, majorly dumb. So we're married now, and so we're, like, fully living together. Everything's great. But we still don't really poop in front of each other. Okay, that's good to know. That's the final frontier of intimacy, you know?

Definitely not if you got a stupid van toilet. You'd still, you still wouldn't subject your van mate to that. Okay. The thing with van toilets is most, like, pre-built van layouts put it kind of like right in the center of the space. And so you wind up with a toilet right next to your kitchen. And in my van, the kitchen's on the back wall. And there's no toilet. And so it leaves this big open space where you can stretch on the floor and lay down and like do yoga and like do pushups and basically like have some space to live in.

And I'd much rather have living space than toilet space because realistically you use the toilet once a day, which you can do outside in five minutes. And I'd much rather have like a space to live in and stretch and, you know, like function. I think you're you're so right. You have convinced me. I'm going to rip the toilet out of my van like tonight. I'm going straight to the farm. I'm going to rip the toilet out of that thing. Um, so top ramen used to be the diet in the van.

Yeah, once upon a time. Yeah. What about? Yeah, now a little more wholesome and a lot more fruits and vegetables and things now. Yeah, you did the gourmet element looked pretty good on set, so to speak, uh, when you guys were shooting that flick. I was like, he's even pretty good. He seems healthy.

Um, when was the first time you saw Mount Mayru, the, or the Mayroo movie? Uh, I haven't seen it. But Cowboy Reed, my producer explained to me, that it was a lot less like like porn, like cheap porn. It was a real introspective look at what's going on in somebody's head as they're climbing. And just did that speak to you and did it have any connection to what you did later? Yeah. In some ways, the film Mary was very much an exploration of obsession.

You know, like what is it? What, well, in a lot of ways, I mean, it's similar to the film Free Solo because it's it's a look it, those quixotic goals, like, what does it mean to pursue something that seems insane and seems, you know, like there's no reason to do these really challenging mountain climbs and like what draws people to them? I mean, Meru is a, is a high altitude mountain. It's like a more, you know, it's like icing, snowing, really cold and north facing. It's like kind of heinous. It's like really unpleasant in every way. And yet the, you know, Conrad, Jimmy and Renan, the three guys that do the climb are drawn to it, you know, more than one.

once and you're just like, what, what draws somebody to such a severe challenge? And I mean, and Free Solo is kind of the same thing where you're like, oh, the stakes are so high. Why would you be interested in something like that? And you're like, well, really, the film is sort of an exploration of what attracts somebody to that kind of challenge. Has it been frustrating that, like, since that, like, is there anything that Free Solo did that you hate for you in your life? Yeah, the higher profile sometimes is slightly annoying. But no, overall, I mean, the thing about Free Solo is, is an incredibly honest film. And it's just a very accurate look at what all happened.

So, you know, it's a, I'm pretty proud of it, you know. It's, it fairly conveys the whole experience. And so it's something that I can stand behind and be like, you know what? Like, this is what happened for better for worse. And I'm proud of the effort I put in. And like, sure, there's some parts of the film that, you know, I wish were different. You know, like I wish I was nicer to my girlfriend in a bunch of the scenes, you know, like I say things that are not that nice or I seem kind of cold or

caring but like but that's all true you know that'll happen I'm sort of like basically that's just wishing I was a nicer person and you're kind of like I tweeted something in the middle of watching that for the first time with a still shot of you saying something that you're describing I can't remember what it was and I was like this guy the filter is just I love it I want that that lack of filter so I was looking at that with admiration but I guess it was a little early in a relationship to be that blunt well and I think you can be direct and honest but still be be kind on it.

Yes, exactly. If I learned anything from pre solo, it's like, you know, you can tell somebody exactly how you feel about something, but you can still respect their feelings and, you know, try to soften the blow a little bit. You just seem like a guy who would be really good at being like, no, I don't feel like doing that right now. Not everybody has that skill. I'm terrible at saying, no, how do I do that?

I don't know. Well, I mean, I think an easy way to say no is if you have something else that you'd rather be doing that that you're actively, you're like, oh, yeah, I would love to go to that party with you guys but I'm actually going to be at home training because I want to send my project on Thursday. Okay. You know what I mean? Like that's the you know that's basically what I've always done is that you're like oh yeah I'd love to go to your wedding but yeah no I'm actually going to be in Ysemite working on this project that I have but I would love to be there with you guys. The next time I ask you on my podcast when you start with I would love to I'm going to like this

motherfucker um so anyways. So I'm going to go that I'm out climbing or training. Oh yeah but I'd love to but then like uh and then I'm going to geot tag you're going to get geotagged at some conference something like you blew us off. So when you're climbing, like everybody's seen the film. If you haven't seen it, you should see it. It is legitimately breathtaking. It's all those things that you've heard.

And it's introspective, which I loved. Maybe I wouldn't have gone for something more technical. And maybe that's the idea is, you know, something that just bored you with technical stuff. There was enough in it that, like the move you had to do, like the diagonal karate kick that you had to do or whatever it was. And you had to practice it hundreds of times. times, the behind the scenes, like that sort of thing was crazy. But what about some of the hidden

hazards as you're climbing that mountain? You know, like things that you have no control over, because you seem like somebody who has control over everything and you're at peace with that, but there's things you can't control. What can't you control on that mountain? I mean, presumably some of those things could include like an earthquake or, you know, a freak storm or, you know, certain types of wildlife sightings. I don't know, but, but even those, you still have some, you don't have control over them, but you have some degree of understanding when and how they might occur. You know, it's like, you know that, well, I don't know.

Like, in June and Yosemite, like, the weather is super stable. So it's like you kind of know that it's not just going to randomly storm on you. Or if it does, it's at least going to build for a little bit and you're going to see it coming and have some way to prepare. But I don't know. And then also the full, like, randomness, you know, the worrying about like a devastating earthquake that shakes you off the wall. I mean, realistically, you're probably in more danger if you're down in like the village lodge

cafeteria if there's a big earthquake, you know, because you're a higher risk if trees and structures fall on you. You know, like, things like that where it's like every time I get in my car and drive, I'm not like worried the whole time that someone's about to teabone me at 60 miles an hour. That's a terrifying prospect and you don't have control over it. Like think of all the times you're not paying attention while you're driving, but even when you're locked in, you don't have control over the other person. So I wondered for you, something to us and you've been working at it for 20 plus years. So maybe it's not scary to you. Something for us that's terrifying. Is it like walking crossing the street for you? Like you know the risks. You calculate

them, but your heart rate is kind of, hey, I just got the white light with the pedestrian crossing the street feeling. That's the same thing for you? Yeah, yeah, roughly. I mean, my heart rate's a little more elevated because you're actually working pretty hard. Yeah, I mean, in terms of stress or anxiety, I mean, yeah, it feels if you've done the correct level preparation and you actually do feel comfortable with it, I mean, yeah, I can feel quite comfortable. That's the key, right? Because like, I feel like if I met you on the street before I read about you or like followed up after the movie, my lazy brain thought would be, I want to ask him why he's wired so differently or like how that feels to be wired that different. Like I'm almost like I'm, I'm blown away by it. Like I'm,

but really that came from hard work. You know, like how much of it is you're wired differently and how much of it is like you've just repped it. It's funny. I think you just hit the nail on the head that it's kind of laziness in some way because people are, often are like, oh, well, he must be different. And you're kind of like in some ways, that's the lazy explanation because the hard work explanation just feels like too much hard work. You know, people just want to be like, oh, well, he's different because then it puts it in a whole different category. They don't want to think that with 25 years of hard work, they could potentially do that same thing. So they're like, oh, that seems like a lot of work. You know, like that's

yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also easier for us to just kind of compartmentalize the fact that, oh, this guy's crazy. That's what it is. Because it's also, you're off the hook for not doing whatever crazy thing, quote unquote, that you have, like, stored deep down on your wish list. So what are you more afraid of, like, being asked perpetually in interviews if you're afraid of dying or actually dying? Definitely more afraid of dying than being asked over and over. Yeah. I mean, realistically, that's probably the thing that I'm most afraid of because you're kind of like, well, and especially dying horribly or painfully or like in, because a lot of accidents in the mountains are terrible things, you know, where people bleed out over a long time.

you're just like, oh, I mean, yeah, I'm definitely afraid of having a terrible end. But so am I, but you do different stuff with that fear. Well, but I try to minimize that risk as much as possible, and I sort of face it straight on. You're like, oh, I don't want the terrible thing to happen, so I'm going to try to make sure it doesn't happen. And also, I don't know, I've tried to, I have like a little bit of a fear of heights. And it's like certain elements of heights. Like, I don't want to be on a balcony, but yet if I go hiking, I can stand on the edge of a boulder. I don't know if it's like a vertigo thing or something, but like if I felt,

15 feet, that's probably going to do it, as would 500 feet, right? Do you ever, you know, you have to fall like 75 to die? So I have to change my standard for finding comfort and being at a certain height. Yeah, okay. If you fall 15 feet, you probably won't even be injured depending on, I mean, if you lay in right, you just ruined my whole mantra when I'm on a balcony or something. Okay, never mind. Maybe you go to a climbing gym, like if you go to a bouldering gym,

people routinely take like 13 foot falls onto their back from the top of the wall onto a pad and they're just like oh they're like yeah it's fine you know what's the hardest bouldering fall you had where you did something like that i mean in gyms i mean you fall on your head all the time from how how high up have you fallen in a gym like 12 to 15 feet i mean modern bowling gyms are pretty tall but they also have really good pads so you're kind of landing on a gymnastics pad but you can like land sort of sideways on your shoulder from like 14 feet up. Obviously, I'll just land on my shoulder. I'll just aim as I'm free falling. I'll just roll. It's like, man. First, you know, 90% of the fall frantically flailing, like, oh my God, and then you land like a cat. Okay, good. All right, good. How long are you sore after you,

you just thump on the ground from 15 feet near with the good padding? Yeah, with good patting. I mean, it's fun. That's like a routine part of training. Okay, okay. With climbing and going to the Olympics and stuff, when you see, you know, people in the Olympics, they're going to be taking crazy falls like that from the tops of wall sideways onto the pads. So I guess it's just part of the sport, basically. Do other sports scare you? Like, when you watch them, I know extreme, what do you think of football, man? Like, when you watch us play football, are you like, they're stupid?

They're crazy? Because we're kind of, I don't think you're stupid, but I do think like, you're a little bit healthy crazy. No, honestly, I've always kind of like football just because my family, I grew up watching football and, you know, my family was big 49ers fans because we were like kind of in the area. Yeah, you grew up in Sacramento. Yeah, yeah.

And so, you know, I always enjoy, I mean, yeah, I enjoy football. Like, I was actually just on an expedition for the last month. And I was in the jungle, like, no connectivity. And when I came out, I watched the YouTube version of the Super Bowl just to like see highlights of, you know, because I'm like, I like seeing the athleticism. I like seeing the talent. You know, it's like, you know, I like other sports. That said, I mean, if I was playing football, if I had a bunch of giant men charging at me as fast they could, I'd be terrified. That's crazy to me.

That's crazy to me that you would be afraid on the full football. I'd be just like my husband. just running backward down the field. It's just running backward. It's just running backward. Were you bummed about that Super Bowl a couple years ago? You guys almost won the whole thing. The Niners?

Are you Niners fans still? No, I don't care. And now I prefer to only see greatness. I want to see people perform really well. Like I like to see teams go undefeated and I like to see teams like basically be good at what they do. Gotcha. A lot of people root for the underdog.

I'm like, I don't care about the underdog. I want to see a team, you know, exert mastery basically. I'm going to see a team dog. You're probably a lot of fun around March Madness in the tournament. He's just picking one seeds all the way to the fucking final four. I don't know what though? He's honest about it.

What about like, okay, Cliff Barr dropped you in 2014 because you were too dangerous. I get like in short. I'll turn on the X games and I'm not saying this lightly, but people pass away doing those sports and they're wearing rock star energy suits and like different. How do you take kind of the, do you think it's fair the way? people have treated your sport when there's other sports that to me are even crazier. Yeah, I think you're totally right about that. I mean, I don't, you know, I don't think it's unfair, but I do think that it's slightly misinformed. And I think a lot of that is because

climbing is just a less well-known sport, you know, like motor cross or something, people like, oh, that's normal. Or like auto racing, you know, like, like NASCAR, like that's totally normal. So like when cars hit each other and explode and burst in a flame and it's all craziness, they're like, yeah, yeah, it's a normal Sunday at the track. And you're like, what? Like, that's totally insane. Whereas like, well, I mean, don't you think like a Formula One race? No, I agree. Explode and like go shooting off the track and like tires fly and you're like, this is totally

insane. But like that's normal. Dude, listen, I'll hear a Formula One guy who's like head, his little head is just sticking up out of this race car going only his head. And somehow his head is like protected by this thing. And then they're like, no, you're good as long as you avoid the 70 pound tire that could decapitate you after a wreck. Like I don't buy that and I don't buy it with I got to be honest the wingsuit thing

scares the shit out of me and I also think like what drives you to be a wingsuit guy probably the same thing that drives you to do what you're doing but do you look at any of those extreme sports and and kind of gas I mean which one's the craziest one is it is it bungee jumping is it like no no I think wing suiting is probably objectively the most dangerous activity out there I mean well one way I like to look at people are like they they lump and when you mentioned the cliff bar thing, they kind of lumped wing suiting and free soloing together. It's like these are both really dangerous. And yeah, obviously they both are high consequence. The thing about wing suiting is that when you jump off a cliff,

you're for sure going to die unless everything goes perfectly. Like the parachute deploys and fly away and land right. With free solaring, you're going to live unless everything goes terribly. You know what I mean? Like basically you're hanging there and you're fine. And it'll require a bunch of things going wrong for you to die. And I see that as, you know, the opposite of wing suiting, basically. Right. Because, like, you know, odds are flipped the other way. Because of windsuiting, you're for sure going to die unless everything's perfect.

You're kind of like, well, those aren't great odds, you know, like, that's not a great sport to pursue. Yeah, but there's no flying tires. And the flying 70-pound tire. I saw you get the house in Free Solo. How's that going, living in a house? Yeah, it's good. No, I mean, it's comfortable. I have a toilet.

I have a shower. It's nice. It's all very comfortable. And actually, so I bought the house in Las Vegas, which is, the best four season climbing in the country. And so the access is basically as good as having a van, you know, because I'm in a world-class climbing destination. So every day with a 15-minute drive from the house, I can climb anything I want. And it's awesome. 15 minutes of casino, too, if you're really risk-adverse. And like, lastly, marriage, home. I'd love to dig in on this more

some other time. But like, I feel like to do what you're doing, and I felt like this is a player. once I had a wife and kids my whole life kind of shifted and also a little bit of the chaos in my head that allowed me to do really chaotic things does being grounded in real life as you put it mess with your ability to just go out there and be like hey it's just me in the mountain

in some ways can't you see it the other way though that being grounded in real life helps you train and then perform at a more elite level or it can you know because in some ways when you're ground in real life when you have a stable relationship and stable home scene, it allows you to focus more of your energy on the things that you really care about, like, you know, say training, working on projects, you know, achieving things physically. And that's definitely the approach that I've taken. I mean, I think that now being married and having home, it's, it's nice and it allows

me to focus more of my energy on what I care most about. But I mean, I see you're saying that, you know, at some point if I have family like kids, then it might change some of my priorities in terms of risk taking and things like that. But not there. But now, I mean, it's mostly just like a healthier lifestyle that allows me to climb better, I think. Is there a mountain somewhere in the world that you can't climb right now, say like in North Korea? I didn't even know North Korea had mountains because of everything going on there. And I Googled it this morning when we got to thinking about it. There's probably a peak out there that's like surfers talk about on satellite.

You can see the break point or whatever they say. Again, here I am, poser alert. Fucking point break, break point out there, North Korea. Can't get to it. Same thing with mountains. Yeah, there are a bunch of places like that in the world. Like, there's a bunch of incredible cliffs in Venezuela that are kind of hard to get to right now for an American in Venezuela. There's, like, this incredible sandstone formation in Mali in Africa that I would love to find someday, but you can't really travel in Mali right now.

Same with, like, these granite domes in Algeria. Like, I mean, yeah, basically there are rocks all over the world, but some parts of the world are just sort of too politically unstable right now to be safe to travel in as an American. But that's the kind of thing that if you're patient, you know, in 15 years, Algeria will probably become a tourist, or something. And you'd be like, sweet, I'm going. You know, I'll go climb the, climb these domes. Last question. What's your age that you retire and go to the, like the senior leagues of free soloing? The beauty of climbing is that there is no aging out, really. You just wind up taking on different types of climbing projects, like doing first as sense, exploring, you know, developing new areas, you know, mentoring young climbers, things like that. But I mean, I have a lot of climbers

who are in the 50s and 60s who are still professional climbers, still contributing to the sport in a really meaningful way. And so I definitely see myself carrying on in the climbing world through my whole life. Alex Honnold, he's going to get a tiger soon. You heard it here. They start paying these rock climbers NFL money, which I think they should. He is awesome. Go see Free Solo. Check out his podcast coming up. It's called Climbing Gold. Alex, thanks for your time, man. Hope to have you back sometime again. Yeah, no, thank you. I really appreciate it. It's fun chatting. Yeah, likewise. Good luck, man. All right. So I got Jimmy Trayna joining us here. First things first, man. We play each other

the Orioles, Yankees. See, this is the football guy and you becoming a baseball fan. Like, though we play you today, like in the NFL when they're 16, well, now there'll be 17 games. When you guys go ahead to head, it's like, we'll play you today. The Yankees and Orioles are going to play like 447 times this year. So, you know, but the Yankees, I'll tell you, boy, Baseball with 162 games. The Anguers are one and two, and they've had, you know, terrible job getting big hits in the first three games.

And people in New York are acting like, you know, the sky is falling and it's like three games in. Baseball is so beautiful because what I love about it and I know a lot of young people. But like it's there for you every day in the summer. You go to the beach, you can put on the radio, you're home one night doing nothing. and it's on.

Like, it's always there and you can go in and out over, like football, you can't go in and out. No, literally,

everything about it so far in my first weekend. And part of this is a bit. Like, you know, like, no doubt about it. I grew up loving baseball.

I wanted to be a baseball player. Like so many people, I was a fastball hitter. Okay, when the curveball came along, you know, if the people across the state didn't get the rumor that I'll mash a fastball

but can't touch a pitch with movement, I would hit it out of the ballpark. So I would hit it out of the ballpark. So I watched it growing up. I love baseball. I was decent at it. But what was your team growing up? My team growing up when I was a little kid was the Yankees,

who I think we've talked about this. Oh, right. And I actually retired from being Yankees fan because they were too good. That's Bush League. You don't leave your team. You don't leave your team, no matter what the truth. Because the first of that is. I'm doing, I'm the road less traveled by.

Who leaves when things are good? That's a high character thing. I left when things were good. usually if you jump ship you do it when things are bad. That's like, you know, what do they call that on Twitter virtual signaling? Virtue signal. You're trying to be a hero for leaving early. You know, I did that with the Cowboys as well.

And what it was was I was six years old and I didn't realize that I was a frontrunner. But the minute I realized what a frontrunner was, I was like, I don't want to be a frontrunner. So I had to bid the Yankees a do. And really, to be a little bit more honest, when the Yankees, lost to the Diamondbacks, it synced up with a time where I no longer had time to watch baseball. I thought coming into this, it would be a bit,

but I actually enjoyed being a baseball fan for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. I did like five things and watched the Orioles play. The flip side to that is, you know, because it's 162 games, the overanalysis, like if you listen to sports talk radio or if you follow, you know,

team specific blogs and sites, it's, you know, it's completely out of control. I mean, here in New York, I wasn't a little bit of WFAN earlier and like people are all over Aaron Judge because, you know, he's killed them in the last, in these two losses. It's like really like, really you're gonna, you can't analyze everything, but we live in a world where we analyze. It's not a trend. Two games is not a trend. A weekend's not a trend. But when your teams, your combined teams, AL and NL teams are six and O combined, it feels like a little bit of a trend.

I mean, the Red Sox don't look now. They're o' and three. for the second time ever, okay? You're welcome. We just took care of your rival. You're welcome. Yeah, I don't want to make this all about me, but I'm still trying to figure out how I sent a tweet yesterday about you picking the Phillies and Orioles,

and they both are you know, and this tweet gets 2,000 likes. Like, did, like, did, like, the Phillies Reddit pick this up? Like, I don't know, man. There's something about baseball Chris that people like. Football Chris, like, you know, like, no big deal. It's whatever, pretty good player. I can be a star in the baseball world.

I'm baseball Chris. I'm baseball knowing Chris. And so people love it. They loved it in Philly. And what did you think about my team selection? You're one of my favorite, you know, moral compasses in the world of sports. Well, Philly's pick is solid. And as a Yankee fan, you know, to pay attention to the National League a little bit,

I do like the Phillies because of Joe Girardi, who was the Yankee manager there for a long time. And D.D., Philly's had Didi, who was a great Yankee. I like Bryce Harper. I think Bryce is good for the game. So the Phillies is a solid pick. Fun team to root for. I thought the Oriole, you know,

I don't want to pick on the Orioles pick because I know it's Wayland's picked. But not, you know, not much as expected of them this year. I think, you know, I'm written from Matt Harvey. I like a good comeback story like that. And listen,

the Orioles were so bad last year or the year before. I don't remember last year with the cold that I go by the year before. That, you know, unless you're a monster, or you want to see them bounce back and have a decent season. My thing was definitely got to do the Phillies,

but I really want to be a Baltimore fan and I tried to kind of half-ass this narrative about Whalen, and I'm ready to give it up now. Whalen liked the Orioles. He definitely likes them, but that was just icing on the cake. I was going to have the Orioles as a side team.

You guys get it by now. But yeah, O's and Yanks, I saw a lot of cool things. But the thing about being a baseball fan, I feel like, is you can appreciate the other teams better because of what you said, It's a long season.

Everything's not do or die. It's very legit in baseball. I think it's totally appropriate for you to have an AL and NL team. I wouldn't give you shit for that. I think that's fine. There we go. Side team is like built in. It's grandfather,

I have a side team. I'll give you one thing on Yankees Orioles. You want to get a little familiar with the rivalry. They had one of the best brawls in the history of Major League Baseball. Go on YouTube and look up Armando Benitez Darrell Strawberry. It is a brawl that you would not see today because it ends up in the dugout. Here we go.

Oh, Benitez. If you fight in hockey, in hockey, like hockey fights, you have to be good at fighting on skates and holding onto somebody's jersey, baseball fights. You've got to be good at going backwards and swinging. If you can just walk backwards and swing, like you can win a baseball fight. Shit, if you can walk forwards and swing,

that would probably be a hell of a tactic because nobody's doing it. Bernie Williams is in here? Raphael Palmeros in here. This is like the who's who of the AL East, and they're just whiffing. They're all in there. Look at 18.

18 charged all the way up to Armando Benitez and didn't throw a single punch. I'll give you all the old-school ones since I'm old. Did you ever see the Ray Knight? It was Ray Knight against the Reds. He was on the Mets, Ray Knight. He slid to third, and this huge brawl broke out. 1986, Ray Knight, Eric Davis.

Oh, right after the slide, he just starts throwing punches. and standing his ground. Like he's standing still punching. That's rare. This was like 80s baseball. Yeah, man. Those are two good brawls.

Good brawls. Let's do the NFL stuff because, you know, like we were talking last week about the rule changes. I think some of those proposed rule changes that people make into content for a week lost a little bit of steam. But one thing we know for sure is that we're going to have 17 games. Would you be pissed about that if you were still playing? man and and here's the thing it was kamara who came out and said it was bullshit right listen it is like i don't i think the players i don't think the players got enough to give that up

but here we are um i think as a fan you're looking at and you're like well how do i process this there's no more eight and eight you know there's never going to be exactly 500 team again yada yada yada oh um listen now i don't say i can't say thousand-yard receiver anymore. It doesn't hold the same weight. I think it was a thousand and sixty two yards. So now are you going to say he's been a seven time a thousand sixty two yard receiver. If you're comparing it to somebody in the 90s or the 2000s, just as we have trouble triangulating from era to era, we're now going to have trouble triangulating from era to era in a stat sense. I was as a rusher, you had trouble with guys that played before the sack

era as if it wasn't hard enough to evaluate them because of the way people were blocking and that sort of thing in the size of offensive linemen, they weren't keeping stats the same way. And now, like, on the pass rush front, when a guy's like, well, he's a bona fide double-digit rusher, he had three, four seasons where he had double digits, which is a big deal. It's not the same.

It's one game. It's a little bit different, but it's not the same. Same thing with 2,000 yards rushing. Are we going to have to go 2,125 now? I forget what the math is, but there's just a lot of, as a fan, fucks you up. And as a player,

honestly, I think it's scarier than it will be, I think the first couple years are scary because we don't know how their bodies are going to respond. We're going to need data on it. Coaches are going to have to hit the curveball. Like how do we take care of our players late in the season? Like,

this is a totally new thing. Everything's regimented in the NFL over years of like, well, I run my program this way. When we tried that in 2016, we had this spike of injuries, when we didn't try that the next. There is no blueprint for this.

There's no blueprint for three games. There's no in the preseason. There's no blueprint for 17 in the regular season. So I think like coaches that can manage players, bodies, can manage team morale, exhaustion. They're going to thrive this year. It's funny. See, I think the numbers thing and no more ain't made and no more. That didn't even crossed my mind when I heard this.

I mean, my two thoughts were one. I'm a degenerate gambler, so you get an extra week to wager. That's really the most important thing. And I said on Twitter, you know, I don't understand how someone could not like having an extra game to bet on. And one of my followers was like, it's not an extra game. It's an extra 16 games. That got me excited.

Oh, yeah, collectively. And then the other thing is this is all, I think, a push to sort of get the Super Bowl to President's Day weekend. So the country can be off on that Monday after the Super Bowl. I mean, listen, we're talking about 17 games, but a lot of the talk is that they're going to end up going at 18. And then when they do that, that Super Bowl Sunday will be before President's Day on Monday. And then everyone gets that Monday off, which is what the country wants. I mean, the Super Bowl, probably at this point, it might even be a bigger holiday than Christmas in this country.

Well, I mean, listen, it shouldn't be Super Bowl Sunday as vastly overrated. in my opinion. Well, but it's not for, it's not for the football fan like you and I. No. The fringe fan. I didn't watch football all year. Exactly.

Most teams are, you know, like diehard fans are like my team season's over anyways. I think one thing we'll see a lot of is meaningless games. Like a lot more like, okay, well, the things I just mentioned about people's bodies and you didn't give them

one more by week. So are we going to wade into the waters of like load management? Like a sprinkle of load management. I don't know. I think you are. I think you are. So fans are going to freak out a little bit the first, you know, glance of that. Second thing is, naturally, there's going to be more games where you're like,

this game doesn't matter. Absolutely nobody's going to watch this game. It's the loneliest game on the planet. There's going to be like 10 of them because most of the time by week 16, everything's decided. I just feel like the last two games is going to be more meaningless games. I was going to write about this last week. And then I scrapped it at the last minute because I wrote about something else. But you mentioned the rule proposals and the table.

changes and all that. I mean, to me, it just shows you the hold that the NFL has on this country. It was it was MLB opening day. And at one point, my Twitter feed, there were more tweets from people about the NFL changing the jersey numbers and letting running backs and receivers wear single digits than like that's the grip. That's the grip that this sport has in the country that letting running backs and receivers where a single digits becomes like a trending top.

I mean, can you like something so stupid and frivolous and. irrelevant and it dominates a new cycle. By the way, how do you fix overtime in the NFL? This ties into sort of like our problems with Twitter because one of the things you're not allowed to say anymore is I don't know. No one says I don't know. And when you ask me how you fix NFL overtime, my answer is I don't know. I have no idea how you make that fair.

Like this whole thing about if they kick a field goal and you get the ball, but if they get a touchdown, you don't get the ball. That's ridiculous. The college overtime is exciting, but it's very, it's not legit to do, if you put that in the NFL. That one, I don't know. I mean, what's your right? I think the college football overtime would be better than all these fixes that they're trying to implement. And I'll tell you why.

By the time you get to overtime in the NFL, I don't think the game can get much better. in my experience it's just time to finish this thing people are burn out the players are burn out I got to tell you as a player you're tired but the adrenaline is actually

carrying you through at home you're kind of like in my experience let's get on with it now how do you do that you got two teams that haven't been putting together great drives it could take forever you're going to have more injuries the quality of play goes down.

How about you showcase your red zone skills and do what they do in college and just say like, hey, listen, the only truly fair way we get a competitive and exciting to the point over time is we line these guys up at the 25 and trade possessions.

I honestly think it would give us a totally different element and it kind of resets the viewers like mine. They've been sitting there for three hours watching football, which sometimes can be boring. I'm sorry. sometimes it can be boring. Not all games that go to overtime, you're like good news.

Well, I think it's a little too hokey for the NFL, but just following on what you're saying, what about then just not having overtime? Well, they've already manipulated the game, really. I mean, right? I don't know, it just doesn't feel like to me it's square. You could, I don't know, you have an opportunity, and if you don't score, then they go down and they score a touchdown.

Like it seems like sort of you blew your shot. And I guess football isn't perfectly symmetrical like this, but it's not a symmetrical opportunity, in my opinion. It's not, it's just not. I like college. So Reed had compiled in honor of the 17-game season, The Change, which it'll never be the same until it is, and it doesn't feel like anything happened.

There have been a number of changes that we've had in our sports lives that seemed like they were a big deal, like Y2K, it's never gonna be the same, nothing was different. Reed, would you pull? And we'll rate them on a scale one to five shakeups. 2008,

Tom Brady missed the entire season after tearing his ACL and MCL. The injury resulted in the Tom Brady rule, which made it illegal for any defender on the ground to tackle a offensive player with the ball below the knee. Give me your shakeups. Five, five, five. First of all, the entire, I mean, you could expand that out. All roughing the quarterback is a five. Oh, it's just been ridiculous, dude. Yeah, it's embarrassment.

It's ridiculous. I've given like six figures less money to charity because of your stupid rules NFL. And now I'm out so you can't find me for saying how stupid the rules are. If that injury happened to almost any other quarterback, the rule doesn't get changed. Probably not. And here's the deal. It's impossible to like not fall into a quarterback's legs when you're getting pushed into a quarterback's legs by one of the fat guys that's supposed to be protecting the quarterback. So like that happens all the time. We know we've seen it, but you throw the

flags anyways. Five shakeups. Terrible rule. The problem is they need context to the rule and they can't. They got to just say, if you touch the quarterback in the helmet in any way, shape, or form, it's a 15-yarder. But if your arm just swathed down and grazes the helmet, that should not be a penalty. I don't understand why there can't be some context invoked. Agreed. Prior to the 1997 Major League Baseball season, the AL and the NL did not play each other. Starting in 1997, those two leagues started Interleague play. Give me your shakeups. This was cool.

So in a good way, it was three to four shakeups for me. Like I got to see matchups as I was a kid that you only saw in video games. I think it's a five. I hate interleague play. I'm a traditionalist. And I think what it's done is it's taken a little bit of the mystique of the World Series away because the teams have played each other during the regular season. It's destroyed the All-Star game, that's for sure,

because the All-Star game used to be special because you had AL versus NL and you never saw these players compete against each other. Now they compete against each other every single day of the MLB season. So I think it's a five for the hardcore tradition. nationalist baseball fan. It changed a lot. First experimented with in 1976 and then fully used in 1985, the NFL's instant replay system. Nowadays, there's dozens and dozens of camera angles. But give me your shakeups of the instant replay system.

Has it ever gotten like normal to you? Well, it's an absolute five on the grading system. Yeah, it's five. Can't be any other grade, but a five. I don't mind replay. It's fine. But can we not take four hours to replay things? And I do think, I'll tell you what frustrates me as a fan.

I don't know how you feel bad as a player. But like, when you see something that's blatantly wrong during a game, and then here comes, you know, Al Michaels or Joe Buck, and they go, well, that's not reviewable. Why do we have replay then? Like, if you're going to have it, everything should be reviewable. And I granted the games will take eight hours long. But, you know, isn't there something like with a, like you can't review like a pun to, oh, that's like, well, that's just a dumb rule that you can't advance a muff. I don't understand that rule and what the point of that is.

But there's every Sunday something happens and you think, okay, we got to get this fixed. And they go, it's not reviewable. But why not? If you have replay, review it. Well, not even that. For me, I just, and you're describing part of it, I think one of the biggest things. the NFL has going for it is it's a conversation piece. Like people talk about what's going on during the game

like the entire time. Because of its popularity, there's always a sidebar conversation going on. And I think that like part of the NFL's chatiest moments are everything's hanging in the balance, you're yelling at the TV, you're yelling at the official. The NFL needs a heel. And it can't just be the teams on the other side. Like we love to hate it.

the replay system. I think it's actually a net positive. And I think it could be honed. I think you make some great points. But to me, it's been a positive. It's been a positive. Think of all the games. We've already missed some as it is

with all the bells and whistles. Think of everything that would be different about the NFL. Think of the biggest plays in the last 15 years that without replay, NFL history would have transpired differently. And probably we wouldn't have noticed.

because like back in the day, we were dumb, but we're not dumb anymore. And I think that can be maddening and it can also be good for the NFL because we are angry. And Skip Bayliss makes a lot of money. What does he do? He riles people up.

That shit sells. Replay. It sells. It riles people up. The two most ridiculous things in sports in 2021, and I'll give you one from the sport you played and one from your favorite sport. The fact that we use chains,

to measure the first down and the fact that baseball uses people to roll out tarp when there's a rain delay. There's no computerized system to get the tarp on the field. You see these like, it's like 20 guys struggling

in a monsoon to roll the tarp out. Well, you don't want to mess the grass up, dude. You can't have big heavy machinery out there messing up the grass. My high school baseball coach would not let us take, and I guess now this is a normal thing. He didn't let us take batting practice

on the field. I thought you were going to say take a leak. No, he definitely didn't let us take a leak on the field. But it was like you would have thought it was the master's grass. Before the 2002 NFL season, the NFL expanded to eight four team divisions. Also in 2010 to 2013, the Big East had a conference realignment. And in 2004, Miami and Virginia Tech joined the ACC. give your shakeups for conference and NFL realignments.

So I guess the big question is here, has there ever been a conference realignment that shook Jimmy Train up? Well, the NFL is a five, but it's a good five, like you said earlier about one of the other ones. Like, it was a shakeup. Anything you had a shakeup in the NFL with divisions like that, it's huge, but I think it's been good. I have no issues with it.

The shakeup that he mentioned in the, Big East just destroyed it destroyed the big East there's no such like no one he cares about the big East people used to St. John's with Chris Mullin and back in the day and Syracuse was you know it was Villanova Connecticut you kind you know it was the most fun it was one of the most fun conferences it felt like the toughest basketball conference it was like gritty and every it was like everybody on those teams were gamers and they had like colorful coaches interesting personalities you know what I mean like it was just a fun conference they they broke it up and then you know like also with the acc along the same lines acc changed um they added virginia tech they added miami that feels normal now

like at a point i was like those are big east teams right like that was very big east branded another thing is we started losing teams like maryland who i joked that we hate like but they were an acc fixture now they're a big 10 school people freaked out when they've really aligned the Big Ten and did all this stuff. Like now it's kind of normal. Now you forget what the changes were. So I guess the point is... I don't know about that. To me it is.

Like I see Maryland playing the Big Ten and I'm like, this is not a team that belongs in the Big Ten. Yeah, but they were never important enough to me to... Although I hate them, they were never important enough to be like, man, that shook the ACC up. We lost Maryland. Sure, it looks weird, but I'm almost happy that they're in the Big Ten. They're supposed to be somewhere weird. I don't know.

I just don't like Maryland. Jimmy Trayna, thanks for stopping through, brother. Thanks for having me. Go Phillies, go Orioles. Oh, let me check the score on the game. We're probably up already. You guys are one and two. I don't know if you heard. The arrogant.

All right, dude. Thanks a lot. Take it easy.