Green Light with Chris Long - Best of June: Matt Ryan. Bruce Arians. Howie Long. Steve Kerr. Matt Barnes. Mark Cuban. Tom Morello. Dave Dameshek.

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

3:59 - Matt Ryan. 14:43 - Bruce Arians. 22:36 - Howie Long. 35:28 - Steve Kerr. 45:17 - Matt Barnes. 55:55 - Mark Cuban. 1:01:26 - Tom Morello. 1:06:52 - Dave Dameshek. 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. 🌍🏀🏈SUBSCRIBE NOW ⚾🏒⛰️ http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy 4th of July weekend. I'm like you. I'm enjoying myself. I am spending time outside with my family. I'm drinking a couple of beers. I'm having a pop or two. All right? And I am celebrating what this country could be.

So happy fourth to everybody out there who has a shred of pride left, you know, here in America in 2020. We can push through this thing. And hopefully the next 4th of July. will be a lot more of a big celebration. Listen, I put together a little highlight reel for the month of June. We've had a good month, okay? The guys rolled these guests back at me, and I'm like, holy shit, we got a real podcast. Like, I can remember dark days early on, okay?

We got a real podcast now. Let me hit you with the lineup of who you're about to hear in the next few minutes. Mark Cuban, okay, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Somebody that people want to run for president. I guess that's a low bar at this point, you know, with the guy in office. But Mark Cuban, big business tycoon, very interesting guy. And that was a great interview. Tom Morello, Raging Against the Machine, Audio Slave, that was awesome.

Had 30 minutes with him and we covered a lot of ground. The guy has an enormous brain. I mean, very smart guy. Dave Damashek, of course, System Bands is one of my favorite pods we've done. system bands was a big hit and damashek is perfect for that kind of pod. Matt Barnes had him on recently. Love a big NBA name, especially right now. Matt Barnes, though, is not just a big NBA name.

He's a really bright dude off the court. A lot on his plate, of course, he's a podcaster as well, fellow podcaster, all the smoke with Stephen Jackson and wants to be the mayor of Sacramento at some point. Told me that on the pod. Steve Kerr, you've heard of him. If you like winning, you know Steve Kerr. you know we had Bruce Ariens head coached Tampa Bay Buccaneers

talked about Tom Brady and Moore Matt Ryan same division there also a big football name and then of course my dad Howie Long Father's Day

so there's some good stuff from all these interviews and June was a hell of a month thanks to y'all so keep listening have a safe and happy fourth you know be careful with the fucking fireworks man please

if one of my listeners loses a finger I'm going to be pissed. Okay? Enjoy these interviews. Be safe. See you next week. June's in the books.

It is summertime, finally. And you can still get outside responsibly. A little fun in the sun. We could all use it. That includes me. I'm going to be taking my family on vacation here soon up to Montana, where I will be hitting the trails in my tree dashers from all birds. Sponsor the green light pot, of course.

lightweight, tough, made of all natural materials. They're a friend of the environment, guys. And when you put these shoes on, they're the type of shoe that make you want to get out there and get after it. And they look good, they feel good. And football, we say look good, feel good, play good. Same thing with all birds, whether you're on the trail or just out and about. Even in social distancing, if somebody's like eight feet away,

it's good to see that you got nice shoes on. Allbirds got that handled. Thrilled to have them as a sponsor. Allbirds has been with us for a couple weeks now. Officially go check out the treatashers at allbirds.com. Franchise quarterback here. One of the best, one of my favorites, somebody from my draft class, I've known from way back when ACC Media Days, you know, the,

what was that thing we, by the way, it's Maddie Ice, Matt Ryan, the one and only. Matt, what was the thing we went to out in the desert? Was that the Playboy All-American retreat in the desert? God, I don't, what were we doing out there? I don't know, man, but like this. It's been a long time. Yeah, the 11, 12 years is flown by, and I got out while I still could. You're still slinging it around the yard,

throwing for 4,000 yards every year, like it's no problem. Do you feel old yet? We're playing two different positions, bro. You can age a little bit differently at my spot than you can at yours. But I still feel pretty good. You know, some days are better than others, but I still feel pretty good. And I can't believe I'm going into year of 13.

I feel like we were just in the desert kind of hanging out. I know. It was yesterday, you know? I don't want to put you on the spot with bulletin board material right off the bat, but this is an important question about your division rival, Tom Brady. And I'm going to hold you to answering this question. Could you beat Tom Brady at golf? Because I hear you're pretty good, and he didn't look that great on TV.

I watched the match. And I'm not, listen, I'm not going to talk any shit because it's not easy when you're playing with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and you're the only people on the course. But from what I saw, I think I might be able to get Tom Brady. I think. Yo, did you just, he just, he's ended up on Tom shit. He's just hitting it right and it just kept going right. Hey, listen, he's got to be bad at something.

It's not even like he's bad. I think he's probably pretty good. I don't know anything about golf, but the, you know, everybody took pleasure in turning on the TV that day because there was a captive audience and saying, oh my god there's something that i might be able to hang with tom brady at and that was all regular joes were on i didn't know that he was bad or good but i hear you're very good i'm okay but i think tom's actually he's got like a good swing it looks good you know i think it might have just been one of those days that it's just like it was not his day how about your favorite golfer oh man uh

i think growing up like tiger woods i think for everybody right like r a watching him kind of come of age and just dominate. It's hard to, like, pick anybody else other than him. I've gotten to play with Phil a little bit, though, and he's fun to play with, fun to spend time with. So I just root for the guys I get to know. How about best football position for golf? Because you play with tons of guys in the league.

Who's actually, like, quarterbacks are generally pretty good, I think. Yeah, decent. I would say kickers and punters, too. Because they have so much time. They don't do shit. It's a good gig if you can get it. It could be one of those guys kicks, like Adam Venetary is going on 25 years.

Yeah. We can do it forever, man. So you're facing COVID. It's a different year. I've heard you speak about this, about some of the things you were getting guys together on, you know, some of the smaller focused targeted sessions. You know, what's the hardest part about organizing the drills?

I mean, certainly, but the coaching aspect of it. There's no coach to reinforce, you know, the drill that you're putting on. You're now a coach and the quarterback. Yeah, I think, I think it's easier. being at this stage of my career, you know, then it was like when we were locked out in 2011, it was kind of overwhelming as a younger player of trying to get everything organized, trying to get people together. So it reminds me a little bit of that experience that we had then. It's different, though, because back then, I mean, we could really, you could get your whole team

together if you wanted to back then, you know? With this COVID deal, you have to keep the numbers down and you've got to make sure, you know, guys are, you don't want to pressure guys into do it if they're not comfortable doing it. You just have to be aware of, you know, different people feeling differently about it. But I've been lucky we've, we've all, you know, we've all kind of stayed healthy, been on top of what we're supposed to point, the guys that have gotten together. And so it's been good. I think the coaching aspect of it sometimes is it's almost even better when you remove coaches from it. Not to say that our guys don't do a great job, but you get to spend time,

you know, explaining things from my perspective and why I need, you know, certain guys in certain spots and for them to save, you know, space on the field in a certain way. I think you don't really get that chance with the way our off-season are currently set up. You know as well as anybody. I mean, your time structure in the building. Yeah. I mean, you don't have much time. It's not yours. And there's a lot of inefficient work too. And especially on defense, like I really feel like we're in the building 10 hours a day because of the offense. And, you know, it would be unfair to send the defense home while y'all are grinding away. But the reality is, as a de-lineman, I study and have to study far less than you do in your receivers. And you're trying to explain to a guy the minutia of if you're not breaking here,

you're not going to get the ball, you know, that sort of thing. Like, you know, for us, it's assignment, alignment and repetition. So I think it's unique and especially like you're you've got kind of a nice situation because in your division continuity is going to be huge say you guys play this season. I mean, there's two teams, a lot of continuity in your division right now. Okay. It's it's you in New Orleans, your favorite team. And on the other side of the division, you've got new quarterbacks, new system in one place. And, and, you know, albeit a Hall of Famer, but a new guy in Tampa. So how much of a challenge is it for you to get on the same page with somebody like Hayden Hearst? I mean, you've got a good rapport with Julio, with Calvin, with these guys.

But Todd, Hayden, you know? Yeah, yeah, those are the guys. To me, those are the guys that it's critical, right? Like, we have the same coordinator back, which is huge, a lot of the same key position guys back. It's going to be no problem getting, you know, the rhythm and timing back with Julio. We already have, you know, however many game reps, we already. speak the same language. He already knows, you know, what I'm talking about when I'm saying certain things. I think it's been really important to spend time, you know, with Hayden.

And I've spent a ton of time with him this offseason. And, you know, credit to him. I mean, he's been driving back and forth. Jacksonville's home for him. And he's been, you know, driving back and forth from Jacksonville for the last, I don't know, like nine weeks, 10 weeks, and spending three or four days a week here, you know, getting to spend some time on the field. and just, I think more so than anything, just to get to know me and then just to get to hear, hear the terminology, hear how I talk, here, you know, here's what I mean when I'm saying this, like just feels like that. It goes a long way because, you know, inevitably when we get to the season, like, he just needs to know what I'm talking about. You don't have, you don't have that much time

to be able to explain things when you're game planning and trying to just get ready for a week. So I think, you know, honestly, I think it's maybe. been a blessing that we only have one new guy really in the passing game that we've had to break in and we've had to do it this way where it's just been he and I spending so much time together. Is this the best group you've ever had skill-wise? It's got to be right up there. I think so. I've been lucky. I've had some great guys that I play with. So I think it's hard to say if this is the best. We had a pretty good unit in 2012 with Roddy White, Julio Jones, Michael. Turner, Tony Gonzalez. I mean, those guys were all pretty good, but I've got to imagine, you know,

this is, you know, right up there with them. I think you're talking about Julio in his prime, Calvin Ridley going into year three coming into his own. You got Todd Gurley, who's hungry, who wants to, you know, prove it this year, Hayden Hurst, another guy, first round draft pick, who just ended up in a spot where, you know, the way they were running the football, I mean, it was no fault of his own. It just... Yeah, you never know what he could turn out. to be in the passing game. And then also he had to share that load with a lot of dudes. I mean, they had a lot of options there. So I think it'll be great. How about like COVID, the prospect of maybe no fans? I'm not saying we're not going to have fans, but if you don't, what are you thinking

about as a quarterback? Like, I think about like as a rusher, if I was playing somewhere like Seattle and I get five sacks a year on crowd noise, how is my year going to change for a quarterback? Communication, you know, silent count. Like, have you thought about all that stuff? The thing I think about, the thing that's going to be a pain in the ass, if there's, if there's no, if there's no noise, is how often we're going to have to change, like audible words, code words, cadence.

Like, because you guys are so good. I mean, you talk about from the D-Line perspective, you know, when you're playing at home in a place like Seattle, yeah, you're going to get five snaps a game where you're off the ball before the tackle's ready to. to go. But by the same token, if you're just getting into the rhythm of our cadence and listening to, you know, listening to it over and over, you know going against guys in practice, you get used to going against that same quarterback all the time and you kind of get into, you know, how they sound.

So, you know, from my perspective, I think it's going to be like a lot of work of, you know, hide in our code words, changing our code words, and then really working on ways to use our cadence. Yeah, because you know, we're thinkers too, Matt. Listen, you guys are cheaters on that side of the ball. You know it. Hey, they're always off sides. Yeah. What about, yeah, that's what we say about the tackles, which is actually reality.

You know, it's almost like when you all score more points, the ratings go up. So what about, what about, did you see these helmets that they're talking about these prototype helmets? Like, that looks wacky. I mean, it's got to terrify you. For a position player, it's one thing. But if you got to put on some halo looking helmet on for your vision and, in your periphery, like, isn't that kind of... I just don't know how that's going to work.

Yeah. Like, I, you know, I just don't know how, you know, how you could do it. So I'm sure if push comes to shove and you got to make it work, we'll figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm hoping that's not the case. Yeah, it looks like a lacrosse helmet.

It looks like somebody, you know, at, uh... I just feel like the sides of it would be tough. You know, for us, I mean, your peripheral vision is, is huge, particularly for like, pass rush, you know? Yeah. Like, just feeling that flat. on the side of you is huge for movement. So I just don't want to get.

I'd love to be a left end this year and unabated, you know, on somebody's ball hand side. I mean, the helmet might make it really tough to anticipate that. So joining me now on the Green Light Pod, somebody I used to look at from the other sideline when he was with the Cardinals, head coach of Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bruce Ariens. Tom, okay, Tom Brady. That's what everybody wants to talk to you about. but you know you've got a guy who is most people call him the goat i'm not going to ask you to weigh in on that whole discussion but you're a quarterback whisper well known to be one um do you have

anything to whisper to him about like but like what do you do when you're dealing with somebody like tom who probably knows he's made the mistake he probably knows how to correct it you guys are certainly brilliant in your own rights, but coaching him has got to be way different than coaching other players, or is it? Yes and no. I think it's a, for me, I love, I love his enthusiasm, his energy diving into our offense. And then, let's learn our offense. Then you and I sit down, hey, whenever we can hopefully soon, and you tell me the 10 best things you like. and we're working together and mesh it out. You know,

I want you going into that New Orleans game as comfortable as possible, whether it's stuff we do or stuff that you've done in the past and we rename it, but, and we teach it the way you want to talk. And I love collaboration. I've always, that's the most fun in coaching is me,

is collaboration with quarterbacks and picking plays and picking game plans and those type of things. And Tom's been fantastic. And the fact that, that he has his resume, he's acting like a rookie right now. Right. And I love it.

Yeah, I've always said he was one of, you know, I always spent a year up to New England, but he was always one of the most every man, superstar, quarterback, leaders that I've ever been around for somebody with such a transcendent brand. He truly was inquisitive. He took coaching. He treated all his teammates with respect.

And obviously right now, there's not as much, you know, whole team congregation, but I remember he would treat the 53rd guy on the roster, just like the first. And I think that's huge. And I think that'll translate. But schematically, you guys push the ball down the field. That's what you do. Obviously with James, he was very aggressive. Tom's arm isn't what it used to be. How do you guys collaborate on the type of tougher throws that you're used to seeing that maybe he can't make at this stage, which is fairly reasonable. He's 43 years old. Yeah, I mean, he made the best statement, man, throw it to the dude that's open. Right.

And is it the deeper? Now, in our offense, maybe he hasn't been allowed to look deep first, you know, but still got to get it out of your hand. You can't hold on to it. Right. But we do look deep on majority of our stuff down to short. We have a lot of stuff where we work short to deep. Right. And, you know, and we run a ton of empty, which he's done well and play action game that they've used in the last four or five years. It's almost identical to ours. And so, yeah, I think for him, it's just learning the language, you know. And when I re-evaluated all his tape, I didn't see, I didn't see a poor arm. No. When he had guys deep, he hit him. Right. Deep-ball accuracy was outstanding. He just didn't have that many speed burners, you know.

Yeah. What do you think is tough for working short to deep or working deep to short? I mean, obviously, I don't know much about the position other than trying to chase him down. I think it's always easier short to deep. You know, if the guy's opening the flat, take it and get to the next down. But sometimes you have to know the matchups. If we have Mike Evans in the slot, and for whatever reason, we catch him on a safety one-on-one, take the deep shot. I don't care if it's third and two. Right.

Taking, you know, it's just knowing your matchups. And I think that's where Tom and relish in our offenses is when we create these matchups and he knows he's got him, is to exploit him. You'll have so many matchup problems for other teams. I mean, listen, your division is stacked, but any team is going to look at your weaponry and say, golly, I mean, if somebody emerges as the three and four threat, because I know you like to push the ball down the field,

you like four guys outside on the field at different times. I mean, pick your poison, you've got that. You can run 13 personnel. I know that you're going to rely heavily on 12. I mean, people complain about O.J. Howard's usage last year, but he played a ton and he was a big part of what you all did. You know, like with the tight ends, how do you balance that? Because you've got three guys that can catch the ball and be a part of what you do.

How do you sell blocking and the dirty work to guys that might want touches? Yeah, I think it's the same at wide receiver. You know, I look back to Heinz Ward. he was kind of the bell cow of I block you block I throw you the ball all right you block I'll design stuff for you in a red zone to get touchdowns and grog is a notorious blocker he loves blocking yeah so that that just permeates in the room all right the top guy's doing it everybody's gonna do it you know and OJ and Cam both man they blocked their ass off last year they gave us all the effort in the world and again it's just finding match up and we had OJ two or three times last year that his numbers might have been better if we hit him. You know, I guess like the Houston game on a double move, and we had him and we missed him to win the game. And so, yeah, I always get criticized. I don't use the tight end, but when I had Heath Miller, he went to the pro bowl.

My guy, Heath, yeah. Because Ben Rutherzberger loved Heath Miller. Yeah. That was just security blanket, you know. So it's just building that chemistry. Yeah, and by the way, Heath just moved out of town. We, he moved back to Pittsburgh. He had enough of small town life.

He wanted to go back up to the Steel City. Is that right? Yeah, he just, he, because you know, me and Heath played together at Virginia. We, we overlaught by a year. And yeah, we were five miles apart here for a while. And then he just, he just rolled out. I guess something about the Steel City. He went back home.

I would, too, if I was Heath Miller. They love him up there. Oh, man, he's God. He is God. Yes, indeed. One of the most consistent and reliable people I've ever been around as a player and a person. You know, Gronk with the blocking thing, you mentioned that. You know, we know he's a good blocker.

He was a couple years ago. I've seen pictures of him. We all deflate when we leave the game. I think some people think we get off the juice or something. But when you stop pounding calories and lifting weights every day, guys get skinny. How's Gromk's transformation back into a football player going in? Do you ever have, have you ever had experience? dealing with a guy who had to come out of retirement?

Yeah, a couple. But, yeah, he's, I mean, he never got too low. I mean, he's almost, I think he's around 262, 63, but I don't really, he doesn't need to be 270 again. Right. 275, just get 265 max and take that weight off your body and you'll be better because, I mean, that 10 pounds isn't helping you're blocking that much. No.

So squats and those things. And, you know, he's worked. from his ass off right now and I'm ready to grow. So I think the explosion is still in his body. But not a 60 play, a game guy. Right. Got to be real smart. We have to be smart as a coach and stuff.

Main event here, Father's Day. When you got a dad like mine, every day is Father's Day. Love my pops and everybody always wants them on the show. But we got to give the people what they want. I got my dad on. I got him queued up on Zoom, which is no small feat for any dad. right now and we are in separate rooms in the same house on different computers conducting a podcast on Father's Day. What's up, Dad? I'm doing great. Happy Father's Day. What's your best

moment as a dad? Your highlight reel as a dad, give me the number one. Oh, God, there were so many. I don't think there's a number one. I mean, certainly with you, it was, you know, down in Atlanta, I mean, down in Houston and playing Atlanta in the Super Bowl. And, you know, that day ran the gamut of emotions because not that I had talked you into going to, you know, New England, but, you know, I'm trying to push you in a direction or give my two cents on what direction gave you the best opportunity to win because there's nothing like winning a championship. And I think I felt somewhat responsible when I think the score was, what, 28 to 3 in the 50? Yeah, you felt like an asshole. It was like the worst dad in the world. And it's, you know, I can't help you with your chemistry homework, but I should at least be able to help you a little bit with football.

And it didn't look good. And to watch that comeback and to see, you see the emotion on your face and to have wailing and make there. And, you know, it was just fabulous. It really was. That was a great moment. And I go back to Cote Creek. Coat Creek is another great moment where. Little League.

13 year. We go from Little League down in McIntyre to down to Cope Creek, which was another league in a bigger field. And there were a lot of kids who were really, really good in Little League. And at some point, genetics kind of catches up. And it caught up that one final two weeks of the playoffs and the championship game. And you end up winning the MVP of the league. Yeah, I don't remember much about that other than hitting five dingers in a weekend. I'm just fucking with you.

I'm just saying, I remember my exact stats. We were the fifth best team in a league of five, okay, which is a small league. But, you know, this, this Cove Creek has so many levels of competition. So we were number five by a, like the only reason we made the playoffs because they said every team makes the playoffs. We played the first seeded diamond backs. They had a kid named Jeremy Crawford, who was a bad ass dude. And that dude was hitting bombs like he was 23 and he had a mustache, the whole nine.

Yeah. We beat the Diamondbacks maybe 21-14 or something crazy. We beat the Philly and then we beat the Mets in the championship. They actually, in the championship team, they actually walked you with the bases loaded to walk in the tying run because you had hit two home runs that day. A few days. I remember like it was yesterday.

That's good. That was the original playoff run. The Eagles playoff run was improbable, but Cove Creek 1998 might have been the most in my career. Hey, what about what's a period in my life that you've been the most nervous or scared for me? Ooh, that's a good one. I think when you make the transitions, you know, the same thing that I was nervous and, you know, I'm scared as maybe not the right word, but really nervous.

For me, it was going through the busing riots in Boston. and being raised by my grandmother and, you know, growing up in a few different homes. And my grandmother reaching out to my uncle Billy who had two kids and two adopted kids and taking me in, working in the projects and making no money, building, you know, doing painting on the weekends. So working seven days a week. And I just remember him having that hole in the passenger side of the Maverick, the side of a size of a basketball. and he drove every day an hour into work and an hour back home and then painted houses on the weekends and we didn't have much money and to make that transition I'd never played organized sports

I'd never played on one team and we walk in there and a high school coach sees me there and it was that kind of a transition for you where you're going out for high school football unfortunately you have the burden and it was something that I had to be. And I hadn't really thought about when we had kids. There's that added burden of you being my son and the expectations and the pressure and all of that. And, you know, making that transition and watching the player that you became, you know, throughout the course of your career in high school. And then making the transition to college, it was like for me, that was a frightening time. I remember, you know, the first week of training camp at Villanova,

and I'm sure you had the same kind of nerves. And, you know, and you guys had a really good physical team and your practices were very physical. That transition, and then, of course, the transition to pro football. But, you know, you, and I've said this many times, you just, you're a 15-rounder. You're hard to kill. You're like, what's that, what's that character, Denzel Washington plays?

And there's three. I feel like all of Denzel's roles are pretty, he's hard to kill in almost all his. Yeah. I was going to say maybe a cockroach for me. Yeah, he's, he's tough in those movies. Let's do some mailbag from the fans here, okay? You got it. This is from Riley Welker.

For your dad, what was your favorite game to watch when I played? This is, I guess, me asking a question. career, what was your favorite game to what? Maybe not Super Bowls, because those are obvious and I don't want to make you choose sides. You know, there were so many games in, I would say, obviously, we talked about the Super Bowl down in Houston and then to follow that up, the improbable follow-up of, you know, deciding to leave New England and going to Philadelphia and, you know, reestablishing yourself literally from the ground up.

because people don't realize when you make that kind of a transition that, you know, you've got to earn every every ounce of and every minute of playing time. Especially when you're older, yeah. Yeah. And to watch what you did through the course of that year and the number of, that was really the thing, being in New England was about being selfless. Being in New England was about being part of a program and the program is bigger than you and, you know, where you play week to week,

depends on what's best for the program. And that's not for everyone. And going to Philadelphia and having the opportunity to turn it loose to a great extent at a position that you're used to playing. Yeah. And watching the number of big plays that you made to contribute and particularly late in games was so much fun to watch.

There was a fun run. I was thinking back to your career, and, you know, you did a great job of show, yield to me from being aware of, you know, how special your career was or, you know, how different you were going to work every day and being a part of, you know, being a Super Bowl champion, a Pro Bowl and all that stuff. You were just my dad. So when I turn a TV on, I always tell the story about when you were playing the Bills game in the snow. And how cold was it again? 27 below. And just going back and forth, this is when I'm maybe six years old, because it was

91 maybe or 99. Yeah, 89, 91. Yeah, 89. So we were just, me and my buddy, Blake Solomon, shout out to Blake Solomon. I don't know if you still listen, if you listen to Greenlight Pod somewhere, wherever you are. We were just playing NHL on Sega and we were going back and forth as if it wasn't a big deal that you were playing in the game. So I'd always love to go back and watch more games and maybe that. I've never seen you play, you know, Washington in the Super Bowl, like front to back. I want to see that game, you know, maybe one of those chippy games. So I'm going to dive into the film room now that I have access.

You want to watch the Washington game in 83 and, Washington. Okay. We lost to set up the Super Bowl rematch. Got it. Got it. Okay, I'll start there. Somebody said, Hank says, ask him between you and your brother, who would be better with a flat top and who would be an evil henchman in an action movie? Oh, I'd say easy. You're the flat top. I've seen the flat top on you. Yeah, with the wind, the wind hits right on the C-Doo. You know, I got a little bit of a baby. Right around Whalen's age. I think it was. Yeah. Yeah. You had a really good flat top and Kyle. He's built for the, he's a total evil, you know.

Listen, not only does he look just like, unfortunately, the guy that got backed into the propeller in the Indiana Jones movie, and we all know that scene. But he has phenomenal villain range. I mean, I could see him, you know, being sea bass and dumb and dumber, kicking in the stall door. I could see, you know, him being a villain in Roadhouse, Bloodsport, he could be a villain in almost any genre or subgenre of movie.

Yeah, yeah, no. Bring in the Cracken. Yeah, that's him. Ryan Taylor, both of us. Who is your favorite quarterback to Sack? You know what? I'd have to say the one that was probably the most challenging to Sack. I know he's going to say.

And it was the one I saw so much was John Elway. And to add to that, when you're playing up in Denver, people don't realize that altitude is real. And, you know, if they go no huddle the first drive and they drive the length of the field and then your team turns the ball over really quickly and you're back on the field again, you're digging down to a place that you've never dug before.

And John was really ahead of his time from an ability standpoint. His ability to, you know, bootleg, throw the ball, you know, 70 yards downfield across the field. He was, he was Patrick Mahomes before Patrick Mahomes. And I don't know that they really knew what to do with it initially. And they tried to fit a square peg in a round hole. But then they found their stride.

And unfortunately for him, or fortunately for him, he ends up winning back to back Super Bowls and retiring. But the John you saw in those superiors was not the John that I saw. And I was happy that he got two Super Bowls. happy for him but he was probably my favorite to compete against elway in the helmet with the bull durham logo and the bright orange uniforms was different than elway and those hideous uh you know those those weird pant stripes and yeah the uh well you've seen it's you've seen his helmet in the gym yep yep that's one of the good ones you got there you got a lot of great helmets i i would say for me

you know two guys that i had hat tricks against and russell i had a few hat tricks tricks against, but Drew and Drew Breeze and Russell Wilson. For Drew Breeze, I mean, that's the best player I sacked a lot. Now, Eli Manning, I damn near finished and ended my career with sack one was Eli and sack 69 was Eli, or 68, because then my last sacks were two against the Sean Watson. Russell Wilson. Should have been four. Should have been three or four. I missed one that just haunts me, but you know how bad I just wanted to get to 70 and call it a day. Yeah. You know, Russell, for me, because it was a division rivalry, it was heated, their own line were, and I respected them, but they were a Tom Cable group, they were a bunch of pricks.

So to hit him, and we were stacked up front, and we hit him a lot. You know, me and Rob would have multiple three-sac games against them, and most of those games we'd lose. That defense was wasted. Yeah, it was wasted. They were wasted. But I love Russ, because, you know, we both saw Russ growing up. He really is, you know, a classy dude and a dude that has been almost underappreciated in his career. As much as I'm saying, Drew Breeze is that's my Hall of Famer that I love.

I'll put that picture up for my kids to see all the times of Sack Drew. Russell might end up being better. This is one that doesn't need a lot of introduction. I got Steve Kerr. If you don't know who Steve Kerr is, you don't do sports or you don't do championships. He's won plenty of them. eight of them to be exact in the NBA as a player and a coach. One of the things has gotten us through this crazy time and the normalcy that it brought

was pretty palpable. And all you had to do was get online was the last dance. I mean, and you and I had talked a little bit about it, getting yawn to talk about it. I loved seeing you featured heavily in that thing and your story, which I knew, that was illuminating for a lot of people. And you were very vulnerable and honest, which I thought was awesome. Speaking of vulnerability, one of the things you took away was that Mike was more vulnerable. And sometimes you wondered if he was a robot.

I know you said that before that he was a machine. Did you enjoy watching it? Like, what was that like for you? Because I know you don't know what's going to happen. I mean, you're to a degree like the rest of us. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was really interesting to watch.

You know, I watched with my kids. They were toddlers when all that was going on. So that part was really fun because I had never seen most of that footage. So to go back in time and see what my life was like for my kids, you know, just watching it with them was amazing. And then it brought back a lot of memories and it opened up some old wounds too. You know, and it was a really powerful documentary. I thought Jason, Harrison, Herr did a phenomenal job directing it.

But, you know, stuff happens, right? You just, it opens up old wounds, guys start thinking about stuff. Certain guys aren't featured. You know, I was a little disappointed that Luke Longley, who was our starting center, all those years, Ron Harper, starting guard. We barely heard anything about them. Although Ron delivered one of the best lines of the documentary. Which was?

It was dealing with guarding MJ in the Cleveland series when he hit the shot over Craig. I mean it was something laced with profanity something in effect of fine you want Craig to guard him Craig can guard him that's right that was a good line yeah but you know there was there was some of that you know watching it it was good because we got reconnected we ended up I ended up talking with a lot of teammates and texting and them and just sharing old memories and and that part was fun but But yeah, it brings up a lot of good memories and bad ones and everything in between. And I think there's a reason teams generally don't want cameras behind the scenes, right?

That stuff is really personal. And you guys have had hard knocks. Were you ever on a team that did hard knocks? No. And I prayed that I never was, Steve. Because we, you know, and you can identify with this. What y'all had is cool, especially if you're MJ, because you have the locking key on the editorial last, the last set of eyes on it.

And, you know, but to your point, you know, throughout my career, I was on some bad teams. My first eight years of my career, most people remember me being a champion late in my career, but I played in St. Louis on really bad teams that were often in the running. If we weren't, if we were more entertaining, if more people cared, it's bad when you're bad and nobody cares. If you're the Cowboys and you're bad, cameras will flock. You know, we flirted with it. I was nervous about it.

I know the Eagles had, you know, that Amazon thing this year was kind of all access. I was very glad. I talked to my friends. I was very glad that I was not a part of that team. Just for that reason, I would have loved to keep playing. But, you know, it would have put me in a weird bind. You don't know how to act when the cameras are around. And that's why, like, part of it, I know people are saying, like, yeah, I was unprecedented access.

And yeah, it felt real. But when athletes are in a locker room and there's a camera on, you're never getting the true, you know, back and forth. And I could feel that a little bit. Yeah, I think so. And although I will say that after a while, you know, they were there every day. And after a while, it was almost like, you know, they just blended in. You know, the first the first couple of months, it was really weird. And especially because Phil Jackson had always been a coach who felt like the locker room was sacred, you know, that you couldn't just have anybody walk in. And so our locker room was really. it. And then all of a sudden, we go into that season at 98. And Phil says, well, there's going to be a camera crew following us around. We're all like, what? What the hell? But I would say by midseason, it was kind of like, you know, they're just, there they are. And they're also following Michael around the whole time. So they were easy to avoid if we wanted to. And, and I think after a while,

we just, they just kind of blended in. So it wasn't too intrusive. They were, almost three functionalities to the series for me. And one was for the young people now who watch first take and just digest comparisons all day. They don't even know who they're comparing LeBron or Kobe, God rest of soul too. It's one thing to look at stats. You know, it's one thing to look at highlights, but to live it as a sports fan, which I got to, it was really cool. But even for somebody my age, the first three Pete was ancient history to me. I'm six years old when they play the Pistons. So it was illuminating for me in the middle. It was illuminating for younger people and then for older people. It was a blast in nostalgia. And you arrived right before Mike came back,

a year or two before Mike came back, yeah? Yeah, yeah. And those were the two years he went and played baseball. And it actually, that period turned my career around because I was in about my fifth year, but I was kind of on my way out of the league. I was a free agent. I had no offers and the Bulls offered me a spot. And part of the reason I played so much that year was because Michael was gone. You know, he left a void and a lot of minutes. And so I was able to kind of resurrect my career while he was gone. And then when he came back, it was like incredible just to realize, okay, now, you know, we are, we're going to get a chance to compete for a championship. and what that means individually, you know, I don't know, I'm sure it's different in football,

but in basketball, you know, when you're competing for a championship, and there's, it's, the titles are generally driven by your best, you know, two, three players, right? So we knew Michael was driving these championships with Scotty. And obviously they had, you know, Dennis Rodman taking care of the glass. and those three guys were restored. But the thing with basketball is you always have a chance to have a moment, you know, where you're going to get the ball and you're going to be in big moments. And even though you're not driving the championship run,

you're going to be able to play a part in it. And that was really exciting, but also nerve-wracking. You know, you didn't want to screw up. And so that was a big part of learning to adjust to play with Michael. He was such a big star. We didn't really know them that well. But, you know, if he threw you the ball, you felt, you felt. You better do this is the right thing with it.

And you did it. You did the right thing with the game six. I loved. I love seeing you. He was like, yo, like keep this. Keep this on the low, Steve. Like, here's what we're going to do. And you're like, yeah, yeah, I'll do that.

You're like screaming to the game. It's so great. But, I mean, when you show up on the scene, you're hearing about the lore of Michael Jordan. I'm pretty sure he's in Birmingham. He's not. visiting the team until BJ asked him to come back, which I thought was really cool. BJ seemed like a really good teammate. He seemed like he was a nice force to have in a locker room.

But I figure you're sitting there and you're hearing about Mike, what was that lore like? What were people saying about him? And did you ever have a sense? Was it like a foregone conclusion that he was just gone for a bit and that he was coming back? No, we didn't really ever sense that he was coming back. To that point, you know, a lot of us had played a. against him, but most of us hadn't played with him. And so BJ and John Paxson, who was a player, was a teammate for a year, and then became a broadcaster and a coach. But he was a really good

mentor for me. So those guys kind of shared with me, Bill Cartwright also, kind of what kind of guy Mike was and what it was going to be like to play with him. But I thought BJ said something really, interesting in the documentary, which was that, you know, the guys on the first three Pete came up with Michael before he became Michael Jordan Global Superstar. And so they got to know him a lot better. For us on the second three Pete, he was already this icon. And we never got to know him that well because he was always being swept away by his security guys to right to the hotel to his suite. You know, we never really went out with him and had dinner with him.

And BJ made that point. I thought it was a really good one. It was almost like we were, you know, teammates with his icon instead of this human being. And so it was hard to relate to him. Welcoming Matt Barnes now to the Greenlight Pod. This is a guy who I always admired for his tough attitude in the NBA. I always thought he could have played football. And now he's got a great podcast, all the smoke.

with Stephen Jackson. You talk about weed. I mean, you've talked about mental health or cannabis. It was funny. Frank Shamrock told me that he goes, you got to stop calling it weed because I've never picked up a weed and smoked it and it hurts, you know, the way we talk about cannabis. Call it cannabis. So Shamrock, I got you. Cannabis and mental health. You're pro-canibus. You've talked about depression and that sort of thing. What's the functionality for you? I started, I grew up in a household that was filled with drugs. I think I feel like my parents were functioning drug addicts. My dad was also a drug dealer. So there was a lot of violence, abuse growing up. But the one thing, so I saw cocaine at an early age. I saw everything you can imagine in early age. But I remember the one thing

that used to kind of calm my dad at the end of the day was when he was smoke a joint. And I didn't know at the time. I'm three, four, or five years old, just kind of coming into realizing what this world is. And I realized like my dad is works hard. He butcher by day, drug year by night, but I'd have seen him whip hell of people's asses. Like, he was a badass to me. You know what I mean? So, but the one time I saw him cool, calm and collected and kind of sociable with us and in a good mood at the end of day when he was smoking, so that always stuck with me.

And then when I was 14, I stole some weed from him and started smoking and never really looked back. Was it good weed? At the time, no. She had some reggie. I was in, yeah, I was in, you know, I was in Sacramento. So once I kind of got in the game and I had my other homeboys, like, yeah, I'm on, what's going on?

Like, being in Sacramento, we. We had a cheat code. So after the first time, I was always smoking good weed, but I smoked it through high school, through UCLA, and through my whole career. You know, and I was never someone who could take painkillers. They always killed my stomach. I'm a social drinker.

I'll drink in public, but I'm not really, you're not going to catch me at home drinking, but smoking was something that always allowed me to escape my crazy life, slow my mind down, sleep, took pain away at a later time. And then I just enjoyed being able to go leave my crazy life, current situation and kind of be somewhere else mentally for a little while. So it always helped me. And then fast forward 25 years later, now they have doctors saying that it does everything I just mentioned. You know, it helps with stress. It helps with focus. It helps with sleep. It helps

with depression. It helps with, you know, eating. You name it. You know what I mean? So it helps with everything. So it's come a long way. And I'm very happy with that. I took on being an advocate right out of the league. You know, I was someone who got caught two times. You get three strikes in the NBA. The third time is your suspended five games without pay. So I was, I was, I got caught like 2.75 times. I allowed to turn myself in twice. And then I, and then I exiting stage left.

But I just wanted to be that advocate because when I was in there, you know, the NBA had a little bit over 400, 400 players in it. Over 200 guys were in the, uh, the NBA drug program for just weed alone. You know, it's like, that's crazy. Like, this is from your best, some of the best players in the world to rookies and everything in between. So I think the stigma slowly started. lifting with the more education and research that came behind it now. And you see the leagues are

starting to adjust their policies. I think is great because fans don't understand is, you know, we have an opioid epidemic outside of the pandemic of the pandemic of coronavirus and racism. Opioid pandemic is huge and it kills every, it's knocking everyone down. So when we're in sports, they're giving us everything from Toradole to OxyContin to, you know, you name it. Listen, man, I couldn't play without my shot of Torval. And the reason I smoked, And this is one thing that sometimes irritates me about people's assumptions about you. If I say, and I came out and said, and I said it casually, because I got called on the Dan Patrick's show, Dan Patrick asked me about marijuana.

I was like, man, if anybody knows me for all these years, I mean, I basically hinted at the fact and the things I'm interested in, the things I'm tweeting late at night, like, don't you know I'm kind of high at night? Like, so I just kind of, I'm like you. I just spoke my mind when people were like, oh, he does it for pain. He does it for this. No, everybody has a different functionality for it. I think the commonality between the NBA and the NFL, it sounds like, I need something to turn the volume down at night.

You know, because like when you're on that treadmill with all that adrenaline, that violence of my game, the pressure, when I get home, I want to be a father to my kids. And that's not a wound tight guy. And I can't sleep without it. Like for a while, I was on the sleeping pills and I was taking way too much. Right. Best day of my life was pouring those things down the drain. And this kind of came in a time where when I got in the league,

You just kind of got what you could. But towards the end of my career, it was like, oh, no, we got dispensaries now. We go out to West Coast. I can snag something like, guys can get your real medical stuff. So I was getting good strains that, like, work for me. So the game has changed. I think it's great. Is there anything you can't do high?

Like, what do you not like doing high? Nothing. I played high. I take meetings high. It's me. I feel like I'm a better meet. You know what I mean? And I think that us still being productive athletes and fathers and businessmen and whatever else we do,

it's just been a stigma that's been holding this back for so long, you know, which is unfortunate. So I think, you know, the more education, obviously, the better. But I think you also hit it on the head when you talk about even just an average person at the end of the night, everyone needs something to turn down. So some people turn to drinking. Some people turn to sleeping pills. Some people are drugs, you know, but at the end of the day, to me, a joint has always just been what it was for me. I knew that I was, I'm something, you know, being an athlete, sometimes you don't smoke. You know, our shit is crazy.

We'll be in a situation where we'll be in a situation where a safe. We'll play Portland tonight and go into double overtime. But then we still have to leave. Once that game's over, we hop on a flight. We're heading to San Antonio. We play it back to backs. We're playing Tim Duncan on T&P the next night. So we're flying to San Antonio at three or four in the morning.

You can't just go right to sleep. You know what I mean? So you're going to sleep when the sun come up. So then you've got to be at your best to play Tim and Manu and Tony and the great San Antonio team. So it's just like you don't understand what that traveling. They don't know the grind of. And it's different in football. It's not like a baseball or basketball grind where we're not on the road as much.

Right. But, you know, it is. You guys are running into a wall every single way. Yeah. What you guys do is almost on another level. Like I said, I was a football player at the beginning. My brother played never made it to your level, obviously, but just understanding, people understand you're running into a wall in practice or not as much in practice,

but in games, every single game you're running into a wall. You know what I mean? And nobody's body is going to feel good after that. But you could play high. Yeah. See, I never played high. I was like, there's a few things I can't do high. Okay. Number one, I don't like podcasting high when I'm talking to somebody that I don't know well because I can be like, I'm kind of paranoid and I could be like, that's a weird vibe.

Or he doesn't understand what I'm saying. Like, if I was high right now, I'd be looking at you on Zoom and I'd be like, he thinks this is the dumbest fucking question in the world. Another thing I can't do high. Okay. I can't get high in the kitchen. I do it all the time, but getting high in the kitchen is a bad idea because you need to get If you get high upstairs, this is the biggest cheat. If you get high upstairs and not in the fucking kitchen, you're not going to eat.

You're not going to be too lazy walk downstairs. Once I'm on call of duty, I'm on call of duty. But if I'm in the kitchen and I'm blazed, I'm getting into the mochies, the posticles, the ice cream. Pork rinds getting home from the bar. My kids' foods, they're gone. The kids' food is the problem. If I didn't have kids, I've been able to, like, I've been doing this so long that I can, you know, hone my munchies to I. I've doused myself for fruit.

and granola, you know, bar, stuff that's just not as bad as the bad stuff. But, you know, my kids, they get away with the cupcakes and the cookies and the Capri sons and shit. And that's where I get in trouble at. They're gone. And they're gone. You come down in the morning, it's not just like, if I eat my snacks, I'm responsible when my wife walks down in the morning is like, where the fuck are the chips a hoi? That's like the reward for whalen reading. Right. You know, like, so, I mean, I definitely hear you, though, like, I talk to basketball guys. And some football guys can play high. I, like, listen, before every night game of my

career in the morning I was hot. Right. Now, I've got a lot of buckets at night in big situations, so you can't tell me that it fucked up my play. I take a nap and wake up, kind of drink five cups of coffee, and I'm good to go. But somebody asked, have you ever been too high? In high school. So in high school, let me tell you this story. But you remember Teen Wolf when just remember when they were moving and everything with just slow motion? Yeah. So we cut school my, I think it was my senior. year. So we're in this tournament called the Jack Scott tournament. And Kevin Johnson,

former NBA player mayor of Sacramento, he had set the record for winning MVP three years. So I went in my first three years. This is my senior year. I'm supposed to win in my fourth year. But we cut school, the first game I have like in the 40s, the second game I cut school the next day, and we take a gravity bonner. So I take a gravity bong out of one of these big ass outhammer bottle. Like you remember the big, we cut the bottom up. You were hanging out with white kids. You already know. You already know. So I went to all white. school. They had me hitting this gravity bong like at 2.30. We played it. I got so high that that game I probably had like four to six points, airwalled like two layups. Just

give them on the last of the game before I had like 40. Easy Matt. I average four to six points in high school. Yeah. I was an enforcer without the box. I was but so all my friend drove in the bleachers laughing, knowing they're still high. I'm high as fuck playing still. And then I saw I had a terrible game that game. The next game I came back and had a huge game, but I didn't get MVP. because of that fucking... Oh, no. Okay, so I didn't break the record, but that was the one time I was too high,

but besides that, like, my routine was similar. Like, we would go have shoot-around, which is at 11 or 12, for an hour I come home, smoke a joint, eat. I would take a nap, and wake up, shower, and go to the game. You know what I mean? By that time, I had smoked four or five hours before. I'm not someone that's going to

smoke right before I play, like, going in there because that's just unprofessional, you stink, whatever. But I would, you know, it was in my system. And like I said, It just allowed me to lock in and be me. So it was something that I always did through, even in college. For me, it just let me sleep, like, the day away because there's nothing worse than being an NFL player and knowing just sitting in your hotel room all day. Because they put us in a hotel.

I know you guys are like grownups, but even a home game, they treat us like fucking kids. You're in, like, the airport Marriott, and I'm staring out the window at a parking lot thinking about tackling Ezekiel Elliott at APM and all the pressure in the world. We only get 16 of them. So I got to sleep. We have an owner who has stepped to the forefront with everything going on in our country today. And that's Mark Cuban. Mark, how you doing, man? How are you doing?

Where are you from, Chris? I'm from Virginia. Virginia. Okay, I thought I'd detect a little Pittsburgh in that accent. No, there's no Pittsburgh. Well, I was going to save this for the end. But if you're buying an NFL team, which team is it? And why is it the Steelers?

Why is it the Steelers? Right. What was the best bar in Manhattan Beach? Showbacks is the best. But Hercules, so the day we saw. sold Broadcast.com, the company I sold to Yahoo. I just went and just got torched with some friends, right? And there was a booth that was there up until like three years ago at Hercules, right? And we sold the company for $5.7 billion in stock. And so I took one of the knives,

you know, the burgers are just incredible, right? And I took one of the knives and I carved in 5.7B into one of the tables. And that was there for. I saw it. I think I saw it. Mark, I trained in Manhattan. I trained there in the offseason, like for two years. I loved it, except for when you leave the beach and then you're just caught in a massive humanity. But I used to get tore up at that same bar. And somebody was like, that's where Mark Cuban, the story was distorted. They said when he made his first million, he carved his name.

But that's good. There's some truth to that stuff. I carved it in there. And then, but my spot is shellbacks with Rico. That's a popular one. Okay. So Pat McAfee was hammering you on the president thing. Okay.

I'm not going to hammer you on the president thing. But I will ask you, if there's somebody in the private sector or an athlete that you think you would like to see on a ticket eventually, and I'm not trying to minimize what it takes to run. Great question. I hadn't thought about that. Who would be a good politician, Greg Popovich? He would be good. I got another spur for you, and I know him a little bit through some charitable stuff. David Robinson to me.

Yeah, D. Rob would be great, man. He's got a good heart, man. He's got his head on straight. He can talk to anybody. I think you'd be great. Last thing. You've talked about HGH. This is fascinating to me.

I could talk about this for a while. I never, it's so cloudy in the NFL. I don't know who's using it, who's not. I don't know how prevalent it is. But you know, you do wonder that if it's better for your health,

what's the difference? Where does the line get drawn between performance enhancing and like taking a protein shake or putting the right things in your body? They're LASIC, right? Yeah. James Winston. He might,

the LASIC might fix everything. So number one, are you on the juice right now? No, I never have been. Number two, do you think that's far off or is it realistic? So two different things here, right? Just being on the juice, when you're calling it juice, it means it's not doctor. Steroids, I'm fucking. No, no, but when you're calling it juice or whatever or HGH, it means it's not doctor administered.

And that's the first thing, right? It's got to be doctor prescribed and administer. If it's doctor and prescribed administer, then it's not going to be for performance enhancement. it's going to be for repair of some sort, right? It's going to be for you to recover. And so I paid for this study, and it took too long. It took like four years to get it done. And effectively, what it came up with was that we took non-professional athletes

and we took X number that actually got HGH to help them in their recovery and others that got a placebo. And the recovery was 29% faster and the ligaments were much stronger on the HGH. And so why would you not allow them? that if it's doctor-administer. I see no problem. And the biggest issue is WADA, the World Anti-Doping Association, they've always, they just demonized it, right? There aren't even really studies that say it's a performance-enhancing drug.

They just jump to that conclusion because of some anecdotal evidence. And so there's no studies with anything, with anything really related to HGH. Is it harmful? Is it helpful? Whatever other than the one I paid for it. And so hopefully I'm going to be able to platform that and undertake other studies that. will focus not on performance enhancement, but on recovery because, you know, it costs next to nothing. And if you inject a couple of milligrams, whatever it is, and it all of a sudden, you're going to be, you know, you're going to be up to speed faster and back to your job faster.

You get the best product. Healthier. Why wouldn't you do it? Yeah. In the NFL, I mean, I remember I'd be, I'd just start feeling good on Saturday before a Sunday game. And if you leveled the playing field and everybody got that quote unquote performance enhancement, it's not performance. Yeah, it's not enhancing, right? it's all the same, but you've got to study it to make sure there's no problems with it,

right? And so you don't want to be in a situation where it causes diabetes or heart problems or this and that, but we really don't know. There's never been a long-term, large enough study to determine one way or the other. For all we know, it can make everybody great. For all we know, it could just screw everybody up. But when you do, like we saw with my study, when you do it in a controlled environment for a specific purpose, in this particular case, it helps.

And if we can continue to do that, look, whether it's ACL, whether it's MCL, whether it's Achilles, whatever it may be, if we can get you back on the field or the court healthier with less drop off. I mean, why would you do it? Yeah, fans will see the best product quicker and in the best way. And I just do want to say this. If you ever get on HGH, I rescind my offer to let you slap the shit out of me when I make $100 million. I don't want to see new genics, Mark Cuban, you know, just rolling up on me with... Jeff me and Frank Thomas Farley. Tom Morello is the guest today.

If you know Rage Against the Machine, you know Tom. If you know audio slave, you know Tom. And if you have been paying attention to Tom, you know that he's involved in a plethora of musical endeavors. How about top three Bruce songs and favorite album? Top three... Ooh, okay. Favorite Bruce album is Nebraska. it's the you know the the dark folk album and then i would go top three songs just off the top of my head

i'm going to go with the promise i'm going to go with uh adam raised the cane those of us with bad issues we love that one yeah and lastly i'm going to go with a little song called the ghost of tom joke hey listen and by the way that's a great song and i know that being respectful of the boss i the ghost of tom jo is one of the favorite recordings of you know that's a little bit of know, of rage that, that I have out there. So, I mean, you guys absolutely killed that. It was unbelievable. And then I got to see the boss live on Broadway singing goes to Tom Jode. And it's just like, for me being younger in 2000, whenever that album came out, I'm a kid. And the first way I get introed into that is you guys. But also with parents who are big Bruce fans, I got to

bring them to Broadway, actually. Funny enough, Tunnel of Love is one of my favorite Bruce albums. I know that some people are like, what? No, no, no, no, no. Here's the thing about Bruce Brinkland is that that guy, wherever he turns his poetic lens, he does great work. Yeah. You know, if he's, if he's writing about Dust Bowl refugees or if he's writing about like love shaky, a shaky marriage, like he just, his poetic lens is just really fantastic. And so, I mean, he's a, he's a national treasure and we're glad that's lucky to have him. Darkness on the edge of town. also that's that's probably yeah that's my other way in nebraska and darkness are yeah yeah i love

nebraska though because it's so unexpected from him and like the height of his bruce springsteenness you know and global popularity he did that he did that he did that because that's the record you wanted to make and that you know that's not the kind of decision that you know michael jackson was making or whatever you know whatever the star time were um and so it really sort of speaks to his integrity I'm calling the boss for a reason there. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so real quick, some other quick hitters. You're a Sabbath fan, and actually, interestingly enough,

I just found out they started selling Black Live Matter T-shirts because of you? Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, a friend of mine made that shirt, and I put it was on an Instagram, you know, it's in sort of Sabbath lettering because Black Lives Matter, and I posted that on Instagram, picture of me and my mom, you know, with a Black Lives Matter sign and me wearing the shirt. And Gieser Butler's, you know, saw her Instagram. And, you know, a week later, Sabbath is they're donating all of the proceeds.

That's pretty damn cool to grow up on Sabbath. And then you're like influencing them. Are you kidding me? So the question is, what's the better album opener, War Pigs or Black Sabbath? Because I can't imagine in 1970, the band Black Sabbath, comes out with an album called Black Sabbath. and a song called Black Sabbath. Yeah, well, I think that my favorite of those two songs, I mean, Warpigs is like the jam. Warpigs might be the greatest metal song of all time.

I'm going to go with that one. However, you're right. And that in 1970, coming out of like the summer of love and all of these kind of like hippie bands and these kind of trippy, this trippy, you know, Bay Area music and Grateful Dead and whatnot. And these four dudes from industrial Birmingham come out with that song, which is about as, kind of as evil as evil. Yeah. It's awesome. It's like deal, deal with this. Oh, my God. Okay, lightning round, I'm going to let you go.

Okay, you're a Cubs fan. You meet Steve Bartman. What do you do? Oh, no, I, you know what? First of all, I'm not a Steve Bartman apologist. I'm a baseball fan. I would know better to touch that ball. But once we won the World Series, all is forgotten, all is forgiven. They gave him a ring. so he's good he's good and you know give him a hug it's all good where were you had if we didn't we didn't have a world series by now it's a different conversation yeah no totally i mean the happiest guy for the cubs winning the world series is steve barman it's not of the players and where were you when you saw the cubs win at all i was in cleveland was there oh nice okay i was there i was there

tears streaming down my face and i brought my my aunt isabel she's the one that got me in the Cub. She lived 82 years and never saw it. So I brought a photograph of her to the game so she could witness with me. The next day, I drove to the small town cemetery where she's buried, planted the dubbing flag on her grave, popped a bottle of champagne and rode the Chicago Tribune sports section, front and back. That's amazing. How about more Chicago folklore here, the Lala protest? Who was the most afraid to whip their dick out? Well, that happened in Philadelphia, but Okay, that was in Philly. Okay, okay.

Yeah, it was when it was a tour that went city to city to city. Okay, yeah, yeah. And I will say that it was not a unanimous vote. I'll leave it at that. It was not the unanimous vote. So joining me now to do one of my favorite things, which is talk music forever, you know, like just in circles I could talk music. I know this guy can do the same, Dave Damashek, who is perfect for this exercise.

We're talking about music. I love to talk about music. But this is a different twist. This is something that we kind of stumbled into. Dave and myself in my mentions thinking about, I forget what we were talking about, Dave. Do you remember? Yes, in fact,

Beaumani Jones was talking about music. And you weighed in. He said something about the Eagles. Uh-huh, is the Eagles. Exactly. And you said, I usually leave the Eagles wherever I find them. And you said,

although I do like Hotel California. That's a side note. Do you ever heard that that's a cursed song? You're not supposed to listen to it at night. You're an Angelino. You're an Angelino native. You ever hear that one? Really?

I've heard, I don't know. I guess I'm not inquisitive enough. I've never actually investigated. The hairs on my neck are standing up because, listen, and this is no disrespect to the Eagles. You know, my producer here, Cowboy Reed, loves the Eagles. I come to find out in our group text, I start, I start firing them like, guys, I get this idea for a segment. It's called System Bands. The Eagles for me are just, there's only one functionality.

to the Eagles for me, and we'll get into that in a little bit. But the whole concept is system bands like system players in pro sports are, if they're on the more systemy side of the spectrum, they really need that one, you know, functionality, that one setting, that climate, that place, that time to unlock their potential. And that's not necessarily a slight. It will be for some of these bands. But I put it in my group text. I go, this segment's killer.

I don't know if anybody else likes it, but I really like it. I think Dave might like it because we were talking about it. The Eagles are the perfect system band. And Cowboy Reads like, the Eagles are one of my favorite bands. I listened to with my dad growing up all the time. I'm like, well, shit. I don't mean. Yeah, well, no.

Well, first of all, yes. Just to color it in a little bit. Yeah, you could call, I mean, there are only so many Russell Wilson, so many John Elways in the world, so many Michael Jordans who can thrive in spite of whatever's around them, no matter what their immediate surroundings, they're going to do well. Kirk Cousins is a system QB.

Most bands, as you start to dig into it, are even if you love them. I'm not impugning anybody's taste of music, including my own. I consider some of the bands that I like to be ultimately cis. I just had never considered the notion of time and place means so much to most every band you can think of. And I always denounce the Eagles.

I always thought, what kind of, I don't get that like soft 70s rock. It just ain't for me. I don't like Steve Miller. I don't know if they're in the same echelon, but I'm not a Steve Miller guy. Like that kind of, you know what it was for me? When I was a kid, I used to listen to radio a lot, you know, like any kid, FM radio. And I listened to classic rock. So I was just inundated with so much Steve Miller band, so much Eagles.

And by the way, it's not like I think the Eagles are bad. Just objectively, they could use the right. system. And Hotel California is one song, Desperado, another song, but mainly Hotel California is a banger. That's an any system song for me. I think

take it to the limit. I like the heart, but it never resonated for me until it's funny because you mentioned the Eagles. And then I was thinking just in the last year and a half or two, our mutual pal, I think Adam Carolla, was

disparaging the Eagles too. And I I said, you know, I've kind of had a turn on. I said, well, but I've kind of turned around on them a little bit. Because if you happen to be in the car or otherwise or sitting in a bar and the right Eagle song comes on in Southern California at the golden hour, it's as though it was made specifically as the backdrop, as the audio backdrop for that situation. And it, and it hits, and you know, maybe it's chicken or the egg, like maybe the, Eagles made that music because they were in Los Angeles and that's what came out of them.

That's another debate. But either way, yeah, the Eagles make much more sense to me as a transplanted Angelo, when I'm out in Malibu at the beach on a weekend and I'm finishing things off with a beer in hand. You mentioned it, the chicken or the egg thing. Okay, so like I think Bonnie Verr, like Justin has made albums where he just locks himself in the woods. And when I'm listening, I literally feel like I'm in the woods.

to be in the woods to hear that music. Is it your surroundings where you're cultivating the art? Maybe that matters and that's what people pick up on, or is it something that's inherently individualized to the listener? I don't know. I think it's probably a little bit of both sometimes. Yeah, I hear you.

And just to make sure that as we jump in on the specifics here, I think it's worth pointing out, there is stuff that is like, maybe it's the beginner's level of the game that we're playing here. But I feel like, you know, mood music, like there's certain mood music and everybody gets it. Like Barry White exists. He's sort of the go-to people reference for like. Powerlifting. Yeah, when it's time to go between the sheets, right.

Yeah, or Charlie Mangus. Like these are these are soundtracks to what happens in the bedroom. And then there's, you know, happy music. Like Jimmy Buffett, I'm not a Jimmy Buffett guy, But, I mean, to me, it feels like from the outside looking in, the only purpose is to go out and drink beer in summer and go to a concert and check them out. I can't imagine, I'm not a Buffett guy, period.

But I can't imagine even people who love Jimmy Buffett are like. Have you ever seen anybody listen to Jimmy Buffett in the cold? Right, exactly. That's the heart of what we're getting at here. Jimmy's on my system list, and that's a little bit of a tease. but I think it's not necessarily. It's not a slight necessarily. We like some of this music,

but there are some system bands, and there's a spectrum. So, you know, we'll get into a couple that are kind of fringy, but they're definitely the experience of digesting that art is enhanced by the right system, just like players. We talk about that. I mean, it's a great analogy, and I think it works if you think of it within the NFL framework. Okay, so system bands.

I'll start with the Eagles, Because that's kind of what spawned this idea in my head was, I just think about the Eagles. And again, they're really unremarkable to me, although respectable, for sure. If I am outside,

out west, this is the system. And you mentioned it in California, but I'm thinking a little bit more like deserty, like painted desert, Montana, that sort of thing. It's an evening out west at an indoor,

outdoor bar. It's got to be indoor outdoor, The flexibility here, though, is that it could be a dive bar or like a really nice bar with boomers sitting underneath, those really nice expensive heat towers, the flaming heat towers. Like, they've got some bangers. That's where I would say that system suits the Eagles the best. Out west, indoor, outdoor bar. Boy, very specific.

I appreciate it. The, yeah, down to the heat lamps. Yeah, that's right. I think it's also interesting to consider, much like you might a league average NFL quarterback, that like, okay, yeah, but he's surrounded by all this town. What if you took him and put him on the worst team? The Eagles for me do absolutely nothing. If I'm in Pittsburgh or if I'm somewhere in winter or it's nighttime, they are for me like

two out of 10. But if you catch me, like I say, driving down PCH as the sun's going down, and I'm driving north to the 10 freeway to head back home. Or I'm sitting there in Malibu with a beer in hand. A plastic cup, if you please. That suits the vibe a little bit too. The golden hour, by the way, for anybody unawares, is what you see in Oakland Raiders or San Francisco 49ers game

in the second half. When the sun's going down like that, it's the reason they shoot movies or why they started to shoot movies in the first place in Los Angeles. because of the so-called perfect lighting, the Golden Hour light. And the Eagles suit that perfectly for me, and I will listen to them without complaint,

unless I am not in that exact setting, then I will complain. If they're Kirk Cousins, PCH is the play action pass. I mean, it's a great analogy. They can be certainly elite, but the right things have to be going on around them. And the car, the convertible is Dalvin Cook. Is that right? Yeah, the convertible is Dalvin Cook. The convertible is Dalvin Cook.

And then Justin Jefferson might be, you know, a Pacifico.