Green Light with Chris Long - Big Cat’s Duke Hatred + NFL's 18 Game Season, Tiger Woods & MLB's ABS System

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Big Cat joins Chris, Macon and Beau fresh off Duke's loss to UConn in the Elite Eight, and he couldn't be happier. Big Cat convinces the fellas that rooting against Duke is the way to go. The guys talk NCAA March Madness, who they think will meet in the National Championship game and then dive into stories from around the sports world. They give their takes on Tiger Woods' latest car wreck, the NFL's looming decision to move to an 18 game schedule, the ABS Challenge system in Major League Baseball and Caleb Williams' push to get the Iceman nickname trademarked despite protests from George Gervin. Just a great day of talking sports with Big Cat! (00:00) - Intro (03:00) - NFL's 18 Game Schedule (07:10) - Duke Loses & Elite Eight Reactions (15:27) - Final Four & National Championship Predictions (28:56) - Tiger Woods (38:12) - Another NFL Season Of Replacement Refs? (44:36) - Caleb Williams vs George Gervin (50:35) - Being The Old Guy At The Bar Have some interesting takes, some codebreaks or just want to talk to the Green Light Crew? We want to hear from you. Call into the Green Light Hotline presented by Zone Nicotine and give us your hottest takes, your biggest gripes and general thoughts. Day and night, this hotline is open: ‪[phone]‬ Head to https://nicokick.com/zone and use code GL20 for 20% off at checkout. Check out Green Light's ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, where you can catch all the latest GL action: 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a new thing. They're trying to get us to not hate Duke anymore. I'm going to tell you right now, not over my dead body. Like, we're hating Duke as much as we've ever hated Duke. Speaking of the moment being too big, I do feel bad for the boozers. Nope. You don't. No.

They decided to go to Duke. They lose all right to be felt bad for. The minute they signed with Duke, they'd no longer get any sympathy from me. Let's just get rid of replay and just be like call stands. Games would be two hours in the NBA. They'd be three hours in the NFL. They would never do it, but I think it would be cool. I think it's radical.

I don't know about that one, but I do know that everybody's making a big deal about the ABS thing in baseball. I love it, which is very hypocritical of what I just thought. Well, hey, wait, I might have just solved the problem for you. Now you don't have to go. Dan, welcome to the show. Excited to be here.

We're excited to have you. Makin and I just realized something. In a moment of terror, looked at my calendar and realized, and I'm excited to go to this Luke Combs concert, but I agreed to go to Luke, Luke Combs concert a long time ago, and it's Saturday night during the games. Rookie move. I, that actually would be like one of the things that I think that I am elite at is I know intuitively, like when sports events that I can't miss are happening, and I will always steer clear. Like my wife gets on me because she'll

She'll try to plan things like anyone like Hey, can we go on, you know, spring break? We just went on spring break or like, what are we doing for Christmas vacation? I'm always like, I can't think about that right now. But then she'll be like, hey, do you have anything? October 17th? I'm like, yeah, I can't do that.

Like, Bama plays Georgia. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'll just have that in the back of my head. It drives are nuts. Dude, you're pretty good then because this was, I mean, this was only like a couple weeks ago that I said a long time ago, but I agreed to it a couple weeks ago. going as well and he's going to be in a suite and he just found out they don't even show the

fucking games in the suite TVs they're showing the concert feed do you know what you need making you need the iPad uh that's cell service do you guys have that for your kids uh yeah how about youtube tv.com yeah that's what i'm saying yeah that's what i bring out i have like a i have like little iPads for my kids for you know like car riding car rides whatever And I have one of them has a cellular plan. So when I have to go somewhere and I know that, like, there's a game on, I just watch, I just bring that with me, put it right in my pocket. That's what we'll do. Can you get an iPad into Scott Stadium?

Yeah. Shove in your pants. Through the sweet elevator? Yeah. You can get anything through the sweet elevator. Yeah. I'm excited about Luke Coons. Right?

All right. Hey. Well, hey, wait, I might have just solved the problem for you. Now you don't have to go. Yeah, exactly. Smart. Hey, dad, it's going to be harder and harder to keep those dates in your back pocket with the way the NFL is like just fucking, hey, we're going to put a game here. We're going to put a game there.

Too much. Too much. I don't know your guys take. I would like to hear it. But I think the NFL is fucking this up in that the beauty of the NFL and like what we love about it is the scarcity. And the fact that Sunday feels like it's Sunday's church. You like Sunday is a holiday for America in the fall. and now when they're just spraying games everywhere

and I'm someone who can watch all of them because it's my job but I do think about like the regular person out there it's not that they can't watch it on Sunday or Thursday or Monday but when they start saying oh Wednesday and Tuesday like people have lives and I think it's a mistake by like sooner you're just going to become the NBA or major league baseball or the NHL where every night has a game and it doesn't feel as special so I think they're fucking it up

well there's also the talk of the 18th game because they haven't even set the Super Bowl date for the 27-28 season in Atlanta, not this upcoming Super Bowl, the Super Bowl after. There's no date set yet because they think by then we're going to have an 18th game. Yeah. Do you guys, I mean, it's definitely going to happen, right? It's got to, it's got to happen. I feel like it's been trending that way, dude.

I mean, the owners are at the owners beating right now. They're probably meeting on that shit as we speak. And then tomorrow, do-na-da-da-da-da-the-the- NFL announces, 18-game schedule. Listen, I think it's. been, I think we all kind of seen this coming, but my issue is like, I don't want to become the NBA. I don't want to deal with load management in the NFL, right? You don't need to manage these loads. There's plenty of loads that I heard somebody float a possibility that like, I don't know how you feel about this boat, but like, well, if we go to 18, one, we could

have more by weeks and two, it could be a deal where you, you get a voluntary week off. Like, what NFL player is going to take their voluntary week off? That is a, trap. There's no way they're going to make a, you know, voluntary whether you take a... So for the players, it sucks. I mean, we can get in this later. We're going to talk about the NFL, but I guess I'm seeing where Dan stands on it. I kind of like random

football on like a Wednesday. I know you're a big matching guy. Yeah. And so eventually this is going to push up on some action. Well, and it's also like you and I are, our job is to talk and watch sports. I'm thinking about the regular guy who has shit going on when they throw a Wednesday. And I always

assume with the NFL, it's the same shit with the, you know, when the games in Europe were special because there were two of them. Now there's every team, every team's going to have to play in Europe. Like they're going to have to. They want 16. They're going to probably do a Super Bowl. So it's no different when it comes to the Wednesday night game. They're not doing one Wednesday night game.

They're doing Wednesday night games to then do Wednesday night games going forward. You know, like it's all a trial balloon. So it's, you can't say, oh, yeah, it's fine. It's just one thing on Thanksgiving. No, no, this is going to be what they're going to do. And I, so the fix, the buy week fix that I've always proposed, which they'll never do, but I actually think would be perfect is we have a, we have your regular buy week, sometime between weeks four and ten call it.

And then we call it the universal buy where the week before Christmas, because you have college football playoffs, the week before Christmas, when you got to do all your shopping and you got to maybe put in a little quality time and the season's dragging on, there's just no NFL. And it's a universal buy. And you can go get all your shit done. And then you're ready to go for Christmas week. And then football's back on.

I kind of like it. Yeah, that's a good idea. So then the Super Bowl would be like, I don't know, mid, like late February, I guess. Super Bowl is going to be in fucking March before you know it. Which I'm okay with that part because I, living in a cold weather city, the Super Bowl, the closer the Super Bowl gets to March madness, the less winter feels real. Like I my take is always that winter doesn't hurt as bad as long as football's on as long as there's sports right right right That's right dude the worst weeks of the winter are the three weeks in February when football's over and March madness hasn't begun

And March Madness is about to be over okay and that's my you know transition into the topic of the day which is That big cat is walking on sunshine today oh I think we are we all are a little bit my whole family was was jumping for joy except for my seven-year-old who doesn't understand what hating Duke is about. He put him through in his bracket. But everybody else was fucking excited. People were screaming so loud that dogs were afraid. It was that kind of scene in the house. Were you live watching?

Yes. We were in the gambling cave. It was so good. And I feel like I can be, because you guys are, you know, Virginia guys and Bo, obviously, Wisconsin, like, Bo, I don't know if your take, but I've done this rant before. Duke fans love to be like, oh, dude, rent free. All you do is think of it.

no shit i'm rent free i'll never wisconsin will never win a national title and we were a half away from winning it so yes it constantly but heard about it yeah yeah right every day it shaped me every day since i've been like a small part of me died in that stadium and the only justice i can get is hating duke with every fiber of my body and i will do that till my dying breath so yesterday was i came multiple times. I was like fucking Arnold in the gym. I was just coming and coming and coming. Like the fact that they blew that lead and the last shot and it was the wettest shot ever. Yeah. Oh. And they have the best team every year, back-to-back national player, you know,

best player in the country. I don't know if you guys know this, but back to first time ever, the Duke has won 35 games in back-to-back years. I saw that. I saw that they were clinging to that. you know, local radio, I guess it was, was like, guys, you're really going to complain about this program? We've won 35 games twice in a row. Like, everybody counts that year to year. It wasn't local radio. It was a Duke podcast because what I did driving into work today is I found Duke podcast and I listened to all of it. And it was awesome. It was so good. I love it. That's what, that's where the hate, that's where you got to go with your hate. I don't say I hate like, oh, Duke lost and then shut off the TV. We, we rewatched. We, we rewatched.

the last 10 seconds probably seven times in the cave and then i've watched it a million times since then every angle every moment and they're just so hateable i don't know if you guys saw the athletic had an article yes this is this is a new thing they're trying to get us to not hate duke anymore i'm gonna tell you right now not over my fucking dead body like we're we're hating duke as much as we've ever hated well dude dude like okay they wrote that article that was the most hilarious headline ever i was like what rock are you living under everybody's still hates Duke. They haven't won Dick in like 10, 11 years. Yukon, who's building a little dynasty and has a coach who's objectively, it's charming, but he's an asshole. He's more of an asshole than Shire

objectively. Shire seems perfectly cool. Duke, I mean, people, everybody in America wanted them to lose. And Yukon's like the Duke now. And I think Yukon has more national titles than Duke. I don't, I, I, they do. They do. They have six. So you would think that, like, Duke would be able to, like, you know, garner some support nationally, but this shows how deep the hatred for Duke is. Like, Yukon is objectively that team right now. Yeah, no, Duke is the worst. You guys know it.

Duke is the worst. And John Shire, when he took the job from Coach K, I said, I'm not going to just immediately just put all my hate of Coach K onto John Shire. I'm going to let it come to me naturally. And you know how it comes to you naturally? When they lose a game in Chapel Hill and his press conferences, is doing a Jesse Smollett being like someone got punched and we can't find who.

That shit sucked. That's what they do, though, Chris. They fucking, every single time they lose, it's not the game. It's something bigger. It's someone got hurt or, you know, the fans rushed the court, Philpowski, who we found out tripped himself and was totally fine. They always try to find something else. And they never just say, hey, we have the best team and we fucking choked.

Should have been a technical last night. That guy ran on the court. That's what's going to stay with me forever. That's my favorite part. That should be a technical. All ball goes in, point three left. That should be a technical. Malachi Smith, who was in the game?

In the game. In the game. I will say this. And I don't mean to, because I think Hurley's cool. Like they were calling it the dickhead bowl between him and Cronin. I like him way more than Cronin.

I like Hurley. I love him both. I love them both. Okay. Cronin sometimes gets my nerves a little bit, just to be completely honest. but like I thought Hurley objectively could have had a technical

last night. He went nose to nose with the official during the time. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The ref shouldn't be in the coach's box. I like that take. At the end? Yeah, at the end, because I don't think that video is real. No, it is. It is. The head-to-head with Roger Ayers? Yes, it's real. There's multiple angles showing it's real. That's a sexually charged moment right there.

That's a psychotic behavior, dude. He's a psycho. I fucking love it. it. Listen, my thing with Mick Cronin and Danny Hurley, like college basketball, especially now, when you have the one and done in the transfer portal and guys change teams every single year, the true identity of a team is going to be its coach. And what we have missed, you know, when we, when we lost Beheim and Coach Kay and, and, you know, Petino for a while and some of these guys that are just total crumudgeons and just assholes, we lost those guys. So I want, like, the Danny Hurley's, the Mick Cruelly's.

this new generation because that's what college sports like college sports at its core it's kind of like in college football like nick sabin and all these guys it's a bunch of grown adults coaching kids and they're so maladjusted as human beings that a singular loss sends them into a temper tantrum that is like in any other workplace you'd be like dude are you like you need to get help this is a problem but that's what college basketball is and I love it I want I want I want want more of it. It's the one place Dan Hurley yeah he safely employed yeah Rick Patino can be safely employed who by the way your your buddies with Petino now yeah we're buddies after uh so we had a stalker for a while who would text me and pft anytime we made a joke about Rick Petino coming too fast um and uh so that person would just randomly text us being like i'm gonna ruin your life I know where you live all this stuff Petino came in the office we told them we're like hey we've made some jokes man and he was like like all right everyone has he was cool as could be talked to petino security guard showed him all the

text his security guard was like yeah we don't know who this person yeah i'll look into it and he deletes the outbound messages off his phone yeah but petino's all i mean he's you you can make the argument he's he's one of if not the best college coach the fact that he has done this at yet another place and revived yet another program at 71 years old he's awesome and he i want him to stay around forever. I think he's 73, or is it, he just signed a deal that will take him through his 73rd year. But he's like, he's got, he's 73, yes. He's 73, and this blew me away. He really might be one of the best oldest coaches of all time. Like, you know, the one guy who has him, I think, is Snyder from Kansas State. Not that I put Snyder on Petino's level, but

Snyder, I think, was almost 80 when he finished. Yeah. But how, how, how many? guys really because i've been blown away by when i'm 73 if i'm talking like rick patino i'll be shocked yeah the way he's so he's so with it dude right he's mentally so sharp and you can see a lot of like guys that are of that age who are trying to coach and it's you know they're dating like 23-year-old girlfriends and chapel hill and that kind of thing you know yeah i've seen i've worked for the couple guys like that yeah joe paterno he was on top of everything yeah paterno i mean you He didn't miss a beat, did he? Yeah.

Yeah. They fired him and he died right away, right in their face. Yeah. It's like, fuck you guys. Like, oh, you're going to fire me? I'll die. Congratulations to Rick Vitino, who just got an extension. Guys, what do you think about the final four?

You know, I think it, well, I'll put it this way. Who do you want to win now? Who's the, who's the villain and who's the darling out of these four teams? I'm going to start and say Michigan's the villain. I don't like the team. They're very good. They're unquestionably fucking amazing. It's the best Michigan team of all time, Chris.

What do you mean? What do you think about that, Dan? I hate Michigan. So, yeah, I'm with you. Dussie Mae, great coach, tampers with every other team in the Big Ten. I think they'll probably, our guy, John Blackwell from the Badgers, is probably going to sign with Michigan in like a day after the tournament. Oh, how'd that happen.

So that's all alleged, by the way. And if you're going to sue anyone for that, sue this podcast, not me personally. Oh, boy. You got a good legal team. This is an IOU. Michigan's a hateable. They're a hateable fan base. Like they are.

They're smug. They're jerks. Illinois is a great story. Brad Underwood is one of my favorite coaches. You know, he's a guy who grinded it out for 20 plus years in like Juco, high school, assistant coaching. He's awesome. And they've got a very likable team.

all these guys from the Balkans and a like phenomenal freshman player in Keaton Wagler. I think Arizona though, too. Like Arizona is one of those teams. I never know why Arizona's bad at basketball because like who wouldn't want to go to Arizona. So it's a great final four. And then Yukon, who would be working on a dynasty, three out of four years would be a dynasty. So it's as loaded as loaded could get. Yeah, you know what?

What shocked to me was the hearing in the postgame interview that Arizona hadn't been in the final four for like what 25 years that's because of the badgers that's our fault is it yeah we beat them in the elite eight back-to-back years 2014 and 2015 they were probably better than us no it's just a shocker to me i mean it dem and i mean obviously the seating tells the story but those two teams are fucking incredible can you i asked making the other day how many teams can all four of these teams win win the national championship absolutely do you agree making yeah because every time you start talking about how one of the Saturday semifinals is the real national championship is when the team from the other side comes and get you. Yeah. Like that 83 NC state team, for instance.

Look, Michigan and Arizona are are statistically the best two teams, but Illinois is the number one efficient offense in the country. And they have five guys who they have size everywhere. They have, you know, guys who can get their own shots. They play perfect team basketball. Like that team is, dangerous as dangerous gets. And if you look at their season, you know, the beginning of the season, they lost the Yukon. That was a totally different team. They didn't have as many, you know, just like look at the minutes played totally

different. They had a couple blips in the middle of the Big Ten season when they had some injuries. They're as good as anyone else. And then Yukon is probably the, it is the team that has the longest odds right now. But how could you ever argue against the best coach and like guys like Caraban and, you know, and Reid who are just like caribans been this is his fourth year like he's been there and then you saw it what they like the toughness in the because I do think March comes down to that a lot of times where it's like hey shit shit hit the fan and we got to figure out away and have we done it before can we go back to like you know the muscle memory of being in these holes and Yukon can do that but speaking of the moment being too big I do feel bad for the boozer the boozers nope you don't no they decided to go to Duke They lose all right to be felt bad for. The minute they signed with Duke, they no longer get any sympathy for me.

Yeah, okay. That's fair. I did feel bad. I mean, the humanity of it. The moment was too big. And the funniest fucking thing about that is it's two years in a row. The game comes down to their best player with the ball in the best player's hands. National player of the year, the whole thing.

And they can't break a press. It's beautiful. You got to be fucking overjoyed. And they had a time out and they had a time out. I saw that where you in real time realized they had a fucking time out, which is the most insane thing. I'm so stupid, Chris. I didn't know they had a time out. I didn't either.

I actually did. I was doing a bit. It's right there on this on the score. But there's a lot going on, dude. There's a lot going on. Yeah. And listen, I said a month ago, I said that Duke is the best team in the country and they're going to win the national title. And that if I'm wrong, I'll be the first in line to do any show.

That's probably why I'm here right now. just I have to eat crow. I have to, I'd be a man of accountability, and I hate being wrong. It's a labor of love. It just fucking kills me inside that I'm two years in a row. Two years in a row, I said that Duke was going to win it all, and they didn't. I got no reputation left.

Did you guys see at 2.6 seconds when the ball's going up, Danny, Danny asked for a timeout? Yeah. I actually was in the cave. I was saying the same exact thing. So I was like call time out. Halfheartedly, too, so that he could have. after the fact say, hey, I asked for a timeout. Yeah.

It wasn't granted. Like in retrospect, I mean, the best player on the team, the most experienced guy on the team doesn't get to look and he passed it to the fucking freshman. You want that shot. You want that 35 footer in the freshman's hands. Like probably the right decision was the timeout, but it just fucking worked out. So, um, all right. Hey, C Long, can I tell you a story of how I watched the game?

Yeah, tell me. A buddy was turning 47. So his wife texted a bunch of us. Can you, we're old. Can you guys come by like eight of us? Can you guys come by and watch these two games? Surprise party, all right? So he got the day off to do whatever he wanted.

He went and played golf. And then he started lying to his wife about why he couldn't come home. The tea time got pushed back. We're walking with an older gentleman. Now I'm stuck behind. I'm at a train stop crossing. I'm behind a tractor on my way home, while eight of us are sitting in his living room,

watching the games and eating all his food and drinking all the beer. His wife's not there. But then he pulls up and is so confused because he sees all the cars. And so he goes around the back, the back door's locked. Then he texts his wife, what's going on, doors locked. And his wife responds that everybody has diarrhea like he's got two little kids. You have to come in the front. So then he comes in the front and we say, surprise, he gets there by halftime,

unloads on Yukon plus 14 and a half at half time. Hell yes. And the vibes were just electric after that. What was the money line at that point? Did anybody look at what the money? I think it was like seven or eight to one when they were down 19. Yeah. Somebody's really happy.

I mean, we're all happy, but somebody's really happy. Okay, guys, give me your picks for national championship. Michigan beats Yukon. Okay. I think it's Arizona, but go ahead. Yeah. So we talked about how this tournament feels different because of the lack of upsets, save Wisconsin.

Yeah. Card it to us, by the way. Everyone's like, oh, where's Cinderella? Guess who can give you Cinderella? A big 10 team that always underperforms. Wisconsin and Virginia. You're welcome, America. The only thing that stinks is that.

that Virginia has it too. We had a 23-year-old freshman, freshman of the week, Tester Ritter. Yaxel's 23 years old. I want, I want Michigan to win the tournament. You know, I'm sort of an honorary Michigan man. I don't know what Dan was talking about earlier, about the Fanda Base. But Yaxel being 23, I don't think the death of college sports with the portal more so than NIL can ever kill this tournament, which is beautiful. We saw that yesterday. Yeah. But Yaxel being nearly 24 years old would take a little bit of the shine off.

It's at least a counter argument for the people who would be happy about a Michigan title. Dude, all these kids look old to me. It's so funny on TV, they all look old. They all look old. So you got Arizona over. I think Arizona over Illinois. And again, I have a future on Yukon. but it's kind of like, hey, I survived yesterday, so I'm not not going to hedge or anything.

It's just going to be like, hey, whatever happens, happens. I just think Arizona, you saw it against, who was it? It was against who they play in the Sweet 16. God, that feels like a long time ago. Arkansas. They scored 110 points against Arkansas, whatever it was. They attempted seven threes. Everyone's like, oh, Arizona can't shoot threes.

No, no, they can shoot threes. They just don't have to. And they did it against Purdue on Saturday, where Purdue had a perfect half. And then Arizona was like, wait a second, let's just fucking pound the rock, put our head down and go to the rim.

And they have that, they have just dudes on dudes who can just bullet you down low. And I just, I think they're the best team of the country. I hope you're right. My only future remaining is Arizona. Yeah. What's the price?

I got it at $4.50. Okay, that's nice. Yeah. It was at the start of tournament. I mean, they've lost two games all year. And the two games they lost was Fog Allen on a Monday night when Bill Self never loses. And then they lost an overtime to Texas Tech. They've lost two games.

Yeah. The one I had that was big was Houston. And I don't know why I did that. Yeah, you fell for it again. But they're so cool. I know. It's one of the coolest teams in college basketball. PFT falls for it every year.

Really? It's like five years running. where he bets on Houston. I'm like, dude, it's the same. Like, they're going to have one cold night and it's going to be over. I'll tell you what I'm going to fall for again next year. This is kind of off topic,

but things we fall for in sports. I'm going to fall for the Chargers again. I'm going to fall for Justin Herbert again. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Mike McWadio. Yeah. Yeah.

Dude, I was like, I ended the season last year, and I go, never again. Like, never again. I get it. The O-line was terrible. Justin was under siege, the whole thing. But, like, they just don't show up in these games. And I will never.

it's going to take them proving it and then I started doing the math on the afc and i was kind of like man they like they might be really fucking good next year yes yes yes fc's wide open all right we talk ourselves back into the chargers yeah i'm in with you harbors too good of a coach so not figure it out yeah he just needed an offensive coach yeah and he and like also for both his tackles not to get hurt exactly people are like yeah what's going to change i'm like yeah like the whole thing yeah their two best players are going to be back the whole thing Think you know college basketball? Prove it by predicting which teams will cover the spread in the tournament for a chance to win bonus bets.

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BetMGM, make it legendary. You take creatine, Nate? I do now. Yeah. You know who doesn't take creatine? Who's that? Rob Ninkovich, you can tell. The way I threw him around in San Francisco.

Hey, Minco. You impressed me. You had a nice quick... My back still feels it. Having to wrestle with that motherfucker. He always wants to... wrestle but he doesn't know i take create creatine um so it doesn't just help you stay strong i really have always had trouble keeping weight on like even when i played i used to go weigh in with like

two and a half pound plates um but but now i don't have to do that i just take uh create gummies and um i've increased dosage like to the seven to 10 grams a day range i'm not a doctor but it's one of the most studied supplements of all time and it's not just good for muscle retention for performance in the gym. You know, your boy's 40 now, so I really need my creatine. It's also good for cognition. I really will take it sometimes in the afternoon

and feel a lot better. You know, that last night, before I went out on like fumes, I popped a couple create gummies. I felt nice and strong in the club. I felt wide awake. I felt like cognitively, I could have done anything I needed to do. I thought I could have solved a fucking Rubik's cube.

Joe Tooney walks up, he's like, Hey, can you do this? Yeah, I took my gummies today. So anyways, it's a good habit. I feel great when I'm on it. And these are tasty gummies. Healthy brain, cognitive effects as I get older, very important, muscle maintenance,

keeping this physique. You know what I'm saying? And- physique looks great, Chris. Your physique looks phenomenal. Thanks. You too. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we need to get into some other big news over the weekend not as not as exciting but certainly big news tiger woods got into some trouble I just want to open it with this Dan Rap report video yeah if we could do that because I haven't seen it yet and I told our producers to hold it so I could see it in real time I wish you would never drive but I think driving is one place where he feels like kind of normal and you know in control and

probably gets moments of of peace, but, um, you know, it certainly doesn't seem like it's a, it's a good decision. Um, you know, you said just a couple days ago, he was working on trying to play in the masters and, um, it all seems so small now when, when stuff like this happens. It's, it's, it's, it's just horrible. It's just horrible. You got to play the beginning again, because the big, the beginning is the best part. All right, just woke up in Japan another Tiger Woods car accident what a sentence and a flex by the way we just had so I just finished the act my my daily YouTube show we had Dan Rap poor on so because he used to work with us and to his credit he was like yeah I'm not going to delete it like I I I he said the worst feeling

that you could ever have on the internet is posting a video and within five minutes getting a notification that Dave Portnoy has retweeted it. And that's what happened to him. And it was just an onslaught from there. And I, it's ridiculous because to cry, like to borderline cry over this is insane. But I will say in defense of Dan, the internet is a shitty place. It's cynical. It's terrible.

People are assholes. Dan is just putting out his like authentic, genuine take. So, and we, we should celebrate that, even though it's ridiculous. Yes. Like, there's part of me. that's like, hey, you know what? This is how he feels. You can clown the way he feels this way, but like, let's not make it personal. You know, you're kind of hitting on something that's make bad takes acceptable again. Yeah. We, we kind of rounded this corner in the 2010s,

where it was like, you just, you just don't get any. Right. You know, like, if you have a bad take, like, you might not, and I'm not talking about cancel culture. I'm talking about, like, just a run-of-the-mill bad take right just let it happen what was the take what the that take dan rapboard yeah he could boil it down it was basically the only place that tiger feels like he's in control is behind the wheel potentially perked out of his head maybe he just feels like he's in control yeah he's not i my my whole take on the tiger thing is and i don't know if you guys are like tiger like fanboys, but why is it unacceptable? It should be like, Tiger Woods is a bad guy.

Like, this is the fourth time this has happened, and he's putting people at danger. And like, you know, you see this all the time, like DUIs and operating a vehicle under the influence, like it can kill people, and it's innocent people that you're putting at risk. And it's like, this is, again, he had a DUI in 2017.

He rolled his car in 2019. The whole thing with his ex-wife back in whatever was 2010. This is a fourth. time he's not a 19 year old kid making a dumb mistake he is he's an a grown adult getting behind the wheel when at two o'clock in the afternoon when kids are getting out of school like thank god no one has been hurt by these things no question and tiger definitely is one of those guys it has an army right and i'm not a big golf fan but it is funny to see the mental gymnastics people to go to to be like yeah well it's not that big a deal it's a big fucking deal higer's got an army chris and it includes our

commander in chief uh well yeah but we don't need to go in it that i just think there's something so self-destructive that tiger's dealing with and it's like man you got to fucking figure this out i know need for this on the topic i'm i'm surprised we i was talking about this the other night why hasn't florida opened up its own highway for just tiger yeah the get you know call it the fairway you know like florida's not supporting tiger enough kate on the accent had a great point she's like tiger has more money than any like he's got a billion dollars why Why doesn't he just fucking make a highway in his backyard? He could roll his car anytime he walked up in a circle, dude.

Left turns. Just left. That's all you got to remember. But honestly, dude, I think, you know, some people, when somebody gets a DUI and somebody puts themselves in a bad spot, I'm like, it's terrible. But I also understand in their drunk brain what happened. And it can't happen again. Like, I'm not excusing it.

It's terrible. but when tiger woods somebody of means who should have a fucking like you know batman had that guy tiger woods needs to have a guy like batman had who just drive me everywhere what was his name alfred baby come on he needs an alfred how do you not have a fucking Alfred dude like you have or a caddy he's got a caddy all the time just every caddy drive you around just he needs a caddy in daily life i like driving too but i also like getting like fucking stoned and taking mushrooms and stuff and like if i if i do that i prefer to have somebody drive me around it's not a preference it's it's you know right if i had that much money i would be i would be yeah i'd be catered to

including on the road dude if i it well i mean this is where we got to stop ourselves chris because i did catch myself we were pft and i were golfing in arizona when this all broke and we were like it was me pfd and my buddy and we're like if we were that if we were rich we would get a driver and And then we had to stop herself like, we are rich. We can't say that. So, Chris, you are rich. No, I am rich, but am I driver rich? Yes.

Am I like. But when you go out? Yeah. When I go out, I take an Uber, but we have Uber's here. Like one time I was in Montana and I went to a bar and the bar closed and me and two buddies got caught outside the bar in Big Fork, which is like a solid ways away from my house like 40 minutes, 35 minutes. And there's no yellow cabs and there's no Ubers.

so you know like somebody in montana and there's no service like i can see how somebody with nothing to lose makes the terrible decision right yeah but me i walked yeah i fucking hitchhiked you know i didn't have my car to make the bad decision because you think ahead but i fucking hitchhiked i was on the road for two hours dude walking listen it's beautiful night and i i i am a big second chance guy this is not tiger's second chance this is fourth chance so that's where it changes you're going to for me. Like I don't judge people by their worst moment because I think that's a shitty thing to do. Right. But like, yeah, when I go out, when I go out to dinner, like, I'll have a drink. I never have two. you know what I mean because like two is like you're right on the border you know what I mean

where it's just like hey if something happens if it's not even that you're drunk if you just get an offender bender and it's like hey you had two drinks like what does that look like so it's no question I don't know it's just crazy to me that he's he's not he's got a problem you know how many times you know how many times you guys have texted me and I'm pretty sure my producer have texted me hey your truck's downtown right why is your truck downtown why's your truck been down down for the last three days but the issue is you're not drunk all the time tiger is likely on pills 24-7, 365. And he's like, hey, I can make it to the CVS and back.

And now this pressure washer in front of me is going too slow. Let me just overtake him. He's probably really good at driving while on these pills. Well, no, because he flipped his car four times. Well, from a percentage standpoint, thousands. True. Yeah, no, I mean, get a fucking Alfred, dude. And at this point, like, the story's written, which is unfortunate.

it's like the tiger story is as tragic as any story in sports i mean it just they do such a good job of whitewashing it but like i mean his life off the course has been yeah obviously tumultuous and this is it's got to the point where dain rap report's like it happened again this time i'm in japan you know if you have to say that yeah if you have to say another tiger crash but yeah it's really it's it's less about the drive he needs help he needs it's it's little bit there's something going on and I hope he gets the help dude and you would think got you well anyways you can do the thing you love when you play golf like you can do that the rest of your life like guys that struggle like football players that struggle like after football like he can't get

in a three point stance anymore like you can't go down to the gym and play people and contact full full contact football like tiger woods can play golf the rest of his life it's obviously something that predates golf yeah this isn't like a thing where he's like he's struggling to transition from being a professional golfer. That's some heavy shit. Hey, a couple football things. We already talked about 18 games. We're not in favor of it. Another one that I think is going to be a big story. You heard it here maybe first. Sources NFL far apart with NFL RA, which is the referees association to begin hiring replacement refs. Now, I'm old enough to remember the replacement refs and i know dan is yeah um bow i don't think you were in the league yet maybe when we're i was i was in

college i remember watching in 2012 the uh well mary hawks and the packers yeah the fell mary we were watched that in my apartment grand central in madison remember that dan yes and we were just like i had a bunch of buddies over because they're all packers fans my roommates and shit we were like what the fuck man they need to get this right because those riffs were awful well guess what it's gonna it could happen again and and in the event it happens again. I'm just telling you the NFL is not going to be able they'll be able to withstand it. Like they're

too big to fail. But the way that people today are on the refs, we've got so many angles, the vantage points at home have outpaced the referee's abilities to make the right calls. And those are the guys that are making $350 a year. Okay, now you

bring in the replacement refs in an era where gambling is just inextricably linked to the NFL. You know, we both have gambling sponsors and you know like it's it's everybody's got action on the game and and also I think the population now more than ever a big percentage of the population thinks that action is rigged and fixed which is a really conspiratorial thing in my opinion so I just wonder like if there are replacement refs this fall how is the NFL going to deal with the calls are

are bad as it is. I think officiating is getting worse. Or again, our vantage point is, is outpacing the refs ability to make the right calls. I think it's going to be a shit show if the replacement. Just remember that we talked about it today. Dan, do you think, do you think the NFL can survive a fall of even more bad calls? Yeah, it could definitely survive because we're going to still watch and they have us by the balls. I honestly think I would like to see all replay.

be taken out of sports. Wow. Interesting. Games would be faster. You like, because that's part of it too. It's like we just sit there and watch replay reviews a million times over. Just just let it.

Listen, human element. It happens. Just keep it moving. I think people would actually like, if they did it, if they tried it for one week, especially like the NBA where the last four minutes of an NBA game take an hour.

Yes. If they just tried it, I bet you people, yes, people would complain, but we're already complaining anyway. We watch a slow-mo replay and we complain about that. Let's just get rid of replay and just be like call stance and just watch games would be two hours, you know, in the NBA.

They'd be three hours in the NFL. Like we just, I don't know. That's radical. They would never do it. They would never do it. But I think that's radical. I think it's radical. I don't know.

I don't know about that one, but I do know that the, everybody's making a big deal about the ABS thing in baseball. I love it. Which is very hypocritical of what I just thought. I love it just because it's electric. Do you see some of the clips from this weekend? Yes, like the refs make these emphatic or the umps make these emphatic strikeout calls. And then like two seconds later, they just got overruled. It's just nice to see the reps or the umps have their come up and it's a little bit.

You know what I mean? Like we had two, the Reds player who went back to back ABS, correct? Was awesome. The crowd going nuts. Did you guys see Randy Roserena on the Mariners? I think it was a three two count. He did the ABS. He thought it was a walk. He called it.

He was called out of strikes. He literally started just taking all his gear off and started walking up. He was like he tapped his head and just didn't even break stride. And he turned out to be correct. And it was electric. That's fucking awesome, dude. Yeah. I mean, so that that was good.

You kind of did a 180 there. But what was your question making? Sorry. How are we identifying that strike zone? Are we just going letters to, to, to, to, where people are different heights. Well, so that was the big story that everyone was lying about their heights.

So, so like a bunch of before opening day, every team had to list their heights and a bunch of like five, nine guys were saying they were six feet. What if you got like a fucking Jeff Bagwell stance? Yeah, I don't know. It's good question.

I'm looking at Jeff Bagwell's stance. It was even more ridiculous than I remember. That wide, two gap stance. Yeah. That's unbelievable. All right, so we're pro ABS, but we think replays should go away. I don't know. Give me a minute on that one.

I don't have a take right now. I got to go back and investigate. It's duality of man. You know, stay fluid. Stay fluid. I could talk out of both sides of my mouth. Yeah. The locals landline quest of the week presented by zone.

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of options and use promo code GL20 at NiccoKIC.com. slash zone for 20% off at checkout. All right. So the last NFL story I have for you is Chicago related. It is George Gervin related. Yes. I think you've heard this story that George Gervin has irked because Bears quarterback Caleb Williams files for Iceman trademark.

Where do you stand on this? I think it's a nothing burger. I get it. Like George Gervin's like, hey, that's my nickname. But it's a different sport. I think different sport. nicknames. Like Chuck Liddell was the Iceman, was he not? Yes, he was. And I get it. When Caleb tries to get it, you know, when he tries to file for

the trademark, that's probably where George Gerber. George Gervin probably doesn't have a problem with Caleb being called the Iceman. He has a problem with, you know, you know, licensing it. But also, if you're Caleb Williams, why wouldn't you try to license it, right? Well, yeah, I mean, it makes sense, but I guess, and Caleb Williams is in this era of people that probably don't remember who the ice man was yeah probably has no idea um but you make a really good point on chuck ladell um other ice men include f1's kimmy rackinen big fan yeah i'm sure you are actually a big f1 guy um that was a fun couple years oh a fun couple weeks dude thank you bro that was the dumbest shit ever whenever i was acting like they like f1 what went into that

It was the Drive to Survive show, which was cool. We, we, listen, we went to an F1 race. Like, we got paid to go to a race. So we, we hopped on board. Dude, it's cool to go to a race. Like, it was cool to go to a NASCAR race. But to tell me that I'm going to, like, watch racing all year. I'm just, for people to tell me that they're watching racing all year, I just don't believe them.

Yeah. But, yeah, no, I'm with you. This is Caleb Williams, young guy, doesn't probably know who George Gervin was. She probably watches highlights. He was fucking awesome. And, and yeah, the only thing, the only question it begs is why didn't George Gervyn file? Right. It seems like that.

Yeah. I feel like he's just mad that he forgot to do it 50 years later. Well, yeah, according to George, quote, I never thought anybody would try to trademark it, end quote, is why he didn't ever think to trade market. Well, what was he going to do? Chuck Wethler. I don't think of it. Yeah. He'd be like, yes, sir.

Yeah. Now, the other question, the last time he came on this podcast was actually the day. after you guys lost that game to the Vikings, which feels like 800 years ago. And remember, I talked you off the ledge. Yes. Not that I've always been right about Caleb. I didn't, I wasn't pro. I wasn't like, yeah, Caleb's going to be that, that dude coming out of college.

But I see the light now. And I'm wondering if you think he has earned the nickname Iceman. Oh, definitely. And it came about, it came about organically. Jeff Joniak, who does Bears radio, was the one I think who gave it to him. So it was, you know, it's not like he just started calling himself the Iceman. Yeah, that clip, by the way, me coming. on Monday night football after week one.

Like that fucked me so bad. Because everyone was like, well yeah, because it was a it was right after Monday night football. It was right after it felt like the same thing. And I listen, I need to do, I remind myself a lot like patience in sports fandom is very important and like let

things play out because I mean the bear the next week the Bears lost by 100 to the Lions and it looked like everything was falling apart. And yeah, Caleb is awesome. He's the real deal. Lyons scored like 60 points that game and then they fired their offense coordinator like two months later.

Yeah. So, you know, the NFL early season NFL is like a commentator and even as a former player, I learned more than anything like when I started this job that like you have to give shit time. Yeah. Don't freak out. It's almost like don't give takes the first month. Right. It's just I think it's because it's so few games that we all freak like baseball.

Not anymore. Like the Cubs are one and two and it's like, I don't care. You know what I mean? Let me know in a month. You know what I mean? When there's like 40 games played. Exactly. But when football, you lose one game and you're like, the sky is falling.

Everything sucks. Dan, when you say a time, do you think everybody else assumes central time now? That was my fault. Oh, clip that. No, it was my fault because he started the conversation a couple days ago with a central time request. Okay. Wednesday, want to do 230, 2.30 central time. that work. Chris Long, of course. Yeah, 2.30 Central works.

Did I say 2.30 Central? You said 2.30 Central. And then I, and then this morning I said, can we move it up half an hour? No, you said, I didn't say moving up half an hour and then move it to Eastern Standard Time. No, you said any chance we could move it to 2 p.m. today. It's almost like when there's a five-day gap. Central. When there's a foot day. No, we established Central. As an East Coaster, when there's a five-day gap in comms, you almost have to re-establish Central. Maybe that's my fault, but you are you, you type back central. I already said it was my fault, but it was an understandable mistake. It's like a Tiger Woods thing. No, I'm very aware of that making it.

I'm very aware of that. I always say central. I actually want to ask Big Cats on my, I was creeping on your Instagram. What's the story with the little movements that you've been doing? Oh, yeah, the Chinese workout. I do it every day, 15 minutes. What are the benefits? I mean, you're looking at him, dude.

I'm a physical specimen. Chris just got off the treadmill. Macon and Chris were telling me about the treadmill program that Chris is on. And, you know, I'm kind of, I'm kind of interested in this. But I don't understand the Chinese, the, it just gets the body moving. Yeah. It's like a lot of stretching, flows, lymphatics. It's good.

Is that from the fat camps, like the Chinese fat camps? Yeah. Listen. It sounds like a rich. It does sound like some Richard Simmons shit. Did you pick that up in Japan? I have, I might need to check that out. man dude you got to do it makes you feel good get you a little juice all right this i want to end with

this speaking of old guy shit so the other day one of our sponsors had us go to a bar to watch the game okay and it was in dc and i don't really have a lot of intel on dc bars i don't spend a lot of time in dc and so my friends a couple of them hit me with some like you know three four suggestions i had like some minimal scouting on each bar aggregated them all together decided on one We showed up and it hit me an hour in that I hadn't seen another middle-aged man in the bar. And this bar was, this bar was entirely too young for me. But in a subtle way, you know, like, you know when you used to avoid college bars because you were in your 30s? Yeah.

These people were in that zone of like 28, 27 to 32 where in my head pictures, they're my age. Yep. But they're clearly not my age anymore. I went in and saw myself in the mirror about an hour and a half, two hours into the time at the bar and like, you know, and then I had like one of my other buddies walk in my age and he stuck out like a sore thumb. Like we looked like it looked like the beginning of Benjamin Button in there for us. And I just, I'm wondering how do you navigate? Are we too old for the bar anymore? Yes.

I just don't go. Do you don't go to any bars? Not really. I went to one on Friday in Arizona And I felt weird Like I was just watching ball I was just sitting there with my arms cross watching ball Yeah, I don't know I just yeah

I wish I could Dan I went back to the KK last fall 34 adger game 34 but dude the KK is like the ratty College bar you know like it's in a basement The floors are sticky there's I don't know if you're there's this one dude who was always there who was like elderly you know what i mean and i was looking around the kk and i had that

exact same thought where i was like i am i do not belong here anymore yeah so my solution was to just fucking gets more long island i sees man you got to drink your way through that you know yeah that i mean that really is the only solution or like you got to maybe try to find a like my thing with bars is it's not the age thing it's just that i i i have to sit down and if i'm standing for more than like five minutes i'm like i'll just go home so you know you find it corner booth or something and then you just kind of fuck off you try to blend in yeah Chris you also can't really complain about this because you're a good looking guy I show up and I'm like everyone's like oh the gray hair fat guy you're you're you're underratedly good looking you're not you're not

fishing for compliments but there's an underrated thing going on with you and then on top of that you're me someone do me I need a compliment you're 34 bro you're still you still got it bro you're cutting out po I didn't hear what you said I just don't yeah exactly I got to get up to P by the way and but so fucking I told Bo this there's a huge difference between 34 and 40 and 41 now yeah 41 yeah Chris you're you just turned where 85 41 and so I'm thinking about my age and I go to this bar and I'm like fuck I'm not like you know like I'm I'm that guy now at this bar dude and I love bars and it's hard to find a bar where there are people your age I think the answer is that for the four your 40s the decade of your 40s just not for bars and then when

you get 50, then you're just like, who the fuck cares? Then you're just, then you might be somebody's parent. Yeah, and clearly you're the old guy and everyone's like, oh, it's the old guy. It's established. Right. On Friday night, I know I said I couldn't go to D.C. That was true because I was at a buddy's house. There were 10 of us.

We're all 40 and we're talking about what improvements we would like to see in the country club locker room. And that's just how it goes. That's how aging goes, you know? That's a type of shit. Well, you can't talk about this, Makin. You look like. you're 17 still.

That's true. I'm not, though. I'm not. I'm not. But he stopped going to bars at like 30, so he's got a big head start. I did, and I would just stay home, but now I'm going out to the guy's houses with a couple TVs. It's delightful.

Show us the tattoo before we let you go, because I know you got an important guest coming out. I'm with you, though, making. I don't go to bars anymore because mostly the real reason I don't go to bars is because when I go to bars, I just want to do cocaine. And I can't do that when I'm 41. Exactly. Because your heart might explode? Yeah, and you just don't know what's in it these days.

You certainly don't, do you? I don't want to get Tiger Woods. Can you read what's the idea? I saw that you got a tattoo, but I was going to wait to five. Five now. I have. But the freshest one, the new one. The freshest one, Vanie Woodhead.

Okay, perfect. So our van. I wanted to get something PMT 10 years. It's a, you know, it's a very, very big important part of my life. so didn't want to get like the PMT logo got the van and then I got a Grateful Dead lyric one of my favorite lyrics grass ain't greener wine ain't sweeter on the other side of the hill just kind of a reminder like hey where you're at in life is good you don't have to worry about the other shit yeah dude okay so that's a ramble on rose all right yeah and then I have standing on the moon on this one standing on the moon but I'd rather be with you just kind of the idea of you know you try to get to the to the moon you're trying to you're trying to get to the top and then once you get there you're like oh i kind of kind of liked it went back down in earth when i was just hanging out in the back back porch in july dude from from vanny woodhead to netflix yeah you guys man that's incredible that's incredible people constantly remind me i was the

first guest very proud all right man all right thank you boys yeah appreciate it always fun time uh and enjoy that interview man all right and maybe we'll see a grit week we might be in your I'd love to see you guys, man. Come through.