Green Light with Chris Long - Black Cats, Pats, and Comebacks - NFL Week 9 Review

Episode Date: November 6, 2019

NFL Week 9 Review. Green Light Podcast with Chris Long | Chalk Media. Chris Long talks this past weekend’s NFL and college football games with a little college football jersey talk. It’s a packed Green Light with power rankings, Monday Night Football review of the New York Giants vs Dallas Cowboys, a new “sh** I saw” and special guest Rob Ninkovich to talk NFL and the Patriots. The “baseball watcher” and temporary astronaut covers it all on Chalk Media’s Tuesday edition of Green Light.   Check out our Fish Bowls with Aaron Donald and DJ Premier:   DJ Premier Talks Hip Hop & Rap in The Fish Bowl | Chalk Media https://youtu.be/vkDhb6p3V6Y   NFL Football Star & Rams Aaron Donald in the Fish Bowl | Chalk Media https://youtu.be/nAjGQKsDxfk   About Chalk Media:   Following the unfiltered voice and vision of Chris Long, Chalk Media is the interactive online community for you, the intelligent and humorous sports fan. Driven by access, Chalk delivers a unique perspective that cuts through the canned talking points and provides a variety of content from your favorite sports and entertainment celebrities.   Here at Chalk, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we are rooted in challenging the perception of professional athletes. We embrace the “real” with a unique combination of humor and intelligence. Chalk is a community with a voice beyond 240 characters that brings a perspective and vibe to a traditionally brash and boastful sports media space.   Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more. Nothing is off limits at Chalk - 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

I'm Chris Long and I don't love cats, but I could be swayed. Welcome to Greenlight, episode three. I am your host. If you'd like thinking of me that way, Chris Long, along with Makin, here who, uh, having a rough day, got chapped lips. He had an I voted sticker, not a political podcast, but he did vote. And it dropped into the toilet as he was making urine. About 10 minutes ago.

I mean, why vote, if not to assert your civic superiority over your fellow human? That's what I'm all about. By wearing the I voted sticker all day. And it did fall off this sweet final four swag into a toilet. So, yeah, chap lips. I've lived in this same four-season climate. My entire life never have had. Never had them.

Chap lips. Hard to have chap lips. If you don't have lips. Chris thinks I don't have lips. Tune in next week for a lip-off. Not doing that on this show at all. I went for a hearty laugh yesterday and tore my lip-open. I mean, it's awful.

It's the worst. Yeah. It is the worst. So I appreciate you fighting through. You do have your final four garb on. Shout out to Tony Bennett and the Hoos. Wahoos opened their defense of the national championship, Wednesday night at Syracuse.

College Hoops season opens Tuesday, night. This is the first week in AP poll history, number one and number two, football and basketball playing the same week. Holy hellraisers. I'm going to check that college basketball stuff out. It's hard. Do I get fat and happy as a Virginia fan or do I ramp it up a level and become more of a fanatic? Also a fanatic of the Giants. We'll get to that in a bit. But the main story last night, the biggest storyline, was the cat, which I don't know if we have a name for yet. but this cat became a superstar probably the most formidable field game interrupter in the history of the NFL if he wanted to homeboy could have been out on that

field at the metal lands for an hour right a human is a big target human is a big big target cat's a little smaller quick bit about the cat there's some next level stats here that that I can't locate right now. But since the cat came on the field, the giants were appurant. I think they were outscored by double digits. This was right before the 10 point swing in the second quarter. 35 to 9. Yeah. And swore up 93 when it came on. Since the cat came on the field, they really struggled. In general, there were a lot of memes too. Like Reddit was on it quick, which I love. We have Putin.

Who is that? Is that Chirvota? Big Spoon on Putin? And then some Star Wars freaks. A lot of people on Reddit probably like Star Wars. And I think it the, is that Tony Blair or something in the back? I don't know. Just these British, dude, I feel like there's a lot of weird British people on Reddit.

So. I don't care for any of it. I'm anti-cat. You're anti-cat. I am willing to be talked down. I am moderately anti-cat. What's going on with cats? Like a lot of people said that cats can't get into the Meadowlands. How did that cat? It's easy to imagine a cat getting into the Meadowlands and living off of sewer rats. I mean, that was a well-fed cat. Yeah. Have you played in MetLife? Yeah. I've been to a few of these, where Virginia plays, Heinz Field. Yeah. Whatever we're calling.

the Dolphin Stadium this year. I don't know. Conspiracy theory. You think somebody let the cat out? I've never seen a cat in an NFL stadium. College stadium for that matter. I think of NFL stadiums the most likely destination for a stray cat might be met life. That's fair.

Maybe Miami Gardens, a cat that's living outside Tutsi's eating rats, takes the short jaunt over to that hard rock stadium. Is that what they call it? It is hard rock this year. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of lizards down there they can live off too. Probably the most famous cat in sports history. Cat buddies have no idea this morning.

Andre Scalaraga. Real cat. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I always pull for the streakers in general. I was definitely pulling for the cat, bowed out. took his curtain call, hit the exit to watch from whatever hole in the stadium he was living in and watched the bowels. He was watching the Giants implosion from the bowels.

There's no other word for the underneath of a stadium than the bowels of a stadium. Exactly. The cat was in the boughs watching the implosion, the turnovers. Quick fact here, most stray cats in the world, guess what country? USA. USA, 76 million. I have no idea how the Census Bureau gets that bad boy off, the stat there, but I believe it. I could contribute. I have a neighborhood cat, murderous neighborhood cat, currently doing damage to squirrels. It's a real, it's a tough, yeah, it's a tough morning coffee when you look into the backyard and you see a cat with a squirrel. Just lifeless squirrel.

Yeah. And you don't love squirrels, but you hate cats so much that you're not okay with it. And, and I'm pro squirrel. You're pro squirrel. Yeah. Don't love squirrels here. Kevin Harlandson called, by the way, on that, that cat streaker. Oh, did he give the play-by-play again?

It was beautiful. Nice. It was. He's the best in the business. A thing of beauty. Maybe we'll get that on in post. But cat stole the show. get to the game later. Another thing that happened this weekend was, oh, didn't you sell a house

to somebody that was having trouble selling their house because there was a murdered cat in a... No. Guy buys a house within the first month. A deceased cat in a plastic bag shows up, again in a backyard. And my advice was to call the police in case this was a gang-related event. Turns out we live in Charlottesville, Virginia. They didn't have any history. They didn't have any history. history of of cat in bags which would not be a prototypical gang initiation usually you have to get jumped in i want to join the gang where you could sorry peter kill a stray cat and put it seems a lot easier to get into that gang than to get jumped in yeah uh this person has not tried to resell that particular home and there have been no more cats left in the backyard that's a good update on that

uh that seller uh making gunner neighborhood real real estate specialist as well also a uniform aficionado as am i we spent a lot of hours arguing about uniforms over the weekend we saw some jerseys that we liked and didn't like uh big win for the who's knocking off north carolina very agreeable to my visual palette seeing those all whites which some people in my mention uh there they are right there beautiful beautiful it's hard to go wrong icy whites we've gone with that orange and blue stripe helmet jersey pant if it's my a chromatic, that's a win. That's a big win. That's a big win. I had somebody compare it to Auburns. I think Auburns are abhorrent. Also, I think our football program might be older than

Auburns. And we gave them the orange and the blue. We gave them the orange and the blue. I think we look beautiful on Saturday night in our big win over UNC. UNC always looks beautiful. Carolina Blue pains me to say. That combo is one of the best at night in college football. Now, one of the worst for me would be a red team on a maroon team in a dome can't watch it hurts my hurts my head migraine well in mile high you had browns and brown terrible broncos and orange yeah our friends to the southwest and blacksburg go with a maroon orange combo it's not pretty not pretty um some ones we like though this weekend i liked uh the ucf um deal they did we know i love space UCF is trying to stake the claim to uh space travel superiority in a major dick move.

They played Houston this weekend trying to one up. What I learned was the NASA headquarters. It's actually not Cape Canaveral. Washington, D.C. There we are. I'm out on the gimmicky uniforms. This is as cool as it can get with gimmicky uniforms. But the moon crater helmet was strong.

The constellations kind of blended into the numbers. What I didn't love was the US, that I'm not patriotic, but this thing on the legs. Ooh, hot take. Yeah, and then the constellations on the shoulder was just gratuitous. TCU also had a uniform statement they made this weekend that I wasn't crazy about, and that was the North Carolina-like diamond ensemble on the collar. I don't know how you feel about that.

Less is always more. Carolina goes Argyle, which they sort of... That's what it's called Argyle. Yeah. Staple of your fashion. Nah, no, no, no. Less is always more when it comes to uniforms, and you think of the traditional grates.

I mean, just look at the top five in the country right now. LSU. Beautiful. Always solid. Bama. You know what you're getting. Beautiful. Ohio State.

Clemson, Penn State. Clemson, less beautiful. Yeah, at least you know what you're going to get. You know what you're getting. Except for when they throw in the purple. Yeah, the purple's a little bit of an ice. sore. This weekend as well, we had real college football scores. We don't have enough time to get to that because there's so much NFL today. College fun for me, that classic weekend where you

think you're doing something, you're up at the end of the Saturday. I'm figuring this thing out. Be good on Saturday and you'll be better on Sunday, right? Because you're not chasing. I thought I was up big. I thought I was going to make some of the money back that I've lost this fall in this learning process. And then of course I get overconfident on Sunday and squander it. And I'm net minus a unit or so, which I won't disclose what the unit is. Did you take Stanford Steve's Yoshita by any chance in the Breeders Cup? No, that pony didn't run. Good idea. The pony ran slow. Yeah, eight out of 11, I think. Yeah, no. And they opened up, I think, eight to one odds or something.

I don't bet ponies. But not a terrible weekend, not my best. We're going to kind of a mid-major type school. Maybe a Virginia Tech type school. Maybe my son will be an engineer. I'm going to educate you on tuition here one of these weeks. But in-state, if you're going to keep your residence in the Commonwealth here, going to be pretty inexpensive, no matter where you go.

Well, my in-state tuition was very low, scholarship. How about you? Scholarship flex. Trying to get a motherfucking scholarship. scholarship. Additionally, this weekend was daylight savings, which I always love, because you go out to the bar and I used to salivate at the opportunity to stay out one more hour in college. And it was like Christmas, you know, like another hour of rail vodka. I'm in. Literally the two for one. It's the two for one. Two a.m. becomes one. But when you get older like I am now, you're like, fuck this. Does that mean the bar outside my house is going to stay? open another hour while I'm trying to sleep. I did go out Saturday night. I did see a lot of confused people when the clock struck one. I think it's the most confused single point in the American bar scene all year long. People don't know what they're doing. The lights come on. They're not sure.

I love to see it. Being drunk doesn't help. But for me, I went home and complained about a bar that's right outside my temporary apartment that can't stop booking DJs that play T-Pain and Soldier Boy. I need to tell you about the Keenan Stadium playlist in Chapel Hill pregame. Bad? Awesome. Really? James Taylor, Eric Church, on loop. Just Carolina in my mind?

No, I'm telling you, it worked. Under the lights, it worked. It was beautiful. My daylight savings. I think you're the demo there. I am. driving home fired up after a win, scheduled to get in at 320, 220. Yeah, that's a big win.

It's also a game changer. It's a big game changer. So a lot of NFL action. We'll start with what happened last night, Macon being a Giants fan. Had a function and then had to get home and he had the game Tvode, which people don't use that phrase anymore. I like to use the word Tvode.

Yeah. Loop bloop. Like I say MapQuest when I'm on a, like I map quested that. destination and most young people look at me like I'm crazy yeah you're good like that and then I call you or you call me one or the two first thing I say is hello don't tell me the score and the next thing you say is tight game which ruined completely ruined the experience how does that ruin the experience if it weren't tight wouldn't you want to not watch no because

I'm just all I'm thinking about is what you said and how is this going to get tighter Maybe does a black cat run onto the field? Didn't tell you about the black cat. Also didn't tell you that the game would end up a blowout. Bad beats for a few people last night. You had bad beats on the over on that fumble return for a touchdown. You had a bad beat for anybody who thought the entire game that the Giants, including Stanford Steve, I believe, thought that the Giants were a lock,

getting seven points. I stayed away, just wasn't sure. Plus, I have a lot of self-control. That was the right side. though. The Giants were in the red zone all night long and couldn't score touchdown. Kind of like I was on the right side of Indy and the pickum, but the greatest kicker in the history of the game drank the kick to win. And Jacoby Brissette heard his MCL. You can't control for things like these. These are called variables. Well, you can. The Giants could block a little bit better

run the best running back. But as a vet tour. In the league, right. So bad night for anybody. I mean, they're going in for the backdoor cover, and then the game gets blown wide open. Since the cat, 34 to 9, we mentioned that. Prescott 173, 173, three touchdowns. Didn't throw the deep ball great, had a lot of yards after the catch, big touchdowns to Cooper, Darwin, Gallup.

Gallup's turned into a big weapon for them, and they continue to roll on third down. They're best in the league. Elliot, season high 139. He's finding his stride. And the Cowboys continue to be dominant in the 4th, 21 to 3. And 75 to 26 on final quarters this year. And they continue their dominance over the NFC East, by the way.

So much so that when I heard Zeke had, you know, when I was analyzing the Eagles, the Eagles and the Cowboys, I didn't realize we'd never beaten Zeke. You know, one time when I was in Philly, we beat the Cowboys. They had Alfred Morris as the running back. we beat them handily. Now that year, of course, we put them in Week 17 in a sit-everybody game.

It's four degrees. And, of course, they run me out there like I'm 23 years old to take 55 snaps in sub-zero temperatures. I thought that was kind of disrespectful. But that's what happens when you're old in the NFL. I digress. They've won six straight against the Giants, eight straight over NFC East opponents,

14 and two in divisions in 17. It being a two-team race, I saw some metrics where their chance to win the division and make the playoffs go up to like 60% after last night's win. So not good if you, the other NFCE teams, more of the same. Seven takeaways, the last two weeks, rather, and five in the last six games. They continue to get better. Daniel Jones' turnovers continue. 15 since week three is worse in the league.

And, of course, giving up the big plays, Giants defense continues to be better. be what's an adjective. Horace. I was going to go with a nut. Putrid was going to be the word. Whatever it is, it's gotten them to the sixth spot if the NFL draft happened today. So it's not all bad for Big Blue. No, it ain't all bad.

And they've done that quietly without looking like they're tanking. Jets coming up. Because they're not taking. Big one for the draft. Interesting. Two trade halls for the Cowboys made an impact yesterday. Bennett picked up a sack late in garbage time wearing that number 78. He just insists on wearing the ugliest numbers in football.

And the shoulder pads are somehow getting smaller. They are getting smaller. He's a guy who goes against the grain. And with the bill thing shipping him down there, and by the way, I said Robert Quinn is going to be a huge pickup down the line for them, as big as the Cooper trade last year on offense. Keep watching for it. I loved watching him shake.

Hernandez's face mask violently last night. I could almost hear the words being whispered into his ear softly. I've heard Robert talk a lot of shit over my time lining up with him and made me want to jump off the couch. Then I remembered he plays for the Cowboys. No, thank you. With Bill shipping Mike down, I can't figure out, and I know what Mike is. He's a guy who's still got juice and in the right situation.

He's not a, I mean, he's not a locker room problem. I don't know if Bill thought he was a good enough player that didn't fit the scheme and had to ship him, which means he's disrespecting the Cowboys by handing him to him, which means he must not think a lot of the Cowboys, or if he thinks Michael's a big problem, he's planting them in a locker room

that he respects as far as their chances to make a run. So it's one of two things. Either he doesn't think the Cowboys are very good, or he thinks they're good, and he thinks that Mike is that straw that's going to break the camel's back. I don't think that's true. I think Mike has got a lot of good football left in him.

He'll rush with Lawrence and with Quinn the rest of the year. Not a good night for Big Blue, but the silver lining, of course, is that you could be in the running to completely whiff on a number six pair. Chase Young sweepstakes, just stay in the mix. Any fomo for you seeing Jason Witton's Man of the Year patch? Not at all. Not at all.

I have a heavy-ass trophy, man-of-the-year thing in its entirety, me a little uncomfortable. I tend to get guilty when I'm praised. It's a weird psychological thing. Didn't love that whole process. Didn't love the process. Humility flex for the man of the year. It's a it's a it's a socially awkward discomfort low self-esteem flex. Self-loathing. I also self, I'm very self-loathing when I watch these pods in the editing bay. I'm like I fucking hate this guy. Who is this guy? Yeah. So if you hate this shit. Joe, I agree with you.

If you think I'm a shithead, I agree with you. Never deserved to wear the patch anyways, but it would have been cool. FOMO. That's all I was looking for. When I get FOMO is when I see people getting buckets, because I know your boy can still get buckets. Let's do Tuesday Translator. This is a fun segment because there's a lot of quotes,

and a lot of it is player and coach speak that comes out of the weekend. I want to start with the Morone quote, and I'll tell you what I think he's thinking. I haven't spoken to either quarterback yet, and I hate talking through the media about my plans, but the plans were, again, the disappointment of the team, not performing well will be on my mind now for the next 48 hours.

They just left their home game in London. That's a joke. Most popular team in England, we can talk about that in a moment. Kind of weird. I think that after the 48 hours are over, I'm going to step away a little bit, take a break, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I haven't had time to make a decision. He knows exactly what he's really.

needs to do. He doesn't want to be disrespectful. The Minchu, also he might need to run it up the flagpole. Minchu has stepped in admirably, shown a lot of promise. I think with Minshu, the reason the Minchu mania happened, of course, is because he's an exciting player. He also has a mustache. He seems to be authentic and fun. People like that. He also makes a lot of plays off schedule, and everybody knows off-schedged players are rated higher than on-time plays. Everybody loves that stuff. But in general, not good enough. When he didn't have a 75-yard rusher or 75-yards rushing in total, he wasn't as good. A ton of metrics show that a guy that was playing complimentary football, this entire stint, needed a run game. Go figure. But sometimes we get swept up

in the wins. His ratings against the Saints and Texans, respectively, were 51 and 59. Not good. Houston, who he just laid an egg to in London, gives up the third most passing yards in the league. And his last six starts, he's had one game with a completion center percentage over 60. So everybody that gets really overreactive to these young QBs and the brand, just remember that you have a Super Bowl MVP waiting in the wing, so you paid $88 million and through his last pass to the corner of the end zone

for a touchdown week one against the Chiefs. as his clavicle exploded, and he'll be back. You got to see what you got in the guy you paid 88 mil. Minchu, nice piece, could be a trade piece, could be a backup, could be your answer. Give the guy you paid $88 million a chance, and I think, Morone, all he's saying is, I don't want to do it at the podium right now. I have a buy week as an out. Let's just wait.

Aaron Rogers had an interesting quote this weekend. We've got to be honest with our routine and the decisions we made in a lot. last 48 hours and make sure that our head is in the right place the next time we come on a big road trip message Aaron rogers is very intentional so what he's doing here is he's sending a message i hate putting words in people's mouth but this is the entire premise of the segment he's saying he's not a fan i think disclaimer i think i haven't confirmed that they go out on Fridays but a lot of teams go out to the West Coast for two-day trips playing in the NFC West as a ram in St. Louis every trip was like three hours we would go out on Friday nights I personally loved it

great night to gobble melatonin or lunesta sit in a nice fluffy hotel bed we had an owner that would spend and enjoy the West Coast I might go walk around go shopping and I love San Francisco great city did you have a roommate no roommates your entire career Early on I had Cliff Ryan. He snored so much. I made him, well, no, that was Brian Leskinneck in college. Brian Lesconnick snored so much. I made him sleep in the bathroom.

He would sleep in the tub. I would sleep in the room. In the pros, earplugs, sound machine to no avail. Cliff Ryan was like a Cummins diesel. Wow. Just, and this was when I was young. When you get old enough, you don't have a roommate. Great sleep on West Coast trips.

Love the camaraderie. You might go out to dinner on Friday, Saturday I'm locked down, meetings, et cetera. It breaks it up because what you hate to do as a football player, you hate to sit on a plane in a pressurized metal tube for three to five hours the day before you're supposed to be at your peak performance, shortening your hips, sitting down, all that good stuff. Add to it the dehydration, the lack of sleep, the time zone. These teams hire all these sports scientists who don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

Coach, we need to go out the day before. We need to fly out from Philly. We need to get out there the night before we play the Chargers. Don't even give the body time to realize it's on another time zone. Well, guess what else the body doesn't know? Why it's been sitting down for eight hours. And you want me, old man, to open my hips up tomorrow and let those things fire? That's not the way this works.

I think Aaron Rogers, though, is saying it's less about the physical. sounded like the team wasn't focused. It sounded like maybe some guys hit the supper club. Friend of the program, the supper club. That's two references of the supper club this season in Greenlight. Well, this isn't a season. It's going to be a continual show. Aaron Rogers is saying that guys are distracted.

They go out to dinner, et cetera, which I'm not a big fan of. You've got a game to play. It's a business trip. Get there. Be in your room by 9, 10 o'clock. He's sending that message to coach. Don't do that next time. It's not baking an excuse.

I think Aaron's also saying that this is not a letdown. We know the Chargers are good, even though they haven't played well. This is when they get hot. And this is when Philip Rivers usually turns it around. We saw it in 17. They had a new coordinator. Not sure what happens there. I think Aaron's just saying team wasn't quite ready.

I was, though. This was also their first two-game roadie of the year. At Chiefs, at Chargers. They'll do it twice more. They're home for Carolina this coming week than at Sanford. at New York Giants, close the year at Minnesota, at Detroit. So he's saying, next time. Player ops guy, whatever your title is, let's do a different. Let's get it right. And I think when you're Aaron Rogers, you might have a chance to bend that cat's ear.

And next, on a lot lighter note, my franchise fantasy quarterback, James Winston, blessing us with his wordsmith ability. Glass is always full, because it's maybe half full of water, it's still full with air. So we got to keep that glass full, we got to keep a chip on our shoulder, and we got to find a way to get the wind.

Is that a riddle? That's brilliant. It's brilliant. You're on board with this. 100%. Tell me why. You cannot ever show me for the rest of our lives

an empty glass. It's full of air. Full. Didn't know he was into physics. Oh, I love it. Is that physics? Now, if you're translating it, it's we're bad. We're two and six, and I'm going to distract you with this philosophy.

I mean, he goes from eating Ws. Yeah. To basically defying, well, it's not defying physics, just pointing us that he's smarter than us. Yeah. I mean, this guy is thinking on another level. Are you out on a glass half empty? I just know if I said that everybody would think I was. high.

Being totally, well, yeah, you're kind of in that lane these days. Big drug guy. Surprised I'm able to do this pod. Let's get to Freddie Kitchens. Freddy Kitchens has been a hot topic really bad this year with the Browns, and he's made a lot of mistakes. When he took over or when Baker took over last year and Kitchens was responsible for the offense, you know, you go from running back coach to offensive coordinator,

The head coach in this quick time period, it's a fast process. Tony Dungey talked about it the other night. He said he waited in the wings four years. This isn't an overnight thing. And we're seeing it on the field. It seems like Kitchens and over his head. I'm not being gratuitous or piling it on him. He's made a lot of decision-making mistakes that have turned a team that could be just mediocre

into a bad team. They were three and one in their final seven games last year and one score ball games. They're 0 and three this year. The offense is way different. Five and two down the stretch last year. Number three in total offense of 396 yards. They are way down there, 50 yards down there. Last year they were first in yards for play in that span, only gave up three sacks.

This year, they're way down in yards for play. They've given up 23 sacks already. And they were just generally a lot different. And they gave us good reason to get excited. excited about the Browns. This year, we talked about it, probably biggest letdown, biggest disappointment, one of them. And Hugh had a two-year leash, was fired mid-season. I think kitchens could be fired during the season this year. I don't think it's premature. I understand building, but when you exhibit that you have something there and then you regress like this and your job is the offense, it's not good. Because they have some pieces on defense. We haven't even talked about that. Vernon, Miles, Ogon Jobi, some good players in the back end. But they seem like they have been collecting talent rather than building a team. And that's the problem.

And when you talk to people that know, and this isn't me being a homer, I love Greg Williams. Greg Williams had been a head coach before he buttoned that organization up. And what it sounded like is that he simplified things for the offense. He said, we're going to beat defenses by getting a ball out quicker. We're going to simplify things for Baker. We're not going to have pre-snap stuff. We're going to post fines.

We're going to make it known that you can't do the little stuff wrong here. And that's everything they've done wrong this year. Yeah, the last coach with a winning record in Cleveland, who was not named Greg Williams in an interim role, Marty Schottenheimer, 84 to 88. That's wow. I mean, that's just wow. And I think Greg deserves some credit there,

because that was under his watch. I know there's another year of figuring things out with Baker in the offense, but it hasn't been the same. Let's get to an offense that is clicking my MVP pick in Russell Wilson. I said last week he should be MVP. Lamar's performance doesn't change anything for me

because as mobile as Russ can be, he's one of the best throwers in the league. He only ran once, really, in that big victory against Tampa this weekend that they spotted him a bunch of points, eventually went to overtime, and they pulled out the win. Tampa blitz him 74% of the time. That's the most any team's blitzed another team since 2016.

That's pretty damn aggressive. He threw three tuds against Blitz looks. He hit a practice squad tight end a bunch of times. He was distributing the ball beautifully, and again, that one big run was in a key situation. That B gap, it gets big. I've seen it a million times, and he exploits it. I've been the victim of that when that gap opens up,

watching Russ just run through it, rush lanes time and time again. He's got a great feel for things. And as you look at Seattle this year, I don't know that they're a Super Bowl contender because of that defense, but if he had that defense he had back in the day, they're my odds on favor to win the Super Bowl

because that offense has been explosive. If they get Gordon and it works out, and by the way, I don't think the Gordon thing in New England was behavior from what I hear. I think it was more that he looks a little heavy. He's not separating the way he used to. I think the cult of Seattle and Russell and Pete, it's a good destination for Josh. And if they can turn that around,

he's probably their biggest wide receiver newcomer name-wise and ability-wise that they've had since their tenure. And that's amazing that they've done this over and over again. Russell's been the common thread, but they've overcome the implosion of LOB. They blew the defense up. They ship guys out. Marshawn Lynch leaving,

turned it into a totally different team. But since he came in a league, Russell's second in wins behind Tom Brady with 82. I think Tom has 91. They've also done a really good job of drafting and developing wide receivers. I mean, they've missed some. Their biggest miss would be Percy Harvin.

Doug Baldwin, undrafted. Obviously to this year with Metcalf, who people didn't quite think would be this good. And that looks like an iconic connection that will happen for some time between the two players in Russell and D.K. They also groomed Lockett from the draft and Golden Tate, of course.

They seem to get guys that aren't necessarily the sexiest as far as the measurables until DK. They're more catch radius guys or they're stretch to field guys. They're not necessarily route runners. they're not guys you knew would be great because plays break down there. You've got to almost be better at playing backyard school ball

with Russell as QB than a concise route runner. And that's why I think they've been so creative and interesting. When you look at those lines this year, their offensive line is two free agents, one traded player and two drafted. The Super Bowl line was two Carroll draft, one pre-carrel and one undrafted free agents. So over his span, nine receivers have caught at least five touchdowns,

four receivers have caught at least 10 touchdowns. He's been under siege, he's given up the most sacks in the NFL, they've run the ball effectively. But Russell is the common threat. I think it's really interesting how Seattle has disregarded or been bad up front, and they've just nailed these skill position guys, including Carson, who's a seventh rounder and ran for 115 on that Tampa Bay defense. and completes their offense.

And if Josh Gordon's good, this will be the best offense they've ever had. They don't really have a tight end threat like they had in Jimmy Graham. But man, Russ looks awesome. And he deserves even more credit. Quick hitter on the spot. Who is most responsible for culture generally? Is it players? Is it a leader like Russ, coaches, head coach, front office?

I think it starts with the front office because you have to bring in a coach that's going to be intentional about the culture. And it trickles down. it's like a machine that can't work without the other piece. But what I get annoyed about some coaches is they want their players to be bad guys and set the tone. You have to do some of that as a coach. You can be a good guy, but you have to be able to do the bad guy thing, which a lot of coaches actually struggle with.

I think Pete's done a great job. So another MVP candidate, quick hit here. Lamar Jackson, who has entered the chat, so to speak, in the MVP conversation. I said yesterday on the Ryan Rosillo pod that Greg Roman, the wizard, the coordinator in Baltimore, who's turned this into a powerhouse machine, has Lamar now, he had cap in San Francisco, and I think he has somebody more dynamic now.

It's hard to argue with that, but some people on Twitter.com took issue with that. It's not a shade thing. I'm not throwing shade at cap. I was a big fan of caps. He's done a lot for the sport. and he was the trendsetter. One thing Lamar is not,

he doesn't have the element of surprise. When Cap took the league by storm, that big win against Green Bay in the playoffs, that Super Bowl run, this was new. It's not new now with Lamar, and he's still doing it. The throwing statistics,

if you took Cap's best year, 2013, the year they went to the Super Bowl, and you took this year with Lamar in his second season, pro-rated it out for 16 games, forecasted it. Lamar has more yards a game. He's got more yards. He's on pace for 3,600.

More touchdowns with 24. Higher completion rate was 64. Comparable yard per attempt. Cap had two yards more in yards per catch, and the interception rate is very low at two for both guys. Lamar has the higher QBR. They're both winners. Their first 15 games.

cap, or the first 16 games, Lamar's 12 and 4, caps 11 and 5. The interesting thing about this is that the defense was better in San Francisco, and the pieces of round cap was better in San Francisco. On that 2012 team, they had 10 first rounders or something. The 2013 team, they still had like five or seven. And when you're throwing the ball to Crabtree, Ted Ginn, Randy Moss, Delaney Walker was the backup tight end, the rotational tight end. They used two tight-end sets there,

but Vernon Davis was your guy, Prime Vernon Davis, and Frank Gore, a prime Frank Gore. Greg Roman's done a great job in both situations, but it's not out of the question, especially because Cap, his rushing numbers in 13, have already been eclipsed in eight games by Lamar.

It's not out of the question, and it's not a hot take to say Lamar is more dynamic and is going to give Greg Roman a lot more to work with. That's not saying Cap's a bad player. Cap was a great player in stretches. Lamar has a chance to totally set this league on fire, and I'm not being reactive to last night, although two nights ago,

although that was something else and the Ghostbuster theme, the flickering lights, if I'm a 13-year-old and I don't have a favorite team, I'm a free agent. I'm a Ravens fan. Pretty awesome to watch. They affect the power rankings. We will get into my quick power rankings,

making you tell me if I'm crazy on any of this. I'll be fast. I hate power rankings because they're not defined correctly. I'm saying this is the team with the best chance to make a run. That's how I'm rating this, which is why I go New Orleans, San Francisco, then I go New England, Baltimore, and Kansas City. And I know everybody's saying,

how is Baltimore behind New England if they beat them? That's not the way this thing works. Baltimore is the worst matchup for New England. Baltimore also lost to Cleveland. Baltimore also barely beat Cincinnati. in Pittsburgh. They've had high highs in beating Seattle by two touchdowns and New England, obviously in that route on Sunday night. So as you look at it, their highs are highs, their lows are low. Off potential, I got to put them in the top five, but I want to see them do

this the rest of the year. Kansas City rounding out the top five jumping around here. Andy Reid, he's going to have you in any ball game. It's a lot like the Sean Peyton thing, overcoming the breeze loss. He's got Matt Moore slinging the ball around the yard like he's Joe Montana, and the defense is improving. The weakness would be the defense, but it's improving. At three, I got the Pats.

They have the most bad matchups out of any team in the top five. I worry about them playing Baltimore again in the playoffs. With that stat that I'm going to talk about in a minute, I think they're three and six against teams that they've lost to in the regular season once they seem in the postseason. So to think that Bill's just going to wave a magic wand and it's going to be fixed,

it's not necessarily true. At two, we got San Francisco. They're going to be a matchup problem for a lot of teams. They're going to create matchup problems for Baltimore, I believe, when they see each other in a few weeks. And then New Orleans, first off. Most complete team in the league, I don't want to say nobody's talking about them. People are talking about them.

But they're built like an old New England team. They don't have a lot of weaknesses. They could be better in the red zone. I think a team that might give them matchup problems. We already saw that last year was the Rams, whose defense is getting better, and they're stopping the run. So all five teams there, New Orleans, San Francisco, New England, Baltimore,

and then Kansas City. They all have matchup problems. I don't think anything's a sure thing. There's more of a toss-up this year than any year in recent history, and I love it. That's the power rankings. Let's get Rob Ninkovich on the line to weigh in on the past. That's the number three team on my power rankings.

Once it's in the power rankings, it is law. That's the way this works. Welcoming to the program, multiple time Super Bowl champion, my bash brother, longtime patriot Rob Ninkovic, one of my favorite WDE's. Rob, how you doing?

What's up, Chris? I'm doing great. Do you see a resurgence in the WDE position right now in the NFL? The Bosa brothers? Yeah. Yeah, baby. I mean, I look, there's there's always been a good crew of WDE's in the NFL.

So it's just I think the tradition continues you know couple of unicorns there. Hey Rob, we were talking about the the parade that we we shared you and I a few years back. What was your favorite memory from that day? My favorite memory. I mean, I think it was probably climbing. So like we're on the duck boat and there's like a tarp that goes out over the rest of the duck boat that you're not supposed to actually put body weight on and 500 pounds of WDE

crawl out there. Just effort out there on just high motor effort. Something that could potentially have collapsed and we would have fallen through it. It was all it was was a tarp. It was just basically a white tarp. Well, we had the liquid currant. you had that baby pull of vodka that went viral. It's like a little niff, you know?

It's a little bit, by the way. It's not a nip. By the way, I like the studio. We moved you upstairs because we were having technical difficulties here at Greenlight. I love seeing the baby pictures. You are a prolific dad. That's via. Shout out to Via.

Shout out to Paige, Everett, the whole gang. Rob, how rough is that plane ride home for the Patriots and then the meeting the next day. Tell us a little bit about that. Well, I mean, I think that when you play a team, a good team, sometimes the ride, when you just get your ass kicked, isn't that back. You're like, hey, we literally just got our butts kicked.

Like, let's go back and let's watch the tape and let's make sure that, you know, we do the right things here moving forward. So, you know, I think that they're a team that they've experienced things like this. they've experienced a loss, a tough loss, and it sucks as the first one of the season. But, you know, again, they have a long way to go. And look, that coaching staff, Bill, he understands it's just a little bump, a little hiccups. So now they got to go watch the film correct things that they didn't do well,

knowing that they might see these guys again next in the postseason. And that meeting is no joke, though, that big, big room meeting. I used to be scared shitless when I come in the meeting. I remember after that Buffalo game that we didn't play well on defense. offense. Yeah. When, when,

when, when, when, uh, when, I think I held my breath. I was like one of those, I was like,

like one of those guys holding their breath underwater, uh, in a glass box in Vegas. But I was in, I was in the big meeting room. It was a nightmare. Well, I think the worst part about that is if you really have to go pee,

because you can't get out. I can't get up. If you like sit down and it's an hour, some of those meetings after a game could be, an hour of stop Bill talking, one hour start to finish. And you sit down with like five minutes in and you start to feel a little pain. Then you know that I have like 55 minutes of just excruciating pain because when he's on a tangent and he's yelling or he's getting after somebody, nobody stands up. Nobody leaves. You can't leave. You cannot leave. So if you are wretching in pain having to go to the

bathroom one or two. You just have to deal with it. And I've had some serious painful moments in my career. Some of the older players with enlarged prostates like yourself towards the end probably, that was really rough. It's like, it's like at the movie theaters, though, when you're like trying to eat your popcorn and it's quiet or like you want to take a sip of your drink and you're like, oh man, I got to pick the scene where the ice, like do I do it while he's screaming or do I do it while he's dead silent? And I hope it's not me. I have an issue. I mean, I have many issues. I have an issue at sitting, like if I'm sitting at a breakfast table,

like say my dad's eating Cheerios, I just, I zone in on like the sound of everything. It bothers me. It's like he eats these crispicks. And I'm like the crunchiest things in the world. Yeah. I want to say,

can you get up and go somewhere else? Can you go in the other room, please? And you won't say that to your dad because he's a total badass. He has a tattoo. He has two. Talk about, can you talk about his tattoo combo?

I'll tell you. he's got a he's got a he's got an eagle on a branch u.s navy underneath it shark that when i was a kid the shark would come alive and bite you it would bite you so like if you go to touch it you'll bite you you can bite you and then and then he's got black panther on the forearm which at night it would come alive so you better stay in bed or else the panther's going to crawl all around and he's going to get you this explains a lot about your psyche today. Yes.

When you play a team like the Ravens, and they expose you a little bit, I know Chubb had a good day on the ground. The Ravens had their way on the ground as well. That defense being a little bit more back end, heavy and up front. Hey, Paige, she's in the background. Party, Paige. So wait, baby got a wave. Hey, Paige.

Welcome to Greenlight. So, so essentially, you get exposed a little bit. I know that a Pat's fan, you know, defense on Monday morning as well, Bill didn't give them the whole game plan. They'll be ready next time. What did they expose them on and can they fix it? Well, I mean, I think with that coaching staff, with Bill as the de-coordinator, many things can be fixed and corrected with their game plan. But, you know, I think in that game, when you're playing against an offense that isn't really a north-south, it's east and west. and then they pick and choose when they want to come straight at you downhill.

The east-west stuff, the sideline, the sideline, it's tough because they're running that option. They have a quarterback that can keep the ball, and then they have an extra blocker in front of him. So it's really hard to game plan against that because you don't see that. They haven't seen it yet during this season. So when you're playing that spread, speed-type offense where the quarterback can keep it, then pitch, as a defensive end or outside linebacker, you're trying to run and you're trying to get out there and you're going. Yeah, it doesn't look fun.

It doesn't look fun. And then guess what? The next play, they don't go outside. They just go straight down the middle and everyone's running. So it's tough, you know, Kyle Vanoi and Dante High Tower and Jamie Collins, you know, they're bigger guys. They're 250, 60, 265. You know, they're not your small inside like 235 pound linebackers that that are four three run guys, they're like more stout and set up to stop powered downhill running game. So I think right

there, I mean, you see a little bit of the deficiencies and just being able to, if you stop your feet against the Ravens, if you stop your feet, there's no way you can get back to the edge because everyone's just so fast. I mean, I saw, you know, they zoomed in on Lawrence Guy and in that option situation is like, I'm reading my keys. I don't know what to do. The block disappears down. I'm looking for the puller, the puller passes me by and then I'm face to face with Lamar and he pitches the ball. Like it's it's it's it's a cheat

code and Greg Roman had that in San Francisco, but he had more of a power game primarily and they can do more with Lamar like getting extra blockers which you mentioned before to me is like explain that in the option game how they how they cheat a little bit and grab an extra

blocker. Yeah so you know a normal quarterbacker when you play anybody except for the Ravens, they're always handing the football off. So the quarterback, he's not really, you know, so there's 10 guys on the field, really, that you have to worry about. When you are playing Lamar and he keeps the football and they runs, say, a power, then they have an extra blocker.

They have one extra guy that can do something else. So maybe the guy can flash a crowd. Maybe you're on a two-by-two duce on set where both tight ends are on, and they're doing flash action. And then the quarterback just keeps it and goes right up the middle. And then the running back, who's right next to him, is like the lead blocker. So it's hard to stop that that because there's an extra guy.

And in the box, you're used to, okay, I just need to defeat. If there's a fullback there, that's my guy. But say they're in 22 personnel, they have a fullback, then they have a back, then they have the quarterback. The quarterback just keep the ball. And then they have two blockers that are coming up through the line to try and block the linebackers. So, yeah, it's simple math.

I mean, Greg Roman makes it look confusing. at times and they get to a lot of different looks to get to different runs. And that's one thing that Ingram talked about preseason. And by the way, Ingram's been as good an offensive free agent pickup as there is in football because as you said, he allows them to go downhill. When they break this tape down, they're going to maybe see them again. I think you can bet on that. And with the Ravens track record, as we talked about early in the show, it might not be in Baltimore. It's probably going to be in Foxborough. Now, the paths are three and six against teams that they have lost to in the regular season

when they see them in the playoffs. Is this gonna be different? And first off, can you name the last five teams they lost to in the playoffs that they lost to in the regular season? Because you lost to a couple of them, not to get personal. Jets?

Jets, 2010. Giants. Giants. Ravens. Ravens. AFC Championship. Broncos. Broncos.

And there's one more. This is even before you played. Before me. No, it wasn't. I was thinking Panthers. It's not the Panthers. 2006, Colts. Colts.

Yeah, exactly. So can it be different for them this postseason when they see them again? Well, you know, there's one thing that is out of everyone's control. And when you're playing in New England, it's Mother Nature. So when you're playing. Yeah, I hear it's cold. They love to tell you it's cold. there. It's a little chilly. It's a little windy, but in all seriousness, like when you're running that

option, that pitch option type, that's, so whenever you, you've never really seen that in the NFL because there's always, there's one extra mistake that can happen or a fumble or turnover because of the fact that you're reading and then you're pitching and the ball's not forward. It's always going kind of backwards. So it could be a potential fumble. So I think that that's why in the NFL, you've never really seen that college look transfer because of the fact that if you turn the ball over twice in an NFL game, you're probably going to lose. So I think that the weather could have something, if it's raining and nasty and windy, that might limit some of the plays that you can run. But when you can run the football and you have the ability to just line up and run and gain five, four to five yards every time that you run the football, you have a chance anytime you're playing. So, you know, there's a lot of people asking me about this game and the matchup and who was going to win.

And the only thing that I would say to everybody is if they stopped the run, the win, and they weren't able to stop the run. So. And they've been, and they've been surprisingly subpar in yards per carry this year, New England defensively. They were leaky in the Buffalo game, wide open in the Cleveland game. And again, wide open this week. what do you see down the line for New England as a potential trouble matchup for them in the regular season? Well, I mean, I think that Dallas could be an issue. I mean, I think Philly could be tough because they have a good offensive line.

You know, when you look at some of the teams that could run the football, that's always a tough task. Especially, you go eight games and everything's perfect and it looks awesome and you're stopping everybody. and you have a nickname and then you go and you play somebody and it doesn't look so good. Now they have a bye week. I'm sure this by week is going to be a little bit more interesting as far as what they're doing. I'm sure they're going to have an extra practice, maybe one less full day off because of the fact that they do have a tough stretch coming up here. It's not going to be easy. And now they're going to, now they're in the meat of the season where they're playing some tough teams,

teams that are known to run the football and their last game of the year is against Buffalo. And if Buffalo keeps playing well, there's no, okay, let's rest somebody in the last game of the year. Let's try and recover for the final push year. Which has been big in the past there. Huge, huge, because if you're playing, you know, Miami or Buffalo and they're, you know, two or three wins or four wins, there's no chance that they're not doing anything. You go out there and you kind of know, okay, like, let's get through this game so we can get into the playoffs healthy. But this year, it looks like they're going to have to play the rest of the season. To get that home field.

They're going to have to play this whole thing out. And you don't know what's going to happen. You look around the NFL right now. Texans look pretty dang good. You know, there's a lot of teams that potentially as this season progresses, that they're going to be a better team than what the Patriots thought they were going to face at the end of the year. Right. And they're going to play more quarterbacks who have hit puberty. They're going to play better football teams.

I think it could get interesting down the stretch for them. I don't know what you do with the boogey men t-shirts. I think, you know, to be fair, the Ravens had a couple bad games that historic year. They could recover offensively on the other side of the ball. Receiver has been an issue. Offensive line has been an issue. I was surprised they didn't make a move before the trade deadline. What's going on with that number one spot that they've been trying to secure?

You've got Neil coming back. You let Gordon walk. Evidently, it's not behavior. It's that he just couldn't separate the same as he used to. And then fans want Antonio Brown back? That's a joke. But anyway, to the receiving stuff, I think, look, they have Julian, which is their go-to guy. You lose a guy like Brunkowski, who is the best.

tight end to ever play the game. Agreed. The best tight in. And, you know, you draft a first round receiver, the highest they've ever drafted a receiver. He goes down on IR with an injury. He's going to come back. Looks like he's going to be back soon. The Josh Gordon thing, look, I mean, was he the same player that he was before all the

issues and the time away from the game? No, he wasn't. Well, that happens when you're a little bit older. You know, do I think they could have done that a little bit better? sure I mean you guy went down trying to make a tackle on interception and you cut him he never plays again so I mean I think that's something they go out and they get Sunu who Sunu you know he can play outside he can play inside yeah he he he's he's the perfect type of patriot which is why I think that was a really good trade for them not on the hook for a lot of money six this year six next year but yeah we'll see I mean Jules has to play outside more too now which is a ripple effect is your your best target is got to do more of what he's he doesn't do as well. And I like Philip Dorset. Like I think he gets lost in the shuffle here. Nobody really talks about him. And then he's a good football player. And then a lot of, like a lot of teams, James White is basically a receiver to me. Yes. You know, coming out of the backfield,

we saw a beautiful wheel route against Earl Thomas for a great catch over Earl Thomas. So, you know, I think when you see him, he's not your conventional running back to me. He's more of a slot, catch and run screen. When I see him in the game third and long, I'd be saying, all right, he's running a screen. They're doing some type of catch and run thing. He's not running the ball downhill on you.

So you look at their receiving core. I think that they have the potential to be a lot better with Harry coming back from IR. You got Sanoo. So you'll have Julian Sanoo, Harry, that you can do different things with those guys. You can put them together in bunch sets and do all your pick routes. You can put them on opposite ends of the field

and when you're crossing routes. I think the one thing that they are missing is a tight end. They don't have a tight end. They don't have somebody that scares you at tight end. So that is probably one of the biggest issues that they've never had to deal with. They've always had a tight end like, hey, drunk, go run straight at the goalpost. And then the over is open or a Julian wide open. So every defense that they're playing now, they can say, okay, don't worry about, I mean, nothing against Ben Watson, but he's not grown.

No, I mean, no one is. And to your point, a lot of people who benefited from having gronk around are trying to work around that. We talked about the offense. They've got issues running the football. I said that, not you. You know, the receiving core issues are developing and the tight end, the tight end absence has affected them real quick before I let you go. How about a prediction for New England, Philly? I think they get back on track.

I don't think it's going to be a blowout. I think that they're going to have Harry back. They'll have Sunu. They're going to have some pieces back. They might have their starting win. They might have their starting tackle back. Yes, he hasn't played yet. But you look at their offensive line, they've been beat up really well.

No David Andrews at the center position. We all know how important that position is. It just is getting everyone help and talking and making sure all the communication is clear. Then you lose your starting tackle, who is Tom's blindside, protection. So you got guys in there that really wouldn't be in there if there was injuries that hadn't happened. So, you know, I think that it's going to be a tight game. I'm taking the Patriots 24, 21. So it's going to be close, that three-point game. Tight ball game. They play the Pats that well. They'll be selling a lot of hope in Philly because the Pats are still a great

football team. Thanks for joining us, Rob. We'll have you on soon, talk Pats and more. And I will maybe see you in Philly for that game. Maybe I'll take the training. Step brothers. Step brothers reunited. Rob, have a great day. Shout out to Paige. Yeah. See ya.

So this is a segment called Where Are You On? Make, where are you on this pod? Mostly in. Okay. Still like a, what do they call this period where you could still bring it back? You could return the product. Right. I was going to go honeymoon period.

Yeah, we're definitely in the honeymoon stage here. I know you're very passionate about uniforms, also basketball courts. We'll get to that in hoop season, but I wouldn't call you a snob. I'm not a snob, but I certainly think this hurts my eyes. This is Eastern Michigan and Buffalo with the touche. I think we'll go with our all grays this week on your gray ass field. I mean, this is terrible. Yeah.

It looks like a fancy picture that has been highlighted. Like they highlighted to show. Like this is where the eastern Michigan offense really starts to get rolling down 20, 29 to 7 to Buffalo. Serves you right for having a gray scale playing field. I would rather play on that field, though, than this abomination. Awful. Lava. I see lava, I see red construction paper when I was a kid, flashbacks, and then of course they wear the all red uniforms.

Yeah. Boisey's been doing it longer than anybody. A lot of birds, catching L's on that field. Yeah. Broncos occasionally catch a, catch a L from the, from the Wahoos. From the Wahoos. Yeah, I'm out on all of it. I'm out on all of it. It's very gimmicky.

Blue if I had to choose, though. I'm out on the rugs in general. Where's natural grass? I'm totally with you. Yeah. I fear for the day that I have to watch every game on field turf. Talk to me about rubber pellets. I've had rubber pellets so far up my sinus passage, whatever you want to call that.

I've had a rubber pellet come out six days later. evidently they're like carcinogens um so it turns out packing the occasional dip is not as dangerous as playing football on artificial turf yeah universal hard out on colored fields not liking it um how about group celebration pictures where we all in all in on them i'm all in on them um you know the the giants took when was that yeah that's That's a file photo from seven to eight years ago. Is that Matthias Kiwanuka? No, I mean, like I like it. I have a group picture back here of the Eagles defensive line. We used to do one every week in 2017. I'm really happy we took them.

Even if the year didn't turn out great, what's wrong with being confident and celebrating a win? And before you say, well, the paths don't do it. I've seen them doing great group celebrations, the boogeyman thing, which, of course, again, the Ravens one-upping with the Ghostbusters theme was sensational. Speaking of a Patriots cast-off, not a cast-off, somebody that escaped the no-fun zone, as some people would call it, I think it was very fun there. Brian Flores, head coach of the Miami Dolphins, they got the first win.

Look at him overcome with joy there. getting doused with citrus cooler. Yeah. What do you make of that? The winless teams catching a Gatorade Bath. All in again. In the No Fun League, I'm all in on fun infusion.

When you, you probably got, how many times do you get fined for spat? Oh, yeah. Being the wrong color. So when I was with Nike, they don't like you spatting, which is taping over your cleats. It makes me feel good.

I don't want to tape underneath. Also, I think it helps my swag. It can help your swag. They told me I needed to stop spatting or I'd lose my contract. I said, well, I guess I'm not a Nike guy anymore. I guess I need to get with New Balance. Because look good, feel good, play good is absolutely true. Don't know what to make of the league telling O'Dell and Jarvis to get their cleats off.

Right. Just find them to high heaven. do we really need to um i am all about gator a bass for bad teams people are so fucking hypocritical these guys don't even care they're professionals they're making a bunch of money they can't even get excited they can't win a game all this stuff all this reverse classes stuff that people apply to football um and they win a game you guys all make them the meme you guys say they're going on 16, what's a little citrus cool they're going to hurt anybody?

Yeah. Get excited. That means they're passionate. That completely disproves your your slant. And I love it. And then the hottest topic in the NFL this week, Khalil Max Halloween etiquette. First off, it's snowing. I'll say that one. Oh, no. What did they tell you to say?

Not on this day. This house isn't doing Halloween this year. Oh, no way. What if I give you a bag of candy to hand out just to be neighborly. Can we do that? It's so a neighborly. It's legitimately the only house in the whole neighborhood not handing out candy. Really? Yes. All I know is I was just asked to stand out here and say this house isn't participating this year. Wow, brutal. I hope he moves really soon. What a dumbass that guy is narrating that video. Mean. Just a dumbass. Like what do you think, like you know whose house it is.

what do you think people do when they know the most famous defensive football player in the last 20 years in the city of chicago which is rabid for football you know where his house is the bears are struggling what do you want him to do dress up for you he's also docks my man's house now yes he's been on the g i s beautiful house by the way located the address blasted it on the internet. Now everybody knows where Khalil lives. And everybody thinks Khalil's a bad guy. Like, what do you want him to do, bro? There's also a whole thing. Well, he's the only, he's the only house in the neighborhood not doing Halloween. He's the only famous person in your neighborhood. You're not, you would not care if it was a random house and the lights weren't on. You wouldn't even bother.

You knew walking up, Khalil Mack, the Bears are struggling. I'm mad. I'm probably a degenerate gambler. and the bears are losing me money, so I'm going to weaponize children to down Khalil Mack and docks his domicile. Hot take, especially after our last episode, Halloween's awful, okay? It's no good.

So I'm in full support of Khalil on this one. Is he under contract? I at one point said no Halloween one year. No lights wasn't present and came home to a pumpkin smashed on my front door. That's the appropriate response. You don't go put me on the internet. Nobody cares where I live. I back Khalil. Yeah, Chicago. That's why you can't have nice things, I guess. Really dumb. I'm actually triggered, as they would say. I'm all about Halloween. I'm all about

Khalil Mack. That guy can keep walking onto shit I saw. So we did fears last week, because it was Halloween. I hope nobody watching last week's pod thought that we were just doing that for no reason. That's not what this pod's going to be like. There's a lot of hard hitting analysis. It won't just be snakes and spiders and costumes.

This week, it's another one of my greatest fears. It's mayonnaise. Disgusting. So some people just want to see the world burn. That is just It's gross. It's worth going to hell.

Yeah. That's what they make hell for. That's fair. People that eat mayonnaise at sporting events out of a tub. I will point out that somebody claims that that was an act. Yeah. I don't mean to hijack. Remember about four years ago at age 30?

You claimed you had never had mustard? Never had mustard. And now you have had mustard. I like mustard. Yeah. Mustard. Great. Great.

Maneas. Not great. Awful. Manez, I would, I've never eaten a sand. sandwich with mayonnaise on it. Wouldn't do it. You probably have. Have not.

Maybe when I was a kid, but the first time I did it was the last time I did it. Aoli. Not a fan of Aoli. That's good. Do you like aoi? Ah. We have some things to tell you about Aoli afterwards. Also, big fan of chicken salad.

Big fan of tuna salad. Not mayonnaise, though. Yeah. And you have this cleared every time you eat it. Yeah, got to get that out there about to dig into some tuna salad. No mayo was used in the making of this tuna salad. It needs to be light mayo. The way they do it at Feast.

Shout out to Feast. That is a nice local, organic spot here in Charlottesville. Going to get a nice pack of cars crackers. Sorry, did that offend you? No, I love Feast. Oh, that's the other word. so so you can get a nice nice box of cars and you can get some tuna salad that's lightly doused with something that looks like mayonnaise lightly doused oxymoronic yeah be lightly doused

okay Ryan Flores save that for the correction was doused bottom line is that that's disgusting if you ate all that mayonnaise what would happen to your body um I think you deserve to go to the hospital. I think you deserve, you're in the running for being cursed for eternity. I mean, that is just, that's the next level. Even if it's a joke, it's disgusting and I don't, and I'm not okay with it. Manez is hideous. So yeah, that's, that's shit I saw. I want to keep it brief this week. Coming up this weekend, well, we've got our Friday pod, which I hope you tune into at Greenlight. But this weekend is something I'm really, excited about. I nerded out at the opportunity to talk to George R.R. Martin. Yes, Game of Thrones

guy. Yes, iconic, genius, wizard-loving writer, who took the time and was gracious enough to Skype in with me. We talked about a lot. We talked about his Wolf Sanctuary. He loves football. Basically, the premise of the interview was anything but Game of Thrones because we shot it during the final season, which I don't want to put words his mouth. He probably didn't love. I know I didn't love it. A lot of people didn't love it. Let's check out a clip from that video. Yeah, living in the projects, we were not allowed to have dogs or cats. They were prohibited in the public housing that we lived at. So the only pets that I could have as a kid were, you know, like fish, tropical fish. We could have goldfish and guppies and stuff like that.

And we got these little turtles, red-air turtles, the dime store turtles. You got them at Woolworths and Kreskes and places like that. They came in a little plastic bowl with a palm tree in the middle, and half of it was gravel and half of it was water. And then they sold your turtle food to feed them. And it happened that two of those plastic bowls fit exactly in this toy castle I had. So I could put the two plastic bowls in the court. of this toy castle that was right by my window.

So that's where I kept them. And since they lived in a castle, I started thinking of them as kings and knights and all of that stuff. But I don't think that turtle food that they gave you when you bought the turtles was the healthiest thing. These turtles died very easily. And I never had one of them last longer than like six months or something like that. So I decided that the turtles were competing for the crown,

and they were all murdering each other. When one of the turtles died, he must have been killed by the other three of turtles. And I started writing this whole story about, you know, this king was killed by that king and somebody else took the ground and all that. So that was my first epic fantasy was turtle castle. It was a slow-moving epic. It was very slow-moving. That's right. I like turtles.

Remember that kid that I like turtles kid? He was a meme. George R. Martin liked turtles when he was a kid. it totally tripped me out that in his little genius Bobby Fisher brain living in Bayonne with a box full of turtles from the pet store. Controlled for inflation, a turtle had to go for like 25 cents back then. So it wasn't a big loss that they were, I guess with, yeah, the point I just made in the gates that point.

I mean, it was probably 25 cents went a lot further. And if you lost the turtle, it was a big deal. So these turtles were dropping like flies. but in his imaginative mind, go figure. He had him as kings and queens killing each other for the crown. Turtles all the way down. It was turtles the whole time.

Game of Thrones, breaking news. Check out the interview. I got a real kick out of it. And please join us Friday on Greenlight. We'll be back if we don't fire ourselves. Y'all take care. clean show today. Pretty clean show.

Makin is asking off screen if anybody has anything, which means he has nothing. I said that the Giants were outscored 35 to 9 after the Black Cat. It was 34 to 9. Correct yourself. Yeah. You said that the strobe lights

at M&T Bank Stadium were cool. They're not. You don't like them? Nope. Why? And nobody can be lightly doused. It's not, it's not, it feels like something's going wrong.

Something bad's happening. Let's not get into that. It's panic mode. I'll watch this back and hit you with what you messed up on Friday. So nothing egregious. I said lightly douse. Big fucking look. Niko doesn't like noises.

Misophonia. Oh, also, should have said this in the close. Misophonia, that's a good word. Niko this week has, he has some sort of a website link to his Twitter. Our producers, great catch, Cowboy Reed. clicked on the link in Niko's bio and we found this. This is... Wholesome.

This is just some wholesome porn from a certain genre that was embedded into his website. Hackers did it. So we alerted him that he'd been hacked and he quickly took it down. I don't even know what all those buttons meant. Like are there that many genres? within that subcategory of porn.

Don't want to talk porn one time, a pod. That's the rate we're at. Another thing about that is I am, that's the second time I've warned somebody that they had porn on their Twitter. Would you like to discuss the first time? I would not like to discuss the first time at this point. That's for another day when you're older.

Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.