Green Light with Chris Long - Jimmy Johnson on NFL Playoffs & Troy Aikman's 40-Time. Most Likable AFC Playoff Teams. Worst Childhood Sports Moments.

Episode Date: January 6, 2021

(01:21) - Welcome and Jury Duty. (13:08) - Childhood Sports Memories. (41:15) - AFC Playoff Team Likability. (1:29:00) - Jimmy Johnson on Playing Without Your Coach, Troy Aikman's 40 Time and Player Incentives. Sign up for your DraftKings account at https://www.draftkings.com/sportsbook and use promo code : Greenlight Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wookie Wednesdays, that's right. Coach Wookiee, my high school baseball coach, friend of the program, if you know anything about this podcast, if you're a ground floor intellectual investor in this content, you know Coach Wookie, he's back. We're going to talk most likable AFC teams in the playoffs. We're going to rank them based on a formula that I made up. See how that works out.

Also, most haunting childhood sports memories. Talk about that. Wookie's got jury duty. finally the news of kevin stefansky having covid the brown's trying to win their first playoff game since the dinosaurs without a head coach what does that mean i call jimmy johnson hear from him at the end of the pod enjoy wednesday everybody i got a special guest in the studio it's been it's been a while uh my my high school baseball coach you guys know him as coach wookie is stepping in uh and we're going to do some wednesdays with wookie

I don't know. This is an open contract. We're on a one-year deal. We're putting each other on one-week-to-week. We're week-to-week here. Because, you know, we got kids. Yeah. I'm just happy that I get to sit and make myself comfortable in Macon's chair after he ran his mouth on fantasy football.

Now you have the floor. Exactly. He's right. The cosmic universe turned against me with the last six minutes of the game. Yeah. I did run my mouth like three days before. Refresh the people on what happened. He sat a 20-point defense and he benched his 20-point.

He benched at the, I think it was the Rams or something on Thursday. Yeah. And they put up 20. So I was feeling pretty good. And so I went on the group, you know, the Charlestville Genilments Fantasy Football League. Like Dabo Sweeney. Exactly started running my mouth. Brian Kelly. And everything was looking good until there were six minutes left. And I was actually out of place. And it was like, I could just feel the walls coming in on me as like the universe conspired against me. And the group six. Yeah, Makin did a good job laying out the series of events that happened to take me down. It was awful. At least you did not have to end up on a billboard like our friend Mike Lewis who got engaged.

Yes, I'm so excited about the billboard. Congratulations to Mike Lewis. I love how you powered right through him getting engaged and you're more concerned with the billboard. But for a guy who's north of 50 years old and looks 31, man, putting a ring on that. I'm so excited about the billboard. It's like that's the Charlottesville. I can't. I mean, great.

Good job, Mike. You're getting engaged. But it's like I'm waiting so for that 29 billboard. I'm so excited because there's like two rules in the Charlottesville league. It's like don't come in last. Yeah. And don't embarrass yourself. Yeah, exactly.

And if you win, great. That's cool. But don't come in last. People are like, man, your team kind of sucked. I'm like, yeah, but I'm not on a Marxon Harrison looking billboards. Exactly. And we're going to put this billboard out in the spring when traffic starts to kick back up again post-vaccine. Yes.

So you don't want to drop the billboard right now. It's like tumbleweeds rolling by Rutgersville. No, you want to get your money's worth. I want to get our money's worth. So we will. And one last time, congratulations, Mike. Yes, congratulations. Sorry.

Sorry. That's a beautiful, a beautiful congratulations on an engagement. Mike Lewis getting engaged at his ripe young age is like a Brandon Graham Pro Bowl. Yeah. It's like a lifetime achievement. We've been waiting too long. I know. We've been waiting too long and it's a big deal to me and I just thought I'd mention it.

And I saw it this morning walking into work and I almost spit my water out. Because I'm at like 100 ounces today. My brain is on fire. I'm hydrated. I'm excited for what we're talking about today. Yeah. I'm excited to have Coach Wookie back in the building. What we're going to hit is, well, it's going to be a whole lot.

This is this turned into a nice little show. Okay. We're going to talk about childhood. sports memories that haunt you. I plucked that from Twitter. Josiah Johnson viral tweet. It's a big viral tweet guys. Tweets always seem to go viral.

He asked people, you know, what has haunted them since their childhood when it comes to their youth sports career, but I'm going to extend that into high school even. And you were there. Yep. And I know you have a few of those. we're going to do likeability in the NFL playoffs, who are our most likable teams. And we break that down into a pretty serious formula here.

Yeah. Not fucking around on this thing. Highly scientific. Probably the second most important guest on the show is going to be Jimmy Johnson. Yes. He's coming on after you leave. And we're going to talk about the Browns News. Kevin Stefansky, you might not have heard this.

Nope. Has COVID. Oh wow. So the Browns, it's starting to make sense with the football gods and them. Like it really, really is because the last two weeks, your entire wide receiver room gets snipe by COVID. You lose to the jets, right?

Then last week, it felt like they were gonna blow that game. Yep. It felt like they were gonna blow that game. And there was something else last week that I was thinking of myself like this team It's just, it's kind of unlucky now, a guy who's in my book right there for Coach of the Year with B-Flow is gonna be, I don't know,

at home, texting, the assistant head coach. I don't know, like, don't know how that happens, but yep, Stefancy's out. I'm gonna hear from Jimmy Johnson on the playoffs in general, but how this is gonna affect, like what happens when the head coach goes home? what really happens. So I'm going to talk about that in a little bit.

You have jury duty coming up. I do. It was like, welcome to 2021. Bang, summons in the mail for jury duty. What does that entail? I've never been there.

So I was, when we lived in Ohio, I was summoned for like a grand jury thing, which is like a month where you sit on the court and determine what actually goes to trial and what doesn't. I luckily got out of that because they were like, if you have a job raise, hand and I raise my hand in there like you're dismissed. This one is like trial and so you have to

you sign up for the dates you want and then you wait for what your group is and then you have to call every day to find out if you're supposed to report in or not. Oh that is fucked and they're probably going to put me on jury duty for saying this but that's totally fucked. You make me do something like that. You call me. I don't call you every day to find out if I have to go to jury. the night before to find out if you have to serve that next day. I think they pay you like six bucks for lunch or something. Dude. So not just they're giving me the continental lunch,

which I imagine is a banana. A neutral grain bar and an eight ounce bottle of water. Definitely a cold cut sandwich with mayonnaise. Definitely. Not just that. You have to call every day to find out if you're on jury duty. And if you don't show up, you probably go to jail.

and then somebody has to go to jury duty for you. It's like a cycle. It's a vicious cycle, actually, when you think about it. Yeah, I do think you can be, yeah, I think there's like a bench warrant or something like that. What happens if you skip jury duty because you don't have cell phone service and you have to go to jail, then next thing you know, the jury's looking at you. Very, very good points. I mean, what concerns me is what if you get put on a trial that takes, that goes, that starts on like a Wednesday or Thursday, but goes for like a week? And then the deliberations are like, OJ, like where you're out for two weeks deliberating because nobody can come to a consent.

12 angry men. Exactly. But I've also heard from people that did it that there's a throwing out process that takes place. Yeah. So they have like 15 or 16 jurors. I don't know the numbers. But each lawyer, prosecutor and defense is allowed to strike jurors for no good. Like they ask you question.

Oh, I know that. Yeah. They'll strike jurors all the basis of race and all. And they shroud it very. very thinly veiled. Yeah, you can get thrown out. And so I have some friends that claim to be experts at getting thrown out by answering questions in a very kind of aggressive, hardline way.

But unfortunately, I've heard both polar ends of the spectrum as far as what to say. Like, don't say this, but do say this. And it's the same thing. So I think everyone's lying to me. A lot of pressure. There is a lot of pressure. A lot of pressure. What if you go to the courtroom and it's a guy that likes to look at the jury?

And like kind of intimidate you. And you're in charge of this person's fate. Yeah. It's like, and the guy's just looking at you. If I should, I will take it very seriously, but it feels stressful.

Like this is somebody's life on the line. Yeah. And it's also like you and your family's life on the line. Because if you're like, hey, guilty. He's like, hey,

redacted street, wookie. These are things I didn't think about. Yeah. You make a good point. You got a security system? Yeah, I do.

You're a gun owner? No. You don't have to say that. no I'm not these are good points that you're making and I'm you're a big guy though I'm the anxiety's building well I don't mean to do that have fun of jury duty yeah I'm not excited jury duty make sure you call later okay nothing like hey make sure you call me every day so I can tell you if you have to do this shitty to listen to a voice recording to tell you if you're coming in or not and I thought this whole thing I thought was going to get thrown out I didn't think they'd be having court cases with

COVID. Yeah, think again. Welcome to 2020. Can we do it by Zoom? They need to do it by Zoom. That's the only safe way to... Nope. You got to report to the courthouse. You got to go to the courthouse. Yep. Probably have to wear a mask. Yep. The entire 12-angered men process. Oh, they did say this. They're seating people like unlike a bench of jurors. They're seating people all throughout the court like spread out. That's going to be fucked because you got to

realize when the guy like, uh, who's, who's on the stand, and he's defending himself. He's going to be working the room. Yeah, he's going to have to stare at everybody. Like generally when you want to intimidate the jury or a witness, you just stare at the jury in general at large. Well, there's one other thing that's kind of been on my mind,

and I hope I don't get brutalized for this, but I have ADHD. I'm always on my phone. I know you are. So am I don't think that you're allowed to have your phone. That's going to be great for you. I want to go to jury duty. You do?

Now that I heard that, you get to leave your phone behind. You saw how mad I get when people call me on the phone. Yeah, but what do I do with my hands? What do I do when people call me on the phone? You roll your eyes and put your phone face down. I say, what the, why now? Yeah. Like as if they know I'm busy.

Yeah. I hate the phone. And I'm on at non-stop. I would love jury duty. I don't know. Somebody go do a crime. Not like, am I culpable? Crime is going to happen anyways.

Yeah. You just want to be next in line. Why have they not called on me? I don't know. Some people never get it. Some people get it all the time. And you have to be unemployed, how to do the long-term thing when you did like the-

I probably gave that a bad name. If you raised your hand and said you have a full-time job that would be a hardship. I do too. It's a podcast. Yeah. So if you had a hardship. Do you think they'd let me out of jury duty because of this hardship, this podcast? So all,

so there is a special clause in there where you can go to the clerk of courts and make your case for why you should be exempt. Ma'am, I have a moderately successful podcast. If I take a week off. It slips from the moderate status. Yeah, and people lose the takes. Yeah. I'd make that case for you.

We could do an IG live from the courthouse. Yeah, I'm sure there's no violations of PII or public anything there. Not at all. I feel like we're borderline right now even talking at length about your jury duty. Exactly. Maybe it'll get me thrown out. What is you? Maybe that was my plan all along.

What he or she'd do? I don't know yet. As soon as you find out, tell me I'll say it on the pod and then they'll strike you. Okay. Well, the other thing is I get a book deal if it's really good, right? Yeah, I think you do. Yep. Okay.

All right. Well, uh, childhood bullshit. Yes. I love talking about childhood bullshit. It's fun. It's like making fun of yourself and being self-deprecating, but it's so easy because you're just pointing and laughing at a toddler that looks like you. It's not, you know, it's not really you.

it's fun to go back through all the stupid things you did. Now there's some things that I don't want to share about embarrassing things that I did as a kid. You told people you cried in McIntyre Little League already. I did. It's on my list. Okay. Oh, what do you mean to take it under? No, you're good.

I mean, spoiler alert. I had tears in my eyes on the mountain. It's an isolating sport, man. I'll start with that one. Okay. We can kind of go back and forth. Like a snake draft. Yeah, that was the game.

My uncle who played in the NFL came into town to visit my dad. Thought the world of him. You know, he's actually my godfather. I call him Uncle, Uncle Bill. Bill Pekyll. Talked to him on FaceTime the other night. He was in town. Why would I remember this?

Because I wanted to play well in front of my uncle. My godfather. Bill, dad sitting in the stands night game against Shoney's. And I'm on the mound. Wasn't the greatest pitcher. You know that. I'm going to stay quiet on this part, but go ahead. Sometimes you look up and you realize your co-host was your high school baseball coach.

As hard as I tried because I was a worker, I grind it. That's the one thing in my life. I could do that in basketball. I mean, I could shoot a million jumpers. I'm never going to have a nice jump shot. Pitching. I could not work my way into it. I'm up there on the mound, night game.

And if you know McIntyre Little League, formerly Dixie Little League, Craig Little Page of Virginia Sports Fame, athletic director, changed his name to McIntyre, which was probably the right thing to do. But when I played, it was called Dixie. So Dixie Little League, when late in the season, there would be the Dogwood Festival, the Fair. It's the county fair, essentially, right there at McIntyre Park.

And this was the game at night where the fair was in the background in our field. sat down in a bowl and above it they would lay out all the Ferris wheels all the Skymaster. Do you remember Skymaster? Yep. Anybody down there like listening? I said down there anybody out there listening skymaster was that huge pendulum looking thing that's like a vomit machine. When you, yes. It's also like a it's a what's the movie where everybody dies and you see it coming a final destination. Yes. If you know like if you ever stumble in

a carnival to the back of the carnival. No. You see where people are hanging out. You see the hodgepodge of cords and wires. Well, just and the people. Yeah. And nothing against carnies, but I'm just saying that like, well, yeah. Ohio had that one spin out.

It just spun off and people died. You see somebody like slugging a, a pint of whiskey that they bought at the 7-11. I mean, and then running out there to, you know, tighten the bolts on the Skymaster. I always thought about like, what if it just kept flying? Yeah. So there were those machines. There was so much life energy. There were other 12 year olds on the hill.

This is like playing in the Super Bowl. Yes. The lights. I got lit up for three home runs in an inning. And Chris Miller, my little league coach, didn't pull me. And I think it was like a tough, tough it out. Just hung you out. And I cried.

And I cried on the mound. And I couldn't, I could, not control my eyeballs, bro. I was trying so hard and it was just like, it wasn't waterworks, but I'll always remember all the Ferris wheels. It felt like the sandlot scene. Yeah. Only it wasn't chewing tobacco for me. It was, I was in a daze because I had just gotten lit up and embarrassed in front of my uncle, Uncle Bill. And that was very embarrassing to me. That scarred me as a child. Did you get out of the inning? Yeah, by way of they pulled me eventually. Oh, eventually. Okay. But I think of after the first three walks,

because I was walking guys too, which is worse than giving up a dinger. When you're walking somebody, it feels like trying to do something in front of a crowd of people and you can't get it done. Well, and then there's always that jerk that's like, throw strikes. It's like, yeah, idiot.

If I could throw strikes, I would obviously do that instead. I would absolutely be throwing strikes. Yeah. You go. All right. So moved to Northern Virginia when I was in second grade, had never played a team sport before. So the first team sport I ever signed up for was the turnpike They called it the turnpike basketball league

And I'm playing with all these people in my neighborhood And the school that the school we were practicing about a block over two blocks away Just straight down the street from my house And um you know like like all big kids I was pudgy growing up And uh they it was shirts and skins I'd never been on a team sport That's unfair. And so as the Pudgy kid, it was like your skins.

And instead of crying, because I was so horrified of like being the new kid, pudgy kid with no shirt on in the skins on the skins team, I literally ran out the gym and ran home and then cried. With your shirt off. No, with my shirt on. Like I literally just ran and cried. You should have just done it without the shirt. And so then my solution was to.

to like never wanna play basketball again. When'd you live in the 40s? Like where you could just run home crying? Yeah, it was straight down the street. I don't know, it was Wakefield Forest Elementary. Traffic, abductions, like. Yeah, I just ran home. And then of course like, you know, thank God my mom was basically like,

no, you make a commitment, you stick your commitment, you show up and tough it up. What if you got abducted and they had you on the poster, like last scene? Yeah, it would have been coach Dougan's fault. But you wouldn't even want have gotten found like yeah why did he why did he leave yeah because you come out and the picture would be like the picture would be the last we saw of this kid

with his love handles oh my god his love handles chugging down the street oh my god that's totally true but yeah that was one of my horrifying events was uh with shirts and skins and i just mentally i couldn't i couldn't deal with what that FBI yeah i couldn't deal with what that was going to I'm negotiating with the kid. I don't want to come home. Yeah. So I just ran home. Here's the worst one.

I think we've talked about this on the pod before, but to refresh people's memories since we're here, talk about haunting memories. Can't be one worse than missing home base hitting your first home run in Little League. Oh my God. We haven't talked about this. You've never heard this? I've never heard this.

Okay. So 11 year old year, we were playing Barracks Road. and bear sure wasn't very good. I had a Louisville slugger that when you made contact with the ball, it was a thud more of than a ding, right? Yeah. My dad, football background, etc.,

had given me a bat like nine-year-old year or 10-year-old year when I got strong enough. The bat was dead for a year and a half. I was playing with a dead bat for quite a while. It's not an excuse, it's just a reality. So I hadn't hit a day. I didn't do a dinger until like my 11 year old year and the 12 year I got a new bat, hit more dingers.

But my first one, you know, I'm rounding the base is I'm hype, the whole team's hype, right? Feel good story. Tall kid hit his first home run, right? Yeah, yeah. I get to home plate. I'm getting mob, bro. I'm getting just absolutely mob and go to the dugout. Coaches umpire, they're all converging. And I see Chris Miller, my beloved little league coach, walking back over to the dugout shaking his head with his hands on his hips, and Bruce Maxa,

who I still know here locally. And listen, I never... This is borderline, I mean, I know, go ahead, keep going. The umpire comes over and explains that I did not touch home plate because I got mobbed and I guess I missed the plate. Chances are I didn't miss the plate. And he instructs me that I'm going to be out. For being out of the base path.

Yeah. So all the RBIs counted, but the home run didn't count. So the coach didn't tell the umpire. The umpire did it on his own. Oh yeah, yeah. Wait,

the coach told the umpire did it on his own. Coach Miller was completely on my side. Like what coach is going to go be like, hey, my player who just says first? No, the other coach didn't say something. No,

I think it was just Bruce Maxa. So it was the umpire's decision to call you out. umpires decision in a little league game little league game i'd have been tossed Chris miller showed great restraint my dad not so much oh my god i would love this in they ran into each other a couple years later and uh it didn't get physical but my dad was not happy i hope you found your dad an open space i'm pretty sure like yeah not like in a hallway no it was an open space okay he give him room to flee listen and my dad did a great job because i'd probably be just the same way.

Yeah. That was an unnecessary call. Totally unnecessary. I think... In Little League, totally Bush. Totally Bush. And Chris Miller, while we're here, as an aside, used to break it down every after every Little League game with what do you say no to?

What do you think we said? Drugs. Yes. Really loud. So when we used to break it down, if you didn't hear Chris Miller and you were like on the other side of the field, all you'd hear was a bunch of kids going drugs. Yes, that's awesome. And you know what it was awesome?

You talk about this coach, he had a big impact. He's a legend. Well, here's the problem. Like the hot leaf. Always liked the hot leaf. I'm hoping that Chris Miller, we've never had this conversation. I brought Waylon to meet him a couple years ago.

I hadn't seen him in over a decade. Just dropped in on practice and saw Chris Miller. He was, as he would say, tickled to death, which was old country boy saying. Yeah. Tickled to death to meet Waylon. I really would like to ask Chris Miller if he meant to include hot leaf in that breakdown.

Because I feel like I let my childhood hero down. Yes. Every time I roll up a little raw cone. So, I mean, like, I'd like to get that rectified. But a special shout out to Chris Miller, although it is kind of interesting that if you were in the bleachers, you heard kids, that's the best part of the story. Drugs.

Drugs. Really, we were anti-drugs. Yeah. So shout out to Chris Miller. And then lastly with the baseball story, before I go into another sport. Okay. 13-year-old year, Cove Creek, which was John Grisham's part. Yeah, beautiful little set of baseball films out there in Cowsville, Virginia, which is a hidden gem.

Yes. So 13-year-old year, 14-year-old year, actually, the Yankees, we were, we were, we were, The way they did that league was everybody had like an MLB team t-shirt. And you could be the Yankees, the Orioles, whatever. We were playing the Pirates. They were very good. But we had a three-run lead in the last inning. In that league, and this is the championship game, in that league, you had to play everybody two innings.

I don't know if they did that in like your little league, but you have to. No, it was more draconian. It was like the sucky kid never played. Well, in my little league, it was like, you know, they had a pitchers inning. Oh, it's a good thing. It's little, it should be a participation. But they never followed it in the 90s, bro. No.

My friend Sean Horner, I'll never forget, and you know, Sean. We went to try out for a 13-year-old year, and we were in the batting cage, and he was a stud pitcher for, not Craig Builders. It was the worst team in the league. They were really bad. And so, like, naturally, the player reps, if they had a PA, a Players Association,

were not hovering around Sean Horner's games. He threw six. innings like every night. Oh my God. Yeah, so I'll always remember we were trying out for 13 year year old year and he was up there on the mound and a lot of people were looking at him because he was kind of a stud and the ball just sailed. He had a giant cyst in his arm and it exploded. Oh my God. Trying out for 13 year old year and that was the end of his pitching career. So when we got to 14 year the uh there was the two two inning rule and um in the two inning rule uh you know each player had to to get two innings, obviously.

We had one kid from three counties over, and you know what I mean by that, three counties over. If you look at Virginia, there's Charlottesville, but we are really close to a lot of very rural areas, and my man did not have a phone. I don't remember his name.

No phone. This is 1999, so, you know, cell phone is a luxury. My man had no landline. So every game, it was like a crapshoot whether or not somebody was going to, like, we were sending like an Appalachian Raven to get out to him. Like you,

you had to like send a fucking telegram to get to this kid. So a pigeon. Yeah. Like pigeon shows up on his porch, chirps twice. Oh, we got a game that we got a double header Saturday. Yeah.

So wearing whites. We're right before the game. We're thinking, no offense to the kid because he was hit or miss. And I felt like it was one of these deals where his parents were trying to get him socializing out. It was a cool kid. He just didn't have a phone lived in the country. So he wasn't very good at baseball.

Right. He would show up and we'd be like, oh, he's here or, oh, he's not here. Right before the championship game, he's not there. We see this pickup truck just barren down the gravel drive, dust everywhere. And we're like, oh, my man's here. Well, we'll hide him in right field in the last inning. Oh, God. It was the Dodgers.

It was Kirk Knight. No. It was Kirk Knight. It was the Knight brothers. The Knight brothers were the cream of the crop in baseball. Travis, Kirk. Legends and Green County. Trevor.

Legends. Legends. Green County Legends. They used to have me sleep over to their house. I had the flu once 13-year-old year. They brought me over to the house. Rodney, the dad. Big Rodney.

Big Rod. Gave me Green County watermelon. He said, here's the flu. You know what it does. What? I was good the next day. No way. Yeah, played in a double header.

Got over the flu. So shout out to the Knights. Right field line. bullet. Kirk Knight hits a bullet down the right field line. So we're, you know, the game's not over, but kids got to hurry up and get the ball. The center fielder beats my man to the right field corner and we lose the championship. That will always haunt me. You go. 12 year old Little League.

So in Little League, when you're 12, you're like big man on campus. You're like the alpha. And I had a very- Especially if you have a mustache. Yeah, I had a good. goate at like 13 or 14. Did you really? Yeah.

You were that kid? I had a goatee at 14 or 13 in Babe Ruth, but 12 year old. I probably had it to make people think I was cooler than I was, right? So, um, but 12 years old, I was like the, you know, the pitcher of the league. Yeah. And I threw hard. I bet you did too. And like real hard.

And I showed up to the game without pants, without baseball pants. Uh huh. Mom's out of town on travel. And all I have are like those black, bike shorts. Oh, like the compression shorts. They were like shiny,

black, yeah. That's all I had. And it was like, it was a big game. And so the coach talked to the umpire, the umpire said okay. And I literally had to go out there with a jersey cleats socks and pitching bike shorts. People saw your,

your balls. Yeah. I pitched in bike shorts. You have had an uncomfortable time. With body image with baseball. Yeah. I know. But I had to,

now, wrong. I was, I was like, you can either be horrified in this moment, or you can just, like, be the guy in bike shorts who just mows people down. So, I like that story better. So I just, I threw, like, four innings of nonstop strikeouts, and then, you know.

I just want to say this. At that age, 12. 12. Rogue boners. Like, like, just sitting in class talking about Copernicus. Boner.

Thank God I didn't have that. That would have been awful. Pythagorean theorem. Blood flow. You're so right. I didn't even, yeah, you're right.

I lucked out big time. Usually it wasn't standing up on the mound though, but like, but it could have happened. Imagine that. Yeah, that would have been bad. You would have really ran home.

Yeah. Yeah. I would have, yeah. But I pitched, I pitched the game in bike shorts. And the make the, the best part is,

is their compression shorts. I was still a big kid then. I wasn't like the chunky. I was less chunky than the kid that ran home for being shirts and skins. But the umpire was like, after I started pitching, he was like, you got to tuck in your shirt. And I was like, listen, guy. You gotta be kidding me, buddy. Special circumstance.

So here I am in compression shorts and I'm tucking my shirt into compression sorts. So there's just like ruffly crumply stuff. Yeah, so your t-shirts on your balls. It was so weird. And you pitched well. Oh, I dealt. I dealt. I was like, if I'm going to be this guy, you're a gamer.

Then I'm going to do it. But yeah, I had the pitching compression shorts. I'll go basketball. So we're transitioning on the hardwood. My high school basketball coach told me once that I'm just telling you, Chris, I know because I was quitting basketball to focus on football for one year, and he had me in the corner, he said, if you, this is Matt Lewis. You remember Matt Lewis?

I remember Matt. Matt Lewis said if you really put, if you would pour it all into basketball, I think you'd be a better basketball player than a football player. That's the worst take of all time. I love the guy. He was the man. Great coach. Revisiting takes decades later.

Sometimes you get a lot of kids. Yeah. In youth basketball, I joined the City League. It was one of my dad's many efforts to make me not be like a little bitch. Yeah. So I was, you know, a kid from the other side of the tracks playing basketball and not very good at it. It's quite the enriching experience for me. And one day, I scored on the wrong basket.

I just. Was it after the tip? I think it was after the tip. That can be disorienting. It's disorienting. You don't know who's who and where to go. I mean, horrifying to the person. Understandable.

I think it happens a lot. Yeah, it's a form of tanking too. Yeah. We were tanking. And then this was great because I texted my mom for permission. Actually, I was going to use this anyways, Mom. I felt like it might reflect poorly on you. But as somebody who's been to thousands of my games,

including taking red eyes for years. and seeing Oregon on Saturday night and St. Louis on Sunday and going all my dad's games, you get one mulligan. City League playoffs, you know, we showed up at one. The game started at 1230. Full gym, you know, little people full gym, you know, real tight to the court. 15 people in the bleachers. Loud door opens, right? Probably hits the wall. Sunlight soaking the gym. I walk in. It's the fucking first quarter. My mom didn't know what time the game was. Oh.

So I wasn't going to use it. But last night when I texted her jog, my memory, she goes, how about the time that I took you to the game late? I'm like, I'm glad you said that because that makes me feel okay. Now I have permission. But when the doors open, honestly, nobody made a big deal. The kids were like, oh, there's the white kid who scored the basket on the wrong, on the wrong goal.

They're like, maybe he has to play a quarter because of the participants. I was the two-inning guy. And I had a phone. I was late. Yeah. I think I was worse than him at baseball. I was worse at basketball than he was at baseball to be, to be, and he probably doesn't listen to the podcast.

Didn't have a phone at 14. I don't think he's really into this type of thing right now. He's in a tree stand somewhere. Yeah. And you know like, and I say that hunting season is over, but it's not over for people who live three counties away. No, never. So scored on the wrong basket.

Um, also my mom said, how about the time you got drafted pretty late in Little League? Yeah, chalk that up to shit. I didn't know, mom. Exactly, dude. Had no idea. I was like, how late? Yeah, like, I was like, wait, I was drafted last. And she goes, quote, you weren't drafted last.

But on the later side, oh, which is nice, which is code for. You were third to last. You were third to last. All these years I could have been the guy on, you know, the pro athlete that like made up phony motivations because I was drafted last in Little League. Nope. I missed it out. I missed out on that. Isn't that fucked up your parents don't tell you?

But how do you tell your kid after a Little League draft? I think it's, but I think it's awesome that came out now. They used to say the Elks Club, which was my team used to, this was a big, you know, local scuttle butt here was that we used to. used to tank tryouts, plant kids and tell them. Oh, we did that in our little league. You did it in your little league? Yeah, there were coaches that would have kids tank like miss fly balls, miss ground balls,

wear jeans, look stupid. Man, this dude, Austin Hansborough was so good, had a bad tryout, ended up on the Elks. So did you have a bad tryout? Is that where you're headed with this? They were not telling me to have a bad trial. But I would like, they were like, oh, this kid's just bad.

Yeah. Not gonna hit a home run until his 11 year old year and probably gonna miss home plate. Oh my God. So yeah, I found out I was drafted pretty late. Before we finish up with football, you got anything else? No, it's not childhood.

I just, I vividly recall hurting when I first hurt my shoulder, like exactly what happened when I hurt my shoulder. So that's like my horrifying. Oh, that's college. Yeah, like front foot slipped, threw against my body, immediately felt like a hot poker in my shoulder.

And it was like, so it's like whenever I see Pete, Like I was watching CSI the other night. You feel weird. Yeah. I was watching CSI or criminal minds or something. And this guy or house, that's what it was, house. Why?

Because it's quarantine. Why? There's so much TV on and you're choosing to watch house. I don't know why. That guy is insuffable. I watch. I watch terrible television. Monologue in the middle of an open heart surgery, snarky as fuck.

I don't even feel like I have to. to defend, I watch terrible Netflix. Jesus. So there's a scene where this guy cracks his arm as he's pitching and I'm like, oh, I'm like in full body shakes over in the side. It's like PTSD on that. Yeah, there's things like that for me for sure.

For sure. Hyper extensions obviously. Whoa, yeah. So besides my basketball exploits, I want a lot of most improved player at like all sports. Like at the end of- Yeah, that's kind of a dubious award.

Yeah, when I used to get in Little League and I was smart enough to know it wasn't a good thing. You always had street smart. Yeah, well, I was smart and I worked hard. And so, you know, my dad would pat me on the shoulder on the way home and be like, you got the hustle award. See hard work pays off. Keep working hard.

You're going to get another baseball with Most Improved Player written on it on your coach's back porch next summer. At the pool. That'll be cool. Yeah. You got like the hustle award. Yeah. Fuck me, dude.

Yeah. But wait, before we get away from this, you did hit 700, your senior year. Oh, I was fucking good by high school. Yeah, you did hit 700. Tell the people how far I hit to baseball. Like 500 feet, crush baseballs. Just like piss missiles. Piss missiles.

Everybody thought they could throw a fastball by big. Fernadena Beach, they're still talking about it. Oh, my God. That guy watches on Sunday. Go down to fucking Fernadena Beach, go to their baseball field, and walk a hundred feet beyond the left center field line into the swamp. That's where your boy put it. Yeah.

Circa. Years later, they autopsied that alligator and found her baseball. Exactly. Yeah. So, you, yeah, so most improved. You did hit 700. Nice. So eventually I got the baseball with the most improved, but I could be proud about it.

Yeah. I mean, eventually I was really that guy. You were. Lifetime baseball career, most improved for real. Yeah, definitely. Okay. Too big to play football. That was embarrassing.

11, 12 year old year. Had a bowl cut. Oh. Like, actually, I was 9 or 10, I want to say. Had a bowl cut. But my first, I found this the other day, I sent to Lane Johnson because I was on the Eagles. That was my first football team was the Eagles.

My last football team was the Eagles. Okay. And my number was 65. So I had Lane Johnson's number. I had a bowl cut. And I found the thing, I'm on one knee. And I just remember being on the team for so, so, such a short period of time because of the way ends.

Yes. I took the picture, did the weigh-ins. And then I don't think I'd graduate. down. And I wasn't very good. You graduated out. Here's the worst part. When you're not a good football player and you fuck up the way ends.

Like it wasn't one of those deals where I was like the guy from Little Giants. I was like a wounded fawn running around out there. Okay. Also, volleyed for a carry my entire youth football career, like middle school and high school, eighth grade year, middle school football.

my coach finally gives me a carry a trip in the backfield, two-yard loss. Got the ball again in 10th grade, nine, 10, 12-yard gain, getting the hang of this, holding at collegiate at Russell Wilson's high school. Yes. Yeah, and so I never got the ball again.

It wasn't my fault. John Blake, man, I love you to death, but you should have given me the ball. Who held? Huh? Who held? I don't remember. I try to just live and let die.

Just docks him right now. Live and let die. Okay. And then finally senior year, I got the win knocked out of me. Not this one bothers me because we won the state championship, but remember they had the stud running back. The Liberty guy. Yeah, Liberty guy.

Or whatever that school was. Rashad Jennings, who played almost a decade in the league. And when I tell you, Rashad Jennings was, you think it was a big back in the NFL? He was huge. We were the same size, bro. He was huge. I was 250, he was 245.

He was huge. And bro, like we were getting after him all game, but at the end of the game on the sideline, I'm running down a play and he blindsides me. Wasn't it an interception or something? Yeah, I'm running down a play and he blinds me. And I would have done the same thing to me. It was clean, it was just he leveled me.

It was just a huge hit. It was too. One of the biggest hits you could see on a high school football field. It was huge. And we were the two like studs, so I'm laying there on the ground and I'm just so embarrassed

because I can't breathe and I gotta get up. Yeah. And like the last thing, I can even remember waking up the next day a state championship but thinking yeah that one play but i got up you did and then i went talking shit to him he was like let's just be cool about this that happened it's okay it's okay dude yeah let's be cool about this that's awesome shout out to rashad jennings let's go likeability for the play i'm so excited about this i had homework last night so we basically put this together

a few categories in mind for each team. Scale of one to 10 on each of these. Novelty, uniforms, fan base, watchability, players who deserve a ring, staff, X factor, and then you can do negatives. If you think there's a negative big enough, thank you for putting that in. You can dock up to five points.

Thank you for putting that in. So we're going to go through each team by seating in the actual playoffs. Tally up what we're giving them. At the end, we'll reveal the winners on both of our lists. Love it. All right, Kansas City.

Let's start with novelty. This is a tough one, okay? I gave them a 2.5 on the scale of 1 to 10. You might be saying it should be zero, but you have to consider that they have somehow found a way not to be hated. And they've not done the curse thing where you go from first to worst. Right. They're still good.

I mean, they've damn near won all their games, albeit lately very close. I think that's why maybe they've maintained a likeability. If you look back at teams that won a Super Bowl the past 10, 20 years, one-time winners are always less hated, right? But it also depends, because I'm pretty sure people were tired of the Eagles after we won because people kind of hate the Eagles and Philly Sports and that sort of thing. Seattle, I don't think they, because people love Russell Wilson.

They love Legion of Boom. Seattle was like in this place. 12th man. Yeah, like all that stuff. Novelty, I don't think they get crushed because they're likable. And I think the real, the aes in the hole for them and not being hateable is Patrick Mahomes is the most low-key marketable person in America.

Yes. He lives in the bath gel division of endorsements where Old Spice pays good. I don't know if he does Old Spice commercials, but like shampoos and shit like that. Yep. Every man thing, like everybody needs shampoo pretty much. That wasn't.

And he's in the Allstate world now too. he's in the all state world everybody needs insurance yep like he's not going to be doing the aqua de joe shit that fucking brady's doing because he doesn't look like a guy from um zoolander and that's and that's good it's non-threatening when you're in that middle division you could probably do a one-off cologne thing and you could also do McDonald's i was going to say McDonald's tom can't do all those i'm sure he could but it's not really good so i think it's really cool it's He's the absolutely most regular superstar. Yes.

And when you see him in a commercial, you're like, I need shampoo too. And it could also be me in that commercial. This guy's so regular. Yeah. He just happens to have a rocket arm. So I'm going to go novelty, two and a half, and I think Mahomes helps that a lot.

Unis, I'm going eight and a half. Red and yellow teams are awesome. Iowa State, awesome. USC awesome, great uniforms. It makes the white cleats look good, too. Yes. USC does black cleats Which is, yeah, I don't

I mean, it works. It works for them. Works for them. But the chiefs can pull off the white cleats With that so well. So if I may a red and yellow team, it doesn't look great, I challenge you.

Fan base, eight and a half, Chief's Kingdom. It's loud. They got a kingdom. Arrowhead Stadium. I think about them, I think about Zubas.

I don't know why. I do too. Yeah. Why is that? I put Chiefs and Bills in the Zubas category. Totally. Why is that? I don't know if it's an AFC thing or what?

Crazy. My dad used to really wear him as a kid. When I was a kid and my dad was an adult at home, he was wearing Zubas. You have photos? I don't know. But he wore silver and black, white and black Zubas at the crib. That needs to make an appearance on social media. I know, right?

Yes. Father's Day. Save it. That was like issued gear. Save it for Father's day. Their issued gear was so cool. Fan base you up, eight and a half. Watchability 10.

Mahomes, Cheetah, Kel. see with the ball in his hands. Absolutely. Where else can you go to see plays like the ones in the New Orleans game where you got Kelsey sitting down the zone by the goal line and two crossers behind him? He passes up two guys that we're looking at and throws it to the guy in the corner of the end zone

past the two guys sitting there waiting for the ball. Retreating 30 yards for a sack against the dolphins. It was a sack, but it's fun to watch. Yep. You know, like that's the Mahomes effect. That's the effect of their offense. All the arm angles. And you get Honey Badger at home on defense.

Yes. Chris Jones. Yeah. Yeah, they're pretty fun to watch. Players who deserve a ring, I'm going negative one. Hmm. Because they get docked because they were pretty much all. They had one last year.

Yes. The negative one is because their first round draft pick has lived a charm football life. Okay. He won a national championship at LSU and now he's on the Chiefs. Yeah. So, I mean, like, I don't even. There's barely any newcomers that deserve a ring, let alone players on team last year. Staff, I'll go 10.

Andy Reid. Love him. Who doesn't like Andy Reid? Yep. And he was the first to break the shield out, remember? Trailblazer in the COVID era. My brother calls it a riot shield. He had a riot shield on his face.

Trailblazer. Total trailblazer. And Eric B. Enemy. Everybody loves Eric. Yeah. Once's he going to be a head coach? This year. Good.

Or everybody gets real mad. Yeah. And they should. X Factor. X Factor's fun because this could be anything. I'm going to go nine out of ten. And I gave staff a 10. Okay.

So they're pretty likable for a team that wins. X Factor, I'm going to go to the old stadium. It's great. That's a positive for me. Mascot, KC. Wolf. You ever seen that mascot? Probably haven't even noticed them. No.

It's a wolf. It's a wolf? Yeah, it's a wolf. Been around to Saddine. Good luck doing another mascot. got themed right now. They have done a really nice job of being respectful. Yeah, fair.

It used to be a dude on a horse with war paint, late 80s, said nah, people are going to realize how offensive this is at some point, you know? Yeah. So let's just tone that down. We can keep our cool chief's helmet. Chief's name is awesome. Yep. It's really cool.

Yep. So congratulations to them for actually, you know, being able to pull it off respectfully. So here's one little tidbit about their mascot. Casey Wolfe, guy named Dan Mears, same mascot since 89. Dang. Talking about living a charm life. Also was the mascot in St. Louis. He was the Cardinal.

Cross state mascot. What? Huge X factor. Huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He took down an intruder in 2007 on the field. Somebody ran on the field. Dect him.

So I love the dual mascot thing. Also does motivational speaking. Dan Mears does in costume, out of costume. Doesn't matter. Huge X factor. He's got range. Give me a 10 or a nine. Sorry.

What do you have? Any big disagreements? No, I agreed with the X factor. I was thinking more of just the excitement around the watchability for the X factor. I love the uniforms. I agree with you on the low number for novelty. No. No negatives.

I could not find a negative for the chiefs. Having a hard time thinking about the negatives. I didn't find negatives for all of them. I made a special category of negative for one of them. I can't wait to get there. But everybody deserves second chances. Amen. Says the kid who got arrested for Swisher Suites.

I did. Yep. That was a one minute. You got a second chance. Yeah, exactly. So the chiefs are pretty likable. We'll tally up. Okay, so 47.5 for me, yours was 34.

You're a tough grader, so it's going to be all relative. It's all going to be about ranking these teams. I'm 47.5 on the Chiefs. Pretty good on a scale where you could probably get as high as 70. Actually, that's all you could get. So the bills, spoiler alert, they're going to be hard to beat. They're going to be impossible to beat on. Like, I'm a low score, but their score.

I just know. Yeah, let's begin. I'm so excited. Novelty is a 10. Okay, I don't care if they went to four. Absolutely. I don't care if they went to four Super Bowls that actually. They didn't win them.

They didn't win them. it knocks their novelty up. And wasn't there the wide right we got to get past? Norwood. Yeah. Four falls of Buffalo. They did a movie about, it is so hard to get to a Super Bowl,

to get to a Super Bowl and lose falling. Oh, God, crushing. It's actually unthinkable. To do four in a row? Yes. It's actually unthinkable. And it was all when we were kids. So people our age are especially apt to like the bills.

I don't think younger people, that live through the 90s are as like sympathetic. They didn't see that happen. That happened. So that actually drives it up. Uniforms, nine. I put a middle of the road for uniforms. Okay, that's fine.

Listen, they've come a long way from the Aaron Shovels. The, you know. I actually like the old Bill's home better. You like the Freddie Jackson's or? The white with the red bull on it. Oh, okay. I just like the throwbacks. Yeah.

You know, like I just didn't like when they went kind of that Seattle color for a while there. It was really gross. Agreed. So I love their uniformist fan base. I'll go 10. Oh, I actually, in under the kind of the spirit of this is spinal tap. Yeah. This one goes to 11.

I gave fans 11 out of 10. Wow. You just cucked me. Yep. With the mafia. 11 out of 10. Cuck alert. I'm going to go 10.

Yeah. I can't beat 11. but here's the interesting thing. I took a photo of a Bill's Mafia. I went to Northern Virginia for work, pulled up to a car with Virginia, Virginia Tech said Bill's Mafia and texted it to you immediately. Yeah, because they're everywhere. They're everywhere.

Yeah. You know, and we'll get to them in a bit in just a second is the Steel City Mafia. Dueling Mafias on the surface, I think the Bill's Mafia might win in a war, but the Steel City Mafia is kind of serious. Like Bill's Mafia, they're doing a rebranding thing. thing right now. Okay, I don't know if you notice this. I saw Jeremy Schap interviewing some Bill's Mafia people. These guys donate a bunch of money now. Oh. They gave a bunch of money to Andy Dolm a couple years ago. Yeah, and wrote for, yeah, they donate to like whoever,

and they also just donate anyways. Yeah. So they're trying to revamp their image from, you know, the group that threw a dildo on the field. But you can be charitable and throw a dildo on the field. Do you remember that dildo? Yes. My favorite, I could sit and watch Instagram reels of people breaking tables in the bill's parking lot all night long. It's totally addictive. It is. And the people that fail to break the table. I want to know if it hurts.

It has to hurt. I think it hurts when the table doesn't break. I think we underrate. I think we're so numb to the fact that we've seen so many of these buffaloans fall 12 feet down on their backs off an RV through a table. I think we've underrated. It's like inflation of the pain that that probably you feel every time that happens. It's so cold up there.

They're so drunk. Well, that drunk helps. I think the next day they're like... They're crushed. They're like, I think I cracked a rib. Yeah. Do you think they plan it the night before? Do you think they're like, hey, tomorrow you're the one going to be drawn to a table.

I bet you there are stores as you get close to the stadium that specialize in like the WWE table. Yeah. There's got to be a market for that. The league banquet tables. That's all it is. Yeah. There's got to be a market for that. It's totally a market for that.

They probably have the store right there. Bail Bonds. Tattoes. Pond shop. And tables. And just like that, my 11 out of 10 disappears for that. Well, here's the deal.

They're trying to rebrand themselves from all that stuff. Like, they really did a sit down and I really do think they do a lot of great stuff. And every Bill's fan I meet, I love them out of sympathy right off the bat and commitment and respect and principle. I mean, Canada was almost going to take them at one point.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, like, batteries at the bus, beers at the bus. I don't mind that I'm inside a bus. I'm entertained by it. It's like going through the car wash. Like when we used to go in,

there you know you you ride through and the windows caked and suds and it feels like going through the car wash but it's cooler because it's like real people putting on the car wash yeah and it's not my car yeah and i'm safe it's all good now here's the thing about the bills the bills fans bills fans are a horny bunch okay bills fans are pretty horny and it makes sense because it's cold up there they say in the winter that's when people make babies it's always winter that's up there, like high of 60 up there in northern territories in the summer. There's been a video of fans railing each other in parking lots, okay? Not each other, but railing others. Yeah. There's been a video of, forget the dildo I just mentioned, somebody was getting a hand job at the game,

which is a very 1994 thing. Yeah. I didn't know people were still giving hand jobs. But to give a hand job in a stadium. The bill's fans are with shrinkage in the cold that's even better. Yes. A handy. Through the jeans. Who wants that? If this is supposed to affect my score of 11 out of 10, it's having the opposite effect.

If I'm a 32 year old man or whatever and I'm at the game and it's 37 degrees out and somebody with their cold hand reaches. Like, no thank you. Not every gift is a gift. Yeah, hand jobs. They're horny, man. These Bills fans, they're horny. Watchability 9.

Josh Allen, Diggs, Edmonds. For sure. I've never had so much fun as watching Josh Allen. Yep. I mean, players who deserve a ring. 7.5 here. Some hidden ring needers on this team. The city drives it up two and a half points.

So I gave him a high rating for that reason too. Yeah. Because players who deserve ring, I'm like, fans deserve a ring. Yes, they are the most important player on that team. Yeah. Ty and Seki, he's 35. I play with him in St. Louis, the hardest hands in the history of football.

If Ty and Seki, who you probably haven't heard of, unless you're a Bill's fan, good dude, shot the tie. We used to go one-on-one pass rush. If you miss with your hands and he hit you, it would bruise you. He had the hardest hands in the history of football. He's been around the league, small school, love to see him get a ring. Lee Smith, you might not know him? No.

Huge tight end. for him on the field next time. He's always laughing and joking after a play with somebody. He's a good mood guy. He's just like he does it. He'll try to drive you over a pile and then you want to get mad at him and he's smiling when you get up. You know what I mean? Like he's a fun guy. You know, he's a fun, hard hitting dude, 33, 285 pound tight end. They're like dinosaurs. I want to see one more blocking tight end get a ring. Happiest tight end on the planet. Mario Addison, underrated player, long time. Carolina Panther 33.

Jerry Hughes has been there since his entire career. I'd love to see him get a ring. And Jim Kelly, right? We'll talk about that in a bit. Do they give any of the players from the 90s a ring? It's rhetorical for me because I say no, but... I say, I mean, that's hard to do. And would a player from the 90s want it?

They wouldn't. No, I don't think they would. They wouldn't. I almost feel weird getting my New England ring, even though I played like 600 plays. It's just when you're on a team, and you're not like one of the main dudes, it feels weird enough sometimes

like bragging about having a ring because it's such a team honor. Yeah. Like you might as well give it to Jim Kelly. Like if I was on the bills right now and I was 35 and I was playing 15 snaps a game, not that I think I would earn more if I was up there, but if I was playing 15 snaps a game,

10 snaps a game, Jim Kelly deserves that ring as much as me, I guess. I don't know. It's a good point. I don't know. They wouldn't take it though. They wouldn't. John Doran boss is the only guy that I ever liked that move on.

He was the snapper in Philly. heart condition the year of the Super Bowl fixture in Philly for so many years had to get released couldn't play football anymore because of this heart condition they found. I actually saved his life getting this scan and they gave him a ring.

I'm good with that. Yeah, I'm totally good with that. Also a tremendous magician. No way. He's on Ellen. Let's check him out. That's cool. Yeah, I like I can't wait till you see who John Doran boss is. You're welcome. Staff, give him an eight. I like McDermott. serious guy but not a hardo tough thing to pull off yeah for football coaches somehow he walks that line um william mary guy also coolest new england coach that i met there probably if it's not a tie it's brian dable who is about to be a head coach somewhere offensive coordinator

for the bills the fucking man dude the fucking man they also have rob boris who i was in st louis with. And do you remember Ken Dorsey? Yes. He's a Miami quarterback. Yeah. He's on the staff there. Wow. Cool. Can't not mention Leslie Frazier. X factor give him eight and a half. Old small stadium. Jim Kelly, we talked about him.

He's a huge X factor. If you don't like Jim Kelly, like fuck you, dude. Exactly. And losing four in a row is an advantage in likability. That's an X factor. Don't know if it's an advantage on the field when you get there. I didn't know I liked the bills as much as I did until I went through this exercise. Exactly. And you thought you liked them. Here's the thing about the bills. Like they're the common

man has not felt the bill's pain. Like they're the most down-to-earth team losing four Super Bowls in a row is, it's relatable as fuck. It's not even relatable. It's south of relatable. Yeah. So that's why I think they're and they also, they have a white rapper. Cole Beasley. Yeah. Did you know he has a rap album? I did not know this. If they win, we might get an album.

Oh my gosh. So the bill scored a 62. It's going to be tough to beat. And what can you? I have them at a 46 on my low scoring technique. 46 on your low scoring technique adjusted for your, yeah, your scale. No negatives too on the bills. No negatives.

No negatives for the bills. I'm not even going to put the dildo on the field as a negative. No. Were the handy in the state? Good clean fun. You know, just toned down the horny a little bit up there. Take a vacation. Yeah.

Hit an island. Yeah, you know, you'll probably just have sex there too. Oh, mama, I can hear you are crying. You're so scared and all alone. Steelers are three. Novelty. Two, they've been there. I give them even a lower novelty score than the Chiefs

because they've been good so long and they've had forever good. Uniforms, nine and a half classic, right? Love it. Fan base, nine, just south of the bills to me, because just as committed, but do we really know for sure lately or ever if the Steelers fans are going to sit through an 0 and 16 season?

Yeah, I give them an 8 on my score. Did I miss that? Like, have they had a 1 in 15? They've never been bad for a long span. No, they're good. They're good. And the Steel City Mafia, the grown men who really dress up in, like,

tuxitos and go to Irish pubs. for games. Like that's the, you've seen the bumper stickers? Mm-hmm. Outline of a dude dressed like a mass

character, like a gangster. I'm learning more on this pod about the Steel City Mafia and I think I'm becoming a big fan. Another thing about their fan base,

the meeting of the older fans and the younger fans. Younger fans, you know, they like TikTok. They like Juju. Even though TikTok thing's going to be

a little bit more under control now, no logos. They like, you know, T.J. Watt, Minka Fitzpatrick, the receivers they have, Chase Claypool. But they also, you have the older folks that grew up in the era where only the Steelers were on TV. And so you have fans everywhere.

They're a leading candidate for fans driving around in some odd state with flags, you know, the window flags. Yep, I work with the guy in Omaha, Nebraska, huge Steelers fan. Window flags probably on his caprice or whatever he drives. Like this is just watchability seven. Offense is awful, but T.J. Watt, defense.

Bud Dupree was probably worth half a point. It would probably be seven and a half. I love watching Bud Dupree play. Players who deserve a ring, I'm going to go zero. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, to me, what I love about Pitt is the town, is like the whole city. So it's the only city that I can think of where all the sports teams have the same colors. Mm-hmm. That's in my X Factor.

It is? Yeah, that's mine. Yeah, that's in my X-Factor. How crazy is that? That's an eight for me. Staff is an eight. Tomlin's the man. X-Factor is going to be, yeah, sports, like yellow and black everywhere. It's like if you're a blue-collar town, don't worry, Chris. Buy yourself a Penguins jersey. Yeah, yeah. That plays at the Steelers game. You're damn right.

You buy, you buy a penguin's jersey. You buy a Steelers hat. Or just get a yellow flannel. But I love it. It's like, rest assured, buy your yellow and black, whatever. It plays no matter what stadium you're at. I'll give you one. It's so blue collar friendly.

I'll give you one more. Sticks at the stadium, Renegade. They play it at the stadium. I think it's terrific. Although Dave Damashek thinks they should change it to Iron Man because the other one's more played out and Iron Man's more fitting. Dave's a huge Steelers fan. I would defer to him, but I love sticks.

So no negatives for me that I can think of off the top of my head. Nope. I don't have any negatives. I give them a plus. 43.5 for the Steelers. So they're hanging in there. And how about for you? 30.

Adjusted. He gives it to Henry. For he considered whether or not he wanted to play again. Titans are the four. It's going to be hard to beat the Titans. Titans, well,

the bills probably haven't beat, but for me I love the Titans. Novelty. Give me like an eight here on novelty. Because they were, it's kind of a, they were relevant. for a long time with Jeff Fisher, but you know, the 79 jokes, you know, like, so they were always

kind of middling and then had their, their, their stretches of dominance. Same thing, they had like a Jake Locker era into a Marriota era. They're not an old team. I mean, still, for people our age, they were at one point an expansion team. Yeah. Or not expansion. Well, they were the Houston Oilers, right? Yeah. So I think they're relatively new. Novelty eight, Unis, I'll give them a seven and a half. they should be oilers so on the unies I gave them a four

they should have just been the Tennessee Oilers because I doesn't don't care if there's no oil in Tennessee yeah trick question there is

cars everywhere but also Los Angeles Lakers yeah like where the fuck I mean there's no lakes there but like

there came from Minneapolis there's no jazz in Utah there's definitely no jazz in Utah you see all those people in the stands

there's no jazz as in that motherfucker. So, yeah, I'm not going to hold it against them so much, but they should be the Oilers. That powder blue should be represented in every league. I do like that color. It's hard for us to say as UVA people. Well, yeah.

Fan base, six and a half. Tennessee, nice place. Haven't met too many Titans fans, but I'm sure they're nice people. So I gave them a six. Watchability, eight. If their defense wasn't awful, their attention.

That's where I gave them a lot of points. It's so fun. Their offense is so fun. They might be cute. I'm a Derek Henry stiff arm away from just pure joy every game. Let me give them a nine. I mean, like I hope they make it through the playoffs a couple of games

so I get at least two or three good. Just Derek Henry nasty stiff arms. Just a forklift. Just forklift in some guy in a pandemic in front of the entire country. Imagine signing up to play football. It's like the new getting postered. Yes. But imagine everything that they've had to do to play this season,

all the physical toll, all the mental toll, the isolation, all that stuff. You survive 17 weeks. You go into the playoffs. Everybody's huddle around their TV. Your family, your high school teachers, your kids, your wife, and you get just totally emasculated by Derek Henry. It's one of the reasons I'm happy I'm not still playing football because, no, I'm not afraid to tackle them, but it could happen.

Yeah. I feel like you have to decide you want to deal with that. when you see him play. I feel like you just tackle that motherfucker low. Yeah. You tackle him low. Worse it can happen. If he's stiff arm,

you stiff arm in the back of the head, where the head goes, the body goes. I'm going straight down. What you don't wanna do is end up sideways, like you're levitating like Josh Norman. Yeah. But Josh Norman did a favor to anybody playing Derek Henry because he made it okay.

He's done three since that were just as bad almost. So watchability, I could just go for the, for the reels of him just stiff arm and people. Derek Henry, AJ Brown is just is fun to me to watch. He'll catch a slant and go for 80 at any point. And, you know, Johnny Smith, who I love watching play, Tannahill, biggest brand reboot in football.

I'm now like, why didn't I think he was a good quarterback before? Because he wasn't, because Adam Gase. Okay, fair. Okay, and then he started being good. And I think he's got the biggest brand reboot in football. He's literally like a top five quarterback in any metric. And when he, and people love him universally, like, he doesn't have that franchise quarterback

hateable thing. Tanna Hill just is so kind of different. They live off play action so much. He can really run, but he can really throw the football too. You know who else had a real big brand reboot, RG3? But the other way,

the worst RG3 got at football, people liked him more. Yeah. They love him in Baltimore. He's like just become this guy that people really like, but when he was good, people didn't like him as much.

He didn't fit the model. They said he was going to get Yeah, and then like people thought he was corny or whatever. Like he's cool as shit. He's like the OG vet now. Like that big truss wore off on him. Tanahill, the better he's gotten, obviously, everybody likes some more. RG3, Tanyhill.

Two ships passing the night going the same place. Yeah. Brand reboot. Okay. So players deserve a ring. I'll give you Darren Bates, six and a half. I'll give him that nine for watchability again. Darren Bates parade MVP.

He's been on the show for under program. And Roger Saffold, who you remember. in St. Louis. Staff, nine, Mike Rable. Should be, fuck it,

I'm going to give him a 10. Give him Mike Rable a 10. He's the only guy who could do push-ups on national TV willingly every week. He does it in pregame and not come across

like a douchebag. Okay. He's the man, dude. He's anti-establishment, anti-dress code, all that. Anti-fall-in-line,

anti-B-the-New England guy like when he left. He plays with the clock, he outsmarted Bill with the clock thing. Like, he's just a dog dude. He's a guy you wanna play for her. I would love to play for that guy. X Factor, I'm gonna go six and a half.

Yeah, I had a six on X Factor. Johnny Cash at the stadium counts for at least six and a half on your own at Nissan when they play Ring of Fire. Well, I'm thinking Nashville. Or did they play Folsom Prison? I don't remember because we lost 44 to seven and Chris Johnson had like 300 yards,

but they played a lot. Negatives? they've decided to be terrible at defense. I'll give them a minus two there. 52. 33 for me. Okay. This time Jackson went for the score.

Touchdown Ravens. Ravens are five. This is a tricky one. Novelty is a tricky one because... I struggled with the Ravens. I am struggling with the Ravens. The problem with the Ravens is there's two things, okay? They've been...

Number one, Lamar is a gift and a curse here. Yes. Because Lamar is so new. everything about him is new he's only in his second year of dominance but it feels like we've been getting hit over the head with it for 10 years Yes so like without winning

he kind of was so viral last year that people are like all right man like he is the most fun player to watch and there's nothing because he seems like an awesome kid but the novelty is kind of like all right we've heard about them last year last year was your year man and you guys blew it but but I also put him in the deserve a ring category

and I've been kind of staying away from deserved ring you know the players in the league better but at some point it's going to be like Steve Young for him, right? Where he's got this monkey on his back where it's like, you remember that classic where Steve took the monkey off his back? Yep. And they play the clips of it. I feel like Lamar is like, at some point he's so good,

people are going to be like, well, if he was really good, he'd win a Super Bowl. And that's going to be totally unfair. Here's the problem that bumps him down on novelty to seven is exactly what you're talking about. The narrative is so like it's as if he's been in league eight years. Because people are like, hurry up Lamar, like cashed in when a playoff game right like yeah they're concerning trends with them but at the same

time it's early so um novelty kind of go both ways i'm going to say seven um but also for a franchise that has one super bowl they have been such a constant fixture and they've been good so long that doesn't feel new but yet it's a totally different football team now so like you know like they've gone through multiple teams they went through the super bowl team then they went through like the Sugs in those guys for the longest time and the flacko and now it's like a totally different team right and and they're the old browns and yes I didn't know how to rectify that in my negative column I think and tell me if I've got this wrong because it's the most it's the most confusing relocation thing ever the Ravens are the Browns correct but they kind of hit the reboot and said effectively

all the records and all that stay in Cleveland and then Baltimore the Colts had left in the middle of the night in the 90s to go to indie so the Baltimore Ravens who were supposed to be the Baltimore bombers at first which would have been tight you know that B on the side of there there that could have been on the helmet too and I fucking hate the Maryland flag oh god I hate the turps yeah I hate the Terps not even I feel like yes I'm a UVA ACC person yes the Terps fled the league yeah so I still feel like any non an ACC fan can say that that flag's likely. Yeah, it sucks. So the uniforms,

and it gives a state a bad rap, because the eastern shore is really nice. Everything else gives the state of bad rap. They've got Old Bay and all that. It should be good, but the flag ruins. Uniform 6 and a half, for that reason, probably the emblem on the shoulder, and then also that the black unies are so cool, but the other ones, I'm just not a purple guy in that sense.

I like the all black Ravens uni. LSU makes purple look amazing. Ravens, not as much. And fan base I'll go five. I do not know a Ravens fan. So I'll just sit right in the middle. Yeah, I went almost like five. I mean,

almost like fives across the board with the Ravens. Watchability. Although I was. Watchability is an eight because although they can be kind of boring sometimes, Lamar's on the field. I was in the Inner Harbor when they played the Patriots on Monday night or Thursday night football and beat them. I saw a lot of fans that night,

just heckling every single page. Well, I know they're out there. Yeah. They love orange camo, I feel like. They're like a closet. orange camo fan base. You think Green Bay, they're the dark horse orange camo fan base.

And then players who deserve a ring, RG3 and Des, Lifetime Achievement type awards, pop culture, like very pop culture, heavy roster there, seven. And then Lamar would be big for black quarterbacks, man, and for people that have been pounding the pavement for like the shift and how we think about quarterbacking. And, you know, like you don't have to be, and he's been a good pocket passer. He has to work on some things outside the pocket, but he's been such a, yeah, like he's just been so polarizing because you know some people just hate to see it. And you know some people want him to succeed so bad. Everybody wants him to succeed because he's a great kid. Yep. He seems to be a great kid. I'm glad you put him in the deserver ring. He deserves

because even though he's only been in the league a little bit, I just feel like he gets a lot of pressure for being so good. And I would love for him to win a Super Bowl because that will mean he's going to have done some things to advance some of the outside the numbers passing. Maybe Des helps. He's going to have to make some big throws to win a Super Bowl. So if he wins the Super Bowl, he's going to shut everybody up. Yeah. About any debate about, you know, like we shouldn't even be debating this thing. But I feel like with the Lamar thing, he's just been such a polarizing figure for the wrong reasons. We shouldn't even be talking about this, right? Right. He should just be able to go out there and let's just analyze Lamar. But he's become this thing, you know, like where

I would love for him to win a ring for that reason. Staff, seven. I'm just giving it to you. And Harbaugh, he's a guy who's a hard ass without being a hard O. Yeah. His brother's more of a hard O. Yes. He drinks milk and shit and all that shit.

You can try to endear me with that stuff, but you're still a hard O. John is cool. Met him in an elevator was super cool. And I was like, man, he's not a hard O. I can tell. Greg Roman gave me the best compliment in my career. What do you say? That Chris Long is a rolling ball of butcher knives.

That's pretty cool. That's pretty awesome. That would hurt if it came down the hallway. Yeah. I like that. If I'm walking down the hallway. I'm still a rolling ball of butcher nose. You should get a tattoo with that.

With Greg Roman's face. Greg Roman holding a rolling ball of butcher eyes. Yeah, like a mace. Awesome. X factor. I'll go seven because they have a kicker that seems cool. And they turn the lights on and off at the stadium. They flash them.

Yeah. I think they kind of started that. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It made making nervous. Did it really? Yeah, but he's nervous about everything. and they change their surface to grass which is they're like the only outdoor stadium

that did the other thing which is I appreciate you I mean I really do I might bump them up to an X factor of an eight yeah I've got them they're kind of in that I don't know what to do with you but I like you 35 for me oh 48.5

you mean to tell me I like them more than the than the Chiefs whoa yeah that you know what hurt the Chiefs was the ring hurt him Yeah. You know, players deserve a ring. The players who deserve a ring and the novelty. Yeah, I mean, I gave them a seven here.

The players deserve a ring. So Browns, novelties of 10, right? Love Baker-Makefield commercials. He's a great actor. Love it. Imagine if he was a bad actor. The book club thing still makes me laugh.

Imagine if he was a bad actor, dude. I know. The fucking utility bills in that stadium. I think I left the curling iron on. It's like, hell yeah. It's a brilliant little commercial, isn't it? At home with Baker Mayfield. Love it.

Brilliant commercial. I think the novelty speaks for itself. You know, they're the new, they're the new saints. Like, they're actually, yeah, the saints, remember the saints were the a-a-tash bags and stuff? Yes, yes, yes. They're working themselves out of that phase.

Yeah. And the Knicks might be the new Browns, and I'm a Knicks fan, so. I know. But although the Knicks right now, are giving false hope out like candy. So it's just to bring you back in. Just to entice you.

Uniforms. I like them. I love their uniforms. It's hard to do brown. And they do brown. They make it a brown well. UPS. They are the UPS of football.

Yeah. It's hard to do brown. I like it. They do it. Eight and a half. Solid. Imagine UPS choosing brown. when they chose brown.

Yeah, I know. Because the browns didn't have a choice. No. I mean, they chose it, but you know, um, you ever think the UPS drivers drive around and they're like, my truck is so much less swagged out than DHL? Yeah. Or like fucking FedEx.

Yeah, with their different colors for air and land. We're just brown and yellow. Yeah. Yellow. Yeah. I wear a brown jumper button down with brown shorts on. I wear a brown jumper. I wear, yeah, a brown jumper.

I do want to shout out anybody who delivers the mail or packages, been working in a pandemic, been making a lot of people's Christmases. And hey, I appreciate that interference you ran around Christmas because there was a lot of snow, viral pandemic, that sort of thing.

You gave a lot of people cover on late presents. Yes. They're still coming. And it's totally socially, like socially acceptable. I actually sent some gifts knowingly late and used that surplus line as the reason for why it was late.

I hope nobody listens to the pod. But how will they know it's them? Because they got a late gift. Uniforms are eight and a half and they were bad. They switched back to throwbacks. Thanks for doing that guys. A lot of teams take your advice. Fan base, 10.

They got a dog pound. Yep, I get my nine in my low scoring. They got a dog pound. They're loyal. It's one of the coolest places to play. So I thought about this. When I saw you play, it was like your rookie year,

I drove to Cleveland. Like I passed packed people, hordes of people walking like miles to the stadium. They're not a group, they're a horde. They're actually a pack. You passed a pack of people. Yes. A pack of dogs. Yeah. And it was all

because they didn't want to pay the $10 to park. Which I thought was just epic. It's like, no. No, well, Browns fans are frugal. I was like, this must be a special parking lot. I can't park here. It's right next to the stadium. The guy's like, no, it's 10 bucks. Hordes of people that are like, nah, forget it. We'll drink in the city and we'll walk. They're awesome. They're awesome. I would have paid the $10. I'm not cut out to be a Browns fan.

No, I paid the 10. Although I did wear a dog mask. They wear droopy dog masks. Yeah. Like those scary like horror film like bloodhounds. Watchability six and a half. Miles Garrett, Chubb. I don't really enjoy watching them a lot.

Players who deserve a ring two and a half because they get two and a half just for being on the Browns. That's awesome. Also, is that ring worth more than any ring in pro sports that Cleveland Brown's first Super Bowl ring? Ooh, good point. Think about it Yeah, that's huge

What's worth more The Cubs World Series has happened Yeah, true The Red Sox happened Yeah, curse the Bambino Don't tell me about the NHL They don't get rings I don't think or they do

But it's not as big a thing There's no bigger ring in pro sports Than the Browns ring Very good take, I like that Yeah, full of them Uh Staff 9 Kevin Stavancy's awesome

We wish him well in his battle With COVID Yep Hopefully it's not a battle hopefully you're going to be out there soon. They have a run game coordinator named Stump Mitchell, by the way. Stump's a great name.

Fuck yeah, that is. Might have a third kid just to name Stump, boy or girl. Got to talk to Meg about that. Right? And then the X factor, I'm going to go with like a nine. No, I'm going to go with an eight.

So with the X factor, it was all about the all-state commercials, the fans, the experience, just the blue-collar nature of it, right? Because some people call Cleveland the mistake by the lake and they have all these jokes. But like, they're die hard. Like the fans have, they earn the right to get it. They got to get that. They absolutely have. It's hard to give them anything but a high-should. I can't even give them a negative. But what's funny is they were just kind of me on my scores. That's what's weird about it. What's your score? 31 for them. I think that's one of the lowest I've given out so They're number two for me.

Wow. You know what it is because of the X factor? I don't like them that much. Yes, what I think. Run through the Colts. Novelty, five. Hear a lot, but they're not offensively here a lot. Like they're always around, but nobody's like,

yeah, like they were always the AFC Robin. Yeah. So I'll give them a five in novelty, which is a good score. I gave him a five. Unis, eight, just nice and clean, right? So I gave him a low number there. I was just not a big fan of the, I don't like that all white culture.

I'm a big all white guy with the uni. So I'm predisposed to simplicity, all white. They do those things. Agree to disagree. Fans also all white. Yeah, I gave a fan base a four. Six and a half. I give him six and a half.

I respect the fan base. It's a homogenous bunch there. And all I'm thinking of is when we did the podcast for, uh, that's not why I ranked you only a 6.5. We did the pod on the on the quarantine house after, the Jordan documentary. Yeah. Right?

And you drafted Karen. Yes. From the Indiana Pacers. Yep, yep. Karen. She is your prototypical. And that's, so when, now when I think of Colts fans, I think of when we were laughing about how you draft.

Carol was cute back in the day. She had like the model, like the medium perm. Yeah. 90s hair. And the sleeveless polo. She could play in this era. But that's what I think of now. She could play in this era.

This pot has affected me. She could play in this era. Yeah. Karen back in the last dance. in this era? Yeah, she could. It's like talking about players back in the day.

She could play in this era, fan base, six and a half. They're just fine. I don't want to poke the bear. Somebody said something bad about indie once. Pat McAfee had his whole wrestling gang on that person. Yeah.

Pat, I got nothing bad to say about the fans. Six and a half is a nice grade for somebody. I don't personally know a single Colts fan. Except for Al Groh. I know one. I know one. I know one.

Probably a fine individual. Very fine. individual. Hardworking dude and Dayton, Ohio. Yep. Watchability six and a half, just for the Phillip Rivers' antics. Most convinced. I love that.

I love the no-cussed trash talk. Most convicted trash talker of all time. Darius Leonard's awesome, Buckner, Justin Houston. Players to deserve a ring. Philip Rivers. Totally. Eight. Eight.

Ride his conversion van off into sunset. He also, if you remember when he signed with the Colts, he did his welcome video, like welcome to the Colts, like that they were going to put on, he did it in like a bathroom. He did it sitting. Probably because that was the only quiet place he could find in his house. Exactly, dude. Yes.

We've talked about this. Yeah. It's amazing though. It is. That's a great first foot forward. Like, no frills. I'm coming to play for the Colts. I'm just, you know.

I'm just a regular dude that likes to throw the football. Yeah. I got six kids in the house. It's loud everywhere. Yeah. I don't have a sweet backyard to go outside and record this video in. staff nine Frank Reich's an angel dude he's a great dude Brian Baker my D-line coach

Rookieer Bubba Ventron from New England who I love Mike Groh Tom Rathman Yeah football Rathman Fullback Rathman yeah X Factor I'll give him a seven Jacoby Brissette Possible possible future president of the United States Quentin Nelson Probably the last kid

The first kid that You know when you get older you realize that a lot of younger kids are, it's their time now in a lot of ways. When he pulled and hit me the first game, I was like, man, he, like, I had to hop step to, like, catch my footing. Not only that, one of the very first kids that legitimately look like a teenager in the face that could just absolutely throw me through a window. Nice. Like, you know, when you see that kid, you're like, that kid looks really young and could possibly beat me up. Yeah. That was Quentin Nelson for me. The first.

Son. Look at his face. Okay. Put that face on a 16 year old kid. That's a big man. That's awesome. Plays angry. I'll give the X Factor 7 there. Negatives, they tanked for Andrew Luck.

It's unforgivable. I'm going to give him minus point one for that. Such a big deal. 49. How about you? In my low scoring system, they have a 28. I guess I like the Colts a lot. So that's the AFC likeability index.

Friday, we're going to do the NFC. and we'll see who won. So, all right, so my list, the Rankin's 1 through 7 in the AFC. The bill is obviously number one. That's all I wanted. I wanted them to win. Well, there you go. They won for both of us, right?

I'm so happy for them. Number two Browns for me, which I don't in actuality. Regardless of what happens this year in Super Bowl, they got a win on the Greenlight Pod. Absolutely. This is where real winners are crowned. And I will say this. The Browns came in second with 54.5 Titans 52.

I like the Titans a million times better than the Browns. So it makes no sense to me. Yeah. I think what happens is when, because it's not who you root for, it's just who you, like if you, if you plug it in the formula. There are these nuggets that stick with you.

Yes. So the Browns are second, the Titans third, the Colts fourth, the Ravens fifth, the Chiefs six, and I really like the Chiefs. Yeah,

like my Colts ended up doing better than what I thought, my Ravens would do, and it was like, it was weird. And the Steelers are my Super Bowl pick, so. And they came in last.

They came in last. Let's just say the bill is won. Yeah. That's all you know. No. Yeah. Go get to jury duty. I'll make that phone call tonight. Thanks. Playoffs. You want to talk about playoffs? Yes, that's right. Football's playoffs start this weekend.

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see draftkings.com slash sportsbook for details gambling problem call 1-800 gambler or in Indiana 1-8009 with it. I got the legendary coach Jimmy Johnson here. He's like an uncle to me. I have a couple uncles that I've known since I was a kid that happened to be great football players and and Jimmy's one. Jim, miss you, man. You're down in the keys,

huh? I'm down in the keys, you know, trying to stay safe until I can get me a vaccine. Yeah, man. Well, we're all holding out hope for that.

And you've got the virtual background. He's got the virtual Zoom background of a beautiful, idyllic, picturesque beach when the irony is that he could walk outside and he'd have the same thing. Yeah, the only thing is I wouldn't have internet outside.

Come on, Jimmy. Get that shit taking care of, man. You've got to have internet on the beach. Anyways, there's a lot going on in the NFL. We've got the playoffs coming up. Is there a game you're most excited to see this weekend? Oh, yeah, I'm interested in that Cleveland, Pittsburgh on the rematch.

Yeah. Especially with some of their problems at Cleveland. But, you know, that's a big rivalry anyway. And then, you know, I always enjoy watching the Packers play because Aaron Rogers is just such a great player. I love watching I love watching him play He just does it so effortlessly

He's really He's the best He is man And it's unbelievable It's like maybe they'll drafts him A quarterback every year Keep him going He just keep him going

Hey listen if they don't give him the MVP He might win five Super Bowls Because to me he's at least my MVP I don't know for a while it was For a while I was like Josh And for a while I was Russ And these guys are magnificent This year and Pat the whole time

It's like nobody's talking about Patrick homes but it's hard to give it to anybody else right now i feel like yeah i agree and you and you mentioned josh man those bills are playing good now they're physical you know they're making plays they're playing defense they're really playing well to me the only thing that scares me at all in that matchup against the colts is if jonathan taylor gets going right you know it could be more of an interesting game that you prefer so um we'll see what happens there but you mentioned the stefansky thing The Browns, for a couple of reasons, have been very fascinating to me

from a coaching and operation standpoint to last two weeks. Starting with last week, if you're a coach week 17, and you know, and I don't know if this ever happened to you as a head coach, but you're getting ready

to possibly play a team twice since seven days. Do you in week 17, depending on what you're trying to accomplish, hold things out of the game plan, think a week ahead, can you live in that mode? You know, I think in their particular case, they had to do everything they could do to win the game. Right.

And so I don't know that they were going to hold anything back. But, you know, I think having said that they know each other so well, I think the team that takes a look at, you know, where they have been hurt the most by the opponent, you know, what have they done to take advantage of a weakness that we've got? and really identified that. I mean, it's easy for, you know, the winners to say, hey, we're fine, you know, we're just go out there and win it again. Yeah.

And so a lot of times the team that lost, you know, they actually correct their problems better than the team that won. Right. Now, yeah, I think, really, these two teams know each other so well. I don't know if there's going to be any secrets. Right. I think it's going to come down to the same old things, Chris. You know this.

Who protects the football? know who's able to run it, you know, who's able to get some explosive plays. So how about this week with the news that came down today? Because this was a shock. It's almost like the football gods really do despise the Cleveland Browns. I mean, with COVID hitting the wide receiver room, which was a whole other issue. And then, you know, nearly blowing that lead they had last week. And then this week, Kevin Stefanski, for me, for my dollars, one of the two best coaches

in the league coach of the year this year, in my opinion. So he's out. If we wake up, and this is one of your most important. and what is it today? Tuesday. Tomorrow's your Wednesday day in the NFL. I mean, what do you do? What do you do in that building?

Chris, I think that the biggest thing is this year, all of the teams, you know, in the off-season and the pre-season throughout the year, all of them have gotten accustomed to working virtually. Yeah. They have spent a tremendous amount of time on the computer and do up their game plans and doing their programs and doing their preparation virtually. And so, you know, it's almost like they're going to be in the coaching staff.

They're going to be in the meeting room together. Yeah. And so they'll be able to put together their game plans and really take care of all that business because they've been doing it all year long. Now, as far as game day, you're going to be turning over, you know, I think, you know, the head coaching duties to the special teams coach. And special teams coaches are usually. I mean, they deal with the whole team.

Right. And so it's not going to be taking anything away from your offensive coordinator or your defensive coordinator. I guess Van Pelt will actually call the plays offensively. And so I think with the special teams coach being able to manage the game with timeouts, those type of momentum swings, you know, whether or not they're going to go for it on fourth down, etc. And then on the special teams, I think he will be better equipped. then maybe an offensive or defense coordinator and it's not going to take anything away from the offense and defense. So having said all that, I think they can do all of their game planning virtually.

They'll be able to meet together virtually. And so they won't miss a lick as far as the preparation. Game day, you'll have different play caller. You'll have a different decision maker as far as the head coach. It's going to be interesting. I wonder if you were coaching. this happened to you, what would be the first thing that you would, what's the first order business game day wise or just in general that you would be telling your assistant head coach,

don't fuck this up. Don't like get this thing right. Yeah. Again, you know, so many, you know, so many people really make such a big to do about the play caller or who's calling defenses on game day. Yeah. Yeah. As you know, 99% of that is already scripted out throughout the week. They've gone through all the different scenarios, you know, 20-yard line, third down and three, you know, 20-yard line, third down and one, you know, fourth-down best calls, you know, two-point plays, enlisted them in order. You know, all these things, I mean, it's on the sheet.

Yeah. And as long as they do a good job of putting it together throughout the week, which they will do, then, you know, Van Pelt, he's just got to look at his sheet and go through the calls. Yeah. And so it's not a, it's not as much a shooting from the hip type thing is what some fans may say. Some people think, yeah. The game management stuff, the special teams coach has to be on it, when and where to use your timeouts, that sort of thing. Challenge flags.

I mean, that's a totally new thing. And I think the special teams coach, I think he's the one that's best prepared for that. Yeah. Because he deals with a lot of the time management anyway and timeouts. So the special teams coach is the guy that really should be able to manage the game. You know, I don't know their special teams coach that well, but if he's been in the league long enough, he should be fine. Absolutely. How about the speaking of timeouts, okay, Mike McCarthy made some news with the timeouts. Well, he had me up out of my seat

because I'm thinking to myself you know, that the challenge, the game management is what we're talking about, the challenge situation on Sunday. I was up out of my seat thinking about, you know, that's 10 yards or whatever it was. That's the difference between

10 yards. And it would they would have punted the ball had he challenged and they would have called it incomplete. That was a game winner or game loser. And you got to challenge that call. And I don't know who he had in the box looking at it. I don't know.

I know he was looking up the big screen trying to make a decision. So somebody dropped the ball there, not only the receiver, but all the coaching staff. And that should have been challenged. It should have been overturned. And New York would have punted the football and Dallas would have won the game. So how much of it this year? Because obviously you can't, you can't foresee the DAC thing, you know. And you can't foresee that you're not going to have an offseason or OTAs to put things in and work with your players and get to know them.

The defense, that's not Mike. The defense was abhorrent. I've never seen run fits early in the year as bad as those. How much of it is really, I mean, he's the head coach, but coming into next year with how you know things are in Dallas, what's the atmosphere going to be for him? Well, they still are a very talented team. And I still feel like that they're the most talented team in that division. Wow. But obviously the injuries hurt them, but injuries hurt every team throughout the league.

And there's a bunch of teams that were playing with third team quarterbacks. One team played a game without a quarterback. I know. I had the Broncos that week. early in the week. I got the Broncos plus six and a half or whatever it was. I was like, oh, mile high,

no brainer. They're going to play these guys tough. You should have waited, just like your dad on our picks on Fox NFL Sunday. He waits until the last minute. Yeah, I know. If you wait to see who's going to get ruled out.

Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things with Dallas, and I didn't realize that, I mean, I know they're talented, but you say there might be the most talented team in the division. It's just one of those things where the expectation is different there.

Even if it's unrealistic, even if they haven't had the success since the guy I'm looking at right here. It's like it's still the expectations there, fair or unfair. Well, they get so much publicity. You know, there's so much visibility there with their players, with their team. You know how the fan base is. And so sometimes maybe some of their players are overrated just because they do get so much publicity. But I do believe if they can get that offensive line,

you know, back healthy. Yeah. I don't know that some of them at their age going to be as good as what they were, but getting Prescott back in there and somehow straightening out that defense. And, you know, I think they really made a mistake on the defense. You know, they were playing pretty good with Rod Marenelli.

Yes. And Richard, you know, back with the secondary. They were a pretty good defensive football team. And they changed, you know, went away from the four-three, went to the three, four. They had players playing out of position. And because they didn't have the all season, some of those players were grumbling

that they didn't want to do some of the things that they were being asked to do. They felt like they weren't really utilizing their strength in what they've been doing in the past. And so looking back in hindsight, they probably should not have changed the scheme of defense. So it took them at least half the season to get to playing decent.

It was like watching preseason for half the year, and it was like one of the things off the bat, I'm so glad you said it was, what it looks like to me is a bunch of guys who are out of scheme and they're tweeners. They're not vertical, they're not reading, they're not quite playing a three, four. They're not quite playing like a Tampa 2, 9 technique deal.

Like it just was, and guys did, and when your best players are guys like DeMarcus Lawrence, why are you not leaning into that? Why are you not leaning into his skill set? Why are you not, you know, guys are standing up that aren't supposed to be standing up. I don't know. Yeah, Chris, I think on top of that, you know,

I think some of the players probably deep down resisted it. Yeah. Because you know how it is. I mean, you know, you were a great pass rushing. You love to rush the passenger. And so if somebody said, hey, we want you dropping on third down in 10. Yeah, I'm not going to have a good attitude about it. No, you're not going to be a good soldier.

You're going to be grumbling a little bit. Wait, wait a minute. I could have had a sack. You know, instead I'm out here in space trying to cover some wide receiver. Who was the guy that you had to have that kind of conversation? Did you ever have to have a conversation like that with one of your star players that he would have to concede some things in his game for the greater good?

Because the only time I've really had to do that so much, and players, we all have to, we all complain, right? We all have a problem with everything we do. But it was New England, and I knew that I was trading it for a ring. And in your situation, you were a destination to try to win. Now, free agency was different. but like did you ever have to talk to a player and convince him to do something different?

Only time, and it really didn't make any difference because we'd only won one game. My first year in Dallas, you know, we had just a bunch of rookies and, you know, rag knots, you know,

half of them. I mean, I was rotating them in and out trying to find players. Yeah. And we lost our start and running back. So I did take our fullback, Darrell Johnston,

Normally, he had been running into linebackers all year alone. He just pounded on people. I said, hey, you're going to run the football. You're going to be our starting tailback today. That's amazing. I think he gained about 60 or 70 yards against Green Bay. Moose was a running back for a day. But he actually liked that.

I'm sure he did. That's the reverse. That's like telling the guy who's been, you know, curl flat his entire career, now go rush. Like, you know, like it's the opposite. Is it the only thing, Chris, after that game, I said, okay, you had your shot. You never going to touch the ball again. It's over.

You go back to blocking. How about before we close the chapter on Mike? And again, I think incomplete is the grade because we need a whole year to see. Although I was kind of rooting for, in a weird way, them to slide in and then somehow play Green Bay. Because that would have just been the drama bowl. from you know how about um how about if you guys had review back in the day what's the biggest outcome change in your career was there one play that you you you would have thrown if you have one okay coach jimmy johnson has one red flag in his pocket

for all time where are you throwing it well it would probably be the last game that ever lost um in dallas when we played uh miami in the snow on Thanksgiving in Dallas. Because, you know, it was in the snow. You know, my special teams coach, Joe Avisano, came up to me and said, hey, why don't we take one of our big guys and put him right there in the middle and try to block a field goal? And that's when he said Leon Litt.

I'd say, well, that's a good idea. Well, Leon Lid hadn't been in any of the special teams meetings. So he had no idea of rules, et cetera, et cetera. And so, you know, if I had to change, one thing. I would not have put Leon at a moment's notice day of the game. Yeah. And the field go block. Oh, really? And so we would have won that game because we were ahead. And that was at the end of the game. But that was, you know, looking back on it, ironically, you know, that's the last game I ever lost in Dallas. We went ahead and won the rest of the season and then won all the games

to the Super Bowl. And really a crazy thing, the Dolphins did not win enough. game the rest of the year. You know what? It's pretty cool when you could say the last game I lost and then your last game was actually a win. That means you finished strong. So who do you give me your and you might have given it on the show

but as we're getting ready for this weekend, team with the biggest chance of getting upset and your most likely Super Bowl matchup. Now you get to, because you get the preseason now is the do-over. I think

The team that could get upset could be Seattle. You know, the Rams and Seattle have split the last, you know, the last two years. The Rams are very, very good on defense, playing great past defense. And, of course, with Aaron Donald, you know, you've always got an outstanding defense. I don't know if Jared Galtz going to be back in the lineup or not. but they run the ball extremely well. That would be the team that Seattle could get upset. You know, actually, Russell Wilson, he's gotten into a little bit of a bad habit, in my opinion.

He tries to extend every play to get the big play. I mean, he is so good on the deep ball, throwing deep. But, you know, he really trying, a lot of times he'll start to scramble when there's no pressure. Right. just to buy time for, you know, Metcalf or Lockett to get deep. Yeah. And try to get the big play. Yeah, well, against that ram defense, I don't know if he's going to be able to do it.

I mean, they're pretty good. So that might be the one that could be upset. Now, I think sometimes with Russ, it's interesting because I played against him a lot of years. And it was like he always tried to find that B-Gap step-up lane where he goes, three steps, you know, drop targets, eight, nine, whatever it is, climb to five and then let that left end kind of run the horn. And then he kind of hides behind the guard and finds his throwing window. It's the freeze, right.

I think sometimes he, you know, it's, I'm not saying you can't see in the pocket. I mean, he can definitely see in the pocket. He's freaking MVP candidate almost every year. Right. But I think sometimes it's, he likes to find that window. And to your point, it's the same, it's the same thing. He wants to take a shot and find the window. But it's frustrating because it was like for half the year he was in MVP form.

And then I thought he started to do too much. He started to like try to make those MVP plays instead of, you know, getting off, leaving the craps table, so to speak. Yeah. How many times do you ever see him take a seven step drop and progression, one, two, three, throw the ball? Yeah, no, it's not. It's more often than not he's trying to extend.

Yeah. And I think that's He's made a lot of great plays Don't get me wrong And he is a great player But I think against a great defense Not the week In trouble

Yeah it's not the week Absolutely How about your most likely Super Bowl matchup Who's going to be down in Tampa you think? Oh boy this is such a hard one You know It's a craft shoot

I've got to go Green Bay And you know what I'm going to throw one out I'm going to go Green Bay Buffalo There we go That's my dream Super Bowl because hey listen I mean there's two fan bases

two of the best in the league fan base wise and two of the most exciting I mean like you could make an argument that Josh Allen has been just as exciting as Mahomes this year yeah and really maybe even playing better

at this stage of the season I would definitely agree with you I mean the way the chiefs have been do you think that's a good or a bad thing when a team would you rather coach a team that's never won a close game Like the Chiefs have won by an average of like four points second half of the season. The, you know, like people are now saying, hey, they're not blowing people out.

That doesn't impress me. But then when you coach a team probably that doesn't get tested, people hold that against you too. So what's better if you have the luxury of choosing, hey, do we lose here? Do we play a close game? What does your team need to have seen before they go to the playoffs? Yeah, I just want the most talented team. There we go. Whichever one that is.

There we go. And as far as Kansas City, I think, you know, they have got such confidence that sometimes they, in fact, I mean, it was last week they ran some weird play down on the goal line. It was almost like they were toying. You know, they were just having fun. And so at times they play and they don't play with a sense of urgency. Right. That doesn't mean that they can't. You know, when they need to have it, they are talented enough to make it happen.

Yeah. But sometimes, you know, things go against you. When you play them that close, sometimes you can do everything right. And the opponent is just good enough to make a big play. And so if you play them that tight, you know, sometimes you're better off, you know, you can't take your foot off the pedal. I don't care how talented you are. Yeah.

And so, again, I haven't really answered your question. But I think that's what I see with Kansas City right now. Yeah, which is why. I don't see them taking the foot off the pedals. No, and that's what impressed me out Buffalo late in the year. Like, they didn't just, first it was San Francisco. Oh, there's going to be a tight game. Kick the doors off San Francisco, right?

Then it was New England. They're New England. Remember early this year? If Cam doesn't fumble, they beat them in the rain. They're still New England. Okay, they kicked the doors off New England. Like, you know, how many times is New England a touchdown dog in division and history? like in the Bill Belichick era.

It's totally new. And then last week in a game that it would have been easy for those players, and you know this because you probably had buys and all types of things with regularity. They got those guys that go out there and play hard in a game that they didn't have to win. And they kicked the shit out of Miami too. So I think handling your business when you're supposed to

is impressive to me. Well, you look at this. You look at the mental state right now of Kansas City. Yeah. And of Buffalo. Yeah. the middle state for buffalo is right now it's hey we want Kansas City yeah we can beat that bunch whereas Kansas City's mental state might be geez that bunch up in Buffalo is pretty good yeah

yeah and so there's a little seat of doubt there yeah and and so it'll be interesting and of course you never can tell uh one of them could get bumped out the right off the bat you exactly I mean the culture or no uh or no walk in the park and that's why I thought that the boredom conversation that we were just having, I think, like Kansas City needed that buy as much as anybody because of the likelihood in four games of them having an off day, like last year, off day against Deshawn Watson and Houston.

They barely survive. They get down 10 points to Tennessee. You can't win that way year after year. So that's all. How about the whole tanking thing, the whole Eagles thing? I'm going to be kind to people and talk about it one more time because I'm so over the whole conversation.

But with you as a coach, in your years of coaching, did you think tanking existed in the league? Like, have you seen tanking at a macro level? No, really, you know, not tanking. But a team that was out of it, I can see, you know, the head coach and the general manager and the owner and sitting down, okay, say, hey, this week, we want to see this player.

you want to see this player. There's no need playing Fletcher Cox. There's no need playing this guy. There's no need playing this guy. And so having it all scripted out as far as who you want to see, if you want to see young players, et cetera, et cetera. Now, the after effect of that is, you know, that you get a better draft pick, you know, if you don't win the game.

But that may not be, number one, that's not the thing. That's not the thing that you go into it thinking. And without question, that's not the thing that you address afterwards. Well, maybe the GM goes in thinking it. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'll give you a perfect example. I had players like, for instance, Jack Dale Rio. I didn't realize it.

Had I realized it, I wouldn't have done it. You know, we were going to have to, you know, give a draft pick for, you know, Tony Casillas to Atlanta. If he got so much playtime. Well, I said him, you know, that last game. I said, you're not going to play in this last game because I didn't want to give Atlanta a number two draft pick. Right.

Instead, I gave him a number three draft pick because his playtime was down. Right. Well, I also said Jack Del Rio. Well, and Jack got all upset at me and I didn't realize because, you know, I just pulled a bunch of guys out. And I was protecting Jack, you know, for the playoffs. Yeah. And as it turned out, he lost a bunch of money and incentives because it was on playtime.

But I didn't even know the incentive. So you guys don't always know the incentive thing because it's so funny to me because I always say I tell a story about Bill Belichick who, me and him had a really good relationship, but I wasn't one of the stars on the team or anything like that. And my last game, there was no reason they easily could have pulled me. I had a nice bonus and they played me like the whole game and I wanted to go thank Bill. but I don't even know, well, up there Bill does all, like, you know. You guys don't know that all the time, the incentives. I probably knew it when we did the contract, you know, years before. But, you know, I don't keep account of, you know, what the playtime percentage is on every player and et cetera, et cetera.

You know, I just pulled out Jack, you know, just to protect him. Yeah. But, oh, he was pissed. Yeah. I cost him some money. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, because he was happy.

Yeah, he didn't want to play anyway. But now, Atlanta was all upset because if he had to play, I had to give him a second round draft pick rather than a third round pick. Before I let you go, I want to try one take on you, and you tell me if I'm bat shit crazy, okay? It's a Larry Allen conversation, okay? And how many years did you coach Larry Allen? Oh, no, Larry was after me.

So he was after you. Yeah. But you're familiar with how fast Troy Aikman was and what he ran the 40 in. And you probably know what Larry Allen ran the 40 in and all that. You remember the Saints play where he runs down the linebacker on the left side line. Oh, yeah. I remember right.

With the angle. Okay. I had a hot take last week because I was looking at the video game. I don't think the plays as impressive as people are making it out to be right now. That's not to say Larry Allen's not the baddest man on the planet or could beat me in a foot race at this age. He was a bad man. He's a bad man, but he had the angle. and linebackers back then were not as fast as they are now

and Troy was running step for step with him behind him. Okay. So how fast did Troy Aikman really run the 40 to settle this? At the start of his career or at the end of his career? Well, whenever he was running behind Larry Allen. I think he was toward the end of the career. Yeah. He probably wasn't running real fast.

This is saying, dude. Like, listen, Larry Allen. it is incredibly fast for his build and everything. Oh, yeah. There's guys now in this league. You know, Larry Allen was 3.30, right? Do you think that's what he weighed about?

Yeah, I like that. That was a big, big man in the 90s, right? Was that still a big, big man? Please, humongous. So, like, now 330 is like, it's all over the field. Yep. You know what I mean?

So that was my, I'm glad to know. Okay, so Troy ran, what, north of 5 flat or sub 5 flat at the end of his career? He's going to get all upset at me, Chris. You're going to get Troy Madden. If I want to make him happy, I'd say he ran 4-9. No, coming out, he probably ran 4-7. That's pretty damn good.

Yeah. I mean, coming out, that's coming out of college. I know. I'm trying to compliment our guy before we tear him down and say at the end of his career was maybe a 4-9-5-1. After Philadelphia's sacked and 11 times, his rookie year, he probably ran about a five-fine. That's so good. Well, you heard it.

You heard it here, sort of, that I'm not crazy. I think that, you know, you had some fun players. I know this. Yeah. I know Don Beebe can outrun Leon Lett. I know that, too. I know that too. We know that well.

We know that well. Oh, man. Jimmy, appreciate you, man. And enjoy the beach. We can't wait to see you back on set. and I can't wait to hang out and get a beer sometime soon. I'm ready for it, Chris. I enjoyed it.