Green Light with Chris Long - John Starks! Brian Flores! NBA Playoffs, 90's Basketball & Headbutting Reggie. 2021 Dolphins, Tua Year Two.

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

(00:55) - Welcome, Layup Line, Housekeeping and Nicknames. (18:15) - Basketball Fan and Games Reaction. (35:05) - John Starks on Julius Randle and The Knicks, Playing in the 90s, Ewing and Oakley and The Last Dance. (1:00:55) - United Airlines, Dick Vitale and Airplane Manners. (1:16:21) - Brian Flores on Starting with the Patriots, Tua and Ryan Fitzpatrick and the 2021 Dolphins. Green Light Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/user/951jyryv2nu6l4iqz9p81him9?si=17c560d10ff04a9b Spotify Layup Line: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1olmCMKGMEyWwOKaT1Aah3?si=675d445ddb824c42 Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Flu game or twisted testicle game. Which one's tough? Testicle. Thank you. Thank you. How hard was that, dude? Man. Man.

That was hard. What happened to you? I'm not going to ask you how you twisted your testicle. But how hard? Like, what the hell? You took five days off and you're back out there playing a playoff game for the jazz. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I would thank God that he gave us two. in a way a really big new york pod i mean we've got the john starks and we've got my old ball coach brian flores biflow brooklyn poly prep formerly of the patriots now the head coach of the miami dolphins one of my favorite coaches in the league charleston south carolina hello the home of uh danny mcbride and our friend ian shout out to ian Also, Charleston, South Carolina, home of Chris Long's Bachelor Party many moons ago.

That's right. I had a conflict. Thank you for the invitation. Yeah, I did invite you. I had a conflict. How was that? What was your conflict? I don't recall, actually.

It must not been that important. Do we remember the time of year? It was summer. I think it was, I think it was MLS related, actually, now that I recall. It's a fine city. It's a fine southern city. Was it a scaled back of face? rip roaring. It was rip roaring,

but it was, the good time was had in a setting not unlike one that Ashley fucking Schaefer would enjoy to bring it full circle. You know, I had my bachelor party at Mickey Tavern. That was the weakest bachelor party of all time. I'm sorry.

I mean, it was really fun, but we could have gone somewhere and you just basically threw in the towel. A Virginia historic landmark that was established in 1784 by Scott. Gottsman William Mickey. So we did a colonial bachelor party for you. I didn't throw in the towel.

It was a surprise. We had men's lunch every Friday. Hold on a second. People were trying to get you to take a trip to do a bachelor party, which is your responsibility as a dude who waited a while to get married. Like if you get married in your 30s, which is normal these days, it's your responsibility to bring your friends along. Give us something out of this thing.

Well, that was like a best man responsibility. No, no, no, no, no. were resistant to the possibility of leaving town. No, totally. Let's be real, I want to pin you down on this. That sounds completely accurate. I don't want to take a bachelor party. Yeah.

Oh, I want to stay here. That sounds like your wife's impression of me. I know. I didn't have a best man, but you were the person who, you signed your name to the marriage certificate, I think. You were the witness. I did. I saw it.

Do you think about that? Time to time? Not from time to time. I don't. Because I know you're married. I don't need to see. the certificate. True love is, it's easy to see. But the bachelor party, man, colonially themed bachelor party, the only of its kind in Virginia. Because generally,

if you don't have the funds or the time to go somewhere, you don't go somewhere like Mitchie Tavern. We wore colonial outfits. We bought them upstairs at Mitchie Tavern and ate dinner in, how would you describe that shit we wore? Oh, and your garb? Yeah, in the garb. Yeah, it's just colonial garb. With the wigs and the whole nine yards. We went in there and we didn't realize the funniest thing about this bachelor party. We've talked about this on the pod before is we had this whole plan that we were going to surprise you in like colonial outfits that we bought upstairs, the whole nine yards.

But when we walked out of the gift shop at Mitchie Tavern, we realized there was a whole Quicks bus full of teenage kids. And there's not a lot of people I'd less rather walk by than a bus full of kids. when I'm dressed like a fucking moron and they let you know. They really do. I mean, we were getting made fun of. Like, kids were saying mean things to me

as I walked by in my white wig with the Thomas Jefferson Braids. Now located near Monticello, it has retained the atmosphere of an 18th century in pub and a set of stores, the general store, tavern shop, artisan shop,

and the metalsmith shop. This was a surprise and you guys pulled it off brilliantly. The only misfire was that you didn't get me an outfit. Like I'm the only one in Patagonia while you guys are looking like colonial people. Let me the second miscalculation we made was that there are actually people at this thing with regularity. Like so there were a lot of normal people there that were looking at us like we were idiots. Like we were some sort of reenactment type people. And then we went upstairs afterwards to have a glass of ale or whatever the fuck they

drink back then and this couple was in from out of town oh yeah and we were talking to them and uh i said something the effect of don't worry we're not like fucking civil war reenactors or some weirdos and they were like they happened to be civil war reenactors it was amazing i mean you did a u-turn as fast as i've ever seen someone do a how did i pull that off oh wow i'm really into those those are like amazing i actually like those reenactments i there's just other reenactments i don't like so much oh Where's your next one? Oh yeah. Can you want to come?

Do you want to Stafford? Wow. Do you guys leave tickets at Will Call for like these reenactments? Do you like put us on a list or something? Are you participating in Antietam by any chance? Do you have any video of like a highlight tape? You must have a business card as they did. They didn't have business cards back in the day.

So yeah, those were lovely people. So I'm sorry if you're friends of the program. There's a very classic video of me walking out of Mitchie Tavern and we'll put it in a social. my favorite clip of all time. Just, I look, it reminds me of a bad Santa scene. Oh, the most bad Santa vibe of all time. You are blowing smoke walking through the parking lot in a baggy 1773 ensemble.

Yes. With a wig and I'm walking to my car and I'm hitting my vapid. And I don't know. And as you said, there are kids on field trips, lined up and buses along the way. Well, they just made fun of me. so they could, you know, like listen. So there's Charleston for you. Layup line.

You know what brings, rats, mice, snakes about their home, chonky by, spliced with rock and roll and blue with a bleed, pipe, papal pie. Now, follow my brother. Did you recognize the voice? No, I thought the man said Rondo. Apparently he said mom, though. Well, I mean, it was, that was, that was Big Boy, one half of the iconic duo that is. Big Boy, is Big Boy, is Big Boy?

first name or the second name, typically. I mean, I don't really do it at any order. Big boy and Chris Cross. Yeah, Andre 3000. Oh, really? Yeah, you know that. No, I know that Andre 3000 is outcast, outcast with a K.

Yeah. I didn't know it was Andre 3000 and Big Boy. Oh, you didn't know it was a duo. Yeah, no. It was the best duo of all time. I think Big Boys with an eye as well. So anyways, the song we, yeah, it is. It is.

The song we heard is called Chonky Fire. That'll get your blood pump in. And it is 3000's birthday, our today, your yesterday, as you listen. So just today, I was like, hey, I don't have anything for layup line. Let's look at see if there's any birthdays. Two of my favorite rappers of all time. My number one and somewhere in the top 15 to 20, top five that are alive, Jada kiss. I almost played synthesizer, for those of you who are familiar with Outcast's work,

probably one of the best 3,000 verses, but I wanted you to get hype. So Chunky Fire did it for me. me. PSA, Outcasts, as I remind you guys often, has three albums with one skip, three albums in a row over like a, I don't know, five, six year span with one skip. And that skip is Mommacita. Hey, listen, Andre 3000, haven't done media in eons, and I don't know why you'd ever come on our podcast, but I heard about some people winning the lotto this week. I figured we'd just throw it out there. Todd Harriman's is a bopper. Todd Harriman's swing guard tackle, great play, player, Philly guy, looks like 6'6 Jesus, you know, straight out of Big Lobosky.

I saw him in a supermarket one time and I didn't even recognize him. I saw him at a Whole Foods in Philly. It was the last time I saw him and I legitimately didn't recognize him. He looks so much like Jesus. And one more thing. In addition to shouting out Todd Harriman's new bopper that I didn't even know was listening to the show. My boy, Todd father, also Hunter Pence sent us some gear him and his wife uh lexie uh sent us some gear from where read from their coffee company pineapple labs they gave us a couple cold brews some cups and uh some stickers we got to put up around here now listen i don't drink a lot of coffee um but i'm pretty damn excited to see what they got going on he's just such a nice guy and i know his wife lexie is probably awesome too he's just a good person

so thank you for sending out. Like we had him on the show. He sent us a gift. What the hell is going on here? We're supposed to send you a gift. Now we have to send Hunter Pence a gift. Cowboy Reed. Do you have the audio?

This is from Tuesday's edition of the Greenlight podcast. There is a legitimate argument to be made that Aaron Rogers is the second best quarterback of all time. I don't think you can usurp a nickname. If there's a better Joe who plays in New York City, Joe Namath is always going to be Broadway Joe. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Why do you keep referring to Devante Smith as Slim Reaper?

I don't. You don't? No, I don't. Oh, you haven't? When Joe Judge... If we ran the tape back, you didn't even entertain it? Nah, when Joe Judge wins seven Super Bowls, he doesn't become Broadway Joe. That's always going to be Nameth. Oh, that's interesting. So A-Rod is always Rodriguez. Aaron Rogers, I think, is just, he's Rogers from the... You're telling me there's no repeat nicknames in sports. I'm saying there shouldn't be And this is not one of them

And I agree with you Aaron Rogers is a rod I don't mean to ambush you But I want to bring it to your front door You still stand by that That you can't usurp a nickname Well Yes

Now here we got Hit me I found an article A Bleacher Report article from 2014 Because you know Bleacher Report has written an article About every fucking thing In the history of sports

And they all stay up for like two decades. I was reading a John Stark's article from 1994 on ESPN.com's landing page or something. Like it was incredible how old the graphics were. It looked like the worst website of all time. Like your report, you got to click through 62 times. Yes, you do. Oh my goodness.

And back in the day, if you find an old late 90s ESPN article, literally if you had a dog grooming business right now, people wouldn't bring their dogs on account of how shitty the website was. It's incredible how far we've come. I called a redacted dealership the other day. Yeah. They said, did you go to the website? I said, I did. They said, well, we're not actually selling Viagra.

We just haven't updated the website. Stop. Yeah. No. She was like, nobody brings it up. I think it's funny. Goes to a Viagra website. I was like, yeah, you know, it'd be nice if you posted your inventory.

Be a lot better buying experience. You got any F350s? No, but I got some boner pills you can just set on the dash. Nobody brings it up. It's like, yeah, because it's weird, ma'am. She really said that to you? Yes. Is that assault?

No, I don't think so. The nickname thing. Okay, Bleacher Report 2014. I want to float a couple to you. The freak, Javan Curse, and then Tim Linsicum, which I'm like lukewarm on, but, you know, Iceman, this is a big one. George Gervyn.

George Gervyn is the Iceman. Okay, do you know who the second Iceman is? Iceman, no. You wouldn't. It's a fighting guy. Ladell. Chuck Liddell is one of the greatest fighters of all time and people called him the ice man for like two decades. Didn't they read? Taylor, didn't they?

Chuck Lidale. Yes, their fucking heads are nodding back there. You're going to tell Chuck Lidale to get the fuck out of here? Show me a picture of Chuck Lidale. I won't know who Chuck Liddle is. Just be careful. Yeah, you think you could beat him up? No, I don't. But I think he's... You're going to take his nickname from? Look, he's goatee's uneven. He's not, he's not George Gervin. I can tell you that much. One ice man. He's a bad motherfucker.

He's 51. Geez. But again, in sports here, I'm, you know, I'm proving that there is a precedent for dual nickname ship. Now, there's one problem here because I'm doing a rod.

There is a problem. There's already an A-Rod dual thing going on with Alex Rodriguez and Andy Rodic. Okay. I think there's a bigger problem that you might be, might be missing. What is it? There are, there are nicknames.

There are good nicknames. Then there are just the shortening of names. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The shortening of names, which is lazy, I think is very problematic. And people don't do, and, you know, like for instance, Lawrence Taylor. L.T. Yeah. What do you call it, Hedian Tomlinson?

LDT. No, you don't. Yes, I do. No, okay, well, that's the doctor in Canada. Lauren Duvernay Tardeefe. Yeah, okay, good. You're really good with names. Not so good with nicknames because there's two LTs. There's two sugars, Sugar Ray Leonard and Sugar Shane Mosley.

They're boxers. They're fighters. But you have to, you say their full name. You don't just say sugar. What's Shaq's nickname? Diesel, Shaq Diesel. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're doing the thing with the nicknames because John Riggins is the first diesel. Shaq is John Riggins. Shaq is just Shaq. Jack. John Riggins is diesel. John Riggins is not diesel. By the way, 5,071 votes on a little poll. Who is A-Rod?

84% of the people say, A-Rod is Al-Rig. People elected Donald Trump. I don't do polls. I don't do, well, did more people think, A or B because you can't trust people. I'm glad to be in the minority. That means I'm right. Most people suck.

That's why the most popular music sucks. Think about it. My take is, it's strong. Strong like bull. My take is strong like bull. No, do you see what I'm saying with the shortening of the name?

Yeah, sure. And then you pulled a little LDT out of your butt hole there. I really did do that because of LT. But again, that's an initial thing. That's different than say there's not another sweetness. I want to get to

we'll let the people decide. Okay. Hey, I think the people I think that 18% might turn into about 26 you run this poll again. 16.5%. Whatever it was. I rounded up. Nah. I think I made a good argument impromptu argument.

Oh, yeah. Shout out Lori at Moxie. Got my first real haircut in 24 years. Yeah, you look serviceable. I had no idea you could walk out looking like you look. I normally had to wait 10 to 14 days for the hair to grow back to look like I looked.

So you were getting a bad haircut for many decades. I was my... You just never tried anything new. Right. You never try anything new, which is a big thing you got to work on. Look at all the things that are happening to you as you try new things.

I think you're right. Thank you for saying that. Looking serviceable. Being an award-winning podcast, we haven't won any awards, but you're number one in my book as far as co-hosts are concerned. Thanks.

and you won in my book. So I will always, no matter how this goes, I'll always have the George Jefferson hair going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So it gets thick on sides and back. Yeah, yeah. And Lori breaks out this, this, these, these choppy scissors. Oh, you go to Moxie too, huh?

Yeah. Shout out to Dana. Nice. She did my mullet the other couple weeks ago. And my waterfall is coming in nice. Bro, sensory overload at Moxie. because I went to a guy's basement. I went to a guy's basement.

A lot of chairs. A lot of, I love getting my hair shampooed. There's no better feeling than getting your hair shampooed. Is there in the world? I grip the things. I grip the chair as tightly as possible. I don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy being touched.

Really? Generally. Yeah. Two most addictive things in the world. Cocaine and so I hear and getting your hair shampooed. I will call. I'm going to start calling just go in every day to get my hair shampooed. My wife loves that as well.

Oh, it's great feeling because I don't, don't do it a lot. Well, Lori was great. All the extra excess bulk in the sides and the back is gone. If anybody at Moxie here's this, they're gonna be like when that guy comes in, just note to self, don't shampoo his hair. The comb over is back.

I'm back. Still a little too deep, so I'm wearing the hat, but it's back. Feeling good. How about the hair line on Cowboy Reed, huh? People at home need to know. He's an asshole. No offense.

Things is incredible. You know who had the most incredible hairline? It was bordering on like, like being a disability. Nate Gary had the best worst hairline of all time. His hair line so low that it's like infringing on his eyebrows. There are those folks. Josh Hall is a guy.

I think they're both from like South Dakota. I mean, I feel like everybody in South Dakota has like two inches between their eyebrows and their tight buzz cut hairline that goes like halfway down their foreheads. Reed's a great man of honor and integrity. I didn't mean what I said is his hair line is just imbable. Yeah, it's something to behold.

Basketball. last night. Bad night for fans. Yeah. A year away, I guess you didn't remember how to act. Yeah, dude. I didn't realize that not being an asshole was a repetition thing. Yeah.

I mean, okay, the first thing is the Westbrook thing with the popcorn. And anybody who's listening to this podcast from Philly, if you want to do the like, oh, it's not a big deal. It's just popcorn thing. You're being a basic-ass fan. That stuff's buttery. I can make you break out if it hits you wrong. It can make you break out.

But more than anything, nobody's, and you don't have to be the biggest Russell Westbrook fan in the world, like to just admit that it's fucked up. You don't pour food on people when they have no recourse. And Russell Westbrook said it. If you poured popcorn on him on the side of the road,

what do you think is going to happen? And guess how many times that's ever happened to Russell Westbrook? Zero. And that would be a very specific food to have to pour on him to set a precedent. But it's never happened to him. And second, You get the idiot who is spitting over 50 cents.

Did you see this? Yes. Somebody spit at Trey Young. I just can't believe what we saw in one night from sports fans. I don't understand why fans don't get this, man. Where is the line for you as a fan? For a short time, I was obnoxious. But it's really just trying to be, I'm trying to entertain my fellow fan.

Right. It's not anything derogatory or personal or sensitive. it's more just making jokes. It's really stand-up comedy while trying to get the attention of an athlete. I think that's fair game. I just think don't touch people. You know, like don't touch a player, you know,

or you're going to become part of the enclosure. Like if somebody touches me, then I think the rule should be that you have to then enter the enclosure. Don't throw things at players. I mean, it's pretty basic. Don't talk about people's families. You know, north of that, you're good. I think I have this, right?

How was your walk off the field at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina? Oh, that's a good poll. I got ejected. I wasn't fighting with Steve Smith. I think a lot of people thought I was fighting with Steve Smith. Me and Steve Smith are cool, as far as I know. I love Steve Smith. He's one of my favorite players growing up.

So that really sucked going to Carolina and getting ejected, you know, playing against my favorite team. You know, I watched, like, we had Sunday ticket just so I could watch the fucking the Panthers play the Falcons and the 49ers and you know like all they're growing up yeah growing up and Robert Quinn was getting fucked with and people were like taking shots at him this one he was really taken off so I came over to get to get after somebody and like just kind of get in the middle of it and I just blacked out and punched a guy and it's dumb as hell to punch the way in the face mask but sometimes you just do it and I get ejected I'm walking off the field and somebody threw a fucking a beer can at me which is just

no big deal. It was like an aluminum one. You know, it's not going to hurt me. But again, it just goes into the whole thing of like, hey you, come down here. How did you react? I ratted the guy out. Because I also know that like, I can't fight that guy. There's going to be no malice at the palace for me.

And it's okay. Like, I don't have anything to prove. Stank at the bank. Stank at the bank. That's a good one. Thanks, everybody. If there's ever a fight there first in line. I'll schedule the tweet. Put that in your drafts.

Yeah, if you're a fan, just know where the line is, man. Like, know where the line is. Get thrown out of the ball game or get pieced by somebody like MetaWorld Peace. Oh, nice. Yeah. That was the extracurricular stuff. The stuff on the court, listen, Knicks won, big relief. Going down 02 would have been a death sentence.

Less entertaining game than the first game, but a big win. And Julius Randall came alive. Five of sixteen from the floor, baby. He's heating up. Hey, listen, he's heating up. Here's the deal, man. The Knicks are using a little strategy. I'll explain why.

Our friend Dan, Big Cat, had a tweet last night during the game. This is vintage Tibbs. Sorry, Knicks fans. This is what he does. Really like him, but, you know, takes a dive in the playoffs. And it looked that way for, you know, a half last night at the garden. but what he did to exercise the demons from Chicago to combat the ghosts of Chicago

was he entered two Chicago fixtures into the starting lineup in the second half so he started the second half with Taj Gibson and Derek Rose the two guys that were part of all those Chicago underwhelming postseason performances and he lifted the Knicks I don't know if that says they lifted the Knicks I don't know if that says more about how bad the Knicks are or just the bad juju in that building

or maybe he's like canceling out the negative Chicago juju but I thought that was strategy and I also thought Julius Randall being the most improved player last Thursday he was named that as a matter of fact he was just leaving room for improvement that's what he was doing the first game and a half

because if you're the most improved player and you go out like gangbusters the first 72 minutes of the series then there's no way to improve so I thought Julius Randall pulled that off masterfully de rose 26 points Taj Gibson plus minus is tough in a one game scenario, but plus minus

of plus 23 in a nine point game is very impressive. It still just feels like a bunch of spare parts. It's going to be hard to get it done even against this middling Atlanta team. That's why this is so cool because these

teams, a little bit of cheeks, no offense, not intended. Star of the show is the Knicks are back in MSG and it's fun. Yeah, like it lifts a series that like, let's be honest. I don't expect the Knicks to win at all, but I'm going to be gambling like I do. Wow, I would advise against that.

No, I know, but I can't help it. It's like a hit of dopamine to bet on your favorite basketball team that you haven't been able to bring yourself to watch for, you know, the better part of seven years. I mean, so yeah, I'm going to be placing a few bets on the Knicks. And, you know, the we want Brooklyn chance. Yeah, I would love Brooklyn. Yeah.

that would be the Eastern Conference final. I know, and it's just, it's just, it's the ultimate, like, let's pump our brakes thing. But also,

I didn't, I don't live in New York. I don't bleed, you know, orange and blue in that way. I bleed a different orange and blue. I love the Knicks, but I didn't,

I didn't grow up, you know, a mile away from the garden. So those folks have had a lot of pent up aggression, and they're releasing it on Trey Young and the Hawks. And his hairline. I, I was thinking about you.

would, how would you, that's... Talk about my family before you talk about my hairline. Right. Yeah, dude. All right. And for a lot of guys, that's true. Yes. If you've ever been in a locker room, guys are just going at each other's hairlines.

They're going at each other's hairlines. And if you think being an athlete is easy, being a pro athlete, it's easy. And I'm actually not being funny. If you walked into your work and they started chanting about your bad hairline or your ugly body or your, you know, your, you know, you're, you're, your knock need or like i don't know it's the one workplace in america where we just we don't even give a shit about guys feelings

and that's fine but we deserve to get paid a lot of money and be rich as fuck because you can stand there in an arena full of 15,000 people making fun of your hairline your physical appearance and there's nobody online that's that's ready to cancel everybody there's nobody that he's not going to hr and all that shit like there's no hr trey young can't go to hr he just cashes his fucking checks

In my version of a locker room, S-A-T prep class at age 17, that's where I developed the complex about the hairline because I took a hat off and kinks and said, who, that's a high peak. Hoo-hoo! Kitty pals! Woo! Woo!

That's a high peak. That was just a lot of fun, man. It was a lot of fun to see them get a win, and it means the rest of the series is going to be fun. So you can't bring me to watch that Clippers' Mavs series at 1030 at night. You just can't. I accidentally was up watching the fucking Memphis, Utah series last time.

The only thing that kept me awake was that was the court, the paint. The gradient. I love that gradient. Yeah. Don't you love it? Yes. Did we already talk about this? Well, we talked about that uni.

Yeah, but the paint, somebody said the paint looks like the Tom Herman Piss chart, the hydration chart. And I think it looks beautiful. By the way, the Derek Rose resurgence is amazing. This is going to sound funny. for many years in my career and I think I talked about this on this podcast before

we've only done 300 of these motherfuckers so at some point I used to have a recurring dream that I'd go back to college and I couldn't beat tech and I was trying to put my pads on and like you can't get out there and all that sort of thing

then in the you know like after I retired I had that dream for a while about the NFL oh I dreamed about bears last night by the way dude there's a lot of bear dreaming bear sightings going on I had a bear on my mountain I always have bears on the mountain, but I saw, I'll show you my game cam footage.

It's a big old black bear and you had one at your door on your ring cam. Yeah, it means we need to focus on our self-care. Yeah, so when are we going to have that talk with our lovely wives that we've been seeing a lot of bears? I walk home the other day. My kid just got a brand new black bear toy unsolicited. I didn't show them the footage. So we need to work on self-care. It's an omen.

So just let's schedule that. When are we going to talk to our wives about that? Where I was going is that those dreams, when you're out of it, it feels so foreign to go back to that place. And I feel like Derek Rose was gone for a while. Like, and he's back in that place. It's gotta feel like a dream for him. It's gotta feel like,

I can't believe I'm here again. And he has to have believed he was gonna be here again. So I guess it's more the fans can't believe it. But to Derek Rose, there's nothing accidental about this. It takes years of retraining your body to overcome injuries like. like that, a multitude of injuries like that,

because your body never works the same. When you hurt yourself and why athletes have trouble later in their careers, I can remember when I was, I broke my tibia and I was waiting to see if I got my ACL torn. It was against Green Bay, it was a second year in a row and I was thinking about retiring right there.

And I was sitting in the MRI room with Dr. Matava who's been on this podcast, and he thought at that point, it was an ACL. So he was bracing me for that. And he said, you know, a lot of times with older athletes, and here's looking at you, Chris, But like with older athletes, like it's not one injury. It's a multitude of injuries that compound.

And he had a multitude of injuries that compounded. And to make matters worse, they were in the same area. And very important areas of the body. If you're going to jump, cut, run, be explosive. The thing that separated him was being a super athlete. I mean, he was the closest thing to like Spider-Man before, you know, Donovan Mitchell, not to share that nickname. He was the closest thing to that.

Like, to me, he was Russell Westbrook. not, I don't want to compare their games, but the same like, wow, this guy could do anything. Kind of like athletic feats that he was rolling out every night. And he's had to change his game. I thought one of the most interesting things

was hearing him talk after the game. Kenny asked him, and I wasn't sure he'd have a, two-part questions are really tough. I gave Woj a two-part question the other day. I kind of was like, fuck, good thing he's smarter than us. It's like a bad interview tactic. Kenny asked him a two-part question, which was, what's the worst part about playing?

right now like compared to when you used to play and what's the best part and he said thank you for your question coach the best part is uh that i've retrained like my game to where i have to find my shot i'm very more cognizant of like finding my shot getting in a rhythm like he's very intentional about changing the type of player he is and it looks way different than what he was but it works great it works great and everybody's got to be pretty happy for him in a basketball sense I mean, like as an athlete, he's really gone through it. And the worst part, he said there is no worst part because every day he's appreciative that he's here

and he's had to grind for years. So that was the, this has been the week of resurgence. This is, you know, you had Phil Mickelson came out of nowhere, won our boy redacted 15 bands, he's back in saddle and then Derek Rose is back. D. Rose might also have his coolest hair, beard combo. Oh yeah. Unfortunately, he has to pair it with that black uniform.

form at times. That was a terrible choice. Terrible choice, but if we keep winning, I don't care how cheeks we look. Yeah. But a terrible choice, you're right. And your tweet was right on last night. It was, and I, you took the thought right out of my head,

which is I'm watching this, and I actually thought the Hawks in all white with, you know, it actually works, but when you know you have Dominique Wilkins, you have the human highlight reel, you have the Patrick Ewing's, you know, with the arched New York Knicks that we talked about the other day.

why do anything else? Hey, our tonight, their last night, give me three winners, game threes. Oh shit. Bucks at heat. Bucks. Sons at Lakers.

Sons. Nuggets at Blazers. I think the Blazers are going to battle back. I think that's going to be a really good series and I don't know anything about it other than the fact that I love the Blazers. Thank you, sir. There was one thing that Derek Rose said last night.

Pretty fucking impressed with Derek Rose that he was able to just spit this out on national TV knowing the stakes. He said, well, I'm all about the five P's. And everybody on Studio J, which I feel like we might need to call this Studio J. I sent you that picture last night. It was the light bulb that went off of my head.

Like maybe we could just kind of steal that. I was trying to look at Ernie's face. Drugs. Yeah, got it now. But all Studio J is like, what are the five P's D. I was like, I got nervous for him. Like, God, anytime it's five P's. Peter Piper.

packed a exactly proper preparation prevents poor performance if it works for tarot rose good good for him I just I

I'm not a big like quote board guy you know the six piece no proper preparation prevents piss poor performance oh he left out piss poor performance

he left out piss he left out piss dude You're playing Madison Square Garden. It's the epicenter of piss in that city, dude. There's 15,000 people just pissing all night, screaming, fuck you, Trey Young. Breaking news, the fan with the spitting problem

has been banned from the garden for life. Oh, good. Yeah, that guy with the spitting problem, if that was indeed, he might have worse things coming to him than a ban from MSG. You know about 50 cent, right? Names Curtis? Yeah.

That's all I know. not to be trifled with. Oh, got you. I just don't know how you sit behind fucking 50 cent. I don't know why you spit on anybody if you're not ready to fight them, okay? But you didn't notice that Curtis Jackson was sitting right in front of you? Go listen to Get Richard Tide Trying. You spit over that guy's shoulder.

You should not be back in the building because you're a danger to everybody. You're just a dumb person. Ongoing novel coronavirus. In a pandemic. Like, what are we doing? It was a trial run, folks. Let's not spit at each other. Unbelievable, dude.

Some people are dumb. Hey, we're going to get John Starks on. I'm so excited to talk to him. I'm going to tell him this. He was my favorite damn player. I'm not making this up because Patrick Ewing was too chalky. And I just thought he was really tough. I mean, and like I said, I'm suburban,

off white kid and I liked the toughest guy on the Knicks and I thought he was the toughest guy in the Knicks. He was the engine. And you know, it's funny, I always wondered, I always thought of John Starks as being a shorter guy, obviously. Man, when I found out he was like 6.3, 6'4, blew my mind. Blue my mind. Internet's all over the place on his height. I've heard him say he's 6-2. 6-2 to 6-5. Yeah, maybe, maybe we'll ask him. Probably not though. Let's get John Starks on. Man, this is a lot of fun. You watched him for years, and, you know, I was telling John offline,

I said I was a soft suburban kid, so I gravitated towards my favorite player being the tough guy that didn't back out from anybody. And now I got them on my podcast. John Starks, how you doing, man? I'm good, bro. How are you doing? I'm great. So we're watching the Knicks.

It's been a while. I mean, the first playoff went in almost a decade now, which feels much longer than a decade ago. Since you played to now, what was the height of your Knicks fandom? What do you think the most fun run was to be a Knicks alumni? Yeah, it definitely was a mellow era. That was a lot of fun, especially when Jeremy Land went on that run and helped propel them into the playoffs that particular year when Coach Wilson was here.

It was just exciting. The garden was back rocking again like it was last night. So, yeah, I would have to say during that time, And you were there last night, yeah? Yes, yes, yes. It was bananas last night. I mean, from the start of the game. And I just brought back good memories to me how it was in the 90s,

where the fans was invested in every single little play that went on out there on the court. They were just on it. And it was good to see because the team needed to feel that. they got out obviously the first couple of half in the first game and the second game in the first half they got off to a little slow start but they picked it up in the second half i mean julius rando obviously he didn't play well in the first half came out uh after halftime and just like start rocking yeah no most improved player we were saying he was just he was leaving room for improvement that's his thing. And so he just, if he started too hot, that would have been a problem.

John, I won't speak from my friend here, but I've got some high peaks. I roll with a comb over. Is a man's hair line speaking of Trey Young? Is that in bounds for the fans at MSG? I know that, you know, I have to say that Nick's fans are a classy fans and they have to show a little bit more class. I was up in the suite and when they was, you know, saying what they were saying, listening, like, is they actually saying that? And I was like, wow, you know. So that was, that was uncharacteristic of mixed fans to be going at them like that, that hard.

Yeah. The verbiage that they was using too was, that's not mixed fans. But I'm not sure if it was just a pent-up emotion of first playoffs in, in the eight years, and then COVID being cooped up in the house. And they just was unleashing it. at there last night. But it was exciting, though. It was exciting. Hopefully he didn't take that too personal. I think you got incredible mental toughness if you can hear 15,000 people chanting about your hairline. And you still go out there and get buckets, dude. I think you got

incredible. I like the kid. I can't help but like the kid. And I can't help but like the, even if that's over the line, as you said it, like I can't help but like the back and forth. You missed that. Having a villain who you know about villains in MS. and you were you you'd wind them up and and uh and get after them but like it's fun to see it and i know games changed a lot since the 90s but how do you feel about the we want brooklyn chant outside after one win should they pump the should we pump the breaks and just one one game at a time or exactly you know that you know that being a former athlete man and uh you you understand that hey you know what it's just one series at a time you got a long wave before you get

Brooklyn. You know, we get past Atlanta, then we possibly would have Philadelphia, and that's another beast into itself. Oh, yeah. So you just have to take it one, but it's just the excitement. It's just, you know, to witness that and watch the fans pour out in the street, it was just a great feeling. I hope that the players felt that too. And, you know what I mean? Because that can prepare you. It's like, wow, and we continue. to do this and we continue to keep going. You can imagine what it's going to be like, but they needed to peel that. It's almost like the fan base responds better to a group of kind of like a lost and found

group than a star power group. Not to say it wouldn't be fun to land a star one of these years and maybe it gets easier up there. But, you know, Julius Randall, you know, when he's playing defense last night, I think they went 0 for 15, whoever was, you know, he was guarding. And, you know, for a fan who's just watching and not paying attention. I'm like, well, he had a pretty shitty night shooting the basketball until late. Why is he celebrating? He didn't care. He just wanted to win. You got Derek Rose who's just, you know, exhilarated to be back there. You can't help but feel like this team's gritty and Tibbs is tough and it's just it fits. Yeah, it fits New York mentality, as you know,

there's just a grinded out city and, you know, they've been grinding out wins all year long and they've been underdogs throughout the year. Even coming into the season, no one gave them a chance to even make the playoffs and to be able to work their way all the way up to a fourth seed that shows the testament of the coaching staff first and foremost of getting these guys ready to play and go out there and compete and then it shows that the testament of the players and them buying in on the system and going out there and just laying it on the line every single night like I say this this team represents New York in a big way how does it feel walking back in the garden because if and i say this like with the utmost respect because i was never the star of

my team you know i was one of the guys you you you weren't ever you know the you and guy you was not don't don't show it don't change yourself man you is a key piece don't give me that no key piece but you were a key piece too yeah and that means a lot coming from you but like yeah but we we i just feel like people gravitated to you your thought of there's so many great players that played in that building and i just you know objectively even as a nix fan i could say that I feel good saying this that you're one of the most popular guys to ever play in that building. Why do people love you so much?

I think obviously my story and what I had to do in order to get to the league, I think it represents most New Yorkers that grind that you have to do in order to become successful night in and night out and just lay it out on the line. Every single night I stepped out on the court.

I want to give 110% no matter who I was going up against. And they appreciate that. And they appreciated those teams because we had guys like that. We had blue collar guys that came in and brought their lunch pails every single day. And just went out there and played as hard as you possibly play in order to get wins. And I think Knicks fans appreciate that. You can go to for 18.

It's like I did in game seven. But they understand that I'm out there giving it my all to try to win. And if you go two for 18 and they see that you wasn't trying, then yeah, they're going to be on you. But as long as you out there trying to win, they can live with the wins and losses. It also helps that you torch the rockets in the fourth quarter of game six. And so I definitely want to ask you about that because that was, I was just watching back through the YouTube the other day. And I hadn't watched that game since I was almost a kid because there was no replay. Yeah, exactly.

But just that whole run, and for me, being nine years old then, like when I kind of fell in love with that team was in the mid-90s, like during the Bulls Dynasty, because you guys were always the heel. You guys were always a team trying to knock them off the top. But you were also the really tough team, like whether it was the brawl against the heat or whether it was like not back and down from MJ or Reggie. You know what I mean? Yeah.

So I guess what were the fights like? We know what they were like on the court, like, when everybody was in the garden, but what were they like when it was empty and it was, practice. That's when in the NFL, that's when the bad fights happen. You know it. I think Rouse and his approach with us is that he looked at us from a talent level. It's like we're not going to be the greatest offensive team. So we have to be the meanest and the toughest defensive-minded team that we could possibly be. We have to be in better shape than anybody. And that was due to his three-hour practices, which I still didn't love.

I had to go. I had to go through him. But that was just his mentality as a coach that we had to have. And but yeah, we got a lot of squabbles during practice. You can imagine it was like bloodthirsty, hyenas out there doing practice. And we went out to each other. The games was easy for us. You know what I mean? We didn't think nothing of the game. Our practices were we dreaded because we know we were going to, you know, knock each other heads off if we could. And that was just the mentality and the format that Coach Riley set for us as a team. When you guys fought, did he just let you fight? No, no.

Somebody would break it up quick. Okay, okay. You don't get that. You know you ain't going to get that many punches in there. You better get them in quick. Especially because you had guys on your team that could do real damage. And I guess I'm wondering then who, who will. was the scariest motherfucker was it mason or was it oak oak oak but you never know what oak gonna do

yeah he never know what he's gonna do you know what i mean i remember one time i was coming down the lane i'm a teammate i'm coming down in mid-air and oak filed me like he will file somebody on the opponent team i was like and i got up and i's you know i cussed oak out but i'm looking at him like six eight two two seventy two eighty i'm looking at i'm just cuss him like man if you swing on him i know where you're going to be at planted in that wild i'd be like this man listen here's the deal i was at one of those stock trading things where you go up there and they pay you to come to the stock you know in new york and you might have done this before but i just happened to be in town and one night or one day when i went by there one of the other guys there was was oakley and you know i watched nix my whole

childhood and i was afraid to go say because you're just like i don't know you know you hear these stories about oakley but somebody said he's actually really good Yeah, there you go. Actually a nice guy is what you always. If they say actually a nice guy about you, you're a bad motherfucker and you should probably get it. So who did you hate the most? Because, you know, there's plenty of people to choose from. There were a lot of heated rivalries.

Obviously, the Reggie one is well documented. Was there somebody that people don't realize as much that you just just can't stand? It was more of a team thing than individual thing. Right. You know, me and Reggie obviously had our battles over the course of our career. But it's more that we hated Indiana. You know what I mean? It's because it was just like us.

You could literally take that team and drop it in New York and take us and drop us in Indiana. And it would be the same two type of teams. I'm talking about it in the way we play. Yeah. You know, we both had big men. They had the Davis boards. We had Hope. We had Mace.

We had X at the time when he was there. We had Patrick. They had Rick Smith. They had Derek McKee. So, you know, then obviously being Reggie and then we had when Mark Jackson was on our team, then he went over to Indiana. But you could literally drop switch teams and when they played the same way we did inside out. We went through the big man first.

Unlike what they do now, everything is like spread it out. And, you know, it's a guard-oriented league or let me just say a skillful league. You know what I mean? Where everybody can shoot the three, you know, all the way from the. porn guard to the center nowadays. Is it true? And obviously, I think, you know, John's a guy who could play now.

You know, like one of the rare guys in the 90s who could play now. And like, you know, big men, when you watch old 90s basketball, it's obvious. Everybody knows the big men wouldn't find the floor as much now. But it's just wild because the origin story, you said they loved you because of your origin story. And I heard a story or we read something in a 1994 New York Times article about how you ended up sticking with the Knicks.

It had to do with an injury. Yeah. Is that true? Me trying to dunk on Patrick. And so what happened there? The last day of veteran camp, and I had a pretty good veteran camp, and I felt good about my chances of sticking it with the Knicks,

but at that time, as you know, Chris is the numbers game. Yeah. And they had, you know, Trent Tucker, Gerald Wilkins, Mark Jackson, and I forgot the other guard that they had. So that position was kind of already locked up. So I knew I had to come into that last day of practice and make their decision very hard to cut me.

And I remember I treated that like if it was a playoff game. Right. And I came in there, focused. I was hitting every shot. And then I saw an opportunity on a fast break to go up and really impress him and dunk on Patrick. At that time, he could still run and jump. And so I tried to go up and dunk on him, and he ended up catching my dunk.

I came down, tweak my knee, twisted it, and he thought he had tore my knee up. I did, too. He felt very bad. But at that time, I didn't realize it's a rule in the NBA that if they put you on IR, they couldn't cut you. Yep. So they put me on an IRR, and so I got a chance to stick around. And the crazy thing about it is that I was getting antsy because I felt like I was ready

to go off an hour, and the players kept telling me, don't do it, don't do it. You know, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait to your contract is guaranteed. I said, man, I don't give a, you know what, about this contract, man, I'm ready to play. I'm going to get ready to go in and tell him you to bring me off our eye, So happens Trentucky End up getting hurt that particular day And they brought me off

IRI and my first game was against The Chicago Boys and Michael Fitting Yeah Very fitting And it's funny because in the NFL It's the same thing We'll see young guys

They're like You know they're on the training table And their coaches are trying Hey just go out there and see what you can do today Then the next thing you know They cut them Yeah And that's the whole key is like

Hey sit your ass down dude like give it a little time so exactly the reggie miller headbutt cracked me up so much because as i watched back the day there were a couple things i picked up on that i hadn't really picked up on before one right after you head butted him were you looking at the ref like immediately because you knew you fucked up because your head goes yeah you know i know that i know that exact feeling and then the second one was patrick ewing uh kind of thrown a tan check yeah he was like hey man chest ties me big time what did he say to you Oh, he was cussing out.

We need you, man. He was saying this and that. I was saying nothing. He was hit me, hitting me. Ope came over and stole it on pound on me. All I was focused on was Reddy. I was so mad. And the reason why is because he was throwing bowls at me.

He kept hitting me with bows. And I was telling the referee, hey, he's hitting me with bowls. Referee is talking, I shut up, be quiet, start and play. I'm like, all right, I know how to settle this. And so Patrick, the play before, Patrick said, are you cool? I said, yeah, because I didn't want him to grab me. So when I, after I scored on him, I ran up the court. And Chris, I was so mad.

The anger inside of me made me one of the dislikes, right there in the jaw. And it just came up to my head and he got close enough and I just, I just tapped him. You know what I mean? And, but me and Reggie never had a problem. after that. For the rest of my career. And I think because back in the day, and you know this from playing, back in the day, you had to earn your respect.

Yeah. You know, respect wasn't given to you. And unlike today where young players come in because the league is so young, back then the average age in the league probably was about 26, 27. So these guys was like older and they wasn't trying to give you nothing. So you had more fights back then. from the younger players against the older players because they wasn't giving it up to you. It's just like if you're going into someone neighborhood and they don't know you for the first time,

you got to earn your respect. And that's the way it was back then. And so Reggie was that type of individual because he had to go through it. So players back then took the rookies through what they had to go through. But it's not like that today. You know, these guys gained their respect soon as they step on the floor. floor. Yeah, and it's like, again, an NFL parallel, it's becoming a more young man's league because they're getting the vets out with the new CBA. And so like, you know, there's just less

and less 30 plus year old guys, which means it can be good and bad. And there's, there's things that you lose from a team, you know, leadership standpoint from a toughness standpoint because guys have done it. So then the follow question I would have on the Reggie Miller thing is when you turn on a basketball game or Reggie's got to call, do you mute the game? No. No. No. I like you actually. Reggie does a great job. He does.

He does. Yeah, he does a great job. You know, me and Reggie's cool now. Yeah. We know when we see each other, we're not going to go up and go up and go out of Reggie. Hi, Reggie. You smack this shit out of Reggie Miller on the sidewalk. You talked about vets and young players and earning respect, you know, a guy that eventually,

and I've heard you talk about this and you're very classy about it, like the Allen Houston thing. And you also talked about the fact that you guys were a defensive basketball team. So this was around the time right before. I guess it was the shortened season when, you know, after you left, they went and played the Spurs. That was like an offensive basketball team. And part of that was Alan Houston. How hard was that for you? Because you had been there so long, you were such a fixture, and they were kind of like sliding him into your spot in some ways.

You know, what would help me with that was basically Rolando Blackmun when he came to the team back in, I want to say 93, 94, right in that season right there. when we went to the championship. Because everybody was saying that we just released Gerald. He was signed with Cleveland, I want to say. And Rose came in, and Roe pulled me aside. He said, John, I'm not here to compete with you. I'm here to help your team. You know what I mean?

And that made a big difference, you know, to me. And so I was in that same scenario when Allen came. You know what I mean? Because everybody's talking about, are we going to clash or what have you? And I made a point to go to him and let him know, we're teammates. You know what I mean?

At the end of the day, it's all about winning, you know, whether he starts or I start or what have you. And I just wanted to put him at ease because I know you can help us. First and foremost, I know you can help us. And Allen is a great individual.

I mean, a classy, classy individual. And so I just wanted to put him at ease and welcome him to the team and if anything I could do to help him I was doing that and you know we got a great rapport we're great friends to this day and and so I was I was happy that we was able to have the success that we had when he came a lot of celebrities in MSG always sit in courtside there were a number of them the other night now you see him in mass so but you can still spot your 50 cent or whoever it is

Who are your favorite celebrities that lined the garden front row? And who asked for the most free shit? You know what? Be out of vision, none of them asked for anything. They probably was getting it anyway. Yeah, Nick's do a great job of really taking care of the celebrities in front row. But Spike Lee is my favorite. Yeah.

He's my favorite. I mean, he is invested. let me just tell you he's invested in the Knicks. Right. Period. Yeah. And, you know, I love his energy. His fight was probably about six four, six five.

He would probably give up trying to be a way, not trying to be, but he was a great film director. But he'd probably rather play basketball than direct films. Believe me when I tell you that. Yeah. No, I mean, I think anybody who's not an athlete, they always say like athletes want to be rock stars and rock stars want to be athletes. It's like whatever you're not. Yeah. So we have something here called Layup Line where we get hype for this here podcast. What did you use to listen to to get fired up?

I listened to rap to give me hype. Biggie, Tupac. I really listen to those two guys, Tribe Call, Quest. You know what I mean? Just anything to give me hype right before. Because I like to go in the locker room right before we do our meeting before we step out on the court and get into a room and cut the lights off. and I either put on R&B or mostly jazz just to kind of calm me down because, as you know, how a locker room could be right before a game, you know, with the reporters, everybody coming in and out.

And so you're trying to get focused. And so, but right before I step out there, I would throw on some rap and just let it ride, man. What about the Jordan documentary, the last dance? Because everybody's glued to the TV. Did you think most of it was accurate? did you think anybody get the short end of the stick? Do you think anything was relayed the wrong way? No, I thought they did an excellent job.

They really captured 90s basketball and the intensity of it, especially with their battles with the Bulls and us and Indiana. They really captured that and you can feel it coming through the TV set. And, you know, I thought they did a good job because when you're playing, you really don't get caught up and what other teams are doing or how they trying to get ready.

And it gave you a inside look on what the Bulls was about during that particular time. And Michael, you know, his fear that he unleashed out there on the court as well as with his teammates and try to bring them up to his level. And they believed in him. He was a fearless leader, obviously. but it captured everything that you wanted to see in that whole bull's run. But Scotty probably would be the only one to say that they didn't present him right. And other than that, but he was a key piece.

Yeah, I thought so. Well, I think he was a little ticked off about when they played us in game number three. When Kukos and Phil Jackson, this was in 94, when Phil Jackson then called his number, you know what I mean? And he was probably thinking, hey, if this was Michael, who would be shooting the ball? Kukos would be shooting it. Michael would be shooting that ball. And so, but he was a little ticked out because, you know,

Scotty was coming into his own. You know, he was, you know, an all-star MVP. He was up for MVP honors during that particular year. He led the board to the playoffs, rightfully so is. His number probably should have been called, but, you know, him not coming back on the court, probably hurt him. You know what I mean? If he had to do it all over again, he probably would have stepped out there on the court. You know, it is what it is, you know, that happened in the past.

The most important Jordan-related question, I think you have two things on him. I think, number one, you're one of the only guys ever, you know, came up looking good in a poster. Exactly. Number two, I got to say this. I gotta leave you with this. Flu game or twisted testicle game? Which one's tough? Testicle.

Thank you. Thank you. How hard was that, dude? Man. Man, that was hard. What the fuck? What happened to you? I'm not going to ask you how you twisted your testicle.

But how hard? Like, what the hell? You took five days off and you're back out there playing a playoff game for the jazz. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would thank God that he gave us two.

That's a good one. John Stark will get you out so you can go play golf or something. I hope you're doing something fun. It's beautiful outside. And go next, man. It was awesome having you on. Hey, Chris, man. It's a pleasure talking to you, bro.

And I appreciate you. I wish you to continue success with your show, my man. Thanks, man. I hope to have you back another time, man. Be well. Yes, sir. Okay. All right, that was terrific.

I really want to talk about how terrific that was for a second. But first, this just in, Dick Fidel went on a tweet storm about airlines, and he happened to be talking to our friends at United. And a few people alerted me as we were doing the interview, and I just can't. I can't. I just can't do it.

He's too old. It's too soon. And I just did this. couple days ago and I'm friends with United now and so I don't want to the bit would be watered down the bit would be watered down so I'm going to give this to Big Cat okay this is a big problem United I expect the solution ASAP thank you Dan I can't believe that today on our flight flying first class from Orlando to San Francisco the United has the nerve of course he's flying from Orlando that's the most Dick Vitel place to live in the world I mean he couldn't live anywhere yeah and he's by the way I met

Dick Vitel, nice guy, invited me to his charity thing down there. But he says, I can't believe that today on our flight flying first class from Orlando, San Francisco, that United has the nerve to serve for breakfast, the, and here the caps come in. Most pathetic options I have ever seen. What do you think they served it for breakfast? A piece of cantaloupe, like uncut? They just gave him a cantaloupe. I didn't know we were, I didn't know we were at different meals again.

I know back in the day they'd like, they'd, they'd nuke you an egg of some sort. This is the first time in my life that I've ever complained, but this is a joke over five-hour flight. So he's never complained, but he got a bad airline breakfast. Surprise, dude. In the words of Anthony Bourdain, God rest his soul, I think he said this. Like, I don't eat airline food. I don't mind airline food, but if you opt into airline food, it's the whole thing. Like, you're opting into the experience.

You paid for the ticket. You know it's airline food. food. Everybody knows that off-metallic smell when they start heating up the fucking chicken in like a moist metal box. Like that's how they get your food ready, dude. You're in a metal tube flying from Orlando to San Francisco. The settlers would have been just fine, dude. You need to have a great big bowl of oatmeal with some bananas and some blueberries before you go to the airport. Just, yeah, just load up. And then pack with the Nutra-Grain bar, fella. And Dick Vitell got a little hangary, and he's going in on United

because I don't know what he got. I hope my complaint about United helps others in the future who spend big money to travel first class on a flight over five hours and are offered a sad couple options whatever happened to eggs, cereal, fruit, etc. Hey, this should be my biggest prob

but come on, United, you must be better. And then he finished by saying this is my favorite tweet. Dick Vite tells copping to having diarrhea at the airport. Landing now and my stomach is churning to get to the first concession stand. No, actually

he's just hungry, but I'm going to imagine he's talking about having gastrointestinal issues. The first concession stand, that has some quality options versus the awful options that United offered. Wow, I can't believe all the response of or a simple complaint. End of story as now it is time to talk about

what I love sports. The cap usage is just off the chain. Wait, is he some sort of marketing genius because he tucked in two Geico tweets in the middle of this little rant and then it looked like he tried to steer out of it with an NBA draft tweet.

Oh, that's interesting. But Geico had to have gotten thousands of hundreds of thousands of impressions. You're damn right because I had to scroll through this Geico shit to get to his old shit. And now all you can think about is saving insurance. Saving money on your car insurance. And like in commercials that have nothing to do with insurance.

That's the most fraudulent shit in the world. You're commercial like, they, you know, you've never seen the episode of South Park where there's manatees. They were dissing family guy. And the way they manufactured their jokes at, at the headquarters was the manatees pushed these balls up to the top.

And you just picked whichever random one and made a joke. Like literally, Guyco does this with like a wheel of fortune wheel. And they're like, what are we doing on this commercial? And there's never a tie-in to car insurance. And here we are talking about them. I hate their commercials.

I like their commercials. You like their commercials. They're corny as fuck. As a fellow comedy writer, I like their, I like their commercials. Oh, I don't like the, man. We're not parking our cars in the same garage as our friend Dave Dameshick would say. In fact, I've stopped buying auto insurance because the commercials are so bad. I know there's other auto insurance companies, but I just ride around without insurance

because of how bad those commercials are. But anyways, Dick Fidel, man, you're being a diaper dandy a little bit. Isn't he? That's funny. Yeah. Well, you said diaper dandy. It made me think. First, I was like, well, it's ironic. He has diarrhea at the airport, but he's actually just hungry. Could have diarrhea. You go to the wrong airport terminal to get your food. Diper duty. I mean, let me ask you where you are on this. Where are you on farting on airplanes? There's nobody who gets more amused by a good fart than you. Thanks. I appreciate that. I've had no comment.

So I guess you're just letting them go. No, no, no comment. See, I think that if you fart on airplanes, you are selfish. Oh, well, obviously. Go to the bathroom, go to the bathroom, let it out. I know you got gas from that $12 bag of dried apples. You got a Hudson News. But just go to the bathroom, please.

For the sake of everybody on the fucking plane. And here's the problem. Maybe this is why I'm so sensitive to it. It was actually coming back from St. Louis. You farted on an airplane. We flew St. Louis to like Philly. We're on our flight. I was with, and then we were on Philly to Seaville.

And I just, I was in bad shape. So you farted on a plane with my in-laws on it? No, no, no, the next one. They were onto their destination. We had to keep flying. And I just, I was, I was ripping them. And they were the worst smelling things in the world. And we had a pilot sitting right behind us.

who hit my seat, like as hard as he could, like 30 minutes in because it was so... How did he know it was you? Oh, because I couldn't stop laughing. And then, I was over there. My seatmate is losing his mind. He is not having a good time with it either. And I can't stop laughing uncontrollably. And the pilot who's not flying the plane hits my seat, like a hard, like hit, like fucking stop.

Hey, the funniest thing about that is like you can't. always smell you can always smell the difference between the guy who's coming back from a long guy's weekend fart and and and just like an older lady that you're like damn that's that that that sucks but I'm not sure she can control that and then there's the businessman who thinks he just owns the fucking world because he bought a three hundred dollar first class ticket well congratulations you can't just drop a dump in your pants you know like the guy that gets mad at the the waitress flight attendant because she doesn't bring him enough scotch on the first pour like that guy and then he's just going to shit in his pants. I hate that guy and then he's going to

just recline as hard as he can. Don't recline. Don't recline. Now here's the deal. When people fart on an airplane, I get blamed. Okay. When people fart in an airplane, they look at the biggest guy and maybe I'm internalizing this, but I think it's true. So I try to make sure when I get on an airplane, I get the lay of the land and make sure there's like a big guy sitting near me because I just want plausible liability because I'm not a farter on an airplane. People don't believe that. Neither am I doing it. Thank you. Neither am I.

And if I smell something. Just the one time. I take great offense. You just did the one time. It was. It was a bad day. It was a big weekend. No, I'm, I, the Rams won.

And how often did the Rams won? It's not a lot. You got to celebrate. Yeah. I didn't, now I have farted on an airplane. Okay. But I try not to. Okay. I try not to.

I try to diagnose. Is this just altitude related gas that just, or is it food gas? Mm-hmm. You know, do I just need to like pass a little bit to get some room in here? Or did you drink? So actually I have fart on an airplane once or twice. Or did you drink 10 Budlites at Ed Jones Dome? I'm not letting those off.

And then, oh. Shout out Pepper Lounge. John Starks was awesome. Was he not? Q NBA on NBC theme. I mean, that's our childhood. That's our childhood. At one point when he was reeling off all those Pacers names,

I wanted to be like, John, John, John, how much did you guys play NBA jam? Yeah. And I was afraid he was going to be like, I don't play video games. it was going to be hard to get out of that corner, but not as hard as getting out of the Woj corner when I asked him about A-Rod.

A-Rod. But he was so cool, man, and it really is. Like, I rarely, it's not a fanboy thing because we're doing this enough now where, you interview people, you really think a lot of and all that. But it's just surreal sometimes, the guys we have on the other end, the guys and girls we have on the other end of Zoom.

So, yeah, kudos to our job. what we do for a living, one of your jobs. Heck yeah, I'm reminded. You meet John Starks when you're selling houses a lot? Not often. I'm reminded of the times making Kenny Main laugh. I make Jeff Garland laugh, you know? Yeah.

Those are the... I made Jeff Garland laugh too. I made John Stark's laugh pretty fucking hard. You did. It kind of sniped me from being real. Like, you know, I did my prep too and I had twisted testicle ready to go. I had it. Ready to go.

You know? But no. I am smirking my ever-loving ass off. Why is that? Because you fed it to me, you said it to me? Yes. Well, that's true and fair. See what you do on this pod?

But if you didn't get to it? You will tell untruths. I don't lie on this pod. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not lying. I'm not lying. That was my gem that I held till the 30th minute. He had a hard out.

All I'm saying is, we were like, Caitlin O'Hashi. All the gymnastics I watch. We stuck the landing at 30 minutes. We just fucking boom, right there on the mat. with the testicle thing. Dog, I'm not lying. All I'm saying is if you hadn't done it, if I had done it, you would have done it.

At minute 31, I was sneaking in. We were just in a tough place. We were in a tough place. We heard he had like a little time crunch. And if there's anybody, I don't want to keep late, it's a guy who knows Charles Oakley. Yeah, the guy who knows Charles Oakley. But he was great, man.

The highlight of my day, maybe of my week. In other internet news, though, can you do me a favor and pull up Mac Jones's Wikipedia? Sure can. Yep. Is this a mugshot? And this name's not Mac? If Mac Jones has a publicist, they need to get this shit taken down.

If you're at home listening on your mobile device, pull up Wikipedia, pull up Mac Jones. When I first saw this on some Instagram page, I was like, there is no way Mac Jones is cool with this being his profile picture. This cat's been to Foxfield, I see. Yeah, exactly. He looks like every guy at Foxfield. He looks like if Lane Kiffin like stumbled out of a, I don't know, Kiowa Island Country Club and got a DUI down the street. Like this picture is probable cause for a DUI.

Like the police are on the way to his house right now just to arrest him for this picture. Is this a DUI? Did he ever get a DUI? I don't know. I'm sure all we need to do is scroll. He was charged with the DUI in college. Yeah, it's definitely a DUI picture. Look at him.

That picture on his witty page is not his mugshot. Wait, hold on a second. It's not funny to drink and drive at all. I am vehemently against it. Get an Uber, get a cab. If you're drinking and driving, you're either stupid or you don't have enough money to procure transportation.

If you don't have enough money to procure transportation, maybe walk or drink at home. Okay? This is not Mack Jones' fucking DUI picture. I'm just shocked. I'm absolutely shocked that this picture is not a DUI picture. Where did he?

take this picture. I'm obsessed with knowing where he took this picture. That's like, oh no, I need a passport photo. I'm off to CVS. That looks like he got woken up at Beach Week. But the background, the blank background. I mean, what's going on here? No, I would say it could be a driver's license picture at the DMV, but I don't think so. He aged a lot between the DUI and this picture. Talk about growing up. Good for him, he grew up a lot. But I'm wondering where this picture came from. You know where it's from? Where? It's from the We Are

One University of Alabama video on YouTube. They took a screenshot from this video on YouTube. Why would they do that to him? Who hates Mac Jones to put this picture up? And what is We Are One? And he also went to the Bold School who used to kick our ass in baseball. We used to go down there, Jacksonville or shit kicked in by Bishop Kenny. And

aha, yeah, that dude Reed found it. from the WeR1 video. He needs a haircut here. Lori at Moxie. Lori could, hey, Mac, come on down to Charlottesville. Lori at Moxie can take a little bit off the top of the ears. You know, you see. And get a good night's sleep.

Yeah, rarely do you see the fade yet with the frat wing. He's got the fade and the frat wing. Yeah, I'm like, Mac. Dude, we got to get you to Moxie. We're going to get you some sleep. I think you're going to be a really good pro quarterback. I'm excited to watch the pair. Patriots play this year, but you gotta get this fix, buddy.

You know what his initials are? MJ. Nah. Well, yeah, but MMJ. I wonder if he's a jacket fan, or if he likes drugs. I don't think you can do drugs and be an NFL quarterback. That's when a quarterback comes out and says he's puffing the hot leaf, that'll be a big deal.

That'll be a big step in your movement. I don't have a movement, I just smoke hot leaf. I like the plant. When you go deliver clean water to thousands, do you take hot leaf with you? Are you like... That's a question where I could possibly get tripped up here. Would you rather continue doing this or interview Brian Flores? Brian Flores.

B-Flow, one of my favorite coaches, man, as I said earlier. Now, I think when we have him on, he's going to be all business. You know, he's a tough guy. You know, like, he's a tough coach. But in a way that you really respect. But he can also have a lot. a lot of fun too. It's just now he's a head coach. So we're going to have him on for a few minutes. I definitely want to ask him about Tua. I definitely want to ask him about what do you think?

Do you think he thought we were going to win that Super Bowl down 283? No, nobody did. Nobody did. Julian Edelman did. No, we didn't. You're right. No one did. But you'd either pretend like you did, which I wasn't about to do. Or you could just put your head down. I mean, after three quarters, it's even 28 to 9. I don't think there's any belief at that point. Yeah, dude. And then the High Tower play. But we got B-Flow.

I wonder if I have to call him coach or B-Flo. I don't know which one now. Coach Flores. Let's find out. Yo! What's up, bud? The guy with the big office now. Oh, stop it.

What's up, dude? You got a nice living office over there. Yeah, we got a nice office, but nobody listens to me. A hundred people listen to you now. Let me see. Like I got Bob. Bobberheads. What else we got back then? They got the old Chris Long bobblehead, the old Todd Gurley.

I got Kenny Powers, Howie Long, Willie Nelson. I'm looking for the Howie Long. I'm gonna say, can I send you a bobblehead to put in your office? Please do. Okay, awesome, awesome. First question, can I still call you B-Flow? Because now, I gotta call you Coach Flores now, I feel like. Go to my coach Flores.

Okay, Coach Flores. Oh, man, come on. I couldn't be more relaxed to interview a head coach in the NFL, which I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but here we go. Coach Flores, the burning question I have for you that I've been waiting to ask you,

and I don't know if I ever asked you this, 28 to 3 at the half. Did you really think we were going to win that game? It was going to be a long way. A lot of things had to go our way. I knew that. What do you remember about the locker room because all I remember was Duran running around

talking about we were about to do the greatest comeback in NFL history? And I just remember being like, dude, can we just get a stop, man? Like you're thinking pretty big here. You sound crazy, but he ended up being right. I remember, definitely remember Harmon. And he was right, but I mean, I think I was probably more along the lines with you.

Let's get a stop. Let's get one stop. Let's take it one play at a time. That's always kind of my mindset anyway. I mean, and that's really the only way it could have went down. And honestly, that's still the case in any game. You go up, you go down, you just take it one point. play at a time and, you know, do your fundamentals, do your techniques, go through your

communication, and normally good things happen. Now, we, you know, in that particular game, a lot of good things had to happen in a short amount of time and everything kind of fell, fell, fell the right way. The New England thing, man, I didn't know this, that your first year, you were, what, a scout of some sort? Yeah, I was a scouting assistant, which entails getting coffee, driving people around. I was a Grim Reaper. Tell them what that means, because we know what that means in the NFL building. Well, you know, there are cuts, obviously.

You start the roster at 90 and you go down at 53 and someone has to walk around and tell the player, hey, you know, Scott Pioly, Bill Belichick, Brown Al Brine Flores and Chris Breyer want to see you and bring a playbook. And, you know, it's pretty much the end of that player's time with that organization. So that was my job early on. It's a tough job, but you've got to make tough decisions in this league. Yeah, we used to look for the guy, you know, left and right in St. Louis. And you know who the guy is and he comes around the corner.

And it's like he walks right by you. And you're like, okay, we're good. B, you were there the first, well, you told me you were getting coffee. I was going to credit you with drafting Vince Wilfork. No, I was getting coffee. How big for that organization was the drafting of Vince Wilfork and what went into that conversation? Well, I wasn't part of those conversations.

You know, I was getting coffee. What did it sound like outside the door, B? Outside the door kind of sounded like, you know, over the years, they were looking for guys who obviously is a great player. Yeah. Physical and smart and tough, you know, team first. And, you know, a lot of qualities that they're looking for. We're looking for here with the dolphins.

And, you know, I think he's, he has some leadership qualities that they liked. and he obviously showed while he was in New England. They hit on that player, and he was a great player for the Pats and then Houston for a long, long time. So, you know, when I was listening in from outside, you know, waiting to hand the coffee over, it's kind of some of the stuff I heard.

Well, it's funny because it's such an important position in that defense. And, you know, you guys are running something, I'm sure, a little bit different, but not dissimilar. And the first thing you get there and do, is you guys draft Christian Wilkins. You guys draft the big guy in the middle. How do you go about like architecting a roster of guys on that side of the ball? I mean, I think it's dependent on what's available.

I mean, I think, you know, obviously we're very happy with Christian and happy at that. You know, obviously the interior and winning the line of scrimmage on both the offensive line and defense line, I know I feel is important. But I think everybody thinks that every position is important to me. So whether it's nose, whether it's end, whether it's offensive tackle, whether it's corner. I think from a draft perspective, it's always the best player available. And we felt Christian was that and he's lived up to that. And he's still improving and still ascending.

We're excited about him, you know, taking on more of a leadership role on his team. And he's done that thus far. And as far as constructing a defense and office, offense. You know, I think we're just looking for guys who are tough, who are smart, who are competitive as hell, you know, similar to yourself, Chris. I mean, to be honest, who are team first, who love to play. I think that's something that's important to me. I want guys who absolutely love playing football. I want coaches who love to coach, scouts who love the scout and, you know, equipment guys will love doing equipment. And that's kind of,

those are the types of people we want this building. So where's the line? That's interesting. I was going to ask you and I will ask you about your first round pick because as an edge guy, watch a little bit of him. But when you talk about loving football, is there a line where if you step over it from a workload standpoint, from a mental standpoint, the way you could stay in the building too long, players, coaches,

is there a line and how hard is it to find that line where it's like we're working past the point of diminishing return? We got to keep guys fresh. And I'm not talking about physically, but just mentally and not getting burnout over the course of a very long season. and it's about to get longer in a way. Yeah.

I mean, I think there's a, there's balance. Everyone needs balance in every area, especially football. Yeah. No, we talk to these guys, but I talk to them about this. You can't get burned out. You can get burned out coaching. You can burn out playing. You get burned out, you know, in really any area.

So balance is, is a big part of it. I think anytime they can kind of get rest and get their minds off of things, I think that's important. I think it's hard to find that balance early on because, you know, As a young guy, it's, hey, this is everything I've ever wanted to do. So I'm going to put everything I can into it. And then you've got to reel them back. I think having experience with some younger players, I think they've gotten to that point

because they're so, there's such a sense of urgency to get it right and to get it right right now and they'll do whatever it takes to be great in this league. So early on, you kind of let them make those or, you know, kind of learn what it, what it takes. And I think there's this, I think as young guys, you know, I mean, you. you know that you leave this. You walk in, you try to do everything right, you want to get everything right, you want to work as hard as possible,

you want to stay late, and that's good. And that's probably the approach to take. And then as you get older and you mature and you understand the game a little bit more, you understand your body a little bit more, you understand what an NFL season is like. Because, again,

rookies have no idea what it's like to play, go through an NFL training camp, three preaches and games, 16, now 17 games. Yeah, it's long. and it's hard and it's not easy. And there's a little bit of a learning curve there. We try to help him with that. But I can say till I'm blowing the face,

hey, you guys need to get off your feet. Some guys, they're extreme. They really get off their feet. Well, it can be like that with coaches too, right? Like some coaches can just be in the building too. Like you're just, hey, man, we've seen it all now. And especially us, DeLyman, which in your scheme, not so much because there's a lot they have to learn.

But like when I played for Jim Schwartz or like when I played for, you know, in Jeff Fisher's schemes, you know, that were not Greg Williams century. where there was more like tarantula you reduce here we're going to run these pressures and on third down lord know it was a lot of crazy shit if you're just running a four or three like we were like let's get out of the building there's not we've watched the same reel every day so how hard is it to balance the time between position groups because you know different position groups it would be like when we used to have those walkthroughs in new england like upstairs or whatever we'd be like man like most of this is for the

second level right how hard is it to keep every level of defense engaged and situations like that. It's not to say it's not important for us to pay attention what's going on behind us, but there can be like a little bit of an imbalance. I think that's, you know, us as coaches, we have to work through that. Yeah. Now, specifically, you know, specific to the first thing you said, the coaches are probably as far as being over the top, you know, from a preparation standpoint, from a trying to see it all, every look, every game, I'm part of that too. Yeah. And I get it. I think it's, I think it's, we are the job and you get into this because you want to help players become the best versions of themselves, reach their potential, and you don't want to, you know, you don't want to miss something. And, you know, Chris doesn't go out there and make a play because I miss this. Like, I, like, that would, that would drive me crazy. And it's always that one random third call, like third. It's always like that third check that it was the smallest picture on the bottom right of your playbook. That's the one that comes up. It has, it always does. And that look, I mean, like in the Super Bowl with Malcolm Butler,

people talk about that. I wasn't there for that, obviously, but as a really a detailed look at something that he retained. And that's the difference between a ring and no ring. It's that much. Yeah. It's that much. You looked at the schedule this year,

and I actually texted you about the London thing, because the first thing that jumped out to me was the fact you guys don't have a buy on the back end of that London trip. I'm sure you're not going to complain about it. What's the first thing you look at when you get a schedule as a head coach? now. And is there any difference between what you looked at as a position coach and a coordinator to how you look at it as a head coach when that card comes out? You know, it comes out. You look at the first game, obviously. You really look at the first, let's call it, you know, four games. Yeah.

And then you look for the buy. And then you just, you know, your mind starts to go through, you know, who those opponents are, how you got to get your team ready, when's training camp start. You know what I mean? You start to, you start game planning. Yeah. in your mind. I think every coach is that way. And then, you know, you see where you're traveling. I knew, you know, I heard, I knew we were going to London. So what week are we going to London? When are we taking a longer trip? So we got a trip to Vegas, you know, what that schedule is going to look like. You know, I think at the, in this seat, it's, it's more game plan, scheduling. You know, you start thinking about load management. Yeah.

You know, we play 13 in a row. So, you know, how we're going to manage through that before we get a, you know, a by week, you know, with this Thursday game in there. Those are what we're looking for. Kind of the Thursday night game, the by week, you end up looking at it for two hours. Yeah, you pretty much, I mean, as a rusher, you look at the tackles. You'd be like, all right, who are you playing? Who do you think, you know, you match up well against? Who do you not match up so well against?

What do you have to work on to get ahead? And then also, how easy are these quarterbacks to sack? Because now the game is completely changed. Like, when I first got in the game, there was a few athletic quarterbacks. And now it's like a prerequisite to have to be able to run as a quarterback and be able to use your legs and the stationary quarterbacks the last of a dying breed right there, you know, up 95 or whatever is a guy you knew pretty well in New England. And I wonder how that's affected the way you coach ball and like contain. Like I always tell people the hardest thing as a rusher or a pressure guy is not the block you have to beat. It's the unblocked player on the edge. So like what you're. your aiming point? Like how do you, so what do you tell your players about, you know, dealing with athletic quarterbacks? There's a lot that goes into that team rush, you know, not running past the quarterback, right, Chris? I know that one. Like, hey, I had a great rush. Maddie P. No, no, no,

we don't win rushes at seven and a half yards here. We win them at four and a half. Like, what? All right. You know, I think it's, you know, trying to keep them in the pocket. We know that those off-script plays, as you know, once it gets out and the Mahomes of the world, the Russell's of the world, they get out of the pocket, receiver sees them, breaks the other way. And, you know, those are hard to cover. So trying to keep a quarterback in the pocket. And it's really a team thing from a rush standpoint. And then, you know, from a back end standpoint is staying with the guys,

understanding that this is a guy who can get outside of the pocket, whether we team rush and do everything right. He can, you know, there's some guys who are magicians. back there and will escape, can escape and will escape. And it's going to happen. And, you know, when that does happen, you know, the guys in the back end just have to hold up for that particular snack. I wonder, you know, looking at Jalen Phillips tape, the first thing to jump, you know, about him to me is his range. You know, like, he's a guy who can obviously rush. He's a guy who's played with his hand in dirt at times. He's played standing up. He's been a pressure guy. They ran a lot of stuff at Miami that they were moving him around a lot. But the one thing, you know,

thing I think fits so well with your defense is he's going to cover ground, right? What did you love about him? All the things you mentioned. He's big. He's, he's fast, he's smart. This is a guy who understands the game and he's, you know, asking questions about different tackles already. So there's a lot to like, you know, but again, he's young and there's a lot to learn there too. So I think we'll be able to do a few, a few different things with him. I mean, he can, he can drop, he can rush. I think you can rush inside a little bit. So I mean, we'll just see, you know, I think this, you know, for young guys, we've got to see how much, give him a little, see if he can, you know, figure that out and give him a little bit more as the days progress and the season progresses.

Would you like so much about Waddle? Because there were, you know, you could have gone a couple different ways that with that pick. And I don't think sometimes people realize that it's not just who the best player is, is who, who fits the best in your offensive scheme. And so I, I wonder what pushed him over the edge for you guys. Yeah, I was going to wonder when you talk about any offense. Yeah, we don't really talk about offense on this podcast, dude. I just want to talk ball with my dude. Defensive-minded guy.

He doesn't care about the offense. I really don't give a shit unless Tom Brady's over there, and that helps. I look for talented offensive tackles. That's the only offensive mention. That's the only you pay attention to. Waddle. I mean, he's fast, explosive. I think he has just a speed element that we thought was.

We're excited about. So good receiver, good kid, tough. You know, a guy who's injured for the whole year comes back, plays in a national championship game. That then hurt, you know, as far as the evaluation from our standpoint, it just showed how important a game was to him. Again, we want guys who love to play. And clearly, you know, he loves to play, enjoys being around as teammates. It's important to him. Speed is the big thing.

With the SEC guys, you guys collected them in New England and, you know, it seemed like there was like a Bama thing. You know, is there something to put those guys over the edge? Is it the pro-style coaching they get in college? No, I mean, I think it's the talent. I think, you know, I think anytime you're making a decision to add players to your team, you know, you want all those, the kind of criteria I mentioned, you know, tough, smart, competitive, loves to play. but you know i think i'm all those things but i can't play in national football you know you know well the bc guys said you were all those things and so i don't know why you can get enough it looks to play in the nfl but you're from brooklyn which to me it's so unique i just don't think about

brooklyn as a football place and maybe i'm wrong maybe i'm right i just think tall buildings like where are the fields you know like what's playing football in brooklyn like before you went to BC and played. Did Polly Prep, the home of Quakeu Robinson. He knows Quay. Nice. Yeah, that's the guy. Yeah.

I mean, we got a few fields in Brooklyn. Yeah. You know, we got a few fields. I mean, I started playing in Queens, actually. Yeah. There's more fields in Queens. So I was in a little bit out in Queens. You know, I was lucky.

It was a, you know, philanthropists who helped a bunch of young people, young, young, young kids in those little leagues, go to this private high school in Brooklyn where they had even more fields. And we had a great head coach there in Dino Manjero and, you know, who taught us about, you know, hard work and humility and, you know, what it would take to earn a scholarship to college and, you know, getting a better life for it for ourselves. And I think we had a few guys who were able to take advantage of that. So, yeah, I mean, there was a few fields out there.

I learned a couple, some fundamentals, techniques taken to BC. Is it like Friday Night Lights or do you all play like in, like what's going on? Definitely not Friday night lights. So you play it. I don't think I played a night game until I was in college. Okay. So there's no night games. Are the fields in good shape?

You know, I mean, and Peewees, I mean, you got to walk around and pick the glass up off the face. That's what I was wondering. Are there pebbles? So there's a lot of toughness like growing up in Brooklyn anyways. Everybody knows that. but then the football element to it. I mean, it's just another thing. What do you take from growing up in Brooklyn?

Like, how does that manifest in your coaching style? I think, you know, I grew up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, which is, you know, pretty tough area. And I mean, I've taken a lot from growing up there. And I tell people all the time, I feel like, you know, you want, like pressure. You want like real pressure. You know, you walk outside and, you always kind of looking around and wondering who's coming to, you know, take something from you, your shoes, your bus pass or whatever.

NFL games, you know, like fourth down call. Yeah, I mean, they're just not that I take them lightly, but I want to say I feel like I face some real pressure and real adversity. I think that's, that's kind of embedded in my coaching style a little bit, you know, the toughness, the, because I'm tough on the players. I mean, I am, but, but it's all in the spirit of trying to make them, trying to make them better, trying to help them grow, trying to help them kind of reach their potential. I mean, you've seen a little bit of that. I mean, we worked a little bit together. Yeah, no, I mean, you're tough, but you're fair. I mean, so, like, that's all players won is, are you fair? Can we trust you? Like, do you have a motive? Do you look at us, like, teammates,

or do you look at us, like, people that you can manipulate or, you know, like, walk upstairs on and that sort of thing? And, like, you're always fair. So I don't, I don't think players have an issue with tough coaching. And I know you've probably been in some tough spots as a head coach that you hadn't been in when you were an assistant coach. Any regrets your first two years, anything? So you're like, man, I had to learn from that, you know, like a mistake that you're like, eh, I don't want to do that again. I mean, I think you learn a lot from year one or year two to year three. Yeah. I would say just overall, all the things you got to deal with as a head coach, you know, it's not just your position group. It's not just the defense. It's defense. It's special teams. It's a person. It's

it's we got to get everybody guys in the right helmets we got to get them you know yeah right shoes you got to get them uh you're dealing with you know guys in their weight issues you i mean you're dealing with pretty much everything when are we're leaving for the west coast are the players sitting in first class or coach well that's an important question are they sitting in first class or coach down in Miami there biflow their their first class and that's the that thank you biflow That was the one thing. I said if Bill Belichick can sit and fucking coach and the players sit up front, I thought that was one of the coolest things about New England.

I'm glad you took that down there. Speaking of the right helmets? Yeah, I want to hit uniforms. Go ahead. You hit uniforms. I got one more question for him because he's got meetings and shit. Eagle eye right here. I can see that he's wearing the correct logo on his sweatshirt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How much say do you have? I know the no fun link. There are some restrictions, but the throwback is among the best uniforms and sport. and then a fell certainly when can we get back to that full time he's not going to say i'm not a big uniform guy and yet you reach for the right logo yeah he did he put it in a sweatshirt yeah there you had choices you had choices in the team issued gear you put on you put on the

throwback logo bflow likes the throwbacks i mean this is it's a black sweatshirture guys he's leaning out of the zoom window all right people people are getting you know that's beautiful that's old, that's the old Dan Marino, the old Finkel and Ianhorn, yeah, the dolphin wearing a helmet, which I don't know how it works, but it works. People are going to kill me if I don't ask you about Tua. We're big Tua fans. He seems like a great kid. The quote last year, where he said he thought it would be harder, what do you say to Tua when you first read that quote? I mean, honestly, I didn't say anything. I just, I don't even remember kind of the timing on that. It might have been during preseason.

No, I think it was his first couple starts. I think it was it the Denver game? Was the Denver game his first start or was that when he came back? But Rams was his first start. The Rams was his first start. And that went great. So I think it was in the wake of that. But that was a whole tough deal because I know you love Fitsy and Fitsy loves you.

We just had Fidsey on. And by the way, Fitsy said, I love B-Flo. I can disagree with him on that decision, but I respect him. And that's what like a great coach-player relationship is. So number one, what did Fitsy mean to the team? Number two, how hard was that whole thing? I mean, Fitz is, he embodies everything that we're looking for. And he, he meant a lot to this team, you know, over, you know, the 19 and 20 seasons

and helped a lot of the young guys kind of mature and learn how to be professionals. And he just, he just, he just did so much for this, for this team. That decision was, was hard. You know, like a lot of decisions that, you know, you know, we have to make here. And at the end of the day, I have peace. We have peace with the, you know, the idea that we're trying to do what's best with this team, to organization, you know, now and moving forward. And, you know, at that point in time, based on, you know, everything that was going on with the team, offense, defense, special teams, locker room. There's a lot of, you know, factors that go on into decisions that honestly no one knows about. you know, or I should, I just only a handful of people know about. I got to take all that information and say, what's the best thing for us? And, you know, we felt like it was going to tour at that point in the season.

And for a lot of reasons, I'm not going to get into specifics on, you know, what this was, that, what those reasons were. But we just felt like it was the best thing for us to do. And we felt like it gave us the best chance to grow as a team and win ball games. We went with it and everyone got on board. And you played the hot hand at times, I mean, which is, it's abnormal. I don't know who you go to as a defensive guy, like who you lean on for offensive advice. Because a defensive head coach is so unique that you took such a stance on, you know, playing the hot hand, which is something you don't see in the NFL.

Chris, don't pigeonhole me and make me a defensive coach. He's got the shit inning grin on his face. I'm like, what's coming? But you're a defensive coach that knows offense as well as the offensive guys from skiing. against them for years against the best but at the same time is isn't it fair to say like maybe it's hard to evaluate quarterbacks like that's a very specialized thing right i mean like i'm sure you're good at it but at times do you have to lean on anybody oh i mean i lean on people for everything i mean i certainly don't have all the answers so whether that's offense defense

special teams personnel you know i think i think collaborative efforts and listening to other people i I think it's vital to leadership because other people have great ideas and thoughts. And, you know, you're right. Some people are better at, you know, scouting quarterbacks or running backs or, you know, linebackers or defensive and deny them. Yes. Do we talk to the offensive staff to the, you know, do I have other people lean on for, for those things? Yes.

But as a total team, I have to take all that information and they can make decisions based off of, you know, all of it, you know, are we good enough, you know, as a, on defense and special teams and offense and whatever the makeup of the team is, what's the best group? And, you know, ultimately that's, that's kind of how we base our decisions. Last question. I want to let coach Brian Flores go here on the Greenlight Potty's been very gracious with his time. How important is it? And I don't know how much you think about it, but, you know, you and Chris Greer being minority head coach, minority GM. The significance is not lost on me,

and I think a lot of people at times could look at you getting hired at first, and there's all this like Rooney Rule talk and all this stuff, and I know what kind of coach you are. I know all the coaches I've had that didn't get the looks they should have until later. I felt for those guys, so it makes it really exciting for players that played for you, especially you being a young guy. you know, Cully took him years to get a look that you got,

and that speaks to how great a coach you are, but it also, it's a great opportunity. Do you think about that a lot? Yeah, I mean, I do. I think, you know, like you mentioned, there's a lot of very, very capable, you know, minority coaches in this league. Like, you know, certainly sit and, you know,

the head coaching seat and do a fantastic job. I mean, I don't know. I got a couple of my staff right now. You know, they've, you know, at some point, have to get an opportunity. I know I'll do everything I can to help them get those opportunities. And I think part of that is, you know, I don't want to, you know, go out and going out there and put my best foot forward. And, you know, trying to do everything I can to help this team improve, you know, in all phases, this organization improve in all phases. and, you know, be an example, you know, for this team and, you know, other minorities that

can be done. Yeah. So, I mean, that's, that's all I can do. And I think it's definitely something I think about, something that's important to me, any opportunity I get to sit down with, you know, any coach, minority, not minority, female, yeah, it doesn't matter. I try to take that opportunity and inform them. advise them as best as best I can. Again, knowing that I don't have all the answers,

but I have had some experiences, you know, from a interview standpoint, from a leadership standpoint. And if I can help, I will. Coach Brian Flores, my dude, appreciate you. We're pulling for you guys, man. And congratulations on all the success. You're ahead of, I mean, they're ahead of everybody else's schedule. They're right on B-Flow schedule, I think. Appreciate you, Chris. Good to see. Make. Make, even he got it.

He nailed the name and I don't know why you're hanging out with this guy. Yes, the same question to myself. Because I fucking pay him. I got to pay my high school buddies. We're not going to be in studio on Monday because it is Memorial Day. This is a public service announcement to anybody who's listening. Do not wish a veteran a happy Memorial Day. Okay.

Every year I see tweets from guys in the league, like you should know better. You know, happy Memorial Day to all the men and women in uniform. Happy Memorial Day to our veterans. You know, like if you see a veteran day, no, do not tell them happy Memorial Day. I'm not thinking for vets, but here's what I would try. Maybe like I hope you have a peaceful Memorial Day

because Memorial Day is about remembering people who died in combat. There's an entire community that has put it on the line in different ways and has seen maybe some of their friends have lost friends and that sort of thing. So just please don't do the Happy Memorial Day thing. Please don't do it. We're going to have a great interview that I'm going to record tomorrow and I will be out of the office. We're getting a little break here. I'll be having fun. But it's a big interview. I don't want to say who it is yet. I'll probably tweet about it ahead of time if we get it in the books. I don't know yet that it's going to be good, but it's a good get for us.

Guest is top shelf. Top shelf guests. They'll be coming through your speakers on Tuesday, on Tuesday.