Green Light with Chris Long - Lane Johnson! Eagles Schedule Reaction, Chargers Schedule Video & Reviewing NFC Schedules!

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Lane Johnson and the Eagles Schedule review! Chris breaks the Eagles schedule to Lane and reveals who Philly will be playing this season. Lane also talks about SB LIX and how great it was to get redemption on Kansas City. To kick things off, Chris dives into the NFL schedule and breaks down each NFC teams entire schedule. Stay tuned on Monday for the AFC breakdown! (00:00) Intro (2:53) NFL is Dominating Pro Sports (22:08) NFL Week 1 Lookahead (32:30) NFC Schedule Review (55:00) Chargers and Colts Schedule Videos (1:06:35) Lane Johnson Breaks Down The Philadelphia Eagles 2025 Schedule & Talks The Eagles Super Bowl Victory Have some interesting takes, some codebreaks or just want to talk to the Green Light Crew? We want to hear from you. Call into the Green Light Hotline and give us your hottest takes, your biggest gripes and general thoughts. Day and night, this hotline is open. Green Light Hotline: ‪[phone]‬ In need of sweet threads to vibe like Chris and the fellas? Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for everything merch wise and enjoy for 25% off your entire order in celebration of the 2025 NFL Draft! sitewide! Also, check out our paddling partners at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Appomattox River Company ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠to get your canoes, kayaks and paddleboards so you're set to hit the river this summer. Green Light's ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, where you can catch all the latest GL action: Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I don't play the Cowboys, I play Micah Parsons. This looks like Zelda back in the day. I feel like one of them block-headed . And then Justin Herbert comes in and wrangles all the Broncos. I love the Canjo. Tim and Stout are competing for the Ebenezer Scrooge Award. Who's the most meanest grumpiest muck in the building? I was very happy that we got the chance to play those guys again,

because I remember how gutted I was when we lost. It's like I just wanted this, I don't care how many rivers, mountains I got across, also I'm going to find these motherfuckers and we won't get our chance. Drum roll, real schedule dropping right now. Are we ready? Welcome to the Greenlight podcast presented by BetMGM. If you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code Greenlight, and you will get up to a $1,500 first bet offer on your first wager with BetmGM.

Here's how it works. Download the BetMGM app and sign up using Bonus Code Greenlight. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game. If that bet loses, you will receive up to $1,500 in bonus bets. Just make sure you use bonus code Greenlight when you sign up. Welcome to the Greenlight podcast. Hey, thanks for jumping in today. As you saw, Lane Johnson joins the show.

Chris breaks the Eagles NFL scheduled to Lane. He finds out who he's playing when he's playing them. And Chris even drops a little treat in there for him. A great episode with him. He also talks about the Super Bowl victory over the Chiefs, how it was great to get that revenge victory after the loss in the Super Bowl a couple years ago. But the main part of the show today, we are breaking down the NFL schedule. Chris breaks down to each NFC team's schedule.

He goes one by one, goes through them all, picks out the big games where they might have trouble. And if you're looking to bet a couple over-unders, pay attention. He gives out some sound advice. So enjoy it. And stay tuned next week because we have the AFC portion of the schedule review coming on Monday, and we'll see you then. All right, so as promise, we are doing the NFC today. We had the big schedule release. We're going to talk about the NFL schedule at large.

We're going to talk about some of the holiday games and the way that the NFL is expanding into enemy territory, but mostly we're going to talk about the NFC. And if you're a fan of NFC teams, we will go over your schedule today. We will go over AFC teams on Monday. And a quick mention, we've got a poll question for you all. Make sure to hit it in the comments.

We want to know who had the best schedule release video. You saw them all on Thursday. Let us know which, one was your favorite. We're going to talk about a couple at the end, namely the Colts and the Chargers, and what happened there? I had to turn off the Saints video relatively quickly. I was like, what are we doing here? I honestly, I didn't watch it, but I heard that it was a dud. Try it. Yep. Try it. Oh, wait, that was Kellyn Moore, right? Yeah, Kelly. Yeah, clicked right out of it. I clicked out pretty quick. Clicked right out of it. Yeah, it's tough watch. All right,

Well, this isn't going to be a tough watch if you want to know about the schedule. Without further ado, let's talk about one of the biggest media entities in sports media. It's emerging out of Philadelphia. Nolan, you know about the exciting mics? You've heard about this? I actually have. Yeah, I was thinking, M.KES when you set up, but I know about the exciting MICs. Listen, it's Cupidian and Reed Blankenship.

It is the first installment is 56 minutes long. They cover a lot of ground, but they cover it deceptively fast. And they cover topics like best filly cheese steak and could the Eagles beat up a gorilla immediately. These guys, I mean, we have come so fucking far, fellas. Chad Hanks was right. It's white boy summer. It's just a year late. These guys are pushing the limits of what's possible.

being a Caucasian back-end player in the NFL, which wasn't even a thing before these. I mean, there were the Jason Seahorns of the world, but I don't know if Jason Seahorn could do this. No, I don't think Jason, I don't think Seahorn could do it. I mean, like you said, it's one thing just to be a thing, to be a white D-back, but to have the brand to be able to go ahead and launch a pod. Yeah.

It's another level. Get the bag, fellas. Get the bag. other non-football news that i just that caught my attention this week uh before getting into the schedule uh worst seat nico uh from the mavericks nico and the boys because i'm telling you even if he pulls this thing off like it'll be shrouded in conspiratorial shit forever like there's no way anybody believes and you know me i'm not like a conspiracy theorist but I'll bite.

There's no way. I believe that, you know, I didn't believe that people were like, hey, the commissioner told him to send Luca to L.A. I didn't believe it until now. I feel so stupid. I feel so naive. And speaking of exciting whites, Cooper Flagg

is the lottery ball. He's the lottery ball. The Mavs had, what was the chance read? It's like 1%. It was, yeah, it was like won and change to win the lottery and get the number one pick. Listen, and if this was happening in a vacuum, that'd be one thing. But like the frozen letter, which I watched 15, 20 times last night on YouTube, trying to see if young David Stern knew which letter it was. It's hard for me to tell.

I don't know if there's enough evidence there. But it certainly opens the door to me believing that like, hey, the French market's big enough to send. big wemby to uh to san antonio like just the NBA is a sketchy league in 2000 what year was this it was 2002 i was a wee lad i was 17 and i used to root for the underdogs in the NBA playoffs when the nicks weren't in it um and they were often the underdogs throughout my childhood this was the uh the big peacock era this was the round ball rock era this is max nostalgia i remember where I was watching the Sacramento Kings in the Los Angeles Lakers play. Game six, Kings have control of the series, 27 foul shots that the Lakers take in the fourth quarter alone.

They come back and win that game. They win the series in seven. Just absolute bullshit. Highway robbery. We talked about this with Chris Weber, you know, when he came on the podcast. They cost Vladi Divak a chance at a ring. They should be ashamed of themselves. The NBA is a sketchy league.

It's a sketchy league, fellas. Not like the NFL. And the whole referee issue with Donahey, you know, betting, all that stuff, you know? That doesn't happen. It doesn't happen in other leagues. It's a sketchy league. All right, you don't hear about Carl Chaffer's making bets. Right.

Now, the refs are perfect in the NFL. The rest are perfect. It's just a sketchy league, man. You know, wouldn't want to cover it. I'd hate to be Ryan Rosillo covering a sham of a product. You know, just a bunch of people pulling puppet strings. And Ryan's got to talk about it. Not me.

I'm talking about the NFL, the league that will eat your food. When I was a big 273-pound man, I would come home from a long day's work. in St. Louis, and my lovely wife would have a succulent meal on the table for me. And when I'd finish my food, I would just find myself looking around the table. I and her plate. If there was anybody over for dinner, I'm looking at their plate too. It's just like a, it's a primal instinct of the biggest animal at the table. and the NFL to me is approaching that stage.

The more you eat, the hungrier you are. I'm just telling you, the more you do of one thing, the more you want more of that one thing. Just like the example I just gave you. Like, when I eat dinner now and I'm done, I'm like, oh, I'm full. I'm $2.55. I don't need to keep eating. I don't need to eye up my wife's food.

I don't need to steal chicken nuggets from my kid's plate. I'm not the predator that I used to be. the NFL is an apex predator and right now what it's doing is it's eating other people's food and you know we talk about hey christmas we talk about the NBA christmas used to be the NBA's food now it's since 2020 it's the NFL's food and you know NBA fans who who love their product and it's a great product even though it's a sketchy league um they swear up and down that they're the biggest game in the world you know it's a global game they're globalizing at a rate much faster than the NFL therefore it's probably a more sustainable product or

whatever but we want Christmas and so we'll have Christmas you see what I'm saying like you can talk all that tough talk until we just come and take your food off your plate and that's what that's happened in the NBA with Christmas and that's what's happening now with college football college football is getting a little bit ambitious oh you want 12 teams in the playoffs oh you want professional athletes that now we have to deal with these guys are rich as fuck already we can't control them we're going to take your food that's what's going on right now in the NFL December 20th you know the the NCAA last year is like we got this shiny new big ass playoff 12 teams in the first round they're going to play one game on Friday night and they're

to play three games on Saturday. And it should be, the coast should be clear because the NFL plays on Sunday. Wrong. Oh, you got a shiny little playoff? It'd be a shame if somebody walked over and tipped it over and played professional football

on top of it. That's what's happening in the NFL. We just eat your food. We eat your food. And there's some people that say, college football is just a better game. It's pure. Now it's not pure.

It's more high quality. Never has been. It's the parody. No, it's not. Every year in college football, the same damn teams win. Find me a one-score game in the first round of a college football playoff. You know, the NFL does what it wants. And I'm not endorsing it.

I'm not sitting here cheering it on. I'm just kind of observing the absolute free will of the biggest league in American sports just walking around punking people. And they're doing it into college football. It's kind of like when you see a shark eat another shark. You're like, holy shit, that was a big shark that I just reeled in. It's been chewed in half. That's college football.

College football is the bull shark that you just hauled up on deck that has a fucking seven-foot hole in it from a great white shark. That's what's happening right now. Apex predators. Okay, the NFL has taken over December 20, they're going to have two games that directly at some point conflict with college football's shining us offering and frankly i could give a fuck less because college football y'all's first round games are trash you could probably find me a counter example but it wouldn't take you long

because there's only been one or two in the history of the playoff and i'm losing count how long it's been around now i think it's been around like 14 years the playoff i think it's uh 10th anniversary i think 2015 was the first year. Well, it's certainly not flying by, huh? I just said it was 14. Okay, so anyways, the NFL's in fuck you mode. That's Saturday. That's college football day.

No, it's not. It's a pro football day now. Pro football is played pretty much every day. We're getting closer to my degenerate dream of having a game to get some action on every day of the week in the fall. Some people say that'd be too much football.

I say I can watch it all in that case. You know what I'm saying, Noel? In real time. Speak for yourself. Whoever says that? Speak for yourself. I want Tuesday night football. No question.

What are some other things the NFL could take over? You know? What are some other things that American society holds dear that we could just walk over and tip over with a flick of a finger? You know what I mean? St. Patty's Day? Yeah, I was going to say, the spring. We need to do a spring game. NFL spring game opening day. And speaking of baseball,

fuck baseball. Rob Manfred said once an individual has passed away, the purposes of Rule 21 have been served. Obviously, a person no longer with us dead cannot represent a threat to the integrity of baseball. So they basically just waited until Pete Rose was dead. And they said, hey, he's dead now. He can't hurt us. We're going to let him in. you know what's fucked up about that thing i'm just another sidebar here as we get into the schedule and i'm not endorsing peteros the person google is out there okay but peteros the baseball player was incredible and i know gambling's wrong if you're a professional athlete gambling in your sport is dead wrong he paid a price and he lied about it for a long time and he had a lifetime ban you know

and I totally get that whole thing. But times change, and he never bet against his own team. Now, I understand if you're betting on your team, you're going to do things as a manager or a player that you wouldn't otherwise, and it might compromise the integrity of the game and that the game isn't going to be played, how it would be played in a vacuum.

But if anything, he was sliding harder into third. You know what I mean? That's the way I think about his gambling career. And so, listen, I just think the thing that's fucked up about it is. Pete Rose parading around the late years of his life in a white-fitted hat, signing autographs that were worth probably a fraction

of what they'd be worth if he was in the Hall of Fame. And now the MLB gets to capitalize on him. To me, that's what it is. I'm not saying that's the sole reason. I think a lot of it is caving to Donald Trump because Manfred met with him in April and Trump did one of those dyslexic, all-caps tweets about Pete Rose.

a dyslexic Pete Rose tweet where it was all one sentence with no fucking periods. It's just one big run-on sentence. And Manfred Cave. That's what I think happened. I think it's kind of like the draft in D.C. The state got involved.

But, you know, follow the money. Right? Like, they got a gift shop in Cooperstown. They want to be able to enjoy the fruits of Pete Rose's labor. You know, all those wins. all those hits you know i don't want them to go to waste hey the guy's dead right that's what they said so anyways greatest sports league in the world national football league the nflbler said hey the

nflbl said hey fuck you basketball this is pf t commenter on x.com this was a brilliant tweet uh pft commenter said can't believe the NBA scheduled a playoff game during the nfl uh schedule release, which is hilarious. We own you, other leagues. We just own you, dude. We own you. Listen, this is pretty telling. I got this from Yahoo. The good news for college football

playoffs. Last year wasn't a wash, despite the competition from the NFL. Last year's Ravens, Steelers, and Texans chiefs matchups won the ratings battle on December 21st with an average of 15.4 plus million viewers each. The four college football playoff games, one on

Friday and three on Saturday average, million average viewers in a strong showing in the first year of the format. Don't get used to it. But the two games that went head to head with the NFL brought up the rear ratings for Clemson, Texas, 8.6 million and Penn State SMU, 6.4 million, paled in comparison to the Friday night, Notre Dame, Indiana, 13.4 million. That's Notre Dame. And Saturday night, Ohio State, Tennessee, you know, big spot game, two big programs. I get that. That didn't go up against. the NFL. This is from Yahoo Sports. So basically what you can glean from that is like, you know, you're, you're just unlucky if you're trying to air a game when the NFL's trying to

air a game. You just got to get out of the way. It's your only hope, you know? So the NFL, NFL's on some manifest destiny shit. You know what I'm saying? So anyways, Christmas, used to be for the NBA, but NFL snatched it up too. Talk about the holidays. We talk about like you know, somebody, they're doing a Black Friday game again. When the Black Friday game last year was the Chiefs and the Raiders, and we had a snap exchange issue from Farva. From, yeah, yeah, Aden O'Connell. Aden O'Connell.

That was a bloodbath. I bet the Chiefs I was chasing. I'm always chasing on holidays. This is why the NFL wants you to watch holiday football. Because the more standalone games there are, I'm just telling you. And yeah, I have a gambling deal. I'm going to give you some free game. They didn't tell me this.

I'm just, I was born at night, not last night. They want you to bet standalone games. The great thing about a Sunday slate is you can pick out the winners. You can pick out games that you feel good about, great about, not so great about, and you're not inclined to bet the entire board unless you're a degenerate, right? You only bet the games that are really talking to you. That you've researched the most, that you have a hunch on, what have you, when it's a stand-alone game, and we all know this,

a lot of times you lose your ass because you wake up and you're like, damn, there's just one thing I can bet tonight, and you do it. And I think that's why the NFL wants somebody's standalone games, not just the ratings, not just owning the calendar. Okay, there's one holiday they've always owned. That's Thanksgiving. Okay.

Thanksgiving this year, I think the matchups are pretty good, fellas. Packers, Lions, I mean, that's going to be a good one. Chiefs at Cowboys and then Bengals at Ravens, okay? and you might say, hey, well, they nailed it with this thing. It could be even better. And you know what I'm going to say. I say it every year. You got to play Thanksgiving football outside.

Consider for a moment the Lions visiting the Packers, Lambo field, fall colors, people in their yards, enjoying Wisconsin cuisine, you know, out of commercial, shirtless fat guys in the stands. cheese heads the whole thing then you get the 425 it's getting dark in kansas city one of the most beautiful crowdscapes in the entire nfl vibrant colors cowboys chiefs smoke billowing off the smokers in the parking lot i mean that's beautiful right that can't hear himself think um instead we're going to get like um you're going to come out of commercial they're going to show you an alleyway in detroit

and there's going to be a bunch of steam blowing out of a building that's literally how they come out of commercial in the Detroit game and then they go into the stadium and you don't leave for three hours. You might see a guy getting mugged, something like that. But you get the idea. And then at 425, you're going to get like the stadium that has the personality of like an operating room. It has the aura of a hospital, in my opinion. That is Jerry's world.

And it's just to me, when you're eating and you're drinking and you're inside with a bunch your in-laws, bunch of your family, whatever it is, you've been inside all. all day, you want to feel like you're outside. I prefer an outside game on Thanksgiving. Now, at least we have Sincere and Baltimore outside. But playing football inside is disrespectful to pilgrims, is disrespectful to Native Americans, and it's disrespectful to every kid who's ever played a turkey bowl game outside in the backyard. You don't go down to the local gym, the rec center to play the game inside, you play it outside. And one day, when the NFL is completely eradicated outdoor football,

or the climate's too bad to actually play outside, you're going to miss outdoor football. And you're going to think about all those stupid fucking decisions by the NFL to put the games inside on Thanksgiving. Rant over, dude. I'm over indoor Thanksgiving. What is it going to take? Disgusting.

Let's get to week one. Week one games. Talk to me about the big ones. We got the Ravens Revenge game, Ravens Bills, right? What does it go? Thursday, Friday, Saturday? Or do you get a Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Thursday, Friday, Sunday.

Thursday, Friday Sunday. So Thursday night, I think, is the Brazil. No, Thursday night's the Eagles. Yep. Eagles, opener, naturally. World champs, raising the banner. Dallas going to Philly. I think that's going to be a lot of fun.

Um, you know, like I said, I'm looking forward to early seeing who George Pickens is going to have a little friendly rivalry with. It might be one of the podcasters. Hey, I'd like to propose something for that. I was wondering if we could mic up the security guards and the tunnels at the link just to capture the obscenities being screened at George Pickens from the Philly Faithful. I think there's going to be some good banter there. I'd like to mic the players up, dude. remember last year was it sydney brown who threw a guy into the tunnel speaking of the tunnel at the link like things happen in that tunnel and in this game a lot of things happen and so that's how it like

it kicks off with a bang right um and i think the eagles you know we talked to lane about this last night you know it is really hard to defend a title and you know this is going to be one of the situations we'll get to their schedule a little bit like where they're going to have to they're going to have to buckle up and coming out the gate against the Dallas team is going to have a lot of a lot of energy right like a lot of hope new coach um a couple additions in free agency what have you but they're going to want a piece of the defending champs right and so this is one of those games where and i talked to lane about it last night like the energy leading up to the game is crazy and you got to almost like conserve your energy it feels very weird right like you're out of your routine

you were in the hotel you've been out for a couple weeks it's a normal game week but it's kind of not like you work a little longer on the opener than the other weeks and by the time it's time to play you're like let's fucking go and honestly i don't even remember seeing the banner raise i think we're in the locker room for that whole thing we played atlanta um in 2018 my last year and uh and that that's what you know i got to see and i remember watching new england in 2017 raised the banner on t-eastern i was when they played, I forget who, maybe the Chiefs or something like that. And I was like, I was like low-key jealous because I was there and I played and I was like, damn, I don't get to play in this game.

It's going to be so emotional. The emotions run high, but really it's the weight. You know, it's just a long wait. It feels like a mini playoff game with all the ceremonial stuff. So that's going to be a good one. And then we're going to have a Friday night game as well as that Chiefs and Chargers in Brazil. Correct. I wonder if Jim, Jim Harbaal, stay in the RV down there in South Palo.

You can get the RV to South Palo. If you'll remember, Madden was, Madden was talking to me about possibly driving an RV down in Central America one year. And, hey, if that offer still stands, you know, I have, I have three kids now. And I could really use the free time. So get back with your boy on that. I'll drive an RV down to South Palo. I'll drive it straight through. Anyways, a bunch of international games this year.

You talk about the future of the NFL, like that's where it's headed, whether you like it or not. I'm pretty glad I don't have to take all these long plane rides, okay? You know, the international games are fun. Like, it's one of those things that you say, like, I'm glad I did it. You know, it was cool to do once,

but it's not something I want to do on the reg. And if you're the Vikings, we'll get to them in a minute. Like, they're going to be spending some time out of the country this year you've got that and then saturday night you have the bills and the ravens raven's revenge spot yeah uh sunday night sunday night okay so saturday saturday night we got football not NFL possees unbelievable they would leave that that day on the calendar i mean what's going on there some kind of holiday that we haven't conquered yet anyways yeah so that's week one for you i mean i out the gate listen i we're going to talk about the giants in a second giants in

washington you get a division game you got a couple division tilts early like you have tampa and alana san francisco seattle um new york and washington uh you got you got the justin fields bowl week one jets and steelers right and who knows like maybe you'll see aaron rogers in a pittsburgh uniform and and and it's going to be super awkward right for both sides. But, you know, I think it looks like a pretty fun slate the first week. You've got Detroit and Green Bay. We talked about that in Minnesota and Chicago.

A lot of division games the first week. And one out of division game, I think is going to be really intriguing is going to be that Titans and Broncos game, which is perfect. A 4 p.m. window game probably takes side stage, relatively speaking, is people are going to be looking at Detroit and Green Bay. But I want to see how Cam Ward plays in week one against what is a very disruptive and tough defense to play against. Yep.

So, and then the hangar game, the game that might as well be played in a hangar, is going to be Arizona at New Orleans. And that's a 1 p.m. That's just going to be buried in other relevant football. Tyler, one of Tyler Shuck, Spencer Rattler, and Jay Kanner against Kyler-Murray. Going to be electric. That's right. They're in a thruple.

Who knows? All right. So week one, you know, we can get into that in a little bit more. Some of the teams I just mentioned there, but that should be pretty fun off the top. You know, the NFL coming out with the primetime games right off the bat. You know, it's always fun to me as like in the grind of a season, as a media member or a fan, whatever it is, a gambler, whoever you are a player. it's always fun to look back at the end of the season

and, you know, that first game of the season feels like a million years ago. And it always feels like strangely irrelevant. Things change so much. Your concept of who teams are changed so much. I mean, you know, Baltimore at that point in the season was so sloppy last year. Remember how sloppy they were in that game?

And they damn near charged back and beat the Chiefs. and and you know like the year before that i think it was detroit edging one out at arrowhead we've had some really good opening games to start seasons out the past few years um and and they always feel like like they're a million years ago by the time it's December and uh in January and so it's just a reminder that like week one a lot of shit happens that doesn't make a lot of sense you know like week one, 2,0. No notes.

Just looking this over. I mean, off the top of head, the Eagles defense, like everybody's kind of sweating. Eagles defense was terrible. Right. By the end of the season, that's the best unit in the league.

Guys were falling down. You had that turf down in South Paulo, which, again, like, they're going to want to get that under control. I know that people got upset. A lot of people were like, it is good grass. You know, stop talking bad about Brazil.

I'm not saying, and Brazil doesn't have good grass. What I'm saying is they were playing on like a soccer pitch, just not designed for football or football. You know, you had Pittsburgh, Atlanta, that 1810 game last year. Arizona gave Buffalo a run for their money. Buffalo found themselves down at home, if you remember. Chicago, Tennessee, barely remember that game.

But it was one of those things that for much of the game, Caleb Williams was abhorrent and found a way to come back and win that game much because of the mistakes on the other side of the football. It was like who wanted to win it less kind of situation. New England, Cincinnati, they ran dive solid at Cincinnati 40 times in that game. I felt like, and just tested their chin strap. And that was the game that kept since he had to the playoffs, you know? Like they had won that one.

They would have been it over Denver. Yep. No question. Houston Indy, I think is one. Okay, I remember that game. I believe I remember that game. Is that the game that Anthony Richardson threw the ball 70 yards in the air? Yeah.

Yep. Okay. Miami Jacksonville, this is funny. Okay, so like Jacksonville had a huge lead. Miami threw a couple deep balls. Testing my memory here in New Orleans, Carolina. That was a massacre. Remember how good we thought New Orleans was last year?

First two, it was like record, the first two weeks of the season, record offensive output. No question. And then you had. you had Seattle, Denver, you know, Dallas Cleveland. Oh my God, Dallas Cleveland. We were convinced for a little bit that Dallas was really good. Like they looked really crisp in that opener. And at that point, we had overestimated Cleveland in a big way.

But that was a thorough ass kicking out of the gate. And boy, is that not what Dallas ended up looking like? And obviously Tampa trounced Washington. Washington grew a lot from that game last year. culminating in actually beating them in a playoff game. Yep. So, you know, a lot can change San Francisco, New York. You could kind of tell early on, like, immediately the Jets were going to have a lot of problems.

That was the Christian McCaffrey Jordan Mason game, I think. That's right. I didn't know, except I found out on Friday. That's what I knew. Now you know, bro. That's right. But yeah, so things change. I mean, it's fun to go back a year ago and be like, hey, that was a year.

that wasn't even a year ago okay uh but it feels like 30 years ago dude you know there's just a bunch this happens since that and so getting into the nFC starting with the eagles the super bowl champions the defending champs like tough draws man um i think one of the reasons it's such a tough schedule is they they get the afc west and the nfc north two really tough divisions um they finished with a bill's sandwich commies of the bread um And the division could really come down in the last three weeks. That's what we kind of talk about is when you see a cluster of division games to end the season.

It's one of those things where at the end of the season, you look at two teams that are presumed to be at the top of their division, like the thing could come down to the end. I think the NFL likes setting it up that way. You know, one of my favorite sayings in the NFL is like everything we want to do is in front of us. Like, you know, it's said to a lot of teams who are 500 around the buy or struggling, like, and Lord knows, I was on a couple of those teams where. late in the season, you're trying to make a case for things being possible.

And I think if the commanders can have the type of season that they had last year or take a step forward, anything but take a step backwards, I think they're going to be within shouting distance of being in the race and it's going to come down to the end of the season. If you remember last year, Washington and Philly played way far apart. It played one game early in the season. And these two games played out completely differently. each of them. You know, if you remember the one that Washington won, Jalen got hurt early in the game, on a Louvre, you know, de-cleater, and it was on a slide, I think. And that changed the entire

game because of the quarterback run element. And, you know, Jaden Daniels just went off. He threw some picks, but went off and was able to win that game. Those two teams were totally different at those individual moments in the season. And especially when you're playing a young team like Washington with a young quarterback, that is, and a new coach in year one or year two, we are in the beginning of a building phase for that team. So things can change a lot from one meeting to the next, right?

Like this program in Washington just started. So it'll be interesting to see in year two what they have up their sleeve. It's kind of nice to get an entire year of tape on Jaden Daniels and see him at the end of the season. if you're Philly. You know, I don't think Philly's

afraid of anybody. But that guy's a little spooky man. I mean, he can play, dude. I mean, he can downright create. And he, listen, we say it every year

with rookie quarterbacks. There's plenty of people saying, hey, rookie wall, well, Jaden didn't hit it, right? Like,

and then it's year two, second year slump. CJ hit it. I can explain a lot of why CJ hit that slump. Like not all those in his control. And that's what Jayden's going to be trying to avoid. And I think Washington was wise to go out and pick up Laramie Tunsell, make moves like that. Knowing that like, hey, just because he looked good doesn't mean we can take building around him lightly.

We have to continue to build. We're building this program. It is now year two. And they're going to get to see each other when it matters most. So I look forward to that part of the season. But again, tough draws, like look at the beginning of their season. Dallas at Kansas City. We're talking about the Eagles here.

L.A. at Tampa Bay, Denver, at the Giants, at Minnesota, and then Giants at home. So you have that Viking sandwich with the Giants being the bread. Yeah, and that first Giants match up on Thursday night. I think that'll sneak up coming off a, a physical matchup with Denver. Denver's a very physical game. You think about a short week, like that's going to be tough to get back on the horse for any team. But the Giants are a physical team.

And then you look at the Cowboys, man. I think as you pull that schedule up, it's kind of the tail of two halves, man. Yeah, yeah. Like early in the season, you know, you'll see the Jets. You'll see the Panthers. You'll see the Cardinals at different points. So like you're saying, I think there's some kind of forgiving spots.

there early on compared to kind of the meat grinder the eagles are running into in September yeah look i mean the the second half of the season for them after the buy you're going to have eagles you're going to have chiefs you're going to have uh Detroit on a Thursday lucky for them they get a nice little rest a mini buy after that Detroit game we know how physical those games can be then uh Then you got Minnesota and L.A. Now, that's a lot of home games in there. That's the saving grace. But then you've got Washington and New York on the road to finish the season.

So tough schedule for Dallas. Back-to-back Thursday games there, the Chiefs and then the Lions. So that's a little bit of a blessing. If you're going to play Detroit, you want that break before. And honestly, you don't see a lot of back-to-back Thursdays, do you? No. and one interesting thing for the Eagles they have 10 days rest

before they play the Chiefs, 10 days before they play the Vikings, 15 for the Packers, 10 for the Chargers, 8 for the Bills. That's really good. That's the hidden, you know, these schedule makers, man, most times when we were putting these notes together,

there was a give and take. You know, there were some schedules that just are more brutal than others, but some schedules you're like, oh, I can see where this might balance out. I'll point that out when we get there. The commanders, listen, we talked about Jaden Daniels a minute ago. They got eight standalone games.

Like five in prime time. The league wants to feature Jaden. You know, you're going to get him in Madrid, right, playing the dolphins. So if you're a commander's fan, how quickly has your life changed? Seriously. I mean, like you were in the penthouse and you were in the outhouse, although you still live in an outhouse at stadium. Giants, listen, this is a good theory that the league is pushing,

if I'm putting my conspiracy hat on, the league's pushing a little bit of a QB controversy in New York early with this brutal schedule that they have out of the gate. Okay? I mean, like, Nolan, I love this from you in the notes. Week 6 to 8 versus Philadelphia at Denver. and then at Philly. I would have called it a Denver sandwich,

Philly being the bread, but you call it a knuckle sandwich. I like that. That's a tough one. That's what it's going to feel like. That's what it's going to feel like. No question. I mean, those are some physical games back to back to back.

And then three of the last four on the road for the Giants at the Rams versus Pittsburgh and at Minnesota on Christmas and then at Chicago to finish the season. This is going to be a tough year for them. Really tough year for them. Okay, we talked about being out of the gate, like having a hard time out of the gate. Okay, commanders, cowboys, chiefs, chargers, uh, and Eagles all in the first, uh, six weeks of the season. And then Broncos, Eagles, we mentioned that.

Niners, Bears, Packer, lion. I mean, brutal. Damn, dude. So, you know, I think we're going to see Jackson Dart at some point. And it's a weird thing. like if you're Brian Dable, Noel, and you're trying to pick a way forward this season at quarterback, and obviously like sometimes we overanalyze this stuff and we say,

what would you do, hypothetically? And the coaches are just trying to win, right? They don't see this schedule and say, oh, we can't win the first eight weeks of season or what have you. They want to see who can play and they want to win. If you're Brian Dable, are you taking the risk with your job security and I suppose he knows more than us and not putting his best foot forward so that this kid doesn't get shell-shocked early right you know what I'm saying we went through this last last year with

drake may talking about the fact that he might get killed I'm not saying jackson dark's going to get killed but these are tough games right um would you play him out the gate how would you roll this out if you were if you were going about it in a responsible way yeah I think I certainly wouldn't throw him out there right away. I think you just look at the history of like the best quarterbacks in the game and one of the common threads being those guys being able to red shirt, if not for the full season, at least a certain amount of time. But I think you at least want to, if you can get through that first half of the season without throwing them out there, I think that would be a benefit. But the other consideration there is like what's the messaging they're getting from ownership in terms of,

you know does this by them by that regime uh taking dart another whole year or is it well we got to see whether we actually have something here so maybe there's pressure i don't know if it's a rhetorical question i don't i don't want to downplay the possibility that russell wilson is your best quarterback or something you know like you know there is a chance that russ looks competent right like yep and listen in an offense with malik neighbors tracy like they're improving okay they I like some of the guys up front that some of the work that they've done up front. Like, okay, I'm not saying they're world beaters, but what I am saying is like maybe a Russell Wilson led Giants team is not the long-term answer,

but it might be the best answer the first two months of the season. You know, I'll take an experience Russ or an experienced James playing some of the teams they're going to play out the gate and just buying this kid more time. That might be the best thing for the kid and for Davils' job security, right? Like you might have a better shot to steal a couple wins with a Russell Wilson-led offense and by your quarterback some time. So interesting, I don't want to spend too long on the NFC East as people start calling us homers. But the NFC Northman is really interesting.

You know, like the Bears, the Bears have a week five buy. Okay, like that's not a great buy depending on how you think about it. it might be one of those things where for a new coach you want to get back in the foxhole for a break sooner than you would otherwise right like you might need to swim to the edge of the pool and take 30 seconds right like it's it's okay week five could be a good thing for the bears but that is early and they have a ton of good interior rushers testing that's shiny new o line very early right We'll see what they got. Vikings got Hargrave.

Allen, Lions have a Leam. They've got Reader, Cowboys, the Digizua, and the Raiders with Wilkins. So I think those matchups are going to be interesting. And then three out of the last four games are at home. So it's kind of a mix and match here. Not a great buy, but you finish the season at home, which is a good thing, largely. And then the Vikings, man, the Vikings have a really interesting schedule. look they like the international back to back and then two late season west coast trips you know

it's it's it's kind of a lot when you look at it right i think they're playing in dublin and then on the way back they're playing where in london or something yeah so honestly got i's four and then week five in london i i wouldn't mind going to dublin for that game love to i wouldn't mind doing that at all. Try to split the G. Oh, fuck yeah. What does that mean? Guinness. If you like get poured the Guinness in a glass,

you try to take the first sip. Now we got to go. Yeah. I got to go. I just drink the Guinness. I don't split the G. I don't know what you talk about. I think you'll, this would be an activity you would enjoy, Chris. Okay. The competitive element of

trying to split the G. All right. That sounds good. well let's go to Dublin split the G I'd love to see a game in in Dublin that's the one that like I would get on a plane to go there I think and uh you know the the two west coast trips late in the season we talk about that out of their by week six it goes Philly Chargers Detroit Baltimore that's tough Detroit and Green Bay at home to close again that's one of these divisions again where we think probably it'll be up for grabs late because of the quality of teams in division but you know that that's a nice nice little

give and take for this team. I'm not sure if I'd make the trade, but having Detroit and Green Bay at home to close the season is a nice thing. I'm not saying that it evens out the fact they have to play two international games, but that is nice. Here's the lion's schedule here. You're going to Lambo, start things out. You're going to Baltimore. You're going to Cincinnati. You're going to Kansas City. And then you get your bye week. And you still have to travel. to Washington and Philly, L.A. I don't think they have a good road game.

No. The entire season. I mean, three of the last four on the road was brutal. Goodness gracious, dude. The hits keep coming for Detroit, man. It's a tough schedule. That is tough.

That is really tough. I mean, that's tough. But this is their tough group of men, led by a tough man. They'll figure it out. road warriors it's the most fun place to win in the NFL is on the road in my opinion and they're going to have some big opportunities to win some big games on the road but it is not going to be easy i'm looking at two of their games and wondering what the total is going to be the the the

Cincinnati game and i don't remember Cincinnati and Detroit playing in recent years they they did play in 2021 that was a um that was a 34 to 11 win for the bangles that was Dan campbell's first year coach. Got it. Yeah. Joe went 19 to 29, 271, 3 tuddies, and a pick. Listen, it's going to be a lot more evenly matched this time around. So the NFC North, we talked about all those teams.

I love the Packers Commies matchup. Thursday Nighter Football Week 2. That'll be a fun one. Typically the Thursday nighters can be duds. That'll be a good game early on. no question um packers commies a lot of fun uh i'm looking at they they got a lot of consecutive road games but yeah what do you see when you see the packers i mean i think i think this is similar to um like the steelers schedule last year of like they need to rack up some wins in the

first half of the season because you look at week 10 onward eagles ravens lines broncos vikings twice bears twice yeah that's a tough slate um so they're going to want to get out to a hot start um especially with what that division looks like as far as you know playoff aspirations go so moving to the uh the nfc west i think the i think it's a good year to be good in the nfc west if you can find a way to be good in the nfc west it's a good year to rack up wins i'm not saying that everybody's going to be trashed in the nfc west at all we haven't gotten there but we haven't gotten there but what I am saying is like there's a lot of uncertainty. I don't know what San Francisco is going to look like.

They didn't look like themselves last year, right? They've had to make some tough decisions. You know, Seattle's got a new quarterback. Arizona, as exciting as they were at times last year and as well coached they were, I don't think the quarterback's figured it out yet. Right. So, you know, looking at ULA or Seattle, you know, those are the teams off top of my head that like if if if if i had to pick the division today it's kind of even out a little bit

it's not like it's just automatically san francisco anymore i mean i picked against san francisco last year and uh you know so i wasn't surprised to see that they got a little bit worn out like maybe they come back this year a little bit stronger but in the nfc west it is a good time to be good for a couple reasons not just because like i don't see a clear lead dog but also the out-of-conference opponents. Is it the AFC South and the NFC South? Yep. Like for the entire NFC West.

So that's a good, this is a good chance if you believe that, hey, those are some of the softer divisions to rack up some wins. Like, if one of these teams is serious about their business, they could host playoff games. Like, I'm not just talking about, like, if there's one clear-cut winner of this division, they'll have a chance to have home field advantage. Yeah.

Like just by virtue of their schedule, I believe. Niners, three home games in the first nine weeks. That's not easy. And a week 14 by for a team with an injury history. Like we talk about them struggling through last year, kind of limited to the finish line a lot of these years. Week 14 is a long time to wait for. It's not a terrible schedule from an opponent standpoint.

But the things we just talked about, talked about are a little bit of a counterbalance to that. And then the Cardinals, for instance, they don't see a playoff team until week seven. So, you know, just some things I noticed looking at the NFC West. I don't know if you saw anything else. If the 49ers, you know, classically the last couple seasons, it's been, you know, kind of coming down to the end of the season for them to make a playoff push. Those last few games, you know, the last seven, you've got Panthers, Browns, by Titans, or last seven weeks, Titans, Colts, bears Seahawks. With the Seahawks one kind of being the one that scares you probably in there a little bit.

But, you know, there if you need to make up some ground, you've got the schedule to do it. Yeah, listen, I'm not trying to write the Niners off. I'm just saying I'll believe, I'll believe it when I see it, just them staying healthy, looking more like themselves, you know, they're going to have a chance to do it. the schedule isn't brutal, but the things we just talked about definitely play a part. And then we've got the NFC South. In the NFC South, I see like some opportunities for some young quarterbacks, namely Pennix and Young.

Like when you played Pennix last year, if you're the Falcons, when you played him, you know, I talked about this late last year. I said, you're going to have to rely on him heavily next year. like you want some tape on your guy and not just preseason tape you want the live bullets to fly a little bit where you see what this kid's made of and boy did we i thought like in the spots that we saw him late in the season he looked pretty good yeah and that's got to be valuable for him considering the beginning of the season okay like it is not going to be easy out the gate for this team they're going to get tampa in division uh they're going to get minnesota

on Sunday night football, week two, that's a tough, tough place to play. And then, you know, you get Carolina's divisional game. That's important.

Washington at home. You get Buffalo at home. And then San Francisco. Like, there's not a lot of easy games early in the season. And, and, you know,

I'm glad for their sake that Pennock's got some experience. Because out the gate, you talk about some of these coordinators. you get McDermott first half of the season you get Dan Quinn you get Todd Bowles the first week of the season

like they're going to be some tests playing Brian Flores on the road week two so Pennix get it going because they want Penix they want to see Pennix five primetime games they're sending this guy to Germany

week 10 the NFL believes in Michael Pennix and I don't blame him I think I think this could be fun. And Bryce Young is not going to see a playoff team from 2024 until week eight. Yep. So good for him. That's great.

You know, Shuck or Rattler or whoever is going to be is going to see Sala, McDermott, McDonald, early as well. They're going to have road trips to Seattle and Buffalo. There's a chance that entering the 2006 sweepstakes is a foregone conclusion for them. So you've got the bucks who, you know, I think if there's one thing I noticed about them is they're not going to play in the cold this year. For the last six games are at home and it's Carolina and Miami on the road. So, you know, take that for what you will. I just think, I just think it's going to be very interesting to see for a team that seemed to get better with Michael Pennix playing quarterback and was that owned the matchup with Tampa Bay last year. like is that a matchup that they're going to continue to own and will they own it with a tighter grip

because they have a better quarterback than he did last year right like that's going to those matchups i think could the division could hinge on those matchups you know um the bucks and uh and and the falcons playing each other now carolina could be a dark horse certainly um i don't see new Orleans sneaking up um but but those are going to be some impactful games and one of them is played right off the bat and i i believe they customarily do play each other early in the season first thing i want to say is we had a schedule release disaster in the a fc um the colts the classic let's try to have some fun with it situation for them um and they get steamrolled by the chargers it would be like me showing up to to school with like

and there was a project like an individual project or uh report you had to write and like you know i write mine on like um some book and and i half-ass it and then and then the smartest kid in the fucking school comes in and writes a report on the same book and i think part of what happened is for people who don't who aren't online like every team now releases the schedule um with some like interesting video except for most of the teams in the league seem to kind of mail it in. But a couple of them got really good at it. And, you know, the Chargers, while they aren't winning a lot of games on the field

in the last like five to 10 years, and I don't mean that as a shot like their social media team has been better than the football team lately. Dominant. Now, now that could change. I believe it's going to change with Harbaugh. I thought it was a good start last year. But their social media team has been like the fucking cream of the crop. And so they came out this year.

they did a Minecraft video, well, so did the Indianapolis Colts. And I wonder, did the Colts know that the smartest kid in the class was writing a report on the same thing they were? And so when they show up to class, and they're like, here's our cool Minecraft video, which actually wasn't that bad. It just doesn't compare to the production value

or the time that Microsoft allotted the Chargers to spend on this video. The problem with the Colts, it's like a combo of a, and Microsoft. It's like AI characters in a Microsoft universe. And like that, you know, they had the Tyreek thing. They take it down almost immediately or after an hour or so saying it exceeded their rights with Microsoft and included an insensitive clip involving Dolphins wide receiver,

Tyreek Hill. We sincerely apologize to Microsoft and Tyreeks. And Tyreeks said he was like, like, I didn't see. I thought it was funny. Like it was a geeky thing. And then the Texans rose them on social media, they posted a screenshot of the Colts unavailable deleted tweet and said error 404 4 code. Listen,

I mean, they gave it the old college try very quickly. I mean, you want to see a department, an entire department go up in a mushroom cloud like in real time, like that's what happened here. There's people at work who are like, hey, where's Bob from social? Haven't seen him.

Have you seen anybody from the social department no they're all gone because because not only did they they piss off a league sponsor in Microsoft they also 11 seconds in the video made tyrie kill a dolphin being apprehended by a coast car guy it was like it was the most absurd thing is you just mentioned read and i don't know man like just a master class in in in coming to work the next day and all your shit being packed up. I think what really happened, guys, honestly, is

in the end, I think it was Patrick Mahomes, senior fighting a disgraced pitcher John Rocker in a boxing ring with a frog called Mahomes Jr. In the middle, that might have been the issue. I think Ursa was like, let's not poke the bear. Let's not fuck with.

And I know a lot of people are like, I love it. We hate Mahomes. We're so over it. We have fatigue. They were doing a whole fucking document. on the Chiefs and they wanted to win, you know, that last Super Bowl and they didn't and yada yada and Taylor Swift. But you can't make Patrick Mahomes a little frog if it and make fun of his dad. If you customarily aren't in the class of the Chiefs, like they're in your conference.

If you fuck around and get good, you got to see that guy in the playoffs. Remember you made him a little frog on your schedule release video? And that's like you're jumping into a fight where you don't have a dog and a horse in the race. Well, you're not a horse. Yeah, right. You're not the, yeah, all three of those Patrick Mahomes, Senior, Patrick Mahomes Jr. And John Rocker could all turn on you for putting them in the video and be like, yo, what the fight?

Then you have three battles. You're fighting. We are living in a simulation. That was one of those moments where I was like, yeah, we're living in a simulation. We're not. When they were like, here's a video of the greatest quarterback on earth's dad. and John Rocker, the guy who was a giant racist on the subway, fighting outside a bar.

I was like, what the fuck is going on? How did these two find each other? Well, I guess it was a baseball beef, right? It was a baseball beef, and then I think Barstool picked it up and sensationalized it a little bit. Anyways, Rocker looks big, but he doesn't seem like a great guy. So anyways, the schedule of these things wild. I actually didn't think it was that bad.

I thought their video was, was funny. It just was that the, but they got a little mean spirited with theirs. I think that was the thing. Like, they were just, they were a little bit too mean-spirited where the Chargers one was better because they kind of had fun with it. Like Josh Allen definitely

went in the theater to watch sinners and came out. And Sauce Gardner was being supportive, right? Cause Sauce Gardner famously said, I don't want to go watch Josh Allen's wife, Haley Steinfeld, in that movie because that's my dog, Josh Allen. And so he walks out of the little, theater and little uniformed sauce gardener Minecraft sauce gardener walks him down the street and then

like my favorite one in this video is the dan marina thing it's uh it's the dolphins game schedule release portion of it where they're zooming in on a yacht called dan marina and then mike mcdaniel dives into the water little little Minecraft mike mcdaniel and the sideline reporter goes thanks mike and and mike tariko in the background goes go get a mike hustle in there and the little Minecraft Mike McDaniel swims into the locker room that's my favorite one I thought that was great and then my favorite Easter egg was uh the banners in the Minnesota week where they go into Minnesota's house and it says they've got a banner that says best record among wildcar teams hanging over the fire and another one the Minnesota wild get a fucking giant stray they go five time quarterfinal

runner up is the banner for the Minnesota wild and i don't know if you all caught this easter egg but this was maybe my favorite one was in the steelers one where they're going through like the purgatory mine right where there's a fork in the road and the little mine car occupied by i don't know who who's in the mine car do you all know a look at her indetermined yeah but anyways two guys are in mine cars maybe i'm just not getting the whole thing but they they approach a break in the rail system and on one side is purgatory on one side's contention and they both end up just going off the edge into a giant basin of hot lava and they're both Steelers players the funny part is across the little canyon

watching perched up high atop a rock is erin rogers and he's just peering down at these two guys falling into the lava what i noticed upon second watch was that he's holding a knife Yeah, the... He's in a Jets uniform, so the Steelers didn't sign him, so he's mad. And some people are saying he didn't, he hadn't signed with anyone yet because he wanted to see how many prime time games the teams that he might sign with get, which is what, you know, with the Jets, when he got injured, they had all those primetime games, right? Yeah. But yeah, the undetermined players for the Steelers, I thought you were going to say for the Easter egg, I mean, it's not much of an Easter egg. central part of the Steelers part, but the, when it says the track ends in nine and eight.

And that's what, like, that's the difference between the Chargers video and the Colts video. Colts video is a little more heavy-handed. Heavy-handed. This one's kind of like cheeky. Okay, I'm making a joke. You guys are always nine and eight. We're making, like, Justin Herbert's rounding up all the Broncos and calling them donkeys. Like, that stuff's fun. And then there's a little thing that falls down top right of screen and it goes, just acquired 53 donkeys. Yeah, yeah. And then the second game, when he puts them in the pen, you zoom out and it's two L's like the pens are two else. Like that's, that's good. That's creative.

Yes, creative. The Colts won when you're just arresting people. The Colts one was a bunch of people at a room. They were like, what should we do for the dolphins? Did you see that body cam footage of Tyree Hill getting slammed to the concrete? Let's make them a dolphin and have the Coast Guard roll up on them. And everybody in the room was like, yeah, good idea. Or how about the Titans one when they had all the bachelets puking in the limo? That's my favorite one. That's my favorite one, though. That's my favorite one.

It's like, how many hundred times did they have to review it only to like hit post? That's what I mean. Right. Right. You can kind of tell how an organization is run by these fucking, these fucking videos. Because if you're going to release a schedule release video, that's going to be like way more impactful than any interview that you're rookie minicamp people. Don't you think that somebody's going to want to get eyes on it? Yeah. Or that like in the room full of five people, they've identified the red

flags. That's why I think it had more to do with the Chargers just eating their lunch. It almost seemed like, you know, like there was a member of the Chargers social media team that also knew a member of the Colts social media team. And they saw each other and they were like, and the Colts guy was like, hey, you know, like, what are you guys doing? Oh, we having to be doing Minecraft. And then, you know, in the Colts next meeting, hey, what about a Minecraft video? Yeah.

And then they post it and they're like, God damn it, Billy. Like, we knew your buddies on the Chargers thing. Why did you do that? Now we have to delete it. It's stupid. They're all losing their jobs anyways. Yep. Because they pissed off Microsoft.

All right. So anyways, I did think the Bachelorette party thing with Will Levis getting run over was hilarious. They basically go into this bus and it's a bunch of little Minecraft women. and they got those big old schnaz noses and they're like and one of them just like project all vomits in the back of the bus and then they run over will levis will levis caught strays in both of the aforementioned schedule release videos that's as far as i'm going to the a fc i want to leave something on the bone for monday so i had to talk about that schedule release uh factor of it but a fc in its entirety we're going to hit that monday uh huh

I hope everybody has a great weekend. And if you're a fan of an AFC team, we will get to you Monday and lay out your schedule. And quick thank you for all you listeners. We hit 300,000 subscribers on YouTube. Big appreciative of you listeners and viewers. Thank you very much. And if you haven't subscribed, go ahead and hit the subscribe.

And if you subscribe, watch the videos every once in a while. Thanks for catching that NFC schedule review from Chris. The AFC schedule review will be out on Monday. you come back for that. And here's Elaine Johnson. Hey, Lane, tell me what you just said. God's honest truth, what? I only know we're playing week one.

Who are we playing? Who are you playing week? Who are you playing week? Who are you playing week one, son? Play the Dallas Cowboys. The Dallas Cowboys. Okay. So that's, I feel like that's early in the season to play the Cowboys, yeah? I don't play the Cowboys. I play Micah Parsons.

So that's who I check off. don't have the Cowboys, I have Micah Parsons. That's who I look at for my schedule. I think, I think, I think, I probably feels the same way. So, all right, are you ready? Drumroll, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to put the schedule on the screen so you can see it. Cowboy, are you ready to fire that up for Lane and give his immediate reaction? And then we'll go week by week. Are you ready? Let me start the screen real hard. Whoa, wow, wah, we wa. Hey, B-5-4. Fum. Yeah, I'm looking. Yeah, I'm

looking at all these and going, Jared verse, Chibito. But, bro. Abdul Carter. Do you see October 5th? Where is October? Baltimore Ravens in Shanghai. Is this in fucking China? Yeah, dude.

That is news to me. Did you know you were playing in China this year? Fuck, no. I didn't know games were playing in China. I knew we played in fucking everywhere else. Hey, I'm glad we finally put the... All right. Hold on.

We'll get back to going to China. That's insane. Okay. And then at Green Bay and at Buffalo in December back to... Hey, hold on. How about at fucking Khalil Mac at fucking Los Angeles Chargers? Both 35-year-old veterans fucking... How about...

How about two Monday night football games back to back? Hold on. Detroit and Minnesota? Or no, hold on. Monday night in a... in the Thursday night. Dude, how about the fact that you got to come back from Shanghai and stop in L.A.? Yeah, that's going to be, yeah, I mean, that's what we're going to do.

Leave there and then we'll probably just say that week in L.A. Oh, I can't. This ain't your schedule, bro. You're not going to Shanghai. That's me fucking with you. I got the real schedule. You ready? Yeah.

Hey, hey, I was going. I was like, dude, there's no fucking way we're playing Shanghai. I would have fucking heard that. I've heard of Mexico City. I've fucking. I told him. I said, whatever you do, make this schedule look really hard. I mean, look at this bullshit.

Hey, I saw Micah Parsons, fucking Chris Jones, Jerry Burst, Abdul Carter, fucking Kyle Van Nuoy, Kalil-Lak. Just a bunch of, just a bunch of, Hey, that's pretty good at Shanghai. I knew, because I, you know, I mean, I know a lot about the schedule, but I would have heard that, I think. You would have heard about Shanghai. Okay.

Playing at the Shaolin Temple. The Shaolin Temple. They'll be the rest. You'd be huge in China, bro. They would love you. All right. Drum roll, real schedule dropping right now. Feast your eyes on this schedule, son.

This is the first real-time schedule reveal to an all-pro offensive tackle. Yeah, I just look, I'll tell you. Mike or Chris Jones, Carl Loftus, yeah, verse, Tampa. They got some new guys. Benito for Denver's really good. I think New York's defense is going to be fucking really good this year. Minnesota, they just paid Van Ginkle.

I think he's really good. Oh, I think Van Ginkle's so good, dude. Yeah, he's very underrated. I think he's really good. He's like a mini Clay Matthews. Yes. Yeah, Green Bay was trying to. I would argue that Van Ginkle has just as much ball skills

and maybe more ball skills than Clay Matthews. Yeah, you know, I saw Clay towards the back half of his career, so I didn't get to see some of the good stuff. Clay, Clay Elite rusher, like totally. Oh, yeah, yeah. Elite rusher. Van Ginkle is great rusher, too. But I think, Clay, I think if you're comparing the two, I think like Van Ginkle might be a better off the ball guy. Yeah, better coverage.

Clay's better rusher, but both are pretty good, really good. And long hair, both. Yeah. So let's, so what's the first thing that jumps out of you is the buy in a place where you like to buy? Week nine? Yeah. What was it, week five last year? So, no, I'm fine with that.

I mean, when you look at it, you count in training camp at all those, you know, that month in, and then you count those first eight weeks by. I think it's a good spot. Really good spot for it. So starting week one, Dallas Cowboys, so here's my question. Do you even remember when we raised the banner the last time? Yeah, Atlanta Falcons. Yeah, we played a terrible first half.

or I think they raised the banner, I'm guessing before the game, yeah, and then we went out there and shit the bed the first half, got booed, ended up coming back, and we ended up winning, but not in, not in Philadelphia Eagle fashion. We did get booed. Hey, it was a good wake-up call. Hey, that was last year. This was this year.

Well, no question. Do you remember, like, the feeling coming into that game, like, yeah, I say, and that's what I want to avoid is that, you know, going in last year, we didn't, you know, everybody wants someone to Super Bowl, but it's, which really is, you can't be thinking that from week one. You've got to be thinking small. Yep, for us, I just, you know, after a successful season, you're going to have an extremely hard schedule.

I know, you know, last time where we played, you know, it's mostly Monday night games, a lot of late games, so, which is an adjustment too. But, you know, when I look at this schedule, I'm just looking, hey, man, I got a lot of talented rushers. I got a face, so that's, and that's really how I look at it is, you know, who am I going to a heavyweight title fight with this week. But, you know, when I look at it, you know, I think about my schedule, you know, when I was

younger and I was like, man, I have a couple of bi weeks in there maybe, not by weeks, but not having to play, like, as good of players. But when I look at the list, it's just every game, you know, really good players. Yeah, was there a guy ever that, like, now maybe if he's out of the league, you can actually admit it, but that, like, when the schedule came out, you were like, oh, shit. Now, you probably have to do that every year with, like, the level of rushes that you see on this, but when you were younger, who is the scariest guy that popped up on your schedule? Well, I think, like, the most intimidating schedule.

Like, every year, like, looking at it is, you know, it's a daunting task. You think about everybody you have to line up against you. But I think before the two, before the year, the year we won the Super Bowl, I thought about everybody had to play that year and, you know, everybody was like a double-digit, double-digit sack guy. But, yeah, it's just, it's a long season. But, yeah, when I'm looking at, I'm just looking at, you know, really, really good games early, really good rush for it early.

How about week two, you got Kansas City, this is becoming, like, I don't want to call it a rivalry because I would, I think people might take that out of context or the wrong way, but, like, it's a respectful rivalry at the very least because. Yeah, it's a good matchup. You guys have, I mean, you two teams might define this generation a little bit with the way you go back and forth. And I don't know if you remember this. We played the year we won the Super Bowl. I think we opened the season in Kansas City.

That was a third game. We ended up losing. The only time I've ever beat them was obviously this past year and then the season before. But before that, I never beaten them in my whole career. Do you remember, and this is a 425, so it'll be a big spot and all that. It was a big spot that year. I just don't think people like, this was pre-Mahom, so they weren't rolling quite as much. I don't remember Arrowhead, and this is no disrespect, because I've also been there for the Bill's playoff game, and I know.

But I didn't remember it being as crazy as I thought early in the season. It was hot as hell. Hot. I mean, when we played there, you know, I think it was, I can remember what when it was. I think it was more middle of the season. First week after the buy, really loud. But it was like, you know, the Super Bowl, obviously. We played the Saints earlier in the year.

Super loud. You know, it wasn't that way because of the game, but you look at, like, places to play. That's one of the loudest. I'm trying to think, I'm looking at others. I think the Raiders is like a weird stadium. Pretty loud. Yeah.

I look at Detroit. All I think is about is whoever designed that fucking stadium to where you have to walk a mile to the locker room and a mile back. A little twist of the knife. Yeah. Well, it's probably good. They want us to get for the stadium. teagued out so that's good one no question i mean um uh i do the i just looked at

something i wanted i wanted to take on it your opponent in week two the kens city chiefs they have seven prime time games this year how tough we're going to get into talking about a couple primetime games like how much does that throw off your routine yeah well it's just it's like uh you know you're waiting for the for the electric chair hey do you want to go at 1 p.m. do you want to go at 820. Which one sounds better to you, Chris? 1 p.m. Yeah, 1 p.m. That's good at all. Noon, if you played for the Rams. Yeah, so if I could just turn my mind off longer and just activate it right for the game,

we would just work and ignore all those thoughts. But no, it's definitely easier, like early games, you know, the schedule is a lot more convenient. You wake up and you kind of, you know, you eat a little bit, then you're already at the stadium, whereas it's totally different. And it's going to be like that. And you have really good teams, strength of schedules up there. So, yeah, I mean, I remember the 23 season, just how many games were like that late night.

It is. It's all the travel it does. It can wear on you if you don't, if you don't, you know, take care of all those things. I mean, shoot, I'll skip ahead to December 8th. You got the Chargers on a Monday night. And, you know, that makes you, that makes a short week. the 14th playing the Raiders at home.

But the point is, like, tell people at home what time you get, you really get back from a Monday night game on the West Coast. Yeah, you might get in at 5 a.m. in the morning, get done playing, whatever, you know, it's 11 there, you know, maybe 7 in the morning. Sometimes you get back, but, yeah, you kind of lose a day of sleep. And, you know, usually it's like two days after you really feel the effects of it. So, yeah, like, if you can conquer that stuff early, like all these, you know, all these weird schedules, getting sleep and just getting recovered, it's huge, especially, you know, by the end of the season where it's like all that stuff is catching up to you. No, no question.

I'm wondering if you could wave a magic wand and you were like, Jeffrey, Lori, would you, I always said it'd be nice to stay over in the city that we played and have a curfew. Because I just want to go to bed. Like, people don't believe me, but I personally just want to get a good night's sleep. You go out to the West Coast. Wouldn't it be nice to be in your bed by, you know, midnight or whatever time it is? Get a full night's sleep. Wake up at 7 a.m. 6 a.m. West Coast and then fly back. If I was an owner of a team, that's the way I would do it.

Then again, you wouldn't have those memories of the Soul Plain headed back West Coast with all your boys either. That's true. We did have some pretty good memories on the plane, dude. Really good memories. Yeah. And that's kind of, yeah, that's all I think about when you're, you know, not with everybody. But, yeah, no, it would be. I've always thought about that, too.

Instead of heading back that night, sleeping in, head back the next day. Coaches could get all their filming stuff done. Probably easier at the hotel than that night instead of rushing to, you know, you know how it is. Dude, it makes more sense, but I also understand, like, you got a whole team full of guys and young guys. And, like, you know, you don't know how guys are going to handle the freedom. them or do you give them freedom do you and it's a hey owner doesn't want to spend i'm not saying your owner i'm saying like owner in general they don't want to spend on another night in the hotel and you know another however much it costs with the plane and all that anyways yeah we got okay

week three we got the ram september 21st coming to link were you as impressed as i was with jared verse i mean you've already mentioned them and fisk but their attitude coming to the game they weren't afraid of y'all you know what i mean like, which you're not supposed to be, but some guys would kind of shrink up in that spot. It felt like he was like, I want all the smoke, man. Yeah. You know, he's obviously like ultra-talented, but just what you said, I just feel like they all rush together really well.

They play well together. And it's, you know, it's going to be an even bigger change from year one to year two. These guys getting more in tune with each other. But no, Jared Burr's obviously very good bull rusher, plays the run really well, just really violent. And then Braden inside, he started getting really active, like the last part of the season. And you can see what makes him so good. He's really good at getting narrow and skinny, really good at getting away from guys' hands. And he's kind of lower, you know, 6-3, so that helps him. But, yeah, they were one of the more impressive fronts, you know, last year, just collectively.

Everybody, number 91, I thought he was one of the best guys in the league last year. Yeah, he's a good player, man. Turner, he's a good player. And he kind of gets lost in the shuffle. He got overshadowed by Donald, even though he had a great year of the year before. Yeah. And then coming back, kind of got overshadowed by the rookies. But he's a hell of a player. And I thought young, the guy on the other side is pretty good, too.

And that's a well-coached group, Giff Smith, shout out. Yeah, no, and they're really young. And they're, so, I mean, they gave us a lot of trouble last year. So, yeah, man, we started out with some three heavy hitters. You know, and then you go to Tampa. We haven't, it's been all on and off again with them. I saw it. It seems like we win one.

They win one. And it's not really a close game. It's an asshole, but on either side, somebody's just getting rolled up. What is it about that place, man? Like, that's a tough place to play, especially early in the season. That's one thing I always looked at was like more than what are the cold games. I don't mind the cold games. The games in the heat in September going down.

Remember we went down to Tampa. Hey, oh, I'll never forget it. I remember Coach Chung, we were out there warming up. and it was so hot, he goes, let's get the fuck out of here before we die. It was just, and we did. Yeah, we just cut warm-ups and just went inside. They were shooting the cannon off within three minutes of the game starting. They scored like a need-down.

And it's loud. Mike Evans is just running quick slants. Seems like he's just open all day. All day. It's just a miserable place. And just their style of defense, too. They have all the different fronts slanting. Just that, and, yeah, it was a really tough place for us to play.

They ended up with, uh, Is Reddick down there? Here we go again. Here we go again. You know him well. Yes, that's just what I'm saying. Hey, there is zero off games on this schedule. Right.

You're thinking, oh, maybe, but no, they got guys. I want to go back to the Rams for a second with the Fisk and Verse. I feel like they run games really well for young guys. No, they really do. They have a good feel for it. You know, especially with us, you know, we like to get out and get out in vertical set pretty fast. So sometimes they run those TEs.

They do a good job of rapping late, and sometimes the tackle get picked off by the guard. So, yeah, not only are they really good individually, but, you know, their games, they were probably one of the best in the league last year. No question. As far as giving us trouble. All right, as you come back home and play the Broncos,

I just wanted to point something out, and I think people picked up on this already, but, like, I don't think y'all have a consecutive home game. I know I guess not I'll be damn that kind of sucks I kind of like you know like I kind of like settling in for a couple weeks at a time

but at least then you don't have like super long consecutive weeks anyways you get the Broncos then week five sorry to break that bad news but you get the Broncos week five we just had Zach Allen on the pod yeah Lane he's awesome he's your kind of guy

and he's a hell of a player you already mentioned Benito. Damn, Singleton. That was with us. He's really just been bawling since he's been there. And I was going to ask this. Have you played in Denver? Not that you're playing in Denver in this situation, but you played in Denver. Yeah, I have.

Did you notice in a big way? What was like the first year was with Chip, and we fucking were getting beat by, we're getting beat so bad. 52 to 13 was the final score, I think, by Peyton Manning was when he was still with him. So we were out there just fucking 90 plays. So, yeah, I was dead. Yeah, and Kip was going to.

Last time, I don't know, I didn't feel it as bad, but I don't know. No, it definitely is a thing. That's what I'm saying. I couldn't imagine playing in Mexico City where it's almost like 8,000 feet. And for big guys, like the small guys, I don't feel like have too much of a problem. But like, as you know, when you're climbing Kilimanjaro, some of the big boys don't do such a good job. Big boys might struggle a little bit. Hey, next year is 10-year anniversary climb, Lane.

I'm going to at least put an invite in your mailbox. Yeah, it's going to be a retirement climb. So if it's not next year, hey, it'll be the year after. But I'll be climbing it one day. We're down to the ones and twos, huh? We'll see, yeah. Yeah, you know how it goes. I don't trust you anymore on that.

Yeah, it's year to year. All right, so you've got the G-Men who, I agree with you. Defense is going to be a good group. Oh, here's what I want to ask you about Denver. I had Zach Allen on last. asked him about Quinn Miners. And he goes, he's, in my opinion, the best guard in football. Now, I know there's some guys on your front who you would probably argue for.

But have you watched a lot of minors on tape? Man, I have it. And it's not like a disrespect to anybody, really. Just don't cross over like that. Well, no, it's just like I'm so busy watching these guys that I'm blocking, like, on the edge. Like, I used to watch Zach some just because he was closer to my age. But, no, I know he's obviously really. talented. I'd have to go watch more film on him. I mean, mostly I'm watching

tackles. I'll watch guards some, but most time my eyes are on the tackles. Abdul Carter, first off, his confidence scares me. He asks for Lawrence Taylor's number, son. That means he don't give a fuck. That means he don't give a shit. I don't want to boil down, too. Scar is kind of rusher there is. And then here's what I'm wondering. The best rookie D. Lyman you ever played that you were like, damn. immediately I know this guy is going to be here for a decade and a half. Best rookie. Damn, we're trying to think of some names.

Off the top of your head, you know? I mean, you played Micah his rookie year. Yeah, I knew Mike. I don't know if it was Max's rookie year. You know, I knew Max is going to be talented. You know, you know Jared versus talented. Those three guys. I'm just trying to think of guys that I played early on that you could really tell.

Yeah, Mike, I mean, it's kind of like that way with DeMarcus, Lawrence, when he was younger. But a guy that I thought was really challenging, just to block, probably the most, the hardest guy was Olivia. I said over and over there, it was Olivier Vernon. Yeah, I felt like when he wanted to really go, he would turn it on. And he really, and he could. He'd give the best tackle some work. He could turn it on. That was a strong individual.

The nice thing about this trip to New York is, I assume, because I think it was back in the day, did we take a bus? or we take a train or something bus and we used to take a train to Washington isn't that nice you don't take a train to Washington anymore we didn't I do miss it so looking ahead to

well I'll get there in a second because I want to ask you about Washington but you get the Vikings you played up there loud place tough defense try IDing the fucking mic there yeah last time we played only did a lot of radar spinner stuff but they didn't have the guys they have up front now so

like my my my mindset on Van Ginkle. Used to be Danil Hunter for all those years. Now he's down there in Houston. Not the worst thing in the world. He's gone. Yeah, it's not the worst thing in the world. So, yeah, now that's, you know, we've won there.

You know, obviously we won a Super Bowl there, but I don't know, 2019 we might have lost there. I think we lost there. I think I remember. Yeah, we'll gloss over that one. We'll get the Giants again. It's a giant sandwich, week six and week eight. What happens schematically without giving away, you know, the goods,

but like when you play a team or a rusher twice in three weeks, something like that, is that something you've had to deal with before? And do you hold things back? Do you change things like the whole nine yards? People say that and there's some guys that do might hold stuff back, but you know how it is on the edge. There's only so much you can do. You know, you don't have a whole variety of stuff.

But no, you will, you know, I think it was that way with Washington last year. I don't know. We would play them two or three times. Yeah. But each time was different. You know, especially the second game, they got the better of us. And it was like everything, I guess all of our tendencies they had, because every play they knew where it was going, calling it out before it happened.

And, well, we didn't have a good day on the ground because of it. No, I remember that. I remember that one. Yeah, you know, it is. The primetime game, the first one, or the second one, too, because Jalen got hurt and, you know, there wasn't a quarterback run game and it kind of changed things for you. Yeah.

But it came in and played well. Yeah. But yeah, but to your point, yes, you do need to be very wary. You go to the TV copy, be wary of your cadence that you're using, some of the calls and the run game, past game. So that verbiage needs to be changed throughout the year because defense, what do they listen to? They're going to the game tape with it to listen to the cadences, looking at the ball, any of that stuff, probably looking at my back foot and telling them to go off that instead of the ball.

And so. Yeah. Clyde Simmons, former Eagle legend, lined up next to the guy on your jersey there. Clyde Simmons, 120 sacks or something like that, total legend, but he was my assistant D-Line coach in St. Louis. And at the end of the week, he would come in and do a book report, basically, on the TV copy.

And so, you know, that's a big thing in the NFL. It's not a huge thing that a lot of people know about, but it's a big thing if you can really hone in on that. You can get some, you know, we used to do anything, you know, there were a lot more people under center back then. I say back then. And so it was back then. Yeah, back in the day when we had to walk uphill to school. Yeah.

So they had, you know, you had a lot of this. You time up people's hands, you know. And even stances, like people give away run past stamps. So all that. And like it, like throughout the year, that's one. day you need to be conscious of is making sure you're not giving away. And a lot of times you could ask, like, your own defense, like the offense coaches could ask the defensive guys, hey, who's giving away our shit when we're pulling?

How do you know? If they wanted to know something real quick, you could ask, just ask your own team. Stout used to give me a little one, two things like that. Yes. Yeah, I know you slanting inside there or whatever. And it helps to have somebody from the other side of the ball taking a look at it. So we got the bye week, week nine, then week 10, November 10th, that should be pretty cold. going up to Green Bay.

Have you played? Yeah, I love, man. Yeah, I've played there a bunch. I love Lambot. I love the locker room. I love the history of it. I like the stadiums in the middle of, just kind of nowhere.

I kind of love that vibe. Yeah, I've taken, I've had some great ones there. I've taken a good ass open there with Julius Peppers was there. I remember he picked it off and scored it us now. It wasn't a good game. Do you remember this long they play? Kent, does that's, don't know.

I don't know. They had a fullback. Was it? Who was her fullback? of the day. They used to go, Coon. Coo. And they go, go, yeah. Bro, I was at their training camp last year. By the way, a big physical team. I know you played them last year.

Yeah. A big physical team. But I was hanging out with Coon on the sideline. Coolest dude ever. Coolest dude ever. True fullback's fullback. And he's doing media up there in Green Bay. But yeah, small town, not much going on.

Easy to stay locked in going up there. I love the locker room. So also when I'm looking at the schedule, I'm looking, hey, what type of locker room environment do these teams provide. Is it a small lockroom? Is it a nice and big, luxurious locker room? Best locker room, Morris locker room. Go ahead. Dallas is very big. Kansas City is like you're in a silo. L.A. is really good. Tampa Bay. I'm probably going to sue them for getting mesothelioma from all that old insulation they have in there. You know how that shit is. The shit for the 80s. So I'll be suing them here in 30 years. Denver, I don't know which I'll get with you on that class action.

Okay, yeah. Yeah, Denver, we're playing here. New York. For some reason, I don't know. It's not like I love playing there for some reason. It's a sterile stadium, but the locker room's really nice and spacious and just like, it's not too big. You know, if you go play in Arizona or San Francisco or Levi's, the locker room is so big it breaks the team camaraderie up. Yeah, that's kind of how Dallas is too.

Same thing with Dallas. You're walking through different rooms. Yeah, no, and I think it's. yeah i mean especially if you're going at half time and you're getting your ass kicked and your teams half a mile over there not a good feeling oh i think we've been in the same locker room on the ass end of that thing where you walk you got to walk like a half mile to the back to cut your your tape off and you got a path to so many so many different rooms people getting Achilles surgery one room people taking bass and another room just lots of stuff going on it's like gartsy

blues and you walk in and killers in there killers behind one of the doors course. Yeah. Not our coaches. Now, that Arrowhead Lock Room, that is stuffy as fuck. And the little stools, man. I like, hey, I do. I feel like a fucking peasant.

I like the old stadiums, though. Did you ever play a candlestick? What's the candle? Is that the old Kansas cities? San Francisco. No. Bro. Didn't get a chance to play there.

The parking lot, like where, like, fans are parking, is, as the crow flies, 20 feet from the door to your locker room. I bet the motherfuckers are howling you. Well, that's what it used to be. They made it so the fans could get in on the action. Yeah, that was one of my all-time favorite stadiums. That's an interesting one. Okay, November 16th, the Lions coming to town.

You can't help but watch their align and like what they do, huh? Like, I know you guys are one of the, you guys and the Lions, I always get talked about is the best offensive line. I think y'all are the best offensive line personally. But you got to respect them. Right there neck and neck. No, you just look, both are tackles. Panais, best in the league.

You look at Taylor, pro bowl this year, you know, Ragnos, always, you know, top one or two in the league. He's a lot bigger than you think. You know, he's 6'5, really big guy. To their point, I feel like playing for Dan Campbell would be fun as fuck. He's, yeah, he's got the football mind, the football intensity. I think players gravitate towards him because of, you know, how much he cares. Just because he played and probably just how he treats the other coaches.

But, no, they're a lot, a lot different than what they used to be, you know, as far as, you know, T, there's no more high high at Detroit anymore. Hell no, dude. And also the fact that they're always willing to go. If you play them, the offense always has to be ready. Their offense has been, you know, it'll be different now that Ben Johnson's gone. I thought Ben Johnson's a genius. But fuck, dude, they were best offense in league last year.

I mean, I mean, unbelievable. They were amazing. Yeah, they had some spurts. You get Dallas on the road. We already talked about their shitty giant locker room and their giant underground tunnel that the bus has to drive through for 20 minutes. Not a great experience in my opinion. He didn't say that. I said it.

Man, the Bears, have you played at Soldier Field? I turned into a popsicle. Oh, yeah, double doink. Yeah, I played after the, yeah, the double doink in, we played there when it was fucking freezing. It was a year we lost the Super Bowl, 2022. We played there. We were 12 and 1, and it was like 10 degrees. I'm trying to remember.

Who was the quarterback of that team? Justin Fields. Justin Fields. Yeah? Yep. T.J. Edwards is there now. T.J. T.J. played really well for them.

Yep. And slack. My buddy, Ricky Stromberg's there. Montes Sweat. Yeah. You know, Montez and I had some battles when he was with Washington super long. And I'm not sure who all these guys drafted. It's like not a disrespect thing.

No, no, no. I mean, like, and I think one thing you find out when you talk to players, like in real-time fans you see, like, we don't know everybody in the league. We know our focus is so narrow. Somebody was asked me, I was a dinner party tonight. And they were like, you learn about, do you learn everything you need to know? This must be an easy job. Now I go, bro, I've learned much more about the who's, you know, the half. after football because our focuses are so narrow as players.

Yeah, no, it is. For a D-Lyman, I know tackles. And like you said, like when I ask you how minors is, you're like respectfully, I'm not really watching the guards. All right, so you got the Bears who I think are going to be pretty good this year, and then you get the Monday night game out at the Chargers. I know you're not on social media a lot, but do you know that the Chargers release their schedule every year in a funny way?

Is this something you're aware of? Did I know that? Do you know what Minecraft is? Yeah, my son loves it, plays it. I had to go to the movie. Did you go to the movie? I didn't go to the movie. Movie's sensational.

Jack Black's amazing. You got to go. We got to watch it. We got to watch the Minecraft movie, okay? When you come visit, we'll watch a Minecraft movie. But with Whalen. But anyways, they animate Minecraft characters out of all their opponents and kind of make fun all their opponents.

So I'll send it to you after this. The fans love it. It's like the biggest deal on schedule. And it's just them? It's basically like a Minecraft version of Justin Herbert. Like week one. Hey, Nolan, can you guys pull up the, the Chargers? I'll watch it.

I'll show you a couple weeks of it. I think you might get entertained by it. This looks like Zelda back in the day. Yeah, I know. Oh, look at this shit, dude. I feel like one of them block-headed motherfuckers on there walking around. Look at this. Week 1.

Kansas City Chiefs in Brazil. AFC West of States. This is Raxie really cool. Yo, it's really cool. Look at the Raiders' little shit house. Is that Max Crosby's house? I don't know. And then Justin Herbert comes in and wrangles all the Broncos.

Look at the shit. Look at the shit. Did you see that Daniel Jones? street sign back there. Look. So they're playing the giant. This giant's been. He's afraid of Sequin.

Oh, this is funny as fuck. Dan Marina. Look at this. Look at this. They say Mike McDaniel, get out there. He dives in. And he finishes his interview and they say, look at him go.

Because he runs off the field. Captain Andrew Luck. Andy 500 for these guys. Will you take it to the Eagles, uh, no, I just want to show the Eagles. Save our Tush, is that a big dog? Is that the dog?

Yeah. Kyle looks like the Tom and Jerry bulldog. Cooper does need to read blanket chip. Save our tush push. Now you understand what's so, what's such a big deal about the Chargers schedule release. So we are on the, on the back end of this schedule. You obviously get Max Crosby.

Max Crosby is one of those guys, man, that like, he's one of the last guys that plays 18. these snaps in a game. And Zach Allen's a guy who does it as well. What do you think of Max, man? Like, I don't know if we talk about Max enough. Yeah, I think he's, I mean, he kind of has like a Jared Allen type of slipperiness to him.

I'm not saying that he's Jared Allen, but he's very unpredictable. He has a variety of moves. He's really strong. It's like he has a good feel for the game, I would say. I feel like Jared Allen was so good at like the feel for the game. Yeah, I mean, um, What pops out to me is just his variety of moves. He has a lot of moves.

He does, like, a lot of good rushers. He's actually good at running games, so he compliments his rush with that. And then to your point, I just think, you know, with how you play it, you know, he plays really violent just in the run game and in the past game. So he's just the guy that's just a nuisance, really, you know, every snap. A fucking nuisance. A nuisance, yeah. You love to be called a nuisance. He is. He's a nuisance. Just a guy that, you know, he's fucking not going to stop.

No, and he keeps on a vertical track as good as anybody. Like somebody at a young age took the governor off him. Yeah, he's really good at setting guys up. Like he's, you know, he'll do something for a big part of the game. Run high, run high, get the tackle to drift and then he went to spin or slow him down. And then, you know, he has good counters. So yeah, much respect to Max, man. No question.

And Christian Wilkins. And I think that's another defense. I put him in, like, I think they're going to be better than people. Oh, yeah. In general. And Christian, Christian's a good player, great player. He's going to help them a lot. He's going to help Max a lot.

Yeah, man, we talked about Washington much, but, you know, their D-line was solid. You know, they had Fowler, Armstrong. You know, a lot of guys, you know, they had a good rotation. obviously the guys inside Allen and Payne. But then you look at their offense is dangerous. They somehow got fucking Laramie Tonsle. So I think that's going to help them a lot, too. I think that was, you know, good pickup for them.

I've always loved Laramie's game. You know, I think he's been one of the best, about the best year and year out. So, yeah, I mean, in Washington, yeah, it was, you know, competitive of the first game, second game got away from us. And the third game, we kind of had our way. but, you know, Bobby Wagner, I feel like, kind of changed her identity of the defense. Frankie really played well. I thought with the role that he had last year, you know, it's kind of a spinner guy.

But they were a lot different team last year. Bobby helped them, you know, Zach being a lot of inside the ball, too. So I just like their leadership. And just the kind of aura of Washington's team has changed the past two or three years in a positive way. So would you rather do like a Mickey Roy? Swan dive into like a wrestling ring full of attacks. Have you ever seen the movie The Wrestler? Yeah.

Or play a full game in that stadium, that death trap of a stadium. Washington? That unsafe stadium. Smells like the casino floor, don't it? When you walk into it, it just smells like smoke, fucking 80-year-old slot machines. Bad decisions in early 2000s. It's falling apart, too. Yeah.

Hey, and when you look at like their network. worth their value, they're like their Forbes listed values like pretty fucking high. So hey, just, won't you just redo that fucking thing? That's what they're doing. They're in the renderings for the new stadium? No, I bet it's in shen high. That's going to be sick in their last one. Yeah. No, um, freaking, uh, do you remember when Jay, Jay, Jaylin, um, yeah, almost got, uh, fucking Patches-O-Hulahan's there? Yeah, he almost got dead. Yeah. No, it's exactly what happened. If they would have landed on him, it would have fucking fractured his fucking fibula.

And then it would have been the worst injury in sports history. He could be joining the lawsuit with me with a miso thelioma. Did that fucked up stadium get you? Call 888. I'm just glad Kierrigan's on that field. I thought a guy that's really underrated and then was Armstrong. I agree. Yeah.

See, like I was saying, when you get guys that are 6-2, 6.3 that have, you know, his arm length is 304. and a half inches so that's equal to a guy my size 66667 guy so you had that leverage and then the arm length they can get on you he got under me before um pretty good bull rush long alarm um dude i rarely see you like like stumble even on the field and i thought he on one or maybe one rush last year oh yeah yeah there's a couple times where i get buckle and i have to readjust but he's really He's really powerful. Like I said, he's long and really good player. I think the bills, they just got fucking Bosa.

Yeah. And they got Greg, you know, Ed Oliver. You know, they got some new guys. Like I said, man, when you get on up there, you're not as familiar with some of the guys as maybe you once were five years ago. But it don't mean that, you know, a few months from now, I won't know who they are because I'll be watching the show out of them. But we're playing there.

So, yeah, I think I've only played there one other time. I think in 2019, it was a windy game. We didn't start off too well, but we ended up winning. Dillard played some. I think it left tackle. But this is going to be late, so it's got a possibility of fucking getting frostbite. So Highmark Stadium is the name of the stadium. It's the home of the Buffalo Bills construction.

The new Highmark Stadium is underway with completion slated for the 2026 season. Oh, the new stadium is not to be done? Yeah, so y'all might play in the last. You could play in their last home game. I don't have them, you know, but definitely one of the last games in that stadium. So it's kind of cool. All right, well, a couple questions, man. Overall, we feel okay about the stadium or the schedule?

We feel okay overall? Yeah, it's just, hey, we've got all these battles coming up. But obviously, man, you can take them one at a time. When you look at the whole list, it's like a boxer, man. You can't, you can't file all the greats in one. like a night it takes time so um but no man like i said when i look at the schedule i don't see any really like weak opponents um you know and when i see guys like the d-line i see guys that are it's going to be um like i said no off games when i look at the schedule um but it you know it comes

with the territory so um you know it is what it is i'm just glad i'm kind of disappointed now we're not playing uh in shanghai i know that would be cool i would i would i would i would have been there. Do you know what I want to do? There's a bunch of international games this year. There's one in Madrid. There's one in Dublin. I think I want to go to the one in Dublin. I would too. Maybe President McGregor will be in office. Maybe he can, maybe he can pull a string or two. So my question to you is you're the last member of the core four. How does that feel? Has that sunk in? I can remember when when I was old, I told you it's weird being old. I'm not calling you in a bad way. It feels like you're going to, you know, going to prom and you're 25. That's what it feels

like in my career now. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit like, man, what am I still doing here? Fucking outdated, bro. I got, I got all my N-1 shit on people here wearing fucking wearing nothing these days. Hey, I got to, I'm out the game. You're shopping at East Bay? Yeah, hey, that was, Hey, some people still shop at East Bay because we can't get fucking proper O-line cleats. Hey, man, I'm tired of it. All these, I'm tired of going in the locker room every fucking week. And they got diamonds and they got fucking snakes coming out of their cleats.

And I got just the basic default Madden. Ball sharks. Ball sharks. But they are comfortable. But it's a little weird, you know, looking around. I mean, it's weird for me. Yeah, like, I feel connected like when I'm with the O-line group because, like, obviously, we talk a lot.

and they're younger me, but we're still very close. It's just some of the new guys, you know, we don't have much time with them kind of individually unless it's worked together, unless it's in the cafeteria or something. But no, it is weird seeing all your friends and teammates come back, you know, and just, yeah, really, I think it hit me hard last year when Fletch showed up, and I was like, fuck, bro, you should be out here. I forgot what game it was or who were playing, but I saw him before the game, and I was like, man, I miss Fletch.

Isn't it weird when you see a guy? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is. It is weird. Just because you've been around this guy and just not even like everyday life, it's been like the most challenging, you know, fighting for your life type of thing. So it's weird seeing them in like in a peaceful state of mind. And it seems like all of our friendships are formed with adversity or, you know, us being underpurs. pressure so it's weird seeing guys in like a different phase of life it's kind of like i'm kind of living

through them you know i'm seeing some peace and some tranquil eyes like like like you're like what the fuck's wrong with you you seem happy yeah you know you seem rested what's going on with you yeah you know that's not the guy no you know yeah yeah we're all we're only used to see these guys in that one type of environment speaking of shit that makes you feel old jihad campbell was born in two 2004. Have we met any of the rookies? No. Not yet. I will. I'm going to head up there probably in a couple weeks. I've obviously got the mandatories, but doing the meetings and stuff down here. But I think the biggest thing that pops off to me about Campbell is just his size. You know, usually see that type of rent or, you know, link that maybe kind of looks like a Vic Beasley,

Beasley, but playing middle linebacker, you know, type of frame. But having him and Zach together, other good good job howie no question yeah g jes howie yeah no and i thought her jaff draft really complimented you know i'm excited about um was it zach inside from nebraska helping out uh jalen uh safety out of texas uh saw him flying around dude he fucking knocks the shit out of people he don't he doesn't seem to have any care about his body I'm not saying Earl Thomas When you see guys just flying in Like fucking Troy Palomalo just

That type of You're too young for this guy But there was a guy Bob Sanders I know Bob Sanders is for the fucking Colts Bob Sanders used to There was another guy for the Lions From Florida Louis Delmos

Delmus Louis Delmus Louis bro that guy was cut from the same cloth you know the type of guys are that you know are here for a good time not a long time and I'm not on the planet

I mean in the league because your body just can't it's like cushioning I heard about all those fucking surgeries I didn't realize he had five a year 27 geez

he's gonna have fucking titanium legs lieutenant Dan golly that's crazy dude um all right and the other guy I wanted to ask you about up front was, well, you know, we're talking about Campbell's possibly being on ball, off ball,

but one guy who was on the ball and had a really good year. And I got a chance to meet him at the end of the season. Love the guy is Jalick's Hunt. Really good kid and seemed like he came along late in the season. And you actually were like, hey, watch out for this guy early on. Yeah. We just got played safety in Cornell. And then he moved into DN like the last couple of years.

So, yeah. Got elite feet for somebody that. big. He's going to like continue to get thicker, stronger. So he's got a frame where he'll be able to hold 265. But yeah, just his feeling for, I feel like how much he evolved during the year from where he started to where he ended, two totally different people. Like his, he used to just kind of run down the middle of you. Now he only picks an edge. He doesn't let you really hit a whole lot. He's really good at his hands. Like he knows I like to wait. So he likes to do different stuff to get my wrist.

So, you know, I think not only he's talented, but he's very smart. So I just, you know, with this skill set in his frame, he's got the chance to be super elite. Like I said, and you have Jalen Carter in them and creating so much pressure on them, you're going to get a lot of one-on-one. So, you know, it's good for everybody. Where do you put the Jalen Carter coffee house sack against the Rams and the red zone in the snow in the echelon of Eagles? all the time great plays because it might have been our greatest play this year, saved our season.

Yeah, and he was, you know, Jalen had to play, you know, a lot of snaps last year. I think he's number one in the league for our snaps. And, you know, I think, you know, with him playing those many snaps, if you can see a great player given extreme effort, it's just going to elevate everybody else on the team. When you have a great player that's not given effort, and then everybody on the team thinks that, well, if he can do it, I can do it too. then, but he's the guy that, um, yeah, man, he's going to be one of the all-time greats. Just how it is.

You heard what he said. Do you think, did you get to know Vic Fangio a little bit, or do you still not know who the hell he is? I love Vic Van Gogh. He's, him and Stout are competing for the Ebenezer Scrooge Award. Who's the most meanest, grumpiest motherfucker in the building? Oh, I think it's got to be Fangio, at least maybe because I know that side of stout, but I remember I was sitting with you and Selik and, like, Connor, this.

past off season, Fangio came up and ate lunch for a second, and then, like, didn't say anything, just got up and left. We were all having a conversation. He didn't say goodbye or he just left. He's one of those guys. If you can get a nod from him or that or something on the field, it's like you just... That's pretty good. Oh, yeah. It's the best feeling. If you can get him to smile or smirk at you, it's a fucking gold medal right there. Scarcity is what it's called. The only thing else I wanted to ask you, man, because we haven't really talked since... I mean, we've talked but i know you've been so busy and um we've texted a little bit about hey let's get together whatever but i haven't really asked you about the super bowl and how this one was different or how it

changed your life and you know what i mean when i'm asking that question like i don't know if people but every year changes who you are it changes your career everything especially the super bowl how's this one different how how will it never be the same for you lane johnson because of this second Super Bowl. I think the feeling for me just getting to play the team that beat us a few years before, that was like the ultimate feeling. But I think like for me, the magnitude was like a much more significant, I guess, the first time around because it was something that hadn't been done. But this time around, it was more I got to savor the moment. I wasn't running around just, you know, wild. And, you know, I didn't even remember the parade last from the first one.

But this one, I really got to sit back and kind of taken in. And, you know, you know, Yeah, I was just, you know, I was very happy that we got the chance to play those guys again. Because I remember how fucking just gutted I was when we lost. And that feeling I felt at all 23 when we were, you know, lost those past six games. And I just had, it's like I just wanted this fucking, I don't care how many rivers, mountains I got across. I'm going to find these motherfuckers and we're going to get our chance. And so, like, you know that going in, like, you have a chance, like, with a team, like, you're talented to make it. But a lot of stuff has to go right.

People have to, you know, luck. People not getting injured. People staying healthy. getting a chance to fucking be in that game again was the ultimate feeling. And yeah, it's going to, obviously, accolades or, you know how it is. It's one of those things you love it at the time, but it doesn't really sink in until, I don't know, you get older and you realize, you know, when you're not in it, you realize how significant it was when you were in it. But when you're doing the day-to-day, all you're really thinking on is what's next.

So for me, like, you haven't really got a chance to celebrate it. you know, we get the rings and we got training camp like two days later. So it's kind of, I don't know, I wish they did rings like three days after Super so you could enjoy it. But it seems like everybody, you know, after that game happens, you do get to celebrate a little bit, but then people sign, they go different places. And I don't know, you really don't get to, like, have those conversations with maybe some coaches or players that you wish you had, like Kellan, you know, he got the job

with the Saints. And it's like, damn, bro, I wish I'd had some time to just, you know, show you much I appreciate everything you did. So that's what I kind of miss or kind of don't like about, you know, just a situation. But, yeah, man, it's, you know, it's nothing that you, you know, you couldn't dream of it. It's just very fortunate. And like I said, I think the best feeling was just getting a chance to play these guys again. And, you know, these guys will be back. Well, they're past, you know, five or six, six years. So, yeah, man, and it was cool just to have my kids there, older to where they kind of understand it more.

Yeah. You know, obviously my family was there, but it was just, it was cool, just the scenario. And I think it was a lot different because going into the season, you know, we had a lot of expectations on us. So it wasn't like we're coming from behind or, you know, sneaking up on anybody. It was like we had the highest expectations on us from the beginning of the season. How do you handle the pressure? Are you going to be able to do it in the, you know, that's what made it special.

But I think like when you have guys, like, we have, like, Sequin is such a good job. Like, he's obviously, like, one of the best players in league, but he does a good job of treating football as not like the all-dominating eye in your life. You know, he still knows how to keep it fun, keep it loose to where you still have like that high school feel, you know, joking around, you know, the football side of it. And so that, you know, I feel like that was the balance of this scene. Like, we played great, but, you know, it was time to have fun with each other and not be, stress out all the time. We knew how to, I guess, do a little bit of both. I guess is what I'm trying to say. Well, you got to have fun, man, because you were just talking about, like, the feeling of not getting to fully celebrate it because of everybody packing up their tent and rolling to the next team or to the next season or the next thing or the vacation.

I mean, we celebrated our asses off in 17, right? But it barely feels like it happened. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And as bad as you want to go back, you just, the reality is you can't go back, right? So fucking enjoy it, man, enjoy this season. You know, and I'm not saying that this could be the last one or there's two more left, but like, man, just enjoy it, right? Because I'm sitting here, fuck, dude, seven years out.

And I'd go back in a heartbeat and go through it all again to just get that one day on the bus. Right. and while you're on it, you don't, you can't, it doesn't sink in because you're, it's a whirlwind. So just enjoy it, man. Yeah. Yeah. What you said made a lot of sense. Yeah, and just that's the part of being a part of a team where guys are taking shit super serious to where your name and reputation is on the line and you get to lay it all on the line with the guys.

There's nothing, there's no bond like that. I think it's why we're all drawn to it in a way because, yeah, it's just a special feeling, man. Really is. You ain't going to find any more teammates after football. I mean, there's some people you enjoy being around, but there's a different level, as you know. Man, appreciate you. Yeah, this was fine.

I thought the Shanghai shit was too-shawn that one. I said, there's no fucking way. Look at these. And we've got fucking hard teams every week. Which city is Gabe going to enjoy the most? Shout out to Gabe. You're your trainer who traveling. We play L.A. home or there?

We play, you play L.A. there. Okay, that's the one. Yeah, probably L.A. He has to go back and go down some rows that he may have left behind. It's all those stomping grounds. All right.