Green Light with Chris Long - Ryen Russillo! Nick Sirianni & the Eagles, Remaining Playoff QBs, Bills vs Chiefs Lookahead & Mailbag

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Ryen Russillo joins the Green Light Podcast to recap the Monday Night edition's of Wild Card weekend. We talk the Eagles loss to the Buccaneers, the issues that plagued the team and where will Philadelphia go from here? Does Nick Sirianni survive the offseason to coach again in 2024? Chris and Ryen also lookahead to the Chiefs-Bills matchup. We end with a mailbag featuring our very own P.J. Fleck acronyms. Enjoy! (00:00) - Ryen Russillo's Trip to New Zealand (15:51) - Eagles Future with Jalen Hurts and Nick Sirianni (51:06) - Chiefs vs Bills Lookahead (59:30) - Mailbag: P.J. Fleck Acronyms, Americans as Fans & Industrial Revolution This podcast is brought to you by Cash App. With multiple tools for saving, spending, and sending, Cash App is the easy way to stay in control of your money. Cash App is a financial platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Make sure to check out Fax and the King every Wednesday on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FaxAndTheKing 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]‬ Send any Talent Search submissions to: [e-mail] Include any video of your talents, takes and bits as well as a little bit about yourself. Love hearing from the Green Light fans. 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. https://paddleva.com/ Green Light Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/user/951jyryv2nu6l4iqz9p81him9?si=17c560d10ff04a9b Spotify Layup Line: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1olmCMKGMEyWwOKaT1Aah3?si=675d445ddb824c42 Green Light Tube YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/GreenLightTube1 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 look around at like the different stuff, and I just feel like, wait, are you going to pull it from Siriani this quickly? But I have to defer to the people that are around it every single day. And we're like, no, without Stuyken, Jalen Hertz is not the same guy. And this is the problem. I still think Hertz is hurt with that offensive line, you know, with Kelsey retiring, you're like, man, the window of having the best guy at center in the league. And now he's moving on from it all. But I just, I resist the impatience. I resist the idea that someone needs to be punished when the fan base is disappointed. but that's the corporate world and it leaks its way into football all the time, both in college and pro. I also have said this.

I don't think Jalen's the problem. I think the scheme's the problem. Welcome to the Greenlight podcast. A great episode for you today. Ryan Rissillo joins Virtual Studio J to have a good time with Chris. We put the finishing touches of a recap on the NFL wildcard weekend. We talk about the Eagles and what their future might look like. or without Nick Siriani.

What is Jaylen's future with the franchise? We also do a little Chief's Bill's look ahead. And then we get into a very special mailbag featuring our very own PJ Fleck acronyms. You'll remember that PJ Fleck, the head coach at Minnesota, came up with his own acronyms around the football program. Chris and Ryan come up with a couple of their own.

And as you can imagine, it is the most serious exercise out there. Thank you all for sending in these wonderful mailbag questions. We had a hard time picking out just a few. Make sure to come back Friday for a great Friday freak show. We'll have the division previews and a little bit of fun. Uncle Rye, how we doing? Good, Chris.

How are you? I'm well. Just got it in my SUV on my weekly ride home to Virginia from sunny Philadelphia. As you know, it's always sunny there, except for today, where there were three inches of snow on the ground. It took me like six hours to get home. Ouch. What are you driving right now?

What are you pushing? What kind of whip? Well, I wasn't pushing the whip, Ryan. You know, I get an SUV. I sit in the back and I get some work done. You know, listen to some audio books, things like that. You wouldn't know about audio books because you like the real thing. Yeah, I like the hand. I like the hand wrapped around the spine of a good 700, 800 pager. You know, it makes me feel alive.

And it's a good way to just kind of burn out that left arm, you know, because it's just holding it up the whole time. Although when you fall asleep on a plane, with 700, 800 pages in your hand, and it drops, like people, they send security over. They're like, what the fuck? Like, no, no, he's super into history. Don't worry about it. So you just, it's just a thud.

Yeah. How about the car service? It's, he's reading Grant. Don't worry. I'm looking at your book right now. I got a nice bookshelf to put all the books that I haven't read yet. And Grant is just taking up some real estate. It's like the oldest, biggest lot in a crowded city.

the old man just staring back at you he is staring at me all right so you brought something up you said plane rides and it reminded me we haven't even talked about your trip no we haven't talked to new zealand we can do it all man can we talk to real quick before we get in the NFL that's more important I'd love to yeah we tape the travel pot at six parts it'll come out all-star weekend in February so I'm excited about it I don't want to step on that but uh no it's all right how about like eight out of ten trip nine out of ten trip I mean you've traveled a lot of places alone. What's the loneliest you've ever felt on the road? That's a good one, man. That's a really good question. I never felt alone in New Zealand ever. It was great. I would say it's nine out of ten. You know, I think ten out of ten is reserved for like remember that girl from that show like three years ago on HBO? Like yeah, I kind of hung out with her in queenstown like just totally hit it off. You know, that's a ten out of 10, likely not obtainable. I would say, you know, look, a lot of time, as the audience knows, like, you and I

become really close. You know, we're almost like daily checking guys now on a few years, which is pretty remarkable because I was, I was playing golf with some guys and one of them was Joe Staley, the left tackle for the nineers. And he was like, man, he's like, your buddy's Chris, right? And I was like, yeah, I am. And I was just kind of laughing. I was like north of 40 to become.

that close with just another buddy is pretty rare. So anyway, as I add that to it, little Joe Steeley name drop in there, I... How's his golf game? Dude, he hit a six iron, I think 260 yards into a hill. So there was no run on it. It wasn't, it landed at 210 and he got this incredible roll. Like, he's right off of the swing.

We were like, oh, my God. He's sailing this green. And then I was like, what did you hit? like a six iron and then he had another drive where it was it was 347 i think with zero like it's stuck oh damn so he can really hit him yeah just not straight is what i'm gathering um look i was so bad it's the worst round i've played all year so i don't have shit to say about anybody i mean it was it's a a guy chad smith who's a big big time trainer guy I think he just decided to be a professional badass because he's been really nice to me.

Yeah. So he reached out to me years ago. And of course, like back to the new friend thing, I'm like, what does this guy want to be like buddies or something? Like new friends? And then you start looking at him and he trains all these NFL guys. And then I saw a video of him doing jihitsu where he picks this guy up and puts him like into the earth. Then I asked him, I was like, what the fuck was that video? He's like, I think that guy quit jihitsu after that meet.

And he just couldn't be nicer. So he invites me down to golf and he's like, are you any good? And I go, I'm not. But I've been playing and it's gotten progressively better. Like I expect to be good at some point here. Like I feel like I'm putting some things together. And I just, there's nothing that worked. Everything was a mess.

And then, of course, the other guy that we played with has the course record or did at some point. And his brother, his younger brother, Knapp, just got his tour card. So it was, it was a tough group to play with when you sucked. And I sucked. Like, of course, everybody wanted to bet. I was like, no problem. I went in on the bat. So, like, what's your handicap?

I'm like, put me down for like a 22. And then everybody thinks you're sandbagging them. And then by like a third hole, they're like, this guy's not lying. Like, actually he was lying the other way. So compare your game to an NFL quarterback real quick before we get into New Zealand. Peterman? No, no, no. It would have to be, it was so bad for this round.

These guys will push back on it. But there's just moments. I'd say Anthony Richardson. It'd be like there's moments where you're like, whoa, what the fuck is that? So you play golf for three regular season games. Yeah, there's like three holes where you go. Okay. Every time you go golfing, you get too physical and you have to leave the route.

No, I'm saying that there'll be a moment where the rest of the, we'd be like, where, what, how, what club did you just use there? Yeah. Like, oh, that was an eight iron. And like for, you just hit it 180. And I'll go, yeah, well, you know, if I'm hitting it right, that's what I expect to do. Or like, where are you aiming? And I'm like, I'm aiming over here. Like, oh.

And then out of nowhere, like, I'll save a par with an insane. So there's just always a couple moments where they're like, what? Yeah. Like, well, how come you suck? Because there's things that you're doing that show you shouldn't suck. Anthony Richardson hasn't been around long enough. Maybe Kyle Bowler. I've played with Kyle Bowler

I've played with about 30 quarterbacks that'd be a fun exercise okay Rye tell me so New Zealand real quick yeah tell me about New Zealand the reason we went on that tangent is I had a lot of moments so I'm like you know who would love this Chris would love this

Chris would love this you know get to Auckland went to a basketball game Breakers bow little New Zealand breakers action made it over to this incredible island, 40 minutes north on a ferry, where at one point you think you're in a sort of a slower part of Maui, and then all of a sudden you think you're in the French

countryside at all these wineries. And then I made it down to Queenstown, which is like a skiing village in Colorado, also like Switzerland, sort of like Lucerne, but not as big, where it's this incredible lake, where the lake is at 1,200 feet above sea level, but at its lowest point, and I know you love this kind of stuff. We're talking sea level. Don't tell me it's below sea level. It's depth is 1,300. Oh, stop it, right.

Right. So you're, think about it. You're in the town, 1,200 above sea level. Hey, the deepest part of this lake, every single guy. Like, hey, you know, this is like, hey, this is 80s. So you actually negative 100. And I was like, what? You know, man, there was a ton of times.

Like, I sat next to a guy. I was on a 10-seat plane and he was like, you're shotgun. And I was like, what? And he's like, well, you weigh the most. He weigh the most. I say, you're, yeah. You weigh the most stones, mate. Yeah, he's like, don't touch a yo, okay, mate?

And I was like, what? It's like, all right, no problem. And then he had a headset on and I didn't have a fucking headset on. He's like, right? That's great. Right. Right. And I'm like, I looked at this guy at the end.

And then he took like a big turn. He looked at me. It was like, so he's like, heravan, you know? And I'm like, right. And I'm just looking at him going, yeah. And I'm doing fake laughs. I was just like, oh my God, yeah, great point. Oh, yeah, no, right?

Yeah, totally. I get it. Because when the guys get rolling, even though I was so excited to get that lake fact in there for you, there was a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff that's, I don't know, that was said to me. When I watch British indie films, I watch them with the subtitles on. I don't blame you.

Especially the Irish ones about like, you know, the whole IRA thing and... Hey, there's some American movies now that are getting subtitles from this guy, because I'll be like, what? What was that? Bro, that's just called getting old, honestly. Or really, or caring about every word of dialogue. I care about every word too. I'm always like, what the fuck did, what did he say?

I lose the plot. So New Zealand would recommend any downsides to New Zealand. You know, people are like, so there was the whole story about Bill Gates. He's building a bunker in Hawaii, right? Do you see that whole fucking. I thought that was Zuck. No, Zuck, sorry. Gates, here's the difference between Gates and Zuck.

What do you know? Here's the difference between Gates and Zuck. Gates isn't going to tell you where he's building his fucking bunker. Yeah. Why is Zuck telling you where his bunker is? But evidently, I digress that, you know, like, they're the real hideout for the billionaires at the end of the line here for humanity is New Zealand. So is there any downside to New Zealand if you're looking to relocate?

I'd imagine, you know, getting your stuff delivered there is probably a little more challenging. Amazon, you know, 13-hour flight from L.A., 12. hour flight. I didn't really, look, you're not looking forward to it, but then when you're doing it, you're just doing it, and it's kind of over, and I've gotten better at the flight stuff. Usually north of five hours, I was like freaking out being like, do I have enough activities the whole time. You know, I just don't, there really wasn't that much downside at all.

It was 21 hours ahead. By the way, do you know there are 38 time zones in the world? That doesn't make a ton of sense, but it's true because I started researching time zones a bit. Okay. Yeah, so because I was like, wait. Don't tell Dr. Fax this. he walked around for three days after New Year's telling the story about two twins that were born

in different years. One was born at 1159. One was born at 1203 a.m. How is that possible, guys? Two twins, same family, different years. Don't tell them about the time zones, dude. Usually twins are the same family. Yeah, I know.

He was making sure I understood what was so remarkable about this fact. What is he talking about? Yeah, it was one at a time. It was one out of the birth canal, then Carson Daly, and then one more out of the birth canal. But explain the time zone thing. It's 21 hours ahead. So when I left L.A. on a Wednesday night red eye, which is even funnier, it's pretty classic me.

You have to fill out some government approval thing. It's basically a $50 shakedown from New Zealand. But it wasn't letting me check in on my phone. I was like, whatever, I'll get to the airport. poor, I don't live that far away. It took an hour. It was LAX. You never know. Sometimes it's awful. I was like, man, the international flight, I'm cutting this a little close, get to Delta. They're like, you can't check in. I'm like, what is going on? They're like, go to the kiosk, go to the front task. Both people are like, we don't know what's going on. You can't get in. And then you start

thinking like, hey, I kind of scheduled this around where I've got some free time. So maybe I'll just go to Colorado or maybe I'll go to Montecito. Maybe I'll go to Carmel. Maybe I'll just keep driving north. Because if I don't jump on a 12-hour flight right now, I guess I'll be fine or whatever. They're like, you need to fill out this form and it could take three days to get approved. I was like, so I might not be going to New Zealand as I'm sitting there with my bag in my hand. And then you start going like, man, I'll be on the couch and 15 minutes from this house. That's the biggest impediment for me when it comes to traveling. You said, you know, Chris, you love New Zealand.

And it doesn't sound like a place inside my house. So as I get older, I'm more content staying home. I know we're going to talk about a lot today, Rye. the NFL, obviously wildcard weekend, but we got a little short mailbag at the end of this thing. Yeah, I love the mailbag. A little short mailbag. Hey, by the way, last question about New Zealand,

did you wear your, did you wear your togs? What'd your togs look like? My togs? Mm-hmm. Yeah, Mike. I don't know what you're talking about. That's slang, bro, you fucking noob. It's slang for any swimming costume, bikini or one-piece.

or trunks. And I was wondering what your togs look like. What are you going with these days? Three quarter thigh, mid thigh. What are you doing? Because last time we were together, my son made fun of you for your shorts. Yeah, that's totally fine. I'll tell you right now, I grabbed a Ron Dorff, swimming trunk deal. You check it out. The designer's Ron Dorff. And it was a turquoise number. I went with a, with the trunks. I did not go with the briefs. We're not there yet. God damn. When I Google Ron Dorff, it's a bunch of banana hammocks, son. Yeah. I got to be honest, you, I started once I was in the Ron Dorff shop, I did look around a bit and was like, what's going on in here?

Yeah. Okay. From Ron Dorff. I'm not sure. I just like the way they look. Ron Dorff to Wildcar weekend. Ryne, what was your biggest takeaway this week? I mean, it's super wildcar weekend getting it done for you. It's been a couple years of this. It's a lot of football. The weather, the games, what struck you? Look, there's plenty of stuff. You wish games were closer and all that kind of stuff.

I think in a funny way, like we had a lot of primetime games that I thought were terrible, and then they were close. So then at the end of the close primetime game that sucked for two hours and 45 minutes, everybody's like, man, this game was still so much fun. And, you know, I'd rather just. see great games. We didn't see that this weekend. I think the biggest thing was kind of like comparing Dallas's downfall at home against Philadelphia and what we saw last night from them on the road in Tampa. We knew that Dallas were two different teams, but they were a great team at home. This is the

number one scoring offense. This group has been scoring a ton of points now under McCarthy for a while, and next thing you know, they're down 27-0. I think it speaks to who Jordan Love has been in the second half the receiving group or it could be like one of any three guys that gets you and then Aaron Jones has been like completely different for four straight weeks. You throw in the early pick. You throw in the pick six and like it's just completely gotten away from you. And I'm laughing about like DAC a year from now going into the playoffs. If they're in the playoffs again, people are like, you know, you still had 400 yards and

they came against the back. You're like, all right, cool. Awesome. So that was, you know, a Cowboys embarrassing loss brings the nation together in a way that I don't know. any other pro sports team being embarrassed can bring the nation together, especially now post Belichick and Brady with New England, because I just don't, you know, there's not a comp to Dallas. So as we had that in our back pocket,

I personally felt like Philadelphia's effort, the tackling, the adjustments, it's an offensive line that's incredible, but Tampa just blitzed the shit out of them the whole time and there never was anything different from it. You get the hurt safety. You've got... Which on that safety, they're just,

they've been heating them up, heating them up, and then they bring four. Right, right. So still, like, hurts, you know, going through what he went through last year, you're like, man, an older court. I know he's not older, but he's had all this stuff. The tackling alone, if you just did a rip-up, if you had to sit there and watch film,

if there was like Week 17 coming up and you were on that defense, I mean, I would just be like, stop the projector. I don't want to watch this anymore. So I, and look, I just think Love and Green Bay is a far more formidable offense than Baker in Tampa, who scored nine points. against Carolina to close out the regular season. So I felt like the Philadelphia part of it was actually more alarming.

Like it was so bad I might not pick Philadelphia in week one of next year. Right. That taste is not going to leave your mouth. I mean, it's bad, especially. What did you think? Is that crazy? Because I think most people still think the Dallas thing because they're at home, and it was 27-0 where Philadelphia is still technically, what,

it's 16-9 into the third quarter. And you're like, what are you talking about? So I just felt like watching Philadelphia in all these different facets of the game. I'm like, what is up with these guys? Like, what happened to that group? I think what's funny about it is the defense, I completely understand. I'm not shocked by it. You know, it's this.

We've been on this. We've been on this for a while, right? Like, you know, it's the backers. It's neglecting that part of the roster. It's having injuries in that part of the roster. It's having injuries on the back end and that group already. I think that when you have a veteran-laden group in general, you have to be careful in figuring out where with players it's the end of the line. And I've heard, I think, Howie say this in the past, maybe has it applied to me when at the end of my career, we were talking about, you know, how long I'm going to stick around and that sort of thing or what my role might be and that sort of thing.

it was actually Schwartz I think Schwartz was like I like to get a year ahead on players you know you try to pinpoint when the guy's going to drop off in productivity and I think there were a couple key players in the back end that either lost the step or were being used out of position I think you know Bradbury fell off a little bit and I'm not saying that in a disrespectful way

it happens to all of us but he certainly is in a man corner and, you know, that's part of the reason he ended up in Philly. And, you know, I'm watching snaps like last night where Mike Evans is beating him to the pylon on a surprise, surprise, on the first of two touchdowns, essentially, they gave up in one drive. You know, it's like Mike drops the ball at the pylon very next play, two plays later. It's an explosive for a touchdown. And so part of it is personnel and part of it is scheme. but I don't think they had a chance from the beginning,

and I don't think any of us realized it until the onion kept getting peeled back, man. The two coordinators that you have to replace, that's such a rare thing. So I would put it this way. I give you an example like Bradbury. I give you an example like Slay getting hurt, but Slay not being the same guy. Give you an example like the linebackers. And the front was really, really good last year,

but the group got a little bit older, and the coverage got worse. And so the fractions of time don't really work in that situation. And, you know, if you look at the offense, I'm a little bit more confounded because it's so clearly the scheme. It's so clearly the scheme, right? I mean, it's the same guys. We came into that game last night. We were like, if they don't fucking run the ball, they should all be fired, right?

That's what kind of the sentiment was in the city. and I know that it's not that simple, but they have not been able to establish that part of the offense all year long, not all year long, but as the year is worn on. And the strength of your team is that offensive front. And so, you know, the passing game stuff is bad. That first third down, there's no hots. They're blitzing the whole night.

You have no answers for it. There's people in the wrong place. There's people in the same place. It's scheme and its personnel on defense, and I think it was a lot of scheme. offensively. I don't understand not adjusting to the pressure from Tampa. You know, there are some numbers that I saw this morning that I shared at my podcast. You had 10 unblocked rushers on 10 snaps, which is a season high for any team to have 10 guys run free and get pressure. There was 13 dropbacks

where Hertz had less than two and a half seconds, which ties a career high for him. And I've always felt like, again, in my limited understanding of design and play calling and then the adjustments, but you'd want a team to just blitz you incessantly if you liked your guy behind center. Like I've just seen it with the better quarterback. He's like, wait, you think you're going to, like, you may trick him every now and then. You may show it and then drop out of it. You may do something else. And I know like there's guys like Spagnola that you just know on the big third and seven.

Like it's coming. Yes. Although I do think he dropped out in like a super predictable pressure situation against Miami because everybody talks about all the time. Well, I mean, look what Todd did on the safety. You know, it's the same thing. Right, exactly. It's, I'm going to give you a fuckload of this.

you're going to be scrambling to adjust even though I can't understand why they had to adjust I mean like you should come to the game knowing they blitzed you out the ass the first time the second time they did the same thing and the most astounding thing where I was they didn't load the box last night

it was just run pressures and being behind the sticks and being afraid of it but go ahead yeah that's what I don't understand because you could see really quickly when a couple runs weren't really working for them they went I think 17 to 18 plays were dropbacks.

And it was in the second and it was like, all right, they've already kind of abandoned this whole thing. And, you know, I always joke about if I were an athletic director in college, I might be the best guy to ever work for because I just completely resist the idea that, all right, we have expectations. We did not meet those expectations. I think our coach is good. Everybody kind of agrees that our coach is good.

So just because everybody's mad because things were bad this year, doesn't mean I have to do something about it. college football has just got no point where it's like if your third season you haven't done anything and that third season's a bad season it's like we just have to fire you and it's like wait what wait I mean there's guys Harbaugh is one of my favorite examples like they're in the mix they're in the mix they have a couple disappointing seasons they have the terrible COVID season and people are saying like he shouldn't be the head coach you're like well wait if everybody with Michigan is happy with him they actually think he's a pretty good coach his track record tells us he's an incredible coach

like why do you need to fire him and start the whole cycle all over again so when I see the Mike McCarthy stuff where, you know, like 12 wins, three straight years, the offensive numbers, the defensive numbers there with Dan Quinn, see that Sariani, despite the opening presser, it became this awesome story of like, this guy's just himself, different guys that I had talked to, be like, man, you would love to play for somebody like Sariani. Like, this guy's incredible. And yeah, they're probably the most disappointing team, especially when you factor in they were 10 and 1 at some point, even though the 10 and 1 felt a little fluky if you were watching them every single week. And then it completely falls apart.

And you lose to a team, and the only reason they're even in the playoffs with that record is because the rest of the division was terrible. Tampa's probably seven wins at best in some other division. And you're still going to lose. Like, I thought they could get this one. And then I didn't want to pick them after it because everything we'd seen. This is the part of the business where I get the guys are getting paid more and all these different things. But if ownership in the front office still, they must have liked Saryani enough and felt like they were rewarded for believing in him, I don't know why he's supposed to be fired, as bad as embarrassing as Monday night was. I will say this. All right, put into context, Siriani's couple years here. By the way,

I'm holding the Zen, smooth, very underrated flavor. Smooth doesn't get any credit. Yeah. And it really is just bad branding. Um, because gray and red don't go together. It doesn't look delicious, but really it is. Um, when it comes to Nick Siriani, I think, I think in the decision that maybe they're not even considering anything. You know, like a lot of it is like we publicly speculate things automatically because of the climate because there's nine head coaching openings. Like I said this about Vrable. When Vrable got fired, if Vrable was coaching in 1993, he'd coached for 20 years.

Things have changed. You know, it's just, but they're stupid. Look, if Vrable wanted to stay. It doesn't make it right. It doesn't make it right. So you want to tell me the last couple of years have been disappointing? Sure, fine. When they were the one seed, that's the worst one seed,

I think in 20 years when I'd gone back and looked at some of the data. He fucked himself by being the one seed. He set himself up for a standard that it was going to be hard to meet with that group. And how many times do we have to see this movie? Okay. The head coach got you to the one seed. You lose to the Bengals 1913, who, oh, by the way, were the people representing the AFC and the Super Bowl.

And they got a quarterback who's about three times as good as the quarterback as you. had and the quarterback you had is the reason you lose that game and i'm not i got nothing against ryan tanahoe i've given him his flowers this year because i think he's a fucking tough guy a good a good solid pro quarterback who had a good run there and deserves a lot of credit but are you shocked and then from there it's the a j brown trade it's him and the gm and probably some hey you you know you got to do it this way and he's like fuck you fuck you i'm you know i'm out um And I think if he coached in the 90s with his track record, you're two years removed from this really great run.

And I think he hides the floor of the organization really well. I think he'd still have a job. Also, the games changed, right? So people are not going to be, we talk about defensive head coaches. There's a question I was going to ask you. And I want to get to Nick in a second. But defensive head coaches, how many do you think they're going to be at any given time in five years? I feel like we're in a weird spot, dude.

I really do. I'm not saying they're going to go away. They're dinosaurs, but they're like, you know. Look, man, I think this stuff is real cyclical. Like, we're in a down cycle now from scoring. We were like 24, almost 25 points per game four years ago, and there's been a steady decline. We're about a field goal off per team now.

Teams are averaging about 21 points, so it sounds like the defense has caught up to some of this. Or the quarterbacks are hurt. Yeah. There's, well, yeah, but I did that number, too. It was like how many different starting quarterbacks do you have over the course of the last 20 seasons? Ran the numbers on that.

I thought we were way ahead of it this season, and it's kind of in line with a bunch of other seasons. Now, you could say that because this is its own topic, which I've talked about in the past, where you're a third or fourth rounder, you don't get any reps, you never really get any games in, and then you just get cut without ever proving anything

because the guy in front of who's good, and you get cut and replaced with the next fourth rounder. So you're never ever develop. any of these guys. Exactly. You could argue the defenses were better, not because more quarterbacks played, because that number holds up over.

I was shocked when I went back and looked at all the numbers, a bit of recency bias. I was like, man, look at the lineup today. Like, who are these guys? Like, man, this is getting really, really bad. Oh, wait, we're kind of in line with how many different players have started the position over each individual year. You could argue that this year we had a lot of guys

with no experience starting in some of these games where maybe historically the old, the old, KG KG, you know, I'm trying to think of the right guy. Like the there weren't a lot of Brian Hoyers. Matter of fact,

maybe happy trails to Brian Hoyer. He's like 39 years old, man. He'll be a coach. Yeah, there's just not very much experience because you're always thinking like, what if we actually kind of hit on one of these younger dudes and then we have them in practice and we don't love the starter? Like maybe that's the way it work.

So you end up giving these jobs the guys that have never really even played it. So look, I've gotten on a tangent there. No, I would argue. Real quick, though, on the defensive thing, I don't think it's gone, but I also wouldn't blame any owner for wanting to do it because of all the McVeigh tree and Shanahan tree jokes. A lot of that shit's worked, man. LaFleurr's worked. McDaniel with two has worked. Zach Taylor-Rubrow has worked.

So people were mad about these guys kind of cut in the line and getting these opportunities. There's more success than there is failure. Kevin O'Connell, terrific, play caller, head coach, one of my favorites. I think D'emiko Ryan's did a great job this year, and he's the easy retort to why would you hire a defensive head coach. Not taking anything away from him, I think he also is a special quarterback. So I think, you know, if you're a defensive head coach in today's day and age, you better make sure you got a really good GM. I think when you look around the league, and this is where I'm going to get to Siriani, most head coaches are offensive play callers. But not, you know, like I did a breakdown here of how many defensive-minded heads.

head coaches there are. And, you know, there's a couple guys here. I mean, like if you, if you name them all, uh, there's a couple former players, which I think differentiate you a little bit as a leader like Antonio Pierce. If he keeps that job, Mike Vrable, you know he'll get another job. Todd Bowles, I don't know if you count it. He's a, he's a former player that matters. I also think this is a special circumstance where, hey, if Tom Brady doesn't show up in Tampa Bay is Todd Bowles somehow still the coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, I don't think so. I think that ship sales a long time ago if Tom doesn't pick Tampa. So in most in most scenarios and ironically, you got three defensive head coaches in the playoffs right now because McDermott as bad as people

want to talk about him. He's got Josh Allen. That kind of helps. But most of these coaches are either looking for jobs or or might be looking for jobs soon. And there's a couple that you're like, yeah, we'll see. Iber Fluse, you know, Gannon just got a job. But Sala hasn't been great. Tomlin, just walked out of the press conference. We've been talking about firing him for two months. Bill Belichick, the goat got fired or parted ways with RKK. Dennis Allen. Here's the thing that's interesting about Dennis Allen.

I think for some of these coaches, this might creep into the calculus. So say you're the Benson family down there. I think that's who owns the team. You got a great GM and Mickey Loomis. You got Dennis Allen who is a good defensive coach, but the offense is underperformed. So you throw Carmichael under the bus. you're still stuck with Derek Carr, or Carolina's an example. If your setup isn't ideal, maybe you punt a year.

Like New Orleans, you say, hey, do I really want to be the 10th vacancy and, you know, join a pool of nine other competing teams for talent at the head coach position? And why would a good head coach pick this situation? So I think sometimes as a sidebar, a Dennis Allen not getting fired, it looks curious, but maybe they're saying we'll wait a year. You know what I mean? We'll try to find a coordinator and in a year we'll figure it out. But most of the guys on this list, man, Ron Rivera,

probably not going to get a job again. I'm not saying they're going extinct, but the calculus you have to make, if you just look at the numbers, it's offensive play caller. And it's not just offensive mind who doesn't call plays. And I think when you look at Siriani in the column for don't keep him, and I want to make this clear,

I haven't come to a conclusion on this. The season just ended. I kind of want to hear what they want to do. But Siriani doesn't call plays anymore. How many, when you see play calling as an offensive head coach, when you give that up, that is a terminal illness, Ryan. What's the life expectancy on guys that have given up play calling duties in the NFL historically?

This guy, it's pie in the sky where we are for Nick. it's been two years he gave up play calling duties the first year so you're telling me and i think what adds insult to injury is for the for the eagles they had stuyken in the building you know and that guy's terrific i think the jury's still out on nick i like him i think he he did something incredible got the team to the super bowl but these were his hires these were his coordinator hires and so how many coaches can i remember seating play calling duty hitting on a coordinator, the coordinator leaving, there's a regression with the second guy, and then you get another opportunity to either pick them

or stand by while Howie and Jeffrey pick them. I think it's a really unique situation, and how many offensive head coaches don't call plays right now, Rai? So it's a really- Most of them don't. No, no, that's not true. What, offensive play calling from a head coach? Stefansky.

Shanahan, McDaniel, Peterson. It's more than you think. Peterson just seeded it down in Jacksonville, but there's also been guys who will give it up and then take it back. Right. I'm looking at the number of 32. I'm not doing a high, like a side thing. I'd still think it would be less than 16.

It might be, but there were 11 defensive or special teams head coaches to start the year. So then if you take the subcategory of offensive head coaches, which is what Siriani fits, that's 19 or so. and I would say the vast majority are calling plays. You know, there are guys who are, as I would put it, like kind of special motivators.

They have differentiating factors like a Dan Campbell. I don't think a lot of people stop to consider that he is an offensive coach that, you know, not just played in the league, but he was a coach on a high-level staff. You know, he learned a lot from Peyton, and he's got that it factor as a motivator. Most guys either have to be geniuses

that call the plays and run the show because, number one, you don't want to lose your, coordinator. You know, if you're a defensive head coach, I think that's the biggest thing that concerns me about Bobby Sloick leaving. I think CJ's special, and he might be recession-proof, but we saw it with Josh and Daible. We saw it with Steichen and Jalen Hertz. Like, it is, it's a worry for me if you're hiring a defensive head coach. You just have to be careful. I imagine, though, any owner that's either about to draft a young quarterback or is looking at a guy being like can we can we unlock him looks at mcdaniel and tua like mcdaniel should be the highest

paid coach in the nfl he should be up there because because tua you know you were on this early you're like man the numbers are good but it just seems to be something and you know i don't have the all 22 and all the stuff but i always would look for like look at the delivery of the football on the first read versus anything that now off a schedule a little bit and what they did with him and turning him into somebody like, what's his next contract going to be like as opposed to what his next team is, you're going, if you're an NFL ownership

and your son's reporting to you after he's fucked around in his 20s, now he wants the team. You know, like, you're sitting there with your inner circle as an owner of one of these teams. You're like, is McDaniel the only guy that can do it? Yeah. Like, that can't be the answer.

There has to be another guy out there or does McDaniel have the perfect disposition, the unbelievable ability to both X and O, a guy, up beyond what you think a ceiling is and then also make that person feel so good about him. It makes me think that McDaniel could just retire and do his own kind of bar rescue, but with quarterbacks, you know, he shows up to Carson Wentz. Right, right. Carson's sitting there with his Rams gear on and they're off to the side and McDaniel goes, you were let go and Foles had won a Super Bowl when you got hurt, maybe

you're going to win the MVP. Like, you know, after Taffer's mad at the entire staff and he shuts sit down on just a tough open like minute 38 of bar rescue is where he sits with wince and gets wence to cry he's just motherfucking brian johnson in the corner and then he goes to jalen and honestly i think wens did he look pretty good against san francisco and and he came up in conversation the other day because we were talking about this very thing i think that not if you want to know like and people think i'm vindictive on this thing but every time i bring up the miami situation it's a new conversation with the quarterback so let me weigh in on this compare the list of teams that would be willing to trade for Tua

to the list of quarterbacks that might make you better than you are now. Which list is longer? Yeah. Yeah, the second one. By a factor of four, by a factor of five. I don't know if you can do the, the, because I really mean. You're not saying Wence. Are you saying Wence would be better than Tua? In Miami?

Yeah. Somebody said that, not me. Who said it? I promise you, I didn't say it. Wait, somebody, somebody that matters. Somebody close to me says, somebody who knows. Somebody who knows Ball said that. And I was like,

Whalen? It's not my dad. It's not my son. It's nobody in my biological family. But the point I'm making is when you look at a situation like that and you look at countless other situations, the coordinator matters. And for Nick, I do see that magnetism.

I've been around him. I like the guy, dude. He got them to a Super Bowl. And the anti part of it is this. I don't think they want to be one of the first teams to ever fire a guy. a year removed from a Super Bowl. I don't think Jeffrey Lurie wants to look like David Tepper. I don't think Howie Roseman wants to be, you know,

one of a few teams that ever fired a guy after a playoff loss. You know, like, it just doesn't happen much. And I also think there's some credence to, hey, when in doubt in a year with nine vacancies, maybe we just get back and get to the front of line the next year, if this doesn't work out. And another thing is this, I think they're in a unique situation because of the decision they have to make. Because, again, how many teams have ever given a guy a second chance after he's seated the play caller twice?

Right. The life expectancy is not long. He's already in overtime. But the other problem is this. The other problem is for Philly, and I mentioned this earlier, they had Stuyken in the building. How many teams can look around right now? and say the guy and i'm not saying nick can't be a great coach he coached him the super bowl Shane hadn't done that yet but as a play caller going the way of the NFL right now you had that guy in the

building and he's no longer with you and he let gardener mince you to the playoffs you know what i mean um damn near it was a playoff game it felt like a playoff game it felt like one because it felt like one because it's not like the NBA where you guys have to manufacture playing games and shit we have like a play in month. But I think that's rare. How many teams, like honestly, if you look at Herbert since Steichen, a lot of people would argue he hasn't progressed, you know? So that's a special dude. And there's two franchises who are like, man, he was in the fucking building. And I can't remember the last time that happened. If you look around the league, that doesn't happen a lot. Kyle Shanahan leaving Atlanta is probably the last situation like that.

Maybe that a year later, you know, Atlanta goes on one more playoff run, then they fire Dan the year after that. And I bet you Shanahan would still be the coach if it was a succession thing. So it is Jerry Krause week. I call back to that situation where he's like, nah, Phil's the guy. You know, that took big balls, right? coaches don't do that a lot but sometimes you got the right guy in the building draw the straightest line to your success as a team in today's NFL which is you need play callers that had coaches i'm not saying nick can't be one of those rare guys in a couple years but you are taking a risk yeah and look they moved off peterson you know and the guy won a super bowl so what did he get he got a nine and seven a nine and seven a four eleven season i mean even that felt like it was a little quick so um um I always deferred.

Yeah, Lurie's not the most patient. He's not impatient. He's not Teper, but he's not Rooney. That reminds me, though, when the 2001 Red Sox had Jimmy Williams and just run its course, but Joe Kerrigan was there and everybody called him like this incredible pitching coach, but they didn't like to make pitching coach as managers because basically position players don't respect pitchers. And they gave it to them.

They're like, hey, we're going to lose this guy. This guy's the fucking back-dark slider whisperer. He was fired. He got an extension and the new ownership came in and they fired. It doesn't work as well in baseball. Yeah, it would just make me think of the Stuyken thing because you were like, well, what are you supposed to do? Just supposed to fire Siri? Like, that team will never do that.

You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? I know exactly what you're saying. I mean, every time the commander's coaching tree graphic shows up and then every single Washington fans, like, this sucks. It's like, what were you going to do? You would have been chill with McVeigh getting the job at 26? Right, exactly.

You know, give me a break. Hey, listen, I just want a disclaimer for anybody listening. I don't like firing coaches in the cities that I played, period, on a podcast. And I'd like to hear what their plan is. It's just going to be tough to thread the needle. What they're basically going to try to do if they keep them is they're going to try to win the 2025 head coaching cycle a year early. Do you know how hard that is to do? Because all the play callers are getting head coaching jobs.

So to me, you'd have to go get like a Frank Smith kind of guy. I got a funny one for you people in Philly. Didn't mean to you people, everybody in Philly. But Chip Kelly's. Chip Kelly. Can you imagine? Chip Kelly returns to the city of Brotherly Love and calls the plays for Nick Siriani.

You let bygones be bygones. Maybe Cliff. I hear Cliff. It's reported that Cliff and Antonio Pierce would be a good marriage in Vegas. And I wanted to happen, Ryan. because I want close-ups of that tired face living on the strip. If I were an owner, I would say, okay, what's my quarterback situation? It's like, we're not going to get a good one this year.

We're going to be okay. Vrable's the first call that I make. I don't care about play calling. I don't care about offensive development. If you're telling me, like, hey, New Orleans is going to eat some of that Derek Carr money and this is the best that we can do. And I really wanted to see Vrable with Will Levis because, you know, I'm not sure. I'm never sure about like any of these quarterbacks unless it's a guy.

who I'm completely writing off going absolutely no chance. I watched him too many Saturdays, or the guy that I've watched on Saturdays and Caleb Williams, I'm going to be shocked if he doesn't make a real impact at this position for a long time in the league. But I look around at like the different stuff, and I just feel like, wait, are you going to pull it from Suryani this quickly?

But I have to defer to the people that are around it every single day. I'm like, no, without Stuyken, Jalen Hertz is not the same guy, and this is the problem. I still think Hertz is hurt. With that offensive line, you know, with Kelsey retiring, you're like, man, the window of having the best guy at center, in the league and now he's moving on from it all.

But I just, I resist the impatience. I resist the idea that someone needs to be punished when the fan base is disappointed. But that's the corporate world and it leaks its way into football all the time, both in college and pro. Well, I will say this last thing. If they're keeping Siriani, Hurt certainly didn't stick his neck out for him last night in the post game. He's hurt, man.

He's got to be hurt. I think he's hurt. I also have said this. I don't think Jalen's the problem. I think the scheme's the problem. There are six guys in the NFL who to me right now are currently exempt from, you know, the issues that plague other people when context changes. You want to guess who those six quarterbacks are?

No. But not an elite category. Who the elite, just right now, the standard of elite in the NFL? Yeah, because I think what Cam Newton said something without, he said the right thing with the wrong term. in my opinion because I don't like the it's kind of reductive the game manager thing and it's like it's like everybody's the same there's there's a spectrum of game managers or whatever you want to call guys game changers game managers guys you can win with guys you can win without the guys you

can win with it's a short list who you think that list is it's mahomes it's burrow it's alan it's lamar it is strout already come on all right you've already you've already you've already Stroud there? I mean, it's ridiculous. You watch Stroud a lot this year, right? Yeah, look, I can't knock a single thing, but I'm, you know, when I start talking about like top five stuff, like I have a rule with NBA players. You can be playing like a top five player, but for you to actually have one of those

special robes, I got to see it for like two years. I think the NBA is different. All right, that's fine. So you want to put Stroud as a top five difference maker. Top six. Top six. All right. So he's a head of Herbert for you?

Oh, yeah, right now? Yeah. Right now, yeah. Yeah, okay. Right now, yeah. And I'm talking about right now because that's the thing we get caught up. Right here right now? Is Gilgis Alexander a top five player?

This year he might be. I don't know anything about the fucking NBA, but his name's been coming up a lot. An example of a guy who has a great year. You call him a top five guy that year as long as, you know, in basketball. Is Jordan Love the sixth? Jordan Love to me is the guy that when we start next season, we're going to be filling air time with. is Jordan Love Elite, but he's right outside six.

You are forgetting the guy who played as good as any fucking quarterback on the planet this weekend. Brock, oh, wait a minute, this weekend? I already said, Alan. He's in your city, dude. What? Matthew Stafford, bro. I love Stafford. I just didn't think anybody at this stage of his career would have him as a top six guy.

You don't have to talk to me about Stafford. I went to that game. I'm like, who are you secret? Like, I didn't have a rooting interest. I'm like, but what are you kind of rooting for? I was like, I'm kind of root for Detroit because of this whole thing and the Campbell and the city. Like, imagine telling a fan base being like, hey, you're going to be bummed out for three straight decades. Are you interested?

Bro. You're going to be bummed out for three straight decades. So look, as it's happening, I'm probably leaning Detroit. And then I'm watching Stafford once again get his ass kicked. And you and Kyle were incredible on the code and the move of the vet. Like you start, oh, my arm. I think it's broken after you. And Dan, those two fucking little buddy Lee's when they used to be all fucked up.

They'd run over to each other and like put put each other back together. Like, like, you know, I'm a gruber where he's like, it's okay. And he goes out to the van and they're all in pieces and he's trying to. That's what playing with Danny and Jules was probably like. Those guys were just getting destroyed. So they had to have like a way to hide their concussions. Bod's looking pretty tight. Bob's looking tight, bro.

Bubbs? I love your dick jokes. That's why I make them. That's why I tell them. Okay. All right. Look. We got to get that.

We got to get that exchange right. Yeah, that's, no, he goes, it's fun to hear them. It's fun to say them. I don't know what the fuck he says.

I got to watch. You're right, though. It's better. It's better. We needed a better delivery for that one. I don't, I'm not going to push back on the staff because I love him. I love him.

Like, I feel like whenever you talk about, and I obsess over the quarterback stuff, like you just weren't allowed to say he was awesome as Detroit, right? You just weren't allowed to. And you're watching it every week going, wait, I'm supposed to think this guy's a loser.

Like, I think this guy's incredible. But then it all comes back to, oh, yeah, but on third down, he's looking to this. I'm like, man, I just wish he had been with a better organization for 75% of his career because I think Stafford may have been. And look, I even said this this morning. I think he would have been looked at completely differently

if he was with one of the Primo franchise and I think his all-time, like his name would be ahead of a lot of guys that everybody else now thinks are unobtainable for his ceiling of what he'll be historically. Right. If he had Sean McVeigh for most of his career, and I don't know if there's anything to this, I'd love for somebody to go back and look at it and you at home, let me know. But back in the day, I feel like coaches got longer leashes,

and I felt like there was more balance between offensive head coaches and defensive head coaches. And I felt like this is just a feel thing. I felt like coordinator stuck around longer. I felt like guys had more continuity. I felt with free agency and shit. I think it's harder in some ways to be a great quarterback and stay that way now than it was back then in some obvious ways.

And it's easier in some obvious ways, too, which is why I love cold weather games, Ryan, talking about the bills or the chiefs this weekend. I love to see the people that were uncomfortable this weekend because they're comfortable every Sunday. It's okay. And all these people talking about it's unsafe, Ryan, I don't know where you land on this stuff.

Players seem just fucking fine to me. I want to talk about bills and chiefs just really quick. I don't know if you notice this, but I think Josh Allen, the best thing the bills have going for him, besides Josh Allen, is the fact Josh Allen just got over a slump and barely anybody noticed it.

You know, in the middle of this run, there was a period. And it included the Pats game, Chargers game, half of the Dolphins game, some of the decisions he made. And the Dallas game, he didn't really have to do much throwing the football. I don't know if he was dinged or what, but that's a slump that he got out of the way. And I thought he looked really good Monday. I thought he was awesome. And, you know, I think that was a game that was a bit like, hey, we're just better than these dudes.

You know, are you up 14-0? Those two routes, like, were wide open. and on the touchdowns. So then you're starting to think, you know, I just know how you guys are. I think it's a really, really tough sport. And when you think you're that much better than your opponent, and then in classic Pittsburgh fashion,

you go, wait, if Buffalo doesn't score here, like, is this game going to get weird? Is something going to happen? And there's no T.J. Watt out there. And, you know, it's just funny. Like, every time Pickens loses his shit. And it's just a reminder of, like, you realize this is why I didn't go as high in the draft, right?

Like, as incredible as he is. Yeah, that thing sucks. Because he's one of my favorite players, and I can't, There's always something. There's always something like I was joking around before the summer, or this summer, before the season started being like, all right, let me try to come up with like these fake props.

And it was like first receiver to motherfucker his quarterback. Yeah. I was like, let me, and then I go, this is just mean. I'm not, I ended up not even doing the whole thing. And look, that's not the bigger part of it. So you're saying that he broke out of his slump when I look at that Miami game. The second half of the Miami game is when he broke out of that slump. Okay.

All right. That's fine. because that zero, the second pick is on fourth and two. The second pick's on fourth and two. I think there's a lot of people. It's still not great. It's still not great. Here's the deal, man.

The first pick was bad, though. The first pick was bad. So you're telling me he's broken out of the slump in the last three halves. Okay. Yeah, because of the ball placement. You know, there are two separate issues. If you look at the ball placement against the Chargers and if you look at the ball placement against the Patriots, not very good.

You know, it just wasn't as good. And I wondered if in that run, heavy game in Dallas where he actually had tucked the rock and run a good bit. I think sometimes we think about Josh as just the quarterback, right, even though he's so clearly a position player. He's a quarterback and a position player. He's a tight end that's going to get five catches a game. You know what I mean? He ran the ball for 52 yards the other day. I'm not reducing him to a tight end, but what I am saying is the physical toll is that of a guy who's going to get the ball five times in the game, you know, running down the field, running quarterback power, taking off.

scrambling and sometimes a little injury that's not on the injury report can affect i would think something as act as as um mechanical was throwing the football you know like when i was hurt you're not going to notice the difference for the most part it's not a skill position i could you can but this guy is a skill player who also plays like a position player and i kind of wonder sometimes if he gets dinged like you get a little bruise on your shoulder you get a little little peck thing or you get your backs bothering you that fucks with your mechanics and i know matt's Stafford's sore today, but Josh does that shit all the time. And he just keeps getting up. And so sometimes I wonder if he's a little dinged up. I think he looked a lot better the last,

as you put it, three halves of football. And I'm excited for this weekend. I can't wait. I can't wait for this game. Do you have a lean? It's a really tough one, dude. It really is. Because the last one, it was like a big 12 game. and they changed the rules in overtime over it i was in i was at that game incredible one of the best days of my football life uh i was retired i get to go watch my brother who was suited up for the chiefs he was hurt at the time went went with the edibles that day there's enough fireball at airhead stadium that i would have had a really rough one had i gone the other route and i got to sit in the suite and watch that whole thing unfold and i just can't get it out of my head but this this

is going to be so much different, I would think. I would think this matchup's going to be about the run game. I would think this matchup would be about, like, hey, what are the differences between Joe Brady versus Spags the first time and this time? Because you got infinitely more tape than you did the first time. I think Nick Bolton wasn't there the first game. So I think this game is going to be kind of unpredictable and more physical than the last playoff matchup. Yeah, I told myself, like, after Wildcar weekend,

like don't let this permeate too many of the thoughts in the divisional round here. But I've always had faith in Allen, despite the turnovers that drive me crazy. Like I wasn't incredibly shocked that they ran the table the rest of the way. I think a lot of us looked and be like, have you realized how good this team is and how unlucky they are with some of the stuff? And it's funny how that Philly game with JKLA hit the 59 yard in the rain to send it to overtime, and you're like, Buffalo's been the better team here for three straight hours. Like, what is this outcome going to mean?

And then Philly wins it. And we're like, all right, I'm supposed to think like Philly's still really good. And Buffalo's not. Like, come on. Buffalo looked like the better team the whole time. So, you know, whether you, the Dolphins defense that was missing a handful of super important guys, do I let that get in my head too much that, like, I'm scared to death of picking against my homes. I don't even want to pick against him.

But it's like, was that a little bit easier or the weather cancel all that out? And the fact of this chief defense, like, this is one of the five best defenses in the NFL. It's one of the, it's one of the, because Miami. You think it's three? Oh, I made claims this year that it was the best defense. in the NFL. Better than Baltimore? I don't think.

I think Baltimore's proven to be the better defense. I'm not going to disrespect Baltimore with their track record. But what I will say is, I've seen Kansas City do this before, where they get better as the year goes on. And I think Spaggs had less improvements to make. It was funny. I had up on the show, and I asked him, he kind of skirted the question. Spaggs, do you have two different identities dreamt up for your team? predicated on whether Chris Jones played or not because they were they were

going to be two totally different groups I think they're great the hardest thing is figuring out who root for Rye I don't know who to root for I love them both Josh Pat trick Patrick Josh you know if we're going with a city that deserves it there's no then it's got to be Buffalo then I got to root for Buffalo this week here whatever you're looking forward to this football season there's one thing that pairs well with every great moment and that is an ice cold Miller light whether you're at the stadium playing fantasy football or watching the game at home or at the bar Miller light is here to make your football season taste like Miller time from kickoff to the clock runs out you can't

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order online during the pizza pizza pregame all day. on NFL game days and Pro Bowl Sunday and get ready for some football and fun. Got to have both. Choose your favorite Little Caesar's pizza or pick the toppings you crave. Either way, you win. And speaking of winning,

everyone scores with convenient delivery or our in-store pizza portal pickup. So grab some friends and enjoy a few slices during the game. Let's get to the mailbag and get you out of here, Rai. Thank you very much for your time. On an NBA night, I think the sons are still getting their ass kicked by Sacramento

if you want an update. Sorry. No, I'm sorry. No, it's three-point game. All right. This one comes from Brendan O'Connell, and it is, what is the cringiest, most awkward coach locker room moment that you have witnessed? Well, on topic, I got to give it to McDermott with the 9-11 stuff. I would just love to get him in a private moment and be like, how'd you think that was going to go over?

What the fuck? like it's one of those things it's like a marketing campaign that I'm like you know a marketing campaign that misses the mark and then like really goes over the line like when Florida State's athletic department did the MLK with the Florida State receiver gloves on Florida on on Mount Luther King Day years ago no it was years ago somebody reminded all of us and brought it back it was just him but then he had his hands out okay um But drugs pharmacy. Fucking Buffalo.

Buffalo really stormed the cockpit, didn't they Monday? I want to see, I want to hear, you know what? You'll be able to get with somebody years after they retire and be like, were you in the room, you know, somebody that was in the room and be like, you're going to take me through the whole thing. I'm going to find out because I know. You got to get somebody. Yeah, because you know, you know, I can't get that interview.

That's where you're the best. So do that. What's the Mendoza line for using a historical thing that's maybe not so great? for one side of the equation. Like, because you know how people, you know, it's obvious. You could do D-Day. Everybody's pretty happy about D-Day.

You know, like, that's safe. I think you just, you go, hey, the first time we'd been attacked on our territory in like 200-plus years, don't use that one. It's unbelievable. I remember Hugh Freeze, there wasn't a ton of love for him

when he did the fake funeral and none of us quite understood it. And remember we did a funeral and the whole motivation. Can you explain that to me? why he did that? Well, the reason I know why is because he got mad at me because I made fun of it on the air and then we actually connected over it. And I was like, look, I didn't understand the message. Like you're gonna say, I'm getting it kind of like, hey, you freeze, pretend that he died and then

did an open wake in the locker. No, this is one of the best things I've ever seen with the thumbs up. It was at Liberty. It was right down the road. No, no, no. That was different. That wasn't fake. He was actually sick. Oh, that guy was really sick. Yeah. Yeah. Who was that? That was Hugh Freeze. Again? That was when he was hurt. When he was at Old Miss, look it up. He did, I mean, do I have to get the terminology perfectly here?

All right, Hugh Freeze. I don't think Fakes Death is what you want to look at, but let's just see. Do you have like something life threatening? Okay. You have mesothelioma? No, no, no. This is an old miss. By the way, if you watched Eagles last night, you might be entitled to financial compensation.

I feel like there could be some commercials at some point. All right. So here's the title. Ole Miss Football Coach fakes his own funeral to motivate his players. That was in 2016. So, uh, Frees planned his own funeral to show players how to work toward their goals before, you know,

life's clock shows zero or the NCAA drops the hammer. Wow, that was pretty good. Hughes quote, I created a funeral scene from me and showed it to all the players. And the whole purpose is understanding that whatever you believe drives your behaviors and your behaviors drive your performance and your performance, it will give you some result. And we need to work backwards. This is the result I really want.

Now are my beliefs and my behaviors going to get me the result. Anyway, so I created a funeral scene. So anyway, like, all it did it did it make its way to ESPN was like, where did Hugh Freeze to? And so, like, Van Pelt and I just, like, laughed about it. Or I think it was Kennell and I at that point because Van Pelt and I were done in 15. And then I heard from somebody with Old Miss, and they were like, Hugh saw what you did, because all the coaches used to watch, like, that midday show all the time because they're just at the office.

That's the thing about getting popular. They all see it. Yeah, right. And especially coaches, the number of times you go to facilities and they'd be like, we watch you guys. It's just on. It's not like, hey, the alarm is off. Or Sillow's talking. Let's do nothing for three hours.

It's just on because ESPN's on in the background and, like, every fucking place you go to. And so he wasn't thrilled with me. And I was like, all right, I kind of get your point. like I got a different version of it, but it's, you know, looking back on it, I don't want to argue with them, but I'm like, it's still fucking weird. Like, I just don't think there's many 18 to 22 year olds are like, holy shit, he's right. What if I died? What if I died right now? Would my beliefs match the results? Like, I just, I think you can get that across better than, you know, faking your own death. It's the Albert Brooks. It's the Albert Brooks curb thing.

Yeah, I know, right. That's the best episode ever. It's the best. It's a great episode. I don't know it's the best episode. I think people do it. I think it's a very California thing. So we were talking about this the other day. And by the way, PJ Fleck, I don't know you.

I'm breaking the first rule of fight club. I don't know you. So I guess I'm not supposed to. You didn't say anything. I said it. I said it. I said it on this pod before. I've read the manifesto.

And the thing is cringeworthy. And I'm not a big acronym guy. I don't like acronyms. So there are some guys that, you know, like before they block and tackle, they're like hold on a second what fist family invested strong team oh yeah i'm going to make this play you know like i guess there's some guys like that that need to to be reminded of why they're out there you know the guys that need to they need the uh the motivational speaker to come to the NFL locker room in the off season i don't need it and i hate acronyms and a lot of

these are contrived and me and rye were talking about this the other day and i realized we have the same bugaboo with PJ Flex. So we made some acronyms. And I'm going to be honest, I didn't work too hard at this, Rye. And maybe the point is that it's not that fucking hard

to make an acronym. All right. I got one for you. You want me to start this off, Fry? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

because I don't have any. No, because I wrote him down somewhere else. I can't find it. Oh, shit. All right. No, I'm just making it happen.

Here I go. Here we go. here we go football all right you know how that's spelled all right yeah focus only on the best available lot lizards what is what is what is lot lizards what it's um slang in trucker scene for prostitutes at the rest areas you don't know this oh man no i'm not into the trucker scene oh it's a although i read a inside joke on the show a lot of truckers listen they do okay That'd be good for the truckers then. That would be good.

Do it again. Don't get, you know, like, don't get distracted. No, I get it. But just say it again. Now, let me think of it as a trucker. Focus only on the best available lot lizards. Get your slim jam. Walk back to your truck.

Don't spend all night out there. You're up. Ladder. Leadership, ascending, descending, descending, determination energy results. That's good. That's really good. Oh, that's good.

All right. Huddle. Have Huddle. Unity during difficult life events. Like playing at Minnesota for PJ Fleck. I got one for you, Ryan. This is,

this is tailored for me specifically and what my life's about yep yep this is uh the acronym is bill and it goes boss instilling life lessons bellichick or simmons simmons either works really it really does for either of us dude only here for me Don't remind me. You got another one tackle. I wasn't there long. Toughness, attitude, cost efficiency, know-how leadership efficiency.

Like that touch. You got a future at this. This is so fucking stupid. How easy this is. I know, but how stupid do you think they felt sitting in the fucking meeting, putting that together? Can you imagine the guy

that had to go staple that together and make copies of that? You can't have this many, dude. And just there's a rule. You can't. Have you, have you looked at it? I felt like, yes. I felt like I looked at it. I read it. I felt like I felt like Jessica Yellen looking through like a deposition. I was like, I was like this is my version of a deposition. I'm going to read all 40 pages. I want to know exactly what the fuck is going on in that scenario. And here's what I found out. Nothing's going on. It's just a bunch of acronyms. Fist. Okay. I have one more. Okay. Stop. selling things omnipresent potentially. I didn't know which way you're going to go with this. You decided to make them just make no sense.

Yeah, yeah, I just, that was the whole idea is the last one wasn't going to make. You can keep that, you can keep that bill acronym, by the way. You like ladder, though. Get a shirt. Ladder. Yeah, no,

we'll work on score. Do you like how we did ascending, descending? That was my favorite part. I did next to double efficiency. All right. Results. Okay. And this is, this is, imagine being 19 and going, oh, I don't have it in me today.

No, that's the only time that it actually works. I can tell you this from experience. Because when you're 19, you're just like, man, life is fucking hard, dude. Like I got, I got three hour practices. I got a curfew. They can keep me here as long as I want. Then I got to go class and all that shit. Yeah, like 19's fun, but it's the one time in your life where you allow people to put you through stupid shit.

try reading acronyms at 33 that's what made me leave the NFL shit like reading did you money line Phoenix did you moneyline Phoenix uh yeah they won yes right you would never steer me wrong now did the clippers first half money line hit

because that's the other side of that parlay all chalk baby all chalk yeah no they won they were up four there we go guys there we go okay I look this is sucks because every public, like I went 500 in college football in our contest, and then I've been on a bit of a losing streak here as you get into the postseason. Like I just haven't been able to pull it together here.

But I get really worried when I get super hot on the NBA thread. Like I just throw you and Big Cat a random one every now and then. What's the look on your face? Hockey parley hit. Oh, my God. Listen, I'm going to stop talking. The Jets handle business. The Chicago Blackhawks wanting to shootout.

And the Edmonton Oilers and the Leafs have three seconds to go under seven goals. It's four, too. So I don't want to speak too soon because somebody pulled the fucking goalie. But it's final. It's final in Edmonton. Everybody can go back into the tunnels underground to their houses. All right. How about this?

How about this for one? NHL, knowing hockey legitimately. Yes, dude. Yes. How about this made my life, dude? For all the shit I give hockey players. I don't think any of them hear it because that would be bad if they did. But the flyers were putting on dog masks.

Yeah, I don't know, man. You think that cheapens it. Okay. All right. No, I don't think it cheapens it. So you like it. You like it as a citywide thing because, yeah. All right.

All right. Look, that's your thing. That's your ruling. Okay. I have no ruling on that one. Now, Jim or saying doing dreams and nightmares after every game. That gets a little old after a while. Okay, this is, I like this one too.

why didn't this is from one of our British fans I think he's British he's so it's somewhere in Europe good I may one of the English speaking Europeans uh why why don't Americans know how to chant and banter at their games he's talking about um god

I can't even do the fucking British accent stuck between Australia and you can't that that's what that was why don't Americans know how to chant or banter at games and I guess he means like condescendingly that we don't do the things that they do, right? Correctly so.

They're so much better at it. Their chants, their songs, they learn the songs, they come up with cool lyrics, their remixes. Dude, I'm telling you, they got it. They got us on a lot of stuff. You see people up late at night, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes with one-year-old kids up at fucking 1 a.m. They're eating pizza, cheeseburgers, french fries, and not as fat.

No, dude, it's everywhere. South of France. S.O.F. ever heard of it? You even have an Instagram account? So the point is, is that there's a lot of stuff that I notice where I just, like, I was in when I was in New Zealand, I'm like, why is this town dead? They're like, man, holiday. I'm like, how long is holiday?

They're like two weeks. I was like, where does everybody go? This is a major city. You're like, everybody has a second place here. I'm like, really? Everybody just has a second house? Like, yeah, for the most part, a lot of people have second homes. Yeah, but you got to buy your grocery bags, Ryan.

I know. I got to get better at that. Here's my problem. And I want to turn the question back on you, Kevin, in Europe. I don't know. Why don't you guys do a thing where you wave to children? hospitals and shit like that like why don't you do that or wave to Hugh freeze or like we throw people through tables we have like live bison run out on a football field like you got to admit

there's something about America that's kind of cool even if it's like kind of fucked up and I know you guys think about it's like a like kind of an Australia or Russia like where it makes between Australia and Russia but have people said that is that kind of how I feel like people look at us but we we got tigers and cages guy had an alligator inside Citizens Bank Park last year. Do you have like in your county in like Derbyshire imagine if the highest paid employee in Derbyshire would run down a hill past a rock every game and a bunch of big guys behind him? That's Davosweeney. Do you have a Davosweeney? You know, I don't know, but look, you know, some stuff we were doing better, some stuff they're doing better, right? I mean,

that's that's fair. But when it comes to chanting and being passionate and almost being roeful, Romanticism. No, that's not the right word. I could just say romantic, the romanticism, the way they treat sport. You know what? There's a different lane of passion that they have that we'll never, I think we're just too cool. I was standing right next to you and you know what I'm about to say when they did Dixieland Delight in T-town.

And you're telling me that a bunch of British guys singing a song that's like seven minutes long and I have no idea what it means is better than that. No, it's not better than that. It was the happiest I think I've been in the last six months. The place is incredible. I can't wait. I can't wait for you go to Baton Rouge and see what it's like there. Did you hear legend on the Paul Feinbaum show?

No, I missed that one. That's the one episode. He's a, he called in. He's a guy from Alabama and he said, in a very loud voice, if you guys hired Davosweeney, I'm going to go to the 50-yard line and light myself on fire. He said, if you hire Davos-Sweeney,

I'm going to rip my arm off and beat myself with it. And I feel the same way. I do. I'm so thankful that they hired the guy from Washington. My kids are going to Alabama. The last question, and I don't know if this is any good, Ryan, I said it to you earlier.

It's probably not, but I think you're pretty good with history. The question is, and this is from dash conrad the industrial revolution changed the face of the modern novel forever discussed citing specific examples

specific examples hey rye the modern novel is not a book in this scenario I'm not your big book yeah but I'm not a novel reader so I'm actually not your guy I'm not your guy on that one I saw the other one I saw the other one that was a little nasty

it was like can he name one piece of work not done by turnout grand or mccullough like that one was like fuck off dude how about the entire filbrick catalog how about all of it how about atkinson um how about how about holland whether it's normandy or sicily 43 i mean what else do you want for me over here how about sharked by brian scary and the national geographic how about peter stark peter stark young washington estoria peter stark a mazula guy you want to tell me this guy doesn't love history.

Is that you? Yeah, that's me coming off of our family schooner in the late 1700s. That's unbelievable. Speaking of the Industrial Revolution, how did it treat you? It was good for us. Look at my clothes. Look at my vest. Look at my bowtie.

Unfortunately, we lost a lot of money in Haddock. Most of my father, well, our people had not diversified our bonds. And so there was a Haddivize your bonds. Right. We had a summer place in New Brunswick. It was incredible. But yeah, I saw that. But as far as novels, works of fiction,

I rarely, rarely ever, ever dabble into that. I don't know why. But I need to send you. Did you read The Road yet by McCarthy? Did I send you a copy of that? I don't know if you send me. Let me look at my book show. Best piece of fiction.

How many pages have you read total of the books that I've sent you? But you've sent me? I read that book. Hold on. It's right here. You would like Astoria. I could link you up. He could come up to Poulson.

I read like 100 pages of this book. Oh, Paul Thoreau, the Happy Isles of Oceania. I'm surprised you weren't more into that. Were you into the hundred pages? The problem is. Three kids. That thing is thick with two seeds. That's a thick book?

I mean, yeah, dude, there's 400 and, oh, we're in the fives. If you include like the glossary or whatever the fuck you want to call it, 528 pages, Ryan. Sir Andrew Roberts. God damn. For a short guy, that's a long book. Hey, what the fuck is that? Oh, wait, I thought you were talking about me. No, I'm not talking about you.

I'm talking about Napoleon. Neither of you were, neither of you were short for your time. In actuality. No, he was still pretty small. the English guys don't even have the coolest chant. The Viking thing is the coolest thing. Oh, no, the Kiwis, New Zealand. You would say that we gentrified it,

but the quality of life in that country is higher than in Minnesota. Do you have any mailback questions you like? Otherwise, I'm going to let you go. You never answered about the Industrial Revolution. I am pro-industrial revolution. I don't have, yeah, but specific to him asking about how novels pivoted in tone. No, no, he's not talking about that. I think he means like today. I think he, I think he means like modern life. I think it's a fancy way of saying modern life, modern novel.

That's what I'm saying. I had to look it up. Well, I'm not as, I'm disappointing to him and the audience. So are you pro-industrial revolution? And if so, the first of the second. There's no replacing the first one. Oh, no. I had something, I had something written in a, Ryan Rosillo voice. Look, this is me and Ryan Rissillo. You know, the funny thing is, any of this history, like, people think I have, like, every year down or every era, and I'm like,

no, man, there's funny holes. Cotton gin was invented. Fucking moron. Hey, look, hey, look, the output greatly increased, no doubt about it. But then there's a rise in population. You know, that's how you would start that thing. Wouldn't you?

You, you, Look, look, the output greatly increased, no doubt about it. But if you think about it, the second industrial revolution is where we really got into trouble. You know, globalization, internal combustion engines, urban crowding. You don't like urban crowding? Urban crowding. Do you think I would have said urban crowding? Yeah, urban crowding.

I don't think I would have done that. Urban crowd. He's Channings brother, D3 guy. Urban crowding. All right, right. I will see you something, buddy. Have a good night. I'll tell you what, though.

I've got some, I've got some homework. What? Industrial Revolution? Yeah, I'm on it. Wait you get to the agricultural revolution. Yeah, no doubt. That was the real mistake. That was the real mistake.

Hey, look, I was in this big Polynesian sort of the Maiori's, you know, that's where my headspace has been in the last month. So apologies. No, it's good to have you back. Thanks for coming on the pod, buddy. Talk to you soon. Thank you.