Green Light with Chris Long - Yannick Ngakoue! Joe House! Suns & Bucks Bounced From NBA Playoffs & Baseball Good Bad Ugly.

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

(2:24) - Hello, Hockey is the Sport of the South and Favorite Maryland Terrapins of All Time. (15:28) - Yannick Ngakoue on his Upbringing and Journey to NFL, Joining Indianapolis, Playing in Las Vegas Last Year, Leaving Jacksonville and Receiving Praise from Rod Marinelli.  (43:41) - Reviewing Green Light’s Best Accessory Draft. (47:30) - Baseball’s Good, Bad, Ugly. (56:30) - Luka Shades the Suns and Boston Bounces the Bucks. (1:12:44) - Joe House Talks Crystal City Restaurant, Betting Golf, PGA Championship and Phil Mickelson, Saudi Golf League and Washington Sports. Yannick Ngakoue Article: https://www.golongtd.com/p/you-dont-know-yannick-ngakoue?s=r 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. https://www.greenlightpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And in Michigan, 1-800-270-7-1-17-8-9. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Greenlight podcast. Today we hear from Unique in Gokwe and the Ringer's Joe House. Chris and Maken start off with the shout out to hockey. And then Chris talks to Unique about his upbringing and journey to the NFL, hit the upcoming season in Indianapolis, playing last year in Las Vegas, and his exit from Jacksonville.

Afterwards, we do a little baseball, good, bad, ugly, and talk about Sunday's NBA game sevens. Then we end with some energy from Joe House of the Fairway Rowland podcast on The Ringer. We hit golf gambling PGA championship and Phil Mickelson, the Saudi Golf League, and Washington Sports. Hey, y'all enjoy. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Hello! So we're saying hello to Toronto because the maple leaves lost again.

Here's the thing. You're grammatically incorrect. Yeah, we should probably start calling them the leaves. The maple leaves lost again. I don't know how you say that in Canadian, but in America, in America, we say the maple leaves. The maple leaves lost again. They lost to the lightning.

They blew a lead in that series. My man, Patty Maroon, ever since he got down in Tampa, they're tough as nails. They can't be shaken. By the way, Toronto, and by the way, shout out to Elliot Harding, who's in here. He won a prize. He was kind enough to bid on an auction item

that entailed coming to the Greenlight podcast for a day. and the proceeds went to my charity so thank you very much elliott elliots in studio waterboys dot org check it out check it out and he's gotten a little bit of everything today now he he reminded me earlier that Toronto also they cheered when Kevin Durant blew his Achilles which was something that I was fucking furious about at the time especially considering Toronto fans will tell you they invented sportsmanship because Canada like they did a whole threat about the the Muslim guy that comes to the the games like how hasn't missed the game and sits in the front row.

And that was like supposed to be some lesson for us Americans. Like look at all the diversity we have. We have one non-white guy in arenas. Here's a 36 tweet thread about this guy. And then the next night they go out and cheer Kevin Durant's blown Achilles. So maybe you guys are dealing with like a bit of a like a punishment that just started in 2000. And what was that 19? I remember people talk about what the Philly fans did to Michael Irvin

When he ended his career by the way Michael Irvin has since gotten over that he's been on his podcast and says so himself We love Michael Irvin he doesn't think the Philly fans knew that he was hurt and I'm sure Toronto Probably would would say the same thing about their fans But if you'll notice the Eagles There was like an 18 year punishment for that Like we didn't get a ring until 2000 2017, 2018 calendar year. So maybe Toronto sports, they got to suffer a little bit for that.

Well, it's been 18 years. They have not won a first round series since 2004. But the clock just reset from when they started booing KD. Oh, and 10 in series clinching games since 2018. It's not good. Tampa Bay is still in that bad boy. Carolina's in there. The Florida Panthers are in there.

I'm starting to think that maybe this is not Canada Sport anymore. No, it's not. No, no, no. And this is something we've been workshopping here a little bit, that hockey is becoming a southern sport. Now, I don't know, fucking the kings and somebody else, the stars lost last night. Thank God the most beautiful logo in sports is still in the thing.

The Flames. The Calgary Flames. Nothing like a Game 7 walk-off goal, skate-off goal up in Calgary. Lord knows there's not a lot else to do up there. Then go see Game 7. and it was lit in that fucking arena. But I'm thinking this is the sport of the South, make. I'm with you.

We've been working on a single. And if the lightning or the Carolina Hurricanes win this thing, we will drop the entire single. But this is just a snippet of the single. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. One, two, three.

Sports, sport of the South. Sweet potato pie because Putein's out. Gone with the wind. Maple leaves are on vacation again. And if you know that, that's a song of the South by Alabama, and that's a remix called Sport of the South, which is now hockey. So if the Lightning or Carolina win, and by the way, we talked to Stanford Steve about this, a Canadian team hasn't won since by our calculations, it was 1989, by Steve's calculations, it was 1993. We've got research on that. We've got a whole fucking department.

Top guys are on that. Our top guys, but bottom line is for a sport that's all y'alls, I mean, for, get about it. In the last 10 years, I don't think there's been a team north of Pittsburgh that's won the whole thing. And we're still unclear on if Chicago or Pittsburgh, geography is not easy. It's hard. No, it's not. Chicago is more north than Pittsburgh, which is a fucking mind fuck. You know, Michael Jordan, he went back, got his degree from UNC in geography. Just place mats. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, just the whole types of placebats. He's nails on state capital. Yeah, dude. I bet he is.

Ask him about Montana. Right. Helena. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. Right. Yeah. Montana?

A little time there. Yeah. California? Sure. Sacramento. Sure. Okay. Hockey continues to be an absolute throw ride.

We've got, you know, with all the terrible game sevens that we endured Sunday in the NBA, we had two overtime game sevens. By the way, like to hit a, you know, game winner, like to score a game winning goal for the Rangers in a game seven has to be pretty fucking great. That night's got to be pretty good. There was a monster, uh, flag flying out the back of the pickup truck, which you worry about these days anywhere. Yeah, anytime I see flagging a pickup truck, I'm like, whoa, buddy. Especially perhaps in the middle of Virginia. Uh, it was a big old New York Rangers flag on Sunday after noon, which was great. That guy gets to

bust that out like very rarely. Yeah, like once. scaring the shit out of people in rural Virginia In the last couple decades Yeah, good for the Rangers Some of us were on Calgary money lines Some of us were on the over four and a half Hockey Street as well You really have a problem, huh?

Yeah, I jumped on the Mavericks Minus 28 and a half at halftime Haven't offset a couple losses But we're doing okay You know, I did end up going heavy on the Warriors We talked about on the last spot Good for you Yeah, not a huge payoff

It was hairy for a little bit there So yeah sport of the South man Hockey is changing I do want to say this. You get the Battle of Alberta coming up. Shout to Eric Clapton. They're five or six provinces in Canada. Yeah.

You want to go through them? Sure. No problem. I'll go first. British Columbia. Yeah. You want to go? Alberta.

Okay. I'll do Ontario. Okay. I'm going to do where Jordan Tutu and them are from, like all the way up north. What's that? It's up near Yellow Knife. What's that northern territories? That's one of them.

I believe that's one of them. Okay. Northwest territory actually not a province, just a territory. There's actually 10. 10? So is Newfoundland one of them? Nova Scotia or is that something different? Yeah, it's up by Labrador, Newfoundland.

Newfoundland and Labrador collectively are one. Yeah. Is Nova Scotia's one? Yep. Oh, West, we're fucking. We're fine. We're basically Canadian. Yeah, that's cool.

Uh, we did enough. So, yeah, you see they try to put Connor McDavid up in Edmonton to try to revive the sport, you know, other players. there's a supposedly there's this prodigy in toronto austin matthews but yeah austin matthews well how's that going big hockey can't manufacture canadian success in this thing this is a southern sport a southern sport hey make let me ask you this we hate the maryland tariffins right yes uh top five terps okay um in any order yeah larry david he's a terp unfortunately you got to be fucking kidding me dude And by in any order, I mean Larry David's number one.

He's got to be number one. Yes, no question. Worst thing about him. He had turp speaking of, Scott Van Pelt, top five in that group. Larry David's a terrapet. Yeah, man. Jesus. Connie Chung, you know?

I don't. A wife of Mori Povich. Got it. She had a show when we were Wii ones. David Simon. I'm so thankful that Connie Chung wasn't that I was supposed to know. David Simon? I'm sorry.

David Simon. The wire. The wire. Yes. Got it, got it. And Frank Reich. Frank Reich? Yeah, got a good beard.

I learned that Frank Reich was the time. I forgot about that. Frank Reich, of course, Carson Wentz's dad. Yeah. So, honorable mention, Unique and Gauquae.

So, yeah, who's gonna be on the show here. He's gonna be on the show here. I didn't, I'm going number one, Maya, the singer Maya. Oh,

M. Yeah, she's a terp. Number two, Scott Van Pelt. Yeah. Number three, I'm going Vaseline Steve Francis.

Yes. You remember that? Yeah. That was legendary. Franchise, yeah. Number four, I'm going tory Smith and number five, I'm going E.J. Henderson. But Yonique in Gokwe might be... Unique New York.

Unique New York. He also has had a really unique career. I mean, a guy that... He's the best player that's played for the most teams. The best player that's played for the most teams. Now, if you ask his coaches, who have spoken... on him publicly, it ain't because of his personality. I mean, he's a fucking really, really hard working dude. Ask the players to play with him. Ask guys like Rod Marinelli. Ask guys like Gus Bradley,

who's going to join again in indie. People love unique in Gokwe. Even I do as a turp and a pass rusher. This guy is really good. He's had eight sacks in every season he's played in, which is kind of like, they talk about double digits. I think about eight as like, that's a good year. 10's great, eight's good. He's been at least good every single season. And the thing that's been amazing is he's done that on six different teams or five different teams, dude. One season, he had eight sacks and he played for two teams.

Like, it's rare that guys get traded in season and then have that kind of year. He's just a really good player. And this was a really fun interview. We had read an article last week that kind of prompted me to reach out to him. It was Tyler Dune article. and it kind of highlighted, well, it didn't high, low-lighted, highlighted, talked about all the ups and downs of his kind of upbringing and journey to the NFL was crazy. Yeah, he definitely, you know, talking about unique. He had a unique experience growing up in this country in, like, unbelievable poverty and just like really, really trying circumstances.

I was super moved by the inspiration that he found in his mom who continues to inspire him to this day. And the interview was just awesome. Yep, DC kid grew up with a really, as Matt said, unique circumstance and had to see some really tough shit growing up. But you can check that Tyler Dune article out. Read it yourself. We talk a lot about past rush. We talk a lot about, you know, kind of why he's perceived the way he's perceived maybe. And the excitement that he feels coming to Indian, rushing next to Buckner and that sort of thing, I think he's going to have a really good year.

And I was excited to have him on the show. So check out one of my maybe top five Terps after today. and then stick around because we've got another DC guy you've got another this is like a DC pod here Joe House who you've always been a big fan of Joe House Joe House is the man uh Joe house of podcasting fame that's right he's got fairway rolling he's got the gambling show on the ringer yeah uh frequent guest on bill Simmons pod his buddy I'm gonna find out how tall he is yeah I don't know what the cat looks like yeah it's interesting you really do stick to the art of the the audio podcast. So again, we've got In Gokwe, we're going to talk a little bit of basketball,

et cetera, and then we've got Joe House to finish on some golf and some other bullshit around. So stick around, enjoy unique in Gokwe. I started taking athletic greens because I wanted to see what all the hype was about. With one delicious scoop of athletic greens, you're absorbing 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source, superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens to help you start your day right. This special blend of ingredients supports your gut health, your nervous system, your immune system, your energy, recovery, focus, and aging. And it tastes great. It doesn't taste like it's super healthy. It kind of has a mild tropical taste that I actually look forward to each morning. I recommend it to the whole green light crew, especially

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slash greenlight to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. So I've got unique in Gokwe. One of my favorite, definitely one of my favorite terps, but one of my favorite rushers in the league in the past five, ten years, honestly. I hadn't seen you since London, man. That's the last time I ran into you

was 14 years ago in London, dude. Yeah, yeah, for sure, man. It's been a while, man. Appreciate you having me on. Dude, it's great, great, great having you on. And I read that article, it was Tyler Dune at Go Long. You know, it's funny, you watch guys play,

but you don't really know their story sometimes. So I thought it was interesting and definitely informative to know where you get that grind and that hustle from and that hunger from. How do you think everything in that article that we can get into a little bit, but kind of like you're upbringing and the things you've experienced, affect kind of who you are as a player?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, when you go through certain tribulations at a young age, and you didn't actually be in certain situations. It gives you a natural chip on your shoulder, each and every time you touch the field. You get to unleash certain, you know, anger and emotions and things of that nature legally. So, you know, going through those, you know, trying and tough times,

I feel like it's helped me, you know, enhance my gain just happening until, you know, those events. And, you know, like the NFL hasn't given you any shortage of motivation, I don't feel like, because I'll just be honest, man. I think you're not respected enough. I mean, like, and true football players know, like, football fans that your teams know that, but, you know, the general public.

I feel like for a couple reasons, because you've bounced around, so, like, fans haven't gotten a chance to know you well enough, like, year of year, number one. And number two, like, you've been incredibly consistent. You've been one of only a few players to have eight sacks through your first five, six years of your career. But I just don't feel like, for some reason, people have realized how consistent and how great you've been.

Ben, why do you think that is, bro? Like you said, man, I really have a true home, you know, after the little whole Jacksonville, you know, era. So, you know, hopefully indie is a spot where I can play, you know, the rest of my career. But, you know, that's what motivates me as well, you know, going back to your first question. And I have that respect. That's what drives me each and every morning when I wake up to go do sled drives, do bell squats with chains and bands and, you know, going above and beyond.

so I'm prepared, you know, when the season kicks on. Yeah, you play with great effort, man. I remember a play in 2019. I was watching you guys play indie, and the Colts were backed up. You probably know exactly what I'm talking about. You were in a three, and Josh Allen was outside, so they inward-ed-you-out.

And then you were in a T.E. You run in a T.E. The guard, you tripped, the guard lands on you. He's trying to lay on you in the end zone. Jacobi's running five, six seconds. You get up, chasing down, force a fumble. your team goes in for a score. Like that's, the cross-chop stuff's great.

Like your pass rush is, you got a lot of counters and you play with great speed and quickness, but the effort, man, like that hunger, I think that's what gets lost in the shuffle too. It's like you're a high motor player too, bro. So, like, what's your mindset on game day? Like, what kind of, when you walk out of the tunnel, what's in your head?

You know, well, I kind of just, you know, scroll past certain legends on my phone and just watch, you know, the way they play the game. You know, one Sunday I may throw on Lawrence Taylor, another Sunday I might throw on Chris Dolman. I'm just watching guys, you know, watching how they impacted the game. And I just try to, you know, mimic that on Sunday. Chris Dolman was awesome. Yeah, he was an animal for sure. He might be my favorite that like, you know, your casual fan in 2020 might not remember. but if anybody gets a chance to go down to Chris Dolman YouTube Rabbit Hole, he was unbelievable. So we're going to Indy this year.

Like, where's your head at now? Because I know you talked about Vegas being up and down, quite honestly. You know, like, are you happy headed into Indy where you are right now, 27 years old? Yeah, absolutely. I got a lot of football left in me, man. I feel really, really, really good. And, you know, I'm going to play this game as long as I can't just approve my point, you know, that. to go down is one of the best, you know, to play this position.

And going into Indy, you know, to answer your question, I'm just, you know, super, super optimistic, but I'm really, really grateful that I'm back with a defensive coordinator that allows me to beat me and play my style of play. What does that mean? Because you're reuniting with Gus, Gus Bradley. What does that mean your style of play? What is your style of play?

And what's, how are you best used? Yeah, you know, my style of play is, you know, being able to just, you know, get off the ball freely. and, you know, reacting on the fly. And we have a thing in Indy now that we go by, it's like our motto or whatever. So rush means run until something happens. And I love the stop. Yeah, I love, you like that.

I do. Because I can do that. Yeah, it's simple enough. You know what I mean? So you're familiar with the defense. You know, they ran in the Philly where you can just not know, why not and take off. So I'm just super excited about that. It just allows you to have more chances to, you know, affect the quarterback and affect

the run on first and second down. No question. And what's really cool, and I said this the minute. Like, I loved watching you on Max. And I always get into this with people because I played opposite Robert Quinn and me and him raised a lot of hell. And, you know, he was just so special, man. He was across from me.

He had 19. And we were, it was a losing season. And he had 19 and got one call back. He should have had 20 and we had the sack title. But your guy Mathis got the title that year. But people always ask me, like, what's it like rushing across from a great player? How about rushing next to a great player? That's what I don't think people understand is to me.

I think a tackle next to me, I'd rather have that than a bookend. So you're going into Indy and you get to rush with Buckner, who I think is amazing. You guys are going to work great together. Talk to me about the limitless possibilities that exist when you have somebody right inside right there in that three. Yeah, man, absolutely. You know, some of the greatest rushers on the end had a great three technique next to them.

You know what I'm saying? And being able to have Buckner next to me is, you know, tremendously helpful, not just for myself, but for the whole team entirely because, you know, when you got two guys on the same page that can affect the quarterback, and we might take three guys and, you know, the other two guys can eat. You know what I'm saying? And vice versa. So, you know, being able to work certain moves with them, work certain games, text games,

exigames, and things of that nature, you know, it should definitely help us be successful this season. And it's the naturals, too. like you get a feel for what that dude likes to how he likes to rush he gets a feel for how you like to rush and like i always say this if i'd have made more money at the end of my career i would have given fletcher cox a cut you know because you know it's just so nice having a guy that gets vertical next to you that disrupts and if you get blocked or somebody oversets you hey i can loop right back around inside and it's almost like you can kind of nonverbally communicate with this guy once you get tight enough

with him before the snap, just a look, and we know what we're doing. Absolutely. You know, and you can also give them, you know, code words. I'm pretty sure you did that in your career. Yeah, yeah. You know, so, yeah, man, when you guys on the same page of three technique and a five technique, you know, sky's the limit. So what's your favorite move to hit and, like, drop somebody on?

Because I know your cross shop's incredible. Like, you got the, you almost jump into your cross shop, like, which I think is pretty damn cool. I used to watch Robert Quinn do that, and then I'd go try it. I'd be like it's just not fucking working for me. I think I'll go with the long arm. But like, what's the key to land in that cross shop? And is there anything that actually feels sweeter when you land it?

Oh, man. I can't allow it to you. The cross shop, that's my baby right there. I know it is. Yeah, that move, man. It can just free you up to just be able to make a game change of play. And I feel like off of that move is so many other things you can do because sometimes a guy, he's super scared to shoot that outside.

because that's the hand I'm not aiming for when I do the cross shopping. I can just, you know, hit a ghost move and just trying to dip around them. Or take that pad and all that leverage she just gave me and just work a long arm and stab to get to the quarterback. So, you know, there's so many moves that you can work off of it. But my favorite position coach, you know, of all-time coach Rob Marinelli told me that, you know, the greatest rushes only have two moves, two to three moves that you have in your arsenal. And that's all you need. And if you can perfect those two to three moves,

they should be a super effective rush in his league. Being a rush is about dictating tempo, but it's also about like taking what you're given. You know, it's a really aggressive process, but it's also passive and being like, all right, he's high on me.

Oh, he's, he's ghost in that hand. He's too turned. Like, he's more turned than I thought he'd be at the beginning of the rush. Like,

and then having those couple counters and working them. But I think it's really interesting what you said about the chop club. Like, you can go into it and think, hey, I'm going to chop this guy's hand down. But if it's not there,

hey now I'm going to power because he's probably high on me or I'm going to spin back or that sort of thing. So like Russian is one of those things that's part art and it's part plan. And it's so interesting to me like hearing guys's process. How about Indy, you got both your former teams that you don't, that you've talked about not loving publicly on the schedule this year? I don't like any team, man. Let me not. You love the teams, but maybe you had said like you can't wait to play the Raiders. I'll put it this way.

Oh yeah. That's it. Yeah. I have no hard, hard feeling towards them at all. You know, business is business at the end of the day. Yeah. And, yeah, man, no worries. But so let me put it this way.

Who are you, what old friends are you more excited to see Jacksonville or Vegas this year? Oh, man. I'll definitely say Vegas. I feel like I had my way with Jacksonville and Baltimore. Yeah. Yeah. But I sleep on no opponents, man. I always try to bring my A game, man.

No matter who it is. No question. And that, like, you talked about Vegas a lot, man. That's a really interesting year because you played great. You hit double digits. You and Max were awesome. I felt like, and Max is one of my favorites, man. I felt like he got a lot of attention as he should have.

But you got lost in the shuffle like nationally, and you're right there with double digits too. Absolutely. Yeah. What was your year like, man? Was it valuable? Is it something you'd rather just move on from? How do you feel about that year in Vegas?

Yeah, man, I just felt like I learned a lot from that year in Vegas. It's just, you know, it was actually a blessing, too, because I was actually elected by my peers to become a captain. And that was the first time in my career that I was nominated as a captain. So, you know, that was a tremendous feeling, especially, you know, really not being there physically and, like, voluntary workout. So I feel like it speaks volumes of, you know, the character that I displayed while I was there. And, you know, one thing that I can take away from there is, like I said, man, that that connection that I made with, you know, Coach Marinelli, I'll keep forever. he's given me so many tools and nuggets to allow me to keep the switch on and keep the internal motivation going to be able to keep playing this game.

Well, yeah, Rod, like my D-line coach, Mike Waffle was like a just, Rod's like a hero to him. I mean, all the best D-line coaches love Rob Marinelli, and the effort is always there. Like, you can tell that group. What's up, seven? Is that seven? Yeah, that's seven.

What's up seven? You can't stop. Dude, I got to laugh. My lap thinks he's a lap dog. He's fucking 75 pounds. But yeah, no, like, Marinelli, you can always hang your hat on the effort. And when you get respect from a guy like that who's coached a lot of great players, I heard you talk about this.

It feels great. I mean, he said that if you keep working, you could be in Canton. And, you know, you're going to have those kind of numbers. I mean, you're already at 55 through six years. That's great. But, like, where it really shows up to me is when I hear that he calls Chris Ballard. You know, that's got to feel like, hey, I got a real ally in this thing. And he's a damn good one.

Yeah, absolutely. Those guys go way back, you know, when they built that Chicago defense with peppers and, you know, Erlacking those guys. So I'm just, you know, super, like I said, super, super, super blessed and grateful to be able to have, you know, a mentor like that. What was, what do you think about Max, man? Like, did you have preconceived notions? Did you, did you learn anything about him? Did, like, what do you think about his game?

Did you learn anything from him? Did he learn anything from you? What was that like? It was definitely great, man. Just being able to help polish this game, you know, we will push together each and every day in practice, you know, started from the individual periods, you know, to get off drills and stuff like that. So what I think about him is he has so much more potential and room to grow to become even a better player than what he is. And I feel like he definitely will retire in silver and black, man, and I'm super, super proud of him, you know, getting that deal.

No question. And it's funny, like, again, back to the bookend thing. there's countless amount of games that I watched and I'm like you could have 15 he could have 15 the problem is you guys beat each other the quarterback Absolutely it was definitely a race man Every Sunday it was a race to get there

I know the feeling And there was a lot of heavy shit that went on You know the rugs deal Gruden I mean I thought Basatia From what I heard I was almost surprised they let him go Because you had such a power group of

like experienced coaches in that building. Like you had like a hundred years worth of experience in that building. Like you talked about Marinelli. You talk about Basatia. You talk about guys like, you know, Gus, right? Were you shocked they let that group go? Yeah, absolutely. You know, going through those, you know, those crazy events like you named.

I was surprised that we didn't get another opportunity, you know, with that group, you know. It's just show how much perseverance we had as a group, how much character we had and toughness to be able to still gut it out and make it to the playoffs, you know, with all those things going on. But, you know, everything happens for a reason. So, like I said, no question. I mean, like, you know, I thought that was a special year. Like, anybody that was on that team will remember that year forever, I feel like is one of those deals. Like, you guys seemed tight. You guys pulled together. Somehow made the playoffs. It was insane. But you, you said you had your ups and down. You talked about mental health. You talked about depression. Like, you, you know,

like talk to me about the lowest lows in Vegas. Yeah, man, you know, I just feel like, you know, kind of going back to what you were saying as far as not getting the true attention, they heard a little bit because it was so much blood, sweat and tears put into the last offseason to be able to, you know, give that performance to those fans and to not be recognized, you know, it kind of, you know, stung a little bit. But, you know, the best of the best have been knocked down so many times. about how you respond to it, you know, and my way of responding to it is getting up every day

and bust some my ass in the gym, you know, whether it's, like I said, man, the sledge drags, the squatting and stuff like that, and also following it back up with the recovery. So I'm able to, you know, do that shit over and over again. So, yeah, that fuel me, though. You know, I had ups and downs when I played, like, for sure. And, you know, our upbrings are way different. You've been through a lot more shit than me. but sometimes, you know, I wonder how much of it are we putting the pressure on ourselves?

But, you know, that one number, dude, that one number, you know, like you know that number that gets us paid or doesn't get us paid. It's the sacks, right? Even if you're playing great, even if you have eight pressures, even if you have five hits, even if you won 70% of your rushes, if you don't get there, people are looking at you funny. And I feel like sometimes we as rushes put like a baseball amount of mental pressure on ourselves to get home. You know what I mean? It's true. Like, you know, you played a long time. So you can, you can definitely attest to this. When you go out there and just have fun and play the game that you always play growing up as a kid, the sacks come out of nowhere. When you go out there and you put pressure on yourself mentally,

like, I got to get this number of sacks that I need two or three. You come back home with none. So like when you just go out there and you just trust the process, the process favors nobody. you'll eventually, you know, get what, you know, deserve enough punning them. So sometimes, though, I'll be feeling like the process is favorite. Somebody else if I win, if I hit a clean spin or whatever,

like, and the ball's gone, especially like if the coverage isn't great. So I just feel like rushers, low-key, put as much pressure on themselves as any position in football because of that one number. You know what I mean? Absolutely.

I just think sometimes it's not healthy. You make a great point. Like, go out there and just fucking play. Let it. It's the hard. thing to do is do that sometimes. Have fun. My best games is when I just have fun.

Some of my lowest moments I would talk to your dad, you know, Howie, you know what I'm saying? We would go back and forth and I remember me vividly. You know, it was a certain game and it was like two or three weeks and I didn't have a sack or whatever. And he was just telling me, you know, you just got to trust the process. And they come in bunches and shorten up the week after.

I think it was Chicago or something like that. I came out with two sacks, you know what I'm saying? So that's another, you know, person that helped me to just maneuver through a lot of situations as well, going through that season in Vegas, man. Just getting information from a Hall of Fame where that meant a lot. Yeah, I was with him a couple times when he was hitting you up and listening to, you know, like, kind of, man, the worst is when you start the year and you don't get that

first one for a couple weeks. Like, you feel like the whole world is like kind of weighing you down, dude. Right. If you can't get, if you can go out in week one and get like a, two piece you're going to the pro bowl right because you're playing with house money and you're doing exactly what you talked about which is then having fun week two through 17 absolutely absolutely so first one is the hardest one to give when you get it it I was like a weight off your shoulders hell yeah dude I know the feeling man and I was

always a slower starter because I feel like in training camp it's hard to get in a rhythm and like work all your stuff because there's less practices now like when I got in league was old CBA we had two a days you had more one-on-one pass rush, which sucks, but you get to work your craft. Like, nobody wants to take a bunch of reps in the 100 degree weather, but that's where, like, you can get better, and we don't do that as much anymore. And then preseason, people running basic shit because they don't want to get their quarterback killed. And so you can't really let it loose.

And then those first third downs come, and you're like, damn, I'm rusty. So it's almost like now the first month of the season is, like, getting into a rhythm. Absolutely. That's why you always should find time and training camp, you know, as a defensive alignment or just, you know, work on your steps after practice work on a on a family work on that you know also you know bring an office alignment with you know a guy that's that's a startup or a guy that's on practice body gives give you some sets so you can just work your moves man stuff like that always put the extra work no question man like uh get a young guy that can't say no absolutely there you

now you're now you're big ogy dude now you can pull anybody out of there dude you can tell you can tell these rookies what to do the jacksonville thing man like Like, I feel not what you feel maybe because you guys were a player two away from the Super Bowl. But when I was in St. Louis, I was a part of a really great D-line and we broke up. They broke the band up. You know, like injuries broke the band up, business broke the band up, the whole thing. Do you feel like, do you look back at that thing and be like, what might have been, man? That group we had.

Yeah, man, it was a special group, man, from the top to the bottom of the defense, man. It was, you know, even even a second string, man. We were, our guys were just coming off the bench and ball and, you know, it kind of hurts to, you know, to talk about that because you, you think about what it could have been. But, you know, everything happens for us, you know, a reason. And we all had our specific journeys and paths to take. Did you ever get in that pool up in the stadium? Never been. It looks disgusting, dude.

I always ask you. Like, there people are swimming in there, dude. I just had to. you know I had to get my pool question. Colias Campbell, what did he mean to you, man? To this day, still means a lot to me, man. He's like a second order brother that I never had. A guy that you just taught me about the game outside of the game,

like really thinking from a bigger, bigger perspective, man, and I would look. So, you know, Colas, that's a guy that's definitely going to be in Canton, a guy that I've got a model after and a person that I speak to you to this day, just getting advice that has nothing to do with, you know, the business of football could just be something about, you know, being a great man, you know what I'm saying? So good dude.

Do you have anything that he said that's kind of stuck with you? Because I remember the vets gave me a nugget or two because I was surrounded by vets. Do you remember anything that he said that changed your game or the way you operate? Yeah, man. One thing he always told me was a quote, man. I'm going to quote him.

You know, nobody cares about how you feel. People only care about results. So that always stuck with me, man. You know, if I got a little nag going on, going on or whatever or something's bothered me. I still try to set the example for the young dudes. I practice. I'm at a guy that and you've seen it, Chris.

You know, you see guys that, man, I'm hurting the day, coach, can I get one? Like, I'm a guy that I practice, I lead by example. If I'm totally messed up, I don't messed up. But, you know, I'm always on the field, bro. But also, I think one of the biggest things there is your teammates respect you.

You know, like, and your D-Lyman respect you because if you get that if you have that work ethic, if you don't have that work ethic and you show up and you're like, I'm going to take the day off today. Well, guess who has to take more reps? You and me? You know, like, especially in training camp and shit. So we're in this thing together.

You know what I mean? And like, yeah, if we were on the same D line and I had a nag and I still could go, you know, within reason, I got to look at you before I go into the training room. You know what I mean for the day? And I wouldn't want to let you down. And I think that's, I think that's, I think that's a. a lot of leading by example. You got to lead from the front.

I couldn't lead if I felt like people were looking at me sideways because I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do. It's true. You know what I mean? It's very true, bro. It's about, you know, also being a servant leader, man.

Being a server leader. And another thing that Coach Gus left me with that's just stuck in my head, you know, he says it every time I see him. When you give with no intent to receive, the blessings come back twofold. And that's another way given back by, you know, not putting all those reps on your teammates.

No question. No question. I wanted to plug something that you had talked about earlier on social this week. And I told you when he came on, I would. Everyone Home, D.C. Why is everyone home, D.C. important to you. And give us a little background on how you came up, man, because I thought that was really powerful. Yeah, you know, everyone home D.C., you know, just empowering single moms in the D.C. area, War 7. and they're just, you know, funding these moms to allow them to help their children, you know, go through after-school programs, groceries, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

And, you know, how I got closely connected to it and why I was drawn to it was because, you know, I've been through a similar situation, you know, coming from the D.C. area, P.G. area, you know, not having at all, you know, coming home with, you know, really sometimes no meals in the house, you know, you have a special, you know, passion for that and soft side for that. So, you know, when I was looking for certain groups to partner with, that was just like the one group that really stuck out to me. You know, my mom was a single mom.

She worked hard to allow my brother and myself to be able to, you know, achieve our goals, you know what I'm saying? And if it wasn't for her, I don't know where I would be. So that's why I partnered with everyone home D.C. You talked about some of the, you know, I don't want to put it like you tell me, trauma or bad memories or just experiences that you kind of grew up around. Has that been cathartic to share that?

Because you talked about that in the Tyler Dune article that I read. I mean, it takes balls to come out and talk about some of that stuff. Has it helped you to talk about that? Is it weight off your chest or why share? I mean, I feel like I should share because when the story's all said and done, as far as my career,

you know, I wanted to really be. impact with somebody that's going through something similar, you know, that has aspirations not to just be a football player, but whatever they want to be, regardless of the situation they're in financially or, you know, whatever environment there. And so that's why I chose to share that. And I'm not the only person that's been through that and that's going through it right now in our country.

So, you know, I just wanted to share that and let anybody know that's going through something similar that anything is possible if you, you know, sacrifice and whatever you're going do you just push that to the side of keep on forward. No question. My one burning question for you is this. The logo thing in Kansas City, was that you? Oh, for sure. That was 100% of it.

I knew that had asshole written all over it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That had DeLiven written all over it. You know who tried to take credit was Will Compton? He told me that, hey, that was me, dog. No, tell Will's up line, man. Tell Will's top line. He had no credit.

Don't give him no credit for that. So it was the first guy in the middle. Yeah. No, man, I just want the guys, you know, to rise up to the level of the occasion. Man, it wasn't in the disrespect, the history of Kansas City or that organization on a no fan or player. It was just like, come on, bro, we're here. You know what I'm saying? The last time we played them, they embarrassed us at our house.

You know what I'm saying? That was my whole mindset going on. Yeah. And it's the burn the ships mindset. Burn the ships. I think that's one of my favorite sayings. You talked about a couple sayings that you heard this thing. I love burn the ships because it's.

It just means like we're here. There's no fucking way out. And we might as well lean into it. You know, like, so I, ballsy to do it and get Arrowhead, but I fucking love it, dude. I love it anyways. You got any big goals, man? Like you got sack number goals. You have career goals that that you think about as you head into the next 10 years of your career, hopefully.

You know, to garnish that attention that we talked about earlier, you know, garnish that true attention. And not just as a player, but as a man, you know, getting it. with everyone on BC in the future, you know, organizations that I will be partner with to just make change, you know, to be recognized for that. At first, it was all about football for me. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm going to be greatest pass rush. I'm going to break Bruce Smith's record and get 201 career sacks and stuff like that.

And all that stuff is great. I still want to do that. But the best of the best that come through this business are the people that have changed lives and the Walter Payton Man in the years. those guys are the people that live forever because they made a difference. So I want to be both. I think you can, man.

And my wish for you is that when you have kids and they become football players, they go to Virginia and not Maryland. That's my wish for you. And just, hey, hey, they always got a place to hang out here in Charlottesville, man. You know what I'm right? That's what I appreciate that, man.

Hey, dude, I appreciate the time. And I'm wishing you the best luck this year. It should be a lot of fun in Indy, I think. Big bro, appreciate you having me, man, for sure. Anytime. buddy. If you're in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, New York, Michigan, Tennessee, or Virginia, and you haven't tried the WinBet app yet, I got great news for you. New users can take advantage of WinBet's Bet 50 Win 200. That's right. WinBet is basically giving you free money. Don't pass it up.

Download the WinBet app today. Terms and conditions apply must be 21 or older and present in a state where win bet is available. Gambling problem in Arizona, call 1-800 next step in Colorado, Indiana, and Virginia called 1-800 gambler and in Michigan 1-800-2707-1-17 Tennessee y'all two 1-8009-9-7-8-9 Meg I see you got black socks on

just like that shitty draft the other day somebody Matt just said somebody on Twitter said what they said he used an unacceptable amount of draft capital on the fab five sneakers and socks picks I really enjoyed and appreciated that comment and hindsight being 20-20 I would have taken black shoes, black socks with my final pick, you know? Right.

You all wouldn't allow me to take it with one pick. So I had to spread it out. And I'm happy with my draft. I've been sleeping real well looking myself directly in the eyes in the mirror. I love my accessory draft. It's always somebody else's fault. We wouldn't let you. Look, hey, they were two very good teams in that draft.

And I don't want to. Have you talked to back key about the draft? No, I haven't. Strong feelings. Bad back. Mackey thinks you won? No, I didn't, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying it's very strong feelings.

He thinks we should have drafted Michael Jordan's gold chain from the slam dunk contest and McMahon's Pete Roselle headband. He really does like McMahon's headband. Like basically he just gave me seven Chicago. Yeah. There was a good correction on the internet that it's, uh, it was an LT earring more so than a lightning bolt, but they're kind of similar. The L and the T.

Really? The lightning. Yeah, it was his initials. You sure it wasn't a double entendre visually for the cat? Might have been. And I'm not saying you never had a lightning bolt here. But I think what we think of is an L and a T. Oh, I think a lightning bolt.

Hence the draft. You know, lightning goes all sorts of different directions. Yeah, but I mean, the way lightning is the scratch. I mean, you want a realistic lightning bolt now? Like we got a Tampa Bay Lightning graphic has, Tampa Bay Lightning logo has to be like. Yeah, all over the place. Really?

Like one of them things. Yeah. You know those. It is LT, but it looks like a fucking lightning bolt. I always thought it was a lightning bolt too. That sucks. Let me look back at it. DQ's nothing to be ashamed of.

It's not a DQ. It's not a DQ. See, he's still trying to, because he had a shitty draft. Let me take you behind the curtain. I had a great draft and I love you. I love your draft. I love your draft too. But Makin walked in and was like, I don't know about this draft.

Well, that's true. And the process bared itself out. No, I disagree. I think the draft broke for me. And it went really well. I'm really happy with it. Lawrence Taylor, Lightning. bolt earrings. In spite of not feeling

great going into it. See? Look at this. Like the Philadelphia Eagles. Boy, it really does look like fucking lightning to me. Didn't prepare and came out fine. Like the Philadelphia Eagles. Look at the, look he even wore the lightning bolt earrings to the Super Bowl. Yeah. Looks like a lightning bolt to me.

Well, maybe he had that idea. Maybe the folks back in the mid-80s were like, hey, it's your initials. Hey, I think the initial earrings still make the cut. I mean, like maybe that puts read on top. Reid didn't understand the assignment. Dude, whether it's an LT or a lightning bolt, it still is a great pick.

I think Reed might have won the draft as a result of this, Reed. I think I should have won the draft and hearing your comments making my goal for the next draft, and all the drafts following that, I just want you to approve my draft. That's all, I'm going to work my tail off

to have you approve my draft. Whatever the next draft is. I want Macon's approval. Look, y'all want to fax up a draft. draft's going to be faxed up, you know? I think we need to take a long look at the mirror, decide what kind of draft pot we want to be. You want or a fake one.

Everybody's got jokes. It doesn't mean they're good, all right? So I'm going to go on vacation. I'll come back. Y'all can let me know what kind of draft power we're going to be. It's a great draft, Chris. And Cowboy, yours was creative. All right, so you feel good now.

You have the reinforcement. Hey, I want to do a little good, bad, and ugly. baseball. There are three things that happened since the last time we had a podcast. Albert Pujols pitched a guy from Arkansas handled a raccoon in front of 60,000 people, I feel like, which is just incredible. And then the Reds no hit somebody. So where do you think I'm going to put each one? Where would you put each one of those things? Okay, how I would, raccoon is good, bad is the no-no into a loss. And ugly is Poo-holes because one, guy's names Poo Holes, which is wild.

Yeah. And the other thing is you people in St. Louis have some kind of fucked up way of thinking about yourselves in your baseball club, the Cardinal Way and all that stuff. I don't. I don't. I mean, Matt's in here calling freaking Adam Wainwright Waino. He has called him Wino, dude. It's what's wild.

Well, you listen to up AM radio there. It's fucking, yeah, like shout out to Randy Carricker in those guys. I've got love for Albert Poo-Holes, all right? But I just want to push back a little. little bit on the on the on the cardinal way dolletry of this listen I'm no big fan of like the elitist kind of cardinal way attitude that some of the fans can I mean that may be sacrilegious to some people listen I played there a long time I don't have to that's the first time in my adult life as a pro athlete that I had to plant my flag is like I will not adopt your favorite team just

because I mean you used to they used to be like why not the cardinals the cardinals game is on I'd be like yo my son got born they're like the cardinal Cardinals game is on. So like it was that kind of thing. They expect you to be in front of the TV just because you live in that city. Nah, but I do love the players. I do think Albert Pooleholz has a really great reputation in that city for a good reason. Yeah. Uh, no, the first time he left, it was like the sky was falling and they were going to hate him forever. Like he had a restaurant. I think it went under. Yeah, but they offered him like a hundred million dollars less than the Dodgers were willing to offer him. So right. Well, it's the the hundred million. The cardinal. Hey, which one's it going to be? And he chose the money. And this is your good, yeah. Yeah. Now, I want to say this, too, though.

There's nobody cooler in Yachti, bro. Yeah. And can I defend the Cardinals and St. those Cardinals fans here for a second? Because, like, I used to think, like, you guys, and then I got into it and, like, started going to Cardinals games. They're fun. It is a great sports city that had the NBA leave, that had the NFL leave, get pulled under

under from them. And, like, the Cardinals is, like, a way. of life there. It's like a religion. Like you can't go out to a bar if you can't talk about like their middle infield rotation. You can't be a bar if there's not a baseball game. Yeah. Oh no. I used to go, I used to try to get like an NBA playoff game turned on like on one screen and they'd be like, I don't know, regular season cards game. But I am saying I did bar rescue in the shadows of that stadium. There are bars there. No disrespect that are there just because there's baseball. 100%. Yeah. Like many a bar. Baseball town. Yeah. So like the Cardinals, I mean, they're an

institution there, so I get it. But I got to think people might think of, they're like the Midwest Yankees a little bit, and people might not want to hear that, but, you know, like, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. Most National League titles, yeah. No doubt. Yeah. People might think of the Cardinal way, kind of

how fans view, like maybe UVA fans, like, oh, you guys think you're special. We don't win a lot. Yeah, without that part of it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you call it grounds instead of campus and first years. Yeah, a little bit of that. And I don't call it, I call it. I call campus. I don't call it grounds. And I will say Wayno does win a lot. Him and Molina just got the most

wins of any battery in history, 203. Why would you say it is that other fans view Cardinals fans as because everybody who isn't a fan of the Cardinals hates Cardinals. But why? Because they're elitist. I understand that. Right. No. So you get the bit. Yeah. He's saying the bit is well-founded. Okay. Like he's been to that fucking stadium. When you look through that arch, to the west right it's a gateway yeah it's a gateway i can go there the home run could go there yeah it's a beautiful cityscape relative to where they put the stadium i mean like if i was a player i'd want to play uniforms classic kind of franchise and really cool players yeah yeah it's not like playing in oakland for 5 000 people it's 40 000 every night by the way i got it i got somebody

reached out to me um one of the ticket guys from the a's reached out to me it was like yo hit me up I was like, I bet you would like that for 20,000 youths to come to the Oakland game. Yeah, I wonder why they're interested. But I got us off track. What's your good? What's your bad? What's your ugly? No, it's a good conversation.

I say good is poohol's because I love seeing fucked up shit happen on baseball field. Really has nothing to do with Albert Pooholz. I mean, it's fun to see him pitch and, like, have to be, you know, bad at something. Like, you know, he's been so good at something. I love seeing a great athlete be bad at something. There's nothing more humanizing than that. But he still had some decent movement. It's amazing.

All these players, they know how to throw breaking balls and shit. No, he was out there like Tim Wakefield without the knuckler, and guys were hitting dongs off him. And he didn't smile after he got a dong hit off him, which I totally respect. I do like that. Yeah, he didn't smile. He didn't joke about it.

But he was having fun with it. It was obvious in a game that was like 17-5 or something against the Giants or whatever it was. That was a lot of fun to watch. And then a dude got a hit off him in one of the ball. Just like you got 162 of these fucking games. You know they have like, you know, T-shirt Canon Night, which is like every night. They need to have like position player pitches night. Yes.

Yeah. Backwards uniforms night. Yeah. You know, like. Bat with your opposite hand. Night. You know? Yeah.

You see the freeze got beat. The mascot. It runs really fast around the outfield. He got beat by a fucking civilian. So good is going to be Albert. pooholes because that was fucking cool. Just seeing him in the uniform is cool. Bad is going to be, I guess, which I hate to say this is bad, but the raccoon. Yeah, I'm not a big, uh, uh, what do we call raccoons, trash pandas? My only thing is it's bad because the guy has handled a trash panda before.

Like this guy is routinely handling trash pandas, whoever this is. Yeah. He, he got his, uh, paw not on the raccoon not on the gentleman's hand a little bit. Oh, so he actually got his hand because I was going to say that's rabies his technique is he did it like it was foolproof like you hold the back of the neck like one of those animals that holds their young by the back of the neck and he knew that the raccoon's snout couldn't get around and bite his wrist I guess but it did yeah it rotated that neck pretty far around and got him on the knuckle and what's the uh what do we do with the it's bad dude that's bad backfire raccoon you're not getting paid off that What happened?

Did we... Animal control. Did we rehome it? Put him in the bullpen, dude. They get him out of there, dude. So I'm going to go bad is raccoon because that guy looks like he's done it before. He got bid as a result.

He's probably got to get a shot. All for what? Rabies. He definitely doesn't have a TikTok that he can monetize this thing on. People that handle raccoons don't have TikToks. So the guy's just fucking, he got rabies for free. He's going to be like, remember me

a couple of College World Series ago? Oh, look at him right there. That's him getting bit. Yeah, that's impressive range of motion on the raccoon. Grant Harmon is the gentleman's name. An avid outdoorsman. Yeah, I'll bet you he is. An avid outdoorsman.

Carried the raccoon out of the stadium. That's bad. He reluctantly agreed to a rabies shot after the game. Reluctantly agreed to a rabies shot. Ugly. The Reds threw a no-hitter, which is a mutiny in and of its and.

And they lost. So they're really trying to win, which is a no-no, because we figured out they're tanking. And then they found a way to lose throwing a no-hitter. It's only happened three times ever. Six. Six times ever. Baseball's 300 years old, dude.

Their best prospect is this pitcher, Hunter Green. Now, he was at... Hunter Green? Hunter Green. Yeah, yeah. Stop it, dude. Yeah, yeah. His brother's name's Kelly.

He plays for the Reds. He plays for the Reds. He was at 103 pitches through seven. And it was like a big thing whether or not to send him back out. Remember back in our day, that would have been a no hitter every time. Throwing him out for 150 pitches. No question.

But this guy's young and they're worried about it. And then he goes out and walked two, I think, and then he got the hook. And then they walked another. And then there was a double play ball. I'm being an adult right now. Yeah, be a grown up. It's all right. be a grown-up one

the fact that we had company did not stop making from oh be a grown-up hey dude there was an eclipse last night before we get into this NBA stuff total eclipse of the heart pink Floyd Hendricks yeah there was an eclipse last night

and I didn't see it Reed you definitely saw it didn't you well I heard about it Neil degrass Tyson you hear about an eclipse that's true I heard that it was happening well no people were talking about it is right yeah and Neil

degrass Tyson said that it is not interesting and that it doesn't matter a lunar eclipse does not is not interesting at all I'm with Neil too because I had it on my fucking calendar and everything and then didn't make it outside

so you're talking about this lunar eclipse and it's not like a bit about the suns well that's the whole thing is a rough day for the suns because the moon took all the fucking credit you know outside you had the moon hog in the spotlight inside the suns it was a massive sunset It's like a three-hour sunset, dude. The sun was just slowly going down, dude.

That was one of the worst ass kickings I've ever seen since Memphis beat the dog shit out of Golden State in game five or six or whatever it was. So the sons are done, bro. Ryan Ricillo, our guy, he's upset about it, RIP. He likes to Ryan. Joe House about that. He's a big Chris Paul fan.

It was a tough scene in the group text last night for Ryan Ricillo. The thing I want to talk to you guys, about this is Luca. Shocker, right? I just think it's so crazy that this whole European guy, like being soft thing gets flipped on its head with Lucas so hard. He's like the toughest fucking guy in the NBA. He's not afraid of anybody, dude.

He's 23 years old. Born in 1999. Bro, he, he, I was, I had been out of Little League for like two or three years by the time he was born. And he is, I am so much of a pussy. compared to Luca Donchich, bro. Well, he's been playing pro ball for like eight years. And here's the thing.

This was it. It was this C.J. McCollum tweet, uh, no wonder he's not afraid of a game seven on the road in the NBA. He's not afraid of the fucking valley dude. CJ McCollum's tweet read something along the lines of he's seen, uh, police with AKs separating,

uh, you know, unruly fans while the game's going on in, in one of these basketball arenas in EuroLeague. Like he's, he's seen flares going. off. I was YouTubeing last night. CJ McCollum at one

point during the second half of this basketball game, it was weird because it wasn't at home and I didn't feel that same pylon factor. It was a different kind of like brutal than Memphis beating up on Golden State. It was like kind of sad because of the sons and Ryan Rissillo and

Chris Paul. But it was also just brutal. Luca was like he hit a three to put them up like 30 and the face he made was just so like fuck you oh the stink face yeah yeah Luca has one of the best stink faces

in pro sports but at that point I was like why am I watching this game and thankfully I saw the CJ McCollum tweet around then and was like oh I can exit this game and enter YouTube and go down this rabbit hole

of Euro league basketball and see what these fans are really about holy shit dude it's like Barusha Dortmund indoors I don't know what their circulation protocol is, but they've got smoke bombs going off inside of a 20,000 person arena. There's like a canopy over the players. They're sitting on the bench because they're afraid to getting hit by items, dude.

It's so crazy. Don't the items then go on to the court? Yeah, but that's the fucking thing. In two minutes of YouTubeing, I heard noises and saw things that would have stopped 100 out of 100 NBA games, dude. And it's just like the second quarter. Things are just going on in the stands. in these EuroLeague games

and it makes perfect sense why Luca doesn't obviously he's very good and you know Spencer Dinwiddie wasn't nervous anywhere he wouldn't play it in fucking Bellgrade but like he won't stop shooting that Spencer it doesn't hurt yeah game 7

he got paid in crypto and it just crashed so he needed to he's a crypto guy that's why he's been playing very poorly yeah but here's the thing like these guys who played in Europe I just always thought the book on them was highly skilled, not highly tough.

The book is based on flawed stereotypes and nobody should read it. Fuck that book. That book is why Marvin Bagley got selected over Luca Donchich. Think about how crazy that is. He's 18 years old. He's the MVP of Eurobasket playing in Belgrade Serbia, like amongst the crowds that you just talked about with like death threats, all sorts of crazy shit.

You have to get private security all the time. And he's the third pick in the draft. The MVP of the EuroLeague. I will say, to be fair, a lot of the body types they seem to select out of Europe don't end up working out real well. Like, you know what I mean? Like, maybe your guy from Gonzaga needs to go to Europe for a few years to do the, to fully embrace the stereotype.

Yeah, and like, I think Chet will be good, but if you put Chet in EuroLeague, like, he's not the MVP. Luca was the MVP at 18 years old. It's like, we've never seen somebody with that type of resume, and he's completely lived up to it. So, CJ McCollum's tweet was, wow. Luca. Wow, he's been playing in games on the road with fires and flares going off in the stands. Police officers with AK separating the rows in the arena back in Europe.

Road game with pressure isn't really pressure to him. Killer performance. PJ Tucker said that he played in a game in Turkey where fans were lighting coins, like using a lighter to light the coins, then throwing them at us. That's what PJ Tucker said. He also had private security detail when he played in Greece because the rivalry between Panathanakos and the other team was so intense. that they were worried for their personal safety.

Well, they don't fuck around in Greece. Have you ever seen, like, their government affairs? Yeah. Like, essentially, like, the basketball game, dude. They're just people yelling and throwing shit. You remember that movie? John Travolta and Olivia Newton, John? No.

Greece. Oh, got it. That's a good one. Tell me more. This was from Matt Thomas, who had just played in Spain. I had played in some great environments in college. I went to Iowa State, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Alan Fieldhouse at Kansas.

but it's just different in Europe. My first memory was Belgrade, he says. I walked out on the court, and there's all these police in SWAT gear or riot gear, I guess, holding these clear shields, basically as a barrier between the game and the crowd, or Ben's head covers on it. I mean, shit, there's games where you hear

that they're starting fires and stuff in the crowd, as CJ McCollum said. So this is my favorite one. In Greece, a lot of fans smoke in the arena. All at halftime, the whole stadium fills up at halftime with smoke. You're breathing in darts. You're breathing in darts when you play in Greece.

Now, I'll draw a straight line from the, from the, from the toughness, Luca to toughness. The valley, dude. But to your point, some Greek guys cigarette smoke, go ahead. I'm not sure about the correlation just because we are talking about Luca being MVP of a league that features say a Matt Thomas, who I couldn't remember if he went to Iowa State or not a day. I'm not talking about running to turn my card into draft a European guy. what I'm saying is Luca seems to be one of the most mentally tough athletes in American professional sports and that good too

And his game is gonna age Like you look at John Morant One of my favorite players His game is based on his explosive athleticism Like Luca's going at the pace he plays Right nobody speeds him up He goes however he wants he plays with power He'll be able to play till he's 40 years old

That's a very good point And it's we talk about it with football too And I don't know if this is the truth in basketball But it would seem to make sense like speed players age quicker, power players can play longer. And I mean like, I kind of wondered today looking at this series with Golden State coming up. I mean, he came out in that game just with the killer instinct. More of the same thing I'm talking about.

They scored like they said the first eight points. This guy, he's just got a great mindset. But I'm looking at at this series coming up and I'm saying, I can remember when LeBron was young and he was a cavalier and they played the spurs who had been there done that and were like this dynastic kind of team now golden state it's a couple years removed from their dynasty but the the question i would ask is i draw that parallel is uh who's who's supporting cast is better is it Dallas is now or was it uh big z and all those guys the Larry Hughes yeah it's Dallas is now yeah by how much

I didn't have to think about it. It's easy. That was one of the all-time worst supporting cast to make a finals. Dallas at least, like Jalen Brunson's pretty good. But there's still a one-star team. No doubt, but he might be the best player in the world. It's just so funny that there's very few one-star teams remaining, like in the NBA that make pushes this deep.

I mean, and here they are in the conference finals. I'm being an adult making. Here they are in the conference finals playing a team that has multiple stars, multiple guys who have been there and done that. And it just kind of reminded me of that series, but you're right. I mean, like,

when you talk about the worst supporting cast that went the deepest is Cleveland, and if this team makes the finals, I wonder where they would rank. I mean, I'm not saying their supporting cast is terrible, but how many finals teams are this one star-centric? No, generally, MBA speaking, it's like you need two stars.

That's the logic. And then sometimes they think you get three, you know, like the big three in Miami, obviously. So it would be unique for sure. And like one moment, I just want to focus on one moment last night that I thought was so awesome. Like it was weird how all the Suns fans kind of left and it got quiet and the Dallas fans came down.

But it gave you great lines of sight and you could see Dirk Novitsky just eating it up. Yeah. Enjoying it and then dapping up Luca afterwards. That was awesome. That was really cool. Also to think that they hit the fucking Euro lottery twice. That's right. It's just insane.

Now, can I read you some names from the, um, Euro League all decade team of which Luca is a It's not a good league dude I'm not with Matt in that You know you got to draft all Euro League guys But if I'm If I'm saying in retrospect

It's not like Luca number one was a foregone Conclusion he's flipping the sure sure sure sure sure sure I didn't say that go ahead Luca number one absolutely was a foregone conclusion if you had done like any heart People were freaking out about Vladate Tevac I know but like the Euro league is better than NCAA

Oh that's a interesting. It's not close. Those are men. Just MNCA. Devon Smith University of Virginia fame. Like 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm how far do we have to go back to find

like a true one-star operation thriving? Le Brons. It was just same team. Same guy we were just talking about. 2011. I mean, I guess you could the, you know, the Raptors had Kauai, but they also had guys like Lowry and. Mavericks.

It's 2011 Mavericks with Dirk. You think? Yeah, single star. They beat the Miami Heat. Somebody's going to tell you there was another star on that team. Well, and I'm going to say Tyson Chandler, old Jason Kidd, and Sean Marion weren't stars. They're good players.

Oh, Sean Marion? What was his nickname? The Matrix. If you're the Matrix, you're a star. Jay Kid? Shout out Jay Kid. So if you have a nickname in the NBA, you're a star? Well, I mean, come on, dude.

You know what's coming next. What? Er-Swish. I'm just saying, like, I could name a bunch of guys that, you know. Lins sanity. Karam Butler? That team was solid. That team was better than this team.

Yeah, they were better than this team. Yeah, with a less good alpha dog. Agreed. Yeah, you're right. But also, the number two wasn't as good. The number two was better. The number two was better. No doubt, yeah.

So I'm looking back and I'm saying, if they went, here we go, we're going to curse them, because we cursed Joel NB. Where would you put this, you know, the Dallas Mavericks winning the NBA title as far as like, who the fuck is this supporting cast? I don't know, I'm not the NBA expert here, but I'm looking at the teams that win these things. The Bucks, the Lakers, the Raptors, the Raptors.

Well, yeah, the Bucks. The Raptors stand out to me as the one, but they benefited so heavily from that injury luck. Second-tier stars. They had to say, Siacom is like a fucking, There's no Siakum on Dallas. There's no Lowry on Dallas.

Jalen Brunson's really good. He's a young Lowry? Yeah. It's actually a decent comp. They both went to Villanova, similar body tubes. So interesting. I just think Luca's just doing, it's pretty remarkable what he's doing.

You know. And Booker and the special taunt is up there with LeBron and D. Wade doing the, so we talk about now mocking Dirk. So it's coming full circle. Don't mock these fucking European guys, dude. They've played in front of smoke bombs and shit. They don't care. And Little Wayne called him a hoe.

Yeah, I saw that. He spelled ho with no E. Which was the most confusing part of it. That's ho-ho-ho-ho. Wee. A ho was a HOE, like garden. Garden hoe. Yeah, dude.

Yeah. But Weezy's the rapper, so. But that backfired. He was sitting courtside last night. He probably, got a mean mug from Luca too. Love this. We almost completed Ryan Rissillo's nightmare. We have Jokic out in the first round, his MVP. We have Chris Paul out, blows the two-nothing lead.

Again. And then the third part of that nightmare was the Celtics had lost, but the Celtics keep playing. Celtics are really tough, man. Holy shit. Did you see at the end of the game last night what happened with your brother Aaron Holiday? Oh, I did. I did. He broke the code. So he stole the ball from Bobon as Boban was running out the last few seconds of the game, went to the other side and shot a three, almost starting a fight with a very intimidating figure. Yeah, you made a good point. So did my brother. Kyle did that with William Hayes.

So the holiday thing continues. And Drew Holiday didn't have a great game seven. So comp is back on. He was getting too good to be Chris Long. And now we're back. Chris Long, Drew Holiday thing. is strong. Are you ready for Joe House? Hell yeah. House from D.C.

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Paper qualified app. not available for all users. Need to hire? You need indeed. Joe House, I just said that I've heard your voice hundreds of times and I don't know what you look like. And I still am not quite sure. Still hard to know.

Exactly what you look like. Yeah. What do you think? No, uh, handsome wise like a 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. But you're, but also a little, um, you know, you're, uh, you're not showing us a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you want?

What do you want? I mean, I can stand up. I can shake my tel feathers. Here's what I want to know, Joe, because your last name's house. It's perfect. I happen to know you're tall because I've seen you in pictures with Bill, who the first time Bill Simmons ran up on me, I was like, damn, Bill Simmons is tall. And you're even taller than Bill, yeah?

It's true. I'm like an inch and a half, maybe two inches taller, depending on my platforms. So you guys have a few things in common with each other. Not only are we the guy beside the guy. We're also taller than the guy. Well, I want to be complimentary to Joe House. Yeah. Hey.

Bill's the podfather. It's not complimentary. But so far, I like Joe House's energy a lot. I do too. So you're an inch and a half taller than Bill Simmons. So what is that? 6.5? No, no, no, no.

He's like a solid 6.1-ish kind of fella. I'm closer to 6-3. It's like a rule that if you see somebody who's taller than you thought they were on TV or somewhere else, they automatically get like an extra inch. So I gave Bill like 6-3. So you're 6-3. Joe House is 6-3. Can I get a wait?

Oh, well, Well, look, I've been, the COVID, obviously very serious for the entire world, but silver lining for Joe House, I discovered that I don't like to drink at home. Me too. Me too. Welcome aboard. Me too. I'm like down 12 to 15 and it's stayed off kind of by accident. I'm not sure how, because I'm drinking again.

You're so right because, yeah, you're right. Like the, I'm in the worst shape I've been in since, since they discovered COVID. Like, just because the world opened back up and it's nice outside and I have to be drinking beers and that sort of thing. I'm with you. When the whole thing started, everybody was tweeting about being drunk at home and I was like, I'm just high. That's right. And then the weight just fell off. I can't do a hangover at home.

Like, what is the point of getting drunk at home? Exactly. Unless you, unless all your friends went home, you were day drinking and nobody went out there. that night. Then you got to kick in an overdrive at the house, but otherwise, I'm with you, Joe. All right, so Joe House, eating exploits. They say you're like a fucking tank

and you've got a steel trap for a stomach. So, like, if I was to meet you on the street, I was like, Joe House, impress me with one eating feat. What is it? Oh, one eating feet. Well, I'd have everything's in the rearview mirror because now that I've, you know,

attained official middle age, you know, I have to pick my spots. It's not like the old days where, you know, I could go six out of seven. I did sit down with the Cousin Sal in New Orleans for that Super Bowl down there. It was San Francisco and Baltimore. The night the lights went out. And Cousin Sal and I, that Friday, we went to the Acmeet Oyster House. And that year, Washington and Dallas, you know, is one of the usual, were you on the Eagles then? No, this was, this had to be what? What year was this? 14. I was with the Rams still.

Okay. But this was the, yeah, this was the end of that illustrious era. A standard plastic knife fight between Washington and the Eagles in that crappy era. And the Cuzz just wanted to, you know, put it out there. He challenged me to an eating contest on behalf of his Dallas Cowboys and me on behalf of the Washington football team. We were the Redskins back then. And we sat down and ate and eight and eight and eight. We ate so much food that the cousin Sal went to the bathroom and threw up all over the entire bathroom.

This is on camera. This has been filled. This is documented. It is in the great archives for Grantland and came back out and acted like we needed to keep eating. Like the competition should still keep going. Yeah. Once you, once you eject, the competition is over. That was my view.

It's like a PED. Ejection is a PED. right yeah there's there's and in the world of competitive eating or drinking or drinking right an immediate disqualification yeah if the case goes into the toilet you have no longer drank a case and and and poor sal didn't make it to the toilet um and we had we it's a nice restaurant too we tipped out those people very handsomely oh yeah because they had cousin sail and the in the cracks and crevices of that beautiful still in the grout it's still in the grout dude there's still in the grout dude there's a lot of grout in New Orleans.

Well, I will get into the Google machine and try and find that video. I think there are copies of it in the archives because it ends once again with another round of regurgitation and it was not in the bathroom. Sal, geez, dude. I'll just leave it there. But you ask for an eating exploit. I kicked the cousin Sal's ass. That's good.

That's a good thing to have. That's a good thing to have on the resume. Okay. Well, I got another food question for you as a D.C. area guy. If I say Crystal City Restaurant, what say you? Oh, no. Look, I mean, what's the rating on this podcast? Are we allowed to be explicit?

Oh, this is X, I think. They put an X. Good. Okay. What I say to you is roast beef. We'll just leave it at that. We'll just leave it right there. Oh, man.

What do they put on the roast beef for the gravy? Yeah, that's right. Well, so the whole reason I have. ask is because I heard I have some friends that used to live in DC and these are big meatball guys. And so they got to get their omega-3 fatty acids. So naturally when there's sushi at the Crystal City restaurant, they go and enjoy it. And they say it's very good. And I said on this show that I will not eat sushi at a strip club.

I will eat sushi a lot of places. Airport, fine. Gas station maybe. Yes. You know, like, I'm not a steel trap here. but a strip club I think it goes a little too far and then we had one of the illustrious employees from the Crystal City restaurant

contact us on social and invite us up there to enjoy some sushi so I might have to I might have to try if you do that I'll come join you were you join me I've never had the sushi there and I feel like that the rule that you're applying is the right rule it's like way too on the nose just way but I mean if we're good a lot of folks are saying

a lot of folks are saying yeah I want to I want to take a closer look. That would be the responsible. It's a post-COVID world. Like, why not go explore? Yeah, you never know, dude. That's right. I'm so with you, Joe House, man. I'll see you at the Crystal City restaurant. Okay. So Joe House, he has a podcast called Fairway Rowland, which is about golf and maybe drugs. Do you a drug guy, Joe House? I, I, uh, not publicly a drug guy. Now he is. Privately known to, you know, known to dabble to dabble. Okay. So Fairway Rowland, It's golf podcast primarily, gambling golf. Yes, gambling golf, right down the middle.

My co-host is Nathan Hubbard. His brother, Mark Hubbard, is on tour. So we get a lot of little skinny, you know, which way the winds are blowing on various things. We're not always out there trying to break news, but we do get a good sense for what guys are up to. Who's cheating? Who's cheating on whose wife?

All of those. The inside scoop. Who's cheating on whose wife? There wasn't a layer to that. Yeah, exactly. With who? That's what I want to know. All right.

So the first thing we got to talk about then is this this PGA championship here coming up. I'm not a golf guy, admittedly. I want to give you that right off the top. I love riding along. Like if my brother plays or my friends play, I'll sit in the car. I'll drive the cart. Fuck. But watching it, I'll do it like I'm a fair weather guy.

Okay. So I will be watching this week. How the hell do we bet this thing? it's hard because this is now we're in this, this era where any given major, there are 10 young guys that can win. I don't, I think we're kind of past the point where old guys can win.

Now, I'm putting Warren McElroy in that category of still young guys, because he's still only 31 years old. But the competition right now is, is just too insane. So like for the masters, we built up a card of somewhat exotic plays, and I think I'm going to repeat some of that. So the single best moneymaker for us with the Masters

was parlaying Bryson D. Shambot to miss the cut and Tiger Woods to make the cut. Oh, wow. And we knew that Bryson was hurt. And Bryce, because he said so, and he said, I'm going against Dr.'s orders here by playing in this tournament. And he went out and he shot 80 on Friday and he missed the cut by...

How do you think Bryson gets hurt? Do you think it has anything to do with the weightlifting? Is that a serious question? Are you making a joke? I mean, I'm always making a joke, I guess. Yeah, okay, good. Is it the, it's the weightlifting, right?

He's fucking up his body doing CrossFit. He put on 40 pounds through this insane, like, protein consumption kind of thing. He went through a very, like, he's got a science mind, you know, by all reports and indications. He was a physics major at SMU. and he's trying to gain an advantage by this, you know, sort of innovative approach. And it worked for him in 2020. He won the U.S. Open up at Wingfoot.

And he had put on a bunch of weight and he had a swing speed that nobody had ever seen before. And he could hit the ball out of the rough. So he just drove it all over God's green earth. And it didn't matter because he was so close that he hit wedge. And he's strong enough to hit wedge out of any kind of lie. And he got an advantage. that way, but it just wasn't sustainable. He kept up with that

eating regimen and also the weightlifting and trying to swing harder than any human. I mean, he competed last year in a world-long drive championship. Like those athletes trained for that, right? The same week of something, some tournament that people

were up in arms about that he was doing both. Yeah, he had finished the Ryder Cup and then had done that. But he he finished 16th in that thing. Like those are different athletes trying to do an entirely different thing. And he was able to compete with them. And for what he wants to do on tour, it just wasn't sustainable.

So he got hurt. This most recent, you know, after that World Drive thing, he played in like four tournaments. And he missed a cut in all of them, except for the one that didn't have a cut. So we were like, oh, okay. So then he went and got wrist surgery after the bastards because his wrist is effed up. what's the H-A-M-A-T-E bone? How do you say that? I don't know, Macon.

Hamlete? Harambe. Harambe bone. The Romani-Bone. The rhombo. Community, we call it the hammer. Yeah, he fucked his lever. It's one of the levers. Yes, exactly right.

Guess what? Important for golf. Yeah. So he's there right now, testing the wrist post-surgery to see if he can compete in this championship. And if he goes out on the first tee on Thursday, and there are odds for him to miss the cut,

we are plowing in, on rice and the miss the cut. And it's not because we wish ill on him. He's just not physically fit to play in a major golf tournament. Yeah, you have the information available. Joe, what's the most enjoyable way to back golf? Because, you know, we've got football covered. We've got spreads and totals.

I'm currently addicted to... I don't know that I'm enjoying it, but I kind of am. I'm currently addicted to first quarters in the NBA because then you can chase. You know, you can chase. You know, you can't. But for golf, is it to win? Is it top 10? is it making miss your exotic plays?

How should amateur golf gamblers get into it? To me, by far, the right way to do it is to come in on head-to-heads. You can do buy round head-to-heads and buy tournament head-to-heads. That shrinks the whole competition down to just, can this guy beat this guy? And the prices tend to be mostly fair. A lot of times they'll inflate if it's a very well-known guy against a lesser-known guy. But these days there is great information on golf, like the advanced metrics for golf have quietly really blossomed. And there's tons of free shit on the internet where you can go and get trends.

And if you know, if you develop a perspective on I think this golf course is going to play this particular way because this is what people are saying about it. And you find out, oh, this one guy seems to be on a little bit of a heater on the greens that feature this kind of grass. and the guy that he's up against, you know, for whatever reason you want to fade, it's just so much easier to shrink the vast amount of information. You can play outright winners because it's fun, but you just play an outright winner, and then you say goodbye to that money. Right. Because there's no chance that you're going to pick.

You have to like do 15 or 20 guys. Yeah. And then, you know, it cuts into the return. But the head to heads, I think, is the easiest way to jump in. Yeah. I hate picking Super Bowl winners. And then at the end of the season. seeing like small chunks of money, you know, taken off the, I'm like, where the fuck did that come from?

Oh, yeah, you were an idiot and played the, you know, the one in 32 chance thing. All right, so Southern Hills, Oklahoma, uh, it's been there before the PGA championship has been there before. I know, like, the majors, they rotate around everywhere, but Augusta. So, like, is there a place that you believe deserves a major that hasn't gotten one, like a beautiful course with a great setting, something underrated? Oh, man, that's an awesome question. There's a course in Northern California called Paso

that's not that far away from San Francisco, maybe like 45 minutes, 50 minutes. And the architect of that is from this so-called golden age of golf architecture. His name is Alistair McKenzie. And he touched Cyprus Point and he touched Augusta. So he is revered as one of the all-time great legendary guys, Paso is

public. That's gorgeous. You can like just be a person and go play it. They've never like built up the infrastructure around it where you could have like 40,000 people show up. But there have been efforts to like renovate it. Because the golf community understands how important it is to protect like the heritage of a place where,

you know, the hands of God have touched it. So that might be a cool venue. Plus I love that. Northern California thing. I'm always thinking about my own television viewing enjoyment. Yeah, exactly. I want golf on the West Coast because that's prime time for us, primetime gambling, Chris Long. No, I hear that. I hear that. Oh, that's a good question. Do you, do you like, we did this whole thing, like the best time to best time zone to be a sports fan.

Central. Central, you said. Ten out of ten. Yeah, never lived in. It always been on the East Coast. What do you think? Interesting. Give me one, give me that extra hour. Yeah, I do like that extra hour. It's a great point. You know, I have all these guests lined up for the golf shows that we're doing this week. And it's all central time. I'm like, fuck, I wish it was that time for me. Because that extra hour is it's a very helpful hour.

And especially when we're talking about some of these NBA games now, we got lucky. Or Sunday morning getting ready for a football game and you're hung over. Oh, shit. Get your figuring things out. That's what you've got to bet at 2 a.m. when you're getting ready to come home from the bar. Those are the best bets. Look at that.

I'm getting ahead. I'm ahead. I'm betting the 4 p.m.'s at 3 a.m. Sorry, go ahead. No, this is another goodbye money. But, no, I mean, I love central time. It'll line up nice for this. We'll be able to watch, you know,

into the evening here on the East Coast a little bit. And staying light out later, this field has 156 players, and it's going to take them a long-ass time to get around the golf course. So it'll be nice. Thursday night, Friday night, watching the SPN.

sitting back. SVP will be doing this thing. It'll be nice. Love a cocktail. Well, the major story is Phil Mickelson, a guy even I know a little bit about, but he's got an unauthorized biography coming out this week, so that should be spicy. I hear stories about him, $40 million gambling, the whole thing. I'm like, seems like my kind of guy for the most part.

What's going on? Tell me if I'm just kind of a casual golf fan, what I need to know about Phil Mickelson. and why is he so interesting even now? Because I know there's a, he hasn't golfed since February 6th. People are wondering if it's like a suspension under the table or if it has anything to do with the Saudi League. Like, give me Phil Mickelson, you know, like the elevator pitch for why he's so interesting. Well, because he's been in our lives for 30 some years now.

And he's been an incandescent talent for all of those 30 years. He won a golf tournament, a PGA tour event as an amateur. And then last year, he won a major at the oldest age in the history of professional golf. Nobody's ever won a major championship before at the age of 50. And Phil Fing Mickelson did it. And he was Robin to Tiger's Batman for all of the Tiger era. And when Tiger went down with his personal troubles, there was this like immediate sort of reaction. and it's not going to be that big of a surprise from like the golf community,

aka the white community that Phil is always smiling and thumbs-upping and, you know, walking around and winking and pat the babies on the head. And surly Tiger with his troubles, you know, and then when Tiger came back, he was, you know,

still a little bit unfriendly. So like just charisma-wise for a little while, um, Phil Star ascended during that, that era that, the tiger was out and Phil's always been like enormously charismatic like it seems like anything that he tries he's immediately good at he went on a broadcast maybe like 18 months ago like pGA tour broadcast and he sat down with um jim nance and uh faldo and immediately was like took it over he

was doing like romo shit yeah in the broad in the golf broadcast booth everybody lost their minds like oh my god yeah put him in the booth yeah give him 37 that's it yeah yeah Sign him up. And you know, the same thing. He, like, dabbled in social media a little bit. And then he kind of jumped in. And all of a sudden, he's like one of the funniest golf social media people, which means not that funny.

But still very funny. Yeah. You know, golf social media, dude. So it's like, what can't he do? Well, he had me at like he, he's a degenerate gambler. Yeah. And those stories are legendary. On occasion, he's got boobs, which is relatable.

Yeah. To many. Yeah. No question. No question. He also has calves. That's relatable. I got calves. Look at those giant calves. That's it. Yeah. That's all I got anymore. You know, he had a giant appetite. Like some of his, his food and wine stories also.

Yeah. Legendary. Very good at, you know, given the, the needle. So like, those stories are good and funny for the most part. And one of the things for sure with him, he's liked amongst his peers, right? You don't have a ton of those guys. over the years coming out and saying, fuck Phil Mickelson. Right. They've been like, they go along with it. They understand, like, where he's coming from. And he's been an important part of our success when we've had success in the Ryder Cups. Like he has been thought of as a leader.

And he was supposed to be the captain of the team at Bethpage up in 2025. And that ain't happening now. What do you think he's not going to like in his book? I think it's all out. I think everything that, you know, the two big hammers that came out were calling the people that he intends to take $100 million from, scary motherfuckers. I think that was bad.

And the gambling debts, which have quietly been sort of considered part of his picture for a long time. And it was inside the golf community. I don't think I'm telling any tales out of school. Widely believe that the reason that Jim McKay, bones, his caddy fired Phil, because that's what happened is because Phil owed bones money and it was not a small amount of money. Phil Ode bones bones. He owed him bones and he's going to be a problem. You take it too long. Yeah, dude. Don't want to have to deal with bones. Does this absence have anything to do with in your opinion like an under the table suspension or have to do with the

Saudi thing? Because the Saudi thing like I'm just learning about this. I had no idea that there was a kind of a government arm league over there. And I'm like, you know, I really want to like, Phil, and I want to like the shark, but the sharks over there taking money from people who have abhorrent human rights, you know, track records. How is this any different than, in my opinion, I saw the parallel between, hey, NBA players going to get that China money and Phil Mickelson going and get that Saudi money. Like, how do you feel about it? How are we supposed to feel about it?

Yeah, and I think the Saudi thing is a couple of degrees worse, because we have, I think, I believe in what our intelligence has produced in terms of the direct involvement of that regime in the killing of a U.S. citizen, Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist from the Washington Post. And, you know, maybe it's by way of living here in Washington, D.C., and watching that story unfold and the stories, the way the Post covered it, but it made me sick to my stomach. And every time, as this Saudi League has sort of, you know, come into existence and the stories percolate and you hear the players say various things. I come back to the same question. If you were sitting in a room with the widow of Jamal Khashoggi, what would you say to her?

They do all this stuff about it. We're growing the game. The Saudi regime is trying to make some progress. And then there's a story six weeks ago that they beheaded 81 citizens, you know, for all obvious, for sure, a whole variety of crimes undoubtedly. But the thing that is a challenge, if you're trying to be generous with, you know, the, the tour guys is the following. They have no television deal. They have no marketing deals, right? So what's going on? What is the point of this league?

Like, it doesn't fit any of what we have come to expect in terms of upstart new sporting enterprises. $25 million purse in a tournament in London? Like, that sounds like probably has a lot to it. They said that Jack Nicholas said he was supposed to get 100 mil from. the Saudis for the same thing that Greg Norman's doing now. So I think I know why Greg doing Greg Norman is. I mean, these guys are richer than, you know, God anyways, but I mean, everybody has a price. And I'm just like, dude, I don't know about this. I don't know how viable

this is anyways long term. Well, it's viable as long as the Saudi government funds it because, you know, they're sitting on the world's richest reserve of oil. But the whole point, the reason there's no TV deal or marketing deals is because it's a single-minded enterprise. Right. point of the enterprise is to bring Saudi Arabia onto the world stage and and have it join its sort of Western counterparts as an acceptable, you know, sort of business partner. Yeah, sports washing is the word. That's it. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So enough of that depressing stuff. Well, I don't want to say enough of the depressing stuff. Because I was talking about Washington sports real quick. No, do we have to? Yeah, I'd love to. Well, okay. So, Reed, you had a

question, right? What do you think the commander's win total is going to be this season? Did you see the the win totals come out? Are you going to take the under or the over on? What was it? Seven and a half. I've seen seven and a half floated. I'm the worst. I love the over. I do.

I love them. Like, I don't think it's a stretch for them to get to eight and nine, right? And I think that's modest. I don't, I don't, you know, and I honestly, this is why I'm ready to confess and concede how preposter my perspective is when it comes to my hometown team. I actually think that Carson Wentz is going to be fine. I think he's going to be fine. I think it's going to be fine. I just keep telling myself this every year. I do it less loudly each time. But like the first time I was like he's going to turn it around in Philly because 2020 I was like, oh, he was playing with nobody. Like he was kind of he was kind of playing hero ball. Look at him. Throwing balls across his body to like guys have never heard of in New York winning like a, you know, Barn Bernard D.

down there late in the season. He had a great little run. Then he was awful. And then, and that year I was like, well, nobody could be good that year. And then last year, they ran him out of Indy. I just don't know, Joe. Man, like, I keep thinking he's the guy I knew, but Frank Wright didn't think he's the guy I knew. And Frank is like his long-lost dad. I know. But look, the problem with Indy was they had Super Bowl ambitions and aspirations. Yeah. That's not us. We don't have, we just want to be successful in the NFC East. it would be wonderful to beat Dallas once this season. It'll be terrific if we beat the Eagles once this season.

Better beat the Giants both times, although Dayball is so good. Giants fan here. I mean, well, he's not even going to argue with you. Well, we're also headed for eight and nine.

Two eight and nine clubs. That'd be fine. Dayball might be a Danny Dimes whisper. That's the big open question. Don't do it. Just don't do it. That's all you got to do is just tell Danny, just don't do it.

hold on to the fucking football. But like, I really do. I think, I think the pieces are there. I hate saying that the pieces are there for you guys to win nine games. Nine doesn't feel insane to me. Eight feels reasonable. Nine's not insane. You just need health on the defensive side.

Because that's really where the bottom fell out. And by the way, dude, 25th anniversary DC Sports. I just saw this 25th anniversary of the bullets turning into the wizards today. Oh, hip, hip, hip, fucking array. In that vein, where are you on commanders, Joe House? Oh, it's an F-minus, minus, minus. It's a disgrace. They should have just kept it at WFT.

WFT was great. It already was unique. Is it an anagram for what the fuck or was it? Yes, there you go. It's in the same vein. Which is perfect because it's on the tip of your time. What the fuck is going on? All right.

So this begs the question, is there any sports city that's in worse shape right now than D.C., nationals below 500, Wizards, Bad caps out. I can't look. The Washington has a Stanley Cup and a World Series in the last five years. So. Yeah, you guys got, yeah. And a WNBA title.

There we go. Mystics are three and one right now. That's good. District of champions. 750 winning percentage there, guys. District of the math. But how about this? This is a, can I throw Minnesota sports into the hat here?

Of course. This is from Matthew Taylor, a guy on Twitter. Minnesota sports teams postseason records since October 5th 2004 twins 0 and 18 Vikings 4 and 7 Wolves 3 and 8 and the wild 24 and 48

The wild have played almost an entire season in the post season The blues just beat them That's bad dude But they're good now What we're okay I want to commend you I want to tell you what a good friend you are

Because I know Rissillo talked about it on the pod overnight last night that you were texting them during that game. I didn't have the balls to do it. Oh, no. Okay. I had to leave them below. So I'm in a group text.

Me, Big Cat, and Rosillo. It gets real quiet when Chris Paul is playing. But the last night, during the second half, there were like no fucking text. They were down like 34. Devin Booker has a wide open corner three. Misses it. And I just text like out of the blue.

I go, Booker has to hit that. Okay, how's it? And Dan was, like, petrified, and there's, like, 17 minutes later, he was like, absolutely does. So I feel bad for Ryan, but, you know, like, he'll get over it. Yeah, dude, Joe House, this has been awesome, man. We got some golf. We got some D.C. sports. I mean, this is good.

This is going to be a fun week. I'm going to bet that. Yeah, little food. We're going to get together at the Crystal City restaurant for sushi. Please, dude. I mean this. I'm in it. I'm not fucking around here, Joe.

It's a short trip for you and it's even shorter for me. Let's make it happen. We're DMB people. Because you're there, I might get making to go up with me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Come on, make dogs.

I'm a former D.C. resident, 2701 Connecticut Avenue, Woodley Park. Shouts out. Shouts, Shouts, Woodley Park. And we can do a home and home here. We got a Pete Diegolf course.

We've got a Davis Love Golf Course. Oh, I know. I know. I love Birdwood down there. A lot of fucking golf. A lot of food. Yeah. Oh, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know the birdwood. Hey, fellas. Joe House, this has been a pleasure.

Check him out on Fairway Rolling. And we're going to enjoy some golf this week. Yeah, boys. Enjoy it. Good luck with your bets. Thanks, man. Thanks, Joe.

It's pretty easy talking football in the Green Light Pot. I feel pretty good about that. Knowledge level 9 out of 10, at least. Some days 10 out of 10. Compare it or contrast it, rather, with my ability to code a website, to design a website, to execute a website, to put it out into the World Wide Web,

like a zero out of 10. And we need a website at the Green Light Pot. Can't just do football segments. So that's where somebody like Fiverr comes in. You know, we found the people that executed all those tasks on Fiverr, real life. That's what happened. And this was my first time, batting a thousand. And we love it.

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Again, it's fiverr.com code greenlight. Make one last question. How many hits you giving up in an MLB inning? how many hits would I give up before recording three outs? Yeah. Well, I'll say 25. They're not pulling me.

There's no way. I'm getting the three outs. No, I think I would get the three outs as well. But even if you're just lobbing them in there, they're going to hit it to a fielder at some point. I think you'd have more walks than hits, honestly. Well, I don't think these, these cats are gonna be taken much.

What do you think you can throw off the mound? What speed? Oh, 62? That's really gnarly, dude. 62, it's been a while since I've been out of like a theme park. I don't know. I do. You should go down to the diamond and see.

I do have, you know, this torn labrum. On the throwing hand? Yeah, throwing shoulder. Yeah. Really? Yeah. So you can't throw the ball? I think if I came at it, uh,

Little lower than three quarters. Do you think you could strike us out? Not a chance. I can't throw a baseball. I don't think you can touch 60. Okay. My bad guys. I don't know.

What do you think? 50? Is that closer? I don't know. We'll find out. Yeah, yeah. You got a medical exemption, but I would have, I would have loved to see. Well, all right.

Like, what's fast for a normal? For a normal? Probably 55. Oh. Well, then, yeah, I'm not hitting 60. I don't know, though. It's been a while. My shoulder would fall off.

But when Wakefield's throwing those knucklers, those are what, like 52, 55? No, those are like 7. Those are a fair amount faster than that. They're knuckling, dude, dude. They're knuckling. Yeah, I know. And I'm not doing that, but they look mighty slow. Yeah, well.

Like, I feel like I could get it there faster. That's how I'm picturing things. Tune in Friday. Y'all take care.