NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Fantasy Extravaganza Finale (ft. Evan Silva)

Episode Date: August 26, 2016

A room filled with heroes -- Dan Hanzus, Gregg Rosenthal, Chris Wesseling and Marc Sessler – react to the latest NFL news, including Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo leaving Thursday’s preseason game with a back injury, and the Browns trading Barkevious Mingo to the Patriots. Then the heroes invite Rotoworld Senior Editor Evan Silva to the show for an in-depth fantasy discussion to wrap up the 2016 ATN Fantasy Extravaganza. Plus, Martial Blitz returns with more pig skin & pop culture along with former NFL player Brian Westbrook.Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hey, everybody. Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move the 6th, we take you inside the game from breaking down college prospects and NFL rookies to evaluating team building philosophies, coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. We study the tape, talk to decision makers, and give you a perspective you won't find anywhere else.

It's everything you need to understand the why behind what happens on Sunday. Don't miss it. Listen to the Move the Sticks podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Fantasy freaks and geeks. What is up? Why don't you check out the NFL Fantasy Live podcast? Yeah, NFL Fantasy Live podcast is Tuesdays and Fridays.

You can find it on iTunes, on NFL. We always give you the top of waiver wire pickups starts and sits everything you need To win a champion is everything a lot of Star Wars stuff you'll laugh you'll cry you wear a tiny yogurt It's great All right the whizkit from Wisconsin MG Marcus Grant michael fabiano and me james co every tuesday and friday and friday on the nifel fantasy live podcast The around the nfl podcast thinks about matt money smith more than he realizes Welcome back to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast. My name is Dan Hansis, and I am joined by a room filled with heroes, Mark Sessler, Chris Wessling, and Greg Rosenthal.

What's up, boys? What is happening? I don't know if that's true, by the way. I don't think about Matt Money Smith a lot. I think about him a lot because he has a time. He is like an evolutionary Tom Brokaw, and his voice is fantastic. I love it. One of my favorite people in the building.

All right, right, calm down. I got it. Did you not say, hey, Dan, by the way? Wow. Hey, Dan. Not too late. Not too late. Greg, to my right, brought his adorable daughter, Ellis, here today.

Hi, Ellis. And Greg mistakenly believed that there would be extra personnel behind the glass to babysit. No, that's not true. The four-year-old girl. And she doesn't have anybody back there. So who knows what's going to happen during this show? We might have a distracted Greg Rosenthal's. saying well she's waving at us she's as she'll be quick to point out she's four and three

quarters so they're a lot of much at least there isn't like thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of like tricky technical equipment back there that she will not want to tug on and and Greg's right like she's totally fine right now one minute into a 67 minute podcast she's already I've got backup plan we're covered maybe I'll run in there for 30 seconds during the show and use that backup plane we're good she's already our fourth best producer ever and Dan I asked if she could be in the studio. Not Rushmore? I asked if she could be in the studio and Dan was like,

no, she was once a guest on RJVPs. Was she really? I wouldn't know. She did call in one. Okay. Well, it all checks out. Not the only female presence behind the glass today. And everyone's really excited about this.

I could say that for sure. Because back, we teased earlier that she's back with the company after a forced hiatus by shadowy league figures, a suspension perhaps for going. going to Anaheim too often. But now she has returned. La Cine. The longest party horn of all time. Hey, guys.

Welcome back. Thank you. What a reintroduction. What a party. Right. I just, I feel so welcome. A member, of course, of Mount Rushmore of around the NFL producers. It's always great when we get one back.

Because what happens a lot, because of the. structure of the hiring here with the corpo leaders they never open their kimonos the right way and when talent walks out of the building they don't always come always come back because they end up getting a job somewhere else full time but sid who is going places in this industry did make her way back here so we're very happy to have you back thanks dan good to be back that was a very peaceful version of how this company operates they assume that most human beings in los angeles one of the least expensive cities in the country only need to work seven months a year that for the other five they can just spend money open their wallets and do as they please

and everything will be fine uh brandon you know speaking of is working as a day laborer right now irish irish is in the building uh la cid is going to you know work in uh they're going to kind of do a split this is basically like the dallas cowboys by november of this year it's going to be a half and half job maybe uh so we'll see what happens back and romo you're saying oh once roma gets hurt. It's bold. Which reminds me, and we'll get to Tony Romo a little bit later, but if you read the latest end-around column, it is about the six different scenarios that could play out for the Cowboys this year. One of those six scenarios will play out this season. There's no way I missed a permutation of their season. I just read that while we were going to air. I enjoyed it, and I have

a question for you. Has any starting quarterback ever retired at mid-season? I mean, some of them physically have, and they continue to be on the roster. I think Brett Farv and his final Viking season kind of checked out, but I don't think he physically or officially retired until after the year. I think Romo might be at the level of Farv's final Viking season. Wow. Well, that is a good way to tease some topics later today. But this is a very fun show because not only a sidback,

we're going to talk some news, the two preseason games last night. And finally, part three of the fantasy extravaganza. Got a big one. Help me out, guys. Clear some room on the boat. Special guests coming in a little bit later on the show. No expense was spared with the sound effects. Yeah, very true.

All right, so, and let's get to it. Let's get started. I'll give a pre-show grade today just because it is a special show. Las Sid back behind the glass for the first time in one, seven months, something like that? Yeah, like six months. Six months. I got the big fish in the boat. I'm excited about that.

Patriots made a dumb trade. I'm happy about that. It's Friday. Everybody loves the weekend. B. Wow. All right. Okay.

Tire than usual. Yeah. A little bump for Ellis in the studio. Let's do some news. We're putting the band back together. We're on a mission from God. That's from the Blues Brothers? Excellent, excellent.

Uncle humor. That's in Les's Wheelhouse. I don't even like that movie. There's only two movies that matter. Blues Brothers and Caddyshack. Oh, don't forget about Animal House. Well, two of those three are good movies. It's deadly accurate.

Your thesis on uncles' favorite films. Uncels vouch for those movies more that they'll vouch for their own children. That's not untrue. Stripes is always in the mix. Stripes is great. I didn't reference Stripes. I know. I'm saying it's usually one of those movies.

A Bill Murray kind of more, a little off, not off brand, but a little off kilter or not so mainstream. I'm talking about those three movies. Okay. Excuse me. Stewart is? I don't get it. Just missed all the bits. All right, here we go.

We'll start with the preseason games. And, of course, Dallas and Seattle playing at the clink. And the big news out of this game, three plays in. Just three plays. Tony Romo gets collapsed from behind by Cliff Avril. Avril. Avril? Avril.

Averle. Grabs at his back. And Mark, what is the first thing you're thinking while you're watching? Tony Romo once again laid out on the field. I mean, he looked like a 65-year-old man that just had that crazy back spasmusant as he's walking down his front steps and the day is over.

Gotta go lie on a couch. I mean, it was disturbing. How many times do we need to watch Tony Romo lying on the field, writhing in pain? And it just was another reminder that this Dak Prescott thing couldn't have come at a better time. I was watching this game with my paramour

who had just drafted Tony Ronnie Romo as her starting quarterback in her fantasy league five minutes before that hit. And it was perhaps at my behest that she drafted him as the best remaining quarterback. And I felt so guilty when I saw the fragility and the obvious pain. And like you said, he looked like a 65-year-old man the way he bent down on that play. She's going to be happy to hear that less than 24 hours later, you're suggesting he's about to retire in the middle of her fantasy season. Well, we're bearing the lead that we think he's going to be fine,

that afterwards it sounded like he. He's fine. You never know. Maybe it locked up the next day. Romo said that was... He might be on the floor next to his bed and no one's found him yet. That's true. That was a hit that I feel like would have hurt a lot of quarterbacks.

Romo said that's the hardest he's been hit in five years. And when I saw that, I immediately thought, oh, he's out for the season. Because if you are coming off double broken collarbones, those are the hits that break your collarbone. It was a stupid play by Romo, too, not really being aware of what's going on, not having that clock in his head. It was RG3 that made that play, and he got hurt. People would get on him for not getting rid of the ball. Zecchio Elliott made a terrific block on that play to give him some extra time. He didn't sense the pressure from behind.

And if you're a Cowboys fan, you've got to just be worried, obviously, that how long is he going to last? How many hits can he really take? I mean, they already were worried about that. And it's just another confirmation that it seems like at any given time for the Cowboys, things go south. Can I also bring up, I feel like poor Tony Rombo, who we all admire in this room as a great kind of underrated quarterback,

grabbing at his back. How many times will we heard almost verbatim's this exact quote from Jerry Jones? I was just in shock. I had my mind on, come on, Tony, get up, said a few prayers right there. He said that seven different times since 2008. I feel like that's word for word. That's the post game quote after every game. Maybe he just recycles it.

He just releases the statement. That's what he was thinking. And you don't want it affecting, how can it not affect Tony Romo's confidence a little bit? I mean, they've got the best offensive line we've seen in years. and I think this year they're set up to be better than ever. So he's going to get great protection. But this is literally what is third drive of the preseason. He's got to try to make it 16 games.

How can it not affect the way he thinks about how he plays? Because he's kind of a freewheeling quarterback. We spent the offseason talking about how an unbreakable ox like Andrew Luck needs to change the way he plays football. He doesn't really need to change the way he plays football, but Tony Romo does. And it reminds me of Ben Rothesberger about five years ago when the Steelers wanted him to become more of a sort of,

cerebral drop-back quarterback and stop freelancing so much. Tony Romo, especially with that running game and offensive line, needs to stop freelancing so much. I mean, the way that Ezekiel Elliott looked and it couldn't have been a better, you know, performance for him. Everyone that's watched the game would agree. I mean, in theory, that first seven-place scoring drive, they hand the ball off five times.

You know, and if they can continue to do that, Romo's not going to be under pressure to throw the ball as much, but I just think that you put deck Prescott and then suddenly he's running the option. He's going crazy. He's throwing passes all over the field. I mean, there's pressure from all sorts of sides on Tony Romo if he doesn't play up to par. You're saying there'll be a quarterback controversy? I don't think that that's going to happen because Romo doesn't deserve that at this point. But if Romo looks creaky, you know, a month into the year, people aren't going to forget about what Dak Prescott's done in the preseason. That's how this stuff boils up.

I randomly stumbled upon, speaking of Elliott, I randomly stumbled upon the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, which I'm not a big college football fan, but that was the famous statue. of Liberty game with Boise and Oklahoma, Boise State University in Oklahoma, the game that they won in overtime. And at the end of that game, Adrian Peterson, he puts Oklahoma head late in the game by turning the corner and then just going downhill like a bull, like a guy that cannot be tackled. That's the same thing I was thinking when I was watching Elliott in that game yesterday, the way he gets to the corner so quickly, and then it just looks like he's going on a steep

decline just straight down a hill. I loved what I saw of Ezekiel Elliott to the point where I'm a little afraid I'm going to become a Cowboys fan this year. Yeah. That guy is fun to watch and he reminds me of sort of like the running back version of Tyron Matthew, where he just has rare instincts, rare toughness, rare vision, rare awareness, and he's just a complete football player. Right. Some running backs are going to have that burst to the outside, but they're not going to be able to finish runs like Ezekiel Elliott, too. They're not going to be able to pass block like Ellie. They're not going to be able to catch the ball like Ellie.

What's his weakness? I mean, he ran. It's great. in his first NFL action, he runs over Cam Chancellor, who's basically got the reputation as the biggest bully on the block. Don't you think he meant to do that? Absolutely. And I had some people tweeting at me, like, this line makes everyone look great, you know.

Oh, enough with that. That's not the point. Yeah, they do. Yeah, they do. But he's going to be so special that he can take advantage of that line to outrageous numbers. Well, and the line, that's true of the line. He doesn't look the same as Alf Morris. They're completely different running backs.

And the battle, as you mentioned, between Elliot and Chancellor was fantastic. And Chancellor praised him after the game because he ran right through him on one play. And he's a three-down back. We saw the Romo block that he gave. He can do it all. One of the timelines I laid out in the column I said was Zicchio Elliott winning the rushing title and winning offensive player of the year as a rookie, which hasn't been done by running back since Earl Campbell way back when.

And it seems like there's a chance that he could really take over the league in year one, right? I don't disagree with that at all. And I think it's only a matter of time before he's the most complete running back in the NFL. And they are going to need to score because that defense, they had no pass rush for most of that game. They're going to give up a lot of points. It's just a recipe. Dak Prescott, by the way, didn't have the big numbers. You know, his yards per attempt was, you know, down under six.

And yet that performance against a really good defense where he made absolutely no mistakes. He has the game tied at halftime when the starters were in. where he made a lot of good decision. Couple inaccurate paths. Like, that almost impressed me as much as the wow factor first two games. I thought he had a play in this game where he rolled out, whipped it on first down as a 10-yard pass. Richard Sherman coming at him, heat-seeking, nailed him in the midsection. He stood in there and made the throw.

I mean, the guy looks like he's been in the league for multiple. And save your tweet, Seahawks fans. A lot of people that were following this game last night. Oh, all you guys did was right about the Seahawks. You tweet about the Seahawks. It's like your team is one of the best five teams. we're not worried about your offense like you you are we're just waiting to see them in the regular season we'd be remiss if we didn't say christin michael looked fantastic i was going to say 13 takeaways from

thursday cole and this is the headline ezekiel steals the show you can't have a newcomer come in and steal a show by greg rosenthal make sure you check it out but anything else we want to add from that game before we move on christin michael and i wrote he's this year's doug martin he won it by He is. I'm so tired of getting tweets from people who just don't trust their eyes or cannot see what is obvious on the field. Kristen Michael is a totally different player than he was his first couple of years in the league. And you can see this every August with certain running backs. He's this year's Doug Martin.

One small thing with Seattle was I thought it was interesting to see Paul Richardson out there with the starters playing just as much as Jermaine Curse and Tyler Lockett. A guy who's faster probably than Tyler Lockett. And you think about the four wide receivers that they have all 27 and under, all with different skills. It's an impressive group that Wilson has now. Moving on to the other game, Greg, which was the Atlanta-Miamy game, what stood out from you the most in that game? How the up-tempo Dolphins' offense was fun to watch.

It's not, it hasn't been a fun Ryan Tannahill. More bubble screams? Not a lot of bubble screens. A lot of three, four-wide receivers. Kenny Stills was Ryan-Tan-Hill's target again. And that the no-huddle was their base offense. that they, I don't think they huddled the whole half, basically, that they were an up-tempo.

I don't think they trust their running game. They ran 23 times for 42 yards. They're playing four left tackles on their offensive line. And Collinsworth made this point. That means they're going to be good at pass blocking and lousy at run blocking. I think that's what they're going to do. I think they're going to throw it like crazy. My main takeaway was that Aryan Foster looked pretty smooth.

Yeah? I thought he looked good. That's an improvement from what we heard last week. Yeah, he was smooth. I was worried about overreacting. And now I don't overreact to this either. He had 10 yards in five. carries but he definitely looked better i mean the touchdown run showed you what he's still capable of

post you know surgery i i wasn't blown away by arian foster but they didn't give him a lot to do it wasn't he came in very much later in the game than i thought he would gregg does matt rind still look like a rich man's mark sanchez now i think if if you're a guy if i thought matt ryan was going to take a big leap last year at this point the matt rind believers out there they're worried i mean he's he's made some bad red no word you're not at all No. I'm not worried about week three in the preseason. I know, but he made some of those same mind-numbing red zone interceptions late last year throughout the second half.

He did it again in this game. I'm not too worried, but he just hasn't looked like the same guy in Kyle Shanahan's offense. One quick note, sorry, Dan. Because Wes and I mind-melded on this, watching this on condensed game pass where I didn't even know, I didn't know that it was in Orlando initially, and neither did he, that the field from a game pass angle is one of the, It looks like someone took a bedspread and just ruffled it up. It was just an insane-looking field.

What a hideous, hideous football field for an NFL team that's playing on. Also, Jordan Cameron. That's the pro ball this year. Isn't that there? Well, it is in Orlando. It is. Yeah, that's why they're still having that thing. That's why they played it, I think, as a tryout.

I want to have to worry about watching that game. I'm not big on Jordan Cameron, so this is just not been a great preseason. He's had a miserable preseason. One last Romo thought before we go on? I think we've seen from quarterbacks who've been in the league 10, 12, 15 years. They don't grow stale over time. The fall is sudden and steep.

And you saw it with Peyton Manning. You saw it with Brett Fav. And it wouldn't surprise me if you see it with Tony Romo. I mean, this is, again, I'm going to throw that out of shocking, you know, updates from you after you convinced a, you know, someone you care for to draft them in a fantasy league last night. Well, I'm just saying, that's going to create a riff there. How much should we read into that?

This is all part of Dan's dice rule. That's one possibility. It's also possible that he channels 2014 for him when he was runner-up MVP. If he was on like 27 or 28 of the other teams, he might be in deep, deep trouble. The fact that he's on this offense with that line really good team. I think the only way he plays 16 games is if they make football two-hand touch. I just don't think his body can make it. I'm not trying to be a jerk.

I don't think he can make it. I think the clavicle in the back. Yep. One hit. That's all it takes. The other bad news for the Falcons that came out of that game was that first round safety. Keanu Neal will miss three to four weeks after suffering a knee injury

that will require a scope. All the ligaments are fine, but the number 17 overall pick hurt on a stiff arm, Chris Wessling, by Aaron Foster. Well, that's, in fairness to Aaron Foster's numbers, by the way. Neil got hurt before the stiff arm came. His one big play was going against a guy who had just torn his knee.

I mean, that's supposed to be there, Cam Chancellor, and he dropped a hammer on an early. By this way, this Falcons team is so blah. I mean, losing, it's just a blah. Is that a news update? No, just who they are. Bligher than ever. Let's move on.

We'll talk about the Patriots who made two trades in the last 48 hours. The first one involves a former first round pick of the Cleveland Browns, Barquevius Mingo, who once upon a time was viewed as, you know, the next great pass rusher for the Browns. It never really took. He dealt mostly, Mark, I feel like, besides a lack of production, a lot of size issues. He could never put on the right body weights.

But the Patriots saw something. So they land Mingo in exchange for a fifth round pick in the 2017 draft. We'll start with you on this, Mark. How do you feel about this? They essentially gave up on Mingo. got some value back. Fifth round is not a terrible pick to get back, but they quit on a first rounder.

Well, I mean, there's no end to the first round narratives in Cleveland. It was three regimes ago that drafted him. It was only until this offseason that he tacked on in theory the weight that he'd need to play. I would trust New England to have seen something in him, Bill Belichick, and to make something out of it. But I'm going to slow down on this. It's another disaster in Cleveland. He was playing inside linebacker as a and basically specialty.

teams coming in in the second half of games as a last chance to make the team. They have other outside linebackers. He had no chance to make the team. They was going to get cut, so they got a draft pick for him. Now, yes, if he goes to New England and has eight sacks, then good for him. I get all these tweets that I'm rooting against all these people. And, you know, it was all day long, and it was my off day. It's like, I'm not rooting against Mingo.

And the thing is, I would annoy you. Wes also brought it. Well, not really, because they tried. And it does speak to the last two coaching regimes that couldn't get anything out of him. And this one that has inherited all these players, they have the right to say, you know, just because he's the first round pick, he wasn't our first round pick. But he was Ray Horton's, his one good year was with Ray Horton. Ray Horton was not making personnel decisions when Joe Banner was running their front office with Mike.

My point is the one time he looked like a decent NFL player, he had the exact same system and the exact same coach he has now. So if anything, I think that makes your point stronger, that if this guy, Ray Horton doesn't think Mingo can have any value. I think that's a red flag. And, Wes, I saw you mentioned Sheard too, but the thing about Sheard that's very different than Mingo is that Sheared was in three different defensive systems and thrived in each one of them playing a four and a three-man front and showed that how, and he's a tough player

that played through a nasty foot injury in his last year in Cleveland. I wasn't surprised to see him go to New England as a free agent. They didn't want to stay in Cleveland. I don't blame him to be productive. Mingo would be a surprise if he comes anywhere close. to Shear. All that makes sense, but you've spoken often on the podcast about this fear. Wouldn't you have rather him gone to Tampa or Jacksonville? Or Detroit, in England.

I think what's, listen, I think it's different when it's like a Johnny Mansell, a quarterback type thing, where I didn't want to see him going somewhere else and lighting up because Cleveland couldn't coach the player up or keep him, you know. Well, he did go somewhere else and light it up. Yes, he did, Greg. Excellent joke with your four-year-old daughter in the studio. I'm just saying I don't have a problem with with this at this point because the Browns listen they're starting over they're starting over and it's it's time to let go of 2013 first round picks that have not done anything in three plus seasons no I think he's going to go to New England and have 10 sacks really I mean I'm sorry I feel like you want him to number one he's a Patriots guy like give me a break this guy carries the water up and down the hill of course he wants I hope he's productive too but you're not he's a patriots guy Blame me for thinking that's going to happen?

The Patriots take castoffs from other places and get production. A lot of times they take castoffs and it doesn't work. And a fifth round pick, why not? It's like how many fifth round picks make the Patriots or make an impact? Do you have a greater chance of hitting on your undrafted free agents or a fifth round pick? They're taking a shot with a guy they thought was talented. But to me, if he plays 20 snaps a game and gets five sacks, that would be a big win. He was injured for a big chunk of his time in Cleveland.

I give the Patriots this credit, and more teams should do this. They are trading nonstop. They constantly turn the roster. They find value. They like him. Good luck to him. Let's move on. The other trade the Patriots made, their center, Brian Stork, who had recently lost his starting job,

but had started 17 games over the last two seasons. He was moved to the Washington Redskins in exchange for a conditional draft pick rap sheet reported. Greg, Brian Stork. Ryan with a why anything to add well just that you have a rookie center who plays great his rookie year he starts one of the best Super Bowls ever where you have a classic fourth quarter comeback and then and then a year and a year and a half later he's traded for nothing that's just sort of what happens with the Patriots you you get used to not getting too attached to anyone but the top 10 players on the team they just change their mind but

when the Patriots do it it's like oh that genius that's just genius what I don't Why don't people have problem with it? Well, I'm saying if another team... They keep running over and over again, whatever they do. They are genius. But if another team did have the same Brian Stork experience, and yes, to your point, West, it's fully deserved. It's like, that team's crumbling in upon itself.

And we're not going to fall down. Well, they had another on itself. It's not fall down the Patriots vortex. But the reason they've been good for 15 years is because they're the best quarterback ever and the best coach ever. Yeah. For the most part. The coach is making all these decisions.

He's definitely not afraid. He likes David Andrews better. This guy, he didn't like for very, I think for other reasons, it sounds like his love for football or, you know, he was questioned in terms of he was thinking of retiring. He'd been in, like, they make a decisive decision. Belichick might be the best GM around two, by the way, which he's never given credit for.

Could they have gotten a higher draft pick if they waited three hours from the Houston, Texans? That's a good point. Their starting center went down and they've got no backup. It sounded like they were just going to cut Stork, too, and then they just got a phone call from Redskins. Belichick and O'Brien are. tight, that could have, you never know.

Knows the offensive system now. That's what's happening in the news. By the way, Greg, one thing I wanted to touch on, I've been meaning to do it for a couple of weeks now, but this feels like a good time. You are no longer in a management position. That's true. You have freed yourself up as a writer,

and I've noticed the uptick in your production and some interesting column ideas, some great execution. You've done a great job. Thank you, Dan. I'm waiting for something to drop another shoe to drop here but now that you are more

kind of like us and you don't have these other tasks to deal with meetings and scheduling and managing the various egos that come with being the boss of around the NFL I think I think it's fair

to wonder if it's time to bring back hero picks baby oh yeah come on back Greg, let's pick some heroes together. I don't want to do hero picks. Bro.

What does that have to do with managing you or not? Because you're not doing it. You're just trying to butter me up. No, we were, we are NFL picks, which was a huge hole in the show last year. No one would remember if he never brought it up. Doing the NFL game picks every week and we have a competition. And last year, Greg pulled the rug out from under us and said he wasn't doing the picks anymore. And I think the, the subtext was, I'm too busy.

I'm a manager. That wasn't it at all. I said it was not emotionally, it was emotionally exhausting. I was too into paying attention to picks, and it hurt my enjoyment of football. Do you want me to translate that for me? Well, there's on the one hand, his own degeneracy that he was worried about. And then he didn't like it when you whined and complained and wanted to change the rules late in the year. Well, that was part of it, too, dealing with all that.

That was all. But it was mostly self-inflicted. I'll admit that. I'm trying to be healthy. I like how you did that, though, Dan. You got him into a nice place. Kind of highlighted the whole career shift that he's gone through, and he did not bite.

No, he did not bite. But we're going to keep working on it. And everybody out there on Twitter, I want you to go after going on this. Hashtag bring back hero picks. Yeah, tens of people noticed last year that we did. Everybody hear that? Hear that? He doesn't respect where you're coming from.

This is why he doesn't go to the subreddit. You can still do hero. Picks. You can still do hero picks without me. It's not the same without it being the four of us. You can still make your picks. You do make your picks. Did you notice that I hung up the burlap sack next to your desk that says bring back

hero picks on it? One of our listeners sent it in last year. Oh, that's right. I think it's clear that Greg does not care about the common man. It's not true at all. You know, his offspring is in the room. Can we have a little bit more respect for the former boss? All right, folks.

It is time. Part three. of the around the NFL fantasy extravaganza. Is fantasy real? Is real fantasy? You be the judge. I am your judge. I say the future is ours.

And with that, it is time. Here we go. One last time. Blup. West grab me. Pull me, baby. Get back in the boat. Get in the boat.

In the boat. Evan Silva. The senior football editor. of Roto World and a dad to the cutest little girl. That's his Twitter bio, to be clear. Yeah, not to be a creep. That's the Twitter bio. Evan, welcome to the around the NFL podcast.

Thanks so much for having me, guys. I'm a regular listener during the off season and leading up to the season and during the season. So a year-round listener, and I'm just hoping that I do better than Spiceracted. See, I feel like you're covering yourself. You started saying you're just like an off-season. listener and then you realize that wait that sounds bad no no i'm a year-round listener for sure so a couple

things um first of all the fact that we have right now well first of all let me just say that in my teasing of the big fish it's it says a lot uh for mr sylva that everyone was guessing evansilva my twitter was inundated with people saying oh it's evan silva there was no other uh fantasy star that was mentioned. So that speaks to Evan's greatness in the field. Well, maybe they realize too because West seemed to take offense that there was some sort of big fish coming. Isn't he a big fish? And that takes it back to the days when Silva and Wesseling were going after.

Yeah, let's get into that. Why did you just fabricate this? I didn't make any offense to a big fish. Total straw man argument. Let's start Evan with Roto World. And we're going to talk about Evans, the shy away top 40 that he puts out every summer. which guys that he thinks we should stay away from. And then we're going to have a talk about fantasy philosophies.

And that philosophy is with an F, by the way. I just want that's branded. So anybody out there who thinks that they come in and put an F instead of a P? I already did it. I got trademarks on it. F on the first pH or the second? No, no. Ooh, that's even better.

I got fantasy with a P and then, you know, whatever. All right, here we go. Evan. What was it like working with Greg? first of all, as a boss, that road to world. Well, you know, I only met Greg like twice in real life. It feels kind of Gregish. All of our interactions were over AOL Instant Messenger for many, many years.

And that's the same with Wes, who I've never even met in real life once. Really? I actually, I still think that Chris Wessling is a hippie who lives on Tybee Island. And he denies it, but I stand by that evaluation of Chris Westland. Was that based on just knowing that's where he was stationed or in your I.M conversations during your time working together? Well, I thought that he was, I mean, he is a, like a kind of free-spirited mind. That's true. And do you agree with that at all?

Absolutely. Wes. Yeah, yeah. And he lived on Tybee Island. I think I'm an independent thinker, but I would ask. the three of you in this room. He did I'm a hippie? He would work from like beachside bars essentially.

Well, yeah. Well, wouldn't you? You're kind of like an evolutionary hippie. What? On some level. So anyway. So it was nice not to mention that I was a jerk to him as a boss. I mean,

oh, let's talk about that. Compared to how you guys were treated, I was a total. Not an easy guy to work with. I've experienced the same thing. Oh, it was worse for him. Rosenthal was hard on me, dude. I mean, no question. But I deserved it.

And he showed me how to write roto world blurbs, you know. And that's still the nuts. Well, I never forget at the time that Rosenthal told me that that's what this website is all about. And that, you know, I still think about that every time that I see, you know, Nick Menzio or whomever else, you know, not do a good blurb or miss something. You know, that that always reverberates through my mind. Yeah, Sylva's now laying down the gauntlet. There you go. so you hand it down the blow torch.

And before we get into fantasy talk, I just want to also, we should, it is the 800-pound gorilla in the room that Greg and West to a lesser extent for years have spoken about how they have built Rota World with their bare hands, both from an HTML standpoint, how the site looks,

but also physically, which Greg holds up his hands and shows the calloused hands of a worker bee, do you take offense to that now that you are the most visible presence It's on Rotow World. I do not take offense to that. I think it's hilarious.

I think that it's true, you know, to a large extent. I mean, Rosenthal set the foundation, you know, and then Westling and I and Adam Levittan came in, and we, along with Rosenthal, made it great. So I think that that's, it's, you know, it's not, I mean, he doesn't have callus on his hands from it but he definitely he definitely was the builder and you know that that's that's evident i think that he to some extent has helped build build up you know what's going on what the great things that you have you guys have going on as well no doubt you should know greg despite me you know busting some chops there that was all that was all kind of part of a bigger setup

to get you some love there i you know i appreciate it the rhoda world the rhodo world crew we're not going to pull us apart can i can i give evans some love here? Yeah, let's hear it. We were talking about this in the huddle, our commissary yesterday. Out of everyone in the football writing business, nobody covers as many angles of the sport. And I don't like to use the word expert, but in a very expertise way, is Evan, who not only does fantasy and film breakdowns, loves college football, is in on the prospects. He's in on contract talk, off-season talk. He covers every angle of the sport more than anyone in the business. I asked Wes. I said, you know, what?

does Evan do besides football? Because it is a huge advantage in asset, I would think, in the fantasy realm to be so plugged in and knowledgeable of the college game as well. And if he's doing that and he's doing the pro game, what is Evan doing with his life? Like, Evan, what's the last show that you binge watched?

Man, I haven't turned on my TV in like weeks. That's, see? That kind of checks out. What's the last concert you went to? I went to a Kanye JZ concert in like 2012

but over the past decade you know that's probably the only one that I've gone to oh man I mean that's there's what it takes I mean that's he he knows more than anyone out there he's the fantasy

the fantasy god right now all right so trying to dig in I would like and maybe as the this goes on this segment get to know a little bit more about Evan Silva who's a mysterious figure The only thing I know about Evan, beside his amazing knowledge, is that one black and white photo.

He's not quite looking at the camera. No one knows what he's looking at. It almost looks like a mask card because it's all black in the background. It's interesting. You need a new photo, Evan. That was from seven or eight years ago. At least his looks like him. All right.

So let's get into it now. Let's talk a little football. And yes, let's start with a column that Evan published, I believe, yesterday, Thursday. the shy away top 40 and this is if you want to just Evan if you could just give us a little bit of a explanation of what the shy away top 40 means does that mean don't touch these guys or under the right circumstances go get them yeah so it's a compilation of players who I think are either overpriced at their average draft position who I think that you should scratch off your cheat cheat altogether like a Jimmy Graham or players that you should just let other people in your

fantasy draft select and move forward and try to make better picks. Number one on that list. Wow. Number one, Carlos Hyde. Why is Carlos Hyde the number one guy to shy away from? So I think a lot of people like him as a runner, and I understand why. And I think that people see him rip off an explosive. run, which he's done a few times.

He certainly did in week one against Minnesota last year, and they get really excited about that, and they're like, I want to get that guy on my fantasy team. But if you really zoom out and look at the situation that he's in, it's not a good one. The 49ers have the second worst Vegas win total in the NFL. They're projected to win five and a half games by Vegas. Well, what is that? First of all, there's no Vegas at the NFL. Second, what does that have to do with fantasy football?

What's Vegas? We don't want running backs on bad teams. We don't want running backs that are going to be in comeback mode in the game. We don't want offensive lines that are being put together like patchwork, leaning on a rookie guard, leaning on a guy who's coming out of retirement, leaning on a center who's been in the NFL, Daniel Kilgore for six years and has 10 NFL starts. We don't want a running back whose defense is going to get in the way of him scoring fantasy points, especially with a guy like Carlos Hyde's track record where he's been in the NFL for two seasons.

He's played 23 games. He has 21 receptions. He's not catching passes historically. He may get more targets this year. Theoretically, he's also been a guy who's been injured consistently. You call the hamstring running to 40 at the. the combine. Missed, his season ended on injured reserve as a rookie despite handling only 83 carries. Missed OTAs last year with a calf strain. In week seven, he was shut down for the

season last year with a stress fracture in his foot. Evan, I feel like his injury history. He can get excited by the explosive runs every now and again, but this guy is not a good fantasy pick. I feel like his injury history is the best reason to stay away. from him. If you took this philosophy where you stay away from shaky offensive lines, bad quarterbacks, and questionable offense, is you to miss that on Adrian Peterson's 2,000 yard season. I mean, there's a lot of running backs who do well on bad team. I find it interesting, and people don't know this about Evan Suggled. Adrian Peterson and take him, but I don't.

Well, nobody thought Adrian Peterson was Adrian Peterson coming off an ACL injury. People don't know this about Evan. He is a big guy. I didn't know this until I met him, and it made me rethink our whole interactions over. over the years. Maybe I wouldn't have been so tough on him if I knew that he is a massive human being. And I think that shows up. Nine feet tall?

He's like what, what are you, 6, 6, 6, 7, and, I don't know, wide. You know, big, strong guy. What does wide mean? I just mean built like an athlete, built like a big guy. My point is he would not be calling Carlos Hyde a walking hospital and calling him El Guapo unless Silva had some confidence that he could take care of Carlos Hyde if he ever came at him. We would be arguing about Carlos.

By the way, we would go back and forth on IM for hours and hours just arguing over players. And he's someone I would have gone after. Sounds sexy. I mean, honestly. Can we talk about somebody else, by the way? Yeah, I mean, I'm assuming you have Todd Gurley at number three that a lot of the same kind of stuff you put out there for Hyde would apply to Gurley's situation, quarterback issues, team maybe on offense not too powerful. Precisely. in his average draft position where people see the, you know, the exciting run every now and again,

and they want to take him in the top five fantasy picks. And he doesn't belong in the top five fantasy picks. By the way, I just want to, and we should just bounce around on this list, hit a couple more names before we move on. But I do want to, just because I heard the voice, but I wasn't sure if it was actually him. Can we check in? And if you don't mind, Silva, if we could check in on the Mark Sessler Fantasy Corner real quick. Is that cool with you?

I heard that. I heard that, yeah. All right, we're going to check in. Mark, you there. Oh, no. Mark, you there? Yeah, it's bad here. I apologize.

Terrible sound quality. It's got increasingly horrific. There's a bad feel here. I got to go. Okay. We'll check back in later on the fantasy corner. But it's not good. Anyway, let's move on and talk about, well, we talk about Rathlisberger on Wednesday.

You're in lockstep with some of the guys on that. How about another name that jumps out? Greg, James White, another guy. We think Dionne Lewis is out. James White jumps in. You have him at number 13, Evan. Yeah, so a lot of fantasy analysts point to his production in the second half of last season. But I think they fail to recognize that a lot of that production came

as a result of the Patriots simply not having other options. Julian Edelman was out for the year, but Garrett Blunt was out for the year. Rob Gruncowski and Danny Amandola, both missed time during that stretch. Tom Brady was the quarterback. Now we got Jimmy Garoppolo. All those guys are back.

The Patriots added Martellus Bennett. You know, this kid, Tyler Gaffney, has looked pretty good in the preseason. So I think that, well, when you start to see where, when you start to look where James White has start to go in drafts, I mean, you'll see him go eighth, ninth round. Really? Oh, that's insane.

He is specific to a points per reception league, number one. And number two, I think that even in a points per reception league, there's a good chance that he'll disappoint. And you're certainly not going to get a full season out of production out of him because John Lewis is going to be back eventually. That's insane that he's going that high. I see another guy right after him that's sort of. of getting taken around the same spot that I would love to have, which is Duke Johnson, which is Mark's Making the Leap guy. And I know you said it's not looking great for Duke Johnson in the preseason that Isaiah

Crowell is certainly there as the starter and probably an early downback. But Silva, don't you, if we're going to talk a little philosophy, do you, don't you just want to bet on who's a better player? Isn't Duke Johnson just a better player, a good NFL player, and over time that's going to pay off? I think he is. I think he's a really good NFL player. I think he is good. I do.

I like him coming out of college, too. But he is in a situation where right now he's not going to score a lot of touchdowns on a bad team where he's the number two back. And I think his passing game outlook, his target and reception's projection are down. I mean, when I liked Duke Johnson in the spring. I really liked his outlook. But that was when I thought that Josh McCown had a shot to be the Brown starting quarterback. Now they get RG3 in there. If you go look at the history of dual-threat quarterbacks,

their running backs end up not catching a lot of passes because instead of checking it down, these dual-threat quarterbacks will take off. I mean, Cam Newton last year with Jonathan Stewart, Jonathan Stewart had 16 catches. Frank Gore, you remember, he was one of the best receiving backs in the league. Colin Kaepernick becomes the 49er starting quarterback, and Frank Gore became like a one-year-old.

dimensional grinder, essentially. Russell Wilson's running back should never caught a lot of passes. So, you know, if you just go back and look historically, I think that the way that this Brown's offense is shaping up, especially with all the target big-time weapons that they have in the passing name, Gary Barnage, Corey Coleman, Terrell Prior, Josh Gordon will be back in week five. I think things are just not shaping up that well for Duke Johnson. Evan, one name that surprised me on this list.

Amari Cooper, and you make a good point that he wins on the ground more than the air, which means he's not necessarily a presence in the red zone. I feel like maybe you didn't acknowledge that he played through an injury for most of the second half of the season. And at mid-season, he was a wide receiver won on pace for over 1,300 yards. Don't you think that his disappointment down the stretch was, I would attribute almost solely to injury? Well, I didn't write anything about his disappointment down the stretch.

I mean, so I'm not going to hold that against them. Also, also during that stretch where he, quote, unquote, disappointed he had his best game of the year against the Packers. So how much was the foot really affecting him? I think that it was affecting him. And I think he had a solid rookie season. And I own him in a dynasty league. And I think that he's going to be great eventually. But I think that where he goes in draft, you know, you'll see him sometimes go ahead of Alshon Jeffrey.

You will see him sometimes go ahead of Brandon Cooks and T.Y. Hilton. and I don't think that the targets are going to be there for Amari Cooper. Michael Crabtree out-targeted him. That won't happen again. And I think that this offense is going to run the football more than they did in 2015. I think Cooper is a better fantasy player, maybe even than he is a real player right now, because he makes mistakes. He'll drop passes.

He'll make some mental errors. But I don't see why he's not going to beat the numbers of all those guys, except T.Y. Hilton, who I love. All right. Let's move on. So check out the Shiaway Top 40 over at Roe, to world.com. Evan Silva writes a ton of good stuff there. Let's talk about some philosophies now. But before we get into that, Evan Silva, as I continue in my attempt to learn more about you, not just the

fantasy man, but the person behind the fantasy. Got to get out of the house and do something, physical, get some fresh air. What is the thing that you choose to do? I'm going to guess in an upset, rollerblading. I mean, I go to the gym and I hang out. out with my daughter. That's pretty much it. Those seem both healthy and sweet. Yeah, I mean, I want a question because you've, you know, maybe you're not physically around Greg and West, but you've known them during their formidable years when they were growing up. Much earlier than Dan and I got to know these two guys.

You know, which of the two is more physically attracted to you if you were to want to go on a date with either one of them? The overall package, who rules Gregor West? This is what I was trying to get to, but thank you, Mark, for doing it. can we do another question all right we found the limit to Silva all right now it is time to talk philosophies and Wes

you're a philosophical man a hippie even some say so it makes sense to start with you this is more about all right you're going into your draft my draft is this Sunday for example so I want to go into it with a with a clean head

what is my philosophy how do you go into a draft this seems almost too basic to state but 95% of people playing fantasy missed this the entire goal of the sport is to get a weekly advantage at that position every single week which means don't draft guys with low ceilings don't draft safe players don't draft wide receiver threes don't draft flex running backs draft guys who have a chance at their ceiling to be a weekly difference maker and give them you an advantage of your competition. That's the whole purpose of fantasy sports. Take upside. Don't take the James Joneses of the world when he was a James White. Don't take a James White. Don't take a guy that's just going to, well, I think he can get me at least 900 yards if I'm in a pinch.

Never draft a wide receiver three. Don't take Kenny Britt. Never draft a wide receiver three. Draft risk reward guys who have a chance to be wide receiver ones. Use the waiver wire to pick up a wide receiver three during the season. Evan, how about a philosophy from you? I mean, I completely agree with Westling. But we can just talk about the quarterback position,

and I understand that Wes's take is that we should pursue difference makers, and I totally agree, and Cam Newton was a difference maker at quarterback last year, a guy that you could get in the eighth or ninth round. People were all concerned about his prior year injuries, and he was a great value pick in drafts. But if you're not, I mean, there really are no quarterback difference makers beyond that, especially last season. I mean, the number two overall fantasy quarterback was Blake Bortles.

He scored 22 points per game. And Matthew Stafford, the number 16 finisher, he scored 20 points per game. So it's just not, I would say weight on quarterback is a good way to go, unless you really have a high level of confidence that your quarterback is going to be a weak, difference maker. Yeah, and you can find them later. Take guys, to that point, take quarterbacks coming off of not their best season. I mean, that goes for everyone. It should seem obvious. I mean, that was one thing that I probably did more than anything is I just looked for guys who weren't that old that were coming off of bad seasons that have shown that they're

good players. You already know they're a good player. They're coming off a bad season, so they're going to be cheap in drafts. You take Cam Newton in the year that he's in eighth round, pick, not a third round pick. Well, the corollary to that is don't overpay for last year's stats. Right. Greg, give me a philosophy, baby. Well, that was a philosophy. That was a great one.

I didn't know if you had another one in the tank or that was it. I have plenty. I have plenty in the tank. Well, I actually wanted to hear what Silva thought about this too and whistling that there's more and more talk of, you know, the no running back draft or staying away from running backs. And I don't think this is a particularly new notion. I've always kind of leaned that way that you take wide, you take you load up.

on wide receivers early and you hope for the best taking a lot of running backs late i i usually you take one running back maybe in the first four or five rounds and that that's about it for me i have strong feelings on this this is not i mean this particular philosophy might be new but you've always had sure you used to have in the early 2000s stock up on two running backs and then that was the no quarterback theory now it's the all wide receiver theory here's how you draft fantasy football don't have a theory draft the best player in ever Every round. Yeah.

Try to get the strongest starting lineup possible, but no, you don't need all these theories. Just draft the best player. Well, doesn't that fly in the face, though, with Silva's theory just now about the quarterback? Well, I think we agree that quarterback in round four, drafting Aaron Rogers might not be the best player on the board. Draft the best player on the board. And say, wait until round seven or eight and you can get Bordles or Palmer. Right. If Russell Wilson falls, Russell Wilson could be explosive this season.

And, you know, you take them. That was, I think, one of the worst questions I would get a lot is, like, well, once you take two running back, should you go to a wider, don't plan out your draft ahead of time. You don't need to have some sort of plan or some sort of strategy. Just take the players. All right. Here we go. Before we let you go, a couple things. As a father of a daughter, I want you to know Greg brought his daughter to the office today.

She's behind the glass during this podcast, not supervised, really. As a dad, does that make you uncomfortable to know that some people? will behave that way. No, I think that Greg is responsible and knows what he's doing, Zucer, and that was a weird question. Yeah. A leading question by the old Zuster, no doubt. Can I close with one other philosophy?

Sure, go ahead. This is an admonition to all fantasy. Never ask another grown man how to run your hobby would be another philosophical. People like Evan Silva generate tons of high-octane quality-free content that you you can use to reach your own conclusions about a hobby that you signed up for, do not pester Evan Silva. Do not pester Chris Wesleyan or Greg Rosenthal about how to set your lineup or make a trade. Be a man.

Make your own trade. Or woman. Use this free information that people like Heaven Silva put out there. Or just read the rankings. I never really understood that who should I start when you're publishing rankings every week? Click the link. Evan's like from your mouth to God's ears. How many ads do you get every day people asking you?

what to do with their lineup or draft? Thousands? I mean, a lot. And, you know, I'm trying to write an article. I'm trying to take care of my kid. I can't get to all of my. I try to get through as many as I can. I would just start snapping at people.

It drove me out of the fantasy industry. I used to think that the main purpose, like we wanted to provide information and news, number one. But the fantasy part of it, the main purpose of the fantasy industry is just to give someone to blame for everyone. But, Greg, you love. Just to yell at them. You know, just like, okay, we're just, you know, just, we're the people you can just blame for your stupid decisions.

But you enjoy that one-on-one meeting with fantasy fans. You like that interaction, so I'm surprised to hear your take on this. All right, Evan, before we let you go, do you mind sitting in if we throw it over to the corner one last time? Oh, to Quiet Storm's Corner? Yes. Yeah, go ahead. All right, cool. Let's throw it on one more time.

now time. Mark is ready with all the scientists here with Evan Sylvia here. Now it is your time to dispel some fantasy philosophy in a big spot. Let's go over to the street corner. All right. Well, these guys have given you some very direct advice. Mine is a little

bit different. This is my philosophy on fantasy football, which I pulled from a 1982 essay by Stephen Snyder called the Family Life and Leisure Culture and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Okay. In which he writes, although the average American may think of his country as the land of the free and home of endless opportunity, students of American culture have suggested the presence in our psyche of dangerously contradictory elements.

One of the more illuminating commentaries is D.H. Lawrence's studies in classic American literature, which suggests that the pioneers of America came here not to find freedom, but to escape fighting it. Mark. No. Yes. what the hell are you talking about let him go going a little bit longer he's on a roll

no sooner do they arrive than they entrench themselves in isolation we are fort builders whose desire is to imperialize the land but have little truck with it we idealize work into an ethic precisely because we dislike it

freedom from work and ultimately from all demanding activity is our real goal does this have anything to do with fantasy football well I'll publish the rest of to this and you can decide it goes on for another seven or eight pages so never mind mark my daughter

is crying right now why have you done to her well the truth hurts well they go i don't know if there's someone that could take something from that into their draft and i will thank you for the fantasy corner one last time well you sound like you appreciated it by the way it's another year before i have to deal with this so i will i will dispel one bit after that there might not be any more fantasy quarter if I bulldoze the corner after that my one bit of advice is not tech it is not technical at all same advice I gave last year don't be the guy that gets drunk at your fantasy draft you could drink after the fantasy draft you can have a couple beers don't have 17 beers before the draft starts that's when you get banged Evan silver you are a mensch you're you're a fantasy stud

a nice man very strong and tall apparently I didn't know that and we loved having you on the show today. Thanks so much, guys. One last bit. Yes. Don't make your fantasy pick against all odds thinking that you're getting the next Adrian Peterson. Take easy, guys.

There he goes. All right. I promise the big fish. You got him. Delivered a big fish. My back hurts more than Tony Romo's from reeling that sucker in. You're like hemming way over here. All right, and that wraps up the third annual fantasy spectacular slash extravaganza.

Thank you to everyone for listening and, you know, being a part of it on the subreddit. We wish we could have gotten to more mailbag questions, but it's a full show. We try to do the best we can. We hope you enjoyed it. We will be back next week. We have to wrap up the division previews. But then we're getting very close. You really do a great job selling this.

What? Why? Division previews. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got three more divisions in the AFC, and then we get ever closer to both real football. And also, don't forget, I don't know if we'll do it next week or the week after. We're going to do our prop bets. Go get my lunch, you evil turd.

So we're excited about that. Until then. Do we want to get your daughter in here and say hello? She want to come in? I don't know. We can look at the picture. Five-year-old's operatively. five-year-olds operate in a terrain of total chaos in my experience they just do as they wish

you have a five-year-old and a three-year-old is five and four five and four oh irish they're like the british bulldogs as children basically don't give you start on the british bulldogs yeah Greg's back well we gave her a movie okay that's 15 minutes that she doesn't want to okay don't make this lovely picture of of us though oh that's we'll take a picture of that and put it up on the around the NFL site not her best work looks like the Manson family you guys that's two criticisms I'm joking I would never say that to her that's me there's we'll show you are we all in wheelchairs I guess this is me I don't have much hair no I think you're behind the desk oh yeah yeah

there's like an NFL shield on each of them very nice drop Ellis that is beautiful great work great artwork she's watching the movie enjoying yourself and that's good all right we'll be back next week with three more shows thank you to everyone welcome back la cid it is great to have you back on board this is dan hansis signing off for the quiet storm the mailman the boss yes la cid's back behind the glass and alice till monday All right. Here we are. We're back on the Marital Blitz Pod. They brought us back. I can't believe it. We, I mean, I'm still employed. So that's good. I don't know if they brought us back, Colleen. It's Colleen and John again for the second week in a row. I don't know if they brought us back so much as you already work here and then I've been pulling basically reverse Milton from office space where

I'm just hanging out until they give me a job instead of take one away so so far so far so good everybody by the way has been really nice about that whole like I don't have a job thing like I was walking across campus you're practically the mayor here we ran into Sheck and Sheck was nice and then we saw Marcus and Hansis this morning and they were nice yeah Aaron Coscarelli I'm paying them like a pretty good rate to be nice to you Keep doing it. Yeah, not going to be able to afford it soon. So this is the Marital Blitz podcast, and it's mostly it's pigskin and pop culture, as John has coined multiple times.

This is not going to be your X's and O's, your footbally football podcast. That's why, like I said last week, you have the ATN guys. So we're just a compliment to them. Yeah, and by the way, we should thank the ATN guys again. They let us do our first ever micropod last week on the back end of their podcast. It's our second ever. We literally could not do it without them. or T.D. or Sydney and Brandon.

Mark Brady. A lot of people. We've got a lot of Anne, Ann, Ann Wolf, who is an internet superstar. So everybody who tweeted us, thank you so much. Your tweets were so, so funny. My mom still has no idea she was on the podcast, and let's keep it that way, or she may never talk to me again. Hopefully she's not on Twitter. I know. She's not. Definitely not.

My dad, though, he is on Snapchat. You guys should check him out. Maybe I'll find out his name and give that to you by the end of the pod. But we have some awesome stuff coming up on this podcast. podcast including Brian Westbrook yeah he's going to join us we saw a tweet earlier in the week that was like sort of weird interaction between teammates or new teammates which got us think i mean you and i have spent time in locker rooms before that's where we met yes super romantic place bunch of naked dudes she picked me out uh not sure why i will take the guy who has clothes right right

so it's always a weird interaction but so we want to talk to Brian because brian and i used to work together we're going to ask him about weird interactions and media in the locker locker room and all that kind of fun stuff. Yes. So, but first, Des Bryant, this, I thought was pretty funny because, you know, me, a big gamer out there in the gaming community, this week on Tuesday, EA sports released their newest version of Madden. And Des Brian, he thinks his rating sucks.

He hates it. He got a 90. I have no idea what that means. I have never played Madden in my life. I kind of wish I did, but, I mean, I tried to get into video games a little bit with you at one point I can't remember what that game was we played call of duty one time and what happened was so my friends and I had been playing and Colleen was like well maybe I'll play and I was like all right so it's like the two of us and like we go on missions and you shoot stuff like that's the whole point

of call of duty Colleen spent the two minutes that she played shooting at the ceiling and screaming screaming I was like well this isn't fun for anybody including the ceiling and that was the sum total of her call of duty experience Sydney is behind the glass right now Sydney Have you ever played a video game? I have played a video game. I've never played Call of Duty. Yeah. I mean, like, I was really good at Duck Hunt back in the day.

Back in the day. Mario Brothers. I was all about the sports video games. What was your game? I like Madden and I like, oh gosh, I can't remember what's called. You're too young so you didn't play Super Tech, right? Like, that's not. No.

Super Techmo is like way past. Super Techmo is the best video game of all time. Hands down, I will die on that hill and fight anybody who says otherwise. Also, our fantasy football is. name of our league. Super TechMobile should tell you how much I love it. But Madden is a step or 10 steps beyond that. I mean, like, it's close to...

I think I would be pretty good at that. I feel like it's a lot different than Call of Duty, and I can draw from my vast video game knowledge. So what you're saying is you have then authorized me to go buy a PS4 and Matt. Sure. All right, fantastic. You guys heard that. You can buy it with your next paycheck.

But you get ratings, though, Colleen. So everybody, so on my... Wait a minute. I just, that dig went right past. Like, I was like, oh, we should do the show. show and I'll like pay attention to that, but apparently she's needling me about being unemployed, self-employed, as I like to say. But you get a rating for the players up to 100, and he got a rating of 90, which is pretty

good, but not like super, super. So here was his quote, and I'm sorry, Sidney, but there is something you're going to have to edit out. So he said, I play Madden. I love Madden. They would do me like that. Oh, my God. That is an insult.

Like, why would you do that to me? How much I love y'all? Like what? not John Madden because I love him it's the video game developers. Yeah he was he was wink wink heeded about it but so here are the guys that were rated ahead of him. Also by the way EA sent out

a video of Dez kicking and said like it's actually dragging down his overall rating which I loved. That was such a bastard response I don't know if I know that word but I love it. So the guys that they had rated ahead of him were and this goes like this is sort of like video game nerdy but also footbally because I was trying

to figure out if this was properly ranked Antonio Brown yes Julio Jones, A.J. Green, Odell Beckham, DeAndre Hopkins, Larry Fitz, and Alshon, Jeffrey. I'm cool with the first one, two, three, four, five. Larry Fitz and Alshan is where I take my leave. Larry Fitz, kind of old now. Yeah.

He's almost my age, which is pretty old. And then A'Shawn's always hurt. So I think I'd, and I know that Des is coming off the foot injury now. Alshan also has a contract year coming up, so I feel like he's going to have a big year. I have no idea how that works. It's like forever not available or he might be available or he could be available. And I realize, again, that Des has those issues. I'd still take Des, like, if they were both healthy.

Well, here's my thing, because Des, he had the injuries last year and some poor quarterback play because of the Cowboys. But DeAndre Hopkins, he played with four different quarterbacks and not great quarterbacks, and he was amazing. So he can do it without a good quarterback, but Dez didn't. So I might put Dez. I would put DeAndre Hopkins. Hopkins above Des.

Yeah, and I'm okay with that. That's the line of demarcation for me. Like, I go, if you want to go, I'm not going to fight you over DeAndre Hopkins. Like, I'll fight you over a lot of stuff, up to it, including how many fans we're allowed to put in our house. You're like the fan man. Every time I come home, I can't even hear myself talk or anything else, and you have the TV on so loud that I can hear it outside the door because there are 10,000 fans on.

So maybe we should just get an air conditioning. Listen, our neighbor, our neighbor Bruce understands why I have to crank. up the. It's a bad, it's a catch-20 show. Bruce already called the cops on us. We only lived in the apartment for like three days and the cops left a citation on our door. Welcome to Santa Monica. For a noise violation. You've got to crank up the fans in order to hear the television and it's just all downhill from there. But I'm Ron Medez. I'm Ron with Des. He needs a higher rating. You put it you put Odell Beckham at 4. You're cool with that. Well, I think that these are just like the guys in no particular order that they had ahead of them. I thought you said yesterday that you weren't on board with AJ Green. fantasy-wise I would definitely put Antonio Brown Julio Jones Odell Beckham and DeAndre

If we were talking fantasy Those are the guys I'd take If we're talking Madden I'd rather play those guys AJ Green and Des are like one-two I'm still a Des guy Des is a monster when he's healthy

Yeah but also AJ Green half of his receiving core left So it's just really him He's going to be getting so many targets So how can you say that He's going to be a monster Who? Tyler Boyd I mean, he's a rookie.

Did you not listen to the A.T.N. Fantasy extravaganza? I did listen. And they were talking about, hey, this kid could be maybe a little something. I'm going undrafted right now. I like that you're on board. You're putting all of your stock in Tyler Boyd's basket. I'm going to reach for him, for sure. I'm going to overdraft him.

So, like we were saying at the top of the show, we saw this tweet earlier this week. It was from Pat McAfee. and he was retweeting Antonio Cromartie, who is, yes, still playing. John asked me earlier today. Antonio Cromarty is still playing? I thought he bounced out of the league like 12 different times.

But that's fine. He's back. Good for Cromarty. I like it. So Pat McAfee, Coltspunter, he retweeted Cromarty and said, hey man, welcome. You remember neeing me in the face a couple of times on that return years ago? By the way, I'm over it.

Which I loved. I thought it was sort of like a needily welcome to the fold type of tweet. If you're a punter, though, like in general, you probably don't want to do that, but I liked it. But it got us talking about, again, like the different locker room interactions we've had, and we've seen teammates have awkward interactions. So many. And we've seen a lot of awkward interactions between the media and players as well. We've been a party to that.

Physical altercations, actually. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the locker rooms are weird, weird places, gang. Especially in Philadelphia. Yeah, well, Philadelphia in general, I think, like, supports and promotes that weirdness, because you get this weird cast of characters that go in there and they're sort of awkward and aggressive about it. But we thought, you know, who could we talk to

about these weird, awkward interactions, not just with teammates, but also with the media. And that led to Brian Westbrook, who has not only been a really, really talented player in the NFL, but as a guy that I worked with. Yes, also made the transition from player to now media star. Star, superstar. Yeah.

Like way bigger than us. I can't believe he's coming on Marital. I'm not even sure he knows what this is. He's like, hey, man, I'm going to call you? Yeah, what did you give him to come on here? Did you, like, gift him something? I think he thinks that we're just calling to say hi. He has no idea that there's a podcast.

This is going to be a running thing. Nobody that comes on the show actually knows they're on this show. All right, so cool. Let's get him on the phone. Yeah. Hello. B. West. You know, this is it a buddy.

It's Gonzo. How are you, buddy? Man, I can't complain at all. So I'm here with Colleen. What's up, Brian? How are you? Hey, Colleen. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm good. So believe it or not, we're doing, and most of the people who are actually here can't believe it,

but we're doing a podcast called Marital Blitz. And we thought, right, exactly. You know my weirdo sense of humor. So we thought that we'd call you because we saw this tweet from Pat McAfee to Antonio Cromarty, where he's sort of like busting Antonio Cromarty's chops about like coming into the fold. because they had like a weird thing back in the day so we were wondering from you

like when you're in the locker room what kind of weird strange interactions have you had with other teammates or have you witnessed because you were there during the T.O. McNabb era that was like a really interesting time but also sort of like a divisive time. Do you remember any good

stories you can spin for us? Oh man that's a good question to me. I think I don't know if there's the most interesting, but the most active story was when T.O. and Hugh Douglas got into a fight. I love this one. This story's awesome. I mean, it

was, it was one of those things where Hugh was on the radio at the time, so he wasn't even playing for the team, but he was the ambassador for the team. And I was in the training room just hanging out, chilling, and Hugh at the time was on

the radio, and he had said some things about Tio, just basically of that He was kind of soft and things like that, negative things. And so he just happened to come into the training room that day. And I have to believe that he knew Tio would be at least in the locker room or around the training room. So I had to believe that he knew at some point it would come to blows or at least they would have some words. And so I'm in the training room and right directly behind me is a glass wall. But there is on the other side of the glass wall.

it's the pool where T.O. was in their training, and so he was working out, because I think he had an ankle injury at the time. Perfect. And he sees Hugh. And so now me and Hugh are talking, and so he sees Hugh, and he said, hold on for one minute. And so they're kind of like jawing at each other through the glass. He's the ones who really here. And so Tio says, hold on for one minute. He raises the floor from the bottom of the pool up.

So now that he, initially it was in six feet of water, now he's raising himself up. So just imagine him raising himself out of the water like he was a cod or something like that. And he comes out of that room, and Hugh takes a swing. T.O. Ducks and, you know, a couple of punches were exchanged. And at that point, they kind of started wrestling. But we saw how strong Tio was. He was able to pick Hugh Douglas, who was a big man, up off the floor. and, you know, between them wrestling.

It was a pretty interesting scene. And then, you know, it took five or six guys to get Tio off and five or six guys to get Hugh off. And so now, you know, in the season where we had so much turmoil already because we weren't playing very well in T.O. And Andy Reed, I got into it at the beginning of the year. Now we have a fight on our hands and things went downhill very quickly from there.

I love that Hugh was the ambassador at the time. He's like, here's what I'm going to do as the ambassador. I'm going to go fight that dude. Also, the T.O. raised himself out of water like that. I mean, that's such an amazing visual. I like that you had a front row seat for that, too. But so you had, all right, so you had those interactions in the locker room, and then you transitioned to the media,

and I was telling everybody before we called you that you and I did the post-post game show for the Eagles for the last two years. And you and I not upset that we're not doing it this year. I'm kind of happy about it. But now you're that you're part of the media. What were your interactions like with the media in the locker room? Because Colleen and I were talking about.

So I think I told you Colleen and I actually met in the Eagles locker room. Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. It's weird, right? It's a weird atmosphere. It's a weird atmosphere. And it's like, we know it's weird for you guys because you're, you know, you're coming off the field and you're getting changed and you've got cameras.

You're trying to, like, go to meetings and get showered and there's people asking you questions. And then, but for us, too, like, it's equally weird because, you know, here we're. are we're trying to do a job but also part of our job entails talking to dudes in various states of undress and sort of like i felt like a stalker a lot of times too because i would sort of wait by somebody's locker and then like sort of follow them like if they came out of the shower you would sort of have to like be near the locker it was like a very just strange weird social environment yeah right when you when you were a player and then after you transition to the media like what was that dynamic for you, like for you, did you get any different take on it once you went into the

media or how did you feel about it at the time? Well, I think the biggest thing for me was as a player, everyone is always waiting for you. Everyone wants you to be there. And if you're supposed to be there at 12, all the media and things like that, the reporters, they'll be there at 1155 waiting. And you can come at 1215 and everyone's still happy to see because they need you for that sound clip or whatever that is that you're trying to do a story on and it's it flips and so as a player you feel important you also you know you kind of take your time to your own thing but when you become a media individual at that point it flips and so you can be sitting there waiting for 20 or 30 minutes for a guy and just to do an interview to do a three-minute interview and then

you're like okay man this is enough and but the truth is as a media person as an individual in the media you have to then wait and you have to be happy when you have an opportunity to talk to the guy. So it was a big, not a shock to me, but it was something that I didn't really realize or think about it as a player. One of those things that I didn't take into consideration. Most of the time I was on time anyway, but I know a lot of guys that kept media people waiting hours just to get interviews. And it was always tough for those guys. But at the same time, now that I'm in the media, I have a different perspective of it. One more before we let you go, and this has absolutely nothing to do with anything we've been talking about.

It was just something that Colleen and I wanted to run past you. I also have another one, too, before, well, after that. So two more. All right, so two more. All right. Oh, I know which one you want to talk about. All right. So for those of you guys who don't know, Brian Westbrook is a handsome man.

He knows how to dress well. We go on television. That guy has. I sat next to him for two years, and I'd be like, I've got to step my clothes game up. Yeah. So Colleen and I were talking, B.S., the other day about the rip gene phenomenon. on for ladies it's a cool thing again dudes though not as

cool and some dudes try to pull it off what's your stance on rip jeans for dudes why do you think that it's a better look for ladies than it is for dudes well you know I actually don't feel that way I actually own a couple pair of ripped jeans right now I told you John but he's cool he can pull it off

it is it is cool you have to get back into it John I say John you're a flashy dresser dresser too but you're kind of not basic but You like the normal stuff. That's the type of thing that you like. And so the rip jeans probably isn't your look, but maybe just try it one time. This is amazing.

Maybe just try it one time. I said so many good things about him before we came on. He's like, John's a little basic. Basic is the best. So good. All right. So I need to know. We were talking earlier about Donovan McNabb in the Super Bowl.

What happened with Donovan McNabb? Oh, you're talking about the. Did he actually? throw up. See, this is where my concussion starts to make everything a little fuzzy. Oh, really? My memory isn't as good as he once was. Oh, my God.

He's there for five's retirement. That's right. His number, his jersey retirement. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So you can't toss. You know what? I'll say this about Donovan.

Donovan was a great teammate, great competitor. He willed us to a lot of wins throughout my career. As far as the Super Bowl goes, I don't even really remember, but I know one thing, when it was time to strap it up and go out there on the field, there's no other competitor. I want to walk out there on the field with other than Donald's Mab as my quarterback. I'll tell you that. That's how I felt about Brian Westbrook when we sat there and talked about football at 1 a.m.

Nobody I want to sit there and say he's a competitor even at 1 a.m. Brian Westbrook, we miss you, buddy. Thanks for everything. You're a superstar. Thanks so much, Brian. Gonsa, Colleen, thank you very much. Take care. All right, brother.

See ya. He's the best. You're so basic, John. Yes, that is awesome. Everybody tweet John and tell him that he's basic. What's your Twitter again? I don't even know. underscore John Gons.

You got the underscore going. I used to have a checkmark and everything. I've really fallen far. I had a job where they paid me money, and I had a checkmark on my Twitter account, and then I left and everything created. Now I'm getting called names by people I used to work with. John turned to me one day and said, oh, my God, I am rupturing Twitter followers. But that is also true.

That is also true. All right. So we got one more thing for you guys. So Colleen saw something that came up this week. So everybody saw it. Tom Brady with the scissors. His quote was kind of my favorite. He was like, I was ready to go, had everything on.

I was just trying to get something out of my shoe. The scissors slipped. So we were talking about bizarro off the field sports injuries. Yeah, because I mean, and I've made this point before, but I think it bears making again. In the history of shoes and scissors, you've never used one to get something out of the other. I don't know where he came up with this radical idea.

I'm sure. Like, it had to have been his cleats. He was getting something out of his cleats. Okay. I mean, again, my point is. You pull out the old scissors, John. Could you hand me the old shoe machete? I'm going to get in and dig something out of my...

That's what he needs. We should send him a shoe machete. We had thought about that. But so we went through bizarre injuries because... Yes. What else are we going to do? You can't hear anything in our house with the... the fans in the television, so we decided to talk about bizarre injuries.

Yeah, so we made some dinner the other night, and then we ranked them. There was a lot of discussion and a lot of disagreement, but we finally have our rankings. Wait, so it's important to note, though, that these are football injuries, or football players only, obviously. NFL, one of us works there. And the other thing is, the other one does not. These are also off-field random injuries. So I had, like, really pushed hard for grammatica. I think it was Bill, right?

There's like 12 grammaticas. They're like more grammaticalism. There are plus. Justin Houston, Stephen Tollock, like. Yeah, so he had jumped up and, like, hurt himself and whatever. So these are only off-field injuries. So we came up with a comprehensive list. Okay, so we have our top five.

Top five. Number five, and this is, like, kind of our weakest. So maybe if you guys have a better one that you want to throw at us, send it our way. Don't throw shade at the list yet. We're just starting. This is a weak one. The weakest link is five. It's Darren McFadden recently, breaking his elbow.

trying to save his iPhone. I think he can afford an iPhone. We've also been there with the crack screen. It's not a good look. Pretty annoying. But come on. Also, Darren McFadden, I guess next time hurt yourself more for Colleen's amusement. Try harder. Try to get hurt harder.

So you could be a better number five, I guess. Yeah. I like that. I thought it was funny. Number four. Love this one. Was Brian Greasy back in the day, if you guys, there are a lot of you, Sydney. I don't even know if you were born in 2002.

When were you born? I was born in 1993. We're good at math. So 2002, Sydney just barely walking at that point. But Brian Greasy was a quarterback. How old did you think Sidney was? She's super young-looking. I don't know.

I think that's a compliment. I don't know. I'm drowning in Brian Greasy talking about. Not the first time I've been mistaken for a high school student. Well, Colleen, too. She gets carded all the time. But so Brian Greasy couldn't play for a while because he said that his golden retriever

pushed him down the stairs. So a bad dog, I guess. I don't know. But Brian Greasy, down the stairs. So, like, you walk, we have two dogs and you walk them. I don't do. I don't do any of the walking. Helene just came home with dogs and was like, here you go.

Now walk them, but I've seen them, like, sort of drag you down the steps. I'm pretty strong. I'm probably going to teach Dasher how to push you down the steps. And he's pretty strong. As a quick aside, we got our first dog because I wanted a dog. So Colleen brought the dog home for Christmas, and we named the dog Blitzin. And then she just came home with another dog, and we named it Dasher? Well, his name was Doug, which I thought was pretty cool.

And then her family got another dog, and they named it Vixen. So now we're just... We had a whole weirdo troop of dogs named after reindeer. It's weird. Let's go to number three. Number three, our very own Nate Burleson, gotten to the act. accident while he was trying to rescue two deep dish pizzas, one with pepperoni, that was sliding off of the seat in his car.

So he broke his arm in the accident. And you know what? I have no problem with this because if pizza was falling off the seat in my car, I would have done the same thing. Who hasn't broken their arm reaching for pizza? I think if there was just one pizza, he would have let it go. But like, two, it's now you're invested. A deep dish with pepperoni.

Yeah, your pot committed at that point is the poker player. Yeah. Also, Nate Burleson owns vans, the shoes, with pizza. slices on them. I don't know if there's a connection there, but I think there is. That's such a troll move to himself. I love it. By the way, so he does the morning show, right?

Yeah, he's in New York now. We have to have him on to talk about the pizza fiasco. Let's have everybody from that show on. I think they're big fans of Marital Bliss. Way to ingratiate ourselves with the greater NFL network family. Yeah. To have. We need Kay Adams on.

Ask about his horrible, horrible mishap. Yeah. So let's do that. Okay. How about number two? Brandon Marshall. Yeah. Number two was Brandon Marshall, who said he slipped on a McDonald's rapper, which then caused him to fall through his entertainment center, which then led to multiple lacerations on his arms.

It's not funny. But every time I hear this, it makes me laugh because watching people slip and fall is like one of the funniest things in the world to me. I don't know why. I'm sorry. This is also true. Another quick aside. But we are at our house in Philadelphia. I was at our house in Philadelphia.

Colleen was here. And we have Trinity stairs. So for those of you who don't live on the East Coast, they're basically like, it's like climbing a ladder. They're vertical stairs. Really steep and they rotate upward. Right. It's not like a normal staircase. So they're very steep.

And I was sober on the third floor and missed a step and realized that I had missed a step and that, like, this is, it's all over for me now. So I tumble down the stairs and I do the cartwheel and I crash through this dog gate. and I'm laying on the ground and I'm just moaning and my hip hurts and the dogs are sniffing around me I was there for like 20. I felt like I needed a medical alert bracelet

like the old's have. So after I was really starting to worry about John living alone at this point in our relationship. I called her and I explained what had happened and after she stopped laughing we talked about if I was okay. I was like what the dogs do?

They were just sort of watching you. He ricocheted off of walls, whatever. But back to Brandon Marshall. One of the other funny things, I went back and looked at some of the old articles about it. And Adam Schaefter, when he used to work here, the one article pointed out that Brandon Marshall had texted him and said,

it's funny because I pride myself on yak and being one of the toughest players to take down once I have my hands on the ball. So for the next couple days, I'm going to take the time to build my confidence back up after allowing that McDonald's Big Mac to take me down and send me through the entertainment center. Sacked by a McDonald's rapper.

It happens to the best of us. And then the last one, the last one's indisputable. Anybody who wants to dispute this, you're wrong, because this guy has not one but two freak injuries. Not a star player. Doesn't matter. Played football. His name is Chris Hansen.

He was a punter. For the Jags. First injury, freak injury. So who was the head coach? It was Del Rio at the time, right? Yes. Del Rio brought like an axe to the Jaguars practice. This might have been the second injury.

We're going to do that one first because the second one's even better. And it was like a reminder for people to keep. chopping or keep working or some weird metaphor it doesn't matter the axe incident the ax man took it chris hanson took this and went to chop this wood and missed and hit his non-kicking foot and chopped his foot so that's bad that's bad enough to get you number one on the last not how jack del rio envisioned the whole motivational scenario working when you get to number two then you're like i don't know man you got to wrap yourself in bubble wrap this was in 2002 and uh i guess he was at home with his wife And this is not a funny story.

This is very serious, though. So they were, he was severely burned when a fondue pot overturned on the floor. So Hanson suffered first and second degree burns on both his hands and his right ankle. And I have another quote here. He said, he's basically dark man because he was eating fondue. That's a weird 90s movie reference, but it's true. It's so, this is awful. He said, it happened so fast.

we were moving the fondue pot when it slipped onto the tile floor at my house then my wife fell into it I know how big was the fondue pot I just tossed the pen across the room because I was so alarmed by it's very like that was a very serious thing she suffered some serious burns but like what who even uses fondu pots that's like the big wedding gift that everybody gets and then just like sticks in the cabinet and dust sort of just like envelops the box I haven't seen a fondu pot ever apparently apparently they broke it out. Let that be a lesson to you. Don't order your coffee too hot because remember like that lady sued. Because your wife could fall into it. Right. Your wife could fall into your coffee pot.

Yes. Or your fondue pot. All right. So that wraps up the show. Another show in the books. I know exactly. So guys, thank you so much.

Everybody behind the glass, everybody out there still listening. If you're still there, anybody still there? You made it through fondue talk? Thank you. That is great. please keep tweeting us.

Your feedback was awesome last week. Sydney, great job. TD, thank you so much. This is TD's last week here at NFL Media. I think it's very important to tell you from the bottom of our heart, where would we be without you? Yeah. This show wouldn't be the mega juggernaut tacked on to the back end of the ATN podcast

on a Friday that it has become. So thank you. Yes. And the Irishman, thank you so much. He's been busting it behind the scene to help us as well. Mark Brady, everybody here. Thank you, thank you. And one final question for you, John.

Have you found a job yet? We'll talk about that if there's a next week. here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move the Six, we take you inside the game from breaking down college prospects and NFL rookies to evaluating team building philosophies, coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. We study the tape, talk to decision makers, and give you a perspective you won't find anywhere else. It's everything you need to understand the why behind what happens on Sundays. Don't miss it. Listen to the Move the Six podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

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