Pardon My Take - Blake Bortles, Steelers RB James Conner, And Baseball Is Screwed

Episode Date: June 17, 2020

Baseball is fucked and it's insanely transparent whats going on. (2:40-11:01)The NBA bubble sounds like the coolest summer camp ever. (11:02-16:33) Hot Seat/Cool Throne including officially introducing Billy Football because we forgot some people don't even know his backstory. (17:03-37:54) Our good friend Blake Bortles joins the show to talk about free agency, how we can get his name back in the media, and possibly hair transplant? (40:34-55:20) Steelers RB James Conner joins the show to talk about his new book, beating cancer and coming back to play football for Pitt and the Steelers, and Big Ben being back. (55:23-1:17:54) We finish with Guys on Chicks Mt Flushmore of things girls do that guys hate (1:19:20-1:25:53)You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/PardonMyTake

Hey, pardon my take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. On today's part of my take, we have old friend recurring guest Blake Bortles. We also have James Connor on the show. Unbelievable story. If you don't know it, it's incredible. He's got a new memoir out about beating cancer and then getting to the NFL. We have baseball being fucked. We have NBA bubble. We have hot seat, cool throne and guys on chicks. The return of the Mount Fleshmore, the volley back of the Mount Fleshmore, things that girls do that guys hate. Submitted by girls. Do you have any predictions for that one?

Taking too long, getting ready. Wait, so it's things that girls do that guys hate. Said by girls. So it's fine and definitely not male listeners that submitted them. Correct. Hank has done a very deep screening process. Faking pregnancies. Yes. All right, before we get to all that though, part of my take is brought to you by the Cash App. Not only is it the easiest place to send money to your friends, it's the safest. It is the number one social distancing app in the world. If you need to send cash to anyone, a friend, a coworker, a bartender, whatever it may be, Cash App has it set up. You can link it directly to your bank account. It can be a bank account. Billy has it as his bank account. It is so, so easy. And like we said,

Billy just got to know he's not allowed to talk during ads. That's the rule. That is. He had an idea earlier and I'm making sure he doesn't get to protect that money. Every time he tries to talk during an ad, we actually electrocute him. We got a collar on his neck right now. Billy, do you have the Cash App? Don't answer that. Good job, Billy. Good job. So the Cash App is the number one social distancing app. It is the number one app in general. We love the Cash App. They're giving away free money on their Twitch stream. They're giving away free money. If you put in code Barstool, you get $10 for free, $10 to ASPCA. And guess what? The Cash App is a presenting sponsor and our studio sponsor. We're in the Cash App Studios.

Sounds good. It feels good. It's great to be here. Cash App, thank you so much. Download the Cash App from the App Store Google Play Store today and get involved with the Cash App. Okay, let's go. Welcome to part of my take presented by the Cash App. Go download it right now. Use code Barstool. You get $10 for free, $10 to ASPCA. Today is Wednesday, June 17th, and baseball is fucked. Baseball is going to be back, but it looks like Rob Manfred got caught with his pants around his ankles. And I've not seen an emasculation of a sitting commissioner like this, I think in my

lifetime, the way that the players are all going at his throat and saying like Trevor Bauer had a great thread on it on Twitter yesterday, basically outlining exactly why Manfred changed his stance from 100% we're playing the games to, I don't know, and basically what it comes down to is he doesn't want to announce that the league is coming back right now because they would have to pay the players for more money. He's waiting until they can only get ready for a 50 game season. The owners, if you don't understand this situation, fuck the owners because the owners essentially are saying if we have to pay the players more than the 50 games that we want to play minimum, we are going to lose money and we don't want to lose money. And guess what?

We said it before, we said it again, the owners will be making money forever. If they had any kind of foresight, the idea here would be take a loss this season, but save the baseball season. And dominate the ratings this season. Dominate the ratings, dominate, like baseball should have been back a month ago. They should be basically saying here's our opportunity to recapture an audience when there are no sports. This is the long play. Lose some money this year, but keep baseball going. Have everyone triumph baseball and say that is the sport that came back first. Hooray baseball. Instead, they're taking the short term approach, the dumb approach where they're saying we don't want to play more than 50 games because we don't want to pay the

players prorated salary, which we agreed to. Therefore, we're going to give bad faith negotiations all the way through and hope that the general public will buy this bullshit, which they have to the past. But this year it's not for whatever reason. I think it's a combination of social media. I think fans are significantly smarter than they were 20 years ago. And I think more than anything, if you read the room a little bit, guess who isn't having the best time right now, billionaires in terms of people of means. Billionaires when there's a pandemic and 40 million people are out of work. Billionaires, let's just say we're not crying for them. So it has been an absolute clusterfuck. They've ruined it every which way. We're so goddamn desperate

for sports right now that we're talking about Korean baseball. I'm part of my yes. Okay. I'm becoming obsessed with top chef. I have nothing else to do at night. I'm desperate for I'm I'm waking up at three o'clock in the morning to watch Australian rugby league, a sport that I don't really care about that much because well now I'm a rugby union guy and a seventh guy. Okay. But I'm desperate for sports. We are all desperate for sports and all you have to do is just put games on TV. We'll watch them if they're on TV. We will support people will come out of the woodwork people that haven't watched baseball in 10 years will tune in to watch baseball this summer because we're star for sports and they are absolutely shitting down their own throats and

they're getting exposed for it too. Like I can't remember another time when well first of all credit to the players. They've done a pretty good job of holding the line and I'm sure there are some players out there that would like to say maybe hey let's make some concessions. We want to play baseball. We're already getting paid millions of dollars. I'm sure that there are a couple players in the league that would want to go out and say that but nobody said it yet. They're all kind of maintaining that line. And when they're all unified like that it's very very tough for the owners to put any extra leverage on them whatsoever. So I think we're all resigned to the fact that it's going to be a 50 game season which will result in an asterisk on whoever wins this World Series

unless it's the Nationals or the Cubs or the Red Sox. So just be warned we're getting way out ahead of that storyline right there. Yeah. And I think this Sunday's documentary really illustrated this fact even more but they don't have a you know steroid boom to come where they can like look past and be like oh this is great for the sport. That's not going to work this time. So when they come out of this year where everyone hates them they're not going to have that like boom of sport that's going to bring fans back. Right. Unless they let people do steroids again. Right but they can't. To be sick. Because they can't pretend like they didn't know but what's going on. That ship has sailed. I'm trying to find the tweet but essentially an agent summed it up

perfectly. He was like the the Miami Marlins have basically pleaded that they were going broke for years and years and years gave John Carlos Stanton an insane contract and then sold the team with multiple offers for a billion dollar profit. Yeah. So cry me a fucking river owners. Get your shit together. Take one. Take one for the team. The Marlins also baseball speak. They had Marlins man and the mermaids lined up as season ticket holders. So that was that's like a little build in extra money. He's going to make Marlins man retire. He's going to retire. He's he's alluded to it. He's he's thrown it out there that he might retire and that's sad. So I have a fix. He's got cats to feed. I have a fix on Saturday. I went down a rabbit hole. I want to

buy a Wiffleball League and I watched probably three hours of this Wiffleball League in Michigan. I want to buy a Wiffleball League. I want to bring together there's like a bunch of different leagues all across America. I want to be the Vince McMahon and Wiffleball and and bring them all together and make a national Wiffleball League because you know what I actually think Wiffleball could just be the new sport. Well anyone can play. All you need is like a lawn chair a Wiffleball and a bat. These guys are good though. So Wiffleball is sick but here's the only problem. We're going to have to I'm not I'm not poo pooing your idea because I think that it's a good idea but we have to figure out how to make it entertaining to watch because the pitches are sick

right. The pitches are awesome but if you have a great pitcher then it's just going to be a no hitter every time. No no no no no so I actually talked to the commissioner of this league. It's been going on since 2009 and they have stats. They have Cy Young's. They have highlights. They do everything. He said that there is a there's a rule that you can't pitch too fast to make it more you know a hitters league. And I also want to implement the rule that every team has to have a three hundred pound kid who is under five eight and he gets to he gets to use the big red bat. OK. So there we go. There's instant. OK. He's the DH. I'm into that. Fat kids hitting diggers. That's America baby. You want you want ratings. Have every game played

in a replica stadium of a major league baseball. Perfect. Those things are awesome. Perfect. I honestly think that there's like I was a little high but I watched three hours of it and it was fucking sick. I went down this rabbit hole and I was like these guys are awesome. Like the stats the fact they had a Cy Young race. Come on. I think let's do it. I like where it heads up. There's a guy miked up in right field. I think the pitchers which is weird because he was like 10 feet away from everyone else. Right. You just use a boom mic. Yeah. Right. Or just like have the camera pointed out sometimes. Yeah exactly. There should be a dad needs to pitch a dad over the age of 60 needs to be the one on the mound wearing the official uniform of Wiffle ball which would be

no shoes maybe Birkenstock's but no shoes preferably cargo khaki shorts and like a golf shirt like a button up flip flops flip flops yeah flip flops are fine a button up like a golf polo that's got a brand on the chest might be a fishing shirt but it has too many pockets it's got a logo on there from one of his clients that he sold something to he sold some sort of network solution insurance yeah five years ago logo on his breast and yeah he's the pitcher and he has to have a beer in it yes and everyone has to dip yes or just have a big water which will be problematic because I also imagine that they will do a age restriction 15 to 25 years old anyone older than 25 they can't play anymore that sucks why yeah why did you just age us out of the league though

we'll work we're going to be the commissioners so who cares so we can change the rules whenever we want well the reality is baseball is fucking this up big time yeah they suck so that's what's going on with baseball in another world basketball is seemingly going to come back although Kyrie Irving has expounded on his comments from the other from the weekend he also he now wants to start his own league the Michael Scott paper company basketball league I'm down for it yeah you can get it together I feel like that's one of those things though that if you if you say like three on three league well we can start four pointers right like we can start our own league like there's a lot of fucking paperwork dude like even this wiffle ball thing the only way this actually

happens is if I tell Erica like hey can we buy this wiffle ball league and she's like yes we should I'm like okay great just remind me after we've purchased it in a year yeah I don't want to actually have to do I've already kind of lost interest from what I just said when is wiffle ball season yeah I don't know I don't really care there should be one of the outfielders should have also want to flex yeah one of the outfielders should have a grill in front of them like the center fielder should also be flipping burgers during the game in a dog a stray dog but yeah so so basketball Kyrie Irving's gonna start his own league she also have the mark Maguire uh with ball bats and you get one swing that's a fat kid no it's a fat kid the fat kid gets it oh because

the 300 pound kid on every team he's the dh he doesn't have to field and he gets to use that bat and he gets to be a ghost he gets to use ghost runners too and no no no no no no we need him to we need him to try if he hits a dinger yeah yeah if he hits a dinger he gets to go all the way around he maybe has the runner that like starts behind the plate and has to run for yes yes designated runner I like that uh Billy what are you gonna say I don't know the wiffle ball I play there's no running okay well there's we don't play the real wiffle yeah this league is awesome you run um all right so basketball we had so Kyrie Irving's gonna start his own league and then if they do play the NBA season shams a recurring guest had a shams drop shambam uh where he

just basically they're gonna have like summer camp and it looks awesome so hotel amenities players only lounge NBA 2k tvs gaming pools uh barbers manicurist pedicurist whoa whoa whoa you left out trails trails they're also trails pools slash trails trails 24 hour vip concierge daily entertainment movie screenings dj sets video games ping pong pool lawn games player can players can attend other games this sounds like I know it probably isn't ideal and if you're a multi-million millionaire NBA player you're probably like hey uh I don't really need summer camp because my life is summer camp but if you're trying to get everyone to be like it's not that bad they've done a good job like all they missed was uh ice cream machine and groupies inside the bubble that's a big question

that I haven't seen addressed is there going to be just like a rotating cast that comes in and out because if so you need to test them all before they got there and it really the ice cream the ice cream machine is important too I don't want to I don't want to downplay that either but what if it ice cream over sex if it's just the well in your in your eyes I would imagine that I mean come on a lot of NBA players I like life I'm going to guess that there's some yeah there are NBA players that would rather motor boat and drown themselves in tits in 50 years they'll be like big cat you know what you're right yeah I don't I don't see James Harden pulling that right now now that ice cream I want to see how the groupie situation is going to be addressed because I mean what if

what if the uh just like rate of technical fouls and physicality of the game goes way way up because nobody's having sex inside the bubble that would be great for us it'd be yeah bring back the real NBA return to the 80s in the year when men were men Rex Chapman dogs bro and Kurt Rambus average nine points this is the content we're here for fuck yeah 75,000 retweets 125,000 likes I like that they're gonna have ping pong a little kid ping pong video games and lawn games set up yes they're gonna have like I can you imagine the players like actually well you know what this is this is like the world's best apartment complex and when you see the amenities that are listed when you move in you're like that's gonna be sick I'm gonna use the projection screen room

in the common theater area all the time pool table pool tables we're gonna be playing on that and then nobody ever uses the pool table and your apartment is one bedroom and like 600 square feet you're like shit you know what I really like another room right and it's a 15 minute walk away from the ping pong table in the lounge that's right next to the property manager and you don't ever want to interact with the guy that you pay rent to it would be really funny to figure out who is like everyone knows the kid in your freshman dorm who like there's a common area room who basically didn't have a TV in his dorm room and use the common area room as his room who's gonna be that guy in the NBA that was me I'll be I'll be very honest with you well that's no I had a TV but no it's

different it's no it's different than what you're thinking because I didn't use that as my common area I was just I had a pile back then I've always been about the pile life and then that became the over the overflow of my pile was in the common area that's brutal yeah people hated you I got some bad you know people well nobody else hung out in that room at all right probably hated you they motherfucked you couldn't yeah you were you were one step below the RA and if you are not cool there's a complete you were one step above the it was a complete opposite of the RA is the situation I was the RA hated me no I'm saying like everyone on the hallway they're like if you had a gun with one bullet who'd you kill it'd be like PFT all right maybe PFT I also had fake IDs so you gotta

take the good with the bad piles pretty fucking annoying you're willing to overlook a lot of stuff as a freshman college if the person can come home with a cube and natty ice that's true um all right so that's that's basically everything that's going on in the sports world we're still in a waiting pattern we're basically like circling a city in a plane waiting to land with the so the players are going to go to the games they can to the other yes that's going to be fun to watch yes that will be great that will be great um I mean I want it I just bring it back let's fucking do it let's get it going um let's do our hot seat cool drone hot seat cool drone is brought to you by bud light seltzer bud light seltzer's cool drone is all the dads out there

this father's day uh make sure that you get your dad little bud light seltzer he's going to love it bud light wants to make sure you get dads what they really want this weekend an ice cold bud light or bud light seltzer if you really want to step up your game this year head to bud light social to check out our brand new bud light father's day mugs and ties if you're trying to figure out what to get your dad get him a case of bud light and just be like I love you dad and he'll be like you know what I love you too son the tie no the the the biography about babe ruth no the bud light yes yep that lasts forever beer beer is the best gift of all yes uh hank hot seat cool drone also an extra bonus cool move if you're a kid getting your dad some beer

just tell him uh let's not tell my mother about this yeah and then god dad just loves secrets that they have on their kids absolutely quick programming note for the documentary review on friday uh I have not watched this documentary but I have it on good good sources I got a good recommendation from someone I trust it's called three identical strangers oh I've already heard about that I've already seen it it's awesome it's so fucking awesome all right so that's fine and it also will kind of fuck you up mentally even better yes will you rewatch it so you can yes you'll be able to participate that's actually a great description of this podcast in general no like you you're all gonna think you have twins p carol's gonna watch that and be like

fuck did I ever tell you that I saw my it's on hulu and you can you can watch it one time whatever it's uh no it was a yeah that guy that guy was way heavier than me though but uh when I was like in fifth grade I would I took a sick day I was watching epl because you all the games would be on esp and two during the day when I was a kid and there was this one dude in the stands in england that stood up and he looked exactly like me except he had a mustache and he was about 15 years older than me so all right so three identical strangers you will I've got a twin will change who's older than me thought about it yes I will rewatch it it's it's fantastic it's the best documentary we're gonna do besides king of kong that's the good that we need we need that we need we need

we need quality for the people yes all right um my first hot seat uh booze bags alcoholics uh planes and airlines but look I mean Billy just got him booze bags that was mine like franzia um airlines are not going to be serving alcohol on planes anymore what because of covid restrictions they're trying to limit the uh whatever you call it airline person and passengers airline person pilot let's see if you can find that word the flight attendant the flight yes the flight attendants and the passengers the waiters uh yep I almost said airline missers for some reason airline I can't believe this couple is breaking up so yeah booze bags I have to go on long flights like you know I'm I'm sure there's I'm sure there's a lot of people that are accustomed to like

I you can't though you can't get that through airline yes you can buy it in there very easy to bring airplane bottles onto an airplane yes the only this is actually great news if you just think ahead and plan in advance before you go to the airport because you just swing by the liquor store and you buy their their little like a one and a half ounce nip bottles and they're I don't know like one two three dollars maybe so you're saving a ton of money you're saving like five dollars a drink bring your own onto the plane they're underneath three ounces so they don't get pulled aside in security the only problem that you used to have with them was when the airplane person what do they call it Hank airline mistress airline miss mr or mr or mr uh would come down the aisle and see

you drinking contraband liquor then they'd take it away from you sounds like they're not even patrolling the aisles anymore so it's going to be sucking and fucking and drinking season okay that's fair my dude's jerking off but yeah oh yeah that's a bad part oh listen again gotta take the good with that and like old ladies eating like hot tuna fish sandwiches so it could be it could get crazy Billy I'll let you figure this one out but you can use Lamar Jackson on your hot seat uh and then my other hot seat was myself why I lost in ping pong oh how bad it was a win-win and a loss of loss that's all that's all it's pretty cool no I don't think that's true I think usually when he was a swept you say I got swept was it serious it was a gentleman's sweep though right no he didn't

win a game my cool throne Hank was four to nothing yes technically to the vipers people are talking about your mental weakness care to care to come in it's five to two in the series so right looks happen looks happen you're smashing yourself in the face with your ping pong listen when I'm winning people say that's why I win and when I lose people say that's why I lose it's fine I don't care just a head case but I will say that the uh the bulletin board material that Hank gave me leading into tonight that that put me over the edge I came out I was I was actually mad it was very jake news by the jake news media who uh wrote a blog taking quotes directly from Hank which I thought he was calling me to chat like casually like haha you're gonna crush I'm looking ahead to playing

somebody else he named three other people in this office he's looking forward to play because he's overlooking damn this train that's like a mj using a quote that I used in making it why would you give that because I am looking forward to us being back in the office and doing school streams with other people hey uh verbal meme this is me looking at an ipad of Hank saying that I took oh he's laughing uh and then my cool throne is chris dollar kerr kerb street uh even if college football doesn't happen they're gonna be doing monday night football so like I feel like it's good for them huh espion announced that if college football isn't happening they're gonna use so they're not going to be the booth if there's no college football but they will be in the booth

announcing football games for the nfl so they're going to be the monday night football team if there's no college football I believe so I feel like they're gonna be college they're gonna use them in the broadcast I don't know if they're gonna be in the booth too but how we totally forgot do you have my gunny on your hot sequel I don't okay how we didn't mention that was that the quickest like turnaround yeah I couldn't believe that they had a video he basically like got called out by his player and then two hours later had a video with his player being like we're gonna change the culture they dropped another one today so he did a scripted like reading sorry reading off a teleprompter I don't think I didn't watch I think he did I think he apologized this time but in the

video it was him and it was is it chubba chubba chubba it was him chubba and chubba but I'd say chubba they did the predator handshake the drew breeze photoshop shutter stock thing nice the white and black guy doing the high high five freedom of speech is good to see freedom of consequence that's I mean that's crazy people can't figure that out like you could say whatever you want but you can also have the consequences of your player calling you out also I don't know when we expected college football coaches in general to be the most in tune on these uh the least yeah they are they worst I don't think that Mike Gundy actually watches OAN I think that he just likes the logo they like oh uh I think he was I think he likes the record he's commented on it and been like oh that's

right straight news yeah I don't think so dude that's like the opposite that's what's crazy about it is that Mike Gundy you're right he was on the record like a month ago just like out of nowhere being like by the way have you checked out OAN yeah facts straight facts no frills Gundy's gonna come in wearing a an American hero's channel shirt but it is funny that like the college coaches they essentially are it's like it's like back to like feudal feudalism in Europe like they're the kings in the vassals or whatever their little area and they don't hear anything they don't know anything else they know that they are like the end all be all in their little college town and the world outside just goes on around to me the story wasn't so much about the actual shirt he was wearing and

the objection that the player might have had to what OAN and how they cover the Black Lives Matter movement to me their story is like when when Chubba came out and said that I'm not going to play and he's one of the best players in the country yes when he came out and he said I'm not going to play unless some changes happen that to me was a major major shift in power in college football yeah because people because he said that his team was lined up behind him and if enough players were to say something like that no matter what the issue was no matter what they were protesting against or disagreeing with about whether it's the system or what their coach is doing they have a shitload of power see I think I just I think that scares some people I disagree I think

college players they're still such an imbalance like they because they're only there for three or four years if the coach wins they can do whatever they want and and you even saw it in the apology or whatever the video was Mike Gundy didn't apologize Chubba did so it was like wait what who's the pop like it was the imbalance was right in front of us but I think I think Gundy apologized later you're right there's definitely an imbalance but a lot of people got very very scared about what could happen yeah I just don't think they just run you got these places like they just run everything if they have their boosters in line and they win football games none of them are like winning coaches don't get fired in college football oh no I'm not

saying that Gundy was going to get fired right that's not the route I'm going down I'm just saying like you you saw the players kind of realized that if they band together that they can make shit happen and I'm just saying we'll see if it happens I think I think things are going to change moving forward I don't know what it's going to look like but there was definitely like a different feel to it um all right who's oh you're up pft my hot seat is zubaz okay zubaz another one billy billy do you want to take this one no no i'm going bankrupt I was going to put the ground brothers on the hot seat yeah yeah so zubaz they declared bankruptcy so now this means in the last like three months it's been the xfl zubaz and usa rugby I gotta figure out how to start bidding on

some shit no we turn them all that and with a ball we turn it all into one sport oh I like like calvin ball and all the uniforms are zubaz yes yes hank yes I like that you know what this is this is synergy happening right now this is this is the universe sending us a big signal it's time to become commissioners yep my other hot seat is uh giants kickers so uh rohas got arrested yesterday because I guess he he drove through an intersection he was drunk allegedly t-bone to car tried to run from the police not good uh so giants kickers have been on a real real hot streak of running a foul of the law the last couple years that also means um there's an opening in the nfl so another kick I was going to say jane kowski bring back jane kowski a little fun fact

from our guy warren sharp uh no team has kicked more field goals of 35 yards or less losing my multiple scores in the giants the last five years this is where pft could excel no pressure your team's already getting crushed damn can I just say something I don't want to play for the giants oh I will play for most that's so big of you to take your name out of the ring also the the culture that they have of kickers there I don't I don't feel like that would be there's a legacy that I want to contribute to and you and you and weatherford in the locker room he was a punter wasn't he yeah kickers kickers our punters punters aren't kickers punters aren't kickers no punter they're alpha kicker a punter is a kicker that got I thought anyone that lost his virginity at 22

instead of 21 and a half oh I think big honors might be more alpha than kickers uh disagree they're always like bigger how many points two punters get but they make tackles and they can kick the ball really meh the kickers are like the last I feel like punters I mean think about like marquette king that guy's a fucking baller jane kowski counterpoint pat macky wwe yeah macky both nope no he's a punter he was he was a kicker yeah before he was a punter why yeah now he but he was a punter uh the grammatica brothers oh getting injured celebrating yeah the guayos dude where's the last time a punter ripped a turtle in half turtle turtle name ever for a turtle fucking shame man shame my cool throne is reality show conspiracy theories so uh like I alluded to earlier

in the show I've become a big top chef fan I've actually been a big top chef fan going on I don't know like 10 years 12 years whenever I back in like 2007 is when I first got into but it's the finale tomorrow on Thursday and in the preview for the finale they have Padma awarding the winner and saying congratulations you are top chef but people have gone back and rewound it and they can tell by her inflection that she's genuinely surprised to be awarding it to this person so now the internet is thinking the betting odds have shifted that it's going to be Stephanie who's not even a chef at a restaurant she's a private chef who's really good so people are thinking that Melissa the odds on favorite is not going to win I'm seeing Melissa through and through anyone that knows me

knows that but it seems like Stephanie might pull I refuse to keep looking up on that you're going to get spoiled someone's gonna someone's gonna spoil it for you it's not what do you mean it's they're under an nda it's like yeah someone I mean someone always knows reality steve someone always somebody tell me if you know who wins top chef let me know so I can bet on it but my my money is on Stephanie the moment's going to be too big for uh and she's gonna I don't know make a store bought risotto and still undercook it um all right my hot seat is us because I realized something we never we've been doing this podcast for four and a half years we've gotten exponentially bigger year over year keep growing little brag we brought back our intern billy football and we never

reintroduced him and there's probably a lot of people who started listening the last two or three years who probably have no idea who billy football is so billy football is our intern he was our first intern in the summer 2016 617 he was uh he showed up for his interview with six pages stapled on his resume and about five and a half of the six pages were just completely made up he was some of them were stats from his high school football yeah he was like I can I can I'm a high school quarterback I can get you guys in shape and he is a gem of a person this is what sealed the deal for me when I was like we gotta get this kid I had lost my remote my tv remote and we were doing a bunch of interviews and I did billy's interview and then he was

interviewing with you guys in like a few hours and I was like hey I need you to run to best buy we were on 28th street best buy was on like 22nd street I was like I need you to go to best buy and get me a new remote and he legitimately came back in like two and a half minutes like full sweat and I was like what how did he's like dude I thought I thought I was getting filmed I ran as fast as I possibly could like he literally sprinted like seven blocks and then sprinted back with the remote like I literally went to the bathroom and came back here you go what what we need to do though so billy was our first intern he's back with us which he always had a job back with us he he went with us to uh when we interviewed JJ Watt he went with us stayed at Kyle Long's house he

he went with us to ESPN the first time that we were on their campus with Rassillo he almost like he almost fucking truck sticked Rassillo in the uh in in the hallway he's like a horse when you bring billy inside somewhere he's always sprinting around places and then he just like in between taking sips of water he's just always on the go so we need to what we're going to do is we'll tweet out the the essence of billy is uh his first summer he accidentally tweeted a picture of pft's dick and also doxxed his phone number so his within 10 minutes of each other his his his uh punishment was he had to give a power point oh wow was that small uh well no if you see the angle that it was at you'll you'll understand yeah it was uh so the he had to do his a power point

on cybersecurity and fire salamanders for the entire office we have it we videotaped it it was fantastic that is billy in his essence he's a gem of a person so sorry by us for not reintroducing him but he's back he's better than ever he's going to get us in shape he's got a whoop which i'll get to in a second and billy it's great to have you back thank you so much i am and he also doesn't talk in the mic i'm always he's never talks in the mic a little concerned about him though because last night i got a notification that he tweeted at us saying that he wants money to create a different species of frog oh i'm down for that to me i want to hear his explanation behind it because it seems like you're getting into a Jurassic Park type situation

where you're like splicing reptile DNA to get i'll get to that but really quickly i just want you all listeners to know that uh you know i'm always on the hot seat and i know i might not do the best on the pod but i'm always taking care of the guys and just like yeah i know that like as long as i can get them candy and stuff as fast as i can yeah billy's for the boys then they billy also put us on a diet that summer and uh would just like hand us food and be like billy are you sure this is okay to be on the diet and he would be like hold on one sec and then he'd run back to his desk google something and then be like actually don't eat that that was also i was like interviewing him i was like billy what what do you want to do this summer he's like i want to train

big cat yeah i was like that okay yeah and he would grill for us every day which we got to bring that back we had to have you start grilling for us again my favorite part of billy was when he would bring the gallons of water up to us every day he'd give us a gallon of water and he'd have all these motivational messages written on the side yes bring that back to i want water i want a gallon of water again back and um all right my cool throne is des bryant he tweeted uh tested for a coronavirus negative hell yeah so if anyone was wondering what was he hanging out with ziki lelliot this is just a perfect timing like okay wait did that was also hilarious uh the hippo thing did des bryant just commit a hippo violation on himself yes yes um all right billy what's your hot seat cool throne

hot seat lamar jackson for playing a little beach football how'd you come up with that one good um that was good you figured it out yeah i knew i thought tommy was gonna choose it so i chose no you didn't you're not the lie you're thinking well how would i i thought it was gonna be obvious but um uh yeah so he was playing football on the beach and he scrambled and he almost got hit by jet ski and but he's okay which is good so cool throne i actually thought he thought more ravens i thought people on the internet were going to be way more upset with him yeah like that was a casual like it was a terrible look yeah if i was if i that was like you know tom brady was on the patriots i'd be shitting my pants and oh well tom brady wouldn't if tom brady had scrambled and run a 4 240 down the

beach and had to jump 30 feet over a jet ski you would have shit your pants yeah i would have been heated so hot seat lamar um cool throne uh ravens but also cool throne patriots fans because tom brady just came out and me personally i think that him in the buccaneers jersey makes him look like a total villain because it's just the color schemes like big like sith lord vibes adam sandler in the longest yard yeah like red and gray like he went from blue and red which is like you know like i feel like synergy good jedi and then it's like sith lord but that's just me but um yeah um so he uh i can't even remember what he looks like in a patriots uniform anymore after seeing just like my slate queen see how long you could just talk monologue do you guys want

to hear about the frog yes okay so um african bullfrogs are really cool they're like the heaviest frogs they get about this big which is about the size of a thanksgiving turkey and um so there's this has any have you guys ever seen that thing on netflix of the guy who injects he inject himself with crisper genetically engineering it was definitely turning himself into chicken you know just say youtube okay youtube youtube crisper i forgot the guy's name anyway he sells these kids yeah he sells these gene editing kits and it's four frogs so he does it on like lab frogs no regular frogs like i'm out so like you're not injecting you're not injecting frogs no are you buying a kit of dna from a guy on youtube that shoots himself up with batter

to get logic isn't bad though science science teachers do it all time crisper crisper technology so we could make this frog which is already giant we could make it even bigger so we're just doing like cage mutant ninja turtles for a frog yes can we just we're gonna make a mutant frog yeah i'm but it's totally legal with science because like you can like dissect no it's not this you get that sex where we if i was a frog i would be like oh i'm a frog what you're gonna make me a huge mutant frog i'd be so in but the frog consent we're gonna ask the frog okay i'm gonna give you live mice every day no here's what you do billy just set up like a pad in front of him and be like jump to the left if no jump to the right if yes do you consent to us making you swole as hell

and then just keep videotaping it until he jumps to the left i think if you look at which frog you're gonna buy you can see in their eyes if they want to be an alpha or not yeah yeah like do you really want it yeah yeah get the get the frog that hates you the most yeah they're really vicious they got teeth remember yes we do remember um all right so that's billy football we're happy that he's back that was part of my take on bioethics yeah all right so billy also before we get to Blake Bortles whoop is a great sponsor of ours i've been wearing my whoop every single day pft has as well whoop tracks everything it's your sleep it's your fitness it's your heart rate it will get you going great you can get so in tune with your body the whoop

strap 3.0 is the smartest fitness tracker out there and tells you how much sleep you need how much stress you're putting on your body and helps you monitor your health it's going to help you manage all the daily stress that comes with being a dad so you get it to new dad levels for father's day not just for athletes for every day guys every day dads even some pga tour pros use whoop every day to get advantage on the course whoop gives you 24 seven data on your activities but it's also fun way to get competitive with your friends and that's where billy comes in because we got billy he's got a whoop starting today you can now join the official bar stool team on whoop use c o m m dash b s t o o l to join in the app so it's calm be stool in the app billy football

we're participating with everyone so if you join you can go up against billy he we're gonna track everything with billy what was your sleep last night billy uh i just got today but you're all on the hot seat because you're gonna wake up and look at the app and be like whoa billy's kicking my ass yeah all these stats while you're sleeping inferior yeah while you're sleeping i'm doing fun things you know i don't you think i don't sleep in too billy that's part of the deal i need you to be like at peak rest do you think we could put a whoop on the frog we could put a whoop on my dog yeah i've been saying there should be what about a log there should be fit bits for dogs yeah all right so billy's gonna be ready to go against everyone if you uh

come in first place you'll win 250 dollars in pmt merch all you gotta do listen whoop is the best sign up it is so great to be able to like track exactly how you're doing day to day it's the best i've gone through all the other ones this is the best one i've ever had so get on whoop today with code take for 15% off please please please beat billy do not let billy win this so go right now w h o o p it will make you so much stronger faster better sleep better everything because you'll be so in tune knowledge is power and whoop has all the knowledge and billy football is going down i need someone to join i need someone to beat him so go again sign up for whoop whoop dot com take for 15 off and then use uh com dot or slash b stool to join in the app and compete

against billy to win some prizes okay here he is our good friend blake portals okay we now welcome on our very very good friend a long time recurring guest one of our best friends i'm gonna just fucking say one of our best friends it's blake portals blake uh we're calling you because blake of the year is coming up it might actually even be next week we're not gonna release it till july 6th but we wanted to check in with all of our blakes beforehand we talked to blake griffin last week how are you feeling are you committed are you recommitted this year because last year you were disappointing and how's the general vibe in the blake portals households uh it's pretty good i feel pretty good i got a lot of redeeming there were a lot of redeeming to do last year

with tough um i had had a bad showing there and i think blake griffin probably set a record that will never be broken and how quickly he answered so i got a lot of makeup i mean it's all kept on tv playing this weekend he's got a phenomenal mustache going blake griffin's obviously the defending champ so um i gotta kind of pick my stuff up so i'm ready this year how will we get like a week's heads up or how we're gonna tell you notice you guys gonna give us it's gonna be a three days it's gonna be a three day period so it's gonna be like a uh uh monday through wednesday the call could happen at any time okay i like that okay i'll be ready because my schedule has never been more wide open yeah what are you been doing so yeah what's i have a theory blake um i think

that you're being blackballed by the nfl because you drive a tesla have you heard about that no i haven't but uh i think it's tough to argue with yeah it is what they're sponsored by all kinds of motor oil companies i mean they don't want you to drive clean right yeah they're definitely promoting uh the gas and the power what is the latest like uh it's probably i don't know if it's a source i think most of the time it's a source subject but knowing you you're you're a go with the flow guy like what's what's the latest what's uh have we got any buzzed we need to get the buzz going we got we could definitely create some buzz yeah it's kind of a question that i get asked pretty frequently and um it's gotten to the point now where i just give different answers every time

somebody says the rest so i mean i've sent the highlight tape to the lingerie league so i'm kind of just waiting and hanging on wait give us all the answers yeah give us all the answers just rattle them all off that's well i i uh for a while i just pretended like i was going back to la even though i only signed a one-year deal and they didn't resign me just to kind of um keep the conversation from going any longer and then i've thrown the lingerie highlight tape out there a couple of times that's a good one and then a lot of times i just pretend like i don't hear the master question okay those are three great options right now those are kind of uh yeah those are kind of my go to so yeah no just hanging out staying in shape uh i'm working out at the house and um

trying to be a dad do all that and uh waiting for somebody to call us so hopefully i'll hear from somebody would you like us to put together a highlight reel for you like we could we could edit a sweet mixtape together like put some have it like start in black and white with a heartbeat and then kick in some like edm music that comes from the sidelines from from last yeah would would you like to see that to like go out of my season last year yeah definitely maybe mix in a little link in park or something in the background too yeah okay yeah we can make that happen well here's the good news is um i don't know if you've caught any coach dugs but you actually are the backup quarterback uh for tennessee right now so we might just restart the whole career and if i

stay with tennessee another year you'd be my starter there you go actually somebody told me that the other day that uh they said hey what you did last year is what's going on and coach dugs his career right now you're just over there hanging out on the sidelines yeah perfect man that's on the on the nice little home over there yeah and you're you're a five-star recruit um different race but you're a five-star recruit so they show they show your graphic after every uh first extra point to be like look at Blake portals out there holding the ball sounds perfect yeah definitely uh i mean i could have got a little tan early on yeah yeah yeah right exactly are you down florida right now yeah i'm in uh i'm still in jackson what's that like down there i forgot the place here

hanging out here are places closed down or they open up now no florida i don't know about all the florida i guess northeast florida um nothing ever really changed you know it was kind of like everybody's obviously that is still in california and la was kind of shut down and you know i don't know if it was mandatory but i think it was pretty close to be mandatory for people to wear mask and i mean there's there's definitely a majority of people here not wearing masks you know restaurants have been opened up for a couple weeks now um so i mean it's it's been pretty active can we get you back on the jaguars i don't know i'm not sure if that's something um that uh is in their future plans i think they uh they were set with the last goodbye and i don't know if they want to reunite

hold on let me finish so what if we just did a fucking sick i'm coming home video yeah hey i mean perfect i'm in whatever you guys can do or put together to help me get a phone call and have a job again will be incredible yes i mean doug morone he's a big like sentimental guy if you can get him crying about something then i think you can really control his decision making so if i mean we can we can send him an i'm coming home video i'm sure that watching that he'd be like yeah you know what me and blake had some great times to get those if you love something set it free if it was meant to be it'll return you know right never true or word yeah maybe get him uh get him a little riled up emotionally and then just kind of throw there's some baloney in his

face and see uh see how happy we can make him maybe maybe we could get that done here's another idea what if we get jared to uh maybe do like a e 60 where he comes out and says that he was addicted to playing fortnight last year and you were such a good teammate that you uh intervened and got him to stop and you like that's just the type of guy you are right and then i overtook his fortnight addiction you know so that he didn't have to yes um right i think i think that's a that's a good storyline okay obviously i had a little more free time than he did yeah i like that one though yeah we can we can manufacture a lot of storylines how about how about this one you uh went you finally went to the dentist and you got your halitosis fixed so you no longer have bad breath

so don't worry about that in the huddle guys right that's completely taken care of strict uh strict tic tac in uh gum regimen as well so nothing to worry about there that's clean i love that i think we i think we yeah whatever whatever what else happened in the next couple weeks yeah hey i appreciate it whatever uh whatever storyline so you guys create a neither confirmed nor deny what is your facial hair game like right now it's kind of tough um honestly because it's i've gone with the shave head right we talked about that and then like the the blending of the beard into you know the short hair on top is is definitely an art and i have not figured that out so i get a haircut at the house and then i kind of shave the face and and you know look like a

caveman for a little while and then i shave it again so it's uh looking forward to actually go into a real barber here pretty soon which i'm pretty sure they're open so i need to do that what what about uh hair plugs i i thought about it i feel like once like the brian are like your thing's tough you know like once you commit to go involved you can't just pop up with hair again like this would be a perfect time though anybody everybody already knows but this is a perfect all right what about forget hair plugs what about a toupee no one does toupees anymore if you did a toupee and you said it you're like yo it's a fucking toupee guys like that would get so much great buzz going i've uh whether to play

toupee or hair plugs i've always kind of wanted to do something like that just show up back on the scene with a full head of hair and just pretend like nothing happened yes like i don't if anybody asked about it just say like i don't know what you're talking about this has always been here i'm talking something outrageous too like a ponytail ponytail Blake would be an incredible look do you imagine that ponytail hanging out of the back of the helmet i'm telling you running down the field in the lingerie league you'd have to skin show and you'd have to be beating away gms with a stick if you showed up out there like you did a private workout with a ponytail like you would get offers within probably 24 hours i'll work on it i could i mean i could

probably grow a ponytail i mean the the sides of my head go grow pretty pretty rapidly so it's just the tops a bit behind but i mean i could get the balding rat tail going for sure that'd be sick that'd be amazing what about oh what about the bucks could we get you on the box with brady oh no here's what we do play uh that'd be pretty sweet i think gabbard's still there here's what we do we just market you we got to get you a covid test okay that's step one we got to get you tested for the antibodies and then if you have the antibodies we just market you as the quarterback who will not get covid this year so that way if there's a last minute something needs to happen on a saturday somebody tests positive boom pick up the Blake phone

that's all we need just a safe bet we already know he's he's cured of this and doesn't have it and he's ready to go and he's not going to infect anybody else right so there's no risk i love that and you're a great locker room guy too on top of all this so all right we jake marsh who uh jake marsh who who listens before this goes out we'll we'll actually make a list and we'll blog it all so just put it out out there like here are the story lines surrounding Blake portals and it's going to be all like new hair maybe coronavirus also maybe good breath definitely i mean well one of one of these story lines is definitely going to catch on somebody's going to see it and at least think about like ah you know maybe we should call up yes yes how's uh how's your golf

game uh golf games okay playing a lot that was one thing i mean outside of restaurants nothing really close down here but um golf courses stayed open the whole time so got a lot of golf and um kind of wind it down now though it gets gets a little hot this time of year here so tone it back in touch yeah um we have billy football here i don't even know if you've ever met billy football oh you guys have met billy do you have a question for my oh wait my billy football knowledge is so on billy hold on hold on go ahead Blake sorry billy i gotta tell you this i saw this i've seen a couple dugs games in the other night when you gave the x-call right into a pick to that backside cover two safety that was a tough one oh he's making fun of your x-call you gave the x-call too

late until yes yes yes all right we're getting billy headphones he's not he got triggered yeah yeah and your defense big cat was a touch late on it i saw what you saw hey mr. portals how are you yeah billy football what's going on bud so you know when coaches say you can't throw over the middle late that's a common you know thing like yeah it's like flying a kite in the forest you know so big cat i it's a cover two right Blake you know where i come from so where do you attack a cover two down the pipes and outside right right so it's wide open and he throws it like 10 seconds after that's not true i threw it i threw it before you said i said x before the game before the snap and you threw it like 10 seconds after you broke uh uh uh uh what were you supposed to have a

question for when are you supposed to throw a bender like when you're supposed to throw a bender i mean you gotta throw it early i mean it sounds to me like uh like the backup quarterback might need to get a little play inside yeah thank you mr. portals do you have a question for him give a you're just trying to turn blake against you yeah no go ahead ask him that uh come on billy hey blake what's your max squat um good question billy um i yeah i couldn't tell you the last time uh we squatted a little bit i mean we don't especially as a quarterback like you're not really maxed out anymore we used to do it in college all the time uh if i had to max out right now to do one rep of squat godly um maybe i could

do 300 pounds doubtful but maybe a slim chance there somewhere around there damn what about still bees what about bench press oh i haven't legitimately bench pressed in college big dumb bell bench guy bans you know just get the pliability quarterback workout going yeah that's true that's true um all right what coach do you think bench press was uh oof um i mean vrables gotta be up there right yeah for one he played he's still in pretty good shape and relatively young i've dug probably up there he's a big boy yeah i'm sure is yeah i'd have to go brave i'd imagine vrabel probably wins that contest he absolutely all right i got one last question for you blake um and we're gonna talk to you next week at some point i'll text you when

when we're gonna do the blake of the year probably next week um have you talked to anyone about tight end no so i was that was a big part of uh really what i spent all last year doing was i'd get out early to practice and make sure when shan got on the field um that you know i'd run a couple routes by him and have jaren drill some at me just try and you know get it in the back of his head like wow he can catch uh but i got nothing out of that so um it's still out there i've kind of floating the idea around people you know telling everybody i can that you know give me an opportunity i think every i could make something happen playing my natural position i like that i like that blake so we're gonna get you out there we're gonna get the covid buzz going around you i mean the anti

covid buzz don't don't actually get a test because we're just gonna say it and then we can feel we can worry about actually backing it up later so uh we're gonna get the buzz going for you being an anti-covid quarterback immune to it uh what else is there the ponytail the breath willing to play tight end the breath is great securing uh jared from his fortnight addiction yeah great teammate um absorbing teammates addictions uh how's your pooch pun uh not bad i'd imagine probably not as good as yours but um i mean serviceable okay not bad pooch pun got it put that on the list too all right i i i'm excited i think we're gonna get it figured out um we hopefully we see as soon as well it's been too long um you also have a job here if you ever want to stop football so

that's always yeah i think i told you that the other day i that could be coming up soon i might uh might be seeing if i can take billy football's job here soon don't do anything for something opens up yeah and we'll actually pay you we'll pay you billy we won't play took your job billy yeah blake just said he wants it your job so oh he just gave a oh man no way dude you do it so much better just like you do it so much better all right blake uh thank you as always we'll talk to you probably next week i'll give you a heads up though all right this sounds good let me know good talking to you guys i appreciate the question billy all right see you see you man see you blake thanks that interview with blake portals was brought to you by our great friends over at

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right now the best part of my move was loading up my underwear drawer with nothing but me on these i'm strictly a me on these household right now officially got rid of all the old stragglers that were still hanging on by thread quite literally sometimes i'm only me on these all the time when i'm wearing underwear and not rocking my bird dog shorts that's a fact i'm a me on these men up and down me on these has this brilliant thing called an undies membership where every month the softest undies ever appear at your door the convenience factors clutch you never have to leave the house oh and you also get site wide savings early access and free shipping it's pure joy me on these are made from micro modal and irresistibly soft sustainable fabric that encases your nether

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story let's start there james for people who don't know your story and it is an incredible one you were diagnosed with cancer while at pittsburgh in college you were diagnosed while you were checking out your knee correct can you tell exactly how it all went down yeah it was the year 2015 um first game of the season my junior year you know poise to have a big junior year after you know a good year in 2014 and uh yeah first game of the season i tear my knee and during the rehab for that trying to make a comeback just working out i knew things were off and you know i was shortness of breath all the symptoms i was having and i couldn't put my finger on what it was and after further testing you know through a little process it was figured out that it was

hostage lymphoma and so it was just crazy how that came about you know me being a running back i'm thinking you know my knee is the like the worst thing that could happen to me you know that i know what was what was next to come um so yeah it was just like a it was a roller coaster man it was uh it was a crazy journey it's been a crazy journey so far but here's how the story today and so it's a blessing yeah i was reading about that so you you tore your mcl right against youngstown state yeah sir yeah youngstown state would it be fair to say that bo pelini saved your life then you know i mean after everybody played a part in that you know was there um so so after you receive your diagnosis i mean i think we a lot of us have

read your story and heard a lot about you and admire what you've been through and how you persevered was there uh were there any like dark moments in the weeks after the initial diagnosis or were you always just um like dedicated you were saying okay i'm i'm gonna lean on my faith i'm gonna lean on the people around me and we're gonna get through this oh for sure there was definitely those dark times i tried to you know try to remove all negativity you know because i knew that could do nothing for me you know i had a fight ahead of me and it was gonna take you know my max effort and that is where all my focus needed to be um but it was definitely not sort of being atop of my game in college and then having to deal with that and um you know just watching like all

the other bags and everybody and watching my teammates going to compete without me uh it was definitely rough so you know it's human it should have those dark moments and that's where i get the title of the book you know fear is a choice i had a lot of fear you know fear if i ever was going to be able to play again or get back to returning to top shape so there's a couple things but um you know i i definitely leaned on my faith and and my teammates and i had so much support from really everybody around the world um who who helped me get through where i went through you're talking the book about life's plot twists as well and uh i'd have to imagine and you can tell me the the plot twists that have happened in 2020 to america and the world coronavirus

obviously everything that's going on right now with uh people fighting for you know justice when it comes to the police and black lives matter do you have a different perspective when big things like that happen you're like look i've i've dealt with things i know how to overcome these things can you cope better than the rest of us that might be dealing with these tough things in life for the first time um i'd like to think that i've you know had to mature early from what i went through at you know cancer at 21 and and was you know forced to do and grow up this early but um you know i'm still hurt and affected by you know the injustice that's going on in america right now and and all that type of those issues that that we're facing

i feel it and i'm hurting for all the people who lost their lives it's very unfortunate and right now football kind of needs to take like a backseat because we've got a lot of issues that we need corrected uh in this country and so but i think definitely what i went through i'm able to to just understand and and i have hope you know i was in a really really dark place and my hope i've seen a light and i got pulled out of there and the world and and black people are in a dark place right now but i think if they just have hope um you know and you know make positive efforts towards towards change then we then you know we can grow what what has been mike tomlin's message to the team because i would imagine he is uh you know he's a very noted players coach

players first coach he always seems to have a really good pulse of his team well how has he talked to you guys after you know everything that's gone on he's been doing a phenomenal job we're bringing us together um you know coach was real hurt and affected by it you know his his father you know went through things he went through now his son is seeing things and so it is tough for him it's tough for all of us really on our team but the beautiful thing about football is you know our whole life everybody on our team we've been in diverse locker rooms and and so we kind of know what a brotherhood feels like and so during our meetings we just been trying to come together and and think of ways that we can make a positive change and and just

continue to raise awareness more than there already has been and and just work on something that's gonna better you know the society and so um you know we're trying to do all the right things but we're definitely talking about it and trying to put a plan in place so it sounds like the Steelers are going to be supportive of whatever you guys choose to do whether that be kneeling during the national anthem staying in line whatever whatever outlet you guys are going to focus on here the the Steelers have your back on this yeah I agree man we had men our owners our coaches our staff man everybody from the top down what we're all in we're all down with the movement we're all we all know that there's need to be changed so whatever the Steelers organizations comes up with me and

my teammates I know we're going to be on board that's great um on a little lighter note Big Ben just shaved his beard and somehow lost 500 pounds when he shaved it I don't know what it was about the thing that he was growing but it definitely it added a few pounds are you have you have you gone out and worked out with him yet are you excited to play with him are you worried about the first time that he straps on the walking boot after his press conference and and uh and kind of dangles that thing around a little bit yeah so we um you know we we linked up and we were throwing there was a little video that got released of us throwing throwing a field with juju and swiss here and man um he looks good out there and so we're definitely excited to have our guy back

you know just taking a field with him I'm gonna do everything I can to to make his job easier and getting that run game going buff man his presence alone just him being back out there you know it's year 17 for him so um and and I know he'll still have those those those butterflies and and he talks about that and and that's just what makes us play makes us play you know up to our our level so uh I'm excited for for his comeback the whole team is we're gonna rally around him and it'll be fun it'll be something special have you thought about bringing the mullet back I had I had not this not the one that I had until I was 18 the first one when I had the lines on my head yes but you know I might I might I might grow something out the back I'm not sure but as far as that one cut with

it no that that one's retired ah the mullet is so nice so you you are like a Pittsburgh legend you know you're from Pennsylvania you went to pit you're on the Steelers what makes what define or explain to everyone outside of Pittsburgh what exactly is a yinzer and what makes yinzer so great because we love Pittsburgh man truthfully um like I said I played like you said I played my college by my professional ball really I'm not even sure the exact definition of a yinzer um I know that that probably has to be somebody who just is Pittsburgh throwing through loves it who you know is diehard steeler fan pirates and and are penguins you know just just loves the city so when there's definitely yinzers everywhere around here but it's nothing but love in the city okay

should be cool so that's a that's a different definition than I've heard I've heard it's a yinzer is uh hard of gold shit for brains I've never heard that just like salt of the earth people just fucking true sports fans you know kind of meatball sports fans but we love that's why I mean we we make fun of everything here but like at the end of the day we kind of are those meatball sports fans where we take things too seriously and get mad too quickly like that's what that's what I always imagine a yinzer is and I love people like that because they are true salt of the earth yeah we we definitely got some fanatic fans who you know who go all out for us and so you know that that's part of sale at nation they do it the best yeah that's right yeah uh what is a more

important Pittsburgh tradition the rib festival or when they play double renegade at a night game oh I don't think nothing really compares to that renegade you know it seems like we make a big play every time that that that thing comes on so there's nothing like it you know so that's all fans when the screen goes black and you know the whole crowd gets pumped up and that's something to witness for sure so do you limit it do you limit your renegade intake during the week so that it's that much more special on Sunday like if you hear it come on the radio do you change the station because you're like I can't deal with this right now that's a sunday song well you know any radio station I'm probably listening to renegade's part not up next on the playlist you know so

I hear it on game days and that's enough of me what's it like having muscles on your back I'm looking at a picture you uh what's it like having muscles on your back that I don't even think I have I don't think I have those muscles like even if I lifted forever it's a triangle you're back what the fuck is going on with your back man man this is work I've been getting after it man I changed the diet up I've been I've been two two times a day all week just getting to it and no I definitely I didn't know I had those muscles in my back either so we just getting after it in the room one day and that's how it happened Jesus Christ you're a fucking beast you actually you're one of those people we have guests on every now and then who just make me feel like

the smallest person in the world because you had you beat cancer and you were back the next year for your senior year and were phenomenal and then went and got drafted and played for the Steelers there's pretty much nothing you can't do I would imagine man that's love bro yeah you know I'm just I'm just trying to do a big man they I'm trying to you know give them all and it's a blessing so everything I'm just trying to take advantage of this life that we live in it's been nothing but great so far so I'm trying to be a beast every day yeah what um what how many people have come up to you and been like hey man you saved my fantasy season I gotta imagine that was big when Levi on Bell I decided to sit out yeah that's the only thing I heard for for

months you know during that during that season and after that so it was all love though you know see what they they get serious over that fantasy football and that lets you hear it too when you not performing so it's cool though dude you're that actually we're kind of joking about that but that actually makes you a legend for life like people fantasy owners will always remember a running back or wide receiver that comes in and saves their season so like in 20 years people will be like remember that year James Connor that was sick well I hope I can put some more years together and I just hold on to one year no it's true yeah yeah but I'm saying you have that one like most people don't have that one you have that one for sure and it's also because that one year you weren't

necessarily the highest touted running back over that season you were kind of a question mark coming in for levion so people probably picked you up in like the seventh eighth round something like that and then you put up that season yeah I've been I've been learning a little bit more about it you know I don't play fantasy football so you know I never understood why it was so big but then I realized that I call it a steal and all of that so you know I'm starting to get the hang of it a have uh has anybody paid you money like given you a cut of what they want in fantasy football and been like hey fair is fair here you go here's a little taste no no I ain't get that nobody broke me out of that so you know I just let everybody keep that money man it's all good um when when

you're playing and big ben comes up limping are you ever nervous or you're like nah he's like this happens all the time he'll be fine I know if he can play he can go so um I've seen it a couple of times and you know he just continues to play on so um most of the time man he plays through it all he's really a beast and and so you know I really don't get too too worried about it I just hope it's nothing ever nothing serious yeah yeah what about what about the duck magic last year our good friend uh devlin Hodges has has he taught you how to do a duck call maybe even trying uh but you know now he's the expert that he got all types of trophies forward and so he's a legend in that game but yeah man when duck came in he did awesome man you know he's such a cool dude and we had a great

vibe and and we was he was rolling you know for a couple weeks so um I know he's excited to get back to it as well I always wondered when you when you did come in for levy on bell uh was the offensive line like really really excited that they were able to block for somebody that would actually hit the hole yeah man you know um you know I remembered uh in a preseason game my first game 2018 and uh we we took the field and I think we scored him like three three running plays and uh it was just like man you know they all the line you know they hyped me up man they uh they showed a lot of love they rallied behind me with the situation you know and they was just like we're gonna roll with whoever's there they still had all the love and respect for levy on

but um I just remember that and it was like just rallying behind me and that I think that made it easier yeah when it comes to bell he's obviously an extremely talented player he's an awesome running back I don't think anyone's going to dispute that but I would also think at the same time like it's easier for an offensive lineman who likes to move forward who likes to get into that rhythm having a dude like you that's going to just like go go in there and just crack some skulls yeah that's what I'm trying to do that's what I'm trying to get to you know sort of line oh hard to hold their blocks for too long um they made it work with levy on you know he he had obviously you know great seasons after season so I think a couple different styles work but um you know I'm just

gonna continue to keep playing my game after I'm sure you've been asked this but it's the first time we're asking you this after the uh famous Miles Garrett Mason Rudolph fight uh last year what was it like walking off that field were you just like what the fuck just happened there yeah that was that was crazy I was um in a locker room when it all happened and went down and I just like honestly couldn't come believe my eyes that that just happened and so um it was definitely chaotic um I just hope nothing like that ever happens again but it was it was definitely it was just that that the work to ride back in and all that we just you know kind of couldn't believe what just happened it was ugly yeah but at the same time you're like I'm very glad that I'm friends

with Marquis Pouncy yes yes right yeah you know that that didn't surprise nobody on the team we know Pounce gonna ride regardless that's right the situation whatever it is he he the ultimate teammate that's true um all right I have one last question so we're talking to James Connor right now Pittsburgh Steelers running back he's got a new book out it is called fear is a choice you got to read it an incredible story so going back to your story your you get diagnosed with cancer you go through chemo you beat cancer you come back for your senior year you have uh a thousand yards rushing 16 touchdowns and then after that or I don't know when you said it but you were 60 percent you said you were 60 percent of your like strength that senior year that's

fucking incredible could you really feel it like man I would have made this guy miss or I would have outran this guy if I if I hadn't just beat cancer and coming off of that no question you know that's why you know I put a little post up on Instagram about how I was feeling during my training trying to come back for that season but you know even when I say 60 percent I'm kind of just throwing up throwing the number out there you know I just knew it was in a hundred early on in the season versus Villanova I mean I was I was exhausted nobody knows I was exhausted running out the tunnel you know for the first game of the season and I just remember we're staying there for the national anthem like you know like out of breath from running out the

tunnel because that's how you know still how much you know because 12 rounds of chemotherapy that takes a toll on you and so I just like I got to play this whole game you know I'm starting and all of that and I'm already tired before the game started but slowly you know week after week it started to build back up and and then versus Clemson you know I had some late runs and a fourth some big runs and I was like okay it's coming back a little bit but I mean like I said people it takes you know almost you know year year and something to recover for from 12 rounds of chemo and I know I had to do it in like two months so it was definitely rushed but you know we we made it work yeah yeah I actually have one last last question sorry uh you recently bought your data truck

so awesome video but when you buy your data truck you you were doing it because of the kindness of your heart but was there a small part of you like this shit is gonna go so fucking viral and it's gonna be awesome because those videos are the best those videos are the fucking best when I first got to the league I thought might have been my last year um for my boys Aaron Donald bought his data truck and uh it was recording he like and then and he his dad was super excited about it and me I know my dad I know that he's been wanting a truck for a while um I just I knew his reaction what it's gonna be oh he did well he sold it he sold it well no it's man it was honestly I was bringing the car up to Erie to surprise him but he was actually coming down to Pittsburgh

to see uh for some meetings and to stop and see me and so that's why I think it hit the way it did because it was honestly like a true like reaction like I didn't expect him to see like to see him that fast so it's kind of crazy how that played out so um you know well we needed something positive and and I gave that so that's just what it was it's an awesome video I love those videos 6 million views 35,000 or 36,000 retweets there's but the small part of you was like yeah this is gonna be awesome when it hits Twitter right that's what you want me to say no I mean you know like I listen if I what if people put anything on Twitter right they're hoping that thing get retweeted right like it's 99% is like this is awesome I'm buying my data truck and 1% is like

this is gonna be sick people are gonna be like oh yeah it's 99 to 1 yeah right I mean also yeah there's also gonna be like millions of people that see that awesome acdc shirt that you're wearing too yes that's actually the bigger flex I think is the acdc shirt yeah I'm just you know I had to represent so that shirt was dope did you get did you get it fully like everything in the inside all set up like the the the computer system and everything all the upgrades yeah it's dope why do you know he just had to set up the Wi-Fi in there and do his music and all that and you know he's a simple man so you know he never even want to do all that technology stuff he just wanted you know he was excited that it was always push start because I always the cynical part of me is

like someone buys you know one of those videos drops and it's like they bought like the base model with none of the upgrades felt seats and stuff you can tell you can tell the wheels the wheels are an upgrade already on that thing yeah ice cube quote tweeted it that's pretty awesome yeah when ice cube acknowledges you as being like hey this guy's flexing that's pretty cool that's awesome we should do that for like our internet dad mike flurry we should buy him a truck we should rent him a truck you rent a truck we'll put a bow on it it'll we'll videotape it dropping it off for him and be like here you go dad and then after he gets in and starts driving around be like yeah it's rented and the retweets are real yeah the read you can't take the retweets yeah i'm retweet that

enterprise needs to come pick that up by five o'clock tonight well james thank you so much man this has been awesome everyone go out and buy uh james book fears a choice unbelievable story we're rooting for you um i'm sneaky like people make fun of me around here because i'm a bears fan but for some reason i always fall in love with the Steelers in season like last year i was convinced that you guys uh if you'd gotten in you would have made a run because that defense was just fucking awesome so i always i always sell myself i think it's i think it's big ben slash the uniform but i always sell myself on those uniforms at night yeah we'll always in like late november oh yeah you don't want to play there yeah at night time the black yeah the black with the lights in it you

know a home field or anything like that make sure you're not sleeping with my boy miss though i think mitch gonna come out yes there we go let's go get him hyped up acc for life no that's my dog that's my dog yeah we we i play miss you know senior high school even going at it you know pit versus North Carolina uh you know it's Steelers bears even though you know i wasn't playing that year that was 2017 i was i was sitting but no i think miss you i know i know his work ethic man i know what he's about to do so he's gonna come out fired up that was essentially like you buying me a truck so thank you there you go yeah you know like that i'm so i'm just as hyped yeah like that was but that was our truck no we'll get some retweets off this too you just like showed me a picture

you're like here's a franchise quarterback it's mr miss cam like yes i got this for you i love you big man appreciate you all right thanks so much see you appreciate good luck all right peace that interview with james connor was brought to you by our good friends over at simply safe what's the number one sign of a bad home security system the home security system that's so complicated that you never use it this is exactly the type of security system simply safe has spent a decade fighting against they believe that simple is safer and it's exactly why simply safe is the home security for right now when feeling safe at home has never been more important simply safe was designed to be easy to use while protecting your whole home 24 seven order online with a click

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dot com slash pmt and save a bunch of money okay let's wrap up the show we're going to do again reminder we're going to do uh was it called perfect strength no three three identical strangers three identical strangers unbelievable documentary make sure you watch it we'll review it on friday's show before we go though we wanted to give uh the female listeners a chance to sound off we did the mount rush more mount flush more of things guys do the girls hate on monday's show so we're going to reverse it here we got the submissions things that girls do the guys hate that girls have submitted uh hank clap back go when girls talk about reality tv shows even though guys constantly talk about barstool drama that's actually a very fair point very fair point

but i feel different though i feel like we're with no sports going on there's like a big overlap there yeah like we're talking about top chef you you talk about real housewives yeah outer banks well that's our that's a venn diagram that's where we're finding the middle chicks on guys what guys hate when i keep explaining why i'm mad after he already apologized uh yeah i agree that it's like once i understand why you're mad and i've said sorry what else can i do there's that there's literally nothing i can do there's nothing worse than giving the uh sorry that's not accepted you're like uh because you know in your head in in a guy's brain it's basically playing monopoly the guy out of for a jail free card is just saying sorry like i was wrong i'm sorry

and then when you get the no you what are you even apologizing for it's just that stumped you're like uh i'm sorry you're mad sorry that i apologized without knowing what i was apologizing for yeah that's on us uh when girls gasp while they're driving oh yes that yeah when there's like a person crossing the street 150 yards away oh my god oh when a girl gasps while you're driving yes okay yes yes oh don't watch out yeah did you even see that dog yeah did you see that box in the middle of the highway we could have hit it no the worst is when they're gasping at something on their phone and it's not even yeah outside yeah and you're like what what you like slam on the brakes it's probably that's like she's fucking this cock it's like oh come on uh oh i like some of these

responses you can tell that the girl is listening in real time because she started with like five ooze like she's like oh yeah uh oh when they buy you an expensive ass dinner and you eat like two bites and then she made this the i don't actually bonus if you say you're hungry later i don't actually get that that part is bad but i don't hate it because i just i just eat it i just eat everything there's no problem play club i don't really have a problem with that because i was going to spend the money anyways and so as long as i'm getting my as long as i'm eating mine and you get the credit for the nice dinner i will eat off of another person's plate no questions i actually usually don't even notice i'm just like i eat my food my steak was great yeah um

when you when it's a when it's a one night stand in the morning you're looking forward to some solid sex you know start the day off right and you quickly realize they're a literal two-pump chump and come in two seconds then proceeds to roll over and go back to sleep but you're at your own apartment so it's not like you can leave so you walk around the bed banging shit loudly hoping they get up and leave and then they have no situational awareness so they don't leave for another five hours wait this has happened to me five this is wait that's it this is the thing that girls eat guys don't hate no she sounds like the guy got an orgasm and five hours of extra sleep it sounds like she is totally on board with the two-pump chump yeah clears up the rest of the day no

flush warm things girls do blocking all the girls like no seriously back in the day if we're looking at prehistoric times it was super advantageous to nut early because then you just move on and you're not stationary so there are no predators that can track you down blocking all the girls i don't trust on his phone at night when he's sleeping yeah that's kind of a psycho move yeah i probably don't like that things girls do that guys hate when they can't decide on where to eat uh huh yeah i don't know what do you want to do and then you throw out a couple options and it's quickly like no i don't feel like that's like well just fucking say it because i'm gonna i'm a guy i will literally eat anything my response is going to be either burgers chinese food pizza yeah wings

i'll eat garbage and then i will eat garbage i'll say i'll say uh burgers oh we just had burgers right i heard a trick for that because you're awesome you ask them and you go you know where do you think i'm taking to eat and then whatever they say you take them to so then choosing wow that's good billy did you take psych in college no shows oh another good trick is to say why do you ask because a lot of times why do you ask will spare you from having to make this like if if the girl says what do you want to have for dinner uh why do you ask maybe they're gonna be like well i was thinking that we could order from the italian place down the street and then it's boom problem last two uh taking forever to get ready to go out yep and then last one uh that i don't mind it

that's one of those things that if you're when you're younger it might bother you but as soon as you like as you get older you realize like the timing of things and that's just free time yeah exactly play that's a rain delay that you get before going out that's you know what that time is that sit on the couch and refresh twitter every two seconds right right and not have to feel bad about it not feel bad at all in fact then she'll come out of the bathroom and be like i'm so sorry i took so long you're like you know what it's fine and then she feels good because you forgave her yeah and it's also one of those things that like the the older you get the less excited you get to go places so the longer uh someone takes to get ready you're thinking if this lasts a little

bit longer we might just say fuck it let's not go yeah exactly which is a great feeling to have it's like almost it's like the same feeling that you had when your teacher was like 15 minutes late and you're like substitute it's it's just fucking thrilling uh when we ask you guys to take a picture of us and our friends and we usually don't get the perfect picture until the 30th shot yes yes occasionally bad uh but then it gives you the opportunity to pull the classic gag of flipping the camera on yourself and sneaking one or two that's just like your chin and your neck into that into that uh clip yeah yep always love that one all right those were good so we will see everyone friday make sure you watch the documentary uh we're getting nick on we're not gonna say that

though we're doing them tomorrow i don't want to jinx it so friday hopefully no jinxing it okay all right what what's the documentary called it's three perfect strangers really see everyone love you guys needless to say it's better to be safe and sorry say me things that say you are things i've got to remember

In the shy annoyed, In the lobby coming to you any way. In the shy annoyed, In the lobby coming to you any way. Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me Take on me, Take on me, Take on me Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me, Take on me you