Pardon My Take - CFB With Kirk Herbstreit, Actor Paul Walter Hauser, The Bears Are A Dumpster Fire, Hot Seat/Cool Throne And Listener FAQ’s

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

The Bears are beyond repair and Big Cat has decided to never get over excited again (00:00:00-00:23:27). Falcons/Raiders was a dumpster fire (00:23:27-00:26:48). Max update on his broken foot (00:26:48-00:35:32). Hot Seat/Cool Throne including Schefty owning Gottlieb, Scott Hanson getting roasted and more (00:35:32-01:07:34). College Football Playoffs with Kirk Herbstreit talking the weekends matchups, plus how can they fix the transfer portal (01:07:34-01:51:47). Paul Walter Hauser joins the show to talk about his career in acting, wrestling, and comedy, playing Chris Farley in an upcoming biopic, what drives him and more (01:51:47-02:43:44). Then we finish with listener submitted FAQ’s (02:43:44-02:57:50).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/pardon-my-take

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 pardon my take, we have a twofer for the people. We have our good friend Kirk Herbstreet on the show to talk college football playoffs. We also have incredible actor Paul Walter Hauser on the show. Big fan of his. PFT is a big fan of his. Oh yeah. We're gonna talk everything with him. We have hot sea cool throne. We're gonna talk Monday Night Football unfortunately.

We're gonna do FAQs, some great FAQs from the listeners. We got a max update on his foot and it's all brought to you by our friends at Draft Kings from Monster Slams to Draining Threes, the buzzer, watching our favorite NBA players is the gift that keeps on giving and playing pick six from DraftKings, an official partner of the NBA is a way to take a shot, even more cash prizes. It's super simple to get started. Select two or more players and choose if they'll have more or less of a stat like points, rebounds,

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now use code TAKE. That's code TAKE for new customers to play $5 get $50 and pick six credits. Happy holidays from DraftKings pick six. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, December 18th. And I don't even know what to say. I'm sorry that you're going through this. And I'm sorry that really what I'm sorry that we're all going through through together is Wait, are you talking about the Bears? Yeah, I'm talking about I don't know what to say. Okay I'm sorry that they keep putting the fucking Bears on national television. Yeah, it's on It's I they've beaten it all out of me like there's I couldn't have let me start with this. I

they've beaten it all out of me. Like there's, I couldn't have, let me start with this. I could not have been more wrong with everything I said this summer. I've said it, I've copped to that many times, but let me just do it one more time just so that people hear it again. I could not have been more wrong. I got so excited. I got so hyped that things were going to change. Nothing is going to change with this organization. It will always be this way. They will always be based on bad fundamentals and hoping they get lucky from time to time and nothing done the right way. And I'm now officially worried that like, Caleb Williams might be like, I need to just, I need to be traded because I still have hope

for Caleb Williams, he has looked bad. He did not look good on Monday night, but he also, like everything is broken. The offensive line is so much worse than I expected. The defense without Iber Fluss is now, which is a very funny like twist, you know, knife twist that the defense was being held together by Eberfluss. Should Matt Eberfluss be coach of the year? Maybe. I don't know how they ever won four games. This was supposed to be year three of a rebuild that was going

to do things right way and change the course of this organization. It is nowhere close to that. It is closer to year one of the rebuild than it was than it is year three. We've gone completely backwards. I don't know. There's nothing there's no path forward because the owners are going to be the owners. George McKaskey sitting there staring thinking in his head like, Oh, my mommy's going to be so mad at me when I get home. She's going to say she's so angry. These owners do not care about winning football games. They do not care about running an organization the correct way.

They are a joke. They have all but ruined their golden goose because I think I speak for a lot of the fans where it's like, this is, this is just time and time again, we get to this point of the season where we're on a nationally televised stage and the team is an embarrassment, an absolute embarrassment, top to bottom embarrassment. And I don't know how much more I can take it. I don't know how much more a lot of people can take it. And nothing's going to change because now they're stuck with a spot where they need a coach. They have a GM who I like personally. I like Ryan Poles personally. I've made that clear. I don't think he's good for the job anymore, not only because the team has gone backwards, but it feels like he has no power and also

he was probably the person who hired Matt Eberfluss and kept him around. And that is an egregious miscalculation, especially keeping him with Caleb Williams. Ryan Pohl should go and then with Ryan Pohl gone, Kevin Warren is now in charge and he's a fucking doofus. So I don't really know what to do. We should start fresh, they should fire Ryan Pohl and Kevin Warren and start completely fresh. They won't do that. They'll either keep Ryan Poles and Kevin Warren, fire Ryan Poles, keep Kevin Warren, and it's just going to be a mess and nothing's ever going to change. And I told Max and memes this earlier, I'm officially retiring from ever getting to a 10 out of 10 excitement for the Chicago Bears until something changes.

What changes? Because anything. Ownership problems. Anything could change. We were talking about it. This summer I was a 10 out of 10 excited. I will not let myself get a 10 out of 10 excited. That doesn't mean I'm not gonna root really hard for them

and want them to do well. I'm not going to get, let myself get 10 out of 10 excited ever again until it's proven on the field that something has changed. So like Max said, what if you hire Vraeble? excited ever again until it's proven on the field that something has changed. So like, Max said, what if you hire variable? My response would be, that's, that's good. It would be what about Ben Johnson? That seems good.

You hire Mike variable to coach the defense and Ben Johnson to coach the offense for the Bears for the Bears. Oh, that's pretty good. See, I just went to pretty that if you start seven and oh next year we'll see it probably won't last love each love these last year I think we started seven or eight one what if you start cliff five and two this year no pretty good they almost did start five and two yeah I know that was mean no I know what he was, I know. That was mean. No, I know what he was doing.

I know what he was doing. What if you got a new stadium done and it's perfect? I mean Kevin Warren's not gonna do shit. Guy's a fucking doofus. What if... And Ryan Pohl's is not... I mean, this roster is so bad. I thought they were so much better.

I was blinded. I'm stupid. I'm a moron. I was wrong Weapons, but no offensive line defensive lines bad coach sucked. Caleb's a rookie quarterback he's been up and down the even the littlest thing of firing Matt Eberfluss which I wanted and You had three games in a row where you had fired Shane Waldron Thomas Brown had went upstairs to be OC Caleb had looked good in those three games. Uh, it was the Packers, the Vikings and the Lions game. So there was, it was obviously hit or miss.

The first half of the Lions game, not great, but he had had moments where it looked like ball getting out faster. Everything's kind of looking a little bit better. Then they put, uh, Thomas Brown on the sideline. I don't know if that matters, but it feels like you had one thing that was going a little bit well, a little bit well, not even good, a little bit well, and you changed it. Okay, what if you hire Ben Johnson, Mike variable, Jamis Winston backup quarterback?

Oh, that's nice. If you score in the first half. Oh, wow. That won't that won't that won't stay. You trade for Kyle Shanahan. We haven't scored in the first half in Oh wow. That won't that won't that won't stay. You trade for Kyle Shanahan. We haven't scored in the first half in fucking years. What if the Bears said we heard a real smart idea out there from our friend Big Cat via Troy Aikman via Mike Florio and we traded for Kyle Shanahan he's now our head coach and he's bringing Trent Williams. Whatever, it's fine.

We'll see how it happens. This is bad, this is sad. I've never seen you down there. No, because I, the biggest mistake I made was getting excited when nothing has changed. Structurally, foundationally, essentially, the foundation of the house has been decaying and rotting for a very, very long time.

And it's been going especially fast since George McCasky took over the team. And what happened this summer is the, the rotting house with termites, they got a new paint job. And I was like, Holy fuck, this house looks incredible. This is going to be the greatest house ever. I can't wait to live in it. And then I got in it and the wall in the, in the floor started falling and I fell through the floor and I was like, this sucks. It's the same as same as it always was. So you fell into the termite net.

Yeah. I'm now, I'm now I've been hurt enough where it's just like, dude, just, just be, just realize that unless there's sustained change and sustained progress on the field, if they put together multiple winning seasons in a row under this ownership, then maybe I'll be like, Oh, something's different. But even one year of winning in a row or one year of winning under this ownership probably won't last because they'll fuck it up. So you're not even excited with one winning season.

No, because they'll fuck it up long term. That's what they do. It is it is broken from top to bottom. We got to bear. I mean fucking Doug Kramer again. How do we do that again? Yeah. Not being told to report is eligible. You're in the backfield, dude. Yeah. You get put your job. Here's your job. You stay on the sidelines and then they tell you occasionally on a goal line sprints onto the field because you're going to play offensive line here or you don't play fullback here to not go up to the ref and report that seems, it seems ridiculous.

Jalen Johnson, who is one of the like last guys who cares and is really good on this roster. They forgot to put the C on his chest on Monday night football. They was like, oh yeah, that was just a error in the oversight. Yeah. The only guy who deserves to be captain, you took his captainship away accidentally. They're just, they're an organization, they're a non-serious organization that is no attention to detail. Not like it just doesn't run the way an organization should. Listen, I hope they get a good head coach. I will be rooting for them to get a good head coach. I'm just not going to let myself get 10 out of 10 excited until something major changes. And I'll get six out of 10. You'll say I'm, it's not like I'm changing how I'm rooting. It's just changing

how I'm thinking optimistically about the future. I will never let myself get optimistic about the future in a way that I got this past summer. Yeah. The problem with shitty owners is that they're very good at instilling hope in people and they do that in a variety of ways. They usually get people that are very excited to step into different jobs, whether that's head coach or in the front office, team president, GM, whatever it is. You get excited about those people in the short term because they seem different. They seem like they know what they're doing. They seem like they have it all put together. But at the end of the day, you feel bad for those people that take those jobs because they realize what you've always known, which is this an impossible job to succeed at. Yeah, it's impossible. You can you can go into it with the best plans that you have. But at the end of the day, there's going to be something over your head that's fucking you up the entire time until that thing is gone. Then those good hires that you make I still think Ryan Poles was a good hire to make I think there are a lot of teams that would probably like to have Ryan Poles working for them

I don't know if he'll get a GM gig next if he does leave the Bears But he'll be back in the front office work his way back up, but he was a qualified candidate He was a good candidate and guys like those they will continue To be hired by the Bears at times and then continue to not be able to do their job, not be allowed to do their job. I mean, he, he also, I mean, he had, he had three year rebuild and we're, we're nowhere, we're nowhere close to a rebuild. Your offensive line was so bad last night. So bad, so bad.

And Caleb's been bad. I'm not, I'm not going to say, Oh my God, everyone's fault. Well, they are faulting Caleb as an organization, But Caleb, I think he's, I'm worried that this is now like gotten in his head because he's getting sacked so many times. He's scared to throw like that one where Roma do and say it was open in the middle of the field. That was just Justin Fields, Mr. Biscay flashbacks where it's like this is happening again. Caleb needs to get his groove back. Here's the advanced statistics for you here. Manalytics. Caleb Williams with painted fingernails. Four and three. Without painted fingernails. Oh and seven. Yeah he needs to paint his fingernails again.

He lost his mojo. It's like when you see the killer whale in captivity and their fin is drooped over. Yeah it just all sucks. I don't know what else to say. It all sucks. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna stop rooting as hard as I root. I'm just going to stop letting my hopes ever get up again. That's the difference. That's where the changes and a lie. Why? I mean, we'll, we'll revisit this and then I don't know,

August or whenever they hire a new coach and then you know, there's some good reports out of camp So when I say pretty good, it'll we'll see will you be upset if I say we'll see no, I don't know. Okay I mean it will be boring, but I think I have to do that. I have to do that for my own mental health I have to say we'll see we will be revisiting this clip. That's a promise This is post-loss clarity that he has. Correct. But this has also been like, it's just years and years of this bullshit. And it's like that game on Monday Night Football was a game I've seen a million times. It's flashbacks to just like, you know, the end of the trust scenario when they were on a

Monday Night Football game and they were just ripping everyone and then I went to this game. I was telling Eddie and those guys were at the game and they asked me if I wanted to go and I was like no I've been to that game. I went to Mitch Trubisky. John Fox's last game as a Bears head coach when Mitch Trubisky was a rookie and we got killed by the Vikings. I was at the game in Minnesota. Like this game happens every year. So I just, it's over. Vikings are great. Vikings keep rolling. Vikings are Kevin O'Connell's just, he's coach of the year in my opinion. He's, I mean, think about what he's done. He, Kirk cousins, fine quarterback. We all think he made Kirk cousin. What'd 11 games that year last year obviously things fell apart He kind of tread water with Josh Dobbs this year Sam Darnold who's been thrown

To the trash pile a few different times. He's made him playing at elite level like this is why in a weird way I know that we talked about the Sam Darnold situation last week. Like what do you do with Sam Darnold? I don't think they can make a mistake because they have Kevin O'Connell. Yeah, I like JJ McCarthy would be fine because Kevin O'Connell is the coach. Yeah, but I still think you got to keep Sam. I think you have to keep Sam. How much better could Sam Donald be playing right now than he already is? Like how much better it's money. But let's just say he keeps playing like that. Yeah, he's worth that money. Right. But the the the argument, the counterargument is JJ McCarthy is getting paid a million dollars a year because he was he's a rookie. Right. And

you could beef up everything else and all the other holes. And that's how you win a Super Bowl. But I listen, I mean, as good as he looked in the in the preseason, to expect that he would be able to step in and play at the same level Sam's playing at next year, like he might be very good. We don't know. But like Sam has played to the peak of his ability this year with like one or two exceptions. Yeah. It's just a rookie contract deal. They're trying to win on that window. I just, I wouldn't take that chance. I think Kevin O'Connell is just so good that it doesn't matter. And yes, Kevin O'Connell and the Vikings GM were hired in the exact same cycle as Ryan Polz and Mattie. He is a very good coach. Like a week after, like

the bears made the first move. You don't know NFL details. Now you do. It's context I'm just providing context memes are just saying that exact stat back here. Yeah, read it off memes It wasn't a week after The Bears hired yeah, it was it was both things happened Bears did the first move then the Vikings counter move was a better GM and a better head coach. Oh, Cody Bellinger got traded to the Yankees breaking moves. What do you get traded for? Probably nothing because they

want to get rid of his cash. I don't see details on there. Do we click it again? Let's see. Full trade. Cash, I was right about that. Go to cash the New York Yankees, right hand reliever Cody. Poteet. Poteet. Goes to the Cubs, yep.

Cash. Here we go, Poteet. Okay, so cash. I have the tweet. Cash, okay, go ahead memes. A timeline. January 25th, 2020. The most animated news has ever been. I mean, I can't get mad because I listen, I ever I make fun of other teams.

This is memes. You deserve this. A timeline. January 25th, 2022. Bears hire Ryan Poles. January 26, 2022. Vikings hire Quasai Addafe Mensah. Probably fucked that up. January 27, 2022, Bears hire Matt Eberfluss. January 16th, 2022, Vikings hire Kevin O'Connell. Damn. Do you know what's probably going to happen, if I had to guess, is that we're going to do the head coaching interviews and they're going to be like, hey, are you comfortable

with Ryan Poles? And the person's going to lie and be like, cause they want the job. They're going to be like, yeah, that's fine. And then we're going to fire Ryan Poles next year. And then, so that way everything's then the coach has to fire, hire the new GM. And then the new GM comes in and has to fire the new coach after like a year. The new coach isn't his guy. We knew we were careening into a, the timeline is fucked up last year and we didn't change it and we're doing it again this year where it's like, you can just change everything, the GM and coach and they won't do it. And again, I like Ryan Poles a lot as a guy. I just think that this has gotten so far away from him and this roster has gotten so far

away from where I, I, there's some mistakes that you just happen, but there's, I mean, you just, you can't have ever thought like in retrospect, this offensive line was ever competitive. Yeah. If you had to put your finger on it, what's the biggest problem? Big cat, what if you're the GM 10 out of 10? Yeah. So you'd be back? No. Oh, if I'm the GM. Yeah. If I'm the GM. I tried to woo Virginia McCasky. Like sleep with her? Yep. Okay. Then we have a child.

Okay. I don't think she can do that anymore. Okay, so then we adopt a child. And yes, okay, so Virginia McCasky and I get married Uh-huh. Sorry to my wife and kids I'm gonna have to get divorced for the better of the Bears for the city for the city. So Virginia McCasky and I we Get married beautiful marriage wonderful marriage and then I say to Virginia Hey Ginny, that's what I call her. Hey Gin Ginny, I'm thinking about adopting. And she says, Okay, we should adopt. And then we adopt the Epstein. And he saves the bears.

I like that. You like that? Yeah. Or you could adopt like seven homeless pit bulls and just lock her in a room with them. Listen, very nice lady. Is she? Sure. She doesn't let people 101 I don't know if you could do anything mean. Yeah, old people didn't do anything bad. Yeah, that's true. Here's the thing. She she is a quiet lady. I don't even know she talks. She doesn't let people wear bears. jerseys or uniforms or logos or merchandise? Yeah in her box She I think she might have the worst box in the NFL. It's an all-time fumble of a bag like you fumbled the organization that was was that that Papa bear bought for

You know a bushel of blueberries. Mm-hmm and and a five cent piece yep, and now we're here, so Whatever I don't want to talk about it anymore I'm just no more six out of ten six out of tens as high as I'll go in the excitement meter since I'm being Tagged in it. I will respond to to a question out there. Oh great friend of the program Ryan Fitzpatrick hmm He was he was on x., the everything app. It's all happening on X. I saw that.

And it said, name something worse than being a Bears fan. And his response was being friends with the Bears fan and having to listen to them complain about the Bears. I want to say that's not worse than being a Bears fan. Yeah. Also, like- I can confirm that that's not worse than being a Bears fan. Yeah, also like I can confirm that it It's not worse my complaints are why a lot of people listen to show the sickos and perverts are loving the complaints right now Hank is having the best time ever Hank, can you please remind PFT what happened that they basically lost to the Bears? They did. I mean that's huh commies are good

They're in the playoff. Wait, what? I mean you're I mean that's... Huh? Commies are good, they're in the playoffs. Wait, what? I mean you're talking... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Ownership phase yeah cuz guess what I fucking lived it for now looking is in the playoffs no no It is true Experienced it directly that you have a fucked-up owner that no matter what happens they fuck everything else up. It's true That's not me being bigger than that's me. Just saying something. That's the truth max

What was that about you asking Hank tat well? Hank has been one to say That the commander's basically lost to the Bears, but what we're talking there, so we're not talking We're not talking about the commander's Over and over and over again on the record No one wants to be the when no one wants the Bears to be more successful than me. Yeah I want to be good I also don't hold any resentment towards Jaden Daniels Drake May Bo may bow nix michael penex jay-jay mccarthy because I really do firmly believe that no matter what the draft order went it would have ended exactly here

It would have exempted it exactly here. You could have given us drake may you could have given us jayden daniels Could have given us bow nix it would have we would have been doing this exact same conversation because that's what the Bears do That's what they do This is the third third time in fucking seven years. It's insane. It's crazy six years It's crazy. It's okay if I agree with that max or that be being bigger than big cat. No, you can agree You can okay. It's guy. It's it's Eagles commanders week. I'm on I'm on commanders alert. Okay respect I'm on commanders alert respect. Okay. Respect. I'm on commander's alert. Respect. All right. So the Vikings are great. Also the, the good news is for a Falcons fans,

we like, I feel like the a team was on the bears Vikings and no one watched one of the most horrific games ever played. That game was so bad. I didn't want to watch either game. Both games were awful, but the Vikings and Falcons game was like if there was two block punts, there was penalties everywhere. Kirk cousins looked so bad. Desmond Ritter almost had a chance to win the game at the end. Yeah. He had a drive where he could have got it done. There was an egregious roughing the passer call. Yup. It was, it was a horrific, horrific game played. So I don't, yeah. Bad, bad Monday night football. Bad, bad Monday bad Monday football Vikings are really good though Vikings are playing for the ones Yeah, but again watching bad football. It's a deposit into the bank. Yeah, and you always get reward. We did that last Thursday

What do we get? We got bills Lions on Sunday. It was a great game could have been better. It was a great game Yeah, I mean was never really in doubt. It was a great game though. It was great game. It was a fun game Did you guys agree? I mean, this is, I feel like I've stayed consistent. I didn't like the Vikings uniforms. I've been consistent. I said it with the Packers. I'll just say it that the fucking A the NFC North and the AFC North. I'll actually say the NFC East as well. I'll throw them

in there trying to think what other divisions maybe the AFC East. Those divisions shouldn't do weird. I mean the bills are just wearing patrons. Yeah. This week that is we have to wear the white helmets, the red jerseys. Yeah. Like do the original. Why did I get flexed into prime time? I don't fucking know. And then then and then the next to the, it's four o'clock and then next week we're playing on Saturday. Oh, I just don't think traditional teams should do any types. Like the purple helmets, if it was the white jerseys in the purple helmets, I'd be fine. Purple helmets are iconic. Yeah. I agree with you. Listen, it was, it was a weird look tuning into it. It was, it was just bad football last night

It's okay. We can turn the page on bad football. Yeah bad presentation Everything was just rotten Kirk Cousins after the game was over though They they were talking to him on the sidelines that were like how you know, how do you feel about this? He's like, you know, it's hard to win this league. Yeah, yeah, yeah And I said, how do you feel about your play Kirk and it looked like he was gonna cry I thought Kirk Cousins gonna cry because he was a clearly I'm not playing up to my standard. I think I think they might make a change. I think so too. It might be Pennex time. Yeah. I mean, why not? Yeah, you're you're you're on the outside looking in. And the Bucks have a pretty easy schedule coming up, where I think they finished with the Saints and the Panthers and they play the Cowboys on Sunday night. I don't I think the Bucks like if the Bucks went out they obviously win the division they're up a game. Yeah. So maybe you wait one more week

and see if you you you know your two games out and then you're like all right let's try it with Michael Pennex but I agree time for the future. There's something wrong with Kirk. I don't know what it is. Yeah, maybe he just got old. He's looked bad. He's looked bad. But then we laughed at the Falcons on draft night. It might have been a good move. Yeah, might have been a good move. He's gonna be better than Cale Williams. Everyone is. And then Cale Williams, I think actually will go somewhere else and be awesome. I still believe in him I still I'm never gonna stop believing in him max

Can we get an update on your foot Foot it was a good update when went to the foot doctor. Mm-hmm I'm in a walking boot. I still can't walk without crutches But my doctor said eventually within the next couple weeks I will be able to just use the walking boot which is big okay so nice no surgery he said you're not an athlete very very minimal chance that I need surgery did you tell him that you were an athlete I would think like less than 1% I did not tell how long till you get out of your your your I think you could tell

How long do you get out your boot? I get reevaluated in a month and do you say you could possibly be out then? Yeah, oh, oh, that's huge possibly You need to get you need to get out of that boot for Super Bowl I think you can re breakbreak it on Bourbon Street. Don't, that was so fucked up. Right before the Eagles Super Bowl. That was so fucked up that you just said that. Oh.

Have you given your walking boot a voice? I've not had a minute to sound like. Hey Max, you're snickering a little toes inside me. Hey it's a me, Max. Hey Max, you're gonna get so fat. It's a me, a Max boot. Oh, Italy is a boot. Yeah. You got the entire country of Italy on your foot right now.

Hey, Max. Why don't you get a couple meatballs? Put some meatballs in your sockie. Warm up your toesies with some meatballs and some sauce. Yep, walking boot. Yeah, you gotta get out of it before a soup bowl. Why? Yep, walking boot. Yeah, you gotta get out of it before a Super Bowl. Why? Because it will suck to be on, in New Orleans, in a boot.

You don't want it, you don't, is that specifically because you think I'm gonna break it again? No! I want you to be out of the boot for the Super Bowl. I wanna see you walking up those stadium steps bootless. Yeah. Feeling good in the pants. We got a lot of football. I don't want you to have to cut your, I don't want you to have to in the pants. Yeah, a lot of football. I don't want to cut your much football. I don't want you to cut your pants. Vikings are good. Vikings are very climb up a greased up light pole with a walking boot on Mac.

Yeah, Vikings are really good. I do have one of my pant legs cut right now. It looks good. Yeah. He's Irish. Max, you want to say anything about Nick Sirianni getting outfitted by the D line coach? Um, no, that's just like the culture. All the coaches feel comfortable enough to go up and have that conversation with Nick Sirianni. Leader of men. The way that he coaches his guys is that you can do that and then you can go back the next

day and everything's all alright cuz it's like brothers Yeah, yeah when brothers fight, but it's at it's at the end of the day where brothers and Common goal of champions right you see that all the time in Lions games Yep, all the assistant coaches going up to Dan Campbell looking like they're gonna strangle them Being like I better get the fuck away right and all the Super Bowls that they came on the lines Oh, okay, by the way Dan Campbell. I did love his speech Oh, so good. I mean the Lions We have David Montgomery now out for the year, which is crazy

Like we knew the defensive injuries and they just added David Montgomery on that. I think we'll be back for the playoffs So correct, I don't know. So I think he has a torn PCL. I that could have been me reading pro football doc I think they're getting some of their linebackers back maybe But it's it's a bad scene, but Dan Campbell went on a radio show and and he pumped everyone up I don't know if you can find the clip but it Listen the Lions are There have been teams that have gotten this many injuries The Lions have a significant amount of injuries. I have the stat I don't want to be like I I see the constant tug-and-pull of

Lions fans being like but our injuries and everyone's like well, you're the first team to get ever get injured give Lions fans a little bit of Give them a little leeway because they do have an insane amount of it I'm gonna take them the same way I thought of the Ravens from like two seasons ago. Remember that when they, they got so banged up that even their mascot towards ACL. That was a bad season. And you can remember that Ravens team for being good, very good, but also, yeah, but injuries. Yeah. So the eight Lions that are out for, or that are on IR on the defense rank among the top 40 defenders in total EPA. No other

team has more than two in the top 40 and 52% of Detroit's defensive starters or direct backups are on IR. Yeah, that's a lot. Hearing Dan Campbell talk about it though, it did make me buy back into the Lions. Yeah, of course. He was like, you know what, we got by on eating moldy bread for a long ass time. Now we're used to filet mignon. Guess what on eating moldy bread for a long ass time. Now we're used to filet mignon. Guess what? That moldy bread was good for us.

We got through it. I think he said, we got new guys. We're going to cut them loose. Yeah. So they're going to cut them loose. If we give up 700 yards and win by one, you'll see me smiling ear to ear. Yeah.

He's the one you'd want to go to battle with, with this type of stuff. I have another question for Max. Max, do you think that Jalen Hurts has pretty privilege? I saw that you see the Yes, Dominique Foxworth said that Jalen Hurts has pretty privilege. There's also another clip of He's interviewing. I don't know if it's his wife or his daughter or something, but He's interviewing another woman and they're talking about how beautiful

Jalen Hurts is and he's upset by the woman talking about how beautiful Jalen Hurts is. Yeah, it's like hot chicks hate when guys are like, oh my god, you're so hot. I just knew this was going to get brought up, but I wish I got more information on that follow-up because it did make me laugh because it made it seem like he just hates Jalen Hurts because someone in his life thinks that he's hot. it did make me laugh because it made it seem like he just hates jail and hurts because someone in his life thinks that he's hot. Thinks that, oh, so the clip you saw was Foxworth interviewing somebody in his family. This is like-

This could be an egregious count of fake news. It's like David Tepper and his wife going out to dinner with CJ Stroud. She loves CJ Stroud, so he's like, I'm going to draft Bryce Young. Kinda. Kinda like that or it could have just been like a random person that he was interviewing But your mic just cut out no I did that by accident, but yeah, this is it yeah, it's his wife He's mad that his wife is thirsting for the kind of play the clip. Yeah This is the pretty purple fumble or whose touch was being pushed

This is the pretty purple fumble or who's touch was being pushed? Yeah, yes, yes, okay, all right, so when Foxworth brings that up he's there's there's some beef there Yes, yes, that's what I that's the information that I gathered so I didn't take it too serious Do you think that Jalen hurts is pretty? Yeah, he's handsome as hell. I said pretty. I didn't say handsome. Pretty privilege. Yeah, no, he's handsome, pretty, all the above.

I wish he acknowledged his privilege sometimes. We don't all get the same treatment that he gets. That's true. That's true. Listen, hot quarterbacks like Josh Allen and Big Ben, they get treated differently. You'd think the media would be nicer to Jake Hayner. He should have pretty privilege.

Yeah, memes just AI'd me so much on... Memes is on an AI binge right now. He is. You said Jake Hayner, just reminded me. He's on a generational run of AI. He really is. And also, Max, you remember like maybe six months after you started on the show, you made the remark that memes is obsessed with me Memes is obsessed with you. Yeah, you're right. That's the fact I Looked at the light again All right

We have the best booth in the biz. We do we do we absolutely do. Um, should we kick it to ourselves? I got a I got a process this Cody Bellinger try. I feel like if they did the money for more Kyle Tucker money, then it makes sense. Otherwise, the Cubs are just cheap. So wait, did the money go to the Yankees? No, the Yankees are paying the Cubs. Is that what it was? Yeah, the Yankees traded cash. I've also seen a couple tweets now that said I would like to buy Cody Petit's stock.

Oh, okay So that's great good. Let's go that that could be good for you comes back. That's what all I really I think the Cubs are gonna go with just like hopefully Kyle Tucker hits 45 home runs No big guy Suzuki. It's like 30 and and we we win every game to nothing It says Cody Bellinger and cash go to the New York Yankees. Oh, we're paying? So you're paying the Yankees. Five million, that's what I, it's. Oh, but we're not, we're getting out of 20 million. Correct.

You're saving money on the long term. You're only giving five. Yeah, yeah. Good investment. Yeah. That's according to Bob Nightingale, which is. Cheap, cheap. Fucking cheap.

Which is, you know. Yeah, who knows? Okay, let's kick it to ourselves. We got Hot Seat Cool Throne, and then we got great two interviews coming up We have Kirk Herb Street and Paul Walter Hauser Okay, Hot Seat Cool Throne Holiday Party Fails can turn into a great story that ends with a toast over Coors Light getting snowed in can turn into the ultimate movie marathon

It doesn't matter if the holidays Don't go as planned when you choose chill and then reach for a Coors Light, when you embrace a chill mindset this holiday, it's a good time to choose chill and crack open a Coors Light. Coors Light is mountain cold refreshment, crisp and refreshing as the Rockies. Choose chill this holiday season and then reach for a Coors Light. Get Coors Light delivered straight to your door. Visit CoorsLight.com slash take or you can find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer. Celebrate responsibly Coors Brewing Company Golden Colorado. Henry Coors Light.

Well, that was like holiday season. Yeah. It's holiday parties, ugly sweaters. I've got a, uh, I got a course light that's out on my deck and I use it to monitor the temperature depending how blue the mountains are. I love that. I love that last week the bluest mountain I've ever seen in my life. It was like an eavesclying blue is perfect Yeah, so celebrate responsibly course brewing company golden, Colorado Hank hot seats cool throne. My hot seat is Chris Hansen and NFL right not Chris Hansen Scott Hansen. Yeah Hansen. Scott Hansen. Yeah. Chris Hansen the, why don't you take a seat? Yeah, why don't you take a seat over there? Sorry Scott.

They call that the Pred Zone. Did he get, now Chris Hansen. Scott Hansen got railroaded. No, but Chris, let's stay on Chris Hansen for a second. Chris Hansen, I forgot like he got he got it reverse He wasn't a pedophile, but he got it reverse on him that Someone caught him cheating on his wife and did the you want to take a seat over there? Oh, they caught him I'm pretty sure that that was I remember the story. I remember the guy from cheaters

Was that Joey Greco that got stabbed on the boat? Yeah, which might have been fake Yeah, so Chris Hansen I believe was caught having an affair with a colleague 20 years junior by hidden camera and fired from NBC for it He has caught his own videotape sting. Yeah, that's so funny. Wait, it was his own videotape sting It was like his show He forgot the videos the married NBC anchor was secretly filmed on a date with a blonde television reporter who has reported him in dating for the past four months Wow, I want to get ahead of something. We had cameras set up in the studio on Sunday because Hank's doing the part of my take

documentary. And there was like a camera that was in here while I was working on boomers. And this was probably like, I don't know, 6 p.m. I forgot that the camera was there and that was on. And I farted real loud like nine times. Who cares? Like nine times. Dude, who cares? By the way, Shane is on the sticks right now because Max is getting his, we already heard

the update from Max, but Shane doesn't know how to work the volume. That was why the volume just turned on there. Shane? I clicked on the video to try to pull it up and instantly just start applying. Wait, we're going a bunch of different side tracks, but I want to stay on this real quick. Is, is there a reason pug is not sitting where Shane is or are we still working? Pugs working. There's a documentary coming out. Your memes. You're not still mad at pug. No, we're good. Okay. Uh, PFT, you know

what? I, you know what I'm going to do for 2025? And I think this is, I don't give a fuck anymore. Okay, love that farts Uh, I caught my someone was like you picked your nose on a stream the other day It's like a dude. I pick my nose every fucking day I picked my nose also when I was in this sitting at this desk and I think after five minutes I looked at the camera was like the camera probably just caught me picking my nose deal with it. Don't care This is don't care but talking about farts like do you like when you have smelly farts and you're in the comfort of your own home like oh yeah like so it's like fishbowl under

the under the covers comfort of our own home yeah because I enjoy I'm like in the smelly air by myself the smellier the better this one's discussed I get excited this is disgusting but I guess I'm wondering if any of you guys do this because I agree you have to smell your own farts when you're in your car you got a good one and you put on the heated seats to warm up the for yeah don't really cook it actually get simmering yeah give it a little extra juice I've never done that's that's the gross shit I might start doing that what I do sometimes is I'll turn the the heater off yeah when I fart that way doesn't blow the smell away yeah right so I want to learn it this is

also fucked up and I was thinking about this how I in in New York I would like if I had farts I would on the train I'll just let them loose that is fucked and then I would I would be like I because obviously no one's gonna like accuse random people on the subway But I would always act like I smelt it too Yeah, right like Basically like you know getting the getting the scent off yourself So if someone else looks around and disgust then you're also like yeah, this is good. Yeah, that's the worst No, if you're ever on a subway hang yeah, yeah, it's a bad a subway. You don't fart on elevators

But yeah, Hank you got us some parts alright, so um Scott Hanson red zone I obviously I don't blame Scott Hanson. There was no way this was his decision, but their entire tagline For years since the beginning of red zone mm-hmm get ready for seven hours of commercial free zone get ready for seven hours of commercial free football and on Sunday they ran commercials they ran commercials now I feel a little bad 30 seconds I do feel a little bad because this is a this is one of those blind spots for us were a little out of touch because we don't watch red zone anymore we haven't watched red zone in years we watch every game where we're able to we're lucky enough to be able to have every game on.

And I wish I had known this to speak for the people on Sunday because this is bullshit. This is, you have a duty, and this is not Scott Hanson's fault, this is the people behind whoever sold these commercials. Seven hours of commercial free football and you just completely rug pulled them. This is worse than Hawk to a

Who did nothing wrong? She's still sleeping. She's still sleeping. She's still not made a statement Oh shit her statement was hey y'all. I'm kind of tired. Don't know you're a bad. See you tomorrow I'm gonna bed. All right. All right. Bye. Uh, yeah, I alright so This is it is bullshit because the red zone is it's supposed to be a sanctuary away from commercials Correct. They market it as such I don't know if I blame Scott Hanson I think I might blame Scott Hanson because Jeff D Lowe showed me very interesting video the other day Okay, he was asked to rank his top five

Red zone sayings like the Scott Hanson sayings Scott Hanson isms He's claiming the witching hour as being his saying that Mike Francesca created that as far as I know. Did you give it to him though? No, I don't. I don't know on part of my take, but I might, I feel, I do feel like there was a time when you brought it up to him and then he started using it like that. That is definitely how I remember it as well. Yes. You brought up the witching hour phrase and then he started saying it.

I think he tagged part of my take when he started saying it. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Do you guys have a name for, I'm going to call it like the 3 to 4 PM hour that happens when you get just like all the games coming down to the wire and they're like four Close finishes at once. Do you have a nickname for that?

Yeah, simply it's not really creative, but I call it the greatest single hour in sports television I love it. You know that out. We call it the golden. It's the witching hour which the hour is the witching hour The golden hour is right at sunset witching hours. to four. Before we're talking before week one, I promise I will refer to it either as the witching hour or the golden hour at some point this season. Just for you guys. I promise I will do that.

I remember it that way as well. So so it was so we're giving credit to Mike Francesa. Yeah. But he gave credit to us. But now the credit has faded away. So are we so we're blaming Scott Hanson. This is like an Al Capone. We got him for tax evasion Yeah, exactly. So it's like we're not saying that he's in trouble for The commercial free we're just we're lumping it all he's getting a Rico case right now

I'm saying is it never had commercials when Siciliano was around. That's true. That's true This is this is bullshit. This is bullshit. What's next? Yeah, what if if if red zone is not gonna be commercial free Like what is next to people? I? Struggle with red zone. That's all I'm gonna say I've had this take before I think it's too much and I don't like I like being able to watch Seeing all the games in the flow of the games. I mean, seven games is a lot to follow. I love red zone.

I do. I just get, I, it's impossible for us though. It is impossible. We were so far removed from the average fan in terms of watching NFL Sunday that like, I don't even think we can really comment. Yeah. No, you're right. You're right.

I do. No one has seven TVs. Yeah, but no, no. YouTube TV. Now you can use, you can at least do four. You can do no one has seven TVs. Yeah, but no more YouTube TV now You can use you can at least do four you do multi view. Yeah, but they only have sound on yeah. Yeah, I have a prediction Hank says yeah, which in our he's looking for it. He's he only recently started saying it in the last few years We're saying I have a prediction Hank asked what's next? Are they gonna start putting commercials in movies? Like we have product placement now. That's been around, that's been a thing for a while. Yeah.

Are they gonna have commercials like in the court, like a 15 second break? Yeah. That would be insane. What's next, commercials and podcasts? I could see it. I'm out. I'm out.

Coors Light, Hatsy. Good. Scott Hanson, he got led to the wolves. Imagine if he had, imagine if he, I see it Shane. Shane is crazy with the computer in front of us. It's too much. He's just going nuts. Imagine if Scott Hansen had walked out.

Yeah, that would have been a hero Yeah I mean it would have sucked for him because he would have lost his job and a lot of money and like the best job In the world, but we would have respected him for that ten minutes and then we would have gone on the next thing He would have had conviction Oh, I would always love with people like yeah, you should just walk out. It's like for what ten minutes of our respect Yeah, we would have forgotten about it the second the bills and lions kicked off this site like no he would have walked off the set We would have been like everybody we would have tweeted about it

Yeah, show respect to Scott Hanson and then Greg Rosenthal would have walked on. Yeah, we love Greg. Yeah. Oh, yeah this guy rocks Yeah, like red zone. They are also gonna just done without Scott Hanson and people half the people wouldn't even notice. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah And my cool throne is Shitty money grab fights involving one of the Paul brothers. Mm-hmm. Okay, what's going on? Connor McGregor? Tweeted that the rumors of about with toporio are false. I'm in preliminary agreements with the and body and And Bonnie family not it face Logan Paul in a boxing exhibition in India I have agreed I will then seek my return to the octagon. He's like a hundred years old. He hasn't fought in forever He's just gonna do a boxing match versus Logan Paul. It's probably gonna suck

How many times are we gonna fall for the the Paul fight? I'm sick of it. Yeah, like yeah, I'm sick This might be the light fight someone who's actually like at the top of their game I you know what I will boycott this fight if I do watch it if it's on it for free It'll be a pirated stream. I'll probably watch I will pirate the stream It depends but I will not don't box yourself in yet I will not watch it on a legitimate stream because they could easily do this fight like on a Saturday at like 9 p.m. In like July and and you sit usually like sitting on the couch you're like oh I will pay for it I'm with PFT yeah it's on a streaming platform for

free that I already have I'm not gonna go as far as saying I will I most likely won't I'm mostly I'm not doing it I'm not doing it well I'm gonna break the law this entrapment you're forcing me to break the law mm-hmm, you can only push a man so far. That's facts Okay, PFT your hot seat. Good job Hank. Let's job a great job Hank. Thanks my house Scott Christine But that's okay. My hot seat is Doug Gottlieb. Hmm. That's mine. Yeah, Doug Gottlieb on the hot seat Our boy Adam Schefter reported yesterday that Sacramento State was in discussions to hire Mike Vick as their head coach, head football coach.

And along with that report, he also posted that Sacramento State has over $50 million in NIL money at their behest that they can contribute to building the program. And then Doug Gottlieb replied saying, Jesus, Shafty, but it was J-E-E-Z-U-S. That's how you know he's serious. Jesus, Shafty, edit what agents tell you. 0.0% chance Sac State has 50 million in NIL. Shafty did not take that laying down. No. He said the Sac 12 leading the school's NIL efforts

already announced it reached its initial goal of raising 50 million dollars in NIL funds to strengthen the school's case for an invitation of the Pac-12 or Mountain West Conference and Jesus Doug a seven game losing streak in last place in the Horizon League less time on social, more time in the gym. I give that round of Shafi. Absolutely. I give that round of Shafi. You're roasting. Now I did see some fact checking of Shafi saying that the $50 million for Sacramento State is contingent on them falling through on their roadmap and

then being accepted into the Pac-12 down the line. So it's not like Sacramento State has $50 million laying around. Yeah. Someone's like, Hey, if you get us into the big-12 down the line. So it's not like Sacramento State has 50 million dollars laying around Yeah, someone's like hey if you get us into the big conference, we will we will give you 50 million dollars That's not 50 million dollars right now. Yeah, but Doug Gottlieb people forget He's hosting his radio show and also doing a bad job coaching college basketball team Yeah, he's like the Travis Hunter of media and he's uh, yeah, I think he's has he won a game in December because the famously it beginning of December Doug Gottlieb posted it's the most wonderful time of the year. And

it was a meme. December 2024. And it just has like all the days color coded. It's like December 2 through six, pretend to work. December 9 through 13th don't even pretend anymore. Like nostalgia, destroy your body with food and alcohol. This is a coach, a college basketball coach. And he did a meme being like, December is the time when we don't even pretend to work. I love that. Now to be fair, he's had a gauntlet of a schedule.

So he's lost to Evansville, Evansville, Campbell, Cleveland state. He also, he also has done, uh, he's also, he's also, he's doing things like his way. Um, I, I don't know the exact details, but I just saw it, you know, I, I just saw it like in, in glancing through like maybe a week ago, I guess his point guard or one of his best players was not playing his way. So Gottlieb way so Gottlieb set steals at him for the entire game even though they can't

win a game right now. He's like until he learns how to play my way he's not going to play. Yeah. So he's doing like a Bobby Knight thing for Green Bay. I like that credit credit to Doug Gottlieb. Maybe it's just not in the cards. Do you think? Now again, we love Shafty. He's our guy. That response definitely was because Doug Gottlieb wasn't so far off. I think, uh, what's the old saying? Well, they get sensitive. The insiders get sensitive.

The insiders get sensitive. Me think the lady doth protest too much. Yeah. Let them eat cake. Well, I think, they do say that. I think that Shefty is on high alert after the hijinks that was pulled by Mike Malarkey against Ian Rappaport. We should talk about that again because that's just such a dirty move and not hilarious at all that like Well, I did that did you guys see John Heyman's meltdown? No that also like the insiders are having a really bad time right now

They're having a really bad time John Heyman went on WFAN and the host insinuated that he was getting a cut of Scott Boris's deals for reporting on it and he had he had a voice voice crack meltdown Yeah, that's a no-no, which is like a funny again It's it's just anything to say all these guys are just so funny because they really just take so they they they just cannot stand Anyone poking fun of the idea that they're breaking news two seconds before the team does so so the insinuation here was that? Other day was freaking out about Jimmy Butler James got he got cooked by Jimmy Butler's agent. Yeah, but then he he like lashed out to yeah

Heyman is being accused of Getting money from Scott Boris. Yeah in a joking way So we play the end of Scott Boris would ever like give any of his money to know reporter No, hell no play the end of it Let's see if Shane could do it maybe not that far All right right there No sound Shane Shane's getting cooked right now

Shane's getting cooked by the people There's a lot of jobs in the sports world, especially, you know, being in it. Like the insiders has never seemed appealing in any way, shape or form at any point. No, it doesn't even matter when when Shepter gets these big contracts. It's like his, his life is so stressful. Yeah, there's no there's no time when you're not stressed. I don't know how they're how it's enjoyable. Yeah, the only joy that Leroy ever got out of breaking stories was the fact

that he was beating the insiders. Yeah. And the insiders who like make that their job getting beaten by a dog. Yeah, it's it's it's a crazy life. All right. I'll pull it up because you know, thank you for leaving. Wait, wait, wait. You're playing two things right now. You're playing two things. I appreciate it. It just ended the phone call. Or maybe they were just talking over each other. Shane, go back, go back. I did not expect it to. John.

Go back a little. At some point I think someone could probably drop it if they're a nice person. What I think is, one, it's just like how I introduced you. Everybody in baseball knows who you are. So one one it's a credit to your work your father And how by the way, I won't be going out with you again. The whole thing is right That's okay. I can't even believe you said that to question my integrity. Are you being serious right now? I'm being serious. Yeah, John. Give me if I'm getting a cut because I

I'm being serious, yeah. John. Ask me if I'm getting a cut because I have a relationship with an agent. It's outrageous. I know you're not a journalist. You don't know anything about this. I know you get it and you don't, but that's an outrageous comment. It's Friday night at 8.30, John. You shouldn't know that much.

I'm done with you and I'm done with WFAN. Goodbye. John, thank you for joining us, John. I can't even believe it. Thank you, John. I can't even believe it. I appreciate you here. The end.

I can't believe it. Oh, they're getting upset when they're talking to another member of media, and they're like, you're not even a journalist. Yeah. You wouldn't get it. They're under fire right now. I can't believe it. Yeah.

Meme's got out at the right time memes attacking Racini Yeah, he was crying the other day about that warranted and correct how we found the story. Yeah No, he did find the story. It was not even close to what he said. I know what this is Probable she said probable it is very funny that you that's what you said. I think she said discussions discussions were being had Regarding this thing. Yeah. It's it's likely or probable. She didn't say like fact which is how you reported it. Like this is basically a Scooby Doo meme. It's it's you think it's Florio takes off the mask. It's a Rassini takes off the mask. It's Florio. It's really like we're seeing in Florida take

off the mask. It's memes all along because you make up more stories than they do. That's probably true. I think memes, to be fair to memes, he reads a headline or he reads a post and then he just gets the vibe of what that post is and then he like, he has his own grok, his own AI inside of his head that summarizes it, rewrites it and then that's the report. Yeah, it's probably true. Yeah. I'm not paying for that shit. Okay. Okay. All right. That's all I got. Okay. Where were we? Oh, Hot Seat was over. Cool Throne. Cool Throne is combat sports. We got a new combat sport that we have to start paying attention to guys. It's better than power slap. It's better than arm wrestling. It's the ultimate dick kicking championship. Oh two guys just stand across from each other and kick each other in the dicks until one guy gives up. Oh and it's

another one of these sports like power slap that was designed just for the clips basically because you will share and you will watch clips of two guys kicking each other in the dick. To me, it might as well just be yeah, watch this video. Boom. Just taking it. I like this. Should we do it? Should we do it? So to me, this might as well be the ultimate coin flipping championship because if you go first you should win every time Oh, I Like this we should do this on stool streams you want to get involved. Yeah ultimate dick-kicking. Why not? At some point this will be like a national event. Yeah, The clips are just too good. It's also funnier. Yeah.

Slap. Right? It's much better. They should have a women's division. Yeah. I would have preferred if it was just like they were throwing balls at each other from across the ring. Does it?

So there was a level of like skill. Sitting on the ground with your legs open in gym shorts, no one blindfolded and then and then rolling a tennis or rolling a basketball as hard as you can at the other person guys really need to get girlfriends these days I love that do you guys see those posts I like that there's a ref in it yeah like what's the ref's job to police the ultimate dick-kicking the the I don't know if you guys in the algorithm like where people would just be like You know guys can't you know all these women aren't dating guys anymore Mm-hmm, it's like society's fucked up

It's like maybe we're just because you're spending all day on on your burner account on Twitter and not just going to the bar Like I feel like there's a whole world out there people still Dating and meeting girls. Yeah going normal people going to the bar. Yeah. Yeah. The discussion that's happening online is not real life. Yeah. Go out, have a drink, touch glass. Yeah. All right, buddy. I like that.

But there are a lot of people online that are like, man, I can't find a date. It's like, just, I don't know, go to the bar. Yeah. Probably can talk to a girl. Yep. My other cool throne is the Boca Raton Bowl. That's tonight, Wednesday.

You guys, long time, real ones on, uh, on part of my take will remember that we sponsored the Boca Raton Bowl back in 2016. Yeah, I think I'm trying to remember the, the, the awareness, the Bernie Madoff, wet the beak, Ponsy awareness, Boca Raton bowl presented by part of my take presented by Barstow sports. Yeah. So, uh So Western Kentucky, Memphis was the first matchup of it back in 2016. And who can forget the Royal Rumble the intern Royal Rumble that we had at half time

with Glennie balls, Tommy smokes hubs. Robbie Fox Jesus who else was in that when he went to the hospital? Yeah, yeah, Glennie went to the hospital. What a great time that was. And then we're told what the beak Ponzi scheme awareness pole presented by part of my table. My parcel. That feels like a different life ago. It really does. We had Caleb down there with a trophy. He snuck onto the field at the end of it. That was actually electric. Electric. And so he presented it. He had to go to the hospital. Yeah. Almost an issue. Yeah. The bowl, the bowl game did not have a sponsor. So we just said, Hey, we're just going to act like we're the sponsor of this bowl game

to raise awareness for it. And we sent Caleb down there. He presented the official trophy to Western Kentucky after the game. Western Kentucky, Kentucky last I checked has that trophy in their official trophy case at the school. Yes. They're playing in it again tonight. They're in the Boca Raton Bowl

and they're playing against James Madison. I love it. I want that fucking trophy. What was that kid's name? Mikey Electric or something? Yeah, something like that. But I just want to... Lightning or... I want to let the people, because I know that they listen to the show at Western Kentucky. The trophy's on the line again. Yeah. I will I will go down there and steal that trophy back if I have to. If JMU beats Western Kentucky tonight. I love bowl season, even though it's been kind of taken away from us. We'll talk about that with her be a little bit more. But I still love bowl season. Yeah. Okay, my hot seat was

also going to be Doug Gottlieb. But we discussed that in in detail. Gottlieb, I still can't believe he's coaching. It's pretty crazy. It's pretty crazy. Oh, I'll do a different hot seat. I was thinking about this because we were talking about on Sunday, we had Jonathan Taylor and then the Bengals player.

Isn't it kind of crazy that Deshaun Jackson, that is his legacy, that everyone just like Deshaun Jackson every time someone drops the ball? Is there any other situation like that? I guess the Leon let, but that happens very rarely. Yeah. If you Leon let, uh, no, I got another one. Dan Orlovsky. Dan Orlovsky.

Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Dan Orlovsky is a bad one. It is. It's crazy, but it's also with Deshaun Jackson, he was still so good for so long and so fast that it's not the first thing you think of. Right. Right. When somebody drops the ball, then you do think about him, but like that's not his enduring legacy, but it is, he does own the

legacy of that play. Or Lofsky is a good one. The Leon Letts funny because he's got two of them. Yeah. He's got the, the after the field goal and then also the Doug Beebe Yeah, yeah getting chased down in a meaningless, you know end of a baby. No, I don't be beat on me I don't know why I said Doug. Yeah, I'm trying to think what You're saying the double doink. That happens like once Never yeah, not really. Yeah,, very rare. Oh, but fumble. Oh yeah. Chris Webber. But like those, but it's not as time out. Chris Webber is a good one. Chris Webber is

a good one. Cause it's not like the double doink and the butt fumble are kind of hard to replicate. I'm talking about a play that happens that everyone's like John Jackson. Like it's a negative play and everyone says Sean Jackson or Lofsky and, and Chris Webber are great ones. Um, for her cousins fourth, fourth down play, check down, check down the, It's a negative play and everyone says Shawn Jackson or Lofsky and and Chris Weber a great one I'm for her cousins fourth fourth down play check down check down the on the positive side when in hockey the Michigan goal Which one if somebody does something they do the right? Oh, yeah the wrap around that they call that a Michigan Yeah, that was just part of the like NCAA highlight package for that commercial. Yeah for a hundred years CAA highlight package for that commercial for yeah for a hundred years anytime you get jumped you can just I got bized I got pissed but you know took some gave some more gave more gave some more

I read the police right up behind that so they did like the police report You probably saw some of the videos where the guy was like this guy not a not a lick of fat on him Yeah, they're like Dwayne the Rock Johnson There was a written report that came out where these guys were just fucking terrified of Biz. Yeah. Like this guy was out in the parking lot screaming at all of us like, I'm going to fuck you guys up. Biz is my hero. Yeah. He's legitimately my hero. He, uh, he, the way they were talking about him after was he was William Wallace. They're like, he was, he was nine feet tall and fireballs out of his ass. It's just amazing. It was just incredible. Well, that's a, it's

a just outstanding, tremendous restaurant and it's unbelievable and he goes there four times a week Or five times a week and the staff is unbelievable great organization It's a great organization at Houston's and it's just everything that happened there. I saw a guy I was like, hey buddy, you know, like you're an unbelievable guy. I got it. Someone should do something. I did something He's the fucking best. Oh He's a one best. Oh, he's a one on one guy. All right. Then my cool throne is Ryan Russell and the UVM soccer team because they won the national championship. I don't know if you guys saw this. It was kind of a Cinderella story.

They were unranked. They made an incredible run. I think they survived a two overtime game in the America East tournament just to get into the regular NCAA tournament and then they won in overtime last night to win the national championship and yeah they were unranked and they they won it all so shout out Rossello and Jake very cool Jake yeah and Patrick Sharp yeah it was an awesome finish yeah great job UVM. Okay. Taylor Kopp and Rath. Yes. Who's that? What was the kid's name?

Lamb? Was it Anthony Lamb? Yeah. Is that his name? That was the Jake era. Yeah, that was the Jake era. Anthony Lamb. Kopp and Rath is from the parking lot.

Was it Laranaga? No, that was. Fish. That was George Mason. Shadray. Or or George Mike. I know he's a George Mason age He didn't go to the firm on Yeah, all right, yeah story is yeah, we got it all it was Dirk Spentley that for still was friends with freshman year Oh sorentine was from the parking lot. Oh, jeez. No, it was uh What's his name? This is great. You're history right now from the from the Bruins. No, I was a, what's his name? This is great history right now from the, from the Bruins.

No, I, Oh, Tim Thomas. No, but I think he was friends with, was it Dirk Spentley? He was friends with, with a, with a country star freshman year. It might've been Dirks. It might've been. This is we're doing some really good stuff. Yeah, Dirk Spentley. Spent a year of Vermont. There we go. Became Dirk Spentley and Russel. Number one, number one guy, Russel. Uh, okay. Let's get to our interviews. We got Kirk Herb street talking some college football playoff, and then we have an awesome interview with Paul Walter Hauser. Really, really great actor. Really cool interview. It is all brought to you by our friends at Chevy. There's a reason we've never done a Mount Rushmore of pickup trucks and that's because pardon my take, there's only one

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to be in Columbus on Saturday night. We're all pumped. Herbie, first of all, thanks for joining us. And I don't, I hate to have to start in a negative light. I want to talk about these matchups, but I think we have to address the fact that college football feels like it's in a little bit of disarray right now. What I'm talking about is the Bo Pribula transfer portal with Penn State. And I want your thoughts on it because I'm hoping that you have some galaxy brain fix. But for those that aren't aware, transfer portal opened a few days ago. The college football playoff has still yet to be played. We always knew this was a screwed up system,

but Bo Pribula for Penn State, their backup quarterback who does play in packages and Penn State is going to be playing for a national championship and playing in the college football playoff in a couple of days has hit the transfer portal and this is the first time that it feels like I knew we knew it was a problem but now it's like this is a team that's going to be playing on Saturday that just lost a guy that is a weapon for them and does add a different dynamic. How the hell do we fix this. This this is it's crazy. Yeah yeah I mean we've been talking about this for so long, you know, how nutty this is and how it's easy to blame the players. I think it's easy to look at it, like how selfish are these guys? But I think if you put yourself in their shoes, I think the calendar and the way it's set up is, is difficult. I don't know Bo's case,

cause I know Preston's Stone and there's some other guys that have entered the portal, but they're staying with their team. Um, and, and into the playoff, like at SMU getting ready. I don't know why he felt the need to be able to enter the portal, but then leave. You know, maybe you guys can help me with that. I don't understand that aspect of his specific story on why he's leaving the team, you know, I guess maybe he felt he had to go visit these schools to be able to really get a good handle on where he wanted to go.

I have no idea. I know it's a little bit of revolving door, especially at that position when it comes to the portal. And, you know, some of these guys are trying to kind of be re-recruited, like they're high school seniors again, to try to figure out where's the best fit for them. So maybe he felt before someone else takes the spot that he wants, he needs to go visit while his team's playing in these playoff games, he needs to go visit

these schools. That's the only thing I can think of, of why he left the team. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's exactly it by the way. Yeah. And it's the calendar. I don't blame the kids because you do have an advantage if you're in the portal earlier. So you want to go ahead and make that decision. Now one way to fix it might be if you could go into the portal and then you could actually join a college football playoff team. So you get like an impact free agent that just transfers out of nowhere with no connection to the school that could play.

Here's the one thing I guess I would say, because this whole thing has gone from, like when I played, players had zero rights for the majority of college football. Players have had, you have no rights. You just do what you're told, and it's like you're in the Marines. Yes, sir, you may have another kind of thing.

And then we got to 2020 and COVID, and everything kind of changed, then realignment, and then we've kind 2020 and COVID and everything kind of changed and realignment. And then we've kind of gotten into this world now where players are able to leave whenever they want to leave. We have NIL, obviously, that is a huge part of this. But if you even follow the NFL model, the players have restrictions. Like you can't be on the bears and just say, Oh, the hell with this season. I'm going to the Lions. Like, like you have a contract, you have to follow the contract.

The NFL has very stringent rules. This is what we do as a teams. This is what you're allowed to do. This is what the players can do. So this whole idea of the players in college is doing whatever the hell they want to do isn't the right thing. Like my kids, I had four sons, if my kids at 12 years old said, Dad, I'm taking the car, see, I'm going to a party at 12, I'd be like, what are you talking about? You can't do that. The world we live in today in college football, it's kind of like, screw you, take the keys. And the coach is kind of like, well, okay, he's going to take the keys. You have zero power. And that, you know, it's cool to be that player and have fun, but it's not cool for you as in the long term for your growth and where you're trying to go as a human.

It might be fun for these, that three and five year window, but as far as like what is great about this sport is what the hard shit you got to go through. The shit you think is annoying and why do I have to go through it? It molds you and changes you into becoming a better person down the road, whether it's as an employee or as a husband or a father, whatever it is, you got to go through some tough shit. You can't just like, this isn't fun anymore. I'm not playing. I'm out. Like it just can't be that way. If you want to do that, I feel like coaches who leave, you know, like they,

they get a new job. Um, they should have to finish the thing out. Yeah. Where they go to their new job players, you should have to finish this thing out until you go to their new job. Players, you should have to finish this thing out until you go to your new job. Like I just don't, I think these players at this point, they need to sign contracts. I think we need a CBA. I think we need to form some kind of players union. I think we need to somehow create that. The other thing is we're very, it's almost like silo. Greg Sankey is in an sec silo. You know, the big tens in a silo. We need to somehow create more

of a national view of the sport. We're still governing the sport in the eighties and the sport is in the 2024. It's more of a national sports. We need a national view on how we govern the sport. So we somehow need to get that national view to partner with the players union, create a CBA where you're held accountable. Okay, we're gonna agree on NIL. Here are the rules we're gonna agree on for NIL. Both sides agree. Here's the deal with portal, transfer portal. Both sides agree. And whatever they ultimately come up with, it's a contract and we sign and then we obey the contract

on both sides. I think that's where it's gotten. How we get there, I have no idea. But players just kind of coming and going and zero accountability to their team. that's not healthy at all. And it really takes away from what this sport is about, which is the team trying to win games. That's what this is all about. It's a bummer. And I don't blame both of you at all because the schedule is screwed up where, you know, it's still based on enrolling for classes. And that's the real problem is like, you have to figure out like, you know, kids have to do it before the winter semester or the spring semester. So that's why they have to do it right now. You can't be like, maybe it's the transfer portal just happens in the spring or after

the spring semester, but then coaches would be upset because they don't have their team set for spring ball, all that stuff. But yeah, yet for both case like the carousel and the musical chairs of quarterbacks in the NIL like if he waits until mid January or early January he's going to be shit out of luck. That's just the reality. Teams want to act right away and if he waits all these seats are going to be filled so he's got to go and be active right now and take care of himself. But yeah, the system just is screwed up. I don't know how they fix it. Um, I think it just really stinks. Some stuff is going to change once the schools start to, they get to pay the players directly. Now. Um, I think that starts what next season. So things are going to be a big thing in April. I think something's going down in April. Hopefully

by next year there's a new, a new set of circumstances. Hopefully that'll be going down in April. Hopefully by next year, there's a new set of circumstances. Hopefully that'll be the case. Yeah. So there'll have to be new rules put in place for that as well. But yeah, what's the problem with just saying, hey, I'm going to enter the portal and then you finish out the season with your team and then maybe you miss a week of classes at whatever that new school is. Well, one of the problem is if you sign with a new team and you get money and then you play with the old team

and you get hurt, now what happens? Because like if you're, let's say you're Mizzou and you want Bo Pribula and he's like, I'm gonna keep playing for Penn State, but I'm signing with you guys, he gets hurt, Mizzou's not gonna want him to play in those games. You know what I mean? Maybe just make the transfer portal happen

after the championship game. Like we don't have NFL free agency before the super ball. But that's where the school schedules. And, and, but then now we're going to like pretend like these guys, like the reason why they're at that school is for class. Right. It's stupid. The whole thing's stupid. So I wanted to start with that. It's a bummer to talk about, uh, by the way, you mentioned your son, uh son or your four sons. How was the reception when your son committed to Michigan? That caused some waves. Yeah, I've kind of stayed out of that world a little bit. I haven't seen a whole lot of reaction intentionally just because I know 80% of the people are thrilled, 20% are going

to be jackasses. So I just decided it's one thing to take shots at me, but if you take shot at my kid and you want to get in a fight, it's not hard for me to want to do that. So I just, I just try to ignore that stuff the best that I can and just kind of stay focused on the positive. What an opportunity for him. You know, this is a kid that grew up a lifelong Ohio State fan of all my kids, like he's the guy that cried when they lose games, like he's an Ohio State junkie.

Ohio State did not really pursue him to the point of offering him a scholarship. Then they were close to, they were like, listen man, this new rule, that's the big thing with this new world that you talked about. now, you can have 85 on scholarship, but 125 are in the program. Well, the new world that you're referring to this rev share football is going to be affected, but it's going to go down to 105. So you can only have 105 guys on your on your team. Now you could put 105 on scholarship, but a lot of

these guys are not they're just kind kind of in a wait and see approach. So guys like my son Chase, who was kind of like that, that last fighting for those last couple spots for a scholarship or potentially a PWL, which would be a preferred walk on. He's kind of in that area where he's fighting. Most of those guys, big schools like Michigan, Ohio State and Notre Dame, the schools that he was looking at the most, they're almost, hey, why don't you go to the Mac? We're going to bring in this old guy who we know a little bit more about, and they're really not into developing young players and investing

and hoping that they become a great player. So, Chay got a huge opportunity to do this. Shrone Moore and his staff believe and I think they've seen his competitive spirit and his fire and what he did on the field this year to give him this opportunity. And you know, it's very different for our family because our family behind the scenes is scarlet and gray our whole lives. You know, a big cat would be like you having a son that was, he's Wisconsin born and bred, brainwashed and all of a sudden he goes to Michigan. Yeah. You know, it's, it is quite a thrill. Obviously we're beyond ecstatic for him.

I went to senior day for my other son who had a heart situation. He was part of the senior class of the Ohio State players. So it was a, it was a family only event this past Sunday. And I went in there really nervous to wonder how the Ohio State coaches, cuz none of them texted me, hey, congratulations on Chase. I didn't hear anything from anybody. So I was a little bit, should I go, should I not go?

And I went cuz I need to be there for my other son. It was a very cool event, by the way. Each position coach would have his guys come up, say something about each guy. And then that guy had to grab the mic and speak in front of all of his teammates and close to the media and the fans. And it was very emotional to watch some of these guys, Trevion Henderson and Mecca Buka, like, like they've been through some stuff, you know, not only lost to the Michigan, but just personal stuff. So it was very heartfelt day to be there to watch that. But I talked to Chip Kelly afterwards, talked to Ryan Day afterwards.

Nobody said anything. It was like, yeah, it was like, okay, I'll see you next week, Tennessee, looking forward to it. I'll call you this week. You know, just, it was just kind of like business mode. Yeah. And that's, that's good by me. Yeah, that's good. I mean, you're smart to stay out of the, uh, out of the fray because I agree. Like, you know, if, if someone says something about your kids, it's, it's on site. So that was, that's smart to just ignore all of it, but congrats to him. And a compliment. He's got some balls. He's got conviction. So that's a, that's a man that knows what he wants. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. No doubt. Yeah. It's definitely another wrinkle to the rivalry. So, all right.

So let's, let's, let's go to Ohio state because you're going to be, you're going to be calling that game, uh, Ohio state, Tennessee on Saturday night. I'm so excited for this game. And I think we're all kind of thinking the same thing. This Ohio State team is insanely, insanely talented. One of the teams that you could circle right now and be like, this team has all the dudes that could end up winning the national title. But where are they at mentally after what happened in Columbus against Michigan and the end of their season and how do they get off the mat? Because it

is just a very unique situation to have that type of loss with that much on it and that like the four year buildup and then be like, Oh yeah, we're still going to play for a national title. So where do you think they're going to be mentally when it comes to Saturday night? Well, again, just going back to that senior day, just behind closed doors, just with the players, it was interesting to be there because if you go by the outside world, the feeling of Ohio State fans, very dejected by the Michigan game. And nobody's seen really Ohio State since, the fight at the end of the game. And everyone just kind of left the stadium,

I think that day I wasn't there, but just talking to my son and a lot of friends who went to that game, like, holy shit, what just happened? How did this happen again? Kind of feeling. And now, you know, Michigan's either to play in a bowl game and Ohio State's going to a playoff game. And I think there's the the fodder that's out there on social media screw Ryan Day screw, you know, you know, the worst I've heard people say everything,

I hope they lose the first game and he's fired. I mean, just bizarre set of circumstances for a team that's, as you said, it's one of the most talented is in the playoff, hosting a playoff game. And you've got that kind of noise by a fraction of your, of your fan base. So I think the reality is what matters most is the players seem to be super engaged. They kept talking about this isn't good. Everyone was every guy up there that talks said, man, this isn't goodbye. You know, we got four more to go. You know, it was, it was, it was, I don't know how many times I said, I heard we have four more games to go. And I think they truly in their minds are buying into that kind of like March Madness. when you get ready to make a run, you know, you got to win a few weekends.

I think their focus is on trying to beat Tennessee and go to the Rose Bowl and take on Oregon and down the line. And I think they believe that kind of like if you go back to the team with CJ Stroud when they lost to Michigan again, and then they had to play Georgia and everybody wondered how would they play against Georgia? And it was like a different team when they played Georgia. If you remember, they played super aggressively. Stroud played out of his mind, scrambling around making plays really outplayed Georgia. And to Georgia's credit, Georgia ended up making the plays

that didn't in the game to win it. The vibe of the players reminds me of that. At the end of the day though, guys, are they good enough? We can talk all day about Jeremiah Smith and all the receivers and all that. But the offensive line, if you really watched the Michigan game, you know, when they lost the center from Alabama, Seth McLaughlin, when he went down with Achilles, I think that offensive line is a serious question mark going up against Tennessee's strength,

which is their defensive front. So how will that battle go, I think will be a big factor because it was in the Michigan game and they're not obviously getting any of those pieces back on that offensive line so that to me will be the big thing and then just the crowd the energy in that stadium I've heard Tennessee's gonna buy 30,000 tickets I don't know if that's true but just a vibe inside that that stadium if things are going great it'd be obvious be right in their corner cheering little crazy if will Howard throws a pick, how will the crowd react? If the poor field goal kicker who

missed two against Michigan happens to miss a kick, how will the crowd react? If Tennessee gets a sack and a score, fumble and a score, how will the crowd react? I'm just wondering what the energy, what you would think would be a night game at the shoe, massive opportunity, home field advantage. You would think that would be the case, but if things go sideways, I'm just wondering how that the environment inside the stadium will go. I agree with you because I think Ohio state, they've been trained, they've been practicing with a lot of pissed off energy. They've been very, very angry, right?

So you've got to channel that somehow. And I think they're channeling their anger, obviously, into preparing for the football playoff. But if something goes wrong, all that emotion that you've put in, all that pissed off energy quickly can turn on you. If that's been your reason for getting ready for this and things start to go downhill, then it can snowball on you and you can get down real fast. You mentioned the home field advantage.

I heard that it's not actually as much of a home field advantage as you might think that it would be during the playoff because they're not doing like the normal game day operations at these schools. They're bringing in the national guys. So it's not like the scoreboard guys or the in stadium audio guys are going to be the normal Ohio state people that run the show. It's going to be like a neutral site type of environment with all the media and all the sound just that happens to be played in the horseshoe.

Do you think that has any impact on it? I don't know, man. I guess I'm hearing those same things. I don't know what it's going to... I heard when Tennessee runs out on the field, it'll be like a neutral site field. Tennessee will have their own entrance that they've chosen with their song and their music and their energy running onto the field, which I think is really, really bizarre. Like when you go to South Bend on Friday night and Indiana comes onto the field, you know, it's not like the normal, just the visiting team, they kind of run onto the field and then it's go down in the home field. It's I don't, I don't know how they're going to do it. I I'm reading the same things you're reading.

Um, but that, that, that, that could be an interesting aspect, not just in Columbus, but all these all these playoff games. This is again, Uncharted Waters. We have no idea really how it's going to go until we see it. With Notre Dame on Friday night in Indiana, is Indiana going to have their normal allotment of tickets? Is it just going to be a small little fraction of Hoosiers fans inside there? Are they going to get online and scoop up as many tickets as they can and try to have a big showing because it's such an easy drive to go from Bloomington up to South Bend? I have no idea, but yeah, I'll have a lot more answers on the back end of this, but I cannot

wait to see home playoff games and how it'll impact, like you say, the game ops, uh, which obviously is a huge advantage for the home team, you know, in normal set, set of circumstances. Yeah. I heard no hang on Sloopy. They're not doing, they're not doing that either. That's, that's worth at least four points right there. Yeah. It's, let me, again, I, at the risk of getting in trouble, um, I think there are schools that do an incredible job with their game ops. You know, like you go into the SEC, I think the home crowd and the people who run those

stadiums, they look at themselves as our job is to be a distraction to the enemy and to do everything we can to the line where we can't play music while the quarterbacks, you know, saying the signals and barking out the cadence. But we're going to walk right up to the line with the band. We're going to put microphones into the band, the music. We're going to go right to the line. We're, we're, we're, we're going to maybe get a letter from the SEC commissioner that we can't do that. That's our goal every home.

And in the big 10, I think there's a few stadiums that do that. But I just feel you guys tell me I feel like the Big Ten is a little more traditional. Yeah, more of the band has as much to do with the game day experience as the team. You know, so they're, they're a little bit a tough spot between like in the SEC, they hire a DJ. Yeah, I mean, you break in the SEC. And it's like the party's just beginning for the fans during TV timeouts. I mean, it is bonkers at LSU or Alabama or Georgia or Tennessee. It's insane. During the TV timeout and at Ohio State, it's, you know, okay, let's go to break. We'll be back after this. And then it's ladies and

gentlemen, if you can pay attention to the North end, the 1973 fencing team, let's all have a, let's get on our feet and show them some appreciation for the 1973 co-big 10 champs. And it's like, yeah, no, the easiest way to say it, that's perfectly put because I can actually envision that the easiest way to say it, that's perfectly put because I can actually envision that. The easiest way to say it is we just haven't figured out a way to get a light show up North yet. That's it. No, like we don't have the light show. I see the light show at Georgia and all the awesome. Yeah. It's insane. The light show always like, why don't we have a light show? It always tricks me. Yeah. Music, DJ, like feed the energy.

Don't take it away. It's so true. Pull it away. Feed it. Yeah. You should go right up to that line. Those guys are doing a great job if that's how they approach the game. It's like, I'm going to do everything that I can to fuck with the opponent, even though

my job is to sit in a booth with a lanyard on around my neck and like an officially issued team polo I'm out there making a difference. I like that mentality. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree It's like if you go to an NHL game, I you know, I'll go to these NHL games I'm so blown away by the game ops and what they do because it's it's a different 1997 to now like your job to keep people off their phone and engaged and what's happening That's a challenge man It's just a different world that we live in a lot of people's attention span isn't the same and it's easy to like get Through a you know TV timeout take a seat look on your phone check out what's going on and all of a sudden

It's like oh the games back on you know, and they try to take that away by keeping you engaged. And I really, when I see it and I see fans engaged during breaks, I just, I pay homage to that man. It's not an easy, not an easy thing to do in 2024. It's so true. So this weekend with four games, your quarterback, you know these quarterbacks, give me your top four quarterbacks playing this weekend that you trust. Let's start Friday night. I think Riley Leonard, I don't know if I trust him yet. I don't know how many times he's really been challenged. Right. You know, so I don't know. It's not that I don't trust him. It's just we don't know.

Right. And can Indiana put him in a place where they get him in those third down situations where he's got to make plays with his arm, not just his legs with his arm. I'm excited to see that and work. I've been blown away by that kid, their whole story. I was early kind of like, it's Indiana, it's a cute story. And then I just kind of kept watching them and thought, and I stood next to Rourke in the Ohio State game. I was like, damn, that's an impressive looking dude. This guy's, I don't know what he's listed. He looks like he's six, five to me. Big, impressive guy. And I just think that kid plays with a serious amount of confidence for a guy that's in his first year. I think of all of them, that

might be a guy that stands out to me. Um, I don't know how much you've watched Tennessee, but Tennessee with Josh Hyple, we go back to Hendon Hooker or Milton. What do you think of? You think of 50 yard bombs, just taking shots in that offense. Cause that's who they've been this year. Total opposite Tennessee team. They play to their strengths. Let's play defense. Let's run our all sec running back, Dylan Sampson, and let's take care of the

quarterback, let's spoon feed him, ease him in, not make him feel like he has to win it, where our quarterbacks in the past did. So it's been a very different style of approach as a head coach. Is that good enough to win in this environment? I think he'll call his game based on how his defense is playing against Will Howard at Ohio State. If they're forcing Ohio State to punt, he's going to play the way he has most of this year.

A very conservative, hand it off, throw when you have to kind of approach. If Ohio State's scoring, then you'll see Nico, who's more than capable, you know, you know, his recruiting story. Yeah. Yeah, he's a freak, but he's a freshman. So they've just been very, very careful with him. So I would say Will Howard, I know he's made some mistakes. He's cost his team and some big games. I just think because of the experience, I think there's a little bit more trust there. But do you trust the offensive line? I don't think he can because of the injuries. The Clemson Texas game,

again, man, it's just been this. I know. I asked that question because when you look at the quarterbacks in this playoff, It's fair. It's a great question. It's really up and down for a lot of guys. Kevin Jennings at SMU.

Yeah. He's a kid that, again, I don't know how many people listening to this or watching this, that watched SMU football this year, but they started with Preston Stone, who's a little bit more traditional. And now they've got a version of a of a dual threat guy that they spread you out. You got to try to cover everybody. And then this guy's back there running around and has the ability to take off and run, has the ability to keep it alive and throw. He would be an interesting matchup for the Penn State defense.

My big concern for SMU in that game is like you would think the line of scrimmage on both sides. I mean, Penn State, I thought, pushed Oregon around pretty well in the Big Ten Championship game at the line of scrimmage. So how will SMU do it? And I looked at this morning at the forecast, all three games in Columbus, South Bend, and State College, no snow, but you're talking about in the 20s, 20 degrees. Not that it favor and a lot of people are like, that favors Ohio State and Notre Dame and I guess we'll see if it does. A lot of Ohio State's rosters from Georgia, North Carolina, Florida. So I don't know how it necessarily favors these teams in the north, I guess I guess we'll see. It's

been a big, big conversation point. You know, when the playoff first started, it's like teams from the North are like, it's about time those teams from the South come up here and deal with the cold weather. Well, now you get your chance, you know, in two of those games, and we'll see if it becomes a factor or not. But Ben, Big Ken, that's a great question on who do you trust? Yeah. Because I don't know if it's just been too inconsistent with most of these guys all year to really know who is that guy you can trust. Yeah, it's it's Dylan Gabriel and drew our is kind of really where that's probably

where I stopped and it's not saying the other guys aren't good. It's just like I'm talking about third and long down for with, you know, five minutes left. And how about Georgia situation? I know. How about that? Yeah. It's great talk publicly. And they talked publicly since that game about what's going on. I haven't heard anything. I'm more concerned about their punter, their punter being injured. That's, that's the real X. He's a beast. Yeah. So wait with, uh,

with Texas quarterback situation though. Are you a little bit surprised that Arch didn't get more playing time in the SEC championship game? Because I felt like there was a moment where where Sarkozy he had a lever that he could have pulled and he chose not to pull it. I don't know if that was intentional because he wanted to save him for the for the playoff or if he was just like you know what yours is my guy. We're going to we're going to gonna live and die with Quinn but do you expect to see more of Arch? Man again I go back to that eight overtime Friday night game with Georgia and Georgia Tech and and think about what happened to Georgia's defense and I know it's a different set of circumstances but

his defense. I know it's a different set of circumstances, but Georgia Tech ran a lot of zone read and power read and gave the quarterback an opportunity to utilize his legs or his arm, depending on how the defense of Georgia reacted. And they had so much success in that game that the next game was going to be against Texas. And I just thought that Sark, much like he did against Texas A&M, he would just have a little package in the red zone or short yardage to go to Arch. And as you say, pull that lever. I thought, fresh off that Georgia Tech game, he saw something he might be able to attack

using Arch's ability to attack the edges, but he didn't do it. And doesn't mean he's putting arch away. I just think for whatever reason, only only Sark knows he's one of the great offensive minds in the game, but whatever reason he stuck with Quinn throughout almost every snap of that game. And it makes you wonder, you know, in their in their next matchup gets Clemson and down the road, how much arch will be a factor because that dude I know everybody wants to compare him to his uncles but he's probably more like his grandfather that he is his uncles as far as and he's much

bigger and stronger I look at this guy you know it's one thing you look at him on TV you think you go on the pregame and you you look at these guys in person some of these guys just look so different than what your perception of them is. And Arch is one of those guys. I mean, his legs, I don't know if he lives under a squat rack. That dude is put together. He's not just a tall, slippery boy, he's quick. He is powerful dude who can spin it.

You talk about an excitement of where you wanna see Texas next year with Arch having an entire off season to build his game, but he's nothing like Peyton. He's nothing like Eli. He's really nothing like his grandfather who was really athletic guy. He's his own guy and he's got the size that they all have, but his strength and his athletic ability, who knows what Sark will do in the off season to build the offense

around him. And who knows if Arch will get an opportunity here in these next potential four games that Tex might be playing. I hope we see more of him. He's fun. Manning shouldn't be allowed to be fast. It's weird seeing him run with a ball. Yeah, it's like come on man You just stay in the pocket

Maybe once every three years do a naked bootleg and then everybody like stands up and claps and laughs while you try to run for A first down that's that's the manning. That's the manning way Right. Yeah, not this guy Wow this dude This dude's gonna do now. I don't know if they're gonna protect him from himself next year. But if he plays the way he wants to play, he's gonna be running around people over people. You know, if you're a safety coming up there to tackle that guy, it's like tackling a tight end. You know, I mean, that's basically with who's athletic. So yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I think it's a game to game approach for Sark and how they use Arch and if

they do and not mention, imagine a fan base reminds me of Thiebaud in 06 when he was a true freshman. And Chris Leake was the quarterback. But every time there'd be short yardage or red zone, the crowd at the swamp would go crazy just with the idea that 15 might come jogging onto the field. And he would. And they were like begging Urban to bring him out. And it became almost, it's Chris Leake, who's quarterbacking 90% of the game, but it almost became like the fans were just completely consumed with Tim Tebow, even though he's just doing short yardage.

And that kind of reminds me a little bit of Texas. This is Quinn Ewer's team, but there's such anticipation and so much excitement about Arch Manning taking over. And I wonder if that impacts Sark inside the locker room on protecting Quinn and protecting protecting Quinn and protecting kind of that feeding into that energy by not putting Arch out there as much as maybe you might think. Sark say whatever it takes to win kind of guy, but I also think he's mindful of the makeup of his team. And Quinn yours is his quarterback, you know, and, and I know that's impacted Quinn a little bit psychologically just, Hey, I'm the guy. And yet they kind of are rooting for the other guy. So I think it's a little bit tricky on how, on how they manage that at this point in 2024. Yeah, it's tough. So looking at

these games, the spreads are pretty big. They go from what last I checked, I think it was seven to 12 point favorites in each game. If you had to pick one upset, because there's going to be one. Who would it be? What's the, what's the IU Notre Dame? Seven and a half is what I'm looking at right now. I don't know if that's moved. I would say IU.

I'd probably say IU would be, what's the Tennessee spread? I believe that's a touchdown. Yeah, I think, I'm not picking either one of those teams, but I mean, you could make a pretty strong case if you're a Tennessee fan or you're going to bet on Tennessee until you see the Ohio State offensive line more productive against a talented front. There's no reason to think that both those games, the underdogs should have a shot to be competitive and maybe pull off an upset. Yeah, I do love the drama behind the scenes of the Tennessee fans being like, yeah, that stadium is going to be 30% orange, buddy. You imagine. Yeah, they get 3,500 fans.

What's Ohio Stadium these days? Over 100,000. Right? Yeah. You get basically 3% of the stadium is going to be in orange. Yeah. If you get up, there's no, you, you believe they'll, they maybe get 30,000 people in there. No way. It'd be a testament to the fan base. Yeah. I saw another post. I don't know if it was from game day operations at Ohio State or if it was from somebody else that showed what the color orange looks like underneath their like LED lights that they have and it looks red. And so now Ohio State is like, yeah, wear your orange. We're going to turn you red.

It's, it's, it's been a fun, like behind the scenes battle. Yeah. Yeah. I think it is. And it's a scarlet out, right? So they're going to do the scar the whole stadium if they follow the the direction of what the Ohio State's requesting. So it'd be all scarlet and then bright, bright orange.

So you're right. You're right. Terrible mix of colors when you put them together. Good on their own. Maybe not great together. I know. The states weren't those all scarlet unit. I know they're doing color rush. I don't like that. They're doing color rush. Where are your, where are your uniform? Yeah.

Yeah. Um, classic matter of fact, take all the stickers off the helmet. Like you start new. It's a new season right? Yeah. Four games. That's a good idea. Four games. Maybe put on the hell, the, the, the stickers during the game. Yeah, there you go. Adam during the game. Uh, all right. Adam during the game. All right. So Herbie this been awesome. I got one last question. It's a row back question

R.H.O.B.A. C.K. dot com promo code take 20 percent off your first purchase Q. Zips Polos hoodies joggers shorts row back dot com promo code take 20 percent off. Last question for you is not about the playoff. It was big story obviously last week. Bill Belichick going to North Carolina. How do you think this is going to work? Do you think it's going to, I mean, I, I'm of the belief that there is definitely a market for a coach in college to be almost like a Calipari when he figured out the one and done before anyone else and being like, Hey guys, I'm not going to sell you on education. I'm not going to sell you on, you know, we like, this is a community. I'm going to sell you on come here. I'll teach you how to be a pro. And the scouts are going to know that if you can handle my system, you're a value in the NFL and I'm going to

get guys drafted. I would see part. It's part that just put yourself as an 18 year old recruit and knock on the door and it's Bill Belichick at the door or on the phone honey built coach Belichick's on the phone I mean you imagine what that would the power of that right but I'm telling you guys, Bill Belichick, he's one of those guys that if he if he ended up coaching high school football in Annapolis, I would not have been surprised. He is a he's not caught up in all the bullshit, all the noise that we all get caught up in. He is just an old school football coach. And I really think that his dad had a major impact

on his decisions and what he does. I think there's part of him that's probably always been pulling at him to be on a college campus because of his time at Annapolis with his dad. And before that, in places like North Carolina. And I really think as much as you guys are saying, hey, don't worry about the education. We're gonna to go build this roster and we're going to go win a championship. I think he's going to think about how I do both.

I really I know his reputation is NFL and and building a roster and winning and winning Super Bowls, but I think there's part of him. it actually going to enjoy getting kids to buy into the demands of academics because of his background. I don't think it's going to be, Hey, you didn't go to class. Screw it. We're getting ready to win this game. I just don't think that's him. I just, I, I think he's going to, the reason it took two weeks, we kept hearing, wait, they interviewed him. Like, how do you, how do you interview Bill Belichick? Like it's one of those, if he says, yeah, I'm interested, it's like, you take it. But remember it went, it went for a while. So I'm sure he sit, sat there and just gathered so much Intel. Not only I need this for an IL, I need this for private plane, like whatever it is he

needed. But I think he wanted to learn like the ramifications and the guidelines of like, what are we doing here? What's this world? So when he did step to the podium, it was almost like in his mind, like, okay, I can answer any question. I've studied this and analyze this ready to take it. And I think you guys are going to be surprised by what he builds. I don't think it's just going to be about sure. He's going to try to win the national championship. That's obvious. And if you look at their schedule, they're in the playoff next year. I mean, there's a very strong chance at North Carolina. I think they're one game that makes you scratch their head.

Your head is Clemson. Other than that, they might be favored in every game they play. So get used to him getting teams to knocking on the door at ACC Championship and into the playoff. But I do think he's going to do the academic side. That's just me. Maybe I'm wrong just from the time I've spent with him. I think he wants to make that a priority as well, which I applaud him if he can pull it off. Yeah. Herbie, we are a national sports podcast and very rarely do we use our platform and advocate

for something. But I feel like it's an appropriate time. And I want to put your feet to the fire on this because you might not be in charge of it, but I think you have a say. You are a college football icon. You can make change if you believe in it enough. The Dr. Pepper tuition challenge is out of hand. The chess passes are ruining America.

It might be symbolic of everything that's wrong with America right now, actually, but it's feeding into it. Can we do something about that? Either move the challenge back a little bit or mandate that they have to throw with one arm like a quarterback. It's a football game. It's not a basketball game. Make your passes with one hand. I want to, I want to see a quarterback. It's a football game. It's not a basketball game. Make your passes with one hand.

I wanna see a spiral. Can we do something about that? Bro, I love that. You know, I used to do the Eccridge Challenge and we would throw it from 25 yards, I think, 20 or 25 yards. And the target was just about the size of a basketball. I mean, it was hard.

And you would throw that thing. It was almost like trying to make a shot from half court. I'm with you. That, you know, everybody, it's almost like pop a shot. They're just firing that thing away. You know, it doesn't take any ability at all, right? So I think that, I think you're onto something. I think you move it back at least another 10 yards.

Yeah. That would take away the chest pass. And let me get down on the field next time I commit a game. I'll get to the bottom of this. I'll find out what's up. Because it is embarrassing. It is. They've ruined it. I don't blame the competitors. It's like the challenge portal. That's the best way to do it. Right. It's easier. You have a. Yeah, they figured out the answer. Right. You figured the answer.

Right. Yeah. So the game has to evolve as the players evolve with it. Yeah. I think you can either move it back a little bit or just say, hey, you have to have one hand. It has to go above your shoulders. Yeah.

Yeah. I like that. I'll bring that up. I don't know the Dr. Pepper folks, but if I'm in a game and I'm down in the field, I'm going to make that out a point to go over there and try to get to the bottom of that. I'll, I know again, I'll report back on that as well. Yeah. All it would take is you, if you boycott, if you boycott a game, maybe just don't even talk for an entire half. Just saying you have the power.

I'm boycotting the game unless you get this shit. Yes. That's what we are right now. Yes. Yeah. Well, thank you for not boycotting the second half of the Niners Rams game. That must have been tough. That would have been a fair boycott. That was tough. That tests us. Man, we've had a ridiculous year in a positive standpoint. I mean, our games have been awesome. The ratings are off the charts and on paper that looked like a really, really good game. And it just wasn't. It was just, it was brutal. Um, we got through it. Uh, but yeah, I'm looking forward to this Thursday and then, and then I got to put soldier field and finish it off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. All right, Herbie. Thanks so much, man. We really appreciate it. You're the best and have fun this weekend.

Kirk Herbstreet was brought to you by our great friends at Campbell's. Campbell's chunky soup. It's soup season. What a great time of year to enjoy some soup. I've been eating soup just about every day. I think I've had soup every day for the last three weeks. Today, I've got some turkey and wild rice coming, been mixing it up with some meatball, some loaded Mac and cheese from Campbell's. Their chunky soup is outstanding. It warms you from the inside out. I love soup. I would drink soup, eat soup every single day of my life, if I could. And Campbell's is the absolute best. Today's episode is brought to you by Campbell's chunky soup. It's the soup that eats like a meal. When you think chunky,

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The wrestling part, I got to admit, I didn't fully understand. You're a wrestler and you are part of Major League Wrestling. How did that start? I want to talk about the acting, but I was raised on the attitude era. So I'm not as much into wrestling right now, but I still love wrestling. How did you start with the wrestling? Sure. Yeah. No, I, uh, I had done a wrestling show for charity that this guy, Sammy Callahan, put on him and John Moxley. We're trying to raise some money for the wildfire relief in Hawaii. This is November of last year. And, uh, it went from me like showing up to sign some autographs or do free selfies or whatever. It turned into, hey, do you want to have a wrestling match? And that was secretly always a desire of mine to try it. And I had been taking little classes here

and there learning from other wrestlers. And so I did this 10 minute match with a guy named Matthew Palmer and it went really well. And I had a lot of fun and there was sort of an adrenaline spike unlike anything I'd ever felt before. And I played like junior high sports and I've done standup comedy in front of, you know, 1500 people. Nothing I've ever done felt as good as that. So really, I continued to pursue it and, and kind of doggedly got these other bookings and wrestled other reputable guys. And you learn a lot

from them when you're working with them. And, and I'm now telling people that through MLW and a couple other companies, I'm doing like a reverse Dwayne Johnson. That's awesome. I love that. Yeah. That sounds like a lot of fun. What's the, what's the biggest pop you've gotten? Oh man. The biggest pop I've gotten was probably, probably when, uh, when in my first match, when I did the crane kick, uh, and the six inch punch as a finisher, it was very theatrical. And I think people were wondering what my move style was going to be like. and obviously I'm not doing backflips off stuff or anything but I'm I'm doing you know body slams and suplexes and then I pulled out the Cobra Kai style you know crane kick and people went pretty ape

that was a good pop. You mentioned the rock it is I mean it's very funny because most the most wrest, they wrestle and then they get into music or movies because they're so good at wrestling. You're just like, I was such a good actor, now I want to chase my one true love, wrestling. Yeah. I mean, I have a lot of different loves from an occupational standpoint. My heroes are guys like Rob Reiner and Kendrick Lamar and Sting who you know wrestled famously for WCW during the Attitude Era and I just want to partake in those worlds whenever it makes sense or whenever I think I can do it and I I

haven't directed a film yet but I intend to I write a lot of movies I've made some music and I'm trying this wrestling thing out and I think a lot of movies, I've made some music, and now I'm trying this wrestling thing out. And I think a lot of people, a lot of haters online who don't like it and think it's like super lame, but at the same time, I think there's a place for everybody in wrestling. There's different types of people. The same way in hip hop, you have Earl Sweatshirt and you have Action Bronson and you have Drake. These are different styles within the form. Yeah.

And so I'm just one of those many styles in that form, I think. I think if you're having fun doing it, people will appreciate it. Yeah. They'll see the passion. And I'm just trying to put it over in the mainstream too of like, if I could someday get nominated for an Oscar or a Tony award, but I'm also doing an independent wrestling show in front of 800 people, I think that's kind of awesome. I like the idea of, like if it were reverse

and I'm just watching somebody do it, if a random character actor like John C. Reilly or Paul Giamatti showed up at a wrestling show and wrestled and they were actually decent, I'd be very entertained by that. And I'd find it fascinating. Yeah, I mean you could be you could have your own EGOT the EGOT plus you get the Emmy the

Grammy the Oscar the Tony and also heavyweight champion of the world. Yeah or US champ or or open weight champion in MLW we'll see I'll see how far I can take it. Yeah so you mentioned the Oscar and it's interesting you brought that up because we have said on this show, I think we had Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Or no, no, it was Matt Damon and Casey Affleck on the show. And I said that if I could put in a bet, a future bet, for somebody to win an Oscar for best actor, it would be you.

Because I love you and everything that you're in. You've played a wide variety of characters. do you feel like that's a possibility do that do you see roles come across your desk and you're like you know what I feel like this this could be one that's critically acclaimed thanks man yeah I somebody sent me that clip the day it came out a couple people that I didn't know were like diehard PMT fans. They were all hitting me up and sending me that clip. It was very humbly and sweet. I think anyone can win an Oscar, but it's not even about acumen.

Like they're so great, they're going to win an Oscar. It's usually about the marriage of the role with the performer, right? So there are people who back in the day in 93, 94, they looked at Brendan Fraser and Jamie Foxx and they were like, oh, the guy from Encino Man? Oh, the guy from In Living Color? And then they won Oscars for the Whale and Ray. So, you know, it's really just about that right marriage of role. I think I've had a couple of roles that could have been nominated based on what they were and

me showing up and doing the job, but But yeah, I'm still looking for that thing where I get to really Pop in a great movie and and have some form of impact, you know Yeah, I mean I thought the Richard Jewell movie I was was incredible. I thought that good movie Yeah, I mean that was a movie where I was just like, your ability to be Richard Jewell and have this complicated guy who's like, you feel bad for and he's just trying to do the right thing. That was one of those movies that I always based my movies on if I'm thinking about it the next day when I wake up, that means it's a good movie. And

that was absolutely the case for that movie. Oh, that's awesome, man. Yeah, no, I think that's a, there's a couple movies I've gotten to do that. I just think we'll stand the test of time. And I think luckily I'm in that Eastwood ether where whether he's alive or in 20 years when he's gone, it'll be the kind of thing where people will revisit that because it was Eastwood. And I think that's the same with Black Clansman. Yeah, it's Spike Lee. It's Adam Driver. It's you know, it's, it's this big film that did well. And then and I think I Tanya too with being such a time capsule piece for the 1990s and

being a Margot Robbie thing where I felt like that in Wolf of Wall Street and Suicide Squad were the things that said this is like someone to pay attention to. This is someone who's crushing it. Yeah. Are you? It's fun. It's fun to be in those movies. I mean, you're never guaranteed that. But like when they come across your proverbial desk, it's like, oh, sick. I get to work with Craig Gillespie or Spike Lee or Clint Eastwood. Yeah. Are you, are you nervous at all that you're being typecast as secondary characters to the Olympics? I, I listen, I'm hoping, I'm hoping 20 years from now I put the stash on and I can play the, uh, I can play the, um, uh, gymnast coach for, uh, what's, what's the name of that girl? Bella Corolli, right? Bella Caroli. Kary Strug.

Yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, Kary Strug. They gotta play Kary Strug's- Gymnast coach. Gymnast coach in like 20, 30 years, right? Yeah, you can do that. I believe you could pull it off. It's so weird, dude, it's so weird that like,

it's so weird that I'm playing Chris Farley in this biopic next year because Farley famously played Sean Eckhart, my character and I, Tanya in the, the monologue sketch with, um, Nancy Carrigan when she hosted. Yeah, that is crazy. And, and, uh, they famously, Jay Leno famously said when the Richard jewel thing happened, like this guy kind of looks like the guy that whacked Nancy Kerrigan, right? It was like a famous late night joke that he referenced these two people together. And then Farley also was on SNL and Richard Jewell ended up being on SNL.

Yeah. After the whole debacle. So it's like, there's just some weird incestuous creative thing going on with these roles. I don't know what it is So with Chris Farley that must have been fascinating to play him in a biopic. I can't wait to watch it I have to assume that you learned a lot about Chris as you're studying for the role What have you learned about him that maybe you didn't know going into it? Well, you know even before I got the role and we haven't shot it yet

we're gonna shoot it next year at some point probably later in the year, but I I knew so much about Chris going in because I was just a fan So I kind of was reading up on him and ingesting Chris Farley stuff The way you would if you were preparing for a role And and I kind of knew most everything about him. What I found interesting is you know, he had this like very highly intellectual side where him and Tim Meadows used to go to foreign films when they were doing Second City in Chicago.

And, you know, Chris had these really deep conversations with his female friends that sometimes he couldn't have with his male friends. And there was just a very intellectual, sensitive side that not everybody got to see, especially if they were like a newer friend when he had already been very famous. Yeah. I think, I think, you know, in telling that story, we hope to show the duality of him as there's a duality to many of us.

Yeah. Are you, is it not nervous is the right word, but Chris Farley's beloved. And so do you feel pressure like doing this movie where you're like, I know that everyone loves Chris Farley. So I have to get to a point where it's like people are like, you did him justice almost in playing him. I think I love Chris so much that I'm incapable of letting Chris and I mean, I can't, I'm not incapable of letting his fans down.

People, somebody can order a steak and you give them exactly the fillet they ordered and they're still not happy. Right. And they send it back to the kitchen. Some people are impossible, but I love Chris so much that I'm not worried about keeping his memory alive in a in an authentic and loving way. Yeah, I know I'm going to do that. And that's not cockiness. That's once again, knowing what you're capable of too. And knowing that there are certain things you are just meant to do

in some way, you know, like I, like I met up with John Farley a couple years ago to talk about this being a possibility, his brother, john, and I gave him my phone number. And he goes, Why is your number already in my phone? My number was already in john Farley's phone, and we had never met. Huh? It said Paul Howser when he typed in the number. Weird things like that have been happening for a while. And I think some people are just supposed to play certain people. I think Jamie Foxx, God, his

parents, like there's something in the ether that knew he was going to play that role. And I think this is one of those things that I was supposed to play. Jeff Bridges, when he got his first role, he has a story about how he told the director, like, I don't think I'm doing a good job. I think this is a mistake. You should fire me. And the director just said, no, I chose you. You're right for the role. You couldn't screw this up if you wanted to. You're the guy. And I think sometimes you're just the guy, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. When it comes to playing a role like

that, or do you go, do you go full-time into character or do you know, when the cameras are on, you flip the switch? Well, I haven't done it yet. I've only started or co-started in three or four things. I think Jule, Blackbird, this thing I did with Mark Wahlberg, he and I were, it was a two-hander,ander were both in all the scenes Only done it like four or five times. Maybe so I Starring in something is way more taxing than I time your black cleansing. I time your black cleansing

I get to show up. I'm doing my finger guns and I walk out. Mm-hmm But starring in something is is exhausting In a way that I kind of didn't know until I did it. So my hope is that I can do my homework to a degree of precision and aggression that when I'm on set, I can be very calm and not in character. Yeah. That's my hope is that I do the homework enough to still be emotionally available to the crew and the cast because you don't want to alienate people. Even if you are doing a job, it's like I it's too important to

me to be social with people and to be on the level to alienate them. So when I watched the Jim Carrey documentary about him and Andy Kaufman, I saw that Jim had kind of alienated a lot of people in his process. Jim Carrey, who I adore, by the way. But that process of kind of like alienating people or pushing them away, I sort of decided I'm not going to do that. acting in a show like Blackbird and it's probably not the, I don't know, is it a fun role when you're playing a, a psychopathic serial killer? Like do you have fun? Because you did, first of all, just say like you did an amazing job in that show. It was incredible. But I can't imagine that it would be an enjoyable time for you to spend in character as like the scummiest person to ever live.

It depends on everyone's process, but it was not fun for me. I can tell you that much. I was not in a good place personally when I shot that mentally, emotionally was not a good place, spiritually, not a good place. And was definitely ingesting a lot of marijuana and alcohol when I wasn't on set. And and, and also we shot in New Orleans. That's a pretty spiritually thick place. You can kind of feel the air a little bit there sometimes. And, and I would say the, the way I played the character, my process was I have to think the thoughts.

I can't just say the lines and hope that it seems real. I had to kind of get into the icky of it. And so having to think the thoughts, to have it register in the eyes when you say lines of dialogue, you feel very guilty when you rap at the end of the day, you feel gross. Yeah. And you know, I only did it because of the damn character, but it's also a little mentally exhausting and you feel really gross. So yeah, no, that character was hard to play. That wasn't easy. And it wasn't fun. What was fun was the fact that the writing was good and I was getting paid decent and I was working with brilliant actors like Greg Kenear and Taron Edgerton. So after a day on set there, is there something that you

would do to like cleanse yourself to wipe that day away? Yeah. And I didn't cleanse myself well. Like I was saying, I would grab a sandwich from Turkey and the Wolf and I'd get stoned and I'd sip a cocktail. But a lot of self-medicating, but the sort of PG things that I was partaking in were me and my buddy Anthony Pettix would go shoot hoops at a local, uh, you know, court and in somebody's neighborhood in New Orleans or we play super Nintendo or watch curb your enthusiasm. Like there were things that kind of like were pressure releases. Yeah. And, uh, and yeah, Larry David was very influential to me being able to laugh at the end of a, a dark awkward day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you've done drama, you've done comedy.

Is there one that you prefer more than the other at this point in your career? I think I prefer drama because there's just a complexity to it that has more of a variance in a diversity. Comedy sort of can feel redundant sometimes. And that's also why even your favorite comedians make comedy movies that you don't like. You know, Leo, every time Leo or Denzel do Leo or Denzel in a drama, we're all just like, boom, another one. But like comedy, there are brilliant people who do comedy and we're like, that movie sucked. Why isn't it as good as the

one they made eight years ago? And it like well comedy can get very redundant and after a while you learn somebody shtick whereas like drama you're living in different worlds and different moods and you can keep them guessing a little bit better so i think i i enjoy watching and doing drama more but at the same time my roots are entirely stand-up and sketch comedy. I grew up on Jim Gaffigan and Monty Python and you know Chris Farley, Eddie Murphy and everything. Yeah wait so when did you start doing stand-up because that was how you started right? Yeah when I was 16 I started writing screenplays and started doing stand-up comedy. Oh wow. That was like the year it got really

aggressive where I was like I'm going full throttle, full bore. And my last few years of high school I did three plays a year, wrote for the school newspaper, did choir, was in barbershop quartet, was class president one year, was writing scripts and doing stand-up. So it was like I was trying to do the John Cena, Dwayne Johnson schedule before I was actually able to do that type of schedule. I was nuts. And, and yeah, I thought stand up or screenwriting might be a way to break in. I didn't know how to break into Hollywood. I thought, well, they say you can climb the wall, you can break through the wall, you can pay someone to get you through the wall. What's my way? I'll just try all the things. And what I would find out is that stand up is incredibly hard to break into,

even if you're decent. And I think I was, I don't think I was good. I think I was decent. And I think, I think I got away from stand up because I just didn't want that lifestyle of you're in a depressing atmosphere. You have to wind your wheel up on your back and make these people laugh. And you're constantly having to prove yourself. Whereas I could go into an audition and two minutes into the audition, they're like, you got the job. You're the guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so much easier than stand up in my opinion. Yeah. And you get treated exponentially better. So, so what point in your career were you like, all right, I think I've not broken through, but like this is, this is people are noticing and I feel

like they, they see something in me. I think, uh, I was telling somebody, I think like the show kingdom that I did about the MMA fighters of Frank Grillo and Matt Loria, uh, Jonathan Tucker, Nick Jonas, that show was sort of my like associate's degree and me breaking in. I, Tonya, was like the end of the associate's degree where it's like you're getting your bachelor's now. People know your face but not your name. And then Richard Jewell is like sort of the last

year of the bachelor's degree where it's like, hey, you are, you are, people now are starting to know your name and they're starting to think of you in a different light because you're not just the silly idiot. You can, you can act too. And, uh, and I think Blackbird is like the start of, of trying to gain a master's degree. I'm trying to do that right now. The next four years is me trying to get the master's degree. And in my early forties, hopefully I'm mastering this stuff. And you know, you look at a quarterback that's about the age, early forties is like, okay, you've put in your time and now you are, that's your legacy right now. We know Tom Brady is Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers is Aaron Rodgers. Yeah. I like it. I think think you will be one of the biggest actors in the world

in the next 10 years. From your mouth to my business manager's ears. You should be. You should be. We said this might have been the same interview, but you should play Andy Reid in the Andy Reid biopic. Oh, yeah. Damon was like, I'm going to hit Hauser up about that.

I'm like, he never hit me up. He didn't hit you up? Where's my Andy Reid phone? No, I am developing a movie with Ben and Matt, though. Something that I'm going to act in and produce. And I co-wrote. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Wait, and you're, are you a Jets fan? Did I read that right? So here's the story on that. I two years ago got an email to two and a half years ago saying the Jets organization would like to invite you To get two to four VIP passes and sit in the owners suite

Okay, and I was like not in New York at the time and I was a lifelong Packer fan was like I This is weird. Like I wonder what propelled them to do that The recruiting fans. Yeah. Who knows? And I then I got this movie, the Springsteen movie I'm doing right now in Jersey. And I was like, I wonder if that offer still on the table. I literally went to my Google emails and was like looking up jets in the search engine of my past emails, found the email and email my PR people and

was like, Hey, I know it's two. It's like an enormous McDonald's voice. Yeah. Yeah. I know it's a two and a half years later, but I still go to a Jets game for free. Yeah. I'm just saying I'm a Jets fan, you know? So I did that and they were like, let us check. They were like probably wary about it. And then there I was two days ago. Was it what day is today? Monday? Yeah. Yesterday. So yesterday I was at the Jets game with my buddy Darren and we're sitting with, you know, the owner or co-owner, Chris Johnson and his wife Doris, and they could not have been sweeter and nicer and more down to earth and were noshing on lobster rolls and eclairs and watching the game surrounded by all these wealthy people that I felt very out of place with.

So so so not a Jets fan, but then you got to see your old quarterback is your Packers fan your old quarterback Aaron Rodgers play. It's not going well. It's a it's rough because all the talent's there, but not everything's connecting. And it's tough too. Not everybody can stay so... You can be talented, but not have the sharp or crispness that you once had. And it doesn't mean you're not good. It just means you're a 42-year-old quarterback or a 44 year old quarterback. Right? Yeah. And I think actors are like that too, to bring it back to acting. It's like some actors and I won't say their name as to not be rude, but when they get older, they're just not as sharp. Right? It doesn't mean you don't enjoy them.

It just means they don't have that Christmas. And then there are some that stand the test of time and are giving psychotically good performances in their eighties and nineties. And that class of actors like a Sir Anthony Hopkins. Yeah. Anthony Hopkins can still be as good as he was in Silence of the Lambs tomorrow. Yeah. And that's a very rare thing.

And I think, you know, Roger's, the best days are probably behind, but I loved watching him and I met him at the ESPYs. We did a comedy skit together and he could not have been cooler. We had a lot of fun talking to each other. Wait, so that's something interesting you bring up. I never really thought of like, is there a, not an expiration date, but is there a career arc for an actor where it's like they become washed up? And is that something that you actually think about in the back of your

Head where you're like I have I'm in my prime right now I got a I got a work work work because who knows it 60 well I still have it I don't worry about that so much because I also know I'm fiercely competitive and and I'm not fully Mentally well, so I know that when I'm 60 I'll still Be getting weird. Yeah, doing different stuff. Um, doesn't mean I'm better than so and so it just means that's how I'm built. I think I may be proven wrong in 30 years, you know, who knows, but, um, my

hope is that when I'm 60 and maybe have a couple more nominations or something under my belt, and some people are that's a classy actor. That's a real actor. That guy. Like, I hope, I hope I'm still showing up and doing shows. Like I think you should leave with Tim Robinson. Yeah. I hope I'm still showing up at WrestleMania and someone's putting me through a table where I hope, you know, I hope MLW is still having me back. You know, like these are the things I do think about is never take away your self amusement and your competitive spirit and your sense of play.

And I don't think that'll happen to you, you know. What's it like being competitive as an actor? Dude, people don't even think about it the way I think about it. I'm a weirdo. Like I'm way too insecure and in my head with competitive nature. I don't think guys like Paul Dano and Adam Driver think the way I think I think they're very

content focused. And they probably don't think about it as much. I very much think about the guys in my bracket. And I'm you know, Aaron Paul said to me very early in my career, I did a movie with him that few people saw. And Aaron Paul gave me advice. He said, you got to beat the town. Who are you the next of who are you up against? Who are the guys you see at all your auditions? You got to beat those guys out. And I kept a list of like 3040 guys that I was slowly trying to get all the jobs. And then eventually there were like me and four or five other guys in the top

bracket and I was like, damn, okay. And now I'm at the point where if these three people pass, they come to me. So it's like, I'm still in my head. I'm still like, I still have this dogged obsession of I want to be the guy that gets the offer before them. But that also never stops because Christian Bale says that about DiCaprio. He has been very vocal about saying like, if DiCaprio passes, I get the offer. And it's like, so maybe that happens forever. Yeah. Yeah. Or do you pay attention to the guys that are coming up behind you too? The relatively new guys? Are you like this guy, he's getting a little too close

to me. I need to separate myself. Oh, no, no, no. Never that. It's all support. It's all love. It's just me trying to make me the best, not to anyone else's detriment or put down. It's just me trying to show my teeth every time I open my mouth. That's all. Yeah. Yeah. But I love the guys coming up. I love Will Poulter, Fred Hechinger, Joseph Quinn, Chalamet is great. Like there's a lot of guys coming up that are great, I think. So what's the story of the rumor that surrounded you, the Quentin Tarantino rumor. Fake news. What happened with that? It's all fake news. It's Tarantino and I have never had a meeting.

He's never contacted me. Some random blog site said that I was in contention or it was overheard that I had been offered the lead in the movie critic. And it was news to me, and me and my manager were freaking out. I remember I was sitting on the lead in the movie critic. And it was news to me and me and my manager are freaking out. I remember I was sitting on the toilet on my cell phone. I'm like texting and suddenly my phone blows up

and I go on Twitter and it was just like, bling, bling, bling. And all these people are talking about it. I was like, what the hell's going on? And you know, for us, we thought maybe it was true and we just hadn't been given the offer. Maybe somebody internally spilled the beans at a luncheon at the San Vicente bungalows and somebody texted somebody and they put it online. You know, you never know. Yeah. But, uh, but

it turned out that I guess Bill Maher had Tarantino on a show, the basement show that looks like everybody's a prisoner to Bill. Oh, yeah They want to like smokes weed in front of Hawk to a girl and Everybody looks like it kept a woman while he drinks and gets high. Yeah, but yeah, he He and Tarantino Very briefly talked about me and Mar was kind of putting me over saying like he was in Richard Jewell He was good and Tarantino was like, yeah, he's been in a few things But whatever I think people just thought I was gonna cast him because you know he looks like he could be a movie critic and I was like oh like it totally was

like like a kidney shot from a boxer I had to I had to take a knee and be like oh that hurt yeah oh I wish I wasn't contention but also like you know there's a real world out there where wars are being fought if I'm not a Tarantino movie I think I'll be okay but But yeah, I do. I do love the guy. I love his work and you know, I'd love to be a fly on that wall and do anything in one of his movies. Yeah. And also I think if you're, if you're having your name thrown around in baseless rumors for a Quentin Tarantino movie, but they're believable enough where people like, I could see that happen. That's probably a good thing too, right?

Certainly. Yeah, it certainly brings a smirk to your face that people can believe that. And you know, I've had, I've had meetings with big name directors who were thinking about using me for something and for whatever reason they went another way. And and if anything, that is just fodder for encouragement. Like, hey, you, you never know, you could wake up and you could wake up and I could be doing a recurring guest star on a sitcom or I could be in a Spielberg movie and that's kind of a fun, exciting way to live your life, you know, to

just sort of feel the pendulum swinging back and forth and the key is to just have fun and honor every commitment. Treat a scrimmage like the Super Bowl is what I always tell young actors, because you never know who's watching. And you want to honor the fact that anyone gives a crap about you and gave you a role, because they could cast somebody else. Yeah.

We've got some pretty deep connections in Hollywood. Jerry O'Connell is a good friend of ours. Have you ever met Jerry O'Connell? No, but I'm a fan. I love his brief but impactful performance in Can't Hardly Wait. And I've certainly been a fan of his from Stand By Me. And he seems like a nice guy. Yeah.

I noticed you didn't mention Kangaroo Jack or his supermodel wife. I think it'd be a little shallow to just say that he's got a hot wife and did the now cult classic hangar jack. Right. I was trying to go for deeper cuts. Yeah. No, no. Supermodel wife though. You can say right off the top. I loved his wife when I was 13. Supermodel wife. He's got a supermodel wife. You can Google it. It's fact. I'm happy. She's very nicely. Is it Rebecca Romaine? Yeah. Yeah. You, oh yeah. You know, you pervert. You're a pervert. Yeah. You played that cool. Oh, what's her name? Uh, Rebecca Romaine. Yeah. It's not like I know how to spell her last name. Capital R O N I J N. Exactly. I'll be,

that'd be crazy. I would like to see you and Jerry in a movie together. I feel like that would be, yeah, you and Jerry, Jerry's a good actor. Or maybe that's a, the next hit sitcom is he's my stepdad and I'm like, we're trying to help each other out and we're both total messes or something. No, I think, I think it'd be better if he was your dad and then Rebecca Romaine is your stepmom. And you're always getting trouble. There it is mom has got it going on. There it is. Hey, so you've been in some, you've had some great like part roles in some incredible comedy and sitcom. You were in Reno 911, you were in Always Sunny.

Have you ever made anyone break in filming those where you're like, man, this is awesome? Because I always think about that when you're like in those big shows and it's like, yeah, I made all these funny people laugh. Yeah, that happens on occasion. I'm trying to think when it's happened for me. I don't think it was, I think I remember breaking, I broke Tom Lennon once or twice on Reno and that was a big feather in the cap. Yeah. And I broke a couple of the Sonny people once or twice and that was a big feather in the cap because I love those shows so much. They're two of my favorite shows of all time. So for me, those moments mean as much as winning an actor trophy, you know, like those are your own trophies

that you, you get to ponder whenever you're having a bad day. Yeah. And it's also, I mean, it was, is it weird like having a show like always sunny where it's like you watched it probably as a fan and then they call you up and like, Hey, we want you to be in it. It was nuts. I was, I was at college. I was dropping out of college in Oak Park, river forest, this place called Concordia University. I was basically dropping out partying my face off, ballooning up in weight and writing a movie script for Key and Peel because they just mad TV had just gotten canceled and my manager at the time rep them. He's like, you know, you want to write a movie for these guys are

looking for something to do together. And so I'm writing a script for Key and Peele before they have the hit show. And I'm dropping out of college. And most of my days were spent watching dirty work and wet hot American summer and episodes of It's Always Sunny. And so a year later, to be in the room auditioning for the show was crazy. And then stepping into the bar,

I vividly remember I brought my friend to set, which was such a thing. Like I had a weird flex back in the day where I just didn't ask permission for anything. I would just bring one of my buddies to set and he'd be hanging out with me all day without asking anybody. So like my buddy, Peter and I, Peter Hinn's this really funny dude, he and I walked into the set of It's Always Sunny, and walking into that bar and seeing everything, it was like, it was like The Wizard of Oz or something. Like, we could not believe we were in the bar of It's Always Sunny.

Yeah. That's so awesome. That's gotta be crazy. Going back to making people break on set, that never happens in a show like Blackbird, right? I wouldn't say it never happens. I mean, there's a famous clip on YouTube of somebody, I think it might've been Phil Hartman or somebody had a fart machine in the elevator and a scene in the master, the PT Anderson film. Uh-huh.

That's a pretty serious film, or at least an intense film. And they had a moment where everybody broke and it was over a fart joke. So it can happen, but I would say most of the time on Blackbird, 98% of the time we were both locked in, deathly serious about the work. But I will, I will say you have to keep stuff light outside of it. Yeah. And I think there were a day or two, not that he ever truly showed it, but there had to be a day or two where I annoyed the crap out of Taron, like in between takes or in between

setups where I'd be doing an accent or a celebrity impression or dancing or being stupid. And for me, it was like therapeutic, but for him at some point, I'm sure it proved distractionary. Yeah. But like you got to break up the intensity somehow. You got to stay sane. And for me nowadays, if I'm having a rough, rough day for whatever reason, I just watch a couple clips from, I think you should leave on Netflix and I'm out of it reason, I just watch a couple of clips from, um, I think you should leave on Netflix and, and I'm out of it or I'll watch a really good wrestling match from MLW or another organization on YouTube. And it makes me feel better. You know, who was your favorite wrestler growing up? Sting was my number one. Still is. It

still is. Still is. Uh, well he retired, but you know what it is. It's, everybody's got their Mount Rushmore. He's the top of mind. And I think I just admired the fact that he, he was second fiddled the Hulk Hogan in that good guy era, but Hogan was like never really selling for other people. He was always saying like, I'm the dude. You can't get one over on me. And sting would sell for people sting. You could beat the crap out of sting, but he would still come back. Yeah. And I feel like I saw that more than I saw with Hogan. I admired that love the flare and pizzazz of the guy going from surfer sting to the crow

sting and he got all dark and serious and fought the NWL with just a baseball bat and a silent face. Like there was something so cool about that. And he stood the test of time and just recently, you know, had his final match back in the spring of this year in Greensboro, North Carolina. And I got to be there and Tony Khan allowed me to sit ringside with some dear friends. One of my oldest friends, Ryan Kunitzer, who, you know, I've known the guy 30 something years. Sting was like our guy and we're standing there, you know, nearly emotional as he has his final match. It was amazing.

That's incredible. Who else is on your mind? Rushmore. So there's two types of Rushmore is right. There's the one where you're trying to objectively give the top four for from the worldly perspective. And then there's personal Rushmore 21 personal. Yeah, well personal personal Rushmore is sting Bret Hart. I think. I think Rick Flair and Chris Jericho. Oh, okay. I think those are the four.

But Jericho's tough too. He just sneaks in there past, he just sneaks in there past a couple other guys like Ricky Steamboat or Randy Savage. Yeah, Randy Savage, he was the best. Yeah, I miss that guy. Oh God. Macho man.

I think my top 10 has a bunch of random guys too Like they're not who you'd think I don't go for the low-hanging fruit of the undertaker under the giant and Shawn Michaels Like I I like guys who are impactful in different ways. I love Dustin Rhodes aka Goldust Rey Mysterio Mick Foley Kurt Angle not all the people that get put at the top. Yeah, mankind is probably on my rush more. I've got a really dumb question for you. But I think about this with actors.

I'm a very dumb person. Serve it up, bro. How much time do you put in behind the scenes just literally memorizing your lines? Depends on the role. Depends on the role. There are certain things like Richard Jewell, I would learn my lines a week like five to seven days in advance and I'd be very overly familiar with them and it could kind of fall out of me a lot easier and then there's other things if I'm doing a comedy there's just less of a

stress of learning the lines it just feels like I don't know it's like Bam Margero the skateboard like it's not like, I don't know, it's like Bam Margero, the skateboard, like it's not like he's in shape and skateboards all the time, but like he can still jump on a skateboard and do whatever cause he's bam. Yeah. That's kind of how I feel about comedy, but I think that's actually a really dangerous way to, it's a dangerous attitudinal stance cause you can then sometimes give 85% when you should be given 100. Yeah. So, so it depends.

But, but yeah, I, my whole thing is I learned one page at a time. So I'll always know the first page of dialogue better than the last. But I, for me, that's just my process. I learned one page at a time. The biggest audition I ever had page wise,wise, I think I learned, I think I-Tonya was 13 pages. I memorized and I think Scream 4 I memorized like 15 pages. Jeez. So when you're rehearsing for like Black Clansmen, there's some lines of dialogue in that movie you probably would never want to say in any context besides in front of

a camera, right? Are you, are you doing to say in any context besides the camera, right? Are you are you doing are you rehearsing like the full lines? Yeah, if I have to if I have to like feel the words and say them in a way where it you don't feel the timidity in the character. Because like I've met some weird racist ass dudes at dive bars or you know, one of those low key racist guys who's like putting the bait out and seeing if you'll, if you'll touch the, the pole line. Yeah. See if your friend or foe. Yeah. Yeah. The Uber driver who's like talking politics and then it's like, yeah, you know how these people are. Then they're looking at you in

the rear view and you're like, I want to fricking die right now. Yeah. I don't want to be in this guy's car. I've met enough of them that like you can't have timidity. It's gotta be, if you were born with that ideological stance, it has to be as normal as, well, yeah, we always have pork chops on Thursdays. Yeah. Right. It just has to be normal. Do you see, you don't say it because you're like, look at me, I'm saying the rap lyrics behind closed doors. You're doing it because you have to make sure it's right. But I would say what's harder is when you improvise with a bad character. There were lines that I said in Black Bird and Black Klansman that I improvised that you feel very guilty about because afterwards you go, well, that wasn't in the script and you still got there

So how'd you get there? That's tough that's acting yeah, that's acting yeah, that's really good. It's also acting yeah, it's also Sometimes good acting you're like oh, that is a really good line unfortunately. It's Devastatingly awful, but that's who you're playing on the day. Yeah, unfortunately It's really really racist and you came up with it all on your own. Yeah. I had a disgusting moment where I felt so bad. I'm doing a scene with John David Washington, who's about as likable and sweet of a person as you can get on a movie set. And I did something where I stuck my mouth out to look like a ape or a primate with my tongue

To piss him off in the scene now spike gave me the direction of Europe and his grill do something that could provoke him, but he won't be provoked So like that's what I thought of for that character, but the moment after it was done. I went up to John David I go hey, man. I just want to say and he goes, I know, I know, like, very much said it, like, I know where you're going with it. And I, like, we were on the same page here. Don't don't, don't take your foot off the pedal just because you're uncomfortable. Yeah. And I really admired his, his grace and professionalism with that. And, and there have been moments like that and other projects. And there have been moments like that

in other projects. And sometimes you just got to be able to have a conversation preliminarily too. Sometimes I won't do something because I'm like, I don't want to get, I don't want someone to create a story of me being a bad person because I made a creative choice. So let me run this by them first to make sure they're comfortable. And 90% of the time the other actor is like, Oh, you shouldn't have even told me. You should have just done it. Right. It's like before you step into the wrestling ring. Yeah. That too. I'm always asking wrestlers, you know, like, like these guys at MLW, that's their locker room. I'm a guest in their locker room. I'm new to the roster and I really respect those

guys and gals. And it's always about finding out what are we doing and how do we do it the best way that doesn't complicate something or hurt anybody long term. Yeah. So Paul, this has been awesome, man. We really appreciate you joining us. I got one last question. It's the row back question, rhoback.com promo code take 20% off your first purchase Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, rowback.com promo code take. I mentioned it at the top, but uh, major league wrestling, uh, there's free pay per views or sorry, free matches. The big streams are on YouTube. Um, so the

quite last question I have for you is if wrestling started taking off for you and they're like, you have to give up acting. Would you do it? Like really take off. If they gave me that ultimatum and something weird happened where say, say in 2026, I undergo the Chris Pratt style transformation and MLW has taken off and they got a show on TV and I'm, they want to put a belt on me and they want, we're doing the whole thing. If that opportunity presented itself, I would just hold my ground and say, you have to let me do both. I don't think I would take the deal because at the end of the day, I love acting. It would hurt my feelings. It would hurt my spirit to not get to act in some capacity.

And you got to ask my wife, my wife, Amy is such a patient, grace driven woman. There, she knows that when I go three, four or five months without acting, I'm not that fun to be around. I'm like starved for attention. And I'm like hell bent on making my jokes. And suddenly I'm in the kitchen and I'm trying to turn into Anthony Bourdain or Guy Fieri. It's like, it's a very, you know, we're sick people actors. Yeah. So it's like, I think it would hurt the soul and the brain too much if I didn't do it. But I do think that there's a way to do both. And I'm trying to prove that. And the other thing to anyone

listening, like know your value, if you're good at what you do, and somebody saying there's an ultimatum, give them a counter ultimatum that you need to do both. And you'll find out that when you stick to your guns and you are who you say you are, you should be able to do both. That's a great sentiment. And it's also what you said about going crazy when you don't act for a while, that's why you're an incredible actor I mean we we we obviously we do a stupid podcast But when we go five days without talking to each other about sports were like what the fuck like our brains

Yeah It nourishes your spirit to do these things you love and I really believe and you know not to not to be too preaching My dad's literally a retired minister, but I believe that God put us all on earth to do different things, to embody something that can benefit other people. You guys do it yourselves, you entertain and educate people on topics they're interested in, and you give people a reprieve from a dark, twisted, difficult world. And I think I do the same, and like, you know, it's when you feel that inside yourself, and you go,

man, I feel thirsty for this thing. That's God's way of telling you you're meant to do that. Yeah, we're putting on the surf. So I would I would encourage people follow the breadcrumbs, you know, follow the, the trail of passion, because it's, it's there for a reason. Yeah, I appreciate you telling us that we educate people. We haven't educated a single person. No, we did.

Well, you educate them on other people, right? We did. We educated numerous NFL head coaches on what to do in the fourth quarter of a playoff game if you're losing by two scores and it's fourth down, fourth and eight, do you kick the field goal or do you give the ball back to Tom Brady to beat you in the NFC championship game? Listen, you guys were the first people to say the Andy Reid thing. So if that happens, we can go back and be like, these guys educated us. That's true. Yeah. They were prophetic. Yeah. I mean, you would, this was happening. You would absolutely kill an Andy Reid role.

Yeah. At the end of the day, I'm looking to work with anybody who's kind, who treats people well and wants to, wants to work hard and who's kind, who treats people well and wants to, wants to work hard and tell a good story, whatever that looks like. It could be a sitcom, it could be a little indie foreign film, it could be anything. But at the end of the day you hope to do something that you're proud of, you know? And I never want to be that actor who just takes a bad movie for a lot of money I have two children who are gonna be in private school and Life is not cheap. It can be very difficult sometimes

So I'm sure there's gonna be that temptation too But but I try to make things that I would want to pay my hard-earned money to go see it The AMC theater the regal cinema. Yeah, I think it comes across too So is there is there one role not one that you have? Like the ball in motion for so taking out like the Chris Farley any of that stuff Is there something that you've been fascinated with a story or an individual? That you've just been really really interested in who you would like to play or a role that you would really like to play at some Point good question. Yeah, I'll leave you at this. I have three roles I really want to inhabit

in the next five years. I want to play Teddy Roosevelt. Oh, Oscar. Oscar. There you go. Oscar. And that's another one where I just, I know I can play him. I'm not even worried about it. It just, I just have to convince other people to wanna do it. The other one is a father who knows how to be present and not on his phone all the time. Okay,

good role. That's a role I really need to inhabit and get better at cuz I sci-fi. I can be. Yeah, it's a fantasy. This is a genre. and the as a father, I mean, I wanna to have it that characteristic. The third role is, uh, I want to kick somebody's ass in MLW and I'm going to be doing that Thursday night, the Morales ballroom, uh, in, in Long Island

city, and I hope you check it out in person. If you can't make it in person, court Bauer in all his, uh, benevolence is providing these pay-per-view style cards for free on YouTube. So check it out. I love it. I love it. Well, Paul, thank you so much for your time, man. We're big fans of yours and keep crushing it. I'd also like to invest in the Teddy Roosevelt foam when it gets made. Manifesting.

I got some money coming through. Travis Hunter for Heisman. Love to you guys. And let's do this again in like a year or two here. Yeah. All right. Love it. Thanks so much, man. Paul Walter Hauser was brought to you by our great friends over at Body Armor. I'm drinking my Body Armor right now. Got the water. I drank several Body Armors on Sunday, keeping me hydrated during the NFL streams. armor is also presenting surviving barstool Keeping big cat hydrated throughout all the challenges Surviving barstool it takes out of you. I remember when I did it

It was just like try it try to survive just survive in advance and you can't do it without staying super hydrated Body armor is delicious their sports drink has great tasting flavors like strawberry banana blue raspberry It's packed with electrolytes vitamins and nothing artificial not only do we hydrate with body armor? But some of the best athletes in the world do as well like Christian McCaffrey Joe burrow Sabrina UNESCO Everybody's drinking body armor these days get yours today at Walmart or at a local grocery store near you He was also brought to you by Shake Shack. It's day three of the Shake Shack Holiday burger blitz and on the slate today. We have The avocado bacon burger. Oh hell. Yes, nothing like avocado and bacon on a burger

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What was your favorite blitz of the week? let's Mmm That Vikings defensive end. I know it's not a blitz. But that was a pretty good strip sack. Yeah, but let's the burger blitz Primo code burger blitz get a free Shake Shack burger with $10 minimum purchase. So good. Um Before we do FAQs. Well, thank you. Good. You. Vitamin purchase. So good. Before we do FAQs. Well, thank you. Got it. You're eating a burger and you're supposed to read FAQs.

What? I feel good. It's so good. Do you guys FAQ for you guys? You know how the the daylight savings thing is back in the in the news whether we should or we shouldn't and we're like, hey, wish we had another hour of sunlight in the winter. I'm an idiot. I didn't realize that if we just, if we like didn't do daylight savings or I don't even understand the terminology, if we didn't do

daylight savings, it would get dark at like seven, like 15 in the summer. Never realized that we'd have to give that up the opposite side of it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't mind. Yeah. Yeah, that's I don't want that. I thought it was like, so I thought it only fucked with us. No, it was like the sun would would rise at like 445 in the summer. And then set it like 745. That's the opposite. Yeah. So just suck it up for the winter. We're already we're five days away from the law or the shortest day of the year. We're gonna be on the other side soon Yeah, it sucks for like the first week when you're like, oh, it shouldn't be dark this early But then it's like whatever you just get through it. Everyone people that bitch about winter fucking losers Listen and also cold and it's dark early and also get over also don't move to California if you don't like don't bitch about winter Also don't move to California if you don't like it don't bitch about winter Until like late January early February. This is not winter yet because it's holiday season. Everyone's happy There's football on this does not count as winter yet. That's what always fucks with you is that you think oh

We're it's gonna get dark so early in the wintertime, but then it starts to get longer in January Yeah, cuz we're almost there Yeah, also if you change the if you take away day late savings time that takes away like three hours worth of recurring bits on part of my table you talk about bits just think about that think about the podcasters are you talking what do you mean bits well because last year PSA's no last bit last year we thought that the clocks went back in the fall Oh, and we fucked that up the I think you're thinking of I think you're thinking of PSA's know you've been bought by big time No, we kept saying that it falls back, but it actually goes forward. Yeah

That was a bad year for us. Yeah, when we did our final year review with Dave He's like hey it says here you guys you guys screwed up the daylight savings thing. Fuck man. No excuses next year. We'll nail it Yeah, we have to do ten minutes in the dungeon for every time we fuck that up, but seriously I mean, it's we're almost there. What is it divisional round January? I think I think it's January 18th is when we move the clocks back again. So we're almost there Yeah, we pretty much made it. Yeah Okay, I think Hughes. Hey boys. What what will president pug do about max injury? I believe pug needs to address weekly injuries like midweek coaches, press conferences. I like that. That would, we actually need him to do an availability report because I was

dealing with little sickness. Uh, the last like week and a half or rolling sickness in my house. Uh, yeah, I was questionable a couple times. What is Pug doing about healthcare as president on this podcast? But he needs to give an update of how everyone's feeling just so we can set the stage of like, listen, we're football guys. We don't complain. I don't think I... You guys didn't even know that I was dealing with it. I puked seven times on Saturday. Damn.

The only reason I would talk about an injury is if it was mandated for me to report it. Yeah. Otherwise I don't want people to know. Right. But pug you should definitely do a mandated injury report. Yeah. On how you need to you need to like pull all of us separately how we're doing and then like game days. You should just you could just do a tweet or press car Instagram live press conference. But if he's doing it three times a week we get pug like a step and repeat I think it's in front of yeah, I think he does it once a week I would like to see a once-week injury report, but what I mean there's game days Well then showed is then you know I can be then we have to wait for all the test results to come back

And we'll have more information about his injury as a week progresses. Yeah, I Missed the first part. This is just each show. Injury reports. Yeah, I think you need to start adding injury reports. Maybe make a graphic, and maybe it's every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday. It doesn't have to be a press conference, but it just says, you can ask all of us how we're doing,

just so the listeners know what we're dealing with. So it could be physical and emotional. Yeah, of course, of course Yeah, people can give you their answer. Yeah, I also tell you my sleep stats. Yeah bears have me depressed Okay, yeah fat fat Was that for you? No, but like some song might be in the future. Yeah doubtful fat Some might be in the future. Yeah doubtful fat You'll be like you'll be like Tom Brady shoulder memories listed like was like 17 years in a row Yeah with a probable is probable shoulder

Okay, someone should stay the same every time. Yeah Yeah memes angry Italian. Yeah limit limited participant Italian non horny kind Italian. Yeah. Limited participant. Italian non-horny kind. Hey PMT gang, my FAQ is how long does it take to write boomers on Sunday for the Monday show? They're always so clever and funny and I always get a good chuckle out of them.

Oh, thank you. That's nice. It depends week to week, honestly, depending on what the schedule is. If we have a Bears game or a commander's game or a really good game like we had last weekend Yeah in the late slate We just put off writing the boomers as long as we can and then we we just write like hell for about I don't know 40 minutes. Yeah, and also Hank writes his boomer memes does that has been a very big It's been a very big help. We've gotten a lot more efficient on our Sunday schedule

Yeah, cuz I was thinking about it like it used to be that we wouldn't be done till one or two in the morning. We're usually done about 11 30. Um, shout out the guys in the booth because they're, they stay till like three or four in the morning time zones, time zones. But it's still like we know. Yeah, no, the New York, it was, we've gotten very efficient. Um, but yeah, I'm also, I'm going to miss football season. I'm very excited for playoffs.

I think I said this last week, but I'm excited to like sit down and soak in one single game for like, I was thinking about the wild card round the other day. Like I'm just so pumped to just like one matchup. You get to focus on individual games. And they do kind of set you up with like the Christmas and then they're gonna do the Saturday one games.

Right. So this is the point of the season though where we're just have a lot of football that doesn't mean anything. So it's like just get me I just want to hit the fast forward to the playoffs because like I want to just let's get this thing on. Let's get it on. Who would last the longest in a zombie apocalypse resources aplenty out of the group and who would kill themselves first to get it over with?

It's not, are we saying like the dead rise? Like everybody that's dead shows up? Can I make a confession? I don't like zombies. I've never been a zombie guy. I don't like zombies. Don't like the shows, don't like the movies, just doesn't do it for me. I don't like-

I just, there's nothing, it does nothing for me. I don't know why everybody decided that like zombies are a thing, right? And we're always gonna talk about zombies or about like what about like Planet of the Apes like Like plague like you're trying to survive Not zombies per se but like, you know, there's a plague that's taking over the country You're trying to survive or like what we would do is we would have dr. Fauci on the program Yeah, I guess that zombies I think I would uh I would I would survive the exact amount of like average time I would probably be I would probably put myself in the kill myself

first uh I feel like pft could survive like just eating random shit you live next to the lake though just get to water is that how it, I mean, I think that's what you're supposed to do is just get to water Whatever the thing is get to water. I think I would just I think I'd be okay I'm just I could deal with me. You can just eat Fritos for like three years Yeah, yeah, I could I could do that if a nuke hits you just go underwater for the five seconds It hits I always thought that was tsunami like just swim underneath it. Wait what? If you you thought that the way to survive a tsunami was to jump into the water? Well yeah you know how like when you're in the in the water and you just go underneath the wave? Yeah like when your

body's surfing? Yeah yeah sure. I don't know all these idiots running away from that might not be wrong I might not be wrong yeah sure all right Nikki wrote I think she said she's studying and she must take an ad or she wrote like five questions who creates the cover of graphics for podcast episodes what is the go-to music for the office to listen to and do you guys have a sick Christmas tree in the office? Mmm, go the the graphics is our guy Triggs. He is the goat What singular? But isn't it Triggs draws trig draws. I think over the years. We've just called him I just had an ass trig is Triggs. No, it's Triggs Triggs is the man

He is like so so so so talented also hit him up if you want like Sidework because he does Incredible stuff where like he can make all kinds of art and cool things. He's big sports fan He's a very talented artist and he also does some sick-ass graphics for like college football Saturdays Yeah, where he shows you exactly what games are on what channel at what time. Yeah. So his Twitter handle is what is it? Trig draws. Trigs draws.

No, Trig draws. I think it's the the the ass on draws that has me. It's like when Gillie calls it barstools. Yeah. Trig draws. He's the man. So do hit him up. Yeah, he's got a shop online that is I mean that yeah the tigerwood stuff. Those prints are awesome but Go to song in the office. We don't have no music whatever Brandon Walker paces around the office to at 7 a.m

Yeah, and then what was the last question? Do you guys have a sick Christmas tree in the office? I we have one we have to to I think we have to I wouldn't say that it's sick because it's not live no live shoes are way better yeah we have to it reminds I got a cop a tree I got to get my tree yeah it's like one week away yeah so get it but no you don't understand the way I operate with Christmas trees I get them a little bit late and then I get it I get my fill in on the back end yeah I like till after the super daylight savings time is probably when it's time to take the tree down yeah my yeah January 10th that's a little early if I guess but they're Super Bowl yeah well yeah January 18th sorry the divisional

round okay you got any more no okay let's wrap up the show numbers Means you ever gotten this no 92. Oh look at you. This is a new me. He's just admitting it three. I did guess it though No, you didn't get everyone guess it every week. You got everyone can guess it. No you didn't I'm guessing eight for my drug addict quarterback Right 17 94 pug 21 Okay reset

reset Good luck memes Thanks, good luck to everybody here, too. Thanks means You get like a new medication or something? No. 75. Love you guys. So So So So So So Thanks for watching!