Pardon My Take - Ryen Russillo, Week 18 Picks And Antonio Brown Drama

Episode Date: January 7, 2022

The Drive to the 405 has reached week 18 and it’s a close race. We talk a little Antonio Brown, Week 18 picks and preview(00:02:37:16-00:38:28).. Ryen Russillo joins the show to preview the 2021-22 NBA season, opt outs, national championship and more(00:38:28-01:49:24). We finish with Fyre Fest of the week(01:49:24:02-02:03:47).You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/PardonMyTake

Hey, pardon my take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime members can listen, add free on Amazon Music. On today's part of my take, week 18 preview and picks. The drive to the 405 is coming down to it. We'll break it all down, we'll give you our picks. We'll talk a little bit about Antonio Brown, Buck Saga.

We have Ryan Rosillo on the show, our good friend Ryan Rosillo. We talk NBA, we talk college football. We talk everything, great interview, over an hour long with Ryan Rosillo because he's the best. And we also have Firefest of the Week. And we were brought to you by our friends at Chevy.

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No place to hang out or wash in and then I can't blame all on the suns. Oh no, we gonna rock down to electric I brand new. And then we'll take it higher. Oh, we gonna rock down to electric I brand new. It's a pardon my take. It isn't about our sports. Welcome to part of my take presented by Chevy,

the all brand new Chevy all electric Silverado is coming out the ZR2. Check it out. It's going to be awesome. Today is Friday, January 7th and it is week 18, the first ever week 18. And it's coming down to it. The drive to the 405,

which also might be the drive to Dallas, Fort Worth is coming down to it. And we're gonna do our picks and preview. How we doing boys? Are we feeling like it might be in Dallas now? Well, so here's the general vibe of the studio. Big Cat's in Chicago right now, but Billy has already taken Big Cat's seat

on the other end of the table here. So he's kind of, he's breaking in the ass groove for himself later. But Big Cat, there is a palpable bit of nervousness in the studio today. They're nerves because these picks mean something. Hank said that he changed his picks like four times and he's never done that before.

So people here are deep inside their own heads. So let's recap real quick because it's been a season long competition. So if you miss it at any point, we'll recap it for everyone. The deal is this, every single week, all six of us have picked four games, a favorite, an underdog, an over and an under.

The rule was that the last place person and the second place person have to drive from New York City to LA for the Super Bowl. We are now facing week 18 and everyone is still alive to potentially drive. So the standings are as such. I'm gonna do it by points because it's easier this way. PFT and Hank are tied at first for 40 and a half points.

Pushes are half a point. Pushes a half point. Jake is in second with 37 points. Myself and Liam, we are tied for third with 35 and a half points and Billy is in last with 33.5 points. So everyone, depending on week 18, could potentially, like obviously PFT and Hank can't finish last,

but both of them can finish second. I probably can't, I can't finish first, but I could finish last. So everyone is, or I couldn't finish second, but I could finish last. So everyone is available. You got your Steelers. You got, you're a half ahead of Liam.

You're Monday night Steelers. Oh, okay. So what am I now? So you're four games behind PFT and Hank. So technically you can still tie for second. Okay. So yeah, there it is. It's chaos. It's chaos with everyone's picks.

We had memes, everyone texted memes separately. So there's no funny business going on because we know that Billy would cheat if he could figure it out. But it's definitely tense right now because I think facing it, people don't really want to travel all the way across country in a few days

and maybe go to Dallas too, which makes the drive significantly less fun. I mean, Dallas would be a lot of fun to make the road trip down there, hit up Nashville, maybe stop on Bourbon Street, hit New Orleans on the way. That's pretty sick. Yeah, Billy's right.

It is sick. Also, fair warning to you, big cap. Billy said that he's in danger of having all four of his picks be correct this week. Oh, okay. He feels like he just went four and oh. Also PFT was trying to get me to spoil. He came up to me at the office earlier when I came in and was like, hey Hank, I submitted my picks already.

So you can tell me what yours are. Yeah. Nice try. And Hank was like, Hank correctly said that's cap. I was cap. Dry. It will be though. It's going to be exciting. It's going to come down to it.

We've all submitted our picks. Before we do our picks, should we talk a little bit about AB and the recent news? So Antonio Brown obviously came out today or yesterday and said that he was injured. No, he was hurt, not injured. And Bruce Arians cut him on the sideline because he was hurt and refused to play.

No, no, no, he was injured. And then Bruce Arians told him that he was hurt. Not injured. And then Bruce Arians cut him and did the throat slash to him allegedly on the sidelines. Also, I was reading some of the screenshots that AB put on Twitter

or on his Instagram story this morning. He said, the screenshot was a text from Bruce Arians. And it said, hey Antonio Brown, what's up? This is BA here. Before he proceeded to say like, how are we feeling Antonio Brown was like, I hurt my ankle. I think I'm going to give it a go coach.

I just want to do whatever it takes to be ready for the team. And many people are saying that that wasn't a real screenshot from Antonio Brown and Bruce Arians that Antonio Brown doctored it. I just want to say I stand with AB. I don't think that he's done anything in the past that would indicate to us

that he would make up something like this. So we freed AB. He got released today. The big question is like, is anyone going to actually sign Antonio Brown? Is that a possibility? The Cowboys to sign him for my future? What about the Chiefs?

I do have to give Antonio Brown credit. Who knows where the truth is in this one? I tweeted out earlier, but I think the truth is probably Antonio Brown and Bruce Arians are both assholes. Like that might be the truth because it seems like a lot of people are taking the side of Antonio Brown

because you have to take the side of player safety. Then you have people like Steven Shea that are bootlickers and essentially saying the Bucks could never do any wrong and putting out facts that don't prove anything whatsoever. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle here. Bruce Arians never wanted Antonio Brown on the Bucks. That was Tom Brady's idea.

So it's not totally unbelievable that Bruce Arians would be like, you're out of here because you won't go back in the game. And also Antonio Brown, let's just say he hasn't been like maybe the model citizen in terms of teammate and dependability on the football field. You know, with the fake backspots. That's the fake news media that told you that big cat.

But isn't it crazy like you have to pick a side here? It's like, no, I think they probably are both just kind of jerks. I think there's a very high likelihood that Antonio Brown came back from his ankle injury, played a couple of weeks ago against the Panthers, played really well and over the course of an NFL game, maybe tweaked that ankle again.

And so at halftime at the Jets game, they were getting their ass kicked. He was probably pissed off. He wasn't get the ball much. And he probably said like, feed me the fucking ball. Right. And there might have been somebody in the locker room that was like, hey, shut up.

And then they get to the sideline and he just quits. I think that might be, like he's probably not 100% on that ankle. That part I don't think is, you can't say like, you're not injured because he definitely had a significant ankle injury. Correct. Probably tweaked it again.

I thought the funniest screenshot that he posted though was in his text with Alex Guerrero, the TB12 guy. So he put this online too. He said, hey, Alex, if we're not gonna work anymore, that's fine. Let me know about the 100,000 I paid you. Only fair to get back half my money. Let me know how to proceed.

First of all, shout out to Alex Guerrero for getting cash from Antonio Brown and not just like relying on him to pay the bill after the fact. But then the reply from Alex Guerrero was very funny because he was like, Antonio Brown is a million percent gonna put this reply on social media at some point. Right.

And here's his reply. Good morning, AB. I appreciate you reaching out to me. I completely understand that you want to go in a different direction. Thank you for the opportunity to work together. You are a wonderful person. I hope for your continued success on and off the field.

Please let me know where you want me to send the balance. Big hugs, my friend. There it is. He's like, that's gonna be read aloud in court one day. And it was. Yeah. The court of public opinion read it out loud and they're like, hey, this is actually the coolest thing

Alex Guerrero has ever done. Yeah, seems like a good guy. And then Antonio Brown also tweeted out a screenshot of his routing information and account. I saw that. At Bank of America. He quickly deleted that. But yeah, shout out, AB.

He's the most online wide receiver in the NFL these days, I think. Don't you think if he was hurt though, he would have said something to Danny Boy Husslehard. Oh, interesting. Well, no, Danny Boy Husslehard told us that he's not gonna share all the conversations that they had.

That's true. But the parts he shared are on the other side. Like the parts that he did share help the Bucks case and not Antonio Brown's case. So why would he do that? So you're saying that Tom Brady, your hero, made a mistake by bringing Antonio Brown in. Well, no, I mean, listen, that's the, you got,

he like, he took a chance and it didn't work out. They want a ring. They want a ring. So that's the thing. It did work out. Yeah, you could say that it absolutely worked out. But I just, I just find it so funny that there were actually people who were like,

AB made this entire thing up. Like no, Bruce Arians, he said he didn't want Antonio Brown on the team. And then Tom Brady was like, no, I want him on the team. And then he was on the team. This is Tom Brady's signing. This is also why Tom Brady was like,

he needs to get help. And we're like, we just care about the person because he knows it's his signing. And AB also has not been completely dependable in terms of the fake Vax card. And the fact that he just ran off, who knows? Like I'm, I'm ruling it. Both might just be a little bit of assholes.

And it was going to end poorly either way. What if he goes back to the Steelers for Big Ben's last game? That would be cool. Get the band back together. That would be cool. That would be awesome. Also, it just wouldn't be fair if you went to the Chiefs.

I hope he doesn't go to the Chiefs. I don't think he'll go to the Chiefs. I mean, I, I really don't think he's going anywhere. Yeah, I don't think he's going anywhere. The only reason I said the Cowboys is because Jerry Jones definitely has the stomach for, like Jerry Jones would see this and be like, I wish I was getting all these headlines, good or bad.

People are talking about the bucks today. So I also appreciated Bruce Arians in his press conference because there was a claim that Bruce Arians did a throat slash to AB. And then he, he mimicked it in his press conference. He's like, does this look like a throat slash? And he went across his neck and pointed out like, no, I was telling him to get out, get off the field.

I was like, yeah, but that, that is across your neck. But yeah, I guess that's how, how we get a, he said, he said thing. Maybe he was loosening up that, that chest device that he wears. If I was, if I was Bruce Arians, I would always be like around my neck trying to fiddle with the, with the tightness of that weird strap

that he has on his chest. I don't know. I don't think Antonio Brown would be back on an NFL team. I guess you could never say never. Maybe actually, you know, the most likely team he could be back on is probably the bucks. If Tom Brady just said it to Bruce Arians next year, like, hey, hey, we need Antonio Brown.

It's really changed this off season. Yeah, he runs that organization. I don't think that's unfair to say. And it's not unfair for the bucks to let Tom Brady run that organization. But this was Tom Brady's decision. And that's why it makes sense that Bruce Arians and Antonio Brown never really got along.

I also respect Antonio Brown's commitment to playing his song on all of his Instagram stories to try to get that, try to get as much exposure for, for the pit to the palace. I'm starting to sing along to it. Like that song's been stuck in my head all day. It's pretty key. I worked out to it.

It is pretty good. He's hoping it becomes the palace. He's hoping it becomes the new, like, everyone uses this for their Instagram story when they're hiking in some mountains. Yeah, from the palace, baby. He's going, he's going to Gremlin mode. Yeah.

All right, let's do some picks. Let's do some picks. So are we ready? Does everyone feel good? I feel great. It will be very interesting if we share picks because it will change the course of Sunday. Hank.

Or Saturday. As always. Or Saturday. Hank, as always, would you like to start with your favorite? Hank's eyeing me down right now. I do. Well, it's tough because you're wearing sunglasses, so I can't really get a read on you.

I mean, the dye has been cast already, Hank. You can't change anything. I know. I'm just like trying to get a read. I'm just trying to get any, any, any edge I can get. All you need to know is I'm also going Gremlin mode. So fair warning. My first game is Saturday night.

Good. And the Dallas Cowboys. The Dallas Cowboys minus five is my favorite. Four and a half. Four and a half. I don't hate it. It does feel like the Eagles are going to sit a bunch of guys. And it feels like the Cowboys want to win

because they don't want to go in on a two game losing streak in a bad note. What are you thinking? Cowboys? Harder Minshew, maybe? I mean, I'm not going to lie. I'll be perfectly honest with you. I don't think I've really shared a lot of what

goes into my picks for this. And to be honest with you, I didn't. This is where I've been second guessing myself. And it's too late. My picks are submitted. They've been changed. I did what I usually do is just go through the board once, write down my picks.

I did that last night because I've been thinking about this. Then today, before the show, I was like, fuck. Let me double check these picks. Started second guessing everything. Went on a website that shows you where the public money is on. And the most public money is on the Eagles. So I picked the Dallas. I would be worried if Gardner Minshew is playing.

I feel like Gardner Minshew wins this game. Because he's playing for his future. Yeah. And also, he's awesome. But he might be a pick machine. He might be a pick machine. He might be a pick machine. Now, is this pick one of the, you're saying

it wasn't your original favorite, right? No. What was your original favorite? Would you switch from? I think the Cardinals. Because we should also track Hanks' potential picks. Yeah, his original picks. All right, so you have the original picks

just to see what you could have done. You have Cowboys. Yeah, this game, the Cowboys don't. I mean, they obviously could potentially get as high as a second seed. It would take the Rams and the Bucks to lose. I don't think that's going to happen. So they also are in a spot where they don't want

to get guys injured. I don't know. Weird. It sucks that we have like this week 18. And there's only a few games that really mat. There's only one game that like truly matters. And then the other games are kind of through seeding and stuff. Yeah.

And we did find out for the game that truly does matter, the Sunday night game between the Chargers and the Raiders. The teams are not going to do the kneel downs. They're not going to do that. I didn't think that that was going to happen. But it's not soccer. You can do that in soccer. That's why they switched up like the last round of games

for the group stage of the World Cup, where teams have to play at the same time. Because you can just pass the ball back and forth amongst your fullbacks and get away with it. In the NFL, there's always going to be like a couple guys that really try. Yeah, then work that touchdown. Yeah.

My original favorite was the Patriots. But I didn't want to do a double loser situation, so. OK. All right, so Liam, your favorite. Mine is the Patriots. Mine is 6 and 1 half, I believe. Yes, minus 6 and 1 half. Are you a little bit worried that something funny always

happens between the Patriots and the Dolphins? Yep. Yeah, that's why I took it. Because I didn't like it. OK. Because there always is something weird that happens at the end of the season with them. So I don't know.

OK. PFT. I got the Rams minus 4. Took the Rams minus 4 against the 49ers. It was so close to doing that. 4 and 1 half. Oh my god. Why didn't you do it?

Why didn't you pull the trigger, coward? Just the, I wrote that down, and then I went to the website. And I was like, if the Rams have a higher percentage, I'll do the Rams, but they didn't. OK. So you're under the idea that Tray Lance just is bad. I'm under the idea that, I mean, the Rams have the 49ers number.

This seems like an easy pick to me. Isn't it the other way around? The other way around. Yeah. I know. Oh, you're trying to go. You're trying to lose. As I explained last week, yes.

OK. That makes it fun. So 4 and 1 half. 4 and 1 half. Yeah, Rams minus 4 and 1 half, I guess, is my pick. So you're trying to lose all your picks today. This week and last week, as I explained on last week's show. You're trying to lose so that you can drive.

I did pretty good last week. I ended up going 1 and 3. OK. We don't need to do the conversation again. But it's not fun when the whole competition comes down to people trying to intentionally lose. Next year, we have to figure out something that has no upside whatsoever.

So we avoid this. I don't know why you're upset that I want to go on a road trip. We've done this conversation a million times. I'm not upset you want to go on a road trip. I'm upset that we did a competition that was supposed to be punishment that the viewers wanted to listen to. And then in the last two weeks, you're like, I want to lose.

There's so much chaos that goes into these last two weeks. Even if you were trying to lose this competition, you really couldn't do it. Right. But you did. We're not good enough at gambling to be able to. The Rams have the Niners number. You usually lose.

OK. Billy, or I'll go with my favorite. I'm taking the Bucks minus 8. Not only is there so much controversy going around, Tom Brady riding the ship, also Tom Brady can get the passing record with 488 yards, I want to think. I want to say. So he's definitely going to try to get that.

So Bucks minus 8, it feels like he'll just keep trying to throw a late, even if it's a blowout, to try to get that record. How many more records can Tom Brady possibly get? He gets so many records. He's collected all of them. Yes, he has. Billy.

Chargers by 2 and 1 half. Is it still 2 and 1 half? Three. Oh. Three. All right. Wait. No, it's locked in by that half point.

Try to buy that half point. I don't know. No, this one is just like, this is the only real game on the schedule. So I was like, where it's not like, these guys are competing to get into the playoffs. So you don't think it's going to come down to a field goal, a 1 point win, because they're so close?

Yeah, well, now it's three. I'm sort of like, because if I get a push, that's fucked. I don't know. I'm still going with chargers. Yeah, you have to. So thank you. This game's going to be awesome. I am going with the Cardinals minus 6 and 1 half at home

against the Seattle Seahawks. For me, this just comes down to motivation versus no motivation, or more motivation, I should say, because the Cardinals want some momentum heading into the playoffs. But the chargers, ironically, would kind of rather play on the road for the first round of the playoffs. Because they stink.

You mean the Cardinals? Sorry, yeah, the Cardinals, because they stink at home. That's true, but a win streak. Yeah, one last week. Yeah. OK, so now we're going with the underdogs. So everyone's got their favorites. No overlap, which is kind of crazy.

Underdogs, hey. My underdog, I'm sure PMT stats info could pull up this stat. I've written them all year. They've been one of the best covering teams all year. They don't care about their record. They're going to be out there fighting and scrapping for every inch, every claw, every nail, Lions plus 3 and 1 half.

Yep, OK. PFT's giving me a look like he also did that. No, I did not do that. Oh, thank god. I did not take the Lions. It's a good pick, though. Thank you. Jordan Love versus TB12.

Is it going to be TB12 or is it going to be? Golf, I don't know. Golf, yeah. Golf, syrup. Yeah, that game, a game that doesn't matter at all, except for the Lions. But you know, it matters to the Lions and Dane Campbell. And they're draft, I looked it up briefly,

but I don't think their draft pick can be affected by a winner or a loss here. Maybe a loss, they can get one, but if they win, they're not going to go from the 2 to the 6. So it doesn't matter if they win, so they're going to want to win. Now, do we know that it's going to be Jordan Love? Because Aaron Rodgers, maybe if he plays well enough this week, he might be motivated to go out there and try

to get that vote back from Hub. Yeah, shout out to Hubarkish. I don't know why Hubarkish wrote a whole entire blog saying sorry. Aaron Rodgers is a bad guy. He should be in prison. His voting sounded correct to me. Sounds like Aaron Rodgers cancel him.

Aaron Rodgers broke cancel culture. He did, yeah, he canceled Hub. Yeah. That's a real shame. He's not very anti-cancel culture. It was such a great story. Hub having to then apologize and be like, I embarrassed all the other voters.

It's like, no, dude, you should vote for whoever you want. Maybe you shouldn't. No, you know what? Aaron Rodgers is a bad guy. He should be in prison. Good on you, Hub. All right. Liam, you're underdog.

I took the 49ers plus 4 and 1 half. OK. Or is it 4 or 4 and 1 half? Yeah, what did we get on that one? 4 and 1 half. So you had to have with the PFT. OK. OK.

Yeah, I don't know. They just have their number. Yep. All right, PFT, you think you're trying to lose? My underdog is the Jets. I got the Jets plus 16. These guys get paid to play 16 and 1 half, even better. These guys get paid to play football too.

They're professionals. The Jets. They might win. The Jets might win outright. I'll be pulling for the Jets. This is also my underdog. And it's going to be a statement game. I've rode the Jets, I think, now it's

going to be 11 times on the underdog every week. And they've taken me to the bottom. So they're either going to get me out of this or send me off with another let down. But 16 and 1 half is a lot of points. And we saw how they played last week. They're electric. They're gearing up for an awesome rebuilding off season

and coming out strong for week one against the Bills, where they're definitely going to shellack them. Are you sure that they don't want to put too much tape out for the Bills to know how they're going to play them in week one of next year? It's going to be a totally different team by then. We're burning the ships, going after it. I was so close to taking that just because I knew you were

going to, but I didn't. I knew Billy was going to take it too. Yeah, it's like that's a lot of points. Yeah, Billy's mind says, if the Jets are underdogs, I'm going to bet them. Yes. And this is close to 20 points they're giving them. Wow.

Yeah, I mean, it's 16 and 1 half. I still got to go over 17 to get to 20. Close to 20. We'll get there. All right, my underdog, I'm going with the Raiders plus three. So I'm going up against Billy on that one. I don't know why. I just think Derek Carr, I just had a vision

that Derek Carr is going to have a big, big throw late against the Chargers on Sunday night. And like that interview after where Derek Carr can basically say, you know, everyone counted us out. We had so much adversity and everyone just starts, you know, fawning over Derek Carr and what an incredible season. Rich Pesicchia, that's in my vision board.

Yeah. You're going to get make or break with like a fourth down conversion, few fourth condoed conversions by the Chargers. Because if they convert them, they might go up 20. But if they don't, then they should be up 20 in their down 10. Right. And they're definitely going to try to go for it on fourth down because you can't beat the Raiders.

These aren't the Broncos. You need touchdowns to beat them. You remember last year's game? I think it was a Thursday night game. The Chargers and the Raiders. This game kicked ass. I'm hoping that this game is like 50% as cool as that game was. Yes, that was a cool game.

OK, Jake, finish us off with your underdog. Yeah, I'm taking the Houston Texans plus 10 at home against the Tennessee Titans a couple of weeks ago. They were big dogs at home or the Chargers and they won outright. So maybe another win to close it out. They beaten the Titans before. Even though the Titans are playing for the one seed,

they beat them before. So not a good pick. Mills Mafia. There was an article that came out today about Deshaun Watts. And apparently his trade value has gone way up over the course of the season. So at the trade deadline, it was rumored that the Dolphins, I think, were trying to ship either two or three first round

picks to Houston. But they wanted some guarantee about the legal matters that Deshaun was going through, that they would be resolved or that they wouldn't have an impact on those picks. But apparently now there's multiple teams that are very, very interested in trading for Deshaun Watts in this off season. So that's going to be just looming out there

for months at a time, I think, because I don't think we're any closer to resolution on the legal matters, are we? No, I don't think so. Although we haven't heard, so who knows? Who knows at this point? Last I heard from Florian, I think he was saying it's going to take two years to sort this whole thing out.

But a year of sucking at football for most NFL franchises is enough to overlook whatever fucked up thing you're accused of. Yes, there's a lot of teams that could potentially want Deshaun Watson this off season. Okay, you're over Hank. I will be betting the Jets plus 16 and a half. I will be rooting for the Jets.

And another way to root for that is taking the over 41 and a half in this game. The Jets are going to win. You assume that that over is going to hit, right? That's just logic. Yeah. Yeah, sure, why not? Walk me through that.

Jets win. It's Zach Wilson off platform bombs. Got it. If the Jets can score like 14 points, then that's going to cover. Because the Jets, the Bills will either blow them out. This is just, this is a Jets bet. This is a pro Jets bet.

The Jets score one or two times, this can cover. Okay, four and a half is what you said? Yeah. All right, I'm still there. Okay, Liam, you're over. I have Eagles Cowboys over 42 and a half. Saturday night. I had that.

That was my first over as well. Keep that. Carter-Minshew. Yeah, I don't know. I saw Saturday night, feels like, just feels like points. This does feel like the perfect game for Gordon-Minshew to go off in. Like a statement game for him.

Where he's like, yeah, I deserve to be paid a lot of money. But I also think the Cowboys, like they want to not be losing going into the playoffs. I mean, obviously they don't want to be losing. That was dumb. But like, get a win before, you know what I'm saying? And the NFC Beast. Yeah, have some momentum going.

All right, PFT, you're over. I got Colts Jags, 44. Taking the over on that one. Trevor Lawrence. Trevor Lawrence. Cause you want to lose? Well, I mean, I could explain why I took this when I'm trying to lose, but I've already said like,

I want to, just like last week, I want to miss all these picks. So feel free to fade me. I'm taking the over though. Colts Jags, 44 points. Okay, Billy, you're over. The don't, please don't fire me game. Bears Vikings, 44 and a half.

The coaches are going to try to keep their jobs. Both guys probably getting fired. Yeah. But they're going to try to keep their jobs with the statement. I agree. I'm going to put up points. I don't think Mike Zimmer wants to be coaching the Vikings next year.

I think I saw Justin Fields went into COVID protocol. So, but there was a moment there where Matt Nagy could have, could have made a first where Justin Fields was named the starter. And if Matt Nagy had won that game, this game Sunday, he would have been the first coach ever to win three straight games with three different starters. Wow.

Which would have been hilarious. Greatest coach ever. That's, yeah, that's amazing. Like you don't see that in the NFL. It's all about the quarterback position. Matt Nagy is a guy that can get it done with anyone. Three different starters trying to prove it at the last second that he can do it with anyone.

Yeah. I don't think, I don't think Mike Zimmer wants to be around next year. So that's where my hesitation with that one would come in. I think he wants to be fired. He wants to be fired already. Yeah. He's tired of it. He's definitely tired of it.

All right. My over, I'm doing Cardinal Seahawks over 48. I don't know. It's just a fun game. And I think Russell Wilson is definitely going to try to get stats. 48? He's, is it not?

48. What is it? What'd you think it was Hank? What'd you think it was? I thought I had 46 written down. Oh, shit. I, yeah. I just, Russell Wilson is going to try to get stats.

He's, he's, there's nothing else for the Seahawks to play for besides throwing it deep to DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. Okay. Jake. I'm with Liam Dowes, Philadelphia over 43. Oh, so it's 43. Yes. Not 42 and a half. Okay. Saturday night.

We got some Saturday night action just to start figuring everything out. All right. We'll wrap up with our unders, Hank. This is Card Seahawks. My reasoning is that today I had a different under and then I was going through the Barclays Sports Advisors. You guys talked about this game.

Stu gave a very passionate pitch on the under and I'm riding with them. This is my Stu Finer under of the year. Under of the year. Yeah. And you liked it at 46. You love it at 48. Yeah. That's when, when you said 48,

I was like, oh, even better. So, so what goes into, are you just like riding Stu on this? Or are you actually thinking? No, that's what I said. I'm all over the place. I've just been looking for signs in different places and it was one of those things.

You know, we go through the show, he makes five picks, there's five different games and something stuck out with, you know, his passion, the way he talked about it. It just seemed like he knew something and I'm, I'm riding with him. It's not like he always picks unders. So when he does, you've got to take it.

There's certain games that stick in your head for a while. And the game that sticks in my head with this matchup is I think it was Monday night football. It was a night, maybe Thursday night, a couple of years ago when it was like that overtime game that was I think six, nine or something like that, where every team kept missing field goals or was it a tie? It might have been the tie game.

Was that last year when Kyler got hurt? No, no, this was several years ago where you had, you had kickers missing all the short field goals at the end of the game in overtime too. I think it might have ended up in a tie. So I, even though these two teams can score points every time I see them matched up, I always think under. Love that, love that for me.

October 23rd, 2016, six, six, tie. There we go, yeah. Okay, you're under Liam. I'm going Giants football team under 38. That's also my under. Okay. Smart pick. I think that's a smart pick. Wait, what's the total?

Is it 38? 38. Does that guarantee that Billy loses basically? So Billy was two behind Liam. So now Liam would have to lose out and Billy would have to win out. But me and Big Cat are technically, if we go on four, we can still catch Billy

if he goes four now. So that's big for Liam, bad for Billy. Oh, we both have Jets. If I went one of three and you went three and one. No, but I think you have Jets too. No, I don't have the Jets. Oh, no, no, Billy and PFT had Jets. No, I took the 49er.

So if we're doing win probability here for lost probability, Billy is at like 90% that he's gonna go. That just went from like, yeah, it probably made it closer, but it doesn't lock anything. It doesn't lock in, but Billy's like, you're 90%. I think if Big Cat goes on four and I go four and no. Yes.

Same with me. I'm screwed. You need either me, Liam or Big Cat to go on four. To lose every pick, except that one. You guys have the same. Could definitely happen. Yeah, absolutely. All right, PFT, your last one under.

Bob, I think that's a good pick, by the way. Football team giants. Thank you. This is the clown franchise bull, which Joe George will not do any media calls to address the fact that he called the football team a clown show. Which he's correct in, by the way, 100% correct,

but also just kind of ignoring the fact that he has led the giants to also become a clown franchise. Glennon is not starting, Jake Fromm is. I'd been more confident if Glennon was starting on the other, but Jake Fromm's just there. Jake Fromm got benched for Mike Glennon. I know, so. Jake Fromm is technically worse than Mike Glennon.

But how many passing hours did he have the other day? Negative 10. Yeah. He did that cool ball spin. That's definitely what Billy likes him. Yeah. I mean, he's also quite liable to get a fumble six against him.

True. Yeah. It feels like there's gonna be some turn. That's gonna be an ugly game. Congratulations to anyone that chooses to watch that. I apologize to everybody in the New York metropolitan area that is forced to watch that game on Sunday. I'm sorry about that.

My under is gonna be Chargers Raiders. 49 and a half. Is that it? Yeah. 49 and a half under Chargers Raiders. Means it might all come down to Sunday night. Is that why you did it? It all come down to Sunday night.

I actually know. I wasn't thinking about that at all, but that is a fun little addition. All right. I'm taking the Packers Lions under 44 and a half. TB12 versus Jordan Love. Just give me the under. And Jake, you're finishing us up.

Yes. The final pick of the year is going to be Browns, Bengals under 37 and a half. I know burrows out. I believe Bakers out too, right? Mix and two. Yeah. So backups.

Yeah. There's some ugly games on Sunday. Some real ugly games. Yeah. Good luck. We're betting week 18. What do you think is going to happen to Baker this off season?

You think he's going to be traded? I think he'll be, I think he'll, they'll bring him back because the, his fifth year, like they might as well just roll the dice and see how he performs fifth year. Cause he's already,

you know, you have him locked up if you want him to be. Yeah. Right? Have they, wait, haven't they already offered him? Have they already offered him the fifth year?

Didn't they have to do that? I don't know if that's been offered or not yet. I think they might, they probably have until March. They exercise a quarterback, Baker Mayfield's fifth year option, locking him up with the franchise through 2022. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause they have to do that earlier. Right. Right. So they'll, they'll keep them because what are you going to do? I mean, you're not going to be able to trade him and you might as well see if he can do better.

I think there, I think some teams will make an offer for Baker Mayfield this off season. I think they'll at least take a couple phone calls. They might not do it because you're right. Having a guy that has been proven that at least he's, he can be good when, when he's locked in to have him at that price tag is probably

a net benefit for the Browns, no matter what you think about him. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Anything else for week 18. Good luck to everyone. This is a tough week to handicap to bet to do everything. Also a reminder, if anyone ties the tie breaker is those two

or even three guys go into wildcard weekend where they have to pick a spread or total on every single game. So all six games you have to pick, you have to make one pick on every single game. That's the tie breaker. And then if that gets tied again, we have to be seven total picks.

So it's, so there's no three and three ties situation. Like one game you have to pick a spread and, you can still tie if it's, if it's seven total picks though. You can both go four and three. If I tie, can I still just go? No.

Actually, that's what you guys should have done to fuck me over. Be like, okay, PFT can't go. Like flip it back and forth. I try, I said that. I said, you'd have to take a flight and do a bunch of delays and you got upset. No, I'm saying like,

have it be forced me to try to win to go. I don't know. I'm lost at this point. I thought we'd just do a competition that we had for 16 weeks. It was going well. It was going well. I'm just being honest.

That road tripping sounds like a lot of, especially if it's to Dallas, which I actually don't think that the game is going to be played in Dallas. I think it's going to probably stay in Los Angeles. And unless it's a scenario where they like, actually can't have the game, can't have fans in the game.

That's going to be what it takes to move it to Dallas. Okay. So should we get to our interview? We've got a great interview with Ryan Rosillo. Great interview. And then we'll do a firefest so we can send everyone on their way. PFT, you got a quick word from Kors Light? Yeah, before we get to Ryan Rosillo,

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That way you always know when it's time to chill. Kors Light's made to chill. Cracking open to Kors Light is perfect on this last week 18 of the NFL season. Going into Sunday night, you better believe it's time to crack open an ice cold Kors Light. That's the one I choose when I need to unwind. When you want to hit reset,

reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Kors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart by going to KorsLight.com slash take. KorsLight.com slash take. Okay, we now welcome on our very good friend. It is Ryan Rossell. It's been too long.

We want to have Ryan on. We're going to do some NBA preview. We're going to talk a little football as well. Go subscribe to the Ryan Rossell podcast right now just so we can give some context. We're going to be running this on Friday. Today is January 5th. Do you have any big plans for tomorrow, Ryan?

Well, you know. I'm going to look at boats. Yeah, you're going to join a parade. And we're going to have a single file. All right, so we do have you on to talk sports. Oh, OK. NBA, let's start with, is anyone beating the Lakers this year? Look, I haven't watched any games yet because of football.

But I'll tell you, just take a look at it. But I'll tell you, just taking in the off season, there's two things I feel strongly about. And I'll have to go look this up later on. But I'm not as high as this Lakers team as everybody else is. Oh, OK. Russell Westbrook, though. I mean, this guy is a generational talent.

Yeah, I mean, he's he's a problem. He's a problem. He's a walking bucket. We know that in all seriousness with the Lakers, though, because I so we're not doing this. We won't do the whole time. OK, we won't. Yeah, it's going to see how long we could go.

And I'll be like, you know, I sneaky like the bulls. Yeah, yeah. I think I think DeMar DeRosa is going to be clutch for them. All right, real talk. We'll talk Lakers real quick. Yeah. Is it there's two lines of thinking? One, this team is a mess and it never will fit.

Or two, Anthony Davis is hurt and LeBron's still LeBron. So never bet against them. Once the playoffs start, they'll figure it out. Yeah, I think both can actually be right, by the way. You know, they're one game over 500 now. They actually have the same record as the fifth seed. So they're there with Denver and Dallas, just percentage points behind as the day of taping this, right?

LeBron's been in an absolute tear. They, like a lot of teams, have had to deal with a bunch of different things. But Anthony Davis, when he played, was arguably like the worst jump shooter in the league. Based on how many shots he was taking, where he was taking from, and the lack of converting them. I mean, there were horrible, horrible stats.

Like there was one stat was like out of so many guys have taken four attempts, you know, from this distance, the entire league out of 108, he ranks 108th or something. I mean, they were terrible. And I don't know if he put on too much size. Something Simmons and I have talked about a little bit too, where I feel like everybody called him a pussy last year. And he gets, you guys get sick of it, you know?

I can't imagine how mad I would be if I were pro athlete and I turn on TNT and it's like everybody thinks I'm a pussy the whole time. So I just feel like, all right, well now I'm definitely lifting more. And I think he came back and I think the bulk has actually slowed him down and it just didn't work. So I mean, I'd ask you this, if Anthony Davis were just, you know, moderate levels of Anthony Davis,

not a terrible version of him, which is what he's been so far this year. If you were healthy and a decent version of him, isn't that good enough for at least five more wins? And that would kind of put him in the four seed spot. All right. I don't think any of the teams outside of top three in Utah, Phoenix and Golden State,

I don't think those three teams are gonna get caught by the standings behind them. But the Westbrook part of this, this is why I can sound so annoying and repetitive, but it's still happening again today. I watched something from ESPN. It was a former player. They were talking about all the great things Russ brings in

and I'm just like, how many fucking years do you have to watch this guy do the exact same thing that never leads to winning and think that it's just magic, you're gonna work out at some point. Like most of us don't change. And a basketball player that's as stubborn as he is, isn't going to change. So I liked Westbrook in the off season to the Lakers

for the regular season. Cause LeBron, AD, Mellow, the older guys, they were gonna need to coast at times. Russell Westbrook is a great energy guy. But then in the playoffs, I go, it doesn't make any sense. He doesn't offer up any spacing for AD and LeBron. He's never set a screen in his fucking life. And you know, on top of it now,

he's even a worst shooter and more turnover prone than before. So the Westbrook thing, the only way they solve it is by having AD and LeBron focus on what they do and hopefully them both being healthy at the end of the year. I still think there's a chance. But Westbrook, I don't see basketball wise,

how he's involved in that success. Cause he's just not a good fit. So would it have been a better fit if they had gotten someone who's like one a ton in his career and a bunch of rings like Chris Paul? You guys froze. Your son. You love him like a son.

Wait a minute. You froze, you froze. No, Chris Paul. Chris actually freeze, he didn't actually freeze. No, you did. You froze, you froze. I got the Chris Paul joke now though. Go ahead, do you want to just tee it up again?

No, Chris Paul, you love Chris Paul. I say I haven't. My question was would the Lakers be in a better spot if they had a guy who has a bunch of rings and a bunch of winning pedigree like Chris Paul? Yeah, no, I get that the Westbrook people, cause Westbrook can't get out of the first round other than the time they beat the Thunder

when it was Chris Paul on the other side of it. But Chris Paul, his exits in the playoffs are because of injury, not stubbornness. All right, go through all the years where he and Blake lost. One of those guys was always hurt. So when I see a lot of these things about Paul like not being able to win,

like I actually think these things are malleable. Like you can go, wait a minute, is this guy not getting out of the first round because of him or is it because of other circumstances? This is not being hypocritical. It's these just facts. Look them up. I think that Westbrook just has a branding problem.

If he was in football, they'd call him a gunslinger. Like you saw him after the game when he was, he was saying, I'm allowed to turn the ball over. It's part of my game. I'm allowed to miss shots. It's part of my game. I think that they're like that obviously got taken as a quote that was splashed everywhere.

But there is, there's some element of truth to it, but it's like how much, how much can you limit Russell Westbrook being Russell Westbrook? Because if you can even cut that down 20, 30% in the playoffs, then he might not, he might be able to figure it out. Who knows?

No, I already know the answer is no. Why is he just gonna, like this is what's insane to me. And again, PFT, you didn't play in the league. Unfortunately, we know your story. Right. But I'm talking about the people that played in the league that still will go on TV, being like, oh, you know, you know,

little trim here, a little shave here off of this corner. Be like, no, this is who he is. And it's what got him to this point because he was a kid that didn't have a lot of offers on high school. He was a guy at UCLA. They were like, we don't really even know what to do with this guy.

And how when he got drafted, I remember talking to Carlissimo about it because he and Presti were arguing. Carlissimo wanted them to take Brook Lopez. And Presti was like, I think we got something like really special, like another level. I think Westbrook's the best athlete I've ever seen play basketball, ever.

Okay, I think he's the best athlete I've ever seen play basketball. But there is a buy-in for the 38 minutes that you're out there or whatever that you have to pay attention. And this is why I just laughed. Cause I'm like, I didn't play, I didn't coach, but I noticed this shit.

And guys that did it for a living can't even see it. He off the ball in huge spots defensively, almost always fucks up, almost always. I could pick either next game they're on. I'll just wait until it's close at the end and I'll see him miss somebody in a rotation just because he decides like, nah, I'm just going to spaz out and do this.

Those mistakes to me are worse than just an ill advised three or a long two off the side of the backboard. So I don't know why anybody thinks it's just going to change because I think unfortunately the curse of Russ is that his personality got him here, but his personality is what prevents him ever finding a way to adapt to the things that are around him. And yeah, I'm like, I'm sorry,

but when I talk to people about it and they start telling me like how it can all work and you're a little this, little that, or LeBron will get him to listen to all this stuff. I don't really want to listen to that person talk about basketball anymore. Okay, so this interview's over. Well, it sounds like, it sounds like Ryan is really mad

at somebody in particular. Who? You got real mad earlier. Say the name, say the name. Ryan big mad when you were like, he's just not going to fucking change, right? Say it. Who is it?

Because it's everybody. It's everybody that either coached the league or played in the league and they're afraid to say the truth. Because if I'm at home, again, who never played a game anyone cared about, they can figure out in the Patty Mills thing, be like, why did you just lose Patty Mills in a switch for no fucking reason?

It's because you just couldn't, you couldn't help yourself. You're like, I'm going to help. I'm going to break our assignments. I'm going to, I'm just going to, Patty Mills has only made like seven threes tonight. And I'll just let him like, that's just, that shit happens every night. It happens multiple obsessions.

It sounds like he's got ADD. Sounds like you're shaming him for, for a learning disability. Well, now I feel bad. Yeah. Now you take it all back. Biggest free agent acquisition, Clay Thompson or Kyrie Irving? I love whatever we frame guy coming back from injury is, you know who actually won free agency?

This is the old Kevin White. Yeah. The Warriors. Yeah. The Warriors did because they got Clay back. I know. I know. I hate when guys used to do that. You'd be like, have a segment built out. Be like, well, the biggest, biggest acquisition of the trade down deadline is Clay. You're like, all right, cool.

No one's ever thought of that. So tricky way to get into it. Who, who wins more right now? Clay. Cause Clay, Clay, it's not even close. Clay's a better player and Clay's more dependable and Clay's available for all games. And he's not fan for half of them.

It's such a funny situation. And that's, it's like, guess what guys? We're back. Kyrie is coming back to play with us on a limited basis. Yeah. Until he feels like such a time where he can join the team on a full-time basis. Until Kyrie Irving is allowed to play

in the state of New York, then I don't know if you can really say like, he's going to make that much of a difference. I think the whole thing is like, you know, I mean, Kyrie barely plays full seasons anymore. You know, he was, he was one of the voices. It was like, we should just do our own thing, start our own league guy.

You know, he's, he's your friend that hangs out at the beach and looks at the horizon and goes, can't believe people think this shit's round. You know, and I'm not even, I'm not even talking about his flat earth joke that he then later on, by the way, said was an experiment to try to see how we would react to it, which sounded very much like his vaccination status

and that it wasn't that he was anti-vaxx. It said he wanted to be a voice for the voiceless because they were trying to figure out some sort of PR spin as everybody's like, fuck this guy for a couple of weeks. They were like, no, no, actually we're doing this for the waitresses out there. He was like, oh, all right, work.

Vax. I feel bad for Nash in a way, even though, you know, he was kind of gifted a championship caliber team here. So you can't feel bad for him there, but this has to be getting old pretty quickly in only a second season where, you know, they were like, look, I mean, this is even about the owner too.

The owner visited with Kyrie before the season started and said, hey, when you have a championship caliber team, there's some buy-in here that we have to have. And so let's talk to you and educate you on everything you need to know so that you're all comfortable, but this needs buy-in from everyone around. And he was like, no, fuck that. I'm just gonna post weird shit on Instagram instead.

So when he was available for road games because of the city ordinance, the team's like, no, no. So the funny thing is he's still gonna make half of his 33 million because they have to pay him for the games that they've banned him from on the road games, even though he's ineligible for home games, all right? So then we're at this point where he returns this week

and you go, oh, all right, wait a minute. Nash and the team are probably like, look, if we have guys that are like borderline G league players and the whole thing's a mess now with Omicron anyway, we might as well just bring them back and have them be a part of the mess. And the thing is, no one Kyrie and his skillset will probably come out and it won't matter.

And then that team's scary again. So I think basketball wise, it makes sense. When you were just talking about this, thought popped in my head. What is the link between Kevin Durant and Kyrie? Because on the surface, they do seem like completely opposite people in the fact that I think you, Kevin Durant is the number one guy

who's like loves basketball. Anything he ever says, you know, whenever he wants to play all the time, he's truly in love with basketball. Even when he's critiquing like 14 year old kids on Instagram calling their moves trash. Like that's coming from a place of like love. You know what I mean? He actually loves the game to a level.

I think a lot of guys don't. Kyrie, maybe not. Like he doesn't, he's okay not playing. So how do those two guys, like just on a relationship level fit? It's such a good question, dude. I'm serious. Like I think about this.

Yeah. Don't you love them guys in interviews? And it's like, they don't really have an answer and they stalled. They're like, great question. They're not stalling though. They're always actually genuinely complimenting their questions.

It might not happen to you that much, but for us, experienced interviewers. But it is. It's fascinating. I don't know why it took me as long to just think about it. It was you explaining Kyrie, like not playing a lot of full seasons. It's because it doesn't make any sense.

That's why it's so interesting. Cause you're right. Katie is all about hoops, hoop all the time. And by the way, we should do something. We should all send basketball clips, DM Kevin Durant right now. Let's make this a thing from now on. If you're just taking jumpers, you're trying to get wet,

out back, you know, send that, DM that video to Kevin Durant and let him know that you love hoop too. That's how I initially started talking to him. I was, I did an Instagram video. Oh, look at this guy. So I did an Instagram video of a pickup hoops game that I was playing in and he just, he out of the clouds responded in DM saying, get this trash off my court.

Wow. So yeah, he loves hoops. He loves hoops. But I think the fact that he even has that in him, like, can you imagine other NBA superstars like taking the time to do something like that? And so the fact that he would be like, no, I'm hitching my wagon to Kyrie,

it never made any sense while it was happening. Guys that kind of knew the deal with Kyrie. And look, I'll tell you this about Kyrie. The guys that really know what's up are actually more like, they're less critical because they just want, they hope, they hope he kind of sifts his way through whatever it is that he's going through, you know what I mean?

Like, hey, if you love hoop and Kyrie's like, oh man, I love hoop, I love hoop. How could you ever take this away from me? You know, Rod Strickland, who's his godfather, right? Rod Strickland, who was an absolute motherfucker over guard. All right. He said, you know, Kyrie might be the most talented player ever and people crushed him for it.

When in fact, like, when you really put all the talent parts of Kyrie together, his handle, his shot making, the difficult shot making that is an acceptable shot for Kyrie, all of the stuff that he can do, wrong foot, wrong hand, all that, like it's actually not crazy to talk about him being actually one of the most gifted basketball skill people that we've ever seen.

Now, would I want him to be the face of my franchise? Of course not, because you just don't know what you're betting on. And the fact that Durant would be like, okay, I'm down for this for like the next four years of my prime championship window or extending my prime championship window, never made any sense.

Now for people that say, hey, he turned down the most stable thing ever and the most selfless teammate of all time of the superstars and maybe Steph Curry. But, but Katie couldn't fuck with it because it was like, this is all still steps. It happened before I got here. They won the title before me. They played in the finals before I got here.

I got my titles. I had fun playing basketball, but if I want my own thing, I gotta get away from Steph. But the fact that he did it with Kyrie, I can't explain it, but people seem to love him. Like ask Blake next time you have him on, not Bortles, but when I asked somebody who's close with Blake Griffin, I go, why is he going to the Nets?

He's like, dude, he loves Kyrie. These guys love him. I think if you're that talented at anything, so with Kevin Durant, he's better than everybody, right? He's probably the best player in the NBA right now. I agree with that. Best player in the world right now. But there are things that Kyrie Irving can do

that Kevin Durant cannot do. And if you're that good and you see somebody able to do things that even you can't do, even though you're the best, I think there's like an inherent level of respect where you want to be around that guy. Yeah, that might be it, because there was a clip that was out with the Knuckleheads guys, Darius and Quinton, where they had Durant on and they were asking

about just what's it like being around Kyrie. And Durant couldn't even get his thoughts out clearly. He's just shaking his head. He's like, man, we'll be doing shit where it isn't like part of the practice, where he just goes off and does something on his own, and you look at some of the stuff he does. So that might be it.

It might be just being in awe. But here's what I would say to Kevin Durant if I were really close to them, prior to the decision, which already happened, but then also influencing whatever decision I make moving forward. It's like, is this the guy that you want as your number two, or whatever his ranking would be with the hardened part of it there as well,

as hardened still can't get back in the shape? Like you only have so many years left. So at what point will you look at your window saying, I need some guys to ride with that I am like 100% sure of where their head is at when it comes to basketball? Because you're right, big cat. Durant, it's never a question about how much he cares about basketball and be part of a team.

And despite what on paper could be a champion, I still think of the Nets were healthy last year. They would have beat everybody. I don't really know how there's much debate to it. So maybe it still works out, despite how frustrating it's been the whole time. But I would have to think, Durant, in some private moments, is going, if I have X number of years left in this whole deal,

do I still want it to be with guys that don't seem to be as locked in as I am? Which I think is a completely fair question to ask and surprising if he never did. What about the other big addition that they're going to make in free agency, which is your other favorite player, Joe Harris, the best catch and shoot player in the NBA playoffs

for the first two rounds? That's going to be a pretty big piece of the puzzle, right? Look, I like Joe Harris going back to college. Yeah, no, we do too. Yeah, we've had him on the show. I don't want to give you shit for the take that you had about him, but I will say that you might have cursed him last year because ever since you said

that he's like the best shooter in the NBA, then he just kind of took a nose dive. You sure that was me? I wouldn't say anybody's better than Steph. We're having you on just to roast your takes, if you haven't figured that out. Oh, all right. I don't remember we had Kirk Goldsbury.

Oh, it was Kirk Goldsbury. Yeah. He's got COVID brain still. I do. I knew it wasn't me. I just wanted to see where this is going. Long fall. Kirk Goldsbury came on the show and we

talked about how the nets are like in so insane offensively. And then they, and then Joe Harris never hit a three after that kind of repoint though. I still remember we went to, it was the game that PFT actually lost his wallet in the Cleveland Cavs Arena. We went to, I think it was like Celtics Cavs game four or five ish in 2017 when he scored 42 and he scored like 18 in a row. And it was, we were just sitting there with our,

with our jaws on the floor because every shot was insane. Every layup was insane. And it was like, this guy can just do whatever he wants. So it is, he's an incredible, incredible player. He's the best small finisher I've ever seen at the room. I've never seen anyone like him at his size consistently beat guys in the way.

You know, again, people would be like, oh, what about Iverson? Like, look it up. Look up. But Iverson had a two or three year stretch where it was crazy. You know, I mean, it's AI. But Kyrie consistently, whether it's showing it and taking it away from you, crazy angles of release, understanding all that.

You know, I'm not even like, I can, people could be like, oh, you're from Boston. You don't like Kyrie. I didn't like watching at the end because that team was so like full of themselves and they, they weren't that good. And he's, he's a tough guy to sign up for every night. But if we're just talking pure basketball skill, it isn't crazy.

I don't think to put Kyrie up there where everybody else just a different conversation when you're talking about like, hey, well, does that make him top 10 of all time? Well, no, no, that's not what we're doing. We're just talking strictly about the skill stuff. And you're right. He has stretches where you're just like, you have to be fucking kidding me.

And the spins that he puts on his shots, too. He'll like switch hands at the last second in midair. And then he'll, he'll put side spin on a shot as it goes up to the glass, you know, behind his neck and somehow be able to perfectly bank it off and then it's crazy. I actually do think that people would think he was a witch. If it was the 1800s and they saw him playing basketball, they'd be like, this person's not, this is not.

Basketball wasn't, dude, basketball wasn't invented then. Yeah, that's why they think he was a witch. Yeah, but what game are you playing right now? What do you think would be the weirdest time travel situation of like, I think boxing. We talked about this with Chris Long, but if you just want a time machine and it's like, all right, let's, let's find a heavyweight who'd be like 185

and he would just sit there with his fists like upside down and just kind of doing that old, and then you just went in militant style against him. They'd be like, who the fuck is this guy? I still think he'd be like taking Reggie White to like 1925. Could you imagine? He'd just throw the entire offensive line. Yeah, that would be our Reggie White.

Yes, I was just talking like random guy, but I don't play against like Yale in 1902. Mine is like, if Eddie House played in the 1950s, we would have Eddie House documentaries and specials and Eddie House would be, he'd be up there with Mike and. What if you took like a Rawldis Chapman back to 1881? Babe Ruth was trash.

I don't like the Babe Ruth was trash stuff. I know, we took away his pinstripes. Did you see that, that swing in the mist that he had? He sucked. Awful, awful, but undisciplined. It is that line of like, you can understand, you're absolutely right. Like basketball has come in such a way that you watch,

you watch highlights from 1950 or 1960, you're like, these guys aren't that good, but. Do you think you could score when you watch those highlights? Oh yeah. Yeah, sometimes. The ones where they're just like dribbling the ball straight up and down and just, they're kind of like pivoting around the ball.

They're not even moving the ball. Yeah, I think the other problem is if Eddie House went in time machine, they'd call him for a carry the first seven times he had the basketball. So they'd be like, wait a minute, that was always Jerry West big thing. He's like, you can't even, you know, it's the way you don't call carrying.

I mean, I like Yannis and it's back to your earlier point, like I agree with you on Durant being better than Yannis if we're going best player in the world, even though Yannis, you know, got him last year sort of because I just think it's still crazy how we'll be talking about Yannis and the Bucks and whether or not Bud would even be there if Durant's foot is behind the line

because he was doing that with, with a couple of guys down. I think from a basketball standpoint, like as much as we can all love Yannis and I love Yannis, I love that Yannis has the personality. And this is one of the things like when it comes up with Ben Simmons, like I can, this is back to like my Westbrook where you sort of expose yourself

where somebody's like, well, if you just took Ben Simmons and turned him into the Yannis thing to be fine. I'd be like, if you've been watching Ben Simmons and Yannis this much and you can't tell the difference between their mentality when they walk on a basketball court, then I can't fucking help you, okay? So I love that part of Yannis so much.

But then if you were to watch Yannis and Durant just play basketball and go, wait, I'm supposed to think this guy's better than the guy Durant who can dribble and is just like, has the same height and can shoot like this off the dribble. Like I wouldn't do that, would I? And honestly, this turns into the only people that would think we're crazier,

the people that are from Milwaukee who are Bucks fans and they're emotionally attached to the whole fucking thing. So what was the point again? No, you just agreed. I agree as well. I think Kevin Durant's the best in the world and I know LeBron. This is just rat poison for LeBron.

Can you- Oh, it says Yannis carries the basketball. Oh yeah, he does. Yeah, so they should call that. But everybody kind of does. Can you fix if we put you, if we put Ben Simmons on a psychology couch in your bedroom there, is that a bedroom?

Or is that a futon? Yeah, this is a futon. You can have friends over, you watch TV and then if things work out, you sleep over. Cool, all right. So if Ben Simmons was on your futon hanging out, listening to Van Halen with you, how would you fix whatever's going on

inside Ben Simmons' head? I don't even know. First of all, we all know he wouldn't listen to me, right? So let's start there. Well, you've already given up. So you have a Ben Simmons personality. Maybe you got to be who he is. I think you have to fix him.

You got to mimic his personality. So good job so far. You got to hug him right when he walks in the room. He needs somebody that'll hug him, I think. Just show him that he's supported and loved. Like what's going to happen? It's crazy. You've never seen someone demand a trade

when they have been the problem. Yeah, and he had four years left on the deal. Like this was why from the beginning of the Ben Simmons stuff, I'd go, you realize this is a little different. Because people were starting to cover it like, all right, well, I wonder where he's going to go. And at first, he had some destinations

that he would have liked to have gone to, particularly in California. We could probably rule out Sacramento. And I would talk to different people and I'd be like, wait, he thinks he's going to be able to call his shots while having four years left on the deal, too. And not taking a shot in the playoffs. Sucking at basketball, I think,

is probably another big factor that goes into that. Right, just be like, imagine it's the fourth quarter. Who's like, I don't want to go outside. Do you think that he's the best player in the world if there was no hoop in basketball? He'd be unbelievable. First team. Yeah, he really would be.

First team. Yeah, it's just, I don't know what's going on in his head. He's afraid of baskets. So you have to do some sort of emergent therapy, where you just put baskets all around his apartment or his house. And just every time he looks at one, you give him a treat. Yeah, his door is a basket.

So he has to walk in and out of it every day. But it has to be the shot clocks have to be simultaneously linked to start at three seconds. So every time he doesn't have time to think. I'll tell you, there's one shot from Ben Simmons it's a couple of years ago where I remember it specifically because of just how smooth it looked. It was the end of the shot clock.

He had no choice. He had to get the shot up and he did like a turnaround baseline jumper and it went in. And it was terrific. And it was because he wasn't thinking about any of this stuff. And unfortunately, this is true for anybody. I mean, this is why I don't like when people say,

oh, well, you know, the studies say that there's no such thing as clutch. I'm like, okay, but if there's no such thing as clutch, do we agree that some guys lining up a certain putt start to feel a little different or free throw starts to feel a little different or certain guys are comfortable in tight spots and other guys aren't?

So if that exists, then I believe clutch exists. And for Ben Simmons, it can be a really hard thing to dig yourself out of. And clearly it's going to start somewhere else. I don't think he cares about where he goes now. It might be a bit like the farve thing where Farve wanted to go to Minnesota so bad. He went to the Jets first and Simmons maybe like,

look, I'll do anything, like just throw me anywhere and then they'll figure it out in the next step because he just needs to start feeling comfortable out on a basketball court again. So I am sympathetic to some of it because it was really weird to watch somebody completely fall apart mentally in the playoffs like that. Like this guy won't go, he will not go near the rim

or even attempt at the rim because he's so petrified of getting fouled and having to shoot free throws. He just is over it. He's not going to do any of this stuff anymore. But then again, it's like, all right, yeah, but you had, you know, you signed a max deal for four years. It's not all on Philadelphia that you never developed as part of your game.

And you know, spare us the Instagram workout videos where it's like, oh, here you are again. LA Fitness pulled up. You hit a three at lunch. Awesome. Do you know anything about the metaverse? What if you put them in some of those Oculus glasses? I don't know anything about it.

That ad, is that supposed to get me pumped with those kids in the museum? I think so. What's that supposed to do? I think it's supposed to change the world. That's as much as I know about it. Billy talks about it all the time. I don't understand it, but I do think that you can-

That's a tall task. You can put like Oculus glasses on them and then just run programs of him seeing all of his shots go in. If he had to do that for like, you know, 12 hours at a time for a week, I'm sure just seeing enough of your shots going in would give you a little bit of confidence.

This feels like clockwork orange therapy, and all PFT is bringing up here. That's true. You want to just, you want to haze him into becoming a shoe. No, but all of his shots are the same. All I want him to do, right, all I want him to be is a five,

like a stretch five sort of point guard. I want no big, because that's the other thing that sucks about the whole matchup. And why Sixers fans were wrong about this forever. And the reason they were wrong is that they'd be rooting against their current roster. But even at the best version of Philadelphia,

the ideal version was to never have these two guys playing with each other. Like it's actually the worst combination of, hey, and anybody that disputes this, I'm going to explain it to you really quickly. Joel's the best post-offensive player probably in the game today, other than Zingun, maybe.

Frank Kaminski. Oh, another worthy adversary. Like, hey, what pairs well with that? Oh, a huge point guard that can't shoot and will never shoot. Yeah, definitely that, definitely that. Like, okay, who's Ben Simmons? All right, well, what would be the best thing for him?

Ball in his hands all the time, wide open floor, surrounded by shooters, nobody in the way. All right, well, let's stick to the best post. Like, it's just, anybody that argued against it, even if the Toronto series and all the shit, like, hey, could it have possibly worked out? Could they back their way into a fight or something like that? Yeah, sure, fine, over time.

I just want to see Ben Simmons playing in a system now where he at least just feels comfortable. Because however mad you may be at him, you know, I don't want his entire career derailed from this. And that's kind of where we're at right now. Sorry, big guy, go ahead. He's like the Dwight Howard magic. He needs to just be shooters everywhere

and let him be in the post. Cause he's not going to do it. You're right, he's never going to shoot. So he needs, he needs, he needs full space in the, in the pain, no other big man and shooters everywhere. And I actually think he needs Draymond. He needs a Draymond approach, but he doesn't have Draymond's personality.

And that's always the mistake with him. Well, very few people do. I mean, Draymond's like one of one kind of guy. Tougher roommate, Kyrie or Draymond Beach house. Beach house, Draymond. Oh, I think Kyrie, I think Draymond, Draymond seems like, like you just, he'd get the best out of everyone. It would be tough for a little bit,

but then you just be like hit a spot where you're just having the best parties. I would say, everyone's getting along. I think Draymond would be an awesome beach house roommate in your early twenties. Kyrie, great beach house roommate in your late twenties. And you want to chill out a little bit. He's always got the mushrooms.

I think Kyrie could throw a banger though, like four in the morning, right in your face. And she's like, what's going on? Yeah, he just doesn't live by the normal time. Right. Constructs, yeah. Hours or hours, man. Also Draymond, you know who the alpha dog is.

Like it's good to have one guy kind of in charge at a beach house, right? He would be the guy. It's not an easy answer because, you know, with Draymond, if you were like, hey, I want pizza tonight, you'd be like, I told you we're getting fucking wings. And it would be like, he wouldn't think there'd be any more discussion.

And you'd be like, come on, dude, can't we get pizza once? And I don't think Draymond's ever going to give in where Kyrie would be like, I want you to make a decision that makes you feel better about all of your decisions. So you'd be like, hey, that's super easy. But then Kyrie, it might be nude week.

Right, right, or vegan week. Yeah, right. And you're like, wait, you know, that's my mom's couch. Like she let us have it for the summer. Can you throw some drawers on? And Kyrie would be like, you know, why would your mother want to constrict anything about my life?

I could see Draymond also just wanted to set up fireworks every night. You know, he doesn't, he does it for the first time on the fourth. And everybody's like, this is awesome. What a, that was legendary. Draymond went out and got $2,000 with the fireworks. Awesome.

And then it's July 5th and he's like, I got $5,000 tonight. If, cause if it's in your 20s, you want Draymond because people would be like, you can't mess with those guys in that house. Right. That's also true. Draymond's about a little edge.

All right, we've gone this long. I do, this is obviously biased, but I do think the bulls 35 games in are the best story in the NBA, just because no one thought they were going to be the one seed right now. And they're playing great basketball. Is there,

what's the ceiling? Maybe an Easter conference finals. I love watching them play. I love the story. I was wrong about them. And I think to this point, clearly I've been wrong about the Derozen contract. We'll see, you know, when you give an 85 million

to a guy who's 32, where there were a lot of stats that told you like, yeah, he puts up some numbers, but what is he really? And now he's incredible. It's weird. I looked at some 538 database they have. They have this metric

where basically they kept track of everything since the merger. So we're looking at 3,527 players that they've tracked with this metric. There's only five players that hit their career peak at a later age in their career than what Derozen just did. Ironically, Lowry is the other one this year,

which speaks to kind of my frustration with Toronto and people revisiting what that team was that kept losing the playoffs all the time. Because Derozen wasn't very good. He wasn't. And, you know, they didn't trade him because he wasn't good. They traded him because they got a chance to get Kawhi Leonard and it completely worked out.

And then Kawhi used to have these numbers that looked good. He started to get more assist in the Spurs system. And then there were some weird plus minus numbers, guys, where you would put it together collectively and be like, wait, so you tell me in the aggregate, they're better with this guy in the bench all the time. So I remember I was gonna vote for him for something. And then, you know, I was talking to some other people.

Again, I don't have like a real vote that matters. So it doesn't, doesn't matter. But I was like, God, that's such a weird thing. Like, so just over the course of a couple of seasons, the team's better when you're not on the floor. Like that's fucking crazy, even though he's a really good scorer. We know that.

But what he did is he started changing into kind of a, instead of the long twos, he did shorter long twos. And I'd imagine with the shot chart, like he's never shot at this well. He was at 15%, 26 and 26% from three, the previous three years. Now he's at like 37 or something with Chicago. I think it may have been cutting down

on certain things he's doing. So the Derosen story is incredible, but it is still a little unlikely. Yeah, no, it is. Go ahead. Well, like the NBA is very hard to kind of wrap your head around sometimes because you have to admit that the,

to win a title, you need one of the top five guys, right? Like you just do. You can't, you can't win a title. Yeah, it's kind of, I mean, it sucks. It's like, it's like not having a quarterback week one. You're like, all right, we're going to tackle guys for the next 17 weeks, but whatever. Right.

And so the Bulls don't have a top five guy in the league, but what- It's probably even worse to your point, by the way. Right, but what AK, the GM did is essentially say, listen, we're going to try to change what people perceive the Chicago Bulls as right now. We're going to build around Zach Levine, which I think a lot of GMs would be like, that's crazy.

He's clearly not like the best guy on a championship team, but every move he's made has helped Zach be better. You know, getting Vooch, which people didn't like, getting Derosen, getting Lonzo, like all these moves. I don't know if they're, they're probably not a championship team. They probably won't ever be a championship team, but it's a lot of fun to watch them play.

And people are now looking at the Bulls differently. And I think that's the only thing you can do instead of sitting around and waiting for the first pick in the draft and having that guy be the most incredible player in the league in five years and also want to stay. So I, I love what they've done. I just think that it's, it's a fun team to watch.

And I'm also realistic knowing that the chances are, they probably won't win a title with this team. It is a great point that is not given enough credit all the time. There's this obsession. And I remember when I was covering the Celtics and I would work on the Celtics TV station forever. And when I was younger, I was convinced, you know,

the weird thing about being younger is you just haven't been around long enough to realize how wrong you're going to be so many times. So when you're younger and you're in the business and I'm like, Oh, that moves stupid. And this isn't mean to championship and whatever. And I remember Bob Ryan was like, who cares? He's like, how about just being better?

How about instead of every deal being judged on? Well, that's not going to win you a championship. How about just make the roster better, be more competitive? I don't know, win more games. And he just laid into me and I love Bob Ryan. And it, it kind of changed the way I thought. Cause I was like, you know what? He's right.

And sure, you know, we had a third of the lead tanking before the season even started because it was like stupid to even try and compete. And I get to like, Hey, you had a run. Oklahoma city's in their tanking window. They're trying to put it together. You know, Hank, he ended up losing his job cause he was so unapologetic about it.

And so like vulgar in his process. And he just wasn't good at playing the game. But Chicago just looked at it and said, okay, who are we? You know, we, we made some major investment in a vooch. We like who we could be when we're healthy. But if we add Zo, we add DeRozan, we keep him around Levine. So now Levine doesn't feel like he has to close out

every game offensively, which force him in some bad decisions. They pick off Caruso cause the Lakers brass. I think the story there is a Polinka. He wasn't really a Polinka guy. So they were okay moving on from him, which is a huge mistake as we've seen now what Caruso brings your team. So I give the bulls a ton of credit for just going,

all we want to do is just be better, right? Because this, this playing game stuff, like this is ridiculous. So going into it, I didn't know if we'd be better. I'm still worried about how they match up with a Yannis or Durant in a playoff game because of the personnel, not even having a Patrick Williams.

Who knows, maybe it'll be an option. That's still asking a hell of a lot of guys who played very little basketball. I still worry about, you know, Vooch, even though I love who he is, this big, you can shoot. The numbers aren't the same as they were in Atlanta cause he has less opportunity. But, you know, will he be a big

that can get a little exposed maybe at times and then what are your options? So there are certain matchup option things with the players. But think about this, if this is where we're at in December and January of this season, based on where I was after they gave the Rosen 85 million and I'm like, I don't know if they're going to be any good. Like I like a couple of their guys.

They should probably be good enough to be in the playing game. To now they're sitting there at the one seat, even if I like Brooklyn and I like Milwaukee better than them. Like that's incredible. That in itself is a big accomplishment. And those accomplishments, those steps in the NBA are almost never given credit. And so that's why I think everybody should feel great

about this and I don't want to come on being like, cause there's another side of this too where it's like, oh, you don't think they can win a title? I'm like, can you guys chill out? Yeah, no, the title part is just the realistic, like I said, you, if you look at the history of the NBA, if you don't have a top five guy, who is it? The Pistons?

Pistons, I was gonna say, that's the last team. And they just had some of the, you know, four of the best defenders in the NBA at the time. Right, like it's just, it's just the reality of it. And I understand the reality of it. And when you play in a series, usually the team with the best player in the series is going to win out.

So I know the Bulls are up against it. I just think that it's, they deserve a ton of credit for changing what was, I mean, you know, Ryan, you have a ton of people that you talk to in, in like the league. Chicago was a place that everyone looked at was like, that place is so dysfunctional. Why would I ever go there? You have to change that somehow.

And this has started to change. And it could happen. You can change that perception pretty quickly with a couple of seasons that have winning basketball. Yeah, and when you looked at the Drozendiel by itself, like it was a pick in the sign and trade to give him 85 million. And then it kind of turns into like,

hey, who are you actually competing against? But again, I don't know. You know, we can be unfair with that too. Right. It's like, oh, so you know every single fucking transaction that didn't go down? Like that's not, that's not realistic. I know I don't, you know, I'm talking about maybe guys

that, you know, have to be in line with all of these people. I just think when you look at it and you started to watch him play, you go, you know what's cool about this is that Zo trusts, you know, Lonzo's a deferential player, right? As talented as he is, he's a, you know, I don't know if it's the younger brother or the dad, but they, they, they drain the alpha out of him.

No, it's, he's perfect for Zach Levine. But it's, but it works. Exactly. And so you've got Levine who's probably, you know, the way his decision making was to where it is now is a massive improvement. Are there still going to be, you know, a couple of times here or there, but I don't care.

Cause it used to be so bad. I was like, I don't know how you close with him in your lineup. And he's, you want to talk athleticism. I was talking about Westbrook. Levine has movements where you go, wait, what did he just do? Like every nine other guys are stopped

and Levine's doing something where he's reacting in a way that the other nine guys haven't even processed. That's how special he is. So when I see them, I'm like, you know what's cool is there's no, there's no pressure for the three. Hey, whoever we feel like we want to get going, we all trust each other enough. In a very short amount of time,

you could see this guys with this team where I was just a couple of weeks in, I'm like, oh, this is pretty cool. Like they're all cool deferring. And you know, even though Zach probably is the guy that doesn't want to defer a lot based on his style of play, I got to imagine like he's looking at an LA guy

and the Rosen and you know, going, all right, you know, this is something I used to watch. And I know Zach's from a different part of the country, but you can just see it. You can see it play out that there's a real buy-in for a group that's together for a very short amount of time. That doesn't happen that often. And I also think this has to happen.

And it's why there's other younger teams that are struggling, but you need to get over yourself in the NBA at some point. You do. And their best example I can ever give you is that 2007-08 Celtics team. As you'd already had Pierce getting his ass kicked, Garnett can't get out of the first round,

Ray Allen's coming off an ankle injury and they can't win any playoff games. And so they'd been through it enough, almost 10 years where like individually, it didn't happen for us. So I now need to be kind of over it in a very unselfish way. And there are teams you can see right now.

It's like now these guys aren't, they're not over themselves yet. And I think Chicago has a little of that. We're to Rosen's like, what do I have left to prove? Like, of course I can score. Let's start winning some games. And I think Levine's like, you know, it's not fun is scoring 40 and never winning games.

And Lonzo's now been on, what, three teams in a very short amount of time. So I do think, and even Vooch too, you know, cool. I put up 20 and 12 and hit threes with Orlando and we're one of the worst teams to East. I think you have a group of guys there personality wise where I think it's playing out as if, hey, we already know what we're capable of,

but we're kind of over it in a very good sense of the word of team, which sounded like, you know, it sounded like a Disney movie there at the end, but it's true. I also think that the Bulls are well on their way to becoming the favorite team in the playoffs of all the dads out there. You know, you play the game.

These guys play the game the right way. It's teamwork. It's not hero ball out there. It's the guy who might not be the biggest NBA fan in the world, but just hates the fact that there are superstars that superstars exist. The Bulls are going to be a team that- Why do dads, what do dads hate the most?

Dads hate superstars, right? They hate, they hate traveling. Traveling carries actually. My dad was, my dad, it took him a long time to be able to admit that Allen Iverson was good at basketball. They love post-moves. They don't like- You're a dad.

Yeah, I know. I mean, yeah, I love post-moves. Bounce pass, chest passes. Chest passes. Chest bounce passes, specifically. But if a chest pass doesn't work, a bounce pass after is awesome. Layups off the right foot, good picks, you know,

all that stuff. They love kids staying in school. Yeah, kids staying in school. Oh, you want to talk opt-outs real quick? The power dribble. They like the power dribble. Two-handed layups where their hands hit the backboard.

No, they know what they love with two hands? Catching flies. Yeah, you trap it. Oh, following your shot is number one, actually. And the funniest thing is, is following your shot in the NBA is like the dumbest thing you could do. It's daft, yeah, because you just, you get them to have transition on your face

every single time, but it is. Every time, like, I'll just be like, oh, shit, he followed his shot well there. As they like run- Yeah, the ball bounces over their head and it's rebounded by the guy who's standing where you- Larry Bird, Larry Bird. The book drive, they were, it was like,

I think it was one of his first practices with the Celtics. So I might have the timeline wrong, but Bird takes a shot and follows it. Red Arbex, like, you don't follow your shot in this league, man. Hey, don't. Warriors, are they going to win the title? Wait a minute, opt-outs?

Oh, you want to do opt-outs? No, we all agree on opt-outs. Do we? I think we do. We hate them. We think that kids that opt-out should be arrested. They're anti-football pussies is what I think we've said. Herbstree had to do like six appearances on our show.

He was here and he was like, I want, I thank you guys for the opportunity to let me say that I love players. To all the players out there, I love you. I heard your take and I actually, it's a good point. Like, eventually there will be someone who opts out of a playoff game and that will be an interesting dilemma that we all face because that does feel like it means something

and people will be mad about that and you'll just have to deal with it. I appreciate you listening. It's kind of like the pregnancy thing, right? We're like, when a guy leaves and misses a game to be with his wife, everybody in the media now will be like, oh, that guy gets it. And I'm like, okay.

I'm like, hey, he's going to miss a playoff game. Nothing's more important. I'm like, okay, okay. If a guy opts out of the Super Bowl because his wife's pregnant, I want to know how that goes over. Probably not well. Because I'll know what everybody would be forced to say.

Like, people will feel like the safe zone here is to applaud this when, you know, and again, there are, of course, times where it's like, it's complicated or something like that. Again, I get the whole point, but I think there's a line on a lot of these conversations that we have where we think we're all on the same page and then I present scenarios and be like, okay,

what about this though? Would you then be on a TV show going? Yeah, starting quarterback, Mr. Super Bowl, wife's son, kid number three. That's the right call because family first. No, it's a good point. It's going to be greenie being like, you know what? Fuck his wife.

Like that's pussy shit. You need to get out there and play. It is, yeah. That's pretty aggressive. No, greenies going to be like, I got two of those little shits running around. Fuck them. We're talking about a ring here.

I do think college football is the, just in a very like severe, severe transition period where everyone's going to have to suck it up for a couple of years till things normalize. No, seriously, because I have friends who, you know, I have friends who hate the NIL and like not hate it, but like, they're like, oh man, now this school is going to pay for this player.

It's like, well, what do you think was happening before? You know what I mean? Like it was all happening. Now it's just, we can actually see it and kids can make money and not feel bad about themselves. So I just, it's all in flux right now and college sports are the one thing where it's like the fans hate change

because it's all tradition and it's all old school and all this stuff. You just have to suck it up because it will all normalize and we'll look back in 10 years and be like, remember when we thought NIL was going to ruin college football? No, it didn't. It's fine.

Remember when opt-outs were going to ruin college football? No, it didn't. It's fine. It's just right now people think the sky is falling. Yeah, we are really predictable on this. Like I remember when Candlestick Park, San Francisco Giants was the first one to change its name and be three com.

And you thought, I don't know, do you guys have an IT guy to get on that? Because then they started having anchors on sports center like freaking out about it. And they called it commercial stick park. And it was like, how can you change the name to something that isn't a park? Like how can it not be named after something cool

and it's just a commercial? It's just the naming rights thing. And people were fucking pissed about it. And then guess what? It was the norm. People actually spent a lot of time arguing about patches on a major. You probably don't even notice them anymore.

All right, think of the transfer rules. And I made this point in my podcast where I remember like being offended that Stefan Marbury was only going to be in school for a year. I'm like, who's this kid thinking is? I was younger. I was like, I don't know, 14.

And I'm going, who's Stefan Marbury thinking is? Like, who gives a shit? And then it got to the point where I didn't even want these guys to even have to become one and done. So we in the moment will have things changing around us where we freak out about it. Like think about the transfer rule and the arguments about the transfer rule.

Now it feels like almost everybody's on the same page. It's like, wait, if coaches salaries are going to quadruple in a decade, guess what? You can deal with some transfers. You can deal with kids leaving and being eligible immediately. I love the transfer rule because it's just whatever coach complains, they're essentially saying, I have to work harder.

And it sucks. Yeah, and so even just a couple of years removed from some of these things that we thought were such a big deal. And I just feel like the NIL is another one of those things. Yeah, the only one. It's going to be normalized here in a very short amount of time. The only one I remember that got actual pushback

and it didn't happen was when baseball tried to put Spider-Man on all the bases. Do you remember that? I think it was when, like, Spider-Man 2 was coming out. I'm actually working on a documentary on the Spider-Man. Well, let's shout out Bill Plashke, by the way, because he's still mad about stadiums changing. That was an all-time take.

When Staples changed to crypto, and he was like, how could that? Yeah, he didn't like it. It was named after a fucking office supply company. What are we talking about? And by the way, office supply warehouses, in general, are struggling right now. Good point. Great point.

Our Warriors. Warriors going to win it all. No, no, no. We still had one more thing there, though. I felt like PFT. Give that thing one opt out. I don't have anything else on opt-outs. I have a hypothetical, though, if you want to talk about it.

Oh. OK, the Curry brothers against the Yokich brothers. So they get three. The Yokichs get three, but the Currys get two. Who wins in a basketball game? OK, so I told you, I talked to one of the guys of the Nugget staff that said the Yokich brothers got thrown out of the staff pickup game, because it was so vicious.

All right? So I think I'd actually go with the Yokichs, because there's three of them. And, you know, Yokich, the one we know about, the shit he does on a nightly basis to carry this team around him. And there are some stats that tell you, like, he's the runaway MVP.

I don't think it's fair to say runaway in comparison to some of the step stuff, although Golden State's fallen off a little bit offensively the last few weeks. What Yokich does to carry that team and the way he plays. And it's just funny, too, because he gets taken in the second round, and they're like, well, what was your deal? He's like, man, those first few practices, I was so out of shape.

He's like, I used to drink three liters of soda every day. So I don't know if GM should find, like, really skilled guys that have the worst diet, right? Like, can we find anybody with a horrible diet that's completely out of shape that actually is just a really good passer, though, and good hands? Like, that's what we should be focusing on. So I'd love to pick the curries, because the shooting

and stretching the floor, but defensively. And the fact that one of the other Yokich brothers should probably kill someone to get to 11 from what I've heard from guys that played in pickup games with them, again, that they were banned from. I'm going to go with the guys from the Eastern Block. The full court. You go with the curries?

Do you know I went to go play the other day, and two guys were playing full court 101? I love it. So cool. And I had to wait. That's awesome. Good. You should wait.

Just trying to get some cardio in. Was one of them just fast breaking? No. They were in good shape, man. They were mad. Because they do the AC. That's such a funny thing to do at a local gym. Just take up the entire.

But waiting. And then guys are waiting. You guys should do it and see how long you should run a video of it. You guys play full courts in a place in the city, and then when a couple guys show up, and be like, what's the plan? And then your video guy, or maybe Hank goes, or maybe Billy,

and says, yeah, they've got the court. And then they'll be like, OK, well, this is ridiculous. And they'll be like, well, look, you know, game point. And they'll be like, what are you playing to? And Billy says, 101. You want next? Yeah. And then you're going to lay up.

You're like, all right, 12-6. All right, so wait. Warriors, are they going to win the title? I mean, they're awesome. They're awesome, and they have clay. I can't believe that it's good. Yeah. To be this good without clay, and part of it

is that five guys all of a sudden got way better. This is the best Wiggins has ever played, the depth around them, the development from where a couple guys were last year. Although Poole was really good last year too statistically. This is scary. And so I'd love to see something out of Wiseman, just to give him some kind of size that can hang with Aten, because if they don't have any size other than Looney,

and then Draymond having to play a small center. Although, you know, look, Aten can have his nights. He can also have some nights where, and I like Aten a lot. I just think that you wish it were just always like superstar level from him to take that next step. I don't think that's ever going to happen. And even if Aten has a physical advantage over somebody, it's just not the way the game is played anymore.

Even with Chris Paul getting in the ball, you know, it's not like Aten's going to destroy you for 30 on the block the whole time. The game's just not played that way. So sometimes when I look at like size, advantage, disadvantages, I have to remind myself, like, OK, I can I can think this guy has a huge advantage because of their front line.

But is that really how the game is going to be played? Probably not. So the golden state part of this with clay coming back, because there's just this absolute sell out now defense against Steph that, you know, we've always seen blitzing. We're to stay with the ball off of whatever. They're coming all the way out now to do it to Steph. And sometimes it's throwing it to Dremon for four on three,

which is terrific. Iguodala is a valve as well. But now that clay is going to be an option off of you selling out against Steph, good luck with that. It's a good point because it is I went to the game when they played the next he broke the record. It was like the defense are playing against him. It was crazy.

It was like they had two guys out there. You don't see that. They just never let him shoot. And he still had like 25. No, it's there are certain nights and certain possessions were just kind of laughing, being like, hey, double team at half court. Yeah.

And and there's there's a more of that. You know, I even saw it with John Morant, who's been on an absolute tear now since he did back since the injury. And that guy's awesome. I love watching Memphis. A lot of fun. So check them out. Shout out, Grizz.

But you know, all right, go ahead. You want to sell out and stop Steph and get the ball out of his hands. They have this record with these defensive statistics, with this improving around them. I thought, you know, they'd ride it and then kind of be in that five to six mitts. And then Clay would come back and then we'd see what we have.

But this is scary. This is scary. Although as good as they've been, I still don't think this is the kind of team where Wiggins or Dremon are your second best player, that that would be the model of a team that wins an NBA title. I wouldn't think. I think I've even talked myself into kind of liking Phoenix

better than them. Liking Phoenix better than them without Clay. But you know, they beat him again. So you know, with Clay back, it's hard for me to find Utah. It'd be hard for me to pick out of those teams against Golden State if everybody's healthy and serious. All right, so give us your finals. Ooh.

All right. I'll go Golden State. And I'm going to say Milwaukee again. And it's kind of a bet against the newness of Chicago, not loving Chicago's options defensively for the size of Middleton and Yannis. And that the Brooklyn thing, I don't really like picking against them because they almost proved us all.

They basically proved to us last year that if they'd been healthy for the playoffs, the three guys could play for eight games in the regular season and then win a title. That's not something that's supposed to happen. But they're better. And then you add the Joe Harris part of it. Patty Mills has been huge for him.

You know, if the Nets end up winning the East, I'm not going to sit here and tell him to be surprised. But I'll just pick Milwaukee again because maybe I wonder if the Nets thing. I mean, if I also said, hey, this thing could get really weird again with Kyrie and the fact that Hardin still can't get in shape, you know, Hardin was so bad the other night against Memphis.

He's just not interested. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Like Ben Simmons maybe eating his way out of Philadelphia. Did James Hardin give the blueprint? I wonder, would you trade those two for each other? Hardin for Simmons? If I'm from Philadelphia, yes.

If you're the Nets, no. All right. Yeah, I think you're right. I think I think it's a no if you're the Nets. Yes, if you're a Nets. It's a huge yes. It's a godsend. Yes.

Well, he thought he was getting them. I mean, that day was really weird when the trade went down because there were people that were like, no, it's done. And Ben's kicked the tires on what it's going to be like for him in Houston. So I don't know if everybody's going to be totally truthful about that story. Because again, I'm not saying that I know the truth 100%.

But there are a lot of people that were in the league earlier that day that were like, oh, yeah, Philly got them. All right. And then it switched. So my last question, because we've taken a long time for you. So we're going to see you in LA. We're going to do a podcast with Titus and you again.

So everyone check it out. No, fuck that guy. Fuck that guy. I agree. I agree. My last question, because I know we've already taken an hour of your time. Georgia, Alabama, Monday night.

Who's your pick? And how much would a healthy LSU team beat both these teams? Because they got the recruiting, Ryan. They got the dudes. Were you trying to make fun of me last night about LSU? And then did you think I took it way too seriously and came back at your heart? It was just communication error.

The LSU was playing against Kansas State in their bowl game. They had all their quarterbacks within either injured or transferred. So they were starting a wide receiver. And I was making fun of being like, I thought LSU recruited well, how this guy sucks. Yeah, but see, I picked up on the joke. But I was like, I just want to make sure we're still joking.

Yes, yes, we were joking. Yeah, man, I mean, LSU, the amount of talent they've had walk out the door in the last 12 months is crazy. It is impressive and also a massive problem. So hey, where are you guys at now? Are you done with Baton Rouge? No, I mean, I love Brian Kelly. I think he's just as funny as Coach Oh.

No, the deal was you guys were off the LSU train when Oh left. And I could have my team back. Everybody thinks you guys are the LSU guys. Joey Molinaro. I've loved LSU. Obviously, I didn't go to a big state school. I went to JMU. So we don't have like, now we're going to the Sunbelt,

which is nice. That's my deal. That's my Vermont deal. I'm allowed to pick a team. So all my best friends, every LSU, I would go down there every spring break. And so I, I did. Wait a minute.

That's not, is that true? For some reason, they just all decided to go to Baton Rouge. I don't know of all, but a few. I know a few of them. Three of my best friends went there. So I started to like LSU, but I can't. Where are they in your best friend? I mean, one came to us with the national championship.

So he's not lying. Yeah, I'd say I'd say two of them are in my top five. But I'm not saying that I, I'm not a dive hard LSU fan, but I do like that school. And I always have. I loved it when coach Joe was there. There's a big part of me that's rooting for it to completely fall apart with Brian Kelly.

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm easy. I'm, I'm, I'm out. Now the nose out. I love going to Baton Rouge. I'll go to a game, but yeah, it was a coach O deal. I love, I've loved coach O for before that with LSU or USC when he was winning interim games. Ole Miss.

No, the whole thing was he's got the greatest record of all time as an interim head coach. So we would just win money when he would be an interim when USC had him coach and they went like six and one to finish that season. So I, yeah, I'm out. I can't, Brian Kelly's a different dude. I still love the people of Louisiana,

but Brian Kelly is hard to root for. I wanted to keep getting worse with Brian Kelly. Yeah. I want the introductory basketball game thing. I want that to just be the tip of the iceberg to Brian Kelly. Hey, by the way, all the heat he took during that basketball game last night and the one against Kentucky

or excuse me on Wednesday or the game was Tuesday. Don't you think he was making fun of himself though by saying Boston people? Yeah. He was joking. He was joking. Why does everybody think that he was serious? Castle culture, Ryan.

The internet is just so quick. Yeah, it is. John Boyer and Rogers is right. I'll agree with him on one thing. No, he, Brian Kelly is, yeah, he's not a, he's not a likable guy. He wasn't a likable guy at Notre Dame. Like he's just, he's not one of those guys.

Like even Saban, you know, I do have a, like Saban, it's crazy to me that he's just not even bored at this point because it's just so, so nuts. Like I likened it to, if you're playing it on Xbox, eventually you up the level because you're like, this isn't fun. I keep winning every year. It's not even fun anymore, but Saban.

It'd be like, wait, it'd be like Peter North going out on a Thursday billy. You want to go out and talk to girls? Yeah, right. Too easy, right? The, uh, say, like, wait, Saban still has like, I like Saban. He's not an unlikable guy.

Brian Kelly's just not like, Saban's really like, by the way, Saban is really, unless you're his offensive coordinator, Saban is a really likable guy. You know, I don't know much time you guys have spent with him. Every time I spent time with him. Now again, he wouldn't be an asshole to me for 10 minutes. Be like, Hey, this is a good idea.

Have, have, have this guy with a microphone in front of his face 15 hours a week. I think I'm a jerk, but I don't know. I've always, the Saban thing, you know, it was one of the points that I was kind of talking about with the playoff in general, because we have these blog games, which the point differential, I think since the playoff was started is 17 points on average. The point differential in these playoff games.

I mean, that's ridiculous. It's been three good games in 10 years. No, seriously, it's been three good games. You know, we really need, we need an Alabama's quarterback to have his girlfriend in the hospital giving birth on the night of the national championship game, miss a game, and then see how Saban reacts to that. I would love to see that.

That would be good. That would be the ultimate. You know, it'd be, you know, it'd be funny as if a guy says, I have a problem with him opting out because of a child's birth, but the NIL plays a part. Yeah. Oh yeah. Who's your pick?

I'm doing it. I'm going to do it and make a huge mistake. I'm picking George in the rematch. I hate it. Same. The only thing that keeps going into my head though, I think George is better. I just think that, that Kirby smart, like there will be a moment.

Stetson isn't better. Stetson isn't better. No. Okay. Finish a Kirby thought. Cause this is not even on the same pages. Yeah. Right.

And like that's not, obviously it's not quarterback, but like defensively and just more consistently, they have been better all year. Alabama has had a great last few weeks. If you watch every Alabama game, they did not look great every week. You know what I mean? Like they struggled against teams.

They struggled against LSU. They struggled against Florida, against Auburn, like weird games. I just think Kirby at some point, like the thing that scares me about my pick and I've already bet it, I'm taking Georgia, but I, I'm scared that Kirby's going to be like, uh-oh, like what do I do here?

Like it's happening again. Cause it does feel like Alabama just has that mental edge over them. You and I talk about this for what weeks leading up to the eventual Georgia game that we knew was going to happen. Yeah. And you know, it's a huge number. Bama's getting six and a half, seven. And then when you're like, oh, so when they,

when Bama gets this many points under Saban, they've never lost like, okay, that's scary. But I couldn't help myself of being like, man, Bama just can't really block this year. I'm like, all right. So that front sevens all NFL guys, like they're going to block them. They got the ball out quick.

I talked to cloud on my podcast this week. He made a great point. He said, you know, what's funny is that Bryce had more trouble against Cincinnati because there was things that were confusing where Georgia is so easy to him because Georgia is basically mimicking what they're doing to Bama.

Now, again, I'm sure somebody could get into the intricacies of it and saying, well, Georgia and Bama differentiate themselves this way or all these. But like, you know, personnel wise, kind of the standard we're trying to take away and all this kind of different stuff. But, you know, with no matchy,

we didn't see it against Cincinnati because physically it was just two different groups there. But no matchy is a huge deal because as great as James and Williams is, the depth for the receivers for Bama, you know, unless we have one of these weird bowl things where all of a sudden, you know, some random guy like shows up like Ohio State,

like, wait, Marvin Harrison's kid out there and he's nasty, you know, which you didn't even see him because the other two first rounders didn't play. I'm with you and I'm scared to death that I'm falling for it again. And I think you're right because I think every Georgia fan looks at Kirby and goes, are we going to have that moment

where you just can't hang with the guy across the sideline from you? All right, I have one last, last thing to ask you about. Your girl, Elizabeth Holmes, unfortunately, was yesterday found guilty on several counts. Yes. Have you, have you inquired as to what the conjugal visit laws are?

Are you going to be paying her, are you going to stop by and say hi to her? People don't know that you guys dated. I know. I don't really like talking about it. But I knew her way. I mean, yeah. Yeah, before her voice changed.

Right. Yeah. Now, what are your thoughts on the Theranos tribe? Look, I can separate the two. If you guys didn't know me long enough, I've done this a long time. And I think I look, I'm, I pride myself and like, hey, I can feel this way about somebody,

but this is who I think they are in their profession. I think I'm the best at it. Maybe in the country. Yeah, separate the art from the artist. Except I'm kind of the other way around. I think she sucks, but I think her inventions were good. I think we just need, we need to really dig into those black boxes and I'm sure that there's some gold

in there somewhere. Her invention is the same as me drawing a DeLorean. Yeah, but you admit that if there was a machine that could take one drop of blood and then diagnose everything that's wrong with you, that would be a good thing. I'll put it this way. I'm always going to care about her,

but she made a huge mistake. Anything for Billy real quick before we go, Billy's going to stay at your house in LA for Super Bowl Week. A lot of people chiming in about vacancy over here during that week. I got to tell you, I don't really like I got to tell you. I don't know that we're going to be,

we might be just, might be a soft opening. Be a soft opening. We do have a night, we have a night set up for the close friends and family private event away from all the glitz and glamour. And we may, we may even start it with a couple of beach sunset. And then then have us walk up the path back to the,

so we're going to have a little pre thing. And then the real beautiful. Cool. We're in. Unless the, unless the Hornets are. Yeah. Then we got to watch them. One of your favorite watches.

You do watch the games. Billy looks like he has something on his mind. Can we, can we just, can we just park at your house though? Because no, we have to park somewhere. I'm going on this trip. It's a rental car. You're going to drive your actual car. Oh yeah.

That's right. So we're going to have to park it somewhere. But do you have spots? You drive in cross country. So we did a year long competition of the six of us, the loser. So it's four picks a week, NFL underdog favorite over under the loser. And this is the diabolical part. Thanks to Henry Lockwood, the loser and the second place guy have to drive

across the country to go to LA. So second place loses as well. So it's, it's, it's chaos. Like we're coming down to it and everyone's still third is in the clear fourth spot fifth. It looks like it's going to be Billy in last place. And then second place is most likely going to be myself or Hank or Jake or me. Like it's, it's chaos.

Everyone's still alive in week 18 for everything. So all right. Yeah. I'm going to just say yes. Perfect. You can park on your lawn. Beautiful. If you.

Yeah. That'd be a good looking. We don't have, we don't have many lawns over here. It's about basements. Do you have basements? I've got like a half, a lot of basements. It's hard to even get a basement out here either. Billy, like we're going to stay at a totally different part of LA.

And Billy's going to be like, well, we got free parking at Rossell's Manhattan Beach. It's like, well, yeah, that's actually going to be a huge mistake to park here. Where are you guys staying? It'll probably be like a hundred dollar Uber to just get his car every day when you could have just valeted it for 20 bucks. But he, you've agreed we're parking at your house. If he needs to park, he can park here.

Making plans. Way to go, Billy. No, we got a parking spot now. I would do anything. I'd do anything for Billy. Thanks, bro. Come on, I can't. Well, yeah.

How's everything else going? How are the, how are the bench numbers? Let's get out of the way. We're working on it. We're, you know, getting together in January. Billy thinks the vaccine sucked all the strength out of him. Who knows? Years from now.

What are your thoughts on it? I know he actually does though. I haven't noticed this. I haven't post vaccine. I haven't noticed this. It's a significant difference. But we're all different. We all have different, you know, DNA.

We're about to actually work out right now. Billy hit me up yesterday and was like, Hey, you want to work out after a silo? And I was like, yeah. And he goes, bring juice. So I'm bringing my juice to this. By the way, what are you guys eating online there? I've noticed just a bunch of pills.

What are you guys doing? We're on the subs. And Hank's got problems now. You're not feeling well, Hank? No, I'm good. I'm good. Billy's just giving us a random cocktail of pills that we're all taking that's probably going to end us all.

It's probiotics. And other things. It does take like 15 minutes to take them all. It's turmeric. There's turmeric in there. Turmeric. It's three sets of three. That's what I do.

They're big. You guys don't need to be taking turmeric at this. Or at least Billy doesn't. Like you're doing it for your joints and everything. You're too, you don't. Yeah. Oh, so you're getting in front of the joint pain. By taking turmeric at such an early age.

Every day I wonder, like, could Billy kill me with these pills? And I realize the answer is yes. But I still take them. Because maybe, maybe, maybe it'll work. Yeah, maybe it'll work. I noticed the fish oil in there. That's always, I don't think anybody's anti-fish oil. No, fish oil is good.

I mean, I used to give fish oil to my dog. Fish oil is, as long as, I've always frozen the pills. So that way when you take it, you don't burp and you don't taste the fishiness. Ah, the fish oil burp is terrible. These are burp. I take, wait a minute. What are they?

Burp, anti-burp ones. No, seriously, they sell those ones. They're the Omega 3 anti-. See, I'm concerned. I would rather have the ones that make me burp than the ones that they add stuff into to not make you burp. It's because they have thicker capsules. So they don't dissolve by the time you swallow them.

But that sounds worse. I think it's just a thicker gelatin. We're probably going to be dead by the time we get to Los Angeles. Yeah. You won't have to worry about it. Hey, you know what that means? I'll move up in the rankings. Dead or jacked.

Yes, dead or jacked. All right, Ryan, thank you. Thank you for giving us an hour plus. We'll see you soon. All right, thanks a lot, guys. Talk to you. Okay, let's wrap up the show. We got a Firefest of the Week.

Send everyone on their way. Week 18. Next time we'll be talking. We'll be talking about playoff setups, playoff matchups, which is going to be very exciting on Sunday night. Firefest of the Week. Hank, you start. Hank said he had a huge one.

Huge one. It was a pretty big Firefest that derailed my entire week, but it's also offered me some perspective, a little bit of a some things moment, if you will. You know, material things don't matter that much. But obviously, we were gone. Vacation, I was on vacation, got back to the office on Sunday and Monday, and there was a bunch of boxes.

There was a box from Roeback. They sent me like a bunch of new stuff. Duven, which is one of my favorite clothing companies, they sent me a box of goodies. There was a couple of jumpsuits that we had got sent. That big hat, you gave me one. And I think something else, like a nice hat. And I took this big on Tuesday afternoon.

I took this big tote bag. I put everything in there, got on the train, and then on the train, I just zoned out. Like I take two trains to get home, and I think on one of the transfers, I just left the tote bag with like, basically my entire wardrobe for the rest of the year on the train. And I was watching TV like seven hours later,

and I just bolted up. It was just like, oh my God. Oh no. And then I looked around my house, and I was like, yeah, no, I fucking left that on the train. Just a giant bag filled with clothes. Brand new clothes, like all wrapped, nice. Oh no.

That's the worst. And usually like the thing, and you know, and again, this is where it's like some things, it's like whatever, it's just material items, doesn't matter. I have clothes already, I'll be fine. But usually we get stuff sent, and usually it just stays on the desk or in the pile.

If there's something I actually like, taking the effort, as you know, Big Hat PFT, you guys are pile guys as well, if you take the effort to bring it home, like that's something you want. Yeah, it's also very funny to think that Hank just left a giant bag on the train, and somebody probably called the cops later

because they thought that there was a bomb on there. No, I mean it was all like, you open the bag, it was clearly like wrapped up stuff. You might see a homeless guy rocking some awesome swag. I hope I do. I'm getting his fits off. Yeah, on your subway route. Dude, there was good stuff.

I mean, there was everything. Sweat shirts, long sleeve collared shirts, it was, I took the best of the best, put it in a bag, brought it home, was like good, don't have to shop for a year. So Hank doesn't have any clothes. If you own a clothing company out there, Hank is asking you humbly.

No, I'm saying I learned, this was a learning experience, and it's like whatever, I don't need clothes. Just give me whatever. Big Hat, you're also missing out. Hank is dressed really nicely today. Let me see. Hank, show it off.

He's looking adult as fuck. He's very adult right now. This has got to be new clothes. Look at this adult-ass fit. Look at this. Is he wearing jeans? Sure, with the buttons. Yeah, that's just so,

for people who are listening right now, he's just wearing jeans and a shirt. No, it's a nice shirt though. Yeah, it is shirt. His shirt. If he's wearing a button down. It's a flannel. He's wearing jeans and a flannel.

It's not, it's not. Well, that's a little life hack for all the kitties out there. If you wear a sweatpants, 90% of the time, if you wear jeans and you come to work, people are like, oh my god, you look great. And if I don't wear a hat, people are like, oh my god, you got dressed up today.

Yeah, set that bar low. Yeah. All right, PFT, your fire fest. My fire fest is, I had a glass of wine last night. Pussy. And yeah, I know. Man card, Joe Buck. It was a Pinot Grigio, it was a white wine.

I poured it, I took a sip, and it tasted awful. I mean, awful. It tasted like a rotten margarita, like a margarita that's been left out for maybe three or four weeks. And I was like, oh, this wine sucks. It must have gone bad. It must be corked.

I poured myself a different glass of white wine. That sucked too. COVID fucked up my taste bud. I can still taste and smell, but all alcohol tastes awful to me. Like real bad. Like there's a visceral reaction when I drink it, where it tastes like it's rotten.

Like I can't drink beer. I can't drink liquor. I can't drink wine. It's all fucked up. I don't know how long this is going to last. That does suck. Damn. Are you sure you didn't brush your teeth before?

A million. I never brushed my teeth, Billy, you know that. No, I did not brush my teeth, but I don't drink that much. I'll usually have like two beers on Friday, maybe a couple beers on Saturday. But this, especially like this football season, I haven't been drinking much alcohol,

but it's just a weird sensation that I hope comes back because I do enjoy drinking the occasional beer, the occasional ice cold Coors Light. So I don't know how long my taste buds are going to be fucked up for, but that's really the only lingering effect besides the brain fog and also now I'm 5'8". But besides that, I don't have anything else from COVID,

but it's just, it's a bizarre thing to have sticking around with you. That's weird because when I had it in February, I lost all taste, but it was like consistently all taste for two weeks straight. Not like a little bit of taste or something tastes bad. It was, I made that video where I was licking my deodorant bar and it was just nothing. So I don't, yeah, that's weird.

I can still taste everything else taste perfectly fine and normal, but for some reason the alcohol taste, maybe it's a blessing in disguise. Maybe I'll do sober January. Maybe it came back and it's just super hardcore. Maybe I can taste alcohol more. Maybe I could be like a sommelier. This wine sucks.

This wine also sucks. All right. My fire fest is I got a new iPhone and I got the new iPhone Pro Max and it was too big. And I guess I have small hands, which I didn't realize, which sucks. Haven't, you've measured your hands though, right? They're like quarterbacks.

Yeah. They're normal. They're normal size. You wouldn't, I wouldn't get a tweet from Ian Rappport, being like, Holy shit, big cat's hands. Don't draft them. But I don't know. I think it also is just an enormous, enormous phone. It's like, it's very heavy.

The Pro Max iPhone 13, Bubba has it, but Bubba has gigantic hands. Free cans. And, but really it was like, you know how most of your, when you're on your phone, the majority of it is like holding it and just using your thumb, being able to get to the top and the bottom with your thumb.

I couldn't do that. So it was, it was, it was bad. What kind of covers do you have with a full swipe? Can you go like 70%? What do you mean? Like how far? Oh, I already returned it. I already returned it.

I already returned it. I had to return the phone. Oh, so you got, that's a new phone that you have right now. This is a new phone, right? You have to get the mini. Return it because, yeah. For your tiny hands. Well, this is the, the regular size, the Pro Max.

Also, when you take it out of your pocket, as everyone knows, I don't use a case. I'll never use a case. I almost dropped it like six times taking it out of my pocket because it's just, it's heavy and it's got a lot to it. So yeah, it was a, it was a wake up call. Wow. I mean, the internet is saying that you have tiny hands now.

Yeah, that's true. I thought that your Firefest was going to be a joke of it. Your, your king is trapped in an airport in Australia, like the plot of the terminal too. They, it's fucked up what they did to him. I thought they invited him. Yeah, of course it is. And then they told him that you're not allowed to leave

the airport. They don't want him to win. They don't want to see him win. It's probably Roger Federer trying to keep him down. They know that he's going to break the record. His dad got involved. Did you see what his dad said? Yeah, he was pissed.

His dad will fight someone. All time quote from Sir John Jokovic. Shame on them. The entire freedom loving world should rise together with Serbia. They crucified Jesus. And now they're trying to crucify Novak the same way. I mean, did Jesus ever win Wimbledon? Did Jesus ever beat Roger Federer at Wimbledon?

He's a cross court all star. No, he did not. Yeah. Yes. So there you go. Okay. Jake. My firefest tap on on the show.

It was well documented. Why would it happen? Oh, so if you didn't listen to Wednesday's episode, which you didn't, you got me. So you guys were talking about the low man trophy. I was digging into the Wisconsin football game notes, looking for the pronunciation of John Channal. And I did pronunciation.

Yes. Of you guys talking about the Kellan-Mond incident. And that was my hot seat. Jake, I don't want to pile on, but it sounds like he just made an excuse. I mean, that's why it's not an excuse. That's just the reasoning. It sounds like it sounds like you included it because it was an excuse.

Not an excuse. I screwed up. You saw my apology on the notes app. It happens. Just move on. But that's my firefest of the week. What would you say? I feel strongly that you will bounce back, Jake.

Thank you. I do too. But yeah. All right. I'm just saying, I'm not mad at you, Jake. I'm just disappointed. Fair. Billy.

So I woke up Wednesday morning. I was feeling great. My body's operating on the highest level because I'm supped up. Bounced out of bed. It was about like 7.30. Got a couple of rounds on the bag. Boxing about like 15 one minute rounds. Eight breakfast was feeling good.

Got everything ready. It was about to head out the door. I hope Billy just keeps narrating his entire day like this. And whatever happened to him happened at the end of the day. You know, got everything going. Took one step off into my staircase going down into the street. Totally wiped out. Went totally vertical.

Slipped. It was an icy staircase. Went all the way down the stairs. Hit my head. Hit both funny bone. All the nerves in my elbows on the side of the same staircase. Then slid all the way down the staircase to the sidewalk. And I sat like was on my back staring at the sky.

Just like both elbows buzzing. And I had totally just slipped down, wiped out. It was terrible. Did anybody see you? Yes. The. What I tell you, though, after I have a longstanding theory that everyone gets one wipe out a year.

Everyone wipes out once during the winter months. And it's better to almost get it out of the way earlier because then you're a little bit more cautious because like when it gets cold and there's ice, you you don't remember that like, oh, fuck, I got to start watching where I walk and all these like hazards and everything. So you fall once. Hopefully it's not a bad fall.

And then the rest of the winter you're you got your head on a swivel. Yeah, the one guy who saw me, Liam knows this guy. He's this dude who runs around the neighborhood yelling all the time, asking people for cigarettes and money for coffee. And he goes, are you OK? And I'm just like, yeah, man, I couldn't really talk that point. Kind of winded. Did you give him money?

I in that moment he I'm sorry. But like, yeah, he offered you. That's what it's on. Yeah, I know he didn't. I didn't give him money because I was like, I had to like gather myself because I was. You have to next time next time looking out for you. Yeah, saved your life.

He's the only one that checked on you. I know. But then I had to I'm sorry. It wasn't there. Yeah. Next time. No, it's fine. But I just really wish that there was some sort of like surveillance footage

that we could see. They're they're might they're my cartoonishly sitting and falling. And yeah. Yeah. But it was that was the first I'm fucking old moment because well, I woke up the next morning and I was sore and I was like, because you fell on your ass down a whole flight of stairs. Yeah.

But usually you bounce back from those. Anyway, 2022 just reminded me body craves contact. There we go. So Billy, I never want to hear you say I'm old again. Getting old, bro. No. Oh, you ever feel like maybe like you're just over the club scene and you just want to have an IPA with your dog and just chill on the couch?

That's that's a little too old. I don't think I've ever drank an IPA in my life. Yeah, because it gives you tits, right? Exactly. Mm hmm. Yeah. Stay away from that. Oh, it's not just to me.

Maybe maybe Billy supplements fucked up my taste buds. Oh, also could be true. It could be. That's a definite possibility. Anything that goes wrong with my body. I just need to remind myself. I'm ingesting like 40 different chemicals that a 19 year old gave me. I've been giving you an abuse.

That's the drug that makes you puke whenever you touch alcohol. Oh, OK. Thank you. Yeah, it's for your health. All right, let's do numbers. Send everyone on their way. Billy hit it. Eight.

Twenty two. Eighty eight. Six. Ninety two, twelve, ninety eight, eighty six, eighty four, thirty two aren't in. Six nine. Forty four. Uh oh. It's not plugged in.

Billy thought he was just going to sit in big cat spot and take his job. It's not that easy. Eight. Will you eat any meals in my desk? No, he's just sketching a woolly mammoth. Oh, we got to. Is that going to go up? I swear to God.

Oh my God. What was that? Oh, it was ninety nine. Ninety nine. Wow. That's not qualified. That's not qualified. Do it again.

Got to do it again. Ninety nine did not make it all the way up the chute. Got to do it again. Oh, Wisconsin football just posted official thank you for the low man trophy. Oh, nice. The actual Twitter account. That's awesome. What do we have?

Fifty eight. Second timer. Fifty eight. Fifty eight. Fifty eight. All right. All right. We'll see everyone on Sunday night, Monday morning.

Also, the Barstow Sports Bar will be open in Chicago on Saturday. So go check it out. Where? River North. Hell yeah. All right. Is there is there like an intersection or just like go to River North? Just River North.

I don't know the exact address. I don't know the exact address. She's Google it. Love you guys. Turkeys are only native to mainland United States. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake.

I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake.

I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. and that'll make the view dark inside out, no matter what. Thanks a lot.

I'll be coming for your lover's cake. Oh, she's doing the headlights new. skills fill in där, please stand up. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. I'll be coming for your lover's cake. Take on me, take me on I'll be gone in a day

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