Pardon My Take - Stephen A. Smith, NFL Conference Championship, Hot Seat/Cool Throne & Guys On Chicks

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

We start with some NFL Conference Championship talk, Mahomes injury and ranking the best rosters of the Final 4 (00:00:00-00:28:11). Hot Seat/Cool Throne (00:28:11-00:57:20). Stephen A Smith joins the show in studio to talk about his new book, his career in sports media, First Take, Skip Bayless, the Cowboys, and tons more (00:57:20-01:53:59). We finish with guys on chicks (01:53:59-02:09:44).You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/PardonMyTake

Hey, pardon my take listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. On today's part of my take, Stephen A. Smith. Yup, in studio, Stephen A. Smith. We haven't recorded it yet. I'm gonna say it was incredible.

I'm just gonna call our shot. We nailed it, PFT, credit to us. I'm gonna say it was preposterous. Are you gonna drop that in front of us? I'm gonna do a Stephen A. Smith impression to his face. I feel like it would be disingenuous to talk shit about the man behind his back and not do it to his face.

Yeah, so great interview. Calling our shot, great interview. We have Hot Seat Cool Throne, guys on chicks. Gonna talk a little football, getting ready for championship Sunday. And it's all brought to you by our friends at C4. Experience big game energy live with C4 energy. It's a new year and we're fully dialed in

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Boy! Boy! Now in the street there is violence and then there's lots of work to be done. No place to hang out or wash in and then I can't live all on the side. Oh no, we're gonna rock down to electric avenue and then we're taking higher.

Oh, we're gonna rock down to electric avenue and then we're taking higher. Welcome to part of my take. Today is Wednesday, January 25th and PFT. I don't know where we wanna start because I'm ready for football to already get here. My body was rejecting no football on Monday night. Yeah, it just occurred to me that I came down with COVID

right after the NFL regular season ended. I think our bodies, they crave football. Yes, I'm feeling fatigued. I'm not sick, but I feel immense fatigue from maybe waking up like four times in the middle of the night but mostly because of football. I've got an idea. Here's a good way to start the show.

Let's have a debate big cat, embrace debate. Let's get old school PMT with it. Who's the better quarterback? Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow? Now before you answer that, I wanna know who's the better quarterback at quarterbacking and then who's the better player playing quarterback. Okay, the better quarterback at quarterbacking

is going to, wait, what was the second one? Better player. The better player who happens to play quarterback. Oh, hmm. Tell you what, we can include. I think Burrow might be the better quarterback at quarterbacking. I think Joe Burrow is the best quarterback at quarterbacking in the NFL right now.

I agree, and then Mahomes is the best player at quarterbacking. I think he's a very good quarterback who happens to be a football player. Okay, yeah, no, we're on the same page. Wait, so Joe Burrow is a great quarterback who just happens to play football. Patrick Mahomes is a great football player who just happens to play quarterback.

Yes, that makes sense. And then Brock Purdy's just a fucking G. The man won't be able to survive the link. Brock Purdy's top G in the NFL right now. I have a question. And now obviously we're not the smartest and I've been gambling my whole life and I think I understand some stuff.

The fact that this Kansas City Chiefs are now two and a half point underdogs, are we sure Patrick Mahomes is playing in this game? I don't know, we're sure. It's weird. I think he is, I would bet if he had gone to my head, I'd say yes, hampered, but the fact that they are now two and a half point underdogs

makes me feel like what's going on here. This is Las Vegas doing the old Wiley Coyote trick to us. They've got a big cardboard box that's propped up by a stick with a string to it and underneath the box, it says plus 2.5. It's begging us to come over there and take that plus 2.5. They want us to take the Chiefs so bad.

What would the Roadrunner do in this situation? Yeah, and on top of all this, last night it moved and everyone was like, oh, that's weird. And then Patrick Mahomes tweeted out a video being like, see you on Sunday, Kansas City. And it was like a highlight video from the game against the Jaguars. So maybe he's trying to give people some comfort

knowing that he'll be there. But just because he's there doesn't mean he's going to play. I think he's going to be there. I think he's going to play, but he's not going to be 100%. Now they've got to just scheme it up. You know what? We'll find out on Sunday if Patrick Mahomes is a good quarterback at quarterbacking

because he won't be able to run around. He won't rely on being a football player. Can Patrick Mahomes be a pocket passer? So this is a narrative game that we have developing for Patrick Mahomes because Joe Burroughs owned him for the last couple years. So this is actually, it's the perfect storm that we have of a narrative that will be created.

And I don't know ahead of time if you can judge Patrick Mahomes on how he plays this weekend because he is injured. He's definitely not 100%. But that's not going to stop anybody from turning this. No, history. That won't matter in a game. Yeah, history will not remember this. This will be Patrick Mahfrod.

Can't win the big one. Mahfrod only won in 2020 because Joe Burrough wasn't in the league yet. Oh, he ain't manning 2.0? Yeah, he is. Can't win on the road with the playoffs. That is being thrown out there, that Joe Burrough is going to be Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes will be Peyton Manning.

That Joe Burrough will just own him and win the titles, which he hasn't won any yet. So we're maybe getting a little ahead of this. And Patrick Mahomes is just the man in the regular season. He can't win the big one, even though he has won the big one. So really doesn't make sense. But we're a narrative podcast. Was it the big one?

He beat Jimmy Garoppolo. Yeah. Yeah, he beat Jimmy Garoppolo. And Kyle Shanahan's shit for Brains, which I am. It was Super Bowl, Kyle. We didn't talk about it. There's a couple of things that we missed on Sunday that I wanted to talk about.

One was, and someone pointed this out, and I think it's fair, we didn't give any criticism to Sean McDermott, who probably deserves some, because this is like thinking back to that Bengals-Bills game. You're a defensive coach, and your defense looked like they didn't even want to be out there. So he definitely, he's fine. I saw someone was throwing out there, the Marty Schottenheimer

taking the Chargers 14-2 and losing and then firing him. I don't think Sean McDermott's getting fired, but it does even two days removed from the game. It feels almost worse for the Bills right now and how that all devolved. And then the other thing. This is tough for Bills fans who probably skipped Monday's show. And now they're catching the delayed onset muscle soreness.

I agree with you. I think Sean McDermott deserves some of the blame. Definitely. I think we did talk about it on Sunday, how he's a defensive guy, and their defense looks soft. Soft, soft. It looked pretty bad. And offensively, Ken Dorsey definitely,

their offense didn't look good either. No. And Josh Allen probably hurt, but still we have to go with the narrative that we're dealt right now. Yeah. And he didn't play well, but the defense is going to be defense you suspect. You suspect.

You suspect. Big time suspect. You're absolutely suspect. That's a sus D. And the other thing we didn't talk about coaching wise is Kyle Shanahan, and we might have touched on it. He did have a couple moments in that Cowboys 49ers game where he was old school Kyle in that, I mean,

it basically is his brain stops and he can't figure out if he wants to be aggressive or conservative and then just some somehow winds up like in the middle. Yeah. And how everything just falls apart from him. That end of the first half where he was like, what are you doing? Like, are you are you calling timeouts?

You're not. They ended up getting three points. But I, Kyle Shanahan, the narrative of Kyle Shanahan, incredible coach, friend of the program. I love watching his football teams play, but he is there. There is some legacy decision making that's going to be on the line for him in the next couple of games. If they get to the Super Bowl of like,

can he make that right decision in the big moments when the lights are brightest? Yeah, this is a Kyle Shanahan legacy postseason, I think. Because everything about the guy has been, he's one of the best coaches, top three, top four coach in the NFL. He needs to get out of his own way. Now Matt Nagy had the BU written on his play card.

He needs to just have like be literally anyone else written on his play card. I'm actually a little, since you brought up Matt Nagy, I'm a little worried now that we have head coaching openings and Eric Biennamy might get a job. That would mean that Matt Nagy would be the offensive coordinator of the Chiefs and he would start getting a lot of credit for Patrick Holmes being great.

And then he would probably get hired by somebody else down the line. Well, he's already muddied the waters with reports that, you know, Mitch could never learn his system. Which, you know, a good head coach, that's really smart. And I don't know what happened then with Andy Dalton or Nick Foles who he brought in, but either way, he's gonna, he's in the right spot.

Are Sean Glennon? Yeah, Mike Glennon. Other Glennon. Yeah. He's in the right spot to get another job because he's going to just ascend in Kansas City. Imagine if he got the Kansas City head coaching job. That would, that would.

Post read. That would break me. That would break me. What if he won a Super Bowl? Yes, that would break. He would win a Super Bowl. Matt Nagy's Super Bowl champion. He wouldn't win a Super Bowl because

Patrick Holmes is Peyton Manning. That's true. So Patrick Holmes next Super Bowl is gonna be with another team. But no, congrats because then you'll get to see Matt Nagy lose in multiple AFC championship games with Patrick Mahon. I'm just thinking about people who might have tuned in

for the first time, I'm a part of my take to listen to Stephen A. Smith and what we just said in the first 20 minutes. Welcome to the show. It makes complete and total sense. Oh, we've made, we, we, I've never, we've never had better clarity. No, this is perfect.

It actually is. Here's how my last couple of days have been going. I've been thinking a lot about that, that play that I talked about on Sunday, the two point conversion that the Dolphins had back in 2019 and then Joe Burrow would be my quarterback forever in my life would be just immensely happier in all facets of it really.

So I had Shane make a photoshop of Joe just wearing commanders. How does he look? He looks awesome. And then I sent it to Joe and I was like, this could have been us. And what he said. And Joe said, thank God.

Oh, yeah. So. Thank God it wasn't. Thank God it wasn't. So that, that made me feel worse, which in a way makes me feel better because it snapped me out of my delusion. But you have to remember, I've said this before to you,

you, our franchises are, are, they will never have nice things. Like if Patrick Holmes was drafted by the Bears, the Bears would have ruined him. If the commanders drafted Joe Burrow, they would have ruined him. Well, I mean, they would have made him play right after his appendectomy.

Our field tried to ruin it. And like he would have died. He did. Commanders actually did our best to try to ruin Joe Burrow as an NFL quarterback. So you can't think about it like that. I'm happy for him. You know what?

I'm happy for him. I'm really happy for him. Yeah. This is like, you know, you don't want, it would be like adopting a dog into, you know, like a lean to, which, you know, is open up to the weather. And you, no, I want my,

I want the dogs that I love to be adopted in a mansion. Well, no, it would be like lean a Dunham adopting another dog. And then it's like, thank God that dog dodged a bullet by not having to live with her. Yes, Jake, what are you going to say? Did you guys, speaking of Bears commanders, did you see the tweet about the playoff wind drought? Yeah, I did see that.

What? Six teams have not won a game in the playoffs in 10 years and four of them are fans of sitting in this team. Oh man. Bears commanders, Jets, Dolphins, Lions, Raiders, so we're cursed. Yeah. That's how they're beating the Seahawks.

Hank's the winner, but lottery ball cancels it out. So yeah, he's cursed with us. True. Max is just free. Yeah. Max is just rolling. Well, Max has lost two straight championships. Yeah.

Yeah. And he got no hit. And he got no hit. Yeah. So we talked about the best rooms. Yeah, wait, one last thing before we do best rooms, Eli Apple, you still got two games left, dude. Eli Apple is what's going on?

The guy from the group assignment that didn't go to class at all comes in, collects his A, and then he duggies out of the room, like laughing at everybody that got a B plus. He just went nuclear last night on Twitter, on Stefan Diggs and Josh Allen. And then did the heart emoji that DeMar Hamlin's been doing and then was like, no, I wasn't trying to disrespect him.

He was like, well, it kind of felt like that. Yeah. I mean, I'm not offended because shit talking is shit talking, but it does, if you're a Bengals player, you're probably like, hey, Eli Apple, maybe let's just like cool down and focus on the fact that we have a big game on Sunday. Here's where Eli Apple could get himself into trouble.

He's not a great player. He's a great shit talker. Yeah. And he loves doing it. I don't know. Cup burned him for the Super Bowl. I actually don't know if he's a great shit talker. He's just a prolific shit talker.

He talks a lot of it. So Eli is basically dancing on people's graves in Buffalo. They won the game, that's his right. But then he's going to go play the Chiefs. If he gets burned in the Chiefs game, which Eli Apple throughout his history has been burned once or twice before, he gets burned, the Bengals lose that game.

People are going to talk shit to Eli Apple. And then Eli Apple is going to tag in his mom on Twitter to have his mom yell at people for getting mad at her son. That's where it becomes not fair because you can't fire back at somebody's mom. And his mom, and his mom will be watching from home because I don't know if you saw, but his mom said tickets to the AFC Championship game

is way too expensive. And someone tagged Eli Apple and said, tell Eli Apple to pay for it. And he replied, mama can watch from the crib. Okay. No, he's a troll to his own family. He's trolling his mom. Like I actually, so at some point

you kind of have to respect the fact that Eli Apple is, it's the opposite of like backing it up on the field. He just gets on Twitter. He just goes after it. He's just, he's an internet troll. He's, Eli Lockwood. And I have to, yeah, I have to, I have to defend him in that

because I do like a good internet troll. Yeah, he's good at it. But I'm just saying like, he's gonna send his mom at people that are clapping back at him. Yes. And I don't like that. Yeah.

These mom's out of it. I just got out of yours. Rooms. Best rooms. So yeah, we talked about this about, there are a lot of good rooms. These teams are very good. There's a lot of dudes on these teams,

a lot of dudes that hang out in rooms together. So we can power rank the remaining rooms of the four playoff teams. I had, I had the chief's coaches room first overall. Okay. I had the. With Matt Nagy in there. With Matt Nagy in there, yeah.

No, is this like rooms you'd wanna hang out in personally or just talent rooms? Talent. Talent. The Eagles offensive line room was my second room. It's number one, yeah. That I had. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you have that number one? I can live with them being number one. I think that's fair. Yeah. And then I had number two, the Bengals wide receiver room. I had the Bengals wide receiver room three in this case behind the 49ers wide back room.

Because I think that you get Christian McCaffrey, Debo, Ayuk, and Kittle all in that same room. I think they hang out. Maybe Jushik just taking out the door. I think they hang out in the room together. Yeah. I feel like it's running back room, wide receiver room. Well, they all play every position.

Yeah, it's wide back. Christian McCaffrey plays, he plays out wide. I understand that. I just, you know, it really. Do you? I do. I don't know if you do. Hank doesn't understand the concept of a running back

lining up, not under center. But do you think they all meet together? Yeah, I do. Okay. I would say so. All right. They probably don't let Elijah Mitchell join because he doesn't like line out as a wide receiver.

So he probably hangs out in the running backs room and he probably shows up by himself. And he's like, where is everyone? Yeah. Oh, they're doing cool plays in the other room. I had the 49ers offensive line room also ranked in my top five, because not only do you get Trent Williams,

Mike McGlinchey, but you also get their offensive line coach who is Chris Forrester. Oh. Just a party guy. Yeah. You remember Chris Forrester from Miami? The best party guy, yes. He was coaching lines down from the Dolphins.

You remember that? Yes. The best party guy. Yeah. Yeah, that guy gets down. Yeah, there's so, I mean, it is crazy to think about how talented, like I was looking at it and the defensive lines,

I actually think all four defensive lines and playing on Sunday have a case. Yeah. Because they all have, Max is shaking his head. They all have just absolute studs. And both of them might be the best of all of them, but in terms of depth, like the Bengals, what the Bengals have been doing has been insane.

And the Eagles have depth and the Chiefs, I mean, so here's one prediction. The Eagles have a historic defensive line this year. Yeah, they do. They actually are, what, third in sacks all time? All time. Third, so not historic. I mean, that's in the conversation.

What about 10th? Only team in the history of the NFL to have four different guys have over 10 sacks. All right, that's historic. Yeah, okay. I'll give you that. I actually think that the conversation last week about the Bengals offensive line,

this week, Chris Jones is gonna wreck some shit. Because we all watched that Bill's Bengals game. Yeah. And we're like, wow, the Bengals offensive line played incredible because they did. The Bills don't have Chris Jones. Chris Jones is gonna be a problem. They don't have Frank Clark.

Yeah, mark that right now, problem. Problem Chris Jones. Yeah, he's gonna be a problem. I think the Bengals defensive line is the best defensive line that's remaining. Better than the Eagles in the Niners. I think so. I think between DJ Reader,

you got Trey Hendrickson, and then you got Sam Hubbard. That's a good room. No, that's what I'm saying. All four, almost like these teams are built well. Yeah, no, that's a good point. Hey, hey, wait a second. Wait, are they the best defensive line at playing football?

Are they the best defensive line at being defensive lines? Wait a second. It feels like this roster construction actually worked out. Damn it. 49ers linebacker room would be pretty good room to be in. Oh yeah. Oh, Eagles quarterback room.

Yeah. Hang out with Hertz and Minshu. Minshu, yeah. Yeah, no, there's some, I mean, I'm very excited for these games on Sunday. Very, very excited. Robbie Golds room, never missed a field goal in the playoffs.

Yeah, who's the Eagles kicker again? Jake Elliott. Jake Elliott, he's pretty good. He's underrated. So that's our room breakdown. Okay. It really was. Like I started looking at all the rosters, like,

yeah, I guess these teams are the four best teams. It feels like they got it right. And I know that. The committee got it right. They voted it right. And I know that there's some, people could say that's hindsight because those are the four remaining teams.

But if you remember, in, I think it was early November, remember we had the conversation and we said that there were only six teams that could go to win the Super Bowl. And it was these four teams and the Bills and the Cowboys. So we were on this for a while. We were breaking it down and being like,

here are the teams. It feels like it's set. Here are the teams that could win a Super Bowl. Everyone else is just kind of along for the ride. We know ball. I actually think I included the C words in that conversation. Yeah, it might have been seven. That's when I was into my C words face.

Yeah, that's okay. You got out of it. Never again. Anything else before we do hot seat, cool throne? We're doing Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers destination season. I saw that. We're hitting that hard. Tom Brady said, I don't know where the fuck I'm doing.

I'll let you know when I figure it the fuck out. Something along those lines. So I'm guessing that Hank is writing his own fan fiction about what's going to happen with Tom Brady. I think it depends what happens with the 49ers. He got a little testy with Jim Gray. Did you see that? I didn't see that.

I'll fucking tell you what I fucking know. Yeah, that was kind of awkward. Yeah, it was. I was like, is he joking? And couldn't really figure it out. He was joking. Yeah. And I just want to say too, I'm very-

He definitely was. No, he's a kidder. Yeah, he was joking. Jim Gray, one of the greatest comedians of all time. Jim Gray. If I saw that there was some, the commanders are a possible destination for Aaron Rodgers and everyone's tagging me and being like,

oh, you're going to have to listen to PFT talk about Aaron Rodgers every week. I am very, I'll be very clear about this. If Aaron Rodgers goes anywhere else, I will root for him to win a Super Bowl. Because it will be hilarious if he wins the same amount of Super Bowls on another team in like a year or two

that he did with the Packers in 16 years. I don't think people really understand the dynamic that Big Cat has with Aaron Rodgers because people were tagging me and that being like, man, this is going to be bad. This is going to be bad for PMT. Big Cat just hates the Packers. Aaron Rodgers happened to be the quarterback on the Packers.

And he does stick it to the Bears. But the minute he's gone, it would be very funny if he won a Super Bowl with another team. Yeah. And let me be very clear. I will go on an ayahuasca trip if Aaron Rodgers becomes a quarterback of the Commanders.

I'll match. You want to go? I'll match. You want to go down to Ecuador? Yeah. Boys trip to Ecuador, no chicks allowed. We'll match. Let's go to Ecuador.

I'll do anything to get him off the Packers. I will, to get him on the Commanders, I would change my entire mindset. I would do it. Yeah. I would do anything. Billy, what do you think about Aaron Rodgers joining the New York Jets,

a team that's owned by the guy that makes the Johnson and Johnson vaccine? Interesting. Yeah, seems like a conflict of interest. Or he could be going to investigate. Oh, yeah. Yeah, sort of the source. Yeah.

That's smart. Hey, Woody, so what was in that? Those are the files. Hey, come on. Just give me some action. I heard you didn't know what was in it. Yeah. Which one do you think, Woody is the first Johnson

or the second Johnson? Who's the other Johnson? Is it like two brothers? I think it's two brothers, the Johnson bros. Is it their dad or is it them? No idea. I don't know if it's up right now. It's an all-time funny move to name your kid Woody Johnson.

Yeah, Woody Johnson. I guess if you're really rich, you're like, yeah, it'll be fine. Yeah, no, Robert Wood Johnson was the before Johnson and Johnson, and the founding of Johnson and Johnson was Robert Wood Johnson, James Wood Johnson, and Edward Meade Johnson. So one of the Johnson's got that out. Yeah, what's up with the third one?

Johnson, Johnson, and Johnson? Yeah. Wow. Johnson Cube. So one of them. And Cohen. So it seems like Robert Wood Johnson was the guy who started the whole thing.

He's the first Johnson. Who's the second? James Wood or Edward Meade? That should have been Johnson and Sons. Yeah, they're brothers. Oh, all three were brothers. Yeah, so Robert Wood started it, and then they joined. James Wood and Edward Meade joined him.

By the way, Kansas City chiefs owners, the Hunts, not ketchup. Not ketchup hunts. Yeah. OK. That was a let down. Yeah, that's too bad. With the Tom Brady answer, I got the answer. Edward Meade Johnson is the one Johnson that's out.

OK. Why was he out? Because the first president was Robert Wood Johnson, and the first logo resembled the signature of James Wood Johnson. OK, so Robert Meade, you're a priest. Edward Meade, you suck. He's the odd Johnson.

Yeah, Edward Meade, you're a crumb bum. He could have been a priest. That happens. Yeah, he's a crumb bum. Because he couldn't use his Johnson? Yeah, it could have been. Robert Kraft, not Kraft mac and cheese. Yeah, the Kraft people forget that.

Yeah. Dan Snyder, not the pretzel guy. That's true. Bullshit, it is bullshit. We've been lied to our entire lives. Bullshit. Who's actually one of these rich people with the name that actually has?

I mean, Jim Ursa, what you see is what you get. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's Jim Ursa. Jerry Jones. Jerry Jones, yeah. Your guy. Yeah, big J. Here he is, your guy.

J.J. You should have, you know what? I vote that Hank should have to be a Cowboys fan for an entire season after this. I don't think that would be your second team. Because I bet a future. I bet a future. Can a guy not bet a future?

I don't think you should. Bet a future next year again. You got off too easy. There's good value, I might, but. There will be good value, because Dak's going to be their quarterback. I also like, that's the other thing, people are like, oh, we're for the Cowboys.

It's like, the only reason that happens is because the Patriots are out. Hank, let me ask. I can't fake it. Let me ask you a question, though. Do you think that Cooper Rush wins that game? I think he does. I think we need to have the conversation.

I haven't seen it. Cooper Rush would have won that game for the Dallas Cowboys. Oh, I think Skip did that. I think there's a good one. He did it, yeah, no, he did it this morning. There's probably, yeah, 15 to 25 quarterbacks that could have won that game. Yeah, easily.

He was bad, very bad. The one thing I was going to say with the 49ers on Tom Brady is that I just can't wrap my head around any world where a rookie quarterback goes in the link and beats the number one seed Eagles. So then I think that means the 49ers will get Brady. But if that somehow happens and he beats the Eagles at home as a rookie, then it'd be hard to,

it's going to be a lot harder for him to end up there. In my opinion, it might not matter, either way. I think Brock Purdy's their quarterback next year. But what if he just goes and throws a stinker? He could, he's their quarterback no matter what. He throws four interceptions and his looks, he hasn't looked like. Did he cry?

Did he cry? Yeah, he looks lost. No, did he cry? Did he cry in the four interceptions? Probably. Okay, then maybe he's not. But if he doesn't cry, I think he can live with it. I don't think he cried.

He didn't cry? I didn't see any cries. All right, so then I think he's their quarterback in the future. I think he might be. Even if Brady wants to come. Cause it's like Brock Purdy could have been any quarterback and they'd still be in the spot, no?

No, that's not true. If he was Dak Prescott. Dak Prescott would have won that game. No, no, no, absolutely not. Dak Prescott, Trayvon Diggs would have picked off Dak Prescott six times that game. Dak Prescott is bad, but he'd be unbelievable with the four interceptions.

Sounds like you're slandering Brock Purdy again. I just have a, it's a theory I have no matter what. It's a system play, rookie quarterbacks in the playoffs, young quarterbacks are gonna struggle. Yeah, you had that burn you last week. Yes, and the week before. Right, so now. But it's a philosophy, it's a life philosophy.

It doesn't change your rear. Right. It's the same, when I said it for Jared, I got crucified too and that was like, it's not, it had nothing to do with Jared. It's just my philosophy. Okay, Hank's philosophy, you live by it. Hank getting crucified is one of my favorite things.

Yeah, Billy? Never. Nope. Okay. Brain, brain turned off. I really had. Had his hand raised and everything, right? I'm looking at Skip here.

Skip says that the Cowboys should trade Dak for Aaron Rodgers right now. Okay. I agree with that. I think that would be a good trade for the Cowboys. Yeah. What, Billy? Okay, hypothetical.

Brock Purdy wins the Super Bowl with the 49ers. Do they start him and keep him for the next season? Wait, what? Yes. I mean, we were just saying that they might keep him even if he threw four interceptions and cried. You would have to be a miserable franchise to take the guy that just took your NFC team

to a Super Bowl title for the first time in like forever. And then they got the last caveat. And then benched them the next year. The last caveat. I think he's, I know, I know, that would never happen. What Tom Brady is on the market? Yeah, I still think it's Brock Purdy. You just weren't paying attention to any of that conversation.

I know. That was great, Billy. I was writing it down, and I got there, and I was like, did they say that? I think they were just talking about that. Yeah. Yeah, we were. We were just talking about that.

Hey, podcasting's hard. Yeah. Again, welcome to all the new listeners. We were writing that question down here for Stephen A. Smith. I think if you could. I had it in my notes to bring up at some point. This is good.

We need to set the bar as low as possible for any new listeners that have shown up today. This is the show. We're stupid. Yep. But we love ball. All right, let's do a hot seat cool throw. Brought to you by the Barstool Sportsbook.

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Hank. My hot seat is Dana White? Why? What happened? Question mark? I don't know if this is me being soft and this is actually all publicity's good publicity or if his new league, the slapping league, slap fighting the guys' leaders

stand there and just smack the shit out of each other. There's a lot of backlash. It's obviously, there's a lot of backlash at UFC too. So I'm trying to determine whether or not him and this league are on the hot seat or if it's something that's going to be here for a while. I'm going to say when it comes to all publicity is good publicity that doesn't include hitting your wife.

Yeah. What about? Important caveat. I'm talking about the league, but that's true. That's fair. I watch some of the league and I understand the excitement about it because knockouts are fun. I still can't get over the fact that it's just weird watching

someone who isn't playing defense. Right. Like in UFC and boxing, you have your hands up. You can defend yourself. In this, watching someone get knocked out when they have to have their hands behind their back, there's just something about it that's just weird to watch. And if people like it, not going to judge them,

I personally am like, this is kind of weird. It's like signing up for a sucker punch competition. Right. And you know that it's coming. But it is. It's basically like who's going to get concussed first. Right. And that's, I think a lot of people aren't really into that.

You know what it is? It's great for clips. Like it's. The clips are hilarious. It's great for putting clips on social media. People are going to fucking love those things. Clip show. I don't, I can't see myself like sitting down to tune in

for a full half hour of people just slapping each other in the face. It also, there's the element too, like what makes a good slapper or slap E. You know what I mean? Like, you know what a good boxer is. You know what a good boxer, it takes a lot of talent, a lot of skill, a lot of training, a lot of years. Same with UFC.

Slapping is just like you can. You slap. You slap. How can you slap? Now here's a way that it could work. If they just have Greg Hardy competing in it every week and have somebody that's just way bigger than Greg Hardy beat the shit out of him.

Yes. If I get to watch Greg Hardy getting knocked out every week, then I'm back in on the slapping. Yes. Yes. So we'll say, yeah, I think it's not going to last long, but I have been enjoying the clip. So I'm kind of in both, on both sides.

I don't think it's going to last long just because in almost every show there's a to a situation fencing position. Yeah. On the floor. Not good. Also, it's very visually. The guy who does the swollen heads and stuff. You know that guy?

Like I also think, you have seen sometimes the two violent for me, so I also might not be the target audience. Like sometimes I'm like, this is disgusting. You know that guy who played in the NFL, who's like leading brain studies? Chris? Chris Nnewinsky.

Yeah, Nnewinsky. He tweeted, he's like, what's next? Who can survive a stabbing? And I was like, I'd watch that. Like, yeah, that's kind of a good idea. I wouldn't watch a full episode. No, I'd watch it once. But I'd watch the clips.

Yeah, right. Like, I'd be curious to see how can you survive a stabbing. But you watch any clip that pops up, any viral clip. The timeline has the video. It was the one you posted, the animal one. Oh, yeah. I mean, literally when you log into the Barstool back end, it has a note that says, please stop

putting dead animals on the blog. Nazis are off limits too. It's literally just a Billy football warning. No, no, but. What exactly was the video? I forget. It was the one Max had an issue with. But there was a dead animal.

Describe the video. Describe the video. Wolf shoots a cougar, and I can't blog that. That's like tons of clicks that are just being left on the table. I don't know what, like, do you really think that would be the biggest blog of the week? A wolf in a cougar fight?

I think it would be a decent, like, you know, medium blog. You know, base hit. Base hit. Just get on base. Yeah, come on. What animal becomes a homerun? An elephant?

Like, a great white? Like an evil animal. An evil animal. I think, like, killer whale versus great white. Like, what's an evil animal? Like, a raging, like, one of those jaguars that you see attacking people, and like. But they're in their, they're in the jaguar's home.

Yeah. The woman that got out of the zoo, and the tiger came and snatched her. Yeah, but then someone killed that animal. And then it was like, hero, mom, saves child from crazed animals. An evil animal, like, a five-year-old that sneaks down into a gorilla enclosure.

Yes. Can you please refresh my memory, though? It's going to bother me. What? What was the video in question? It was a crazy video of a leopard that usually hunts wild boars, getting messed up by a bunch of wild boars. And I was like, whoa, that's a role reversal.

Yeah. And but it was a little. It was a little graphic. It was a little graphic. Yeah. I think, like, grizzly bear fights with each other. Those always play. Oh, yeah.

That's an easy triple. Yeah. Yeah. Logus for easy. Like, oh, dude, the one that was up the other week, where it was two grizzly bears fighting each other. And then there were wolves in the background, watching the fight like spectators.

I blogged that. Like, literally grizzly bear fights are the gift that just keep on giving. That's way better than the slap boxing. I'm going to start a league where we just film grizzly bears in the wild, and we just know which one each one is. And then whenever they fight, you do a whole league, and then you can bet on it.

OK. That's actually a very good idea. Grizzly bear fights, but only in the wild. Yeah. I like that, Billy. OK. Yeah. All right.

Bare-knuckle boxing. There you go. Hey, what's your cool throw? My cool throw is our guy, Tommy Paul. He's in the Elite Eight. Plays tonight. Have you favorite? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I'm a huge Tommy Paul guy. Will he play Djokovic if he wins? If they both win, yeah. Every time I hear it. I mean, that's exciting. Every time I hear Tommy Paul, I think that you're talking about like another Paul. Tommy Fury.

Yeah, a mix of the Tommy Fury and Jake Paul fight. He plays a fellow American tonight, Ben Shelton, 20 years old. The first time I'm leaving the country is for this tournament. He's not ready for the bright lights, so. We're guaranteed an American in the semifinals, probably against Djokovic. Tommy Paul, let's go.

Djokovic is going to fucking wipe the floor with Tommy Paul. TP Army, let's do it. No offense to Tommy Paul. And then the Red Sox acquired Adalberto Montesey, so. That guy sucks. Huge pickup for us. Nice. He stinks.

Huge. Raul Montesey Jr. Adalberto Montesey. The bane of my existence as a fantasy baseball player. Where do you think he fits in in the lineup, Hank? The injured list? No, I think he's good. I think he's going to stay healthy and he's going to put up a lot of singles, doubles, triples, like Billy was saying.

Bear on bear fights? His leg is probably made out of the same stuff that Michael Thomas's hamstrings made out of. I thought you won the league. No, I came in second place two years ago because Adalberto Montesey gets fucking injured every single year. Well, that's on you.

For drafting him? Yeah. Yeah, well, Hank just got him. Yeah, that's on you. Now he's your problem. He's your problem. I can't wait. OK.

Good luck. You're going to hate him. PFT, you're hot seat coach, Ron. My hot seat is John Shire. Oh, yeah. John Shire, I'm surprised that it's taken us this long as a podcast to put John Shire on the hot seat.

But he's in ninth place in the ACC as Duke's head coach. And I for one miss coach K. Oh, so much. I watched that entire game last night. I had Virginia Tech and I couldn't get the heat up. It's controversial finish. Oh, yeah. I mean, the Virginia Tech.

Did you see the Virginia Tech player? I did. Droat punch to Duke. I got my CUB in 60. I broke it down. There we go. Listen, if coach K was on that bench, there's no chance that that 30 play happens.

Coach K would have stopped it with a nicey glare. Probably talked to the kid at halftime before he had a chance to punch and just been like, hey, you're too good a player to do what I know that you're about to do. I just think that as a podcast, we need to acknowledge that we miss coach K. Oh, big time.

College basketball was better when you had a villain. The greatest foil. That's probably why my body's betraying me right now, because I don't have someone to get up in the morning and go after. And Duke being ninth in the ACC, I mean, tough week for Cowboys fans. Brutal.

Brutal. My cool throne is Oscar season. Oh, yeah. It's Oscar season. They announced the nominees this morning. And there's a lot of good movies that I haven't seen yet. So now I get to go and win football is over, watch all of those.

But I've, I don't think. The fancies of Slytherin make it. Yeah, it did. It got a lot of nominations. All quiet on the Western front got a lot. I watched that movie. Is it good? Yeah, so I watched it on Friday night,

and I watched it because I was like, I can't wait to tweet about how I read the book, and the book was better. And I got halfway through, and I was like, I was definitely thinking of Farewell to Arms. OK. Another World War I book. Because I was like, wait, I thought

this book was about an Italian soldier, not a German soldier. And then I got halfway through, and I was like, yeah, I'm thinking of the wrong book. Was Farewell to Arms? Was that George Bernard Shaw? It's a German. OK, different guy. Yeah.

What about the Spanish? Hemingway. Yeah, is that Spanish Civil War? No, I think it's World War I. I thought it was the Spanish Civil War. I think that's two of them, the Bell Tolls. But either way. Anyways, All Quiet on the Western Front was a great book.

He read it? I did. In high school. Yeah. They kind of butchered the ending of the movie. Did they? Don't spoil it. That the Germans lost?

You didn't like that one? No, no, no. It's World War I, by the way. Yeah, Farewell to Arms is the Italian campaign of World War I. So I got halfway through the movie, and I was like, I thought this was supposed to be about Italians. Yeah, so I'm going to watch the Oscars,

but I'm going to be very disappointed when there's no slap. Yeah. Somebody has to get slapped this year's Oscar. Bring Will Smith. Just have him sit front row. Why? Oh, no, no.

You know how should be in the slap league? Yeah, Will Smith in the slap league. You're also not going to watch the Oscars. No, I'm not. I'm not. But I'm going to watch Clips. Definitely not. I'm going to see all the clips,

and then I'm going to be like, Glass, Onion, Got Rob. We actually were watching. We were taping the show last year during the Oscars, not watching the Oscars. And then that happened after. And we're like, what? This is crazy. I think when we were kids and before,

there were all these different options of all the different sports channels that you had to watch. And really, it was just like the Oscars was like show business big night. You took it a lot more seriously now that we've grown up and we see the world from a different perspective. They really just love sucking their own dicks. Yeah.

So you're saying you liked the Oscars when it was like Kings of LA, like Weinstein and Ken Spacey. Yeah, when Hollywood made something. Right. That's when it meant something. Exactly. Yeah, no, it's true. It is just a big dick-sucking competition.

And let's Top Gun wins, in which case, I'm back in on Hollywood. Yes. I'm Mr. Hollywood at some point. Speaking of movies, Cocaine Bear comes out pretty soon. OK. Good to know. Definitely an Oscar nominee.

My other cool throne is RG3, because he's a girl dad. Yes. Greta had her lovely daughter. So congratulations to the happy couple. So she was in labor for three weeks when Robert Griffin had to leave the college football playoffs semi-final. Thanks to Southwest Airlines for somehow getting

the flight out of there that day. I think he's the only person in America that flew on Southwest that week. So he got home, thankfully, just in the nick of time to be there with Greta as she started being in labor for three weeks. And they just had a beautiful daughter. So happy to see that at RG3.

Good job, buddy. Yes. That's huge. That's huge. Healthy daughter, we're ready to go. RG3, this is a long flight around the world, to get to that, Southwest. All right, my hot seat is my age.

And PFT, well, you're only turning 28. But my birthday is coming up on birthday weeks next week. But it has nothing to do with my birthday, because birthdays are stupid. It's that I was watching Monday Night Raw, the 30th anniversary, last night. And DX came out, D-Generation X came out, and they are old. And it was sad.

And it's like, the one thing that will show you your age is when your favorite wrestlers or favorite porn stars get old. And you're like, what happened to time? It's bad. So it kind of hit me. It was like nostalgia. But then they hobbled out there.

And I was like, oh, man, this kind of sucks. Yeah, I remember when I saw Ron Jeremy a couple weeks ago, it really threw me for a loop. Yeah, it's not great. Do they have X-Pac out there? They did. X-Pac was out there. I can't imagine that X-Pac aged well.

No, he is not. Wrestlers don't age well. No, they don't. That's fine. You know what? They give their all. They're like a star that burns bright for a short amount of time.

They're like supernova. Triple H looked the best, because he's been able to stay on the WWE TRT all these years. But yeah, it was nice to hear the music, have that nostalgia wash over me. And then I was like, damn, I'm old. Is the WWE just not selling to the Saudis? Was that just a hoax?

Yeah, it seems like it. It was some sort of rumor. I don't know if it's true or not, but I know their stock price went way, way up. Yeah. Just from being linked to MBS. So part of my take is in negotiations with Mohamed and Salman to sell the podcast.

So if you want to advertise with us, rates just went up. Yes. And then my cool throne is Pickleball. The new professional pickleball league is coming Thursdays, the first game. Who's the guy on our team, on the DC team? Sam Corey, AWL.

All right, so Instella Blue is a sponsor on the DC Pickleball team jersey. We actually, I think we helped to name their team. They were looking for a team name, and we said, what about the DC Pickleball team? Yeah, and they're like, god damn, that's genius. We love it. So I don't really know anything about pickleball.

I do know that when we play against LeBron's team. Or KD's team. Oh, KD, did he? He's on our team, isn't he? He's on our team, yeah. I think we're co-investors. Shit, I think that means he has to drink some cell blue. I also may have just made that up.

Yeah, I know. I think Ferlander and Kate Upton are DC Pickleball team founders. I love Kate Upton. I do too. So check it out. He has a 23.08 team dooper. Dooper?

What's a dooper? Dynamic Universal Pickleball rating. OK, so and then the first games are Thursday. Where can you watch, Jake? I think the championships are going to be on regular TV. ESPN or CBS getting rights to it. So I'm looking at the jersey right now, Stella Blue Coffee on the back of the jersey.

Look at that. Query, Bates, all the names. So I'm excited. Looks cool. Pickleball's the next up. We're going to be playing pickleball in Arizona, right? Yeah, we are. Yeah, so hell yes.

I'm excited. Yeah, it's going to be me and PFT versus Hank and Jake. We are. Never played before, but let's play. Heavy underdogs. Heavy. But heavy favorites in the hearts and minds of the AWL. For coming out looking good in this video.

You're heavy-squared underdogs. Hank and Jake's going to moan, and Hank's going to take it too seriously, and everyone's going to be like. I've never played. Are you going to moan? Are you saying you're not going to moan? I'll moan. Yeah, exactly.

You're going to moan. You're going to moan. You're going to moan. So check it out. So you also could have set the teams. I know. I want to ride with my guy. Yeah, I mean, it's fine.

We also have old man strength. Right. You wouldn't know about that. You wouldn't know about that. Yeah, you're a little boy. Still in my 20s. Not for long. Still am.

Wow. Hank's going to be 30. Is that crazy? Mm-hmm. It's tough. That is tough. I've known you for the entirety of your 20s. Do you have your first gray hair yet?

I thought I saw gray in your beard. No, not my beard. I've gotten haircuts, though, and I've looked down and been like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't think it's official, official, though. I'm not big cat status. OK. All right, that was DC Pickleball, Stelblue Coffee.

What do you mean? I'm not. That's not it. No, that's fine. No, no, that's fine. Factor. I mean, I did see a picture from like five years ago with zero gray hair.

So it has just come on like an onslaught. Billy, your hot seat cool throw. That chat AI bot, chat GPT, it passed the Wharton MBA exam. What? You wait. AI is able to get an MBA. Oh, the one who writes blogs. Yeah.

The one that Billy uses. Billy's robot slave just graduated from business school. Congratulations. Do you guys have graduation gifts for him? No, but I don't actually use that to write blogs. Just a few times. It was just twice. So wait, it got an MBA?

Yeah, it passed the exam. So that shows how stupid an MBA is. Yeah. Right? Yep. Fuck your business degree. That's what I always say. Throw in the trash.

You know what they should do? Well, this actually is scary to me because it's reached the point where it can now pass a high level degree program. So at what point is it feels like it's about to figure out that it's a robot pretty soon? It's about to become self-aware is what I'm saying. Like, if it's already good enough to answer

these open-ended questions, how many more revisions of it, how many more iterations of them releasing the software is it going to take until it realizes it's a robot and then we're all fucked? Ooh. It seems like that's a very dangerous place that we're coming up to here. Well, Microsoft just bought it for like $10 billion

and they're charging $42 a month for it. So Bill Gates has it now. Yeah. OK, that's fine. He probably doesn't want to do anything bad with it. And my cool throne is- He probably just bought it so that he could write like love poems to his high school girlfriend.

True. My cool throne is the East River. The video Donnie and I did is probably out by now. If you're listening to this, go tune in on Donnie Does's YouTube. It should be out if you're listening to this. Wonton Don. Wonton Don. Come on, Billy.

Wonton Don. What does Donnie Does YouTube? It's probably some- No, it's his old YouTube channel. OK, Wonton Don. Wonton Don. And it will be out Tuesday at 8 PM, but you'll probably be listening to this on Wednesday.

Let's go. It's going to be a good video, right? It's sick. I mean- We're going to get to see the bottom of the East River, right? Yeah. We're going to get to see the bone that you pulled out, right? Exactly.

Yeah. OK. That's awesome that you guys got to do that. What sounds like you had a good team behind you? What's the status of the chief's video? Chief's video. We're going through some edits right now. Evan's looking through the footage as we speak.

Oh, OK. And we're sitting down to do some serious construction. You've got a lot of construction. Yeah, you've got a lot of projects going on right now. What about the New York Mediaverse Jets? Yeah, that's coming up soon. Next week. It's on my dock.

Next week. You're going to do it, put it out next week? Next week. Next week, I will be working on it. Sometimes Billy just says words. Yeah. And then he's like, oh, shit, why did I say that word? Super Bowl.

That was a wrong word. Super Bowl week. Super Bowl week is coming out. That's awesome. He'll be working on it, Super Bowl week. OK, you got it. It's a work of progress, unless, again, another new project. Well, it's not in progress yet.

No, it's actually in progress. I did a little work on it. You did, but the progress was stopped. I have a premise. What's the premise? There's a paper that relates to what's going on now. It has to do with large corporations and CEOs. You have a premise, but the premise

was that was already explored on this podcast. And also, you found another article about this same thing, so you're just going to plagiarize that? Well, it's called Quotation and Reference. I'd like to see the bibliography. I'm going to put the bibliography together. We're excited.

An annotated bibliography I'll put in. Oh, wow. Well, now you're just making more promises in this format. MLS, MLIA. I like APA. Nice. So if we could convert that to APA, that'd be great.

We could put in APA and Chicago. So what's interesting about this is Billy's going to be really working on the script for it at exactly the same time that ChatGPT, the AI program, comes back online. I just wanted to point that out. The script for what? Oh, the Jets thing?

You know what was the best back in the day is just playing with all the formatting for every single paper you ever had to write, like indenting the sides, doing the space between the paragraphs. You could make a three-page paper into a five-page paper. Here's the biggest cheat. You get the periods. You make the periods, like 10 sizes larger.

And it makes it longer. Is it obvious, though? No. It's not obvious at all. You make the periods 10 sizes. So you have giant dots at the end of the script. That's the most obvious thing ever. That's very obvious.

But it looks like a font thing. It probably also doesn't even make that much of a difference. Just a period is big. No, no. If you have a 10-page paper or a nine-page paper. And you just change all the periods. And you just command F the periods, and then jack them all up.

But if you're like 12, if you jack it up from like 12 to like 18 for the periods, it's going to make it longer. Damn. The more you know. Wow. You hit the commas, too, while you're at it. I just always mess with the margins. Yeah, the margins, the indentation.

You'd also do, you add numbers to each page. That will give you a couple of lines away. So this is the best. At the end of a page, you can hit the return button like two extra times. And then resume what you were thinking on the next page. And nobody will ever be like, wow, that's a lot of space left at the bottom of the page.

It's great to think about doing all that stuff when you could have just tried a little harder. But no. No, no, no, no. I actually think that one of the best things that college teaches you, college teaches you how to get better at cheating. And how to get better at like fudging assignments, which

is most of the brain activity you're going to be using as an adult in the workforce. Yes, yes. Wait, Hank, when you would turn in an assignment, you would just say it's in God's hands now? Yeah, well, I would knock in myself enough time. And then I'd be up the night before just trying to get it done and then trying to finagle ways

to make it longer. Never give myself enough time to edit it properly, usually. And then it would get time for the deadline. And then it's in God's hands. Yeah, OK. I like that. Would you say a little prayer as you hand it in? I just feel like, yeah, prayer that don't read it

or like something happens. There's a fire in the building. Spill coffee all over it. Yeah. All right, Jake, hot seat cool. Why didn't graduate college? Our league. You did a Kobe.

No, no. We're team in the Major League Pickleball, which is the tennis channel. There's another league that just got. Oh, OK. OK. Tune into the tennis channel. Tennis channel.

For the MLP. I love that. I have the tennis channel. Yes, yeah. My hot seat is our childhoods. Splash Mountain and Disney just closed for 30 years. I never, not my childhood. I never went to Disney.

Majority of people. I went to Disneyland. I never went. Oh, wait. It's closing there, too. In LA? Yeah. I went to that once, too.

I think it hasn't closed yet there, but I think it's closing. People would like that. I would get chirped for that. I did not. I went to Universal Studios. I just realized that. I never, yeah, we never went to Disney World, Disneyland. I always felt a little left out.

But now, as I see people do it with kids, I'm like, I get what my parents were thinking. Like, this would suck for them. Are you going to do it? No. No, hell no. Hell no. Universal Studios, maybe.

No Disney World, no Disneyland. They're both great. No, no, no. I'm a Florida kid, too. So like, back to our backyard. I'm not staying in line for hours now. Universal is my bar mitzvah theme. That's sick.

What was part of it? So like, every table was a different ride. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Who were the guest mascots? That's not a thing. Celebrities, like, you know, like. Spider-Man.

Did Spider-Man show up? Jurassic Park ride? Yeah. That's, I remember doing, I vividly remember doing, I never saw the movie, but I remember doing that. You go down and the T-Rex is going to hit you, and then, ooh. That was fun. Yeah, so Splash Mountain, they're rebranding it.

Were you a Disney World kid? Everything about Splash Mountain is just, like, pretty basic. It's just, it's like a roller coaster waterslide. I was not, I had theme parks that were in Virginia that I used to go to, so my parents would never be like, we're going to go to Florida. We've got a perfectly good roller coaster in the backyard.

So you never went to Disney World? I may have gone when I was like two or three. OK, that doesn't count. It doesn't count, I don't. Isn't like, Bush Gardens near there? There's one in Tampa. Yeah, yeah, we got, we got Bush Gardens in Virginia. We got Bush Gardens, we got Paramount's Kings Dominion

that I used to go to all the time. Get a nice airbrushed T-shirt and a funnel cake. I'm happy with the fact that I was never a Disney World kid. I almost died at Disney World. Really? Yeah, I was the youngest before. Oh, god damn it. I just walked out of the hotel and jumped in the pool,

didn't notice when. What a badass. That's pretty sick. You're a fucking moron, but you're also badass. Some random six-year-old came and saved me. Oh, wow, what a beta. Six-year-old has saved me. How old were you?

I was like three. You were 16. Yes, so RIP Splash Mountain. My cool throne is Cooperstown. By the time this is out, we'll have our answers on baseball of fame. So I want to read quickly and get you guys yes or no to see if we're right.

OK. Stay in here and yes. Carlos Beltran. Yes, sure. Todd Helton. Yes. No. Manny Ramirez.

Yes. Scott Rowland. Yes. No. No. You guys are being generous. No. No, everyone's a yes.

This is my opinion, or this is what I think will happen, not what I think myself. But getting in the MLB is hard. Maybe he probably won't, but he should be. It's Billy Wagner. Maybe almost definitely. No. Andy Pettit.

No, Billy Wagner just because I think of that home run he gave up in Houston. Andy Pettit. Yes. No, that was Brad Lidge. Yeah. That was Brad Lidge. No.

Pettit and Ramirez are hard because of the steroids. But Pettit apologized for steroids, so it's different. Yeah, I think I think I got to know the rules. I think everybody that's nominated should get into the baseball hall of fame. Yeah. Andrew Jones. Yeah.

Gary Sheffield. Yeah. No. I mean, best swing, best pre-swing. Tory Hunter. No. Yeah, no, he was great at defense. He was great at defense.

Jeff Kent. No. No, he's the one. I'm going to vote no on Jeff Kent. And then lastly. Andrew Jones is, like, better at defense. Lastly, A-Rod. Yes.

No. Yes. And maybe some wild cards, but those are the most likely ones. You can't have many in and not A-Rod in. I can. Well, what are your rules? The tank's ballot.

Well, we'll see you tonight. Barry's not on there? This is the newcomers? I think most of them are newcomers. That will actually be interesting if A-Rod. I can read the full list, if you want. I would imagine he's not going to get in, but, I mean, what is he like?

What is he, third or fourth? Wait, Bons isn't on the thing. Is he third or fourth all-time in home runs? I think Bons. So the rules are. And he barely did steroids. Well, no, he never got caught. He just got caught with stuff that covers ups there.

Steroid blocks. Yeah, yeah. He was taking estrogen. Estrogen. Yeah, like, pregnant signals. So with Barry, I think he's not on the ballot anymore, because in baseball, the rules are like you have to hit a certain threshold

and stay above a certain threshold. And if you don't, then you just drop off for forever. Yeah. There's like 30 guys on this list, but I think those are the most popular. That's why this whole thing is a joke. The best player of all time is not in the fun. That's what I'm saying.

Just let everybody in. So we'll see. I do not care any longer. They've ripped my childhood from me, which was caring about the baseball Hall of Fame. Maybe it'll be zero again. Didn't that happen recently? That always rocks.

It's just funny that baseball writers take themselves so seriously. Oh, it's Tom Verducci. We just need all these guys to die. And then maybe we can get the real players in the Hall of Fame who deserve to be in there. OK, let's get to Stephen A. Smith. Should we do it?

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And now, here he is, Stephen A. Smith. OK, we now welcome on a very, very special guest. It is the man, the myth, the legend, Stephen A. Smith. In studio, he has a new book out. It's called Straight Shooter, a memoir of second chances and first takes. I love the title, by the way. Let's start there.

First of all, thank you. We're so happy you're here. The name of the show is Pardon My Take, which we took from Pardon the Interruption in first take. So we appreciate that. We got sued about that temporarily. They wrote us a cease and desist letter. And we wrote them a cease and desist letter back saying,

cease and desist, sending us cease and desist letters. But it got us. And y'all got away with that. Yeah, you helped us. Yeah, it was great. So we've been doing it for seven years now. So we owe some gratitude to you. But let's talk about the book first.

So what made you decide to write a book right now? Like, what was the moment like, hey, I have enough stories now? Because I imagine your guy's got a lot of stories. The thing is that, first of all, sports books themselves, they've never moved me. And I knew that if I wrote a book, the first order of business was going to be that they needed to be about me.

And the reason why I needed to be about me is because the seat that I sit in, where you're literally starting off people's day and you're tackling issues and you're tackling people pertaining to those issues, I felt like if I'm going to do that, folks have a right to know a little something about me, where I come from, what I've been through,

my thought process, how it's come to be, my perspectives, how I reach them, the kind of trials and tribulations I've endured, not every single thing that I've gone through in my life because nobody tells all their business, at least I'd hope not. But I think that for the most part, just doing enough to give an accurate depiction

to the public at large about who you are, what you're all about, where you come from, the kind of trials and tribulations you've endured, when you've been knocked down, how you've reacted to it, particularly in the world of sports, because there's winners and losers. And there's adversity everywhere.

And if you're writing about what people should handle and how they should do things and why they should do it this way, and all of that stuff, who the hell are you to be quiet when it comes to yourself? So I thought about writing this book years ago, when I got fired from ESPN in 2009, not then, but after they brought me back in 2011,

because they were an abundance of people that wanted me to write my book, because I eventually was gonna have to talk about ESPN in the book. But my mother, God rest her soul, she passed away in 2017 after a long battle with cancer. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2011. And mom said, you will not write this book

as long as I'm alive. Because she knew that I was going to talk about my relationship with my father, because celebrating her, I had to point out the trials and tribulations she endured. And in order to do that, it inevitably took me to my father. She knew I would do that

and did not want to be on this earth when that information was released, because she was a very, very private person. So she gave me her blessing to write the book under one condition, and that was, she was dead and gone. So this book is, I mean, it means a lot to you, I would assume, because that's, like you said, a lot of private conversations,

your relationship with your father. What's, if people are buying this book and you should go buy it right now, it's out right now, straight shooter, what's the one thing you hope people will take away from it? Like, they thought of Stephen A. this way, and then they read the book and they're like, no, he's a little bit different than I thought.

There's always somebody out there rooting for you and looking to give you a helping hand if you're willing to go for it yourself. And I'm a God, like, you know, I'm a black dude that's outspoken at times, I've been called militant and stuff like that and people find themselves shocked. And it's like, oh my God, you know,

I mean, you see him with Sean Hannity or you see him with these folks or you see him taking issues and black folks don't agree with him or whatever. Well, I'm a fair-minded dude and I'm one of those people that I don't give a shit who you are. You know, if you right, you right.

If you wrong, you wrong. And I have, as much as I love my blackness to the core and I love my community to the core and I side with us most of the time, sometimes if we're wrong and y'all are right, I'm gonna say so. And sometimes things ain't about race and it ain't about bigotry

and it ain't about prejudice and all of these other things. It's just about somebody having more facts and being right and their perspective is right on compared to yours. And I'm a fair-minded enough dude to be able to point that out about anybody. And so for me, that has opened the floodgates for people to be receptive to me, wanna engage in dialogue, wanna have conversation,

which has helped propel me the way I am today. If it wasn't for having that kind of mentality and believing that there were people who were fair-minded and decent out there and that I could trust them to at least be that, then who knows where that kind of narrow-mindedness would have prevented me from traveling? Yeah, you can also get a lot more nuance out

when you're writing a book, I would imagine. You can take your time, really delve into what your thoughts are on a subject, expand on that a little bit. On TV, you have this window that you have to hit and you know that you have to be a showman inside that window as well, which I mean, you are one of the all-time great showmen

when it comes to being on television. When you're writing a book, did you struggle at all with how do I keep that same entertaining persona that people love to watch? No, the book wasn't about entertainment at all. The book was about substance and it was about getting right to the heart of the matter. I opened up the book talking about losing my mother.

I came out swinging with my emotions because I wanted to send a message immediately. This was not a sports book. This was a book about me, this was my memoir. And so for me, I wasn't trying to entertain. I was trying to make sure that I touched on the issues that had happened in my career, the controversies that I had been involved in,

the trials and tribulations that I experienced because I wanted people to see that when I'm on the air going off about what a dude should do and why and what they need to watch out for and what mine feels and pitfalls, they've got to navigate themselves around or over or through or whatever the case may be.

My positions and my perspective come from a certain place and I wanted to showcase all of those things to the world. And that's why I wrote the book. Yeah, and I mean, just your name in general, Stephen A. Smith, it carries like a certain weight to it. It's a great name. It's like Stephen A. Smith, it sounds like a writer. It sounds like somebody that knows what they're talking about.

Have you always been Stephen A. Smith or was there a time when you were Stephen Smith and then you decided, I'm gonna throw the A in there? No man, I was always Steve or Stephen until I was in college. And remember, I got left back in the third grade, the June of my third grade of elementary school. And then I got promoted back to my right grade

because I had a first grade reading level. I got promoted back to the right grade that September. I went to the fourth grade that September, completed the fourth grade, still had a first grade reading level at the end of that year and got left back again. And this time it was for the whole year. And so for me, when I fast forward to my years in college,

I'm graduating as an honor roll student. I'm writing for the school newspaper. And this guy that got left back, not once but twice because he had reading comprehension issues, suddenly is a writer and a reporter. And there was no one as great as my sister Linda was in helping me to read and a family friend around the corner named Tivor who helped me to read.

There was no one more deserving of my gratitude than my mother. And my mother named me Stephen Anthony Smith. And I always hated my name because I hated how I was spelled. I wish it was spelled with a V instead of a pH. Because when she did math, she called me Stefan. And I hated that name, Stefan, growing up. This is before Steph Curry.

Yeah, that's insane. Now it's a pretty cool name. Now it's a pretty cool name, but back then it wasn't. And so because she named me and she believed in me, I added the A to my byline as a tribute to her. My very first byline as a reporter at the news August on Winston-Salem State University's campus newspaper. It said Stephen A. Smith.

It was a tribute to my mother. And then obviously as I grew in the business, everybody says Stephen A. Stephen A. It's a great name. So I want to talk to you about your college career real quick because so you started at FIT right here, right? And then you transferred to Winston-Salem.

Now you're going to have to look me in the eye and tell me this actually happened. You're a tryout for the basketball team. You hit 17 threes in a row. 17 straight threes. 17 threes in a row in your tryout. Never before since. Never before since.

This was a scrimmage? No. No, what happened was is that a guy by the name of Harold Funny Kitt used to go to Winston-Salem Winston-Salem State University in the 70s after Earl of Pearl Monroe left. And he was still tightly associated with the school and tightly associated with Clarence Big House Games.

It was the legendary coach down there helped with John McClendon to integrate the sport of basketball. You know, the Duke players that played against the black players at, you know, on campus in the middle of the night when no one knew about it. They played a role in being responsible for that game being organized and played. And so what happened is is that he told Coach Gaines

he had a player for him to see. And Coach Gaines had him bring me down there on a weekend. And I went out on the court. And before I stepped out on the court rather, Coach Gaines looked at me and then he looked at him. He said, is this the little motherfucker you've been bragging about? You know, and he said, that's him.

And a funny kid looked at me afterwards. And he said, I got you here. You're on your own now. Hand of your business. And I went out on a basketball court. And I was passing the ball, just running, rotation offense, stuff like that, running around, passing the ball, passing the ball, adding shot.

I was just trying to get warmed up. Coach Gaines halted practice. He looked at me, six feet, six, 280 pounds, but he was sleeping, he was sitting on the bleachers. He said, come here. He said, didn't funny say that you was a shooter? I said, yes. He said, shoot the fucking ball, damn it.

And I went out there and I had 17 straight. 17 straight. 17 straight three-pointers. I couldn't miss. I couldn't miss. And when I did that, he signed me to a scholarship on the spot. That's incredible. And do you ever like think back, like maybe daydreaming,

or like, man, remember when I hit 17 straight? Oh, hell yes. I never did it since. Of course I dreamed about it. No question about it. I was healthy that day. My knees weren't hurt. I hadn't cracked my kneecap in half

and halted any kind of unforeseen dreams that I may have had or whatever the case may be. But that was my shining moment because it was immense pressure. I went down there to get a basketball scholarship. And the pressure was on. And I showed up and I handled my business. So I think some people don't realize because you're such a star now and you're on TV every single day

and you're on every program. You've got radio, you've got podcasts, everything. No mercy podcast. Check it out. They don't realize that you grinded for a very long time as a beat reporter. Do you miss that, like the? No.

OK. I don't miss it. Was it obviously, you know, being able to be a beat reporter for that many years, I would assume gave you a ton of training into having opinions and knowing how players interact. It gave me that. It gave me contacts, networks, resources

that I still have to this very day. I'm forever connected to the NBA community because of the work that I did all of those years as a beat writer. So that is true. And do I miss? I miss being at the games. I miss being inside those locker rooms because, excuse me,

I miss that because when I was there, I wasn't guessing about anything. I was connected to every story. I reported what I wanted to report it. But I knew everything. I knew with all the bodies a lot because I was that connected to the teams. And so because of that, the relationship

that you cultivate are invaluable, and they last a career, and all of that stuff is true. I don't miss having to be on a road 200 plus days out of the year. I don't miss covering shoot-around practices and during the daytime. I don't miss having to go to meaningless games, the big games I never get tired of.

But the meaningless games, you know, if you're the 76ers and you're playing Detroit or you're playing, I don't know. The Wizards. The Wizards or somebody. Yeah, whatever. You think about the cities that you want to go to. You don't think about the teams. And so and my career has changed.

I mean, what's hard, I think the thing for me that's hard right now to sort of like piggyback and add to the question that you asked was that I wish I could just go to any game. But now I'm more popular than 95% of the players. Yeah. And so because of that, it's a challenge. I have to go really early or I have to go really late.

And I have to leave really early or leave really late just not to be mobbed, you know. And I say that with affection. People usually don't bother me. They're not heckling me. They want a picture. They want an autograph. They want to debate or all of that stuff.

And I don't debate for free. So I ain't doing that. But I just came up with a great business model. But they do that. But I'm just saying you have some guys that never want to go to games. They just want to sit in front of the microphone and talk or on camera and talk.

And that's fine because the business allows for that. I'm one of those dudes that like to go to the games. I like to talk to people I have to talk about. I'm not running from anybody. And I hate the fact that I can't get to games as much as I used to. But my schedule just won't allow it because of all the obligations I have.

You're the hardest working man in show business. Do you have a personal life? Oh, I have a personal life. Yeah? What's it like when you're off the clock? That's not a concern. I'm good. We know you're a bottom feeder.

There was a. Well, you know what? Somebody, you know what? My definition of a bottom feeder wasn't what other people was. They were like, do you know what that is? I was just talking about somebody with a fat ass. That's what I was talking about. That's what I was talking about.

But yeah, I live well. That's good. That's good to hear. There was a blog that was on Barstool Sports. Our good friend, Kohli, wrote it and said, Stephen A. Smith is horny at all hours of the day. And you read that aloud on your show. He said, not every hour, maybe one or two.

I said, maybe not every hour. Not every hour, maybe one or two. Yeah. We know the freak hours from Stephen A. Smith. That's healthy. What I'm saying to you is this. If you're a man, you should appreciate that. Because when you stop being horny altogether,

you got problems. Yeah, that's true. You got to see a doctor. It wasn't to say that, oh my goodness, I'm walking around just horny or whatever. It's to say that, wait a minute, I'm still active. I'm still flowing. There's still blood circulating.

I'm good. Yeah. That's what that was meant to me. Thank you, because I'm not going to name any names, but there's some people in this room that shame other people in this room. And they bonk at me. They say, hey, you're too horny.

I'm just a red blooded American man. Yeah. No, you ain't got nothing to do with Americans. You're a man. I don't know whether you're from Russia, Ukraine, Iraq, Iran, Rape, Saudi Arabia, no matter where you from. You're a man. You want to feel that way.

You want to feel that blood flowing through your veins. Yes. Yes. That's it. There's nothing wrong with it. By the way, as long as you're not active. Yeah, exactly. I should have started this show by saying congratulations,

because Monday was a huge day for you. Yes, it was. I mean, and we have. Hank is a diehard Cowboys fan. So he had to sit here. He had his Dak Prescott jersey on. He was he had his jean shorts, his whole thing. Do you are those the best days?

Like when you have a take that you know, like when it when it comes, you know, to fruition and like I can cash in this take, you got a little extra pep in your step going to the studio. Yeah, yeah, because well, Michael Irvin helps. Yeah, because he's so outrageous, you know, that the opportunity to humble him was a beautiful, beautiful moment. But I'll tell you, it's like, yeah, we got a sports show.

It's everybody's job when you're doing this business to entertain to some degree. But let me tell you something. I'm not bullshitting when I talk about cowboy friends. I mean, what I say about him right there. I mean, they are the most delusional, disgusting fan base in American history. I mean, it doesn't matter what happens to them.

Yeah. And then you give it give it 15 minutes. All right, we'll do it next year. Yeah. Going to Super Bowl next year. You know, we're going to Super Bowl next year, right? It's just nauseated. They don't take any time to smell their stench, which is why

it's so enjoyable when they lose over and over and over again. It's a really, really beautiful thing. And so to me, I'm not joking. I mean it when I say it, but in the same breath, I know that first take is a lot more than that. And so I'm cool with it. I love those moments, but nobody gives me those moments, but I have a lot of good moments.

That's like your Super Bowl, though, when they get eliminated. It is for me. Such a pathetic fashion to me. And when everything that you said, like we had to take this year, I'm sure you've had similar thoughts about Kirk Cousins and how his season was inevitably going to end. And we were right down to the exact play that it was going to end on.

We did the victory lap to end all victory laps that Monday. But for you to have Dak Prescott go out there and he tried to throw six interceptions. He tried. He really tried. He really did. He made a concerted effort to do that. He really did.

And he really did. And they all know it. The last play that they had was just the ice, the Coup de Grave, the perfect ending. It's like really, really, that's your Super Bowl. You need a touchdown, man. You're playing against the top defense in the NFL and you just going to throw like a five-yard pass.

It's like, really? You just can't make it up, man. And this is after, this is after a year early, you couldn't get the ball off for 13 seconds. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Take a step.

Beautiful thing. You can't make it up. Literally, Hank thinks like he thought this was the year. He thought this was the year. They always do. Yeah, it's crazy. They always do. He's already talked himself into that.

That is, that is the beauty of it all. It's like, it's 27 years in counting. And I keep telling people, just be patient. They won't let you down. Just, just watch. No matter what you do. And I even pulled the trick this year. Keyshawn and Marcus Spears called me out on it this morning

because they, they were absolutely right. They said, see, he did this because what happened is that the Cowboys can't stop listening to their fans. And the fans were a bit suspect about them because of last year. But then when they started playing well, I went and did my A-list and called the Dallas Cowboys the number one team in the NFL knowing that everybody would gravitate towards it.

All their fans would gravitate toward it. They get bold. They start talking about what we were going to do. And as a result, the team would feel the pressure. Yeah. Mountain. And they would fold. And that's exactly what happened.

It's a beautiful thing. It was a complete setup by me. I must admit. Credit to you. A great work. You should get a lot of credit for that. It was a complete setup by me. And I, and I did it on purpose and I love every second of it.

There's a genius to it because you set the expectation so high for him knowing that anything besides Super Bowl that's failure. I mean, you're the Dallas Cowboys. Yeah. Right? Listen. You can't, you're not out here playing for an NFC change.

But it goes deeper than that. I looked at them this year. And I saw Michael Parsons leading that defense and Trayvon Diggs. And I said, these boys ain't no joke. And if their offense could get things together, they really, really could win it all. So what's the one thing that could disrupt them?

Expectations. And I put them in number one. There you go. You've talked about running for president before. I'm not going to ask you about the potential presidency in your future. But if you were to become the president of the Dallas Cowboys and fix that team right now this offseason, how do you fix them?

I had to get Sean Payton. Yep. Even if I had to give up an asset of pick to get him, I'd get him because Dak Prescott is my most important player. I have to maximize his potential. And because I have to maximize his potential, who better to do it, especially a coach that's

a Super Bowl champion that religiously had one of the more prolific offenses in football, that also, even though he had Alvin Kamara, didn't rely on the conventional running game to pull it off. He utilized Alvin Kamara in ways that Dallas Cowboys wish to utilize Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard. And so when I think about it from that perspective, that's why I would say he's the man for the job.

Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. If I can't get him, I'd probably put Quinn in at the position. But I don't really listen. They weren't perfect. But I really don't blame McCarthy for this loss

as much as I blame Kellen Moore. Yeah. Kellen Moore and Dak Prescott. Yeah. Dak Prescott played like garbage. And Kellen Moore did certain plays you can't call because you got to know who your quarterback is. And you got to move them out of the pocket.

You got to get them on the move. You got to get them scrambling a little bit. You know, you got to do stuff like that. And he didn't do that. You got to utilize him the way the Eagles tend to utilize Jalen Hertz from time to time. Some people are saying Cooper Rush would have won that game. Well, you could say Cooper Rush would have won that game.

But I don't think Cooper Rush is better than Dak Prescott. And Cooper Rush could be the lot of teams. I don't know if he beats San Francisco. The one thing that I will say is this. San Francisco's defense is elite. At the end of the third quarter, they were tied 9-9. One thing I will say about Cooper Rush is he wouldn't have turned the ball over.

I don't know if he would have been as effective as Dak Prescott. But he would have been safer. And the way that defense was playing, I think that's all you needed. Yeah. So the opposite of the Cowboys take, because you were right. You set him up. It was beautiful.

Do you get upset at yourself when you have a take that's wrong? No. Because remember, you did have a streak. Was it 2011 to 2017? You got every six consecutive NBA finals appearances wrong. But six consecutive. And two of those were just the Cavs and the Warriors back to back. Let me help y'all out with something.

Let me help y'all out with something. And the Heat? You couldn't guess the Heat? First order of business. I'm considered a veteran in this business. A lot of people look up to me and see what I've accomplished or whatever. Let me allow me to bestow y'all with lesson number one.

The beauty is in being wrong. It's showing that you're fallible. You're flawed. You're human just like everybody else. You know how many people are boring as hell on television? Because they are literally so rigid because they're scared of being wrong? It's true.

Tell me one person in the history of sports who's been right every time. There is no one. Plenty to extra. No, please. That was stop. No, he missed one. He missed one.

He missed one. 503 more all the time. I'm just telling you, it happens. It's no big deal. That's number one. Number two, let's analyze this. I picked Miami to lose to the Spurs. First of all, I picked LeBron and Miami to beat Dallas.

I did not know that LeBron James wasn't going to be able to take Jason Terry. I like this game three. Eight points? Eight points in game three? Four straight fourth quarters. Yeah. OK, I didn't know that.

I picked the Spurs to beat Miami. What happens? Chris Bosch, I didn't know that Greg Popovich would take Tim Duncan out the damn game. When all you needed was a rebound to secure championship. And instead, Chris Bosch grabs the offensive rebound off a miss from LeBron and throws it out to Ray Allen, who hits it from the right corner.

And ultimately, they win game six in propeller game seven. I picked San Antonio to win that series in six. OK, I didn't know that was going to happen. OK, all right. Next year, Duane Wade's hurt. OK, we didn't know that was going to happen. And then this is the biggie. This is the biggie.

And of all the predictions I made, I will never accept culpability for this. It's 2016. I picked the Golden State Warriors. Not only did I pick them to win in five, I picked each game they would win. I said they would go into Cleveland. They would win the first two in Oakland, OK?

They would turn at the Oracle. They would turn around. They would lose game three. They would go to game four, if I remember correctly, whatever the particular, whatever it went down. Because I don't remember. I picked every game right. And I said they're going to take them out in game four

in Cleveland. And they're going to go back to Golden State, Oracle, and win it in game five. Game four, LeBron and them is about to lose the game. LeBron gets frustrated. He takes Draymond Green, throws him to the floor. Draymond Green gets up and flicks his hand at him or whatever the case may be.

No technical score. They're still playing the whole bit. But somehow, someway, revisionist history comes in. And the NBA decides to give LeBron, James, and Cleveland a stimulus package, OK? They suspend Draymond for game five because he had accumulated enough techs, right? Bogey gets hurt that game.

Equadala gets hurt that game. So your two defensive cornerstones for that franchise got hurt in the game five that Draymond was suspended in. And then, obviously, they lost to game six when both LeBron and Kyrie had over 40. And then they won game seven. My point is, y'all could talk to me. I don't give a damn.

That is the one final that I will never accept being wrong about. Because the NBA suspended Draymond Green. They take them out in five. They win that series in five games. I love what you just did because you told us, you know, it's OK to be wrong. Everyone's fallible.

And then you went on to explain how you actually were right about all these. I wasn't right about all of them. I just told you. Tim Duncan should have been in the game. I just told you. But I accepted the feasts. Would all of them accept the Draymond Green suspension?

Also, you didn't know that LeBron, James couldn't deal with James and Terry, too. Right. But my point is, but I accept it because that's stuff that happened on a basketball court. But if you're the NBA suspended Draymond for something, he didn't even receive a tech in. Right.

And then on top of it all, not only did he receive the tech, did he not receive the tech, you end up giving him the technical foul that would suspend him for the game. Right. No. I am not accepting that. All of those other things were on the basketball court.

Popovich made his decision. LeBron didn't show up in the fourth quarter or whatever the case may be with these other things. But that one, no. That was the league office. I know. Hell no. I'm not accepting that.

Ask you a quick question about this. Do you know when you're ramping up and you're like, I'm cooking? Because you were just cooking. No. I'm just saying what I feel. I love it. I get caught in a moment.

You have a great style, though. I've always admired this about you. I went to actually go see a taping of First Take Live back in 2014, 2015. And watching you and Skip go back and forth was like a boxing match a little bit. And you've got this way where you get really loud. You start yelling.

But then you get really soft and you make people lean in. And you bring them in. And as they draw and they start to listen to you, then you just come back and you hit them over the top. We're like, you crescendo and decrescendo, almost like an artist or like a composer. Do you do any of that consciously? Or is that just how you've always been?

That's how I am. But I also am mindful that it works. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely works. Because what happens is that, first of all, when I was yelling all the time, I was high octane at the earlier parts of my career. Number one, I was coming across angry a lot of times

when I wasn't mad at all. And so I had to be mindful of that and accept accountability for that and how other people were looking at me. I had to, instead of looking at people and thinking that they were wrong or they were stereotyping or whatever, I had to look at myself and say, wait a minute, they have a right to interpret how they want what they're seeing.

It's my job to communicate in such a way that shows them I'm having a good time because I really was having a good time. That was one thing. But the other thing was my health. I kept developing acid reflux because the combination of how you use your voice and what you drink, most times now I'm drinking water.

I was drinking soda all the time back then and stuff like that. That stuff has an effect on you. You'd be surprised how talking for a living can make you unhealthy because you're inhaling and exhaling. You're using your vocal cords. You're doing things. You're exercising the body in ways you don't even fathom. And then you wake up one day and all of a sudden

it's a little bit more difficult to get out of bed. It's a little bit more difficult to have that extra energy. It's a little bit more difficult to have that passion and that fervor and all that stuff. And something is wrong. You don't even know. It's like, yo, what's going on? I don't feel right or whatever.

Maybe it's something I ate. Maybe it's something I drank. Or whatever the case may be. But it's what you're doing to your body because what you do in terms of how you use your throat, your vocal cords, your diaphragm, all of this other stuff. Everybody doesn't do that every day.

You think they do because they talk every day, but no, not like you, not like me. And so when you realize that it's like, wait a minute. I'm after, I'm in it for the long haul. I'm after the marathon, not the sprint. I gotta be healthy and I gotta guard myself better. It's good too because the way that you vary it up, I think it makes, when you do get loud,

it makes it more impactful. People listen more because of that change in it. Yeah, but the thing about it also is is that, listen, in our business, there's a lot of people who truly, truly believe the definition of entertainment is showing people what you know, what you know. Excuse me. That's not true.

How you communicate with them is what entertains them. Sure, you have to know what you're talking about for the most part. Doesn't mean you're flawless and you're not gonna make mistakes, but you gotta, but for the most part, you gotta know what you're talking about. But outside of that, it's how you communicate. I can't go on first take talking like Shaq

and expect people to watch. They're not gonna watch that. They'll watch it on TNT at night, with Barkley on the other end of the table and Kenny Smith with Ernie Johnson. But you're not gonna watch first take like that in the morning. You're getting people up.

You're getting them hyped about their day. You're starting off their day. You gotta be the spark plug. You gotta be the engine that revs up when that key turns. You can't lead that to somebody else. And so I understand that. And that's how I come at it. That's how I come with it.

So first take, and we can cut this part because I want your honest take here. No, no, we'll cut it. We'll cut it when you profess what I think the answer is. So you've gone through, you know, Max and then you now have Mad Dog. You have different people. You miss Skip, right?

You miss Skip. You miss going back and forth to Skip. You're bringing all these people in to just slay them. You miss the foil that was Skip in. First of all, you don't have to cut anything I say. No, yeah, obviously. I'm just telling you, and I would tell you this right now. I will always miss Skip.

Skip is my guy. I love him. I don't always agree with him. I didn't agree with him when he was on the set with me. I don't agree with him sometimes that he's off the set with me and doing his own show. We've gone our separate ways. He's doing what he's doing.

I'm doing what I'm doing. I'll never root against him. I'll always be grateful to him for what he has done for my career because there is no Stephen A. with first take if it were not for Skip Bayless. He's the one that went to Jamie Harwoods and the bosses and fought for me to be on first take with him.

I owe him an incredible debt of gratitude and I will never forget that. But at this stage and point in my life, I'm happier without him. I'm not going back. That's not what I want anymore. But it has nothing to do with a debate show. It's that I have other aspirations.

I've been named the executive producer of first take. So I have that going on. I have my own production company, Mr. S.A.S. Productions, where I want to produce scripted and unscripted content for TV and films. I have my own podcast, No Mercy, that I do three days a week.

I've got a lot of aspirations. I want to do late night television one day, you know, potentially succeed Jimmy Kimmel, if at all possible. That would be electric. I did it once. And the day that I did it, I did it in August of 2021.

And without any promotion, I was the second highest rated show behind Stephen Gobert. And so I look at it from that perspective. I have all these aspirations. A lot of times when people ask me questions about Skip, it's like, oh, do you miss him? Oh, don't you want to work with him again?

First take is great. Nobody can tell me that there's a better morning show than first take. We have a great time. We're having a lot of fun. We got a lot of people with a lot of knowledge. And we understand what that letter E stands for with ESPN, it's entertainment.

And we try to have a really, really good time. And there's a lot of great shows and there's a lot of great talent out there. And I think what makes it great is that I've opened the floodgates for everybody to come on. I try to bring a lot of people on and to let them know,

because I've been blessed and fortunate enough. Look, this ride has to end for me someday. Don't say that. And sometimes you get to a point where it's about your legacy. And what I mean by that is not about the show. The show's been number one for 11 straight years. It was number one the month after I arrived

and it's been number one every week, every month, every year ever since then. And I'm proud of that. But what would make me prouder is that one day when this ride ends and the show continues and there's a whole bunch of talent that's coming on the show and they're all looking

and they're like, my man, Steve and they got us here. He looked out for us. He put us in this position because guess what? You can't be the best forever. And you're not gonna be number one forever. Sometimes even when you are number one, you just get tired and you wanna do other things. And so for me, I love doing first take.

I can do it for a few more years, I guess. And I never wanna leave sports. I just don't wanna be limited to it. If I'm gonna be limited to it, you will see me say goodbye to sports before somebody tells me that sports is all I'm allowed to do. I will never allow that to happen in my life again. It just doesn't do that for me if that's all I'm doing.

And if I'm helping people along the way, get themselves, if you listen to me, just think about it. You always hear me talking and no one can tell me. They don't hear me talking and I don't bring up other names and other talents. And it's not just for people that work with me, it's people that other networks. Why? Because that's what we supposed to be doing this for.

That's what we supposed to be doing this for. I'm not supposed to be rooting against y'all. I don't want you to be me. I want my show to be number one, but I want you to fail. I'm not supposed to be rooting against people. You supposed to be rooting for guys to come up and do big things. That's what this is all about.

This rule for a lot of us. I like that. And that's mine too. Yeah, get the spotlight on somebody else. So come back on you twice as bright. Now all that said, I just really, I would personally really enjoy it if you did get back with Skip for,

maybe like a one time thing. Let's say hypothetically, the Dallas Cowboys get to a Super Bowl, Super Bowl week, Steven A versus Skip, reunited. Now, there are some times when you do the Cowboys thing, when you gloat about how right you are about the Cowboys, I get the sense like, yeah, you're talking to Max or whatever the case might be,

but you're thinking about Skip. You're like, I'm sending this message out to Skip. I know that Skip's watching, and I know he's just getting torn up by watching, not at all. My message is to those damn Cowboy fans that get on my nerves in the streets throughout America when I run into them.

Old and young, black and white, Latino, Asian, Native American, Jewish, Gentile, it doesn't matter. Cowboy fans are everywhere. And no one gets on my nerves more than them. It's to them. I'm not thinking about Skip. I'm not thinking about other people that work at ESPN outside of Michael Irvin.

I will think about Michael Irvin because he talks so much trash. Mr. Motivational, and then when they went and playoff games like they did against Tampa Bay, he and Jerry's booth hugging and kissing everybody, and slapping high fives with the wives and the kids. It's just so annoying to see him do that. Yeah, I look forward to bringing him down,

but that's because I look at him, like I look at the pom-pom Cowboy fans out there. That makes sense. Maybe the day LeBron James retires, you can have one final MJ versus LeBron. Listen, man, I mean, if you talk about one final day with Skip Bayless, I'd welcome that any day of the week just to pay homage to what he's done for me.

And to beat him again. And to beat him again. I've always beat him. I've always beat him. You're undefeated. But to beat him again. I tell him, I tell you, he ain't never beat me in a debate. But still and all, but it would be fun

one final day, one final show, or something like that. But that's all, I mean, other than that, I'm good. I respect what you're saying. You don't need to go back to recapture something that you had in the past. It might have been great. It might have been wonderful. The relationship might still be good to this day.

You wish him nothing but the best, but you're doing other things. It would just be nice to have like a one-time event for maybe some of the kids that never got to see it. Like I grew up watching in the golden age of my opinion. Yeah, but if they never got to see it, why would they care? See, you want to see it, you want it bad because you know, because you saw it.

If they never saw it, why would they care? You blow their minds. I mean, you are doing a special show with Mike and the Mad Dog, right? Yes, I am. So they come on first day. February 1st, yeah. Are you guys going to take callers?

You should take sports for Wednesday, sorry. I doubt it. I doubt it. It's first take, you know? So it's not going to be callers, but I will tell you that Mike and the Mad Dog, I'm proud to have them on. Mad Dog, I love, I love him to death.

He's just hilarious to me. And, but in terms of Mike Franceser and Mad Dog, I have such respect for them. We are where we are in this business in large part because of them, what they established. And I know that, you know, for anything that's going to be successful, we're usually targeting the younger demographic.

And I understand that, but the young have to learn to respect those that need and deserve to be paid homage to. I like that. When you think about Franceser and Mad Dog, what talk radio became, what the podcast world ultimately morphed into, it's buying large because of Mike and the Mad Dog.

They set the standard and they opened the floodgates for advertisers and sponsors and networks to see this as an avenue of income to be created, which created jobs for a whole bunch of people throughout this country. What an incredible level of gratitude we owe them. And so for me, the fact that they wanted to come on first take to reunite with one another is an honor.

It's awesome. And I'm looking forward to having them. You may have, we only have a few more questions. I know you got a busy day. You are the hardest working man in showbiz. You may have answered this already at some other time, but what was the picture for Take a Look Y'all? Take a Look Y'all.

You don't know that tweet? I do not know. This might be just you not looking at any of your mentions. Do you remember this one? I really don't. Are you serious? I swear to you. 2015, it's a famous tweet.

You tweeted Take a Look Y'all and it was just the IMG, JPEG, but no picture. Because I don't know that shit. You know what I mean? Come on man. No one's ever asked you? I really, really don't. I mean, listen, I don't know.

Like, listen, I'll try some copy on it and that's why I think that was when ESPN came to me and said, let us handle your social media account. Now I got my own people handling it, of course. But I mean, I still don't know how to, I know how to write a message or a tweet or whatever, but all of that other stuff, I don't know that shit. So no one's ever asked you what the picture was?

I didn't know what you were talking about, but now that you did, somebody's asked me about that before, but I still never know when they asked me. Like, what are you talking about? I would love to know what Take a Look Y'all was, what was that picture? I have no clue. What date was it?

It was May, 26, 2015. Almost eight years ago. It was May what? May 26, 2015. I had no idea. Probably right around the NBA finals. Yeah, maybe Chris Paul losing a playoff game, him looking sad maybe.

Yeah, conference finals. Conference finals. Okay. Finals always in June. Take a look y'all, gotta know it. Are we, another question, are we still staying off the weed? Absolutely.

Okay. I mean, I will tell you, there have been times when I've been stressed enough, I have wondered, is it wise for me to stay off the weed? I will admit that, because you see people that smoke and some weed, they just seem so relaxed, they have a care in the world.

You know, everything's good, but I'm like, I gotta be consistent, you know? And in all seriousness, man, I've never, look, I got family members that smoke some weed, you know what I'm saying? And that's always been the case. I'm from Hollis, Queens, New York City, please. Weed was everywhere.

We get that. My issue is, in all seriousness, is with fellas that are athletes that I have allowed it to cost them their money. I know basketball players who've lost tens of millions of dollars in future earnings because they were potheds. That makes no sense to me.

I've never seen a joint worth seven figures in my life. I don't understand shit like that. It makes no sense to me. And so for me, it's like, don't let it cost you your money then people will get so upset and they will come at me wrong. And then Snoop Dogg called into my radio show in LA one year

and went off on people. It was like, Steven, they ain't selling out, he looking out, he trying to help you. He said, I can do this in my field. You can't because Snoop Dogg is one of my boys. And so I'm like, what do you mean I have a problem with people who are weed? That's my boy.

If I had a problem with anybody, wouldn't it be him? Yeah. Cause ain't too many people smoke more weed than Snoop now. They eat with new meat in the green room. Okay. So, but, but I don't care cause it doesn't cost him his money. And that's what I'm talking about.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that, that makes sense. You've done some great acting before, General Hospital. I got a recovering role on there. It seems like you, you enjoy it. You got the acting. I never thought that I would, but I'm starting to enjoy it and fantasize

about really taking this seriously for this one reason. I love the fact that you can get away with doing anything the role calls for you to do. Yeah. You know, it's like, wait a minute, I can be a villain. You know, I can kill somebody. I can do this, I can do that. I can do that.

And it's perfectly fine because it's all acting. Yeah. You know, so I, I, I get it. It's a great point. You know, and then, and then not only that, it comes in handy when you do what we do. Because when, when I'm on the air, listen, everybody ain't likable.

Some people get on my damn nerves. And, you know, knowing a little acting helps. It could bail you out of situations. You didn't realize you'd need to be bailed out of. So acting does have its positive points. And I think it's something that's worth to me considering. We're, we're actually in the film business. We're working with Adam Sandler on a movie.

So we developed this a few years ago. He did a good movie with the movie, LeBron produced him in a basketball play. Adam Sandler did a great job as a scout for the 76ers. Apparently he's a pretty good player himself too. But so we've been working with him. He's, we've got a number of people loosely attached to do voices.

It's animated. We would love for you to be a part of this project. Animated? It's an animated film. It's a holiday classic. Okay. Kids film. Kids film.

It's about sled dogs. A team of sled dogs. They get lost in the woods. I'll consider it. I'll consider it. Money needs to be right. Money needs to be right. Yeah, the money will be right.

Adam's taking care of it. Adam's putting the full weight of Happy Madison behind it. I feel like if you were a dog, if you were to voice a dog, what breed of dog would you want to be? German Shepherd. Okay, done. Done.

All right, easy. I can make that happen. One stroke of the pen. Yeah, you get that. We're on it. Easy. One last question I had was how's the shoulder? I gotta say, I took exception

to something that you did this summer. Okay. You took a lot of time off for a shoulder injury. Yeah. A lot. Nick Saban called me out. Adam Silver called me out. I mean, that was funny, man.

They got me good. I gotta admit that. I had nothing to do with it being August and not having any sports on to talk about. It was just you had that time to recuperate. No, what happened is, man, is that they had me doing first take. I was doing Stephen A's world.

I was doing the NBA countdown. And I was like, you know, I don't think people realize how much time I haven't taken off throughout the year. Yeah. I said, man, hell with this, I need some time. Because they told me, you know, I was walking around.

I had both torn rotator cuffs. I was walking around with like for like five years. And so they went in there June 29th to be exact. June 29th. And hospital for special surgery, New York City. They found I had a torn rotator cuff, a torn bicep, a bone spur.

Geez. And a torn label. You're playing through all of that. I was like, what the hell is going on here? I mean, I wouldn't say just shoot me up. I'll go out there. I would do it for free. Torn off.

Love of the game. But here's what I'm saying. What I was saying was, yeah, I could come on the air, but damn that. I've been working, working, working. I want to relax. And you know something, it's funny. I'm like this.

That's some people missing me for a change. Yeah, we did. You see me every day. You hear from me every day. How many times do you, oh, what the hell is Steven? They say today. Oh, this guy.

Oh, please. Who the hell cares what he is? He doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. Why listen to him? I'm like, all right. You're gonna miss me when I'm gone. It's what, you know? And so I went away and I took off longer

than I've ever taken off, ever, you know? And so I was like, hey, that's what it is. And you know, and not only that, COVID did a number on me. When I got COVID, not this time I had COVID a few months ago I was fine in like three days. It was just their fools and all that stuff.

When I got COVID last September, man, 102.7 degree fever, 103 degree fever, you know, sweating bullets, waking up in the middle of the night, like fully clothed, like I jumped in a pool. That's how much I was sweating, having illusion, you know, just delusional, just out of my mind. And New Year's Eve, I'm in the emergency room

in the hospital in New Jersey. And the doctor comes to me and she says, the name was Dr. Booth, I'll never forget it. She said, try these steroids and it's antibiotic. And we'll know in three hours whether you're fine. That's how strong the stuff is, we'll know in three hours. If we don't know in three hours, we have to call your family.

You're in a world of trouble. I had double pneumonia and pneumonia in both lungs. Persistent cough, wasn't breathing right, obviously. I was in bad shape and I never felt like that. And I was so pissed off because my sister, God bless her, she had COVID, my sister smoke every day. She was fine three days. I'm like, I don't smoke, you know what I'm saying?

I'm a casual drinker at best. I can't believe I'm going through, I ain't never done drugs. I'm like, what the hell is going on? How am I in this position? I was furious, you know? But they was like, and for those three hours, you know, I was in a world of trouble.

And so, because I didn't know what direction it was going in, you know? And so when that happened, I was like, I work hard, I do this, but there's so much more to life than what I'm living. I make enough money, I should be enjoying myself a hell of a lot more than I'm doing. But I don't, because everybody else is clinking champagne

glasses at my party but me. They busy partying, I'm busy working. I need to get into some of that partying, some of that relaxation, some of that enjoyment. So I can enjoy the fruits of my labor. And that's why I ultimately took that time off for that month in the summer. It's a good answer, you deserve to definitely do that.

I was just giving you some shit about it because you were saying it was the shoulder. And I was like, man, this was LeBron taking a month off. No, no, but I'm saying, it was. Yeah, you broke the shoulder, but it was also good timing. We use that line, right? But here's where it doesn't apply. Load management.

LeBron and them automatically get a minimum of three to four months off. Right, yeah. First take on all year. Right, that's true. So I don't wanna hear that. I wanna see you take more vacations. I do, because I want you around for a while.

I want no stress from Steve Day Smith. I want you to enjoy the future. You know what, as Don King once said to me, from your lips to God's ears, we'll think about that. Okay. You know, I'm gonna, it ain't gonna be a month. I'm not gonna do that because, you know, I mean, the ratings weren't the same

and the show wasn't the same. But I will tell you that I'm definitely gonna sprinkle time off during the year. You deserve it. You deserve it. If you take a week off and you see ratings go down, you come back and you're like, they need to know. But you know what, but that's the thing

and that's the difference between me now and years ago. See, I don't like that now. I'm mad if the ratings drop. Because I know we got great people on the show that can keep the ratings up. Now, can they do it 250 days out of the year? Like I do, probably not. But the point is, is that we got tremendous talent

at ESPN and my attitude, and in the sports world period, and because remember, we bring people that's not from ESPN onto the show. And so it's just important to me that, you know, I'm a part of a franchise. Like I'm the guy responsible for building a franchise that doesn't fold if I'm gone. I'm cool with that.

I truly am, because it ain't forever. Now, I don't want it to happen tomorrow because I got two and a half years left on my deal. I wanna be successful. But I'm saying that when it's my time, it's my time, man. And it's like, I don't wanna be pushed out the door. I don't wanna be somebody that everybody says, all right, it's time for you to go.

But when I know it's time, if that's sooner than later, I'm good with it. As long as I have something to fall back on, I'm good with it. I love it, I love it. So straight shooter, go check it out now. A memoir of second chances and first takes. My last, last question,

Kevin Durant refuses to come on this show and debate us. Is he hiding from you two? No, he's been on my show before. He's never scared to debate. He believes, and when it comes to basketball, we don't know as much as him. No, he's a basketball savant. He is, he's a basketball savant.

I know quite a bit about him. But he's a basketball savant. He's a basketball savant. Kevin Durant and LeBron James is something special as well. You know, you have certain dudes that, they just believe certain things are beneath them. That's their attitude.

I don't agree with it. Especially since they wanna pop shit every time we say something they don't like. You know, but in the same breath, something like, hey, that's the way it goes, that comes with it, and you just deal with what you gotta deal with. They do have that right

when it comes to the sport of basketball. But when it comes to issue-related matters, you usually don't. And people are entitled to their opinion. By the way, I love that you have, I saw you at the UFC in Madison Square Garden. We were sitting there, because Molly the Meatball is one of our fighters.

So we were sitting in front row. You have the iPhone on your hip. I thought that was just, I don't see that very often anymore. Power move. That's where I'm supposed to put it. In my jacket or something. Or in your pocket.

You were in jeans. Yeah, but I don't like pulling it out of my pocket. And I don't like putting it in my inside pocket because then it dips. I just hadn't seen it in a while. And it's not even. And I instantly respected it. I don't like it like that.

Got a holster in case somebody calls and it's in. You know, you whipped it out. And I usually, and I used to have two phones. I used to have two phones, but then that just makes you look at crazy suspicious. Well, yeah, so true. We talked to Mike Urban about that. I'm trying to have peace at home.

Michael Urban actually told us he's got two phones, one for people that are trying to get money from him and the other for people that are trying to give him money. So he likes picking up that phone. Yeah. I don't blame him. Yeah. Because he was the playmaker since the 80s.

He kinda knows what he's doing. Yeah. Well, thank you very much. Yes, this has been great. If we go by the book, Straight Shooter, it's out now. You can obviously know where to find the money, SPN. You have your podcast, No Mercy. Straight Shooterbook.com as well.

You can go there online. I don't wanna like light a fire, but we are the number one sports podcast, not you, so. Dude, don't tell, don't. I don't have a sports podcast. I don't. Oh, okay, that's true. Not a podcast.

Not a podcast. My podcast, I didn't want one. Shit. Oh, god damn it. I wanted that one. I didn't want a sports podcast. I've done everything there is to do a sports. I didn't want to do a sports podcast.

God damn it, I got owned on the way out. I really didn't want to do a sports podcast. I just don't want you to start one because then. Would you be number one? ESPN wanted me to do a sports podcast for the longest time. I wasn't interested. Would you be number one?

You know what? I don't know. You know why? Because you already see me talking about so many sports opinions on First Take. If you only did a podcast. Oh, no, I'd be number one. I don't know about that.

I'd be number one. Without a question. I wouldn't even worry about it. If I did a sports podcast and I didn't have any other outlets, the only way you could find me was to come to my podcast. Oh, please.

I mean, I'd easily be number one then. All right. I got an audio book out too. Okay. You read it? Oh, I mean, that would be half time. Yes. So on your way out,

just so we do have one last surprise here. We do have Skip Bayless. And we got him to come here. You want to bring him in? Some Skip Bayless looking like because the damn show ain't Skip. No, it's not Skip. Skip ain't flying.

It's not Skip. Skip ain't flying. Skip don't want to leave LA. Yeah, that's true. That's back. All right, well, thank you so much, Steven A. Smith. You're always welcome on anytime you want to come on.

We really appreciate it. I appreciate y'all having me, man. Thank you. It was a lot of fun. Steven A. Smith was brought to you by our very good friends over at the Barstool Store because that's us. Right now you can shop on Football Girl, Football Guy, and PMT Football Patch Trucker Hat merch over there.

We love the Football Guy shirts. Love the Football Gal shirts. We've got a lot of Eagles merch set up in the store right now if you're a Philly fan. We got some 49er stuff. We got some Brock Purdy merch up there. We got definitely some Joe Burrow, some really nice new Joe Burrow

and Cincinnati designs. Check it out, the Barstool Store at BarstoolSports.com. You can go to store.BarstoolsSports.com, store.BarstoolsSports.com. Wear with the pros wear. Store.BarstoolsSports.com. All right, let's finish up with some guys on chicks. Henry.

Henry. Time to read, Henry. Sup, Dadcat, PFT, and boys. I went home this weekend and got roasted by my mom saying the reason I'm still single is because my hair changes color every week. Do you think guys are afraid to ask a girl out with dyed hair or is my mom just stuck in the past

with a conservative view on what guys want? I think that when it comes to girls' hair, guys just don't recognize girls when they change their hair all the time. So I'll see a girl with short hair and maybe I'm used to seeing her long hair but her hair is put up and I won't actually recognize

that that's the same person sometimes. You guys have too many different variables on your face and hair that you can change up. It gets confusing. It also depends like, is she saying like she's got, she's going from like blonde to brunette or is she like going purple? Purple.

I stand with your mom. Wow. You won't find, I mean, you won't find, you won't find a boyfriend if you do that. Why not? Cause it's just weird. What? If you see people with weird hair colors, it's weird.

I don't know, I see it and I'm like, what's going on here? I like weird hair colors if it's just a consistent weird hair color though. If you don't change it up. I don't know, anytime I see someone like green hair, purple hair, I'm just like, what's up? What's their style on it though? Are we still doing it?

Is there someone I'm forgetting, is Max laughing? Is there someone I'm thinking, like am I mocking someone we know? This may have been done by an employee that works here. Is there someone here who has weird hair? What? No, no, what is it? No, tell me, that's fine.

From upstairs like sent it to me and was like, and then memes forgot to send it last time. And does she, what color is her hair? It changes like every week from like, a lot of times. If you wanna come talk to me, I'll echo what your mom's saying, like I'm sorry. Oh yes, you are scaring guys off cause you don't know like green hair, come on.

It's animal kingdom, those colors mean poisonous. Yeah, thank you, Billy. Are we still doing the thing where girls are dyeing their hair gray and trying to look like they're 60 years old? That was a weird- Gray's a great color. That was kinda, that was like, but it was like silver.

That kind of blonde silver. But there were some girls that I saw that were like 28 years old that dyed their hair and now they look like, intentionally look like they're 60. Wait, what colors is she dyeing her hair? Give me some of the colors. I've seen purple, I've seen pink. I don't know what else.

I've seen those two colors. Yeah, your mom is right. It's sorry that we have to be the ones to tell you this. I disagree, I think it's fine, but you just have to stick with one color. But not have to be purple or purple. No, you can do purple if you stay with purple. If you switch it up all the time,

then it's like, was it a mood ring type thing? Yeah, confusing. I went to a liberal arts college. There was a lot of colored hair. You stayed away. Oh, okay. Because they were usually going to get into an argument with you about some sort of political thing.

Like your stance on World War II. Yeah. How you think Dana White wasn't in the wrong, that kind of stuff. Billy does it. What's that? It's Mar-Hamlin. Billy sometimes thinks that.

Yeah, Mar-Hamlin, you're definitely in on that, right? What? That's a body double. I did. I saw it on Twitter last night. Someone tweeted something like, I just stumbled upon the fact that there are people out there who think that it's a Mar-Hamlin body double.

And the first thought in my head was like, Billy's definitely in this room. Okay, okay, okay. Trust tree? I don't think he's dead. Okay. Oh, wow. But you don't think it was him at the game?

It was very snowy that shot conveniently. So I mean, I did bring this up on Sunday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. But no, but I thought that was a joke. You guys, you guys shot me down immediately. Yeah, I did not think it was a serious thing.

Well, because it wasn't a serious thing at all. Very serious. I did get a couple of people that DM me that were like, hey, I just want to acknowledge you, PFT. I heard that you brought up the Mar-Hamlin stunt double thing and it's bullshit that everybody just shot that down immediately, moved on. I'm with you, but I understand why you couldn't explore that

more fully. And then I went to the guy's profile and he's just insane. Right. So here's what- But Billy kind of, Billy wants to believe it. It's not 100, it's like, it's like one of those things where it's like, ah, it's there. So with any conspiracy theory,

let me ask you just a simple question. Jamar Hamlin went into the locker room to see his bills, players, all the teammates. And then they realized it wasn't him and played badly. No, no, no. But you're saying now that the entire team is like, not one person has told another person that it was a body double, cause all it would take is one person to text a friend

being like, dude, they brought in a body double. And then it becomes, and then it's fire. You know, like- No, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, like, it was just, there was just like, I looked at the evidence. I'm not- You can have an evidence we're talking about here. That's the part that though, with conspiracy theories,

do you know how many people would have to be in on it and not say anything? That's when it always falls apart. There would have to be like literally hundreds of people in Buffalo, in that stadium, to be in on that. Well, to be fair, if any team could pull it off, I think it would be the bills. They are like a very insulate.

You know what, how crazy would have been if Jamar Hamlin was a twin, like the McCourtney twins, where then we'd really get the conspiracies cooking, like, is one dead, is one alive? Did they switch him out? That would be a while. Why was he wearing goggles? It was snowy.

Yeah, I don't think he was wearing goggles. I think that might have been a lie. There was, he was wearing some weird- When he was driving in, he was, it was snowy. He had a mask on that covered up his mouth and his nose. He had a sheisty. Which probably has something to do with the fact that he's immunocompromised,

because it's heart-stopped. And then, they probably didn't want him interacting with the public that much, because he probably still has a bunch of broken ribs, and maybe a crack sternum, because he got CPR for like 12 minutes. True, true, yeah. And also, it is kind of crazy that it snowed so much.

And the bill did play bad after he went to the locker room. That's the most convincing argument, is that the bill's lost. No, I- But then they would definitely say, we lost because a body double showed up. Yeah, it was a fake. That's the easiest excuse ever.

Like Stifon Diggs would be like, hey, the reason why we sucked was a fake to marshal it up. So now, wait, now we might be looking at like an Avril Lavigne type situation, or next year, whoever, well, he's, do you think- Maybe it's a clone. Yeah, maybe.

No, I just, I'm raising it so we can have the conversation. Yeah, I knew it was one of those things where I was like, this is gonna get me, this is gonna get me, they're totally gonna make fun of me if I even mention any of this. No, I knew you were in on it. I saw it and I was like, yeah, this is billy. I'll be in on it.

Yeah. Oh, you'll be in on it. It's a bit, it's a bit. I wasn't gonna raise it until you really, you definitely think that. No, I do. Billy, I don't. I do think that Billy consciously sometimes raises his hand,

he's like, I will sacrifice my brain and I will believe in this just because- As a bit. I want to believe in it. Exactly. But then you buy into it. There's so many people would have to have been involved in that and not one person texts anyone.

I'm, dude, I mean, you probably couldn't even tell from up close. Okay. All right, two left. One is a great, great business opportunity. One, I'm just gonna hope this is fake. Hey, PMT fellas, I've got a wild question today. Me and my boyfriend have been together for four years.

He might propose soon. I love him, but we have an issue. He may have got my cousin pregnant. They went to a New Year's party together and I couldn't go because of work. He went with my cousin, who was kind of my best friend and they are friends too. They both got super fucked up

and she just had a pregnancy test and it came back positive. They both blacked out and don't remember the night and so did their connection to the party. They woke up in different beds alone, which is good, but there are no other guys we have a connection to at the party. I haven't confronted my boyfriend or asked him,

what should I do? Thanks guys, love you. This is wild. I'm just gonna hope this is like a movie plot that we're not. So, all right, let me see if I got this straight. The two options aren't great. Let me see if I get this straight.

Your boyfriend went to a wedding. Your cousin was at the wedding. No, New Year's party. New Year's party. Your cousin was there. Best friend slash cousin, one of those deals. And they both got blacked out. Yep.

Didn't sleep in the same room as each other. Nope. But then now she's pregnant and she didn't have sex with anybody else. That she knows of. That she knows of. I mean, it's an easy solution. She has to have the baby

and you have to raise the baby as your own child. And just never talk about it again. This has gotta be the plot of the movie. I hope so, but it's juicy enough that I want to throw it out there. That's actually like a very salacious family secret that you can then like, you know, the parents who raised the child,

even though the mother wasn't actually the mother, can tell the child when the child's like 40. Does that count as cheating really? You've blacked out. You're both blacked out. And it's the best friend. And you didn't even sleep over. Yeah, it's family.

You didn't even sleep over. Right. You woke up, you don't remember it. You never had any intention on doing it. It just, it just kind of happened. Yeah, that's, I hope that's a plot to a movie. But if it's not, that's, I want to follow up. Follow up, yeah.

Follow up, please. It seems like, yeah. Let's do, come to the studio, we'll do a live pregnancy show. Yes. Like Mori Povic. Yes, we'll pay for airfare. Immaculate conception.

Could be Jesus. Could be said coming. Yep. Yep, fact. All right, last one. Hey boys, my boyfriend is obsessed with this startup idea after listening to PMT last week. Last week, after Billy talked about cats

not thriving in apartments, he had an idea for a subscription based box service where he captures rats in New York City and sends them monthly to cat owners for their cats to hunt. He even has gone as far as creating a logo and buying rat hunting equipment. Please tell him this is a stupid idea.

He also has another startup idea where instead of euthanizing your old cat, you host a large party with 3,000 cats and have your elderly cat OD so it goes out with a bang. He calls it Project X for cats. I like both these ideas. So it's like a catnip, OD on catnip at the end? I have a box full of catnip that got sent to me.

Why? I was gonna smoke it with Donnie. Okay. That's a good answer. Experiment. Yep. So you're gonna catch rats and send it to people. I'm in.

Where can we invest? So the premise is to give your cat exercise. It's the premise is to let rats loosen your apartment. Yeah, I was gonna say, do you really think that there's a big market out there for people that want more rats in their apartment? We don't know. On tap market.

I'm in. I want more ideas from this guy. What the hell? I want all the ideas. You know what I actually learned the other day? There's a huge market for pigeons. There's actually people capture pigeons in Philadelphia and sell them to hunting places to shoot.

And it's good to get like paraphernalia to jail. Yeah. Pigeon racing, Mike Tyson. Also they're delicious. Yeah. Ever had squab? So good. It's good.

You didn't have a question about girls going on the guy trips? Oh yeah, last one. My boyfriend's 30th birthday is this weekend. My husband. My husband's 30th birthday is this weekend. Are they still, it's kinda dicey, right? Yeah. My husband's 30th birthday is this weekend.

Is your husband rich? My husband's 30th birthday is this weekend. And he's having all the boys out to a place, some ski village. Aspen, Aspen. All of the girlfriends and wives were invited, but they can no longer go. He's asking me to go,

but it's just gonna be me and five guys. Should I go or not? No. Yeah, definitely. But he wants me to go. No, you should go. No. He said he wants me to go.

But here's the thing, he really, really does. It sounds like he really wants you to go. Yeah. Plus, you know what? You're cool. You're not like all the other girls. It's not like it's a big thing that you're invading a guy's trip.

You're the cool girl. You're pretty much one of the guys. Yeah. You should go. Go. Would he be scared to tell you you can't come? No, definitely not. Really, you don't think that he's afraid of you?

No, we're married. Is it? We can tell each other anything. Quick question, on this trip, is your husband going to be allowed to jack off? Well, no, that's why she would go. To monitor him. Yeah.

Got it. Is this Dan Orlovsky? Yeah, that's Swept Barstool this past week. Shout out to the Mean Girl pod. Yeah, shout out to Mean Girl pod. They really embraced a date with that one. They did. I think my favorite part of that debate

was the response of like, you know, it's because like most people that are married hate each other. Yeah. Yeah. That one was tough. That's definitely from somebody who has never been married before.

Yes, yes. All right, numbers. Hank, have you ever gotten this? No. Was it 12 that you got wrong the other night? Yeah. It hurts, doesn't it? Mm-hmm.

Are you on another 12? Yeah. No, I don't think so, I don't think so. Let's give him two. No, no, no, we'll wait until the Cowboys lose again, then we'll give him 12. 69. It'd be 13, actually.

Let's go with 42. 42, Jackie Robinson? Yeah, someone actually DME. In honor of Paul Afameda? Someone DME some logic behind it. All right, I'll go 17. I'll go with it. 18.

I'm going to 69. No, I already did. Oh, you already took 69? Yeah. 92. All right, Hank, you've never gotten this? No, I have not. Are you sure?

I think so. Come on, Jackie. Oh, what did you say, PFT? 92. 97. That was really close for me. Third time. Love you guys.

You're never getting it. Jackrabbits are different. Have you admitted that? Wait, that's two out of three shows. Oh, wow, it's so easy. It's never been easier. Have you admitted it to yourself that you're never getting it?

No. You should. I believe. You know what, I'm not even going to say it. I'll say it after I win. The second you admit to yourself that you're never going to get it, you're going to get it right afterwards. No, that's giving up.

All right, so you'll never get it. You want to do one more? For money, for money. 69, 69. Yes, counts. 47. 69. 97.

20. 18. Back to back, 97. It's hot. It's hot right now. 50. You're never going to get it. Eighth time, now tied for second.

That one did count, so make sure you added to Hanks never getting it list. Domestic rabbits can't breed with wild rabbits. Two genetically dissimilar. We're talking away, but I don't know what to say. I'll say it anyway. Today is on my day, so I need you to shine. I'll be coming for your love again.

Shine. I'll be coming for your love again. I need less to say. I won't say it. It's about me. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. Say it to me.

It's a little bit of weight. Say it to me. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight.

It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight.

It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. It's a little bit of weight. You are things I've got to remember. Enjoy it all. I'll be coming to you very late.

Enjoy it all. I'll be coming to you very late. Take on me. Take on me. Take on me. Take on me. I'll take on you. Take on me.

Take on me. Take on me. Take of me, take of me, take of me, take of me Take of me, take of me, take of me, take of me