Shutdown Fullcast - Everyone Can Be Bossman

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

First order of business: Ryan selects a new CEO for college football Second order of business: What is the ideal name for each position player in football? Lots of announcements in this one, helpfully collected for you in the podcast business section right smack in the middle of the episode Help us run up the score on intrepid reader Emily’s fundraiser for Georgia STOMP: https://secure.givelively.org/donate/georgia-stomp-inc/emily-brand-0 RSVP for the June 28th Charity Bowl celebration in Ann Arbor at pizzawestern.com Fullcast theme song arranged and performed by Trey McClure Check out Surber’s band, Killer Antz: https://linktr.ee/killerantz Listen to Phantom Island, Ryan’s new show with Godfrey, which is not a college football show because a second simply cannot exist, at falconscottproductions.com Check out Jason's free CFB Watch Grid newsletter and other work: https://www.jasonkirk.fyi/ DID YOU KNOW: Holly and Spencer write a year-round newsletter, featuring football and also unfootball things, at https://channel-6.ghost.io/

You know, it might be okay. Or maybe we should embrace as a warm weather depression activity batting cage. What are you doing? Like, you can do it by yourself. You have to do it by yourself. You can go as a group, but like the activity itself is inherently solo. Yeah. You get to work out some frustration and aggression in a safe and controlled environment.

Yeah. And you can pretend it's exercise. If we can pretend golf is exercise, we can super pretend batting cage's exercise. Yes, Holly. Can I upgrade you slightly from there? I'll be it in a high-risk fashion. Therapist operating entirely out of top golf. I think this person's a future billionaire.

The little bays are kind of like set up for that. You're ready. Let's examine that feeling. Now, also, the green disc, you need to go ahead. That's worth triple point. Seltzer gun. We're playing Sonic the Hedgehog style this time. Instant moon elevator.

Seltzer gun. Now let's talk about your feelings about your body. Yeah. Okay. And you know how you can select an Uber driver who's chatty or not? Yeah. You can, you can, there is a sliding scale, not for payment, but for the amount of golf instruction slash golf.

peer group vibes you're willing to accept. So there's a sliding scale for how good your therapist is that golf. So you can, does it, can you adjust that is one opposite of the other? Like if I get a better golf guide, are they worse at therapy? Or are these factors operating independently of one another? Different therapists of different personality types are so wildly differently applicable to different personality types, maybe in ways you wouldn't exactly expect that I wouldn't, I wouldn't necessarily want to put that as a be-all, end-all, this will, like, good at golf

can be measured somewhat objectively, right? Yes, but I will say, generally I have found that there is a correlation between good at golf and mentally unwell. Hmm. I submit to you, Tiger Woods, as my first example. No, no, that's right. an SEC football coach who might be really good at golf at the moment, right? Any of them?

I was just, I was thinking about my, I was just thinking about how I didn't necessarily want to try and solve her personality types for people because I'm going to tell you something faintly shocking. My shrink is a ball of sunshine. Okay. And I love her. That's, yeah. I've never wanted to slap her even a little bit. She is, she is like per, right? No, right.

She's perky. But, like, how's her short game? Really perky. I don't know. I'll laugh. We've got to know. We've got to forget this out. Just bringing a pitching wedge next time.

All right. Show me what you got. You know what else? You know what else I love about her? I could ask her this question and she would not blink. Good. Great. She sounds perfect for Top golf unlicensed psychiatry.

Top golf unlicensed psychiatry. What if there's just a guy who just goes to the pain? He's like, yeah, tell me about your problems, man. And, like, it could catch. I'm telling you. The person who cares is out of pros. Because you're going to ease them in because they're going to pick up the golf club and be like, tell me about your problems.

And they're going to think you mean golf problems. They're going to be like, well, you know, I'm having trouble keeping my elbow tucked and really following through all, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the next thing you know, they're like, anything else you're having trouble following through all? I never wanted to play golf, but dad made me. And that was because we had nothing else to connect over. Okay, Spencer, that'll be $350 because I don't take insurance.

But on the other hand, top golf should offer it, top golf should sell insurance. How about we bounce it out that way? That's a good plan. Plus, what we have created is therapy with pretzel bites. That's for good. This wouldn't, God, this wouldn't be hard to sell at all. We just call it like tactile therapy. Yeah.

Tactile immersive therapy. Tits. There. I was getting to it before the listeners could. Why does the cart girl always ask what we want and not what we need? Hey, you ever think about asking if the cart girl's okay? Yeah.

Wow, wow. Actually, don't do that. Please leave the cart girl. Oh, yeah, leave the car girl. Speaking, never mind, I had it on the brain because speaking of cart girls, Spencer, you got into an online argument over the weekend about the amount of beer that Patrick Mahomes does, does not drink in the offseason. And you know we love to batch it down seven or ten notches,

but if there is one beat that Spencer Hall was on in this country before anybody else, it was Patrick Mahomes is going to be a great fucking quarterback. He might not have been a freshman at Texas Tech, but he was definitely a sophomore. Like you were first in the boat on this guy is really going to be something, which means we have all kinds of stories going back to his time at Lubbock. I guess my first question for the buffaloans in question who were taking offense at the idea that Patrick Mahomes might be a big drinker

would be why do you want him to drink less? Yeah, like the Road to Ruin is your friend here. This was a Buffalo Bills fan who was outraged at the notion. Which is delightful, to be clear. I love that as a drinker, this person took offense to the notion that Patrick Mahomes might be able to outdrink them. He can't be good at that, too. There's no way the dude's ever had more than four beers into sitting.

Do you want to see him clean? Do you want to see him clean eating? What's wrong with you? No, you should be like... Do you want this to get worse for you? But anyway, more importantly, we got confirmation from a cart girl at a recent charity event. Thank you to friend of the program, Rototutor, who said that she did not have an exact count, but if she had to guess between 10 a.m. and 5.

p.m. he was consuming one to tour Coors Lights per hour. That's hard to say. Yeah, let's do one and a half, seven hours, you know, we're coming out, well, over 10 beers, right? Which is about what I would have guessed. It's basically water. I mean, it's basically water, and that dude's a hoss, and he's from West Texas, and I know probably doesn't think of it as drinking. He's like, no, man, we're just having beers. He was a baseball player. He was a baseball player. He was a Baseball player in Texas. That's all I need to know. People forget.

He probably did all this with a lip in. And his dad, and raised by a baseball player, I will tell you a lot of... That's a kid who grew up in Major League Baseball Clubhouses. Yeah. When do you think Patrick Mahomes had his first beer? Eight. Great guess. Great guess.

Which is clearly fine, because look how he turned out. I like that you answer that with the confidence of somebody who's playing fast money on the family feud is like, I am not going to get held up on these. I'm going to tell you what actually happened, which is worse. I took the age where I had my first beer and subtracted two years to account for both the time zone

and the fact that he was raised by a professional drinker and not a pro-am drinker like the grown men in my family. Fair, fair. How mad do you want to be at Patrick Mahomes for drinking beer? This is something you should encourage. You should immediately... Yeah, Buffalo, you should be sending him cases.

Yeah. It's just that you're so broken by losing to him in the playoffs repeatedly. He lives in Kansas City. His wife sucks. It's not like he can go out. This is a pro-bills podcast, and we're not going to dump on Buffalo. No, I mentioned sincerely when I said I found it delightful that they were offended as a drinker. I found that charming. Sure. I appreciate their desire to compete in everything, right? Like, I don't know. If Haley Stonfeld ends up becoming like a famously public-like, like bad person they'd be like yeah man she's worse she's so much worse than brittney mohomes

she's the fucking worst she's a plane ever should have been adapted yeah they'll be proud of it they'll be like yeah hell yeah she's a menace absolute horrible like tick on a human being haley stanfield burned down the white house what do you got to say brittany nothing thank you um i wanted to go ahead and ask ryan an important question Which is... I understand that you've solved our problems and you have picked a CEO of college football, or at least several decent candidates.

Let's bring the audience into the actual news hook here. Is Bill Connolly hiding somewhere in the room? This is not a job Bill Connolly would warn. He's always hiding in the room. I feel confident. Bill can correct me if I'm wrong, but what we are here to discuss is not a true, like, commissioner or CEO,

president of college football. And is also not speculative, of, at least according to reports that came out on Monday night. I'm going to try to do this as quickly as possible, so don't get bogged down. House settlement is coming to a possible conclusion. Maybe it will happen by the time this comes out. I don't know. As part of that, the schools are trying to figure out, like, okay,

what is our enforcement mechanism going to be for NIL to be actually regulated, for us to distinguish between true NIL and sinister NIL. NIL. Yes, Holly. When you say the schools, do you mean some consortium of the schools, or do you mean the NCAA or both? Okay, so I believe this is the power for specifically. And what they are doing is taking a piece of the NCAA's authority away from it, specifically this part. The NCAA will still be responsible for things like academic eligibility. Sure. Sure. But this is where they are, and I'm going to pull it up because I'm not going to get it wrong this time. Okay. So according to this report from ESPN, the College Sports Commission, and what this is is going to be a new enforcement organization that's not part of the NCAA that will have the final say in determining if rules have been violated, what punishments get laid out, et cetera, et cetera. This is going to be an organization led by a CEO, an actual person that they're going to hire,

that is theoretically going to come together pretty quickly after the House settlement gets settled if it does. Here is what sources told ESPN about that person. Number one, they expect this person to come from outside college athletics. Number two, it's someone that they don't think will be a household named college sports fans. And number three, the CEO is expected to make seven figures and will have significant authority. will basically be like the commissioner of a sports league when it comes to like doling out punishment. Okay.

So I went through a list of big companies to try to figure out like, okay, where could this CEO come from? I'm going to give you some examples of places I don't think it will come from because what we're going to try to do, at least in this part of the show, we're going to try to call our shot.

I have no sources. I have nobody on the inside who's telling me like, here's who they're looking at. This is just me being a speculative idiot because I have a podcast that I share. Walmart is out. Do we agree on that? Yeah.

Like, Walmart, mostly because, like, it's too connected to college through Arkansas fundraising. Amazon is out. That's a household name. Jeff Bezos isn't technically the CEO, but whatever. He might as well be. Yeah. Apple, kind of the same problem with Walmart, Tim Cook and Auburn. Berkshire Hathaway, household name problem.

Okay. So here are my candidates. I'm going to tell you one that I ruled out quickly, but I want to throw it out there anyway. Number one, the CEO. of Costco is a man named Ron Vakris. He just took over in January 2024. I think he's too new, and he has a more important job to do. What is the most important job if you're the CEO of Costco? Nobody raises the price of the hot dog. That's exactly right. Keep the hot dog at its present price. Let's acknowledge we will probably live to see a day when the Costco hot dog goes up

in price, but you don't want to be the CEO who made that happen. You're Your job is to hold the line and pass the ball and make a future someone's problem. Remember, the quote from one brother to another was, if you raise the price of the hot dog, this was said in a boardroom in front of witnesses, I'll fucking kill you. Billions was a documentary and was filmed in real time. As the U.S. dollar continues to experience stress in world markets and maybe becomes less of the dominant currency, I predict the Costco hot dog will become the American unit of currency. It will become the gold standard by which we measure all other finances in the world.

But Costco CEO, I'm taking them out of the running. Counterpoint. I just want to push back very slightly. Can we so easily afford to overlook a guy named Ron for this job? I hear you. Or? Yeah. Hmm.

Right as I say that, I realize the problem, which is that the shit-heart CEOs who are kind of fancy themselves running this. sport are going to be put off by the salt of the earthiness of a man named Ron. I think you're right. I think that's what I just talked myself into a cul-de-sac here. Also, this guy, like, I think he started as a Costco forklift driver. Oh, he's had a real job. He's disqualified for being a CEO of anything. And also...

Certified. I don't know if he was certified. Yeah, yeah. Would you rather be the CEO of Costco or run NIL investigations for for the power of four. Oh, Costco, just for the membership benefits. Right. Like, yeah.

And also, like, do you know how pumped people are when they meet you? And you're the CEO of Costco? Yeah. Yeah, I think fewer people try to hit me with their car just on a given day. 100%. 100%. If I have that job. All right, so I'm taking Ron out of the running.

Here are my candidates. I have five. Brian Cornell is the CEO of Target. He went to UCLA. He's hopped around a lot in the CEO world. He was the CEO of my. Michaels. He was the CEO of Sam's Club, CEO of Pepsi. He's been at Target for over a decade. Without diving too far into it, CEO of Target is not a fun job right now. It is an aggressively

unpleasant job. Why? What happened? They may have alienated most of their black customers, I think is the simplest way to put it, and there are bigger ways to expand upon it. Weird. Made some choices. Choices have consequences. If I were the CEO of Target, I think I would have the opposite problem of Ron. I would be happy to get out. I would be happy to say, like, yes, put me over here where I can frustrate people in a more public place. But in one in which I will have university presidents and administrators coming to my, like, they're not coming to support you at Target. But if you are sheriff of NIL, you'll have some backup.

I think I would probably demand to be named sheriff and that I be given a gun. A real gun? A stun gun? A gun for looks? No, a ghost gun. Okay. Got you? I can just make a ghost gun. Wait, Spencer, can we... This is my first proposal. This is my first proposal.

Ryan Cornell, CEO of Target, mostly to escape an unpleasant time. Okay. So, Ryan, are you saying that he would escape the unpleasantness of Target to a place where no one would ever be mean to him or make a death threat, college football? People will be mean to him, but it will be more understandable. How about that? Or more predictable. You don't think, like, the meanness is more predictable in college football?

I think it's less understandable. I just want to flag that. That's what happened to the target guy. Yes, you're right. It's less understandable. It's more predictable somehow. Is that a fair dichotomy? Fair, yes.

Okay. Number two option. Maybe I think what you meant is it's maybe it's less the meanness of the meanness of the backlash that you would face as CEO of college football is less dependent on anything you do or say. Yes, it's baked into the system. Right. Yes.

I'll tell you what, though, man. You know where this, you know where this, you know, the suggestion really passes muster the groan test if they come out and say yeah the million dollar CEO college football is going to be the fuckhead who's in charge of target oh yes yes it's a yes that's a big part of why i think this could work is everybody would be like of course that's what who they picked should make them compete reality show style against i don't know jeff long who's apparently back in the playoff committee he'll never die what he'll never die no hand a god from this press release to my mouth to your ears that sounds disgusting yep uh i don't like that

it number two. Raj Subramanium, who is the CEO of FedEx. Number one, FedEx, famously not a union shop. Like, I don't even think most FedEx drivers are classified as employees. I think they're classified as contractors. It could be wrong on that. But like, if that doesn't fit with college football's super healthy labor model, I don't know what does. He went to Syracuse and Texas, So he has been to two schools that are equally good at football. I want to be very clear. He is kind of a lifer at FedEx and he only got the CEO job in 2022. But like, I don't know.

I think FedEx, I think FedEx CEO could port over to college football NIL Sheriff reasonably well, reasonably well. Yeah, kind of made me grown a little bit. Not quite like the target CEO, but like. I guess we're halfway into this. Can I ask a philosophical question? Of course. When we are looking for the best candidate to be CEO of college football, are we looking for the greatest benefit to fall to the CEO themselves

or to the power structure of college football or other? I'm going to pick other because my only goal in this list is this. see if I can accidentally scoop everyone else. Oh, I'd love this. Okay. See if we can find out. Okay, so Jeff Long definitely needs to be in this mix. They won't give him fucking anything. We really just want to see if we can make Pete Thammel hanging upside down in the rafters

like a bat of an office waiting for somebody to say the name. See if we can make him sweat by accidentally nailing it. Do you think if you could sleep rock in a cocoon of your own wings, it would cure your depression? No. It's so hot. It'd be so hot. It'd be so hot. Now, you would have developed breathable wings, surely.

What about my lack of problem-solving skills would lead you to indicate that I could invent, wait, I can print them now? I like that that's your first problem and not the fact that breathable wings means necessarily that air can go through them, which defeats the purpose of wings. I think he just needs to molt somehow. If we could get Spencer's just, it just ends up sounding like a problem for me somehow. It is. You're right. candidate number three Marvin Ellison

Mom Spencer left his carapest in the office again Marvin Ellison, the CEO of Lowe's He went to Memphis and Emery He is the only African American to serve as chairman And CEO of two Fortune 500 companies The other one was JCPenney He got this job in 2018 And I think the main reason

Marvin Ellison would want this job Is he can fight the Home Depot hegemony From Within For too long, Home Depot has had a stranglehold over college football. And if college football turned around and said, the CEO of fucking Lowe's is in charge now, I think that would be a real shot across the ballot. I like this a lot. I like reducing it to an internecine battle between home improvement stores.

Knowing absolutely nothing about this guy, I like this a whole bunch. All right. So the challenge with my first three candidates that I brought to you is that they are all sitting CEOs of major Fortune 500 corporations. They're probably making more money than this job has to offer them. They're probably making eight figures. So let's talk about two candidates

who are former CEOs. Dennis Mullenberg is the former CEO of Boeing. He was there from 2015 until 2019. What caused his resignation, you may ask? Well, planes crashing, mostly, is how I would describe. it. The reason I think Dennis can work is that even though he stepped down from his position because Boeing's were not flying right, he still was entitled to receive $62.2 million in stock

and pension awards. In the corporate world, we call this a golden parachute or we say that it's unfair because why should you get paid out for malfeasance? But in college football, this is just a buyout. Guys get paid huge millions of dollars for fucking up at their jobs every year. This doesn't look weird. This doesn't feel weird. In fact, we kind of get to make fun of people for how much they put themselves on the hook for these kind of things. So I think Dennis would work well.

He has gone to two scrappy-ish colleges, college football schools, Iowa State, and Washington. I don't think we're worried. that the head of NIL is going to be unfairly tilting things in favor of the cyclones or the huskies. Will there be some negative blowback from the aforementioned planes that fell out of sky? Yes. But next plane up? Is that fair? No, next plane down was really more his thing, wasn't it?

I guess that was the problem. I guess that was the problem. Yeah. This is going to be one of our most PR difficult hires, if I'm being honest. I love it, though, because I just, I'm just here to go. every time he's like, yeah, I think that if we don't really clamp down on this kind of NIL behavior, then what, Dennis? What? Is it going to fall from the sky and kill 329 people? Is it bad? Yeah. Is it going to destroy an Ethiopian Airlines flight? Are we going to have to call people and tell them that they're dead? Yeah, that's no. Yeah? Nothing. Okay. All right. And my last candidate is a man by the name of James.

James Keyes. It's a simple sentence. We like that. James went to Holy Cross and Columbia, so he has some football exposure, but it's not power football exposure. And James is famous for doing one thing that will ring really true to Spencer, and probably everybody else on this podcast as well. This is the CEO who brought late fees back to Blockbuster because he was convinced it

would save the company. I think the insistence that at this late stage in the game, the thing for college football to do is police NIL and make sure that it's legit. And we're not letting untoward money direct where these players go to school or what they decide to do with their lives is about as sensible as being the CEO of Blockbuster in the mid-2000s being like, yes, late fees will save us.

Netflix doesn't have them. Therefore, we will. We will be saved. And he's got something that, as far as I know, the Lowe's gentleman does not have a demonstrated track record of, which is something you're really going to need as the CEO of college football, which is the ability to say some absolute wild nonsense with a straight face. 100%. This is the one that seems to me to be the second most likely to end an absolute failure, which in itself would be a failure because if we were really college football, we would. would fail at hiring the biggest failure first. Well, Spencer, listen, when has the NCAA or its member institutions had the time to come up with a solution for NIL?

The days are packed. There's an 11 o'clock quorum that we have to get at council. I mean, how many working groups do you want? And why do you want them to do work? Just the Boeing guy's going to try to kill a whistleblower. That's really... Try? Ugh.

Yeah. You want to talk about an established track. record. That's true. That's too successful. We can't have him. Okay. All right. Do you think other people in South Carolina look at Boeing and they're like, you killed two people in your office? Amateur? Welcome to the shut down full cast. You are listening to the Internet's only college football podcast. I am Spencer Hall. I am joined as always by Ryan Nanty. Holly Anderson and on the ones and two is Michael Serber. I wanted to begin the program here 30 minutes in.

And by recognizing the wisdom and the savvy of one Manny Diaz, Manny Diaz is smart. He's currently the head coach at Duke. And this is what he had to say when asked about a rivalry with North Carolina, which is implicitly sort of asking about, hey, what's all that going on there? This is what Manny Diaz had to say when the rivalry, was mentioned in an ESPN video. I'm for whatever gets more people watching, right, D.S. said. And anything that, again, that's good for ACC football is good for all of us in the ACC.

That was a big win for us a year ago. And that's what makes college football amazing, you know, is these type of rivalries. We'll be excited, but Coach Belichick has always been great to me. Mani, Mani. Spoken like a man who spent an uncomfortable amount of time in Miami. me spoken yep and and like a man who sat at least for a minute at the desk of mac brown watching someone not answer things and just say a bunch of nonsense and skirt whatever controversial issue you asked me to weigh in on because i think everyone every reporter who's asking a question about

north carolina is asking functionally the same thing which is so what about north carolina is never satisfied with a single cast that's right that's right what does manny dyes do Dodges the question, says some pablum, rivalries are good. Hey man, that's a mobile defense. Mm-hmm. It's a mobile, multiple defense. And also mentions beating them last year.

You did it all. You did it all in a single statement. Well done, maybe you guys. Do you think there is some part of Jim Phillips, the ECC commissioner, who's like, God, last off season it was just Florida state lawsuit, this, Clemson lawsuit, that. It was just exhausting.

We're going to settle this lawsuit, and I'm looking forward to it, quiet off season or no, oh God, oh, fucking here we go. And this is not something that I'm sure we can really convey to you without. Maybe Serber could help us do a better job at this. But I think people in general, because the SEC has South in the name and does have most of the deep South teams, I think as a nation, this country and this industry really underestimate the degree to which North Carolina is a country club-ass school with a country-club-ass booster base that is aged. Is it the most country club in the ACC?

That's, anyone can answer that. I don't really know. Wake has a literal gate. Across campus, so maybe, and, you know, Duke is currently tearing the world limb from limb. But in terms of like pearl clutching, yes. It's an interesting thing because, like, there's a lot of different strains this could go here. So like, Wake is very much the like, if you don't hit this price point, you're not even getting in here. I don't know if that makes it the most country club.

But like at the same time, everyone aspires. to go to UNC, hardly anyone could get in there unless they were like the absolute elite of the elite or some sort of legacy. So like that almost seems very country club too and like making it seem attainable for which it's not. And the point of what I'm kind of trying to get out here is that North Carolina has been very successful over the years at their sometimes overtly stated mission. of keeping out whatever the undesirables of the day might be in the elderly UNC brain,

which, and that success, I would argue, has given them kind of a very soft underbelly. I think they're uniquely unprepared to handle this particular kind of attention. Let me just throw something out there. if Florida State or Miami's head coach had a decades younger girlfriend who was suddenly making headlines about the program and about the coach, I feel like Florida State and Miami, respectively, would be a lot better equipped based on lived experience to handle this kind of tabloid scrum in a way that UNC is very much not. the public at large sees unsee as on the level of florida state in miami but to your point it is you're exactly right they they need to be compared to like virginia how well would virginia handle this yeah that that's kind of what i'm trying to get at like i think because of and there are a number

of like cultural factors that obscure this like you know like there's you know they have the jumpman brand they're in a state with duke which it's it's really hard to stand out as a country club program when you're when you're with duke but there is a there is an emotional deleterate derogatory amongst UNC leadership that I think makes them a makes them uniquely ill-suited for this moment and B is maybe not nationally known although maybe by now people are starting to clue in anyway I think that's interesting and fun for them sorry Jim is that is that really what the ACC Commissioner should be doing right now because that seems like the ACC Commission what other problems could he have I was going to say like

Like, this is him behaving as a normal human being when in reality, the ACC commissioner should be like Paul Heyman. He should just be encouraging nothing but the worst storylines to get people's attention to a league that is contracting slowly into like beyond second tier status, which is where they're at in terms of just finances, right? Love you, ACC teams. We talk more about you than I think any other program does outside of like, you know, OVs and the research. Triangle Mafia. Point being, he should be like, yeah, Jordan, she's a bad lady. She's doing all kinds of crazy things there. She should be encouraging Dave Doran to just do reckless behavior and, like, show up at

funerals and like tow the coffin away like he's on Monday Night Raw. Like, we should be encouraging all of these things if we are Jim Phillips, not like openly hoping things will be tranquil because tranquil is what they've always been. They don't want that. We want sensational at this point. if I'm the commissioner. I would deny that in court, but that's what I would want.

So Jordan should start driving a hearse around Chapel Hill. Yeah, like the big boss man, man. Yeah, that's right. Powder blue. I'm showing up wherever you are and beating some ass. Yeah. Funeral expenses are real, so I thought on DeFray him before we crush you.

Hey, tell you what, you know who we didn't see in the news this week? Mike Lombardi. We could put that counter at one. Baby steps. Way to go, big fella. baby oh that's not entirely true oh shit what no wait did i miss something it was an old thing it was it was an old thing about how when the eagle so ryan uh sorry i always come right nick seriani just got extended by the philadelphia eagles and this dredged up because he

won the fucking super bowl did he did he's why did he's why oh no it was because of that he's back in the news again because of that fucking christian scammers conference yes nick seriani is yes um right right but but when the eagles hired him Lombardy made some, like, very bold comments about how basically Nick Sariani was the, I'm paraphrasing aggressively, the dumbest man to ever coach football and would never be a success. And Nick Sariani spent two Super Bowls in one, one, one. Is Nick Sariani also a dumbass?

Oh, yeah. Who I hate? Absolutely. Many things can be true at once in football. But Mike Lombardi was wrong about that and has been wrong about separate other things. I mean, I think an Eagles, fan, an Eagles fan, which you are Penny, would probably be like, yeah, he's totally right anyway, fuck him.

Like, that's, he's our dumb ass. That's a dumb guy. Listen, if the Eagles fired Exteriority this season, I'll be fine with that, I bet you. They would all be, find me an Eagles fan who isn't like, yeah, fire him right now. He just got you to a Super Bowl.

Anyone could do that. We have one again in three months. Listen, there is some logic to sell high, right? Like, it's never, it's never going to be better than this. You destroyed the Kansas the city chiefs. Everyone's happy.

Fucking fire him now. It's fine. They just, as long as you don't get rid of Howie Roseman, that's it. Everyone's convinced they're like, it's right. Trade him and Sequin. Just go. For crypto. Yes.

Anyway, the Bill Belichick story has now been mentioned in the New Yorker and the New York Times proper, not the athletic. With no shade to have the athletic. But like, if we thought it had broken contain on the last time we talked about it, Boy, is it getting worse. Was the New York Times headline, raises questions in both directions? Who do you? Here's the headline.

Bill Belichick was always in control. Then he fell for Jordan Hudson. Who wrote that? This is a journalist by the name of Catherine Rosman, and in the subhead for her profile on this, Catherine Rosman traveled to Bridgewater in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Hancock and Portland, Maine, and deep into the comments of Jordan.

Oh, so you're a migratory. bird. Okay. And deeper to the comments of Jordan Hudson's Instagram. It's good. Everything's fine. Mm-hmm. That's what I was thinking.

Excited to watch UNC football. Again, for the third week in a row, not a story. Fourth week in a row, not a story. Just talk 25 minutes about it. Yeah. Now, listen, it's, I don't feel like we are, being part of the problem when we are reveling in the discomfort of Jim Phillips. That's just good, clean fun.

That's true. Like, we would come back to the ACC of it all is really what we're doing here, right? And I do like that. I think the athletic also had a roundup of, like, anonymous coaches who are like, oh, we want to fucking destroy you and see this year because it's Bill. I think that's fun, too. That would be God. That is going to be a fantastic dynamic of, like, yeah, man.

This is what, like, Foxworth, that, one time was talking about facing Jerry Rice, and he lined up in camp against Jerry Rice when he was with the Broncos and was exhilarated by, oh, my God, this Jerry Rice in the flesh. And then thought, I'm going to fucking kill him. Like, I am going to cook him. I am going to absolutely put these clamps on him. He's not going to do anything. That's going to be every coach on the schedule. When they see Belichick, they'll be like, oh, man, that was the greatest coach of all time. I'm going to retire. I'm leaving the starters in. I'm leaving the starters in. I'm leaving the starters in in the fourth quarter i have leaving the starters in uh we are going for like i

want to say i put up 50 on bill bellichick yeah yeah yeah i really respect him and that's why i'm gonna ragdoll him like that's why i'm gonna ragdoll him like i'm an imperial riot droid there we can't we can't we can't do the and or talk till jason gets back because spencer's finally caught up yeah i'm just gonna dribble it i'm gonna try to dribble this man like he's a basketball and see what happens. That's what they're going to do to Velichick. And am I going to be hooting and hollering late at night on a Thursday when I should be in bed watching this happen? Yeah.

Is it going to be like Dave Doran? It's probably be Dave Doran. The Reaper. Dave Doran would be happy to. I mean, he would be happy to do it to anybody if they're wearing Carolina blue. But on top of that, he's going to be like, who's the greatest coach now? It's me, Dave Torren. I took it.

I took your title like it's a wrestling. Kids are asleep. I have your Super Bowl trophies. This is awesome. He's like, yeah, I get the key to your house. Jordan's my wife now. These are my Super Bowl rings. Yeah.

You can't have it anymore. Your son calls me coach. Now I hate Bobcraft. I've never met him. I do. Listen, I'm talking to Tom Brady right now. telling him how much I love him. I'm going to kiss him on the mouth and eat and not eat tomatoes with him.

It's going to be great. God, I hope Dave Doran actually does this. I've talked myself into so many good storylines that will never happen. I really respect Coach a lot. We pulled up and we were up by 37. Is this time for podcast business? Yeah. I think it's time for podcast business.

Podcast business. What's a business? Podcast business. It's a business. Podcast business. I now own your rings. The Super Bowl rings. and all the other ones

because I'm Dave Doran and I own your soul. Wow. Damn. I'm going to say two words and I'm going to hope that prompts you to promote what I want you to promote.

You ready? Mm-hmm. Bing Bong! Yeah, baby. Nick's tape. That's right. Channel 6. Channel 6, the most exciting newsletter

on the internet. Two things a week for $10 a month. This week has an interview with Nick's expert the kid Mero. That's right. That's right. Mr. Allcaps himself, Mr. Zanny Bettingfield has come to the newsletter and helps us figure out

exactly how this happened, how the Knicks famously bad at basketball and life, have managed to escape that. My theory, you need to distract a billionaire. That's it. Give a billionaire a glowing orb, and suddenly all of the things that he ruins. A far away glowing orb, too. It's not like to put this up in Atlantic City. On the other side of the country in the desert.

That's right. Next to a bunch of casinos. Like, you have to put the shiny thing in a shiny thing. Boy, Jimmy, probably, you could probably shred on bass. You could see jazz in this sphere, couldn't you? Yes. See? You see the vision, Ryan.

And that is what I ask the kid Mero about in our article slash interview about the Knicks who play tomorrow night, or tonight, I think, if you are listening to this, this will publish on Wednesday, versus the, let's see, they're playing, the Knicks are playing the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. So, you can read that and the incisive commentary of the Kid Mero only on Channel 6, the newsletter that Holly Anderson and I put out twice a week for your pleasure. this week will also feature our first Batman Friday contribution that's exactly what I was about to ask yep I'm very excited first one starts Friday we've we've we've we've had uh hmm once they close to a dozen come in at this point most of them are all of them are are very very heartfelt most of them are are not quite not quite in our in our voice but we we have one that's out of the gate from a long-time listener that I think is going to be just absolutely, absolutely what we came for.

And everybody else keeps submitting them. Appreciate it. Home of Batman Friday. Home of cultural and economic analysis by the foremost all-caps analyst on the Internet. We have, as previously promised, three celebratory events for you all to honor the fact that you generous, beautiful, you lunatics, raised $1.37 million for charity in a blessed week this year in the 2025 EDSBS Charity Bowl in support of New American Pathways. For the 1113th time in a row, the winning school is Michigan. We have three ways of celebrating for everybody.

One of them is going to be in Michigan. one of them is going to be Atlanta and one of them is going to be entirely online for those of you who cannot make it to either. Emails will be going out to the donor list regarding the Atlanta event. That's right. If you donated to the Charity Bowl,

you are getting an invitation to this event because space will be limited. If you did not donate to the Charity Bowl, we love you anyway. Thank you for listening to the show. You will have another chance next year. Yes. First of all, there will be a shutdown fullcast episode, bonus episode, dropping later this summer,

featuring Jane Koston and Stephen Godfrey, and a lot of nice things being said about Michigan, which will be extremely painful for Godfrey. So for those of you who aren't necessarily interested in hearing about Michigan, there's that to look forward to. Then, on Saturday, June 28th, I am looking at the calendar. We, Spencer Hall and friends, will be in Ann Arbor, at our home away from home, the downtown branch of the Ann Arbor District Library at 6 p.m. for a celebratory evening. This will last until 8 p.m., at which time we will break down and head out to a second place for snacks and drinks and general hanging out.

We did this last year. It was a lot of fun. We're going to do it again. Again, that is Saturday, June 28th, Ann Arbor. You can RSVP by going to pisawestern.com. Thank you for your patronage. I am saving the other URL we spoke of previously for the Atlanta event. The Atlanta event, we do not have final things like time set yet, but it will be on Saturday, July 26th, here in Atlanta event.

Atlanta, a screening of Goodfellas, free to you, food and drink available for purchase at a local movie theater. Details on that will be forthcoming and emailed to the donor list. So whatever email you donated to the Charity Bowl with, we're going to be emailing you about the Atlanta event. And if you can't go to either of these, once again, we've got a bonus episode on Michigan coming for you later in the summer. pizzawestern.com. It's free life insurance for horses. One more thing before I pass the podcast business mic to the commissioner of Phantom Island. Sure. A long, long time friend of the program, Emily Brand, who you can find on Blue Sky as Streetlight Lily, is running a fundraiser for Georgia Stomp, which does not involve stomping on a field logo. It is a program to address. period, poverty, and its effects on education in our state's public schools. They work with state, local, and county agencies to ensure that menstrual products are available

in adequate supply for schools and also for incarcerated folks. She is already over her initial goal of $5,000, and we are doing our favorite thing right now, which is running up the score. So we're going to put the link to this donation form in the show notes, or you can go find it on Emily's profile on Blue Sky. and again, her street name is Streetlight Lily. Ryan, over to you.

Boy, what do I see on the horizon? I'm here to talk about Phantom Island, the new podcast I'm doing with Stephen Godfrey. It's multiple podcasts, in fact. It's a show we do every... Spooky wind noises. Every Wednesday, where we have talked about things

from Live Golf to Will Wade to by the time this comes out, we will have an episode about one of Stevens, a thing that really sticks in Stevens Craw. What? How much the Dallas Cowboys are on television. We did math and everything to talk about whether the Cowboys are on television too much. Serber produces everything for us over there because he is generous and talented.

I mean, we pay him, to be clear, but he is also generous. I need the money. I know, I know. But it will also be the home of we're not all like this going forward. it's already the home of the single wing we have brought back not brought back it's new a show called numbers and words

who is to say what that could be in reference to there's no way to know I'm sure people will receive this news with equanimity I think they'll react

calmly and respectfully you can find it you could just search Phantom Island for in your podcast app we are having a lot of fun we will talk about college football more

at some point we're also going to talk to we have Roger Sherman booked for a couple of episodes that are also not about college football you know the the big ridiculous trophy that's sitting in the White House

for the club world cup the FIFA Club World Cup I'm going to talk about that with Roger Is that still in the Oval Office? Oh 100% it keeps showing up in pictures at some point I expect they'll move it out because I think that

tournament starts next month, but it's just, whenever there's like, here's this person looking uncomfortable as Donald Trump says something bonkers. It's like, oh, right. And the, the globe full of definitely not listening devices sitting in the whole lot of this all time. They should just put them in a candy bowl at this point. Like, everybody should just be able to toss one in. Yeah. I think as long as as you bring in a gold listening device, they're not going to care. Like, it can look, it could look like a tape recorder and if it was gold it would pass security no problems

anyway that's Phantom Island server any killer ants news to report at this point in time coming up I think I can announce this now if you live in Alabama specifically around the university of Alabama where killer ants are coming to Tuscaloosa on June 28

to Druid City Brewing A beloved full cast reader Bo Hicks has given us a spot on his stage So we'll be playing there with HESOP, which is going to be really cool. And I'm excited about that. More details to come as they get closer. But, yeah.

I actually, can I tell you, I love that this is happening at, like, the northern and southernmost poles of major college football? Yes, it's a really nice. So, yeah, if you're not able to go up to Michigan for the celebration, we're going to, we'll do the party. We'll do a southern party in Tuscalo, a month early. and you guys can come kick it with my band we'll be there probably all day too so I mean slide in my DMs we'll probably just be getting a beer at Druid City

or going to record stores or whatever all day one of these years we are actually going to get the charity Mario Kart tournament that we've been trying to do for like two years off the ground there one day and it will happen and Killer Ants will play that as well but that sounds like a grand time

if you're not a Michigan person you should definitely go to this. Yeah. Go be an Alabama person or, you know, just play one for a day. The only two, the only two types of person. The two genders, yeah. I could probably get down with, I could probably sort everyone I know in my life into one or the other.

Come, come listen, come sign my, watch me sign my book, Alabama or Michigan, the two Americas. A thoughtful look by podcaster and politico, Ryan Nanny. Oh, let's get out of here before I explore the intersection between my fist and your face. Yeah, I kind of hate myself. It plays out, Spencer. Yes, that was podcast business. What did you play in band?

I played a couple of instruments. I played trumpet, and I played French horn. Do you have either a trumpet or French horn in your possession? No, sir. Okay, Holly, I'm going to talk to you separately. Cool. Could you ever do that intro to you can't always get what you want by the stones with that French horn or not? uh yes yeah it's not hard

oh oh oh listen al cooper did it the same guy who played the keyboard on the your favorite musician bob dillan's hit like a rolling stone yeah the one the part where he wasn't plugged into a console actually like he couldn't hear anything so he just started banging on an organ and bob dillan didn't notice it bob dillin was like that sounded great because he has a tin ear and has a shit musician yeah you love him yeah that's on all those other bob dillan jam like and and also hey let's put on that Bob Dylan and fuck

no one's ever said that hmm let's let's let that breathe for a minute fucking garbage fucking garbage fucking garbage fucking garbage yeah I really love his lyrics like I didn't cite it here just just like seriously the most chat GPT person response to shit ever and they're like who's a smart musician who writes good lyrics and I'm like Bob Dylan and you're like name one they can't nobody can ever nobody can ever drop that off the dome like yeah man that one that one I have one I have one ate so much shrimp I got iodine poisoning thank you want to talk about a real contributor to society

I ain't messing with you unless you got a four-inch comb that man that man go read a book you alliterate son of a bitch UGK please

real contributors to society we get a challenge from of all people are a good starting point for a challenge from Amanda Moll friend of the podcast

who sent us on a bit of a journey when wondering out loud about what sort of the best names for each football position were, like by position. I don't, I believe this game from Amanda's partner. I don't know, a boyfriend. I don't know if, Amanda, if you want to take credit, that's fine. Okay, well, just listen, we're going to give the credit to her, and if she wants to cede said credit.

That's fine. I think that's right. Yes. Yeah. To her man. I don't want to, I don't know how online he is. I know his name. He seems cool.

But you go ahead, you can take that credit and pour it on over if you want, okay? Bless be their house anyway, because I really enjoyed thinking about this. So I wanted to start with quarterback. What is the prototypical name for a quarterback? One of the rules here, just from the outset, was that it probably shouldn't be an all-pro. I say shouldn't and not can't because eventually you just run out of room because there are a lot of common names and a lot of all-pro. pros, and they do sort of run together. But I tried to pick ones that weren't necessarily like, like, if we say quarterback,

I didn't say Peyton, right? Like, I didn't do that. I didn't do Aaron. I didn't, you know, do. Why would you do Aaron? That's a good question. So what do you do with, like, a Joe? So Joe's tricky, because there's multiple, right?

Right. There's tons. So I tried to land on what I thought was the most Joe-like name, because Joe was my first answer. Okay. But that's pretty obvious because. currently we have a borough and in the past we have a Montana.

But if you're saying most prototypical the goal here is not to be canny, right? Right. So I tried to settle on the most Joe-like name that wasn't Joe. Which in my... The show notes here says Spencer has many notes. I do. I do.

So I tried to land... I could live with a Joe, but I tried to land on a Joe-like name. And I wanted to like prototypical straight out of the friar, was our QB going to be named? I landed on Sam. If you got a quarterback named Sam, I think you're feeling pretty good about your team. Okay. I'm reminded of a very specific tweet. So, so to be clear, are you feeling good about your team or are you feeling like

we have a quarterback and he is base level? Like, I'm feeling like we got a guy who, you know, when they look at a quarterback and we move all the way over. from the stat side to the, to the vibe side, right? Vibe-wise, I feel like you're doing pretty well with the Sam. Interesting. Okay. Walk me through your work with real-life examples if you don't

mind. Do you have any? Or is this just off the dome? No, this is vibes. This is vibes primarily, because I can think of some quarterbacks you may not want name Sam. Okay. But at the same time, I think Sam, firm, strong. Not like an overly, crazily overbearing name, but like,

that's a dude's name like you want a dude you want somebody we can all be comfortable with i feel like i can go to the dumb guys in the crowd and i'll be like hey quarterback's name sam and they're like that's a workman like name i can respect it he's not going to be a diva he's going to hand the ball off when he has to sam okay um can i we kind of got into this last week but can i throw out a problem that's quarterback specific sure and you know this happens at other positions but perhaps due to the prominence of the position and how famous the players get, the degree is less marked. I brought up last week for different reasons,

and I still believe that there are two genres of quarterback, which is you have the, in my brain, which is you have the prototypical, well, it's not prototypical anymore, and I guess that's the point. You have the ancient of old, built like an oak, uh also falls down like an oak uh father grandfather and uncle both have all have buildings at the school named after them kind of quarterback and then you have what i think of in my head is the big 12 i guess i think of them as SEC versus big 12 quarterbacks or like SEC and big 10

versus big 12 quarterbacks uh and maybe you could throw the ACC in this too because they they fuck around with dudes with names like caden but you have you have the big 12 quarterback whose name is composed entirely of X's and Z's. Yeah, you're J's Chase Caden's? Mm-hmm. Yeah. But more specifically, you're like Brickston, Paxton, Daxton's, right? Jack links with a J-A-K.

Right, right. And in my head, and there's not another position I would argue this for, but in, as quarterback specifically, I do feel like we have to have two here because you're basically shutting off the, ah, shit, he's doing some high school stuff out. there kind of guy. Okay.

The backup, we can put the backup in. Sam's our starter. And they can fight, yeah. Yeah, and Jack Links is our backup. In favor of Sam for a quick minute, it doesn't sound like, it, A, sounds like a guy who is,

maybe should have graduated three or four years ago in a still on campus. And also kind of sounds like he's a guy per person to our earlier discussion who is maybe not necessarily in the best shape, but can fucking sling it. Yeah, he's got a bad. knee, right? Like, he's got a knee that's just never going to be right again. At 19, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or at

24 when he's a junior. There is a sort of, like, inherent, like, Sam is an old soul, right? Yeah. I think that works. Okay, I'm fine. Sam's an old soul, and his joints are also old souls. His joint, he is old joints. Yeah. Yeah, his joints are very old. Do we want to just name the second quarterback Jack Lynx, but spelled like the cat, but with two X's? Yes. Yes. I will shake. J-A-K-L-Y-E. NXX. I will literally take any spelling of Jacklings. You could write down, you could write down theta exclamation point

and a square that's just blue and tell me that's Jacklings. I think Jason hit this last week with Wing-Dings-Win's. Yeah. It could be Jacques, but pronounced Jack. Ooh, ooh. Canadian transfer. Yeah. I like that. So running back, I had running back, there are so many

different types of running back names that I really had a hard time landing on a universal. So I would Mitt. Second step here, I have failed, but I think I came up with a good pattern. Okay. Okay. A running back has to have four syllables. A four syllable name. There are so many great running backs. A first name? Nope, nope. Entire name. You have to think of it as a concept. It's got to be four. Okay. Marcus Allen. Right. Derek Henry. Barry Sanders. You're thinking about a steady forward cadence here when it comes to the name. That makes sense. Tyrone Wheatley Yes

LaGarrett Blunt Yeah Lageret Well Hey listen The way the coach would say it That's a juke on the end Right

Legerette Leonard four net This is pretty good Uh huh Well and it's I think It's nominative destiny Because four syllables

Okay Okay It's rolling right Like there's a meter to it Like a running backs rhythm Right That's why Christian McCaffrey

he fucks so many dudes up. That's right. Yeah, because he's got the fifth syllable and just throwing people there. Yeah. It's six, but, okay. Yes, he's got to be four syllables to be a classic running back name.

You can kind of shorten it to five. Yeah, the way I say, Christian McCaffrey's five syllables. Okay. So, yes, I go four syllables for the running back, all right? Because there's just an amazing diversity of names there.

I think you just have to go, Okay. We'll go four syllables. You want a workhorse name. Correct. A sturdy workhorse name. Forward progress. Yes.

Forward progress has to be the name. So I can make, all right. Darren McFadden. Darren. Dern. Arkansas helps there. Dern McFadden. There you go.

Travis Henry. You can actually, well, and that still fits in the clap, what? Darren McFadden, clap. clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. You can make that work. Okay. Yeah. We can make all of these work. I think just generally, if you can get the four-syllable Gallup name, you're going to be good. Fullback. Full-back, I think we can all agree.

If you had to pick a prototypical one, it'd be Mac. Right? If you could be named Mac, that is the full-back name. Although I will take a secondary. Our second string is Larry. Larry feels better to me there. Larry? Okay. Yeah. Could I interest you in a John? Like, we were having trouble with Joe earlier, but speak, like, the, the, the two that came

immediately to mind were John Connor and John Henry Johnson, right? Yeah. I was, I was thinking, I was just trying to think of the most, like, the strongest, but yet accessible names. You want it to be a guy, but you would want, like, you want this to be pretty firm. Larry sounds like he clocks in, and that to me is, like, peak full back of, like. Bullback's lunch pails, right? Yes.

Larry Zonka, yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's an all-pro, but like. Although I can't think of one, is Frank the name that you want, regardless of whether or not there's actually been one? I guess this is another question. Do you want, do you, does there have to be a player that has had that name, excuse, with apologies to Jack Link's. Yeah, or are we just, can the name itself be created out of vibes, or does there have to be a basis of evidence for that name? No, like I think, you know, like the prototypical Sam in my head for a quarterback doesn't necessarily exist, but like I think it lands in between. Take that, Sam Darnold.

I've got a hunt for Ellinger, but it's derogatory. Yeah. Like, I think that's fine. Holly, to your point, I, Frank feels more interior offensive linemen. Okay. I actually. Yeah, because all offensive linemen have to look like they have a pension. You're right.

Right, right. And most of the interior of the D-line, too. Yeah. So I had Frank for Tide End. Oh, whoa. Okay. Yeah. Now there is Frank.

That feels like asynchronous. Like I think if this is. Or possibly out of date for the way we use Tidins today? Yes. Probably. Yes. Like I think that's tight ends 20 years ago. Like if I could be specific, if we were doing an NFL prototypical Tid name, I would, I would give you that there.

But with with a tip of the cap to Amanda Moll's, uh, Amanda Moll's gentleman. I would go with Kyle here Oh, Kyle's pretty good Ooh, I like that Because Kyle could go a lot of different ways You know why I like You got big tiles, you got small Kyle's Do you know why I like that?

Kyle also feels like a safety name And I feel like that's a matchup That's going to go together Yeah, yeah, yeah Best Kyle wins One Kyle out Next Kyle up Next Kyle up

Next second The only one Hey listen, if you said Hey man, Kyle He's faster than you think Kyle's enter! Let's enter a two-kyle formation. That's an ace formation.

We got two Kyle's, one motions to the weak side. That's right. You've gone double Kyle. I can see this in my head. I can see Kyle, and I know we said we weren't pulling directly, but I can like Kyle Pitts versus Kyle Dugger. Let's go. Wide receiver, challenge.

A challenge because there are so many. We now put three or four on the field. It's very hard to get sort of a continuity of wide receivers when you have so many and such a diversity of names. So I had to create, like, I think, a rubric generally, okay? One, if I had a choice, I want a wide receiver whose name is Andre. I don't know why. I need an Andre.

Not just because Andre Johnson is one of the prototypes for what a wide receiver should be. Well, you accept permutations of the D-Andre, et cetera, variety. Yeah, yeah. I could do Andre variants. So if there's a D-Andre, right, however you want to mix it up. Can I carve out a subcategory? Sure. A slot receiver needs to have an alliterative.

name. First and last name need to start with the same letter. Work with me here. I think we're heading in the same direction because wide receiver two and three, I have anyone that starts with T, Trevor's, Troyes, Terrence, Tony, Tori. All right, these are all really, Todd. Todd. Let's bring it a Todd. A tot. Hey, the deceptive slot receiver named Todd, I think. He plays for the Rams already. But I think if you combine that with alliterative for my slot receiver, it's like, oh, my God, Todd Turkelson, out in the flat. Tatoroa McMillan, come on. T is like a bold, get you started kind of sound. It's, you know, it's percussive.

I love it. So I would go ahead for explosiveness. I need a wide receiver. All you got to do, first name's got to start with T. And you've got to be the number two or the number three. Okay. Uh, hmm. I do think there is something to your wide receiver one having a one-syllable last name.

Yeah. I think, I think, like, true, not all the time. Like, you can think of plenty of examples where this isn't true, but, like, I think it's not a coincidence that some of the true, like, burners on the outside. It's just like that one, that one syllable you hit. Yeah. Moss. Yeah. Yeah, because if it's one syllable, it is easier to turn their last name into a verb.

So I think if we just went Andre plus organic noun of some sort, then we're pretty good, right? So one-syllable noun, wood, moss, rice, ground. We need an outside player either, I would accept either a DB or an outside receiver with the last name, Beets, like, B-E-E-E-T-S. Yeah, yeah, it's good. Can you imagine? It's really good. Well, like, we got all kinds, you know, we've had, you know, Fiona Apple is a. person.

We have... Eli Apple is a person. Surnames with produce are not completely unheard of. But I'm just like, I'm trying to imagine like, Beats goes purple. Mm-hmm. DJ Beets. I'm sorry. I'm having a stroke of some

kind. Sorry. It's fine. It's fine. We're having a normal football conversation. Julio Jones, another burner with a single syllable last night. Yeah. I kind of like, by the way, like, Andre Julio, if you can pick a name that's like, kind of like, a romance language name. Plus organic.

Here we go. I think we're getting toward a general pattern or theory of wide receiver name. I like this. Vladimir Boot. Dude, do you know what I would take? Vladimir Boots a second round or minimum for me instantly on name. Vlad Boot? If I can throw a T-D to Vlad Boot, career made.

I have very specific ones for offensive linemen. I'm not necessarily saying these are the all. only names, but I think they have to be definitely in the key of these names. If I had to go ahead and field an offensive line, strictly by name, my left tackle is named Herman. All right, I need a name that's monumental, huge, old, an oak, Herman. My right tackle is going to be named Leonard, okay? Or Lenny, you can call him that, but like on the birth certificate, it says Leonard. Offensive guards, I got a Joe and a Sean. I disagree with Sean. You disagree with Sean?

I'm okay if you move Sean to center. I need a Carl at guard. I need a Carl. Okay, I can do that. Yeah, because my Sean, by the way, is S-H-A-W-N. It can't be S-E-A-N. Right. That's a great name.

Yeah, you're just not going to be able to, like, pack on enough ass. Like, I don't know. It's just, if you name him Sean, that's only four letters. You can't hang 300 pounds on four letters. You need five. The U and Sean is basically like half a butt. As a former, as a former center, Sean is a backup quarterback ass name. Okay, okay.

then we're going to subcarl. We got a Joe and a Carl. We got our workmen like guys here on the interior. Centers, I have four. Center is a depth issue because centers are just frequently injured and like you never know which one's going to work or which one's going to be able to snap the ball correctly. So I have four names, okay?

You can reject any one of them. I just think these are all eligible and strong center names, okay? Kevin, Ryan, Alex, Mike. Alex and Mike are sticking out to me as, and like we have Michael Cerber here. I don't know Cerber if you've ever gone by mine. I did not know he played center. So, like, I was Mike. I was Mike until my whole life.

I was Mikey and then I was Mike. That feels very fortuitous. That feels like the Cosmos calling out to us to say that Mike is your center name. Yep. Okay. That's good. Also, Mike doesn't sound real tall, right? No.

Mike's like a 6-1-6-2 guy at most. We say we're 6-1-6-2. We're the 5-11 center. but yeah that's right but that snap is hot and on time okay it's right there every time we are now moving to defense okay defensive end very very specific demands of my defensive end because based not only on a number of prominent defense events but just the general vibe I like a gender ambiguous name here okay like if you look for for a defensive end okay Courtney does that work Courtney Whitney Leslie like there's a number if you have

have a gender ambiguous name, I think your chances of being a good defensive end go up. Robin doesn't really work, but that's because it's more of a baseball name in my opinion. Yes, I agree. But yeah, I think like a Courtney or Whitney here, great call. Because for some reason, if I name you that, then 21 years later, you're going to be six foot six and capable of dunking a basketball while also being able to hang clean like 400 pounds. Taylor kind of works, but it's more of a stand-up linebacker who rushes the quarterback a lot.

yeah i think that's correct is the model name shit taylor swift's a great football name it is a very good football name yeah damn i'd never really thought about it before do you think that will happen do you think we'll get a recruit in like 10 years whose name is taylor swift god it's going to rule i hope he's a running back

or a wide receiver either one that'd be great he'd be like too bad we got linebacker commit carly ray jepson fight me I have more of a, I have more of a categorical pick for the other defensive end. I need a Roman or a classical name here, okay? Like any of your, any of your

various, like if there was a guy named Cicero, he would be, right, he'd be a defensive end. A Virgil. A Virgil at defensive end, right? That's what we need at the other defensive end. So gender ambiguous on one side,

classical name on the other. And we just, Like, come on, there's a dude named Odysseus on the field. He's going to be a defensive end. Now I got a question. Well, okay. The run stuffing defensive end, not the pass rusher. Aeneas Williams throws that off a little bit.

He does. He does. It's true. Now, my question is this, are you thinking of a defense with four down linemen or three? Because I think that really impacts where you're going with the interior defensive end. I'm going to line you up on a four three and then you do whatever you need to do. Okay. If you want to put spur in here, if you put that little B in your bonnet, come back in a cup.

couple of picks. We'll go to like, we'll go to the combo. I know who my single defensive tackle is if we're going with three downline, but I want to hear yours. Well, who's your single? I want to hear yours. Dexter. Dexter is my single D.T. Okay, so this fits under, I have sizable male name as nose tackle pick. Okay. So that would either be, and my examples are Gerald, Gerard, Marvin, like names that you have to like. Yeah, Marvin's a pretty good one. But, I would like to also nominate Marvin. If you read the name and you're like, is he 55? Yeah. Or is he wearing 55? Yeah, I like that. I think we can put both of them. I could do that.

Walt. Yeah, a Walt is strong. Walt or Walter, either one. Walt Strong. Yeah. Walt, no love. Walt have many feelings. Is this also a place?

to put, is this also a place to put the surnames as first names bunch? Your, your Coopers, your archers, your parkers. Yes. I, uh, okay, that feels more DB to me for some reason. Okay, okay. Let me hear it. Yeah, we'll, we'll get, we'll get to DB. So let's see which one it, we'll see which one it flexes toward. Okay. Um, so yes, I could go with that for our defensive of tackles. Strongside linebacker, I feel like you've got to be a James or a Patrick, right? Help me choose, because I'm not quite sure. Patrick is kind of cheating.

I think English-Irish name is fine here. Okay. Yeah. So we'll go with the Scotch Irish name somewhere in there. Sure. Middle linebacker, this one doesn't feel like it bends a lot to me. New Testament gospel name, okay? Like you're Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

So I think this is your spot on the field where you, have a nickname player. This is where you have somebody who doesn't go by their given name. They either go by their middle name or a nickname. Not wide receiver. No. I really think that's going to be, feels more right for middle linebacker. Okay.

This is like a boo or a deuce or something like that. Yep. Yep. Yep. I could do that. Yeah. Boss man. So.

Got it. Somebody called me boss man the other day. It was the best. Fuck, sir. Don't ever call me, sir. If you call me boss man, we're best friends. Boss is like, if you call me boss, chief, I like that. Yeah. I don't even need like the status that comes with it. It just sounds nice. It's just fun. Yeah. Hey, boss. Yeah. That's me. El Hefe. You can be boss too. We can both be boss. We can live it in a egalitarian. Everyone can be boss man if we want it to be that way.

the society we could live in. That's what we're going to do. For your weak side line, or your weak side linebacker, I had to choose. Again, I couldn't quite narrow it down, but it fell into the category of first names that are popular in New Zealand. What do I mean by that? Okay. The top 10 most popular names in 2024 for boys in New Zealand.

Noah, Oliver, Leo, George, Jack, Luca, Theodore, Elijah, Arthur. I thought we, I was like, weak side linebacker, I could do that. Or Derek. Derek was another, D-E-R-E-K. Spelled D-E-R-E-K, I bet. Yes, yes. Although D-E-R-R-I-C-K is also acceptable because, you know. Sure.

Not that we're going one for one, but Derek Brooks is right there. It helps. Like the greatest weak side linebacker ever. So yeah. But I was just trying to think I was like, I have to hear a New Zealand accent say any of these names. Didick. And it just passed it for me. I'm like, that's a weak side linebacker.

Okay, sure. Yeah, okay, that's fun. This is my weakest rationale, strongest attraction pick, okay? Maybe my most vibesy pick of all. In an otherwise scientifically perfect exercise, I think we can allow that. Hey, listen, I thought we came close to science on the defensive line. I think we're right there. this is this is what this is is late may content that's right

get up here do better do you want us to preview the playoff no you want spencer to say names in a new zealand accent that's right strong safety this was kind of a kevinish category and i really had a hard time not using actual names so the one i wrote down because after much thinking the only one I come down was like the Kevin ass category of like Brian you need a genial name that belies the violence of the position okay a Steve a Brian a Kevin a name that just is like

the like brown paper wrapper concealing the hammer underneath that's what you need yeah because it yeah okay I like that I do want I do want her free safety to also be named Kyle though I feel very strongly about Okay, because I have just free safety, I have grandpa names. So if you got a grandpa name, that's your free safety. Your grandpa. I feel like we're using those in other places, though, aren't we? I think we, well, we are now.

I think we've changed a couple of them. So free safety, we can throw it up in the air. It could be truly free, if you would like. You would also like your free safety to be named Kyle? I want Kyle to be matching Kyle. I'm going triple Kyle. Kyle is our most football name. I want tight end Kyle being covered, being sure.

shadowed by free safety, Kyle, at all times. And Kyle, your greatest opponent will truly be yourself. Yeah. And then, so cornerbacks, cornerbacks. I think cornerback is a great place for a traditionally, like, you need like a name with some royalty to it, right? Some sort of derivative of royalty. Osiris? Yeah.

we could do that if your name Ray Ray is a great cornerback name Rex hasn't been a cornerback name

but maybe it should be no I think it would play you know if honestly if we had a quarterback from the people's Republic of China

his name would be Huang right like you would go yeah so any name that's a derivative of royalty peerage or like Earl Earl's a great cornerback Lee Roy kind of works

yeah leroy leroy totally works so anything that is a a kingly name i think plays at both cornerback positions yeah and to wrap up anyone any kickers kickers can be named anything like like there's absolutely no thread to pull between kickers like kickers and punters i had no name theme that i could pull apparently kickers and punters are exactly what we think they are they are the et cetera uh at all section of they're the they're the blanks they're the blanks they're the blanks I have old pieces. Incredibly important. Incredibly important.

Yeah, because when I was started, that's the only place where I was like, Todd fits, and I was like, why? And I was like, I don't know, it doesn't fit anywhere else. Famous planner named Todd. Sorry, Todd. Sorry, Todd.

Sorry to your brother. Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking of, like, of the famous specialist in this regard. You've got Ray, obviously. You've got, yeah, you're right. There's Morton. Like at college, there's, You know, Presley.

Yeah. Jake. Uh, Martin. I'm sorry, Martin. Sorry. Apologies to all grammaticas. Boy, you know, I'm getting old, but I'm calling him Martin Gramatica. Yeah.

And that's Martin Gramatica on the kick. Yeah. So I think where we did well here, I feel very strongly about our lines. I think the lines are very set in terms of, of names and what names should be on the line. Cornerbacks, maybe could do some work. Kickers, wide open. I have to admit, as an academic area, I feel out of depth here.

I need a real solid expert to come in and tell me what kicker names are and aren't. A kicker name to me seems like a Hudson. Hmm. Like, you know, like a Watson? Yeah, like a Watson or a Hudson, like a, just a name that you wouldn't particularly, would think would actually be of a landmark or a, uh, you know, a body, maybe, maybe a body of water or a mountain or a boat, Mitchell, you know, like, I don't know. Isthmus. Yeah, like, if we look at what names, right, like, what names we actually had in terms of kickers,

there's a lot of, it's all over the map. Panama. My favorite is Oregon's current kicker, Atticus Sappington. See? Close. Or Buffalo's. Upton Bellin font. All right, hold on. Follow me here. I think Kickers should have a name that sounds like it could be a character in a noir film.

Maybe the protagonist, maybe the antagonist, maybe somebody who's just in it briefly. But I think if you have a name where you could be in a noir film, you are a kicker. I'm going to test this. Are you ready? Okay. Okay, I'm going to test this. that's right around the corner i went to the bar and i said has nolan hauser been here that's pretty good it's pretty good ramrod muldoon yeah any idea on the perps in the perp's name yeah we're looking

for a jackson corville yeah state yeah forget it jacons ball state wait wait just one more you're ready i'll never forget that day my partner clune van andle shot down in the streets. Oh, we really slept on the fans there. There are some noir-ass names here. Yeah. Who did this? I think it was Abraham Montagnos. What about, is Kicker where we could maybe explore some mononyms?

We could. We haven't traditionally, but I agree that we should. Yeah. Especially since we do have a market tendency to import kickers from Oceania. Yeah. I would, I'd be so much more excited for an Iowa. a game if every time the offense stalled out, Hulk trotted

onto the field to try to make a 43-yard field goal. Now in the field, it's Fontaine. Yeah, I'll be handling this claim for consolidated insurance. My name's Brock Travelstead. Matt, Bogart is actually a great name for a kicker, both noir-wise

and conceptually. Her lover, Gabriel Placincia, insured that the policy would be paid out to him. and not the husband.