The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - GBF- Nitro's Fantasy Draft w/ Ian Rapoport and Joe Thomas

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

Ian Rapoport joins the show to discuss final roster cuts, what it was like being filmed for NFL Draft: The Pick Is In and to shame Billy's Peloton practices. Mike Wright of The Fantasy Footballers joins the show to give some fantasy advice and to help Dan "Nitro" Clark get ready for his draft. Joe Thomas teaches us a beer drinking trick he learned in Ireland and explains why his HOF bust looks the way it does. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. God bless football Billy Gil. God bless football Mike, yay. God bless football Stu got sent. I got a question for you. I was just watching hard knocks and Randall Cobb said that his kids Godfather's Aaron Rogers and I'm wondering was that the smartest business decision ever made in the history of the NFL? Make Aaron Rogers your kids Godfather. Yes, so he takes care of you for the rest of your career. And wherever he goes, you go, because he wants to beat near his godson, yes. I have a rude question.

And he's got great eyes. I mean, Randall Cobb has a set of people. Austin those eyes. Yeah. I have a rude question, and I don't want this to sound as rude as I Beavolks sound ultimately right, but At part of the god-parent thing is right is if something happens to you then

Theoretically that person will raise your children help you raise your children take care of your children whatever right Do you want Aaron Rogers raising your children? It's a fair question. It's a fair question. Not that there's anything wrong with him. He seems like he likes to have fun. And just, you know, if he disappears for three days, I'm like a wellness retreat or something. And like the kid needs to be taken to school.

How does that kid get to school? Rogers is like in a cave somewhere. You know, he's out in a Taylor Swift concert on a school night. Like, what do we do? I would say this. Aaron Rodgers wouldn't be the first person that had to grow up immediately once a kid entered the picture.

I mean, it could be worse options in terms of Godfather's for former Packer quarterbacks. Oh, jeez. Oh, my God. It's in boil. I was talking about Macau. I know what you were talking about. How do you say? Was it, can you say no?

And someone asked you to be a God parent, can you say no? Sure. What do you think? What do you think the percentage of that is? It has to be low, right? It has to be very, very low. I mean, if someone asks you to be the Godfather of their child, that means you guys are really close.

Like Mike, that'd be hard for you to say no if someone asks you to do that. I couldn't do it. I've heard of it though. Does a relationship end at that point? Yes. Yeah, it changes. It definitely changes. Yeah. Interesting. I mean, is it

Levitard, the Godfather to Chris Cody? Oh, I don't know. That's that can't be true, is it? Is that like Chris works with us? That was amazing. I take that back. By the way, by the way, again, business hall of fame decision right there by Greg. Sun's got a job for life and sunscreen. So does Greg. Holy what are we doing this week? Football's like right here. The season is going to start for real. Well, college football gets underway.

Forget about week zero. Okay, this is week one. It's a full slate of action and then we have the NFL. I guys, we are here. We're here. It's not almost here. It is here. It starts this weekend and then Thursday with the NFL. I'm super excited for it. Oh my excited. I'm so nervous about the jets. I do not know what to do. I don't know. I don't like these expectations. I don't like having a quarterback. Mary said it. Wow. I mean, you haven't played a game yet with the quarterback. And you already are so stressed out about that.

You don't like having one. I am, I am, I am, I'm all over the board in terms of what I think this season is going to be. Like some days I wake up and I feel like, and Mikey, I know you're going through this as well. I feel like we're going to be out when six to start. The season because the schedule is really difficult and where the jets and some days I wake up and I watch hard knocks and I see our rotters out there slinging the ball and Breast Hall's knee is getting healthy and they have two good running backs and they have skill position players on the offensive line has some questions they have a good defense and some warnings I wake up and I think oh my god 15 and two we're going to the Super Bowl. I am all over the board right now. I'm concerned about the Jets

because I had my fantasy draft, and we'll talk about fantasy on this episode, and I have two Jets on my team, and I'm a little bit worried about that, because I have three Jets on my team, I just realized. Jesus. I have Breeze Hall, I have Nicole Hardman, and I just realized I drafted Aaron Rodgers just in case,

because I have Joe Burrow So I'm probably not gonna replace Joe Burrow, but if someone gets hurt and Aaron Rogers has these weapons Well, Burrow is her Billy, so that's a good job by you. Burrow's heard. I don't think he's gonna start the season He started practicing. He started practicing. He'll be fine. Don't worry. He'll be fine. He's still braw. He'll be fine Exactly right. You're right. You're right. Billy. You're right. I'm sorry. I am sorry How do you feel about the dolphins not getting Jonathan Taylor? Were you okay with that? Yeah, I mean, I'm fine because also I drafted where he mostered so that's good for me Are all your minions gonna be for my

I also drafted Jonathan Taylor I forgot I took him in like the fifth round because I figured there was value there No one cares about my team, but I may I may have a terrible team We're awesome Holy shit How many guys in this year? I'm in two just two. Have you done your drafts yet? I don't know No, I haven't done mine yet. I do mine the I have won the big draft that I do every single year that that is the That is next Thursday, so I'll be doing it as the season kicks off Oh, those are the best because what ends up happening is while the draft is going on

You have some random player just accumulating a bunch of points You're like this is gonna be the steal of the draft this year this person's a star No one's gonna know and you reach on like the fourth receiver and they get you 20 points week one and then they don't do anything the rest of the server here from them again exactly right I can never resist that guy oh he's take that guy like in the second round the second round I mean the draft starts right at eight and if some guy has a big, you know, quarter and a half, I'm taking them. And then I got us, we did it, by the way, we did it.

And I know you're wondering what we did. And if you have been listening to God bless football, the entire office, God bless you. Number one, and number two, you'll know that we had Nitro on one week. And Nitro told us that he wanted to have us help him with his fantasy team and that we came up with this ridiculous idea of having a fantasy expert come on. I'm going to make a Nitro with his fantasy team and then we actually did that.

So on this week's episode, you're going to it's not going to happen just yet because we have actual NFL news and actually want to follow reporters here, but later on in this episode, we're going to get to a fantasy expert helping Nitro with his fantasy draft, which is the strangest sentence, I think we've said. The fantasy expert is Michael Wright, fantasy footballers, they have a great podcast, they have figured out how to do fantasy football

in a fun and different way, entertaining way. And so yes, he will be helping Nitro with his draft because Nitro has Billy for help. And when Nitro has for help, we get him out. We're also gonna have Ian Rappaport on. We're also gonna have Joe Thomas, the Hall of Famer on with Mike Goliq. So a nice little episode before the season here, Billy and Mike,

I'm excited for it. God bless football. God bless football. Hey Ian, What's up? You have a slower period now that final rosters are out or is it busy still because cut players are starting to sign? Yeah, I'd say most of that is probably done. Whole cut down period is very stressful. So I'm glad when it's over, believe me. Still got some things to cross off the list

before the season, but I'm glad that that parts over. Well, I want to hear about this list, the things you have to cross off before the season starts, E and Rapid Board, please tell us about it. What's on that list? All right, so, you know, I mean, basically what we do is you start training camp and you have a list of things that could happen

And I have actually I have a whiteboard in my office right there and I have it goes from my players who could be traded We got to cross off some yesterday John at the teller. We did not cross off and Contracts that could happen crossed off a lot of those others. We did not Holdouts, you know Zach Martin ended his holdout that was good Chris Jones still holding out Nick Bosa still holding out Joe Burles still done another contract Justin Jefferson still does not have a contract so there's like you know there's a lot of things that still need to happen but you

know I would say probably went a long way and handling a lot of those things over the last several days, which is why it's been extremely busy and pretty stressful. Ian Rappaport is with us. I have so many questions here, Billy, because I want to see the whiteboard, and I want to go through his phone and start calling everyone in his phone.

Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but he has behind him what looks like a coat rack full of, probably hundreds of credentials just hanging out there behind him. And I'm wondering how far back those go, what the story is with those, what the coolest one on there is. I mean, I have so many. So these go back to when I was covering high schools for the journal news in West US, New York, for when I was in Mississippi, when I was in Alabama,

and I was in Boston, and then Dallas, and now here I keep everything, and my plan was to put them on the co-rack, and then if I ever had to do a, you know, a TV thing, which, you know, now I actually do that, but when I started, I didn't even know if it was possible. I thought it'd be really cool to have in the corner so people could know what events that went to. And then when I got my first home camera in Dallas, for NFL Network, they were like, yeah, can you move that really sloppy code rack out of the picture because it looks like a mess. And I'm like, why did I keep all these things? There's some, I mean, you know, we got to go ahead. You look for them. And I'll tell everyone NFL draft.

The first, the pick is in premiered on August 25th and is streaming right now on Roku. And Ian Rappaport is a big part of it. And we'll talk to him about it in just a second. But he is looking through all his credentials right now, trying to find the good one for us. We got SEC baseball tournament, which is one of my favorite events to cover.

There's a Southern Miss Tulane football game that I cover. There's literally everything. I never throw away anything. So it's fun to just sometimes go through and what happens is my two boys will come in here with their friends. They'll just put some on and walk out with like five credentials around their neck. You know what I think is cool about this is that young journalists and people like up and coming in the industry will keep like their first credentials in the first time they went to a cool event and put in a box, put in a corner, whatever.

And it's kind of cool to see someone of your stature still doing that even though you're so established. Well, I mean, it's still kind of cool, honestly. Like, you're not allowed to take a picture of your credential and put it on social media, but I would if I was allowed. You know, like it's just, it's still every event. You're like, you get to and you're like,

ah, cool, I'm at Super Bowl, I'm at the Combine, I'm at the Draft, or if there's ever, you know, if we ever go, like, we go to a lot of horse races, and'm at the combine, I'm at the draft or if there's ever you know if we ever go like We go to a lot of horse races and sometimes you get bracelets That's what they do mostly, but sometimes you get credentials and I'm like all right like this is a good one Put it on the list, you know where you go to concerts. It's just you know, I like to collect things You'll hoarder. I'm not a hoarder. I'm really not. I don't keep everything. Like, you know, there are plenty of, like, whenever I get a new t-shirt, I throw out an old t-shirt. I feel like that's a solid way to do it.

I go through my closet once every year or so and I throw out the t-shirts, shirts I don't wear. Credentials, I just keep. It's fun to go through and it's, you know, it's also like, I've done a lot of things. And I have a lot of, like, really intense moments at this desk in my job. And then there's sometimes, and I've done a lot of things, and I have a lot of like really intense moments at this desk in my job. And then there's sometimes,

and I'm kind of just on a brainless phone call, not doing anything, and I'll kind of just go through and be like, well, that was a fun event, you know? It's just, it's a great trip down memory lane. I NFL draft the pick is in. It's streaming right now on Roku. It premiered on August 25th. How'd you get involved with it?

Tell the audience about it. You know, I get a lot of calls from different people. A lot of times when there's a number, I don't recognize I won't answer, ignore it. But, you know, I got a call from somebody to come in and call it Skydance to kind of pick my brain and talk, you know, talk about the draft.

I kind of went through some things and, you know, I'm like, well, you know, like we're doing it you know all access draft documentary which like just so you guys know the draft is my favorite thing we do by far. I love the draft and I mean you see in the documentary you can tell like I have a blast it's very intense, extremely intense like when the Texans traded up to three you can actually see the reaction and see me get it beeped out a little bit But like it is you know every moment is like something wild could happen and it's so fun and I love it But anyway, so there's a producer from Skydance just kind of pick up my brain

And I'm mentioning people that you would be really good to fall around good to talk to people know out about the draft And I'm about to end the conversation and she was like, oh no, no, we want to follow you. I was like, really? Like yeah, I'm like, huh. I was like, well, I have a lot of private conversations as long as those remain private, as long as you can just hear my end, which you can. And obviously they are so respectful and so professional, they protect everything.

I'm like, you want to come on in? Like, come on in. Because the only thing I really care about is because the draft is so fun and so wild. I want people to like it like I do. You know what I mean? So like, if they could show how awesome it is, like, come on. Let's hang out for three days. And that's basically what it was. And you know, you always hear on hard knocks when people be like, oh, you know, you forget the cameras are there. And I would kind of be like, okay, whatever.

But it's really true. You just have these conversations and you go through the moments and like there were a couple of times on the documentary where I'm like, did I say that? Were the cameras there? Because you kind of forget.

But I thought, I mean, I expected it to be great. It was even better than I thought. It was just, anyway, it was, the whole thing was awesome. NFL draft, the pick is in, it's on Roku right now. What happened with the dolphins of Jonathan Taylor? Why did that deal Ian not get done? Yeah, I mean, the dolphins and the packers were the two teams that were in the mix for Jonathan Taylor.

Both made offers, both were real legitimate. You know, in the end, Chris Baller decided that it wasn't enough. And, you know, they didn't do a trade. And I thought a trade was gonna get done. I think a lot of people thought a trade was gonna get done. I still think a trade is going to get done. I think a lot of people thought a trade was going to get done. I still think a trade is going to happen. It just has not happened yet.

So, you know, we'll wait and like, he's on the PUP list. He's not going to play for the first four weeks. So get fully healthy and ready to go. And then, you know, my guess is he ends up getting traded at some point in October because that's probably the logical ending of this whole thing anyway. Do you think that keeping him on the PUP is ultimately going to get them what they want

for him because of an injury to a running back on a team or something, or do you think that they may have shot themselves in the foot now and they're going to ultimately have to settle for a lesser deal? Well, there's two ways to look at it, right? I mean, someone is going to have a running back injury. Some contender is going to have a running back injury. Now, not everyone wants to pay a lot for running back. Not everyone wants to trade for running back, but because Chris Ballard didn't like the deals, didn't think it was enough. He gave himself more time to say like, all right, maybe I'll get better

or maybe not, you know, or maybe like, I don't, I don't foresee him playing the season for them. I don't, I mean, I guess anything's possible, but it would be hard to imagine it happens under this current scenario, but you can always trade them in the off season. You know, I mean, that's the thing,, it's, you know, even though the deadline came and went, and even though he's now on the PUP, plenty of options still exist. The Joe Barrow contract that you talked about earlier, the fact that it's not done, it's on your whiteboard. You need to check it off before the season starts.

It's a weird thing, okay. It's his contract, not yours, but you want to check it off, and I understand that. I get it. When that contract is settled, okay, When they actually get around to signing Joe Burrow, what do you imagine that contract's going to look like? You know, I'm sure it'll be the highest paid player in the NFL as he should be. It should be. It should be.

And that's not, you know, those aren't really the questions. It's like, you know, Brian A. Raw at the agent has two contracts that he's discussing. Both these guys are going to be incredibly rich, you know, for Joe Burrow, which is like how much above the highest pay does he go? And then I think for Nick Bowes, it's does he go above Aaron Donald or not? These are the questions. And, you know, it's a question of a couple million dollars, but these are important, you know, and it's a million dollars. That's a lot of money. There are paths to get this done. There are places where contracts likely fall, but you know, you're not there yet. And I think, you know, the actual deadline, you know, Nick Post was holding out, so maybe that's a little different. But I think, like, borrow the deadline is probably at the start of the season, so they still do have

some time. And how about Justin Jefferson? Yeah, I mean, that's a little more complicated because the receiver contracts, you know, there are some like Tyree Kill that are 30 a year, but if you actually look at it, it's not 30 a year, it's 30 with a huge number in the back end. And so like, it's really just what do you want it to look like and how close to that 30 does he get in real numbers?

It's almost like you have to take away the fake numbers and just do the real numbers and How many years is he gonna get like there's a lot of you know the quarterback landscape and the past rush landscape are much more defined? Receivers are all over the map That's probably a little harder to do now. He is unbelievably important to them So my sense is that some point it'll get done Because it's you know when two sides want to do a deal, usually they end up doing a deal. What is something in everyday life?

Because you have all this information that you know and have retained on Joe Burrow, Justin Jefferson. What is something in everyday life that your family turns to you asking you and you're just like, I don't know. Um, so my wife and I, and my wife is great. We have very well-defined roles. What we are good at, we do, what we are not good at, we don't do.

She's good at everything. So she does a lot of things. I'm good at a couple things. So I do all the laundry, because I'm great at it and she sucks at it. Nice. I do all the dishes, because she does a lot of the cooking. I do a lot of the smoking, and she's kind of gotten

into smoking as well, which is annoying because she also does it very well. So like she picked up about six pounds of beef ribs today. Oh, okay. That kind of smoking. Okay, good, yeah. Thank you for clarifying. That's for good and bad.

Oh, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, good kind. I'm good at smoking. She started smoking. The kind involving my my trigger and delicious, you know, pork shoulder and I smoked a pastrami a couple of months ago. That was amazing. But anyway, we're very clearly defined. And, you know, we have a, we have a family calendar that we share.

We continuously update. So we're always on the same page with what our different children are doing and responsibilities and who takes people where. So basically we're kind of like the patriots. Whatever I'm good at, I do, whatever I'm not good at, I never do. And so, like, we have one tool set in the house. I don't know what anything is. And if something is broken, she fixes it

with whatever tools are necessary. We have a very simple, uh, finally, the fine way of doing things. I know a lot of people want to know the football things, but I'm more interested in this because I don't, what is your screen time like? Because I'll get home and I'll be on my phone answering emails or texts, whatever work related.

And I'm nowhere near as busy as you are in terms of needing to get stuff out immediately. So how do you find a balance so that you're not at home doing that? Cause when I'm doing it, my wife gets frustrated with me. So I imagine that you would be on your phone a lot as well. There's some ebbs and flows to the way the NFL day works, right? Like I would say from like basically when I wake up, maybe not when I wake it.

Maybe from like 8 a.m. on till about four or 430 it's pretty steadily busy. You know like I try to get in a peloton at some point between then if I can it's really pretty busy. Who's your instructor? I like a lot of the British people so I'll do like Sam Yo Leon Hainesby do a lot of alley love also Alex Tussant. It kind of makes it up. Mine's mostly based on music. Billy's big at the palatomb, although I just so you know. You know, sometimes I'll just do like a stretch or like a meditation or like a 10 minute core class.

And people will tell me that I'm not doing anything because I don't always have 60 minutes to ride. I mean, I do 30 minutes and it's 30 minutes is pretty hard and it's fine. Like, you know, the 10 minute core class, I would probably agree you're not doing anything. Um, oh, it's true though. Um, you're not Billy. Yeah, you're not. Yeah, you're not. But basically, by the time you get to on a regular day, by the time you get to like 4 30 things have kind of calmed a little bit because the time you get to like 4.30, things have kind of calmed a little bit

because the transactions for the day are basically done. Now some things can happen that are, you know, you put in a car early in the day, so when it's coming out of meetings, they'll give you a call. But I try really hard that when I'm in this room, I'm on the phone and I'm working. And when I'm out there, you know, I do a lot of the boys' activities. I take them to different practices and games. I spend a lot of time on the fields. I will always answer a text, but I try hard to be like, hey, is this urgent? If it's not, I'll call you when I get back home in my office where I'm away from everyone.

Or I'll answer it quick, send out a tweet, and then be done. Because if I'm there, but I'm just like on the phone all the time, like, I'm not really there, like, that doesn't help anyone, you know? Right. Shepter talks to us all the time, he's become a friend where it's caused friction

with his wife at times, okay? Because you never know, I know what you're saying, 430 days pretty much over, but news breaks all the time, especially in that league in the NFL. And he's told us of times where he's had to leave a party, he's had to get up and leave dinner, he's had to bail on his kids for certain things.

So like, there's no friction there. You've never had moments like that? We definitely had moments. There's been friction, but one thing about the way my wife handles it is if there's something real, like, hey, this guy's getting traded, I'm going to go deal with it. I'll see you later. Like if I get up and she knows it's real, like she's never been like, why are you getting

up from dinner? Because she knows if I do, like someone's about to get a contract or trade it or it's like something important. If I'm mindlessly scrolling through my phone while we're watching the show or at breakfast or something like that or at dinner, it's like, hey, what are you looking at? So I don't do a lot of that, but if I do have to get up and deal with it, she's insane thing because she knows it's important. Right. NFL draft, the pick is it. I love the NFL and I love the draft. I'm like you. And so this is like really inside access through the eyes and and and math of of E and rap report and guys like Rich Eyes

in following really four teams in their pick. So E and again, because I think if you're an NFL fan except for Levitard, you really love the draft and you want to know what goes in to the NFL. Levitard won on Sepatical from the herald because he was covering the draft. It almost forced him into retirement. That's crazy. Yeah, I crazy. That's the greatest thing ever. I don't understand. No, but NFL fans agree, but it takes you like you're taking them inside the NFL. We all see what we see on TV, but you're taking them deep inside the NFL draft, right? Yeah, and like it is, you know, it's funny because it used to be for like the super fans,

but it's become so mainstream now. I mean, it's like big festival. Jeff is, which is great for me because people get to appreciate why I like it so much. So I'm a big fan of that. All right. We appreciate you. Thank you for the time. Good luck with the stuff on Roku and good luck. Get your whiteboard cleared before this season starts. Thank you guys. Great talking. I appreciate it. It is time for this week's edition is to you guys presented by

draft King Sportsbook and official sports betting partner of the NFL download the draft King Sportsbook app today. Use code Stu for a special offer when you sign up. That's code Stu only at draft King Sportsbook. And of course, on the lines here on God Bless football on Studio God's courtesy of our friends over at the Draft King Sports Book last year College Football. Good year. 67 53 and one. I picked way too many games. Two and three last week week zero. Week one is here. Full slate of college football action. Football is back. Let's get to the games for week one. Hawaii, at home, take it on Stanford.

The rainbows are plus three. I want you to buy this up a half points, that's three and a half in the event that Stanford wins by a field goal, okay? You've covered yourself. Hawaii's gonna win the game out right now. Stanford, terrible last year, and I think they'll be terrible again this year.

I have no idea who's on their team and who their coach is. But I think they're gonna be bad. Hawaii wins the game outright and they cover the spread. Hawaii wins by seven points at home. We go to Tulane and South Alabama. I'm gonna ride the green wave. Tulane is at home. They're favored by six and a half points. Listen, I know Alabama's good. I have no idea of any team to the North or South of Alabama. Is any good? Make sense? I'm gonna go with it. I want you to buy this down a half point to minus six.

The lane wins and covers. They win by 13 points. Rutgers at home, taking on Northwestern. It is six and a half points. Rutgers is favored. Buy it down a half, buy it to minus six in case in the event that you think I did do any research for this stuff. The last time Northwestern won a game in the United States of America. It was October 16th, 2021. How about that? Think about that

for a second. Okay? October 16th, 2021. Would they beat? They beat Rutgers. Huh? Know what they are? Rutgers stands for Revenge Game. Rutgers blows out Northwestern at home. It's minus six and Rutgers wins the game by 21 points at home. We go to Purdue.

They're taking on Fresno State. Purdue is minus four. I have Purdue winning the game by 10 points at home. They cover the spread Washington minus 14 Digit on Boise State. I want you to buy this down buy a half point down the 13 and a half Washington wins the game. They cover the spread Washington by 17 points at home. We go to Florida State game of the weekend perhaps Florida State plus two and a half They're at home. Take it on Brian Kelly,

boot row Kelly with an X. Okay, they're plus two and a half. I want you to buy the half point up to three. Florida state plus three at home. They win the game outright. They beat LSU by seven points at home. They come to spread and finally Clemson is at Duke. Clemson minus 13 on the road against Duke. I can't

stand Duke. Just everything about him. Clemson wins the game. They win it by 21 points. On the road against the blue devil. So Clemson covers the spread. Those are the picks for week one in college football. I am going. I think seven and a half. Let's certainly how many games I think. in college football. I am going, I think seven and up. Not certain how many games I think. Good luck everyone. Dan Nitro Clark is with us. You have the six-pink in your draft, okay? So you're going to be able to ask Mike Wright, who is one of the fantasy football experts in our country. In fact, their podcast is, I think number one right now on all the charts ahead of us. I don't like that, Mike, but we'll have you on any way.

Hey, we have we have a brief period where we get to catch and pass you guys. And then months and months where we stare up, we're like, all these, these guys with their like all around sports, not niche fantasy football. But it's a great podcast. It's a fun spin on fantasy football. They're doing it differently. So Dan Nitro Clark, you said this is your first year playing fantasy football this time. You were on with us. And so Billy went out and said, we will not have one of these guys on

from the fantasy footballers. Okay. Unless they come on to give Dan Nitro Clark fantasy advice. So you will have the chance here, Nitro, to ask any fantasy questions that you might have, and you'll be able to ask them to an expert, okay? Perfect. Before we get to that, I want to know where is my HGH? That's what I need to know, okay? Well, you know, H2, HGH is like old technology. HGH is putting artificial growth hormone into your body, and sometimes that's a compressor,

a suppressor your own production. So there's a bunch of things called therapeutic peptides, which are amino acid blends that you inject, that do the same thing, that they stimulate your own body's creation. So we'll get you over some iPhone relin or something similar or something like that to get you kicked up.

Okay, but we said that last time. I still have any. You were supposed to put me in touch with one of your people. I, what's going on here? I need steroids. You know what's Stephanie at Nobis in Studio City? I'm an introduced Stephanie. You know what's funny?

What her biggest client, who's like, she doesn't give out names. Well, that's not any of you. And he was listening to the podcast. And he reached out to her and he said, you know, this guy's a gazillionaire and he said, you know what? He says, I was listening to my favorite podcast sports podcast and I heard you mentioned on it. So you might have free treatment coming now, too. Oh wow. Mike, let me just catch you up. The last time we were on with Nitro

He tried to get Stu Gotts on a testosterone replacement treatment. Well, I did not try to get him on anything And he tried to sell us. He still has on the positives of steroids also. Kind of wrecked. Oh yeah. What awesome. Yeah, I was begging him, come on, Stu, you can do it. You can ride. All the cool kids are doing it.

Yeah, the Alucleus X after. All right, Nitro, this is your opportunity. You're playing fantasy first time, OK? So this is your opportunity to ask an expert, whatever questions you might have. You have the six picking your time, okay? So this is your opportunity to ask an expert whatever questions you might have. You have the six pick in your draft, correct? Yes, I have the six pick in the draft. Okay, so go ahead, fire away, Nitro.

Hi, so I want you to talk to me like I'm a kidney gardener. Right, talk to me, because I've never played this before. Tell me some of the strategies behind it. What to do with the number six pick? What to do with the number sticks pick? What to do with the guys on the bench? What do I value? Do I value, you know, like a Patrick Mahomes, or do I, you know, go after receivers, running backs,

and McCaffrey, I have no idea. So explain to me the initial strategy. Sure, I'd say, I mean, the way you're talking, you already have some idea. So we're not at the initial strategy. Sure, I'd say, I mean, the way you're talking, you already have some idea. So we're not at the absolute basement. Step one, we always recommend you have to know everything about your league. So like the highest level thing is how many people are in it?

Is this eight teams, 10, 12? It's a 10, 10 teamer? Yeah, that was natural. And I was natural holding both hands up showing them that their 10 teams were in it. Yeah, so that definitely changes some strategy things, which I'll get into. And then what is the scoring format as in the points. You get points. Okay. All right. So you get like a point per reception, you get a half point per reception. Do you even know what you get per reception? No, it's a Yahoo

league. Okay. Yahoo. Fantasy football. Is there a standard for the fantasy football? I think it's a standard one for Yahoo fantasy. I think I'm pretty sure that Yahoo has moved there. It's confusing because we call a scoring format standard, but Yahoo, I believe, starts their leagues at PPR, which stands for a point per reception. So that changes a bunch of your strategy because now a player simply has to catch a ball to get a point which some people like, like the older school fantasy people, they're not really into it because like you had guys like Julian Edelman where their just,

his yardage wasn't tremendous, but he would always catch so many passes. And he would catch a pass for two yards. And you're like, that's one point, two points. And then, and then you have running backs carry the ball for 10 yards. And like, that's one point. They go, well, that was this fair. But this is, this is the way that it works.

So it's all about knowing how it functions. So in your Yahoo, somewhere in there, there's gonna be your settings, your league settings, something like that. And you can look at that and it will give you the breakdown of how all the scoring happens. Generally, what it will probably be is a point per reception for everybody, then yards for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends, it'll be point one per yard.

So the math is really easy. 10 yards is a point. And then you look at the quarterback is either going to be a points per 20 passing yards or for 25 passing yards. I can't recall which one Yahoo goes with as their default. So that's where you start. And then you got to think about what is the goal of this league just full on winning destruction at any cost. I have no rooting interests. I just want to dominate people or you're

like, no, I just want to have a good time. What are the objectives? So we put in a 250 bucks. That's a money. So the winner takes down so a winner takes all No, the winner. There's a first second the third and most points Okay, but that that's still I mean we've got 2500 bucks and then divvyed up between the top three So you so you want to win? Right, so you just you're you're going in this This isn't like dip the toes in, learn how to play, fantasy football, enjoy Sundays a little bit more. This is this is win. Oh yeah, I definitely want to you know,H for him and sent it to me. But it's that on me. That's on you.

But to me, these are a bunch of type A guys. They're all competitive. Almost some entertainment business. They all want to win. I'm sure they hire people. They hire people. They do stuff to. I don't know if they play for themselves.

You know, these guys are competitive mothers who want to win and I got sucked into this because oh you played This should be easy for you. You can beat all of us and that's you know Who's yours like a trap? Is there anyone famous in this league? Nightrope besides you of course. I can't say oh come on Very very famous, but there's some people who are, you know, do very well in the entertainment industry. Okay. All right. So I had my go's are who's your NFL team? Well, I played for a minute with the Rams. So, you know, they still invite me to, you know, the alumni games or the games as an alumni, I get to sit up in the box. So I guess it's only right for me to save your Rams.

But what I mean by that is then do you feel like if you draft Christian McCaffrey, which you won't get him at the 106, but like does the idea of having him helping you win? Does that feel bad? No. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, that's, that's not like it's about winning. You know, this is a game and you just put your things up. I, you know, do you have to do, do you guys juice to play fantasy? Hmm. Good question. It's a good question. What's the like you, what you do faster? A couple of red bulls. Yeah. That's the juice in the league. Okay. But Nitro, here's the deal. Like, I'm a Jets fan.

And if Josh Allen is sitting there and it's good value for me, I'm taking Josh Allen. And I'm probably rooting for him to have a good game against the Jets. Like, that's just, that's the way it works, you know? Yeah. That's the moral connection. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no me some Patrick Mahomes after watching that Netflix show, football, whatever it was. I love me some Patrick Mahomes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a new love for Kirk cousins as a player. Mariotta, not so much. Well, don't take Kirk cousins too early. You can wait on him. Right. Yes. Okay. In fact, I'm guessing Mike, I'm guessing Mike Wright would tell you not to take a quarterback with a six pick in the draft. That would be that would be 100% really. Yes. Yeah. So, like I want to remind you, it's his first time playing fan support ball. He's Dan Nitro Clark. He's a busy guy.

There is no way he knows all the rules to the league. Hold on. I have a question. Nitro, when is your draft coming up this week? Tuesday or Wednesday? Okay. And when Billy, Mike, Wednesday night. Yes.

Mike, what are you doing Wednesday night? Yes, Billy. This, this Wednesday. Yeah. I think I'm open. There you got Nitro. I mean, you may have a guy right here and insider. Oh, don't even take notes. A little HGH for drafts. That's exactly right. Nitro, how are you doing the draft? Is it like in a zoom? Is it online? Are you doing it in person? Oh, you can take it's I think it's zoom. Okay, so so we're gonna sneak Mike in. He's gonna be your ringer. He's gonna help you pick your team on the Flood. How'd you do it? You know, I'd be perfect. Is it? You have that much time. These guys are telling me it's like 90 minutes. Yeah, I mean look, look, you you took care of a lot of time for me when I was a kid.

Exactly. Watching you just beat the crap out of people. Yes. And that freaking theme song fired me up. But so, I mean, it sounds, I can double and triple check everything. But we can certainly offline this and figure it out. Incredible. And if I got the time, I'm happy to jump in and help.

What is your health regimen, like, right now, Mike? Like, are you happy with the way your body looks or can we maybe like do an exchange here of sorts, you know what I mean? We're doing all right, try to get a, I do a lot of like peloton riding, do some lifting, but you know, most of us live at home in our mom's basement, so.

But you feel like maybe Nitro could help you out with some supplements or something to do better and then maybe Nitro hooks you up, you hook Nitro up, you know? Yeah, no, certainly possible. Certainly possible. So I look it up at least according to June 1st, 2023, default is one quarterback, two running back,

two wide receivers, one tight end, one flex kicker and defense. So that answers that change of strategy as well knowing how many guys you're going to start. So because you're in a 10 team league, 10 quarterback start, two wide receivers and a flex. That means each team could have up to three wide receivers playing. So it's supply demand, right? If you have to play three of them and only one quarterback, then the wide receivers are actually going to be more important for your team. And so quarterback and tight end are often that way. Like you treat it as you don't want to use your expensive picks. What we call your your high draft capital, those early rounds, generally speaking. Now at the 106, you're probably in Travis Kelsey territory. He's kind

of the only tight end that's worth taking in a first round. If you're, if you are in a 12 team league, I would tell you don't do it, but because you're in a 10 team league, again, supply and demand and a four bench, like, have you ever heard the term waiver wire yet? Is that? Yeah. Yeah. I played fantasy basketball about 15 years ago. My wife, my wife divorced me after that. That wife.

Oh, no, we got a wife left me joke. No, that's not a joke. That's a sad part because in that and in basketball, did you win the league at least? I think I took second from my first. So you lost the game? I really worried. Well, but that's okay. Yeah.

That was okay. That was the win for him. But you're up on the NBA, you're up every night on the way, boy, at Midnight, we were, you know, again, there's a bunch of Hollywood dudes again and everyone's just so competitive. And, you know, with the writer's strike now, after strike, everyone's out of work. It's all fantasy all the time. Mike, I have a question on nitros behalf, something that he should consider. So if he has the six pick and Travis Cusley's available, it's someone he should consider, right? But at what point in the tight end pool should he say, you know what, I'm

moving on. I'm going to go back to the other positions and not take some mid-level tight end in the third round when I have other possible positions available. Sure. My rule this year has been first round, depending on your league format. If you're in the middle of the first Travis Kelsey's in play for you, if you don't get Kelsey, third round, Mark Andrews is close to an automatic pick. At that point, if you again, this it's all supply and demand knowing things.

And then in the fifth or the sixth round, I love Darren Waller. For he like, we got traded up to the New York Giants. All training camp reports have been, Darren Waller is the guy. We got a little bit of preseason action with Daniel Jones and Darren Waller and it was like one drive of those guys

and he got three or four targets right away. And that's like, holy crap, Darren Waller is gonna be a huge part of the Giants. So if I'm in the fifth or sixth, then Darren Waller is interesting. Other than that, I'm just wait till the end, right? I know I did. What about the San Fran tie-down?

I thought he was a baller. So this is, George Kittle is like, the, he's like a poster boy for the difference of NFL and fantasy football because NFL wise, I mean, top three tight end, I don't, however, people want to rank him. He's just, he is one of the best tight ends in the league,

but he's so good at blocking and he's asked to block a lot specifically pass block. And if your guys are pass blocking, they can't run around, they can't get a target. So it he he will have Probably four to five games throughout the year where he just absolutely goes nuclear wins people a week But then you're gonna have so many times where he won't be involved like he's not the number one target on the team He's not the number three target on the team. He's not the number three target on the team.

You have Christian McCaffrey or I'm sorry, at the top, D-Bo, then I would go CMC, then Brandon, I Yook. I'm just talking like the order of the offense, building games around players. So he gets drafted so high because he, he kiddled us, he puts up really big games, but then he puts up a lot of really bad games. So it's just, it's not worth passing the players where he goes.

So let me look real quick. So George Kittle right around him is like, if you select George Kittle, you're bypassing a Mari Cooper who, a wide receiver of the Browns, Damien Pierce, who running back for the Texans is certainly on the rise. Terremick Lauren DJ Moore like really really good players who are going to be great for fantasy football and they play in those positions where you need multiples of them. So George Kittle for us while he's just he's just the best man like he's just watching any interviews with Kittle. He's so much fun and he's

such a good real life player, but it doesn't always translate to fantasy. So back to overall the running back position, it is much harder now in fantasy football because the NFL has moved to the platoon and that affects what running mass can do for you. In the first round, Christian McAfry is worth anywhere from the first pick down, Austin Eccler, worth anywhere from the second pick on. And then the other, let's see, why running backs I would take in the first,

late first round, I'm fine, especially in a PPR with Bijon and Sequan. Those are kind of my first round Graded running backs for for fantasy football this year, but Because you're in a PPR you can value running backs Who who other fantasy players aren't going to want? I'll give you a name and this is this is later on in the draft Let me see where he's going. So right now Antonio Gibson of the Washington commanders. He's being drafted.

His average draft position or ADP is in like the back of the eighth ish and I think he's going to be very valuable for there. He is taking on JD McKissick's role for that team. McKissick had a series of unforeseen neck injuries. He had to retire. But now Antonio Gibson might get used the way he should have been used the way that we have screamed at Ron Rivera to actually use him. But he's in a platoon, but he's going to catch the ball a ton where his teammate won't.

So it's just it's finding those types of running backs, which you can get them later and focus heavily on wide receivers at the beginning of the draft or you get one of those big time running backs. So if at the 106, my advice would be, I'm interested in Travis Kelsey. I don't know if he'll make it to 106, my advice would be, I'm interested in Travis Kelsey. I don't know if he'll make it to 106. But if if Kelsey's not there, it would be Eccler, and then whoever is left of the big wide receivers and the big wide receivers this year would be Justin Jefferson. He won't be there. Jamar Chase probably won't be there at 106, but then you have Cooper Cup and Tyree Kill, who may be there. Jamar Chase probably won't be there at 106, but then you have Cooper Cup and

Tyree Kill, who may be there. I don't, I'd leagues are always so wild, especially when you have some newer players, like guys who you would not expect to get drafted early. They just, they just end up getting drafted early. Got it. So I just got a text back. It's quarterback receiver receiver running back, running back tight end flex. K kicker. I guess I agree. Yeah. That those positions don't give two farts about that position.

That's your two that's your two final picks. Or if your league allows it, don't even draft a kicker. Just say screw this crap and you draft a sorry sorry, I'm trying to, trying to, I know he's gonna have a kicker going into the first week, Mike, he has to, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that makes, so, so go ahead and draft him, but just the final two picks of the draft

will be your kicker and your defense. Don't even, don't even sweat about those. And for defense, oh God, giving kicker advice is the worst, but kickers who you want, someone who plays inside, and someone who plays on a better offense. Those are kind of the two tips,

and then defense, just look at who they're playing week one. That's all you need to care about. Are they at home? That's a bonus. Is there opponent a weak, like go back. So defense do you pick each week or do you draft a team?

So Nitro, what he's saying is you work the waiver wire for your defense in a week to week basis essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So, it's, it's, um, but you do, yeah, you, you will have a defense every single week. And you, you will draft one, but I'm saying the one that you want to draft is, look at who they're playing. And if you think that team stinks, that's the defense you want to go after. But throughout the course of the season, a defense is something that you can just churn and burn. You can replace that position each and every single week.

What's up, guys? How's everybody doing today? Hey, Joe, you're Dan Nitro Clark, how to play fantasy footballs. What we're doing. Beautiful. It sounds like it's going to be a long job. I'm doing good. Good to're doing. It sounds like it's going to be a long deal. I'm doing good. Good to see you. Yeah, yeah, I've never played. I'm out here in Los Angeles and Hollywood. I'm playing

in my first league. I'm playing with a bunch of Hollywood guys and an English guy. You know, I got to beat the English guy, right? He hasn't had football. Yeah. And they're all setting me up this. You know, you played for a minute in the league. You're going to beat us easily. You know football. They're setting me up right to fail So I call my boys over here, you know, and they're giving me a little bit of

Fortification they're helping my Hopefully help my fantasy game Exchange for steroids go yeah Let's be clear HGH H G, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Joe, how are you feeling? Are you feeling okay? Or can we get you set up on some sort of cycle? Sure, I'll take whatever you guys are passing out. It's time to go. You guys got it all dialed in here with fantasy football. I end up performance and answers. Wait, Joe, do you need any fantasy advice from Mike right from the fantasy footballers at all? Sure. Yeah, who's who should I take who's the sleeper although I don't play fantasy for a while

I just tell my wife who to take and she doesn't listen anyway, so you're better off just saving your breath I can give you a couple sleepers if you want them. Yeah, take it right there Cool, so later round running back. I Thread the name Khalil Herbert of the Chicago Bears. He looks locked in as the number one running back for that team. Chicago is going to be really interesting after they've kind of, you know, they made some moves on the offensive line. They added DJ more into the passing game. Can we can we open up the run a little bit more

and at least for the first half or so, Cluel Herbert's job seems really safe. Looks like Roche on Johnson, fourth round, rookie running back for him. He'll make some noise later on in the year, but to start, Cluel Herbert looks pretty locked in. And then the couple rookies, the rookie wide receivers. So I love Zay flowers of the Baltimore Ravens. We have the draft capital, so that does make a huge difference if you drafted in the first.

Todd Monk in the offensive coordinator, he comes over and he takes, he's going to give us the the high T old man Ravens. It's going to get rid of that. We're going to get a fast pace. We're going to get a whole bunch of passing work out of Lamar. Like this is, this is the gear man, this is, we get to see for sure. Is Lamar Jackson really that guy? I think we're gonna find out quickly that he is indeed that guy.

So I really, I'm bullish on the Baltimore Ravens and you can get him a little bit later in your draft. And then Jordan Addison, the rookie wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings, bulletin, a cough, award winner, which is in college. He, one of his years was the best wide receiver. He gets to play with Justin Jefferson. Like he, he doesn't have to go be the number one right away. Justin Jefferson can take all the, the, the strong corners away. Just leave Jordan Addison out there's just rip it off.

You had, last year, Adam feeling, ran, I believe it was the second most routes in the NFL because Jefferson was the most. That means we got a lot of opportunity. We got a team that projects to have a bad defense. That means that they have to win through offense, more passing attempts, more touchdowns. We love that. They play inside. So they're eight or nine. I don't remember how they work the split with the 17 games, but we get half their games at least inside and Kirk cousins. Like I'm actually on teabed cousins.

It's been a very lonely place. You take you take pot shots all the time. I just saying, I think cousins is an a above average quarterback and the fact that Minnesota fans are so quick to want to get rid of them. Like do you people know what can happen to your team? Like you can go into the dump forever and never re-emerge if you don't get a quarterback. So the fact that you have one just enjoy it. He's very capable. He's a little bit of a goofball, but Jordan Madison's a flowers. Love targeting them later on in

the draft. All right. We have to. Nitro, Nitro, Nitro, I love you. I love you. Okay, but we have to let you go. You have Mike right. He's going to do the draft with you. Okay. Because Joe Thomas looks incredibly bored right now. I need to get to Joe Thomas. Yeah, he just does. I don't know. Don't be offended by that. Check out Mike's podcast, the fantasy footballers. It is fantastic. It's ahead of us right now in the rankings.

It pisses me off, but it's because they have great information to do a good job with it. And of course, check out Dan Nitro Clark. Nitro, we're going to have you back after your draft. Okay, to break down your team. Check them out, former pro football player, American gladiator, number one best selling off author, TV host, entrepreneur and speaker. He's a talented guy.

Plus he owes me some steroids. All right. Thank you both. We appreciate it. I really appreciate it, man. Anytime. Okay. There is Joe Thomas, the Hall of Fame.

Or I asked him to wear his Hall of Fame jacket. He's not wearing his Hall of Fame jacket. It's not on. It's an invisibility Hall of Fame jacket. I go look fresh back from a trip to Ireland. I think you went there, Joe. Did you not? Yeah. So I was there actually last year in the spring for Alex Mac. Great center that I played with in Cleveland, finished in San Francisco for his wedding. He married a gal from Dublin. really went over there for the wedding and then made a little week-long trip of it me and my wife. Yeah, I was like, did you hang out in the temple bar area, which is kind of like Bourbon Street down into one place, as long as you know, act like an ass, you can walk around and drink. I mean, it's really nice. Yeah, it was great.

I loved it. We were only in Dublin for one night, but we had a great time and we spent most of the rest of the time kind of in the western part, right, southern part because we, he got married at a dare manor and then we rented a car and kind of drove the coast on our way back to Dublin before we flew out. It's great out there. Sue, it's the first time I ever did links golf, a castle rock, our glass two places I played, it was, it was fantastic.

I figured out a little secret when I was in Ireland, because I like to drink my beer a little quicker than they do, because over in Ireland, they pour about half of it and then they let it sit. Yep. And then they'll pour another half. If you order a beer, it takes a little bit of time. So I started ordering them two at a time,

kind of like Wolf of Wall Street, like, hey, just keep bringing them and just line them up because I'll drink them faster than you can pour them. So if you go to Ireland, always order two Guinnesses at a time. So I have a question for you. Congratulations, obviously. I'm making it to the Hall of Fame.

Are you concerned you made it too soon? Cause I, you have nothing to look forward to. That's right. I'm so worried. I peaked way too early. Yes, it's going to be a tragic existence after this, having to be a Hall of Fame or at 38. No, it's a fair question. Cause Bisselli, who I help get into the Hall of Fame, of course,

everyone knows that Bisselli waited a long time. So we always had something to look forward to, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe there is a little bit of an argument to say like, Hey, it's probably going to mean more if you, you kind of fought through several years where you weren't sure if you were going to make it or not. And then you finally made it.

Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, don't fall for their bullshit. No, every time I got to come on here with a former player or a coach, I wait for them to say something embarrassing and really started it off there. So you just think that if you're a first ball of all a gamer that maybe that wasn't the good thing, I want, if Billy were here, I'd slap him across the face right now. Oh, beautiful. I love it. I mean, come on. Being a first ball at Hall of Famer, even in the Hall of Fame, which by the way, I have to pay to get into even the Hall of Fame, there are separate rooms. And Joe was in the top room of the Hall of Fame.

I mean, I know all the Hall of Famers are all feel on the same level. And I get it. I understand that. But first ballot. But listen, there's just some that are different and are different rooms. And that's where Joe is.

And I remember God, way back in 2007, me and Greeney doing Mike and Mike. And looking at pictures of Joe Fishing on Draft Day. That was just awesome. The thing I always like to ask Joe is because whenever we're kids, you know, whether it's you're hitting a home run in the backyard or making that shot in the backyard, thinking this is for the NBA title or home run for the World Series or scoring a touchdown.

It never, no one ever is playing football in the back yard and said, I'm going to be in the Hall of Fame. It's always scoring a touchdown or making a play. At what point in a private moment, did you, did you believe I, I'm going to end up in the Hall of Fame? Yeah. So actually, I remember kind of that moment. It was when I was elected to my 10th straight proble. I kind of knew at that point, like, there's not many guys that made 10 probals to start their career that are not in the Hall of Fame. So I feel like my case is pretty

good at that point. And, you know, if you make eight, seven, nine probals, you feel like you're probably going to get in, but I'm sure you may have to wait a little bit. But 10 was a big number because obviously it's a big even number. It's two digits, which has alignment. Sometimes it gets hard to count into those two digits. But it was very meaningful just knowing that there was a very small class of guys who had made 10 straight probals to start their career and all of them were in the lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a

lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a

lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a

lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in a lot of people who are in I mean, listen, he's right up there. I put, you know, Anthony Munoz right there. Joe, as they say, is right there with those with the Anthony Munoz of the world, the Jonathan Ognons of the world, you go back years as well. I mean, he's right there. That's what I mean.

There's, he's in the top special class. That he's in that room. I mean, he's a guy who could dance with anybody, who could punch with, as they say, oh, I mean, you gotta have the feet of a dancer, the hands of a boxer. And he did. And he played for so many different quarterbacks and so many different left guards that were next to him as well. I mean, so no, he's right there, you know, with the top group of tackles ever played the game. Joe, do you know exactly how many quarterbacks you block for? I think it's like 21 or 22.

I know I blocked for 20 starting quarterbacks. And actually it was kind of fun. My uncle, who was a big card collector for my Hall of Fame induction to give me a present. And it was 18 cards of the quarterbacks that I blocked for that started for me. And what was missing on there was DeShawn Kaiser and Kevin Hogan. And my son and I, we looked at it. We were trying to figure out the two that were missing. We couldn't figure it out. We had to look it up. And then, of course, my son, Jack was like, Dad, we got to order those right away. So we went on eBay. And we ordered those cards. And when I pulled it up and I showed him, he goes, get this card to me 99 cents. They go, yeah, they played like two years in the NFL, like five games. Like it's probably not an expensive baseball or football card. And he was just blown away that they could

buy those cards for a dollar. Joe, flip side to what Mike was talking about. You were always winning the one on one battles. I mean, 10 straight pro balls. But the team never seemed to get, you know, where you wanted them to go. How was it dealing with that being, you know, the guy that could do the one-on-one thing, but we couldn't just take the next step as a team? Yeah, I think it was frustrating, but one thing that helped me was I played for Romeo Crannell and Eric Mangini, my first four years, and those guys were parcells, Bellicect disciples. And we all know it's all about just do your job and worry about exactly what you have to do. So you're not wasting your time worrying about stuff you

don't control. And so I think that got beat into my head a lot where it was nice to be able to know that like I only had to worry about what I was doing and that focusing my energy on worrying about the team success or what the quarterback was doing or what the defense was doing was just wasted energy. Um, so it kind of helped just focus my intensity and all my effort and my attention on my own job because it can be very frustrating when you're doing your job over and over and over again and you're doing a good job. And you have nothing to show for it. And towards the end of my career, I've talked about this a few times. It did creep into my mental psyche that it really started affecting me, like in a negative, like mental health manner where I was making Proble after Proble playing the best football of my career.

Literally, I'll go out and as an offensive lineman, it's not very common to play a perfect game because you can always usually make a little step a little bit differently or you can push your guy just a little bit further and I was playing perfect games and we were still losing by 30 and so you get this helpless feeling right and you're still getting shellacked. And I think I, you know, I talked with our psychologist a little bit because I needed to talk to somebody about it because it is so frustrating. And it feels like you've lost control of your career and your life a little bit. So it was not fun at times. But I think it did teach me and actually made me a better player because it made me just so hyper focused on what I have to do. And knowing that I have to be absolutely perfect. If my team wants to have a chance to win the game.

Joe, I want to bring it back one second to the Hall of Fame. I'm kind of curious how the Hall of Fame bust process works because your bust has you with hair, you've lost weight, obviously, since you played. How do they determine, I guess, the era that they are going to immortalize when you go? I asked for the Mike Goliak look and they said, well, we're not exactly going to allow you to pick whatever look you want, but they actually do give you a full range of possibilities because the sculptor basically you sit down with them for a full day and he's like, we can do whatever you want. Like if you want your no hair, look, if you want, you know, your young look, if you want to look like you do right now, we can sculpt you however you want because more than anything, they want

you to be happy when you take that gold sheet off and the world sees your bust. They don't want any of these, you know, Ronaldo moments where you pull it off and it looks like some type of space alien. And so I think that was kind of cool because I was like, all right, I don't want to be 325. So I don't want to be super fat. But and I'd like to have a little bit of hair more like I did when I was younger. And so my wife, joke, she's like, your bust, it's, it's you, but it's like pieces of you because like you got hair from one year and your second or third year, but you're also skinnier like you were in your last couple of years in the NFL.

So it was definitely a little bit of a blend, an all-star version of myself. I'll maybe throw it out there. I think it's probably gonna be hard to remember. And I heard you talk about it, you know, the place, 10,000 was a 10,363 or 6,000, so whatever the number it is, it's an incredible number. And you even mentioned there's got to be some luck involved, right?

To not have something happen to your equipment, something to not come off the field. How, and I don't know if you can remember on the 10,000 plays, but how close were you a couple of times where you had to come off a shoe came off something that would have made you come off the field? Yeah, I became pretty psychotic about how I tied my shoes on towards the end of my career. I mean, I was switching out my shoelaces a couple times during the season. I was putting new chin straps on because when I was getting close to 10,000 steps, I didn't want anything goofy to happen. Like, if you get injured, that's one thing. But if there was something that you could have

controlled that like was within the bounds of if you would have just thought about, hey, you know, my shoelaces are getting a little worn. And maybe I should replace those or, you know, maybe I should tie my shoes a little bit tighter in this game, you know, doing stuff like that. I wanted to make sure I had covered all those bases, but in 2012, the last game in the season against the Steelers, I actually tore my LCL grade two. And I was able to play through it. The doctors said, Hey, if you can go out and finish the game, finish the game, then we'll figure out what happened. And it was after the game that I got a memorion found out I had a grade two

LCL tear and it would have caused me to miss four weeks. But thankfully it was the last week of the season. So there's one example of just getting very fortunate about when you get injured allowing you to continue your streak. One of the things to an idea with his jet fans was to break a show Ferguson had a long stretch. We got screwed. And that's what I was going to ask. So he came out because they wanted to do a pitch a pitch you woo woo with the end of

the game. Scott, so had they ever been like, Hey, if this ever happens in the game, you're going to be like, no, I'm not coming out. This is I will catch the ball and throw it back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Scott. So had they ever been like, Hey, if this ever happens at the game, you're going to, you're like, no, I'm not coming out. This is I will catch the ball, throw it back. Yeah. Yeah. I want to say to British, I played like 10 years in a row or something like that. And you'll miss maybe one play. And it was one of those like you said, where they pulled them out to put a bunch of like linebackers in a line to be able to try to do the fumble, you know, fumble, rusky lateral play, and towards the end of my career,

there was some conversations about like, if we are going to substitute our offensive line for whatever reason, uh, for a regular play at the end of a game, for some of those special situations, let's leave Joe in there because we're probably not going to win anyway. And we don't want to do something silly to ruin the, the snap streak by the snap streak by pulling them out for a lateral play that's not going to work anyway. So, where do you sit now watching the Browns? I mean, DeShan Watson, it's really kind of a big year for him coming in after coming in last year and really looking bad, playing Rusty. We all know the backstory with him and kind of what's going on with the Haslunds giving

him the guaranteed money. But where do you see this Browns team now? It's a huge year for everybody for D'Achein, for Kevin Stephansky, Andrew Berry. I mean, this is kind of like their year to either make or break. They've had some success since they got there. The obviously went all in with D'Achein Watson last year for all the reasons that we don't have to talk about was a bad year. He looked uncomfortable. I did their preseason games in August. And so I had a couple of chances to sit down with the Sean and just talk to him about

it. And he said basically they had built an offense for Jacobi, which makes sense because Jacobi was their quarterback for two thirds of the year. And it wasn't in the pocket passing game with heavy tight end usage, condensed formations. I mean, what do you expect for a guy like Jacobi Presetti wants to throw the ball in the pocket? And when Dishon came in there, they really didn't have time to change their entire offense for five games at the end of the season. And so Dishon said he never felt comfortable playing in that offense. It wasn't balanced. It was more set up to run with Nick Chubb and to throw to a Mari Cooper. And

the line really didn't understand how to block for him. And he said he felt rusty seeing the defense. He wasn't trusting his eyes. He felt like he was trying to hit the home run every single play. And he said he felt huge expectations, even more than his rookie season, because of all the things that had happened leading up to him coming there and then signing the huge guarantee contract and then the expectations of a franchise that hey, we're gonna do all these things to bring you here and then now make it worth it for us. And so I think he's feeling much more relieved, much more comfortable this year. He's seeing the defense is a lot better. And we saw that in their last preseason game. He had a couple touched on drives and his two series out there with the team. And so I think they're going to have a great season. I'm really excited to see this offense. And one thing that nationally people might not be talking about too much because they're probably more focused on Dishon Watson in the offense

is Jim Schwartz came in as the defensive coordinator. And he's really turned that defense around which the defense has a lot of stars. They picked up as a area of Smith from Green Bay to be a pass rusher out there opposite miles gear. They brought in Delvin Tomlinson on the inside to help with stop in the run and they've got a lot of stars in the secondary. So the defense is littered with talent, but they were just underperforming Yeah, grossly last year. And so nobody really knows that the defense actually has a potential be really good good. And Jim Schwartz has showed it thus far in the preseason. And you know, it's, it's going to take a great defensive effort in the AFC north to be able to shut out these ridiculous quarterbacks that we have in our division. I'm just going back to the Hall of Fame 4 a second because I had the pleasure of going last year and the ceremony the night before was better than the actual ceremony day of where everyone,

what everyone sees on TV. So if you went my just kind of put us there as your first ballot hall of hammer Joe, put us there, what you were thinking, what was going through your mind is that as that entire amazing weekend unfolded for you. Yeah, the weekend was a week of incredible emotions and feelings like you walk home and you're just completely exhausted because you've gone through every range of emotion for the last seven or eight days straight. But the gold jacket dinner, which was the night before the entrimon was actually it was my favorite event. Because that's where you actually get your gold jacket, you walk through a tunnel of a hundred Hall of Famers,

they give you hugs and handshakes and you get up on stage and and that's the moment where you're introduced sort of for the first time with your goal jacket on as a Hall of Famer to the crowd. And for me, it was a special especially special because I was the last one to go. It was obviously a lot of Brown fans there being in Canton an hour from Cleveland. But they told us that family wasn't going to be allowed to come up on stage that as soon as you come off They would take a picture with you But as the last one up there my kids were waiting right on the sidelines right off the stage And as I was kind of waving to Brown's fans facing the other direction Somebody said hey, go ahead and go up there and see your dad

And so they ran up and tackled my legs Like when I didn't expect it and it just It turned me into a puddle and I just started crying and I was just overwhelmed with emotion. And I've actually I just tracked down today the photographer that took this amazing picture of me holding my four-year-old daughter over my shoulder, my son's looking up at me and my other two older daughters are looking at me like just with pride in their eyes. And I think for a dad like just to have your kids pride and respect is all you've ever wanted. And to see that in that moment and feel that for the first time as a Hall of Famer is a feeling that I'll never forget the rest of my life.

It's amazing how the 180 when I would go home from a game my kids would be like, daddy, why did that big guy beat you up all day? Why is that other big guy making all the plays? Alright Joe Thomas, we appreciate this very much. Congratulations on getting into the Hall of Fame and please, please promote anything you have going on on the way out here. Oh well, I got too many things to promote so just thank you guys, I appreciate you guys having me on. It's been a lot of fun.

Hopefully we can do it again. All right, fun episode guys, really good episode as we get into regular season form here, but I do have a concern. I feel like Michael Wright is very busy, a very successful podcast. They're very good at fantasy football and we completely wasted his time and the audiences.

But that matter. Yeah. When Nitro asked us for help, I didn't think it was gonna be to the extent of how to quarterbacks get point. You're not a fan of that. Or Michael Wright having to look up the Yahoo rules and explaining them to Nitro.

What a flex is. I thought, I thought, I didn't think it was that level of hell fell was, look, I'm glad we't think it was that level of hell that was look I'm glad we helped provide it I was very surprised that that was the level that we needed to get to and I feel bad a little bit because I feel like Mikey had actual questions that he wanted. So many questions but it was like what is PPR and then Mike? Mike, incredible, very nice guy. We need to have him back on at some point to give us week or fantasy advice because we got bogged down

with just kind of like, you know, the very basics of fantasy. I'll tell you a quick story and this is how upset Mikey gay was because on the way to a driving home calling Mikey A. before that interview, I said to him, Hey, is this going to be good? What we're doing with Nitro? And he said. before that interview, I said to him, hey, is this gonna be good? What we're doing with Nitro? And he said, don't worry, if it's not, I've got a ton of fantasy questions from Michael Wright.

That's so many questions. We need to get the one of them. What? How do you ask about TJ Hockinson's upside when you got explained what a receptionist is? Oh, that's not fair. It wasn't that bad. It's not.

But I'm told Nitro wants to come back. I was just going to say, what do we do here? Because after that interview, the person that helped us get Nitro said, you guys want Nitro back? Nitro says, you guys want him back, or he's going to come back. And what do we do? What do we do with Nitro? Because Nitro says he, you guys want him back or he's gonna come back and What do we do? What do we do with Nitro? Because are we gonna check in every week on his fantasy team? Incidentally, I was told Michael right never wants to come back. That's

Deezing up easy. Nitro is one of these people by the way that everyone Seems to know and love because of American gladiators which was surprising I was surprised that Mike was like so excited to be helping Nitro I was surprised that Joe Thomas was excited to see Nitro go look at the care one way or another to be I don't know who it was At one point I think even left the zoom he's like I'll be back when these jokers are done with what I did here Did you hear what Michael said when that we asked him if he would help Nitro? He said you brought me so much you you filled so much of my time when I was a child. It's the

least I could do to return the favor. I thought that was awesome. Do we know if Michael indeed did help Nitro with his draft? I know. No, we'd have to check back with Nitro and wait, what's gonna happen? Nitro's going to have taken like a kicker like really early or something because someone convinced him don't listen to this guy he doesn't know what he's talking about or just there's always that panic pick and fantasy words like oh my god three people took defenses in a row in the sixth round I need to take a defense now they're not gonna be around anymore Billy can we do this can we have Nitro back on next week and let him tell us his team and let Michael right evaluate his team form.

And then we ask Michael Wright fantasy questions. Okay. So real one. Oh, that's real one. This is gonna be the first week of the year. And this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna see Nitro's fantasy team immediately. It's God bless football.

It's what we do. I mean, that's what we have goal and good sims so we can do shit like that. I mean, K-Funk's been texting me. I don't what we have goleicons sim so we can do shit like that. I mean, K-Funk's been texting me. I don't know what to tell him. Oh my God. How about Mojo?

I was choppin' to reach out. Choppin' is never gonna reach out. So, he choppin' hates us. Never. I wanna have the back just for the record. So, what? I wanna have a back which background to figure out how to make that happen. I love them, but we lose, I think we lost Chris Gromkowski because he's got to deal elsewhere. So let's replace him with Nitro.

I'm not writing Chris off yet. I'm going to figure out a way to make this work. Okay. I don't know how. Even with Jabba? Yeah, yeah, Jabba. Yeah, no, we're in this together. We need to, we're all gonna go down with this ship

for better or worse, okay? We'll figure this out somehow. Somehow. There are a few people who are in this thing with they like it or not. We're three of them. Gollick is the fourth. Mojo, K-Fong, Jabba, and Chris Grinkowski are the other four.

And Chris is last, that's it, right? Yeah. Chris Sivs is the first one to get off the boat that we could agree on that, right? Like if there's any sign of trouble, he's like, all right, found a life boat. See you guys later. Chris Sims, you mean,

Chris Sims would have pushed kids out of the way to get off the Titanic, right? And we could get out of that. You're saying that Sims would bail a notch? We would, yes, I agree with that. He put it on the pole. Would Chris Sims have pushed kids off the Titanic to save himself.

He's gonna beat the living hell out of you, man. He's so strong. I hope we don't see him until radio row. But you're saying we wouldn't bail on Sins, Sins would bail on us, right? Yeah, I mean, he's a big shot. He doesn't need us. He doesn't need us. And Senior got his own show on draftings now, so he doesn't need us either. senior got his own show on draftings now, so he doesn't need us either

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