The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 1007 - Trenches Wednesday With NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, JJ Watt, Kirk Herbstreit, AQ Shipley and Darius Butler LIVE In The ThunderDome, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

On today’s show, Pat, AQ Shipley, Darius Butler, AJ Hawk, and the boys chat about the breaking news that the Raiders have fired both Head Coach Josh McDaniels and GM Dave Ziegler, what this means moving forward, and everything else happening around the NFL as we prepare for week 9. Joining the progrum for an incredible conversation is NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, to chat about the growth of the game, how he handled the bounce back from the lockout season, expansion in the NHL, the Stadium Series, playing in European markets, getting their top players known more by the general public, and much more (28:36-56:45). Next, future Hall of Famer, 3x DPOY, Houston Texans Ring of Honor member, and friend of the show, JJ Watt joins the progrum for his weekly look at the best defensive line plays from the weekend, and to chat about his soccer club Burnley, and what they need to do to turn things around (1:05:33-2:00:27). Later, the voice and face of college football, Kirk Herbstreit joins the show to discuss the CFB committee’s first top 25 list, if he agrees with it, who is pissed, and why it ultimately doesn’t matter until December (2:07:02-2:13:11). Make sure you subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow to watch the show. Or watch on ESPN (12-2 EDT), ESPN’s Youtube (12-3 EDT), or ESPN+. We appreciate the hell out of all of you. See you tomorrow, cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Beautiful people, welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome, on this Commissioner Wednesday, November 1st. Rabbit, rabbit, this sports program starts right now. Football! It's obviously happening all around us and there was minutes or so, we will have the first and only NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on the program. Wow! Could not wait to chit-chat with Gary Bettman about what life

is like as a commissioner, what's going on with the NHL, what the future plans are, and how do we continue to build the momentum that we currently have for a sport that nobody really realizes how great it is until they get a chance to watch it. How do we get more eyes on hockey so they can continue to grow and be a sport that kids and everybody can fall in love with?

Cannot wait to chat with him. We'll also have J.J. Watt on today for his weekly segment. Can't wait to chat with him. Kirk Herbstreit will join us in the third hour in between all of his meetings. He meets with every coach of every team that he's calling in every game and then everything he's got going on one of the busiest dudes of all time making time for us today because the first official college football playoff top 25 ranking was released just yesterday on the college football playoff live show that's hosted by reese davis speaking of reese davis reese davis will be with us here in

the thunderdome for our next megacast simulcast on Saturday night. That'll be a take on Red Zone. Oh, okay. Yeah, it'll be a college football frenzy. Okay. A college football primetime cover. Basically, every game that's happening on Saturday evening, we will be cutting in and out of whenever things heat up.

Now, if it's a little bit dry and if the game's getting a little cold, boom, we'll hit some highlights from earlier in the day. So, what I'm thinking Saturday night is going to be, hosted by the incomparable Reese Davis, will basically be everything you need to know from the college football day that was and the primetime games that are happening. That's the vision. We'll see if we can execute it. We can't wait for it.

It's a beautiful time to be alive. And I'm very lucky to be alongside the talk show table at Boston Corner and at Ty Schmidt. Calm man. Love what you're doing on your chest there, pal. Oh, yeah, nice. The two wolves, the yin and yang, if you will. I know it has something to do with Ragnarok and that type of culture, but I like the wolf shirt. Well, yin and yang.

Oh, yin and yang. Excuse me. Yeah, I think the Americans messed that one up. I learned that whenever the Olympics were in Korea, And they did a full yin-yang thing. That's at 69. That's right. That's at 69. That's right.

Because one, good. Yep. Two, full. That's right. You need the one to complete the other. It's love. It's perfect. It's simpatico.

Like those wolves on your chest right next to Ty Schmidt. One of your best days you've had yesterday. Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it. Yesterday was a lot of fun. Like I said, I wasn't, you know, in the morning, I was very, very bummed that the Hulkster costume didn't come in time because I was looking forward to, you know, putting that on and doing that all day.

But my voice in the end, I'm glad I didn't have to do that. I'm glad I got to do the Pete Thamel. He enjoyed it. He came on the show. So, yeah, yesterday was awesome. I wonder how long it takes for you to just get out of it. Like, last night, were you talking to your wife and your baby? You were like, you're going to get gobsmacked.

Like, how long are you still in the impression, if you will? No, I kind of just dropped it right after the show because I'd been doing it for so long. So, it was like, hey, if I do this for another hour, I will be doing it all night. So, I needed to immediately. That's like draft spectacular nights. Afterwards, whenever we go off air after we've been live for however many hours, round one of the draft

takes like 10 hours somehow. 32 picks, 10 hours. Come spend a year with us. The NFL draft round one pretty much is what that show has become. Cannot wait to see what we're able to do now with the potential hands that we're able to shake in the setup we're going to be able to have in that evening.

Always going to be awesome. But you're Mad Mel Kiper until basically the next morning, all the way into the next show. Whenever you're talking, even if we're just shooting some hoops, having some drinks, we got Mad Mel Kiper here joining us. So I appreciate the fact that Pete Dammel has joined your repertoire, and I think he's going to be a valuable piece of this college football season. One half of the hammer, done.

Cowboys, Tony Diggs. This Michigan sign-stealing stuff is growing, growing, and growing. Every single day, somebody on the Internet finds something new that we're all going to be incredibly pumped about. Now it's this dude was undercover on Jim McElwain's sideline of the Central Michigan team. Jim McElwain, known fisherman. Yep, that's right. Known fisherman. Nice boat. Jim McElwain

was one time a wide receiver coach for Michigan. Now his name's being brought into the Michigan controversy because allegedly this Connor Stallions guy, former captain of the Marines, was hiding on their sideline, maybe with recording sunglasses. Trying to get Michigan State signals. Now, I believe what Michigan's going to say about all this is,

it's captain of the Marines. We appreciate his service. And he went to the Naval Academy, obviously, and he was accepted to Michigan, always been a Michigan man, wants to be a Michigan man. But whenever we hired him, we said, yeah, we would like a guy that can maybe decipher some signals. He's a rogue agent.

You think we're sending him to Central Michigan to worry about Michigan State? You think we're worried about Michigan State? That's what Michigan's going to say? And then the entire conversation is going to be like, well, Harbaugh, you did reap the benefits of what this psycho was potentially doing without your knowledge of it all. It's going to continue to grow. And every day it's going to continue to grow and every

day it's something new last week it was the against ohio state where everybody on the sideline yep going to the sky this time it's a guy hiding on central michigan sideline and now jim mackleway head coach of the central there he is put his head down oh no camera what are you looking for down there guy in the hat we don't know maybe he lost his contact could have you know the sidelines are a little hectic and everything like that but it certainly looked like he was going whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa like he's an undercover cop you know and uh whenever an undercover cop is potentially working somewhere and they're in the background of a photo that's not good news obviously nfl teams see this type of stuff i've seen some undercover police do whoa whoa whoa whoa not now not now, not now.

Don't need to die. That feels like that's what Connor Stallions was doing. Here's what Jim McElwain, head coach of Central Michigan, avid fisherman, former coach of Florida and at the University of Michigan as a wide receiver coach, which is a big part of this because that's allegedly how it all ties together. Here's him talking about the hat sunglass man on his sideline against Michigan State. talking about the hat sunglass man on his sideline against Michigan State. Before we go any farther, we obviously are aware of a picture floating around with the sign stealer guy.

You know, our people are doing everything they can to get to the bottom of it. We're unaware, totally unaware of it. I certainly don't condone it in any way, shape, or form. We lost the game. I do know that his name was on none of the passes that were let out. Now we just keep tracing it back and tracing it back and try to figure it out. But it's in good hands with our people. Yeah, of course.

And, again, you know, there's no place in football for that. Hell, I didn't even see him. I was on the same sideline as him. I didn't see him. You saw how good he was, like, kind of just mixed in, kind of stand-looking guy. So, once again, the story continues. But there's Internet people now who have talent in apps.

Oh, yeah. They're dragging his face from, like, photos onto that particular face. I saw a video, and it's like. That's the same guy. Lines up. That's Captain for Marines. Yeah. That's Connor Stallions.

I will say he was never deployed. Okay. Okay, when he was with the Marines. I do believe he was stationed in California. We do appreciate the fact that he signed up for the Marines and that he went to school at the Naval Academy. I think he was a GA. But this thing is only growing.

And this Michigan team is so damn good. It's a shame that this is going to get hung over their head. But it's like it's certainly real, and it's only getting bigger and bigger. And this college football world too, and they released their college football playoffs for the first time last night, which is a big deal because it's the one that matters. Now the general, Bob Carpenter has been right all along. And we feel like his ranking does matter. because it's the one that matters. Now, the general, Bob Carpenter's been right all along. He has, he has.

And we feel like his ranking does matter, and people need to take it a lot more serious, especially with what we're seeing now. He basically has the feel of what this college football playoff committee is going to do. This is pretty much where he's been sitting the last, like, four or five weeks. But these are the folks that are going to determine who's in the playoff. These are the ones who are going to determine what bowl game you're going to.

In the future, there's going to be 12 teams. This is the group that is deciding it all. Heard Boo Corrigan talk a little bit last night about the Michigan situation. He said, that's an NCAA issue. That's not a college football playoff committee issue. But everybody from the outside is looking in like, kind of, though. Kind of. A little bit.

Because competitive advantage and nobody else is doing what they're doing. So it's all getting a little bit muddy. But Ohio State, number one team in the country in their eyes. I can respect it. Two massive wins. I feel like if you're the champion, you remain the champion until somebody knocks you off the pedestal. Especially if you play your best football game

after losing the best player in football. But I don't think Kirby Smart's pissed off that they're number two. He's certainly using that. And I also appreciate the fact that if you get ranked third in the country or fifth in the country, you're like mad about it. Yeah. It's pretty good.

Pretty good start so far. The whole top 25 is filled with storylines. And congrats to Oregon being the one-loss team that is represented at the highest. Alabama's in there as well. Kirk Herbstreit last night on the College Football Playoff live show at 7 o'clock on Tuesdays where they're unveiling that whole thing. He said, right now the team that I don't want to see, Oregon.

And I'll tell you what, I don't know if it's just recency bias or not, but nobody's supposed to go into Utah and do what they did to Utah. No, no. That is not how it's supposed to go out there. Like, that is a tough place to play. The stats say it. We're not saying this just because we fell in love with the state. We're just telling you stats say it's a tough. That team, tough team. Like, tough team. Yeah, dogs. Going Stats say it. We're not saying this just because we fell in love with the state. We're telling you, stats say it's a tough

team. That team, tough team. Like, tough team. Going to be in it. Like, it's going to be a

Big Ten type game whenever Utah's in the game. And instead, Oregon just went in there and just beat the hell out of the team.

We fell in love with them. We fell in love with them. So it's real. A man who is a nine-year NFL vet and has been joining

us Monday through Wednesday all year this year. A host of the Man to Man podcast and everything DB, Derrick J. Butler is here looking incredibly cool. Hey, you look super cool, lady, but. Appreciate you. And also joining us, 12-year NFL vet,

Super Bowl champion player coach, a Jackie Moon for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but he also played for the Arizona Cardinals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Indianapolis Colts, and the Baltimore Ravens. Ladies and gentlemen, a true journeyman. And the only reason why is because he was drafted late because he had short arms and a big gut.

Now he's got no gut, properly jocked. Ladies and gentlemen, A.Q. Shipley. That's an accurate assessment? Perfect. How about Penn State being a main reason why Ohio State is currently ranked number one? That's going to make you feel good as a Penn State alum, huh? Yeah.

I mean, they – They respect your team. They do. They respect your team enough that it's like that big win. Dude. They beat a good team. So that – hey, James Franklin has built a good enough team to impress the committee to put Ohio State at number one over Michigan, Georgia, and everybody.

Hey, Penn State, we are Penn State. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, we are Penn State. That's big news. That was it. Congrats to you guys. But then they laid an egg against Indiana. They won. And then they had

to have a players-only meeting. And we know what happens there. UConn was not in the top 25, but in the next 10 years, there's a chance. Maybe. Maybe they go on a run. Let's talk about the massive news that has happened in the NFL world while we were all asleep, especially on the East Coast time zone. The Las Vegas Raiders here.

Just 25 games into a six-year contract worth somewhere near 60 million dollars josh mcdaniels has been canned as the las vegas raiders head football coach and alongside of him sent packing his gm dave dolph ziegler now i will say that this was certainly surprising to all of us whenever we awoke this morning a six--year deal, especially with Mark Davis and how the Raiders kind of have been run, not saying financially, but financially, you would think they would not get out from underneath a $60 million contract with $40 million roughly

still owed after this season to a head coach. Mark Davis couldn't take it anymore. Now, yesterday, whenever we were asked, does Devontae Adams need to command a trade to get the hell out of town? We thought to ourselves, the natural thought would be, are the Raiders going to figure this out over the next couple years while Devontae Adams is on contract? Do we think the Raiders are going to fire the head coach maybe after this season?

Maybe fire the GM? And it almost felt like we were being sports media people, just being dramatic. Like, are they going to fire the GM? Are they going to fire the coach? He's only 25 games into this thing. He's got a six-year deal. Are they going to do it?

Mark Davis said, yeah, I am. I'm sick of it. This means that, to me, Mark Davis talked to probably Max Crosby, probably talked to Devontae Adams. He said, hey, listen, I'm on your guys' side. I'm not on the coach's side. We're going to rebuild around you. We're not rebuilding in their vision.

Now, if you do recall their vision, Darren Waller, out of the building. Derek Carr literally kicked out of the building. You talk about Hunter Renfro and what has happened with him under this whole thing, pretty much out of the offense. You chit-chat about what's that? Chandler Jones situation. Josh Jacobs was going to hold out. It's like a lot of the things that have happened with Dave Dolph Ziggler

and Josh McDaniels, for them to have the lack of success that they've had, they've made some big swings and done some things to the kind of the core of the Las Vegas Raiders. So they move on now. Ex-player, big peer Super Bowl champion for the New York Giants, who's an old school guy, I do believe. He is now the interim head coach.

Champ Kelly, who none of us knows, the interim GM, but congrats to him having the name Champ. I think he's probably going to bring positive vibes in there. Aiden O'Connell, allegedly, going to be the starter. And if you look back in history, you think to yourself, after week eight, this guy gets fired. That seems pretty early, not only in

a season, but in a six-year tenure that was supposed to happen. So we dug throughout the history of the NFL. Look at some of these firings. That's going to be tough for me to read. Okay. 1938. Okay. In year two, Hugo Bezdik

was fired after three games. Listen to this one. 1968, year seven, Joe Collier. Two games into the season. See you later for the Bills. How about the team formerly known as the Washington? Not saying it, obviously. But it is part of NFL history.

And George Allen certainly coached for them for two preseason games. In his first year, 1978, they said, this guy stinks. Wow. I don't know what they saw. I don't know what the hell happened in these two preseason games. But they knew quickly, this guy ain't got it. He ain't winning a Lambeau. Let's get him the hell out of here.

Two preseason games. This guy, Les, we don't know if he got arrested for murder. What happened? But he was two preseason games into his tenure. He got canned. Jack Patera, year seven over there for the Seahawks. Lane Kiffin in his second year, four games in. If you do recall, that got real loud. Real loud.

This comes after a USC situation or before a USC situation. Lane Kiffin went through a lot of boom, boom, boom to find himself at Ole Miss right now. I think they're ranked top 10. I think they're ranked 10th in the country right now. Bobby Petrino in his first year, 13 games at last. Now, he resigned, so it's not necessarily a firing, but I do believe the team was going to fight him. So that was kind of a decision made in a firing spot.

Dennis Allen, Raiders, after four games in his third year. Joe Philbin, his fourth year, five games. Hugh Jackson, eight games. And Urban Meyer, 13 games in a year one. That was a long 13 games. A lot of stuff happened there. In our head, like 10 different things just happened. Oh, he kicked the kicker.

No, he was on the dance floor. Shouldn't have went to the dance floor. He got laughed out of the thing. He didn't fly with his team. That was only in 13 games. Crazy. Missed those times. Those were fun times. Remember Tebow? Tebow was in there too.

Do you remember what he was going to do to this Jags team too? And he goes down to Jacksonville with the Kahn family. The Kahn family owns All Elite Wrestling, which is another wrestling coach. And his first week down there, he goes,

we're throwing this word elite around too much. Way too much. We're going to be on the edge. We need to be on the edge. Elite. Everybody's elite. It's like, well, maybe everything's elite where you are because you were actually on an episode of something called All Elite Wrestling. Driving a guy on a laptop.

I'm going to need to build a new building. Remember, he wanted to build a whole new town. I need a new practice facility. I need a new town within Jack's Beach. I need this whole thing. And in a way, that unfolds. I bet you cons, the cons, were just like, we could have got this more terribly wrong.

What the hell is this guy doing? 13 games, though, he lasted. So congrats to him. Frank Reich, obviously, the writing was on the wall. That was nine games. Jeff Saturday would go on to be the head coach after him last year. Matt Rule got fired after five games. Carolina Panthers kind of have that as his M.O. with the new owner.

Remember, Ron Rivera got fired early as well. Whenever they knew they were going to move on from him, Matt Rule, see you later. And then Josh McDaniels in his second year, eight games into this thing, he is canned. Darius J. Butler, I know an early firing is a good sign to your fan base, like we ain't putting up with this shit anymore either. But it is also maybe an early look at who the next person is. Maybe Antonio Pierce gets a real opportunity here to lead this team and see how they do. Mark Davis has done crazier things.

But the big story for me is Tom Brady becomes an owner of the Raiders. And then all the people, including Mick Lombardi, I do believe, all the people that came from the Patriots out and Giants won a Super Bowl right against the pitch, in. Now, interesting kind of times in Las Vegas. And what do you think about what the future holds for all of them? I mean, not extremely shocked. We all saw what's been going on in the program.

We always talk about the death sentence that players' only meetings are. They had a players and coaches kind of meeting where they air out all the grievances, and then a couple days later, you know, these moves are made. So, like you said, maybe they did talk to those players, Devontae, Max, and say, hey, what's the direction here? Which way do you want to go? You hate to see it, you know, in the middle of the season, especially for the players,

because now Antonio Pierce, you've got to come in there midseason and try to steer this ship. Champ Kelly, he's been around the league for a while in the personnel space. When Rick Versace got the interim job, I feel like most of us felt like, hey, this is the guy. It was kind of like Wilkes in Carolina. That's probably the guy you should at least give a shot of what he did in that locker room with everything that went on that season.

Yeah, Jeff Sargent. Playoffs. No, not Jeff. I mean, the Raiders. Remember that was – Oh, yeah, how it all happened. That was Ruggs. That was –

Yeah. It was a bunch of shit going on. And he kind of – he, you know, had that team plan. So I think he should have definitely got a shot. So we'll see, you know, what Mark does here. But, you know, anytime you get a midseason fire, that's definitely a shot, especially in the middle of the night, the day after, same day of trade deadline.

In their eyes, same day as trade deadline. But I think it had passed because Eastern time is the, whatever the case. AQ, for these coaches now, do they see it as an opportunity to like, okay, this is our opportunity to run a team? Or do they say, man, they are punting on this season. This is a move for next year, and we're kind of all in a bad spot. This is a move for next year. I mean, you are literally just trying to right the ship, I guess,

culture-wise because I was a part of a team where we fired Mike McCoy midseason as the offensive coordinator. And whoever this new offensive coordinator is that's coming in, like he has – you can't change terminology. You can't run a whole new offense. You can't run a whole new offense. You can't do a whole new install. You can't do all these things. Exactly.

Just like they had in Indianapolis. Parks Frazier is the only guy that knew the plays. He was 29 years old. Exactly. And he got handed the keys to the offense last year. Killed it. And same thing. They did the same thing with Mike McCoy and then Byron Leftwich.

Byron obviously came from a different philosophy, the whole Bruce Arians world. You couldn't implement a whole new offense when he was put in. Same thing in Vegas right now. And it's going to be, hey, we're just going to just try and write this culture. That's all we're trying to do. Yeah, and for Antonio Pierce, it probably sucks a little because you look at the Rich Passaccia thing,

and they somehow made the playoffs, and he still didn't get the head coaching job. But I go back to when the Raiders played at SoFi, and Mark Davis is basically sitting with the fans in that front row. And people are walking by like, hey, fire McDaniels! Fire McDaniels! And he responds and says, you don't even know what you're talking about. I assume it got so loud in Vegas that Mark Davis just couldn't take it anymore. And he was like, all right, we're not going to the Super Bowl this year.

Everyone seems to hate this guy. Like Waller, who's been on, he seems to be just like a great dude. Everybody loves Waller. Everybody loves him. Inspirational story. Yeah. This guy's awesome. Really good at football.

And if he couldn't make it work with him, and the weirdest part about that is that they signed him to an extension. The year before the season started last year, those guys, Ziegler, Ziegler, however the hell you say his name, and McDaniels gave Waller an extension and then shipped him out of town a year later. How does that happen? Especially in an offense where it's like, hey, this guy's coming from New England.

They use the tight ends a lot. Waller's going to be a huge part of this thing. And then he doesn't get invited to a wedding, so he ships him out of town. That's absurd. Yeah, well, not just only doesn't get invited to the wedding. Out's where the wedding's going to be, allegedly. That kind of says, hey, two superstars here in Vegas are getting married.

I was invited, but you guys can certainly go ruin it if you want to. And I guess that kind of happened, allegedly. Allegedly, yeah. We could have asked both Darren and Kelsey, but we decided not to because we wanted to have a good convo with them. But shortly after that, that was the story for why Darren wanted out, because Josh McDaniels potentially ruined his wedding date.

Now his wife playing for the Las Vegas Aces and him being in New York now is not necessarily great, but it was anything to get away from Josh McDaniels, it feels like. And this leads to the conversation of this Belichick coaching tree. We're trying to put a graphic together, but it's tough to put it together because

yeah, so that is certainly a part of the together, but it's tough to put it together because, yeah, so that is certainly a part of the tree, but it's tough to put together because the stats are so terrible. So, so terrible. It is very, very bad. There's a couple of college coaches on there, and Vrabel didn't coach for him, so he's just a player. Saw that tree.

We're trying to put a graphic together, but as we pieced it together, it is very apparent like, hey, is Bill doing everything? This is what you have to ask. Absolutely. Is Bill doing everything? Now, he is the general manager, obviously. But it would be a funny scene to kind of learn after all this kind of ends like, hey, the offense that Josh McDaniels

ran very, very well. Yeah, that was actually Tom and Bill. They were putting that offense together. And then Josh McDaniels just calling their offense pretty much. And on defensive side of the ball, like Matt Patricia, he goes up to Detroit. He's supposed to be the savior, greatest defense coordinator of all time. And it's like, well, was it Bill actually that was potentially the one

that was doing it? How about special teams? You take Joe Judge. He gets a head coaching opportunity for the Giants. And it's like, well, was it actually bill that was doing this entire thing because other legendary coaches and i'm not saying that bill belichick isn't the greatest coach of all time he is he's also the greatest general manager of all time but i think he's also potentially the greatest offense coordinator of all time uh the greatest defense coordinator of all time

maybe the greatest special teams coordinator of all time maybe the best running back coach of all time maybe his quarterback coach of all time maybe the best wide receiver coach of all time, maybe the greatest special teams coordinator of all time, maybe the best running back coach of all time, maybe the best quarterback coach of all time, maybe the best wide receiver coach of all time. I think that is what this lack of success from his tree showcases. But also it might say, damn, Tom Brady was probably a very, very important piece to all of this thing up there. When you look at Man in the Arena, the whole behind the scenes with Tom Brady, one of the plays specifically he mentions

is how Bill told Brady that a defense will come out, it was Buffalo, that they'll show this look. And he found this on Saturday watching film. And he told Tom about this before the game. And that was one of the touchdowns they had. But the coaching records, I believe the two best were Bill O'Brien and Flores.

And Bill O'Brien was 52 and 54 and Flores was 24-25. And those were the best by far, looking at those coaches. Crinnell, he coached a long time, and he was a D coordinator too, but his head coaching was way below 500. I believe Joe Judge was like 10-33, or 7-15. I think he coached more of the games than that, but it's terrible. It's really bad, and Belichick, obviously, he'll get bashed with the Brady thing

on how it was all Tom. But when you look at stuff like this, it is just impossible to deny how much better and how much Bill really does do for teams. Thank you. Now, this is from DraftKings. They put this graphic together, which this beautifully indicates it. I mean, great find here, ZD, around the internet. Saban was head coach of the Dolphins.

People forget about that. So, like, that's why he's on here. There's college guys, too, that have gone on to have success that have come from the Bill Belichick era. But I think it's because in college you can act the way Bill Belichick acts without the resume. Like, that's how college football kind of operates. The big thing is everybody tries to implement the Patriot way.

Is that what you think, AQ? And it doesn't work because they don't have the resume of that guy that's right in the middle that's going to be considered the greatest of all time? Well, I think the biggest thing, we've talked about this a bunch, is the fact that it's easy to implement that way when you're winning. It's very easy when you're winning.

We'll wake up 5.30 a.m. We'll be there. Hey, we'll do your little Oklahoma full pad 7 a.m. You got it. We're going to go win. But we'll run that hill after practice. 100%. We better have five, six Super Bowls. Exactly.

You know, if we're going to be committing this type of misery towards football that nobody else is doing that is winning. You know, now granted the Chiefs do their thing, but the Patriot way is just supposed to be this, hey, militant, very serious, although Bill Belichick has a great personality and teaches well. But it's like this is how this goes. Like Mangini, when he went to the Browns, heard stories of him implementing Oklahoma drills Wednesday morning, 6 a.m.,

for guys that weren't starters only. And it's like that makes its way around locker rooms. And then you check the records. Like, yeah, they won two games that year. It's like you think anybody is looking to go to do oklahoma drills at 6 a.m on wednesdays and have 14 losses in one season that's misery compounded so if you don't win automatically you're just going to get set aside by your entire roster and it can end quick as we're obviously seeing and aq mentioned obviously winning but having your uh your best player, you know,

investing in balling. Tom Brady, okay, obviously that's our best player. That's the best player in the league. That's the best quarterback in the league. And every day he's balling. So he's that, you know, that captain, that lieutenant or whatever, right under general, and he's fully balled into that culture. Connor Stotts.

That's going to trickle down. So if Brady's balled in, if, you know, Matt Light, if, you know, Vince Woolfolk, if these, bought in, if Matt Light, if Vince Wilford, if these pillars, Devin McCourty, Julian Edelman, all these different guys throughout the years, if they're bought in, then that kind of goes throughout the locker room. We've all been in the locker room, so that's how it works. The players start to police themselves and, hey, this is the way we do things around here.

And look, Monday through Saturday, it's not going to be great. But when you run out of that tunnel and he runs to the end zone and does his thing, you know you got a damn good chance. Like, you should win that football game. You feel like that every Sunday you run out of the tunnel. So you can buy into the bullshit. And it's harder when you go and deal with these other personalities, you deal with these individuals who got a lot of money,

a lot of them making more than a coach in this locker room. It's hard to go somewhere like if you're Mangini or if you're Matt Patricia and go to Detroit where I'm sure Stafford or whoever, they've been doing their thing how they do it. Well, I remember he lost the locker room at one point. Yeah, you lose the locker room. Right away. There's no getting it back once you lose it.

Yeah. There's none. What is it? Like, what is this? We can't do it. D-Bud. I didn't finish it. That was the record.

I didn't finish it. That's true, actually. No, I didn't finish it. Sometimes Dick Good does let it go if you don't finish it. That was the record. I didn't finish it. That's true, actually. Sometimes Dick Good does let it go if you don't finish it. Happened to me. I almost – I didn't let it go. I mean, you're certainly saying you caught yourself, but my ears are saying, hey! Is he dead?

Is he dead? I got it. Is he dead? I think me and Dick Good are sitting on third base. We got to check the aerial view. Yeah. Well, there's no review. Bring him up.

Yeah, Dick Good's the review. Oh, no. Look at what we're doing. Look at our first impression. Oh, no. Ladies and gentlemen, join us now. Yes. Sir, we apologize.

We had a seven-day record going. Best we've ever had. This is the best. We were doing the most mature show we have have done in so long you know what i think the reason why it happened is because we're all a little jacked up today a little bit we're all a little zeeked up today absolutely we're feeling real good today because this is the first time in this show's existence now i know some people just got introduced to us whenever we came to espn and welcome to the ridiculous show we've been doing this a long time.

And, you know, we have had a little bit of a falling for a while. We don't understand why either. And this is the first time ever that a commissioner of a league says, you know what, I'll go talk to those idiots. Ladies and gentlemen, the first and only ever commissioner of the NHL. Ladies and gentlemen, Gary Bettman. Yay! Ray.

Thank you for having me, and I think it's great to be with you. I'm getting used to the look of one of our sweaters without sleeves. I do like it, though, and I love the fact that you have your Hockey is Awesome segment. Okay.

Kamish, two things. I cut this myself, so I apologize for kind of disrespecting one of the tarps. I do like the way I breathe out here, but if I was ever to get on the ice, that thing would be all the way down. I'd have the elbow guards. I'd have the thing. I'd do the thing. I would do it all.

I grew up in a hockey town. Very lucky to say that. I think a lot of people that are from hockey towns would say the same thing. So the Hockey is Awesome segment is just a very natural thing for me because there's a lot of people that don't know this sport, which leads me to this conversation. How do we continue

to grow it? I know you've been the commission's 19, what's that? 1990? 93. Hey, congratulations. That's incredible. They're going to keep me at this until I get it right. Well, hey, we're continuing to build. It feels like we're in the middle of a boom right now for the popularity of the NHL.

How do we continue that? What are some things you think that you guys are focused on to get this game in front of more people because it's the best game on earth? Actually, the attention that we're getting, particularly from ESPN, Actually, the attention that we're getting, particularly from ESPN, both for the promotion and production of our games and how they're being carried and scheduled has been great. The frozen frenzy was a good element of that. Our attendance, we're tracking for a record year on attendance. We try to do things, whether it's at the grassroots level, or I just came from a press conference announcing the public sale of one of our outdoor weekend events. We're going to put on two outdoor games at MetLife Stadium on February 17th and 18th.

Tickets went on sale this morning. The Devils are going to be playing the Flyers on Saturday night, and there'll be a concert as part of that evening. The Rangers are going to play the Islanders on Sunday afternoon. The Giants and Jets have been great in sharing their home with us. And so we want to continue to create ways for fans to connect with our game and have a great experience. In addition to that, we've been using technology, puck and player tracking in particular, to bring people closer to the game, inside the game, and create more data around the game. But things like today and what you do with the Hockey is Awesome segment, that helps grow the game, and we really appreciate it. Now, I am a small doofus in this entire thing who happens to love us.

Yeah, well, I appreciate that. Hey, you're all right by me, Kamish. I'll tell you that. But let's talk about that. I appreciate the kind words and acknowledgement, but lucky to do it. Let's talk about that stadium series. That felt like a brilliant concept from the very beginning.

Obviously, Pittsburgh Penguins have been a part of a lot of them. Whenever you go to a stadium outside, it's a spectacle. There's more people. It's a different view. You introduced that Sky cam drone cam thing. Whenever you see the success of the stadium series, what is the next steps of it? And how do you continue to make it special? I feel like that MetLife, this is a brilliant festival weekend, almost in the stadium. The MetLife games will be outdoor games number 40 and 41. I think

they're all sold out. They're all unique. We dress up the stadium, whether it's a football stadium or a baseball stadium, and it becomes unrecognizable because it's very hockey-centric and it's themed based on the area and the history and tradition of hockey in that area. What's really great about it is the players love it. It conjures up notions of them as young kids learning to skate outdoors on outdoor ponds. And for fans, there's tailgating, which you don't typically have for an arena sport. And we're coming together in numbers that you're not quite used to because, you know, we play in front of 18, 20,000 people in an arena. But when you put 80,000 people outdoors together, braving the elements, it's really taking the game back to its essential roots. And people just love the experience and dealing with the climate,

which takes sports, which is the ultimate reality show, in our case, taking it outdoors and making it even more unpredictable. I was in Edmonton on Sunday, where we played the Flames against the Oilers in the Battle of Alberta, which is a 40-some-odd-year-old rivalry, and the fans, it was sold out with something like 55,000 people. It was 20 degrees out, and it was just awesome. Yeah, it's beautiful. And also the jerseys that get made for the special event, it just feels big. You know, the NBA's – go ahead. No, no, and, you know, we're going to do a fan fest outside MetLife.

We're going to have a concert on Saturday night, probably before the game itself, not just during the intermission. It's really a celebration of the sport and hockey in New York. You know, you've got the Devils, the Rangers, the Islanders. We brought in the Flyers. So 90 miles down the road. Great rivalries. And hockey is so big at all levels in this area. You know, not just at the nhl level youth hockey is exploding as well and that's another way that the game is growing okay so let's talk about that a little bit because i think the nhl what you guys do with expansion teams should be the standard barrier

in in every standard bearer in every other sport you expand into new cities most recently obviously las vegas they go on to win the Stanley Cup just five years later. You have the expansion draft, and you get great players in there. You're at 32 teams right now, obviously. Is that – where do you feel? 32? Are we expanding more? Are we doing – because it feels like that's been a home run for the NHL.

And how do we get more hockey towns? So that's a great question, and I have to answer it two different ways. One, the success that Vegas and Seattle have had is actually no coincidence. You know, our competitive balance based on our system of the salary cap and revenue sharing gives us the most extraordinary competitive balance. You see it in the races in the regular season to who makes the playoffs. I mean, every one of our regular season games has meaning in terms of getting into the playoffs. And then once you get into the playoffs, as we've seen, anything can happen. And so we made the

decision, the owners made the decision, unlike typical expansions in every other sport, including our own historically, is you admit a new team, you give them a mediocre draft, and there's initial enthusiasm for three, four years, but the losing gets old, and then 10 years out, the team gets competitive. We decided, because of our competitive balance, we didn't want to bring in teams that couldn't be competitive. We didn't want to bring in teams that couldn't be competitive. Bill Foley predicted, the owner of the Golden Knights, that he would bring a Stanley Cup to Vegas within six years, and he did it.

Vegas has turned into a great sports town and hockey town. We were the first ones in. People ridiculed us at first. They thought we were nuts. But we always believed that Vegas, which at the time I think was the largest city without a major, one of the major four sports there. And people wanted to have a professional sports experience. And now everybody else is gravitating. Obviously, the Raiders came. Baseball's going to come.

The NBA's talking about it. I mean, imitation, I suppose, is the highest form of flattery. In terms of moving forward, we get expressions of interest all the time. We're getting it from Houston, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Quebec City. Expansion isn't on the forefront of what we're thinking about. I take meetings all the time. I listen to expressive interest. I'm not ruling it out, but it's not something we're focused on or we're pushing to do right now. We like where we are. We think we have a good balance. And, you know, it also makes us a little bit different in u.s than the other three majors but we think we're doing just fine and all of our franchises are stable healthy and competitive well there's one out there in the desert obviously that everybody has to talk about but phoenix is like top five

city in the country and it's that city's beautiful people i mean it is obviously a fantastic place but that's a big focal point i think whenever these new cities are talking about how they would treat hockey. We were just in Salt Lake this past weekend, and I know it's been brought up. The people, like the Hockey is Awesome segment that we do, the amount of people that came up and were like, hey, we love hockey here in Salt Lake. That Hockey is Awesome segment is up there. And I'm sure they're not the only city, but that city felt like, and we went to the jazz game, 251 straight sellouts, 18,000 people in that place.

It's like those cities see what's happening in Phoenix and they think it's a crime almost. How do you fix what's going on with the Coyotes and how do you kind of see that going, Kamish? The Coyotes need a new arena. It's that simple. And, you know, to go through the history of how they got into the situation they are isn't interesting and would take too long.

But the point being, the current owner, Alex Morello, is committed to getting what he needs done in order to get them a new arena. And our hope is that sometime this season we're in a position to announce that there will be a new arena for the Coyotes coming out of the ground. That's the goal, because as you said, it's an awesome market. It's top five or close to it, and it's a place we want to be, and there are great fans of hockey and of the Coyotes, and we're hoping to work it out. Having said that, that doesn't mean that we wouldn't do well, perhaps with

expansion in the future in a place like Salt Lake City, where we know there's tremendous interest. Yeah, you're in a good spot, it feels like. The NHL is in a very good spot. We've probably never been healthier as a sport. The game has never been not only more competitive, but more entertaining and more exciting. Great young players. You recently had two on your show with Bedard and Matthews. The skill, the speed, the entertainment value. As important, something that I track is I think we're trending to set a record from come from behind victories, lead changes.

We're a team that was losing that comes on to win, and it's getting close to 50% of our games, which makes it exciting and fun as a fan to be entertaining. And as a fan, you know, whoever you root for, your team likely has a chance of making the playoffs, which most sports can't say. And then once the playoffs begin, as I said before, anything can happen. Our franchises are healthy. Our ownership is strong. The sport is on all of the metrics that are relevant. It's never been in better shape.

We like where we are, but there's always more to do. And we've got to keep moving forward to make sure the game is healthy, that we're relevant, and that we're connecting with our fans. Should I call you Gary, G, Mr. Bettman, Kamish? What should I call you? Gary, I like the best. Okay. Gary, well, everything you just said was a lie about the Penguins. I've been told we're done this year.

I haven't told we stink. That's what I've been told. But I appreciate where you're coming from because every game is electrifying. And you talk about how healthy the sport is, how healthy ownership is right now in the NHL. And we're all incredibly pumped because it wasn't that long ago, I guess two decades at this stage, the lockout happened. And I was doing some research on you because I'm very lucky to get a chance

to chat with you. There are still some fans, I guess, that are very mad at Gary about the lockout. But I would like to say this. What did you learn from that experience? And how do you think the league has become stronger because of everything that happened then? We were fundamentally in a place going back to 2004 where the game wasn't entertaining,

the players weren't having fun, there was no competitive balance. We wound up losing a season, and collective bargaining didn't go very well. I wish it didn't take a full season to convince the union that we needed a new system. We got the system and that's what's opened up the game. Because when teams can compete and all of our teams can, it makes you play to win, not play not to lose. And that's why the game's gotten better.

And what's interesting is, and I know there may be some people who still are upset about what happened, but when you look at the shape that the game is in now, there's no question that what we did, for lack of a better set of words, was worth it. But even when we came back from the year-long lockout, and no sport had ever done that. One, we set a record for attendance. We had record ratings and we had great competitive balance. No business that I'm aware of shut itself down for a year and came back stronger than ever. And that's a testament to how great our fans are, how connected to the game they are, and the fact that they understood what we were doing and what the end result was. And what we're seeing now in terms of the health of the game

is a function of we got the system we needed to make the game healthy. Hey, you should talk your shit on that, by the way, because sometimes some hard decisions have to be made, and in your seat, those ones are going to affect every single team or at least one team at it. And with where hockey is, I think everybody would accept the path that it took to get here, and it's only going to continue to grow. I think you should talk your shit on that, Gary.

Tone has a question for you about growing the game. Yeah, I do. Mr. Gary, I lived in the same city as Sidney Crosby for 15 years, and I don't know anything about him. Connor McDavid doesn't talk a ton. Austin Matthews was on the show, but you don't hear the stars talk a ton in hockey. Cause I feel like it's just part of who they are.

They don't like to make it about themselves. They like to make it about the team and stuff like that. Do you wish the stars of the NHL talked more, put themselves out there more? Do you think that would help grow the game? That's a great question. And I think historically, the culture of our game was more team-centric than individual centricity.

And our guys are great on and off the ice. And the younger ones, and our teams are supportive of this as is the league, younger players understand the importance because they are gen z's and they are now putting themselves out there on social media more than ever before and it's something that we encourage and yeah when you look at the things that we've been doing road to the winter classic you know the stanley cup videos behind the scenes. We know that fans, particularly younger fans, want more insight into the game behind the scenes and more about our athletes and how great they are and how personable they are.

And that's something we're encouraging and emphasizing. And I think in that respect, the culture of the game is changing and that's going to help grow the game as well. You're 100% right. It's just kind of been the culture, I feel like. Like, the culture of the game is changing and that's going to help grow the game as well. You're 100 percent right. It's just kind of been the culture. I feel like it's not about me. It's about the team, which is very noble. It is very, very noble. But they also they also get the world that listen, they're younger, too. They're part of a newer generation and they're more instinctively out there on social media. They're more instinctively out there on social media and, you know, the behind the scenes stuff that we do and what they're now doing on social media, which is now being encouraged, I think is one of those things that's going to help make fans appreciate the players more than they even do and help grow the game. I think there's people that are always going to be fans of the team.

For instance, I'm always going to be a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins because I grew up in Pittsburgh. My father was a fan of the Penguins. My always going to be a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins because I grew up in Pittsburgh. My father was a fan of the Penguins. My father's father was a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins. But there's also a generation that is fans of humans, and they're fans of the people. So anything that's going to bring them. Austin Matthews was great on our show. Shout out to Scottsdale, Arizona, by the way.

Conor Bedard was great. P.K. Subban was fantastic. Patty Maroon has been on the show. He's been good. It's like there's a lot of great personalities. I'm excited we're getting to learn about them, you know? Absolutely. And the more casual sports fans, not just hockey fans,

get to know our players and the people associated with the game, the more they're going to love the game and feel connected to it. I'm a meathead, even though I was a punter. From Pittsburgh. Father was a truck driver. Hardly. Go ahead. We'll play along. Hardly. You got it feel connected to it. I'm a meathead, even though I was a punter from Pittsburgh. Father was a truck driver. Hardly. Go ahead. We'll play along. Okay.

You got it. You got it. But my dad, truck driver, you know, from Pittsburgh, not scared, you know, every once in a while if we have to, even though I was a guy that punted footballs. A massive part of hockey for a long time has been fighting, has been the acceptance of fighting, of like, hey, you disrespected or took a cheap shot on my guy. We are handling this right now.

To be honest, I think society kind of needs that back in moderation in a healthy way instead of what we've become. Now, I know that you guys have kind of leaned away from potential of the fighting being a major part of hockey. Is there a happy balance there? I think there's more fights this year than there's ever been. What do you think about it, and how do you guys view it going forward? Because for me, dipshit in a sleeveless hockey sweater here,

like, love it whenever he says, oh, you want to hit my guy? I don't think so. We're doing this. But I know there's people that feel differently. I understand that there's people that feel differently, Gary. There is a balance, so let's take a step back. First of all, when you think about the nature of the game, it's high speed. Players are encouraged to make physical contact with each other. It's emotional. It's nonstop. And by the way,

everybody's carrying a stick. Fighting in the spontaneous sense tends to act as a bit of a thermostat when things happen in the course of the game, and it keeps the game under control. What's really come out of the game is the stage fighting and the designated fighter, and part of that is because the competitive balance is so intense, teams have concluded you can't have a designated fighter anymore. What you really need is skilled players, and you don't want to give up a roster spot. Eighty percent of our games don't have fights in them, roughly. The other 20 percent, the fights tend to be spontaneous in the heat of the moment. And I think the game's in a good place with that.

We're obviously aware of health and safety concerns, and that's something we've been dealing with with the Players Association for decades. But I think right now we're in a good place. Yes, fighting is penalized, but fighting in the heat of the moment is something that has been a good outlet. And we don't need the stage fighting anymore and i think the game's better without it hey feels like that's probably the right answer especially if i was sitting in your seat but i'll tell you what when the boys form a circle oh he's got the sticks they say have at it boys you know that's uh your sport's the only one that has that your sport's the only one that happens yeah it's gonna happen forever we would assume let's talk about safety of the

game though because you just chit-chatted about that there at the end. Obviously, devastating thing happened in the hockey world. Devastating. And I know in the NHL, and rest in peace, by the way, he was a Penguin, so we appreciate him mightily. Got hit with a skate in the throat. Now, this is international. This is over in England, I do believe.

There's a full conversation about did that guy do that on purpose, and he has a little bit of a rap sheet doing this. Nonetheless, let's stay out of that. Let's keep with you, though. Rest in peace, Adam Johnson. Let's keep with the NHL. There has been a conversation of potentially wearing a throat protector because there is sticks and skates.

Where do you fall on that, especially with what is happening recently in hockey? That's something that's been an ongoing discussion in terms of safety and equipment and Kevlar, whether it's for legs or wrists or the neck. And to the extent anything would be mandated, it's something that either needs to be the appropriate education and be it's something we do in consultation with the Players Association. We have a standing committee that meets regularly and studies these issues. And this has been a topic of ongoing discussion and it will continue to be. Players are free to wear Kevlar protection for the neck and whatever. And I think as part of

the evolution, it's no different than what we did with visors. It took us a couple of decades to agree to make it mandatory, but more and more through education, players had increasingly been wearing visors. They were coming into the game from other places as they were youngsters, wearing visors, and we continued to encourage them not to take them off. And then ultimately we got to the point where we made it mandatory. I think over time, as we continue to work with the Players Association, we got to the point where we made it mandatory. I think over time, as we continue to work with the Players Association, we'll get there as well. And as I said, there's nothing to stop players from better protecting themselves, whether it's the neck or

wrists or legs from wearing more protective equipment. And that's something we're going to continue to study and educate on. But I think it's part of the natural evolution. And that's something we're going to continue to study and educate on. But I think it's part of the natural evolution. And what happened in Europe was nothing short of a horrific tragedy, no matter how it happened. And it's something that I think has raised consciousness. And in terms of the consciousness raising, that the discussions are not a bad thing to happen. Absolutely devastating what happened over there, especially with hockey. But what I think a lot of us learned is, oh, they're playing leagues over there, which leads to A.Q. Shipley's question for you, Gary. Yeah, Gary.

So obviously the NFL's had a ton of success over in Europe. Has there been any talks? Obviously you guys have done some stuff in the preseason, but has there been any talks of growing it more into Europe and having maybe an international series over in Europe? We do that. We've been doing that. Last year we played in Finland.

In November we have four teams going to play in Stockholm, Sweden. People tend to forget two things. One, that a third of our players come from outside of North America, and these are some of the most skilled, coveted players in the world. And the fans, the hockey fans in their native countries are always anxious to see them play in the world's best league for hockey, which is us, obviously, which is why we've been for years taking regular season games and some preseason games to Europe, and which is why we're doing it now. The other thing is, and we're very respectful of it, there are highly developed leagues in European countries,

Sweden, Finland, Czech, Russia. And so we're very respectful of the fact that they're developing world-class players, and we try to work collaboratively to use our games in Europe to help grow interest in the game worldwide. And as I said, that's something that we're going to be doing again in November in Sweden. We just played two, as a different aside, exhibition games in Australia, Australia and Melbourne in the preseason. So we are probably in terms of the demographics of our players, the most international of the four major sports. Yeah. Let's talk about the most international of the four major sports. I assume you have to deal with a lot of different international relations with a lot of these things.

We do. Yeah. So is that something you have to actively focus on diplomacy whenever you're dealing with, you know, you just talked about Russia. They're currently in a war. There's some other stuff popping off. Like, how do you go about dealing with everybody's different cultures, backgrounds, and happenings currently to kind of run a, you know, a nice league? We have to be respectful. Obviously, after the war with Ukraine started, we cut off all of our relationships, commercial relationships with Russia, which was many millions of dollars that we just stopped doing business with. And in terms of our international relations, we're very respectful at the governmental level of what our country tells us is permissible and impermissible. But we try to have relations with the federations that govern hockey throughout the world.

We have a very strong relationship with the International Ice Hockey Federation, and we're trying to work together with the IHF to get our players back into the Olympics because, in addition to everything else that our players do that's important, they love representing their countries and they love international best on best. And we're going to try and make arrangements for Milano Cortina to get our players back into the Olympics. It's a logistic nightmare. It takes place in the middle of our season. It's very expensive, but it's something that we're working on because it's important to our players. expensive but it's something that we're working on because it's important to our players it's right in the middle of our season very we hey very important for the game of hockey too a lot

of people watching that that maybe don't watch the nhl because they're watching team usa or their own country but also if this guy gets hurt like in the international baseball series we're all buddy blue's thing that kind of affects us but yes we are trying to make it happen because... By the way, I pointed out that way, and you're right the way you were sort of parroting me, but the fact is it's hard... No, because I... Hey, Gary, Gary, Gary, hold on. We were supposed to go to the last Winter Olympics

and then COVID got in the way because we had to reschedule 150-some- some odd games and we couldn't take the Olympic break. But the fact is, we do want to go because first and foremost, it is important to the players. Listen, we don't make any money by going to the Olympics and that's not to be all and end all. But the fact is, in the middle of the season, you don't see the other leagues willingly taking that on because it changes the momentum of the season. And because of the composition of our teams, our NHL teams, some teams may send one or two players to the Olympics. Some may send nine or ten. Coming back from a two and a half week break halfway around the world means whatever conditions the teams were in, nhl teams before the break some are coming

back well rested and some are coming back pretty tired and that's something that impacts the season having said that if we can make it happen with the ioc and the appropriate arrangements are are made we're gonna go gary i want to tell you the only reason why i'm saying that is because i was one of the people that was like why are they not in the Olympics? Like, it just seems like such an easy thing. I was very loud about it. What a dumb decision by the NHL to do this. And then you just laid out like, uh, there's about a thousand reasons why it's very difficult, but we agree. We would like to be in there. So I appreciate that from you a lot. And also I know you have a lot of things happening every single day. The fact that you just took 25, 30 minutes of your life

to talk to these idiots in this particular room, we are so incredibly thankful, Kamish. I'm thrilled to be with you. I expect all of you to join me at the two games at MetLife the weekend of February 17, 18. And I hope you come as my guest. And I'm happy to join you anytime you want to have us on the show because I know you think hockey is awesome.

I appreciate the hell out of you. The commissioner of the NHL, we'll see you out there too, by the way. Can't wait to see the spread in the commission. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Ladies and gentlemen, Gary Bettman. Thank you, buddy. Yay, Gary Bettman. Thank you, buddy. Yay! Joining us now from Manatee, Ohio, is a man who was Edward Scissorhands just yesterday.

Had white paint on his face with some emo goth hair all day on ESPN yesterday because he commits to the bit. This man is a father of 10, a COVID survivor, a Super Bowl champion, the all-time leading tackler for the Green Bay Packers. Ladies and gentlemen, Aaron James Hawk. What's going on, buddy? You look a little down today. You okay? Oh, no. Anything but down.

We did a great trick-or-treat last night, man. Like little flurries of snow. It was real windy. It was perfect. It was real windy. It was perfect. It was real chilly, real windy, he said. No, I'm saying it felt very like Halloween-ish where I'm looking around. It was like 20-mile-an-hour wind. It's cold.

It started to snow a little bit. It was perfect, man. I agree. Back in the day, whenever it would snow and we'd go trick-or-treating, it's like those are the ones you remember. That's South Florida ever snow on? Absolutely. Now, how do you go about your custom?

Do you switch it up? You got to, what do you mean you're sweating anyway? Cause you're running house to house. They're already sweating. You need it to be like 20 degrees. Yeah. And we're trying to get from neighborhood to neighborhood too. We got to get to the neighborhoods with the big homes because they're going to give us

the big chocolate. That's where we need to get to. So you're hiding, you're dodging, you're ducking, you're diving. You always think, oh, maybe this neighborhood is going to kick us out because we're not from here. They're going to know. So you're just always on edge., oh, maybe this neighborhood's going to kick us out because we're not from here. They're going to know. So you're just always on edge.

The anxiety's high. Thank you. King size. We knew it. And we're out of there. We're not worried about how cold it is. What are you talking about? You South Florida folks just living a different mindset.

Soft. Never worried about that. This dude had a hoodie on when it was 95 degrees. Yes, he did. Do you remember that? Oh, yeah. That was absurd. How's the golf game though?

You look like you're playing great golf. The golf game is solid. That's what you need. South Florida, you need to be golfing. This shit right here humbled me, and I actually had my best putting day ever this past Saturday. Okay. Here? Saturday.

Sure. Bet you did, D-Bud. Bet you did. I mean, what? I won. We got a couple witnesses that would co-sign on that? Is that another member of the Butler Birdies? Oh, absolutely.

Okay. Yeah, sure. But that's the last person that will co-sign. Yeah, you're right. That's the last person that will co-sign some boys. You're right. The Butler Birdies account has been fun to follow. The whole family's getting into the game.

It feels like you guys are starting to ball. Speaking of ball, Joshua McDaniels might be balling. He got fired in the middle of the night last night. See you later. Same with Dave Dolph Ziegler. He's out there as well. Now you've got Antonio Pierce as the head coach, a man named Champ Kelly as the interim general manager.

They stick with Devontae Adams on the trade deadline. They stick with Max Crosby. They stick with their guys that they've paid and they want to be around. Now they're turning over the coaching staff and the front office yet again. What does this mean in your eyes, AJ? What are your thoughts? I mean, they're paying a ton of money to the coaches that they've fired, so that sucks, right? How much? $40 million, allegedly, over the next four years, guaranteed.

Josh McDaniels might be a professional golfer over the next four years, or he will work for free with the New England Patriots. This is a classic Bill Belichick move. We'll let the Raiders pay him $10 million a year, and we'll pay you nothing. You're an intern. So do you think this was alright right to do in-season? Are you a fan of in-season firings like this when it feels like, hey, this is not going anywhere we want to go? I don't want anybody to lose their jobs ever. Now that got written about us earlier whenever we came over here

and things happened. Anybody that wants to work, I hope you have a job. We're lacking people with work ethics, so I never want anybody to ever lose a job, especially people that would like to work. With that being said anybody to ever lose a job especially people that would like to work with that being said I'm also a big fan of ownership telling their fans yeah I ain't happy with this shit either you know and that feels like this particular move uh because we did see videos earlier in the season where Mark Davis was sitting there great hair unbelievable

super cool look and he just won another world championship yes he did with the aces just two weeks ago. And he's getting cussed out everywhere he goes because of how the Raiders are. He's thinking to himself, guys, just won another world championship with the Aces. You're welcome. Brought it to the town. Nobody's ever done that. And instead all he's hearing about is, these Raiders stink, bro.

This guy ran Darren Waller out of town. Hunter Renfro doesn't even want to play football anymore. What happened with Chandler Jones? What do we do? That's all he hears probably all day, every day. So I appreciate the fact that he made the move. I don't know what it means for this year. Okay, what do you think it means for this year?

This is a punt year, but they got a lot of money on the books still. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a let's set ourselves up for next year. So next year, this doesn't spill in and be a disaster next year. And possibly, though, very, very optimistic that something positive could come out of this year with Antonio Pierce, though. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. That's the hope. AQ, former player coach, one year, two years.

How many years did you coach? One year. One and a half. Yeah, with the player coach. Seven months. Coached for one and a half years, won a Super Bowl. That's right. Pretty good.

What's Belichick's ratio? Not that. Not as good. Not that. Anywhere near there. I don't know. Put him in the hall. Played and coached same year.

Unbelievable. Jackie Moon. Bill ever do that? Never did that. Never did that. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. Get the funk out of my face.

Get the funk out of my face. Get the funk out of my face. Get the funk out of my face. That's Jackie Moon you did. And Pete Rose did, and he did some other things as well. Actually. Confirmed. He actually did.

Antonio Pierce, though. What are the chances that he's an incredible coach? You think as a former player. Now, Jeff Saturday coming in was not with the team all year. He gets dropped in there. Jim Irsay wanted a clean house, clearly. And he wanted somebody that he had a lot of trust and faith in to restore the culture that the Colts were

because from what he heard, I assume, all hell is broken loose. Late to meetings, missing treatment, gambling against the Indianapolis Colts while you're on the Indianapolis Colts. Like, everything was shit pretty much behind the scenes. Somebody would have loved to have that opportunity. Jeff Saturday is the one that was supposed to go turn around. He did not. But as a former player stepping in this moment,

what do you think he does and how do you think he does as the coach of the Raiders interim? Yeah, one thing that's huge with former players, what they do is they hold people accountable. That's the first thing they're going to do. Yeah, but normally players, remember, not. But players are normally players' coaches, remember? Too soft. I don't think that's ever the case whenever players are coaching. No, it's not because they understand what it takes, right? Like they understand the pulse of the locker room. They understand all of the inner workings that maybe the guys who were never in a locker room don't understand. So I think the first thing he's going to do is he's going to come in and he's going to try and change the culture.

And the first thing he's going to do is hold people accountable. Hey, listen, all this stuff we've been doing that isn't working, whether it's late to meetings and we've heard in other places, obviously don't know if that's going on there. But if that's the case, he's going to come in, he's going to start hammering the fist right away and then gain the pulse of the locker room and go from there and now start to develop the relationships with the offensive side. Now you just try and develop culture.

Because, again, we said it earlier, you cannot change things personnel, terminology, scheme-wise in season. You've got to kind of stick with what it is and just hope that we're doing it better. Aiden O'Connell allegedly going to be the quarterback, so they're moving on from Josh, Ziegler, and Jimmy and just saying, Tom Brady being the ownership group now. Is he officially?

I think they approved it, didn't they? I just never knew if they approved it or not because there was all that trouble. I thought they got to a point where they did approve it. I'm not sure. I think because I heard a new Yeah, I think they approved. Yeah, I wasn't sure because the last time I was like why isn't he? I didn't

think they did because the last time we talked about it was like why aren't they just letting him in? The last news I'm seeing was from October 19th. It was still held up. So the reason why it's held up, allegedly, is because he's not paying enough money. So they're saying Mark Davis is giving this guy too good of a deal,

which then leads to how other teams are going to be sold in the future. It's like Tom Brady, greatest player of all time, would like to get into ownership. The person that owns the team was like, yeah, it's fine by me to sell this percentage at this rate. And the rest of the NFL is like, ah-ha! Whoa, whoa, whoa. Tom who? Who cares?

He's retired, is who we're talking about in this entire thing. So you're right, I guess Tom Brady's not a part of this at all, but them moving on completely from what they thought it was going to be, seems like there's another, you know, seems like it's the Raiders. Oh, yeah. Merry-go-round. Long time.

And then guess who's going to still be in the division? Patrick Mahomes. Seems like he's the Raiders. Oh, yeah. Merry-go-round. Long time. He'll pay another coach now. And then guess who's going to still be in the division? Patrick Mahomes. Yeah. And then we're going to do the whole. And then guess who's still going to be in the division? Not Brandon Staley. Patrick Mahomes.

Yep. Still going to be in the division. Definitely not Brandon Staley, we would assume. But Travis Kelsey is still going to be there. Andy Reid is still going to be there. Feels like there's going to be a lot of turnover, potentially, in the AFC West. You know, we've already kind of seen it. I assume that happened in the AFC East, when the Patriots

were doing what they were doing, because you're literally staring at the top of the mountain two times a year, and you're just watching it take place, and every owner's going to naturally say, why is that not us? That could be us. I need to find it. Well, now you've got to pay Josh McDaniels $40 million for the next four years.

Those coaches' contracts. Shout out to those agents with those coaches' contracts. Figuring that entire thing out. Joining us now is a man who I assume has a thought or two about this. You see him every once in a while on Sundays on CBS. He crushes it. He's already in the Houston Texans Ring of Honor. Third person ever put in there. He's going to be a first ballot

Hall of Famer. Very tall, but properly proportioned so whenever you see him on his FaceTime, he doesn't look abnormal. Ladies and gentlemen, J.J. Watt. Good description. Thank you. It was a good description. I try to look proportional. I mean, that is

a goal of mine. Yeah, because you're overgrown. Yeah, for sure. You know, like whenever you see you in real life, you're like, yeah, this thing is much bigger than it's supposed to be. Taller, wider, seemingly the jug of the head is gigantic. Huge head. Just a gigantic head, figuratively and literally. No, we don't think you're an arrogant psychopath.

No, we don't say it. But whenever you look, you go, this guy's overgrown. But then it's like, oh, properly proportioned this guy. Properly proportioned. Good for him. Now let's get it out of the way because it's right there on your big forehead. Boy, we can't be losing to teams like Bourne with. We can't.

Those are supposed to be wins. Those are supposed to be wins. Those are supposed to be wins. Gumpy, what the hell happened to Burnley? I thought we were supposed to win this past weekend. We're up 1-0. Top bins had a beauty. I mean, just had to hunker down, close it out. JJ was there for the take.

What happened, Coach or owner? Sorry. It was a frustrating one. That was certainly a frustrating one. You know, last game against Brentford, I was frustrated with that one, but then this one, we, I mean, like you said, we went up 1-0, and then they put some pressure on, and we didn't handle it very well.

We have a match coming up today in a couple hours in the Carabao Cup against Everton, so I'm really hoping we have a bounce back and we show some resiliency and some resolve here. The Care About Cup. Let's take down the Toffees, JJ. Take down the Toffees today. Yeah, nearby.

It's a battle. The manager of Everton is the manager that was previous to our current manager. So there's a lot going on today. Oh, no. A little revenge game in the Care About Bowl. Uh-oh. The Care About Classic. Look out.

That's awesome. What is the Carabao Classic? Do we got a trophy on this? Oh, yeah. Big trophy. I mean, there's four or five different competitions going on at any one time. Of course. In English football, it's pretty wild. So, this is one of those competitions. So, we obviously just played Saturday. We played today in the Carabao Cup, and then we

have another Premier League match this weekend. So it's bang, bang, bang. I got good news. Probably not going to be playing on Wednesdays, right? Isn't that the Wednesdays are the... Yeah, it seems like that's not going to... Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean,

that's a little ways away. That's a little ways away. We're working towards it. We're working towards it. Hey, let's go, Burnley! Yeah, let's go little ways away. That's a little ways away. We're working towards it. We're working towards it. Close to top four. Hey, let's go, Burnley. What are we saying? Come on, go, Burnley. Let's go, Burnley. How many games we got left?

Because I know we're in that. We're in the danger zone. Yeah. We're in the danger zone right now, right? How many games? We're 10 games in. We're 10 games in. We got 28 games left.

Oh. We got time. We got time. Yeah. We're just getting everything together. We're building our chemistry. We're understanding the style our coach wants us to play, and we're going to be just fine.

Oh, execution is the problem here. He runs a very specific style of play, and it takes guys a while to understand exactly what he's asking and to execute it. So, yes, execution is key. Gump, what's the style this guy's running? How come he's not letting his players just play freely out there on the pitch? He learned from Pep Guardiola, so he's probably

doing the same thing. But you get up a goal, JJ? Park it! Nothing wrong with putting 11 behind the ball and getting three points. Park it! Absolutely! I mean, we talked last week. The defense, man. The defense is we gotta step it up. Oh no!

Lutontown lost, though. You're still all right. You just got to jump Luton Town. You'll be able to beat Luton Town. Everybody knows Luton Town can't do anything late in the season. And you guys are a closing horse. You're a finishing horse.

Absolutely. How was Utah, guys? How was Utah? Was Utah good? Better than Burnley is on the soccer field. For sure. I know that. I know that. No, I'm joking. Utah was awesome. We just talked to the Hockey Commission. Did you see that? I saw that. I saw that.

I was preparing. I was looking over my notes for my interview, so I didn't get to listen too much. What do we got? What's the best piece of insight out of there? I'm sure you were looking over your notes and I appreciate you preparing so heavily. Wow! I'm not lying. Okay, what did we learn?

Hey, Gary Bettman's kind of a dog, dude. The commissioner's kind of a dog. He's the first and only commissioner of the NHL. Obviously in 2004 they had their lowest moment. Now they're at their highest moment. It's quite a build. First and only commissioner of the NHL. Obviously, in 2004, they had their lowest moment. Now, they're at their highest moment. It's quite a build. First and only commissioner of the NHL? What happened

before him? Everybody just kind of ran a rough shot. That's why the Red Wings were winning games and stuff like that back then. That's why. That's why? It's the only reason why. And 93 came, and all of a sudden, the Red Wings were... Stevie Eisenman, Osgood, Mike Vernon.

What a team. Federoff. Those guys were awesome. Thank you, JJ. Dogs. Yes. Just shut up. Those days are long gone.

And they actually started winning when Gary was commissioner, so that's how that goes. No, we went back-to-back just a couple years after. You don't even know what you're talking about, Ray. You weren't even alive. You weren't even alive, You weren't even alive. Shut up, young buck. I got it, Pat.

Actually, this brings up a good point. I was having a conversation with my wife about this the other day, and I'm fascinated by this debate. We were talking best cities for where the stadiums are located, like all the stadiums together. And I was putting Pittsburgh up on that mountain. I was like right around the rivers. All three of them are like you take that, right around the rivers, all three of them. You take that

overhead shot with the rivers and the bridges. There can't be too many cities that have all the stadiums in that badass location like that. Philly does have that incredible setup where it's all one parking lot pretty much for all of them. In Cleveland, they're across the street from each other. In Cleveland,

they've got that Jack's Casino. What's that, AJ? Since he's right next to each other. What's that, AJ? Since he's right next to each other, the Reds, who are unbelievable always, and the Bengals. On the river too? Is Arizona the worst? And the city. Arizona's so far away, right? Everything is like... Yeah. Arizona's out there. It's 45

minutes away from everything. New York's out. Hey, your Diamondbacks also. What are we doing? They suck. It was a rough game last night. It was a rough game last night. It was a rough game last night. Guys, it's play time. Jeez. Don't have play time. We've got nine mornings.

Yeah, guys go tonight. We'll do it. Yeah. You don't need more than that this night. Just go out there and play good. Hey, Q. Hey, Q. Give us the scouting report.

You've been a fan for all of 17 minutes. Tell us, AQ. Go ahead. So, SeaWorld, it blew the same game one. That was it. No, SeaWorld, our guy? That's our guy. Our guy SeaWorld.

What about Henke? I saw poor umping, which we're seeing a little bit poor officiating in the NFL also, but poor umping? Is there ump issues? I think the box is the box, however it is. But I do believe the MLB, especially, and this ties back in good, the NHL is going like this. I think the NBA is doing the same thing.

They go like in. And then the MLB ended up with, you know, the Diamondbacks and the Rangers, which I saw George Bush go out there and skip one in at his age. The way he was walking. He had a little Vince McMahon. Oh, yeah. Had a little Vince McMahon struck going after that entire thing. Yeah.

I know there's some explosion, but I don't know how many people are paying attention. Tonight, though, we're watching. Tonight, though, we're watching. Is there a game tonight? It's a big one. This is potentially a World Series winner. Anyways, let's get to football here, JJ, and we appreciate you joining us. You just talked about officiating. Let's talk about not only officiating, but

punishment. Mr. Warren of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who is on a rookie contract, did not get paid a lot of money. Signing bonus not that large. He's getting fined like $50,000. They're tuning like $50,000 for a multitude of hits that took place in the game. But both of them kind of ticky-tack. Now, whenever you think about this type, there's one right there.

Running back. He's getting fined for that hit right there. Go back to the beginning. Running back. Boom. You'll miss it. Yep. That.

Fine. Yeah, you will miss it. What? Anytime you've got to watch the play 10 times to figure out which person is getting fined, I think you messed up, all right? Like, I posted that on Twitter, and everybody was like, which player is it? Which one am I supposed to be looking at? Like, if we're having to do that, maybe we shouldn't be taking the guy's entire paycheck.

I mean, he's playing for free. He's literally going out there and playing for free two weeks in a row. What do you want him to do? It's a 300-pound man. Well, so there was another hit in that game as well where he was running down a sideline and he lowers his head and he hits his helmet off the shoulder pad.

So I think it's the NFL saying like, we need you not to be ducking your head like that. But nonetheless, checks and balances with officiating and everything that's kind of tying in. Where do you think we stand? Where do you think we stand as an, yep, yep. Where do you think we stand as an NFL and how do you kind of fix it all,

JJ? And how many times have you- I mean, I got, I got takes, I got takes here. So, okay. We want to talk about that. We talked, we just showed the play. You saw that play. If that's considered lowering your head and dangerous, like, okay, that's what we're going to talk about. Let's talk about cup blocks. Let's talk about a tight end coming across formation throwing his head at the knee of a player trying to wipe out his player perfectly legal according to the rule book you're allowed to just go wipe somebody's knee out and try and literally the goal of a cup block is to blow somebody's knee out basically and we're going to be okay with that but we're going to

take this guy's whole paycheck because he tried to block a 300-pounder, and he tried to get lower and use his leverage. I mean, there's a lot of things that, you know, we wear these guardian caps in training camp because it's 10 times safer for concussions, but we don't wear them in, I don't know. Like, there's a lot of things going on that's like, are we doing it or are we doing it?

AJ, you with me? JJ, yes. AJ's definitely with you. Did you see that second one there? It's a physical finish. I was too hot. Okay. He's lowering his shoulder.

He's trying to get an extra yard. Is he just supposed to take the hit? Should he just take the hit? Is this football? Are we playing football or not? What the hell? I don't believe it. Jeez.

The discussions of flag football and now we're getting in the Olympics, the hell? It's unbelievable. Jeez. Are we – like, the discussions of flag football and, like, now we're getting in the Olympics, which is great. I love flag football. It's a great sport. But, like, we are literally headed towards that direction as a league. Say it louder. I mean, if that's what you want to be, fine. Just say it.

But I don't love this, like, middle ground we're in right now. I love the fact that if somebody had to grab JJ's flag, that thing's, like, right here. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? That might be an actual advantage in eyesight, not 100% sure. But I do appreciate that you are alongside a lot of people that played football that are like, what are we doing to the game?

We actually just talked to Gary Bettman about fighting in hockey and potentially them trying to lean it out. He didn't say he wanted to get rid of it, which was, I think, a big deal for NHL because a lot of people think health and safety, we agree being health and safety for players we're obviously a pro player show and we would like everybody to be safe but it's like sports are going to have things that are going to happen football is going to have things that are going to happen and i think once the league acknowledges that we would all be much better but i think they assume they're just going

to get sued by everybody if they don't make progressions we got to figure out how to keep the game the game though jj we got to figure out how sweet is it that the nhl is just like yeah no we're cool with it just let it go just these guys are going to handle it and then they're going to go and that's going to be over like that's kind of badass just let them do it super badass and they, we don't mind the spontaneity fights, but we can't just have the stage choreographed, goons coming out, goons coming out. We don't want that. But if it's spontaneity,

it's cool. And in the NFL, it's like some of these hits, they're flying real quick, and then we're punishing people. It's like, what do you want people to do, and why do you want to change the game so much

from what people love to watch? Like, it's just... The fines are really upsetting me also because you get, like, there's certain, those two, obviously, he didn't get penalized in the game and he gets a fine later. And he's got a full game check taken away. And then you have to go through this appeals process and hope they give you half of it back.

And it's, it's a, that's its own conversation. But now we're talking like there's these unsportsmanlike conducts where TJ takes his helmet off in that one game and he gets a penalty and then also gets a fine. At some point, the penalty hurting your team is the problem. We don't need to also go back. I think there's been more than $9 million or $10 million in fines this year. It is mind-boggling how much we're taking away from these guys.

And where's it going? Can I pick where it goes? Charity. And where's it going? Huh? Can I pick where it goes? Charity. Nope. What's charity? Yeah, charity, AJ. Who writes it off?

Who writes it off? AJ, have you ever gotten a write-off of fine? No, I haven't. Nope. Somebody gives it to charity and writes it off. I've never gotten to write it off. What charity? Two.

Exactly. What is the? I believe it's the United Way. Is it? Do you know that? That's the first time I'm hearing that. No, I can't prove it. I can't prove it. I don't know. Well, shout out the United Way. Is it? Do you know that? That's the first time I'm hearing that. No, I can't prove it. I can't prove it. I don't know.

Well, shout out to United Way. I'm all about what they're doing, but that's the first time I'm hearing that. I don't know. But no, the money comes out of my check, and it's gone. I don't know where it is. I don't know where it went. I just know I don't have it. I got fined for a lot of tweets, and I don't know where that money went.

I was very wondering. You got fined for tweets in the league? To the tune of like $75,000, bud. team though not the league right from your team yeah yeah not from the league from the team from the team oh all right but that's a different that's a different yeah certainly yeah i don't know where the team finds go i have no idea where those go yeah i'm sure it went somewhere really good with the guy that decided what was your worst tweet what was your worst tweet they're all your worst tweet? They're all still up. Just know that. Yeah, what was it? I'll go look.

The worst one, the one that made me decide to retire and say this league's not for me anymore, I was standing in the equipment room during like the Thanksgiving break where, you know, it's a pretty dry time around, everybody's in there,

and I'm holding an electrical box outlet like this, and I'm acting as if I'm cutting a promo like Mr. Anderson from the WWE. And I actually just put a tweet out that was like, I'm just waiting for the WWE to call me. And I put a promo out. And I was just bored in the middle of the day and just put it out. One of the equipment managers, a guy who's been with the coach for like 30 years, is the one that took the picture and was like, yeah, all right,

I'm hanging out with the equipment room. I put it out. Then I got fined like 10 days later, like, uh, could have been a whole game check. I was told because this was multiple times that I've done conduct detrimental to the team. And it was like, okay, all right. And, uh, yeah, you don't say, yeah, it was actually, it was my profile photo for a very long time because it was the reason why I

decided to finally retire. I'm like to hell with this guy and this place. I don't want to be here anymore. But then I met Dave Chappelle because it was the reason why I decided to finally retire. I'm like, to hell with this guy and this place. I don't want to be here anymore. But then I met Dave Chappelle, and it was like, all right, I'm going to take a picture with Dave Chappelle. I'm going to put that up as my profile photo. But, yeah, fines around the league are something that need to be talked about more because it feels like there's only one side being heard, and then where's it going?

I guess the United Way. Anyways. It should be some type of scale, too. Like Jalen Warren, you know, obviously if he obviously, if he's making $15 million a year, you should get fined at a certain point. If you're making league minimum or $6,000 or $7,000, like $700,000, you should get fined on a different scale. Some guys get fined in preseason.

Like Quan Alexander, I think he got like a $20,000, $27,000 fine in preseason. We're not making anything in preseason. We just Googled in preseason we actually lost money playing in Canada because of taxes. I can't even imagine if you got fined up there as well. The fines collected are donated to Professional Athletes Foundation to support Legends in Need and the NFL Foundation to further support the health, safety, and wellness of athletes

across all levels, including youth football and the communities that support the game. All right, sweet. I'd like to see what a lot of money has come from that, so I hope we're really kicking ass in his support. Sure they are. D-Butt, to your point, D-Butt, that's part of the reason that, like, I am choosing to talk about it, especially in, like, a Jalen Warren situation

because he's a young guy, obviously not making a ton of money, and, like, something like that happens where that's, in my opinion, a ridiculous fine. If he speaks out about it or if he says something in the media, that has a chance to affect him and his career and also may not get the same pickup. I feel like you need older guys. You need people that have been through it before to talk about it.

So then hopefully, I mean, obviously this is massive first world problems where a guy's making a ton of money getting fined. But I do think it's ridiculous. Do you know how much money I got fined for one of those tweets? I thought it should have been a federal crime. This guy stole from me. This is grand theft getting stolen from me. It was like a $30,000 fine for a tweet.

I'm like, this is a federal crime. This guy is stealing from me. This is how much my parents made combined growing up. And I'm getting this for. Dude, you got $30,000 from your own team that's that's not crazy buddy start adding it up yeah this isn't just one I mean obviously I was a multiple offender but it was just like but yeah I'm not deleting them either that's stealing yeah grand theft I wanted the guy to go to jail. I'm like, what is, what the hell

is going? We've moved past it though. Anyways, AJ has a question for you. JJ going back to all the, we all, all the fines that are happening for people leading with their head or helmet to helmet contact. What's the answer? Like, how do we find the balance? We know there's 17 different helmets they can choose from that are super light and have zippers and not real chin straps and everything is all space age now and has different rivets that claim it helps with concussions okay why is there 15 different models then if one is better than the other but you can maybe enlighten us on that but what do we do what's the nfl supposed to do here i mean i think i think that there's a massive difference in determining intent like you watch those two players from jaylen warren he was not

intentionally doing anything there are there are plays where you watching like, Oh, that guy was literally trying to decapitate a human being. Like, yeah, we want to take those types of hits out of the game. We want to take the things where there is malicious intent, where somebody is trying to do, you know, harm outside of the realm of playing football. Those are the things that we need to find. Those are the things that we need to take out of the game. When we start doing these little finds for things that happen

in the regular course of a game, that's frustrating. That's the same to me why we shouldn't be finding every single roughing the passer call because some of those roughing the passers are a little bang, bang thing that happens in the course of the play. And sure, we got to flag it, but we don't need to fine it. I think there's a massive difference in intent versus just some of these regular plays. Who's that Runyon, right, that runs that? Yeah. I don't know.

I've gotten in so many arguments over the years on a fine appeal call. You just get into an argument, and you feel like, I can say anything in the world here, and they're not changing their mind. Derek Brooks handles some of the appeals. Intent does not matter to them. I know that. Intent should be a part of, I think in the world here, and they're not changing their mind. Derrick Brooks handles some of the appeals. Intent does not matter to them. I know that. Intent should be a part of, I think, the refs, which then leads into we need full-time refs

so that they can have a better feel of the game and what the intent is, like hockey has, with their NHL refs that are kind of a part of it all. Hey, we'll figure it out. This show, we'll solve it. We're going to get to the bottom of this. Yes, we are. And it's also all of get to the bottom of this. Yes, we are. And it's also, all of this might be why

Raj won't come on our show. You know, the NHL commission. It could be part of it. It could be part of it. It could be part of the reason. I don't know if I'm going to get canceled as an analyst here soon, where they're going to be like,

hey, you're talking about stuff we do not want you to talk about. You know what I'm interested in by? Is when we came to ESPN, everybody, I think, assumed that we were going to be told what we can talk about, what we can't talk about, because ESPN has a massive relationship with the NFL, obviously. You know,

massive. Now, granted, we're paying multiple millions of dollars to the NFL as well through NFL films so we can run highlights on social media as opposed to just on our show. So we have a relationship with it as well, but like, there's been things in the past where networks, I think, have been scared to say anything because they don't want to affect future relations. We're just trying to make game better they know that that's

all you know what i mean we know and espn has said nothing to us about anything so i appreciate hey you know what shout out espn yeah shout out honestly you know what's fascinating you know what's fascinating about that when i signed down with cbs one of the first question i guess you're you being a former player you have a similar thing that i do one of the first questions i asked was all right are there like topics that they give us that we're not allowed to talk about or is there like we're not allowed to say things and they were like no you can say and so i was like i just assumed that there was like a list of blacklisted topics that you can't speak about listen we're not talking about roger goodell's history of punishing players we're not doing this we're not doing all this stuffell's history of punishing players. We're not doing this. We're not doing all this stuff.

It's like for us thus far, it has been everything that they said it was going to be. Like, go ahead. I think it's potentially agents telling people that go on TV what they're supposed to say, what they're not supposed to say. Let's stay away from this as opposed to the networks. I think the networks have gotten blamed for a long time. I don't believe it's necessarily the networks, but it might be the networks telling the agents. Didn't your feed cut out at a long time. I don't believe it's necessarily the networks, but it might be the networks telling the agents. Didn't your feed cut out

at a certain time yesterday? Didn't your feed cut out at like a very specific moment? One provider. That's fake news. Don't listen to everything ML football says on the internet. Can't do that. That was only one provider, but Aaron did text me. He was like, Herbie got cut off. They cut me off? Herbie got cut off. What's that about?

They censored me. Big brother. 1984. What's going on, guys? They scared a four-time MVP, hippie guy, saying, oh, must have hit too close to home. We've been told that it was only one provider, and we don't know if it was one Connor Stallion's rogue agent that had that provider kind of hitting it, or if it was just technical difficulties at the exact same time.

But it was not ESPN, from what I've been told. Let's move along. Connor has a question for you, JJ. Yeah, JJ, great Michael Scarn shirt. That's a classic. Thank you. Also, Brett Level Midnight. Brett Level Midnight.

Fantastic film. I mean, that's just the office to a T right there. Gold face. Man, what a good show. That show's really good. Yeah, you love it. You were saying that yesterday. Bro, like Baumgartner.

Yeah, you were saying that. Kevin Malone. He's so good on it. He is. Every time I Baumgartner. Yeah, you were saying that. Kevin Malone. He's so good on it. He is. Every time I see him on Cameo, I'm like, this reminds me of the guy from The Office. And I love him in that, you know? Oh, yeah. And then that guy who's just like Dwight.

Dwight, yeah. Dwight, what a character. Zany. He really mixes up. Jim, when he looks at the camera. It's classic. The best. Oh, my God, that's great.

And then he's in love with Pam. Pam, she is so good at the show. Yeah, classic. Oh, my God. That's great. And then he's in love with Pam. Pam, she is so good at the show. Yeah, but not everyone loves Pam. Really? Does everybody love Baumgartner? Yes. Yes.

Everyone loves Kevin Malone. Universal. I don't know if I love Baumgartner. Whoa! I couldn't imagine why. I can't wait to hear about it. Well, it's probably because what I've said about how Baumgartner's looked at me every time I've seen him in real life. The guy always side-eyes me, this Baumgartner guy. Really?

I think he senses that I've never watched an episode of The Office, although I am a big fan of what they did. I love that they were out there doing it. From what I've heard, it's amazing and I will dive into it at some point. But I feel like he senses. He's always looking at me literally like this. Yeah. It's literally like it's absolutely... Do you

encounter him a lot? Like, are you in restaurants together often or how does this go once a year last couple years i've been around this guy every single time literally literally doing that yeah i've never had it never experienced before i'm like this guy's actually side-eyeing me right now it was very evident at tahoe this year i am on 80 milligrams right now okay we're at like tahoe. This guy actually side-eyeing me right now? Am I punching this guy in the face? What is going on? That's every combo I've had with him. But, hey, Kevin, you were great.

Kevin, you were absolutely great. Great shirt. Anyways, let's get back to it. Sorry about it, Connor. No, no, no, please. I mean, are you kidding me? If we can talk about The Office and Kevin Malone, why not? Such a good show.

I mean, I put it right up there. Friends, well, rest in peace. Rest in peace. I thought we were never going to do this again. All right, man. Moment of silence for him. Yep. Moment of the past.

I wish I knew more about him, but everybody loved that guy. Yes, they did. That's what I learned over the last couple days. For sure. Rest in peace. All right. Anyways. Connor, to you.

Transition out of this. Here you go. Good luck, bud. Please, we had a moment of silence yeah for a very beloved guy that was very nice uh just to kind of stay in the same vein there's a guy that was killing people on uh Sunday against the Panthers with the transition Texans professional I believe his name is uh John Greenard might be Greenard not exactly sure is this guy out of nowhere I mean everyone's focused on Will Anderson is Johnny Greenard the new face of that Texans D-line, or

what, JJ? First off, it's Jonathan Grenard. No! Damn it! You're so close. You're so close. Translate, said Greener. But he had a great game.

Two and a half sacks. He's been playing really, really good football. I mean, here, just go ahead. Just knock the guy straight on his ass, right into a sack. I mean, what a great feeling that is. But the thing I'll say about Jonathan Grenard, he's a great guy. He was down there when I was playing and just continues to get better, continues to work. And he just had a baby a couple weeks ago.

And the thing that I've learned about dad strength is you turn into a monster on the field because there's a new sense strength is you turn into a monster on the field because there's a new sense of purpose, there's a new sense of, and he turned into a monster. He's got two and a half sacks this past game alone, and he's just throwing grown men to the ground. So shout out John Grenard.

I love giving shine to guys that don't necessarily always get it, and we're giving it to John Grenard today. Yeah, especially for the Houston Texans, it's going to mean a lot coming from you. That celebration right there tells me maybe he's a Q. It's going to mean a lot coming from you. That celebration right there tells me maybe he's a Q.

I'm not 100% sure. That is correct. I believe his rookie show, he did the Q dog dance. It was pretty, pretty bad. Very sweet.

Very. Pretty cool. Very cool. Very cool. And also, you don't know how many Qs are in the room until rookie stands up in the front and starts doing it,

and it's like, in the back. It's like, oh, coach. Yeah, you see an assistant coach for the running backs just sitting back there, and then all of a sudden, it is awesome. It's always electrifying. I have no idea what's coming, but it's like, all right. That and the haka.

Somebody does the haka for the rookie dance, that shit is going to hit, man. How about they did one in Utah this past year? Yeah, I saw it at the show. It was fantastic. Fantastic. Shout out to Grenard, you pig. Grenard, no, sorry. Look, AIs are telling me what to say, and Grenard is what it told me.

This is ESPN telling you the wrong stuff. We just talked about ESPN not telling you. D-Bud has a question for you, J.J. We're staying at AFC South. Somebody else who I think doesn't get enough shine, absolute dog, Jeffrey Simmons in those sweet throwbacks had another dominant afternoon. What should we know about him that most casuals don't? I mean, true NFL fans have known it for a long time.

He's consistent. He's great. He does it every single year. He's a very, very good player. Casuals, I don't know if fully understand and appreciate what Jeffrey Simmons has been doing for years in Tennessee. And, yes, the uniforms looked spectacular. Oh, so good. Best in the league.

Gorgeous. Come on. I see that jacket. But, I mean, this guy just makes plays, man. He's dominant. He plays the run. He's in the pass game. He's got a double swipe here. Gorgeous. Come on. I see that jacket. But, I mean, this guy just makes plays, man. He's dominant. He plays the run. He's in the pass game. He's got a double swipe here.

Comes around. Just doink, doink. Get the ball out. I mean, just the guy's a great player. He deserves more shine than he gets. And he's a guy that's been doing it for a long time. Very consistently. Just a solid, solid player.

I was watching Inside the NFL last night on the CW. Oh, found it. I'm watching it. Nice. Jeffrey Simmons was mic'd up and he was doing a lot of like, I told you guys in training camp about Will Levis. Like he was talking up a lot about what he saw from his arm and what he was able to do. Seems like Will Levis has won over. I mean, I feel like you went over Jeffrey Simmons. You probably won over the entire defense, at least, maybe the whole roster.

But in the mic'd up that I saw, he's very much like, yup, we got a guy. And then we asked Coach Vrabel out of Tahoe, after Baumgartner side-eyed me, we asked Vrabel if he thought he could beat up every coach in the NFL, and he scoffed at us with two

cigarettes in his mouth and an entire dip of, entire tin of Zinn and Cope, I think, at the same time, with a vape in between the two cigarettes. Kind of scoffed at that. And I said, you think you can still beat up players? And he said, yeah. I said, you can beat up any players on your team? He said, everybody but Jeffrey Simmons, is what he said, pretty much.

So I think he's got the respect of everybody, JJ, or Jeffrey. So Brable's coach competition, I mean, it's got the respect of everybody, JJ or Jeffrey. So Braybill's coach competition, I mean, it's got to be Sala, D'Amico, Ryans, MC, Staley. That would be a great four-way cage battle. Yeah, but you've got to think about Bill Belichick. McDaniel. Exactly.

Belichick coming in there, I think, late, scrappy, gnawing an Achilles. Hungry Andy Reid after he had a cheeseburger. We were practicing at the Greenbrier one year. We were doing our training camp at the Greenbrier, and the Patriots were coming in for a joint practice with us, and I went in the weight room one morning to do my workout, and Belichick was in the squat rack, man.

It was fucking sweet. Damn it. Are we still alive? Damn it. That's two of them, Joe. No, I didn't go through. Yes, you did. That was good.

I said it quiet. I said it quiet. I said it really quiet. Yeah, we heard it. It was your outside voice, JJ. But to be clear, right situation to use. You should build Belichick squatting. That's something that certainly can maybe get you past a filter or two.

But, yeah, we saw that photo of him squatting. It's actually on a T-shirt now at this point, I think. Because it was – The Eagles. He had actually two big – I don't know if there were 45s, but maybe like 25s on either side. Yep, 45s. 315 on there, I think.

Didn't he have 315? Yeah. Yeah, he had 25s on the end, but then he had three 45 plates inside of those 25 plates. All right. I mean, if that's how we're going to – Bill does not like that we're lying about this. We're not lying.

That's how I remember it. The picture I saw. JJ, you were there. 3.15? 3.15? With ease, brother. Are we talking about the same photo? I don't think I took a photo of it.

Did I take a photo of it? We squat every day, so... Well, if you took a photo of it, we owe you some money because the shirt said well. No, I didn't. Yeah, it did. The shirt said really well

because much like you, anytime you see him on a squat rack, you some money because the shirt said well. No, I didn't. Yeah, it did. The shirt said really well because much like you, anytime you see him on the squat rack, you go, well, that's absurd. I'd like to see that again. And then you buy the shirt. And then – Are you guys still getting in the squat rack? Yeah.

Every day. Are you still getting in there? Yeah. Yeah. Diggs has not been under a bar in a decade. That's a lot. Who's squatting the most out of this group? Who said 315?

Who said 315? I saw a different one. I saw a different one he was doing. Maybe 375. Just real quick, you go back. Exactly what I said. Exactly what I said about this photo from how many years ago was that whole thing? Two years ago. So you're on his first year as head coach.

Hey, Bill, I have respect for you, pal. I'm not gassing you up and lying about you. Your resume's already good enough. Like, these guys are lying about you. You're warming up. I'm not lying. You're warming up. I'm not lying.

There's other stories, too. There's other stories. What are you saying, A? That was 95 pounds. He's 90 years old. He's lived in the same years he's been on Earth. Yeah, you're skinny now. Shut up.

Yeah, you're scrawny. He squatted yesterday. Hey, Stu, what are you squatting today? Yeah, you're scrawny. He squatted yesterday. Hey, Stu, what are you squatting today? We put you under the rack. He squatted yesterday. I can still do well over 400. What did you do yesterday, though? I did 275 for three sets of 15 yesterday.

Wuss. We're just taking his word? Yeah, I don't agree. It's a shipyard. A lot of lies happen. They don't flush the toilets. There's been pissing for two weeks. But we did lunges this morning.

This could be my new thing. I've heard this is the real cheat code to keeping yourself in shape i'm not gonna be able to stand up from the dumper later i don't know you used lunges suck dude gosh are they the worst are you still squatting yeah yeah no i squat i do lunges single leg reverse like a reverse single leg man. Anything single leg has got to be the best, but also just the thing you hate to do the most. Bulgarian split squats? Yes. Yeah, the Soviet ones.

The Soviet shuffle? Is that what you're talking about? You're talking about the Soviet lift? Turkish get-ups with the kettlebells. Oh, Turkish get-ups, yeah. AJ, how many years have you been retired, AJ? I don't know. Six, seven now?

I don't know. So AJ still every morning does team lift, 530. This is the person whose answer I wanted. What's your squat right now, AJ? That all depends on how much cartilage I feel like I have in my right knee. But, you know, it's different. I mean, I'll do just like basic 315 for six or something, do five or six sets,

but then if I feel good, I can put more weight on it. Five or six sets? I'll do 315 30 times at 538. Seven years after retiring. All depends on how you feel, you know. Knees don't, lunges are not in my repertoire at the moment. I fall down if I try to do a lunge with no weight. Yeah, they were tough.

I'm going to be honest. I don't think I'm going to stick with them, but the Internet's been telling me they are the cheat code. I tried them this morning. I don't know if they're going to carry into tomorrow because I'm going to be very sore. How long are you going to do this whole I'm still a player lift thing? I do not know.

I'm in a very interesting place trying to figure it all out. I can't let it go, but I know that at some point for my long-term health, it's better to switch up the styles. But I really can't figure it out. I honestly don't know exactly how I should be proceeding with my workouts because every time after I do a big, good lift, I feel great. It makes me feel like I'm actually doing something, so I can't let it go. And then the next day, you're like,

why did I... You're so right. When you go to the bathroom, that's when you know yesterday's workout was a really good workout because I can't stand up for this shit. Well, I love the fact that you're still 20% lift, 15% grip,

40% power. Do you hate that scene? You got it. You got it. I don't know the words as well as you. Did you hate that scene? I mean, I don't. I definitely... Anybody that tells you you don't have regrets in life

is probably lying. Yeah. There's things I'd do differently. I won't bullshit. Yeah, but I will say, a lot of us said, look at that machine. That guy's a machine. AQ has a question for you about another machine.

JJ, so Nick Bosa only has two sacks this year, but he's got like 45 pressures, right? So everybody's saying he's having a down year, but can you talk about the difference between pressures and sacks and kind of which stat you think is more important? Yeah, for most important, I will always go with sacks because it is a true end result of a play, and it's quantifiable to say, like, you know, this guy got home and did it.

Now, there's definitely – I love to say – any pass rusher will love to tell you they don't ask how you got them. They just ask how many. You generally say that after you're unblocked or the quarterback falls down and you get the sack because we'll take them however you can get them. But pressures versus sacks, pressures are obviously massive because they can force interceptions. They can force a quarterback into bad decisions. There's all different things that they create. they can force a quarterback into bad decisions there's all different things that they create but it is interesting to look at this 49ers defense and to know that they're not putting

up the numbers that they normally put up with all those guys they have on that side of the ball to be on a three-game losing streak with the offense and the defense they have it's certainly curious and you go out there and you watch and now they bring in Chase Young obviously and it's kind of one of those situations you're like don't they already have an embarrassment of riches at defensive line? But they aren't getting home. So they come in bunches, and I would imagine once they start to get rolling, they're going to have Nick Bosa rattle off a couple two- or three-sack games, no problem.

But I know how he feels right now. When you're sitting there this deep into the season with only two-and-a-half, you're itching to get there. You want that one, and sometimes you start to reach a little bit because you know people are expecting it from you. So he's just got to keep playing his game. He's got to keep going out there and getting after it. And they will come.

Yeah, we assume Bosa will figure it out whenever it's needed. He's a big-time player for a reason. They paid him a contract for the reason. Still getting pressures. But, hey, let's get home. Speaking of getting home, hey, Thibodeau, three times in the Jets-Giants MetLife Bowl. This guy obviously highly touted coming out of college. He was supposed to be the number one overall pick,

but he liked to use words like litty. Yeah, and NFT. And he was, this guy's weird. That's what was being said about him through the draft process, and we know the draft process brings a lot of bullshit. But for him, it was certainly louder, it felt like, than anybody else anybody else he's now in a system with wink where it seems like he's played his best ball this past weekend biggest game he's had what did you see from cave on tibeto and what do you think the future is for this guy yeah i mean i've seen it just like everybody else

you know new york city is a place to play where people are going to scrutinize every single thing and they've been waiting for this guy to go off from the beginning. He's sitting there at eight and a half sacks on the year now. I mean, he's in the top three for sacks. He's playing good ball. He's getting after the quarterback. He's got some moves that are coming along.

He's got some power. He's got some speed. They obviously have dogs on that defensive line. I mean, Dexter Lawrence is incredible. And this is what they wanted to see from him. And if you can do this consistently in New York, you can turn into a superstar. And it's a lot of fun to watch. He's got that motor right there. That's a perfect example. Tried inside, didn't work. So he comes back outside, comes around, makes a play, and he knows

it. And then obviously at the end of the game game we all saw the situation with the offsides and he posted the video was it offsides as a pass rusher i feel that pain i know that pain so you're saying not offsides he started leaning his upper body before his lower body started going and he has it right down the line and sorry about it sorry about it he said man everybody's letting the offensive tackles do it everybody's letting the offensive tackles do it but a guy who has three sacks can't get his fourth? Why do you offensive linemen always have such an advantage? Why do the refs always try to screw the defensive end's AQ? I don't see anything wrong with that play.

I'll take his defense there. Nothing. Wow. That's never happened to me. That's big. Wow. Very mature of you. Timed it up.

That was perfect. Who is this guy? AJ, go ahead, pal. JJ, I'm pretty sure they changed the rules on how you can hit a quarterback during your time when you were playing to where you couldn't land any weight on him. And when that happened, like how difficult was that to do? Because I feel like guys actually, they're very conscious of it now. You see them like bracing their arms.

I mean, some guys I'm sure have hurt themselves trying to not land all of their weight on a quarterback or even a receiver or ball carrier but how difficult is that to do in the moment yeah it certainly is difficult to do I will say if you're conscious of it you're cognizant of it you know what they're looking for you can be very successful at it and you can actually earn yourself the opportunity to hit him more and get a little more leniency if you know exactly what they're looking for it's something that I as I was learning those rules started to figure out okay is it one step is it two steps it's actually like one and a half to one and three quarters if you do it properly if you hit him and you roll off or if you hit him and you clearly put your arms out to brace yourself the ref is going to give you a whole lot more leniency then if you hit him with your shoulder and you kind of take him down to the

ground. So you really have to learn how to do it. But one of the reasons I had so many quarterback hits in my career was I found where that line was and then I was constantly pushing at that line, but not going over it. And those hits affect quarterbacks. Like any quarterback will tell you, the more hits they take, you start to think about it. It starts to get in your head a little bit. So I always try to make sure that if I had the opportunity to, I lay those hits into them. And we would always talk in the D-line room.

There would be guys that lay up because they're like, I don't want to get the penalty. And I'd tell them, no, that was one where you could have gotten away with that hit. Anytime you get that shot, you've got to take it. Yeah, I love the fact that both offensive linemen are trying to cheap shot you guys and you guys are just trying to dance on the line. Hey, is this football? Is there a competitive

edge? Potentially, but also mental warfare. If you're right at the feet of that quarterback every single time, that natural human thought at some point is like, wow, 99 is real close. 99 is real close. So if there's a play where you got them single blocks, it's like, all right, all of a sudden things are a little bit quicker.

Not only are you winning the physical battle, you're winning the mental one. JJ, I like that about you. Nobody talks about how smart that big head is. There's a lot of air up there, plenty of space. Well, you need to take all that air and put it towards Burnley. Not playing great. But a team that showed up for the first time, long time. Ty has a question for you.

Yeah, JJ, we're just a couple weeks removed now from people saying, like, hey, the Broncos are hammered dog shit. They suck. They gave up 70 points to the Dolphins. They need to fire Vance Joseph right away. Granted, Patrick Mahomes was very, very sick on Sunday. He was. He had a flu.

He was. IVs. And IVs. That's what they're saying. But the Broncos made him look terrible. What has been kind of the key to their resurgence? Do you think that was more a product of them just being in the division and knowing how to play him?

Or is that something that's going to kind of carry them through the rest of the season here? I think you look at it as a trend. I mean, obviously, it was four weeks ago now that they gave up 70 to the Dolphins, and everybody wants Vance Joseph and the whole defensive staff gone. And everybody's asking, you know, what's wrong. But if you look at the last three weeks, I believe they haven't given up more than 20 points the last three weeks. And then they obviously hold one of the best offenses in the NFL and Patrick Mahomes to save for a victory there. So I think there's a part

of it that certainly is the team figuring it out. I mean, they have a new head coach in Sean Payton. They have a new D coordinator in Vance Joseph. You do need time to understand the systems, to build the culture, to do the things that you want to do. And sometimes it just doesn't happen that fast. So these guys are now starting to fly around. They're starting to play a little better. They're starting to force these takeaways. They're putting these guys in tough situations. So I think there's certainly a part of it that is just, it takes time to figure it out and for you to implement

your system. And so it'll be interesting to see going forward if this defense continues to get better and better every single week. And I think I'm a guy that if everybody wants to crush a coach or a unit early in the year like they did and rightfully so after a 70 point somebody's paying 70 on you.

You're going to take a little criticism. When they turn around, you've got to also give them their credit there. Patrick Mahomes did have IVs all night. He was sick, just like Matt Hasselbeck against the Houston Texans back in the day. As we wrap up this beautiful time here on this glorious

Trenches Commissioner Wednesday on JSN Journalism Sports Network. We'd like to say thank you to JJ for taking time out of his life to join us every week. JJ, you've got about 10 seconds here. Would you like to say anything to the JSPN crowd as we end our

second hour here? Burnley's going to have a big day today. When coming, tune in. ESPN Plus. That was four seconds. See,. Tune in. ESPN Plus. That's the thing. 10 seconds is a lot longer than you actually think. That is. Still got time. Still got another one.

AJ Hawk, very strong. Alright, we'll see you tomorrow. Goodbye. Nailed it. That was really good TV out of you. That was really good TV. The people at ESPN just got to love it. Hey, you did great, JJ. That was really good TV out of you. That was really good TV. Unbelievable. The people at ESPN just got to love it.

Yesterday, wearing full costumes. Hey, your costume was awesome last night with the fam. It was great. You look good. Thank you. Yours was. Willy Wonka, I mean, the Oompa Loompas, man, that was great. Yeah, the wife put it all together, obviously.

She's the big brain behind it. I assume same thing for you? Same here, absolutely. I came home to a 3XL Incredibles outfit, and she was like, here you go, this is what you're wearing. All're wearing all right sounds good hey you look superhuman are you gonna get back into the movies and you know we need more action stars don't we do yeah we need more action you never have enough action movies um what's your problem that's true what's your problem no they make like a billion dollars yeah i'm I'm down. Let's do it. Marvel, you guys need somebody?

I'm right here. I'm literally sitting right here. Right now, because they got a strike. Nobody's available. They still on strike? Who's on strike? Writers or actors? Writers figured it out.

Yeah. Actors. Yeah. Now it's actors. I'll step in. I'll break the line. I'll be that guy. Scab!

Wow. Scab! I did that, Espy. You guys need somebody? I'll be the replacements. I'll be Shane Falco Scab! Wow. Scab. I did that Espy's. You guys need somebody? I'll be the replacements. I'll be Shane Falco. Nice. Hell yeah.

And Nigel. I'll be your Nigel then if you need me in there. You know what I mean? You need me to kick and smoke cigs in any of your movies you do. I would definitely get out there. That'd be a great costume for you. Yeah, it would be. And I have potentially did it before.

You know, a lot of comparisons to that guy. I never smoked cigs though. Not really my thing. Missing out? Nicotine's not my... Oh. Not your bag? Not my ammo. It makes of comparisons to that guy. I never smoked cigs, though. Not really my thing. Missing out? Nicotine's not my bag. It makes me sick every single time. Especially those cigs. When I did the ESPYs, though, they were calling me a scab for writing and doing

the whole thing. But did you write your own? Who's they? I don't know the answer to that. I'm not sure. You do know the fucking answer. You sound like a Mark. He's saying yes, of course like a Mark a little bit. He's saying yes, of course, he wrote his own situation.

Yeah, well then why would you... Why would somebody get mad at you? Because I wrote in my head what I was going to say out there. Now, did get a couple lines from a human who's one of the funniest of all time, Tom Segura. So it was a compilation. It was a compilation of our writing together.

But yeah, I was caught a scab and they attacked me. That was a long time ago. They're still not doing stuff? That was this year. Holy shit. The writers are, yeah. It's not the actors. Actors are striking.

What do you got the rest of the day? You on CBS this weekend or no? No, my parents just got here because my wife and I are flying to Pittsburgh. We are going to go to the Steelers game tomorrow night, Thursday. Yeah, tomorrow night. Are you? Oh, mama, I'm in fear. I'm excited to see it, man.

Yeah? I'm looking forward to it. I was having a conversation with my brother. What do you guys think? Do I wear Steelers gear to this game? Oh, yeah. I feel like I do, right? Yeah, you wear a T.J.

White jersey with a long sleeve underneath. Maybe terrible towel hanging out of back pocket. Have boots on. I do want to wave a towel. I want to wave a towel. Could split with Derek, too. What kind of towel? Such as a towel.

The terrible towel. Not a little yellow towel. Coach Cowher and I had a... Coach Cowher was fired up about it and i kept trying to talk him down i kept trying to be like hey watch the video he didn't say it in a disrespectful way he's like i don't care i don't care he said the words he said little yellow towel i do not want to watch the video i am very content being mad do pittsburgh people after i watched that video are so dramatic. It is unbelievable.

It was the most harmless thing you could ever say. Hey, sorry. We're busy working. We don't have time to watch a full fucking press conference. Your head coach is on TV every week crying, Foxy. You guys are crying about a towel. He's crying about his players. You guys are crying about a towel.

You guys aren't working. You're crying about a towel. A terrible towel't working. You're crying about a towel. That was unbelievable. Then they went there and backed it up. Yeah, then they played Pittsburgh football against Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh in front of Pittsburghers

and then left. That was tough. Are you going to talk to the team? What if you went out there and were like, all right, tonight, boys, you know what it is. 10% luck. 20% skill. What a move.

Guys, we have a relative of somebody on the team I would like to speak to. Team only, man. How weird. Listen up. Hey, they had Debo twirl the towel, I believe is what's twirl, the terrible towel. He's doing the twirl before the game?

Wave. Wave the twirl. I don't know. Honestly, I saw it happen. I'm like, this is a good idea. Okay, I like this. Just a tank. A tank of a human being, man.

I mean, just a freaking tank. He's gotten bigger and stronger, more Debo-like since retiring than whenever he was in there. And he went, hey, let's fucking go. He would gotten bigger and stronger, more Debo-like since retiring than whenever he was in there. And he went, hey, let's fucking go. He would have done something. Are you going to do that? Are you doing the terrible towel wave for the team? No.

No, I'm not doing any of that. I have no relationship to the team besides the fact that my brother played. The best player on the team. Brothers. I wish I had more time because he has said I can come to practice. I want to sit in his meetings. I want to see what it's like. He seems like an incredible coach.

I'm looking forward to that. But, yeah. No, James Harrison, I have to say, my brother tells this story. My brother has a severe tree nut allergy. And they were at a team dinner one time and he had a nut allergy. No, tree nuts. Like acorns, pine?

Almonds, like pine nuts. Really? At dinner, somehow something got into his food and he had an allergic reaction. James Harrison put him in his car, took him to the hospital and sat with him at the hospital the whole night until he was good to go. The next day, he got him home and everything.

So I'm a big James Harrison fan from whatever happens from here on. I love the guy. Hey, thank you, Debo. Pittsburgh is very happy for Debo, not only what he did on the field, how he represented himself, but also saving DJ Watt's life, it sounds like. Tree nut allergy? I don't think I've ever heard that. Like, the nut allergies are a big thing.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's really, really scary, man we were in rome one time we did a my brothers and i we did a little european vacation just the three of us and we went we're idiots uh two two parts of the story i'll show you how big of morons we are so we're going we're at the pantheon which uh we're going in we're checking out the pantheon and we're standing in it and tj goes hey i've heard one of these buildings around here has a whole a huge hole in the roof i want to go see that one can we go see that one next and i literally just said dude just look above your head it the pantheon is the building with the giant hole in the roof we were literally standing underneath the hole okay classic where's my glasses they're on your head type situation love that tj walk great and then we went to lunch and he knows he has a severe tree nut allergy and

i do also none of us were aware of the fact that pesto is made purely of tree nuts so he ordered a massive pesto pasta dish and literally stopped breathing at the table and we had to get him to the italian hospital it was one of the scariest experiences my entire life because they wouldn't let me go back with him either so they took him back there when he literally wasn't breathing and uh for about 45 minutes to an hour derek and i had no idea if he was when was this wasn't going to make it this was probably 2014 ish 2000 yeah scary shit man yeah but he won't do it i'm like dude where is and that was eventually it got to that point where the doctors they didn't speak english he didn't speak italian so they kind of they did like the motion like epi pen motion like do you have one and he was like yes yes. And they said, use it. And so he just stabbed himself.

TJ, stop skimming your own pool and let's stop with the tree nuts. Football need you. Pittsburgh need you. And obviously the Watt family and friends need you. That's wild. How many Grazis? How many Grazis did we give out there? Grazi, Grazi, Grazi.

Oh yeah, love it, love it. It's the only word I know. Grazi. Please. What else? I don't know any other words. Miscusi, miscusi. Ciao.

Pizza. Mozzarella. That city is the coolest city in the world, man. Just to know that these gladiators 2,000 years ago were just literally fighting for their lives in there. Hell, yeah. I believe Jesus got killed by somebody from there as well. Yeah.

Pilate. Yeah, he was a Roman. Double P. Well, Jesus got killed by somebody from there as well. Yeah. He was a Roman. Double P. Well, he's hired by not the Romans. Let's get to a break. We're going deep here. Old Testament. That's what Dabo Sweeney said. This guy went Old Testament on me. I want Old Testament back. I don't know what that means,

but I appreciate that Dabo's out there swinging. Last question for me, JJ. Obviously, as a Big Ten guy, Michigan's cheating. Can't take it anymore. Were you at Central Michigan? Yeah, a long time ago I was. Oh, a long time ago. You don't want to claim it.

Okay, interesting. They're a part of this whole thing. Cornerstown. You have glasses? You have glasses on? Do you have any of those? What's that all about, JJ? So, with blue dots on them, a little blue dot.

So, like, when they first put out i don't know when espn they put out that report the very first report saying michigan uh has a scout that went ahead and they're now being investigated i under that post i wrote yeah that's called scouting everybody does it uh to which many many many michigan people were like yeah yeah many athletes were like yeah yeah, that's scouting. And I was like, yeah, gosh, I'm so smart. I beat the game. Yeah, like that.

And now stuff's coming out, and people keep bringing that back up and sending me screenshots of it. And I'm like, yeah, there's a chance it might have been just a little bit more than just scouting. Getting pretty interesting out here with fake OTs and sunglasses. And Jim McElwain obviously said, I didn't even see you. I missed that. What did he say? I saw it, but I didn't get to watch it. What did he say? Here's

what he said. It's a quick video, but he pretty much was like, I don't know what happened out there. Here it is. Before we go any farther, we've obviously are aware of a picture floating around with the sign stealer guy.

Avid fisherman. You know, our people are doing everything they can to get to the bottom of it. We're unaware, totally unaware of it. I certainly don't condone it in any way, shape, or form. And, you know, I do know that his name was on none of the passes that were let out. Now we just keep tracing it back and tracing it back and try to figure it out.

But it's in good hands with our people. And, again, you know, there's no place in football for that. It's in good hands. We'll take our people. Hey, listen, I know these people. Do you know him? It's in good hands. There's no place in football for that. It's in good hands. We'll take our people. Do you know him? It's in good hands. Do I know him? Does the coach know him? If the guy's on the

sideline, I wonder if someone's like, hey, who's that guy? The guy who openly admitted that we have no idea how this guy ended up here said, but don't worry. It's in good hands. We didn't know he was there. We have no idea how he's standing there. Full team uniform.

Full hat. He's got the issued gear and everything, but no idea. And then there's a moment where the ball goes on the sideline, and he's literally like the most non-comfortable. Excuse me. Almost tripped over himself. Head down, head down, head down, hand down, hand down. That's crazy.

Hey, listen, you're a big guy. I need you to stand in front of me for most of this evening. Look, he's standing with his legs together, too, so he can hide behind. That's crazy. It's like he's behind a tree or a telephone pole. I didn't know that. That might be the worst one right there. This clip right here, this might be the most killing. It's so good.

What is happening? We don't know, but it's only getting better, and Pete Thamel's going to be the one at the forefront of all of it. We're very thankful for that. JJ, this ball goes in. You'll give 10 people $500. Yep. JJ!

All right, all you got to do is retweet this post, say something nice to somebody, and JJ Watt could potentially give you $500. You're the best, man. Thank you for this beautiful Wednesday. Good luck to your Burling team. Good job, guys. Good job. I just got fined by the McAfee show. Love it.

Me and Jalen Warren feel the same. Hey, but we know where the money's going at least. Ten people, $500. All you got to do is repost this, say something nice to somebody and put the easiest way to pay you. We appreciate you. Be a friend, tell a friend something nice. We'll be back on the other side with Kirk Herbstreit. Take... What a throw. Thank you.

What a show by you. Football! It's awesome. That man has won a championship in football at the college level and the professional level. He also has one of the greatest jawlines in the history of homo sapiens. Ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Hawk. Hey, A.J. Hawk.

Ain't that right, A.J.? You still working on that jaw's resize just in case somebody tries to get you one night while you're walking around with Axl and the team? Yep, we are always trying to get better over in this household. That's right, Pat. Yeah, you chew on that jaw's resize like it's a piece of gum. I don't know.

Yeah, maybe I do. No, we've seen it. Well, you do it on air. Bet you do. No, I'm not going to do it on air. I don't know what that means, Conman. I don't know if you have some ill will towards that comment or if that's toxic in any way.

But yes, I know Foss, who is a high up at ESPN, also loves it as well and said it helps him with headaches later in the day. Foss has a great jawline as well. He's a professional soccer player. Bet you do is a callback to Jim Rome, Chris Everett, I believe. Yeah, Jim Everett. Kept calling him Chris Everett. See, that's all me, Jim.

I do apologize because the way I remember his name was Chris. He flipped the table. He did. He did. Chris is a famous tennis player. That's why it happened. Jim, football player. Baseball.

Yes. Of course. Of course. No, it's football. It was quarterback. Jim Everett? Yeah, it was quarterback. Jim Everett, course. Of course. No, it was football. It was quarterback. Jim Everett? Yeah, it was quarterback. Jim Everett was quarterback, yeah.

Oh, so I was right. Jim Everett's also a baseball player, too. Well, so you can see how Jim Rome would maybe be a little confused. What do you want from the guy? He's in the jungle every single day. It's insane. The Talks at Table is here at Boss Connor and at Ty Schmidt. Nobody swung on us, Connor.

That's good thus far. Yeah, not yet. I assume it's coming. I mean, I said some pretty mean things about Jim Nance last week. Yeah, there was no reason for that. I think he's like notoriously loved, like universally loved. Yeah, well, his charity event led to one of the most disrespectful things that has happened in Boston in the last two decades. But that's Tony Romo.

It's not him. His event, but I agree, it's not him. What? You need not lump Jim Nance in with what Tony Romo said at that event in Boston. Hard not to. Only time I ever see Tony Romo is next to me. You know what Tony said, AJ. Tony had one night where he's boozed up and said something a little bit morally immoral.

Boozed up is putting it a little lightly, but yeah. Oh, he's drinking Coronas. This is Tony line. He's drinking more than Coronas. He's drinking Coromos. Exactly. How has that not been the... That should be the commercial.

Well, the Coromo is actually the Corona with about half of it filled with vodka. Well, I have met people that do that. I don't know if it's necessarily the right move. It's a Coromo. I would like to say I'm enjoying the hell out of Tony Romo on these games again. He's the best. You know what I mean? I'm enjoying the hell out of Tony Romo.

Way to sit in the pocket. And Tony's always been known to do that. Yeah. Sit right. Not good news for his back ever, but he will sit right in the pocket, stare down all the critics and do his thing. He won half of the hammer. Down.

Cowboys, Tone Diggs is here. Tone, now that we're done with the weekend, what do we need to know about the gambling? The books are hot right now, right? The books are hot right now. The most fascinating stat that I saw gambling is that MCDC, okay, he just coached his – he just got over the 50 game mark. Since 1990, he has the best against the spread record

in the entire NFL ever through 50 games. Thank you, MCDC. Love that. You love that. Guy is just a dog. You spend money on the Lions Love that. Love that. Guys just know. You spend money on the Lions. You bet on them. They want to show up for you.

And also, this means the sportsbooks had no respect for MCDC for a long time with the spreads, probably. They saw him gnaw kneecaps at the beginning, wear an IndyCar helmet at the press conference. This guy ain't going to be able to win any games. He's a stooge. So then the books weren't acting appropriately and people were taking advantage of it.

And Michigan, legal sports gambling state. So a lot of money has been made off of MCDC as well. We need to ride that big stallion, MCDC, into this thing. Him and the Lions are currently on a 15 and 3 against the spread run. What? Yeah, pretty good. And then the other thing

that's dominating. Thank you, MCDC. Is the unders. They are 71-50-1 this year. 19-7 on primetime are the unders. Yeah, you love the good primetime unders. I do, and it's funny because, you know, we always come in and we talk about it and we're like, that game sucked last night. And that's because it went under normally

so how people think about the games and stuff like that, if it was low scoring, the game sucked. It's been a two-year period now where it's been a lot of primetime duds. The primetime under is 19-7 this year. Okay. You love a good under, too. Yeah. Why not?

It's awesome. It'll change. You love a turnover on Dons in the red zone. Yep. You love a nice fumble at the goal line that's a touchback instead of a touchdown. Love them. Yeah, punts, more of them. You love everything about them.

Also, I also love, I don't know if you saw last night, Maction is back, and it was back in about three inches of snow up in Michigan. So I do appreciate the fact that Jacksonville State said we'll open midweek football like three weeks before the Maction Tuesday comes back because it's been nice to turn on a game. Last night, obviously the optics were the beautiful part of it, but Maction back in the middle of the week is good gambling for us because Tone Diggs will be deep in the weeds of a nice Tuesday night

or Wednesday night game for us in college football. Very much so. And I think Bruce said it best. Conference USA can have the nice weather Tuesday, Wednesday games early in the year. When Maction comes in, we won't. Rain, hail, sleet, snow, all those beautiful things that comes with Maction. And a lot of unders. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. It sounds like what Tone Diggs is pumped up about. Nine-year NFL vet. Host of the Man to Man podcast and everything DB. Derrick J. Butler is here. We haven't talked about it much. Razul Douglas got traded immediately after we went off the air yesterday, which we kind

of said was going to happen. We're going to stop and then somebody's going to be traded. Although the trade deadline produced some massive events. Josh Jobs, new starting quarterback from one place to another. That's a huge deal. Razul Douglas, though, going from Green Bay to the Buffalo Bills immediately after we end.

That's sneaky, massive play, right, for the Buffalo Bills? Could be. They need another corner. They want to play man coverage. We obviously know they lost Tredavious White. Kyra Elam, their first-round pick from a couple years ago, he's been a healthy scratch for a few weeks. So obviously got to figure out what's going there as far as developmental-wise their first-round pick from a couple years ago. He's been a healthy scratch for a few weeks.

So, obviously, got to figure out, you know, what's going there as far as, you know, developmental-wise and getting him on the field. But getting a guy who's been around, who can play inside, who can play outside, who can press, who can play off, Rasul Douglas is a smart player. And it was funny. I saw a little sound bite about him and Josh Allen, you know, talking a little shit.

Oh, chirping a little bit? And now they're teammates. Speaking of that, everybody says Roswell, great teammate. So he's getting dropped in there. He's going to mix in, blend in well. And that's the type of player you want on team. Somebody on the other side talking shit to you. On your side, you're talking shit back.

Now we're all together. 12-year NFL vet, Super Bowl champion, AQ Shipley's here. Other big news of yesterday after we went off the air. First official college football playoff top 25 ranking. Joining us now, fresh off a call of one of his 10 jobs, is the voice of college football for the last 28 years, Kirk Herbstreit. Yeah, Herb! Herbie!

Okay, let's get right to it because we know you're very busy, and we thank you for taking time on this glorious Wednesday with a game tomorrow, game Saturday, and also college game day in there. I know you're in the middle of prep. Let's dive in. What did you see last night from the first official top 25, and how should we be viewing this? Because it's hard to obviously project what's going to take place for the rest of the season,

let alone any Saturday for college football, but what does this mean, and what did you take away from last night's first edition? First of all, everybody needs to be pissed off. Everybody needs to be mad. Everybody needs to just hate everybody. That's what the first rankings mean. College football, baby. College football. That's how we roll. That's how the first rankings mean. College football, baby. College football.

That's how we roll. That's how we roll. You know what it means is I think this committee is looking at the resume. And I understand it. I think that one thing that I always think about is this is subjective. So how AJ breaks it down or you do or anybody looks at it, it's up to you. So it's up to it's your own rankings. What do you look at? I happen to look at I think the resume is very important.

Like Ohio State going to South Bend at night and winning. That's a big deal. You know, Oregon beating Utah in Utah. Tough place to win. That's a big deal. Washington beating Oregon at home. big deal. So all the Texas winning and Tuscaloosa, those are all big things. But I think also a big thing is who's the best team. This is not about putting the most deserving teams in at the end of this when the dust settles. It's about putting the best four. And I think that's where the argument has always been with the college football playoff. I think there are a lot of people that want to put the most deserving teams in.

How do you evaluate most deserving? If it's all about being undefeated, everybody should play Mac teams or below in the non-conference. And Texas should never play Alabama. What's the point? If it's just about being undefeated, why the hell am I going to go to Tuscaloosa and go play Alabama? Why would you play anybody? Which is not good for the game. It's not the kind of games players want to play in. It's not the kind of games that fans want to watch. So I have a special place in my heart when I see teams that are willing to go out in the non-conference and play somebody. And even if that team sucked that year, three, four, five, seven years ago,

whenever they scheduled them, it's a massive power five opponent that at least they attempted to try to schedule. So to me, there are differential aspects of this that when you get to the end of it, you can try to separate teams in that cluster. For right now, no issue if you have Ohio State at one because the win against Penn State, the you have Ohio State at one because the win against Penn State, the win against Wisconsin, of course, the win against Notre Dame. I think

that's why they're up at the top. You can make a very strong argument for Georgia to be at the top because they're coming off their best week of football. And I think a lot of people think they're the best team when they play up to their ability. And you can make a strong argument for Michigan. They haven't played anybody, but they've been the most dominant in all three phases so we're splitting hairs at the top the cool thing is pat all these teams literally in the top 13 control their own destiny it's all in front of you you win your games you're going to be exactly where you want to be it's not worth getting upset about right now. Go out and win, and you're going to continue to climb the ladder.

Yeah, and I think that's the beautiful thing about college football or football in general. But if you're ranked up there, fan base has got to be pumped that you're already getting a head start on potentially making it in the college football playoff. But if you lose, it doesn't matter at all. AJ, your question for Kirk. Kirk, do you think it matters what the games look like or what your wins look like especially at this point before this first poll like how do

you think hey oh they don't look like they should they're not blowing everybody out if you're one of the top teams yeah i well i think ohio state's an example of that i mean you and i know ohio state pretty well over the years and i think and as much as i want to jump up and down and say ohio state's the best team in the country you know we're alums and we're fans and we that's our team but we're also honest you know i think right now ohio state's playing great defense i think ryan day deserves a lot of credit because he's gone from being a guy that's scoring 45 or 50 a game with cj's shroud and and uh the offense that they've had over the years to now they're winning with

defense and they're running the ball with Trevion Henderson and they're being careful with their pass game. They're throwing it to Marvin, but they're not quite being the offense that you're used to seeing and they deserve a lot of credit for that. There's different ways to win, but are they that same offense that you just guaranteed he's going to score 45, they're going to throw it all over the yard? They're growing to try to become that, but that's just guaranteed he's going to score 45. They're going to throw it all over the yard. They're growing to try to become that, but that's not who they are yet. So I think the committee looked at those wins that you're referring to and said, nobody's got a better resume. So because of that, let's put them up at number one. And I don't think you can have a, you can,

you can defend that. But like I said, I think you could defend Georgia. You could defend Michigan there. They there at this point in the season. We're not even just getting to November. I think we're, we're this system was built to get to December, not November. So it's easy to kind of get upset and it's easy to kind of find inconsistencies,

but at the end, hopefully it all makes sense. To echo the statement a little bit there. You think about Florida state at four, they just had their best game. They echo the statement a little bit there, you think about Florida State at four. They just had their best game. They beat the hell out of Wake Washington the last two weeks. Yeah. You know, like that Washington win over Oregon is huge.

That's a massive win. But you watch them the last two weeks. They have not looked their best. Florida State's coming off their absolute best game. And Oregon looks like an absolute buzzsaw. Very excited and thankful to be a part of it alongside of you every single weekend. Can't wait to get down to Alabama. Good luck tomorrow night in Pittsburgh, and we'll see you in Tuscaloosa, pal.

Awesome, brother. Appreciate it. Sorry I was a little bit late. I was just talking to Coach Tomlin. It took a little time there. Yeah. Don't let it happen again. Bull.

Coach Tomlin, you got to call his game tomorrow night. Lock on that building. You tell him to shut up and you come do college football play. We appreciate you. Ladies and gentlemen, Kirk Herbstreit. Thank you. So he's digging deep there. It sounds like him and Tomlin had a great conversation.

I wonder what that was about. Was it about you dressing up as the devil, Matt Cannon? I would assume, you know, Herbie's a professional. He wouldn't bring that up to Coach T. But for the rankings, I think the committee did something smart. They have Texas above Oklahoma, head-to-head Oklahoma beat them. They have Kansas above Oklahoma State,

head-to-head Oklahoma State beat Kansas. But then they also have where head-to-heads, they have the same record and they have the team that won above them. So they can, later on down the road, they can say, you know, sometimes we have the head-to-head but it doesn't matter and sometimes it does. So it doesn't matter ever and they can put teams down the road, they can say, you know, sometimes we have the head-to-head, but it doesn't matter, and sometimes it does.

So it doesn't matter ever, and they can put teams wherever they want. A fascinating thing that he brought up in there, it's like if it's just being undefeated, they can just book terrible games, non-conference games, and everybody's going to hate it. Everybody's going to get mad about it. Everybody's going to talk shit about it. But if that's what they're judging off of,

why would the schools not do that if they're trying to hunt for a national championship? It's like Notre Dame-Ohio State, that's a big relationship. It's gone back. Last year, Ohio State almost got got by Notre Dame in that particular game. This year, they go in there and do that. Obviously, James Franklin and the boys are a much better team this year, and that was an early conference game for them. But I appreciate Kirk bringing that up because it's hard not to just judge that.

Like, it's hard not to just be like, this team hasn't lost. So, like, I'm saying that with Georgia. I'm like, hey, this team hasn't lost. And they're the national champions back-to-back. Like, they should be number one in my eyes. But then also, I think there was a time where they were supposed to play somebody, somebody backed out. And it's probably tough to book schools if you're Georgia, I would assume,

at this particular time. It's a tough to book schools if you're Georgia, I would assume, at this particular time. It's a weird balance and dynamic for the entire season and what they're judging off of for the ultimate prize. I think it was Oklahoma or something, or Texas. I think it was Oklahoma, and then once they joined, the plan to join the SEC, that game got canceled. Yeah, because now they're going to be playing each other anyways in the SEC. I think that's what it was.

It's a wild, it's a weird time in college football. And then they do the projections of what next year. They're like, this is this year. And they're like, next year, though, this is what's coming. It's like college football is about to get awesome. And I do appreciate that they're going to give them a little bit more of an ability to, you know, miss. Flip up a little bit, you mean? Yeah, like have a slip up?

Yeah, the committee I'm talking about. Because whoever's five in this thing so mad so forever forever like that was our year that was that was the year we were supposed to do it like yeah university of dayton they were their basketball team this is a weird reference obviously but they were doing great killing it having a great year obie toppins there and covet hits they don't get to go to the tournament the one year that they had a chance to like make a really really good run so people are mad at COVID for a lot of reasons. Dayton Flyer certainly pissed about the basketball scene. Sabrina Ionescu.

But whenever you talk about, like, this particular thing, if you're ranked five in a country, your team is very fucking good. Yeah. Like, you remember being ranked, like, I was on a team that was ranked in the top five. It was a huge ordeal. Like, you were obviously on teams there. Were you guys ever ranked in there? Oh, oh yeah really yeah it's before everything came out

oh yeah we finished number three and finished on wow so 13 come on yeah first time in school history rank yeah but that's that's a huge deal like being ranked fifth in the first official one is massive. And I'm sure Washington's okay with it because their fan base has had to go through the last couple weeks where they haven't looked necessarily as great. But, like, some of these teams that are, like, eighth, ninth, they're, like, so mad.

Yeah. And it's like, yo, we got a lot of season left. Your team is ranked very high. That doesn't matter anymore. It's like, hey, we are on a path to win a national championship. Good luck to all of them. Dabo talking about his fan. CW. Yeah, it's awesome.

It is. You go from it just shows you, man. Winning helps a lot. It really does. It's tough to lose games as a head coach of a program that is not used to losing games. Alright, we'll take some phone calls on the phone lines. 1-833-432-3663.

1-833-4... Da-dum! Can't wait to hear what the people are talking about. Let's talk about some other things that are being talked about around the sports world. Wemby last night. Man. Dressed up like Slender Man.

Mm-hmm. I don't know what a Slender Man is, but when I saw the caption and I saw the way he looked, I thought to myself, that's the perfect costume for somebody that's 7'5". Identical. And is built the way he is. That is what the scary person from, was it New York?

Ooh, I don't know where exactly it was. Internet. Yeah, I think it was on the internet, but I think there was an actual Slender Man in New York somewhere. I watched a documentary on it, I think. I don't know what it looked like, but nonetheless, this guy is fascinating to watch

play basketball. He, I guess, came out and said that Kevin Durant is his idol and the person he looks up to. Kevin Durant was playing against him last night, was asked about it. Kevin Durant said, that just makes me feel old, you know, because a guy who's coming into the league looked up to me through it all. And then in the end, in the end of the game, Lemby has

a putback. around kevin durant okay big long three 114 111 here phoenix has the lead with 11 seconds back oh let me go around wendy says thank you i don't have to jump to do that now all of a sudden we have a i think one point game two oh no and then kevin durant gets the rock. Stolen. Give me that. Layup. Takes the lead with like two seconds left. Phoenix Suns go from having a massive win at home to a one-point loss to Wemby and the boys. And Kevin Durant's kind of right in the middle of that. And Wemby is right in the middle of that as well.

What have you seen from Wemby and his Spurs team thus far? And this guy's like must watch just because of like how it looks out there. Yeah, still fascinating just to see him move around the court like you're used to guys that aren't that tall but like being under the rim and stuff he's getting rebounds he's going coast to coast like it's absurd watching him dribble but we were talking about this before with bruce like everyone including the players on his own team probably even including greg popovich like they have to kind of understand and get used to the fact that he is 7'5". He can do everything on the floor.

You'd think that to get him in the game, maybe they'd give him a couple easy posts. He's chucking up threes to start this game. It is ridiculous. He only took 12 shots. He should be taking about 30 a game, I'd say. He definitely needs to ball more. He only played 28 minutes.

He's got to play again 30, 35 minutes. Let's get this guy. What is it? They're trying to slow roll it a little bit? Is that what they're trying to do? Yeah, that. The body type like that? Yeah, the other guys.

He needs to play with those guys. He's only played a few games with all the guys on his team. It's not like they're not trying to give him the ball, but when you're watching, it is frustrating because there are times where he should clearly be getting the basketball whether it's out on the three point line or in the block or in

you know fast break and everything. What do you mean like he's underneath and there's somebody that he's certainly a mismatch? Yeah like we I showed you a couple of them in the first quarter where it's like there's a guard on him because they're running pick and rolls with them and they're not you know passing it down to him on the block when clearly it's an automatic bucket.

But I guess that is part of the getting used to the fact that you have an automatic two points every single time someone who isn't Kevin Durant or a center is guarding him. So I'm fascinated by the fact that this seems to be an NBA thing. Like when we went down to New Orleans, they introduced Zion like third. Okay, I think they introduced him third in the starting lineup in his first game. And they were only on national television because he was playing. It was his debut.

And they were like, well, we don't want to put too much on his plate. Which makes sense. Too soon. Too soon. Yeah. As it was coming out. They didn't want to put too much on his plate too soon. They didn't want the pressures of being in.

Also, they were worried about his health. It's like this dude's had the pressure of a franchise on his shoulder since the Zion franchise. Since he's like 14 years old. But it feels like the NBA tries its best to protect some people. I don't know if that's what's going on with San Antonio, but I'm excited for the day whenever it's the 1B show every single game. Yeah, I will be excited.

I'm excited for the day, and hopefully it comes. Don't know if it will. Maybe the end season tournament will help. Maybe the new rules that Adam Silver is kind of putting out there with stars resting. Oh, yeah. I know Charles Barkley kind of cut a promo on opening night. You know, fans expect, like, you want the guys to get out there and play.

And if you're hurt, that's one thing. But if you're just, you know, third game of the season and you're sitting to rest, you know, injury or, you know, Brad Bill, not sure what's going on with him. He's not coming out. Book been out. It's like, man, man, come on, dude. Come on.

We got to get out there and play. You can't be slow rolling 22-year-olds, 19-year-olds. What are we doing? Yeah, I agree. And that's how I ended up getting to introduce the Pelicans, actually, because I was so loud about it. Can we just put this guy on the fucking court and just give him the ball? And then whenever he was on it, he was so scared to have the ball.

It was like he was passing away. It was like, how come the coach isn't saying, hey, when you get the ball, we're all here for you. Just play. Take that thing right to the rack. And then everything kind of unfolded and they're like, see, see, see, that's why. That's why we didn't know. It's like, all right, you're right. I'm wrong. With Wemby, it feels like he's been

prepared to be an NBA guy his whole life, like literally. Yeah, it's like Luka. Like Luka played professional basketball when he was 15 years old. If you look up Luka Doncic's rookie year it says 2015 but he didn't join the nba till 2018 so like this guy he can play he knows how to play and we looked at the luca stuff earlier when luca came in with the mavericks it kind of felt like this where he's the new face of the franchise and some of the older vets maybe aren't like no you're not but maybe don't want the transition to be in the first

game so like deandre jordan i think it was deandre jordan michael kidd gilchrist harrison barnes like the mavericks got rid of or didn't re-sign like six or seven vets that they had for luke as rookie year and then that second year is when he really became like okay this is the guy for the mavericks and one of the guys in the nba i also wonder if part of the problem is, like, with a lot of these NBA teams, like, even if a guy's not, like, a superstar, it's like some of these guys who no one's ever heard of before are making, like, $30 million a year. So it's like, hey, you're paying me a shitload of money. You know, like, I understand we just drafted this guy first overall,

but, like, I'm still on this team. Interesting. Yeah, you invested all this money in me. Like, I'm still out here to get shots up and I'm not just going to give the keys to this guy just because we drafted him first overall. Are we watching the NBA this year? Not yet.

I'll watch the NBA and NHL. I feel like I'm in tune because the NBA is the internet. Yeah, they crushed it. It's an internet league. When's Ja coming back? What's that, buddy? When's Ja Morant coming back?

I think he's got 20. I think he's got 20 games left. Yeah, he has 25. I'm looking forward to that. That guy is must-watch TV. Yeah. Is he the same guy? Gotta be.

He should have a little more spring in his step. He should have some fresh legs. He should be better. You'd think he'd be healthier. Yeah. Because we'd assume he's taking care of his body a little bit more from what we had heard in the past. But what if, you know, that edge?

I don't want him to look because he is an edge guy. True. You know, like that is kind of his thing. He's going to have more of an edge. He's going to be so pissed he got suspended. He's going to take it out in the league. Hell yeah, John. Dylan Brooks is gone too.

That guy got embarrassed by Steph the other night. Yes, he did. I feel like it's going to follow him forever, what he did, the whole little playoff run he had. Got paid, though. Yep. Worked out for him. Worked out for him.

Jerry Jones was talking about the big time, huge 415 Eastern matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles this weekend, this morning, on his weekly hit with? 102.5 the fan? 105 the fan? 103.5 the fan. There it is. Your Dallas Cowboys. 105.3 the fan? 105 the fan? 103.5 the fan. There it is. Your Dallas Cowboys.

105.3 the fan. Ooh, 105. Let's go. I thought I had it. 105.3 the fan. You're home for Cowboys coverage. Also, you're home for Jerry Jones every single week. Probably does that for free if I had to guess.

Joining us now, let's hear him talk about the respect he has for Philadelphia in a massive game coming up this weekend. Yeah, this is easy for me to say, but this is serious that we're dealing with up here Sunday, man. We've got to really have our game face on, and Philadelphia's a tough place to get your momentum going, but it's all there, and to me this is all about just what the NFL can be. I had a priest, Father Tribue, that both my sons went to Catholic school there

when we lived in Little Rock. But Father Tribute really became their master, and he was just that. Bill Clinton took him to see the Pope when Bill Clinton was president. He was such an educator. But his family was from Philadelphia, and he was raised by all sisters. All girls raised him. philadelphia is raised by all sisters all girls raised him and so you can imagine he had a lifelong uh wit about him but also a lifelong uh resentment because they put dresses on him when he was young but uh we used to have a big time but i'll never forget i was walking through the

stadium and you have to get to the dressing room and get to where you're going to sit to watch the game. And I heard somebody yell over the background, said, look at that arrogant SOB. Said, he even got his own priest going along with it. He said, doesn't that take a lot of audacity? And, of course, I winked at him and blew him a kiss and said, you bet.

You should see what his sisters did to him. You know, that's what Jerry said about the priest. And shout out to Father Tribune, obviously, and everything he's accomplished in that. But here's Mike McCarthy talking about Philadelphia as well. So now the owner talking about going to Philadelphia a little bit and then took a little bit of a detour and then obviously came back talking about Philadelphia. Here's big Mike McCarthy talking about heading up to Philly. I think clearly the expectation of what's it going to be like to play

Sunday night football in Philadelphia. I don't know if we haven't played during the daytime since I've been here. So that's good to have that experience. It's not Sunday night. It's awesome. It is a unique place to play. We look forward to it. So, that's part of it. But, you know, schematically, you know, these players know each other. I mean, some of these guys train together in the offseason too. So, you know, I think all that is helpful.

What makes Philadelphia a unique place to play? Just friendly people. I love that. I love that it's being talked about. I love that it's obvious that the Cowboys are being told by their coach, by the owner, by the GM, and Cowboys know this, obviously. The Dallas Cowboys have played there a lot. But it's like a reminder, hey, we're going into a place where their fans are a part of the game.

That's a place that is going to be very loud, very harsh in a massive game. I think we're building up for a good 4-15 game on Sunday between these two and the NFC East, AJ. Yeah, we are. Isn't what coaches always say when you're going to Philly, like, hey, these fans booed Santa Claus. That's always the thing that they say about Philly, isn't it? Didn't they throw snowballs?

Batteries and snowballs. Which is great. They care for their team, man. Philly's a great place to play, man. If you can go into Philly and get a win, your team can build so much momentum because it is. Players respect how Philly fans are. They really do.

Even if you're against them and they're yelling at you, throwing stuff, you're like, man, this is pretty sweet how diehard they are for their squad. I appreciate the fact that they are the way they are. I think every stadium should be that way. But those places that are a little bit more ruthless. A little more age to them. That makes the game better, I think, every single day.

Even if it was, and it's not, if that was a 1 o'clock game, whenever the fans are being the way they are, they almost build the hype around the game and make it feel bigger and better i love that philly fans are being chatted about yeah especially as a player because sometimes you go in and the coach will tell you hey this is going to be one of those games we got to bring our own energy you got to bring your own juice you're going to here as soon as you pull in the buses and you're going through the tailgates and shit you're getting the birds you're getting shit probably thrown at the bus and um is this the stadium that has the gel in it?

Yeah. They try to put as many gels as possible in Philadelphia, from what I've been told. Smart. I don't know if they're all packed out or not, but it feels like potentially a conversation starter for there is that. AQ, you played for the Eagles there for a bit. Played for the Steelers.

Similar fan bases. You played for the Ravens. Great fan bases. Similar fan bases. Colts. Baltimore fans. Wow. The Baltimore.

We're a hospitable bunch. It's called Hoosier Hospitality. That's why I threw it in there. They are loud, obviously, but they're not going to be telling people, you know, things about their mother and their family and things that they've done in their past and very loudly pointing that out to not only them, but everybody around them as well, what this person has done. They feel like they're a part of the game.

Favorite place to play for you whenever it comes to that type of thing? Because I'd assume you appreciate the shit talk, if I had to guess. Yeah. Honestly, my favorite places to play are the ones that are going to shit talk you from Seattle. Whenever I was in Arizona, I loved it. You know, you go there and they're talking shit and you're booing you. It's awesome.

When you go to Philadelphia, it's amplified and it is awesome. I mean, that's what you live for as a player. You live for being the villain and going in and spoiling the home crowd. And whenever they're actually, you know, at the beginning riding the wave of the game, like you talk about on the ride in, like there's been a couple of places you pull in where it's not just like old people doing it.

It's like, there's kids. Oh yeah. Little kind of kids with their dad like telling, hey, they can't hear us because of those windows, but they can certainly see us. Come on, Johnny. Put that little middle remember what I taught you. Remember what I taught you. Fuck this team. Like that is

I love that. I genuinely do. And then there's some places like Green Bay, I do believe. Indianapolis is very similar to this. I think Nebraska is known for this in college. Like they're going to be there. It's going to be loud. But they're going to be very hospitable.

Hey, good game. Hey, good game on the other way. That's also a little mental fuckery, AJ. Yeah, it is. I think either way could work on teams, especially maybe if you have some guys that have never played there, maybe some young guys, it's their first experience like that. Say you came from some small school in college,

didn't play in front of a ton of people, and then all of a sudden you're thrust into the starting lineup at Philly. Like, yeah, that could play some games on some people. Yeah, I absolutely love it. Go ahead, Connor. You remember when Joey Bosa was walking into the Niners-Eagles championship game last year? That's like the perfect –

Anytime you get somebody to say, yeah, I'm rich or not, bitch, you know you won yeah you know and that really got it yup thought so yeah just got this john yeah it's on camera you're fucking loser yeah like got it i mean that is those are the types of fans that we appreciate raiders raiders fans too oh the old guys throwback oh yeah black hole like i went to as a fan my boy played for raiders i went I went to a Raiders-Chargers game. That shit, that was, that environment. Head on a swivel?

Oh, yeah. Head on a swivel in the, everywhere, the bathroom. If you had on, you know, it was like some gang shit out there. Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate that a lot. Is Houston like that, or are they just loud? Loud. Houston's just loud.

Very, very loud. But if they won, I'd assume they'd be able to turn it up a little yeah that's the thing like if you're a good fan base your team hasn't won i think you kind of are forced into being like good game yeah but if you win a lot like patriots fans they don't get enough credit either great new england fans very loud very loud it's always talking about like hey football team's good tom's good bill's good everything like that that stadium is very and they're assholes. Oh, yeah.

You know what I mean? The muskets. Yeah, oh, yeah, the shots. And they've had reasons to be arrogant for a very long time. Like, that helps a fan base out immensely. Yeah, and they've kind of – they have stayed, you know, kind of true to themselves. Last year, I think, it was Stephon Diggs where the fan yelled, you know,

suck my dick, and then you got – It was caught on camera. Yeah, you got the sound bite of Stephon D, shut the fuck up. That's a great little exchange we got. Those are good battles. Those are things that don't get talked about. Can't get, obviously, promoted in a lot of places. But there's some stadiums that

view themselves as a weapon. Eagles fans, you've done it. You heard Jerry and you heard Mike. Massacre. Congratulations on doing that. Tomorrow night, Pittsburgh Steelers fans excited to hear what they are. Let's go to the phones, shall we? We got Bones, actually, in Pittsburgh. Ooh.

Bones in Pittsburgh. How you doing? Hopefully better than the Steelers, Penguins, and the Pirates. Oh! Oh, it's brutal here. It's brutal. How you guys doing? How's the boys?

Hey, everybody's good, Bones. Big night tonight for tomorrow night for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Tone Diggs dressed up like the devil and Matt Canada. Just Matt Canada. Oh, sorry. I called Matt Canada the devil yesterday. Mike Tomlin's come out and, you know, had to say some things about turnovers,

basically taking a shot at the defense. Do you have any faith left in this Pittsburgh Steelers team there in Pittsburgh, Bones? You know what? I got a few things I want to say about that. I honestly think we might be chanting for the wrong guy to be fired here, bud. Canada, sort of a front to me in the trenches while Coach T sits on the horse at the back of the battlefield. Whoa.

He's getting a little too comfy for me, bro. Six years, no playoff wins. 2016, last playoff win. 30th in total offense. 30th in total defense right now. My man's running out of things to say at the podium, bud. I just want to know where our stones are, bro. You watch the games, it's like,

we're Pittsburgh. Enough's enough. You know? Alright. Bone's not happy. No, he's not. Did you expect that from a call from Pittsburgh a day before a game? Not going that Coach T? He said people were chanting, fire Canada. Enough! He's a puppet.

It's a guy in the back. The horse at the back of the battlefield. Oh my god. Alright, did not expect that. Coach T, it's getting loud. Yeah. Coach T, it's getting loud. That wasn't the worst reference I've ever heard, to be honest. Is that how all of Pittsburgh feels?

I'm pretty sure we are very, very close to that. Now they have cooled down that because they've had timely wins. We haven't gone on a losing streak yet. Four and three. Yeah, exactly. Leading the AFC. Second in the AFC North.

Second in the AFC North. So, I mean, it's going to get real. This is how they are with a winning record. This is how we are with a winning record. What are you saying is going to happen to them? Wait until rattle off four or five losses in a row here. That ain't going to happen. What are you talking about?

Yeah, what's their schedule? The defense keeps scoring. The defense scores two or three times a game. Speaking of that, let's go to a quote from Mike Tomlin from his press conference talking about the turnovers in the defense. A lot of people got very flustered about this quote, and I don't know if they heard it or just read it, but here's Mike Tomlin talking about the synopsis of the game this past weekend where the Jacksonville Jaguars came into Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh weather,

played Pittsburgh football, and beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, and then stole terrible towels from the Yenzers and Pittsburghers sitting in the front row. I mean, most disrespectful thing that could have happened to the Steelers. Here's coach Tomlin. We were able to get some turnovers, but they weren't the type of turnovers that, that tee up the offense in terms of being on the short field. Although I do appreciate them.

They kept the score down. They weren't the type of ones that teed up the offense. And so obviously we, we got a desire to, to dominate the turnover component of play. We got some, but not, not the offense. And so, obviously, we've got a desire to dominate the turnover component of play. We got some, but not the type that's really advantageous. Hey, that pissed

off a lot of people. Oh, we didn't get the right turnovers? It sounds like people think he's attacking the defense, which I know Bones just said is 30th ranked in the defense, but it's like the defense is really the only part of it. I felt like after listening to that, that was him talking shit on the offense. That wasn't him talking shit on the defense.

That was him saying like our defense knows that we have to basically hand points to this offense that we're playing right now. That's kind of how I took it after listening to it. But whenever you read like these turnovers weren't good turnovers, talking about ones that are in the red zone, I think you naturally bury them.

What are your thoughts on it, AJ? Yeah, I took it how you did. Like he's trying to wake that offense up because I don't know about you guys, but I've never really heard any coach tell a team or tell anybody, hey, appreciate the turnovers. These just aren't good turnovers. We need better field position. We need something else. You got to score a couple of times defensively. Yeah, you want all that, but usually a turnover is a turnover. You give your offense an give your offense next possession here we go so yeah i think he's talking the offense a little bit i think he's kind of mailed it in on the offense being good yeah he's kind of like hey listen we all know what's happening out there in this defense that i am a part of and i'm a defensive guy and it's a massive reason why we've never finished below 500 is because how the

defenses have been in Pittsburgh. Our defense knows, yeah, you got to fucking take it to the house. I don't care if you get a pick in the end zone. We need to go 105 yards, at least 95 yards to score some points. I appreciate that that's his angle, but boy, there's a lot of ex-players that have said, this motherfucker's speaking publicly about this type of stuff. He might lose some people.

Is that what Bones meant by running out of shit to say at the podium? I think so. I'm with AJ. Never heard the, you know, not a good turnover. We did see the Denver game, and, you know, he teed up the offense a bunch in great field position. It is turnover battle in field position. Those are, you know, the biggest indicators when it comes to winning

and losing games. But, I mean, come on now. He also said, punter needs to be a bit more consistent. You know, so, like, I think he. He's I mean, come on now. He also said, punter needs to be a bit more consistent. Yeah. You know, so, like, I think he. He's tired of it all as well. Yeah, I think he's not only tired of it all, but I think he acknowledges, like, hey, this offense, we get it.

Okay, like, we all, we need field position game. Like, punter, we need to have a fucking better day. Can't be inconsistent. Defense, yeah, we need you to play offense, too, when you're on the defensive side of the ball. I think that's what he was saying. AQ, you don't love this necessary phrasing, though? I don't like the messaging, but here's the thing. If he's tired of all the shit

that he... He keeps saying all the stuff at the podium, right? Thank you. Make some fucking changes, besides just adding padded practices to Wednesday. Alright, cool. We can talk shit on this guy. We can talk shit on this guy. We can make this thing that's directed at the offense offense we'll fucking make some changes then. AQ from Pittsburgh

I'm from Pittsburgh you know. Tone's from Pittsburgh I'm from Pittsburgh. AQ's from Pittsburgh Connor's not from Pittsburgh his name's Boston Connor Bones sounds like he is from Pittsburgh I don't know if we're going to go to another phone call to be honest with you I don't expect to get into

Bones is pretty good. Defense has been giving up like 140 a game on the ground, something like that. Oh, the pass isn't much better. But the bank is out. Not used to that. It's still a defense. What happens? What happens at the end of the year?

What's going to happen? Yeah, the rest of the season. Penn stink, too, I heard. Yeah. They're very bad. No. That's the difference. No, bad, yeah.

Well, five on three to end the game, and then they lose. Yeah, I saw that shorthanded. Yeah. You knew that was coming, though. They're old. Long year. Long season. Usually they start well.

Stats say they should have the most goals in the league. Analytics. Analytics told us, yeah, that they're playing better than everybody. Yeah, they have the most. What does that mean? They have the most would-have-been goals on would-have-been plays. Yeah. Hmm.

Stat that. That's real? Yeah. That's real? Yeah. That's real? Mm-hmm. That's accurate. But they just say every goalie's standing on their head? Yes.

Guy saved one with his fucking back end of his stick through his legs. Yes, that is what's happening. Maybe he's actually from Pittsburgh. He should be our goalie. Hockey gods are just completely... They'll win the would-have-been cup, though. Look at you. Well, there's the Carabao Cup.

Classic. Of course. It's happening. That's right. And they have that in the NHL. The Carabao Cup. That's a big matchup today, actually. Anyways, they don't know about that. Carabao Cup?

The Carabao Cup? Yeah, it's massive. How come the first time we heard about it was from the Burmese? I tell you guys about it all the time. You just sweep it to the side. I've never heard you say Carabao Cup. So it's World Cup, the Euros Cup, the This Cup, the That Cup, the Happy Cup, the Messo Cup. Talk about yesterday. There's a new cup every two days. Can't keep track of all these cups. So it's the World Cup, the Euros Cup, the this cup, the that cup, the happy cup, the messy cup.

Conceifa. Conceifa Cup. There's the FA Cup. Carabao Cup. Champions League. We're trying to keep up. We're trying to. We're Champions Cup.

We're trying. MLS playoffs tonight, actually. Atlanta's players. Who cares? Is Miami playing? That's why I don't bring up the Carabao Cup right there. There's your answer. The best fucking player in the world.

They win 100 games and somehow, well, none of those are MLS games. They won the cup already. He won the Bullion Door. Yeah, exactly. By the way, MLS player wins the Bullion Door. About time. It's our sport now. It should have been Freddie and Duke.

It's our sport now. Hell, yeah, it should have been. I saw it. Literally, I think his first game in America was against my team. He was certainly not our age, but he did cook us. He fucking cooked us. I've never seen anything like it. He was bodying everybody.

I think he had like a 75-mile-an-hour shot when we were like 12. That didn't make any sense. But he's a dog. How was Messi on the playoffs? How do they not let Messi's team in the playoffs? That's one of the biggest mistakes I've seen. Should have asked Gary Bettman about that, what he would have done if he was the commissioner of the MLS. I do believe the commissioner of the MLS has been offered up to our program.

Okay. So whenever he comes on or she comes on, we will certainly ask, like, hey, could we have not just, you know. Open it up for more teams maybe or just let everybody in? Or fugaze that midseason tournament and just add those points. Oh, you win that thing, you automatically get into the playoffs. I'd love to hear what horseshit answer we get in return

to why Messi's not in the playoffs. You talking about the balloon door? Yeah, I am. But hey, guess what? The Atlanta United has eight guys who are really good who no one's ever fucking heard of that you can watch in the playoffs. No thanks. The disrespect.

It is, but it's very true at the No thanks. The disrespect. It's true. It is, but it's very true at the same time. We're not happy about it. I'm pissed. You wanted to watch. And guess what? Now I won't ever watch an MLS game again until Messi's back on the pitch. But outside of that, no thanks.

I paid my Apple subscription to watch this MLS thocker. That's right. And Messi's not even out there? Oh, okay. After he wins the balloon door? Okay. No thanks. They got to fix that,LS Thocker. That's right. And Matthew's not even out there after he wins the balloon door. Okay. No, thanks. They got to fix that too on Apple. You got to click too many things. I haven't been in there in months. You click

the game, then you got to click four times to get to the actual game. Messi's not playing right now, so they don't give a fuck if you watch it or not. No, that was when Messi was playing too. Yeah, it was interesting. And Messi did get hurt too. Yeah, he went down and he played for Argentina, though. Yeah. Just slicing and dicing. So, did he or did he think

to himself, we got no shot to make the playoffs somehow, even though they gave me 45% of this league. What the fuck are they doing? You know the NBA? They said, how do we get Zion in here? Oh, we need 14 teams. Okay. 14 teams. They can't do it at the MLS? Why? Because they care about Cup?

Jeez. I'm sick of it. The old school soccer people would be mad or something. They're worried about the integrity of the game. Yeah. Yeah, because the MLS has... All of the MLS marks were mad enough about every messy highlight that was posted. I did appreciate that all the MLS teams on Methy came to town. They were booing his ass as opposed to thanking his ass.

Like, oh, people are watching our league now. We might be able to spend more money on things. We might get a little bit more of a spotlight because this guy's here. Get him the fuck out of our town. I appreciated that. Yeah, that's awesome. I actually did like that.

But with that being said, these soccer marks is what we're calling them? Yep. The Sarks. You can't be that blind to know that, like, this dude should be playing as much as possible. It was also just an excuse every time he did something good. It's like, yes, the MLS.

Also, the guy did the same thing in the goddamn World Cup. Like, he's the best player in the world. It's not the MLS. Not in the playoffs, though. Couldn't lead team. Yeah, that's right. Now he got banged up. It was a tough schedule.

Too physical is what they're saying. Well, the MLS. What happened? Rob, that's the matter. I mean, tough schedule. Too physical is what they're saying. The MLS. What happened? They had to win 15 straight games to get in. Yeah, but they did win 10. That didn't count. They won the MLS Open. Okay.

That's what I'm saying. Now we're back to the Caramel Cup again. Hey, Burnley, 18 more games. There's a chance they're no longer in that big one, right? No, they fucking stink, apparently. No chance. They went all 18, though. They're good.

There's four teams at the very bottom that one is going to stay up. They just got to be the one that stays up. They're going to do it. Sheffield United has one point. How many does? Burnley has four. Bournemouth now has five. Who's the person in first place? Luton Town has five.

Tottenham? Tottenham's top of the table. So how many points do they have? Let me check. Hey, JJ. Yeah. Oh, he's ready. He's got the kid on. Of course. We were just talking about soccer. Obviously, Messi wins the balloon door, not able to make the MLS

playoffs. Now we're talking about your team. Is your team going to stay in the thing? Right? We are. Thank you, JJ. Thank you, JJ. No chance. It went 17 out of 18.

They're in for sure. You never know. Can we put that on a ticker? Owner of Burnley says, you're damn right we are. He promised. Yes. We forgot to ask him about his co-owners. Hey, Gluton Town's going to run that 10 times. Look at this dumb American

saying his team's going to remain in the super-duper league. Yeah. We forgot to ask about his co-owners, Dude Perfect, and how often he spends time together with them watching games. Keep calling back. We do need to know the Dude Perfect. Wait, often he spends time together with them watching games. Keep calling back. We do need to know the Dude Perfect. Wait, his own? Tyler?

Which one? Which one? All of them. Well, Tyler, but yeah, all of them. No, all of them. They have their own piece? Sure, but it's... Who's the ringleader?

It's Tyler. Tyler. I watched Tyler throw a football. Why do you say it like that? Because that's his name. That's his name. Okay. T-U-I-L-E-R?

I am so sick of all the disgusting name botches around here. You called the guy a wrong name for the Houston Texans. No, no, no. I was told it was Greener. I have told you many times to quit trusting that Google Voice thing. And then now you're talking about Tyler in a negative way. So, J.J. didn't answer. He started squatting.

Okay. Of course, we're trying to talk about dude perfectly one more time Wait Pretty cool So his team is in the biggest Already broke his arm. What'd you break this thing came broken? Shot he definitely didn'tdy crap it literally just came out of the thing and the things are hold it up the head let me see what happened the head still

break his leg so i'll just get some super glue man stick it on yeah i'm crafty i get it but this thing shouldn't have showed up like this it shouldn't as his feet are supposed to be in air the guy's lost both his feet maybe it's so you oh no his foot's stuck in the guy with no shoes was pissed till he met the guy with no feet. Now we got this guy here. He just goes right back in there. Oh, he did? That's a life metaphor, AQ.

That's a great one. You need to fucking remember that whenever you're starting to get sad. His head's so big it broke his fucking legs, I think. Too heavy. And also because he didn't answer a call. This is embarrassing. That's Houston. So they're in the main league now, though, right't answer a call. This is embarrassing. That's Houston. So they're in the main league now, though, right?

Yeah. First time ever. Last time ever, too. Whoa. For how long have they been there? Forever. This is their first year. They had a long stretch with their old coach, and then they got relegated a few years back.

Oh, they've been up in the Super Duper League before? Burnley was a staple in the Premier League for years. Oh, wow. When, 1920? No, just before this, actually. They were only down in the championship, I think, for two years before this. Oh, so they suck right now? Join us now.

He's the owner of Burnley and the guy whose bobblehead showed up here with completely broken. JJ. JJ Watt. JJ. Yeah. I don't know what happened there. Made in China?

I'll send you one. Hey, I don't think we've ever got to the bottom of this or know this, and you should have told us this much sooner. Dude Perfect owns Burnley as well, and what do they do day-to-day to make Burnley better? They have a massive, massive following, and

they share the Burnley message out to their following. They were over there for the first match of the season with me. I sat next to them for the first match. Did you talk to Tyler? You talked to Tyler? Yeah. Does he give motivational speech to the boys? Do we got beef or what?

I'm trying to figure out. Do we got beef or we got family? These dudes are selling out arenas. I got to debut a WrestleMania stage watching Tyler throw a football from the third level of a stadium all the way down into a bucket at the bottom. First try.

They've done a great job promoting the brand, obviously, over here in America. We got their logo on the front of our kids' kits, jerseys. Smart. Yeah, it's great. Do you get to hang out with him? Oh, yeah, if you want to transition.

I kind of want to see that golf cart. I'm sorry. I want to talk about him hanging out with Dude Perfect, but that is a sweet golf cart. The estate is that big. I can't figure out how the hell to get my head out of the way. It's like optical. I get it.

I'm screwed up here. No, it's good. It's a good cart. You drive that around the neighborhood out there? It was my wife's birthday present to me. Yes. I get it. Screwed up here. No, it's good. It's a good car. You drive that around the neighborhood out there? It was my wife's birthday present to me. Yes. Nice. Yeah.

Dude, perfect. Ever been on that golf cart? Not yet. No, I'm sure there's something. Oh, there's the lawnmower guy. Gotta love it. Landscaper. Comes at the same time every day, the exact time I'm on the show.

That's good consistency. We love that. Wow. Jesus Christ. This is a joke. Another one? Is that a bunch of fucking lemons? What the hell?

Who made those? You broke that shit in the box. I did not. I just had to un-sticker it. He broke them both. I got to tell you this. I went back because I got six billion mentions now, which is awesome. Your fans are insane.

They're the best. So I watched the video mentions now, which is awesome. Your fans are insane. They're the best. So I watched the video. You throw in the ball. I literally watched it four times and was like, was that prerecorded? When they switch cameras. When they switch cameras, is that shit prerecorded? You thought that was a fugaze? Thank you, ZD Baby.

All right, we got a couple more here. Let's see if any of these. Right out of the back. This is two. I mean... This is unbelievable. How is this all bad? This is what happens when Easterbee gets fired.

Yep. Yeah, Easter... Did you and Easterbee know each other? Uh, yes. God bless you. How was that? You lucky son of a bitch. How come you don't have the same energy when we... Are you kidding me?!

No way. No way. Oh, I see it. What the fuck? What a joke. Brother, it's three JJs. What the- You gotta be kidding me. You just gotta be kidding me.

No way it's the full- Yo. Yeah, I get it. Bag. Baker's dozen. How many does that? What is this? I think it's supposed to be one for all the boys, but instead we got no JJs.

We got none. We got zero. It's just a bad batch. Are they all like this, though? They sent us all fucking broken ones. We seen Mighty Ducks yet or what? What's going on? Hey, I'm halfway through it.

I'm halfway through it. You stopped? Yeah, yeah. I had to make a deal with my kids, actually. Hey, give me 30 minutes. What the fuck is happening? I made a deal with them. Oh actually. Hey, give me 30 minutes. What the fuck is happening? I made a deal with the kids. Oh, my God.

Another one. Oh, my God. That's absurd. What are the chances? Oh, that one's good. There we go. Oh, no, it's not. Yeah, no.

Yeah, I think you have to assemble it. I think you have to assemble it. No, it's clearly. It's already been painted. It's supposed to be. Did he say some assembly required? Is there a little peg to put his foot on? There's something to be said there.

There's a joke in there. Yeah. There's only 100 pieces of joke. Bobbleheads are kind of like Burnley. All right, all right, all right. That's what I was just trying to finish the line that you started. I'm very disappointed. I thought I was going to have a J.J. Watt bobblehead right up here,

but guy can't stand up. Guy can't stay healthy. There is not even blood. It's right there. There it is. All right, J.J. Watt. J.J. Watt. United to Roxbury.

Thank you, J.J. Thank you, J.J. What's that all about? That's horse shit. And they lose to the Panthers? What's going on here? I mean, seriously. What is going on here?

That's a phenomenal thing. It's an embarrassment. So as they were packing, I'm like, fuck this guy right at the shins. Probably. And then put him in a box? I don't understand it. There's a chance. I've never seen anything like that.

That was not a planned thing. Oh. I opened a lot of boxes, and I got a bunch of shit everywhere. Now I just kind of want, like, the head. Like, can we just chop the head off of the thing and put it on the- Like the torso and put it on the body like the buffalo. Yeah. Just put it like-

Yeah. Bingo. Maybe. Boom. Boom. There you go. There it is. Yeah. Just put it like. Yeah. Bingo. Maybe. Boom, boom. There you go. There it is. He's always looking over you. How long do we think that lasts?

Years. Maybe a long time because you're trying not to hit that screen too often. What was that? Thank you. Don't be trying to rattle it. Okay, it's already rattled. It's in Jurassic Park. Big prank. It's going to stay forever now.

Ten people, $500 already happened today. I think there's one thing that has to happen before the weekend. Absolutely. All right, we already had one giveaway, D-Butt. Oh, shit. Is he putting? Statistics tell us we're probably only going to have one giveaway by the end of this thing. You sure you don't want AQ-Button?

I saw him on there earlier. Yeah, that's why we don't. Darius. You're dressed for golf. Come on, D-Butt. D-Butt, listen. D-Butt looks nice. Yes.

He's also working out a little bit more. Now he's back in the Hawk House, I believe. Beginning of the season, you could tell he wasn't in the gym. He was on the golf course for a while. Now he's kind of tightened it up. He has moved three feet closer to the hole than where he started at. But we appreciate it. With the mummy

behind you there, bringing good luck, there is seven balls. All you got to do is make three into that hole over there. And if you do, another ten people will win $500. AQ Shipley has a golf course in his backyard. AQ, any tips for Darius who has struggled with

his green mightily? Pick a line and putt it through the ball. Don't stop the stroke. That's it. That was really good. AQ actually almost broke one of those windows. He was chipping on this thing earlier today. Yeah, I did hear about that.

Appreciate you doing that, having zero respect for the Thunderdome as a whole, but nonetheless, three made putts here. Ten people, $500. D-Bot! Good confidence stroke, though. That is a good confidence stroke. Hit that thing off the green into a sand trap if we're at a nice green, but a nice course, but that does not matter.

Just one miss. Need to go three of six now. No problems at all for Darius J. Butler. Great everything. Oh, no. Oh, no. How do you have to do that? A little pump fake. A second ball? No problems at all for Darius J. Butler. Great everything. Oh, no. At the end. A little pump fake. How do you have to do that? A little pump fake.

A second ball. Drained in. Yeah, we knew that one wasn't going in, but this one is going to be the one where it gets started. All Darius has got to do is make one. Then he'll learn the line. He'll learn to touch. And then he'll rattle off three in a row, and 10 people will win $500.

D-button some fresh Air Forces. Is that a lip? Yeah. Burn the edge fresh Air Forces. Is that a lip? Burn the edge. It counts. Currently 3 for 24 on this screen. Keeping track of the last couple weeks. The stats are up on the marquee. I do believe. Oh, no. We have analytics. Game revolves around analytics.

Oh, no. What? 3 of 24. Is that accurate? That's not accurate It is I think it is It certainly got to a point Where we did not expect it to be this bad But if he makes this one

He'll make the next two Another lip That's 3 of 25 It's the same lip Yep All D-Butt's got to do Is go 3 for 3 He's gone

He's gone 3 of 25 In his last 28 But if he rattles off these three 10 people win $500. Come on, D-Bud. Darius, for the people, you've learned the course. You've learned the whole. Come on.

The mummy's wishing you well, as are the people that are viewing this show and us as a collective group. Got it. All right. That was a good effort. There you go. 0 for 6, 0 for 7. All right.

Those last two maybe go in. It's all right, buddy. Got a lot of season left. A lot of season left. Guy plays a lot of golf, huh? Butler birdies. It's going to be tough to get those. You can't roll a putt in.

But if you have good enough irons, you can be just like Scotty Scheffler. And that's the way Darius J. Butler plays. And we can't thank you enough for joining us on this glorious Wednesday. Safe travels, D-Butt. We will see you back here on Saturday. AQ, thank you for stopping by. Great in the trenches today. Great in the trenches today. Big shout out to Kirk Herbstreit for stopping by in the middle

of all his meetings. J.J. Watt and obviously the NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. Watch some hockey. It's an incredible sport. Especially on these nights where maybe NFL and big-time college football isn't happening. But with that being said, Maxson's back. There's a lot of great stuff every evening. We appreciate you for following along with us.

We'll be back tomorrow here, and then Friday I'll be live in Alabama, and then we have Saturday's Megacast happening where we're doing a red zone frenzy night. Should be fun. Reese Davis is hosting that, so a real professional will be in here, which is great news for all parties. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change their life.

Like, for instance, Darius, you'll make the next putt. For sure. And that'd be true. 3-27, says the boys in the back, which seems to be an accurate stat. We'll see you next time. Goodbye!