The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 1111 - GOAT Wednesday with Caitlin Clark LIVE In The ThunderDome, Bill Belichick, Kyle Busch, Pacman Jones, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

On today’s show, Pat, Pacman Jones, AJ Hawk, and the boys chat about the rumors that Robert Kraft allegedly told Arthur Blank to not hire Bill Belichick, the Washington Commanders inviting 20 players for their in person visits at the same time, everything that happened in the NBA Playoff play-in games, and the current NHL Playoff picture. Joining the show LIVE in the ThunderDome to chat about her whirlwind last month, her goals growing up, being the #1 overall pick and how her transition to the WNBA will be, and much more is #1 overall pick of the Indiana Fever, someone with too many accolades to list, arguably the greatest college basketball player of all-time, Caitlin Clark (46:11-1:04:01). Next, 8x Super Bowl Champion, the GOAT, Bill Belichick joins the show to chat about the NFL Draft process and where times are at right now just a week away from the draft, and Pat and Bill also announce that Bill will joining the 5th Annual Draft Spectacular as a co-host for the entire show (1:28:22-2:03:18). Later, one of the NASCAR GOAT’s, defending champion at Talladega, 63 time winner in the NASCAR Cup Series, Kyle Busch joins the show to chat about Talladega this weekend, his schedule, the old guard versus the new guard, and much more (2:09:03-2:28:54). 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

Hello beautiful people and welcome to our humble abode the Thunderdome on this GOAT Wednesday April 17th 2024. This sports program starts now. Sports are wonderful you know uh we're a group of football stooges who absolutely love competition and we like seeing greats do great things that's why on this particular GOAT Wednesday, we are pumped. Ladies and gentlemen, in a matter of about 29 minutes or so, Kaitlyn Clark will be live in this studio, in this Thunderdome,

in that seat right there. Can I wait to chit-chat with her? We have a graphic that shows all of her awards that she has won and all of the titles. You've got to be kidding me. That's a lot. Ladies and gentlemen, the two-time AP Player of the Year,

the two-time Honda Sports Award winner, the two-time John R. Wooden Award winner, the two-time ladies with – you can't even do it. No. Too many. You can't even do it. Can't even do it. Kaitlin Clark will be joining us, obviously. She is making her rounds here in Indianapolis as the newest member –

well, I guess one of the newest members of the Indiana Fever, and we are incredibly pumped to chat with her. Now, it is a historic day, obviously, because she's the greatest college basketball player of all time. She has the points record for both the men's and the women's, but also the numbers that she is bringing in to women's basketball whenever it comes to eyes are absurd. The draft had its biggest night ever 307 percent higher viewership than its previous high which was in 2004 so you're talking about not even being close whenever it comes to a ratings boost now obviously we know it's not just caitlin this is a draft class and the women's college basketball is better than it's ever been with storylines in the game and everything like we understand that but what caitlin cl Clark and this younger group of women are doing,

and I assume what they will do for the WNBA, is good for all of sport. It's great for, you know, like I have a daughter. I cannot wait for her to watch this and kind of be inspired by all of it. It's a beautiful thing. We can't wait to chat with Kaitlyn. We're very thankful she's coming by. Rowdy Kyle Busch will join us in a third hour. And ESPN Plus.

And today should be a blast. The Talks Table is here at Boston Corner and at Ty Schmidt. One half of the hammer. Done. Cowboys Turn Diggs is here. And joining us in studio, a man who has a song coming out in two days. Hell yeah. Called Mary Jane.

Ladies and gentlemen, 12-year NFL corner, Universal Records signed rapper. Ladies and gentlemen, Pac-Man Jones. Yeah. You know me. Pac, how you doing, pal? I'm doing good, man. Head wrap thing looks sweet. You know what I mean? Hermes today? What's that? Hermes.

That's fancy. Designers. Okay, so that thing was created to do that right there? Yeah, for this right here. It looks so cool. So, so, so cool. I can't pull it off. If I walked in with something like that

on my head anywhere, people would assume I'm some costume gimmick, something's happening. Sure. You walked in with that thing, so cool. You look amazing.

Big week, we got another song coming out? Big week. I'm in love with Mary, Mary Jane coming out Thursday night. Which is April 19th? Yes, banger. Because there is

April 20th. Yeah, 4-20. It's a very special day. Yes, for all parties involved. For all parties involved. For those that like to chew on good tasting food, laugh a little bit, maybe have their body feel a little bit better. When you're proper age, obviously,

whenever you're available to do it, that's the thing. Pac-Man, great to see you. Cannot wait to hear your thoughts on all of the shit happening around the NFL today. Shout out to J.J. Watt. Guy's still living in a Dick's. Yeah, smart. Think about how much money he has. That guy's choosing to live in a Dick's.

And there's a good reason. Because Dick's Sporting Goods, Dick's House of Sport, is a go-do-it. It's an amusement park of sports. So fun. It's a to-do. It's not just like of sports. So fun. It's a to-do. It's not just like, hey, I need you to buy a pair of cleats or something like that. You go in there. You can climb a rock wall.

You can swing a bat. You can punch. You can punch stuff. You can putt. You can putt all over the green. I mean, Dix is doing it. Congrats to Dix, and we appreciate the hell out of him. Love you, Dix.

Speaking of appreciating the hell out of something, I know everybody up in New England is certainly in the middle of a transition era. Of course. There was another article released this morning about Bill Belichick and the crafts and the future and what happened maybe down in Atlanta, why Bill didn't get the job. At Boston Conner, definitely a little spicy. At Boston Conner, massive Patriot fan.

You read through the entire article. What was this, how is this, and how did you come away from the entire thing? So it's from Wickersham and Jeremy Fowler. It was also put together by, I don't want to get this wrong, Don Van Nada Jr. It's a great name. Very long article. It goes very in-depth about the hiring process of Bill and kind of how he missed out on a head coaching job. There are a bunch of stuff in there that kind of didn't really make sense.

One thing that has been coming out, the biggest thing kind of I would say is that everyone is talking about how, you know, Robert Kraft basically told Arthur Blank, don't hire this guy. Okay. You do not do it. You can't trust him in that whole entire narrative between Bob and Bill, which has been going on forever. All the way.

I mean, with the Dynasty coming out and now this article coming out, it is kind of just a, not another burial, but it is kind of hammering home the fact that Bob and Bill clearly were butting heads at the end, if not the entire time. But in the article, they- 20-some years together at some point.

It's just like whenever Tom and Bill, there was allegedly, I think it's like, I mean, marriage, 20 years. think about any relationship for 20 years friendship business anything for 20 years a long time you you are gonna realize like everything about the other person so you see everything about the other person not just potentially the good you also find out about the bad there's maybe some deep situations that take place that were never really fully got over. And then two decades is a long time doing work together. But it does feel like this Bill Bob one is a lot different than the Bill Tom one.

Because the Bill Tom one, there was a lot of chat, a lot of chat, a lot of chatter, a lot of chatter, a lot of chatter. And then Tom and Bill both were like, I don't know anything about that. In this one, there's a full documentary. Yes. You know, that the crafts are involved in, and their money's behind, and they're speaking in, in the way that it painted.

It's like, this one feels a lot realer than the Bill Tom one, but I think we can all understand after 20 plus years of success in the biggest league on Earth with billions of dollars at play and egos and legacies and everything, you could see how it could happen. But this one feels realer than any of the things that we heard early,

which all end up being bullshit with the Bill and Tom stuff. Yeah, no doubt. Like when Tom talks about Bill, there are plenty of clips where he gets emotional and he starts crying, talking about what Belichick has done for him and everything like that. And obviously, you know, I'm not going to say Robert Kraft hates Bill Belichick. Like that is such a broad statement. And like you just laid out, for that many years,

the amount of success that they've had, you can't hate somebody when they helped grow your business into what it is today. But some of the things from it, just clear bullshit. Did you take notes? I did write down some things just because I wanted to. I didn't want to quote anybody.

He had notes yesterday in his brain about pandas. For a few years now, it's been about the birds. Now he's got actually handwritten notes next to him because I want to make sure I get this right from an article doing its reporting. Just real quick, the pandas, no notes in my brain. That was just a quick little thing that happened. But again, we're on football. So with the Belichick thing, just him specifically with the job,

they said that Bill was blindsided that he didn't get the job. I feel like that's kind of hard to believe. The Falcons job? This is the Falcons job, yeah. Because, you know, if they were looking at 14 candidates, one of those guys was a former interim head coach in Atlanta who's been in Atlanta who Arthur Blank knows. And we talked to Raheem Morris.

Like, if you were to sit down with that guy, it would be hard not to be like, yeah, I'd run through a wall. Like, that is our head coach. Raheem. Raheem Morris. Boom. So, like, that aspect of it being blindsided, who knows? I mean, that is something that Bill will have to come out and say maybe he was.

Hard to believe that a guy that's been in the NFL since 1975 would be blindsided by anything. But, again, that is one of the things. The other thing that they mentioned, and this wasn't in quotes or anything. They just said in a sentence, Belichick wasn't eager to work with Rich McKay. I mean, I guess, sure, maybe that could be true. But if they're just putting out bland statements like that and people... Just guessing how somebody feels. Yeah, he wasn't eager.

We can say that because he probably wasn't eager to work with anybody. I mean, things like that are annoying, let alone throughout the entire article, Michael Lombardi is quoted over and over, and he goes on and on about how much, you know, him and Bill and what Bill's looking for and also, you know, who Bill is as a person, basically. None of the quotes, they don't really say where they're from. I'm pretty sure 90% of the quotes that he talked about were from this show. This is an ESPN article we're talking about, so interesting

that they wouldn't reference an ESPN show. But again, that is pure speculation. That is all speculation from me, which they probably could have thrown in that article a couple times if it was speculation. Well, if they're bearing a bill, I'm happy we're not a part of it. Yeah, amen. And I'm glad we're talking about it, because there are

things, if you were to just read through that as someone who doesn't follow the NFL every day, if you were to read through that, you could just be like, oh, okay, so Bill hates the Atlanta Falcons and he was devastated by the fact that he wasn't head coach. Again, who knows if that part is true. The Bob Craft stuff specifically. So Arthur Blank,

he checked his references before making a decision or whatever, and I assume that's how every single team does it. They reference right away. One of his references was Bob Kraft's son, Jonathan Kraft, which if we've learned anything about Jonathan and Bill's relationship, at least from just consuming the dynasty and what has happened since Bill has left the Patriots,

I don't know if that is the most biased or or unbiased non-biased there it is who no i don't know those words i i'm not sure around a lot so people who act like they're non normally very but yeah so which makes you think bias might be the one that's like hey i'm just walking the fence you might get the most amount of truth whenever somebody just at least pledges their biases bingo you know as opposed to acting as if non-true yes but then picking and choosing what's said and what isn't said well what he says is the truth yeah but what he withheld also true and then kind of paints a narrative so you know there's we're in that time right now yes we are everywhere true and to be clear i am biased towards bill belichick so you know here we are and i'm you

know just what do you mean you got that come on baby but uh the bobcraft thing. We're on to Cincinnati. We're on to Cincinnati, mother. But the Bobcraft thing that does kind of give the reports a little bit of credibility is he mentions in there like, hey, in January when I talked with Arthur Blank, I didn't say a bad word about Bill. The things that they are claiming that he said in January, the meeting, this is after Bill was gone from New England. This is when he is interviewing down there. He was like, no, I didn't say anything bad about Bill in January. Now, any time before January, I don't know if I said anything

bad about Bill to Arthur before January. So that is kind of... Remember those reports of Kraft coming out of an elevator and saying, I gotta go work with the biggest asshole in my life. Right, exactly. And they're like, he was talking about Bill Belichick as he walked out of that elevator.

So what does that mean about the relationship between the owner, the GM, and the head coach? It's obviously splintering. And then there was rumors about what Kraft wanted to do with the roster, what Bill wanted to do with the roster. This has kind of been bubbling and bubbling and bubbling. Feels like not a bad time. Middle of offseason, a lot of shit going on in the NFL.

Draft about a week away. There is some maybe new mock drafts coming out that we certainly will keep an eye on and everything like that. But not a bad thing to just go ahead and know that the entire world is certainly interested in how this relationship went. And then it sounds like it's a lot of alluding to or potentially anonymous quotes and things like that.

Yeah, some anonymous Belichick's. Source close to Belichick, source close to Kraft, source close to Blank, a lot of that. You mentioned the asshole comment, you know, Bob walking off the elevator. Do you remember who wrote that book? Oh, that was Wickersham. That was Wickersham. Okay, so funny enough, maybe there is bias on one side.

Again, this is just pure speculation, and I am saying that is pure speculation because instead of just writing it in an article, I will add on the end of my sentence, hey, that's per speculation. Maybe that is something that he is pulling from the earlier draft of his story. But the whole thing, obviously something happened between Bob and Bill. That is clear.

Everyone knows that. When it comes to this situation specifically, it would make more sense just from reading the article that maybe Blank did go back to some of the conversations Kraft and him had in the past about Bill. But the idea that Bob Kraft called up Arthur Blank and was like, hey, if you hire this asshole, you guys are screwed for the next 10 years. You're going to ruin your entire building. So that exact thing, very hard to believe. But the previous conversations you could see coming into effect there

with the Bill hiring. But again, Raheem Morris. We still don't know. I guess we're just going to continue to read more stuff about the two. If we ever get a chance, hopefully, to get to the bottom of it, we will. But how is there a bottom of 24 years' worth of relationship? You can write about anything throughout those 24 years. I assume there's some stories to be told about uh ricky ross performing at the new england patriots super bowl party afterwards and i assume there's a moment

where you know bill was flashing those rings and craft was down you know he's doing a fool there had to be a lot of those as well happy to hear that hopefully they'll both kind of move on in separate directions, but it continues to kind of linger. And I know Patriots fans have gone from being excited about moving forward to being like, why are we doing this to Bill? Oh, yeah. That's kind of what everybody's – that's how New England Patriots fans are feeling

as a majority, not everybody, but a majority. Yeah, and it was just in New England this past weekend. That still holds true with a lot of people where it's like, hey, why did they do this? And a lot of people still extremely frustrated with the Kraft family as a whole. A lot more Jonathan than Bob, though, just to be clear. And it's documentary-based. Yeah, and it starts with the documentary, absolutely. There's no reason to put out this wicked, stupid doc at the moment in which you're doing it.

I heard that sentence four or five times. We could do this ten years from now. Like, right now, it's just Right now, that was just too much. Stupid. We talk about it with Jordan in the last dance. Jordan waited all that time, and when did he release it? Kind of when LeBron passed Jordan, when that situation happened. And so as a Patriots fan, I would have liked to see,

let's see how this Chiefs thing ends first before we remind people who the first Chiefs were. That's how I think New England Patriots fans would have liked to see that go. Pac-Man as a person that had to play in the era of the New England Patriots during that time, I did as well. I think my perspective is one of

just awe and respect that they were able to win for that long. It is so hard to win in the NFL. The amount of personalities that you have to wrangle and keep in one direction, the amount of personalities that you have to wrangle and keep in one direction. The amount of fortune that you have to kind of experience with injuries and everything. And even if they did have injuries, they were

able to still keep going where everybody else would go. I would like to remember those New England Patriots, not by documentaries and those William Sham books and articles, but by the greatness that they put on for 20 plus years. There's always going to be asterisks on everything, right? They certainly have

theirs. The Chiefs are going to find theirs too. If the Chiefs continue to go, people are going to find they got to be cheating. There's got to be something going on different over there than everybody else. How are we spending billions and making billions and they're beating everybody every single year, but that Patriots team, what they had for 24 years was special.

We just need to remember it that way, don't you think, Pat? Oh yeah, we do need to remember that way. I think he got, what, 10, 14 rings probably in total with all of the Super Bowls and the championships. So, a lot of respect for what they did. Special

teams was really big when it came to the Patriots. They won a lot of games. As an all-pro returner, and as a guy who kicked and punted or whatever, anytime you take on the Patriots, they're going to be so sound

and so disciplined, and they're going to expose you, especially if you try a fake punt. Where everybody's moving, and there's only a center and a quarterback. The center's from Stanford. The quarterback's from Montana. Both of them absolute dogs. But in that particular case, certainly outnumbered.

No doubt. And the Patriots get the ball laughing in our face, and that's another Bill Belichick moment where he's smarter than everybody. This guy's playing chess, not checkers. It's like to try to act as if Bill wasn't, you know. And this is coming from a biased perspective because I've been in a building and been lucky to watch a lot because of the position that I had. You know, I this is coming from a biased perspective because I've been in a building and been lucky to watch a lot because of the position

that I had. You know, I was able to watch a lot to be able to keep every training room, equipment room, and obviously they're a part of this entire conversation as well. Front office, scouts, like everybody going, coaches, everybody going the same way for that long without being a distraction enough

to Rooney, it's like impossible to do. So congrats to the Patriots. You guys will get it again. You guys will get it again. Just need one more. Speaking of dynasties that are over, last night in hockey. Oh, boy, oh, boy. Some heartbreaking stuff happened in hockey last night.

Hockey is awesome. You know, hockey hurts, too. It does hurt. It stings sometimes. You know, I got this, you know, like hallway hockey, knee hockey stick. Oh, yeah. Good stick. Up on my desk every day, and it's of the greatest hockey program

and organization of all time. The team that is from hockey, the Pittsburgh Penguins. This stick is no longer in the playoffs. This stick for a long time has not been really relevant to the Lordo conversation. And this stick now has an ownership group that doesn't spend any money. And this stick is the stick of a team that has incredibly bad luck. Last night, we needed two things to happen. We're about a minute and four seconds away

from both of those things potentially happening. And instead they both go the other way and we are ruled out of the playoffs. Hockey has come down to its final games now. The West has still not been figured out. The East was just figured out basically last night at the end of the season here. Hockey has been

fantastic. 4-3. Need the Canadians to win this game. Canadians gave up a massive lead literally two nights ago to the Detroit Red Wings in Detroit. This time, they're in the Bell Center, where Sami Zayn kept his intercontinental title in front of his family. That's right. Literally on Monday night.

Canadians were about to have a great night. A magnificent evening. Instead, lose, pass, one-timer, 4-4, 3.3 seconds left in the entire game. That goes to overtime. Guess who ends up winning? Who's that? Clear the puck. The Red Wings.

Oh, no. In a shootout. The Red Wings get a win. So the Pens didn't need that to happen. Well, let's go to the other game. Maybe this one didn't happen. Capitals-Flyers. 1-1.

Third period. Good, right? They pulled their goalie. What? Yeah. 1-1. They pulled their goalie. Three minutes left.

T.J. Oshie just... Torch, what are we doing? What the hell? Absolute killing. By the way, they didn't have to pull their goalie. They did not. In real time, they didn't have to do that to make the playoffs. Torch was just so focused on a game that was happening right in front of him.

Couldn't look up at scoreboard whenever they made the announcement about what happened in the other game. He could have just gone ahead and said, let's just finish the game as well. Why? Who cares? We're already in the playoffs. But instead, pulls his goalie. Three minutes left.

Oh, no. Three minutes. That is so long to just have. And it will what? Pens out. Yep. Yeah. Now, although the Pittsburgh Penguins are out,

that does not mean you should not watch hockey playoffs. Sure. No. The NHL playoffs are electrifying. Yep. So fast. Literally, they talk about in the NFL how regular season's one speed, playoffs are another speed, Super Bowl's a whole other speed,

where people are just, you know, you got it tomorrow. But in hockey, you got a best of seven. And they still play as if there is no... They're flying around. They're lifting bodies up that are actually mangled, broken backs, putting them out on the ice. They're skating, flying around. The NHL playoffs are worth a watch.

With that being said, the Pens aren't in it yet again, and it seems like our era and our dynasty are over. Dumpy, can you get me off the Penguins and into the playoffs? What do we need to be looking at on the West, and how do we feel about the overall Stanley Cup playoffs and the alignment? So you go to the East, it's all set. Panthers, Tampa, Battle of Florida. Great matchup.

Both two good teams. Then you go to the Bruins. Bruins, Come on. Bruins-Leafs. Maybe one of the greatest rivalries we've ever seen in the NHL. Gumby, can we Canadian accent this a little bit more? Please. Because we know you're from Canada. The U.S. immigration officers know.

No, they know. The issue with the accent is I don't know when I'm doing it. There it is. You guys are better at doing it than I am. But we're fugace. This is when hockey is a boot.

If you can do more of that on this graphic, Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs are what rivalries are about. It's hot in the oven up there. There we go. It's a good matchup. Boom.

Boom. When's the last time the Leafs beat the Bruins in playoffs? Let me check real quick. 1974. That's 50 years ago? Yeah, a long time ago. Those Leafs suck. Don't forget, we were down 4-1 with 10 minutes left in Game 7,

and we still won, bitch. If you could add a little Boston in with a wicked Austin, too, that would help. Oh, I mean, ow. It's hard to do that without a couple F-bombs. I'll tell you what. All right, anyways, Gump, if we get back to the Stanley Cup playoff,

you go to the Rangers and Capitals. I wouldn't worry about that one. The Rangers are going to walk away with that one. First the Coups? Should it be the Red Wings? I'd rather see the Red Wings or the Pens in there. I think it would be a little more exciting. I don't think the Caps have a chance. You go

to the Hurricanes and the New York Islanders. That's a matchup of last year, first round. Canes are actually the favorite to win the cup right now at plus 550. What? With Gensel? Yes.

Very surprising to me when I saw that this morning as well. What's the deal? Hey, Gumpy, I know you're a Liverpool fan, and this Fenway Sports Group owns that team as well. And you told me they don't like to spend money. That's not what they're about, I think is what you said in this entire thing. We traded away Gensel. He's the leader of the Canes now? He is. They are a wagon. He's not what they're about, I think is what you said in this entire thing. We traded away Gensel. He's the leader of the Canes now.

They are a wagon. He's playing great puck. And they're the favorites to win the Stanley Cup. Plus 550. And we just traded away a leader of the Stanley Cup favorites. See, I don't love Kyle Dubas either. Shut up. I'm not a big fan of what he's done with the Penguins, but that's another story.

Okay, let's go. Don't laugh at me, especially like that. Crosby deserves better. Oh, shut up. But you talk about you go to Fenway Sports Group. Man City spent like a billion dollars to build the team they have. Liverpool only buys players when they sell players. Their net spend since Klopp has been the coach is 100 million pounds.

That's it? What is everybody else's net spend? Man City has spent over a billion dollars in that time. Okay. Chelsea has spent over a billion dollars in that time. Oh, no. Fenway stinks. This is out of Boston.

That makes sense. They're running it like a business. They don't own the Bruins. They don't own the Bruins. They don't own the Celtics. And they don't own the Patriots. So, bummer. The socks suck. You guys have to deal with it with the Penguins.

Let's go to the West, shall we? K-16 and 5 since getting canceled. 16 and 5? Jesus. They're a wagon, brother. Yeah, it's a lot of good times down there. You know what we've had? A lot of bad times. Gensel, we miss you, pal. Congrats on your new home being

so great. We hope it goes fantastic. What the hell are we doing? This stick used to mean something. Yeah, it's true. It's still done. PK said you guys got Dan Dunning or whatever the hell his name was. Bunting. He's a great player. What are you you guys got Dan Dunning or whatever the hell his name was. Bunting. Bunting.

He's been a dog. He's a great player. What are you talking about? Dan Dunning. I'm about done with this. Can we please go to the West? Okay, so the West, only one matchup is set. Nice job.

The Winnipeg Jets in Winterpeg, in a surprising turn of events, have home ice advantage against the Colorado Avalanche. Wow. Nice jobvalanche. Wow. Nice job, brother. British. You really nailed that. That was pretty good. So that's the only one that's set.

Texas Hockey gets a point tonight. They clinch the Western Conference. They stay playing the Kings. If Vegas wins their last game, then it's all locked in. The Cougars, the Vancouver Cougars play the Nashville Predators. They clinched the division last night. Okay. So the Vegas Golden Knights going to win this thing again?

Is that what we're expecting? That Oilers-Vegas matchup was electric last year. That's a great first-round matchup. Yeah, we've been in the barn over there in Vegas. In that exact game as well. And without you, I don't know if they can. I agree. I don't know if they'll be able to get through seven series,

but the Vegas Golden Knights still your team? Yeah, still my team. Hey, I think you're muted. I don't know. Are you? Still my team. No, there we are. Bruce just told you to shut up.

Sounds like it. That was awesome. Damn it, Bruce. Hey, you been watching any hockey? Any hockey? I'm waiting for Stoner to get back, man. I have been watching. Stoner, I believe.

He's been present at Morning Skate with the boys in the red jersey. I don't know if he's going to be ready for the first game. I think he should be good to go, hopefully, in the first round of the playoffs. Okay, so that's the NHL. Let's go to the NBA because the NBA had a massive night last night. Two playing games with a lot of stars. A lot of stars. The Lakers-Pelicans game was phenomenal.

Lakers were up like 18 or 17. Then Zion Williamson said, I'm him. I'm Zion Williamson. He was everything that we had dreamt he would be in the NBA whenever we first seen him on the internet. Duncan on tiny little watts all over South Carolina as a 240-pound 15-year-old or whatever the hell he was. It's like, damn, this is the most explosive human that has ever existed.

How can you be that big at that age and be that high on the backboard? Well, Zion would go to Duke. They weren't able to win somehow. I'm not saying anything about the coaching. Coach K, we love Coach K. Yeah, he was just getting a little long in the tooth. Yeah, I think he had like three of the top five draft picks. They weren't able to win.

I don't know what that means. I don't know how that goes. zion gets uh drafted to the pelicans obviously it is not a great start there's already some you know resting and then there was a dieting then there were some injuries then there were some differences between the zion team and the pelicans team i mean it was just publicly he was he was out with the dogs when the team was playing it was just never good last night night, he showed up. One-off in the most important game he has played in in his NBA career. And with about a minute 40 left, pulls his hamstring.

He leaves the game frustrated, visibly pissed. Leaves the game. And the Lakers just completely win the rest of the way. LeBron James 3-0 in playing games. And on the flip side, Steph Curry, 0-3 in playing games. Oh, no, Steph. LeBron's played in three playing games? Yes, he has.

That's what Stats said that I read. Yeah, last year they were also up. That's interesting. Yeah, because I asked Charles Barkley yesterday, I said, so this is good for the NBA to have LeBron in playing games? He goes, I don't think they want him in playing games. I'm like, I was interested. I turned in because I thought there was a chance that LeBron was going to make it have LeBron in the playing games. He goes, I don't think they want him in the playing games. I'm like, I turned in because I thought there was a chance that LeBron

wasn't going to make it. LeBron is playing great ball. Yeah, he is. Pac-Man, I know you're a massive fan. You think the Lakers can go on a run? You think the Nuggets in the first round is good or bad for the Los Angeles Lakers? Well, let me say it like this. The big two are playing pretty good.

With Davis and LeBron playing so good, they're playing really good. But D'Angelo Russell is having a season that we haven't seen what five people do. He has 203 pointers. He's shooting over 40%. He got 400 assists. He's having a hell of a season. But if we could have Austin Reeves play the way he played last night with him 16.6 assists for our rebounds. I think we'll be all right.

And the defense is playing pretty good right now. I don't know if we can beat the Nuggets, but I'm around with LeBron. Okay, you have rode with LeBron throughout the entirety of his career. I think a lot of people have. I've enjoyed watching everything about him. I've heard the Lakers don't have enough to make it. They've got to face off against Malone. Malone and LeBron have their full thing.

Joker's got a full thing. Obviously, that team has been a wagon, will be a wagon, and continues to be a wagon. But the NBA playoffs is where LeBron is like, yeah, and why LeBron is LeBron. What he did last night was fantastic. So sweet. It was a great game. It was electrifying to watch. I fell asleep during the second one. I heard Clay

stunk, didn't make any other shots, and he's gone. Yeah, Clay, I think he was over 10 from the field, over 6 from 3. He was getting cooked on the internet big time last night. And then post-game, they kind of asked Steph about the whole entire thing. Steph, Draymond, Clay, obviously this era.

People are assuming something will change. And Steph did say, like, hey, I just want to win. And he had no chance last night. Whether he scored 50 points or not, if your second best player is scoring zero, you don't really have a chance. And the Kings, you know, that was a team I believe that was referenced by, you know, Chuck yesterday about how they can fill it up. Darren Fox, Sabonis, who I think he broke records this year for most double-doubles consecutively.

So they are very good. But again, when it comes down to it, playing OKC, that team's incredibly good. It is a bummer that this is the assumed end of the Warriors era, though. I don't think we'll ever see that kind of basketball, at least in Golden State, again. I mean, it changed basketball, obviously. For sure. When Steph comes in and the Splash Brothers are doing their thing, everybody using the stats to kind of change it.

It changed everything in the sport of basketball. Now, I'm not saying the person that's going to be joining us in a matter of moments here of basketball. Now, I'm not saying the person that's going to be joining us in a matter of moments here is maybe as dialed in on three-point shooting because of Steph Curry, but the entire world, seven-footers,

you see Steph and the Splash brothers just beat everybody, just lightened up from the outside. It's like, maybe you don't have to be six-foot-eight. Maybe you don't have to be six-foot-seven. So you saw everybody working on threes you almost saw the entire game become layups in threes because what's the mid-range even mean anymore if you can get three by stepping back instead of the two that seems to be a greater

number than the other and i think obviously it's been chatted about since the institution of the three-point line but when steph and clay in that team go and have the success that they had, it legitimized the stat that three points is worth more than two and forever changed the game. And kind of poetic how that's the way that they end up. If that's the way this whole thing kind of crumbles and gets blown up, because I think the Kings shot like

48 threes last night. Another Iowa grad, Keegan Murray, had 33 points last night. Made like seven threes. So you're right. I mean, if teams could make shots from deep, it turns out that is kind of potentially their kryptonite if those guys are having off nights.

And Clay, I've seen a lot of videos of him dancing on his boat. Yeah. I love water. Talking shit to people. He just was two nights ago. He was telling C.J. McCollum. Hell of a point. Hell of a run, though. Unbelievable. was, too, two nights ago. He was telling CJ McCollum. Hell of a run, though. I believe.

Hey, hell of a run, Clay. And he said yesterday, I think in the shoot-around in the morning, he was asked about it, and he said, I had so many great times here. I won't be salty about it, I understand. Steve Kerr, after the game, said that we need Clay here. You know, we love Clay here. We want Clay here.

I don't know financially if it's able to take place because they give Draymond that deal. Steph has a deal. They're going to have to get younger because that seemingly is the issue every single year whenever it comes to playoff time now for them. But, you know, business is business. That's how it goes. Clay's going to get a shit ton of money from somebody we assume. Yeah, they're saying the

Orlando Magic, like the worst kept secret in the NBA is that the Orlando Magic are going to pay Clay Thompson whatever he wants. What are the boat situations down in Orlando? Because it's landlocked, isn't it? Yeah, I believe so. I don't know if he can. I don't know if he will be able to do his boat down in Orlando.

Because he's got a nice boat. He does. He loves boating. He just gets a slip in Tampa and just head up there whenever he's got some free time. Yeah, Tampa's like an hour and a half. Yeah. Make it work. You were in Orlando recently, right?

Yeah. That pool you were at looked like we could put a boat in there. Probably could put a boat in there. That thing was big. Did you see the photo of the pool that he was in? Huge. Huge. It was maybe the biggest pool. Biggest lagoon.

Yeah, it is. What's it called? In the world. It's called Evermore. Evermore. Yeah. And it's the biggest lagoon in the world? Yeah.

Look like it. Yeah. I bet Lucas would love a lagoon. Let's put that together. Hey, Lucas Evermore. Yeah. And it's the biggest lagoon in the world? Yeah. Look like it. Yeah. I bet Lucas would love a lagoon. Hey, Lucas Lagoon. Yeah. Dog. Shout out to Nicky Skates and his baby. We're very poised.

7.8 acres. That's a big pool. Jesus. That's a big pool. 7.8? How do you keep the gators out here? They don't. Huh? It's man-made. No, but I'm saying gators will find that. Gators a big pool. 7.8? How do they keep the gators out here? They don't. Gators.

Huh? It's man-made. No, but I'm saying the gators will find that. Gators will find that water. What's that? Barbed wire fence. Yeah, I mean, you got to keep that because those sons of bitches can climb. Oh, holy shit.

That's an ocean. Or paint. Looks like the Black Sea. They put paint around them. So they got canoes down there. You got to go, bro. Yeah, no, them canoes, yeah, them just for the people in there. Is that place brand new yes i've seen that on my instagram it just popped up out of nowhere it's private too bet you have

it's nice you said so maybe they'll let clay have his boat in there yeah i think so why not 7.8 acre lake you should just make that the stipulation like okay i'll sign with you just make sure i can put my boat in that big lagoon you guys get. Evermore Lagoon. Evermore Lagoon. Do that and we're good. Holy shit. Are they going to have like an Ironman at this thing? That is, how do they maintain this? Good question.

That thing's going to be so dirty in three months. You kidding me? I mean, that's the biggest piss thing I've ever seen in my entire life, right? Everybody's just peeing in their pack. I assume everybody's peeing in that pool? Well, it didn't turn purple when I did. Well, see, that's the old room. So you did pee in it. So people are definitely

peeing in it. Yes, it's a hotel pool for me. Everybody is peeing in it. I'm not looking at a pool. I can't frame that in my brain like a pool. That's a pool, bro. That's the ocean right there. What do they do about the rain? I mean, like... So many questions. How do they clean it?

I was on my little paddle boat You were on a paddle boat in this thing? Yep, listen to Blanco Brown They don't maintain it That is unmaintainable It's a great idea I love it It's brand new right now

It's just opened Shout out to everyone That's an aggressive. It is. That's an aggressive dream. The biggest goddamn lagoon you've ever seen. I don't know how we're going to clean it. I don't know how we're going to maintain it, but it's going to be neat when it opens.

A couple more filters, a couple more people cleaning. It's not a big deal. I think AI figured it out. Yeah, of course. AI's a bad rapper from what I've been told. All the bad stuff that gets leaked is AI. All the good stuff is the human. That's a smart play.

That's a smart play. That's like for us. This show, if it's bad, not us. Actually, ESPN just put AI versions of us. When it's us, you'll know. Bet AI didn't see that coming. What's that? I bet AI didn't see that coming.

Which is what we're talking about. You want to imitate us? How about this? Nope. So I fake Chuck, our corgi dog, as we try to fill time as Caitlin Clark is traveling to the Thunderdome as we speak.

That's not good. There was a car crash on the way. If we know anything about car crashes in Indiana, park it. You know that RV that Jim Harbaugh's living in? You better hope that's what you're driving if there's a car crash in Indiana because this traffic is going to be done for about two to three

hours. Why? Nobody knows. It's the worst handled car crash traffic city in America. By far. Let alone whenever you get out here, though. Oh my God. There was one out here. There was a car that broke down out here. Shut it down. The whole city. Done. Done. Excuse me. Can we

just push that car out of the way? No, can't even get the car in a new chair. What? What happens to these cars? Indiana just leaves cars on the side of the road. All the time. It's not a show. It's absurd. You drive it through Indianapolis and it's just like a car, a whole car

is on the right side. It's like, okay, are they picking that up or you come back tomorrow, still there. Next week, still there. You keep going on the right side. It's like, okay, are they picking that up? Or you come back tomorrow, still there. Next week, still there. You keep going on the left, back half of a car somehow. What happened to the front half? Where is the rest of this vehicle? Well, they towed it away. They didn't want to take the back half?

Well, that'll be there for probably the next year or so. Then you go down. It's insane. I think more car accidents happen here. Maybe because it's so flat. People are just wide open. They don't have to do what it is. Or there's drivers because we're in between illinois and ohio connection too so if you want to in ohio noted bad drivers a.j hawk drives with two feet right and falls asleep

35 of the time he's driving if the sun is setting while he's behind the wheel in illinois y'all are the worst drivers on earth that That is not even a question. You're efficient drivers. No, you are the worst. Number two, and number two isn't even close to Illinois. Well, Indiana, you just said it. No, I think it's you guys. Connecticut is too. Just if we're doing power rankings,

Connecticut, but again, it has nothing to do with this. See, all those cities, I don't think there's enough drivers to really pull it, because don't a lot of people do the no-drive? Is everybody driving in all these places? No, definitely not in the Northeast, but the ones that do are in Connecticut are so bad. So like Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania,

Illinois, like driving places. They have to drive. Everybody's driving. So that's how I judge. If you have to drive, I'll judge. Illinois, you got an Illinois license plate in front of you, something's happening. Look out. In the next five minutes, something is going to happen that you're going to go, well, that doesn't make sense. Why would you do that?

And then you remind yourself they're from Illinois. Now, you got Indiana dealing with Ohio and Illinois drivers. So I think we're just a victim of circumstance here with the way geography was. That's what I'm thinking is the case. I think just Midwest in general, you get a lot of people especially around the bigger cities where they're just from Hayseed Central. Driving in Iowa, you used to boom. I'd always look

at the county and be like, oh shit, Bremer County. Gotta get around this guy. He doesn't know how to drive. That's the way it goes. A lot of golly gee drivers out there. One stoplight towns are driving on a bunch of dirt roads and that's it. Then you get on the highway and you just have no idea what you're doing because you're not used to seeing more than two

cars out there. I do love, though, getting out there and driving and it's just cornfield to the right, cornfield to the left. And you got nobody stuck in the middle with nobody but your thoughts. And you could potentially be on a motorcycle going 115 miles an hour

and you just think you're untouchable. And then a stop sign comes and you're like be on a motorcycle going 115 miles an hour and you just think you're untouchable. And then a stop sign comes and you're like, wait a second. That might be where the next human is that I haven't seen for the last four miles or whatever. There's something beautiful about driving out in the middle of the country, but you're right. Not a lot of accountability to other vehicles.

Not at all. Yeah, you're kind of all by yourself. Never actually seen this many cars until moving to Indiana just on the side of the road. Yeah. Consistently. It is really an Indiana specialty. Every week. There's no inspection, so.

Yeah, you can just drive wherever you want out here. Okay, that makes more sense. I saw a guy in a side-by-side with a license plate yesterday. I was like, how'd you get that thing registered? I have no idea who you know or whatever, and maybe it was illegal, and I don't want to be snitching on anybody on anybody but it was right out here i've never been more confused in my life just blaring music in a side-by-side shirtless with a license plate okay he's heading to the grocery store i think i'm like this is awesome i love everything about it

so caitlin's on her way is what we're trying to say speaking of being on their way the chiefs are potentially on their way to winning three straight Super Bowls. Has never happened in the history of our beautiful league in the beautiful championship that we host in February every single year. They have a new weapon over there. And Patrick Mahomes was chit-chatting about it.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's go to Patrick Mahomes, a man who was on another cover of Time this week. He looks so cool. So cool. Great picture. He's just laying down. To the victor goes the spoils. Time 100, world's most influential people,

Patrick Mahomes. Okay. That's quite a thing for a guy that plays football better than anybody. It was not A-Rod, I do not think. Okay, okay. I think there is other Alex Rodriguez out there. Just checking. Like the Caitlin Clark commercial.

But he was speaking about the new addition to his team. And it's wild to think that last year's set of weapons, probably the worst that they'll have forever, potentially. Hollywood, I think obviously you see the speed. You see the speed instantly. But I think what I've liked so far is how hard he works. He's been at the workouts. He's been at the route running, and he wants more. He wants to continue to push himself more and more.

And I think he has a hell of a great role in this offense, the way he's able to run routes, the way he's able to stretch the field. I think he'll be even different than you've seen him before because I think we can utilize him in different ways that I think he hasn't been utilized in yet. I mean, I think everybody's seen his speed, the way he's able to track the football down the field, which we'll obviously use. That's something that's huge that I think we need to continue to get better

and better at in this offense. But I think the route running is what I've been pleasantly surprised by. I mean, just the way he's able to get in and out of his cuts. He has a good feel for space. And he wants to, like I said, he wants to learn more and more. I think as he gets within our offense and learns the freedom that you have with your route running and your ability to find space, I think

we can utilize that ability over the middle of the field. I know he's done that in the past, but I think we can utilize it at an even higher load. I think it'll be something that we can really emphasize in our offense. So Hollywood's about to be the best version of Hollywood. That's the new cheetah. Okay, so new cheetah. best version of Hollywood. Yep. That's their new cheetah. Okay, so new cheetah.

They've been trying to – Kadarius Toney was potentially going to be the new cheetah. Had some successes. Obviously had some other situations. They bring in Hollywood Brown, though, with Andy Reid's big brain and Patrick Mahomes' ability. So now you have Travis Kelsey and Hollywood Brown. This is going to be a weapon that is unstoppable for most defenses,

we would assume, Patrick? Yes, Hollywood Brown can straight out fly. I'm talking about four by one. He probably, I mean, 100, he's probably a 10 flat. 40, we already know what he can do. And he can separate. He's really good getting in and out his breaks. Just throw the ball up, bro.

He'll go get it. I think this is a good move for the Chiefs. They're going to be right back talking about it, and we'll be back playing them, hopefully, if we can get back in there with Joe being healthy. Oh, you're talking about Cincinnati Bengals there? We are there. When you think about Hollywood Brown's career, he was in

Baltimore and he didn't think that they were utilizing the wide receivers enough, the weapons enough. Because remember, why are you going to use, why you got dogs if you ain't going to use them? Ever. Ever. Yeah, there was a little bit of a pause there. We remember that because of an interview, I think, that was done by

Rich Eisen's name was involved in there somehow. I forget how it all came together. Then he goes out to Arizona. Arizona becomes, you know, what Arizona kind of is. He caught some balls from Dobbs, caught some balls from Kyler, did his whole thing. But every time he has left the team, the quarterback has been visibly pissed. Lamar was not happy

whenever he left Baltimore, because remember, that was held until draft night. Out of nowhere, nobody really knew about it. And then Kyler, obviously, not exactly thrilled about it. Patrick Mahomes, though, incredibly pumped. The greatest, potentially, of all time, Patrick Mahomes. Now adds this weapon. Hollywood's about to be his best he's ever been. Yeah, he's going to be unbelievable.

Not to mention just the receiver room as a whole. The thing last year was how young they were. Sure, they had MVS, but who knows how vocal a guy like that is. Hollywood Brown should come in, be the leader day one in that room, at least, especially with the young core with Rasheed Rice.

The scariest part is what happens if they add someone at the end of the first round. We talk about how deep the wide receiver class is. They might end up getting somebody at 32 that then turns into another Rasheed Rice. There is a chance that coming off their worst core of weapons that they've ever had this next upcoming year

could be the best they've ever had if they go with a wide receiver and land on that at the end of the first. Also, with how young they were last year, you would think as Kelsey's getting over, he's not going to have to break his back as much every single week. Like, hey, we need this guy to have 100 yards and 10 receptions or whatever. He's going to be able to kind of find a little bit more openings because you do have a guy like Hollywood Brown

who's going to be able to take the top off the defense. So hopefully you would imagine Kelsey's going to be better or not as taxed next year as he was this year. Well, Kelsey's going to be super motivated too, you know, because Taylor Swift has a new album coming out. She does. Is that soon? Friday, I think.

Yes, it is, Friday. Friday, she's got a new album coming out. She's been dropping hints. She's been dropping hints all over the place. Got to pay attention. Yeah, if you're able to read the hints, then you know what's coming. She's got a New Heights hat on. I bet she's got a song called

New Heights. When I was told by my wife who noted Swifty, this is about the ex. This is not about... Oh, come on! But I told Sam, I was like, how do you know that though? She goes, well, that's just kind of one of the clues that she gave was about a movie, I guess, that this guy did.

She posted a similar photo as the photo that that guy was replaced by. So the Swifties, from what I'm being told from my wife, this is not my own investigation. Although I would like to potentially get to the bottom of it one time and say, ha, I got there. I knew it. Because that whole thing. But I asked Sam one simple question. potentially get to the bottom of it one time and say, ha, I got there. I knew it. I asked Sam one simple question. I said, what if Travis has been so awesome that maybe that's what it was, but then it turned into something like, this is the greatest.

Her first love album. She probably had already turned the album in. There's been a lot of X albums. She probably had already turned it in. With her, it's like. I think she's working right up until.

I think she can do whatever the hell she wants. Oh, yeah. She has earned that right. I think she does do whatever she wants,

but it's like, Friday's a big day for Swifty. Massive day. I'm pumped. I didn't even realize it was Friday. Well, think about

Travis. I mean, Travis is going to be on top of the world. Oh, my God. This cup runneth over. And we appreciate

the fact that he's representing football in a way that he is. Keep being that gentleman. Keep being that gentleman. Keep being that gentleman, Travis. Thank you, Travis. We appreciate you, Travis, and also Taylor.

What a beast. Speaking of beast, join us now. Ladies and gentlemen, is a woman who has captivated the entire globe. Sells out arenas everywhere she goes. Now she's a member of the Indiana Fever. Ladies and gentlemen, Caitlin Klaw. Thank you so much for coming. Hi, how we doing?

Oh, you got the cereal too? Yeah, I opened it though, so don't judge. You got two boxes. I just wanted to see. Did you have any of it? No, so I didn't dive in. We didn't have milk. It was a whole thing.

It was a whole thing. Yeah, you need the milk. Yeah, I agree. And I will eat. I'm a cereal person. That guy's not though. He's a scumbag. I hate cereal.

I'm sorry. I won't have it. Yeah, he's a bad guy. He didn't grow up in Iowa. Well, actually, I do love the food. Hey, thank you for this. Of course. Will you sign this?

Of course. Okay, later. We'll get it later. We don't have a lot of time. I have something for you, actually. Oh, gosh. This could be anything. No.

Very, very true. As a welcome to the city, which we are incredibly lucky to have you. Thanks. I'm excited. I hope you felt that from all of Indianapolis. Okay, the Indianapolis Colts brought something up here for me to give to you. And I believe, literally,

you can play whatever position you want on the team. Wow. It is an official. 2-2 Jersey? Yeah, yeah. Let's go. So if you want to play on Sundays, I know there's been a lot of offers for you to play on Saturdays and three-on-threes and stuff. There could be some Sunday games as well.

We're all pumped that you're here. And I hope you feel that. So let's go back to whenever you decided you were going to come to the WNBA. You knew immediately then you were going to be a member of the Fever, right? Is that accurate? Yeah, it was pretty set in stone for the most part. So were you pumped about that? How much research did you do?

And ultimately, what led to that decision of going to the WNBA? Yeah, so when the draft lottery happened, I actually had a game on the same exact night, but I was hoping the Fever got the first pick. And obviously, I'm a Midwest girl. I'm from Iowa. This is five hours from Iowa City, seven hours from Des Moines, where I grew up. I'm super pumped. This is a basketball state. People love it here. Obviously, Aaliyah Boston being on the team. She's one of my former teammates on Team USA.

I think I've just been stoked. People have been excited even before I got drafted about this opportunity. So now that I'm actually here, I can't wait. Yeah, he bought season tickets. He bought season tickets. We did as well. Let's go. Yeah, business booming.

You talk about where you grew up over there in Iowa, which is a massive piece of the story. He's from Iowa as well. So he's incredibly proud that an Iowan representing Iowa. Let's give his hat a shout out. Yeah, he wears it every day. I mean, look at what's on his back. He's got a lot of Iowa gear here. Yes, sir his hat a shout out. Yeah, he wears it every day. He knows. A lot of Iowa gear here. Coach

Blooder Bobblehead right here. I have that in my apartment too. Right on my desk where I do all my work. What, make its way to Indy? Has to. The Blooder Bobblehead? Can't leave that behind. Put it right there. It's like, good luck. Hit her head, you know? That's hilarious. So where you grew up in Iowa, then you stay at Iowa.

Did you just put up like 10,000 shots a day? How do we get to this? Because my big takeaway, I was a punter. College, I kicked a lot of things in between the ears, obviously. And I think Steph Curry, when he was getting close to the record for threes in the NBA, he even experienced like a little bit of overthought. When you pulled up for the women's record, it was the first quarter. You just were not.

And it was just splash. And then for the overall record, you're was the first quarter, you just scored nine, and it was just splash. And then for the overall record, you're on the foul line. The whole world is looking at you. By myself, I was like, oh my gosh, it would be really bad if I airballed right now. Okay, so you are a human. Because I was about to ask. No, that's the worst thing in basketball

where you have to shoot a free throw with nobody on the line. It's just weird. You don't do it often. No, I don't really think about it like that during games. When I pulled up for the record, that was the only way I was going to get the record was just a long three. I had to. Okay. So you do like 10,000 shots a day growing up.

What was like legit? Are you just like, you've been addicted to basketball your whole life? Like how did we get to this point where you're not only incredibly confident as you should be, but like you just go into a zone out there that not a lot of humans have ever got into. I hope you recognize that. Yeah. I like, I loved basketball growing up. Like it's, it's what I did. My dad played in college. I had an older brother and he always played, so I just tagged around with him. I begged my dad to put a hoop

out in the driveway and tear up some grass and pour a bunch more concrete so I could have an entire three-point line because I could only have half of one for the time being. I was out there a lot. I would go to the gym all the time. I loved working on my game. I played all the time. I played AAU, but I also played other sports too. It wasn't always basketball, but once I got into middle school and high school, I knew that was kind of my future. What other sports? Soccer.

I did track. I did softball. I was pretty good at soccer, and I liked it, but basketball worked out a little better. We don't know what would happen with soccer. We don't know. Maybe I messed up. I don't know. No, no, you did not mess up. And by the way, you played 20 years in WNBA.

You could probably go back and do soccer still. That's the type of athlete you are. And before the boys have their questions, we're thankful that you're taking time to come here. People talk about, like, Dallas Clark, obviously another Iowan friend of mine, teammate of mine whenever we were with Peyton. He went to a lot of your games and watched you. And a lot of people have watched. He said,

she has like all of the traits that Peyton had, like the accountability, the wanting of excellence all the time. There's people that start judging you for that though, because of how, do you just, do you think about any of that? You're super competitive. I assume that's what, that's like why Peyton was the way he was. That's what it is for you as well. Yeah. I don't really like care about what other people say. I feel like I'm just so fiery and so passionate. And I feel like that's why I'm so good, too. If I didn't have that, I don't think I would have the

success that I've had. But yeah, that's how I've always been. I think I've been able to channel it a lot more throughout my career and use it more positive rather than negatively. I want to let you know, you have a show here that has your... You guys are great. In the competitive sphere though yeah like hey yeah she's far that means she cares when you don't what am I supposed to do smile and be happy I messed up imagine if you

don't though that's when it's over exactly like I think that is that's why we're such big fans of yours Ty has a question for you yeah Caitlin Pat mentioned I am also from Iowa I am a University of Iowa grad so I'd be remiss if I didn't say like I incredibly proud of all your accomplishments I love how you have so much pride in the state and also the university and putting on for it whenever you can I try to do the same on this show as much as I can um obviously playing for Team USA and like playing with all these amazing women growing up and then you're obviously you know missed basketball like you were a top recruit you were always incredible did did you envision this type of success to happen like could you

have ever and then like also this season where last year you know everyone kind of flocks to the women's game they watch you on you guys run to the national championship and everything's amazing but then this year it's kind of one of those things where you get to the top of the mountain and everyone starts picking at you and then they want to see you fail like yeah could a could you have envisioned that all this was going to happen and be like did you recognize all that stuff this year while you were kind of in the moment i feel like i always like had super big goals and dreams and aspirations but at the same time like this is a place like women's basketball has really never been before. So it's like, no, like I never really imagined it on this magnitude, but also like, I've always been a supporter of women's basketball. It's always been something

I've loved ever since a young age. Like I grew up watching the Minnesota links. Like they had a dynasty in my, Amore was my favorite player growing up, but, um, now coming to Indianapolis where like the Indiana fever were really good. Tamika Ketchings was, is one of the best of all time. Um, and getting to, you know, have that resource of her to lean on, um,

during these moments, I think is something that's Reno really important for me, but I think like, I don't know with like the magnitude of where everything's gone. Like, I feel like I've tried to stay like right in the middle. I think like one of the best pieces of advice that somebody gave me is like at the level you feel like all the praise,

like that's the same level you'll feel all the hate. So I try to stay right in the middle. but yeah I mean it doesn't really bother me I think it's just what comes with it and like growing up my mom always said like people want to see you fail like you know that's just kind of how our world is which is really sad um but at the same time like I don't I don't like think about that type of stuff like I just go out there and do me let me try to hype you up then as you're always always here. You said the women's game is the place it's never been before. The draft the other night was the highest

rated draft by 307%. That's not like 10%. 15%, 25%. A 43% increase is a monster. That is a monster percentage. 307% is the jump there.

And I, and we all believe, obviously, you were a part of that. This entire college basketball, women's college basketball the last couple years has been phenomenal. Story-wise, and the talent is next level.

Couple of the OGs, you know, there's been some, do you just view that as shit talk? Is that what you think this is? And do you feel an onus to, like, take women's basketball and carry women's basketball and help it get to another level through the WNBA? Yeah, I think people are just competitive. I don't think it's anything that's out of the ordinary.

I feel like it's things rookies have faced their entire careers, the entire existence of the WNBA. But I don't know. I don't feel like any pressure to take it to a place it's never been before. I think that's just going to happen with the way we're on TV more, with the way people are following from the college game to the WNBA. I think expansion in the W think that will certainly help. But, like, I mean, you've got to bring it every single night because it's the best of the best. And that's what I'm excited for. I think just going out there. And, like, a lot of those people I idolized growing up. So it'll be fun.

Anonymous GM said they would trade their entire team for you. That is a hilarious thing. And also – I'm going to play one on five then. That's what they're saying. And from what we've seen. It'll probably be okay. I mean, there's a shot.

Season ticket holder of the Indiana Fever. Connor has a question for you. Yeah, that's right. And Pat said anonymous GM. I mean, lucky enough, you've got the greatest GM in the history of the W in Indiana. I love that lady so much. She crushed it yesterday. But one of the things we talked to Kelsey Pullen about a couple weeks ago was her transition to the WNBA was a little tougher.

For you, what are your personal expectations going into the WNBA? Because from the outside looking in for you, it's always going to be like, hey, she better win a title every single year. That is going to be it for you. Definitely helping us get back to the playoffs. I think that's goal number one, and I think everybody in the Fever

organization believes that that's where we can be in year one for sure. Aaliyah Boston was Rookie of the Year last year. It's a great piece. I think everybody in the Fever organization believes that that's where we can be in year one for sure and you know Aaliyah Boston was rookie of the year last year is great piece I think there's just so much young talent um on this roster and that's the biggest thing is just buying into that enjoying that and obviously like the crowds that we're going to have is certainly going to help us too like that type of energy like you just feed off as a competitor like at the University of Iowa like we didn't really lose at home. We just didn't do that because of the environment we had. You didn't want to let those people down, but also people were intimidated

to come there and play us. I think the fans will be huge. There will definitely be some learning curves and some challenges, but also I think my passing translates. People always want to talk about the logo threes, the scoring, whatever, but to have the talent around me that I'm going to have is like, just feed them the ball.

Yeah, it feels like making insane court-length passes. That's with that 22, Colts jersey. Like, you can play quarterback. But Mike needs you this year, actually. Yeah, Mike needs you. Joe Flacco, obviously he's a guy, he's backing up AR. But Mike needs you in there. Your passing is bananas.

And it does kind of get overlooked because of the logo threes and everything like that. And one of your first things is you can't wait to pass to somebody like Aaliyah Boston. So we're talking about some nasty assists coming. For sure. Have to. Got to feed her. I mean, she has great hands. And lucky enough, she's been my teammate before.

So I know firsthand how good she is. But that's going to make my job easier, I think, just like the way people can score the ball at this level and do what they do. And, you know, I love to get out and play fast, so I know that won't change much. The shot clock's even lower at the pro level. Oh, I didn't know that. Not that we used it much at Iowa.

Coach Bluter even said something about, like, we'll see if they can keep up for four full quarters. Tone's got a question for you. Yeah, Kayla, have you had a chance to breathe yet? I mean, off of back-to-back title runs and just how insane the last season was with the scoring record and everything. And then with the WNBA, you go straight from the season into the draft or straight from the college season into the draft

and now into the WNBA season and probably Olympics, I assume, in there as well. Let's go with this. Have you had a chance to breathe, like, obviously your entire life and now you're going to go into this season? Have you reached out to anybody that's done that for advice going into the WNBA like that? Yeah, I think the last month or so, two months, it's just been a whirlwind. Obviously, you know, when you reach the Sweet 16,

you go straight to the Final Four. So, like, you're gone for two weeks. Then I went home for, like, two days, went to L.A., LA was in New York City now I'm here in Indianapolis finally going home after today which will be nice but um I feel like I've tried to do my best and I think that's the biggest piece of advice like super like gave me is just like take a breath like soak it in like you only get drafted one time like you only get these moments once so you need to enjoy it like you can't go back and do this ever again so um I've tried to enjoy it I've tried to soak it. You can't go back and do this ever again. I've tried to enjoy it. I've tried to soak it in.

I haven't slept much, which was maybe a good thing, maybe a bad thing. I don't know. We've been having fun and enjoying every single second. I think the biggest thing is how quick of a turnaround it is. It'll be a big adjustment. I think I'll be moving here in a week. Oh, welcome to the city. Ready to find a place.

I'll be a weekly guest on here, I guess, if you want me to. Deal. Boom. Sign the contract. All right alright that was going to be an off show conversation you brought it up that is binding that is binding as you get a chance to go home finally and breathe

we appreciate you stopping here with you Tyrese and Anthony Richardson kind of as the three young faces of the city, we're sitting in a beautiful place. We hope you enjoy your time in Indy. These people are great. They are going to love you.

Drivers. Yeah, bad drivers. Bad drivers. Yeah, but I've heard Iowa is not great. She gets it. Yeah, those small towns around Des Moines. You know. You know better.

We're back on ESPN. We continued during the break at YouTube and ESPN+. She just legally binded, agreed to come on the show weekly, which is great. We talked about the lack of free time that she's had. Caitlin, I just want to let you know

we've all been incredibly lucky to watch this all take place. Can't wait to see what you do at the W. Can't wait to see where women's basketball goes and thank you for getting somebody like me into the sport because it is an awesome awesome sport absolutely and the future is only bright especially in this city facts enjoy yourself thanks guys no problem so when when i shoot i need to be thinking okay we're just going we're going forehead to hoop what are you got to go up you can't go out you got to go up okay okay we're going up forehead to hoop. You've got to go up. You can't go out. You've got to go up.

There's like six foot eight people in WNBA. We're not worried about that. We're going up. You just back up and shoot it from further back too. How far can you go? I know the logo, we see logo, which is men's NBA three plus

an extra three or four feet. Steph Curry range is no problem for you. Yeah, no problem. You're the best. We have two balls. Not going to have you shoot. No, not going to have you shoot. But if I make this, if I make this, we'll give, we'll give four season tickets away

to the Indiana Fever. Okay. Let's make it. I mean, yeah. Yeah, Kaylin. That's what we're doing. Jeez.

Oh, I thought you were going to the far one. You're going to the close one. He's on his feet. It's NBA 3, Kaylin. Albert couldn't make it from up there. Yeah, for the record. Oh, you did see it. Okay, just make it. Albert couldn't make it from up there. Yeah, for the record. I know. I saw that. Took him 25 times. Oh, you did see it.

Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, not an easy shot. I know. I know. He's on Team USA. Uh-huh. Finish the story. Oh, no.

That was close. That was real close. The other ball I thought we agreed on. Get it there. Oh. There it is. Yeah. There we go.

How about that That was impressive Where's your dad I want to see the dad My dad's right over there Hey I watch you during games And like

Cause I have an 11 month old Daughter now And I'm like I wonder what's going through Because you're breaking All these records And he's locked in The whole family

Is locked in the entire way And then there was That moment At Iowa When you broke The women. And then there was that moment at Iowa when you broke the women's record. And there was after game, post game, the video that played. I didn't know you. I didn't know your family.

I was watching that video, watching these people celebrate you. I was like crying in my house. I'm like, oh my, I couldn't even imagine what they've been... Hey, you guys have done really good, obviously. And then we were crying and laughing, too, during the Holy Cross game. Shut up!

Shut up! Shut up! Incredible. Yeah, it is beautiful. It feels like I would like to emulate everything your family has done to get you to this point because you've handled this with class while also being an absolute monster. We can't wait to watch you. We appreciate you.

Safe travels home, okay? Ladies and gentlemen Indiana Fever star Katelyn Clark Thanks guys See you next week This is awesome I actually had a painted Manny jersey growing up

I would wear it all the time I didn't have your jersey Alright Katelyn I'll get you one I actually had a Peyton Manning jersey growing up. I would wear it all the time. I didn't have your jersey, but... All right, Kaitlin. I'll get you one. I'll get you one. I'll get you one. Thank you.

See ya. Yeah, I thought this was going to be your jersey. No, this is on the Colts. The Colts, somehow they didn't put in a request. This is on the Colts, not on us. Know that. But you can wear that and play on Sundays if you want to. Any position.

Thank you, guys. See you guys. Take care, Fever. Yeah, see you next week. See you. Yeah, see you next week, too. Yeah, see you next week. What day? Same time next week. Hey, what days are we doing

every week? Whatever you want. All right, Monday or Tuesday, bro. That was binding. Let's make sure we rip that forever and soon. Hey, see you soon. See you, guys.

Safe travels. Safe travels. All right. All right. Yeah. That'll do. Yep. Boom. Is that what's happening right now? Yeah.

I think so. What an honor. Best case scenario. Hey, had to make that shot. Yeah. Yeah. Good work. Thanks.

Pure. Was that one just too small when you picked it up? No. So what I thought was if I missed these, we could potentially. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so I didn't want to shoot, you know, the W ball. Plus, you've never shot one before, so let's stick with what you know.

Well, that's why I kept the smaller. Yeah, so if I miss four here and embarrass myself, at least we'll have Hey, you know, we have two balls here. But that they are very cool. They are sick. I mean, they are very cool. They are certainly. Sick. I mean, they are.

Oh, there it is. They designed it. Oh. I mean, maybe you should have. Back to back. Maybe you should have. Senator. This guy's on fire.

Designed those balls after Semipro, I believe, to what we were referencing yesterday. Yeah. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, what a performance. Yeah. 50%. Joining us now. That's a far shot.

That was awesome. All right, we'll give away. I'm giving away. Thank you. We're giving away four season tickets to somebody. And because that one goes in, we'll give 22 people $500. All you got to do is retweet this post, say something nice to somebody, and put the easiest way to pay you digitally.

That's for our friends on X right there. That's good time. Four season tickets on the line and $2,200 winners. All you have to do is retweet that post on X. We can't take it. And say something nice to somebody. The world has too much negative. We don't need that.

Welcome to Hour 2 of the sports program here. We'll be joined by a special guest here in about 10 minutes or so. Joining us now from Manatee, Ohio, ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Hawk. Yay, Hawker! Drained it right in front of Caitlin, huh? Look at you. You airballed that first one on purpose, too. I know. You're such a good guy. Thank you. Well, I was actually,

to be clear, was trying to make it. Okay. But also, if I miss four, there's a chance we peer pressure Caitlin in the show. Yeah. So, first one, I did have that goinglyn in the show. So first one, I did have that going on in my head. Like, yeah, we're...

But then, it's like, make this in front of Caitlyn. You know what I mean? It's like one of the greatest shooters of all time. I might end the show right here. It's something to think about. AJ, good to see you, pal. Have you had any conversations with your... I mean, Splash City, dude.

I mean, we're watching the playback. Let's make sure we get her saying she'll come on every single week, too. Boom. Yeah, shoot up, she said. Yep. Shoot up, not up. Great advice. Yeah, great advice.

She also said she'll come on every single week. You heard that, AJ. Were you listening? Oh, yeah. I heard that. And binding, like you said, it's binding. Yeah, words mean things. She agreed.

Words are spells. Words cast spells. Words are spells. Well, yeah, that's why words are spelled because they cast spells speaking of words being uh spelled and casting have you talked to aaron at all about anything going on in the world right now every uh new scroll is another aaron rogers uh thought or opinion have you chatted with him about any of it and how do you think it's all being uh handled over there at jets jets park drive or wherever the hell it is. I have not jumped in on the whole whatever is happening with different clips coming out from different podcasts that he has been on.

I've not seen all of them for the record either, so I'm not sure what exactly is out there. But, you know, I think his mustache looks good, Lee. Yeah, his mustache does. And UGA, you know, you've got to cherish the little things out there. UGA everywhere. I don't think I've seen every video either because it's coming in swarms. It is. They're coming in swarms.

And everyone that I see, there's a new headline to it. I'm like, wait, is that the same video, just different narrative there? Or is that a new video? And then I start listening. I'm like, oh, it's a new one. Okay, here we go. We're in it. Once again, we chatted about this yesterday.

And there's going to be a lot of people that are mad about everything he's saying. Hey, that's your pronging. That is your's saying. Okay, there's going to be that. That's, hey, that's your prerogative. That is your prerogative. We know that. We all know that. Bingo. No matter how you, there's going to be people that feel the opposite way.

That's the world that we live in. But we can't reiterate the fact enough that, think about how comfortable and confident Aaron is right now. He's got his Hooga house hat on. He's mustache going, headphones in, and he's just like, yeah, this is how I feel. And this is why I believe this way. And oh yeah, I got a 500 page report right now.

I think this bodes well for him playing football. I genuinely believe I think this bodes well for him playing football. Because he is the type of guy who whenever he hears your criticism and hears the narrative, whether it's sports related, politics related, science related, entertainment related, whatever it is, he hears it and he is able to channel it all into his best football performances.

And over the last few days where he's back in the building working again, it's gotten really loud from things that he has said. He will just stack all of those things up. And as the year goes on, if, you you know we have another aaron rogers tuesday which we are definitely pitching and if aaron accepts or whatever you know it's like those will all come out throughout the season oh you remember when

insert actual person's name said and nobody in that person will come on so i never said that and then aaron will go uh 1998 you remember you said that that's how it is that's the type of duty is though like That's what these humans that are ultra-competitive... She's probably going to become... I'm not going to say she's going to say the same things that Aaron said. No, no, no. But from the competitive angle and competitive mindset that she

has, those things that are said about you, negative, are all fuelers. And Aaron has a lot to pull from right now with an entire year off. I think it bodes well, AJ, genuinely. I think it bodes well football-wise. Not life-wise. Football-wise, I think it bodes very well. Yeah, but also feeling

doesn't know anything being like, not content, but looking like, feeling like everything off the field feels pretty positive and good, and you enjoy where you're at off the field. That can only help you on the field, I believe. Because you know how competitive he is, and he's going to continue to do the work on the field that's going to keep him who he is.

Well, are you happy because you win or do you win because you're happy? Right. I think that's kind of what we're explaining here in a matter of different words. Yeah, and I believe if we go back to the last two elections, he has won the MVP during election years, which is hilarious, but it does remind me of kind of the second of the back-to-back MVPs, the one after the COVID season, because obviously that is when a lot of that dialogue started. It was after that first initial year,

and then everything kind of started getting crazy on the internet because he started saying all the things that him and A.J. believe in. So after kind of that entire situation. But to what you're saying, I don't see how he doesn't win the MVP with the new weapons he has. He looks cooler, possibly, than he ever has. That ball is on an

absolute rope. Me and Ty talked about it before. If they do go on and draft a Brock Bowers or another weapon, there is a huge chance that this is his best core that he's ever had. And best defense since A.J. Hawk roamed around

obviously, but let's not even talk anymore about anything else. Whenever you bring up Brock Bowers, we got to talk about the video that hit the internet of this freak show. Oh my God. So I used to be able to do a standing backflip. That is true. It was a party trick. Get boozed up, 2 a.m.

Hey, what's going on? let me hit a backflip real quick holy shit yeah this guy's athletic can't do it anymore because i'm 240 pounds this guy doesn't care this guy's 240 or something like that six foot three just with time this isn't like uh landing it close like foot boom ground landed. That is like he's on a trampoline. Whenever they talk about this guy down in Georgia, they say like, perfect teammate, hard worker,

no swag is what people say, no way he dresses. But if you have a chance to get one of these things, there's not a lot of these out there. I mean, that is what you're looking for, AJ. And this just reiterates the fact that when we went and watched Georgia Bama play in the national championship, and we saw 100 guys come out of the tunnel for each team,

it was like the 100th guy was 6'4 and looked like the most athletic human of all time. Humans are evolving. Athleticism is getting to an absurd rate. And this guy, next Thursday night, is going to be selected to a team that is going to go six to midnight because of what he's going to be able to accomplish in the men's league.

Do you agree, AJ? I do, and I think what separates him and what gets people excited in the next level is his yak, his yards that he can catch. The dude is magical. He gets the ball in his hands. Yeah, we know he's big, he's fast, and everybody, but he just has that weird knack and that tenacity

that he's trying to score every time he gets the ball in his hands. You couple that with the athletic ability he has, it's a serious threat. Put him with Aaron, good luck stopping that offense. Yeah, exactly. He has that, and then Garrett on the outside, then Mike. I mean, there is real weapons. It's a little Brees Hall in the back.

With that defense, they should be great. And Aaron looks healthy, feels good, should play phenomenal. But whenever you talk about the evolution of the tight end position, it's like these things don't grow on trees, but it seemingly is if you want to be a great team, you have to have one of them. Yeah, for sure. And that's how the game has kind of changed.

Bigger, stronger, faster, more wide open in the middle kind of allows that with the way the rules have changed. But this is also why nickel has become such an important part of the defensive position. Especially guys like that, when you can stretch them out and bring them in the box where the linebacker had to guard them. Those are hard matchups right there. Guys can't go to sleep when they have to match up with guys like that. Running wide receivers route as a tight end, just as big as anybody on the field,

physical and can catch the ball and get up and down the field. That's a hard matchup right there. And you're not allowed to hit them in certain spots and certain ways. You can kind of manage it and what rules are for certain defenses, what your leverage is allowed to be on them. That play right there, he have no chance right there on that play. He go back, he's at the end of the formation, fake the block on the outside linebacker, one, two, three, and take off in man-to-man coverage.

That's a hard matchup right there. You can hide him, especially if you have a one wide receiver. If you have a one wide receiver, it can help out any more because the middle gets kind of taken advantage of. Rob Gronkowski, obviously he and Tom had a massive amount of success. You look at the Super Bowl last year. George Kittle is on one side. Travis Kelsey is on the other side. This is a position that you need one of these and Brock Bowers coming out is seemingly one of the greatest tight ends in the

last generation is what they're saying as a can't miss prospect coming out of high school he grew up in wine country I do believe uh they showed me a video of him just sprinting up like a mile long hill on a trail and it was like this dude's got cardio. This dude's got work ethic. He has humility to him. And I personally think the fact that he dresses like an asshole is a good thing. It's not a bad thing. Well, and Rodgers, like the last time he won MVP, and even early in his career, he had a couple good tight ends.

But when he won MVP last year, he had Rob Tunyon, who had a great season. I think he caught 10 touchdowns. But he was an undrafted guy like isn't an athletic freak like he's never played with he's never played with a guy like this like there are just there are not many guys out there like this and I feel like if you do add a guy like this with Mike Williams if he can stay healthy and Garrett Wilson like we could be looking at Rodgers having another 48-touchdown, five-interception season if he's healthy as well. And that might be why he's walking in there. Oh, yeah.

Could be. You know, AJ? He's cock of the walker. He's making the pick-two, right? No plastic bottles either. You saw him. He's carrying a big tumbler, taking care of the environment. It's all about it.

Did he show up with an electric vehicle? I don't know. He probably just doesn't even drive a car anymore. He probably just finds a way. He just floats. Yeah. Yeah, he goes out there and hitchhikes maybe. He should hitchhike. drive a car anymore. He probably just finds a way. He just floats. Yeah. Yeah, he goes out there and hitchhikes maybe. He should hitchhike.

That'd be sweet. On the Haya. Like Aladdin. You two at the same exact time saying, yeah, he floats. Floats. That is certainly possible. You never know. Would you be shocked?

No. You'd be surprised, but you wouldn't be shocked. If he just raised his arms and just slowly lifted. If he was the first to leave. And just moving around. Are you calling this guy God? No, no. He's got to lift himself.

I mean, unless he has the skill. It's like David Blaine. We don't know what dimension he went to. So, what I was thinking, you're right, at what point, too. Especially this last I experience, which sources have told me, best one yet. Wow. Wow. That's it. That's what sources have told me.

Best one yet. What if he was the first American to show up with jetpack? Oh, man. Jets, jetpack. That's how they announced him first game. He comes from outside the stadium, flies over the top and lands on the fifth with the flag.

I thought it was apropos. The way he would talk about landing in a jet suit. Alright. Commanders did something that I haven't heard a lot of teams do in the past, but new ownership, new energy, new vibes,

new vision. There's like top 30 visits, okay? And each team's allowed to bring in 30 guys to get one-on-one time. We've talked to a few GMs, and they say this is the most important part of the entire draft process. That's how some people feel. Now, everybody does it differently, obviously. But once you get one-on-one time, you can put them in a meeting room.

You can put them in front of an entire team. I think Nick Casario told us that they had C.J. Stroud talk to the entire scouting department, GM, ticketing department, and just kind of see how he handled himself, see what he did. You can get a better look at these people. We've had other GMs say that everything else is so damn choreographed, the combine, the pro day. This is the only time you really get them isolated so you can see who they are and try to learn who they are. The commander said, we don't want the individual time.

We want to see how these guys act in groups. They're going to be a part of a team or are these guys wrestlers? So they did 20 people at the same time. Took them to Topgolf. Had a good time. Chit-chatted with them. And the easy question is, are they doing this because they're at two and they already know who they're taking? Or did they legitimately think that putting them in a group

you might be able to learn a little bit more aj there's a interesting kind of sociological discussion you could have around this type of decision or did they just not want to work on all 30 visits they said we'll just do one big one yeah and then we'll knock everything out at the same time so many different ways to view this depending upon where you're from. What are your thoughts on it, AJ? I think it could be a little bit of all of those things that you mentioned. Yeah, maybe they think we do this all at once. We can get back to working on our team we have here and scheming and what we're going to do, how we're going to put our players in best position.

But I don't know. I mean, maybe they feel like, hey, let's mix it up. It's very difficult to evaluate these guys. We know how tough it is. Competitive. Why not throw them all together and you can see. I guess you get a good chance to see how they would interact in a weird, non-organic setting that someone set up for you.

But then I think it would be fun to sit there and try to see how they all handle it. Think about the cluster going on in everybody's brain. They go to Topgolf, bartender comes by. What do you want? You want water, clearly. Right? Well, I don't want to be a loser either. What if I'm offensive lineman?

They want me to drink a beer. This place wants me to have a Jack and Diet, don't they? Isn't that how they? They should. I should go with espresso and martini and let them know I'm okay. I'm open to anything. Come wake it up. Let's get 25 shots.

All right. You know what? For the boys. For the boys. That is a whole nother. As you're walking in there, it's like, what food? There's pizza available. Do they want to see me eat the win?

It is a party. Should I order just grilled chicken and rice? What should I do? Why do I? Dessert. None of us are doing dessert. No dessert. Yeah, we hate dessert.

Never had sugar. Never had sugar. I couldn't even. Now all of a sudden, I'm thinking about it from the like, the draft prospect side as opposed to the commander side. Yeah. It's like that would not be an easy evening to kind of navigate, I don't think. I wouldn't like it at all. Shit, we already did the combine.

And the most, what I really don't like about it is because this is for the players to enjoy the process. This is not really nothing to enjoy right now. Well, they're a top ball. They're a top ball. They're a top ball. They're a future football. Bro, you only get to go to so many teams, and these kids only get to do this one time.

Let them enjoy the process. Have the one-on-one time with the coaches. Get to see the facility with nobody there. Get all the access to everything. I think that's a whole lot better. I will say it is. You can judge people whenever they're in a group, especially at Topgolf.

Like, if you're wondering who's more athletic than who, maybe who's a little bit more competitive than who maybe you'll be able to see it but what happens if there's a guy that doesn't even grab a club and he's just sitting in court but what if he's electrifying yeah what if he's the room how do you judge the competitive side or the talent side versus the feels like good in the locker room guy and then what if everybody hates a guy oh man fake guy yeah they're gonna fake guy? Yeah. They're going to hate that fake guy. Hey, guys. Hey, let's break it down quick before we do this. Here we go.

Let's go family on three. And he's trying to bring all of these guys together. Let's make sure that is not on our team. Yeah. If I'm a coach, though, I'm looking around like, all right, I sure hope none of these guys actually feel peer pressure to put their hand in here with this dude. And then you take notes on who does. Who bought into this guy's shit?

Yeah. Come on now. We hate them. But that could also be a good thing. We'll buy into anything. Exactly. So that you can kind of, you know what I mean? You can spin it anyway.

Damn if you do. Damn if you do. Legit. Number two overall pick. Everybody's thinking it's Jaden Daniels. Remember Brian Kelly, after LSU's pro day, he said he basically gave and rattled off a bunch of things that Jaden Daniels was able to do. And then he said, he'll be doing this for Washington. and then just this is a local news and then just keeps talking

or whatever and then that hits the internet they're like did brian kelly with a lack of a southern accent somehow just say that jayden daniels is going to washington and who told him that and how many people are telling who it does feel like this is kind of a lock after shepter tells the washington commander's podcast Hogs Haven. I don't think that's the name of it. That's just what they refer to themselves as? I don't know. I think we might have got that completely wrong. Wild Hogs maybe? Oh, that's a good movie.

Great movie. But anyways, in that podcast, Tim Allen, Travolta, Bill H. Mason, Ray Liotta. That's a good movie. Heavy hitters. Bill H. Mason. Ray Liotta. That's a good movie. Heavy hitters. With a great idea.

Here's what Adam Schefter said to a Washington Commanders fan podcast who we're big fans of. Good luck to your commanders in the draft as well. Appreciate that. Let's go Jaden. I think you go get those Jaden Daniels jerseys.

Hey look man, I'm about to get one too. Daniels jerseys. I think you go get those. Hey, look, man, I'm about to get one too. Get one off for the show, AJ. Adam, we just got a picture of his teammate showed up to his birthday party like the movie Draft Day. Amen. That's a good question there. I believe AJ tweeted about the show, that podcast being on our show yesterday. So we want to say thank you for the content, getting Schefter to say that on the pod.

I don't know what the name of the podcast is. I think it's called, I just looked it up, Trap or Dive podcast. There it is. Because Hogshaven, I think, is the blog that ripped the clips. I want to make sure we give them credit. Trap or Dive podcast is the one that had Adam Schefter on who said, hey, listen, you can go ahead and buy

the Jaden Daniels jerseys. So that seemingly locks down the first and the two, one and two overall picks. Now we just got, you know, 30 more. That's right. Three for next Thursday. Yep. You probably lock in three, too, because I do believe Schefter, he didn't say it on this show because why would he,

but he mentioned that Drake May is definitely the third quarterback off the board. He said that those top three. After that is when everything else kind of happens with JJ and trading up and all that. Granted, he doesn't know if the Patriots are taking Drake May at three. He knows that Drake May will be that third guy, though, and then it's just pending. Patriots, do they love him? Do the Vikings offer

the farm to move up to three? But as a Patriots fan, eight days out, no doubt about it, Patriots are taking Drake May at three, and he is the quarterback in week 12 going forward for the next 20 years. Everything is potentially all bullshit, and everything is potentially all real. Yeah. That's

the draft, baby. Yeah. We love it. How do we know? That's why we, baby. How do we know? That's why we love it. Why? Well, because you don't know. But do you know? You could know. You might not know. The guys might go and they might not go.

But we don't know a whole lot, but what we do know is that's why we love it. Yeah. Boom. Someone please write that out a whole lot, but what we do know is that's why we love it. Boom. Someone please write that out and print it out so it's on a piece of paper or on a wall or something. Need that quoted immediately, please. Definitely.

What about the mock drafts? Do we love mock drafts and the mock drafters? Well, it depends on what kind we're looking at. Bucky Brooks, we like him. We like him a lot. Schrags, everybody loves Schrags. Schrags will be on today at 2.30. Pete Schrag, everybody loves Pete Schrag.

King of New York, they say. I would agree. But we'll see. Everybody's doing the mock drafts. You know, you got guys going anywhere from 5 to 15 to 25. Nobody knows. But that's why we love it. Can't wait.

Can't wait. Wow. Some things are just for us. I mean, no, that was not. That was for everybody. Everybody loved that. I want to let you know the reason why that one's for us. Yeah, we love that one.

We hope others do as well. Ty did that for 27 hours straight in our trip to Orlando. About everything. People in the car next to us, the store, the restaurant, the NFL owners meet, everything about it was that

for about 27 hours. Felt like you were really getting your work in there and we're pumped about it. Especially going into next year and that's why we love it. Bingo. Bingo. Kevin O'Connell.

Obviously, the Minnesota Vikings are a team that is being chatted about as potentially trading up, you know, to get a quarterback. We shall see. Maybe J.J. McCarthy. What? Who knows? You know, because Kirk Cousins moves on to the Atlanta Falcons. They have Sam Darnold there under a $10 million contract. Is he there to kind

of fill the gap for Evers coming next and will they go with quarterback we don't know but what we do know is Kevin O'Connell spoke about Justin Jefferson not being at OTAs with a massive contract looming here's KOC Chit Chat I don't uh I'm I'm really not anticipating uh whether you know taking it a day at a time. And I know I've had a lot of great dialogue with Justin throughout even the early part of this offseason and leading up. So, you know, my hope is we can get him around the team. He's obviously such a special player, but it goes beyond that, especially at this time of year, because of just the energy and the flat-out way he comes in when he's in this building and he goes to work and how his teammates respond to him.

So I want him here as much as we can have him, but also understand there's a lot of factors involved. And, you know, like I said, there's nobody I love having more around on a daily basis just because of how he elevates others. Truly, you know, special, special player. Is he around this week? elevates others, truly, you know, special, special player. Is he around this week?

He is not here today, but, you know, remains to be seen kind of what the rest of the program looks like. But really, really good turnout today from the guys. Just excited to get up in front of them and really get to get back to some foundational kind of things that are really important to us from a culture standpoint and football philosophy standpoint really start building this thing for the 2024 version of this team which I'm very excited about so the Justin Jefferson contract has been one that we've been talking about forever this guy's gonna get 30 40 million dollars a year and that's why they had to

move on from Kirk Cousins not gonna be able to pay Kirk and pay Justin Jefferson Justin Jefferson not showing up big deal or no no, A.J. Hawk? No, I don't think it's a big deal. I mean, they have to get this done, right? There's no way they don't figure this out. So, no, I don't think it's a big deal. He has no reason to get there until they do figure it out or until they get very close.

So, as long as he, I mean, the relationship seems fine. There's no issues. I concur, and this is just kind of how it goes. And Justin Jefferson, literally since we've been introduced to him at LSU, has never showed up out of shape. No. Has never showed up not ready. So, you know, he said fundamental and foundational work.

Justin Jefferson already knows all this stuff. Been in this offense. He's put up 180 yards in the first half of this particular offense in the past. Now he's got Sam Darnold potentially throwing it. Or maybe a rookie quarterback if the Minnesota Vikings decide to trade up. Now, if they decide to trade up, if they decide to trade up, it'll be a big-time story of the NFL draft next Thursday night.

Yep. We will be having our fifth annual Draft Spectacular. And this time, we're actually live at the draft. Holy shit! Remember last year, we were here in the Thunderdome. Red Panda came out. She had ten bowls

on her foot. She kicked it up on top of her head. We gave away a bunch of money. We got a chance to experience the highs and lows of the drafts and the things that are, whoa! I can't believe that team did that, and congrats to this guy and all of that. We've done that for the last five years. We've gotten to do it. This year, we're live in Detroit.

Let's go. That's big news. Huge. People would say, wow, that's huge. That's big, big. Massive, yeah. That's big. Wow.

That's a huge deal. Well, let me tell you what's an even bigger deal. The person that's going to be co-hosting the Draft Spectacular with us, that starts at 8 o'clock, in the countdown to the Draft Spectacular that starts at 7.30, is the greatest head coach of all time.

The greatest general manager of all time. Eight-time Super Bowl champion. Ladies and gentlemen, this man, of all time the greatest general manager of all time eight time super bowl champion ladies and gentlemen this man bill belichick yeah all right bet coach uh hey you got some stuff behind you coach there's some things behind you there i don't know if you knew that that that's my blink okay that's my blink uh coach i just announced to the world something that we've been chatting about for like the last month and a half or so. So incredibly pumped and thankful that you'll be joining us next Thursday night in Detroit for the countdown and for the draft. In your wildest dreams, could you imagine your first live event post-coaching, maybe in the year off off of coaching being with a bunch of idiots uh like our particular show and why did you agree to do this with us we are so incredibly thankful

yeah well i'm looking forward to it uh it's always a draft day draft weekend's always uh an exciting time uh for everybody for the teams that are building their teams and for the fans and for everybody involved in it so uh you know you know, it's a great event. And, yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing it, you know, from the other side. It'll be fun to be in Detroit, you know, be with you guys and get your expertise. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no, no.

Okay, we don't need that type of chatter now. Yesterday was your birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Coach. Happy birthday, Coach. Yeah, we called the fire department to put out the candles a lot of them obviously a lot of them you've done great in this entire thing i chatted with you yesterday and uh i said what are you doing and you said i'm watching film what do you think this

entire thing is this draft year are you are you still studying all the uh draft prospects are you watching what is what is life like for you now, and what has it been like for the first time in 49 years, not in an NFL building, and for the first time in 48 years, not a part of the draft in the NFL? Well, it's sort of like what I've been doing, you know, watching the players, specifically the ones that might be involved in our show, our show so the guys in the top you know top part of the draft um but the first round leads into the second round and there's a lot of correlation there so uh we'll talk about that next thursday night but uh yeah just trying to just trying to do some preparation and um you know follow up i watched a lot of these guys in the fall and and uh even some from last year when

they were juniors. They weren't coming out, but they were still factors in evaluating the players in the 23 draft. It's just kind of an ongoing process. It's fun to keep up with. I always enjoy this part of the season. We'll be thankful for it next Thursday as we're getting intel from a man who's obviously done everything in the NFL and had success at all different levels. They're chit-chatting about, you know, O-tackle, deep, wide receiver, deep. A lot of these mocks are coming out right now. And I know that there's a lot of different thoughts about it all, especially from the media world. How much

should we be paying attention to all these people in the next week and a half leading up to this thing? And is the O-tackle wide receiver the group that is going to be stealing the show whenever we come to next week's first round? Well, I definitely think there's a lot of depth at those two positions. They should go quite deep into the first round and probably carry over into the second round. I imagine there are teams near the top of the draft that are looking at filling one position in the first round and then either coming back and getting a wide receiver or tackling the second round, assuming that somebody will be left. But you never know. The draft's always full of surprises. It could go a lot of different directions.

But it doesn't look like a lot of tight ends or running backs at the top of the draft. And then defensively, probably not the same depth on the board that there was last year, the last couple of years, at least not at the top. But it'll always be interesting to see how things work out and trades, you know, that can skew it a little bit. But overall, you know, a lot of, as usual, a lot of good young prospects. And I would say that, you know that just at this point in time, a little over a week from the first round, I think teams are probably starting to really get things pulled together now.

There's just a ton of information that comes in there in March and April when all your scouts are out, probably at least a dozen scouts on every team. So multiply all the information times 12 or so of reports coming in, new information. Then on top of that, you've got the medical, you've got security, you've got all the scouts' reports all being compiled and accumulated. And now this last week, 10 days or so, is where you really sit as an organization and sort through it and sift it out.

There's always a little bit of contradiction, but you've got to figure out where you're going to place your chips, what you're going to believe, what you're not going to believe. I'd say the biggest newsmakers here, quietly, are the agents. Nobody wants their player to get picked higher than them. So a lot of the information i think that comes to the media about um you know who who's going to draft who how high they're going to go um is uh you know a lot of media driven so you know when the agent hears well

you know my player could go anywhere from uh you know the second or the third round uh you add one to that and say well you know these gms or these teams round, you add one to that and say, well, you know, these GMs or these teams are talking about taking my guy in the first round. I've never told an agent, I've never told an agent, hey, we're going to take your guy in this round. We're going to take your guy with this, you know, with the 27th pick or the 31st pick or whatever pick it is we have. I don't think there's too many teams that do that. But I think the agents will say, hey, my guy's going to go at 31 to this team. My team guy is going to go at 17 to that team, that type of thing.

And then that just generates interest in their players. So I think you got to sift that out. But as you get closer to draft day, sometimes teams get closer to figuring out what they're going to do. There is information that can leak out of the organizations in one way or another that can give you some insight into what they're going to do. There is information that can leak out of the organizations in one way or another that can give you some insight into what they're going to do. I think it's a little early for that, but when you get into the last, you know, I'd say 12 or less hours before the draft, sometimes that information can be very, very accurate and helpful.

Yeah, there was a lot of stuff, you know, that leaked out of your organizations. That was what you guys were known for. Leakers everywhere. Everybody's leaking, leaking, leaking. We'll talk about a lot of the, you know, the draft myths, like are they drafting for needs or best available? And how about like narratives that we heard going into it? And we'll debunk what an actual draft board looks like in the countdown to the draft spectacular with Bill starting at seven 30 on Thursday. and we'll debunk what an actual draft board looks like in the countdown to the Draft Spectacular with Bill starting at 7.30 on Thursday,

and then he'll co-host the entire Draft Spectacular with us on Thursday night. I assume what's going to happen in his first 30 minutes is there's going to be a human that is going to point some things out that has maybe taken place over the last couple weeks, and then we're going to watch it unfold in real time for the next 10 hours.

Are you ready? Hey, I know you and Nike are hanging out most times during this draft. This first round is like 45 hours long, Bill. 45 hours. I don't want you to have to go to the bathroom in the middle of this thing. You know what I mean? Yeah, trust me. I sat through a few of them. I'll be ready to go. It'll be interesting to talk about. We'll have our own kind of draft room set up as if we were, you know, the 33rd team and kind of watch the guys come off the board and talk about what other teams needs are. And potentially if the trade conversations and that type of thing going on, I think I can, you know, give a little insight into maybe what the conversations will be in those rooms. Made a few trades. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think you will.

Go ahead, AJ. Maybe Andy and I can work up a trade somehow this year. Oh, I like that news. Remember when Andy Reed and I switched spots in the seventh round to keep our streak going? Just digging around. Andy, we need to do this. Go ahead, AJ.

Coach, when you talk to these prospects at the Combine, when you get those 15-minute interviews, and when you bring them in for the visits that you can as a team, what are you looking for? What are you asking the guys? How much information can you gather? Well, I think the 30 visits, AJ, are a lot more valuable than the 15-minute ones. Those 15-minute ones can be misleading.

They can be real good or real bad, and that may or may not be indicative of what the player's real personality and interaction is from that time because it's very artificial. He'll probably never be in that setting again where he's in front of a dozen executives and coaches from a team. But the 30 visits are great. You know, 15-minute visits there give you a little bit of a chance to get to know the kid. But when you spend a whole day with him.

Now, those 30 visits could be for a lot of different reasons. They could be, you know, you really want to dig more into the person, his football knowledge, his background. Medical's a part of that. Sometimes it's for free agents, guys that you think aren't going to get drafted, but you want to recruit. And of course, when you sign a college free agent right after the draft, which there'll be, you know, several hundred of those signed, a lot of those kids you won't have physicals on, the ones that didn't go to the combine, unless you bring them in and do your own physical. So if you, if you were, you you know have an interest in a guy uh who's maybe a little under the radar maybe a

small school player or somebody like that and you don't do the physical on them and then you bring them in after the draft then you've already signed them and you can't pass your physical or you find out he has an issue that uh you weren't expecting and then you know you've kind of lost a spot there and um so uh there are a lot of different reasons for those 30 visits uh i'd say the guys that you feel like you know a lot about um i'm not sure that there's a big reason to visit them and i'd say uh generally speaking that's not a high priority it's just because the guy doesn't visit a team doesn't mean that team's not interested in them they may know all they need to know about and feel like they want to spend that visit on something that would be more productive.

I don't know if you heard this or not. The Commanders actually hosted 20 guys for 20 of their 30 visits. 20 at the same time went to Topgolf last night. Went to Topgolf last night. Have you ever done any of that? You take them to Topgolf, maybe a little roller skating? Yeah. No, we weren't real big on that. ever done any of that you take them to top golf maybe a little roller skating yeah no our no that

wasn't uh we weren't real big on that uh it wasn't more of recruiting for us it was informational gathering but i think we had maybe as many as a dozen come in on the same day and a lot of times we'd combine the groups so uh quarterbacks tight ends receivers uh so that we could interact and and work with them uh individually but also collectively see them, you know, work together with each other, the quarterback call play and the receiver talk about what he'd do on it and things like that. Or, you know, four or five, six linemen at the same time, so you could kind of, you know, be a little more efficient

in terms of the staff time spent with them. But sometimes that's just dependent upon what the player's schedule is. And so some guys, you know, will take 20 or visits and other guys will have two or three. So scheduling sometimes becomes, you know, a difficult part of those 30 visits. But, yeah, I can see bringing in a lot of guys at one time. It is an efficient way to, you know, use the visit time for your staff because, uh, the more you tie your staff up on those visits and the less productive you can do be doing other things. Yeah. And that makes sense. You know, I, uh, in the college world, I've gotten dropped in there. They have

those recruiting weekends, you know, some of these schools and it's like every weekend, it's a recruiting weekend. And these coaches, like you got to recruit via phone all week. You got to prepare for a team and then you've got to recruit via phone all week. You've got to prepare for a team. And then you've got a recruiting weekend. And then I talked to Oregon coach Dan Lanning. And, you know, Washington is probably going to be pretty similar with your son and the entire crew up there with Fish. They schedule, like, one weekend because it's such a far trip.

And it's like we have our recruiting weekend with a lot of our recruits. And then it also frees up us for football for all the other times. Not a bad concept i don't think i'd heard of 20 visits but if you're doing 12 okay commanders look at you guys look at the commanders they gotta feel good about that now a lot of those troubles but you know one thing pat uh you know when we look at our draft board on thursday night i think the one thing that everybody has to understand is our draft board will look different than every other draft board in the league, just like every team's draft board

will look different than every other draft board in the league. Not any of them are the same. Even at the very top, they won't be the same. So what you're looking at is what you feel like is going to help your team and how you've got them organized and, and everybody else has that same view. So you can kind of think, well, this is what some other people are thinking, but you never really know that. And so the recruiting thing is a little bit, the same thing. I'm sure, you know, I haven't done college recruiting, but I can imagine that. Yeah. It'd be great to bring 20 guys in, but if you've got a top prospect and he can't come in that weekend,

you're not going to drop them. You're going to find another time when he can visit when he can you know do whatever he does bring his parents or or girlfriend or whatever you can fit into his schedule if he's good enough you'll make room for him so uh you know a lot of that just depends on uh you know how schedules work out in in players that are in high demand hey be who you can afford to be coach and uh those those trophies behind you right there provide a lot of happiness for this man that has a question for you he actually has how about including the emmy yeah 100 oh yeah 100 years loved it all boston uh new england patriot diehard a man who has we're on to cincinnati

tattooed on his bicep Boston Connor has a question for you coach yeah coach it is an absolute honor first of all thank you for all the happiness and joy

you have brought to me and all of New England throughout my entire life and Pat is telling me to put my arm up right now so I mean I'll show you there it is coach it's got your full name

it doesn't say Bill Belichick it says William Stephen Belichick and yeah my triceps do touch my butt cheeks. Coach, one thing that always happens for New England, especially around this draft time, was we didn't get very excited as fans just because when you're picking so late in the draft, first of all, Pat mentioned that you've got to wait 45 hours to get to the pick.

And then a lot of the times you know you would trade back or trade out of the first round because you know you just didn't have anything to really take what is the mindset going into a draft when you are picking that late because you know this is something that your your buddy andy reed has to deal with now because they're going to be you know 28 and up going forward for the next you know 10 15 years who knows but what is kind of the thought process around that and when do you know like during that first round hey we're trading out there's there's no point to stay here right that's a great question um and the answer is every year is different and you really don't know um when you're picking at the end of the draft and i got this

question you know from people in organization and I got this question, you know, from people in our organization and so forth a lot, you know, what are we going to do? We're picking 28th, we're picking 32nd. You tell me who's going to be there, and then I can tell you what we're going to do. But you just really don't know. There's so many teams in front of you.

It's just impossible to predict. So did I think we would ever draft Vince Wilfork? I thought there was no chance he would be on the board when we picked. I didn't think Hightower would be there. So we traded up and got him. I didn't think Chandler Jones would be there. So we traded up and got him. You know, Logan Mankins was there and we waited it out and took Mankins at 32.

But you just don't know what's going to be at the end of the draft when you're picking there. So sometimes you see somebody fall in and say, okay, it's worth it to trade and get up and get the guy. Other times you kind of wait and see who slides through. Sometimes you feel like I'm taking this guy, you know, there's not much there at the end of the first round. Let me move back, you know, a few spots and try to either, you know, accumulate some capital or, you know,

take the same player or the same quality of player that you're going to take. You've got two or three guys you like there. Just back up and take a little bit more for it. I think the fifth-year option is an issue at the end of the first round for the high priced positions. So obviously quarterback, which is what the Ravens did when they took Lamar Jackson, they traded in our spot at 32 to take Jackson and got the fifth year option on him or cornerback offensive tackle, you know, maybe even pass rusher. But when you talk about the tackles and the pass rushers and the receivers at that point, you're probably talking about the fifth or sixth guy. But, you know, look, if it's a guy who's going to end up making a lot of money at that at one of those

high quality positions, then it's worth it probably to be up in the first round and potentially have a fifth year option. Um, so that's sometimes a factor too, of there's a little bit of savings from the first round to the second round because that fifth year option is included in the first round. Now, coach, I heard you're a bad drafter. Yeah, you're a bad drafter. You know, it would be nice to maybe get a top ten pick every once in a while, but then the season would be terrible.

Yeah. So what do we want to have? What do we not want to have? I love hearing you break. I've gotten a chance to chat with Coach now a few times over the last few weeks. Had a great dinner last Thursday night. I went to the bathroom four times. He didn't go to the bathroom once.

Jeez. Do you remember that, Coach? You were drinking more than I was. I was hammering some Jack and Don. What? I tried to get him an espresso martini. Found out he hates coffee. Okay.

Fair enough. No idea. Right? Is that real? Absolutely. Never had a cup of coffee in my life. Legend. It's awesome.

This is at the beginning of the dinner. First time meeting him face to face. Waiter comes in. Will you guys be having drinks? He goes, sure. Do you have any specialty drinks? I'm like, we'll take two espresso martinis. And I was about to give you the full speech about, hey, you got to get past.

Just wait. You got to get past the name. You got to get past the cup, the whole thing. And you go, absolutely not. This is going to be a bad night. I thought this was going to win the evening. And then he told me, I don't drink coffee ever. Never.

I don't do it. I'm like, you don't drink coffee. He goes, tea and other things you do. Not drink coffee ever. Never. I don't do it. I'm like, you don't drink coffee because tea and other things you do. Not a coffee guy. I think we all just assume because from the legendary tales that we've heard about the amount of film study that you had to be just, you know, douche, douche, espresso,

espresso, coffee, complete opposite. That was a bad start, but I appreciate you taking time to kind of learn about me through this entire process and our show and our show a lot. Yeah, well, Pat, I enjoyed being with you on within game day i mean that was awesome you and coach corso and and uh you know the army navy setting you know nothing better than that but um yeah you know the the draft is a it's a fascinating uh event especially the first day and and uh for the most part teams have one pick they have you know one choice there on Thursday night to, you know, do the best they can to improve their team, whatever that is, whether it's trade up, trade down, take a guy, whatever.

And so it's, you know, it's an exciting day. You want to try to make the most of it. And honestly, you know, there are teams that look at it as they're willing to take more risk for more upside. Obviously, you know, there are teams that look at it as they're willing to take more risk for more upside. And then other times you you want the conservative pick and you want to you know, I want to know that I got a good player. Maybe there's another guy on the board. It could be, you know, great. But maybe there's more of a chance that he could also not work out. So now these are all pros, Hall of Famers, no matter what, all of them.

Well, look, we know historically that the wide receivers and quarterbacks in the first round are really a 50-50 proposition in the long run. And so, you know, that's what the stats will tell you. Each year could be different. You know, it could be 83 and you could have, you know, five franchise quarterbacks where you can end up with none. And so, you know, time will tell on that. But, you know, at this point, everybody's optimistic that the player will reach his potential and that's why they're being picked they're being picked because the teams want them okay well i can't wait to experience an entire draft with you we have a pittsburgh stealer fan who wants to ask you a question before we let you go we're

thankful for you yeah bill i assume what next thursday you're going to spell a lot of uh myths and theories for us but one of them is we always say like let's just say like the raiders draft a dn and we say oh well that's because they have to get to Patrick Mahomes they're drafting for their division is that actually a thing with teams in the draft room where you think about your division and draft for your division or is that total bullshit and last year you know when the Steelers traded up with you guys to get in front of the Jets to take a tackle was that to screw the Jets over in the division and does that does the tackle was that to screw the jets over in the division uh and does that does the stuff like that happen in the draft right well um well let me take the first question

the second question first the pittsburgh trade uh we only traded back a couple of spots uh we were pretty confident that the steelers were looking for a tackle and we were pretty confident that the jets weren't going to take a corner because they had taken Gardner the year before. And so we kind of thought that both teams were looking for the same thing. So in the end, the Jets ended up taking a pass rusher. But we were really interested in the corner. We probably would have stayed there and taken Gonzalez

if there hadn't been a trade available. Well, we would have done that. That's not probably. We would have done that. But we went out of the option to move back a couple spots. And, of course, we didn't know if the Steelers were going to take the guy that the Jets wanted. I mean, I would say we weren't heartbroken that that happened.

But that's the way it goes. But, you know, in the end, we ended up getting the guy that we wanted with Gonzalez. And so that was good. I would say the first question you asked is part of a much bigger question. And I think that's the question that each organization is talking about right now. What helps our team the most? Sure, part of it is your division. Part of it is your team. Part of it is the complementary parts of your team. Part of it's the salary cap. If you

have somebody who's making a lot of money that you know you're going to have to replace for one reason or another, whether they're nearing the end of the career or maybe their contract's going to be up next year and you're not sure if you're going to be able to resign and if you do, it's going to cost a lot of money, that sometimes you draft players at that position to give you depth, you know, a year ahead of when you really need it so that, you know, financially you can, you know, maintain a competitive team during that time. You put all those factors in there together and maybe there's an overriding factor. Maybe it's, you know, we got a, I know with Coach Parcells, you know, one of the big things, again, this is a while back, but, you know, when we were playing, everybody was playing a 4-3-4, you know, one of were playing, everybody was playing a four, three, four.

You know, one of Big Bill's things was you got to have a center. You got to have a good center. You know, all the teams in our division were, you know, we're playing three, four at one point. And, you know, we felt like we had to have a good center. So sometimes that the division thing is overriding. But I'd say there are a lot of factors that come into play in an organization. We use that to decide, you know, what, how it all fits together. I would say the draft, I would say the draft in the end is really, is really, it look out like a jigsaw puzzle. There's not one piece that puts the puzzle together. You look at everything, you look at the player's character, his mental, his intelligence, his work ethic, his upside, his, you know, everything, his, all the things that factor into his leadership his upside his you know everything his all the things that

factor into his leadership his you know what type of teammates are going to be all those things and you have it and then you put it all together and then that's the picture you have on the player whatever that is and then you give it a grade it's worth a certain value to you um you know there's not many perfect players out there and all the best ones go in the first handful of picks. And then after that, there's always something with everybody that's, you know, but it might fit perfectly for your system

and not as well for another team's system. So that's why I say the grades up there for each individual team are not the same. But it's a mosaic. It's a jigsaw puzzle. Coach, the day after the first round though yeah great we judged the draft immediately exactly yeah right away what are you talking about yeah but you know as well as i do that that the players that are there in the second round

a lot of those players were there on team's boards in the first round they didn't think they'd be there they didn't think they'd make it till the second round uh and so then all of a sudden that's great vows like yeah but you don't know coach no way no that's the fun thing about us covering the draft as a as a part of the media you know it's like the day after round one the experts are all out and the experts are all out just trying to figure out who was closest to what they were predicting to happen and if they were far for them happening. And then all of a sudden you get an entire team's fan base is pissed because of what the actual general manager did

versus what a mock drafter did on the internet. And it's like a fucking shit show. You can say fuck now, we're off ESPN. But it is a shit show in this entire – you won't. But if you want to – just let you know, it does slot. It will fly right now. But it's like how quickly you think you can judge a draft. Like when do you think is the – is it like if a second contract comes,

whether somebody's a bust or if they play immediately, if it ends up working out? What are your thoughts on that entire thing, like a successful draft for your team or for a team? Well, I'd say for, in my experience, I think we've always drafted, we've always graded a player for really what we think they'll be in year two. What will the player be in year two? Now, year two could be halfway through his rookie year.

Year two could be a year and a half. It might not be year two now year two could be halfway through his rookie year year two could be you know a year and a half it might not you know it might not be year two it might be almost year three i would say but there's a point where the player figures things out he gets it he understands professional football he's had a chance to train to you know physically develop to a point where he can be at a very high competitive point. And then what do you have? And I could cite a lot of different examples, but just going back to the Giants, you know, Phil Sims, everybody talked about Phil Sims, what a bust he was. And he was a great, great player.

But he played, you know, in some tough circumstances, his rookie and second year, had a couple unfortunate injuries, but Phil's a tough guy. He was a tough player. There was no softness in him. He was as competitive as they get. But the fans were on him, and we blew it on Phil Simms. We blew it on Mark Haynes.

There's another guy who turned out to be an all-pro cornerback who didn't play his rookie year. Brady didn't play his rookie year, and we have Tom Brady. So you judge Tom Brady after his first rookie year and you know we have tom brady so uh you judge tom brady after his first year and you know you have literally nothing you know we're talking about the greatest player that's that's ever played so uh lawrence taylor was a different story lawrence taylor from day one impacted the team showed he was the best player on the field way better than everybody else and built the defense around him from that point going forward so it's different with different players and but i'd say once the player figures it out once he's had a chance to physically develop and again especially for

linemen sometimes those guys need a little bit of time or the technique on the offensive line in particular is something that can take a little bit of time quarterbacks another position but once they figure it out once again then that's when you know what you have. And it's usually not day one of his rookie year. I would say Lawrence Taylor would be the, you know, kind of the one exception to that rule, but there's not too many guys, maybe, you know, like Gostkowski, a kicker, you come in, Pat, you know, you come in and kick from day one. You know, if your skills are at a high enough level, you can see the impact already.

But a lot of the positions, it just takes a little bit more time. AJ, you know that. Coach. Your experience and the guys you played with. Coach, you're so wrong. I mean, you're so wrong. What are we supposed to do on Friday? I've been told that a lot.

Especially as of late, a bunch of bullshit. AJ has a question for you, Coach. Yeah, Coach, talking about the quarterbacks, why does it seem just so difficult to evaluate these guys and see success in college? Will it translate to the NFL? I know there's a lot of factors, but what do you think makes that so difficult?

I think that's what we're going to talk about in the pregame show because we've got those quarterbacks coming up, and I think we'll see some video video of what they do well what they have trouble with what they need to work on uh and what our nfl plays and what really aren't nfl plays because i'd say there's a lot of plays these quarterbacks make they're just not going to make in the national football league like they're just not going to make what kind of plays and then the ones that they will make if you see and make those over and over again i think that's a pretty good sign uh that they can do it and then i'd say there's other there's other examples of players that

if they can figure out how they need to play in the National Football League they'll be really good but it's not the way they played in college it's just a different game yeah everything's faster bigger stronger and a lot of guys you know whenever you're talking like I guess second on and for you guys you had starters in there and i know saban believes in this but like special teams is a way how a lot of people are going to make the team and a lot of rookies don't know that's their first time taking a punt protection it's like yeah you're going to be in the nfl because of this well no i just led my college in tackles yeah so did the motherfucker that's starting in front yeah yeah he did that as well so it's like that

right pac-man jones obviously special teams all pro has a question for you bill coach you was big in special team how do you feel that the new special team rules will affect the game well first of all pac-man i want to tell you that that punt you returned against us with the Titans was total BS. It was third down and I was standing there on the sideline and I said, look, these guys can't move the ball. The only way they can score is if we punt at the Pac-Man and he returns it. So we are going out of bounds to this balls right before the half. There's a minute to go in a half.

I said, we are going out of bounds with this ball and we're going to make them drive it as they can't score on our defense and we punt it right down the middle and you go 85 yards and i i tell you i can't remember a situation i have been more upset about and you killed us on that just like i knew you were gonna do and i before we even went on the field it was third down we started talking about that so i didn't get a chance to see you after the game you know because that was a tough game there you know a lot of things happened that game but you killed us on that play so they killed a lot of people okay so how's that gonna affect us i would say a couple things. Number one, it looks like it's going to include like another, I don't know, whatever the number is,

called 1,500 plays in the game that we didn't have league-wide that we haven't had in the last couple of years. So I think that there's more opportunity for players to play on special teams than there have been the last couple of years when literally 90% of the kickoffs are going out of the end zone so i think that might affect the bottom part of the roster and i would say with the new kickoff rules because there's really no running involved uh the kicking team's already down there the return team's already set up uh that there'll be more of an emphasis on size players in the return game than speed, where a lot of teams would cover with six or seven DB wide receiver types with their kickoff unit and play with the same type of players on the kickoff return, play with a couple of corners, a couple of wide receivers on the front line that could run and get back and set up.

Well, now there's no need for that. You just need guys who can play at the point of attack shed blocks and and defend their space uh because of the new alignment so i think it'll uh increase the size of the players that are on the field and i do think that because everybody is spread across the field that if these returners uh and i think these returners if they hit a little bit of space they're gone because it's just going to be a lot harder to overlap than what it was in the past. I don't like that they took the surprise onside kick out of it, although I wish that rule had been out when we played against you, Pat, because we always had to put another two guys over there to handle the spike kick, even though you never did it against us.

But you did it against other teams, and that always screwed up our kickoff returns. So I wish that rule had been in place when we played against you, but it wasn't. It's a great day. Anytime you hear Bill, I talked to him on Thursday. He was like, we had to add an extra fucking 10 minutes worth of bullshit. Absolutely. Every other kick was a surprise onside kick, a spike kick. And we couldn't spike it like you could.

So it always looked good in practice. Like, oh, yeah, we're right there. We got it. But then if you did it, the ball went twice as high as what we could do. And so, you know, that was a – but, you know, we'll get those – I always put that in my Twitter bio. I always put it in my Twitter bio that Bill Belichick said, extra fucking bullshit in practice because of you.

And it made me feel good. I want to let you know. And that's what you do, I think, to every football person. Like, Pac brought up special teams. Whenever you do those press conferences, and you are quite a speaker at this. I mean, you're just mouthy, wasn't you? Oh, yeah.

This guy never shut up at these fucking press conferences, just saying never-ending stuff. But whenever you would put over or compliment somebody on the other team, that was like some people's best day of the year, hearing Bill Belichick say it. That's why next Thursday night, whenever you say whatever you say about any of these guys that get drafted,

obviously the world's going to listen. These guys are going to hear it. Teams are going to hear it. We're going to be incredibly thankful for it, Coach. We appreciate you so much signing up to do this next week, and can't wait to see you in Detroit. Yeah, look forward to it, Pat. All right, well, I'll keep grinding that film between now and then. Yeah, don't fuck it up, coach.

I'm riding on you. Hey, we appreciate you. Ladies and gentlemen, Coach Bill Belichick. Thank you. So stupid. Yeah, that was crazy. It's awesome. Classy.

It's nuts. I'm saying we got to work. He's pumped. Oh, yeah. At that dinner, it was me and him in a back room at this steak uh house in chicago my wife was going up there so just he was up there for something i think he was speaking i think he saw the northwest northwest i think he was up there so he just so happened to like be same place was like all right you want to get dinner like

sure let's go do this so as i'm walking in there i'm like holy fuck i'm about to go you know i've had a couple of these meetings before like this never know how it's going to go like i start thinking like am i getting an aux cord for this room like what type of music i'm playing eagles i think i'm playing eagles early you know do i mix in some others like those are all the things i'm starting to think about as we're chatting about it and as soon as we sit down the espresso martini thing happens i'm like oh boy tough start don't have an aux cord they're playing some like las vegas in the room i'm like uh can't turn the tv doesn't work i'm like we are this is gonna be something he didn't give a he put out his laptop he had film on every single player that could get

drafted in the first three rounds. And he's like, so this is what I'm thinking. And he already has graphics on these films from NFL films. And he's like, this is what I'll say. He starts going through what he's saying. He's like, is that good? I'm like, yeah, Phil. Anything you need to know.

And this is not me just kissing your ass. Because, you know, he's like pumped to be a part of the team. Like he is very pumped to be a part. He's learned a lot about.'s watched he has studied he has seen the draft spectacular he even mentioned he even mentioned red panda nice during the entire like he is he's done his research on us and like just how pumped he's been throughout the entire time i'll get a text from him uh like two weeks on, let's say, like a Wednesday night. Hey, are you free? Like, you got it.

I'll answer that phone. That's an hour and 10 minutes we're going. About the draft, about his thoughts, about his ideas. And it's like I can't thank him enough for being as invested as he is. And I think the football world is going to be very, very thankful whenever we get like this is actually how it goes. As opposed to like speculation and what we're thinking it's going to be. It's like, you're hearing from it right here. And who is it?

Oh, it's the greatest of all time. So we're pumped. We're thankful. We're lucky. And he's been nothing but a gentleman to me. And I've been very, very thankful for that. Now, maybe because we were just at Mania last week or whatever, I thought a This Is Awesome chant was going to break out

while Bill was on talking about football because that's exactly what that was. And he was so open and free just talking about everything in the draft. Thursday night is going to be incredible. The countdown, you know, he brought up in the dinner, let's say I was probably three jacking diets. What? He brings it up. He goes, don't you think we should maybe tell these people

what's going to come in the draft beforehand i'm like sure why do you uh how do you shouldn't there be like just like a pre-show maybe like uh where we can break down what our draft board is and all these other stuff and i'm like and i can fire off questions about all that and the boys can fire off some things he goes yes exactly i'm like yeah is that what you want to do he's like well i don't know you fucking tell me is that what you want i'm like yeah i would like to do that bill is that what you want to do He's like well I don't know you fucking tell me is that what you want I'm like yeah I would like to do that Bill Is that what you want to do He's like absolutely we'll do that

So it sounds like the 30 minutes before the draft is going to be like the most informative 30 minutes of all time And then the draft is going to happen and it's going to be I assume what's going to happen in that draft Is going to be pretty similar to what was laid out Yeah the blueprint I'm going to be on 100 milligrams up there in Michigan.

And I'm just going to be like, this is funny. Of course, of course, this is exactly how this whole thing goes. So we're pumped. We're lucky. We'll be on YouTube, ESPN Plus,

and TikTok Live, and ESPN.com, I believe. Nice. For the draft. And as that night goes on, I'm excited to see how loose we get. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

You're very loose. Because Matt Mel's going to be there on the set with Bill Belichick. Oh, yeah. Let's get to a break. I got to piss. We haven't taken a break yet. Not yet. Caitlin Clark, thank you, Caitlin. Thank you, Caitlin.

She was great. She's going to be great all year. Yeah, weekly appearance. Let's go. Here we go. She's going to be great all year. Yeah, weekly appearance. Let's go. Wait. Lock it in. Here we go. Here we go. Through football. I can't believe we agreed to that. Every Thursday.

That's sweet. Look at us. I mean, we thought that could go that way. Did we see her saying it? No. No. No way. You said it.

We're going to ask maybe later on. We're going to ask. Team was here. You know, mom, dad were here, but team was here as well. Agent and Fever were here. Yep. A lot of people here. Which is something that happens, you know mom mom dad were here but team was here as well agent and fever were here yep a lot of people here which is something that happens you know people find out they can potentially get into thunderdome around indy nowhere else you're saying yeah everybody shows up with like a team of like no no we'll stop we'll stop up yeah holy we don't have enough

chairs we apologize we are a 12-person operation in this place you guys need drinks i don't know if we have enough a couple waters in the fridge We don't need anything Everybody's so kind I assume they walk in and smell CBD and wonder what's going on Maybe Sage They see you burn it

They see you burn the sage sometime Speaking of, April 19th New Pac-Man song coming out May I? Speaking of, April 19th. What? New Pac-Man song coming out. Mayor Chang. Sports. Oh, wonderful. We're lucky to be a part of it.

That's A.J. Hawk. The Talks at the Table is here at Boston. Connor and that's Ty Schmidt. One after the Hammer. Done. Cowboys turn digs here. And 12-year NFL vet. Man, who's got two chains on?

Pac Banjo. I love Mary. April 19th. Yes, sir. Mary Jane, baby. April 19th. Right in time for April 20th. Have a good time. A little chuckle for those who are into it, obviously. Joining us now

is a man who is the reigning. Defending. What? I don't know if it's undisputed because I don't know how the whole world works. But he is the reigning champion of the race that is coming up this weekend for NASCAR at Talladega. Race. I believe is the song. If we're going to have a little bit of respect. Is that church?

Friend of the program. Absolutely. Just opened a bar, actually. We all know about it because they have chairs on the roof. Ladies and gentlemen, Kyle Busch. Yay! Kyle! How you doing, KY?

What's up, guys? How's it going? Glad to be back. Thanks. Hey, honored to have you. Thank you for waiting like 10 minutes or so because, you know, we had Coach Bill Belichick come on and then Kaitlin Clark came on. They were both a little delayed, wasn't able to piss in the first hour,

had to take a break to go to the bathroom, which leads me to you. How's the season going? How many suits have we peed in during the race? And I know going into Talladega, we got to be feeling good. Where's Kyle Busch at right now in the middle of this NASCAR season? I mean, we started off really strong. Our beginning of the year was really good. We almost kind of were in position to win the Daytona 500. I got in the wrong line and kind of got shuffled back in the late goings. But, you know, we've had some top tens this year. We've had some good speed this year.

We've also kind of struggled at some of the shorter racetracks. So not quite where we want to be there. But all fire suits are clean. I can confirm that all is good on that end. I can't say the same for some of my competitors. You know, they're not smelling right when it comes out to the end. Yeah, well, that's because they're shitting themselves because K.Y. is coming out the outside. Talladega, you won there last year, I believe is what I read. That's right. We like this track. We feel good about this track. K.Y. runs this one well. Yeah, no, I mean, Talladega

is always kind of a crapshoot. You can kind of see here that you're all bunched up tight and there's a lot of action that kind of happens. And then there's a crash that luckily I was able to kind of scooch on through on the bottom side there and got the lead and you know when the caution comes out on the final lap the race is over so we we got that one we were just in the right position at the right time and hey that's what happens in some of these races those are the positions you got to be in so um you know i i want to carry our cheddar's colors of victory lane though again you know let's go do it hell yeah um i have a question for you look at that crooked one though again you know let's go do it hell yeah um i have a question for you look at that crooked one

come down that bitch sideways yeah i mean some of these cars get you know massively massively fucked up and here in indianapolis which we're going to get you in at the indy 500 some of these cars take off and i mean it's it's hectic but then you see the the driver's cameras and it's all smoke somehow and you guys are able to avoid. Is that the spotter? Is that natural instinct? What is it you think whenever you guys get in the middle of that like you did there? I mean, it's a little bit of both, you know. Sometimes you're just kind of shooting the gap and you're hoping and praying that you kind of watch them fly out of the screen and the smoke in which the direction they were going

and you hope they're not coming back across the racetrack. So this past weekend at Texas, you know know william byron uh got into rosh chastain on the final lap and there was a bunch of smoke i think we were in seventh or eighth or something like that and we were coming up right behind it and i couldn't see like i didn't know where the crash was and the banking obviously runs down to the left so you you think the guy's gonna slide down that way but he ended up staying uh up on the top right. So made our way through that, didn't get wrecked in that, and finished in the top 10. You got a little fear there, though, coming through the smoke a little bit?

Because when I'm flying and we get into clods, I'm always like, ah, I'm just going to shut the window. Because who knows? There's definitely a little pucker factor. There's some, you know, you got a little pucker factor. So other times when we're racing, you know, it's just, you're trying to stay as in the gas, trying to stay wide open, trying to stay as fast as you can go. So you just got to be mindful of all that. Tyler Dagan, we're flat the whole time. Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, you're going to be in the draft. So when you get in the draft and

you're behind guys, if you're three rows back or four rows back, you can start lifting out of the gas and actually you can save fuel. So when you come to pit road for the next pit stop, your time on pit road for a shorter fill to get a full tank of fuel is going to be quicker than some of the other guys that are further up front using more gas oh hey so that's a whole strategy to uh to the super speedways to the uh these these big tracks the talladega daytona your drivers got brains yeah these people say they're dumb that's what they say the engineers give us a clue of what's coming and what to expect so you know we don't have to think for ourselves we're told what to do go ahead aj what's it like driving now compared to when you first got into the nascar game i know you've been driving for a long time i know equipment changes but as you're on on track

like has your tactics changed over the years and how is it different now from before yeah i would say when when you're young and you're coming in like you want to do nothing but like the world on fire right you want to prove and show everybody who you are and that you want that you should be there so um i tore up a few things in my earlier days i crashed a little bit trying to carry that speed and just not being able to harness it and perfect it to the to the level of what some of these other guys do when when you're jumping the sport. But over time, you know, being able to get better, you know, winning 60 something races and two championships and all that, had an amazing career and a great time of being able to accomplish all that. But the last three or four years, I would say ever since COVID, they've really cut out practice. So like when we get to a racetrack, we go out on the speedway for 20 minutes of practice,

and then we qualify, and then we go right into the race. Years prior, before COVID era, it always was like two or three hours of practice that you would have for a given weekend. So a lot more time to fine-tune the cars, to work on the cars. So pretty much now when you show up to the track, you just get in, you get a little bit, and there's not a whole lot you can adjust on the car with the, with the rules.

Son of a bitch COVID. Of course. We're still feeling the effects of it over here, man. I mean, if you look at our show right now, how we're doing it, this is, you know, probably from it all. This is how it came about, right? Well, the internet had been doing this for a long time, but TV kind of became this, you know, cause so actually we were internet show obviously at

the time of covid which did happen can never forget that especially everything that kind of took place in the middle of it we were an internet show so like zoom facetiming is what we did and skype used to be the thing zoom i guess was just kind of coming into the world but then when covid happens all the tv companies have to start doing internet stuff so we actually had a head all the internet people had head start on how the tech works, how to talk maybe whenever you're on a digital call and not on a call. So COVID in a roundabout way certainly gave us a little bit more of a even traction with people.

But COVID did so much fucking negative. You guys took our practice. You guys are going 190, 200 miles an hour and can't even practice. Why? COVID. Seems like a safety hazard. This piece of shit

doesn't stop ruining things. No, it doesn't. Done with it. Never again, Kyle. I've decided. We've decided. Never again

are we letting that happen to anything. And we need the smart people to figure it out. Ty's got a question for you, Kyle. Yeah, KY. Recently, Dale Jr. in a a question for you, Kyle. Yeah, KY, recently Dale Jr. in a podcast basically said that like, hey, listen, at a time in my career, you know, my team,

they kind of wanted me to be more like Jimmy Johnson. He was kind of taking everything, you know, very seriously. I actually think we have the clip if we could just run that. This is not advice. This is bad advice, but this is what I did did i felt like i didn't run as good a race is good if i didn't blow off some steam on a tuesday or wednesday night and you know when i started racing for hendrick you know i tried to clean it up a little bit you know they were they were you know some of the people in the in the building were like you know you're not as you know jimmy's in great shape look at what he does you should be doing these things. And I'm like, Jimmy's Jimmy. Right. But okay. You know, I'm gonna work. I'll do better. I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose some weight. I'm gonna work out. I'm gonna,

I'm gonna do these new things to try to be in better physical shape. Right. And better mental shape. And, you know, I would sustain from drinking or something for a couple weeks man and i the results didn't change for me and then i'd i'd go party my buddies or something or have friends over on a tuesday night and we'd damn kick ass on the race weekend and i just was like maybe i'm just one of the old guards man you know like you know i need to you know i need to drink and smoke some cigarettes go kick ass, right? So, KY, speaking of that, obviously I think that just runs in junior's blood. You know, because we got the intimidator right here as well,

who is no stranger to raising hell and intimidating people, obviously. But with that in mind, between like the old guard and the new guard, do you think, like is it just completely different with the younger guys now coming up as it was between some like the guys kind of in your age bracket like are you still doing that same kind of stuff like maybe getting a little banged up on a race week lead and will we ever get back to a point where like some of these young guys kind of do that or is has all the information that we've learned in like the last 20 years or so kind of changed that completely. And these younger guys now are basically just playing video games during the

week and, and doing all their research and then racing on the weekends. Yeah. So man, that's a loaded question. I can go about six or eight different ways. Here we go. All right.

Well, I think it's just going to laugh and then laugh. So Jimmy ruined it for a lot of us. Dale isn't the only one that had the Jimmy Johnson factor that came upon him. So for me, too, I got yelled at from a crew chief. I was getting a little chunky, a little heavy, and all that. And he was like, you need to work out. You need to eat better.

You need to sleep a little more. And I was like, okay, sure, great, whatever. So I spent, I don't know, six months in the gym and working out, slimmed down, and lost some pounds and whatnot. The results didn't change. Nothing happened. It's all about the horse you're riding. It's all about the car you got. So there's another driver out there who said you can't drive a slow car fast. So I mean, that's that's the truth of the matter. And Jimmy was always in a fast car, but he also had everything right and was going going the right way about it. But yeah, just there was another guy.

So talk about the new gen or the old gen of drivers, right? So driver years ago, his name's Dick Trickle. Yes, that's real. Oh, yeah. We love that. Oh, yeah. We love Dick Trickle. Legend.

He would show up to the racetrack with a Coors Light in one hand and a cigarette in the other. And they wouldn't let him in the car with the Coors Light, but they let him in the car with cigarettes. He had them taped to his roll bar and had an open-faced helmet. So while the races happened, he would just reach over there, grab a cigarette, light it up, and he'd be smoking under yellow. That was NASCAR. That was the premise of the drivers that you had. But there you go.

That's it. See? Hey, Dick Trickle there. That's why that works. Yeah. The reason why I walked in there with Miller Coors. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, we can have three, four of these, please.

This is good for advertising. How fast are we going? Yeah, I got to go left. I get it. Where's my highlight? I'll do this entire thing. But isn't that how NASCAR, didn't, I might have this wrong because I might have just talked to somebody who was a NASCAR fan while we were both incredibly intoxicated.

Didn't NASCAR start as like Hill Jacks and Rednecks cooking up cars so they can run moonshine? Isn't that kind of how the whole thing started? Yeah, yeah. Wilkes County, which is here in North Carolina, it's about an hour, hour and a half north of Charlotte. That's what guys did. Yeah, I mean, running from the law back in the day, they would soup up their cars. And, you know, they'd be running moonshine and making deliveries and things like that, trying to skirt the law. And then they thought they were race car drivers.

They ended up putting their cars to the racetrack and going and racing them. And then sometimes they'd crash and they wouldn't have a ride home. They'd ask a buddy to give them back to the house. That's awesome. See, so if you're not at least enjoying a little bit of a good time, are you really paying tribute to the sport in which you are competing in? I don't think so. No way. at least enjoying a little bit of a good time. Need to get back to that. Are you really paying tribute to the sport in which you are competing in? I don't think so.

I don't think so either. No way. So you and Dale Jr. and the boys, you guys are doing it right. We hope that that continues forever. Not on the road. We can't be thick trickling all over the place, but there's a fine line in between there somewhere. Tone's got a question for you, Kyle.

Yeah, Kyle, I like to ask a lot of the drivers, just off the racetrack, what are we driving? Are we still going fast off the track? Is it hard to kind of keep it on a speed limit when you're just driving around? No, so I got in trouble with that years ago. So I tend to drive the speed limit now. Thankful for the invention of speed control. I always tap that on and set that so I don't have to worry about monitoring my speed. I just let it roll. But I drive the Chevy Tahoe right now. That's my vehicle that I have. It's kind of a kid's wagon, right? We know about that. We've got the little ones that come along with us and the family that travels along. So besides that, though, I've got some

really cool cars. I've got a 69 Chevy Camaro. It's got 700 horsepower in it. I love that car. And then I got a 56 Chevy pickup that's souped up. And it's got like 500 or 600 horsepower in it. And I've got some other cool old cars as well, too, that I really love taking out and taking for a spin. You could fix all those if you had to. Obviously, growing up, you can also do the mechanic shit if you had to. I mean, if I had to, yeah.

I typically call on my dad because he enjoys that kind of stuff. He's still a tinker guy. He was a mechanic when he was growing up. He sold tools and stuff like that. So I give him a shout and say, hey, you know, the 56 truck, it's got an oil leak on it. Can you check it out for me and take care of it? So I can do it. But, man, this week got an oil leak on it. Can you check it out for me and take care of it? So I can do it.

But, man, this week I haven't even been home. This is the first time I've been home for about four hours. Yeah, so we watched Full Swing, which is the golfer's life. And you talked about practice being cut down a little bit, so I wonder if the schedule has changed. But you guys are just a road – you're a traveling circus almost, NASCAR,ar town to town at which racetrack racetrack how often are you home and when is the light at the end of the tunnel for the nascar season yeah i mean it's too big it's not too bad so like a typical week is you know monday meetings you meet all day about the previous race and kind of what

all went down and what you can do to improve your car, how you can be faster. We go through a whole sheet that we fill out of stuff that we felt like, um, you know, to, to better prepare for the next race at that track. And then, um, you know, Tuesday, sometimes my son races or I race, um, you know, at the, at the local tracks, just to kind of have some fun. It's a little dirt track nearby that we have some fun that he likes to, he likes to do. And, you know, I might fly out friday night um to to a race weekend with the limited practice you only got to be there for you know an hour or two on saturday and then we get into the race on sunday so it's really not that bad okay hey i i would assume i just had some appearances this week like i had to be in san

diego uh on monday and tuesday i got to be in uh georg then Alabama on Friday. So I'm all over. NASCAR drivers are the ones that we reference whenever we go. Boy, I love my Cheddar Chevy when it's driving around this incredible auto zone track. You got Diet Coke potentially pumping through my veins. You NASCAR drivers

are the epitome of cutting promos for partners and for sponsors. But there was a time where it wasn't like that, right? Like sponsorship is – TV deal is obviously good, but sponsorship and partners are the – that's the main income, right, for NASCAR as a whole? It is. It's a supplier? Yeah, so like our industry is actually kind of backwards. So like NFL, for instance, right, like they rely on 92 or 93% of the TV revenue and coming into the sport in order to kind of operate on and then 7% is sponsorships the names that are on our cars every weekend. And then the remaining 7% comes from the TV money or, you know, some of the other ancillary things that, uh, buckets that are in NASCAR. Yeah. That's why you guys are so good.

Hey, we know where the checks are. We know where the checks are. That's right. Yeah. We got six companies coming out of my mouth in the next three minutes. You're about to know where the checks are coming from. Cheddar's. I think they had a croissant sandwich that I used to eat. They had one in Morgantown. Great restaurant. Cheddar's, is that the restaurant? Cheddar's, Cheddar's, they got the croissants, man. Yeah, anytime you show up, you get your Cheddar's right out of the gate. So we want to get to victory lane. We want to win some this year so people can go to Cheddar's and get their free number eight specials. That's the chicken platter. Oh, number eight special. Chicken platter, you said? number eight special. Chicken platter?

That's right. Chicken tenders? Chicken, what do we have? Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's good. Let's go. I like a little mustard, a little ketchup. Maybe a little hot sauce with the ketchup. A little honey mustard. Not bad. Not as good as ketchup. They also have the buffalo ones. There you go. See, the free tenders. Tender platter.

They also got the hot ones, the buffalo ones. Get you go. See the free tenders. Tender platter. They also got the hot ones, the buffalo ones. Get you some of that. Dude wipes right there. You can take care of that after. Pro's pro. That is it right there. Absolutely. I'm surprised you didn't drop into Dasani water.

Cartman, he potentially does the entire thing. You guys are the best. If you win, we get free number eights of Cheddar's. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Need that. Hey, let's fucking win.

Come on. Let's win. Fucking win, Kyle. Yes. I know. Damn it. Let's go. Come on.

What are you waiting for? Me? I'm not having a fucking car I want some free number 8 specials, pal You! Have you been to Talladega? Talladega You ever been to Talladega? You gotta come to Talladega

You gotta check out the boulevard There's a good party there all night long They don't ever go to sleep, man They just fall over in their chair And they still got a beer in their hand I love the racing community. I think the only— You are a true racer's community.

You got to see it. Okay, so Talladega is not in Florida. Really? No, definitely not. Come again? What? It's Alabama. It's a little further north.

Did you know that? No, no. That was news to me. I was just thinking, like, oh, yeah, Florida people. Of course I fall asleep in my chair. Are you thinking Tallahassee? Well, that's why. I think we're just going to. Are you thinking Tallahassee? Well, that's why. I think we're just kind of putting Daytona and Tallahassee and Talladega.

That sounds like a Florida place, but it's not. It's Alabama. It's like the dream places. That's why Eric Church is singing about it. And I think this is where Ricky Balby left some tickets for his dad, I believe. Talladega is a big one, right? In NASCAR world? Yes, correct. No, you're on the right path. Well, his movie was Talladega is a big one, right, in the NASCAR world? Yes, correct.

No, you're on the right path. Well, his movie was Talladega Nights, right? So, yeah. Good call. Well, you never know. Why is Talladega the big one, though? Why is that? It was just built that way.

It was just built the biggest speedway. So, back in the late 60s, 70s, they built Daytona. They used to race on the beach there and then they needed a real speedway facility. So they built a two and a half mile oval with high banks where you just run wide open all the way around going 100 and I don't know, back in that day, 160, 170 miles an hour. And so then the owner of NASCAR, Bill France Sr., he decided, you know what? Daytona's cool. It's always going to hold the biggest race that we have, the Daytona 500. But I'm going to build the biggest speedway ever that's going to be created in Talladega. And it's going to be 2.66 miles around.

And it's the biggest speedway we got. So it's a behemoth. Okay. Well, I can't wait to watch. I think you're going to win, and we're all going to get free number eight specials. I hope so. That's right. And I'm putting the ketchup in the hot sauce, the cachotte sauce.

You can have your honey mustard. Okay. You can have your honey mustard. You can have your honey mustard. We'll get drunk. We'll fall off the chair. We'll do old school NASCAR. We'll eat a number eight special with cheddars. Now we're living a good life. The only thing that stops all this is if you don't fucking win, Kyle. Trust me.

Trust me. I know. I hear you. That's right. I'm talking to my NASCAR guys right now. I'm telling them, hey, we got to make this happen. Paul Heyman phone. I love it. Yeah, that's right. I'm talking to my NASCAR guys right now. I'm telling them, hey, we've got to make this happen. Paul Heyman phone. I love it. Ladies and gentlemen, the rowdy Kyle Busch. Thank you, Paul. Just needs a win.

That's all. Simple as that. Free cheddars. I think AJ had the middle of a tornado warning. Oh, I did see that. Ladies and gentlemen, AJ Hawke is back. AJ, you're in the middle of a tornado over there, or is that just Kyle Busch coming around?

Everything kind of glitched for a second, then my internet went down, but it popped back up, and I looked. It said tornado watch right now, so that's nothing. Okay, not a warning yet. Some wind. Just watch. Okay, so watch, warning, evacuate. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know about the evacuation situation. Where do you evacuate? You've got to put your basement in. Put your basement in and evacuate. Don't get in your car and go get carried away. Go in your basement. Go in your bathtub. Not everybody has basements, okay?

Fifth overall. Go in your bathtub. Go in your bathtub. Don't tell us that. Go in your pool. Tell that to Bobby Carpenter. We know already, brother. There's some ditches on the side of the road you can even get in.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Bingo. Get under a table. Actually. Or under an underpass. Or if you find, like, a pipe that is connected to a sewer. Deep, deep, deep pipe.

Yeah, you can use your belt. You take your belt, yeah. Yeah, and wrap it around and hold on to that thing for dear life. Oh, I thought we were Dufresne-ing. I thought we were going through the pipe. That would work, too. I was just thinking, like, normal. Could you imagine you decide to go into a shit pipe during a tornado,

and guess what? Tornado picks up shit pipe, so now you're in shit in a pipe and in a tornado. That would be tough. And then you live. A lot of adversity. Yeah, if you survive. Then you survive.

You get tossed out of that pipe like that guy in the car. In the car on the beach. That was definitely real. I'm sure. And you just got poop all over you, floating around. There's like cows floating around. You're like, look at this fucking ass. They're judging you.

Guy's covered in shit. Don't get into the pipes. Unless you have to. The cows will judge you. Hey, well, why you guys are 60, 70 feet in the air? Spinning and speeding. Maybe. Is this a setup?

I know Hangman has Twister 2 coming out. He does. Part of it. His marketing campaign. I can't wait to see what Hangman does with Twister 2. When's it out? He's going to grab it this summer. July, I believe.

Hangman's got another movie coming out on Netflix here shortly as well. Trailer drop tomorrow. He's killing it. It's Prince who was promised, my friend. He's so handsome. Do I have his number? I don't know if we have his number. He's probably one of those guys that changes it every other month because so many people are calling him like,

Hey, want to hang out? I don't have his number. Well, that's what we were about to do. Yeah, I know. Cold call. That's right. Yeah, we should try to get Glenn Postman. Yeah, let's get his number.

Especially now before. Yeah. Because he's already big. He's already. Yeah, it's about to go, especially with how attractive he is. Yeah. What a stupidly handsome her. Didn't he lie to us?

Unbelievable. He's not supposed to be that attractive. Blonde hair. He's jacked too, though. He's jacked. Properly. He's not supposed to be that tall. That's what. He's jacked, too, though. He's jacked. Properly. He's not supposed to be that tall. That's what's bullshit.

He's tall. Jacked. Athletic. Affable. Yeah. Very affable. Fucking charming. Kind of told us, too.

He was like, you know, I asked him during the strike, like, hey, what are you doing? He's like, I've been kind of just getting boozed up and having a good time. It's like, well, why do you still have a 12-pack then? He's a leading man. He's a leading man. Yeah, he's a front man. Truly. Thank you, Glenn.

One of the last we have left. No, yeah. Okay. Sweet. I think we're done. He's in Brooklyn still? He's in New York. He is in Brooklyn. He came on from a Brooklyn condo or something. He's walking around.

He is in New York. I don't think he's in the middle of something right now. I was going to just cold call Shranks. You going to LA or not? We'll do it tomorrow. Okay, perfect. We'll do that tomorrow. Let's go.

Who else do we have tomorrow? Tomorrow's tough to follow today. Yeah. Oh, Randy Johnson. Boom. Oh, there it is. Yeah. Yeah.

The photographer? Have you heard he doesn't like talking about the bird thing, though? Have you seen that? Okay. I assume not. No, I'm saying he gets upset or he gets pissed. I don't know. I saw something years ago. I shouldn't be speaking out of school, but I saw he like, I don't know. It was weird. I'm like, okay. He didn't want to hurt the bird.

Cannot wait to see how I bring it up then, if that's the case. That's always a good game. You're great at that. You're good at that. Well, people say I don't ask uncomfortable questions. People say it's like, I feel like I bring it up then if that's the case. That's always a good game. You're great at that. You're good at that. Well, people say I don't ask uncomfortable questions. People say it's like, I feel like I bring up everything. It's just in the manner in which I bring it up might be a little bit differently. And I'm not the

only human that does this. I'm not saying that. But like I believe the bird is a part of tomorrow. I believe. From what I've been told. From what I've been told. The bird is... The bird is in play. The bird is in play. The bird is in play. We're having Randy and the bird on at the same time? Well, the bird's fucking dead.

That thing disintegrated. I think he's good with the bird. I wouldn't ask him about him just jostling the shit out of a photographer in New York right when he got there after he signed with the Yankees. That's one of my favorite Randy Johnson moments of all time. So what? He's 6'7 lefty. Yeah.

He's taller than that, isn't he? Yeah, he might be like 6'9. About as intimidating of a guy to see on the bump as anyone. No, John. Drafted by the Montreal Expos. He was. Him and Pedro Martinez. 6'10.

I'm on the mound. Oh, and his big thing, when a big guy would get in a box, he'd fucking throw it your head on the first pitch. Guy would back up all the way and then just the slider was He was on that Mariners team with him, Ken Griffey Jr., A-Rod. They were so stacked. I can't wait

to hear about his thoughts on the elbows. Yeah, on the clock. On the entire thing. Because we heard CeCe talk about it. CeCe talked about it. He didn't even know he was going to play pitcher when he got drafted in the first round. I didn't know if I was going to be first base or if I was going to be pitcher. I didn't even know how to throw a four-seam fastball. That's crazy. How?

What was he throwing in high school if he didn't know how to throw it? Just fucking give me the ball. Just hold it. Absolutely. Send that over. What a fucking legend. Give that over here, ZD, baby. We got a hangman. Let's see if he answers.

Hopefully it's the right hangman. Yeah, you're right. I don't think it's the hangman page. Just making sure. You never know. Hey, we're cold FaceTiming Glenn Powell right now. Should we mute mics? If the connecting comes up, I'll say mute.

Random number he does not have saved. Just FaceTiming him at whatever time he is, wherever he is. No one hangman though. He might see Indianapolis and be like, oh, it's got to be Pat. You think that's what he's missing again? Probably. He might be in the jet right now though. Practicing

his routes. Are you going to leave a voice FaceTime? Yeah, yeah. Voice FaceTime message? Oh, you have to. Gotta do that. Hit the fuck you button, Glenn, so we can get to the voice thing. Or the video. He's in a table reader, so I'm probably pumping iron. Record video five, four, three, two, one.

Hangman, how you doing? The movie Twister just popped up in conversation on our particular program, so we want to go directly to the source. The movie Twister just popped up in conversation on our particular program, so we want to go directly to the source. We assume you only pick bangers, you know, mostly because you're incredibly tall, jacked, handsome, smart, and incredibly affable.

And, you know, we've seen Hangman do his thing in that plane. We can't wait to see what you do in a tornado. The boys just wanted to know, you know, if you think it's going to be good or not. It will be, Glenn. We already know. Love you, Hangman. Love you, Hank, man. Love you, Hank, man. Woo! All right, buddy.

Cold call. Middle of the day. No answer. Wow, this guy's big time. Oh, tell him anyone but you is good. Yeah, really good. It's over. Oh, okay.

Good. I don't even want him to know. He knows. So how's that show up to him? Text, right? No, it's in the FaceTime as a miss. As a notey. And then a FaceTime message in there?

Yeah. Oh. I hate receiving them. I've never got one. Me neither. I fucking hate receiving them. I don't know if I would open those. That's probably on me.

I think I left you like four or five of those right off the bat when the voicemail FaceTime came out. I was like, oh, yeah, this is easy. I'll just leave them. And then I think on that Monday, you're like, God, I fucking hate those. You're not the only one. You weren't the only one. There was numerous because I'm a FaceTime guy. Exactly.

So I am a big FaceTime guy. If I'm on the phone, I'm FaceTiming or texting. It's one or the other. We are because you need to see my face says I'm delivering whatever I'm delivering to. And I'd also like to see how you, you know, I'd like to see how you're taking what we're talking about here. And I'd also like to see how you, you know, I'd like to see how you're taking what we're talking about here. So then every human that I FaceTime cold randomly FaceTimes me. I can't always answer them, obviously, for, you know, Glenn Powell reasons.

And then everybody just starts firing these videos over. I think I had 22 videos the first day. It's like, what? So now this is the worst thing that has ever happened. Can't miss a FaceTime. It has slowed down now. Okay. Unless Glenn Powell sends one back.

That'd be awesome. Let's get the fuck out of here. Pac-Man, we already did a giveaway today, but we should do another if you're able to accomplish a feat. Pac-Man Jones has I Love Mary song coming out. Hell yeah. April 19th. Day before April 20th. We can.

Especially if you got that pack after pack. Only in legal states, obviously. And if you're of age. Let's do this responsibly. Let's be smart. We're in the ballpark of becoming legal. So let's all make sure

as a smoking community, I can't do it here in Indianapolis, but whenever I go to... I can in Ohio He can in Ohio But as we are Let's be mature about this We're close

We're very close Relax No just Hey Be mature Be cool That's what I meant Can't be smoking

Smoke street weed anymore though No Can't be doing that anymore Can't have street anything Can't have street anything yeah Sorry about it You just can't I don that anymore that's over can't straight anything can't straight anything yeah i'm sorry about it you just can't eat street corn anymore what you can what about street meat no you can definitely beat street meat always do yeah you don't know if the null's in there it does this generation of uh teens they stink No. I hate it's not them. I'm not talking about them.

It's the CCP bringing it in. That's on me. I'm saying how bad it has to stink. They can't do shit. I see what you're saying. These kids can't do shit. You go out and embarrass yourself, it's a clip. It's over.

You're in sports. If you're trying to practice to get better, you get dunked on it's fucking everywhere yep can't experiment with anything like you cannot you actually cannot it's a it's a death sentence yeah it's like it's a wild time right now nuts and then people are like um you know this generation is different it's like yeah no shit have you seen what they gotta go down yeah they can't do shit these dudes can't they can't do anything. So what we're saying is, if you're in a legal state where marijuana is legal, and you're of age, on April 20th, we hope you celebrate responsibly. And pay homage, you know, to what is great from that particular plant that comes from earth.

Sometimes botanists put a little sauce on it make it a little bit make it yours a little bit stronger you know but while you're doing that there's a song coming out from pac-man that you can enjoy that's right while you are partaking lee jane mary jane pac-man before we get to all that on this particular altitude that we're at right now what do you want to do what do you want? You want to shoot a basketball? You want to putt again? Your putting game has been truly phenomenal. Yeah, almost too good. Yeah, it's almost getting to the point where it's just automatic.

Yeah, it should be. You're going to shoot? You want to shoot a W ball? As cold as it is in here. Cold? Freezing in here. I'm actually, today I am sweating. Today, I would agree with you.

Normally, today's actually quite hot. Should have been here yesterday. I was about to fire Tim McAfee for fucking how warm it is in here. Normally, today's actually quite hot. Should have been here yesterday. I was about to fire Tim McAfee for fucking how warm it is in here. Actually, I was like, hey, Tim. Enough with the bullshit. We're not pandering to these cold people. This is 10 to 15 degrees warmer than normal. I felt it, too, all day.

For sure. What the hell's going on here? I almost wore a t-shirt today. You should. This is a standard client. Today it is. Foxy. Negative.

I'll tell you what. I used to be a cold guy. I love this office temperature. I have a control room. A control room is a normal temperature. It's pretty warm in there. Yeah, but I also sit out there for about four hours before the show. Okay.

Everybody's acting soft right now. I want to let that be known. How warm is it in your little attic? Probably so hot. Oh, my God. I can't imagine. It's tough to control, actually. Sometimes it gets way too hot.

Sometimes it gets way too cold. Well, I think that's what happens here. It's the same temperature all year round here. What's that? Zero below. Okay. Zero below. Zero below.

I mean, it's still cold as shit. Our old office was about ten times worse. Zero below. Zero below. I mean, it's still cold as shit. Our old office was about 10 times worse. I agree. It was so much colder in that old office. Well, we're going to try to get there, boys. The walls were. Not because of my doing. I want to let you know that.

I've been trying to get it back to as cold as the old office is. Well, that's impossible because the warmth of our Lord will always still be in there. Sure. Thank you, brother. Amen. True. Thank you. brother. Amen. Thank you. Amen.

Amen. What are you going to do, Pat? Tone, real quick. Did Cody's people reach out to you about the cereal? I got it. I don't understand why that's funny. Actually, I did get a DM from Mr. Rhodes. From the

not universal champion anymore. The Marks champion. WWE world champion or something. Allegedly, they are changing the name. At least that's what the Smarks are saying. Undisputed is gone? Universal.

Or maybe undisputed. Yeah, you might be right. I just know that they're changing it now. Okay. That's the Paulaque era, baby. Uh-huh. Respect for aliens. The PLE. Not even a text back from Glenn.

What the fuck? This guy's big time. He's a superstar. Yeah, I guess he's too cool. This guy saves the world with Tom Cruise. Yeah. My Titan team. He might be on a press junket as we speak.

That's what we were trying to do. He might be in the middle of filming. Pac-Man, what are we doing to do a giveaway here? What are we doing? What do you think? What do you think, Pac? We have two W balls, WNBA, which why are they just a little smaller?

I'm not saying it. Now's not the time. No. A couple weeks, though, there will be a presentation on some things. Why are there two different balls? I don't know. That doesn't make sense. Somebody had to make that decision at some point.

Why did they do that? I don't know. We don't know. We have no idea. We're just saying it is two different sizes, though. I think you tweeted about me last week, Dr. James Naismith. Bingo. Think about how mind-blowing he is watching Wemby fucking.

That dude. James Naismith is dead Oh yeah dead or shit Rest in peace Laying in that funeral He invented basketball in like 1805 You don't know You don't know

He's dead He is dead Rest in peace to James Naismith He is dead Died in 1939 Just missed him That guy didn't even get to see us win WW2

1861 the guy was born Yeah You done good James You done good James James laying in a box If you create a basketball, I assume he did very well. Maybe he's in a marble thing.

He's in dust, my friend. You don't know James A. Smith. He's not laying anywhere. Wherever he is, if it is in a box, there's nothing in that box anymore. Do you guys really not know this? They take his ashes and they sprinkle a little bit into each NBA basketball that we play with. What about the W basketball? That as well, yeah.

Okay. They still got ashes these many years later? Yeah, they sprinkle that a little bit. He's a big son of a bitch. He's like eight feet tall. That's how they picked how high the hoop was. That's how they picked how high the hoop was. He said, about my hairline.

And that was ten feet tall. Exactly. Jeez, that lady must be eight and a half feet. She was the Wemby of her generation, actually. Whoa. She's about nine foot seven. She's the first coach in the WNBA. Whenever he died, he died thinking that she was the best player that he had ever seen.

And it would never be another. And wherever he is, we assume in heaven, he's looking down, looking at what Wemby's doing to his sport, thinking to himself, I didn't know this was possible. Probably stop watching. This guy's fucking taller than me, I didn't know this was possible. Yeah. Stop watching. This guy's fucking taller than me. I don't even know how this works here. I did not invent a game meant for this. What did he have? How many points and how long? He had 17 points in three minutes. He is the first

player ever to have, I think it was 1,500 points, 200 blocks, and 203. No, Wemby! Not Naismith. Naismith, I mean, shit. Naysmith's first season, he had like 10K. Naysmith said, listen, the object is to put this thing in my right hand into this hole in my left hand. I'm just trying to find people to do it.

Nobody would listen to him. This guy was fucking selling basketball for a long time. He was. You can shoot on that hoop at the Basketball Hall of Fame. They have every single basketball hoop lined up. Has Lethal Shooter gone in there and just busted that? I think he has a notice in Springfield, Massachusetts, baby. Something's here.

There's a basketball hall of fame here. Is it college? It might be. Caitlin referenced it. Indiana, big basketball state. Before Peyton Manning got here, it was racing maybe one, basketball two, or basketball one, racing two, and then football way down.

Then Peyton Manning got here and everything happened, became a football town very quickly. But still, Pacers, Fever had a run there. Tamika Catchings, they would have voted her mayor or governor here. Football was below racing. This place really sucked. Yeah, really bad. Peyton actually has an NFL Films doc where he says,

you know, what we wanted to do is change the narrative that the Colts were a team that people would circle on the schedule. Like, yep, here's a win, here's another win, because of how bad they were. And then now he has a statue downtown. We got a whole new stadium. Yeah, it worked. But it's a lot of house now.

Bingo. It's a whole new era. It's a strad house for now. Yeah, it worked. But it's a lot of house now. Bingo. It's a whole new era. Stroud House for now. No, Stroud House is Houston. Well, when Houston comes to the Lod House, it turns into the Stroud House. No, it's the Lod House and Stroud is in the Lod House. He ain't proud of that. It's about to go down.

I didn't want that to be the case, but it's the Stroud House. The Colts had a playoff game in the Lod House. I'll have you know that man whose name is tattooed on your right bicep above your tricep. Way above your tricep. Thank you. He coached the Colts. I don't know if you knew that.

He's part of the Colts organization. That's how I got to start. He's a special assistant. I suppose. Just have a little bit more respect, maybe. I mean, I remember that 1975. It was yesterday. Yeah, so whenever you're talking about the Loud House, let's remember that. You know who

helped build it? Bill Belichick, way back in the day. He also tore it down. Tore down that RCA dome. Well, I think Jim Ursena helicopter over California and the noise that was being pumped in rattled him. There was no noise pumped in. That was the original loud house.

That was proven. It was proven. People are going to say Lucas Oil Stadium is pumping in noise because of the loud house. I don't know if they'll say that. I heard that. Oh, have you played there? Have you been there? I heard that before, too.

CJ Stroud. Stroud said. Stroud told us. Loudest stadium he's played in in the NFL. Outside of Houston, he said, obviously, which is always going to be it. Well, I like that you already said about Baltimore after that playoff game as well. Baltimore's rowdy. Yeah.

Baltimore, good fan base. But the Loud House, we got an extra weapon. We can just go ahead and put the top on. Mm-hmm. You know, convertible. And just trap the loudness in whenever we need it. That'd be smart. But when it's, you know, sunny and 32 out in November, that thing's fucking

open, baby. It is so dumb. No matter what. I get so upset. Walk in there 47 degrees, we got this fucker open. Why are we doing this? Oh, it's not just the roof. It's also the side window. Oh, okay, good. So we got a little tornado coming. Is Glenn Powell coming to visit us?

CBS takes responsibility for crowd noise discrepancy at Indy. Audiogate and the issue of whether the Colts pumped artificial crowd noise into Sunday's game sound sounds as if it's not going to have the same staying power as Spygate. The Patriots videotaped the issue surfaced in cyberspace on Monday when football fans listened to audio

of an Indianapolis crowd that piped up when Tom Brady was at the line of scrimmage and died down once play was completed. CBS TV and the NFL said the mistake was not the Colts, but rather the networks. Exonerated. CBS has informed the NFL that the unusual audio moment heard that fans might have heard. Who wrote this? CBS has informed the NFL that the unusual audio moment heard that fans might have heard during the.

Jesus Christ. Come on. What are we doing? During the Patriots. This is something we would write. We need people to be good, not us. Who's the editor of this? Who's AI? Patriots. Whoa. We don't need AI.

Remember, AI's bad. Human's good. Heard during the Patriots quote, was a result of a tape feedback in CBS production truck and was isolated to the CBS broadcast. A league spokesman spoke like an idiot. So that was just a double, a duplicate like an idiot. So, that was just a double,

a duplicate of the audio. Yeah, I suppose. They were just riding the levels. Definitely believe that. That's from NFL.com. Obviously, we have a lot of respect for the NFL. We're thankful for everything the NFL does. For sure. Oh, another announcement? No, no, no.

I'm up something. We're up something. Something's up. Hell yeah. It's big. Huge. Well, Bill Belichick co-hosting Draft Spectacular is pretty big. Very big.

Yeah. He got multiple very big things. Bingo. This next one's real big. Isn't it, AJ? Maybe. AJ doesn't even fucking know. He has no idea.

I actually didn't know until today. I don't know. You just found out? I have no idea. Earlier, yeah. You know, you miss stuff sometimes when you're using dude wipes and things like that. So that happens to me a good amount. Isn't it amazing how fast things go in here?

And then also how long some things take. Yeah. And you forget about. Bingo. then also how long some things take yeah and you forget about bingo i'll do like a i'll be emailed a zoom call for like a random time like hey need you at this time on this thing who is it what is it and then they'll say something like oh i haven't talked to them in like three months or like yeah they're they're just getting back to us or whatever they're ready it It's like, okay, I got to go back three months in my mind to what I was thinking then. Do I still want to do this?

Yeah, I do. All right, we're coming in. And then it happens again. And then the boys have already forgotten about everything. So then it's a nice little morning whenever I just go, hey, boom, completed. And it's like, that's a cool moment for our company. Hell yeah.

This one's big. This one's big. We're up some. This one's been a long time. Long time. It's been a slow roast. A little bit too long. I did give up hope numerous times. It's a big one.

Let's win some money for some people, Pac-Man. What are you going to do, bub? Are you going to shoot? Let's do it. Here we go. Threes, free throws, what are you going to do, bub? Are you going to shoot? Oh, you're shooting. Threes? Free throws? What are you thinking? You want to shoot from stage? Stage, Brad? Maybe the putting greens since you're so successful on it?

I'll let you know this. You shoot from the stage gives you an excuse if you miss because Tyrese Halliburton missed 17 of them. Yeah, but it's kind of my thing. Takes my every day. Yeah, it's kind of my thing. You know what I mean? Threes. Okay. Smart move.

All you need, one. Oh, down to the corner. Okay. Got no backboard, though. You know, you got no help. Just got to put it in a bucket like James Naismith was hoping for when he's carrying around that. Good thing it didn't count.

Good warm-up. Well, Pac-Man going to steal a little warm-up here and there. That goes in one to count it. Pac, if you make a three, okay, if it's a swish, 25 winners. If you rattle at home, 20 winners. A $500. April 19th. I love Mary Jane coming out by the real Pac-Man Jones.

Now, can you win 25 people $500? Pac-Man, we shall see. As he goes to the corner in the Air Forces. Black Air Forces, white souls, though. So not a full Black Air Force mindset on this particular day. But certainly swagged out of his mind with two chains on looking incredibly cool. Can he win 25 people $500 with a splashy splash from the corner on this GOAT Wednesday? GOAT Wednesday.

All right, almost an air ball there. That's not good. It's not good. All right. Going to the wing. Pac-Man Jones now. That's not good. Change it up. All right. Going to the wing. Pac-Man Jones now 0 for 2 from the corner, but only one of them counted. Are you going to shoot from the same spot? Yeah.

Ladies and gentlemen, Adam, Pac-Man Jones is going to attempt a corner three. Is that Ray Allen? Whoa. No, no, no. That's Pac-Man Jones. If he splashes it, swish, 25 winners of $500. Whoa, still? Absolutely. It's a tough shot. Whoa, still? Absolutely.

It's a tough shot. Yeah, but he's already taken it twice. Yeah, but he's only officially lost one. He's already taken it three times. That's not good. That's a tough one. That's a tough one. That's a tough one.

There you go. Oh, okay. Oh, oh. There you go. Oh, okay. Oh, oh. Here we go. Here we go. That's very pumped up. That bat was very pumped up. There was a lot of air in that one.

Yeah, a lot of air. It's not easy to make. Come on, Pat. That's the regulation. Come on, Pat. Let's do it. Let's do this. The green hand job.

Yep. Adam Pacman Jones will be attempting a corner NBA three with a WNBA ball. It is incredibly inflated, as he's trying to point out. But the good news is we're looking for swishes around here. If he swishes this thing home, 25 winner! Oh! You're never going to get a good bounce with how pumped up that ball is. You're never going to get a good bounce with how pumped up that ball is. You're never going to get a good bounce.

And he's done with it. Yep. Too much. Hey, it was a great day. We've already given away enough. Yeah, we have. I agree. Yeah, 22 people won 500 earlier.

And four people won season tickets. And not even counting the knowledge. Now, we never said where those season tickets were going to be. No, we didn't. No, we did not. And today's giveaway was via Pac-Man last week or two. Oh, yeah. Thank you, Pat. Alright, we're going to

get the hell out of here. We can't thank you all enough. You're the greatest humans on earth for allowing us to do this for a living. Big thanks to Caitlin Clark for joining us. What a legend. So thankful she's in Indianapolis. She's cool. Awesome. Cleaned up, too. Very clean. Very cleaned up. Yeah, very casual.

She's coming on show Every single week We learn that So cool Pretty neat Big shout out to Kyle Busch For coming by Yeah

He's defending His championship At Talladega this weekend Let's make sure we watch that We're good Kyle If he wins that We get a Cheddar's Number 8 special

Yeah Big Chicken tenders What At Cheddar's Nothing better See you guys there ketchup and hot sauce with those chicken tenders i've done them in college about i don't know let's say 40 times buddy put it in there yeah oh it's job done number eight special yeah so fries too all

he's got to do is go back to back at Talladega. Biggest fucking raceway in the entire league. About as big as that lagoon. How far is one lap? 2.66 miles. 2.66. Listen. He was disconnected.

Sorry. That's my fault. I apologize. And today we learned... They should do races. They should do races. They should do races where you run around on the in-car. I assume they do. Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a part of the mini marathon here in Indiana. You run around the track.

Two and a half miles, I think, is what it is. Yeah, I believe that. Sam does it every year for this mini marathon. Talk and Mitt are doing it. Mitt's going to try to run the whole thing. He hasn't been cleared yet by his doctor, though. Mitt had like nine screws and plates all over his legs from all the wreck. He's trying to prove himself to his doctor that he can get through 13.1 miles.

I have a back issue, Mitt. I told him yesterday, hey, you should probably clear that with your doctors. He was sprinting on this treadmill when I went in here the other morning. Just full sprint, wide open. I'm like, Jesus Christ. Somebody downtown sent me a video, a talk, running the streets of Indianapolis last night. I was dying. Where is that?

Well, talk said, I'm going outdoor running next week to get ready for the mini marathon. I said, are you going to carb load the night before? He goes, two nights before. And the night before, I'm going to eat something light. And probably a breakfast. He's ready for it. Yeah, here it is. You do the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Then you go through a very, very sketchy part of town. And then you move towards downtown. Yeah, that's right. Then you move towards downtown. It's a beautiful thing. Every single May. And May in Indianapolis is fantastic, and it will be. We cannot wait, though, to get to Detroit because what we learned today is Bill Belichick will be co-hosting the Draft Spectacular.

Hell yeah. It's a great day. Shout out to Bill stopping by and having a full conversation with us, too. Yeah, incredible. 40 minutes or so. Yeah, it was awesome. He loves the league. He loves the sport. He loves the sport.

Yesterday, his birthday, just watching film. I go, what are you doing for your birthday? I'm fucking watching film. Best birthday ever. What do you want, pretty much, is what he said. Oh my god. Bring the fire department out to

blow the candles. He's been awesome. Adam Vinatieri always told me, hey, if you ever met Bill, if anybody actually met him, you would love him. Because he is, he does have the go up to the press conference and not

fucking say anything while wearing a ridiculous sweatshirt. There might be a little bit of miserableness. Of course. But I think if you view it as hilarious as opposed to offensive, it is a much different experience. He is fucking hysterical.

And are you talking about a human who knows more about football than him? I don't know if there is one. No way. And he's just going to be there for the countdown to the draft spectacular and the entire draft. We're lucky.

We're thankful. We're appreciative. We'll be back tomorrow with Randy Johnson. Hell yeah. And Peter Schrager. Let's go. Okay. And who else?

Big Randy. Who knows? Find out. Pat, good luck with the release of I Love Mary on 19th. Let everybody enjoy the hell out of your evening. We'll be back tomorrow. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice.

It might change their life. We're in this thing together. Team on me. Team on three. One, two, three. Team. Team. Goodbye.