The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 1112 - Big Unit Thursday with Randy Johnson, Brian Windhorst, Peter Schrager, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

On today’s show, Pat, AJ Hawk, and the boys chat about all the latest mock drafts as we are officially one week out from the NFL Draft, the NBA Playoff play-in games and the injuries that are mounting up, and what’s going on in the NHL as the playoffs are about to begin. Joining the progrum is 5x Cy Young, World Series Champion/MVP, 10x All-Star, 2002 Triple Crown winner, and Baseball Hall of Famer, Randy Johnson joins the show to chat about his illustrious career, being a physically impending presence, how much the game has changed from when he started to now, his love for photography and diving into that since retirement, and more (25:46-55:11). Next, ESPN NBA Analyst, Brian Windhorst joins the show to chat about the NBA Playoffs, injury updates, what Bronny James is going to do next, if the Warriors are going to blow things up, if Team USA is going to run through the Olympics, and his love for Ohio State and AJ Hawk (1:12:35-1:47:06). Later, NFL on FOX Insider and co-host of Good Morning Football, Peter Schrager joins the show to chat about his mock draft which tends to be very accurate, whether or not he’s moving to LA for Good Morning Football, what the biggest surprises from the draft might be, and much more (2:09:32-2:47:31). 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 big unit Thursday, April 18th, 2024. This sports program starts now! Sports! Are wonderful and there's a lot of sports going on as we count down today's to the NFL Draft, which is just one week away, where we will be live on YouTube, What? ESPN Plus, What?

ESPN.com, What TikTok. I think anywhere else you could potentially be live on social media alongside a man who will be co-hosting with us, the greatest coach in the history of the NFL and the greatest general manager in the history of the NFL. Bill Belichick will be joining us. Matt Malkyper will be in attendance. There will be some surprises. We'll have a draft board, and we'll have a hell of a Thursday evening with all of you starting at 730 with our countdown to the draft spectacular where that man, who's right over my right shoulder,

I look super professional. Yeah, that's a great photo. Yeah, shout out Derek for making the graphic here. And Kuyper obviously looks great. Con man, wow, living for making the graphic here. And Kuyper obviously looks great. Con man, wow, living your best life back here. But Belichick posing as if he's looking to the heavens to say, football gods, thank you for choosing me to be a man who has committed my entire being to the greatest sport on earth.

He'll be going through some draft myths and projecting what he thinks is about to take place from 7.30 to 8.00. And then when the draft kicks off, buckle up because we're there for the next nine hours as 32 teams will attempt to change their fortunes of next year. Will somebody draft a player that will be there for the next 20 years? Possibly. Maybe. Will all 32 teams or all 32 picks be complete busts?

Maybe. Hope not. Maybe. Will all 32 of them be Hall of Famers? Maybe. We have no idea what we're in for, but we know we'll be live in Detroit. We cannot wait for that. We're very, very thankful.

And also a little breaking news here on this wonderful Big Unit Thursday. Yesterday, we announced the whale had landed in the draft spectacular. That was Bill Belichick. I was excited to kind of tease that one because it did take a little bit to make it happen. A lot of meetings, a lot of conversations. I think Bill wanted to make sure he got a full grasp of what he was signing up for. Always going to be prepared and everything. He did that.

He studied our show. He's excited. I think that's what we saw yesterday. We are honored and grateful. So we're pumped to make that announcement. Thank you to the internet and to the world for reacting how they are. Now, I have heard from some people that are a little bit older. They're saying like, hey, how do I watch Bill Belichick on this thing?

Sure. I'm like, well, just like, you know, Amazon streaming. I didn't do the streaming. I'm not Amazon's puppet. Okay. Is it on TV? Is it not on TV? I'm going to say, well, funny., you know, Amazon streaming. I didn't do the streaming. I'm not Amazon's puppet. Okay. Is it on TV? Is it not on TV? I'm going to say, well, funny.

Is it smart TV? I don't need the funny business. Where the hell am I watching this? Well, you have to go to ESPN.com. I think it would be the easiest way. On your phone. Do you have a smartphone that has the internet? Yeah, I got ESPN.com.

It should be right at the top. You go to YouTube.com. There's a good chance it's probably going to be right at the top. And I know you love TikTok, you olds. So just go on TikTok. It'll probably be on at the top. You go to YouTube.com, there's a good chance it's probably going to be right at the top. And I know you love TikTok, you olds. So just go on TikTok. It'll probably be on there as well. So that is obviously huge news. We can't thank everybody enough for being as receptive as they are.

And we can't thank Bill enough for allowing us to have him be a part of our program. That's Thursday night for the Draft Spectacular. Correct. Friday, our show will be live from DeTois as well. Okay. Noon to three-ish. Okay. Day of round two of the draft. Roger Goodell will be

joining our program. What? The commissioner? The commissioner of the NFL. 12.30 Eastern time. Roger Goodell will be joining us live from Detroit on Friday after round one before round two kicks off. And we will finally have an opportunity to chit-chat with a man that has taken the NFL from ha all the way to ha will finally have an opportunity to chit chat with a man that

has taken the nfl from huh all the way to huh and assigned an extension to take it to huh we have a lot of questions oh yeah and i can't wait to chit chat with him i have been on the record of stating that what roger goodell is able to do speaking is something that not a lot of humans in the history of our existence can do one of the greatest talkers i've ever witnessed and seen we see it on display at his press conference during the super Bowl anytime he chit-chats. We saw him whenever he got summoned to House Oversight Committee. And I was excited to watch him dance with the politicians because he is a better speaker than politicians are. And he's also a better businessman than they are.

So we were pumped to see how he would handle it. I saw him in a team meeting before the lockout happened, answering questions from all different players and ideas, and boom, he was able to give an answer without saying anything. And then he just moved on to the next one. We walked out of there going, oh, okay, it makes sense. And then about a week goes by, and we're like, wait a minute, he didn't really. What did he say again? And that's why Roger Goodell was paid the big bucks,

because he is, you know, the man who's in charge of corralling 31 billionaires and keeping a league in a trajectory that's up and to the right. We have nothing but respect for him, and we'll get a chance to chat with him next Friday. So Bill Belichick draft spectacular Thursday night, then Roger Goodell on Friday, and then we head into the weekend watching the rest of the draft having the time of our life.

Being pumped. I am so excited and grateful that we get to do this for a living. The Talks at Table is here. At Boston Conner, at Ty Schmidt. Got a chance to show your saggy tricep to Bill Belichick yesterday. Yeah, it was crazy. I still kind of not really fully process it. Don't think I will process it for the rest of my life.

I mean, the thoughts. You texted me last night. The thought of being on a set with Bill Belichick for five hours in an evening will be incredible. The amount of times I'm just going to say, Coach, that's exactly what I was going to say, too. Thank you so much for laying it out much better. I mean, it's going will be incredible. The amount of times I'm just going to say, Coach, that's exactly what I was going to say too. Thank you so much for laying it out much better. I mean, it's going to be incredible. And, you know, Mr. Goodell joining on Friday as well.

That'll be incredible. Pumped for that. And, you know, not to mention playoffs starting all over the place. Yeah, NHL, NBA. They got obviously play-in games took place last night. A lot of updates on that. And also, NBA player has been banned for the rest of his life. See ya. Can't do it.

You're going to ruin the entire game. Can't do it. You remember what Tim Donahue did? Yeah. We banned him forever. You too, pal. One-way trip the hell out of here. Forever. Now, what's happening with John Terry Porter? Yep. Interesting name. Never seen that name before. Before this entire investigation.

Never. Obviously, you've seen Porter before, which I believe. Yeah, brother. Yeah. Yeah. The first name, though, never seen it before. Pretty proud of it, pumped of it. As I learned of him, though, I realized, oh, yeah, I'm never going to hear from this guy again. Because what he did was allegedly give some information about his health and other stuff to a known NBA gambler

that turned an $80,000 parlay into a million dollars. Okay? That's not great. known NBA gambler that turned an $80,000 parlay into a million dollars. Okay. That's not great. You know, the books, once they see them get, the books get hit for a million bucks on something. They're like, okay, we need to investigate this because that's not normal. They start looking into it. Then they start finding some irregularities in, you know, Jonte's betting sprees, including betting against the team that he was on, even though he was not playing,

betting against them in numerous bets, to the total of a $21,000 net profit. This dude won 21 grand, and in doing so, basically ruined his entire legacy, his name, and his career. Now, giving the information to an NBA gambler turning $80,000 into a million bucks, I think he probably could have pleaded ignorance. I was just having a conversation with somebody. It's my health. I didn't mean to give it away for them to do that. But whenever they track you and they find out that you

were making bets, not only on the NBA, but on your own team to lose, it's like that's an immediate get them the hell out of here. I'd assume the Raptors fans feel the same way. The Raptors team probably feels the same way. I see a lot of people comparing the punishment for him versus other things that have happened in the NBA.

And we would like to once again go on the record as stating that we understand that terrible things happen in a lot of different professions, but in professional sports as well, whenever you're talking about thousands and thousands of people, a lot of money, potential lack of good conscience in some things, and bad decisions are made, bad people do bad things. Not everybody in every league is bad. We're not saying that. But comparing that type of incident in Terrible Thing

versus gambling on a sport in which you can control the outcome, it's just two different combos. This one is integrity of sport. Integrity of sport integrity of sport potentially jeopardizes entire league game everything going forward marketing everything once people start realizing oh wait the players aren't even trying to well then why am i watching why am i betting that can ruin an entire league now terrible people can also ruin a league but you can eliminate that betting on games has to have a severe penalty. We saw it in the NFL a couple different times.

Now we're seeing it in the NBA. And as is sports, gambling is growing. We want everybody to do it responsibly, obviously, but also players cannot do it. We cannot have sports becoming something that the script people can actually point to and say, just like we said it was, it is scripted. Because once people start losing their own money on stuff, they start getting a bit more emotional. That's why you can't have any questions around it. I understand why they banned them

forever. I bet you a lot of NBA players understand why they banned them forever. But people on the internet are always going to point out, like, wait a minute, this is 20 games. Okay. And it's banned for life? You're going to say that this is worse? Well, it's like, gambling isn't necessarily worse than that. But jeopardizing everybody in the league's career and future is certainly not worth it. And that's what happens whenever players gamble on sports in which they're at. And we'd like to remind other NBA players, NFL players, MLB guys,

WNBA players, NHL guys, all of them, gambling is going to be around. And when you retire, you're going to be such a better gambler. It's going to be awesome. Oh my God, when you're done, it's right for the picking. You just can't do it while you're playing. It's all kind of understood by everybody that's ever played an actual sport. One half of the hammer, Cowboys 10 digs here. This is a massive

story in the sports gambling world, especially with where the world's headed to. Huge. And to your point, is killing someone worse than gambling on sports? Yeah. Yeah. It is. Agreed.

I don't think anybody's getting a 20-game suspension for killing somebody. No. This is hypothetical. Interesting hypothetical. I understand what you're saying. I don't actually, but I do. Is killing someone going to end the NBA?

No. Is players gambling on the NBA? They're in the NBA going to end the NBA? It could, potentially. So that's why he got the lifetime ban on this. And sports gambling is awesome, and sports is awesome, but you can't do this. Especially $20,000 is what he made.

Now, did he get a piece of the $1.1 million that he gave the information to the guy that thought he was going to be able to bet? $80,000 on a player that no one's ever heard with all due respect, no one's ever heard of this guy. You'll think a sportsbook

is going to be like $80,000 to win a million on a guy that nobody's ever heard of. That's going to get flagged immediately. That's going to go through the systems. They're going to check everything and check everyone's account. That's what's great about legal sports betting now. This stuff actually check everyone's account. That's what's great about legal sports betting now.

This stuff, actually, if this would have happened in the past before legal sports books, first off, yes. Dead. The guy that did the $80,000 bet? Dead. For a million bucks? Yeah. If you're dealing with the Italians or the Greeks, yeah, most likely dead.

In that situation. Especially on your own team to lose. Like, we've talked about players who bet on their overs, okay, and their team to win. Boxers have bet on themselves to win fights. Yeah. We've heard about that. Okay, all right, going through another. Let's up the purse a little bit.

But any time you're betting on your own team to lose, like, that is not. Nobody wants that person around banned for life okay the nba said it i don't think you're gonna find a team that's gonna be like give us the guy that was betting against his own team i don't i don't think that is necessarily something that every team would be desiring around free agency especially a guy that his over under was like one and a half yeah or something. Six points. Yeah, like they weren't high odds. But this is what happened when it kind of occurred with the Colts. Like you had to know, okay, is Isaiah Rogers making bets against the Colts to lose?

Like is he actively trying to sabotage the team? And no, obviously it was a different thing and he got suspended for a year. And, you know, losing a year of your NFL career, obviously huge deal. but he didn't get banned for life because of the fact of like the nature of the bets and like he can at least explain hey i was making these bets trying to make a couple extra dollars for family whether that's true or not whatever that's what he said like this is clearly hey i'm trying to i'm trying to beat the system i'm trying to beat the system. I'm trying to beat the league. I think I am smarter than Adam Silver who sat in that chair. Was it DraftKings?

Yeah, I wasn't sure what book it was. They came out and said it was the biggest win of the night last night. Was it Jaunte Porter better? Yeah, prop. Have you ever heard of this? We haven't until we just gave a million dollars to somebody overnight.

And then it happened again too i think there was another time where it was the biggest and they were like yeah this ain't well we need to talk about this and then the clips of him like hitting a three in a game and being like shit like damn it like you didn't mean to do it it's like those are so damning i haven't seen that oh yeah there's one where he he hits three from the wing and then as soon as it goes and he's like ah son of a bitch let's stay Let's stay in the basketball world away from that one because just as former player and as people that deal with gambling, I mean, Tom Diggs is a host of a gambling show

literally every day out of this office called Hammer. It's a phenomenal show. They've been on a winning streak for like two years somehow. Not guaranteed, but they have been swinging a hot bat for a long time. He, Gumpy, Bruce, and Mitt, obviously. Mitt is so damn good. We have profited from sports gambling being legalized. I understand that you could kind of say I'm a hypocrite,

but all of this works. Everything works in the sports world because we don't have it being actually manipulated from within. Coaches, players, things like that just can't happen. It just can't happen. And any time, and this is back in the day, I'm an old man, you know, you walk into any locker room, college, NFL, basically got a picture of Pete Rose doing that dive,

the slide head first or whatever. And it's like, don't be this guy. And that's literally how it goes. That's why the Shohei Otani thing was so big and so loud because it's like, would Shohei Otani, everything we know about Shohei Otani, and we've heard about Shohei Otani, would Shohei be a guy that would jeopardize

all of his baseball thing to gamble on soccer games around the globe? I don't think so. And what the feds are saying is no. Because if you're an athlete, it is literally pounded into your head. Literally, since you start this entire thing, not to do it. So, John Tate Porter at some point just had to say, to hell with it. I'm going to try to get away with it. It didn't work.

Let's stay in the NBA and cook in books a little bit. Boban missing those free throws for those people to get free chicken. It happened again last night as the Sixers were losing a game. If the opposing team

misses two free throws in a row, I think everybody in the arena gets free chicken or something like that. Chick-fil-A, I believe. Chick-fil-A in the entire arena. And first introduced to this by Beaubon, who they were up like 30 or something in the fourth quarter late. He's on the foul line, misses the first one, and somebody in the crowd is like, hey, Nija, Nija, Nija,

you missed another one right now. We all get free chicken. What's that? He doesn't know the, he doesn't, here it is right here. Here's Boban becoming a hero in another team's arena. Fans are getting excited here.

There might potentially be some free chicken. I got you. If he misses the second free throw. Close game. Eight points. A lot different than what I thought it would be. A little tight. I got you.

Boban's playing with the crowd. Say you want chicken? I got you. Here's your child. I got you. Would have been 106-97 there. Still a close game. Four minutes left.

Instead, Boban says, you know what? Yeah, you guys earned it. You absolutely deserved it. Happened again last night in the play-in game. I love it. This is brilliant marketing. See, this is smart here. They'll have, you know, for football, the in-game

advertising is the dumb. I've never... Yeah, not great. None of it has ever worked. I appreciate, you know, like, Stanley Security sponsoring, like, the challenge. Right. But is anybody watching that going, you know, I want the Stanley Security? I do need to, you know, kind of bone up my security. I don watching that going, you know, I want the Stanley security.

I do need to kind of bone up my security. I don't think anybody is doing it. Most of the advertisers are just there so they can say they're a part of it and do the whole song and dance. I get it. This one? Brilliant. Actually, the entire arena buying in, the players on the floor buying in, and

causing these viral situations. Congrats to Chick- Is it Chick-fil-A? I believe it is Chick-fil-A, yeah. Congrats to Chick-fil-A creating one of the best in-game advertisements that I've ever seen in my life. I'm watching that game last night,

and I hear the crowd. Oh, yeah. Start cooking, and I'm like, I don't know if it was in Philly. Here it is, yeah. Builds when you're not scoring. The frustration builds when you're not scoring, and you're not getting calls.

MC, if he misses it, it's a little bit different. Height. 59-48. MC. If he misses it. Height. Look at Chick-fil-A. Going nuts. For chicken. Free chicken. I love chicken.

Yes. Yes. That's a play-in tournament game. You got the commentator buying in. It spurred their run. They were down 11. They went on a huge run after this. The Sixers did.

I heard a lot of booing from the Sixers fans last night while I was watching because they were up early, then the heat come all the way back, and now Jimmy Butler is hurt, I guess, going forward and everything. But that is the most brilliant advertising in-game that I've ever seen, and I think it should be deserved nice applause every single time it happens. Yeah, absolutely. Beaubon also used to play for the Clippers, kind of like became who Beaubon is with the Clippers,

the John Wick stuff and all that, and then he went to Dallas with Luka. But there is a very easy way to work this in the NFL. Could you imagine? Miss Phil field goal. Yeah. I almost didn't want to say that because the lighthouse should probably adopt that immediately because that environment would be so sweet. Missed extra points.

Yeah, exactly. Like any sort of kick. Oh, yeah. Or false starts. False starts, it could work as well. Get real loud. If you get two false starts or something. Yeah.

Same drive or something like that. So then it is encouraging. Hey, you guys want chicken or not? Now, much different arena than stadium. True. Like arena, $15,000, $16,000. Stadium, $70,000. That's a little different budget for how much the advertising is.

But anytime a company can buy in and make something better, I am a big fan of it. Speaking of a company buying in and maybe making something better, what's going on with Seahawks? Good question. Interesting. This hit my news feed yesterday. Okay.

It reminded me of what happened with the Indianapolis Colts after all my friends got cut. So I was very lucky to be at the tail end of the Bill Pullian, Peyton Manning era. Okay, winningest decade in NFL history. Obviously, you've seen the highlights. Now, you never see Peyton Manning in a Colts uniform anymore. Sure.

You only see him in a Broncos uniform. That's because Jim Irsay. Sudo had to cut Peyton Manning because at the point, there was a lockout happening. He didn't know if his nerves and Jim, I guess, didn't know if the nerves from his neck were going to be able to make him feel his fingers ever again. Andrew Luck, the greatest prospect on earth, is sitting there. Weird situation. Now Peyton has a statue here.

I think Jim will try forever to make it right with Peyton. I think Peyton obviously understands it all. But you only see photos of Peyton in Denver Broncos uniforms. Not fun, not cool, not great, especially for Colts fans who became football fans because of what Peyton Manning was able to do. But it wasn't just Peyton Manning. It was that entire era.

You talk about dudes that have just sacrificed for this city of Indianapolis to make Indianapolis a football town. There was a nice mural on the wall. All my friends, literally with the Super Bowl and everything that this city is, from the RCA Dome to Lucas Oil. It was like a story of the Indianapolis Colts. With like Freeney on there, Mathis is on there, Gary Brackett,

Jeff Saturday's on there, Ryan Dean was on there, Peyton Manning obviously on there, Edron James, Joseph Adai's on there. Basically any, Bob Sanders I think was up in the top. Vinny. Vinny Terry's holding a fist pose. James, Joseph Adai's on there. Basically, any Bob Sanders, I think, was up in the top. Vinatieri's holding a fist pose. This massive mural was on the wall, and it was awesome. It was like, okay, this is kind of the story of the Indianapolis Colts and what it has been.

So then whenever they move on from Peyton, and then they move into the next era with Grigson, who I've made good with. That's right. Nice to chat with you, Ryan. I do think this is still a horrendous decision. And Chuck Pagano, literally day one, painted it, like saw them painting over the wall. The guy that had worked for the Colts, Angel, I believe his name was, who was friends with,

like he'd been a part of the Colts building and facility operator for a long time. He's the one that had to paint over. Tough day. He's paint over this mural. And I'm just watching as like Dallas Clark's on there, watching Dallas's face just get covered up and the trophies and everything like that. And it's like, okay, so we're not the Colts anymore?

No, it exists. So this wasn't, that wasn't good, what just happened in the last. Then all the photos of all the greats, all of them, go back to Unitas, all of them taken out of the part where the players are. Take those photos down. We're putting new players up there that we drafted. This is a whole new era, a whole new team. I personally hated it.

It was only, I was the youngest guy that was still on the team that didn't get cut, you know, from the previous regime reggie wayne was obviously still there robert mathis was there adam venetieri was there uh a couple other but it was basically a clean sweep whole new team and i was way too young to say anything but then i get a chance to fly to tokyo japan for a uso tour with chuck pagano sitting right next to him and i was going to retire so this was uh probably a year or two before I actually retired. I was going to retire because I hated just working for these people. I did not like it.

I did not enjoy it. I hated the way they operated. I just did not like what was happening. So me and Chuck next to each other, 17 hours, and I just basically gave it to them. The whole thing. I was like, how about day one when you just painted over the entire history of the Colts, took all the

photos down. We get it. It's the Indianapolis Chuck and Grigsons. Okay. Not the Colts. Now the Seattle Seahawks are doing the same exact thing. Yikes. Seattle Seahawks did the same exact thing. Painting over the walls. Here's Leonard Williams, formerly yes, of the Giants. Okay. Got traded to the Seattle Seahawks last year

on October 30th, I believe. Here's his take on the entire thing. My. Okay, got traded to the Seattle Seahawks last year on October 30th, I believe. Here's his take on the entire thing. My impressions with the team and with the coaches and with Mike as an overall feeling, you can just tell there's a sense of urgency right now. And in a way, that's kind of bringing everyone closer together. That's making everyone, you know, be so locked in and like in meetings and in the weight room on the field. It's like you could just tell there's a different sense of like everyone's like locked in on

a different level. And I remember the first day we came into the team meeting, Mike pointed out that, you know, there's empty walls in the in the hallways and things like that. And, you know, for a person like me, I think that made me really excited. And I hope it made the rest of the guys excited because, you know, we're obviously going to respect tradition and the history of the Seahawks. But I think it's given us like a clean foundation to like create whatever we want to be. We're not chasing to like be like any other team that's been here before.

We want to create our own identity. I understand. I appreciate. I respect it. But also, what the Legion of Boom and that Seattle Seahawks team did was wonderful. It was a massive piece of NFL history. It's like, let's not just try to bury what makes the team the team. McDonald doesn't probably want the gig in Seattle as bad if it wasn't for what Pete Carroll and the Seattle Seahawks had done

over the last decade and a half, two decades. So there's a lot that goes into it. That's a decision that gets made. I guess the good way to view it is like, yeah, we got a brand new start, fresh canvas and everything like that. And I understand and I appreciate that. But for me, when it happened at the Colts, my immediate thought was, what are we doing? What are we doing? Then we get Andrew Luck. We go to the AFC Championship game. It's like, all right, I guess we got brand new walls. Fair enough. And then it didn't happen again.

So, I mean, and they haven't won the... Yeah. But Ballard comes in. Tossed it back up. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody in every room. Dwight Freeney's in every room.

Robert Mathis in every room. Good. Peyton Manning's in every room. It's like, I don't think you should try to bury history to create your own. You can embrace it while also creating a new era. Hopefully, we have nothing but faith in McDonald. We think he's a fantastic coach out of Baltimore. Same with Schneider, but I don't like the move personally as a player,

but Leonard Williams does. He's in the locker room. Who cares? Moving away from football into baseball. There's a man joining us right now, okay? 22 years. Damn. This guy threw baseballs with his left hand.

Long time. Threw baseballs with his left hand. Hall of Famer, obviously. 303 wins. 166 losses. Damn. 4,875 strikeouts. That's a lot.

That's a lot. That's a lot. 4,875 dudes stepped into a batter's box with this big son of a bitch on the mound and couldn't get a hit. You know why? Why's that? He threw hard. He was like the intimidator up there. He'll buzz one by

your face and there's nothing you can do about it because he'll beat your ass too. Ladies and gentlemen, here for DirecTV, legend Randy Johnson. Yay! How are you, man? Hey, glad you could join us, Pat.

Hey, Randy, listen. Here's the deal. I cannot stress enough that when we heard there was an opportunity to have you on the show, how excited all of us were. I'm not a big baseball. I didn't grow up in the baseball world, but I knew who the big unit was. You know, like there is, you're a guy that crossed all sports, all genres,

because of how great you were. And as we talk about the DirecTV connection, thank you, DirecTV, for making this happen. They're giving away millet mullets millet is bird feed okay okay so you can get a mullet shaped millet to feed the birds there's little bird ballparks that they're you could win at direct tv forward slash bird ballparks directv.com forward slash bird ballparks right now and it's it's hilarious yeah first of all so i appreciate that direct tv is doing it i appreciate you signing up to do it let's talk about the bird uh let's talk about it you blew that thing up dude i mean just absolutely

day okay that bird is uh obviously no longer with us but that man who threw that ball is joining us with direct tv about bird ballparks around the place so that birds can safely watch a baseball game. At what moment did you realize that this was going to be talked about forever? And what is the first thing that goes through your mind as that bird kind of gets destroyed with a 100-miles-an-hour fastball? I think that was a spring training game down in Tucson in 2001, throwing the pitch in a spring training game against the San Francisco Giants.

I think it just kind of caught everybody off guard. I'm like, what was that that just happened? I thought initially that maybe someone had thrown something, and then the impact of the pitch pushed pushed the pushed the bird over to the on deck circle and jeff kent who was uh on deck picked it up and i think at that time everybody uh myself all the players everybody in the stands if you didn't realize what happened then, you did when he was holding up what was left of the bird. So 23 years later, they're still talking about this. Like you said at the intro, 10 All-Star games, won 300 games,

close to 5,000 strikeouts, MVP of a World Series. And? And I'm recognized and remembered for killing a bird. With your bare hands. Could you imagine if another bird was right behind it? We had two birds, one ball. Oh, man. Oh, my.

It would be the ultimate, ultimate metaphor. And the bird that got away would go home and say, sorry, Joe's not coming home tonight. Of course, the bird brains are something that certainly recognize what was happening in this situation there. Randy, let's talk about how you played baseball and how you threw baseballs. Because we went through a little, once we learned you could come on the show, we're like, oh, we got

to go through some big unit highlights. We go back. Obviously, you will remember this, but we did not. All-star game. You sail one over Kruk's head. Yeah, absolutely. And the commentators said, obviously, this one got away from Randy a little bit, but if we watch you pitch

any other time, you weren't scared on that first pitch to let her batter know, like, hey, I can hum this thing right at your face if I wanted to. This on purpose, this first one here? That's an all-star game in in 1993 and uh i think the ball just kind of slipped out of my hand it was a little humid a little humid there and then luckily i was able to follow up uh the next three pitches and uh and john cruck kind of swinging at it uh. And he was a good sport.

It was a showcase of the game. And I think that was a highlight that everybody remembers as well. Maybe not as much as the bird, but it was a pretty funny highlight of my career and of his as well. Okay, so let's talk about that because that's in the All-Star game. And I didn't follow baseball nearly enough. But everybody that does the baseball talks about you weren't scared right to let a hitter know what's coming at him you weren't scared to give up a ball early to intimidate is that an accurate depiction of how you pitched and do you think there's anybody now that pitches how you pitched no because uh No, because the game has changed in a lot of different ways.

But back when I pitched, I not necessarily was throwing a pitch like that on purpose. Sometimes it just happened, you know, especially early in my career before I got, you know, my mechanics down on a consistent basis. But it wasn't unheard of, you know, to be throwing a pitch to the backstop or throw a couple pitches up and in. And I think, you know, pitch hitters were, you know, hey, is this guy going to hit me? And, you know, I was just a bit wild. And at six foot 10, throwing 98, you know, 100 miles an hour, just a bit wild and at six foot 10 throwing 98, you know, a hundred miles an hour, um, that, that kind of stuck with me. And so after a while, I kind of polished my mechanics, just like a football player would you polish your ability and, uh, and you harness it. And then I go back to the, back to the early times and still throw a ball up and in.

But now I'm doing it on purpose because I'm letting them know, hey, you're up to the plate. I'm going to make your job a little bit more difficult, and that's what my job is, you know, make your job more difficult and doing it without hurting somebody, of course. Could you sense when somebody was scared to death in there? You had to have, I would assume, that you knew when somebody was scared. I don't...

In your induction, your intro to me, I struck out close to five, but I gave up a lot of home runs. Yeah. So I tip my hat to a lot of players runs yeah yeah you know uh so i tip my hat to a lot of uh to a lot of players that i

faced and they and and rightfully so they owned me and that would be that that would be the term that i would use they owned me so not everybody was scared not everybody you know had their tail between their legs when they came up but I did the best I could in trying to intimidate them in some way making that at bat difficult if I was a linebacker you know or a defensive end making that quarterback know I'm there every play and I may not have tackled you but I'm right there and I just ran right by you because I didn't want to get a flag. But I'm there. I'm going to be your worst nightmare.

And, you know, sometimes, you know, I would throw a ball up and in and then throw the next pitch right down the middle and I would have a kink in my neck because it just went 400 feet. You're like Max Crosby. I get it. I get it. Max Crosby. Yeah, yeah.

So I respected my my peers uh but but it was just kind of something that kind of came with my the territory that i pitched in that was what i was that's that's what i tried to tried to be uh and utilize the intimidation and fastball much like, say, a Nolan Ryan did back when he played, just a different era. And so there's not really anybody in today's game that really does that. You know, you can't throw a pitch up and in. And hitters don't understand and pitchers don't do that because, you know, it's just a different era of baseball now.

They don't pitch that way. So Ty is going to have a bunch of questions. He's a big baseball fan. Last one for me because you talked about this being a different era and different baseball and everything. I think it was a game last night, hour and 49 minutes or so. Hour and 49 minutes with the pitch clock and everything how do you think you would have handled the modern day and how do you think you would have been

received if you were batting do you think this generation's soft big unit because there's a lot of ex-NFL guys right who talk about the new rules and a new thing the game's soft game's soft now ratings are higher than ever I think participation is still going through the roof and everything but the old generation obviously thinks that the modern way of hitting and tackling and Now, ratings are higher than ever. I think participation is still going through the roof and everything. But the old generation obviously thinks that the modern way of hitting and tackling and unweighting yourself is all bullshit. Is that how you feel also about baseball? Is there a legion of you guys that think like that? And what do you think about the pitch clock hour 49 game?

I think that's what they've been trying to get out of baseball since I was playing. I remember we would have conversations during spring training where umpires would come in and they would tell us that we're trying to quicken the game up for the players and for the fans because nobody wants to be there for three hours you know and they were talking about trying to quicken up the game and shorten the game up in some capacity back when I was playing and that was 15 years ago and I think they've done a nice job of that I remember going to minor league games a couple of years ago where they were implementing the time clock and I I was at two back-to-back games uh in two days and the games were like you said you know a couple hours and and everybody enjoys a fast uh a fast game now the things that that uh you know and a lot of rule changes have happened. And it is what it is. The one thing that I don't like, because it would have been my profession,

pitching, and that's my livelihood, and I wouldn't want anybody taking that away from me. But if I was pitching in today's game, the fact that there's a lot of analytics in today's game and the number crunchers say that you're going to have a better chance of getting a hit off me if you come up for a fourth time, and so I have to come out of the game and you have to see somebody else. I don't like that.

I don't think that's necessarily true. The guy couldn't hit me the first three times. Now we're worried about the fourth time? What are we even doing here well i think i think that's what it i think that's what you know when you turn the lineup over two times or you come up for a third time that's about the sixth or seventh inning you know typically and the starting pitchers coming out because they feel that's when the batting average for the opposing team goes up and the likelihood of you giving up a big inning starts increases because the hitters have seen you now you know i don't know how they can say that because the

game's been around for 150 years and and and and generations before me were were pitching complete games and they did okay and my era did okay and yeah, not everybody does okay and the game should dictate what the game needs to be done with the person that's out there pitching. No, that doesn't make sense with the stats, Randy.

You should see the NFL. We got to deal with this shit too. We got to deal. But what I feel, and I truly love the game there's a lot of great talent it all throughout all of baseball right now pitchers and hitters and and the game is great but what i feel uh is my job in pitching is i don't want someone to say that I'm not good for another 30 pitches because you don't think it's in my mentality.

Well, I was groomed in the minor leagues to go that, and I think starting pitchers in today's game come out after five, six, seven innings, and that's because of the analytics. But I feel like you'll become a better pitcher by going deeper in the game. You have an opportunity to win more ballgames by being out there. Randy, I just got a stat in my ear here from Tone Diggs.

You have 100 complete games. Jesus! And that's nothing. Some pitchers, you know, before my era had maybe 200. Yeah, that was when there was six people on a team. 100 complete games. That would never happen in the modern era. Now, Ty Schmidt is our big baseball guy.

I've already taken too much time from him. Very pumped to talk to you, big unit. Yeah, Randy, one of the biggest moments of my life as a baseball fan, massive Yankees fan, is when they traded for you, even though it was at the tail end of my career. Or at the tail end of your career. I still remember

doing cartwheels, realizing that the big unit was coming to pitch in Yankee Stadium, remembering you just ripping my heart out in the World Series with the D-backs. But just curious, was there, there i mean you won four consecutive cy young's which that will for sure never happen again was there ever a point when you went out on the bump where you just felt like i just don't have my best stuff today because as a fan you look at the lineup card you see randy johnson pitching it's like okay well he's at the lineup card, you see Randy Johnson pitching. It's like, okay, well, he's at the very least going to have 12 strikeouts.

He's going to go eight innings. And if we're lucky, we might scratch and claw maybe one run off him. Did you ever go out there, especially in that dominant run, just thinking like, I just don't have it today. I don't have my best stuff. And if that ever did happen, how did you grind and claw during those games when you knew that you were going to have to potentially still go deep in the game to give your team the best chance to win?

Well, I think that made me the pitcher that I became. I was able, and I did just that. I would grind. I'd go out there and understand that you're not going to have your best stuff every time you go out there. And you got to grind. You got to be something that you're not sometimes and be able to get hitters out another way. I'm not going to have a 100 mile an hour fastball or my really good slider on any given day. I've got to go out there. I'm not going to have my best up. Well, I've still got to go out there and pitch.

And so there was times where I'd warm up in the bullpen, and I couldn't consistently hit the catcher or I couldn't hit the target. And I'm thinking, this is going to be a rough day. And then all of a sudden, when you go out to the stadium, and the bell rings and you take the mound for real all of a sudden things click and then there's been other times where i've thrown in the bullpen and i'm going wow this stuff's electric i'm feeling great and then i and you know i don't last an inning you know i walk a couple batters give up a couple of bombs, the next thing I know I'm down 5-0 already.

You're out. Go ice your arm and have a cold one. Okay, cold one. I will talk. Okay, I didn't know. I didn't know. Did we have a good time? Because we talk old school.

We heard Dale Earnhardt Jr. just on his podcast the other day was like, you know, they tried to get me into this nutritionist and get in the best shape of my life. He said, sometimes I just need to smoke some cigarettes and drink some beers on a Wednesday and I'd have my best stuff. And like in football, whenever I was in my first three years,

the night before the games, we had ice cream, we had pizza, we had wings, there was beer, you know? I mean, it was like, hey, we're going to come have a good time. We're going to hang out. There's a celebration. Then hey we're gonna come have a good time we're gonna hang out there's a celebration then tomorrow we're gonna play a game then nutritionists came in and they were assigned to every single team and it was like gone all that's gone this modern era i don't think they drink alcohol as much or kind of do as much because their entire

lives are monitored i've heard some legendary tales about baseball players especially being on the road how it is were you a guy that dabbled while winning four straight Cy Youngs, or how did you kind of manage life on the road and celebrating a lot, obviously? I think the pitching philosophy for me early on was, you know, I was still learning mechanics, being at 6'10", and being able to repeat my mechanics. That was the first problem that I had.

Initially then, when I got it worked out, I started having fun because my ability, I was harnessing my ability and I was able to throw the pitches when I wanted, where I wanted. And like I said earlier, I was no longer just launching a ball because I didn't have any control. I was launching it because I was trying to make an impact or an impression at times. And then when I got my mechanics down, well, then, you know, it's all about, you know, how can I become better? And then I learned more pitches. I was watching great pitchers that I looked up to that I thought were the best in my era. Greg Maddox, Tom Glavin, Clemens, Pedro Martinez, people like that.

How can I just watch from the sidelines and incorporate something that they're doing and implement it in my game? And then, you know, what can I do in the weight room? Work a little bit harder cardio. uh what can i do in the weight room uh work a little bit harder cardio hey if you're not separating yourself from the next guy then you're no bet then you're just going to be as good as him and i wanted to be better than everybody uh at least that was my mentality and so i tried to work harder and initially i probably did mechanic wise because i was a you because I was a mess out there. Imagine in Bull Durham. I was 6'10", Nuka Lelouch out there. Yeah, exactly. But then when I started going through that run of some success,

I hired a nutritionalist. That stuff wasn't around in the 90s or in the early 2000s. Towards the end of my career, that's when everybody started getting like, you know, eating properly. What you put in your body is what you get out of your body. Tell Babe Ruth that he had a 12-pack of beer the night before and a couple of hot dogs

and he would go out there and hit a couple of home runs. I mean, that is, it is such an old school versus new school idea because it's like stats and science tell you if you're in your best shape, you should perform at your ultimate level. But in team sports, I think teams come together much better around a keg than they do kale. Like, I think everything has a, you know, I think like there is a reason for teams to come together. And it's, it's interesting how it's viewed by media the newer generation old school players and then like the way way back guys are like you guys don't smoke at halftime

what do we even your lungs are too soft we just got out of the mill okay so we're running 100 yard gassers while smoking cigs you guys are soft it's like time is crazy randy it is a crazy thing as we continue to evolve but but athletes are getting better. Speaking of athletes getting better, Connor has a question for you, unit. Yeah, Randy, obviously pitching is very much between the ears and a lot of guys have different, you know, well, what's the word kind of routines that they go through before if they're superstitious. There it is. Did you have any of that as far as pregame routines go? Were you wearing, you know, the same pair of underwear like Dan Hurley did for UConn? Or were you just kind of like, hey, give me that ball.

I'm going to go out there and strike out 15 guys. We're going to win this game. I just think the mentality that I had, I just, you know, I never wanted to, you know, go out there and not be prepared. You know, everything's a transition, you know. When I started getting my mechanics down, I started having some success, I was just wondering, how can you get better? You know, learning more pitches, being more prepared,

understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent, you know, being able to pitch accordingly, things like that. And then a little bit of nutrition came into play, but I didn't have any things that I had to wear or live by. I just went out there and I tried to do the best I could for my teammates. And after a while, I understood that, you know, the fans came every fifth day because I was pitching. And they're paying their hard-earned money to come and watch me. And I'm an entertainer, if you will.

And I want to entertain. Scott's going to kill a bird tonight. There's a chance we've got a dead bird out here tonight. Kill a bird tonight. There's a chance we got a dead bird out here tonight. I can't assume that that's going to happen inside the kingdom in Seattle or a baseball park, you know. What if the bench started letting out birds? Yeah, let the birds out.

Let the birds out now. But I tried to do the best I can and entertain them. And after a while, it became, you know, more about them than it was about what I was doing. You know, there were things that I would do that it was, you know, I was expected to do that because that's what you, you know, after a while, it's like you have a great gift. You're getting paid to do that. That's what you do. a great game you're getting paid to do that's what you do and I think sometimes when you're doing some of these things that you know only a handful of people have ever done you just kind of take that for granted I think you know I mean look at my mechanics here on this last pitch and then you look at it like you know 10 years later I mean I'm just all over the place just

throwing the ball and that was in 1990. And then a couple years later, I have a nice conversation with Nolan Ryan and Tom Howes, the pitching coach for the Texas Rangers, and they kind of helped me with my mechanics. And instead of falling off towards third base like that last pitch, I was falling. This guy didn't know how to pitch. There's nothing wrong with that, but you lose your arm angle, and I was losing my velocity towards the end of the game.

So when I went with what they were teaching me, you know, I was going towards home plate. I would keep my arm angle, and I would go towards the batter instead of falling off towards third base. Man, it's amazing how much that is similar to kicking. Kicking, you're trying to keep your body in line. I assume there was, I don't know if back in your day, no offense, not calling you old,

but you get it. That was some standard deaf video we just watched. Did they put lasers? That wasn't black and white film there. I'm sure we could find some for you. I mean, 22 years in there, but did you put the lasers on your shit? Did they do that whenever that's what they do now?

I don't think that was around then. You dinosaur. So maybe I am old. Yeah, but you got a whole new life. Tone's got a question for you. Yeah, Mr. Unit, about that. So when you were in Seattle with Junior Griffey, did you guys just talk about that when you

guys were done playing baseball that you guys were just going to dominate the photography game after you were done playing baseball because it's awesome and hilarious to see you in these pits, photography pits and stuff like that on the sidelines of these ball games. Six foot ten, Jesus. I've been doing this since I went to college at

USC. I studied photojournalism then and I worked for the college newspaper and got a better understanding of photography and all that and I really enjoyed it and then that kind of took a back seat to my career that was about ready to happen and I had to immerse myself into being the best that I could because I knew that was gonna I was hoping that would be my livelihood not photography and luckily baseball worked out. And then after baseball came to an end after 22 years,

then I dusted off my camera and started going on some trips. And the next thing you know, I've been to Africa six times, and I've had an exhibit in Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. And right now, presently, I have an exhibit in Cooperstown, New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. And right now, presently, I have an exhibit in Scottsdale at the Scottsdale Performing Arts. So my photography has got to next level. And Junior and I have talked. Junior is just kind of getting into it now. He's talked to me a couple of times about going to Africa because he knew that I had been going there.

And so I think for me, it's just a passion. It gives me an outlet of trying to be creative and get my mind right and be focused. There's some parallel to photography and pitching. You know, when I'm going to Africa or going somewhere on a photography trip, there's a lot of preparation. Well, it's no different than, you know, tomorrow I'm pitching against the Atlanta Braves and I got to know who's going to be in the lineup or most likely who's going to be in the lineup

and know their strengths and weaknesses and then be able to go out and execute. Well, when I'm going on a photography trip, where am I going? What type of the year am I going? What's the weather going to be like? What kind of camera gear do I need? What am I looking to achieve there? Things like that. You need to put in the time and effort and then hopefully you get the results. Yeah, we're looking at the pictures

right now. I mean, damn. You told the receivers to line up right there? You said, hey, right here, single foul. I'll throw a baseball in right here single file yeah ask the bird over here yeah look at me six trips to africa i've been watching some videos on the internet you need not be in one of those uh vehicles with one of those right there when an elephant is pissed off these elephants been knocking these things over yeah And these elephants, they talk. They talk to each other. They're knocking these things over.

Look at that shot. Are you in there? You're in the safari doing this? That's nothing for an elephant to get mad and knock that thing over. So what are you doing? You got full ghillie suit on. You're out there two, three days. You're sneaking up on these animals.

How's this whole thing work? Well, I just, you know, I initially went. This was a family trip. And then I got more involved in it. And I really enjoyed it. And it was a great outlet for me to do photography. And I just really had a great time, you know. Like I said, preparing where I was going.

And it wasn't just the animals that I was seeing. It was a lot of trips that, you know, I'd go to, you know, a remote area like I'd go to Rwanda and go trekking up into the mountains and go see the silverback gorillas. That was something different than seeing a lion or something. You know, I'd go I'd go and do that. But I would go and, and you know see a 700 pound linebacker walking through a bamboo forest that uh what's that cheetah that was staring at you right there the not this one not the sand one the leopard uh leopard yeah we were driving around uh around the perimeter of a hilltop and we knew there was a leopard up there,

and we couldn't find it. And then all of a sudden he popped out and said, here I am. I know you guys are looking for me. Here I am. I know where you are too. That's awesome. Was it at that moment you thought about,

this leopard has no idea. Where's my bag of baseball? Where's my ball? I'll put that thing high and tight on that shit. You keep looking at me like that. I think seeing this stuff and taking a picture of that, yeah, that's just pretty cool stuff. Beautiful.

There's obviously a lot more photographs that are on display from Ethiopia, and I had a pretty interesting time in Ethiopia and seeing the Ethiopian people there and understanding how they live and their culture and being able to take some photographs of them. And then this stuff just kind of comes back 180. You know, when we were growing up, I'm a little bit older than you, but when you're growing up and you're in sixth or seventh grade, you're looking at the National Geographic with the Ethiopian lady with the platen lip. Well, you know, I've been to Ethiopia on a couple of different occasions. I'm taking these pictures of the same thing, and I'm catching myself thinking, wow, I remember when I was a younger kid looking at these pictures.

Now I'm taking them, and I'm putting them on an exhibit myself. Pictures from the picture is really beautiful. It's so cool. And we're so thankful you joined us today. I know that the world is going to want these bird ballparks. DirecTV.com forward slash bird ballparks. You could potentially win one of these little bird stadium things. And then also a millet mullet.

Millet is bird feed with the mullet in the shape of what randy had whenever he was a four straight cy young winner would win another one for five cy young's absolute stallion we appreciate you so much for joining us hopefully we'll get to talk to you soon thanks pat appreciate man hey no sleep till bro. Great shirt, man. Ladies and gentlemen, the big year to Randy Johnson. Yeah, Randy. Yeah, yeah. I was trying to make it a hard time whenever they were in there.

Yeah. Just knowing that he's 6'10", up on a mound. So you're literally looking like that. That ball gets on you quick. Well, then he buzzes the tire real quick. And it's like, okay, alright. Am I just going to eat one from the big unit right now? I hope not. And then he brings

a crook that all-star at bat. So sweet. So sweet. Just, okay, alright, yep. I get it. You have that in the arsenal. And then busts his ass with three right down the middle after that and strikes him out. And crook, he's literally bouncing out of the –

Yeah, he's standing in the bucket. It looks like Henry Rowan Gardner, okay, in his first at-bat where he gets called up for the Cubs in the back corner of the batter's box. Just what a moment, what a stunt. I had no idea that we could potentially have Randy Johnson on the show. So cool. As soon as it showed up, I was like, yeah, I don't know much about baseball, but I know the big unit.

Of course. I would like to chat with him. A deep guy. Yeah. Six trips to Africa, taking photos. He's got something in Scottsdale. He's got something in Cooperstown, he said. Yeah, Cooperstown, yeah.

Wonderful, wonderful. Baseball. Too much talk of baseball. Baseball? Oh, we're talking baseball studs. Exactly. When you're talking to a Randy Johnson or a C.C. Zabathia. It's not about baseball.

You're talking to athletes. Exactly. Yeah, you're talking to a Randy Johnson or a C.C. Zabafia. It's not about baseball. You're talking to athletes. Exactly. You're talking to icons here. I mean, 4,800 strikeouts. I'm a noted, not big baseball guy. Love Randy Johnson. Hembo sent me this text in the middle of this. Interesting stat.

Had Randy Johnson never thrown a single pitch in his 20s, he would still rank fourth on the all-time strikeout list. fourth on the all-time strikeout list. Sports! Sports are wonderful, and sports create legends and icons, and we just got done chatting with one of them and Randy Johnson. Randy, thank you for taking the time to join us. Can't wait to go on a photo-talk trip with you

to Africa someday. Hell yeah. I won't go to Uganda, though, to see the Soft Ground Wrestling organization. Okay. I don't know if you've seen that promotion happening down there. That is where I would like to head to first. But then if we need to go out to the safari to take some photos, I'm certainly down with that. Not getting in one of those cars, though. No, no.

Because these elephants have just been running wild with their tusks. At Evan Foxy, the man who pushes the controls to cut the cameras and edits the videos here, you went down there, and you were letting this elephant just drink out of his pool yeah i saw these videos did you know that that elephant a smarter than you b will remember you forever yeah and then c could have picked that pool up and dumped it on you and your fiancee if it wanted to did you know that yeah we knew that was possible but that one was really friendly that one was nice now when we entered Africa, the very first animal we see is an elephant. He was not happy. He chased us down. The guide said, nope, we're not stopping. He's pissed

off because he wants to mate. That's when they get mad is when they want to mate. He wanted to bone your car? Yes, exactly. He saw us. He was all pissed. I want to bone this buggy. He's going to take an elephant. Look at the muffler. I don't know if it can handle me, but we're going to find out.

Yeah, so that happened to us twice on the trip. It was actually really awesome. Think about how handsome Foxy is, too, with his big dumb face. That elephant was right away. I won't give you a piece of that. That's your fault, Foxy. You jeopardized everybody's life. Hope you're happy.

The Talks of 10 was here. At Boston, Connor and at Ty Schmidt. Con Man next Thursday night. Draft Spectacular with Bill Belichick on youtube espn.com espn plus and tiktok live jacked up six to midnight for sure yeah i cannot wait and i do feel like the uh espn.com crowd is going to really come through you mentioned it earlier i think those those are elder statesmen of this planet they they might be hammering that url up there I'm looking forward to it. There may or may not be some 30-second commercials coming to a TV near you.

Okay. Explaining to people how they could potentially find our show on Draft Spectacular Evening. Now, we understand that every single day we're at least one hour only on the Internet, and we know that we lived for the last six years only on the Internet. But there's a lot of humans that if they hear Bill Belichick's doing something, wait a minute. I'll listen to that guy. So where do I go?

ABC? No, ABC has a phenomenal broadcast with the College Game Day crew. Nick Saban will be there. So I go to ESPN? No, ESPN will have Mike Greenberg, Mel Kiper, Field Yates, I believe. The whole team there on ESPN. ESPN too? No. NHL playoff game.

So I heard Bill Belichick's dude, where's that at? It's on the internet. Great! Great! Everything I like has to change. So we are going to make this as easy as possible for people. We're going to make a 30 second commercial. We are going to make this as easy as possible for people. We're going to make a 30-second commercial.

We are going to flood some channels with these 30-second commercials. And ESPN.com I think is the easiest way to find it. YouTube.com should be. You would think it may be up there. But if their algos aren't sports algos, that ain't going to get there. You know, if you tell them to go to TikTok,

okay, you're talking about that. You're talking about the China plot. Yeah, not doing it. Okay. No way. Am I going to dance next? I don't think so. That's my fix. So we're not going to promote that one.

ESPN Plus. Oh, I got to download it. Of course. Got to download an app. App is what you get for half price at Applebee's. That's right. I ain't downloading another app. So I think ESPN.com is the easiest way for the no offense.

This is a compliment, the olds. And hopefully this year, we'll see an uptick in that particular demo. A lot of people say, I don't care about that demo. A lot of people say, well, get the olds out of here. I'm not saying people say, well, they always say, well, what's the rating from 18 to 49? Well, for our particular program, on the internet or analytics, 93% is from 18 to 49. Okay. Then you've got like 4% is younger, and then like 3% is older. This draft's spectacular.

It's going through the roof. We're getting the olds. 90%. Come on in. The water's just fine. Let's go to ESPN.com, and it should be right in front of you. And I think this draft is about to be the best draft that we've ever had. For sure.

Because we have a never-ending supply of football information sitting on the desk with us. And I saw some reaction was negative. Majority positive. Sure. You're getting this boring-ass dude. Hey, what you see at those press conferences, okay, desk with us and i saw some reaction you know was uh negative majority positive sure you're getting this boring ass dude hey what you see at those press conferences okay i think in his eyes i don't know him that well i don't know him as well as other people i think he potentially thought that was hilarious to do i think whatever he's talking he is a hilarious if you listen to how he's saying what he's saying he and we will certainly. Oh, yeah.

Have a little faith. Have a little faith. And for those of you that said, why are you having him on the draft? GM, what is that? Because when I introduced him yesterday as the greatest general manager of all time, I had some people that say, I'm a Patriots fan, and I don't even believe that. Well, you're a doofus then. How about that?

Everybody talks about him being the greatest coach of all time because it's Coach Bill Belichick. Well, he was also the general manager for the greatest dynasty in the history of professional sports. Six Super Bowls as a general manager win. Most Super Bowls of any NFL GM ever. Nine-time AFC champion. Eight consecutive AFC championships at one point during the run. Thirteen AFC championship appearances. Has had three Hall of Famers just now. But then you start adding in Wilford, Vinatieri, you start going through all of them.

It's going to end up probably double digits in this entire thing. Yeah, but he couldn't draft good. Okay. Okay. Well, how about winning football games as a general manager? Greatest of all time. And we're lucky to be sharing the draft set with him. And I'm sure he's excited to potentially give some takes on the first 10 picks, something that he didn't see for like 20 years as the Patriots GM, because they won so many games

that they had a late draft pick. And life is, obviously they've certainly found great draft picks later in the draft. Brock Purdy's Mr. Rowland, that's the last pick of all time. But it's a much different conversation on hitting and missing at like 6, 7, 5 than it is at 30, 28, 29, 30, let alone everywhere else. And it's like I don't understand why the disrespect is the way it is about him being a general manager. The guy's the only guy that's ever in the history had success doing both,

and he's done it more so than anybody else. I don't get that as a cult yeah exactly saying that i don't get why that's never a part of the convo it's solely the draft i mean it's we've been dealing with it for the last four years the conversation of bill belichick has lost at the everybody points to well look at it look at his draft picks he hasn't re-signed a first round uh draft pick since you know 20 2010 or whatever the hell it was. But, I mean, you said at the end of the first round, that's where they always were, selfishly as a Patriots fan,

I wish that he could have had the experience of drafting in the top five like we do this year. That's going to be unbelievable. But the Hall of Famer thing, like, sure, the Hall of Fame is where everyone's going. The amount of players that he got that weren't great through trades, and this isn't a shot at Kyle Van Nooy whatsoever. Kyle Van Nooy has accepted and said, I believe, on this show,

hey, when I got to Detroit, my expectations were high. I was a second, third-round pick, and I had to perform, and I didn't start my career off very well. We get Kyle Van Nooy, and he immediately is one of the better players, if not one of the best players on our defense. The amount of times that happens just on its own. Jabal Sheard, he came over, immediate

impact. Martellus Bennett, first rounder, he comes over. Basically, I won't say he won the Super Bowl in Atlanta, but people forget pass interference. Martellus Bennett set up the James White touchdown. They actually tried to throw it to Martellus Bennett on a face. The amount of times that happened. LeGarrette Blount.

LeGarrette Blount. And, like, the Hall of Fame thing, are they counting, like, Revis? Or are they only saying the amount of players that he drafted? Yeah, Randy Moss. Randy Moss. Because I can think of five off the top of my head. So I'm not sure about that. But still, like, the amount of players' careers that he changed.

Like, Randy Moss was traded for a fourth-round pick. People kind of wrote Randy Moss off when he went to the Raiders. Randy Moss comes to New England. He breaks the single-season touchdown record with Tom Brady. The amount of times that happened doesn't get – And he drafted Tom Brady. Bingo. So, like, pick 199.

Well, if it wasn't for Tom Brady, he'd be nothing. Well, who drafted Tom Brady? Who taught and coached Tom Brady? Who does Tom Brady give a lot of credit? Him. So, like, enough. I just. It was the Youngs, Pat.

It was the Youngs. Yeah. Those people who say that he isn't a good GM, I am leaning towards Tony. Like, I don't think they fully grasp what football is. Well, this is kind of, and this is incredibly stupid. Like, the way we're going about doing our thing in sports media. Okay. Like we license our show to ESPN. We own the show.

We have full creative freedom. We are the ones deciding what goes on, what doesn't go on, not somebody else. That was tough for a lot of people to understand because it hadn't happened that way in a lot. So there'd be a lot of things being said and it's like, no, that's not how this goes. With him being the GM and the coach, people aren't used to that. So it's not like a normal thing. Well, there had to be somebody else. Like, no, he's the one.

Well, there's no way he was able to do both. Exactly, that's what we're saying. Yeah, he was able to do both. Now he had great assistants. Casario was in there. Lombardi came in at different times. Like there's a lot of greatness that has come from his general manager tree, even though we talk about his coaching tree. But it's like the lack of respect on him as a gm was just like

befuddling from some of the people i saw yesterday and on college game day when i said it to him to his face there were some people that responded like gm yeah right it's like so if there was any other general manager and they were the general manager for the greatest dynasty in the history of sport and had more Super Bowls than anybody else and had more AFC Championship appearances. Like, would that GM be the greatest GM? Yes. So what are we even talking about here?

I don't fully understand. We get him for the entire first round alongside of how our dumbasses, one half of the hammer, die, Cowboys Town digs. And you talk about drafting at the end at least 13 times within the bottom four if you're going to the AFC Championship 13 times at least. Brandon Bean came out today and said, we don't have a first-round draft grade for 28 guys. They're picking at 28 or whatever.

And he said that's more than they had, but they have more first-round draft grades this year than they did last year. So I assume teams all the time, like there's not 32 first-round draft grades on these guys. So you're taking guys that are more of a risk when you're drafting them. Yeah, but you've got to remember the way the draft is covered is everybody's a Hall of Famer. Everybody's a Hall of Famer. If it doesn't work out,

what happened then? Well, some situations are certainly tough in coaching and players in front of people and maybe injuries take place and you get unlucky and everything like that but also like sometimes you're just not able to make a team because the draft class ahead of you the draft class 10 years ahead of you still has a guy taking

up the spot it's like it's a tough thing and i don't understand joining us now is a man who's a college football national champion a super bowl champion actually saw him uh win the super bowl this morning against pittsburghberg Steelers on NFL Network. Sweet. And people forget in the first quarter, he had a reception. He did. Aaron Rodgers has Brett Kiesel crashing down on him. Aaron overthrows Jordy.

Who's on the sideline to catch that thing? A.J. Hawk. Wow. That's first quarter. That's right. His awareness first quarter of the Super Bowl is at an all-time high. His hand's phenomenal. He's currently the president of Ohio. Ladies and gentlemen, A. That's right. His awareness first quarter of the Super Bowl is at an all-time high. His hand's phenomenal. He's currently the president of Ohio.

Ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Hawk. A.J., you remember catching that ball in the first quarter? I do remember catching an errant throw by Aaron. I think he threw it away, didn't he? Kiesel was in it. Yeah, we'll say it was a throw away. Kiesel was a monster. I all respect Kiesel.

He is a monster. I'd get rid of that thing. Well, so are you. We saw you. Tackle A.B. Yeah. Destroyed him. Yeah,el's a monster. I all respect Kiesel. He is a monster. I'd get rid of that thing. So are you. We saw you tackle A.B. Destroyed him. You had a big game. You had a big Super Bowl. I don't know about that. I'll tell you what. I'm very happy we won. No question about that. Very happy we won.

That's all that matters. Don't have to redo that game. Happy we won that one and got on it. I just did a... Because the announcement of Bill Belichick yesterday obviously goes big. A lot of very positive things. But then if you see some of the comments, it's like, why would you want Bill for the draft? What are we even talking about?

Why would you not want Bill for the draft? He's been in the NFL for 40-some years straight. This is the first time he's going to be experiencing a draft that he's not drafting people or taking a big part of it. And if you watched even two seconds of when he came on yesterday, the dude was very talkative and seemed like very engaged and he wants to like he was teasing things like he wants to do a good job like it's going to be fun for the good of the sport like he he loves the sport

loves the sport loves the league like passionate about it for the good of everybody here let's make sure we do this right it's kind of how the conversation has gone with him in the amount like how open he's been like yes we have conversation i have conversations with him in the morning and here and the boys get to hear it and we're kind of scheming like the amount of things where he has an idea okay he wants to do it but then at the end he'll go oh you tell me is that what we're doing i'm like you tell me is that what we're doing he's like not my show this is your show it's like well it, well, it sounds like you have some ideas, though. We need to not harness these things. He's like, all right, good. We'll do that then. I'm like, sweet.

And he's like, we need to explain stuff to people, don't we, before the draft starts? Don't you think, like, before things happen we need to do it? So you want to do like a countdown or a kickoff to the show? Like 30 minutes beforehand? Yeah, yeah, that should be good. Okay. What are we going to talk about?

I was like, what do you think we should talk about? He's like, well, there's all these conversations about like best available versus need and all these other trade conversations and point values for all these things. Like all these things that get talked, we should talk about those. And then like, kind of, I'll give my take on it. My take is not how everybody views it. Our board is not how everybody views it our board is not how everybody's board is going to be but at least we'll be able to debunk some things and hopefully further explain some things i'm like i love it it has been a huge honor getting a chance to chat with him and next thursday i think he is going to be electrifying yeah i am very pumped up about it aj i mean think how many like the millions of questions are going to pop up that we're just

going to try to pepper him with, with everything that is going on. I know Lombardi talks about they have a pretty unique grading system on how they grade players. A lot of other teams, I think, have carried on that same grading system. So I'd like, yeah, it'd be fun to ask Bill, like, hey, is that still what you guys do? Is that what you did for this? Like all of it.

He is an artist with the F word. An artist. Picasso. Absolute artist. I don't know if that is very well known. I know that him not drinking coffee a day in his entire life made political news last night. That was a big deal. I think the more things we learn about him, there's going to be bigger news.

But I think what we're going to learn on next Thursday night is his brain is just still and has the memory to 1982 draft on. Probably even earlier than that. It's absurd. All of that aside, I mean, he talked about it yesterday doing trades with Andy. He's done trades with, what, 30, probably of the 32 GMs just because there's a couple new GMs this year. So he can give us an insight because he knows these people personally. He's worked with them for 20 plus years on what they are thinking too.

Listen to this shit. He called me this morning and rattled off three GMs and was like, do we want to talk to this guy? And I'm like, yeah, I know draft night's pretty busy. He goes, well, once they make the pick, though, there's really nothing unless they're going to trade again. There's really nothing going on. I'm like, if we could talk, that would be cool.

He goes, yeah, it won't be a problem. I'm like, Bill's booking the show. Yeah, unreal. Bill Belichick is booking the show. He goes, yeah, it won't be a problem. I'm like, Bill's booking the show. Yeah, unreal. Bill Belichick is booking the show. He's fully invested. We're very grateful. We can't wait for next Thursday night. We hope you will join us.

Let's pivot away from the NFL. Let's go to the NBA. There's a lot going on. Obviously, playoffs are starting. The playing games just took place. And there's a lifetime banishment that just took place because of a sports gambling situation. To break it all down, ladies and gentlemen, ESPN, NBA pundit, and all-star. Hey, now, you're an all-star.

Get your game on. Go play. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Windhorst. Yeah, Wendy! What's up, Wendy? Special hello to Mr. Hawk, one of my all-time favorite Buckeyes, who I will always acknowledge as such when I'm honored to be on.

That's just the way it's going to be. Sorry, everyone else. Hey, let's not have a Greg Doyle situation here, but I do appreciate you. Mr. Hawk. Right back at you, Wendy. Maybe. I mean it. And I still think you were robbed with the Lombardi trophy,

or the Butkus trophy. I'm still not over it. I hope you are. All right. Right back at you, Wendy. The old Hart situation. I don't even know everything that went on with Greg Doyle, but that sounded weird.

Yeah, you know everything that went on. And then there was a couple follow-ups, and then an article, obviously, a column. Got worse. I mean, it only got worse. Yeah, it kept getting worse. It only got worse. Let's pivot away from that.

Wendy, I appreciate you acknowledging our Ohio chief, A.J. Hawk, as well. It's very kind of you. Wendy, the boys will talk about the playing games and everything. I want to talk about the controversy. Okay? I want to talk about the controversy. We've had it in the NFL a couple different times where players, because of the ability to track everything that's happening on all these apps

and different family members potentially signing in. And on premises, these bets taking place, guys have gotten caught. There's been a year-long ban. Now, we believe it's the reason why it's a year-long ban and not an eternal ban is because they weren't betting on their own teams to lose. That's happening in the NBA. And what all do we know about this situation? Is the NBA scared that

there's more to this than just John Tate Porter? Or do they think that this is all that it is? Well, I don't think the investigations are over and even outside the NBA. So, but the NBA got enough to act here. So he did, accordingly, he did at least three things that if any one of them would have probably got a ban one he obviously appeared to alter his own performance for a bet which is in this case he took himself out of a game where he said he was sick and there was major action and it's including a seven-figure bet that ended up a parlay that ended up not being paid out and um on basically built around him not playing so that's number one he altered his own performance number, he communicated with gamblers

about inside information with the team, which is a huge no-no in the NBA. And these players are told repeatedly about it because especially in the NBA, player availability in an individual game is humongous information and often is kept secret even when it's known. So even though the NBA has

changed their rules to more mimic the NFL in recent years to try to get more accurate and timely injury information, and they've even fined some teams for not accurately doing it, one of the holes in the NBA's system, in my view, is there's at least several dozen people know that a star player is not going to play in the afternoon and the player is listed as questionable. Sometimes it's listed as doubtful and they've gotten better with that. But we see all the time star players listed as questionable and then they're out. And so a player who is competing with gamblers and inside information, big no-no. so that was strike two strike three obviously wagering on the nba and in this case wagering on his own team now to lose wendy to lose right

well and look in the raptors i think lost like 20 of their last 23 games betting against the raptors wasn't exactly an outrageous position um but i will say you know what you know what's crazy about this to me and i don't know jonte i've never met him the raptors were tanking after the middle of the season they traded away a couple of their their star players they were highly incentivized to go way down because their pick if it was um lower than six or lower they kept it if it was seven or higher it went went to San Antonio. So they were highly incentivized to lose. And as a result, they traded away star players. There was a couple of other unfortunate situations where there were players who had deaths in their families,

and they were away from the team. And so players, like at the end of the bench and two-way players, were getting opportunities to play and show themselves to the rest of the league. And John Tate was getting those chances. This is a guy who his story is actually kind of an inspiring story. He blew his ACL twice in college, tore his ACL, then was recovering, tore it again within a year. And he was in the league for a cup of coffee two years ago and out of the league for two years. This is a common story. A guy gets a chance, doesn't make it.

We never see him again. Next thing you know, whatever happened to that guy? Well, he's playing in Lithuania. He's playing in Australia. He's playing in China. This guy now got back to the league, and now he's playing because his team is tanking, and he actually was having a couple of good games.

One of the reasons why the sportsbooks were putting prop bets up was because he was having games where he had 10.6 rebounds, 6 assists. He was actually potentially keeping himself in the league. And for him to take that situation and spike it by spiking his own games, that's stunning to me. Like I said, I don't know him. I don't know his personality. But that's one of the most fascinating things about this story amen and it turns out that he was only allegedly 21 000 bucks okay 21 000 bucks net positive and

gambling 50 some thousand but then you think about that 80 000 wager yes that turned yeah yeah turned into a million dollars a the sports book sports book goes, ah, a million bucks, huh? One night? Okay. Yeah, we're going to talk about this. You know, they say pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered. It's like in this particular case, way too alarming. Like, it's also dumb.

Not only is it like illegal and all these other things that you could potentially throw. It's incredibly dumb the way they won about doing it. It's just all of it's stupid. And I guess no league is above these types of situations taking place. But the stern punishment will hopefully be enough for the NBA guys to realize that this is something that can't happen. As the NFL has tried to do this in the MLB with Shohei and his translator, they've had to deal with it. It's like sports gambling is going to be around, but we can't let it destroy our leagues that we love

because then everything's gone. Yeah, I will say this. The league can say we caught this pretty fast. Maybe we don't know everything about it, but they caught it pretty fast. Within about 48 hours of this second event, they had him already sort of deactivated, you know, career basically pulled the plug on him.

And they, you know, they would never say this, but he's kind of a perfect player to make an example of. With all due respect, no one's going to miss him. Well, he bet against his own team. His brother's going to miss him. His brother's going to miss him. His brother's going to disown him. He bet against his own team. You think about no team wants to sign a guy that's betting against his own team. His brother's going to miss him. His brother's going to miss him. No, his brother's going to disown him. He bet against his own team.

Think about it. No team wants to sign a guy that's betting against his own team. No. Nobody wants that. I mean, you're right. That is not a bad situation to make an example out of him. But the example needs to be made so that people don't, like we don't, this can't happen. As sports media members, okay, and sports fans, this can't happen.

All these leagues can't get ruined by this. While sports gambling is coming in, even though we love sports gambling, like we enjoy it, we think you've got to do it responsibly, you've got to be smart, you've got to be of age, and the legalized sports gambling has regulated it so much to protect people from themselves, hopefully. That is the goal and the end of this whole thing,

but it can't ruin the leagues, and I think we're all on the same page. Good news. AJ has a question for you. Wendy, our Ohio chief. Wendy ruin the leagues, and I think we're all on the same page. Good news. AJ has a question for you. Wendy, our Ohio chief. Yes, Wendy, the Olympics, so the rosters came out. It's official now. What do you think of the rosters? What do you think our chances are of just running through the competition over there?

And also, does anyone have a valid argument that you think got left off the team? Well, we're not going to run through it because I'm telling you. Oh, Wendy, you anti-American piece of trash. Wow. Yeah, I cannot. You're from Ohio? What the hell? You're from Ohio? Got that right. run through it because i'm telling you oh wendy you anti-american piece of track wow yeah i cannot well you're from ohio what the hell ohio got that right the heart of it all ohio england maybe yeah what does that even mean i know yeah the this isn't i know the bat it's hard to care about basketball in july and august because that's when the tournament's going to be and we're going to go through this next two months of high intensity nba and then it's going when the tournament's going to be. And we're going to go through this next two months of high-intensity NBA.

And then it's going to be – we're going to be watching football training camp stuff, and it's like, oh, yeah, by the way, there's these games. But this Olympic tournament coming up in Paris will be the highest-level international basketball event in the history of the sport. There are going to be absolute bloodbaths over there. Hell, yeah. And unfortunately, this team that we've put out this week is only a wish list. Because we have played four games of playoff basketball so far, and we've

already got two stars hurt. Zion, you know, hurt his hamstring and Jimmy Butler hurt his knee last night. And so it's great for that LeBron at his age and Embiid, despite his injury history, and Durant, who owes Team USA nothing, he's been the greatest Team USA player in history, is going to go through and play all this when they really have earned their summers off. But we just don't know who's going to be healthy between now and the line. Tyrese Halliburton's not losing to any other country. No chance. Tyrese Halliburton was awesome for Team USA last year.

There was actually a World Cup last summer. Nobody paid attention to it, really. It was happening in the middle of the night. I was there. It was in the Philippines. We finished fourth. We lost three times. We lost three times to a European team.

Well, that's when LeBron put out the tweet and said, I'm playing. Never again. We're not doing this shit. Right. Isn't that what happened? He rallied the boys. He was like, hey, one last rodeo.

Yeah, and I hope LeBron. Yeah, and I mean, and LeBron the other night at the end of that game after dealing with Zion twice in 72 hours was dead. His legs were dead. So I'm hoping that he's last year. He had to shut it down the whole summer to deal with the foot injury. Like, I'm just hoping these guys are healthy. So, yeah, there are snubs. Like, you could say, why didn't Jalen Brunson make it?

Jalen Brunson's one of the top five players in the league this year. People are upset that Kyrie Irving didn't make it, especially because Kyrie was one of the guys who said, I want to play. And he's played in the past. Guys who have played in the past tend to typically get, like, special credit. But just because you're your favorite player or if you're one of these players and not on the list,

first off, there's still one roster spot. Second off, we got to see who's healthy. Kawhi, I thought, got the last one. Did he? Oh, that's right. You're correct. You're informing me. Oh!

Basketball program! Basketball program! Well done, guys. Cutting edge, as usual. Wendy, it sounds like you took a little shot there. We don't know if Norby put you up to it or not, but we do appreciate it. I'm sorry, who?

It's been a... Anytime USA is competing in anything, like the Olympics, it is just a reason to be obnoxiously patriotic. And it sounds like we're maybe not going to be able to just be blindly talking shit to everybody. But if Kyrie Irving can't make the team, I got a lot of faith in what we're going to do to whoever. Let's talk about another country's stud.

Connor's got a question for you, Wendy. Yeah, Wendy. Obviously, you know, with the playoffs starting, the playing games are awesome. I feel like they've been a huge success. But the teams that are already in, the Bucs in particular, Giannis, he is not playing on Sunday against the Pacers. What is his status going forward? And this is kind of, it feels as though something that's been lingering. Is there a worry that there is a possible Kevin Durant's Toronto Raptors

situation where it's been a strain for a long time and then, you know, there is that chance that it could turn into Achilles, or is this a completely different type of thing? Boy, wasn't it worrisome the way he just went down oh yeah he was basically just walking right and um so before this injury happened he was a late scratch from a game about a month before with an achilles soreness um on that same side and also like a week before doc rivers said he he should have pulled him out of the game because he didn't think he was moving right um now just think about this in football terms aj if you were

questionable or doubtful on tuesday and the game was on sunday uh you know you would probably work during the week and you probably wouldn't make a decision maybe until friday or saturday or sunday the fact that or even sunday the fact that he was already ruled out on Tuesday, that was really worrisome. And, and, and as you mentioned, this didn't just come out of nowhere.

He had been dealing with this leg issue for some period of time. Only he knows for how long. Um, and when they did that, a kid, when they, when they sat him down with the Achilles soreness, it was right before the game.

He was like warming up. game. He was warming up. Yeah, he was warming up, and it started to bother him. So you just start to wonder about that sort of stuff. And also, Dame Lillard isn't 100% right. He missed a practice earlier this week with an adductor injury. Oh, no. He was supposed to come back to practice today. And a couple years ago, Dame had a sports hernia surgery.

So he's had issues with sort of those abdominal muscles of the past. And look, at the end of the season, a lot of players have sore muscles. It's not like this is a huge cause for alarm. But they now need Dame to be awesome, especially just get their offense going these first few games if he's going to be out and they're playing a team that went four and one on them in the regular season now i'm going to tell you one of the classic mistakes that everybody makes including those of us who cover the league every day is to equate the regular season in the playoffs every year we

get to the to this point in the year and we see the playoffs and we go, oh, yeah, it's different. But that said, the Pacers had so much success against the Bucs this year, including beating them in that big in-season tournament semifinal in Vegas. You're damn right. That I think they'll come into the game with confidence. And you've got Giannis out for who knows how long, and you've got Dane potentially limping. I got guys who I really trust telling me Pacers are winning this series. I say let's wait and see.

But the Bucs have so much skin in the game here with what they did with the coach, with what they did with the Lillard trade, with where they're at, with how they've mortgaged all their draft picks going forward. Man, this is a tough moment for the Bucs. Kaitlin Clark's playing for the Pacers too, I heard.

Yeah. Yeah, it might be game time. She's about to see how it goes. She would get buckets in the NBA game. Big time. I don't know. At the other end of the court, it might be difficult, but she would light some dudes up. What did he say? Yeah, of course she would.

What do you say? She's a dog. Yeah, we understand that. Of course. Tone has another question about a little bit of health, especially if you're a big guy. Yeah, you actually mentioned it when you were talking about Embiid and the Olympics.

It doesn't look like it. It appears he's definitely not 100% coming off the injury that he sustained early in the year. Do we know his health going in, not only into the series coming up, but is there a percentage that, has he talked about where he's at as far as health, and is he going to be able to make it through this next series? Yeah, that was one of the takeaways from last night. I mean, regardless of how the knee felt, his endurance was tough.

And that was a high-level game. The stakes of that game about playing the knicks you're potentially playing the celtics no offense the knicks but they're not the celtics oh you know it's uh it's a big difference and those teams played like it and it wore him out now look i think in general other than the celtics and the nuggets those two teams are clear favorites in my mind to win their series. The other six series, I don't think there's such a thing as an upset. How tightly packed it is in the West and the intensity and some of the injuries in the East. And calling the Sixers a seven seed is ridiculous.

They were 32-8 this year when Embiid played. That ain't a seven seed, which is why some of the Knicks fans are kind of bummed that they worked so hard to get the two seed. Now they got to face this team. So when Embiid is there, they're tough, man. But Embiid has struggled to get through individual playoff series in his career. He has several times suffered knee injuries. A couple of years ago, he got hit in the face and broke a bone in his face during the playoffs and he missed playoff games. Just him staying on the court is so hard. But here's the thing. The Knicks play the slowest tempo in the league. In fact, Jalen Brunson, here's a statue on here every day. Jalen Brunson led the league this year in dribbles by like hundreds because the knicks play really really

slow they play old school basketball he dribbles it up and in b that helps him be because in b can't be running up and down the floor if he was playing the pacers that would be hard he's gonna have to move against the knicks he can play a little slower that should favor him and if he stays healthy they got a great chance. That was 50. There you go. You need another like 400 and you'd have an average night for Brunson. They can track a dribble?

That's a tedious clock. Somebody hates that job. Hopefully AI does. It's AI. So we can't do it. They're taking our job. They're taking our job. They're taking our jobs. Taking our jobs. Taking our jobs. Taking our jobs.

They're taking our jobs. We don't know if they're right, either. We're just assuming they are. They're right. They're right. Are they? Did you hear the AI Kendrick Lamar diss? It was crap.

It was crap. I thought it was him. A little different. Apples and oranges. What? Counting's a little easier than rapping. Shout out all the pears, too. Hey, Ricky dropped a new song.

Love it. I mean, things are really cooking right now. Can't wait to hear Champagne Poppy bounce back. Did you see what he did with Channing Crowder's wife? Yeah. No. Dude's a badass. Yeah, he is.

Drake is an absolute. Anyway, so let's get back to basketball. You guys are all over my head. I have no idea what you're talking about. It's all right. You got NBA stuff going right now. When the season's done and you don't care about the United States of America playing, then you'll be able to catch up with all the rap beefs going on. We do know that you've been plugged into the Braun camp literally since

high school. We have the photo. We've seen this before. We know that you've been there since the beginning of this entire thing over there in Ohio. There's a lot of chatter about Brawny entering the transfer portal. That's him right here. Yeah, that entering the transfer portal that's him right here yeah that's you right, Wendy right here yeah I really had big arms, I played defensive tackle for Ohio State and black arms too

nobody really understood that's why you can't see that's why he wears a suit that's why he wears a suit so we know you've been plugged in a long time into the LeBron James camp. One of the coaches potentially here, a friend here, is now head coach at Duquesne. Old coach, was the coach at Duquesne. Bronny enters the transfer portal.

People are like, all right, is he going to the NBA? Is he going to G League? But then you've got people in Pittsburgh that are like, he's coming to Duquesne. Yeah. That is where he is. Come on, Wadey, tell us. Do you have any inside information on what's going on with Brawny? And is the goal still for LeBron to play alongside Brawny on a team?

Yeah, so LeBron kind of changed the way he's talked about that during the season. He made it clear that that was his dream. It wasn't necessarily Brawny's dream to play with him. Sorry, Dad. Shut up, Dad. Iwny's dream to play with him um sorry dad shut up dad and i know that brawny is like put statements out on instagram i really would like you know he's never really done any interview and i'm not even saying he's got to do an interview but i would love for us to stop guessing and asking you know lebron about what brawny wants i would love it if brawny would just come out and say, this is what I want. Whether it's in an interview or whether he just makes a video or whether he comes on your show and says, this is what I would like to do.

And then there's clarity and there's no barriers. Here's what I'm going to say. When I talk to scouts about Bronny, they don't think that he was able to put his best foot forward this year because USC didn't play him in his position. They had several different guard prospects that were, you know, NFL, and sorry, NBA draft prospects. And he played sort of on the wing. They say he should play point guard, which is where he played and excelled when he was in high school. And he obviously had that terrible health event that happened last summer and he was expected to go right into playing pac-12 basketball with no real build-up so what the

scouts are saying to me is that they've got to um he should go play someplace where he can show that he can be a point guard and he can build up his skills and that may not be usc duquesne he'll be jaylen brunson big he'll have. And that may not be USC. Duquesne will have the ball. He'll be Jalen Brunson. He'll have the stats at Duquesne. I would love it. You're talking to somebody who went to the Duquesne games at the NCAA tournament to support Drew Joyce and Keith Danbrough and the Dukes. And I would love nothing more than to see him play at Duquesne.

I think it would be great for him to play in the A-10. My guess is he'll want to play closer to home. But the NBA scouts i'm seeing like like you see a lot of people who just put him down and say he got an nba player he's not ready okay that's not that's not what the people that i talk to are saying why people i talk to are saying he didn't get to they didn't get to see him play his real position this year so they want to see him do that and maybe that happens in the g league maybe that happens in summer league maybe. Maybe that happens in Summer League. Maybe college basketball isn't the best venue. But I think he would

really benefit from playing another year in college, especially since he's one of the highest paid NIL guys in all college sports. Just from a business standpoint. And so I think all, talking to Rich Paul, who is his agent, I think all of those things are on the table and they're evaluating it.

One of the big things with Bronny, he's going to have to go through the NBA draft process. They're going to want to see him. They're going to want to put him through all the medicals and stuff like that. They're going to want to put him through all the measurables at their combine in May. After that happens, which he's got to go through,

then we'll have a better answer about what his short-term future might look like. Hey, Bronny, we're pulling for you, bud. Good luck, Bronny. Not easy to be LeBron James' son, obviously. So any of that. And people are going to want to see him fail, obviously, because there's people that want to see LeBron James fail still at this stage of the entire thing.

Bronny, we hope you go on and just absolutely dominate, pal. Build your own career. Do your own path. You deserve it. And do it at Duquesne, right? And do it at Duquesne. Boom. Definitely.

You should go take a tour around Duquesne. Maybe go down to Southside one night. That NIL deal will be able to serve you a long way down there at about 50-cent drafts on every single night in Pittsburgh. We would appreciate it. Let's continue to talk about the future of the NBA because, hey, sad days. You know, I said rest in peace to the Pac-12. They're dead, Wendy.

The Pac-12 is dead. The only place that wasn't able to get a TV deal somehow, whenever everybody was paying for live sports, somehow the Pac-12 wasn't able to accomplish that. It's a bummer. I am bummed out. It's not good for anybody. But with that being said, there's another entity dying too right in front of our eyes.

Ty, I have a question for you. Yeah, Wendy, is the prevailing idea that the Warriors are going to blow everything up? I know right after a lot of people said that, but then all the articles came out. Well, actually, maybe their championship window isn't closed. Maybe they run it back and bring all these guys back, even though they were the 10th seed and they got embarrassed by the Kings.

But then a lot of people are also saying, hey, Klay Thompson, he's going to make a shitload of money, whether that's in Miami or one of these other places that would be willing to pay him. Chris Paul came out recently and said, like, hey, I'm not done yet. I got a lot of basketball left. What are the Warriors going to do moving into the future? Well, I don't think they want to break up these three guys.

Obviously, Steph and Draymond are under contract, and Clay is going to take a pay cut. He't have a choice he he's made 43 million this year i think there's i think there's a number that he can come in at with the warriors where they can pay him a good figure and that they can achieve cost savings the big question is to me can the warriors improve this roster without spending 400400 million? Because they spent $380 million this year when you include the luxury taxes, and that's a big number. Now, by the way, they were a better team this year than they were last year. And you may say, no way, they didn't even make the playoffs this year,

and last year they made the second round. But I'm telling you, considering Draymond crushed them with that 20-game suspension, across all those suspensions, they actually won more games than regular season this year. The West was just much better. And last year they got a more favorable draw. This year it was just harder. The question is, are they going to still spend?

Because their owner, Joe Lacob, came out on the record a couple of months ago and said, we want to get under the luxury tax. And to do that, they're probably going to have to cut Chris Paul. He's got a $31 million non-guaranteed contract for next year. Let's say they cut Chris Paul, say thank you, go on elsewhere, $31 million off the books. Let's say they get Clay to take a $20 million pay cut. They say they bring him down to $23 or $20 million. He still averaged 18 points this year shot 39 from three led the league in free throw shooting like he's still an excellent player that's 50 million dollars in savings right there with those two moves they don't do anything else they're out of the tax and things are better

but is their team better can they get better so that's why the chris paul thing is a question if they pick up chris paul's contract and they take, they've got a few draft picks left. Plus, they have these young guys, they got four young guys who they play who are really interesting. Brandon Pajemski, Trace Jackson Davis, which you might have heard of there in Indiana. Moses Moody, Jonathan Kuminga, who is one of the better young players in the Western Conference. And they're willing to package all that together. They could go star hunting and add to the roster. Maybe they could put Andrew Wiggins in that deal. But it's going to be really hard if they do what Joe Lakoff has said, and that's reduce the payroll. By the way, if they bring that team back next year, this team went 27-12 down the stretch. Those young players get a little bit better. Draymond doesn't get suspended three different

times. Maybe they're the four or five students is there does that mean they're a championship window I don't know about that they're not what they were six seven years ago but this is not a team that you're taking the TNT to and saying they'll blow it to a thousand pieces oh TNT not Turner you're talking about TNT that's what you're talking about you're talking about fracking you got it yeah I get it Oi! Oi! TNT! Oi! Oi! Oi! That's what you're talking about. You're talking about fracking. You got it.

Yeah, I got it. Yeah, coming sideways here. Steal somebody else's wall. I think that's what it is. I think that you go into something. You're stealing it? I think I did a little bit more research on this entire thing. I guess you go down,

and then you're going sideways that's the frack going into somebody to get the potentially i think that that happens in the fracking world everyone saw it's a dirty game it's a dirty game you think you got it because it's below you uh-uh neighbors coming in the side door and i'll drink your milkshake remember there will be blood they drink your milkshake bingo, there will be blood. They drink your milkshake. Bingo. Daniel Plainview. I don't know what that means. He basically sold this guy all this land for a bunch of money and then he was like, oh, guess what? I already

drilled all the oil from this. I win. And then what? He drank a milkshake? He said, I already drank your milkshake. I drank it up. And then he takes a bowling pin and hits him in the head and kills him. Is this a movie? Yeah. Great movie. Unbelievable movie. It's a feel-good three hours.

Three hours? It's called There Will Be Blood. Yeah, you'll definitely watch it, Pat. Hey, Jay, do you have a question for Wendy? I'm certainly putting it on the list. What's it called? There Will Be Blood. Daniel Day-Lewis. Three hours? Lincoln. What's up with these movies having to be two movie lengths long?

Quick three hours. The artiste. It's an American epic. I'm sick of it. Tighten that thing down. We don't need. There it is. Wow.

Wow. I could do three hours of that. Good producing. Holy Moses. That's Zito. He's got quick fingers back there, Zito. That's an Emmy. How do you think?

Well, don't. Wendy. Wendy. Don't even get into that conversation yeah our tiktok guy is an emmy award winner that is what we're not staff you need thank you yeah we do got a good team we do bill belichick joining our team actually next thursday night should be a good time huge huge man yeah huge, he's actually pretty average-sized, I think, but it is a huge – Well, he is. Jock, Jock on that ring.

Hey, ask Belichick if Hawk should have won the Butkus Award in 2000. Sure, he was paying attention. Definitely was. Our Ohio chief has the last question for you, actually, Wendy, and it might be about a Butkus Award. I mean, we don't know. It's close. So, Doc Rivers, everybody seems to have an opinion about this guy

and why he got the job, when he got the job. What do you think of how he has done so far, and what do you think his future looks like in Milwaukee? Yeah, so here's the thing. The Bucs' early schedule was really, really easy. Their schedule was very favorable, and so they were not playing really well, but they were they were not playing really well but um they were winning and so when you look at what happened to the team since doc took over the stats don't look good but

it's part it's it's it's hard to like figure that out because their second half schedule is so much tougher than their first half they just had a really imbalanced schedule that said they haven't really improved, especially defensively. They've gone from 19th in the league of defense to 15th under Doc. But what Doc would say to you

is that, okay, I had no training camp, no preseason, and I've had Middleton, Willard, and Giannis together for eight games since I took over. And all that is fair.

I think the idea of him being able to revolutionize this team at midseason was kind of a ridiculous ask. But the Bucs have so much pressure in this offseason, or in this offseason. Who's going to win it all, Wendy? Tell them, Wendy. Who's going to win it all? I mean, if the Celtics don't win the East, it's shocking. We've already had two injuries.

Injuries play a huge role. The Celtics don't win the East. It's shocking. And this is the thing about the Bucs. Even if they get everybody together and play great, I don't think they're beating a full-power Boston team 4 out of 7. No way. And I don't think that's an insult.

That's not an insult to Doc. That's not an insult to Giannis. That's a compliment to the Celtics. And beating Denver 4 out of seven, even for the Celtics, is a tall, tall climb. Those are the two best teams. I'd be surprised if

those two teams aren't in the finals. I would also say that one of the things about the NBA playoffs, injuries dictate so much. We'll see who's healthy. You literally never know. You Never know. Injuries dictate so much. Injuries dictate so much. We'll see who's healthy. You literally never know. You never know. And that's why we love it.

Yeah, it really is. It really is why we love it. We can't wait for the next four months of these NBA playoffs and then right into the United States beating the hell out of everybody in the Olympics. Kaitlyn Clark, it just got reported, she's going to be making more than $20 million with Nike, the shoe deal.

And obviously she'll be making $78,000 with the Indiana Fever, even though we have purchased enough tickets to potentially supply that particular salary to her. She is, and I know you normally cover the NBA, her, Angel Reese, that entire South Carolina team, everything that's happening in women's basketball right now is awesome. Are you going to cover it more?

Are you going to maybe try to help this thing out, Wendy? So I cover the Team USA women and men. I am hoping that she makes the Team USA women's team. She's a candidate for it over in Paris. I live in Omaha, Nebraska, okay? That is down the road from the University of Iowa. There are more Kaitlyn Clark jerseys in these streets than there are Steph Curry jerseys these days.

You don't got to tell me how big of a force she is. I can't wait to see her play in the WNBA. And I also am really hoping she plays for Team USA in the Olympics. I would love to be able to cover her this summer alongside the men over in France. Well, just cover the W this season. You're a basketball guy. Just switch over. I'm going right from NBA playoffs to NBA draft, NBA free agency, right overseas with Team USA.

I don't have a breath until mid-August. So I'm hoping I can catch you in there. All right. Well, when football starts, we'll try to catch up with you to see how it all goes. And when the United States wins— When football starts, I'm nowhere to be found, man. I'm shutting her down. Let's watch the Buckeyes.

Where do you go? Just Omaha? You lock it down in Omaha there? Get some steaks? Yeah, man. Big Ten Network. Big time here. This is Big Ten country.

I'll have you know. And so— How long have you lived in Omaha? I don't think anybody would have been able to pin down windy living in omaha nebraska how's that that's my plan buddy that's my plan i've lived here for eight years and i love it and i'm on and i'm on the road 150 days a year i thought you lived in bron's house yeah yeah you know what i was talking about he's got several of them that nobody are in i mean it would be fine he wouldn't even know i was there for weeks you can go squat

too that's a whole nother situation that's brewing in certain states and things like that. We would like to offer you as a program and as a show, and it did just get confirmed. We would like to offer you a chance to watch

an Ohio State Buckeye game with A.J. Hawk this upcoming season. And A.J.'s... Instantaneous, yes. Okay. We'll make it happen. We'll fly you out there. We'll nail down the not Michigan I can't be I have to be alone what about you're with AJ Hawk yeah uh I gotta be

alone too I will put off that decision to be see how this season plays out I'm hoping Michigan will finally take a step back but uh let's we'll see on that one. Let's make sure we do this, though, because there's a lot of these types of situations that, bro, this one's magic in the making, and we appreciate the hell out of you. What's that? When they play Nebraska against Rule and Dylan Rayola. Oh, AJ will fly to you. Bingo.

Do you know he's paying Chip Kelly's salary this year? Five million. Who is? Wendy. He donated five million to get Chip Kelly to come POC. Oh, thank you. You and AJ need to go hang out at Chip Kelly's office. We're trying to make that happen.

We appreciate you, man. My discussions with Chip Kelly are just how to block on the offensive line. I am worried about what sort of motion is going. Let's block some dudes, okay? Block some dudes. Especially against Michigan. Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Wynne-Norris. Thank you.

Hey, Wendy. Thanks for doing that AJ that's awesome thank you guys can't wait we'll go to the Thunderdome it's going to be so fun no no the Buckeyes don't play here

yeah what the hell we need a waterproof face you got like 100 TVs and you got everything set up it's beautiful Wendy's a great golfer we'll hit some balls at halftime

he wants to see the game live AJ with you brother oh at the game oh okay sweet let with you, brother. With you. At the game. Oh, okay. Sweet. Let's do it, Andy.

Today is a very special day, and it is something that we have been holding off for about an hour and 50 minutes as the Blackout Boys try to figure something out in the kitchen. Hey, it's okay. One candle's good. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. good yep yep yep yep yep yep yep yep thank you thank you ladies and gentlemen as we wrap up this hour on ESPN yesterday he asked one of the greatest questions of all time to his hero Bill Belichick today it is Connor's birthday. Happy birthday, Connor! Happy birthday, brother! We appreciate you so much. Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Connor! Happy birthday to you!

That's it, baby! Thank you for blowing out the scandals. Did you make a wish? Yeah, of course. What is it? Don't tell us! It won't come true. Happy birthday, bud. We all love you. We appreciate the hell, of course. What is it? Don't tell us! It won't come true. Happy birthday, bud. Appreciate it. We all love you. We appreciate the hell out of you. This show ends on ESPN. It continues on YouTube and ESPN+. We can't thank you enough. We'll see you tomorrow for a feel-good Friday. Be a friend.

Tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. Cheers. Wow. Way to go, B.O.B. Got it in there. Way to go, boys. We're not lighting the candles again. Last time we did that, remember we had that hard kind of wax shell over the entire top of the cake. And they were also going to attempt to put in the, from looking at them through the window here, putting it together, they were trying to put 30. Okay.

28, 27. 29. Wouldn't have taken long to light those, would it? Well, it was my fault because, like because as we were wrapping up with Wendy there, I think you saw me go, hey, let's get that cake ready and this entire thing. So the B.O.B. only had. Yeah, I know. I also just spotted Cali.

What the fuck happened? Can we get us a visual on this? Don't hide, Bill. Bill. Bill. Turn, Bill. Turn. What. Bill. Turn, Bill. Turn. What's wrong?

Tell them I think they're sweet. That's my fashion. They're not sweet because there's a bunch of blood on the inside because he murdered a cow last night with his teeth. Yeah, his bare hands. He's showing a cow tip and he said, even better, I'm going to go cow killing. And they made shorts out of them. Proud of you, Bill. Thank you, Bill.

It's not your birthday but you delivered us all a gift and we're very thankful for that we also have um a gallon of milk when you buy those pretty down actually you get the shoes he's got the panda yeah okay real he's matt he's accessorizing his whole fit here you He matches perfectly. Because if you think about his bald white head with the black hoodie, it's kind of like a cow print from literally head to toe here. It does accentuate it quite a bit. Yeah, we're proud of you, Bill. Good, Bill.

Happy birthday, Connor, though. Hey, thank you guys. Appreciate it. Happy birthday, Connor. And thanks to the B.O.B.s for getting that whole thing done in about a minute and a half or so. They didn't know we were up against the clock because they don't really know that there is time. No. Relative to them.

And that's why we love them. Bingo. Exactly. We've had EJ and Kara here. They won an auction to watch a show live for the Kicking the Stigma auction at the Indianapolis Colts. That's not awkward for them right there. So the thing about it is, EJ, this is for fucking charity. That's not awkward for them. The thing about it is, AJ, this is for fucking charity.

They can hear you, asshole. It's a great thing you're doing. I'm saying for them, that's got to be kind of an awkward moment. We know. They won this thing last year. Oh, good. It's much less awkward for them. Remember, EJ, we put them down on a

putting green last year. And there was a lot of putts. Got a lot of reps in. Yes, he did. And felt terrible immediately afterwards because we kind of put him on the spot. Good guy. Obviously, great group of people. We thought there was a new group coming in.

We didn't know until, like, moments before they got in here that it was the same people as last year. We loved them last year. So, I had this place locked. I had all the doors shut. Yep. Because people get in here and it was the same people as last year. We loved them last year. So I had this place locked. I had all the doors shut. Because people get in here and they start snooping around. You know, like that is kind of the MO. People will come visit us and they'll bring their entire team with them. And then all of a sudden I see their team climbing up the steps over here

while I'm doing the show. I'm like, all right, do we have eyes on these things or not? EJ and Kara have been fantastic. Donated money to the Kicking the Stigma charity that the Colts have, obviously, to kind of break the stigma of mental health and being okay to talk about it. So good people, good humans. We've appreciated you stopping by again. And we actually rolled out a little carpet for you.

We did. Put the carpet down. Put the carpet down. See? Big deal. Got a couple Coke Zeros. The best. Oh, man. You got a little nightstand or a couple Coke Zeros. The best. Oh, man.

You got a little nightstand or a little table next to you? Cool table. We told them we had a much better version of what they're going to experience. And, yeah, we're lucky. We were supposed to do live shows in here. You remember we were supposed to do that? Oh, yeah. I've been promising that for a couple years.

Yeah, that's probably a good move, just putting the pause on that, though. Yeah, that idea has evolved. Yeah, we just go two places. Yeah, exactly. The issue is the logistics of getting everybody in and out. How many toilets have we got? Nightmare. Not as much as the Clippers.

And then what happens if we got three to four Ohio fucks here, and it's just an OHIO fest while we're doing the entire— Can't have it. Can't have that. And then what happens if the fire alarm goes off again and the cage rolls down and then everyone's just stuck in here and it's a madhouse yeah you blow some sage every once in a while a couple of these rooms you get locked in yes they have this fire wall thing that goes down and oh you're serious oh yeah almost sliced bill in half last time had to put them in had to foretold had

to put these things in and And then it was just like kind of a part of the conversation during the building. Like, yeah, I'm going to have to put these fire doors on just in case anything happens. They'll be right here at the entrance to here and it's out here. It's like, okay, cool, cool. Never expect the fire alarm to go off. Then somebody starts blowing some sage into one of these things. And all of a sudden,

this door just shuts. I think it's to keep the fire steel. Isolated or to keep the fire... Steel. ...isolated or whatever. Contain it, yeah. Yeah, and it comes swift. Bill was almost at the top. Is there some kind of sensor? Yeah.

Is there a sensor anywhere, you think, so it doesn't cut Bill's head off? Nope. No, it couldn't turn off because that wouldn't be illegal, too. Break code. That's right. That'd break code. Okay, good. Fire department's right across the street.

They've been here. Couple times. They're great. Yeah, they're very good people. Great dudes. We'll hit the button and lift the thing. Thank you. You can't get out of the office. Thank street. They've been here. A couple times. They're great. Yeah, they're very good people. Great dudes. We'll hit the button and lift the thing. Thank you. You can't get out of the office.

Thank you. We're secure. There's no fire, but also we are now trapped. So if you could help us out, that would be fantastic news. Next hour, we got Peter Schrager. Let's go. Can't wait. Oh, yeah.

Schrag's mock draft is always pretty accurate, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Bingo. He knows. That is kind of the reason why any time he puts one out, you have to look at it. Yeah. Because Schrags, he'll describe this, too, when he gets on. I'm not like these guys that this is my living.

I just do this for the conversations I have, the people I know from what I'm hearing. And inevitably, every year, it ends up being like the closest. And obviously, Daniel Jeremiah moved the sticks also. He won. Very plugged in. He was number one. I think Schrags was number two. So it's like what he's hearing is worth a listen.

And Bill Belichick said we're kind of getting to the time where people are starting to know. Now, they won't know until next week, probably, officially. But the rumors of what's happening, Schrags plugged in on. So we'll chat with him in the next hour. We'll probably do a giveaway of some sort. And then we'll wrap up this big unit Thursday in a beautiful fashion. We're incredibly lucky and thankful

that you all allow us to do this for a living every single day. Let's take a break. There we go, Bruce. Bruce, you've been doing a good job back there. My boy, Bruce. My boy, Bruce. Bruce has been filling in for Nick.

Not easy. Yeah. No, no. None of that. I don't think anything filling in for nick not easy yeah no no none of that i don't think anything any anyone knows back there is easy no it's also like you got to be on yeah locked in like legit there's so many easy buttons it'd be easy to get lost i think and just start thinking about something and just oh wait here we go drift off yeah and then all of a sudden, hey, what? Music, dickhead. Let's go. Let's go. I'm about to piss my fucking pants. Remember the old one? I'm trying my best to tell you we are trying to get to a break. Yeah, he's doing great.

Bruce, you've been killing it, buddy. Thank you. Bruce has the most wide array of tasks. No doubt. In the Thunderdome. And I'll tell you what, Bruce, you'll fuck them up every once in a while, but much more of a home run than a strikeout for you, and we're very grateful for that. Just talking about that

board, the old one was legitimately this big. With that many buttons. The new one is the size of the toxic table, basically. We got hustled into buying the most expensive of everything. Oh, really? By who? Everybody that does all of the stuff that they do are the biggest

pieces of shit in what they do. Oh, yeah. That name is still on my list. Oh, yeah. Oh, the same one that I talked to you about a long time ago when everything was getting built? Oh, yeah. Wow. Okay. I thought it kind of resolved itself or helped out. Yeah, we resolved it.

Yeah. Zito, Jake, coming in. Old Tim crawling underneath this. Yeah, we resolved it. Yeah, Zito, Jake, IPJ coming in. Old Tim crawling underneath this thing. Bill. Bill McComas burying things. It's been great. Burying things? What's he burying? Flyers and stuff. What are you thinking? Burying bugs that get

into the system. I think my favorite thing, and this is just not supposed to be on the show. This is not an entertaining part of the show. My favorite part of this studio build, and if I could recommend something less, I will try to find it. Do not build a studio. Don't do it. We're all you out there. Don't ever think about it. Just don't do it.

It is not a fun thing. There was a date in which they were supposed to be done. Do you remember that? It was like, all right, this is the date. It is not a fun thing. There was a date in which they were supposed to be done. Do you remember that? And it was like, all right, this is the date. It's going to be done. There was two cameras plugged in. There was microphones sitting. One was on the ground, and then there was a desk.

A folding table. Yeah, a folding table on that side. Three chairs on here. Nothing on the wall. And you're like, we believe the studio is usable. We're good to go. We made the deadline. We made the deadline or whatever. And it's like, so you're actually pieces of shit.

That's what I am. Okay, I got it. Putting this together. You're a piece of shit. Got it. Got it. And then we realize over the next year that early indications in read accurately.

A lot of bugs in this thing. Everywhere. I mean, the first hour of the first show is Smith-Edward. First ever shot. First ever shot. Splash. And all you could hear was... Obviously, they come in,

change a bunch of things, and then say it's our fault. We're not watching you. You guys switched all these wires around. What are you doing? We just watch what you do. Classic. You're the expert.

That answer was the rack wasn't grounded. Yeah, of course. Got to ground it. I've learned a lot about it. I've learned a lot about it. Not as much as Zito, but my dumb brain always asks, this has to be connected to this, right? Just if we're thinking out loud. And Zito has a nice mixture of, like, a phenom brain when it comes to these things.

But also, we can put things together if we have to on the road. So, like, me and Zito talking to these people, I couldn't even fathom their brains. As they're just trying to hustle the out of us and they inevitably did but that's just in their face and you us yeah that was the last time i know you us yep we know just so you know we know you us so you us but we know it so whenever you write your little book about people know that we know that you we know and we won't forget never this goes in we'll never forget okay and forgive i might forgive but i won't forget

oh no no good okay no grudge remember this is a new me yeah let it go yeah it's the new movie here we go. Moving on. That was a big part of joining ESPN, though. Like, these road shows were impossible without, like, the traveling studio, essentially. Yes. Because it was such a headache for six years leading up to that. Yeah. Yeah, you guys having to load up.

We're going to need you guys to load everything in the office into a truck, drive down to Tampa. Yep. Plug it all in. Make sure it works. In the living room. I mean, fucking mania last year. Two years ago. Sorry, in Dallas.

In the lounge in that restaurant. Bruce and Zito drove it down. I drove it back. How many hours? That one was only like nine. Tampa was the one that I think was like 18. Tampa was the tough one. Plus, the Dallas trip, Tahoe. Tampa was a U that I think was like 18. Tampa was the tough one. Plus, the Dallas trip, Tahoe. Tampa was U-Haul because we were going to be there for so long.

We had to bring so much. How many months were we there? Like four. Yeah. I want to say. Where was the balcony? Remember when you were going to sleep? Hot balcony.

That was Orlando. Yeah. Bull guys. NXT, right? Yeah, it was in a house. In an Airbnb house. Just put a whole studio together. Look at us now, boys.

I want to say Tampa was March to August. Sounds right. Yeah. Those breakfast sandwiches were so good. I just thought about those. Remember D-Buck got so high? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you had to tie a string to him.

Couldn't operate. That was awesome. Wait, what? Oh, my God. String to him? Hot. Yeah, he had to tie a string to him. Couldn't operate. That was awesome. Wait, what? Tie a string to him? Hot. Yeah, so he wouldn't blow it away. Cinder block down on the ground around his ankle. Collude his feet.

Where was that? Where was it? Tampa living room. Yep. Oh, nice. He walks in. Hey, what are we doing? What's going on?

Good to see you guys. Got a hoodie on. It's 105 degrees. I'm like, what's up? How you doing, D-Buck? There's some sage burning over here Oh love that absolutely Alright here we go

Start having some laughs Have a good time Alright we're live in 10 minutes What's that Sits down We didn't hear from him for hours I thought it was in the fuck In the rafters

Sage will get you It will Corbin I forgot about Big Hands. Corbin came for a show. He's a champion right now, isn't he? And then Antonio Brown moved into the house. He did.

Oh, shit! You gotta go there with this one. With WNBA, you gotta go there. That's it. Boom. Mark Caboli said he watched Randy Johnson Johnson interview on Pat McAfee's show And thought it was Jesse the body insurer Thank you

Caboli Here's a video of our Tampa house This is what the setup used to be And shout out to Zito and Tim For putting this entire thing together There's no less than 45 wires across the floor Underneath all those rugs And we're just kind of plugged in That was actually one of the nicer setups Yeah entire thing together. There's no less than 45 wires across the floor underneath all those rugs.

Yes. And we're just kind of plugged in. That was actually one of the nicer setups though too. Yeah. That was, you know. So many things to drive and plug in and tear down and everything. Oh yeah. Yeah. But now we got thankful ESPN people have to do it. A lot of people. They got a lot of people. Yeah, they do. We've seen these things come together from Zito and Tim McAfee, four hands to kind of piece this entire thing together. That's what the room was. Now, on the Airbnb photo, whenever we chose to rent this thing, thought this room was a little bit different setup. Yeah, they used a fisheye lens, of course. Yeah, and then we turned it into a full studio.

ESPN, I appreciate them for doing this, but they got so many people doing everything. Oh, yeah. And they're good people, you know, but it's like, it's a lot of humans. And we've built setups with four people. Four hands. Yeah. Look where we've come, boys.

Pretty proud of us. Don't build Belichick soon next week. Yeah. Excited to see where we go. Next week at the draft, we will not have a PA Of our show out to the audience So that's why we're not telling you Where the hell we are We're near the stage and the people

But it's like You won't be able to hear us if we're there We're not going to be able to boo Raj when he comes up on stage That is something to think about Do we get a mega phone to send that thing out there? Got Raj the next day on the show, so something to think about. Go ahead and boo him, Tony.

Go ahead and do it. That's our commission. Should be a fun night. Alright, let's get to a break. Pete Schrager will be on the other side, breaking down his latest mock draft. He's been good about it, so let's make sure we're paying attention. I know Bill Belichick's going to be listening. He's been good about it.

So let's make sure we're paying attention. Yep. I know Bill Belichick's going to be listening. Oh, yeah? Yep. He is. He is going to be listening. I'm actually excited for this.

Like him having the Colts up there, that means he knows the Colts are looking to trade. Sports! Not a lot of pizzazz. No, it's not none. I'm a little delayed. You know that I'm always trying to time it up with the boys because I'm like a split-second delay. Yeah, well, especially with that tornado. I hope everybody's safe as we transition into spring here.

You know, you've got some fronts battling against each other, some winds coming through, and that means that every once in a while there's going to be a storm that is absolutely unpredictable and devastating. Everybody keep their eyes to the sky, and let's make sure nobody dies this tornado season. We'll see. Now granted, nobody has any control of that because it could drop out of nowhere.

And literally, since I've moved to Indiana, and I've told the story before, you're just looking up at the sky hoping that it doesn't choose to hit you. That's what a tornado life is like, but we're currently in there, I think. We're currently in the middle of it. Let's stay safe. We hope everybody has a fantastic Thursday.

The Toxic Table is here alongside AJ Hawk, at Boston Connor, at Ty Schmidt. Come on, man. Not a bad shirt there. Yeah, not too shabby. I just kind of reached in to the closet and just grabbed one. I heard you got maybe a new shirt today, did you? I did get it. I actually got two new shirts.

Funny enough, Talk grabbed me a Rottweiler one, which is nice. Oh, dog. Happy birthday. Currently, I mean, I feel like I could say this. Yeah, currently my favorite owner in the NFL, Kalen Irsay, also gifted me a nice animal shirt as well. Wow. Yeah, pretty sweet.

Very thankful for that. Right in the program, Kalen Irsay. Gift gifted you a brand new shirt for your birthday wearing it tomorrow for sure okay john deer remember yeah exactly dare gal she sent me uh a message after the brock purdy john deer thing he says i think i missed my opportunity to partner with john deer it's like no no no caitlin there's more tractors you can get that job there's a lot more tractors out there hey She can be CTO. Yeah. Easy.

Chief tractor officer. Yeah. Travel around, farm to farm. Why not? Social media. You own a tractor. Get your hands dirty. Yeah, I mean, you're on a team right now, but something to think about.

Maybe a CTO. Mix it up. How about knowing it's your birthday, sending in a brand new shirt? I mean, that's next level. That's the cold difference, you know? I'm genuinely pumped about that. That's next level. That's the Colts difference. I'm genuinely pumped about that. Yeah, me too. Because that would mean looking into

thinking because that's not just they're not printing that at the Colts facility. So ordering ahead, doing the entire thing. That's very awesome. It was so nice. It pissed me off. That's good business. That's very good business there. By the Indianapolis Colts, as opposed

to making a documentary trying to bury the coach that gave us six Super Bowls. Over here, they're like, who's that guy that's a Patriots fan? Oh, it's his birthday. I would like to get him something. Very kind. Especially in the Loud House this upcoming season.

First class organization. Still, like I said, it flustered me a little when I got it and learned it was the Murphs. Yeah, you did. You pouted and walked off. I told you. It's so nice. It pissed me off. You can't see what's actually going on here. One half of the hammer. Cowboys, town digs, cooking up a conspiracy, seemingly.

Well, I don't know. A billionaire with unlimited funds, potentially. Here's someone talking shit on their organization constantly and says, hey, let's do some research into this guy. Now knows everything about him. Knows what he wears, knows when his birthday is, knows where he lives, knows what he eats.

Maybe just keep your eye on your head. This ain't what you're saying. Tony's right. I've got to wash this shirt immediately. You're right. You think that you're getting some sort of poison on it? I saw a video this weekend of Jim Kong and Putin

cheersing and then just holding their drinks and staring at each other. I don't think it was from recently. Who knows when it was. It does matter when it was, I guess, especially with everything going on right now. I didn't do enough research, but they cheers and then they just both stood there with their drinks. No way am I doing this.

No cheers. It's like, oh, so both of you have definitely done this. Yeah. Because that's why you're doing what you're doing. Yeah. Colts would never do something like that, try to give you any type of rash because of a shirt. What they wanted to let you know is they appreciate the fact that you exist, pal.

Happy birthday to you. We're all very lucky for that. And shout out to the Colts, being a first-class organization. And shout out to their PR, telling us exactly what's going to happen at the draft. Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, draft. Paisan is here. Matt Conte obviously came in.

And he looks like a young lad. He's got a little Hayden there. Hayden's a mini Conte. Gotcha, fucker. Yeah, and he taught us exactly how it's going to go at the draft next week. So thank you for being the lead to the Colts organization. Thank you, Conti. Anything that gets out from the Colts is coming from that guy.

Go ahead, Joe, one more time. That's the guy right there on the left. Man, handsome guy. He's super handsome. Is that FanDuel open on his phone right there? Yeah, you're right. Is that what that was? This guy betting on games right now.

Is that ESPN bet, Conti? Go back to that. Geez. Okay. Conti This guy betting on games, right? Hold on. Is that ESPN bet, Conti? Go straight to that. Jeez. Okay. Conti's actually one of the best humans of all time. He's a great guy. Like one of the greatest humans of all time. Yeah, the man.

Works so hard all the time. Doesn't say shit ever. We just literally cornered him right over here. What are the Colts doing, Conti? Huh? What are you preparing to say? What do you got? He goes, I don't know.

I'm listening to the mocks just like you guys are. Okay, Conti. Sure. Do you want a water? Oh, I'd love a water. You don't get one until you tell us what's going on. Oh, well, I'm not thirsty. This guy's unbelievable.

Great father, too, because his children do acknowledge. The tribal chief. Yeah, which we can appreciate. Absolutely. Conti's the man. So is Hayden. The Colts have been nothing but fantastic to us. Shout out to EJ and Kara, who won the auction to come watch the live show.

What a terrible thing to win, but we're happy. I know. Happy as the... Happy for them. If they're happy, we're happy for them. Joining us now is a man who I guess is swaying the Colts PR on the thoughts of what takes place next week at the NFL Draft. Over the last few years, he has been one of the top mock drafters in the entire sports

media world. Why? Because this isn't his full-time job. He's just putting things together from what he's hearing from his friends, and normally he's pretty damn accurate. He's an Emmy Award winner. Ladies and gentlemen, from NFL Network's Good Morning Football and Fox Sports' kickoff show, Beer Shrink. Yay, Shrinks! How you doing, Shrinks?

I'm great. Huge Matt Conte fan myself. Awesome dude. Tell Matt hello. Love him. And he's never told me crap either. Conte, would you like to say hello back? Hey, Peter. Hey, Pete.

Do you have anything else to say, Conti? Like, how's your family or anything? Or just a nice little hello? Just a hello. He doesn't care about your family. He's focused on draft right now. Shrakes, just like you are. We got another mock from the Shrakes.

Every time this happens, we get jocked up. Now, even more so for Colts fans because making moves for Malik neighbors. Now, I think there's a chance that Jim Irsay says, like he told Chap, who's one of the local writers here, I would like to get Marvin Harrison Jr. Now, to do that, you would have to make a massive jump. How did you get to these picks here for these teams, and how close do you think this is to being finalized before next Thursday, Schrags? Yeah, so my process, Pat, is i put one out the week before the draft

and then the day of the draft and usually when i put my mock out people know that it's coming from pretty reliable sources or at least their guesses that makes sense and i've spoken to people the amount of feedback i've gotten since this list went out has helped form my next mock draft but i'll tell you right now as we speak doing this show, Adam Peters is doing a press conference in Washington. He's the GM. Kevin O'Connell and the boys are down in Baton Rouge meeting with Jaden Daniels. And Jaden Daniels' agent put out a tweet with a scratching chin emoji about the fact that all those different quarterbacks were at once in Washington. So things are.

And we'd like to say shut up to that agent. I think I think we all would like to say shut up, dude. There it is. There it is. Just one of these. Look, where there's smoke, there's something. And I find it fascinating that I did this mock draft. I had J.J. McCarthy going fourth overall with the Giants trading up.

And I live in New York, so all the Giants fans freak out. They either want him, they don't want him, whatever. What was interesting was I've had three or four different teams reach out to me in the last 48 hours being like, are you just carrying water for the Cardinals? I'm like, I have no connection to the Cardinals. I know Jonathan Gannon and Monty, but my guy was Kingsbury. He's been blown out of there. My guy was Kime.

He's been blown out of there. I don't have a connection to those guys. I'm not carrying water for anybody i'll tell you this the giants have done extensive extensive work on these quarterbacks and i know that the night before easter they took out jj mccarthy in ann arbor took him to ruth chris they had a wonderful meal they've met with him again since giants are looking at the quarterback so i said let's roll the dice let's put the giants moving up two spots and the response has been crazy on my phone from other teams wondering like how real is that and then you've got these three teams at 11 12 and 13 pat that are vikings need a quarterback what 12 broncos need a quarterback 13 raiders need a quarterback who are getting a little

interested also saying well wait a second if the are going, that's the four top quarterbacks gone and the top four picks, well, what do you know? So I like to put it out there and then use the feedback and then the day of the draft, I'll have probably a more updated one, but I feel pretty confident with a lot of the stuff I have. Nice, put a couple lines out in the water. You never know what you're going to get back,

get a little bit more information. I like what you did with the Colts there. You think the Colts maybe move up even more to get Marvin Harrison Jr.? do you think maybe quarterback quarterback quarterback quarterback quarterback quarterback marvin harrison drops down a little bit more that would be i mean if the if the cardinals sit pretty at four harrison i'm told is the pick but they could move out now the colts are interesting the offseason and matt conti's in the house right now you guys know a lot of players re-signed players they like players they feel confident with we love seeing Kenny Moore and Pittman and all these guys

but the Jaguars went balls to the wall on free agency the Titans went absolutely bonkers in free agency and the Texans went bonkers you know Chris Bout do you think they're sitting on their hands and they're just gonna sit at 15 and take a defensive back and say okay we're gonna I think there's a chance the Colts make a couple of calls here and move up, especially if neighbors or Doones, they are Harrison falls out of that top five or six. I love Pittman and Pierce. Imagine having neighbors Pittman and Pierce, and it probably move up a few spots. The bears.

I look at them at number nine. I know Ryan pulls real well and they love Caleb Williams, but that nine spot, the bears only have four draft picks in this draft right now and they don't have a second round pick that nine spot could be really enticing if neighbors or a dunes a falls down there to nine teams might be looking to trade up i just it's a mock draft i'm just putting it out there uh planting some seeds but i think the colts would be would be a team worth watching i i love to hear that i'm pumped to hear. I've not done any of my own research because, once again, I don't want to put any of my friends in any compromising positions,

and I'm not an insider, so I'm staying out of the whole game. But boy, oh boy, it feels like a Jim Irsay move to bring Marvin Harrison Jr. home. It does. And at the end of the day, your scouts can do all the work that you want to do. Chris Ballard can do all the work that you want to do. You can have all the vision that you want for how your team is going to go,

how the offseason is going to go, and then all you need is one billionaire to walk in there and be like, this is cool, right? Yeah, it is. That is what we're doing, which is why the draft is so incredible. That is legitimately why the draft is so damn incredible, because who actually knows? Remember, Mac Jones was three.

What was that? Three years ago. three years ago mac jones was three three three three three for literally every single day for three months leading up to the draft then day of he ain't three and then all of a sudden chaos happens everywhere that's why you being as accurate as you have been over the years is an impressive thing aj has a question for you shrigs i know in this mock you have been over the years is an impressive thing. AJ has a question for you, Shriggs. I know in this mock, you have Drake may go into the Patriots at three. I know Elliot Wolf, the Patriots has come out and kind of said, Hey,

we're open for business. What exactly do you think he means by that? And do you believe that they will stay locked in here at number three? From what I've heard, the Patriots are very, very into both may and Daniels. So whatever Washington does at at two or if a team trades up for two i think the patriots quarterback at three now look elliot wolf if you know his he's

ron wolf's his dad one of the most legendary executives in nfl history he's been around packers browns now he's got this patriots gig it's a big shoes to fill obviously with who he's replacing and making those decisions but i i would think this is a uh a a a quarterback because you're not looking to be top five again this is one of the rare drafts where there's three guys that everyone says is a number one quarterback and maybe four with mccarthy that you could feel comfortable with i would be very surprised if they got cute they i know they have a lot of holes to fill but don't get cute take the quarterback here so speaking of the press conference peter's talking for the washington commanders there was quite just came out we're

comfortable too we are we are very comfortable too we are going to stay here we assume that means daniels as you do peter's on the possibility of training the number two pick we feel great about staying in number two i don't see a lot of scenarios trading down that's basically them letting stop calling yep okay we don't need any phones ringing at all from now until draft look the daniels thing to me i thought that was a done deal a couple of days ago but since i put the mock out and since the stuff with the agent and you know you had the top golf meeting which i think on paper i don't hey shreks once again earlier i told that guy to shut up it's just because like you're not the story dude you're an agent you should not be any part of this thing.

Does he have baggage coming along with him? His family's great. School's great. Teammates love him. He does have this agent, though. It's like that should never, ever be in the conversation, which is why Ron's probably a good guy. Agent Butler's probably a good guy.

I just think this is stupid. Just get your name the hell out of there and lock him into a deal that's already been negotiated by the NFL PA. You're not even needed right now, actually, because of the slotting of contracts and bringing in advertising deals. So there's no reason for you to even get brought up on this show or any other show.

That is my, unless, unless you're trying to pull some sort of power play and say, okay, well, we're not going to which i haven't gotten any information they are but i will say this one of the one things we've heard one of the one things we've heard since since way back at the combine was that they're sitting at 13

but antonio pierce and jayden daniels have an incredible relationship and jayden daniels looks to antonio pierce as a, and they have a shared friendship and relationship from the Arizona State days. I just think 13-2, unless you're offering five first-round picks and Max Crosby and pick anyone else on our roster to get up to two, I just think it might be too much of a leap. And as much as Jaden might want that or antonio pierce might want that it's go from 13 to 2 is a massive leap remember the 49ers moving up to 3 they had to give up three first round picks to do it so what's 13 to 2 i i just think it's too much but

that's the one rumor i've heard and that thing has kind of quieted over the last couple of months okay so that's maybe ron's working then maybe i hey okay i apologize do what you need to do for your client with that being said let's not be adding any more bullshit to the client's life unless you're making the big power play like we have seen some people do in the past what did you make what did you make of the top golf thing so just for the viewers obviously the context is they had instead of just one-on-one we're gonna bring you all separate washington brings in four quarterbacks, not Caleb, but Pennix, May, McCarthy, and Daniels. And this is all real from Breer, but what I loved is like, they were mixing it up a bunch and it's really the four of them with a lot of different people

from the Washington Commanders front office and coaching staff interacting with them also. Pat, I've never worked in an NFL front office. What do you make of that? Does he think that matters at all? Is that cool? What do you think? So I've never been invited to one of these. AJ's been invited to a bunch of these.

So obviously, as we learn about the 30 visits, top 30 visits, and we hear GMs talk about the importance of them, especially with the choreography of the combine and pro days now are choreographed. Similarly, in the meetings are choreographed. They think that those top 30 visits, you can kind of get them one-on-one away from their people put them in situations where you can really try them so I think a lot of GMs have said that those are very very vital to the entire judgment process here during draft season but then Bill Belichick came on yesterday and said we've had 12 guys in before at the same time it kind of helps out our staff to be able to

work at one time as opposed to 30 different separate ones so i i assume there's something that they think they could get from it i assume that watching them interact with people in the public whenever they're at top golf their competitive drive how they handle conversations with the boys and everything like that you could gain an advantage from but i'd never heard of it before yesterday so i i certainly was confused by it and the top 30 thing everyone's different like i'm pretty sure and i'll talk to mcveigh in between i don't think the rams under mcveigh have ever done and i know they haven't had many first round picks but i don't think they've ever done a top 30 visit and they haven't done any this year like they

don't do it some teams really value it other teams are just like what's no we're gonna speak to them on zoom we're gonna get a chance to go to their pro day. We've got all the film. So the 30 visit and the significance of it, and even I reported on Monday that Brock Bowers is visiting the Jets. And it was like the New York Post is the biggest story in New York because it's, wow, I don't know if it's as important as we make it out to be. But it is worth noting that different teams value them differently. So Adam Peters actually just talked about this in his press conference via John Kime here. What's cool is we get to see them all together in a group setting.

You know, of course, that's Topgolf, 20 people in at the same time. They all got a lot of time individually with coaches and with us. They were staggered coming into, it was a great blend of that and working everyone together in a fun environment. Now, quite an advantage to be in there earlier. Yes. You know, as it rolls on, because you're more comfortable as the days go in. together in a fun environment now quite an advantage to be in there earlier yes you know as it rolls on because you're more comfortable as the days go in hey welcome well we have good yesterday we're at the bill you're going to building today this is what they're going to do

like what a time okay so this is how they're using new ownership right yeah front office new era we'll see if bob myers like that's an nba guy coming in had a real role and who hired who at the gm and the coach and like this is a small one but there's a guy dave guardi who was like very high up an svp at the nfl league office schefter breaks news on monday it got like 10 retweets but i thought it was maybe the biggest news of the week the commanders hired dave guardi who basically has been working in the nfl for 20 years and kind of built some of the salary cap and waiver wire system. But also now the last couple of years was dealing stuff with the rules and

with Troy Vincent and on the officiating side and the commanders hired Dave Garty and some nebulous role. And it's like, that's a different way of thinking that they are thinking outside the box a little bit. And I'm kind of curious to see what the commanders do the next few years, because I don't think they're playing by the typical rules and the paint by numbers that the NFL teams have typically done. Yeah. And you got to major in the nebulous. That's what people say.

If you don't major in the nebulous, then you're going to get out-executed every single time. Connor's got a question for you, Schrag. Yeah, Schrag, there is a comment from Brandon Bean. It was either today or yesterday about how they're at 28, but they don't have 28 first-round grades for the 28 players that could lead up to them. With that in mind, how many people do you think, or players rather, have those first round grades? At what point in the first round do you think we might see teams trading out

and other teams maybe trading back in perhaps? I know in your mock draft you had Ladd McConkie going 31 to the Niners, but white slot receiver. He's got New England written all over him. Is there a chance? That's old New England. True. That is old New England, but hopefully they keep some of that flair

in these new teams too. The pizzazz, yes. Not to get too wonky, it's a really cool draft in that it's great with the quarterbacks up top. It's great with the wide receivers up top, and it's really deep at offensive tackle so it's a big offensive draft there are probably two really elite pass rushers you'll see in the top 15 it's latu out of ucla and of and it's uh dallas turner out of alabama corners you might see one in the top 15 terry and arnold or quinion mitchell

and then that's about it as far as like your blue chip guys and you might get byron murphy the defensive tackle out of texas and then there's this big group of like really solid end of first offensive linemen end of first wide receivers and end of first like defensive backs so i think i think brandon's spot on with it and he also said like we we don't necessarily need to have a number one wide receiver. We need a smart wide receiver who runs right. We're not going to replace Stephon Diggs with the 28th overall pick, which leads me to think he's comfortable with whatever's there at 28 or moving back or taking a guy in the second

round where there's not this great urgency for Buffalo to trade all their chips to move up because they do have, obviously, a guy they like in kincaid last year and the other wide receivers that are still there brandon bean told us whenever we're down to annual meetings he says he's drafting wide receiver in every single day every single round every single round you'll be covering every round pretty much on nfl network can't wait to spend the entire weekend next weekend with you pal really i'm excited dude how about belichick on your show are you serious bro that's pretty good Every round pretty much on NFL Network. Can't wait to spend the entire weekend next weekend with you, pal. Really excited. I'm excited, dude. How about Belichick on your show?

Are you serious, bro? That's pretty good. Yeah. Come on, dude. I will be a part of the draft coverage for NFL Network, but I would be lying if I'm not going to be watching you and Bill Belichick breaking down picks. I'm sorry to all my NFL Network bosses.

That sounds pretty damn cool. It's okay. Got a phone, right? Phone and TV. A lot of them both. You can steal what Belichick's saying. For sounds pretty damn cool. It's okay. Got a phone, right? Phone, ATV. A lot of them. A lot of them. You can steal what Belichick's saying. For the weekend.

Boom. Yeah. You can gather thoughts from Bill. They're your own. Send them out. You know what I mean? You've heard this before. Listen to Bill.

Say exactly what he says. Oh, you should see the amount of that we're going to do. I cannot wait. Look at that visual. Just look at him next to you. Dude, pinch me. That's unbelievable. Well, are you in New York still right now?

Let's get to it. I am. I am. Yep. Yeah. Where are you from? I'm in New York. Where are you from?

Where are you from? I'm from Jersey. My whole life has been in New York and New Jersey. Atlanta a little bit. Yeah. Oh, you went to that super good school down there in Atlanta. Yep. Yep.

Exactly. That was the face I was going to make. That's it. I have heard, you know, you're moving to Los Angeles. Is that happening? Is Schrags going to be an L.A. guy? Let's go. Good morning. Football is going to be in Los Angeles no matter what.

I would like to think I'll have a role in it. We'll see if I'm moving the family and whatnot. But I – Schrags? You don't need to hear that, Shrakes! L.A. Pete, we need it! We need L.A. Shrakes! L.A. Shrakes!

Shrakes in L.A., the whole team! Hawaiian shirts, yeah. I was thinking opposite. I was thinking me at Delilah or Nice Guy hanging out with Drake and 21 Savage. Okay, you just picked your side. Don't say Diddy. No, no, no. No Diddy. Don't say Diddy.

No, no, no. No Diddy. Did you ever cross paths with that guy? You ever go to any Diddy parties? No. It's funny. Obviously, no. I grew up in New York and New Jersey and the White Party always sounded like the coolest thing in the Hamptons. It was places that I would never...

I'm pretty happy not having been invited to any of those. Way to go, Shregs. Way to go, Shregs. Shregs is a city guy, though. He's the king of New York. Yeah, legit city guy. Oh, look at that, Shregs. We got a photo of you on the beach with Taube, I believe.

Hey, that's my guy. Yeah, with Taube's team coordinator for Kansas City. Yeah, look at that photo. Trunks. Look how good you look, Shregs. That's his. Special teams, bro. I am a special teams coordinator for Kansas City. Look at the photo. Trunks. Look how good you look, Trent. Special teams, bro. I am a special teams maven.

That is Dave Tobe, one of the greatest to ever do it. Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl champion, special teams coach. They lost Tommy Townsend. Yeah, I know. He just signed down with Houston. That is a sneaky, massive, massive ordeal. Tommy was awesome. And I thought when they replaced colquitt that was a big deal then tommy was like as good if not better i'm like all right uh now they're rolling the dice

again dustin i i know you probably heard that he was a lefty you guys got different balls right you guys were very different punters obviously tough to judge colquitt was there for like 27 years the man then they signed punk god yeah punk god now ariza back in kansas city i mean i'm excited to see i'm excited to see where he puts the football section and when andy Yeah, punk on now. Ariza back in Kansas City. I mean, he got pumped. Pumped for that. I'm excited to see where he puts the football section. And what Andy Reid does with them. And Tobe. Yeah, he's got a tough act to follow down there.

For years, Tobe would get that head coaching buzz, like he's the next Harbaugh special teams coach, and then it kind of died. I think he's satisfied doing special teams, but I love that we can even talk about Dave Tobe on the show. Well, it's because you were shoeless with him at some beach. He had those sweet sandals. The Merrills? Yeah, can't be seen in those ever, but if you're

Tobe, yeah, you gotta do your thing. Let's get back to the draft, Shreg. Ty is... I thought we were going to talk about Bubba Ventrone a little bit. No, okay, let's go back to the draft. Love Bubba Ventrone. Bring him home, exactly. I don't know why he's not the best team. He's in Cleveland still, right? He's in Cleveland? He's in Cleveland.

Yeah, long time Colts guy, obviously. Yeah, we won a lot of games because of our special teams and then he just leaves town. It's like, okay, and then we're fair catching kickoffs. It's like, wait a minute. Big Bubba's doing that? No way. No. You can have a lot of different insiders on the show and reporters and I respect them all. No one's talking special teams

coordinators like I am. Let's go. Well, well bill belichick probably but i understand what you're saying i understand what you're saying in there let's get back to the draft tie is a question for you yeah shregs you're just mentioning blue chip guys uh how there's only about 15 of them you missed cooper's gene make no mistake about it he is a blue chip guy i don't care you know what you're hearing he is and he'll show on sundays that he is but uh he has been one of those guys who early on before he got hurt you know people were talking hey this guy could be a top 10 top 15 pick then he gets hurt breaks his fibula and after his workout he's kind of re-ascending up draft boards i think you have him going 22 to philly what do you think his ceiling is on draft night yeah i think he's he's in that

20 to 32 range if not early second round pick well he is electric he's coming off a serious injury in november so try to recover from that we'll see but his pro day was great he he did everything he had to do and he does another thing he plays special teams he returns kicks and turns punts and can do that so uh i have him as my third cornerback not safety cornerback um so i have it going arnold we know amen he plays corner quarter yeah cornerback okay respect to jason seahorn and scott case and the many before them um but it goes I mean, the many before that. Certainly. There needs to be some chatter about when that'll be. An old Charlie Chaplin film. Da-da-da-da-da. Yeah, exactly.

Silent film. Yeah, we agree. Cooper's second rounder. That's the first time I've heard that. Yeah, there's no way he lasts until the second round. I hope he's still. Because if the Packers, if he's still there and the Packers get Cooper and Gene. You like that? I'll jump off where we're at at the draft.

So he won't return punts if he's playing corner. I don't think, personally. Now, there have been a lot of corners in the past who have gone on to return punts. But when you're on the field, and then even kickoffs is even harder because they just scored, seemingly. So you were on the field for the entire thing. Now you get a commercial break two and a half minutes. Now it's like,

here we go. You got to go. But if he does do that and they also have him at nickel or something else, that would be worth a first rounder. Especially if he, you know what I mean? People have drafted that in the first round. That team has taken defensive backs in the past. Obviously Jair Alexander

and I don't know, what's Quinton Rollins? second round first round they've done it late recently stokes out of georgia yep so they've done it like they've no problem taking that position uh what's cool about cooper he comes from a town of 1000 like one of these small towns oh iowa yeah i know pal you know the deal and you've seen the basketball highlight. Odebolt, Iowa. Smell that? I think it's O-D-E- B-O-L-T. Odebolt. Population, 1,000.

And was like the best basketball player to ever go through that high school average. Something crazy. It has all these highlights. He's a sick athlete. Is he smart? I assume he's maybe the smartest human to ever come to volleyball.

Probably. Here we go. Is his O to ball high? Look at this. No, he actually went to O-A-B-C-I-G. Bunch of small towns together. Oh, I've seen those.

They combine. It's one of those. We had one of those in Pittsburgh went and played volleyball against out in the middle of the sticks. It was like...

Did you play volleyball? Yeah. I was pretty good. I was okay. Did you play volleyball? Yeah. I was pretty good. I was okay. I was a pretty good volleyball player. Yeah, I enjoyed. How's the plum volleyball program? We were good.

Solid. Yeah, we were good. We used to fill up gyms, too. Like, people come watch, mostly because the other teams hated us, and there was a whole, you know. Yeah. Anytime I'm a part of something, there's probably going to be some dramatics. You know, there's going to be some shit.

Volleyball. It was awesome. It's my favorite sport. It's my favorite sport to play shrek you play a lot of bump set yeah right there brother i went to freehold township high school we didn't have a volleyball program but i i like to get out and mix it up on the jersey shore sometimes beach volleyball beach volleyball obviously much different than Gymnasium volleyball But it's a great sport I forget where I was heading But I would assume if Cooper Dejean played volleyball

He'd be the greatest volleyball player of all time I'm excited to see what happens with him Me too And that's going to be a big story regardless Because the way Pete Schrager laid this whole thing out If you heard what he said Corner Cornerback You know the same position as laid this whole thing out. Absolutely. If you heard what he said, corner, he's going to play cornerback.

You know, the same position as Pac-Man Jones is going to be playing cornerback. Pac-Man played 12 years. Absurd. Think about that. Who's the dude from Washington

played like 16 years, 17 years a cornerback? Daryl Green? Yeah. How long was he there? How long was he a cornerback? Daryl Green was there since like 80,

I think 90 to 2000 something. 18 years, 19 years. That's the position you have to be the most athletic. Dude, Terrence Newman. Remember Terrence Newman? He played 15, 16 years at corner. Yeah.

Joe Hayden. So athletic. Because you don't know what's coming and you have to be able to. The fastest people, wide receivers, right? You have to be able to run with them and also break with them, be quicker than them and smarter than them on every play. Never tap.

And they'll want to move you to safety. Okay, we'll get two more years out of you at safety, but I love those guys who say, no, I'm still a corner. That was Pac-Man Jones. Pac-Man could have got probably two to three more years in a career at safety, especially with how he liked to hit people. But he's telling them, no, I'm still a corner. Pac-Man could have got probably two to three more years in a career at safety, especially with how he liked to hit people, but he said, no, I'm not a safety. I'm a corner. Well, Cooper DeGene say,

I'm not a safety. I'm a corner. He might, but he also would say, I'm a fucking football player. Put me anywhere. Wide receiver. I'll play quarterback. One couple state championships playing quarterback. All right, let's move away from the draft and Cooper Dijon, even though it is a historic conversation.

Yes. Let's talk about maybe some movement amongst teams that may be draft-related, but maybe not. Tone has a question for you, Shreyas. Yeah, it could be draft-related because I saw in your mock at 20 of the Steelers going Brian Thomas Jr. out of LSU, but in your little snippet you said, basically, this Omar Khan is not your father's Steelers GM.

He's not afraid to make moves. There's this name that the Steelers insiders and other people just keep throwing out there, and it's Brandon Aiyuk. What are you hearing on Aiyuk first and foremost? Is there a chance that if the board doesn't fall the way the Steelers want it, that they try to make a draft night trade for Aiyuk

or maybe like Cortland Sutton, something like that. Yeah, look, I just thought when they went big on those quarterback moves and that was like gangster stuff that he was doing, maneuvering that and moved the chessboard pretty well to get both Justin Fields and Russell Wilson. Just from sources within the league, it's like, all right, well, wide receiver's next. When they made the Deontay Johnson trade for Carolina, it was like, okay, well, wide receivers next.

Omar's not done. It seems like there's been a bit of a stall on that. So if it's not Ayuk and it's not Sutton, well, they could very well get the fourth wide receiver in this draft. The way it stacks up, you've got the big three. And then I've spoken to teams, and it's like some teams love Thomas at LSU. I'm telling you, there is a big love for Ladd McConkie as potentially the fourth wide receiver in this draft, as crazy as that might sound.

And then also the two Texas kids. Why does that sound crazy, Shregs? What's crazy about it? Yeah, we know he's playing wide receiver. Not tight end. He's playing wide receiver not tight end he's playing wide receiver what are you what are you talking about

I think Ladd goes first round but I'd say I'd be surprised if he was the fourth taken based on all the talk of him being the eighth or ninth guy going into this month but he has jumped up draft boards teams love meeting with Ladd McConkie footwork smarts all of them. And guess what?

He ran a 4-3-9-4. So you look at the Steelers, that's a really good spot if you're sitting pretty at 20 and don't make a move. And you say, okay, well, we still get the fourth wide receiver in this draft.

Two other names I would circle for the Steelers, Byron Murphy, the big defensive tackle from Texas, who's awesome if he somehow falls to 20. And Darius Robinson, another defensive lineman out of Missouri who is getting a lot of buzz right now as well. I circled both of those names. Whatever you guys saw.

Tell Belichick, circle them, Bill. Well, Bill actually said yesterday during the announcement, I can't wait to hear your guys' expertise. It's like, Bill, enough. Easy. We get it. We get it. We understand, Bill.

I love he had all the lombardis behind him i love that that's not all great there's two missing yeah yep because he's got eight right yeah he's got two as a coordinator as well so like does he like stay at the hotel with you like what's i'm so fascinated by like the off camera without is he hanging like what are we doing last thursday i was in chicago for a dinner with him we were in a back room of a steak place that was playing Las Vegas club music in there. Like Tiesto, like we're going. Pretty loud, pretty good speaker system. Not Sinatra Vegas.

We're talking Tiesto. It was very well-speakered, too. Like the room itself was meant for a good time. A lot of shit on the table. Like, great. It was just him and me. Big table, big room. Just the two of you. This is like the scene in Heat where

Pacino and De Niro are finally together in a movie. That's what this feels like. Well, that's quite a compliment there. But that is one of those. Not both of those. And it was me, him, and his computer. And we had film. We went through film. Here's the photo from the end of the night. We had a couple of dull

beverages as well. Yeah, we had a couple of dull beverages. He's the photo from the end of the night. We had a couple adult beverages as well. Yeah, we had a couple adult beverages. He was just coming from a speaking corporate, I think, speaking event, which he's going to make so much money. Oh, mama. Every company is just, we can have Bill Belichick come in here? Absolutely. Come on in.

We will pay you whatever. Doesn't seem like too much. Is there? No, it's bill belichick yeah coming in he looked amazing had film we had some drinks he was hysterical i'm three and a half hours i was fucking i was laughing my ass three and a half hours so like you guys were so good on game day at the army navy game and i'm like all right that's a great connection he was so good on your show yesterday i'm more fascinated with that stuff though like three and a half hours because everyone who knows Belichick,

everyone in his world, and you've had Lombardi on for years and all of that. They say he's like the coolest hang. And I haven't had that opportunity. I haven't seen that side, but everyone to a man says like, great dude. You would never expect how funny and how cool he is off field, off camera drink,

had a cocktail that was, uh, originally served with no ice. Oh, and then I get a, can I get Oh. Can I get some ice in this? Fucking ice, please. What are we talking about here?

It was amazing. I pissed four times. He pissed zero times. That's coming right off the heels of Matt Rule saying they watched film for three and a half hours and he was like, you want a water or something? Because I had to pee desperately. No, I'm fine. No coffee either, right? No coffee or something?? No coffee? Never. That was on political news last night, I think.

They were reporting that. Great to be back in the political news vein. Excited to be in there. Yeah, Shranks, it's great. You guys get any of that good morning football? We talk about like, what kind of party favor would you want to get at a party party for Sam Duffer? That's awesome.

Shranks, easy. Shr Shags are throwing 100 on the flag. Oh, shit. Yeah, but it's entertaining. I mean, there's some shags where we feel for you while it's happening, like all of you up there, because I'm a big fan of Kyle as well. Three hours every day in the offseason, you get segments like, if you were to go to Coachella with any NFL head coach, who would it be? And it's like, let's do it. That's not a bad scene. There's some third hour ones that you guys get forced

to do where we're like, buddy, I couldn't even imagine my reaction if that was presented to me to be like, hey, here we go. You guys crush it. And that's why the move has a lot of us worried. We watch every morning in here, Shregs. We watch every morning in here. You guys have been great supporters, and I am so appreciative of it.

I mean, I remember when I came to the Thunderdome, and I was with Kingsbury, and you guys had our show on. I was like on the screen. I'm like, that's damn cool. Yeah, it was neat. Yeah, Shregs, everybody had your damn show on. That's why you guys wanted me. And now it's not on.

Right. Hold on. Belichick has his Lombardis. Oh! He has one of those, too. He had one of those. Right. Hold on. Belichick has his Lombardis. Oh. He has one of those too. He had one of those too. He did. He had one of those two drinks.

I don't work for Amazon. They were trying to curry favor to me. They made me one of these. Did you get one of these? Yeah, they sent us one of those too. Did that look like me? Yeah, it looked just like you. It does.

Holy shit. Strikingly. It needs to be more jacked though. They should have made your arms bigger. And your legs too. Look at those tiny little hangers. We have no morning show anymore. We've been on hiatus.

I've been going to the gym. I'm trying to get a little bigger. I'm ready for the WWE, baby. Hell, yeah. You're going to take a bump, Shrek? You're going to take a bump? You think you could? You think you could be a good wrestling person?

I think you could be a manager. Oh, yeah. You could be a good manager. For sure. Manager, yeah. They don't have wrestlers like when we were kids like Barry Horowitz and Erwin R. Schweitzer. They don't have those guys

anymore. IRS was a dog. He was. I'll tell you what, I think that's the first wrestling conversation I've ever been in where those are the two guys that were kind of referenced, but I respect them. Barry Horowitz would slap himself on the back.

Remember that, dude? Yeah, come on, dude. Just like you, Shregs. Maybe get you out there, pal. Saturday morning, superstars are wrestling. I'll be the guy who just gets his ass kicked every week. No, no, no. Need those people.

Nobody ever talks about the Washington Generals. That's right. All of them Globetrotters have needed them for a long time. There he is. There's IRS. I was also a Brooklyn Brawler guy. I mean, those are my guys. Yeah, hey, listen.

If you were to pay attention nowadays, you'd find somebody you'd love. Oh, yeah. Are there? You'd love Ivar. I think you'd love Ivar. Love him. Ivar. He's a kid.

His name's Ivar. Yeah. Shrags is a kid. J.D. McDonough. Dominic Mysterio. Ray Mysterio's kid. You'd love him. Love Dirty Dom.

I would love to be like the fanboy of the most random wrestler you guys have. That's what we're doing right now. Yeah, we're kind of feeding him. You get those guys who are like, I'm a fan of a soccer team, but not in the first league or the second league, but the third league. No, no. That's my guy. Who's that guy?

J.D. McDonough. That is your guy. That's my guy. He's part of Judgment Day, though, Shriggs. You're not going to want to team up with this group. No, no. That's my guy. Who's that guy? Jay D. McDonald. That is your guy. He's part of Judgment Day, though, Shrakes. You're not going to want to team up with this group. No. They're in trouble without Mommy, though. Yeah, Mommy's not.

The Mommy of the group out with a shoulder injury. She got hurt. Backstage attack from Liv Morgan. Liv Morgan revenge tour. Holy shit. The rest of the girls better be careful. Damien Priest is going to take his game to another level. Liv Morgan revenge tour. Holy shit. The rest of the girls better be careful. Damien Priest is going to take his game to another level. He's a champion.

Damien Priest? I'm talking. What's that, Shranks? Damien Priest? You might know him as Punishment Martinez. What was that? I don't know him.

He's our world heavyweight champion. You son of a bitch. For real? Yeah. Shranks! Don't do what you're doing right now.

He's breaking. I love it. I love, I love, I got into it. I watched WrestleMania, but I saw the final stuff with Undertaker and you and the amazing call. Like, I loved all that. I didn't know the heavyweight champion. Oh, yeah.

So it seems like you watched a clip at the end of WrestleMania. Yeah. That's what it sounds like. That five minutes. Don't say that. That's what it sounds like. Shanks, it feels like that's what you did, Shanks. No, don't say that. It was a great

WrestleMania. WrestleMania 40 was awesome. WrestleMania 41 is going to be sweet wherever it is. Can we break some news? Where's next year's WrestleMania? So that is something that is very talked about. I think I don't know. It feels like there are signs based on reports.

Can I give three guesses? Sure, sure. I don't know the answer, so I will not be able to tell you if you're right or not. I'm going to talk about great cities. I'm going to say Detroit. Is that a possibility? Nope. No chance.

I don't think Detroit. No fucking way. Sign it for the draft, though. Are they leaving out that stupid sign for it? They just had SummerSlam, didn't they? Yes. They said they were going back after, didn't they? They did not say that.

They did not say that. But they did just have Summer Slam, which is second biggest show of the year here in the United States of America. So no, it won't be Detroit. Welcome to the Silverdome, brother, too. Denver. Oh! Mile high. Open air stadium. Oh, yeah.

Little Red Rocks action. Is that even close? I don't think so. No, they would rent it out probably and have somebody do something. Yeah, they'd do something crazy. You know, Denver would be sick. Denver is a great city. What's the weather? What's the weather? I don't know.

It's actually, it's kind of nice. When I went in February, it was like 60s. Because I think what they say that where they are latitude-wise is actually not that bad. You get up in the mountain bad. Then it gets cold. They can get the snow and shit like that, but I guess it's not as... The average low is 35, so that's not happening.

Oh, right now? After this year, yeah. I believe they got like six inches of snow a couple weeks ago. Yeah, so it won't be 10-0 for two, Schrags. It has to be open-air stadium, or could it be closed? No, it can't be closed. Open-air is not good,

because Philadelphia was freezing night one. They had a northerly wind coming through. Nikon said not a cold city open air stadium again. In Philly, it was great. This is the tweet I saw. How about Minnesota?

They got a beautiful indoor. I like that. Minnesota's not bad. And the city's connected downtown, right? Just like Indy. VConn has it booked already for that time. Yeah, you're right. Gary Vee's conference, I think, is the entire month of April. Gary Vee was at Mania.

He's not missing that. We saw him at Mania. He might be in the main event next year. Saw him walking out with his chair and somebody else's. I took a photo. That was TJ from the Rich Eisen show that he was walking out on the side of. I got a chance to chit-chat with both of them. It was great to see them. Schrager wasn't there.

He only watched a clip of the ending. It's not true. I watched it on Peacock. I watched a lot of it. Kyle was there. Kyle was there. He was. Great promo afterwards, too.

Awesome. On the steps. Very, very thankful. I sent him a text. He sent me a text. I sent him a text about like. His kid was gritting on the steps It was cool It was really nice of him to say that

It was very cool to hear about his experience At Wrestlemania as a first timer He seems like a perfect guy For the WWE His personality is perfect Alright Shrakes You told us you're not moving to LA I didn't say that.

I said it's a conversation. But I do love the show and also love New York City. Yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah, we understand. We're excited to see how that works out as avid fans of yours and the program. We can't wait to chit-chat with you next week, hopefully, as you piece together your final mock draft.

You're the man. Good luck next weekend. Thank you so much for having me on, guys. Love you. Appreciate it. You too. Ladies and gentlemen, Peter Schrager. Love you, Schrags.

Love you, Schrags. Love you, Schrags. All right. He had his fastball working today. Yeah. I'll be a part of the show, the family. I don't know. Oh, hilarious.

His wife. Excuse me? Yeah. We're moving to Los Angeles? No, thank you. Well, that's what we were. Yeah. That decision was. We heard that decision was made like. his wife would be like, excuse me? We're moving to Los Angeles? Well, that's what we were, yeah. We heard that decision was made like,

we heard they knew really, really, really far in advance. That that wasn't just dropped on them out of nowhere. Did you hear that, AJ? That's good to give them enough advance, you know, with all their families and everything they have going on in their life. That's good. I heard that really, I heard that was a quick drop in. Excuse me?

We're moving to where? By when? Next football season. You got three months to find a house out there. Okay. Everything's really affordable, too. Yeah. It'll be fine.

Everything's really... I mean, if Triggs really wants to swing the pendulum, just take his family on a nice subway ride. You want to do this forever? Or do you want to go to L.A.? I've seen some videos on that subway as of late. I don't know if I'm going. No fucking way.

I don't know if I want to go to the other place, either. True. Well, I of late i don't know if i'm going no fucking way i don't know if i want to go the other place either true well i'm wearing i don't know why people more people aren't doing this we talked about this with somebody that lives in new york because we're hearing people are just getting punched they need to start wearing like motorcycle helmets around yeah everybody loves fashion you know that's that could be the new fashion just wear the motorcycle helmet then nobody's punching anybody in the face. All the time? Them what? Just all the time to keep it on?

Well, if you're traveling around, yeah. Wear a football helmet. Wear a football helmet. I think you have better vision probably. Perfect. Yeah. Get you a nice kicker or quarterback. Yeah.

And then what if we get people with the D-lineman old school face mask? Show up at work. Take your helmet off. Put it on the hat rack, and then you're walking back. Just as I watch more and more videos on the internet of people just getting attacked out of nowhere in New York, it's like,

put some helmets on, all of a sudden you're breaking fists. You're not breaking your fist. Probably want chain mail underneath your clothes too, because there's a lot of people getting stabbed down there. Oh, that's the shark stuff, right? Yep. Remember, we learned the other day, if you do see any sharks walking the streets of New York City,

they only get pissed if you touch their private parts. Their dongs are. Don't touch any shark dongs. Nope. They actually have two. If they're trying to attack you, though, I thought that's what you're supposed to do. Don't look up the picture. It's gross.

He said they only attack you if you touch it. Oh, true. Okay. You've got to ride their back, I think. You just got to hang on. I see a lot of people on here. Dorsal fin. Tickle the fin. A lot of people hanging on the dorsal fin of those. They're always doing this really cool,

slow pose. They're like this. I'm like, that looks so cool. How deep in the ocean are you? How long is that trip out to where you are? And how quickly can that fucker say, yeah, I'm about done with you being a little bit of a hanger on her. I'm starving. But I appreciate that they're doing it.

Always white people. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Nice. Remember when Poopy's got his hand bit by that shark? Yeah, I was worried about Poopy. Still am. Speaking of being worried about people, Mabu

needs to stay away from guns. I don't know if you saw little Mabu. Hold on, hold on. Tell me what happened. There has been an update. It was a shoot. Excuse me, it was a work. Although Mabu wouldn't do that. As soon as I saw him almost blow his foot off with a gun,

I was like, Mabu wouldn't be making that mistake. Turns out, yeah. Well, don't be killing anybody, Mabu. Right. All right, well, let's end the show on that. Happy to hear it wasn't a real live gun he almost shot himself with. Exactly. Kind of good news. It is good. Feel good story.

Yeah, still got the Mabu. Good promo. Yeah, I've seen it. That never makes its way into my mind. Nope, never. Nor should it. Time. Time. Mabu's chasing his dream. Yeah, you don't it. That never makes its way into my mind. Nope, never. Nor should it. Time. Time. Mad Boo's chasing his dream. Yeah, you don't like my boo?

It will be. It will be soon, though. That thing, I think I texted you right after you were talking about that dude getting run over by the truck a couple days ago. The second the show was over, boom, it popped up for me. Yeah, see, here's this one. Boom. Just shots ground after pulling out. It did look like it was a little bit too set up.

Yeah. I didn't know it was Mad Boo. You never know with Mad Boo. It did look like it was a little bit too set up. Yeah. I didn't know with Mabu. You never know with Mabu. Exactly. He's a wild card. Mabu is a wild card. Mitt said he's got to drink this going out. Mitt personally or Mabu?

No, Mitt told me that. Via Mabu. Mitt has the. By way of Lil Mabu. Yeah. Let's get to a break. Big feel good Friday tomorrow. Huge.

Let's not find ourselves in any situations where, and I'm not. Let's get to a break. Big feel-good Friday tomorrow. Huge. Let's not find ourselves in any situations where, and I'm not talking about us, I'm talking about the whole world, where we look like Greg Delillo yesterday. Yeah. They just really good as a society. That guy's a weirdo, huh? Would have never expected that from him.

I mean, I've known Greg a long time. He's been here in Indianapolis a long time. He was heralded as, you know, an incredible writer. He's one of in Indianapolis a long time. He was heralded as an incredible writer. He's one of the only people left at IndyStar who I have known throughout my entire time here. He's obviously pretty

oafish. He used that word yesterday, but he is like a... He likes to point out things that he thinks is wrong in other humans and other things on a very regular basis. So whenever you have a situation arise with one of the biggest stars on Earth on the first day in town and you sound the way you sound and do the things you do, you don't have a lot of people that are ever going to say,

like, no, that's not him. Instead, it's the complete opposite. Yeah, they're going to kill you for it. Yeah, and they should. That was a very, very weird, weird interaction. I'd even go as far as say weirdest. Yeah, and they should. That was a very, very weird interaction. I'd even go as far as say weirdest. The weirdest potential outcome of an interaction at an opening press conference

for the biggest star that's ever played for the team ever. Yes. With that being said, I'm happy that Caitlin Clark didn't just choose to hate our entire fucking city because of me. I thought right after she was going to be like, fuck this, trade me. Trade me. I'm out of here. Yeah, and I saw his apology. It's just so me.

Hey, don't fuck this up for the whole city. Please. We got a superstar here who's awesome. We got a chance to chat with her. She sat in traffic to get up to the Thunderdome. We got a chance to chat with her for 15 minutes or whatever. It's like, we are lucky she is here. She needs to understand that.

And we are like, let's make her like this is your home. That's not how Indiana is. That thing, that interaction is not how Indiana is. She doesn't need a weird uncle in her home. Well, I just told her, you do that to me, we'll be okay. I had a hard time finishing that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was that weird. I was getting a little

tack. I just feel like, I just shut it off. I can't. Well, I read the caption first. Yeah. And I was like, how? That's got to be out of context. It can't be that. And then as I'm listening to it, and then I hear the rest of the room laugh.

I'm like, who the fuck's in the room? It's like weird, nervous laugh. What was that? Yeah, probably very uncomfortable, I would assume. His follow-up. A lot of people in that profession have judged us pretty harshly, you know, for a long time.

And there's a lot of people, yeah. And there's... It feels like all... I'm not getting into it. Let's get out of here. A lot of people, they're on the high horse, seemingly. Oh, yeah. Inevitably. Let's take a break. We'll be back for Feel Good Friday, but let's remember not to be that person.

Press conferences or life. Let's move forward. Amen. I saw a lot of people talking about how women athletes are talked to versus how male athletes are talked to. I never understood that. Because when we talked to Caitlin yesterday,

that's a fucking savage. That is how you talk to Caitlin Clark. I'm talking to a person who is more competitive, more talented, more driven than any other human in the building. It's not a male or female thing. It's like I am talking to an athlete who is a fucking monster right there. So I don't understand how that is even a narrative that that happens but also like caitlyn clark handled it perfect yeah i mean it's yeah yeah it could have been really could have got really awkward too like she she did a very good job feeds even more into like beast yeah like yeah i ain't good this is your guy she's probably saying something

and then let's move along so i I hate that that's how it started, but the way it's going to finish is with just 10 straight W titles. That's right. A lot of gold. How much fun is that going to be for us? I'll tell you what. Jacked up. Everyone there.

The parades you're going to have, everything's going to be great. Oh, I was thinking the parade. Just now I thought of. Yeah. Oh, big time. City's never had one. Yes. City's never had one. Yes.

City's never had one. Think how big it's going to be. There has been a parade here. Doesn't Indy have the motorcycle guys, too? Do they just stand on the bikes? Oh, yeah. Yes. Our motorcycle and, oh, they have a name.

They have a name. They have a name. I know them. They're great people. What do you mean? I should talk to them. I should say their name. The cops on motorcycles?

Yeah, they have like a crew, like the traffic control crew, you know what I mean? And something just happened. Yeah, I told you this thing was a piece of shit. It just busted, so. You're a flip-flip? Yeah. Anyways, Indianapolis, his feet thing, he's been kicking it around. And it's very heavy, the thing that his feet sit on.

The drill team, obviously, and then there's a whole unit or whatever. And Captain Ilnicki is in charge of them. Nice. They're a great group of people. And they're also like a cool, like, yeah, let's have a good. They get it. Yeah, they're like a cool group. So parade here in Indianapolis would be epic.

She's going to lead us to one. Yeah. At least one. Better get your tickets now because they're only going up, baby. You got to get ahead of time, huh? Yeah. Sometimes you just you make a good risk-free investment,

if you will. Last thing before we go, ladies and gentlemen, Jarmer Jarger has scored a goal. What? For the Czech Republic national team.

He is 52 years old. We should have put him on the goddamn pens whenever he was in Pittsburgh. He just outskated a guy with a nice one. I mean, why wasn't he playing for the Pens? He was literally in our arena for three weeks. They lost his

bobbleheads. He stuck around. He was sleeping on the bench in Pittsburgh. Just give the guy some money. Let him play. Dangles, filthy, 52 years old. Wyatt, goal. That's the act, baby. First shift. 52. Playing against what, some 21-year-olds

probably? Yeah, not even happy about it. There's more to do, boys. And we know they're on the gas that Biz told us about. We do not know that. He told us. That was Russia. Not Yager, though. Not the Czech. Oh, I forgot. They're not the same. Jeez.

Get out of here. Are you sure? Now's the check. Oh, I forgot. They're not the same. Jeez. Get out of here. Are you sure? Now's the time. Alright, we're back tomorrow with a feel-good Friday. I believe there'll be a trip to a rumor mill tomorrow. Ooh. Oh, no. Who runs that? Who's the point man?

What was the oh, no? I was very happy. It made me happy. I'm glad it didn't go away. I was honestly very excited. Yeah, what are you talking about? What's that guy's name again? What's that guy's name again? He's talking about Donnie Don Don. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I'm glad he's still alive. What do you mean? Yeah, he's still alive. I'm excited to hear what he's heard, you know, portions of things. Oh, no, that Caitlin Clegg press conference. Bingo. It's the top of the list, rumor has it. Oh, no, that Caitlin Clark press conference. Bingo. It's the top of the list, rumor has it. Oh, no.

I think Mad Mel will be making an appearance now that we're less than a week away from the draft, from what I've been told tomorrow on Feel Good Friday. And who else? Big Friday. Who else? Will we just cold call in the middle of the show because we're bored and don't have anything else to talk about? We'll see. Tony Miola.

That's a good call. Let's tell him what we're doing right now. Good idea. Is he preparing for... Is he preparing for the soccer tournament? He better be. I don't even know if he's going to be able to make it because his kid plays for a baseball team in college and if they make it to the thingy,

it's the same exact time as Omaha. They won't. Who's he playing for? You don't even know. I think they've got a good team. It's tough to make it to WCWS. Very. He's going to stay at Wendy's house where he'll make it. Yeah, he lives in fucking Omaha.

Did we know that? How'd he get there is the question. Walked? Yeah. From Columbus. Like fucking Forrest Gump. Why? Why would you walk him?

Because he's hunting the story, dude. He's a fucking journalist he was looking to buy a gymnasium hey Donny Grazi we'll see you next time alright we're back tomorrow, should be a dumb show there's no reason to watch but we hope you will be a friend, tell the friend something nice

we gotta give thanks, Randy Johnson thank you Big Unit, you were amazing Wendy, fantastic you are his Ohio chief. You know that. Pretty cool. I guess so. Yeah, Wendy, yeah.

He's hilarious. I'm glad he's still a big Ohio State fan. You guys are watching the game together next year. That's cute. I'm happy to put that together. I know. That's awesome. That is very cool.

That's nice of you to put that together. Well, you were the one that put it up. Your idea. I should be able to hang out, too, if I'm allowed. Yeah, if there's room. It's one-on-one time. Conman, group, you guys are going to be fun.

One-on-one time. With Wendy? Why not? Wendy loves espresso martini. You guys can't be sitting and saying there has to be at least one seat. We won't go. Thanks, Peter Schrager. Thank you, Schrager. I'm not about good morning football. I'll be tough. Thank you, Schrager. I'm bummed out about Good Morning Football.

I'll be tough. He said he hopes he has a role. They'll figure it out. Pay him. Pay the man. I don't think it's about that. It sounds like it might be about that. You give me a little bump, I can move to California. That's going to have to be quick.

He is the king of New York City. I know. It's kind of his whole gimmick, isn't it? If like... He is the king of New York City. I know. It's kind of his whole gimmick, isn't it? Yeah. If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. So, will he not be the king of LA? He would be. Yeah, I don't know.

McVeigh is his best friend, too. They get pretty juiced about that photo of him on the beach. Yeah, him and Tubb look sweet out there. All right, let's get the hell out of here. We'll be back tomorrow. Be a friend, tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. We're in this thing together. Never forget it.

Okay? Press conferences. Yeah. Never forget it. Alright, team on me. Team on three. Let's have a good one tonight, okay? Hell yeah. One, two, three. Team! Goodbye!