The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 1392 - Peter Schrager, Damien Woody, Andrew Hawkins, Jason McCourty, Darius Butler, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

On today’s show, Pat is out of town on assignment, as ESPN NFL Insider/analyst, Peter Schrager guest hosts in the ThunderDome with Darius Butler and the boys as they discuss the new Cowboys documentary on Jerry Jones and why it helps give context to the Micah Parsons situation, which teams might be sleepers this year, an early look at Field Yates' mock draft for next year, and everything else happening in the NFL world. Joining the show are three great guests including 2x Super Bowl Champion, Damien Woody, 6 year NFL veteran and 2x Grey Cup Champion, Andrew Hawkins, and lastly, Super Bowl Champion, CBS color commentator, and ESPN analyst Jason McCourty. Make sure to subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow or watch on ESPN (12-2 EDT), ESPN’s Youtube (12-3 EDT), or ESPN+. We appreciate the hell out of all of you. Cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let's go! Out of the gate! Pat McAfee's show. What are we talking about today? Football! How was that? That was great. Pretty good?

Pretty good intro. I'm Peter Shreger. What camera do I even look at? Where is it? You're right here. Hello. We're out with a blast. We just were listening to the Luke Combs, Alex Warren,

I'm like looping, we're fired up. Yeah, yeah. I'm in from New York City one day only, and for one great Pat McAfee, who face-time me, asked if I want to do this, and I was on the next flight out. So honored to be with the boys. Let's do a quick intro of everybody.

We know the guys. We've got our man, Boston Connor, we've got our man Taishman, we've got our wonderful man, Tone Dick, Darius Butler in the house, and the boys in the truck. We are gonna do it, we are loaded with football today. Oh, yeah. Loaded.

Love that. I wanted to start, though, because last night I was in the hotel, I couldn't sleep. I'm like, all right, what do we got on Netflix? I'm doom scrolling. I'm looking at all these beautiful women on these vacations that I'm like, okay, right? Looking at all these not so beautiful men on vacations with these beautiful women. I'm like, all right, doom scrolling, doom scrolling. I'm in an Indianapolis hotel room. It's fine. It's all right. It's great. And I click Netflix and I put on this Cowboys dock because everyone's like

telling me you got to check it out. One of the greatest minute sound bites I've ever heard. Let's share it with everybody. This is from the new Cowboys documentary. Take a listen. When we turned that well on for the first time, I knew it was a gusher. When I heard it screaming, it actually screams.

It's so powerful. Jerry! And then it started spitting. Just like it. any mammal would spit. Sure. And it started coughing. And then all of a sudden, it started roaring.

And it roared like being at Niagara Falls. And with that single well, I made out with a hundred million dollars. Jeez! Now, I always knew what I was gonna do with that money. and I knew it put me in a position that maybe I could realize my ultimate dream. So I took that money and took a bigger risk

and I took drilling that damn well. And I remembered looking at that oil and I said to myself, Jerry, you just bought the Dallas Cowboys. Bam. Bam! Pretty good clip. It was spitting.

How do you say it? Spitting like a mammal. Coffin. And then it was roaring. And it was roaring. Good, bad of the ugly. Who's Enrique? Ennio Morricone.

Ennio Morricone. The music is fantastic. And you're sucked in. That's the first opening of this documentary. There's several episodes. You said you're how many episodes in? I am about two and a half fell asleep during the third episode. But it was great.

The one-liners, obviously, you know, Jerry and his quotes, so Michael Irvin, he's unbelievable throughout it. Troy Aitman getting into that I was just It's crazy Like I didn't even know that it went straight From Tom Landry to Jimmy Johnson Like I didn't know that was the transition

But just hearing Jerry's story I got so much more You know everybody's has the thoughts About Jerry Jones and how he runs the Cowboys But I got so much Respect for him about the family aspect Bro Like when they had a shot of like the family

Like his office Going to like his sons His daughter his other son Just seeing you know Being in and seeing how involved His family is with his business how much he loved the Cowboys, you know, what he built it to, what the brand it is today. I mean, it's electric.

We know all the big time players, but it's so much that we don't know behind the seas. So I'm excited about, you know, continuing watching it. Charlotte was right out of college. Yeah. Then it was 25. And little Jerry Jr. was 19. And he basically tells them when he buys the team, like, this is your new living. Like, this is how you will make a living.

You are with me through thick and thin. And the first episode, you talk about Michael Irvin. You talk about the Tom Landry. You got understand. Tom Landry was the only coach of the Cowboy. for years and years and years, they lose three seasons in a row and there's some reports, Skip Bayliss is on there, talking about how he's sleeping in meetings, and Michael Irvin says, before one of the games, says, let's keep it close against Pittsburgh, and

Michael Irvin's like, like, cannot handle it here. And Jerry Jones comes in, and first thing he does is fires Tom Landry. Fires Tom Landry, a legend. Hires his guy, Jimmy Johnson, away we go. The next thing they do, they trade for Hershey, they trade the Hershal Walker trade. Did they get all these picked? Unpopular moves. Oh, yeah.

And he says he always likes being the one who goes against the grain. It's kind of how he made his money. He was $50 million in debt, spends $800,000, drills a hole into the, I don't know. I'm not an oil trader. My friend Jordan is an oil trader. I couldn't tell you, I don't know that world. I know football, but I know that this guy rolls the dice

and beats to his own drum. I say that because it sets up the context for all these conversations. I'm watching all the morning shows that we do. I'm on to get up and first take a bunch. I see all the stuff on NFL network. I see all the talk. If you think you're dealing with a rational or standard or down the, it's like this is a totally different individual than what you're used to dealing with in business and in life. He is a landman.

He is a gambler. He is a maverick. fancies himself as someone from the Old West. And even with that Johnny Cash music about Arkansas when he first comes in, they didn't like him in Texas because he was an Arkansas guy. And Jethro Jones, they called him. Who is this guy buying the Cowboys? He buys the Cowboys. This is his life. He loves this. So with that as the context, do you think Jerry Jones is backing down or intimidated by us being critical of how he's handled the Micah Parsons contract? Jerry hasn't paid Micah Parsons when he was up after his fourth year.

Jerry is not paying Michael Parsons right now. And then we get this tweet from Adam Schaefter yesterday, who's the top in the game and is as plugged in as anybody. I see these two sides headed towards divorce, and it makes no sense. Rational thinking, it makes no sense. You've got this great player. You've got this team that loves striking gold, if you will, on a player that is homegrown. He's delivered.

He's been wonderful. He's everything you'd want in a star defensive player. He's the next Lawrence Taylor, and yet Jerry is sitting there, and he will not be bullied. He will not be pushed around, and he's certainly not going to engage with someone who is demanding a trade, something that CD Lamb didn't do, something that Doc Prescott didn't do, something that Ezekiel Elliott didn't do. But I look at it as, if you're looking at the situation on paper, it makes no sense. Why isn't Michael? And then you watch this documentary, and you understand the man behind these decisions. He's self-made.

Yeah. He's totally on his own path and beats to his own drum. And the more we talk about it, he actually relishes it. But he also likes knowing he's the one who holds the keys, and he's not going to get bullied around by a player or by a player's agent who he doesn't even seem to want to deal with or acknowledge, which seems like a great insult to just. Jerry Jones, I'm the owner of the freaking Dallas Cowboys. Yeah, exactly. Like, even when they talked about when his first press conference was there and they fired Tom Landry, the GM, too, was the president of GM for 29 years. And he basically wasn't really sure what was going to happen to his job.

And in his opening press conference, Jerry Jones actually says, I want that guy's job and points at the GM of 29 years. Then he got let go. He did a press conference. He's crying. Tom Landry got a hero's salute, literally got a parade. through Dallas, 100,000 people, yeah, came out to see him. They're like interviewing people and they're saying, hey, if Tom Landry's not the coach of the Cowboys, I ain't watching, I ain't a fan.

And then Jerry comes in to do that. I mean, the Hershal Walker thing you mentioned, the business side of it, I didn't know that's how it works. The Hershal Walker gets traded for five players. And then it was conditional upon them, you know, being on the team. And if they got released, they got five picks. Five draft, which led to, I'm sure we could do a full screen, but I think it was Emmett and, you know, Darren Woodson.

and a ton of different offensive and defensive players that ended up building up this team. Brings in his guy, Jimmy, but even the Jimmy stuff. Like, Jimmy had won two straight Super Bowls, and you're out. You're out. You're out. Disagreement, you're out. Jimmy Johnson told a great story

at his Hall of Fame induction speech. And it was basically they play in like the Tokyo Bowl in the preseason in like 91. And there was this cool trophy of like a guy with a sword, like a samurai with a sword. and Jerry Jones wanted this trophy so much preseason

just what's all he cared about this dang trophy and it's a guy with a samurai sword and they're in the preseason and like Jimmy's pulling starters after a quarter and Jerry's freaking out like I need that

they lose the game trophy goes to whoever say the Houston Oilers the entire flight back from Tokyo Jerry Jones is fuming at Jimmy Johnson because he wanted that samurai trophy

they go on they win Super Bowl, Lombardi Trophy years later, and Jimmy Johnson says, better than the Samurai Trophy. Yes, but that's Jerry. Like, Jerry wanted that Samurai trophy, and Jerry doesn't want to pay Micah Parsons. See, I think that's the thing

that is kind of hard to wrap your head around though, like, as a fan or just someone who follows the league, is you see Jerry's relationship with these former players and, like, just the reverence that not only these guys have for him, but he has for them, and everyone views Micah as that guy.

We looked up his stats yesterday. Like, I mean, it's undeniable. He is one of those guys. He's one of those guys you could see being a first ballot Hall of Famer and being a one-helmet guy going into the Cowboys Ring of Honor. So it's just weird that, and I understand, like, the personal stuff like that, I mean, it makes sense. Jerry's his own man. But typically with these kind of guys, like, these are the guys Jerry goes to bat for no matter what, you know?

So it's just, it's crazy that. And he has. Yeah. So, like, Zeke, everyone was like, ah, don't pay a running back. Zeke goes to Cabo, took care of him. Dak Prescott last year, I'm at the Fox set and like, you know, 12-01, it's Jay Glazer like, hey, this just in, like that got paid. Of course that got paid.

That's Jerry's guy. You go through it. Zach Martin, he always takes care of his guys. Something about Micah. He didn't want to take care of him last year. He hasn't taken care of him this year. And the story you'll hear, whether it's been reported or not, is that they had a handshake agreement.

That's ridiculous. Jerry's an 80-year-old billionaire talking with a 24-year-old kid. Of course you bring in the agent. But something must have really rubbed Jerry wrong about Micah, the person, in addition to the players. So even the quotes you're getting in training camp don't add up. Like, why would he talk publicly about this guy? If you are going to trade him, it only hurts his value. It doesn't even make sense.

Jerry doesn't care. But, yeah, he's like a Wild Wild West. Like what you said, he's an old school Wild Wild West guy. So, like, when I hear the handshake thing, that's what makes sense, is that if he is the old school Wild Wild West, which is documentary, by the way. Your word is Bond. Yeah, yeah. boom, this documentary like hammers home that he is an old school Wild Wild West gambler.

Like it really does. The way they have the names and the sound effects and the sets they use for the interviews, like they're hammering that home. So I think it makes sense if they had a handshake agreement. And then, you know, Micah and Mollah get to get together. And they're like, no, that actually isn't happening. Like if that was the case, I could believe that just based on Jerry being like, well, we had an agreement.

No doubt. you're saying we don't go to hell like i could see him doing with dac and zikin then it's wednesday right no tomorrow's thursday as the calendar goes yeah sure they play the eagles in two weeks he hasn't taken a snap hasn't done anything he's just staying there you start thinking about it and it's like all right so jerry hasn't won since 95 haven't been to the nfc championship game since 95 the number one song in america was maria carey and boys to men one sweet day so good Great songs. Wow.

Bruce, cute. I love it. I mean, this is decades. He wants to win. That's where I'm like, he's the riverboat gambler. He's 80-something years old. Screw it. No one makes mega trades like this anymore.

If someone offers two first round picks and a starter, like, I wouldn't be surprised, especially if Schaefter's saying a divorce is on the way. They're like, tomorrow we wake up and Michael Parsons is a blank. And he's just basically, sure. And he's just like, you know what? I've done it before. I'm going to do it my way, and we go from there. In closing, you've watched three episodes.

Biggest takeaway from this documentary so far. Honestly, I just like a trip down, not even really memory lane because I was so young. So just seeing, you know, I remember as a kid, I think we all kind of do the reverence you had for the Cowboys. Like everybody knew a Cowboy fan. You remember the Super Bowls, the great players, the Emmett Smith, the Michael Irvings, the Dion Sanders, Jimmy Johnson. So I just love, my biggest takeaway is just seeing. the background of like how the practice is winning and them going from a shitty team to a good team even like you know achman been healthy and not getting back in there because of how jimmy

ran the team yeah mike micro irvin guys said hey relax you know this this the pros now we do things different celebrating too much like i remember those conversations um you know in the locker where you get to a pro locker room and you do have to change but thank god michael irvin didn't change that much you know what i mean on the field he remained himself and they actually built He's so many takeaways just because it is it's the most valuable sports franchise in the world. So there are so many

lessons to learn from it regardless of how you feel about Jerry Jones. And even watching and knowing he's a gambler and knowing Wilde West, like, it's still Michael Parsons. It's a premier past rush. In the prime of his career, it's like, okay, if you, we know he cares about winning you want to win the Super Bowl, you would think

Michael Parsley would be a big piece of that. You're a player in that locker room. Uh-huh. The current locker room. Current locker room. I haven't heard any of them speak publicly. Now, apparently there's a text exchange with DAC. I don't, that's not for us. That's for something else.

Not one player's come out and done the, that's our guy. Pay him. Does that raise any red flags to you? Not really, because it's different. It's different in Jerry's world. You don't want to get on Jerry's bad stuff. Yeah, there was a tweet, though. The CD?

Yeah. Then they changed their emojis or their avatar. He did that last year when he was in his entire. And Trevon and they did the joint press conference. So I feel like from the outside looking at, I can still see that the guys respect Mike and they want them there. But I feel like the operation is different in Jerry's world

as opposed to being in different builders. And we all know, you know, everybody has to handle their business a different type of way. And as a player, I got to handle my business as well. I got to be ready to go out there and do my thing. And I don't want to be under that microscope of the ownership of the front office any more than it already is day to day. So it's not a big red flag. Everybody knows in the NFL world what type of player

he is. And now it becomes down the personalities. And that's the thing that people don't talk about as much. But Dan O's kind of been saying it, like, this is different. It feels like Jerry doesn't like Mike. And then for Shephti to come out and say it's heading towards a divorce, it kind of is in line with what you're saying. Like, it's something different here. It could be the handshake agreement, which that's not a real thing. And at this level, we're talking about hundreds of millions What if Micah proactively sought out Jerry this summer? It was like, I want to do a deal. Let's talk.

This is all hypothetical. They go, they do something, they make a handshake, and then a week later, Micah comes back and it's like, actually, I have this agent. Would that not be something that you think Jerry would be pissed off? Yeah, I could see that. Seeing the doc makes me think like he could view Mike as Herschel Walker. Like he could view him as like, okay, I am. am in my 80s like I am an older guy is the team that I have right now going to win a

Super Bowl with Micah and if his answer to that is no I could see him viewing Mike as like okay well we can completely flip this team in a year you know the first year of Schottenheimer could be terrible but if we get you know three first they have three first round picks next year let's say he's an asset and let's say yeah they and they decide you know what maybe we don't want a player in this draft. Maybe we want to go after like an archmanning or something along those lines. And then, you know,

he even uses another year with the Micah picks. They didn't make the playoffs last year with Michael Parsons where first round exit. You could start justifying you could start doing circles in your head and say, you know what? He's not a quarterback. And when Dak was healthy, they lost at home to the Packers.

And they're only, you know, so I could see him even going back to that. Like, well. And if you're watching the Doc, that loss to the Packers is the worst loss ever. Bingo. This is our worst loss ever. Remember that one? Yeah. Love him a lot more, though.

He is the man. Like, going back and learning all that stuff, it was very cool. And also, if you played quarterback before 2010, good luck. Hats off to you. Some of the hits they were showing Charles Haley, putting on some guys were absurd. And Michael could also take a page out of Charles Haley.

Bingo. Playbook. Yeah. Go take a piss on the GM's. On the GM's desk, yeah. Let's up Derry stories. Speaking of a guy from that era, that pre-2010 era and a legend in his own right, our first guest of the day. And I've had the pleasure of working with him on Get Up and First Take, the first few months I've been at ESPN.

With no further ado, we go to the Hills of Jersey. Mr. Damien Woody, welcome in the honor show. How are we doing? What's up, fellas? How you guys doing? Doing great. We're talking about Jerry and Micah, obviously, because it's a lot. ESPN and it's 12 o'clock and we're going to do it all day.

I asked Darrys Butler here the question. Like if you're a teammate and you see they're not taking Micah taking care of him, does that affect you or is it more just, hey, I'm worried about my own job. We got football in 15 days. I got to do my thing. Yeah, I think, listen, in most cases, guys are just like, bro, I got to focus on getting myself ready for this season. I think Jerry's world is different from everyone else.

if you look at the players down in jerry's world i think there's a lot of corporate players you know micha tends to go you know he has a big personality i think that's part of the reason why this thing uh there's a disconnect here is because michael pauses is unlike any of the guys in that building you know he's very vocal obviously he has his own podcast he's going to say what he wants to say that's not necessarily the case with a lot of the guys down there with the dallas cowboy so i think those guys are like you know what i'm just going to worry about get myself ready. I'm not going to get involved on the business side. You know, Jerry's paid me. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to ruffle the feathers down here in Jerry's

world. Do you would, I look at this team and Orloski was on with us a couple of weeks going on get up. And I looked at him side-eyed because he said, they cannot possibly win without Michael Parsons. Do you feel that way about the Dallas Cowboys? Is that like the season's over already if he's not on the field, week one? Yeah, I mean, listen, they're much less a team. Obviously, you got a dynamic player in Michael Parsons. But listen, at the end of the day, you know, how much did they win last year? I know Dak Prescott was out, but, you know, the quarterback position is always the most important position.

And I heard you guys talking about, well, you know, kind of playing devil's advocate as far as Michael's impact on the team. And this team hasn't been to an NFC championship game since, what, 95 or whatever it is. They've only won one playoff game. And so if you're going to play somebody at 41, 4. $42 million per year. I think you want to have more bang for your buck. You know, if you're the Dallas Cowboys organization.

Now, I'm not absolving the Cowboys because we know how they do business down there. And we've talked at Nelson about this whole handshake agreement that Jerry thinks he has with Micah. And that's leading to all this nonsense that we're going through. But listen at the end of the day, the way that the, the way that the Cowboys do business is not the way you want to properly construct a roster. they wait till the last minute to sign their stars, which is, you know, adds on millions of dollars. And those are players that you could be signing to build depth within your roster. So I think this whole thing is a mess. If you're going to trade Michael Parsons, quite honestly, I would have done it in March.

I actually talked about it early in the offseason. Like, listen, I don't know if Dallas, I don't know if we see the Dallas Cowboys as a Super Bowl contending team. Why not trade Michael Parsons and try to start rebuilding this roster the way you want to? because he's the most dynamic player that you have on your roster. I want to say the Khalil Mack deal came on Labor Day weekend. I remember covering it, and I remember that happened. So it's still like this could happen. I remember the Vikings and Eagles traded for Sam Bradford Labor Day weekend.

Like this is the time. After rosters are set, okay, what's the move? But this would be one that had been in the works. Two times Super Bowl champion, Damien Woody. Of course, you played for Bill Belichick. We are now less than two weeks away from seeing his, Egypt debut as head coach. Big picture.

You've known Bill for decades. Your thoughts on this whole entire thing as they were about to kick off for this regular season. For me, it's like maybe the biggest story in college football. I mean, you're talking about arguably the greatest coach in NFL history.

Now is Chapel Bill down in North Carolina. And listen, I went down this off-season and saw them in spring practice. You know, listen, they had a long ways to go in Michael Lombardi. who's a friend of the show and Bill Belichick, I talked to both of those guys

and they knew they had to remake the roster, and obviously with the transfer reporter, you can absolutely do that. Listen, the one thing I'll say about North Carolina, they will be prepared. There is not a coach out there who will make sure you are more prepared than Bill Belichick.

And I look at this Carolina schedule, guys, they could easily get to eight wins, easy. I mean, it's not like, they got a bunch of cupcakes on their schedules. So I think Bill can come out. this thing in year one looking pretty doggone good uh Vrable's back too you played with him uh your thoughts on the Patriots now that Mike Vrable's the head coach I've been saying I'm bullish on the

Patriots hell yeah bullish listen we all know we all know it's been a disaster in New England for the past couple years you know for a variety of reasons whether it's personnel coaching all of the above but now you got Mike Vrable in the building and everyone knows Mike Vrable was one of the one of the better head coach that we have in the game. You know, you've added a ton of players, whether it be free agency or via the draft to really improve this roster. I could not make the argument that the most, the biggest acquisition was getting Josh McDaniels back as the office coordinator.

I think he's going to do wonders for Drake May in his second year at the quarterback position. And so I think New England's going to have a damn good defense. And I think Josh McDaniel is going to have, is going to, coordinate the offense that's going to compliment that defense. Don't be surprised you see the Patriots in the playoffs this year. Let's go. Hell yeah, dude. Boston Connor, your response.

Yeah, I mean, Woody, you basically said it. That is an incredible thing. But as a player with Mike Vrabel, what is he like just, you know, on the day to day? Just because it does feel as though, you know, guys like Vrable, MCDC even in the beginning.

Like they aren't viewed as football, you know, masterminds are just more viewed as, you know, those football-type guys who are going to have a tough culture but aren't actual brainiacs. I think everyone who knows Mike Frable, though, feels like he is one of the smartest football minds out there. What do you think he's going to bring strategically to both the defense, the offense, the special teams, and just culture-wise? Because it has been ugly in New England, and everyone up there does have a very high hope for this season. no listen

I played with Mike Vrable as a teammate and the one thing I knew as a teammate I'm like Mike Vrable's gonna be a head coach in this league there's bar none no questions asked because his football

IQ is through the roof like that's one thing that you know that's one thing you can say about Mike Vrable is that man knows X and knows like he's going to make sure

that he knows office defense and special teams those guys are going to be prepared in the same listen I don't like making these comparisons with, you know, Braves and Bill. But I'm just talking about from an X&O, like, just make sure guys repair, Mike Vrable is going to have the New England Patriots prepare, okay?

And he's a very hands-on type of guy. We've seen all the stories this off-season where, you know, you've seen them in scuffles. We've seen them running drills, you know, himself. And so that's just Braves being braids, man. He said he's one of the dudes, but he's a very smart ex-N-O's coach, and he knows the pulse of the team and knows. how to push the right buttons with players. My first little nugget that I'm going to drop today, a little inside info.

The name to watch is Stretch. Do you know who stretches? Oh, yeah. Striking? So John Strutcher is the game management coach that followed Vrable from Tennessee. Went to the Rams for a year and now as in New England. There is, you know, thoughts around the league about who's the best offensive coach, who's the best defensive coach to a man. Everyone says no one knows clock management, game management, you know, down and distance

better than Vrable. Is he new Ernie Adams? Yes. And this is his Ernie Adams stretch. So you're not going to, you're not going to see him. Look, you start compare guys. You go just throw around. Ernie Adams is the legend.

Respect here. Stretch is Ernie Adams. Ernie Adams for the, for the Gen Z folk. He could have a career arc. Like Ernie, if all goes with. But I mention him because with Freyble, it comes McDaniels. It comes Stretel. which it comes a whole different coaching staff and there's a professionalism around it that

they didn't have last year. And that's no insult to Gerard Mayo. I think that staff might have been overwhelmed, might have been a lot of situations there with the roster. They just feel like they are significantly better and much improved. Ty Schmidt, what do you got? Yeah, DeWood. Curious, your take on the Steelers. Obviously, they've went all in this offseason and their offensive line, I think, has improved or Steelers fans would say it has, but there's still a lot of question marks. Do you think they're good enough to keep Rogers upright for most of the season? And are they a legitimate Super Bowl contender with all the moves they've made?

Listen, I think the office align with the Pittsburgh Steelers is the biggest unknown. And I think the biggest factor in how well this Pittsburgh Steelers team can play and how far they can go. Because I think if the Pittsburgh Steelers are getting the Aaron Rodger that we saw like towards the end of the season last year when he was healthy, I think the Pittsburgh stills will be, will be held to play against because, listen, first of all, any Mike Tomlin coach team is always going to come and prepared to play.

We know that identity lies on the defensive side of the football. But the one thing, when you saw the Pittsburgh Steelers last year, when they collapsed, the primary reason why they collapsed is because they couldn't get anything generated on the office side, particularly quarterback position he didn't get anything out of. I don't think that would be the case where Aaron Rogers. Here's the key.

I think running the football in this Arthur Smith offense, I think that's going to be the key because what you don't want is for teams to start teeing off on Aaron Rogers, getting the third and long and all that type of stuff because you can't run the football. If they can run the football with these two tight ends, Friamuth and Jono Smith and D.K. McHaff on the outside, I think that Pittsburgh Steels will be cooking,

and this is going to be a team that we're going to be talking about a lot late on a year. and in the postseason. If you got a fantasy draft coming in the next two weeks, late round flyer, Calvin Austin. I think a lot of attention's gonna be to the tight ends, a lot of attention to the wide receivers. I know that early on, Austin's been a stud in camp,

and already they're talking about him being a legitimate number two. So I would think Seeler's offense should be better. Tone Diggs, what we got? Yeah, I love hearing you talk about that, Dee Wood. But let's talk about the team that Aaron came from the team that they play in week one, the team that you finished your career with, the New York Jets.

It feels like they actually finally have an offensive line through the draft they got their tackles and then in free agency kind of Mambu, Mbou, Mbou, Shragues. Do you feel good now about both lines of scrimmage being the kind of strengths of that team? And what are you hearing out of camp about Justin Fields and the quarterback and how he's coming alone? Yeah, listen, I think that, I think the line of scrimmage, particular the office line is going to be the strength of the Jets. They're going to want to run the football.

I've said before when it comes to this judge team, if they're not leading the league in Russian attempts, I don't know what the hell they're doing in Florin Park because that's exactly the formula they should go. We know that, you know, that this is not going to be some Eric Coriel type of offense in New York. They're going to get off the bus and you're going to know exactly what they're trying to do with bad intentions. They're going to want to run the football and you've got a dynamic quarterback in Justin Fields. And I've always said like they should incorporate some of that early Lamar Jackson, Baltimore, Ravens type of offense, you got to play to this young man's athletic ability. And I think when you got a three-headed, you know, backfield with led by Breece Hall and Breeland Allen, okay, the athletic quarterback in the office line, that's going to be the recipe for them. They got

players on all three levels on the defense. So it's going to be defense and running the football for the New York Jets this year. I got a lot of friends back in New York who are Jets fans. One of my buddies, Danny, is a longtime season ticket holder at the end. of last season, gave it up. Wow. I'm over it. They had one preseason game where the guy had 38 minutes of offensive possession against the Packers in the rain, and he's like, all right, I'm intrigued.

Then this past week, it was awful at practice for apparently the offense and then preseason like, Dee Wood, you're there in Jersey. You know many of guys like Danny, my friend, who's a diehard Jets fan, even though he gave up his season tickets. Reason to be optimistic this season, or are we talking, this is just a bridge year, let's get a quarterback next year and let's move on. I think, you know, listen, here's what I'll be optimistic because of Aaron Glenn. Aaron Glenn has set the tempo in that, throughout the whole organization.

They want to have an identity. They know who they are and they're going to play to those strengths. Okay, anyone who knows AG, he's not a, he's a no-nonsense type of guy. He's not going to take any bullshit from anyone. He's going to call you out. And that's been like a long, that's, that's, that's been a far prior from and the way it's been there flown park over the last four or five years.

And so those players over there are going to be accountable. I don't know how many wins they're going to have. But the one thing I do know what's going to be, what they're going to be disciplined, they're going to play tough, and they're going to play smart, and then let the chips fall where they may.

Debut. Hey, Woody, now two-time Super Bowl champs, you've been in locker rooms, and I'm sorry, more teams that could have won the bowl. What teams do you see out there? We know the Eagles. We expect them to be dominant again. The top of the AFC is absolutely stacked.

But what other teams out there that you can see from the outside looking in that, okay, they maybe have what it takes, you know, offense, defense, special teams, and then head coaching it organization-wise to make a deep run in the playoffs and maybe raise that line board at the end of the year? Listen, I've been on them. I've been talking about for a while, Denver Broncos. Okay. I think the Denver Broncos, to me, are a team that not enough people are talking about. They could have the best defense in the league this year. like they they were damn good defense last year and they only improved throughout the offseason this year

um bow nix with sean payton in year two you know we know how these things go year one and year two this is usually when you make your biggest jump i think bow nix is going it's going to light it up this year obviously you got courtland sutton people out on troy franklin you know the young wide receiver i think is going to break out they're going to be able to run the ball they got you know talk about

office lines, they may have the best office line in football and Denver. And so when you look at everything that the Denver Broncos got going on, I'm telling you right now, do not sleep on the Denver Broncos this year. You bold enough to put them over the Chiefs?

I'm not there yet because I know the Chiefs have improved, but I will say this. This will be the hardest journey in the Patch of Mahomes era in this division and in this conference, because that team that I just talked about, I think Denver is legit. I think they're going to be one of these teams

that we're going to be talking about late in the season that's going to be a contender in the AFC for a Super Bowl. Before we let you go, you're in Jersey, obviously. You hear people talking. Right now, there is a lot of Giants' optimism. And you saw Jackson Dart how well he played against the Jets. You see the energy. James is doing videos with Eli.

Of course, you've got Russ, who's going to be the starter. Giants, just looking at it now on August 20th, your thoughts heading into this season. Man, I think the Giants are better than what people are talking about. Like, we got to stop sleeping on the Giants. I don't know if people have, I don't know if the national audience have really peaked out their front four. Oh, yeah. I think they got the best front four in football. Like Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns, Kayvon, Timito, and Abdul Carter are going to give

give people hell out there, okay? Like, they're going to be really good on defense. They got a star while receiving Malik neighbors, okay? Here's my, Peter, here's my only question. Yeah. And they play with a lead. Yeah. And they play with a lead.

If they can get leads with that defense, the New York football giants will be a problem. And, oh, by the way, that young quarterback Jackson Dart, Big time juice. Big time juice. I don't know how much longer of Russell Wilson would be able to hold that young man off

because what I've seen in the preseason, I would be inclined to start him and just let it go, let it rip. Just go play. Like that. Out the gates. Love that. One of the great things that I can do

being in New York, I was able to go to those joint practices and you go to the joint practice and Russ is starting, taking the ones, and James is the hype guy. Dart, though, Dart has, and I don't know if the word is swag

or it's just boxy, like, but Dart is carrying himself like he belongs. And having watched Daniel Jones and Zach Wilson, there's been first round picks that are like,

all right, we think maybe this could possibly. Jackson Dart, and I'm not comparing him to Daniel Jones just yet, and I'm not comparing him to Zach Wilson, who was the number two overall pick. Jackson Dart was walking around that practice field like he belonged

the players were responding to him and there was like a carefree feel to it where the pressure of the world is not on them right now this could be the perfect situation. Let Russ start a couple games. Let Russ go as far as Russ can go. And then when it's time, everyone will know. All right, let's give Jackson Dart the ball.

Real quick as we end. Brian Daiball, a guy you know, obviously. Give us a good Brian Dayball story there, Damien. Oh, man, I put like confetti and Brian Dayball's like air vents. back in this was like in New England. And so we always played pranks and stuff like that. So Dayball got pissed as hell, got red as hell. That was the first time I seen him like get ticked off.

But man, we got so many stories. Like, we don't even have enough time on the show to really go over all that stuff. Okay. All right. We do, but okay. We appreciate you coming on. Thanks so much for jumping into the show. You're the man, guys.

Jamie Wood. Yeah, he would. Fantastic. Yeah, great. He's the best. That guy's good. Broncos not getting enough love. Everyone's talking about him right now.

So we have Damien Woody on the show. We clap him up. The second he hangs up, I'm like, that was wrong. Well, it's fair. I mean, the biggest problem is, like, that division is amazing. It's better than any division Brady's Patriots were ever in, but Mooms and the Chiefs. But to his point, they're not getting, like, when everyone's, they're not getting Super Bowl love. They don't do that.

People are saying, oh, watch out for the Broncos, but the Chiefs, I can't. Yeah, I mean, it's rightfully, Chiefs, Bills, you know, Ravens. I also, I understand that they might have the best defense in the league, but, like, I still don't think Bo Nix is, like, if Bo Nix is going and they have to play Buffalo again like they did last year, like Buffalo beat the shit out of them. They don't have to run the ball. They didn't run the ball for shit. Yeah, so, I mean, we'll see.

Yeah, they drafted Harvey in the second round, right? RJ Harvey, and they obviously got Dobbins. They brought him in. He's coming off the Achilles. Belize. Isthamay? Are they bearded in the first room? Yeah, Simey and Jaliel McLaughlin at a Youngstown State, a nice runoff.

So I think like four running backs. When I look for these teams, though, and we can look that up again, that division, I was like, a sleeper to me isn't a team that made the playoffs. So you got 32 teams, and two years ago, the Texans came out of nowhere from the second worst team in football to make the playoffs. Last year, the commanders came from second worst team in football to make the playoffs. There are 32 teams, but there's really only like 8 to 10 teams that could be your, like, you're like, sleeper, sleeper.

And I think we're going to hit that a little bit more. And that's why the Broncos... That's a tease, that's a trick. Yeah, the Broncos make sense as one of those teams because they are plus 325. To win it all. Just to win the division. To win it at all.

But, like, when you're talking about those sleeper teams, you're just kind of looking at the bottom two in every division. Like, that's what's interesting about the Cowboys. Like, if all this stuff wasn't going on with Micah, I feel like I would feel pretty good about the Cowboys with Pickens and, you know, CD and Ferguson. and getting paid and them finally having a running back again. Like I score.

Yeah. You know what I mean? And that division is always 20 straight years. Yeah, every year it's going to be somebody different. Giants plus 3,000? That's insane. Is that plus 3,000? Yeah. Seems real. A couple things go their way. Good defense. That's how the Browns. They have the worst odds of any team. Oh, they're not. The Browns.

No, no. The Browns are plus $3,000. Giants are plus $3,000. That's kind of a while. Speaking of the Browns are. We're going to bring on another guest, and I love this guy. Great, great ESPN personality, and I love that he's hopping on with us now, because I've known him prior to his ESPN days, back when we were NFL network colleagues with no further into former Bengal, former Brown, Mr. Andrew Hawkins. What's up?

Oh, he's got the Slapshot jersey on. Yes, Hanson Brothers. Kind of carry you. Got a rap. Johnstown, Pennsylvania native. Johnstown, Pennsylvania native, Shrek. I love that. I know you from Johnstaff.

I didn't know that you're from Johnstown. Oh, yeah. I visited UFJ. I visited UPJ a few times. It's a dry campus, but other than that, it was great. Dry campus, is that right? UPJ was, yeah. Okay.

I don't do my town like that, man. Fun time. Hawk, I love you, man. I love you joining the show. One of my favorite guys. I go to Cleveland when I think of you, because he spent all those years there, and you grew up in Ohio, obviously,

when you were not, I guess you grew up in Pennsylvania, but you always were around that Brown's team. What do you make of flacco being the starter? and then Shador while being fourth on the depth chart. Look, it's a process, man. I think they named Flack of the starter because it quieted the noise, and that's also helpful for Dillon and Shador as they keep battling. I mean, look, the reality is, yes, we see what Shador is capable of.

And I would say if you go back to the draft and you redrafted it, I think everybody would agree that Shador would go way higher than what he did in the fifth. Based on what he's shown so far, but that being said, he's still a fifth round pick. And there's certain things that come with that. You got to work and you got to grind and it's not going to be handed to you. And I don't think the Brown has bought him in to what some people say are sabotaging him, but he's going to have to go earn it and he's going to have to go take jobs. And that is the position that he's in, which is a new position for him.

But so far, so good if you're asking me what my opinion is. Does it feel like same old Browns or does it feel like they're actually like they have a plan here? Andrew Barry, we trust. Stafansky is a former coach of the year. We trust. Like let's give them the benefit of the doubt here. Yeah, I think so. I think they have a plan.

I think they got more than what they bargained for with both of those quarterbacks. Like Shador, again, that was like the talk of the week whenever he started his game and he performed the way that he did. But I would even say the same thing about Dylan Gabriel. Like Dylan Gabriel is undersized. But if you look at some of that ball placement, it's like next level, especially for your first NFL game. And that's the special part about both of them. So I think they got more than what they bargained for there. I think they also get Isaiah Bond as an undrafted free agent, which is crazy because he's essentially a first round talent there.

You mix that with some of the other draft picks. and they're starting to build this table around them, right? So depending on what Flacco does, which I feel like you know what Flacco's feeling is. Like, I'm not expecting Flacko to come out here and light it up. And I don't think the Browns are expecting Flacco to have a career year. If you want to know what Flacco is going to do, take it 17 seasons, average it out, and that's probably what you should expect with the Browns, right? And if some of these young guys can continue to mature, show something special in a third preseason game,

continue to develop throughout the season, maybe early in those weeks. And they feel like, yo, we're looking at a ceiling here. that's a lot higher than what flacko is showing us at the moment that's where you might have fireworks hawk what year did you come out of college 2008 draft would have been my draft 2008 draft pre social media yeah tick tock pre all this stuff who would have been the player that you think would have been the biggest social media superstar back from when you were coming out of college if they had really been in this era today good question the biggest social media star from that

era. You mean like that was coming out of college when I was? Yeah, the guys. Like, who were the guys that you think? If you dropped them into 2025, would have the podcast, would have the Instagram following, would have the State Farm ad with Jake, you know, whatever. Whatever.

Darius Butler. Good answer. Yeah. Good answer. I take that. Elite athlete, personality that people didn't even realize was there because he was just a DB that just went to work. Those media in that day and age? Come on, man.

Forget about it. That's my heart, no doubt. I ask you these questions because I always think of you as so much more as just football. Because when you were done with football or while you were even doing football, you were at Columbia getting a master's degree. And then you got this amazing company coming up. And I want you to explain to the viewers the virtual reality company that you did create and that you did usher in and how people are actually using it.

And I'm going to bring up something else that Boston Connor and are going to discuss with you. But talk about your virtual reality project and kind of how you broke off and did something different than just being an ex-player talking ball. I appreciate that, man. I think, you know, as football players and even as analysts, man, we love this game. And for me, growing up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, which is football country, everybody is a Steelers fan in Johnstown. And I'm like, this is my life's work. Since I've been six years old, all I've ever wanted to do was football. And I didn't want that to end when I was done playing.

And so I've tried to always do things off the field, whether it's in business. whether it's in technology that affects the game and that are things that I want to see out in the world. So a status pro is created by me and my co-founder, Troy Jones, who also played quarterback in college at Maryland and Western Kentucky, and we're able to recreate what you see on the field in a simulation to give a viewer a better view of what it's like to be the player. And we have a video game, besides the media product,

which is a visualizer on ESPN. We have NFL Pro Air the video game, and we have the best office of coordinator voice that money can buy. Hell yeah. You know, and when I thought to myself, what is a distinct voice that the people will always remember? That will make the people feel something. We got one Darius. Yeah, hell yeah.

That's why I love you. Hey, but speaking, you know what? I'm going to pivot a little bit. Speaking, you just got my mind going, offensive voices. And I remember as a lifetime Dolphin fan, it was one guy that put his neck out that stood on the pedestal for Mike McDaniel. It was you. You called him a genius. You called him a football savant.

And now going into this season for a lot of people, it seems like he may be coaching, you know, for his job, him and Chris Greer. What's your outlook on the Miami Dolphins and Mike McDaniel as a head coach? How do you see them kind of taking that next step? Just showing us as Dolphins, Samma, I look at it like a contract year. Like, imagine with the players that we watch or we talk about. And it's like, man, this guy has to get it to its potential. We see it there. We've seen it in spurts.

We see him have success. And then in that contract year, it kind of all. comes together because the money's on the line, that's the situation I think Mike McDaniel is in. And I actually think the dolphins will be a lot better than people suspect them to be. And the reason why I was such advocate for Mike McDaniel is because when you're in this football game, we all, you know, hear the same things over and over again, especially as players, because it's a lot of regurgitated information that is passed down from the coaches that were talking about it in 1950 to the coaches that are talking about it in 2025, which is good

and okay, but when I was with Mike McDaniel in the Cal Shanahan's, you know, and obviously they come from the McVe tree as well. It's like, these are guys that innovated the game. I had, I heard things that I had never heard in the game of football at 28 years old. And me being a student, I'm like, man, this is crazy. And then I would see it in practice. I would see it in the games and I would see it put, you know, to test. And it would work to an entirely different level. And so that was what was always special about Mike McDaniel is that if you're looking for a ball knower, there is nobody better than him because he's like a mad scientist now the question becomes can you get your players to live up to that expectation and to play their best and that'll be the biggest the biggest

key for him i think when you look at that team this year there's a little less star power right they've moved the pieces around and the hope is that it'll be addition by subtraction because everybody would be pushing on the same page and the same accord hawk who was on that squad because i remember brian hoyer and manzel were the quarterbacks you had you josh gordon josh g was on that squad too. He was suspended for a number of games. Miles Austin was on that squad. And I'll say this about Miles Austin. In my

entire career, there was never a player that I pegged wrong more than Miles Austin. This is like when I came to Cleveland, he was dating Kim Kardashian. I'm like, I'm like, man, here we go with this, dude. You're talking about my favorite teammate of

all time? Like, maybe even my favorite person of all time. The pride of Monmouth. That's my Mike Austin story. Love that. And then Kyle Shanahan is the offensive coordinator. Mike McDaniels is what? Mike Dan is the wide receivers coach? Receiver coach.

Okay. Who else? Petten's the head coach? Mike Petten was the head coach. Oh, my best. Jeez. Hath me was a DB coach at that time. Who else?

Yeah, we had some, it was a wild time in Cleveland at that. The Johnny Mansell experience. Johnny's my guy. Like, I want to say that sincerely and truly. However. But that was a. That was a movie-like year, though, for us. It was kind of crazy.

I'm not going to lie about that. No, we love Johnny, too. That year, you guys started off. I'm not mistaken. You guys were like 6 and 4. Brian Hoyer beats Tennessee, big comeback, and then it all fell in. You're going to pull these scabs off, aren't you, straight? I'm sorry.

You're going to open these wounds up for all of America. Yes, we started off 7 and 4. So here's my thing. I was with Cincinnati the three years prior, and I grew up a Bengals fan because my brother played for them. when I was a little kid. I'm playing for my childhood, my childhood team, right? And I go to the Browns, which is still in Ohio, and I'm like, cool, I'm staying in the state.

I'm going to, everyone thinks when they go to the team, you're going to be the catalyst to turn this thing around, right? So here we are. We're seven and four. I'm the leading receiver. I'm a number one receiver. All five, seven of me. Never in my wildest dreams that I think I would lead an NFL team and receive it. And I'm killing it.

The coach calls me, we're seven and four. like, hey, I think we're going to put Johnny Mansell in. And I started laughing because I think he's joking, right? Because if you talk to Johnny, Johnny's like, I wasn't trying to play. I wasn't ready to play. He was not joking. Within two games, we put Johnny in. Hoyer, you know, he had some tough games that made it a little easier for transition. And we end up losing the rest of those games. And I'm sure Johnny is like, if I had a better number one receiver, I'm sure I would have did a lot better. But we did not go to the playoffs. And I was not the catalyst to turn to Cleveland browse around, Drake. That's the, that's the end of the story.

Boston, Connor, you were talking before the show that Microsoft is a new AI deal. Let's let's talk about. Yeah, Hawk. I mean, you graduated from Columbia, so you're probably the biggest brand we're going to have on here in quite some time. So I'm going to ask this question for you specifically, especially with all your VR experience. But AI and Microsoft are partnering, basically to increase the insights from coaches to players from the sideline to helmet. What the hell is going on? Are the AI is going to be telling these coaches where the quarterbacks need to be looking based on some sort of future Mathematic problem that none of us are going to be able to know except for the AIs?

Or is this something that's just going to make these offenses even more ridiculously good as they are now? Short answer, yes. It is probably going to change football. I don't know how quickly it's going to change football, because you've got to realize this. And I always say this about sports technology and its implementation in the NFL. fell is that most of the coaches that are there would rather use a lucky pair of drawls than they would any data because that's just the world we live it. We go off a gut feeling. So basically what AI has the capabilities and we'll have the capabilities to do is instead of having to

search all week for those football brains that can find those tendencies to say, hey, this receiver is playing with his gloves before every pass play. Or, you know, I notice that that left tackle he's like a little more weighted back or his knuckles are a little white, which tells me it's a run. AI will be able to do all of that in real time. And it will also say that, you know, hey, coach Boston Connor has been coaching for 10 years. And every time they're plus 45 and a third and 10 down by a touchdown, he runs this defense. So this is what you should be prepared for. And they'll be able to have that recall and that baseline database to essentially be able to tell you exactly what's going to happen because we're still human.

And every time the bullets are flying, we're going to go back to what we know. So for the last 15 years, all we've heard about me, it's like the rise of analytics and how everyone's hiring these kids from Harvard and these stats guys and every team's got the old play with your coach with your gut coach isn't in danger. I almost feel like AI is going to eliminate that whole class of the Harvard grad who does the math because we could just pop it into the thing and get the same answer. Pretty much. I mean, but that's across the board.

Even the gut coach, right? Like Bill Belichick is always like, you know, obviously doesn't say much. He eyeballs certain things, but his brain works like a computer. So just because he is not a data scientist, he doesn't use analytics any less than the analytics guy that came from Harvard. He just inherently has it in his system. And I think a lot of the good football coaches that you talk about in this way are like that. Again, they're not data scientists, but their brain kind of thinks in patterns and recall. and they can see it and there's indicators for them,

well, now it's essentially going to even the playing field. My question is, is that what we want? Don't we want the gut feeling? Don't we want, like, man. Subjectivity. 100%. It's 5-7, but there's just something about him, Shregs. I want the 5-7 wide receiver.

I want a coach who can call over Johnny Manzell to the sideline, pretend like he's whispering to him, and then you get that fake play. I want that. I can't get that from AI. Those guys go, they'll always be there. They'll never die off. I hope so. I don't want the robot.

It's a whole point. Belichick kind of, what do you think of? What do you think of? What do you think of? My rookie year. Going forward on fourth and two. Like that was analytic.

Everybody would do that now. But like that was 2009. Kevin Falk passed? Yeah. And he got killed in the media after that. His first thing to us was like, look, I'm always going to make the best decision. I feel like it's best for the team.

And I'm not going to play scared. You know, that's how I felt the game was going. As a defender, that second half, we couldn't stop paying. He figured out, he figured out what was going on, he's final matchups, and it made sense. If you have a chance with Tom Brady, West Walker, Randy Moss, Kevin Falk, to get a first down to basically win the game, you take that chance. And that's maybe where I have an issue because everyone has access to the AI. I might not have the Microsoft co-pilot. Hello, our corporate sponsors, but we do have, you know, whatever.

You can type in anything, and they will say, third and 10, this is what you should do. So, like, everyone thinks they have the answer, but then you actually have to play football. Until the Boston dynamic robot comes in and knocks us on our ass. Like, there's actually a player. They don't have a chance. Yeah, they don't have the heart? They don't have the heart. There you go.

They don't have the heart. There you go. Lateral quickness, peripheral vision. Yep. Can't measure the heart of it. Can they put cleats on? No. Can't measure the heart of a 350 pound offensive lineman as a 27 inch, 27 inch arms out of Penn State University. You know?

I'm scared of these robots though, bro. I think they. You should be. You should be terrified of them. ZZZ, you know, you should be more scared. of the AI. She has a real problem. Everyone, the shiny objects, the robot. Yeah, it's AI.

AI we let in. Yes. No, I mean, we're talking. The AI is the heart. You get the AI. The AI's the heart. Yeah, in the brain or the heart of these robots. You equip this thing with a machine gun.

Yeah. We got problems. You ever see Terminator? Yeah. I robot. Yeah. I did not kill him. Yeah.

Right. I robot. I thought he was wrongly accused. He was. I watched. I watched I robot last week with my kids. Why? And there was like, because I wanted to see, man.

I'm like, all right, maybe this is a scouting report. I got to see what's going on. And so they have like a scan to pay. And there's like, they like zoom in on him scanning to pay. Like it was so futuristic. And my kids were like, why would they zoom in on that shot for Apple Pay? And I'm like, well, it wasn't no Apple Pay back then. And there wasn't FaceTime.

There was no Siri, but they're like, this is the dumbest movie I've ever seen. Because it's self-driving cars. It's worse than the technology we have now. It's crazy, man. I know. I was watching like, I forget what it was. was it might have been Sopranos or Seinfeld or something and like they didn't have a cell phone so like oh I'm like well no you just call them on the phone oh they don't have one of those so like they're in a pay phone I'm like this makes no sense that's crazy those are better times better times before the robots are really old right now uh we are hawk I appreciate you we appreciate you awesome job on the show man we'll be seeing you soon thank you pretty good first hour he's almost too smart for us he's great yeah he yeah he's unbelievable

That's crazy what that AI thing will do. What he said is really resonating with me. AI is actually the heart. The robot's just the physical. Exactly. The bones. And they got a long way, if you will. Yeah.

And they're just starting. Yeah, long way to go. It's scary. Wait until they equip them with weaponry. I know. It's happening. Things of that ilk scare me. Yes, they do.

Things of that ilk are frightening. Guys, we have another hour coming up. Pat McAfee's show. I'm in here, Peter Schragher. Loving it. Thank you for having me on. Stay with us. To succeed in the future of work,

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Including football! Nailed it. Yeah, nailed it. We're having a blast. are joined by the wonderful Boston Connor, Ty Schmidt, the Great Tone Diggs, Darius Ballers, the Bootsback. And now I wanna introduce one of my favorite players to cover when I was a budding journalist

over at Fox Sports.com, and he was a former top five pick leading his team to not only playoffs every year, but also a Super Bowl championship. He's become a good friend of mine, and one of my favorite people's faces to just stare at as Matt McAfee is talking. Mr. A.J. Hawk joins the show.

Oh, okay. Hawke. What's up? Shregs, I love it. You starting off the show talking about you doomscrowing old, creepy guys with young girls on vacation. I'm doing for it, Shrugs. My life. That Instagram is trouble.

What happens is you start scrolling and then they suggest things and you say, well, why not? And then you start seeing that. And then suddenly you're in a hole you don't want to be in. And then you got to dig yourself out and just look for some quality good content. Bingo. Slop shots, flop shots. And one of the things I saw was first day of school photos. So AJ Hawk, I see that.

And I love that. And that's where that's the good stuff. That's the good stuff of the Instagram, right? Yeah, that's the great stuff, I guess. That's what it's for, like the old school Facebook. Update your parents. Yes. Oh, Dr.

Shreg, I don't know if you see this, right? You see this? El-Rap. You see that Dr. Pepper staring right back at you? He's going to say, speaking of the good stuff. It's the official drink of the Thunderdome. I don't want you pop one of those bad boys. Dr. Pepper is the official drink of Fansville, is now the official drink of Thunderdome, the Thunderdome.

Is it game day? Is it Saturday? Not unless you're drinking Dr. Pepper. Grab some today. Hell, yeah. Well said. Cheers, Kahneman. Also, while we were doing the Jerry thing in the first hour,

AJ texted and said he's also three episodes in and absolutely loves it. Yeah, AJ Hawk, let's get your thoughts. You were someone who played against the Cowboys for all those years. You won a Super Bowl in Dallas, the documentary thus far. It's gone you away. Oh, it's awesome. I mean, Debutt talked about it. It is cool how Jerry brings his family along and they know nothing about it.

here we go, hey, we're running this the whole thing, and we're going to make it gigantic, but it's, the documentaries are made by the people that are getting interviewed. Like, Michael Irvin is a dream, I would imagine, for somebody that is doing a documentary. His reactions, how he speaks, how

he's awesome, and they have that whole place, the whole thing is filled with so many unbelievable old players that played there that are also huge personalities that you don't really see anymore, I think. Yeah, that's what's sick too, is that the first three episodes, those, at least from what I've seen, the personality

is Michael Irvin. He's kind of the one. They do Charles Haley, which is very interesting, and they do Emmett Smith and Jimmy Johnson and stuff, and Jimmy's unbelievable, but Irvin's there, and then I haven't seen it yet, but I guess Prime has a...

Saw a clip. Yeah, I saw a clip as well. It has a large thing about, you know, himself, so I'm assuming he starts to take over. Hawker, you strike me as someone who would have loved when Jimmy Johnson didn't let the team eat on the plane after a loss. Is that something you looked at

and you were like, yeah, I would have loved to play for Jimmy? I don't know if I would say I would have loved it, but I think once you get over that and you realize that, hey, this guy's just trying to win. But what's awesome, too, is they talk to Jimmy now, current day, and he has no remorse for it. Like, he has no, he's not back down one ounce. And he talks about playing Burline over Troy Hakeman.

He's like, I didn't care about anybody's feelings. I'm trying to win a football game. I loved it. It's really good. Him cutting a player that fumbled on the spot. They talked about how a guy fumbled the ball and he was coming off the field and Jimmy John said, you're cut, get out of here. And then what he said, when they asked somebody, he said, you know,

coaches say, you know, cutting players. It's like one of the toughest part of the job. It's not for me. I mean, I'm trying to win his games. Did what he said, like, and I want to ruin the doc. No, no. He was like, yeah, you know, I took the job, you know, I was all in. And everything kind of just had to go, you know.

And it was like Jimmy tells his wife of 26 years. years, we got to get a divorce. Yeah. Oh, wow, I've never seen or heard any shit like this. Obviously, people will prioritize things and maybe other things are just wither away. But him just making that decision and him just being all in and that's all he cared about and how he ran that team. That was crazy.

That's tough to do with pros when you're coming, especially coming from, you know, the college level and coming up to deal with these guys and all these different personalities. But Jerry Jones and he was obviously on the same page. But it worked out until, you know, obviously it didn't. It's of the moment to talk about the Cowboys. dog, but I also, I love the chief stock. Have you been watching the kingdom at all? It's on Wals and ESPN. And you get this Clark Hunt story, which is completely different. And it's, Clark Hunt was this entrepreneur who took on the NFL, comes over from the AFL. And it says,

okay, well, if you're not going to give me a team in Dallas, Texas, or if I want to do, it just, a wild history there also. And AJ, I think of your career, you go to Green Bay, there was no owner. There was no big tree arc of it all. What was it the dynamic there? when you were at the Packers. Peter, just to just real quick, Ty is an owner. That is fair. That is fair.

That is fair. I didn't win AJ played, though. But to not have that Jerry Jones, Clark Hunt, like patriarch of the family or a Mike Brown or a Mara or a Rooney, was that weird? It is kind of weird when you think about it, but I was drafted there, so that's all I knew at the time. My 10th season, I went to Cincinnati,

and that's the first time we had an owner. I'm talking to Mike Brown, and it's a very unique situation, too. They have in their front office compared to what other front offices might look like and they're very open about it's another family run business like that another family run team but um it's pretty sweet because think about it if you're a football team and there's no owner trying to siphon off all the net net profits those profits go back to the team and they take very very good care of you with facilities and everything that you could possibly need in green bay so yeah there'll never be a situation like that again well there's

shrags where their community owns a team there would never be a team there never be an expansion team in a city like green bay it just wouldn't happen They wouldn't put one in a town like that, which is what makes Dream Bay so charming and makes it so wonderful. Yeah, I mean, that was the biggest takeaway from the draft this year, for me at least, was like, oh, okay, so this is an entire town dedicated to this team. That is the role they play in that town, and they love it, clearly, based on, you know, the draft and how sweet it was. It is surprising that, like, a commissioner just never, like, anointed one, like wanted to for the Packers. now it's just at the point where there's no way they'll never have one now. Ty, we're two weeks out.

You're our resident Packers fan. How are we feeling about the 2025 Green Bay Packers? There was Super Bowl buzz early. Then people were discouraged after the left hand injury. Now Love is already going to be set back for big one. Are you feeling this is a Super Bowl team? Yeah, I mean, I think you kind of have those hopes every year with the Packers just because you know if they can put everything together and get hot at the right time.

that they could because it's tough i mean i think it all comes down to to jordan love like if he plays better or you know like he has like a jump on like what he did when his first year as a starter when they went to the playoffs and beat the hell out of the cowboys and took the niners right down to the wire and almost went to the nfc championship like i think he was just kind of hurt all last year it wasn't a good start he got hurt again in jacksonville and it kind of never mesh they were playing arguably like their worst football the season going into the playoffs and then obviously Philly was a juggernaut at that point. So we'll see, but I mean, Josh Jacobs is going to be the key to this thing.

You know, like he was unbelievable last year. They're going to rely on running the football because by and large, everything you've heard from camp is like Matthew Golden is going to be the go-toe guy. And although he's unbelievable, obviously, like we'll see. You know, anytime a rookie receiver is kind of your clear-cut number one guy and you need him to have a big year, if the defense is improved again, I don't know. I mean, it's tough because the NFC North is so tough. It's such a, but it's like, all right, so let's go around the horn here,

just NFC North. Caleb Williams, Jared Goff, Jordan Love, J.J. McCarthy. I want to go around the horn, AJ, including you. Which one of those quarterbacks has the most pressure on them this season to perform? Probably Goff, just because he will get murdered and everyone will say, oh, it was Ben Johnson the entire time. That's the only reason he was successful. And Goff's great, I think.

So that's right. Yeah, I agree with that. I would say Caleb Williams, just because there's so much hype with him. And it was supposed to be like, hey, Ben Johnson is the guy who's going to unlock you. And you will be a top five quarterback in the NFL. And I don't think if he has like a moderate improvement or he's a little bit better, I don't think that'll be good enough for people in Chicago and people in the media. Caleb Williams is my number one. But Jordan Love is a close second for me because he got paid.

And then they're going to say he got paid off of one season and it hasn't produced since. AJ, what are you thinking? Yeah, I mean, I was going to say Jordan Love all along just because I think if he does, doesn't play well this year. If they don't have a good season, people are going to start question whether he's the guy or not. And they paid him like he is the guy. So, yeah, I think obviously they all have a ton of pressure on him. But yeah, like where Jordan Love is at in his career, he can go one way or the other, I think, this year. First response to be Caleb Williams because of the Ben Johnson thing, no excuses, great weapons around him too. But another guy, after that

year that Sam Darnel had with the Vikings, Jay J. McCarthy, Ben, handed the keys. Obviously, get drafted, you get hurt. You don't get an opportunity. And then you just say, hey, we're going to move on from a former top three pick who had a career year, and we're going to hand the keys to you. And everyone knows, just like Ben Johnson, KOC, I mean, I would say even more so because he's done it from the head coach position. He can

call the game and he can get production and a great play out of the quarterback regardless of who's taking the snaps. I would say J.J. McCarthy because of everything around him and him being handed the keys after the year that they had last year. Think about this division then. We just went around the horn and you can make the argument for each one of the quarterbacks.

I actually go with Connor. I look at Jared Goff. He's got all these accolades. He's been to Super Bowl. He's been to two NFC championship games. He's led two franchises from the wreckage all the way to the top. And yet we headed to the season and people are still shrugged shoulders. And you said you're not doubting him.

But people are like, is he good? I don't know. Oh, yeah. Let's see him without McVeigh. Let's see him without Ben Johnson. And like, to me, that's the ultimate insult to what Jared Goff's career has been. Pro Bowl, all pro, all this stuff. Aging.

And yet, I think there's a lot of people around the league who are like, all right, now you're the guy. Can you do it? He falls into like the Purdy category for me. I mean, to me that's not insulting, but it's like, whoa. It's not insulting. It sucks for the player. It's like they're amazing, but they'll never get credit for it.

It happened to Brady for the first, you know, 10, 11 years at his career. Like if Purdy wins a Super Bowl, people will talk about Shanahan and the team around him. I feel like it's the same with Goff. And last year was the first year where, you know, MVP, like, in the finals and people, I feel like had a lot of respect for him. But I don't think anyone's thinking, like, if golf, has a bad game, you know, they don't have a chance. Like with Gibbs and Aminraa and the old line and now Hutch being healthy and the

defense, like I think a lot of people do look at golf and say, hey, if they don't win or go to the Super Bowl, it's probably because of this guy. And granted, the same thing could happen again as it did last year where everybody in their mother gets hurt and they go into the divisional round with half a team. But I feel like now is, you know, when we talk about windows, the lion's window is as open as it's been, and, like, they kind of have to get it done now, whereas, like, JJ McCarthy, no matter what, he gets a year. Caleb, I feel like Caleb probably does make the most sense, because, like, if you're

just talking about pressure, if he doesn't get it done, you're assuming Ben Johnson's the one that can tell the ownership, like, yep, let's put Tyson Baygeon in, because I can win with him. Just signed a new deal today, by the two years, too many. I guess that. You're spending it this preseason, but, yeah, I mean, it'd be interesting, but it's crazy that Jared Gough gets that kind of disrespect. I understand he's had great play callers and he's had great players around the butt.

He was the number one pick. Yeah. He was the number one pick. They paid twice. Monster contracts. Yeah, got paid, went to a Super Bowl. So, like, you can have great coach. You can have great players.

You still got to have a trigger man that can read it that can make those type of throws. So I think Detroit is getting behind him. This will be a big year for him, though. Post Ben Johnson, obviously he will have that pressure and viewed on it. But he is easily the most established and the most, I would say I would have the most confident confidence. in the quarterback in that division would be jerry golf easily for me the guy's name is john morton

he's the offensive corner who's in the league forever he was working with peyton in new orleans and then he's been with the jets like john morton's been a 30 year coach and he's now the new offensive corner so this isn't one of these 28 year old whiz kid exodus this is a guy who's been in the league for a long time i don't know if that's a good or bad thing mark brunell is the quarterbacks coach they lost tanner egg strand has it called plays in the league yet john morton has yes he's been a full time that's a big thing that's a big thing Not with great success. Still, though.

Still, you learn a lot. I cannot imagine how much you learn, like, the first time you're the actual play caller. Like, there's so, that's such a difficult job that the great ones are great and the ones that suck are pretty bad. Oh, yeah. Zito, can we see the division odds again? I just want to see the NFC North. So, lions are favored. Packers 2.

Vikings who went 14 and 3 last year are third, and then the bears are there and fourth. It's all tight. Yeah, all plus money. All plus money. That is a, that is a... The tightest division. Yes, it is the tightest division, yeah. Yeah, by a lot of it seems.

NFC. West... West gets weird, though, after the... The Niners are favorite of the Rams, huh? I find that kind of shocking, too. I don't know if... It's close. Like, if Stappard's back or what? We kind of talked about this yesterday,

where people are saying every single one of those teams is going to be good this year, and we're like that... Watch out for the Cardinals. I like the Seahawks. That's what I'm. everyone but I'm finding that with all 32 teams like here here's what you get now in August and Jason McCordy's gonna join us and he'll laugh because he knows

this is like an NFL network special now that we're all partners we could say three people on directors chairs in a polo with either ESPN or NFL network and it's a you know a cheap polo made from like you know whatever name the company gilden and you're sick yeah it's a good company yeah I don't take that whoa and the the coach comes over, everything's rainbows and roses, and who's the young player that's stepping up? Well, this guy and everyone wants to drive in fantasy. That's 32 teams. And that's what it is. It's two reporters are hosting a reporter on a director's chair with an ex-player and then us

just glazing over the coach, the young quarterback, everything. Everyone's awesome. But as we know, not everyone's going to be awesome. And I don't care so much as like this team could be good. Is that your pick? Like if you're saying, I think the Cardinals are a sneaky possible maybe possible dark horse kind of maybe contender I don't care are you picking the Cardinals to win the NFC West like I like the Titans because Cam Ward brings it like are you

taking the Titans so back it up because to me and 32 teams like everyone loves everyone right now well and that's the convo with the Broncos yeah that's the thing with the Broncos we were just having is like yeah you can like the Broncos and think they're going to do you like the Broncos do you think they're going to beat the Chiefs in the division

like last year I fell for it last year I was like the Chargers are going to do it, man. They're finally going to beat the Chiefs, and this is their year with Harbaugh and stuff. And it's not, you know, and it's probably going to happen this year. Again, I made the comparison earlier and with the Chiefs now,

Brady won 17 AFC's Division Championships. So, like, I can't even imagine how many times going into the year it was like the Bills or the Dolphins of the Jets a year. You know, like with Rush Ryan and those teams, but it never actually is. And I feel like the Chiefs, it's the same exact thing. Like the

Broncos could probably go to the playoffs for the next 10 years. But if you also told me they never won the division, I believe. Yeah. Well, this stuff will dissipate, too. We have two weeks until the season kicks off. So, like, hey, if you want to get those shots in, you've got to get them now. Because if you're picking the Cardinals to win the division right now, that's awesome.

Say it. Say it proud. If they get beat by five touchdowns, week one, you know, you look like an asshole. But, you know, right now you don't. But it's like, you know, I like the Texans this year. Someone said tonight. I forget who was. I really like the Texas. How much do you like them? You pick them to win the AFC? No. Well, they did that last year. They went to the divisional round the last two years. So what's the next step? Like I'm the same, you mean? You know, like you like them just

because they were, yeah. Jason McCordy's going to join us right now. One of my favorite people in the world and he's doing us a solid here. Look at them there. So Jason and I co-hosted Good Morning Football on the NFL Network. I consider this man a brother and now we are here on ESPN Airwaves together. Jay Mack, how's the summer been? Man, it's been awesome. I've just been sitting here thinking about which team are going to make it. I think, you know, the commanders, if they get Terry McCorn there, they're going to be the favorite in the NFC East.

But if Michael Parsons gets this deal done before week one, they may be the team. But can you imagine if Jackson Dart is as good as Jayden, Daniel was, as a rookie? The Eagles have no shot in the NFCEs. That's just all I came in to say, just for this. But, Jemak, you know what I'm talking about. This is what we do in August. It's like, we visit a camp for literally three hours.

You come out and you're like, wow, I mean, gosh, the Bengals. I know that everyone has a team but like who is the team right now if I'm putting you on the spot because I trust what you say who is the team that maybe not everyone's talking about that you at least have your eye on and not maybe sort of but like

hey I'm gonna roll with this team this year if I'm picking one and everybody's talking about them I would say or they're mentioning their names I think the Denver Broncos and not just saying that is to say all right they're going to be good as a good football team

I think that Denver Broncos can compete and be a team that we're talking about later on in the season as a possibility to get into the playoffs and go on a run and be talking about them as a Super Bowl type of team. I think Bowdo Nix has that ability to take the next step.

Sean Payton is a head coach that has been in this position before and has been building for this. As good as they were on defense last year, you go out and you sign Talanoa Hufanga and you sign Dre Greenlaw to come over to that side of the defense and go and be able to dominate and run around.

So when I look at them, R. J. Harvey in the backfield, another explosive weapon. Evan Ingram, another guy on the offensive side of the ball. This was a team last year that when they were in the playoffs and we started talking about them and they were in close games against the Kansas City Chiefs losing by a blocked field goal, we all were shocked. We had no idea Bull Nix was going to beat that type of player last year.

There's going to be a little bit more of a target on their back this year, but I think they've made improvements where it's not just, all right, they're going to make the playoffs, but their team that I think can go out there. can compete and beat every team in the afc you were down in miami uh for a bit at the end of your career and their team that everyone's immediately writing off saying they're done i i'm actually i've turned completely i've turned the time i think i'm in on the dolphins like i like i like the fact that no one's talking about them and how in are you shrags everyone i tell you all the way in

a j all the way in i honestly think the dolphins this is like and i got to kind of work this you know we workshop, like my reason I got to talk through. Yeah, sure. You got a work for you. I got some good. But I feel like any, any like, anyone that Mike McDaniel wanted out is out. And that might be Jalen Ramsey. It might be some of the other malcontents that Ramsey wasn't

a malcontent, but like guys that maybe weren't all on on the plan. I feel like Mike has all of his guys now and it's like if we do have one more year to show it, like at least I'm going to do it my way and we're going to roll and we're going to play offense and we're going to do our best with defensive guys getting back. You are in Miami. Couple guys are still on that team.

Tua, of course, was a quarterback that you saw close up. Like, has the train passed by Miami, or are we now back thinking maybe they are still that team that put up 70 on the Broncos two years ago? Right now, I don't see it. And you mentioned they've gotten some of those guys out that maybe Mike didn't want there. But my question is, who are the guys that you brought in to replace those guys? When they were talking about trading Jalen Ramsey and finally dealt him to Pittsburgh, my concern was, all right, you got rid of Ramsey. All right, Kendall Fuller, who's your starter last year? He's gone.

Who are the cornerbacks that you're bringing in that are short fires that you're like, all right, these are going to be our two guys on the outside? And that's not to mention the Cater Kohul and Artie Burns all getting injured. So when I look at this Dolphins team, the little bit of the stress they went through last year and adversity and the Tyreek Hill stuff at the end of the season. And all of these different things, we continue to say the same thing about the dolphins every year. And I know my guy, Deep Butt is out there in South Florida. You're saying they're not a team that can play in Colour.

weather. They're not a tough football team that can run the ball when it matters. What has changed from the last few years to this year that you're going to say, all right, we see this team and they're taking the next step and they're going to do this or that. I just haven't seen those moves in this offseason to really get behind them. Are they going to be a solid football team? Absolutely. You got two. You got Jalen Wildel. You got Tyreek Hill. You have those explosive players. What is Darren Waller going to look like? Just activated off pup out of football for an entire year. Can he come in and have a type of impact that Jono Smith had last year? I don't know.

There's a lot of question marks to me with that. Yeah. Before we go around the horn, one of the guys you played with there is now in New York Giant. Get Giants fans excited. Tell us about Javon Holland, who has a fellow defensive back with you at the Miami Dolphins. That's my guy. And all I've heard all training camp is that he's been a complete ball hawk. I think for all of these young guys, when sometimes you get drafted by a team, you're there for Javon Holland.

He was there with three different defensive coordinators. There's a lot of change that happened around. Sometimes you need a little bit of a new scenery. I don't think he was even offered a contract by the Miami Dolphins. So now you become a member of the New York Giants. They paid him. They believe in him. So now you get a chance to go out there and be one of the older guys in that secondary

and become a true leader. This is a guy that became a captain in his second year. And he's a football player. So I think his ability to get out there, conduct everything, play in the deep part of the field, move up, be able to blitz and do the things he did when Flores was there with Josh. Boyer as a defensive coordinator, I think it's going to help him a ton. So I'm really excited about what Javon's going to bring to the secondary.

And hey, the Giants are a team that got a lot better. Here we go. I ain't saying they're going to be a playoff team, but they got a lot better on football. You're there in Jersey. What's the vibe? I know you go into a wah-wah. You're stepping into your shop right. Someone's going to stop you and want to talk Giants.

What's the vibe on Giants right now in Jersey? The big Wawa guy out here. We finally got him up in North Jersey, not the South Jersey. Sheets is better. People are fired up, but Daible is in my town, so I see Dave's all the time. I'm rocking my Franklin Lakes, PV football gear on. He's out there with his son and his daughter. People are extremely excited because when you turn the TV on and you're watching a Giants game,

you get excited about what you see in Jackson Dart. When you see Russell Wilson throwing a moonball down the field 80 yards, you get excited about that. When you log on to social media and you see James Winston talking about guys going to chapel and believing and hitting the crossbar on a. on a throw at the end of practice to get them out of meetings, you get excited about that. There's just so much positivity right now that surrounds the New York Giants. A year after they have planes flying over was saying this is a dumpster fire on game day

over top of the stadium. It's a completely new hope right now with this New York Giants football team. And then you have Abdul Carter tweeting out and calling out the jets and talking about BT. Did you like this? Jay Mack, I know you're kind of old school. Did you like this? I did, but it just, it was Michael Parsons a few years ago with Leonard Furnett. It was like, I'm a D-Lyman.

I literally had one of the coaches on my Pee-Wee team that was like, man, I'm due a carter man, this kid's not any good. Did you see him in the game? I'm like, did you watch any of the game or did you just see one highlight of him getting chipped? He's been dominating out there. So I think everybody just loves this New York Giants team. It's trash talk a little bit, it's hard nose. This is what you want, a little bit of flair and all of that.

Did you guys know that Jason McCordy was once on Saturday Night Live? What? Jay Mack, tell him the story. I didn't know that. Hey, well, you're an identical twin and you grow up single mom, and we got to create income however we can. Moms is driving us in and out of New York City, auditioning for this, auditioning for that. Obviously, we weren't too damn good because you didn't see us in anything, but we ended up getting cast on Saturday Night Live. It was a Martha Stewart special, and we was just extras.

We're just sitting on the ground while they're doing a skit, and that was our big claim to fame. We was in Saturday Night Live. No one knew we were there. Our names probably didn't even roll into credits at the end, but we were able to live and tell that story. It was all day. I hated it. I wanted to just play sports as a kid. Of course.

All right, let's go around a little heard here, Boston. Yeah, now you're real claim to fame as being a Super Bowl champion for the New England Patriots. Thank you for your service, brother. I very much appreciate that. But looking forward to this season, I wanted to ask you. you know, what young DB you're excited about, but really the young DB, everyone's kind of got their eyes on is Travis Hunter now playing both ways. How do you think that is going to go realistically? Debutt told me that in Madden, his conditioning is 100 and he never gets tired.

So if that happens in real life, then he should be okay. But do you expect him to do both the entire year? Do you think it'll be kind of split between one and full time the other? What are you expecting to see out of Jacksonville and Travis Hunter? I'm expecting him to do both. I think it's going to be extremely hard. I still have question marks about his ability to be able to do that throughout a 17-game season. But if I'm the Jacksonville Jaguars, and I draft him as high as we did and made moves to get up there to get him,

you don't draft him just to go out there and play wide receiver and provide that access for Trevor Lawrence to get the ball to him. You don't pay him to go out there and just play defensive back and go cover receiver. You need this guy to be explosive, to be exciting. Fans coming up wearing their Travis Hunter jerseys because you don't know where he's going to align. So I expected to maybe be a game by game thing where it may be, hey, we need him to match up a little bit more defensively with this guy this week. Or, hey, offensively, we think we can find mismatches to get him the ball in a certain situation. So I very much see them having him go out there and playing both ways and doing the most that he can unless something stops him physically. from being able to do that.

I can't imagine them not doing that. But as far as Young D.Bs, Don A. Barron on the Broncos, I'm excited to see what he can do, blitzing and covering and doing all of those things. I hate to cut you off when you're doing a barren bit. I wanted to ask you, though, because you know the defensive coordinator

in Jacksonville very well, right? You know, Camp, tell him about who that man is and what you think he might bring to that team. People that got a chance to watch the end-season hard knocks in Miami Dolphins, you got to see just a preview of what Anthony Campanelli is all about. When you mentioned New Jersey, when you think of what New Jersey football is like at

the high school level, it's the Italian guy screaming at the top of his lungs, getting people fired up, slamming things in the room, throwing a chair through the window. That is Coach Camp. And throughout the course of the week, he loves every single guy that he gets a chance to coach and come in contact with. So Anthony Campanelli is going to be one hell of a defensive coordinator down in Jackson, though. AJ, what do you got? I got a question for Jamek? Yeah, Jay, speaking of defensive coordinators, the Bengals brought in Al Golden this year

to try to shore up things in the defense event. We know Joe Burroughs going to put up points and how good that offense is, but what do you expect from this Bengals defense? And I guess what do you expect from them as a team? Well, watching them against the commanders, I don't expect a damn thing. I look at this for Al Golden. I'm coaching

peewee football right now. If we go play the neighbor in town and all of their kids are six foot and they look like monsters, and I'm rolling out there with little twerk, and 10-year-olds, it don't matter how great of a scheme I have. We have no shot for the Bengals. They have to figure out to get these young guys that they've drafted

to play at a high level right away. Find a way. Pay Trey Henderson, get him the money. They need as much good players on the defensive side of the ball as possible. If I'm Joe Burrow, I'm standing on the sideline, and I'm watching this, I'm in everybody's face, slamming helmets. Dude, we got to figure it out. Make a trade, do something.

There's no way we're just going to hit repeat on exactly what we did last year. That defense was ugly. And I know it's just the preseason and all of that. But I always think about this. When you look at the preseason, whatever was the point of emphasis from the season before, it better look good now in the preseason. We talked about Caleb Williams, not holding all to the ball, all of those things. And the preseason, it looked better.

It looked like something they were working on. I don't know what the hell the Bengals was working on a lost season. But we need to see more from that defensive side of the ball. Who do you have week one? I know you do CBS games and you got a great crew with you. You're with Andrew Catalan and I believe Charles Davis this year.

Who's your first game? We're at Indy. We got Daniel Jones and Miami's coming in town. Daniel Jones is talking about a lot. Sorry, man. Sorry, man. Hey, you're going to enjoy Indy,

but yeah, sorry about that, brother. Which quarterback would you have rather faced AR or Daniel Jones? To me, I would hate to see AR out there because if I'm on defense, I'm terrified of the unknown. You don't know if this guy's going to scramble and run you over as a DB.

You don't know if he's going to flick his wrist and throw the ball 60 yards down the field. So I would much rather face it Daniel Jones and has no disrespect, but Anthony Richardson creates that unknown that to me is terrifying as a defense. Ty. Jay Mack, just curious,

how do you feel about the Packers defense going into this year? As a Packers fan, all offseason, they kind of let everyone from their cornerback room walk and they did sign, you know, Nate Hobbs from Vegas. But then a lot of the talk was, hey, Bo Melton, this receiver, we're going to put him at cornerback, and we're going to see. And, you know, they've been saying he's been doing great.

But they were much improved last year with Jeff Halfley. Obviously, their safeties are very good. Do you expect them to, you know, take another step up this year? Because I feel like if they want to do what everyone thinks they can do, their defense needs to be much better again this year. Debutt, where did Bowelmilton go to school? I hope he didn't go up that shitty school up in the Jersey

I hope not You damn right baby That's a fellow Pascadaway Rutgers baby Jesus Why do you think they put so much trust in my guy I look at this Packers defense

And you're hoping they take a step But when you lose guys It typically takes a little bit of time To gel and build that chemistry For everybody to be able to come together So it's not going to happen right away You lose a guy like Gianniere Alexander Who played a lot of good football

has been banged up the last few years, and now you're throwing guys out. You mentioned Nate Hobbs. You mentioned bringing Bull Melton from the offensive side of the ball to the defensive side of the ball. You're not going to just hit the ground running and everybody just pick up.

It's going to take a little bit of time. But in that division, you don't have that much time. So I look at this Packers team. Yes, Jordan Love, Matthew Gold, in his addition, the defensive side of the ball, I think they're going to be good. But I don't see that step forward happening right away is going to be throughout the course of the season.

How much better can they improve? from a week to beat weak standpoint and getting guys on the outside that can play more man-to-man and get them out of the cover two and the cover three, which they played a lot of last season. I got a tweet to saying when we're in the dome, it's not around the horn. It's around the dome. So let's go around the dome, not around the horn. Oh, I like that. What do we got?

Yeah, Jason, we talked about Jalen Ramsey earlier in him going to the Pittsburgh Steelers. As we know, the front seven there has been incredible, will be incredible. But getting Jalen Ramsey, getting Darius Slay, they are very, very happy with those two. How do you feel about the Steelers' defense as a whole, the Steelers' secondary? And can they lead them deep into the playoffs? I think we're going to see a lot of Ramsey on the inside in the slot. I think that's where he's going to be most effective, where he can blitz and do all of those fun things. Man, when you have pass rush that the Pittsburgh Steelers have,

assuming Cam Hayward gets back out there and everything is settled with his contract, man, that makes life easy when you got 30-year-old DBs out there. Darius Slay played his butt off last year on a Super Bowl winning. team. I don't have a reason to just guess that he's going to fall off a clip this year. So him and Ramsey out there, I think, are going to be special. And then Joey Porter, Jr. I think for those guys, you have a Joy Porter Jr. on the outside that can go and follow around the other team's number one wide receiver, which makes Slay and Ramsey's job a lot easier. The issue they're going to have is when you show up on Wednesday and you start game

planning, who's going to be content with covering the number two or the number three wide receiver because all of these guys at points in their career have been that guy. So I think from a confidence standpoint and what they're bringing on the defensive side of the ball, they have nothing but dogs out there. So now is how do we implement this thing and put it going forward so that we can go out there and dominate on the defensive side of the ball. But it's exciting to see because this is what we've always known that Pittsburgh Steelers franchise to be.

Guys going out there winning the game on defense and then having an offense to go out there, running the football, and making the plays necessary. Where do you stand on Pittsburgh? You in on them going to the season? People are either in one or two camps. They're Rogers' is toast and I don't want to do this all over again. I did with the Jets last year. I got excited.

Or they're all in. I'm all in. Like where do you stand with the Steelers? Well, I don't think they're the Jets. I think that comparison just because Rogers was there isn't fair. This is a team that has been winning, has been in the playoffs. They're not bringing Rogers in there to save them. So I do like the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I like them to win a playoff game this year. I like them to get there. Wow. So I look at them. them as a team that I think, I think they do take those steps. I don't have them as a Super Bowl contender, though. Final four is pretty good, though. I think we would take that at this point.

DeVos, what do you have? Wow. So, Jason, you played, I know you played for Bill. Conman mentioned your Super Bowl championship up there in New England. I believe you overlapped a little bit with Mike Vrable, not maybe in Tennessee, maybe in Cleveland. What are the similarities and differences between Bill and Mike? And now, what's your expectation for past Drake May's year two and then Vrable, you

the Prince that was promised back in New England. The Press that was promised. I got a chance these last two weeks doing the Patriots preseason games of being around Braves and the team a lot. The similarities, I think, is the expectation that he has for the guys out there on the football field. It is all football with him. And he expects guys to go out there and know what they're doing.

And if you're not, he is not afraid to tell you about it. Talking to Drake May a little bit, he mentioned that. When they get in there in the team meeting room, Vrable will put a play up and talk about somebody not doing their job. He's not afraid of anybody when it comes to that type of stuff in the room. I think where they differ a lot,

which you can appreciate this as well, D.Butt, is Vrable is a guy that he very much loves that personal connection with his guys. If you've seen him on busting with the boys with Taylor and Will and those guys and bushing their chops, like he loves to do that. We're sitting there and I'm

watching and make fun of Jibrill Pevers, as we're talking about me and Jibrill being a part of the O-N-16 Cleveland Browns. That part of coaching, I think he loves just as much as he loves teaching the guy. So I think he's extremely high expectations for Drake May in year two of taking that step. The thing talking to Josh McDaniels with Drake May is as soon as they got there, they unloaded and they gave him everything. Last year, he wasn't calling it at the line of scrimmage with, hey, we're going Mike here, we're setting the protection here, all of those things. They gave him all of that.

And he has loved every part of it and the growth that he's had since he's been there, the leadership. and speaking up and all of those different things. What's your vibe on Belichick College Coach? Because that's, I mean, they got the Patriots fans here fired up. But like, we talked to Damien Woody. He's like, I think it's the most fascinating story. Are you in on that? Like, do you think that suddenly Belichick is going to take the North Carolina tar heels

to prominence or is this just a cute story? Whoa. Man, those are two drastically different things. I'm not going to call it, I'm not going to call it a cute story. Smart. But I think for me, I'm intrigued because either they are going to find a way to win games or to your point, it's not going to be a cute story. It's going to be a train wreck.

So I think just watching is going to be fascinating to see. The one thing with Bill's has always been about eliminating every single distraction and all of those things. And since he's gotten there, all we've talked about is everything except for football. So seeing these clips are fascinated because it's just like, this is the bill that I know. The swirling of the whistle. Exactly. twirling of the whistle, looking at guys like, I mean, what are we doing? You got to block the guy in front of you.

We talked about this. Like, that's the bill that we all know and love. He didn't give a damn about asking me about how my wife's doing, how my kids are doing. Hey, Jay, when you show up, what's your assignment on cover two? That's the only thing we talked about. So this is the Bill Belichette that I want to see, and this is the Bill Belichet that's going to be winning games. Were you surprised when you saw all the Instagram stuff last year with Jordon, when they were doing like the mermaid on the water

and all that. I don't know if I'm even allowed to talk about it. They've kind of eliminated the distractions, to be fair. What you think of all that? She wasn't working for North Carolina when that stuff was going out, just by the way. Dude, there's not a guy that played for Bill that's not going to say they weren't shocked by that.

He was on the beach where her lifted in the air. But one, we didn't even know he was capable of doing that. So that was the most impressive thing where you had to group chat and be like, damn, like, go ahead, Billy B, like, lift your life. But it was like you can't imagine he would be the guy out there doing those things. But hey, hey, life is short, man. You got to enjoy it while you can.

We both have sons the same age. I'd be remiss not asking. Give me an update on your son, Caden's athletic career. Where are we at? What are we playing? And what is the future for this young man? Man, we're in our second year of tackle football. And because he's probably not watching the other day, we know the pads go on.

So we start coming up with all these hitting drills. You've got to get them fired up. Like you've got to go in there and lay a shoulder. So, you know, my son. So I'm going to match him up with some of the best kids on the team. So we have another kid that's really good on our team. Kaden's the tackler. He's running the ball.

He drops the shoulder. Boom. Keating hits the ground, full of tears. I'm sitting there as a dad. I'm just like, come on, man. Get your ass up, man. We've got out here embarrassing and the family. Now everybody know McCordy's names on the back of the jersey.

Get up, man. You can't be doing this. But he's doing good, man. He's fine in his way. He's a little speedster. He has some McCordian in him. So he's doing good, man. Appreciate that.

I'm trying to get him to be as good as Mel Schrager out here, shooting hoops and knocking down the three ball. My little guy has been working on that jump shot all summer. We'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. In the Brooklyn Basketball Academy, we'll see. We're talking youth sports. You know, Little League is going on, too, of course.

Fairfield, that too. Jolute, though. Yeah, Joey Jolute. Joe Jolutee from Irmo, South Carolina. That kid's no joke? No joke. Connecticut plays today, right? Yeah, Fairfield.

Last two undefeated U.S. Tehrfield, Connecticut. Oh, South Dakota lost? Dakota lost they got their shit pumped by oh let me check Fairfield Connecticut is that right who would have thought I worry that it doesn't matter it doesn't matter that Taipei team is yeah they have the home run kick

tell me about give me a scouting report well the Taipei the first game that I watched he stepped up hit a home run and then was throwing 83 little league which I think was like 106 in the majors like 115 MLB equivalent so good luck is what we're saying I've never went to Williamsport

have you guys ever got to that never Little League World Series It's in like the middle of Connecticut The no one cares part of Connecticut Is it in Pennsylvania? Oh there you go Yeah Disrespect Connecticut like that

She told you Yep It's all good JMAC good luck Finish up one more Patriots Preseason game and then You'll be on the road All season with CBS

And you'll be doing stuff with ESPN I believe as well So JMA thank you bye I'll be there baby I'll see you All right That's the man Let's clap it up You've seen the headlines.

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Yeah, we don't think you start a world war. I don't want any problems. We already started with the AI robots. I don't need a World War here either. Give me the latest. You guys watching it. Oh, yeah. It's on every day after the show.

It's on every day after the show. Today is the winner's bracket for the U.S. side. It is the semifinals. Winner goes to the United States Championship. Loser plays Oh, I love Dr. Pepper. Loser gets Dr. Pepper because they're feeling

like shit and then they get Dr. Pepper feel better. And loser also plays in the championship game of the United States side. So this is the last two unbeaten United States teams today. Whoever Lusonization, yep, plays Joe Joludy's boys to get back into the

United States San Dakota's already South Dakota I believe they play Joluti They play Joluti to go to the The losers Nevada No, Irmo, South Carolina South Carolina

So right now there are brackets Yeah since there's two sides There's three games left on the United States side Okay And three games left on the international Somebody gets shrinks a visual I need it something Jesus what are we doing about that's fun

I think it ends Either like Monday or Tuesday really of next week oh i was going to say i would have just guessed that sunday will be the championship there it is there's gillutie so is the pitcher yeah uh through two games he hadn't yielded a hit yet uh so and again you know you got 85 pitch counts so these kids are getting pulled a little bit early but boy if you see jlutie on the bump it's no sense and even bringing a bat up to the plate turn and run a j hawk you heard jason mccordy talking about his kid in youth sports give me a good youth sports story as AJ Hawk

the sports dad. He's the coach right now. You see the photo from, yeah, okay, good. Yeah, I don't know. I've coached girls basketball in the past from my daughter earlier on. That's obviously its own thing. That was fun watching the girls come together. Like, I tell you what, if you want to coach some

competitive people, coach some girls fifth and sixth grade basketball, because if there was a girl in the other team, that was a punk, they were not scared. All 10 of them were ganging up and they were going to go at that girl the rest of the game. So I respect it. I loved how they had each other's back like that. But yeah, I'm coaching a little tackle football. A lot of the, a lot of the kids, it's their first year in tackle. But like, as McCordy was saying, if a kid gets trucked,

if he gets run over, like kids always talk about, oh, you're getting trucked and from playing madden and stuff. And I'm like, when a kid gets run over, I get juice and I go pick them up and bring them up off the ground. And then I yell at the rest of the kids that are acting like it's a big deal. I'm like, what are you talking about? At least he had, no, I'm saying this guy's got the courage getting run over. I haven't seen you guys even put yourself in a position to get run over. You try to like pump him up and like, hey, I respect. I I don't care if you get run over 50 times in a row. At least you're going to put your head in there and give it a chance.

So I think it's a football is a great sport, I should say, for that. It really helps you learn a lot about yourself. Absolutely. Amen. All right. Next thing I wanted to show before we wrapped, we were talking in the pre-show. There's already a mock draft out. Field Yates put out a mock draft.

Oh, yeah. This is going to go horizontally and then down. So one to four, as you see, because you might be saying, wait, Caleb Downs, too. So Field just through teams out there, don't get caught up on where he projects your team he's a nice guy field gates is not going to have a crystal ball and tell you exactly where it's going to be the more important thing is the players so i like seeing this because it's 32 names for me to kind of watch this season if i'm an NFL fan and you go across here he's got arch manning as the number one overall pick and lenora sellers as the two club nick

the three i'm looking for nussmire nuss mire nuss muck mire all the way down at 16 i was told Nussmeyer's going to be the guy. Is this controversial that Nussmire is all the way down there? Well, so first off for Field, unlike this year, he has six quarterbacks here in the first 16 picks, five in the first 11 picks of next year's draft. It has been touted as one of the better quarterback drafts in years. Obviously, last year was, people were saying was not one of the best quarterback drafts in recent years. But no, everything that I heard coming out of the Manning Passing Academy. was that Arch Manning and Lenore's sellers were in a different category from the rest of everyone else.

They said that Arch and the Norris, the way the ball comes off their hand, the way how big they are, the way they carry themselves. They were in a different tier. And then it was that the Garrett Nussmeyer, Kate Klubnick tier, I didn't hear much about Sam Levitt. I mean, he popped onto the scene last year at Arizona State. He was a transfer. It's got great mocks.

Transfer from Michigan State, but people were on high in them. And then Drew Aller, I believe, didn't go to the Manning Passing Academy. so I didn't hear a ton about him, but obviously we know him. He's a big boy with a huge arm. He's athletic. So, I know, most of the- We watched him last year. From what I'm hearing, most of this kind of checks out as far as the quarterback.

Can I ask this is dumb? I'm just looking at it. Where's the Florida quarterback? I love that guy. He cannot come out yet. He's not eligible. And what's his name, Ladway? Lagway.

I love that kid. Yeah. He's a ball way. What are you saying? He's a month. I know Arch's his grandpa basically says, no way in hell he's coming out and entering the draft. And then I think Arch

came out and said, I don't know where he got that from. So where are we right now with Arch? Is he going back? Is he standing? Phil's just said effing. I'm going to put him on my Jeff. A lot of us felt the way that Archie did, his granddaddy, about that Arch, that would be there for two years just because that's

the Manning Way. Peyton stayed till his senior year. Eli stayed till his senior year. So we figured you know, Arch would do the same. Now, Arch said, you know, that's not exactly the case. He's just taking things one day to time and a lot of people were suggesting just reading the T-Laves that maybe that's based on who has the number one over the whole person this year could be he may have seen fields mock draft and said yeah my my grandson ain't going to play in cleveland no he wouldn't let he like

go to san diego i'm sure he wasn't not letting the jets yeah exactly so that that could be you know something to talk about uh is this unanimous i like archmanning i mean because i was on with get up and again i come in as an NFL guy and we had Heather dinich who is great and Paul Feinbaum, who is great, and Jordan Rogers, and Jordan Rogers, who I respect, because he does at SEC Network and watches it all, was like, Arch might be the fifth best quarterback. Yeah, that's crazy, but now I've seen him number one overall. Is that just based on speculation or no, I think Field maybe just has, has a better read of the situation. Really? Yeah, I do.

There's difference between college quarterback and an NFL prospect, right? Yeah, there is for sure, 100%. But no, like, everything that I was like, Arch and Lenores are the guys right now. but I saw another he works for ESPN too Matt Miller NFL draft scott or whatever he had Cade Clubnick going one overall so like right as of right now before the season starts there's a lot of

quarterbacks who have the potential to go So if you're a Browns fan and you're hearing this there's six quarterbacks in the top 12 are you really getting so worked up about Shador Sanders because gosh we have the Jacksonville first round pick and we have the Cleveland first round pick

we're going to root for our team but even if we packaged them and move up a couple like there might be the next guy and we'd have to wait 10 months you know months yeah that would suck more uh interesting what you said about fine bomb don't think that's the case but he loves he loves arch right oh i have no idea i was just the time about what you said about him um but arch though the thing arch might be thinking about um and granted it it really doesn't matter in his situation but like next year with all the lagway hype you know not sorry the 2027 draft like

he is uh like his grandfather's claiming with all the lagway hype like that might be another thing too where Arch is looking at, you know, his situation. Maybe it is a good first overall pick this year. And he's like, well, why would I take my chances? Like, I might as well just come out this year. Like, you know, I don't know, just a team that would pop of my head that has like a good team around them that maybe everyone thinks it's going to be good and they kind of fall off. Like, what if Seattle has a really bad year?

And then all of a sudden the Seahawks are the one. What if Stafford's back flares up? Yeah. They have a bad. Well, then they get Anthony Richardson and go 11 and 6. I don't, I know we talk. I don't think, I don't think Archer's think about any of that. No.

You know, he is, the keys are handed to him. He has all the expectation in the world. And with the people around him, his family, I'm sure there to, hey, it's one player at a time. It's one game of the time. Who cares about the expectations? And you asked, was it unanimous earlier? I'm sure it's not, especially with, like, the football guys, because a lot of, like, a lot of us, we got to see it. We've got to watch it off the film.

I haven't seen yet. We've had phenoms. We've had, you know, highly rated players. and with all the things that are around him, you would definitely bet on him. Most people are bullish on him, but you still got to see it on the big time level, the SEC, playoff how to see to perform all these different things.

All the other things on the outside that come with being a franchise quarterback, even with his name. So I'm sure it's not unanimous, but if you're a bet, man, he's what, the Heisman favorite going into the season without, you know, first year as a starter. So the expectation are there,

but a lot of people, you know, you've got to see it to believe. Well, to your point, too, the last two guys who were just like, Yep, number one pick, no matter what, Caleb Williams and Bryce Young, and it was C.J. Stroud and Jane Daniels right behind him. So, like, even if it is right now, everyone, yep, Archmanning for sure, typically at least the last five years, the for sure number one pick has been the one that has taken much longer versus the number two is that come in, that maybe aren't the unanimous, you know, C.J. Stroud's thing was that he did bad on that fake test. The SQ or the S2 or whatever. Jane Daniel's thing was his age. in his elbow and all that stuff.

And his weight. And his weight. And his weight. Yeah. He's too small. First week of the season is Ohio State, Texas. Such a matchup, but also Clemson LSU. So like two monster games.

Bama. Bama plays who. Florida. Florida State. Miami Notre Dame is a top ten as well. Miami Notre Dame. I'm curious about UNC, TCU. Like, this is a really good week. Did they announce where game day is going to be yet?

So it is, yeah. I don't want to bargo any. Of course. Yeah, Ohio State. So that game's on Fox, but the Texas, okay, so I like that one. Game Days where the Fox game is, that leads to some good stuff back and forth with their pregame, right? A little bit. You could say that.

We'll see. They got Portnoy, we got McAfee. Let's go. Look it out. Okay, everyone got quiet out here. Looking at these matchups, is there, you know, LSU Clemson. Is this one of those deals if Brian Kelly loses again in the first week of the season? Is everyone just calling for his head?

Yes, I believe so, probably because that's four years in a row that they would lose. week one, which is insane. Tough scene. It would be, I know he's not exactly on the hot seat, but it's, that would warm it up pretty quickly, I think. Yeah, how much is that recruit that they got help? Because I saw a clip of a 6-5 guy playing cornerback for LSU, and he's the tallest corner in the history of the football. Is this correct? They also got Nussmeyer's little brother just committed there. So he's, I mean, he's doing good recruiting everything like that, but

unless he wins on the field, that doesn't matter at all. Yeah, Notre Dame Miami. Last year Cam Ward was a superstar, you know, breakaway star, and Miami was back and relevant. What's the view on them to start the season? Miami. Aren't they the early favorites to fall off a cliff and crush and burn?

Carson Beck, brother. ACC, we got a nice sketch. There's a potential chance. I mean, last year at this time, I bet you in Fields mock draft, Carson Beck was probably somewhere in the first round. Obviously, the season didn't go like it wanted. He had some turnover issues. What's his vibe right now? I don't see his name anywhere.

It's a good thing. It's a cool vibe. Well, he's coming off of the UCL surgery that he, that happened in the SEC champions. He broke up with that girl? Yep, yep. They got back together. Or she broke up with him. Oh, are they back? I, I'm not aware. I know they broke up. I'm not aware if they're back together or not. But, you know, it's just all for Carson back now down in Miami. I doubt, I mean.

Is anyone going to go to that game or is a Miami game that's going to show up? Of course. Yeah, they're going to have that least from the 35 to the 30. Should be better on defense. Of course, in fact, was that guy. He was the number one guy. You know, it's like we're hardly even talking. That's good.

I'm sure these guys, they don't love, well, some of these guys maybe do, but I like when you kind of fly on the radar. Gosh, we see that schedule again. Next Saturday is a monster day. Oh, a monster. And then the Notre Day, Miami is Sunday night and TCU, North Carolina is Monday. Which is honestly better because they're staying alone. Like, I love when there's the... You are Boston.

of a guy you're a Patriots. Are you rooting for Bill to succeed or you kind of want to see the shot and fraud of seeing him fall in his face here? No, I absolutely want him to succeed. And I do think that he will, whether it's this year or in three years, but I do think they're going to be very good. And I'm assuming the quarterback they got from South Alabama is going to be so good at football. And they're going to find a way to win games for sure. What about you guys? Everyone roots? Because you know there is a contingent that's like, I would like to see this.

Oh yeah, yeah. Crash and burn. Obviously our good pies on friend, Michael Lombardi being the GM there helps our rooting interests. It is a tough, it's a tough match of week one because TCU, they got a lot of returning guys on that offense and they score a ton of points. So we'll see how Bill in that defense and hit him and his boy are dialing it up for week one. Before we wrap, AJ, I think this is important. We are talking pre-show.

I was not familiar with Justin Herbert and his game, and I was not familiar, Madison Beard, know who that is? Yeah, what's going on? No, but I did see. He's pictured, what he said he's playing chess with her? No, what is her? Yeah, it sounds like they're not together. They are together.

Now, I would never usually, you know, dance in these waters because typically I'm in just all ball. But after Josh Allen got married to Haley Steinfeld and Travis Kelsey is with Taylor Swift. Stefan Diggs is with Cardi B. Stefan, I think it's fair to say, okay, it was not, but I wasn't this, I'm embarrassed. I wasn't familiar with Madison Beer. I didn't know who that was. And then I have a crew here that did.

Who would like to explain who Madison Beer is? I can do it without Bruce and his profanity because of how disgusting he was earlier. But Madison Beer is a musician artist. I guess she is from the Olivia Rodriguez-type era, artists of that ilk, if you will. Singer-songwriter. And allegedly the song, Drivers, Licensed by Olivia Rodriguez, a very popular tune for the Gen Zier's. I believe that is about Madison beer. In a good way or bad way?

In a bad way. A ton driver's license is about... A bit of beef, if you would. Yeah, exactly. Confirmed? Not confirmed, but also not deny. So I believe we can't just completely rule it out. I did read on her Wikipedia.

She blew up because in, I want to say, circa, 2014, 15, Justin Bieber posted a link to one of her YouTube songs, and then she exploded after that. She's a Long Island girl. I like that We just want Herbert to be happy. I just want her to be happy. I just want her to be happy. A chess tournament too. Everyone to be happy.

We got a chess tournament. We got a chess tournament. We love it. Awesome show. Thanks for having me, everybody. This was fun. We're going to be wrapping up now. And I will tell you this, this was an ultimate honor and a dream. Thank you guys. And now we go to YouTube.

Hell yeah, boom. Nailed it. Well done. Well done. I've got multiple tests. You're the best. Holy shit. This Shreger guys.

That's good. Don't have the hawkerback. He's up yesterday. Just keep trained. AJ is the man. AJ texted me. He's like, I'm going to be with you tomorrow. I'm like, hell yeah, you are.

I can't do this without you. So, AJ, I appreciate that. Shregs. I love your juice, Shregs. I was watching the open. It was beautiful. You were like running in place. You almost jumped through the ceiling.

Yeah, it was great. Well, it's like I want to bring the energy. I want to equal what you brought yesterday and what wraps you brought Monday. And then I want to do the brand service. So I maybe go overboard. I got a text from one of our executives saying that they thought you might have to, like, hold me down because I was a little bit too excited.

Yeah, but that's what you want. Just like, I forgot what coach. It was Spack. Yeah, it was Cai, you're right. You know, you want to, you know. To the line. Yeah, you want to be yanking those dogs. Who said that?

Which coach? Power, Kyle. Bill Ka. Go and say, whoa, not go. Yes. I'm going to say, woe not go. A lot of these coaches have a saying for that. A saying.

Whoa, not go. That's a good one, too. Yes, it is a good. It is true. I like the woe, not go. It's it. The beauty of this show, though, is, like, I've done a lot of other shows,

and it's, to those shows, Good Morning Football, or Fox Kickoff, or even get up, whatever. It's like, here's the rundown. You guys, basically were like, what do you want to talk about today? And we did, and for two hours, you're talking with your boys,

it's like, that's a dream. So this is unbelievable, and you guys are awesome. So the questions we asked are great. Our guests were really good. This is really awesome. The conversations end on their own volition. Is that how, was that?

Was that the time? Is that the term? You can say that. Is that the Seinfeld line? Nick? He wasn't. He wasn't listening. I heard you.

I'm not sure. Tony, it's very, very, too, slide in. Deep pull. No, it's not. No, it's not. What's the line? How have you been enjoying the host and no? You've been hosting a bunch of shows on the network.

The suit and tie is different from me. I never did that. Oh, yeah. Is that mandatory at the New York show? No, you know, it's not mandatory because I don't think Get Up. I don't think Greenie wears one, but I don't like not wearing one. If I'm going to wear the full other thing, I feel like I'm showing chest hair, so I wear one. And then the first day I came in to do first take, one of the producers was like, ooh, no tie.

And I'm like, so. Yeah, no tie, pal. Shut up. Fuck you, yeah. Yeah, men's warehouse were like, Joe Say Bank and I got the tie on. I'm like, I'm like, good? So it's been great. You should wear a full suit in time of it.

today. I thought you were going to. I was thinking black tank top. No, that would have been. If I saw it. Yeah. If I saw you're like for the viewers at home, like, what you see is what you get. These guys are all our best friends. Like you come in and it's just a hang session. That's what I would want to watch. Yeah.

What do we, you know, what's pertinent in the football world today that needs to be discussed? And we did it. And we do it. And it's fine. AJ, we didn't get your thoughts on the Micah thing. yesterday you spoke about it obviously but a day later Shepter saying there's a divorce

on the way whether it's immediate or it's next year just your big takeaway. I think it has to get done. I know when Shepty says this yeah it makes me think all right this is much worse than I thought but I don't know like I don't think you talked about it like has Jerry ever drafted the guy and then let him not get to a second contract

especially when the dude is a franchise player and one of the best players in the NFL like does that happen? No but it seems like this guy for whatever reason Jerry has no affection for he doesn't seem to feel the same way he does about his homegrown guys he loved Jerry loved DeMarcus Lawrence

Jerry loved you know Travis Frederick Jerry loves if he drafts you like Jerry loves you and I see no love for Michael Parsons in any of this I mean DeMarcus where DeMarcus I made me think of it did he was that a free agent thing where he loved I feel like I was kind of that was end of his career

12 yeah yeah yeah Is he cut? Yeah. He might have been cut. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, I know it was a long time. He was still great in Denver. Yeah, he was still all proud.

Yeah, he was drafted there, was there from 05 to 13. Yeah, so he had them. And then played three more seasons with the Broncos. But, Triggs, he can't play this year. Like, Chefty said, oh, I don't know when. It could happen after this. So you're telling me he's going to come back and play this season. Like, that's what I don't understand.

Yeah, and then they're just going to be like, okay. Now we're going to tag you. If he doesn't get the money this year, it's his choice to not play. and then he's getting fined crazy amounts of money every week he misses. I think of Chris Jones in that week one game when he was with the chest, they're playing the Lions. He's with the Cats Brothers up there just watching and they're like, all right, we'll get it done.

But like, is that what happens with Micah if it's not done? Or is he not going to show his face at all? I don't know. I saw him at practice yesterday. He's there. He has to be. Because he gets fined if he's not. So he's holding in, but it's so awkward.

Why wouldn't you trade him right now? Like, let's just say he plays this year and he doesn't have as good of a year as he has had. has seven sacks or something like that and he gets banged up a little bit like his trade value then is way less than it is right now everyone who would would trade for him right now like you are getting the kuleleel mac package teams will trade three first round picks and maybe like a defensive starter and and maybe another pick like you run the risk of if he doesn't have another all world season then like and you're not going to resign him you don't envision that you don't plan that anyway then you're just cutting what you could get from him in half completely almost

Yeah, I think his market value right now is as high as it's going to be because if he doesn't play this year, it's only going to go down and then the Cowboys don't have any leverage. What's the fair compensation, though? So Mac was what? Do we have that? It was like two first-round picks? It was, yeah.

And they, it was two first. And the other T, and then like a third, a fifth, and then the other T-swapped or something. I think the Raiders got like a second pick. Okay. I feel like the market has kind of changed a lot, though. Because remember, Jamal Adams went for, like, multiple first round picks, too. So, I mean, but Micah is of that ilk, as we like to say,

where he will demand at least a couple first round pick and maybe like two seconds. I can see him maybe a player. That doesn't help the Cowboys now, though, right? Cowboys still got on left. And I don't know if it's accurate. Ricky the Dog didn't tweet it, but someone did tweet that the Packers offered two first round picks

and a second round pick for Micah, and they said no. As a Packers fan, well, first of all, Jerry's not saying he's looking to trade him. That's all Micah, saying I want to trade it. Jerry's like, I don't care. As a Packers fan, what's that dude? Like, hell yeah. I like it.

I'll take any Packers fan. I would say if the Packers today offered two first round picks, a second round pick and like Quay Walker, you know, because the Cowboys need a linebacker, I would say. And we need to keep AJ as well. Fuck yeah. Do that right now. Do that right now.

Because Rishon Gary is good. They paid him like a premier guy, but he doesn't get the type of production. Mike it does. A lot of people have been saying Lucas Van Ness, who was, you know, I think the 11th or like the 13th overall pitch. Unleash him, man.

Unleash the Beast. I've been saying that for a long time. Like he, and a lot of people have saying, he's been unbelievable in the preseason so far, but we still haven't seen him. He's here three. Yeah, exactly. Like, they need guys to get home and get to the quarterback, especially if their secondary isn't going to be quite as good this year. So like, yeah,

this guy is a top three to five defensive player in the NFL. fucking if it's if it's an option get rid of those two picks because you're imagining those picks are going to be in the late 20s anyway that's a thing that's a key part so like let's play role roles here all right so

you're Jerry you're brandon bean man all right great role I am so pumped sorry you guys I know we all want to be Jerry but they're going to be one two first round picks and Ed Oliver get the fuck out

two have you seen two bills first round picks so you're looking at 28 29 none of those teams can like unless they're at all over is a great player but like they just gave a de-tackle 90 million dollars yeah so like why would they you know and the bills are like you were just about to say they're the last five picks of the first round like those teams just don't make any sense what I mean unless it is you know three first round picks it's got to be a team that's going to pay him huge money once he comes so he'll get it it's like and there and if i'm mic i'm kicking and screaming do not send me to a nothing team like

that's what sucks he has no leverage as far as where he gets saying he demanded a trip here's a here's a thing also i was looking at this yesterday yesterday because it's his uh rookie contract i believe like he's only he hasn't made like a ton of money which is to the point why yes relative which is why he is at practice but like um so what he's made three six 10 16, 17 million dollars? Like, yes, that's a lot of money. But relative to the NFL, like, he's supposed to make $25 million this year.

Oh, this guy should make 40. No, no, I know what he should make, but he's due to make $25. He's going to make more this year than he did his previous four years. Combined? Yes, like, by $8 million. Like, is that a reason? To not play.

Yeah, like he's, or he's, hey, this is like $25 million. I'd love $25 million. Yes, you are going to, listen, Mike is going to get $100, whatever million guarantee. Eventually, from somebody. But, yes, $25 million. They've got to get it done.

Still a lot of money. So, AJ, week one, Michael Pars is a cowboy. I don't know if he's playing or not. Week three, I think by then, yeah, he's in there because, let's say the first couple weeks he doesn't play, and they don't really get any pass rush. You don't think Jerry's going to run to the dotted line and sign him up? Sign this motherfucker right now. We didn't talk about McLaurin today, because I'm kind of tired of it.

It hasn't really done anything. Has it changed. They're going to reach a stelmate. Stalmate is what it is. He wants a certain number. Commanders see it a different way. I would think those... Did you see there was a video floating around the internet

where there people were lip reading. It was him and Adam Peters talking. And it looked like... It looked like Terry... It could have been AI, but it was from far away or whatever, but it looked like Terry say, I can't do less than 66,

which kind of makes sense because all the talk has been, he's been looking for 33, so I assuming the 66... Over two years. Was guaranteed. But then everything else we're hearing is that the commanders are probably not going to, like, not going to go there.

He's a wide receiver one in the NFL. Yes. The going rate is either going to be 20 to 35 or 40. Like, to me, figure it out. Yes. But I do see the side just in a vacuum not thinking about, hey, we came so close last year. We brought, like, Terry McLaren to me. And you guys crushed me when I said it two months ago.

Like, I don't see him in that Jamar Chase, Justin Jefferson ascending. I said Malik neighbors and you guys lost your mind. Yeah, I was fucking ridiculous. looked that way because Malik had 108 catches and his second year player. Malik's a doubt. McClorin's 30. It's hard to, and I know what Pittsburgh's paid for

DK, but I would also look at DK as a different body type and maybe a different type of receiver for what they're doing. But to me, it's not about what he's worth in the matter of principle. To me, it's like, we're all in. We're here. We just got Tunzel and Debo. This is the year. We need Terry McLaren.

Pay it. You need a wife. He's also never played with another legitimate guy and Debo is finally not even including Jaden yeah like Debo is finally there like he finally has someone on the other side of the field of him that can take a little bit of pressure off

I hate this is saying to sound negative term like you're up at night thinking about Jamar Chase the night before a game you're up at night that George Chase is different Jamar Chase Justin Jefferson you're thinking about those guys are are you losing sleep over Terry McLaurin as a defense of that you are Terry McClearn him one on one you are

yeah he's a game worker he's still a game worker Now, Chase Jefferson, those guys are, you know, kind of on a, they're on like an all-time great trajectory. But if you're looking around the NFL week to week, like as a corner, as a defensive back, okay, we got T-Mack, you know, week four. We got like he's definitely a guy that you're circling, that your game playing in 417, okay, where is he on third down, where is he in two-minute, where is he in a red area? And he can impact the game in different, you know, different ways. D.K. Metcalf is also a guy that you have the game playing for. you've got to be aware of because any point in the game number four now can you know take the top off of defense and be explosive uh now the big thing about it is 17 mcclorn he's there

every week that's a big deal too you know you look back on healthy yeah you look back on like the jama chase he's he's pretty much there as a week like these guys who are there every week not like okay he has a great four to six week stretch and he's going to be out for a couple weeks with a hammy or a calf or something like that up into this point that hasn't been the case for Terry McClure. And for Jay, man, like you're a second year, you want to build that rapport with Terry. And then for Terry, this is the first time, I believe he's returning with the same starting quarterback.

So as a big-time receiver and as a big-time ascending quarterback, you want those things in position. You don't want to be trying to figure shit out in week two that you could have figured out, you know, two weeks before the season started. So Adam Peters, they got to figure it out. I understand both sides, though, why they're kind of attestell, mate. And you would think that no matter what, it's like, hey, the only goal here is we have to make sure that Jaden Daniels, his trajectory is going to continue to rise like this.

Because, like, Debo obviously is a nice piece. We've seen what he can do. He's great. But that's not nearly as attractive if Terry McCloran's not on the field. It's like, if Terry McLaurin is on the field, it's like, oh, shit, look what we can do with Debo now. Like, you just, why would you run the risk of Jaden Daniels had an all-time great rookie year? And now we're talking about the commanders, like, hey, could this team go over? the money to spend. Exactly. And you have

this ownership that since they've come in and have basically said like, hey, we're going to spare no expenses. You need new practice fields. Let's fucking do it. You need new everything. You know, like, we're going to do it. Yeah, exactly. Tonsul, like you're doing all this stuff. And then it kind of goes back to, you know, like, how we've

talked in the past. It's like, does that send the right message, too, where it's like, this guy has done everything you've asked for him. And he has been the consummate teammate, consummate professional. And you're just going to, and you're going to squabble over a couple million dollars. potentially ruin that relationship. Like it just feels like they're so hot right now

and this could really be like a ticking time bomb that ruins everything. The commanders fans who are very vocal, the sentiment went from pay him, pay him, what are we doing, what are we doing? To now it feels like they're almost like, okay, well, if those numbers are what he's really asking for, back to the team being the team,

like now we're pro team because, well, wait, no, he shouldn't make that, he should make this. He should make 31, he should make 30, not 35. At the end of the day, though, all that, it's great. Like, it's millions and millions and millions of dollars. But to me, at this point, Adam Peters, the GM, doesn't want to just give in after now digging his heels in. And Terry McLaren and his agent, I believe Buddy Baker, indie guy, they've dug in their heels. So there has to be a compromise.

And I assume there will. But like, you're right. Whereas you might say, Micah does a podcast and Jerry doesn't love that. And maybe Micah is not this or that and that. and I think Micah's pretty clean off the field. You look at Terry McClure, and he's everything you want. And if you don't pay that guy, what does that tell the rest of the locker? Yeah, exactly.

So, I mean... But he got paid two years ago. Yeah. Hey, times have changed. Yeah, exactly. That also wasn't from them. That's how it works in this business. They weren't there two years ago.

Yeah. So if anything, you know, hey, you guys are new. I'm the elder statesman, like, you need to pay me. You know, I need to get what I get, because I'm sure he's, he also sees on the horizon, like, oh, well, if I'm out there this year and Jaden does better, that means Debo does better. Does that mean there's less money for me if, you know, they have to pay Debo? Because Debo's on a one-year deal now.

He got the whole Stefan Diggs rework that Stefan Diggs did when he went to Houston. So, like, it's not as if Debo isn't going to be looking for a bag after this year, too. He's going to be motivated, too. Yeah. And for Terry, you would have to think, like, this is the last big payday. Yeah, probably. So you got to dig your heels in. And then for Adam Peters in the front office, this is their first, you know, real adversity, you know, as far as when it comes to a big time player and, okay, now how do they handle hold-ins or hold-outs or whatever contract?

I don't think they can trade them. Like, if New England comes in, we're giving you a first-round pick and something else for Terry McLaren, I don't know how Adam Peters can look to the fans of the commanders being like, we got this close last year with this group and we're going to trade them for a pick. I don't see it. I feel like you can't. McCorn's that guy. You got to keep him. I agree. Guys like you, though,

comment, so they can leak through the media. Hey, this guy was asking for $50 million a year. Of course, they can kind of try to craft the narrative that, hey, he was asking for way too much.

And that's already begun. Yeah. Always. That's how it goes. Terry feels like the only one that, hey, they're going to get it done because of everything that we're talking about.

Like, the other two seem to be. Micah and Trey. Yeah, Micah and Trey seem to be actual, hey, who knows? For Adam Peters, though, like, if you're Adam Peters and everyone's telling you stuff, if I'm Adam Peters, I'm telling everyone to shut the fuck up. Saying why? Because look what I built in your one?

Bingo, yeah. Like, hey, this was the biggest dumpster fire. After the Texans' whole entire thing, everyone immediately looked at Washington, like, oh, this is the shittiest building by a mile. Whether it's the actual building or the people working inside of it. And then Adam Peters comes in, and in a year, they flip to it. the entire thing on its head, like, yeah, fuck everybody. Yeah, but Terry is such

a big piece of that. Exactly. And that's why I think it's going to get done. But as far as like hearing outside noise for Adam Peters, like, fuck those people. I'm sure it's just like Howie Roseman. Like Harry Roseman probably feels the same too. Hey, I hear a lot of outside noise.

I've rebuilt two separate teams. Three separate teams, really. But I'll still understand. If you had to stack the NFC East right now, forget the Giants and the East. Eagles for now. Who are you saying going into this season? Cowboys or commanders who you would say are the better team?

Commanders. Commanders. They went to the NFC title? This is no Micah, right? This is with Micah. I worry about the commander. I would take the Cowboys. I think I would too. I'd take the Cowboys. I worry about the commanders strictly because of, I mean, how many, it was like

they won a lot of one-score games last year. It was like that Vikings the one year where they went undefeated in one-score games and then they went 7-9 or whatever. the next year or whatever it was. Now, they have one of the best young quarterbacks in football and that gets you a long way. But they won a lot of one-score games last year.

I mean, between those teams, it's awesome. Yeah, I'd probably say Cowboys. You got to pick one, Tony? A.P. Tom. If you look at the premier positions, I like the defense. You'd probably give the advantage to Washington, but you wouldn't go.

Just a quarterback. Levels, levels, levels above. Yeah, a quarterback. I don't know that I would give the advantage. Second year. That was number two in MVP two years ago. You give the advantage to the Cowboys receivers for sure. Yes.

Yes, I would. Cowboys tight ends? You could argue running backs because, you know, I don't know about the Cowboys defense. Well, in my mind, it's already a Packer. So that's kind of a big part. But corners, corners you lead Dallas. Yeah.

Latimore in Washington. Durromba. Yeah, we got, we got, and I love Vladimir what he's done career-wise. He's not young. Bang-up, too. Can he get back to form? I love Mikey Samir-Still. He's a dog.

He got some other young D.B.'s, Bobby Wags, he's a savvy vet out there. But, yeah, I think I was still lean Dallas. I guess after talking about it right now, he's like, wow, yeah, Dallas is kind of. They are. Overshone, Mike. They love Booker. The rookie. Who's cunning him on the, on the Cowboys?

I've gotten a lot of Texas about him. Is there a guy Cunningham, a pass rusher? Randall's boy? Look that up. Is it Ricky Cunningham? Is there a Cunningham on the Cowboys? This is my... I got a text about Cunningham.

I'm not seeing a Cunningham. Okay, maybe not Cunningham. Who's the second round? There's a B.C. kid, second round pick, right? Oh, oh. Donovan Azarock was... That's one. And then there's another kid who they had last year that they drafted. And I'm sorry I don't have the name and the depth chart,

the hour lads depth chart in front of me. That's exactly what I'm looking at. Of course. What do they got? There's me, though. Oh, we got it on the screen. All right, here we go. I'll tell you the guy.

Everyone was excited about someone. Who was it here? Murray. I don't see that name. Buddy Johnson? Overshone? Oh, Sean, he's a, he's a player. He's a player.

I stand corrected. It might have been Sam Williams. I don't know. I don't know. Someone was at the joint practice for the band. They paid O's a big money. They did. O's not starting.

no yes he's just out right now that's not the our lads so i don't trust that i don't know what oh i see him behind can i trust i trust i trust our lads um it might be sam williams i don't know someone was playing awesome in the inner practices with the rams and i'm and they were like you know micah's obviously the best player but they got this guy this guy this guy this guy and i'm like those are not household names those are not household names so they must know something if they're not shaking in their boots over micah yeah i don't know i just feel like from what we've heard about the Cowboys that they're going to be better than what everyone expects. And to be honest, like from what we have heard.

To be honest, one of the main things that I took away from Draft Night was that just talking to Coach McCarthy, he thought they were going to be good this year. He did, yeah. Very high. Like, he felt really good about the team that they have coming into this season. And, like, you would think, like, a coach could be jaded or something like that. We never unpacked that. Mike McCarthy worked on this program for the draft, and I figured I didn't know.

I haven't spoken to him since he and. Jerry part of ways. I came in there like eggshells like so nothing but love for the Cowboys. Nothing but love for Jerry nothing but respect and like he loves Dak and he loves Dak and I'm like okay so that guy could be bitter jaded could say oh let's see how they play with that me know he's like they're gonna be very good yeah he's like shot he's the man but he was like he's very high

and Trey Lange still yes he was very high on Trey Lentz I'm not surprised to see him you know balling out obviously if you're charged of him you hope you don't see him play and Trey's only like 25 still 24 somehow he's just bright hopefully we were talking about Trey Lant earlier with like Richardson it's you don't know you know it's like you put him in this situation didn't work out and now he's 25 years old and we're like oh tray lance is on his third team or whatever it is but then you go to that preseason game and you're like oh

that's why he was the third overall pick but that's the NFL well and I just like we've been talking I understand if you're a fan of the Colts why you would be fucking pissed if Daniel Jones is starting and not Anthony Richardson but like for you know his agents be like well we've lost all for us in the organization it's like hey like these motherfuckers are going to get fired if they don't have a good year. So I don't think they're like... But wasn't the writing on the wall when they signed Daniel Jones for that money? I mean, probably.

Probably. You knew he was going to get a legit shot, but you would think... And Shane was there when they drafted Anthony Richard, correct? He drafted Anthony Richard. Okay, so you would think the GM, Chris Ballard, and the head coach, the guy you drafted, that's the guy you would want to win the job. But you bring in a guy for, you know, insurance and real competition. Okay, let's see you.

And from everything that we saw from the outside of the head... Okay, Anthony Richards showed up in shape and better shape physically. He was doing the different things, you know, learning things as a quarterback. Because we all knew it would be a process when he got drafted for overall. So when Daniel Jones is named the starter, to me, it just tells me that he earned it. And he just won the competition. And obviously, I'm close to a lot of people in that building. So when I reach out to the people in the building, it's the same thing for them.

All right, this is our guy. He won it. You know, he won the job. It's because, you know, we're in there. We're trying to win game. No one is there saying, wait a second. Chris Ballet isn't saying, like, let me tank for arch or Shane Stuyck. Like these guys, especially with a new ownership group, you know, same family, but new people calling the shots.

Like everybody's on high alert to do whatever's best to make sure that they're the next day. So if they made the decision for Daniel Jones to be the guy to me on the outside looking at who wasn't seeing the practice, the meetings, he walked through, everything that's going on day to day, I just got to accept, okay, that's the reality. And now as a fan, you got to be optimistic about it. As a Colts fan, since Andrew Luck retired, it's been a revolving door. Even players have come out and spoken. It is frustrating not having that consistency and continuity at the quarterback position. But this guy came in.

We've seen Baker Mayfield. We've seen Sam Darno. We've seen Geno Smith go to other places. Fresh starts and become better players and kind of reach that potential. So that's the only thing you can hope for at this point. And he has the pieces around him. So, I mean, we got to see it. I understand Coach Fan has been pissed.

Draft the guy for overall. He doesn't pan out. But shit, it's a national football. It is. The best man win, and I think there also is this piece to it where if you have Richardson starting and he struggles out of the gates as a fourth overall pick, this is reverse psychology, and he struggles mightily, and then Daniel Jones comes in, you're not going back to Richardson. In this case, Daniel Jones starts, all right, it doesn't work out.

Now you've got your fourth overall pick. He had some time, and it's like, okay, now it's on your plate. Like, now it's your opportunity. It almost might benefit him if it doesn't work out for Jones out of the gates. Either way, whatever he was going to do on the field this year was going to be like his. It's like, hey, this is your last chance. You've got to prove whether or not you're going to be the guy. So if he doesn't start and then he gets an opportunity and he comes in and he wins, you know,

he goes five and one or whatever and looks good. Like, yeah, he might get that opportunity. But if he would have started and they start 0 and 4, like he's done. He's not going to be the Colts quarterback. I don't like the shit from the agent either. Yeah. I don't like that shit coming out. Just shut up.

It's already enough on Anthony Richardson's play. It's already enough noise. around them. It's going to be talked about whenever you're in a quarterback battle on national football league is going to be a big story. We don't need to hear these side conversations

with, oh, the trust and this and that. Because when I listen to Anthony Richardson talking, this is all through training camp, and then after Daniel Jones' name is started, he's saying all the right things. He's sounding more mature. He's sounding like he's learning. He's knowing, hey, I just got to stay ready.

You're one player away. So you don't want that outside noise with somebody that's representing you. You know, oh, we lost the trust, and it's a lot to talk about. And it's like, let him go to work and figure it out. when his number is called, which inevitably it will be again,

maybe not in Indianapolis, you want him to go out there and show, you know, show what it is and that he can do on the field when he gets his shot. NFC South is always going to be, like they can always win the NFC South. As good as the Texans are, like the Colts, like that division, like you could compete in that division. AFC South, yeah, AFC South. AFC South, Titans and Jaguars are probably not there yet.

So like, you look at the Colts, they have a lot of veteran pieces. They've got a, you know, good fan base. They've got a good home field advantage. To me, they should be competitive this year. Should be? Yeah, they got a good fan base if they're in it by week 10. That's most fan bases. Did they bail that, sir?

Yes. But, like, that's the thing. People are kind of sick of it because they don't, they're not going to fucking, they're not going to do anything this year. Every week, every week the Giants would trot out, here's Chris Snee and Justin Tuck, and here's David Deal for the last 10 years.

They do like the, and let's honor the 07 and 2011 champions. It's 2025. Exactly. The cults are getting towards. that maybe. We have a new quarterback here's Reggie Drain and here's Edwin and here's Pat McAfee and we're really we're still the cult but it's like guys we want to be relevant now. Yeah. They and they're they are still there it feels like been a decade since they won the division yeah they have right yeah they haven't won

the division since like 2014 I think it was before Andrew luck or did Andrew win rookie year we won multiple division okay okay I don't know I don't see those have to be road 2014 was the last time they beat the chiefs in the playoffs in the wild curve big comeback yeah and then here in it then they beat the broncos broncos division in denver in denver and then they got shit pumped in new england we got cheated but you know with andrew luck as quarterback yes that was the year that was the deploy jacks the pick is the ball over okay yes 38 10 yes i think legaribon i took a piss next to ryan grixon uh in the press box that game and i'm like i'm sorry bro and he's like yeah fuck Shut up, Shut up, Prerger.

It's a good game at halftime. I like Rickson. Oh, yeah. I thought he was going to get some opportunities. He's at Minnesota. Minnesota. They've got a good front office there. He's a giant normal.

He'll probably come back home next year. Quasi Adolfo-Menzza looks like Wood Harris right now. He looks like Julian Campbell. He's got the mustache. I haven't seen the mustache. Yeah, it's pretty good. I saw it. I said, holy shit, that's Avon Barks still.

That's it. I like the wire. He's even piecing together quite the roster. He has. They have. Vikings are loaded. It's just if this kid's good. Yep, big question.

I don't know. Going to find out early. Mad Dog had a take on Michigan. They think they're not a dame. That's a good point. You ain't know the Dame. Is that what he was mad about today? Yeah.

Yeah. That they think they're like this and AJ's obvious to Ohio State, but like Michigan gets this penalty and Michigan still carries themselves like they're above it all and there's some class thing. Like, no, you just got, you know, you just got penalized. AJ Hawk, if you'd like to comment. I mean, I don't, I don't know how. Dawson matter. It sucks.

Talks. All that matters between the lines. We don't talk about T-TU-N, bro. They paid that kid 10 million? Apparently. Over what? How many years do you think you have to stay to get all 10? I don't know.

10 million? Three? How many? And they've got it's... He's there. Larry Ellison and his lady are just like funding everything now. I mean, it's a... It's cool.

It's cool. I mean, it's something. It's probably a good time to go to Michigan. Michigan's great. Yeah, right, AJ? Right, AJ. Which part? What's great? They're a good football team.

They're a great football team. I'm not denying that. They were. I don't have any desire to go, but yes, they are. I respect them. I have never been to Ohio State game. Really? Yeah.

You got to try it. Come on, man. Went to the pro day a couple times, but I've never been to a game. I went to Michigan a few times. That big house is awesome. You should go week one, Texas, high state. Week one, Texas. And that's on Saturday, noon?

Yep. That'd be the one to go to. Might be something to think about. Go, Shrace. What's that think about it. Who's their cupcake in week two or three? I like seeing a win. Miami, Ohio.

Okay. They do play. They play Grambling. I know Ohio is also on the schedule, too. Ohio, the Botcaps? That's who I'm thinking of. Athens. It's one of their only home games.

That's a Nike. Quick trivia. Who's the greatest college basketball player out of the University of Ohio? Clark Kellogg's boy. Yeah, Clark. Tim Kirchikin. Tim Kirchik. Wally Zerbiak, Miami of Ohio.

Gary Trent, the shack of the back. Gary Trent. He's that one. Tim K. That was Timmy K. We're leaking gas here, guys. Timmy K played at Duke. Yeah.

Who did? He was Bobby Hurley before Bobby. Yeah. Okay. Tim Kurchin actually is the one that threw the pass to Leitner. No. Jay Billis? No.

No, it was Grant Hill, but I understand how you could Did Tim Kirchon really go to Duker? He's just BS? No, we just have a picture of him just fucking driving by Cal Ripkin Jr. to the cup. Straight up hooping. Yeah, had no idea that Tim Kirchian was a grade A hooper. He is.

He can ball. Yeah. That's it. All right, so Texas, Ohio State, Week 1, LSU, Clemson. Look at that. Lefty? Looks like Jerry Seinfeld. He does.

What do he say again? You reach, I teach! You reach I teach! Yeah, and Cal Ripkin Jr. was like, shit. He's right. Yeah, he actually. Yeah, he actually does teach he nutmeg him right after this. I like cows kicks.

Both of those throat throwbacks. Cows wearing jeans? What's he got on? Those are definitely old school. You know how we had the swishy pants and jazz. You slid on the floor of the burn more. How sweating his ass off? Yeah. Curtin's giving him that work.

And Walter, Walter, Walth Jr. is like the most famous photographer ever Sports Illustrated. All the Ali covers. Like that's the guy. So he took the photo. That's pretty cool. got that yeah that's timmy k that's up in the office for sure learn something new every day i love that we're going to start tomorrow show with walter ios junior talk all his top 10 greatest s i cover so we'll see it's good um all right so we got all right

all right shrague hey you're fantastic i love yeah well done thank you're fucking awesome you know how we end no tell me i've never watched the full ending the full ending you say team on me team on three one two three team all right team team on me say a little juice to it though yeah you're normal juice yeah you're normal team on me team on three like how you started the show yeah team on me uh-huh team on three yeah don't make a fucking mockery out yeah okay right now you're making a fucking mockery out of it and we do this every single fucking day team on me team on three one two three i love it sorry thank you