The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 1483 - Super Wild Card Weekend Preview/Picks, CFP Semifinals Preview, JJ Watt, Nick Saban, Adam Schefter, The Trenchys with AQ Shipley, Darius Butler, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

On today's show, Pat, AQ Shipley, Darius Butler, AJ Hawk, and the boys preview Super Wild Card weekend and make their picks, preview both the Fiesta Bowl and the Peach Bowl, chat more about John Harbaugh being fired by the Ravens last night and immediately become the most sought after Head Coach. Joining the show to preview the entire weekend slate, chat about his first year in the broadcast booth, and an update on Espanyol and Burnley is future Hall of Famer, Houston Texans Ring on Honor member, 3x DPOY, and color commentator for the NFL on CBS, JJ Watt. Next, 7x National Champion, the GOAT, College GameDay panelist, Nick Saban joins the show to preview the Fiesta Bowl and the Peach Bowl, chat about 4 coaches from his tree being the Head Coaches in these games, and if he thinks Curt Cignetti could have success in the NFL/would want to go. Later, ESPN Senior NFL Insider, Adam Schefter to discuss John Harbaugh’s firing, which candidates are linked to which teams, and everything else we need to know going into the playoffs. We’ll be off the next two days but we’ll be on ESPN 2 for the alt case of both the Fiesta Bowl and the Peach Bowl on Thursday and Friday. 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, we’ll see you for Overreaction Monday after Super Wildcard Weekend. Cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to our Humble the Boe, the Thunderdode. On this super football weekend Wednesday, January 7, 2020. 6, this sports program begins now. Football! It's magical, and it's always changing and evolving, isn't it? Wow, an 18-year stint comes to an end with one tweet out to the world saying, John Harbaugh has been fired, let go. John Horble out in Baltimore. Ian Rappaport of NFL Network went on his show Insiders last night on the NFL network

and said like, yep, a lot of guys didn't like him in a locker room. That's basically what it came down to. The ownership kind of found that out later as it went on. We'll hear from Schefter in the second hour at about 1.30 Eastern Standard Time to hear what he's hearing about the entire situation. Hell of a run over there, though, coach. Honestly. 18 years, very, very rare in the NFL, very rare anywhere.

And obviously, the only way you can do that is if you are, one hell of a ball coach, and he certainly was that. I think we all knew what we expected from the Baltimore Ravens football team whenever Hardball was coaching it. That's Hardball football. We're going to be a tough team. We're going to be a hard-nosed team. Hard ball comes from the special teams world,

so we're going to be diligent in all three phases. I think we saw that of the Baltimore Ravens a lot. Baltimore Ravens, though, very similar to Pittsburgh Steelers, who have Mike Tomlin there for 18, 20 years as well, two staples of the AFC North, two staples of the NFL, who have been doing battle in a big way for very, very meaningful playoff spots every single year and AFC North titles for the better part of the

last two decades, fans kind of getting sick of the message. You know, some people say the coach will lose the messaging to the locker room. Well, I think you lose the messaging to the fans as well. When the fans give up hope and think that you can't win a Super Bowl anymore, they grow louder, especially in football towns. Like in Pittsburgh, definitely like what happened here

in Baltimore. Now, there's a lot of conversation about Tyler Loop misses a kick. There's a fumble at a half yard line. There's a drop in the end zone. How come John Harbaugh is being punished so bad for this? I think this is potentially a good thing for both sides. I think John Harbaugh, who is now the bell of the ball of the coaching cycle, allegedly seven, eight teams have looked into talking to John Harbaugh. He gets a chance to rebuild, which I think a hardball person enjoys doing.

Jim has moved multiple times and had to build up a bunch of programs. John really hasn't had the opportunity to do that because he had so much sustained success in one particular place. I think a fresh start will be good for John Harbaugh. And a fresh start for the Baltimore Ravens people, I think I'm excited to see who it could potentially be. But all of a sudden, John Harbaugh is the guy that everybody's looking to hire, and then you start looking at stats. And it's like, well, is Mike McCarthy also going to get looked at the same exact way? Are we about to see second, third chapters of guys becoming something very special in this hiring cycle? There is certainly a chance.

We made a graphic about the NFL coach pool right now, and it is certainly a very large pool. And then if you look at the very back of this pool, there's a high dive. Don't look now. There's maybe a college coach. And people are calling the greatest football coach of all time, potentially taking a 30-meter leap right up there into the pool with all these NFL coaches that are certainly out there being talked about. You know, Ben Johnson, the last couple coaching cycles, he was the guy. He was turned down jobs going back to Detroit Lions.

Then it was like, well, which team is going to be lucky enough to be chosen by Ben Johnson? He picked the Chicago Bears. It worked. All of a sudden this year, there isn't really the Ben Johnson. There isn't really the this is who you should hire. This is who you have to hire. For a long time, the coaching cycle was need an offensive guy, need an offensive guy. Oppenheimer came up to this one.

he split the atom. If you hire an offensive head coach who calls the plays, then if your offense has success, nobody is going to poach your offensive coordinator because your head coach is there. So you're going to be able to maintain that. You maybe just have to replace the defensive side, but if you have the offensive side, figured out that's good news, especially with the success, Sean McVeigh and other offensive gurus and everything, feels like leadership of men is going to become a main requisite for who you hire. Not necessarily on the offensive side, not necessarily on the defensive side, but if you get some dogs in there, potentially the teams are going to run a little bit harder. Look at what happened

in New England, Mike Vrable. Mike Vrable's actually telling players, star players, shut the fuck up. On the sideline, and then talking shit to him immediately afterwards, and then they're dapping up and winning and doing something that we were hoping would never happen again in New England, which has become dominant again like a dynasty. So whenever you're looking for your next head coach,

I don't think anybody knows who's the right pick this year. But I think the one thing that they should be looking for is who can lead a group in the same direction. And we're going to need somebody to be able to do offense. Because if the quarterback's ass and the offense is ass your chances of making it ass so good luck to all the teams and good luck to harball on his next voyage now you saw that pool there's a couple names in there that people are like

who is it who is it Shane Steikin's in there because allegedly what's that about what he's coming back listen this is a coach pool okay we just took a picture of it all right we're just telling you what what's potentially possible out there and that could be another coach that currently has a job but harball allegedly has had a team that still has their coach and didn't make it any announcement about firing a coach calling his team saying, hey, what you think about? So Schaefter was eluding in his tweet basically, like

there's teams who were going to keep their coach and potentially even their GM as well that now hear about John I'm not saying the coach are anywhere near that. I'm just saying it could. Got a lot of good history of Baltimore, things coming from Baltimore to Indianapolis you know what things work out. Harbaugh family. Hardball is up in the Ring of Monter. The brother is

there. I'm just saying maybe they think about it. Maybe they think about it. Maybe John Harbaugh does that. Or maybe it's another team and a fan base that thought, oh, we're doing status quo. We're staying the exact same. And now all of a sudden, John Harbaugh is available. And ownership goes, wait a minute.

That is exactly what we are looking for where we are at. Let's go to the toxic table at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt. Conman, you look a little different today. Yeah, locked in. I mean, all this talk you're, you know, mentioned about the offseason and about, you know, coaches being higher places. That's cool. I'm locked it on the playoffs because I got a game.

You know, Ty, Ty's got a game. He's in his, you know, entire get-up with the Green Bay Packers. This is my game-day game, okay? This is my, hey, this is the playoffs. This is the classic Nike Tech playoff fit, okay? Yeah, that is. So, I mean, look, I'm jacked up. I'm juiced up.

I'm hydrated. Is this your first time wearing one of those? No, not my first time. I wore it last year a bunch, but it wasn't for my own playoffs. This is more to get into the headspace of it. That's why I wasn't on here. Now that the New England Patriots are back in the playoffs, are you kidding me? I mean, this is a full effort.

And this is why it's different in New England. You know, this is why they've won so many Super Bowls because it's not just the team locked in telling, you know, like Mike Vrabble, you said it, telling stuff on Dix to shut the fuck up. You know, it's each other. Telling, hey, you're a fan of the Patriots, we'll shut the fuck up and get locked in.

You know, like, there are things of that. We're back. We're back. Yeah, I mean, there's, we're the two seed. And this is what you used to do during the dynasty right here? Every, every single playoff from we had. I mean, we could probably pull up the tape when Mac Jones and the New England Patriots went up to Buffalo and got the doors blown off them.

I believe that was the game. They had a perfect game from the bills. They scored a touch on every possession they had. I was wearing this on Friday before that Saturday night game. I remember because I got so hammered, I fell as he put the bar. I remember that to a T and I was wearing this. I was Wick Gumpy. He can attest.

But again, we're back. And if this was Friday, I probably would have waited. If we had a program on Thursday or Friday, I would have waited to wear this. But we don't have a program tomorrow or Friday because we're doing, you know, the Fiesta Bowl, the Peach Bowl, so I had to wear it today. Okay. Well, Tadu, it looks a little different, I would say. A little bit. But it is nice to know that he's locked in on Super Football Weekend.

Yeah, and like he said, you know, he's got a game this weekend. I got a game this weekend. I mean, I don't know, it's weird because he's wearing this. And it almost does, it almost feels like the game tomorrow. It almost feels like a friend. Well, it is. Good news. There are games tomorrow. We got the Fiesta Bowl to Ball.

Exactly. Get locked in, boys. See, that's Super Football weekend. Come on. Thursday night, Fiesta Bowl. Friday night, Peach Bowl. super wild car Saturday super wild car Sunday super wild car Monday I mean we're in it right now this is the good old days

this is the great days this is what we've been waiting for and after this okay we don't even to talk about it no no football starts going real but we got the USXFL I forgot about the USXFL and the thing about it

I heard AJ McCarran's locked it yeah I like AJ McCarran doing it so is Ricky Pearl okay I like that former St. Louis Rams great Ricky Pearl is the new head coach of the San Luis Battlehawks. Oh, my God. Exactly.

They are. McNamara, K. McNamara, star. Is he? Mm-hmm. He was the first pick, I think, last year, two years ago. Okay, and we hope Pavia has an incredible NFL run. Okay, we are pulling for Diego Pavia to have a great NFL run. U.S. XFL could give him an entire franchise, right here in Nashville.

Oh. You need to throw the kitchen sink in that. Expansion team. Right there in Nashville. Yeah, and once again, this is him making the NFL. This is obviously alternate. But here's 2026 U.S.XFL coach. What's the problem?

They don't know their own logo. It's crazy. Or the league name. Anthony Beck, West Virginia, stud, okay? Absolutely legend out of West Virginia play for the Jets. His kid, Rocco Beck. Where's he going in in, Transfer Portal? Maybe his entire coaching staff over there at Penn State.

Congrats to him. He feels like he's been playing for 45 years. AJ McCarran, Ted Ginn. Oh, great hire. Ted. I like what they're doing over there at the USXFL. Maybe this is the spring where we get some spring ball. but let's not bank on it because of what we have seen in the past.

Sure. So let's make sure whenever we're watching these games, meaningful, the most meaningful of all season, we are certainly enjoying them for what they are, which is special. That fiesta of Baltimore kicks off the college football playoffs, semifinals. We'll be on the sideline for it. What a great way to start Super Football Week. Man, cannot wait.

Just like common, I got a few games. Obviously, it starts tomorrow with hurricanes, and obviously I got a couple teams in the tournament as well in the NFL. And I was looking for a Nike take as well for some reason. out everywhere, but I'm looking. I'm still being on a hunt. Have you never, you've never done Nike Tech Life? I've been wearing them for years, but

for some reason, I don't know. I think prices are up, too. I know. Because this one kind of looks new. I don't, I don't remember Connor ever wearing this. I remember. I've seen. You have? Yeah. I mean, that's like, if you, you remember bowl games, bowl games. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Travel, you know, everybody's in the, hey, everyone looked the same.

Swat. Yeah. Not just the paths, too, the Debutt's point, you know, still got one Friday, too. You know? And that's the difference, though. That's what I have multiple teeth. The ears, though. The ears are different. Headphones. Bad news Bears, gentlemen. Got an ear infection. Can't put any of those

earbuds in my ears right now. So just kind of had to go with the over-the-top headset. Don't love it. Don't love it. Actually, it's very, very hard to hear myself with these headphones on, but doctor's orders. I think any headphones with the ear infections could potentially get you. It sucks. One ear, both

ears? Both ears, man. It's a nightmare. How do I know it was It's the playoffs, though. Hey, look, everyone's playing injury. You know, it goes right back to ball, man. It does go back to ball. Miami, Ole Miss, tomorrow, it's a festival. Peach Bowl, Oregon, Indiana,

and then a full weekend of awesome NFL games that wrap on Monday night football with the Houston Texans and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Pittsburgh Steelers taking a victory lap because they basically got Baltimore Ravens, John Horrible, ball fired. And Father Maximilian Maxwell, I heard he's doing a little extra, a little bit of this.

Let's head to Hammer. Don, Todd. Your thoughts on a massive shakeup in the AFC North. I mean, I'm 38 years old, you're 37 years old, I do believe. Large portion of our football lives here. John Harbaugh has been representing the Baltimore Ravens who have been battling with the Pittsburgh Steelers in a huge way. Used to have citywide pep rallies whenever they were taking on the Baltimore Ravens.

Mikey and Big Bob would have a pep rally the Friday before we played the Baltimore Ravens. Come on, Don. sledgehammer at a Baltimore Raven car that we're going to tear up. Like that is what the Baltimore Ravens Pittsburgh Steelers was for a large portion of our lives. In Harbaugh and Tomlin were that feels like tone. And this is a huge move that I think was almost being forecasted by these insiders before the final game of the season. Yeah, as you pointed out, we were both in college when Tomlin and Harbaugh were hired. And seeing the pictures of them from their first game to their last game is insane. It is a huge shakeup in the AFC North. But as you were like over these last

couple weeks and we kept talking about it, and you picked up on what the insiders were saying. We're like, yeah, Tomlin, not so sure. But Harbaugh is definitely the name to watch. And who knows what reporting is real, whether he wouldn't get rid of his coordinators or if the players didn't disagree or didn't agree with them or if it was just, hey, you've been here for so long. Things haven't gone to what we wanted to as far as winning a Super Bowl with Lamar. like maybe it's just time for a change but I had a thought last night like watching him

you know leave the Ravens organization and how like the Ravens organization should be so grateful for what he did for them win a Super Bowl all the AFC championship games AFC North titles like just being a good team for that long is insane

and it's going to be really really hard to replace them I don't know what kind of higher they're going to go with I don't know if it's going to be offensive for Lamar or try to fix that defense of what was going on the last couple seasons there. But it's going to be huge shoes to Phil, sorry, in the AFC. Yeah, I agree. Huge, huge shoes was an aggressive decision to go with.

I appreciate your brain doing that for you. On that note, would you be saying or being thankful for Ravens fans saying Steelers fans need to be very, very thankful for Mike Tomlin and what he did for the Pittsburgh Steelers immediately upon the exit of Mike Tomlin if this was to go the other way? because that's kind of how it was being talked about. Mike Tomlin, it wasn't really being talked about of him being fired. It was more so like, I think Coach Tomlin make that decision. Also, look for him to maybe get into TV.

Like, TV was being talked about a little bit too much there. And then we immediately start thinking about Coach Tomlin on TV, and it's like, God, it'd be the greatest. And the amount of money that people are streaming platforms are trying to get sports audiences right now. They're investing in NFL. They're investing in live games. Who has a resume that's great?

Well, obviously he does. That's why this conversation's even happening. who is an incredible talker about the game, leadership, storyteller, you know, everything, basically. It's him. So you start putting together like, oh, he's going to TV if they lose this game. And then on the Baltimore side, Harbaugh is going to leave if they lose in this entire. And they were even saying the day after Harbaugh gets fired or leaves Baltimore, he'll have five jobs lined up. And I guess that's exactly how this is kind of all gone.

They've almost been telling us this for like a month now, feels like Toad. Yeah, they have. And yes, last night, when he got fired or whatever, it did make me think about Tomlin and think like, hey, whenever this run is over, yes, I know there's been the criticism. It's come from me. It's come from everyone over the last, you know, five, seven years or whatever, how long it's been since the killer bees.

That, like, hopefully there is an appreciation for what a person has done for two decades as a football coach in your city. But no, I mean, it's insane. I mean, yes. And they said the same thing about it. Tomlin and Harbaugh. If they get fired, they're going to have job offers the next day. And you saw it happen with Harbaugh. Teams with coaches are calling Harbaugh to see if he potentially has interests. Is his other reports? And yes, I believe Tomlin would be the same way.

But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't have ended in Baltimore or if it does end in Pittsburgh. It doesn't mean it shouldn't end in Pittsburgh. It just means that they're such a good coach that somewhere else will, they'll be, they will improve the situation at somewhere else much more. Well, also, I think there is a freshness. Yeah. I think there is a freshness to professional sports in which it's a meritocracy. Joining us now as a man who played for Coach John Harbaugh over there in Baltimore, a 12-year NFL vet, Super Bowl champion player coach

for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, former Baltimore Raven, Arizona Cardinal, Pittsburgh's dealer, Philadelphia Eagle, and Indianapolis Colt, ladies and gentlemen, Akeeshipa. Hey, Kuh, tell me about Coach Harbaugh. Obviously, you played for him over there in Baltimore, had great times. I think you, from my understanding, big fan

of Coach Harbaugh. Huge fan of Coach Harba. I think he's phenomenal. I think his messaging has always been consistent. And what you get when you get Coach Arbaugh is the same principles of an Andy Reid team. Remember, he came from Andy Reid's team and system in Philadelphia. He goes down there and built a culture built on defense, toughness, special teams, all three phases. But listen, the guy's a winner. He's averaging 10 wins a season over his 18 seasons.

He's been phenomenal. Their defense hasn't been up to par the last couple of years. Their offense, obviously, let them down a little bit this year. And then obviously the special teams at the end. but this guy's an absolute animal head coach that anybody would be happy to have. Well, I think it's what it sounds like is people are certainly looking into it. He's still lifting, too. I think he's still getting under the bar and all that shit?

Big time. Horrible. You think he's the last, you know, guy to probably go from special teams coordinator to head coach? It feels like that does not happen very often anymore. So I think with kickoffs being more important now, I think special teams coordinators that are really good, I think we'll start getting a conversation. But on that note, it's going to be a tough gig, you know, even then. Yeah. Like, that was a very abnormal hire.

John Harbaugh, special leader, I think, is the way they kind of viewed it in Harbaugh family, kind of known as being great coaches. Special teams, although the coordinators talk to everybody, okay, every day, basically, have relationships with all three phases, are good at making decisions, right? Critical situations, game situations, game management, because normally that affects special teams somehow, whether it's a kick, a punt, or hey, we need to get out, we need to stop the whole thing. So I think they are normally very good candidates in theory,

but I think it's hard for the ownership for a pull trigger if they don't have, like, offense person sitting right there and they know the quarterback thing. I think it's a tough decision to make for people, which goes back to Harbaugh being... Yeah. That was a special hire for him. Unbelievable. And at him being there for 18 years.

Job well done. I like the move for both sides. I know it's not good for the family. He's going to have to move. They've been there for almost 20 years. I assume they're a staple in the Baltimore community. Joining us now is a man who might have an idea on how this goes. Remember, he was staple in a city and gets up and goes somewhere else.

Guess what he does there? Oh, it becomes a staple in the city as well. You know, sometimes legends are just legendary no matter where they're at. Maybe that'll be Coach Harbaugh story wherever he has. We know it's for this man. Ladies of a gentleman, the third member of the bullring of honor down there for the Houston Texans, future first ballot Hall of Famer, front of the program, CBS broadcaster with a new haircut, JJ Y. Yay!

What's this? You're wearing a three, three, and 14 teams hat over that new hair that you debuted? I'm already having a morning. I'm already having a morning. I don't need anything put on top of this morning that I'm having. Okay, all right, all right. Stay away from it. I was very excited to see your hair.

Your hair looked unbelievable on Sunday. I was very excited. And then I just learned of the record of your team. I made my entire breakfast this morning, and I was extremely excited to eat it. As I carried it from the counter to the table, I caught the edge of the counter, and my entire breakfast ended on the floor. Oh. So that's where I'm at this morning.

No. So I don't need any shit from any body. I've already gotten up on my plate. Okay, well, off your player. Yeah. From the floor. Oh, James, we're sorry to hear that, dude. It's Super Football Weekend.

Got your coach for him, don't you? Yeah, good call. Hey, I'm sorry about the eggs because I've heard about the way you guys all eat over there to Watt family. That was like an entire thing. Yeah. Takes a long time to all the, you know, he's doing that. It's a long process, so we apologize that that happened.

You weren't able to get protein start your day you need for JJ 1. I did learn a Burnley's record, okay? I didn't like it. I didn't like that it was shown. I don't like it either. Well, we're going to fix it, though. Just like we're going to get more eggs, more chickens getting popping those things out. I don't like that this was shown right to my eyeballs. 3-3 and 14, I believe, is what your team's record is, even though it's not on that particular graphic right there.

3-3 and 19. Sorry, Jesus. Yeah, big match. Big match. Big match today. Okay, so if you're thinking about a new coach, though, I got a guy. Gumpy, what happened to this dude? He was the Columbus crew coach.

then he goes over to Scotland to coach Celtic, right? Is this not accurate? We got an MLS coach that got called over to go coach elsewhere. What happens, Gumpy? He's the MLS coach of the year. He goes to Celtic after 33 days. He gets canned, loses six out of eight matches. He is now

unemployed. That's not good for that. That's the business. That was the cell? That's the new coach. He's available. He's available. He's available. We're talking about it. That's three three and 19.

He just got the call up and fucking shit the bad guy. That's a tough job in Scotland, dude. You want two out of eight, not three out of 25. Exactly, Gumpy, do the math. Sorry, the Canadian has to do the math. I miss company, man. Two out of eight. He won two out of eight.

They won three out of 25. Tough Barnes over there. Remember, that's it. Look at the odds. I was expecting something wildly different when I heard that over there. Oh, we maybe got a guy for Burnley. expected like, yeah, he's like the heir apparent to Pele.

That's some guy who was the MLS coach of the year and then got the call up to the big leagues and then they found out quick, this guy sucks and fired him. And you want JJ to hire that guy at Burnley? Two wins and eight games. They'd be dying for that right now at Burnley. Okay, please. And we needed

the MLS guy representative over there. KK. Can't be fired at 30s a day. It does out like he's the right one. He's the coach in a year. Here's the soccer coach pool. All right. Hire Land and Donovan. because Lando is a lot of Lando Am I missing something here to Connor just get off a plane from Venezuela?

Dude, you want to be that tough morning. Don't bring us, Don't bring us, Don't You should know of all people. I mean, you know what this is? It's a Nike Classic Tech, okay? First of all, how many times did you walk into a game in a jumpsuit, okay? That's what I'm doing.

I'm ready for the weekend, brother. I got a huge playoff game this weekend, man. Oh, okay, okay, all right. All right, you're oiled up. You're ready to roll. cold. I'm not, I want to go that far. Not yet. That's more of a game day thing, but I mean, especially if it's cold. Yeah, if it's cold out, you know, and it's going to be cold in New England, Hope Herbert's ready? Get his Nike tech ready. Yeah, he better have a couple

classic Nike tech sport things from the playoffs. Speaking of special teams, yeah, they did a great job, getting you suited up there. Geez, a lot of special forces out here working in our favor, okay? And that's a good news, especially in this football world that we're talking about. Let's go to the fact that You're giving inside information to the Texans' opponents. When you call Texans games, they are undefeated. Two of them are against the Indianapolis Colts. Most recently, this one that just happened, don't love it at all.

Everybody's worried about Tom Brady. The other third member of the Bullring of Honor potentially just, you know, infiltrating. And I'm sure Shane, big fan, Shane Younger guy, probably loves Jage. Let me tell you everything we're going to do. Now, couldn't stop Riley Leonard for a bit. Didn't know Ryan Leonard was going bombs over Baghdad over the top of the defense all day long. Just more. I appreciate that we're changing.

I appreciate the sports. Shut out, out, cast. Completely not even intentional, but it worked out very well. Yeah, I thought you were just doing all international incidents and stuff like that, things that are going on around the world. But Riley Leonard is a guy, and on the flip side, this Houston Texans team, giving up like this to Riley Leonard a week before playoffs, have you a little bit worried?

What are your thoughts kind of going in for this Houston Texans team? Who I think, obviously, with that defense, is going to be able to win any game. If C.J. Straub gets loose, they can win it. Houston Texans could win it all. That is a very, very real statement. How do you feel after watching them so much this year? And how do you feel coming out of the last game? Yeah, the last game was a weird one.

I mean, obviously, we were on the call there. And the vibe was just strange because Jacksonville jumped out to a big lead early. And the Texans pulled their starters at halftime. And, like, even going into the game, I mean, yes, everybody said all the right things. But you kind of knew. And you could sense it just around, even in the stadium, the fans and everything. Like, yeah, we want to win this game. but we also want to get to the playoffs healthy

and we want to make sure that once we're in the playoffs everybody is ready and so it was just a strange thing now give credit to the Colts right Leonard comes out and has first third down deep to Alec Pierce there's a little bust in the coverage there on the back end they'll have Camarie Lasseter back at corner

so when you look at the AFC I mean this year is as everybody said more than ever feels like the most wide open it's been the Texans defense without a doubt can stop anybody it's going to come down to their ability to put up points on the other end that is going to determine how far they actually go. The Houston Texans defense brings the boo birds to your stadium.

That is what they do. Your team fans normally going to be booing your offense because the Houston Texans don't give up anything. That's why when I see Riley Leonard do what he did to them, I'm like, 10 years of 500 million. Let's see if we can do that going forward. We're running it back. Obviously, you know that. But that is what we expect from the Texans defense. C.J. Stroud, we assume he's going to play his best ball in the biggest moments.

That's kind of how I view, C.J. I have a question first before we move to this next game. Is there, obviously you guys are in Indianapolis, Colts territory. Has there been any thoughts or discussions or questions after watching Riley Leonard play about what if? Whenever we go back in time. So we had a hurt knee. Remember first, that first week had a hurt knee whenever we put Phil in. Now, granted, does he get healthy?

And then we go roll with him that next one after watching him. spin it and be able to move. Remember, Jage, this guy, actual Hooper, true Hooper in high school with his size, incredibly athletic. We never said this publicly because we're big fans of the way he operated and how he was as a human and a teammate, everything like that. But he couldn't throw. He was a bad thrower.

I mean, he was a bad thrower. I was third string quarterback in the NFL for numerous years of my career. Have a couple throws on my belt, not as good as Rigoberto Sanchez this past weekend. There was no reason for you to bring up that other play in real time. while I'm watching that game at home. But, like, having a chance to kind of, like, watch practices, NFL practices with how many different quarterbacks come through and what NFL quarterbacks look like when they're throwing the ball,

it's hard to take serious somebody that misses a lot of throws. And Riley Leonard is just missing all of these throws. So I was like, maybe Riley Leonard would be a good tight end because of how athletic he was. So I just assumed he was ass with his arm. Then he comes out, and he starts layering throws. He's been on. I'm like, obviously, he's an incredibly athletic dude.

He's clearly worked on this, and good for Shane Steichen and the quarterback coach for developing him. But, yeah, I didn't expect any of that before seeing it, James. I genuinely didn't. And then I started asking the same question you were asking. It's like, well, we had this guy the whole time? How long has he been like this? You know, that's the next question. Yeah, and like you said, I mean, obviously the first game, he wasn't available anyway,

and Philip came in and did what I don't think that O'Reilly might have been able to do against the Seahawks defense, having to read all those disguises, coverages, everything. Philip gave him an unbelievable shot. And it was really cool for us to talk to Philip this week and just hear his whole experience and perspective, the fact that they live a mile apart in Alabama and that he hosted a mini camp for Riley and the Notre Dame receivers two years ago. It's just the story goes crazier and crazier, the deeper you get into it. But Riley's movement in the pocket, the way that he was able to shuffle around, set his feet, feather throws in, fill some in, and also run the ball. And they didn't even do that much because they were protecting.

against having to put in their backup, who just arrived on Monday. So you add in a zone read layer to that game. You add in a little more run game. There's no question there's something to work with there. Some of those throws were impressive. I mean, unfortunately, Pittman dropped two of them for him right in his hands. So it's like he played a good game. It was enjoyable to watch.

And I think there's at minimum, if Daniel Jones is the guy next year for them, and he does need a little extra time. You are more than happy to put Riley Leonard out there. And it would suck for Daniel Jones if he was to re-sign with us and end up being Riley's backup. But I think we and Indy would be cool with that. Hey, if Riley gets in...

You have to sign Pierce. Can you sign Pierce? I think Jonathan Taylor's going to want money to, you know? Hey, Pierce ain't signed it unless Danny Dimes is the guy. He came out and said that that certainly is a part of the entire process, which I respect him doing that. People are going to want Pierce on their team, though. I saw a lot of Colts fan saying, Pierce needs to shut it.

It's like, we want him back. He's going to get... We would like... Very good. Very good. Also, his ejection, in my opinion, I get it. I understand the rules, but, man, that ejection was, that's, we got to, we got to figure that out. These refs have gotten worse, and I appreciate you calling it out.

Now, I do fear that they are going to keep putting you on Houston Texans Colts games because you do it. But I appreciate you doing. I was shooting it straight, dude. I mean, like, you have to, change. For the good of balls. It was such, like, yeah, you throw the first. flag that's fine but like i don't i just that doesn't have to be an ejector are you kidding me right there like if you showed that video to somebody and said somebody got ejected from this play

they'd be like all right where's the rest of the video what happened that's what got him ejected come on listen and oh yeah i don't like it at all i appreciate you speaking up for it in there because there's some commentators that won't tell the ref analyst hey shut it how about that you know and stare ator i appreciate how he operates we would like stare atore to speak for everybody, you know, Western PA, Pittsburgh guy, Paizan, knows you. Big pick guy. Yeah, yeah, certainly. Pittsburgh. Called me, he called me babe all the time.

It's a crack. Every time I love it. He's such an old school dude. All right, babe. Great, great call, babe. Thank you. Thank you, Gene. That's just giving me some confidence. Yeah, Paison, too. Give him a grazie one time. And it's Pittsburgh. As opposed to... You said he's a big pit guy. Oh, yeah. I do that all the time.

I didn't realize that that was such a touchy subject over there. I used to always just call it pit. I was going out in Pitt. I did not realize that they were so sensitive to it. It was just a reality of what it actually is. The backside, you nickname. Well, I mean, I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of cities and places in the world that, you know, some people, yeah, exactly. So I didn't, so you sensitive would be the word.

No, sensitive would just be understanding. It's different there. It's different there. Can I, can I, because I also got yelled at that for saying the burg. I like the burg. You'd say the bird. You'd say the bird. I said the bird.

And people are like, it's not the bird. Nobody calls it the burg. I'm like, I don't know. It's pretty cool. That's true. We don't. But I think you say, the burg is cool, yeah. All right.

All right. So the burg is fine, but Pitt is not. Why? Duff. Can you use it in a sentence? Can you use the burgh in a sentence? That's a good call, actually. I thoroughly enjoy all the time I spend in the burg,

and it is significantly hillyer and more, I don't know. It's much different than I thought. You could die on the roads. the winter. So you have to... Is there a comma in there somewhere? I don't have to say, I enjoy going down to Berg, it's got a lot of hills and stuff. Yeah, Dauberg. Doberg. So did you drop the? Oh, okay. So it's Dauberg. Dauber. Dauber. Downer. Dauber. Yeah, like Da Ba Baer's. Da Baer's. Dauber. And put it down before. Okay. And down and in that, if you want to toss it on the back. But Pitt is the University of Pittsburgh. Okay, let's go Mountaineers. And Pittsburgh is the

city. Not everybody that is from Pittsburgh goes to Pitt. Pit kind of took that. They did great branding with it, by the way. They took the first four. I mean, they, that was a good move, but they're smart. They're smart. That's a very smart school. I think that's a good thing. But, you know, you got Duques in Pittsburgh. You've certainly got a lot of people that don't go to college in Pittsburgh, so not everybody wants to be associated with Pitt, you know. Carnegie. Got it. Borg. Duburg. Duburg. There it is. Wow. What a weapon you are. All right, all right. Let's talk ball. Let's talk ball. DeButt has a question for you, Jay. Yeah, Jay, Jay, Jay, today's NFL. You know, obviously, it's always conversation around the

quarterback, and a lot of people want the offensive. What are you looking for in a head coach right now if you're hiring, especially in this cycle in particular? I personally, everybody has different opinions on this. I personally like a head coach to be a CEO type, not the coordinator calling plays type. I think there is so much that goes into head coaching from a day-to-day operation standpoint, setting the vision for the building, and also running things for the entire team, not just your side of the ball and on game day when it comes to managing a game, managing timeouts, managing

challenges and everything, I believe that the guy should be a CEO type. And even if he is one of these hot coordinators that comes in, which Ben Johnson is certainly making a case for the other way and some of these great coaches. But it's just there's so much that goes into it, man. I like a CEO type. So I like a guy that comes in and still hires somebody to run everything else. And you saw this year, D'Amico handed off the play calling duties of his defense to Matt Burke. Defense went on to become the number one. Texans went on this nine-win streak. So I just, I like it like that.

That's me personally. You can always help, you know? You can always, like, help on the defensive side. But there's, if somebody's spending their entire existence focusing on something, there's a chance they're going to be a little bit better at it, or more in tune with it, or more dialed in on it. Now, on that note, McDonald's calling it out there in Seattle. Yep.

Right. Number two or number one in every other category other than Houston. Now, how many years does that last? D'Amico's obviously not in his first year, second year as head coach, like McDonald is in his first couple years. Like, will that be on forever? It's just so much shit. Another counterpoint to my own argument, as I'm just debating myself for no reason.

Liam Cohen this year was telling us a story about how early in the season he tried to spend a lot of time with the defense because he knew the bias he had towards offense. And he was like, I need to go over and make sure I'm a head coach, not just an offensive coach. and then he said after a few weeks it wasn't working that well and he was like, no, I just need to focus on the offense and let my defensive guys handle the defense. So I do think it can work if you have full, complete trust in your defense. So when I was in Houston, we had Gary Kubiak as a head coach who also ran the offense

and we had Wade Phillips on defense, who was basically a head coach of the defense. And we were essentially two units that were working at the same time, but who was the head coach of it all. but we had two head coaches essentially. It was a really cool setup. And if you can do that, I think that's very effective. Yeah, especially if there's respect for each other

was that the bears back in the day they hate each other. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but right. It's like literally two different teams, almost rivals of each other. And that defense, I think, one, you know, big time, long term.

It's really the only person we talk about is defense side of the ball is shuffle it. I mean. Oh, yeah. Jim McMahon, though. He was nice. The fridge. The fridge.

But they did have two units, basically, kind of in it all. if you can have respect for each other and keep it moving, great. But if one team starts doing a lot better than the other team, that starts getting better. That's when things start getting bad. Let's talk about another coach that you played for. Go ahead, Connor.

Yeah, Jage, a guy that you played for as well who played caller, Cliff Kingsbury. He is gone now from Washington. Him and Dan Quinn went into a room and maybe beat the shit out of each other. No one really knows yet, but he's no longer the coach for the commanders. What was your experience with him? Do you think that is one of those situations where maybe he was, you know, play caller and head coach and learned from that after going and, you know, doing some time in Washington and now as he gets back into the cycle might change it up a little bit? Or was he one of those guys that could do, you know, two separate units great on offense and then just have someone run the defense? Because it feels like he's had a bunch of success as a head coach.

Obviously he had a bunch of success with, you know, Jaden Daniels in his first year back in coaching after getting let go from Arizona. how do you feel he will do if he does get the opportunity to be a head coach somewhere? Yeah, I think Cliff certainly learned a lot from his experience as a head coach and then since then being in other roles and having time to reflect and grow. I think I love Cliff. He's one of my great friends and I think, I hope he gets another shot. I would imagine that he will, but we did have something similar. When I went to Arizona, a big part of it was also because Vance Joseph was a defensive coordinator there.

And Vance Joseph is another guy who I believe will get a head coaching shot. Again, at some point, he's running one of the best defenses in the league in Denver, and he is a guy who can manage the room extremely well, even in tough circumstances. So I would imagine he'll get one as well, but these guys that have been head coaches before, you would certainly think and hope that they've learned since then and wouldn't do it the exact same way the next time through. But this coaching pool in general is an interesting one. There is not necessarily that same, I mean, now that Harbao's in the mix certainly changes it. Like last year you had the Ben Johnson where it was basically, okay, it's a sweepstakes. That's number one. And now maybe Harbao slips right into that role.

But it's an interesting pool this year. To me, it's not the same as always. And I always have a funny take on GMs. Like every single year, there's a whole lot more head coaches fired than there are GMs. Yet they're the ones choosing things. And it's just a very... No, but we don't know the GMs. And the GMs only speak, what, once a year or whatever, basically?

So they kind of keep themselves guarded. And that's a smart play. They sit very close to the owners, smartly. Yeah, it does seem like there's some politicking. You know, I'm putting your team together. It's an order to do as such. You know, we certainly have all seen it, I assume, is what we're speaking from, personal experience.

Middle of pun period. That's crazy right across the field, like that right now. It's crazy. Why would, oh, okay, that makes sense. So that's an interesting thing. So, you know, just the whole thought, though, that if the GM and the coach aren't on the same page, definitely not going to work.

Like, definitely not going to work. So we talk to Coach McCarthy a lot, and obviously his name is going to be up for a lot of jobs as they should if he wants them. You know, he's told us basically, yes, he's going to try to get back into it. How is it gone for the entire process? We don't know.

We are excited for him to get back in the ball. He loves it. But the amount of times him and every other coach that we've ever talked to has all talked about alignment. So important. I need alignment. I need alignment. I need alignment.

Owner, GM, head coach. and hell, even quarterback. We all need to be row in the exact same direction, not trying to undercut each other. You know, because GM says, front office personnel, they got good players. That's a good roster. Coach's need to get better out of them.

Coaches say, our roster sucks. These guys are terrible. We're our ass. We didn't even get good guys for our scheme. Once that starts happening, then you find out who is politicking with the owner a little bit better, and then that person sticks around longer, they made a better case.

And then all of a sudden, next head coach comes in. Well, you already know that this person's willing to bury this person. we've seen it already happened. So this new person that comes in, you're not going to bury whenever things get up? Like, how does that kind of go? Then we saw a team start to interview coaches and GMs together. Remember that?

Agencies were kind of like piecing GMs and head coaches together for interviews. Like, hey, these two will get along if you were to hire them as a thing. And then now with the places that we're at, it's like a lot of GMs sticking around with head coaches coming in. The winner of it all are these search firms. That is hands down the winner of. at all. Like we all don't know who the candidates are and you can't just call

and bring them in and interview them yourself. You got to bring in a search firm or two in some cases and have them run the operation and take just a whole bunch of money to end up in the exact same spot you were going to end up. No, they're geniuses. Do they know

Ball? Maybe we'll learn about it. Do you know our building? What you tell us, we know. Do you know our city? Yeah. Traveled down. all the time. Do you think you will know what's best for the company that I

own right now? Yeah. Plus, you get to pay me $20 million. What an honor. And these owners are like, yep. And then that, I don't, AJ, or sorry, I need to move on. I have the same conversation with AJ yesterday. That's on me. I'm so sorry, Jay.

I'm not all white silk the same, especially big athletic ones with Jay. I apologize for that one. I told Shephty, though, soon as Shepty told me about the two down there at Atlanta. You see, you know, some people, I said, call them cowards. And then Shafti was like, oh, what do you mean about that? Like, Shefti got, like, intrigued about it.

I'm like, well, you're in a position to make a decision, okay? That is what you are there for. There's not a lot of people that are, that's what you're getting paid for. That is what you're, that is why you are there to make a decision. So whenever you opt out of taking any of the blame of a bad decision by hiring it outside, I just think you're not the person that's supposed to be in the place that you're in. Like that's just a problem. The problem is, is you're taking the heat when things go wrong anyway.

So, like, these search terms are been placed as a buffer. They're trying to be like this buffer where, hey, we hired the best people possible and they made the decision. Don't put it on me. They told me this was the best person to make. Yet, when stuff goes wrong, people go straight to the owner and they say, hey, you got to fire this guy. You got to do this. You got to do that. You put us in this spot.

Get us fixed. Well, if you're going to take the heat for it anyway, just make the decision and actually own it. and I think you and I both agree getting recommendations not a bad idea like having other eyes like Troy Aikman's getting brought in down there for the dolphins I think Dan Marino is down there as well obviously like I don't hate that

like I don't hate that having search firms that don't have anybody related the ball in them just to do like human HR search like whatever they're doing I just think that is such a terrible decision especially in the NFL there's only 32 of these teams there's only 32 people technically

that are sitting in an actual position to make an actual decision like you get to do that you don't have to do it like but to be a devil's advocate we've seen them make plenty terrible decisions but is it then i mean yeah so why not try something new if you're the new york jets why not go and i don't mind the you know the 33rd team at least those people no ball you got former coaches former gms etc and going to just another firm and obviously consultants do this and all these other you know fortune 500 companies but if i don't mess it up for 35 plus years, let me hire somebody else.

But if these firms, like, are these firms only working for one team per year? Because if you're, if you're the firm doing multiple teams, who's getting choice 1A? Who's getting choice 1B? Like, how are you selling this? Like, hey, I found the best one. But don't tell the other team that I also

found the best one for them. Well, on that note, we need to not kill this business, remember? I'm not in the business. What do I give a shit about? Not yet. Not yet. We will be, though. I don't want to be in it. I don't want, I don't want, I don't need anybody calling me asking who to hire. You don't know the pool of candidates in the NFL. James, you don't know what is possible in the future. What if I go to some owner and I say,

hey, we'll be able to make a decision. J.J. Watts coming. You pay me $25 million. And I go, James, got $10 million for me to come in here and look at some candidates. He's been saying. I'll write a list down real quick. There you go. Exactly. So let's not, let's not bury the business as a whole. We just like the right consultants to be consulted with, you know, for the good of the business. I mean, apparently I'm the only analyst not consulting. I guess, on some team in the NFL. Telling the reps it's bullshit, not consulting with ownership.

Hey, we appreciate you in there for the people, Jay. Appreciate you in there for the people. Speaking of being in the booth, go ahead, touch, man. Yeah, Jage, I don't want to just blow smoke up your bunghole, but because you dropped your breakfast this morning, I figured you could use a compliment. You were absolutely terrific in the booth this year. That is no bullshit.

And I think we've seen a lot of these guys, like former players, former greats, the first year. They're kind of getting their feet wet still. and maybe aren't as good as they could be. I think you came in, like, gangbusters with Iron and were incredible. What did you think of being back in the booth for your first year? Is there anything you maybe think you need to improve on? And just the experience as a whole, like what did you enjoy most about it?

Yeah, I appreciate that very much. I do. Going into it, I truthfully didn't know what to think. I had no idea. I said my whole career, I didn't want to do it. I didn't think I would enjoy it. And I was wrong. I absolutely loved it way more than I thought I would.

and I had an incredible team to help me out. Everybody at CBS, but obviously Ian, for having a guy like Ian, who is a stellar play-by-play guy, but also has the wit and the humor and the personality to play off of, and we had such great chemistry. I'm so thankful for that, Evan, down on the field. But then even beyond that, I mean, our production meetings and everybody, Ken Mack and everybody giving me the ability to grow and to learn,

I have a weekly call every week with our producer Ken, and I would go over the game with him, and he would give me his notes and we're trying to find the best way to make this thing great. I really love it, man. And in terms of what I want to work on going forward, I mean, I think it's always about balancing the amount of football logistics and knowledge and explanations with the fun humor laid back like sitting on the couch talking ball. Because you can get too in depth with the football stuff, but you can also not give enough. And I think there's a perfect line that you're always trying to find as an analyst. where you're explaining why the things in the game are happening,

but you're not talking down to the viewer. I never want the viewer to feel like this guy thinks he's smarter than me. I want you to feel like it's just we're hanging out, and I know this because I played the game, so I'm going to try and fill you in on it. How much steak, how much sizzle? You know, that's kind of what we're trying to figure out and try to serve. I think you did a great job.

And I think your angle there from defense, especially with the Miles Garrett story, which you were a part of a couple different times. Obviously you had T.J. with Houston. You obviously had a lot of things you're a part of, and there was a lot of opportunities for you to potentially be a biased journalist, and you didn't. You know, you remained good for ball.

I think that is kind of how you viewed it. I don't know if you actually did view that, but we want to let you know you were good for ball the way you talked about it all. And we saw two Colts losses against Houston Texans with you on the call. I thought you were phenomenal, man. And you talk about the entertainment, the levity of it all, and trying to be a human. I think that is very important. Anybody can get up there and just talk about exactly what's going on

and try to showcase how smart they are ball-wise. You just saw it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of the conversation on the internet about that already happening. So, you know, that is the difference, you know, between just being somebody at home and being J.J. Watt, who is also somebody that people at home would view a friend, you know, as opposed to superstar J.J. Watt.

So I think you didn't break up. I'm trying, man. I appreciate it. It's a blast. OBS, where they ask him questions where, like, ask J. No, I don't think it's, I don't know if it's called that. It's where they, they have questions, like, sent to ask him. and then JJ Wadd, maybe it's called JJ Answers questions. It's a brilliant idea by the production crew.

I mean, top-notch stuff there from the think tank. Yeah, well, remember, we forgot about it a couple times, you know, so CBS is not. We didn't have a graphic like you guys do, though. We don't have a cool AI-generated graphic. Hey, whoa. There's a lot of people that think you can eat more pizza rolls than me. I will say that. There are a lot of people that believe you could beat me in a pizza roll.

143. I don't know if I have Petrols, but if it was like bags of Pirates Booty, I'd fuck your shit up, dude. Okay, so what is it? Yeah, you get deep in that Pirates Booty, don't you? Oh, yeah. You got no idea. I'm digging for

treasure. Oh, yeah, we're talking double-knuckled Oh, dude. Family-size, baby. Oh, wow. We're fisting. Uh-huh. Two-hands. It's unbelievable. Good for you. I don't think I fully know exactly what we're talking about. Pirate booty is like a little, like, popcorn-tight, adjacent snack. Very good. I thought there was a chance we're actually

talking about ours butt. Could be. You're telling me Kenzie's never had a little Pirates booty? I don't know. I don't think so. What are you guys? What is it? Pirates Booty. It's like Cheetah. It's like corn cheddar or not cheddar. Corn cheese you could say like snack. So good. Kind of like a white popcorn

blended with Cheeto. A Cheeto puff. Yeah, a Cheeto puff. White cheese curls. There you go. Free ads. I don't think, I mean, it sounds like they've done a lot for our lives. Not our lives, but your guys is live for the booty. It's no free ads.

I mean, they've certainly, they've delivered booty to you guys. I don't think I've ever done the, I don't think I've ever done the Pirates Booty. I honestly would say, don't even try it goes down in the blink of an eye. Yeah. That is,

it gets deleted. Well, and that is the one thing they could maybe do is it's about 80% air, 20% Pirates Booty. Yeah, but it's not just the booty doing that. I think there's a lot of kind of bagged items that have become really, a lot of gassed up air. Yeah. For our sake,

they say. That's why Pringles, they always deliver, you know, exactly how many are in there. And they don't fill that sucker to the top. They don't fill that sucker to the top. Are you talking about the little ones that you have to peel off the top or do you actually want you pop and can't stop? I'm talking about the full tennis ball

tin. It's a big dog. No, because he used to be so high, you couldn't get your fingers down to the side to get it out there. You know, the Pringle's can't use. And it's still kind of like that, I'd say. You look like you're digging for booty the way we do with the So is that a two-finger thing?

Sometimes. Because if you don't want to get ahead of yourself, because you can eat a full, I mean, you could probably eat 10 party-sized bags. You do just kind of do like a two-for just to get a couple out. And then he's throwing like Tom Cruise. Exactly.

Okay, I got it. Yeah, yeah. You do a little bit of it. Yeah, yeah. How you doing? Thank you. Yeah, all right. I think you did great in the booth, though.

Nonetheless. You said 100 and what on those pizza rolls? Well, I said I think 150 or 143 to 158 or something like that. But you have to remember, it was to pass out. It wasn't to throw up. It was to pass out. And so I do think I might need to raise it even higher. What comes first?

The pass out is a lot. Because you're going to puke and keep eating, right? Yeah, you're going to puke and then keep eating. Are you a pizza roll guy? That's why this question came up or? Obviously, I've had many of them in my life. I don't know why the question came up. Somebody just asked.

But everybody knows the problem with the pizza rolls is that you never wait for him to cool off. And then you just destroy the inside of your mouth and you have to stop before you're actually done. So I would need all the corners cut off if we were doing it. Yeah, the corner cut off is a big deal. But still doesn't matter because that sauce is coming whenever it happens. I love a good late night metro. I used to at least. I don't do much anymore.

I feel like that would certainly make the amount of dumps you're going to have to go through too for that 104. Yeah, a lot of, a lot of, yeah, there's going to be a lot of wipes. There's going to be a lot of wipes. And we know how you freaks do it. I was a hot pocket guy I was a ham and cheese Hot chicken That was my face

Wow I was a ham and cheese Pepperoni Nope Nope Nope nope It's a Philly steak one That's pretty darn good

A Philly cheese steak Yeah ketchup one out there Yeah you can really get Cochin in that entirety Did you do What did you eat You ate everything

As a kid right That's like kind of the What thing We ate everything We just eat We ate a lot of food A lot of food Yes

A lot of food Dad firefighters chef too Right Yep Went to the firehouse all the time they'd be making up good food over there um yeah very fortunate my parents i mean my dad was trying to bulk us up there's no question we had milkshakes every single night trying to put on some weight uh he'd buy some of like that whatever the cheapest form of

steak was he would buy those like i don't know if it was sirloin or like the lowest grade just no steak like actual i don't think is that lower this the steakums i think those ones that you're peeling i think that would be the lowest form of steak if you got to whatever whatever protein like we were we were he was like we need i know he needs to protein and we'd have like spaghetti like plain spaghetti and everything just hammering food 24 7 every time my friends came over

they knew there was going to be food it worked out didn't it look at you now TJ's got the second most sacks in the history of NFL season you're both going to be first ballot hall of famers what are you third most in a season I have no idea

and I'm the only one to ever have 20 plus twice let's see that miles garrett he's like one of five to have three straight defensive player of the years as well let's get a milkshake every night for kensie it sounds like only only three players have three defensive player of the years

so not one of five who is that Aaron Donald Aaron Donald and Lawrence Taylor Lawrence Taylor yeah pretty good company which Lawrence Taylor Pretty good. They're right up there. They're always looking right over my shoulder to remind you.

Just in case you need to remember, I actually did play football before I had cool haircuts. Well, we can't see them now because you're wearing, I'm not going to say what I was just about to say. It doesn't look good. It doesn't look good right now. That's his old hair, and now it's flipped to the new hair that debuted.

Just, ooh, you look very superhero-ish with the new hair. A lot of people are saying, Maybe this guy's own a local news, maybe selling insurance. What I'm saying is a dashing lad with a great haircut. And I'll tell you what, you look younger than ever out there. And I think it was the right move to celebrate the season with the new haircut. And it sucks that this happened this morning to you. We got footage from your ring cam inside of your house.

Obviously, it's a nightmare situation for James. That's incredibly accurate. It's a good-looking breakfast. This guy never stops eating. That's kind of the watt way. The only thing that's not believable is how small that kitchen is. His is huge, man. Yeah, think about the island, how big the island is.

Two or three. Look at how close the island is to, like, the countertop over there. AI really messed it up. Well, it's not an island. It's just an extension of your cabinetry, obviously, there. That's what that is. The island is behind us here. What color is your kitchen?

White, white cabinets, for sure? No, navy blue. Oh, geez. Okay, do we have massive island in the middle? Is there like a Habachi? Is there a Habachi oven in the middle? nothing is on the island besides a little wet sink

but no the oven and everything is on a wall the island is just an island for the most part congratulations you did it man hell yeah jitch i've also realized that for anybody out there with islands there's a certain size that the island is an inconvenience as opposed to a convenience whereas you can't reach the middle i got super long arms 34 inches actually and i can't reach the middle

So if I put, there's no reason to have anything in the middle of your island. JJ Walk can't touch the middle of his island in his kitchen. Wow. That's what you know. Shit. Wow. Good for you, James. Yeah.

It's like you with your planes. You know, you can't reach your arms out and touch both sides. That's how you know you're on the right size. I'll have you know. We didn't have Starlink on one of our flights. It was. I'll tell you what. It was tough.

It was tough to get there. Yeah. We did a peek and go. How was the, how was the, stop, the New Year's, that was crazy. How did it go? it was good everything was good a couple hours of sleep oh yeah that voice really secures it it was it was a good it was kind of like our fake punt back with the picano there was no reason to bring that up uh you said my name too and i understand across the bottom of that you were on the field

you were on the field i was trying to get off it but obviously i didn't sell it good enough because nobody bought it from new england and they stayed right dude how sick was that when they went with the punt team staying on the field on first down genius it's genius that was so good such a good idea. I'm not even going to say, I'm not going to say anything, but yes, it was a genius idea. It is absolutely, I'm happy everybody's response to it, is that it's a genius idea, and I'm happy that it worked, and I'm happy somebody tried it, because boy, it's been sitting there this entire time. If we don't sub, then they can't sub, right? Immediately after the play? Yes. Throw a go ball in this thing. We should have too many men. The natural reaction

for the defensive team after a pun is just to walk off the field. They're tired. The whole thing, like, ah, they just ran a fake on us. This sucks. walking off the field head down defense actual defense jogging on field pissed once again you're talking about a lot of pissed off people not paying attention it's like first of all there's going to be 15 people on the field second of all is anybody going to be covering gunner if we were to throw a go ball here i don't think so genius stuff i love it this was a this was a carly call this is right from the top could potentially be what saved them their job could potentially be what saving the job and i'll tell you what if we're going to get more of this type of thinking i'm all

about it i'm all about it all right jage we got a hard out brother we can't thank you enough for joining us. You're the man. Good luck to your Burnley squad. We need it. Hey, David. Up the clearance. At least a couple times. You know, maybe two times in eight games, get that Columbus crew guy. I'm not calling for any job, so I'm just saying there is one that is certainly wide up in. And maybe turn to... I'm going to make some breakfast. I'm going to make some breakfast.

Let's keep an eye out. You got this. Let's get a little self-awareness. I know it's the off-season review, but let's make sure we check this island that is what, 13 feet by 13. Sounds like it. Ladies and gentlemen, JJ Watt. Yeah, Jay, Judge. That was a great appearance by James. Fantastic. JJ what? Can't get to the middle of them.

It's a pool. Let me get a broom. Mm-hmm. Imagine having short arms. Oh, AQ's on there like a little boot. Hi there. Surprise. 30 for 30 presents Boo-ya. Can I get a witness from the congregation?

You can't stop authenticity. Boo-ya. Stuart was exactly like you saw him on-camera off-camp. He dialed it up 10%. Can you imagine the impact of young black boys and girls looking at that going, I feel seen. He changed the culture. He changed sports. Stream Boo-ya, presented by Medello, right now on the ESPN app.

Football! He's the greatest. God, we love it. And we're heading into Super Football Weekend. Listen, whenever you talk about Super and Football, you automatically think about the Super. Super Bowl. But we're heading in a Super Bowl season because Super Wild Car Weekends here in Super semifinal, the college football playoff weekend is here. Thursday, Miami and Ole Miss in a semifinals of a college football playoff trying to figure out who the national champion is.

Oh yeah, they're back. Oh yeah, we're live on ESPN 2 with a field pass. Friday, Oregon versus Indiana in the Peach Bowl. Two big 10 teams collide for the second time this season. Indiana undefeated and favored over Dan Lanning and the Ducks. We'll be live on ESPN 2 for the field pass, Rams, Panthers, Packers, Bears on Saturday of Super Wild Card weekend. Bill's as favorites on the road. Against the Jacksonville Jaguars, welcome back to host in a playoff game to do. VAL. Niners, Eagles, Chargers, Pats, and then Houston, Texans, Pittsburgh Steelers.

This is Super Football Weekend, and we're certainly excited about it. We can't thank you enough for allowing us to do this for a living. The toxic tables here at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt. nine-year NFL vet Absolute stallion of a brain in the football universe Hell yeah host of NFL matchups on ESPN

2 ESPN Plus and ESPN ESPN deportes Really? Nice Are you

Plus? What? Ladies gentlemen Mr. Worldwide Darius, Davey Ballas. Good to see you, D-But. The All- Everything DB team yesterday was phenomenal. It is award season. We'll certainly be celebrating some awards here.

In a matter of moments with our 12-year NFL vets, Super Bowl champion player coach, ladies a gentleman, Akees Shipley. Thank you, thank you. Got the trenches today. Yes. Today was almost trenches Wednesday, but super football weekend because what we got going on. Well, you know, it's like five days of action, so we're certainly going to talk about that a little bit more.

But it was almost trenches Wednesday because this trenchy has kind of been a trailblazer in the offensive line of ward space for. a few years. They're actually doing it at the NFL now. I don't like that they're not taking our trophy that we give out here at the trenches. They should. But I like that more people are giving awards to offensive linemen. I appreciate you paying attention all year to who should win them. Absolutely. And I think they should have given us a little credit, maybe. Maybe giving us a little bit of credit. Just saying, I mean, there's some other people who got some credit. We've been doing this. We've been doing this for quite some time now. People are getting

full speeches at press conferences for doing it. And we appreciate them. We are happy about offensive linemen getting recognized. And we are fans of offensive alignment, which is why we are excited that more people are going to be celebrating the big boys because that's who decides if you're going to win or not, especially in the games that matter. And this is the trenches, ladies of gentlemen.

That's a trophy. It's been a trophy since day one. And on top of that is a man who is shaped like a... I mean, I look spelt right there. Let's... Yeah. Before you say anything.

Okay, so that is AQ. Shipley. I was going to say, just random NFL offensive alignment. That's AQ Shipley. If the boys who stole a skeleton from his front yard during Halloween, knew that he was shaped like this, I don't think they're showing up.

Or running away. I think they're probably just walking that thing out of there. Now, on that note, this trophy signifies the greatness of the big men. And we can't wait to give them out later. Great season of the big guys. The big boys were awesome this year. It was really cool to see. It was a little bit different the way defense has played this year.

We saw a resurgence of the run game a couple of years ago when we started to see five yards per carry. This year, there was a clear effort to stop the run on the defense. defensive side of the ball, started bringing another safety down in the box and forcing teams to beat you through the air. But the big boys still got after it. There were still some really good run games this year and pass protection picked up a little bit this year. Okay, on that note, it feels like people are doing a little bit more six-man protection, maybe big tight end. Was that just me watching the Pittsburgh Steelers and a couple other teams or is that become the new norm because of what defenses are doing? Well, listen, we've talked about

it a lot about tight ends, D-ends being a horrible matchup, especially in the run game, right? So now, instead of doing that and sending the tight end through like McVeigh has done in recent years, now we can just get a big guy there, and we can get back to running old school football, putting a tight end on a D-N. But that tight end now is Spencer Anderson from the Pittsburgh Steelers who's 6, 4, 6, 5, 320 pounds. And you feel really good about that match. Darnell Washington from the Pittsburgh Steelers. That's right.

Yeah. 315 or whatever that is. He might as well just switch his number to a 70s number. No, he's got, what? Then he'd have to report eligible every single play. It's all right. Because he's out here doing this one, this one here. He's doing this one here.

But you're right, he's doing a lot of this stuff right here. He makes a lot more money. What, with 70-something? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Why doesn't he just start working on it? Now he broke his arm. Maybe he does.

I mean, you're already there, right? You're already there. Yeah. I mean, he's already got it all, right? So he just needs to work on this, which is the hardest part. You become premier left tackle in the NFL. I mean, that's a lot of money. Jason Peters.

Even the right side now. oh yeah yes i guess because run game becoming so important sure and obviously we need we need probably four or five guys anyways tacklers being good to be good news why doesn't is that something that's much harder i would assume that's very difficult to learn how to do probably but again jason peters he mentioned him that that was what he was he was a tight end at arkansas started off first year or two special teams hey guys got good feet he's about 300 pounds let's uh let's maybe working off season like this and all of a sudden you get one of the best

tackles to ever play the game. Now, you got small arms to obviously operate in the inside of the offensive line. If he was coming a shipyard, two, three months would be able to get him to kick slide on that thing? It's still a tough ask. I mean, I have worked with some guys. Don't go to him. No, it's still a tough ask. The

biggest thing that you have to understand about offensive line play, even moving from tackle to inside, the whole different world, it takes some guys, can you do it? Yeah, but it still takes guys two, three years to become comfortable moving from tackle into guard or tackle into center. It's a whole different world.

I think so many people in the scouting world and the GMs and the front office are like, oh, well, it's not working a tackle. Let's just move him into guard. Peter Skoronski, for instance, has become a damn good offensive guard. Mackay, is he still playing? He's still playing? But again, when you make that move. He was a renaissance move there for the Philadelphia Eagles.

And again, he was much better under Jeff Stoutland's tutelich. He kind of took a step back this year as that whole offensive line out in L.A. did. But when you move from tackle to guard and then if you take it another step, tackle to center, a whole different work. Yeah, Darnell, I think he's, just get him on the line. I saw you teaching your nephew. Just get him on line. That's all I'm doing them to do, right?

We've got to start somewhere. A couple of those. That's it. It's got a hammer. Ta-ton. AP Ton, how's it feel to maybe have your premier left tackle or right tackle already on the roster? All these do is head to his shipyard, maybe. Come on.

Steelers fans have been saying this for a couple of years. Tomlin's been asked about it a bunch. I know Daniel Jeremiah has suggested it as well. Yeah, we could see Darnell. being our left tackle for the future because the center right guard, right tackle, second year, they're the offensive line for the next 10 to 12 years.

So, yeah, left tackle, Darnell being there. Yeah, that'd be awesome. And maybe Aaron Rogers was placed for another 10 years. He could. At least one more. What's that? He needs to play at least one more year. After the season?

Yeah. That's your public ask right now? Yeah, because there's basically no quarterbacks coming out past the first two, and there's no quarterbacks in free. agency. Ty Simpson, Declared for the draft today.

You don't know who the next shucks going to be? That guy was a third rounder, and now we got people saying, yo, this is going to be the guy. Sure, yeah. 100% agree. Maybe to Pittsburgh Steelers

make a big time play with the draft in Pittsburgh. You never know. Got Will Howard and waiting. I agree. I agree, but they ain't going to, they're not going to play them. They don't get it.

What do you mean? They don't get it. They drafted them. They did. Yeah. And who did he beat in the national championship? Riley Leonard.

Riley Leonard just carves up to Houston, Texas defense. Maybe Will Howard should start this week. So you want Aaron Rogers to come back in another season, and now you want Will Howard? I'm just saying Willoward could do it, but they're not going to do it. I mean, how many years did Jordan Love sit behind Aaron Rogers? Three. Okay.

Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is live from an attic in Ohio. He just turned another year older yesterday. Everybody knows January 6th, this guy's birthday. College football national champion, Super Bowl champion, Rotter Cup winner, ladies and gentlemen, AJ Hawke. Yeah, Hawker. How was your birthday night? with the fam. Hope you got a chance to celebrate everybody happy. You survived another year,

thrived another year. Yep, everybody's happy, survived and thrived another year. But yeah, everything's good. And it's, uh, tone, uh, kind of worries me. Tone is such a flip-flopper for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I'm not sure what to think. Well, is that worry you about the Houston Texans coming into town with the number one defense in a league on Monday night football and with what just happened in Baltimore, all eyes on Pittsburgh because the way Tone's talking right now, will flip-flop in tone, AJ? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think tone deep down, though. He really wants the Steelers to win. We know. We know, he's just protecting his feelings. That's what he does.

Like, he does this to protect, like, he doesn't want to get too hurt if for some reason doesn't go his way. He's self-andicaping. I said not one word about the game on my day. Not one. And it's weird that you let another man, you know. You said Will Howard, maybe Will Howard should start this upcoming game because what Riley just did to the Houston Texan. That was just hypothetical. But it was a word. You guys don't get it. That's clear.

That's what it sounds like nobody gets it. We don't. And AJ lets another man affect his opinion on what he says. So, you know, is he actually a man? Interesting. Okay, tone, trying to use some of my own material. I get it. Yeah. All right.

Happy birthday, AJ. Happy birthday. Have a birthday. Hey, Hogg. Hi, birthday, Walker. Ladies and gentlemen, joining us now. He's the greatest of all the time. We are so incredibly lucky that he obviously joins our show every single week.

Also, getting a chance to listen and hear his thoughts on the state of college football is obviously something we all need a little bit more of. Ladies and gentlemen, the former coach of Alabama. Bama, LSU, Michigan State. He was at Cleveland Browns, Ohio State as well. And probably somewhere before that. Miami. Miami Dolphins. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

They wouldn't fucking hire him, remember? He played there. He's an alum. They won't give him a job. From my understanding, if that is accurate. Prague Golden Flash, ladies gentlemen, Nick Saban. Yeah, Coach. Is that right?

How we're doing? Great. you doing, man. Was there a time you wanted the Kent State job and they didn't hire you? Do I remember you saying that sometime? Yes. Yeah, you're right about that. I came in second. Sometimes the best deals you make are the ones you don't. We'll see. Amen, brother. Amen. Speaking of good deals, we got a great final four here for the college football playoffs and obviously start tomorrow at the Fiesta Bowl with Miami in Ole Miss. And then we've got Oregon in Indiana. And obviously, you are going to know a lot about all four of these

teams because these are four of your disciples leading the way here. And I don't know if you heard or a message got back to you. But the other night, okay, and you said, I'm one of your close friends. So like, I view you the same way. I'm happy we view each other that way. And as your close friend, I want to let you know, I will get disrespected for you. I will feel disrespected for you. So all these other schools are higher in Sabin disciples. Okay, the final four are all Sabin disciples. Then Alabama loses and they don't have a Saban disciple and you're already there. Did you ever think about that whenever the decision was being made? with Greg Byrne? Like, were you part of the conversation on whether or not? Should we continue

with one of my guys? Should we go a different direction? Like, why do you think that happened? And should I feel disrespected for you for them deciding not to hire one of your disciples when it's clearly the right decision in college football in 2025, 2025, 26, and forever? Yeah, well, I think if somebody was available, I'm not sure anybody was available that they could have maybe gotten to come here. And I do think that Kato, on DeBoer is a really good coach and doing a good job here. This is a tough transition, especially in this environment that we live in in college football in terms of, you know, players coming and going.

I think there was like 26 players that got in the portal when I retired. So that's a lot to overcome for anybody, and it would have been a lot to overcome for even, you know, one of the guys that formerly coached for me. So, you know, I fully support Greg Byrne and what he decided to do and how he's done. it and I'm hoping that they get the ship going in the right direction here. It's not bad to get in the playoffs and finish, you know, in the final eight, but not the expectation around here, which is tough to live up to sometimes. Yeah, well, you created that expectation, obviously, and we will certainly talk about your disciples having the success that they're having

and what you see from their teams that maybe you see from the programs that you were building there. But Alabama losing in the way that they lost, I think all of the people, you're having. I of us are like, this ain't the Alabama team that we know. And it's easy to just automatically point fingers. Kaelin DeBoer signed up for the job. We think he's the right guy for the job at the time because of how much success he has had in the past. It felt like he was mature enough to have to fill in for your shoes. And we're not saying that at the time, we weren't big fans of Kailen DeBore. But now that we're looking at these four teams and they're all from your tree, it's like, wouldn't that have been the right move? Maybe keep the success train rolling.

I appreciate you saying, I don't know how many people were available at the time. And obviously, you support Kailen. But let's talk about that. these four teams. You know, obviously Mario Cristobal and you very close. We got a chance to see that. Hard nose football team. Old Miss is golden guy. I don't know if anybody else could have been able to do what he has done in this mental toughness that is needed to keep everybody going in the same direction with the massive distraction that it was with Lane Kiff. And Dan Lanning, this guy seemingly psycho for football loves this thing out there, has completely run Oregon into a place where it is a premier destination for all five stars, basically. And then Kurt Signetti in

Indiana, obviously this is literally out of a movie. What do you see from these four programs that you think, you know, maybe I did have a little piece in helping create the cultures of these places? Is there anything that you see? Yeah, well, you know, one thing that I see in all these teams is they have a mentality about them to play physical football and a lot of mental toughness and how they play and how they compete in the game. And I think that's contributed to their success, even Ole Miss, who is a fastball, advantage throw, but they run the ball extremely well. And, you know, Dan Lanning has changed the culture of Oregon as well in terms of a physical tough on the line of scrimmage team. Every one of these teams have tried to build themselves

on physical tough on the line of scrimmage teams that, you know, play with great intangibles. And, I mean, Indiana, man, I mean, they were impressive in the game. Not that Alabama, Alabama played great, and they made some mistakes early on that hurt them. But these cats, man, and everybody talks about their offense, they got some dogs on defense now. I mean, these guys play hard. They play fast. They make plays.

They play together. They don't make a lot of mental mistakes. They're well-coached. They fit the runs. And this pop they put on tie right here. Ponds. Yeah, that's Ponds right there. that. I mean, absolute hit stick right there.

And he's a good player. So incredible the job that they've done at Indiana. I mean, just, you know, Kirk Zigg has done a fantastic job, though. There's no question about that because his is

a tremendous turnaround from a program that had no real tradition in football and has been able to establish what he's established in these first two years. He's been there is phenomenal. Okay, on that Connor has a question for you, Coach. Yeah, Coach, as you can see, I'm ready for the playoff games this weekend and on Friday with Indiana.

And right now, people are kind of pontificating that Sig could be a candidate to go to the NFL, especially to the Raiders in Mendoza, kind of a package deal almost at the number one overall pick and then Sig, as the head coach. What do you think about that type of situation? Do you think that's something that might, you know, intrigue Signetti? Do you think that's something that might work? And what do you think would be kind of the difficulties with Signetti going to the? the NFL and then also real quick side note did your golf buddies kind of understand that hey Indiana isn't Indiana anymore and they need to put some respect on their name now yeah they're all bought in they're all bought in now good good so um I've never talked to you know Kurt about

going to the NFL I don't really know that he has any interest in doing that you know I will say this though it is a fairly difficult transition to go from college to the NFL if you've never been in the NFL before. You know, when I took the Dolphins job, I had been in the NFL for six years, you know, prior to that, four years as a coordinator of the Cleveland Browns, too, and Houston as a secondary coach. So I understood the NFL. But if you've never coached in the NFL, you know, I mean, developing players is not a lot

different, but how you bring players of the team is tremendously different. and I think you've got to have a organization that is vertically integrated from top down to be able to have success in the NFL because you have a lot more impediments in terms of competitive balance in the NFL. You've got a salary cap. You can't draft whoever you want to draft. You've got to draft who's available when you pick, so that sometimes that doesn't work out. You know, you've got to pay the right guys on your roster and on your team.

and then you've got to develop a team chemistry that is a little bit different than working with college players. So it's a lot different in terms of the system and the parity of the system. Things that you can do in college, and that's one of the reasons I came back to college.

After two years in Miami, I said, I can control my own destiny a lot better in college than I can in the NFL because here we have a team that I took over that's four and 12, oldest team in the league, $17 million over the South, salary cap. And no draft picks because they gave them all up for Ricky Williams. You know, all that is

kind of hard to overcome. And I love Ricky Williams. You know, he's a great competitor and a great player and played great for us. But, you know, there's a lot of obstacles in the NFL that are a lot different. And you don't see a lot of games in the NFL. Like 70% of the games are, you know, decided by a touchdown or less. You don't have that that same parity in college. football and I think it's it's more difficult to succeed because of that prepare that you know sort of competitive balance that's created by the league which is really good and what makes the NFL what it is I mean really you know you've heard me say this before if everybody was you know 500 going into the 18th

week of the season everybody to be happy because there'd be 32 fan bases that are still cheering for their teams of getting to play else. Yeah, optimism is certainly high. Now, in the NFL, you've got a lot of fan bases that know their team's ass about three weeks into the season, and they still hate watch the rest of the year. But the NFL's numbers outrageous. College football's numbers obviously outrageous.

I think a couple of things you mentioned there are obviously hysterical. I think you said impediments, which is a great word. I'm going to start using that as my own. I'm going to act like it's mine. But also impediment, a hindrance or obstruction of doing something, incredible word. I love the fact that whenever you're in Miami, you were just like so many impediments around. So many. What's a word I can say for all this shit that is everywhere around me. Impediments. Contracts are real there, too. You're not salary cap. The contracts are real.

Here in college, you can kind of hit and miss as long as you have somebody continuing to back you. Go ahead, AJ. Yeah, coach, I think a big thing that people don't think about. Someone has a great coach. They hire a great staff under them. I guess your coaching tree is legendary. It will be forever. When you can evaluate players obviously very well, but you seem to be able to evaluate coaches and bring in the right type of people. What is it? Like, how did you hone that and how did you learn as you were a coach? Like, hey, this is the right guy to hire. This is not the right guy, maybe. Well, you know, I always look for people that had great character, good knowledge, could relate with people, good teachers, could present to players as good teachers. But also, you know, you have the advantage of what is the track record?

You know, most of these people that I hired had a good track record. I mean, they may have a good. had some issue along the way, but they had a pretty good track record in terms of what they were able to accomplish with whatever group they were responsible for. So, you know, players, you don't always have as much of a track record as you do with coaches. Yeah, the Nick Sabin Waters has blessed a lot of people, you know, a lot of people. I don't know if you've been hearing the quotes, these coaches have been saying about you, brother. I hope you have. Signetti said, I learned more in one year with Coach Sabin than I did in the last 27

of assistant coaching and how to be a head coach. And then Coach Langing talked about you know, the one of you I was there and then I was with Kirby, which is basically the same thing. And they all talk about like basically the attention to detail

is kind of you had a plan for everything. Do you think that was your superpower? Like what do you think you were able to do that maybe others weren't? And what do you think these guys take from you and kind of take it to their day? All four of them lining up compliments for you, coach. And honestly, most people would hate that that's happening, but because it's you, everybody's like, hell yeah, happy to see this guy get his flowers.

That's very abnormal. You're very abnormal character. You need to know that. But what do you think is the superpower of your program? Well, I think what we were able to do is create more value for players and not just in terms of how we developed them on the football field, but, you know, whether it was academic support, graduation rate, medical staff, psychological, development so that you could help them sort of figure out what it takes to be successful, strength and conditioning program for development. I mean, we had the best of almost every one of those things, nutrition. We were always a little bit ahead of the curve. And I think some coaches

look at things through a straw, just like, okay, I coach the offense. I'm worried about the plays that I call and the offense and all that. But there's so much more to it than that. when it comes to being able to recruit good players and showing them that you're going to create value for them so that they can have success not only here in college, but maybe when they go on to the NFL, and then when this process that you develop comes to fruition in terms of how many games you win and having the most players playing in the NFL, making the most money, it just sort of brings in the next player that's pretty good. And I think that they kind of understood that this is a process that's much more detailed than,

just what we do on the field and once you see a billion dollars in contracts are having it almost starts recruiting itself yeah but i still got to go out there hell miss terry see you saw me two stepping up in the house you saw me doing the whole thing you got to do all that stuff but it all matters is basically what everybody's saying about the way you go about doing your business i've been look but i can step through it though right i mean you you you saw me stepping through it it wasn't like i was not are you good you're good and you also had the upper body you timed up with the lower body. I think that's maybe your baseball, maybe your golf as well.

I don't know if that's where you got your rhythm from, but obviously you can move. You can do a little Tuesday. I don't know if I saw the Cupid shuffle up there. I would like a little bit more action maybe. We'll see if you can kind of get into that. Let's talk about the action though. That's about to happen on the field. Go ahead, Dee Bud. Yeah, coach, playoff time. This goes for the NFL and the CFP.

You kind of are who you are. You know, your identity is what it is on both sides to the football. But if you had to lean one way, obviously you have to adjust as the game goes. If you had to pick one, a red-hot quarterback just kind of on a heater or an elite defense? Which way of you lean going into these big time games? Well, I think you need to do both things, really. I don't think you can win on one side of the ball or the other. And when you look at these teams, I think that all four teams that are

into finals for the college football playoff could be either one. Either team could be in a one game could be the other team. Like the three plays that Chambliss makes against Georgia and the drive that put them ahead, it's 57, 58, and 59 on the playlist if you want to look at it. I mean, this guy scrambles around three times in a row and makes big plays that changed the whole game.

He could do that against anybody. Now, Miami, you could say, they have such a good defense and they're so athletic, maybe he won't be able to make those kind of plays against them. that remains to be seen. You know, Oregon, you know, the Oregon Indiana game the first time was 20 to 20. You know, Indiana made a couple plays, critical plays in the fourth quarter of that game that turned out to be the difference in the game 30 to 20.

I know they were playing at Oregon, but either one of those teams could have won that game depending on how they finished the game. So, look, I don't think you can win unless you can keep from getting beat, so it's important to be able to play good defense. But the way people score points now, and the whole reason that we changed, our whole philosophy here, from running the ball,

old-fashioned kind of NFL football, play action passes, running it more than you threw it. Derek Henry, gaining 1,800 yards, playing good defense. Hard to win that way now. Hard to win that way now. As soon as people started going,

no huddle, spread, advantage throws, RPO's, all these things that took advantage of the rules, people started scoring more points. so if you can't score points it's hard to play good defense and win games I think we got the four right teams man

I'm so excited to watch these squads Thursday Friday leading into super wildcard weekend it's a wonderful time to be in ball how are your predators doing are we winning or the national preters win or losing I don't know what's going on they're six and two since we bought in

so they're doing all right they were six more they were three and oh to start with So maybe I need to go give them a pep talk or something. No, they're 0-1. Remember that the night you actually signed, I don't think any of them met you, and I don't think you did a press conference yet.

They lost. So that would mean they've been on quite a tear. Have you talked to the boys? Have you been in the change room that they have? No, not this team. They have, I don't know what they call it in hockey, but like a mini-camp for a lot of their prospects, whether they're playing in college,

whether they're playing in the American Hockey Association or whatever. I went to that camp. I talked to those guys. I've talked to the front office on occasion. So it's fun to be involved. It's fun to be involved with the team. Can we get you on skates? Have you been on skates before?

No. I don't know shit about hockey. Leadership in winning, baby. This is the type of consultant you call for anything. We appreciate you. Safe travels out to Arizona, Coach. Hey, we're looking for. forward. I guess I'll see you out there tomorrow, right?

Yeah, you got it, brother. What are you having out there? Forget it. I'll see out there tomorrow. In the morning. I'll see you out there tomorrow. Yeah, long flight. Have a good one, guys. Appreciate you, man. Thanks. Long flight, long flight. Long flight. Lost of them. Yeah, that's Nick Say, man.

Yeah, Coach. Obviously, we're flying good and easy, but it's like, you know, send the text. Hey, how long's the flight? And then also, how long is FBO to where I need to head to. Just so we know the entirety of it all. And it's like, whoa.

This school's way out there. All right, we got a long drive. We got a double, we got a long drive on the other side. That was like L.A.X. That was L.A.X whenever we got out there at Rose Bowl. I don't think any of us expected that. Well, somebody, a couple people had a short drive. They happened to be right here.

Just landed right near my room. Tomorrow should be awesome. It's a fantastic time to be alive. Now, who will be getting hired, you know, in these jobs? Who will be getting each individual franchise back on track? Who will be the guys tasked? Or ladies, hey, no women in this pool here,

but maybe there's somebody that we haven't, you know, brought up that maybe gets a head coaching job in the NFL. But nonetheless, there's a lot of places that are down in the dumps. And these dudes are going to be tasked with turning an entire city around. It's not as easy as a couple of these guys that made it look. Think about Liam Cohen. That's a dream situation right there. Liam was hired so late with so much chaos

that they thought he wasn't going to be able to provide a staff. Remember, they thought he wasn't going to be able to hire a staff. It's too late. This guy's not even going to be able to... Is he going to have a running backs coach? I don't even know if he's going to have a running backs coach. Oh, yeah, he's going to have the greatest season in the history of Jacksonville Jaguars that are going to host a playoff game.

Crazy. That can happen like this. New GM? How old is that kid? What is that thing? These idiots are trading how much for the number two overall pick for a wide receiver and a corner? I wonder, what the, Jacksonville Jaguars going to do what Duval do, man.

That just sounds hilarious. And then they turn it around completely and it feels like their culture is completely set. And then you see him in real life and it's like, hey, they look like they got it. That Jacksonville Jaguars team really does. Oh, yeah. This is a scary-ass game for the Buffalo Bills, I would assume. I think so, too. A lot of people obviously just coming in.

If you haven't watched the Jaguars all season long and just knowing who Josh Allen is and who he has been since he's been in the league, you will lean that way. you always look at the quarterbacks with this team on both sides to the ball. You talk about hiring the staff. Anthony Campanelli has been great with that defense, turn the ball over and also playing good with the other numbers as well. Trevor Lawrence has been unlocked. He's finally the guy that a lot of people expected him to be.

So I cannot wait to see these teams on this stage because everybody knows the playoffs. You know, it's a completely different landscape. And as far as the coaches go, nine offensive coaches, five defensive head coaches now in the NFL. And I think four of those five defensive coach are all. all on the AFC side, so I'll be interested to see how that impacts this hiring cycle. Yeah, and to your point about, you know, Trevor Lawrence being unlocked in Gladstone, once they

got Jacoby Myers, like the entire team it felt like changed. Like, Brian Thomas Jr. had that really slow start. I think Jacksonville actually led the league in drops or at least drop percentage. I don't know how those graphs work, but they had a bunch of drops. They bring in Jacoby Myers. That offense completely changed. Parker, Washington, you brought

up earlier. He's been unbelievable since Jacob came in and became that, like, kind of safety valve for Trevor Lawrence. in the offense. Liam Cohen, what does he do on the offensive side of a cue that makes people sometimes be wide-ass open seemingly during these games? It's the same thing Sean McVeigh does. He does such a good job of using his tight ends

and disguising them, sometimes putting them in the backfield, putting them through the B-gap, they get lost in coverage, and all of a sudden Brenton Strange is wide open, missed coverage down the field, it's Parker Washington, it's the shifts and the motions, it's the run game. It's all the stuff that you see what makes McVeigh so good. Liam Cohen brought that same thing. Hey, Jay, they got an edge to him, too. These guys got an edge,

age, which I think we all love, obviously, but it's dangerous in a playoff, Sage. It's definitely dangerous. I just like, I think how Debutt put it, like Trevor Lawrence has been unlocked. I feel like Liam Cohen is the guy for him. And if you remember early in the year, remember like the rumors back and forth that they weren't really getting along or seeing eye to eye maybe 100%? And that absolutely is not the case now. They are definitely both on the same page for sure. Packers, Bears, how do we feel as we sit on this particular Wednesday just a few days from Super Wildcar Saturday time? I still feel good about the Packers in this one. But, you know, both of their defenses have kind of been shite the last several

weeks, so it feels like whoever can get a stop late in the fourth quarter might be the one who wins the game. Like both of the games so far this year haven't been too high scoring. They've been pretty back and forth. But, I mean, I think both of these defenses are going to move the ball at will and score points. Yeah, I'm excited for Super Wildcar weekend. I'm excited for all of these games. I'm also pretty excited for, if you guys get a chance to kind of watch tennis, I didn't know they do this. Did you guys know they do this? You can just kind of sign up online with a raffle and then just like the field goal contest that happens on game day. You can win a chance to be in an actual professional tournament. This lady right here. Uh, Abdel Kadar.

That's an actual... I thought she was ropedoping her and then all of a sudden she turned it on later. No, she got two points from two double faults from the actual professional tennis player. A lot of people in the tennis community are saying, hey, pro, you're double faulting against this person has never really held a racket before. This is almost like a super dog down there in Australia for the breakdancing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Raygun.

Raygun. Raygun. Raygun. Yeah. Raygun. Raygun. Yeah. Super dog. Yeah, Raygun. Same thing. Same difference. She was super dog. Do you remember whenever they were coming out saying I trained hard for the afterwards, they were trying to get mad at people? And then they kind of just bought into it, I think, like, yeah, we kind of did that. We're in

an Olympics. So, don't know what I tell. This lady, in an actual professional. tennis game. Congratulations to her. She had no right to be there, and she knew that whenever she stepped up to the plate into the tape, so we appreciate the hell out of that. Yeah, could have qualified for Wimbledon. I think they should put a player like this

in each tournament anyways just to show how good tennis players are. Raygun ended up, there was a big scandal there, right? Raygun was ended up married to the guy who ended up picking. Yes. Who won the goal, or who was supposed to be on the team? I don't remember it exactly, but I do remember that people were certainly saying

Raygun was not our best representation of breakdancing around this island continent of Australia. And after going to Australia and seeing the humans and how jack they all are, I assume there is some phenomenal breakdancers out there. And they were probably pretty bummed out. They got dead last place in that entire thing. But the run in a circle while laying on your side, my daughter was doing it the other day. She's two and a half.

I thought to myself, that's Olympic break dancing. Yeah, changed the game. She did. She had super dog changed at all. And who were we talking about? You know, we're this far removed. We're not talking about who won gold or silver or bronze. True.

I'm talking about Raygun. When I land in Australia, I asked four or five people, is this the town Raygun's from? Got a lot of, they used a punt word. Oh. To me, though. Not, it's like a,

basically, knowing that I was joking. Yeah. And telling me to scram, basically. I don't think they have a lot of gratitude towards the Super Dog, the break dancer. They should. But we should be respecting hell out of this lady. Do you imagine if she accidentally puts arm up like this, Daria, it hits and just right down on the line after something comes back so fast?

And then all of a sudden starts stacking points. Maybe this one accidentally. A little drop shot because her technique so bad. 30 love. Oh, wait a minute. What do we got going on here? All of a sudden, we're stealing one. Now we've got a brand new movie.

This is like the garbage picking, field goal kicking. Philadelphia Phenomenon. That's what we have happening here Right in front of our eyes potentially I didn't know tennis allowed this We need more people to start signing up For the Super Dupor Raffle to play the professional That was also a bullshit

Because she is a hardcore player And that was on Clay So she really wasn't ready for the surface I think that's made it threw her off a little bit Why she didn't know where she was supposed to serve from Etcetera etc etc Like had this been the Australian Open For instance where they play on a hard court

I think she probably That suits her skill set A little bit more than the play learned how to play from weed tennis I mean I don't even know that's what I'm saying I think it hasn't even

Definitely a surface issue They're ties right On hardcore she's unstoppable That's the first thing I thought I said well she's not a clay court player Is a square stand jump Serve the move on the hard Taylor made for hard court

Okay Yep Okay I like that she walked right out there She had to have a couple friends in his steads Fuck it I'll play You hear what whatever her name is he's doing Was she, she's in an actual tournament tomorrow?

Has she ever played before? And she looks over, probably a little cocktail or two. No! I have no idea what I'm doing. Pumped, though. So excited. It's going to be fun. Does the lady you're playing, no?

No. She's no idea. Walking in there with the fucking thing. We're supposed to have Shepter seven minutes ago. He's been on phone with an owner or two. So who knows what moves are potentially being made. You know, maybe Shepter will have news break for us, even though it'll save it to tweet it. Yeah, we'll have a chance.

Well, the thing about the X, and I've realized this over time with these insiders, because these things like to compete. Yeah. Oh, yeah. These things. The X is the scoreboard. That is the, certainly. This is the original.

This is when you're putting your score up. This is the time. This is when I got it. So that is how it, I believe it is all tracked on who had what at the time. So every time these things tell us like, oh, oh, oh, oh. And we're like, tell us, tell us. Wait. Okay.

ownership fired blah blah blah it's like that they need to get that that that needs to get on to x as fast as possible so anytime this man takes time away from his multiple of phones and his life of gathering NFL information we appreciate them Michigan man ladies gentlemen Adam shifter yes chefter what's going on gentlemen oh new watch wow this guy same watch same watch oh the ACS there what's the middle name Charles Chairless Chester No

Adam Charles Adam Chuck Adam Chucky Craig Craig Craig Oh Craig Craig Chifty Okay Craig

You know what Pat you'll appreciate this My mother wanted to make my middle name Scott But then the initials on the shirt You know you can only imagine what that would look like Yeah ass would have been sick I like that she's thinking that far ahead But also

Adam Scott would have been such a good insider. Yeah, it would have been good. What could have been? But we're in a good spot. Obviously, Shafty Bombs are a thing. You dropped one with the Harbaugh firing from Baltimore. It felt like you guys kind of had an inkling that this was possible heading in to the last week.

Basically, and I'm saying you guys, I'm talking about the insiders as a whole. Rappaport said on the Insider Show that he had heard from his sources that maybe the locker room didn't like Harbaugh anymore and maybe they known that there's been a riff. what is kind of your information on how we got to this point and obviously what hard I don't think that information right there could be any more true any less true the players were coming to his office crying hugging him sending him goodbyes calling him one by one if they felt that way why are Mark Andrews and Zay Flowers and Isaiah likely and all these players coming in crying hugging him giving him these long warm goodbyes. I'm not buying that.

Okay, so let's go ahead and slide that to the side is something that is not happening. AQ. Shipley who played for the Ravens said that Harbaugh is his favorite coach that he's ever had. So I think there's a lot of... That would be consistent. That would be consistent with the type of things that I've heard. Chefty, I've never seen a coach take their players back more than John Harbaugh,

especially in the media too. All the stuff that Fall Lele took early in the season, he stood at the podium, he stared every one of them in the face and had his back. And I think every player respects him because of that. Okay, so how did we get to this point then what do you think was the reasoning was it just everything that we had talked about i just think i just think here's the deal sometimes nobody does anything wrong you go on for 18 years and it's time

for everybody to go a different direction it's okay nobody has to do something wrong that doesn't have to be some salacious reason doesn't have to be some fight or something like that sometimes it could just be they fell short the last few years whether it was for zay flowers dropping the ball fumbling the ball to go line or Mark Andrews not catching the two point conversion or Tyler loop missing the field goal and you don't get the job done and you know what it's time to just go make a change like when I cover the Denver Broncos back in the day Dan Rees was a great coach and after a while Pat Bowling just felt like you know what it's time for me to take back my franchise he wanted to go a different direction he

hired Mike Shanahan they won Super Bowls that's what happened in Denver John Fox took them to the number one seat three times he did a great job it wasn't like he it'sling wrong. They shook it up. They moved on from him. They hired Gary Kubiak. They won a Super Bowl. It doesn't always work out with a happy ending, but sometimes these owners just feel like time to make a change. We see it in the business world. There are companies that make changes of CEOs after 10, 12, 15, 18 years, 18 years is what John Harbaugh did. He won more world playoff games than any coach in history. He's the bell of the ball right now. These teams are going to trip over themselves to hire him.

He can pick the spot he wants right now. It's just time to make a change sometimes. Okay, and them making a change after 18 years, something that they haven't done because he is the CEO, was the surprise. I think a lot of Baltimore Ravens fans were potentially looking for the same thing that maybe you're pitching there,

like a little refresh, a little reset, new voice in there. You talk about him being the bell of the ball. You put out a tweet that alluded to maybe a team that hasn't fired a coach has already reached out to John Harbaugh to potentially look at an interest. and then you followed up with that, like at least one, likely more. Okay, so right now, everybody around the NFL outside of, I don't want to give a particular number,

but there's a lot of teams looking at their situation, wondering if John Harbaugh would be better, that maybe wouldn't have been thinking that if they didn't, if they didn't know when they didn't know that Harbaugh was available? Is that accurate? I think what happens is, and I think it was a little bit like when Bill Belichick is let go, when there's a legendary coach who's out the door,

I think every owner looks at himself and says, okay, do we think that John Harble or Bill Belichick would be an upgrade over what we currently have? And there were a couple of teams with acting sitting head coaches that reached out to just kind of see what was the temperature. You know, this is what Brian Harlan said. And again, all these teams make decisions. There are the immediate teams with openings. Okay. And I can tell you that the majority of them, if not all of them, have some level of interest. Some that I've spoken to is extremely high, extremely high. So again, John's going to have this choice there with what he wants to do and you have to evaluate the situation. Who's

the owner? Who's the GM? Who's the quarterback? What about the market and the city? These are all the things that you take into consideration. I don't think there's anything more important than the quarterback situation anything and if you go back to washington a couple of years ago that that organization was as bad as there was for decades and all of a sudden they draft jaden daniels and in one year bam they transform themselves into a place that's exciting and interesting they didn't play well this year and they're struggling but for a year it was magic and so i think it's going to be about the quarterback and who you can build on one other point i want to make about John Harbaugh here.

When Sean Payton of another pedigree was available, the Denver Broncos gave up first and second round draft choices to go hire him. First and second, John Harbaugh is about as accomplished as Sean Payton. And so he's now free where the team that hires him doesn't have to give out any compensation. No first, no second, just go hire the guy. so how would that not be wildly attractive to any one of these teams out there it is and he will be and he'll have a job if that's what he wants and i believe it it is what he wants okay so there at the end you you kind of noted that he does want to continue to coach because i don't know what the contract setup is with baltimore but obviously he's very accomplished some coaches take a year just kind of breathe a little bit whenever everybody in the NFL that needs a coaching change is calling you, offering you

$18, $20 million, whatever it is, to come in and fix their place. Obviously, you've got to listen. Congratulations, Harbaugh, you've earned it. Now, let's talk about another older coach, one that was AJ's coach for the entirety of his at Green Bay. Go ahead, AJ. Coach, I'm sorry, Shafti. What about Coach Mike McCarthy? What are you hearing about him?

We hear rumors he's interviewing for the Giants or other teams. What do you think about him? What's the timetable? And is it likely that he gets a head coaching gig in this cycle? Um, he's going to have a chance. I would say that. He's going to interview with the Giants next week. He's going to have another team that lines up an interview from what I understand. So there'll be at least two teams that are interviewing him. Now, again, let's be honest. Again, I come back to John Harbaugh because I think he's going to be option A for a lot of teams. So if all of a sudden

the Giants put on the full court press and they get John Harbaugh, bam, they got their guy. If not, I think a guy like Mike McCarthy absolutely comes into play. He'll be in play elsewhere as well. He's been around, understands what it takes. Teams know what they would be getting. I think he's got a chance but early in the cycle right now, hard to say how it's going to shake out. Okay, let's talk about previous head coaches. Yeah, tell everybody

and we appreciate you doing this. It does feel like there's some sort of hammer hitting something at one point. Hold on. Let me go shut this door. Hold on a second. Hold on. Hold on. Shepty, shut down his set. Shut down a set. We got good Tupperware, Donna. We made our lunch. Let me tell you what's going on here. Let me tell you what's going on here, Pat.

we had a we had some uh we had a leak in our kitchen mildew and so they got to replace all this stuff and i i can't even tell you the way we're living for the next three four months here this is this is going to be as unpleasant as it is you got to go get air bambi brother you got to get out of there black mold potential that be your excuse you need to get out of there dude because if that's what where are you at what you know what my wife doesn't want to leave we got we got two disabled dogs that we can't have them disoriented we have to kind of take care of

them. Okay. And so we're here. We're going to live through it. It ain't going to be fun. You can make adjustments, though. You're like... Three, four months. Yeah, three, four months. I mean, we can find something similar to what it is, maybe same decorations even in there. You know, you got... But,

Pat, my wife took the occasion to, while they're doing this, of course, they were just going to redo the whole kitchen. Of course. Oh, yeah, we have to. And ever know where that black mold is, that could be... I'll kill you. That could... No, that's the time. Yeah, you're right. That three, four months, too.

That's definitely how long it's going to be. Yeah. Yeah. How old are the dogs? That's certainly. How disabled? I don't want to go. We have a 19-year-old dog blind deaf has lost her vision.

We have a 16-year-old dog lost the use of her back legs. We have to take her out every time she needs to go out. We have two other dogs. We run a assisted living puppy facility, like a dog care facility. It's amazing. 16 and 19 years old. Hey, that beat the game. Congratulations.

They refuse to leave us. They love it. too much. My wife gives them too many treats and bones and everything like that. Respect. Shout to those dogs living the long life. Okay, let's get back to ball here. That's your house. I thought for sure you're in public. No doubt. Hotel.

Three, four, six, seven months? You know, these contracts certainly. They're working. It might be two months. Oh, yeah. Yeah, maybe. It just started this week, too. Just started. And they found out at your house? Did they know it was your house before they give a full projection or after just now are they learning at your house? I have no idea.

Oh, I know is, you know what, my wife gets very anxious for obvious reasons about travel. She doesn't like to get on an airplane. I tell her, and I mean this, I feel the same way about construction and noise and all these workers and, like, porta potty's in your driveway that she does about travel. Oh, man. Let me sit your bathroom. Yeah, better than them dumping in your room. Yeah, you don't want me in your bathroom.

Get one of those, like, super nice port-a-johns. It's like a trailer outside. Make sure these guys' cheeks are paid off. and let's not have single ply out there so they can get this done a little bit quicker. But what I'm saying, as soon as they looked and saw it was you, buddy, three, four, we got an idea here.

We got a new upgrade in this. Oh, logistical issues. Weren't able to travel this stuff. But guess well, we got a replacement, 500 bucks more. It's just easy amount. It looks similar. I mean, you were about to get worked out there. It's going to be 18 months.

Oh, dude. Hey, stay strong out there, brother. Good luck in there, man. Who's going to be the head coach, insert team name, once they know. I mean, you get a couple of Giants fans in there. Oh, my God. Leaks are coming out of that kitchen.

Oh, yeah. And not just through the pipes. Right. Oh, you're going to keep that shit locked down, Shefty. Okay, let's talk about this coaching cycle as you're certainly battling. Go ahead, Dee Bud. Yeah, Chefty, we know Hardball, he'll be a special team. He's a special team's background guy, so he's kind of the rare one.

But your early lean on more defensive or offensive head coachman. You look at this coaching pool right here for a lot more hot defensive names right now, but what's your early lean right now? Wow. I mean that's wow um well again I'm going to take the layups I think I think John Hall ball is getting a job I think I think Kevin's the fancy is going to get a job so there's my two jobs and now we got some really interesting candidates Robert Sala Vance Joseph Brian Flores um mintor uh Minter Minter oh I think Minter's gonna I think Minter's got a real chance to get a job here

who else Signetti up there on a high dive you never know if he's coming in I don't see it I haven't heard anything yet that tells me that he's going to the NFL Okay that's great news in Bloomington By the way

that doesn't mean it can't be but to this day to this moment right now nobody has said to me cursing that he's looking to go to the NFL and no NFL and no NFL team has said to me we are plotting to make an overthrow

of the Indiana football coach An overthrow Joey topple the regime I mean it would But just destroy Indiana. Indiana's holding on to IU football. Like, there's no tomorrow.

It's all they got right. We got Sig, what, for 10 years, right? We've got to be signed for a 10-year deal. And that deal changes every single time a new deal is signed, basically. And Sig's Putten Green diner goes from 3 to 4 to 5 to 18 holes. It's going to be Walberg's backyard by the time. It's all said. Yeah.

Is that still for sale? That house was so nice. So nice. Oh, my gosh. How does he ever leave that place? Well, he doesn't. He spends. Exactly.

That's why he's waking up at 4 a. He wants to see the whole house. That makes a lot more sense now that we know his schedule. That place was so nice. I think he just built one down in Florida. That's what Sig's gone in Bloomington. He also has a statue on the way already. Oh, yeah.

I mean, already has a statue on the way for the Big Ten championship. All right, Shephti, we appreciate that. I would say take Kurt Signetti off that board until further notice. Take him off. Who should we move up forward closer to the front? Yeah, who needs to be bigger in the pool? Let's see. Who's far from the Shalala?

Anyone not on there? We need to add. Okay. Halfley back there, Kubiag, Weaver. Hathley, Huffley, Jeff Haffley definitely needs to be on that book. Definitely. He is, but he's in the way back. He's behind Matt Noggi.

He's behind Sala. Casey Garrett, Chula. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's always it's hard at the beginning to know how it's going to shake out exactly. Like, a lot of speculation. Again, I'm going to come back to John Harbaugh, just like I think teams

were waiting to see what it would happen. He's free. Now we have to see where he goes, and then everything follows that. Ben Johnson of this year. The Vrabel. Vrable, or Ben Johnson. But yeah, either or. Those are the choices. Well, he's like Vrable.

Ain't no Vrabbles in this pool. Okay. We know that. That guy's ready for Super Football Weekend. Do you have one of these Nike techs, Shephti? What are the Nike techs? I don't know. I don't one of those. It's a sweatsuit, obviously.

I think you should, you know what? Pretty sweet. It's going to be hard for us to find them these days. Conner's got more cred than I do, obviously, and he's got more connections and more poll than I do. I don't got one of those. Well, he's not the most important person or, sorry. Yeah.

It's pretty important. Yeah, very important. It's down south, yeah. Way to, yeah. Nike texting the news today. Obviously, you wouldn't know that because you got going to be happening in your kitchen for the next six months. a coaching cycle happened.

We appreciate the hell out of you, Chefty. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you, brother. That's Adam Schefter. Yes, Chefty. Kitchen isn't where you hang out in your house either. Never.

We've got to have him on every day to see how frustrated he gets with the more and more banging that's going on. Did you hear that? Let me shut this door. Okay. Cutting marble and cabinets over there. That's going to be a while.

As soon as they saw Schefter, too. You talk about the same watch. Same watch. They saw that too. Yep. For one of those watches, we can add a fool. Think about this. How about an island right here like JJ Watt has?

You won't definitely won't even be able to touch the middle of you. We got that here for you. We'll have a little hole for you, pop up in the middle. You're already paying this amount, just an extra $10,000? That's nothing really in the grand scheme of thing. Get a loan out for it. 30 years, $10,000. Start doing a math. Paying $333.33.

Worth an island? Certainly worth it, don't you think? Oh, yeah. His wife. Oh, I didn't know that was possible. It's going to take us from three to five months, though. You're already doing three months. Done.

Well, how about this cabin tree over here? We've got a chance to really put in a hibachi grill, and we have to change the fan above it, because that's got to be an exhaust fan, you see, but then we need to build an entire exit up to the top of the roof. Only takes two to three more weeks on construction and on the build, but you have an hibachi oven right next to your other oven, and then obviously you've got multiple...

multiple grills out here. But you've got a habachi grill. friends over, you do the thing. Oh, how many more weeks, three weeks? Oh, 20 more grand? Put it on here. What's that? 700 bucks over 30 years? Oh my God, no problem at all. Boom,

now that's going to take us five months to seven months. Okay, no problem. We've got to bill it all way up. But that's actually 12. This guy's in this for the next two years. Yeah, I'm not a doubt. Those dogs aren't going to make it through the renovation. I didn't like the way you guys were talking about 19-year-old and 60. That might be part of the plan, though, to be honest.

certain point. 19-year-old dog, that thing is just begging. Begging to run into the street at the right time. No. No, that 19-year-old dog's making up fighting every single day. That's what dogs do. That's why they're absolute dogs. Yeah, I got Val right now.

Val is old dog, senior dog. It's an interesting thing with Val. How old, though? 13, 12, 12. Yeah. Yeah, at seven years. That's so long. my gosh all right we're off tomorrow and friday from the show but we're live on the field

pass and college game days super football weekend kicks off tomorrow with the semifinals of college football playoff we appreciate you all so much for allowing us to do this for a living we'll see on ESPN 2 tomorrow night goodbye all right we got to make picks we got to give out trenchies we got to wrap up this beautiful wednesday on the other side let's enjoy the hell out of this let's go yeah boys it's super football weekend it's award season whoa yeah let's go The hammer. Don, Tyne, you pumped about award season? I love award season.

It's my favorite season in the year. What John Harbaugh goes of Cleveland Browns? Oh. I believe his wife's family is from there, so. Oh. What if he says, you know what? I want Battle of Steelers every single year. I believe he grew up a Browns fan.

I think he's born in Toledo. I think he played at Miami of Ohio, too. And Stafansky goes to Baltimore. Okay, he listened to the Steelers fans. That being said, he'd have to get a moron to go coach LeBron. Bingo. what if he did it imagine if he turned him around though

imagine if he made him something I don't think Tone thinks he's a good coach you don't think hardball it's the fancy of good coaches because you won them out of your division if you thought they were we know that game no I just thought that would be a fun thing

where they just flip-flop on that note Jason Garrett to the Titans makes sense mm-hmm let's get to a break when you think about it yeah don't do that to Cam Ward he doesn't deserve that

that guy had winning football down in Dallas Jason Garrett's doing great doing Saturday Night Football doing those dance He took Romo from North Carolina to the number one commentator on CBS. Good quote. I would like to say, I agree on that note.

I would like to say that I think Jason Garrett on TV is one of the best we've seen from League to 20. He's phenomenal. And everything I hear him say, I think to myself, that guy should still be coaching with the way he's acting and talking. So if he's going to go down in Nashville and save Nashville's team in the AFC South, I like to see him do that. No, can't lose him from that show. can't do it cannot do it will not do it can't win with it can't do it won't do it yeah

he's a Nashville guy though won't do it isn't he I mean you can see it yeah exactly we know he can dance oh my god we would like to give a shout out to that entire football night in America crew for their commitment to the bits of the TikTok dances I mean they're full I don't know how many days in advance they're getting

these things there's some real choreography happening in some of them I respect and appreciate their full commitment to the bit very much so I do also appreciate the fact that Mike Floreo, okay, Mike Floreo commits fully to these things, but also he is going to find a hilarious angle for every single piece of information somehow. His tweet today about the ratings being the highest since 1989, and then in parentheses going, interesting, there's more viewers than 1989, isn't it especially with the way everything

is today, back into parentheses? Here's the layout of how it all works. It's like, what a fucking hilarious thing. All time high in ratings, basically. all day. In 2025, the NFL had its highest regular season viewership since 1989, which means more people were watching NFL games in 1989,

which is kind of surprising, given the current popularity of the sport, it's like, what a fucking angle? I would not have been able to think of that angle. That is a good... You're right. Holy shit, I was two, so I don't really know if I was contributing there or anything like that. But just hearing that stat and then immediately going, 1989, kick the fuck out of 2025. That doesn't make a lot of sense,

does it? It's like, that's amazing. Just immediate. a lot more impressive now. Attention grabber. A lot more because in 1980 now would you have seven options to watch on TV? If that.

Yeah, now you've got to have eight platforms just to watch you know, streaming and TV. Like, the only thing people watch now is live sports, like live outside of that. Like my kids barely watch like regular TV. The cord cutting.

Oh, yeah. Generations are happening. There's still a lot of people that have it. Obviously, the numbers are outrageous for linear stuff. I mean, these numbers crazy. 57.3 million on Thanksgiving.

Congratulations, Thanksgiving. Still holding it down as the best football holiday. We need these turkey bowls to still happen. We need kids that are unathletic going outside in the yard. Maybe on street, telephone pole to telephone pole. Maybe hurting himself playing ball for the good of America. That's right. Thanksgiving is clearly a football holiday.

Always will be. Amen. Man. Well, we know the actual holiday. We'd like to let everybody know. We do know the whole thing. I felt like a good moment of people come together. Just like football. Thank you. Super football weekend. Let's see what these numbers are, huh? Football, up into the right. Sports up into the right. Feels like we're all understanding that sports are the great unifier. football is the greatest that's a j hawk the toxic table is here looking very normal at boston

connor and at tye schmidt i'll tell you what age no mention out of you pretty crazy we thought that was potentially going to be the first thing that you were saying but instead you took a shot at hammer done tanz ap tone because there's little wishy-washy pittsler takes that have been happening all year it's kind of self-handicaping himself but expecting a super bowl and if it doesn't happen going to be very pissed nine-year NFL vet deris j butler is here and 12 year super champion, an absolute legend. Ladies and a gentleman, Akeesh. Edge?

Yes. At the end of this show. Yes. I'll be eating booty, brother. Yep, I heard. Have you ever had one of these booties? Pirate booty? I've had, yeah, kids love that stuff.

Okay. Well, the boys here certainly love their booty, and I have never, I can genuinely say I've never tried this. Dude. I have seen the bag. I think the bag kind of looks like ass, so maybe that's why I haven't chose it I'm more of a Cheetos

man myself and Cheetos household you know Cheetos puffs I believe are what McKenzie enjoys whenever she's trying to eat something in this avenue of food but I'll tell you what AQ is telling me that he's going through two buckets of these things a day

Conman said he's eating booty from morning till night basically I'm not kidding I'm eating enough booty to feed a family like it is a full family size the pack of booty. And Iowa, did you guys eat booty as well? No, not as much.

I am not also like buying booty, but like if I, you know, if we get on a plane and there's some booty there, I'm going to eat it. If I come in here and I have to open the bottom drawer and there's some booty there. Guess what? I'm eating it. It's kind of one of those things where it's like,

if you see booty, you eat booty. Bruce brought it up. It might be an East Coast thing. Like New England, we've been eating booty since we five. I believe it's made in New England. No, no. Okay, there it is. Is it? I'm not a hundred percent short. It's kind of a younger thing.

Younger kids are into that a lot more than older generation. No, no. It's, I don't know about that. I regret to inform New England. It's not. Another great thing out of Hershey, Pennsylvania. I knew it was a Pennsylvania thing. Pennsylvania just creating greatness.

That's crazy. That's the thing. PA just doesn't eat booty like New England. No, they do. I don't think so, because if that was the case, I feel like Pittsburgh and... I don't know if I'm the right person to judge anything, though, as we all know with how I kind of go about, how I've operated with everything. Yeah, but we got multiple.

I know a booty eater when I see one. Tony Diggs. Tony Diggs. He would have been the one pounded the drum floor. And my daughter eats booty literally every single day. Okay, so what about when you were a little lad, a little Pisana, were you a booty eater? I don't think this. No, we were more of a Snyder's Cheese Curls City, Sniders of Berlin, cheese curls, barbecue chips.

Oh, I remember spinning the big, oh, the big top thing. That's what I was doing. this genre of thing yes okay but not but not you don't get that as much it's not as uh it doesn't leave a mark it's the type of booty you eat that just kind of goes away my wife texted me and told me uh the booty eating is like eating air it's a little lighter than that's kind of what i said that's correct yeah which is why it's great you could and which is why you can eat a 10 gallon bucket of booty in one city i guess my wife not a big booty eater from from what uh the text messages and life from what i my understanding. You can learn to love it.

Yeah, you can learn to be a booty. Again, never buying booty. I'm not going to the store and buying booty. My kids aren't to that point yet. But again, if I see booty, I will eat some booty. Okay, well, let's talk about the origins of booty here. Pirates booty was started in

1987, same year I was born, with Robert Ehrlich, who founded Roberts American Gourmet Food and created the cheesy puff snack in Seacliff, New York. Aiming for simpler, more natural ingredients than competitors that began as an organic focused snack, later sold to B&G Foods, and then to the Hershey Company. But it's origin lies with Ehrlich's vision for a better cheese buff.

And listen, I saw the Pop-Tarts story as well. Getting something to really pop off is a big part of, like, you know, transforming your family's life in an entire area. Hershey obviously grows in what is. Pop-Tarts, the entire town blossoms in this. I assume Booty has done a lot for a lot of these towns. Yeah, I do. I assume Booty has really done it for Hershey, if I had to guess. Phenomenal. Chocolate Booty, people eating chocolate booty, I assume.

Well, in Herssey, they combine them. I'm assuming you get a booty sandwich. You know, you can get some chocolate, put some booty in between it, and then you can kind of, like a smore almost. Oh, yeah. I got to like get the salt and the... I love some chocolate booty. Really?

Oh, yeah. See? Okay, so that's basically Hershey, Pennsylvania. It sounds like Hershey, Pennsylvania is chocolate booty heaven. Yeah, Capitol. South Florida. You guys making chocolate booty down there? I don't know.

This says it's in Hershey, Pennsylvania. there making the chocolate booty that we're talking got another factory down there? Yeah, upgrade kind of off the off to South Florida has a little bit better chocolate booty, boom, I mean there's a chance There we go. And that might be South Beach on the bag actually. Yeah, they might be

knowing. Yeah, maybe I mean, I think there is some chocolate booty hubs, if I had to guess, and yeah, I mean, I haven't even had regular booty yet so I guess I'll give it a go for chocolate booty at some point down the road. I mean, we're going to be in one of the cities this weekend. I mean, any city, yeah. I believe Atlanta.

Atlanta has. Atlanta has a... I believe Atlanta loves chocolate booty. I'm really sure. Yeah, very similar to how Pittsburgh, you know, it's in Hershey, PA, and it's worked its way up north, you know, to New England. South Beach, clearly hub, and it has worked its way up to Atlanta. Oh, Atlanta is a chocolate booty. Yeah.

I think they also like regular booty, though. Much like Ty. Not buying a booty, but... Seattle's big for Pringle cans, too, I heard. Oh, they like Pringles as well? Remember we talking about Pringles earlier? They're Pringles. Make it disappear?

I think you're talking. You're going to get a lawsuit. I think you all are talking about different stuff there, honestly. Yeah, we don't need to be talking about Pringle. We're talking about booty here. I'm going to try us at the end. We've got a lot of things to get through and not just get through, celebrate through. Ladies and gentlemen, it is award season.

That means we need to go ahead and spotlight those who are great. this season, greater than the others. And although everybody is good, who is the best of them all. Well, ladies of gentlemen, for I think the third annual year, it is time for the trenches presented by Akeush Shipley. Go ahead, Akew. Here we go, boys. We are going to start with the rookie trenchy,

which is the rookie lineman of the year, Gray Zabel of the Seattle. Hey, hey, hey, hey, what do you say? Go on, Ray, go on, Ray. Hey, hey, hey, what you say? on, Gray. Go on, Gray. Trenchy winner this early into his career. Wow, this big deal for him. One of 12 rookie players across the entire NFL

to start all 17 games this year. This guy was available. He was durable. He was mean. He was nasty. He was a prick. He was the starting left guard out of North Dakota State. Let's watch this screen. Get out in space against the Niners in a huge game to get to the play. Barry his ass.

We got another screenplay coming up against the Rams. Again, another late game season. Watch this dude run. Get downfield. Be the lead blocker out in space. Boom! Put his ass down. Playing me. You kind of tackle the guy. I mean, that's a big time play now. You want to see physical? You want to see physical? Come inside. Boom. Put his ass to sleep. You're not coming near me. That's right. Big touchdown, too. Yeah, that's Sam Donald Ballin. Obviously, are we going

to see more of that in the playoffs? Obviously, I think so with how he performed to earn the number one overall seed. Did not know they had a rookie sensation. Congratulations to Gray, winning the rookie trenchy of the year. Who do we got next, Akew? We got the guard trenchy,

and that is Mr. Joe Tooney. Wow, Joe, congratulations, Joe. Way to go, Joe. Way to go, Joe. All right. All right, let's talk about this.

Nine years in the league, nine division titles. One of the fewest penalized offensive linemen in the history of the game. He's unbelievable in the model of consistency. And, oh, yeah,

he breaks ribs whenever he's uncovered right there. Let's look at the, the next clip here. Check this out. As he's sitting there, he's going to go get some more ribs. Boom, go. He's phenomenal in pass protection. Now this last one is awesome. Now check this out. Zone play away. Now watch us. Go behind the center. There it is. There's the big cut. Touchdown. Joe Tuny. Chicago Bears invested in the offensive line as soon as Ben Johnson got there. Seems like it paid

off. Nine years, nine straight division titles, three different teams. Why is that, you think? I think he started in New England. He is a leader, first of all. So obviously, they were great there, but it starts with him. He was always one of their best offensive linemen. Then he goes to Kansas City. He's their best offensive linemen. Everywhere he goes, he's the model of consistency. He does things right. He's accountable. He's always available.

Never miss his games. He's always in it for all 17 games or 16 games prior whenever there was a 16 game season. But he's physical and he's a technician. All right, so congrats to Joe Tony. He went in a trench. He's won a lot. Yeah. Congrats on finally getting the trenchy up on

the shelf. All right, what's next? The tackle trenchy goes to... No, the best center, Akeush. Oh, you're starting with center. Okay. We all were. Yes, Evan. We're all here to say he's getting jacked up.

My fault, my fault. Yeah, he's getting jacked up. I like these just jacked up. Yeah, trenchies give me jacked up. Let's go. All right, the center trenchy. My favorite position goes to Aaron Brewer. Wow.

This guy's an absolute animal, absolute monster. And listen, didn't even make the Pro Bowl. So I'm not just going with what everybody's saying. I'm going with film. Biggest Pro Bowl snub. Let's watch Aaron Brewer. Watch him go. Here we go. Climes up on the second level. Boom. Watch this. Throw his ass out of the club. Wee, we, we, whoa, whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Uh-oh. Got khaki's on, too. Oh, boy. Bad day.

Right in the middle of the trenches. He's about to go through a little booty, maybe. That's all right. I mean, that's crazy. Sorry about that best center and ball. It doesn't deserve to have a massive code. that Defcon one poop situation with Ty Schmidt happened in the middle of it. This is a trenchy, Ty. Come on. Well, check out Aaron Brewer against the Indianapolis

Colts being that we're in Indianapolis. Let's watch him climb up to the middle linebacker, take him 10 yards. That's illegal? Yeah, exactly. Who was that?

Who was it going to hurt? AJ, watch this. On Louvo downfield. Put his ass on the ground. That's not a hole, so don't even say it. Barry's people. This guy's physical. This guy's athletic.

and he's the best center in football. He seems to keep his feet, too. Normally fall whenever you have a pancake. This guy's somehow keeping his feet and going forward. Congrats on Miami Dolphin win an award. Congrats, Gumpy. You've got to feel good about this. Yeah, best pair on our team all year.

He was unbelievable. He goes downfield, never stops work and never stops running. He's been lights out all season long. So are you guys going to continue to trend since he's the best player on your team to trade them? Oh, no. That's what the Dolphins has been doing. Steelers trade.

Steelers trade worked out pretty well, actually. Minka was lights out all season. Jalen Rams looked a little long in the tooth last game. Oh, it was a tough battle with the Maltzmer. That's a John Harbaal-led team. You know, it's going to be a tough fight depending upon where he heads to next. Now, ladies gentlemen, the mountain. Who wins the tackle trenchy of the 2025-2020s season, Akewsh?

Possibly the greatest of all time, Mr. Trent Williams. Yes. Congratulations, Trent. You did it, buddy. You did it. He's unbelievable, and he does it all. I think this first clip against the L.A. Rams. Watch him go against Jared Verst.

Boom. Just a simple punch, puts him down on the ground. Second one's, obviously, against the Indianapolis Colts. Get a two for one. Boom. Boom. Kyle Eushcheck has no one to block. He's like a spider monkey out in space.

And then let's watch this last one as we show his athleticism. Pull around. Yep. Watch this. Uh-oh. Get a DB in space. Stop. Oh, my God.

Take his ass down. Now watch this. Now watch him. just nuts, right in his face as he walked in. All right. A little lip in.

I see the tea bag and happened. AJ, there were some holds in these highlights or these Trenches winners. Well,

you know, that's just some savvy vet play, I think. I don't know if you call it a hole. It's very quick, very quick savvy vets.

Yeah, that'll frustrate you a little bit if you're a defender and the guys physically dominate you and he also has those little tricks like that.

Trent Williams were a dog. He's so much fun. Obviously, the Niners are different. Now, hamstring is interesting because a hamstring

can pop up whenever, you know, and obviously we hope he's healthy, we hope he's good, we assume he'll fight through it all because he's an absolute dog. Him coming out first with the boom box has obviously been a staple of the San Francisco 49ers team. What a special talent. We're lucky we get a chance to see him live, and he's moving, striding. I mean, he's striding out there. He's way too big. They had him in motion last year. I don't think they've done that this year. Wait for that in the playoffs, I guess. Yeah, to your point about him being a dog, I believe the last time that they were in the playoffs two years ago or whatever they were making the run

in the NFC Championship against the Eagles. He had like a very, very bad ankle, and he was still just doing everything that he does. David Lombardi at Lombardi himself is reporting that no practice for Ricky Pearsall and Trent Williams today to begin the week. Shen Anson, Pearson, I aggravated the PCL during the Bears game, but he did participate in the 49ers' three late practice sessions last week.

We'll keep an eye on Trent Williams. Looked upbeat on the sideline last week. Okay, so those are the trenchy. What's that? So Wednesdays, Wednesdays typically today you'll give like a G-day or extra rest day, Thursday, Friday. day. He's not practicing. Yeah, I'd be a little more concerned. Yeah, Friday, we should see something or hear something about him moving a little bit. Just get a little test out, is what you're saying?

Absolutely. I think so, too. That's good call. Hey, Trent, we hope we could see you back on the football field. You're a modern Marvel, bro. Modern Marvel. As are all the trenchy award winners. Now, can we get a full offensive line? Who are the first team all trenchy members, Akew? Okay, so if we look from left to right on this graphic, it's right to left because they're facing us. You got Trent Williams, Joe Tooney, Aaron Brewer. That's your Trenchy Award winners. And then you got Chris Lindstrom and Darnell Wright. Congrats, boys.

Graphic is sick. That's a nasty. Way to go, DeBone, offensive lineman. He's looking to win a trenchy for trenchy graphics. He's what DeBone's looking for. Remember, D3 National Champion, although his team North Central wasn't able to get it done against Wisconsin River Falls this year. Yeah, and I think he still has a chance to get on this list.

I mean, he's been back in the gym. It feels as though he might put on a couple LBs of months. muscle and may play with the colds next year. Yeah, I mean, there's a chance. I think he's going to do open trial. Maybe we send him to one of those tennis tournaments that you can just sign up for that we saw that lady playing in. Boom.

I mean, anything is possible right now, D-Bone. He's working out for two hours during the workday. That is like his new thing. That seems to be pretty sweet. I like that he's committing to his fitness and to his health. Current U-ball champion as well. You know, won't mention that. But also, Fris's freight.

He made. True. Open jobs. D-tackle, right-left guard. Kicker, too, maybe. Go-line quarterback. think about it kind of the team of indie right now the fisher's freight i mean i've heard a lot of people are kind of done with the mickey mouse clubhouse colts and that they might jump to the freight

that's not what they're calling to call nobody's saying mickey house clubhouse which is a great show by way my daughter loves it thanks for doing what you do down there and goofy so goofy but whenever we're talking about the colts we're talking about maybe a team that just you know their fans are um i don't know what to say about a man honestly i don't know how to spin it i fucking hate it. I fucking hate what's going on. The nicknames are flowing though, which is at least good for any I don't know how you

Would you have rather been terrible all year? No, I enjoyed what we were because it was cool to see all the players that had been here for a large portion of their lives. These guys were on their second, third contracts having success. Like, that was cool to see. You know, because there was a lot of belief

in these guys for a long time that they were going to be the next ones. And it was like, I was obviously just a partner here. for the Colts, but I live in Indie, love Indy, and I'm a huge Colts fan. I'm very thankful for what the Ursa family did for me. They took a shot on me. They continued to back me whenever I had my fuck up. So it's like, I'm very thankful for the Colts organization as a whole.

But I'll tell you, man, it's hard just to continue to lose. Three different Jaguars coaches have won the AFC South. Since the last time the Colts have won the AFC South. Jacksonville Jaguars. I didn't know that. That used to be the easy game you circled. And you've had less coaches. And less GMs.

Now, Chris Boward, he's a good guy. He's a good guy. He's been good to us. Got a great accent. He's a good guy. Shane Steichen, I think he's got great bra energy. Like, I like Shane Steichen. Like, I enjoy Shane Steak.

I saw him with Gardner Minchu. I saw him with Danny Dimes. I've interacted with him. Great in here. Yeah, I enjoy Shane Steichen, but it's like, yo, like, what are we, how long do we just assume that something great is going to come? Well, you saw it was, yeah, but then it wasn't. And as soon as there was an excuse for this particular locker room to stop playing fucking good football, they took it. And it just went immediately down.

Is that a culture issue? Is that a team issue? Is that a player issue? Is that a building issue? Like, there has to be some sort of something for this long sustained suckness, you know? And it's like, well, is it just bad luck? And it's like, well, okay, can we try to change our luck? You know, it's just like, I hate where we're at right now.

But by the time we get the season, I will be bumped. I assume they'll make some moves. I assume if we get Danny Dimes back and Danny Dimes is projected to be healthy, then we got a chance to do that, I'll be back. back to being excited. Riley Leonard, if we're going to give him a shot for what he did with Houston, I'm back with that. But I don't know if the culture is like a winning culture. I think you got a lot of people looking for reasons to lose in there. And I don't know if that's fixable. I don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like it. And I'm paying a lot of money to be a season ticket order. A lot of money. I'm trying my best in there. Credit dances.

We got a chance if I can try to bring that place a lot. Since the urgency, never been high. I respect that. I think that was a clear like, hey, if this, this is, this is it like I think that was a clear one of those and now obviously Colts fans you got the first eight games is that what it means that you got eight games and if you don't start out hot see you I don't know man because Colts fans are like well when was the fucking urgency

you've paid these guys all a lot of money you've paid all these guys in the players all everybody you've paid and that's where the injuries have happened too which sucks like DeForest Buckner you're paying him half the salary cap and he gets injured Dimes! Daniel exactly sauce I mean there's always

Coss getting hurt sucks that sucks that sucks every sauce could hurt There's always like legit excuses, like genuine legit excuses. But it's like, well, how come our team always has that then? Don't we, should we not potentially look at maybe something different than it doesn't happen? Is it in the building then? Is it not that, like, is there anything to try to, you know, do something? It's long offseason.

You look around the AFC and it's like, there's a lot of good fucking young teams out there. And we're just staring down what? Not being good? Well, we're going to try to get back to what we were with dimes. It's like, okay. I have faith in dimes. I respect dimes. What's that deal going to look like?

How long is that going to be for? And when's you going to come back from an Achilles and a broken leg? I mean, there's just so many, you know? And Jonathan Taylor's going to want money. Again, we're not in the playoffs. He's going to be demanding money. It's like first half of the season. He certainly warranted the most money in the history of running backs.

But are you going to not pay Jonathan Taylor because it hasn't worked going to the playoffs? We've proven that's not the case before. It's like, I don't know. And they release their annual letter to their fans. You know, this is an annual letter that they're right. The Colts send out. And it's like the timing of it was immediately met with, we heard the fucking press conference. We don't need you to do it.

It's like, we do this every single year. We just, we don't know if everybody hears everything. And it's like everything they're doing right now is just getting like absolutely crucified. And that's because it appears as if they're content with us not being good at football. And this is the most exciting time. We're a super football weekend. Yeah. And the Colts haven't been able.

Phil Rivers took us to Buffalo in 2020 for playoffs. Okay. And did we think Phil Rivers is going to win? a Super Bowl? Yeah, because that's what you do when your team's in the playoffs. And he's like, we don't get to experience that really anymore. It's tough. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back a man who might have just won the Super Bowl. Nice. You know what I'm saying.

Jogging a little better. Hadda baby time. Good awesome. You look lighter. You look lighter already. That's incredible going into Super Football weekend. You were able to lose some weight it appears. DefCon 1 is what you said. Code Red. Did we battle through? Are we in a good spot right now? I fear that is my first battle

of many today. Oh, that's round one. Yeah, that was a well-planned sneak attack I was not prepared for I'm gonna have to be ready for the next one hey I hear you the sneak attacks what did you eat is there any sneakie what did you

honestly just your basic run-of-the-mill chick-fil-a sandwich which I have not was it a spicy? It was not I do not do the spicy anymore because although it is delicious I know what comes on the back half of that so this is just run-in-the-mill

you know what I did have some of their what was it maybe the honey syracha sauce, that could have had something to do with it. And then also what gallbladder Nick was eating right next to you again. Welcome back. Yeah. Yeah, the Jets pizza. I mean, he hasn't had that at months. Yeah. He's been eating, remember, he's been eating lettuce. I know. Every single this guy's been eating apples and lettuce leading up to, you know, the procedure he had done. Got the procedure done. It's green flag racing right back in there. So I think

you're potentially inhaling some of that grease while you're eating the Chick-fil-A, and then all of a sudden, You got a 12-round bout with absolute shite all day. Without a doubt, you know, and that's the first one of the new year. I haven't had one of those situations yet. So, but like I said, I fear that I'm going to be in one today. We know you're more than ready and capable. I hope so. You just never know.

Cacky pants. Yeah, I know. I know. But luckily, you know, I kind of got it. I got the bunghole clenching down to an almost science. All right. You've dropped bunghole twice today. I know.

Both times that you said it, good pop out of my soul. I just want to let you know. It was good to have it back. Very good to have it back. Speaking up, did you know that we have first team all trenchy? And then we also tie this year? Second team all trenchy. Who is it?

Thank you, Shipley. Okay, on this graphic, let's go from right to left. Tristan Worf's, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Quentin Nelson from the Indianapolis Colts. Creed Humphrey, Kansas City Chiefs, Quinn Miners, what a dog, Denver Broncos, Detroit Lines, Pena, Sewell, right down. tackle at a second team.

Whatever you think about Quentin Nelson being on there, I like to think that's a guy you want to build around. Creed Humphrey, same thing. Quinn Miners, this guy, remember he was on NFL network every day before the draft. And we thought this guy's a climb. Why's you on TV? He's got dreds, the whole thing. He's an absolute dog over there for Denver.

Has been since the day you step foot in the NFL. He's an absolute animal. And whenever he gets downfield, watch out because he puts people on the ground every single time. Penn A. Soul, congratulations. Detroit, got some representation. and some awards. And then Tristan Worf's. He was injured, right, a little bit?

He missed the first couple games of the season, but since he came back, he's an immovable object. Well, maybe they just need to give him the ball down there in Tampa. He did have a touchdown in the year, yeah. He did. Is he Iowa guy?

Yes, he is. I was got some pretty good athletes. Yeah, they do. Did you see the Trailblazer yesterday on everything DB? I did. I absolutely did. He might be the best of the bunch.

I don't know all your trucks. That'd be a fair argument. It would be a fair argument. All right, let's go to the top five offensive lines of the season, officially, in the trenches with AQ, Shipley. Who are the top five offensive lines of the 2025-20206 NFL season? AQ, number five. Number five is the Denver Broncos.

Wait a go, Denver. Sean Payton said he wanted to build before he got the gig. After he got the gig, before he got in the building. He said, I need to fix the offensive line. You and him had a conversation offstage. Seems like you think he's done that. Well, he has because they tied for the fewest sacks allowed in the entire NFL this offensive line unit and they were fantastic all year even in the run game about 120 yards

rushing per game that guy we just talked about quin miners right guard there he is boom put him on the ground keep climbing boom get the safety and there you go congratulations denver broncos top top top five top top five top five top five top five who's the number four offensive line of the twenty 25 twenty six NFL season a queue the Seattle Seahawks wow hey McDonnell yeah yeah guys playing good defense ain't got number four offensive line in the entire league geez louise they're doing it right over there, Schneider with the pits. Yeah, you will hear a common trend here. Fifth few as sacks allowed for this unit.

This is the Rams. Seattle Seahawks is four. We just moved. Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. Here we go. There we go. That's on me.

That's on me. That's all I. We all have. That's on me. So Seattle Seahawks, again, fifth few of sacks allowed. 123 yards rushing per game. Look at Gray's Abel on the backside, getting that block. And then you cut out the backside.

Charbonnet and Kenneth Walker, two-headed monster. they've been fantastic. I'll tell you what, Sharbonne, he's untackable. I appreciated Troy Aikman dropping a little piece of information. He said, I watch this kid at UCLA, because Troy Akeman, obviously, UCLA legend. He said, nobody tackles this guy. Nobody tackles him on the first go. And it's like, that is going to be huge.

If they can run the ball, eat the clock, and then their defense is able to get three an ounce, it's like they can really punish some people all playoffs. Seattle Seahawks, fascinating story. Yeah. So far away. So far away. So far away. so nobody respects them as much.

They're almost like the NFC's Jacksonville, Jaguars and my eyes. Sure. Just a dominant team. Just an absolutely dominant team that's not a lot of people talking about. Kind of sounds like, kind of sounds like you want to crown him. You want to just go ahead and hand the balaumbo right now. And a lot of people do. You talk about a great offensive line.

We always talk about at the end of the season. If they're on this list, they got a good chance to run the table and win it all. Obviously, been in one seed in the by week. Great defense. So on favorites to win it all. It's just going to come down to the quarterback. Can he do it? We've seen him do it now.

the big moment? Can he do it now in the biggest stage? That's the question. You know what one of the biggest pieces was was Cooper Cup? It's not talked about enough because Smith and Jigba gets all of the credit, right? But when you watch all of these runs, all their big runs all year, guess who's the lead blocker? It's Cooper Cup. All the time. He's been fantastic.

I love Cooper Cup. Going back home up there. Going back home, maybe bringing them a title. Maybe Seattle Seahawks winning Super Baud's on favorite. Shout to Draft Kings doing that. And I do appreciate the crime over there at Draftings, but he has earned. Not just talked about. I also like the New England Patriots too.

Okay. I like the Mike Frable's telling us, Stefan Diggs, shut the fuck up on her side while talking shit with him. Like, I really like that. Boy, I really like that. You write it down. Seattle, England. Match up for Pat.

I mean, we've seen it before. Yeah, okay. You know what? About 11 years ago. Houston Texans, even Jacksonville, I mean, those are good odds right there. Houston Texans plus 1300 and Jacksonville Jags plus 13 hunge. Those are good odds, especially because we, been talking this entire, basically

last half of the season, like, who knows who's going to win this? And I think that's strictly because nobody wants to crown the Seahawks, because they're so far away and it's such a quick turnover. And nobody wanted to crown the New England Patriots because of, you know, new quarterback first year regime. Same with Liam Cohen. New quarterback, or not new quarterback, new coach,

new regime, they're not going to be able to do it. And then Sean Payton and Broncos, going into the season, everybody's like Broncos might win at all. They get the number one seed. Nobody's really like Broncos are going to win at all. It's good. Hey, good playoffs. Yeah, good playoffs. Not a great offense lines. I think we know, but who's the number three offensive line? Yay!

L.A.RAMS. I tried to grab a play from each of these teams that embodied who these teams are. This team switched to 13 personnel. You see the tight end going across to the left. You already have a tight end left. Eighty-seven Davis Allen in the backfield. That's your third tight end. Fullback. Yep, there it is.

This is the first play against the Seattle Seahawks. Everybody wants to crown the Seahawks. The Rams have beaten them. The Rams have beaten them. The Rams can't beat them. If this is a matchup that happens in the playoffs, watch out, because that's the one team that has played well against Seattle. Sean McVeigh is a wide receiver. He's offensive guru.

Obviously, Devante Adams has 15 touchdowns or something like that. I forget the number. Matthew Stafford, potentially the MVP. I appreciate the fact that you're pointing out, they go to 13 personnel and they'll run that shit, and they certainly will. They'll stay patient with the run, too. They're not scared just to get pass happy.

I think that's the maturity of McVeigh, but also having Matthew Stafford back there. It's been really cool to watch them adjust this year because they've always been an 11 personnel team. Well, they got three really good tight ends. They really have four because they just got Higbee. back. Higby was fantastic this week against the Cardinals, so watch out for him in the

playoffs as well, but they got him, they got the young guy in Ferguson, they got Parkinson, and they got Davis Allen as their fullback. Jeez. Yeah, really good. A lot of weapons with the Rams. Forget about that. Oh, okay. That's Connor talking about the MVP, Ruiz, between Drake and Matthew Stafford.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a big one, and if you would have said this last year or the year before that, people would have laughed in your face. The number two, Offensive line in the entire NFL for the 2025-2020-2016 NFL season is who, AQ Shipley? The Chicago Bear.

Wow, congrasito! It just shows that if you invest in the trenches, you have a chance at the end of the year. What they've done, they went out and invested in the Interior 3, Dalman, Tooney, and Jonah Jackson, but this embodies who they are as well. We get the motion. As you're going to see this, there's the motion.

They rock and roll the safety. You send the tight end through, talked about earlier, and then you get the kickout, and then huge holes against one of the best defenses in the NFL. So the Chicago Bears, not only does Ben Johnson design plays to set up good blocking schemes, they invested in good blockers, and they weaponize it as what you're saying? Absolutely, and they do such a good job with the shifts and the motions. We always talk about leverage on defense and offense. They create the leverage by the shifts, the motions. They get a safety to move out of a gap. Now you get Colston Loveland up on the safety right there, and you get

the blocks, the easy blocks front side. It's too easy. missing up there, man. This is it, Foxy. No, big time. I mean, it's no coincidence. We were on this list last year. We're not this year. The only difference, no, Ben Johnson. It's a big time bummer, but that's what MCDC is going to fix this off. He's in the NFC North. Oh, yeah. I know. He's young.

Caleb's pretty young, too. Oh, my God. Ben might have like, really gray hair by the time he's done in Chicago. You know, like super long eyebrows. Yep. Cold as shit calling a game. You see it. gray hairs underneath.

Maybe we got snot frozen. With nose hair. Yeah, yeah, with nose hair. And he's still good, better besting. You know, he's still got the intensity, but he's still dialing it up. And Caleb, at that point, just shotgun, not moving,

kind of doing this whole thing. That's potentially what the future looks like. In the Lions fans, we're just going to have to sit there and watch the entirety. That's crazy to think of that. Well, let's slow the brakes down here a little bit. They haven't beat us yet, all right?

He's undefeated against Ben Johnson right now. So we're doing okay. right there. Just got to fix the O line, that's all. Oh, like a couple of Bain or something. That's easy. Johnny Moe got thrown on in the bus. Big time. Big time. What they do to Joe? They fired his ass. Johnny Moe. You fucking suck

out of here. It is all your fault. All your fault. That's basically what they said. We knew it was coming. Hard to argue. We knew it was coming. And then they say look who we had. Yeah. Down here in Chicago. And then MCDC took it ever south party offense too. They let Johnny Walker plays what, six, seven games.

And then, all right. That's enough. Yeah, I think it was like week nine. Week nine or ten. I wonder if it was a cultural fit too, you know. That's like Dan Quinn, meeting with his O.C. and D.C. going in the meeting thinking you like him, here's some things.

I don't like them. I'm not doing this again. The fuck out of here. Ladies and gentlemen, the number one offensive line of the 2025, 2026 NFL season in the trenches. The Trenchee Award winner

for greatest offensive line in the NFL goes to who? The Buffalo Bills. The Buffalo Bills. Hey, that's a shock. Look out. Led the NFL in rushing at almost 160 yards per game. Spencer Brown, Dionne Dawkins, absolute dogs.

Torrance at right guard, obviously. McGovern at center and David Edwards as the left guard. This group has been fantastic. But I need to mention Jackson Hawes, who they drafted as a tight end, and Reggie Gilliam, 41 their fullback. This was their bread and butter play all year long. You get Y&F counter going backside. How easy is that?

Don't they run the same play against you? If it works, they'll run it. They just keep running the same exact plays against the Steelers. It was the duo play. 22 times or something like that. Over and over again. It was duo to the right or it was inside zone to the left. But early in the season, this was their bread and butter, and they will get back to this.

But that is exactly what you would judge an offensive line on. Like, hey, if you can actually take over the game. Now, let James Cook is a special talent, obviously, a running back. And you need that, obviously, behind you. But the offensive line was winning games for them. Obviously having an alien at quarterback and James Cook behind him helps it all out. But like this offensive line of your eyes, number one offensive line, is the reason why they are in the position that they're in right now?

Far too many times this season you turn on the game film and they are imposing their will against the guys across from them. That is a good offensive line. That is the best offensive line. Those are the traits you're looking for against the Pittsburgh Steelers when you can just line up and run the same play to the right, to the left 40 times and beat the shit out of a really good defensive line as we saw against the Baltimore Ravens the other night.

I mean, damn, they're very good up front. Man, congrats to these top five performing offensive lines of the 2025 NFL season. Yenzalgettrenches out there. Hope you hang them up there high. Put them on the shelf, polish them up. We'll send them to you soon. You'll get this trophy will arrive soon. And if it doesn't come, just know it's coming soon.

Yep. It's coming. Eyes peeled. Yeah, just keep, never know. And we try to get it there. It might got lost in the mayor or whatever, but. There it is. The trench he's on away.

Best trophy of sports. Hell yeah. KG's hair on top of AQ, Shipley's body is certainly something that you would definitely want if you were laying it all in the line for your team every single week. Congrats to the Bills, Chicago Bears, Los Angeles, Rams, Seattle Seahawks, and Denver Broncos. Hell yeah. Now we know who can win it all. Well, that kind of scares me.

It's time to make our picks because I've been kind of leaning one way pretty heavy. Me too, and they're not on the other one's the best of all kind. All right, let's not worry about that. yet. We'll get to that when we get there. Let's start with Saturday. Super Wild Card Saturday. Sunday NFL countdowns from 10 to noon and then I think there's a bunch of basketball games on and then

ladies and gentlemen on Fox at 4.30 to Los Angeles Rams will take on to Carolina Panthers. Rams favored by 10 and a half down there in the Queen City of Charlotte, North Carolina. Five, six weeks ago, the Carolina Panthers beat the Los Angeles Rams. Will that happen again? 10 and a half points is a lot. DeButs,

your thoughts on this game. How would you lean if you were to pick it? We're just picking against the spray, right? Okay, so obviously I trust Sean McVeyer, Matt Stafford on this stage, been there, done that, won the Super Bowl. But something they've done, even though Matt Stafford has had an MVP season. They kind of played down to their competition at some big points in this season. So I'm going to Panthers plus 10 and a half at home. Okay, home underdogs in the wildcard round are 18 and 14 win loss record over the last 1978, 22, 9 and 1 against the spread. KG affairs normally in the playoffs, especially first round Super Wildcar weekend.

Nobody wants to blow their entire season by making some stupid mistake. Let's play close to the vest. AQ. Shipley, Rams, Panthers, 59% of the bets are taking 10.5 points with the Panthers. So is Darius Butler. How do you see it? I will take the Panthers with the points as well. But let me also say, if we're just going straight up,

I got the Rams coming out of the NFC as your Super Bowl contender. Okay. So not only this game, he says, if I'm not around, the next one, too, and the next one. Okay. AJ Hawk, do you agree with the boys and the public, or are you going with the Rams to blow out the Panthers? I think the Rams win this game, but I am taking the Panthers plus 10 and a half with those ports.

We all see it the same way. It feels like. Kickoff will be 71 with a little bit of rain. You know, I think everybody will be okay. Bank of America Stadium has quite a gladiator feel. That thing goes straight up and down. Should be an incredible environment for the Carolina Panthers hosting a playoff game. Congrats to them, winning the NFC South.

on a couple of different technicalities. And good luck to all parties. I like you're already picking your Super Bowl contender for the NFC. Let's go to the Green Bay Packers versus Chicago Bears. This has flipped one and a half one way, one a half the other way, one a half the other way. One a half one way, one a half the other way. There was one time where the underdog getting the points was actually the favorite in the money line, whenever it looked at the odds.

Sports books are saying this is a toss-up. This was a split during the regular season. Debutt, Green Bay, Chicago. Are you good better best, or do you like Toyotathon? Hey, when you talk about a toss-up or kind of a pick-em game, a lot of times I automatically lean to the home team, third-time plan. I do have a lot of faith in Caleb and Ben Johnson. He's been playing great late in games.

If Caleb can play better in quarter one through three, it'll be big for him. Kind of banged up in Green Bay. I'm going Chicago, winning in cover. Okay, winning plus one. You're getting a point right now, actually. Getting a point a half. Yesterday, you would have been favorite, which is crazy that that's happening that quickly. It actually happened in real time while we were looking at draft kings.

AQ, who do you like? How do you like it? Same thing. I like the Bears with the points. The reason why is because they played their guys, and I think there's going to be a little bit of rust with the Packers, sitting some of their guys. And obviously, Jordan Love's been out for quite some time. Time leading in game whenever Green Bay won 28, 21 on December 7th, says Hembo, 34 minutes and then on December 20th, 22, 60, 42 minutes to 0.

I don't know how that makes sense. other time? I guess there would be tied in those other situations? Tide going into overtime, so that doesn't account for that. I guess, yeah, because they've scored an overtime in one. So, Ty, does that make you feel good, or was that making it? Yeah, I mean, I watched both these games, and, like, the Packers choked that

second game away. If you, I mean, we all remember they couldn't recover the onside kick. I mean, they are banged up, and that is, I guess, the big thing is they sat all their guys week 18, so they're healthier now than they have been for a while, but based on, I mean, like, they dominated the second game they played

and they dominated a very large part of the first game they played it being in Chicago and like the weather, the elements don't really matter to me at all. I think there's a chance it's going to snow Saturday night in Chicago but yeah, I like the Packers. We need a little snow in Chicago.

Saturday night, Super Wildcar weekend. Packers, Bears, a little snow, little frosted football would be fantastic. AJ, we know kickoff 34 degrees. Chains Snow. I think it's not 32. Perfect. 31. That's like perfect day here. What's the wind doing? 19 mile an hour there in the fourth quarter.

Ooh, going to be a windy city, windy football game. Depends on what 19 miles per hour because what were they saying in Texas A&M? 15 or 16 and we felt 40. So we'll see. Yeah, Soldier Field does have a little bit of a resume of being windy as hell in there. Good luck to all parties that are kicking and throwing football. That should be fun. AJ, you're taking the Packers favored by one and a half? Yep, I think the Packers go on the road. Jordan Love plays well, and they win this thing.

I know you want to pick Chicago. I do. I really do. They're a good squad. They were passed this last week. And they were allegedly trying to play football, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

I mean, that's what Ben Johnson said. Are they playing football and we're playing football? Yeah, which I think it was a shot at the Packers. I assume resting all their guys in Week 18. but that is that, like, Love didn't play against the Ravens either, and he left in the first half of the Bears game. So, like, he hasn't played in two and a half, three weeks. So, like, is he going to be a little bit rusty, maybe.

But Josh Jacobs is the first time he hasn't been on the injury report since, like, week 11. So they think he's healthier. How's that defense without Micah? I remember that being a problem. I mean, hit or miss, you know, it really is hit or miss because they, like, Halfley is really good and they've been decent. Like, they were very good against that, you know, they basically shut out the Bears for the first.

55 minutes of that game and that was post-mica and I think that game kind of whether it was like the mojo the team or whatever because then the following week obviously derrick henry runs for you know fucking 800 yards against them so they're kind of tough to pin down right now too all right i'll pick the bears strictly because they played like ass last week give ben johnson you know kind of yell about is this going to end what a good better best never let a rest tell you're good as better and better as best it feels like it holy shit ben johnson Chicago Bears I don't know

Jordan Love dude he's so good This is kind of the big like hey especially with like all the chatter about how well Malik Willis Love's got to play well on Saturday night Not that there's going to be any like big But like Just everything

You know like the pressure with like LaFleur Who knows what happens there if they get beat If Love doesn't play well Like this is a massive game for the Packers Whole Ben Johnson loves that I bet especially because he came in talking shit to LaFleard, didn't you? Oh, yeah.

Go better best, buddy. All right, I'll give it to the Bears at home. Let's go to Sunday. Bills at Jags. Buffalo Bills, number one offensive line in the league, says AQ Shipley. Okay, nobody's talking about that whenever people are talking about this particular matchup. They are favored down in Jacksonville.

Having a chance to see the Jacksonville Jaguars live in person, holy hell. Big, fast, mean, locked it. Okay, seems like they got it all to potentially go in a run. And then the Buffalo Bills, Josh Allen, no Lamar, no Mahomes, no borough. If not now, then when, Josh Allen?

DeBott will start with you as the bills are favored in Duval. Yeah, Jaguar, they've been very impressive, wire to wire on both sides to the ball. Liam has done a great job. Trevor Lawrence, I mentioned it earlier, unlocked. Then everything which you said, the experience with Josh Allen, been in the playoff, been in these moments. Also, the head coach, Sean McDermott, he's been here. A lot of pressure on him to at least get to. to the Super Bowl at this point.

I don't think they lose in the first round. I think they handle business. I said coming into the playoffs, it'll be tough for me to pick against Josh Allen-led team. So I'm going to stick with that in this first round, going on our bills winning and covering the one and a half. Okay, you like the bills. I'll tell you, this is an interesting game to start on Sunday.

It's going to be awesome. Yeah. This is going to be anytime Josh Allen plays football, it's awesome. But then you add in this Liam Cohen, Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville, Jaguars team, at home for a place. playoff game. I mean, it's going to be a special game. Highest points differential at home this season. Obviously, these are with a wildcard

line there in parentheses. Jaguars are plus 98. Nobody's close except for the Patriots at plus 90. You know, Foxborough is a real home field advantage. But so is Duval, they're saying. You get in front of those pools and you get in front of those Jags fans. Things start to happen. Maybe they become a wagon.

What do you think happens, A.Q. Shippley, is the bills head to Jacksonville as favorites. Yeah, this is the hardest one for me to pick because you think back to my homes, right? Like, They always didn't have the best team, but they had that guy in Mahomes. It's the same thing for me. They got a great offense line and a great run game. I don't think they have a great receiver, really good tight ends.

They got a not a great defense. So it's like, where do you go? That's what Dan Rolovsky said. Yeah, good job, Dan. I just think. Good job, man. That sounds kind of condescending. I just don't think they have a good defense.

But again, the Jaguars, I'm hot on them because every time I watch them, they play physical. They look good. Parker Washington's been fantastic. their tight ends are good. I mean, they got guys and their defense looks good. I'm going Jags. Okay, there you go. You're about to talk yourself out of it, it sounded like,

because it's too good to be true almost for the basketball Jaguars. AJ, who do you like? How do you like it in this one? So I was leaning Buffalo early and then watching AQ present them as the best offensive line in the NFL. I am taking the Buffalo Beals on the road here. How about him? This is once a second year in a row now.

Best offensive line in the league going to pick them not to win. You know, and the entire cell of the in the trenches segment is, The offensive line decides who wins the game. Philadelphia Eagles last year, is they're going to lose? Well, I thought the offensive line decided it was. Are they playing quarterback to? They're playing quarterback.

Guess what the Philadelphia Eagles want to do? He had a right literally from the beginning. Philadelphia Eagles won the fucking Super Bowl. Now he's doing it again with the Buffalo Bills. Is that what it feels like is happening right here? Yeah, it feels like the exact same thing, and I quite frankly just don't understand it. I don't understand it.

I don't understand it. I don't like it. Are we supposed to take this serious or not? I don't fucking understand. Best run game. Love the group. Love the protection they're going to get. Josh Allen's going to have time to throw,

but does he have a receiver that's going to separate and make place? So this is offensive line always doing this one right here. Yeah, and the Jags, I have the number one rush defense to the NFL, so it's kind of number one versus number one. There you go. The Jaggs are the team. That's the underdog at home, which their head coach is aware of, which will probably lead to more motivation on Jacksonville side.

I'll take the Jackson and Jaguars plus one and a half. I don't like it, though, because I like this Bill's team, and I would like Josh Allen, and I would like Josh Allen to have that success. but boy, if the Jags do what I think is going to, they're going to do, which is win this game, it's going to be so loud on Monday. Holy fuck, it is going to be so loud up there in Buffalo. Oh, yeah. New stadium, do this.

I mean, it is. And Buffalo fans are very passionate. And they, for good reason, they got the number one offensive line in the league. They got an alien playing quarterback. They got the best running back in the league. Figure it out, McDermott. What are you doing? If he doesn't, and they don't, and it's the general.

and it's the Jacksonville Jaguars, which we like the Jacksonville Jaguars. Good ball. Because Jacksonville Jaguars is a good football team. I think it's going to be hard to sell those bills fans. Like, we're losing to the Chiefs every other year. Now, somehow, we're losing... Trevor Lawrence.

To the Jags? Liam Cohen is what... Like, that's going to be... Cool. All right. I like the Jags to do it, just strictly because I synced them. I synced this team. They are unbelievably athletic, fast, large, and physical.

I mean, it is what I think, football is supposed to be. Speaking of San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, Eagles absent from the top five. Yeah. That's earning. That's first time, long time. Lane Johnson, though, potentially back is what we are hearing. And then the San Francisco 49ers can't get the win for the number one overall seed, have to travel to the link instead. They're four and a half point underdogs. What are your thoughts on this game, Debuts? I've heard AQ say it for years that how much one guy can change an offensive line and kind of a team. So if Lane Johnson comes out of that tunnel and that glass breaks, I think they can flip the switch with Saquan who had the rush the title last year.

I'm going to Eagles at home to win this one. I trust the quarterback. I trust the coach and I trust the offensive line. And damn sure, trust the defense. Okay, on that note, Siriani and Hertz at home in the playoffs. Currently, they're 5-0, average score 35 to 14. They have zero turnovers with 14 takeaways. That's pretty impressive.

They've trailed for five minutes and 43 seconds in five total games at home in the playoffs. Yeah. So, Siriani gets the dogs barking. They got a lot of dogs over there. Are they going to be their best? in the biggest stage, we shall see. Debutt thinks yes. Do you think of that as well? Just like Debutt just said, an offensive lineman can change everything.

I think on the other side, there's a guy named Trent that if he plays, could change everything. The problem is they might be starting Kaiser White and Eric Kendrix at lineback. Don't love that. I'm going with the Eagles. Okay, you're both these boys who like the Eagles. A.J. Hawk, who do you like? I'm with Debutt here. I think Lane Johnson getting him back. I think they find a way to unlock San Juan and he goes on a run

here in the playoffs. 66% of the bets are on the San Francisco 49ers plus 4.5. All of us are on the Eagles minus 4.5. And I think that's just because we've seen it before and we expect them all to turn it up because it's the biggest stage. Oh, yeah. Right?

Talk about defense and taking care of the football. Those are two critical, critical things in this stage. And the Johns are going to go crazy over there and Coop's going to Coop's going to coop. Coop's going to coop, baby. What's the forecast for this one? Tell me something.

I assume it's going to be 30, low 30s? Yep. 45. Wow. Unceasably warm. Feels like 40 across the board. 11-mile-hour wins, 10-mile-hour wins. Okay, so it's a slight chance of rain in there.

Okay, so this is a good Philadelphia day. I mean, rain sucks. I will say cold and rain is the worst possible, but it is just chance of rain there, 47% or 43 degrees. I like the Philadelphia Eagles in this one. Not that I think it's going to affect the Niners. I like this Niners team a lot.

The whole, the fact that they've been able to do this. Well, Bosa and Fred obviously goes to what Sala's been able to accomplish. Shanahan being able to continue to dial it up whenever you lose your $50 million a year quarterback for a portion of it. Congrats to them. I like the Eagles, though. Let's go Chargers, Patriots favored by three and a half. How's the weather going to be up there, come, man? I believe 30 and cold and possible snow.

I think that Philly precipitation rolls up north. Kickoff, it's 36. A slight chance of rain. 35, slight chance of rain. Gets down to 34, so it's just rain. Seven-mile-hour wins at the end of it all the way through. Gus's up to 16-17-mile-hire, though. Okay, so it's going to be a little breezy.

It's going to be rainy. It's going to be cold. This is ass. This is ass conditions right here. This is not desirable at all. This is exactly what Vrable wanted for the New England Patriots. Or is this what Jim Harbaugh wanted the Los Angeles Chargers to travel into and maybe be forced to do what they do?

Who do you like? How do you like it? This probably would be what Harbaugh wanted if he had his offensive line intact, but he does not. And you talk about a West Coast dome team going over to Foxboro this time of year. And if the evil empire is really back, they ain't losing at home in a wild card game. They are winning in cover. I'm taking Brable, Drake Man, the boys to win in cover. To expedite that point, Greg Roman's offenses in the playoffs with Baltimore and Chargers, 12.8 points per game, two and a half turnovers a game.

Lamar Jackson and Justin Herbert has a starting quarterbacks in four to the five games. So we're saying Greg Roman's offense is maybe whenever they run into a playoff defense, don't have as much success. And especially with a defense that is like this New England Patriots defense, everybody's smart, everybody's physical, and they're everywhere. They're a young group of lads, not all our stars yet, but those will come over the next few years, we all think. All these guys are going to be household names from what this New England team's going to do.

Conman, do you hate or like where you're at in this position? Oh, I absolutely love it. Milton Williams came back last week. He's the highest paid player in the history of the New England Patriots D-Tackle from Philly, very aware of what it takes to win his Super Bowl just did last year. And then Christian Barmore, the other D-Tackle, they are the two best de-tackle tandem in the NFL. They actually have the highest, or second and third highest rate as far as getting to the quarterback, all of that.

So the whole entire thing about New England having a bad pass rush, that'll change the Milton Williams. Weakness of the Chargers team is their offensive line. And then we got the guys in the secondary and in the middle. Bob Spillane coming back. with the huge team's leading tackler. And then Drake Mae and Josh McDaniels in the playoffs, Josh McDaniels has already game planned against a Chargers team before and won. AQ, we haven't seen Drake May do it in the biggest stage, though.

Haven't seen him do it. You know, we assume he'll be able to because he's a dog and he's a little brother and he hasn't had any situation kind of rattle him thus far. He's in his second year. He's 23. He's in the MVP conversation very legitimately to win this entire thing. His wife, he's married, she makes cookies for everybody. Big miss.

He was like, it's a perfect setup. Do you think Drake May on the big stage gets his first dub, or do you think Herbert travels in there and gets a win? We haven't seen him do it, but we're about to pass by a million. The healthiest they've been all year and hate the charges offensive line. Zion Johnson's really good at left guard. Other than that, they've been decimated by injuries. Coming west coast to east coast,

healthiest the Patriots have been plus Josh McDaniels, pass by a million. Bats by a million. AJ, do you agree with that? Yeah, I don't know if I'd say pass by a million, but I do think that this is going to be the Patriots are going to grab the momentum them early on. They're going to get up early and that place is going to go crazy. So give me the past. What's that song you guys sing up there? What's

the song in the stadium whenever a good things start happening? They do Thunderstruck a lot. ACDC. Shipping up to Boston is also another one. They don't really have a go-to like the Colts and some other teams do. Yeah, so for some reason I remember maybe shipping up to Boston is what

it was. They played a lot of music. You probably remember this. Pah-pong! Yeah, they shot enough to take up multiple minutes to these fuckers. I I mean, they scored a lot against us. LeGarrett Blunt's still running. Oh, yeah. That fucker's still going.

I don't know how he still is running and scoring more touchdowns against us. Yeah, that's what I mentioned earlier in the week. Sonia Michelle, his rookie year, he had three touchdowns. I'd expect Trevian Henderson and Ramandrae, kind of both, to have massive days. Shout to DoorDash. You can get a sweatsuit and get your local favorite food. You can do basically anything you need. DoorDash is your assistant.

Isn't that correct, Dibald? Absolutely. Every day, every morning, I use them. Yeah, and if you need a Nike tech maybe because you forget that your entire pre-playoff routine as to wear a Nike tech with sunglasses and headphones. DoorDash got your back. Yeah, get them if you can. Get them

all they're hot. I've had this for years. So anybody who wants one, you should try and go get them because they are sold out basically everywhere. Save up $250 bucks this season whenever you order on game days. Win every week with DoorDash streak. Shout to DoorDash. Honestly, I almost put a tweet out but I didn't want people to call me a corporate show this weekend

because I ordered baby girl some food. I ordered her a snack. I ordered the dog, a toy, all from different places. And then my wife ordered something and fucking Boris had 13,000 deliveries and we had five different deliveries happening at the same time. And they all got there

like 25, 30 minutes and just like kind of answered a problem that we had in so many different places. And I almost put a tweet out that I was like, fucking congrass the DoorDash. Like, honestly. Way to go. And thank you for what you've added to our lives. Some of the fees get a little bit absurd. And, you know, the standard due express thing we needed to lock in on. But the

drivers who have 13,000, 14,000. I think Nick had a guy who had 19,000 maybe, I forget the other. 19,000. Hey, we appreciate your services for what you guys are doing. Honestly, Thorndash. DoorDash is a brilliant concept, brilliant concept, especially with the whole COVID time. We're not allowed to leave our house. So don't worry, we'll bring it to you. And I don't know how this didn't happen earlier. You know, we had pizza delivery for so long. How did not everybody think that that was the right move for literally everything? And then DoorDash came in. It was like, we got you. We got you. We got you. We got you for everything. this time of year, like once I get home

after work, I ain't leaving. So anything I need is probably get DoorDash. Shout to DoorDash. We appreciate you, DoorDash. I love you, DoorDash. This multiple seasons on with DoorDash. I think it's like three of them and we appreciate the hell out of them in. To be honest, they'll never be able to pay for this particular show enough to get the money back

for us that we have spent on them. This gate right here has a camera on it's strictly for DoorDash delivery drivers. I mean, we have a DoorDash cam that we set up for this entire. I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm saying, it's great. It's a necessity. Yeah.

DoorDash. Yeah. A necessity. Bingo. Who do you like? I do wonder the premium we've got a food. Yeah. I took Patriots here.

What'd you say? I do wonder the premium we play with Pato food, not just here, but just home everywhere, like all time. If you looked at that. I don't want to. That Excel spreadsheet. I don't want to. Scary. Listen, we don't need any P&Ls on the Dordash.

It would be ugly. we don't need any of that because I know the ROI is happiness and convenience and time it's saved in your life think about that then if you're a happy person do you do better work yep you know

how do you kind of equate that entire thing because I'm really fucking happy when P.F. Chang shows up and I don't have to drive I'll have to drive 20 minutes to it I get really pumped up when there's some Chang's chicken okay and there's some shrimp fry rice right there egg roll two fortune cookies so I can kind of

make the decision so I feel like the universe is kind of taking me one way or the other? Because if it takes me to the right one, then I know what it says inside is a big deal. And I crack that fucker open. And boy, I'm putting that right in the pocket. And guess what? That's living there until that thing gets washed. Who knows when that's going to be jeans? You know, it might be this week, might be next week. Hell, that thing might be carrying me forever.

Now, I'd do it a little bit differently than people from Michigan. I don't know if you know about this. I don't think any of yours have came true from what it sounds like. Yeah. I think we can look around and see if that's real or not. But for you, the people from Michigan, they actually open the fortune cookies. shout to whichever fortune company

restaurant you order from for DoorDash. They open it, they read it, and if they like it, they eat it so it actually becomes a part of them like the boys did with the Rose Bowl. Yes, and then it comes true. Foxy does that. I can see eating grass. That makes it. Granddad.

Natural. That's what we're going to end up. Eat paper? Yeah, we're at the airport. We stopped by Panda, I think. Yeah. What's it called? Pan Express.

Pan Express. Panda Express. I was called it a Red Pan. Obviously, it's not. There's one rip in. You know, that entire thing. Exactly. But I'm sitting next to this fucking psycho.

We're eating in the airport. Pretty tired, I assume, at this time. And he cracks that thing open, reads it, and goes, hmm. And fucking just pops that thing right in his mouth. I go, what the fuck is that? Because I like that one. I don't know. I want to come true.

So I ate it. So it comes true. And boy, I don't know, maybe the next three weeks, it was all I could really talk about with Foxy. Yeah, and then you eat the cookie with it, wash it down, makes it easier to eat, and it comes true. so that's you got to be very select because you don't want to eat that much paper and then it all comes true this dude's pickled back in a fucking fortune out of a fortune cool yeah yeah and that's what michigan needs one for a new oc yeah i probably should order chinese it's good idea you should with your friends with our friends at door dash a necessity all right i picked

the patriots as well let's go to the monday night oh we'll pick it on monday yep all right No. Good show today. Good show. Your show, boys. Great show, boys. Great show. Great week.

See you soon. Hello. A week. Washed a hand. Yeah, I'm not a fucking animal, AJ. I'm shaking here. I'm shaking here. Oh.

Thank you, AJ. There is. You want to shake hands? Thank you. Stealing all of them. I like stealing a good. I'll tell you what. That's a good move.

Just for you to take amongst your friends. Fist bump. two of your friends are by the fist bump, slide your hand right in the middle and just say, stole that shit and just keep walking. It's a good reaction every single time. Nobody expects it. I mean, it is something that is very unexpected.

Just two guys, or ladies, I don't know how much fist bumpings happening in the ladies' groups, but if you go for a fist bump, just go ahead and slide your hand in there, and then on on either side. Got you good fuckers. I'll walk away. It's a fun little game.

You were trying to do that with air fucking handshakes. Hit an air high five. Let's see. Saw that coming. Nice. I know you could get two glasses on. I just realized that you had two glasses on. It feels like this isn't what you always do for playoffs.

Yeah, well, first year with glasses. You know, typically, you know. Kind of have to deal with that with all the glasses. I got like 50 pairs of sunglasses. Those don't work anymore. Just got to get the readers in there. Yeah. Bingo. I got them.

Hey, tell you, once you come out of hammer? Don, done. Let's get out of here. We'll see you tomorrow night on ESPN, too. Game day also tomorrow. I think a tone will know better because he got the run down. It's 6 o'clock. What time?

Six Eastern. Six Eastern to 7.30. Got it. Hour and a half college game day to kick off the Fiesta Bowl. AJ, I'll let you know. Fiesta Bowl? I don't know that's like kind of your bowl game. I played it three times.

Yeah. Debo, he didn't just win it all three times. One of them being a national championship. Yeah, we talked about that. It's true freshman year. You know, he downplays. It didn't play that much. But I did not know the other two times he played in.

He was the defensive MVP of the Fiesta Bowl. 2004 and 2006. Fucking MVP of the Fiesta Bowl. Three-time Fiesta Bowl champion. We had no idea that was the case. We need to be celebrating you. Is the Fiesta Bowl having a fucking parade for you whenever you come back for this field pass tomorrow? What's going on, honestly?

Are you the greatest Fiesta Bowl player? It is the Lombardi Award, so he's won multiple Lombardies. Yeah, a career played for the Ohio State winning Lombardi Award. and earning in America. 12 tackles, 3 and a half TFLs and two sacks

against Nord Dame. Brady Quinn. Yeah. Split jersey? Jersey. Jersey was split. I was split. And he was trying to

split his homie. Yeah. He was trying to split his homie. AJ, we had no idea. You're one of the greatest Fiesta Bowl players in the history.

I happen to be on the Feistible team as well because I murdered puns. I mean, murdered puns. I think I had some like 69 yards. I forget what it was.

Six, six yards. Longest Ponce Pistible history. Boom. And Fiesta Bowl, people tell me that. Now, do they tell me that strictly because the position that we're currently in? Yes. So I do feel like all these things are kind of outrageous.

But we had a lot of success at the Fiesta Bowl, loved the Fiesta Bowl, and felt like a big game whenever we were out at the Fiesta Bowl. I thought it was a great host. I thought it was incredible. I had no idea you were actually the best player in the history of the Fiesta Bowl. We should have been talking about that a little bit more, I think. So can't wait to get back to your bowl game tomorrow night as we watch Miami and Ole Miss play, AJ. I had a great time out there every year I was there.

That was old school ASU stadium, like carved into the mountain. That place was, that was a special spot. Okay, so we didn't play there. I don't think that's where we played. We played at the University of Phoenix. I think we played at the University of Phoenix. Yeah, I might have been the last time they played it. My senior year might have been the last time they played it there.

I don't know. Look at this guy right above me right here. He's so fucking pumped that you're in Ohio State Bucke. I fucking love this guy. How could you not? Defensive MVP, two times. Centerville Oak. Jacket.

Remember that jacket he had at Rose Bowl? The real, we need to real, yeah, with the patch. Yeah, we're expecting something, Fiesta Bowl. This guy's the greatest ever play. And we'll be honored to be back there. I hope you guys will join us on ESPN2. We're so incredibly lucky that we get to do all of this, and you're the only reason why it happens.

So thank you. Boys in a back, great work this week. GDB's hilarious work this week. Hilarious work. Well said. Mitt is running four miles at seven-minute miles pace on this treadmill after one. work and it's loud yeah he's pounding that fucking treadmill certainly don't worry about it

we don't have anything going on over here for the go to the business oh boom boom boom boom and he comes walking over I go what so so what did you do over there man you know it's four miles I go you're really getting after he seven minute of miles I'm like that's fucking good pace that's really running I'm good after a little bit I'm rolling a little bit it's like yeah I hear you. And I'm like, okay, you can do this breathing somewhere else, but I am very proud of you. Mitt, we're proud of you, Mitt. Hey, Matt, we're proud of you. Oh, yeah, Mitt. Mitt. Mitt's taken care of him. He really is.

Zito, good work. Congrats to your Chicago Bears. And to everybody that watches, way to battle through another three days of our show. You know, it feels like we really gave some shit this week. We'll be back again next week with some more. Be your friend, tell our friends. I'm nice. It might change their life. We're in this thing together. Hey, Koush, anything on the way out?

The best weekend we've been waiting for. We've got football and big time football. Now the playoffs are here in the NFL. Let's fucking go. That's right. Mike Easton. Hell yeah. Team on me, team on three.

One, two, three. Team. Goodbye.