The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 301 - Thanksgiving Day Games, Mike Alstott, Tom Pelissero, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: November 26, 2020

On today's show, Pat and the boys preview the Thanksgiving Day games, react to the news that the Ravens v. Steelers game has been canceled due to a Covid outbreak in Baltimore, and Pat and AJ Hawk dive into some questions from other sports shows and give their takes about everything going on around the NFL. Later, NFL Network Insider, and friend of the program, Tom Pelissero joins Pat and AJ Hawk to chat about the decision to cancel the Ravens/Steelers game, if an NFL week 18 is inevitable at this point, teams jumping into more intensive protocols now that the playoffs are in sight, and everything else happening around the NFL (33:44-54:59). Next, Super Bowl Champion, 6x Pro Bowler, 4x All-Pro, member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Ring of Honor, one of the most physical running backs of all-time, Mike Alstott joins the show. Pat and Mike chat about his career and his mentality going into every game, if he thinks he'd be successful in today's NFL, his focus now being a high school football coach in Florida and how that has filled his football void since retiring, what his workouts were like in high school, college, and the NFL, and much much more (55:01-1:17:35). Make sure you subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow and listen every day on Mad Dog Radio, Sirius XM Channel 82. We appreciate you all for listening, come and laugh with us, cheers.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

hello it is wednesday november 25th it is a thankful wednesday isn't it it's a big time thankful wednesday hey it is a big time thankful wednesday we will not be having a show tomorrow uh i'm not 100 sure if we'll have a show on friday or not probably not if i had to guess so this is the last one for the week we want to tell you we thank you so much for listening to this show we are very thankful for you our shows aren't always a banger, but the fact that you guys ride or die with us with Pat McAfee show 2.0, we are forever thankful. So know that that's what we're thankful for. The fact that you choose to allow us to penetrate your ear holes.

Today's show is a good one. Mike Allstott, Tom Pellisaro, AJ Hawk, the boys. We can't thank you enough. Let's get to it. By the end of this thing,

if you like this show, please be a friend and tell a friend. And if you don't just act like it never enough. Let's get to it. By the end of this thing, if you like this show, please be a friend and tell a friend. And if you don't, just act like it never happened. Let's get to it. Very thankful Wednesday. Obviously, Thanksgiving's tomorrow, and there's a lot of games to talk about. There's some COVID situations happening both in the NFL and in college football. There's a lot of life things happening, and we have a massive show for you today.

Joining us in about one hour, football player Mike Allstott. We spent 20 or 30 minutes this morning watching old Mike Allstott, highlights and interviews with him. I cannot wait to chat with this man. They called him the A-Train when he got to rock back in the day. He was a mixture of Derrick Henry meets Owen Schmidt, for those that got a chance to watch West Virginia football back in the day. He was a bruiser.

If you never watched him play, please go do that. He talks about his high-top cleats that he wore that resembled combat boots because that's what he probably was. He had a neck roll, big pads on, and he just loved the game of football. And when you watch him play, you'll be like, damn, that coach's son, that guy with high energy, that guy with a high motor, I mean, first one in, last one out, lunch pail type of guy, that is the prototypical guy of old school football.

It was just run the ball over people's faces, and then every once in a while he'd have a jump cut that would just explode onto the scene and made no sense. If social media was around when the A-Train was playing football, this guy would have 10 billion followers because the highlights that he made week in and week out that we watched. Super Bowl champion, obviously. They won by 28 points or something in the Super Bowl over the Raiders

when John Gruden was their coach down in Tampa. He was the face of the Buccaneers for a long time. In one interview, he said, what we did good was the run game, so we had to do that. It was like, listen, I know you're saying what other people say about your team, but what they're saying is, you're

the good part of the team. Mike Alstott was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers there for a while. Now, granted came into that backfield Lorenzo Neal legendary fullback pro bowl fullback he was a fullback for Mike Allstott at one point I mean that backfield that Tony Dungy and John Gruden had back there was just hilarious awesome and we get a chance to chat with a guy whose name will forever be synonymous with football because he basically was football. The A-Train Mike Allstott out of Purdue University, by the way. Native of Chicago.

But Tampa Bay Buccaneer legend. He'll join us in about an hour. And Tom Pellisaro from the NFL Network will join us in the third hour alongside A.J. Hawk on this thankful Wednesday. We would like your phone calls as well. 1-888- MADDOG6. Can't wait to chat with you on this SiriusXM Channel 82 Mad Dog Sports Radio

Thankful Wednesday. At Tone Diggs, how you doing, pal? Big Thanksgiving coming up. We will be off tomorrow, by the way, for Thanksgiving. I will be on Friday, but a lot of the boys are traveling, so who knows how that show will be going. Probably not a lot of people listening or watching, but wanting to save vacation days, to be clear.

So doing the show on Friday. We'll probably take a lot of phone calls, a lot of phone calls on Friday. We'll probably be reacting to the Thanksgiving games, having a good old time. Can't wait for that, but we're off tomorrow. Big Thanksgiving for you, Tone. I'm excited for you to go spend some time with the new wife,

by the way, first time at Thanksgiving with a wife. Yeah, first Thanksgiving. The in-laws, like the actual in-laws, like everything like that. This is a big deal. Yeah, it'll all be the same. I mean, we're drinking. We're watching football for the next four or five days. Five days.

It's awesome. I feel like you got a tweet earlier this morning, somebody asking you at what – no, it was on the pod yesterday. Oh, yeah. What time do you begin boozing and vitamins? And, Diggs, I'm going to be honest. When I heard your answer, I immediately was like pod yesterday. Oh, yeah. What time do you begin boozing and vitamins and digs? I'm going to be honest. When I heard your answer, I immediately was a little bit worried about you.

A little bit worried about you. But I feel like your mindset is one that captivates a lot of different people. Well, Thanksgiving is a top five drinking holiday. And people forget about that. But, yeah, the in-laws, they will also indulge with me in that. Yeah. I think you said as soon as you wake up, I believe. Yeah.

Around 11. No, he wakes up real early. I do. Around 11. You've got to remember, Thanksgiving is a big drinking holiday, mostly because the night before Thanksgiving is the second largest drinking night of the year, right behind New Year's Eve. But a lot of states have said, no, no, no.

Not this year. You think you're doing that whole night before Thanksgiving? We're back from college. Let's go ahead and black out at the local bar that we could never really get into because our fake IDs weren't good enough until we got to college. Think again. You've been at home for college anyway, and you will remain home for the Wednesday night. Pennsylvania stopped selling beer or stopped selling any alcohol yesterday or today at 5. Today at 5.

Today at 5. Nobody's allowed to sell alcohol until tomorrow at noon or something like that. Or Friday at noon or something like that. So right now, all the liquor stores and state stores in Pennsylvania is what they're called. That's the only place you can get beer. Everywhere else in America, basically, you can get beer and things everywhere else, basically. But not in Pennsylvania. You have to go to a state store because they have taxes on it so big.

And I wonder if they had an over... They need money quick. All right. What are we going to go to a state store because they have taxes on it so big. And I wonder if they had like a, like they need, they had an over, they need money quick. All right, what are we going to do to get money quick? Well, what we need to do

is just shut off the fucking alcohol sales right before Thanksgiving at five o'clock on Wednesday. Do you know how, we'll sell everything. That makes sense. The state is, this is a little,

this is a big Wednesday or big sale Wednesday for the state. That's why they shut down the night or everything like that. But I think that is one of the main reasons why Thanksgiving is such a drinking holiday is because the night before, in a lot of states, they don't get to celebrate that. A holiday was taken away.

Well, most people have to drink to be with their family, too. So that's partially. Yeah, a lot of big conversations coming up. By the way, if you're doing Thanksgiving, though, a lot of people are saying you better start planning some funerals, too, I thought. Oh, yeah, you're not allowed. A news person told me that straight face, too. And I was like, oh, my God, for real? Be careful. Really? Jesus thought oh yeah you're not allowed a news person told me that straight face too and i was like oh my god for real all right careful really jesus yeah you're

not allowed on the news it said if you're doing thanksgiving with your family and it's like i i forget how many people if you're doing thanksgiving with your family while you're there you guys should start planning funerals a news person said that news a news person said that i was watching at home and i just like looked over at my wife i was like holy fuck who's playing in the funeral is it me or break out the casket uh magazines i mean it was uh yeah so i guess everybody's supposed to have very small gatherings yeah right thanksgiving big family holiday small gatherings okay hope you're safe digs by the way not not just from the vid by the way i think potentially also the the blackout that you're going to have by noon. Your original answer.

Yeah. Professional. Steelers-Ravens game. Yeah, I mean, I'll be fine for that. Absolutely. Take a nap. Maybe do a two-a-day. Make it a three-a-day.

Hung over for it. Yeah, why not go for it? Ravens are down more players than anything. And I guess the conversation has started that should they postpone the game? Whoa. Should they postpone the game whoa should they postpone this game because the Ravens who are supposed to play on tomorrow who are supposed to travel today to Pittsburgh should they postpone the game because more positive tests are rolling out they don't

know who all has it and who doesn't uh they're also contemplating traveling tomorrow like what the Patriots had to do whenever they went and played the Chiefs earlier in the season because of the outbreak that the Patriots had I mean whenever they went and played the Chiefs earlier in the season because of the outbreak that the Patriots had. I mean, there's a lot of question marks around that Steelers-Ravens game, and you're probably going to be, I don't know, I would assume 10, 11 drinks deep at that point? No, I mean, I'll be fine. I mean, I'll always be comprehensive in there for the Steelers game.

You just have to wear your shirt. Yeah, I have it. Moving that game is ridiculous. I mean, the 49ers didn't have a player on their offense who touched the ball just a year before in the Super Bowl, and they didn't move that game. But we're thinking about moving this game, a Thursday night primetime game.

What are we doing? It doesn't sound like you're just saying this strictly because... Well, you already fucked the Steelers once because they didn't have a bye week because the Titans couldn't control their goddamn locker room. So you want to fuck them again? That is interesting. This would be a tough go for the Steelers

because this game probably moves to, what, Sunday then? So they just have a regular full week as opposed to, by the way, the potential bye week weekend that they had on the other side of this. No more Steelers. You thought you had a bye earlier? No, no, no. No, no, no.

You thought you had like a four-day week? No, no, no. This is going into the weekend. I assume that is definitely on the table and they would probably just change the timing that is definitely on the table and they would probably just change the timing of the games i would assume they would bump them either all back or separate them a little bit more if i had to i mean it takes all of us and if the ravens don't realize that then that's our fault i wonder what happened over there you know they lose an overtime

with the titans and then the next day both running backs have it okay so let's assume those two are with somebody oh yeah and then immediately isn't the contact tracing supposed to do something right? And then they were like, there's no contact tracing now. It's very interesting how this is all working out because some facilities, just a few weeks ago, if somebody got tested positive and they were out of the building, they just tell them, stay home, lock them down. They would clean sweep the entire facility,

and everybody would go to work the next day. The Browns found out they had somebody positive, and they're working from home today. So it's like kind of the beginning of the year whenever they heard that somebody tested positive in the nfl nobody would go to the facility let's shut it down who knows what's going to happen then as the nfl had more and more cases kind of pop up and they figure out that they were able to neutralize them just by keeping the at-risk party at home and everybody else can kind of still work so we're not going to shut down the facility we're still

going to do our thing and now the Browns are going back. I wonder if there was, did we learn that the way of sending people, keeping people at home and just going about your workday was failing? I wonder what the information that they're hearing and why people are doing what they're doing. I assume the staying at home part now is part of like the, now that they've doubled down on the more intensive protocols, like that may be part of it.

Oh yeah, I forgot that they do. Hey, listen, we're going to get to the fucking playoffs. Oh yeah. All right forgot that they do it. Hey, listen, we're going to get to the fucking playoffs. Oh, yeah. All right? We don't care. We threw you out there whenever you didn't practice for a whole week. We do not care. No, man.

Okay? We can't do the bubble. I understand because there's fucking too many people. It has to be too big. We'd have to build our own city. Maybe Bezzo should have done that. We should have thought about that. We could have done that.

We can't do the bubble, but you know what we can do? These protocols that we're about to rack up, it basically a bubble and guys are still getting it and i'll be intrigued to see if guys go the opposite direction on these protocols you know it's it's almost i don't want to say that all nfl players have like a maverick gene or like a rebel gene but i feel like if you tell people they're not allowed to do certain things and the grasp gets tighter and tighter on people, as the goal diminishes because their team is starting to stink, if there has no chance at the playoffs, I'll be intrigued to see how that gets handled.

Because you would think, hey, you're in the NFL. You get to play in the NFL. That's right. Privilege. Especially now in the world, you're in the NFL, you get to play in the NFL. That's right. Privilege. Especially now, in the world that we're in, you have no right to be pissed off about the world that you're living in because the world that we're all living in, you have to figure that out. But then you can also say, like, oh, it's a fucking human, you know,

and if you're being told that you have to do all this to get this, and this is no longer possible, okay, so how do – you just got to expect that a human's going to do that. But you would hope Takes all of us You get paid money This is your job now You think you got paid for practice You don't get paid for practicing

You get paid to isolate Be hard to be a human though Especially when you're 0-11 0-11 Maybe 2-3 5-0 though very hard to be especially when you're 0 and 11 yeah yeah 0 and 11 maybe 2 and whatever 3 and whatever 5 and whatever and you know you have no chance unless you're in the nfc east you're like okay yeah i'll just you know what i'll do i'll come here hate my life here not allowed to talk to eat or with anybody talk to anybody then i'll go home and i'll just lock myself in

my room and i'll hate myself here i got it okay we'll do this for the next five weeks and what we're saying is that's what you gotta do gotta do. Got to do it. God, it sounds terrible. For the Shields. At Boston Connor, at Ty Schmidt, thankful Wednesday. You guys were very, very, very serious about getting a thank you in as a group, I believe, as a pair. Would you guys like to take it from here?

Yeah, we just wanted to give a special thank you on thank you Wednesdaynesday to um take love you takers done a lot for all of us i think we can we can all agree on that and you know everyone was getting their opportunity i wanted to make sure we wanted to make sure that we got our chance too so thank you thank you, Ty. Thank you, Ty. For those that don't know, that is Undertaker. And they celebrated 30 years of Undertaker at Survivor Series on Sunday. What a run. They had it in three decades. Wow.

Three decades. Thank you, Ty. Thank you, Ty. The hashtag was thank you, Taker. And, boy, some of those messages saying thanks to Undertaker were very interesting. I don't think any of us could have expected Undertaker to have that type of reach and that type of appeal. But he was trending for, I think, 48 hours. Some of them were giving him credit for their children.

Yep. Oh, yeah. Their entire life. It's like, yo, Undertaker was awesome. Yeah, he was. I agree. But, boy, he affected some people much more than others. And we saw a lot of that on Twitter. Undertaker was awesome. I agree, but boy, he affected some people much more than others.

We saw a lot of that on Twitter. You two just couldn't help but really just go ahead and put a megaphone on that. He's been a father figure for so many that if we didn't shine a spotlight on Tiger, then what would we be doing as a society if we're not thanking those people? Who, these guys? It's not ready. It's not ready yet. It's thankful Wednesday. It's kind of just like a chorus. I mean, it's just something like,

Thank you, take this, you take what? You know, you just... Love, you take these, you take what? You know it's soft. You get it. They're going to keep going back. They are going to be chanting that At Mania this year

Need you take love You take one That's what everybody knows That one was That one was for us That whole last five minutes Was was strictly for the office. And Taker. And Taker.

And Taker. Okay? Let's not forget those 30 years. Legit, man. I was reading some things on Twitter about what Taker did for people. Long time. Man. That was crazy.

Yeah, it really was. Undertaker might be the most impactful human to ever exist. Yes. He baptized a child. I saw. crazy. Yeah, it really was. Undertaker might be the most impactful human to ever exist. He baptized a child. Take the Pope more like it. By the way, thank you, Taker. Thank you, Taker. What is your poll for the day?

We have a Thanksgiving poll today. What's your favorite side for Thanksgiving? We threw three out there right now. Mac and cheese is the last. 25.1. A lot of people say it does not go with Thanksgiving, today. What's your favorite side for Thanksgiving? We threw three out there right now. Mac and cheese is the last. 25.1. A lot of people say it does not go with Thanksgiving though. Very shocking in the comments. Well, that's interesting because we only put it in there because Russell Wilson

has a cooking with Russ segment now on his Instagram where he had a top chef teach him and his chef how to make good macaroni and cheese. It was a very delicious looking meal and make good macaroni and cheese it was a very delicious looking meal and he said macaroni cheese great side so that's why it made it on yeah because i was really confused by that russell wilson i thought he's a liar he just said yesterday if he had his choice he would only have mac and cheese i love mac and cheese and i would assume that the

the people who eat mac and cheese like they'll, they'll bring out any reason to eat mac and cheese. Like, my wife loves mac and cheese. And that thing, it goes with a lot of things I would never have expected. But I have seen mac and cheese at plenty of Thanksgiving. Yeah, I just don't think it's one of the upper tier items, really. Really? I'd finish your last two. Stuffings next at 36.5%.

And mashed potatoes, 38.2%. Mashed potatoes people are all, you know, they just do exactly what they're told. Correct. Mashed potatoes? That's part of Thanksgiving. They're like, turkey and mashed potatoes. Let's have a great Thanksgiving.

Okay, we get it. But we've experienced it now. Stuffing is 10 to 15 times better than mashed potatoes. I've never soft breaded celery. I just want to, what mashed potatoes. I've never agreed with you more. I just want to, what's that? I've never agreed with you more. We understand that mashed potatoes were a staple of a lot of things for a long time. Put them in a bowl and fuck.

Yeah, we get easy to make. This is before we had taste buds and stuff like that. I understand that mashed taters are important in the fabric of families in existence. Okay, I get it. But you cannot look that deep fried fucking turkey in the eye and say, hey, these taters taste better with you than that fucking stuffing right there that came right out of the inside of you right there. I mean, you got to be shitting me right now.

It feels like we're forgetting the mash. Now we're going to have to start a, thank you mash, as well. Because mash are basically the taker of the Thanksgiving dinner. That's not true. It's been a long, it's been a lot longer than 30 years, pal.

Okay, Bruno San Martino is the mashed potatoes. Okay, that is the mashed potatoes. The man that was the champion for like 20 years straight. That is what mashed potatoes was. Bruno San Martino, the way great pittsburgh guy great italian guy badass sold out madison square garden all the way up into canada okay i love bruno san martino what i'm saying is i think things have evolved you know i think things have evolved now you can't see particular wrestlers that are at the top of the world you know i mean there's things that have evolved that's what mashed potatoes is There's things that have evolved.

That's what mashed potatoes is. It's the staple. Okay. It held it down. It was great. All right. Have it on the side. Needs so much salt to make it taste worth a single fuck at all.

But I put it on the side. It's the damn glue of the entire meal. You just disparaging it. Yeah. Glue. Why? The stuffing is inside the fucking turkey. That's true. The glue. The glue. Yeah. The gravy is the glue fucking turkey. That's true. The glue.

The glue. Yeah. The gravy is the glue that brings it all together. Now, granted, gravy on taters, mashed potatoes, really good. You know why? Because the gravy is fucking unbelievable. And by the way, the gravy, I would say, was potentially the next step after the mashed potatoes because everybody got so sick of it.

They're like, can we add some flavor to this fucking thing? We're just, let's add some flavor to this fucking thing? Let's add some gravy. Now the gravy becomes big Thanksgiving. I put butter and corn and gravy on top of my mashed potatoes because they're just not good enough by themselves. Damn you. They do need a lot of salt and pepper. Well, that's because they stink.

You guys have to get a new potato chef. I'll tell you that much. If you go like deep double fried or something, double baked, twice baked, triple baked those are good listen i'm not saying all potatoes are bad sounds like it sounds like it bashing the only good thing that came out of ireland here we go i would rattle off all the things that ireland created that are awesome okay right now would, but we don't have enough time, and I don't want you to distract the conversation

because that's what somebody does whenever they're losing the conversation, and I don't have time for that. What I'm saying is if you think about all the things, we ran those motherfuckers out of there. Shout out to St. Patrick's Day, March 17th. You're welcome, everybody. Not a celebrity, Nick. Let's talk about the things that potatoes have done well.

That double-baked one? Good. I think baked potato with all the shit in it. Not alone. Can't eat it alone. Because if you eat it alone, guess what? Mashed potatoes. So you put all the shit in there, it is good. I think tater tots. Unbelievable. I'm a big

tater tot fan. Absolutely big tater tot. French fry fan. Big fan. Except for the steak fries. You know why? Steak fries got mashed potatoes inside of them. They're the worst fucking fries. This gets me right back to the point that the people that are voting for mashed potatoes, the number one side, are just told that they're supposed to vote that their

entire life. And I'd like them to potentially open their horizons in their taste buds. We're tied. We're tied? We're tied now. See, this is a good campaign we're going over. 37.7%. Your guys' little boring-ass, terrible-tasting thing is crashing right now. Water will find its level.

Mash will win this poll. There's no doubt about it. Listen, I like stuffing too, but you acting like it's some flavorful burst in your mouth. It's just soft bread and celery. Well, you're not having the right stuffing, dude. Stove top, bro? No, hell no. Have a nice Italian stuff. You throw

a little prosciutto in there. Are you kidding me? I didn't even know that existed. It makes it homemade. Relax. That guy's number one potato product is potato skin, so he needs to step himself out of the conversation. Oh, shit! Potato skins are very good. TGI Friday potato skins, you don't get any better than that. What's that? Baked potato that's fried, shit. That's pretty good. Potato skates are very good. TGI fried potato skates, you don't get any better than that.

What's that? Baked potato that's fried, though. That's all that is, right? Just kind of cut in a quarter. Basically. With all the loading. Yeah, it's got cheese and bacon on it and some chops. Now, there's no chance I'm going with that over a tater tot if a tater tot is available.

And there's loaded tots in certain places. You can't get that for delivery, though, because then, you know, the loadedness kind of ruins the tots or whatever. Soggy. But, boy, if you can get the tots, you get the tots. Hey. And shout out to Napoleon Dynamite, too, just basically making an entire movie off that goddamn thing. And you know why? Like, the TGI Fridays, Potato Skin the Best, it has the least amount of potato.

So it's the least amount of mashed potato. Potato Skin. What we're saying is the best potato products have the least amount of potential mashed potato involved with it. Okay? That's all we're saying. So whenever you're voting on this poll, at Viva Lazzito's poll, we're telling you to please take it serious. Because you want all that way to make sure you were registered to vote. And then you vote on his poll.

Your vote matters. Your vote counts. Your vote says something about you. This election is a fraud. I mean, the Italian vote is going to completely take over here, and it's not even going to be a real election. I don't have anything to do with it. Yes, they hate mashed potatoes.

Diggs is blacked out putting corn on his mashed potatoes. I will say, Diggs, the thing that did affect our argument about the stuffing over the mashed potatoes is that just moments before that, we talked about how you're normally blacked out while eating a Thanksgiving dinner. So everything kind of tastes bad. I'm also a fan of starting Thanksgiving dinner at noon. So not blacked out. Kind of right and perfect. You're right. You're right.

You're right. So everybody that was thinking that, get off it. How about that? Yeah, because I heard you just mentioned something, I think, about him not even remembering eating Thanksgiving dinner or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, it can't happen. He eats at noon, dude.

He eats at noon. Second wind. By the way, Diggs, happy Thanksgiving, man. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. Hey, let's enjoy this stuffing. Let's enjoy it. You know, I've been on keto for like a month or whatever.

Tomorrow. See ya. It's a stuffing day, dude. Now, granted, maybe mashed potatoes too because a lot of carbs in those. Somehow they have a lot of carbs and no flavor. Usually the carbs bring the flavor. You know what I mean? That's why the keto diet is so difficult because most of the stuff, if you're not eating meat, there's really nothing with flavor because the carbs bring flavor. You know what I mean? That's why a keto diet is so difficult because most of the stuff, if you're not eating meat,

there's really nothing with flavor because the carbs bring flavor, but potatoes are like, wait a fucking minute. I can do that for you. And it just comes in with the mashed potatoes. You ever seen The Martian? The guy that put Vicodin on his potatoes to make it tolerable. Yeah, and that's out of this world, dude. He was living alone. That's out of this world. That's when he was

dead. He was damn near dead, that guy. Eat what you want. Just make sure before you sink your teeth into whatever you want, you take, take, for what he's done in these past 30 years. Eric Ebron and Devlin Hodges, Doc Hodges, just both tweeted that this is bullshit. Oh, so the game's getting moved. All right, so right here?

Yep. It is currently 1248 Eastern Standard Time on this thankful Wednesday, November 25, 2020. Tomorrow's Thanksgiving. We hope you have a great holiday, and we hope you do it in an incredibly safe fashion. When you eat the turkey, go ahead and grab that stuffing before anything else because it's better than every other option on the table. Don't even think about mashed potatoes because mashed potatoes aren't good unless you put everything that's good on top of it. The mashed potatoes were good about a hundred years ago. They have evolved. We are appreciative

of them. But if you grab the mashed potatoes before the stuffing, you are a stooge. Now, while you're eating that food, or maybe you're potentially in a coma coming out of eating that food from earlier in the day, a game that was supposed to be played is the Baltimore Ravens versus the Pittsburgh Steelers. That game is happening in Pittsburgh. That is an AFC North matchup where people battle each other, and it is very, very ground-and-pound tough football game. Pittsburgh Steelers undefeated coming into this game.

Earlier in the year, they were forced to take an early bye week whenever COVID hit the Tennessee Titans. Now, on this Thursday night game, Thanksgiving game, with a hot Steelers team, the Baltimore Ravens have at least five players that have tested positive for COVID. Two players from the Pittsburgh Steelers named Duck Hodges, who is most famous for registering people to vote, and Eric Ebron, who's a tight end for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Both have tweeted that this is bullshit. There has been rumors that the game is potentially going to be postponed because of the COVID outbreak in the Baltimore Ravens facility. Will it get moved to Sunday? Will it get moved to Monday, Tuesday? Will they have a

week 18? Will they do other things? There's a lot of potential outcomes here and we will continue to update as the news comes in. And we must add in that we are only saying that this game is potentially postponed because two members of a team that would be potentially getting fucked here have tweeted that this is bullshit. Wow. This is wild.

These motherfuckers. Damn, 18 playoff on both sides. It's going to happen. Yeah. I mean, you're still not in, so don't fucking lie. No, but it's not about that. Steelers aren't going to get a bye now. You heard the New England Patriots fan

in the middle of that starts celebrating and pumping his hand, celebrating. That's because the NFL has had a conversation that if a week 18 is needed, they will also add a one other team in each conference into the playoffs, making it a 16 team playoff, eight per each side. This year, they upped it from six to seven. Now they're going from seven to eight because of the potential postponements and games having to matter at the end of the season. The Pittsburgh Steelers now, even if they were to go undefeated, would not have a bye week after it, or they would have a home playoff game

after having their bye week in week four of this season. All odds are stacked against the Pittsburgh Steelers, and things are only getting worse if this game is officially postponed off of Thanksgiving. Okay, so we have breaking news now. Diana Rossini, she announced a Titans postponement, I do believe. She was of ESPN, at Diana ESPN. The Steelers and Ravens game, which was scheduled for Thanksgiving night, has been moved to Sunday per source.

So, this is bullshit, says Duck Hodges and Eric Ebron. Pittsburgh Steelers fan at Tony Meatball digs over there. He's not happy about it. Now there's a potential week 18, which was a week that the NFL had considered adding in there in case there was no other games to be able to be moved or be not. They're doing this on Sunday. Okay, here we go.

Week 18, not alive yet. Not alive yet. Cleveland Browns had a positive this morning, though. Maybe there will be a—oh, no. Buckle up. This season is going to get very, very good. Confirming previous reports, Ian Rapappaport at Rap Sheet, the Ravens-Steelers game previously set for Thursday night

is being postponed to Sunday afternoon, the first in several weeks. Here we go, dude. This is fucking John Harbaugh, that piece of shit, dude. Really? Yeah. I mean, he cries about Vrabel. He cries about fucking everything. Not too bad for a running back.

We have running back quarterback stinks. That's why they moved the game. They had to give him a couple extra days to try to make this a fucking competitive advantage game. Wow. Tony. That's over. Tony. I'm with Tony.

Put in the alternate line. Lock in the Steelers at whatever it's at right now. They're taking the Ravens out back on Sunday. No. I would like to let you know, though, that we thought this was potentially going to happen to the Tennessee Titans. They couldn't practice. The Las Vegas Raiders, they couldn't practice. They come out and play good football, by the way.

Ravens won't be able to practice all week, no matter who's in or who's out. All five players probably not going to be able to. And I assume there's going to be more. So they won't be able to practice going into Sunday. The only thing that sucks is the Pittsburgh Steelers now, not only did they be forced into a bye week that they didn't know was a bye week until Friday of the bye week, okay, early because of Tennessee Titans week four. Now they've – Monday – they didn't even have a Tuesday off this week.

No. Very interesting. Everyone else in the league gets COVID. We're not postponing the game. We'll do everything we can to keep playing the game. Now all of a sudden we've got to move games around. It's bullshit. Steelers fans are not happy. That is do everything we can to keep playing the game. Now all of a sudden we've got to move games around. It's bullshit. Steelers fans are not happy.

That is wild. This game is getting moved again too. It's getting moved again. Monday or Tuesday. And then the Steelers are going to have to play a four. Now we've got to watch two shit games on Thanksgiving. We don't even get to watch good teams play football. That does stink.

That does. Yeah, exactly. Diggs will be blacked out probably now even earlier than normal. Probably soon as this fucking show's over. That stinks. Brutal. Listen, first of all, we hope everybody survives. Of course.

I didn't hear a lot of that out of tone or out of Nick right there. No, they don't care. Did you hear any potential thought about any of these Ravens players dying? Fuck them. Huh? Fuck them. It's a rivalry, baby. Oh, Jesus.

That is not. We hope they survive. It's almost time. It's not how Manor says so. Oh, shit. Oh, no. Oh, my God. Oh, no.

Oh, no. He's got a point. He's got a point. Listen. No, I can't do it. He's got a point. Can't do it. And the Raven No, I can't do it. He's got a point. Can't do it. And the Ravens not only are screwing up this game,

this is going to screw up their bye. The Ravens are the ones now who are going to fuck the Steelers out of a bye. It's wild. It's great. Hey, I watch that Queens Gambit. This is the Sicilian close. This is the close Sicilian. I mean, this is battling it out with the Knights, though.

Here you're battling it with the Knights in the middle of the board here. This is high-level thinking by old Harbaugh. Yeah, can't beat them on the field. Got to resort to chemical warfare. Real Knights. Got to bring the virus over here. Jeez Louise. That does stink, though.

Now, listen, we hope everybody survives, okay? For sure. of course. But that stinks for the holiday. Big time. We got Lions, Texans, Cowboys football team. This is old school Thanksgiving football. Only two teams wanted to play on Thanksgiving every year, and now they've turned it into a complete market mess.

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That's a hell of a deal. That's a hell of a deal. Back to the show. College National Champion, Super Bowl Champion, A.J. Hawk. Let's go. A.J., we're about to be joined by a guy, okay, who better have some answers because there are some mad Steelers fans in the world right now. We got a caller from Israel named Michel who is very pissed about this game.

We'll listen to him, and we'll talk to him in a little bit. Diggs has said very terrible things about the Baltimore Ravens already on this show. Tom Pellisaro, NFL Network and Insider. And also, a special Thanksgiving edition of NFL Game Day Morning airs Thursday at 10 a.m. Eastern time on NFL Network. And let's assume that the NFL Network will also put together a hell of a show for the night because Steelers-Ravens has been canceled. Joining us now, Tom Pellisaro.

Tom, let's get right into it, okay? A lot of Steelers fans are going to tell you, you should not be smiling right now, okay? Tom, there are people that thought— There we go. All right, thank you. There we go. Thank you. Thank you for, you know, kind of put the serious face on.

There are people that are saying that they didn't think 2020 could do anything worse. Taking the Steelers Ravens off of Thanksgiving night whenever I think America needed this. And that's going to sound dramatic, okay? America needed Steelers Ravens on Thanksgiving night, I think, maybe to calm a lot of storms that are potentially happening in small gatherings around the country, not big gatherings. What are you hearing about this? And how come the Niners had like 10 people out and the game still went on? Why is it different for this particular game?

Is it because of the importance in the AFC North? It's not about the importance in the AFC North. It comes down to a bunch of different factors, one of which being there's not been a game postponed since week five. OK, so it's been a long time. Ever since they instituted their high-risk close contact protocols, they've found ways to isolate people to take away. In some cases, like with that 49ers game, you had a guy, Kendrick Bourne, who tested positive and then tested negative, then tested positive, tested negative.

But he was out, and he had several close contacts, including Brandon Ayuk, Trent Williams, who couldn't play for that game. But you're talking about, in that case, one positive test and then several close contacts including Brandon Ayuk, Trent Williams who couldn't play for that game but you're talking about in that case one positive test and then several close contacts that's happened to other teams the Packers in that same game had Jamal Williams was ruled a close contact for that game among others because they were close to A.J. Dillon so this is not the first time that somebody would be down some players it really has to do with this is the first time that you've had and I want to be careful to not use the word outbreak here because the NFL is doing its genomic sequencing and all

these different things, interviews to figure out whether or not the virus is actually spreading within the Ravens or whether in some cases it's just a lot of different people getting a lot of virus from different places and bringing it in separately. But this is the first time that you've had a bunch of infections with one team that are still ongoing up close until kickoff. That's kind of what played out with the Titans weeks ago when you had 20 plus cases with them between players and staff. At this point, you've got at least five players and five staff members who are confirmed positive. There's additional tests or additional positives with some staff members there. They're trying to get a handle on the totality of the situation. It's not a competitive decision. It's really about, this is one of those rare cases where because the number of positive

tests and how close it's happening to kickoff, they felt like the best thing to do was push the game back three days. I thought it was seven. It's not seven players. It's only five players. Seven players are going to be on the reserve covet 19 list but only five that we know of are confirmed positive because of course you can also land on that list because close contact you also in certain cases can land on that list because you had a positive that has not yet been confirmed as a positive really what the nfl wants to do is make sure you're gonna have three more guys test positive tomorrow i mean they're getting tested every day so how far is it spreading? How is it spreading? Is it spreading

within the club? Because I mean, let's face it, in the United States, you have massive amounts of infections everywhere, including hotspots in some NFL cities. So naturally, you're going to have more guys get exposed. You're going to have a rise in infections, which is exactly what's happened in the NFL. Just because a team has multiple positive cases doesn't mean player X gave it to player Y. Maybe they both got it from their wives or their kids or the grocery store, whatever, and brought it in. That's all the stuff they've got to figure out. Tom, I know the whole league is in this intensive protocol right now.

Is there a mega intensive protocol? Is there another step up we could get to? Yeah, come on. We locked this thing down? Yeah, we're doing this. This is actively happening. They sent a memo again like two nights ago. It's not an intensive protocol, but now you have a mask mandate on the sideline. If you are not in the game preparing to substitute into the game or at least wearing a helmet, you have to have a mascot.

And teams have been told you're responsible for enforcing this. If players break the rules, they can be disciplined. If the team does not enforce it, the team can be disciplined. So this is the next level here. What the NFL has really found, and when I say the NFL, I'm not talking about Roger Goodell. I mean the medical experts, Dr. Alan Sills, the team of epidemiologists who have been advising. What they have found is that really your risk is not between the teams.

They've not found any evidence that if your defensive tackle tests positive, that the offensive guard who's going against them is going to test positive. No, it's when guys are standing together on the sideline that you might be giving it to each other. So they're trying to eliminate that as best they can, have masks mandated on the sidelines. They're already mandated in the locker room. They're now shortening to the postgame interactions,

which really weren't supposed to be happening to begin with, and there's already been a mask mandate for those. Most guys weren't following it, so now they're enhancing that, saying it has to be brief, you need to get yourself off the field. This is a moving target. I mean, there have been, I don't know, how many updates to these protocols. They're going to keep happening. That's why Tom didn't go say what's up.

Yeah, because the protocol was lifted. Everybody wants to make drama out of it because the Buccaneers lost and he had a bad night or whatever. No, it's because he knows that it takes all of us. Tom already knows that more than anybody. Whenever the NFL did its entire review of the Titans thing that happened, they ended up fining the Raiders like 10x what they fined the Titans. And the Titans had like 22 players

that got it and they said that they believe that no protocols were broken by the Titans or whatever and that's with inside the building things and cameras and you know the mask force that's out there with their pen and paper like their hall monitors out there and everything in the mass everywhere and they don't celebrate or talk to people protocols the titans did none of that they had 22 people so at this point because we just had the steelers ravens which is our raven steelers thursday or thanksgiving night primetime game postponed to sunday we can probably assume right that there's going to at least be another game that ends up getting postponed and not going to be able to move and we're going to have that week 18 and we're going to have this 16 game play or 16 team playoff.

Is that kind of the assumption around the NFL at this point? If I've learned one thing, Pat, this season, it's assume nothing. We really don't know from week to week what's going to happen. But I think that if you were, you know, just kind of playing the odds, so to speak here, you would say that eventually you might end up in a situation just because, again, infections are rising all over the country where they would have to utilize week 18 and by the way this is exactly why they haven't utilized it if they had pulled the trigger in like week seven or whatever the raiders had that thing where all the offensive linemen couldn't uh practice all week then all of a sudden you're out of options that was it that was the nuclear option now you have nowhere left to go what they wanted to do was maintain that week 18 keep

it open until you got to a point where you had to use it as the playoff picture begins to crystallize here you might have games week 15 or week 16 that they simply go you know what it doesn't make sense right now to be pushing people back from a sunday to a tuesday now you got short weeks at the end of the year now let's utilize week 18 because the whole thing that the competition committee and the owners approved regarding the potential expansion of the playoff field was tied to all meaningful games being played if all meaningful games cannot be played then they would expand the playoff field to 16 uh at this point that's not happened their plan is still to play 256 games over either 17 or 18 weeks they'll utilize week 18 if they have to make up some games.

At the end, we're still pretty early to start just going, we're going to take this Steelers-Ravens game and throw that into January. Got it. Got it. So, Tom, Pat, first off, you pointed to yourself. I should have. Then you pointed to the Hawks. I pointed to the Hawks as if it was your turn.

I pointed to the Hawks as if it was your turn. I pointed to the hawk as if it was your turn. Like, I didn't want to, you know what I mean? Tom gave a great answer there. I had no follow-up. Pretty amazing. I preach awareness, and I had zero right there. So that is 100% my mistake. Well, we can make it even worse if we want to.

You absolutely can. Oh! Oh, look at you, AJ. He's now right. Attaboy, Tom. Attab you, AJ. He's now right. Attaboy, Tom. Attaboy, Tom. Yeah! Hey, Tom.

Hey, Tom. Come on, don't leave him hanging. Oh! Yeah. Hey, I know the radio listeners love this. It always plays. When we do these shenanigans on video. But, Tom, first off, I know there's listeners love this. It always plays out when we do these shenanigans on video. But, Tom, first off, I noticed the pictures behind you.

Pictures behind you, you have Russell Wilson and yourself above the picture of you and your family. Not sure how your wife and kids feel about that. What went into that decision, I guess, to give prime position to Russ? Nothing up here. I got an email this morning from someone asking me what these orbs are over here. And my answer just is like, I got no effing idea. They built this thing.

They stuck a bunch of stuff. They told me it's mid-century modern. I had no voice in the matter. In terms of the pictures, it's... I don't know. I guess that's a really good point. It's never come up. Now it will. Thank you. The only thing up here that I own, if you ever the backgrounds the starting lineup guys like have you ever seen brian bosworth in the background 90 era boss starting lineup guy that's mine everything else

i got i got no say in it so it was nfl network just sent in like a contractor and they're like hey you can't be in your house obviously because you got to self-quarantine away from the contractor that's coming into your house. We'll put a mask on them. They'll build you a backdrop because we are sick of looking at your basement. Is that what they said to you? This was pre-COVID times. This was like two or three years ago they came in.

Like this entire wall they just built. And then they were like, I was like, hey, here's some stuff that I like. Could you put this up there? Like, no. We got triangles for you. We got a lot of triangles. We want to get into your set here. Tom, let's talk about the Vrabel-Hardball situation a little bit here

because obviously Hardball's team now, after the loss to the Titans, we think they want the Jimmy's Famous Seafood, had a good time, ate the greatest crab cakes of all time. They probably dosed it out a little bit. Are the Baltimore Ravens – is Harbaugh losing the Ravens? Hey, here's a super cliche catchy question that normally athletes are asked, and if they give

an answer that isn't completely on the line, they're like oh, losing. In your head as a media person, do you think that there is a little bit of distrust in the Baltimore Ravens organization? Hadn't had a breakout right until now. You got Lamar Jackson saying they're becoming predictable uh there's no players went out there to fight for Harbaugh whenever the other team was there is there big distrust in Baltimore right now from what you're

hearing I have not been told that by anyone that there's an issue in terms of John Harbaugh with the Ravens players I do believe that naturally you've reached the point now where based upon the type of offense that Greg Roman was running with Lamar Jackson when he won the MVP, everybody in the league was waiting for, okay, when teams come up with an answer for that diverse running game and all the option side stuff and the read stuff that they do, what's the next level? How do you take a step forward here? It's the same thing that Greg Roman ran into circa 2014 with the 49ers, where it was, all right, Colin Kaepernick has done a lot of phenomenal things. What's the next level? Well, over time in San Francisco, they tried to have Kaepernick playing

more from the pocket. The development was not necessarily to the point where that worked out as well as they would have liked to. And then obviously a lot of different things happen with Kaepernick. So I'm not comparing the two situations. But the point is when you're running that style of offense, teams eventually are going to find answers for it. That's the nature of the NFL. When anybody's doing something new from year to year, week to week, people are going to come up with different answers for it.

And you've got to have a counterpunch. And right now the Ravens, it seems, are just trying to figure out what exactly is their counterpunch. They've had some injuries at running back, which has not helped them. Mark Ingram missed some time. J.K. Dobbins, I think you saw him last week, began to break out. Now both those guys are on the COVID list. So if this game takes place on Sunday, they're still not going to be out there.

It's going to be Gus Edwards. They haven't found a way to get the ball to Hollywood Brown. I mean, these are kind of just fundamental things that they've got to come up with. I think that it's, you know, again, I have not been told by anyone that john harbaugh is losing that team or losing the locker room it just seems that they become a little bit stagnant uh from an offensive perspective and then defensively too there's an evolution that takes place you trade for yannick and gawkway hoping he can be a playmaker for you uh they moved on from earl thomas in training camp uh they've you know they've had some new parts there,

and they're just not functioning at as high of a level all around as they were a year ago. Hey, what about the Bengals? What are you hearing from them? I know there's some reports saying that the coaching, they don't trust the coaches, there's a toxic relationship going on or whatever. Are you hearing anything?

And Rappaport told us just a couple days ago that he has heard nothing about Zach Taylor potentially being run out of town. Has anything changed since that whole thing came out? Knowing how the Bengals operate and how patient they tend to be, and they're the team that probably, I have never fully vetted this, but I would guess statistically they cut fewer players. In other words, they keep everybody as long as possible. Coaches, players, they probably do as long as possible. Coaches,

players, they probably do that more than anybody within the league. And so I think that in any other situation, when you're a two-win team a year ago, when you're staring down the barrel of potentially being a two-win team this year, depending on how Brandon Allen functions in place of Joe Burrell at quarterback, you would have more speculation. Because it's the Bengals, because they don't like to eat money, because they have shown patience with coaches. It's not at the forefront as it otherwise might be. In terms of cultural issues there, that's not something I've heard. I saw the headline that you're talking about. There were some things in there regarding the defensive coordinator, Lou Onorumo, that I

definitely have not heard at all in terms of him not getting the buy-in from players. I mean, look what they did in free agency trying to fix the defense. They signed Trey Waynes, hurt and can't, hasn't played the entire season. You know, they signed DJ Reeder, the defensive tackle, hurt right away, out for pretty much the entire season. They've had injuries, they've had other issues in terms of that group. That's what's really harmed them on the defensive side. And then, you know, offensively,e mixon's missed like half the year now joe burrow's now out for the season i mean we didn't hear doc culture all we want but it's like when all your good players aren't out there it's really hard to win football games and by the way they might be in one of the best divisions in all of football right now which doesn't make their task

any easier either um carlos dunlap sold his house immediately after the game, right? Yep. And he's making plays for the Seahawks, right? They kicked him out of town, basically? Yeah, three sacks, three games. I would assume that there was a couple people maybe they interviewed for said article. I didn't read the article.

I only saw the headline as well. I would assume that they could have found some people that would be like, yeah, yeah, I'll let you know how I feel about that place for sure. And I'm not saying Carlos Dunlap spoke. I would assume Carlos Dunlap wouldn't do that. But if Carlos Dunlap, who is a superstar, I assume there's some other people that think there's some potential decisions being made in there that the locker room

does not respect, if I had to guess. Especially with how Carlos Dunlap has played for the Seattle Seahawks since going over there. I assume there's a lot of people like, yeah, we had that dude on our team that just did the thing and we weren't playing him at all. There's probably, anytime you lose, that's going to happen, Tom. You know what I mean? you think like there's there's a chance that some parts of the locker room are going to turn if there isn't success happening at the exact time

that just comes with sucking i think well and on top of that guys like carlos dunlap had basically played for one coach ever and marvin lewis i remember talking to players about this last off season when i was still allowed to travel and COVID didn't exist and life was good. Talking to Bengals players about what Zach Taylor was doing. And, like, there were simple things from, like, the scheduling standpoint, from the structure of practice, from everything else. So they had had a degree of success for a long time with Marvin Lewis. They hadn't won a playoff game. But in a place like Cincinnati where they hadn't won in a long time, they at least were getting into the playoffs.

They were winning football games. Then Zach Taylor comes in. And rightly, because they hadn't won big, wanted to change a lot of things. When guys are uncomfortable with that, when their roles start to become smaller and smaller, which Carlos Dunlap's were, I'm not surprised you have some level of dissent among the veterans. But we have not heard that from Joe Burrow or any of the other young players. Some of the people I know there have not expressed anything like that. Certainly the oldest trick in the book to call the person who just got traded

or just got fired to find the negative parts of the situation. But, no, I mean, in my mind, just knowing the people I've talked to, I haven't gotten a sense that the culture is the issue. It's just about they're trying to do things differently. They're not winning. And a lot of the players that are coming on to help them do that are not even on the field. Well, you know, they don't have an indoor practice facility either.

So I would say that that culture. They go down to the gym at University of Cincinnati. Which, by the way, University of Cincinnati should be higher in the ranking so they can maybe make a run at the college football playoff. Having them at seven, they got no shot, which is a bummer. But Cincinnati Bearcats are an absolute stud of a team. They're a stud of a team out there uh austin eckler broke some news on his own twitch stream how'd that make you feel

as an insider didn't i break that did he break it what did he do i don't know i got a bunch of tweets telling me that he broke his own news on his twitch stream that he might be back this weekend hey pretty sure I broke it. Oh! Tommy! What is it? Twitch stream? Twitch stream? Tom can't have that. You can't say that on this. I mean, they're going to... If you had anybody that was potentially on your side

for breaking this news before Austin Eckler whenever you just completely mocked Twitch. All those people, though, they turned against you there. You're just going to clip know what Twitch is. No, no, no. They're going to kill you, Tom. They turned against you there. You know what I mean? You're just going to clip out that three seconds.

What is that? Not us, by the way. We won't do that. No, yeah. It was yesterday. They made the decision they're going to return him to practice. He's going to be out there this week. I don't know that he's going to play in the game at this point

because they may actually give him another week here. But the fact that he's even back after not practicing since week four because of that hamstring injury, definitely a positive sign for a Chargers team that could use some good news right now. Before we let you go, Christian McCaffrey was in a red shirt. AJ and I know that that means you can't touch him. He can still go through everything probably a week out. Is that what you're thinking?

Well, we'll see how the week plays out. The fact that they're at least putting him on the field is a step forward from where he's been coming back from that shoulder. It sounds like Teddy Bridgewater's got a much better shot at playing. They were both out there in red jerseys at the start of practice today. It sounds like if all goes well, Bridgewater is on track for Sunday, faces the old team, the Vikings. With McCaffrey, we really got to see.

I mean, I certainly would not bet on him playing at this point, but we'll see how he's feeling the next few days. Hey, Tom, we appreciate the hell out of you, buddy. Every time we talk to you, we feel good. Teddy Bridgewater is always going to have a red jersey on, though. That's just something that comes with the territory of being a quarterback, Tom. They use that as the injured guy jerseys there, apparently. I think they wear blue.

I think they wear blue quarterback jerseys. Oh, really? Check me on that. I'll check the Twitch. Oh! Because I was literally right over your shoulder there. Russell Wilson's wearing a red jersey right over your shoulder. I'm like, Tom knows that they wear a red jersey.

There's no reason to... I'm aware, but I believe that the Panthers wear like light blue quarterback jerseys. I could be wrong on that. I think red is the injured jersey for them. Isn't it interesting? Because like, for instance, in Green Bay, the red zone's the gold zone. Okay, the red zone is the gold zone. The red zone is the gold zone. Red jerseys are blue jerseys down there.

I mean, there's shells in some places, full pads in other places. It doesn't matter as long as you win, baby. That's all that matters, Tom. Who's going to win the Super Bowl, Tom? I don't make predictions. Can't do it. Won't do it. Can't have it.

Why? Because then all your connects at the other teams Would potentially turn Yeah the other The other 31 teams Are all mad about it then I'm out of the prediction business I was never good at it anyway This is the same reason That I suck at fantasy football

Yeah It's because like I'll talk to people I'll be like really excited About like some fourth round Draft pick wide receiver That's like week eight And the guy hasn't played

And I draft him In like the eighth round This is the problem With like thinking You know more than you do Just auto draft. It's definitely the best way to do it. Attaboy, Tom.

You just shit on the fantasy community too, I think. I mean, the Twitch community and the fantasy community. Tom, I absolutely love what you're doing here, Tom. In every picture I'm seeing here, the Carolina Panthers quarterbacks wear green jerseys. Oh, okay. You're right. You're 100% right.

I was wrong there. That's on me. So that's good news that Teddy Bridgewater is out there and Christian McCaffrey. We need to get Teddy to a green, okay? And we need to get Christian to a blue, white, black. Offense, defense, depending on what it is. One of those. Yeah.

Tom Pelsar. Yeah, Tom! Hey, Walter! Thank you, Tom! Tom's awesome. Yeah. He did shit on a couple different communities. He's going gonna have a tough

Day tomorrow It feels like it Gonna have a long day On the internet For old Tom He was right there He was 100% right there With the red shirt

Green shirt thing like that AJ anything you heard In there that made you go Oh wow that's interesting I mean I guess the fact That it sounds like Whatever's going on In the Bengals locker room

May not be true Yeah it's interesting Because like Carlos Dunlap Obviously probably I mean I, like, Carlos Dunlap, obviously, probably. I mean, I don't know Carlos Dunlap personally. He's probably not coming out and just bad-mouthing people. I would assume that there's a certain trait that people have to have that do that. But if Carlos Dunlap was that pissed off and he was selling the house, I would assume there's others.

I would assume it's not just Carlos that is upset that they're losing and they're not playing. That happens whenever you suck. And by the way, sometimes the players are 100% right too. It doesn't really get listened to because things like that happen. Like, ah, yeah, they need to play better football. When that report came out, it was Dunlap and Atkins, and I believe Geno Atkins is still there, so it could easily be him.

But also, if it's Carlos Dunlap and Geno Atkins. Probably more guys. Let's assume that there is a lot more guys because those are our two high-end guys. Those are vets. Been around a long time. Carlos Dunlap, I still got it. He had to be so pumped on that sack to end the game the other night. I mean, he wouldn't drop a suck it sign, but I'm sure he was thinking it.

Fuck you, Cincinnati! Kind of bummed, to be honest. During the break there, went out into the office did a couple laps had to walk around really take it in had a conversation and i just put out a tweet about it and it's and this is gonna sound dramatic okay i understand this is gonna sound very dramatic and people are gonna attack me for this thought america needed raven steelers tomorrow night anytime needed it that game was it. That game was going to be awesome. Think about the Thanksgiving.

You know, maybe at that particular point, something was maybe going to pop off between old uncle and nephew. You know, maybe something was going to go down. And it's like, excuse me, there's two teams that are going to play old school smash mouth football with each other. They're going to beat the hell out of each other. It's going to be a great football game. And there's a lot on the line for this. Let's go ahead and take a moment to put our swords aside

and watch these two try to kill each other hell yeah you know what i mean we needed that and if there's anything to make me feel better coming off of that obviously it'd be a conversation with a man that i dreamed of talking to for a long long time ever since we started this show a man who epitomizes basically what football is uh born and raised in chicago went to purdue got drafted to Tampa Bay, even though he was allegedly supposed to be a Pittsburgh Steeler, goes down to Tampa, becomes an absolute legend, changing the game completely.

He had a neck roll and combat boots on when he played. Ladies and gentlemen, absolute monster freak athlete, Mike Allstott. What's up, man? What's up, man? What's up, man? What's up, Pat? How you doing, buddy? Hey, we watched your highlights this morning for like 30 minutes.

I absolutely forgot about them calling you the A-Train. It was awesome. Such a great description of the way you played. Do you ever go back and watch them? I would assume that you don't because you're probably not just so self-indulged, but I would recommend it to you and everybody else. Your highlights are awesome to watch. No, I know.

I don't. I'm watching high school football. That's what I do now. I watch a lot of film and coach high school football. That's all I do. I heard you've got a big game coming up, by the way. Good luck. What are we in? Are we in a championship? What is it? What have we got going on?

Quarter finals. round three. Okay, so you're coaching. Trent Dilfer, who we watched some highlights of him throwing you the ball, he's high school coaching up there. Phillip Rivers has already signed to be a high school coach. It seems like a lot of NFL guys are getting into the high school coaching ranks. What made you want to do that? Did you always want to coach, or is it just like something you thought, you know what,

I should get back to the game here at the high school level? I had no desire to coach. I wanted to watch my son and my daughters grow up and be a spectator. And I got involved because I didn't – I really didn't feel comfortable with, you know, the average volunteer dad coaching and not knowing what the hell is going on. So that's how I got involved. And then my son was like, hey, if you're not coaching, I'm not playing.

And I'm like, all right, I'm in. And it's been 12 years, 13 years ever since. And I've been head coach here at the school I'm at for the last nine years. Sorry about my voice, but I just came off the practice field. Yeah. Yelling. Yeah, sometimes you got to let them have it. Listen, and that's, by the way, I love that thought.

I am not a father yet, obviously. We'll see how that goes with the world. I probably shouldn't reproduce because one is enough of me. But I could see myself whenever my kid is at a practice or something and he comes home you know i'm like what you learn in practice and he says something like they told you what now that okay exactly is exactly what happened i'd assume no exactly i i wasn't at home i was sitting in a lawn chair all right with my uh my yeti? And just, you know, sitting there chilling. And they're all in a three-point stance,

and the coach is going around kicking out their hand, seeing if they have all the weight on their front hand. And I'm like, oh, my God, what's going on here right now, right? And so, you know, one thing transpired after another, and I was like, all right, I'm in. And it's been an ever since. I love it. It's given me my fix since football because, obviously, I'm just so passionate.

I love it so much, and I was kind of lost for a little bit, and it's kind of given me that fix as far as when it comes to football, the game. You know, this game's giving me so much and and uh and i love coaching kids and they play hard for me and i coach them i give tough love um and they know that and um it's it's been great it's it's been really a blessing for me in in this journey so far yeah listening to you talk whenever i i assume they probably retired your number or put you in the hall of fame or something down there in Tampa Bay, and they did this entire piece where they were interviewing you,

and you had great tan, by the way. Oh, great tan. You had a polo on. It was a great shot. And you were talking about your plays, and they were asking you about certain plays, whether it was the Super Bowl third-and-one goal line where basically you said that you know your entire life

you've been working for this moment there's no way you weren't going to score and obviously you did you guys win by like 20 something and win the Super Bowl it's awesome but you talked about your style of play and how a lot of it was instinctual right you're like for some reason I could just bounce it out or whatever you had great instincts for the game how do you teach that is that something you just hope that guys can pick up your high school kids can pick up or how do you teach that? Is that something you just hope that guys can pick up, your high school kids can pick up? Or how do you think you got to the point where your instincts, because you were, by the way, everybody remembers you for being a bruiser like Mike Allstutt.

You think of Mike Allstutt, people think of the pictures of that big ass neck roll that you wore in the boots and everything. But if you watch the highlights, which we did literally 30 minutes of them earlier, your lateral quickness was unbelievable. It seemed like your decision making was next level as well. You were were a fool how do you kind of instill that into your high school kids whenever a lot of it is instincts and stuff like that preparation preparation you know

just i mean we talk about we talk about lateral i mean you work on all that stuff you get your body used to those type of movements um off-season, training, whatever. But right now, in-season, it's all mental preparation. You've already done the physical, you know, you've already prepared yourself physically, right? You put your body through so much torture and stuff like that, and you prepared yourself for that. But now, preparation mentally, and I'm a big advocate of film. Film, film, film. We show our kids.

We film practice. We show our kids what they're doing wrong, which we're not. Because they can't translate, you know, words and how to do it in the way, you know, if you've been in that, if we've all been an athlete in some sort of way, you know, at a high level, you know, we understand the lingo. And some of these kids don't see it to show them what they're doing wrong through film. And so I'm a big component of that. Like today I had to have a practice, did film in the morning.

I mean, excuse me, did practice in the morning, offensive morning. And then I brought my quarterbacks in here. A lot of defense is going on, so we can get some film in so they can understand what I just installed and stuff like that. So that's my big, that's what I've been successful at, and I prepared a lot during my professional days and understanding when they do this, they're going to do that,

and when they do that, they're going to do that. And when they do that, they're going to do this. So that's how I've come, from my aspect, successful. Were you an obsessive film studier whenever you were playing? You know, as a fullback and a running back, I didn't have to know coverages and stuff like that. All I had to know was the safeties tell you everything, right? So if the safeties roll down, guy's gonna blitz you know obviously i had to prepare myself for the blitzes to protect my quarterback and and my offensive lineman so that was kind of like what i

have been trained to do in my life is where this the safeties will tell you everything that's going to happen in a defensive scheme so um so i studied that and understood how to take on my different linebackers and then go from there. You would just bury people. Hey, you. And obviously the commentators say the most cliche things of all time, and they're like, you know, when the A train gets into space, he's not looking for space.

He's looking for another jersey to bury. As a fullback, that is something you have to legitimately love, huh? It's going to be me imposing my will on you type mindset. Everybody always asks me, you know, who's the hardest hitter, right? And I'm like, I can't stand that question. It's like, you know what? My instincts was always to bring the punishment in the pad level to the point of attack, right?

To the point of attack. And I was going to initiate, and that was my game plan. Do you think right now you would run for 150 yards every single game? Or do you think it would be different? Because it feels like with the defense now, it's a lot of Mike Allstotts almost. They're kind of smaller and faster. But I feel like your type of running style, Derek Henry's had a lot of success.

I mean, Derek Henry's had a lot of success. And I'm not saying you and him are the same type of runners. I think you're different, but both very good. How do you think your game would translate to today's style of football? Kind of when I was in my tail end of my career, Gruden and, like, San Francisco and, like, Derrick Henry, you know, Tennessee, they're coming back with the bigger backs. Like, Gruden was, like, kind of reading out the bigger back situation

and going to more of a rocket scheme, you know what I mean? Two halfbacks in a game at the same time and getting rid of the pounding, you know, attack. And we've seen, if you're successful, as of Tennessee and Dale Kramer, you run downhill, you're going to wear out a team. That's what we did Friday night when I was playing. We ran downhill in the third and fourth quarter, and it's very successful. And if it doesn't work, you're still putting a punishment on them.

I really feel that the running game is the most important thing. It sets up everything, and if it doesn't, you're pounding and wearing on those guys until third and fourth quarter, and that's when the big plays come. I think we all just had a thought real quickly about what a high school football team that was coached by Mike Olson would look like. Just the thought of just, hey, we're coming right at you every single snap. This is what it's going to be. Every single snap, we are coming for it.

Don't get me wrong. I am a spread, but we have our different big packages. You know what I mean? I am a spread and trips. The reason I got into being a head coach, I just didn't like the way other systems were being ran. I coached in high school before. And so I got into designing my own system and doing things.

And my son was actually a quarterback for me for four years. And he went to Purdue for a year and is finishing up at Western Michigan now. But I got into that spread in the passing game and everything. But we do have our big patches. We're going to come downhill.

We're going to annihilate. I mean, that's the mindset we have. I mean, I have my left tackle 6'7", my left guard is 6'3", my center 6'4". I have a 6-foot guard and another 6'3-foot tackle. Can you guys beat Western Michigan right now? Can your high school team take on the – the team's unbelievable, huh? No, no, we're not unbelievable. They're all young. I mean, again, remember, we're your high school team take on the team's unbelievable, huh? No, no, we're not unbelievable.

They're all young. I mean, again, remember, we're talking high school. But they are getting better, and they are understanding what an offensive line has to be. They have to be physical first, right? Come downhill, establish the running game, and we're teaching it. Don't get me wrong. We have our weaknesses in different aspects but again we have that's our teaching we we love to teach downhill football that's awesome i would assume

connor what do you got a train in that uh nfl films thing it said you you know you would watch walter payton growing up now that you're a coach do you try and emulate, you know, Gruden and Dungy, who you had in Tampa, or do you try and combine the two almost? You know, Dungy and Gruden, night and day. Night and day. I mean, you talk about, you know, just night and day. Let me stay there. But, again, both are great coaches. Both have their different types of styles of coaching.

And maybe I have both a little bit, and you're right. When I'm thinking back, I never really thought about it. You know what I mean? I put my arms around the kids. You know, I try to be their mentor. Try to be a father figure for them. And that's kind of like Dunji does. You know, straight up treats you as a man, holds you accountable,

you know, be respectful in a lot of different ways and then you know rudin he's a he's a price you know little guy and he'll he'll try to you know very wordy and i get i do again i will get you know vocal in a way of of motivating but at the same time is it's like hey i expect a lot from you it's not like one of those cliches is, all right, if I'm not yelling at you or coaching you or talking in a way that, you know, that we're going to be challenged, then, you know, and I have never done this, but the thing is, I always say it, right? You know, then there's something wrong. Then you should be worried. Yeah. Yeah. I heard that a lot, by the way,

when I was getting yelled at by everybody. It was a lot of fun. Hey, whenever I stop yelling at you, that means something's wrong. It's like, well, that doesn't make any sense. But yeah, I'll continue to get chewed out if you want me to. I mean, let's go ahead and do it.

Right? Keep me out of it. So whenever you played and you talked about preparation and torturing your body I believe you gave it an answer actually I think that was actually what you said torture your body what were your workouts like because in those highlights

I don't want I assume this video is going to get a lot more views after today because of how much we've been hyping it up and I want to let you know it'll be worth the watch your highlight the NFL films package that they put together, fucking unbelievable to watch. But your legs were, I mean, just, what was your workouts like? You just killed yourself all year?

You were just, hey, I'm going to go ahead and torture every muscle in my body? I had unique workouts. When I was growing up, you know, I ran a lot of hills. I ran a lot of stairs. I did numerous things. When I was in high school, I pulled tires in my backyard. When I was in high school, I'd push my buddy's station wagon. We pushed it in the cornfields where we grew up right on the outside of town from telephone to telephone pole there, 100 yards. We would push them, crank on ACDC, legs up, and push it.

I'd put it in neutral. He'd steer. I'd push. I'd steer, he'd push, and he would just take this thing all the way down for I don't know how far. But it was just – and then I brought that to college where probably you read about it, maybe not, but pushing my Jeep in the parking lot where the band practice was marked off 100 yards. Just creative stuff like that that i thought it was important you know i mean um to do it you

know in the weight room all the time uh just i've always been just that overachiever hard worker trying to get her done you know uh from up north you know get it done type of guy and uh you know just working hard and had heart and just wanted to play at the high level. And when I got to that highest level after I was drafted, I just didn't want to be there. I wanted to be the best, and I wanted to help my team in every fashion possible.

And, you know, I mean, just stuff like that, you know, and had great, but again, had great people around me, great coaches, great players, and again, great people that helped me get to where I needed to get to. So you were first one in, last one out, coach's son, high motor, crafty, sneaky, athletic, lunch pail type of guy, hard hat type of guy? Yeah, lunch pail type of guy, right. of guy yeah lunch pail type of guy right

you know what I mean I didn't have all the skill I had to create that skill you know what I mean I had to make sure my craft

you know I again bring my lunch pail to work every day alright we figure it out get it done you are the best dude on earth man

the boys here and i we're so incredibly excited to chat with you man we can't thank you enough for taking time hope the boys go it's a pleasure it's a pleasure anytime let me know i love i love being again i'm gonna take you up on that offer i hope you know that no seriously let me know brother i appreciate you guys thank you a guy you will hear from again I assume relatively soon one of the greatest humans that ever exists the A-Train Mike Allstott thank you

good luck hey man hey happy Thanksgiving man right hey happy Thanksgiving to you man the Raven Steelers got cancelled so I mean maybe Thanksgiving gets canceled too. I'm not 100% sure. Seems like it anyway, right?

In this room. A-Train, you ain't never lie, pal. All right. Thank you, Mike. All right, brother. All right, see you, coach. So we got the A-Train on again or something? Sounds like it.

The head coach of the national championship high school team in Florida. Oh, they're national champs? They will be after this year. They're not losing. 6'7", tackle. Take them off. 6'8", guard. 6'3", on the other side, he said.

Oh, my God. Hey, I mean, could that have gone any other? That went exactly how we thought. He's exactly who I expected. He's pushing Jeeps in the thing. Cornfields. Station wagonsons telephone pole to telephone pole i mean he's the man that's and that's we talked what did you talk about it last week like people like oh if i just didn't have that knee injury i'd be in the pros yeah were you pushing cars down the yeah were you ike taylor's kid is what runs

a mile every single morning and does 100 push-ups before he even eats breakfast before his high school? It's like, yeah, I understand a coach probably screwed you. Okay, I understand that. But were you potentially putting yourself in the greatest position to potentially succeed and not get screwed? That is the question that should be asked. And I assume you have, but others I'm talking about, not just you, others. Yeah, I mean, Mike Alston, what a guy.

I'm so happy we had that conversation with him, which is the football guy. Look up the NFL Films thing. If you have time today, you should. By the way, actually, tomorrow, Raven Steelers game's canceled. We got a replacement. We got a replacement for the Raven Steelers. Go ahead and go to, I don't know what the title is. What did we watch? What was the name of that thing, Nick? I don't know exactly. It was an NFL throwback, though.

Just type in NFL throwback Mike Alston. It was like 20 minutes long, it felt like, and then that leads obviously into the way YouTube does. It's like, all right, here we go. Now you're in a wormhole of Mike Allstott. We were all the way in there. Yeah, right. We were all the way in there.

Yeah, we were. We were kind of like the Jamaican bobsled team whenever we were figuring out how to go down the goddamn hill on that wheelie one that didn't have the brakes. That's what we were going down the wormhole. Like, oh, my God, he did i can some of the shit he did it was unbelievable he looked owen schmidt at west virginia after watching the mike allstott um when i was watching mike allstott highlights i saw a lot of owen schmidt there and i was like uh i was

like first of all super pumped that i got a chance to relive some mike allstott highlights and then also while doing that i felt like i was watching some Mike Alstott highlights. And then also while doing that, it felt like I was watching some Owen Schmidt highlights as well. The big bruiser, just lunch pail guys. The Ryan Fitzpatrick's, but at fullback. You know what I mean? Like the guys who will run their face into a fan to win a football game. Does not matter.

They will do it. There's not a lot of those anymore, mostly because science has been telling everybody you should not do that. But Mike Allstott's about to lead a national championship high school game. He was awesome to watch, man. Scared of nothing.

For good reason, by the way. For good reason. Could you imagine being that Pop Warner coach kicking out kids' hands on a three-point stance and watching him? With his Yeti. So he said he was going to launch over the Yeti so he's got a beer shaking his head he's got his foot up on the yeti okay just hanging out probably sunglasses on and he's watching these three-point

stance he's got his beer cracks it open he's drinking it he kicks the first person's hand you see his hand excuse me does it again and again all right all right get the fuck away from my child i i didn't even think about that by the way and i assume that's why a lot of these nfl guys are getting into coaching yeah because it does feel like the more and more people we talk to the more and more high school coaches are coming from the nfl which by the way good for the game great for the game great for the game for high school kids to have nfl coaches because they've been there with the recruiting process too so you know if you're getting screwed or not. The business side of it, now granted the social media aspect of it

is something that maybe the next generation of NFL guys that go back and coach high school football. But I like that a lot of NFL guys are going back and doing that. It's good for the game. Great for the game. Now they're not going to get paid, and I would assume a lot of those guys at some point are going to realize that and be like, okay, we've got to do something to get paid here at some point.

But it is great for the game. The NFL had a big high school football initiative, I think, a lot of those guys at some point are going to realize that and be like, okay, we've got to do something to get paid here at some point. But it is great for the game. The NFL had a big high school football initiative, I think, a couple years ago. Yeah, they pushed something. I forget. They used to always show the highlights on Sunday night games. Oh, yeah. They would go on location to a high school football game every week. I remember them doing that on NBC.

And I think there was a high school national football coach of the week. There was a big high school football coach initiative. I know at the Colts, they would bring in like a high school national football coach of the week. There was like a big high school football coach initiative. I know at the Colts, they would bring in all the high school coaches in the state a couple practices a year or something like that. It was always a big thing. I like the NFL trying to dive into high school football, because that's where you can teach a lot of habits,

by the way. And I would assume the NFL has seen some things coming that has been happening. They're like, we've got to reteach some stuff here. Potential offensive line play. I would assume big physical football right there. Mike Allstott. Whenever you're playing a Mike Allstott coach football team,

hey, you're in for a long day. Strap off. The holidays are just around the corner. Are you looking for a way to stay connected with loved ones during the holidays? Listen, Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and everyone knows that there might be a couple family members you're not going to be able to see this year given what's going on. Same deal with Christmas. Who knows if you're going to be able to do a large gathering with a lot of your family members. So you might be thinking you really need to give a gift so that your presence can be felt. Skylight Frames is the perfect gift for that.

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And it's Boston Connors segment. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for questions from other sports shows. Welcome to questions from other sports shows. Gentlemen, let's have a clean, clear conversation here. Let's not, you know, it's like a two-way and great each other. The first question, AJ, can you please acknowledge, okay? Yes. The first question comes from first take. Are the Steelers underrated, hold on, or overrated?

Okay, great question. Now, the thing I've been saying this entire time, AJ, is if they're overrated? Okay, great question. Now, the thing I've been saying this entire time, AJ, is if they're overrated, what's that mean? They get talked about once a week, maybe? They just gave a top 10 quarterbacks in the NFL. Ben Roethlisberger wasn't on it. They just gave a top three rookie wide receivers that you would build a team around.

Chase Claypool wasn't on it. These motherfuckers are the most underrated team in the history of the NFL. Not just undefeated teams. I'm talking about undefeated just teams in the NFL history. They're unbelievable. Defense is a game changer. And, yeah, Gary Gilbert almost beat them.

But, hey, we don't know about this new Dallas Cowboys team. That might have been a much better Dallas Cowboys team than the record show. Remember, their entire locker room was crumbling until Gary Gilbert and them right the ship. And then Andy Dalton comes back from losing his head and biting COVID. Now he's leading that team. That might be a different squad. The Steelers are incredibly underrated and I'm fed up with it. Well, I mean, I think this is great because it works out perfectly.

You are 100% wrong. The Steelers are 100% overrated. Ben's basically on his last leg. Claypool is probably going to burn out. Their defense is going to struggle. They're not going to win any more games.. Claypool's probably going to burn out. Their defense is going to struggle. They're not going to win any more games, and Diggs is probably going to get sick. That's all there is. Yeah, Diggs might get sick. He's got a terrible immune system, but he's

got a great personality, and he's a good guy, so I don't care about that. Chase Claypool is only getting started. He's not going to wear it. What do you think? Just because he's going to hit the rookie wall at some point? Hate to break it to you. The rookie wall hit about week two when they weren't allowed to leave their goddamn house because of COVID. Chase Claypool is only going to continue to grind. And Ben Roethlisberger, he might be on his last leg.

But guess what? He thrives on his last leg. Have you ever seen his entire career? He is the last leg, that guy. And he just wants to win one more Super Bowl right off in his sunset. He said, I'm back because the offensive line loves me and I love them. I'm back because the defense loves me, and I love them. Ben Roethlisberger wants to get one more win.

That's why they refused to lose this year in something that's incredibly difficult. They might be the next goddamn 72 Dolphins. Ain't nobody talking about it. That's good. I think we can move on. Pat is born for this stuff. You should be on network TV debating these kind of topics. You should do political arguments, too.

This is what you were built for. Wow. Well, I have to get sick. Yeah, what do you want, Diggs to die? Well, the denominator, I wouldn't die. Basically, Diggs, I was trying to mow down everybody I like. Oh, thank you, thank you. And I'm a big fan of Ben.

I'm a big fan of Claypool. That means a lot, H. I appreciate that. By the way, the reason why I won first is because it's much easier to be on the underrated side there than the overrated side. I had to jump in there early. And by the way, I'm assuming that that is how those shows go, right there. Oh, yeah. I'm assuming that's exactly how it goes.

All right. I don't believe anything I just said, but I'm going to go ahead and motor it off really quick. First one to say it, you win. And I'm going to go loud. So I think, all right, round one, we had a pretty good little game. Good round. I mean, the second round is more of a dictionary type of round uh also comes from first take what defines success for the cowboys season go ahead aj please i mean okay i just got

to let you know like i got to let you behind the curtain or Or the people. I'm trying to find a way to get into this bit. To try to make it a thing. And I can't. I just can't. You're obviously very good at it. And on this show, doing this, what we're doing, this whole show, what we've done since COVID started, is the most authentic I can be in any show that I do. But I just can't bring myself to make a fake argument.

Answer the damn question. I'm sorry. Answer it. I'm sorry. I honestly want to. I really want to try to drum up some fake energy and do this, and I can't do it. It's not.

I guess I'm not willing to do it. So the season can't be successful is your answer. So AJ said that they will not have success. No. They're okay. Fair enough. For me, I think. What do you mean? That's what he said. He can't that they will not have success. No. Fair enough. What do you mean? He said you can't define it.

This question is stupid. This question is dumb. This is sports talk. This is sports talk, AJ. Have a little respect, okay? Somebody just hopped over to Channel 82 Mad Dog Sports Radio. Because they want to hear sports talk.

This right here is what sports talk is, dude. Define it. This is what it is, dude. You either like it or you get off the... All right, then tell me. Then tell me what defines a successful season. Well, it's funny you say that because I think a successful season for the Dallas Cowboys is if they can somehow keep that train on the tracks

to finish the season without it completely imploding down there in Dallas, they should call that a success. Just six weeks into this season, new regime, new organization, new head coach. They're sniping windows in apartment complexes that have views of the thing. They're shutting down the media practice, which I guess has been happening for a long time. They're able to go live and just stream all practice. They're in a changing, a turning of the tide down there. If they somehow get through this entire season without everybody hating each other and without having to cut everybody and salary cap that whole thing,

like in week six it looked like it was going to do, and potentially play for an NFC East championship late into the season, that should be a success for them because they look terrible early, and we all thought the Lone Star was about to die off down there. Wow. Pat ran away with that round. Sorry, AJ. You just got absolutely dominated, dude.

Let's go. One last question. Okay. This last one, you know, this came from a few people. It was on Monday Night Countdown. It was on the Monday Night Football Halftime Show, and also Mike Greenberg of Get Up, AJ's favorite show. He also alluded to it yesterday.

Great work there. Should Joe Burrow, who just blew his knee out, sit out the 2021 season to prepare for the 2022 season? Please, AJ. Okay. Why? Why would he do this? That's my first question.

He has a point. If he gets cleared by a doctor to play football in the NFL, He has a point. That's tough to answer. If he gets cleared by a doctor to play football in the NFL, why would he try to sit out some valuable developmental time, some valuable reps he needs? This question is ridiculous. All right. Yeah.

I agree about it. They still don't have an offensive line, AJ. By the way, though, here's my here's my other question what the hell is happening in the 2022 season that makes it so special that he needs to sit out and wait for that well they'll have an offensive line by 2022 they're hands in the stadium will they we don't know we don't know we have no idea and by the way if he continues to play uh that style that you know the extend the play thing he's going to take a lot of hits anyways but will they have a new offense in 2022 that, you know, they'll just drop from the sky?

You know what I mean? Because if they get a new offense coordinator after Zach Taylor after this year, wouldn't next year be a good year to maybe get a little bit of a relationship built with said play caller and something like that? Or are they going to fire Zach Taylor after the 2021 season, whenever Joe's out for two, and then he can just start with a new offensive coordinator with a new offensive line and obviously a clean slate and just be like his rookie year

again. Also another follow-up question I would have to this. What is that? How does the rest of Joe's team feel? If he's, let's say he's back, he can, he's full go like September 25th. And then like, Hey guys, I'm good. He stands up in the team meeting guys. Just want to let you know, good to go.

Knees great. Don't worry. Next season, after you guys finish these last 14 games, I'm going to be a hell of a player for you. I want to let you know, I'm going to commit to these off-the-field workouts that I'll be doing for the next season or so. Okay, and I'll see you guys next year. Because this team that I'm looking at right here, we've all decided, stinks.

Doesn't cut it. So this team's going to stink. I don't want to be a part of that. Next year, though, the team's going to be great. AJ, I think you won the final round. Congratulations. Way to go. You do like this segment.

Look at that. You crush it. You love this segment, dude. Wow. I do. I mean, sometimes you just have to question the question. Well, I'll define success for you in that segment, and maybe that is your path to success in that segment, is questioning the question. Well, I'll define success for you in that segment, and maybe that is your path to success in that segment,

is questioning the question, because that's kind of the purpose of the entire segment there. But some of these questions don't deserve responses. Okay, and that could be your answer too, bud. You chose not to do that in rounds one and two, Red, that you could have done, Red. Four and five, by the way. I mean, your mind would have been in a pretzel, my friend.

Would have been tough. But we saw you getting a little bit heated, so we had to exit out there. Note to self, dictionary rounds, you know, probably off the table now that AJ hates them. Well, and then there's also we have the one word to describe questions that could potentially come, and those ones are going to be good. Those ones are going to be good. Can't thank you enough for choosing to listen to this show.

Have an incredible Thanksgiving. We are very grateful for you and everything you've done for us. The fact that you listen to this show, know that we are very, very grateful for it. From all of us to all of you, have an incredible Thanksgiving. Have a great weekend. Big Sale Friday sale is still going on, I think, all the way through Monday. F. Viva Lazzito will be announcing the Arby's sweatsuit winner for the hashtag Arby's is great contest. And we'll be live on Sirius Friday from noon to three.

Mad Dog Sports Radio Channel 82 Sirius XM. And you can listen to that for free, by the way, for new subscribers. Sirius XM until December 1st, I believe. OK, here we go. So that's what we got. Hope you guys have a great one. We can't wait to talk to you again. We'll see you Monday.

Cheers. Ty, please play some independent music and launch them into the greatest Thanksgiving of all time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.