The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 303 - MNF Recap, Aaron Rodgers, LeGarrette Blount, Tom Pelissero, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: December 1, 2020

On today's show, Pat is live from Orlando, FL as he prepares for this weekend's NXT WarGames. He and the boys recap the Monday Night Football game between the Seahawks and Eagles and wonder whether the Eagles are dead, if Russ is back, and the Steelers and Ravens playing at 3:40 PM tomorrow. Also joining Pat and AJ, coming off a 4 touchdown performance on Sunday Night against the Bears, is Packers QB and friend of the program, Aaron Rodgers. They cover the game, how he's feeling ahead of his 37th birthday, he gushes about a few teammates, and much much more (20:56-1:06:23). Next, NFL Insider and friend of the program, Tom Pelissero joins the program to chat about the evolving situation between the Steelers and Ravens, and how that situation is different that others, if the Eagles are dead, and everything else going on in the NFL (1:07:28-1:26:06). Later, 3x Super Bowl Champion, 9 year NFL vet at Running Back, and rushing touchdown leader in 2016, LeGarrette Blount joins the program to talk about his career, why he thinks he might not get the respect he deserves, his resemblance to Derrick Henry, and much more in a great conversation (1:28:18-1:52:29). 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

What's up everybody? It is Tuesday, December 1st. I am not Pat McAfee. Pat is down in Orlando right now going through a series of physicals and testing to prepare for his double cage match on Sunday at War Games. But we still have a great Aaron Rodgers Tuesday for you. LeGarrett Blunt also joins the show and Tom Pelissero and of course AJ Hawk stops by as well. So let's get into it. It's already December. It is a wild time to be alive. The year that was 2020 is about to wrap up. Now we have a holiday season to be had and we have a Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting that has to happen tomorrow night that we'll definitely talk about because the pittsburgh steelers and the baltimore ravens are playing at 3 40 tomorrow that means this show tomorrow on sirius xm channel 82 mad

dog sports radio will be a pre-game show for an afc north matchup taking place at 3 40 eastern 12 40 pacific How you doing? Keep it moving. It's 2020 in the NFL. Can't wait to chat about that. Today, we have Tom Pellisaro joining us. I need to know what the fuck a wildcat strike is, okay? Yesterday, I was scrolling around the internet, and Mike Florio, who's a lawyer by trade,

and he talks about the football, and he hears rumors. He said that there is a chance that the players are going to enact a wild cat strike i have no clue nobody has a clue what that is nobody knows what that could possibly mean allegedly i guess the players could say they don't want to play because their life feels like it's at risk or whatever but didn't you opt in to play this year knowing that your life was potentially at risk is that why the game was moved from Tuesday to Wednesday because of a potential wildcat strike? Did anybody know that a wildcat strike existed before Mike Florio tweeted that there was a threat of a wildcat strike? We'll talk to Tom Palasaro about that from NFL Network

here in about 20 minutes. In the second hour, we got LeGarrette Blount. Cannot wait to talk to this man, okay? Obviously, Super Bowl winner. He's been caught up in some hilarious situations. I'm sure his tales of his time in the NFL will be legendary. I watched him run for, I think, 160 yards against the Colts one time. I'm surprised there isn't a highlight already running on the camera of him running through Indianapolis Colts players. He was the original Derrick Henry back in the day. I mean, he used to be able to get going and obviously smoke the weed, punch the guy out after he came to college and all the other stuff. Cannot wait to chat with him.

Thankful he's joining us for the first time in hour two. In hour three, obviously, everybody knows the deal. Aaron Rodgers Tuesday is happening. He had a massive game this weekend, obviously. He was like Bob Ross painting a picture against the Chicago Bears. He even brought a punk fake back for old Nick, who asked about it last week. We'll talk to him about that. A.J. Hawk will be joining us at 1.30, then after the Aaron Rodgers conversation,

because I am live at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida for Fight Week. I got my physical just finished. Literally walked out of the physical straight into this conference room that I'm in. The boys set me up in fantastic fashion. I appreciate you guys. And the rest of the boys are back in the studio in Indianapolis, but we cannot do three FaceTimes. Our tech has not evolved enough to do that just yet.

Maybe next paycheck from Fan fandle or somebody else will be able to make that happen let's talk about paychecks i'm fucking losing mine all right i this weekend going into week 12 nfl sunday all right going into week 12 nfl sunday there was a lot of tweets about the sports books what's the sports books we're praying for and basically all tweets said that the sports books what's the sports books we're praying for and basically all tweets said that the sports books are praying for the underdogs okay they said they're praying for the underdogs to cover and to win obviously when the sports books pray for something fucking god has a direct line with them and it happens i think they were 10 and 4 this weekend against

the spread the underdogs were so vegas just continued to rake i believe it's oh and 10 the past two weekends where public money is the top five each single week and last night was one of the most disgusting things i've ever seen in the history of sports gambling now i know there's bad beats that happen all the time okay scott van pelt has an incredible series about it they get showcased on the internet all the time and as sports gambling continues to grow we're only going to hear more and more and more about bad beats but what happened last night about it. They get showcased on the internet all the time. And as sports gambling continues to grow, we're only going to hear more and more and more about bad beats. But what happened last night, 70% of the money was on the Seahawks minus six and a half. Okay. The entire game, there wasn't a single thought that the Philadelphia Eagles were going to be able to put together anything to make that game close. Now, Russell Wilson, obviously they go for it on fourth and goal and

get stopped on an early drive. And you're like, well, are they dead? And then the Philadelphia Eagles can't move the ball at all. Then Jalen Hurts comes in, hands the ball off, throws the ball, then Bench is asking him to fuck out of here. Doug Peterson and Carson Wentz obviously have no idea what's going on. Up 14, less than 30 seconds left in the goddamn game. Carson Wentz, who is a religious man, throws a Hail Mary to his Lord and Savior.

They catch it in the end zone after a batted ball catch. Boom, they're down eight at this particular point. Spread was six and a half. 70% of the money was on Seahawks minus six and a half. Everybody was pumped throughout the entire game knowing that they got a win on Monday Night Football, even though they might have got their asses beat over the weekend. Doug Peterson, Mr. Analytics Guy, one person in the history of analytics and data said, you know what you should do? You're down 14. You've got a little bit of limited time left. Instead of the history of football, which says just kick the goddamn extra point, go

back, score again, kick the goddamn extra point, you're back in the game. That's football. No, no. Some analytics guy one time said, or lady, sorry, very sexist of me. Some analytics guy or girl said, no, no. Down 14, no time left. Go for two both times. You make the first time, guess what?

You can go for two again and win the game. Or you kick the extra point tight, whatever you want to do. Blah, blah, blah. Eat shit, Doug Peterson. Okay? Eat shit. That was unbelievable. Now, granted, it got them within six of the Seahawks.

Okay? They obviously cover somehow against all the odds. With 15 seconds left, they cover someone. I mean, it was just. And now, listen. As I was watching the end of that game, I was like, you know what? You know what would be really cool? If the sports gambling gods did, this onside kick, just like A.J. Brown did,

take to the fucking house. Okay? But instead, Jake Elliott kicks it 30 yards down the field. There's no chance of the onside kick being recovered. Take down it. It's over. See you later. Everybody go eat shit.

That was last night. Let's talk to the boys back in Indianapolis at Tone Diggs. You were also on the Seahawks, minus 6.5, and you predicted this was going to happen exactly how it happened, about 15 minutes left in the game. And to be honest, you might be to blame for this whole goddamn thing. Well, we talked about it yesterday on Hammered Down, actually. When you start giving out picks, you have an idea of how you're going to lose the game.

And whenever there was the holding call, I believe on a Carlos Hyde 20-yard touchdown, got called back. And then the next play, DK Metcalf forgot how to catch, even though he had 477 yards last night. I tweeted out, there's probably a 0% chance that the Seahawks cover. forgot how to catch even though he had 477 yards last night. I tweeted out there's probably a 0% chance that the Seahawks cover. And then there was, and I'll let you talk about this, the intentional grounding no call where the ref was standing straddling. Diggs, Diggs, the guy is straddling the line of scrimmage, okay?

That is what that ref does. I think he's a line judge. Like that's what you are, like line of scrimmage, okay? That is what that ref does. I think he's a line judge. Like, that's what you are, like, line of scrimmage. Now, I might be wrong. The guy is straddling the line of scrimmage, okay? It's first down or whatever, but this would have made it first in whatever, 40, because he was running for his life behind the line of scrimmage. You see the ref literally look to his left. The Seattle Seahawks coach, who is an assistant, gets down on one knee to catch the ball. It's inches from the ground.

Even if the ref forgot that it doesn't matter where it lands, it's where it goes out of bounds at, which is what the rule is. Even if he's out of the pocket, he has to be able to make it back to the line of scrimmage and where it goes out at. Even if he potentially forgot about that, that ball's hitting the ground right before the ref's left foot on the line of scrimmage.

They look at it. No intentional ground. Okay? So whenever that happens, Diggs, you're 100% right. I'm watching. Okay? And Steve, Gracie, and Lewis, they mentioned how it probably should have been, but then they just moved on.

I'm like, oh, we're just moving on from that, huh? How the fuck is that guy in the NFL, that ref right there, whenever literally you see him staring at the intentional ground, he's staring at it. And it's like, yo, did you forget which way the team was going? Like, did he think that the behind the line of scrimmage was his right foot instead of his left foot? Felt like a lot of things were getting cooked.

It was in Philadelphia. A lot of Italians over there at home. Not 100% sure if it's not you and your people's fault that that whole thing happened. It's not my people. And then, like, the back door was definitely open after that but then thankfully carson wentz has no fucking idea what state the back door's in he throws interception but then the seahawks basically just two drives in a row decided to basically just kneel the ball three times basically just

kneel the ball kick a field goal giving it back and as soon as that happened i knew the only option for us to lose was the garbage time touchdown followed by the two-point conversion there was no chance we had absolutely no chance but yeah it felt like we're kind of ducks in the water ducks in the sky if you're around where the king lived back in the day if you're watching the crown i don't know how they have any ducks left over there with how much that guy went out and shot fucking ducks by the way if the crown is anything accurate to what his real life was like, that motherfucker was out shooting ducks every single goddamn morning. The only person who maybe has more influence on the NFL

than the Italians in the gambling side of it is that fucking piece of shit, whiner, crybaby John Harbaugh, who is making all the decisions and pulling all the strings for the NFL. Okay, so you want to move past the bad beat last night, which I do as well. Let's get right to tomorrow. Listen, Seahawks, congrats on a win. Okay, way to go.

You're going to win the next football. Your defense, by the way, play good defense. Now, is that because you're playing against Carson Wentz, Jalen Hurts, Doug Peterson, a lost cause? Potentially, but you did get a win. Russell Wilson, a couple days after his birthday, gets a big dub. Now, when there's less than two minutes left and the other team doesn't have a timeout, a first down wins the game.

Okay? If it gets to two minutes and the other team doesn't have a timeout and you have a first down, that's game over. Kneel that son of a bitch out. The Seahawks could have done that. The Seahawks could have had that killer instinct and said they settled for that field goal. Obviously, we get screwed. Now, we do know that earlier in the game, Jake Elliott missed an extra point,

so we're kind of lucky by that whole thing. Whatever. Blah, blah, blah. Now, let's get to tomorrow's game. A Wednesday day game, 340, with a lot on the line, a lot. Ravens, Steelers, both going to be playoff teams. One of the teams is goddamn undefeated. Nobody's talking about Pittsburgh Steelers.

This game was supposed to obviously be Thanksgiving night, and Randy Baumann, a WDV stand-up comedian, he had a hilarious line. He tweeted something along the lines of, this game was supposed to be the most watched game of the season on Thanksgiving night, Ravens-Steelers, and instead, it's an opening act for a Christmas tree lighting on Wednesday at 340. And I, for one, as somebody who does not have a 9-to-5, like most of Pittsburgh and Baltimore, I'd assume, by the way. Now, I would assume that their Zoom calls are going to get cut short or whatever. But this 340 kickoff is wild. For us, it doesn't really matter.

We'll just use tomorrow's show as a pregame show and see how we give it a go. But it does feel like Harbaugh is potentially pulling the strings, Diggs, to your point. Well, yeah, I mean, because you mentioned yesterday, we talked about it yesterday, the Titans weren't able to practice for two weeks. Ah, who cares? Play your game. The Broncos are missing all their quarterbacks.

Ah, who cares? Play your game. The Ravens want to get their two running backs back and get a walkthrough in. Okay, we'll move your game one day to Wednesday, so that makes sure that works. And then Sears will play on Monday of next week. But no, no, you guys don't have to play on Monday.

You guys can play on Tuesday next week, so Lamar Jackson comes back. I don't fucking get it, Pat. Well, what is a wildcat strike? You know, like, what is a wildcat strike? I guess people read that pro football talk, and I've gotten some tweets

that they're fucking experts on what a wildcat strike is nowadays. Congrats to you, I guess. You must be the head of a fucking union. I don't understand what this is. The players are threatening not to play because they don't have enough time to prepare their bodies or whatever. And with what you said, the Titans went two weeks

ago. Now, Maziano was a little bit upset. Okay. Yeah. Listen to Maziano talk about the whole thing. He's like, this situation is nothing like the titan situation it's nothing like the bronco situation which by the way he's 100 right right the ravens have had positive tests for what like 13 days straight or something at this point or 10 days straight or whatever the accurate day is i overemphasize that obviously for comedic purposes but you get it they've had so many positive tests that have just rolled out. The Broncos only had high-risk contact

traces, but they were negative tests. So that's why the Broncos were forced to play without a goddamn quarterback, even though they celebrated for not having a quarterback and they lost the game as if they put up a little bit of a fight. They did not, but hey, good on them. I respect that.

I salute you. Well, Jay, you did a lot better than I would do, and a lot better than a lot of people. But the after thing, like you should just let people tell you like the laugh and smiling going off after losing 31 to fucking three. I don't care how much time just as a competitive human can't do it. Just can't get paid like 20,000, 30,000 bucks for that. He just got off a practice squad. Like at least act as if you're bummed out that you only completed one pass. Now, listen, I, it was a tough, it was a tough position to be in,

but I'm still not over that. I don't know how, if I was, I don't know how to handle that situation in the locker room where everybody's like high five with them. Like, are we fucking kidding, dude? We just lost by 28 points. He completed one pass. Jerry Judah could have fucking done that.

Are we even? But that's neither here nor there. Okay. He got put in a bad position. They did too. The difference though between those outbreaks and the current Baltimore Ravens one is not to roll out of all the positives. But then whenever they started getting into the, the whole, well, they want to condition

because they're worried about muscle tweaks or anything like that. I was like, well, the Titans literally weren't a lot of practice for two weeks. They tried to practice. They, it spread to condition because they're worried about muscle tweaks and everything like that. I was like, well, the Titans literally weren't allowed to practice for two weeks. They tried to practice. It spread to 22 people. So it does feel like there is a little bit of be who you can afford to be, and the Ravens are a team that is going to be in the conversation, and the Broncos are not. So although Maziano is 100% right with what he was saying,

it does feel as if there's been a little bit of leeway, and maybe that's because the boys threatened a Wildcat strike. know what i mean now granted speaking of wildcat if they fucking do that again when lamar jackson's in the game like we should slap the raven yeah they tried to run the goddamn wildcat offense it's like yo you got a wildcat quarterback literally like you should just bring in a couple more fullbacks maybe instead of getting him off the field for a guy that doesn't know how to take a snap but i'm excited for tomorrow's game that's a big spread 10 and a half is a lot of points in that game. I don't care who's playing quarterback.

I don't care what time of day it is. I don't care who's on what team. Ravens-Steelers, ten and a half is a lot of points. We'll continue to talk about that going in tomorrow. At Boston, Connor, how are you feeling about life, my brother man? I feel fantastic, Pat. I'm going to feel even better when my friends in Philadelphia feel good that they finally fire Doug Peterson and Howie Roseman

for such an atrocious job they've done since winning the Super Bowl. Yeah, it does feel as if that is the narrative. Now, you always have to wonder. You always have to wonder, is Philadelphia just never going to be happy? I mean, they won a Super Bowl, and then during the ring ceremony in Banner Night, the team got booed off the field at halftime. You know what I mean? So it's like Philadelphia for good reason has high expectations,

high hopes, and inevitably a lot of misery in their history. I mean, there's a lot of movies about it. They are an incredible fan base that has done a lot of things I don't want to dive into because I think if we were to pick one particular thing we're not, like you know, when they threw the things that the guy who's coming down the chimney.

But if we say that, then we don't talk about how cool they are whenever they go crazy for something, too. You know, so I feel like they kind of feel as if they get just all the bad narrative painted about them because those ones are so legendary. But I've had experiences with Philadelphia Eagles fans that were awesome, you know, so it's like, they're a cool fan base, but it does feel like they end up in shitty situations on a regular basis. And last night, the internet, because that Seahawks defense has given up 700 yards of offense basically to everybody. And last night, Carson Wentz, offensive guru, Doug Peterson, Jalen Hurts, and the boys only were able to score a couple of field goals until goddamn Hail Mary.

It just, it seems like something's got to give over there is it carson is it doug is it howie is lewis riddick going to be the general manager everybody on the internet was saying that while he was commentating last night he was basically lobbying for the job is dan orlovsky going to be the goddamn head coach he's doing the same thing whenever he's is lewis riddick at gm and orslavsky at head coach the answer in Philadelphia? It feels like those two care a lot about the team, but would that help the team that seems to not be able to play football well, Connor? I don't know, but like you said earlier, Pat,

Peterson's got no clue what's going on. They come into the game and they start off with five straight three and outs. It's like, look, this is the worst defense we've seen in a long time, and they can't get anything moving. And for Riddick and Orslovsky, who probably should be on that staff next year, that's probably one of the more appealing jobs now. They're projected to have the sixth overall pick. Wentz next year, after next year, has an opt-out.

I'm not sure exactly what it is, but you can give Wentz one more year in Orslovsky's system, and you can maybe draft. You can have a guy like Riddick who can draft somebody. Roseman, in the past two years, he picked this year Rieger over Justin Jefferson and Claypool, and then last year he picked J.J. Ortega Whiteside over D.K. Metcalf. I mean, they really do got a clean house and just get some new faces in there.

It's crazy to think that you think that the eagles job will be one that people would want oh yeah yeah i feel like that's one where you know like the people who are invest like for instance if you're what jeff lorry is that his name yeah jeff lorry yeah l-u-r-i-e i know his last name i don't know his first one he's got a lot of money. I think he saved Meek Mill. Shout out to him, this guy. Wow. He got Meek Mill out of jail. Shout out to him. I mean, dreams and nightmares. The whole thing was an incredible out. You get it. So I think he's pretty invested and well-known. And I think I saw a thing where he was walking around a parking lot, like, dapping up fans at one point. So I think he wants to be well-received, you know, by the fan base. And if you've got Louis Riddick and Orslovsky basically lobbying for the gig,

and if you have a feel as if they could be the guys, I mean, I think that, I just don't know, aside from anybody wanting to be a general manager, because that's like the pinnacle of your scouting profession, and somebody just wanting to be a head coach or whatever, there's going to be a lot of jobs open. There's going to be a lot of jobs open, a lot of them. Is Philadelphia a desired destination for people?

Maybe because the NFC stinks so bad. It's like, okay, maybe we go to this team. We've got an easy road in the playoffs. But I think you start stacking it up against, like, the Chargers gigs. That's going to be up potentially. No, Texans job's the worst by far. You've got nothing to build with down there. You've got zero picks, zero dollars

You got a quarterback I guess And you got J.J. Watt who's ready to Ball out anytime you get a primetime game But I don't even know if he wants to be there There's a lot going on, they're going to have to get picked Ty Schmidt, Aaron Rodgers Tuesday, how you feeling pal? I am very very excited Per usual, Rodgers birthday is tomorrow

So I'm excited to see what kind of mood he is. But I do want to ask you, Pat. I'll take probably a lot of people aren't going to agree with this, specifically in Seattle, but are we sure that Russell Wilson isn't still broke? The Eagles fucking stink. They should have blown him out of the water last night. They let him hang around the whole time. Five weeks ago, everyone's saying, let Russ cook.

Let Russ cook. You let him cook, he turns the. Five weeks ago, everyone's saying, let Russ cook. Let Russ cook. You let him cook. He turns the ball over. They lose football games. I mean, I don't know. He's 9-0 on his birthday, so that would explain why he was begging people on his Twitter to wish him a happy birthday after Bible study. But it just doesn't seem like this is the same Russell Wilson

from earlier in the season. And we've mentioned it a couple times on this show. I'm not so sure he's not still broken. Yeah, I just, you know, he had 177 yards, DK. DK's whole thing about Megatron was awesome. I like that he got, I like that he felt disrespected because he was compared to Megatron. I'm not trying to be him, okay? I'm trying to be DK Metcalf.

I like that, okay? And I thought his tweet, one of the greatest tweets I've ever seen in my whole life with the uh the jordan and i took that personally uh i mean it was awesome to hear that he's a weapon though that guy he is an absolute yeah jim schwartz says he complimented dk before the game told him he's got a ton of respect for him and he was with calvin in detroit that was back whenever uh schwartz was fighting people as a head coach right oh yeah harbaugh he was with calvin in det, and he's closest thing to Megatron. He's seen Jim told him after a game, you may not be Calvin yet, but you're on your way,

and DK Metcalf goes, I took that person. Joining us now is a man who threw for four touchdowns this weekend, 211 yards, absolute stud. Ladies and gentlemen, new commercial out with him in it, by the way. He's not on yet. He's getting ready still. Oh, actually, he might be ready now. Okay, goodness.

Ladies and gentlemen, Aaron Rodgers. Yeah! Just getting my water here. Hey, what are you going to drink it out of today? Because, you know, sometimes it's a mason jar. Sometimes it's like a sophisticated glass. What are you going with today? Oh, yes.

Let me get in position here. I just had my massage. I feel a little high, but I'm good. Hey, that's a great time to talk to you. Let's chat about stuff now. Do you get a weekly massage? What other stuff do you get done? Can you give me a

what's going on here? I only see half of you and half of me. Let's fix that, guys. Hey, there we go. I like that better. Much better. I talked to AJ. He said he's even there.

This show would probably be a lot better without his questions. I think he's on the phone. I'm not 100% sure. But if he drops in from the clouds, know that that's him. We don't have the right tech to set up to have three FaceTimes. So that's on us. Him or Ric Flair. Hey, you gave that incredible speech, by the way,

about why football is a great sport. And we put, like, music behind it and everything and put it on the internet. In about, I don't know, 15 seconds in, you're really starting to get going and you hear Ric Flair in the background go, you know who Pat McAfee is, right? Oh my God. Oh my God. We got Ric Flair in the middle of this thing. It's magical.

It's magical. This show is a joke. It's too good. I don't understand why we can't get all three of us on here. The tech. It takes a lot. I don't understand why we can't get all three of us on here. The tech. It takes a lot. I would assume the internet is also something they have. For whatever reason, we weren't able to make it happen. We need another investment from Fandor, another partner, possibly you, by the way.

Investors? Possibly you. Let's get to where this conversation started you do massage weekly do you do anything else is it a daily thing multi-time weekly how do you take care of the body uh yeah i mean i don't spend a million on my body every year but uh i don't spend anywhere close to that, to be honest. I get a massage at least once a week, once or twice. And then I just do, you know, I have a daily kind of routine, weekly routines that I kind of go through. But I wouldn't say it's super sophisticated, just something that's kind of evolved over the years and worked for me. The off-season program has definitely picked up for me as far as how much

you know body work i do compared to like actually uh working out i like to have a good balance with that got a great uh great system out in california that's uh kind of grown over the years uh with tommy takes really good care of me and uh and ryan and his staff at proactive i've been working out there for a number of years bakhtiari, he's been there, among other guys. Clay Matthews for a long time. He'd get mad if I didn't mention him right now. So, but yeah. So definitely offseason is really important.

In-season, it's just about maintaining. You know that. It's about trying to maintain and whatever you got to do to maintain. How do you feel right now? Week 12 is done. You've just had an incredible performance. How's the body? How's the brain? How's the life? Man, I feel great. You know, to barely get touched in a game. I said after the game, I'm turning 37 tomorrow. And I feel amazing. I mean, I've been

sacked, I think, 11 or 12 times this year. That's pretty rare. I mean, it's really rare for my career. So, big shout out to the boys up front. The scheme, I think, has been really good for that as well. And then just really trying to deal with the ball as quickly as possible. Man, waking up on Monday without barely getting hit, shit, that's

a dream come true. I feel like a punter. Alright, I mean, we were going there. I was like a punter. Alright. I mean, we were going there. I was about to be so happy for you and about to talk about how you probably played for another 10, 15 years. You were a tackle machine. I'm talking about... Oh, yeah! Maybe a J.K. Scott, you know?

Hey, he bombs balls. He stays out of the way. You gotta do what you gotta do. By the way, before we go any further, because you did mention it, the boys, myself, everybody sitting at at home listening and watching chime in you know how it goes happy birthday to you happy birthday to you Happy birthday dear Avon. Happy birthday to

you. Woo! That was everywhere. Everybody was singing it. Even in Estonia. Dude. Hey, thank you guys. Thanks a lot. AJ, I heard you too. Really good singing there. I don't think he was. i don't think he was i don't think he was i'm not 100 sure he's on let's talk about the game shall we talk about the game a

couple things happened i took notes i don't know if you know this but i'm big time journalist i actually take notes during your games for things to ask you this is throughout the entire season there's a lot in there okay there's a lot in there i do real There's a lot in there. I do real research here. The title of it is Aaron. You guys were fourth and two second quarter, okay, in field goal range, and there wasn't even a thought to kick a field goal there. You were playing against a great defense. Was the mindset like in that situation, hey, gonna go no matter what is there a moment where you just kind of feel as if you guys can do whatever you want or you have a good read or

what was the thought in that situation you know which one i'm referring to but that was surprising me i'm like not even a consideration it wasn't even like a stay off the field it was like no we're going for it against a normally very good defense there. Yeah, Pat, I think sometimes you just, you know, the play before I kind of got out of the sack and moved up and, you know, fell forward, you know, semi-athletically for about a yard and a half, I think, to avoid a sack. To put us from third, fourth, and, you know, two or whatever. And sometimes you look over the sideline, you kind of give them the,

hey, let's go for it. And just kind of, you know, you're kind of dipping a toe in, testing the waters. And he was kind of like, hmm. And then once he went, hmm, I was like, yeah, let's go. Let's do it. Let's go for it. I think there's plays that we really liked in situations like that.

But, look, the analytics have showed even the casual fan, but also the coaches, you know, how really going for a lot of those four downs can be game-changing plays. I feel like at the time, the way we were rolling on offense, to go up two scores, what was it, three scores at that point? Yeah, it was early. Yeah, you were up a lot. I think it was 13.

Was it 13-3 at that point? Yeah, it was early. Yeah, you were up a lot. I think it was 13. Was it 13-3 at that point? Yeah, yeah. I just thought that was important for us to keep that drive going. I think I hit Bobby on that one. They actually did a good job covering on the front side. We had a play where Devontae was in the backfield, and the running back went to the receiver's position, tried to get Devontae out to the flat real quick.

They covered it. Big Bob Tunyon came from the backside for a nice route and kept the drive going. We scored a touchdown on that drive. Let's talk about Big Bob Tunyon because another one of my notes here, they caught you on camera shaking your head no, then yes, then no, then yes. Then the next play, you threw a 45-yard touchdown to Big Bob Tunyon. Was that like whenever a pitcher and a catcher's like uh let's go with the curveball and you're like nah nah nah

nah and they're like fastball and you're like yep yep yep and they're like maybe a curveball no no no fucking fastball and then when it works out how gratifying is that whenever it's like you call out i don't know how that conversation's going i don't know what lefleur is saying to you there or whatever but that felt like an interesting little series of events where it worked out big for bob tunney and i was very intrigued to know what's going on in your head there and why why that happened well there's a lot of conversation sometimes they they ask you you know matt asked you like this one and it might be yes what about this one no no and you sure you want this one yeah yeah you don't want the other one no i don't

want the other one i want this or i think in that situation it was uh i think he had called this play and now i want to go back to this play i want to run to the right and i was shaking him i want to run to the left actually i want to keep away from khalil just because he said he's so impactful so i thought if we kept away from him we had body presence with the back to his side, and we had the other tight end sneaking across there to be a lead blocker or just like a support blocker to set up to throw it down the field to Big Bob. I just liked it to the left a little better. We ran a similar play to the right.

I missed Devontae way inside. Khalil was coming. If I had set up, he might have drilled me and put me out for a couple weeks. So I really wanted to run the play to the left side. So I don't remember exactly if he was asking me, do you like this play over that play? Or if I was shaking him, trying to get him, hey, let's run it to the left, not to the right.

But, yeah, there's a lot of that sometimes. Sometimes he'll be like, you know, give me three plays. And then he'll say, do you want number one, number two, or number three? And then I'll hold up, you know give me three plays and then he'll say do you want number one number two or number three and then i'll hold up you know whatever number there but uh a lot goes on especially when there's a little bit of time tv timeouts penalty any time to fill space on the headset you know matt matt enjoys using that up well you know he's always coaching you know i mean the guy has maybe the best record in the history to start off a head coaching career in the nfl you just that happens on a regular basis that that's very intriguing to me because i would assume as as an nfl quarterback myself whenever

i got in there you know there's normally one play and then if i didn't like it we could potentially check the other side you know what i mean and i think the normal assumption is when they're going in there it's like okay you got one play two plays if you want to audible it at the same time i didn't know there was a full shake-off situation potentially happening while that's all going on it makes sense now that you mentioned it but i did not know that's happening that's happening a lot more than we think it is well it depends on how much you think it's happening if you think it's happening all the time it's happening less if you don't think it doesn't happen at all then it's happening more than you think you know that worked let me get back to my fucking notes okay um how many takes for the happy gilmore drive in that state farm

commercial that you alluded to weeks ago on this show because i said hey how come they didn't have you doing the cornhole and you're like they had me do golf in in my head at the time because i was probably on some vitamins, I was like, golf? I have not seen the golf commercial. And I thought we were potentially breaking news there, but I didn't follow up. It was bad hosting by me to say, like, what golf commercial?

It has debuted since then. And by the way, it is a better one than the Cornell one. The Happy Gilmore drive, was that first take, second take? Because it looked like you did absolutely slaughter that golf ball in that in that commercial well this is a spoiler alert here it was not actually a golf ball it was like a hard golf ball it was a plastic one there was a green screen behind we were in beautiful austin texas in the summertime and very safe on set, very safe. Followed all protocols and I actually hit them all really, really good from the first take to last. I told him, I said it's gonna be one take, just make sure you get this one,

which is kind of a joke because the DP, director of photography, was an all-timer. If you know who Bob Richardson is, have one of the boys look him up real quick and see what he's done. But he's an absolute legend. He's done many of Tarantino's films. He is an all-timer, not just in his DP, but his hair. He's got amazing like down to here white hair so this was small potatoes

for Bob but you getting something right there you got a beer yeah he's the man but he was he was director of the photography there the filming he was awesome

to work with, so fun. I wish it had been a different setting, not, you know, Corona 2020 where you could actually hang out and talk without masks on, you know. But it was fun to work with him and the crew, directors.

Eric is a great dude. Fun to be on set with Pat and with Mr. Schmedium, Jake from State Farm. I wish I could say that I caught him mid-takes doing a bunch of curls or whatnot, but I didn't. But he's a lot of fun to work with and a really great dude. And that was a one-taker. We obviously got some more for safety, as they say.

But, yeah, that was a lot of fun. It was hot down there for sure, but it was fun. One taker. Yeah, all right. That's what we're talking about. I think I heard AJ there, by the way. AJ, what do you got, pal? Yeah, hey, so, Aaron, I actually was just going to sit

and watch this thing online and not call in, but I saw Aaron take a shot at me as soon as he jumped on camera, so I figured I'd call in to chat a little bit. Aaron, quick question for me. During the game, you're going to think I'm joking, but I'm not. So a couple different times you send guys in motion. I heard one time picked up clearly on the TV copy. You said, all right, why don't you start to get going there, Marquez,

and you send him in motion. Is there a reason you don't just point and cue them, or is there a reason you don't just give a little wink or a leg? Like, why do you say it like that? Well, there's possible flies in the play call sometimes. So it's not a guarantee that he's going to go in motion every time. So sometimes I'll just bring him. And then sometimes uh with the head

with a foot and then sometimes i'll just talk to him i mean it's you're playing at home so you can hear everything um so i don't know i just decided to bring him in motion are you incredibly comfortable right now you're really comfortable right now huh because? Because that in goal play, whatever it was, where you did a backpedal, and Lazard might have been, was it your third or fourth option? I'm not 100% sure, but it looked like you were playing. Now, the Bears defense, listen, they're a good defense. Khalil Mack, game wrecker. You've even said it here in the last couple minutes

that you were actually getting plays away from him. They got a lot of good players, okay? They got a lot to figure out in Chicago. Who knows what next year's team is going to look like. But you look like you're playing against a high school team, okay? It literally looked like that. In that play where you went through like four reads and then delivered it to Lazard there, it was just awesome.

You look like Bob Ross painting. You literally did on Sunday. And I know people probably compliment you a lot, and I tweeted this out, but it really did look like at not one single point were you like, yeah, you know what, I don't know exactly what's going on out here. It was just the comfort level. Is that the scheme? Is that the year?

Is that that you had all your weapons back? What is it? Well, first of all, there's not many better compliments you can give me than to compare the way that I played to Bob Ross and his painting. As, you know, a big fan of his, as is A.J., I can say that I've watched sober at A.J.'s house many episodes of the Bob Ross old painting show. Usually in the mornings with some sort of lovely coffee drink from his wife. You know, we've watched hours of Bob Ross probably over the years. So I really appreciate that compliment.

And a shout-out to Laura, his wife, who's an amazing cook, chef, barista, hostess, and to their four kids, AJ. Is that better now that I've complimented you? Interior designer, the whole thing. Yeah, make sure you just continue to pander, just like all your interviews post-game. Perfect question. Good time.

Yeah, thanks, AJ. I can't even really remember the question. Oh, no, we were talking about, yeah. Comfort, comfort. Yeah, so the touchdown to Allen, I was laughing with him as I agreed him in the end zone. I said, just how we drew it up. Because he's not even really an option on the play.

The play is, you know, we've run some tosses to Devontae on that fly motion. So we're faking that. Then we're faking an inside handoff. And then we're trying to get big Bob Tunyon to slide across the formation and get open with, I believe it was Marquez on that play, coming from the backside too. As I came out, Allen's guy fell off. You know, and so he had basically three guys on the slide and the over.

Roquan, I think, was coming after me, and I just kind of peeked back to Allen for whatever reason. He had put his hands up like they had wide open. So I just, you know, kind of awkwardly got him the ball as best I could. But I think that's kind of how it's been. If you look at a breakdown of our season, there's been many plays like that where there's protection or the scheme. We've gotten back the guys who really are in progressions,

and I think that's the beauty in second year in the offense, going outside of the system or the scheme, pushing the – not going outside the system. That insinuates something that I'm not talking about. But I think adding to the scheme in subtle little ways like we've done this year, I think has allowed us to make some of those plays. But, look, it's just smart football players. I've said it.

You know, I can – talent-wise, it's great having guys with talent. But smart football players, man, you can win with those kind of guys. When 13, Alon Lazard's playing, he's just one of those super smart football players. Like, you can win with those kind of guys. He went 13, Alon Lazard's playing. He's just one of those super smart football players. Like, he just gets it. He's in the right spot at the right time. He just, like, the little things that don't even show up in the stat book. Like, we're running a lead inside duo play there, but the league runs.

And he comes down in a short motion. And Eddie Jackson, the safety's hitting it. And instead of trying to, like, butt him up in the hole, he just cuts him. So it goes from, like, it looks like when I take the snap, it looks like the C-gap is going to be, Eddie's going to hit it before anything. And sure enough, you know, Allen cuts him in the hole,

and we get a five-yard gain. It's like little plays like that that he does all over the field. Did last weekend against Indy where he's blocking on the three-man bubble to his side and he just turns this guy and gets davante the heads and tay falls in end zone for a touchdown things that don't don't show up unless you're a football person you you're writing about this stuff but but it's stuff you love uh just smart plays marquez a couple weeks ago in practice made two plays in the same day that were just brilliant you know we had this uh scramble drill and he just made this amazing top gun in the back of the end zone and then we had an offsides play and he made it a really good heady play and i just have to like that's the stuff that gets me jacked up like after afterwards i was so pumped it was

practice but i was just pumped because when guys make smart reactionary plays, man, that gives you confidence you can win with these people because talent only goes so far. We have to have smart guys out there. And when we do and getting a guy like Allen back in the mix, it frees us up to be able to make some of these off-schedule plays like Devontae on the first touchdown. I mean, he's running a trail route. He's running down the pipe. They drop eight.

He naturally knows to kind of take his time, but he works to the backside, and it looks easy, and it was relatively easy. He put the ball eight and a half feet off the ground. He made it look easy making a catch for a touchdown for his five-pound catch. But smart players like that, man, you can win with guys like that. Okay, so whenever I got a chance to watch Peyton play, obviously,

that offense, they've been around each other for so long. I mean, the guys on that team, Austin Colley was the new guy that they dropped in there. But the amount of reps that they spent in the offseason to get on the same page between Austin and Peyton was just like next level. But there was a lot of option routes in that offense. It's like everybody has to be on the same page everybody has to see the same picture and

everybody's the same thing they say about the patriot offense is that the same style of offense that you guys are running because that never gets talked about how everybody has to be on the same page and making the same decisions and everything like that no not necessarily i think it's different i think we we used to run some more of that where we had two and one routes we call it where guys really had to read coverages all the time whether they're outside receiver and inside receiver and that was more about being on the same page at all times this is more uh clear cut as far as responsibility by receivers especially in the in the in the in their routes i'm talking about off schedule plays I'm talking about subtle adjustments at the line of scrimmage that you can do with guys who are smart, with guys who are locked in,

with guys who are so confident in what they're doing, they can just now react to the environment that they're in. And that's when those guys make the biggest jumps. And that's what, you know, I've seen in Devontae the last couple years. Allen, you know, definitely gets it. Marquez, seeing plays like that in practice gives you a lot of trust, a lot of hope in that. I think the two backs are really smart players as well.

I think both Jamal and Aaron are really dialed into protection schemes and routes, and that's what I love, you know. Give me smart players all day long, you can win with those guys. Let's talk about a very smart player. An offensive lineman got a little bit of a spotlight in the game. Elton Jenkins. Elton? Elton?

Elton? Silent G. Elton. Hey, real G's moving silence like a zhonya, dude. Elton Jenkins, okay, he's played all five positions. It's just not normal, by the way. He's only in his second year. That is not normal.

I think they said that on the broadcast, and I think people that know football are like, that is incredible that this guy's been able to do this in the NFL. I obviously, as soon as I heard that, wanted to get yours because he's playing center because of number one pro football focus rated center goes out. Obviously, we hope he's healthy and everything like that. But can you talk about him a little bit and what you've seen because they said he's even

stepping up into a leadership role even in year two that's a guy that's a gift to a team out of nowhere there yeah i think i think he's definitely more comfortable i told the story last week uh after the third game this year you know so now he's got a year and three games, so he feels like he's not a rookie anymore. He said, all right, guys. And only he can say this. He's from Mississippi. He said, can't call me Elgie no more. He said, it's Elton.

I was like, okay, all right. Good for you, man. Good for you. And he gave a justification that I won't share. That's better if you ask him if you ever have him on but um hopefully i think the the biggest compliment i can give elton is you know when he started right tackle for us in game one i think there's some people are like man maybe right tackle is his best position then he goes back to left guard where i think he was a

you know uh all rookie guardokie guard last year. And guys go, I don't know. He's really good at left guard. Maybe left guard is his best position. And then, you know, last couple weeks playing center, when Corey got hurt back locked up on him against Indy, and then obviously, you know, unfortunately got hurt against Chicago.

A lot of people, I think there's probably people going, is center his best position? You know? So that's the best compliment I can give him. He's really played well at all three different types of positions. I think mentally is the biggest thing for him that he obviously feels great about because it is different playing tackle and then playing guard where you're calling a lot of stuff with the center or for the center or to the tackle echoing things out to center where you're calling all of it um and then you got to be on the same page with the cadence um but i give him a lot of credit for that because

it wasn't like you know last week we did a couple snaps because i got on him a couple weeks ago about his snaps were kind of all over the place and and then when he got uh when he was like, hey, we've got to get some snaps. I was like, man, we're good. Don't worry about it. We're fine. I just wanted to alleviate any angst or anxiety he had about, oh, we've got to get a couple snaps before we go out there. And I was like, man, we're fine.

We're fine. I was like, I'll give you one. I'll give you one. And then he snapped one. It was perfect. And then we moved on. I think a lot of times that helps guys maybe relax a little bit. If you go from guard to center now, there's real big spy lights on you.

And the guy calling it says, no, we're fine. We're good. Don't worry about it. And he was. And he was great. Well, that's the thing about you, though, is you don't warm up. You don't practice throwing in the offseason so just expect our guy elton just to be the same exact way is uh incredible leadership by you just being like hey let's not even think

about this dude just snap the ball okay we're gonna be okay the field was talked about a lot being slick and you've obviously played there for a long long time and i know it's a mixture between i think turf and natural grass. And AJ, I think AJ's still on. AJ talked last week about how there's these rollers that come out and heat the field or something like that. But it looked like it was a slick field. What is it about that place? Is that just normal?

That's how it is? Or why is it not more of a conversation piece, you think? I'm not sure exactly i mean i think uh because it might not be it's not the longest grass in the league it's relatively short and probably gotten short over the years usually grass length is is talked about for the type of grass you know if it's a sod if they bring inside if they have college games that play on their field whatever it might be i know that you know our stuff and we just uh had the new practice field uh redone and it's you know amazing but it is uh stitched into uh the the artificial type of grass is stitched in to the real grass for support

so um it is a surface that's improved over the years you know there were a lot of years where our field was very brown in December just because the grass was dead and it was more muddy I will say that a lot of the I guess the grass when it's above, tends to be a little slicker. When it gets below, I'd say, 25, gets in the low 20s and the high teens, the slickness does go away. I think because our surface has gotten a lot more reinforced, you know, great job by Alan, his staff,

and the guys they work with on the field maintenance. Nice job. by Alan, his staff, and the guys they work with on the field maintenance. I do think it's interesting to still see guys and what footwear they choose to go with on game day. I've always been a screw-in, seven-stud type on our home field, even when it was in a lot worse shape than it is now. But I've never – I don't run – I'm not running as much as any of these guys, but I haven't had a lot of slipping problems over the years. Hey, you did a pump fake, though.

It was dope. You didn't do the pump fake downfield, though, which I was bummed about because you said last week that you liked doing the pump fake downfield. As soon as you crossed the line in scrimmage, you didn't do it again. But I did see you do the pump fake. Nick was pumped up about it, and I was excited to see the internet appreciative of it. Why? Because Big Buckner got me last week with his 7'8 wingspan when I thought I was free,

outside the pocket, running for about 25. So this week, I got outside the pocket one time, really, and once I was out there, I had the Buckners. You know, I was worried there was, you know. Chicago's got that humongous dude, 75, who's one of the biggest humans ever. I mean, I don't know. I didn't know. I couldn't remember if he was in or not.

He might be chasing me with a 7'8 wingspan. Always think about let's get a first down. Let's not get hurt. Let's, you know, do a decent slide. Not a Matt Flynn slide. Anybody who's ever seen Matt Flynn try and slide, AJ probably knows what I'm talking about. Not the most graceful.

So do a graceful slide and then, you know, get back to the huddle. That was kind of my thought process. Smart. Hey, I got another one for you, Aaron. Hopefully you guys can hear me. What about your cadence? Your cadence is obviously a weapon and people love to pump you up about it. Have you ever had any other quarterbacks or coaches in the league

or at any level reach out to you? Because I don't see anyone else doing it like you do. Well, if you watch some of the games, I'm not going to call anybody out, but it seems like there's been a couple guys who've been stealing my color number combination. Oh, green, green. Look, I think you should go out and maybe look at that, do some investigation,

or let the social media warriors go out and look into that. But look, I'm not saying it was original. I borrowed it from Brett Favre. And he deserves credit for the type of cadence. It was strange to me in 2005, made no sense.

Now it makes perfect sense to me. And I think it's probably really strange for anybody coming in wondering what the hell, how do you teach this cadence to be? I know it was for Matt when they came in. They said the cadence, and I said it, and talked about when the ball snapped and everything and the different cadences we had. And he said, that makes no sense. I said, maybe not to you.

It only has to make sense to the 11 out there on the field. And by the way, it works. A. LaFleur, it works, pal. You are, as A.J. said there, it is something that, I don't know, you probably assume that other quarterbacks should do it as much. You make it look very easy. You make it look very, very easy taking advantage of cadence and your inflection and the

timing and making dummy calls sound exactly like real calls, and that does take everybody. I mean, the offensive line has to be like the Elton Jenkins. That's a young guy at center. He has to be dialed in while knowing that the biggest human you've ever seen, 75, is potentially out there. He has to be like the Elton Jenkins like that's a young guy at center he has to be dialed in while knowing that the biggest human you've ever seen 75 is potentially after he has to block it I it's is it not surprising you that more people don't kind of take advantage of it or is it

something where it takes everybody to be dialed in it's not as easy as it looks you think well I think there's a fear first of all of of uh just guys not be able to stay on sides. So it's a risk-reward for some coaches that they're not willing to entrust their guys to do a bunch of those cadences. I know there's been places where runs to the right have been on one, runs to the left have been on two, I've heard. And cadences are locked in the play calls to where the quarterback doesn't have the option to give a cadence. are locked in the play calls to where the quarterback doesn't have the option to give a cadence uh the play is joined with the cadence and the delivery from the play caller so that's

one thing that you know i always appreciate about mike was the freedom to use my cadence and obviously matt's allowed me to do the same thing but it's just it's been such a weapon for us over the years um why would you not? Now, obviously, it's timely. It's all about the timing of it and practicing what you're going to do in the game during the week and the weeks leading up just so you're not winging it out there with guys that aren't used to hearing certain things. I think that's the most important thing because you want it to be a weapon, but you don't want to have too many negative yards plays. I feel like over the years we've you know had i would say at

least a four or five six to one as far as uh offsides to false starts um maybe even higher than six or seven to one i think that's that's really important when you're mixing up the cadence so much ty what do you got aaron first and foremost love seeing you got the bears uh it never gets old so great great game on Sunday. You also passed 50,000 yards, and you don't really seem like the guy who really cares about the accolades. I mean, you're not going to put them on your cleats or anything like that. But is this a situation after something like that happens?

Do you get to reflect on how incredible your career has been up to this point, or do you just have to be laser focused on sunday uh come on ty i'm a human so i gotta answer that in a human fashion i'm not gonna give you a robot cliche answer um it is meaningful to me you know i think uh it's more of a longevity milestone you know based on sustained success and consistency and playing a lot of games but that part is all meaningful to me because there's been a lot of games that I've suited up that haven't felt 100% I think that's part of being a leader and quarterback and I know there's a lot of guys around the league who feel the same way and guys who have a ton of respect for their toughness.

But I think it's an ode to playing at a high level and playing through things and playing when you feel great and playing when you don't feel great. And then obviously it takes a lot of guys to get that. I'm not going to go through the whole repertoire of guys I've prone to or anything. I think when it comes to records, I love them and milestones. I do take

pride in them. I think they're more things you look back on when you're done playing. I don't think I'm done by any stretch of the imagination, even though some people may have thought so in the offseason. Oh! There's another milestone coming up that's exciting. When it comes to milestones, though,

I think the trifecta that we hit in the game was pretty sweet with Big Dog getting his 400th catch on a touchdown, Devontae his 500th catch on a touchdown, and my 50,000 yards on a touchdown the Tunyon was pretty cool and I do want to if I may talk about Mercedes real quick you know I think he you know his numbers aren't gonna jump out off the stat book you know and wow anybody with us but what he does for us is so important. His leadership, the little things that he does.

I talked at length about Al Mazzard and how he does so many things that aren't in the stat book. Mercedes does as many or more. And I'm talking about blocking. I'm talking about physicality. I'm talking about leadership. I'm talking about opportune comments at the right time, non-rehearsed, authentic leadership that he brings to our team.

I was frankly surprised we brought him back, only because that just hasn't been the history of older guys like that who might not have the production, you know, as far as numbers. But his production goes way deeper than the numbers, and his importance on our football team goes way deeper than that. And that's why when he, nobody on the team, and we have some fantastic players, nobody is happier on the squad than when Mercedes catches a touchdown. I'm telling you, it's everybody. You watch the reaction from Devontae and myself and Lucas Patrick and Corey and Jonesy and Williams and Tim Boyle and everybody on the sideline, his coach, Justin Outlick.

Guys are so excited for Big Dog because we all love him and we know how important he is to what we're doing. And I just think that that can't be understated at all like we're where we're at and we were where we were at last year uh in large part to the contributions both on the field not the field of mercedes lewis i was pumped to see you get him a touchdown not you get him but to get him a touchdown because he's supposed to score the week before and then it didn't work out for whatever reason so as soon as we saw him get in there, I was pumped up about it. But I did not know that about him in the locker room. I didn't know he was loved like that.

And Big Dog, great nickname, by the way. Him, Roman Reigns. Yeah, also to finish that off, you know, there's been seven players in NFL history with 400 tight ends, with 400 catches and 200 games played. Only seven. And the other six are all names you would know, and they're all in the hall. Big Dog deserves a little bit of shine there.

I love what you just said. Hey, you're a terrible teammate for doing that. You know, that's what I've heard. I've been told that. You're a bad teammate. Just spent five minutes talking about that. Keep coming at me, Pat. I do want to give a shout-out because you won't, and you have no idea what this is.

But under my shirt right here is an image of the best jumper in the country. I'm biased. Long-time best friend Joe Kemp. Played at Santa Clara University basketball. Had hosted in the past a basketball tournament up in Portland and Seattle. So shout out to my man Joey today with the most beautiful jump shot. Aaron, I want to hear that shit. He cannot shoot anywhere near Steph Curry, Kevin Durant. I don't need to hear this about Joe.

How about Lethal Shooter? Have you seen Lethal Shooter on the internet? I want to see Joe Kim and Lethal Shooter go at it. Hey, man. I'm talking about my own bias here, okay? How about Lethal Shooter? Have you seen Lethal Shooter on the internet? I want to see Joe Kim and Lethal Shooter go at it. Hey, man. I'm talking about my own bias here, okay? Oh, yeah. This is Darius Leonard's situation.

This is Darius Leonard's situation. Yeah, you're being sensitive, bro. By the way, I don't know Steph Curry. I don't know Kevin Durant. I know Lethal Shooter a little bit. So Joe Kim is my favorite shooter on earth too, man. I'm going to buy one of those shirts. I appreciate you acknowledging who he was, man.

You can't buy one of these, man. Got to earn it. How's your jumper? You're pretty good. You probably got a good shot, huh? We have a basketball goal in the team room. And actually one in the indoors as well. I refuse to shoot jumpers though i only shoot hook shots that's a true story anybody and my teammates can back me up on that one only uh only hook shots pretty lethal with them do they fall yeah oh yeah man

that was one of the coolest things i've ever heard. Oh, yeah, man. Hey, you got the Eagles this weekend. Good luck. We're pulling for you, dude. Happy birthday. Hey, thanks, guys. Love you guys. Have a great week. Love you, too.

Love you. Talk to you next week. Hey, we love you, too, man. 3.40 game tomorrow, by the way. 3.40 on a Wednesday because Rockefeller Center has got a tree to light up, dude. They got a – they're not doing pittsburgh any favors are they bro the week four they're forced into a bye week because the titans had 75 players then they weren't told they're on a bye week until friday i think so i mean granted bye weeks aren't

really bye weeks this year you've already explained that basically you still have to check in and everything like that then they come back this game they postpone it they have to play on monday so they're they don't have an off day this week they thought to play on thursday they won't have an off day after this week and they won't have an off day next week either and they had to go on a 13 week run after a week four by week i mean it is a tough setup for them but hey it takes all of us, Aaron. It takes all of us. Yeah, man, they're 10-0. And the Broncos played with no quarterback. And the Niners played us when they had 82 guys on COVID. Whatever.

We just do what we're told. Love you, Aaron. Did you get to see that? I was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan there. He loves you because he's been yelling that loudly, and he's been getting accosted on the internet for acting like the Steelers are in a bad place. Did you get a chance to see that kid play quarterback at all? No, I didn't.

I didn't. He made you guys look real good. I did say to Alan, though, briefly, and I don't mean any disrespect. Now I can say whatever I want. But there are some, I think, receivers across the league. Devontae Adams, Allen, you know, maybe some of these guys who like throwing the ball around in practice who, you know, think that it's not as hard as it looks.

It might be. Hey, we're about to learn a lot about – it's not just Kendall, too, by the way. Taysom Hill is entering his third week as a starting quarterback. It's like have defenses figured him out. People are saying the same thing about Lamar. Maurice Jones drew MJD, who had a hell of a run there with Jacksonville, and I think the Raiders as well. He said if he had to pick a quarterback long-term,

he's taking Matt Ryan over Kyler because you have to be able to sit down and dissect the defense, and that's not something that – that's why I think you, Mahomes, these guys that can break down defenses while extending plays, it's hard to find, man. It's not just an easy thing. You guys don't just fall from trees. It's a tough position. Well, look, I mean, I'm not going to say anything bad about those other people.

They're unbelievable. They have skill sets that make up for a lot of deficiencies, and they don't have a lot of deficiencies. So what Lamar can do on the field, what Kyler can do on the field, those dudes are talented guys. So everybody's entitled to their opinion, though. I'm not going to cancel anybody for their opinion. But you do know that after being in the game for a long, long time,

the ability to dissect the defense, sit back and know what's going on, is a pretty crucial one in the success of the NFL, right, of an offense in the NFL? I think it's that and playing in the elements. I mean, it's different. Some of these cities that are colder, it's different playing in some of these type of games, you know, with these type of weather that we have. I think that's, you know, but that all goes to knowing what kind of squad you got.

When you were at the Colts, like, you know, I think that they smartly, you know, they loaded their team with a lot of guys built for indoor play. You know, Robert Mathis, Preeny play you know robert matthews preenie uh you know the always having a slot receiver uh reggie marvin you know like it was a fast team look at the st louis rams you know for years and they had marshall and tory and isaac and az hakeem fast teams you know you know some of the teams that the teams that we've played, the Chicago's for many years, you're talking about more physical, bigger at times, squads, because you've got to play in the elements outdoors.

You've got to have quarterbacks with big hands that can throw in the wind and the cold. Well, you've got meat hooks over there, huh? You've just got these massive hands. Is that what you got? They're a little prettier than AJ's. If AJ was on here. His hands stink, Aaron.

We don't know how he writes with those things. Hey, Aaron, I got one more question for you, bud. Are you a bit worried that the new athletic receiver you guys signed, Kayvon Austin, is going to immediately lose respect for you because you called it a basketball goal? Yeah, I was going to ask that too, but there's some weird people that say that everywhere,

I think. Instead of saying a hoop? Jeez. Yeah. Listen, okay. In the team room, there's no structure. Like, it's just the backboard up on the wall. In the indoor, there's the whole structure.

The hoop, the pole that hangs down, the big thing that, you know, if you're a poor, you used to have the one where you poured water in as a kid. Yep, yep. To keep it sturdy. You guys know what I'm talking about. Oh, yeah. Or you had a neighbor that had it. No, I didn't want to say hoop because it wasn't a whole structure.

So it's a goal in the team room, and it's a hoop in the indoor. Well, it's good that Tavon Austin is going to respect you now, you know, because all the things you've done on football. AJ is the best. done on football aj is the best uh tay tayvon's i i bet you're pretty excited to add that weapon i mean he took a punt back 98 yards on me against the st louis rams it should have been out at the two it was a fucking perfect punt but instead it went back the other way no big deal we end up losing by 60 that game i gave away a car at halftime we're already down 30 so i mean it was not a big celebration but uh he's a he's a spark plug that can get going he's a car at halftime. We were already down 30, so it was not a big celebration.

He's a spark plug that can get going. He's a spark if he can get going. I'm pumped you guys signed him. I said after the game, I think the best thing you can do for any player is give him a role that he can embrace. If we can find a role for Tavon, whether it's returning or doing some

fly motion stuff, finding ways to get him the ball in space. I think it'd be, it'd be a great thing. Well, you're a quarterback and get him the ball. Hope you enjoy your day. Happy birthday.

We appreciate the holiday, man. You're the best. And shout out to Joe Kim with that pretty stroke dude on the basketball goals. Joe Kemp. Okay. Get it right. And a shout out to, to Laura Hawk for putting up with AJ for so long.

Well, and shout-out to AJ for introducing Laura to Brett Michaels there. We just saw a photo that popped up. That's a very nice follow-up. That was an affliction party. That was an Ed Hardy party. That was a great time. Aaron, happy birthday. Have a good one.

Good luck this week, everybody. Stay safe. Yeah. Yeah. Love you, Aaron. Love you, Aaron. By now, you know we're Arby's guys through and through here we've told you about the roast beef and that it is slow roasted for three hours and we told you all about the deep fried turkey club that made our Thanksgiving season that much better but Arby's is

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What is a wildcat strike? How is this even an option with the players having to opt into the season or opt out of the season? And what does this mean for everything going forward this season for the last, what, five weeks? Well, a Wildcat strike is not an option, Pat. I mean, technically anything's an option because it's America. We're human beings with free will. But there would be severe consequences if a bunch of guys walked off the job.

For one thing, nobody would get paid for that game. You would simply lose a game check. The CBA also has a no strikestrike, no-lockout, no-lawsuit clause in which any group of players, doesn't have to be all players, but any group of players organizing some kind of collective action to disrupt the season would constitute a violation that then the NFL could turn around and go to the courts and say the entire CBA is invalidated.

I mean, there are so many ripple effects that people actually walked off the job that the idea that this would actually happen. I'm not saying that it was not discussed. There absolutely are some Ravens players who voiced their opposition to playing in this game. When you just look at it realistically, it is way too big of a risk to take. And so what they ended up working out between the NFL, the Ravens, the Steelers, and really this was a decision made, as all rescheduling decisions are made right now, between the NFL's medical experts and then football ops from a logistical standpoint, was to push the game back one additional day. You get an extra day of COVID-19 testing results back after nine consecutive days

in which at least one player or personnel had tested positive for the Ravens. You also allow Baltimore to get back into their building, do some conditioning work and walk through last night, do another walk through today. If all goes well in terms of the testing, they will fly to Pittsburgh tonight. Just put them on a little bit more of a normal cadence where you're not running the risk of after however long it's been here, 10 days of no practice, you go out there and suddenly five guys pop hamstrings

on the opening drive. That's how they're moving forward. There's going to be a lot of talk about the equitability of all that, the fairness, comparing it to the situations with the Broncos, comparing it to the Titans earlier this season, what's fair for the Steelers in all of this. But we're not really operating in an environment of fairness here. We're playing football amidst the global pandemic.

It's week 12. No games have been canceled. There have been relatively limited postponements when you compare it to Major League Baseball early in the season, when you certainly compare it to college football. They're moving forward with this thing. They did more surgery on the schedule, and they'll hope, and they believe based on the data that what's going on with the ravens right now is under control and you're going

to see these positive tests stop here uh in the very near future i've heard all of you insiders speak about how this is such a different situation because of the nine straight days of positive the outbreak was still going basically through the ravens organization this is much different than the broncos had where it was just a high was just a high risk contact tracing of the quarterbacks who were asked to sprint off the field during the walkthrough the day before and somehow nobody else got infected. What do we know about this virus? Nothing at this point.

Then also the Tennessee Titans thing where it got stopped and then there's a couple of days. But there was a statement made that they wanted an extra day because of muscle tweaks or something like that. Was that just some tweet by somebody that didn't know what they were doing, or was that something that was actually brought to the forefront? And it felt like the Titans weren't afforded that opportunity, so are the Ravens being afforded an opportunity,

even though it is a much different situation than maybe teams in the past that have experienced something like this didn't. And could you see how Steelers fans are potentially pissed because their games moved to Monday, Ravens games moved to next Tuesday. They get an entire day break on the other side of this as well. Well, first of all, that was my tweet, so thanks, Jackass. Yes, that absolutely was a concern that was brought to the forefront, which is without being able to be in the building,

go through normal conditioning work, that you could be at more risk for muscle tweaks. You bring up a very good comparison, which was the Titans situation back around week four, week five, where they went out basically on one practice. They got together on a Sunday. They actually had a positive test, everyone forgets, on that Sunday, but it was a coach who they just said, okay, you're isolated.

Guys go practice. And they played the next day or two days later, whatever it was, against the Bills, and they ended up winning that game. There's that wonderful tweet by me. It's the entirety of the situation. They were talking about a lot of different things. These are medical decisions. They're not competitive decisions.

That's the thing that you keep coming back to. Because think of it this way. If we're talking about how unfair you're being to various teams, now you're introducing an element of, well, we lost this player. It's not fair for us to play without this player. Well, if you're going to slow the game down because of this, no. What they're saying is as long as you don't have an outbreak, as long as you don't have active risk of transmission of the virus,

they're going to move ahead and play games. Now, if you're the Broncos, you don't have active risk of transmission of the virus, they're going to move ahead and play games. Now, if you're the Broncos, you don't like that explanation because really what that's telling you is, hey, you didn't have an outbreak. Congratulations. But that means you get to go play with no quarterbacks, whereas if the game had been moved back a day or two days, they could have had a relatively normal game. But again, these are the medical decisions with the Ravens. You have ongoing transmission or at least additional positive infections from previous transmission with the Broncos. What they found in that situation was so Jeff Driscoll tested positive for COVID-19, one of the Broncos quarterbacks. The Broncos quarterbacks were not forthcoming with the NFL

investigators who were doing the contact tracing. So on Saturday, the NFL gets its hands on video because there's surveillance cameras all over that they can monitor showing the quarterback somewhere between, I was told, between 10 and 20 minutes of them in a room together without masks. So they have to make a call at that point. Had that video come to light earlier in the week, or if the quarterbacks had acknowledged that there was an issue, yeah, we didn't wear masks, sorry, shouldn't have done that, maybe the process could have gone faster and the guys might have gotten cleared earlier. That is not an unrealistic possibility. But they didn't.

The NFL had to move quickly on this. They decided to isolate them. And in the end, it ends with the Broncos having to play without a quarterback. But these are just some of the situations that are going to come up because they created this high-risk close contact protocol in response to what happened with the Titans as well as the Patriots, which is if you have a positive test and then you have a high-risk close contact, which is loosely defined based on a bunch of criteria. But one of the main ones is, were you around someone for a long time and nobody was wearing

a mask? As long as you're wearing a mask, a lot of these are not going to be categorized as high risk. In the Broncos' case, they weren't. Since they instituted that protocol, there have been over 20 players who have been put into the protocol as high risk, close contacts, even though they were testing negative, no symptoms, and then began testing positive. That's why the protocol is in place to try to prevent the next outbreak even though for the broncos yeah it sucks you played with a practice squad wide receiver as your quarterback in a really important game okay so you're saying that the nfl didn't get the video of them in the quarterback meeting room

without the mask until saturday my understanding is that was the new information that came to light on saturday they had photos and video of them in the room without masks for an extended period of time, where based upon how they've enforced this with other clubs, there have been other ones. I mean, go back to when the Bills had their situation where they went to Arizona with like four guys. Josh Norman was the only one who tested positive for COVID-19. But Tyler Croft gave him a seven-minute ride home from the facility. Boom, no masks. Croft actually thought they were wearing masks in the car, but he couldn't remember for certain if they were.

They said, too bad, you're not going on the trip. I mean, that's how closely they're enforcing this. It wasn't targeted at the Broncos. It just so happens this was the first time we had an entire position group. The most important position that got completely wiped out, but they've sent memos on this. They've told teams over and over, you have

to wear masks. If you're not, this is what can happen. Alright, so let's cook some conspiracy fodder, shall we? Why not? Hardball was telling guys to go over to guys who had COVID that maybe didn't have a lot of symptoms, and it was a strain that wasn't going to kill them. By the way, we hope everybody survives.

We hope everybody survives and gets COVID. And he said, hey, let's drag out these positive tests until maybe J.K. Dobbins is back, Mark Ingram is back, I hope everybody survives if it's COVID. And he said, hey, let's drag out these positive tests until, you know, maybe J.K. Dobbins is back, Mark Ingram is back. Maybe somehow we can even work this thing into Lamar Jackson will be back. Now, listen, that sounds like something that wouldn't happen because health is obviously paramount, okay? That is absolutely paramount.

But people in Pittsburgh believe that. People inburgh are telling you that's exactly what happened i just have this vision of head coach pat mcafee being like guys we got to go lick some doorknobs right now the quarterback is down let's make this thing happen the timeline definitely safe though we need one of those false positives to come a couple times here you know what i mean but that's that's pitts Pittsburgh people are honestly saying very loudly, okay? Now, this doesn't come from the Steelers. I'm just talking about Yinzer's fans in general,

that Harbaugh has cooked this thing. And then your tweet about the muscle thing, great tweet, by the way. I read it from top to bottom. It was awesome. And by the way, my timeline's filled with a lot of shit. Get me to stop and read something. Pretty good. I mean, that was a great tweet.

Way to go with what you did there. That one only added in even more fodder. was like hardball not only is he somehow extending this whenever he can get his starting running backs back you know maybe even get his quarterback back but now he's also having the nfl extend days for muscle tweaks it was just it's going to be interesting to see how it goes because to your point in june or whatever all the teams were told that they do not care about competitive fairness. It's just like, hey, we've got to get a season done, and I feel like the NFL has done a good job thus far. Now, could you have ever expected that the lighting of a goddamn Christmas tree would be the reason why a game is being played at 340 on a Wednesday?

This is wild. I guess 6.9 million people watched that tree get lit last year, I was told. So that's a big show, by the way, and they've got a good lead in that with that AFC North matchup. But that was wild to me. But shout out to NBC saying, nah, nah, nah. The owl's in the tree. The tree isn't as good as it has been in the past. But damn it, we got to celebrate.

You can play your little game earlier. I like the little fortitude by the NBC there. What's interesting about that is the NFL has always consistently said, we don't have an interest in going and playing seven days a week. We don't want to play Tuesdays. We don't want to interfere with high school football on Fridays. Well, now, assuming this game goes off on Wednesday, and if the Saints and Vikings play as scheduled on Christmas, which is a Friday,

the NFL this season will have played seven days a week. And let's see what the TV ratings are for that game on a wednesday afternoon don't think that that's not putting ideas in people's heads especially in the future when they pull the lever to go to a 17th regular season game as the playoffs expand from 12 to 14 teams potentially 16 depending on the rest of this schedule plays out all the different permutations of that and what that could mean to owning other day parts and even other days of the week uh definitely will be fascinating to see how that entire thing plays out it's you know with regard to the christmas tree i mean i i personally i don't think i've watched that before but i get it because you

got seven million people nationwide tuning into that thing why why would you why would you move it you got all you get the entire day handled now you don't like the rockefeller tree dude they go out into the woods and cut down the biggest best oldest tree they can find drag that son of a bitch into the city don't matter if there's an allen there they put a lot of christmas lights like they're clark griswold on that thing and they turn that son of a bitch on and they say hey it is now the holiday season you're welcome america watch but they don't i would watch like the live feed of them cutting down the tree and then figuring out how to navigate

the streets in Manhattan with like a 200-foot-long tree on it. What? The dragging? I mean, they shut a lot. Granted, that city's already shut down. So I think right now... Right now it'd be easier. But normally it would be like you know, Grand Theft Auto scenario there with the people you're taking out as you're

dragging this thing around the city. All right, let's move to some other things now that we have your big brain on us. We appreciate you joining us, obviously. Philadelphia Eagles stink, dude. And you caught the tail end of our commentary there about the commentary where a stooge from Boston was talking about how the commentary was doing and he's the least self-aware human maybe to ever exist. You and him have had it out before and everything like that, but there's a lot of people that obviously go after commentators regardless.

It's going to be something that happens, especially on Monday Night Football. But one of the commentators last night in the booth, Louis Riddick, felt like he had a lot of passion for the Eagles. He laid out a blueprint a couple times during the game on how the Eagles could be good. Then you've got Dane Orslovsky going to town on Twitter and on GitHub every single morning about what they need to do with whoever. Is Doug Peterson, and I don't know if this was your tweet or not, but I do believe it was somebody from NFL Network,

said that they've always been told that Doug Peterson will be the head coach of the Eagles next year. Now I think it was Mike something, Mike Garofalo. Garofalo, yeah. I assume you guys are all on a group text, so you get it. He said, is Mike Silver on that text? Silver is so far into Mutesville at this point. No, that would be way too much to handle on a day-to-day basis.

Agreed. Okay, so whatever you put on the tweet he said something along the lines of like um i used to be able to say with confidence that doug peterson will be back next year now i can't say that after what happened on monday night football there's real questions about cleaning the house and he's lewis riddick and dan rolovsky not that they've said anything to anybody about being on there is that a natural fit for laurie to make a hire or how do you see this whole thing playing out for them because their fans are not thrilled with what's going on over there well there's no question that jeff lorry is frustrated with what

he has seen i was told that again today by somebody uh close to the situation in terms of him not going on a road trip last week which is very very unlike him, having certain conversations with people in the building, not about making changes, but just interactions that have given people the impression that perhaps there's something more here. I don't specifically know that they would do it. I think it's important to remember that the Eagles did win a Super Bowl three years ago with Doug Peterson as the head coach, with Howie Roseman running the football operation.

I don't know who's calling me over and over from a no-caller idea. I apologize. It can't possibly be that important. But, yeah, inevitably, when you're looking at the commitment they've made to Carson Wentz, which when they signed him to that extension, there's no way Howie Roseman could have known that he was going to – that Wentz was going to have the drop off that he has you know you go back to 2017 Carson Wentz looked like he was on top of the world one of the best

quarterbacks in the league suffers that ACL-LCL injury out in at the Coliseum against the Rams and then he's not been the same since he had a concussion in there he had the back injury now you know I talked to somebody this morning a, a high ranking executive for a different team, and I asked him just what's happened to Wentz. His point was Wentz has nothing around him. Now, that may sound like an excuse, but think of this breakdown. This is what this person told me was the offensive line is not good. He can't rely on them. There is nobody getting open except for Dallas Goddard, who they go to on one of the biggest plays of the game on fourth and four. Goddard, according to Goddard, ran the wrong route, and it's his fault on that play. But regardless, they drafted Jalen Rager in the first round. They've not gotten what they need out of

him. Alshon Jeffrey can't run at this point. He's not creating separation. There's a lot that's on Carson Wentz's shoulders, and when we've seen that with other really good quarterbacks in the past, Matthew Stafford or whoever you want to name, when they start having to put a lot of pressure on themselves to make every play, it can be counterproductive. Nobody's had the type of drop off that Wentz has had at this stage. I know Ian Rappaport, another one of my colleagues, tweeted out the numbers and the drop in passer rating is virtually unprecedented for Carson Wentz from his first several years in the league to what has happened this year. But they've got a lot of issues. They're not committed to them. When you look at the salary cap for next year and the hit that they would take at a time the cap is going to go down if they were to try to release Carson Wentz.

At this point, I don't know who's trading for Carson Wentz. You have Jalen Hurts there who you used the second-round draft pick on, but you would think if coaches believed that he was the answer, Jalen Hurts would be on the field a lot more. So there's a lot more. So there's a lot of questions, more questions than answers. We've also seen the Eagles peel themselves off the mat before in recent years here and find a way to make a run at the end. You'd say time is running short, but there's still like a half game back in the NFC East.

So it's not over, but they've got a lot of issues. Yeah, they're not going to beat anybody in the playoffs. But I understand what you're saying. It's not over, I guess, that they could potentially play 17 games this season. I understand what you're saying because the NFC East is such trash. But if you're saying that the roster's terrible and their draft pick is not panning out, wouldn't you have to say that Howie's probably – I don't know. I mean, you know more than I do, Tom, and you probably can't say a lot of things.

But if your team stinks from a roster standpoint, it's like, okay, who built the team? All right, you drafted Jalen Hurts. Obviously, this is immediate conversation whenever he comes out, hands the ball off, throws the ball, then he's benched for the rest of the game. It's like, oh, there's obviously a miscommunication happening between the coaches in the front office.

You know, is there a little separation there? I'll be excited to see how it all plays out over there. Tom, can't thank you enough, man. I don't know who called you. I'd assume you're about to break news on your Twitter account. At Tom Pellicero NFL. At Tom Pellicero. Yeah.

Just that, no NFL. At Tom Pellicero. So when I say sorrow, it's wrong, too. I heard you correct me there. I heard you correct me there a little bit. Pelissero. Yeah. Rhymes with arrow. It's fine.

It's no big deal. You know, I had to go to the mats for Matt LaFleur yesterday on TV because people keep butchering his name. I've heard it five different ways, including on the broadcast this past week. LaFleur. Everybody needs to know this. Matt LaFleur is one of the best young coaches in the NFL. He's 21-6 with the Packers. Not LaFleur. Not LaFle week. LeFleur. Everybody needs to know this. Matt LeFleur is one of the best young coaches in the NFL. He's 21-6 with the Packers. Not LeFleur, not LeFleur.

LeFleur. It's a very fun name to say. Yeah, the interesting thing about that is we, we, but we're in America. That's how it goes. Ladies and gentlemen, Tom Pellicero. Absolute legend. Hey! Arrow!

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you're looking for a new mattress go to lisa.com and make sure you get yourself the most comfortable mattress on the face of the earth back to the show ladies and gentlemen joining us now hey i'm pumped for this conversation three times superbowl Bowl champ, okay? Not one time, not two times. Three-time Super Bowl champ, rushing touchdown leader in 2016, nine seasons in the NFL, played for the Bucs, Patriots, Steelers, Eagles, Lions. He played with Wentz and Peterson. Excited to chat with him about how he felt about that. Also played alongside the GOAT, Tom Brady,

and I do believe against the Colts, like I just said, he ran for maybe 250 yards against us in one night. Ladies and gentlemen, OG, LeGarrette Blount. Thank you guys for having me on, man. Thank you. How are you doing, man? How's life? Are you officially retired?

I assume that's the case, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm officially retired. I think I need to make it. I get asked that so much because people want me to come back and play so bad but uh um i need to i need to put an instagram post out there with my retirement and a video and everything you should you should ride off in the sunset and be honest when i retired i didn't know how to do it either because nobody talks about it because there isn't in the n. There isn't like a full process that you go through.

It's literally just like, yeah, I'm retired. OK, I mean, you just what did you hate what was going on above you there? You didn't know. That's what it seems like. What happened? You just announced it is what it seems like. Because, I mean, I think Aqib Tlaib did his on his call to the booth TV podcast show. He did call to the booth and then he announced his retirement on there. And, you know, next thing you know, he in the booth calling games for, I think, was it CBS or NBC? Yeah, I think it's Fox.

He's doing a great job. I got to hear his first game, I think, for the Lions game. What have you been up to in retirement? Could you still play if a team was like, hey, LeGarrette, we got a Super Bowl run in us. We need about five games. Marshawn Lynch was serving tequila in the parking lot of an Oakland Raiders game, and then two weeks later he was starting for the Seahawks.

So I'm not saying it hasn't been done. Could you still got in? What have you been up to in retirement here? Oh, yeah. I feel like if I put the work in to get back to, you know, fully dedicating myself to football and getting out there and playing a good game or two, I think I could do it. I'm 100% sure I could do it. I'm looking at some of the backs in the league right now for some of these teams, and these are young guys. league right now uh for some of these teams and these are young guys um and after like yeah after seeing it a little bit uh 100 to come back there and be effective what have you been up to in

retirement are you doing business anybody that's just me no yeah yeah you definitely took a shot at a bunch of people there but we won't go through all that uh we don't have to start naming names what have you been doing in retirement le garrett umrett? You know, I've been spending a lot more time with my family. I get to take my son to football, you know, every Tuesday and Thursday, watch him play on Saturdays. I get to go to my daughter's cheering competitions. You know, I get to play with my three-year-old, you know, during the day a lot.

You know, being around more often and being able to, you know during the during the day a lot um you know i've been a been in being around more often and being able to you know do what you know what you want to do as far as like family time or you know just time with the wifey or anything like that and being able to do it uh it's a different feeling man it feels really good so i'm pretty comfortable where i'm at it's interesting isn't it because football is so encompassing of your life. I mean, it's six months straight of Groundhog's Day, whenever the season's happening. Every day is the same exact day. It's like, here we go. We're in it. Then the offseason happens. You get like a month, a month and a half, maybe, unless you're getting a surgery. And if you get a surgery, then you're right back into it to the next year. You get a month and a half and you have

to try to turn off the season, which takes a couple of weeks. Then you have like two weeks of freedom where you get to hang out with your family and then bang, OTAs are back in there. And then boom, you're right back in it. I don't think people understand like the commitment it takes to be in the NFL is a real one, not just for you, but for your family as well. It's a real thing. It's like clockwork.

No, I don't think a lot of people understand that. I think a lot of people that don't see the inside of it, they think that you just show up in training camp play till january you're done and then you show up in training camp again like now like you know obviously you know about the otas you know about off-season workouts you know about you know the voluntary you know um showing up for the workouts and for the off-season program, all of that, all of that, you know, that plays a factor in, you know, how good you can be in the league.

So, you know, I think that people don't really appreciate that time that we actually put into it because it's literally a 24-7 job. Like, you have to – that's your sole focus. Yeah, and you hear every Hall of Famer that speaks, by the way. Every Hall of Famer that gives a speech always says to their kid and to their wife that they wish they were around more. It's not like some Hall of Famers.

It's basically every single Hall of Famer is like, thank you to my wife for holding it down. My kids, I wish I was around more, but it's a commitment to be great. Now, let's talk about, you've had a couple different stops, Okay. And everybody talks about the commitment it takes to be a Patriot. What is the biggest difference whenever you were at the Patriots, as opposed to the other places you're at? Cause you're at successful organizations as well. So it wasn't just like you're at the Patriots and then some bum ass teams, you were on some good teams.

What was it like as the Patriots and what is like the, you know, the Bill Belichick Patriot way as somebody who's been around? What's so different up there? I say, you know, the difference is just the culture in general. Losing is not accepted. Winning is expected. And, you know, there is just, you know, I feel like that's probably just the basics of it. You know, obviously, you know, Bill has different coaching strategies than other guys.

You know, for instance, one thing that he says a lot since like every year that I was there, one thing that I heard him say a lot, you know, we're going to play good football, we're going to weather the storm, but it doesn't really start until after Thanksgiving. And that was the first time I ever heard that. And obviously, once you realize what he's talking about,

he's talking about your big division games, all the games that's going to count towards the long run and that's going to count in the stretch. He's talking about those games. I just think that philosophy of, you know, 60 minutes of pure football, no matter what the score is, no matter what the outcome is, you know, they just want you to grind that 60 minutes of football and do everything the right way. You know, I know they call it the Patriot way, but they want you to do everything the right way. You know, whether it's, whether it's dig deep into your game plan or your playbook,

be super early whenever you need to be there, or just little things like that, little details like that. As far as Bill and the Patriot way, I think that that's one of the things that stick out the most. You know, I don't think they have – I don't think a lot of teams have that curriculum or that, you know, the coach to give off that kind of discipline to their players, you know, because he has a lot of respect. Yeah, you got to have a resume if you're going to try to instill that.

I think a lot of his assistants have tried to go elsewhere and be like hey this is how we're gonna do it it's how we did the patriots and all players looking at me it's like you haven't won a guy got a thing you got to have a respectable coach you know what i'm saying that you feel like if you buy in it's going to be a good outcome you know and and now a lot of guys don't have that respect or that that trust in a lot of the coaches you know so that's you know some some places where that goes wrong do you remember running for like 600 yards against the Colts that one night it was like uh it was I forget the first where you're in your own end it might have been a third and one you were brought in because you were the big smashing back but you could also cut and make

to be honest Derrick Henry is a great comparison for the type of runner that you were for a very long time and I would assume that you were for a very long time. And I would assume that that is not a knock in your eyes. That's probably, I would assume. No, not at all. I mean, I feel like he's probably the top three back in the league right now. You know, and, you know, he's big. Well, he's huge and he's fast and he's strong.

You know, he doesn't take a lot of big hits. You know, obviously, I don't know who was going to want to deliver a big hit to him you know but he's he's just he's I would say that you know that's probably the best comparison the only thing I would say is that he's probably a little bit and when I said a little bit I'm saying like much faster than I am Tiny, tiny, tiny. Much faster than I am. Just that much.

I mean, you know, I haven't had a lot of runs in my time in the league where I got caught from behind. You know, usually if I get past that second level, I'm going to probably get there. And he's the same way. He's huge. You know, he's fast. He's strong.

And he's just – he has that mentality that he's not going to let anyone take him down especially not any one person you know he he he runs with that chip on his shoulder i mean they call him king henry for a king henry for a reason it's a great nickname it also is very real i i wish you would have done like the uh the the b buzzer hair whenever you brought your uh dreads back there because that thing seems like he has an actual weapon hanging from the I don't know how he does it.

I don't know how he does it either. You know what? I got the dreads and I've had a few different styles. I've never had that one. I don't know. I've never had dreads but I do believe that I don't know if I'd be able to pull it off. It is very tight. I don't know if I'd be able to pull it off it is very tight I don't have you walking around like this

his eyebrows is getting pulled back but the helmet the dread guys I always enjoyed whenever the dread guys got their hair cuts and the equipment managers would be so pissed off like alright come get your fucking helmet remeasured alright gotta redo this entire thing.

Derrick Henry with that. I'm excited for that. Garrett, whenever you talk about running backs and you talk about Derrick Henry, it always feels like the running backs, whenever it comes to business conversations, all right, it always gets, like, thrown to the side. Now, granted, Christian McCaffrey got broken off, right? Derrick Henry got money. I think he's got a franchise tag or whatever, maybe signed a deal.

Why is it like that? Is it because of how many hits you guys take you think or yeah i think i think is you know the lifespan of a of a running back in the nfl isn't long you know and that's that's from the beginning of the nfl to now you You know, that's never been a position that's been a 15-year career or whatever it is. You know, granted, you know, we've had, you know, Emmitt Smiths and Adrian Petersons and Frank Gores and, you know, those guys. But, you know, the running back position is usually, you know, not a longevity position.

And, you know, I don't know why it's not respected enough, but, I mean, if you look at, you know, the statistics, the teams that are really, really, really good are able to run the football really, really well. You know what I'm saying? So I think that the running back position should stop getting overlooked as far as, you know, from the business side, as far as the paying side. I think if these guys work hard and they grind and they do your team a great

service and they, you know, put their head down, they come to work every day, they grind and never, they're not a problem, you know, and they're doing everything that you ask for them to do on the field. And, you know, I feel like that's, that's granted for, you know, that's, that's placed for a reward. You know, I feel like you should get for, you know, that's placed for a reward. You know, I feel like you should get your pay. I feel like you should get your check. I feel like the team should, you know, put that respect behind you and, you know, put that trust and believe in you to let you know that, hey, we got your back.

You know, so I think a lot of teams don't do that. I think a lot of teams just let their, you know, if you got a nice running back, they think that in the next couple years there might be another nice running back like you or another nice running back like you. You know what I'm saying? And to this day, I don't think the Eagles have been able to replace me. And to this day, I don't think the Patriots have been able to replace me. Let's go! I like that. I like that a lot. I'm a big fan.

Now listen, I haven't looked into it deep enough, but I'm going to take you at your word. You fucking have it. And it's bullshit. They have not been able to replace you since you've left, and it is absolute bullshit. Whenever you were at the Patriots and when you were at the Eagles, it was awesome to watch. I mean, because it was just thump, thump,

thump, and then like you said, whenever you get to that second level, it was just like you never got caught. It made no sense. You were a defensive end running down the field faster than corners and safeties, and nobody wanted to hit you. It made no sense. But when you were at the Patriots, the running back position was paramount. To that Josh McDaniels, Tom Brady offense,

the running back position was huge. You were a huge part of that offense. What's that? What's that? Especially with that four-game suspension in the beginning of that 2016 season. Yeah, whenever Jacoby and Jimmy G were in or whatever, it was a big run game.

I think even other than that, though, LeGarrette, I think even other than that, LeGarrette, I think that offense with McDaniels and Tom, it revolves around being able to run the ball and play action you look at what tom's doing now down in uh tampa it's a very different looking offense have you been paying attention to that situation between tom and bruce how do you see that playing out do you think tom is inevitably going to be like hey during this bye week this is what i need to change you think they'll be able to do that or what do you think's going on down there and is it all because they don't run the ball nearly enough um i think

the times they haven't run the ball is when the times they got in trouble um i think that ronald jones kid is is is a really really really good running back i don't think he get the credit that he deserves um i mean i don't know a lot of guys i know it's happened before but there's not a lot of running backs that's breaking 98-yard touchdown runs and getting 100-yard gains back-to-back and catching the football I think he's really, really, really fun to watch anywhere is number 27

I wore that when I was in Tampa also I think one of the biggest problems is, you know, whenever you do put yourself in the position to where you can't run the football, you might run the football three times and, you know, whatever, you might be down 10-0. The panic might set in and that might take out the run game. I think you feed that kid. I think you feed him a lot. I think Tom has to make better throws, better decisions.

You know, and that's my guy. I love him to death. You know, I still talk to him to this day. I think he has to make better decisions and better throws. But, you know, even, you know, everybody expects him to be, you know, this lifesaver. And don't get me wrong, he is. You know, he the GOAT.

But you go from 18, 19, 20 20 years with one place and then you go to somewhere else that's like me going to a new place like anyone going to a new spot you got to relearn everything you know and i think uh it's just you know his first season i think it's their first season and they're just trying to learn as they go you didn't get the traditional off-season workouts and otas and all that stuff to prepare they you know, I don't know when they started. But, you know, I've seen a story about somebody going into the wrong house. I don't know. So I don't know when they technically started.

But I know that they didn't have the traditional window of time that everyone else gets. So, you know, they're learning on the move, and they're trying to fix mistakes on the go. But I think him and B.A. will definitely get it right. I think they'll fix it. You know, I think Tom has a lot of say-so in that offense and what they do, and they respect him enough to let him do so.

So I think him and B.A. will sit down and figure it out. I think they'll be getting better moving forward. Hey, last question before we let you go, and can't thank you enough for joining us here, Ligero. You're one of our – we are big fans of yours on our show, okay? I'm a big fan of yours, man, even though a lot of people ain't fans of Punisher. You know who said it. What did you say?

I said I'm a big fan, too, even though Punisher kickers don't get a lot of fans, but I support all y'all. Hey, see, i appreciate that and whenever we talk about whenever we talk about the important respect yeah you're goddamn right let's talk about respect though you're you're um i think you don't get enough respect for your playing days because of the shit that popped off off the field right like i think that is in some people's mind right as soon as they as soon as they hear legaria bunter like well this this and this it's like yeah but how about this this this and this i would assume that was something that when it happened you immediately and not the thing in pittsburgh and then in college and everything like that now granted

i've got caught up in shit too everybody does but it feels like whenever your name gets mentioned it's never about how good of a football player you are. Does that piss you off ever? Does that ever become something that makes you – Sometimes it kind of – it'll get to me a little bit. Not too often, you know. I know what I've done in this league. I know my resume. I know, you know, how important I've been on some teams.

I know, you know, the grind that I've put into it, the time I've put into it, the effort I've put into it. I know that, you know, I get well, I get, you know, appreciations and support and all that stuff from family members, from friends. You know, I get more support than I do than not for my playing days from people that are close to me. You know, I get a lot of, obviously, if you're a New England fan or if you're a Philly fan or if you're a Bucs fan,

I get a lot of love from those fans and those fan bases. But anyone else outside of that, yeah, it's not a lot of people that really respect what I've done. You know, the 18 touchdown season, two 1,000-yard seasons in a nine-year career. Undrafted running back. You know, I'm undrafted running back you know i'm undrafted and i led i led all rookies in russian you know i felt like i was the i felt like i was the best

running back to come out of that draft class um you know and i feel like i was the last one standing the the thing about that is i think those who know know right like those who know like the people that matter know right like players in the NFL, people have seen you, the fans have seen you work, they know. But I feel like you never get really brought up in the conversation of great backs. And it's like Dominic Rhodes was another guy, undrafted running back that never gets talked about. That was also dominant, you know? He's a thousand yard guy too, I think. Yeah. Undrafted for Agent Rookie, right?

Yeah, yeah. Undrafted, went to Peyton's offense, became a favorite over there. Dommy's a favorite in Indianapolis still to this day. It's like, I don't think you ever get talked about enough whenever they talk about greats at the running back position. I got a chance to watch you do it, so I appreciate your time. Quick follow-up, though, to the off. Did you ever talk to that

dude that you just knocked the fuck out of that guy? That was one of the cleanest knockouts I've seen in history. Have you ever talked to him i i talked to him i talked to him once good that's smart it was it was it was it was right after the incident um we got back me and chip um talked a little bit we figured out you know what was the next step to take um in this process you know which i feel like i was done unjustly but for being suspended for an entire season you know i've seen people do way way worse that only you know set out for a game um but that's another story i feel like uh no i feel like i know i honestly i feel like, no, I feel like, no, I honestly, I feel like they, I don't think that, I would say I don't think that, you know, as far as my respect and as far as, you know, what I've done in the league, you know, I don't think that people really look at that anymore.

You know what I'm saying? They've seen me for nine years in the anymore. You know what I'm saying? They've seen me for nine years in the NFL. You know what I'm saying? But as far as that, I talked. So back to that, I talked to him on the phone the next day. I called Coach. Me and Chip Kelly called Coach Peterson, and we called him. And I apologized to Coach Peterson about what happened,

and I apologized to him about what happened. And we've never spoken since but you know i feel like i feel like i was owed an apology too because of how it happened and what was you know what made it transpired i feel like i was owed an apology and i never got that you know what i'm saying and i'm cool with that you know it is what is. But at the end of the day, like, Coach Peterson and him know what was said and what led to that. You know what I'm saying? But I called.

I apologized. I was the bigger man. I called and I apologized to both of them. And I haven't talked to them since. You know, I have no ill will or no hard feelings towards them at all or anything. I'm not saying – listen, I think your NFL career has been amazing, but you never heard about the fact that you called and apologized for that

by the way, like you never heard about that side of the story, you know what I mean? Yeah, I called and apologized to him and the coach the next day Hey, you're a good dude, man you're great on the football field too, it was awesome watching, now granted it sucked a couple times when I was on the other sideline, obviously just watching you go, but you were the man, dude

awesome to watch you play I feel like I got about, over the course when I was on the other sideline, obviously, just watching you go. But you were the man, dude. Awesome to watch you play. You know what I'm saying? I feel like I got about, over the course of my career, I don't think I've ever played against the Colts and I had a 100-yard game. You know what I'm saying? No, you fucking scored three against us, I think, one night. I think you literally scored three touchdowns.

Four touchdowns. You scored four. Yeah, I think I did three one year and four one year. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so listen, you didn't have a 100-yard game. I'm sorry. You scored fucking 28 points against us in one game. It's not your fault, man.

Hey, you can't come out there and do anything about it, you know? Well, by the way, if I was out there. You could, but it probably wouldn't turn out well. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If I was out there and you were running, I was going the opposite direction. I would have got blocked or, you know, tripped or something. That would have had to happen. We appreciate your time, man.

Some Philip Rivers type stuff on here. No, no, no, no, no. Don't you ever put that on me. Please don't you ever put that on me. I hope not. I hope you're way more athletic than that, Pat. I couldn't believe what I saw right there. I'm going to just blame that on his age.

Yeah, that's – well, if I have nine kids and I lived to that age, I'll be excited to see what I can do. But I hope we get a chance to talk to you again, man. You're awesome. Thank you. Thank you a lot, Pat. I really, really appreciate it, man. Thank you guys for having me on. No problem, man. Just I can't wait to see what you end up doing. Not that you need to do anything publicly or anything like that, but you're you're an intriguing guy, man. You were so good and so – like it was just – you were a generational-like player, dude. You really were. And now Derrick Henry's kind of taking over the world,

and you were that before that, and it never gets talked about. I appreciate that, man. Thanks a lot, man. And thank you guys for having me on. Hey, man, shout out to Derrick Henry, man. Keep doing your thing, man. And thank you guys for having me on. Hey, man, shout out to Derek Henry, man. Keep doing your thing, bro. And, you know, I hope Le'Veon get more carries in Kansas City because that's my guy.

And he is one of the nicest running backs for me, like, to see with my own eyes. He's probably one of the nicest backs I've ever seen with the rock in his hand and without the rock in his hand. Hey, he's starting to heat up, too. They're starting to give him the ball more. He's starting to see in his hand. Hey, he's starting to heat up too. They're starting to give him the ball more. He's starting to see some things more. I think he's starting to get more comfortable. It's only a matter of time, I think, over there.

Right in time for that playoff run. They're doing it right. Gase tried to kill him. Gase tried to kill him over there. I mean, I don't know what happened, but it seems like he just kind of fell off. Yeah, I don't even know. And to this day, I don't even know why he would ever even go there. Like, I don't know what happened, but it seems like he just kind of fell off. Yeah, I don't even know. I asked him, I don't even know why he would ever even go there. Like, I don't even.

It had to be 100% because of marketing in New York. That's the only thing I can think of because I don't know anybody in their right mind that would just voluntarily go play for Adam Gates. Ladies and gentlemen, LeGarrette Blunt. Thank you, LeGarrette. That was awesome. All right, everybody. That's the show. Thank you so much for

listening. Thank you to all of our guests. Aaron Rogers. Show's always great on Tuesdays. Everyone loves Aaron Rogers Tuesdays. Also, shout out to LeGarrette Blunt for an incredible conversation and Tom Pelissero for clearing up some things in the NFL that we were curious about as we move into this Wednesday game between the Steelers and Ravens. Should be a good one. Once again, thank you everyone for listening. We appreciate you all so much for letting us

penetrate your ears daily. And we'll be back tomorrow with some more great guests, some more great conversation, and another show. We'll see you then. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. សូវាប់ពីបានប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្� Thank you. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you. សូវាប់ពីបានប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្� Thank you.